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: TANGLED
AUTHOR: Rowan Darkstar
EMAIL: rowandarkstar@gmail.com
WEBSITE: Beauty In Shadows
RATING: 'Older Kids'
ARCHIVE: All archives fine as long as you let me know.
CATEGORIES: Angst, Sam/Jack UST, little bits of Sam/Pete,
hurt/comfort
STATUS: Complete
SPOILERS: 'Threads'
SUMMARY: Missing Scene for 'Threads'. "He is so careful of her
in the days after..."

Thanks be to my excessively cool betas: Teddy E, annaK, and Strix


TANGLED
by
Rowan Darkstar Copyright (c) 2005




He is so careful of her in the days after her father slips away.

She knows something fundamental has shifted, tilted the orbits
they have long maintained; she knows he feels it, too. But
nothing is spoken. Not while everything is tangled up in grief.

He walks her to her quarters the first night, when all the
paperwork is done and the technicalities tended to, and the
Tok'ra have been respectfully acknowledged and gated home. He
follows her into her room; then, without a word, he closes the
door and stays.

She doesn't think it is possible to sleep. Yet she is so
exhausted, and her father is not fighting to breathe anymore.
Before she feels it coming, consciousness abandons her.

She wakes from harsh and bloody dreams and the stark, dry
quarters are nightmarish and unforgiving. But he's there, rising
in an instant from his slumped posture in the tiny arm chair,
kneeling beside her bed and pulling her into his arms. Many
minutes pass before she is truly aware she's crying into the
shoulder of the base commander.

She doesn't let go.

Because now, at this point in time, it's suddenly so important
that she doesn't let go.

When she sleeps again, her head rests on his thigh and his
fingers work her sweat-dampened hair, and she thinks of Netu and
sandy ground and the scent of her team around her.

She doesn't want to keep getting caught up in losing her mother.
But they're both gone now, both her parents, and, though her
faith has been so fundamentally shaken in recent years that she
knows she owes herself months or years to listen to the Universe
and figure out what she believes---tonight she needs to believe
her parents are together. And she needs to believe they still
see who she grows into each day.

She remembers half-consciousness and crying so hard her stomach
hurts, and a warm, strong hand in her hair as she curls tight on
her side. Thing is, she can't tell if this is twenty years ago
or tonight in her quarters--lost in the blue-blur between dreams.

He asked if she wanted him to call Pete. And she does want
Pete there, wants the steady comfort of his arms, the tender
smile in his eyes, the gentle trust in his touch. But she
doesn't want to do that, to steal those comforts from him.
Because somewhere in her depths she knows it's over, it simply
hasn't ended. She said 'no.' The General didn't question.

It ends before the funeral.

Pete comes to her house, even after she has let him go, and he
asks if she needs him for the service. She says she'll be okay.
But she moves in and locks her arms around him so tight. She
gives him the genuine emotion she couldn't let go of on the bench
the day it all fell away; when she sat in the sunshine in front
of her dream house and tried not to throw-up. He leaves with a
last touch to her cheek that makes her cry.

It's Daniel's arm around her waist throughout the service, Daniel
who refuses to let go.

It's General O'Neill behind her and one step to her right,
silently shadowing, in case she falls.

She doesn't fall.

Mark comes. He doesn't understand about Pete, thinks it's all
about their Dad, and she should take some time. She just quietly
shakes her head; knows he doesn't know her anymore. But they've
both lost their father, the Dad who used to take them to Cico
park the first windy day of each spring (when he was home), and
help them fly the brand new kites that would appear beside their
beds when they woke to the scent of the season.

So Mark holds her. And they both cry. And she tells him Jacob
always loved him, even when he couldn't say it. She doesn't tell
him Selmak told her so. And she remembers what it was like to
really have a brother. Even if she knows he'll soon slip away.

She lingers outside the cemetery for a long time after the
service, sitting on the stone steps at the path to the
administrative building with her friends around her. The
General, Daniel, Teal'c. Because the four of them have been
their separate ways for weeks. Fighting some of the biggest
battles of their lives. They all nearly died. Then she lost her
father. She got hurt, bad. And they closed ranks as they
always have. They've closed in around her. They are SG-1, and
they encircle her like a wall. She loves them with all her heart
as she sits on these concrete steps in sight of her father's
grave.

The next several nights, the guys simply show up around dinner
time. They either come bearing food or tell her to get her
jacket and ride along to O'Malley's.

On the sixth night, seated at their favorite booth, she finds she
occasionally smiles. Just a glimpse, but she knows it's a
beginning. She's working the days without a hitch, but she's
crying herself to sleep at night, and she finds she's
really...tired of having to grieve.

