MEMOIRS OF
BRIGADIER GENERAL JACK O’NEILL
(Retired)
Part VII
Chapter One
By Arrietty
2007
This time, the Stargate was kind to me; it let me stride out onto the steps without dumping me on my butt in the middle of a crowded market day. I had three weeks to kill before I was due to rendezvous with an SGC team and give them my bag of goodies that was squashed in the bottom of my back pack. It had been one of Hammond’s conditions when I didn’t accompany Fraiser back to Earth.
The large town was bustling with activity. The horses and carts kicked up the dry dust so it swirled around making the pedestrians cough. A fine film of brown dust covered everything and everyone. In fact, that was the only distinctive colour as far as the eye could see. Heads turned to look in my direction. Guess I stuck out in my long black leather coat. The edges flapped around my ankles as I strode along towards one of the eating houses. I was hungry and the smell that was wafting from the building was making my stomach rumble.
I had to push my way through the throng to get into the building as people were steadily walking past the small eatery. The small restaurant or inn wasn’t quite full. There were a few empty tables dotted here and there. A thick haze of smoke permeated the room from the steady pipe smoking occupants. Obviously, they didn’t know about how smoking could kill you. Ignoring the smoke, I wandered over to the counter. I couldn’t see any food on display, only a large round black cauldron set back behind the counter on a large hearth. A fire raged beneath it and I could hear its contents bubbling.
Suddenly, a large beaming red face popped up from behind the counter and spoke, “How can I help you?” He wiped his hands on a brown cloth, the same colour as everything else in this town.
“What do you have?” I enquired, now beginning to doubt my choice in eating places.
“We have gurglot stew and bread,” he stated.
“Gurglot?” I asked nervously.
He beamed even more. “Gurglot,” he stated again.
Deciding I wanted to know exactly what I was going to eat, and I most probably would regret pursuing this line of investigation. I asked again, “gurglot?” gesturing in the air a bit to emphasize my question.
By now, I had aroused the interest of the diners. Most of them had swiveled around on their chairs and were openly staring at their after dinner entertainment. Two people in long black cloaks sitting in a far corner didn’t seem to want to know what they had eaten as they were hunched over their plates ignoring my game of charades.
“Ah!” the Chef exclaimed.
I smiled hopefully back at him. Maybe he finally understood what I wanted to know.
“Gurglot,” he repeated. Then went onto demonstrate the animal’s movements and the noises it made. I have to admit I was relieved and reassured when I heard the sound ‘Moo’ come out from his mouth. Looking quickly out the window through the haze of smoke I saw small herds of cattle that were being taken to the sale yards.
I pointed at the cattle. He nodded vigorously, in fact, so enthusiastically I wondered if his head was going to bobble off his neck. Fortunately, it didn’t. For just two small universal coins he piled my plate high with a mound of indistinguishable brown sludge, and topped it off with a large flat loaf of brown bread.
I found an empty table and plonked myself down on the brown chair. As always I made sure the wall was behind me and the door was in front of me. I don’t like surprises, especially when I’m off world.
The bread tasted good; in fact, it was the best bread I had tasted since I’d lived in Mariam’s house. After a couple of bites, I pushed it aside and studied my dinner. Okay this was beef, but why are there little round balls in it, and what is that little disc shaped thing? Drawing a deep breath I speared the small ball with my two pronged fork and popped it in my mouth. ‘A pea!’ It was a pea, I quickly speared the disc shaped object, and it tasted like carrot. This was one weird meal. Every object that didn’t look like beef, had a different taste, some I didn’t recognize, but they seemed to be vegetables. In fact this was a great meal, if you closed your eyes. ‘For crying out loud! Even the plate was the same brown colour.’
Other than me, only two other people in the room had a bit of colour if you can call black a colour. They were the two who hadn’t seemed to take an interest in me earlier. I was half way through my meal, when they stood up and started to slink out of the room. Just as they went through the door, I caught a glimpse of the second person’s face as she quickly glanced at me. My food lost its taste. It turned to dust in my mouth. Silently, I picked up my pack. Sliding the loaf of bread into it, I stood to leave. I followed them out of the eating house, leaving my half eaten meal on the table.
~*~
I didn’t see them at first, and then I saw them running. They were about four hundred yards away and the leader was dragging the other person along behind him. I could hear their footfalls on the cobbled street as they fled. Once again, the second person glanced my way and I caught a quick frightened look, confirming my suspicions.
