Is it wrong when nothing's right?
~Tara MacLean, Settling
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Daniel drags her topside fifteen days after they return from the Antarctic. He takes her home, heats canned soup while she's in the shower, and all but pours her into bed. She agrees to take a nap, curling her body into the pillow she clasps to her chest.
She wakes up thirty-five hours later to find Pete standing next to the bed, looking worried.
She's caught between two impulses and after a moment lifts her duvet and the sheets and lets him crawl in next to her. He pulls her into his arms and buries his face in her neck and she feels sweaty and disgusting and wants to pull away from him but can't quite make herself.
"God, Sam, I thought you were dead until Daniel called." She shakes her head a little, his stubble scratching her neck and pulling her a little further out of the hazy world she's been in since she'd awoke.
"Not me." It comes out small and she's pretty sure she didn't mean to say it.
He sighs and pulls back a little, tries to make contact but she shuts her eyes. "I . . . Daniel told me. I'm sorry." She nods and he pulls her closer as if to comfort her, as if he expects her to cry.
She's cried a lot lately, and at the strangest times: walking down the hall, in the shower, in the middle of trying to find a book. Once she'd started to cry so hard running on the treadmill Teal'c had to all but carry her to her quarters when he found her crumpled on the gym mats.
After that, something had changed. She'd decided enough was enough and there was no Janet, no *him* around to tell her that she needed to grieve.
But she doesn't want Pete to know she's stopped crying over her best friend and her CO because she thinks that maybe crying is something she *should* be doing.
So instead she rolls over a little and then fits herself back into Pete's arms, slows her breathing and waits until she feels him relax in sleep.
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She wakes to find the sun is up and she can't quite figure out what day it is. She gets out of bed and is light headed, has to take a minute at the edge of the mattress. She feels hung over, stiff, sore.
When she drops her pajamas, she can see her ribs in the bathroom mirror. There's no way she'd pass a fitness test like this. It takes an incredible amount of effort to shampoo her hair and she doesn't bother with conditioner, nor does she use her blow dryer.
She puts on comfortable jeans and a t-shirt and makes her way barefoot to the kitchen where she can smell coffee.
Pete greets her with a smile and a good morning. She smiles back a little, then heads over to the coffee maker.
"There's milk in the fridge." She can feel Pete trying not to hover but he's not quite succeeding. She's a little surprised by his words since she hasn't been home in so long and anything she'd left (not that she's foolish enough to buy milk, what with all of the spur of the moment world saving that calls her away so often) would be long expired.
The fridge swings open to reveal stocked shelves and she robotically reaches for the cream, pours some in her coffee and replaces it.
She hears the toaster pop and turns to watch Pete grab a piece of toast, watches as he butters it and offers it to her on a plate.
It strikes her as she reaches for it that this whole scene is oddly domestic, is part of a world she's never been comfortable with, in truth has never really had.
She takes a bite of the toast and lets him shepherd her to the table. She resolves to reserve judgment until at least her second piece of toast.
[][][]
She's not sure how or when it happens but Pete somehow manages to move in with her without much discussion.
That's not exactly true. She'd arrived home from the mountain (to be honest, Daniel had forced her out and driven her home. Again.) to find Pete making dinner. Apparently Daniel had had a co-conspirator.
Over chicken and rice he'd casually mentioned that he'd applied for a job with the Springs force and had received an offer.
"I think," he'd paused, taken a sip of wine, looked her in the eyes earnestly. "I think you need someone to . . . take care of you."
At any other time her back would have been up and she'd have denied it. Now, now she didn't have the energy.
"Okay," she'd said, then took another bite.
[][][]
Daniel takes her out for a beer a few weeks later. Sits her down and tries to make small talk until she's ready to strangle him and huh, it seems parts of the colonel have survived.
"Are you sure it's a good idea? Pete moving in, I mean?"
She fiddles with the coaster under her glass. "Is there any reason he shouldn't?" She looks up at him from under her lashes, knows it makes Daniel squirm but never sure why.
He, predictably, looks away. "It's just soon, you know? After Janet, and . . ." She sees him take the breath, can almost see him bracing. "Since Jack."
She doesn't flinch anymore, has worked very hard to suppress that reaction. "Janet has nothing to do with it." Maybe true.
He raises an eyebrow. "And-"
"The colonel has nothing to do with it either." Maybe true as well. Less likely to be true but they both seem to be willing to let it lie.
When the waitress approaches, Daniel orders them both another round and she discretely checks her messages. Two, both from Pete, easy to ignore.
[][][]
She decides she likes being a part of a couple.
She likes grocery shopping for two instead of one, likes that if she wants to buy a head of lettuce she doesn't have to have a salad every day to ensure that it doesn't go rotten before she finishes it. She likes buying more than microwave dinners and single serving size fat-free yogurt.
