Several hours later in
the low light of what passed for a bedroom in the eyes of the Asgard,
Jack O'Neill startled awake. From habit he controlled what would have
been enough movement to wake the woman that slept beside him. Her face
buried next to his shoulder, her arm possessively positioned across his
collarbones. Sam's fingers curled around his other shoulder; as if
afraid he would slip away while she slept. Or that she might awaken
alone, with no idea as to his whereabouts.
Jack could certainly
relate to that, and given what they'd both been through, it was an
understandable as well as predictable response. Given his history of
Iraq, and a whole slew of other captors he'd had the misfortune to meet
up with, he'd have a similar need to keep her close for the foreseeable
future . . . go figure.
He allowed himself the
pleasure of recognizing the sensation of a warm breast against his chest
as it pinned his arm down. Just a second of self-indulgence before he
swiped a hand at his face to smear away the tears he had awakened
with.
Jack wondered how he could
cry. Then again, maybe he should. But what were the tears for? Jackie
- a child he had neither wanted nor gotten close to - or Sam, for what
she'd been through and her sorrow over losing a child that could have
been - and in her eyes - was theirs.
Jack and Sam had followed
Ernie to the room he described as a bedroom. A round, low platform stood
in the exact center of the perfect square of the room. It was
utilitarian light gray, with a texture that said cloth, but acted more
like stiff gel, the same material served as a continuous bench against
the darker gray-blue most Asgard ships appeared to be colored. Both bed
and bench were almost high enough to be at a comfortable sitting
height.
Opposite the entrance
that had scissored like crossed bird's wings into the wall, was an
identical entrance - the bathroom - and the only almost normal human
accommodation Jack had ever seen in as Asgard vessel. He saw what
appeared to be actual earth-normal chromed showerheads, faucets and
matching drains set into the wall and floor.
"Towels?" Inquired Sam.
Her query seemed to be
the only encouragement Ernie needed as he demonstrated a gadget that had
her smiling. Warm air - and a warmer beam of light - was used to suck
away all the moisture as if it had never been there, according to their
Asgard bellhop.
"Sweet, like a big
honkin' dryer for humans," had been Jack's dry comment which caused
Carter to giggle and Ernie to bounce with even more enthusiasm.
Jack recalled their
mutual haste to eject Ernie from the haven assigned to them. As soon as
the door shut on the little gray alien they had both shed clothes in a
dead . . . ah, fast walk to the showers.
The water was hot - as
was their shared intimacy. Their joining both fast and frenzied, over
faster than their minds could comprehend what had they had done. Jack
could tell that for all the urge to do the deed, it had left an
unpalatable taste in both of their mouths - just a mindless knee-jerk
reflex to prove they both still lived - the act of survivors.
Sam and Jack had both
stumbled over apologies, horrified at cheapening something they had
always found so precious. Sam's renewed tears and Jack's sudden
inability to stand landed them both in the alien bed. For long hours
they had held one another as each told the tale as they knew it. Jack's
memory was nearly complete, but Sam filled in those rough spots and
painted those he would never have known.
Jack had held Sam as she
cried for the child that should never have been. Slow tears of his own
slowly slid down his cheeks to fall upon her naked back. She clung and
shuddered against him, eventually falling silent as the slow rhythms of
sleep claimed her.
Jack debated whether he
should take the chance of sliding out of bed and possibly disturb Sam,
or if he should stay where he was with the hope that he might catch up
on some badly needed sleep. He stretched cautiously and Sam squirmed a
little, but her fingers did not loosen her grip on his shoulder.
"Stay it is," he muttered
to himself as he tried to relax his still tense body.
Air from an unseen
ceiling vent caressed his nude body and ruffled the hairs on his bare
arms and legs. It wasn't painful, but just enough of a distraction to
turn his attention to less stressful topics. Put in simpler terms, it
bugged the heck out of him.
Glad of the diversion, he
resolved to tell Ernie that they needed a blanket, or at least a sheet.
It wasn't that they were cold, thanks to Asgard technology, the room
temperature was nearly perfect, but he wanted the privacy - both for
himself and Sam too.
A soft sigh turned his
attention back to the woman at his side. Her blue eyes looked at him and
a frown creased her face. "Is everything all right?"
