***
"My fingers search for you while I sleep Looking for something to keep -- help me feel what you feel." - Show Me, Bree Sharp (used without permission)
***
That's what happened.
We don't care if you don't like it, we don't care if you don't believe it. It just isn't important to us how you think or feel. What's important is that you know the truth. That you heard it from us, in our own words, from our own minds and memories. It's important to us that you know more than times, dates, places and names. We don't care how much weight your parents or professors might put on those things, what matters the most to us is that you understand the people behind the orders, behind the actions.
|| Jack O'Neill ||
Even now, the memories are fresh and wonderful. Bluffing my way through security, leaving the reporter, Shannon Biggs, to flounder in my wake. Smashing into a solid wall of sensation that was unlike anything I'd ever experienced. It was what told me that Biggs had been telling me the truth.
My feet guided me to the infirmary almost automatically; it just seemed natural that Sam would be injured, and that she would then be brought here to recuperate from whatever had lead to her long separation. But I'd forgotten - somehow, someway - all the changes that had taken place. Janet Frasier was no longer in control of this room, she was no longer the voice of authority here. A large man, a hulking man, a man with arms the size of my neck from which hung dropping white sleeves, intercepted me.
My adrenaline seemed to skyrocket with every step I took; every fiber in my being protested when I stopped. "Where's Carter?"
The doctor - I could only assume - flinched, and covered it with a half-hearted smirk. "I don't have to answer that."
The few social skills I'd possessed before the fiasco had totally disintegrated beneath time and stress. "Listen, the name's General Jack O'Neill, and I need to see her, now."
The man was less than helpful, and actually took a step towards me. "I don't care who you are. This is a secured area."
I fumed. The last time I could remember being this incensed was... well, it was during a time in my life that I didn't like to think about. A period that had been a major turning point in my life, and in the lives of my friends. "Where the hell is she?" I demanded, still going for the direct approach, but my rage seemed lost on the doctor.
"I don't know who you're talking about," he said glibly.
If he'd been a couple feet shorter and a few hundred pounds lighter, I would have been all over the insolent, contemptuous asshole... but considering the odds, I wouldn't even bet on myself. I'd have to stick with words... but what I wouldn't give for a Zat gun. "Don't give me that crap, Doc."
It was a combination of motion and feeling that captured my attention from the monster's stuttered reply. A change, a shift, a suddenly awareness that, for the first time in over a year, I wasn't alone.
I heard the reporter, who'd been standing in the doorway, gasping her breaths, mutter an oath. And then I turned, and I saw Sam.
The doctor faded into unimportance. If he left, I never noticed.
There was so much to see, so much to feel, that I was overwhelmed, and actually blanked out for a moment or two. I felt my jaw slacken, felt my eyes begin to prickle as I fought the reflex to blink. One second, I was sure, and she would be gone, it would all be a dream, and then, I was equally sure, I would die. One second. Maybe she wasn't here at all. She looked different. Her face was thinner than it had been when I'd seen her last, her cheekbones and eyes sunken and shadowed, not quite to the point of gauntness, but dancing on its edge. The tunic she wore was simple and drab, the color of sand, and it hung on her shoulders lifelessly. She looked so thin, so tired... and so alive. So here. So four feet away from me.
My mind returned to me sluggishly; the commands I issued to my body was noticeably delayed. "You never wrote back," I charged, stumbling over the words and then wanting to kill myself over them. I noticed the reporter vaguely, standing behind Sam, at the door, and agreed with the way she rolled her eyes.
Sam's arms wrapped around her own body; I envied them. She seemed to tremble. Was she cold? Or was she simply feeling the same thing I was: tiny tremors racing through my body, setting me quivering, shaking, as though I'd had too much caffeine? Her voice, though soft and quaking, was easily the most heavenly sound that had ever blessed my ears. "They told me you were dead," she all but whispered, and a rush of anger, so fierce that we both winced, flared up inside me. "I never... I never got any letters."
The small room seemed utterly cavernous, as cold and empty as the vacuum of space, silent and bare, as though waiting for me to fill it. But I'd never been good with words, had never been eloquent with them when placed on the spot, when left dangling on a line. Unexpected panic rose in my gorge, and oddly I found my gaze redirected to Biggs, who continued to observe us from the doorway. Her eyes widened and her eyebrows rose, and I imagined she was prompting me, urging me.
Sam shook. Strands of hair hung in her face and fluttered there. Her eyes sought mine behind the overgrown bangs, and her pain and fear of rejection caught me like a physical blow. I could think of only one way to take that hurt away.
My motivation wasn't purely unselfish.
I bridged the distance between us in a single step, read no hesitation in her expression, and then bridged the spiritual gap. My arms found their way to her slim waist and snaked around it, feeling her spine stiff and tense beneath her jacket material. I pulled her against me, soliciting her back to arch responsively rather than snap in two. She didn't just bend, she didn't simply relax, she collapsed against me, and clung to me, as if her hands were the only body part with any remaining strength, and she was relying on them to support her fully. Her body shook more forcefully, though now the reason was obvious; her rattling breaths - as her chest rose and fell against mine - were a dead giveaway. She was crying, and look, I was too. Against my will, but with hers, an accompaniment to her exhausted euphoria. If she felt half of what I did - and I knew she felt all of it - she had to be deluged in pure emotion. Something I'd locked myself away from since I'd lost her.
