DISCLAIMER: Yeah, the SG-1 guys are all property of MGM, World Gekko Corp and Double Secret
productions. This is all in fun, no infringement on copyrights or trademarks was intended. All other characters, ideas, etc., herein are copyrighted to the author.
TITLE: Signal Fire
AUTHOR: Rowan Darkstar
RATING: Teen - for language
CATEGORIES: Angst, Missing Scenes, Sam/Teal'c with a bit of Sam/Jack ('cause it's me:)) and implied Teal'c/Ishta
ARCHIVE: Yes, just let me know.
TIMELINE: Set during "Unending"
SPOILERS: THROUGH 'UNENDING'!!
Much thanks to my fast and brilliant betas: Teddy E,
beanpot,
triciabyrne1978, and
sg_buddy -- you all did an excellent job of catching all the stuff I knew needed smoothing but was hoping I could get away with. :)
AUTHOR'S NOTE: The use of "The Colonel" in reference to Jack in this piece is deliberate to conjure the feeling of a past era. So, don't blame my betas, they tried to stop me.*g*
"Signal Fire"
by
Rowan Darkstar
Copyright (c) 2007
"I could be stuck here for a thousand years
Without your arms to drag me out"
"In the confusion and the aftermath,
You are my signal fire"
--'Signal Fire' by Snow Patrol
She lay on her back in the rec room, right at the edge, where the windows curve and she can see the stars above. There is no up or down in space, but if she lies just here, lengthening hair spreading out around her, and stares at the stars, she can imagine she's on her back porch, or the roof of the Colonel's house, and the Earth is below her and the sky above and she's home in the precious fresh air.
Some days she thinks she will wither and die or claw her skin away if she can't feel just a moment of sun or wind. She longs for grass against her legs and rain on her shoulders. She misses dirt on her BDUs and the smell of the jasmine beneath her bedroom window. For someone who supposedly worked beneath a mountain, she realizes she spent most of her time outdoors, even if most of it was on alien worlds.
She's been here on the floor half an hour and she just...can't stop crying, hot tears slipping down her temples and into her hair, trailing over space-dry skin. Maybe it's because she hasn't let herself cry in so long. It would be too easy to cascade into that darker place she's been before and doesn't want to visit again, not when everyone in this place is counting on her for their lives. She's had to employ her strictest mental discipline from the moment she played God with time, soldier up and tow the line with everything she's got. But every now and then...in the dark quiet hours when she can't live the lie and she's too tired to fight...
She stares at the stars and they blur through her tears like sodium vapor lamps in a rainstorm.
*****
He finds her there in the shadows. She doesn't even know why he is awake, thought everyone was sleeping, but their days and nights are only pretend and none of them respects the rules 100 percent of the time.
She feels Teal'c's steps moving into the room behind her. Quiet and stealthy for his massive frame. But he's not trying to sneak up on her. Only moving slowly and evenly and giving her time to be ready for his arrival.
He lowers himself with uncommon grace to the floor beside her, stretches out his long legs and leans back on his elbows.
He is quiet, looking out at the sky she can't pull her gaze from, then his low voice beside her ear pours a world of respectful concern into two simple words -- "Colonel Carter."
And she loses control. "Dammit, Teal'c. Just one fucking time could you say 'Samantha'." Her words are filled with tears, and she hates herself for lashing out, but she knows he can hear the misdirected venom, knows he's a rock wall she can hit with all her strength before he even loses his balance.
She can barely catch her breath through her tears. She sees her own fingers shaking against the starlight as she shades her eyes. "I want to go home," she breathes on a hoarse rush of sobs. And the next thing she knows is Teal'c's warm, broad hand cradling her cheek and she hears the whispered word, "Samantha." She's clinging to solid arms that are nearly all she has of home, engulfed and cocooned in strength and familiarity. He doesn't speak, but they both know there's nothing to say. She cries so hard she has nothing left to feel.
*****
She once loved these halls. She loved Prometheus first and loved it best. She crawled home and quietly cried herself to sleep for days when it was gone. Prometheus had been her accomplishment, the physical manifestation of her childhood dream to fly to the stars, and in some metaphysical way it had been the only place she had ever kissed the man she loved.
But, Odyssey...she loved this ship as well. The smooth solid metal. The mix of Earth wires and alien crystals. The cool motion of the processed air against her skin, and the dull echo of her boots on the floors. The ever-present engine hum like a powerful animal beneath her.
She clings to the love of this place that once meant freedom as it slowly morphs into their sacrificial prison.
*****
He has taken on the roll of her protector. She has let it happen. Because maybe he's been that for a long time, she's just learning to acknowledge and value the reality. She takes his hand now and then, holds his stoic gaze. His respect for her abilities keeps something warm in her stomach that she needs to thrive.
Vala is her friend. They laugh and think and cry and snack together. They trim each other's hair and work together to simulate good conditioners. They share milkshakes and French fries. But in the end Vala is Daniel's and Daniel's alone.
Cameron hates Sam, resents her and loves her and desires her and values her all at once and sometimes the roller coaster just makes her tired. But in the end she can't imagine all these years without him.
Landry is like an uncle. She's grateful for this sense of family.
And Teal'c....
One night they're watching the stars and Sam is feeling lost and melancholy, and Teal'c seems to understand this and hovers near her like a shield against the harsh world. She says "good night", she turns and kisses his lips. The first time doesn't really surpass friendship. But the second time is easier, and the third and the fourth, and things change without a definitive moment of realization.
