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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: Stellar Drift
AUTHOR: Rowan Darkstar
RATING: Mature
CATEGORIES: Angst, Sam/Jack romance
ARCHIVE: Yes, just let me know.
TIMELINE: Pre and Post - "Company of Thieves"
SPOILERS: Through "Company of Thieves"
RECIPIENT: Written for Sharon who wanted "Something set after Jack goes to Washington." Hope this does the trick, hon.:)
Much thanks to my fast and brilliant betas: Teddy E and Amilyn
And special thanks to Sharon for hand-crafting the pen I used and Annerb for the beautiful notebook.:)
"Stellar Drift"
by
Rowan Darkstar
Copyright (c) 2007
The first true change comes -- of all places -- in the baggage claim of Reagan National Airport. Sam's flight is delayed, repeatedly. When she finally boards, she is stuck on the tarmac a good ninety minutes before actually taking off. She thought she was getting too old to hop a MAC flight every time she wanted a long weekend out of town. But this time commercial hasn't proved a luxury. Sam is travel weary and sore by the time she makes her way downstairs with the other bone-tired passengers, carry-on duffle slung over her shoulder, and she finds Jack O'Neill waiting patiently beside carousel number nine.
Jack graces her with a quirky come-fishing-with-me smile, his eyes too bright in the tired yellow lights. And she moves into his open arms without a word, feeling like she is coming home from a marathon far offworld. He holds on tight, and she presses close against him. He whispers, "God, you feel good," and everything changes.
The words, "So do you, sir," slip across her lips, and she closes her eyes and lets every inch of her feel him against her. Everyone in baggage claim must think they are lovers reunited. And for the first time in her life, Samantha Carter welcomes the assumption.
*****
He invited her for this weekend and the implication was friends, but the undertone was more and she understood this from the start. Things have been changing since her father died, slow and steady as the necessary contrast to their speed-of-light lives. The phone calls have become vital rituals, the hours get later and the topics more intimate. A face to face has been inevitable and organic and a powder keg of potential change.
Kissing comes faster than she expected. Easy smiles and exploration. Welcomed advances and warm skin and smiles and sparks of some kind of passion she thought they'd left behind in neglect.
Stage two grows more complex.
"I don't want to do this just because I'm used to you."
"So...being used to me is a...bad thing?" His simplicity is infuriating and consoling. He is a walking contradiction to himself and she knows this has always fascinated her. She's drawn to those who confuse her.
"No, it's just..." She takes a moment to straighten her words, "...you're...you've always been here for me. Whenever things were bad or no one else understood. I knew I could always come to you and you would understand, even if I didn't say anything... You were there." The words pull her into a needier time. A more intimate place. "Even if I rarely took advantage of that gift, I've counted on the knowledge you were there...more and for longer than I'd even admit." Her vision swims a bit and she's surprised how raw she still is when Jack O'Neill enters her personal space. Something melts in her, something no one else can penetrate.
Jack listens to her words, takes them in, considers them in his own style and time. He draws a steady breath, and settles his arm along the back of his couch, fingers inches from her shoulder. "Well...was there someone else you wanted to be there, but I was just the comfortable back-up? Or did you want there to be someone else?"
His words hit her like a rush of cold air. "God, no. No, I only ever wanted you to--"
"Well...Carter, I think what you're describing there is friendship. And I don't think that's a bad place to start...anything."
Sam lets this soak in for a long time, the ticking of Jack's grandfather clock unnaturally loud, clashing with the dull creak of night bugs beyond the dark windows. His ability to boil things down to their most basic, to make all her elaborate theories and motives and fears feel hollow and contrived is both unnerving and freeing. She says, "Maybe I'm just afraid."
His eyes burn into her soul. "Of what?"
A hard swallow. "Losing... If I ever thought you wouldn't want me to..."
"I would never." The sincerity tears at her skin.
"Never...what?" she says softly.
"Not want you. To," he adds with the tiniest quiver of a smile.
She can't find the words.
But maybe she has found a place to start.
*****
The next two months are good.
She waits for the bubble to burst, because she's too damned conditioned that life can't be this good. Not in this way. Not with him. There are laughing phone calls, weekends at the cabin, all night talks and touches beneath the stars. There are tears. And there are bad dreams and comforts. There are arguments. And there is love. And she can't believe in any of it.
At the end of the third month she finds herself on a mission from hell.
She doesn't want to phone him when she gets home alive and soul-crushed and one comrade short. She feels sick at the thought of the words. "Hey, Jack, sir, guess what? You put your faith in my ability to command and I folded and fucked up. Still love me, now?"
She can't call him because he will say all the right things. He will explain to her why her actions weren't so bad, how she is only human and she came through when she was needed. And she'll hate him for this, because she'll never believe he doesn't think just a little less of her, just as she now does of herself.
He phones after dinner and she has to pick up. He'll send a S.W.A.T. team if she doesn't -- or worse, Daniel. She fakes her way through the conversation, and the room spins when he tells her he's flying out for Colonel Emerson's memorial service. She loves Jack O'Neill, this much is clear in her mind and in his; they are together, they are lovers and friends and probably a good deal more, but things are still mixed up in her head and she needs time to find where she stands without him carrying her over the rocky patches.
