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Title:
Meeting Charlie (1/1)
Author:
Lisa Yaeger
E-mail:
lisayaeger@hotmail.com
Rating:
G
Category:
General
Pairings:
Sam/Jack
Content
Warnings: none
Summary:
Sam meets Charlie.
Season/sequel:
This happens in season 6 after Abyss
Spoilers:
Up to and including Abyss
Archive:
SJD & whoever wants to- I'd be flattered!
Disclaimer:
All publicly recognizable characters and places are the
property
of MGM, World Gekko Corp and Double Secret productions. This
piece
of fan fiction was created for entertainment not monetary
purposes
and no infringement on copyrights or trademarks was intended.
Previously
unrecognized characters and places, and this story, are
copyrighted
to the author. Any similarity to real persons, living or
dead,
is coincidental and not intended by the author.
Status:
Complete.
Feedback:
Welcomed!
Date:
24-11-2002
*****
This
was obviously not the first visit she had made. People were
generally
not that comfortable the first time they came, and she was
chatting
away with the ease of an old friend. It
had taken him months
of
visits, some completely silent, before he could open up the way he
was
watching her do now. He realized he was
half-spying, no make that
just
*spying* on her, but didn't he have a right to? After all, she
hadn't
even met Charlie when he was alive, and there she was,
effortlessly
laughing and joking with him as if she had known him
since
the day he was born.
For the
first time since he had been to the cemetery, he was grateful
that
some people found it necessary to have huge stone monuments
erected
in their memories. In this particular
instant, it afforded
him the
ability to hide behind something and eavesdrop.
"So,
you see, *blue* Jell-O is the best flavor, not red."
Even
though he couldn't see her face, he knew she was smiling. He
even
heard a giggle emerge from her after a minute; she was probably
replaying
their last red vs. blue debate in her head.
He couldn't
help
but smile a little, too. It was one of
those conversations they
could
have over and over again because no one was really right or
wrong. It just defined who they were- opposites in
their flavor
preference,
but both still diehard Jell-O fanatics.
He continued to
watch
as she straightened her back against the cold cement bench, drew
a deep
breath and began to speak again.
"It's
getting late, and I haven't told you why I came today. I know
it's
been awhile since I visited. Maybe
you've seen my mom since the
last
time I told you about her? I hope so- I
know she would just love
you..."
Carter
had talked to Charlie about her *mom*?
She never talked to
anyone
about her mom, not even him. The time
or two he had tried to
bring
it up, she just gave the briefest of replies and changed the
subject. So he had stopped trying, realizing that,
like him, she
probably
didn't want to talk about the people she had lost. Or maybe
she
just didn't want to tell *him* about it.
Instead, she would rather
tell
his dead son.
"I
really came to apologize. Again. I guess that's a habit with me
coming
here. I know that you must wonder where
your dad is when he
doesn't
come to visit you for over a week."
How did
she know he came every week that he was on earth? *No* one knew that.
"I
just wanted you to know that it was my fault he was gone so long
this
time. At least it wasn't as bad as the
first time I came here.
That
was the longest, right? That was the
first time we met, too, so
I guess
it wasn't all bad. At least for me
anyway."
He
watched as she huddled over a little, maybe because of the cold
November
wind blowing across the field. Her
voice grew quieter,
almost
pleading for forgiveness from the stone marker.
"You
see, I asked your dad to do me a favor.
A big favor. Something
that he
really didn't want to do. And it turned
out to be a big
mistake. He got hurt really badly. But he's okay now, and I just
thought
you should know that he couldn't tell you ahead of time that
he was
leaving. Or I know he would have warned
you that he wouldn't
be
stopping by for awhile."
She was
talking about Kanan, and Ba'al. She was
apologizing for
keeping
him away from Charlie. Something he
would never hold her
responsible
for. But something she felt responsible
for all the same,
apparently.
"I'm
just glad it didn't take me three months this time to figure out
how to
bring him back. That's because some of
the other people your
dad
works with came up with a great idea to bring him home."
She
wasn't even taking credit for helping.
He knew it was an effort
that
his whole team had shared. But that she
was blaming herself for
it
having happened at all?
Incredible. And why in the world
did she
keep
bringing up the time he was on Edora?
That was almost 3 years
ago,
and that he came home at all was only *because* of her. Yet she
made it
sound like he came back *in spite of* her.
Did she really walk
around
with this guilt all of the time? Or was
it just when she was
here,
with Charlie, that she felt free to admit what her mind wouldn't
let her
think aloud the rest of the time?
That's why he came after
all
these years- not just to feel closer to the spirit of his son- but
to say
out loud the things he could only think everywhere else.
"Well,
I guess I'd better be going now. I'm
sure I've taken up enough
of your
time, and maybe your dad will come by and visit later. Or
maybe
he's already been."
She
shook her head, and he wondered why they had never talked about
this
before. Why she had never told him that
she came here. Had
apparently
been coming for years. Although deep
down he knew why.
She
would feel like she didn't have a right to intrude on his personal
life,
and he wouldn't know how to tell her that it was okay - more
than okay
- that she was really the only person that could never make
it feel
like an intrusion. Like she had
belonged all along. And
that's
why he didn't interrupt her time with his son.
Because he
wanted
her to know him, and vice versa. That
they had never actually
met
seemed really trivial all of a sudden.
If there was one thing
Daniel's
ascension had made him see, it's that the line between life
and
death wasn't so clear. No one really
knew what happened after
this
life, if anything at all. Maybe Charlie
was right here, with
Sam's
mom, watching him watch her.
"So,
I guess I'll see you later. And I'll
try to come by sometimes
just to
say "hi" and not because I have to explain why your dad wasn't
here. I know you'd rather see him than me, but
maybe it helps us both
a
little when he's gone. At least I know
it helps me."
And
with that she turned and walked toward the marker, clearing around
it a
little with her gloved hand. Wiping
away the dirt around the
letters,
and then wiping off her glove. Then he
saw her do the most
remarkable
thing he thought he could ever see her do- she touched the
fingertips
of her right glove to her mouth and formed a kiss with her
lips. She then brought the tips of her fingers to
the cold stone and
whispered
"goodbye" in the softest voice he had ever heard her use.
In
fact, had the wind not stopped blowing, he would have missed it
entirely. He wasn't sure, but he thought he saw a tear
in her eye as
she got
up to leave. He quickly huddled back against
the enormous
monument,
trying to make himself invisible as she walked by.
She
walked past him seemingly without even noticing him, but just a
few
paces beyond where he remained crouched, she stopped. Her back to
him,
her feet and hands still. Only the
slight movement of her
shoulders
indicating she was breathing at all.
She just stood there,
as if
deciding whether or not to turn around, and then one foot began
moving
in front of the other again, and the choice was made. He never
knew whether
or not she saw him, or perhaps sensed his presence, or
why she
even stopped at all. He only knew that
his son had met the
woman
he loved. And for reasons that defied logic and reason, nothing
she
could ever have done would mean more than that she had come to
meet
Charlie.
*****
