Breaking the Curse

Chapter Fifteen:  Something Missing

This was crazy. Sam knew it was crazy. She couldn't believe she'd managed to talk Dr. Weir into agreeing to this plan. Especially not after the woman turned it down the first time. A part of Sam even agreed with the woman's decision. She understood why they shouldn't, why this was a bad idea. It was just that they were all getting so desperate.

Yes, the colonel was in a stasis chamber. They should be celebrating the destruction of Anubis and his fleet, and they couldn't. Their team was missing its leader, but what had happened shortly before that final mission had made things worse. Awkward. Splintered. It used to be temporary. Sometimes it was her and Daniel, split off because of their “geeky” natures, sometimes it was Daniel and Teal'c for their knowledge of other cultures, sometimes her and the colonel and Teal'c because of their military background and training, and sometimes, Sam and the colonel because... Because of what she felt—thought she felt—for him.

Now, the team... They were all separated. Daniel was distant, holding himself away from everyone. He argued to get his friend out of the stasis chamber, to save his life, but his heart didn't seem to be in it—in anything right now. Teal'c was quiet, but Sam could tell he was displeased with the way things were being handled. It wasn't about Weir. It was about the politics, and no matter how you sliced it, politics just sucked.

She was going over the map, trying to make this make sense, but she didn't know what to do. She wanted her team back, her friends back, but she knew what she had managed to do—essentially, she was saving her team leader at the cost of her best friend. This was the worst thing she could possibly do, wasn't it? And wouldn't it seem to Daniel that she was just doing this because of her unresolved issues with the colonel... romantic entanglements. She knew that the team had felt the strain of that tension over the past four years. Daniel was a part of the team; he and O'Neill had been friends for years. They had formed a bond under extraordinary circumstances, and Daniel was being told to ignore that bond.

The whole thing had to be very difficult for him. He was having a rough time before that final mission, and after that conversation at the colonel's house... Daniel had been—had looked so awful that day. And she felt like he was avoiding her, that he had been for a while. She knew he'd wanted to take a trip, had been walking out the door when they found the repository.

“We got the co-ordinates from the Prometheus. Now, based on the amount of time it took to get the modified ship from Taonas to Earth, I'm estimating our trip to Othalla from Earth will take roughly ten days,” Sam told Teal'c as Daniel came in through the door.

“Hey,” he said warmly. “So, uh, how did you talk Weir into letting us go?”

“I didn't. I talked her into letting us go,” she said, pointing to herself and Teal'c, and hated herself for what she was about to do. “You're staying here.”

Daniel stared at her and then at Teal'c disbelievingly. He was crushed. She felt terrible about doing this. It wasn't her intention. She wanted to do this together. As a team. “Daniel, even with the modifications to the ship there's no guarantee it'll get us there, and if it does there's a good chance it'll burn out the engines. The ship was never meant to fly at that speed which means, if we don't find the Asgard, we'll be stranded.”

“I know.”

“We need you here,” Sam said, her heart aching with the pain she heard in his voice. “You're our best chance at deciphering whatever information's in that Ancient outpost.”

“If we fail, you will be O'Neill's only hope.”

Teal'c was sitting up in the cockpit, monitoring the controls when Sam came back into the room. She had been down in the engine room, studying the modifications that the colonel had made to the engines when he was under the influence of the Ancient knowledge. She hadn't figured it out yet, but she was fascinated by them. The Goa'uld technology alone was worth learning, but the modifications...

“Hey, Teal'c,” she began, holding up a sandwich. “Can I get you anything? I packed lots of turkey—I know it's your favorite.”

“Thank you, but I am not currently hungry. Have you been able to determine how O'Neill modified the engines?”

“No. I'm just taking a break. I didn't think it would be easy, but at least it's a good way to pass the time,” she said, and then she flinched, realizing how that sounded and what she'd been doing it. “I'm sorry—have I been ignoring you?”

Teal'c smiled as she sat down. “I am fine.”

