VI

The house was dark when she got home that night, except for a small lamp left burning on a table in the hallway. She was much later than she'd intended to be, although, granted, she'd probably stayed later than had been absolutely necessary. And she had to admit it was with a certain relief that she found the house quiet and all indications suggesting that Jack had already gone to bed.

Which was good. Only not for the same reason she'd have thought it was good the past several days.

She'd had a long hard talk with herself all day and made up her mind that she was not going to let a bunch of nightmares ruin her life. An easy conclusion, she knew, in the light of day, well away from the deep recesses of her subconscious But still. Jack's comments last night had been a wake-up call. She'd been foolish to let a few meaningless images risk damaging the one truly perfect thing in her life. She was a big girl, after all. And she'd witnessed things over the years that far surpassed the visions of the past three days. Besides, Fifth was dead—if you could really call a replicator dead. Her doppelganger had destroyed him and in turn had been destroyed by the weapon on Dakara. Their counterparts in the Pegasus galaxy had been eliminated as well, save for the dozen or so that floated in limbo in the farthest recesses of the galaxy. To fear something that no longer existed and had no power over her was ridiculous.

Just as fearing Jack was ridiculous. She couldn't believe how she'd behaved toward him since the night of Weir's memorial service. Little wonder he thought she was nuts. She had even started to wonder herself, to the point where she'd actually given thought to his suggestion that she find someone professional to talk to. She'd rejected it, of course, after due consideration. She'd had plenty of psych evaluations over the course of her work with the Stargate program, none of which had done her the least bit of good. Without the shared experience of gate travel and the first-hand knowledge of the truly bizarre and complex, often life-and-death decisions she'd faced countless times, she'd always found it hard to relate to people who wanted her to talk about her feelings. In some ways, she realized, she wasn't unlike Jack in that regard. There just really wasn't any point.

Besides. As she'd already decided, there was nothing to these nightmares at all. Just a bad run of them for some unknown reason that didn't really matter in the first place. The most important thing was making things right with Jack, because she never wanted to see the hurt on his face that she'd seen the night before or feel so utterly alone as she had curled up on that small sofa waiting for the first light of dawn. She wanted things to be right, because nothing had been right for the past three days. She had done this, and it was her place to undo it.

Except, she wasn't sure quite how. Which was why she'd worked so late and hoped Jack would be in bed by the time she got home. Because she felt it would be easier to do if she could start with something normal. As normal as slipping into bed alongside Jack and going to sleep. If she could do that—and she would do that—then she'd figure out the rest of it somehow.

Switching off the small light and ignoring the slight lurch her stomach gave when the house was suddenly and completely engulfed in darkness, Sam headed for bed.

o-o-o-o

Pain. Body-wracking, soul-withering, mind-twisting pain. But not hers. Or was it? She couldn't tell. She was seeing pain—tasting it—knowing it was red like fire and black like bile and it seared her eyes and embittered her throat. But was it hers?

Yes.

And no.

Hers because she felt it in her heart. An ache of such infinite degree that the tears streamed hot down her face and sobs shook her body.

Not hers because she could see him enduring that pain. See every wound. Every twist of the knife. Every drop of acid. Every shred of life and dignity stripped from him before he fell out of her sight, into black oblivion.

And she screamed.

"Sam!"

Rough hands shook her. The sound of a voice—his voice—reached into her mind and pulled it away from the vision of his suffering and death. With it's own kind of pain, she opened her eyes and felt, more than saw him at her side, holding both her arms, shaking her.

"Sam! Stop! Stop it! You're okay. I promise you…you're okay."

She realized she was still screaming, the sound coming weirdly from her own mouth. Doing as he asked because it was, in part, second nature, she stopped and the room fell into an eerie silence broken only by the sound of her own jagged breathing and his.

"Better?" he asked, after a moment. Moonlight streamed into the room and in its light she could make out his taut and tired features, see his chest still heaving with exertion.

She nodded.

"Yeah. Thanks."

Without saying another word, he let go of her and rolled back over to his side of the bed, a soul-weary sigh coming out of semi-darkness. He was leaving her be, just as she'd wanted him to; just as she'd demanded ever since this whole thing started, by keeping him at arms length and refusing to let him in.

Only now she wanted him. More than that—she needed him. The dream in it's horrifying clarity had brought her clarity as well. And she remembered.

She remembered everything.

It was a torrent. It burst forth from the deepest regions of her memory where she had built so solid a wall around it that she hadn't even remembered it was there. A few hastily typed words on a report had summarized it, but all the rest had been dammed up, pushed far away and forgotten.

Except not really. Because here it was. The dam had broken and she was being swept away.

