Disclaimer - MGM/Gekko/Double Secret own them.
Feedback would be loved. Future-fic, potential spoilers for 'Heroes'. General knowledge of the cast situation in season seven is required.
Thanks, as always, to Nellie. *smooooch*
*
"Colonel Ryder?"
Sam hasn't been through this before - not this way - but she knows what they're there for the moment she opens the door. It's not their features or the (extremely well pressed) uniforms they're wearing. It's the expressions on their faces; expressions that too eerily mirror one she recalls seeing General Hammond wear.
She asks the question anyway because really, what else can she do? "Yes?"
"May we have a word with you privately, ma'am?"
Though that's where the one with blue eyes stops talking, she can hear the next sentence as clearly as if he'd continued.
I'm afraid we have some bad news.
She really can't remember the protocol just then. Is it right for him to call her ma'am? Should it be sir? Colonel?
Colonel?
"Sam?"
Though she had no idea he'd moved, the voice doesn't startle her. Turning slightly to her right and peering over her shoulder, she smiles at him. It's quite a simple movement - the sides of her mouth lift up. She's done it thousands of times. "It's okay John. I'll tell you about it later."
He accepts her word because she's his wife, and because he knows she's telling the truth. Later on she will tell him everything. She always does.
When he disappears to someplace else in the house, she pulls the door open further and still, after all this time, tries to gesture with her right hand. Realising that - as good as the prosthesis is - that's not going to happen, she verbally invites them inside.
She guides them to the lounge, where they sit down. She offers them coffee, fruit, even cheesecake, being the homemaker she never was.
Sam wonders when she became this good at procrastinating.
But eventually, because she expects better of herself, she sits down opposite them and listens to what they have to say.
It's a surprise. It's actually a surprise. Not the news that he's dead, but the way that it happened.
"He had no surviving family or close friends, but before he retired it's well known that he spoke very highly of you. We'll understand if you don't want to talk to us right now, but given the nature of his work we have to investigate this closely. If you have *any* idea-"
"Why Colonel O'Neill would drive his car off the edge of a cliff?"
Brown Eyes nods. "Yes."
"Not a clue."
There really isn't. She knows - thanks to Daniel - that he'd certainly had suicidal tendencies before, but there's no reason she knows of why he'd do this now.
But then they haven't exactly been keeping in touch lately.
A few more questions, a few more answers, and they leave frustrated.
Sam doesn't leave. Sam stands inside the house, still grasping onto the door handle she'd been holding as she showed them out, feeling like something, everything is encroaching and she can't breathe she can't breathe and this isn't at all how she thought she'd handle it, and she can't see but John is there. John is there.
Holding on.
*
John knew about them of course. Knew about things she'd tried *not* to know. Knew that they were never actually a 'them'. It'd never bothered him - he'd told her on occasion that it only reminded him of his wife's oft hidden romantic nature, and in any case, he was absolutely sure of her love for him.
So what if she'd loved another man too?
*
As the fate of the universe would have it, the same day she contacted Paul he was trying to contact her. He no longer worked at the Pentagon - or in any real capacity that related to the SGC - but he still had friends in useful places. Far more than she'd retained. The amount of bridges she'd burned had escalated her from playing with matches to being an outright arsonist, but some things had to be done regardless.
That was probably partly his influence. And she was no doubt remembering him as being a far more generous man than he actually was, but what was wrong in finding a little perfection in death?
Paul gives her the location.
*
He hangs up the phone, only half hoping that the encryption worked. Though to be 'discovered' now would be stupid, pointless, and would help no one (probably not even the people who did the discovering), part of Paul doesn't want to wait anymore.
Part of him wants to give them what they're looking for. Part of him wants to know if they *would* actually come for him.
*
She makes the journey alone. John doesn't offer to go, and Sam figures he knows that if she wanted his company for this, she'd ask him to come.
He helps her mourn the best he can, but he never knew Jack O'Neill. In some aspects, her husband is a complete stranger.
