The Healing pt 2
The Healing pt 2
by Laura Y
TITLE: The Healing pt 2
AUTHOR: Laura Y
EMAIL: MrdrDoc@hotmail.com
CATEGORY: Series, AU, Angst, Drama
PAIRING: Sam/Jack
SPOILERS: General Tok'ra and Jolinar spoilers.
SEASON / SEQUEL: 4; sequel to "The Healing"
RATING: PG
CONTENT WARNINGS: angst, au, male/female relationship
SUMMARY: SG-1 come back from a strange planet and Sam isn't feeling well.
STATUS: Unfinished
ARCHIVE: Heliopolis
DISCLAIMER: Stargate SG-1 and its characters are the property of Showtime/Viacom, MGM/UA, Double Secret Productions, and Gekko Productions. We have written this story for entertainment purposes only and no money whatsoever has exchanged hands. No copyright infringement is intended. The original characters, situations, and story are the property of the authors. Not to be archived without permission of the authors.
AUTHOR'S NOTES: This is still unfinished, but it is for the SSG, and all the people who sent me feedback on part 1. See, it really helps to nag!
"Sam? The Tok'ra are here." Daniel's voice finally interrupted Carter's spinning thoughts, and she nodded.
"Sam, I'm going to let you go and see them, but you need to come back here again when I have all your test results, all right?" Janet Fraiser held onto Carter's arm until she received a gesture of agreement.
Sam pushed herself off the bed, but stood next to it looking dazed until Daniel touched her shoulder and steered her towards the door. As they left the infirmary with their armed escort, Sam suddenly stopped, and everyone else stopped with her. "Daniel, I need to...I can't go see them right away. I...we need to talk."
"We do?" He looked at her quizzically for a moment before realizing that she wasn't referring to him at all. "Oh."
"Doctor Jackson, the other Tok'ra will understand if we do not come to them immediately." Jolinar paused and Sam grimaced, not noticing Daniel's start and the shocked expressions of the airmen guarding her. "They will wait, they will have no choice. Please, give us a few moments of privacy."
"Look Sam, Jolinar, Hammond is talking to your father, to Jacob, and a couple of other Tok'ra right now. Explaining what he can, I guess. They wanted to see you immediately, but...here, this room is empty, you've got five minutes." Daniel pulled open the nearest door and gestured Carter into the empty storage room. "I'll be right here. With them." He gestured to the guards, one of who was about to protest, but took one look at Sam, shut his mouth and took up a post at the door.
In the empty room, Sam leaned her back against the wall and then slowly slid down to sit on the floor as though she'd lost all strength.
*It didn't even occur to me. Until Janet said it...the thought never crossed my mind.* She rested her head in her hands and sighed.
*Samantha, do not feel guilty. Every host has moments when she wishes to be alone. Even I sometimes wished that...when Lantesh and I were together, both we and our hosts would occasionally have that thought. It is nothing to be ashamed of. And for you, having been forced into this situation, again, against your will...I am sorry.*
Sam shook her head, *No, no. Don't be sorry, it isn't your fault any more than it is mine. We're both victims of circumstance; we'll just have to make the best of it. I've been so confused, but not unhappy, not at all...*
*Samantha, you do not have to explain. I know your thoughts and feelings as you know mine. Now, before we go to meet the others, we must come to a decision.*
Carter shook her head again, and realized that anyone watching her would think that she was...having a conversation with herself? She almost laughed out loud, but then concentrated on what Jolinar had just thought. *A decision. I won't leave here. I can't live with the Tok'ra, I can't abandon my team. But I don't want to lose you now. I didn't understand before, and I am so sorry for that. I do now, but I can't lose my friends, my life here.*
*I know. But I also know that you share my fear of being removed from SG-1, regardless of our wishes. It is unlikely that your government, or even the rest of the people in this facility, will react as positively as Daniel Jackson has. You know that as well as I.*
Sam was surprised at the feeling of sadness that she felt from Jolinar as she thought this. *You don't want to go...? No, you don't want to go back with them. I thought that you would...All right then, what do we do?*
*Without Lantesh and Martouf, I have little to hold me to the Tok'ra society. I will not abandon our ideals, or our mission to fight the Goa'uld, you know that, but having a Tok'ra here could be a great advantage. As Daniel has pointed out, I can help in your fight. You also understand this, but...you have reservations. Your Colonel. Jack O'Neill does not trust the Tok'ra.*
*No, he doesn't. He feels that...well, you'll see soon enough.*
*His feelings concern you more than those of the others.*
*They don't...all right, I know that you know my thoughts and feelings, but lets just stay out of that corner of my brain, OK? There are rules, and we can't...we just can't. And now, I don't think that he'll ever...well, it's a moot point isn't it.* Sam sighed and ran her hands through her hair, leaving it standing up on end. *What's the plan?*
*I can leave you, and take another host. However, I do not know if this will have a negative effect on you. Since you have lost a symbiote once before...and nearly died in the process, it may be very dangerous to you. To both of us.*
*I...*
A knock on the door cut off both their trains of thought, but as Daniel stuck his head in the room, Carter stood up and they came to a fast decision about how they would face the Tok'ra.
