(~(~)~)
Twin breaths pulled in darkness. Hearts twinned in a beat of fear and uncertainty. Cassie was all right. Nirrti fixed her, made her well again. Her fever had subsided, the wracking pain was eliminated. Her body no longer shook, no longer burned; her mind no longer worked against her. Against them.
And yet they sat like ancient guardians carved of stone, keeping watch through eternity if necessary, for all the hours she slept.
It had been easy, when the danger first passed, to smile. To rejoice, even. Cassie would live. How could that fail to be cause for celebration? And so Sam brought the chess board, like she did every Saturday she was on Earth, and Janet set her infirmary back to rights. She reset equipment that had been disrupted by Cassie's EM field, put small objects back in their proper places from where Cassie's mind had flung them. It was easy, because their daughter was going to live, and she hadn't even had to kill anyone to have it happen. Janet was in such a good mood that, when Sam found her in a dark corner of the infirmary, Janet let herself be kissed. If anyone was watching - if the Air Force was watching - it didn't matter, because Cassie was going to live.
But now, now in the dark, things that had looked so hopeful took on the tinge of half-remembered nightmares, of the illusion of certainty made plain to every eye. Janet thought of a circus, of the looming shapes and threadbare costumes after the dazzle-lights of the big top no longer blinded.
Her daughter was an alien. Her daughter was an alien, and there were things that a mother could not make right just by wishing them so.
And so she and Sam sat in the dark on the bed, one on each side of Cassie; they modulated their breathing to hers, and through this to each other's.
Janet fell asleep, her body curled protectively around Cassie's. She dreamed.
In her dream, Cassie is an adult. She still looks like the teenager she is now, but Janet knows she is an adult the way you simply know things in dreams. Her body is shutting down. Fever at 105; a chess set spinning in midair; her entire frame shaking itself apart as tremor after tremor hits her. Janet packs her in ice, puts a containment field around her bed, restraints on her wrists and ankles. Nothing helps. Her fever wobbles, threatens to climb higher. And Nirrti, of course, Nirrti is on the other side of the universe.
Half a dozen monitors around the infirmary send up a warning shrill. Janet races from the room, down the hall, to the Gate Room. "Open it," she demands breathlessly, skidding to a halt in front of General Hammond. "Please, sir, open the gate." She will find Nirrti, if she has to dial every planet in the SGC computer, and she will bring Nirrti here to save Cassie again, even if she has to shoot the bitch this time.
Slowly, General Hammond turns to her. Only it's not General Hammond; it's Senator Kinsey. Only, in her dream, Senator Kinsey is General Hammond. "The gate?" he asks as if he's never heard the word before. "Doctor, we haven't opened the gate in ten years. Not since it killed Dr. Jackson."
"You have to," she pleads. "My daughter is dying, and only Nirrti can save her."
"But Nirrti's dead," Kinsey/Hammond says. "You shot her the last time Cassie was sick."
She didn't. Even in her dream she knows she didn't, but dreams have a truth that the truth of waking hours cannot combat. And so if this man who is and is not General Hammond says that Nirrti is dead, then here, at least, here where Janet needs her most, Nirrti is dead.
In spite of this, Janet remains convinced that her answer lies through the Stargate. And so Kinsey/Hammond must be convinced to open it. Sam will help her do that. She just has to find Sam and Cassie will be saved.
Sam is not in her office. She's not in Jack's office. She is not in conference with Kinsey/Hammond, or plugging figures into her computer. She is not at the gym, or the target range, or sitting at Cassie's side. Sam is gone.
Sam has abandoned them.
Janet sat up abruptly, heart whamming against her ribcage, a caged bird in its death throes. Cassie slept peacefully, with no idea that her mother was crumbling to dust in the bed beside her. Janet lay her hand on Cassie's forehead; she had no fever. She was not shaking, not crying out in pain, not even snoring.
Janet looked across the bed to where she expected Sam to be. Sam wasn't there. She looked at the chair beside Cassie's desk. No Sam. Janet's heartbeat had been slowing, evening out, but no more.
Was her dream coming true in reverse?
She rushed out of Cassie's room. "Sam?" No answer. Down the hall to their bedroom, where the bed looked unrumpled, unslept-in. Back up the hall to the kitchen, where no midnight snacks were being snuck. "Sam?" The taste of bile was twice as sour as in her dream. Around the corner to the living room, and the first thing she noticed was that the jacket she could never get Sam to hang on the coat tree wasn't on the back of the chair anymore. That was it. She was gone. Just for a drive, probably, just to get out and clear her head, but goddamn it, Samantha, the middle of a crisis is not the time to leave your family alone.
But there - right there, the sliding door to the back deck was ajar, and there was the back of a head dearer to Janet than almost any in the world. She raced through the open doorway and threw herself to the floor at Sam's feet, her head in Sam's lap, tears pouring from some darkly secret well.
"Shhh." Soothing hands stroked Janet's hair, her back, but the shuddering would not stop. "Shhh, Janet. It'll be okay. Cassie's fine, and everything will be okay."
Maybe. Oh, only, only maybe.
