===========
Yellow Roses
===========
Sam pulled the collar of her coat up more, protecting herself from the biting cold wind. She made her way across the damp grass and soon found herself standing in front of what she had come to visit. She knelt down, the dew soon soaking into her jeans. She ignored it. She did not care if she got soaked right now. For all she cared the heavens could open up and drench her. It could begin to thunder and lightning and she would barely even notice. Hard drops of rain pelting her would be quite welcoming right now. She was glad that she had tied her long hair back as the wind whipped around her again. She shivered, but refused to move.
She had left her house at about five in the morning, as soon as she had awakened. Sam laughed to herself. She had never gotten to sleep the night before so she could not have awoken from anything. The sun was beginning to rise now, but she had no idea what time it was. She had crept out of her house for fear of waking up her father.
He could not even remember what today was.
Sam placed the small yellow rose down in front of her and placed a gentle hand to the stone slab in front of her. She had not been here for a year. Not since the day...
She ran her fingers over the engraving. "Beloved Mother, Wife and Sister," it read before stating the date of birth and death of the person lying beneath the very ground that young Samantha was kneeling on.
"It isn't fair," she whispered. "Mom, everyone thinks I'm fine, but I'm not." Sam knew that she could not really complain at this fact for she had created the perfect illusion of her coping. She made breakfast for her family every morning, went to school and worked hard. She came home from school and cooked dinner before doing her homework while locked in her bedroom. While she was sitting up at her desk all she could hear from downstairs was her brother, Mark, and her father shouting and yelling at each other. Doors slammed and then footsteps would be heard on the stairs before a knocking on her door. It was always Mark wanting to apologise for disturbing her. Sam would just smile at her older brother and say that it was fine.
Then had come the bombshell. A week ago Mark had come upstairs after the usual shouting but he had not come to see her. Sam's dad mainly ignored her. At dinner he would question her on her schoolwork, her plans for after High School. He had never asked the one question that she would never have answered truthfully: Are you all right? Sam had been worried about Mark not coming to see her so, abandoning her calculus, had gone to his room. She had knocked on the door and after waiting for a reply and not receiving one, she had gone in. He was standing by the bed, packing a bag. She had asked what he was doing and he had simply replied with one word: Leaving. She had stood there, her perfect mask on her face as always, as he had finished packing and then walked past her.
"A year ago, mom, we were happy. We were a family. The four of us. Now..." She paused, a sob escaping her. "Now it's just me and dad." She knew that her dad loved her, cared for her more than anything in the world, but he was not good with his emotions and he seemed to believe that she was okay. Her very limited, small group of friends also believed that she was okay. Everyone in the world thought that she was okay.
Hell, Samantha thought, no one else even knew what today was. It was not just her dad that had forgotten what today was, it was also her friends. Sam would creep back home in time to make breakfast and then go to school as if today were just a normal day.
It was not just another day, however.
It was a year since her mom had died and just a ten days away from the year anniversary of the funeral. Everyone thought that she was fine, coping really well. No one ever paused to think that maybe it was all a lie. No one suspected that she cried every night in the quiet of her room or that once a week she came here. Her father rarely visited the grave.
She only had herself to blame though. She was the one who had built up this lie and could not break it. She kept it all inside, to be strong for her father and hope to appear fine to everyone else.
No one would guess why she would be silent all today. No one would suspect that anything was wrong, while secretly Sam's mind would be in turmoil. She could not get her head around the fact that this time last year when she had awoken, her mom was alive. Tomorrow, she could not say the same thing. This was the day that changed everything else. Every day for the past year, Sam had had the comfort of her mother having been alive the same time the year before. She would not be able to say that tomorrow.
"I miss you," she whispered before composing herself and standing up. She had to get home and change before her dad knew that anything was wrong.
