Carter tried to sleep on her bed, set up in the hold where they had hidden earlier in the day. The sounds of her three male companions in deep slumber provided a background to her buzzing thoughts. These days she found sleep less easy to come by. She remembered reading somewhere that old people--God, when had she started referring to herself as an old person?-- that old people were more likely to become insomniacs because they needed less sleep; their more sedentary lifestyles and various biological factors causing the reduced need for long hours of sleep. Old people were supposed to enjoy cat-naps throughout the day.
Carter didn't have time to catnap in the day, not as General of the SGC. She suspected that her lack of ability to sleep at night had a lot more to do with that fact that it was only at night, in bed alone, that she had a moment to herself to actually think about things that weren't related to a job in hand....
...And then those thoughts would play around her head all night, preventing her from sleeping until the small hours and making her wake up with dark circles under her eyes and a nagging headache.
There was a snore from Daniel as she shifted position. Asguard mattresses were generated from an energy field and as such their softness could be minutely adjusted. Despite this, she couldn't seem to find a setting she liked.
She was used to sleeping alone. Maybe that was it, the sounds of people around her that made her unable to drop off. She sighed. It didn't do to dwell on loneliness, and she *wasn't* lonely, not really. Not in the day. She had things to do and people to see.
But at night there was loneliness. There was the feeling of her life stretching out before her, the past laid out behind and that niggling, repetitive, *incessant* thought. What had she achieved in her life?
In terms of career, quite a lot. She had made the rank of General, commanded the facility that maintained Earth's gateway to the galaxy. She was a friend to a whole host of aliens; she was respected and well liked on Earth as well as off.
She had raised Cassie through the end of her teenage years and beyond after the death of Janet; seen her go to medical school, and join the Stargate programme. She'd seen her married and with a little luck she should see Cassie and her husband raise *their* children.
But she never had and now never would raise a child of her own. That thought hurt somehow, and she wasn't sure why. She'd never married.
She sighed again. Those two issues were intertwined and the lack of both husband and child was entirely her fault.
She'd been engaged. Twice. Once to a megalomaniac admittedly, but once to a nice, normal man. Who'd been quite good looking then and still was now, or had been when she'd last seen him, even in his sixties.
She'd lived with Pete for five years, three and a half as his fiancee. It had, looking back, probably been one of the best times in her life. She'd been happy at home, happy at work.
But then Pete seemed to suddenly become aware that she was rapidly approaching forty and they still weren't married. They'd talked about it and he'd unexpectedly revealed his long held secret desire for two children and a dog, a happy housewife to come home to. Not some half-wild Colonel who risked her life everyday a million miles from where he could protect her.
She had considered his offer. And something inside her had rebelled. She'd never wanted children as a young woman. Friends had laughed as they started raising their own families, telling her one day she would feel differently; when she had met the right man. As far as she was concerned Pete was that man and yet... she could not bring herself to stop going through the Stargate to be with him. She had no great desire to have his children.
She'd been honest with him and they'd started to argue, and they'd *never* argued. He had demanded her to set a date for their wedding and once again that curious apathy had overcome her. She liked living with Pete, she enjoyed every aspect of their life together.... but she didn't want to be his wife. She couldn't stand the thought of belonging to him.
It hadn't taken long after she'd shouted exactly those words to him in a heated row at two in the morning that Jack O'Neill's name had been mentioned.
Jack had left the base nearly a year previously and she had felt no desire to hide the fact that his departure had hurt her badly. Most people assumed that, like all of O'Neill's other close friends and comrades, she was simply mourning the effective loss of her companion. Those who knew the truth of the depth of feeling between Carter and O'Neill kept their thoughts to themselves and maintained their silence.
The sickening realisation had overtaken her as Pete had said *that* name that if O'Neill was the one doing the asking she would have said yes. Unthinkingly and certainly.
Not long after that she had walked in through her front door after a particularly bad day at work to find her house half-empty. Pete had gone. She couldn't blame him.
And she had cried, a lot, some tears for him but mostly for herself and the life she knew she had lost. Cassie had moved back in for a week, for comfort and to help her refurnish. After a while thinking about Pete didn't really hurt anymore, which was a lot more than could be said about thinking about O'Neill.
She'd considered resigning and going to find O'Neill, where-ever he was in the galaxy. He turned up occasionally through the Stargate and consorted with his old friends but never for very long and generally with a gap of at least three years between each appearance. But eventually she had come to the conclusion that it was no longer worth the bother. She concentrated on her career again, on her science. On Cassie and Daniel and Sarah and Teal'c.
