Paper Weights Part II
Title: Paper Weights Part II
Author: ardvari
Rating: PG
Pairing: Sam/Jack
Disclaimer: They don't belong to me.
Beta: Thanks to supplyship for the beta!
A/N: More futuristic dreams on my part about the fallout of the Stargate program going public. Concrit welcome!
II
Time is the fire in which we burn.
- Delmore Schwartz
It’s raining outside when they’re being driven to Andrews AFB. It’s just him and Daniel that will fly back to Colorado, to that brightly lit tomb of the SGC where the real world seems foggy, not real at all. Carter is with them, sitting across from them with her hands clasped in her lap.
She has to stay in Washington, President’s orders. He needs her here because she’ll be going on talk shows, because she’s the person he believes to be the most sympathetic. The person people won’t hate but will be able to relate to.
She’s no girl on fire; she’s a woman with stars in her eyes despite everything she’s seen and all the wars she’s fought. Maybe she’s not perfect for this public role, but she’s better suited for it than Jack or Daniel. Nobody can relate to a bitter General or a bumbling archaeologist/linguist. They need someone who can take a verbal beating, who will fight back when it’s appropriate, who won’t object when it’s not.
The car slides through the oddly quiet night. He wonders how long it’ll take for people to take to the streets, to riot. He wonders which country will be the first one to issue threats of war. Even if the President is optimistic, he is not. Neither is Daniel, and he knows Sam well enough to know that she’s worried, too.
It’s surprising that the world is still turning quietly, steadily, uncaring.
The plane is already waiting for them, the engines idling as it sits on the wet tarmac. Daniel hugs Carter gently then pulls his jacket over his head as he hurries towards the plane. Her eyes are a little teary; she’s not good with goodbyes. She likes hellos and see-you-soons, but neither of them knows what will happen an hour from now, never mind a day, and so this goodbye is hard.
He hugs her despite the audience, but doesn’t kiss her. Instead he tucks his nose against her neck, breathes in, lets his lips linger against her carotid for a moment before he lets go of her.
“See you soon,” he says firmly.
She wipes at her eyes, manages a brave but watery smile.
“You bet,” she answers.
It takes him back to that time, long ago, when their relationship was still new and a little fragile as they shifted from coworkers and friends to lovers. He still remembers the look in her eyes when he’d pulled her shirt over her head for the first time.
“Hush,” she’d said when he’d opened his mouth to speak because this wasn’t the right time for words, because Daniel and Teal’c were asleep in the same cabin.
It seems like he will never find the right words at the right time for her.
He leaves her standing on the wet tarmac, huddled under her umbrella, and stalks towards the plane. Part of the reason why he came to Washington all these years ago was so that no one else would have to. He wanted to deal with the political circus himself, so he could keep his team safe. He’d come to Washington to pave their way, and now the road he laid out for them is destroyed, and when he looks back from the tiny window of the plane, he can see her standing amid the glistening rubble.
She raises her hand in a shaky salute, a half wave, before she turns and walks back to the car.
Washington will break her in a way that it never could break him. He knows that because he knows her.
The SGC is quiet when they get back. Nobody is scheduled to go offworld, but they’re expecting SG-3 back in a few hours. Jack tries to grab a few hours of sleep and ends up staring into the pitch black darkness, his mind unwilling to shut off.
He finds Daniel in his lab later, bent over his computer screen.
“Have you slept?” he asks in his old, incredulous CO voice.
“Have you?” the archaeologist asks back without looking up.
Jack grumbles a little, makes a face, and sits down next to Daniel. He reads over his shoulder for a while, but it’s boring stuff and Daniel doesn’t need his help.
The seconds tick by, then the minutes and hours. Time is bleeding all over the place. Jack watches the news, near-constant talk about the Stargate with bits and pieces of their lives thrown in.
One newscaster reports on the fight over Antarctica, and an eager scientist talks about the meteor that almost hit Earth years ago. All of these things get washed in this new, public light. It doesn’t matter how many times they all nearly died, what matters is how many times Earth nearly became occupied or annihilated. None of the newscasters or scientists ever blames the aliens out there; they blame the government, the Air Force. They blame him, and Daniel, and Sam for putting this planet in danger.
“What do you think would’ve happened if we’d buried the ‘gate years ago?” Jack finally asks.
Daniel looks up and blinks a few times; working his way out of the diplomatic haze he’s been stuck in.