=====
Major Samantha Carter shifted uncomfortably in her sleeping bag. She was on some alien planet where there seemed to be nothing of great scientific significance. Jonas was busy every day exploring ruins and Teal'c or Colonel O'Neill always accompanied him. She was always left out of the roster. Her watch was always last as well. Jonas was snoring soundly beside her. He could fall asleep straight away, no matter where they were or what was going on. Teal'c was probably sitting somewhere outside of their tent, in a deep state of Kehl'no'reem, no doubt. It was the colonel's watch. Not that there had been anything to watch or guard against, but it was always when you let your guard down that the inevitable bad stuff happened.
She could not sleep and lying next to a sleeping teammate when sleep was your only goal was annoying. Highly annoying. She quietly unzipped her sleeping bag and after locating and putting on her shoes, Sam crept out of the tent. She could see Colonel O'Neill sitting a few feet away, facing away from their makeshift camp. She knew that she could get away without making a noise. To be fair to her colleagues, they had realised that something was wrong with her since before the mission had even begun. She knew that she should not just leave the camp, even though the planet was un-inhabited. If the Colonel discovered her gone she would be in trouble, it did not matter that he knew she was just in a bad mood and needed to be alone. He was a lot more likely to just leave her be if she told him that she was leaving camp.
"Colonel," she whispered and he turned immediately. He had heard her shuffling about in the tent, no doubt. "I'm just going off to the toilet, sir." She knew that she was lying and he probably knew it too.
"Okay," he replied quietly. "Don't stray too far."
She nodded in the darkness, but he had already turned away from her again. She headed away from the camp and down to the coast. It was quite an amazing planet. As soon as you stepped through the Stargate, this massive coastline could be seen. Their camp had been set up past a slight tree line, away from the coast and the Stargate. As she passed some bushes and trees, Sam noticed some flowers that she had seen during the day. When they had first arrived on the planet, everyone else had been amazed at the coastline, but Sam's attention had been drawn to all of the flowers of varying colours by the trees, bushes and just on the grass. Sam could remember from earlier on in that day that the nearest bush to their camp had some yellow flowers around it. She had no idea what kind of flower it was, all she knew was it was yellow. She picked two, avoiding the prickly thorns that covered its stem. Bringing them up to her nose, Sam sniffed them gently. It was an average flower smell, she decided that she liked it though.
She began walking and only stopped again when she reached the edge of the grass and the beginning of the sand. She carefully sat down and began fiddling with the flowers. She stroked the petals, smelt them again and then twisted them by the remaining short stem. For the first time ever she wished that she was at home, on Earth. She had never before wanted that while on an alien planet, except during incarcerations but tonight she wanted to be at home more than ever before.
As she began to lose herself in thought, Sam failed to hear the approaching footsteps until there was a warm body sitting next to her. She knew who it was - she could smell his cologne and recognised it as Colonel Jack O'Neill, her commanding officer. He was sitting closely, his left arm slightly touching her right. Their legs were not touching as he opposed her action of hugging her knees into her chest and stretched his out. She moved slightly to rest her head on her knees and turned to face her colonel, still swivelling one flower between her thumb and forefinger.
"You knew I wasn't going to the toilet, didn't you?" she asked, quietly. A loud voice was not needed on this quiet peaceful evening.
He glanced sideways at her, his head still facing the sea that was just a few feet away. The tide gently lapped at the shore, but the noise was minimal. "I wouldn't be a very good commanding officer or friend if I didn't."
She rested her chin on her knees and faced the sea, not wanting him to see her face. She was feeling very emotionally vulnerable that night and did not want him to see any emotion on her face. "I'm sorry for ... breaking orders and lying to you."
"No sweat." He had listened to her leaving and had waited for a few minutes, giving her the benefit of the doubt. When she had not returned, O'Neill had decided to follow her. He had spotted her a short distance away, not going to the toilet. O'Neill had then alerted Teal'c that he was leaving camp, too. Teal'c had merely nodded, there had been no questions or comments - he had understood. O'Neill had followed silently, trailing far behind. He had paused while she had picked something from a bush, hiding from her view and then he watched her walking to and sitting down by the beach. "Listen," he began. He leant back and propped himself up with his hands. From here he could see only her back and her hair. "Something's been troubling you since we got here and I know that I'm just your C.O and that you probably don't want to talk or anything." He paused, wincing at his own inadequacy where it came to the English language. "What I'm trying to say is, is that I'm here if you want me to be and I know that you probably want to be alone, but we're on an alien planet so it's not exactly possible."