"Yeah, I guess so. Was
just thinking, that's all," he shrugged, suddenly aware of her fingers
against his skin.
Sam traced his collarbone
with her fingertips as she propped herself up with the other elbow. "Now
that's a scary thought," she grinned impishly.
"Ain't it though?" He
smirked and reached out to brush back her hair. She leaned into his
touch and his eyes smoldered, dark with desire and want of her. His hand
came to rest on the back her neck and drew her to him until they laid
face to face, his arm held her against his firm body. He nuzzled her
neck and she shivered with anticipation.
Jack suddenly broke off
his attack of her skin to look up and his eyes searched the room with
suspicion. Surprised, Sam looked at him with a question on her lips. He
shook his head and placed his fingers against her mouth to silence
anything she might say.
"Ernie?" His voice boomed
into the otherwise silent room. "If you think you can do the peeping tom
bit on us, you've got another think coming." He paused and listened, but
heard nothing but the beating of his heart and Sam's stifled breaths.
Her hand covered her mouth as she smothered a nervous giggle.
"Ernie, I mean it. Stay
the heck away from us, or I swear, I'll kick your skinny gray ass all
the way back to the Asgard High Council . . . by way of Thor."
"You wouldn't." The words
appeared to come from the ceiling and Jack's eyes searched for a
loudspeaker but could find none. Since neither of them had said those
words, they knew the only other person . . . entity . . . whatever . . .
who had.
Jack looked at Sam who
blushed bright red and tried to fig-leaf various parts of her body with
her hands . . . unsuccessfully - very unsuccessfully. Jack was
momentarily distracted by the unusual effect of her embarrassment on
certain parts of her anatomy that were usually covered by clothing.
Who'd have thought that . . .
"Uh humm!" Sam cleared
her throat and glared daggers at him - Jack jerked his attention away
from Sam's spectacular body and back to the problem with Ernie - with a
whole lot of regret. There was no doubt about it, Ernie was gonna pay
for this interruption, he vowed silently to himself.
Jack smirked and mouthed, "Watch this," and pointed upwards.
"Wanna bet?" Jack quirked
one eyebrow upwards as he spoke to the air in a loud voice.
From the abnormally loud
electronic click - one that Jack knew Ernie had to deliberately cause -
he deduced that Ernie had decided a little voyeurism wasn't worth a
reprimand from the High Council - and Thor - and had left them alone -
for now.
Jack grinned and reached
out to Sam, his hand caressing her shoulder. "Now where were we?"
***
Sam let the hot water hit
her upturned face. She opened her mouth, let the water fill it, swished
it around, and then bent over and spat it onto the wet floor by the
drain. She braced herself with both palms flat on the burnished wall in
front of her and let the water knead the tense muscles in her neck and
upper back.
Mesmerized, she watched
cross-eyed as droplets formed on the end of her nose and then lost the
battle against surface tension and surrendered to the law of gravity and
plummeted to splat against the floor. Physics at work in the real world,
she mused. If only her real-life relationships were as easily explained
and managed.
She spat onto the floor
and watched enthralled as the minute bubbles swirled down the drain by
the spattering water from the showerhead. She rotated her head to loosen
the neck muscles that refused to relax and groaned. The shower wasn't
working - nothing was working.
Frustrated, she hit the
wall with her palm. No matter what she did, she still felt empty inside,
as if a crater had been carved inside her heart that wanted filling -
but with what?
"Jackie," she murmured
and damned herself for caving in. She'd vowed that she'd cried enough,
she had no more tears to shed for the child. But no matter what she told
herself, no matter how much she cried; there seemed to be no end to the
tears and her sorrow.
As if that thought alone
were enough to weaken the already fragile bulwark she'd built to prevent
any more tears from escaping, she sobbed and then bit her lip. The last
thing she wanted to do was to wake up Jack. He needed his rest, and if
he thought for a minute that she was bawling her eyes out in the shower,
he'd want to find a way to comfort her. And for once, she didn't think
he could. No one could. This was something she had to work out for
herself.
She stood as another sob
threatened to break past her barrier of clenched teeth. Then she turned
and slid down the wall and sat on the wet floor, arms wrapped around her
torso, totally unmindful of the water that beat upon her face and
breasts. Her own tears mingled with that from the shower as her chest
heaved with the sobs that wracked her naked glistening body.
