A/N: Former readers from here may have noticed most of my stories have disappeared. They are all publicly available on "archive of our own dot org (slash) users (slash) Nynaeve" (remove the spaces). I don't know if I'll be as faithful updating here, but I'm putting up some of my T or lower rated stories and just recommend you check my complete collection on AO3. Peace out.
A/N: Written for SaraBahama on Gateworld. She was jonesing for something angsty. So I wrote this.
The beer in his hands has gone tepid as he flips through channels. Every now and again it lands on an old sitcom, or on ESPN, and he watches until his fingers grow antsy and he resumes his surfing. A mortar blowing up flashes on the screen and Jack freezes for a second. A narrator's lulling timbre starts up, punctuated by gunshots, and Jack twitches. Some of the images remind him of times he'd rather forget. His finger hovers over the channel up button, unsure of its next move.
His first kill happened in a war that has since been universally panned as a mistake, a waste of government funds. A waste of American lives. He doesn't like to let himself dwell on those that have ended up on the wrong end of his weapon. The world, hell the galaxy, is what it is. His life has regret; a gun left unsecured, marriage vows broken, and… A knock on his door breaks Jack's trek into morose memories. His back cracks as he stands and his knees pop as he heads to the door, a testimony that he's been sitting for more hours than he should.
He's mildly surprised to find that the sun has already dipped down far enough for the sky to be painted in darker hues while a street lamp casts an orangish glow onto his driveway. He frowns at his unexpected visitor.
"Carter?"
She shifts on her feet, her eyes reflecting uncertainty, and he can't help but feel relief that they're reflecting anything human at all. Of the images seared onto his mind from the last few days, the ice in her expression, in the entity's expression, haunts him, reminding him of bitter Februaries in Minnesota when it gets too cold to snow.
"You left after…" she trails off and swats at a mosquito. "I didn't get a chance to thank you, sir."
He hesitates with the door in one hand and his beer in the other. Stepping back, he cedes his position and lets her in. As she walks by, Jack can smell hints of a floral bouquet, no doubt her shampoo. He wonders if it's wrong that he misses the feminine tang that surrounded her when they were working in an underground boiler plant. Touching her hadn't been wrong then. He clears his throat.
"There's nothing to thank me for," he dismisses, shutting the door a bit harder than necessary. "Just another day at the office and all that."
In the momentary pause, Carter grabs his gaze and doesn't let go. "You do that a lot."
"I do what?" He's calling her bluff. Jack knows damn well what she's getting at, he'd done it with Sarah too; he also knows damn well that they can't have that kind of conversation.
"You…" She presses her lips tight and yet again doesn't finish her thought. "Nevermind. This could have waited until next week. I should go home."
She pivots towards the door and he reaches out his hand, touching her on the shoulder. Jack thinks he hears her gasp, but he can't be sure. He moved out of instinct, not out of careful calculation and that means he's about to do something stupid.
"Is that what you want?" he asks. He motions towards the door. "To go home?"
Biting her lip, she shakes her head. "No. Not really… sir."
"Beer?" He's fully aware that he's pushing stupid to new limits.
"Sounds good." And now Jack begins to wonder if Carter isn't suffering from residual effects from the entity's invasion of her body. She's supposed to be the smart one.
He discards his flat lager for a fresh bottle, and takes one to her as well. She brushes her fingers along his as she accepts the proffered drink and he feels a twinge of shame at how reassuring it is to feel the warmth from her skin, however brief. With a nod, he gets her to follow him out to his deck. The open air is safer than the confines of his house. The stars are beginning to appear and they help distract him from his thoughts that are starting to lead to places the United States Air Force clearly regulates against. Jack doesn't want to notice the pale expanse of skin that trails from her neckline to the smallest bit of cleavage that peeks above her blouse. He doesn't want to notice the curve of her hips and he doesn't want to notice how long her legs look in her jeans. He fixes himself on the moon because he knows that stupid could easily turn into wrong.
"It hurt," she states. He doesn't answer and in the background there's a symphony of crickets along with the barest hint of a smoky aroma from a distant barbecue. She tightens her jaw. "I didn't have a body, but it hurt."
