Five Songs
Title: Five Songs
Rating: Gen
Characters: Sam Carter
Pairings: Sam/Jack
Categories: Angst, Comfort
Disclaimer: I don't own Stargate or anything, I'm just playing with their world.
Written for toonsinator
After her Dad had told her about her Mum Sam just wanted quiet. It was too much to take in, too much to try and process and comprehend. It was all she could do to keep going at all, never mind shouting and slamming doors like Mark. All of her energy was going into trying to work everything out, trying not to just collapse onto the floor into a puddle because despite how much her family was going to pieces she knew that her doing the same wouldn't be allowed.
It seemed like Mark got louder and louder as she wanted more and more quiet. When he'd done yelling he shut himself in his room and turned the music up. Sam lay on her bed on top of the covers and listened to the sounds of Pink Floyd that seeped through the wall between their bedrooms. When the tape ended she heard him move and there was silence for a while. She thought maybe the noise was over, but after a minute or two the album started again from the beginning. That went on for hours. Same album, same grief over and over. Sam heard her Dad go out at some point and then come back a little later. She heard Mark move around his room occasionally, but mostly everyone was still except for the music. About four am Mark finally let the tape finish and then there was silence. Sam pulled her knees up to her chest and listened to it.
Mark never played that album ever again, but he didn't stop shouting and neither did their Dad. After Mark left, moved out in a flurry of angry words and desperation, Sam bought a copy of the album on LP, even though she didn't have a record player of her own. Somehow it seemed important to have it on LP rather than the scrappy taped copy Mark had from a friend.
It was years before she deliberately listened to it again, but she did eventually one day when she needed to remind herself of the pain of that grief, because she was afraid she was moving on, afraid she might be forgetting. However, she kept it, always kept it somewhere safe. It didn't matter how many moves she made, or how much technology moved on (and Sam always with it, grabbing hold of each new innovation with excitement) she kept that LP. The songs on it would always cause a twinge of remembered sadness when she heard them, as you inevitably did in bars, friends houses or shops, but that was okay, because as much as the sadness hurt she couldn't bear the thought that one day she might not miss her Mom.
XXXX
Her hands were shaking when she slid the tape into her walkman. Shaking enough that it took her several attempts with the bits of plastic clattering against each other before she finally got the tape in and pressed play. She didn't even know what tape it was, she just needed to put some music on, anything, but she almost laughed when the Beach Boys filled her ears. She would have laughed if she hadn't been choked with crying, but it would have been a harsh laugh without humour. Still, she tightened her grip on the headphone wire and bent her head, listening to the poppy beat and feeling herself crumble.
It wasn't supposed to be like this. Yes she was at war, but she was on a secure base. She wasn't a frontline soldier. Not because she hadn't wanted to be, but because women weren't allowed to be. As much as she'd hated being 'relegated' to reconnaissance flights before, now she was rather relieved that she'd been kept distant. If this was how she'd reacted to a helicopter crash then maybe she wasn't cut out to be in the Air Force. Maybe that was what this event was telling her.
Except there had been body parts and she wasn't sure she wanted to be someone who wasn't upset by seeing bits of people on the ground. She'd been nearby, she couldn't remember why, but she'd been there when it had all happened and she'd run across without a moments thought. Everyone within the vicinity had, once the rotors of the toppled craft had finally broken and stopped being dangerous. She'd listened to those around her, communicated and they'd all done what they could. Sam had helped a couple of guys away from the wreckage and then sat for several long minutes applying pressure to a kid's chest where something metallic had torn through his uniform and dug deep into his chest until the medics got there. She didn't know him, but he'd told her his name was Sam as well and managed somehow to laugh even though he wasn't breathing well. He looked young, but he was probably as old as she was, if not older.
Then all the medical teams and fire teams got there and took over smoothly. Sam became surplus to requirements and was directed to clean up after a concerned medic had looked her over quickly, despite Sam's insistence that she hadn't actually been involved in the crash. She watched them whisk the other Sam away and into the hospital. There was a good chance he'd make it. Sam had walked away, showered and it was only when she'd tried to lace her boots again that she'd realised she was shaking. That was when she knew she had to get out. She couldn't cry where other people could see. She wasn't going to be that person. There were precious enough women around anyway and she didn't want to be the one that helped tar their image further by blubbering like a child. She hadn't done it yet in her military career and she wasn't going to start now. She left her boots unlaced and fled the barracks, walkman in hand. There were always places to go and she found a nook between some tents where she could sit down, just for a moment and get things under control.
