Title: Tried Or True
Rating: G
Summary: One way or the other, they will break and shatter 'them' beyond repair.
Author's Note: Has to be first SJ piece I wrote, in a collection with several others (which will be posted sooner or later). Not so sure how it measures up to my current standards...
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The chatter of the guests escapes the stain-glass doors, mingling with the overly cheerful sounds of birds and the hum of distant cars.
It does not, however, fail to appropriately swerve around the pair standing off to the side of the little building.
He doesn't appear to search for the words; rather, they come freely. It's just trying to pick out what to say that holds his tongue captive.
She's lost in the brown eyes; completely and utterly losing herself in the reflections thrown back at her. Memory rarely needs to capture a person in such a way, but, with how busy she's been, it's not surprising that the spell is so strong now.
"Sam." Her name is rough, hardly ever spoken by that soft voice. The woman standing in front of him almost flinches, as though the word has forcefully struck her. There is pain in his eyes. Regret lurked, she was sure, just behind that show of courtesy.
"Jack." It, too, sounds seldom used. He looks away from her, up, towards the place where her future waits; anywhere but her until she takes a half choked breath.
"We really blew it, didn't we Sir?" She's fighting not to cry. Finally the Colonel looks back, lips pressing together as 'what might have been' lingered subtly in their minds.
"Yes Carter, I think we did." But what, his eyes ask, could we manage to screw up more?
The pair can't deny it. That connection between the two of them will never fade; after all this time it still hasn't. But they have turned to others now, and that special bond has long been untouched.
And he almost says the words. Almost leans forward and kisses her as she looks at him, helplessly lost in the sea of emotion. Almost.
But instead he sighs, accepting the apparently inevitable even as her gray-blue eyes beg him to, just this once, speak those feelings and save her from this fate.
"They're waiting for you Carter." Reality slips back in. Sam turns her head, fighting a losing battle with her better sense.
"Yes Sir."
"The best of luck to both of you."
She turns and walks away.
He watches, silent.
...and they break the spell themselves...