Author: Rysler
Email: strmscalm@aol.com
Rating: R
Pairings: Sam/Elizabeth Weir, first time
Category: Angst
Date: 03/31/04
Disclaimer: MGM owns them. I just have the calendar.
Notes: Written for KT. Spoilers for Death Knell, Heroes, Lost City.
Samantha Carter entered General Hammond's office with hesitation. His face lit up at the sight of her. He'd already been informed of her arrival by his secretary, so he was standing in the middle of the room. He stepped forward with his hand out. "Major Carter."
She took it. "Sam, sir."
He didn't voice the question that came immediately to mind. So you're going to resign, then. Instead he kept the smile on his face. "So, how do you like Washington, DC?"
"It's amazing." They settled into chairs in front of his desk. "I've never done the tourist thing before... When I was little, even though Dad was up here all the time, I never came. The government was what took him away, you know? Especially after mom died... And the few times I've been here for work, circumstances like Maybourne tended to interfere. But this time I went down to the Vietnam Memorial, and looked up some of Dad's buddies..."
She realized she was rambling, and blushed. "Sir, why I'm really here...I want to resign."
Hammond leaned forward. "Maj--Sam, you just saved the world."
"No, I didn't." She clenched her jaw. "Colonel O'Neill saved the world. I was just...there."
He didn't answer, but continued staring at her.
"It's just that..." She looked down at her lap, and suddenly Hammond saw her more vulnerable than he ever had before. Civilian clothes did not become her. He wanted to point that out, how awful she looked, how it wasn't the Sam he knew sitting in front of him. He tried to put his finger on what had changed, but she was continuing.
"Without Colonel O'Neill, or Janet, or Dad... There's just nothing left for me anymore, sir. I've lost too much."
Hammond looked concerned. "There's more, isn't there? What is it? What about saving the world?"
Sam looked at him again, studied him. His eyes were gentle and kind, his face open. He looked like a man to tell secrets to. Like a father, and a little bit of comfort creeped into her heart. To tell her own father, would be to face condemnation, and disappointment, even anger. She thought, though, that she could trust Hammond. She closed her eyes briefly, and opened them again. The path to the truth was still there. She swallowed.
"Saving the world was never _me_."
She said it with such vehemence that Hammond blinked. "Major, I have recor--"
"No. It was always Jack making the life and death decisions, or Janet taking some silly idea of mine one step further, making it realizable, or Daniel translating something, or Teal'c writing that stupid speech for the memorial service--"
She stopped for a breath, but continued again before Hammond could attempt to interrupt. "It was never me. It was always _them_, and now they're all gone. Dead."
Hammond scrambled for ground. "Teal'c--"
"Chulak."
"Cassie--"
"College." Sam shook her head. "She won't even look at me these days. The military killed her mother. She hates everything about it."
Hammond knew enough about Sam's own childhood not to press. "Daniel?"
Sam laughed, that bitter, fatalistic sound she used to reserve only for Jack. "Daniel's on fire. He's desperate to find the Lost City. It's consumed him." Sam looked directly at Hammond. "I could give a rat's ass about the Lost City. I don't care anymore. We've defeated Apophis, there's no threat... no reason to even bother looking."
"Major--"
"General, I'm alone, and now everyone's going to learn that I can't cut it. I never could. I'm not as smart as everybody thinks. I can't even properly read Go'auld! I'm nothing without them." Sam was pale with the effort of her confession, her expression naked. Hammond leaned forward to comfort her, and she trembled.
It took a long time for him to think of something to say that wouldn't make her loss of faith and loss of nerve irrevocable. When he finally spoke, all he managed was, "It doesn't matter."
"What!? Of course--"
"It doesn't matter." He sat up straighter, and gave her the face that broached no argument. The only face among the Tau'ri that got Janet Fraiser to obey an order, or got Jack O'Neill to shut up for a moment. "No one else can do it, Sam. You're going to have to, until we can find a suitable replacement. Stay at your post."
"Sir--"
"That's an order." He gave her the face again. Miraculously, it seemed to work, as some of the fear slipped from her features. "I'll make sure it's temporary, I promise, but pass or fail, I need you there."
* * *
Despite her best efforts, at the end of a long trail of paperwork and frustration, Sam found herself in Hammond's old office at the SGC, sitting across from Dr. Elizabeth Weir. She looked at the other woman dully.
Weir wore an expression of respectable distance. She pushed a manila folder toward Sam. "Paperwork for your promotion to Lt. Colonel."
Sam did not react visibly other than her face growing paler, until it took on an unhealthy, pasty shade. Her mind, though, struggled with unbidden thoughts. Colonel was O'Neill's rank. How could she possibly have earned it? The universe was playing a cruel joke on her, abandoning her and making her rewards tasteless. She felt sickened.
Impassively, Weir nodded to the trash can at the side of her desk.
Sam threw up, then placed the trash can back in its place. She took the Kleenex offered her, and blotted her face.
When Weir saw that she was composed, she continued. "Of course, SG1 is grounded. Our priorities right now are getting Colonel O'Neill out of that box and finding the Lost City. Things we can do on Earth. In the meantime, the Tok'ra, the Nox, and the Asgard have all expressed interest in re-opening dialogue. That, too, we'd like to do here. You'll be mainly a functionary."
Sam nodded. Her eyes were expressionless.
Weir thought Sam looked dead. She understood that Major Carter had lost a lot, but damn it to hell, she had just met the woman, and she wasn't going to let her walk out of Colorado and into oblivion without a fight. "Major Carter, would you like to have dinner with me one night this week?"