Now she was sixty and she had a glittering career, and her relationships with her closest friends were stronger than any she had ever known. For the most part that was enough, but sometimes in the dark of night she still wept for the life she might have known if she had ever resolved her feelings for Jack O'Neill in one way or another.
And she hated herself for it. She hated the fact that the issue that had dominated her life had been love. She wasn't that kind of woman. She resented that irritating trait some women seemed to develop; the fragile flower syndrome. Women who hid their eyes at horror films and made men carry their bags, who acted powerless in remotely strenuous situations and relied on a man to sort things out. To have allowed unrealised love to have become such a major part of her life, a lasting regret, made her almost feel like one of them.
But she still could not, even thinking those thoughts of self-loathing, even talking sternly to herself in the dead of night, even trying to distract herself and get involved with someone else stop loving O'Neill.
He still controlled a part of her. That was why she disliked being with him. Because being with him uncorked all these feelings she, for the most part, kept tightly bottled up. Especially when he talked to her about being lonely and asked her to join him with the Asguard. That was bitterly cruel.
She sighed again.
"Carter, if you don't stop sighing like some... some..." O'Neill's whispered voice died away as he tried to think of a suitable illustrative example.
"Sorry Jack. I can't sleep," she whispered back.
"Me neither." He stood up in the darkness and headed for the door. On impulse she followed him. "Want to talk?" he asked and she nodded.
The view screen illuminated the bridge, casting strange shadows as the planet revolved slowly on screen. First contact with the Borashians had been awkward. The true nature of the translator problems had been starkly illustrated to the three companions of O'Neill and talks had been delayed until Daniel had some time to work on the language problem, and Carter on technological upgrades to the Enterprise that would render translation easy (Thor had thankfully left some instructions).
"I'm kinda nervous about these talks," O'Neill said, sitting in his Captain's chair, head down and hands folded, dangling between his long legs. Skinnier than ever in his old age; the flickering shadows which fell on his face gave him a skull like appearance. It was not hard to deceive herself into thinking a skeleton, dressed in jeans and black tee shirt, was sitting in the chair.
"You've done this sort of thing before though,"she reassured.
"Yeah I know. But never with a species that was more technologically capable than Earth. The Borash could take on the Asguard if they wanted to. There was always that comfortable thought in the back of mind whenever I negotiated that if I screwed up big time I could get the hell out and Thor could help me deal with the repercussions."
"Has that ever happened?" she asked, slightly horrified.
He looked insulted, possibly. It was hard to tell in the dim light. "No," he replied, "But I still *thought* that."
She sat on the arm of his chair, her hips beginning to ache with standing. Arthritis was another reason she lay awake at night, although her new drugs were helping.
He leaned his head against her, gesture of closeness they'd always been forbidden to express when they'd previously been in situations like this. She still felt uncomfortable whenever Jack crossed that line, the line between comrade and companion. It was perfectly legal for him to do so now, of course. But she was far more used to holding back, reigning in her feelings--
He was stroking her arm. "Did you think anymore about what I said last night?"
She swallowed. "A little."
He continued to stroke her arm. "Did you come to any conclusions?"
"No," she replied frankly.
"No surprise there then," he said, half to himself.
"I've got so used to being without you," she said honestly, "That I just wonder if it would be any better if I was with you."
"I know it would be."
"I'd miss Cassie. I mean, I'm her legal guardian. I want to see her kids. It kind of feels like they'll be my grandkids."
"I'm her guardian too," Jack reminded her.
"And you were always there when she was younger and she needed a father figure. She remembers that and she's grateful," Carter said, her tone appreciative "But you've not been on Earth for a while, y'know."
"I know." He wanted to pull her into his lap, like he would have done with a girlfriend when he was twenty, but he wondered if his old bones could take the strain. Love hadn't been lost once he'd passed through that mythical barrier at seventy but it was a lot more careful nowadays, actions weighed against the repercussions on arthritic, brittle limbs. He doubted he'd be able to stand Carter's weight, light though it was, on his knees.
"I'm going to try and get some sleep," she said, pulling away from his hand and standing with a wince.
"Sleep well," he returned. He heard her walk slowly back towards the hold and settle down.
He stared at the planet on the screen for a while, mind empty except for a mournful longing that seemed to be centred in his chest. Then he followed the General back to the hold and his bed; finally falling asleep as his watch beeped one o'clock, the sound of steady breathing and Teal'c's light snores in his ears.