“I thought maybe working on the engines would help take my mind off what's going on, everything that happened. Colonel O'Neill... I don't like knowing that he's stuck in a stasis chamber. The one thing that would take my mind off that can't because he's the one who modified them,” Sam sighed. “Look, I know this plan isn't exactly foolproof. I have never plotted an intergalactic course before. I mean, if the coordinates are off by even one half of a percent we could wind up ten thousand light years from our destination. But I'm trying to stay positive.”

“I have the utmost confidence in your ability.”

She found Teal'c's belief in her both reassuring and overwhelming. What if she was wrong? What if this was a mistake? “I know. So, you want to talk?”

“Concerning what subject?”

She laughed. Teal'c wasn't the most talkative person in the universe. “I don't know. How's Ry'ac?”

“Fine.”

This was proving to be difficult. She wasn't sure how much of a conversation she was going to get from Teal'c. He didn't say he didn't want to talk, but he wasn't being very forthcoming, either. “You still keeping in touch with Ishta?”

“Indeed.”

“Bra'tac?”

“Bra'tac is well.” Sam sighed in exasperatiion, and Teal'c took pity on her. “How are you coping with the loss of Pete Shanahan?”

“I'm fine.” She turned away, feeling embarrassed. It could have been worse, she supposed. Teal'c could have asked her about her feelings for the colonel or about the confusing way she felt about Daniel...

“And Daniel Jackson? Is not all well between the two of you?”

“No! Everything's fine.” Teal'c looked at her, and she sighed. “I'm worried about him. It's not easy saying goodbye to someone you care about when you think there's a chance you may never see them again. I know that's a risk we take every time we step through the stargate, but...still... With everything that's happened lately, I've been pretty worried about Daniel. He's been having a really rough time. And I guess I have, too. And that last conversation at the colonel's house, it haunts me...”

She paused for a moment. She didn't even notice how Teal'c smiled.

“We are preparing to emerge from hyperspace,” Teal'c announced as he put on a headset. Sam nodded absently, drawn out of her thoughts. She'd given up on trying to figure out the engines, and she figured they had to be close. She had a lot to think about. She'd said goodbye to the colonel, so why was she fighting so hard to save him? Because he wasn't dead and deserved the chance, but was it worth all this? Was it worth what she'd put Daniel through?

“As soon as we drop out, I'll start broadcasting a signal. If the Asgard are monitoring the region, they should find us.”

The ship shifted into normal space. Teal'c checked his headset. “Should we not be able to see the planet?”

“Yes,” Sam answered nervously as the ship began to vibrates, shaking in an unpleasant and worrying way. This was not good.

“We are experiencing the effects of an extremely powerful gravitational force.”

She shook her head. “Something's not right. Teal'c, turn us around and get us out of here now.”

“Hyperspace generator will not engage,” Teal'c informed her. Though there wasn't any hint of panic in his words, she was worried. “Sub-light engines are at maximum, yet we are not moving.”

“There's only one thing I know of that could create this kind of gravitational pull,” Sam reported from the engine room, rushing back to check on the hyperdrive. “It's pretty much what we expected—we burned out the hyperdrive getting here.

Teal'c took off his headset. “That is most unfortunate.”

“Even if it was working, it would have been very dangerous to open a window this close to the event horizon of a black hole.”

“Are we that far off course?”

“No,” Sam said, shaking her head in confusion as she checked her readings. “We came out of hyperspace right where we were supposed to. This just doesn't make any sense. Halla's sun wasn't nearly massive enough to collapse into a black hole.”

“Yet that is what appears to be happening.”

“I'll see if I can get a little more out of the sub-light engines.”

“We are now being pulled backwards. Advise that we divert power from the shields,” Teal'c said, and she didn't want to agree, but she wasn't sure they could avoid doing it. She had to find some other solution. She had to find a way to get something from the engines.