She likes having someone else to cook for if she feels like it. She likes having someone to cook for her on the days when some crisis keeps her at work until she's nearly too tired to drive, let alone cook.
She likes that there's someone to take her out to dinner to a place that requires her to dig in the back of her closet for a nice dress and heels when she is sick of wearing BDUs and boots. Likes that she's got someone to hold hands with, that she's with someone who has another set of keys when she locks hers in the car.
She likes knowing that Pete will be in her bed and she can take that for granted. She likes going to bed with Pete, knows that he'll most likely make her come, will go down on her if she wants him to and will convince her he doesn't mind, that he likes it. Likes that if she touches her tongue to the spot just under his ear he'll absolutely lose it, won't be able to stop from driving into her.
She likes that little bit of predictability in her life.
[][][]
The day she decides she can do nothing more to help the colonel is the same day she hands in her resignation.
She prints the letter, grabs the one (small) box of photos and mementos she wants from her lab, drops the letter onto the general's desk and leaves the SGC for good.
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She doesn't get out of bed for three days after she resigns. When Pete asks, she tells him she's just tired, but she knows he doesn't believe her and she's not surprised when she hears him on the phone with Daniel. She thinks it should worry her that her . . . that Pete feels the need to phone Daniel when something's wrong with her, to phone a man who holds the title of 'best friend' only by default, only because Janet's dead, because as much as she loves Cassie she's still too young sometimes, because Teal'c still doesn't always understand, hard as he tries.
She hears him bid Daniel goodbye and put the phone down, listens to his footsteps as he moves down the hall towards the kitchen, expects to hear the door opening, expects him to leave her alone, and instead hears the distinct electrical buzz of the TV being turned on.
She doesn't sleep. She doesn't do much of anything. For once her brain is quiet, and she can distract it by contemplating the crack in her ceiling and deciding whether or not she should paint, distracts it by noting that she really, really needs to get new curtains.
It's amazing how long she can think of trivialities if she really concentrates.
When she finally does get up, hair sticking all over the place and still in the same wrinkled Air Force Academy t-shirt and underwear she'd worn to bed, she finds him still sitting in front of the TV, eyes glazed over and not paying attention. She sits next to him, curls her legs under her body and leans into him, rests her head on his shoulder. His arm moves to pull her just a bit closer but he doesn't say anything and neither does she.
She only moves to pull the blanket off the back of the couch, and he only clicks the remote when the baseball game is over, settles on the news, his chest moving gently under her hand, up and down, up and down, constant.
[][][]
Two years and one day after he'd been frozen, she and Daniel agree to execute the colonel's will. Then they go out and get as drunk as she's ever been.
Pete and Sarah arrive as the bar is closing and she watches the other woman carefully maneuver Daniel into the car. She sees the look Sarah gives him, exasperation and annoyance but she still puts her hand on top of his head to protect it from hitting the doorframe as he slumps into the passenger seat, sees the way her hand lingers on Daniel's cheek as he speaks earnestly.
"She loves him." Pete looks up from unlocking the car, looks over at Sarah and Daniel.
"Yeah, she does. She must if she's willing to put up with him in this state." He pulls the door open and helps her in, stops her from bumping her head and hands her the seat belt.
The next day it occurs to her through the pounding of her headache that it must mean something that he's just as willing to put up with her in that state as well.
[][][]
She can always tell when one of her colleagues has seen her CV. They sidle up to her office door, lean casually on the frame and ask her what the hell she's doing teaching at a low rent community college in Colorado Springs.
She always smiles and waves a hand dismissively, deftly changes the subject (something she'd never really been good at before).
Her students like her. She has a reputation for being tough but fair, and that's enough for her.
She never thinks that the colonel would have thought it a waste of her time and talent and never thinks that maybe, secretly, he'd have approved.
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She wakes up in the middle of the night and //cannot breathe// because of the pain cramping her middle.
The academy hospital doctors tell her she was no more than a few months pregnant and miscarriage is common at this stage, that with her medical history she shouldn't be that surprised that her birth control was less than 100% effective. She thinks unkindly that Janet never had any problem regulating the dosage.
She tries not to think how much it scares her that she was pregnant and didn't know, that she couldn't somehow sense it, feel it.
She almost consciously doesn't think about the baby, doesn't think about what it would have meant for her and Pete, for her life.
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She's not really paying attention as she sorts through the mail until she comes across the envelope from her lawyers. Her hands don't tremble as she opens it, even though she kind of expects them to.
Inside there's two bills of sale waiting for her signature, one for the colonel's house and the other for his cabin.
She sets them on the island in the kitchen and hunts around in her bag for a pen. Two quick scribbles on the lines marked for the executor of the estate and she folds the papers back up and stuffs them in the pre-addressed envelope so conveniently provided.
