States of Readiness
The house was in a state of upheaval. In between everything else that she'd been doing over the last couple of weeks, she'd managed to pack up the majority of their belongings. Boxes lined the edges of the rooms; shelves stood bare and cupboards empty. He teased, "Hmm...Carter, either robbers struck while you were out or your housekeeping skills leave a bit to be desired."
She straightened from Jacob's exuberant, welcome home hug and grinned at him, "If you're volunteering for housekeeping duty-you're on!"
"Oh, I don't think I have to worry about that," he said. "After you'd poked around my house-without my permission I might add, and don't go telling me that half-baked clone counted! Anyway, after you'd poked around, I distinctly remembering you saying, and I quote, "Colonel, maybe you should consider hiring a maid."
"Right...come to think of it, I love my kids too much to leave them at the mercy of your cleaning skills."
"Well, never fear. I whipped Cassy in seven-card stud, and she is even right now saving you from a fate worse than death by cleaning out my refrigerator, washing my laundry, and ensuring there'll be clean glasses for the whole family when we arrive. Which by the way, how close are you to being ready to go?" he asked. He'd driven his truck down with the intent of taking Carter and the kids home with him, and looking around he began to believe it might just happen. Everything looked right on schedule with most of the things they'd be taking with them packed and waiting and the rest more or less ready for the movers when they arrived.
"Just the last odds and ends to pack," she said, settling down on the floor and holding her hands out to Peter who was fussing for her. "Lois and Hank insist they can do the last bit of cleaning...they've done most of it already, so I guess they might as well. If they charged by the hour, I'd owe them my life savings."
"Oh, and just how much is that? Should I think about retiring?"
"You can think about it, but don't plan on eating."
"Gotcha," he said with yet another grin. He'd pushed his worries about Ally to the back of his mind and his earlier anticipation had returned almost completely.
Lois Shanahan smiled indulgently at them both. "Hank and I thought maybe we could baby-sit for you tonight...you two could go out for supper and have some time alone? You know we'd like all the time we can get with the kids before you go. It would be as much for us as for you," she added when she saw Sam's hesitation.
"Actually, I was going to ask if you'd mind taking the boys for a couple of hours anyway? There are a couple of places that need a touch of paint. I thought we could get them done faster without them underfoot."
"We'd love to...but you know we'll do the painting once you're gone." Her voice didn't actually waver but Jack suddenly realized how hard this move would be on Pete's folks. They'd been two doors away from their grandkids all their lives and now he was taking them hundreds of miles away.
He said impulsively, "You could come with us, you know." Lois and Sam both looked at him in surprise, and he wondered if he'd misread their regard for one another. Maybe the last thing Sam wanted was to have Pete's folks following her to their new life. And though the Shanahans might miss the kids, they were quite probably looking forward to a little freedom of their own.
Lois blinked tears from her eyes, and said, "Oh, you wouldn't want us dragging along after you," at the same time Sam said, "We couldn't ask you to do that." Then they looked uncertainly at each other. Sam said, "I wish you could. I can't imagine how we're going to manage without you."
Lois answered her, "You know if you need us, we'll always be ready to help. But, I really doubt you want your former in-laws following you across the country."
Jack looked at the confusion in both their faces and smiled. "Oh, I think she might," he said. "Something to think about anyway. In the meantime...if we hang out here and do those few odds and ends--are we good to go in the morning?"
"Should be," Sam answered.
"Ok...then that's what I vote for. It's a long way to Colorado, and I'd like to hit the road early."
"That's fine then," Lois said. "I'll take the boys home now if you like...once Peter's settled anyway, and we'll keep them as late as you want. If you run over and get Peter to sleep, we'd be glad to keep them all night."
"Are you sure?"
"Well, unless you want to spend your last night in the house as a family?"
"No, that's ok...we could tear the crib down tonight then and be that much farther ahead in the morning." He watched the two women talking and whatever misgivings he had about his impetuous offer to the Shanahans faded away. He hadn't given it any thought before, but now he could see it would be for the best if he could talk the Shanahans into making the move with them. Well, not with them. But when things were settled with this house and they'd had time to do some house-hunting and selling of their own. They were good for the kids and good for Carter and seemed willing enough to welcome him into their grandchildren's life without open resentment or reservations. His job would never be one he could just slough off to pick up any slack at home...and unfortunately, if he was busy so were the rest of the folks they knew. Carter could use the back up.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
The odds and ends weren't long in finishing. The crib and Jacob's toddler bed weren't bad taking down though he had an uneasy suspicion putting them up again might be something else. Ally watched him as he worked. Silent as a tomb and just as sober. He wasn't quite sure what to do about her. He loved her. He couldn't look at her without feeling a surge of warmth and tenderness and utter delight that she was his. He couldn't help it. But neither could he help the nagging fear he had that she wasn't the sweet, innocent child he desperately wanted her to be. That within her blue, solemn eyes there lurked a sinister presence, a seed of ruthlessness that would one day grow into the destruction of everything he'd ever counted worth fighting for.
And over both the love and fear was a smothering layer of guilt. How could he approach her, love her, try to influence her for the good, when all the time she knew he'd counted her as nothing more than just another tool to be used and manipulated for his purposes?
With a sigh, he stuck the last of the screws from Jacob's bed into a Ziploc bag he was certain would have disappeared when it was time to rebuild the thing in Colorado. "Let's go see what your Mom's up to," he said to Ally, and she obediently followed him out of the room and down the hall.
One of the bookshelves in Carter's bedroom had been shifted to stand kitty-corner to the wall. Normal enough if you were going to sweep behind it...except of course most shelves you swept behind weren't built-in and when you moved them away from the wall, the wall stayed behind. This one had brought a section of the wall with it and in its place left an opening into a hidden recess.
He stepped over to it and said, "Carter?"
"Down here, Sir," Sam's voice called back, and he and Ally shambled down some makeshift, wooden steps and found themselves not in a basement room or dark, cramped hiding place, but a wide, rounded cavern. A narrow tunnel twisted away beyond the back of the house.
"Tok'ra crystals," he said with admiration and satisfaction in his tone. Sam smiled at him. From a small table, she was gathering up Ally-sized little boy clothing, scissors, hair dye, and various and sundry other things he recognized the need of all too well. He nodded with weary understanding, but not surprise. He already had escape plans for them in mind if not actually set in motion at his house as well. With Ally staring solemnly at them, he chose not to comment on what Carter was doing. Instead he asked, "Dad?"
"Martouf," she said, stuffing a collection of MRE's into the box.
"Martouf! Just how long have you been hiding contraband, Carter?"
She shrugged. "I thought one day, I'd get a chance to study them...their potential's out of this world, you know," she laughed. "The Tok'ra would never share them willingly--not the council anyway, and not Selmak."
"But Martouf...he would have given you anything you asked for."
"Lantash, actually...for Jolinar," she agreed. He wanted to ask her what else she'd smuggled out of the SGC in her years there, but he didn't. She was one of the good guys after all. Besides, he wasn't above a little smuggling himself.
"So where's it come out?" he asked.
"Two alleys over...someone's built a little enclosure to keep their garbage cans from blowing over in the wind. Nice and sheltered--unless we had the incredibly bad timing of coming through when they were tossing out their trash."
"And from there? How come you just didn't collapse the tunnel behind you and keep on till daylight?"
"I didn't talk Martouf into that many crystals...and using them under a city is problematic to say the least-there are underground cables and gas lines, sewer and water...I'd been more likely to blow us and half the Eastside up than get to safety. And beneath all that, parts of the town are built over an underground river...try to get below that, you'll end up drowning."
He nodded his understanding. Studiously ignoring the Zat next to them, he picked up the passports from the shelf before she got to them. There were four: two for Carter in different names, two for Ally. "What about the boys?" he asked quietly.