“Right now they're the only thing holding the ship together. Drop them and the gravitational fields will tear us apart,” she told him, thinking that they were going to die one way or another.

“I do not believe there is any other choice.”

Sam couldn't see one, either. What she was doing here wouldn't help anything, not in time. She went to the crystals and took one out. “Diverting power.”

“We are now moving forward.”

She closed the crystal bank and ran forward. “It's not going to be good enough—we're losing hull integrity. We've got a hull breach!” Sam shouted over the noise of the explosion, and air rushed around the ship. Teal'c got up from his seat, and she headed towards him, staring as the back of the ship ripped slowly and horribly open. Teal'c grabbed hold of her and pulled her back. It wouldn't make any difference.

“Greetings.”

Sam had never been more grateful to hear that voice in all her life. She'd say that the next time Thor rescued them from death, she was sure. “Thor!”

“It is good to see you again, Major Carter, Teal'c,” Thor went on pleasantly, and Sam started to breath normally, letting go of the adrenaline on the situation they'd been in only a few minutes before. They had nearly died. Again. It was a part of the job, but it didn't seem to get easier.

“Likewise,” Sam told him, smiling.

“Indeed. Your timing is impeccable.”

She could tell that Thor was wondering what they were doing here, on the edge of a black hole, and she was kind of wondering how that happened as well. As briefly but with as much detail as possible, she filled the Asgard in on recent events, everything that had happened in the last couple weeks. She focused mainly on the Ancient repository and the actions leading up to the discovery of the Ancient outpost in Antarctica. She wished Daniel was here to do this. He would have explained it better.

“I am afraid I cannot leave this sector, Major, not at the moment,” Thor began, and Sam looked desperately at Teal'c. They hadn't come out here for nothing.

“Thor, you're the only one who can save Colonel O'Neill.”

“As you have said, he is being preserved in stasis at the moment. I will be glad to return with you to Earth as soon as my mission here is completed,” Thor informed her calmly, and she felt herself relax again. She had overreacted.

“What is your mission?”

“I must wait here until I am certain the replicators have been destroyed. You may have noticed that Halla's sun has collapsed into a black hole.”

“Just before the back of our ship was torn off,” Sam agreed, shaking her head. They had been so close, and that was so dangerous. She was still struggling with it.

“I'm sorry I did not reach you sooner. I was not expecting you.”

“Yeah, you haven't been responding to our attempts to contact you,” Sam agreed. Now that they were here, she understood why.

“I am sorry. Time and space distortions caused by the black hole have been interfering with my ship's long-range communications,” Thor explained. He gestured to the black hole that had been Halla's sun. “The time dilation field was only a temporary measure. We knew the time it would take for the Replicator humans to reach the machine would translate to less than two years outside the field. Therefore, a more permanent solution was devised.”

“So, you collapsed the sun,” Sam summarized. Impressive. The Asgard were amazing.

“By artificially increasing its gravitational field, yes.” Thor pulled up another computer image. “As you can see, the planet has already broken apart. However, a large number of replicators have managed to come together in a coherent mass that has yet to pass the event horizon.”

“Well, even if they can withstand the gravitational force without being torn apart, there's no way they could ever...” Sam trailed off as the very thing she was about to say was impossible happened. The replicators started to move away from the event horizon. “How is that possible?”

“They have the time dilation device. I do not know exactly how, but they seem to have used it to counteract the gravitational effects that should be pulling them in.”

She bit her lip. “Frightening—not only that they can do that, but you don't know how.”

“I agree,” Thor said, watching the replicator mass move. “They are picking up speed. Scans indicate the blocks have formed together.”

Teal'c frowned. “Into what?”

“A ship,” Thor reported. “They are escaping. Their course indicates they are headed this way.”

“Have you ever seen anything like it?”

“No, and it is doubtful my ship's weapons will be effective against it.”

“We should probably get out of here, then, right?” Sam looked over at the Asgard with concern. “Can you jump into hyperspace?”

