Shippy Novel Review: City of the Gods

I strongly encourage you when you like the shippy bits to go out and buy the book!

'She' is always Sam and 'he' is always Jack unless stated otherwise by me.

Disclaimer: Stargate SG-1 and its characters are the property of MGM, World Gekko Corp, Double Secret Productions and Showtime.

Novel City of the Gods written by Sonny Whitelaw

*** "I like women, Captain; it's just scientists I have a problem with." "You know, you really will like me when you get to know me." "Oh, I adore you already." She banished the memory, consigning it to the place where all exiled emotions resided.

*** And let's not forget her near death at the hands of the computer entity. She had seen him through the eyes of the cameras, for the Entity had already uploaded her consciousness to the computers. His stance, his expression, everything about him said he would sooner put the weapon to himself. But duty, something he had always placed above his own needs, dictated his actions.

*** "Anyway, if you want to drop by the cabin sometime, I'll make you a cup of coffee. Real coffee," he added, frowning in the direction of her empty cup. Carter continued to stare at him, her face reflecting uncharacteristic confusion. About what, he wasn't entirely sure. It was straight-forward enough. She had to go find a life for two weeks. And if his Minnesota cabin wasn't exactly a five-minute detour, the casual offer seemed less problematic than an outright invitation.

"You're going fishing at this time of year?"

He considered for a moment, then tried for nonchalance. "Ice-fishing?" She blinked. What the hell, nonchalance was overrated. "Okay, well." He tossed her a wave and left. No point waiting for a definitive no. 

Jack was halfway down the corridor when Carter called, "Sir?" He turned to see her hurrying out of her lab, still wiping her now clean hands on the rag. Her fingers betrayed her uncertainty but he saw resolution on her face. "You know...maybe I could just--"

Klaxons rang and the familiar alert echoed throughout the subterranean complex, "Unscheduled off world activation!" Staring at her in disbelief, Jack lifted his arms in surrender.

*** Carter actually did take a step back, and bumped into him. "Sorry, sir," she whispered. Jack held out a hand to steady her, but Carter was already examining the scene with clinical detachment. He envied her ability to reduce even the worst situation down to something that could be analyzed and cataloged like a bug on a pin. More than that, he depended on it.

*** The place reminded Jack of McMurdo, at least what he could recall of it through a haze of morphine. He remembered Carter though, refusing to let him die alone in the ice cave.

*** Jack had been in earthquakes before, and there was nothing particularly unusual about this one, but the FRED was in danger of being shaken off the platform. He grabbed the vehicle to steady it - or himself. Then Carter's high-pitched scream cut through the wrenching noise. The second FRED had pitched backwards, knocking her down and pinning her foot between the wheels.

"Carter!" Jack shoved the first machine into the disconcertingly tranquil event horizon, and then all but threw himself down the ramp. A shorter, deeper rumbling and shaking now replaced the long rolls of the 'quake. He looked up - and a spasm of raw terror clenched his groin. The dam had vanished, and a churning wall of gray water was bearing down on them.

"Oh, God. Run!" Carter yelled. "You can make it through the 'gate!"
"No!" He grabbed her by the arms and pulled, but the heavily laden FRED held her pinned to the icy slope. 

"Go!" she shouted. He couldn't hear her through the incredible noise tearing across the valley, but he could see her lips and her eyes, begging him to save himself.

To leave her. Again. He let go of her arms and slammed his shoulder against the FRED, desperately trying to push the machine off her. The thirty-foot high wall of heaving, foaming boiling water was almost on them. 

Jack briefly entertained the hope that it might wash them into the wormhole - they could probably survive a little scalding - but the angle was wrong. He met Carter's eyes, and then the water tore him away and tossed him into the filthy, steaming maelstrom.

*** Cold! Bitter cold knifed through Sam's chest. The Colonel's ragged voice. "C'mon Carter, hurry up and breathe. I'm freezing my butt off, here! ****..." Something clumsily pinched her nose. Through the noise, she heard his desperate whisper, "C'mon, Sam."

Damp warmth ringed with sharp, bristly cold covered her mouth, and then air was forced into her lungs. She gagged and coughed. Hands rolled her on to her side as a hot gush of vomit burned up her throat and sinuses and she spewed. "Yes!" cried O'Neill.