She laughed slightly and he smiled to himself. She had barely even smiled during the past two days on this mission. He felt like he had accomplished something.
"What if I did want to talk? Would you really be here to listen?" she asked, a slight joking tone to her voice.
"If you did want to talk," he said in his most serious tone, "I'd run and get Jonas."
She twisted around to face him, her hand coming to rest on the ground near his thigh for balance. "Gee, thanks, sir."
He grinned and raised an eyebrow. In return she smiled back. She stretched her legs out, matching O'Neill and then lied down on her back. She stared up at the stars, watching them twinkle. When she was younger it had been her dream to one day go up to the stars. It had been a childhood dream, which had soon been changed to just being an astronaut. She had awoken to the harsh reality that space travel in her lifetime would never take her to another planet. And then the Stargate program had come along.
Sam could still remember that her father's dying wish had been to get her into NASA so that she could fulfil her childhood dream. She already had, though and not her realistic dream - her real dream. When she had become a member of SG-1 and began travelling to other planets, Sam had felt like everything she had ever wished for was fulfilled. Like she had everything.
"Do you think we've been to many of them?" O'Neill suddenly asked out of the darkness.
It was then that Sam realised that he was lying next to her, looking up at the same stars as her. She knew that he liked looking at the stars, his telescope at home was testament to that. "Umm, I guess a few. Yeah."
"Sorry," he apologised. "This was a quiet, no speaking time, wasn't it?" He had never been good at judging when to shut up, not to speak or to speak for that matter.
"Kind of," she mumbled. She rolled onto her side, facing O'Neill. He turned to look at her, their faces only a few centimetres apart. She was still twiddling with a flower, the second resting on the ground in between their hips. "You're not just my C.O, sir."
Not sure what to say to that, O'Neill took the flower from her fingers, lightly grazing her hand with his fingertips as he did so. He smelled the flower and then studied it carefully. "Why did you pick these?"
Now it was her turn to not know what to say. She was glad that he had changed the conversation however. She was not sure why she had said what she had. She felt he had needed to know. She picked up the second flower and rolled back onto her back. "They were my mom's favourites. Well, not these because we don't have these on Earth because we're not on Earth. Yellow roses were her favourite and they're mine, too. This planet doesn't have yellow roses though. It might not have roses at all. This might be its equivalent." She knew that she was blabbering, but she could not help it.
"So, if I ever want to buy you flowers I should remember yellow roses?" He grinned at her and as he mentally predicted she glanced over and smiled back.
"Why would you ever buy me flowers, sir?" She had nearly called him 'Jack' but had decided that it might have increased their mild flirtation to a dangerous new level and she was not in the right place to make that decision.
"When you're in the infirmary after God knows what. You do get injured quite often, Major."
"Well, then in reply - yes, yellow roses would be the way to go. They are the way to my heart." It was only after the words had come from her mouth that she realised what she had said. "Sir," she began, her voice thick with emotion. "Can I talk to you?"
"Isn't that what you're doing?" he asked sarcastically. "Sorry," he immediately apologised. "Sometimes I just can't stop the sarcasm or comments. Of course you can talk to me," he paused and then added, "Sam."
She looked at him in shock at him using her first name. It was something that he rarely did and she never did.
His eyes met hers and he could see the tears brimming in them. "Come on, don't cry just cos I said your first name. It won't turn you to stone or melt you, you know." They both fell into silence, lying next to each other and each playing with a different flower. He thought maybe he had gone to far with his comments, that she might not say whatever had been on her mind.
"Do you remember when we were on Netu and we had that hallucinogenic drink?" She saw him nod out of the corner of her eye. "I went back to when I found out my mother was dead."
