DISCLAIMER: Yeah, the SG-1 guys are all property of MGM, World
Gekko Corp and Double Secret productions. This is all in fun, no
infringement on copyrights or trademarks was intended. All other
characters, ideas, etc., herein are copyrighted to the author.
TITLE: THE INTIMACY OF SHADOWS
AUTHOR: Rowan Darkstar
EMAIL: rowan_d1@yahoo.com
RATING: Mature
CATEGORIES: Angst, Sam/Jack
ARCHIVE: Yes, just let me know.
Written for the GateShip Wednesday Shorts "There But For the
Grace of God" Challenge.
"The Intimacy of Shadows"
by
Rowan Darkstar (rowan_d1@yahoo.com)
She knows these realities exist, knows in her scientific mind
that the other paths and convolutions of the course of things are
progressing somewhere, concurrent to her own.
She also knows such things are not carried on the skin of a man.
Yet she feels it.
She feels it from the moment they find Daniel on the floor and
help him back through the gate. A sense of...something. Like a
dream half forgotten that still holds her in its grasp.
Captain Samantha Carter stands in her quarters bathroom, washing
the day off her face, and in the silence around her, the memories
that aren't memories bloom and move like shadows. She can't
delay their grasp.
**"Hey. Are you shaking?"
Sam shakes her head, hair brushing the line of her jaw, dragging
across her shoulder. Her skin is still damp from washing her
face. "No...Jack... I'm fine. I'm just tired. Been a long
day."
"Hey..." His voice is so soft, it courses beneath her skin like
warm oil, spreads through her taut and aching muscles. The
infinite tenderness in the calloused fingers on her cheek leaves
her aching and needing in a way Captain Carter has never
consciously known. "Sam...tell me."
"I'm all right," Dr. Carter whispers, but there are tears burning
her eyes.**
Captain Carter stares at her reflection in the mirror in the
cramped bathroom and grips the sink so tight her knuckles sting.
She's tired. She's dreaming. She's imagining. This can't be...
**"Come here."
His heavy, strong hand is cupping the back of her neck, and
they're forehead to forehead, her hair falling across his skin.
"Tell me. Did he hurt you? Dr. Frasier said..."
"He didn't hurt me. Just...shook me up a little."
"Are you telling me everything? Did he touch you? Sam, you're
not a soldier, you're not supposed to be used to this stuff, you
were interrogating one of the worst Goa'uld basta--"
"He didn't touch me. I just...I heard the staff blasts, and I
didn't know if you were...and then he had a knife to my throat,
and I'm fine, it just...I'm just a little shaken. I'm just...I'm
really glad we're here right now." Her voice is quivering, and
her gut is starting to ache as the weight of their day spreads
through her blood.
She's unbuttoned her blouse, was supposed to be getting ready for
bed, and Jack slips his hand beneath the silk, seeking the
intimate contact. "We're here. It's all over. We're okay.
We're okay." Her jaw tightens and she nods her head, but Jack's
hand turns her insistently to meet his gaze, his eyes dark and
infinite and so so beautiful. "Hey. No tough girl act. You're
the toughest woman on this base, soldiers included, and we both
know that. But you let it go with me, hunh? Always." He
reaches back and snaps the barrette from her hair, and the last
of her long locks fall across her face. His lips press to her
temple, and tears slip down her cheek.**
Sam Carter hasn't cried in front of a man in too long for her to
remember, not when someone wasn't dying or dead or.... Maybe she
never has at all.
But she's remembering waking from a trance and landing in Colonel
O'Neill's arms and the strong hands in her hair and it's getting
all mixed up with--
**"Sssshhhh... Come on. Come here." His arms encircle her,
holding so tight it almost hurts, her breasts pressed to the flat
of his chest, face buried in the flushed, tender skin of his
neck. Jack has never known his own strength. And she loves that
in him. With all his training, his raw power, he could take
her down in a second, but she has never felt safer than wrapped
in his arms.
He moves his hands up her back, over the tight muscles, and she's
melting against him and never wants to let go. So many months
before she let him inside. So many stolen smiles and gentle
flirtations, gradually seeing through the hard-shelled Colonel to
the quiet wonder beneath. Breaking down walls and kicking
through barriers until one cold night in the four-poster bed at
the cabin, he told her out loud about Charlie and he cried across
her lap like a child, and two days later she showed up on his
doorstep in tears over a million things she couldn't even
remember but were all somehow about needing him and letting him
in to see the little girl who lost her mother and can't quite
believe her family won't leave her again.
She has this now, and it's still a little foreign, but she knows
she can never let go and the ring on her finger means a little
more than it should.
She's shaking.
She pulls back from his embrace, bodies entangled, and when their
lips meet, she can taste her own tears on his lips. They don't
speak much. There are whispered devotions, quiet comforts, and
as the clothes fall away and they tumble into their bed, every
touch is as much an affirmation as it is an act of love. When
she nears climax in his arms, it all hits her with her defenses
shattered and broken, and he knows and he understands without
being told. "It's all right, Samantha. I've got you. I've got
you." And she lets him catch her when she falls. When she
collapses in exhaustion and flirts with slumber, she is wrapped
tight in his arms, skin on skin, and the scent of Jack O'Neill
grounds her and keeps her safe in her skin.**
Captain Carter sits on the floor of her quarters, her back
against the wall, knees up to her chest; shaking as the shadows
round her seem to move. He's all over her skin.
"Oh, God..." Her voice is throaty and harsh, and she doesn't
recognize the sound as her own.
Colonel...*Jack*...O'Neill. She has to be imagining, but she's
never thought about...
"Oh, God..." She can smell him. She can feel his lips on her
breasts. But it's his hand on her ribcage, something in the
intimacy, the melding, the connection, that has her insides
scampering like leaves in the wind.
Half an hour, and she's in the almost deserted mess hall sipping
coffee and trying to read the results of her latest atmospheric
analysis and pretend the numbers mean something to her frazzled
brain.
An hour after that and she's tapping gently on the door of
Daniel's quarters. He opens the door, bleary-eyed and dressed in
sweats and a stretched out t-shirt.
"Sam. Hey, what's going on?"
"Daniel. God, I'm sorry, didn't mean to wake you, I just--"
"No, no, it's fine, what..." He waits for a response.
She clears her throat, slips her hands in her pockets and drags
the toe of her boot against the floor. "I'm sorry, I just...I
wanted to ask... In this...other reality you saw...did I...did
she...was my hair...longer?"
His eyebrows lift, and she hopes she isn't blushing and her
stomach washes hot when a flash of skin and lips and breath on
her neck blurs across the present.
Daniel clears his throat, watching her and squinting like he
wishes he had grabbed his glasses. "Um...yeah...yeah, it
was...," he gestures vaguely toward his neck, "below your
shoulders, and...pulled back in a...clip or..something..."
She nods. Doesn't speak. Then, "Thanks. Go back to sleep."
"Sam, you okay?"
"I'm fine."
"Yeah?"
"Yeah. I'm sorry I woke you."
She walks away, feeling Daniel's eyes on her back.
She needs to go home. She needs to stop thinking. She needs to
stop wondering how she'll stand next to Colonel O'Neill at the
base of the gate ramp at 0900.
She needs to play tough girl.
*****
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