I am in one hell of a crappy mood. I already know that about myself this afternoon. I don't need the dozen or so airmen who have practically jumped out of my path as I stalk through the hallways to tell me that I look like I could chew nails. At this point, trinnium rebar might not stand up to my temper...
I absolutely _hate_ days like this...
I hate getting hurry-up orders for, of all things, paperwork.
Paperwork for cripes sake!
I know paperwork is what keeps the Air Force running and that SG team field reports are important to someone somewhere who justifies their job by filing the damned things, but for cryin' out loud, why does _this_ report need to be done _today_?!
I generally take a day or two to write up my reports, taking my time transcribing my notes into the computer on my desk...Okay, I am also, completely coincidentally, waiting for Teal'c and Carter to finish their reports so I can crib sections or just refer to them in mine, too, but that isn't the only reason I take my time!
'A well-written, informative report can mean the difference between further contact and exploration or removal of the candidate destination from the list of viable options. Therefore, a team leader needs to contemplate the overall benefits offered and costs demanded by each destination before making final recommendations.'
Yeah, that is straight from some bull TRADOC manual they created for the newbies who come here.
It gave me a chuckle when I read it, too.
But not today. Nope, I'm _not_ laughin' today...
Today Teal'c and I brought SG-17 back from P3X-579 (another lovely TRR planet: trees, rocks, and ruins) at about 1600 ZULU. And after two crappy days spent exploring damp caves, buggy underbrush, and getting rained on, Hammond insists that the mission report has to be finished this afternoon.
_This_ afternoon. By COB today.
By the end of business. Today!
Did I mention it was this afternoon like at 1700 local on the dot?!
That means that the ASAP start time I had planned for my evening off tonight is delayed until my playing field is cleared of one more honkin' huge report on all of the _junk_ Bob Nanscom and his team found on P3- whatever-the-hell.
I am tired, sore, and generally pissed over the fact that I had to play pack mule to about a thousand pounds of pseudo-civilization pottery and _junk_ that Macleod, the wunderkind rock expert, had insisted was "significant and fascinating".
And, of course, all of SG-17 disappeared before Hammond could tell them he needed their reports today and not tomorrow morning at the 1000 debrief. Therefore, they are _so not_ providing me with the tech check I need to ensure the catalog-of-crap-we-dragged-back is correct...
I _hate_ days like this...
I just need to finish up the damned paperwork and get the hell home to a warm tub full of Mr. Bubble, a cold bottle of Labatt Blue, and a hot pie with everything except anchovies delivered from Mario's. If I am really lucky, my VCR program actually worked and I will have two episodes of the Simpsons and the Rockies-Blackhawks game on tape waiting for me, too.
But first...I need help with this report and maybe a bit of an attitude adjustment.
Luckily, I know just where I can get the expert help I need for both of these with one-stop-shopping. She's just the person who can make the drivel I have managed to spew onto the page shape up into a report that works good enough for Hammond, _and_ she's guaranteed to make me smile while doing it.
A two-fer...
Sweet.
"Carter, I need-"
I stop, realizing that her lab is empty. The lights are on, her laptop is humming on the bench top, there are a zillion rainbow-colored equations written in her precise, drafting-class handwriting on the white board behind her chair...
But the Lady of the Lab isn't home...
A quick glance at my watch confirms that its only 1440 too early for her to have bagged for the day. Besides, she _never_ leaves early. Sometimes we have to run her out of this place with a stick just to get her to go home and rest so she can come back and do it all again tomorrow.
I've said it before and I'll say it again: Uncle Sweet is glad he doesn't pay us by the hour, 'cause Carter alone would break the budget.
Nah...I am certain...well, almost certain...that she's still here. I walk over and drop my clipboard on the worktop, my pen tucked in between the pages where the questions for Carter are highlighted.
I can now see her BDU jacket draped over her lab chair, her cover tucked into the sleeve. She can't leave the facility without those if she's not in civvies, so I'm pretty certain she's still here.
Plus, she never leaves that sweet little ruggedized Dell alone in the lab overnight -- it is an UNCLASS machine that doesn't hook into the network, so it always rides home safe and snug in her briefcase or, less frequently, tucked up against her chest, cuddled in the crook of her arm when the briefcase is too full to hold it. There are times when I envy that little hunk of plastic and wires, all clutched in her clever hand, snug up against her incredible bre--
Whoa! Where the hell did that come from? Danger Will Robinson! Danger! Bad CO, bad CO! C'mon, get your head out of that gutter...
Okay, O'Neill...Find something, anything, to help stop those thoughts. There, on her desk...several interesting...doohickeys...just laying on the work surface.
There, Jack, let's think about all of this stuff instead of Carter's breasts-
In the dash panel in my head, there are currently about a dozen flashing red lights. If I were in a Death Glider right now, my ass would so be looking to pull the release and bail...
Here now...This little silvery box thing with stoplight colored buttons on the top and a concave back...It looks kinda' like one of those things the Tollan had on 'em the first time we met them.
Wonder what Carter's doin' with it?
It doesn't seem to work. Pressing buttons -- green alone, then yellow alone, then green and yellow -- in different combos doesn't seem to do anything at all. Maybe it's broken and she is trying to fix it...
Wonder where she got it? I'll try to ask her if she ever comes back to her desk...
Daniel always thought I 'fiddled' with things to annoy people (mostly him), but that's just not true.
Well, sometimes it is...You should have seen the pucker factor involved that time when I was playing with the 'Eye of Nipsy Russell' or whoever that time on '492. Danny almost blew a gasket when I tossed it over to Teal'c!
Truth is, though, most times I've just got to have something to do, especially when I feel...frustrated...by circumstances.
Like having a team in trouble and not being able to help them.
Like watching the political idiots tear down the hard-won accomplishments and important work of so many men and women in the name of the almighty Budget Dollars.
Like standing this close to something...someone...I never thought I would ever find again. Close enough to touch her but not allow--
Shit!
