FIC: Outside Influence (2/2)

[cdybedahl]

Outside Influence: part 2 of 2

Written by Calle Dybedahl

"So how do you like her?" Sam said much later.

They'd spent the day out on the city, shopping sight-seeing and, at least on Sam's part, trying to keep from randomly groping Kara. Cassie had, somewhat to Sam's surprise, taken her role as guide quite seriously, and told Kara about a whole lot of things that had taken Cassie a long time to understand when she first came to Earth. Most of them weren't strange to Kara. It seemed that the culture of the Twelve Colonies was remarkably similar to Earth's. Which was, of course, a mystery of its own, seeing as it didn't even seem to be in the same galaxy.

"I'd hit on her if I didn't have this feeling you'd kill me if I did," Kara said.

They'd ended up by a pool in a park. Cassie decided they should have ice cream, and went off in search of some.

"Considering that you hit on anything that moves, that doesn't really answer my question. Besides, she goes for the boys and I'd just hurt you. Her other mother is the one who would've killed you."

"She seems to be a great young woman," Kara said. "Is that answer enough? And what if I like being hurt?"

"It'll do," Sam said, ignoring the second question for her own sanity. "Next question is, do we let her cook tonight, or do we eat out?"

Kara looked at her.

"Is there a reason we wouldn't want her to cook?"

"She's vegan."

"No meat?"

"No meat. No dairy products. Nothing whatsoever that comes from an animal."

Kara shrugged.

"Fine by me."

Sam looked at her, somewhat surprised.

"Well, then," she said. "We eat whatever Cassie wants to cook."

Except they didn't. When she returned, Cassie was balancing three ice cream cones in one hand and holding her mobile phone to her ear with the other, happily chattering along.

"I'll be staying over at uncle Daniel's tonight," she said after she'd hung up. "Haven't seen him in ages. It'll be fun to catch up a bit. He said Teal'c might come over too."

"I thought you were going to stay with me the entire break," Sam said, a bit disappointed.

"I was," Cassie said. "There's been a change of plan."

And so it was. When they'd had enough touristing, Cassie went off to Daniel's place while Sam and Kara went home.

None of them spoke until they got out of the car in Sam's driveway.

"Now," Kara said as she stood next to the still-open car door, "I have two impressions here. The first is that you've been sort of avoiding me all day. The second is that Cassie went off to her uncle so that you wouldn't feel the need to do that any more."

Sam closed the door on her side of the car.

"Daniel's not really her uncle," she said.

"But you're still doing the avoiding thing, so maybe I got the wrong impressions."

Sam looked away. From the other side of the car, she heard the door close.

"Well, I'm...," she said, and then something big and heavy hit her, knocked her to the ground, wrestled her onto her back and kissed her.

"If you really don't want to," Kara said after she'd broken the kiss, "this is the time to punch me in the face."

Woah, Sam's rational self said. Think about this. We're out on the lawn. What if the neighbors see us?

Hel-lo, her less rational self objected. Hot chick straddling our hips and more or less begging us to fuck her. When's that going to happen again?

Sam put her arms around Kara and pulled her into another deep kiss, this one being less one-sided and lasting a lot longer. Her hands ranged all over the parts of Kara she could reach. They were annoyingly cloth-covered.

"Indoors," she panted. "Now!"

She pushed Kara off herself and rolled to her feet just in time to receive another kiss. Frantically kissing and touching each other, they made their way through the front door.

"Next time," Sam said, "let's try and make it to the bed."

They were lying on the living room carpet. Sam was on her back, with Kara sprawled half on top of her. Their clothes were spread all over the place, starting at the front door and following a rough trail from there.

"Why?" Kara said. "I'm comfortable here."

"I'm not," Sam said. "Also, the toy chest is under the bed."

Kara laughed.

"OK, that's a reason. Now, if we move the booze up there as well, along with a microwave, a portable freezer and a stack of frozen pizzas we can stay in for a week."

Sam's first reaction was to laugh at the obviously non-serious suggestion. But before the laugh reached her mouth, that less rational part of her mind pointed out that there actually was nothing seriously wrong with the plan. It wasn't even as if she had to work. According to her current orders, getting to know Kara better was her work.

"Yeah," she said, sounding surprised even to her own ears. "We could do that. I even have a portable freezer out in the garage, that Jack left here when he moved to Washington."

Kara lifted her head from Sam's chest and looked at her.

"You serious?"

"Yeah, why not? I never did anything like that when I was at college. Got to be a stupid teenager some time."

Kara smiled.

"That'd be a different kind of thing for you, huh?" she said. "Staying at home instead of going on adventures on strange planets and such."

