DISCLAIMER: The story, and characters and anything and everything else concerning SG: SG1 belong to MGM, Gekko, Secret Productions etc, they are so not mine and no money is being made from this and no copyright infringement is intended.
MUSIC: Your Picture in a Frame by Tom Waits from the
Album "Mule Variations".
ARCHIVING: Only with the permission of the author.
SPOILERS: Set after Moebius, season 8.
Strong
By Celievamp
I wake, blindly reaching for you only for my fingers to close on cold, empty air. My breath sobs in my throat but I will not cry. Not any more.
I have to be strong.
I have to be strong for Cassie, for the guys, for the General, for the SGC. Any sign of weakness will just be grist to their mill and they will shut us down.
And you would not have wanted that. Your dedication for our work was as great as mine. You cared for each and every one of us. You even had time to care for those we fought against when they needed your skills. You had oaths greater than loyalty to answer to.
The nightlight shines on your face. I haven't been afraid of the dark since I was two, but now at nearly forty I need a nightlight. It's a weakness I know but one I have to indulge for now. In the dark I see things, there's nothing for my mind to cling to. I remember.
I have to be strong.
I have to remember who and what I am, what my father taught me. Carter's don't cry.
A picture of you on the table by the bed. Positioned so that it is the last thing I see before I go to sleep, the first thing I see when I open my eyes. As it has been every night since it happened. Since P3X-666.
I have to be strong. Or I will break, shatter into a million splinters of pain and fear and anger and loss and grief each splinter needle sharp and poisoned and burning and they will never find them all and never put me back together and I will be lost. And you will be lost. Because there will be no one to remember who we really were and what we really had. And the thought of that is worse than anything.
I get up, dress, put on Colonel Samantha Carter, the mask of efficiency and purpose I have hidden behind all these months. I have to be strong.
We're going to attempt to travel back in time five thousand years today, to retrieve a ZPM from Ra's palace before the rebellion that drove him from Earth. It sounds so matter of fact when put like that. The possible repercussions are beyond terrifying… but maybe, just maybe. We have to try, we have to succeed. Then perhaps I won't need to be strong anymore.
Your picture. I take one last look before I go. Your dark eyes stare up at me with such love, such confidence. You make me strong.
I wake, blindly reaching for you and you are awake in a moment, holding me, soothing me. My breath sobs in my throat but I will not cry. The memory of bitter tears, of loss assails me. I cling to you in confusion, a dream memory of you lost and gone forever of being alone, the shell I had to build just to get through the day. The deep dark sadness that was a life without you.
Only a dream you whisper. A bad dream, nothing more. Go back to sleep, Sam. I'm safe. You're safe. Go back to sleep. I'm here.
With you I don't have to be the strong one. The dream of that awful empty existence fades and is gone. Your lips are so soft against my brow, my cheek and finally my lips. Over your shoulder I can see a framed picture of you on the table by the bed. I don't remember it being there before but it seems right that it is. You watch over me even when you're not there.
You hold me, your head pillowed on my breast. I let myself fall back into sleep, sure that the dream, whatever it was, will not come back.
TOM WAITS
Picture In A Frame (Mule Variations)
Sun come up it was blue and gold
Sun come up it was blue and gold
Sun come up it was blue and gold
Ever since I put your picture
In a frame.
I come calling in my Sunday best
I come calling in my Sunday best
I come calling in my Sunday best
Every since I put your picture
In a frame
I'm gonna love you
Till the wheels come off
Oh yea
I love you baby and I always will
I love you baby and I always will
I love you baby and I always will
Ever since I put your picture
In a frame
The End