She wasn't cut out for this. The academy had been easy compared to this. For all the hard work, accusations of nepotism, cheating, rampant sexism and low level but pervasive sexual harassment, it was easier because none of those things had made the academy challenging had gone away once she'd graduated, she'd got all that and more to deal with now.
Then the tears slowed. She was listening to Mike Love's voice still, but actually listening now rather than just letting it be noise in her ears. She could get her breathing under control, which she did and closed her eyes and relaxed a little, letting the music fill her mind. She still saw the crash behind her eye lids, but she knew she wouldn't always. She felt like crap, but that was okay because that didn't make her weak, that made her human. The idiots could call her what they wanted, but Sam knew that when things had got bad she'd done what needed to be done to save lives, that was enough. What happened afterwards, was afterwards and that was her business.
She pushed herself back to her feet and rubbed her hands across her face, likely smearing muck into her tears, but she could wash. She shoved her walkman into the pocket of her pants and pushed the headphones back so that they hung around her neck. She could still hear the music quietly while she walked.
Lieutenant Graves was wandering around between some of the tents. Sam suspected that he might have been looking for her.
"Hey," he said when he saw her and fell in beside her to walk wherever she was going.
"Hey," she replied, keeping her head low because even if she acknowledged that crying hadn't been a bad thing, she wasn't exactly proud of it either.
"Last I heard everyone was going to make it," he told her.
"That's good," she said simply and let the silence drag on.
"My Mom sent me a bunch of Hershey bars, I haven't opened the box yet, but now might be the time. You know once its opened I'll be lucky if I even get one bar," Lieutenant Graves suggested quickly.
"Thems the rules," she told him lightly, but too seriously.
"Yeah, still, wanna come and grab a couple yourself? Before the vultures descend."
Sam smiled, every woman knew the necessity of the occasional chocolate pig out session. Okay, most women never had them sitting in a barracks populated by guys for whom desert conditions provided a distinct challenge to their personal hygiene skills, but the principal was the same. Good people, lots of chocolate. She switched her walkman off and patted him on the shoulder.
"I'll come help you hold them off," she declared nobly.
XXXX
Daniel never really listened to music, but after his death/ascension, Sam discovered that there were quite a few songs she'd associated with him. Not in a major way, a lot of them were just songs that had been in the background, or ones she'd been listening to while he'd been around. They became one of the many reminders that seemed to surround her constantly. She missed him. Especially on her days off, which was odd because she'd socialised very little with any of the guys outside of work, they all saw too much of each other at work to really want to socialise and they all valued their alone time. There was nothing in her house to really remind her of Daniel, but at home on this quiet Saturday morning she really really missed him.
So she fiddled and puttered and tried to distract herself. Apple had launched some new software and a new range of MP3 players that were interesting. So she'd downloaded the software and bought one of the ipods, to see if they were up to the bits of the pre-launch hype that she'd been fleetingly aware of amongst everything else that was always going on. She was behind the times on this one, but she'd been so busy. She ripped a bunch of fairly random CDs to her itunes and fiddled around a little with the program.
She hit play on something that she wasn't really looking at, mind already thinking about something else, but half laughed and half cried when Walk Like an Egyptian came out of the speakers.
XXXX
The song of choice after Janet's memorial service, after Cassie had shut herself in Sam's spare room, had been Girls Just Want to Have Fun. It seemed like a stupid and irreverent choice, but it had been their theme tune, as much as they had one. Janet had a secret love of cheesy eighties music and a wild streak a mile wide that she hid well under her labcoat during the week. Sam almost didn't listen to it, not wanting to taint the many fun memories she had of the song with the grief of losing her best friend, but simultaneously desperate to be reminded of some of those good times. She sat on the couch near the stereo with the music down low and pulled her knees up to her chest. It was important to remember. She needed to remember Janet being kind to them regardless of what bad patients they were being, Janet taking Cassie in for the girl's sake, Sam's and her own, Janet laughing at Sam over a few cocktails too many and threatening her with a maraschino cherry, Janet turning up at Sam's house just when she needed it, as if she was psychic and all the other good times. Good times were important because there had been so many bad.
