Sergeant Carter

By Maddog

“Colonel,” Samantha Carter’s voice called out from behind Jack O’Neill as he strolled down a corridor of the SGC.

“Morning, Carter, join me for breakfast?” He smiled at his second in command, or rather he attempted to, he needed some caffeine before he was actually capable of moving any of his facial muscles.

“Yes, sir, that would be nice. I need to talk to you about a personal matter,” Sam said as she fell into step with her superior.

“Oh, great,” thought Jack, “an early morning discussion of a personal problem.” He refrained from saying anything until they’d made their way through the line at the cafeteria. He debated for a second over what to choose for breakfast and then decided on Extra Fiber All Bran. Damn Janet Frasier and her new initiative on lowering the risk of colon cancer and heart disease by following a diet high in insoluble fiber.

The two members of SG1 sat down at a table off to the side. Sam waited until Jack had taken several sips of his coffee before starting a conversation. “I need to take a few days off, sir.”

“Uhmm-hmmmm,” Jack nodded around a large bite of the Extra Fiber All Bran. He decided it tasted like sweetened cardboard. He noticed that Carter was having a bagel with cream cheese and a fruit cup. Why the hell isn’t she eating this crap? Oh, that’s right, she’s younger than I am, they’re all younger than I am except Teal’c and Junior keeps his plumbing all nice and regular!

“My uncle is dying. I’m the only family he has.. well apart from Mark but Mark can’t get away right now,”

“I’m sorry to hear that, Major,” Jack said sympathetically, “we’re not scheduled to go off-world for six days, so I don’t see any problem with you taking leave until then.”

“Thank you, sir,” Sam gave him a small smile.

“You’ve never mentioned an uncle before,” Jack questioned.

Carter’s visage turned more serious. “We only saw him a few times when I was growing up. My grandfather had another family before he married my grandmother. My Dad was never close to his half-siblings, they were quite a bit older. Not to mention..”

“What?”

“My father’s brother was a Marine, sir..” Sam’s voice was hesitant at exposing her family secret.

“Ewwww,” Jack replied and not just because his Extra Fiber All Bran was getting squishy.

“Exactly, but he’s in a V.A. hospital near Los Angeles. The hospital contacted me and said he only has a few days left.”

“I understand. Take as long as you need, we can always go to P3…whatever,” Jack waved his hand a few times, “without you. From the M.A.L.P. scans, we’re only going to be getting a few soil samples anyway.”

The two SG1 member’s conversation turned away from talk of Carter’s problem and drifted on to other topics. The worlds that other teams were currently investigating. Why they never found any really kick-ass technology and, most importantly, if Teal’c was putting on weight.

* * *

“Excuse me,” Sam called out to the person currently ignoring her behind the desk. It took several seconds but the bored twenty-something finally looked up.

“Can I help you?”

“Yes, I’m looking for my uncle, Vince Carter. Can you tell me what floor he’s on?”

The directions the clerk gave Sam, only resulted in her getting lost three times on the way up to the ward. The stale, anti-septic ridden air of the hospital was already depressing her. She was about to enter her Uncle’s room when a very tall, dark-haired man exited it directly in front of her, nearly collided with her.

“Oh, excuse me, miss,” a Southern-accented voice apologized. “I’m real sorry.”

“That’s all right, I should pay more attention to where I’m going,” Sam accepted the apology with a small smile and nod. The man continued on his way. She rapidly lost sight of him among the wandering visitors.

Sam took a deep breath to steady her nerves and then entered the room. There were four beds, each containing a very frail, very old looking man. She wasn’t sure which one was her uncle at first. A second, more thorough look caused her to decide it was the man in the bed closest to the door on the left. Even though his illness and age caused his face to thin out, it was still the very square face she remembered as a child. The haircut was even the same, a very Marine buzz cut. She glanced at the chart at the end of the bed to confirm its occupant was in fact Vincent Carter.