Why was the Colonel so thrilled at the sight of her heaving her guts out? Sam felt her hair brushed back from her face; felt him holding her shoulders as she threw up again and again.

*** "What gods - apart from the usual ones," O'Neill groused, lifting her over his shoulder and scrambling upwards, "have I so royally pissed off - no puns or clichés intended - to deserve this?" Did his shoulder have to dig into her stomach? Any second now he'd be wearing the last of her lunch down his back.

*** The Colonel lowered her to the ground, saying something about a cave, and going back for containers. Cold. Want to sleep. "Fight it, Carter, stay awake!" Why was it so hard to open her eyes? Ice? She rubbed ineffectually at her face but her hands were numb and useless. 

Her head pounded, her foot, throat and sinuses ached, and her mouth tasted foul. Leave me alone and let me sleep. "Carter! Dammit Major, stay awake. That's an order!"

Insistent hands tugged at her feet, then at her wet clothes. Why was he taking off all of her clothes? She whimpered and batted her clubby hands at him. How could cold be so agonizing? "Please, sir!" 

He was roughly pulling something up her legs. What was it he wanted her to do with her arms? She felt the texture of soft dry material over her head and shoulders, and maybe, just maybe, the bitter, killing cold was less painful. Then she heard a zipper. Sleeping bag, thermal blankets?

"Don't get any ideas, Carter," he muttered. Sam felt him curl around her, his warm breath hard on her neck, miserly conserving every joule of what little heat they could generate.

*** Waking up was not a pleasant experience. Sam felt as if her body had been used as a punching bag and her head as an ice hockey puck. Her eyeballs hurt. Hell, her hair hurt! Something warm and yielding with a slight sandpapery texture, something vaguely familiar that she associated with safety, pulsed against her nose and mouth. There was movement beneath her.

Breathing? She jerked back when she realized her nose was buried in the Colonel's neck. Why was that?

*** She remembered looking up, and staring at death. The Colonel should have gone through the 'gate, but he'd refused to abandon her. The last time she had seen that look on his face... No, that memory triggered inconvenient truths, ones that should have remained buried.

Beneath her, he stirred. "Colonel?" Her throat was dry and raspy. "You were expecting someone else?" Sam carefully rolled off him.

*** In the eerie light she saw him get up and shuffle into a darker part of the cave. "Sir are you injured?"

"For once I'm in better shape than you."

"Then why are you shuffling?"

"They're called sleeping bags, Carter, not walking bags. Gimme a minute to find some pants."

Sam rubbed her eyes and stared at him. He was wearing a pair of purple ski pants and a day-glow orange ski jacket. On his head was a ridiculous multicolored beanie - complete with fuzzy pink pom-pom - that only a vengeful grandmother could have knitted.

*** She should have died, would have died unless... Sam ran her hands over her chest and legs. Instead of BDU's she was dressed in an over-large polo neck and fleecy track pants. She glanced up. In the dim light, O'Neill's gaze was carefully masked. "Thanks, sir."

*** "All the comforts of home." He pulled out the field-cooking unit and looked around with an appraising eye. "You can shop for drapes after breakfast, but I get to choose where the plasma screen TV goes."

*** He'd had no qualms about stripping off her wet clothes. They'd had to do some pretty intimate things for one other over the years.

*** "We'll only be immersed for a few seconds. Sir, the mid-winter Polar Plunge at McMurdo takes place in minus forty degrees."

"That's where they run out of the hut, jump in a hole cut in the ice over Antarctic water, and then run back into the hut, right?"

"Naked."

"Naked. Carter, you know how I feel about singing soprano." He patted her shoulder. "Okay. Senior officer gets the hot showers first."

Her eyebrows did a confused dance across her forehead. One of these days she'd figure out that his occasional doses of pessimism were designed to trigger her extraordinary Getting Them Out Of Trouble skills. That was the day she would be ready to lead her own SG team. He missed her already.

*** He bent down and whispered in her ear, "What would you give for a hot bath?"

"Funny, sir," She glared up at him, lifted her bare hands to her mouth, and blew warm air into them. "I'm serious, Carter," he added with a smug grin.