My better half.
"God, I missed you," she choked.
Words refused to come; they lodged in my throat and threatened to throttle me. I touched the back of her head, her gleaming hair, the precious mind beneath it. The only reply I was capable of making was a series of exultant nods; my chin knocked against the top of her head, and I felt deep down - beyond reservation and mistrust - that she understood better than a thousand words might have conveyed.
That was what had always made Samantha Carter so special to me. Not what she said, not what she could do, not how she looked. Instead, she was special because of the way all those things made me feel. I loved her because of the person I was when I was with her. The rest, well, the rest was all icing. All extra, all a bonus. Anyone who had managed to revive the hard, deadened soldier I'd let myself become was special indeed.
"I'm so sorry I left," she whispered.
"I'm sorry I let you go."
She pulled her head off my chest and stared up at me, eyes glistening with tears. The hands that gripped the front of my leather jacket relaxed, and slid further up towards my shoulders. My fingers spread across her back, anything to get closer to her, to be against her, to keep her near where there would never even be the possibility of a second departure. I found my gaze wandering to her lips, not out of trivial lust - that wasn't what any of this was about - but out of curiosity. If I tried to kiss her, tried to make right what I had made wrong, what had made her leave, would she let me?
She smiled at me; there was tiniest lifting of the lines of her face.
In response, I lowered my lips. Not to hers, but to the side of her mouth, her soft cheek; her arms tightened around my shoulders and pulled our faces closer. A chaste kiss, if a long one, a promise, a vow. As though contented, she dropped her head back down to my chest, where my arm and neck met. Ignoring the tempting expanse of her neck, I closed my eyes and placed my cheek where it touched her cold face. This wasn't about foreplay. This was about feeling the other, inside and out.
We stayed like that for a long time. And then we heard voices.
Familiar ones.
|| Janet Frasier ||
Seeing Daniel again was like shoving a limb into a wood chipper. Sure, it hurt, but when it was over and down, what could you really do about it?
Maybe I felt a little foolish, for not pursuing him when we'd separated at the ceremony, for not taking that kiss as something more than a rash mistake, hastily regretted. I'd had regrets of my own, and they'd come hard on the heels of the news of his engagement.
How could he love her? Not nearly as much as he had loved me. How long had he known her? A fraction of the time we'd been friends. And what could be mean to her?
Obviously, quite a bit.
Shamefully, I liked the way he looked at me: desperately, fearfully, even longingly. Trouble in paradise? Or was it just that the grass was always greener with this man?
Then I saw them, and all other thoughts left my mind as though banished.
Sam looked painfully thin; I found myself grateful for the color in her cheeks and the indomitable strength that shone through in her eyes. Her face filled me with awful guilt: for giving up on her, for assuming her dead, for not giving her enough credit for the magic she had worked before, and again.
Not an inch behind her was Jack O'Neill, who had, in my book, nearly achieved the same status of deceased. Dead to the world, at least. Dead in buried in a comfortable grave he'd dug himself, complete with easy chair and doorman. But now he had the same flush, the same shine, and though he didn't touch Sam, there was an staggering sense of closeness flooding over those of us there. There was a connection, an intrinsic, intimate bond that could not have been any more profound than if they had been making love.
Sam and Jack... one word, really, one being. Daniel and Lindsey. Teal'c and his country. Tony, Hammond, and oblivion.
Where the hell did that leave me?
|| Samantha Carter ||
Carefully, I pushed myself up on the edge of the infirmary bed, teetered, found my balance, and sat. Jack watched me carefully, met my eyes briefly, and then did the same, not coming too terribly close. There was a space of more than two feet between us; one moment it would look cold and hateful, and the next, it would be charged. I couldn't believe now much I felt for him, much more than I expected, much more than I could hope to convey.
Daniel sat across from me, suspiciously close to Janet, who watched him warily. His hair was shaggy, his eyes as vivacious as ever, and his manner almost prayerful. I supposed it wasn't every day someone he knew was raised from the dead. Every other day, maybe.
Janet's face was framed by her hair, her expression generally bright, yet gently disbelieving. There was an air of impossibility in the room; here we were again. Despite the odds, despite what fate had done to us and what we had done to ourselves and each other, we were all here. Almost.
And then Teal'c arrived, in a stiff, crisp suit that made me laugh for the first time in weeks.
We were all on the edge of tears, I believe, even him.
The others tearfully filled me in on their lives. Janet was working at the Academy Hospital, while Cassie still studied hard at Stanford. Daniel was teaching at a college in California; I got the impression that there was more news to tell, but it wasn't disclosed. Teal'c had 'run for' and been 'elected' a Senator; as amusing as it at first seemed, I wasn't all that surprised. I'd always known Teal'c to be a loyal follower with the inherent strength to lead... which described a Senator's role to perfection. It had been through Samuels, then the President, and then Teal'c that everyone else had learned of my return.