It was Sam.
Adrenalin began to course through my body as I pushed my way through the busy crowds. I felt a tightness across my chest as hope began to beat into my heart. She is alive.
There was no sign of them as I reached the corner. I moved quickly up an alleyway, looking in doorways, pushing at closed doors, desperate to find them. Then I heard a shout, then a small scream and, a few seconds later, a thud. I ran back towards the sound skidding to a halt as I saw a body lying on the ground at my feet. With trepidation, I knelt down beside the cloaked form.
I reached towards the body.
“Jack?”
I turned around on one spot and looked straight into Sam’s eyes.
“Carter? Sam... It is you.”
She pushed aside her cloak and threw her arms around my neck. Clinging tightly, she buried her face in my neck as her body shook with sobs
Holding her firmly, I drew her away from what had happened.
“Did anyone see you?”
She shook her head while still hanging on tightly.
“Come on, let’s get outta here.”
I knew just the place to go. It was the planet that Eimon had recommended to me. I went there frequently to get away from people. It was my quiet space. I had some fishing gear and some extra supplies stashed away.
Pulling her along by her hand, I led her through the crowds to the Stargate. I hoped that no one had seen what had happened and would come running after us. While we ran, I shoved all my emotions down, now was not the time to lose control. I punched in the co-ordinates to a desert planet, so no one would know where we had really gone. As soon as the vortex had established itself, I dragged her through. Without delay I ran to the DHD and started to dial up the address to my planet. All this time Sam still clung to me, not letting go. I was afraid of what had happened to her, and who had held her captive. I needed to know if she was all right. I waited impatiently for the last chevron to lock and the surface of the wormhole to settle, before I pulled her up the steps into the Vortex.
As soon as we arrived on the other side, I turned her around to face me and looked into her eyes.
“Where have you been? What happened?” My heart was pounding, not sure what her answer was going to be.
No answer came forth. She reached up and touched my face then buried her face into my shoulder again. This was going to take time, and this planet would be the best place to wait.
I led her up through the hills, to a cave where I had hidden my things which was about a forty-five minutes walk away. It took us little over an hour, as Sam stumbled over the rough pathway. She seemed to be in shock. ‘She wasn’t the only one.’
The cave was dark and cold, so I pulled out the dry firewood that I had left there on a previous visit and built a fire. This took quite some time as Sam was still clinging to me. Now I was really getting worried. This was not like my Sam. My Sam was strong. Then I remembered the Sam from the alternate universe, when she had been held prisoner for two years. Who knew what had happened to her in the last two years.
Reassuring her, I peeled her hands from my arms and sat her down near the fire. I pulled out my sleeping bag, unzipped it and wrapped it around her shoulders.
When she was ready I knew she would talk, but until then I needed patience, which was something I was struggling to find. Food wouldn’t help as we had just eaten. But maybe, like me, she hadn’t had enough, so I pulled out the brown loaf of bread and broke it in half and handed a piece to her.
She looked up at me and smiled then shook her head. “No, thank you.”
I smiled back as I sat down beside her in front of the warm fire.
“What happened, Carter?” I asked again.
“I don’t know.” Her voice was quiet and sounded lost.
“It’s been two years, how can you not know?”
“I don’t remember.” She looked up at me with frightened eyes. “I don’t remember,” she repeated.
“Hey, you’ll remember. Give yourself some time,” I tried to assure her, “Why don’t you get some sleep, I know I’m tired.”
She nodded and rolled the sleeping bag around herself and lay down on the floor beside the fire.
With my knee objecting loudly, I stood up and walked back to the entrance of the cave, snatching up one of my blankets along the way. It took a while for sleep to come for me. I watched the sun slowly setting behind the distant alps making the snow on the peaks glint a deep orange red before finally dipping down behind them.
{I was falling down a long wormhole; the screaming sound of it rang in my ears as I sped past worlds that I had visited in my travels. Giant green fur balls, grabbed at me as I flew past them, their stench permeating my inner being. Daniel, Janet, Hammond and Teal’c snatched at my clothing and my body, their eyes glowing bright yellow before disappearing behind me. I crashed into buildings, some firm and strong, others crumbling with decay. The battle field where Sam had died spiraled around me as I fell, starting with us stepping through the ‘gate to when I blacked out trying to get us back to the Stargate. Then it became dark as I fell through a large forest, the branches snapping as they broke my fall. I could feel myself beginning to slow down then I landed on the hard ground with a thump.}
“Jack.”
