Night Time Reflection
Night Time Reflection
by Liz Hooper
TITLE: Night Time Reflection
AUTHOR: Liz Hooper
EMAIL: liz_hooper85@hotmail.com
CATEGORY: Epilogue, Sam and Jack.
SPOILERS: A Hundred Days
SEASON / SEQUEL: Season 3
RATING: PG
CONTENT WARNINGS: Mild language.
SUMMARY: After Edora, how is Sam coping?
STATUS: Complete
ARCHIVE: Heliopolis
DISCLAIMER: Stargate SG-1 and its characters are the property of Showtime/Viacom, MGM/UA, Double Secret Productions, and Gekko Productions. The author has written this story for entertainment purposes only and no money whatsoever has exchanged hands. No copyright infringement is intended. Not to be archived without permission of the author.
AUTHOR'S NOTES: This is my first Stargate fan fiction, so I would appreciate feedback on what your thoughts are. The story idea came to me while thinking about the scene in 'A Hundred Days' when Jack walks away from Sam and then invites Lara to come back to Earth with him. Yep, we all know the one! When Sam turns away, unable to watch, I couldn't help but think that there was a lot going on in her mind, which was left to the imaginations of the viewer to expand on. So, for fun and out of curiosity I wrote this:
It's late. I don't know how late exactly, I gave up looking at the clock on the bedside table after about the millionth time. Somehow knowing what time it is and how long there is left until morning seems to wake me up even more. I thought sleep would come easily. I was wrong. My mind is racing.
I give up on the half-sleep limbo I seem to have put myself in by opening my eyes. I have never really taken the time to notice how dull and identical all the rooms at Cheyenne Mountain are. My quarters are no exception. I rarely use this room, with either being off world or in my lab, I don't have the time or need to personalise it. I mean that's what my apartment off base is for, my own space and my own sanctuary from everything that goes on in the galaxy. I haven't seen that apartment in over three months and I was looking forward to going back there tonight, but if truth were told I don't trust myself driving, I have exhausted myself out. Although right now I have nothing to work on. No Particle Accelerator that needs to define the impossible and be built. No CO to return home from the other side of the galaxy. But, I have tired myself out so much that I don't think my body can even fall asleep again. I have become so use to not sleeping.
My lab and that damn accelerator have been the sole reason for my existence these past months. I don't know how I managed it, but my lab became my home, my workplace and more importantly the key to getting him home. If that meant that I spent every minute of every day in that lab to finding that key then I would. I did.
"Urrrhhh!!!" I call out in frustration as I sit up straight in bed.
'Why can't I just forget these last months. Never mind the fact that I caused a breakthrough in physics, I don't give a damn about that. Why can't it just go back to the way things were? Before Edora and before her,... Lara.' I silently ask myself.
Throwing back the blanket, I swing my legs over the side of the bed. Maybe a walk in the middle of the night will help me clear my head.
Dressed in sweat pants and a tank top, I wander aimlessly around the lower levels of the mountain, taking care to avoid my lab, I really have had enough of that place. I swear if I never see another Particle Accelerator again, it will be too soon.
It's extremely early in the morning and as expected the base is deserted. Apart from the teams off world, everyone is tucked up safely in their beds.
Sleep has almost become a foreign concept to me. I always saw sleep as a chance to escape from the dilemmas and hectic world that is my life, if only to unconsciously dream for a few hours. That's what I want right now, to be able to put the developments of the past day behind me and allow myself some inner peace. But, the thing with sleep is that you can never forget your dilemmas, you just put them on hold. But, right now my body isn't even allowing me a temporary reprieve.
Moving to the end of the corridor, I stop in front of the sealed door at the end. Swiping my clearance card through the slot on the wall, I watch as the door slides to reveal the object at the centre of my life at this point. The Stargate. At the beginning, when I was first brought in on the team to try and make the Gate work, I was astounded at the sheer concept of this one object. The scientist in me wanted to know everything about it, what precisely it did and how exactly something like this could work. When Daniel finally unlocked the Gates' secrets I was even more astounded by its unique ingenuity. Walking up the ramp, to the Gate itself, I find my hand instinctively reaching out and touching one of the chevrons, running my hand down the full length of it. Somewhere amongst all the scientific explanations, experiments and missions I realised that I begun to take this complex piece of alien technology for granted. That at some point it became perfectly normal to go to and explore other planets, and I find myself being scare at this revelation. I was always such a scientist when it came to the Stargate, that I didn't stop and see how really amazing and beautiful this two-storey device really is. From the details of each and every chevron right down to the zigzag pattern on the outskirts. Lately I seem so aware of some things, yet so blind to others.
Shaking myself away from where my thoughts were heading, I walk down the ramp and out of the room, but not before I take one look back at my past, present and future.
I find myself drawn to the mess hall, as my stomach decides it has had enough of my three month fast. My mind agrees with it thinking that a 'midnight', or 'two hundred hours', 'four hundred'...or whatever the damn time is 'feast' will be sensible.
Like the rest of the base, the mess hall is deserted.
After a lot of rummaging through cupboards I find some relatively fresh bread and go about making myself a sandwich with whatever I can find to fill it ... cheese, lettuce, tomato, the usual suspects. I stare at my work of art when it's complete and can't help thinking 'A meal fit for a King', but right now my stomach is telling me that it is 'A meal fit for a Major in the USAF'. With that I take a bite, and for the first time in months I find myself enjoying eating, it is no longer a waste of time that can be better spent in my lab surrounded by materials and computer readouts.
I place the remainder of my sandwich on its plate and take it over to the nearest table where I sit and am unable to stop my mind wandering again.
