Christmas home three years running is nothing short of a miracle, but Cam's done with his tour overseas; this is his year for doing his masters' at Air U, and that means he's free from just before Christmas to just after New Year's. Being home again is wonderful, same as it always is, but he doesn't have to try to soak up as much family-time as he can before heading back out, because they're careful to give students at least a weekend pass once a month or so and Alabama to North Carolina is easy enough that he's been back and forth a couple of times.

It's why he doesn't regret it in the least when Christmas morning rolls around and Momma tells him, as they're starting up breakfast and listening to the kids thundering down the stairs to see what Santa brought, that he should call the airline and book his tickets for tomorrow, 'cause something's funny and she'd like to know that her girl isn't in any trouble she can't get out of.

He knows exactly what she means. He hasn't had a chance to talk to Sam in anything more than passing -- he's up to his ass in alligators with his coursework, and whatever Sam's doing out there, it doesn't leave her much time to do anything normal like answering the telephone -- but her flight was supposed to have landed last night and, well, it did, and she wasn't on it. Isn't answering her phone. Didn't leave any messages, either at the house or (Cam checked) for him back on base at Maxwell.

Wouldn't be the first time something came up last minute, but she should have at least called.

And maybe he can do something to help and maybe he can't, but he buys the tickets anyway, and he and Momma and Daddy don't say a word to each other about why he's going, but he flies himself into Colorado Springs and rents a car and drives himself on over to her place. Looks just like it did when he last saw it. No signs of disaster, thank the Lord; not even any signs of a hasty departure, not even any mail in the mailbox. He purses his lips, thoughtfully, and eyeballs the house. He's pretty sure he could figure out where she keeps her spare key, if she keeps one outside, but he doesn't go looking; he can see the signs of an alarm system, and he wouldn't want to try to guess her code.

Instead, he settles down on her front stoop. More than a little cold out here, but she shoveled her walkway after the last snow -- or had it shoveled for her, by whoever's taking care of bringing in the mail and checking on the house, and he's not sure why he's so convinced that someone is, but he is. It's as good a place as any to start figuring out what's wrong; he knows her neighbors won't have a clue, because he knows she doesn't even know their names. So he pulls on his gloves and huddles himself into his heavy coat -- thank goodness he remembered it was gonna be colder than the ass end of nowhere out here -- and settles in. Something tells him he won't have to wait too long.

Sure enough, he sees the first unmarked dark car, driven by serious-looking young men, make the first cruise within the hour, just when he's starting to wonder if he's ever gonna be able to feel his ass-cheeks again. They don't noticeably slow, but Cam knows he's being watched anyway. He checks his watch and starts counting.

Half an hour later, they're pulling over in front of Sam's house; they both get out of the car, but one of them stays at the curb as the other one comes up the walkway. They're both in civvies, but they've got "junior officer" written across their faces plain as daylight, both of them. Cam wonders if this is a regularly-scheduled stop, or if they have the house under some kind of surveillance. If they don't, it means he had nice timing. If they do, it says something about what Sam's up to, and he's not sure he likes it.

"Mornin'," Cam calls, free and easy, squinting down over the tops of his sunglasses. (It's always easier if they can see your eyes.) He holds up his hands, slowly, and waits until he can see the moment when the kid registers the movement and actively decides he's not a threat. "I'm Major Cam Mitchell, I'm an old friend of Major Carter's. Lemme just reach you my ID, nice and slow."

It confuses the kid, he can tell, but, well, he'll take being confusing over being shot any day. If whatever Sam's fallen into is as big as it looks, they probably don't worry too much about jurisdiction, especially if it involves something they see as a threat. He hopes he isn't making one king hell of a mistake here, but he couldn't have lived with himself if he hadn't done something.

The kid's spine grows an extra inch or two when he hands over his ID. "Thanks, sir," he says. "We saw you before, and wanted to make sure everything was all right. I'm Lieutenant Anderson. Major Carter didn't mention that she was expecting company."

Cam breathes out in a relieved whoosh. If Sam could have mentioned that she was expecting company, it means that whatever's gone wrong isn't bad enough to be un-fixable. "Well, that'd be because she didn't know she was expecting company," he says. "She missed Christmas without calling, and I couldn't get a hold of her. I figured I'd come on out here and see how bad she was hurt, and whether she needed any help or not."

Anderson winces just a hair; it's so quick as to be there-and-gone, but it's visible. "Not badly," the kid says, and Cam likes him for the quick reassurance. "Look, let me just make a quick phone call, I'll see what I can do."

"Fair 'nuf," Cam agrees, finally judging it's all right to stand. Anderson must make some kind of subtle signal, because the partner at the curb comes up the walk as Anderson heads on back down to the car (and the car-phone). Cam holds out his hand to shake; the partner introduces himself as Lt. Widener, and they shoot the breeze for a couple of minutes talking about absolutely nothing that'll give anything away. Cam can't get anything out of the kid, not how Sam got hurt, not even how badly she's hurt, and after the second attempt, he stops even trying. Time enough to pitch a fit later if this doesn't work out. For now, he'll play along.

It takes Anderson more than a couple of minutes on the phone, but eventually he opens the car door and hollers up the walkway, "It's okay, Bobby, he's clear," and Widener relaxes a little. Cam wonders at the evidence he can see there, a command that gets people used to that level of paranoia, but he lets it go by. "If you wanna hop in the car, Major," Anderson adds, "we can take you over to the Academy hospital to see her. They tell me she's awake."

Cam bites his lip -- that does not sound good -- but he takes them up on the offer. They're a lot more human-sounding in the car on the way over, as though whoever Anderson talked to vouched for him enough for him to be granted the provisional status of 'human being', but they still don't give him a damn lick of data to reason from. Doesn't matter. He isn't going to make a nuisance of himself.

Takes him a little bit once he gets to the Academy grounds for him to make his way onto the ward floor where Sam's apparently residing -- he remembers the hospital, of course, this whole trip is a stroll down Memory Lane, but he's never been in this wing before, and he has to go through a double layer of security to get there. Anderson and Widener stick to his side like they were glued there. That's interesting too. All of this is interesting. The questions he isn't asking stack up in his head, but he knows better than to ask them; he just signs the papers they give him and then waits (for sensitive information to be concealed? This is the kind of security you get for a Top Secret facility, but if it were a Top Secret facility he wouldn't be able to get in and anyway, what's TS security doing in the freakin' Academy Hospital of all places?) and waits and waits, and eventually an older guy in khakis and a polo shirt (and looking oddly out of place in them to boot) shows up and holds out a hand.

"Major Mitchell?" the guy says. "Jacob Carter. Come on, I'll take you in to see her."

