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Reciprocal Regard
by Fig Newton
Story Bemerkung:
Written for ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/community.gif){kind=small}
jacksamfriends. Thank you, Aurora Novarum, for the beta!
Includes spoilers for all ten seasons, plus SGA S4. If you prefer comprehensive warnings, please see the end notes for additional information.
Ignorance really could be bliss, Jack decided. He wished he still didn't remember.
Involuntarily, his hand ghosted over his stomach. No sign of the gaping crosshatch that had been there yesterday. The skin there was intact, unmarked.
If Carter and Fraiser - and Teal'c, too - hadn't pulled him out of that snake tank...
Steps sounded behind him. Still tangled in memory, adrenaline spiking, he whirled.
"Sir?"
Carter. Jack breathed out, relaxing.
"I'm fine, Captain," he said with complete honesty, and added, "Thanks for watching my back."
"Any time, sir."
Jack shuddered. "I hope not."
She straightened a little. "Sir. Any time."
*
Her first mission since... it happened. Unprepared for the confused welter of ghostly memories triggered by stepping through the Stargate, she stumbled and nearly fell, breathing in gasps, heart thundering.
A strong grip caught her under the elbow.
"All right, Carter?"
Sam swallowed and slowed her breathing. She sensed Daniel hovering anxiously, but his kindness would break her now. She needed the colonel: brisk, professional, levelheaded.
"Yes, sir," she managed, surprised to find that she meant it.
"I've got your six," he said calmly, and she took his words as the comfort they were meant to be. "Let's move out."
*
"Do you know how hard it was to pretend we didn't know?" she demanded.
She'd left out the sir, Jack noted glumly.
"You all realized...?"
"No one liked the deception." Her eyes flicked in Daniel's direction, and Jack tried not to cringe. "But we had to maintain the charade for Makepeace's sake." She paused. "Did the general know he was guilty when he assigned him to SG-1?"
"No!"
"At least there's that," she muttered.
"Carter..."
"Sir," she interrupted. "We were watching your back for you. Next time, trust us to do it."
"I always have," he promised. "I always will."
*
Air. Warmth. Simple basics he'd never truly appreciated before.
The comfort of friendship, too. He and Teal'c had affirmed their trust, made their goodbyes. That had meant a lot. But despite Teal'c's reassuring voice in his ear, he'd felt very alone in that cockpit. Now Daniel bumped shoulders with him, and Carter was checking him for frostbite.
"We're both fine," he reassured her with a weary smile. "You got us in time."
She blinked rapidly. "Thanks for trusting me out there, sir."
He gave her a weary smile. "I knew you had our backs," he said simply. "Good work, Major."
*
This was the kind of irony Sam could do without.
Before, she'd been the helpless one. The colonel burst into that room of horror just in time to stop a lethal injection. "Very dramatic," she'd tried to joke.
Now, she barked instructions into the radio, telling Daniel and Teal'c that the colonel had been shot.
"Hang in there, sir," she said urgently.
"Deja vu," he grumped, wincing in pain. "Carter, didn't we just do this a few minutes ago?"
She gave his uninjured shoulder a pat of reassurance. "You save me. I save you. It's all part of the service."
*
Jack's dress uniform had never felt dirty before. But after shaking hands with Kinsey, he almost wished he was still wearing orange prison pajamas.
Carter was waiting for him when he arrived back at the SGC, her tired face lightening with a smile of welcome.
"Good to have you back, sir. I'm sorry it took us so long to find the proof."
"I knew you'd get me out, Carter." His voice was weary. "I just wish Kinsey hadn't been part of the bargain."
"We took him down before, sir," she said staunchly. "One of these days, we'll get him again."
*
She'd never been in the zone like that before. Pushing herself past exhaustion, focused on nothing but survival. Running, plotting, staying alive.
When the drone survived a missile at point-blank range, she'd known she was going to die.
But she didn't. Her team got there just in time.
Now Sam slumped, too drained and numb to move. The zone still sucked at her, unwilling to let go.
The colonel put an arm around her shoulder, and she leaned gratefully into another human being. She needed to be grounded again.
"Take your time," he murmured.
"Yes, sir," she sighed. "Thank you."
*
Jack hated watching his kids walk through the Gate without him.
But he was the general. He couldn't just jam a baseball cap on his head and stroll up the ramp.
Carter - a lieutenant colonel now - looked up in time to catch his expression before he could get his face to behave.
She tossed him a salute. "You've got our backs, sir," she called. "We'll be just fine."
Her self-confidence was reassuring. He'd trained them all for years; he could rely on them to stay alive.
"I trust you to keep yourselves safe," he answered. "Good luck, SG-1."
*
"Head of Homeworld Security is a pretty title, but I'm too far away from the Stargate to handle real problems."
"Mitchell is good," she said mildly.
"Yes, he is. But he doesn't know how to handle Daniel or Teal'c."
"Or Vala Mal Doran?" she suggested.
"Yeah. That too. She's nearly gotten Daniel killed too many times, and this Ori thing..." He gripped the phone cord a little more tightly.
"I'll go to the SGC," she said immediately. "I'll leave today."
"You've done good work at Area 51..."
"You need me elsewhere now."
"Thanks, Carter. I knew I could count on you."
*
Sam had never felt more grateful for General O'Neill's presence. Cool, forceful, commanding, he faced down Woolsey and the IOA when they argued for Daniel's death.
She respected Landry, certainly. Mitchell was a friend and a good leader. But Jack O'Neill had been part of her life - of Daniel's and Teal'c's life - for ten years now, and she knew she could always count on him.
They gambled the universe against their faith in a friend and stared down the Orici.
Ultimate victory or temporary defeat? Either way, it was a comfort to have him there with them, watching their backs.
*
He'd encouraged her to take command of Atlantis. Intergalactic lags didn't slow their frequent communications.
Now, unceremoniously stripped of her command, she walked stiffly out of the Gateroom on Earth and found herself faced with her former CO.
"Sir," she acknowledged numbly. He looked so angry. With her, or on her behalf?
"You and I have a date on the firing range," he snapped. "I've got special targets with Woolsey's face on them."
She swallowed. Blinked.
"Bet you'll get top scores, too," he added.
Sam couldn't help the reluctant smile twitching at her mouth. "Sounds good, sir."
In fact, perfect.
*
Despite going public almost two decades before, there were no screaming headlines about the death of the hero of the SGC at the age of eighty-six. He'd fallen asleep on his deck chair, fishing rod in hand, and never awakened.
He would've approved, Sam decided.
Throat aching, she rested a hand on the coffin, glad for a brief moment of solitude.
"Clear skies," she whispered. "Don't worry." She blinked the tears away. "We'll take care of things."
A bird screamed somewhere high above her, the cry whipped away by the wind.
"We'll watch Earth for you, Jack. Rest now."
Kapitel Abschlussbemerkung:
This fic includes the natural death of a major character at the end of a long life.Site Navigation
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