Title: Numb
Rating: 13+
Disclaimer: not mine
Pairings: minor S/J, S/T friendship
Spoilers: Divide and Conquer
A/N: Considering how much I claim to hate D&C ep tags, I seem to keep writing them. I'm afraid the angst bunnies are back again, but hopefully not for too long (too much H/C, methinks). BTW, this is a one-off, in case anyone's wondering.
She felt numb. Such a simple word and yet one that encompassed so much, or so little.
At first, people kept telling her that she was tired, that she needed more sleep, or a few days off. And she tried to follow their advice, but it wasn't that simple. She was sleeping fine – even if she woke up several times during the night, she soon drifted off to sleep again. She couldn't remember any bad dreams, nothing to tell a psychiatrist.
As for time off, that never really worked for her but she tried anyway. She took advantage of the extra time to exercise more, to ride her motorcycle, to try and hone her cooking skills. Three days later she went back into work and buried herself in her lab, studying schematics and alien devices, running extra diagnostics on the gate system. Life as normal.
But she still felt flat. And everyone kept telling her it was normal, all part of the grieving process, but she didn't remember feeling like this last time she lost someone close to her. Unyielding pain that swamped her and left her wracked with sobs, yes, but never this enveloping nothingness. It wasn't normal, and hearing people tell her that it was only made her angry.
So she decided to burn away that anger by working out even harder, hitting the gym in the morning and late at night before she went to sleep. She persuaded Teal'c to give her some hand-to-hand lessons, not that he minded – she'd never quite worked out what he did on base when she and Daniel were holed up in their labs. For weeks her muscles screamed at the extra work, and on one particularly nasty mission she was nearly hit by a jaffa's staff weapon because she was so stiff that it was hard to move quickly.
She decided that improving her efficiency as a killer wasn't the answer to whatever was bothering her –she'd already proven that she could kill just fine, and making herself vulnerable wouldn't accomplish. Once she eased off on the training she had more energy and less of a need to be constantly eating. The changes came as a relief.
So she went into phase three, doing all the chick stuff that had never really appealed to her. She ate chocolate even though she'd never particularly liked it, but after gaining three pounds and not feeling any better she threw her Hershey bars away. She booked herself into a spa and let herself be pampered, but felt stupid – the nail-polish on her toes would never last once she was wearing her combat boots, and she'd worn enough unintentional mud masks on missions that applying one 'for fun' seemed dumb.
She'd had a girls' night in with Cassie while Janet went out for the evening, but that was fairly disastrous too. Talking boys all night had hammered in the reality that one of her 'boys' was her commanding officer, and that she'd killed the other herself. She'd resorted to straining her memory for details of the casual dates she'd been on in her Academy days, embellishing them to make it sound as if she'd been quite the socialite. Cassie, bless her, had eaten up every word, and Sam herself had eaten as much low-fat vanilla ice-cream as she could stomach, until the back of her throat was numb.
That had been the last straw. After that she buried herself in her science, using the equations as her own kind of therapy. Daniel kept coming round, asking what was wrong, why she was avoiding everyone, but she fobbed him off as much as she could. It was fun to work with him on some of the artifacts they'd found, or it was a change, at least, but that was all the contact she wanted.
She was sent to Mackenzie for some 'routine aftercare', but it wasn't hard to convince him that she was dealing just fine, especially as he didn't know about the revelations of the za'tarc testing. Yes, she had been feeling upset ever since the incident, but she was spending more time with friends to compensate. Yes, she couldn't help but feel slightly guilty, but a little guilt was normal when a comrade died, surely? It wasn't dominating her life or anything. He ticked all his boxes and sent her off to work.
She was vaguely that Teal'c kept watching her, but his perfect poker face and dark eyes revealed none of his feelings and he chose not to comment on whatever he saw. And as for the Colonel... she didn't have anything to worry about there. He avoided her with as much diligence as she did him.
Once every while she'd be overwhelmed by a wave of pain and would realise that her claim to feeling nothing was all a pretence, and that inside she was screaming. Then she'd long for someone to find her and to see that something was wrong, to offer the comfort and support that she was too proud to ask for; but that impulse would quickly pass, leaving her ashamed and unwilling to admit that anything untoward had happened. Who would choose to feel pain when you could be blank instead?
Daniel didn't stop bothering her, but it became easier not to listen to him. She didn't feel guilty anymore because she had nothing of herself to offer, and wouldn't take from him without giving anything in return. Avoiding him was for his own good, really.
She became aware of more than one pair of brown eyes watching her, but that didn't matter. She was doing her job just fine, and everything else was her business.
One evening she was home, flicking through the channels on her TV without any interest, when she heard knocking on the door. She considered not responding – she was tired, her home was private, she was under no obligation to deal with whoever it was – but the knocking didn't stop and answering seemed to be the path of least resistance. She didn't know who she'd expected to find on her doorstep, but Teal'c wasn't that person.
"May I come in?"
She reluctantly nodded, terrified by whatever it could be that had him on her doorstep, alone and unannounced. He walked in, apparently quite relaxed, and settled himself in one of her armchairs. She offered him a drink but he refused, so she perched on the edge of another chair, almost too scared to ask.
"Your friends and I have been concerned by your conduct for some time. I do not feel that you have come to terms with the events surrounding Martouf's death."
But the look in his eyes told that he wasn't just referring to Martouf's death, and she wasn't ready to discuss any of it. Maybe she'd never be.
"I'm fine. Really." She didn't sound convincing, not even to herself.
"I do not believe that to be the case."
She stood up and started to leave, only to find him blocking the doorway. She halted in her tracks reluctantly; if he were Daniel, or even the colonel she'd manage to get by, but with Teal'c she didn't stand a chance. She waited.
"Major Carter, emotions do not weaken a warrior. They only make him stronger."
And then, to her horror, one of those moments of agony encompassed her and the pain seared through her barriers, leaving her rigid and with one thought, that he had to go because he couldn't and shouldn't see her like this because he'd know and no one should know because she could bend the rules but couldn't break them, but she couldn't bend them anymore and it had to stop, and he was gone...
A pair of solid arms surrounded her, pulling her forward so that she was cradled against him. She wanted the comfort but didn't want to accept it and she struggled against him, doing her best to break free. Inevitably her efforts were futile; no matter how she writhed or struck out, he wouldn't let her go. And as he held her she stopped fighting and let all the grief and regret pour out. She trembled and his arms loosened around her, but that was okay because she trusted him and he wouldn't let her go.
After what seemed like hours her shuddering abated and she was able to look up. They'd somehow ended up sitting on the couch side by side, and she half suspected that he'd carried her because she didn't see how she could have walked while shaking so badly. He was studying her with his dark eyes, but she didn't mind his scrutiny anymore.
There were no words and she floundered. "Teal'c, I, what I mean is –"
He bowed his head towards her. "You would do the same for me."
And she realised he was right. The knowledge was comforting.
"I didn't want to ask." She knew her words were cryptic but somehow, she didn't know how, he understood what he meant. Maybe it was a jaffa thing, maybe it was him.
"You did not need to."
And she realised he was right, and that was comforting too. She forced a smile, and it wasn't as hard to do as she had feared. She gestured shyly.
"Do you want to stay for a while? We could watch a movie – I'm sure there's some kind of science-fiction extravaganza playing tonight."
He bowed his head. "I would be honoured."
She went through to the kitchen, returning with two mugs of hot chocolate because sometimes clichés were clichés for a reason, and maybe the chocolate would help after all. When she came back, Teal'c was holding the remote and flicking through the channels. She settled down with her feet on the sofa cushions, leaning gently against him. This was good, and it felt right.