Shipday Drabbles
Author's notes: A collection of drabbles (100 words exactly) written for GW Shipday 2013. Only the last one breaks this particular convention.
1. Prompt: Have a little faith
"In a minute, Sir."
"Hey, no rush."
For once, Jack doesn't mind the wait. Especially since her six is up...in a way that he just knows isn't quite accidental.
Then Carter shifts and-
Oh lord…
His ears prick at the sudden sound. Is that a ditty that she's softly humming? The one that had him blushing all through his childhood and his teenage years?
The humming stops. Without missing a beat, Carter climbs out with a smile bright enough to power them home.
"Have a little faith, Sir. It's fixed."
Damn.
oOo
2. Prompt: Busted
"I'm picking the movie," he announces as soon as the last dish is done.
"Suit yourself."
The minutes pass without a sound, which is an impossibility given that there's never a quiet moment when Jack's around. And that worries her.
She walks into the living room to see him holding up a huge boxset that's got a family with bright yellow faces on it.
Okay, so maybe it was a bad idea to have said that she didn't enjoy the series so much. At least not enough to buy the entire collection.
"Is there something you wanna tell me, Carter?"
oOo
3. Prompt: To Oz
She wakes with the taste of dried salt on her lips and the inerasable smell of him on her skin. In the aftermath of destruction, the only constant is Jack, the man who understands the meaning of dying over and over again, whose bruises match hers. Above all, he understands what pain is.
That shared knowledge, when taken too far, helps turns him into a friend, then into a lover.
"What now?"
In a rare moment, he's asking her to take the lead, allowing a rare vulnerability to show.
It's a precious moment she knows she'll never forget. "To Oz."
oOo
4. Prompt: It's complicated
"Uh, it's-"
"-complicated."
"Right."
"It's not what you think, Dad."
"If by that you mean just having seen you and Jack in a position that I really shouldn't even be-"
"Dad!"
"You know what, Jacob? It's exactly what you think it is."
"…excuse me?"
"Well, technically, we wouldn't be in this position if you hadn't ordered us to sit down and drink that funky Tok'ra…thing and watch that…that funny dance!"
"So you're saying it's indirectly my fault for getting the both of you to stop behaving like squabbling kids?"
"What do you think, Dad?"
"No! We never said that! Sir!"
oOo
5. Prompt: Seeking Solace
She sorts through a tangled web that's her emotions. They're raw and untried, but wilful in making their presence known ever since she's learned to shove them back to a place that has never seen the light of day.
The man at her side fights his own inner battle that's only betrayed by the lines around his eyes and his lips.
There's just the two of them. And she thinks that it finally matters.
She slants her lips over his.
Then they're moving like clockwork, the way they do in the field, careening into an abyss that's pain and pleasure.
oOo
6. Prompt: A moment in time
Waiting is excruciating.
Jack thinks he's always understood it from a distance, cocooned from this special brand of torture by Sara's reticence to talk about his frequent periods of absence. In here however, waiting is no longer an abstract concept, but a nightmare out of which he cannot crawl.
The wide doors swing open, stopping him mid-pace, the weary smile on the doctor's face releasing the knot in his gut.
He shifts, seeing the reassuring rise and fall of her chest.
She'll live.
Boneless with relief, he sinks down into the nearest chair and cradles his head in his hands.
oOo
Prompt 7: Triumph
On the first day, Jack recognises no one. Sam slips her hand into his, but he flings it away roughly and cries out for the sarcophagus.
On the fifth day, he curses her name. Unperturbed, she sits through the uncontrolled vitriol he hurls at her, her silent tears the only plea for forgiveness that he cannot give.
On the tenth day, he seizes, still strapped down as sick need flays his body. Guilt grows to astronomical proportions as she lives through the consequences of her actions.
On the twentieth day, he surfaces, disoriented. She's still there, riding out the storm.
oOo
Prompt 8: Irregular orbit
"So. Downtime, Carter?"
She plasters him with a blinding smile. "Yes, Sir."
Whatever her plans are, he's not privy to it. Their holding pattern is pretty much an institution, a conversation of polite asking, refusing and going separate ways. But he'd be damned if he doesn't ask anyway.
"Let me guess. You're staying here while I-"
He's stopped mid-sentence by her smirk. "I'm going fishing."
His brows hit his hairline as his mouth resembles the very thing he purports to catch up north. "…Uh, fishing?"
Carter does a funny motion which he interprets as casting and reeling. "Fishing."
"…with-"
"You."
oOo
Prompt 9: Never Again
"We could just, uh-"
"Forget about this?"
"Actually, I was gonna say 'talk it over'."
"Really?"
"Bad idea, huh?"
"You don't do talking."
"Right. Look, we'll just forge-"
"Sir."
"Carter, I-"
"What do you want me to say? That it was-"
"-good?"
"I was about to say…'wrong on so many levels', but 'good' works for me too."
"'Great''s better."
"You're fishing. Fine, it was great. But I'm never eating cake off-world again."
"Actually, I was gonna ask for another piece."
"After what it made us do?!"
"Hey, it's good cake!"
"Well…I suppose we've got to keep the natives happy, right?"
oOo
Prompt 10: Obsession
She locks the steering wheel, slams down on the clutch and yanks up the handbrake, feeling the alarming lurch of the car to the right as it spins a hundred and eighty degrees, throwing her into a slight skid that she easily corrects with hard counter-steering and throttle control. With her heart still pounding in her ears, Sam barks a laugh, inordinately pleased with herself for shaking that damned stalker of a cop that she calls her brother's bad judgement.
Ten minutes later, she screeches to a stop in front of a familiar house, seeing the door conveniently open as a dishevelled silver-haired man steps out to take the morning paper.
Perfect timing.
Grinning slyly, Sam runs up the porch to him just as she catches a glimpse of the cop coming to a stop just behind her car.
The confusion is evident in his face. "Carter? You in troub-?"
Her lips eat up the last of his words.
From a distance, she hears a car quietly put in reverse, the sound suspiciously resembling the whine of a guilty puppy.
Mission accomplished.
It's the last she'll ever hear of someone called Shanahan.
- Fin