The Gift

By Aeryn

Chapter One

"Unscheduled offworld activation."

O'Neill sighed as the Klaxons sounded, tossing the report he'd been attempting to read back into his in-box. He pushed his chair back from Hammond's desk, as he still thought of it, and made his way down to the control room.

"Who is –"

"It's SG-1, sir. They're in trouble."

O'Neill grabbed the radio mike. "Carter? What in the hell is going on out there? You weren't supposed to be back for two more days!"

"Jack!"

"Daniel? What in the hell?" The hair on the back of his neck stood at the sound of the panic Daniel's voice.

"Jack! Sam's hurt, we've got to get through NOW!"

His stomach dropped. Walter was already opening the iris as O'Neill called for a med team to the gate room.

"Daniel, you're clear," he said, sounding calm and feeling anything but.

"Jack," Daniel cried, out of breath. "It's bad, you need to be ready-"

"We're ready, just get your asses through the damned gate!"

O'Neill rushed into the gate room to join the med team at the bottom of the ramp. He tried to ready himself for what he might see next, but nothing could had prepared him for what came through that gate.

All three of them were covered in her blood, although Teal'c was the worst – he was carrying her. She was – or had been - bleeding heavily from at least half a dozen wounds that seemed to cover her from the knee up, her uniform ripped to shreds.

But the worst was a deep gash in her upper thigh, all the way through to the bone. Daniel struggled to hold tight a tourniquet as they stumbled down the ramp. O'Neill would learn later that they'd been walking this way for an hour. Carter's face was slack and pale, and O'Neill was struck with fear at the way her body slumped limply in Teal'c's arms.

"Goddammit," O'Neill muttered under his breath and instinctively started towards them before the med team pushed him out of the way. Carter was moved quickly and smoothly onto a gurney and rushed off to the infirmary while the doctors and nurses on duty barked orders at one another.

Dazed, he turned to look at Teal'c and Daniel. "What HAPPENED?"

Daniel sank to his knees, breathing heavily. "The ruins were booby-trapped, Jack."

O'Neill looked at Teal'c. He noted that the big man's eyes were flat and emotionless. "I am unfamiliar with the weapon, O'Neill. It seems that Col. Carter activated a device which projects razorlike shrapnel at very high speeds. It appeared to come directly from the wall on which some glyphs were written. She is wounded deeply in eight places but the worst is her leg. The femoral artery was severed. I believe that even the bone may have been scored."

O'Neill turned away from them, nausea gripping him suddenly and fiercely. He bent over, hands on knees breathing deeply.

Teal'c grabbed him by the shoulder. O'Neill looked up. He could see now that Teal'c's eyes weren't emotionless – he was weeping.

"O'Neill, this is a life-threatening injury. And although we tried, I do not believe DanielJackson and I were able to get her here in time."

"I'm so sorry, Jack, if we'd just been a little closer to the gate . . ." Daniel moaned from his place on the floor.

"O'Neill, you must go to her now. Her time is short, if indeed there is any time left at all." He paused, obviously finding it hard to speak.

O'Neill felt a surging scream of denial rising up from his gut. This did NOT happen. This NEVER happened. They ALWAYS made it through okay, this just DID NOT HAPPEN . . .

"Gen. O'Neill to the infirmary immediately," came the call over the intercom.

"Oh, God," he whispered. "Oh, fuck no."

"Go, O'Neill," Teal'c whispered. "I believe this is your last chance."

"So, that's it?" he asked, voice brittle.

"There's nothing else we can do, sir, she just lost too much blood in a very short amount of time," said Dr. Ballinger.

Carter's still form lie on the bed between them. O'Neill hadn't gotten to talk to her. It had been too late.

"So, nothing. No Goa'uld healing devices, no blood transfusions, just nothing."

"I'm sorry, sir. I really am." And he was. Over forty people had lined up to donate blood once they'd heard the nature of Carter's injuries. And he'd had to turn them all away. These were good people and Carter was one of the best, a bright future . . .

