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, I'll Be, Your Guardian Eyes, The Little Things, Some Space, Some Time, One Day, Saying the Words, Proving the Impossible and Nothing is More Beautiful.
SOUNDTRACK: Human Behaviour: Bjork - Debut
ARCHIVING: Only with the permission of the author
No Map No Compass
By Celievamp
Family. in theory the one thing about yourself that you can never change - your parentage, your heritage. In theory they are the ones who have to take you in when everyone else turns you away. In theory. In fact it is also true that through time you create your own families, disparate individuals pulled together by bonds of circumstance and time. Take SG1.
There's no map, no compass to the human heart. I am pretty lucky, I suppose. Both my parents are still alive, still in reasonable health and I am on pretty good terms with them. They don't necessarily approve of some of my lifestyle choices but they don't make any trouble for me because of them. They accept me for who I am. And then there's the family around me here at the moment, my lover my daughter.
As I said, I'm pretty lucky.
I have never met Jacob Carter. Given how he just treated Sam, his daughter, my lover, it's entirely possible that I never will. I'm of a mind that this could be a good thing. At the moment I'd like nothing more than to slap him very hard. I don't care how sick he is.
How dare he lay this on her? Hey, I'm dying and by the way I think you're wasting your life. I know he doesn't know what she really does but still. how dare he!
She looks so lost right now. She's supposedly helping Cassie with her homework but I don't think she's heard a word our daughter's said to her the last ten minutes. Cassie can tell something is wrong. I've intercepted more than a couple of worried glances in the last half hour. We're getting pretty good at this silent communication thing and I just told her to leave Sam to me for a bit. Of course, she wouldn't be a teenager if she didn't turn this even slightly to her advantage.
"Sam? I think I can get the rest on my own. Mom, is it okay if I give Stacey a call?"
"Sure. Don't be too long, though, sweetie," I said, pulling her in for a kiss as she passed on her way up the stairs.
Sam roused herself enough to notice that Cassie had gone. "What?"
"It's okay. She's gone to phone Stacey," I said, crossing to where she sat. "I know they only saw each other at school a couple of hours ago but they'll talk all night on the phone if I let them." I straddled her legs, sat in her lap, and ran the backs of my fingers over her cheeks for a moment. Sam leaned into my touch, her suspiciously bright eyes fluttering closed as she rubbed her cheek against my fingers.
"I'm sorry," she whispered. "Perhaps I should just."
"No," I said firmly. "I don't think you need to be alone right now, Sam. We can talk. or not, whatever you're comfortable with." Talking of comfort, before I cut off the circulation to her legs I disentangled myself from her lap and pulled her to her feet, leading her across to the couch.
I sat down, patted my lap and taking my invitation she lay beside me, using my lap as a cushion. I let my fingers comb gently through her soft cornsilk hair, feeling her slowly relax into my touch.
They were all hurting right now, all of SG1. For the moment drawing consolation in isolation in a place where they felt safe, on home ground (and I was secretly honoured that Sam felt her place was here with me) but soon they would come together seeking strength, reassurance from each other in that unspoken way they have perfected in the last year. In the last few weeks they had all been emotionally challenged in some way, losing or threatened with the loss of something or someone they loved or held dear.
Teal'c had almost lost his son to Apophis. He had hoped to use Rya'c to get Teal'c back to Chulak, to see him humbled, killed and ensure his revenge for the dishonour done to his reputation, his standing amongst the system lords before they turned on him. Teal'c also discovered that since he last saw her, his wife had divorced him and was now married to a Jaffa called Fro'tak. Even though this meant that Drey'auc and Rya'c were safe and well and were no longer outcasts living in the ruins and prey to every lowlife that wandered into town Teal'c was very jealous and Brata'c was hard pressed to persuade him not to just kill Fro'tak in revenge for the slight done to him.
Teal'c had to contend with not only zatting his son in the hope of removing the brainwashing but also the knowledge that his son had been used as a mule to bring a pathogen to Earth that if unleashed would have had devastating consequences.
It still freezes my heart to think how they use children as weapons. I think of Cassie safely upstairs, a normal child in every way. We almost missed it.
Sam echoed my thoughts "I keep thinking of how close we came with Rya'c. Not just the whole genocide thing but losing him for good. If the deprogramming had not worked. I think it would have destroyed Teal'c. How he found the strength to zat his own son."
"Teal'c knows better than most that there are fates worse than death, I think," I said softly. "He could not have lived with leaving his son under Apophis's control. Anyway he should be safe now."
I nodded. One child safe, a refugee in the Land of Light, the fate of another child still desperately uncertain. The child of two Goa'uld would not normally be of any significance to us except that the host of one of those Goa'uld was Sha're, the wife of Daniel Jackson.
Confronting her, seeing her heavily pregnant knowing that her child could only be the product of some horrific act of rape must have been so hard for both Daniel and Teal'c. Hard for Daniel - this was once his wife after all. Hard for Teal'c as he had been the one to kidnap Sha're and present her to Apophis in the first place. That condemning her to that terrible servitude to the Goa'uld Ammonet had ultimately led to his own freedom was something he was only too aware of. And it shamed him - in his own eyes at any rate. As did Daniel Jackson's forgiveness of his part in his wife's kidnap and desecration.