Carter's voice was devoid of all emotion as she answered, "They'd be too cumbersome to bring along. They'd have had to stay behind with Pete--with the Shanahans."
"Could you have done that?" he asked. "Would you have?"
She didn't hesitate before saying, "If it was the only alternative."
"You're still nursing the baby," he objected weakly. He wished the crib would have taken longer than it had, that she'd already cleared out this place and used a crystal to wipe it out of existence before he'd had to stand in it and know the choices she'd been forced to make, the price she'd been willing to pay in order to keep his daughter safe.
She answered easily but avoided his eyes, "He'd take a bottle if it came to it...I made sure of that."
"Pete would have just let you go? Let you leave him holding the babies?"
She shrugged again and picked up the Zat. She hesitated a moment before deciding it too belonged in the box. She tucked it in before answering him, "He didn't know the plan...didn't know this was here."
"Oh," he said. The weight of his unhappiness came through that one word as clearly as though he'd spoken volumes.
She raised her head and looked at him with a frown. "It's an imperfect world, Sir. That's what this has all been about. "
He met her look. "I won't be left holding the babies, Carter."
"No, Sir. You won't have to. Look at her." She nodded towards Ally who had attached herself to his leg and gazed up at him as though she had followed every thing they'd said-and hadn't said-and understood it all. "You're the one she'll need. You'll go with her, and I'll stay behind with Jacob and Peter."
"Carter-" he began but didn't finish. What was there to say? He'd already said he wouldn't be left behind, and he'd meant it. And she was right, running with one child was possible, but with three? She nodded at his silence, taped the box shut, marked it 'kitchen--breakable', and tucked the passports into her back pocket. She moved toward the stairs, but he called her back with, "I'd wondered why..." he grimaced at her. Did he really have the right to ask?
She looked at him questioningly and asked, "Why what?" when it became apparent he didn't know how to finish.
"The boys...if you were ready for this," he said motioning around them at the cavern. "Why'd you...?"
She turned away from him and began to climb the stairs. "One child might seem suspicious. Three though--no one would question I'd really left the SGC to have a family if I actually had one," she answered without looking back at either Jack or Ally.
They both frowned up at her back. She was lying. Or at least evading the truth. Out in the cold of space, with the planet's fate in imminent jeopardy, she might have decided to produce a child because of perceived need, but she would never have plotted to further her duplicity by later conceiving Jacob and Peter for camouflage...not once she'd held her own flesh and blood in her arms and felt its dependency. No, neither of them believed it. But Ally wasn't about to call her on it, and for one reason or another he let the lie stand between them as well.
In silence, they left the hidden room, and Carter used a crystal to destroy the tunnel behind them. Then they fit the wall and bookshelf back so snugly that there really wasn't even a need to touch up the paintwork. They did anyway, just in case.
"What else?" Jack asked when they had finished with it and the holes she'd filled in the walls when she'd packed up the pictures.
"Pizza," Sam answered.
"Hey, it's pretty early. We could go out if you want--get some steaks?" He grinned at her as though they hadn't both just been discussing disappearing into the night and leaving everything and everyone behind.
Sam glanced at Ally before answering, "I'm pretty bushed, Sir...and I'm not going out for steak like this."
He looked at her paint splattered clothes and smiled. "You look just fine to me, Sam," he said. He reached out and rubbed a smear of paint off her cheek with his thumb. "You've never looked more beautiful."
She bit her lip and started to cry. "Really?" she asked. "I feel like such a monster."
He tried to back track and pick up on where that had come from. "Huh? I think I missed something?"
"What you were talking about down there...I would have done it, you know. I would have just walked away. Left them like they didn't mean a thing."
He pulled her to him. "I know," he said. "But not because you don't love them. You'd do what needed done-you always do, but that doesn't mean they don't mean anything to you. You love them...everyone can see that." She cried against his shoulder. He smoothed her hair and held her and added her tears to the tally he'd started calculating in his mind of all he'd cost her with his little brainstorm on that Al'kesh.
"So," he said when her sobs had turned to just the occasional sniffle, "pizza?" But, in the end, they opened up that last box and, sitting on her living room floor amidst all the mayhem of moving, ate MRE's for old time's sake.
They'd been on the road heading towards Colorado early the next morning, the boys still half-asleep in red-footed pajamas and the adults gulping too-hot coffee and squinting against the brightness of the rising sun. The trip was uneventful...as uneventful as traveling hundreds of miles with three young children can be anyway. The cab seat of his pickup would never be quite the same after all the spills and assorted accidents. And he'd thought Teal'c and Daniel were bad.
Peter seemed to have a built-in alarm system that signaled him to start fussing and crying to be let out of his car seat within 30 minutes of any proposed stopping point. Jacob proved he was as typical as Ally wasn't--by the time they had hit the state border, he'd asked, "Are we there yet?" roughly fifty-nine times and throughout the trip he managed to announce with just the right degree of sincerity, "I got to go potty," practically every time they'd gotten ten miles past a rest area.
Except for when Ally developed carsickness as they passed through a stretch of narrow, twisting canyon roads, Jack enjoyed every minute of it. He'd been afraid he might be too old for another shot at parenthood, that he'd find their childish demands and needs an unwelcome intrusion. But, he was just as excited to have them in his life when they finally arrived at his front door as he had been when they'd set out.
Daniel, Teal'c, Janet, and Cassy arrived to help unload his truck of the boxes and belongings they'd brought with them instead of leaving to the moving company. The pickup was soon unloaded, and he grinned over the boxes strewn through out his hallway, living room, and bedrooms with satisfaction and delight...life was very good.
Cassy, correctly guessing that left to Sam and Jack glow-in-the dark stars and the occasional space shuttle decal would have to take the place of any real decorating attempt, had spent the previous week transforming Jack's extra rooms for the kids...bright, gold and red racing patterns for the room the boys would share and Beauty and Beast decals over pale yellow walls for Ally's.
Jack rolled his eyes and teased that he supposed if they hung a few jet models from the ceiling and slapped up a few Air Force recruitment posters on the walls it would pass as livable. Sam, who knew very well all of Cassy's efforts were wasted on Ally, hugged her and told her it was beautiful. Ally stared unseeingly and without interest at the floor. Cassy had known better than to expect anything else, and counted Sam's approval reward enough for her hard work.
The new rooms were only one of a very many changes that came with the move. The boys were young and easy-going enough that they took everything in stride and soon settled in. And Ally, who had in the past taken days to calm back down if Carter and Pete had so much as rearranged the furniture in the living room showed very little distress over the move, and felt only a slight bit more. Sir's presence made all the difference. Even when he had to be gone, which was far too often for all of them, she understood it couldn't be helped and contented herself with Carter instead.
Some of the changes in their new lives were harder for Ally to take than others however. Daniel and Teal'c spent a fair amount of their downtime lazing around the living room and arguing with Sir over the merits or lack thereof of the Simpsons, curling, and other subjects Ally found irrelevant. Daniel helped Carter in the kitchen, and Teal'c snuck the boys donuts when Carter wasn't looking; having them around was not all that different than having Grandma and Grandpa in the house.
Except for the night Daniel, pale and strained from a mission gone bad, drank a beer with Jack. He'd looked at Ally with troubled eyes and insisted on discussing the rightness and wrongness of the decisions that had led to her conception. Carter had tactfully tried to change the subject, when that hadn't worked Sir had told him to shut his trap, and from there things had rapidly gone down hill. Ally had fled to her room and spent the rest of the evening staring at Belle and the Beast dancing on her walls with her hands clamped tightly over her ears. It was the last time Sir offered him a bottle.