"The General is radioing for us Sam, we've gotta go. Did you, and...you...come to any conclusions?"
"Yes. Yes, we did Daniel." Sam smiled, a half smile to herself, which became a full, determined smile as she looked at Daniel. "Let's go, we're ready."
Jack didn't think the briefing room had been this crowded since Senator Kinsey had brought his minions to try to shut the Stargate program down. General Hammond sat in his usual seat, and Teal'c were in his, with Daniel's empty since he was fetching Sam. Where he and Carter would normally had been, however, there sat two representatives from the Tok'ra and three others stood behind them. Two Air Force guards stood just inside the door, and Jack knew that more would arrive with Carter.
Jacob Carter had been about to leave Vorash on a mission when the message went through to the Tok'ra, and after hearing why they were being asked to come to Earth, he'd arranged a substitute. Jack had figured he'd bring one other Tok'ra, but apparently this was a bigger deal than he'd thought. He was glad that Jacob was there, though, Sam would need all the support she could get.
Jack leaned against the back wall and heard the chatter of voices below. Word of Jolinar's resurrection had spread around the base, and below in the control room, Jack could hear a gathering of personnel, hoping to see Carter on her way to the briefing.
All heads in the room turned as the door opened and Daniel walked in. Jacob stood up and went around the table to meet Sam as she followed him, flanked by two more SF's.
"Dad." O'Neill was glad to see the smile on Carter's face as she moved forward to hug her father.
"Sam." Jacob pulled back and studied his daughter's face. He was continually amazed by this wonderful child of his, more so since his blending with Selmak. He hadn't realized what he had until he'd almost died, and even after that, he'd needed the oldest and wisest Tok'ra sharing his head to make him truly appreciate her.
"Major Carter, please have a seat." Hammond gestured to the vacant seat at the end of the table. As Sam moved to sit down, she caught O'Neill's eye and her smile died, remembering what she and Jolinar had "discussed" in the storage room. She pushed those thoughts aside, knowing that she couldn't afford to split her concentration worrying about how the Colonel felt about the present situation. That was something to be dealt with later...when she was alone, and couldn't embarrass herself like she had in the infirmary.
Jack's heart fell as he saw the somber statement on Carter's face when she looked at him. He didn't know why she'd suddenly looked like her cat died, but he knew that it had something to do with him. He remembered her strange reaction to him in the infirmary, but had no idea what had happened since then. She couldn't possibly have decided...no, she wouldn't leave with the Tok'ra. There had to be another way. He wouldn't let her.
O'Neill's attention was pulled back into the room when the woman next to Jacob spoke up. "Jolinar, it really is you. We didn't believe...how is this possible?"
Hammond answered before Sam could say anything. "Colonel, would you care to repeat your version of the events?"
Jack looked at Hammond with a flat stare, and Sam realized that they had likely been saying "We don't know" to the Tok'ra since they had arrived. She smiled when Jack began. "We don't know what happened. As we told you before, we woke up on P3X 4G4, with no memory of anything that had happened, except a bright light. We came home, found out we'd been gone a week, Carter had a headache and here we are. We've been over this, there's nothing else we can tell you."