He comes and he holds her hand through the service. And this feels so damned right and so long in coming that she can't let go.
She's a little out of synch with Daniel this month--for a lot of reasons--but he hugs her before they leave, and his touch feels real. Vala slips an arm around her waist before the ladies room mirror. She tucks her nose into Sam's hair and says, "Are you really all right, Samantha?"
The gentleness and genuine understanding nearly break her. The curiosity that is Vala Mal Doran; renegade, thief, conwoman, friend. She possesses the ability to turn Samantha Carter into a woman with nothing to prove. But today Sam squeezes Vala's arm and says, "Yeah. Thanks." She means the thanks, and hopes Vala hears it.
Jack takes Sam to dinner. She looks at him over cooling pasta, feeling lost and young and old all at once, and says in a tear-filled whisper, "This is so fucked-up. He just--"
"I know. But it's not your fault, Carter."
His voice keeps the ground beneath her feet. And she doesn't have the strength not to be grateful.
It's not your fault he's dead. This is the only reassurance she does believe. It's everything that came after she can't seem to swallow.
They go back to her place and they sleep silent and entangled and she finds it easier to accept him as her anchor in dark water if she doesn't speak and simply hangs on.
*****
Two weeks alone. Rough ground and autopilot days. An unscheduled trip to D.C.. He welcomes her with pleasure and open arms.
*****
Her nails are scratching at his shoulder, and she's balanced on his hips, pushing off of the headboard to hold him deep inside her. His warm hand steadies at the small of her back and the tenderness in this simple gesture lights an ache within her she's powerless to hide.
"That feel good, Space Girl?" he asks on a breathless smile.
Her throat's tight and her breath falls between passion and tears as she nods and whispers, "Yes. Yeah..."
He catches the pain in her reply, knows this runs a shade too deep; she sees the knowledge in the flicker of his brow. But he lets the moment ride. He tips his forehead to lean against hers, and his hand massages the small of her back a bit more gently. She lets go a half-desperate breath and holds on.
She's on her back when she comes, with all the security and comfort of his weight upon her. And she clings to him and cries into his shoulder as the waves of pleasure strip her defenseless.
His skin is hot, muscles quivering against her own. She's learned every inch of him.
She smoothes the lines of her face and musters a tired post-coital smile as he lifts his head.
His eyes frown for a moment, and he smoothes her sweat-dampened hair from her skin. "You all right, Carter?"
She nods. "Yeah. I'm fine." The lie is too comfortable. But there is truth in the fact she is more okay with Jack O'Neill warm and softening inside her, his brown eyes wordlessly gentling her soul, than she has been anywhere else for weeks.
Even if she still shakes when she closes her eyes to sleep.
*****
She wakes in the darkest hours of the night with the smell of recirculated air in her nostrils and the feel of cold steel and blood on her skin. She slips out of his arms as carefully but quickly as possible and closes herself in the bathroom.
The shadows seem to crawl across her skin like replicators. She slaps on the light, but it's too bright and it hurts. She hears the shots, sees him drop, feels unwelcome hands on her skin and it's all a grey hazed wash of memories and nightmares. She leans over the bathroom sink, splashes icy water on her face that stings her skin like needle pricks.
Her heart's racing and her ears pounding.
She braces her weight on the counter and breathes until she can slow her pulse enough to move quietly through the bedroom. She holds Jack's bath towel to her face on the pretense of drying her skin and inhales the ghost of his scent. After the glaring bathroom vanity lights, the bedroom is too dark to navigate. But she has learned this place by touch. She snatches her tank top and boxers from the floor and slips out into the hallway.
She pulls on her clothes as she walks. In the kitchen, she takes a cold bottle of spring water from Jack's fridge and sips it gingerly as she settles on the couch, the air conditioning chilling her bare shoulders and thighs, but she likes the numbing effect and ignores the afghan tossed behind her. She sits and thinks and tries not to think at the same time; ends up leaning into her hand and surrendering to the tears she can't hide any longer, knowing she will never untangle the knot in her stomach until she stops fighting the tide. She's held out for weeks.
She barely makes a sound. He's never slept through the lightest tiptoe. He has midnight demons of his own.
"Carter? What's goin' on?" His voice is sleep-ridden and hoarse, but sharp enough to be firing a weapon. She's seen him go unconscious to sharp-shooter in less than six seconds.
She keeps her eyes closed and the fingers rhythmically massaging the lines in her brow never miss a beat. "Nothing. Please go back to bed," she says evenly.
"Carter?"
"Just go back to bed."
"Hey..."
"Stop it." She squeezes her eyes tight and her face burns. She curses her light skin, knowing she's flushed and blotched and her voice is rough and that she couldn't hide the fact she's been crying if she were calm as gold.
"Stop what?"
"Stop...," but she gives up on a defeated sigh; stop that thing you do with your voice that's so beautiful and kind you rip out my soul.
