AUTHOR'S NOTE--PLEASE READ: This story is loosely based on one 
basic spoiler for 'Threads'.  All other 'Threads' storylines do 
not apply in this fic (therefore rendering it AU after 'Gemini')   
I am largely UNspoiled for 'Threads' (and wish to remain so until 
it airs here March 11th).  This story is not intended to 
accurately fit in with the episode, it only borrows from certain 
premises and runs its own way with them.:)  I am asking, however, 
if you should be so kind as to send feedback my way PLEASE KEEP 
THE FEEDBACK SPOILER-FREE FOR 'THREADS'!  Thank you so much.:)


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:  PLANETARY SHIFTS 3: HEARING
AUTHOR: Rowan Darkstar
EMAIL: rowan_d1@yahoo.com
WEBSITE: http://rowan_d.tripod.com
RATING: (PG)
ARCHIVE: All archives fine as long as you let me know.
CATEGORIES: Angst, Sam/Jack
STATUS: Complete
SPOILERS: 'Threads' (only one--see note above)
SUMMARY: "This visceral magnetism and constant in his life was 
something he had never attempted to understand.  It simply 
existed."


Endless thanks to my betas: Teddy E and Foxcat and annaK for 
endless encouragement, and for letting me know when I'm actually 
writing three separate stories at once and helping me pull them 
neatly apart.:)



PLANETARY SHIFTS 3: HEARING
by
Rowan Darkstar (rowan_d1@yahoo.com)
Copyright (c) 2005


"Crashing on the ground
the silence seems to suffocate
and bury me again 
Waiting for a taste
of happiness to lift me free
and carry me away"
                 --"Yesterday Went Too Soon" by Feeder



Valentine's Day made it all seem...real.

He didn't understand how things fell anymore, and he didn't know 
what to do about the yellow tulips.  Valentine's Day was never a 
big deal around the SGC.  Seemed a little out of synch with the 
whole Death From Above motif, he supposed.  But SG-1 had always 
had their own little traditions.  Presents were not expected, but 
they were not unheard of.  Daniel had been known to ply Carter 
with Fannie May chocolates, Carter had been known to slip cards 
in all their mission binders, and once she had even stuffed a 
foofy little teddy bear in Teal'c's gear pack.  Just the kinds of 
things that happened when your co-workers somehow became your 
family when you weren't paying attention.

So the yellow tulips had never seemed out of line.  He'd found 
out how much she loved them on a mission to an agrarian village 
years ago.  She had seemed almost shy over her enjoyment of this 
simple bit of beauty, standing in a field of wildflowers, 
sniffing the tulips, with her P-90 angled out of the way and a 
faint blush on her cheeks.

A few months later, when Valentine's Day had rolled around, he'd 
made sure a vase of yellow tulips found its way into her lab.  
Then it had become a kind of tradition, at least when they found 
themselves on Earth for the occasion.

The whole deal had seemed so simple.  Until this year, when Jack 
O'Neill found himself standing in the local flower shop with a 
self-conscious teenaged girl of a clerk staring at him, and he 
wondered if he really had any business leaving yellow tulips on 
another guy's fiancee's desk.

He'd been halfway home before he realized he should have ordered 
something for Kerry.

Must have been a Thursday.  Thursdays always confused him.


*****


Sam Carter didn't even realize she was expecting them when she 
came to the door of her lab and found the vase of a dozen red 
roses on the hallway floor.  Roses.  Delivered outside her locked 
door.  She stooped down and lifted the vase, breathing in the 
earthy scent.  A small pink card was tied to one of the stems.  
"Happy Valentine's Day, Sammie.  My Beautiful Valentine.  Love, 
Pete."

A faint smile graced her lips, and she sniffed the roses.  They 
were truly beautiful, the petals like velvet against her skin.  
Such a brilliant contrast to the grey functionality of the SGC.  
She slipped her keycard through the lock, returned a smile from a 
passing Captain eyeing her flowers, and entered her lab.  She 
switched on the light and set down the roses on the nearest 
table.  And realized she'd been expecting something else.