They managed to spirit the newborn child away, convincing Ammonet that her child had been taken by Heru'er, sworn enemy of Apophis. Then in quick succession the Colonel and Sam had arrived followed by Apophis himself, come to reclaim his queen and his heir. They fought off Heru'er but before they had chance to make their escape Apophis himself arrived to reclaim his queen and his child. Ammonet appeared - and then things got strange. She made no mention of Daniel and his role in the birth of her child. She confirmed that Heru'er had stolen her child: that she had failed her pharaoh. And Apophis showed compassion towards her, seemingly affected by her tale not just as the loss of a potential host but as the loss of a child as any father would be.
Before she left, Ammonet looked directly towards where Daniel was hiding. She knew he was there. It would have taken one word from her to get them all killed. She said nothing. She followed Apophis through the Gate.
"When we came through the Gate and saw Heru'er threatening Daniel," Sam shivered. "We had no idea what was going on - we thought that we had had a bad day in Washington, what with dad and that journalist."
Ah yes, `dad'. I know the last person Sam expected to see in Washington at the medal ceremony was her father. She did not talk about him - about any of her family that much. I knew she was in intermittent contact with her brother more for the sake of her nephew and niece than anything else. And I knew that her mother was dead and that Sam's memory of her was something she cherished. But of her father - not a word.
Her father - another General and an old friend of General Hammond it seemed - had been less than complimentary about her career choices. He could not appreciate what she was doing - or why she deserved the Air Medal for `the analysis of deep space radar telemetry'. He had figured it was a cover story of course (he would have to be a prize idiot not to). I think it just bugged him that as connected as he was he could not get any deeper - and he could not browbeat the truth out of his daughter. And then he held out what he thought was the ultimate carrot - a place with NASA. Something that Sam had dreamt about for years and if it was not for the hiatus following the Challenger disaster - would probably have achieved. Jacob Carter was pulling strings for his little girl and Sam was trying very hard not to hate him for doing it. He thought he was helping her fulfill her dream after all. He didn't know - couldn't know - that in the Stargate programme Sam had found the fulfillment of all her dreams. The fact that he had also undermined her credibility and sense of self-worth probably completely passed him by. Sam wants to get where she is going on her own merit, not her father's connections. That is why it came as such a surprise to me to find out that General Hammond has known Sam since she was a little girl. Nothing in their interaction with each other gave any indication of how closely they knew each other. Sam got to Stargate Command on her own merits and General Hammond was only too happy to recognize that. As was her commanding officer and the rest of her team. But not it seems her father.
Jacob Carter had his own bombshell to drop: he had cancer - lymphoma - and his prognosis was not good. The way he put it, it was as if he did not want her or expect her to care that he was dying. How can someone be so ignorant about their own child? He put the knife in but good about her career choices, her refusal to accept his meddling. He played the guilt card. and it might yet work.
"I was hoping to stick around long enough to see you become an astronaut. I want to see you fulfil your life's dreams before I die."
He said that to her and then he just walked away. As I said, I really want to kick this man's ass but I reckon life is about to do it for me. Sam's tearing herself up over this thinking that she's somehow failed her father, that she has not been the good daughter. How ridiculous. how typical that she should feel so guilty over something that is so completely outside her control.
And her commanding officer was having his own problems. A journalist, Armand Zellick tracked him down and told him a curious tale about a Stargate and a team called SG1 who traveled the galaxy at a cost of seven billion dollars of tax payer's money. The Colonel denied everything and did not get the chance to discover who Zellick's source might be before Zellick was killed more or less in front of him in a hit and run incident. The Colonel being the man he is with the background in black ops and wetworks that he has immediately suspected foul play. Zellick's last words before he died were to accuse the Colonel of arranging his murder. Whatever else he is, Jack O'Neill is a man of honour. That hit him hard.
They're all home now, all licking their wounds. Everyone from the White House down has assured Jack O'Neill that what happened to Zellick was a tragic accident. But he more than any of us knows exactly what this government is capable of doing in order to protect its secrets. And it's eating him up inside.
Sam is so conflicted about her father about this guilt trip he seems hell bent on sending her on that it's paralyzing her. She does not know what to do to please him - or even if she wants to please him. Teal'c and Daniel are still trying to come to terms with seeing Ammonet again - their own guilt at being unable to save Sha're once more. At least her son will grow up in safety. But we all know that Apophis will not take this lightly.
All I can do is be there for them all. The doorbell rings and I know who it will be. Families come together at times of crisis and no one is closer family than these four. There is no logic to these things, it is nothing that anyone could have predicted. And it seems that me and my daughter are their family too. Cassie answers the door and I can hear the excitement in her voice as she greets her three favourite uncles. Sam sits up, manages a smile. "There goes our quiet evening," she says but there is no regret in her voice. Family, home and heart. Inextricably entwined. As it should be.
The End
Human Behaviour - Bjork (From the album `Debut')
If you ever get close to a human
And human behaviour
Be ready to get confused
There's definitely, definitely, definitely no logic
To human behaviour
But yet so, yet so irresistible
And there's no map
They're terribly moody
And human behaviour
Then all of a sudden turn happy
But, oh, to get involved in the exchange
Of human emotions is ever so, ever so satisfying
Oh oh, and there's no map
Human behaviour, human
Human, human behaviour, human
Human, human behaviour, human
Human behaviour, human
And there's no map
And a compass
Wouldn't help at all
Human behaviour, human, human
Human behaviour, human,
Human behaviour, human,
Human behaviour
There's definitely, definitely, definitely no logic
Human, human
Human behaviour
Human.
There's definitely, definitely, definitely no logic
Human, human, human, human.