I could hear someone calling my name faintly in the distance.
“Jack!”
“Ouch!” right in my ear.
I opened my eyes looking around for the source of the sound. It was Sam, she was perched up on one elbow right beside me, rolled up in my sleeping bag, looking, I have to admit, rather beautiful.
“Hey, Carter.”
“You all right? You looked like you were dreaming.”
“Yes, you could say that.” I sat up and stretched out my arms and legs. Apart from my usual sore knee, nothing out of the ordinary hurt, until I stood up, and my head began to pound. I rubbed my hand down my face and then looked back down at Sam. I still couldn’t believe it, she was alive.
“So, how are you today?” I asked, noticing already that she wasn’t hanging around my neck anymore, not sure if I was disappointed or not. Choosing not to think too hard about this, I picked up my water bottle and took a swig of the stale luke-warm water.
She untangled herself from the sleeping bag and sat on it. Smiling at me, she answered, “A lot better, thank you. I’m beginning to remember now.”
I raised one eyebrow Teal’c style, to encourage her to continue while I took another swig of water. This exchange brought tremors of excitement? Emotion? I couldn’t quite place it. Maybe it was just my nightmare induced sweat cooling on my body that was causing the shivers.
“I don’t remember all of it, but enough. Baal revived me in the sarcophagus.”
Startled, I looked up. My heart began to thump loudly again as adrenalin rushed into my veins, taking away the small tremors that shivered through my body.
“I managed to escape, and then another Goa’uld caught me and threw me into his prison. That’s where I have been for the last… I don’t know how many years… he used me as payment to Baal and was sending me back with one of his Jaffa. That was when you saw me; I couldn’t believe it when I saw you discussing the menu with the owner of the inn. I didn’t know how to catch your eye and let you know I was there.”
“What was the name of the Goa’uld who has had you prisoner for the last two years?”
“I don’t remember that bit and I don’t remember anything else other than that. Sorry,” she added, and then looked down at her fingers that were plucking at her clothing.
“No matter, come on lets get some fresh water.” I bent down and took hold of one of her hands and pulled her to her feet.
Still holding her hand, we walked down towards the stream, where I knew its source was a fresh water underground spring. The spring was set way up in the hillside, gushing out of a small aperture amongst the rocks. It fell from a great height hitting the large boulders below, and the spray splashed onto the dark green moss covered rocks at the side of the stream. Carefully walking over these slippery moss covered rocks I still clung to her hand, not letting go. I was afraid if I did, she would disappear into a cloud.
We quickly refilled the water canteens and watched the rainbow in the spray as clouds of fine mist flowed up from where the waterfall hit the deep pool beneath it.
The banks beside the stream were covered in a thick springy grass, dotted here and there with small purple flowers. Finding a clear space so as to not crush the delicate blooms, I sat down facing the stream, pulling Sam down beside me.
“When do we go home?” she asked.
I closed my eyes briefly before answering. “I thought we should stay here for a bit. You need some down time from your ordeal.” I could feel something sink deep within myself at her words. I didn’t want to go ‘home’ I wanted to stay here with Sam for as long as I could. Then an awful thought hit me. She wanted to get back to Pete. I couldn’t look at her as I waited for her to speak.
“Okay, if that is what you want.” Her voice was quiet and measured as she spoke. No feeling behind it at all. I felt that I needed to get through her hard shell that she had surrounded herself with.
Startled, I looked down at my hands; in them was a small posy of the purple short stemmed flowers. I must have picked them without realizing it. Turning, I handed them to Sam, nervous that she would reject my small gesture.
I watched her face as she stared at the flowers I held outstretched to her. She leaned forward and sniffed the flowers and went, “Nice aroma.”
“Aroma?” I raised my eyebrows in surprise at her use of words.
She laughed then corrected herself. “Fragrance… nice fragrance. And thank you.” She added and took the flowers from me.
Slowly, as the day progressed she filled me in on some of her captivity. It was very sparse with real information as she only gave me snatches of it. Some of it just didn’t make any sense, but I put that down to her loss of memory.
In between her story, I gave her a run down of what had happened to me during the last two years. I didn’t tell her all as I wasn’t sure she would handle it well. Through all this time, she not once asked about Pete, part of me was relieved, but another was nervous, maybe she had forgotten about him or maybe she was just waiting to get back to him.
