DISCLAIMER: Yeah, the SG-1 guys are all property of MGM, World 
Gekko Corp, and Double Secret productions. This is all in fun, no 
infringement on copyrights or trademarks was intended. All other 
characters, ideas, etc., herein are copyrighted to the author.
TITLE: SMALL GRACES: JACK
AUTHOR: Rowan Darkstar
EMAIL: rowan_d1@yahoo.com
WEBSITE: http://www.beautyinshadows.net
RATING: 18+
ARCHIVE: All archives fine as long as you let me know.
CATEGORIES: Angst, action, whumping, Sam/Jack UST
SPOILERS: Through early season 7
WARNINGS: Descriptions of torture, references to rape.
SUMMARY: "He doesn't want to believe the fire lit image flash-
burned to his memory is the last time he will see the crystal 
innocence in her gaze."

AUTHOR'S NOTE: This story is a companion piece to the first in 
the series ("Small Graces: Daniel") and the second ("Small 
Graces: Teal'c").  I do recommend you read them in order to get 
the intended effect.:)


Devoted thanks to my betas: Teddy E, annaK, Strix, and Amilyn.  
They all rock beyond description.


"Small Graces: Jack"
by
Rowan Darkstar (rowan_d1@yahoo.com)
Copyright (c) 2006


"And I will try....to fix you."
                        --Coldplay


Pretty young Captain with a glare of blonde locks and a spark in 
her eyes that speaks of worlds he's never seen.

Knowledge he can't even fathom, experiences he can't understand, 
and some kind of innocence that makes him think maybe the light 
he thought had been extinguished in his life, still burns 
somewhere in the world.

He's been protecting this woman since the day they met.  Maybe 
he's been protecting himself.  Or something he can't bear to lose 
twice in a lifetime.


*****


Same shock of golden hair in a black and grimy prison, blue eyes 
in the primitive firelight and a softly uttered, "Sir?" that 
makes him want to rip through the iron bars with bloody hands.

Innocence extinguished in a moment.

He doesn't want to believe the fire lit image flash-burned to his 
memory is the last time he will see the crystal innocence in her 
gaze.

But he knows truth when it touches him.  He's stopped denying 
these things long ago.


*****


Their forced labors are relentless.  Jack has been worked as 
slave labor before, they all have.  But this is perhaps the most 
brutal they have endured.  They are always thirsty.  They are 
always drained.  There is a quality to this place that reminds 
him of Netu and he doesn't like the associations.  For him...or 
for Carter.

Carter.

He has too many hours of repetitive work each day, hauling stones 
beneath an amber and piercing sun.  There is little to occupy his 
mind, and the knowledge that his 2IC is chained in the quarters 
of an unstable and sadistic Goa'uld threatens to break him.

He starts to remember someone distant and dark he used to be.  
Once upon a time, he swore himself to a final solution before he 
would ever become that man again.  He can't backslide.  
Everything has to be about rescuing Carter.

Jack worries for Daniel.  His allergies are bad in this place, 
his medicine long gone.  Inhaling the dusty air under heavy 
exertion is taking its toll.  Their injuries were never tended 
to.  Jack suspects more than one of them are threatening 
infection.  Even Teal'c is no longer invincible.  They silently 
count the days left in their Tretonin store.

Hammond will send a rescue party.  But it's already been a long 
time.

In the late night hours of the labor force's sleeping quarters, 
O'Neill lies awake and listens to distant echoes or tortured 
cries and subconsciously strains for a familiar voice.  Each 
morning he half-expects a beaten and battered SG team to be 
pushed from the torture rooms to join them in the work force.


*****


They employ all their training.  They struggle for a plan, look 
for any flaw, any window, any tiny sliver of opportunity.

Teal'c listens to the guards each night, attempts to slowly 
befriend the Jaffa, using all he knows of their culture, their 
egos, their weaknesses.

Every glimmer of hope collapses upon them like a house of cards.


*****


On what O'Neill believes is the ninth night upon this planet of 
grey and amber and red hot pain, the three men of SG-1 lie side 
by side, awake in the darkness from more than the endless aches 
in their bodies.  O'Neill worries they are not being offered 
enough water to avoid dehydration.  He's almost certain there is 
dangerous bacteria in the troughs, and he watches the others for 
signs of fever or infection.

Their beds are no more than ragged canvas-like tarps tossed upon 
the stone ground.

Daniel's arm is thrown across his eyes, and when he speaks, Jack 
can hear the thickness in his voice.

"She's still in there, Jack," Daniel says, and there is something 
of the end of the world in his voice.

O'Neill's world shrinks to the deep groove in the stone directly 
above where he lay.  All else is blackness.  "I know," is all he 
can say in reply.

He knows Daniel is crying, and Teal'c is listening and wanting to 
tear open their captors' throats with his bear hands.


