"Is it enough to love
Is it enough to breathe
Somebody rip my heart out and leave me here to bleed."
-- "Anything But Ordinary" by Avril Lavigne,
"Orange juice," Cassie said simply, holding out a full glass to Sam as she rushed past.
Sam nearly slammed into the glass, skidding to a halt in her morning rush. "Wow." She took the glass and pulled in a hurried sip. "I could seriously get used to this kind of service."
Cassie offered a fleeting smile.
Sam glanced at her watch, then slowed for a minute, leaned her hip against the counter of the kitchen island and smiled down at Cassandra. "Thank you," Sam said softly.
Cassie shrugged, gaze still on the history chapter she was trying to absorb before her first hour class. "You need to eat more."
"Tell that to my hips."
"I can't, you don't have any. But, basically, you need to eat *better*."
Sam nodded, swallowing another mouthful of juice. "Touche. How about you, did you eat enough?"
Cassie looked up from her history book, slammed it closed, and dropped it into the open backpack at her feet. "Bowl of Grape Nuts."
Sam grinned. "What time did you get up?"
"Before the birds. Fell asleep too early last night. Had to finish studying for my history exam this morning."
Sam winced. "Tough one?"
Cassie shrugged and slid off her stool, gaining no notable height on Sam. Once upon a time, when Cassie's world had fallen apart, Sam Carter had been the only safe harbor in a world of fear and confusion. She had seemed all powerful, an Amazon of light and kindness and strength.
Seven years later, Cassie's foundations had been rocked again. And though time and age had brought her perception of Sam to a far more earthly level, her dependence upon Sam's inner strength and unconditional love had not lessened. Sam was still the constant enabling her keep her head above water. She couldn't imagine surviving a crisis without her.
"The test shouldn't be too bad," Cassie replied. "I just got behind. This month." She needed no further explanation.
Sam's eyes softened, but she knew better than to offer obvious sympathy. That was one of the best things about Sam. "Give yourself a break," she said. "You study too hard."
Cassie looked up with blatant incredulity and a flash of mischief in her eyes that it felt good to find.
Sam missed the irony, but then she wrinkled her nose and her cheeks flushed with color. "Shut up. Leave me alone." Good to see Sam grinning like a little girl, again. Too much time had passed without that.
Cassie picked up her bag and swung it over her shoulder. "Listen, LeAnn invited me to stay with her again this weekend, and I think this time I'd like to say 'yes.'"
Sam set down her juice and pulled up straighter. "Are you sure?"
Cassie nodded. "Yeah. I mean, she's my best friend. It'll be good. Besides," she smiled kindly, "you deserve a break. I know you like some time to yourself, Miss Independence."
Sam reached out and rubbed Cassie's upper arm. The warmth felt good. "No, Cass, honey..."
"Sam, it's okay. Really. I'll be back Sunday evening. Besides, Pete's coming down this weekend, right? You need to--"
But Sam was already shaking her head. "No, Cassie, don't do this for me. I want you here, you know that. It's fine, we can--"
"No, Sam," Cassie squeezed Sam's hand, "I'm not just doing it for you. Honestly. It's good for me to stay busy. And LeAnn really wants to be able to do something for me. She wants to be there for me, and she really...this is so over her head, she doesn't know what to do."
Sam's eyes narrowed and Cassie saw the flashback in her friend's eyes, the flicker of memories deep in her private past. Cassie loathed being the catalyst for that kind of pain. But she needed Sam too much right now to muster the strength to be selfless. "Yeah, I remember that, with my friends," Sam said softly.
Shared pain--of a type no one else understood quite so well. It had tightened the bonds between them right from the beginning. Sam always glossed over her own loss by comparison to what Cassie had faced. But the pain Cassandra saw still raw in Sam's eyes told her otherwise. Pain wasn't always as much about *what* happened as about how it *felt* when it was happening.
"I know you remember," Cassie said. "So...if I just stay with LeAnn for the weekend... I think she'll feel like she's doing something for me."
Sam watched Cassandra for a long moment. Then she reached out and smoothed Cassie's hair. "You're a pretty amazing kid to be thinking that way right now."
Cassie shrugged. "I've had some pretty amazing role models."
Sam pulled Cassandra into a tight embrace. The girl hugged back hard. One day, in an abandoned bomb shelter, the little girl in Cassie had almost called this woman 'Mom'.