Cam holds out his hand to shake automatically; the ritual gives him just enough time to recover from the shock. Sam had said words like spontaneous remission and miracle and doing so much better, but this is miraculous indeed; Sam's father looks healthier than some men half his age, and the handclasp is strong and sturdy. "It's good to finally get the chance to meet you, sir," he says, the ritual rolling off his tongue; "call me Cam," and Jacob Carter smiles a little more and nods.

"You too," Carter says. "And you can call me Jacob. Come on, she'll be happy you made it."

Sam's sitting up in her bed -- private room -- when Cam walks in, and he catalogs the damage automatically: looks like dehydration, exposure, something like that. She's pale underneath the color in her cheeks that could be windburn or could be something else, they've got her hooked up to an IV fluid drip, and her left arm is enclosed in a cast. For all that, though, she looks pretty lucid, which is a good sign.

She bites her lip as he walks in, and her eyes are full of apology. First words out of her mouth -- and yeah, he coulda made book on it -- are "I am so sorry. I thought I'd be back in time to at least call if I couldn't make it, and then we got caught up in -- things, and nobody knew enough to call you and tell you not to worry that I wasn't there, and oh, Cam, I didn't mean to make you have to fly all the way out here just to check up on me --"

Carter's glancing between them, back, forth. Cam ignores it, crosses the room and pulls up the visitor's chair, straddling it backwards and taking her right hand in his, mindful of the IV. "Never you mind, baby," he says, easily. "I'm just glad you're all right. You are all right, aren't you?"

"A little drugged," she says, "but yeah," and her fingers tighten over his. "Dad, can you --"

"Sure," Carter says. "Holler if you need anything."

Alone in the room together, he can look her over a little more closely, but first he pushes himself up out of the chair enough to kiss her, light and sweet. The feel of her lips under his makes him relax that last little bit, feeling her whole and (mostly) unhurt. "I really am sorry," she says, making a face. "I didn't realize what day it was, and I didn't get back from -- get back until late last night, and everyone was being so careful to keep us from realizing that we missed Christmas that I didn't even realize it was Christmas until they said you were at the house, and --" She cuts herself off, and her scowl deepens. "And I'm really drugged up right now, so I'm going to stop talking before I say something I shouldn't."

Up close, she looks worse than she did at a distance; most of the color she has looks to be some kind of minor burns, her skin red and a little shiny like she's been somewhere near a whole lot of heat or fire. "Said it was okay," Cam says. "You gave us a bit of a scare, but if you're here it means that you got hurt in the line of, an' you know everyone will understand that." He rubs his thumb over her knuckles. "You shoulda told me your dad was gonna be here. You know he'd be welcome if you wanted to bring him."

"I --" There's that weird fractional hesitation again, the one that's been built into so many of their conversations lately, and he knows she's up to something big and messy and classified as hell, and it's certainly not the first time that one of them couldn't tell the other what they were up to, but he still resents it for the distance it's put between them. "I didn't know he would be, not until just recently. He just got out of ... a bit of a bad situation. It's really complicated. Like, really."

"Lotta things are," he says, and it earns him a grateful little smile. "How bad's the damage? You got anything other than that busted wing to worry about?"

Pause, pause, like she's running everything through the translating censor, and he'd give his fucking eye teeth to know what's going on inside her head, and it pisses him off. Because they've been friends for a long damn time, and he loves her like a sister most of the time and like a lover when the time is right, and it makes his heart hurt that she has to spend energy in constantly deciding how she's gonna lie to him. "Not really," she says. "I actually got off pretty lightly. The Colonel's in surgery right now; he screwed up his knee pretty badly. And Dad's just lucky to be --"

She cuts herself off again -- and oh, that is interesting, because if she's cutting herself off like that, it means that whatever's up with her father is somehow related to how she's hurt and how her CO is hurt, which makes absolutely not a single lick of sense in any way he can squint at it. But he doesn't push. No matter how much he'd like to.

"They were actually saying that they might let me out of here," she finishes instead. "I'm going to be out of commission for a little while, but they don't really need to keep an eye on me. So, um, I don't know how long you're on leave for, but if you wanted to come back home with me and stay for a bit, you could -- I mean, I'm not going to be the best company in the world, and I know you have to be annoyed at having been dragged all the way out here because I screwed up, and I can't even give you any answers --"

They must be giving her the good drugs, if she's babbling like this. "Hush, baby," he says, firmly. "I've got a few days if you need me. But I don't want to get in the way of you spending time with your daddy."

She shakes her head. "He has to get back to -- the people who are taking care of him," she says. "He -- I told you the cancer's in remission, but he -- had a bad swing a few days ago, and they didn't think he was going to make it for a bit, but, I mean, he's okay now, but he has to get back to where they can take care of him if something else happens --"

She is lying through her teeth to him. And she's bad at it. He leans over and puts two fingers on her lips; she stills, looking back at him with unhappy eyes. She knows that he knows she's lying to him, and it looks like having to lie to him is making her about as unhappy as it's making him to be lied to. "Don't," he says, quietly, and she nods, her face wretched. "Don't explain to me if you can't explain to me, you know I don't mind that, but don't lie to me either, baby. You just tell me what you need me to do and I'll do it, but don't lie to me."

"Okay," she says, just as quiet, small and tiny voice swallowed up against his skin. "I'm sorry, Cam. I really am."

"Can't be helped," he says, although he wishes it could be, and then leans back again. "I'll stay for as long as I can. I don't have to be back on base until the second. If they do spring you outta here, I'll see what I can do about making you a substitute Christmas dinner. One that you can eat one-handed."

She smiles and starts to say something, but she's interrupted by a white-coated doctor who bustles in and moves over to start disconnecting her IV. "You're good to go, Major," he says, then glances at Cam. "We just have to do some --"

Cam stands, recognizing his cue. "I'll wait outside," he says. "You just let me know when it's safe to come back in."

Jacob Carter's waiting outside the room, leaning against the wall; his eyes fall on Cam when Cam exits the room, and Cam wonders what the man is thinking. "They're letting her go," Cam says, settling in to wait next to Carter, and Carter nods.

"They said they were probably going to," Carter says. "I -- Are you going to be staying? I can stay if I have to, because she shouldn't be alone for a bit, but if there's someone who can stay with her, I really should be -- getting back --"

And isn't that interesting, because it's the same micro-pause that Sam's been sprinkling through her conversations with him, and Carter's frowning like he's listening to the same little inner censor that Sam's trained herself into, and none of this makes a damn lick of sense at all.

"It's all right," Cam says. "I got it. I can stay until New Year's, at least."

