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PART THREE
Daniel wasn't the only one to still be throwing up as General Hammond finally
took the base off red alert. It gave him obscure comfort to see Sam double over
and vomit where she stood. They were all of them past caring, too sick to even
stand, yet having to at least go through the motions of trying to deal with the
crisis.
The blast doors were still down. A still, small part of Daniel wondered if the
general was delaying the moment of truth not because of any residual risk to the
base or its personnel, but because it was so hard to grasp the reality, the
enormity of their loss.
The monitors were dead. The ceaseless hum and chatter of Stargate telemetry, an
audible constant for almost eighteen years, was silenced.
The noise of the attack, unquantifiable to Daniel except in terms of its
physical effects, the ache and soreness that throbbed bone deep, made him doubt
what he was hearing. He felt deafened, the voices of his friends tinny and
distant, his own high-pitched, the normal sounds of the base, even the red alert
klaxon, muffled. It was only in looking at the blank monitors he could
comprehend the silence, because he couldn't hear it. That noise rang inside his
head.
They knew the gate was gone. They didn't have to see it to know. It was only a
matter of time before absolute confirmation.
"Measures were taken to address the inherent structural weakness of housing the
Stargate in a decommissioned missile silo before the gate was moved here," Sam
was arguing exhaustedly. "The shaft was sealed with a combination of..."
"Does it really matter now what the shaft was sealed with?" Jack slapped her
down irritably. "It was capable of withstanding nuclear attack, that was all the
planners knew or cared."
"Yet the Stargate itself was also capable of withstanding Goa'uld attack,"
Teal'c observed. His voice was carefully controlled but those who knew him well
could see his underlying agitation. "And we have seen from evidence of attacks
against this facility in other realities that it would take time for their
weapons to penetrate Cheyenne Mountain. General Hammond, I do not believe the
Goa'uld possess such technology as this. The precision of the attack is beyond
anything they are capable of. Nor," he added with quiet, convincing certainty,
"do I believe they would lightly break the Protected Planets Treaty and render
their domains liable to Asgard reprisals."
"This is all a moot point for now," Jack interrupted. "We can work out who did
what and why later. For now, I'd say our priority is to haul ass over to Area
51, grab the Antarctica gate and get it up and running. Let's not forget we
still have teams out there with no way home."
"No one is in danger of losing sight of that, Colonel, but we have more
immediate concerns," Hammond replied. "Major Carter? Damage report?"
"The dialling computer hardware appears operational, in the sense the terminals
can physically boot up, but we can't send or receive gate telemetry," Sam
explained rapidly. "The system simply crashes when accessed. I need time to run
a complete diagnostic on the circuitry. While we can assume the Stargate was the
primary target of this attack, collateral damage has been confined to the
gateroom itself." She paused to wipe her mouth with the back of her hand. "I
believe Colonel O'Neill is correct in his assessment. Whoever attacked us
targeted the gate with a uniquely alien, identifiable substance their sensors
and weapons system were able to detect. Given the power of the energy beam
emitted," she said gravely, "We got off lightly."
"Open the blast doors," Hammond at last gave the order everyone was dreading as
the shout went up from Sgt. Siler that the gateroom was now open and clear of
identifiable hazards.
Jack wouldn't wait. He launched himself at the stairs and ran, Daniel, Teal'c
and Sam hard on his heels. Even knowing, even being almost sure, didn't prepare
them for the crater that had torn through to where the Stargate had been. They
moved forward together, instinctively close, through the path Siler's team had
cleared among the rubble. It led them to stand side by side at an obscenely
clean, almost smooth edge. When they looked down, they saw it was not a crater,
rather a hole, punched neatly down into solid rock.
Daniel's heart slammed, seemed almost to stop. Not breathing, he looked up. "Oh,
my God," he whispered, clawing into warm skin close by. Into Jack. Sunlight
filtered down from far above, feathering over his upturned face. "My God. They
had to have seen that!"