"Stay in touch, okay?" Sam let her go, but kept her hands on Cassie's arms, in her hair.
"Of course. I'll call you every day."
"Every DAY? Every HOUR."
Cassie grinned. "A lot. Okay?"
"Okay. You got a ride after school?"
"Yeah, LeAnn has her car. She'll bring me by to get my stuff."
"Okay."
"Gotta go."
Sam's voice followed Cassie to the front door. "I love you."
"Love you, too. Drive SLOWLY to work!"
"Don't I always?"
*****
Sam's leg hurt. She could barely keep her focus on her microscope. The pain was still keeping her from driving her motorcycle to work. She had stopped taking the heavy pain meds so she could legally drive a car, but the lighter stuff wasn't quite doing the job. Apparently, surviving an all-out attack by one of Anubis's drones could leave one a little worse for the wear. She still hadn't felt back to one hundred percent since her head injury onboard the Prometheus. Sam was starting to feel old. It hadn't always taken her this long to heal, to bounce back. She was developing a new respect for Colonel O'Neill. He had been near her age when they had first *begun* at the SGC.
Sam tried to get lost in her work. It was amazing what else she could forget when her mind got caught in a truly fascinating aspect of her research. She was itching to get out in the field, but they weren't scheduled for another offworld mission until Tuesday and this was only Friday. In truth, they all needed the downtime. This hadn't been an easy few months for anyone, and General Hammond was keeping a close, fatherly eye on all the members of his first line team. She was far behind on her lab work. She hadn't had a chance to see Pete in far too long. This weekend was to be their first real chance to be together for a solid block of time. She was looking forward to the distraction, but that life seemed somewhere far distant from the one she lived at the SGC. She was having trouble meshing the two.
By eleven o'clock, Sam decided to break early and stop by the infirmary on her way to lunch, find out if there was anything else she should be doing to speed the healing of her leg. She was halfway to Level 21, sorting through molecular variations of liquid Naquadah, when she realized Janet wouldn't be in the infirmary. Sam never made it for the check-up on her leg.
*****
"Why don't you eat the nuts?"
"I don't like nuts *in* my brownies."
"That's ridiculous. You like nuts, you like chocolate, why why why *why* wouldn't you want the nuts in the brownies?"
"I don't like them there."
"But you eat Snickers bars."
"Oh, yeah."
"And that's chocolate and nuts."
"Yeah. But there's no cake."
"There's no..."
"Cake."
"Ennnhh!" Daniel gripped the back of his chair in one hand and the edge of the lunch table in the other as he glared at Jack O'Neill's brownie. The art was in bringing a brilliant linguist to a complete loss of words.
Jack looked at Daniel in feigned confusion as he continued to bite around the nuts in his brownie.
Daniel sucked in a deep breath, tore his eyes away from O'Neill and said, "Where is Sam?"
O'Neill glanced around the commissary, shrugged. "Probably has her head in a nuclear reactor somewhere. Generally, that's the sort of thing that can keep her from meals."
"But this was blue Jell-O day. She knew that."
O'Neill lowered his brownie. "You know, you're right. Maybe I should go check on her."
The klaxon drowned out Daniel's reply. "Unscheduled Offworld Activation. Repeat, Unscheduled Offworld Activation."
"Oh, here we go," said O'Neill, dropping what was left of his brownie onto his tray.
Carter was already in the control room when Daniel and O'Neill arrived, her headset on and focus on the terminal screen.
"What have we got?" O'Neill asked as he and Daniel flanked Carter.
"Don't know yet, sir. No impact events as yet, and no discernable signals."
They watched through the observation glass above a sea of BDUs and weaponry surrounding the sealed iris.
O'Neill nudged Carter's shoulder with the back of his hand. "Missed you at lunch," he said softly.
She glanced toward him, a little surprised, a little distracted. "Yeah, um...I just got involved in the lab."
"There was Jell-O," he offered pleasantly. "Blue Jell-O."
She offered another brief glance and a fleeting smile, but there was a sadness in her eyes he could feel.
They all jumped when something slammed into the iris. Something big.
"For cryin' out loud, what is it, a dinosaur planet?"
Sam was typing like lightning and scanning the monitor. "That was one impressive impact. One of the largest we've had. It's possible the--" but she broke off when the wormhole abruptly closed.
"Wormhole disengaged," Sgt. Davis said, stating the obvious with his usual flare.
"Can you bring up the data on the impact event for me?" Carter glanced toward Davis.
