Author's Note: This can be seen as a companion piece to "The Break" and "A Kiss is a Terrible Thing to Waste", although it's not necessary to read those first. This will eventually be a two-shot. The title and quote at the beginning of this chapter come from the song of the same name from the musical "Next to Normal".
"Catch me, I'm falling
Please hear me calling
Catch me I'm falling for good."
Every once in a while, Sam just wanted to scream.
Like now, for instance.
It'd been bad enough when she'd attempted to "mate with the Colonel by force", as Janet had put it, when she'd been infected by the Touched virus mere weeks after the Stargate program began in earnest. Okay, at the time she'd thought the Colonel was attractive, but had been too wrapped up in her feministic perspectives to allow herself to feel anything more.
Then there'd been the time they'd been trapped down in Antarctica together, the mission to destroy Apophis's ships, her possession by the Tok'ra Jolinar, his shoulder getting speared by the alien time capsule, their capture by Hathor… With every trial they faced, she couldn't help getting closer to him. Granted, she also became closer to Daniel and Teal'c; both became more brothers to her than her own brother had ever been. She'd kept telling herself that her bond with the Colonel was the same, that she saw him as yet another family member, and some days she almost believed it, particularly when the Colonel pouted (yes, the man pouted) if he didn't get his way or some explanation sailed right over his head.
Then two things had happened. Dr. Carter showed up, and the Colonel kissed her. Then the Colonel was trapped on Edora for over three months.
As she worked around the clock to build the particle beam generator necessary to access the Edoran Stargate again, Sam realized that at some point in the last two and a half years, she'd fallen in love with her CO. While this realization was scream-worthy in and of itself, Sam could barely contain herself when Janet asked her if she missed him. She'd manage to convince her friend that no such feelings existed, although she wasn't sure that Janet bought it. It didn't matter too much, anyway, as when they'd finally rescued the colonel she discovered that he'd entered a relationship with Laira. Thinking back, Sam could remember with exact detail the sinking sensation in her stomach when she'd learned this, because it was the same feeling she experienced some months later during the whole za'tarc fiasco. The happiness that she'd felt at knowing that the Colonel felt the same way about her was overshadowed by the fact that Teal'c and Janet had witnessed the whole thing. Thankfully, Janet never mentioned it, and neither did Teal'c.
The problem was, that, despite the regs, and despite their promise to one another to "leave it in the room", Sam continued to fall more in love with the Colonel. She had a sneaking suspicion that he also continued to feel the same about her; he'd certainly been smirking widely enough about something following the three months they'd spent in a time loop, and then there was the closeness they'd developed as Thera and Jonah.
Then Daniel had died.
Okay, so technically he'd ascended to a "higher plane of existence". It didn't make much difference to Sam, though, because either way it meant that he was gone. With his death, the Colonel had shut down emotionally, retreating into himself and keeping Sam and Teal'c at arm's length. Between that and Teal'c's own stoicism, Sam felt at a loss for how to grieve for her friend. She and Janet spent some time talking about it, but she flat out refused to talk to MacKenzie.
Things got a little better once Jonas joined them. The full mission roster meant that Sam was able to focus her energies once more on new technologies, and Jonas, while not a substitute for Daniel, helped to fill the void by acting as a sounding board for Sam. The Colonel started to come back out of his shell a little, and Sam realized that, even though she was angry at him for withdrawing, she still loved him.
That realization only made the current situation that much harder to bear. The Colonel and Maybourne had disappeared, and it was her fault. They'd been gone for almost two weeks, and she was no closer to finding them than she'd been right after they'd vanished. As she'd told Teal'c, it felt like they'd lost Daniel all over again. And she still felt like she wanted to scream.
Part of her, the part that wasn't preoccupied with still searching or mourning, wondered if she'd feel this bad if she hadn't fallen for her CO. Not that she could have prevented it, but she still wished that someone would catch her before she fell too far.
Catch Me, I'm Falling
