Disclaimer: I don't own Stargate... it owns me. Kudos to MGM, it's subsidiaries and affiliates. No infringement intended.
Summary: Second thoughts and repressed feelings. Sam wondered if there was anything not wrong with her engagement.
Genre: Angst/Romance
Characters: Sam Carter, Jack O'Neill, Pete Shanahan and off-screen cameo from Thor.
Spoilers: Season 8. Pete's existence (Which basically all of spoiled Season 8).
Author's Note: Fairly standard 'Delete Pete' story. Mildly AU as some events are a little out of synch with their progression in canon. Jack leaves to take up a post in Washington at the end of Season 8 but Sam hasn't yet married/broken things off with Pete... this I am about to change: Behold the power of fanfic!
To Love and be Loved
Sam watched Pete, her fiancé, rapidly devour the Italian food that he loved so much with an unrelenting gusto, that was a little bit untasteful to watch. She'd been thinking long and hard all morning, on this day off, as she'd vengefully cleaned the house, almost annoyed with reality for giving her free time, away from her work, so that ugly thoughts and deeper insights could pierce her carefully constructed, organized life. As she'd finished mixing the spaghetti and the sauce together half an hour ago she'd come to the inevitable conclusion that her life had reached a point where she had to make changes or she'd be stuck on this tangent, away from happiness, forever.
As if sensing her gaze Pete paused from his self-absorbed involvement with his meal, which he'd forgotten to thank her for, and looked across the table at her and Sam realised she hadn't touched her plate of spaghetti bolognaise since she'd dished out their dinner ten minutes earlier. She'd just been absently stirring the strands of pasta around and around in the same circular way her mind was racing.
"What's wrong, Sam?" he asked lightly, as if making passing conversation. He continued to eat again, more slowly this time.
What's wrong? Sam thought. What isn't wrong? I hate Italian food, as I told you on several of our dates. When you took me to Italian restaurants and even still you want me not only to eat it but to learn to cook it for you too. Clearly, nothing is wrong at all.
"Pete…" she instead began, "I-I'm going to honest with you… I've been having second thoughts."
The fork in his hand stopped moving food to his mouth, he froze for just a fraction of a moment, a moment Sam could never have missed with her Air Force training on how to read a person's behaviour, and then with seemingly precise, far too precise, care he placed the fork on his plate and laced his fingers together, elbows on the table. His gaze met hers, his expression was hard and blank, she knew that look because she'd seen it more often recently. He'd been having trouble getting integrated with the police force here in Colorado Springs, she'd been purposefully spending as much time as possible at the mountain as her thoughts led her to this inevitable discussion and tensions had been rising for more than a month. This time was different, she could tell, she could see in his eyes that he knew that she intended to call this off... she saw anger shoot up behind his eyes, joined by embarrassment at what she was doing to him. Once again her superior Air Force training had allowed her to see through him before he employed his own training, his interrogation training. Sam felt her skin crawl ever so slightly as he adopted a confused look and his eyes became shuttered and closed to her. The fear she suddenly felt was different... it was not the easily dismissed fear of the Goa'uld, or the fear for the safety of her team mates during a fire-fight, no kind of natural fear… but an ugly fear.
"Why, Sam?" he asked with a deceptively calm and enquiring tone, "I love you and I want to marry you, you should be happy. You are happy aren't you?"
His tone implied no such interest, he was just fishing for a direct reassurance of her love or an acknowledgement of the engagement. Sam hesitated only slightly as she replied with the next thing she'd known would come, in this conversation, this confrontation that she'd been scripting in her mind all day. She could read it on his face, that he'd done the same thing... probably for much longer too and he was certain that he was going to make her capitulate. That thought made Sam feel vaguely ill as she continued.
"Pete, I did- do love you but… I don't think we can be together anymore, I…"
"Why? Don't you care enough about this relationship? You want to give up on me?" Pete railed, his voice rising slightly with each syllable until his tone was menacing and dark. As he continued his voice rose to a shout, "I came here because you said 'Yes'. Were you lying?!"