"So let me get this straight," said Daniel thoughtfully, after I'd rushed through my own distasteful tale. "You went through to the Tok'ra base with Martouf and Jadae, who was really Maretne. Martouf convinced you to stay, and lied to us at both ends. You ended up going on that mission to grab the Gou'ald Mother, only you were badly injured. Martouf and Maretne used that as an excuse to claim you were dead and whisk you off to P2C-260."
Janet picked up as Daniel paused for breath. "They made you think you were stuck there, and Martouf... he brainwashed you, tried to seduce you, to convince you... to help his faction. Somehow or other, you figured it out, escaped with Maretne to the Tollan, who basically gave Jadae her body back. The two of you went to go find your dad, but the Tok'ra were waiting for you. Martouf tried a second time to... reprogram you, but it was even less successful, and eventually your father and Jadae sprung you. Gated to another ship. Used some other planet as a point of origin, and here we are."
"Here we are," I agreed. "We had no way of knowing if the iris would open for Dad's code or not, but the ship Garshaw had sent us was falling apart at the seams; we had to try something. Thankfully, not everything's turned off down here. The computer still picked up the GDO signal, and someone down there okayed the iris opening."
"We may be in debt to Mr. Samuels for that," Teal'c groused quite stoically.
Janet frowned. "Why would he take the chance of it being a Gou'ald?"
"Sparky's dying for a claim to fame," Jack sighed. "Probably doesn't care what it's for."
"It was a risk," admitted Daniel, smiling softly at me. "One I'm really glad he took."
"Well, it doesn't matter what we think," Jack reminded them, and it seemed like we were slipping back in time, back to the old comfort we had shared. "That damn Pandora Act -- everything we do down here is subject to criticism from everyone up there. That's how they found out about the SGC in the first place."
"And how they decided they know all of us so well," Daniel bitterly agreed.
I placed my hands flat on my thighs. "So everyone really hates me?"
All four of them looked up, startled, apprehensive. It was all the answer I needed, all the information necessary to tell me I was right. I squirmed a bit; it was an uncomfortable piece of news. They were all heroes, all celebrities... but instead if being nicely mourned, I'd been twisted into some kind of traitorous villain. I'd always known public opinion was a strange and fickle thing, but this was ridiculous.
Daniel shrugged. "Yeah, most of them seem to think you left us for the Tok'ra."
"I DID."
He made a face: 'That's not what I meant'. "They seem to think you BETRAYED us for the Tok'ra."
"They needed someone to blame for the twenty-first ship," Janet added.
Teal'c finished: "And we have been unable to provide them with any answers."
My smile, I imagined, was tight. "So I'm a scapegoat. Great."
"It's only because they don't know the whole story," Daniel reasoned. "I mean, WE didn't know the whole story, not until right now. But when we tell them, we have to do it right."
"Why do we have to tell them anything?" I muttered. "I don't care what they think of me."
"We do."
I looked up at Jack and attempted a smile. Certainly it must have come out something closer to a grimace, but it was all I could do at the moment to express my thanks.
They fell silent, we all did. I don't know if they were thinking, exploring possibilities, maybe waiting for someone else to come up with something; I felt out of my league here, in this world that was only a year removed from the one I'd left, but so drastically different in so many ways.
"Where's Shannon?" Jack murmured; a pang went through my chest at the casual mention of a woman's name, a pang that attracted his immediate attention, as though he had felt it himself. Who was Shannon? Eyes still locked with mine, he tilted his head towards the door and yelled, "Hey, Biggs?"
Immediately, a face peered around the corner; it was the blonde woman I'd bumped into in the doorway. "Mr. O'Neill?" she replied nervously, and at once I relaxed.
"You still got that tape recorder?"
Staring at all of us, but especially me, the young woman came further into the room. There was a satchel slung across her neck and shoulder; she patted it. "Sure."
"How many tapes do you have?"
"Three..."
"How much time is that?"
A grin spread onto her face as she realized what was being asked of her; I found myself taking an instinctive liking to the woman, to her youth and vitality. She reminded me of someone. Someone like myself, not so long ago. "Three hours, Mr. O'Neill," she answered promptly.
Jack looked around the room at all of us, his gaze lingering on each face but stopping on mine. A brief flush of warmth coursed through me; how I knew it was a question, I haven't a clue, but I do know that I replied to it. "It's fine."
He hesitated, then nodded, and then looked back at Biggs. "Take a seat, Shannon," he entreated. "And... pull out that recorder. We've got a story to tell."
|| Jack O'Neill ||
Sometime within the telling of the story, in excruciating detail, Sam and I moved closer, and now we sit almost thigh to thigh. It fills me with a kind elation that's impossible to ignore, and surely more than I deserve. It's the indication of a second choice I never seriously thought I'd ever have.
I can tell she's overwhelmed by what we've had to say, by how things have changed since she left, and her contribution to that change. I notice off-handedly how clear and precise our memories are. I'm sure Julie Piper, who stands at her observation post in the doorway, would have something to say about that, if we let her get a word in edgewise.