Sam bit her lip and
forced her attention to other things, something that would extricate her
mind from the morass of sadness that threatened to suck her down into
its chaos where she would drown.
Jack . . . Yes, he was a safe subject - much safer.
Once he had gotten rid of
Ernie's attempt to eavesdrop, their love had been more to her liking,
and from the smile of contentment on his face, more to Jack's also. She
preferred not to dwell on their first attempt and shuddered at the sheer
animalistic instinct that had driven their desires.
No, better to remember
their most recent passionate embrace as they'd made love with such
tenderness; each one yearned to satisfy the other. Their love made all
others in her experience pale by comparison.
While it was true that
she hadn't had much experience in that department - given her penchant
to put her work and career over relationships - and the fact that most
of her boyfriends ended up dead or were control freaks, the tenderness
they showed for one another took her breath away.
The quality of their
relationship even made Sam wonder if those romance stories she abhorred
might have a grain of truth to them. But if anyone ever accused her of
liking those bodice-rippers, she'd call them a liar. And be able to
prove it with one of her mathematical formulas too.
She giggled at the
absurdity of her thoughts and then noticed something important. At some
point, the tears had stopped and the only water in her eyes was the
result of the shower that continued to pummel her head and torso.
Sam pushed herself to her
feet and turned off the water. Then she stood in the indicated location
- arms extended - and let the warm air and soft light dry her. She could
get used to this sort of thing. But then again, maybe she could rig one
for her own use on Earth? It shouldn't be that difficult to do - and if
she could build her own nacquadah reactor, then this would be a cinch.
And it would be a surefire hit in the locker room at the SGC. She bet
that even the Marines would love it, though they wouldn't admit to such
a thing in public.
With an effort, Sam
banished even those thoughts from her head and concentrated instead on
just feeling the sensation of warm air on her skin. Wrapped up in the
wonderful warmth provided via Asgard technology Sam was loath to leave,
so much simpler not to think, just feel the simple things. Arms snaking
around her waist shattered her temporary haven and she automatically
tensed, then relaxed and smiled when she caught the scent that belonged
to only one person.
"Jack?"
"Hey gorgeous," he smiled
and nibbled her lips. "You look good enough to eat," he murmured as his
tongue sought entry to her mouth.
Her arms cradled the back
of his head. "Hey flyboy," she paused and drew back to look at him, all
of him. "You should know better than to sneak up on a trained killer
like that."
"Oh yeah?" He smirked.
"What were you going to do, bite me . . . again?"
"Well, let's just say
that your sidearm would be . . . out of commission for a while."
Jack's eye's widened with
mock fear as his eyebrows climbed for altitude. "You wouldn't."
"How was I to know it was
you? And besides, you taught me to disarm my opponent any way I
could."
"There is that," he
admitted, his arms still around her waist.
"Much as I would love to
let you have your way with me . . ." Sam laid her head on his shoulder.
"There are things we need to do."
Jack rested his head against hers and sighed. "Unfinished business?"
"You could call it that."
"Yeah, I guess we've put it off as long as we could."
"Still, it was nice that we had this time to . . . regroup."
"Umm hmm," Jack nodded and blew her hair away from his nose.
***
Donning a clean set of
BDU's had made Jack feel like a new man. As he walked down the hallway
with Sam, he noted that she automatically matched his long-legged stride
with her own. After all they'd been through, she'd certainly had plenty
of time to get used to it, he mused.
His hands twitched with
the sudden need to take her hand in his, but resisted it. They were both
in uniform - and that meant they were on duty. The fact that they were
light-years away from their home planet was irrelevant. And it did not
matter that the President had sanctioned their relationship. There were
certain things one did and did not do when in uniform. And handholding
and other intimacies was high on the list of 'conduct unbecoming'.
Once out of the shower
they'd taken the time to talk about their 'unfinished business' as he'd
called it. Surprisingly, Sam had been able to speak about it with little
emotion. Maybe she'd just needed some time alone to deal with the
overwhelming emotions that surrounded any death, let alone the loss of a
child.
