by Whyagain
She knows the steps by heart. She counts them, feels them pulse in her fingers. She knows the rise and fall of the ground almost instinctually. She only feels primal in the mornings.
The entrance bustles.
The SF doesn't leer at her as she hands him her ID. Others stand to the side as she travels down the corridor, never looking at her. She doesn't have to feel pretty. It's easy going.
The elevator creaks and moans, plummeting towards the center of the earth. She just happens to work there. She used to like to think of herself as working with gravity, holding things together. But now she feels like she's falling.
She's never fallen.
A man grabs her shoulder. She doesn't lay him out; she knows the fingers. He smells like weak coffee and stale books as he rambles. She can't make out the words, but she's sure--whatever it is--it's been waiting thousands of years to be rediscovered and could wait another ten minutes.
"Daniel," she sighs.
"Right, no touching. Got it." He removes the obtrusive hand looking typically unabashed. "Well, good morning and I'll let you have your coffee."
She's had about all the coffee she can handle. She's one cup away from never sleeping again. She doesn't need coffee and she doesn't need gravity.
The lab air smells stagnant. Everything in her life is stagnant, but no one seems to notice. She drops her bag on the desk. Nothing goes flying and she considers that a good start to the day.
"Major Carter."
The winking lights and sounds of clinking metal must have given her away. She should have known better than to try to hide in here.
"What's up, Teal'c?" She doesn't feel like talking.
"Daniel Jackson has informed me of his need to speak with you as soon as possible." He looks amused, but it's hard to say.
"Yeah, I talked to him already this morning. Thanks, though." She smiles and she can't be sure it's not a lie, but he nods and walks away.
She breaks a torch and losses five screws. There is an infinite supply of screws, but it's the principle of the thing.
Lunch looks undercooked and burnt all at the same time. She cleans her tray and heads to the gym. She beats a dummy painted with a thousand different faces, all imagined. She sweats and doesn't cry in the shower.
Janet told her to suck it up.
She's sucking it up; she doesn't need to be at work. Something tells her it's the right thing to do. She does the right fucking thing all the time and that's the problem.
She fears she's not terribly useful at the meeting. They're talking about gravity. They're talking about that time they almost died and what they could learn from it. Those scientist don't know the first thing about death, and they all know it's the truth. They don't seem to mind being safely packed in reinforced concrete walls every day. If they don't mind, how can she? she wonders.
But she fears she's falling.
She can't place what's different when she returns to her lab. But that's the thing. Nothing's ever different. The status quo is all she knows.
"Carter."
She feels her pulse jump. She's made this the best part. In the darkness, she can almost imagine his mouth on hers, his hands touching her. She needs to be touched.
She flips on the light, surprised he didn't do so already.
"Sir."
"Whatcha doin'?"
She hates his obvious discomfort and praises its convenience.
"Nothing, sir. Just . . . tinkering."
"You make those lab boys upstairs wanna kiss your . . . feet again?"
"No, sir." She doesn't feel like smiling, although she knows she should. He's trying to be light, after all. "I didn't actually say much."
"You know, they're a lot calmer when they don't think they're in the presence of a god."
"They're all just as smart as I am, sir, or else they wouldn't be here." They were smarter, in fact. They didn't seem to be falling. No one else did.
He's quiet, but not still--never still.
She doesn't scold him for touching her project. She doesn't chide him for his silence. She doesn't even think of it.
"You know, you don't have to be here on your day off."
"Neither do you, sir."
He shrugs, but doesn't answer. She knows that's not what he's here to talk about. He's here to ask her something. She already knows her answer.
"So, uh, Carter."
He seems to think that's a sentence. She doesn't want to prod him, but she knows her role. The script seems the same every time and it's never very difficult to memorize.
"Sir?"
"You've been rather . . . distant lately. You wanna talk about it?"
He looks almost frightened, like a doe or a rabbit or some other ridiculously effeminate animal. She doesn't laugh, although their situation is comical in a classical kind of fucked up sense. Nothing about this is funny, however, archetypal or otherwise.
"Not really, sir." Her distance really isn't up for debate.
"May I ask what it's about?"
"Just tired, sir." She tries her best to sound earnest, and it's not completely a lie. She is tired. She's tired of a lot of things.
"Right." His eyes dart around the room, almost screaming for escape. She knows she should be hurt by his unease, but she can't help being touched by his rough attempt at nobility. She never expected anything less.
"Anything else, sir?"
"No, Carter."
She knows he's displeased, can tell by the way he's not looking at her, but she can't tell him she's falling. How could she even begin?
"Glad we had this talk, sir."
"Sure, Carter. Anytime."
She watches his form saunter down the hall feeling a twinge somewhere in the region of her chest. She should have known better than to show it. She should have known better than to feel it.
But falling is so strange.
Janet told her to suck it up. Janet told her every day, her eyes darting from her to him and back. She knew. Somehow, she knew. Janet knew before she even knew herself. Janet told her to let it lie.
If there is one thing she is good at, it's lying.
She decides it's time to go home.
She gets into the elevator and feels heavy. Even as she rises, she's falling. She tries to fight it, but she finds herself heaped on the metallic floor, the elevator halted somewhere between her beginning and her end.
It's really getting ridiculous now.
Her limbs won't move. Her eyes blink. She stops breathing.
She realizes what falling is all about.
The phone rings and she hopes it's god.
The SF asks her if she's all right and she's not sure how to answer.
"Hm?" She realizes he's been calling "Sir?" into the receiver for the better part of thirty seconds. She hates being "sir."
"I asked if the elevator was broken and if you needed assistance, sir."
His voice is small and she wonders how old he is. Is he old enough to know falling? Is he wise enough to understand? She decides not to tell him.
"No. No, everything's fine," she answers distractedly.
"Yes, sir. If you're sure."
She doesn't reply. She ascends.
She doesn't remember driving home. She doesn't remember unlocking the door or dropping her keys into the porcelain dish. All she remembers is falling.
It's like falling, this feeling.
She throws herself onto her bed without any semblance of routine. She honestly can't remember what any of it's about anymore.
It's all his fault she's falling. It's all his fault and she blames him every bit. It isn't like her. This isn't a bit like her.
And she wonders who this new woman is, this woman who would fall. She wonders how she arrived here with such a cliche. Maybe it was just gravity. Maybe she shouldn't fight with gravity.
It's all so odd because she usually avoids such confounding metaphors. She believes in speaking words--in frank expression. She also believes in no expression at all.
But now she's falling.
And she figures that changes her. It changes her even if it doesn't change anything else. She fears it will.
She fears falling will damn her. She fears falling won't save her. And her paradoxical nature compels her to fear everything all at once.
She never used to fear, but falling is like this.
And maybe that's all right.
Maybe it's enough to know and maybe it's enough to fall alone. It has to be enough.
And she still hates falling and she still hates gravity, but now she understands why. And the why was killing her.
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whyagain
january 2007
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"And we can't fight gravity on a planet that insists that love is like falling and falling is like this." Falling Is Like This, Ani Difranco