"You must help me," he tells Colonel Carter.
"No. I have to get you back." She clasps a bandage to his head with one hand and searches his body for further wounds with the other. She is careful, he thinks, not to touch his son.
It was snowing then, Teal'c remembers, snowflakes sparkling in campfire flames, and Daniel Jackson did not believe him. Human understanding of the workings of the mind is facile, immature.
"Samantha." Breathing is difficult. Teal'c senses that she has gone still. "Look at this place. Look at me."
"I know, Teal'c." Both hands tight to his leg now, her knee a gentle pressure against his ribs.
Thousands, tens of thousands, of dead Jaffa, in every direction: the dream that was within his grasp now crushed, and his son in his arms. "There is no honor here," he says.
"There's honor in surviving. God, Teal'c, don't do this." She barks out an order, telling the medics to hurry. He does not immediately realize that she has engaged her radio.
Then another voice: Daniel Jackson, shouting, distorted by the receiver. "We're coming, Sam. We'll be there in ten minutes." Colonel Carter does not respond.
And now the battlefield is silent, as all battlefields eventually are, except for the swish of cloth in her uniform. Teal'c can smell the cotton, the nylon, fear. His head is mired in mud and his neck immobile. "You swore to assist me, Samantha."
"I didn't know! Not like this, please."
It was snowing then, and they sat before a fire. He remembers other things, too, now, earlier things: his own prim'ta. A dead slave, the first by Teal'c's hand. The birth of his son. His father's corpse.
Teal'c's arm sticks to Ry'ac's. Firelight warms his skin. "For my father, Samantha," he says.
***
"Carter!"
"Jesus, Jack, keep it down."
"Shut up, Daniel." Jack leans on the doorbell again. It smells like he's been living in that dress uniform for days, but that can't be right. "Carter!"
Daniel shivers on Sam's front steps. He hadn't thought to put on anything heavier than a t-shirt when Jack dragged him out of bed. All the windows are lit and the TV blares through the locked door.
Then Sam appears, and the television gets louder as light washes over them. "I should have known you'd show up," she says to Jack.
He shoulders past her. Jack's never dealt well with grief. "Yes, you probably should have."
"Not my fault," Daniel says as he slips by. "I have no idea what's going on." He falls back against the door, his head still filled with Sha're, with the day Sha're died, as it has been for hours.
"She knows." Jack jerks a hand at Sam. "Teal'c's dead, Daniel."
"No fucking kidding, Jack." Daniel's been back on earth for five hours, and he's called Jack twelve times. His only response was Jack thudding into his house, fresh off the plane. At least Sam had picked up to tell Daniel she didn't want company. In the morning, Daniel, she said. I'll come over first thing in the morning.
"Are you cold, Daniel?" Sam asks. "I can get you a blanket." Her hair is wet. She swallows as if she feels ill, and Daniel doesn't blame her.
"He doesn't need a blanket, Carter. You didn't tell him, did you?"
"Tell me what?" Daniel wanders into the dining room and sits down, sure they'll get to the point eventually. He tries not to breathe too deeply. He's sure his skin still reeks of Jaffa civil war.
"I only told Landry," Sam says. "Come on, let's go sit on the couch." But neither of them moves.
"Can't imagine why you wanted to keep it a secret."
"I tried to call you!"
"So did I," Daniel calls out.
"I was on the damn plane!"
Sam's got some stupid talk show on the TV, and it's loud. Daniel scratches his ear. "Would you two at least come in here where I can see you?"
"I'm sorry, Daniel." Sam takes up position by his chair, wiping one hand on her pajama pants. Her feet are bare. Daniel thinks they must be cold.
Jack props himself up against the molding, arms crossed, trying for nonchalance. He looms over her from four feet away. "What the hell were you thinking?"
"I had no choice," Sam says. She pitches her voice low, the way Teal'c did sometimes to get Jack's attention. "Do you think I wanted --"
"There's always a choice! I don't care how much of that stupid Jaffa bullshit he fed you."
"Teal'c cared. It mattered to Teal'c."
Sha're just folded onto the floor, Daniel remembers. She didn't even look dead.
"I don't care! You know you can't listen to him when he gets like that!"
