Title: Light to Dark, Dark to Light

Author: cgb (luberluber@yahoo.com.au)

Web: http://appelsini.tripod.com/Christine/

Category: Sam/Jack, Angst, future fic

Rating: R (sex and stuff)

Archive: Yep

Summary: " Of course, it isn't always like this."  

Author's Notes: Consider this post-Stargate. Set in a

possible future after the government shuts down the

Stargate programme. My thanks to Vicky who provided

wisdom and insight and confirmed my deep-seated fear

that I just can't think up good titles. 

*

He measures time by counting the drops of water that

fall from the roof onto the porch steps. The rain is

light, barely covering the ground. It dissipates as

the afternoon wears on. By the evening the sky is

cloudless.  

He sits on the stoop, elbows on knees, and watches the

shadows on the ground until they are no longer

discernible. The light above the horizon slowly

darkens to a deep blue. He watches it until there is

nothing left to watch and then he goes inside. 

He doesn't eat much these days and he's drinking more

than he used to, so it's not unusual that there are

nights when he only opens his fridge to take beer out.

This is one of those nights. So was last night.  

He's pretty sure he should eat something because

Fraiser only ever says two things to him and one is,

"are you eating properly?" The other is, "are you

getting any sleep?" The answer to both questions is

no, but he never tells her that.  

Sometimes he reads. He reads books he finds on his

bookshelf - a military biography that Sarah gave him,

a book on ancient history that Daniel left behind. He

reads the ancient history because he's pretty sure

Daniel is taking notes and he's hoping it will confuse

the hell out of him. 

And reading lets him listen. He knows that if you

listen too hard, you'll tell yourself you can hear

things: intruders downstairs, someone outside the

window, your son in his room, spaceships... 

He hears things sometimes and sometimes he checks the

sky. There's never anything there but he keeps

listening. He listens until he hears the sound of a

car in his driveway, footsteps on the gravel outside. 

He stops listening when she arrives. 

*

In the last days of the SGC he thinks about Daniel. In

his memory Daniel looks at him with an exasperated

expression (he'd probably offended some religious

leader or invoked a tribal curse. Daniel was sensitive

about those things). This was Daniel as he knew him.

Not ascended Daniel, not higher-being Daniel - Daniel

as a bumbling scientist who was fun to annoy. 

And good humoured too. He missed that. 

He wishes his memories of Daniel were more tangible

and not the blurred distorted images that come to mind

as the years pass. Sometimes all he remembers are the

spectacles - light shining off the glass, dissipating

into thin air. 

Sometimes he sees stray light drifting across shadows

in the emptied corridors of the SGC. He looks for

Daniel's face, but it's just the play of light against

dark in the now defunct halls. 

As Teal'c and Jonas take the last stagecoach out of

Dodge he tells himself that Daniel would have stayed. 

Jonas takes time to make his decision, caught as he

is, between his new home and the galaxy that has

opened up before him. "What are you staying for?" he

asks, and Jack can't answer but his eyes drift to

Carter on the other side of the room.  

"We're needed here," she says. Her face is devoid of

expression, her eyes dulled by the dim light in the

briefing room. He knows she is right. He knows - but

he has trouble explaining it to Jonas and Teal'c. He

leaves that for her. 

Teal'c and Jonas are farewelled unceremoniously in the

gateroom with Hammond, Fraiser, Carter and himself in

attendance. They are the last to leave and a crew

waits outside to take the gate to its burial. 

Little is said because at this stage there isn't much

to say. No one guessed it would end this way. He

always thought they would go out in a blaze, comets

burning up in the atmosphere. 

And here they are, shaking hands while Fraiser, the

only one comfortable showing emotion, sniffles into

her handkerchief. He looks at a dry-eyed Carter. She

used to be better at this. 

Teal'c is about to step onto the gate ramp when he

turns to Jack. "Take care of Major Carter," he says.

"Sure," Jack answers. 

*

It was probably not what Teal'c had in mind but he's

started having sex with Carter - or someone resembling

her. He wonders about those alternative reality

Carters - whether one slipped through undetected,

because this Carter is a shadow of the one he used to

know. 