Over the course of the two-and-a-half hours, Janet and Daniel have moved further away, and now totally ignore each other. The furtive eye contact that existed before is over, quick glances replaced by flushed cheeks. I'm surprised to hear of their clinch at the ceremony, not just because it seems so rash and out of character for them both, but because I'd never completely realized how intense their relationship was, from an emotional standpoint. I hold firm to what I said to Tony - they're both adults - but I can't help wishing there was something I could do.
Sam seems to read my mind. "I can't believe General Hammond's gone... and Tony..." She closes her eyes and sighs. "He was annoying, and he was... silly... but he really was a good friend."
"I'll make sure I tell him that."
I look up - we all do - at the man who stands in the doorway beside an stunned Piper. A hideous scar runs the length of his visage, sutured, puckered flesh from eyebrow to chin, as though someone had attempted to cut off his face, changed their mind halfway through, and sewn it back up. I actually notice the scar before I notice the face it mars, but eventually I pull back my perspective and gawk stupidly with the others.
Anthony Warren, in beat-up fatigues, still stained with dried blood at the collar, limps across the door and folds a bewildered Sam into a hug, grinning so hugely I'm afraid it'll reopen the wound. "God, Samantha, you're awesome," he enthuses, pulling back and beaming at me. "Did I hear you guys right? Were you planning my eulogy?"
I can only stare. "I heard on the news that your squad got caught in a crossfire. They lost radio contact..."
Tony makes a face. "Since when do you believe everything you hear on television? It was pretty hairy, I'll give you that, but we didn't get CAUGHT anywhere. Not exactly. When compared with aliens, those guys have NO imagination. Still," he adds, gesturing to his leg and face, "I managed to get myself injured enough to be sent back home. And what's awaiting me but a message from a Mr. Strickland, telling me to get my ass over to Cheyenne Mountain. I figured out the rest myself and hijacked myself a plane from Miami."
Janet gives a silent chuckle. "Welcome home, Tony."
He reaches over and ruffles her hair in response; she glares at him good-naturedly.
Daniel squirms, but offers a genuine "Glad to have you back."
NOW it's complete, I think, with a deep sense of satisfaction. Now everyone is here; I can even imagine I feel General Hammond's spirit with us, and Kawalsky's... the essences of all the names and faces on that green marble wall, congratulating us on this reunion.
A young Hispanic man, Daniel's aide, dashes into the room, glancing over his shoulder fearfully. "Guys, we've got company..."
"What the HELL is going on?"
Tony perks up at the words emanating from the hallway. "It's Colonel Sparky!"
Piper smiles at us. "Why don't all of you get out of here while you still can?"
Brushing her bangs from her eyes, Sam asks in a tired voice, "What about Dad and Jadae?"
"They're still resting? Then I'll cover for them... they were both exhausted and both host and symbiote need some time to refuel. Don't worry, Samuels won't be able to touch them," she assures us professionally. "Now, there's a motel about five miles down the highway..."
"I'm not leaving," interrupts Tony. "I don't care -- I just got home. Besides," he nods at Shannon and the aide, "these kids haven't had the full SGC tour."
"That might not be such a good idea..."
"Sure it is."
The doctor sighs.
I look over at Sam, and the squabbling fades away around us. Strangely enough, I feel as though I don't even need to ask the question on my mind, my lips, that I've already asked it and she's already answered it. Still, for the sake of tradition, I put words to my thoughts. "Do you want to stay here with your dad?"
She shakes her head almost imperceptibly; a slight current runs through me at her easy answer. When she raises one hand and places it atop mine on the coarse bedsheet, the current turns into a jolt, one that snaps through me as though I'd touched a live wire. We slip off the edge of the bed in tandem. I place my hand behind her, a millimeter from her back, to support her in case her shaky legs should fail. I don't even realize that everyone is watching until we're halfway out the door. "What?" I ask, centering the question on Daniel, who appears the most distraught of them all.
He flinches beneath my glare, but doesn't shy from answering. "Are you sure that's such a good idea?"
I cringe and wonder if he might have seen us earlier, embracing, crying... and then decide that I actually don't give a damn. Who is he to play babysitter for us, after all? Who is he to even comment on anyone else's life choices, when the ones he's made have been such ridiculous blunders. Teal'c, Shannon, the aide, Tony, and Julie Piper stare on in trepidation and anxiety, while Janet focuses her full attention on the floor and works her jaw nervously. "Why don't you worry about your own problems?" I offer coldly, and then usher Sam out of the old SGC, right under the nose of Colonel Bert Samuels.
The ride home is silent, but at the same time, a million things are said. A thousand times, I wish my SUV wasn't so large, that I could reach over and touch Sam's knee or hand without making a big deal out of it. I watch her out of the corner of my eye instead, her expression as the automobile traces the winding curves of the mountain roads, accelerates onto the highway, and eases us into Denver's commute traffic an hour later. "Everything looks the same," she muses, and then glances at me quickly, as though she hadn't meant to speak.