"Really big bugs?" O'Neill suggested, arms folding loosely across his chest.
"Anything's possible, sir," Carter replied, eyes still on the monitor. "But I'd venture to say they were pretty intelligent bugs if they not only activated the stargate, but recognized almost instantly that their first traveler didn't make it through."
"Well...it's possible they *don't* know," Daniel volunteered. "I mean, couldn't they have just sent through their traveler, given him time to make it through, then disconnected the wormhole to wait and see?"
Sam nodded briskly. "It's possible. Except I'm finding traces of a type of radio waves bouncing *back* through to the origin gate on a feedback loop. I think it's possible the moment whatever they sent through the stargate didn't reintegrate and piggyback a response on the feedback signal, those at the origin cut off the connection."
"See, how does she do that?" O'Neill asked, gesturing toward Carter as he turned to Daniel. Daniel shrugged and squinted at the monitor over Carter's shoulder. O'Neill turned to Teal'c, who had taken a place behind Daniel. "It's been like nine seconds, and not only does she have twice as much information as we do, but she's screwed it around in her head into some kind of logical theory. Doesn't that bug you?"
Teal'c raised an eyebrow.
"Yes," Daniel said distractedly, skimming the numbers and wave graphs on Carter's screen.
"That bugs me," O'Neill said, aware he was now speaking to himself.
"I'll need a full analysis of this data as soon as possible," Carter was saying to Davis. "There's still a chance there is some kind of identifiable incoming signal buried in the EM noise. If they dial in again, we need to know in advance exactly what was sent through the first time."
"Yes, Ma'am. I'm on it."
Carter nodded to Davis as he moved away, then turned her focus to her own terminal.
"If you come up with anything I can help translate, let me know," Daniel said. "I'll be up in my office, I need to finish that report on P2C-568 for Hammond by tonight."
Carter tossed a look over her shoulder, tone softening as it always did when Daniel was concerned. "Thanks, Daniel. I'll let you know."
Teal'c nodded to O'Neill and took his leave as well.
They were left semi-alone at the controls.
O'Neill reached down and rubbed the back of his knuckle between Carter's shoulder blades. "You missed lunch," he said again. "Blue Jell-O."
"I know. I'm fine, sir."
"Looks like you'll be stuck here a while. Can I bring you something? There's always leftover meatloaf. Of course, there may be a reason for that..."
Carter shook her head. "No, thank you, sir, I'm fine."
"Carter."
One word. But he put everything he had into it. And only enough for *her* to hear.
She heard. Her shoulders lowered a little, and she turned to give him real eye contact for the first time since he'd come in. The sadness washed more openly across her countenance. "Janet," she said softly. The one word was all they needed.
The two of them held gazes for a long moment. Carter turned back to her keyboard. And O'Neill gripped her shoulder hard. "Tell me if you figure anything out," he said, voice muted and hoarse. Sam nodded.
He felt thin and helpless as he took the stairs to the briefing room two at a time.
*****
"And if I don't make it known that,
I've loved you all along,
Just like sunny days that we all ignore
because we're all dumb and jaded.
And I hope to God I figure out what's wrong."
--"4am" by Our Lady Peace
The house was quiet. Strange how quickly Sam Carter had adjusted to someone else living in her home.
But she was grateful for the silence, the comfort, the familiarity. She wanted softness and warmth and peace this evening. She wanted her leg to stop aching and for everything to just be okay for a while and Janet to be a phone call away. Despite the urgency she had felt toward embarking on a new mission, in this moment she was infinitely grateful to be in the cozy warmth of her own home rather than on hard alien ground beneath an Air Force tent offering nothing at all like privacy.
Sam had showered and changed into a soft skirt and sleeveless blouse, wanting to look nice, yes, but wanting to feel like Sam, not Major Carter. She was just finishing fixing a mug of hot tea and heading for her favorite place on the couch with a new book on wormhole theory, when the doorbell rang.
Pete Shanahan stood on the doorstep with a box of chocolates and an affectionate smile.
"Hey, beautiful lady," he said sweetly.
She couldn't suppress a smile. His warmth was tangible.
"Hey, you," she said softly. And she was in his arms, and his lips were warm and soft on hers and his hair smelled of the spring wind. She wrapped her arms around him tight.
As they pulled away, his eyes took in the length of her figure and she couldn't deny the thrill that tickled her skin in the wake of his approving gaze. "You look...beautiful, Sam," he said simply.