"What about the T'okra?"

"We've sent word. Jacob should be here as soon as he can."

"Good, but what about one of their worms? Wouldn't that work? Stranger things have happened," O'Neill said, a certain sort of hopeful desperation in his voice.

"Sir, Col. Carter was very specific," Ballinger said. He held up her file. "No life support, no extreme measures, and she made perfectly clear that included Goa'uld implantation."

O'Neill dropped his head. "Jollinar," he muttered.

"Yes, I think so," Ballinger said.

"So it's over. It's really over."

"Yes. She's gone."

O'Neill's head snapped up. "She's not GONE," he spat. "She's fucking DEAD. Let's not beat around the bush, doctor, she's DEAD. Not passed away, not gone to heaven, – DEAD."

The doctor dropped his head. "Yes, sir."

"Get out of here."

"Well, sir, we really need to move her down to the morgue . . . "

"No, you really don't," O'Neill snapped. "She stays here until Jacob comes."

"Uh, well, okay, sir . . ."

"Get out."

The doctor scuttled away, shaking his head. As many times as he'd had to do this, it never got any easier.

O'Neill closed the curtain around Carter's bed and looked down at her. She was still pale, but clean, none of her wounds visible now. He studied her face, struggling to fathom the fact that the woman he'd sent out into the field only four hours earlier was dead.

Carter dead. No more technobabble, no more saving the world. Never seeing those eyes again.

Fuck.

He felt rather than heard Teal'c and Daniel come up behind him. He didn't turn around.

"Did you see it happen?" he asked, still gazing down at Carter's face.

"We did, O'Neill."

"Was she conscious?"

"Yeah, at first," Daniel said, voice conveying his exhaustion and grief. "She even tried to do all the first aid herself. You know how she was." He smiled slightly, brushing away tears.

"Did she say anything?"

"Well . . . at first she worried about losing her leg. Then, I think, she realized –"He broke off, unable to continue.

"She was very weak, O'Neill, but she insisted we stop and listen to her," Teal'c said.

"She told us that we were two of her very best friends and that this didn't change anything, she'd still be with us on each mission," Daniel said, voice breaking. "She said we'd better not do anything as stupid as she just did or we'd have her to answer to."

O'Neill smiled bleakly.

"And she asked us to tell Jacob not to worry, that she died doing what she loved."

Grief from all three of the men gave the air in the infirmary a tremendous weight. It was difficult to move, difficult to talk. O'Neill was silent.

"Jack . . . are you all right?"

"No," he said after a moment.

"O'Neill," said Teal'c. "She also had a message for you."

O'Neill tensed.

"She said not to blame yourself."

He smiled bitterly. She knew him too well.

"She also said to tell you that she was sorry."

"Sorry? What the fuck does that mean?" he asked, voice breaking.

"I am sorry, I do not know. I assumed that you would."

O'Neill breathed deeply, fighting furiously against the tears that threatened to fall.

"That's it?"

"That is it, O'Neill. She passed into unconsciousness after that. She never woke up again."

He waited for several breaths until he could count on his voice being steady.

"Guys, I know you've both been through a lot, but I've still got to tell Cassie and wait for Jacob to arrive. Do you mind giving me some time?"

"Sure, Jack," Daniel said. "We'll be . . . well, you know where to find us."

O'Neill nodded and heard them turn and leave the room.

She was sorry. What in the hell was that supposed to mean? Sorry about dying on him? Then she fucking SHOULD be sorry.

Out of the corner of his eye he saw her medical file. He picked it up and leafed through it, looking for what, he didn't know. Then he saw it.

She'd been pregnant. Three months.

His knees buckled and he grabbed the rail of her bed for support. He didn't have to think about it, he knew the baby was his. Why the fuck hadn't she told him?

O'Neill eased back into a chair and pulled it close to her bedside, taking her hand. It was already cold, but he gripped it tightly. He would wait here for Jacob, tell him there were to be two memorial services.

Then he would leave.

Forever.

TBC