"I guess the changes aren't all that noticeable," I concede, and smile wryly. "It's only when you see your picture during the ten'o'clock news that it really hits you. That it isn't a secret any more."
It's nearly six'o'clock by the time I pull into the parking garage; the sky has begun to darken not just with the coming of night but with the coming of a storm. A draft snakes through the underground complex as Sam and I walk to the elevator, and once more she shivers. Without thought, I pull off my jacket and place it over her thin frame. Though she doesn't stop or even pull her pace, she looks up at me with a bemused expression, and I place the palm of my hand against her leather-clad back. The physical contact - however separated by layers of fabric - seems to warm her more than the coat.
She keeps her head lowered as we enter the lobby. It's a wise precaution. People around here have gotten pretty accustomed to seeing me sulking around by my lonesome... but never have they seen me go up to my apartment with a woman in tow. If the right people noticed, it would quite possibly be on the evening news before we reached floor 23. And that's not the only concern. Eventually, news of Sam's return will be leaked - or released - to the press, and the media circus will begin anew. The situation would only be worse if the wrong people knew how to find her, knew she was here. Which was why she had to come with me, and not stay on the base, or in some motel. For once, I would do my duty and keep her safe.
My jacket hides most of her tunic, and her tangled hair masks most of her features, but nevertheless I feel as though the walk from the front door to the elevator lasts a decade at least, that every person present makes a point to stare at us. They would have no reason to guess who this woman is, I try to reason, and when did you start caring who was staring at you?
The doormen at the elevator smile their standard smiles, but don't appear excessively curious as to the identity of my guest. Likewise, the car is empty, the ride upstairs without pause, and the walk down the hallway uninterrupted.
"Nice place."
The lights go on as we enter, showcasing first the tiled entryway, then the clustered coach, recliner, and entertainment system, and finally the desk, chair, and computer in the corner. This causes the kitchen lights to activate, spraying bright beams against the pearl-white appliances, which reflect down the hallway, towards my bedroom.
I nod a thanks and slide my jacket back off Sam's shoulders, feel something brush against my back, whirl, and see nothing, only an end table where a vase of silk lilies perpetually bloom.
"What's wrong?"
I roll my neck, attributing the sensation to a muscle twitch. "Nothing. Hey, when was the last time you ate?"
She grins, brushing her bangs off her forehead. "Something other than Tok'ra rations? Don't make me think about it."
I'm already heading for the phone. "What sounds good? I'll have room service bring it up."
"I don't care." She follows me closely, so closely we nearly collide when I stop at the table. "You've been living pretty well, haven't you?"
Her tone is soft, but the words strike me as an accusation. Here I've been bowed and catered to while she was fighting for her life, and her freedom. "I've been comfortable. But I wouldn't call it living."
She bites her bottom lip thoughtfully. "That twenty-first ship.... what do you think happened?"
I pick up the phone, and then put it down again. "Who knows? Maybe the Tok'ra goofed and there were no operatives onboard. Or maybe there was an operative but he wasn't able to get us the information. Maybe there was some problem in communications with the Tollan."
"That's not the answer I was expecting."
"Well... what were you expecting I'd say? That I think 'the Tok'ra masterminded the whole thing so that when they defeated the Gou'ald, they wouldn't have to worry about us trying to mitigate their power'? Is that it?"
"Basically."
"Hate to disappoint you, but I heard that one on CSPAN."
I move towards the kitchen, and again Sam tails me. She's uncomfortable here, I can feel it. This is my territory, I have the home-field advantage, and I also have the ability to destroy the bond forged between us. Or should that be, I STILL have that ability? "Listen, sir... Jack... I don't want to fight with you."
"We aren't fighting," I correct her, opening the refrigerator, withdrawing a beer, and setting it on the counter. It's become almost a reflex.
"Then what are we doing?" She raises her chin, staring up at me, irritated. This was hardly the direction I'd imagine we go our first night reunited, and I start to wonder at Daniel's wisdom. I'd assumed he didn't want Sam going home with me because he thought, quite frankly, that we wouldn't be able to keep our hands off each other... and that's partly true. With her cheeks flushed, her eyes snapping, her chest heaving in repressed anger, nothing could ever be so appealing as grabbing her, kissing her, tearing that detestable tunic off her body and securing what I always secretly hoped would someday be mine. But the anger is still there, demanding to be contended with, the same rage that had filled me those months after the incident in the chamber on 260. Not again, I command myself. I am not making that mistake again, not going to make her regret coming home, God damn it!
Without prelude, without warning, the beer bottle tips onto its side, rolls to the counter's edge, and plunges to the floor, where the thick glass does not shatter, but cracks into a half dozen pieces. Jumping back, Sam gasps and gapes at the spreading puddle of amber liquid. Instead of being similarly shocked, however, this display brings about a moment of revelation for me.