Though he had noticed
that at times, she'd duck her head and whisper words to herself that he
hadn't been able to make out. Not that it mattered in the long run
whether the words were some mumbo-jumbo mathematical formula or a
prayer, as long as it worked for her. Whatever got you through the night
when past ghosts became all too real. That was all that mattered in his
book. He'd had to learn that the hard way.
It had been Sam's idea to
have Jackie's body incinerated and the ashes shot into a nebula. The
solution felt right to him. Not only did it prevent anyone from trying
to dig up the child's remains, from the little time he had known her, he
thought Jackie would like lying at rest amid the many glorious hues of
space.
Sam had brought up
another detail that had immediately captured his attention though - the
genetic specimens that had been forcibly removed from their bodies by
Baal's mad scientists. Had they been all used up in the failed
experiments with Jackie and her sisters? Or more ominously - was there
some still floating around loose somewhere? And if so, who had it? And
what were their plans for it?
When he'd regained his
memories of how Sam had died and what they'd done to him to remove the
genetic material, he'd just about lost it. He'd examined certain parts
of his anatomy while she was in the shower and couldn't even find a
scar. And he'd already proven - several times - that they were in
working order. He supposed that was one of the few things he could thank
the sarcophagus for - one of the very few.
When he'd posed the
question concerning the whereabouts of the rest of their stolen DNA,
she'd gone pale-white. She could see the ramifications of it as well as
he could.
Sam halted in mid-stride
and laid her hand on Jack's arm to get his attention. "Wait a minute, I
just remembered something. Ernie mentioned that they'd discovered that
the sarcophagus had been destroyed. That means the Asgard must have done
a recon of the area before we left."
Jack stood stock still as
his mind worked out the ramifications of that revelation. "And if they
did send somebody down to look around, maybe they checked the labs too.
It would be a reasonable assumption to make, given what they might find
there. I know in their place, I would." He started walking but picked up
the pace.
Sam had to lengthen her
stride to catch up. "But wouldn't Thor tell us if they'd found anything
significant like that? He knows how we feel about things like that,
doesn't he?"
Jack sighed and shook his
head. "I would think he would, but now I'm not so sure. We'll ask him
and go from there." Then he smirked down at Sam. "And sheets, we need
some sheets for the bed."
"But no towels," added Sam with what he swore was a leer.
***
Heimdall hefted the two
vials in his hand and sighed. One was labeled 'Ancient Tau'ri male', the
other 'Tau'ri female'. Thus far his studies had been . . . unproductive
- frustratingly so.
He placed both vials back
in the refrigerated storage container and sat down in front of his
computer console. As he reviewed his findings from the primitive Asgard
male that been found adrift in space, he had come to the realization
that when the individual genes were examined, they held little in common
with those of the present Asgard people. So much had their bodies
changed with the advent of the cloning process that they no longer
appeared to be of the same species.
Heimdall searched his
database for the file that delineated the specific traits found in the
Ancient Tau'ri DNA. When he called the results up on his screen, His
long powder-gray fingers pointed to one section and then another as he
compared them with that of the primitive Asgard for differences and
similarities.
When they were laid
side-by-side, he discovered many similarities, in fact, more than he had
originally thought would be found. His breath caught in his throat as he
recalibrated his test to recheck his findings. His fingers flew over the
keypads.
Then he waited for the
results, almost reluctant to exult as yet. For too much rode on the
outcome of his thus far secret experiments. Even Thor was not privy to
what he was doing. But would not it be worth it if he could save their
race from extinction? He thought it would and knew others of his race
who would agree with him and what he did now.
Blinking lights on his
computer console caught his attention. He pressed more buttons to check
that there was no mistake. The same answer remained. Then he saved his
results and encrypted the results.
Heimdall knew he could
put it off no longer; he needed to talk to Thor. He just hoped that The
Supreme Commander of the Asgard Fleet would be sympathetic when he heard
what he was about to tell him.
Before he could more than
think the thought, something clamped around his neck, cutting off his
ability to breathe and he was jerked around and off his feet. Before him
was a very angry face and beyond stood the personage he had intended to
talk to. Heimdall had never seen such a shocked expression on any Asgard
face before.
Through the curiously
loud roar inside his head he at once placed the words as being spoken by
Thor. Only he was too distracted by his inability to reason out what the
words meant, as his physical sensations were absolutely fascinating. Did
someone turn down the lights?
"O'Neill!"
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