The day Sam Carter resigned she felt the weight of the world lift from her shoulders. She didn't want to carry that load anymore. The combined burden of honour, duty and responsibility had crushed parts of her humanity into oblivion and caused other parts of her to become as solid as diamonds. She gathered the last vestiges of her personal belongings in her lab and moved towards the door to leave for the final time.
She knew people didn't understand why she was leaving. Why she felt the need to leave. Whispers of dereliction of duty haunted her steps down the corridors of the SGC. While her team… her friends stood by her to the world, in the depth of their eyes she saw reproach, abandonment. And in his eyes she saw disappointment and anger. Yes he was angry at her for leaving them, for abandoning the fight, for not getting over what had happened…
So when after a month of nothing, she stumbled onto his doorstep she didn't know what to expect.
She stood in the damp, black of the night and waited. Maybe he wasn't even home. She had no idea what day it was; over the past month she'd learnt to measure the passage of time with raindrops.
When he did open the door, she found she had nothing to say. He watched her with burning eyes as she cradled her form in an attempt to protect herself from the cold as much as from his gaze.
"Carter? Is there something I can do for you?"
Finally she managed to drag her eyes from somewhere around his feet to meet his eyes. But she found she couldn't hold his gaze. "I… can I come in?"
He wasn't going to make this easy; she always knew Jack O'Neill could hold a grudge. She didn't even know why she had come. What had she hoped to achieve? There was nothing left for her here.
"You hate me." It wasn't a question. He didn't deny it.
They hadn't made it very far into his house. "I should leave."
But those words seemed to spur him into action. His hand shot out to grab her wrist. "No. I'm not letting you walk away from me again." His firm voice, the granite in his eyes and the pressure on her wrist told her he was serious.
He tugged at her wrist pulling her closer. "Why are you here Carter?" he asked, eyes narrowed, voice dangerously low.
She didn't know why. How could she explain to him that there was nothing left of her. That she felt like she was suffocating in a cocoon of apathy, that she just wanted to feel something… anything.
"I don't know" she whispered. He pulled her even closer the heat of his body impossible to ignore.
"I think you do, Carter." He held her eyes mesmerised. The anger rolling off his body in waves enveloped her, the heat of it forcing her to respond.
Maybe she did know why she was here.
TBC…