DISCLAIMER: The story, and characters and anything and everything else concerning SG: SG1 belong to MGM, Gekko, Secret Productions etc, they are so not mine and no money is being made from this and no copyright infringement is intended.
SEQUEL/SERIES: This story follows A Dream Can Come True, Believe, Wonderful, Like Someone In Love, I Scare Myself, This Girl's in Heaven, In Perfect Dreams, So Happy with You, Always and Forever, An Angle Smile Upon Me , Do What You Have To Do, Stay By Me and I'll Be.
SOUNDTRACK: `Suppers Ready' by Genesis from the album `Foxtrot'
ARCHIVING: Only with the permission of the author

Your Guardian Eyes
By Celievamp

I love her. It hits me every time I look at her: I love her so much.

After nearly losing her so recently I find it hard to let her out of my sight sometimes. For days after Jolinar died the only person Sam would respond to was Cassie. And even then she did not speak. It was almost a week before she said anything to me and then the first thing she did say was "Sorry…"

Her eyes were huge in her pale face, an impossibly vivid blue, windows into a soul that was in abject pain.

I just took her in my arms and held her close, not caring that we were in the Infirmary. Anyone could have seen us but I don't think that anyone would have cared. The whole base was rooting for Sam's recovery. I don't think she truly appreciated how many lives she had touched.

For a moment she was stiff, almost rigid as if terrified by the contact and I paused, afraid that it was too much too soon and I had pushed her back into her almost catatonic state but then she seemed to melt into me.

She started to sob, and I pulled back from her long enough to jump up onto the bed beside her. She shifted so that her head was pillowed on my lap, my fingers running through her hair, the other hand rubbing slow circles of comfort across her shoulders and back as she buried her face in my stomach, her whole body shaking with the force of her tears.

Even though I ached for her pain I felt some small sense of relief as well. This could be the breakthrough we were waiting for. There was no physical reason for Sam still to be in the Infirmary and ordinarily she would probably have been released to mental health. But her circumstances were unique. Teal'c had confirmed that very few hosts survived the death of their symbiote. The only other we had come across was Kendra.

This was a start only. We all knew that it would take a long time for Sam to truly recover from this, if she ever did. Physically, we were still charting the changes to her physiology, some of which could have longterm lifechanging consequences. Mentally and emotionally we were in unknown territory. But the Sam Carter I had known and loved this last year was strong and resourceful. If anyone could come through this relatively intact, it was her. And I would be with her every step of the way. I would not let her down again.

Yes I felt guilty. Rightly so. I did her post mission exam for god sake and I missed it. Yes, I know that by then it was too late. Jolinar was already inside her, the damage to Sam was done but I could have spared her watching Cassie being threatened. I could have spared Cassie her terror at seeing the person she loves so transformed.

I missed it. I could not feel it under her skin. Because it had gone in through Sam's mouth there was no apparent entry scar. Perhaps we had grown blasé. Perhaps I let my professionalism slip because this was Sam, this was my girl and that meant only good things, didn't it? And I would know the instant there was anything wrong, right? Right. Wrong. Unfortunately. I know now that Jolinar was Tokra, an expert in infiltration, at hiding in plain sight. But I prided myself on being something of an expert in Samantha Carter. And I did not notice. I looked into her beautiful blue eyes and I saw my Sam. I saw what I expected to see. I missed it. I saw the abrasion on the back of her throat and I did not make the connection. I let her down. I let everyone down.

When Cassie told me the truth, I panicked. I could not think. I grieved for Sam. I missed her. I missed Sam so much that it was a physical sensation, a heaviness in my chest, a darkness in my mind. When I looked into the eyes of the creature that had taken her body, extinguished that brilliant mind that beautiful soul I wanted to scream. I wanted to hate it. I wanted to destroy it, wipe it from the face of the earth. But I couldn't. Because it still looked like her. And I could never hate Sam.

Her eyes were the same. It fooled me. I didn't realise. Okay, yes I was insanely busy with almost 100 injured and desperate natives flooding my infirmary and the hospital but I always thought…

I always thought that Sam's soul shone from her eyes, that all you had to do was look into those beautiful crystal blue orbs and you would know the essential Samantha Carter.

But now I know that was just romantic nonsense. Maybe I saw what I wanted to see. Maybe there was more to Jolinar than her being a typical Goa'uld, as she claimed.

I have to make it right.


I know I resisted – quite strongly – but this was a great idea that Janet had. Just the three of us miles away from anyway, relaxing, soaking up the sunshine with barely a thought for a certain mountain with a ring of metal hidden away inside it. And the monsters that lurked in its depths.

If only the monster inside me could be escaped so easily.

Can't think about that. Won't think about that.

