“I needed you! I needed you!” [[post-abyss]]
That’s the first thought she has as the Colonel stonily lets her into his home, beer in hand and his eyes on her, watching her intensely. There’s something different about him--heavier. She’d tried to talk to him back on base, drawn the curtains around his infirmary bed and drawn nearer, palms itching to touch him and feel the steady rise and fall of his chest, the warmth of his skin, anything to ground her and remind her that he was safe and back with her.
But he’d taken one long look at her, eyes hooded and dark, the last of his good humor draining from him. He’d sighed and stopped her before she could even start. “Can we just not do this, Carter?”
Then, she’d flinched and nodded out of reflex, agreeing with him. “Of course, sir.” She willed him to meet her eyes once more, to give her a sign that they were okay. Instead, he rolled on his side and silently dismissed her.
But now she was here in his home and everything felt too big to contain in some metaphorical room, the door buckling and bursting at the hinges.
The Colonel didn’t offer her a beer, didn’t lead her into the living room or kitchen, nothing to indicate that he wanted her presence in his home to linger longer than absolutely necessary.
She nodded. “I know, sir. I’m sorry.”
“But,” she continued. “I wanted to say how glad I am to have you back. I know you don’t want to talk about what happened to you, but, uh, I’m just really glad you’re safe. I--we--were worried.”
Silence meets her words and she feels a fresh surge of anger and hurt and irritation when he does little more than lift his beer bottle in her direction, eyebrow lifting. “You’re right, I don’t want to talk about it. And I’m delighted to be back, Carter. Was there anything else?”
It hits her then that the dismissiveness, the flippancy, it isn’t because he doesn’t want to talk. Well, not just that anyway. It’s his eyes--as cheesy and unbelievable as it sounds. They’re hard and unforgiving and blazing.
Sam lifts her head. “If you’re angry with me because I asked you to take the symbiote--for forcing your hand--I’d rather you just get it all out now, sir.” She remembers the way he looked on that base back in Antarctica: pale, clammy skin, disoriented eyes, labored breathing. She remembers the fear she felt, the gripping surge of panic filling her lungs. She juts her chin, pulls her shoulders back like some cadet getting ready for a dressing down. “But I won’t apologize. You can be angry with me all you’d like, sir, but I won’t apologize for keeping you alive.”
The Colonels’ jaw tightens and every inch of him screams at her how much he doesn’t want to have this conversation. “I’m not mad, Carter.”
This time it’s she who raises an eyebrow, her tone dancing along the line of insubordination. “With all due respect, sir, that sounds like something you’re saying so I’ll leave.”
He grinned, sharp and dry and cruel. “Guess it’s not working.”
The hurt she’s been feeling bubbles and her eyes sting with tears. He feels a million miles away despite the fact he’s only a few feet from her. She wishes she had the right to step forward and smooth her palm over his forehead and cheek to smooth the newly-formed lines creasing his skin. She wishes she could take him out on her bike and let him feel alive, wind whipping through his hair and her body pressed against his.
He shakes his head at the title and runs a hand over his face, scrubs his fingers through hair agitatedly. “I’m tired, Sam.” The use of her first name catches her attention. He waves a hand at the front door behind her. “If there’s nothing else, just lock up behind you.”
The turning of his back for the second time gets to her and she frowns, stepping forward, calling out after him. “Jack, please. Talk to me. Yell at me. I don’t care, but don’t walk away. Please.”
It’s the same please she’d used on him in Antarctica. The one he hadn’t been able to refuse. They both know it.
Something in him snaps and he turns back to her, beer sloshing in his bottle. “That’s not fair,” he says, voice low. He’s perfectly still and she risks a step towards him and then another when he doesn’t flinch away.
She thinks for this, they can let the door off the room. They’ll suffocate otherwise.
The first touch of her hand against his forearm is like a jolt of electricity for both of them. He sucks in a sharp breath, eyes darting to the place where her palm smooths over his arm, grounding him. For Sam’s part, the warmth of his skin and the pounding pulse she can feel soothes the anxious part of her that still couldn’t quite believe he was back and here with her.
“I asked you to take that symbiote because--” Because I love you. Because I can’t lose you. Because you’re you. The words are all there, the ones she’s not allowed to say. She settles on something in the middle. “Because I needed you.”
He makes a pained sound at that and before she can think or blink or apologize for pressing the issue, his hand is cradling her cheek, tilting her face up to his. “I needed you! I needed you, Sam. Last time, I needed my family. This time it was you. Do you understand? Do you get it? I needed you. I got through it, I survived because of you. Because I knew you’d come for me, that you’d figure it out. I just knew I needed you, needed to get back to you.” His thumb brushed along the curve of her cheek. Her heart hammered in her chest and her hand tightened on his arm. She couldn’t help but turn her cheek into the curve of his palm, nuzzling gently.
For a moment, she thought he was going to close the distance between them and finally kiss her the way she’d wanted him to do since she caught sight of him twirling that pen between his fingers at their very first briefing, looking criminally good in that uniform in a way that she was pretty sure the United States Air Force did not intend.
Her tongue peeked out to swipe across her lips in anticipation and want made her stomach clench as his eyes darted down to her mouth, his own lips parting at the sight of her pink tongue and wet mouth.
His fingers tightened briefly in her hair and she felt herself go lax and loose.
And then he was gone, stepping back and taking his warmth and dark eyes and pain with him.
Disappointment flooded her veins and she felt cold and bereft, not unlike the way she’d felt watching him disappear up the ramp and through the Stargate to receive a symbiote--unknowingly damning him.
“I’ll see you tomorrow, Major.”
Another dismissal, the door firmly locked and back in place.
She wrapped her arms around herself and nodded, not ready to push yet.
