TITLE: Lot's Wife

AUTHOR: SelDear

EMAIL: SelDear

SUMMARY: Don't look back. Never look back.

CATEGORY: Angst, Vignette

SPOILERS: Vague S7 ones.

STATUS: complete

SERIES: Abused

RATING: R

CONTENT WARNING: Mention of rape and sexual scenes, but nothing graphic.

DATE: 25th October, 2003

ARCHIVED: Jackfic, SJD - anywhere else please ask.

DISCLAIMER: (To the tune and rhythm of "His eyes are as green as a fresh-pickled toad." - for my sister Louisa!)
These characters don't belong to this fic-writer,
And this line of writing don't pay;
I wish they were mine - they're really divine,
To archive, please ask me, okay?

AUTHOR'S NOTES: I've had this piece sitting out in the wind for six months and only thought of it tonight. I wanted a piece between 'Never Safe' and 'Free' to look at Sam's angle of the situation and had most of it written, but didn't have the connection between the two.

* * * Lot's Wife * * *

She tries not to think about what was done to him.

He clings to her in bed, hands roaming, mouth tracing damp trails over her skin.

Needy.

He was never needy before. Not like this. Not with her.

He is now.

The cotton sheets are smooth under her knees and his body is hot between her thighs. It takes him a while to work up to it, but usually she's the one who sets him off in the end. Tonight is no different.

He's letting her ride on top, which is unusual. He doesn't like to be out of control of the situation - even in bed. Especially in bed.

She gives him everything she has, for so many reasons, only one of which matters in the end. He accepts it without question, but also without any thanks other than exquisite pleasure in bed and reserved tenderness outside it. She loses track of most things when the blinding pleasure hits her, but she knows that he comes, too.

He gasps her name as he shudders, and she feels *that* in her loins.

She's not sure how many people at the SGC know about them. Teal'c, Jonas, and Daniel do, obviously. It's not exactly something you can hide. Janet's no fool, and neither is General Hammond - but neither of them have said anything to her. She hasn't yet had any sidelong glances from the other people on the base.

Not yet.

'Medical discharge,' they said. 'Emotionally unsuitable for further work at the SGC.' The first few weeks were harrowing. Between frantic off-world schedules and coming back to psych session after psych session. 'Tortured,' they said. 'Abused.'

He was reclusive at first. Any efforts to reach out to him were rebuffed - sometimes brutally. Daniel complained he had a mark for every visit. He and Jonas compared their bruises. Curiously enough, the Colonel never took his fists to either Teal'c or herself.

She suspects it's because the other two pushed his boundaries beyond what he was willing to concede, while she and Teal'c were more accepting of his limits. But that's just a theory and she's never dared to ask.

Slowly, they persuaded him to trust them. Slowly, he did. Slowly, he healed.

That was more than a year ago.

It's a miracle that he's come this far, but as his ex-wife said quietly to his team before she washed her hands of him, *"He's a stubborn man. If anyone can get out of it, he can."*

She'd tried not to feel angry at the woman. Sara had been through all this once before. To go through it again for a man to whom she no longer owed allegiance, was too much to ask. Sam had come close to asking, anyway, but Sara had someone else in her life to look after now. Jack O'Neill was not her concern - had not been her concern for over five years.

In her darker moments, Sam admits that if it hadn't been for that, she would have begged. For the Colonel's sake and for her own - because she was afraid of what she might have to give to bring him back whole. He would never be half the officer he was, but the man might still be saved.

Jack O'Neill was a stubborn man.

He is a stubborn man.

His fingers trail down her cheek, down her throat, her breast, her hip, until his hands rest at the top of her thighs. The heat of his skin sears into hers, and his eyes hold her gaze captive.

When she eases herself off him, he is the one to reach for the wash-cloth by the bed and wipe them down, intimate and brisk. The washer is tossed easily away, and he pulls her down to cradle in his arms, his mouth moving over her skin, his nose trailing through her hair.

Out of bed, this man is devastatingly charming, frighteningly attractive.

In bed, this man is devastatingly sensual, frighteningly intense.

They don't talk about anything now. Not in bed. In bed, it's just sex and comfort. Tonight is no different.

Until, "You've been distracted lately. When you come to bed. Is everything okay?"

The words seemed dragged from him, unwillingly expelled from his mouth as if he doesn't want to ask, but feels he must. She resents that he feels he should speak just for her sake.

"Everything's fine," she says lightly. An easy lie, one that costs her too little and too much..

"Everything?" He sees too much, but she will not concede this to him. He cannot take everything there is of her for himself - some parts must remain free and separate.

"Yeah." Why does she feel as if she is drowning? As if she lost sight of the shore many months ago - possibly even years ago? Why is her heartbeat short and her breath harsh, and the bone-deep weariness aching in her soul?