Maybe we DON'T have to contend with the anger; maybe that's what this has all been about. Ever since 260, our arguments had been things of horrendous proportion, screaming matches that filled me with such tension I expected to fly apart at the seams. Contending did nothing. It DOES nothing. It's a vicious circle, a cycle, one that was impossible to escape from because it simply grew in intensity, and all we got was backlash, backwash, the same terrible feelings recycled and strengthened with each passing minute. We were both so proud that we had never been able to let go, to be the bigger man, to stop it before it got out of control. And so it had always GOTTEN out of control, and the biggest repercussion had come when we couldn't withstand any more... and she had left me.
"Sorry," I mumble.
Sam's head bobs up and down as she looks from me to the broken bottle, and when she speaks again, the animosity present in her voice earlier is gone. She gestures to her ragged tunic. "I feel... filthy," she chokes out. "I just need to go... take a shower... if that's okay."
"Of course." Not only will it make us both feel better, it'll give us a second to recuperate, to regroup, and to banish the fury that had so quickly gained the upper hand. "There's towels under the sink."
"I know," she says softly, casting one last glance at the pooling beer before slipping into the shadows of the hallway. She knows where the shower is, where the towels are... and what I'm thinking. She knows a lot more than she's telling, and a lot more than I ever told her.
|| Samantha Carter ||
I tilt my face into the burning water, hoping the steam that rises from the stall won't set off any alarms and send the fire department running. That's the last thing we need.
Being here with Jack is right, I know it, but just because something's right doesn't mean it's easy. Fifteen minutes and our tempers are already flaring. Is that a bad sign? Or is it just A sign?
I pour a generous amount of shampoo into my cupped hand - I never knew he used this brand - and massage it unmercifully into my scalp. It's not only that I haven't had a good, boiling-hot shower in far too long, or that my clothes were almost plastered to my body. The filth and the tunic signified something to me, something unsavory. My long absence, perhaps, or maybe the way I had come so close to becoming what Martouf had wanted me to be. The way I had escaped a horrendous fate by the skin of my teeth.
I lather a washcloth with a bar of fresh-smelling soap, and scrub hard.
When I go back out there, I tell myself, I have to use a different approach. This time, only a defenseless bottle of beer suffered. What next? The big picture window? A passing aircraft? There was something going on here, and God only knew where it would stop.
I wash my hair a second time, and then a third, stopping only when the strands squeak between my fingers. Sighing, I turn off the water, wrap a towel around my body, and step out of the stall. The first thing to catch my eye is something long, thin, and green poking out from underneath the door. I pause, and then open the door, look down, KNEEL down, hair dripping onto the carpet, and pick up the silk lily Jack had left here for me to find.
|| Jack O'Neill ||
On the finely-polished end table sits a paper bag bearing the Burger King logo, rife with grease spots that are rapidly soaking into the gleaming wood. Beside the bag: two oily wrappers, two empty fry cartons, and two nearly empty sodas - one extra large, one medium.
On the floor, at the table's legs, is a damp towel - the one Sam used to dry her hair - and a pair of boots - mine. Just a foot or so away, on the armrest of the couch, is an empty DVD box.
I'm leaning against the other side, and Sam's leaning against me, not with all her weight, but enough to make her a welcome distraction from the movie. On the television screen - which is far too large to be practical, but awfully fun - Harrison Ford, Luke Wilson, and Jeena Chavez scamper through the latest just-released drama, the requisite annual conspiracy-mystery-romance flick. Considering Sam's missed all the on-video cinema put out for the last year, I COULD have picked something more light-hearted, but neither of us were in the mood for comedy. I knew that without even having to ask.
"Why don't you just cut the crap?" Harrison demands angrily; he's a powerful force even after all this time.
Chavez purses her lips impudently. "Richard, I don’t know WHAT you’re talking about. I don’t appreciate being accused of crimes I haven’t committed."
"And I don’t appreciate being the target of those crimes, Catherine!"
Sam’s eyes are fixated to the screen, in rapture at the tense moment… or so it would seem. Her attention is elsewhere, I can tell, and I can also guess its location. "It’s going to be okay," I promise, and pray I won’t be proven a liar. "Shannon’s going to take down our story from the tape, clean it up, format it… and then we can figure out where to go from there."
"You really think it’ll be that easy?" she asks, over Catherine’s feeble protestations. "Just… tell our side of the story and it’ll be believed?"
"I hope it will," I tell her honestly. "Because I don’t know what to do if it doesn’t."
She sighs. "And you trust her?"
My own reply is surprising to me. "Yeah… I guess I do. She told me you were back, Sam, when she could have just kept her mouth shut and gotten the story for herself, without having to worry about any kind of… obligation to me."
"She wouldn’t have been able to get in the base without you," she points out.
"I know. I still trust her, though."
Sam falls silent, and settles back against my side. Richard and Catherine continue their argument, but we've stopped listening. At least SHE has; I don't know that I ever started. There's a surreal quality to this moment, a dreamlike glaze, and if I'm going to wake up any minute, I'm going to enjoy every SECOND of this, of her. Of the sight and feel of Sam Carter propped against me, dressed in my clothing: a white T-shirt and a pair of sweatpants that are cinched up all the way but still hang tenuously on her hips. The clothes she'd arrived wearing are sitting in a pile in the bathroom, undergarments and all, and I wonder briefly if she's doing this on purpose. If she knows what she's doing to me.
