"Don't move, don't breathe..."
--"This Way", Jewel
General Jack O'Neill sat in the warm sun of P4X-892 and relished the feel of the cool wind on his skin. He'd been stuck in paperwork 27 floors beneath a mountain for far too long. The fresh air made him feel alive again. Young. A man could rot under fluorescent lights with nothing to work his muscles but a rowing machine and some treadmills. The landscape on this new planet wasn't anything special. Sandy and rocky, a few trees clinging together in the distance. Desert BDUs and sun block. Bright melon sky. But it seemed like Heaven at the moment.
O'Neill paced the ground idly, hand resting noncommittally on his P-90. No hostiles had made themselves apparent in the area, but last time SG-10 had dropped by, they claimed they had encountered a few little snags with the locals and picked up on a resentment at their free use of what the locals seemed to view as *their* gate. So, for the return trip, SG-1 had taken over and split up to guard the ticket home. Daniel had insisted the mission be granted high priority in the interest of retrieving samples of the...before the...well, there was a piece of wall with some writings or...and he said it meant...if it had been there before, and the rock was...oh, hell, O'Neill had no idea what Daniel had said. But whatever he'd said, it had made an impression on Sam who had nodded almost imperceptibly when the whole table of personnel had looked Jack's direction for a decisive command decision. So, he'd given them a go. Then decided to go with them, because he wanted some fresh air, and he wanted to guard the gate with Carter.
Teal'c and Daniel had disappeared behind the tree line a good fifteen minutes ago. Carter was a few yards away from him, seated on the far end of the wide stone steps that arched around the front of the gate. Her eyes scanned the distant horizon, weapon at the ready, resting between her legs. She squinted in the brightness and the sunshine brought out her freckles. There was something about Sam's freckles that made him sign on for missions with bright sunshine. He didn't admit that to himself.
Carter didn't catch him watching her. Sometimes she did, sometimes she felt his gaze even from too far away, and looked up to meet his eyes. And she would smile. And he would smile back. And it would be a good day. But sometimes he could watch her for a while, unnoticed. And that could be good, too. Watching Sam was certainly no new pastime for Jack O'Neill.
But today he had more reason than usual.
Jack meandered across the craggy ground to where Carter sat, then lowered himself with an exaggerated sigh to the steps beside her.
After a moment of comfortable quiet, he asked congenially, "Where are ya?"
Carter turned, a little startled at his words, or maybe by the fact he had spoken at all. He pulled off his sunglasses to solidify the contact, while she drew herself back from wherever it was she had been. "Sir? Where am I?"
He shrugged, because casual always got you the farthest with Carter. And because comfortable and honest was his nature, and she was one of the few people who didn't mind. "Well, you haven't been entirely *here* this morning. I just wondered...where you are?"
Carter drew in a breath through her nose, pulling herself up straighter, shoulders back. She winced. "I'm sorry. Did I miss something? Is there something I should have--"
"No, you're fine. You've just...well, for the last couple of days, actually, you've been a little...elsewhere."
She closed her eyes briefly, shook her head, more as a reprimand to herself than an apology. "I'm sorry, sir. I didn't realize I wasn't as focused on the work as I should have been. If I--"
"CARTER. RELAX!" Good God, she could be relentlessly Carter.
She blinked at him, eyes wide and guileless, then frowned slightly as her mind whirled to catch up.
"Carter," he said, incredulous and bordering on whiny. "I'm not reprimanding you. You haven't done anything wrong. Your performance has been as nauseatingly impeccable as ever. I'm just...coming over here, a guy who's known you for, oh..." he drew a deep breath, pulling up, considering, "...eight years now, and who actually kind of...I don't know...*likes* you...," she almost smiled, "...a lot. And you've been a little distracted. I'm just askin'."
She finally let go a little. He saw the shift in her expression, from Lt. Colonel to Sam. And he felt better. And he felt like he never wanted to be on the outside again. The thought of not being at her side in the field everyday, of having the bulk of the time she spent with him not be Sam and Jack on a mission, but General and Lieutenant Colonel managing the SGC suddenly took on a darker tone.
Carter gave a brief, sad smile. "I'm sorry. I guess...I've just got a lot on my mind right now."
