THE HERE AND NOW
CHAPTER 20 ( in the past )
Interlude
"REASONS"
Have you even tried to start a new? Have you ever wanted to just give up your life or wished for something more? One would think that saving the world and having adventures throughout the Galaxy was a dream come true, but it was far from it. Being tortured, wounded and hurt took is toll on both body and mind. Soldiers, both women and men fell prey to fatigue and had to be removed from the field.
Too much stress, or psychological damage was one. Physical injury was another. Many reasons could cause a soldier to be removed from active duty. And yet none of this applied to her and she knew as much. She was not injured physically, she was not psychologically damaged, nor did she have high battle stress. No, for her it was emotional. It was always about emotions. Everything came down to them, always had and always would.
She had doubted and questioned how she stayed in the field so many times, having been through so many things. She wondered and doubted if her performance was as it was in the beginning. She had seen her commanding officer and had followed his example after all. If years of black and special ops hadn't ruined him she could do the same right? No, she couldn't because unlike him, she had never known love, never had a family, never had someone to call her and ask how she was knowing that he was waiting for her back at home.
So she was tired and now it had all come down on her and it had been enough. Janet had been shot, Jack had been shot and in such a brief time, both of them could have been gone, taken from her, never to return and what would she have then? A girl as crushed and devastated by the news as she was, a girl who would cry much as she would want to cry, a girl who would meed comfort and someone to tell her that things were okay, and she knew she would be the strong one and she was tired of it.
She needed someone. Wasn't she allowed to be weak once in a while? Didn't she have the right to be upset, to need someone to lean on, to not be strong and be there for some one else? Was it fair? No, it wasn't fair and yet she did it time and time again. But this time she had taken comfort in his arms and for the first time she had seen what was there and she panicked. She had needed to run, she always ran.
Jack O'Neill was there for her, was her stone and she needed to remove it, to stop leaning on him and find her own two feet. To have what they all had, to live her own life. And so it was, that with a heavy heart she made a choice to try and be by herself, to try and be a wife and not a super genius, to go and live a life were she was the one comforted, were she was the one who had some one to rely upon.
Samantha Carter wanted to feel sexy, to feel like a woman instead of a soldier She wanted to be tender and sweet instead of rough and strong, wanted to cuddle and hug instead of punch and fire a weapon. She wanted normality, a sense of just being normal, of having something ordinary. Because to an extraordinary person, something as simple as domestic life, is an extraordinary thing.
Jack O'Neill had once said that what had kept him going was Sara, his wife. He had survived a skull fracture and broken bones to get back to his wife, because she was his rock, she was his normality, his little peace of heaven in a sea of hell. And if someone as strong as Jack O'Neill needed that, so did she. And so it was that with a heavy heart she told him; she told with her eyes and pleaded with her soul and he let her go.
It was with a heavy heart and tear-filled eyes that she hit Cassie and screamed at her; it was with pain that she walked away from her and never looked back. She cared; she hoped they would know that; she wished that they could understand. Yet she knew some of them would never understand, and as a teenager Cassie was the one who would hold a grudge against her.
She, Samantha, had done everything, saved countless civilizations, battled God like entities and traveled the stars. Now she would take the biggest and most difficult mission of her career. She would start a family; she would be a wife, because she chose to have it. Because she wanted to be and to know the one thing she had never known in her life.
So with the same heavy heart and a sad spirit that she ventured into this new mission. If only she had known, if only he had told her, she wouldn't have taken the chance, she wouldn't have made the mistake and she wouldn't have done what she did. If only she had seen and they had spoken. If only he had told her why he had been happy when he was married, if only she had seen it.
If only he had told her that a life without love, is no life at all.