His fingers close on her wrist. "Hey..."
Anger flares. It's all she has. "I lied, okay?"
Jack blinks at her, swipes a hand down his sleep-puffed face and sits on the edge of the glass coffee table. "You lied. Okay. About...what?"
She shrugs, wrinkling her nose in self-disgust. "About being okay. About handling this, about...having...done a decent job."
"What?"
"...about..."
"Sam." He reaches out and rests a hand on her knee and she finds it hard not to pull away. Or to climb across his lap. "What happened? Are we talking about your mission a couple of weeks ago? The Daedalus?"
"Do you know what happened, Jack?"
He watches her, wary and attentive, the soldier assessing the crisis. "I read the report. We talked about it..."
"I...cried." Her words are cold. Bitter. It's the only way she can speak. "After several hours of pretending to repair the ship, after they--," she freezes, swallows hard, tries her words twice, gaze hard on the coffee table, "--murdered him. They threw me back in the Brig with the others for a while. And everyone wanted to know immediately what was going on, where the Colonel--" she stops to breathe, feels the muscles in her chest quivering, "--and I didn't answer them." She shakes her head, distancing. "I just stood there and cried for a while. They were looking to me for leadership and assurance, and I..."
"Carter. If this was such a big deal for you, why haven't we talked about this sooner?"
She gives a mirthless laugh. "Christ, Jack. How the hell could I tell you this? How could I..."
"Carter, I don't get it. What...why would--"
"Jack, stop. I don't want to--"
"Carter. I --"
She shrinks away from him, tucks her feet beneath her, "No, can we please just--"
"Just tell m--"
"No, I didn't--"
"Carter! Would you shut-up for a second? I'm not your C.O., anymore. Okay? I'm the guy who loves you. Hell, I've been that for a good while now, you just weren't ready to admit it. You're on a mission, you watch a long time comrade and friend--not killed in a firefight--but executed in front of you -- out of the blue -- you get sexually harassed, possibly molested by some asshole Lucia--Yes, Carter, I've known you long enough to see that in between the lines of your report and we'll talk about that more later. So, right in the midst of this, you were a little shaken. But you took command and you did what you had to do. I don't see anything wrong with that."
"Henh...did I?" Her bitterness is no longer contained. She's angry and cold and raw and she can't help lashing out at the one person always on her side. He's trying to take away the hate she still feels for herself, and she'll be damned if she's ready to let it go. "I pulled it together and did what I always do, Jack. I worked the tech side, and held up my part of the plan, I followed procedure. I was the perfect 2IC. But, command?" She shakes her head. "I don't think so."
He's watching her intently, eyes narrow and he's leaning in closer, not letting her abrasiveness push him away. "Well...Carter. My point is...," he sighs heavily, then, "...so?"
She stares at him, speechless.
"Look, I mean...I understand how important this is to you. Believe me. I do. And I think you have every reason to still be pretty damned upset by what you went through. Frankly, it worries me sometimes when these things don't seem to bother you, and I wish you'd talk to me. But...the issue of command... Carter...you're brilliant at what you do. Without you, the SGC would have blown itself up ten times over, if there even WAS an SGC, 'cause you're the one who wrote the damned dialing program and nobody else can seem to decipher it. You're the best rifle shot on any of the teams. You follow orders to the letter, you give orders that keep people alive, and you even know how to make nice with the aliens that I keep pissin' off. You've done well in command on every mission I've seen. But what I think you don't get, here, is that that doesn't matter in this room. So what if you're not command material? What if you suck at it royally? You need to understand, Carter, that that has zero effect on how I feel about you. On how much I love you, on how much I respect you, on how proud I am of you. For God's sake, Carter, you can't be good at everything, that's just...annoying."
She laughs before she can catch herself, her eyes awash with tears. They stare at each other for a long moment.
"Damn you," she whispers, but there is little but love in her words.
"Sam...," he moves a bit closer, drawing in as she warms to him. He takes a moment with his next words, finds her hand and she lets him hold on. "I'm not Jacob. I know what you went through as a kid. And I know I used to be the C.O. in your life. But, Carter...I'm not, now. And you need to just come to me when stuff happens and tell me what sucks for you. Ya know?"
She nods. "Okay," her voice is barely a whisper.
They are sliding closer by the moment. His knees press against hers, their foreheads touch.
He cups a warm hand to the back of her neck. "It was really bad, hunh?" His words are warm breath on her skin and the emotion guts her.
She can only nod. She draws a wet breath.
"I'm sorry, Carter. I wish I'd been there."
She shakes her head. "No, you don't. No you don't."
"Yes. I do. C'mere."
She lets him lead.
She lets him say all the right things. She lets him explain to her why her actions weren't so bad, how she is only human and she came through when she was needed. And in the end...she doesn't hate him for this. And maybe...she doesn't think much less of herself, and maybe...she believes he doesn't either.
She sleeps late the next morning. She wakes to his hands on her ribs and his lips on her breast.
"You feel good," she whispers.
"So do you."
Things have been changing since her father died. And maybe she's finding her way home.
*****
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