My hands come up to press on my now closed eyes. I half-clock myself with the little box, so I shove it in a pocket before I finish trying to wipe those thoughts out of my head.
Anyway, I have almost managed to stop thinking things like that.
For over two years, things have been pretty settled in that arena. I almost never think of her except in conjunction with work. I have mostly stopped teasing her (and myself) by indulging in the innuendoes I used to toss around so freely. I no longer find myself wanting to just reach out and --
Whoops!
Okay, well...I still get that Wanting part.
Dooooooh!
But I _know_ I shouldn't. Want, that is...
Need to think of something else. C'mon, O'Neill!
Okay, this is not going well today. Maybe I should just leave and come back tomorrow.
But the General was clear -- he wants this report today. Not tomorrow. Today.
I'm pretty certain that a the-dog-ate-my-homework excuse like 'Carter was not here to help me with my report' is not gonna wash with Hammond.
It doesn't wash with me when I am the one giving the orders.
Her computer burbles, drawing my attention as it makes that distinctive noise that says it is saving to the hard drive. Nosey me, I wonder what she left running -- probably some mega-number-crunching theoretical equation that was making the poor little guy's CPU hurt. I step around the workbench so I can see if I am right.
I have to laugh out loud as I see her screen saver and realize what it is - a gift that one of the geeks made for her birthday last year.
On the screen, an animated glowy circle with a "puddle" in it slowly rotates. Every once in a while the event horizon disappears and a few seconds later an equally glowy wormhole vortex appears. A series of complex equations, in some white, scribbley text, crawls across the black background behind the miniature wormhole.
Every once in a while, a large apple bounces into the corner and comes to rest sitting on the bottom of the screen. After a second, a hole forms in one side of the apple and a cute little caricature of an Einstein-like worm wearing a white shirt and a bow tie, with a big mop of unruly gray hair, glasses, and a large mustache obscuring his cartoon mouth pops out of the hole and declares "Gott im Himmel! You are a GENIUS!" in a little cartoon speech bubble.
Get it?...A worm-hole?
Yeah, I didn't think it was funny either.
But Carter, she had smiled that almost-full-wattage smile and given the little geek Donaghy, the programmer that usually helps her with the gate dialing and calculation programs, a big kiss on the cheek and a hug! That little creep had gone on and on about how the waveform equation was accurate and the fact that the developing vortex was created based on the actual equations Carter had written in one of her wormhole articles.
He had sucked-up to her for almost twenty minutes until I got tired of it and kicked him out of her lab. She had made me let him get a piece of cake before I tossed him out, though...It was a really good German chocolate cake that Janet had baked, as I recall.
Anyway, I gotta admit it, the little suck-up geek does good work. 'Course, if I had made it, I would have included the word "sexy" before genius...Or maybe _instead_ of genius...
Whoa! Stop it O'Neill! Fer cryin' out loud -- what are you, sixteen years old?!
I shove my hands in my pockets, flipping the silvery box around so that the hollowed-out part rests against my thigh and there is now room for my hand in there, too.
I still wonder what her computer is doing to make all of that racket. I step up closer to her chair, one hand extended to touch the keyboard, and then...
Stop dead, as I catch it.
There.
Just the faintest whiff. Of her. I think it's coming from her jacket.
Okay, technically I am just breathin' here. The fact that it is such a deep breath doesn't mean that I am back to the Wanting thing.
Yep, that smell is definitely Carter. I happen to consider myself an expert on the smells of Carter. I could be (and in fact I have been) in a darkened room and known she was close to me just by smelling that scent.
Carter never smells like perfume or flowers. She almost always smells like clean woman skin and soap, with maybe a faint hint of ginger. I think that last part is from her shampoo.
Even when we are getting back off of a five day stay on Podunk Planet 9 somewhere out there, where sanitary facilities have been somewhat...limited...the tang of sweat and salt that gets mixed into her normal scent is just a tantalizing addition. That Carter smell is no less alluring, it is just somehow more...earthy...
Other times, if I get lucky and the weather is good, I can pick up a top note of warm summer wind, new motor oil, and the rich scent of buttery leather from where she rides her bike into work...Those are the _really_ good days...
My generally crappy day has gone from an embarrassing blanking at home at the hands of the Carolina Hurricanes to being up by four in the last ten seconds and having a two-man power play on the ice. All with just that soft scent of her. The very real and comforting proof of her presence here.
Hey! I said Comfort not Want. Hear that Want? Go away.
The almost continuously running red lights in my head flash again, but I ignore them as erroneous this time. A good commander knows how to filter his operational picture to drop out extraneous data.
I feel the smile splitting my face and realize what an idiot I would look if anyone were to walk in here and see me stretched over her stuff, sniffing. So of course, life being perverse and all, I think I just heard a shoe scrape concrete behind me--
"Ummm, Sir?"
----------------------------
Whoops!
Busted! I knew it! I just knew someone--
Think she saw me sniffing her jacket? Okay, keep it casual, Jack-me-boy-o.
I pull away from the workbench, shoving my hands back into my pockets before I turn to look at her standing across the lab.
She is leaning on her shoulder in the doorway, arms folded loosely across her chest, hip-shot slightly to the right. A small, confused smile plays around her lips while that crinkle forms between her eyes.
Oh, shit, here comes Wanting again.
Even in the black t-shirt and BDU trousers I see her in every day, she looks incredible. And that is saying something. The pants are tight in all the wrong places -- BDU pants are still made for men and she doesn't have the vanity to have them altered the way some of the women on base do. And the shirt is fairly new, so it hasn't shrunk and gotten soft from repeated washings the way some of her others have.
But she still looks good enough to eat with a fork.
Red lights flash behind my eyes one more time, actually partially obscuring my vision with their intensity. I wonder how I'm going to explain the damage to my eyesight at my upcoming bi-monthly physical? Janet is going to ground me for sure when she realizes how much night vision I have lost to the red lights in my skull...