"Yeah?"
"Yeah." Her reply was near a whisper. She glanced down for a moment, then out at the horizon again.
"Anything I can help with?" he offered.
The easy honesty in her reply surprised him. Maybe he was rubbing off on her. "I wish you could."
"Try me."
The notion threw her. He could have sworn she actually blushed. "No, sir. I couldn't..."
"Why not?" He rested his chin in his hand, head bobbing as he spoke, jaw pressing into his palm. "I'm not going anywhere for a while."
Carter glanced across at him repeatedly, evaluating, assessing; doubtful. He gave her nothing but open simplicity. Which forced her to speak. "Well, sir...it's...I mean, its kind of..." she wrinkled her nose and narrowed her eyes, "...personal, relationship stuff. You don't want..."
"Pete?" Jack asked, chin still in his hand.
Carter nodded. "Yeah."
She didn't seem to have more to offer, so he raised his eyebrows and waited.
"Umm..." She was really scrambling for a stance, for familiar ground. He didn't want her to run. "Well..." She swallowed hard. "Okay. Well, it's just that Pete and I are getting to--" But she broke off and shook her head with a sharp intake of air through her teeth. She turned to fully face him for a moment. "Sir, do you really want to hear this? Because, it just feels kind of like--"
"Hey." His voice was stronger now, more commanding, though no less caring. "Tell me."
The feeling soaked into her; he watched the subtle absorption and transition.
After a moment, she turned to face the horizon again, adjusted her grip on her weapon. "Pete and I are getting to the...well, for want of a less clichéd term...the emotional intimacy part of the relationship. The part where you start to talk." She paused. Then added, "*Really* talk. About everything. Break down walls."
Jack drew a deep breath and lowered his hand from his chin. He sat up straighter, forearms propping on his knees. "Ah, the Wall Breaking Phase. I remember it well. A lot of walls to knock away at, are there?"
Carter shrugged. "Pete has his share." Her voice softened momentarily. "He's been through some rough times in his life, but...I'm starting to find the right cracks."
O'Neill let that sink in. Closed a few cracks of his own. "Okay," he said at last. "Good. So, what about Samantha Carter? A lot of walls?"
She hesitated, tossed him a shy, mirthless smile, and looked all of twelve years old, carrying the pain of decades. "Trinium alloy, sir," she said, and her attempt at levity only sharpened the impact of her words. "Ten miles deep."
He took that in the gut.
"Yeah?" he asked, voice infinitely gentle as it had once been with his son.
"Yeah."
His turn to seek refuge in the horizon. "I didn't...I mean, I know you're kinda uptight, high strung. You judge yourself pretty hard, that's obvious. But I just...you're such a warm and...open kind of person, Carter. *I* like talkin' to ya. You take care of people, you're not afraid to care about them and fight for what you believe is right."
She shook her head, focus tied to her weapon now. "But that doesn't tell you how it felt--how *I* felt--while those things were happening." She tightened her grip on her weapon and shifted her position, pulled her knee in closer.
He watched her profile for a long moment in the sun. "No, I guess not," he said at last.
"But...," and she turned then and faced him head on, real solid warmth and feeling in her eyes when she said, "thank you," and meant it.
He shrugged. "Truth."
She accepted that, then turned away again.
He settled in more comfortably, letting the easy camaraderie return between them, the unacknowledged intimacy that had been part of his life for so long. "So, why's this so hard right now? With Pete?"
"Honestly?" she asked.
He lifted his eyebrows and twirled his hand from the wrist, stating the obvious with his usual sarcasm.
Carter tried to smile, but her words contradicted the gesture. "I'm absolutely petrified." And she looked for all the world like the last time she'd told him their planet was going to explode within 36 hours and she didn't have a clue how to stop it.
"Why?"
"Well, sir, it's just that..." And then she lost it. Reality hit her like a visible force, and she backpedaled like they were under fire. Lt. Col. Carter and Gen. O'Neill out on a mission and she was about to admit something that was clearly the heart of the matter and she had just scared the hell out of herself. She was in full-on retreat mode.
"What?" he prompted.