“You know what would’ve happened,” he says, pushing his glasses up his nose.
He stares at Jack for a moment before he focuses on the screen again.
“You think they would’ve found us?” Jack asks again. He already knows the answer but sometimes he needs to hear these things spoken aloud- a validation of sorts.
“Sooner or later, yes. Probably sooner rather than later,” Daniel shrugs.
They would have been just another technologically advanced planet conquered swiftly. No means to fight back, nothing. Just terror and blood and enslavement. A snake in the head for the truly unlucky ones, maybe.
The choices he’s made over the years seem so very right to him that he can’t really believe there are people out there who will now dissect every single one of those choices. That there will be people who will not be sympathetic, who will not get the bigger picture, who will not believe that they did what they did because they didn’t have another option.
“Sam’s on in an hour,” Daniel informs him when he comes back from a commissary raid with spoils for them both.
They eat pie in Daniel’s lab, apple pie with a little too much cinnamon. The whipped cream is a little stale too, but it doesn’t really matter. It’s pie and this seems like the right time to eat it.
Carter looks composed on TV, though a little washed out. She’s not wearing her uniform, just slacks and a button-down shirt, and little heels. Her hair is tied back and her eyes keep darting from Julia Donovan’s face to the camera. She’s nervous and it’s obvious in a way that makes Jack wonder what other people, people who don’t know her as well as he does, will think. Will they interpret her nervousness as guilt? Fear?
He doesn’t listen to the questions Donovan asks, just focuses on Sam’s body language- the way her eyes grow steely, her shift in posture when the accusations once they start flying.
She doesn’t have a choice but to defend the things she’s done, to defend the choices they had to make as a team, the choices the Air Force and the government made.
“We did what we had to do,” she says icily before the cameras go off.
Her interview will be translated and broadcasted all over the world. Sam Carter, brilliant scientist, saviour of this planet a dozen times over, has just become a pariah. Of that he’s certain. He wonders how Hayes feels about the fact that his plan to use Sam as a spokeswoman has failed so spectacularly in just one go.
Daniel sighs, shakes his head. He turns off the TV and looks at Jack for a moment.
“Brave new world,” he says, resigned, and turns back to his computer.
Author: ardvari
Rating: PG
Pairing: Sam/Jack
Disclaimer: They don't belong to me.
Beta: Thanks to supplyship for the beta!
A/N: More futuristic dreams on my part about the fallout of the Stargate program going public. Concrit welcome!
II
Time is the fire in which we burn.
- Delmore Schwartz
It’s raining outside when they’re being driven to Andrews AFB. It’s just him and Daniel that will fly back to Colorado, to that brightly lit tomb of the SGC where the real world seems foggy, not real at all. Carter is with them, sitting across from them with her hands clasped in her lap.
She has to stay in Washington, President’s orders. He needs her here because she’ll be going on talk shows, because she’s the person he believes to be the most sympathetic. The person people won’t hate but will be able to relate to.
She’s no girl on fire; she’s a woman with stars in her eyes despite everything she’s seen and all the wars she’s fought. Maybe she’s not perfect for this public role, but she’s better suited for it than Jack or Daniel. Nobody can relate to a bitter General or a bumbling archaeologist/linguist. They need someone who can take a verbal beating, who will fight back when it’s appropriate, who won’t object when it’s not.
The car slides through the oddly quiet night. He wonders how long it’ll take for people to take to the streets, to riot. He wonders which country will be the first one to issue threats of war. Even if the President is optimistic, he is not. Neither is Daniel, and he knows Sam well enough to know that she’s worried, too.
It’s surprising that the world is still turning quietly, steadily, uncaring.
The plane is already waiting for them, the engines idling as it sits on the wet tarmac. Daniel hugs Carter gently then pulls his jacket over his head as he hurries towards the plane. Her eyes are a little teary; she’s not good with goodbyes. She likes hellos and see-you-soons, but neither of them knows what will happen an hour from now, never mind a day, and so this goodbye is hard.
He hugs her despite the audience, but doesn’t kiss her. Instead he tucks his nose against her neck, breathes in, lets his lips linger against her carotid for a moment before he lets go of her.
“See you soon,” he says firmly.
She wipes at her eyes, manages a brave but watery smile.
“You bet,” she answers.