She smiled. "You don't look so bad yourself, mister. How was the drive?"
"In Friday evening traffic? A nightmare. But worth every minute to see you at the other end."
She tried to keep smiling, felt the genuine pleasure at his arrival, but showing it was starting to feel like work. She was so tired... Sam took the chocolates Pete was still holding and placed them on the table by the door. "Thank you," she said softly. "That was very sweet of you."
Pete caught the vibe. He could be unnervingly perceptive. No doubt the cop in him. "What's wrong?"
Sam shook her head. "Nothing, really. Everything's fine."
"Something happen on a mission? Are you all right?"
She took his hand, squeezed it reassuringly. "No, no, nothing like that. Nothing you don't know about. I'm fine."
Pete narrowed his eyes, studied her expression for a long moment. She lowered her gaze, unable to hold under scrutiny.
"Sam?"
She closed her eyes. "I'm sorry. We just...it's still been pretty rough at work, since... This was a pretty bad day. And I just don't think...I know you drove all the way down here, but I'm not really up for going out. I'm sorry. I know you don't get to come down very often, and--"
Pete was shaking his head, tightening his grasp on her hand. She found the firmness of his touch deeply reassuring. "It's all right. It's all right. If you... Do you want--I mean, do you want to rest, do you want me to get out of here--"
She shook her head. "No. No, I'm glad you're here." Her tone was open, honest and simple. She breathed quietly for a moment and Pete stood with her. Her thoughts crossed into words before she allowed herself the time to consider. "I--can...can you just come in, and can we sit and...I don't know, maybe watch some TV and...can you just..."--Her throat tightened as she spoke, and the tears burning her eyes caught her off guard. She didn't know she was still so raw.--"...can you just...*be here*...?" Her voice faded to a shaky whisper and she glanced away, suddenly self-conscious.
Pete moved in close, breath near enough to tickle her skin. Her pain reflected in his eyes, and the tenderness in his voice nearly broke her composure. "Heyyyy...Samantha." His hand rose to cradle her cheek and she leaned into his palm. "Ssh...shh....Shhhh. I'm right here. For whatever you need."
She nodded, and he pulled her into his arms. She let herself drink in the warmth and support, face buried in his shoulder.
*****
The television played softly in the background, largely ignored. The sun had set, though neither of them had moved to pull the drapes. A bright crescent moon shone above the houses across the street, and Sam lay stretched on her back on the couch, head resting in Pete's lap.
"I just froze," she said, gaze on the crescent moon, double- imaged through the thick panes of glass. "I couldn't even cry. I just stood there in the hallway and leaned against the wall and tried not to throw-up. I couldn't even conceive of how I could forget. Even for that moment."
"That's natural," Pete said softly. "It happens to people all the time. Your brain, your usual patterns, they don't catch up too fast. It takes a while, to change over all the automatic reactions."
Sam nodded, but didn't speak. She closed her eyes.
Pete continued to stroke her hair.
"I'm so sorry, Sam," he whispered. "But at least...," he brushed away a fresh tear as it slipped from the corner of her eye, "...this is good."
She squinted up at him, brow furrowed in confusion.
"You're crying," he said kindly.
She understood. She closed her eyes and just breathed.
A moment later, she rolled into him, wrapping her arm around Pete's waist and letting him pull her close as she buried her face in his stomach.
Not much later, she was surprised when she felt herself slipping toward sleep.
She thought she might have been dreaming when she heard the phone ring.
*****
Pete carefully shifted his feet, pushing just that last inch to grab the phone handset off the end table and stop the ringing before it could wake Sam. She shifted, sighed softly, but didn't appear to wake. She must have been exhausted. Images of black and white film noir flickered across her pale skin from the television.
Pete pressed the talk button and said quietly, "Carter residence."
The response was delayed. "Uhhh....yeah, is Carter there?"
"May I ask who's calling?" Pete kept his eyes on Sam's breathing as it evened out, tempered his voice to match the pace of her breath.
"Uh, yeah, this is Colonel Jack O'Neill."
"Oh, Colonel O'Neill, of course. "
"And would you be...'Pete'?"
"Yes, I would. I just drove down for the weekend."
"Ah."
"Um, actually, Sam's sleeping right now. Did you need me to wake her?"
"Oh, she's...oh, no. No, I...don't wake her."
"Okay. Can I give her a message for you?"