Janet the scientist believed it, but Janet the mother could not, and the tears flowed down her face. Sam reached her hands down to wipe them away, and Janet caught the fingers and kissed them, lingering, her eyes locking on Sam's suddenly wild, feral. Sam's breath hitched, and Janet knew she had caught her. She raised herself off the ground and straddled Sam's lap, leaning down to bite at Sam's neck.
Sam gasped and bucked up into her. Janet grabbed Sam's hips and pushed down hard, holding her still.
"Janet--"
"Shut up," she growled, sucking hard where she'd just bitten. She was so angry at Sam for abandoning them - even if it was just a dream - that all she wanted was to remind Sam, as forcefully as possible, where she belonged. Who she belonged to.
And Sam, Sam didn't argue when Janet manhandled her pants and underwear to her ankles, leaving her legs exposed to the night wind. She didn't complain when Janet thrust three fingers into her, roughly and without warning. She barely even made a sound as Janet moved aside the fabric of her shirt and covered her shoulders with tiny bites that would be tiny bruises in the morning. "Good girl," Janet hissed as Sam came in utter silence. "You're not going anywhere, are you?" Sam looked at her with dawning understanding. Janet growled. "Don't psychoanalyze me, Samantha. Don't think you understand me. Just stay where I can see you. Stay here so I know I'm not alone."
She burst into tears then, burying her face in the cook of Sam's neck, clawing for a handhold on the back of Sam's shirt, weeping out the fear, and fury, and frustration of the past twenty-four hours. Sam just held on, and Janet must've fallen asleep, for she looked around again to find herself tucked into bed. Sam sat beside her, silent and unmoving as an ancient guardian carved in stone, and Janet, remembering what she'd done on the deck, would've cried in remorse or apology. If she'd had any tears left.
(~(~)~)
Sam and Jack hacked their way through the jungle of P8X-643, whacking at hanging vines every bit as dangerous as a poisonous snake - which this world also had plenty of. Insects no longer than eyelashes flitted around their heads, swooped into their ears. Surely whatever this world had to offer was not worth the agony it was causing them. Sam thought of Daniel, back at base camp, happily decrypting odd metal disks, and of Teal'c, imperturbably watching Daniel's back.
"I was watching you guys yesterday," Jack said. Smacking the side of his head killed eight tiny bugs. "After Cassie's fever broke."
Sam grunted.
"The three of you look like some long-lost Rockwell painting." Pause, hack chop hack. "If Rockwell had painted Air Force lesbians and their alien daughters."
Sam's foot sank ankle-deep into a pile of decayed leaves, and she struggled to pull it out. "I'm sure it was next on his list."
"No one's ever going to look at me the way Janet looks at you."
Her ankle was coming loose. "Try saying that to Daniel sometime and see how fast he knocks you on your ass."
Jack frowned. "What?"
"Never mind, sir."
He reached down. "Here. Let me help you."
She shook away his hand on her ankle as best she could. "I can do this myself, sir."
"Sure you can, but why bother when I'm standing right here?" His hand came back. "You and Janet have what Sara and I could never make work, that's all. For cryin' out loud, Carter, hold still. I can't help you if you don't hold still."
"I don't want you to help me!" A vicious jerk, and her foot was almost free. "And don't envy us, Colonel." A stab of memory, Janet pinning her to the chair, her furious violent fingers and her punishing teeth, and Sam pulled too hard, ended up sprawled across the soaking ground. "Jesus, sir, don't envy us." Though he may not have understood, through her sobs.
On his knees at her side in an instant, Sam was held in his strong grip, his gun an unexpectedly reassuring pressure against her back. "Sara and I, we never really cried for Charlie. You get it all out."
"But Cassie's alive."
"You're her mother. And you just learned that the only thing certain in parenting is loss."
And there on the waterlogged soil of an alien world, with the snakes and the vines and the swarms of insects, Sam's tears fell ever more fiercely, and she held to Jack ever more helplessly, and the loss of Cassandra became a thing she could reach out and touch, if she chose.
She kept her hands to herself.
(~(~)~)
"We're doing something tonight," Sam said decisively as she set the last fork beside the last plate. "Together, as a family."
Janet smiled with heart-breaking gratitude. She wanted nothing so much as to be forgiven by Sam, to have her family healed. "That's a great idea."
"Oh, Mom," Cassie whined, fever now no more than a memory to plague her mothers' nightmares, "Dominic and I are going out tonight."
"Invite him over," Sam offered, forgetting fifteen.
"Yeah, that'll go over great. 'Hey, Dominic, wanna come play Parcheesi and drink warm milk with me and my moms?'" There was disgusted disbelief in her eyes that they would even think of it.
"If the boy has any manners he'll agree," Sam snapped.
"No, Cassie's right." Janet wrapped her hand around Sam's arm. "It's too short notice." Her smile was twisted, pained, forced. "Maybe tomorrow."
Cassie glared. "Maybe." She flounced into her chair and scowled at her plate, not looking at either of them.
Without a word, Sam drew Janet into her arms. They shed no tears, but both heard their heartbeats, twinned once more in a whispered lament of helplessness, and fear, and loss, loss, loss.
END