She wasn't sobbing, but she was sitting still with the song on repeat and letting the tears run freely down her cheeks. It was a good release to not be feeling angry, or that she had to hold it in.
"Sam?" Cassie said from the doorway. She spoke hesitantly and sounded young, much younger than a first year college student should.
Sam looked across at her and wiped her face. Cassie hovered in the doorway.
"C'mere," Sam said, holding an arm out so that Cassie could sit next to her on the couch and cuddle up against her. Sam kissed the top of her head.
"Mom likes this song," Cassie informed her.
"Yeah, your Mom had terrible taste in music," Sam teased.
"Has, the dead don't leave us," Cassie said with conviction.
"Okay, has," Sam said because she had no proof to the contrary.
XXXX
She rolled over in bed when his phone went off and he got up to answer it, wandering into the living room so that he didn't disturb her. It was too early, the light visible through the curtains was grey and the room was still dark so she pulled the comforter up around her neck and buried her face into the pillow. The bedding smelt of him, mostly his washing detergent, but just a bit of his sweat as well. It felt good to be here. Atlantis was slowly fading to a distant memory. The success in killing the last Ba'al was almost as distant as well. It had been so neatly final. Work had gone well since then, everything had seemed, not easy, but simple somehow. Like a jigsaw puzzle in which the overall picture had become apparent and it was just a case of slotting in the pieces as she found them. It was a relief to feel that way about her career.
Then there was this, which wasn't simple or easy. It wasn't a relationship. You couldn't call it a relationship when it consisted entirely of time snatched in infinitely busy schedules. They didn't date in the traditional sense. If they did go out somewhere, more often than not Daniel would make every effort to come along as well and that was right because he missed his team as much as they did. Still, they'd got a decade of life and death situations as a foundation and quite how that translated into decent sex and breakfast bagels in bed Sam didn't know, but it did and she'd go with that for now.
He finished on the phone and came back into the bedroom. She heard him pause in the doorway and then walk over to her side to sit on the bed.
"Sam," he said simply, putting a hand onto her head. It was only one word, but something was wrong. She woke up quickly and half sat up, looking at him for whatever it was had put lead into his speech and caused the slump in his shoulders visible in the half light. She took his hand.
"That was...it's....General Hammond, George," he started, but she could hear the grief in his throat that the words were having to get through.
She squeezed his hand again, "How?" Hoping it was peaceful, hoping it was simple and normal and dignified, he at least deserved that.
"Heart attack," he replied simply. "At home, he...it happened fast apparently."
She shushed him and knelt up on the bed to embrace him, feeling the chill of early morning that had settled onto his skin. She kissed his cheek and ran her fingers through his grey hair. He returned the embrace, taking comfort in comforting her.
After several quiet minutes she got up off the bed. “I've got to move,” she told him, feeling claustrophobic in the dim room and silent grief. She walked over to the CD player on the dresser and hit play, uncaring of what CD would play.
"The Beatles," she whispered to herself when Penny Lane came out of the speakers. Jack stood behind her and wrapped his arms around her waist. He'd pulled boxers on when he'd got up, but she was still naked and beginning to cool down. The hug felt good.
She didn't say anything because there wasn't anything to say, she just sighed quietly. Jack nodded against the back of her head. She squeezed his arms and felt tears prick at the corners of her eyes as her brain finally got round to catching up and she began to cry. Jack kissed the back of her head softly and she felt moisture on the skin of her shoulder.
This was okay though. They'd cry and then they'd clean their faces and have breakfast. They'd discuss General Hammond sadly together and send flowers separately and then Sam would shower and pack and go back to her world and Jack would get on the phone and look after his world. Sam knew that General Hammond would get the best possible funeral.
It was a death and too soon, but death was inevitable and it happening quickly at home was something that Sam could wish for them all.