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She tries not to think of it as settling. There's more to it than that. If she's not completely happy, then, well, she's at the very least content and content counts for a lot with her.
Before this, before Pete, before teaching, before it felt comfortable not to put her dog tags on in the morning, her life had been frantic. Rush and not and rush and not, saving the world one day, two weeks of leave the next. Those who shared her life seemed to be the same, Daniel with his almost manic highs and lazy lows influencing SG-1 beyond what any of them could have expected. Even before, she'd allowed herself to be swept along by Mark's teenage rants, by Jonas' dark periods, by those around her in the lab, the academy, the field.
She's never really had stability (as much as her work at the SGC was normally 9-5, it was always eight or more hours of ups and downs) except maybe in her work, in her research, when she could get lost in her own head space.
Now, with teaching, with Pete, without the 9-5, her life is stable. And she is content with this new pace, even if she sometimes has to convince herself it's contentment and not boredom.
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Cassie and Pete don't exactly get along, but they don't not get along either.
She thinks it's because Cassie doesn't know him, met him right after her mother died and right before the closest thing she'd had to a father on earth disappeared (not that she knew exactly what had happened to Jack; that was classified, even if every part of the Stargate program no longer was, thanks to Anubis) and had left for school shortly after.
Cassie never says anything about Pete, never says she doesn't like him, is rarely less than unfailingly polite to him, responds when he tries to start conversation but never volunteers anything of herself.
Cassie makes it to her place for the odd Christmas or Easter, most often after she's missed the previous few holidays. And so three Thanksgivings since Janet died (and two since Jack, for all intents and purposes, died) she and Cassie sit on her back porch.
Cass is silent as Pete brings them coffee, watches carefully as he drops a kiss on Sam's head before going back inside.
"What?"
Cassie doesn't exactly start, but she does pause, takes a sip of her coffee, doesn't exactly make eye contact with Sam. "This isn't how I expected things to be." And she doesn't exactly look sad, so much as resigned.
[][][]
The third anniversary of their defeat of Anubis is only two weeks away when General Hammond calls.
He sounds happy, relaxed. Tells her to call him George but she can't. Tells her they're having a little get together, some of the people from the SGC, and they'd all love to see her since it's been so long.
She's a little embarrassed she has to check her schedule to see if she's free, is embarrassed she hadn't exactly remembered that the anniversary was coming up, and is a little relieved when she sees she's got a conference she's attending in Denver that weekend.
The general sounds disappointed and she offers to call him soon so they can get together. He agrees and she wonders if he knows she mostly likely won't call.
He talks a little about his granddaughters and life as a retiree and she thinks he sounds a little bored. Happy, but like maybe he misses the action , misses being in the middle of it and she almost wants to say "Me too."
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She's been careful; her birth control is now carefully monitored by her doctors and she and Pete rarely have sex without a condom. But even so, accidents happen, and a broken condom isn't that out of the ordinary.
She cleans up and by the time she returns from the bathroom, Pete is softly snoring in the middle of the bed. She slides into her side, clings to the edge of the bed and tries not to think about what might have just happened.
Two weeks later at the breakfast table, he casually mentions his partner is looking into adoption, offers it up as an option for the two of them. Says "Of course, we'd have a better chance if we were married," and she thinks maybe it's a proposal.
She focuses on that because she's blindsided. Somehow this man has made his way so deeply into her life he wants to marry her, wants to have children with her. She still thinks of him in her house as some sort of transitionary thing (life before the colonel, life after the colonel, she's just stuck in the year zero).
She expects Pete to move out, to make some sort of demand on her when she doesn't answer, when all she can do is shake her head no. She hopes he thought she couldn't speak because she was too overcome with emotion, hopes he never knows it was fear, clawing at her throat.
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Four years since Anubis' attack, Jennifer Hailey calls in late March, asks if she'd mind taking a look at something, just for old times sake. She almost refuses, nearly can't stand the thought of entering the SGC again, after she'd turned her back on it so easily (on the colonel so easily, because the years have made her forget).
The captain meets her on surface, and oh, she remembers this, this bubbling enthusiasm that took more than years underground to wear away. She doesn't miss it, just dreams about it sometimes, that first step through the wormhole.
Hailey leads her into her old lab, and she's a little relieved that someone is putting it to good use. Her greatest fear (well, one of them anyway) was that her leaving would have some sort of irreversible, detrimental effect on the SGC, and no one would ever fill her combat boots.
She's not surprised Hailey stepped right in, all five feet, no inches of her. She's smart and creative and exactly who she'd want taking her place. She's pretty sure the colonel would make fun of her for thinking so highly of herself even as he acknowledged the truth of it, but she's trying so hard not to think of him.
