For fifty years, four months, eight days, twelve hours, twenty-three minutes and thirty-nine seconds we were trapped upon the Odyssey.
No enemy held us against our will. No villain kept us in this thrall. Rather, we were held captive by our own desire to live.
I know that Samantha regrets her decision - one made in the heat of battle and with the desperation of survival.
She knows that - at times - we all resented her choice. We despised our captivity and - whether we meant to or not - we expressed our discontent to her.
I know that her own guilt weighed heavily upon her. And I know that it is a guilt that words could not assuage.
Her guilt became her motivation. It drove her to work and to struggle to find a solution to end our captivity. She rarely spoke of her guilt, keeping it as close as a secret. Over the course of months, I watched it consume her. It was when it threatened to segregate her from us, that I was moved to take action.
"Pass the bread," Cameron Mitchell asked, holding out his hand. General Landry obliged as I took my seat, not failing to notice the empty chair next to mine.
"Colonel Carter said that she'd eat in her lab," General Landry said, holding out a bowl of vegetables.
"Maybe she's close to a breakthrough," Vala Mal Doran said, smiling broadly.
"If she was close she'd have said so," Cameron Mitchell said, stabbing a vegetable with his fork with enough force to pierce the plate.
"Considering the way you jumped her ass the last time she was wrong, she probably doesn't want to speak up," Daniel Jackson said, his tone laced with censure.
Of all of us, Cameron Mitchell found our time on the Odyssey most trying. I do not know if it was his youth or his frustration at simply being trapped, but I do know that everyone - including myself - found his ill temper most intolerable.
Only our awareness of our close quarters has kept us from speaking to him in a more direct manner. We hoped, amongst ourselves, that he would realize and alter his own behavior, without our intercession. However, the need to speak to him soon became in-ignorable.
"I didn't jump her ass," Cameron Mitchell said, defending himself.
"I don't think she'd exactly allow you to jump her, per se," Vala Mal Doran said. "At least if I'm understanding the vernacular correctly."
"You're not," Daniel Jackson said, picking up the last piece of bread from the basket. "He's not jumping her like THAT. But he was a complete ass." He shot a cold glare at Cameron Mitchell.
"I wasn't-"
"You were," General Landry interrupted. "Colonel Carter had about half a second to keep us from getting killed. She made a choice and if she'd have made a different one, we wouldn't be alive right now."
"You say that like it's a bad thing."
"If you desire to die, I can accommodate you," I said, putting an end his whining. Cameron Mitchell blinked and stared at me, clearly caught off guard. "Do you wish to have your remains preserved or should I merely place them in the air lock?"
Daniel Jackson snorted softly and I hoped that he would not laugh. Levity would detract from the sincerity of my offer.
"Colonel Mitchell, I'd be lying if I said that this was how I wanted to spend my life," General Landry said. "But Colonel Carter made the best decision that she could make at the time. And she's doing everything she can to find a solution. But what she needs right now is our support. And let me give you a hint, bitching about what happened is not being supportive." He did not say the words, but the tone of General Landry's voice clearly indicated that these were not his wishes, but his command.
"Hear, hear," Vala Mal Doran cheered, glaring at Daniel Jackson when the man kicked her under the table.
"As a matter of fact, if it makes you feel better, consider it an order. If you want to bitch, you come to me. Those that bitch to the colonel, your next stop is Teal'c and maybe that air lock if he's having a bad day."
"I shall deliver Colonel Carter's meal to her," I said, nodding my head at General Landry in gratitude to his words before standing up.
"Tell her that she WILL join us for dinner tomorrow night," General Landry said. "And every night after that. For twenty-three hours a day, we may each have our own corners of this ship, but we will have this time together."
I nodded my assent and left the room, Colonel Carter's plate in my hands. It took me just moments to walk to the room she had claimed as hers. As I expected, she was not working. Rather, she was sitting at her work bench while Thor's hologram lectured in the background. Her fingers drummed upon the desk's surface and her gaze was unfocused.
"I have brought you the evening meal," I said, setting the plate before her.
She stopped drumming her fingers and looked at me for a second before shaking her head. "I'm not hungry."
"Regardless, you require sustenance. You should eat." I pushed the plate towards her.
