She saw them fall.

Teal’c was first, just after he dialed the ’gate. He backed up and fired his staff weapon once, and then he went face first to the floor. She had rarely seen him fall; he was so strong, so steady, and now, just like that, he was down. Maybe it was mostly her fault, for refusing to accept her CO’s long-ago reservations as valid, but she had no time to dwell on that now. Not when they had a chance to fix everything.

The Colonel went down next; he swooped in like some action movie hero and she saw when the shots started hitting him. He flinched and hung by one hand for an instant, then tumbled to the floor. She saw him squeeze his eyes shut in pain, but he didn’t give up easily. He never had.

Crawling on hands and knees, with the note clutched desperately in his hand, he made it halfway up the steps before his chin dropped to the cold stone. His eyes were wide and staring, his mouth hanging open, frozen as if in surprise at his own death.

She saw Daniel bolt in from the side, saw him collapse far short of his objective. His lips formed a silent protest, and he died with a zat in his hand. She couldn’t help but see the irony in that - their peacemaking archaeologist, dying as a warrior.

She faintly heard Joe shouting from behind her, but all she saw was her team - yes, despite years and painful rifts, they were still her team - lying so still. And she saw the note in Jack’s hand, the note that could save them all.

She ran.

Her feet slapped against the floor and her heart pounded in her ears. Joe was screaming, but she didn’t care any more, even though she’d promised. She couldn’t walk away, not after they had sacrificed everything.

They’d taken out just enough of the Automated Defense System that she had the note in her hand before the first shot struck her back. The pain was excruciating, but she forced herself to keep moving, one agonizing step at a time.

At the top, so tantalizingly close to the open ’gate, she lost her footing and fell forward. With the last of her dimming vision she saw the note disappear into the undulating blue of the event horizon.

And she knew, in those last airless seconds before everything faded, that it could never have ended any other way.

They were SG-1. They would always be SG-1, and they would die together, as they had lived together.