Title: My Immortal
Author/Email: Jo. R (Jo@ram32.freeserve.co.uk)
Rating: PG
Spoilers: The Lost City pt 2
Season: Seven/Eight (season gap-filler)
Summary: It's time to say goodbye
Catergory: Post-ep/Missing Scene: The Lost City pt2, Angst, S/J UST.
Archive: SJA, Random Ramblings
Disclaimer: Totally not mine.
Thanks to Ruthie for reading it through first.
=*=
His eyes followed her everywhere.
They tracked her every movement, witnessed every
agitated gesture she made.
Every other part of him was dead.
Everything but his eyes.
He wished he could feel again, wished he'd been
able to feel her hand against his cheek.
He couldn't.
The icy cavern encasing his body was too solid for
even her warmth to break through. It was too cold, too thick.
Suffocating.
It seemed strange that she'd been the one to help
warm him up last time he'd felt so cold. That she'd helped break through the
ice that had covered him after his son's death.
There was nothing he could do but stare, and
wonder.
Imagine what words were being exchanged; imagine
what it was that created the sheen of tears in her eyes.
Nothing to do but hope his team would help him thaw
again.
Hope they could save him and bring him back.
=*=
"We can't leave him here," Sam Carter
argued heatedly, running her hands through her already ruffled hair as she
fought to keep her agitation and distress at bay.
Teal'c said nothing, but stood a few feet away, his
gaze fixed to their former leader.
"The only way we can help him is to find the
lost city," Daniel Jackson tried to reason with her but his words fell on
deaf ears. He understood her reluctance, he shared it, but for the life of him,
he couldn't think of another alternative.
Leaving Jack behind was the only option open to
them.
"The *real* lost city," Daniel stressed
upon hearing her snort derisively, biting back a deep sigh of his own. The
glare she gave him reminded him of someone else, almost painfully so. Obviously
the influence Jack had had on her wasn't all good. "It's the only way,
Sam. If we go now, we can look through the notes he made and see if we can find
it."
"And what if we can't, Daniel? We can't just
leave him." She stopped pacing and let her hands drop to her side. Her
eyes stared past him, almost straight through him, and focused on the figure
trapped behind the ice. Her gaze was calculating, measuring the thickness, the
density, the close proximity between the inner wall and the Colonel's body…
Anticipating her thoughts, Daniel moved and
positioned himself so he was blocking her view. "There's no other
way," he repeated softly, his gaze locking with hers. "I want to get
him out of there as much as you do but we can't do anything until we know what
we're dealing with."
"We could try to cut through it," Sam
pondered, acting as though she hadn't heard him speak.
Maybe she hadn't, he mused sadly.
"We might kill him," Daniel responded
instantly, keeping his voice quiet but firm. "We have no way of knowing
what it's like for him in there. We don't know how it's keeping him alive, if
it's keeping him alive…"
"He's alive," she murmured, her eyes
finally shifting from the Colonel to the man standing in front of her. She
desperately wanted to believe her own words but there was a little voice, a
nagging voice that told her she was being falsely optimistic. "He has to
be alive."
Daniel said nothing. There was nothing he could
say. He knew she was waiting for him to argue with her but he didn't want to.
He really didn't want to.
"O'Neill is strong and otherwise
healthy," Teal'c spoke up suddenly, his voice echoing around the icy
cavern. "I do not believe it is the intention of the Ancients who built
this place to come here to die. I believe the material surrounding him is
sustaining him, keeping him alive until his services are needed once again to
protect this planet."
"We need to get him out of there before that
time," Sam replied, the corners of her mouth turning up in a slight ghost
of a smile that flickered and faded almost instantly. She glanced at the
Colonel again and remembered his words when she'd told him General Hammond had
asked her to take command of SG-1.
'I trust you.'
He meant it then and even though it seemed like
that conversation had taken place a lifetime ago, she knew he would mean it
now.
Squaring her shoulders, she tore her gaze from his
motionless form and stared at her friends. They were waiting for her to make a
decision, she knew, waiting for her to give them their orders and take command.
Waiting to see if she could do it.
"We'll head back to the cargo vessel and make
contact with the SGC. We'll see what our orders are and if possible, return and
try and go through those notes and find another address. Maybe we can try the
Asgard again, they might be able to help," she decided, keeping her gaze
fixed on either Teal'c or Daniel.
She couldn't bring herself to look at him,
immortalised inside the glassy prison.
Teal'c and Daniel collected their belongings and
silently made their way to the rings, picking their way through the bodies of
the dead super soldiers they had killed during those last intense moments
before Colonel O'Neill had managed to take control of the Ancient's power.
They both lingered a moment too long, casting long
glances at their former leader.
Each promising they would someday be back.
Soon.
Sam took her time collecting her things,
deliberately walked closer to the block of ice that was her colonel and
stopped.
Stared.
His body hadn't moved; his expression hadn't
changed.
His eyes captured hers.
"I know you're still in there," she
whispered the words though still felt as though they bounced off the walls
around her. "Hold on, Jack. I'll be back for you soon."
She lifted her hand and let it rest on the smooth
surface, barely feeling the ice beneath her skin.
She watched his eyes and was watched in return.
"We don't leave our people behind," she
promised softly, reluctantly breaking contact when Daniel discreetly cleared
his throat behind her. "I won't leave you behind, I promise. I love you, Sir."
With feet that felt almost as heavy as her heart,
Sam made her way to the rings and turned to face the Colonel once again as
Teal'c gave the order to Bra'tac.
A high-pitched screechy sound accompanied the flash
of light that engulfed them and swept them away.
He couldn't hear it but he saw it.
He saw her.
He saw the tear that fell from her eye, the one she
wiped away before turning her back on him and walking to the others.
He saw the promise in her gaze and knew they would
be back.
And he hoped he'd still be there when they
returned.
=*=
Fini.