Old Doc Frasier and Cassy were there as often as not as well. They came and kept her mother, and themselves, from worrying on the long days and nights when Daniel and Teal'c were offworld. They stayed late, crying over old movies that Ally couldn't comprehend, laughing over memories that Ally couldn't share, and talking quietly over things that held no interest for her. As long as they didn't try to speak or mess with Ally, she could deal with them hanging about the house.
The problem would come when they would decide it would be a grand idea for them to leave the kids home with Sir and drag Carter out 'shopping' or to the movies or to any number of places that would take her mother away from her. Carter resisted their attempts to get her out of the house, but Sir would send her off with a 'get out of here, Sam and don't hurry back...we'll be just fine' if he caught wind of their plans. Her mother would return laughing and spent from the time out. Ally recognized that her mother had broken free from the isolation she'd unwittingly trapped her in. She was glad for that even though she resented the doc and Cassy coming between her and her mother.
It was the worst with Cassy. She was jealous of her in a way she'd never been of Jacob and Peter. She had the memories from Sir of the little girl left alone among the dead, the nightmare in her chest, her love of Carter, and Carter's of her. She knew it was irrational, but her mother had loved Cassy first and Ally feared she'd steal Carter's love from her.
Cassy popped in and out at every opportunity as though she could somehow make up for the years Carter had more or less disappeared from her life. She wrestled with Jacob, cuddled Peter while he slept, tickled them both at every opportunity, and let Sir tease her unmercifully. She lost repeatedly to Carter in chess and talked with her for hours about people and places Ally had no use for. Ally fought her all the way, demanding Carter's attention by clinging to her, going on a rampage, or fluttering about like an agitated, overgrown butterfly.
Sir was not impressed. When he was around, he'd pull Ally away from Carter, plop her next to him on the couch or on the deck, and wave an irritated finger in her face. "Stop that, young lady. We don't need any of that. What's gotten into you anyway?" He would scowl at her and wait for an answer, but she would look through him and in the end he'd give up the wait and say, "Well, whatever...just give it a rest."
Carter, though, accepted it with a resigned sigh. She'd pull Ally to her and weather the anger and the agitation without complaint.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~
"Why do you let her do that?" Jack growled. "She'll never learn to quit if you let her get away with it."
Sam looked up at him in surprise and then down at Ally whose fluttering hands had knocked over half the chessboard before she'd gathered her onto her lap and set back up the pieces. "What?" she asked. To her it was just normal, old everyday Ally-like activity.
"What?" he said exasperated. "She manipulates you and you don't even notice, do you?"
"She's just being Ally, Sir," Sam said trying not to sound defensive. She second-guessed her decisions concerning Ally all the time without him deciding to get in on the act. But she'd given him the right to have his say when she'd married him, and she figured Ally had as well when she'd responded to him.
He snorted. "What she is doing is trying to keep you from spending time with Cassy...she's jealous!"
"That's nuts. You don't see it because when she's with you, she's a different child, but this is the little girl I know! She can connect with you somehow...she looks at you, she listens to you, she follows you around like a puppy. She'll even nod her head to answer your questions, but she doesn't have that connection with the rest of the world, Jack. This is the only way she has to tell us she's upset or frightened or yes, maybe even jealous."
"Oh, there is no question about that--she's jealous!" he muttered back. "And you just encourage her. Send her to her room or something when she acts like that. Don't let her get away with it!" Ally, distressed by his disapproval, began to flap in Sam's arms. He told her sharply, "That's what I'm talking about...you can quit it because I'm not going to stop just because you flap around like a chicken."
"Sir! Don't. She can't help it," Sam answered, and if he really had expected Ally to obey him, he was sadly disappointed.
"She can help it and if she can't we need to teach her how!" In his irritation there was a lot more he would have liked to say, but even if Cassy wasn't sitting wide-eyed in the room he wouldn't. He'd left Carter in charge of this mission over four years ago, and it was a little late now to start calling the shots.
Sam could no longer remember what she'd expected her daughter to be like in those long-ago months of her pregnancy. But, she'd accepted Ally was Ally a long time before. Right or wrong, she'd quit trying to get Ally to respond like a typical child, sent the therapists away, kept her as far away from specialists as she could, threw away the piles of literature she'd collected on various behavioral therapies and treatments, and resigned herself to giving Ally the time she needed to find her own way out of the hopelessly closed world in which she lived. To do otherwise had always proven not only to be torture to Ally but a mistake that the whole family paid for long after the attempt had proven utterly fruitless.
She shook her head against his statement and said, "Ally will find her own way...we just have to give her time."
"And you know this how?" he demanded.
"Because that's what you told me, Sir!" she shot back and he once again came up hard against the wall of forgotten memories. He was in so many ways operating in the dark here. He could have done with some night-vision goggles and a carefully detailed mission report, but a top-secret mission hidden within an ultra-classified mission didn't generate a scrap of paperwork. Before he could come up with a response, Carter was already quickly laying a rabbit trail in case her words had given away anything to Cassy, "If she's jealous, Jack...it certainly won't be of my time and attention."
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"I think that's pretty apparent," she said.
He stared stricken at her. She'd never given any sign she was hurt by Ally's obvious preference for him, but there it was. She'd always seemed happy enough to see the two of them together, and she was the one after all who kept insisting that he was the one Ally needed. He sighed, but if she thought he'd drop it just because she hinted at deep waters he usually would do anything to avoid, she was the one disappointed this time. "She's using her behaviors to manipulate you into doing what she wants...she's acting like a spoiled, rotten brat, and it needs to stop."
"It's the only way she can tell us of her fears or what she needs."
"So you admit, she can help it."
"No, I don't. The flapping, the rages, even that horrible head-banging she's started since we've come here...they're out of her control. They are screams for help that she can't hold in. They're all she's got, Sir!"
"If you can't deal with her, Carter, give her to me...I'll take care of it."
"No, Sir." It was second nature for Sam to want to please him, to be that good little soldier with a 'yes, sir' always at the ready. But, she had no choice, and she was certain it would not be the last time she would have to hold her ground in the face of his displeasure. Ally had no voice of her own, and she wouldn't leave her without one. "Trust me. I know my own daughter!"
She turned back to the forgotten chess game. "Your move," she said fighting through the tightness in her throat. He stalked off without another word, and Ally for once didn't slip off her lap to follow him. Cassy took advantage of the situation to take the game.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
There were other issues that they addressed with raised voices and Ally acted out with behaviors that made him tighten his lips and clamp his mouth shut, but for the most part they transitioned easily from Shanahans to O'Neills.
Ally liked Colorado. She liked Sir's house which was as familiar to her as the one she'd lived in all her life. Except for its new, wooden fence, which she detested and frequently attacked with her fists and feet as though its confining presence threatened her in some way.
"What's with that, you think?" Jack asked Sam one day. "You had a fence at the other house-did she hate it like she does this one?"
"She never reacted to it at all," Sam answered. "I think...well, I wonder, if maybe...you gave her more than just the Ancient database?"
"What do you mean?"
"I mean, she knows things. Or seems to anyway...about things and people that weren't in any database put together a million years ago."
"Such as?"
"Well, like she knew you...the first time she saw you. She's always trusted Daniel, always. And she about died of fright the first time she saw Dad...not like he was a stranger, but like he was an enemy--if she was just picking up on my feelings like kids do, she wouldn't have done that. But, you've never really stopped seeing the Tok'ra as an enemy, have you?"
He gave her an apologetic nod that acknowledged his guilt in that regard; but though confession was good for the soul, his answer was far from a confession and guaranteed to heap more guilt on his already guilty soul. "So you think she sees people the way I do?" he asked as though he wasn't too sure. But he had no doubts she did, and furthermore he believed that somehow, someway Ally also saw people the way Carter did. But, he couldn't tell her that without revealing Ally's secret.