He glances at his bottle and then up at the sky again. "Maybe you should talk to McKenzie about that."
"I don't want to talk to McKenzie," she snaps, and she immediately winces. He knows because he's facing her, startled by her outburst. She bites her lip. "Sorry sir. It's just that Janet said the same thing. And General Hammond. And Daniel. And I swear Teal'c was thinking it."
He takes a slow sip in an attempt to work out his next comment. "He's trained to do this sort of thing. You know, the talking thing." He leans against the railing and dares to watch her as she fights with her inner demons. The ambient light reflects off her blonde tresses and he's taken to words like angelic, and ethereal, words that mean dead, untouchable, and otherworldly. Jack's shoulders tense.
"Are we that bad at listening?" she asks with a half-snort of sarcasm. "I saw a damn therapist after my mom died because my dad was too busy working."
"So now you need therapy for your therapy?" He's trying to push the conversation somewhere comfortable and familiar. His joke falls flat as he catches a glimpse of her expression. She's clearly disappointed.
"Actually, it was helpful." Carter seems to choke out the words. "Sorry, sir. I shouldn't be unloading all this on you. It's just that, McKenzie hasn't been out there. He hasn't seen what I've…what we've, seen. He's not like us."
Jack wants to suggest she call up Daniel. The man is an ocean of empathy that usually annoys the hell out of Jack O'Neill, but has, at times, been a blessing in disguise. He doesn't suggest Daniel, though. He hears the undercurrent in her tone. Her 'we' is Jack and Sam, or rather, Colonel O'Neill and Major Carter. Teal'c isn't human and Daniel isn't military.
"What was it like?" he pries, against his better judgment. A breeze flutters through the trees and she fiddles with the label on her beer bottle.
"I was everywhere. Nowhere. I was suffocating." Her hand trembles as she puts the bottle on the railing. "It's what I imagine it would be like to wake up during an operation and not be able to move, but to be aware."
"Sounds like I put you through hell."
She shakes her head. "No. You freed me. You got that damn thing to let me go."
He doesn't know how to respond to that. The weight of the zat in his grip. The first hit. The second. The hesitation in between. He'd had to look at her like the enemy because she had been the enemy. He can't tell her that he faltered, that he had to talk himself into doing the right thing in that split-second. That he'd sat by her bed and found himself contemplating his personal firearm on the top shelf of his closet at home. He knows now what she is to him. She is his land mine and if he lifts his foot, he's going to be blown to kingdom come.
"I did what I had to. That's what it means to be in command."
His self-loathing leaks through and it's not missed by his astute and brilliant second-in-command.
"Would you do it again?"
Jack diverts his gaze because he can't answer her. He knows what it feels like to have her lifeless in front of him. There's a dark whisper in his mind that tells him that if he did it again, he'd turn a gun on himself without hesitation. He's a dead man walking. One man can't bear that much guilt and he doesn't have it in him anymore.
She slices through his telling silence. "I'll make it easier. Promise me that you'd do it again, sir." For a subordinate, she sounds a hell of a lot like she's giving a command. She stands straighter and he can see it in her, the seeds of a woman who could lead an army into battle. The doe-eyed captain that joined his team four years ago has faded like a photograph left out in the sun. Sam pushes, "If I get a Goa'uld in my head, or I have one more damn creature take over my mind, and you see no other way to save me, end it. No hesitation."
"No extraordinary measures?" He's echoing Doc Frasier. He already knew, before the entity, but it hadn't felt real until he'd watched her collapse to the cement floor. "That's what you wanted right?"
"Yes, sir. Promise me."
His hand remembers the zat, heavier than it looks, and he clenches it into a fist. "I'll do my duty, Carter."
Her expression betrays doubt, but she realizes it's the best she's going to get. "I should go." And then she's gone.
Jack doesn't move until he hears her car pull out into the street. He picks up her bottle, still mostly full, and then he puts it back down again. Wandering in, he notices that the documentary has finished and he settles onto the sofa, where he had been before. He sips his beer and idly he begins to flip channels, looking for something interesting to watch.