“Uncle Vince,” she called softly. The man’s eyes were half-closed, she wasn’t sure if he was sleeping or if he was in the twilight state caused by heavy-duty pain medication. Her heart trembled slightly as she remembered when her father was dying, cancer ravaging his body. But Jacob was healthy now. However being a Tokra was not a safe job. She mentally pushed the anxiety about losing him to the back of her mind. “Uncle Vince,” she repeated, a bit louder.

“Yes?” the old man turned his eyes to look at her. His voice was a dry rasp, “Is that you Samantha?”

Sam smiled broadly and delicately took her Uncle’s hand; careful to avoid the IV bruising its spotted surface. Squeezing gently, she replied, “Yes, Uncle Vince, it’s me. You know, even my Dad calls me Sam.”

“I seem to remember your mother gave birth to a little girl, not a little boy, Samantha,” argued the old man softly.

“But Samantha is such a long name,” Sam replied, pulling a plastic chair to the side of the bed. She retook the man’s hand in her own.

“How’s..” Vince tried to ask but his voice faded. He pointed weakly at the water pitcher. Carter poured him a glass and then helped him take a few small sips. The older man nodded his thanks and continued, “How’s your brother?”

Sam launched into a long-winded discussion of Mark’s family. She gave details of the children, told from a loving aunt’s eye. Vince laid there, no expression on his face but his eyes were much more alert than when she had first arrived. A nurse interrupted her discourse, saying Vince needed to have some blood drawn.

“I’ll be back in an hour, Uncle,” Sam promised. “I’ll just go down to the cafeteria and get something to eat.”

“Bring me back a Popsicle,” Vince ordered, as if he was talking to one of the many Marine recruits that he had run through basic training at Camp Henderson. “Grape.”

Glancing at the nurse to get an okay, Sam nodded and headed back out into the corridor.

* * *

The afternoon’s discussion, if you could call Sam’s one-sided conversation a discussion, was about her work for the Air Force. Well, what work she could tell him. She glossed over her SGC duties and concentrated on detailing her time at the Pentagon. She tried to remember any dealings she had ever had with Marines and managed to relate a humorous story about the SG-3 Marines by changing the time and place. The older man had puffed up proudly when the Marines came and rescued her and the other members of the Air Force with her. Sam could tell Vince was tiring and thought she should take her leave for the day. “I should let you get some rest.”

“Not yet, there’s something I want to tell you,” rasped Vince.

“It can wait until tomorrow,” she urged, patting his arm gently.

“No, might not be here tomorrow.”

Sam swallowed the urge to assure the man that he would be. She’d talked with the doctor during her lunch break. Vince could die at any time and he knew it. “All right,” she sat back down, “what is it?”

“You’re a scientist, right?” He asked. Sam nodded her reply.

“Well, you ever see anything you couldn’t explain with what science we know now?”

“Yes, yes, I have.”

Vince took a deep breath and gestured for some water. “Look, all my life I dealt in what I could see and touch. I’m no weirdo U.F.O. nut looking for spaceman in my fruit-loops. But I seen something, something I never told anybody,” Vince shook his head at the memory. “But I want to tell you because maybe someday you’ll be able to figure it out. And then I’ll know I wasn’t crazy.”

Sam wanted to point out that he wouldn’t be around to know if she ever figured it out. But Vince knew already, he was just trying to scratch a mental itch that had been vexing him. The old man needed to tell someone, and then he’d feel better about whatever it was. “Go on, I’m listening,” she leaned in closer.

“Back in the sixties I was stationed at Camp Henderson in California. I was a drill instructor. Tried to teach those boys something so they wouldn’t get their asses shot off in Viet Nam. But there was one recruit, damn I thought he was the dumbest thing ever to come out of back woods.” The old man paused to get his breath.

“One night Sergeant Hacker and I were coming back late from town. We’d just been out with Bunny and her friend, Midge, Madge? I don’t remember. But we were cutting across the base, in back of the motor pool and we saw this light. Figured it was somebody out of barracks playing poker. Snuck up to the gate and there it was,” Vince’s eyes grew wide, seeing not the hospital room in front of him but the scene he had seen nearly forty years before. “It was Pyle, that idiot Pyle standing talking to another fellow. Other guy was dressed like one of those hippie freaks. I’m trying to think what Pyle would be doing out talking with this guy at midnight. Then he threw back his head and laughed.”