It takes him back to that time, long ago, when their relationship was still new and a little fragile as they shifted from coworkers and friends to lovers. He still remembers the look in her eyes when he’d pulled her shirt over her head for the first time.
“Hush,” she’d said when he’d opened his mouth to speak because this wasn’t the right time for words, because Daniel and Teal’c were asleep in the same cabin.
It seems like he will never find the right words at the right time for her.
He leaves her standing on the wet tarmac, huddled under her umbrella, and stalks towards the plane. Part of the reason why he came to Washington all these years ago was so that no one else would have to. He wanted to deal with the political circus himself, so he could keep his team safe. He’d come to Washington to pave their way, and now the road he laid out for them is destroyed, and when he looks back from the tiny window of the plane, he can see her standing amid the glistening rubble.
She raises her hand in a shaky salute, a half wave, before she turns and walks back to the car.
Washington will break her in a way that it never could break him. He knows that because he knows her.
The SGC is quiet when they get back. Nobody is scheduled to go offworld, but they’re expecting SG-3 back in a few hours. Jack tries to grab a few hours of sleep and ends up staring into the pitch black darkness, his mind unwilling to shut off.
He finds Daniel in his lab later, bent over his computer screen.
“Have you slept?” he asks in his old, incredulous CO voice.
“Have you?” the archaeologist asks back without looking up.
Jack grumbles a little, makes a face, and sits down next to Daniel. He reads over his shoulder for a while, but it’s boring stuff and Daniel doesn’t need his help.
The seconds tick by, then the minutes and hours. Time is bleeding all over the place. Jack watches the news, near-constant talk about the Stargate with bits and pieces of their lives thrown in.
One newscaster reports on the fight over Antarctica, and an eager scientist talks about the meteor that almost hit Earth years ago. All of these things get washed in this new, public light. It doesn’t matter how many times they all nearly died, what matters is how many times Earth nearly became occupied or annihilated. None of the newscasters or scientists ever blames the aliens out there; they blame the government, the Air Force. They blame him, and Daniel, and Sam for putting this planet in danger.
“What do you think would’ve happened if we’d buried the ‘gate years ago?” Jack finally asks.
Daniel looks up and blinks a few times; working his way out of the diplomatic haze he’s been stuck in.
“You know what would’ve happened,” he says, pushing his glasses up his nose.
He stares at Jack for a moment before he focuses on the screen again.
“You think they would’ve found us?” Jack asks again. He already knows the answer but sometimes he needs to hear these things spoken aloud- a validation of sorts.
“Sooner or later, yes. Probably sooner rather than later,” Daniel shrugs.
They would have been just another technologically advanced planet conquered swiftly. No means to fight back, nothing. Just terror and blood and enslavement. A snake in the head for the truly unlucky ones, maybe.
The choices he’s made over the years seem so very right to him that he can’t really believe there are people out there who will now dissect every single one of those choices. That there will be people who will not be sympathetic, who will not get the bigger picture, who will not believe that they did what they did because they didn’t have another option.
“Sam’s on in an hour,” Daniel informs him when he comes back from a commissary raid with spoils for them both.
They eat pie in Daniel’s lab, apple pie with a little too much cinnamon. The whipped cream is a little stale too, but it doesn’t really matter. It’s pie and this seems like the right time to eat it.
Carter looks composed on TV, though a little washed out. She’s not wearing her uniform, just slacks and a button-down shirt, and little heels. Her hair is tied back and her eyes keep darting from Julia Donovan’s face to the camera. She’s nervous and it’s obvious in a way that makes Jack wonder what other people, people who don’t know her as well as he does, will think. Will they interpret her nervousness as guilt? Fear?
He doesn’t listen to the questions Donovan asks, just focuses on Sam’s body language- the way her eyes grow steely, her shift in posture when the accusations once they start flying.
She doesn’t have a choice but to defend the things she’s done, to defend the choices they had to make as a team, the choices the Air Force and the government made.
“We did what we had to do,” she says icily before the cameras go off.
Her interview will be translated and broadcasted all over the world. Sam Carter, brilliant scientist, saviour of this planet a dozen times over, has just become a pariah. Of that he’s certain. He wonders how Hayes feels about the fact that his plan to use Sam as a spokeswoman has failed so spectacularly in just one go.
Daniel sighs, shakes his head. He turns off the TV and looks at Jack for a moment.
“Brave new world,” he says, resigned, and turns back to his computer.