My fingers fidget with the lint in my left pocket, moving around the garbage that I usually somehow accumulate in the corners. There's a Question of the Universe I need to ask Carter some time: Where does pocket lint come from?
"Whatcha' doin'?"
Her voice is curious, but amused, the smile now an almost full-blown grin. I think she is mocking me 'cause she says it with almost the same diction I generally use on her when I am trying to coax her out of her lab chair for a cup of coffee or some cake. But God, she does that drawl so well that I cannot even be upset.
Hat trick. With the smile and that voice, my day has just become a playoff game with a hat trick finished in the last thirty seconds of the final period.
And the octopus hits the ice!
"Uh, I was just waiting for you."
Yeah, like what else would I be doing in her lab? Solving one of those equations on the board? She's a genius, Jack, I think she probably already figured out that you were waiting for her.
"Ooo-kay..."
She rambles over behind the work bench, sliding up onto the high seat of the lab chair. He face stretches into a small grimace, puckering her forehead as she reaches a hand behind her, kneading what must be a catch in the small of her back.
The soft cotton of the shirt stretches with her movement, pulling tight across her chest and stomach...
Oh. My. God.
I push Wanting away again.
What that move does for that simple t-shirt has _got_ to be a criminal offense in at least seven states. Some of them not even in the South.
Wanting shows back up and he has brought its big brother, Lust, to kick my ass. And a fine whumping it is, too...
I am suddenly very glad that I am not epileptic, what with all of the red lights flashing in my head.
Oh God. Thinking things like this is wrong, I know its wrong...But I am just her CO, after all, not a eunuch. I am also not dead...yet. Wanting and Lust have made good inroads on that front, though.
She has _got_ to know what that move does.
My eyes flick to her face.
Her expression is completely guileless.
Either she deserves the statue for Best Performance as a Siren in a Series (that would be a series of my very own personal After-School- Special daydreams) or...
Nope, she doesn't seem to realize what she is currently doing for the morale of all of the other SGC officers in this room.
Control. I need to get control...Mentally, I shake off the gloves, ignore the referee, and proceed to mop the ice with Wanting before I high-stick Lust into submission.
As the crowd in my head cheers me on in my efforts to break _all_ of the NHL rules, here, I realize she is still looking at me, waiting for me to tell her why I am here. My hands clench in my pockets as I clear my throat to speak.
"I, uh...I needed some help with that technical evaluation of P3X-579. Hammond wanted it finished today and I needed your input on the junk we brought back."
"Jeffries hasn't had time to catalog the artifacts yet, sir."
"Oh, I know that. I just needed some help on the complete list and the descriptions of what we think everything is. Seems like they have all gotten the rest of the day off or some damn thing, and you've seen the stuff and discussed it with Jeffries, so I just thought that you..."
I gesture at the clipboard sitting on the workbench.
"Oh, okay. That, I think I can do."
She smiles a small smile and picks up the report. I watch her as she skims through the pages, making a few marks here and there, scratching through what I am certain are lines at a time and rewriting in the margins.
Feeling fidgety again, I pull out the doohickey I lifted from her desk, fiddling with it while I steal glances at her. This way she doesn't notice me looking so much and I always have the conversational gambit of the doohickey if she does catch on that I am watching her.
As she corrects everything from (I am sure) my glaring technical inaccuracies to the fact that I cannot spell "artifact" (she always marks every instance of that one), she chews her lip, her forehead crinkled up with concentration.
She is so incredible and she doesn't even seem to know it.
Wait, it's not what you're thinking.
Okay, well it _is_ what you're thinking, but not _just_ that.
Yeah, the package is pretty.
I think I already mentioned that I was not currently dead and Want and Lust are two old enemies of mine.
I noticed the pleasant wrapping the day she walked into the conference room and Hammond identified the obvious -- that she was _way_ smarter than me.
Anyway, it is not her wonderful smile, or those big navy blue eyes, or the hollow in the top of the curve of her hip, or those looooong slim legs, or the indescribably soft skin that covers all of these things that I actually label "incredible".
Oh yeah, I was paying attention in the locker room during that whole 'Touched Virus' incident. I think the image of her in that tank has been burned into my retinas...
More damage to my eyesight this woman has done...
And Black Ops teaches you that Muscle Memory is important when working under the stress of real-world situations. The sensory memory of clutching her waist and falling onto the floor on top her is one that I review often, just in case I ever have to save us all again by repeating the experience.
I can only hope.
Even so, it is not the outside that is so incredible. Though that, too, really is. I am old enough and smart enough to know that all of those wonderful assets poets describe will probably, eventually, be changed by the hands of Mother Nature and Father Time. And even if the physical attributes remain the same until she is a hundred years old, the more incredible parts are the pieces of her that can never be changed.
Incredible is the way her mind works, always staying forty steps ahead of everybody in the room when a problem comes up. The fact that she is _so_ much smarter than anyone in the room, no matter who else is in the room. God, it makes my eyes glaze. But when she starts spouting off about "cosmic string this" and "particle theory that", I just want to grab her, push her into a storage room down the hall, and... Well, Wanting has a few ideas of what we could do to each other in that closet, but most days I need to ignore them in order to keep a firm grasp on my sanity.
Incredible is the way that she can move from being an objective, scientific observer to the brink of tears in a heartbeat. Her eyes filling with anguish as she realizes that the cold analysis of the situation she has just delivered in her scalpel-precise diction often means a death sentence for someone.
Incredible is her courage -- the fortitude of character that makes her face the truth that not everyone comes home alive. But it also bolsters her determination that no one gets left behind. Courage gives rise to the nerve that makes her stand and face down a whacko system lord armed with a hand device or a battalion of a Jaffa, bent on making us into smoking piles of cloth. Courage makes her face full-on that sometimes there is no winning choice, only the one that brings the least number of your people home in a body bag.
Incredible is the unfaltering loyalty she has shown through our years together as a team. Loyalty to country, loyalty to individuals, loyalty to ideals...All of this and more receives her unwavering dedication and unswerving attention.
