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More String Theory: An AU Series
Dr. Samantha Carter joins the SGC and discovers a life she never expected.
Action/Adventure, Drama, Angst, Romance, S/J
Teen: language and violence
Ficlet 33: Soldier’s Daughter
There’s a restlessness to Sam that Jacob has never seen before. Sure, their town is little more than a sleepy fishing village where life moves at a slower pace, but there is more than boredom plaguing Sam. She’s wound so tight it’s almost familiar.
He doesn’t ask.
Four days after she appears back in their life as if from nowhere, he grabs his keys and announces he’s heading out for his weekly visit with his buddies from the local base. He’s not going to put his entire existence on hold just because Sam decided to let them into her life for once.
Sam is sliding into the passenger seat before Jacob even has the key in the ignition.
“I’m going to the range before lunch,” he informs her, expecting her to jump back out.
Instead she surprises him again, looking relieved rather than repulsed. “That’s fine,” she says, hands spread flat on the dash as she stares straight ahead. “That’s fine.”
Her bruises are tingeing towards yellow around the edges now Jacob notices before shrugging and starting the engine.
She’s quiet on the ride out and he’s relieved. He seems to remember her being good at small talk. But maybe that had just been during the Jeff years. In many ways this new woman is a stranger. He stretches his mind back, trying to remember her before, as a child, but there’s not much there other than the fleeting feel of her arms, far too small, stretching around to grasp his neck.
He’s not going to apologize for that lack. Not even to himself.
By the time he pulls into the parking lot Sam is nearly buzzing with suppressed energy, her fingers twitching against the windowsill.
She hobbles inside, matching Jacob’s long, even strides with small hiccupping steps. Then she’s holding a weapon, only there is none of the revulsion or disinterest he has grown to expect from her. It should be satisfying to see such obvious competence from her when he spent so much time pushing this on her in her youth. It’s only when the weapon is in her hand, the tension visibly leaking from her body that Jacob finally realizes teaching her to shoot a gun had never been about the activity itself. It had been about sharing something with his child. Something of himself.
He watches her fire with skill and confidence, but then she’s burned through an entire clip and keeps pulling, almost desperately, the trigger clicking sickly after the ammo is gone.
Jacob reaches out for her arm and she starts violently, the gun dropping tip down in front of her.
Her face is ashen now under the colors.
“God, Dad,” she says lowly, “I’m so sorry. I didn’t know...”
He’s not sure what she’s talking about, but it’s only then, holding his shivering child in his arms, that he realizes he never wanted her to know any of this in the first place. This is the part of his life she was never meant to share.
They don’t return to the range again.
Jacob is there though, back pressed against the hard wood of her bedroom door the next time she wakes screaming, calling for people and things he doesn’t understand.
He doesn’t go inside, but he listens and tries not to call up George Hammond and demand to know what the hell he’s done to his little girl. He sits until Elizabeth is there, reaching down, her fingers cool on his face.
This part of his life was never meant to be Sam’s.
next
Dr. Samantha Carter joins the SGC and discovers a life she never expected.
Action/Adventure, Drama, Angst, Romance, S/J
Teen: language and violence
Ficlet 33: Soldier’s Daughter
There’s a restlessness to Sam that Jacob has never seen before. Sure, their town is little more than a sleepy fishing village where life moves at a slower pace, but there is more than boredom plaguing Sam. She’s wound so tight it’s almost familiar.
He doesn’t ask.
Four days after she appears back in their life as if from nowhere, he grabs his keys and announces he’s heading out for his weekly visit with his buddies from the local base. He’s not going to put his entire existence on hold just because Sam decided to let them into her life for once.
Sam is sliding into the passenger seat before Jacob even has the key in the ignition.
“I’m going to the range before lunch,” he informs her, expecting her to jump back out.
Instead she surprises him again, looking relieved rather than repulsed. “That’s fine,” she says, hands spread flat on the dash as she stares straight ahead. “That’s fine.”
Her bruises are tingeing towards yellow around the edges now Jacob notices before shrugging and starting the engine.
She’s quiet on the ride out and he’s relieved. He seems to remember her being good at small talk. But maybe that had just been during the Jeff years. In many ways this new woman is a stranger. He stretches his mind back, trying to remember her before, as a child, but there’s not much there other than the fleeting feel of her arms, far too small, stretching around to grasp his neck.
He’s not going to apologize for that lack. Not even to himself.
By the time he pulls into the parking lot Sam is nearly buzzing with suppressed energy, her fingers twitching against the windowsill.
She hobbles inside, matching Jacob’s long, even strides with small hiccupping steps. Then she’s holding a weapon, only there is none of the revulsion or disinterest he has grown to expect from her. It should be satisfying to see such obvious competence from her when he spent so much time pushing this on her in her youth. It’s only when the weapon is in her hand, the tension visibly leaking from her body that Jacob finally realizes teaching her to shoot a gun had never been about the activity itself. It had been about sharing something with his child. Something of himself.
He watches her fire with skill and confidence, but then she’s burned through an entire clip and keeps pulling, almost desperately, the trigger clicking sickly after the ammo is gone.
Jacob reaches out for her arm and she starts violently, the gun dropping tip down in front of her.
Her face is ashen now under the colors.
“God, Dad,” she says lowly, “I’m so sorry. I didn’t know...”
He’s not sure what she’s talking about, but it’s only then, holding his shivering child in his arms, that he realizes he never wanted her to know any of this in the first place. This is the part of his life she was never meant to share.
They don’t return to the range again.
Jacob is there though, back pressed against the hard wood of her bedroom door the next time she wakes screaming, calling for people and things he doesn’t understand.
He doesn’t go inside, but he listens and tries not to call up George Hammond and demand to know what the hell he’s done to his little girl. He sits until Elizabeth is there, reaching down, her fingers cool on his face.
This part of his life was never meant to be Sam’s.
next