"What?" Jack asked him, confused, trying to unhook his clenched fingers without
hurting him. "Seen what?" Then he followed Daniel's gaze up, up. Froze.
Sam gasped and staggered into Daniel as she started to yell for the general and
pelted for the control room. They had never heard her sound like that. Possibly
only Daniel understood the depth of her feelings for the Stargate, how it
consumed her life, her dreams and imagination. He felt the same.
"It's over," Daniel grated. "It's over."
"I do not understand." Instead of demanding an explanation, Teal'c stepped
closer to Jack and Daniel, as if ready to pull them back from the edge.
"The light, that sound!" Daniel burst out. "All of that hitting the mountain,
punching through, the rock crumpling and pouring down, going on and on and on."
He turned blindly towards his friend, choking with laughter and bitterness. "You
can see Cheyenne Mountain from everywhere in Colorado Springs. Everywhere."
"Whoah!" Jack called a time-out. "Just wait a damned minute, Daniel, hold on
there. Let's hear what NORAD have to say before jumping to any conclusions." It
sounded good and brave, but he couldn’t stop himself from grimly staring up at
the long shaft with its pinprick of blue sky.
"Gentlemen," Hammond called out to them as he came into the gateroom to survey
the damage for himself. "We have work to do."
"No kidding." Jack scuffed at a rock, kicking it down into the hole where the
gate had stood in order to time it to the bottom.
It was seconds, not minutes, which Daniel supposed was something.
He tried to calculate how many feet and inches those seconds might translate to,
but his brain had seized. He felt dull, disoriented, as if everything was
happening a long way from him or to someone else. He tasted salt and metal on
his tongue and knew he was afraid this really was the end of all things.
He dropped his head, despairing when General Hammond confirmed what he already
knew. NORAD hadn't tracked the beam of light down through the atmosphere. They
were fielding calls, hundreds of panicked calls from Colorado Springs residents,
jamming the switchboard. The Joint Chiefs were in emergency session, the
President was en route to the White House, DEFCON 3 had been invoked and Hammond
was launching a contingency plan called Chimera, which was apparently Air
Force-speak for cover-up.
"A cover-up?" Daniel looked at General Hammond, at Jack and at them all, so
cynical about death and so hopelessly naïve about ordinary life. "How do you
think we're even going to get off the mountain? We're in the suburbs here,
surrounded by housing developments, tourist attractions, a golf course and the
zoo! Norad Road is the only way on or off base. It'll be camped out by local
press and TV within minutes, national and international press within hours.
They'll film everyone, investigate everyone, question..." He broke off, berating
himself for being so slow and stupid. There were so many consequences, so many
ramifications of this disaster, he could hardly begin to enumerate the smallest
part of them. He had to try, though. Who else was there?
"Credit us with some foresight, Daniel," Jack advised him, seeming to feel the
need to take hold of him again. His hands were gentle, supporting, belying his
curt tone as Hammond led the way up to the briefing room. "Chimera was planned
in the first days of the SGC. The Air Force likes to be prepared for the little
things, like the catastrophic revelation of intergalactic travel and the
existence of aliens."
"So I guess that means I can relax, then? I don't need to worry about the
'little things' like universal condemnation, global war, economic and social
collapse or your appearances on Oprah?" Daniel demanded sarcastically, shaking
Jack off. "It's the end of the world as we know it."
"Only if the truth gets out," Jack said simply.
"Gentlemen, please." Hammond summarily directed them to sit. "First things
first. Teal'c has already stated his opinion the Goa'uld are not responsible for
this attack. So who is?"
"The aliens who attempted to take over the base?" Sam suggested.
"Not their M.O.," Jack disagreed.
"How do we know?" Daniel protested.
"Sir, I agree with Daniel," Sam immediately backed him up. "We didn't learn
anything about the aliens but they sure learned plenty about us. They had access
to our minds, remember?"