Incredible is the way she has seen me at my crankiest, at my worst - hung over, sleep-deprived, unshaved, unbathed, practically unhinged - and she still quietly supports me. She understands my sometimes sick humor as well as my often overwhelming demons. She understands that I have seen and done dark things that cannot be forgotten and that my only shot at redemption is trying to ensure I never have to do or see any of them again.
She forgives me the darkness while she tries to argue me into coming out into the light.
Incredible is that she didn't run away screaming when I admitted that I...have feelings for her...under the duress of that Za'tarc testing. That she watched me from behind Anise and saved my life at that moment. Not because she proved I was not a Za'tarc, but because she accepted the pathetic admission with her eyes, her small smile, and her relief that we were both still whole, and alive, and well.
Incredible is that she understands the connection we can both feel. But she also understands that while the Air Force remains so much a part of who we both are, military regs will always be the partner to whom we are both wed. Making what we feel for each other into a choice between loves and duties in this triangle. That she understands that to forsake that promise, even in order to have each other, would poison who we are and what we could be together. That she knows this and still might be willing to wait until circumstance or scheming can make things... different for us.
Incredible is that one day - maybe soon if the God I sometimes believe in really does care about and love me the way the folks at the airport always insist He does - I am going to get the chance to say to her everything I said under the threat of that damn machine and more. I might even get lucky enough to take the rest of our lives to get the words just right.
"What is it, sir?"
Like I knew she would, she feels my gaze on her and looks up to call me on it.
"Huh? Oh, nothin'," I answer after a moment.
Her eyes return to the last few pages of my report and mine drop to the silver box in my hand.
We are even at ease in our silences these days. That, too, goes into the list of incredibles that I associate with Carter.
"Sir, you can see my notes here." She is smiling as she closes the sheaf of papers. "If you hav-"
She stops dead, staring at the object in my restless hands.
"Carter?"
Her sudden stillness and dying smile sets off a different set of alarms in my head.
"What? What's wrong?"
Her eyes pop back up to lock with mine as she shakes her head.
"Nothing, sir. Um, where did you get that?"
Her eyes drop back to the doohickey in my hand.
"Ummm...From your desktop?"
She just nods, not looking up. The clipboard is carefully placed on the bench top between us.
"What is this thing, anyway? Some kind of fancy paperweight? It looks Tollan."
"It is. Tollan, I mean."
Those suddenly inscrutable eyes flick back to mine before flitting away again.
"Narim gave it to me."
Shit.
Narim...I hated that guy...
Okay, I didn't hate _him_...I didn't even _hate_ him when I met him. That hating thing came later, when I realized what I felt and what he represented: the very real possibility that someone, some alien or even some geeky scientist or an airman at this very base, could come along and take her away from me before I could find the right time to end this 'marriage' to Uncle Sam and convince her that nothing was standing between us anymore. Narim was just one of the first to matter. The first to make me realize that if I was not careful, the very tantalizing possibility of what she and I could have together could be taken away, leaving me instead with nothing but a cold, harsh, bitch of a wife -- the Air Force.
I've been playing the odds for a while, now. I've almost been desperate enough a time or two to try filing the papers that would end the threesome she, I, and the Air Force have been living with for so long. There were so many times when this thing between us could have gone pear-shaped: when we found the Tok'ra and Marty started putting moves on her like she was his long lost Jolinar, after we returned from being Jonah and Thera on that hellhole of a planet, after she was taken by that creep Simmons and his trained pet Goa'uld industrialist-
And why is she looking at me like tha-Oh! Say something, stupid!
"Oh."
Not exactly eloquent there, buddy.
Shit.
The only thing I can do is to hand this thing back to her, gently dropping it into her outstretched palm.
Say something, O'Neill. Anything.
"So, um....What does it do?"
She hesitates. Not like she is hiding something but more like she is trying to figure out how to explain it to me.
"It's a recording device."
"Like a tape recorder?"
"More like an MP3 player, sir."
"So, it records...What? -- music?"
"No, sir, not music. It records...emotions."
Yeah right...
"Emotions?"
"Yes, sir. It-"
"You mean like _feelings_ emotions?"
C'mon, look up and let me see your eyes.
"Yes, sir. Before the Tollan left with the Nox, Narim recorded a message. For me. It was a...personal...message."
Shit.
Are those my eyebrows climbing up my forehead?
"Oh."
Great. More eloquent speeches.
Shit.
No wonder she has that funny look on her face. She comes back to her office to find me fondling a love letter from an old boyfriend....
"Um...I didn't play it."
Christ! The freaking Wisdom of Solomon is falling from my lips today!
Her arched brows try to climb up into her bangs.
"I didn't know what it was, or how it worked."
A thin smile appears and then a creased brow as she fiddles with the buttons for a minute. She tilts what I guess is the top towards me and indicates as she speaks.
"It works...it plays...You just touch the red triangle."
Her voice is wistful, almost full-blown sad.
The triangle. The triangle is what makes this whole thing operate. Christ on crutches, that has got to be a cosmic joke!! Oh, yeah, there is irony in here somewhere...
"Red? But red means stop. Fer cryin' out loud, who the heck would think--"
I suddenly realize I am making assessments about alien technology based on my Earth ideals. I also suddenly remember why she is The Brains and I am The Brawn.
"So, ol' Narim left a little message behind, huh? Anything I should know about?"
C'mon, Sam, smile a little. I didn't mean anything by picking it up.
"No sir. As I said, it was...he..."
Wait for it...wait for it...
But she stumbles to a stop, her fair skin going crimson and for once she's struck speechless.
"It's okay, Major. I can guess what it was about. Daniel told me about the computer voice thing."
"The comp-"
She stops, the confusion resolving to mortification...and as usual, I crack first and give in.
"Well, anyway, I couldn't make that thing work so...um...don't think I listened to it."
"No, sir. I know. I mean--"
She places the "letter" back on the bench top and glances at her watch.
"Sir. Umm, if you plan to finish that report..."
"Huh? Oh, right!"