*****


On the tenth day the world explodes.  The first thing Jack 
becomes aware of is strong arms beneath his own, pulling him 
backward from the work camp.  He's still seeing the building 
stone he was lifting, but the world is whirling and the movement 
doesn't match his vision.  He feels sick from the swirl, but he 
begins to sort distant voices from the cacophony and he registers 
Captain Daysinger's Alabama twang.  Two and two come together in 
his rebounding brain and equal SG-4 and a shock grenade.

The first word he pushes across his lips is "Carter!  Major 
Carter's still inside!"

He squeezes his eyes shut, rubbing at them in frustration, 
scrambling to get his feet beneath him.  He feels other SG team 
members around him, catches flickers of movement in shadows and 
grey as his vision creeps in like a developing Polaroid.

"We know that, sir!  Our orders are to get the three of you out 
first, then wait for reinforcements."

Jack O'Neill slams a boot into the ground and shoves free of 
Daysinger's grasp with all the strength and determination he has 
left.  "On a cold day in hell," he manages to shout, still 
clueless as to the volume of his own voice, and he sets off at a 
run through the flailing chaos of the work camp.


*****


The second explosion hits nearer the stronghold.  C-4 this time.  
The slave workers are making mad dashes in every direction, some 
scattering toward the tree line, others being shot down in the 
attempt.  The gate is nowhere in sight, and Jack has no idea how 
far they were transported or in what direction.  Colonel Burton 
is heading SG-4 this year.  No way he planned to wait it out by 
the book with Carter in danger.  No way he believed Jack would 
play along.  The C-4 was planted ahead.  There is a bigger rescue 
plan in place and Jack has every intention of being a part of it.

Jack takes a dive to the ground, rolling through the dirt, hardly 
feeling the sharp rock cutting into his back as he narrowly 
avoids the crush of falling stone.  A missile from a Predator has 
taken down two of the stronghold's rooftop guards and the parapet 
sheltering them in the bargain.  Captain Dryer is posted behind 
the rocks at the tree line, neatly picking off the front line and 
flattening the guard walls.

In the fall and the roll, Jack's recovering vision catches sight 
of both Daniel and Teal'c, weaving their way through the war 
zone, no more than a few paces behind.  They are going back for 
Carter.

Their best hope is fast movement in the first minutes of chaos.


*****


"Stay on my six!" Jack shouts, knowing one more voice in the 
cacophony won't matter.

The path to their goal is unfathomably clear.  Summanus has 
undoubtedly been evacuated at the start of the attack, holed-up 
in a shelter or vanished through an escape tunnel.  The SG 
members are vastly outnumbered, but their technology is superior 
and their numbers yet unknown to the Jaffa.  The initial scare is 
enough to make the Jaffa retreat and regroup.

"Colonel O'Neill!"  Colonel Burton hits the upper hallway just as 
Daniel and Jack and Teal'c do the same, and with no more than a 
nod of acknowledgement, the foursome runs in tandem, scanning the 
rooms along the corridor as they pass.

The gold-bordered doorway is an instant flag.

"What the fuck...?" Burton questions on a breath.  The room they 
have entered is hardly a step up in luxury from the squalor in 
which the prisoners are forced to live.  The size is greater and 
the bed looks soft, but there is nothing crafted or elegant and 
the floor is rough and soiled.  There are no windows.  The 
Goa'uld care little for the sun.  Jack sees them in his mind's 
eyes, tunneling beneath the cold ground like the serpents they 
are.  He would never tell this to Carter.  She has known a snake 
she loved.  But the snake lived in tunnels, nonetheless.

"Oh, my God, Sam..."  Daniel's elbow is tight beside Jack's and 
Jack follows his friend's wide gaze.

She is barely visible in the interior shadows after the amber 
glare and firefight outside, but she's there and they all see 
her.  Her pale skin catches the wall torches' glow, and there is 
plenty of skin to catch.  She is stretched on her side on the 
filth of the floor, dark lines across her flesh outlining a few 
straps of leather and the iron bands at her wrists and throat and 
nothing else.

She is turned away from the door.

This fact alone twists Jack's stomach.  She is either too injured 
to know where she is, or she has stopped trying to fight.

Teal'c is the first to reach Carter's side and Colonel Burton is 
close behind, digging through his gear for a weapon to break 
through the chains.  It is Jack who drops beside Carter and 
pushes back her tangled hair.  "Carter? Can you hear me?"

She doesn't respond.  Her skin is cold, but supple and alive.  He 
scans the length of her figure for injuries.  The staff wound on 
her leg is bad, and the shoulder is massively swollen, but he 
can't distinguish the severity of anything else beneath the 
bruises.  So many bruises, and black and purple and dried blood 
inside her thighs and he can't look at that right now.