“We must clear the gravitational distortion field of the black hole first,” Thor reminded her. “They have fired upon us.”

“Can it penetrate your shields?”

“It is more than likely. Brace for impact,” Thor warned them just before the replicator weapon hit the ship. “The hull has been breached.”

“Where?”

Thor checked the readings. “The damage is minimal. The projectile was likely composed of replicators. They are not visible to my ship's scanners. This is how they have boarded Asgard ships in the past.”

“Can you use the shields to prevent decompression in those sections?”

“Yes.” Sam and Teal'c went to the crates that they had brought with them on the cargo ship. Thor beamed over along with the two of them, thank goodness. Both of them took out rifles and headed towards the damaged section of the ship.

Sam found herself disarmed, in a strange room. One moment she was helping eliminate the replicator boarders from Thor's ship, and the next she was here. She didn't recognize this as Asgard technology. She walked around a little, and it was clear, painfully so. The walls were made of replicator pieces. She reached out to touch them, and a shape appeared. She moved back, and the shape morphed into something else. Fifth walked out of the wall. “Major Carter.”

“Fifth!” She was having a hard time believing what she saw. She wasn't sure what to think of this. Maybe she could get through to Fifth again.

“I imagine you never expected to see me again,” he said as he advanced towards her threateningly.

Sam backed away. “I'm sorry we left you behind, but we had to do it. We couldn't risk the others getting out. You know what they're capable of. I know you must be upset.”

“Upset.” There was an ugly violence to the way he said the word, and Sam's heart sank. This was not going to work. She wouldn't be able to find any sympathy in him.

“We betrayed you. It must have hurt.” She had reached the far wall and could go no further. There was no way out. “See, that's the part of you that's most like us, the human part of you. I understand how you feel.”

“No, you don't! You couldn't!” he snapped angrily. Then his gaze shifted, and he spoke with a chilling calm. “But I promise you, you will.”

He moved his hand towards her head. Sam tried to stop him, but his fingers extended and plunged into her head. Images, feelings, each more horrible than the last, flashed through her mind, over and over again, pain after pain... She couldn't take it, couldn't cope. Finally, Fifth pulled his hand out of her head and she fell to the floor, gasping.

“Why are you doing this?”

His regard was still cold. “You think you deserve better?”

“You can see my thoughts,” she reminded him. “You know I didn't want do it.”

“I suppose in a way I should thank you,” he mused as he started to pace the room. “It was because of what you did to me I came to realize my full potential. I am more human than the others. At first I thought it was weakness, but now I see it makes me capable of so much more.”

She didn't want to know what he was capable of. “Fifth, please!”

“My brothers and sisters will devour entire civilizations in order to replicate, but they will know nothing of cruelty, or betrayal, or revenge. Not like us. Isn't that right, Major Carter?” He reached his hand toward her head again. She bit her lip and tried not to cry as it began again.

It was hard to say how long it lasted. It took seconds, she supposed, but she couldn't focus on anything other than the pain. It would not relent, and she couldn't bear it. She found herself wishing that she had never come, never been able to convince Weir this was what they needed to do, even though it was O'Neill's only chance.

She collapsed to the floor sobbing, after Fifth withdrew his hand the second time. “Stop it, please!”

“Why should I?”

She fought tears and realized there was no point in being strong right now. It was better to cry. “You can't change what happened. Is this making you feel better? I never intended to abandon you.”

“But you did. You gained my trust, then you used me and left me behind.”

“It wasn't my decision,” she told him. He might not understand orders, might not realize that she'd been forced to do it for the greater good. She knew that. She couldn't make him see it.

“You could have come back for me.”

“There was no time.”

“Time!” he scoffed again, shaking his head, and she was afraid he was going to stick his hand in her head again. “Thanks to what you did, I had plenty of time to think about what a fool I was.”

“I'm sorry,” she told him honestly. “I'm sorry for what we did to you.”

“Yes,” he agreed slowly. “You are now.”