Carter nods. "And by then, she'll be better, and even if she isn't, someone else from her team will be up and about enough to take care of her."

Carter's shoulders ease a bit, like something's settled, and Cam has to like him for the care and concern he's showing for his daughter (about damn time, says the voice from the part of him that's listened to Sam crying on his shoulder about her daddy for years and years, but it's not fair; she's said that they've gotten right with each other and Cam's gotta take her word for it) even as he disapproves of a guy running off to God knows what just after the holidays when his daughter's hurt. Still, this close up he can see that what he took for health and wellness in Carter from a distance doesn't hold up when you look a little closer; the man looks off somehow, like he's just been through something big (too? Was he involved in whatever went down?) and isn't too far out of bed himself.

Still. Cam can at least offer a bit of reassurance. "I can take care of her," he says. "I been doin' it for long enough, I ain't gonna stop doin' it now."

He can feel his accent thickening, the reassurance of just folks overlaid with a little bit of a challenge to it. (I've been there for her the past ten years as much as I can; where the hell have you been?) Carter might be able to hear it too, because for a second his gaze sharpens, cutting over Cam's face, and in that instant Cam can see the retired General underneath the concerned father, flashing here-and-gone and away.

"Yeah," Carter says. "I'm glad she has someone."

It's a fishing expedition if Cam's ever heard one, and he knows it's supposed to be his cue to explain -- drop some hints about what they are to each other, what kind of relationship they have -- and he lets it go by unremarked. He's not going to make it easy for the man, and he's really not going to get into the "what are your intentions towards my daughter" conversation standing in the corridor of the Academy Hospital, and he doesn't know what Sam's told him and what she hasn't. It's her business, not his. He meets Carter's eye, though, strong and sure, and it's the weirdest thing ever but for a minute it feels like a fucking ghost walked through him or something, because for half a second his blood runs cold and the hair on the back of his neck stands up.

Then it goes away, and the doctor's opening the door and sticking his head out into the hallway, telling Carter that Sam wants to see him and telling Cam that he can wait back at the security station until Sam's dressed and ready. "Nice meeting you," Carter says, quick and perfunctory, already striding forward.

"Likewise," Cam says, and there's Lieutenant Anderson at his elbow to escort him, and he bites his lip and goes along.

It takes a good forty-five minutes before Sam appears -- moving under her own power, at least; he didn't think they would let you out of here in anything other than a wheelchair, but she's in a pair of scrub pants and a plain black t-shirt, wearing a pair of flip-flops, and she's not even leaning on the wall or anything. When she shows up at the security station, Widener breaks off the conversation (the three of them have been running the usual who-do-you-know tracing of connections; haven't found any mutual acquaintances yet, but it kills time) and leaps to his feet. (Anderson doesn't; that's interesting.)

"It's okay, Bobby," Sam says, smiling at Widener. "I've told you to relax."

Widener's cheeks flush a little. "Yes, ma'am," he says. He turns and pulls a backpack out from under the chair that he'd been sitting in; Cam hadn't noticed it up until then. "Brought you a pair of boots. You don't want to catch a chill going out in flip-flops."

"Thanks," Sam says, her smile getting a little wider, and Cam watches Widener and Anderson, not Sam, as Sam sits down and pulls on socks and boots. He can't quite tell what the dynamics are here. They're clearly from her command; she clearly knows both of them. Widener looks like he's got a crush to beat the band -- well, Cam can sympathize with that -- but both of them seem to share a level of respect for her that goes above-and-beyond "superior officer". The three of them look comfortable together, like they've gotten used to being around each other. Cam can't remember seeing Sam this easy with people for a while; she's never been stand-offish or unfriendly, but she doesn't make friends as fast and ready as he does.

He files it away, like he's filing so much of this away, and listens to the chatter (light and inconsequential gossip about people whose names Cam doesn't recognize) as Widener and Anderson drive them both back to Sam's house. Carter doesn't show his face again. Well, he and Sam probably said their goodbyes before they released her.

She invites them in for a cup of coffee when they get there; they both hesitate for a second, looking over at Cam, and then decline. He wonders what kind of stories are going to head around the base about who he is and what his presence here means for Sam; he hopes it won't make trouble. She lets him in -- Anderson handed over a keyring, presumably her spare set; she doesn't mention what happened to hers, must have been lost in whatever she went through -- and then stops in the middle of the hallway. For a second he wonders what's wrong, whether there's been a break-in or something, until he sees her shoulders slump and he realizes she's just exhausted.

"Lemme guess," Cam says, and she jerks her head up and turns to face him, eyes wide like she'd forgotten he was there for a second. "No food in the house, right?"

He tries to make it a joke -- she never had food in the house, and the last time he was here the situation was even worse than it usually was in the years before, and somehow he doesn't think that's changed -- but something flits over her face quickly, some bit of awkward tension. It passes, but the smile she gives him is weak. "Well, there might be," she says, "but I don't think you want to do anything with it. I didn't know I was going to be gone for two and a half weeks when I left. I don't even want to think about opening the refrigerator."

Snap decision time. He gathers her up in a hug -- carefully; she's not moving like she's been too battered, but if they pumped her full of enough drugs, she wouldn't be -- and she only hesitates for half a second before she rests her cheek against his shoulder and breathes out. "You go get changed into your PJs," he says. "Curl up on the couch. I'll run out and pick up some groceries, stuff for dinner, anything else you need, and then I'll come back and take care of decontaminating the fridge. Did they give you any prescriptions you need filled? I can stop while I'm out."

"No, they sent me home with what I need," Sam says, muffled against his shoulder. "And I -- I'm not actually hungry right now, really. I haven't been for a while. You don't exactly get regular --"

She breaks off again, before she can finish saying regular meals in -- wherever she was, and he can feel her getting ready to lie to him again, to justify and explain the leading sentence she'd begun, and he can feel her stopping herself and letting it slide away. God, this makes him crazy. Whatever she's been doing, whatever she's been going through, it's still his best baby standing there half-falling-apart. Is and it isn't his Sam. He doesn't know what it is that's changing her, what it's changing her into, but he can see it, and he hates it, and there is absolutely nothing he can do about it.

Except buy her groceries and clean out her fridge.

So he sighs against her hair, knowing she'll read it as I don't know what's going on and I'm unhappy about some of the things I'm seeing, and I know you can't tell me and I'm not going to press you on it, but if you can think of anything that will make me feel better about this, you'd better start talking soon. "Okay," he says, making sure to keep any of his upset from showing in his voice, because the last thing she needs right now is him putting pressure on her. "I'll just pick up what I think looks good, then. You call Momma and tell her that you're not dead in a ditch somewhere; I haven't gotten the chance to, yet. And if you're not in bed or on the couch when I get back, I'm going to scowl at you."