Sam redoubled her resolve to push this through, she was not going to let it slide by again as his anger and threatening tone cast aside any doubt that this was the right thing to do.
"Pete, please don't yell at me," she said, her tone quiet and equally dangerous as his own and she saw him catch it despite his rising temper.
His face slowly calmed and assumed another mask and Sam's heart crumbled a little more as she realised that he was going to stick to his own script and that he was going to follow through on this farce negotiation and try and win her over. Now he'd become pleasant, safe and agreeable. She'd begun to learn his habits, his manipulative tendencies some time ago and shrugged them off as not overly harmful, just his manner and that she knew he was slightly possessive. Not his most endearing trait but she hadn't wanted to scrap her only relationship in years on the basis of it. Which was why there were now a hundred reasons to end it, all of them clambering in her mind, an overwhelming weight on her shoulders which she intended to shrug.
"I'm sorry, Sam…" Pete said with a sigh, his hand reaching out across the table for hers, "I'm not angry, let's talk about this, tell me what's wrong."
Though his tone had dropped she could still feel his fury radiating from him, he didn't hide it nearly as well as he must have thought he did. Sam had had a lot of practice spotting restrained fury, suppressed tempers and buried anger. The Air Force was full of all three and she'd seen it on her own face once or twice after a particularly disagreeable situation had arisen. She knew that as damaged and wrong as her fiancé was, she was probably the more damaged of the two of them, the one who had let this relationship progress, allowed it to reach this point where it had to be ended swiftly and painfully.
She could fell tears rising to the surface but fought them away. In her mind she pictured a shipping crate, like one of the ones she dealt with every day... she put her tears and insecurities into it, along with all the other frustrations and pains that had plagued this relationship for the preceding months and 'sent' them away, like she sent crates of alien technology and artefacts off to Area 51. It's what she always did when emotions rose to that dangerous level, the level that could betray her, weaken her or break her. It was a defence mechanism she had forced upon herself every time she felt emotionally wounded or vulnerable. Put it in a box and send it away… but it never went. Somewhere in the back of her mind there were so many boxes, sitting there in the dark, taking up so much space, twisting her soul, making parts of her life dreadful, silent and nauseating.
She'd been using emotional defence mechanisms her entire life, before the Air Force, ever since her mother's death. She was damaged and she had trouble with emotions, so she neglected them and she'd done the same thing to the emotions involved with her engagement to Pete. She'd neglected it and it had turned sour while she was deliberately looking the other way. Now she was looking at the stack of shipping crates, a thousand ugly, hidden pains and lies. She feared that if she looked into any one of them she'd never be able to put its contents away again. That she'd be plagued with it, that it would consume her... now her fear was coming true. She knew that she would have to open those boxes and expose it all before this night was out and she was so afraid of it.
Because buried in amongst all the ruined memories and twisted justifications and rationalisations about her relationship with Pete... there were far more boxes, far more pains from the rest of her life… things like her 'relationship' with Jack. In there was every look, shared glance, touch, whispered reassurance, awkward admission, teasing joke, shared laugh, secret admiration, base desire, feeling of connection, comfort offered... everything that she should have valued and treasured had been analysed, compartmentalised, dissected, brushed over, discarded, mercilessly crushed, ignored, stunted or rationalized into something entirely different.
Now was not the time to think about that though, she told herself. First she had to burn a different bridge before she could ever think about mending that one.
"Pete, I love you but… we aren't right for each other. We might be happy together, for a little while, right now… but I can't see us being happy together for the rest of our lives. It won't work, it can't work," she explained, trying for the truth and hoping to receive it back. She really did, had, loved him, she wasn't sure which. She really had set out with the fullest intention of maintaining a working relationship with Pete… but he had to see that it was to far gone now to retrieve.