This was news to him. He knew that Sam's parents were not together - Jacob never mentioned a wife. "I'm sorry." He only whispered it because he knew it was a lame thing to say. He heard so many people say 'I'm sorry' after Charlie's death and he had felt like punching every single one of them.
"I was about fifteen and dad was meant to go and collect her from the airport. I was at home baking for her homecoming. Dad was running late and she got a taxi. There was a road accident and she died almost instantly. Mark, my brother," Sam explained, "blamed dad straight away. Still did really until Selmak made dad mend fences." She was not sure why she was telling all of this to her commanding officer. Maybe because he was more than just her colonel. "I forgave dad. It wasn't his fault. And then I became surrogate mother. I did all the cooking and cleaning, buckled down at school and became the geek that I am now."
"You're not a geek," he interjected. She looked at him sceptically, one eyebrow raised. "Okay," he amended, "I think you're a geek."
"It was during that year that I became self-sufficient Sam. I didn't need anyone else. I rarely ever mentioned my mom to anyone. Dad never wanted to discuss her. He did blame himself. Mark went off the rails slightly. All he and dad ever did was argue. And then, one day, out of the blue, Mark announced he was leaving. It hadn't even been a year. He was the only person that I had talked to during everything. I couldn't talk to dad. He never seemed to care, or notice that mom was even gone. I pretended to be strong, like him. He never knew that I missed her or hurt just as badly as he did. We both just hid it." She sniffed back some tears.
O'Neill rummaged in a pocket after dropping his flower and managed to find a tissue. It was not the best tissue in the world, but he was pretty sure that he had not used it. "Here," he offered.
She wiped at her nose, but did not blow it. O'Neill watched as she wiped away tears from her eyes. He had no doubt that no tear had fallen from her eyes, she was just taking a precautionary measure so that she showed no weakness in front of anyone. She turned onto her side again and repositioned her arm under her head as a pillow and continued.
"My friends, not that I spent much time with them, soon forgot that anything had happened. I was so focused on being the perfect daughter and getting the best grades to impress my dad that I had no social life. They were more like people that I occasionally chatted to in lessons or during breaks. They were there for me straight after she died, but it was like they forgot. It was coming to a whole year and no one else remembered. Mark had just left, dad barely said two words to me and my 'friends' didn't remember." She rolled onto her back. "I'm sorry, sir, I don't know what I'm talking about."
"Is today the anniversary?" he asked gently. When she did not reply he moved his free right arm and placed his fingertips on her chin, turning her to face him. "Sam, you can tell me about anything and not just because I'm your C.O, okay? I'm not just here listening because I couldn't let you be alone on an alien planet. I'm your friend, too, Sam."
His hand felt warm on her face and she moved a hand to hold his in place. "Yes, today is the anniversary of her death and in ten days it's that of the funeral. Still no one remembers, but after these many years I don't expect anyone to. It was just on the year anniversary, I really needed someone. I needed to be the weak person for once and have someone be strong for me for a change. Because after that day, the one whole year since the event, every day is different. It's like for that first year you can still live with the thought that at that point the year before, she was still here. After that day, you can't and I needed someone and there was no one there for me." She could not contain the feelings she had bottled up for so long and began to cry.
He moved his hand from under hers and moved it slightly so that it was cupping her cheek now rather than her chin. He stroked her face gently, soothingly and moved closer. She turned onto her side once more and allowed him to embrace her. "I know what that's like. From both sides."
"How can you know--?" she snapped angrily, pulling away from him slightly. She could mentally slap herself. "Sorry, sir. I forgot. I didn't mean."
He stroked her hair as he tried to reassure her. "I think that while I'm holding you like this you should maybe call me 'Jack'." She nodded against his chest, her tears momentarily stilled. "It's okay," he said in reply to her apology. "I don't talk about... Charlie much." It obviously pained him to even say his deceased child's name. "Partly for the same reason as you don't talk. I want to appear strong and tough, emotionless with no weaknesses. And partly because I couldn't face up to everything. Probably a lot like your dad."
She nodded against his chest again. "I understand. It just ... still hurts."