OK, Maybe I'm missing the bigger picture here. Why can't I sleep? Is it because I have just fallen into a habit of working 24/7, which didn't leave any time for sleeping? I guess it's possible. My body could have been getting used to the lack of sleep and food that I was giving it and just adapted accordingly. Although I was beginning to realise why Janet was keeping such a close eye on me, I have lost weight and had begun to have moments of dizziness. The former couldn't be hidden from her, but if she had found out about the latter I would have been taken off the project, perhaps entirely. That would have been great then, can you just imagine? I work with incredible scientists, but this was a complex problem that needed to be solved ASAP. A lot of this stuff is trial and error, mostly error, and they would have approached the project with less determination believing that it was 'just another problem', thus taking longer to be solved. If that had happened, the Colonel would have had to rely upon the Tollen to swing by and give him a ride home. That would have taken a year, just after three months he had given up on us and made Edora his home. He practically had to tear himself away from his new family; in a year he might not have even returned to Earth at all, he would have probably stayed with her. But it hadn't taken a year, it had taken three months and he was home.
He was home.
But something has changed; something is different.
"Sam"
I mean he looks different, a little thinner maybe, longer hair...
"Sam"
It could be his personality. I mean he hasn't said one joke or sarcastic remark since his return, or maybe it's because...
"SAM!!"
What the hell, I turn round to see a very worried Doc. "Janet. What can I do for you?"
"Sam, are you trying to give me a heart attack, I thought you had completely blissed-off into oblivion there."
I give her one of my most apologetic smiles. "Sorry. I was just thinking."
"About what? It's the middle of the night, I thought I ordered you to go and get some sleep?"
"Yeah, well! Janet you can order me until you're blue in the face but it's no good if I can't get myself to fall asleep. Trust me I've tried everything but my mind is in overdrive and I can't shut it down. Besides, what are you doing up at this hour?"
"Captain Phillips came down with a bad case of the flu, so I had to get up and… wait a minute, don't change the subject!" She can't help frowning as I let out an 'I've been busted' giggle. "Where were we, 'mind in overdrive', well that's probably right, you haven't switched you mind off for ages. It probably doesn't know how to the react to the opportunity you're now giving it."
"Probably." I agree. She begins to eye my sandwich. "You want some?"
"Ah, no thanks. How can you eat that stuff? Wait, don't answer that, I'm just glad you got your appetite back, even if it is at strange hours!" She smiles at me and I just mockingly glare back at her. "Look, I can prescribe you something to help you sleep if you want?"
I can see the look in her eye that wants me to say yes, which is almost pleading me to say yes. But instead I find myself saying, "Thanks but no thanks, I have never really been a fan of sleeping pills, besides I like to be completely in control of my faculties."
"Sam, from where I'm standing it doesn't look like you're in control. You're exhausted, you NEED sleep!"
"I can cope. Besides what if you pump me full of those pills and the Goa'uld decide to invade the SGC and everyone is incapacitated except for me, who it turns out can't do a damn thing for Earth as she's snoring her head off!"
"Oh! Very funny."
"I was being series." I reply with a straight face.
"You're getting as bad as Colonel O'Ne..."
My head shoots up and I look at her. She realised that she had hit a sore issue the moment the words came out. She just stares at me.
"Look Sam, have you spoken to him yet?"
"No, he took off home shortly after he got back. SG-1 is on stand down for the next couple of weeks for him to settle back in. Probably won't see him until then." She continues to look at me, willing me to talk more. "Besides there is nothing to discuss, the Colonel isn't interested in all the science stuff behind the accelerator."
"That's not what I meant."
"I know. But really, every thing is fine and slowly getting back to normal. Janet, Colonel O'Neill and I are friends and we always will be." With this said I let out a big yawn that I have been holding for, oh say, three months, and Janet smiles.
"I think that is your cue to going back to bed Sam and getting some sleep." 'Hint, hint!' I can't help thinking.
"You know what, I think I might actually be able to grab a few winks before I start working on my Naqahdah Reactor again tomorrow..."
"Oh, no you don't Missy! You're on downtime, which means no working. Tomorrow you are going to go back to that so-called apartment of yours and after you've managed to get through the door from all the letters and junk mail blocking it, you MAJOR are going to plonk yourself down on the couch and watch TV, or read a book, pay the bills... ANYTHING that doesn't involve the Stargate, reactors or accelerators. You my friend are going to use these next two weeks to get yourself back to normal. I can make it a Doctor's order if necessary..."
"OK, OK, I get the idea. I'm going, geez!"
"Good, and I don't want to see you back on base until those two weeks are up, you hear me?"
"Well you know, if General Hammond orders me back I can't really refuse..."
"Yep, but that's not going to happen is it."
"But you can't be sure." I tease.
"Yes I can. Would you just get going and take some time for yourself for a change!"
I nod my head and smile. I have been defeated. "Fine, I'll see ya in two weeks."
After downing the last piece of sandwich I stand and walk towards the door.
"Bye, Sam."
I turn slightly, giving her a smile and a wave before stepping back out into the corridor.
She's a good friend and I have to admit that the idea of spending some time for myself sounds very appealing. As I begin to plan out the next two weeks I realise that somewhere in the middle of my conversation with Janet I became tired. Very tired. Right now I feel that all I want to do while on downtime is sleep and get myself back on track.
Maybe, one day, he will find out what I did for him to come home, what I sacrificed, and what he means to me. But, right now, I am more concerned about getting back to my quarters before falling asleep in the hallway.
The End.
If you enjoyed this story, please send feedback to Liz Hooper
Heliopolis Main Archive
A Stargate: SG-1 Fanfiction Site
Night Time Reflection
by Liz HooperSite Navigation
Support Heliopolis