"Or did...back when she was conceived. People, things, places."
"You don't think there's a chance...she, uh, can read minds, do you?"
Sam frowned at him. He could see the idea had never occurred to her before. "She's...she's human. I don't think...no, I don't think so-do you?"
He shrugged, "Sometimes she looks at me like she knows what I'm thinking."
"That's what I'm talking about though, Sir. If she has your memories or thoughts or whatever...she could know what you're thinking. Not reading your mind, just knowing how you think."
"Well, I have to admit, I'm not that fond of the fence myself. Not enough to waste time kicking it, mind you, but..."
She nodded her head, "Too bad. That fence is staying, no matter how much the two of you dislike it. This morning, Jacob got the door open and Peter was halfway out the door before I even knew it." She shuddered, "That river..."
"I wasn't suggesting we tear it down," he assured her. "They did the same thing to me when you were in the shower the other night-only they made it all the way out. Thought I was going to have a heart attack. They're living terrors, Carter. I think they've already added those lost fifteen years back to my life--see this gray hair?"
She grinned at him, but when she asked, "Do you regret taking us on then?" she was deadly serious.
He put his hands on her shoulders and looked straight into her eyes. "Never," he said and he'd never meant anything more.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
Ally gave up her assault on the fence in time to hear them discuss her possible mind-reading abilities. She folded herself into a small ball on the green grass near their feet and considered the question. She couldn't read either of their minds, but there were times, many times, when she knew what they thought anyway. Not always. They'd both changed somewhat in the years since they'd produced her so she wasn't always able to infer how they would react. And, the information he'd given her hadn't always been complete or objective enough to give her a clear picture to start with.
It would have been better if she could have read his mind. She'd be able to find what she needed to understand the alien information filling hers. As it was, she was still finding the task insurmountable. As a Rosetta Stone he was as clear as mud. He'd taken diligent care to make her physically Carter's daughter and not his own. But, he'd taken none at all when it came to outfitting her with what she'd need to fulfill the mission with which he'd charged her. Not out of negligence or an attempt to hamper her efforts, just plain old ignorance. He had had no idea he would be passing along his own knowledge and thoughts along with the Ancients'.
What he'd known he could give her of himself, he'd purposely withheld: no DNA test would place him as her father with any degree of likelihood. Doubtlessly, if he'd known she'd be getting bits and pieces of himself and how vital they would be in putting his legacy to use, he'd have just as carefully picked and chosen what he would give her in that regard as well.
But, he hadn't, so instead she had a mishmash of garbled thoughts of varying degrees of usefulness to dig through if she ever wanted to know how to use her inheritance. She'd never need to use his 8th grade locker combination, but she really, really could have used a systematic explanation of Earth politics. A distaste for rhubarb didn't help her understand the motives of the powers that ruled the galaxy. She'd probably never need to quote the first off-color joke he'd snickered at, but it would have helped her tremendously to have a list of the Goa'uld dominated worlds.
She'd randomly received bits and pieces of both the important and the mundane. It would take her a lifetime to discover which was which. She suspected that the Ancient information was coded as to its particular relevance, but his...she thought, what he'd given her were the things connected-by however thin a thread--with his deepest beliefs and most intense emotions. Unfortunately, not just those he'd been experiencing when he'd so decisively set her life in motion. At the age of three he'd hated spiders with the same intensity he'd later hated the Replicators. So he'd managed to give her just what she hadn't needed, an unhealthy fear of dark corners when her world was already fearful enough.
He'd always hated boredom, and to prove it, she had a thousand random thoughts he'd occupied his mind with when bored...none of which would probably ever prove useful in a contest with galactic evil and all of which he would have undoubtedly preferred she didn't know. He had feared humiliation at every age. As an 8th grader that had been linked to a shared locker room, hence his desperately remembered combination. As a man that fear had been linked to all his secrets being revealed to any Replicator who cared to stick a hand through his head; so, if her theory was right, she should have quite a bit about the Replicators...just a matter of finding it and recognizing it. A piece of cake...right!
She'd received everything so randomly it was a tangled mess she couldn't unravel. Not just the knowledge he'd given her, but his reasons and purposes for doing so as well. He had had big plans for her, but they'd been fragmentary and still only in the beginning stages of development. He'd wanted her to be a weapon he could turn on his enemies, but his aim was all over the board. His enemies at times had proven to be friends and his friends enemies. He'd meant for her to use the knowledge he gave her for good, but he hadn't defined the term for her. He'd seen much of what he had done for good as evil and how was she, who was still just a child, supposed to make heads or tails out of that? She couldn't.
He'd been a contradiction even to himself. She thought that quite possibly his understanding of his life and himself had been just as confusing to him as it was to her. His had been the only motives he had truly trusted; yet, he had considered himself anything but a good man. He'd sacrificed his life for a world he saw as worthy of destruction as much as it was salvation. He'd fought for his life against overwhelming odds even when he hadn't deemed it worth living. He'd despised what he was doing in making her, yet believed with all his soul it was the right thing to do.
Little wonder she could make very little headway in understanding him in order to interpret what he'd given her from the Ancients. He couldn't have made it more difficult if he'd tried. He had both given her the world and denied her access to it.
Without his miraculous appearance in her life, she thought her failure would have been almost certainly guaranteed. Now though she held both the key and the template and between the two of them she believed she would one day, one faraway day in the unseen future, wield the knowledge of the Ancients as skillfully as he wielded his combat knife and acid tongue.
In the meantime, she couldn't allow his welcome presence in her life to lull her into dropping her guard. The dangers she had always faced hadn't faded away just because he was there. And though she now had him to help protect her, he couldn't defend her from every menace--if he'd had that ability, he would never have needed to make her in the first place. For all his leashed power and unshakeable resolve, he wasn't invincible. The little girl in her wanted to believe her daddy could defeat the worst villain, but the villains she faced weren't little boys calling names and even Jack O'Neill had had to admit he couldn't stand against them without help. She couldn't depend upon him to fight her battles when he'd made her to fight his.
Still, she was more at peace than she had ever been before. She hadn't known about the escape tunnel behind the bookshelf in her mother's old room until she'd followed Sir down the steps, but she'd instantly understood its purpose and its necessity. And she'd understood that Carter had been protecting her in more ways than keeping her from the probing scans of the doctors, the intrusive presences of therapists, and the upset of strangers. Understood that the mother she knew wasn't really that far removed from the Major Carter who'd blown up a sun, been instrumental in the defeat of numerous Goa'uld, led the Asgard to a major victory against the Replicators, and fought side by side with Sir in more battles than either of them cared to remember.
Ally couldn't drop her vigilance--every stranger, every shadow, every unexplained and unexpected occurrence still carried the threat of discovery and exposure. But she no longer felt alone in it.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
Their first night in Colorado, after the boys were both asleep in their newly put-together beds, Sir had shown them a room hidden in the wall between the hall and his bedroom. It didn't lead to an escape tunnel, but it was stocked to allow someone to hide out for a couple of days.
"We can't use the crystals here," Carter said with a regretful shake of her head. "The river would flood the tunnel-"
"It doesn't matter," Sir said with a smugness that indicated he held the ace. "I've got an Asgard communication device."
"Ahh," she said and grinned over at him, but there was something forced in her response that alerted both Ally and Sir.
"What?" he asked.
"I don't like calling in the Asgard, Jack. What if...well, Thor and the Asgard Council may not approve of the situation? They may choose to remove the knowledge from her. Or try to use her to gain it for themselves. You said they really can't make use of a lot of it even after all these years without a way of indexing the data...they might decide she's the perfect tool for their use."