"I know. But you would have made her proud." His statement made her begin to sob again, much to his confusion. "Hey," he shushed. "It's okay."
She pulled away so that she could look at him, no longer caring if he could see her tear-stained cheeks. "But I didn't make her proud. Sure I did well at school and joined the Air Force and have this brilliant career, but she didn't get to see any of it. She didn't get to see me pass my exams and graduate. She wasn't there to watch me as I joined the Air Force and got promoted. She never got to see me all dressed up for the prom, see me get married or have children. Okay, well I haven't seen those two either, but that isn't the point." He was stroking her back slowly now, but he could not help smiling at the last comment.
"When I was little," she continued through her tears, "I had this dream to become an astronaut. It was before I realised that space flight to another planet would never occur in my life-time so in the dream I got to go to other planets. I had it all planned and set out in my head. My parents would see me off every time I left and in my thirties I got married and had two children. It's silly, you know because the only part of it that shouldn't have come true is the only bit that has."
"She might not have been there for it all, but anyone would be proud of you, Sam. I know I am. And as for the married and kids, you have time and being married isn't all it's cracked up to be," he admitted. He had loved his ex-wife and always would in some ways, but their marriage had not always been happy and that included before Charlie's death.
She stopped sobbing and looked deep into his eyes. Tears were still brimming in the deep blue of hers and in his Sam could see the reflection of the moon. "You're proud of me?" She seemed shocked by this.
"Of course I am, Sam. You're amazingly talented and super clever. You've saved my butt and the world's butt countless times and not just with the help of us guys. Most of it was just your smarts."
She opened her mouth as if to say something, but instead she moved her lips closer to his and kissed him. She had no idea where the kiss had come from and neither did he. It was just a gentle kiss, almost chaste until his tongue darted out of his mouth and separated hers. She did not try and stop him as she began moving her tongue, allowing it to join in a dance with his. He used his hand that was on her back to pull her closer to him and she did not resist. Her free hand moved to the back of his head, pushing his head closer to her and enabling both of them to probe deeper into each other's mouths.
She knew that she was not emotionally stable right now and that she was allowing her sadness to rule her. She could hear a little voice in the back of her mind telling her that this was her commanding officer, that she should not be kissing him, that she was kissing goodbye to her career. She did not care. Right now all she cared about was forgetting everything else and staying in this position for as long as possible.
He knew that she was only kissing him because she was upset, because it was the anniversary of her mother's passing. Sure, he knew that she cared for him, but he also knew that her pride in her job stopped her from doing this exact thing. He knew that in effect he was taking advantage of her, that she was allowing herself to be in this situation. He was upset too and therefore not fully able to think straight either. He never spoke about his son. Never.
One of them had to be sensible and think and even though it was not normally his strong point, O'Neill's brain switched on and he stopped the kiss. "Sam," he mumbled in a warning tone.
"Oh, God," she whispered as she realised what she had done. What *they* had done. She struggled to say something, but calling him 'sir' felt wrong after kissing him. On the other hand, 'sir' would distance herself from what she had just done. "Sir, I'm ... I'm sorry." She moved to get up.
The word 'sir' bit into him, but he grabbed her arm as she sat up anyway. It reminded him of their time in the power station when they had false memories and when after their memories returned she had called him 'sir' to remind him of what they were. His hand gripped her arm and did not release it as they both sat there and she made no further move to leave. "You shouldn't be sorry."
"What?"
"We both ... kissed. We're both feeling ... odd."
"Right." She nodded her head up and down a bit too enthusiastically.
"I meant what I said, I'm your friend as well and I'd like to think that..." he trailed off, not knowing what to say and he released her arm.
She looked at him and their eyes met. She smiled slightly and nodded her head, this time gently. "I'm happy to call you my commanding officer and my friend and I know that I can't call you anything more than that." They sat there in silence for a few moments, just staring into each other's eyes. Sam bowed her head and spoke; "Thank you for being my friend, Jack."