But she shook her head and looked down at the sand with an embarrassed and placating laugh. "Forget it."
He didn't play into the surface banter she tried to resurrect, but fell quiet and drew into his own thoughts.
They both sat for a while, playing the pretense of quietly guarding the gate. He was startled when she was the one to speak again; and blown away by the tender vulnerability in her voice. Carter.
"It's just that...I've never opened up...I mean...*really* opened up...to anybody, since my Mom died."
O'Neill's stomach hit his boots. These soft words, this gentle admission from the beautiful woman in the BDUs with the freckles and the P-90 who could take out a field mouse at 100 meters, this was the most deeply intimate confession ever to pass from her lips to his ears.
"You were *fourteen*," he breathed.
She smiled briefly, but he recognized the wrinkle of her nose, the brightness of her gaze, and knew of the tears that lay just behind. "Told you they were thick, sir."
He was reeling. "You were *engaged*."
She nodded. "Well, you see why it didn't work out."
"Well, that, and he was crazy."
She actually stifled what felt like a genuine laugh. "That, too. I--" she considered again for a quiet beat. He waited. "For a long time I tended to be drawn to men who were so involved with themselves, that they weren't overly motivated to find out too much about *me*."
"And...Pete?"
"Is not like that. At all."
He accepted that, and listened to the wind for a while. He brushed a clump of sand from his knee.
"What about us?" he asked.
She turned, brow furrowing. "'Us', sir?"
"Yeah, me and the guys. SG-1. I mean maybe we're just the geeks here, but...well, I know none of us have much other family to speak of, and...well, the guys and I, we all think of you as our family. The four of us, are like...*us*."
Carter nodded. "Of course. You guys *are* my family. You and my Dad." There, there was that open thing he'd been talking about. The thing that made it so easy to talk to her.
"Well...are you really...I mean, haven't you let *us* in?" It felt strange asking Carter this. And it felt good.
Carter nodded, as though she had been anticipating his question. "Sure. About some things. More than anyone else, certainly. Especially this past year, I think. But, you have to factor in what we do every day, sir. Who we are to each other in the field. You can't just shut that off. It effects how close we can become. Any of us. What we can and can't share."
"Does it have to?" he asked. "I mean, I tell you guys stuff. Important...stuff."
She widened her eyes, incredulous, and he started to worry. "Sir...are you serious?" He blinked at her, feeling the rise of the customary I'm-Talking-To-Carter confusion. "Sir...you never even told me you'd had a wife, much less a son. You still have never actually spoken to me about either of them. I had to find out the whole story from Daniel."
Ouch. He frowned for a long moment, letting that sink in and making a mental note to do some serious backpedaling at a later date. "All right," he said carefully. "I get it. The job makes a difference."
She flashed her eyes at him, cleared her throat, and turned away.
Quiet.
"So...this Pete guy; do you trust him?"
In the pause that followed, the sadness returned to her clear blue eyes, the tension he had always hated set into her jaw muscle. "I'm trying," she whispered.
"No." On pure instinct, he reached out between the open flaps of her BDU blouse and nestled his fist into the soft place just beneath the apex of her ribs, nothing but thin t-shirt covering her skin. "Do you *trust* him?"
Her deep breath pushed against his fingers. He let his hand fall away. "Yeah," she breathed.
"Then let him in," he said simply, voicing all the tenderness he could give.
Carter closed her eyes. She sniffed softly.
O'Neill reached up and pulled off her cover, knocking her out of proper uniform, but knowing she hated the feel of it and wanting her hair free in the wind. There was no one to see. Hell, he was the General, for cryin' out loud. He touched his thumb and forefinger to the soft curl at her temple. "Let him be one of the few lucky beings on Earth who gets to know the whole woman, 'Samantha Carter'."
She still didn't open her eyes. She was shaking.
He kept toying ever so lightly with her hair, free hand still on his weapon. "And if he turns out to be a consummate asshole and screws you over--you've got three well-armed guys at the SGC, some cooler than others....who won't let you crash. We gotcha. No matter what." He smoothed his palm down the back of her hair. "Don't forget that."