"Were those who escaped through the Stargate not destroyed along with their
leader?" Teal'c asked.
"We hoped they were," Sam replied. "We didn't know anything for sure."
"Look at the signatures of the two attacks," Daniel urged them. "The first was
an incursion onto the base in an attempt to secure the Stargate and infiltrate
the military power structure to the highest level. The aliens were using people,
accessing our thoughts, maybe our memories, to play a role. The point is, they
considered us resources essential to the success of their invasion plans."
"Were not all codes guarding access to the secrets of this facility changed
immediately upon the destruction of the foothold aliens?"
"I think that supports our theory, Teal'c." Sam sat forward in her chair,
clasping her hands before her on the table, as if it was propping her up.
"Whoever attacked us knew the Earth co-ordinates but I think they were also
counting on the presence of the iris to intercept the substance they sent
through the Stargate. They knew exactly how and where to target the gate for
their weapons. They also knew from reading our minds – or accessing our database
- of the structural weakness inherent in the modified silo shaft, the one
exploitable weakness in our defences, and planned their attack to take advantage
of it."
"The System Lords Chronos, Nirrti, Lord Yu and also Apophis have all observed
the operation of the iris," Teal'c reminded them, playing devil's advocate.
"What about the second attack?" Hammond posed the question to them all.
"I would argue it has the same signature," Daniel said immediately. "The same
precision, the same regard for sentient life."
"Regard?" Jack snorted.
"Two alien attacks, one of them from orbit, yet we sustained no fatalities,"
Daniel elaborated. "You were the one who recognised the tactic, Jack. Aren't
those our tactics?"
"Precision bombing of primary military targets, minimising civilian casualties
and collateral damage," Jack mused, nodding thoughtfully. "Just because they're
aliens doesn't make them monsters, huh?"
"Exactly!" Daniel looked gratefully at Jack.
"It would appear the foothold aliens were equally as concerned about possible
reprisal attacks mounted through the Stargate as we were concerned over further
incursions into this facility." Teal'c too was in agreement.
"What about the Stargate at Area 51?" Daniel asked quickly. "If they were
reading our thoughts, then they know about that gate too!"
Hammond jumped to his feet and dashed into his office.
"It's a long-shot, Carter," Jack spoke up wryly, "But get on the horn and see if
NORAD can find an unidentified flying object for us."
"Sir?" Sam glanced up alertly.
"The ship, Carter, the alien ship in orbit or leaving orbit right about now. The
one the aliens used to attack us."
"I'm on it." She slipped from her chair and headed for the phone.
"I guess the ship was back-up," Jack speculated. "You can't win a war if you're
cut off from your supply lines. The Stargate is perfect for small-scale
operations, but for something big, you need ships."
"That's what I thought," Daniel said, more warmly than he'd managed so far.
There was a certain comfort in being with friends as smart and capable as his
were. "That if the aliens were, for want of a better word, harvesting people to
access their minds, storage was going to become an issue as soon as they moved
out of the confines of the base and began to infiltrate the local populace."
Jack nodded his agreement. "They'd need access to their weapons, technology,
nosh, consumables, steady supplies of Stepford aliens."
"Stepford?" Daniel winced as Jack launched into another round of his atrocious
Name Game.
"Body snatchers, pod people," Jack generously broadened his scope. "The point
is, they'd need everything in greater supply than moving it in little bitty
chunks through the Stargate could cope with. Once you start, an invasion has to
maintain a certain momentum."
"Indeed," Teal'c agreed sagely, clearly the voice of extensive experience.
Hammond came out of his office, pale and fuming. "The warehouse in which the
secondary Stargate was formerly stored was destroyed by aerial bombardment a
short time ago. Area 51 is still on full red-alert."
"Formerly stored?" Jack queried, straightening up.
"Apparently, we have Colonel Maybourne to thank for Earth still being in
possession of a Stargate," the general informed them distastefully.
