Our dreams must be stronger than our memories. We must be pulled by our dreams, rather than pushed by our memories. – Jesse Jackson

Smoke.

Darkness.

Pain.

She sat up suddenly, every muscle in her body clenched in fear. The movement caused a sharp pain to lance through her body and the corners of her vision to blacken.

“Whoa, Sam. Not so fast,” a familiar voice drawled. She felt warm hands settle on her shoulders and lower her gently back into softness.

“Wh..?” she muttered in confusion. She had an overwhelming feeling that she was missing something, but couldn’t seem to shape the thought into words.

“Shhhh...” the voice came again. “Just sleep.” Calloused fingers tangled through hers and stroked coolly across her brow.

Thinking was too painful. She gave up and simply let the soft motion of the fingers soothe the tension from her body.

As she drifted off, she remembered a quirky smile and blue eyes.

Cam...

Smoke billows through the room and she feels the familiar outlines of a keyboard under her fingertips.

She types madly, trying desperately. Desperately.

To...

Sam slowly came back into consciousness vaguely aware of voices, low and concerned. She listened to them absently, hearing the words but not understanding them.

“How are we going to tell her?”

“Can’t we just explain?”

“She kind of screwed up royally, Sheppard. It’s not exactly something you can just tell her. ‘Guess what! You destroyed a planet!’ isn’t going to cover it.”

“You destroyed a solar system.”

“It was uninhabited.”

“So?”

“So?! So?! Sheppard there is a world of difference between blowing up a solar system and killing off an entire...”

Sam sighed happily as a soothing voice cut through the cacophony.

“When she’s ready to hear it, I’ll tell her. She’s my responsibility.”

Smoke.

Darkness.

Pain.

A string of equations dances before her eyes. She curls her fingers on the keyboard trying desperately to manipulate the numbers as they are swallowed by blackness.

Panic wells up inside her as she hears a familiar voice calling her name.

A beep sounded insistently in the background, breaking the rhythm of Sam’s sleep. She opened her eyes slowly, relieved that the worst of the pain was gone.

In the bed alongside her she noticed another man, sleeping soundly. She studied his features carefully, her eyes ghosting over short brown hair and a strong jaw stubbled with several days’ growth.

“Cameron,” she breathed as her battered neurons finally connected.

At the sound, the man woke in a startled hurry. He leapt from the bed in a tangle of limbs, almost falling before coming to stand at her side. “Sam,” he gasped with a great deal of relief. “Welcome back.”

She stared back at him in confusion. Apart from one brief moment of clarity earlier, nothing about this man seemed familiar. The expression on his face said clearly that he cared about her, but other than his name, she had nothing. The blue eyes that were staring down at her were familiar and at the same time... not.

“Welcome back, where?”

The two doctors Cameron hastily summoned were warm, friendly and implicitly reassuring. The Scottish man called her ‘love’ and gently stroked her hand as he explained that she had sustained a head injury that had traumatised her hippocampus.

The sweetly smiling blonde woman spoke about the effect of acute psychological trauma. Her voice was soft and wholly believable when she gave her absolute assurance that in time Sam’s memories would return.

All of their good work was rapidly undone by the pain and frustration on Cameron’s face. He stood just behind the doctors as they spoke to her, his arms across his body, and his blue eyes never leaving her face.

When they left he forced a smile.

“So, nothin’ huh?” He said, kicking at the ground. She noticed a thin sheen of tears in his eyes, and felt horrible without really knowing why.

On instinct she reached forward to entwine their fingers.

“You’re Cameron,” she said.

He ducked his head and gave her a small but definite grin. “Sure, I am.”

“And I’m Sam.”

He sat forward and brushed a light kiss onto her temple. “Sure, you are.”

“We’ll work out the rest from there,” she lied, knowing that he needed to hear it.

Blackness.

Pain.

Her fingers dance, panicked, over the keyboard.

A voice calling.

Cam’s voice.

Frantic. “Sam, Sam!”

“Sam, what the hell did you do?”

Sam was browsing through a laptop the next morning when Cameron joined her in the infirmary. He practically bounded to her bedside when he saw her, a wide smile on his face.

“Getting some work done, Sam?” he asked brightly.

“Actually, I’m looking at some of the photos on here. Dr. Heightmeyer said that looking at familiar faces might help my memory return.”

She couldn’t help noticing how his face clouded over again at her words, but he rallied admirably. “Sounds like sensible advice from the ol’ Doc. How’s it going?”

“Well, I found you. But the rest of these people...” She sighed lightly, fighting hard to hide the frustration that had been building for hours.

