'You don't have to say anything.'
By Numnut
May 2004
She loved him.
She had held him in her arms. Her legs had melted as he kissed her. She'd held her breath as he touched her. She had cried his name in the dark.
She had loved him with every spark of life in her body.
And she had watched him die.
--------------------
The concrete had been cold underneath her fingertips, and the walls had trembled in a way she had never expected from the familiar strong edifice protecting them from the outside world.
The corridor was full of smoke.
Screams. Voices. The harsh guttural spit of angry alien tongue.
She had run. He had run. They had run. The clanking of weapon metal on belt buckles, the harsh breathing. This was her plan, it had to work. She had argued with him, determined it was the only way. She knew his every instinct told him to stand fast and fight, but she also knew defeat was inevitable unless they had some outside help. Most of Earth's major cities were in ruins, squads of Jaffa marching through the streets, the dust of the human race beneath their feet. They had nothing that could defeat the aliens, so they had to find someone who did. And he knew it too.
This was her plan, it had to work.
But it hadn't.
The Jaffa came out of nowhere and stepped into their path, the gold of his snake tattoo flickering in the weak light, and for a moment time stood frozen.
Then the cold butt of his staff weapon was shoved up under her chin, its electrostatic field raising the fine hairs on her neck. The alien muttered something she didn't understand, and the world suddenly spun as she was flung aside.
The concrete was still cold when it came up to meet her, spots dancing in front of her eyes. She blinked vainly attempting to focus, but there was only the blur of smoke swirling across emergency lighting and the sound of Kawalsky's gun firing.
Hands grabbed her. Jack's hands. And she was moving.
Suddenly the darkness was shattered by glaring white, and a concussion shoved them to the ground. She breathed dust for a moment before coughing up a lung into the after-image scarred darkness.
"Did you get him?" Her husband's voice was harsh, and Kawalsky's breathing echoed it.
"Don't think so. But I think we've scared him off."
"How could a grenade have missed this close?"
Kawalsky didn't answer. The enemy wasn't human.
She struggled to her feet, Jack's hand on her arm, his other full of gun, tracking the darkness. They had to move fast. Darting around a corner, they flung open a door, and Sam suddenly found herself seated on a box of toilet tissue. Her eyes darted in and out of focus on the brand name stamped on the box, the USAF label half stuck over it.
"Sam?"
She focussed. "I'm okay." She waved him away.
"You sure?"
She looked up at him; his face shadowed even more in the poor lighting, his eyes hidden. "I said I'm fine." She didn't raise her voice, but the pounding headache that was surfacing, compliments of the concrete, still didn't appreciate it.
"Shit!" Kawalsky's exclamation was little more than a whisper as he suddenly closed the door to the room they were hiding in. The thud-thud of boots marching past an equally sudden explanation. "They must have breached the secondary perimeter." Kawalsky's tone was stating the obvious considering their just recent encounter, but regardless, she knew he was foreseeing the fall of the mountain. They all were. It was inevitable.
She could almost feel the fury emanating from Jack, but he didn't express it.
Their only chance was the mirror.
--------------------
They waited.
Jack contacted Hammond, but there was little they could do. Defeat was inevitable. The General had seen to it that all the refugees and as many of the SGA staff as possible had made it to the beta site. Nothing was said about the fact that neither of them had even thought of fleeing through the gate. Men and women still died in the corridors, buying them time, little though it would be.
They had to move. That time was running out.
It was now or never.
Jack both hated and was grateful for the fact that Sam was with him. He would have much preferred her to be on the other side of that wormhole, but he knew he had little chance of convincing her. The fire in her eyes at his mere suggestion had been rather spectacular to say the least, and he couldn't deny her the right.
But it hurt nevertheless.
As they finally moved out into the corridor, Kawalsky giving the all clear, they crept down the hallway. Sam, though a civilian, had a natural instinct for these situations, and, not for the first time, his mind skittered over the thought of what a fine soldier she would have made.
He kept the gun in his hands trained and ready to fire. They were behind enemy lines, no matter how familiar the place looked. Smoke still drifted in lazy circles, the air conditioning miraculously still functioning. In the distance a sudden boom shook the walls and concrete dust fell on them like a blanket.
