Afterimage (noun): an impression of a vivid sensation (esp. a visual image) retained after the stimulus has ceased.
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There were reasons to hold back: regulations, heat-of-the-moments, the tendency for such things to change. He had considered them all evenly, weighted them, imagining the day he wouldn't need to worry about any of them anymore. Over and over again he played the scene out, as realistically as he could. The moment he would kiss her and suffer the consequences with relief and satisfaction. Nine years, and the moment never came.
He wonders if it was the threat of loss that made him love her. Whatever the means, he soon began to entertain the thought that she could be "Sam." He began protecting her because she was valuable and a member of his team; he soon found himself protecting her because he adored what she brought to his life. Sometimes he could see himself rubbing off on Carter, and he could almost taste what it would be like to be together. He didn't want to admit it, but he knew that if she only gave the word, he'd screw the regulations and take her in the first broom closet he could see. The fact that she never did made him crazy.
Life with her made him feel young and alive.
He had always tried to breathe her in periodically, in heavy doses. A kiss, a hug, an outward display of his emotion. He was fine with how it felt to quietly love her, for now. He had collected proof enough to be assured that she loved him, too. Time loops, forcefields, sitting on his couch. If only the things could play out, unfold, be open. If only, if only.
Time moved him along, and moved him out of the SGC. All she gave him was a goodbye as the final item was packed. A hug, a smile, a shoulder shrug. The threat and the thrill was over for them. He had expected something very different than being left standing alone in an office with a simple "see you, Carter," but no. She left his heart pounding, beating blood into his brain to help him figure out what to say. It failed. She left him still in love with her. She left as if he was, and had always been, just her boss.
She just left.
He had never thought of the right goodbye to say, for the simple reason that he didn't think he would need one. What a horrible cliché, he knows, to be left holding a box of trinkets in his (now old) office while staring at the open door. He felt his age, a decade older, as he stepped into the hall. If he was one for drama, which he isn't, he'd call it a disaster. Tragic, even. He might even venture to say that no-one will take her place and he will never forget the agonizing defeat, the confusion, the regret. He didn't chase after her, ever call her, ever say her name out loud. She had the right to want it this way.
He is not one for drama.
He walked to his truck, placed the last box in the back, and drove home. And even though he had thought she would, Carter never knocked on his door, never called him late in the night, never gave a fitting resolution for the man who held her and protected her. He supposes it's selfish, to want Carter all to himself. But when their paths cross, and she is still alone, an ageless pang of desire still strikes him. She calls him sir. They perform their duty. He goes home.
D.C. is a lonely place.
So every morning he has to put on that stiff military uniform with all its bells and whistles, he sees the now Lt. Colonel Samantha Carter telling him that it didn't matter that her reproductive organs were on the inside, standing proudly as he adorned her jacket, or reaching to nervously straighten his tie. In the mirror, he can fix the damn thing for himself. Business as usual.
Oh, how things do fade.