I gather up the clipboard and start to walk away. As I reach the door I stop and turn.
"Thanks, Carter."
"I didn't do much of anything, sir."
I feel that same goofy grin from before returning to my face and I don't even try to stop it this time.
"Oh, you did, Carter. More than you know."
I finally break the contact between us and make tracks back to my office. Gotta finish this homework or Dad Hammond will be really mad.
##########################
Okay.
I am startled, but I'll admit quite happy, to see the Colonel as I step back into the lab.
He and Teal'c had been assigned to work with SG-17 for a few days, providing extra force protection for them on a dig site they had going on P3X-579. Jonas and I have been given temporary duty with the sub- light engine upgrade simulations for the X-303, so I have not seen either of my other team members since last week.
I'd heard from Janet that they had apparently made it back safe and sound. I hadn't managed to get over to his office to say hello, but I'm wondering _why_ he is in my lab.
Not to mention --
Just what the heck is he _doing_?
Call me crazy, but it looks like he is...sniffing...around my lab space. No, I don't mean nosing about the way you do when you are bored and in an unfamiliar place...I mean literally sniffing the air over my workbench!
Something has alerted him to my presence I can see him stiffen and stop...sniffing. This should be good...
"Ummm, Sir?"
He freezes, then turns and stares at me, his hands shoved in his pants pockets, his eyes shining brightly with something that disturbs me, and a small smile pasted across his face that suggests all sorts of things.
One of these days, he is going to give me that smile and we are going to stop-do-not-pass-go-do-not-collect-$200 and go someplace where I can drag out of him all of the secret little details hidden in that smile.
His subdued eagles flash dully, catching and reflecting the lab lights, reminding me of why we have never done that before. Unfortunately today is not going to be the day, either...
But maybe someday soon...
For today, the status quo will have to do.
"Whatcha' doin'?"
##########################
He leaves in a hurry. He's going to need to double-time it if he's going to finish the mission report before his deadline.
I shake my head and feel a silly grin work its way across my face. How can one person misspell "artifact" so many times when he writes on a computer program that has a spell checker?
My eyes drop to the silver cube sitting beside my laptop and I feel my smile slide away.
I hope it hasn't been on the entire time. I haven't been able to figure out the power source, but it can't be infinite. The Tollan are good but even their batteries must go dead, eventually. Anyway, I know the device was off when I put it away so long ago. And the Colonel said he didn't play it, so I must have hit a button when he dropped it in my hand...
I cannot remember exactly when I pulled it out of the desk drawer and put it on the desktop. Last week, three weeks ago?
You would think that I would try to keep better track of the thing.
I only kept it because it was given to _me_. Yes, it _is_ an alien artifact, but it is a very personal one. I just can't stand to think of it ending up at Area 51 for one of those NID slugs or even some government contractor to paw through.
It has been a long time since I last thought of Narim. Even longer since I played back his recording.
It is still all just so painful.
Not just knowing that Narim is in all likelihood dead.
Well, yeah, I guess that hurts some, too.
But even when he was alive and well, it hurt to think about how he felt about me.
When he had first given it to me, the recording had shocked and scared me. It's painful and frightening to experience first hand the emotions that someone feels for you and know that deep down you can never, will never feel that way about him. The recording was clear proof that he really did love me at least in all of the conventional ways that love is defined.
You know, you hear the words poets use to describe love, you have your own personal experiences with it, but take it from me that it's overwhelming to experience the actual raw emotion from another person.
But even then, so long ago, I knew I could never love him that way. Mostly because I was already a little bit in love with...someone else...before Narim ever gave me the Tollan cube.
And so, yes, I had kissed him back when he'd kissed me. But I was still floating, lost at sea in the echo of his feelings playing through my head. Beneath the sweetness of Narim's feelings, though, the burn of my own fears made my own feelings so unclear.
His emotions pulled at me, making me wish I could feel for him what he did for me.
But you cannot always choose that which your heart desires most...
After Narim left with the Nox (with Schroedinger in tow), I played the recording again and again. It took a while but I finally realized what it was about the emotions recorded there that had scared me, besides the fact that these emotions came from the wrong man.
His emotional picture put me on a pedestal and the only way off of it was down. He was, as Dad would put it, wearing rose-colored glasses and seemed damn happy about having them.
To Narim, I was a perfect "angel" his feelings imbued me with all of the things that Valentine's day greeting cards espouse or errant boyfriends say when they have done something wrong and are apologizing in order to get back into your life. And while his emotions were real, his picture of who I am was not.
Narim saw some false idealized image of me. There was no way that he was ever going to be able to accept that I was not the person he saw. Trouble is, I never will be what he saw. Whatever else I know about myself, I do know that I am very human. And I am, so often, paralyzed by my own fears and shortcomings. Without even digging deep into my insecurities closet, I can come up with all sorts of things that put the lie to his feelings.
Narmin saw me as beautiful, in that very male appreciation of what is beautiful. In reality, I am too tall, somewhat ungainly, and while I am not hideous, no ships will ever be launched on my behalf. I am disgustingly average in that whole "Baywatch" way that people use to catalog your personal assets. I just cannot imagine any of the men I know tossing themselves into the ocean in hopes that I will get to perform mouth-to- mouth.
I am a reformed slob, making me an anal-retentive neatnik, now. Dust bunnies don't ever have a chance to get a cup of coffee together, much less actually breed in my home. And Janet wishes I would teach her orderly staff how to make corners as tight as the ones on my guest bed. Again, this is not the stuff of sexy and exciting - a truth that men in my past have pointed out to me, albeit usually only after things had already started to go south between us.
I am fascinated by my work, sometimes to the exclusion of everything and everyone else. My ability to completely immerse myself into a topic is an asset in a lab, but it too often makes for forgotten birthdays and dinner engagements. These are the things that lead to no second or third date even if I do manage to get through the first and care to entertain thoughts of a second.