"Thor?" he said. "He wouldn't."
"Do you want to risk her life on that?" she asked him.
"We can trust Thor," he asserted wondering when the tables had turned. All their years on the field, he'd been the skeptic and she'd been the trusting one. He'd always thought she'd be better with a touch of wariness, but he found he regretted this change in her. He had made the mistake in thinking motherhood had softened her. Quite the opposite--she'd become hardened to choices he was finding incredibly difficult to come to grips with.
"Even if that's true, you know how reliably he answers that thing...he might not be around when we need him." She turned away from him and surveyed the hiding place again. "Only as a last resort," she finally said.
With a disappointed sigh, he accepted her assessment. "Ok, so we use it as plan B. What do you suggest for plan A?"
"I don't know...don't get trapped in here, I guess. What about the river?"
"What about it?"
"Ever take a raft down it?"
"No."
"It's possible though?"
"People do it all the time...people with more experience than I have. It's not an easy run."
"Exactly. If you could get out right away, you could be miles downstream while they were still searching the house." She looked at the supplies he had stacked on the rough shelves and not at him as she added, "I could stall them."
"Sam," he began, but she cut him off.
"It could work for plan A at least until we come up with something better. You make the arrangements--I do not want to know the details."
He grabbed her arm and pulled her around to look at him, "I'm not running and leaving you to be--no way. I can't do that, Sam."
She stared him down, "When they come, Jack, you'll go. You'll take Ally and you'll go...if you can't do that-"
"What? If I can't leave you to be tortured into telling where we've gone, what?" he demanded, but he saw the answer in her eyes before she ever spoke the words.
"I'll take her and go now." Ally, who to all appearances had been out in never-never land, suddenly returned to Earth. She raised her head and looked at her father. He'd known this blow was coming. It was the same conversation they'd started in the escape tunnel back home; same ideas just different words, same futile denial of the same untenable conclusion. Yet, she thought he couldn't look more stricken if Carter had pulled out a P90 and blasted him.
And Ally suspected she couldn't either. The determination in Carter's voice left no doubt she meant what she'd said--she would take Ally away from him. Distress and horror at the thought filled Ally and burst out in a violent, repetitive banging of her head against the two-by-fours framing in his secret room.
"For crying outloud!" he muttered and gathered her in his arms. He checked to make sure she hadn't done herself any significant damage while Carter glared at him. The head-banging was new and seemed to express her own anger as well as Ally's distress. She should never have told him yes, never have endangered her kids for a chance to live out the life she'd dreamed of for more years than she cared to admit.
He'd promised her she wouldn't regret it, but she did. Why hadn't she dredged up the courage to turn him down? She glared at him, but her anger was at herself. She'd made a dreadful tactical error. Of all people, she had thought he'd be more than able to accept the necessity of the sacrifice, to be prepared and willing to pay the price whatever it added up to in the end.
Yet, she should have known better. Because of all people, he was the one who held himself accountable for her well-being. For all those years as her commanding officer she'd been his responsibility, and she should have known that wasn't something he could turn off.
But, it was too late now. She'd burned her bridges, sold the house with its escape tunnel, left behind the façade of a life that had proven itself effective camouflage, uprooted the boys and torn them from the Shanahans...she'd destroyed every strategic advantage she'd managed to build into their lives, and now they were at the mercy of a man she couldn't trust to love her enough to leave her behind.
When she finally found her voice, it was to say, "You see how it is, Sir. She needs you, but we're safer anywhere but here if you won't see this through."
He flinched under her attack. He shook his head sadly, but his voice when he spoke was as hard as her own, "I'll do what needs done. If they come for her, I'll take her and I won't look back."
Unconvinced, Sam turned and started to walk away from him. He moved after her and again grabbed an arm to make her look at him. "When did you start running from me, Carter?" he growled in exasperation.
She briefly fought against his hold, but then with a resigned sigh faced him. "When haven't I run from you, Sir?" she asked in answer. That brought him up short. They'd both made a habit of running from each other, because the price of doing otherwise had always been too high. And now, when they should have stopped running...he gave a choked groan and pulled her to him in an awkward hug with Ally squeezed halfway between.
"You've got a point, but now's the time. Tonight. We stop running tonight."
"Then you've got to mean it," she said with her voice muffled against him. "The only way, we can make this work is if I know you'll come through when she needs you. I won't stay if you're not prepared to leave me behind." She pushed away from him to see him wince at her words.
That was it in a nutshell. Since Iraq, he'd built his life on not leaving his people behind, and he'd diligently sought to stick to it as though it was his one shot at redemption. Now she was demanding he turn his back on all that, and on her, and leave her to pay the price for his desertion.
Did she have any idea what she was asking? Pete and the Shanahans might have been taken as dupes, but anyone coming after Ally wouldn't be making that mistake about Carter. They wouldn't just say, "Oh sorry...didn't mean to disturb you...don't mind us." No, it would be, "Tell us where you've hidden the kid or die...or watch your sons die." He looked into her eyes and knew she did know what she was asking.
In the face of her sacrifice, he could do no less. "If anyone needs to run," he promised, "it will be me. I give you my word. I won't fail you, Carter."
She'd pulled away from him then, but there was nowhere in the unfamiliar house for her to run to hide her tears. She staggered to an uncertain stop. He put Ally down with a stern, "Go to bed," and gathered Carter up in his arms. Ally stood watching them crying and rocking in a way that reminded her of Jones and her mother on the porch after Pete's death. Together they mourned the happy ever after life they might have had if things had been as simple as he'd believed them to be when he'd asked her to marry him.
Ally turned from their loss and grief, which she could only partly understand, and went to bed in her old bed in her new, unfamiliar room. She crawled into its soft blankets; pulled her ragged, security blanket against her face; and stared into the night.
If they ever discussed further escape plans, it wasn't in her hearing. Still she took comfort in knowing that somewhere he'd hidden a raft to carry them down the river to safety. It wasn't an all-encompassing comfort because there was no reason to believe that when the threat materialized he'd even be home or that she would be for that matter. The attack could come at anytime, anywhere, from any direction.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~***~*~*~*
"So, why haven't they tried to get hold of the kid?" Jack asked Daniel one day while they were sprawled in the living room watching Jacob try to turn somersaults.
Still grinning over Jacob's clumsy attempts, Daniel turned to Jack and said, "Huh? Who?"
Jack answered impatiently, "Oma and her crowd."
Daniel's faced sobered as understanding sunk in. "I don't know. Maybe they're waiting to find out what she's capable of. They can afford to be patient." Jack nodded and Daniel continued. "We don't really know if she's going to be able to use what she has...or even if she has what we think she does. She could be harmless, you know?"
Jack nodded again. Harmless was the one thing he didn't believe his daughter was, but the more people who did believe it, the better. "How do we guard against them--if they get impatient and decide to not to take the chance?" he asked.
Daniel glanced uneasily at Ally who'd gone from sitting still and unconnected beside Jack to an agitated, stiffness as the discussion went on. Her eyes still stared off in never-never land, but her hands fluttered uncontrollably at her sides and gave her away. Jack followed his gaze and put a calming hand around her but still looked to Daniel to answer his question.
"You can't, Jack," he said unhappily. "If they want her, they'll take her."
"Screw that," Jack said but it didn't change the truth of Daniel's statement. Whatever plans they made, whatever precautions they took, whatever preparations they lay she was vulnerable.
Unfortunately, not just to enemies on every side, but to life itself. One fine, June evening, it struck out at her and did more damage in an instant than any enemy could have done in a thousand years of trying. She hadn't known she needed to guard herself against it, but even if she had it, like Oma and her crowd, couldn't be stopped.