"Major Carter, is there anything you can add?" The Tok'ra who had spoken before asked.
"No, there isn't." Sam smiled and Jolinar spoke. "Shushan, it is good to see you. Vartan, Haras, Revol, Yaseem. All of you." She nodded at each of them in turn, and the female Tok'ra behind Jacob made a small sound and covered her mouth with her hand.
Jacob glanced at the woman next to him, and bowed his head and relinquished control to Selmak. O'Neill was glad that she and Jacob appeared to be the spokespeople, if all five of them had insisted on talking, it would have gotten confusing pretty fast. Especially since each of them was two people.
"Major Carter, we all believe, your father included, that you should return with us to Vorash. We have people who can more closely study what has occurred."
"Whoa, wait a second. Carter's not going anywhere."
"Colonel, you must realize that we have specialists more suited to this kind of situation..."
"No, I don't realize it. You guys are all as confused as we are, even Jolinar is. Healing dead people is one thing, we've seen that before, but healingreallydead people, well, even the Gould don't do that. Do they?" Jack looked at Teal'c, who shook his head. "Anyway, we have specialists here. And besides, Doc Fraiser probably isn't done with her tests yet."
Shushan, the Tok'ra next to Jacob began to protest. "Major, surely you can see that it would be to your benefit to return with us."
"Actually, we are planning on staying here." Sam looked at Jacob. "Dad, Selmak, you know as well as I do that you won't be able to get anything more than we have. We need to go back to P3X 4G4 if we're going to get any answers."
Jacob nodded and smiled at Sam. "We figured you'd want to stay here, Sam. That's why we brought our experts with us. We hope that Dr. Fraiser will give them access to your test results." He paused and Selmak continued. "Samantha, we wanted to give you the option to return to Vorash with us for another reason. We have a host."
All movement in the room ceased as everyone, Tok'ra and SGC personnel alike, turned to look at Sam. Jack didn't even realize that he had shifted away from the wall, and was now leaning towards her. He hadn't realized how much he wanted her to say yes until she took a deep breath and was interrupted by Janet Fraiser bursting through the door.
She'd obviously heard Selmak's offer, as she looked at him while she addressed the room. "I'm afraid that won't be possible."
"Doctor? What's the problem?"
Fraiser turned to Hammond, and looked as though she wished she were anywhere else. "Sir, I just got the results of Major Carter's MRI. There is something different about the way that she and Jolinar are...blended."
"Janet? What is it?" At Sam's worried question, Fraiser looked at her friend.
"I'm sorry, Sam. There's no other way to interpret the scans. Jolinar is not simply sharing your body with you. She is...you are not two organisms, you are one. Normally on an MRI we can see the symbiote wrapped around the host's brainstem with some interaction between them." She began to explain, but was interrupted.
"Doctor Fraiser. What does this mean?" Shushan asked.
"Sam, Jolinar is virtually invisible on the MRI, she is so integrated into your brainstem. Jolinar is no longer simply a symbiote. She's a part of you. She couldn't leave even if she wanted to."
Later, Daniel would say that he'd never thought the Tok'ra were capable of such emotional outbursts. Dr. Fraiser's announcement had stunned the people in the briefing room to silence, and then everyone had started talking. Except Teal'c, of course, who sat in stunned silence. At least Daniel thought it was stunned silence, it really was hard to tell with Teal'c.
Selmak and Shushan leaned towards each other and spoke quietly. The three Tok'ra standing behind had began to speak amongst themselves. Loudly. General Hammond and Daniel tried to question Janet Fraiser for more information, but she kept repeating that she'd need to do more tests. And then she was busy trying to explain the same thing to the Tok'ra...Haras? Even the SGC guards were whispering to each other.
At the end of the table, sat the subject of all these conversations, seemingly forgotten, until a hand settled on her shoulder and gave it a squeeze.