There's something sleek and silver sitting on the lab bench and her fingers almost itch to touch it. As satisfying as teaching is, it isn't this and never will be, facing threats with gun in hand and spending days on end examining the spoils of war.
It's not the device to which the captain directs her attention but a flat screen TV that's a new addition to the lab Hailey offers her a seat and she takes it only because the younger woman seems to think she'll need it.
Hailey presses a button and a mini disc drive pops out. She leans across the bench and grabs the disc sitting next to the device. She smiles a little, then pops it into the drive.
Fuzz, and this is obviously from a MALP recorder. Then Rodney McKay on the screen, and she takes a deep breath, knows where he is if not what he's been doing the last four years.
He looks different, face weary and a scar bisecting his right cheek. This is not the man who once opposed her with so much hubris.
He looks left, right, his eyes darting everywhere but at the camera, and she waits as his eyes finally seem to settle on something slightly off camera.
"Dr. Carter. Hi. Major Carter, though Major Shepard tells me you're probably not a major anymore. So. Sam." He pauses and she smiles, just a little, remembers this man.
"We . . . I can't even begin to tell you what we've seen out here. It's . . . incredible." and she believes him, because it would take a lot to leave McKay speechless.
"We, ah, heard about Colonel O'Neill, just before we left, and we've never really forgotten him. So, and I'm sure you probably fixed him years ago, but still, we think this device might help if you haven't." And he holds up the thing resting on Hailey's desk.
"We're not exactly sure what it does, but I'm pretty sure and Elizabeth, uh, Dr. Weir, is almost certain it will fix everything."
She tunes out as he explains what he knows, turning instead to the device and Captain Hailey, who's waiting with an anticipatory expression.
"I can't figure it out, Major." Hailey picks it up, sets it back down and shoves it in her direction. "It's not like anything I've ever seen before."
Sam nods, uh-huh's, already absorbed.
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She doesn't quite cancel lecture that week, instead foists it off on one of her teaching assistants, tells herself he was ready for it.
She ignores email, turns off her cell, only speaks to Pete when he arrives at the Cheyenne Mountain security gate and refuses to leave until he speaks with her.
She loves this man, she does, but she can't quite explain to his satisfaction why she has to figure this puzzle out, why she will not leave the mountain until she's figured out how to unfreeze the colonel, until she sees him, alive and whole again.
And yes, she knows Pete loves her, and yes, she understands she shouldn't risk her own health and yes, she should come home and sleep in her own bed because no, she's not in the military anymore, but she can't give up on the colonel when she's this close to getting him back and yes, she understands Pete won't play second fiddle to a guy who's been out of her life for four years while she's shared her life with him.
They stand there, three feet away from the airman on duty who is conspicuously not listening, chests heaving and his eyes saying something she's pretty sure she doesn't understand. She loves him, she does, but why can't he see how important this is, and not just for her? The colonel doesn't deserve to spend an extra second frozen in that cave, not if she can save him.
Pete runs a hand through his thinning hair, turns away, then looks back at her, and she feels like she's missing something again, something important.
"Okay." He says in a rush of breath and with a shake of his head. "Okay."
[][][]
Daniel has clearly been working for the military too long because he arrives at some point and orders both her and Hailey to take a break for sleep.
The captain, clearly not used to this side of the venerable Dr. Jackson, heads straight for her quarters, while she stays and stares Daniel down.
"Sam-" he starts, but she cuts him off.
"I am this-" she hold up her fingers, millimeters apart, "this close to figuring this out. This close." Her voice dies a little at the last.
He nods and she's forgotten how incredibly kind his eyes could be, how sometimes she used to want nothing more than to lay her head down, bury her face in his chest and let him fix everything.
He sees that, damn him, and pulls her to him, wraps both arms, strong and warm and so, so Daniel, around her, and suddenly it's four years ago and nothing has changed.
"I do understand, you know." His voice is low and comforting, the tone the same as the one she'd heard him use so long ago when Sarah was confused or frightened. She feels him inhale, exhale.
"But he can wait a little longer Sam. He's waited so long already, what difference will a few hours make?" She knows he knows that was the wrong thing to say as she feels him pull her a little closer in response to how tight every muscle in her body suddenly becomes.
"Sam, he wouldn't want you to kill yourself over him. He'd want you to get some sleep." She knows it's true, knows Daniel is right, except she'd given up on him three years ago and she needs to somehow atone for that.
[][][]
She wakes up on what she knows is an Air Force bunk. What she can't quite figure out is why Pete is there with her.
She rolls over, and instead of finding Pete, comes face to face with a fully-clothed Daniel.
He sleeps and she smiles. Loves this man, her friend, the only living man left on earth who knows who she is, what she's been through and something tells her that isn't right.