"We don't do that all the time," Sam said. "Sometimes the adventures come to us and we have them right there in the SGC. Sometimes we don't have adventures at all. Once we even went away on an adventure and stayed home at the same time."

Kara frowned.

"How did that happen?"

"Time machine," Sam said. "In one timeline, we went back and fixed a problem so we in this timeline never needed to go back in the first place, so we stayed home. Or, well, we went up to Jack's cabin and fished, but..."

Kara raised herself up on her elbows. Sam took the opportunity to gleefully ogle her naked breasts.

"You have a time machine?" Kara said. "That works?"

Sam reached out a hand and placed it under Kara's breast, feeling the soft warmth.

"Yeah," she said. "It's at Area 51 now, I think. Last I heard, we still haven't got a clue how it works. Although the stuff you told us might help there, actually..."

"So why haven't you gone back and rescued your Janet?"

Sam's brain froze.

The thought had never even occurred to her.

"I..." she said, words failing.

Kara sat up.

"Geeesh," she said. "It wasn't that bad a question, was it?"

"I could have her back," Sam whispered. She felt hot and cold at the same time. Her heart was suddenly racing a million miles an hour.

"Uh, Sam?" she heard Kara say. "Breathe, will you?"

They could go back. If they got her after she was shot but before she died, she could be rescued with a Goa'uld hand device, and it wouldn't change the timeline. Not very much, anyway.

"We've got to try," she said.

Kara looked at her.

"You never even thought of it?" she said.

Sam shook her head.

"And now you want to do it."

Sam nodded.

"Are you allowed to do that?"

Sam shook her head.

"Is it dangerous?"

Sam nodded.

"Do you need my help?"

Sam nodded again. "Only someone with the Ancient gene can pilot the time machine. And unlike me, you have it."

"And it's to save a beautiful maiden?"

"I don't know if I'd call her a maiden," Sam said. "But, yeah."

"So, you need my help to go against orders and pilot a strange alien machine into danger in order to save a loved one?"

"Pretty much, yeah," Sam said.

Kara broke out in a wide grin.

"Am I your gal or what?" she said.

The guard at the Area 51 access road looked dubiously at Sam's papers.

"So you want to take two visitors in, sir?" he said.

He was standing next to the military jeep with the three women in it. It was midday, and the desert heat was rapidly climbing towards intolerable.

"They're special assistants," Sam said. "And as you can see, I've got clearances for them."

"Yeah, I guess," he said. "Still, it's a bit unusual. I should call to check..."

"Oh, come on," Sam said. "And keep us waiting in this weather? You can do that later, and they can throw us out if necessary. It's not like they don't know who I am."

He smiled.

"Yeah, you're kind of famous around here, Colonel Carter," he said. "And I guess you wouldn't do anything that wasn't in our best interest. Go on through."

He waved toward the guard building, and the gates swung open.

"Thanks," Sam said. "It's appreciated."

She drove through, fighting the impulse to go as fast as the car would carry them.

"How the hell did you get us clearances to come here?" Cassie said from the back seat. When Kara had let slip what they were planning to do, she'd insisted to come along and help. Sam had tried to argue her out of it, but her heart hadn't really been in the attempt.

"I wrote them myself," Sam said.

"Do you have the authority to do that?" Kara said. She was sprawled over the front passenger seat, cap pulled down over her eyes.

"Sort of," Sam said.

"Sort of?" Cassie said.

"Well, while you obviously are both cleared to know about the Stargate and aliens and all that, you're theoretically civilians. Which means that General Landry would need to give permission for you to be here."

"So...?"

"So temporarily you're both cadets."

"Does that mean we have to follow your orders?" Kara asked.

"Strictly speaking, yes," Sam answered.

"Want to tie me down as well?"

Sam nearly swerved off the road.

"Kara!" Cassie exclaimed. "Don't tease her while she's driving!"

It took them a few minutes to get from the guard post to the actual base. The space in between looked like the same kind of flat landscape sparsely filled with dead plants as outside the fence, but Sam knew that it wasn't. The place was full of detectors and mines, and anybody trying to walk across it would be in for a nasty surprise.

"Do you know where we're going?" Cassie asked when buildings came into view.

"Yes," Sam said. "I looked it up in their database. The timejumper is in building twelve."

"You have access to their database?"

"Well, no, not officially. But they use the same security systems as the SGC, so..."

Sam's voice trailed off into silence.

"What about this other thing we needed? The hand whatsit?" Kara asked.

"Brought one from home," Sam said.

"I thought it was an alien artifact?"

