Another Break in the Wall
by
sHaYcH
Disclaimer: Stargate, etc-yada-etc are property of MGM, Showtime, Gekko etc and so on. In other words Not Mine. I’m just playing in their sandbox while kick-starting my own muses.
Notes: This is A/U, since I haven’t seen all ten seasons and don’t have a clue as to how things turn out with the Ori. Fix-it-ficness Ahoy!
Spoilers: Up through mid-season nine.
Like it? Hate it? Love it? I love any and all feedback: shaych3@yahoo.com
%%%
Once, Daniel Jackson had lectured the rest of SG-1 about the fact that Halloween was viewed as one of the liminal days of the year – in other words, a time when the walls between one world and the next were thin enough that people and other things could pass through them. From this belief, many fairy tales and myths had sprung.
To Samantha Carter, Halloween was just another day. Granted, there were years when that day was filled with joy and delight. Cassie’s first time trick-or-treating, for instance, was one of the colonel’s best memories. In her wallet, Sam kept a photo of that day that captured the moment when Janet had presented her newly adopted daughter, costumed and ready to head out into the dusk, to the members of SG-1.
Cassie’s eyes were large with anticipation. Her small hand clutched at Janet’s even while a smile fought to erupt. Dressed in a set of BDUs that General Hammond had specially ordered for the child, Cassandra was the picture-perfect replica of an SG team member ready to step into the event horizon of a wormhole.
By contrast, Janet Fraiser easily resembled an escapee from an 80’s rock video. Big hair, spandex top and shredded jeans that were just shy of indecent were topped off by a face covered in a thick layer of make up and glitter.
Sam had absolutely loved it. The guys were stunned into silence until Daniel had cracked, and fallen off the couch. His laughter had sparked a round of giggles that had sent Cassie out into her first Halloween with a giant smile on her face.
That time had come and gone, though. Years and tears later, Colonel Samantha Carter was still a member of SG-1, still working for the government on the semi-super secret Stargate project – Because how secret can a secret be when you have civilian oversight? – and fighting to save the galaxy.
Most of SG-1 was off world, facing who knew what, while she stayed behind to nurse herself through a mild but annoyingly debilitating bout of the flu. The CMO, who was not Janet, and would never be the woman who wore glitter and spandex as easily as scrubs and latex, had rightly kept Sam grounded until she was healthy.
The bunk in the colonel’s quarters wasn’t as comfortable as her bed at home, but at least it wasn’t a bed in the infirmary. Sam lay back and stared at the ceiling, trying to imagine constellations in the lumps and bumps overhead. It was Halloween, and she should have gone home to dole out handfuls of sugar to miniature ghosts and goblins, but she couldn’t bring herself to face them.
I don’t want to see what might have been in their eyes. Cassie was away at college now, studying so hard that Sam was proud of her success while at the same time being fearful that the young woman would burn out and grow disillusioned with the process.
It was Halloween and the walls between worlds were thin and for Sam Carter, those walls were just fragile enough to reveal unhealed pain from a loss she had never quite faced.
Janet Fraiser, Cassie’s mother, Sam’s best friend, the CMO of the Stargate program, had died while doing what she did best – using her hands to heal the wounded. As many times as the members of SG-1 had faced and defeated death, there was nothing that could be done for Janet. One rogue staff blast mixed in with a jumbled mass of bad relations with their supposed allies, and Janet Fraiser’s death was a fact ground in stone.
Brass and granite marked the spot where Janet’s family had watched their daughter laid to rest but for Samantha Carter the solid evidence of her friend’s absence was depicted not in stone, but in silence. Where once family nights would have been filled with laughter and joyous ribbing, only silence reigned as both Sam and Cassie struggled through their loss.
Rubbing her eyes, Sam pushed away the memories and dragged herself out of bed. There was a table at the far end of her quarters and upon it sat a variety of candles. Each one had a name painstakingly graven into the wax – a ceremony Cassandra had initiated that first Halloween after Janet’s death.
“To remember,” the young woman had
said. “We make fire
to show our loved ones that we
remember the warmth and light they added to our lives.”
Calmly,
Sam set about
lighting each candle. For
her mother, a
pink taper that rose high above the others.
A short, squat, drab green candle for her father took two
tries before
she was able to set the wick aflame.
Two
candles, twisted about one another, bore the names of Jolinar and
Lantash,
together in death as they were in life.
Other names for other candles began to melt as Sam came to
the last, the
final memorial with a name scored in wax.
This
was Janet’s
candle. Myriad
colors swirled and danced
throughout the taper. Closing
her eyes,
Sam briefly stroked the wax and then whispered, “I still miss you.” With shaking hands, she
struck a match.
“Unscheduled off-world activation!” blared through the loudspeakers.