He calls this one 'Sam' and she calls him 'Jack'. He

used to think there was something intimate about those

names but he's since learnt they are just more lies to

hide behind - something else to pretend. 

He's having sex with Carter and it goes something like

this: 

She arrives late. She works still - does something he

doesn't bother to ask about, and comes home sometime

after midnight. She lets herself in. 

He's usually awake, sometimes reading in bed,

sometimes watching television (sixties reruns in black

and white are oddly entertaining) sometimes watching

the sky through the telescope on his roof. 

They don't talk, never really did. When he's not

saving the world he finds he has very little to say.

He expected more from her but then she's always been

succinct. He used to like that about her. 

He's not as impatient as he was. 

She undresses quickly as if she's ashamed to let him

see her - but he's seen her do the same when she

thinks he isn't looking. Sometime he thinks this is

evidence - further proof that this Carter isn't his

and then sometimes he's just grateful to know that

it's not about him. 

She lets him touch her, lets him pull her into him,

his body against hers. She moves slowly at first and

he reads reluctance in her hesitation. He asks her is

this is what she wants and she answers 'yes' - always

'yes'. 

And then she lets herself go and pins him against the

mattress, throwing her legs astride him and pushing

him into her. 

It's too hard and it hurts - he can see it in her

face. He tries to slow down but she's insistent,

forcing herself through the pain until she finds a

rhythmic pace somewhere between frenzied and

uncontrolled. 

He hates that he wants her so much that he does this

to her. He tries not to think about it but it's there.

Sometime she puts his hand between them, moving

herself against him as if she is suddenly reminded of

her own need for pleasure. When she does this she

closes her eyes and leans her head back and for a

while he gets to watch her unchecked. She's thinner

than she used to be but she's still beautiful. She'll

always be beautiful. 

Of course, it isn't always like this. 

There are nights when she does nothing more than

sleep. He thinks he likes this too, maybe likes it

more. He watches her breathe slowly, her chest rising

and falling in a soothing pattern.  Her eyelids

flutter when she dreams and sometimes she murmurs

names in her sleep: 'Daniel', 'Cassandra', 'Sir'. 

It isn't always like this and tonight he is feeling

tired and old, so he puts his book on the bedside

table and turns out the light without a word. 

He closes his eyes and tries to sleep. Eventually he

hears her breathing deeply beside him and he realises

even Sam, this Sam with her pent up fear and

disappointment, sleeps easier than he does. 

He tries not to dream these days so maybe that's why

it's so difficult to sleep. Eventually he gets out of

bed, puts on his clothes and goes outside onto the

roof. 

He listens for a while. Stillness has a sound that is

eerily like lowered voices - a machine-like hum that

is impossible to pin point no matter how hard you try.

The telescope invites him to look through it so he

aims it at the sky and presses his eye to the glass. 

The space above them is as empty as the house below.

He never sees anything and sometimes he wishes he did.

Unable to cope with the ordinariness of everyday life,

former prisoners of war often return to the place of

their imprisonment so he understands that need, that

yearning for something - anything - to happen. 

He hears the steps behind him and he turns. She's

wearing one of his t-shirts. Nothing else.

"What are you doing?" She says. He detects an

accusatory tone in her voice. Something untrusting. 

"Aren't you cold?" 

"No." 

He gestures toward the telescope. "I'm looking out for

bad guys." 

"I think the NASA Deep Space Offensive will see them

before you do." 

They taught the DSO everything they knew. It was one

of the reasons they were made redundant. "Yeah, well -

I'm not counting on them to tell me about it." 

"I'll tell you." 

He watches her, tries to figure out what she means

"That's good to know," he says eventually. 

She takes hold of the telescope and moves it to her

position. She bends over and looks through the

eyepiece. The movement causes her t-shirt to ride up,

exposing more of her already exposed thighs. The sight

is not lost on him and his body reacts, involuntarily.

She looks away from the telescope and catches him

staring. She frowns a little but says nothing. "Is

this what you do with your time?" 

"Pretty much. I thought about writing a detective

novel but, as it turns out, I'm a lousy writer." 

She doesn't laugh, doesn't smile. "Don't you get

bored?" 

He hasn't really thought of it that way. He's never

been able to explain - he feels resigned, perhaps.