Three days before they'd celebrated her fourth birthday with cake and the general himself had helped her unwrap this year's gift of a Spiderman punching bag ("Let her bang her head on him for a change!"). Grandma and Grandpa, drawn and tired from their move and shy in the home of their new, almost son-in-law, had been there hugging the boys and blinking bittersweet tears from their eyes. Carter had smiled determinedly and she and the Shanahans had resolutely refused to acknowledge the shadow the anniversary of Pete's death would forever after throw on her birthday.
Daniel had taken the pictures, and Ally had almost felt like a normal, little girl in the midst of all their singing and laughing. Though she hadn't joined in to acknowledge the love surrounding her, she'd felt it real and palpable in the air around her. Life had seemed a welcome friend that day, but it had only been lying in wait.
~*~**~*~*~*~*~**~*~*
"Come on, Carter...it'll be fun."
"You come on, Jack--the last time we tried eating out, you got called out before the food came and left me sitting there with Ally having a meltdown, Jacob spilling pop all over the waitress, and Peter deciding to come down with a stomach bug...let's just order pizza and stay home."
"Ahh...be adventurous."
Sam blinked. The words hung between them with a life all their own. Once she had been adventurous. Once she'd walked through the Stargate every chance she got and its inherent risks and dangers had made it all the better. But, she'd stopped taking risks as a matter of course well over four years before and had had to learn to content herself with just plain, old, everyday life on planet Earth. She still dreamed of stepping through the Gate, still longed for what she'd lost. A night out on the town wasn't gone to fill that ache. "I'll be adventurous," she finally shot back at him, "I'll let you order Chinese."
But, Jack O'Neill tended to get her to do what he wanted whether that involved pulling solutions out of the thin air while under fire, marrying him against her better judgment, or dragging the kids out to a real, honest-to-goodness, sit-down restaurant. And, she had to admit, the steak was a nice change from macaroni and cheese and take-out pizza; Ally managed to not act out and have the entire place staring at them; the boys kept the noise level down to a manageable level; the only spill was minor and didn't involve the need for a mop...all in all a nice evening out despite her earlier misgivings.
"I'm glad you talked me into coming," she said as they loaded the kids into their car seats ready for the trip home.
"Ahh...you should trust me more. Would I lead you wrong?" he asked.
She kissed Peter before straightening up, slamming the door, and laughing over the truck's roof at Jack. "I trust you-"
"Carter!" he yelled, cutting off whatever else she might have said but doing nothing to stop the disaster bearing down on them. Her eyes followed his horrified gaze in time to recognize her danger and then looked back at Ally through the truck window. Ally would never forget that look; she would always know that at the point of death her mother's thoughts were on her.
A Surburban which had been going much too fast lost control on the loose gravel as it turned into the parking lot, flipped around, and slammed into the side of the pickup. It bounced off and came to a rocking stop against another parked vehicle several feet away.
The impact knocked Jack down. It didn't occur to him to find out if he was hurt...it really didn't matter. He could hear the boys screaming and knew he should go to them, make sure they were all right, but...Carter. He got to his feet and stared over the top of his pickup to where she had been standing not even a minute before.
She wasn't there. Of course she wasn't there. He knew that she had to have been crushed between the two vehicles, but he couldn't make himself move--couldn't even make himself breathe. People were running from the restaurant. They saw him standing there unharmed and ran past him to render aid to the occupants of the other vehicle. The bubble of disbelief that had trapped him shattered into a thousand pieces and with a cry he dashed around the front of the truck.
She was crumpled on the ground beside the truck. There was less blood then he expected...hardly any in fact. He went to his knees beside her, "Carter..."
Her breath came in painful gasps and her eyes were wide with shock, but she answered him with a weak, "Sir."
"Help's coming," he told her afraid to even touch her. She swallowed painfully and gasped for air and he remained frozen by her side praying for the sound of sirens.
"Peter?" she tried to say but it didn't make it all the way out. His thoughts were all on her and it was a stranger who bent over her and said, "The little boys in the truck are fine...shook up and scared, but fine." She blinked tears of gratitude from her eyes and the stranger was gone before Jack even knew what she'd asked or what the answer had been. He realized Peter's cries had quieted. Jacob though was still yelling loudly and plaintively for his mother.
Ally appeared beside him and wrapped herself in his arms. He didn't notice until Sam's unfocused gaze slowly sharpened on Ally's white, stricken face and her own ashen face filled with a horror that rose above her pain and shock.
"Don't let her near me, Sir!" she choked out desperately. "Do you hear me? Keep her away!" Her words were slurred and low, but he could make them out clearly enough. It was her horror that confused him. He stared dumbly down at Ally and couldn't see any reason for Sam's sudden fear of her daughter.
But then as though mesmerized the little girl unwound herself from his arms and crept closer to Sam. She reached out a small, trembling hand and laid it on her mother's chest. "No, Ally! No!" Sam cried at her. Ally ignored her while Carter went back to frantically begging him. "Stop her, Sir. Don't let her do this!"
And suddenly, he knew what was happening. Knew what Sam was afraid of and knew he was going to ignore her pleas and let Ally do what she could. Let the healing power of the Ancients flow through that little hand and save Carter.
It wasn't a decision Sam could accept. She fought a losing battle painfully trying to find the strength to escape from Ally's reach and another pleading with him. Even when her voice dropped in despair to utter one last, "Sir!" he hardened his heart and refused to do what they both knew had to be done.
The sound of the paramedics' shoes scrunching against the gravel as they moved into their line of sight was what finally spurred him into action. He pulled Ally kicking and screaming away from her mother and dragged her off to the side so the rescue workers would have room to work. She fought him with every bit of her little girl strength but that wasn't enough to escape his hold. He was helpless and weak in the face of Carter's massive injuries but he was still stronger than a four-year-old. "I'm sorry, Ally," he whispered to her even though he knew she'd never hear him over her frantic efforts. "I wish I could let you do it. Believe me, I do, but...."
He'd killed Carter before. He'd held a Zat unwavering in his hand; looked into her eyes; and carefully, purposefully taken that second shot. He'd had no choice then. It had had to be done. And now he was killing her all over again. Not with a Zat this time but by neglect. He was going to stand there and watch her die because that was the only way he could keep Ally safe. And that had to be all that mattered.
Not because the world needed her; it could rot for all he cared. Not because one day she might just save the galaxy; it could burn. And certainly not to preserve the future because his future was dying while he held the one thing that could save it within his hands and refused to use it. He'd made her a promise he couldn't break. "I won't fail you, Carter," he'd said and known he'd regret saying it for the rest of his life even as he did so. He would keep that promise even though this was the last way he'd expected it to go down.
He couldn't remember doing it, but he had asked Carter to sacrifice everything for the hope Ally would one day be the miracle they'd spent all those years searching for out there. And she'd been paying the price, in one currency or another every since.
~*~*~*~*~*~**~*~
He unpacked the box of home videos and out of curiosity and with nothing better to while away the afternoon, he stuck one in to watch.
"Today is June first...let's see oh, it's uh...8:23 P.M.
and here's the woman of the hour...Sam, look up."
Sam looked up and scowled briefly at the man behind the camera.
"Let's see...Sam's been in labor-more or less for what?
Well, she's not really saying, but most the day...not bad though, right?"
Sam ignored his running commentary and kept working at the computer.
"Anyway, the contractions have just sort of dinked around, but things
seem to be moving right along now, so we're just about to head out
the door to the hospital..."
He flipped the camera to show his own goofy face, "Here I am...Daddy,
eager and ready to get this show on the road and meet Baby Shanahan..."
He flipped it back to Sam, "... and here's Mama, who's just about decided
she's made a serious mistake and she'll just stay home and forget the
whole thing, right Mama?"
