No Absolutionby Allison K. East
He had killed her! Sure, she was all right now, but he couldn’t get past the point that he had shot her with the zat twice. Knowing full well that two shots from a zat gun kills, he shot her twice. All the rationalisations in the world—that he had to to stop the entity, that they were able to bring her back—could not absolve him of the fact that he had killed the woman he loved. It had seemed like forever to Jack, the moment between the first and second shots. The first shot barely made it pause—it looked right at him before resuming the electrical charge, almost like it was daring him to do what it said he would never do. But he did it. He had to, and it just about killed him to do so, but he fired the second shot. The shot that killed her. He sat in the infirmary and just watched her for so long. At that point he didn’t care how it looked; he needed to be there, hoping against hope that she would wake. But he knew without Fraiser telling him that there was no brain activity, that only the machines were keeping her alive. He was well aware of Carter’s living will; that no extraordinary measures be taken to save her life. He knew she would not have wanted to be kept alive with machines. But he wasn’t ready to let her go. If he had been… If he hadn’t told Fraiser to give him a moment… If Siler had been quicker in destroying the “memory mainframe” in the MALP room… If Daniel hadn’t recognised that Carter’s consciousness was in the mainframe and trying to communicate… If any of these had occurred… then Samantha Carter would be dead, and it would have been by his hand. Retching suddenly, he only just made it to the toilet before he lost what little was in his stomach. He had come that close to losing her forever. It was something potentially faced every time they went through the gate, but it had never been brought so close to home before. He couldn’t have her, the fraternisation regulations forbade it; but part of him was hoping that if they just held on long enough, the war would be over, he could retire, and then they could be together. Was it a fool’s hope? One thing was for certain; General Hammond knew how he felt about his 2IC. If he wasn’t careful, sooner or later someone like Kinsey would find out; and be able to use it against him… or her. Jack knew that he hadn’t let his feelings for her get in the way of what had to be done… this time. It had just about killed him, but he had carried out his duty. But what about next time? Should the need arise, would he be able to do that again? Was he getting too close to his 2IC to make rational judgements? Should he take a step back?
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