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