Accepting. 

Frustrated. "Yeah, I get bored." 

She moves over to him and sits on his lap, placing one

leg either side of him. His hand reaches automatically

for her sides but once there they remain still, as if

he can't decide on further action. 

And he can't. "What are you doing?" 

She crosses her arms and lifts his t-shirt over her

head. "I want you," she says. "Here." 

She's wearing nothing underneath and the chill in the

air causes her skin to goose flesh. He presses his

forehead against her chest, and kisses the cool skin

between her breasts. His hand slides up from her hip

to her breast, cupping it so that he can take her in

his mouth. 

She gasps and pushes him harder against her. "Please,"

she says. 

He stops his movement on her breast and thinks of

things he should say, things he always wants to say.

"Sam..." 

But her hands are in his waistband, brushing across

the tip of his erection. He wills his fears away and

they make love on the roof, in the cold, with the

night sky and all its inhabitants watching. 

*

In the morning he wakes to the sound of the shower in

the bathroom next door. She disappears early. He's

usually awake but sometimes he pretends he isn't.  

She's fast in the morning. Shower, hair-drier,

toothbrush, keys and then she's gone. No snooze

button. No breakfast. Her showers are a military

maximum duration of three minutes, but today she's in

there longer. He watches the minutes pass on his

bedside clock: four minutes, five minutes, six... 

The sound of running water ceases and he hears her

moving about the bathroom. Something hard crashes to

the floor and she swears quietly. The whirr of the

hair-drier starts up and he closes his eyes. It gets

less interesting after that. 

Eventually the door opens and he hears her moving

about the room - searching for her clothes, her

handbag - evidence.

When she's done she approaches the bed, It isn't her

usual practice. He regulates his breathing to simulate

sleep while his remaining senses go on high alert.

And then he feels it - the lightest touch at the top

of his forehead, her fingers gently following his

hairline down the side of his face. He is reminded

that from the moment she'd fallen into his bed, less

than a year after the Stargate programme was

terminated, she'd been unable to show him tenderness. 

He opens his eyes. She immediately draws her hand

away. Her mouth opens slightly speaking a silent,

"Oh..."  

He reaches out and takes hold of her wrist. "What are

you doing?" 

She hesitates, mouth open saying nothing. Her hand is

unmoving, wrapped in his. "I have to go to work," she

says eventually.  

"No, you don't." She hasn't had to go to work since

they buried the Stargate but she goes because no one

stops her. He thinks it's time that changed. 

"I have to go to work, Jack." Her voice is softer this

time. It cracks a little at the end. 

"Come back to bed, Sam. You've earned it." 

Her eyes shine and for a moment he thinks she's going

to cry but instead she falls onto the bed, her body

going limp with defeat. 

She shakes her head and speaks quietly, not checking

the emotion in her voice. "I can't stop, Sir." 

And he understands because he's been watching the sky

and listening to the quiet. In his own way, he hasn't

been able to stop either. 

And this is Carter because it was always Carter who

saw their duty as being higher than the one they owed

to each other. It was always Carter who felt things

deeper. 

They stayed because they thought they were needed only

to discover that no one wanted to hear it - not the

Pentagon, not NASA, not the Air Force - and it was

difficult to accept being wrong. 

He takes her shoulders and pulls her toward him. She

comes to him without resistance, her head falling onto

his shoulder. His lifts his hand to her hair and

smooths a trail down her neck to her elbow. 

She doesn't go to work. Instead they lie in bed

watching the room lighten as the day breaks around

them. He tells her about the books he reads and she

tells him about her dreams - how she still sees

Goa'uld with flashing eyes in her sleep. 

He tells her he thinks about Daniel and she tells him

she does too. 

And he knows that they can change things because

they've always been able to get out of a tight spot.

He'll tell her he knows where the gate is buried and

she'll figure out how to resurrect it or rebuild in

that way she always does. In his mind's eye he sees it

rising like a phoenix from the fire, and he and Carter

being drawn in, the way they were always meant to. 

Maybe she knows this too and he suspects she does, but

it's been a while since he's seen Carter and he misses

her. 

He'll tell her. Tomorrow he'll tell her.

Fin