Her laugh is silent, but it ripples through her shoulders. "Anything but that," she says, and then steps back out of his arms.

Cam knows the mall has to be a nightmare of people and crowds, but the supermarket's not all that bad. In and out and back in under an hour. Sam didn't give him much of a shopping list, just told him (a little wistfully, and he's not sure why) that she'd like some fruit. He does what he can to stock up on nonperishables, meals that can be made out of boxes, but he gets things fresh, too. He'll be here for at least a few days, longer if he decides to change his open-ended return ticket to take him back to Alabama instead of stopping home first, and he has no qualms about cooking for her the entire time. Or about cooking more than they could ever possibly hope to eat and freezing the hell out of things, for her to defrost and warm up later. (He adds a double dozen disposable Tupperware containers to the cart, just in case she doesn't have any.)

When he gets back, he half expects to find Sam tackling the kitchen anyway -- even one-handed, exhausted, and worn through; she's always been bad about needing or accepting help -- but no; she's curled up on the couch, tucked up tight underneath Momma's afghan, watching the TV that's on mute and set to what looks like ESPN. She isn't sleeping, not even drowsing really, but she doesn't look like she's there, either. He wrestles the grocery bags up to the kitchen counter and eyes the TV suspiciously. "ESPN?" he says. "Woulda thought the Discovery Channel was more your style."

"I got tired of yelling at them about all the ways they were wrong," she says, and she's trying to make it a joke, but he can tell she means it, and that sits wrongly with him too.

But he lets it go. "You need anything?" he asks. "'Nother dose of drugs? How're you feeling?"

As he watches, it's like she shakes herself invisibly, is suddenly present in the room, in a way she hasn't quite been yet. Like she's suddenly decided to put aside whatever she's carrying, lock it away in a box and be here with him. It should make him feel better, seeing that evidence that she's still her in there, but it doesn't. Not quite. It just makes him twinge with anger tinged with regret, and it takes him a few minutes to realize why; it's because he can't help feeling like she's lying to him again, with her face and her body this time, pretending to be something she isn't anymore because it's what she thinks he expects.

He shoves the anger aside, though. He doesn't get to pass judgement on her. He doesn't know what she's dealing with, and he doesn't know what sort of pressure she's under -- although it clearly has to be a lot -- and he has no right to be angry at whatever pieces of normal she's managing to hold on to.

"I think," she says, very slowly, like she's reasoning things out at the same time that she's speaking, "that I might actually want something to eat."

Cam nods. "We can do that," he says, trying for easy and low-pressure. He rummages around in the grocery bag until he finds the bag of grapes he bought -- they actually keep nicely for a while if you freeze them before they go bad, which is why he got them for her -- and tosses them into a strainer to rinse.

When he brings them over to the couch, she falls on them like they're caviar and chocolate and champagne all rolled into one. "God," she says. "The fruit they have in the commissary always sucks so much, and I had to stop buying any for home when --" Fractional pause, the kind he's almost starting to fucking get used to, and then he can see her saying fuck it and finishing the sentence anyway, exactly the same way she'd been intending to finish it when she started it. "When it kept going bad when I got stuck on missions and couldn't get home."

He'd asked her not to lie to him. She's done him the favor of granting him that request, and he can tell, looking at her, that she's bracing herself for him to call her on it, want to know why and what and how and all those other fun little questions. So he doesn't ask, because he knows she can't tell him, and if he asks, it'll just prove to her that honesty isn't the best policy after all. And not only is he trying to make her life easier, not harder, he's also hoping that if he keeps his mouth shut and doesn't make her realize how much she's saying, she'll drop the one bit of information he needs for this all to make sense.

So he just gives her a sympathetic little wince. "Sucks," he says, and lets it drop. "Garbage bags under the sink, right? I need to clean out the fridge and get a lot of this back into cold pretty quickly."

Sam has the weirdest look on her face, like she's just tripped over the absence of the top step -- like she was expecting something to be there to make her stumble, and the fact that it wasn't there made her stumble even more -- but she nods. "Yeah," she says. "Need me to --"

"I need you to settle back down on that couch and eat your grapes," Cam says, firmly. "And then in half an hour or so, I'll need you to tell me what sounds good out of about sixteen different possible options to have with the ham for dinner. And eventually, I'll need you to get a good night's sleep."

"I don't deserve you," she says, but it's soft enough that he can pretend he didn't hear it, so he does.

The fridge really is bad -- going by the looks of it, things were already starting to go bad in there before she went off to do whatever she went off to do -- and it only takes him a few minutes to realize that he won't be satisfied until he scrubs down at least one of the shelves and the crisper drawer with diluted bleach. He preheats the oven and rummages in her cabinets until he finds a baking dish to hold the ham for cooking; that done, he grabs a sponge and fills a bowl with water, adds a little bit of bleach. Then, considering the state of the inside of the fridge, adds a little more. There isn't really anything salvagable in the fridge; he fills two grocery bags with the remnants of what used to be food, and then gets himself down on his knees to reach in and scrub.

She's quiet while he works; he's almost starting to wonder if she's fallen asleep on the couch (which would probably be good for her, even if she really should be sleeping in the bed) when the phone rings. He's just lunging for it, hoping it won't wake her -- if she is asleep; he can't tell from the angle of view he has over the kitchen island -- when she picks it up. Her voice is loud in the silence of the house; she still hasn't un-muted the television. "Hello," she says, a little too quickly, as though she's expecting bad news, and then she breathes out in a whoosh of relief. "Oh, thank God. Has he --" Laughter, and it sounds like she means it, and the worst part is how it sounds almost exactly the way he remembers her laughter used to sound. "Yeah, I can imagine. Well, better you than me. I still think he insists on having you around while he's recovering because he knows how bad he is, and you at least get to throw things at him when he's being himself again ... Yeah. Yeah, he had to go back. The council -- Well, you know. He was feeling better, at least ... Yeah, me too."

Cam keeps his mouth shut and stays right where he is, in front of the refrigerator, applying elbow grease to the wreckage of what used to be (he thinks) a banana. He doesn't hold his breath, but he almost wants to, because whoever's on the other end of the phone is clearly someone she works with, clearly someone she has affection for, and if he somehow avoids reminding her that he's here, she might relax enough to drop another hint or two.