She almost lost Daniel. And then Pete... She has lost a lot
this week.

And gained a lot. Things she almost lost.

Daniel's had too many beers (it doesn't take much). He offers to
buy the next round, and staggers off toward the bar. O'Neill and
Teal'c trade a cautionary glance, and by silent consent, the
massive Jaffa rises to assist their friend with the return trip.

"I guess when you die and come back...again...you deserve to get
a little smashed," she says softly, and there's almost a smile
again.

The General picks it up and quirks his mouth to the side, a hint
of a sparkle in his eye, and she feels younger than she has in a
while and thinks fleetingly of Replicator blocks. "You know, you
were still supposed to be on leave this week," he says simply.

She nods. "I know."

"You know, I could have ordered you out of there."

She swallows, fingers the corner of her cocktail napkin. "I know
that, too, sir." Then, after a moment, she adds, "Thank you."

He just narrows his eyes.

She feels him considering something, and just when she is
starting to feel self-conscious beneath his scrutinous gaze, he
says, "Carter?"

She lifts her eyes, shifting her posture and catching her breath
when her ankle brushes his calf. "Sir?"

The red-blue light of the bar and grille softens the battle lines
on his face and hides the grey in his hair, and she can almost
see the Jack O'Neill she first fell--first met. "Yes, sir?"

"I'm thinking...," he picks up a sugar packet and twirls it in
his fingers, and she wonders--not for the first time--if he once
did this with lighters, if he once was a smoker. Like her
father. "Nothing much going on in our part of the Galaxy," he
says. "I haven't been...fishing...in a good while."

She meets his gaze in the red-blue light, eyes wide.

He raises an eyebrow. "What do you say...join me?"

Her throat tightens, she strains to clear it.

"Fresh Minnesota air? Change of scenery?"

And she remembers the scent of his neck in the dark of her
quarters, and the feel of his BDU trousers beneath her cheek, and
the sunburn on his neck when she leaned into his shoulder as
Teal'c stood guard over the defeated Super Soldier. And she
remembers the cosmic urgency, the part where it's so very
important she not let go.

"I'd like that," she says, before she can command her lips to
retreat.

The flicker of expression in his brown eyes could be masked
surprise. Or something else.

What he says is, "Cool."

And she grins. Because he's Jack O'Neill.

He drops the sugar packet, sits up straighter and stretches his
back. Her gaze lingers on the shift of leather across his
shoulders. She realizes part of her has been feeling guilty
about these moments for a while. It's dizzying to realize she
doesn't have to again. "So, this is, what, Thursday?" She nods.
"They don't need us tomorrow. What do you say we take off first
thing in the morning? I'll pick you up."

She's afraid to speak or stop to think. She focuses on the
holding on. "Yeah, okay. Thanks."

His smile is something softer and deeper and more real.

"0700?" he says.

"I'll be ready."

"Ready for what? Where are we going?" Daniel's voice startles
her on too many levels.

The General remains calm (no beer flying this time), a twinkle
returning to his eyes as he holds her gaze fast.

Daniel pushes into the booth beside her.

"My cabin--fishing!" O'Neill says brightly.

Sam wants to look away, to shy off to the ladies room or out onto
the lawn.

Daniel shoves her next beer in front of her, and the slosh of
amber liquid makes her feel a bit sick. "Fishing! Oh, that's
a....terrific idea, Jack!" Daniel gushes. "We could all use
that right now. Don't you think we could all use that right now,
Teal'c?"

"Indeed."

Daniel turns to Jack, who still has not pulled his gaze from her,
and she finds she too cannot let go. "So, we're heading up
when?" Daniel asks.

Jack smiles, brown eyes soothing her stomach. "Bright and early!
First thing Saturday morning."

She barely manages to cover. Daniel's too drunk to catch the
underplay. And if Teal'c notices, he doesn't let on. Her family
continues to banter around her. She continues to feel the silent
threads tying her to the man across the table. She's quiet and
present. She really is glad they'll all be together at the
weekend.

She has a 15 hour drive ahead with Jack O'Neill.

Maybe this weekend will bring those first wild winds of spring.
Maybe it won't hurt too much to remember.

And if it does, maybe she will be okay. Somewhere in the dark
places she has locked away, a long neglected flame of belief is
warming. A belief that maybe...just maybe...she still can
have everything she wants...

Daniel is the one to see the tears form in her eyes, and he
doesn't look for the subtext, assumes the obvious, and she ends
up wrapped in his alcohol-clumsy embrace and smelling the old
dust in his sweater and closing her eyes in the warmth of his
love.

Tomorrow she has a 15 hour drive with Jack O'Neill.

And he's been so gentle with her since her father slipped away.


*****