Rating: Gen
Characters: Sam Carter
Pairings: Sam/Jack
Categories: Angst, Comfort
Disclaimer: I don't own Stargate or anything, I'm just playing with their world.
Written for toonsinator
After her Dad had told her about her Mum Sam just wanted quiet. It was too much to take in, too much to try and process and comprehend. It was all she could do to keep going at all, never mind shouting and slamming doors like Mark. All of her energy was going into trying to work everything out, trying not to just collapse onto the floor into a puddle because despite how much her family was going to pieces she knew that her doing the same wouldn't be allowed.
It seemed like Mark got louder and louder as she wanted more and more quiet. When he'd done yelling he shut himself in his room and turned the music up. Sam lay on her bed on top of the covers and listened to the sounds of Pink Floyd that seeped through the wall between their bedrooms. When the tape ended she heard him move and there was silence for a while. She thought maybe the noise was over, but after a minute or two the album started again from the beginning. That went on for hours. Same album, same grief over and over. Sam heard her Dad go out at some point and then come back a little later. She heard Mark move around his room occasionally, but mostly everyone was still except for the music. About four am Mark finally let the tape finish and then there was silence. Sam pulled her knees up to her chest and listened to it.
Mark never played that album ever again, but he didn't stop shouting and neither did their Dad. After Mark left, moved out in a flurry of angry words and desperation, Sam bought a copy of the album on LP, even though she didn't have a record player of her own. Somehow it seemed important to have it on LP rather than the scrappy taped copy Mark had from a friend.
It was years before she deliberately listened to it again, but she did eventually one day when she needed to remind herself of the pain of that grief, because she was afraid she was moving on, afraid she might be forgetting. However, she kept it, always kept it somewhere safe. It didn't matter how many moves she made, or how much technology moved on (and Sam always with it, grabbing hold of each new innovation with excitement) she kept that LP. The songs on it would always cause a twinge of remembered sadness when she heard them, as you inevitably did in bars, friends houses or shops, but that was okay, because as much as the sadness hurt she couldn't bear the thought that one day she might not miss her Mom.
XXXX
Her hands were shaking when she slid the tape into her walkman. Shaking enough that it took her several attempts with the bits of plastic clattering against each other before she finally got the tape in and pressed play. She didn't even know what tape it was, she just needed to put some music on, anything, but she almost laughed when the Beach Boys filled her ears. She would have laughed if she hadn't been choked with crying, but it would have been a harsh laugh without humour. Still, she tightened her grip on the headphone wire and bent her head, listening to the poppy beat and feeling herself crumble.
It wasn't supposed to be like this. Yes she was at war, but she was on a secure base. She wasn't a frontline soldier. Not because she hadn't wanted to be, but because women weren't allowed to be. As much as she'd hated being 'relegated' to reconnaissance flights before, now she was rather relieved that she'd been kept distant. If this was how she'd reacted to a helicopter crash then maybe she wasn't cut out to be in the Air Force. Maybe that was what this event was telling her.
Except there had been body parts and she wasn't sure she wanted to be someone who wasn't upset by seeing bits of people on the ground. She'd been nearby, she couldn't remember why, but she'd been there when it had all happened and she'd run across without a moments thought. Everyone within the vicinity had, once the rotors of the toppled craft had finally broken and stopped being dangerous. She'd listened to those around her, communicated and they'd all done what they could. Sam had helped a couple of guys away from the wreckage and then sat for several long minutes applying pressure to a kid's chest where something metallic had torn through his uniform and dug deep into his chest until the medics got there. She didn't know him, but he'd told her his name was Sam as well and managed somehow to laugh even though he wasn't breathing well. He looked young, but he was probably as old as she was, if not older.
Then all the medical teams and fire teams got there and took over smoothly. Sam became surplus to requirements and was directed to clean up after a concerned medic had looked her over quickly, despite Sam's insistence that she hadn't actually been involved in the crash. She watched them whisk the other Sam away and into the hospital. There was a good chance he'd make it. Sam had walked away, showered and it was only when she'd tried to lace her boots again that she'd realised she was shaking. That was when she knew she had to get out. She couldn't cry where other people could see. She wasn't going to be that person. There were precious enough women around anyway and she didn't want to be the one that helped tar their image further by blubbering like a child. She hadn't done it yet in her military career and she wasn't going to start now. She left her boots unlaced and fled the barracks, walkman in hand. There were always places to go and she found a nook between some tents where she could sit down, just for a moment and get things under control.
