""Monsters are real, and ghost are real too. They live inside us, and sometimes, they win ~ Stephen King" Written for Penguin's Challenge No26. Inspired by The Sun Will Rise by Kelly Clarkson. I can see the wait there in your eyes, I can feel the thought in your sigh, Your knuckles are bruised from a losing fight, One way down a dead end street, Broken glass underneath your feet, You think the day won't break the sunless night."
Jack wakes in a cold sweat, breathing heavily, a silent scream catching in his throat. It's a familiar feeling.
Glancing at the clock he sees it's around that time where the hour is either very late or very early, but certainly not humane, so he slips out of bed and pads down the hallway, careful to avoid the creaking floorboard just outside the guest room. Not that Daniel would wake anyway. He'd been four beers past tispy when they'd finally poured him into bed only a couple of hours ago, and judging by the chainsaw noises, Jack figures only the smell of strong coffee will rouse him.
He makes his way into the kitchen, guided by the bright light of the full moon through the window above the sink. It's a cloudless summer night, and the house holds no chill despite the hour, and the snoring of his best friend down the hall should comfort him, but all he can see is the flashes of his nightmares. His skin still feels fresh from sweat and the high neck of his teeshirt against his throat makes him feel claustrophobic.
He rests both hands against the edge of the bench and breathes out, hanging his head as he closes his eyes and works slowly through the routine of cleansing the images from his mind. He's proficient enough in this ritual to know exactly how long it should take, so he knows after only a moment that this time it's not working.
He grabs a glass from the drying rack on the sink and half fills it with ice cold water from the tap, relishing the feeling of it sliding down his throat and settling at the bottom of his half empty stomach. He has just set it down again when he hears the shuffle of a footstep to his left.
"Sir?"
He turns his head, keeping his expression neutral in the moonlight.
"Hey Carter"
They're talking in whispers, though they both know it's a bit unnecessary. Daniel's out cold and Teal'c is in the same room on a mattress on the floor, the door closed, and noise doesn't carry well in this house. Neither of them would hear them.
They whisper anyway.
"You okay?" she asks, tucking her hands under her arms as she wraps the loose teeshirt tighter around herself, shuffling on the spot.
He knows she couldn't have heard him dreaming, because years of this shit has made him proficient at hiding it. Some nights he could wake in terror and find Sara still sound asleep next to him, and she was a relatively light sleeper. He wonders, then, how Sam heard him; if perhaps she was half awake all night, waiting for the moment. Expecting it. He wonders what it says about them both, that after a mission such as their last one, they wait for the inevitable fallout and brace themselves to catch each other. He hopes it's not because she's been dreaming too.
Placing the glass back in the dirty pile on the sink, he lets out a breath and nods.
"Yeah, Carter. Yeah, I'm fine"
He looks up to her, seeing her blank expression in the glow of the dim light, and offers her a weak smile. He knows he won't sleep easy before morning, but there's no reason why she shouldn't. He nods once, and tilts his head in the general direction of his room as if to say goodnight, but stops when she takes a half-step forward.
"Sir-"
"Hmm?"
"I was wondering… that is… I was having trouble sleeping"
It doesn't sound like a total lie, probably because it's not, but he appreciates the gesture anyway, and pretends to take the role of the supporter, instead of the supportee, and he's grateful that she so seamlessly does the opposite. It might sound petty, but even among friends- among his closest friends- he doesn't want to be the weak link. It's another favour they all do for each other.
"You wanna see what I've TiVo'd?"
The relief on her face is obvious, whether for herself or for his sake he can't be sure, and she cracks a grin.
"You know how to work TiVo?"
"Of course" he starts, walking towards her and gesturing to the living room. "How else am I supposed to keep up with the Simpson's when we traipse across a galaxy?"
She grins at that, not quite laughing, and he's glad for the distraction of her company as they settle on the couch and flick through the many programs he hasn't had time to watch. She's not surprised to find some documentaries in there, mixed with his Simpsons and various other programs from the same mindless vein. Television is by no means an exclusively 'Earth' concept, but they've yet to find a planet that values mediocre entertainment on such a global scale, and there's something weirdly comforting about seeing CSI and Top Gear mixed in with the political debates and David Attenborough. They both settle into the couch at opposite ends, and within half an hour Sam is asleep, curled against the cushy arm, a blanket thrown over her. Jack doesn't have the heart to move, lest she wake up and feel the need to continue with her false story. She's as tired as he is, and is able to sleep tonight, and he's willing to make sure she does, even if she will complain about her neck in the morning.
He settles deeper into the couch, and when Top Gear finishes he finds the longest movie on his machine (which turns out to be The Searchers, which is poetic is a weird kind of way), and tries to focus on John Wayne's motivations rather than the images from a dream that he can't quite hold on to but which terrify him all the same.
He feels Sam's foot move against his leg during the night, and he takes a moment to look at her face, relaxed in sleep. He finds it's hard to imagine that she sometimes suffers this same fate, but then he thinks maybe she feels the same way about him, on those nights when he snores just as obnoxiously as Daniel.
He turns back to the screen and wills his mind to relax, his heart to slow down, his nerves to lose the edge. He listens to the snores from down the hall and the soft breathing from beside him, and sometimes he listens to what the characters on the screen are saying.
He turns the TV off just before everyone wakes the next morning, and pretends like he got at least a few more hours of sleep. Nobody says anything- but then nobody in this house or on this team would- and when he's making them all eggs for breakfast, Sam takes her plate from him and says "Thank you"
He knows what she's really saying, and it somehow almost makes those sleepless night bearable.