Suddenly something raised his hackles, the hairs on the back of his neck standing to attention, alarm bells ringing.
They were being watched.
He signalled Kawalsky, and his second in command took their six, the two soldiers bracketing the one civilian. He peered around the next corner, his heart making more noise than his feet. The corridor was empty, but still something was not right. His instincts were screaming.
Goddamnit, O'Neill, move!
He slipped around the corner like a ghost, signalling them to follow.
They didn't.
Silence.
The clatter as a P-90 hit concrete.
He spun just in time to catch a crack in his jaw from a staff weapon. He saw stars, the ground attempting to head butt him, but he forced himself to remain standing, and ducked as the second blow flew past his ear.
He danced.
It was that same Jaffa, gold tattoo and all, and he was pissed. Had he been tracking them? The dark warrior had one massive arm around Kawalsky's throat and the major was slowly turning blue. Sam...
Sam was on the ground, arm outstretched for Kawalsky's discarded weapon. The Jaffa's boot held her fast to the floor as she struggled in no small amount of pain.
He had no time to think, and little to act, but he ducked again, swinging his entire body around, lifting his foot aiming for the man's jaw.
He missed.
The Jaffa deflected the attack, twisting O'Neill's ankle with a painful wrench and flinging him to the floor.
It knocked the wind out of him, but he had far too much at stake here to give up very easily. He rolled, coming to his feet in a rush, spun, and using all his mass, barrelled into his opponent, flinging Kawalsky aside. The Jaffa grunted as he hit the concrete, but easily flipped the Colonel over his head while rolling to his feet.
Jack grabbed for his gun. The Jaffa beat him to it.
Orange fire lit up the hallway, and Jack's world exploded.
--------------------
Sam screamed as her husband literally flew over her and tackled the Jaffa. Her wrist was ground under the heel of the alien's boot before it was released. Charlie collapsed at her side, hardly breathing.
And then her world came to a screaming halt.
She saw it in slow motion. Jack rolling from his fall, his feet spinning him, his gun coming up.
His face lit from below as orange fire tore into his belly.
She screamed as he fell, shock on his face.
The Jaffa turned, his eyes catching hers.
And then there was gun metal in her hands.
The light wasn't orange, but it was just as deadly. The hard chatter of the P-90 echoed down the corridor, masking her voice, hiding her cry.
The Jaffa didn't have a chance.
Alien blood splattered the walls.
The silence once she stopped firing was absolute, and she dropped the weapon without hesitation, flinging herself forward. Jack lay sprawled awkwardly on his back, a great gaping hole where his stomach used to be.
Smoke drifted lazily.
"Jack?!"
He didn't answer, and for a moment she thought she had lost him already. But a dark eye fluttered and then latched onto her. He whispered one word.
"Go."
She touched his cheek, his skin cooling. He did not push her away, did not say anything more, and she realised he had lost the ability. But his eyes told her everything. He stared at her, saying all, while his lips said nothing. The thud of heavy feet echoed in the distance and Charlie said her name, pulling on her arm. She didn't look at him, her hand resting on her husband's faintly trembling shoulder.
She stared into his eyes, and he tried to smile.
She swallowed her heart.
And he left her.
His stare dulled, and she became a widow.
Her heart broke, but there was no time to grieve. She was pulled away from him, her feet slipping in the blood of the Jaffa who had taken him from her. Kawalsky was speaking, they were moving, and a squad of Jaffa came around the corner at the other end of the corridor, their guttural shouts echoing off the walls.
But she only had eyes for her husband lying dead on the floor. Her last sight of the man she loved, before they were around the corner, and he was gone.
--------------------
The cotton of the standard issue air force linen was soft against her wet cheek. The photograph was blurred in her tear-filled vision, but she didn't need to see it. The image was branded into her memory along with the image of him dying in that cold concrete corridor.
She squeezed her eyes shut as if attempting to force the memory from her sight.