"Carter? You OK?" O'Neill leaned forward to whisper in her ear, feeling the tension in her shoulder, and wishing he could soothe it away. When she didn't answer him, he squatted down beside her chair and placed his other hand on her knee. "Carter?"
"Colonel?"
"Are you OK, Carter?" Jack was worried by the vacant statement on her face, and was about to ask for a recess when she looked at him and seemed to come back to herself. Even with all the hubbub, he kept forgetting about the damn snake in her head. "How's Jolly taking this?"
Sam's statement was quizzical until he clarified. "Your roomie, your other half..."
"We're...I don't know. This is a little too much to absorb right now." Sam paused for a second. "Did you just call me Jolly?" Her statement was so indignant that Jack almost laughed out loud, and didn't even mind that he was suddenly talking to Jolinar.
"Yeah. Look, I was having a conversation with Carter, do you mind?" He suddenly realized that he still had his hand on her leg, and although it felt like Carter's leg, he started to take it off when her hand came down and held his.
"I'm sorry, sir, she was just..."
"Carter, stop apologizing. It's not your fault." Jack looked up as the noise in the room died down and he realized that everyone was looking at them. Well, looking at Carter, really, he was just in the same line of sight. He moved to stand up, but Sam's hand tightened on his and he shifted so that he faced the crowd, but still held onto her hand under the table. She gave his hand a squeeze and took a deep breath and spoke to the room.
"General, Dad, Janet. You all have to agree now that the most important thing is to go back to P3X 4G4. We can't learn anymore here, and the Tok'ra probably can't tell us much more either." She stopped as she saw that Hammond and Jacob were nodding.
Jack was the next to speak, and realizing that his position hunkered down at Sam's side with his hand on her shoulder was not the most professional, used his best military voice. "General, permission to take SG-1 back to P3X 4G4. ASAP, sir." He noted the strange look Hammond gave him, but he'd rather suffer the looks and the pain in his old knees than have to pull his other hand from Sam's under the table. He was just glad that the decorator of the room hadn't chosen to go with a more modern looking glass topped table.
"You have it, Colonel. You leave at 0800 tomorrow."
"General, I'd prefer to take my team through today."
"I understand your urgency, Colonel, but we haven't been able to reestablish an active wormhole to the planet. It's the same trouble we had when trying to get to you last week. We need Major Carter to work on the dialing computer. Besides, I think that we all need some time to adjust to the most recent developments. Jacob, would you like to send a Tok'ra representative..."
"No!" Everyone looked at Sam in surprise. "Sir, it's not that I don't want them there, but look at what happened to us. I think it might be best not to expose anyone else to that planet for the time being."
"You have a point, Major. Very well then, SG-1 will depart at 0800, take some time to relax and prepare. Jacob, will your people be staying here?"
"No, George, thank you. I'll stay for a while, but the others are needed elsewhere. Dr. Fraiser, if you wouldn't mind providing copies of all your tests for Yaseem to study?" At Janet's nod he continued, "Well, let's just hope that you folks learn something tomorrow."
This seemed to be the collective signal for the Tok'ra to leave, and one of them went off with Janet to the infirmary while the others went to prepare to leave.
Jack moved to stand up, and when he tugged on the hand that was held in Sam's, she looked down, surprised that she still held onto it. She released his hand and looked back up at him. He thought that she was about to say something to him, but instead she smiled, and if he hadn't looked away as he stood up, he'd have seen a slight blush creep up onto her cheeks.
"Jack, if you wouldn't mind, I need to have a little talk with my daughter." Jacob moved up beside them and looked intently at Sam. "The computer can wait, let's go, kid."
Sam hadn't felt this nervous about talking to her father since she'd told him about the Stargate program, and the chance to save his life. Actually, that hadn't even been nervousness, she'd just been so excited, and then frustrated when he wouldn't believe her. It had taken General Hammond's support before he'd really listened to her. Thoughts whirled through her head as they walked through the halls to her office, followed discreetly be two SF's, of course. She remembered all the serious discussions she'd had with Jacob Carter, going back to her mother's death, her decision to enter the Air Force, the day that she turned down his offer to get her into NASA.