Perhaps it is because she lies and she knows it. Perhaps it is because she lies and he knows it. All is not fine in her world - their world. The splinter is in and it is there to stay. The serpent has taken up residence in paradise and it won't be leaving anytime soon.

"Okay." He accepts it on the outside, but his arm around her waist tells a different story. It marks her - *brands* her - with his heat. Warm lips drag their way through soft strands clinging to the side of her throat, causing shivers in her flesh.

She wants to accept his possession but she cannot.

She must not.

She will not.

So she settles down and ignores the heat under her hand and her cheek and the way his fingers draw circles over her waist.

Sam settles down to wait for him to sleep for one reason only.

So she can leave him.

*Are you sure everything's okay, Sam?* Daniel asked earlier this month, very direct, still as intense, ascended or descended. No tact, but a lot of concern.

She smiled and fobbed him off; an unsatisfying answer as he tried to press her further. In the end, she told him that what went on in her private life was her business and he bit his lip and didn't ask again. Not directly. But even when being indirect, Daniel is pathetically obvious.

Janet shares the same lack of tact. Her inquiries are direct and to the point. She's just worried about her. Sam knows that. But the endless questions tire her; she has enough things on her plate without trying to keep this as quiet as possible.

If those two friends have no idea of how to address the issue, Jonas hovers around the edges of concern. On the face of it, he is willing to accept her explanation, but he, also, is unsatisfied with the answers. Still, he accepts it. And that means a lot to her. Someone who doesn't question, who doesn't scrutinise, a friend for whom being a friend is enough.

And Teal'c is silent. He neither hovers, nor asks questions beyond whether she is well. And while there might be concern underlying his inquiries, there is no curiosity, no need to 'make things right.' He accepts that things do not happen as might otherwise be wished. And he accepts what she must do. No judgement, no interference.

Two who question, two who accept. Four who comfort.

And she needs the comfort. Badly. What she must do hurts.

She was never one to let a man into her body easily. The physical and the emotional were always entwined for her and she could never separate them.

The Colonel was always too close to her emotions.

At first she slept in his bed. He said it was okay. But when she started waking to an empty bed, and found him sleeping on the couch, she took the hint and went back home once he'd fallen asleep.

If she could say 'no' then perhaps her life would be less complicated.

If.

What does she want from him?

More than this.

Much more than this.

It didn't have to be her. In spite of MacKenzie's assurances that it's all for the best and the approval of their friends...

It didn't have to be her.

In a way, she's glad it was. Because at least now, she knows. She knows how much she has and how little she will get to keep. And, knowing that, she can build what defences may be scraped together against him. It's not much when all is said and done, but it's all she has.

Beside her, his hands and body fall limp and his breathing is regular and even.

Slowly, because he can awake so easily, she eases out of the bed and reaches for her clothing.

And, as happens every night, she turns back. She looks back and knows that she commits a grave injustice against herself and against him, but she cannot help but turn to look.

She is Lot's wife longing for what she cannot have. She is the woman who has gambled all she has and lost it all to uncaring fate. The salt of her soul is bitter, even as it both preserves and cleanses her pain, and she is rooted to the ground, forever pinned in stasis, looking back at the man she cannot have but cannot leave.

Some things are immutable and some bonds are unbreakable.

Still, she tries to sever what is between them. And fails, every night.

In the hall, she clothes herself, cotton, nylon, and denim covering skin still heated with the memory of his hands and mouth. At the door, she picks up her bag, and she leaves the house replete with memories of other encounters, expected and unexpected, convenient and inconvenient.

She leaves him.

The air outside is cold and clean, devoid of his warmth and their mingled scent. The chill restores the calm logic of her thought, reiterating the decision made and its rightness. Her breath makes puffs of condensation as she approaches her car and climbs in.

Her hand only shakes a little as she puts the key in the ignition.

Weariness assaults her. It is more than just physical tiredness - it is emotional exhaustion.

Like any other human, she wants somewhere to rest, a home to return to at the end of the day. But the mark of Cain is upon her and she will wander the Earth - and the galaxy - seeking a place to lay her heart and never finding it.

She wants to find a haven in him. She knows she won't. She's not his destination - just a port in a storm. And the storm has been long and hard on them both.

The closest she comes to rest is those minutes after sex when she snugs up against him in the bed, or he curls up around her. A few moments of quiet contentment in the midst of a sea of restlessness.

Tonight, the pain is too much to bear - even for Sam Carter. She leans over the steering wheel and lets the tears run down her face. There's nobody to see her now; she can let her guard down.

She cries for herself, because she cares and she's not supposed to. She cries for him, because he needs healing and she can't give it to him. She cries for lost dreams and shattered souls, and because she has nowhere else to go and no-one else's life to share.

And when her tears are exhausted and she feels flat and dried out, she starts the ignition of her car, and drives quietly into the night.

* FIN *

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