“Now this guy Pyle, he had this hee-hawing laugh that just annoyed the hell out of me normally. Just a big, good-ole boy laugh. But this laugh, this was cold and hard. Hacker shifts position and bangs into one of the oil drums, causing Pyle and this hippie to look over at us.”

Vince stopped talking, with much effort he pushed himself up higher on the pillow. This brought his face closer to Sam’s and he lowered his voice. “The two of them looked at us but their eyes were glowing.”

“Couldn’t it have been the lights reflecting off their eyes?” asked Sam.

“No, the lights were in back of them. Their eyes glowed, then Pyle, then Pyle he turns to this other guy and says in a voice that sure ain’t his, ‘Don’t worry, Seth, I can take care of these two’. Then Pyle raises his hand and it’s shining like a flashlight and the next thing I know, the sun is coming up and Hacker and I are both waking up on the ground.”

“Maybe you just had a few too many beers?”

“Nah, Bunny didn’t like it when I drank too much. We’d just had a beer with dinner.”

“Maybe somebody hit you from behind?” Sam suggested. The other explanation rapidly forming in her mind was too frightening to think about.

Vince shook his head and leaned back into the pillows. “I thought of all of them things. Hacker and I only talked about it once, we both agreed that somehow the light had made us pass out.”

“Did you talk to this Pyle about it?”

“I sure did, wasn’t about to let no recruit get the best of Vince Carter. Came right out and asked him what the hell he was doing in the motor pool late at night.”

“What did he say?”

“Just said, ‘oh, golly Sergeant, I don’t know what you’re talking about. I was in barracks all night, ask anybody’.” Vince imitated an aw-shucks high-pitched voice. “When I told him to cut the crap, he looked at me. And I swear, swear here on my deathbed, his eyes glowed again. Just for a second, just long enough for me to know I wasn’t going to be asking any more question.”

“Why, were you afraid of him?”

“That look with the eyes, I dunno, it was spooky. What was I gonna tell anybody? That this backwoods idiot was some kind of alien spaceman or something? Tried to forget, pretended like it never happened, then I got transferred and never saw Pyle again.”

“That’s a strange story, Uncle Vince. I’m not sure I can..”

“No, story’s not done yet. This morning, just before you came in, I saw him again.”

“Pyle?”

“Yeah, only he ain’t some dyin’ old man. He looks the same as the last time I saw him in 1969. The same.”

“Maybe it was just somebody who looked like him?” Sam liked this story less and less. Was it possible another Gou’ald was roaming the planet at will?

“No, I’d never forget that face even if I’d never seen the glowing eyes. The guy irritated the hell out of me for years,” Vince said, his voice was growing weaker. His eyes were starting to close.

“Do you have a picture of him? Maybe I could track him down?” questioned Sam.

Vince pointed to the stand beside his bed. There was a brown envelope on it. Sam opened it and found a collection of old photographs. There were several of Vince and his sister as children. One of Sam and her brother when she was ten. There were quite a few of different men in Marine uniforms standing with Vince, she picked these out and handed them to the old man, hoping he would have the strength to pick out the correct one.

With shaking hands, Vince went through the stack of photos. He picked one out. A smiling Vince was on the right hand side of a smiling woman. The woman had hair that had seen a gallon of hair spray to form it into the flip helmet worn during the sixties. On the other side was a taller, dark haired, ordinary looking man who had a big grin plastered on his face. Vince pointed to the man, “That’s him, that’s Gomer Pyle.”

“I’ll see if I can find him,” Sam promised, taking the picture from her Uncle.

“Be careful, Samantha. I know you think this was some crazy story from an old Marine. But God’s truth, I saw what I told you.”