*
It doesn't take long to get there. It doesn't take long to get anywhere anymore.
*
She's wondered what it'd look like. A beautiful vista, postcard perfect? Or some half-forgotten, dusty cliff?
As it turns out, it's neither.
In fact the only remarkable thing about it at all is its remarkable ordinariness. It could be any spot on any world. There are some trees, some rocks, the occasional plant trying to grow, but no distinguishing features.
And the cliff?
She stands at the top, peering over the edge, not surprised by the lack of tyre marks. Not surprised that even below, where his truck hit, there's no sign of damage. Some would argue that it'd never happened.
Some don't know the world as well as she does.
The clean-up team did a good job, but then she hasn't expected anything else. She just needs to...see.
Gravel crunching beneath shoes behind her draws her attention and she turns around, watching as he pauses a few feet away. Her eyes glance around, trying to find someone. "Is Teal'c here?"
"Nearby." He shrugs, nearly being as irritatingly obtuse now as he (reportedly) was after he'd ascended.
"You know how stupid that is?"
"Good to see you too, Sam."
She feels the same. Oh *God*, does she feel the same. "I'm serious, Daniel. You know we're still being watched." In fact, how does he even know where to come? Maybe Paul phoned him too. Or maybe he still has 'friends' of his own. He was always so much more of a diplomat than her. "If they get their hands on Teal'c-"
"He'll be cut up into itty bitty pieces in order to determine every weakness of Jaffa physiology."
Her teeth are clenching together. "*Daniel*."
And then something happens. He frowns. "You don't know, do you?"
"Know what?"
Daniel says it: "Kinsey's called off the search."
She can barely believe that he's just uttered those words. "What?"
"Teal'c has been granted...clemency. Guess that after all this time, they've probably captured enough of their own Jaffa to stop Teal'c being of any interest. They have enough guinea pigs."
The idea is ridiculous. Kinsey giving up? Laughable. Hell, even the 'legendary' SG-1 had disbanded their friendships in order to protect each other from him. Separately they weren't seen as too much of a threat, but together? Kinsey did *not* like that. Not at all.
She realises that Daniel must have his own friends after all. Paul would have told her about this, had he known. "You believe it?"
He tips his head to one side. "Not entirely, hence the distinct lack of Teal'c. But...things have been a little easier for him lately, or so he says."
It's not over, of course. It's never going to be while Kinsey is still in power. But the end of his second term is coming and...there's hope. There's hope.
That thought reminds her of why she's there.
Turning away from Daniel, she walks closer to the edge of the cliff. If he really did drive himself...if if *if*. She doesn't believe Kinsey's above murder, but what purpose would it have served at this point? SG-1 and - most important of all to Kinsey - Jack O'Neill were thoroughly bowed. Had offered no challenge for a long, long time. Waiting.
It disgusts her. It has for a long time. But some things have to be done regardless. Once he came to power, Kinsey had portrayed all too vividly what his position was. What he could do. What he was capable of.
Yet in some ways, she can't help but wonder if it was a blessing for the General. He wouldn't want to see them like this. See how easily they'd been conquered: not by the Goa'uld, but by a politician with the heart of one.
More than one alien race had told them their closeness would be their undoing.
Daniel's hand is on her arm, her good one. Does he think she's about to jump? She suddenly realises she isn't crying, yet it feels like she should be. "Do you think," it's difficult to breathe, "that it was an accident?"
He knows better than to lie to her. "No."
She shakes her head. "Two years. It was only another two years. Kinsey'll be out by then. He could have waited. He *should* have." It doesn't matter that her argument contains little logic; that even after a new President is brought in Kinsey will remain a very powerful man.
God, she hopes he died quickly.
His hand tightens on her arm. "I don't know why..." His voice fades, struggling. "All I *do* know, is that wherever the hell he is, you can guarantee that Janet's jabbing the biggest needle in history into his butt."
She laughs.
Loudly.
And she doesn't stop.
~FINIS