She stands at the side of the bed and straightens her jeans and t- shirt and tries not to think that it's strange to be in this room and not in uniform.
She opens and shuts the door silently, checks her watch and figures she'd slept at least seven hours. Daniel has gotten soft in the last few years. He'd always been up before her.
She asks the airman who is obviously guarding her if she can shower and he leads her to the old locker room.
It's almost eerie, the smell of military issue soap, the way the BDUs the airman brings fit exactly like they did four years ago. She can almost convince herself she'd never left, that she hadn't given up.
She runs into Siler on her way to the lab and his eyes almost bug out of his head. He's too professional to show it, greeting her with a simple "Ma'am" and nod of the head.
The lab feels like home, and she's down to work and completely absorbed for three hours before Hailey arrives.
[][][]
Hailey pulls up a file for her and she scans the notes, recognizes Daniel's distinctive prose and it triggers something, and suddenly she knows, picks the device up and slide, click, slide, and it opens to reveal a softly glowing ball, and this is it. This is it.
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She's never missed General Hammond more than when it takes her hours to get in to see the base CO. Eventually, General Woodbine hears her out and it only takes him next to forever to approve her plan and arrange for a transport to Antarctica for her and Daniel.
It's nearing dawn when she goes home, goes because Daniel drives her. She remembers this, remembers being found slumped over her lab bench, remembers being too tired to drive, remembers someone making arrangements to get her home.
She smiles at Daniel and stumbles her way up the path to her front door. Keys in lock and she's shrugging off her jacket and it takes her a second to remember who owns the jacket that is next to her empty hanger in the closet. *Pete.*
Into the kitchen and she hears her front door shut, figures Daniel's followed her in, just like old times. Hears him come in behind her as she sees the note from Pete on the table.
//Not that you care// and she squeezes her eyes shut because she does care, is now wondering why Pete isn't home. A quick glance further down the paper reveals he's working a double shift and she'll be gone before he gets off.
He'd written his work number at the bottom of the note, like she might not remember it, and she stares at it, stands and stares until Daniel comes up behind her and pries it from her fingers, sets it on the counter, glances at it.
"Do you want to call him?" and she remembers this Daniel. Shakes her head no, because she's barely coherent due to fatigue and what would she say at this point anyway?
She goes to her (their, she knows this, she does, she's just tired) bedroom, roots around, finds Pete's done laundry and pulls on her most comfortable pajamas, wanders into the bathroom and brushes her teeth and combs her hair. Turns off the lights and pulls back the covers.
Daniel enters the room after the tell-tale swish of blankets being pulled up and she loves that gentlemanly part of him. He reaches down, pulls the covers up a little more, smoothes her hair and sighs.
"Thank you." It's only a whisper, and she's almost surprised she manages that.
"Sleep, Sam." And she does.
[][][]
Daniel wakes her before the sun rises the next morning. He looks tired so she digs in the back of the fridge and pulls out the good coffee Pete thinks is a waste of money, brews a full pot and pours a cup for them both.
He waits while she throws a few things into a bag, knows most of what she needs will be provided by the SGC but throws in a couple pairs of underwear, some socks, sweaters and a few pairs of jeans, just in case.
She sets her stuff next to Daniel's bag in the trunk and calculates times, distances, figures how long it must have taken him to get to his place, pack and come back to get her. Figures he didn't have time to sleep. Takes the keys out of his hands and drives back the mountain. She's done the same in the past.
[][][]
She stands in nearly the same spot she'd stood four years ago, and doesn't know whether to be relieved or not that he hasn't changed at all. She's the one to whom the years have added lines and grey hair.
"Sam," Daniel, behind her, hand on her shoulder. He understands a little and she nods.
She just needs a minute. Closes her eyes and takes a deep breath, fights the absolute terror that is sitting like a cold lump in her stomach and walks forward. Opens the device and watches the ball begin to glow, sees the metal surrounding the colonel seem to absorb the light, begin to pulse faintly.
She's more still than she has ever been as she watches the frame glow and glow and increase in intensity until she can't see him anymore, can only see the light but can barely allow herself to blink, eyes streaming with tears of pain from the brightness.
Then it's suddenly dark and it blinds her more than the light. She can hardly see at all but steps forward, feels Daniel at her side and hears the SFs behind her step closer.
She reaches out a hand and knows it goes past where the ice once was, keeps going and going and going until it is stopped, fingers hitting cotton and she can feel him underneath his shirt, warm muscle and beating heart.
She knows she should pull her hand back but can't quite make herself, even when the pressure against her fingertips increases and she feels him move forward.
It takes her a moment to realize he's falling and she doesn't quite brace herself properly to take his weight and she thinks she's got him, thinks they're okay, suspended there, until gravity takes over and it's all she can do to lower herself to the ground, to let him slump against her.