"Well, nothing, really. I was just...calling to see how she was doing. I mean with...everything."
"She's tired. But she's okay." Pete didn't have much of a grasp on Sam's relationship with Colonel O'Neill. He knew they were friends, as well as fellow officers, but he knew better than to give away too much without checking with Sam. He knew a woman like Sam had clearly defined lines as to who got to see which parts of her and when. He wouldn't betray the confidences she had only begun to bestow in him until he knew the situation inside and out. But, O'Neill's concern sounded genuine and he didn't want to worry him. The two of them had lost a comrade. That much the cop in Pete clearly understood.
"I know she's tired," O'Neill said. "Hey, how's her leg doin', though? I mean, I think she's still favoring it, but she won't tell me anything as long as she's determined to get out in the field again right away. I'm not gonna hold her back, she's smart enough to make her own call, I just..."
"Yeah, that's Sam," Pete said with a smile. "I think it's still hurting her pretty bad, but it's getting stronger. I think she's coming along all right." He rested a protective hand on her thigh, wanted to inspect the wound himself later tonight.
"Good. Good to hear." O'Neill's relief was palpable.
"Still can't tell me what happened to her, I suppose?"
"Ennnhh...'fraid that one's a little too..."
"It's all right. I get it. I'm lucky just to know what I know, I realize that. It's just...when your girl gets hurt... You know."
The silence on the other end was too long. Pete was about to speak, when O'Neill said, "Yeah. Yeah, I can imagine."
"Yeah."
"Yeah, well..."
Okay, time to go. "Well, I suppose I'd better stop talking before I wake Sam."
"Oh, she's--Yeah. Well, hey, just...tell her I called, okay?"
"Will do."
They hung up.
Pete kept the phone handset close in case it rang again. Sam shifted in his lap, eyes moving behind her closed lids. He reached down and smoothed her hair, quieting her in her sleep. She relaxed into his touch.
"Jack?" she whispered, not really awake.
"Yeah, he called to see how you were," Pete whispered. But she was too far asleep to respond to his words.
*****
"Try to pull things round when the air starts to thin
We nurse regrets, restricted in our own belief
We suffer love together as one
An empty heart with nowhere to turn
We find ourselves looking back another way
A brand new day"
--"Comfort in Sound", Feeder
They walked shoulder to shoulder, taking up most of the hallway from the commissary, shifting now and then to allow others to pass, then falling into their comfortable formation once again. Sam, Daniel, Jack, and Teal'c. SG-1. Family.
Sam rested a hand on her stomach as she spoke. "All I'm saying is if you don't intend to catch any fish, why bother with the fishing at all? I mean...isn't it enough just to sit and *be* in a beautiful setting? Do you really need an excuse? I mean, shouldn't the majesty of nature alone be reason enough to stop and pay attention?"
O'Neill shook his head and started to speak, but Teal'c said, "There are many insects."
They all turned and blinked at him for a moment. Teal'c raised an eyebrow.
"The point is," O'Neill said, shooting a look at Teal'c, "it's a kind of...Zen."
"Zen..." Sam narrowed her gaze appraisingly.
"Yeah. It's something to focus on. Keeps you..." he gestured in the air with his hands, grasping for a word, "...*centered*."
She fell into an affectionate smile. "I'm impressed."
Daniel chuckled beside her. "Give it up, Sam," he said.
"I don't know, the Colonel has a point. Sometimes human beings need that. We're very basic, when you think about it. We always have to know what it is we're doing and why. Keeps that fundamental, mechanical part of our minds busy while the more aesthetic portions take in the grandeur."
"Yes, but that would be true even if there *were* fish," Daniel pointed out.
"True." She looked to O'Neill for his comeback, but he only closed his eyes and shook his head ruefully.
They had reached the main elevators. Teal'c stopped and bowed slightly toward the group as he moved toward the elevator signaling it was headed down. "I must prepare for my mission with SG-7. I will be assisting in translations within a former Goa'uld outpost."
"Yeah, you have fun with that," O'Neill said with a wave.
Sam gave Teal'c a warm smile, and his eyes returned the gesture. "See you on Wednesday, Teal'c," she said.
"Let me know if you need any help with context of the translations," Daniel said, and Teal'c nodded and took his leave.
"Jealous?" O'Neill asked Daniel as they stepped onto the elevator heading upward.
"Oh, yes, terribly jealous of the time Teal'c will be spending on one of the hottest, muggiest planets we have ever encountered that still sustains human life, all under the command of the ever charming Colonel McBride."