Daniel couldn't stifle his gusty sigh of relief.
Jack looked as if he were spitting blood. "You mean that snaky sonovabitch is
two for two? First he bails us out when we lose control of the base to those
goddamned aliens and now this!" His ire choked him. "If he'd bothered to inform
us he'd moved the gate, we'd have lost it too!" he explained himself bitterly.
"The aliens could only read what we knew, and so far as we knew, the gate was
still were it was supposed to be." Proffering thanks to Maybourne was not what
looked to be uppermost in Jack's mind.
"NORAD can't locate the alien ship, Sirs," Sam reported as she came back to take
her seat. "Which isn't surprising given the advanced technology the foothold
aliens were able to develop to cloak organic material as complex as the human
body."
If Jack had been feeling more friendly towards Sam he would have corrected her,
let her in on the joke about their duly christened Stepford aliens. He didn't
bother, though, and Daniel didn't know whether to be glad or sorry. He hadn't
had time or leisure to think about how he felt towards Sam and didn't see it
happening any time soon. Their personal lives – their feelings – were always
unimportant in the scheme of things. Knowledge of the Stargate was a terrible
responsibility and one that carried a high price. Being in service to a higher
purpose ate away at the 'ordinary' and the 'normal' like an acid, slow and
insidious, forever altering your value system.
"The immediate crisis is over," Hammond stated grimly. "I believe we can assure
the President that having, as they believed, destroyed our capability for gate
travel, the aliens have moved on?" he enquired of his team.
"I concur," Teal'c bowed.
"No fatalities from that second attack?" Jack wanted to know.
Hammond shook his head briefly.
"Then I think they're gone," Jack said decidedly. "I think Daniel is right.
Their technology may be vastly different but their tactics, we know. They'd no
more stick around solely to wipe out innocent civilians in purely punitive
attacks after their military objective failed than our own forces would. If
their preferred option is stealth, I don't see them waging an all-out war of
global attrition. This was a surgical strike to remove a clear and present
danger, pure and simple."
"I tend to agree, Colonel." If Hammond shared their relief the second Stargate
had been spared, he wasn't showing it. "There's still the matter of coming up
with a plausible cover story to explain the circumstances of attack."
"I think we should wait and see what the press are reporting, pick out the
common denominators in their sound bites and debunk those if we can," Jack
advised.
"Debunk them how?" Daniel twisted agitated fingers together, trying to calm
himself. "What if the entire population of Colorado Springs is screaming about
death rays from Mars? How, exactly, is our cover story about deep space
telemetry supposed to explain that away?"
"Star Wars," Jack replied glibly. "Not the movie," he added quickly before
Teal'c could speak. "Reagan's benighted Star Wars project. Or rather, Star Wars:
Reagan Strikes Back." Jack glanced at Daniel to see how this was being received.
"Star Wars: The Next Generation?"
Daniel put his tired, pounding head in his hands.
"A weapon of mass destruction we've been caught with our pants down constructing
on the sly right here in the home of America's Mountain," Jack grudgingly
capitulated. "Strictly to be used for defence, of course."
"The energy blast came from space," Daniel recited, not troubling to hide his
aggravation. "Does that mean we shot ourselves in the foot?"
"Dr. Jackson!" Hammond rebuked him sharply.
"Snippy," Jack commented, shrugging. "He gets snippy."
"Will your enemies on this world not respond with aggression to this 'new
technology' you have developed without their knowledge?" Teal'c attempted to
smooth over the awkward moment.
"The new technology that doesn’t work," Daniel interjected with sharp emphasis.
"Doesn't work to the extent it blows up in our faces, in slow-mo, in hourly
bulletins on CNN and Fox News. Our allies and enemies get to be publicly and
privately pissed at us without having to worry we'll be using that new weapons
technology on them. Which is about the opposite of what I thought a defensive
deterrent was intended to be."