Sam scowled up at him again. He laughed, "Come on, Sam, let's go have
a baby. Shut'er down...don't make me carry you out to the car-"
On screen, Sam went pale and drew in a breath; her eyes came up to the
camera wide with pain, and Pete, still filming and too far away to
reach her, held out a hand toward her anyway.
From the doorway, she said, "You don't want to watch that, Sir."
He turned it off and asked, "Was it bad?"
"He never got the knack of holding the camera steady," she misdirected. But under his probing look, she shrugged and said, "Towards the end it's like getting hit with a Goa'uld torture device every 3-5 minutes...then it gets fun."
"Oh." Add it to my bill, he thought.
"It's worth it, Sir," she'd said shrugging it off with a grin like women had been doing every since Eve had delivered Cain.
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
He'd known she'd been talking about a lot more than the pain of labor and delivery. And he knew she'd counted it all as worth it--just a small price to pay for the safety and security of their world, galaxy, and future. He hadn't been so positive. But, he'd given her his word anyway. Because, in the end, this had nothing to do with protecting the future and everything to do with saving the wild, struggling thing beating her head against his chest, biting at his arms, and kicking the life out of his knees. Because she was Carter's little girl and he loved her as much as he loved her mother.
It didn't feel like love to Ally...it felt like hate, treason, and betrayal. All her life--the life he'd given her--had been in preparation for this one moment: she could use the knowledge of the Ancients he had planted within her to save Carter. She knew what needed done and she knew how to do it. The cells and tissues of her mother's shattered body were an open book to her, and she could see just what needed done to repair the damaged tissues and organs and stop the internal bleeding. But, he was going to hold her and let Carter die.
She'd always known there were those outside herself who wouldn't want her to use the Ancient knowledge and would stop at nothing to stop her. Never in a million years would she have believed he was one of them. She'd trusted him implicitly and believed without a doubt that he was one of the good guys. She'd been confidant that she'd seen into his soul and knew him.
But, this was not the Colonel Jack O'Neill who had given her life. This was General O'Neill and she did not know him at all. Somehow, something deep within him had been corrupted and he was now something hateful and evil. The man she knew would have given his own life to save Carter's, but this man was going to hold her and let Carter die.
Jacob's cries had fallen to small, hopeless mewings and something in the paramedics' backs reflected that same defeat. They continued to work on her quickly and efficiently, but Carter's life was fading away. Trapped in Jack's arms Ally could do nothing to stop it. Her careful wall of silence crumbled and she could no longer hold back her cries. "Mama!" she called again and again, but though her mother had waited a lifetime to hear the sound of her voice, it came too late.
"Charging...stand clear," a voice called, and Jack and Ally both jerked as though the jolt shot through them as well. In the moment of suspended time following it, Ally felt her own strength fading away. She thought she was dying as surely as Carter. His betrayal was more than she could bear and the loss of her mother more than she could survive.
"No change. Recharging," the EMT called, but her world faded to darkness before the second charge shot through her mother's lifeless body.
~*~*~**~*~**~*~*~*~***~
Loving someone trapped in that no man's land between the living and the dead is a torment far more painful than anything Baal could ever dream up in his torture chamber.
He was stiff. Stiff from the impact of the accident, stiff from the pummeling he'd taken from Ally, stiff from sitting, and stiff from his fear. He sat slumped beside her bed and watched the rise and fall of her chest as the machine forced air in and out of her lungs. He needed to be there beside her. Needed to watch the blood slowly drip into the tube leading into her arm. Needed to watch her blood ooze out and splotch through the surgical dressings to color her hospital gown with bright, red spots. Needed to watch the bruises form and the raw red of the scrapes darken. He needed to hold her hand in his own and feel its warmth and watch the jagged lines on the monitors testify that she was still in there somewhere however small her chances, however frail her hold on life.
There was little else he could do. Janet had assured him and herself that everything was being done for Sam that could be. Her assurance and support were all she had to offer here where she had no authority to practice medicine. She stayed in the room because Jack asked her to, but her presence could do nothing to keep Sam alive.
It would have been easier if Sam was in her infirmary where she could make the calls and use her skill and experience to help her friend. But Sam would never have survived the trip to the base, and although Janet may have seen and treated enough trauma to qualify her to run a trauma unit, she didn't. Sam was better off here where the doctors and nurses were as familiar with accident victims as she was with staff weapon blasts.
Now if Jacob Carter would waltz through the Gate in answer to their call with a Goa'uld healing device in his hand, then Sam would be better off at the SGC. But, it wasn't likely. Not likely at all. The Tok'ra rarely acknowledged any communication from Earth anymore, and none to or about Jacob Carter had been answered for years. The man, she was sure, was dead. He wouldn't be coming to the rescue and none of his associates were likely to either.
She half expected Sam to disappear at any moment in the scattered light of an Asgard transporter beam because she couldn't believe Jack wouldn't have put in the call...now, that would cause quite the commotion in the middle of the ICU. She couldn't imagine a cover story big enough to cover that one, but if it would save Sam--who cared? She watched Jack watching Sam, she watched the nurses doing their work in silent competence, and she watched the solemn faces of people passing in the halls on their own nightmare trek to and from other patients in other rooms. She watched and she waited with a sinking heart and a sick feeling that wouldn't go away.
Daniel, she knew, was prowling the halls and waiting rooms, leaving styrofoam cups of cold, untasted coffee in his wake. Every once in awhile, when he just couldn't help himself any longer, he'd sneak past the hospital staff to stare with haunted eyes into Sam's cubicle. Janet would go out to him and they'd lean together in the hallway for a brief moment. But he couldn't stay and she couldn't leave, so the support they had to offer each other was woefully lacking.
Standing guard over Ally who lay still and pale beside him, Teal'c filled the ICU family waiting room with his brooding bulk and an ever-growing pile of empty, half-cans of Sprite.
Janet had no idea what was going on with Ally, and frankly she didn't have the time or energy to spare in order to find out. She wasn't feverish, seemed to be resting comfortable, and wasn't in any immediate danger...that was all she needed to know for the time being.
In their new apartment with its yet to be completely unpacked boxes, the Shanahans watched over Jacob and Peter, gave subdued updates by telephone to extended family, and prayed. The little boys hadn't received even a scratch in the accident, but car seats were woefully inadequate against the type of pain they were experiencing. Jacob woke up from his nap and in the middle of the night screaming and cried himself to sleep in his grandmother's arms. She rocked him and whispered promises she couldn't keep in his ear. Peter turned his head away from either the bottle or the cup and refused to drink. His grandpa held him on his lap and spoon-fed him ice cream and bits of popcicle and tried not to wonder what changes Sam had made in her will following her marriage to Jack O'Neill.
General Hammond bounced back and forth from the hospital to the SGC, trying to fill in for Jack, but too concerned over Sam to stay behind his old familiar desk and get the job done. He called his daughter just to hear her voice and know she was whole and healthy folding laundry and watching Star Trek reruns with the girls. He decided it was past time for him to seriously consider retirement.
Cassy too drifted in and out of the hospital, wanting to be there but unable to take the unremitting tension in the air for long. She'd prowl the halls with Daniel or flop on the couch across from Teal'c for a time, and then she'd be gone again until her need to be there was once again stronger than her need to escape.
But, of course, in the hospital or out there was no escape for any of them...they were all trapped in a world apart from everyday life. Only Sam could save them. By turning the corner and taking a firmer hold on life or by dying, she would release them.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Ally awoke bruised and sore from her fight to break out of Sir's hold. She was stretched on an unfamiliar couch in an unfamiliar room, and she was motherless.