On a night when the inevitable nightmares invade her rest, she moves quietly down the cold hallways she can no longer love and she crawls into Teal'c's bunk beside him. They have no need for locked doors in this tiny world they've created. Each would trust any of the others with their lives or their souls.
Sam nestles in beside Teal'c in her night clothes, and he welcomes her without question. She's not crying, not this time. She just...needs to be against skin. Human or Jaffa. She doesn't distinguish and hasn't for years. She loves Asgard and Tok'ra and human alike. She loves this man, and has for decades.
She loves him for being the only one who never once--even for a whisper of a moment--looked at her like this was all her fault.
She can only imagine how hard this life has been for a warrior like Teal'c. She knows he will never truly tell her what he has suffered, but sometimes she takes his hand when he's the one who has fallen more quiet, rests her chin on his shoulder or leans against his back, purely to support him without a word.
He listens to her play the cello. He brings his candles into her lab and says the vibrations of the strings help him center. She doesn't think she's good, yet, but she takes heart in the peace she sees on Teal'c's face when she plays.
Their relationship can't progress normally. Nothing does in this bubble. They both belong to someone else back home, so falling in love is a little like giving up.
So they never speak of it. Years simply pass, and their sense of reality quietly distorts. Rules adapt to circumstances. Survival comes into play.
They are performing a routine maintenance on the air filtration system, and Teal'c tells her a joke. A real for real, American-style joke. And it's perfect, and it relates enough to the task she's performing to make her feel goofy and she laughs and he grins and she laughs more because Teal'c-smiles touch her soul. She laughs like she hasn't laughed since all of this began, lying on her back under a maintenance panel with Teal'c kneeling nearby. Her stomach aches when the laughter fades, but some part of Samantha Carter is awake again. Some part she thought she'd lost to the vast blackness outside those windows.
Time...and other things...move just a bit faster after this.
It's Daniel who finally asks her, sitting side by side on the floor of the Asgard library, coffee mugs in their hands. Apropos of nothing, he says, "Sam? Were you and Jack...?"
And Sam nods to her cappuccino. "Yes," is the only word she has. Honesty is policy in this place.
Daniel shifts his hips on the hard floor and grasps her free hand. "Good," he says. "I'm glad you got to know how much he loves you."
She closes her eyes and denies the impulse to cry. She says instead, "I'm older than him, now." And Daniel holds tight to her hand.
*****
When she figures it out, and her eerie holographic companion nods his gentle head and says, "that function would work, assuming a sufficient power source, " she sits in silence in her lab for a full half hour, motionless and numb. Then she finds Teal'c and crawls into his lap and holds him harder than she ever has. He doesn't know why and she doesn't say, but his hold is steadfast and equal to the occasion. He has always understood her in ways she honestly believes no one else has. The alien from a distant world.
She holds on, space-pale fingers digging into chocolate skin.
Teal'c has hardly changed in their lifetime here, he is still the man she met one wild day on Chu'lak, and part of her believes she can't be beautiful to him anymore, but his hands say otherwise, and she lets him make her believe.
She slides off his lap and leaves without a word.
She holds her discovery inside her for three weeks, running every simulation and scenario and alternative she can think of until every shred of doubt is erased. On the second day of the fourth week, she mentions her discovery at dinner like she's asked someone to pass the salt. She's shocked by the warmth when Cameron takes her hand and she realizes how many days it has been since she touched someone.
He lights the spark in her. And the idea takes shape.
*****
She assumes she will be the one to go. She hasn't thought beyond the desperation to make this happen. To right this wrong and complete her mission. She has slipped back into the soldier's boots, become the women who set Cheyenne mountain's self-destruct without blinking whenever the situation demanded, who fiddled with time and never thought she had no right.
Until he states that he will go. And she argues a little, lets him know he's breaking her heart with his strength. But she lets him do it. She tells herself this is detached logic; the practical choice. She won't allow herself to understand she has grown accustomed to letting him be her champion, that he has softened her resolve and her willingness to be saved. She denies the knowledge that she wants to be young for him again, wants a chance to have him at her side through another lifetime.
She nods and says 'thank you'. And that is all they need.
*****
Light. Energy. Time in a bottle and matter streams and a tidal wave through the fabric of the universe.
*****
Teal'c is so different when he returns. Sam is not sure the others see it, but she feels it like a presence on her shoulder. She can't grasp that he has lived so many years without them...and yet...with them.
He moves through the motions and falls into line for their next mission like he's done this only yesterday. They strap on their gear, arm their weapons, and she's almost late for the ramp, sending a quick text to Jack promising to be back at the weekend. The five of them joke and tease while the gate whirls beside them, opening the doorway to another adventure. Sam's eyes pull insistently to Teal'c's.
"You know, as hard as it is for us not knowing, it must be torture for you not to tell us," she says, voice softening with the weight of the offering.
He pauses. Then, "Indeed." And there is something in his eyes, the way he looks at her, into her that makes her want to move closer and makes her want to cry, and she doesn't understand the emotion at all.
His gaze sticks to her skin even as he looks away, and she feels as though time has passed through her like a ghost or a song. She thinks vaguely of music and the oft conjured image of the cello she suspects she'll never buy.
Then the last chevron is locked and the wormhole is open.
They are SG-1 and the galaxy calls.
*****