samandjack.net



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The stars just don't look right anymore.

How can they?

I used to love them you know; the stars. I used to sleep at night nestled among them, rest my weary head in their safe embrace, trusting them to keep me till dawn. I marvelled at their beauty, their secrets; was made small by their awesome depth and number, yet made a part by the way they encompassed my life. We would wander together, the stars and I, exploring each other; and I learned as much about myself as I did of them while I was there.

While I was up there, among the stars.

I wandered there for a while, thinking it was my place, my destiny, but it was only for a while, wasn't it? Only for a while. I thought we had something together, the stars and I, but they betrayed me. I loved them and I did all I could to protect them, everything that was in my power, and they betrayed me in the worse possible way.

They took her from me.

After all I did, all the risks I took, after all I gave up, all I forsook, and they took her from me in the end. All those years of letting the stars come between us, hoping, *wishing* that one day, one day I'd be rewarded, that one day you'd let us go...and this is how you repay me?

You took her from me.

You took her away from me after it all and I'll never forgive you. How could I continue to walk there, continue to wander among you knowing that you took her, knowing that you were keeping us apart? I couldn't could I? So I ran away, I hid from you, but I never can escape you can I? You've followed me here, to my one last refuge, and here you are. Here you shine. God but it costs me just to look at you. Pains me to look at you and feel that yearning, that desire to be up there, to be among you again, to feel as if I 'm betraying her by still wanting you. Jeez how screwed up am I if a dead woman can make me feel guilty about wanting my own job back?

A sudden swell of fruitless anger claims me and I toss my rod into the still water, knowing that no fish will be frightened by the disturbance. I watch the rod sink into the deep black water and disappear as quickly as my brief wrath, and I silently curse my own stupid impatience.

Fuck.

Well that's hobby number sixty-two down the tubes. Night fishing. I knew I should have stuck with origami.

Standing I kick the tub of bait after it's companion, and it goes with a satisfying plop. Turning I walk back up the dock to the patch of straggly grass by the shore, and drop unceremoniously onto the hard ground, glad as it jars my back, as once again the sharp twinkles against the backdrop of velvet in the sky catch my eye.

She's not dead.

We have no proof that she's dead.

But sometimes...sometimes I almost wish...I...Sometimes I almost wish she was. I almost wish she was dead and gone because then I could mourn her. I could cry and weep and throw myself on her grave and wallow in the misery of what I've lost, what I never, ever had. Then? Well then maybe if I was lucky I'd follow her shortly after. A careless mission, not watching my back, not moving fast enough, just not caring enough. Then I'd be dead too...and I'd be happy.

I'd be happy.

I'd like that, to know for sure she was dead. I'd like to have done all my crying on one day. I can see myself in that crisp black suit that hasn't seen the light of day since...since...well. Since the last time before that I cried. I'd stand there in my crisp suit and my sunglasses, pale skin behind, dry red eyes underneath. But I didn't get that day, none of us did. Instead we had...limbo. So I still cry...and I'm sick to death of crying.

I'd just like to stop crying.

I wipe angrily at my tears, marvelling at how easily they still flow, I would had thought I'd have used up my life's quota of tears by know. Where's the hard-assed unemotional Colonel I used to be? Where did he go? What happened to him? I look up at the stars again, and they mock me.

You did. You happened. You took her away from me, and you won't give her back. Why can't you just give her back? But...oh damn its been so long. Too long. I only count the years in seasons now, so it must be...ah jeez we're coming up on seven or eight years. Seven or eight years! Why can't I...why can't I just get over her...death? Because stars...because...because I don't know, we don't know, and we'll never know now. Jeez she could be living happily somewhere with lots of little kids running around, and you'd know wouldn't you? You know exactly where she is and what she's doing and you won't tell me! You just watch me, watch me cry and cry, and all for nothing.

All for nothing.

Why should I? Why should I cry for you Carter? Why the hell should I cry now? Because we don't know if she's alive or dead, safe or in harms way, that's why. We just don't know. I always hoped, for weeks and months and years that she'd come through the gate, come through using the one GDO code that work always work, but she never did. I always thought that lucky as she usually is, that one day she'd stumble on the gate, and come home, or that the teams going through on a semi-regular basis would find her, but the teams don't go there anymore, and her radio batteries have long since died. If she's gonna get home now, she has to do it on her own. I imagine her travelling constantly, searching for something she has no idea if she'll ever find. What if she finds it, only to see it disappear as she closes in, chest burning as she runs, only to fail, and not get home? What would she do?