Almost simultaneously, Sam’s cell rang.
“Shit.” The colonel blew out the
match as well as the
other candles and then answered her phone.
Five
minutes later, she
was waiting in the gate room. Sam’s
gaze
was fixed on the shimmering, watery disc of the event horizon. The sight had never grown
old for her and
today was no different. If
any had
bothered to look, they would have noticed a bright tightening to Sam’s
eyes
that belied her calm exterior. Behind
her, several rigged out marines awaited the order to fire upon any
emerging
threat but no such command would be given.
Above
them, in the command
center, General Landry, Dr. Lam and the Asgard Thor awaited the arrival
of
their guest.
If
Sam hadn’t heard the
story from Thor himself, she would not have believed it.
Janet
Fraiser, the once
and possibly future Chief Medical Officer of Stargate Command, was
alive.
Cassie’s gonna kick my ass, was
all Sam could think as she watched the diminutive form of the
not-nearly-as-dead-as-they-thought-she-was doctor step through the gate.
%%%
Later,
much, much later
after there had been debriefings of debriefings and Dr. Lam had
certified in
every way humanly possible that the woman with Janet’s face really was
Janet
Fraiser, Sam was back in her quarters, sitting on her bed and staring
at the
table of partially melted wax. In
her
hands was the unlit candle with Janet’s name carved into it.
This is too easy.
Nothing I’ve ever wanted has been this simple.
Somehow,
it was still
Halloween, and though there was not much left of the day, the walls
were still
thin enough that Sam felt years of grief battering at her heart.
Anger
boiled close to that
grief and suddenly, she lashed out, and chucked the candle across the
room. It struck the
wall with a soft
thud and fell to the floor, breaking into hundreds of multicolored
chunks.
There
was a knock at her
door and with a clarity of thought that broke through the anger and
grief, Sam
knew who awaited her on the other side.
Slowly, she stood. A
quick flash
of memory accompanied the motion.
Step – “We deeply regret the actions of a rogue member of the Asgard High Council.” Thor’s voice, so calm, and yet every word was no less shocking to those in the room than the images being uploaded onto their computers.
Step
– “Once
temporal stasis had been achieved, a clone was inserted to take Dr.
Fraiser’s
place. Again, you
have my most humble
apologies, but it was the only choice I had, given the circumstances.”
Sam
snorted. The Asgard
scientist, Odin, had babbled on
and on about paradox and time rifts and a thousand other terrible
things but
Sam knew what he was really trying to say was that he had leaped upon a
golden
opportunity. Using
what had worked for
the Asgard before – primitive thinking combined with high technology –
Odin, in
concert with Dr. Fraiser, had worked for years to try and solve the
alien
race’s problem with reproduction.
It was
only when Heimdall, another of the Asgard, had discovered them, that he
was
stopped.
Her
hand was on the
doorknob now. The
cool metal under her
fingers warmed slightly.
Twist
– “Every test
I’ve done indicates that this is, indeed, Dr. Janet Fraiser.” Dr. Lam spoke as though
Janet weren’t
standing less than two feet away from her.
Sam was hard pressed not to burst into a combination of
tears, laughter
and cheers as Janet’s face clearly showed her distaste at being spoken
of so
dismissively. “And
I don’t see why she
can’t be allowed to resume her normal life.”
As
if someone who had been
dead and buried could just return to life like a vampire from a penny
dreadful. But
Generals Landry and
Hammond were working to make it happen.
Something about changing the records from “Killed in
Action” to MIA and
then Found Alive, though Sam wasn’t really clear on the details.
The
Asgard had departed,
and Odin’s pleas for forgiveness had echoed in the Sit Room for the
long
moments of quiet that had filled chamber until Janet had stood and
excused
herself.
Click – “I have a phone call to make.” A few blank stares around the table caused Sam to add, “Her daughter, Cassandra. She needs to know.”
General Hammond nodded.
“Of course. Make
it happen, Sam.”
The
colonel had understood
the silent, get her here quickly,
command that lay beneath
The
door opened and
through a haze of quickly gathering tears, Sam faced her long-lost
friend.
Janet
gazed at her for a
long time before speaking. “Colonel
now,
hmm? I guess I have
some catching up to
do.”
Sam’s
laughter caught in
her throat as the tears spilled over.
She was amazed to see that her friend’s face had become
similarly
wet. “I’m sure it’s
just another
formality,” she said, her voice harsh with her grief.
Then
they were hugging and
it was like nothing else. This
was Janet
– Janet –
in her arms. Her
family, her friend, returned whole and
healthy like an escapee from some ancient elven underworld.
It
was Halloween and the
walls between worlds were thin and sometimes, the origins to myths and
fairy
tales were truer than told.
“Cassie
will be here in a
few hours,” Sam said sometime later.