Pete forced a smiled. "Sam, you are just nervous trust me, I know you, you are just scared of the changes that are happening. It's just cold feet, honey. I love you, it'll be okay."
I know you.
Those three little words undid Sam's world. She felt the carefully constructed walls topple, the fallacies and convenient white lies crumble and those safe little boxes weren't big enough, weren't many enough, to hold it all in. Their contents crashed through her mind like panicked animals, destroying every other rational or deliberated thought in her mind with the savage brutality and absolute destruction of a freight train collision. A geyser of emotional torment burst inside her, welling up, overflowing, burning hot and cold, screaming in her mind, screaming from her mouth. A thousand little pieces of Sam Carter broke free from their imprisonment and raged at the length of their incarceration.
"Know me?!" She choked out in a half-scream, "You know almost nothing about me! Half of the things that make me who I am are classified! Believe me when I say that I think that it is unfair that you can't know any of those things about me and I would be sympathetic if it bothered you… but it doesn't! You care only about knowing what you want to know. There are a million things about me that aren't classified and you know none of that, you ignore it, you hate it! You think that I am nervous! That I am afraid! You don't know who I am at all!"
Pete balked. His face actually changed shape, he eyes seem to grow larger and the smile plastered onto his face started to crack and twist under the strength of her barrage. He opened his mouth to begin saying something, but there wasn't anything, he couldn't reply. She wasn't supposed to be this way, he'd never seen her like this, never once had she actually confronted him on something which he'd actually put effort or pressure on. Sam ploughed on, unable to stop herself, another stab of truth tore through her and more pain flowed out.
"Pete, every day… every single day things happen that kill a little bit of our relationship, kill little bits of me! When you meet my friends, any of my friends, not just my co-workers, you want them to tell you things you've no right to know, no right to ask. You embarrass me on purpose like it's a special privilege you've earned. You insult me in front of them and if they defend me you insult them instead. Wherever we go there is always a shadow stalking us, you take me away from things that I enjoy, you drag me away from my friends, you only feel safe when I'm under control - your control."
The deluge continued, the dam long since washed away and yet the pain came still. Caution was gone, nothing held back.
"Every time I laugh at something only I can find funny because of what I know, something I know about but that I can't tell you - a joke I can't share with you. Every day I do things that you criticize and question, that you won't let go, but that I can't explain because you aren't allowed to know. But you don't feel anger towards the rules you are hostile to me, the more I point out that I can't tell you the more irate you get. I can't go anywhere or do anything without you questioning me, interrogating me, as to whether it has to do with my work at the SGC and now, now it doesn't even stop there... it's everything I do, everywhere I go. You want to know, want to understand it, want it to fit some sort of picture you have-"
"SHUT UP!" he exploded, leaping to his feet, throwing his plate aside, "Shut up! Why are you angry at me for taking you away from that place, I want you here where you belong! You could be happy with what I give you! You said you would marry me! Your choice! Always being so God damn smart, so why'd you choose to say yes when all you are going to do is this! After everything I put up with, you're going to try and just walk away! Well forget it! I have my part in this too and I'm not going to let you ruin it with your fear and your weakness."
The utter loathing, in his voice, the contempt for her emotions, for her very being, sliced deep into her. She shuddered as his fury crashed against her own. A calm part of her, the physicist, the emotionally detached scientist, felt the irresistible force meeting the immovable object. She objectively observed it wash over her and she realised that she'd never actually valued him or his opinions of her enough for this tirade against her to actually matter. Soon his words were gone and her anger still blazed. So much anger, so much rage, fury, sorrow and grief and not just at Pete, because he wasn't much in the grand scheme of things... the grand scheme of things was the entire universe and everything in it... and Sam Carter hated it all.