Jack winced. "Eeiiww. Who did Teal'c piss off?"
Daniel smiled. "You have to wonder."
Sam pressed the button for the 19th level.
"Hey did we ever find out who dialed in last Friday? The big...thump?"
Sam shook her head. "Nope. They never called back. And we couldn't make anything recognizable out of the signals we picked up. Tried every possible playback and analysis. Either coincidental noise, or just too alien for our technology to make any sense out of."
Daniel nodded. "Well, you see something new everyday, around here, right?"
The elevator doors slid open and Jack and Sam stepped out.
"I'm on up to my lab," Daniel said, pressing the button for level 18. "Into the fascinating world of archaeology."
"Well, don't get too lost in the joy," O'Neill said. "Mission 0800 tomorrow."
"Wouldn't miss it," Daniel called as the elevator doors swished closed.
Sam and Jack continued in companionable silence.
As Sam slowed at the entrance to her lab, she realized O'Neill seemed to have no other particular destination in mind. She pulled out her key card and swiped it through the lock.
"So, what's on the docket for you today, Colonel?" she asked as he followed her across the threshold. She switched on the overhead lights and powered up her computer.
O'Neill shrugged, hands in his pockets. "Bunch of paperwork Hammond's on me about. Wants it in by the end of the day or something about calling off tomorrow's mission."
Sam lifted an eyebrow, failing to suppress a grin. "A little behind, are we, sir?"
His eyes sparkled. "A little."
"So...you're in here, because..."
He cracked a sarcastic smile and nodded.
Sam pushed onto the stool in front of her laptop and brought up her morning email. O'Neill paced the circle of her lab, hands in his pockets, looking over the contents of the room as though he hadn't seen most of it a thousand times. He poked briefly at a piece of alien technology she had recently been brought for study, and she watched him surreptitiously over the top of her screen. He moved on before anything exploded.
"So, how's Cassie doing?" he asked, whirling to face her.
Sam looked up from her mail. "She's hanging in there. She spent the weekend with a girlfriend. She did pretty well. She's a tough girl."
O'Neill nodded, eyes serious. "I'm glad she's staying with you."
Sam took the compliment in silence, mood softening for the moment. "You should come by to see her. I know she'd like that."
"Yeah. Yeah, I'd like that, too."
They fell quiet. Sam turned to her laptop.
O'Neill returned to his random inspection of her laboratory.
"Pete said you called Friday night."
O'Neill looked up, surprised. "Yeah. Yeah, I did."
"He said there was no message. Did you...need something, sir?"
He shook his head, pursed his lips. "No. Just...checkin' on ya."
"Oh. Well...you should have just told him to wake me."
O'Neill looked down at his boots, scuffing his heel against the floor like an eight year old caught with a frog in his pocket. "Nyaaaa. You were tired."
"A bit."
"Your leg doin' okay?"
She nodded. "It's fine. Thanks."
"You have a good weekend?" he asked.
"I did. Thank you. We, uh...we went out to the Garden of the Gods. It was beautiful."
"Good. That's good."
They were silent.
"You?" she asked.
"Hunh?"
"You. Did you have a good weekend, sir?"
"Oh. Oh, yeah, fine." O'Neill sprang into action, seemingly spurred forward by some internal declaration. "I really oughtta get on that paperwork."
"Of course, sir," she said softly.
He moved toward the door, passed behind her. He laid a hand on her shoulder as he passed, gave the muscles a gentle squeeze, but broke a way a bit too sharply. As though he had remembered something vital, broken an unspoken rule.
He was halfway through the doorway when she said, "You can still call me, you know."
He turned, open and guileless and innocently caught off guard. "What?"
"You can call me. And tease me. And...touch my shoulder. Just because..."
His brown eyes deepened, but he didn't speak.
She wouldn't look away.
"Okay," he said carefully. "It's just...well I didn't want to... I just didn't know if this...*this*...would change anything. About...," he waved a hand between them, "*this*."
Sam slipped her tongue across her lips, heels of her hands propped on the edge of the lab table. She shook her head. "No, sir. It doesn't."
O'Neill nodded, deep lines creasing his brow.
Sam cleared her throat. "I mean...I think I thought, for a while, that it might. But...turns out...it doesn't change...*anything*." Her voice fell to a whisper.
Jack nodded, slow and deliberate. And she knew he heard everything she was saying. Just as they always had.