She wasn't cut out for this. The academy had been easy compared to this. For all the hard work, accusations of nepotism, cheating, rampant sexism and low level but pervasive sexual harassment, it was easier because none of those things had made the academy challenging had gone away once she'd graduated, she'd got all that and more to deal with now.
Then the tears slowed. She was listening to Mike Love's voice still, but actually listening now rather than just letting it be noise in her ears. She could get her breathing under control, which she did and closed her eyes and relaxed a little, letting the music fill her mind. She still saw the crash behind her eye lids, but she knew she wouldn't always. She felt like crap, but that was okay because that didn't make her weak, that made her human. The idiots could call her what they wanted, but Sam knew that when things had got bad she'd done what needed to be done to save lives, that was enough. What happened afterwards, was afterwards and that was her business.
She pushed herself back to her feet and rubbed her hands across her face, likely smearing muck into her tears, but she could wash. She shoved her walkman into the pocket of her pants and pushed the headphones back so that they hung around her neck. She could still hear the music quietly while she walked.
Lieutenant Graves was wandering around between some of the tents. Sam suspected that he might have been looking for her.
"Hey," he said when he saw her and fell in beside her to walk wherever she was going.
"Hey," she replied, keeping her head low because even if she acknowledged that crying hadn't been a bad thing, she wasn't exactly proud of it either.
"Last I heard everyone was going to make it," he told her.
"That's good," she said simply and let the silence drag on.
"My Mom sent me a bunch of Hershey bars, I haven't opened the box yet, but now might be the time. You know once its opened I'll be lucky if I even get one bar," Lieutenant Graves suggested quickly.
"Thems the rules," she told him lightly, but too seriously.
"Yeah, still, wanna come and grab a couple yourself? Before the vultures descend."
Sam smiled, every woman knew the necessity of the occasional chocolate pig out session. Okay, most women never had them sitting in a barracks populated by guys for whom desert conditions provided a distinct challenge to their personal hygiene skills, but the principal was the same. Good people, lots of chocolate. She switched her walkman off and patted him on the shoulder.
"I'll come help you hold them off," she declared nobly.
XXXX
Daniel never really listened to music, but after his death/ascension, Sam discovered that there were quite a few songs she'd associated with him. Not in a major way, a lot of them were just songs that had been in the background, or ones she'd been listening to while he'd been around. They became one of the many reminders that seemed to surround her constantly. She missed him. Especially on her days off, which was odd because she'd socialised very little with any of the guys outside of work, they all saw too much of each other at work to really want to socialise and they all valued their alone time. There was nothing in her house to really remind her of Daniel, but at home on this quiet Saturday morning she really really missed him.
So she fiddled and puttered and tried to distract herself. Apple had launched some new software and a new range of MP3 players that were interesting. So she'd downloaded the software and bought one of the ipods, to see if they were up to the bits of the pre-launch hype that she'd been fleetingly aware of amongst everything else that was always going on. She was behind the times on this one, but she'd been so busy. She ripped a bunch of fairly random CDs to her itunes and fiddled around a little with the program.
She hit play on something that she wasn't really looking at, mind already thinking about something else, but half laughed and half cried when Walk Like an Egyptian came out of the speakers.
XXXX
The song of choice after Janet's memorial service, after Cassie had shut herself in Sam's spare room, had been Girls Just Want to Have Fun. It seemed like a stupid and irreverent choice, but it had been their theme tune, as much as they had one. Janet had a secret love of cheesy eighties music and a wild streak a mile wide that she hid well under her labcoat during the week. Sam almost didn't listen to it, not wanting to taint the many fun memories she had of the song with the grief of losing her best friend, but simultaneously desperate to be reminded of some of those good times. She sat on the couch near the stereo with the music down low and pulled her knees up to her chest. It was important to remember. She needed to remember Janet being kind to them regardless of what bad patients they were being, Janet taking Cassie in for the girl's sake, Sam's and her own, Janet laughing at Sam over a few cocktails too many and threatening her with a maraschino cherry, Janet turning up at Sam's house just when she needed it, as if she was psychic and all the other good times. Good times were important because there had been so many bad.