He didn't know what upset him more, Jack's ludicrously insulting cover story or
the fact the media would already be speculating on this being a spectacular
public failure of Reagan's 'nurtured child', his pet space shield project that
had become a cult of those still mired in the Cold War, still being worked on in
secret by the military.
Was there anything that could be done to people that was worse than what they
did to themselves?
Somewhat daunted by Daniel's pessimism, Sam asked the general's permission to
start surveying the breaking news broadcasts to see what, if anything, had been
captured of the attack. She tuned in first to the local News13 channel and set
the VCR, stepping back just as the sleek, groomed news anchor announced in
hushed, consequential tones that NORAD, America's Space Command, had been
attacked. News13 had this dramatic exclusive footage...
"Holy crap!" Jack croaked as they saw the titanic column of light for the first
time in its full magnitude, striking down through the sky over Cheyenne Mountain
like the wrath of God.
Daniel blinked at an odd sensation of déjà vu, grasping at a fleeting memory as
the anchor droned on. He left the table without permission, headed purposefully
for the PC that always sat at the desk manned by the SGC's duty officer.
"DanielJackson?" Teal'c rose to follow him, coming to stand close by him before
speaking again. "Are you unwell?" he asked gently, with his customary respect
for Daniel's dignity and privacy.
"No," Daniel denied, smiling a little, his heart unclenching for the first time
since the attack began. "No, I have an idea. A memory, really." He stooped over
the keyboard and accessed Internet Explorer.
"Of what do you speak?" Teal'c leaned in to watch him.
"The sun," Daniel said vaguely, glancing over his shoulder to refresh in his
mind the image of the great column of light. "Sun pillars!" he said
triumphantly, typing in the keywords. "I read about them on the BBC news site
online one time." He selected Google's image search, then sent the monitor's
output to the projection screen. "Look at this!" he instructed everyone
excitedly as the screen filled with dazzling images - pillars of many-hued light
striking down from the upper atmosphere just as their alien energy beam had.
"Holy Hannah!" Sam crowed delightedly. "Daniel, that's brilliant! That's our
answer!"
"It does seem fortuitous," Hammond seconded, watching the monitors intently as
Daniel selected some of the larger and more dramatic images to bring up
individually at their full size. "What do we know of these sun pillars?"
"Well, from what I remember," Daniel moved across to examine the images on the
large screen. "Ice crystals form in the atmosphere and when bright light from
the sun or even the moon passes through the part of the sky containing them,
various light effects can be generated. The most common of these is the sun
pillar."
"The ice crystals exist in the form of flat hexagonal plates," Sam promptly
picked up the thread of Daniel's explanation. "These focus, scatter, bend, split
and reflect light rays both externally and internally. In forming sun pillars,
light rays are reflected up, taking on the colours of the light. To the
observer, it appears that a column of light is forming beneath the sun."
"Okay," Jack spoke up. "Looking at some of these images, it seems pretty clear
we can make a strong case that the phenomenon people so inconveniently camcorded
from their backyards was a sun pillar, but unless these puppies come with sound
effects?" He looked from Daniel to Sam, watching their faces. "I didn't think
so."
"Jack is right." Daniel accepted the glass of water Teal'c pressed on him, his
interest momentarily piqued as Teal'c calmly carried glasses to Sam and then to
Jack, taking care of them without fuss. He finally took a glass for himself and
General Hammond. This rare recognition of physical frailty probably meant Junior
was grumbling like a sentient appendix right now. "That sound was – it was
inhuman. I can't even describe it."
Sam glanced significantly at the TV. "They're reporting hearing it from as far
away as Cañon City."
"What's the consensus?" Daniel gulped down some water, waving a hand at the
chaotic scene unfolding before the camera as the press laid siege to NORAD, a
sizeable contingent of troops from Fort Carson herding them from the public
highways and onto Norad Road itself. A second contingent of SFs from Cheyenne
Mountain had blockaded the road and were standing guard, mute in the face of
frenzied questions, accusations and speculations.