“Uncle Vince, I’ve seen so many things in my life that I couldn’t explain. Things I can’t even tell anybody,” she leaned over and kissed the old man’s forehead. “I believe you and I’ll try to find an answer.”

“Good,” Vince replied and then asked for some water.

* * *

Sam stood under the awning in front of the VA hospital, trying to avoid the smokers off to the side. She had tried to get through to Colonel O’Neill but he was in a late afternoon meeting. Continuing to glance around her for the man in the picture, she relayed a series of code-words over the unsecured cell phone that would tell Daniel that there was a possible Gou’ald presence at her location. Then she asked him if he knew anything about a “Gomer” in the history or mythology of any people.

Daniel asked her to hold on for a moment. She could hear books being shoved around. Then he came back on the line. “Here it is, I know it was Sumerian. Gomer-un was a Sumerian god known for his capriciousness. He could be very good to his followers but sometimes he liked to put on a friendly face to fool people into trusting him. Then he would betray and torture them by…. Well, let’s just say he’d do really unpleasant things to them.”

“Are there any statutes or paintings?”

“I’ll have to dig out some other books. I’ll fax you at your hotel if I do. I’ll also inform Jack and General Hammond.”

“Thanks, Daniel.”

“You be careful, Sam. If it is what you think, well, be careful.”

Sam promised her friend that she would be. Pocketing the cell phone, Sam looked around. There was no sign of the man, but she still felt nervous. She decided to go the bookstore she had seen nearby, pick up some reading material and grab some food before heading back to the hotel. Maybe by then Daniel would have found something.

* * *

The ringing of the phone startled Sam awake. She automatically grabbed for the weapon that was not by her side. Letting go of the bedspread she had snatched, she reached over and picked up the phone. “Hello?”

“Morning, Carter,” Jack’s cheerful voice blared out of the phone.

“Uh, good morning, sir,” she glanced at the clock. It was seven a.m. She’d fallen asleep reading the Harry Potter book she had purchased. It was the fourth book in the series and she had nearly managed to finish it.

“Daniel has managed to find more information about this Goober-un that you asked about.”

“Gomer-un, sir.”

“Whatever, anyway he’s faxing it to you now. We should be there in two hours to provide you with backup.”

“Backup for what?” Sam asked.

“Well, you never know how these situations will play out, do you?”

“No, sir. I’m going to head over to the hospital in a little while.”

“We’ll meet you there. Bye, Carter.”

Sam stared at the phone and then jumped as the fax machine started spitting out a piece of paper. She decided to shower while all the pages came through. She could review them over breakfast.

* * *

Now that she knew the exact location of her uncle’s room; Sam quickly made her way through the maze of the hospital. She stopped at the entrance of the room. There was the dark-haired man that was in the picture her Uncle had shown her, he was bending over Vince and talking so low that she couldn’t understand the words. She was about to back out of the room and see if she could round up some security guards when the man looked up at her.

He had a mobile face, and flashed her a warm, wide grin. Sam hesitated for a moment, not wanting to leave Vince in danger but unwilling to enter a hostile situation unarmed. The man spoke, “Well, hi there miss, fancy runnin’ into you again.”

“Hi,” Sam replied, forcing a smile onto her face. She entered the room slowly, trying to steal a glance to make sure Vince was all right. The old man appeared to be resting comfortably. “Do you know my Uncle?”

“Oh, he’s an old family friend. Ah don’t remember him talking about any nieces as purty as you.”

“I didn’t see him much when I was growing up,” Sam explained. She’d crossed the small distance to the bed. “Hi, Uncle Vince,” she said softly, not wishing to wake the man. She feared he might panic.

“He’s fallen asleep,” explained Gomer, “Ah don’t think he’s long for this world. Ah think he’ll be sleeping with the baby Jesus soon.”

“Baby Jesus?” thought Sam. “I can’t believe a Gou’ald just said sleeping with baby Jesus. Maybe Uncle Vince was drunk.” Unsure of the situation, she decided to keep the conversation nice and friendly. “I think I wore him out yesterday. We talked for quite a while.”

