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TITLE: Free Free He never reaches for her as she leaves. He hears her drive away and turns over in the bed, burying his face in 'her' pillow. She will never know what it costs him to let her leave every night. He swore to himself he would never ask that of her, and he keeps that promise. It means forgoing the pleasure of sleeping beside her, but even if he's not strong enough to leave her alone, he's strong enough to let her go. One day, she won't come back to him. And he'll deal with that, then. In the meantime, he stores up the taste of her, the smell and touch and sound of her - hoarding the moments he has against the day he is declared bankrupt at the Bank of Sam Carter and evicted from her life. And it will come. Jack's no fool. It will come. He tries to understand her, tries to follow what she does. He tries not to startle her, to not scare her into running. He can see that she doesn't want this. But she gives him this much, whether out of duty or friendship, and he's too selfish to refuse it. He sleeps very little when she's with him. Mostly because he listens to her breathing until she slips from the bed and goes out from his room, free again. Free... Jack O'Neill will never be free. The closest he gets is when she drowses in the bed beside him after sex, after all is done and felt and she stretches out beside him as if she intends to stay. Then he lies there and feels as if he could leap buildings - as long as he had her by his side. He lies there and hopes that she will fall asleep beside him so he can run his hands over her in open, greedy possession. But she never does. He feigns sleep, and when she is satisfied that he won't wake, she leaves him. She leaves him. He wonders what she thinks about when she comes to him. He wonders what she gave up to give him this much. He wonders what he'll do when she no longer comes at night. He thinks of things he could do for her, but stifles the ideas as they come. She is free and he will not chain her. He thinks of things he could do with her, but never speaks of them to her. She is free and he will not chain her. He thinks of what she does by day - the people she talks to, who watch her life, who bask in her presence. And all he has is darkness and the emptiness of the bed beside him. She is free and he will not chain her. Someone else will listen to her rendition of her day. Someone else will sit beside her on the lounge watching the hockey replays. Someone else will wake up to her smile and her contentment in his arms. Not Jack. So he never reaches for her when she leaves. And he never will. * FINIS |
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