It was so hard. The moment this Jack O'Neill had walked into the infirmary, her mind had frozen, her breathing had hitched, her heart had lurched. His eyes, those same eyes, darkly handsome, somewhat mysterious, and often juvenile, had stared at her, questions popping up like popcorn on a hot stove. That same mouth had curled in questionable amusement, a smile at the possible joke.
She knew him.
She knew the expression of confusion, the expression of carefully hidden shock, and the sudden embarrassed realisation of his relationship to her. Or his lack of it.
And the guarded look on his face as he stared silently at her counterpart.
But he wasn't hers.
He was, but he wasn't, and while he walked around being everything she expected him to be, the raw grief in her heart....
It had taken them three more days to make another attempt for the mirror, and by that time, any retaliation by Earth had been pretty much trampled into the dirt the planet was made of. The only use for the mirror now was escape.
And even that had been impossible for some.
Charlie had done his best, but their little party had been discovered. Ironically it was by that same bastard Jaffa who had killed her husband, the alien did not know how to stay dead! The General and his aide had been cut off and captured. She and Charlie had run, made it, and landed here.
A safe and personal hell.
She didn't know if she could do this. The eyes of her alternate stared at her even when they weren't looking. She wasn't meant to be here.
And Jack wasn't meant to be dead.
Her mind spun in circles, logic wrapping in on itself. There was no way out. This was her life now.
Her face crumpled into the wet pillow, and Samantha O'Neill cried herself to sleep.
--------------------
Jack O'Neill didn't say anything from the moment the mirror flipped him back to his own reality. The tearstained face of his alternate's widow vanished from sight, the blank greyness of the inactive device, stark against the emotion roiling inside him.
Carter opened her mouth to say something, but a glance in her direction halted whatever comment she had in mind mid-breath. Her eyes stared up at him, and he had to look away.
"Permission to shower, sir?" The General simply nodded, and Jack was out the door.
He passed by the armoury, just this once not hanging around to make sure his team ditched their weapons correctly. He bee-lined for the locker room, and, once inside, shed clothes like a tree sheds leaves in the fall. The water was hot and the steam concealing, and it attempted to wash away his conflicting emotions.
She was Sam, but she wasn't, and now she was gone, but she wasn't.
He rubbed his face in his hands. For crying out loud, Jack. She's your second in command.
She was his wife.
It didn't matter. She had seen the look in the eyes of her alternate and the look in his own. She had heard what could have been, and even though she was different, she was the same, and the possibilities presented themselves.
And he shied away.
Who was he kidding?
She's your second in command, Jack!
Totally annoyed with himself, he slapped at the shower controls cutting the water. He leaned forward until his head rested against the tiles. The steam drifted away slowly as the water ran from his body and he shivered.
Sighing he pushed off from the wall and exited the stall, grabbing a towel.
He almost collided with a fully dressed Daniel Jackson.
"For crying out loud, Daniel, are you trying to give me a heart attack?"
Daniel blinked, surprised. "Jack, you okay?"
He glanced up at the dishevelled archaeologist. "Shouldn't you be in the infirmary?"
Daniel didn't look at him, his eyes wandering around the room as Jack got dressed. "I wanted to see if you were okay."
"I'm fine."
Daniel made a negative sound. "Yeah, I can see that."
"Daniel, what do you want from me?"
"Whatever you want to give, Jack."
"Well, you've got it."
With that he bundled up his soiled clothing, chucked it in the laundry bin, and left.
--------------------
Five minutes later he ran into Carter in the corridor.
"Colonel!"
He stopped, somewhat resigned. She was the last person he wanted to see right now. He was tired, he was miserable; he was an emotional basket case.
"What?"
He turned and came face to face with the ghost of a woman who could have been his wife. He blinked, cursing himself internally. Get a grip!
She looked up at him, her eyes gently inquiring, but without comment. "General Hammond has postponed the debriefing until tomorrow. He felt we needed some rest." Translation: the General had seen how messed up his second in command was and figured he'd toss him some time to regroup.
"Thanks, Carter." He turned to leave.
"Sir?"
He sighed. "Carter, can we not talk about this right now. The General is right, go get some sleep."
He turned away again.
"Sir?"
