|
Title: Never forget
Author: Venom_69
Disclaimer: I don't own these people.
Dedication: For Samantha, who came up with this idea on the S/J list
and then encouraged me to finish this fic, with virtually
the same
plot as her idea. Great mind's think alike. And for LEW, as always, I
know that you're busy at the moment
but I appreciate you beta'ing
this for me.
Date: 26-10-2002
~*+*~
Please remember
Please remember
How
we laughed, how we cried
How this world was yours and mine
We had a dream, we tried to reach
I stood by you and you
stood by me,
Please remember
LeAnne Rhymes- Please remember
~*+*~
I can hear the scream echo through
the hallways and I visibly jump,
Janet still holding my arm to keep me from falling. I can practically
feel the sedative
flowing through my veins.
Another scream bounced off the walls and I flinch. Despite all of the
pain and the agony
behind those screams, I'd know that voice anywhere.
The colonel.
I ignore my tired muscles and run towards the
room that we had set
aside for Zaytarc testing, Janet hot on my heels. Flying around the
corner, I watch as the colonel
convulses in pain, pleading to Fre'ya
to stop the procedure.
"Stop!" I yell, the panting making my words sound
odd.
Fre'ya glances at us briefly, but turns back to watch the colonel
clenching his muscles as the laser beam
penetrates his eye and goes
straight into his brain, trying to reach the supposed effected area.
"STOP!" I cry
again and she finally complies, pressing a few buttons
and the orange beam stops.
The colonel slumps forward in
his chair, unconscious, the restraints
are the only things that are still keeping him in the chair.
The room goes
silent, for all of three seconds.
Teal'c hooks the Zat he was holding into the waistband of his pants
and rushes
to the colonel, undoing the restraints while he supports
his body. Janet follows Teal'c's lead and starts checking the
colonel's vital's and making sure that he's still breathing. Anise
just blinks a lot- she seems to do that- and remains
stationary.
I, on the other hand, let my eyes roll into the back of my head and I
feel myself fall to the floor,
the sedative finally taking effect.
~*+*~
I feel my body slowly come back into consciousness and I
groan.
"Welcome back to the land of the living." A very familiar
voice comments quietly.
"Daniel?" I mutter, trying to
pull myself into a sitting position
using my sluggish limbs. My eyes, however, remain closed.
"Yeah it's me." He
replies.
"Where am I?" I ask, my eyes finally fluttering open.
"Infirmary." He grins, pleased that it's not
him laying in the bed
for once with me sitting in the chair next to him.
Suddenly, the memories of how I got to
be in here come flooding back
to me. "Is the colonel alright?" I ask, slightly frantic. Breathe
Sam, breathe.
"He's
aright. Janet said that there wasn't any obvious damage done,
but she won't know until he wakes up. He's still unconscious.
. .but
that's better than what happened with Lt Aster." His gaze flickers to
his hands, if only briefly. Aster and
Daniel were close, they both
shared a passion for Egypt, which drew them together.
"Any theories on when he'll
wake up?"
Daniel takes a long breath before replying. "Not sure really, Janet
thought that you'd be out of it for
another few hours." He shrugs,
and I nod.
"You should get some sleep, or coffee. You look like hell." I smile,
which he returns, nodding. Daniel stands and kisses my cheek before
walking out of the small room, shutting the white
curtain behind him.
I fight the urge to go back to sleep, my body seems to crave it,
instead I force myself to
get up and stretch my tired muscles.
Walking out of my room, I head towards the private rooms down the
hall.
A
few airmen glance up as I walk by, but none say anything. The base
has a sweet little grapevine going so I suppose they
all know about
what happened with the colonel. Of course they all seem to think that
we're screwing like wild rabbits
anyway so they pass out the
sympathetic looks.
Knocking lightly on the room that I overheard one of the nurses
say
the colonel was in, I open it and creep in, mindful of the sleeping
man laying on the bed in the centre of the
room.
Quietly as possible, I pull a chair over to the side of the colonel's
bed and sit down, resting my elbow
on the bed as my hand cradle's my
throbbing head.
~*+*~
The sound of a rather loud buzzing wakes me from
my sleep and I jump
awake, springing away from the bed and nervously looking around the
room. The Colonel holds his
emergency buzzer in his hand as he looks
at me strangely.
