Teal’c stared at her with what looked like mild curiosity, though for Teal’c that was basically like him having a neon question mark floating over his head. “I’m not upset with him.” Upset with herself, but not with him. They were all waiting outside the infirmary it wasn’t quite standard regulations, but after a hundred days, they all wanted to make sure the Colonel was okay. They had gone through the standard tests, but he had to go through extra medical debriefs because it had been so long. “Why are you upset with Colonel O’Neill, Major Carter?”Ĭarter looked over at Teal’c, who was standing across from her as they waited for Colonel O’Neil to finish his medical exam. Regardless, it was pretty clear that he had gotten attached to Edora-to Laira-and now he didn’t want to come back. Maybe closer to ninety-eight percent sure a hundred percent was too sure, and as a scientist, she didn’t like absolutes. He wanted to stay on P5C-768, and she was a hundred percent sure the only reason he was coming back with them was that he was a good soldier, no matter how much he liked to pretend otherwise. Go home-coming home implied somehow coming with her, which obviously wasn’t the case-but the point was the same. It had taken her too long to engineer Sokar’s damn device, and now Colonel O’Neil didn’t want to come home. This, though, was almost definitely her fault. But her main character flaw, she knew, was that she tended to think things were her fault-though, to be fair, they usually were. A symptom of spending too much time with Colonel O’Neill, probably. For all the time that’s passed, nothing has changed.Carter knew that she had a number of character flaws, chief being, possibly, that she had taken to thinking of herself as Carter. There still are some lines cannot be crossed, no matter how many days have passed, no matter how much she needs to prove to herself he’s really home at long, long last. He doesn’t ask her to come inside, though he stands with his hand on the door for a long time before telling her goodnight. She doesn’t ask about Laira, however close they may have seemed when they were finally able to return to Edora. She wrote the initial calculations on the back of an envelope at his kitchen table and spent the night curled up in his bed, trying to catch his fading scent. Sam went in months ago and threw out everything that was in the fridge, then went through all the cabinets and threw out half of it as well, cleaning for hours until the breakthrough about the particle accelerator came. Daniel’s picked up the mail twice a week and made sure all the bills were paid. Cassie’s shoveled the walk more times than she can remember. Sam turns down his block, stopping in front of the house they’ve all taken turns checking in on. “I missed you too, Carter,” the Colonel says softly, reaching across the divide and putting his hand on her shoulder for just a moment. She loves them and is making us all read them too, just so you know-“ Daniel, Teal’c, and I pitched in to get her the first three books of this series that’s become really popular at her school and told her they were from you. She understands I think, even if she doesn’t like it. The fireworks were kind of amazing, though. The world didn’t end, obviously, but I still had to help the system administrator update every computer on base. “I lost almost two weeks on your rescue dealing with Y2K. “You also missed New Years,” she says, because now that she’s started Sam can’t stop talking, because the alternative is silence and it’s been fifty-five days since she’s heard his voice. It’s too harsh, too bright, and Sam would give anything for night to fall in truth so it can just be her and the road, everything else disappearing into the darkness. Half the drivers aren’t bothering with headlights, half have flicked on their brights, and every storefront is lit up in neon and fluorescent. The city is in that strange hour between day and night, when the sun has dipped below the horizon but it’s not yet dark enough for the streetlights to flicker on. Fifty-five days missing in action or not, he’s still her commanding officer. If she doesn’t remind him of all that he missed, Sam will be forced to admit how much she missed him, and that won’t do at all. “You missed Christmas,” she says, because what else is she supposed to say? The Colonel’s been gone half-a-hundred days and she’s spent every waking moment since trying to get him back. 12 February 2000 – Colorado Springs, Earth, Milky Way
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