"What?!" This time she jumped, her expression dissolving into a frown.
"You dropped your cap in the corridor, I thought you might like it back."
He blinked. The tolerant look on her face was almost comical and despite himself a small smile, partly embarrassed, crept onto his lips. She held the cap, and he reached and took it, his fingers brushing gently against hers.
The simple contact was a wake up call, suddenly reminding him of who he was, who she was, and the source of the mess in his head.
"Thanks, Carter." This time he turned away and she didn't call him back.
--------------------
He headed towards his quarters, but didn't quite make it. For some unidentifiable reason he found himself outside an empty room.
Hers.
There was no guard as there was no need since it was currently unoccupied. He found his hand on the doorknob and before he knew it, he had entered and closed the door.
There was no sign that the grieving woman, who had poured her heart out on his shoulder, had even been here. The bed was neatly made. No tray of half eaten food sat on the sideboard.
No sound of tears.
He didn't know why he was here. This was ridiculous. What the hell was his problem?
He turned to leave.
Something caught his eye.
A frayed white corner of paper poked out from under the bed. If he hadn't looked twice, he would have missed it. He bent over, his fingertips brushing it.
Photographic paper.
He knew what it was before he turned it over.
His own happy face stared up at him, a smiling Samantha in his arms.
His hand trembled slightly.
She'd left it behind.
He sat down heavily on the bed, his eyes locked on the picture in his hand. Samantha O'Neill. She looked so happy. He looked so happy.
But it was only a brief happiness. It had been shattered by the Goa'uld. Fate had stolen their life together.
It wasn't meant to be.
He resisted the impulse to screw up the photograph and toss it across the room, his mind screaming at him that it was irreplaceable.
Her laughing eyes danced off the page, tiptoeing across his mind, leaving a trail of missed opportunities.
It wasn't meant to be.
Not here. Not there.
But in an infinite number of parallel universes, he would hope that, in at least one of them, it was. One Jack O'Neill, one Samantha Carter, and a chance at what couldn't work anywhere else.
He slipped the photo gently into his pocket, and left.
There was always hope.
--------------------
FIN.
By Numnut
May 2004
She loved him.
She had held him in her arms. Her legs had melted as he kissed her. She'd held her breath as he touched her. She had cried his name in the dark.
She had loved him with every spark of life in her body.
And she had watched him die.
--------------------
The concrete had been cold underneath her fingertips, and the walls had trembled in a way she had never expected from the familiar strong edifice protecting them from the outside world.
The corridor was full of smoke.
Screams. Voices. The harsh guttural spit of angry alien tongue.
She had run. He had run. They had run. The clanking of weapon metal on belt buckles, the harsh breathing. This was her plan, it had to work. She had argued with him, determined it was the only way. She knew his every instinct told him to stand fast and fight, but she also knew defeat was inevitable unless they had some outside help. Most of Earth's major cities were in ruins, squads of Jaffa marching through the streets, the dust of the human race beneath their feet. They had nothing that could defeat the aliens, so they had to find someone who did. And he knew it too.
This was her plan, it had to work.
But it hadn't.
The Jaffa came out of nowhere and stepped into their path, the gold of his snake tattoo flickering in the weak light, and for a moment time stood frozen.
Then the cold butt of his staff weapon was shoved up under her chin, its electrostatic field raising the fine hairs on her neck. The alien muttered something she didn't understand, and the world suddenly spun as she was flung aside.
The concrete was still cold when it came up to meet her, spots dancing in front of her eyes. She blinked vainly attempting to focus, but there was only the blur of smoke swirling across emergency lighting and the sound of Kawalsky's gun firing.
Hands grabbed her. Jack's hands. And she was moving.
Suddenly the darkness was shattered by glaring white, and a concussion shoved them to the ground. She breathed dust for a moment before coughing up a lung into the after-image scarred darkness.
"Did you get him?" Her husband's voice was harsh, and Kawalsky's breathing echoed it.
"Don't think so. But I think we've scared him off."
"How could a grenade have missed this close?"
Kawalsky didn't answer. The enemy wasn't human.