The lab was just as she had left it the night before.


*****


Daniel Jackson was bored.  Really *really* bored with the 
research he was currently knee deep in.  He loved his work.  
Often the most tedious tasks of translation keyed him into a 
comfort zone that made the work well worth his time.  But he had 
been working through the carvings on this stone SG-15 had brought 
back for over a week now, and as far as he could tell he was 
meticulously laboring to produce an extensive birth and death 
record for a village long gone from the universe.  Jack insisted 
there was a good chance somewhere in those names was the alias of 
a Tok'ra operative who might still be alive, and this stone could 
hold a clue to his whereabouts.  But Daniel highly suspected this 
was one giant fabrication to keep him from bugging Jack about 
Atlantis for a few days.  In short...Daniel was bored *and* 
annoyed, and the two didn't mix well.

So, as was his customary remedy for such a situation, he hauled 
his work into Sam's lab and dove back into it there.  Because 
somehow, it was better to be bored and annoyed in the company of 
one's close friend, than to be bored and annoyed alone.

Sam hardly spoke.  She was lost in her own work today, oblivious 
to his presence.  In fact she was tackling her current set of 
reactor overload simulations with a fervor normally reserved for 
figuring out how to stop the world from blowing up in the next 
ten hours.  She hadn't looked up from her work more than twice 
since he had settled himself into her lab, and lunch hour had 
come and gone some time ago.

Daniel found himself eyeing Sam more than he was watching his 
fascinating translations.

Her shoulders were tense.  He could see it every time she drew a 
deep breath and fought to stretch the muscles enough to draw 
adequate air.  She tilted her neck now and then, rubbed it with 
her hand.  And as he watched her, he began to notice her hand 
moving to stroke absently at her stomach, touch light, just below 
the apex of her ribcage.

Daniel gave up the pretense of progress and crossed the room to 
take a seat on the stool beside Sam's.

She didn't look up from her work.

He reached over and closed his hand on top of Sam's where it 
rested again on her stomach, her thumb gently stroking through 
the black cotton of her shirt.

"Does it hurt?" he asked.

Sam turned, startled, eyes not seeing him at first, then seeming 
to register his presence and the position they were currently in.  
"What?" she stammered.

Daniel squeezed her hand, pressing gently into her abdomen.  
"Does it hurt?" he asked again.

She glanced down at their hands, understanding dawning on a 
visible wave of embarrassment.  "Oh".  She gave a timid laugh.  
"Oh...no.  Not really."  He let his hand fall and she did the 
same.  "It's just..." she glanced away, started her words a few 
times before they took, "...tummy's kind of tight."   She 
wrinkled her nose and shrugged her shoulders, painfully little-
girl in her shyness.

"How come?"  He tucked his hands between his knees, feeling like 
a school boy perched on his stool.

Sam shrugged again, seemed fascinated by the pen he had set on 
the edge of her lab table.  "Just...a lot on my plate right now, 
I guess," she offered quietly.

He nodded.  "Yeah."  Then, "Everything okay?"

She bit the inside of her lip, and he realized she'd been doing 
that a lot lately.  She weighed his question for a moment.  Then 
she nodded.  "Yeah.  I'm fine."

"You want to tell me?" he asked.

She drew a long slow breath through her nose.  "Don't really feel 
like talking right now.  I'm sorry..."

"No, don't be.  It's okay."

She nodded.  She looked concerned she had hurt him.  He rubbed 
her knee for a moment, then pulled his hand away.  "It's okay.  
Just...just be sure that you know I'm here if you ever DO want 
to..."

"I do know.  Thanks, Daniel."

They were quiet for a moment together.  And that was okay.  
Finally he said, "I want to help, Sam."

She flashed him a sweet Sam-smile.  "You are," she said simply.