He focuses on her face once more.  Colonel Burton is sizing up 
the chains extending from her wrist cuffs.  "Best bet is to shoot 
through these, Colonel," he says.  "Can you get her conscious?  I 
don't want her to move at the sound."

Jack nods, watches the rapid movement of Carter's eyes behind her 
lids and knows she's not comatose.  He pushes back her hair, 
again, and this time she startles sharply at the touch and sucks 
in a gasp of air.  Colonel Burton lifts his hands, weapon well 
clear of her reach.

"Carter?  Hey.  You with us?  We don't have much time, we need to 
move you," Jack says, watching every detail of her expression, 
searching for dilated pupils, focus, recognition; hoping to 
resurrect the soldier in time of crisis.  Layers of tear streaks 
stain her skin and her breath against his palm is rapid and 
shaky.  She's quivering the length of her body.  "What's 
happening?" she breathes, hoarse and dry from lack of water or 
screaming or both.  She blinks and tries to focus, bleary and 
imprecise, and he hopes hers is a tactical question and not 
complete lack of recognition.

"SG-4 is here, Carter.  Reinforcements are on the way.  We're 
blowing this joint, but we need your help."

She frowns up at him, tries to swallow and he sees it stings; her 
furrowed brow plays out her struggle for coherence, control.  An 
unsteady hand moves to grasp at his wrist where his hand still 
cradles her cheek.  Her tongue slips across cracked lips.  
"Jack?" she whispers, and if she is asking if he's really there 
or just a dream or if she's trying to remember his name, he's not 
sure and he doesn't care, because either way she got it right.

"Yeah," he says, the gentleness in his voice bizarre in contrast 
to the stone walls and explosions of live fire.  "We're gettin' 
you out of here."

Her breath's shaking and there are tears blurring her eyes and 
clogging her throat, but she gets it, she gets the essentials, 
and he sees it.

Daniel has pulled a blanket from Colonel Burton's pack and draped 
it across Carter's lower body.  Teal'c is crouched across from 
Colonel Burton, ready to hold the chains in place, to place his 
body between Carter and the gunfire if necessary.

"All right, Major Carter, we're gonna shoot through these chains.  
I need you to hold still for me, all right?  Turn on your side 
and stretch out your arms, toward me, then hold them there." 
Colonel Burton's voice is strong and commanding, and Jack knows 
that's the best course of action right now.  Carter will respond 
to a superior officer until her dying breath.

Right on cue, Carter nods and shifts to move her wrists as far 
from her body as possible.  She's limited by the injured 
shoulder, it's obvious she has little range of motion on that 
side.  "Okay," she whispers.

Burton nods, "All right, Major", and Teal'c lays a steadying and 
heavy arm across Carter's inner elbows.  Carter tucks her face 
into the front of the more functional shoulder, and Jack presses 
his hands over her ears.

Two quick shots, muzzle of the weapon point blank against the 
chains, and her arms are free.  For the chain to her collar, she 
can't roll onto the injured shoulder to keep her face protected.  
Teal'c realizes this almost at once and Jack helps to steer her 
his direction.  Teal'c's thick arm slips beneath her and takes 
all the weight from her shoulder as she ducks her head and curves 
her exposed back protectively.  Two shots this time before the 
link is fully severed, then the movement from everyone is rushed 
and instant.


*****


He remembers running and Carter's fingers digging into the hard 
cords in his neck as he strains to hold her weight.  He remembers 
thinking their escape depends upon muscle memory and a blind 
determination to survive as his exhausted and undernourished body 
presses forward beyond his last reserve.  They break through the 
thickest of the trees into a clearing and the Gate waves into 
sight through the dust clouds in glaring sun.

His right knee gives a warning quiver and he slows the pace to 
keep his feet beneath them.  He feels Carter move in his arms, 
and her body language is telling him to let her go, she wants to 
walk.  He slows further, uncertain if she's ready but the doubt 
in his own muscles weakens him to persuasion.  He settles to an 
unsteady stop as he gives the last strength in his thighs to 
lowering Carter's feet to the rough ground.  Jaffa are giving 
chase, but they have gained a moment's time, and there are other 
SG teams not far off, holding the gate and moving toward those 
erupting from the trees.

Jack keeps his arm hard around Carter's waist, holding her up as 
much as he can.  She's still letting him take most of her weight 
and this fact scares him.  He's certain he's pressing into 
bruised and battered flesh.  Her raw skin is against his palm.  
"Carter?"

She gives him a quick nod.  "I think I can walk, sir."  The words 
are almost steady , but her voice is scratchy and thin and she's 
not making eye contact.  He's almost certain she's functioning in 
a waking nightmare, uncertain of where reality blurs and falls 
into dreams.  He can see the haze in her eyes.  He's been in this 
watercolor fever in his life, and his flesh crawls at the 
memories.  He wants to give her water and clothes and clean the 
stains from her freckled skin.  There are Jaffa in the trees and 
they all may die.