She'd keep going, just like I would.

But...what if there are people living there, just like Daniel postulated? What if she found them, fell in love, married, had kids...well...then I'm glad. Glad she's not dead, glad she's happy, and glad she's not alone there. Damn Jack there was nothing we could do...nothing! It wasn't our fault some smart art alien race made the gate...jump. Every coupla hours or so the gate jumps around, at random, and when it happened the first time we were incredibly lucky to find it again, incredibly lucky. Well...three of us were. Carter...Carter was on my six and she...she didn't make it. I went through the gate backwards, screaming her name as she ran towards me, seeing the sparkle around the gate start to form as it was about to jump. Just as she got to the event horizon I threw myself backwards to give her space, but she never tumbled down the ramp behind me. She never came through.

She never will.

It's a lovely fertile planet they kept telling me, lots to eat and drink, mild climate, she'd be okay until she found the gate. Until. If. If ever, they meant.

The stars catch my gaze again, and I watch them quietly. Those point of sparkling light wavering and blurring as my eyes fill with water once again. I tip my head back, refusing to let those tears fall, keeping them in the cups of my eyes, but each time I blink they brim and threaten to spill.

I don't want to cry stars, why do you make me cry, why won't you just leave me alone? I don't want you stars, I don't want you anymore!

I don't want you anymore.

I let my head drop, let the tears spill, but bury my eyes in my hands, feeling the water slip over my skin and drip from my fingertips, and I cry. I just cry.

Cry.

It takes me a few minutes to calm, for the wracking sobs to stop, and when they finally do I take a deep cleansing breath, and let the silence of the lake wash over me. The beautiful, empty silence.

Ring, ring!

Huh?

The absurdly loud sound of a phone ringing snaps me out of my thoughts, and the jarring shrill finds me frozen, uncertain. I almost convince myself it didn't happen, as the space, the terrible silence between rings seems so long, but it happens again. Ring, ring. Ring, ring. After a moment of listening, I curse softly then ease my knees straight and jerk towards the house. Damn phone...damn stupid...stupid...wait.

I...I don't have a phone.

I haven't had one in oh...seven years or so. I didn't come up here to be in constant contact with all those I've left behind, that's not why I'm here. I came here to escape everyone, everything, and the one thing I wanted to escape the most I couldn't. The damn stars. Ring, ring.

Ring, ring.

So if I don't have a phone, what the hell...is...

I do have a phone. I have one phone. I have one phone that lives in the cupboard underneath a big pile of junk and a layer of dust. I haven't touched that phone in seven years since I put it in. It's a very special phone, a phone that only one person knows the number to, one General who was very, very sad to see me go. He's retired now, apparently, and good on him, but...he wouldn't have told anyone else about the number would he? God he wouldn't...not when he knew...not when he knew what the phone was for.

It...that phone was only installed for one reason. It was only to be rung for one reason, and one reason only. God I made myself forget it as time passed, made myself forget what it represented, for it represented silence. No news, and as far as I'm concerned, no news is bad news, and no other kind ever came...until.

Until now.

My phone is ringing. My special phone that was to be called by only one person in only one eventuality.

Oh God General Hammond is that you, is it? What do you have to tell me? Do you remember the rules, the conditions I placed on the one singular use of that phone, do you remember? Back then I still had some hope, and many more tears to shed, and I made you promise didn't I? Made you promise to call only if...only if...

If...oh God otherwise you would have come to see me like I asked wouldn't you? You would have come personally to give me the news that would keep me here forever wouldn't you? Like I asked? And then I would have cried, cried long and hard, and for the last time, and then I'd be free. Free of my guilt and my burden and my stupid, pointless hope and longing. Then I'd give up the threads of her life I'd been clinging to, and go wherever my life took me.

But you didn't come...you called...oh God you called. You're calling me back...calling me back because...because she...she's...

The breeze washes over me, and I realise I'm still stuck here, frozen here in place halfway to my cabin. Halfway to heaven, halfway to hell.

Ring, ring. Ring, ring.

He's calling...he's calling to tell me...to tell me...

I run. Time stretches out as I pound towards my cabin door, begging the phone not to stop, begging it to be true, and tears flow freely from my eyes as I run and laugh. Run and laugh and cry and the phone keeps ringing.

Ring, ring. Ring, ring.

It just keeps on ringing.

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THE END
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