The mood was one of hysteria. The people's right to know, the public interest –
wasn't that what journalists claimed drove them? They exercised power of a kind
– where was their responsibility? What Daniel saw unfolding was greed and
hubris, the blatant seeking of fame and ratings. He shuddered with disgust as
this naked human spectacle and sat soberly again beside Jack.
"Consensus is that either the Russians or Saddam have developed a weapon of mass
destruction and this was the opening salvo of the apocalypse," Jack narrated.
"Or NORAD is really just a front for building great goddamned space guns and we
did indeed just shoot ourselves in the foot."
Daniel met Jack's eyes and was warmed by the expressive softness he found there.
Jack was sorry. It meant something, particularly when Daniel was not at all sure
he was doing the right thing. The secrecy of the Stargate programme had troubled
him since the beginning and he more than most had chafed at the constraints
imposed. If he had followed those rules to the letter, Catherine may never have
been reunited with Ernest, who would have died alone when that final devastating
storm hit Heliopolis.
There was much more to it than that, though. The research, the body of evidence,
the medical, scientific and technological advances they were withholding from
the world, the morality – or lack thereof – of secrecy, the abuse of power
without accountability, the abuse of the Stargate itself in furtherance of
America's Manifest Destiny across the universe without recourse or reference to
international law, treaties, alliances, and global responsibilities. Daniel
scarcely knew where to begin. He only knew he was already half-regretting his
impulsive offering of a way out.
His heart had motivated him, not his head and certainly not his ethics. His
friends, the people he loved and depended on, needed his help and he had maybe
been too quick to offer it.
"Sirs, I've been thinking." Following Daniel's example, Sam jumped up from the
table and headed over to the PC. She did a quick search and directed their
attention back to the projection screen. "Space mirrors," she announced. "Taking
Daniel's point that claiming we have possession of a faulty, unreliable weapon
of mass destruction is fraught with problems, I've been trying to come up with
an alternative that may just cover our asses."
"Hence, space mirrors." Jack gestured impatiently to her to go on. "Cut a long
story short, Carter."
Sam's lips thinned but she took the rebuke. Had Daniel ever noticed before that
she always did? She never called Jack on his behaviour. The rules forbade it, of
course, but how did Sam herself – the woman, not the officer - feel about always
having to bite back retorts and bottle her feelings?
"Scientists at the University of Arizona have developed an extremely light,
extremely flexible reflective material they're planning to use in the
construction of giant space mirrors. They're talking ultimately about mirrors
the size of football fields," she quantified. "A mirror that large could provide
high-resolution images that would dwarf those provided by the Hubble space
telescope. The thing is, these mirrors are intended to survey the Earth, not
space, to aid in research on weather systems, fires – all kinds of things. NASA
is onboard for the project, looking at a projected launch of these mirrors
sometime in the year 2007."
"This helps us how, exactly?" Jack's eyebrows went up.
"What if we were to use our deep space telemetry cover to our advantage? And the
remit of NORAD? Issue a statement confirming the US Air Force has been working
on its own space mirror project and our initial test launch has failed owing to
some malfunction on take-off. We'd have to admit the existence of the
decommissioned missile silo but that's a calculated risk," Sam sketched her plan
fluently.
"Playing coy about the reason for engaging in a secret project will hopefully
lead the press to conclude we were attempting to covertly build and launch the
next generation of spy satellites," Hammond said approvingly. "I like it.
Plausible deniability and damage control. Well done, Major," he praised her.
Sam took her seat again, smiling, her confidence seeming restored. "Following on
from Daniel's initial suggestion, I would add that a space mirror malfunctioning
in the upper atmosphere would be a legitimate cause for a sun pillar. The
scientists at Tucson have posited that the mirrors would look like very bright
stars to us."
"And the second attack?"
Sam responded much more readily and naturally to Jack's questioning this time.