"Colonel!" I gasp. "You're awake." I smile. He stares
at me
blankly. "Colonel?" I ask, moving closer to the bed. "Sir, do you
want me to get Janet?"
He nods slowly
and as I turn to leave the room, Janet walks
in. "Shouldn't you be in bed?" She gently scowls, walking over to the
colonel
to check his vitals. "How are you feeling Colonel?"
"Fine." He smiles. Pulling himself up a little, he leans closer
to
Janet and whispers, not too quietly I might add, in her ear. "Is she
one of your nurses? She was here when I woke
up." His eyes dart to
look at me and then back to Janet.
"Who? Major Carter?" Janet asks, looking at me.
"Is
that her name?" He asks and I stare at them.
Daniel and Teal'c walk into the room, looking back and forth between
the three of us. "Hey Jack, how are you feeling?" He asks.
"Good Danny, you?" He replies.
"Fine."
"I
am pleased that you and Major Carter are both well." Teal'c bows
and I smile, touched by his concern.
"Major Carter?"
The Colonel repeats, quite obviously confused. He
looks back and forth between everyone in the room. Once he seems
satisfied
that he knows who the others are, his gaze rests on me. His
eyes unrecognising.
My smile fades.
~*+*~
"He
seems physically and mentally fine sir, but he doesn't know Major
Carter from someone he passes on the street." Janet
tells the General
grimly, her hands fiddling with the pen in front of her.
"He doesn't remember her at all?"
"Not
at all."
I sit in my chair at the briefing table and look at the empty seat
next to me that is normally occupied
by the colonel. Janet continues
her explanation of why he doesn't remember me, but I barely hear her
talking.
How
can he not remember me at all? There have been situations, a few
too many, where it has only been the two of us, surely
those times
cant escape his memory?
"What about P3C 881?" I ask.
"P3C 881?" Janet repeats, somewhat confused.
"We
helped a local population survive a volcano because Sam thought
of a way to help them. If she hadn't been there then hundreds
of
people would have died." Daniel explains.
"We should ask the colonel if he has any memory of that mission,
Major
Carter was an important part of that mission and we should see
what he remembers." The General announces.
The walk
to the infirmary was one of the longest in my life, the
corridors seemingly closing in around me. Daniel asks if I'm alright,
I think that I managed to reply that I was just shocked. I think he
worked it out already, he understands the 'thing'
between the Colonel
and I, but he's smart enough to know that it doesn't need to be
acknowledged or commented on.
Janet
opens the door to his room and we all file in, me hiding behind
Teal'c. Everyone stops, standing around his bed.
"What's
going on?" He asks, pulling himself into a sitting position
on the bed.
"I have already done tests on you, physically,
but I have to assess
you mentally. There are a few concerns of amnesia, so I just want to
ask you some simple questions."
Janet explains, only partly lying.
"Why the cavalry then?"
"Because Colonel, I don't know much about your missions
so someone
has to be here to verify that what you recall is accurate. And I
don't know enough about your personal
life to ask you about that, so
the missions SG-1 have been on seemed like the next best thing." The
Colonel nods,
apparently happy with that explanation. Once again he
looks at everyone and smiles, but refuses to meet my gaze and I
unconsciously step closer to Teal'c.
"What happened on P3C 881?" Daniel asks, and the colonel scrunches up
his
face a little. I nudge Daniel in the back a little and give him a
pointed look, Colonel O'Neill never remembers the binary
code
designations to the planets. "The planet with the volcanoes." He
elaborates.
"Oh! You thought of a way
to get them underground and then re-seal
the land on top of them so that the lava would flow over and they
could live
underground for as long as it took. We called the Tok'ra
who gave us some of their tunnel growing things and we set them
up
with instruments to monitor the conditions on the surface. We
contacted them a few months ago to see how things
were going- the
lava has stopped and some of the natural vegetation had started to
grow back. They're doing well,
thanks to Daniel."
I think our faces say it all because the next thing he says is, "Am I
wrong?"
"What
about the land of light and dark? How did you contract the
virus?" I ask.
The colonel looks more than a little
uncomfortable talking to me, but
answers the question no less. "I got it off one of the guys in the
locker room and
then I gave it to Daniel by starting a fight." Daniel
unconsciously touches his cheek.
"How did we meet the Tok'ra?"
General Hammond asks.
"Someone on base was infected and she started having flashback's from
the Tok'ra symbiote
that died within her and we went to meet them."