“Ah’m real sure he enjoyed that,” Gomer nodded, he gently tucked the white cotton blanket over Vince’s hands.

Sam stared at the gesture. She had noticed how cold Vince’s hands were yesterday. She had been certain after her Uncle’s description yesterday this man was a Gou’ald. If it weren’t for the fact that he looked exactly the same as he did in the photograph she would be tempted to throw her Gou’ald hypothesis out the window. As it was, she had decided her best plan of action was to keep this whatever he was in her sight until the Colonel arrived with reinforcements. “I’m sorry, I didn’t catch your name,” she stuck out her right hand, “Samantha Carter.”

“Gomer, Gomer Pyle,” the man’s handshake was firm. “Nice ta meet ya, Samantha.”

“Likewise, would you like to go for some coffee? Maybe he’ll wake up soon.”

“Oh, no, ah can’t do that. I have to be going on my way now.”

“I’m sure Uncle Vince would like to say good-bye,” Sam suggested, trying to stall him.

“We already said our good-byes. Besides, ah just came to tell him he was right abaht somethin’”

“What?” Sam asked quickly, more quickly than she had intended.

The man turned and looked at her. “Ah lived for a while in a place called Mayberry, one of the favoritest things for the old folks to do was to tell each other riddles. Puzzles that took a long time to figure out, helped pass the time. Time can go awful’ slow sometimes. Ah just wanted to tell Sergeant Carter the answer to a riddle he got told a long time ago.”

Vince stirred slightly on the bed. Sam edged closer to him, “What was the riddle?”

“It’s a stumper, Samantha, you sure you want to have it naggin’ at you?”

Sam swallowed. Gomer’s expression had shifted ever so slightly from the wide-open grin he had been wearing. The grin was still there but the eyes were colder somehow. She had two thoughts simultaneously. One was the colonel was running late and the other was she hoped that Gomer was about to tell her idiotic riddle about what walks on three legs in old age. “I’ve always liked puzzles,” she said finally.

Gomer nodded and then his eyes blazed. For a moment they shone, then he winked his left eye. Sam was too stunned to do anything for a moment. Gomer turned and started walking towards the door.

“Wait,” the major called out. Now that she knew for sure that he was a Gou’ald she needed to delay him. She couldn’t risk trying to fight him on her own in the middle of a hospital. She stepped towards the door. Her consciousness barely registered the fact Pyle had swiftly turned to face her and that there was a bright light.

* * *

“And you turned up no traces of this Gou’ald, Colonel?” General Hammond asked.

“No, nothing sir,” O’Neill admitted, shaking his head and lightly tapping the folder in front of him. “He vanished,” he made a popping gesture with his hands, “in thin air.”

“Well people, I can’t say I’m happy that we’ve got another Gou’ald on the loose somewhere. But at least we know what he looks like,” Hammond glanced over the notes he had in front of him. “I’m sorry about your Uncle, Major Carter.”

“Thank you, sir,” Carter acknowledged. She had woken in Vince’s room to Jack and a nurse bending over her. The nurse was told some story about low blood sugar problems. A thorough search of the V.A. hospital and the surrounding area turned up no sign of Gomer-un. Vince had died peacefully in his sleep the next day, never regaining consciousness so Sam could ask him about what the Gou’ald had told him.

“I did turn up something further in the archaeological records,” Daniel interjected. “It seems that Gomer-un was known for the jokes and riddles he’d play on human beings.”

“That’s all we need, a Gou’ald with a sense of humor,” Jack sighed. “Oh, well, we’ll have another shot at him anyway.”

“When would that be, Colonel?” Hammond asked.

“We’ve just got to wait around until Carter’s on her death bed and then we can nab him.”

“That could take a while,” Daniel mumbled.

“We could speed it up,” Jack flashed Sam a grin.

She rolled her eyes. It had been a decidedly strange family reunion. “What is it with my family and Gou’alds?” she thought. “We’re like Gou’ald magnets or something. Maybe it’s pheromones?” her thoughts on the subject trailed off, as the discussion moved along to their next assignment .