"No," Sam says, in a don't-be-silly tone threaded through with laughter. "It's just the arm. Don't you dare feel guilty. Bobby and Greg drove me and Cam back over -- Yeah, him, turns out today's the day after Christmas, did they bother to tell you that? They didn't tell me ... Yeah, I know. I feel guilty as hell, but what can you do ... no, Daniel, believe it or not, I am capable of these things on my own. And anyway, Cam's staying for a while ... Well, you have to deal with him, so there's no question that you got the short end of the stick. But if you want to, sure. I bet he'd love to meet you. No, of course not -- Cam!"

"Yeah," Cam calls back. Too much to hope for that she'd forget he was here, really, and hearing himself think that he stops, because he suddenly realizes that he's treating Sam like she's a problem to be solved and that's wrong, but more than that, it tells him just how wrong this whole situation is.

Sam sounds better, though. Lighter. More happy. "You don't mind if Daniel comes over, do you? He's been on colonel-watch, and apparently the colonel's out of surgery and already making everyone's lives miserable, so Daniel wants to escape. And I think he wants to make sure I'm all right."

Cam fights back the stab of jealousy: that he won't have her all to himself, that she can be this free and easy and open with someone. Someone who isn't me, the possessive ape in the back of his mind snarls at him, and he slaps it down hard, because he has no claim on her and never has. Their relationship isn't like that. It never has been. They're heart-kin and lifelong friends and they both know that for all they love each other -- and they do love each other -- that love would sour faster than the milk he threw out of this fridge if they ever tried to go from that to dating. He sees her too clearly, and he can't help but want to fix; what she'll take from a friend, she can't tolerate from a lover. Old baggage. So he has no right to be jealous of her friends. Wouldn't even if they were dating, or partners, or married, or anything at all. She's her own woman. She always has been; it's one of the reasons he loves her so much.

"Sure," he says, making sure to keep his voice light and agreeable. "Hell, bring the rest of your team on over, too. I've got enough to feed you guys, and if you missed Christmas, well, y'all deserve a Christmas dinner, even if it's a little late."

"Daniel's the only one who could make it," she says. "But yeah --" Back to the phone again, and Cam curls his fingers around the sponge and scrubs at a stubborn bit of stain, and tries not to think about anything at all. "He says yes, come over -- no, I'm sitting here staring at more grocery bags than have been in this house in months, so you don't have to ... Okay, I promise. Yes, Daniel, I promise." A pause, and then her voice gets that patient didactic tone she uses with people who have just said something either incredibly stupid or incredibly insulting. "Yes, I remember, do you?" She laughs again. "Okay, we'll see you then. Tell him that if he manages to avoid getting the nurses to declare Ja -- blood feud on him this time, I'll sneak him some of the leftovers. You too."

Sam hangs up without saying goodbye. He hears the sound of stirring; a minute later, her head pops up at the counter island, and she puts the (empty) bowl that had held the grapes on the counter. She wrinkles her nose when she sees what he's doing. "Oh, God, you really don't have to do that. Some of that grunge has been there for over a year or so."

"Believe me," Cam says, dryly, "I can tell." He sits back on his heels and looks up at her with a weather eye, trying to gauge her reactions. Tired, even more so than she looked when they got in, and there are faint frown-lines of pain around her mouth and eyes, but she still looks a little lighter, like whatever good news she got from the guy on the other end of the phone has relieved a burden. "Who's your friend? Do I know him?"

"Who, Daniel?" Sam asks, and Cam has to bite back no, the other guy you're inviting over, because apparently when the immediate crisis is settled to his satisfaction, his hindbrain gets snippy and sarcastic at him. "No, he's a civilian. Linguist. He works with us. None of us really have a whole lot in the way of family or anything out here, so we spend a lot of time together. I think you two will get along."

She draws her lower lip between her teeth, worrying at the skin there. It's one of her old nervous habits, and he realizes, watching her, that what she's really saying is I hope you two will get along, realizes that she's telling him (without actually telling him) that she's nervous about introducing her old life to her new life. It makes him feel small and petty for the uncharitable things he was thinking, and he mentally apologizes -- to her, to the universe, to God for being so unChristian -- and resolves that even if he hates the guy, he'll fake the hell out of liking him. "Hey, if he's one of your people," he says, lightly. Ignoring the fact that, well, he's met some of the people Sam Carter picks to hang out with when she has the choice of the matter, and there are some of those he'd like to drop down a deep dark well. Or had wanted to, once upon a time, before Hanson had somehow managed to have himself some kind of accident, and wouldn't he love to know the story there.

Someday, he vows, he's going to make her tell him all of this. When they're old and grey, and everything's been declassified, and they've both been put out to pasture.

"Thanks," Sam says, and she looks relieved. "I know you only came all the way out here just to see if I was okay because I didn't show and you were worried, and I know this is eating into your leave time, and I feel awful about all of this; I really didn't mean to --"

"It's okay, baby," Cam says, as gently as possible. It's not, not entirely, but friendship doesn't mean anything if it's only good in the good times. "Sounds like you been having a hell of a shit time lately. Doesn't matter how it happened, I'm here now, and I can stay for a while, and the least I can do is feed you and take care of anything around the house that you haven't been able to get taken care of on your own, right?"

She hesitates for half a second, then smiles at him. It's one of her beautiful smiles, the kind that light up her entire face, and Cam suddenly has to wonder when was the last time someone took care of her for a little while. "Yeah," she says. "Thank you." A moment, a beat, and then the smile fades a little, but not completely. "I'm just gonna go --"

She makes a little hand gesture towards the bedroom, one Cam doesn't have any trouble interpreting as "go put on some real clothes". She'd acquiesced to his strong suggestion -- can't call it an order; he couldn't give Sam Carter orders and expect to live, even when it's meant with love -- to go put on her PJs; she's wearing a pair of babydoll shorts and a camisole, and they hang sparsely on her, as though she's lost weight since she bought them. He steps on the part of him that's jealously glad to hear that she considers that kind of clothing inappropriate in front of this Daniel, whoever he might be, but not in front of Cam himself.

Then he catches himself thinking it, more by the act of stopping himself thinking it than by the thought itself, and he realizes he's acting like a jealous lover -- even inside the confines of his own head -- and more, that he has been for the past fifteen goddamn minutes. And that's wrong, and it's not fair to her, and it means that there's something lurking underneath his conscious thought that he should probably dredge out and haul into the light before it trips one or both of them.

He goes back to scrubbing while she wanders down the hall and into her bedroom. (A minute later, he hears the shower click on; he hopes she remembered to protect the plaster of the cast before she got into it.) Cleaning is good for keeping his hands busy while he tries to figure out what's going on inside his head. Doesn't take him more than a few minutes to realize that the reason he's fussing over her so badly doesn't (exactly) have to do with jealousy, or even the desire to protect her, although the protection is part of it. No, the reason he's being so fierce is because she's been at this assignment for three years now, and this is the third Christmas in a row he's seen her broken somehow, hard and sparse and suffering, and there isn't anything he can do to help. She can't even tell him what's wrong.