His grin returned when he saw it on the FRED. Patting the box, he said, "It's full of candy bars. Chocolate, Major, after a warm bath." Then he mentioned with his finger for her to follow. With a look of disbelief, she went after him. "You are serious; you found a hot spring?"

*** Two-water (small child) was curled up asleep between him and Carter, sucking her thumb. (Can I just say: awww)

*** Carter started breathing again. It had freaked him out when he'd discovered her like that after the flood. But his relief had instantly turned to dread. Her face had been white and her lips blue. Another something to shove into the basement of unwanted memories.

*** He shot her a dark look, the one that usually stopped enlisted men in their tracks. Unfortunately, Carter was becoming immune to his glare.

*** "Carter?" Removing his pack and P90 as he went, Jack walked across to a ledge, and then gestured to his shoulders. "Climb aboard." She hesitated and her eyes flickered to his knees. "Sir?"

 
"I'm not planning on squats, Major." Carter removed her pack, climbed onto the ledge, and, bending low to avoid bumping her head on the roof of the cavern, wrapped her legs around Jack's shoulders.

With much giggling from the children - which Jack encouraged with a few theatrical grunts - he walked her across to the trapdoor. "Clear." She called down. He looked up. A rope ladder fell on his face. More giggles drifted up from below...and was that one from above? "Sorry, sir."

"No giggling, Carter, it's bad for discipline in the ranks."

*** Atlatl bowed deeply to O'Neill. "We will await your return, Quetzalcoatl." His eyes softened as he turned to Sam. "You are both beautiful and kind, Chalchi. The children will once again sing songs of joy about the beloved wife of Quetzalcoatl." 

Sam consciously kept her smile affixed while the Colonel shot Daniel a peculiar look. She could have sworn she saw Teal'c grin.

(They are both portraying gods to help the children and apparently in their history the gods they are portraying are husband and wife :), though it isn't touched upon again)

*** "Carter." She flinched. The Colonel was standing directly in front of her, his eyes void of emotion. But he knew. She knew he knew because occasionally, very rarely, his own carefully fabricated mask slipped, and she saw the raw pain beneath.

*** "Carter!" Sam staggered and gagged. Once again, his voice had pulled her back from the abyss.

*** Sam woke to the sound of soft footfalls. She reached for her sidearm but the Colonel placed a reassuring hand on her shoulder. Wordlessly, she stood, pulled on her jacket and balaclava, and picked up her P90, all the while trying to ignore the pounding in her forehead.

O'Neill said nothing as he handed her a small packet and crawled into her recently vacated sleeping bag.

*** Janet waited until he had passed, then said, "I also found traces of a psychotropic substance in your blood. You must have been having some interesting dreams." Sam knew that Janet was fishing, but she didn't mind.

"I had my suspicions about the green glow bugs, that's why I brought back a sample."

 
"Green glow bugs?" Janet laughed softly. "That has to be one of the Colonel's expressions." 

*** (Sam and Janet are talking about having children and Sam starts to reflect. Nothing pointing to Jack except for the following bit.)

The military's rules about fraternization existed so that you could never be placed in a position where your personal feelings got in the way of making difficult decisions.

Her phone began vibrating in her bag. She glanced at the screen before lifting it to her ear. "Colonel?"

"I hope I'm not interrupting anything," he grumbled.

"We just ordered."

"Get it to go. General wants us back at the base. Damn!" 
Sam grinned when she heard the familiar television voices in the background. "VCR, sir?" she suggested.

"It was a Christmas marathon!" he groused. "D'oh!"

*** "Would someone explain what the hell just happened?" O'Neill turned and marched back along the narrow walkway. Major Carter went to speak, but O'Neill raised a gloved finger. "Ah! Five words or less, Carter."

"What happened to ten?" The glare O'Neill sent over his shoulder prompted Major Carter to add, "Sir. It's a quantum transportation device."

"Salutations and elisions count as additional words, Carter."

*** "Don't even think it, Carter," snapped O'Neill. "Or, so help me, I'll have you busted to lieutenant!" Sam was having her own issues with the long skirt....

Sam finished tucking the last of the C4 detonators inside her shirt, and then looked around at the others. If Daniel's outfit was fetching and Teal'c's magnificent, the Colonel looked, well, amazing. He was wearing at least twice as much gold as anyone else, and his feather headdress was half as big again as Daniel's sunshade.