And at the back of her mind was the lingering feeling of holding Jack's hand in hers during the briefing. She hadn't realized how much she'd been relying on his mere presence until he'd left her with Jacob, patting her on the back and murmuring, "Hang in there, Carter".
*Samantha, why are you so conflicted?* Jolinar's question broke into her train of thought.
*Can't you tell? What happened to reading my thoughts?*
*Your thoughts are far too confusing for me to understand at the moment. We have not known each other very long, remember.*
Sam sighed, she knew she'd snapped at her symbiote, but she really was nervous. *I'm sorry, I don't really know myself. This should be easy.* She tried to calm down, and order her thoughts. To forget everything that didn't matter, all those discussions from so many years ago. She tried to focus her thoughts on something calming, and ended up thinking about the comforting weight of O'Neill's hand on her shoulder during the briefing, and the feeling of their joined hands on her leg.
Suddenly she sensed Jolinar's amusement, and realized that it had not been her idea at all to focus on those moments. She blushed at the thought that her feelings were so transparent.
*Don't be embarrassed, your feeling are not obvious to everyone. However, trying to hide them from me would be a difficult and useless task.*
Sam sighed again; realizing that Jolinar was right didn't help. *Hey, no one likes a know it all. Jolly.* Sam smiled at the sudden death of her symbiote's amusement.
"Sam, we're here." At Jacob's voice, Sam was dragged out of her thoughts. It was a good thing she'd walked these corridors so many times, she could make the trip in her sleep. She very nearly had.
"Oh dad, I'm sorry." He stopped her with a hand in the air and turned to the airmen guarding them.
"Gentlemen, my daughter and I are going into her office to have a chat, and we'd like some privacy." As one of the young soldiers opened his mouth to speak, General Jacob Carter, USAF (ret) simply lifted an eyebrow, and they both saluted and took positions at the door.
As he shut the door behind him, he smiled. "It's good to know that these kids are still afraid of me. I'd say it was Selmak, but I don't think that aliens are as intimidating as a three star General around these parts, even if I am officially retired."
Sam laughed, and felt her anxiety drop away. "One of these days, dad, one of those kids is going to stand up to you." He just looked at her and raised the eyebrow again. "Not any time soon, though." She added with a grin.
"Sam, if you expect to get anywhere in the Air Force, that's one thing that you have to know. You need a good intimidating look. It gets more done in a few seconds than a ream of requests on paper."
"Well, when I have those three stars on my shoulder, I'm sure there'll be more behind any look I give." She trailed off, wondering if she was even going to get the chance to become a Colonel, much less a General.
"Ah, it's time, is it?" Jacob sat down next to Sam's desk, where she had dropped into her chair. "Do you want my advice or Selmak's?"
"Both?" Sam laughed weakly. "I don't know what's going on, Dad. I don't know how to deal with this."
"Well, it wasn't in the Air Force training manual, that's for sure, but you've got a few people who can help you out. We're here, and we'll stick around for a while. You've got someone even closer, too."
"Are you kidding? She's just as confused as the rest of us. Not only has she just come back from the dead, she's just found out that she is permanently stuck with me." Carter rested her head in her hands, and silently apologized to Jolinar.
"And you're permanently stuck with her. Jolinar can help you deal with the blending, and being a Tok'ra. But I wasn't talking about Jolinar, Sam."
Her shoulders shook, and for a second Jacob thought his strong, stoic daughter was crying, but when she lifted her head, he realized that she was laughing.
"God, dad, that's even worse. The Colonel is having as much trouble with this as I am. You know how he feels about the Tok'ra. The only thing that's keeping him from running away at the speed of light is that he thinks that I need him."
"And you do." Sam didn't even consider what she was saying, she just needed to say it to someone, and she couldn't tell anyone else on the base.
"I do...I don't want to. But I know that as soon as I stop, he'll have to face what's happened, and he'll find a way to back off. I don't know if I can deal with that, on top of everything else." As she spoke the words out loud, she felt Jolinar understand why she'd been so agitated. "More than anything else, I don't want to lose his friendship. I can't lose it. He keeps me going on bad days, and he makes good days great. He's kept me going through this. I think losing him would kill me, dad."