He didn't want that to be all there was.  But he nodded anyway, 
and she looked away, and he went back to his translations.


*****


Valentine's Day passed, and Jack tried to be less confused.  All 
hell was breaking loose in the galaxy and for once he found it a 
welcome distraction, even if it still meant working shoulder to 
shoulder with Carter at all hours.  And somewhere in the middle 
of it all, Carter found out he was seeing Kerry.  Carter smiled 
at him and said that was nice.  Really.  And he told himself 
Carter hadn't looked like she'd had the wind knocked out of her 
in a hand-to-hand.  He told himself she was just as tired from 
work as he was.  Nothing she said was out of line.  The roses in 
her lab were still hanging on.  Everything she brought to his 
office was brilliant and helped perpetuate the myth that he 
really was competent to be running the SGC.

On a Friday the Galaxy finally settled into a status quo for at 
least a few hours.  And he ordered his entire team to go the hell 
home and get some rest and drink their share of beer.

He found Carter in the co-ed portion of the locker room, nearly 
ready to head out.

"Carter!" he said, voice bright in greeting, though they had seen 
one another less than half an hour before.

"Hey, sir."  She gave a hint of a genuine grin and it warmed his 
chest.  But the sadness that had haunted her eyes for days (or 
weeks) was still there.  He was having more trouble denying it, 
and he was still seeing her sitting on his front porch, crying in 
the snow.  "Finally heading home?" she asked.

Jack nodded.  "Running as fast as I can.  Which isn't very fast 
at this point, I'm afraid."  She responded with a cursory smile.

He was still in his BDUs, but Carter had already changed.  She 
was dressed in that dark burgundy leather set that made him 
forget what he was talking about.  A fitted pale blue blouse 
flashed him now and then from beneath her open jacket.

She must have brought her bike this week.

Carter took a seat on the locker room bench and pulled one foot 
up in front of her, cinching in and tying the laces on her brown 
leather ankle boots.

"Big plans for the weekend?" he asked casually, working the lock 
on his locker.

She didn't look up.  He thought he heard her catch her breath 
before she spoke.  "Not really, sir.  Just going to catch up on 
some sleep, I think."

He laughed softly, "All hail to that," gathering his things for a 
shower.  He really wanted to be clean before he changed into his 
street clothes.  It had been a while, what with all the chaos...

Carter had showered.  He smelled her shampoo.

"You, sir?" she asked, and he'd almost forgotten the question.

"Oh, um..."  He shrugged, unfastened his watch and tossed it into 
his locker.  "No, nothing too special.  The usual."

Carter didn't speak.

Jack grabbed his towel and a shaving kit and slammed his locker 
door.  "Well, have a good weekend, Carter.  I'm off to the luxury 
showers."

He tossed his towel over his shoulder and started for the door.

Carter's voice was so quiet he almost missed it.  "I hate that 
you're with her."

Jack missed a step, caught himself with a hand on the door frame.  
"What?"

"I hate...that you're with her."

He felt like time stopped in the closed-in space, and the 
vibrations of Carter's voice bounced off the walls with all the 
hours in time to circle.  The tremor beneath her words was 
unmistakable and seemed magnified by the extended time.  He 
hadn't heard such feeling in her voice since she'd told Janet 
Daniel had received a lethal dose of radiation.

It scared the hell out of him.

And made him feel he had gotten something back he'd lost too long 
ago.

A slow burn spread from Jack's stomach, through his arms and 
higher until his throat felt thick.  He turned on his heel, boots 
squeaking on the tile floor, and stared directly at his flagship 
team leader.  She was still sitting on the bench, feet on the 
floor, shoulders tensed, fingers curled tight around the front 
edge of the seat, and her gaze locked intently on some point near 
his boots.  Her expression was carefully frozen.  Only the faint 
quiver of her lips as she drew a breath betrayed the strain on 
her composure.

Jack set his things on a chair beside the door, straightened up, 
and said slowly, "*Her* or anyone?"  His voice was flat.

