Shard
How did that line go? "Never drink. If you drink, don't drink alone. People always find out and it ruins their reputation." It had been a long time since she'd seen Gone With the Wind, but that line popped into her head as she sat in the dark, sipping her glass of wine pitifully. The gentle scent tickled her nose as she breathed in the odors and the deep, powerful spice of the rich cabernet sauvignon that penetrated her tongue; lacing it with its texture and crisp finish, warming her mouth and throat as she swallowed.
Sam Carter held the wine vessel by the stem, watching the play of the flame from her hearthon the blown glass and the deep red liquid. She let her eyes defocus and examine her living room. There was no light, save the fireplace illuminating the space in casual licks of orange light.
At the edge of her vision, she watched as her cordless phone lit up with its silenced ring. After a moment, the answering machine's red message indicator flashed and incremented itself up by one. That made five in the past hour. At the moment, she couldn't possibly care less. It wasn't that she was drunk exactly—far from it. She just had no interest in any human contact whatsoever.
She watched the flickering of shadow over her bookshelf, obscuring her volumes in anonymity. Right now she envied the books and journals in their ability to be so efficiently obscured—lost. She heard her own faint, bitter laugh at the irony; the hollow sound driving her to distraction as her eyes wandered again. The play of light on the cream and wood colors of the room made the floor and furniture seem almost ethereal, like the color of white ice permeated with filtered daylight.
The idea made her squint with fear and shame, as she sipped lightly at the wine, and it conjured some terrible memories to the surface. Not the worst by far, though there were plenty of bad ones to go around. These were simply the ones of greatest desperation: the times when the hope had been all but driven from her heart. She pulled her silk bathrobe around her more tightly, and pulled the towel from her head, letting it fall behind the sofa.
For some reason, in all the places she had been, the southernmost continent of her own world held the most hazard for her. Every single time she went there, her life took a subtly new direction. Every time…she came within a hair's breadth of losing him. She watched the blackness clawing at the spaces between the curtains, listening to the crackle of wood and the settling of embers, sipping again at her wine.
How had she come to this point? How had a major in the United States Air Force missed something this clear—this simple? Did she really need the kind of hint that she had gotten? She was grateful for it, without question. She also had some ideas of what to do about it, she was just insanely angry with herself that she had to get to this point to come up with them.
On the Prometheus, she had all but totally indulged her hallucinations. Her `Dad' had told her not to be satisfied with mere contentment. So, she'd taken a step toward happiness—assembling pieces of a life that didn't entirely consist of shooting and being shot at. She had found a wonderful man in Pete. He was sweet, gentle, caring and generous. He also wasn't bad to look at. For months she had been happy, deliriously so.
Then, it had happened. In the grand scheme of things it was incidental, really. So, the Alpha site had been compromised. So what? So, she'd nearly died trying to outrun that damned super soldier. Big deal; nothing new there. In spite of her recent inspiration, she had to admit that she had really figured this out as Jack sat there, holding her when it was over, giving her what she hadn't known she'd needed—all she had needed to see that was a gentle push.
When the hell did I start thinking of him as `Jack?' She gingerly lifted the glass to her lips, downing the last few drops; too gingerly, as it turned out. "Damn!" The glass slipped from her gentle grasp at the stem and shattered silently on the cream area rug at the base of the couch. She watched as the fragments ricocheted off the floor, fluoresced in the firelight and peppered the carpet like jagged stars.
Sam examined the shards of glass laid out before her, their quixotic splendor not lost on her. Once again, despite her best intentions, she was confronted with something dangerous, unique …and undeniably beautiful. Part of her had begged to reach for happiness, to love and not be denied love in return. In the end, though, she had done exactly nothing different than from the past. She had settled. She was content. The fact that Pete was so wonderful made it all the more tragic. As special as being with him had made her feel, she now knew what she had tried to hide from herself.
She had accepted second best—a fantastic second best, because she had been unable to accept the risk of reaching for what she really wanted. Sitting on the stony, cream-colored ground at the Alpha site; hurt, frightened and dejected, silently held by Colonel Jack O'Neill had driven home the knowledge that she needed him. She needed him not only for the sake of their responsibilities, but also for her own sake. Like the broken glass, it was dangerous and beautiful at the same time. Much as she might hate it sometimes, her job—the job, was a part of her.
She knew Pete loved her. But, for all that love, Pete would never understand her. He would never know or appreciate what it was to be an airman. No one became one because of bloodlust or glory and it sure as hell wasn't the money or the hours. Career airmen accepted the risks of their jobs because they love something so deeply, that they are willing to stand between that thing and its enemy.
She bent over, picking up the largest shard of the wine glass, watching cautiously as the razor edges refracted the light from the fire. Sam watched her own reflection—swollen eyes, ashen complexion and all—dance and undulate in the fire-accented glass. The curvature of the piece fit soundly into her palm, like the crystal of a hand device. The jagged edges protruded like the teeth of a crystalline carnivore—beauty, in the palm of her hand.
That was what she had. She did love. She was loved. That was the tragedy: she had to decide if that love was enough motivation to take a real risk; not to her life, not to her career, but to her heart. She turned the shard over in her hands, carefully watching the light dance off its surface. The trick with broken glass, she thought, was to take it by the edges that couldn't cut you.
Story Notes: Spoilers: Chimera, Death Knell, Lost City I/II
Email: usc_mad_scientist@yahoo.com
Email: usc_mad_scientist@yahoo.com
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 ]