"Okay.  We're almost there, Carter.  We're goin' home."

She nods.  Then the steadiness slips and there's a child's quaver 
in her voice as her fingers claw and fumble at the thick metal 
round her throat.  "Can you get this off?  Please?"

He feels sick.  The collar's solid metal, locked or welded in 
place, and he has nothing at hand but his own torn clothes.  She 
must know this, but the fact she asked spreads an acid burn 
through his guts.  He cups her cheek, eye to eye.  Her skin feels 
warmer, no longer the eerie cool of her personal prison.  "I 
can't do it here, Carter.  As soon as we get through the gate, 
all right?  As soon as we get through the gate."

She doesn't nod, but he sees something like comprehension in her 
eyes, and exhales what might have been an assent.

Teal'c and Daniel spill out of the trees and move up to flank 
their teammates in the clearing.  Teal'c's back is turned, 
scanning the trees, weapon from SG-4 at the ready to cover their 
six.

The others are shouting something about incoming hostiles and 
Jack doesn't get the details, but he wraps his arm hard around 
Carter's waist and says, "Movin' out, Major."  They are four 
steps into a feeble run when the bone chilling roar rises behind 
them.  Jack doesn't have to look to know a glider is rising from 
the trees.

"Get down!" Daniel shouts.

The first explosion of fire hits the ground not ten yards behind.  
Jack and Carter move on the instinct they have built in seven 
years of travel to Goa'uld infested planets.  Carter's muscles 
find a strength from some long forgotten reserve and the two of 
them are running full out as the second explosion hits the 
ground, rushing a wave of heat against their unprotected backs.  
Jack has learned to count the paces to a Gate in his sleep and he 
times the intervals between glider fire like the beats of song.  
He knows they are out of synch and in a 4/3 rhythm and the fire 
is in slow motion and the orchestration all wrong.  They will 
collide with the next explosion less than fifteen paces from the 
Gate.

He turns to meet Carter's gaze and sees the understanding in her 
brilliant eyes, knows her sense of timing is almost keener than 
his own.  She is Carter underneath the dirt streaked lids and 
straggly hair and fear and for three seconds that pass in a 
lifetime he is certain he has failed the only job that mattered 
to him since he lost at fatherhood.

The sky explodes.  A stinger from a FIM-92 erupts from the tree 
line and collides with the glider mid-air.  Jack slams to the 
ground beside Carter as they dive and roll to shelter their 
bodies from the blast.  His teeth are coated in sandy dirt and he 
spits out the tastes of the work camp and sweat and the floor of 
their cell.  Carter cuts her lip on a rock or her teeth or both 
and a line of blood trails through the grime from the corner of 
her mouth.  With one quick glance at the sky he sees the charred 
glider on a crash course for the distant edge of the clearing, 
just brushing the top of the gate on its way down.  SGC boots 
pound the ground around them, and all he knows is Carter's blue 
eyes and splashes of blood and the blaze of fires.  He gathers 
her to her feet, wrapping her in the blanket that fell away in 
the dive, and they run for the gate with all they have left.

*Whoosh.*


*****


His knees give out on the down ramp and Jack staggers and drops 
gracelessly to the metal grating, padding Carter's fall as best 
he can.

Medical personnel are swarming.  He pushes and bats at them like 
flies and gestures and leans toward Carter.  He doesn't know how 
bad off he might be and he doesn't care.  Her hip is warm against 
his but she's only half-conscious in the letdown.

A nurse is prodding at something above his temple and he realizes 
the sting in his left eye might be blood mixed with the sweat and 
sand and wonders if he was hit by debris in the blast.  But he 
shoves at the nurse's hands and he chokes on some kind of 
desperation when they pry his fingers loose of Carter's wrist.  
She's moved onto a stretcher that carries her further and further 
away before he can form words.

"Colonel, I need you to hold still.  We're taking care of Major 
Carter, but right now you need to--"

"Take off her collar!  Get off the collar!"  His voice rings 
through the gate room, "I promised..."

Exhaustion catches him in the blink of an eye and blackness 
descends.


*****


Awful Waffle Mondays.

Jack came up with the name but it was Carter and Daniel who came 
up with the idea.  There is a childlike playfulness in those two 
together that Jack can never quite match despite his reputation 
for immaturity.  He thinks maybe it has something to do with 
innocence and shattered dreams and a darkness the others have yet 
to sink to the bottom of and climb their way out again.

For years SG-1 begged the kitchen staff to serve some kind of 
waffles on the breakfast menu.  Really hadn't seemed such an 
absurd request to add to the eggs and bacon and oatmeal.  Yet it 
had never happened.