Carter lifted her gaze to his, tears blurring her clear, sharp 
eyes, though she showed no sign of acknowledging them.  "Anyone," 
she said.

"Why?"  He wanted everything in the world but to be angry.  Yet 
anger was all he could feel and he didn't want to stop and figure 
out why while Carter's words were hot in his ears.

She shook her head.  "I can't tell you.  And I can't justify 
anything.  And..." She wrinkled her nose in something like 
disgust, though with herself or him or everything he didn't know, 
"...I have no right to say a word.  I just...*hate* it.  And I 
wish...it would stop."

Anger burned his gut and fueled his words.  "I'm sorry?  You want 
me to stop seeing Kerry?  Why exactly is that?"

"I told you--"

"No, you said you couldn't tell me."  The cold stung.  He wanted 
to regret it; did, somewhere deep he couldn't feel just yet.

"I told you I couldn't justify it, and I'm not asking you to do 
anything, sir, I'm just telling you that's how I feel when--"

"Ya know, you're going to have to give me something more to go on 
here, Colonel, than..."  He shrugged and held out a hand.  He was 
being unbelievably cruel.  But so many months of quiet and 
resentment and it was flaring inside him like gasoline beneath a 
match.
 
Carter struggled for words.  And for once, words failed Sam 
Carter, Ph.D..  She turned and looked up at him, her wide blue 
eyes pleading and speaking to him in silent dissertations as they 
had a thousand times before; on the field, over a P-90, on her 
knees with a Zat pressed to her head.

"Jack...*please*..."  Her whisper was without all armor.

And it cut through his anger like a razor slash.

"Carter..."

She was reaching out to him as they always had when they truly 
needed one another, calling their lifelong bluff.  She was asking 
him to simply be...*them*.....  Not to turn away.  No words.  
Nothing acknowledged.  Just the simple devotion above all others 
that had never failed them.

Every nerve in his body quaked with the need to go to her.  This 
visceral magnetism and constant in his life was something he had 
never attempted to understand.  It simply existed.  Carter hurt, 
and he was there.  He needed something and she was a step behind 
him, keeping him on his feet.  The team all loved one another.  
All of them.  But he and Carter...  Everyone understood there was 
a difference. 

Anger flared where it should have calmed.  "Hey," he barked, and 
he caught a flash of the soldier in Carter, the fear and 
respectful deference at the reprimanding tone from her superior 
officer.  "*You* got engaged."

Carter nodded.  "Yes, sir.  I did."

"Why?"  Losing hold of the General, again.

"What?"

"Why did you get engaged?  I mean...I understand you seeing him.  
You're human, I'm human, nobody should be alone all the time; I 
get that, believe me, and Pete's a great guy.  I meant it when I 
said I was happy to see you happy, but...why did you agree to 
marry him?  If you still..."

"For the record, sir?  We're...not anymore."

"Not what?"

"Not...engaged."

"There's a ring on your finger that says otherwise, Colonel."

Her eyes reflexively glanced toward the diamond.  "Yeah.  Well.  
Sometimes letting go of something...even when you both know it's 
over...isn't so easy for anyone involved."

That he could relate to.  It hurt him that she could, too.

Jack took a step closer, watched her with narrowed eyes and his 
hands on his hips.  "What happened?"  He didn't want to ask.  He 
didn't have a choice.  He couldn't keep his voice from sounding 
less cold and more empathetic.

Carter didn't move for a long time, and he thought perhaps she 
wasn't going to respond.  Or maybe she didn't know if he was 
asking about her and Pete, or her and him.  Then, she said 
simply, "Reality."  And to be honest, he wasn't sure which 
question she'd answered.

"I know you care about him.  I've seen you guys together.  You're 
good together.  But if you feel... Why did you say yes, Carter?"