Hands are on him in a second, dragging his dead weight off her and Daniel is helping her up and she's this close to panicking, thinking she did something wrong until she looks over and sees his eyes. The colonel's eyes are open just a little, open enough to see her and Daniel and she sees recognition as they settle back on her and suddenly, after four years, everything is normal again and the ground seems to finally firm up under her feet.
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She'd almost forgotten she doesn't work in the mountain anymore. The airman at the gate stops her, requests id, makes her wait while he calls Hailey and a part of her can't believe she has to go through this, as if she's nothing more than a visitor.
Hailey sends the okay and thank god someone called ahead because all she has to do is sign in before she's allowed onto the second levator.
The doors open at level 21 and two airmen wait with an empty gurney. And even though she could fit on with them, it's as easy to take the stairs at this point.
And it's not like she's actually eavesdropping, it's just that the sound from the infirmary sometimes carries into the hallway if you stand in just the right spot. That much hasn't changed at least.
"Four years? Are you *serious*?" And for a second it is *exactly* like old times, and when the nurse taps her on the shoulder she almost expects it to be Janet.
"Ma'am?"
"Sorry, I was looking for Captain Hailey." And she escapes into the corridor before anyone else notices she is here.
Hailey's waiting and hands her a file full of reports to sign and she tries not to think of how four years before she'd have been two levels above.
[][][]
She arrives at his front door and it's nothing like four years ago. She'd woken up this morning and knew she had to come talk to him, wouldn't allow herself to make any excuses, wouldn't allow herself to drive around the block twenty times before she finally stopped.
He stares and she doesn't know how to feel so she takes a half step forward so that he opens the door a little wider and she steps in.
"Jack." And his eyebrows almost shoot off his forehead. Something is wrong but she doesn't know what so she tries to plow on. "We need to talk."
He stands there, just as inscrutable as four years ago. Finally, finally he nods and heads into the living room. She follows, remembers this, is thankful he doesn't offer her a beer or coffee or anything because she doesn't think she could wait the thirty seconds he would be out of her sight.
She's fighting the strange urge to cling to him, to not let him out of her line of vision at all for fear of the last few days being some sort of complex, believable hallucination. Nearly everything but that one confused part rebels at the notion so she doesn't, instead allows herself to blink.
He sits down and she watches, realizes he must have just gotten out of the shower because the button fly on his jeans isn't completely done up and his hair is still damp and sticking up all over the place, and she swallows heavily and sits next to him. Fiddles with her sweater hem.
"I couldn't-" A quick glance in his direction and he's not meeting her eyes "-really believe you were back." Another glance at him and now he's at least looking at her, even if he's not smiling.
"I missed you." There. It's out. One quick statement, like removing a band aid.
She waits. Looks anywhere but at him. Waits to hear him at least begin to fidget. She knows him that well at least.
Waits.
Finally she looks at him, sees him sitting there watching her. She doesn't know what to do, looks at her hands and thinks //why doesn't he understand?//
He clears his throat and she can't quite meet his eyes. "So, congratulations, I guess."
Her eyes shoot up to meet his. *What?*
"Daniel said you and Pete . . . " He clears his throat. "You and Pete. Congratulations." He sounds sincere and exactly like she'd imagined him saying that, those nights before he'd been gone when she'd tried to prove to herself she was over him.
"We're not- it's not - it's complicated." She sees him nod. He knows this about her. Relationships with Samantha Carter are *complicated..* He knows this about them.
This isn't going as she imagined it would. To be honest, if it were as she'd imagined it, she wouldn't be sitting on the opposite side of the couch from him right now. Except this makes a hell of a lot more sense than what she'd imagined.
She needs to bridge the gap and she doesn't know how. Her hand is moving and she's not sure how that happened. They never did touching well and she's pretty sure this isn't a step in the right direction.
It lands on his leg and he just hides his flinch, but she can't pull her hand back, so it sits there, awkward, resting just above his knee, unwanted.
"Carter-" Such contrast to her conscious effort to use Jack. "You gotta realize, it hasn't been four years for me." She'd never really thought of that. And she's glad he didn't feel time pass because that would just add another layer of guilt.
He is quiet. "But it has been, and you've moved on and I-" She wants to interrupt him, to try to explain, but he won't let her. "I need to figure out how to do that." He pauses, doesn't quite look at her. "I just - what are you doing here, Carter? What do you want?"
Her answer isn't easy, but it's finally clear after four years: you. But he hasn't had four years and she suddenly realizes this, coming to him and expecting an immediate happy ending was a mistake. So she stands, pulls her hand away.
Different from standing here so long ago. "I should go." He nods.