His reply shocks me a little, although he didn't mention my name, he
didn't
name anyone else as the former host to Jolinar. I suppose
that's a good thing.
"Thank you Colonel, we'll all let
you get some sleep now. I'll come
back and see how you are later." Janet smiles and we all leave the
room.
I'm
last to leave, and I turn back to look at the colonel, who I find
staring at me curiously, one last time before following
everyone else
out of the room with a sad look on my face.
~*+*~
"Will he ever remember?" I ask Janet, later
in her office over a cup
of strong coffee.
"I don't know, Sam. He doesn't actually have amnesia because he
remembers
everything."
"Everything accept things involving me." I finish for her and she
nods.
"I'm sorry Sam, but
there isn't anything we can do."
"What about Keira?" I ask, suddenly thinking aloud. "The Vyan people
had their
memories blocked, not lost, and with the right chemicals we
were able to remove the block and their. . . "
"Sam!"
She stops me. "I already thought about that and we ran the
scans, it looks as though that isn't the case here. His memories
don't seem to be there. At all."
"So what do I do?" I ask.
"Talk to him?" She suggests. "Maybe the scans
aren't showing up
something because of what Frey'a did and his memories are there, just
un-readable on the scans.
If you talk to him then maybe he might
remember something."
"Thanks." I smile, depositing my empty cup into her
bin before
standing and heading to the door.
"Sam." Janet calls before I exit. I turn. "I'm sorry."
I nod
and leave the room, unsure of the direction I should take, my
lab or to the Colonel who doesn't seem all that pleased
to see me
these days.
Letting my heart lead me, I head in the direction of the colonel's
room.
I look
at the grey door before me, apprehension and trepidation
flowing through my body. I try to relax a little and take a deep
breath, scolding myself for feeling so uneasy, I'm only coming to
talk to a friend. Yeah, a friend who has no clue
of who I am at the
moment and looks nauseated every time I'm within three feet of him.
Raising my hand, I lightly
knock on the cool surface of the door
three times, waiting for an answer I nervously look around me. "Come
in!" The
Colonel calls and I open the door, entering the room before
closing the door behind me.
"Hi." I smile, walking
slowly towards the bed. I take the empty set
next to him and watch as he eyes me suspiciously.
"Hello."
"Hi."
I repeat. Wow, what a great conversation.
"Can I help you?"
"I thought we could talk."
"Talk?"
"Yeah,
Janet said that it may help your memories return if we talked,
maybe trigger something." I suggest.
"My memories
are fine." He protests, immediately defensive.
"There are certain things that you don't remember colonel, and we
want
to help you." I reply.
"I don't need help."
"You don't want to remember me." It's not a question, I can pretty
much tell.
"I don't know you!"
"You did." I whisper.
An uncomfortable silence descends upon us and
I look at my hands
which are resting in my lap, unable to meet his eyes. I realise now
what my brain had been trying
to tell my heart when I made the
decision, I shouldn't have come here to see him, not now.
"What am I to you?"
He asks after few moments and I look up, thinking
about my answer before I speak.
"Someone I respect, trust with
my life, my commanding officer and my
best friend." I reply honestly.
"It sounds like I was a lucky person."
"You
still are, sir. And you always will be."
~*+*~
I think he's beginning to accept me, accept that he doesn't remember
me but I was part of his life, despite what his memories are telling
him. I try my best, and we talk about the past.
Well, I talk and he
listens, adding comments where he thinks I was wrong. All of those
times that he has offered a
correction has been situations involving
me.
Which is what I'm doing now. Somehow, the discussions went from our
previous missions to what kind of relationship we had. Which is a
very difficult topic for me to talk about. Not that
he remembers that
fact.
"Were we ever together?"
"Not exactly. You may not remember me, but I'm certain
that you
couldn't have forgotten the regulations regarding fraternisation." I
answer sadly.
"But if you really
know me, then you should know that I'm not real
big on regs." He smiles. His smile hasn't changed over the past few
weeks,
nor has his sense of humour.
"Yes, but what we are doing here is bigger than both of us, we
shouldn't hold ourselves
above the war that is going on. There are so
many people on the base that have sacrificed their lives in the fight
against
the Goa'uld and although we still have our lives, we never
had each other. That was our sacrifice." I explain. It was
our
sacrifice, and we only realised it a few weeks ago. . .Oh!