They were sprawled on her bunk, staring at the ceiling
after having
filled the room with soft chatter about trivial matters.
Janet’s
quick, juddered
hiss of indrawn breath caused Sam to turn and face her friend.
“Is
that okay?”
Brown
eyes wearily
closed. “Okay? God, at this point, okay
is relative and all
right is somewhere in the stratosphere of future normality.”
Sam
chuckled. “Well,
this is the SGC – shouldn’t we be used
to weirdness by now?” The
question was
spoken as if the colonel were seeking her own comfort in Janet’s answer.
Opening
her eyes, Janet
stared at her friend and sighed. The
years in Odin’s company had done much to rob her of any easy ability to
connect
with another human. Shared
failure or
success with the Asgard prompted neither celebration nor sorrow, and
only
reinforced his drive to continue.
The
alien scientist was cold and living in that icy environment had stolen
Janet’s
ability to read people.
She
remembered, though,
that once upon a time, the woman perched beside her was a friend who
might be
more than friendly. Or
maybe it was
Janet who was more than friendly.
It
really didn’t matter any more because she had forgotten how to know
those
answers.
Shrugging,
Janet said,
“Weird is as relative as anything else, Sam.
From my perspective, right now is weird.”
She looked down at her hands.
“Normally, I would be in the lab, watching
over yet another one of Odin’s experiments.”
Sam
reached out and
touched Janet’s chin, drawing her gaze back upwards.
Rewarding the doctor with a smile, Sam said,
“Trust me, Janet. Weird
is okay.”
“Yeah?” Suddenly Janet wanted,
more than anything,
some physical reminder that she was alive and warm.
That it was Sam who was there, and smiling so
sweetly, only served to ignite a flurry of emotional echoes in the
doctor. Between one
breath and the next, Janet surged
upward and kissed her once-and-hopefully-future best friend on the
mouth. It was
easier than anything she had done in
years.
Momentarily
stunned, Sam’s
brain nearly shut down from shock until her heart jumped into the fray
and took
over. Losing
herself in the kiss, Sam
ignored the tiny voice in her head that screamed dire warnings that
this was a
bad idea.
Janet’s
lips were softer
than she ever imagined, though Sam was quite certain she had actually
never
thought of kissing her best friend.
It
didn’t matter, because the actuality of the kiss was far better than
anything
she might have considered, even if she had been given to those kinds of
daydreams.
Kissing
Janet Fraiser
immediately became the one perfect thing Sam had done all day. Then the kiss ended, and
Janet quickly pulled
away, muttering incoherent apologies.
“No,”
Sam said.
Bemused,
Janet’s babbling
ceased. “No?”
Quirking
her lips into a
wry smile, Sam said, “I can’t forgive you, Janet.”
Janet’s
eyes widened and
she scrambled to stand, only to be trapped by Sam’s solid grasp.
Drawing
the doctor into
her arms, Sam said, “There’s nothing to forgive.
God, Janet – you can’t just kiss me like that
and then run away.”
“I
– no – I suppose not,”
Janet replied hesitantly. She
was
shaking, though, and Sam realized that the next few minutes would
determine a
whole lot more than whether or not she would ever be kissed like that
again.
%%%
It
was Halloween when the
walls between worlds were thin and in the miracle of that night, the
universe
had given Samantha Carter a gift.
Lying
beside Janet
Fraiser, their lips still tingling from a kiss that was as unlikely an
event
between them as the fact of Janet’s very much alive and breathing
state, Sam
considered what she could say that would set their feet on the course
they both
wished to travel.
Strangely,
it was Janet
who spoke first.
“You
know, I never thought
I’d actually do it,” she said, a thread of an amused chuckle piercing
the
words.
“What?” Sam looked down at Janet
in confusion.
It
was Janet’s turn to
smile and the gentle, bemused expression wrapped itself around Sam’s
heart and
squeezed.
“Sometimes,
a girl dreams
of things that can never be, Sam.”
Janet
reached up and sifted her fingers through the ragged fringe of hair
that
brushed the colonel’s neckline.
“Sometimes, those things are so unlikely that all they
will ever be are
dreams. For me,
kissing you was one of
those things.”
Sam
experienced what felt
like a bonfire igniting in her belly.
Every nerve seemed to come alive and tingle with an urge
that she could
neither ignore nor resist.
“Does
that mean you’re
going to do it again?” she asked coyly.
The
fingers tugging at her
hair stilled and then curved around her neck, drawing her down to
Janet’s
waiting lips. Around
a smile, around
laughter that threatened to shake them apart, the doctor said, “Yes.”
It
was Halloween, when the
walls between Sam’s world and her heart thinned and shattered and Janet
Fraiser
came home.
fin
10/27/2007