samandjack.net

Story Notes: Between Love and Duty VII: E-Mail: kelly.mullins@verizon.net

Web: http://www.geocities.com/musicgrl72/kellyf.html

Spoilers: 1969

Sequel: This is the Sequel to 'What Do I Have to Do?', 'Put Your Arms Around Me', 'I Want You', 'Sweetest Day', 'Fear', and 'Nice'.

Disclaimer: I can promise you I don't own SG-1 or anything by U2

Authors Notes: Song is Walk On by U2

Thank You: Anyone who sent feedback


Monday was a bust. I will always remember this day, we never should have come clean to Hammond. He just stood there looking for all the world like we had just announced we were going to blow up the base- and from the way he reacted we probably could have gotten off easier if we had. The good part- we were offered a deal to leave quietly and not have to face court-martial... the bad part- we would never be able to work with the SGC or the US Air Force again. This is not the way things were supposed to work out. So now while I collect my things from my lab and Jack clears out of his office it's all I can do to avoid our friends and try, futilely, not to cry.

*And love
Is not the easy thing
The only baggage
That you can bring
Not the easy thing
The only baggage you can bring
Is all that you can't leave behind*

I would never have imagined leaving the SGC would be this hard, I guess somewhere inside I thought I would live out my entire life in Cheyenne Mountain like Cassandra supposedly will. She told us that our journey was just beginning... that was only two years ago, she couldn't have meant this- the end of our careers, the loss of our best friends.

*And if the darkness is to keep us apart
And if the daylight feels like it's a long way off
And if your glass heart should crack
And for a second you turn back
Oh no, be strong*

General George Hammond- one of my father's best friends- did offer us the benefit of his silence if we could assure him that we would 'nip our relationship in the bud', I was surprised that even Daniel and Teal'c had opposed this idea, as Daniel put it everyone had been waiting for us to get together for far too long for us to just hide our feelings and pretend nothing ever happened between us.

"Sam." I jump as Jack puts his hand on my shoulder. "Are you all right?"

"Yeah, you just took me by surprise." I manage to give him a bright smile.

"Sorry, I just came to see if you're ready to go."

"Yes, just help me toss the rest of this stuff into this box?"

"Sure. So... you having second thoughts?"

"Yes, aren't you?"

"Just wondering if I'm alone." He gives me a quick hug before closing the last box.

"No, never alone Jack, I just never thought we'd be leaving this place... especially with no hope of coming back."

*Walk on
Walk on
What you got, they can't steal it
No they can't even feel it

Walk on
Walk on
Stay safe tonight*

We leave the safety of my lab to walk through the corridors. Since this time yesterday, when we told our final decision to General Hammond, all of the vultures of the SGC have fallen on the news of our departure and dissected it like the feinds most of them are. They watch us with open interest... like they expect us to fall on one another and make love right there in the corridor.

*You're packing a suitcase for a place
None of us has been
A place that has to be believed
To be seen*

The problem with leaving the SGC is that everyone's so close, you never make any outside friends, and therefore leaving takes a lot of guts. Living on the outside is especially hard for someone who has been on the inside for so long they've forgotten that the whole world doesn't revolve around this giant circle and the war with the Goa'uld.

*You could have flown away
A singing bird
In an open cage
Who will only fly
Only fly for freedom

Walk on
Walk on
What you got
You can't deny it
Can't sell it or buy it

Walk on
Walk on
You stay safe tonight*

Maybe I should have left a long time ago. But there was never a good time, when I first started there it was a challenge and then after I missed the Abydos mission I hung around because I wanted to be there for the next one, and then after I went I became part of SG-1 and that was more important than anything else. Now I know I should still be there... but things would be too complicated, we would have let ourselves down and everyone else, we would always want to be with the other and I don't think we would be able to live with everyone constantly looking at us waiting for us to slip up.

*And I know it aches
How your heart it breaks
You can only take so much

Walk on
Walk on*

Our friends join us at the elevator, Jack puts an arm around me and Daniel does the same to Janet as the tears in her eyes slowly start to slide out. They all help us out to Jack's truck and as we pile our boxes in the back I can't help but wonder what's in store for Daniel and Teal'c now that the two military members of SG-1 are gone. I'm assuming they're going to be reassigned to other SG teams, I still have a lot of faith in General Hammond, that he'll keep Daniel and Teal'c away from anyone who would harm either of them in the US government.

*Home
Hard to know what it is
If you never had one

Home
I can't say where it is
But I know I'm going

Home*

Jack is all I've got left now, oh I know our friends will never give up on us, but things are going to be different without seeing everyone else every day. Everyone has been given strict orders not to inform us of anything that's going on inside the SGC. So, why would we give up our entire lives on a romance that's only been going on for five days? Because it's the right thing to do, that's why, everything would be too different if we had tried to do it any other way, and now we're going to embark on a new adventure, stripped of rank and any other guiding principals we've got to make it on our own and that's all there is to it.

*That's where the hurt is

And I know it aches
And your heart it breaks
You can only take so much
Walk on

Leave it behind
You've got to leave it behind*

All we really get to bring with us are memories, and I'm sure if there were some way to wipe our memories they'd take those too. All of my research and years of work on the reactor and countless other artefacts are still in my lab, now in the clutches of someone who won't be able to do the job half as well as I could, not because I'm better than them, simply because I have been there throughout this entire thing.

*All that you fashion
All that you make
All that you build
All that you break

All that you measure
All that you feel
All this you can leave behind*

There is no way we'll ever be able to leave the SGC completely. We built the place, it's as much a part of us as we are of it; and somehow I highly doubt that after all the memories and years of hard work that's it's as purely simple as walking away.

End




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