Cameron placed one hand soothingly on her back. “Need a hand?” he asked, and she could hear the note of understanding in his voice.

She nodded. She wanted so much to thank him for his empathy where elsewhere she had found only pity, but those words, like her memory, seemed to have left her.

With a shooing motion of his hands, he settled on the small infirmary bed next to her. He grimaced when he saw the photo currently displayed on her laptop. His face was so close to the camera lens that it had become oddly distorted.

“Not my best angle,” he said ruefully, wrinkling his nose. “Can’t believe you kept that one.”

“I think it’s cute.”

He gave her a look meant to question her sanity. Briefly she wondered how she knew that when she could remember nothing else about him. “Right.” He lifted the keyboard and pressed the down key. “Let’s see what else you’ve got.”

The next photo was of the two of them, hugging and holding beers, their noses red from too much alcohol. Cameron burst out laughing. “Oh yeah. That was a great day.”

“What happened?”

“Daniel’s birthday party. We stayed up until some ridiculous hour, drank too much, and in the end Teal’c had to carry us to bed because we sure as hell weren’t going to make it ourselves.”

Sam blinked. “To bed? Are you and I...?” She made a vague back and forth gesture between the two of them. “You know...?”

His eyes widened a little he scratched his head, breaking their eye contact. “Ah no... That would be separate beds there, Sam. You are, in fact, dating a very fine gentleman who would probably hurt me badly if I ever looked at you the wrong way.” He caught her confused smile and shook his head, “we’re friends Sam. Real good friends. But just friends.”

“So these other guys that you mentioned? Daniel and Teal’c?” She said the unfamiliar names slowly, rolling them out on her tongue. “Is one of them my... whatever?”

Cam smiled, and took the laptop again. “Nah. They’re also your real good friends.” He turned the screen back to show her a group of five grinning people. They were dressed strangely in matching black uniforms and packs. She recognised her own face, and Cameron’s, but nothing else.

“Remember anything?” he asked hopefully.

She shook her head, and the disappointment in his eyes hurt. Carefully he pointed to a young man with glasses. “That’s Daniel. The big guy next to him, that’s Teal’c. And the person pouting in front is Vala.”

“And they are...?”

“We’re a team. We work for the government, exploring places, defending the Earth and so on. And we’re also just really good friends. Every one of those people would have died for you Sam. And you would have died for every one of them.” His voice broke and she saw the slight glimmer of tears in his eyes again.

“Cam...”

He cut her off, knuckling his eyes absently, and drawing the computer back to him. “You’ll want to see a picture of the General too, I’m sure.”

“The General?”

“General O’Neill.” He cocked his head. “Name doesn’t ring any bells?”

“Should it?”

Cam laughed. “He’d certainly think so. Here.” He turned the laptop around to display another photo, this time of an older man with greying hair, dressed in an awful baggy orange t-shirt with a clashing green jacket. Despite the hideous clothes, he still managed to look quite handsome, and there was a smile in his eyes that she instantly recognised.

“I know him!” she exclaimed.

“Yeah?” he replied excitedly. “You remember?”

“Sort of. Not really. It’s like deja vu. I’ve just got the strongest sense that I’ve seen him before.”

“That’s great, Sam. That’s really good.”

“So is he my what? My boyfriend?”

Cam shrugs. “Actually I don’t really know. You always just said it was complicated.”

She looked more closely at the brown eyes staring up at her from the photo and felt a rush of warm feelings. She looked back at Cam happily. “Well, alright then. My complicated’s eyes seem familiar.”

Smoke billows through the room.

The explosion has caused the lights to flicker off, and only the emergency lights are left, shining weakly through the haze of smoke.

She ignores the pain in every part of her body, the extensive burns to her arm and types on the keyboard, trying desperately to...

Desperately to..

“Sam! Sam! What the hell did you do?”

The next day, they finally allowed her to leave the infirmary on the strict promise that she would return regularly for check-ups. She was relieved to shuck her hospital gown and climb into a pair of army fatigues that felt like a second skin.

Despite Cameron’s laughing reassurance, she still found the idea that she was both a Lieutenant Colonel in the Air Force and respected astrophysicist surreal. But it was undeniable that the BDUs against her body and the heavy leather boots on her feet felt like coming home.

Cam hovered protectively at her side as they walked the corridors of the city.

“So this place is a floating city?”

“Atlantis.”

“The Lost city, huh? How come I can remember ancient Greek mythology but not my own name?”

He shrugged. “I dunno, Sam. You were generally the one that did all the thinking. My specialty is shooting things.”

She snorted a laugh as they walk out onto a balcony. “I think we might be in trouble then.”