"Kid, you're lucky that I'm not part of the Air Force any longer. Talking about your CO this way could get you into trouble." He smiled to show that he wasn't serious, and Sam smiled back.
"Give me a break, General. I haven't said anything incriminating. But Colonel O'Neill isn't just my CO." She paused just long enough for the eyebrow to go up, and then said, "He's my best friend. You know the four of us, we're like family. Hell, he calls you 'dad'."
Jacob grinned. He knew she was joking to take the edge off the truth, and he sighed internally. He really couldn't admit that he hadn't hoped for something between Jack O'Neill and his daughter, but he knew as well as the next retired General that there were times that what a person wanted wasn't in the cards.
"Sam, I know how you feel about him. And I can see how strongly he feels about you." He put up his hand to stop her from protesting, and she kept quiet, heeding both her father and the wise voice in her head. "As your father, I'm split between running him off and welcoming him to the family. I know that you can't do anything about your situation right now, but I think that you're underestimating Jack O'Neill, honey. He may have some adjusting to do, but so do you. Don't count him out yet. He's a good man, otherwise I wouldn't like him so much, and I certainly wouldn't let him around my only daughter."
"Thanks dad. I think I needed to hear that out loud. The Colonel, Daniel and Teal'c have been my family for several years now, and I don't want this to affect us, but I know that it will."
"It'll take time, kid, for all of you. Selmak agrees, by the way, about Jack."
"Now that's something you can help me with. How do you do that?" She could see that he didn't know what she was asking, and explained. "How do you not react to her? What she says, how she feels."
Jacob laughed, "That's another thing that will take time, Sam. I figured out early on that that's the reason the Tok'ra are such a solemn bunch. You have to maintain an outer faade, or you look like you're ready for the loony bin. Even the other Tok'ra think that you're a little off." He smiled at her skeptical look. "Really, we're all laughing on the inside." She grinned at that.
"The other option is to ignore the voice in your head." He sighed then. "Although, sometimes it's a little harder to ignore than usual. Selmak is getting impatient. She'd like to speak to Jolinar for a while."
After their symbiotes had discussed what had happened, what would happen and developed new Tok'ra protocols for this unique situation, Sam and Jacob headed down to the control room.
Sam took her usual seat, and got ready to solve the problem. "So, what have we got?"
From his position behind the chairs, General Hammond answered. "We have no idea, Major. We haven't been able to dial the planet and maintain a wormhole for more than a few seconds since the first and only successful attempt. It is almost as if they have us locked out from the other side. We hoped you'd be able to figure a way to keep it open long enough for us to send you through."
"What about going through the Gate as soon as it's activated? A few seconds of active wormhole would allow at least four travelers to enter it."
"Unfortunately, Major, you wouldn't arrive in one piece on the other side. There is something that's preventing the matter from reintegrating. We tried sending a UAV through when you didn't check in."
"An iris, sir?"
"We haven't been able to determine what it is. We can send a communications transmission though, we attempted to reach you over the radio for a while, and in fact that appears to hold the wormhole open for a few extra seconds..." Hammond broke off as Sam began to type rapidly. "Major?"
"We need to send a particular frequency through, sir. A signal, like our GDOs produce."
"There must be thousands of frequencies. How will you guess what the signal is?" Jacob asked from Hammond's side.
"Millions, actually." Sam corrected as she looked up from the monitor, and hit the Enter key. "But we don't have to guess. I...we know what it is."
"Excuse me, Major?"
"Sir, I can't explain it. I think that I was given the signal. Jolinar and I both knew exactly what it was as soon as you mentioned communications." The two officers and their Tok'ra guest watched as the Gate leaped to life, and Sam held her breath as they all silently counted off the seconds and the wormhole was maintained. They sent a small probe through, not a large and expensive MALP in case it was destroyed on the other side, and it materialized on the other side, sending back video and telemetry.
"Well, Major, it appears that you've done it. Get some rest, you leave early tomorrow. Jacob, will you join me for a drink in my office?"