She struggled to her feet, Jack's hand on her arm, his other full of gun, tracking the darkness. They had to move fast. Darting around a corner, they flung open a door, and Sam suddenly found herself seated on a box of toilet tissue. Her eyes darted in and out of focus on the brand name stamped on the box, the USAF label half stuck over it.
"Sam?"
She focussed. "I'm okay." She waved him away.
"You sure?"
She looked up at him; his face shadowed even more in the poor lighting, his eyes hidden. "I said I'm fine." She didn't raise her voice, but the pounding headache that was surfacing, compliments of the concrete, still didn't appreciate it.
"Shit!" Kawalsky's exclamation was little more than a whisper as he suddenly closed the door to the room they were hiding in. The thud-thud of boots marching past an equally sudden explanation. "They must have breached the secondary perimeter." Kawalsky's tone was stating the obvious considering their just recent encounter, but regardless, she knew he was foreseeing the fall of the mountain. They all were. It was inevitable.
She could almost feel the fury emanating from Jack, but he didn't express it.
Their only chance was the mirror.
--------------------
They waited.
Jack contacted Hammond, but there was little they could do. Defeat was inevitable. The General had seen to it that all the refugees and as many of the SGA staff as possible had made it to the beta site. Nothing was said about the fact that neither of them had even thought of fleeing through the gate. Men and women still died in the corridors, buying them time, little though it would be.
They had to move. That time was running out.
It was now or never.
Jack both hated and was grateful for the fact that Sam was with him. He would have much preferred her to be on the other side of that wormhole, but he knew he had little chance of convincing her. The fire in her eyes at his mere suggestion had been rather spectacular to say the least, and he couldn't deny her the right.
But it hurt nevertheless.
As they finally moved out into the corridor, Kawalsky giving the all clear, they crept down the hallway. Sam, though a civilian, had a natural instinct for these situations, and, not for the first time, his mind skittered over the thought of what a fine soldier she would have made.
He kept the gun in his hands trained and ready to fire. They were behind enemy lines, no matter how familiar the place looked. Smoke still drifted in lazy circles, the air conditioning miraculously still functioning. In the distance a sudden boom shook the walls and concrete dust fell on them like a blanket.
Suddenly something raised his hackles, the hairs on the back of his neck standing to attention, alarm bells ringing.
They were being watched.
He signalled Kawalsky, and his second in command took their six, the two soldiers bracketing the one civilian. He peered around the next corner, his heart making more noise than his feet. The corridor was empty, but still something was not right. His instincts were screaming.
Goddamnit, O'Neill, move!
He slipped around the corner like a ghost, signalling them to follow.
They didn't.
Silence.
The clatter as a P-90 hit concrete.
He spun just in time to catch a crack in his jaw from a staff weapon. He saw stars, the ground attempting to head butt him, but he forced himself to remain standing, and ducked as the second blow flew past his ear.
He danced.
It was that same Jaffa, gold tattoo and all, and he was pissed. Had he been tracking them? The dark warrior had one massive arm around Kawalsky's throat and the major was slowly turning blue. Sam...
Sam was on the ground, arm outstretched for Kawalsky's discarded weapon. The Jaffa's boot held her fast to the floor as she struggled in no small amount of pain.
He had no time to think, and little to act, but he ducked again, swinging his entire body around, lifting his foot aiming for the man's jaw.
He missed.
The Jaffa deflected the attack, twisting O'Neill's ankle with a painful wrench and flinging him to the floor.
It knocked the wind out of him, but he had far too much at stake here to give up very easily. He rolled, coming to his feet in a rush, spun, and using all his mass, barrelled into his opponent, flinging Kawalsky aside. The Jaffa grunted as he hit the concrete, but easily flipped the Colonel over his head while rolling to his feet.
Jack grabbed for his gun. The Jaffa beat him to it.
Orange fire lit up the hallway, and Jack's world exploded.
--------------------
Sam screamed as her husband literally flew over her and tackled the Jaffa. Her wrist was ground under the heel of the alien's boot before it was released. Charlie collapsed at her side, hardly breathing.
And then her world came to a screaming halt.
She saw it in slow motion. Jack rolling from his fall, his feet spinning him, his gun coming up.