I am never happy with anything I cook. And it frustrates me that I even care. It's the 21st century, for crying out loud! I'm a modern woman in one of the most advanced, industrialized nations on the planet. I don't need to be able to whip up Beef Stroganoff or Lobster Bisque at the drop of a hat. But it frustrates me because I cannot.
I'm crazy about babies but it scares the hell out of me to think of having my own. Hell, Cassie scared the hell out of me and she was almost 10 years old when we found her. Janet has commented that my biological clock is not ticking too loudly, just yet. But even she admits that some of my experiences have played with my biology such that we don't know what might happen if -- no, when -- I try to have a child.
Of course, Janet admitted this truth just before she reminded me that my biological imperative would be greatly enhanced if I would do something about the necessity of securing the other half of the DNA ladder -- preferably from a real live donor. She mentioned she had a list of possibly interested parties...
Last but not least: Under my 'cool, scientific exterior' I am convinced I am a blithering idiot when it comes to making relationships work just look at my track record. 'Nuff said.
All of this and more, in my past experience, is the stuff that men don't understand. It simply drives the broken chromosome set insane.
I have, on and off, struggled with Narim's feelings about me, realizing that I will never be the person he was in love with -- and then feeling guilty that I am so relieved over that fact. I am certain that while I could love Narim, I could never be _in love_ with him.
I was only further confused by Narim's feelings when we went to the new Tollan home world. He had set his home computer's voice up to sound like me for pity's sake! How was I supposed to take that - as the ultimate in devotion (a compliment) or some new form of intergalactic stalking?
No, I couldn't pick a nice, uncomplicated space alien to...care about. Overcoming the differences in our backgrounds, evolution, religions, maybe having to overcome a difference in our species...
That would be too easy.
I have to go and fall for a man who could cost me everything I have ever wanted and worked for in my life. I have to fall for someone whom it is, literally, illegal for me to love!
It is _so_ cheesy-movie-of-the-week to fall for your CO. I'd lay odds that most women in uniform would agree with me on this one.
About the only thing that could have made him a worse choice would have been if he'd still been married. Hell, if he'd been married but not my CO, I would get into _less_ trouble if we ever decided to...pursue things! Have an affair.
As it stands now, we are both married to our work...and the USAF takes a dim view of its officers cheating on that marriage. So, for now, all we can do is know how the other feels...
Dad always said that I habitually choose the hardest paths...
I have not played Narim's emotional recording since those first few times. Never since I stood in the control room, hearing his, voice dissolve in a crackle of static as the Goa'uld exacted their price for disobedience by destroying the new Tollan world.
I reach for the device, hearing Narim's soft, slightly husky voice in my head.
//Just touch the red triangle. And close your eyes.//
This time the emotions I am experiencing are familiar. These are all that I have left of an old acquaintance. Perhaps that is what makes experiencing his emotions a bit easier this time. Comfort shepherds them in, leaving the fear behind but bringing along a bittersweet taste as I realize that I may never be able to explore feelings just like this with the man that I do...have feelings for.
I feel myself smiling, a sad smile but a smile none-the-less, as I come to the end of the recording. I let a feeling of contentment wash over me as the loop finishes playing. His image of me might have been false, but it does my soul good to see an ideal of me that is so much...more...than the reality of who I am.
Narim's recording comes to an end and as I start to put the device down, I am shocked that I begin to feel something else. Something that has never been there before.
------------------------------------
I almost drop the device as I realize that I'm, somehow, feeling a _new_ recording. One that wasn't here the first times I played the one Narim made.
Puzzled, I let myself go, caught in the wave of new emotions, feeling the frustration turned to laughter turned to the heat of lust turned to a delicate pain and finally turned back into an even greater joy than before.
I gasp as I realize who this has to be. Recognizing the "flavor" of Him, such distinctive dark depths and scintillating heights. The complex tapestry of him, a warp and weft of joy and pain, sorrow and lust, regret and hope, irony and patience, naivete and impatience, resolve and self-loathing, anger and an overwhelming warmth of love. All of this is familiar, even though I have never really experienced him like this.
This is the Colonel. The emotions are the man as I know him, but stripped of the artifice of his humor and the bluff that make up the daily interactions of human life.
I have to bite my lip to stop the gasp when I realize that at least some of this is somehow tied to me. This is not random emotion poured through the sieve of the Tollan device. In just the few minutes I had been gone from my office, he had somehow experienced all of this. These are his feelings about _me_.
And I am completely undone by their depth and breadth.
I lose myself inside the feelings, his emotions so different from Narim's.
Where Narim had seen an image of me, the Colonel sees reality. Narim's feelings had fallen sweet and sharp on me, but with little complexity or character beneath the surface
The Colonel's feelings are complex and changing as they flow through me.
The smooth molasses of his very male appreciation of me. I feel the heat rush to my face as I get the clear picture of just how much the Colonel appreciates legs, breasts, the shape of my smile, that little cowlick of hair behind my left ear The sharp bite of lust does things for my ego that I would never admit out loud. But even amongst his very positive accounting of me, I can feel his clear frustration that the woman hides behind the Major too often -- that I subjugate and control who I am in order to fit into the mold that I chose in the USAF.
The high, sharp, cinnamon bite of his admiration of the way my mind works. His enjoyment of my astonishment at the times he has "been right" when it came to a theory, the way I make jokes that appeal to his sly wit, the way I disappear into polysyllabic words and reappear only after his eyes have glazed. But beyond the admiration is the smallest bitter edge, put there by the recognition that I too often hide my emotions and sense of wonder at the universe behind the brains, losing sight of the very real human factors involved.
The rough, peppery edge of how he hates my sometimes overwhelming naivete about making the tough decisions of who lives and who dies. And how he hates himself for sometimes hating that I am more innocent than he can ever be again. The fact that he sometimes wishes he didn't have to be the one to make those life and death decisions that add one more mark to the tally on his soul. The recognition that choosing who comes home is what he was trained for and has done for too many years to count. The wonder that, even though I know the truth of many of the things he has done, I can still feel...something maybe just south of love...for him.