Until three months ago.

Seven years into the active gate program, the new monthly menus 
had posted on the mess hall doors, and in the neat little print 
on the green paper schedules, they found the results of their 
efforts at last.  Waffles would be served every Monday morning at 
the SGC.

Waffles.  The whole of SG-1 was in the mess hall the first Monday 
morning.  They plunked the nice hot waffles on their trays and 
grinned at one and other over this victory as though they had 
taken down another system lord or commandeered a mother ship.

They ate every last bite of those waffles.

And the waffles?  They were awful.

The waffle-stuffed foursome laughed so hard their stomachs hurt.  
And after that it became a contest.  How many things could they 
do to an awful waffle to make it edible?  Carter poured honey all 
over hers and Daniel tried blueberry sauce.  Teal'c suggested ice 
cream and Jack brought in cheese in a bottle.  Each Monday became 
a little more creative and often a little more horrid, but always 
there was fun and stickiness and a kind of family they all moved 
toward like a magnet.

Awful Waffle Monday.

Jack wants to go home.


*****


"Sam?  Can you open your eyes?"

He hears the familiar voice and the soft moan of reply through 
the flimsy curtains he has woken behind too many times to count.

He pulls his eyes wide, then squints against the infirmary 
whiteout.  To his right he catches the lilting murmur of Daniel's 
voice and deciphers just enough to know his friend is fine, he is 
being taken care of.  Teal'c is somewhere nearby, Jack hears the 
low rumble of the Jaffa's voice, though he can make out no words.  
To Jack's left, he turns to find a gap in the curtains and the 
thinnest glimpse of the bed beside.

"Sam?"

"Yeah.  Yeah, I'm awake, Janet."

He can't see the doctor.  He can see Sam Carter, face partly 
cleaned now, dirt smeared to a thin sheen by a quick swipe of an 
SGC washcloth, hair pushed back from her face.  She looks 
exhausted.  Drained.  But lucid and communicative.

"Good."  Janet's voice is gentle and kind as it is at all her 
patients' bedsides.  But there's a caution and a personal ache 
beneath the comfort that Jack recognizes better than he should.

"Okay, Sam," Janet continues, "how are you feeling?  How's your 
head?  Is your vision okay?"

He sees Carter nod.  "Yeah.  It's clear.  I'm just...tired.  
Sore.  A little nauseous."  She pauses, then, "My shoulder..."

"I know, we're taking care of it.  Do you need something more for 
the pain?"

Carter closes her eyes for a moment and he watches the 
distinctive workings of her jaw muscles as though a code to an 
ancient riddle lay in the movements.  "No.  It's okay."  She 
doesn't want to dream.  He understands the need; pain is 
grounding.  She's been drifting for days.

"Okay.  Sam, I need you to answer something for me.  There's some 
bruising and some blood on your thighs.  Do I need a rape kit?"  
Jack wants to believe he could ask this question as smoothly as 
Janet.  Gentle, direct, practical.  Exactly the tone Carter will 
respond to.

He needs to close his eyes, give her this one privacy, a luxury 
she has been denied for days on end, but he can't look away from 
the sliver in the curtains.  Carter's alive and he can see her 
and he can't look away.

Carter nods in reply.  He sees the tears in her eyes and the 
change in the pace of her breath.  "Yes."  The word is barely a 
whisper.

Janet has dealt with this scenario on more than one occasion when 
SG team members returned from rougher missions and stints in 
Jaffa prisons; Jack has known this for a long time.  But this is 
Carter, and he never has been willing to add up the assault 
statistics in his head against the numbers of trips she has made 
through the gate.  "How many assailants?" Janet asks.

"One.  Goa'uld."

"How many times, Sam?"

The look of confusion on Sam's brilliant countenance makes Jack 
long to close his eyes.  She's confused, struggling to count 
internally, but in the end she frowns and shrugs.  Janet's hand 
appears in Jack's thin slice of the world, stroking Sam's 
blackened shoulder, soothing the confusion.  "Okay.  It's okay.  
You're home."  Sam nods acceptance, but she's crying, and with no 
one to watch but Janet she is raw and scarred.

Jack closes his eyes and rolls away.


*****


He found out she was human on a rainy runway at Dulles when she 
wasn't listening to a word he said.

"Sir?  I'm sorry?"

Captain Carter's translucent eyes were open and pensive; the 
soldier who had ambushed Apophis with no effective ordnance, was 
nowhere to be found.

"Carter?  You all right?"  They'd been on the runway fifteen 
minutes, watching the rain on the airplane windows and harboring 
little hope of a prompt takeoff.  Jack had been talking a lot, he 
realized.  Carter, not so much.

Carter didn't usually stop talking unless there was a computer or 
a DHD or a naquada generator and a box of tools in front of her.