His face lit from below as orange fire tore into his belly.
She screamed as he fell, shock on his face.
The Jaffa turned, his eyes catching hers.
And then there was gun metal in her hands.
The light wasn't orange, but it was just as deadly. The hard chatter of the P-90 echoed down the corridor, masking her voice, hiding her cry.
The Jaffa didn't have a chance.
Alien blood splattered the walls.
The silence once she stopped firing was absolute, and she dropped the weapon without hesitation, flinging herself forward. Jack lay sprawled awkwardly on his back, a great gaping hole where his stomach used to be.
Smoke drifted lazily.
"Jack?!"
He didn't answer, and for a moment she thought she had lost him already. But a dark eye fluttered and then latched onto her. He whispered one word.
"Go."
She touched his cheek, his skin cooling. He did not push her away, did not say anything more, and she realised he had lost the ability. But his eyes told her everything. He stared at her, saying all, while his lips said nothing. The thud of heavy feet echoed in the distance and Charlie said her name, pulling on her arm. She didn't look at him, her hand resting on her husband's faintly trembling shoulder.
She stared into his eyes, and he tried to smile.
She swallowed her heart.
And he left her.
His stare dulled, and she became a widow.
Her heart broke, but there was no time to grieve. She was pulled away from him, her feet slipping in the blood of the Jaffa who had taken him from her. Kawalsky was speaking, they were moving, and a squad of Jaffa came around the corner at the other end of the corridor, their guttural shouts echoing off the walls.
But she only had eyes for her husband lying dead on the floor. Her last sight of the man she loved, before they were around the corner, and he was gone.
--------------------
The cotton of the standard issue air force linen was soft against her wet cheek. The photograph was blurred in her tear-filled vision, but she didn't need to see it. The image was branded into her memory along with the image of him dying in that cold concrete corridor.
She squeezed her eyes shut as if attempting to force the memory from her sight.
It was so hard. The moment this Jack O'Neill had walked into the infirmary, her mind had frozen, her breathing had hitched, her heart had lurched. His eyes, those same eyes, darkly handsome, somewhat mysterious, and often juvenile, had stared at her, questions popping up like popcorn on a hot stove. That same mouth had curled in questionable amusement, a smile at the possible joke.
She knew him.
She knew the expression of confusion, the expression of carefully hidden shock, and the sudden embarrassed realisation of his relationship to her. Or his lack of it.
And the guarded look on his face as he stared silently at her counterpart.
But he wasn't hers.
He was, but he wasn't, and while he walked around being everything she expected him to be, the raw grief in her heart....
It had taken them three more days to make another attempt for the mirror, and by that time, any retaliation by Earth had been pretty much trampled into the dirt the planet was made of. The only use for the mirror now was escape.
And even that had been impossible for some.
Charlie had done his best, but their little party had been discovered. Ironically it was by that same bastard Jaffa who had killed her husband, the alien did not know how to stay dead! The General and his aide had been cut off and captured. She and Charlie had run, made it, and landed here.
A safe and personal hell.
She didn't know if she could do this. The eyes of her alternate stared at her even when they weren't looking. She wasn't meant to be here.
And Jack wasn't meant to be dead.
Her mind spun in circles, logic wrapping in on itself. There was no way out. This was her life now.
Her face crumpled into the wet pillow, and Samantha O'Neill cried herself to sleep.
--------------------
Jack O'Neill didn't say anything from the moment the mirror flipped him back to his own reality. The tearstained face of his alternate's widow vanished from sight, the blank greyness of the inactive device, stark against the emotion roiling inside him.
Carter opened her mouth to say something, but a glance in her direction halted whatever comment she had in mind mid-breath. Her eyes stared up at him, and he had to look away.
"Permission to shower, sir?" The General simply nodded, and Jack was out the door.
He passed by the armoury, just this once not hanging around to make sure his team ditched their weapons correctly. He bee-lined for the locker room, and, once inside, shed clothes like a tree sheds leaves in the fall. The water was hot and the steam concealing, and it attempted to wash away his conflicting emotions.