The pleasant, vinegary recognition of what our teamwork has meant to our world -- and what it has cost us as individuals in the process. His realization that, in many ways, we are a very good fit on a team. His contemplation of the nature of finding someone who extends you and makes you want to be more than you ever thought you would or even could be. His lamentation that neither of us has the guts right now to explore what we can be to each other away from the team.
The warm honeyed sweetness of his surety that what we have together is worth waiting for. That he can feel it when our eyes catch for just a moment too long, our hands touch and linger for that extra second, our smiles meet across a room and each knows what the other is thinking. That together we will become more than the sum of our parts. That we can be more for each other now because our work has forged us into something stronger. That we are worth it to continue as we are now, fighting to secure the future where we are at peace with ourselves and the decision to be with each other.
I hear a gasp and realize only peripherally that it came from me as I feel what he feels, the highs of it and the very real lows of it.
As the new recording ends, I open my eyes and stare in wonder at the device. My hands are shaking so much that I put it back on the bench top before I drop it.
Hooooollllly. Hannah.
Scared? Did I say Narim's emotions scared me?
Scared does not even begin to cover this. Experiencing his feelings about me, about us, about how things are has caused my heart to hammer faster than any thrill ride I have ever been on -- my first time through the 'Gate included.
I feel almost ill at how overwhelming it all is. This part I remember from when I played Narim's recording the very first time. But this is different because it's a different man this time, one whom I already love, even if I have never said the words aloud to him.
How does he live with all of that bottled up inside every day?
How the hell am _I_ going to live with him, sit across from him in mission briefings, follow him down rocky slopes, listen to him breathe during my watch shifts, knowing that all of that is there, just under the surface, waiting to be explored and reveled in?
How am I going to turn away from this Thing that sometimes clicks between us, the awareness that makes it almost painful to stay in our skins, to not reach out and touch each other? How am I supposed to have the strength to stop when I now _know_ he feels it too.
How am I going to face him, having experienced the depths of emotion he holds for me? Knowing that when he thinks of me there are parts of him that shine so bright they blind me with their brilliance but that there are also parts of him that are so dark that their dragging depths and sheer raw pain steal my breath away and crush me under their weight?
How am I--
Equilibrium. I need to get some back.
I run through a few simple standard equations in my head, using base eight to make me concentrate, helping me to get my focus back together.
I shift the cube around on the bench top, making sure I do not press play again.
How they hell did all of that get recorded on here?
That's better.
Nice, rational thoughts.
Surely the Colonel did not do this on purpose. He claimed he didn't even know what it was, much less how to operate it. But--
It was on.
When he dropped it in my hand, it had been activated. He must have somehow...And then it just...
In the aftermath of my fear, there is a small part of me that wants to laugh: This whole situation seems to be proof that telepathy is, truly, not the great way to bring people together that all of the science fiction authors think it is.
I know, somehow, that he would see the humor in that, too.
I suddenly want to cry - the sheer _rightness_ of what he feels for me is the most incredible gift I have ever been given. It is not all wine and roses, sweetness and light. It is lust and admiration and irritation and frustration and--
Love.
It is the kind of love that lives through the bad times and makes the good times seem to last for forever. It is a rare thing to find and it is even more rare for it to be freely given.
But I am almost certain that he never intended to give so much away.
How the hell am I going to tell him what he has done, the things that I now know?
Denying this ever happened doesn't seem to be an option.
Don't get me wrong, I could do it.
I am a world class athlete in the Denial Decathlon events, even though I have chosen to keep my amateur status open for possible future Olympic participation.
If nothing else, the mistakes I made with Jonas both before and after we were engaged are enough to have taught me that I can deny with the best.
These days, I do less practicing in the Heavy Psychic Burden events and I do try to at least let myself _see_ the truth before I begin obfuscating it. The distinction is subtle but it is there and it tends to keep me honest enough with myself that I will never delude myself into the pain of another Jonas Hanson.
But he could never be Jonas.
Despite the things they might have had in common - a significant time spent in the black world and assorted tragedies in their pasts that had made them both members in bad standing in the Emotionally Impaired Male Recovery Program (or "emrip" as Janet likes to say) - the Colonel is so different from Jonas. I had always suspected it, but now, having seen for myself the essence of who he really is, I know that he could never become what Jonas had been when we were together, much less the deluded man he was at the time he died.
And the Colonel needs to know that I know. Not telling him would be the same as lying to him.
I pick up the device, turning it over and over as I think about how and when I am going to tell him what I know - _if_ I actually get the nerve to tell him.
//Be fair about this, Sam.//
I can almost hear Daniel's voice over the humming machinery of the lab.
Though he has been 'dead' for quite a while now, I always feel him near me at the times when I need a friend. He and I used to discuss so much when he was alive. In some ways, he helped me begin to understand the Colonel, why he reacted the way he did to situations, why he sometimes did the things he did...You could say that Daniel helped me...develop...these feelings that I have.
Maybe I am just projecting, but I can still hear him talking to me these days. I feel his support and love, and he has never failed to help me when I need it.
I am certain that I would be facing a full psych screening if I ever mentioned to anyone that my dead teammate helps me make decisions. But it isn't really like that. Maybe the shrink would say that he is just the projection of my own subconscious, trying to help my conscious mind decide. But a very big part of me knows that it is really Daniel. //Honesty, Sam. That has always been your policy for dealing with these uncomfortable things.//
He's right. That policy has gotten me into plenty of hot water through the years, but it is who I am the only way I know how to be.
//You know how you feel about him. And when it mattered, you told him.//
Yes, I guess I did. But when I told him, he appreciated it so much he locked it in that damned iso-room and left it there to die.
//Not true and not fair, Sam. When you told him, he realized, just like you do, that now is not your time. He told you how he felt, too. He left it in the room because he knows, just as you do, that you both need to finish a few things as you are before you become something new together.//
Ha! I am beginning to think there may never be a right time and we will never be finished. A very small voice that I push away on bad days whispers that in my ear.