"Controlled re-entry of the debris to an unpopulated area accessible by USAF
personnel to assist in safe, secure clean-up."
"Admitting to the existence of the missile silo can only help us at this point,"
Daniel said quietly, struggling with his own sense of ambiguity. "With the press
at our door baying for blood and sound bites, there's no other way to get the
Stargate and the DHD onto the base. We've already established there's only one
way to get the gate in and that's the precise spot most of the cameras will be
trained for the foreseeable future. Only by disguising the gate somehow – a
block of concrete or something – will we be able to get it anywhere near the
mountain. If we lead people to expect a slew of repairs being carried out, fly
helicopters or whatever in and out all the time, they'll tire of watching them
and they'll stop with the questions. There's nothing newsworthy about pouring
concrete," he finished dryly.
"Why the DHD?" Sam frowned.
"Because the dialling computer is fried and however long it takes you to repair
it, if you can repair it, we have teams stranded off-world and we don’t leave
our people behind, certainly not for resuscitating pet projects." Daniel's anger
was suddenly off the scale. He felt terrible for putting the worst possible
interpretation on Sam's motives but wasn't able to rationalise or interpret as
he would normally have done
Sam bit her lip, clearly upset with him and just as clearly not feeling she had
the right to challenge him about it when her own conduct was so questionable.
"I'm sorry," Daniel issued a wooden, blanket apology. He was feeling horribly
sick again.
"This has been a difficult day for everyone," General Hammond assured them of
his understanding and the granting of limited leeway under the circumstances.
"You've done exceptional work, people," he praised them unreservedly. "We have a
real chance of securing the future viability of this command and this facility,
and it's thanks to your efforts."
His beneficent smile encompassed them all.
"I'm going to brief the President and the Joint Chiefs, but I hardly need to
tell you the next few days are going to be very trying for us all. It's going to
take time to co-ordinate our response, to clarify our public position and to
refute the arrant scandal-mongering currently being so vocally engineered by the
press."
The general looked seriously at each of them in turn.
"As Dr. Jackson so forcefully reminded us, SGC personnel are about to be
subjected to intense public scrutiny. So far as the press and the public are
concerned, we're military personnel and federal employees attached to NORAD's
Space Command, engaged in a deep space telemetry project. Beyond that simple
statement of fact, I take this opportunity to remind you all that you have no
comment."
If only, Daniel thought, life were that simple.
He was conscious of nothing more than a desire to go home and lick his wounds,
alone. Unfortunately, there were assignments, responsibilities.
Sam was ordered to lead the team surveying the damage to the SGC's systems, Jack
to co-ordinate with Area 51 the disguise and prompt delivery of the Stargate and
DHD and then, with Teal'c, to work to ensure the security of the base from press
or other intrusion, and Daniel was to continue to monitor the press and prepare
an hourly briefing for Hammond on the national and international coverage and
potential ramifications.
At least Daniel got to be alone, if only for a little while. Jack would find a
way to get to him. He always did. As with so many other things in the
interminable wreck that passed for his life, Daniel no longer knew how he felt
about that.
"Hey." Sam was at the lab door but not inside. It felt like presumption to
assume a welcome she wasn't sure Daniel would extend.
When he looked around from the news broadcast he was annotating, his face was
blank, as if he couldn't quite place who she was. He didn't say anything.
"Can I come in?"
It was the first time she'd ever had to ask.
Daniel hunched a careless shoulder and turned back to the TV. He turned down the
volume, though. He went that far for her.
Sam walked over to lab bench, leaned against it. "I'm sorry," she said clearly.
"For?"
"Everything."
"Everything, huh?" Daniel said whimsically. "That's a lot to be sorry for."
"I'm sorry for what happened between you and the colonel." The details, she
didn't know. The consequences, she could see.
"You should be sorry, Sam," Daniel said quietly, definitely.
It was what she'd expected, what she herself knew, but it still hurt.
