Moral Compass

“Thy firmness makes my circle just”

--John Donne, “A Valediction Forbidding Mourning”

* * * *

As expected, Jack found Sam hiding out in her lab. She hadn’t gone home, so where else would she be?

He didn’t bother knocking. “Carter?” he queried softly, entering the dimly lit room.

“Yes, sir?” She didn’t turn to face him, but from her hoarse tone of voice, he could tell she’d been crying.

“I came to see how you were doing.” Well, not exactly. He knew how she was doing, but he’d come to see if there was anything he could do to help. Which, all things considered, probably wasn’t the best idea he’d had all day, but here he was anyway.

“Yeah,” Sam sighed, reaching for a tissue to wipe her face. “Been better.”

“Hell of a day,” he commented neutrally.

She blew her nose noisily, then tossed the tissue away. Wiping her reddened eyes, she straightened up in her chair and turned to face him. “Yeah,” she repeated. “The worst.”

“Daniel sent out a message to the Tok’ra,” he offered quietly. “Narim’s transmission said some people had escaped, and we know the Tollan had some colony worlds. He figured we should put out the message about what happened in case some refugees start showing up.”

Nodding, she remained silent. Looking at her in the half-darkness, Jack winced. She looked like hell -- tired and wan. When had Sam ever looked so defeated?

When she had to kill Martouf? he questioned himself. Yet another person she cares about, lost to her forever.

“Thanks for letting me know,” she rasped, then cleared her throat. “Was there anything else, sir?”

He recognized the dismissal in her voice. Of course, that didn’t mean he’d pay it any attention. One of the perks of being the senior officer. “Narim saved us, Carter. He did the right thing.”

She snorted in disgust. “Travelle and the Curia also thought they were doing the right thing. Well,” she corrected herself, “not exactly the right thing, but what they had to do to save themselves.”

He nodded, content to let her speak in hopes that she’d start to open up.

“I wonder,” she said thoughtfully, “what our government would have done, had we been in a similar situation?”

“I don’t know.” He hadn’t wanted to think about that too much, and he didn’t want to examine the reasons why.

“I do,” she replied vehemently. “We’d have done exactly what the Curia did, and betrayed our allies if it meant survival for our society.”

“You really think so?” Hell, she was probably right. He had a hard time seeing Maybourne, Kinsey, or Simmons being willing to stick to the moral high ground in the face of such danger. Or in the face of anything, truth be told.

“Damned straight. But would any of us been brave enough to do what Narim did?”

He squirmed uncomfortably, even though she wasn’t looking at him with any accusation. He’d done his best to convince Narim to help save Earth. He’d succeeded. And he still believed he’d been in the right. But the cost had been far too high. What if he’d been in Narim’s shoes? Could he had tossed Earth’s survival aside for high moral principles?

His conscience’s answer to that question didn’t satisfy him at all. It made him feel like the ever-present stain on his soul had grown even bigger.

Narim, the savior of Earth. Who’d had ever suspected?

“He came through for us when it counted,” Jack allowed.

“You didn’t like him very much,” she stated tonelessly. The lack of feeling in her voice just made it worse.

He cleared his throat and thought of denying it, but didn’t see the point. “I wasn’t very fond of the Tollan as a whole, Carter. You know that. And Narim was just as arrogant as the rest of them, if not more so. But he saved us.”

She wiped her eyes again. “He was one of the most decent, moral people I’ve ever known,” she said flatly, in a tone that brooked no argument.

He shrugged. If she said so. Even after the day’s events, Narim remained pretty much a cipher to him. Narim, who’d dressed in endless dull grey tones, or walked around in a bright silver leisure suit that did nothing to flatter him, utterly oblivious to how ridiculous he’d looked. Narim, who’d mooned over Carter despite her showing no interest in him other than friendship.

Narim, the savior of Earth. Damn.

“And look what it got him,” she continued, tears welling in her eyes once again. “He’s either dead, or a slave to the Goa’uld, or maybe... he might have been turned into a host.”

“I know,” he replied solemnly. “No one deserves a fate like that.”

“And all because he believed so strongly in Tollana’s laws!” she continued fiercely. “When their society’s security was challenged, the Curia didn’t hesitate to toss their morals aside, but he--” she stopped short, staring at him helplessly.

“I’m sorry, Carter,” Jack said, knowing that it didn’t help in the least. “I know you thought of him as a friend.”

She choked out a bitter laugh. “He was in love with me.”

