Bloodstains
by
Astra Per Aspera
In his nightmare her blood was all over his hands. Bright red at first but deepening in color as it thinned around the edges, drying brown where it smeared across his skin in feathered streaks. And unstoppable. No matter how hard his hands pressed over her wounds, the blood still came. And came. And came. Seeping around the bandage, soaking through it, wringing itself out over his hands as he pushed down and cursed or prayed or cried for help from anyone or anything that never, ever came.
Only the blood.
And the pain. Not from any staff blast that had torn his insides open and seared the soft, fragile tissues to mangled pulp. Not from any great gaping hole in his side spilling forth blackened flesh and dark red blood and perversely pink-tinged bits of gut.
His pain came from elsewhere. Lungs that could not draw breath. Throat that could not swallow his own spit. Heart that had been placed in a vise and twisted tight with no mercy.
And the blood. Her blood. All over his hands. Bright red. And brown. And unstoppable.
"Sir."
The sensation of falling and the reflex to stop himself jerked him awake. All around him darkness, the bottom of some pit, some cavern in hell where he now dwelt.
Except he didn't. Light streamed in. He blinked. There was a form. A shape. A shadow. A voice. Her voice?
No. Not hers.
He'd never hear hers again. It was silenced.
By him.
Forever.
"Colonel."
He blinked. Not hell then. Not yet. But damn close.
"Yeah. What is it?" He fumbled for some purchase to pull himself up. A blanket beneath him rumpled in his fist. He found a grip and heaved himself up, keeping his eyes on the shadow that lay across the floor, avoiding the person who cast it.
"Sorry, sir. I promised to wake you at 0500. It's time."
"Time," he echoed, trying to bridge the place he'd been and the place he was. "Yeah. Time." He scrubbed his face and finally glanced up. He didn't even need to ask. But he did. "Any change?"
There was a slight head shake.
"Sorry, sir. No. I…." He heard the catch in her voice. "I really don't anticipate any. Not under the circumstances."
He stared at his hands, half-expecting to see them covered with her blood. But they were clean. And dry. And blood free. Except…not really. Her blood was there, on his hands, on those very hands which had fired that zat. Once. Twice. And killed her. Except not really. Not yet. Not just yet.
But soon.
Too soon. Because Fraiser was here. Come to get him. To let him sit vigil along with her for these last few hours while they counted down the ticks of the clock. Waiting. For nothing.
Because there was nothing to wait for. Just for time to pass until they were sure.
Except they already were. And the wait was a formality. A standard procedure. A protocol.
Seems you had to file paperwork even to die.
Or be killed.
Or to kill.
He wiped his hands on his pants. Still dry. Yet still stained. Forever stained. Bright red. Invisible to everyone. Everyone but him.
o-o-o-o
Blind numbness. Random noise. Rhythmic sounds. The cautious whispers of forms who wandered in and out of his periphery. The vague beeping of equipment. Weary footsteps outside the door. He cannot look. He must not look. He has no right to look, except to sear into his brain as punishment the product of his handiwork. And so he glances at her once and looks away.
It is time.
Teal'c and Daniel hover, shifting uncomfortably at his side. Fraiser steps forward. On and Off. A single switch to end a life. Much tidier than a P90 or a zat. And no blood. Not on Fraiser's hands anyway. Only on his.
And still he cannot look. He will only listen as the machine is silenced and the room grows quiet and all that she ever was sighs out of existence.
He holds his breath and waits.
It never comes.
o-o-o-o
In his dream he actually touched her, his hand fumbling amid the sheets to find hers, cool thin fingers warming in his grasp. And she was real beneath his fingertips. Solid. Whole. Alive. Pale as the moon in the flickering star field of the MALP room. But real.
As real as a dream, anyway.
And she smiled at him. Her sad smile. The smile that graced only her lips and not her beautiful eyes. Those eyes in which he saw the answer to the bitter truth he already knew. That this was an end, not a beginning. A farewell, not a welcome home.
It hurt, suddenly, to breathe. His throat too tight to even swallow. His heart captured in a fist that squeezed without mercy.
And yet there was no choice.
He stepped away. Nearly out of her reach. Soft and warm, her fingers slipped through his, gentle as a caress until they were arm's length from one another. Touching. But barely.
The sadness was still in her eyes. And worse: doubt.
It impaled him. Every instinct, every muscle, every tendon drove him back to her side, insisted he grasp that hand his fingers so lightly brushed.
Yet he did not move.
Because there really was no choice.
So he let her go.
He was grateful no one was around to hear him cry out as she vanished from sight. Only the darkened room into which he awoke. Trembling. Not hell this time, yet still no place graced by her light. Cold and vacant and empty. Some damnable purgatory in which to pass his days.
But it would be better this way. For her. For him. For all of them. The error had been his; to think there could have been more. That they could have been more. He'd gambled and damned near lost. Lost her. Lost everything. It was unforgivable. So letting go would be his penance; releasing her his mea culpa.
Groping in the darkness he found the lamp switch and a small puddle of light spilled across the bed. 0300. Too early for anything except regret.
He stared at his own hands in the dim light. He could almost feel the fingers he'd been too hesitant to touch, the hand he'd been too afraid to hold. Phantom sensations of loss. Like some kind of amputee.
Still. Better that than stained with her blood.
But barely.