Sam smiles. She's right, it's a silly question. Of course she knows.
"Are you sure we should tell the whole story?" she asks, her body profoundly warm against mine. "There's some pretty incredible stuff in there. We don't want some wackos getting the gate opened again just to go see the chamber. And we don't want to be treated like lab rats for a bunch of scientists to find out how deep this... telepathy thing goes. If that's what it is."
"They couldn't do that."
"I bet they can do worse."
The movie is now completely neglected. I shift position a few degrees, turning around so I'm propped up, laying on my back. Sam doesn't rise and relocate to a more respectable distance, as expected; she stays where she is and ends up half-stretched across my body. "We can't leave it out. How would you explain how I got hurt when you did? Or why we both got pneumonia, and how the drugs Janet gave me made you better too? Or how you realized you'd been brainwashed? It wouldn't make any sense without that information."
"I'm not sure it makes any sense WITH it," Sam contends. "But... if you're sure..."
"We're celebrities, Sam," I remind her with a little grin; never has that seemed such a wonderful thing. "They wouldn't touch us."
Her eyes darken unexpectedly, though not with anger... with lust. I feel my blood pressure spike and wonder where the perception came from: me or her? It's all but impossible to tell where it starts. On the other hand, it's quite easy to see where it's headed.
Closing my eyes, counting on sense - my strange new sixth sense as well as the intuitive knowledge all males are born with - to guide me, I raise my head, my lips on an intercept course with hers. She's not moving away - that I'd be able to tell - but she's not meeting me halfway, either. She's frozen, stunned, maybe panicking.
I stop my approach, open my eyes, and find that the distance between our mouths is a centimeter if it's a mile. She's SO CLOSE... but she doesn't seem ready to go any further. Her eyes are half-lidded, trained on my face, but wary. One movement is all it would take, one tiny little strain of my neck and our lips would meet, and she wouldn't push me away. Still, something - a reservation manifested as a paper-thin, invisible barrier between us, a leash around my neck, forged of better judgement, pulling me back - causes me instead to straighten, allowing Sam to slide out of my lap with at least a modicum of dignity. Before I can explain myself, or at least apologize for moving too fast and without her consent, she's standing, and striding across the room, stopping at the picture window beside the dormant fireplace.
I pause only a moment to stop the DVD and turn off the television, and then I follow. My feet are noiseless against the soft carpet, but I choose my steps gingerly, and in my head, I choose my words with even greater care.
The question of what to say is soon out of my hands; Sam peers out the darkened window, through the glares cast by the kitchen lights, and sighs nervously. "It really is a nice place."
I don't dare pull up next to her, but remain a few steps behind, ignoring the temptation of the white shirt and sagging sweats. I shrug, because she can see my reflection in the glass as well as I can see hers. "I guess I got kinda tired of all those years underground." That's not exactly true, but we both know it, which makes it okay.
Sam raises one hand and brushes her fingertips across the cold glass, perhaps reaching out to the lives beyond the rain-streaked streetlights and neon glare. "They all know," she whispers, more to herself than me, which makes it to me after all. She learned that fact hours ago, that the Pandora Act had disclosed the entire project to mankind, but it seems to just now be sinking in.
I dare a step closer. "They all know."
She turns around abruptly, startling me. "How'd they take it, finding out that there's... aliens among us? Out there?" She smirks in dark humor. "Social dissolution? Mass panic? You never really touched on that."
I give her a smile, hoping to soften hers. "Actually, they kinda got that out of their systems when the Gou'ald started blowing up Washington. But you know, there's some who say it was an improvement."
She doesn't respond to the weak joke, which gets me worrying immediately. "There had to be something I could have done," she declares intensely. "I could have at least found out what went wrong, but when it happened... when the time came... I didn't know what was going on. I thought you were all... I thought you were..." Sam struggles to control her breathing. "I might have saved lives."
"You did," I remind her, taking another half-step. "You saved me."
She laughs derisively. If she notices how close I'm standing, she gives no indication. "I hurt you."
I pause and consider this, this and my actions before she left. Biological or not, I should have better controlled myself. "Yeah, well, I kinda deserved it, don't you think?"
Still no sign of humor; she stares down at the carpet. "No one deserves what we went through."
Catching her gaze proves impossible, so I swallow the lump of anxiety accumulating in my throat and tilt Sam's face up with a knuckle under her chin. There're no tears in her eyes, but there's emotion there so raw that it makes ME want to start bawling. In fact, my next words are embarrassingly uneven. "I'm a firm believer that everything eventually evens out." How could I not be, after all of this?
The moment I lower my hand, she turns back around, but her eyes do meet mine in the glass. "What about what Piper said?" she asks, her voice squeaking on the doctor's name as I rest one hand on her arm. "That we have telepathy... some kind of mental connection... do you believe that?"
