Title: Three Days
Author: annaK
Rating: PG
Disclaimer: Characters are not mine.
Archive: Please ask first.
Spoilers: Point of View
Summary: She’s taken three days to grieve. And now life goes on.
Classification: Angst, AU S/J, Episode-Tag for Point of View.
**
Three Days by annaK
**
It has been three days. Three days since the Asgard saved the day (much too
late, really, but she’s grateful for small mercies.) Three days since she
first ventured topside. Three days since she collapsed in Kawalsky’s waiting
arms.
Three days, six hours and twenty-five minutes since she last saw his face.
She’s taken three days to grieve.
And now life goes on.
**
Doctor Samantha Carter is not a weak woman. She has science and logic and
the laws of physics to guide her through life. Each new discovery, each
seemingly implausible fact she has been faced with during her time at the
SGA has not altered her beliefs. The foundations of all she knows have been
expanded, not destroyed. The ground is always steady beneath her feet.
But Colorado is crumbling, along with God knows how much of the planet, and
the earth beneath her is caving inwards.
It’s hard to stand strong when the world is falling.
**
General Hammond has not yet called back the teams from the Beta site.
Whether he is afraid of another Goa’uld attack, or whether he simply wants
to protect the few of his people that have survived from seeing this, she
doesn’t know.
The corridors are empty, painted with blood and ash.
She misses the gray.
**
Sometime during the night (she’s stopped keeping track of time; who needs to
worry about hours and minutes when the apocalypse is over?), she manages to
get the non-essential computer systems back online. They’ve only had real
power on level twenty-eight until now, and she is tired of sitting in the
control room.
It makes her feel she should be doing something.
It makes her feel he should be there, doing something.
She’s tired of sitting in the control room.
Her quarters (not their quarters, never theirs, not on base), are largely
unscathed. A staff blast mark on the door, but nothing else out of place.
From inside, it looks like nothing has happened.
Like the world hasn’t ended.
It looks like the room he (the other he, but it’s still hard to separate)
held her in four days ago.
She boots up the computer.
She’s not really sure what she’s looking for. Finds herself typing in his
name in the personnel search, and then canceling the search before the
picture loads. She’s not ready for that yet.
She tries a different search, one for civilians, and finds that Dr. Daniel
Jackson lives in Washington DC. She wonders if he’s still alive.
Wonders if this man that she’s never met, not really, would offer her the
comfort that he provides the other her with, whether he’d ease the pain with
a soft voice and a warm embrace.
She doubts he’s still alive.
**
The nightmare wakes her from her first sleep in four (five?) days. He’s
protecting the base, screaming orders as the smoke burns his eyes. But she’s
not shouting at him like before, not trying to cover him with the P-90 she
was given basic training in, and she’s not running to him as he hits the
ground.
Instead, she’s standing in the corner, helpless, watching.
Watching herself point the weapon. Watching herself fire it. Watching the
betrayal wash across his face.
Her eyes glow.
She wakes up, cold and sweaty and aching for the feeling of his arms, strong
around her, pulling her back to consciousness with butterfly kisses on the
back of her neck.
**
It’s only a few days later (feels like months) when the Beta teams start to
return. The once empty halls are again filled with personnel, going about
their duty with the same rigorous determination she feels.
There’s so much to do, so much to rebuild. Now that Washington’s gone, and
practically every political and military facility in the country along with
it, the SGA is playing White House and armed forces and red cross in one.
It’s a daunting task, but one she’s eager to face.
If they can fix the world, maybe she can start trying to fix herself.
**
Kawalsky’s at her side when they manage to get some level of communication
working. Nothing long range, but hopefully that will be the next step.
Colorado wasn’t hit from the sky, so there might still be survivors.
They had sent out a few teams to scout the local area, but unfortunately
Armageddon plays havoc with people’s psyches, and the search was called off
after two SFs were shot by a terrified civilian.
They’re not going out again until they have a way to tell people they’re
coming.
She’s online with NASA, working toward getting the satellites back in
action.
This is what she does. She’s good at it.
Focused, analytical, determined.
And if she happens to look up now and then, expecting him to walk into her
lab, teasing her about her latest “doohickey”… Well, that’s only natural.
**
Time passes with no meaning. There are things to be done, work to be
completed, but the individual minutes and hours these tasks take are
unimportant.
Before she knows it, the date on her watch clicks over, and it’s been a
whole month since her world ended. Just under a month since everyone else’s
followed.
The SGA has become a shelter to all surviving locals, people who gathered in
the streets awaiting the rescue she was able to broadcast was coming.
General Hammond said they couldn’t have done it without her, and whilst she
appreciates the compliment, the softness in his tone made her bristle.
He’d expected her to fall apart. They all had.
But Doctor Samantha Carter is not a weak woman.
Sitting at the edge of the camp that’s been set up above the mountain, she
looks down upon the broken city below. There’s movement in the streets,
these days, all able bodies working to rebuild, just as all survivors are
across the globe. It’s going to be a long road, but she’s proud of these
people, proud of their determination to survive.
She’s just not sure if she shares it.
The ring on her finger comes off easily (nothing like the end of the world
to help you lose weight), and she plays with the intricate band. Fidgeting
when she’s nervous; she knows she learned that from him.
The task ahead is mammoth, and she’ll be strong, but sometimes… sometimes
she can’t help thinking that those left behind are the unlucky ones. No time
to grieve, no time to mourn the loss of friends, family, homes, of the whole
Goddamn planet. No time for any of it.
So she’ll take these moments, to remember his face, remember the taste of
him. And she’ll try to separate her last kiss with him from the last kiss
with…him.
She’ll try not to be confused.
Because it’s science. And it makes sense. And her foundations are strong.
But it’s all about the paranormal, too.
So she’s allowed to imagine it’s him, beneath her, solidifying the ground.
She’s allowed that faith.
Because she only had three days to fall apart.
**
End
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