Gone had been the gentle touch of his innocent sharing of thoughts. In bitter vengeance he had plunged his hand into her forehead, venting his rage in the swirling emotions of her fears and doubts. He had stripped her psyche raw, taken her back to hell. Bynar. Sokar. Memories that were both hers and Jolinar's. Fire and sweat and death and pain. Her father near death. Her friends in peril. Her despair at not remembering anything beyond the vile revulsion and self-loathing buried so deeply in Jolinar's past. The stream-of-conscious meanderings of Apophis' narcotic-enhanced interrogation. Her mother's death. Her father's grief. Her own….

She'd sobbed. Pleaded with Fifth to stop. Her mind could hardly process the images, the sensations, the terror and the pain. But his anger and his need for revenge had overwhelmed any compassion she might have begged from him. He'd assaulted her again, penetrating even more deeply into her mind, thrusting his own knowledge of those things which he knew would inflict the most pain on her, over and over again. Jack's agony in the hands of Ba'al. Teal'c's brutalization in the clutches of Heru-ur. Their suffering. Their pain. Their despair, made worse for her own inability to do anything but watch and suffer with them, helpless in her impotence. The crushing weight of hopelessness had nearly suffocated her and when he finally, mercifully had stopped, she'd lain on the floor, gasping for air, her body convulsing in grief.

"Oh, god."

She'd said it aloud, even as she felt her own body start to tremble. To her ears it sounded small and feeble and lost in the night.

But Jack must have heard it, for he stirred next to her, sat up and turned toward her.

She curled up, instinctively, protectively. But not from Jack. Never from Jack. She understood that now. It had never been Jack she feared. It had been touching this memory. And Fifth had somehow been the guardian of it. Her brain's defense from letting her get to close. From letting Jack get too close, because only he would really know. Only he would really understand what a violation it had been. And she hadn't been willing to face that.

Until now.

She looked up at him, desperation driving her to hope she hadn't pushed him too far away already. But the minute she did, she knew she needn't have feared losing him. Without a moment's hesitation he was there, holding her, cradling her against his chest, and she clung to him and wept--great wracking sobs she could not control. His arms held her tightly. Supporting her. Protecting her. Loving her. He rested his cheek against the top of her head and gently rocked her, murmuring soothing words of comfort as, spent, she simply lay against him, shuddering heaves spasming through her. His hand smoothed her hair away from her face and he kissed her softly on the forehead.

"Do you want to tell me, now?"

She nodded, still grasping his shirt in her fist, hoping he wouldn't let go of her.

Like he ever would.

She told him. It came pouring out. All the ugliness Fifth had ripped from her deepest memories, all the suffering and despair he'd forced into her from his own. The horrid and grotesque. The evil and the sordid. Things that pierced her heart, that laid waste to the protective barriers she'd built around her most hidden fears, that forced her to endure the suffering of those she loved most, witness to torments she could not stop. The violation of her innermost hopes and dreams. The rape of her mind and her memory.

And when she ran out of words and could only shiver uncontrollably in his arms, he pulled the blanket off the end of the bed and wrapped it around the two of them, making a cocoon and holding her head against his heart. There was a steadiness to its solid rhythm that she found calming, soothing. And she realized that it had always been that way. Jack's heart. Constant and sure. In passion, in love, in weariness, in fear—even in doubt. It was always there for her. And always had been.

"I'm sorry," he said, after they'd been silent for some time. She was wrung out. Empty. Incapable of movement. She could only lay there, exhausted, in his arms. Arms she never wanted to leave again.

"For what?" she asked, perplexed, tilting her head back to look at him. The cast of moonlight on his face had it half in shadow, half in light.

"What happened to you was my fault."

She pushed away from him to see him more fully.

"What are you talking about?" she asked, incredulously. "You weren't even there."

"Exactly."

She could see he was serious. The self-recrimination was all over his face. She shook her head in disagreement.

"No. Jack—don't. You're not responsible. It just…happened."

He pulled her to him again, wrapping his arms around her even more tightly and saying nothing. Yet she could almost read his thoughts. He blamed himself—because it had been on his order that she'd betrayed Fifth in the first place—because he'd been the reason she'd been out there looking for the Asgard anyway. But of course, even if neither of these had been in play, he'd have shouldered the blame regardless, for no other reason than that he simply hadn't been there to stop it from happening. Which she knew only too well, for Jack, was the greatest failing of all.

She wanted to muster the energy to argue with him—convince him that he was wrong; but she knew it wouldn't do any good. And she realized that he'd been carrying this burden for a long time already. Even though she'd never talked about it, he'd have suspected what Fifth had done—hiding his own pain as he had so often during that time when their separateness had hurt them so much. Maybe bringing it out of the dark had done them both good.

She found his hand in the half-light and interlaced her fingers with his. Understanding passed between them. Shared pain. Shared need. Shared comfort.

And most welcome of all, shared peace.

Night folded around them like the blanket.

Sam closed her eyes and let sleep come.