"Yes, sir," she said.  Her reply flew on reflex, but her gaze 
wandered with her words.  "I'm sorry, I just..."  She shook her 
head and tightened her jaw.  The air was damp and thick in the 
coach cabin.  She sat beside him on the crowded plane and seemed 
to struggle with the effort to breathe.

Passengers pushed by in the narrow aisle, last minute boarders 
searching for spaces in the overhead compartments.  There was a 
strange kind of privacy between them in the tall backed seats and 
acousticless hollow.  Her reflection was clear and blue against 
the damp night windows.

"Carter?"  He brushed the backs of his fingers against hers; the 
lightest touch where they shared space on the metal armrest.  
Such touches were rare in those days.  Hell, they are rare now.

The last two days had been all about protecting the Stargate 
program, plugging the leak before the gateroom flooded.  Carter 
had been in her sharpest professional facade, soaking up the 
situation, appraising and planning, ever the crack tactician.  
They had fought the battle for Earth from the other side of the 
event horizon.  But looking at her skin tonight, the tan faded in 
their days away from tropical planets, Jack started to wonder if 
he had missed something closer to home.

Carter drew a few slow breaths, gaze on her flight bag shoved 
beneath the seat in front of her.  "My Dad has cancer," she said 
simply.

The words hit him like a punch in the gut.

"Oh, Christ.  Carter... Did you just find out?"

She nodded.  Her posture didn't change, but there was a quiver to 
her breath and he guessed there were tears in her eyes.  She was 
wearing more make-up than she wore on base.  Dark lipstick that 
shone burgundy in the sodium vapor lights.  Pretty lady with 
single pearl earrings and tears in her eyes.  Carter.  *"No 
giggling, Captain."*

"Carter...I'm--"

"See, it's just like my Dad, you know?"  She shook her head, 
still staring at her flight bag, nose crinkling with something 
like bitterness or anger he didn't understand.  "He couldn't just 
be proud of me for my award.  He couldn't just tell me he was 
sick and let me be sad or scared and let me take care of him.  He 
had to..." but she faded and shook her head, losing the words.

"Had to what?" Jack pressed.

"He wants me to fulfill my dream.  Of being an astronaut."  She 
offered him a pained ironic smile and a fleeting moment of eye 
contact.  "He actually called in some favors and set up a meeting 
for me with a representative from NASA.  And I had to tell him I 
couldn't do it.  He asked me to fulfill a dying man's dream, and 
I had to look him right in the eye and say 'No, Dad, I'm too 
devoted to Deep Space Radar Telemetry.'"

"Carter, he's Air Force, he has to know that--"

She pressed forward over his words.  "But the thing is, it's my 
dream, right?  But because he's my Dad it had to be about him 
again, and about me disappointing him just one more time."

Jack sat beside her for a long time without speaking, keeping his 
upper arm close against hers.  At last he said, "Nobody gets it 
quite right, Carter.  I sure as hell didn't.  And my 
folks...well...my Dad thought I deserted my mother and broke her 
heart when I enlisted.  And my Mom...she thought it was my ticket 
out, she thought it was the best thing I ever did.  But my Dad 
never got that or believed it.  And then my Mom...we lost her 
before I ever got back from Iraq.  So, by the time I got back... 
my Dad thought it was the stress that really pushed her over.  
And I couldn't exactly say it wasn't, because even if she wanted 
me to go..."

"Sir..."  Carter was watching him now, forgetting to hide her 
wide blue eyes and the gentle smudges of make-up where tears had 
welled against her lower lashes.  "I'm so sorry..."

"Carter, this was a long time ago.  But the point is, 
relationships are always messed up in one way or another.  It's 
inevitable.  People are people that way.  All you can do is love 
the people you love.  And not forget that that's okay.  And if 
you love your Dad and keep telling him that, which I know you do, 
because you're good at that sort of stuff...even if he never gets 
the answer right, he knows his girl loved him.  And speaking as a 
former Dad, I gotta say...that's pretty damned important."

Carter nodded a few times, bit her lip on unshed tears.  "He's 
just trying to make me happy," she spoke on a wet whisper, "I 
know that."

Jack nodded, but there was little more to say.  They lived 
stilted lives outside the SGC and they both knew that was going 
to sting like hell sometimes.

Carter had been a little girl, once.  He was fairly certain she 
had lost her mother too early, but he hadn't learned the details.  
A year ago, Carter had all but adopted another lost girl and 
offered her own life for no other reason than to stay with the 
girl as she died.

Somewhere beneath this dark lipstick and beige skirt lay someone 
he could understand far better than the Captain who thought 
science before C-4 and wondered like a child at charged particles 
and nanotechnology and explained everything with words too many 
letters to fit into crossword puzzles.