She was Sam, but she wasn't, and now she was gone, but she wasn't.
He rubbed his face in his hands. For crying out loud, Jack. She's your second in command.
She was his wife.
It didn't matter. She had seen the look in the eyes of her alternate and the look in his own. She had heard what could have been, and even though she was different, she was the same, and the possibilities presented themselves.
And he shied away.
Who was he kidding?
She's your second in command, Jack!
Totally annoyed with himself, he slapped at the shower controls cutting the water. He leaned forward until his head rested against the tiles. The steam drifted away slowly as the water ran from his body and he shivered.
Sighing he pushed off from the wall and exited the stall, grabbing a towel.
He almost collided with a fully dressed Daniel Jackson.
"For crying out loud, Daniel, are you trying to give me a heart attack?"
Daniel blinked, surprised. "Jack, you okay?"
He glanced up at the dishevelled archaeologist. "Shouldn't you be in the infirmary?"
Daniel didn't look at him, his eyes wandering around the room as Jack got dressed. "I wanted to see if you were okay."
"I'm fine."
Daniel made a negative sound. "Yeah, I can see that."
"Daniel, what do you want from me?"
"Whatever you want to give, Jack."
"Well, you've got it."
With that he bundled up his soiled clothing, chucked it in the laundry bin, and left.
--------------------
Five minutes later he ran into Carter in the corridor.
"Colonel!"
He stopped, somewhat resigned. She was the last person he wanted to see right now. He was tired, he was miserable; he was an emotional basket case.
"What?"
He turned and came face to face with the ghost of a woman who could have been his wife. He blinked, cursing himself internally. Get a grip!
She looked up at him, her eyes gently inquiring, but without comment. "General Hammond has postponed the debriefing until tomorrow. He felt we needed some rest." Translation: the General had seen how messed up his second in command was and figured he'd toss him some time to regroup.
"Thanks, Carter." He turned to leave.
"Sir?"
He sighed. "Carter, can we not talk about this right now. The General is right, go get some sleep."
He turned away again.
"Sir?"
"What?!" This time she jumped, her expression dissolving into a frown.
"You dropped your cap in the corridor, I thought you might like it back."
He blinked. The tolerant look on her face was almost comical and despite himself a small smile, partly embarrassed, crept onto his lips. She held the cap, and he reached and took it, his fingers brushing gently against hers.
The simple contact was a wake up call, suddenly reminding him of who he was, who she was, and the source of the mess in his head.
"Thanks, Carter." This time he turned away and she didn't call him back.
--------------------
He headed towards his quarters, but didn't quite make it. For some unidentifiable reason he found himself outside an empty room.
Hers.
There was no guard as there was no need since it was currently unoccupied. He found his hand on the doorknob and before he knew it, he had entered and closed the door.
There was no sign that the grieving woman, who had poured her heart out on his shoulder, had even been here. The bed was neatly made. No tray of half eaten food sat on the sideboard.
No sound of tears.
He didn't know why he was here. This was ridiculous. What the hell was his problem?
He turned to leave.
Something caught his eye.
A frayed white corner of paper poked out from under the bed. If he hadn't looked twice, he would have missed it. He bent over, his fingertips brushing it.
Photographic paper.
He knew what it was before he turned it over.
His own happy face stared up at him, a smiling Samantha in his arms.
His hand trembled slightly.
She'd left it behind.
He sat down heavily on the bed, his eyes locked on the picture in his hand. Samantha O'Neill. She looked so happy. He looked so happy.
But it was only a brief happiness. It had been shattered by the Goa'uld. Fate had stolen their life together.
It wasn't meant to be.
He resisted the impulse to screw up the photograph and toss it across the room, his mind screaming at him that it was irreplaceable.
Her laughing eyes danced off the page, tiptoeing across his mind, leaving a trail of missed opportunities.
It wasn't meant to be.
Not here. Not there.
But in an infinite number of parallel universes, he would hope that, in at least one of them, it was. One Jack O'Neill, one Samantha Carter, and a chance at what couldn't work anywhere else.
He slipped the photo gently into his pocket, and left.
There was always hope.
--------------------
FIN.