Teal'c sat at her feet. She knew why he was there. He'd sat on a couch before and let his silence hold her mother together when her world had fallen apart; and now he was there to do the same for her. Her mother was dead, sacrificed on the altar of a tomorrow that might never come.
"Alicia Shanahan," he said in formal greeting when he saw she was awake. With a gentleness that didn't match his size, he helped her to the bathroom. She needed his help. Her limbs were made of jelly and she had no strength at all. She would have crumpled to the floor like a rag doll if he wouldn't have been there to hold her up. After he'd helped her on the toilet, he perched her on the cold, ceramic edge of the sink and washed her face with a cool rag. She stared solemnly at his reflection in the mirror and he grimaced into the mirror at her. "Try to look friendly, Teal'c," Daniel had once told the big man and Sir had frowned at the result, so she recognized his attempt even if she didn't rate if very successful.
Her own face stared back at her with a blankness she didn't feel. Teal'c held a cup of water to her lips and said, "You must drink, Alicia Shanahan. You have slept for over a day." She drank down the water greedily and he filled it for her again. He gave her a satisfied nod of his head and lifted her up to carry her back to the room with the couch.
Daniel met them in the hallway. He peered at Ally through red-rimmed eyes and said to Teal'c, "She's all right then?"
"It appears so," he answered.
Daniel nodded without any of the enthusiasm Ally usually associated with him and turned back the way he had come saying, "I'll get, Jack." Ally would have liked to call him back. She knew he would bring Sir to her, and he was the last person on Earth she ever wanted to see again. But, the wall of silence that had crumbled in that parking lot had been rebuilt while she slept and seemed to be as solid and unmovable as it ever had been.
Teal'c sat her down and said, "Lois Shanahan has brought you nourishment...you should eat." He placed a sandwich in her hand, and she obediently ate...not because she was hungry, but because she needed the energy to face Sir when he came.
"Ally's awake," Daniel said from the doorway of Sam's cubicle in ICU. His feet were solidly planted just shy of the threshold as though by a careful adherence to hospital policy he could ensure the hospital staff would do their best for Sam.
Jack looked up at him dully and saw the same bone-numbing weariness he felt reflected in Daniel's eyes. The news was welcome and long past due, but the relief he had thought it would bring him never materialized. He nodded his head apathetically and met Janet's eyes.
"It's fine, General," she said to his unasked question, "I'll stay with her." He fought through his lassitude to rise stiffly from his place by Carter's side and followed Daniel down the hall.
All those years, which the clock across from Sam's bed had insisted in measuring in hours and minutes, that she'd slept, pale and still as death, he'd feared he'd left it too late. That those brief moments when he'd ignored Carter's pleas had cost her too much and she'd never wake up. That he had sacrificed Carter's daughter in a vain attempt to save her and lost them both. So seeing her sitting up beside Teal'c should have reassured him she was going to be fine, but it didn't.
She looked smaller, younger, and more vulnerable than he had ever seen her. The expression in her pale face was bleak, and he had the impression that if Teal'c wasn't there supporting her she would have been incapable of holding herself up. He thought that would improve with time, that physically she would make a full recovery.
But her eyes told him plainly that inside she would never recover. They had never looked less like Carter's. They gazed at him full of hate and condemnation. They were a mirror into his own soul, and a judgment. He nodded his head in acknowledgment and gave no defense, because he was guilty as charged. In saving her, he had condemned Carter. Somehow, incredibly, Carter might still pull through, but it was no thanks to him...he had made the call to let her die.
As weak as she was, Ally was ready for a battle he was ill-prepared to fight. He sat down on the other side of her and surrendered, "Ally, I'm sorry. I know how you feel and you're absolutely right, but we're not going there right now. I can't be here that long--got to get back. But, I need you to understand something and I never want you to forget it. That healing stuff can take more than you've got to give--you could have killed yourself. I don't want you ever to do that again...not until you know what you're doing...and you didn't, did you?"
Her eyes flickered to Daniel and Teal'c and he knew that was the only response she'd give him in their presence. So be it...he was sure he knew the answer anyway. He continued, "Right, so no more, but listen--thanks."
Thanks. An odd word to use, she thought. Thanks for nothing. What little she'd managed to do had been as good as nothing. It hadn't been enough to make any difference at all against such massive devastation. He hadn't given her enough time. "One day," Carter had whispered to her a long time ago. It had been a promise of things to come, an assurance that one day all the rottenness of her miserable little life would be worth it. But Ally no longer believed in that day...she'd sat at her mother's side and felt all the knowledge she'd struggled so long and hard to understand open up to her. She'd held the means to save her world, but he had held her in his arms and let Carter die. She turned her face from him and stared at the blank TV screen across the room.
"I can't stay, Ally," he told her with a sigh. "I've got to get back to your mom...stay here with Teal'c and Daniel and get better, because when she wakes up I want to be able to tell her you're ok. Otherwise, you know she's going to kill us both," he said with an attempt at a smile that fell even farther from the mark than Teal'c's had. He reached out a hand to rub the top of her head and then thought better of it. He stood up and looked down at her sadly. "I do love you, baby girl...I do," he said. He didn't wait to read the look in her eyes but walked out the door like a man on his way to the death chamber.
Ally stared after him letting his words permeate her being and stir her heart with hope. Dead people didn't wake up...he was telling her Carter was alive. She turned puzzled eyes up to Daniel who was leaning against the window ledge watching her with an expression she couldn't read on his face.
He sighed and said, "I know you're mad, Ally...at Jack and probably Sam, too...that's ok...that's normal enough. You wanted to help and they wouldn't let you. You might not understand why now, but you will ...one day." Ally closed her eyes against his words, because she didn't want to hear what he was saying. It was difficult enough to know Sir had betrayed her trust; she didn't want to accept that Carter had as well. But she knew he was right. It was Carter who had ordered her to stop, Carter who had begged Sir to keep her away from her...he hadn't wanted to, he'd stalled those few precious moments to give her what time he could. But, in the end...as Daniel said 'they' wouldn't let her do what they had made her for. Both of them were guilty.
Daniel continued, "They love you, Ally. Don't hate them for it. They didn't have any choice." Of course, they had had a choice. They'd had the choice of trusting her, believing in her, letting her put the Ancient knowledge to use...that's what they'd had her for, that was her whole reason for being. Renewed anger flared through her like the electricity had charged through her mother's lifeless body, but she had no ground and it had no where to dissipate. It tore itself out of her in an angry, disbelieving snarl that shocked her as much as it did Daniel and Teal'c. In its wake, Daniel shook his head sadly and said, "Don't do it, Ally...you'll destroy yourself. Let it go."
But it wasn't herself she would destroy, and she wasn't about to let it go. She could feel it growing ever stronger in her and that was fine with her. When that one day finally came, they'd both regret its arrival with every fiber of their being. That day her anger would burst from her with such a destructive blast that it would destroy everything and everyone they'd ever fought for.
No, she wouldn't let her hatred go. She would welcome it, and let it grow and blossom into everything Sir feared when he looked at her with doubt in his eyes. And when that one day came, she would be well prepared to use his legacy to destroy their world and their lives.
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Inside the Dragon's Egg
by OffworlderKapitel Bemerkung:
When I started this I did not realize it would be the never-ending story. I should have known that once you begin to gaze into a dragon's egg the possibilities you glimpse are endless and never completely safe. What I saw in the murkiness of this chapter was something I would much rather have never seen...and certainly if I had wanted to draw this little fanfic to a close I should have closed my eyes, put my fingers in my ears, and hummed loudly as they say. But, by the time I saw where it would inevitably end, it was already too late. I was forced to begin a fourth chapter in a desperate attempt at damage control before this one had completely unfolded. I highly recommend only beginning this if you have the time to go on to the next...it's just that sort of a story.Site Navigation
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