"Yeah. You should. But we'll talk about this. Soon." She nods and is so, so embarrassed. Bites her lip and turns away and is out the door before he can say anything else, before she can convince him to let her stay.
She's always been a bit of a coward when it comes to him.
[][][]
They, quite predictably, don't talk about it. She's got to figure out what she's doing with her job, with Pete, and he's dragged back under the mountain for another round of tests and another set of debriefings, or at least that's what Daniel tells her.
She goes to her department chair, explains she had a family emergency, offers her apologies and he forgives her.
Pete is not so simple, and she knows he won't give her up without a fight. For a second she is fiercely glad he won't, is happy and amazed and loves him for it.
And then the phone rings and the call display tells her that it's a blocked number, reads the way any call coming from the SGC reads and her heart jumps and her pulse speeds up and he sees it. He must see it.
"I can move out." She wants to offer something after he'd given up so much for her but he shakes his head and walks out of their house. She doesn't know where he'll go.
She's a little bit angry. She knows Pete was attracted to Major Sam Carter, but fell in love with the post-SGC Sam Carter, but she's never thought that she'd changed so much, but in this second she realizes she has changed and she doesn't exactly like who she is now. Likes the Sam from before better, likes the Sam who wasn't quite so willing to settle.
[][][]
"How much do you remember?" She's not sure how else to bring it up, so she tries the less than direct approach.
They're sitting on his back porch, and she's not sure how she got here, except she thought she was on her way to the grocery store and somehow she'd ended up here, sitting next to him on the steps to his new house, drinking Guinness out of a bottle. Again.
And they'd sat and done the not talking bit for quite sometime until she'd decided that she'd had enough, even if he hadn't. So she'd asked, not sure how to bring it up.
"Remember what?" She wants to look at him, see if he's stalling or honestly doesn't know. He'd always been able to play stupid.
"When you were - after- y'know." Hands waving in the air and she thinks she hears a quiet snort- "But before. . . " She can't quite put words to the whole thing, those three days that defined the last five years.
"Ah. Well." Pause for a sip of beer. "Everything, I think. But I guess I wouldn't know." She nods and knows he's not letting her get away with anything. She doesn't remember that about him, thinks that maybe it's new, wonders if it's a product of nearly five years going by without him realizing it, a product of the changes he's had to adjust to.
She waits and drinks her beer, works her way through the bottle because then she'll have to stay an hour and he knows that too, drains his own bottle and sets it down on the side away from her.
She wishes they did silence better.
Only a mouthful left now and it's far past time she should have said something. "On the ship, on the way to Proklarush." She hears the breath he takes.
"You said you knew." Her voice is unsteady and she stops to take her own breath, a pause, then in a rush, "I don't think you do." She's not willing to have it lie there, unsaid, between them.
And she's gone this far, so she turns, just a little, to look at him, and he's not looking back. She waits and waits and he doesn't look at her, so she reaches out and brushes his arm with just the tips of her fingers, repeats herself. "I don't think you do."
Because she hadn't known, four, nearly five years ago. She hadn't know what it was like to lose him, to fail him, to be a genius, to save the world time and again and not be able to save him, such an important part of *her* world. And she'd let that world crumble, had given up on the SGC, had given up on her friends, given up on herself, and she hates him just the tiniest bit for making her act like she has, for giving up, for inviting a good man to share her life because she couldn't find the energy or interest to ask him to leave, to realize that while she loved Pete, maybe she wasn't in love with him and maybe that was what made all the difference.
She knows that the man sitting beside her didn't know because she hadn't known until she'd pulled that ball from its metal casing, letting its warmth wash down her arm and into her body before somehow, somehow directing it towards him, until she'd seen him, breathing and thinking and being again.
And it's not that she's sure she's in love with him. She's not. She just hadn't realized, hadn't acknowledged how important he'd been.
She's so afraid that she would have lived her life the way she has been, would have stayed with Pete because being with him was easy, was comfortable, would have slowly forgotten about Daniel, about her life under the mountain, if McKay hadn't sent the device back through the Stargate.
He nods, takes her out of her head. "Maybe I don't." And that's it, followed by a swallow of beer and she thinks she'll always associate him with this, dark beer and a setting sun and never wanting to hear the words.
[][][]
She stays up all night grading papers, trying to make herself fall asleep.
At five AM she gives up, can't make her eyes focus anymore and finds herself distracted by the birds singing outside of her window.
She goes to the kitchen, fills the kettle and stares sightlessly out the window. The shrill whistle of the boiling kettle wakes her from her daze and she opens the cupboard to grab a mug and stops, staring down at the words across the side.
//Denver PD District 2//
[][][]
He's hardly got the door open before she starts speaking.
