DISCLAIMER: The story, and characters and anything and everything else concerning SG: SG1 belong to MGM, Gekko, Secret Productions etc, they are so not mine and no money is being made from this and no copyright infringement is intended.
SPOILERS: Season 7: Evolution pt 2 and Heroes.
WARNING: Character Death. Very very dark. I woke up with the idea this morning and it wouldn't let me go until I wrote the little beggar. Did I say it was dark?
ARCHIVING: Only with the permission of the author

Revenant
By Celievamp

I sit in the cold and the dark, leaning against the wall of the storage bay, just waiting. From the notes Daniel made at the time in Honduras, it should not be too much longer. But then his kidnapper had only been dead a couple of hours. She has been dead for four days.

She is lying on a bedroll, dressed in scrubs and covered with a sheet, her hands crossed over her abdomen. The terrible injuries that killed her are hidden. Thank god they did not autopsy her. It was hard to dress her, to see her like that with all my memories all my feeling still so raw, but I wanted her to have some dignity. It is still so hard to think of her as dead. Few were ever as alive as she was.

The white light is soft on her skin, sheening it like mother of pearl. Nothing so pure, so beautiful could be evil, surely. Twice now I've started towards her, thinking that I saw her breathe. But there is nothing, odd shadows, my need for her for this to work short circuiting my imagination. She is so cold. I wonder what exposure to this energy is doing to me, to my mind but then I must already have been crazy to try this. It's not much of a defence but it's the only one I have. I can't even claim alien possession for a change. Just crazy. Crazy for the love of her. Crazy for the loss of her.

They won't find us, not unless I let them. The teltac is well hidden in the shadow of Io, the intense fluctuating radiation levels masking us. The shields protect us. For now at any rate. I should go to the flight console and check things are okay but I don't want to leave her. In case she wakes up here alone in the dark in a strange place and is afraid.

Daniel actually used the word zombie in his report. But I have faith that it won't be like that with her. His awakening was an accident. This is an act of love, of desperation. That must make a difference, mustn't it?

And if it doesn't work…

I can't go home. The list of charges against me must be several pages long by now. It's amazing how far adrenalin, determination and a fully charged zat will get you. I worked it out on the way here. Bodysnatching. Disobeying a direct order from a commanding officer. Assaulting a senior officer (my father) and several fellow officers. Misuse of US government property. Stealing US government property. Stealing property of one or more of our allies. Going AWOL...

I can never go home. I've burnt all my boats, all my bridges. But there are plenty of places we can go. We have a ship, we can see the universe. Or if I lower the shields the natural radiation levels will kill me within an hour at the most.

One way or another we will be together again.

I remember death as cold. I remember death. How many people can say that? I have been dead – flatline dead at least three times. And I came back every time, even after my consciousness was downloaded into the base computer. Colonel O'Neill died god knows how many times at the hand of Ba'al and before that Apophis. And Daniel... some times it seemed the whole universe wanted a piece of him. The Colonel always said that Daniel had nine lives like a cat. And he was dead – or ascended if you want to be picky - for almost a year before he came back. Our people, our allies saved SG1's butt individually and collectively so many times over the years. But they would not do the same for her. The General would not even ask for their help.

A soft noise reclaims my attention. The sheet I covered her with is moving, her fingers flexing slowly. Her eyes are opening and closing. It worked. She's back.

"Janet?"


I know my name was Janet.

I know that I was important to this woman.

I know that I was dead.

I know that she brought me back to life.

I don't know why.

I haven't said much. Nothing to say. I keep remembering little things but nothing much makes sense yet. Fragments of memories, people, places. I remember dying. The sky was so blue.

Her eyes are the same colour as that sky. The way she watches me, those blue eyes steady on me, drinking me in. She's been in pain recently, I can tell. I suppose it was me, my death that caused it. She told me her name is Sam. I try to remember her, us, but it's elusive. She told me that she loves me.

I don't remember.

It's dark here and cold. I am cold. I don't know this place. She says we are safe. She says that it is a miracle. I'm not so sure. The more I remember, the more my awareness grows of how different I am now, miracle is not the word I would use. I think I am a mistake.

She is warm. I am cold. I don't think I'll ever be warm again. I let her hold me, wrap her arms around me, as she tells me over and over again how much she loved me, how much she grieved for me.

"How?" I ask. My voice sounds strange to my ears. "How did you do it?"

She tells me everything, the whole story, the insane plan she dreamed up to bring her lover back to her, her words tumbling over each other in her urgency to get them out, in her need for my approval. "I knew it would work, I just knew."

"You gave up everything to bring her back."

"To bring you back," she frowns. "To bring you back, Janet. So that we could be together forever."

She does not understand the magnitude of what she has done, the laws she has broken, the mistake she has made. But then the laws of physics, of time and space never meant much to her. I reach up to touch her face to feel the blood course beneath the skin, the biochemical energies that define her life. She is warm. I am cold. She shivers under my touch. I feel the hairs on her arm erect themselves in a primal reaction to the unknown, the unknowable. Her body knows what her mind has not yet grasped. I am a mistake, an abomination, a revenant. I remember what we used to do together, how we used to be. Not we. Her. The one I was before.

"Nothing lasts forever," I said. "Janet is gone. You cannot have her back. I am but a shadow, a dark reflection, her revenant."

"No!" she insists, tears in her eyes now. "Janet, I brought you back. I know you're confused right now, but give it time, please. You are Janet Fraiser. You look like her, you sound like her, you have her memories, her experiences. It will all come together, I promise. It worked."

So many deaths. So many ghosts. How many would she bring back if she could? It used to concern Janet sometimes the blindspot that Sam seemed to have about the consequences of her actions. Just because she could do something didn't mean that she should. Science sometimes over ruled her soul. This was different. Science and soul combined. Need and opportunity. There was only one way to persuade her.

I disengage from her arms, cross the dark space to look at the intricately carved box, the source of the light of the energies that now sustain me. If I turn it off, what will happen to me? Will it end this? That is one thing I have to know.

Next to the box is her field kit. What I seek will be there. Her memories tell me how meticulous she is. Before she can act I take out her knife and draw it across the bare flesh of my forearm. It parts wetly but no blood flows. "I am not her," I repeat.

She stares at the filleted skin in fascinated horror and then looks at me properly for the first time seeing me as I am not how she wants me to be. I see her fear. I know that my eyes were brown, liquid chocolate she described them. Now they are dark red, the colour of old blood. I show her how my flesh begins to knit itself back together, the white light still playing across my skin. Soon there will be no sign of what I did. The injuries that killed Janet are healed, my body is whole.

"I am not her. I can never be her. She died. This looks like her flesh. These are her memories. But what made her Janet is gone. It can never return. Not like this."

"Are you talking about the soul?" she whispers. Spirituality is a hard concept for her. Janet knows that after her mother's death, Sam shut herself off from all of that. I remember that Janet tried to believe, particularly after Daniel's ascension.

"The soul is one word for it." The knife is still in my hand. "This body cannot die, but it cannot live either."

She falls to her knees. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I needed you so badly. I couldn't let you go, Janet."

It hurts me to see her like this. To remember what it was like to feel. The coldness grows. Her presence hurts me. It is a reminder of what I was. She says she wants us to be together forever. There is only one way that is possible. And then we will be the same. And there will be no more pain. We will live in the cold light forever.

The knife is still in my right hand. I run my left hand through her beautiful hair, and her face raises to mine. I think I see acceptance in her beautiful eyes.

The knife comes down.

The End

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