He wrapped a steadying arm around her waist as the wind buffeted them. “No kidding.”

They stared out over the alien expanse of the city to the ocean beyond. She could taste the salt on the breeze that washed in with the waves and let it relax her, resting her head against Cam’s shoulder. It felt so completely natural to stand that way, her head on his shoulder, his arm on her hip, that she started to wonder if she was actually remembering it.

“God, it’s just beautiful isn’t it?” she said.

“Yeah.”

“And you say this is another galaxy?”

“Sure is. This is the Pegasus galaxy. We’re some 3.5 trillion light years from Earth.”

“That would be a whole lot more impressive if I could actually remember Earth.”

“Geez you try to show off for a girl...”

Sam laughed.

Cam went to get their lunches and left Sam seated by herself in the Commissary. Atlantis’s denizens were all around her, a sea of unfamiliar faces.

Unfamiliar faces that seemed to be staring at her and whispering.

She stretched nervously and tried to convince herself that she was imagining things; that this was paranoia born of her memory loss.

But they were definitely staring.

And they were definitely whispering.

She jumped as a tall man in an expedition uniform stepped into view. He had a lanky frame topped with a handsome face and dark hair. Next to him a shorter, stockier man stood, holding a Tablet PC and wearing a slightly nervous expression.

The taller man lifted a hand in greeting. “Hi. Sorry. Didn’t mean to startle you.”

Sam knew she was staring back at him blankly, but she couldn’t help it. Both men were looking at her expectantly, but nothing in their appearance was familiar at all.

The dark haired man seemed to realise it first. “Oh, right. Sorry. The memory thing right?”

Sam nodded ruefully.

“Yeah. I’m Colonel John Sheppard, but ah, you can, I mean, you did, call me Sheppard. And my sidekick here is Dr. Rodney McKay. I’m not to sure what you called him, but it may have included a few unpleasantries.”

“Oh, nice. Real nice Sheppard. And since when am I your sidekick?”

“You’re Robin, I’m Batman. I thought we worked that out.”

“No I’m Batman. Batman was the smart one.”

“Oh, come on McKay. Batman?” The words are tumbling out of her mouth before she has even realised she is saying them, let alone why.

“For your information, Batman happened to be a misunderstood genius who saved the world on a regular basis. Not unlike a certain scientist we all know. Namely me.” The man named McKay planted a finger squarely in his chest as his brain finally caught up to his mouth. “Huh. I thought you couldn’t remember me?” Sheppard just stared at her.

She was stammering out a tumble of “don’t’s” and not “sures” as Cam returned to the table carrying lunch.

“You fellows joining us for lunch?” Cam said laconically, laying her lunch tray in front of her. Sam smiled up at him quickly, appreciating the chivalry.

Sheppard shook his head. “Nah. We just stopped by to say hi to Colonel Carter. Right McKay?” At the end of the sentence, he nudged McKay with his shoulder, none too gently. McKay jumped and dropped his Tablet onto the table with a clatter.

McKay began a torrent of angry words, but Sam ignored him reflexively, with so much ease she knew that she had done it before. Her eyes were caught by the display on the Tablet and she leant forward, enthralled. There were lines and lines of equations, letters and numbers whirling and blurring in a glorious blend of rightness.

Apart from one slightly jarring tone that leapt out at her painfully.

“That’s wrong,” she said bluntly.

McKay paused in the middle of his tirade and turned towards her with a startled expression on his face. “What?” He asked. He made to pick up the Tablet, but Sam held it firm.

“There.” She jabbed with her finger at the broken part. “That’s wrong.”

McKay angrily snatched the Tablet away from her grasp. “Of, course it isn’t. Don’t be stupid.”

“Is she right, McKay?” Sheppard asked.

“No! Of course she isn’t!”

“Have you checked?”

“It is not possible that I could be wrong, Sheppard. I’ve only gone over these numbers five times. What are you gonna do, believe Miss No-Memory over me?”

Sheppard grinned. “Yep.”

“Fine,” McKay snapped. He pulled the Tablet up with a long-suffering air. Sam oddly found herself fighting the urge to roll her eyes.

Across from her McKay’s face fell. Sam felt a very uncharitable burst of glee, then felt terrible.

Sheppard, however, did not seem to share her remorse.

“Is she right, McKay?”

McKay looked up with a harassed air. “I have to, I need to. Lab. My lab. They need me. Go. I need to go.” He almost ran away, roughly brushing past groups of people without apology as he did so.

Sheppard’s grin widened. “I think I’m gonna like having you around, Colonel Carter. Enjoy your lunch.”