Wow. He hadn’t thought she’d bring that up. “Yeah, I got that. Teal’c told me how he’d used your voice for his home’s computer system.” She nodded. “Personally, that would weird me out just a bit.” More than just a bit, actually.

Pulling another tissue from the box, Sam wiped her eyes and nose. “If it had been anyone else, it probably would have affected me that way, too. But Narim? He absolutely worshipped Tollana’s moral code and laws. He’d never have done anything to hurt me. He respected my limits.”

“That’s good.” He recognized the unspoken statement that Martouf hadn’t always done the same. And who knows, she might have been referring to him as well.

“Yeah. But now I feel so guilty.”

“Why?”

“Because friendship was all I gave him. I knew how he felt, and I just didn’t reciprocate. Because I’ll never see him again, and he deserved more.”

“Carter...” What could he possibly say? That she couldn’t control who she loved? Coming from him, that statement would open up a huge can of worms.

Hesitantly, she pulled a small device from her pocket, holding it up so he could see. “He gave me this, before he and Omac and the others left with the Nox, the first time they were here.”

Jack leaned closer in order to get a better look. It was a nondescript little bit of technology, with some colored triangles on it. “What is it?” And why the hell hadn’t she turned it over to R & D?

She turned the device over in her hands, brushing her fingers over the colored buttons. “It records emotions. Narim’s feelings for me.”

Okay. If possible, that creeped him out even more so than Narim’s using Sam’s voice on his home computer. Perhaps Daniel would have told him how it was merely a sign of different social values, that for the Tollan, such a gift would be a mark of the highest esteem.

But that didn’t make it any less weird to him. Although it did make a bit more sense on why Carter had kept it to herself.

Sam met his eyes resolutely, then held out the device. “Do you want to try it?”

He didn’t. He really, really didn’t. Hell, his own feelings for his second-in-command were messy enough, and often decidedly non-regulation. He didn’t want to go rummaging through a dead man’s feelings.

“Sure, Carter.” He still didn’t want to, but he wanted to help her, and for some reason she needed him to do it. Reaching out his hand, he took the tiny device from her. “How does it work?”

Sam wiped her eyes once more. “Touch the red triangle,” she instructed him softly, “and close your eyes.”

Jack did as she directed, cringing in anticipation.

His consciousness registered just the slightest bit of intrusion at first; then emotion burst full-force over him, astounding in its depth.

Joy. Happiness so acute his eyes watered. Being with Sam was everything Narim could want and hope for. Then, there was a slight shift -- a recognition of attraction and desire, and the melancholy knowledge that it would not be satisfied. Respect, devotion. Love that was breathtaking in its purity, asking almost nothing in return.

He gasped, letting the device clatter onto the table. Staggering more than he’d like to admit, he grabbed blindly for a stool, sitting down gratefully.

Damn. Until then, he’d always been irritated with Narim’s personality. The man had been terribly naive, unable to see the reality of the worlds he lived in, all the while holding to an ideal that Jack couldn’t understand. He’d thought Narim uptight and priggish, and had little use for him, often wondering how someone so unworldly could gain such a high position in the Tollan government.

But it had been Narim’s innocence and his absolute devotion to Tollana’s ideals that had saved Earth. His horror at learning of the Curia’s actions had been turned, through Jack’s influence, into the determination that his planet would not betray all that their laws stood for. And in saving Tollana’s soul, he’d doomed its people to destruction with the full knowledge of his actions.

And it was all done at Jack’s urging. Narim, ever slow to act, might have waited too long before forcing the Curia’s hand. But he’d had Jack as the devil on his shoulder, telling him what course of action to take, ordering him to do the right thing. And finally, he had acted without hesitation.

Before this instant, Jack’s main concern had been for Sam, knowing that she’d lost someone she considered a friend. Secondary was the knowledge that an valued ally had been turned against them prior to their destruction at the hands of yet another more powerful goa’uld.

But with the dying echo of Narim’s emotions lingering in his brain, he admitted an unwanted truth -- the Tollan had been a good man. Arrogant? Naive? Yes. He’d been shaped by the society in which he lived. But in a perfect world, one with no barriers and preconceptions between them, he also could have been someone Jack would call friend.

In this world, that would never be the case. But he was someone for whom Jack could have compassion and respect wholeheartedly; someone whose moral compass was firm and true enough to make hard decisions, and then remain to face the consequences of what he’d wrought, rather than fleeing to safety.

Someone worth mourning.

Slowly, he pushed the device back across the table towards Sam. With a soft, bitter smile on his face, he nodded. “I understand now,” he told her. “Thank you.”

--fin.