To be honest it's a relief to get away. Everyone was watching me, trying to work out if I was going to do anything weird. When Kawalsky was infested, they thought they'd removed the symbiote but they hadn't and it took him over. Who's to say that Jolinar wasn't just playing dead? General Hammond and Colonel O'Neill making sure that I would be safe from the NID and Area 51, Janet collaborating with them to protect my medical records. I don't know whether they trust me anymore. I don't know whether I trust myself.

The only one who's truly accepted that it's all over is Cassie. She treats me the same as she always had. She's a lovely kid and I feel so proud of her, the way she's blossomed in the last year. To look at her, you'd never know she had such tragedy in her past. She appears like any other normal teenager.

Appearances. That's what it all comes down to in the end.

Janet's watching me now. She worries – about what happened, about not detecting Jolinar's presence, about the long term effects of what happened to me. I catch her at it again and smile. With every ounce of my soul I try to reassure her: I'm fine, I'm here, it's really me. I love you. I love you. I love…

I haven't been able to tell her everything yet. Of the battle with Jolinar, the battle to save my sanity, my soul. In the end she proved herself to me but at first…

Terror. Chaos. She was driven by fear by the overwhelming need to survive to escape and all the things she had done to get as far as she had. Taking the Nasyan man as a host against his will. Taking me the same way. Something even more shameful that she hid away from me but makes me feel sick and… soiled even when I skirt the edges of it. Jolinar – my captor, my saviour, my enemy, my friend, my demon, my guardian angel. She would have killed me and anyone else who stood in her way rather than be a captive. Yet she killed herself so that I could be free. And now I have alien proteins in my bloodstream and naquada whispers to me in my dreams. And I wake up terrified every night. Always supposing I've managed to get to sleep at all.

Depressed. Paranoid. Sleep-deprived. Compromised. I'm never going to get my Gate clearance back.

Perhaps I should just make it easier on everyone and resign. But then I'd be unprotected. Anything could happen. No one would know. I'll probably end up in some gulag somewhere like they were going to do with the Tollans. Protective custody.

Would anyone notice if I disappeared?

Did I mention I was paranoid?

"Sam?"

Janet's here, kneeling beside me, her hand on my shoulder and as I turn blindly to her tears spilling down my cheeks her hand cups the back of my head, cradling me to her as I cry for Jolinar, for me, for everything that I nearly lost, for everything that I did lose.

I haven't been able to tell her yet how her love for me, my love for her saved me. How I used images of her to block Jolinar from my mind. How she stood in front of me facing out into the darkness. I saw her as she stood up to cavegirl Carter, as she confronted Hathor, as she confronted death itself to save Cassie's life, as she confronted me when I was such an idiot over Narim. I saw her as my saviour, holding me as I cried over Daniel when Oannes brainwashed us into thinking he was dead, lending me her strength and her compassion as I watched over Cassie in the days after we rescued her from Hanka. I saw her as my lover, bold and sensual, gentle and giving. I saw her as the person I wanted to spend the rest of my life with.

I held her up to Jolinar and said. There, that is what I have to fight for, to fight to come back to. Tell me if you have anything like that in your thousand years of memory. And Jolinar was silent.

And after that she was a little gentler with me.

I failed Janet, I failed everyone. I should have been stronger, fought for longer. There should have been a way to let them know what had happened to me before I threatened Cassie.

Before she died, she told me everything. She showed me everything. I can remember some of it, the rest is hidden away in my subconscious. Little timebombs of memory, just waiting to go off. If the flashbacks I've had so far are anything to go by…

I hear footsteps behind me and realise that it's Cassie. She comes and kneels behind me, pressing her body to mine her arms around my neck. "It's okay, Sam," she says softly. "It's going to be okay. Me and Janet, we're going to take care of you."

I'm so tired. Together they help me to my feet, one on either side of me as we go back into the cabin. Janet puts me to bed – Cassie brings her reading book and regales me with the adventures of Harry Potter until I drift off to sleep. She reminds me of how I did this for her when she first came to us.

And when I woke Janet was with me, spooned against my back, her arm around my waist, her forehead resting on my shoulder. And for the first time since it happened I felt at peace.

The End

Lyrics from "Suppers Ready" by Genesis from the Album `Foxtrot'

Lover's Leap
Walking across the sitting room, I turn the television off
Sitting beside you, I look into your eyes
As the sound of motorcars fades in the night time
I swear I saw your face change, it didn't seem quite right
… and it's hello babe with your guardian eyes so blue
Hey my baby don't you know our love is true

Coming closer with our eyes, a distance falls around our bodies

Out in the garden the moon seems very bright
Six saintly shrouded men move across the lawn slowly
The Seventh walks in front with a cross held high in hand
… and its hey babe your supper's waiting for you
Hey my baby don't you know our love is true

I've been so far from here
Far from your warm eyes
It's good to feel you again
It's been a long long time. Hasn't it?

And it's hey babe with your guardian eyes so blue
Hey my baby don't you know our love is true
I've been so far from here
Far from your loving arms
Now I'm back again and baby its going to work out fine

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