A normal life, apparently something only Sam Carter didn't deserve. She could see everything, go everywhere, and do anything... except have that. Somehow it wasn't for her. Because she knew there was no normal, normal was a misnomer, a wrong word for a wrong world. Her knowledge had corrupted her so that nothing could ever be normal. Driving a car to do shopping compared to flying one of the X-302 above the Earth. Arguments people the world over fought about, even devoted their lives to, paled to insignificance when seen from her all encompassing point of view. The million petty wrongs that she had suffered gladly because they were 'normal'. Every act, every motion, every little moment was a culmination of things that could be distilled down to worthlessness. So many years of boiling everything down into an unimportant, unremarkable and uninspiring simpleness that devalued it all, so she couldn't look at it and feel the right way... couldn't feel anything.
She raged against herself, for putting her life in such an state, she raged against Pete for taking advantage of her desire for normality, she raged against the Air Force for twisting her into this monster, she raged against her father for being such a useless bastard for most of her life, she raged against her duties and her obligations, she raged against Jack for not even having the guts to say anything about her engagement, just packing up and running off to Washington.
She raged against her own rage as it tore at all of what was left of her.
"I will never be anything except what I am. Never for one minute think I am anything less than my own person. Right now I hate you too much to care that I'm hurting you. I hate myself to much to care about what I've done or what I'm going to do. The truth is I don't even know who I am and that is why this is ending, Pete. It's over, walk away while I let you. Walk away and live because if you try and stay here you're going to burn right along with me."
Pete quaked where he stood; he swayed like he'd been physically hit. Her tone had been deadly and carried the truth of her words. His face still dangerously furious, twisted in disbelieving rage and clutching his fork like a weapon in his fist. He looked for a moment like he was going to throw caution to the wind and Sam feared that he would call her bluff. Because that's what it was. She was broken, if he returned her attack, retaliated, he'd tear her to pieces... tear the pieces of her to pieces. There was so little left of herself, she couldn't even feel the air in her lungs and she absently wondered if she had stopped breathing after her last words.
Suddenly a familiar bright white flash of light flooded the room and Pete reeled like he'd been struck a second time. His face pale, ashen and filled with abject fear and terror. He seemed to turn to stone, as if something too dreadful to imagine had set it's eyes on him, the blood drained from his face and he became visibly pale, his face creased in all the wrong places. His jaw seemed to spasm and suddenly he tottered backwards, tripping over the chair he'd upended when he'd stood up. He scrambled and thrashed like a mangled panicked animal before turning and fleeing away through her kitchen and presumably out the back door.
Sam turned to look over her shoulder, her eyes blurred with hot tears that burned away at her eyes, to see the last thing she'd expected to see, the one thing she had been most secretly, terribly needing. Jack stood there, his face twisted in anguish, his eyes bottomless pits of horror as he beheld the pain he saw in her, as he looked upon her crushed soul.
"Oh, Sam" he breathed out as he quickly stepped forward and opened his arms. Sam collapsed into arms like she would be all too pleased if it was her final resting place. She could suddenly feel herself quaking with the emotions that burned like a fire in her, tears ran rivulets down her cheeks, pouring from her eyes like the smoke pouring from that inferno inside. Years of pent up pain left in moments. In that moment a part of Sam died and she was glad to see it gone. The twisted wreckage burned itself out and all that was left was peace, silence and truth. Like ice-cold water the soothing sensation of Jack's presence, as it evoked all those once discarded emotions and neglected memories, filled her with calmness. She'd survived, she could start again... she felt Jack's lips brush against the top of her head.
That, Sam decided, was a good foundation on which to build.
She felt Jack shift slightly as he turned his head, his voice was quiet and directed away from her, "Thanks, Thor"
Somewhere behind him she heard the Asgard reply, "You are most welcome, O'Neill."
Another flash of light signified the alien's departure and left Sam and Jack alone.
Sam felt it in her mind, a tiny little glow of light, something good and comforting, a truth, a fact, something from which she could draw strength. She reached for it, wrapped it around herself when she had it. She knew what it was. She recognised it somehow even though she'd never had it before. She felt it leave her lips on a breath. Felt it save her.
"I love you"
"I love you too, Sam."