She watched him saunter away before turning her confused eyes back to Cameron.

“Um. What did I just do?”

Cam smiled broadly as he tucked into his lunch. “You were Sam.”

Smoke billows through the room and sears her lungs as she breathes in heavy, panicked gasps.

As she types pain shoots through her from burns that cover her arms and torso.

She ignores the pan. She has no time to deal with the pain.

She frantically types strings and strings of equations, trying desperately to fix things.

“Sam! Sam!”

She can hear Cam’s voice calling her name, but she ignores him. She has to keep working. She has to, or else everything is lost.

“Sam, are you ok?!”

McKay appeared at her door straight after breakfast, carrying his Tablet PC and an angry expression.

“Right,” he snapped. “Come on then.”

She looked at him, bewildered, “what?”

He sighed heavily and gestured frantically for her to follow him. “You were the one who told me I was wrong, so now you can come and fix it.”

“What?”

He glared at her. “Fine. You were right ok? Is that what you want to hear?”

She frowned. ‘No. I... look, I just remembered my own name two days ago, McKay. Give me a break, okay?”

He blinked and momentarily looked contrite. “Oh right, the memory thing, huh? Still?”

“Yes. Still.”

“Oh. Ok, well those numbers you looked at yesterday. You’re right, they’re wrong.” He peered at her briefly, but when she only shrugged, he looked a little disappointed. “Ahem. Anyway, I can’t figure out how to get around the error, so I was hoping that maybe if you looked at them you would be able to...”

“Wait a second, you want me to try and fix these things? The memory thing, McKay.”

“I know, I know. But these are your numbers, you see. And you knew they were wrong yesterday. You never know maybe it’ll help jog your memory?” He said hopefully.

“My numbers?”

“Ah yeah, this is some research that you were working on, before all the... well, anyway, before.”

“Research? On what?”

His face took on a worried expression. “Ummm... Why don’t I explain this in the lab?”

She narrowed her eyes. “Why can’t you tell me here?”

“It’s just complicated, Sam... Look will you just come with me?”

“Alright, McKay, alright. I’m coming.”

Later on Sam sat in the lab and tried to read what she recognised as her own notes. Despite wanting her assistance, McKay had been surprising unwilling to help her understand the project’s rationale.

There was a driving urge inside her as she worked, a desperate need to comprehend that she found comforting.

McKay was keeping something from her, she was sure of it. And she knew it was related to the whispering that she heard whenever she entered a room.

The answer was in her notes, in these equations. She would find it.

Cameron found her there hours later, typing urgently on the keyboard.

“Sam?” He asked, with the same edge of worry that McKay had used. “Are you ok?”

“Sure,” she muttered, still caught up in the whirl of numbers and letters.

She sensed him lean over her shoulder to read the display. “What are you... McKAY!” he bellowed. “Where’s McKay?”

His voice dragged her out of her reverie, and she watched him storm across the lab to where McKay was working. McKay looked up, equally as startled, and stared at Cameron with something approximating fear.

“McKay, what in the hell have you got her doing?”

“She’s helping me with some equations, Colonel. Don’t worry, I checked it with Beckett and Heightmeyer and they said it wouldn’t hurt. In fact, Heightmeyer seemed to think it might help.”

“Did you think to check it with me?”

McKay rolled his eyes. “Why would I? When did you get your medical degree?”

Cameron stiffened. “Fine. But do you really think she should be working on those equations?”

Sam stood up and coughed lightly. “Why shouldn’t I be working on these numbers, Cam?” she asked.

Cam and McKay both turned to her with nervous expressions. “Colonel Crankypants is just being overprotective, Sam,” McKay said. “Beckett and Heightmeyer said it was just fine for you to be here.”

“That’s not what he said, McKay. He said these equations. What is it about these equations?”

McKay’s mouth moved soundlessly, and if Sam hadn’t been so angry she would have been amused. Still, she kept her eyes trained on Cameron. She knew, remembered, that she trusted him.

She had to believe that despite the terror she saw in his eyes, he wouldn’t lie to her.

“Sam,” he said gently. “It’s just that these are your numbers.”

“So McKay said.”

“They were what you were working on when the accident happened.”

“The accident where I hurt my head.”

“Yes.”

She bit her lip. “And you won’t tell me anything about that?”

He blinked, and the tears were in his eyes again. “I don’t know that you’re ready to hear it yet, Sam,” he muttered.

She stood up angrily. “Which is another way of saying that you don’t have the guts to be honest with me, Cameron.” She strode to door of the lab. “I thought I remembered that I could trust you. I guess I was imagining it.”