I stand and run out of his room, muttering an excuse
to him as I run
into Janet's office, panting from the slight burst of adrenalin that
I suddenly had coursing through
me.
She grabs my arm and holds me still. "Sam! What's wrong?"
"I figured it out. I figured out why the colonel
has lost his
memories!" I exclaim.
"This is something that you should be explaining to all of us, Major."
General
Hammond. Crap!
~*+*~
I hate briefings.
All of SG-1 is here, including Jack, as well as Janet and Hammond,
and they are all staring at me. Waiting for the answer, which I know,
and which I know that they know I know. I'm
confused.
"Major?" Hammond is getting impatient, waiting.
Don't look at me, sir, you're the one who insisted
we call Anise and
let her know that I have the answer. I think that I am spending too
much time with Jack. Either
that or my sarcasm levels have suddenly
risen two or three notches.
Did I mention I hate briefings?
"Incoming
wormhole! Receiving Tok'ra IDC!" I'm tempted to suggest
that we leave the iris shut, but if dad happens to have gotten
my
letter and come to see me. . .on second thought's we should leave the
iris open.
The metal of the iris retracts
and we all watch from the briefing
room window as Anise walks down the ramp, followed by my father. I'm
psychic. The
technician on duty ushers them to come up and meet us,
as per General Hammond's instructions. Now I get to explain this
too
all of them at once, including my father. Wonderful.
"Hey Sammy." He greets, hugging me before taking a set
opposite Jack.
He smiles, obviously aware of the situation. Jack returns the smile,
and I'm briefly shocked that he
remembers my father, not me.
"We received a message from General Hammond telling us that you had
discovered why
Colonel O'Neill has lost all memory of you Major
Carter, would you care to share your findings?" Anise asks.
Jack
looks at me sharply, and I suddenly realise that he hasn't been
told what this briefing is about. "You said that in order
for the
Zaytarc detector to determine if a person really is a Zaytarc, it
reads their thoughts and feelings, right?"
"Yes.
In order to determine if a person is a Zaytarc, the machine
analyses their conscious memory with their subconscious one.
Their
feelings can help to corroborate what they remember." Anise answers,
still blinking way too much for my liking.
"And
you said that the procedure you tried would damage the part of
the Colonel's brain that had been affected by the Goa'uld
tampering."
"Yes."
"So the procedure affected the part of his brain where his
subconscious memory didn't
confirm what his conscious memory was, and
what he told you. There was a slight continuity gap between the two,
and
your machine damaged that portion of his brain. Which was me."
Suddenly my hands look very interesting.
"You?"
Jack asks, once again confused.
"Yeah. When you told Anise what you felt, and what you really felt
were two different
things, which is why she thought that you were a
Zaytarc."
"Oh."
"How is it that you can be certain that
it was something that the
Colonel neglected to tell us that he felt, rather than the fact that
he was a Zaytarc?"
Thank you Anise!
"We had a. . .moment." I admit, and Janet smiles with a knowing look.
She a woman, she understands
what I mean. Anise on the other hand. . .
"Please specify what you mean by that." Frey'a is in control now, not
that
it makes much of a difference to me.
"We were on Apophis' ship, I was trapped behind a force shield, there
were
Jaffa coming and the colonel refused to leave me, even though it
would surely mean he would die too." Do not look at him,
do not look
at him. Crap! Too late!. "Things. . .feelings were exchanged." Court
martial here I come.
"You
spoke of such feelings?" I think I hate Frey'a as much as I
currently hate briefings.
"We didn't have to." This
part is going to sound *so* corny. "Our
eyes said it all."
"And you think that's why the machine thought you and
Jack were
Zaytarcs, because you both left that part out?" Daniel asks, smiling
reassuringly at me across the table.
"Yes.
If we were required to say what we had felt during the incident
in question, then us leaving that part out would have
been construed
as lying, hence the reason we were thought of as Zaytarc's. I didn't
work it out until Janet was administering
the sedative, and by the
time we got to the testing room, it was too late. Jack's memories of
me are gone because
what he lied about was concerning me. And the
procedure damaged that portion of his brain, which was the portion
containing
all of his memories." The fact that I called him Jack
didn't go unnoticed by anyone.
I still hate briefings.
~*+*~
"Doc
says I can go home today." He grins in answer to my query of how
he's feeling. "Though I'm still not allowed to drive
yet. She says
that you volunteered for the job. Thanks." He continues, tying his
boot laces.
