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: SILENCE
AUTHOR: Rowan Darkstar
EMAIL: rowan_d1@yahoo.com
RATING: All Ages
CATEGORIES: Angst
ARCHIVE: Yes, just let me know.

Written for the GateShip Wednesday Shorts "A Matter of Time"
Challenge 300 words

"Silence"
by
Rowan Darkstar (rowan_d1@yahoo.com)
Copyright (c) 2005


Her quarters are pitch black, save for the dim night yellow
spilling beneath the door, and the cold blue numbers on her
bedside clock.

She lies in the silence and listens to the sound of her breath.
The mountain thrums around her; this place never sleeps. She can
almost smell the naquadeh of the Gate, so many floors below.

She wishes she were home, breathing in the floral scent of bath
oils from her still damp shower, hearing the pine branch dragging
across her bedroom rooftop in the wind.

But when her knees let go halfway across the commissary, and she
grasped the nearest table for support, that table happened to be
Daniel's. Too many hours awake. Too many hours with coffee and no
food. Daniel wasn't about to let her drive home alone.

She lies awake in her quarters. And she is grateful that everyone
she loves is alive. She is grateful the world stands, oblivious
to its near annihilation. She gives herself no credit for her
part in these events.

Because all she can feel in the dark is the thing she shut down
when the world needed her. And somewhere in the
days/weeks/hours/months of crisis, the pain has amplified a
thousand fold.

She would have watched the video feed. She would have watched the
tape. On endless loop and close-up and slow and fast and frozen.

He knew this. He knows this.

Hours (days/minutes/weeks) ago, it was Colonel Jack O'Neill at
the event horizon. About to die.

Crying in the dark of her quarters, all Samantha Carter can see
is the disappointment etched in his suntanned face, and all she
can hear is the thinly masked disgust in voice.

Because she would have watched a good man die, and her eyes never
would have left the horizon.

******

rowan_d1@yahoo.com