*** "All the way. But Carter's also got enough C4 on her to blow the tunnel behind them again." Daniel nodded. "Forming a dam to stop the magma."
"I hope she knows that." Dabruzzi sounded doubtful. "This is Carter we're talking about." Jack's voice was falsely jocular. "She'll make it."

*** (Jack, Daniel and Teal'c are presumed dead as Sam was the only one to make it through the Gate) Would the Colonel's ex-wife accept the ritually folded American flag? She should know the answer; she knew military protocol, chapter and verse. It had proved an excellent shield, an excuse to deny so many things. "Piece of advice, Major?"

"Sir?"

"When I lost my commanding officer - he wasn't a hell of a lot older than me, maybe ten years - but after what we've been through, it was worse than losing my father." He met her stiffly controlled look

*** Dr Carter visibly paled. "It's not events that change history, but how we react to them. God, all of this reality is my fault."

"No!" Sam was vehement. "If Daniel had not found the mirror on P3R-233, we'd be in the same mess." She paused. "Guess you couldn't have hated the Air 

Force that much, huh?"

"Guess not." A quick, sad smile fluttered across Dr Carter's face. "Worked for it, married into it..." Her gaze faltered and she stared at the machine.

*** Sam stood and wiped the grease from her hands. Time to ride. The machine climbed the hills with ease, despite the thin mountain air. She opened the throttle.

His cabin should be up ahead. What was she doing there? Coffee. That's right. He'd offered to make her a cup of coffee.

Stifling a gasp, Sam lifted her head from her arms. Couldn't fall asleep again, had to keep moving.

*** Sam's fingers caressed the framed picture of the four of them. Teal'c with his crazy cowboy hat, Daniel looking like a startled chipmunk, and the Colonel with his quirky grin, in need of a haircut, or something. 

Second hand memories they might have been, but her blending with Jolinar had taught Sam what it was like to be the recipient of a deep and abiding love. The blending had also given her an insight into emotions that she might otherwise never have understood, certainly not based on her limited romantic relationships.

*** (Of course Jack, Daniel and Teal'c are still alive but stuck on a lava filled moon. Then it's Jack's turn to think Sam and the children, he and Sam have been taking care of, have died in the burning lava.)

Two hundred feet below, just above the edge of the lava, he could see a purple light blinking frantically. It was the radio beacon he'd set up the second night, before taking the kids home to Xalo. The lava oozed up with obscene relentlessness, and swallowed it.

That's when he knew. Jack sank to his knees. He thought he'd become desensitized to the bitter pain of loss. But the full realization of what had happened drove a shaft of agony through his self-control. No. Not again. He could not do this again!

Carter and Two-water and White-owl (one of the little ones that slept between him and Sam) and most of their kids were gone.

--- Daniel stared at Jack's departing back, still not believing. But his face... Echoes of pain lingered when Jack talked about his son, but this was different. This was raw, immediate, and shockingly intimate.

His own loss of Sha're had come in pieces. That had made the burden no less agonizing, but he, at least, had had time to love Sha're, to see her once more and say goodbye, and to know that one day he would see her again. It wasn't something he could fully comprehend, much less explain, yet it allowed him to go on. But what he saw in Jack...beyond the pain was a dark and shattered emptiness.

*** Hammond's unashamed delight at seeing Jack O'Neill, Daniel Jackson, Teal'c and Dr Robert Dabruzzi stroll through the liquid blue event horizon was tempered by the way Jack carried himself. 

It was exactly how Major Carter had been when she'd returned through the 'gate a week earlier. He had a fair idea of what was going through the Colonel's mind.

Hammond reached down to the microphone and called into the PA, "Major Carter to the 'gate room, on the double!"

Jack's head shot up with whiplash speed. His eyes bored through the glass, demanding. Hammond smiled, and crossing his arms, nodded slowly.

By the time Hammond reached the 'gate room, Major Carter was hugging Teal'c, whose smile had broadened markedly. Jack caught Hammond's eye, silently not asking permission for something he would never admit to. Hammond nodded once; the only acknowledgment he would ever give.

O'Neill opened his arms and held Major Carter like a drowning man clinging to a life raft.

*shippy sigh*