"It is, but we have quite a few of them. I took one home a while back to practice using it."

The buildings had no signs on them, but Sam had been there often enough to know which one was number twelve. It was a big hangar-like one with huge doors, used for unusually large objects. Such as spare Stargates or Ancient time-travel craft. And, which was relevant for them now, it was pretty new.

"OK, remember now," Sam said as she carefully maneuvered the jeep into a parking space. If anyone asks, here to study activation of alien devices. Kara, as soon as we get into the timejumper, you sit down in the control seat. When the controls light up, concentrate on closing the doors. Once they're closed, try to jump back in time about ten years. Once we've done that, we should be in the open and have more time to think."

"Gotcha," Kara said. Cassie just nodded.

"It won't frakking jump!" Kara shouted.

The timejumper was hovering in the middle of the hangar, bullets clanging against its hull. Kara was in the pilot's seat, frantically trying to do evasive action. Cassie was in the seat next to her, concentrating on the control panel. Sam was in the back, nursing the none too reliable power feed to the time engine.

"I don't know why!" Sam shouted back. "Everything seems to be working just fine!"

"I think it's just refusing," Cassie said. "If I read this right, that word is 'warning' and that one is 'indoors'. I could tell for sure if I had some time and uncle Daniel's notebooks..."

Sam mumbled a curse at safety-conscious Ancients. They'd been doing so well, until the moment they closed the doors and the craft left the floor. The guards had reacted much more quickly than Sam had expected, and took no more than a few seconds before the started taking gunfire. Which it should, theoretically, handle just fine. Sam wasn't so sure about the practice of it, though, since it was after all more than ten thousand years old. Since the guards didn't stop shooting, they were apparently working on the same assumption.

"So what do I do?" Kara said.

"Give me a moment, I'm thinking," Sam said.

"Do we have a moment?"

"I hope so."

There was a short but noticeable silence from Kara before she spoke again.

"Ah, frakk it," she said. "Hold on to something."

Sam looked forward just in to see the hangar doors approach them at insane speed. She was just about to scream at Kara to stop when there was a bright flash, and the doors were replaced by sunlight and the buildings of Area 51. Kara whooped, and the base receded fast below them.

"What happened?" Cassie said.

"You said this thing is space worthy," Kara said. "And it was obviously built by security fascists. So I figured it'd have some kind of defense against space debris. Like, for example, hangar doors."

She grinned.

"You should've seen the wreckage fly," she said.

"Can we get a look back?" Sam asked.

"I don't..." Kara said. A window appeared inset in the main viewscreen, showing the view behind them. Far in the distance, she could see a number of small buildings. One of them with one end looking quite ragged, and with black smoke coming from it. She winced.

"O'Neill's going to be livid," she said.

"Not for..." Kara said. There was another flash, this one of bluish brilliant light coming from everywhere at once.

"...another ten years," she finished.

The base below them was suddenly very much smaller. All of the big buildings were no longer there, and the place had a dusty look as if nobody really used it much.

As it had been before the Stargate program got going.

"Are we cloaked?" Sam asked. "We don't want to cause more UFO reports than necessary."

"We are," Cassie said.

"So, where to now?" Kara said.

Cassie frowned. "We need the Stargate," she said. "But it's already down in what'll soon be Stargate Command, and I don't really think we can fly this thing down there. Maybe if we go further back?"

Sam walked up to the front of the craft.

"No," she said. "It was buried in Egypt then. I don't think it's been out in the open since Ra left Earth."

"So we go back, what, five thousand years?"

Sam shook her head.

"The Antarctica gate is accessible from the air until O'Neill and I find it in a couple of years. And since this ship can act as its own DHD, we don't even have to touch anything there."

"All right," Kara said. "Which still doesn't answer my question, since I have no idea where this Antarctica is."

"South," Cassie said. "All the way south."

"And keep it subsonic," Sam said. "We want to be discreet, remember?"

"Going all the way," Kara said and grinned. "I like the sound of that."

The Earth is big, and even with a fancy Ancient spacecraft keeping just under the speed of sound in the upper reaches of the atmosphere it was a couple of hours travel from Nevada to the South Pole. Sam took the opportunity to rest. She hadn't been able to sleep since Kara's question, but now that they were committed and on their way fatigue was catching up with her. She spread a blanket on the floor next to the time-travel device in the back of the craft and laid down on it, blissfully closing her eyes.

"Can I ask you something?" she heard Cassie say. She and Kara were still in their seats at the front, Kara flying and Cassie figuring out the controls.

"Sure," Kara said.

"Why are you doing this?"

"What do you mean why am I doing this? Why wouldn't I?"