"I'm sorry too," he went on, futzing with his pen.
"All I know is that he loves you," Sam promised. "I didn't mean..."
"I don't care," Daniel interrupted her sharply. "Not right now. Maybe – maybe
later. I have too many problems of my own."
It scared Sam to see him so tired, so shut down. Had there ever been a time
Daniel had not been there for her? Had she ever seen this look from him before?
"Do you?" she burst out, instantly regretting questioning him as his eyes turned
wintry. She wanted to explain to him that she didn't want to know if he loved
Jack too merely to satisfy her need to know, but to satisfy her need to help
him. She wanted to help him.
"You don't get to ask, Sam," Daniel unconsciously echoed the colonel's earlier
words to her. "I'm the one left to deal with it all."
Sam tried to think how she would feel if a colleague, a friend, came out with
feelings for her. Another woman. How she would react, what she would say. Could
she cope with a woman desiring her, cope without hurting the other person or
herself?
She tried to imagine how it would be if Janet was the one to come out to her, to
want her, with all the ways their lives were entwined, all the layers and levels
to their friendship and professional obligations, their love for Cassie and for
each other.
It would feel like the end of the world.
It would be, in many ways. It was for Daniel and for Jack. Sam had taken away
Jack's choice not to act on his feelings for Daniel. She had taken away Daniel's
right not to know Jack was in love with him, wanted him. She had forced Daniel
to face his own feelings, without any idea of what those feelings were.
Jack had shut down when Daniel regained consciousness back there in the power
plant. He had become 'Colonel O'Neill' before her eyes. He had had good reason,
respecting Daniel in a way she had not.
"Were they all lies, Sam?" Daniel asked suddenly, his eyes on the pen he was
turning and turning between tense fingers. "All those things you told me about
your feelings for Martouf, the influence Jolinar had on your heart and on your
head? Was it really Jack you wanted all along?"
"I tried not to," Sam confessed miserably. "I know that I can't – that it's my
duty to the Air Force and my responsibility to my team to not indulge those
feelings."
Daniel pushed away his chair and stood up. "I have those same responsibilities.
Jack's are even greater. Did you think about us? Did you think about 'your' team
at all?"
"None of it was as calculating or deliberate as it might sound, Daniel," Sam
pleaded emotionally. "I was – I must have been out of my mind. "
"Don't apologise for being human, Sam," Daniel immediately confused her. "Live
with it." He smiled, a tight, unforgiving wince, and walked away from her.
Left alone, feeling more than alone, Sam sat where Daniel had been, shivering at
the warmth he'd left behind. She was scared now she wouldn't be able to fix
this, that Daniel might not be able to forgive her. She was also ashamed she had
counted so thoughtlessly on his friendship, his empathy to see them through
this. As if she was deserving of his support because her feelings were in
question, her pain and confusion.
Whatever doubts and emotions shook Daniel, she had deemed them subordinate to
hers the moment she had knocked on the colonel's door.
Sam had never been in this position, never been forced to look so deeply inside
herself with so much cause and so little excuse. She had no defence to offer, no
place left to hide. The selfishness she found made her sick to her stomach and
she was even further from finding her necessary clarity than before. She
suffered more doubt, not less, questioning now if she was chasing after Daniel
to give something or to get something from him. Confession was good for her soul
only.
She sat quietly in Daniel's space, staring dumbly at the television set. She
didn't know anything, least of all herself. How much time passed, she couldn't
tell.
Eventually, she saw Daniel's face on the screen at a crazy, disturbing angle as
some cameraman among the seething crowd filmed into his distinctive cherry-red
jeep. He was all eyes, stonily waiting for the SFs to clear him a path through,
blanking the reporters, the cameras, the questions pummelling him. The camera
zoomed until his face filled the screen. Sam touched him, loathing the wetness
in her eyes.
| Part 1 |
Part 2 | Part 3 |
Part 4 |
Part 5 |
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