She has to reverse it. Has to fix things, make it all better. That’s what she does.

She types and types, fingers tapping out a frenzied rhythm on the keyboard that connects to Merlin’s Device.

“Sam, Sam!” Cam stands before her, blood covering his face, his BDUs burnt and pockmarked from the explosion.

“What the hell happened, Sam?”

She feels the wetness on her cheeks, but she continues to type, hoping desperately. Trying desperately.

“They’re dead, Cam! They’re all dead!”

She knocked on the door to his room and then wished she hadn’t. She had to fight the urge to simply cut and run, like some kid playing a prank, as she heard movement and the door swung open.

His hair was tousled from sleep, and his blue eyes moved from bleary to worried as he saw her hunched and hesitant in the corridor.

“Sam? Aren’t you supposed to be asleep?”

“They’re dead, aren’t they?” she blurted out, and suddenly she was crying helplessly, hands shaking at her sides.

“I think you’d better come in,” he said.

His quarters were comfortably decorated identically to hers, but she quickly noted the lack of personal touches. Just his BDUs carelessly thrown over the back of a chair. The bed was messy, bedclothes asunder. The clock on the bedside table showed three in the morning.

“Oh, I’m sorry,” she muttered, suddenly realising the imposition. “Cam, I’m sorry. I’ll go.”

He grasped her wrist tightly and shook his head. “Sam. It’s ok. Sit.” Carefully he sat her on the end of his bed and dragged a chair over for himself.

“What happened?” he asked.

“A dream. I had a dream. I was working on something, those numbers. Those numbers that McKay had me work on. And you came in and I realised that everyone else was dead.

“Only it wasn’t a dream was it? They are all dead, aren’t they?”

He rubbed his hands through his hair, a gesture she recognised as distres. When he met her eyes again there were tears in them.

“Oh God. Oh my God.” she said, shaking. “All the people in those photos?”

“Everyone,” he muttered. “The whole planet, Sam.”

“How?”

He took her hand, and this time his expression confused her. There was grief there certainly, but also something more. Something different she was just on the cusp of understanding.

“The Ori. These weirdo religious freaks. We were at war, and they were winning. And one day they came, and there was nothing we could do.”

“How did we survive?”

“You were running an experiment when it happened, and you had a shield-thingy up. It saved us. When the Daedulus came a few days later, they picked us up and brought us here.”

She reached out for him then, wanting his touch and instinctively knowing that he needed hers. He crossed to sit on the bed next to her, and they clung to each other tightly. She felt wetness on his face, his salty tears mingled with her own where their cheeks pressed together.

“Why didn’t you forget too?” she asked her lips against his ear.

He sighed. “My brain isn’t quite as smart as yours Sam,” he laughed, slightly hysterical, and she joined him. She loosened her grip and he pulled back, smiling down at her.

“I’m glad you know now Sam. It’s been so hard. I wanted to tell you so much, but I just didn’t know how.” He bit down on his lip and gazed at her helplessly. “You’re all I’ve got left, Sam.”

“Apparently you’re all that I have left, too.”

He pulled her back against him, holding her so tightly it felt as though he was trying to drag her into his skin.

She doesn’t know how it happens, but suddenly they are kissing. She felt him against her soft and warm and real, his hands on her back and tangling in her hair.

And then she remembered someone else’s lips pressed against hers, calloused hands caressing her skin and brown eyes twinkling with laughter as the morning sun shone in through the window.

Dead now. Dead and gone.

She broke away from Cam’s embrace.

“Sam?” He asked quietly.

“His name was Jack wasn’t it?” she whispered.

He closed his eyes.

“I remember all these feelings for him, Cam. God, I even remember what he smelt like. But I don’t remember him. I try to picture his face, and all I can see is that photo.”

She started to sob, shaking in front of him as the tears coursed down her cheeks. “And he’s dead, isn’t he? Dead and gone. And I can’t even remember his damn face.”

He gathered her into his arms, and she cried against his chest. “Cam, I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry. I can’t, you know. Not while I’m still remembering him. I just, Cam I’m so sorry...”

She felt his breath rustling across the top of her hair as he held her close. “It’s ok, Sam. It’s ok.”

She woke curled up in Cam’s arms. He was slumbering deeply, his face finally relaxed by sleep.

Sam carefully extricated herself from his arms and from the bed. Cam barely stirred, cuddling closer into the warmth she had left. She touched his face gently before walking determinedly to the door.

This had to end.

Despite the early hour, McKay was already in the lab, bent over his laptop with coffee in one hand and a doughnut in the other. She touched his back, and he startled, spilling drops of coffee over himself. He turned, muttering swear words until he realised it was her.

