//////// indicates flashbacks
"What a surprise, who could foresee,
I could come to feel about you what you felt about me
Why only now when I can see you're drifting away"
Send in the Clowns, Stephen Sondheim.
*************.
I don't know how I'd lost the certainty that he loved me.
Once I knew. Once I was so sure. So certain. Back then, before.
Why am I thinking of this now? Normally, thoughts about him are pushed right to the back of my mind, deeply hidden, and my life's hectic enough and busy enough to forget those little niggling questions. But then, barely a week ago, there were those hallucinations, questioning me, questioning everything about me, making me think and reveal things to myself I'd hoped were forgotten, and there he was, in my mind, gentle and tender and loving, and letting me go, whether I wanted to be let go of or not.
And now....
We're on a Gou'ald ship. Again. It's empty, probably. Badly damaged. At some point they put up the inner shields across all the corridors, but the control room was badly damaged, and half the shields came down. The problem is, we don't know which shields are up until we actually walk into them, and we need to be able to search the whole ship.
Daniel decided not to wait, and wandered off ten minutes ago. Jack...the Colonel, followed him, impatient, muttering something unflattering to Daniel under his breath, and calling over his shoulder to me to 'get the rest of these damn shields down!'
Good, an order. Something I can cope with. Because ever since I came off the Prometheus, my mind's been buzzing with what he thinks and feels, what does he mean, does he still love me, no, of course not, did he ever.
So, I bent down to the control, fiddling with the crystals, gently sliding them in and out and rearranging them, watching the lights flicker and dance across the display. I looked up for a second to see Teal'c across the room reach out and brush one of the shields, so gently, but it was enough.
Those delicate blue lines sprang across the gap, blocking him. Such a flimsy, delicate barrier. It seems as insubstantial as a breath, but it separated me and Jack as effectively as a six foot brick wall.
Except, of course, you can't see the face of a man who's about to die for you on the other side of a brick wall.
And seeing it, that shield again, suddenly I'm back there, back on that ship back when I knew for certain....
//////There's no way out, there's no way out, he has to leave, he'll die if he doesn't, I know he has this thing about no-one being left behind, but this is the only way. I might survive. He has to go.
"Sir, please...."
"No!"
Oh my God. It's there, in his face.
He loves me.
I hadn't known. Perhaps I'd suspected. Sometimes I even daydreamed. But I'm a scientist, and scientists require cold hard facts, an actual statement of truth, not theory and feelings, neither proved nor disproved. But it's obvious now as if he'd screamed it.
He loves me.
It's all there in his face, and how I can not respond? All I can see is that he's going to die for me, oh God, I can hear the Jaffa coming, and this is one hell of a way for all those secret little daydreams to come true, and oh God, I don't want him to die, I want him to live, but I need him here, and I can here the end coming and all I can see is the naked love in his eyes, and I know, with absolute certainty, that he could never live if I died.////////
Teal'c glances over for a moment, and asks me courteously if there is a problem. I'm frozen, staring at the blue spider's web that dissipating behind him. Teal'c voice is calm, understanding, and free of judgement, and for a second I think about confiding in him 'No Teal'c, I'm not all right, I thought Jack loved me, and now I'm not so sure, and now all I know is that I love him, and for God's sake, when did things get turned around like this, and what do I do?'. I've no doubt Teal'c would be very calm, and very comforting, it's me who would condemn myself for saying all that. For God's sake, I sound like one of those women in those soap operas Janet and I like to make fun of and secretly love. I'm not Samantha. I'm Carter, Major Carter, SG1's scientist, and I have to remember that. I chose this way, and I'll be damned if I give up now. So I ask Teal'c to come over and help me, so at least he won't get that barrier going again, and remind me what I've lost.
****************
"What a surprise, who could foresee,
I could come to feel about you what you felt about me
Why only now when I can see you're drifting away"
Send in the Clowns, Stephen Sondheim.
*************.
I don't know how I'd lost the certainty that he loved me.
Once I knew. Once I was so sure. So certain. Back then, before.
Why am I thinking of this now? Normally, thoughts about him are pushed right to the back of my mind, deeply hidden, and my life's hectic enough and busy enough to forget those little niggling questions. But then, barely a week ago, there were those hallucinations, questioning me, questioning everything about me, making me think and reveal things to myself I'd hoped were forgotten, and there he was, in my mind, gentle and tender and loving, and letting me go, whether I wanted to be let go of or not.
And now....
We're on a Gou'ald ship. Again. It's empty, probably. Badly damaged. At some point they put up the inner shields across all the corridors, but the control room was badly damaged, and half the shields came down. The problem is, we don't know which shields are up until we actually walk into them, and we need to be able to search the whole ship.
Daniel decided not to wait, and wandered off ten minutes ago. Jack...the Colonel, followed him, impatient, muttering something unflattering to Daniel under his breath, and calling over his shoulder to me to 'get the rest of these damn shields down!'
Good, an order. Something I can cope with. Because ever since I came off the Prometheus, my mind's been buzzing with what he thinks and feels, what does he mean, does he still love me, no, of course not, did he ever.
So, I bent down to the control, fiddling with the crystals, gently sliding them in and out and rearranging them, watching the lights flicker and dance across the display. I looked up for a second to see Teal'c across the room reach out and brush one of the shields, so gently, but it was enough.
Those delicate blue lines sprang across the gap, blocking him. Such a flimsy, delicate barrier. It seems as insubstantial as a breath, but it separated me and Jack as effectively as a six foot brick wall.
Except, of course, you can't see the face of a man who's about to die for you on the other side of a brick wall.
And seeing it, that shield again, suddenly I'm back there, back on that ship back when I knew for certain....
//////There's no way out, there's no way out, he has to leave, he'll die if he doesn't, I know he has this thing about no-one being left behind, but this is the only way. I might survive. He has to go.
"Sir, please...."
"No!"
Oh my God. It's there, in his face.
He loves me.
I hadn't known. Perhaps I'd suspected. Sometimes I even daydreamed. But I'm a scientist, and scientists require cold hard facts, an actual statement of truth, not theory and feelings, neither proved nor disproved. But it's obvious now as if he'd screamed it.
He loves me.
It's all there in his face, and how I can not respond? All I can see is that he's going to die for me, oh God, I can hear the Jaffa coming, and this is one hell of a way for all those secret little daydreams to come true, and oh God, I don't want him to die, I want him to live, but I need him here, and I can here the end coming and all I can see is the naked love in his eyes, and I know, with absolute certainty, that he could never live if I died.////////
Teal'c glances over for a moment, and asks me courteously if there is a problem. I'm frozen, staring at the blue spider's web that dissipating behind him. Teal'c voice is calm, understanding, and free of judgement, and for a second I think about confiding in him 'No Teal'c, I'm not all right, I thought Jack loved me, and now I'm not so sure, and now all I know is that I love him, and for God's sake, when did things get turned around like this, and what do I do?'. I've no doubt Teal'c would be very calm, and very comforting, it's me who would condemn myself for saying all that. For God's sake, I sound like one of those women in those soap operas Janet and I like to make fun of and secretly love. I'm not Samantha. I'm Carter, Major Carter, SG1's scientist, and I have to remember that. I chose this way, and I'll be damned if I give up now. So I ask Teal'c to come over and help me, so at least he won't get that barrier going again, and remind me what I've lost.
****************