Angry that he could judge her, that he could twist how she felt about this, she glared at him for a moment. She couldn't help the anger, but she couldn't mainatain it, either. “Part of being human is having compassion, learning to forgive.”

“Yes. I'm not there yet. I need more time.” He started to plunge his hand into her head again. Sam sobbed in fear and pain.

His hand stopped just before it reached her head. Sam continued to weep. She couldn't defend herself against this. He could hurt her where there was no escape. He reached out slowly and gently cradled her head in his hand, stroking her hair. She shuddered.

Sam woke up slowly, in a naturally sunlit bedroom. The replicator room, the ship, it was gone. But it couldn't be. She was being held, against her will... Fifth. Fifth had her. She didn't understand. How had she gotten here? Where was here? She sat up, getting out of the bed. She went across the room to the mirror on the closet door and stood, staring at herself in disbelief. Her hair had grown long, and she was wearing a nightgown.

She didn't like how vulnerable she looked, how vulnerable she felt. She grabbed a quick change of clothes, jeans and a short-sleeved shirt, and left the room. She went down the hallway into the kitchen and looked around. What was this?”

She ended up taking a coat off the hook near the door and heading outside. She was right next to a lake, and there was a man down by the water, half-asleep in a lawn chair.

“Hey, sleepyhead,” the lazy voice said, and Sam froze in confusion.

“Sir?”

“Sir? What's with the sir, crap, Carter? It hasn't been 'sir' in a long time. Well, not counting last night,” he said, winking at her.

Mortified, Sam continued to stare. What was he talking about? What was he even doing here? He was frozen, in stasis, in Antarctica. He shouldn't be here. She shouldn't be here. And where the hell was here?

“Carter?”

“What are you doing here? What am I doing here? Where the hell is here?” she demanded, gesturing to the lake and the cabin and the craziness around them. Him.

“It's the cabin, Carter. Our cabin, since you insisted we get one of our own instead of one I might have shared with other women,” O'Neill answered, a touch of bitterness in his voice. “Come on, how could you forget that? You threw one hell of a hissy fit after you found out that liason had been to my other place.”

She shook her head. “The last thing I remember, I was on board a replicator ship. You were frozen in stasis. This isn't real. It can't be. This is just another way of screwing with my mind.”

“This is not S.G.C., it's Minnesota. Nothing weird happens here—well, there have been a few claims about Paul Bunyon or possibly Big Foot, but that's not the point. After I got out of the stasis chamber, things weren't... exactly the same. I retired for good. The Goa'uld were licked, so you came with me.”

“I don't understand... This can't be...”

“Well, I kind of left out that last mission you were on. Got pretty bad,” O'Neill added. “But we're here. Got the mosquitos to prove it.”

“Sir—”

“It's Jack. And you actually use it now,” he told her as he kissed her. “Did that feel real?”

“Yes.”

“I can show you things that are a lot more real,” O'Neill teased with a lasicivious smile, pulling her into his arms. “Or maybe I should dunk you again. You get wet, you get mad, we have some pretty good sex, and then it's back to fishing.”

“You're kidding.”

“It's a good life,” O'Neill said in frustration. “What is with you? All this we should be doing more crap you keep spouting is getting really old.”

“Come on, you can't really expect me to just play along with this,” she told him. “You wouldn't quit the stargate program, and I wouldn't spend my life fishing!”

“But you want me,” O'Neill said in a voice that actually frightened her. She tried to get out of his hold as he went for the button on her jeans. “You've always wanted me. We don't talk, Carter. That's not how we work. But the rest of it... It feels pretty good.”

“No,” she said, pushing his hands away as she continued to pull out of his embrace. “Nothing you say or do is going to convince me. I know who you are, I just don't understand why. What do you want from me? Why are you doing this?”

O'Neill threw her on the ground, and suddenly he wasn't the colonel anymore. He was Fifth, just as she knew he had to be.

“Because I love you.”