“Sam? What are you doing here?”

“The Device, McKay. I know you’ve got it. I want to see it.”

He looked at her blankly.

“Oh c’mon, McKay. I thought you were a genius. The Device? Merlin’s Device?”

He blanched. “What makes you think I have that? Besides, I thought you couldn’t remember anything?”

“I don’t remember anything, McKay, only bits. But those equations we were working on yesterday, I do remember those. And I remember they were designed to work with Merlin’s Device.”

McKay was uncharacteristically solemn. “Are you sure?”

“I need to remember, McKay. Dr. Heightmeyer says my memories will all come back eventually, especially if I see familiar things. That Device is central to this, McKay. I know it is.”

“Sam... I’m not sure. Does Colonel Mitchell...”

She stalled him with a raised hand. “This isn’t Colonel Mitchell’s problem. McKay... I need to see it.”

His brow furrowed, and she reached out to touch his shoulder. “Rodney, please.”

Something in her eyes seemed to decide him and he nodded. “Okay.”

He took her to a side room in the laboratory and pointed a flat black trapezoid with an overlaid blue inset. She ran her fingers over the surface of it, willing herself to remember.

“Anything?” McKay asked.

“No...” she said quietly, walking over to touch the laptop. “I’m sorry, McKay. I really thought that this would help.”

He smiled sympathetically. “It’ll happen, Sam. You don’t need to force it.”

She trailed her fingers one more time over the Device. “It’s funny how such a small thing could destroy so much isn’t it?”

McKay’s eyes widened in surprise and he stared at her.

Then Sam realised. She remembered.

The Ori ships still circle overhead in orbit, but something is wrong.

She has enacted the plan just as she intended, taking the planet out of phase with Merlin’s Device and protecting them from certain destruction, just like in the alternate reality. But now something is wrong.

They have shifted back too soon, and as she tries to work out why, one of the naquadah generators explodes, showering her in sparks.

She is saved only by Cam’s quick thinking. He pulls her, still clutching the laptop, to the ground as the generator blows. The two of them are hit with a shower of sparks.

She can feel the burns snaking up her arms and across her torso as she struggles to her feet, but she keeps working, trying to work out the problem. The Ori threat is still above them.

Smoke billows through the room and sears her lungs as she takes a deep breath.

“Sam?” Cam asks, “what the hell happened?”

“The field collapsed,” she explains and calls up the laptop readings of the machine’s status before the field failure.

“Right,” Cam replies calmly, and taps the radio on his shirt. “General Landry, we’re having a few problems down here in case you were wondering. Sam’s just going over things now, but it might be a good idea to have the Daedalus and the Odyssey prepare to move on in.”

His brow furrows as the radio produces only static. Sam takes another look at the readings in front of her, fear suddenly welling up inside her.

“General Landry?” Cam repeats into his radio, again receiving only static.

“Huh,” he says. “No answer. That’s a little weird. Can you fix it Sam?”

She looks up at him, her eyes filled with horror. “Cam, go out into the corridor.”

“Sam?”

“The corridor, Cam. Tell me if you can see the airmen out there.”

“Sam?”

“Just do it Cameron!”

Cam obeys with a quizzical look, walking out of the utility room to the corridor beyond. Even before he has left she is bypassing the exploded generator so the Device can at least work at partial power. Then she begins to type rapidly on her laptop’s keyboard, ignoring the pain from the burns on her hands. She has to reverse it. She has to.

The tears begin to course down her cheeks as she works. The Ori are no longer the biggest problem.

She is the biggest problem.

Cam runs back into the room, calling her name urgently.

“Sam! Sam! Sam! There’s no one out there. No one Sam. There are just these little piles of ash.”

She doesn’t look up, just keeps typing, hoping she will find the right string of numbers to make it all go away. Her tears blur her vision and splash onto the keyboard, but she can’t lift her arms to wipe them away. She has to keep on working. She has to find a way.

“Sam!” Cam yells, grabbing at her arm. “Sam, talk to me. Tell me what’s going on?”

She looks up at him desperately, “they’re dead, Cam! They’re all dead!”

“ What? How?” he cries.

She pulls her arm away from his grasp and goes back to trying to rewrite the program. She has to fix this.

“Sam!!” Cam yells and hauls her away from the keyboard. He pulls her around to face him, shaking her by the shoulders. “Sam, for God’s sake, tell me what’s happening.”

She bites her lips so hard that she can taste blood. “The failsafe program I wrote didn’t work. It hasn’t brought everyone back when the field failed.”