At the end of the day, she curled up in my sleeping bag beside the fire, she said she always felt cold these days, and I had to agree with her, sometimes her hands were ice cold. I moved away towards the entrance, I knew we were quite safe here, but you never knew when you are off world what is going to happen. Once again, I pulled my blanket around my shoulders and watched the sun set over the distant alps and I finally slept.
{I was falling down a long wormhole, the noise in my ears filling my head with the screaming sound. I twisted and turned with the flow of the wormhole, visions of my past flashing before me, spinning out of my reach. Apophis’ ship loomed ahead of me and I was running down the corridor towards Sam who had fallen to the floor. The force field stopping me in my tracks, smashing the force field with a wrench, with my hands anything I could. I stood there in despair, before her face was whisked away from me as I continued to plummet into the depths of space. A tight band surrounded my forehead as I was strapped to a chair, spilling out my inner most feelings, explaining why I couldn’t leave Carter behind. Falling… lightening spiked around me, I felt the sting, as it jabbed at my body, the loud crackling sound penetrated my ears causing excruciating pain. I lifted my zat and aimed it at the lightening, watching in dismay as Carter fell crumpling to the floor. Only to have the scene whisked away from my sight in a myriad of colours. Swirling… falling… down… Distorted faces of Carter twirled past me, laughing, talking, crying, I called out for her, clutching at her as I fell…}
“Carter!”
I was sitting up and Sam was right beside me, holding my head. She looked frightened, but not as frightened as I felt.
I grabbed her by her shoulders and then pulled her to me in desperation, she was alive, it was just a dream - ‘it was just a dream.’ Sweat trickled down the inside of my clothes and began to cool me in the dawn air. I sunk my hand into her short golden hair and pulled her head closer to mine. I could feel the stubble of my beard rub against her smooth cheek seconds before I found her mouth and started to kiss her. She fervently kissed me back holding my head firmly with one hand, then a small gasp as she pulled away violently, pushing me back away from her as though I had burned her. I looked into horror stricken eyes, before she looked down at the ground.
I knelt at the entrance of the cave breathless; I didn’t know what to do. I had blown it, with just one kiss. I slowly stood up and moved away, I didn’t know what to say either.
“Jack?” Her voice sounded small and subdued.
I slowly turned; she was looking up at me, her eyes full of remorse and emotional pain. Not caring how my knee hurt I knelt back down in front of her.
“I’m sorry, Sam. I-“
She slowly shook her head and held her fingers to my mouth to stop me from speaking.
“No, it’s me, it’s too soon. Please, give me some time.”
I nodded to her and gave her a small smile, maybe there was some hope for us. I reached down for the water canteens and waved them at her.
“I’ll just get us some more water.” She needed time to think, I needed time to think. Ever since I had seen her in the eating house, my head had been in a whirl, I didn’t know what to think, how to think or even if I was thinking. If this morning was anything to go by, I definitely wasn’t thinking.
My head was pounding, firing sharp stabs of pain in above my eyes. I tried rubbing my head to relieve the pressure, but nothing seemed to help. If the previous day was a gauge, it should soon wear off as the day progressed. I snatched up my P-90 as I left, usually I took my handgun with me, but this was closer.
As I walked along the small path, I wondered where this was going to all go, would I go back to the SGC and Earth to live, or carry on with my travels? What would Sam do? Instead of clearing my head, it became more confused as my feelings intruded into my military mind, making all strategic thoughts fly away.
The gentle flow of the stream seemed to calm me a little as I approached the banks. Apart from a few bugs flying around, I had never seen any animals or birds on this planet so it was quiet. I sat down beside the stream and watched the butterflies do their fluttering thing on the delicate purple flowers. Bees were darting in and out of the large yellow bell shaped flowers that grew tall beside the still pool that was fed by the larger deep pool. I could hear footsteps coming up behind me; she was walking lightly, but hesitantly.
“It’s all right, why don’t you come and sit here?” I asked.
I heard a muffled noise. Something was wrong. I carefully stood up and released the safety catch off my weapon.
Sam was standing quite still in the middle of the grassy area just above where I stood. She looked at me steadily for a while, and then just said one word, “Sorry,” before turning and walking up the path towards the forest.
My instincts were screaming, but my heart was crying. I listened to my heart.
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