"You said I should've called, and so I thought maybe you wouldn't mind if I called. But then I was in my car and I was here and - I woke you up. This was a bad idea." She doesn't look at him, just turns and is halfway down the walk before he catches up to her.
"Carter." She forces herself to make eye contact, is grateful for the darkness because she can't really see anything in it.
"Carter-" He tries to start again and some part of her is happy he's finding this as difficult as she is. He scrubs a hand through his hair and if nothing else is clear, she knows she did wake him up.
He sighs and she remembers this, him sounding so weary. "Come inside." She nods mutely, walks with him up the path, trying not to notice how he hasn't quite been able to make himself drop her arm.
The hall light glares and he reaches out and hits the switch, settling them into darkness. She did wake him and she should go.
"I should-"
He cuts her off. "Stay. Just . . . stay." And his grip on her arm loosens, his hands moving up her shoulders to pull her sweater off. She's pretty much in her pajamas, jeans thrown on over shorts and a cardigan covering her tank top.
She watches as he throws it over the back of a chair, then turns to face her. She doesn't know what to do now, hadn't thought this far ahead.
The silence stretches and stretches and even though her eyes are slowly adjusting to the faint moonlight filtering through the open windows, she can't quite make out his expression, can't quite read him.
"I-"
"Ah!" And that she knows, one hand held up to silence her, so like before she smiles, just a little, and sees him smile back, sees his shoulders relax, watches him take a step forward.
"You can't tell me you're not tired. You look tired." And she is, she just can't quite fall asleep, can't shut her brain off, can't stop thinking about him and her and Pete and the last four years and the seven before that. Wishes she could but can't. Wishes there was an easy way to measure two men, one who had slipped into her life so effortlessly, the other who she's fought the entire way.
So she doesn't say anything, just nods. She's been tired for eleven years now. It's been a long time.
He sighs again and she watches his shoulders rise and fall, suddenly realizing exactly how remarkable it is that he's standing in front of her, alive and whole and coherent, so she takes a step towards him, then waits.
He doesn't quite look at her, doesn't quite make eye contact (that much she can tell, even in the darkness), just reaches out and wraps a hand around her wrist, leads her down the hall and into his bedroom.
Leads her to his bed, pulls back the wrinkled covers and motions for her to get in. She slides in between the sheets and they are still warm from the heat of his body and she moves her head a little, settles deeper into the pillow.
He stands by the edge of the bed watching her, and she *is* tired. He was right and that's a little bit annoying. After all this time he still knows her so well.
He reaches down and she freezes, not sure what he's doing until his hands grasp covers, pulls them over her body and up under her chin.
*This isn't right* and she stops him, a hand reaching up and pulling the covers down, just a little. Moves his hand and lifts the corner, invites him in.
He hesitates and she wants to say something, to say *sir* or *Jack* or maybe just *please*but is still afraid. More than four years and a couple of weeks and they are on different levels with this.
But he must see something in her face, or maybe he's just tired too and doesn't want to sleep on the couch because he takes the covers from her hands, slides in next to her, pulls the covers up to his chin and lies on his back.
She stares across his chest to the clock on the nightstand, doesn't know what to do, just knows she's going to fall asleep very quickly now that she's here.
"Goodnight" so soft she barely feels the air escape from between her lips, lets her eyes close, takes a deep breath, burrows in.
"Night, Carter," and she feels him roll over, feels one hand on the arm that is tucked under the pillow, feels his foot brush her shin lightly.
She hopes she's recognizing his actions for what they are, thinks they are an attempt to cross the imaginary boundary eleven years and the entire Air Force has created between them as she keeps her eyes closed but shuffles towards him just a little.
She can now feel his breath on her forehead and she opens her eyes just a little to see him laying there watching her, and she smiles, not quite believing he's here. That she's here.
His hand circles her arm a little more firmly and she sighs, closes her eyes, her smile reduced to turned up corners.
"Night, Carter," he repeats and his voice, his breath, his presence lulling her to sleep.
[][][]
Is it only skin I touch,
or is it just the dust
settling?
- Tara MacLean, Settling
[][][]
Story Notes: EMAIL: elly427@angstnromance.net
DATE: July 8, 2004
ARCHIVE: Yes - SJD
CATEGORY: PG, Angst, Sam/Pete, Sam/Jack
SPOILERS: Everything up to LCII is fair game.
AUTHOR'S NOTES: Thanks to Lyss and Karen, who both said `I'll read that' when I was going crazy.
DATE: July 8, 2004
ARCHIVE: Yes - SJD
CATEGORY: PG, Angst, Sam/Pete, Sam/Jack
SPOILERS: Everything up to LCII is fair game.
AUTHOR'S NOTES: Thanks to Lyss and Karen, who both said `I'll read that' when I was going crazy.
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 ]