"Teal'c-"
"Eat," I insisted.
She blinked slowly, unconsciously mimicking Cameron Mitchell's actions of just a few minutes before. She pushed the plate away. "I'm not hungry. And you're not my mother."
"Indeed. I am not. However, we are concerned-"
"I'm not going to starve myself to death before I fix this," she interrupted, her tone mocking.
"Of this I have no doubt. My concern is not about you finding a solution, rather whatever emotional turmoil that is resulting in your loss of appetite."
She sighed heavily. "Today is Cassie's twenty-first birthday. She wanted to see Hawaii. I had plane tickets and everything."
"Did you not say that, outside of this bubble, time does not pass. That a year in this ship is mere seconds outside the bubble."
"It's been months, Teal'c. And I'm no closer to a solution than I was the day I started."
"You will find a solution."
"I have no idea how to fix this. THOR had no idea how to fix this. And if ten thousand years of Asgard history can't find a solution, it's pretty damn arrogant of me to think I can," she ranted. Her voice was tinged with anger and I know more than a little frustration.
"You WILL find a solution," I repeated.
"When? Next week? Next month? Next year? Teal'c, this is no particle generator. This is no missing moon. This is TIME. I can't even begin to comprehend this and...I can't fix it!"
"Then why do you persist in your efforts?"
She looked down at the table and stared at her hands for a few moments before looking up at me. "Because, I'm afraid that the hope that I'll figure this out is the only thing that's keeping everyone sane," she whispered.
Moved by the utter desolation in her voice, I stepped close and pulled her into my arms, comforting her the only way that I could.
And so it began.
Our relationship changed after that day. I began to spend my afternoons with Samantha. Sometimes we talked, other times I merely meditated while she continued to work on a solution. Sometimes I was her audience as she practiced her cello.
Tenacity is both a strength and a curse with her. If it were not for her tenacity, we would each have died years ago, including her. Yet that same tenacity nearly drove her mad.
Despite her words, she still searched for a solution - even though that search broke her heart with each failure.
As the years passed, she grew more and more depressed with every day that the solution eluded her, as she realized that, even if we returned, we would no longer fit in the life we left behind.
She aged. We all aged.
The Asgard medical pods kept us in good health, however it could not defeat the ravages of time.
Our bodies began to fail, slowly and imperceptivity. General Landry - the oldest human - was the first to die. And, I knew, would not be the last.
He was, perhaps, the most fortunate of us. Samantha maintained her vigil until the very end, refusing to leave him even for a moment, lest he die alone. I stood vigil by her side, supporting her in giving the one gift that I knew would be denied to me. A burden that I would eventually assume before I faced my ultimate fate - to die alone.
Our relationship altered even more that night as she cried in my arms. It was then that she discovered my own secret, the feelings that I had kept buried in my heart for so many years.
I loved her.
Not as a brother in arms, not even as a friend, but as a part of my very soul. She completed me as no other woman ever had.
She was my equal, yet sought only to be my companion. She knew when to speak and when to remain silent. She trusted me, not only with her life, but with her secrets as well.
She was my kalash'mate.
I do not know if she ever loved me as much as she simply accepted me as her best chance to not be alone, but I did not care. Nor did I ask.
I was hers and she was mine and I swore to embrace every moment Fate granted me. Little did I realize that Fate wished one final jest.
From the moment that Samantha announced her plan, I knew what my role was to be.
It was logical for me to retain my memories and travel back in time. Although I had aged during our confinement, my tretonin allowed my body to bear that burden with more ease than my human friends. They were frail now and their bodies were vulnerable to the least shock.
But it was not only my concern that drove me to volunteer. In fact, my motives were much more simple and much more selfish.
I would remember.
I would remember holding her in my arms.
I would remember her laugh, her smile.
The feel of her flesh beneath my fingertips and her body wrapped around mine.
We spent a - human - lifetime on board the Odyssey. Fifty years, four months, eight days, twelve hours, twenty-three minutes and thirty-nine seconds.
Often it felt that our captivity was truly a life sentence, commuted only by death.
Yet, I cherish every moment, every memory. For they are as precious as life, as irreplaceable as a star, and all I shall ever have.
~Fin~
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