Title: Days
Author: annaK
Disclaimer: Characters aren't mine.
Spoilers: Through 'Affinity'
Rating: Kid Safe
Classification: Angst, Sam/Daniel friendship, Sam/Jack, Sam/Pete
Summary: "She can let herself fall. He'll catch her."

A/N: For Rowan, because she asked. And because she rocks.:)

Many thanks to karma_aster and rowan_d for the beta.

**

"There's too much
That I keep
To myself
And I turn my back on my faith,
It's like glass
When we break..."

-- Love Spit Love, 'Am I Wrong'

**

There are days when she wants nothing but to cry. Crawl under the comforter
and let the world fade away whilst she takes a moment to simply be. So much
lost over the years, and she's coping, some days she even feels whole, but
there are days when she wants to grieve for every tragedy she's brushed
aside.

Eight years ago she would have thought it a sign of weakness. These quiet,
melancholy interludes are not something a soldier should allow. But she's
grown a lot over the past years, not just through all she's seen and done,
but through what she's felt. The losses are becoming harder to ignore, but
she's not breaking. She is simply accepting.

It's four in the morning and she has another hour before the alarm will
sound, before she has to leave the quiet solitude of her bed and face
another day. But she won't take this time to assemble a band-aid to cover
the wound until it heals. Today she will simply let it bleed.

Some days, she feels whole. And part of that is learning that, sometimes,
it's okay not to.

The mountain is quiet when she first arrives, the lull between shifts
leaving the corridors empty, no sound but the slight echo of her combat
boots on the dull concrete. The gray of the walls is a blank slate, ready to
be painted with green fatigues, given texture by movement and sound.

Lights are switched on and her lab comes alive with a buzz of machinery, and
she boots up her laptop and sits down to work. She is still distracted,
still lost in an ache that makes her stomach tight and her breath gentle and
slow, but there is a briefing in an hour, and a report to complete, and the
tears are not quite as near the surface as they were. Tonight she will curl
up on the couch. She will think. She will feel.

Tonight.

The briefing is the same as always, a predictable routine of Daniel
insisting upon the importance of the ruins on P3X-295 whilst the General
roles his eyes and offers sarcastic enthusiasm, gracing her with a sly look
when the archaeologist becomes incensed. She offers a smile in return,
because that, too, is routine, delivers her report, and they are finally
dismissed, the mission scheduled for the next day.

Back in the solitude of her lab, door closed and the mountain seeming far
away, she finds her shoulders drooping once again. It's always like this;
the distraction of her team providing moments of normality on these cotton
wool days. But the distractions don't last, and she wishes they would.

When Daniel stops by to go over her report, she smiles.

He closes the door behind him, and she wonders if he's recognized her need
to be locked away. But he doesn't say anything. Just smiles.

They discuss the ramifications of the architecture the MALP showed, and she
glimpses the wide eyed little boy she first met when Daniel stumbles over a
particularly fascinating fact. He's been stronger since he 'came back', more
self-assured, and yet there are still moments when his eyes light up and the
sense of wonder she remembers washes over his face. Despite it all, he has
retained some of his naivety. And she envies him.

They slip into silence after a while, each occupied with their own work, and
in the quiet her mind turns within. Daniel is warm beside her, his arm
occasionally brushing hers as he scribbles illegible notes, and the whisper
of his breath in the still air of the lab somehow makes it hurt a little
more.

She tries to blink back the tears, tries to be Sam Carter, but it just won't
work. She's not usually so raw. Not at work. Never at work. But today it's
just so...

"Hey, what..." His hand is on her shoulder before she realizes he's looked
up, but she keeps staring at her report, wipes briskly at her cheeks. She
wants to let him pull her into his arms, wants to soak up the comfort and
love that he has always offered, but the truth is it simply won't help, and
being warm in his embrace and still so intrinsically alone is one thing she
can not bear.

But she won't fight him. It's Daniel and it's safety and devotion and the
family she never thought she'd have, and when he stands beside her and
places his head on top of hers and rubs circles on her spine, she doesn't
stop him. She nestles in a little further, lets the tears fall unchecked.
Just for a moment.

He asks what's wrong, whispers comforts into her hair but she just shakes
her head and clings a little tighter.

Hurts more than ever, but it's Daniel.

And today she will let it bleed.