//There is a time. There will be a chance. Think about what you just felt. Does that seem to be the sort of thing that he can just forget? Is Jack the sort of man who will never find the right time?//
My breath comes in with a shudder. The emotional roller coaster I had just been on was intense. But intensity doesn't guarantee longevity.
My scientific mind knows that a nuclear explosion and a camp fire are the same in that they are both a release of energy. It's just that one releases all of its energy in a micro-second while the other takes a bit longer.
My emotional heart wonders what will happen if all that I think he feels burns away before the right time ever comes?
//Sam. You both admitted what you feel. Even if neither of you used the real words. That was over two years ago. What you just felt was recorded today.//
And the point is...
Daniel's voice sounds a bit uncomfortable. I swear I can almost hear him squirm in his chair, but I can feel him smile as he continues.
//If that was a _less_ intense version of Jack's feelings from a year ago...uh...he might just, uh, kill you if you two are ever able to be together.//
Okay, there's a good point. A goofy grin creeps across my face.
That recording _was_ pretty intense. At the very least, I have that. And if what he felt today was _less_ intense than what he felt before...
Whoo-whee, he may kill us both, but what a way to go. Maybe by the time things are...different...between us, I just might be able to survive long enough to enjoy it!
Running a thumb over a smooth edge, I contemplate the Tollan recorder. Such a small thing. And yet, it has changed everything more than anything has before.
I still need to tell him I know. I need to tell him so much. He deserves that and much more. But it is going to be so hard to explain all of this. How can I make him understand what I feel. That I feel the sa--
My cheeks burn with the embarrassed flush that rushes over me -- the typical response to a senior moment.
My goofy grin expands and I know it has become a full-blown, say- cheese-for-the-camera, I-just-won-the-Nobel-Prize-for Science-and-I'm- going-to-Disneyland smile.
I stop flipping the device around in my hand and feel a momentary doubt. Is it really going to be this easy?
//Sometimes the best things in life are easy, Sam. Even for the very young.//
Or the primitive? I like the Nox version better...
//Either way you say it, that was one thing that Narim was right about. What your head doesn't know, your heart fills in. It might be a bit "young" but it really is a beautiful thing.//
How do you know he said that? You weren't in the room when he sai--
//One of the perks of ascension is you get to be omniscient when you want to. Kind of like getting a freebie to peek into people's diaries.//
There is a grin I can hear and a chuckle in that voice.
//Look, Sam. Just do it. You know it's right.//
Daniel's voice is a mental kiss goodbye, for now.
I wonder if Oma Masala knows she let a peeping Tom into the ranks of the all-powerful...
I take a deep breath, crossing my fingers and hoping like hell this works, and press the yellow and green buttons atop the recorder.
I feel the strangest urge to tap the end, blow into it, and ask "Is this thing on?"
Sliding it into my pocket, I stand up, grab the receiver, and hit the one- touch button at the top of my phone.
"O'Neill."
His slightly irritated voice, a little tinny through the phone, makes me smile again.
"Sir, I was just about to finish up here."
Just so I am not lying, I press the receiver between my neck and ear and begin to gather papers and shut down the computer to pack it in for the evening.
"Oh?"
"And I was wondering if you needed any other help to get that report ready for General Hammond."
"Uh..."
I wait, his breath susurrating through the line as he thinks it over. I can almost see him chewing on his lower lip as he considers.
"Um, sure. Sure. I can always use some help, Carter."
"Okay, give me five, sir. I'll even stop on the way and grab coffee."
"Sounds good, Carter. See you in a few."
I hang up the phone, stuffing the rest of my work into the side pocket and zipping the briefcase shut. I grab the rest of my things and snap the lab lights off on my way to the officer's mess.
A few minutes later, a large Mocha Java in one hand and a large French Roast in the other, I head to the Colonel's office. He greets me at the door, taking the cups from my hands as I sling my case to the floor beside the door and take a seat in the guest chair he has pulled up in view of his computer screen.
##########################
I grimace as the last of the mocha in my java goes down bitter. Glancing at my watch while the Colonel hunt-and-pecks his way through the last of my comments, I realize that it is almost 1700.
"If you get Abrahms to run this up for you, it might even get there early, Sir."
"Huh?"
"The report...it was due by 1700, right?"
"Oh yeah..."
He glances down at the desk clock.
"Shit! I just gotta..."
Studying his face in profile as he uses the spell checker, stabbing at the enter key with all the enthusiasm of a teenaged Cassie blasting away mummies and ogres in Quake, I run a hand across the bump of the recorder in my pocket.
"Sir?"
"Hmm?"
"Uh, when we finish here, do you think we could grab a bite to eat? I'd like...Ummm...I have some thing I'd like to...show you."
"Huh?"
He glances up at me for a moment, blinking with the glazed look of a gaming addict before he zeros in on his next linguistic victim.
"Sure, Carter. Whatever you need."
Over his muttering at the machine to 'Stop asking me stupid questions -- of course canopic jar has two p's, right', I hear Daniel's voice once again.
//This is going to be okay, Sam. Jack is very good at thinking with his heart. Right now may not be the right time, but until it happens, maybe this will do for both of you.//
-- ### --
Story Notes: FEEDBACK: Both positive comments and critical feedback help to improve my writing. Any little thing you have to say would be very much appreciated ;) tmpotter@widomaker.com "Now, describe your pain. But, please, be honest. This is, after all, for posterity."
AUTHOR'S NOTE: As I am new to actually speaking up on the Sam and Jack list (and mostly to writing fanfic), and all alone in my S/J and SG obsession amongst my friends, this has not received the benefits of a canon (or even fanon) beta reader...sorry 'bout any mistakes!
AUTHOR'S NOTE: As I am new to actually speaking up on the Sam and Jack list (and mostly to writing fanfic), and all alone in my S/J and SG obsession amongst my friends, this has not received the benefits of a canon (or even fanon) beta reader...sorry 'bout any mistakes!
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 ]