And she was terrified to lose her father.

"Come here," Jack said softly, just as the plane Captain came on 
the overhead and drowned out their words with explanations of 
weather patterns and queues for the runway and tailwinds.  And 
Carter let Jack pull her into his arms and her fingers pressed 
into his shoulder blades through the cotton of his shirt.  She 
sniffed hard against his neck.  Her body was warm and soft in her 
silk blouse and her knees brushed against his with nothing but 
her nylons, and for that moment he was holding Sam Carter.


*****


Days go by.  They all need a little time to heal.  To rehydrate.  
To sleep in safety and comfort.  To find their resistance again.  
Carter's leg and shoulder need time and care.  The bruises fade 
to yellow and pastel green.  She takes longer to bounce back than 
the others, but not as long as she should.  She's back in uniform 
as fast as she can manage and on light duty with some mandatory 
physical therapy for her shoulder and leg and a set number of 
requisite appointments to wade through with McKenzie.

Jack catches a head cold his first day back on duty, as he always 
seems to do when he returns to Earth after a mission gone bad.  
Daniel catches it from him in a couple of days' time, and Jack 
expects Carter to be next in line.  They all work too close 
together not to share every germ they encounter.

They settle into a rhythm.  They have routines for all the major 
contingencies.  Routine mission days.  Goa'uld threat days.  A 
teammate in the infirmary days.  Paperwork days.  Downtime.  It's 
been seven years and they know the cycles.  Right now they're off 
the mission list, but catching up on their on base duties.  
Carter is buried in her lab.  She's usually happy for these 
respites, gleeful about her research.

Carter's not quite back.

He knows she's not eating and she's sleeping on base too often to 
be healthy.  She must be missing fresh air and the evening walks 
he knows she loves in the park across from her house.

He orders her off gate travel for two weeks beyond the others and 
threatens to talk to Janet if Carter balks.  She doesn't argue 
the point as hard as he expects.  The lack of fire scares him.

Daniel watches her continually with a sort of tragic acceptance 
that makes Jack's stomach hurt.

There should be something more they can do.  In the rush, he 
knows how to act, what wounds to patch, how to carry her to 
safety and watch their six.  In the aftermath he feels helpless 
to act.  Her friends watch in silence and try not to die inside.

Carter offers soft smiles and distant eyes.


*****


"This wasn't your fault, Jack."

He is standing across from General Hammond's desk no matter how 
many times the General asks him to sit.

The flag in the corner of the room is still swinging from when 
the General passed it on the way to his chair.  Jack watches the 
rhythmic motion.

"She's a member of my team, sir."

"Yes, she is.  And you did everything possible to ensure the 
safety of your team.  You acted according to procedure.  You 
don't control the universe, Jack.  There is severe danger every 
time you step through that gate.  Your team knows that."  He 
paused, voice softening.  "Major Carter knows that."

"I know she does, sir."

General Hammond folds his hands neatly on his desktop blotter, 
chooses his words with measured care.  "None of us wanted it to 
be Major Carter, Jack.  I know I'm supposed to be fair and 
impartial in moments like this, and I can't pretend I haven't 
already faced this situation with more than one of our other team 
members in my years in this command, but you know as well as 
anyone that I've known Captain Carter since she was too small to 
reach the drinking fountain.  Jacob talked to me about Sam and 
Mark and Clara almost daily for much of the kids' childhood.  
Sam's like a niece to me, Jack.  But the fact is, she's a big 
girl now.  She knew the risks and it wasn't our place to tell her 
not to take them.  She's alive and able to work, Jack.  That's 
more than some of our team members have been granted this past 
year."

Jack nods, pulling his eyes from the motion of the flag to the 
shifting of his own boots, straightening his stance and clasping 
his hands behind his back.  "Yes, sir.  I know that."

"She's strong, Jack.  She'll survive."

Jack stands in silence for a long while, can't convince his legs 
to move.  "She looked to me for help, sir."

"I'm sorry?"

"She looked to me to help her.  When they took her away.  I swore 
to her it wouldn't be long.  Swore we'd come for her."  He 
squints at the wall, shifts his weight, digs his boot into the 
floor.

"And you did, Jack."

He shakes his head.  "Too late, sir."


*****


She fools him for a while and he starts to believe--probably more 
for himself than for her--that maybe she will handle this latest 
assault and come out on top as she always has.

They're seated around the briefing room table and Menderson from 
SG-7 is droning on ad nauseum about rocks and geological patterns 
and a kind of relationship to the writings Daniel found last 
month on P3X-884.  They all have thick mission reports in front 
of them, and Jack knows he is supposed to have read and studied 
his before he arrived.  Carter retrieved his copy from his own 
office and handed it to him as he passed through the doorway into 
the briefing.  He had never seen it before.