'Tonight' comes quicker than expected, the day passing in a blue-blur of
whispered explanations and quiet comforts, and she is once more cocooned in
the solace of home. The walls are scattered with memories, photos littering
the shelves, faces captured in celluloid, and she takes a moment to stare.
Janet smiles at Cassie's side a month before the graduation she never got to
see. Her Mom and Mark, frozen in youth, grin at the camera, and her Dad
offers a joking salute.

The photo album on the bookshelf is her next step. It had been a gift from
Jonas when they were first engaged; a family album for her future. It seems
fitting that she has filled it with snapshots of her team.

It seems wrong that the term 'family album' will soon be reserved for her
and Pete.

An hour later, when the doorbell rings, she is staring at a photograph of
Captain Carter and Colonel O'Neill fighting over an ice cream cone.

"Hey." Daniel looks lost when she opens the door, almost as if he expects
her to order him away, but she smiles a little and invites him in, and she
sees him relax.

"Sorry for dropping by unannounced. I just wanted to see..." if you’re
okay. He lets the sentence drop, but she can see the concern in his eyes,
feel the warmth of his love.

"I'm okay. One of those days, but... I'm okay." The lie makes her eyes burn,
and she offers him a drink before the tears win out. She's so tired of
crying.

He's flipping through the album when she comes back from the kitchen.

"You want to tell me?"

She wishes she could tell, explain that the wounds are all open and it's
okay, she's dealing, but right now it hurts so bad that she can't remember
how to breathe. But no matter how much she understands this feeling, and no
matter how much he understands her, he could simply never understand this.
She's a genius with a vocabulary that makes peoples eyes cross, but there
are no words to describe the emotional roller coaster that refuses to settle
down.

"When was this taken?"

She offers a grateful smile at the change of subject, sinks down next to him
on the couch and passes him a glass of wine.

"At the barbeque the General had after he got back from Argos. Teal'c got a
bit carried away with the camera."

"Oh! Yes, I remember... 'There is no such device on Chulak'"

"That's the one."

She's surprised to feel a genuine smile, but the moment's gone too soon. The
barbeque had been wonderful. They'd laughed. They'd fought over ice cream.
She remembers it clearly, knows that there was a time when he'd call her Sam
and if he touched her it didn't mean someone had died. But she's forgotten
how it felt to be so... uncomplicated.

"Hey..."

She's really tired of crying.

He threads a hand into her hair, fingers lightly massaging her scalp, and
blue eyes stare through his glasses as if he could read her soul. "Tell
me..."

And then she's really crying, turning towards him and curling into his side
like a little girl, and it's twice in one day and she knows she said it was
okay to feel but the intensity's too much and she just wants it to stop.

The hand in her hair continues to kneed whilst his other arm draws her
closer until she's practically sitting in his lap.

"I just want it to stop." It's a whisper between quiet sobs and she doesn't
think he heard, doesn't even know if she meant him to hear, but he's Daniel
and he hears everything she ever says, so when the hand in her hair tugs
gently until she's looking into his eyes, she's not too far gone to be
surprised.

"Want what to stop? Sam, please... tell me." He sounds desperate, and the
shine to his eyes looks suspiciously like tears, and she has never felt more
loved in her life.

She lets herself fall. He'll catch her.

An hour later and she's all cried out. Her head's in his lap, her eyes
half-focused on the slight flicker of the gas fire, and his hands are still
in her hair, but the ache inside has dimmed a little. Still hurts, but she's
breathing again.

"I miss her, too." It's the first time he's spoken since she lay down, and
she knows he's been processing all that she said. Trying so hard to
understand.

"I know." Squeezes his knee and glances at the photo on the mantel.

"Sam..."

"Yeah."

"You need to talk to him."

"There's nothing to say."

"What about Pete? You shouldn't have to settle, Sam. You deserve so much
more." Fingers in her hair so gentle it hurts.

But she's breathing again, and there are some things that, even today, she
can't allow herself to feel.

"I'm not settling."

He leaves it at that, but she feels the tension in his legs.

She rolls over, looks up as his hand comes to rest on her cheek. Loves this
man. Loves the uncertainty in his eyes. Loves the way he tries so hard to
understand.

But he can't understand this. And she won't explain.

She offers him a smile and then turns her head into his hand, places a
gentle kiss on his wrist and closes her eyes. His other hand finds its way
into her hair, and she lets herself drift to the motion of his fingers and
the echo of this breath.

There are days when she wants nothing but to cry, but she's coping, and some
days she even feels whole. And part of that is because of the love and
gentleness of this man.

She can let herself fall. He'll catch her.


**
End

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