She gave a bitter laugh.  Sniffed sharply and brushed at her nose 
with the sleeve of her jacket.  "I guess it doesn't matter 
anymore."  Her walls were rising.  Bitterness was leaking into 
her tone and the naked vulnerability he'd caught a moment ago was 
evaporating from view.

"Carter."  She looked up and met his gaze.  Maybe because he was 
her CO.  He didn't care.  Thing was, she was so damn beautiful 
right now.  So damn beautiful.  "Why?" he asked, certain it was 
for the last time.

He stared her down for all he was worth.  She had to understand, 
this was the moment.  She had opened a door, and if they didn't 
grasp this now, if they didn't force something to change, they 
would sink back into the lies and platitudes that had coated 
their lives until they were drowning.  There was a limit to the 
life of any secret, any charade.

He read her right.  Her armor was not thick enough to survive his 
determination.  He saw his unspoken thoughts hit her like 
physical blows, reflecting every hurt back upon him.  The hard 
set of her jaw gave way and her pale cheeks flushed.

"Because you took the promotion," she whispered.

He was lost.  "What?"

"You took the fucking promotion..."  Tears rushed her eyes as she 
looked away, and there was so much incredulity and a hurt so deep 
in her voice she sounded closer to broken than he had ever known.  
He couldn't believe what he was hearing.  Words spilled from her 
trembling lips.  "Sir, for all these years, I thought we never 
tried to be together, because we couldn't bear to give up what we 
had.  We couldn't break up SG-1, we couldn't stop going through 
the Gate, we couldn't give up the fight we were waging, couldn't 
break up all that we had built.  And then one day, you got 
offered this job you never even wanted..."  She choked out a 
bitter laugh and held out a hand in front of her for emphasis.  
*Long Carter-fingers.*  "How many times have you told us you were 
never cut out to be the boss?  Not like this, not outside the 
field....  And now, apparently, you were ready to let go of SG-1, 
of everything we had all held sacred.  Which isn't really wrong, 
after all this time, but...when you did it?  Instead of 
even...looking to me...you took this job that didn't mean as much 
to you, and yet it still promised to keep us apart."  The tears 
that had slowed to let her speak, pressed to the forefront and 
she was full out crying and looking him solidly in the eye when 
she said, "God, Jack, what the hell else was I supposed to think, 
but that you didn't feel anything for me anymore?  Maybe you 
never did..."

Jack didn't speak for the longest time, and Carter's quiet tears 
were all that filled the empty locker room.  He almost waited too 
long, almost missed his window.  He couldn't process fast enough.  
And she was closing her walls and pulling in by the second.  
Running scared.  He found his voice before he lost everything he 
cared about.

"I took this job, because you were with Pete."

Carter looked up at him like he had grabbed her chin and jerked 
it.  "What?"  Her words were damp.

Jack nodded, and he felt his face genuinely soften for the first 
time since he'd entered this room.  "*Yeah*," he breathed, as 
though he were near her ear.  The image sent an unbidden thrill 
through his stomach.

Carter blinked at him.  Wide-eyed and innocent Carter.  IQ of 
just under a thousand and more worldly knowledge than anyone else 
on Earth, and she had never lost her innocence.

"Carter...these past few months you've been...*happy*.  And 
smiling, and...wearing more lipstick like you did in the 
beginning, before life around here beat you down so hard.  And 
I...I couldn't...  Frankly, Carter, I'm gettin' too old to do the 
SG-1 thing.  My knees hurt and I need my sleep.  In a bed.  With 
air conditioning and heat.  So it was either take the job here 
where I could be with all the people and the things I care about, 
every day, or retire and...NOT be with them."  He shrugged, 
simply honest.  "I stayed."

Carter took a bizarrely long time to process his words.  She sat, 
breathing carefully, face pale, fingers still gripping the edge 
of the bench.  Her gaze settled anywhere but on his, eyes 
filtering through lightning-quick thoughts.  He ventured 
cautiously forward and took a seat on the bench beside her, not 
so close they might touch if she didn't want to.  She didn't 
shift away.  They were quiet several beats.  Then, Carter said 
quietly, "Oh, God..." and her little girl voice sounded sick or 
scared or both, and she turned to look at him, eyes painfully 
open, yet she couldn't speak and finally she looked away.  She 
was trembling.