"Because you seem to want to be with Sam, and if we get mom back that just won't happen."

There was silence for a little while.

"Yeah," Kara said. "I got that."

"So why?"

There was another long pause before Kara answered.

"There was someone I had to go back for once," she finally said. "I know the feeling."

Before Cassie had a chance to reply, Kara went on in a much perkier voice.

"Besides, I never was much of a long-term relationship person anyway. I'll find someone new soon enough."

Cassie laughed.

"When we get back, remind me to introduce you to my roommate Dawn. The number of ex-girlfriends she has is simply astonishing, and they're all totally hot. As is her sister, but she's kind of strange and doesn't seem to like people much."

Sam sat up.

"Cassie," she said. "What's your roommate's last name?"

Cassie and Kara both turned to look at her.

"Summers," Cassie said. "Why?"

"From California?" Sam asked, incredulous.

"Yeah," Cassie said. "Some place that sank into the ground."

"Sunnydale," Sam said. "Your roommate is Buffy Summers' sister?"

"That's Dawn's sister's name, yeah," Cassie said. "And how do you know her?"

"Long story," Sam said. "I didn't even know she had a sister."

"Sorry to interrupt," Kara said. "But the compass just flipped out. We seem to be right above the magnetic south pole. I think I can follow the field lines down, if that's what we want."

Sam got up from the blanket.

"There should be a display mode that shows approach vectors for the nearest gate," she said. "Just think about..."

Another window swirled into existence on the viewscreen, showing a flight-path diagram ending in a small circle down under the ice.

"This ship is so frakking responsive it's creepy," Kara said. "That's it, isn't it?"

"Yeah," Sam said. "And take it easy, we're in no hurry. We don't have to be at P3X-666 for another eight years."

A flash of blue-white light, and the calm forest scene below them turned into a battlefield. Dull clouds of dirt and splintered vegetation appeared where Earth explosives detonated, and bright clouds of flame where Jaffa weapons hit. Alkesh and Death Gliders criss-crossed the sky, raining destruction down on the Earth troops, who retaliated with gunfire and the occasional ground-to-air missile.

"Frakk me," Kara said. "That's some serious war going on there. Sure they can't see us?"

"They'd already be shooting at us if they could," Sam said. She pointed out the viewscreen, a couple of grenades hanging from her combat gear clanking into each other. "That gully over there."

The timejumper swooped soundlessly towards the place that Sam remembered much too clearly. She hadn't seen it at the time, but she'd gone back there several times since. Why, she wasn't even sure herself.

"There's mom," Cassie said. She pointed at two people running towards the gully, in which they could now see Daniel kneeling next to a wounded soldier.

In the forest above the gully, they could see a small group of Jaffa approaching.

"Can't we just shoot them?" Cassie said. She sounded young and scared.

"No," Sam said. "We have no idea what would happen if we did. Removing someone who's just about to die is quite bad enough. As soon as she gets hit, land just above the ridge and let me out."

The waiting was torture. Knowing what would happen, seeing it in her mind over and over again. On the screen she saw Janet's face, alive and concentrating on saving the poor airman who'd been hit earlier. The picture blurred, and it took a moment for Sam to realize that it wasn't a problem with the screen but her own tears.

"Sure you want to go?" Kara said. "You look a bit upset. I could do it instead."

Sam shook her head. "They wouldn't let you through. Me they'll recognize."

The Jaffa stepped out of the trees. He lifted his staff weapon and fired, hitting Janet squarely in the chest.

"Now!" Sam said. "Land!"

She was out of the craft before the edge of the door touched the soil, jumping over the edge and hitting the ground running. Out of the corner of her eye she saw the Jaffa twitch and jerk as bullet after bullet slammed into him, and it gave her a moment of distant satisfaction to see him die. The air smelled of burning wood, gunpowder smoke and fear. Gunfire stuttered through the air, momentarily drowning out the screams of the wounded and in its turn being drowned out by explosions.

"Let me through!" she shouted at the airmen surrounding Janet's prone form. She pushed her way through them before they even had had time to obey, and knelt at Janet's side. Seeing her there, chest torn open, not breathing, filled Sam with panic. She reached out a hand and felt for a pulse.

She found one. Weak, but there. Panic receding, she leaned back and turned to the onlooking airmen.

"She's dead," she said. "Up there, see if you can get the Jaffa who did this."

"Yes, sir," one of them said. They took off, leaving her alone with Janet.

And Daniel.

"Sam?" he said. "I though you were over on the other side of the field?"

"I was," she said.

"Is she...?" he said. She could see the fear in his eyes. And, strangely, relief.