She turned into his hand, eyes still closed, and his chest hurt. They'd never done this before. But it had been 8 years, and the woman he cared most about in the world had been far more alone than he ever realized, and it was damn well time he said some things out loud. Time she understood, without a doubt.
****
His hand was so warm. Like a piece of the sunlight.
She tried to stay focused on guarding their position. To take the gentle words of kindness with a nod and a smile and return to the task at hand. But his touch felt so good.
"I'm so tired," she whispered, before she'd even heard the words in her head. The concern in O'Neill's eyes, glimpsed through the veil of her lashes, made her throat feel tight.
His hand cradled her cheek. And his lullaby voice sang, "Don't worry so much." And she should have pulled away for certain, but she couldn't move or break the spell.
"Carter," he said softly. "It's not enough just to care about other people. You gotta let somebody love *you*. I learned that with Sara. She had to pound it into me, believe me, but once she got through...I wouldn't trade a day of what she gave me, for anything. It changes you. For the better. And everything else you do is so much richer if you let someone in there. No matter how much it hurts some days."
She drew a deep breath and sleepily lifted her eyes. "But it was supposed to be you."
*****
Her words were like a breath on the river, like part of the wind, and he couldn't trust his senses for a moment, couldn't trust the meaning he thought he'd caught. Before he could speak again, she pulled away, drew a sharp breath and moved clear of his hand.
"What?" he stammered, but then it was Daniel's voice, clear and strong across the sandy clearing.
"We got it! But not entirely unnoticed! Dial it up! Dial it up!"
He and Carter were on their feet, and Carter had her gun up and she was scanning the borders of the trees and the path from which Daniel and Teal'c had come.
Daniel was carrying an extra pack, presumably filled with artifacts or rubbings and Teal'c was running backwards, staff weapon trained at the distant trees. Daniel's glasses were halfway down his nose and his hair was a mess.
Carter jogged to the DHD. "Dialing," she shouted, voice clear and strong, nothing of her vulnerability left to see. Her long fingers moved agilely over the alien technology. Jack staggered away from the gate, moving clear of the impending whoosh.
The first blast of weapons fire erupted from the tree line in a flicker of orange fire and charred odor just as the wormhole locked.
"We're clear!" Carter shouted, whipping her blouse sleeve back down over her GDO.
And they were diving through the gate one by one as the blasts erupted around them. Daniel was first through, then Teal'c. Jack hung back and motioned for Carter. She held his gaze for a single beat, then she was gone into the event horizon. Another blast sounded close behind him as he swiped up Carter's cover from the stone steps and dove into the pool head-first, an enemy blast crashing into the platform behind him.
He hit the ramp with a hard jerk to his shoulder and rolled into Carter's feet.
She stooped down beside him. "Close the iris!" she was shouting over her shoulder. Then softly, "Sir? Are you all right?"
"Here's your hat," he said softly, breathless from the adrenaline rush. Her brow was deeply lined with concern as she grabbed at the cover, but really caught his hand. She was scanning him for injuries.
"Sir, are you hurt?"
"Shoulder," he managed.
Her attention was on his injury, fingers working the clasps of his vest, clearing the area for the medics. He wanted none of this to matter and for everyone to just go away--everyone but Carter. The med team was close behind her. Then she was out of sight, lost in the post-mission rush. And somehow he still had her cover, so he could catch the flashes of blonde hair through the crowd. The pain in his shoulder pulled at his attention and he gave in and relaxed onto the gurney, letting the medics do what they had to do as they rolled him toward the infirmary.
He didn't want her out of sight. He hoped she would come see him in the infirmary as soon as she was cleared. He was sure she would bring Daniel and Teal'c close at her sides.
He closed his eyes against the piercing lights pulsing past like strobes on the hallway ceiling.
He remembered the feel of her hair in his fingers. The softness in her voice.
*Carter.*
*****
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Story Notes: AUTHOR'S NOTES: Although Pete does not actually appear in this story, the relationship is mentioned within and treated respectfully, so if that bothers you, run away now...:)
Endless thanks to my marvelous betas: Fulinn, Polly Lynn, Teddy E, and AnnaK
Endless thanks to my marvelous betas: Fulinn, Polly Lynn, Teddy E, and AnnaK
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 ]