He smiled at her using his first name and was glad that she was not looking at him because his feelings for her would have been given away on his face. He stood up and took her hand to help her to her feet. Once they were both standing up straight, he glanced at the floor. "Oops," he pouted, "we crushed the flowers."
"Never mind. Flowers grow again."
"Let's get back to camp, yeah?" he asked and she nodded. They walked side by side, talking like they always did. Like Colonel Jack O'Neill and Major Samantha Carter.
=====
~Ten days later~
Sam was fast asleep in her lovely comfy bed at home when the doorbell rang. She groaned in annoyance as she shrugged the covers off and glanced at the clock by her bed. It was nine in the morning. She was usually up much earlier than this, but it was the first night back in her bed in about two weeks. They had returned from SG-1's most recent mission seven days ago, but Sam had remained on base since then catching up on some lab work. Colonel O'Neill had ordered her off of the base yesterday morning when he had found her in her lab. "For cryin' out loud, Carter!" he had practically shouted when he had found her. "When was the last time you saw the Sun and I mean the Earth's Sun?" Sam had not had an answer for him and he had made her leave right there and then. She had not even been able to perform one little experiment.
She had wanted to stay on base so that she could work and try to forget what today was. She had wanted to work through the day so that she could pretend that it did not exist.
Swinging her legs over the edge of the bed, Sam stretched and then stood up. She reached for a robe and put it on. Making her way to the door, Sam wondered who on Earth was at her door. She opened the door and saw a stranger standing there.
"Hello?" she queried.
"Good morning, ma'am. Major Carter?"
"Yes. Can I help you?"
"Could you sign here, ma'am?" the boy asked holding out a folder with a piece of paper on and a pen attached to it. Sam could only describe him as a boy because he could not have been over twenty, if that.
Sam reached for the folder and pen and signed in the box next to her name. She noticed the name of the delivery company at the top of the form. It was 'Flowers: Express Delivery' and it was local, judging by the address. Once she had signed, Sam handed the stuff back to the delivery boy and waited for him to pass her the flowers. He bent down and picked them up from the floor where he had put them just out of her eye-sight. She took the flowers from him and thanked him before closing the door. She leaned against the back of her door as she took a look at the flowers in the bouquet. They were wrapped in paper and cellophane so that she could not see what they were until she looked down on them. They were yellow roses.
Sam smiled one of her big beaming smiles as she reached for the small note. She recognised the handwriting and was surprised as normally the people in the flower shop wrote the cards and they had not this time. Obviously Colonel O'Neill had wanted it be very personal. The message read: 'Sorry for squashing the others. And I'll always remember.'
Sam's smile got wider as tears began to gently fall down her cheeks. Maybe she did not have her childhood dream, but she had everything that made her happy.
And she had yellow roses.
=====
The End.
Story Notes: Content Warnings: Discussion of death.
I haven't written much in a while, but hopefully my muse is back. This is written as a kind of partner to "Grieving" but is not a sequel or prequel to it. You don't have to read one to read the other, they're just linked in my mind. This story is born out of a need to say something and because I've missed Sam and Jack!
Dedicated: To my Daddy. I had everything planned on how it should be right now. None of it happened, but the worst screw up in my plan is that you were supposed to be here.
Enjoy!
Email: emehudson@msn.com or elisemarie9@lycos.co.uk
Archive: http://uk.geocities.com/emeh100/lisey.htm
Copyright © Elise October 2003.
I haven't written much in a while, but hopefully my muse is back. This is written as a kind of partner to "Grieving" but is not a sequel or prequel to it. You don't have to read one to read the other, they're just linked in my mind. This story is born out of a need to say something and because I've missed Sam and Jack!
Dedicated: To my Daddy. I had everything planned on how it should be right now. None of it happened, but the worst screw up in my plan is that you were supposed to be here.
Enjoy!
Email: emehudson@msn.com or elisemarie9@lycos.co.uk
Archive: http://uk.geocities.com/emeh100/lisey.htm
Copyright © Elise October 2003.
End Notes: Thanks for reading.
All feedback is welcome :-)
All feedback is welcome :-)
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 ]