Jacob clapped Sam on the shoulder as her turned to follow his old friend. "Good work, kid. See you in the morning."
Sam smiled at her father and turned to the tech who was monitoring the computer. "Shut it down." She then programmed the dialing computer to send the code automatically when they dialed P3X 4G4 in the morning.
As she finished, she stretched, and silently agreed with Jolinar, who was suggesting that she go rest in her quarters for the few hours she had before returning to the planet where so much had changed.
The next morning, Carter entered the embarkation room, geared up and ready to leave almost an hour early. She was surprised to see Colonel O'Neill waiting for her, also ready to leave. She and Jolinar had bet on whether he'd be there before her, and she owed her symbiote...something. What did the Tok'ra bet for anyhow? Body time? Sam felt Jolinar laugh at that, and would have been even more surprised to know that her face remained expressionless through the exchange.
When O'Neill pushed himself away from the wall he was supporting and approached her warily, she smiled.
"How're you doing, Carter?"
"I'm fine, sir, thanks."
"You look good."
"Sir?"
"Rested, I mean. You look like you had a good rest last night, Major." Jack stopped himself before he started stammering like an idiot. He was relieved when Carter gave him a questioning look and nodded, turning away to check that she had everything in her pack. She froze at his next words, and was glad that she had her back to him, and he couldn't see her face.
"I had a chat with dad last night." He broke off, wondering what had possessed him to bring that up. It had been one of the most uncomfortable discussions of his life. No, not a discussion, a lecture.
He'd meant to go see Carter last night, after she'd fixed the computer (what couldn't the woman fix?), but he'd run into Jacob coming out of Hammond's office, and been firmly propelled into a room to talk. He hadn't done much talking, though. He'd listened to the concerned father speech a few times in his life, but not recently, and he'd never before been so worried whether the end was going to be the pat on the back or the knife in the heart.
He still wasn't sure what had happened, but as far as he remembered, Jacob had warned him off. Not away from Sam, but away from abandoning her in this her 'hour of need', or some such clich. He'd gone on to say that he'd spoken with Sam, although he wouldn't say about what, and that he understood. Jack didn't know if Jacob had been referring to what he thought he was referring to, but it didn't seem to matter. Jacob, and Selmak too apparently, felt that his confused and muttered agreement was enough.
"Sir? My father?" Carter asked without turning to face him.
"You know any other guys around here I call dad?"
"What did you talk about?" She faced him, with her statement under control once more.
"Oh, nothing. You know, old soldier things. Things we old soldiers talk about. You know." O'Neill made a vague waving gesture with his hand. All he knew was that he'd be puzzling over that conversation for a long time, not realizing that had been precisely what Jacob had intended.
"Yes, sir." He was surprised that she seemed to accept that explanation, but didn't want to question her, since that would just dig him deeper into the hole he'd begun. Slightly uncomfortable, but not willing to look away, Carter and O'Neill looked into each other's eyes, and time seemed to slow down. Jack, thinking about how he'd gone and walked past Sam's quarters a few times last night until the SF at her door had given him an odd look. Sam, thinking about what her father had said the night before, and lying on her bed wishing that the Colonel would check in on her. They stared at each other until the unmistakable sound of Daniel approaching broke their eye contact.
Right behind Daniel was Teal'c, and Jacob Carter and General Hammond followed shortly. Hammond looked at the assembled group, and felt the familiar dual sensation of pride and fear that came whenever he was about to send his best, and favourite he admitted to himself, team into the unknown.
"Well, since you're all here and ready to go, we'll move the mission up a little. He turned to look up into the control room. "Sergeant, dial P3X 4G4, please." At the Sergeant's nod he turned back to SG-1. "Good luck to you all, I hope you find the answers that you need. We'll keep a candle in the window, but try to make it home on schedule this time."
Jacob smiled at the four team members and friends, and patted Sam on the arm. "Good luck, kid. All of you. Try not to get your team killed again, OK Jack?"
O'Neill shot Jacob a half grin and tilted his head. "I'll do my best, dad." As the wormhole engaged and the code signal was sent through, he took a deep breath. "Let's move out folks."
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