Daniel is deep in discussion with Menderson, spreading rubbings 
and photographs across the tabletop and tossing urgent and 
meaningful glances toward the General who looks only slightly 
less lost than Jack.  It's good to see Daniel in his element, 
again.  Ascension took away his geeky glow for a while and the 
loss ate away at the team's spirit.  Perhaps one can't glow on 
two planes at once.  Jack starts drawing a hangman's noose on the 
corner of the mission report with a practiced pensive expression 
locked on his face.  He wonders if he can discretely attract 
Teal'c's attention.

Carter startles MAJ Larson when she shoves back her chair.  "I'm 
sorry," she mutters, only half turning toward the General.  She's 
pale as air and gone in an instant.

Jack would have followed whether the General had dismissed him or 
not.


*****


She disappears rather effectively.

He finds her sitting back against a table in a seldom used lab 
that serves as more of a giant storage closet.  She has pulled 
her BDU blouse over her black shirt, despite the underground 
stuffiness.  Something in him understands she needs to be covered 
right now.

At the sound of his boots clumping indiscreetly into the room, 
she glances over her shoulder, snaps to attention and stands full 
upright.  "Sir.  I am so sorry.  My behavior was out of line.  It 
was disrespectful both to you and to the General--"

"Carter."  He frowns and continues his steps toward her, hands in 
his pockets and lacking in threat.  "I've worked with you for 
seven years.  This is the first time you've walked out of a 
briefing -- and possibly the most boring briefing in history, at 
that -- you think I came in here to *yell* at you?"

She is duly chastised, takes his teasing a bit too seriously.  
She half nods but doesn't come up with words.  Her gaze falls.

Jack strides the remaining distance between them, circles her, 
and sits back on the table she's just vacated.  A nod of his head 
and she silently sits back beside him.

They're quiet for a while.  Then, "What happened?  You okay?"  
His voice falls deep with kindness.

Carter nods, "Yes, sir.  I'm fine."  She's pale and shaking.

He sits in silent concern, and he hopes his shoulder against hers 
is helping and not hurting.  She doesn't seem to be pulling away.

She says, "There was this stain on the wall.  In Summanus' 
quarters.  The whole place wasn't exactly what I'd call clean, 
but that stain was always...  See, just about every time he 
was..." she wrinkles her nose and fades out, realizing what she 
almost said, "...I was stuck staring at it.  And I kind of 
got...fixated on the stain.  The shape and the...I wanted to fix 
it.  Or sometimes I just wanted to make it into the shape of 
something *better*, or just...  The point is, I hadn't thought 
about that since we left the planet.  And at the briefing...I 
guess Daniel spilled some coffee on his mission binder, and the 
shape of the stain..."

"Oh."

"Yeah."

He wants to ask if she's okay.  But the question is absurd.  
She's living through hell, what the fuck could be okay?  He wants 
to ask if it would help if he laid his arm across her shoulders.  
He wants to know if she hurts when she's touched.  He thinks of 
dirt floors and prison camps and flashbacks in monochrome 
military hospitals and a little boy that made it all seem okay.  
He remembers her warmth on his shoulder on the ice, and he wants 
to spoon up behind her in the darkness and close as much of his 
body around hers as he can, cocooning against every harsh cruelty 
that would dare scrape her skin.

Instead, he says, "You're shaking.  You cold?"

She nods.  He thinks she is acknowledging both the reality and 
the lie.

He moves just a bit closer.  She doesn't stiffen or move away.  
He stares at his boots, pinches and tugs the seams of his 
trousers.  His hands look weather beaten and tanned, and for the 
first time he notices how much they look like his father's.

"I just...I want to go home," she whispers, voice too soft and 
thready to bounce off the hard walls of the SGC.

He nods, pushing as tight against her side as he can.  "Yeah.  Go 
home and get some rest," he says.  But the sick heat in his 
abdomen tells him she means something more.

She stares at the floor for a long time, and he won't move for 
the world.


*****


Downstairs, he finds Teal'c and Daniel waiting outside his office 
like guard dogs with a wounded owner.  He tells them Carter had a 
flashback, tells them she's going home for the day.  Daniel wants 
to say more, but Jack can't take the connection.

He closes the door of his office and punches a hole in the wall.

He can't shake the image of Samantha Carter with her wrists bound 
and spread, blue eyes squeezed shut and white thighs gripped and 
shoved by angry hands; pinned to a bed by the evil she has sworn 
her life to fight.

He spends the evening in his own basement, pummeling his ancient 
punching bag with bare fists until the contents are scattered on 
the concrete and his knuckles are bloodied.

It's real.

Splintered and broken and no matter how hard he tries he can 
never paste the pieces into the former whole.

He swore to bring her home.  But she can't find home and he knows 
it's no longer to be found.
 
It's real.


*****

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