When Captain Doctor Samantha Carter was first assigned to his team he didn't see her as a distraction. Not to him anyway, to the other guys maybe. Sure she was an attractive woman, he wasn't blind.
He was still smarting from the impending divorce. This devastating breakup hadn't been in his game plan. They were suppose to live happily ever after, all three of them. But how often does that happen?
Sara wanted only one child, he would have had enough for a hockey team. They doted on the boy, loved him, planned for his future. And he died. And all their hopes and dreams died with him, and their marriage and his will to live died too.
He was alive again thanks to an amazing adventure, one now he might be repeating. But there was a recklessness to him. He wasn't afraid to die, of the pain perhaps, but not death. The pain he deserved and death – well he could finally forget his greatest sin in oblivion. He wasn't reckless about the lives of his men, that's why a scientist was the last person he wanted on his team, man or woman, attractive or plain.
She was just another scientist who thought too much and couched every thought, every supposition in a swamp of words when clear and concise information was needed.
However she was right, right about so many things but this one in particular - he would like her once he got to know her. Unfortunately he liked her too damned much. She was smart, an excellent shot, a soldier. She could fix or hot wire just about anything. But she had a tendency to over-think situations and get bogged down in minutiae – the scientist in her. She was still not a distraction in the field but a distraction he sought on the base.
One day they realized it would be the death of them. He loved her. Couldn't tell her. Couldn't say the words. With her behind the force field he could have run and saved himself but he couldn't. He still didn't fear death, didn't fear it as much as he feared facing life without her.
When confronted with their mutual problem they locked it away and wore the heavy keys around their necks. One more thing in his life he pushed away and refused to think about. One day, he thought, one day I'll wake up like Marley's ghost with chains of locked boxes around my neck dragging me down, boxes containing a lost marriage, a beloved son, a love that was forbidden from the start, missions gone wrong, soldiers who died too young or for all the wrong reasons, his many sins of omission and commission. You might try to lock them away, forget they exist but they are with you with every step you take, clanging and banging against your soul.
The day she found someone else it stung more than he could imagine. It was understandable, she was young enough for a family and certainly, still a beauty. And he did try to be happy for her.
He threw himself into an affair to try to bring some normalcy into his life. He almost fooled himself but not Kerry.
Wars ended and others began but for them there was this window of opportunity and they took it. Tired of ignoring and denying and sublimating, they took a leap of faith in one another and the universe.
They provided the key to each other. Their normal was so outside the bell curve it would never work with anyone else. It worked sublimely for them. They allowed themselves to love each other as much as they could for as long as they had left in this life. They were happy and content and the chains fell away. He was still a warrior, she was still a scientist and together they were so much very more.