The neck of her borrowed shirt is wide, exposing the enticing curve of her neck and shoulder. "More every moment," I murmur, going for broke, letting my lips graze her skin, promising myself that if she moves away this time, I'll let her have her space
Instead, she tilts her head a fraction to the side, closes her eyes, gives a delicious shiver... and keeps talking, the coiled tautness of her voice belying everything I know she's feeling. "Nothing we haven't seen before, I suppose. Sha're. Urgo." Sam pauses as I move even closer, until full-body contact is inevitable, and I rest my free hand on her other arm. "It just seems a little incredible that it would happen to us."
I love the way she says 'us', I think, and at that very instant, the kitchen lights, whose sensors haven't detected movement in the area for some time, go off. There's still the living room light, of course, but it's mainly for decoration, and the actual amount of illumination it gives off is questionable. We're plunged into near-darkness in such a way that I can't help but remember the return trip out of the Tok'ra chamber over a year ago. How the lights went off, and we guided each other out of the gloom. Unbidden, my hands go to her waist, and rest there lightly. "Yeah, we just get abandoned in ice caves and infected with alien diseases."
With the absence of interior light, the street lamps and neon signs of the city below seem all the brighter, the window pane all the thinner, as though we're hovering in mid-air. Sam's hands drop on top of mine. "Everything that's happened..."
The reluctance in her voice is obvious, but even with my new talent, I can't peg the reason. "Yeah, I know, too much history."
I can plainly feel the thump of her heart, through her back, into my chest, resetting my own natural rhythm to harmonize with hers. "We probably shouldn't be doing this," she says sensibly.
Daniel's words haunt me; I banish them, and all thought of him. "Are you sure you don't want me to get you your own room?"
"Do you want me to leave?"
The question is a beautiful thing in itself. "You know I don't."
Sam clears her throat, still holding my hands. "All the same, it would be safer to just try and..."
I bury my face in her hair. "Ignore these feelings."
She shifts her weight slightly, leaning harder into me. "Try and get things back to the way they were. That was the best... asking for anything else would just be greedy."
I nod to let her know how prudent this coarse of action would be; my words are hypocritical. "But what if we don't want to try?"
The darkness is hypnotically intimate , and her words are nothing to fear. "We both know it'll never work."
"Yeah," I agree. "But we don't know everything, now do we?"
She abruptly turns in my embrace, like a ballet dancer, graceful and effortless, despite the life that has been hers for so long. Her expression is earnest, her eyes full of barely- tempered enthusiasm. And then even that temper dissolves. I'm not sure who initiates it, her or me or both of us or maybe neither, maybe a silent force less cautious than we are. What I do know is that once more I'm being guided by sense alone, hers and mine, steering me in a direction that I'd be nearly helpless to sway if I was so inclined. There's a sudden feeling of destiny, of fate, of predestination, as though it had always been known that we would arrive at this point... it had just taken longer than anyone had expected.
My lips brush Sam's, and though the kiss is tentative at first, it quickly deepens, melds, not hard, not urgent, but passionate nevertheless. Her hands slid over me, behind my neck, crossing and anchoring her against me, and in response, mine move up her back, feeling the warmth of her through the thin shirt, an internal fire.
A subtle, sudden roar startles us both; without letting the other go for a second, without even entertaining the thought, we look towards the source. It's the fireplace, which, five seconds ago, had been dark and inert, now snapped happily away with a modest-sized flame.
We must have brushed against the knob, I reason, returning my attention to the woman before me, who seems equally willing to put aside the strange uncanny occurrence. It's strange enough that we're here, together, that we made it.
The kiss intensifies, and so do the backwashing currents of pleasure that cycle, like the anger, from one to the other, growing with every pass, fierce and demanding, commanding release. Only the greatest of self control keeps me from rushing things, from disrobing both of us and taking her and satiating this exceptional fervor in the most expedient manner. Somehow, I manage to set a pace, letting my hands explore this woman who I hadn't dared touch for so long, filing each moment away in a memory that will be perfect because it's shared between the two of us, wanting to preserve each caress, each murmur, in perfect detail.
But we're only human, and as such it's only a matter of time before fingers of firelight trace delirious patterns on naked skin.
Story Notes: Spoilers: The Broca Divide; Solitudes; Forever in a Day; Urgo
The Andromeda Series
1. The Assignment
2. The Aide
3. The Afterglow
4. The Arising
5. The Allusion
6. The Attack
7. The Accident
8. The Anger
9. The Alien
10. The Archeologist
11. The Absence
12. The Advance
13. The Adversary
14. The Ability
15. The Allies
16. The Aberration
17. The Ardor
18. The Act
19. The Affliction
20. The Answers
21. The Abduction
22. The American
23. The Angel
24. The Ambush
25. The Anniversary
26. The Altruism
The Andromeda Series
1. The Assignment
2. The Aide
3. The Afterglow
4. The Arising
5. The Allusion
6. The Attack
7. The Accident
8. The Anger
9. The Alien
10. The Archeologist
11. The Absence
12. The Advance
13. The Adversary
14. The Ability
15. The Allies
16. The Aberration
17. The Ardor
18. The Act
19. The Affliction
20. The Answers
21. The Abduction
22. The American
23. The Angel
24. The Ambush
25. The Anniversary
26. The Altruism
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 ]