He looked relieved. “So, they’re still just out of phase, right? Like we were? So we can just bring them back again.”

She shook her head. “No, no, Cam. Those piles of ash...”

He crumbles in pain. “Oh my God.”

She scrabbles at his chest, pulls away and goes back to the keyboard. “I have to fix it.”

“How? Sam, how?”

“I don’t know!” she screams at him. “I don’t know.”

One of the naquadah generators begins to whine alarmingly, and she tries to reroute the power around the problem. There’s a slight spark, and another, and Cam is trying to pull her away again. She shakes him off, as the whining hits fever pitch. There is a bright light, and then... nothing.

“Destroy it, McKay,” she said quietly.

McKay still looked slightly shell-shocked. “What?”

“This device, McKay. You have to destroy it.”

“We can still get it to work, Sam. We just need to get past the glitch.”

She shook her head, terrible certainty now suffusing her. “That’s what I thought, McKay. I was wrong.”

He looked like he wanted to continue the argument, so she reached out to touch his hand. “McKay. I’m completely serious. Nothing good can come from this.”

He nodded. “Sam...it wasn’t your fault, you know. You couldn’t have known.”

“Oh, but I did, Rodney. I just chose to ignore it. I was too arrogant to realise that I was out of my depth.”

His eyes darkened, and he watched her leave the infirmary without another word.

She found Cameron standing on a balcony overlooking the sea and slipped in next to him. He wrapped and arm around her waist, continuing to stare out at the blue expanse.

“I know,” she finally said.

He stared at her quizzically. “What?”

“I know,” she emphasised.

The realisation hits him quickly. She watched his face cycle through sadness to worry to fear.

“It wasn’t your fault,” he whispered.

“It was my hand on the button, Cam.”

“You didn’t know.”

She laughed hollowly and stepped away from him. “Yes, I did. I just thought it was a remote chance. I thought wrong.”

He held out a hand, stopping just short of touching her. “We were at war.”

“When has that ever been an excuse, Cam?” She lowered her head, fighting the tears. “Why don’t you hate me?”

“I could never hate you, Sam.”

“You should, I killed them. I killed them all. Your parents; my brother; Daniel; Teal’c; Vala; Ja-Ja,” she stuttered, unable to get his name out.

Cam cradled her face in his hands but she refused to meet his eyes.

“Sam,” he said, “I don’t care. I won’t hate you. Ever.”

“You should.”

“Maybe. But I won’t.”

“Why not?”

He leant forward to touch his forehead to hers. “Because I love you.”

She shuddered. “Cam...I...”

“I know. I just...wanted you to know how much you mean to me.”

She let him pull her into a tight embrace. “I don’t know what to do now, Cam. I just. How do you live with the fact that you’ve destroyed the entire world?”

He paused for a long moment, and when he spoke again it was with deep certainty. “You remember that you have people who love you and need you, Sam. And you live. One day at a time.”

She cried harder, curling even more against his warmth.

“I don’t know if I can, Cameron.”

He held her and whispered. “You can, Sam. You have to. For me.”

Sam closed her eyes and let the wind ruffle her hair.

She didn’t believe him.

FIVE YEARS LATER...

The puddlejumper soared overhead, its metal surface glinting in the sun. The children, Athosian mostly, but interspersed with a few eager Earthlings, rushed out of the fields and village dwellings and ran eagerly towards the landing field. They laughed and chattered as the ship circled and slowly settled just on the outskirts of the village.

She climbed down from the cab of the tractor and nudged the feet sticking out from under the hood.

There was a loud rattle and Cam rolled out with a wrench in his hand, blinking in the sun. She helped him up, ignoring the grease on his hands.

“You’re a mess,” he said affectionately and ruffled her hair, dislodging it even further from the ineffective ponytail she’d absently hauled it into earlier that day. Her hair was the longest that it had ever been in her life, but she liked it that way. Long hair made her feel more new, more separated from her old life.

Cam chuckled sheepishly when she held out her hands wordlessly to show him the layer of grease his have left. “Yeah, okay, so I’m a mess too. We should probably go wash up.”

She nodded over at the puddlejumper he still hadn’t noticed and shrugged. “Well, yeah, but I thought you might be interested in that first.”

Cam reacted to the puddlejumper with almost as much excitement as the kids. He grabbed her hand carelessly, not at all concerned by the fact that the grease was gluing them together, and pulled her towards the ‘jumper. “C’mon Sam. Let’s go see what all the fuss is about.”