Sam's eyes widened into such a look of surprise that Weir felt victory, but the major's expression faded quickly into impassiveness. "No thank you, doctor. We can't, it's against--"
"Regulation? I'm not a military officer." Weir smiled a smile that had made the Congo rebels agree to provide war crimes restorations. It worked on Sam, she could see her protestations getting weaker.
"I wouldn't be very good company." Sam even managed a self-depreciating laugh, though it was hollow and short.
If Sam had been any less empty inside, she might have found the passion to protest, but truth be told, she didn't really care anymore. Without Jack, without Janet, without her father, it didn't matter how she spent her evening. Going out to dinner with Dr. Elizabeth Weir would be no worse than anything else. Perhaps it would be even less bad, than say, listening to Daniel.
Elizabeth smiled. "Tomorrow at 7?"
Sam consented.
* * *
Dinner hadn't turned out so bad, Sam conceded. And after the meal, they had ended up at a sports bar frequented by officers from the SGC. The friendly faces had warmed Sam a little, but the game of pool hadn't been one like old times. Elizabeth had been a good listener at dinner, keeping the conversation light, but intimate, offering stories of her time in Africa that always had a moral twist. She was a thoughtful person, Sam had to admit. Like Janet, her intelligence came from the meaning of thoughts she never voiced. But things weren't the same, and would never be again.
She was trying to explain this to Elizabeth now. "I can't go back. I can't pretend, because the moment has passed." Sam said, leaning back against the headrest of the passenger seat, looking through the darkness at Elizabeth. They were parked outside of Sam's house.
"I know. Living in a memory is the same as living a lie. Not living at all."
Sam nodded, grateful that Elizabeth was with her, understanding. "Exactly. Everything's changed...and maybe if I hated it, I could try to change it, but...I don't really care. It's like it's an ending."
Elizabeth was looking thoughtfully at her. "What made you become an astrophysicist?"
Sam smiled, faintly. "The stars. My home life wasn't great, and I could look out my window, and see them, and imagine places to escape to. I always knew there was life out there. Math, physics...Those disciplines are all about direction and movement. It was the way to get from here to there."
"And now?"
Sam cranned her head to look at the night sky. "I see a thousand worlds conquered by the Go'auld. Death. Destruction." Sam closed her eyes. "I can't go back. The base therapist won't say it, but I know. I've lost my nerve. I'm a broken soldier." She shook her head. "I can get a medical discharge for that, isn't that funny? For being a failure." She sighed. "The universe is done with me."
She felt pressure on her thigh, and she looked over sharply at Elizabeth, but it wasn't a hand, it was an envelope. "What's this?" She said, even as she reached down for it.
"Tickets to St. Martin in the Caribbean. You have a one week vacation there starting in two days."
Sam looked at Elizabeth with disbelief. "The Caribbean?"
"No ancient artifacts. No temples. No aliens. No labs. No telescopes. Not even any petty political disputes. Just you, the sun, the sand, the surf."
Sam looked horrified. "I'll be bored out of my mind!"
"You'll have time to think," Elizabeth replied.
"So...I won't be able to distract myself by overworking."
"Nope."
"I'll go insane."
Elizabeth grinned. "Probably."
Sam banged her head against the headrest. Several times. Then she sighed with resignation and looked back at Elizabeth. "Will you be coming?"
"Do you want me there?"
"I don't know."
Elizabeth smiled, and this time she let her hand linger on Sam's thigh. "Don't worry about a thing."
* * *
The second day on St. Martin, Sam had actually tried to apply for a job as an auto mechanic. The pit boss had taken one look at her flowery, wraparound skirt, blond hair, and sparkling blue eyes, and had thrown her out.
The third day, loneliness finally found her, sitting on the beach in front of her hotel. Memories of Jack flooded her, battered her, until she wept. Sunset found her asleep in the golden sand.
Later that night, alone in her bed, she cried for Janet. Every time she closed her eyes she saw Janet's face, until she screamed with the torment of it. She tore out of bed, and threw things, hit things, destroying her pillow. Then, as she remembered the same wild, helpless look in the friends of her father, back from the war, despair overtook her and she crawled back into bed, succumbing once again to the hollow ache. But she couldn't ignore that she could feel again. She hated Janet, for leaving her, and she hated the universe, for letting it happen.
The last night on the island found Sam walking along the beach, letting the waves trickle over her feet. Every so often she would look over at the moon, low and white in the sky, casting ripples of light onto the ocean. She smiled at the man in the mood, bald and benevolent, looking out from her. When her gaze returned from one of these gazes at the sky and found her path again, she saw a woman walking towards her. Elizabeth Weir.
She smiled in spite of herself, and quickened her step. They met in an embrace, turning gently in the sand. Elizabeth into her face, still holding onto her. "How is the Caribbean?"
"Boring!" Sam groaned dramatically. "Can I go home now, officer?"
"Maybe," Elizabeth teased.
"I'm cured." They both knew that was a lie. Sam's voice quivered even to say it. "I can prove it," she said anyway, and kissed the doctor in her arms.
Elizabeth responded with enthusiasm, gently deepening the kiss. They were two lovers, kissing on a beach, and the only company they had was the moonlight.
"I've been alone all week," Sam murmured, kissing a trail down Elizabeth's neck.
"Only a week, really?" Elizabeth chided, earning a bite from Sam. "There's only this moment, Samantha," she said, more softly. "Don't think about anything else."
They fell into the sand, and Elizabeth unwrapped Sam until their skin met, and the merged with the rhythm of the pounding surf. The sand cut into Sam's skin, burning her like a million, tiny, fallen stars. The pain was exquisite, and blended with Elizabeth's tongue, hard and stabbing against her clitoris, make her feel suddenly, achingly, alive. Samantha Carter came, alone, crying out at the moon. The universe, laughing, informed her she wasn't dead yet, and welcomed her in.
