Disclaimer - MGM/Gekko/Double Secret own them.
A ‘Shadow Play’ episode addition. As Jonas was on Kelowna late at night when the Commander asked to speak to him, I’m presuming they all stayed there overnight. Spoilers for ‘Divide and Conquer’, ‘Abyss’, and ‘Shadow Play’.
Use of {} indicate memories.
*
They were holed up in what was, effectively, a motel room. The décor was boring and indistinct, the lighting barely apparent, and someone had apparently thought it would be a really good idea to share two beds between the four of them.
Still, at least they weren’t paying for it.
Although, Jack mused, he wouldn’t have put it past the devious little...
The thought petered out, as a general sense of ‘awareness’ tingled at the back of his mind. Cocking his head to the right, but not moving from the edge of the bed he was sitting on, he spoke. “Will you stop that?”
She was a few feet behind him, sitting on the other bed, and Teal’c was maybe eight feet to her right, kel’no’reeming on the floor. Jonas had been asked to visit ‘The Commander’, so at the moment it was just the three of them.
“Stop what?” She asked.
Rubbing a hand over his face, he shook his head. “Never mind.” Probably best not to talk about it – or even think about it. Just being on this goddamned planet was enough to put him in a bad mood; now was not the time to discuss-
There it was again.
“Will you *please* stop that?”
“Stop *what*?” She sounded incredulous, but she had to know what she was doing.
“Looking at me!” Remembering Teal’c – even though his Jaffa friend didn’t seem to be disturbed by much at all when he was having a little chat with Junior – he lowered his voice. “You keep...looking at me. Stop it.” Though he’d started waving his hands around by now, he still hadn’t moved, determined not to look at her.
“What makes you think I’m looking at you?”
And therein lay the question. “I just...*know*, okay? The same way you do when I...”
Ah, crap.
He was *not* in a good mood, and this wasn’t helping. “Look, forget this. Just stop it.”
Resolute in his mission to keep turned away from her, he lifted the bottom half of his body up and shifted until he was lying on the bed, facing the wall.
Oh look. Beige. How stimulating.
“I’m sorry, sir.”
Closing his eyes, he sighed. Great. Now he had The Guilt. “Don’t worry about it. I know you’re just...being you.” He wasn’t entirely stupid – he knew why she’d been so aware of him lately.
“I’m afraid it’s my prerogative as your second in command to be concerned about you at all times.”
“Part of the job?”
“Yes sir.”
“That’s good to know.” Heaven forbid she should ever be concerned about him for any other reason. Shifting on the bed until he was comfortable, he released one heck of a big yawn. Despite the fact that he had been cleared for active duty, he swore he got tired a lot faster than he used to.
Or maybe he was just getting old.
Either way, he snuggled up closer to the Kelownan equivalent of a pillow, and-
The bed was moving. The bed was moving, dipping down, as someone sat behind him.
His eyes snapped open.
Again with the beige wall, which was probably just as well, because this time he had a really *good* reason not to move. He tried to say her name, tried to ask her what the hell she was doing, but all that escaped was one long breath.
His body tensed, his eyes focused on the hand he had resting next to his face, and he waited with some amount of fear for whatever it was she was going to say.
Soon after that, he heard her voice.
“I worry about you. And not just as another member of SG-1.”
It was no huge revelation. Of course they all cared about each other – well, apart from Jonas. The jury was still out on that one, although early indications were for an acquittal.
But she’d never actually come out and said it – and certainly not the way he’d been forced to.
He studied the faint veins apparent on the back of his hand with forced fascination. “Yeah.” He resisted the urge to cough. “I, uh, I’m not gonna...fall apart, Carter. We’re trained to deal with that kind of stuff.”
Stuff.
{Pain-Kanan-Pain-Burning-DO something!-Daniel-Falling-Digging-Screaming-Don’t think of her, don’t think of her-Searing-Crying-Losing-Dying-Nothing-}
His hand had scrunched into a fist; the short nails digging into his palm.
“No one’s trained for that kind of stuff.”
She was right, as usual, her voice gently reprimanding. A voice he’d tried not to think about a thousand times when he was...gone. Not wanting to give Ba’al even that much of himself. She’d been hidden away deeper, darker, than even Shalen.
{“He loved her.”}
{“Kanan?”}
His fingers moved, the nails extracting from the flesh, the pain still raw across his skin. “I’ve dealt with worse.”
{“Charlie?”}
A hand moved, touching his arm. If he shifted onto his back, he could imagine he was back in the infirmary again, watching as she looked after him.
He didn’t shift onto his back. He stayed where he was, still with his back to her, and closed his eyes. Knowing that when he woke up and inevitably panicked when he thought just for a second – just for a split second – he was back in the sarcophagus, that she would be there.
Always.
~FINIS