Across the field, the back of the puddlejumper had opened and its passengers had disembarked. Ronan and Teyla were walking amongst the children, smiling and laughing as they clamoured. Behind them McKay and Sheppard were standing in the sunlight. McKay looked irritated, his mouth and arms moving quickly as he talked to his friend. In contrast, Sheppard looked quite relaxed, settling his sunglasses on his head,and blatantly not listening to a word that McKay said.

Sam had to laugh. Watching Sheppard ignore McKay never got old.

“Oh, and what’s so funny?” McKay snapped as she and Cam approached.

“That’s right, McKay. Here in the Pegasus Galaxy we don’t say hello,” she replied. She rolled her eyes at Sheppard, who smirked.

“Oh, right, of course. Hello Sam. Colonel Mitchell.” He looked down at their joined hands with poorly hidden surprise.

“I’m retired, McKay. Cam is just fine.”

“Oh, right, Cam, sure,” McKay muttered, giving Sam and her hand another pointed look. She tightened her grip on Cameron perversely, amused at the way McKay’s brow furrowed. She knew she was being cruel, but she couldn’t help it. Baiting McKay was just too much fun.

“So what brings you folks to our neck of the woods?” Cam continued, completely oblivious to the interplay between her and Rodney.

Sheppard shrugged. “Oh, Teyla wanted to catch up with her crew and Ronan and I are just sort of along for the ride. But I believe Rodney here needs to ask Carter a question.”

Rodney was staring so hard at Sam and Cam’s intertwined hands that Sheppard had to nudge him sharply to get him back into the conversation. By now, even Cam had noticed. Unfortunately, he didn’t seem to find it as funny as Sam.

McKay gave an exaggerated leap when Sheppard nudged him and then nodded frantically, “Oh, right, yes... numbers. I have this proof, Sam, that I’d like your input on.”

“Whoa, McKay, proof? I’m not the only one here who’s retired you know,” Cam objected. He glared at Rodney and Sam squeezed his hand gently.

“No, it’s ok. I’d be happy to help fix your mistakes, McKay.”

“Fix my mistakes!” McKay exclaimed angrily, before he caught the small smile on her face. “Oh, right, mocking me again I see.”

“Always.”

“So, shall we?”

“Sure. I’ve just got to go and wash my hands.” She waved them at McKay, who looked disgusted. “Motor-oil, McKay. And here I thought you were an engineer.”

“Whatever,” he shrugged. “I’ll be in the ‘Jumper away from this carcinogenic sun when you’re ready.”

Cam shadowed her to the water-pump and she could sense, if not see his worry. “I’m gonna press-gang Sheppard into helping me with the tractor.” He said. He took her by the shoulders, his hands still dripping from the pump. The water dribbled coolly down her back as he looked her intensely in the eyes. “You’ll be ok, right?”

She nodded, feeling a familiar rush of warmth go through her when she saw the earnestness in his eyes. Cam could be overprotective at times, but he had seen her at her absolute worst. He had more right than anyone to fear a return to those days. “I’ll be fine, Cam,” she said, stroking his arm gently to emphasise the point. “I can’t guarantee McKay’s safety though.”

He laughed. “I think I can live with that.”

Later that night she found him sitting on a log and watching the show. The Athosians were having a feast to welcome their leader home, and food, wine and dance were flowing freely.

His face lit up when he saw her, and he shuffled down instantly to make room for her next to him and offered her the food on his plate. She helped herself to his cake, a creamy Athosian delicacy, laughing unrepentantly when he gave her an exasperated look.

“How’d it go with McKay?” he asked.

“His numbers are fine,” she said, licking the cream from her fingers. “Perfect, even, although I didn’t tell him that. We spent most of the time talking about the Gate diagnostics programs on Atlantis, whether we could tighten them up.”

He nodded slowly, giving her an odd look.

“What?” she asked.

“Do you miss it Sam? All the science stuff, I mean?”

“Sometimes.” She thinks of all those grey specks of ash, floating on the breeze. Even after so much time and distance, she can’t forget. She won’t ever forget. “But I couldn’t... I mean, I couldn’t take the risks he does anymore. I just couldn’t.”

“That doesn’t mean you couldn’t go back to it Sam.” He touched her knee, staring at the ground. “I mean, you don’t have to stay here just for me.”

She his head in her hands and tilted his chin up so that he could see the truth in her eyes. “I’m not. I’m staying here, with you, for me.”

His smile lit his entire face. Once again she felt blessed by the love and loyalty she saw there. She had been lost for so long, trying to find herself again, and then mourning Jack. He had been there, unquestioning, always supporting, always ready to drag her back to reality.

He held out his hands. “C’mon.”

She took hold without hesitation and followed him to the dance floor.