Disclaimer - MGM/Gekko/Double Secret own them.
Future fic, set season seven or later. Angst, character death. Spoilers for '1969', 'Nemesis', 'Small Victories', 'Window of Opportunity', 'Beneath The Surface', 'The Curse' and 'Sight Unseen'.
Many, many thanks to everyone who's sent supportive e-mails - I can't tell you how much it means to me. Thank you :)
Feedback would be appreciated. Back in the saddle again...
*
He'd turned off the engine more than fifteen minutes ago. She remembered fondly when he'd first learnt to drive. A quick study, he'd nonetheless asked numerous questions - an activity that, at the time, had seemed bizarre coming from him.
But that was when she didn't know him as well as she knew him now.
For example, he'd turned off the engine more than fifteen minutes ago, and he'd yet to say a word. She knew without a doubt that he'd patiently sit there and wait for five days if he had to. He wouldn't move, or speak at all, until she did.
And that was why he was here; why'd she'd silently gone to his quarters and let him know - with barely a glance - that she needed him. Janet may have been her best friend, Daniel and Jonas may have been like brothers, but...
Teal'c was Teal'c. Teal'c had fought by her side, had been a part of the team, had lived for nearly a century...had been *there*. For, as little as they communicated verbally, Teal'c knew her better than anyone else.
Teal'c, who followed her without complaint, drove without complaint (her hands? So not capable of controlling a steering wheel right now), and now sitting, waiting for her, equally without complaint.
"I'm thirsty," She suddenly blurted out, when guilt started to edge its way in. Really, it was a lousy explanation for not getting out of the car just yet, but apparently her mouth wouldn't stay shut.
She was thirsty, though. In fact, she could only remember one other time when the hunger for water had clawed so desperately at her throat.
She tried to swallow. There was no moisture.
His expression didn't alter, as if he'd been expecting her to say that all along. "If you wish I can drive us to-"
"No," She interrupted, because as thirsty as she was she knew it wasn't *really* thirst. Not of the water-craving kind, anyway. "No, it's..."
In the car, with the window down, and a faint wind pushing at her face, she suddenly felt dizzy. Closing her eyes, she realised how inordinately aware of everything she was - especially sounds. Magnified by fate, the fact he wouldn't be hearing anything at all anymore, or maybe just the acoustics of the car, she concentrated on the noise.
Naturally, it started with a cliché.
A dog barked in the distance. A warning? A greeting?
The subtle murmur of conversation. Footsteps: doors opening and closing. The crunch of tyres on gravel as cars pulled away or arrived.
Birdsong.
Mostly birdsong.
Had she been capable of it just then, her brain probably would have speculated what kind of bird she was hearing. As it was, all she could speculate was that he probably would have been able to tell her.
For all his acting dumb, he knew...had known something about just about everything.
And it was no secret that he was a great nature lover despite his general loathing of trees; she'd wondered in the past if - when she finally went to his cabin (because she'd been planning to go all along, she really had) - she'd do nothing more than sit on the dock and listen to him talk about the various animals and species close by.
Not that that would be the only reason she'd go there, but when he talked - when he really talked - he had an almost mesmerising voice.
God, he would have laughed - or looked seriously embarrassed - if she'd ever told him that.
Which was why she'd been planning to some day.
There were a lot of things she'd been planning to do someday.
Admiration, respect, duty...they were all worthwhile. They were all worth upholding.
But given the circumstances, given her current location, she couldn't help but think...about the line they crossed too far but didn't cross enough, about the memory of a kiss that she wished she had but didn't, about when the job was enough and the times that it wasn't; about the fact that he *never stopped asking*.
Never.
"Tell me about the cabin."
Teal'c had told her before, of course. When he'd returned from his trip with the Colonel and she'd pretended to be un-interested, he'd given her a vague indication: mosquitoes, a cabin, some water, a dock. Nothing too detailed of course: she shouldn't be *too* interested, and he should never think that she was.
This time, he told her everything.
There was a board on the porch that creaked under his weight. The cabin smelled of the Colonel, wood, and history. The flushing mechanism on the toilet was temperamental at best (though according to the Colonel, they were lucky to have one at all). There really were no actual fish within several kilometres of the cabin (Sam suspected this was an exaggeration).
It was as he told her about a photograph he found that he shouldn't have (which the Colonel promptly snatched out of his hands), that Sam smiled and finally re-opened her eyes.
Teal'c continued talking, painting vivid pictures, as she stared out through the windshield.
She'd been there before, of course, with the others. His ex-wife was told (if not the cause, then at least the fact that he was gone) and there had to be a public burial; naturally, as his second in command she had to put in an appearance.
But as Major Carter. Only as Major Carter.
Major Carter had talked carefully to Sara, shed only a few tears, and did everything that was respectful.
Whoever she was at the moment - a Sam/Major Carter/Jolinar/Thera hybrid - was at times crying too much or not crying at all. Was trying - and sometimes managing - to understand why she hadn't slept with him, just once. Was annoyed that they hadn't had just a *little* more time, for anything at all.
"I was going to go there some day." She may have interrupted him - she wasn't sure. "I really was."
Again, there was no surprise in his voice. "I know, Major Carter."
The fingers of her right hand lifted up, wrapping around the handle that would open the door.
Birdsong, floating through the window.
Pulling the handle, she pushed open the door, and stepped out of the car.
~FINIS