He wonders if her team, her friends -- this Daniel guy, the mysterious CO who's always just been the colonel to hear her talk, which means that Sam's finally found someone to serve under who she actually respects instead of just respecting the uniform he's wearing -- are just as broken, just as damaged. There's a part of him that selfishly (for Sam) wants to hope they are, because if they are, they'll know to take care with all her broken places too.

Cam's just finishing rinsing out the sponge -- the refrigerator scum having been conquered and the groceries safely stowed -- when the doorbell rings. He hesitates for a second -- the shower is still running, and he spares a concerned glance at the clock; she's been in there for over half an hour -- and then grabs a towel to dry his hands before going to open it. He's only halfway to the door when it opens, though, which means the guy has to have a key, because Cam knows he locked it behind him when he came back in.

"Oh, I'm sorry," the visitor says, poking his head around the edge of the door and seeing Cam halfway to coming to open it for him. The man's tall, solid enough across the shoulders underneath his winter coat; short-cropped brown hair, glasses, blue eyes. Open-looking face, but he hasn't shaved in at least a few days -- the beard stubble is coming in auburn -- and he, too, is just as red-skinned as Sam is. (It's not sunburn. It looks like just plain burns, almost, except not even quite to the level of first-degree, and he wonders what the hell they were up to, especially if they had a civilian along.) "I'm sorry, I thought Sam might not have wanted to get up or something. You must be her friend. I'm Daniel."

Offers a hand, and Cam takes it, feeling a little surreal; if Daniel knows Sam well enough to have a key to her house and the leeway to use it, it seems like he should greet the man a little more warmly than just a single quick handclasp, but something about the guy -- however nice and polite he's trying to be -- radiates don't touch. "Cam," he says. "Nice to meet you. She's taking a shower; she should be out in a few minutes."

The tiny frown in between Daniel's eyebrows straightens out a little. "Oh, right," he says, and then winces a little. "I could use one of those too, at some point. They gave me new clothes at the hospital, but I was too busy making sure Jack was all right to get a shower. I apologize in advance."

"It's okay," Cam's starting to say, but he's talking to Daniel's back; Daniel is already striding down the hallway, towards Sam's bedroom, and for a horrible second Cam thinks he's going to go join Sam in the shower.

But no; Daniel only pokes his head through the open door of Sam's bedroom and calls, "Hey, Sam, I made it out of there alive," and Cam can hear the water stop running before Sam calls back, "Out in a minute!"

"Take your time," Daniel yells back, and then comes back down the hallway, his hands balled up in his pockets, back to the kitchen. He winces when he sees the open refrigerator and the evidence that Cam's been scrubbing it clean; well, the dilute bleach-solution Cam's been using is grey and slimy-looking by now, runoff from where he keeps rinsing the sponge, and it certainly deserves a wince. "You, ah, need a hand with anything?"

"Almost done," Cam says. He grabs the roll of paper towels and starts drying off the shelves. "You want a drink or something?"

It's weird, playing host in Sam's kitchen -- especially since the guy probably spends enough time in here to know where everything is -- but he can't help it; it's like he's been programmed. Put him in a kitchen, put someone else in the room, and he's going to try to offer hospitality. Momma'd reach across the country and whack him with a wooden spoon if he didn't. (Crap. He'd told Sam to call Momma and relay the message that everything was okay, and he'd forgotten to check that she had; he makes a mental note to call himself, later.)

"No, I'm okay," Daniel says. He's looking around himself, vague curiosity like that's the way he always looks at the world: gathering data, assessing the situation, looking for things to piece together. Or -- no. Cam frowns. There's something weird about the way Daniel's gaze keeps shifting around him, and realizing that, Cam realizes what it is. That's the look you get when you've been behind enemy lines for a damn long time, and you still aren't sure if you're safe or not, and you're waiting for everything around you to suddenly become a threat. And it's not the jumpy, on-edge alertness of someone who's just been through some single trauma and hasn't had a chance to heal yet. It's just the look of somebody who's been in combat for a damn long time, and has learned all the lessons so thoroughly, so internally, that they don't ever fade.

Civilian, his ass.

But he doesn't have time to think about this. "Want me to take the trashbags out for you?" Daniel's asking, and Cam nods.

"Sure," he says. "Thanks. That'd be a big help."

Daniel pushes his glasses up his nose and gives Cam a wry smile. "I'll have to do the same thing when I get home. This can be the practice run." And Cam files that away, too, and Daniel picks up both trash bags, one in each hand -- without straining, Cam notices, and he damn well knows that both those bags are heavy, full of jars and containers that clink and rattle; he'd been thinking he was probably going to have to double-bag each of them before he carried them out -- and takes himself and the trash on out the door.

Alone in the kitchen, Cam stares at the bare and clean insides of Sam's refrigerator, thinking about how Sam never sits with her back to the door anymore, thinking about the way her civilian linguist friend looks at the world the same way some of the Force Recon guys Cam knew in Bosnia do, thinking about emergency missions that mean you miss Christmas and come back more banged up than any desk job could ever hope to leave you. He's known for a long damn time that whatever Sam's doing, her workday doesn't start at 0800 and end at 1700 and it doesn't involve pushing paper. He's seen the calluses on her hands. You don't get those calluses in a lab.

The worst part is how he can't tell her any of this -- that he's guessed these bits and pieces; that he's trying to put together more -- because there's classified and then there's classified, and he's got the sinking sense that if anyone knew he was fitting pieces together, he'd be in a hell of a lot of trouble but it wouldn't hold a candle to the trouble she'd be in.

"Where'd Daniel go?" Sam's voice comes from over his shoulder. It makes him jump -- he hadn't heard her footstep; she's barefoot, but more than that, she's walking softly, like she's learned the trick of stealth since the last time he saw her. Or learned it better, Cam realizes. She'd been just as quiet last Christmas; he'd been too distracted to notice.

He shuts the refrigerator door, trying to cover up the fact that she made him jump. "Took out the trash," he says, and turns around to face her. She's in a pair of jeans and an old battered Falcons t-shirt (Academy seal, with "Air Force: When it absolutely, positively has to be destroyed overnight" written underneath), and she hasn't bothered with any makeup. She looks fragile and weathered and worn, but she's smiling at him, and nothing can be all wrong when she can smile at him like that.