The moment hung on forever.
Jack said, "Okay. Just...so I know."
She nodded.
He walked away.
*****
One hour later and he swung around her doorway, startling her into nearly spilling the contents of a test tube. He probably should have asked if there were toxic materials in there, but he couldn't stop. He had to speak. He was riding on pure instinct, and once reality set in...
"It was...it was always you and me, right? I mean, I just...I always thought..."
Carter set down her test tube and pulled off her goggles. She looked beautiful and flushed and breathless. Her blue eyes locked hard on his brown ones. She was lost.
He held her in his gaze, pleading without words, laying himself open before the eyes he trusted most in the world.
"You and me," he said, lacking breath. "Carter and O'Neill. All these years, wasn't it..." his voice was nearly a whisper, reaching out to her, for her, "...you and me?"
Her expression cracked, pain brilliant on her pale cheeks, but she didn't speak.
He pressed forward. "I mean, not that I expect--I mean, I'm not saying you don't have every right to--Since we can't..."
She found her voice. "I-Yes."
He blinked at her. "What?"
"Yes. It's always been...you and me. At least...for me..."
"What?"
She looked at him. Sam Carter's wide blue eyes. And he couldn't believe what she'd just said.
"For cryin' out loud, Carter, you're the one with the cosmic IQ! How could you not know..."
Silence.
"I mean...the..the Tok'ra memory...thing. The Xanax detector. Didn't you realize, I was the one--"
"That was almost four years ago, sir. And time can..."
"Well, it didn't," he said firmly.
She swallowed. "Okay."
"Okay."
"So..."
"So."
The age old futility hit him full force, and he felt the weight pulling at his features, saw the reflection of defeat in her eyes. "Damn it," he breathed.
Even this small verbal acknowledgement hit her like a punch in the gut. She closed her eyes, flinched, then met his gaze once again. Her lashes were wet.
He tried to speak and found he had run out of words. He started to reach out, but let his hand fall to his side. He looked away from the pain on her face. Then looked back.
And it was all there in her eyes, there as it hadn't been so clearly for nearly four years. All the need and hurt and caring and desire and all the understanding and defeated resignation. And he was right back there, staring at her through a fucking invisible wall, and she was looking back at him with those timeless baby blues and she was telling him to just...*go*...
"Just...don't go anywhere."
Jack blinked. He struggled to reorganize time and register reality and the sound of her voice. Jesus, what had she just said?
He shook his head, never looking away. "I won't," he said simply. "Ever."
Sam gave the slightest nod of understanding. He narrowed his eyes, weathered the impact of the moment. Then he walked away.
*****
Sam stood in her laboratory, hardly able to breathe, vision blurring through hot tears. Every muscle in her body wanted to bring him back. To talk to him, to touch him. To somehow *fix* this. And she could still smell Pete's aftershave in her hair from his goodbye when he left for Denver this morning and suddenly everything hurt too much. She closed her eyes against her tears, standing alone in the cold of their underground world.
She startled to awareness, eyes snapping open at the sound of Daniel's voice as he rounded the doorway, giving the casing a cursory rap with his knuckles but already talking a mile a minute. "Hey, Sam, are you in the middle of anything? I finally got back those artifacts from P4X-279 we requested from Area 51 about two *weeks* ago for Christ's sake, and--Sam? Who...hey..." His eyes flashed with concern as she watched him scrambled to switch gears, push up his glasses and slip his hands in his pockets, trying to process what he was seeing in front of him as she fought unsuccessfully to mask her emotions. He'd always had such impeccable timing with his entrances. Daniel took a step closer, reached out a gentle hand to touch her elbow. "Sam? Are you okay?"
She nodded, precariously composed. Trying to speak betrayed how near her tears lay to the surface. She sniffed and brushed at her nose with the back of her hand. "I'm fine. Just...hard day." She saw the confusion wash across his countenance. They had been together at breakfast just a short time ago, joking and smiling with perhaps the most comfortable normalcy since they had lost Janet. Just how bad could her day have gotten on pure principle in such a short time? He knew something had happened. But he wouldn't push her. He would only be Daniel.
The kindness in his eyes was hard to take. She had never been able to hide from Daniel, never been able to lie. He had been her friend in the truest sense for so long, standing quietly by and offering his gentle presence and supportive words to make sure she knew he was there when she needed him. She had found out what her life was like without him. She never wanted to take his friendship for granted again. Friends like Daniel didn't come around more than twice in a lifetime.