Sam wipes her hand on her pants again. The rest of her is still, like she's holding herself in. "You weren't there," she says. Daniel senses an echo of You should have been, but he's not sure if he put it there, or Sam.
"What happened, Sam?" Something knocks at Daniel's consciousness, something he can't quite reach, and he sees Sha're's last moments again instead.
"You saw him," Sam says to Daniel, but she's not looking at at his face. She's looking in front of him, at a corner of the table. "You know."
"The medics were five minutes away, Carter!"
More like twenty, Daniel thinks. He and Cameron had gotten there first, when Sam was still leaning over Teal'c, her hands doused with blood. I'm sorry, she said. Teal'c's legs were shredded; a blast had taken off his hair and his ear. His body was warm. Ry'ac's wasn't.
"He didn't want medics." Sam keeps getting quieter as Jack gets louder. She's got goosebumps, Daniel notices.
"It wasn't up to him! You should have --"
"You weren't there," she says again. "Ry'ac had been dead for hours and Teal'c wouldn't --"
"We're not talking about Ry'ac." Jack's voice booms off the walls. Daniel jumps. Sam doesn't, but something in her eyes shifts. "You can't just --"
"Are you sure it's not about Ry'ac?" Her head tilts to the right and Daniel has a feeling she can see right through Jack, to the picture of her parents behind him. Her words hang somewhere by the ceiling and Daniel thinks, Oh, no.
"Don't you dare," Jack says, looming closer. "Don't you dare. What, like you'd have pulled the trigger for me?"
"Oh my god," Daniel says. He flattens his palms on the table for balance. He sees Sha're, then Teal'c by a long-ago fire, then Jack and Sam again.
Sam's fingers clench and unclench. "If you'd had half a face and a nearly dead symbiote, I might have."
"Oh my god." Daniel can't breathe. He's afraid he might throw up. Of course, he thinks. Of course that's what happened, and something inside him understood all along. "Oh, Sam, you didn't."
Sam turns to him sharply, but Daniel can't really see her anymore.
"Yes, Daniel, she's Dr. fucking Kevorkian. About time you joined us in the present tense."
"Oh, that's nice," Sam says.
"Fuck off, Jack. Sam -- oh, Sam."
"It's true!"
"Jack, stop," Daniel says, and is surprised when Jack actually does.
"He begged," Sam says. She's shivering. "He begged me to, Daniel."
"I thought it was a nightmare," Daniel says. The room is too small, Sam too tight, Jack too close. "I thought he just felt guilty about Sho'nac."
"Daniel?"
"At least try to make sense, Daniel."
Daniel looks up, thinking, How? How could he? "He knew, Sam. He knew it would be you. That's why he asked you to sign his living will." He didn't ask Daniel or Jack.
"Yeah, well, I don't think those are binding in space." But Jack's quieter now, too.
"What are you talking about, Daniel?" Sam touches his shoulder and Daniel jumps again.
He shakes his head. "Teal'c saw it, years ago. He told me." Oh, Sam. "You were both asleep. We had to wake you up when the snow started."
Daniel sees Sam trying to catch the memory, but he remembers it as if it were taking place right in front of him. Like when Sha're died.
"That's nuts," Jack says, but Daniel knows he already believes it.
"I thought it was a dream." Yes, a dream. Daniel spewed pop psychology, and Teal'c was hurt. Our stories are often generational, Teal'c said. "Oh, Sam. He made it impossible for you to say no."
Jack looks back and forth between them, but Sam's gaze is locked on Daniel. He meets it. "You crushed his symbiote, didn't you? So he could die like his father."
She sucks in air, like she's suffocating. "He begged me, Daniel."
He grabs for her hand, though he doesn't want to.
***
Teal'c opened his eyes sharply. The images from kel-no-reem assaulted him in the dark. He knew he would not meditate again this night.
Daniel Jackson appeared lost in thought, by the campfire. He started when Teal'c stepped closer. O'Neill and Major Carter were not far off, close to each other for warmth, their heads buried in their sleeping bags. It had grown much colder. They would need to move into the tent soon.
"I have seen the day of my death, Daniel Jackson," Teal'c said.
It started to snow.
Thanks for reading!