Sam nodded. "She's dead," she said.

An impulse struck her.

"Jack asked for you," she said.

"Right," Daniel said, and took off without a further word.

Quickly but as gently as she could, Sam picked up Janet. She wasn't a big woman, and even in full combat gear Sam had no trouble lifting her. And to get her back, Sam would've carried her had she weighed the world. She set off up the side of the gully, keeping an eye out for unexpected Jaffa. It'd be the height of irony if she got shot now. But there were none, and she made it safely into the timejumper.

"Is she...?" Cassie said.

"Barely," Sam said. She put Janet down on the floor and pulled on the hand device that was waiting there.

"Getting the frakk out of here," she heard Kara say, but she didn't pay any attention to the words. Her entire mind was occupied with getting the healing device to work, and do its job.

A nimbus of light surrounded Sam's hand. Fog-like it spread out and enveloped Janet.

Exhausted, Sam staggered down the stairs to the living room. Used glasses and empty bottles lay scattered around. There was a smell of stale cigar smoke, and voices drifted in from afar. She stripped off the hand device and threw it at the table, where it landed in an empty pizza box.

The voices came from the back yard, so she headed there. She was more tired than she could remember ever being before, but she didn't want to sleep quite yet. Talking to Cassie and Kara would keep her awake.

The two of them looked up when she came onto the back porch. They sat next to each other on the steps down to the lawn, Kara smoking a cigar and Cassie sipping from a beer can.

"How is she?" Cassie said.

"Sleeping," Sam said.

"Still? Is that good?"

"Again," Sam said. "Not still. She was awake for a little while. Asked what had happened and why she was home. I think she'll be all right."

Kara blew a smoke ring in her direction. "You look half dead," she said.

"I've felt perkier," Sam admitted.

A thought occurred to her.

"Where did you put the timejumper?" she said.

"It's right there," Kara said, gesturing toward the empty lawn.

"You can see slight depressions where it's resting on the grass," Cassie said. "Although it doesn't seem to weigh nearly as much as it ought to."

"Right," Sam said. The Ancient invisible time machine was parked on her lawn. Of course. Where else would it be?

"So what happens now?" Kara said.

"I get dishonorably discharged from the Air Force," Sam said. "You'll be moved somewhere else. Cassie goes back to college. As for Janet, I'm sure there's some procedure for what happens when someone who's been declared dead turns out not to be."

"They'll throw you out for borrowing a vehicle and rescuing someone?" Kara said. "That's pretty harsh."

"We did mess up Area 51 a bit," Sam said. "That's kind of frowned on, usually."

Cassie shook her head. "There's no way uncle Jack will let harm come to you over this," she said. "He is fond of mom, no matter what he says about the needles."

"Maybe," Sam said and yawned. "I don't really care what happens to me, as long as Janet's back and you two are all right."

Cassie smiled at her.

"Go to bed," she said. "You'll think more clearly after you've slept some."

"Yeah," Kara said. "Go away so I can keep trying to seduce your daughter."

Sam was about to protest, again, that Cassie didn't swing that way when she noticed how close together they were sitting. And how one of Cassie's hands were resting on Kara's thigh.

"Kara?" she said instead.

"Yeah?"

"If you hurt her I'll kill you."

"You and what army?"

Sam smiled.

"Janet," she said.

"She's not kidding," Cassie said. "Mom has held a gun to the head of someone who hurt me."

She looked up at Sam.

"But that was a little worse than not calling after a date," she said.

"You've never cared for a kid," Sam said. "Good night, anyway."

She made her way up the stairs again, and into the bedroom. The bedroom that had been empty for these past two years, but wasn't any more. She stopped in the doorway and stood for a while just looking at the sleeping Janet. Her Janet, back where she belonged again.

Slowly, Sam undressed. There was no hurry any more. She didn't even have to go to work in the morning. Too tired to be neat, she let the clothes fall where they would. She was just about to slide in between the sheets when she remembered that Janet really hated when Sam left her clothes on the floor like that. She got up again, and hung them over the back of a chair. Not exactly neat, but good enough.

Quite against her will, tears started running down her face when she snuggled up to Janet's long-missed body. Her beloved moved a little, even in her sleep adjusting to their customary sleeping positions.

"Your feet are cold," Janet mumbled, half asleep.

"They'll warm up soon," Sam said.

But her love was already sleeping again, and within a few breaths, so was she.

Comments

[scarimor.livejournal.com]

I love Sam/Kara and I always come back to Sam/Janet. So, coupled with rogue Sam breaking into Area51, this fic really hit the spot. Thank you :-)