"No problem."
I smile, seating myself on the edge of his bed.
Jack has been going stir crazy for the past month and a half, and
he's
been annoying Janet, trying to get her to discharge him. On
several occasions, he's threatened to walk out of the infirmary,
but
said he only stayed so that he could see me. I hate to admit it, even
to myself, but he's a lot more charming
now that he doesn't remember
me.
"Can we go now?" He asks.
"Soon." I promise. Jack nods.
"Now?"
"Stop
it."
"Now?"
"Jack, stop it!"
"Make me."
"I will!" Our tone is playful and suddenly I find myself
on my back,
his fingers tickling my sides to the point that there are tears in my
eyes from laughing so much.
"Am
I interrupting something?"
Yes! "No Sir."
"How are you feeling, Jack?" He asks, coming further into the room
to
stand by the bed. I don't bother getting up, only because Jack's body
is on top of me and I can't move unless he
does, not that I want to.
His gaze flickers to me, and we share a small smile. "I'm good sir.
Really good."
"I
can see that. Just wanted to wish you well on the trip home. I
assume we'll see you back at work after you're week's downtime
is up."
"Yes sir." He nods, his fingers tracing unspecified patterns on the
bare skin of my stomach.
"Major
Carter, I also assume that we won't see you back on base until
you're week's downtime is up?"
I look at Jack,
and then back at Hammond. "Yes sir." I smile.
Hammond leaves and I watch him walk out of the infirmary before
turning
back to look up at Jack, who's face is now mere inches from
my face.
And we kiss.
~*+*~
We've been
at home, Jack's house, for three days now. It's actually
no different from when he was in the infirmary really, except
for at
night. I still tell Jack stories of our past together, and he's
actually started taking notes. Nothing classified,
but just general
things. Like my favourite book or movie.
He says that it's because, if he happens to relapse,
then he'll have
a reference book to look at when he wants to know about me, so that I
don't have to tell all of the
same stories over and over again. I
blame Janet for his sudden paranoia, she said that she was slightly
concerned
that he could relapse, and she didn't want him left alone
for too long. Not that I mind being given the job of Jack-sitting.
"You
want coffee?" He asks, untangling our bodies.
"Please." I nod, watching unashamed as he stands from the bed and
pulls
on a pair of boxer shorts before heading out of the room.
I sigh in contentment and stretch. Suddenly, Jack's head
pops around
the corner and he looks at me, a little sheepish. "How do you take
your coffee?"
"Black." I smile.
"Must
write that down." He mutters, walking back towards the kitchen.
I shake my head and laugh, listening to the sounds of
Jack attempting
to make coffee, when in reality he's only destroying his kitchen.
He comes back into the bedroom,
carrying a mug of coffee for me and
he has a tea-towel wrapped around his hand. "Jack?" I ask, sitting
up, immediately
concerned.
"The coffee pot and I got into a fight." He explains, putting my mug
down and unwrapping his hand. "I
think the coffee pot won." He tells
me, gesturing to the burn on his hand.
"Come with me." I order, and climb out
of bed, not bothering to put
anything on as I drag him to the ensuite.
Turning on the cold water tap, I hold his
burn under the stream. "All
better?" I ask him, kissing the burn lightly, then his lips.
"No, but with you here,
I just might be."
~*+*~
Epilogue
~*+*~
I don't think we really knew what we were getting into
when the whole
thing started. If we had, then I think that we would have kept the
iris closed when the evil bitch
from Tok'ra hell walked into our
lives.
She changed things, beyond repair. We'll never be the same after
this,
he'll never be the same. But I know, one thing is for certain,
I'll be there to help him through it every step of the
way. And he'll
be here for me. I'll hold him close when his frustration increases to
boiling point and he'll do the
same for me. I'll be there to reassure
him that I love him, no matter what happens, I'll always love him.
I know
his memories of me are fresh, only beginning from the time of
the Zaytarc incident, but I guess that I'll have to remember
for both
of us.
It's the things that no-one else knows about that hurt the most. The
innocent hugs, the light
touches, the glances, the kiss we shared on
Hathor's planet, the things we swore that only we would have the
privilege
of remembering. But he doesn't, and probably won't so I'll
tell him about them and I'll hold onto those memories for the
both of
us.
And I'll never forget, I owe him that much.
~*+*~
The end.
Depression is simply
anger without enthusiasm
|