Jack reached out a hand and drew gentle circles on her back.  
"Hey," he said softly, tenderness finally bleeding into his tone.  
Something in him had been released from a relentless pinch-hold.  
"Heeeyy.  It's all right, Carter.  We'll figure it all out."

"You're with her," she whispered.

"No," he said simply.  "I'm seeing her.  I like her company.  
She's a neat lady.  You're...well, you're Carter.  It's 
completely different."

He watched her draw three shallows breaths, chest rising and 
falling beneath her pastel blouse.  Then a fourth breath.  "I 
need you."  Her words were almost too soft to hear.  She hadn't 
lifted her gaze from the floor.

"I'm right here."  He willed her to hear the sincerity.  "I never 
went anywhere."

His hand had fallen from her back onto the bench, and he slipped 
his fingers around her wrist, remembering too clearly the last 
time he had touched her like this, and she had left him alone in 
the snow.  This time, she loosened her death-grip on the bench 
and closed her fingers around his hand.

In all the years, and all the hospital stays, and all the 
embraces, and all the crises--they had never held hands like 
this.  Not like this.

Carter leaned forward, propping an elbow on her knee and lowering 
her forehead into her hand.  "I'm sorry.  I'm tired," she said at 
last, voice still small.

"It's okay."

She startled him when she stood up.  He moved with her, 
instinctively clinging to her hand, unwilling to let go, 
following her the few paces to the door.

"I should go," she said softly, not meeting his eyes.

"Carter..."

"No, I...I don't mean to...I just have to do some things.  I need 
some time to..."

He was nodding, trying to calm her with his presence.  That 
worked with her sometimes.  Just being there, and not letting her 
fluster him.  "Okay.  That's okay.  Take whatever you need."

She hadn't let go of his hand.  She hadn't looked above his 
waist.  "Okay," she parroted.  And she turned to push at the 
door.  But he hadn't let go of her hand, and neither had she his, 
and he squeezed hard just as she was stepping through the door, 
and she swung back and dove into his arms with a force that 
almost knocked him off his feet.

He staggered a step catching her weight hard against him, and she 
held on so tight he almost couldn't breathe.  He wrapped his arms 
around her with equal force, one arm crushing the thick leather 
of her jacket until he could feel her softness beneath, the other 
snaking beneath the heavy material to the silk covering the small 
of her back.  "Whoa, hey, Carter.  It's okay."  

"Oh, God," she whispered again, so deeply scared he could hardly 
make the voice match with Carter, and her breath was hot on his 
ear and making him dizzy.  He buried his face in her neck.  "It's 
okay.  It's okay."  He loosened his hold just enough to cradle 
the back of her head, to work his fingers into her hair.

She was shaking so badly.

"I gotcha," he said softly.

He held on a long time.  Neither of them spoke.

When she finally eased away, eyes red and still soft with tears, 
lips damp and gently flushed, he had never in his life wanted so 
badly to kiss her.  But there were security cameras 
rolling....*story of their lives*...  And he was still Commanding 
Officer of this base.  She was a Lieutenant Colonel.

"Sir?"

*Sir*.  He forced himself to meet her gaze.  "Yeah?"

"Come over to my house on Sunday, if you can, okay?  I'll be 
home."

He nodded.  "Okay."

She held his gaze a little longer, then simply nodded.

She turned and walked away, and he let her go.

He stood there, with his hands in his pockets, and Carter's tears 
still damp on his neck, and the scent of her skin hot in his 
nostrils, and it occurred to him that he probably should have 
gotten the yellow tulips...

Yeah.  The yellow tulips.

*****

rowan_d1@yahoo.com
http://rowan_d.tripod.com/