She wasn't sobbing, but she was sitting still with the song on repeat and letting the tears run freely down her cheeks. It was a good release to not be feeling angry, or that she had to hold it in.
"Sam?" Cassie said from the doorway. She spoke hesitantly and sounded young, much younger than a first year college student should.
Sam looked across at her and wiped her face. Cassie hovered in the doorway.
"C'mere," Sam said, holding an arm out so that Cassie could sit next to her on the couch and cuddle up against her. Sam kissed the top of her head.
"Mom likes this song," Cassie informed her.
"Yeah, your Mom had terrible taste in music," Sam teased.
"Has, the dead don't leave us," Cassie said with conviction.
"Okay, has," Sam said because she had no proof to the contrary.
XXXX
She rolled over in bed when his phone went off and he got up to answer it, wandering into the living room so that he didn't disturb her. It was too early, the light visible through the curtains was grey and the room was still dark so she pulled the comforter up around her neck and buried her face into the pillow. The bedding smelt of him, mostly his washing detergent, but just a bit of his sweat as well. It felt good to be here. Atlantis was slowly fading to a distant memory. The success in killing the last Ba'al was almost as distant as well. It had been so neatly final. Work had gone well since then, everything had seemed, not easy, but simple somehow. Like a jigsaw puzzle in which the overall picture had become apparent and it was just a case of slotting in the pieces as she found them. It was a relief to feel that way about her career.
Then there was this, which wasn't simple or easy. It wasn't a relationship. You couldn't call it a relationship when it consisted entirely of time snatched in infinitely busy schedules. They didn't date in the traditional sense. If they did go out somewhere, more often than not Daniel would make every effort to come along as well and that was right because he missed his team as much as they did. Still, they'd got a decade of life and death situations as a foundation and quite how that translated into decent sex and breakfast bagels in bed Sam didn't know, but it did and she'd go with that for now.
He finished on the phone and came back into the bedroom. She heard him pause in the doorway and then walk over to her side to sit on the bed.
"Sam," he said simply, putting a hand onto her head. It was only one word, but something was wrong. She woke up quickly and half sat up, looking at him for whatever it was had put lead into his speech and caused the slump in his shoulders visible in the half light. She took his hand.
"That was...it's....General Hammond, George," he started, but she could hear the grief in his throat that the words were having to get through.
She squeezed his hand again, "How?" Hoping it was peaceful, hoping it was simple and normal and dignified, he at least deserved that.
"Heart attack," he replied simply. "At home, he...it happened fast apparently."
She shushed him and knelt up on the bed to embrace him, feeling the chill of early morning that had settled onto his skin. She kissed his cheek and ran her fingers through his grey hair. He returned the embrace, taking comfort in comforting her.
After several quiet minutes she got up off the bed. “I've got to move,” she told him, feeling claustrophobic in the dim room and silent grief. She walked over to the CD player on the dresser and hit play, uncaring of what CD would play.
"The Beatles," she whispered to herself when Penny Lane came out of the speakers. Jack stood behind her and wrapped his arms around her waist. He'd pulled boxers on when he'd got up, but she was still naked and beginning to cool down. The hug felt good.
She didn't say anything because there wasn't anything to say, she just sighed quietly. Jack nodded against the back of her head. She squeezed his arms and felt tears prick at the corners of her eyes as her brain finally got round to catching up and she began to cry. Jack kissed the back of her head softly and she felt moisture on the skin of her shoulder.
This was okay though. They'd cry and then they'd clean their faces and have breakfast. They'd discuss General Hammond sadly together and send flowers separately and then Sam would shower and pack and go back to her world and Jack would get on the phone and look after his world. Sam knew that General Hammond would get the best possible funeral.
It was a death and too soon, but death was inevitable and it happening quickly at home was something that Sam could wish for them all.