"Oh," she says, peacefully, like it doesn't surprise her at all to find out that her friend came over and immediately pitched in to do something that needed to get done. Which is a good sign, if it's true. Cam's always judged the quality of people by that, by whether or not they're willing to see something that needs to get done and go ahead and do it, and the people Sam's always found, the friends she's introduced him to over the years, fail that test more often than not. Maybe she's getting better at picking her friends. "You need me to do anything to help with dinner?"

He gives her a look. "Broken arm," he reminds her.

Sam sighs, half-smiling, a puff of air that's dismissive and exasperated at once. "It's all right. It doesn't hurt. I just wish I didn't have to wear the cast; if he hadn't been so badly hurt, Dad would have --" A catch, a stopping; her eyes round like she'd been about to say something she shouldn't. "Dammit," she says, sharp and frustrated, angry with herself. "I -- I should be better at this. I do it all the time. I shouldn't keep slipping like that --"

Cam doesn't, can't, know what she was about to say, but whatever it is, judging by the anger in her eyes, it would have been enough to give something away. "You've had a long couple of days," he offers, an excuse for her to cling to, and it should make her feel better -- should reassure her that he's not going to press -- but all it does is make her turn away from him, the anger bubbling up again, slicing between them.

"That's not the point," she says, taut and stressed. Her voice rises. "The point is, I should be able to have a conversation with my oldest goddamn friend without tripping over something that's goddamn classified every thirty seconds like I've forgotten how to even talk to normal people --"

"Sam," Daniel says, from the hallway, from the other side of the pass-through island between kitchen and living room, and Cam whirls around, because he hadn't heard the front door open again. Hadn't heard the guy coming in. It's like they're both fucking ghosts, moving around this house like they're infiltrating a fucking enemy stronghold, and the worst part is how Cam knows, knows, they're not doing it on purpose. It's just how they are.

Daniel's looking at Sam, and there's worry in his eyes. It's not worry that Sam will say something that she shouldn't, though. It's worry that Sam's unhappy, that Sam is stressed, that Sam's in pain and hurting and skating half an inch from breakdown. Worry for her, not about her, and Cam likes him for it, just a little, even as he's despairing over the despair he can hear in Sam's voice.

Sam picks up one hand, the one that isn't in a cast, and rubs it over her face. "Yeah," she says, to Daniel, raggedly. "Yeah, it's okay. I'm okay. It's just --"

"Someone else's story," Daniel says, softly, with understanding. And Cam doesn't know what the fuck he means by it, but whatever it is, it must be the right thing to say, because Sam's shoulders heave in a sigh as she breathes out her tension and lets her hand fall again.

Cam looks at Daniel, looks at Daniel looking at Sam, and whatever this is, whatever's wrong, won't get fixed just by wishing it away. So there's only one thing for it. He keeps his voice light, teasing, and he says, "Ain't never been normal people, and don't you know it, baby. You go sit down. I'll bring you somethin' to drink. Dinner on the table in half an hour or so, an' it'll all look better in the morning."

She smiles at him again, but it's distracted, the kind of smile she uses to keep people at bay. "Yeah," she says. "Sounds good. I'll just ..."

"Sit," Cam says, making his voice as firm as he can. He looks at Daniel. "You, too. Go tell her the news from the hospital. Y'all pretend I'm not here."

There's a moment of hesitation, Sam and Daniel sharing some kind of look Cam can't read, and then Sam leaves the kitchen area, drifting towards the living room, settling back on the couch. She shoves her toes under Momma's afghan. Cam expects Daniel to go join her, but he doesn't; he stays where he is, watching Cam for a minute, and Cam looks up and meets those quiet assessing eyes.

"Thanks," Daniel says, quietly, and Cam realizes that he's not saying thanks for the offer of dinner or a drink; he's thanking Cam for taking care of Sam, for treating this like it's no big deal, and in that minute, Cam realizes that Daniel's been sizing him up, too, and for just the same reason. To figure out whether or not he's got Sam's best interests in mind. To figure out if he's good enough to be allowed near Sam, while Sam's this shook up. As fierce and as protective as Cam's ever been of her, like Daniel's the one who does the protecting now, and Cam searches his emotions for jealousy and finds none. It isn't the protectiveness of a lover for his beloved, or even of a friend for his friend. It's the way the guy who's flying second stick watches out for the guy in the cockpit, back to back against the world. Comrades.

It eases him, oddly. That she has someone to do that. That she has at least one other person in this world who'll stare down a stranger to see if he's going to be help or harm. That she isn't in this alone, whatever it is, whatever it's doing to her, whatever she's facing.

So he says, "Anytime." And he thinks Daniel might catch his meaning, might see that he's seen, might catch that he's not talking about the dinner or the drink any more than Daniel is.

Dinner's sedate. Nothing fancy -- honey-glazed baked ham and cinnamon-sugar baked apples and roasted potatoes instead of mashed, fresh-baked rolls (he picked them up in the bakery section of the supermarket, but maybe he'll bake her a few loaves of bread before he leaves) and green beans done up with butter and garlic. Conversation's a little bit stilted, until Sam says, out of the blue, "I heard from Evan last week; did you hear he's at the Pentagon now?" and Cam, startled, blurts out, "They let him through the door?" and from there it's an old-home reunion tour, picking through who has the most recent gossip on everybody they've ever mutually known clear on back. Cam tries to loop Daniel in a few times, feeling guilty for talking about people he doesn't know in front of him and monopolizing the conversation, but Daniel seems content to just sit back and watch, though he chimes in when he's got something to say. By the time they get to dessert -- Christmas cookies, from the bakery again, and they aren't even close to being a patch on Momma's but Cam knew he wouldn't have time to bake -- they've settled down into something almost companionable.

Daniel's the first one to push back from the table, groaning a little theatrically -- both of them ate themselves full up to bursting, which Cam was glad to see, since he somehow doesn't think they've been eating regular for a while -- and starting to gather the plates. "Dinner was fabulous," he says. "Thanks. But I should get back to the hospital and see if Jack's chewed off his own leg to get out of the trap yet."

Cam stands up too, and he scowls at Sam when she moves to follow. "Sit," he tells her, and she subsides. "Won't take me but a few to load the dishes into the dishwasher and put the leftovers in the fridge. Take some too," he adds, to Daniel. "I overheard them being used as a bribe for good behavior."

"And that was before I even knew how effective a bribe it could be," Daniel says. "You want anything from the kitchen, Sam? I could make a pot of coffee before I go --"

Sam's looking at something only she can see; at her name, she turns back, focusing back in on them. "What? Oh, no, I'm okay. I think ... I think I'm going to just go to bed, actually. I know it's early, but ..."

"Long week," Daniel says.

"Long week," she agrees. "Tell the colonel I hope he gets better soon."