But she couldn't share this time, couldn't just spill everything, no matter how tempting those guileless blue eyes.
"Yeah?" he said softly. He shook his head. "What happened?"
She just shook her head, cheeks burning. "It's fine." She breathed out heavily through her mouth. Sniffed hard, pushed back her hair. "Did you need me to look at one of the artifacts?"
"Ummm...yeah." He didn't want to let the subject go, didn't want to let her hide. But after a moment, he played along. He pulled a small stack of note cards out of his pocket and moved toward a counter, motioning her to follow. "Here, I made some notes. What's confusing me is trying to determine the original intended use of some of the artifacts. I originally thought they were meant as weapons, but now, based on both my continued translations of the surrounding materials, and the technical analysis returned by the lab crews at Area 51, I'm starting to think they may have been some kind of healing devices."
"Really?" She met his gaze for a moment, pulling herself into the work, into what he was saying. She stepped up beside him where he was spreading out the note cards covered in his hurried scrawl. She leaned her elbows on the countertop, shoulder to shoulder with Daniel, pouring over his notes.
He kept talking, going into full Daniel mode, prattling on about translation difficulties he'd encountered that ultimately had no bearing on the final question he was leading up to, but which were of such endless interest to him, he couldn't imagine how they weren't the same to everyone else.
And she tried to follow. She looked at the notes, and followed where his finger pointed, and she glanced toward him when he looked at her, and she felt the sound of his voice, but she couldn't focus on the words.
She glanced toward the doorway, still feeling the imprint of O'Neill's figure silhouetted there, still hearing the soft tremor of his voice. Echoes of her weekend still fresh on her skin. And everything was all in too vivid color and sound and sensation. She turned back to Daniel's note cards as he spoke, but her eyes were blurring with tears, and she had completely lost the thread. She leaned her mouth against the heel of her hand. Step by step, the knot in her gut clenched and the tears slipped down her cheeks, and she slid her hand to shade her eyes, and it was only another moment before Daniel looked her way and his words fell away mid-sentence. Something about Goa'uld symbols embedded in the inner layer of the casing... and then, "Oh, whoa, whoa...hey, hey....Sam...."
She was really crying, and Daniel was touching her hair. When she couldn't speak to answer, he moved closer beside her, hands massaging her arms, circling on her back.
"What's wrong? Tell me what's wrong." He was lost, and probably scared. Couldn't understand her tears. Probably had never really seen her cry like this.
The last thing she clearly understood him to say before his words fell to mere murmurs of comfort was, "Sam, what can I do? Tell me what I can do?"
"You can't do anything," she managed between hoarse breaths. "That's just it. There isn't anything to do."
She kept her eyes on the empty doorway, cheek resting on her folded arms and Daniel's breath on the back of her neck.
And she wanted to tell her CO the word was za'TARCS. And she wanted to see him wrinkle his nose in annoyance. And then smile- -only for her.
*****
END
Story Notes: SPOILERS: Through "Heroes 2"
AUTHOR'S NOTES: I have taken a little liberty with the rather rushed late Season 7 timeline. I have not changed the order of the events, but I have spread things out and padded the "downtime" between crises a bit. Forgive my indulgence.:) And for anyone who might be paying attention, this does NOT fall in the same universe as my "Ice For Melting" series. This is a whole different possible progression.:D Warnings. This is both Sam/Pete and Sam/Jack. The story is definitely Sam/Jack 'shippy, but if you hate Pete in all forms and incarnations, you might want to steer clear, because in this story he is NOT portrayed as evil rotten scum.:)
AUTHOR'S NOTES: I have taken a little liberty with the rather rushed late Season 7 timeline. I have not changed the order of the events, but I have spread things out and padded the "downtime" between crises a bit. Forgive my indulgence.:) And for anyone who might be paying attention, this does NOT fall in the same universe as my "Ice For Melting" series. This is a whole different possible progression.:D Warnings. This is both Sam/Pete and Sam/Jack. The story is definitely Sam/Jack 'shippy, but if you hate Pete in all forms and incarnations, you might want to steer clear, because in this story he is NOT portrayed as evil rotten scum.:)
DISCLAIMER: All publicly recognisable characters, settings, etc, are the property of their respective owners. Any original characters and plots are the property of the author. No money is being made from this work. No copyright infringement is intended. ... [ read more ]