"You and all right-thinking medical professionals in the state of Colorado," Daniel says, light and easy, and squeezes her shoulder gently before taking the dishes into the kitchen.

"Is she really all right?" Cam asks, once he and Daniel are side-by-side in the kitchen, Daniel rinsing dishes and loading them into the dishwasher while Cam transfers leftovers into Tupperware. "Anything I should know?"

Daniel appears to consider the question for a minute, and Cam's been finding reasons to like the guy for the past two hours but that's another one to add to the tally, the way he doesn't leap into the fray trailing false reassurances but actually thinks it over before he answers. "Should know, probably," Daniel finally says, keeping his voice down just enough so that Sam won't be able to hear him from the dining room. "Can tell you, no. It's just been a really rough year. We've all been to hell and back a few times --" And whatever Daniel's thinking of, it must be funny-and-not-funny all at once, because his lips twist in a smile that's not really amusement at all. "She'll be okay," Daniel finishes. "We all will. Eventually. It's just been kinda tough lately."

And Cam looks into the man's eyes, and sees a kind of love there. "Take care of her for me," he says, quietly. Then corrects himself. "No. Take care of her for her."

Daniel stops, looking startled for a second, and then smiles, slow and sweet. "We all take care of each other," he says, and it's a promise.

A little while later, after Daniel takes his leave and says his goodbyes, Cam locks up the front door and sets the alarm -- alarms; the house has two -- and heads back into the bedroom. Sam's just pulling her t-shirt over her head, awkward and clumsy with one arm splinted. "Need a hand?" he asks, leaning his shoulder against the doorframe. He realizes a second too late that he forgot to make noise to warn her of his approach so he didn't startle her, but she doesn't jump or twitch, and he realizes she's gone through the jumpy of last year, of two years ago, and out the other side, to where she knew he was there the whole damn time even if he hadn't said a word.

"No, I'm okay," she says, fumbling one-handed at the button of her jeans, popping them open without having to struggle too badly. It has the air of someone who's used to working around physical limitations. She pushes her jeans down her legs, leaving them puddled where they fall, and he takes a good hard look at the body it all reveals. She has lost weight, he realizes, but it's been replaced with muscle, whipcord-lean lines that speak of running and lifting and jumping. A few more scars, a few more landmarks. It's like everything she's going through is boiling her down to her essence, like the steel core he's always been able to see in her is rising to the surface for public display. "I -- you don't mind if I just crash, do you? I know it's early --"

"Two hours later back home," he says, easily. "You want company, or should I crash in the guestroom?"

Sam bites her lip, hesitating, not quite meeting his eye. "If you don't mind, I think -- I think I'd like the company. It'd be nice."

Cam nods. "Let me just get my stuff," he says, and he's watching her closely enough to see the gratitude flash over her face, lightning-quick.

He brought his duffel bag in from the car with him along with the groceries earlier, stashed it out of the way in the living room, so it only takes him a second to scoop it up and return. She's in bed when he comes back, sitting up and back against the headboard, her knees drawn up to her chest and her arms around them. It should make her look younger, make her look childlike, but it doesn't; it's just Sam, sitting in the bed, naked except for a pair of panties, her feet shoved under the covers to keep them warm. She watches him as he drops the duffel on the chair, watches as he rummages through for toothbrush and toothpaste and shaving kit, and her eyes are still trained on the door to the bathroom when he opens it back up and comes back out after he's done getting ready for the night.

"I'm glad you came out," she says, her eyes half-slitted, her cheek pressed against her knees. "I don't think I said. I'm sorry that you had to because -- things happened, but I am glad you're here."

"Hell, baby," he says. "Anytime. Always come running when you need me, you know that."

Sam smiles a little, and it's weird, but looking at her he thinks she might be better off this Christmas than she was last year, for all she's more banged-up now than she was then, because she's calmer now than she's been all day so far. Like she's able to set aside all the things that are weighing on her when she truly needs to, when last year they were this close to dragging her under. For all that she's under stress, for all that she's battered and bruised and banged about, the worst of the unhappiness Cam's seen in her today has risen from the need to keep him on the outside of her walls when they've never much held with walls between them, and that's a damn sight better than holding her in the dark last Christmas Eve and feeling her tears trickling over his skin.

Maybe things aren't all bad after all. He's seen that she has at least one person behind those walls with her, and, well, if it can't be him, at least Daniel seems like he's a decent human being. Enough to make Cam feel better about things.

He pulls off his t-shirt, tosses it on top of his duffel; his jeans follow, a second later. "I wish I wasn't so damn tired," Sam says, absently, as she watches the floorshow. He looks back over at her, and she blushes -- actually blushes, her cheeks coloring even more than the strange burn-not-burn. "I mean --"

And he has to laugh, because after everything strange that's gone on since he got here, after every strange look and tiny pause and self-censoring impulse, that one moment is the first thing that feels completely familiar. His Sam. Still in there. Under all the stress, under all the cover stories, under all the trials and travails, he can still see the Lieutenant who could drink all comers under the table, tell dirty jokes until dawn, and still blush herself stupid the first time he'd asked her if she wanted to be on the top or on the bottom.

It's like the sound of his laugher eases something in her, and there's only a second of hesitation before she's laughing too, and the sound of it is beautiful. "Aw, hell, baby," he finally says, crossing the room and groping for the bedside lamp to turn out the light. He puts out a hand in the darkness, feeling for the edge of the bed, and he can hear her shifting over to make room for him and squirming under the covers. "Know what you mean. It's all right. I ain't got anywhere I gotta be."

He stretches out beside her, on his side, facing her, and she turns her back and spoons up against him, wiggling until they fit together as perfectly as they always do. He drapes an arm over her side, pulling her up against his chest, nestling his face in her hair. She smells a little different. New shampoo. She yawns, once, then breathes out and stills. He can feel the tension sliding away, and it's a good sign, it's such a damn good sign, that she can let go of that tension when she needs to.

He's just about drifting off to sleep himself when her voice comes out of the darkness, calm and sleepy. "I'd tell you, you know," she says. And it's a little bit wistful, but it's not despair he hears there. It's just a statement, plain and simple, nothing more: life kinda sucks sometimes. "If I could. You wouldn't believe some of the things -- I'd tell you."

Cam sweeps his hand down her belly, feeling the muscle there, spreading his fingers as though the more of her he can touch, the more of her he can reassure. "Know you would," he says, blurry with sleep, solid with love. "S'okay, baby. All look better in the morning."

She puts her hand over his, holding it there, her fingers squeezing lightly. "I know it will," she says. "It always does."

For the first time, he thinks she might believe it.

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