Sam tries to tell herself she's only counting the days until Cam's back on his feet because she's irritated about having to spend weeks cooped up in the Mountain while their leader is on medical stand-down, but there's something about him that keeps her from being able to lie, even to herself. It's as though he demands such a high level of emotional honesty from everyone around him, himself included, that it forces her to drag things out of the damp darkness of her subconscious and spread them out to dry in the sunshine.

She's waiting for him to get better because there's a conversation they're supposed to have. One she hasn't been thinking about. At all. Except when she has been.

Watching him re-learn how to walk has been painful, more painful than she'd expected. Echoes of the first time, when she hadn't been sure if all that pigheaded stubbornness would translate into results; the memories of the months she'd spent on the phone with his momma, reassuring her that yeah, her baby boy was going to be just fine in the end, still sit uncomfortably on her shoulders. It was easier this time, really. Cam's momma still doesn't know what her son's up to, can figure out even less about just how he managed to come down with a shattered thigh while working on deep-space radar telemetry in the depths of Colorado, but Sam has learned over the years that Momma will forgive a lot if her son seems happy.

And Cam's happy. He's fussing around in the kitchen, clank click clack of pots and pans colliding with each other, punctuated by the thump of the cane against the linoleum. She'd been expecting him to bitch about using it, had perhaps gotten too used to the constant battle of SG-1 vs. the Medical Profession, but he'd taken the licks and lumps of rehab unquestioningly. Another thing he brings to the team that she'd never have expected. Maybe it's good for them to have someone here to redefine them.

"You wanna come set the table?" he calls to her. "I got about five minutes left on the potatoes." She uncurls her legs from the couch and goes to comply -- he'd threatened to beat her with his cane if she so much as looked like she was going to touch anything in progress; he's seen her burn Jello before, and she had earned permanent banishment from his kitchen within weeks of meeting him. But setting the table has always been her job.

It's not weird. It's weird because it's not weird; this is Cam, the way he always has been (oh, a little more banged-up, a little older, a little sadder and a little wiser, but if she squints she can still see the outlines of Lt. Mitchell in his momma's kitchen, patiently explaining to her that no, his whole family is like that and it's a sign of love, really). Looking at him, there's no sign he's been apparently keeping a secret for longer than she'd care to think about.

"We need to talk about this," she says abruptly. If they try to go back to being SG-1 with all this tension wrapped up inside her head, the way it's been for the past ten weeks, something's going to blow. And she's desperately afraid it might be the mission. She'd be okay with it being her, but some things they can't risk.

He takes two plates down from the cabinets and shoves them at her. She takes them automatically. Once they're in her hands, she might as well put them on the table. The roast smells like heaven; there's garlic in there somewhere. He's always teased her about how much she likes it.

He doesn't even bother pretending he doesn't know what she's talking about, which is one of the many reasons why she's always been so easy around him. "Only if you want to," he says. He's not smiling, but there's a quiet kind of calm about him, like he came to terms with things a long time ago. Which, apparently, he did. Fifteen years, give or take. "I figure it's my problem to deal with, not yours. I don't want anything more from you than what you think you can comfortably give."

For a minute, with him standing there staring at her -- in his stained and worn Air Force sweatshirt that was old when she first met him, with his hair sticking up on one side; perfectly ordinary, perfectly real -- she lets herself imagine what it would be like having him touch her. Those broad, patient hands, his skin warm and reassuring, all of that sweet focused care.

Then she makes herself stop, because she's done the emotional masochist thing too many times in her life and it sucks more than she can say.

"We couldn't -- the regs --" She's dimly aware that she's not making much sense, but this is one thing she's always known. You don't get involved with the people you work with. There's something about the SGC, she thinks, that has made her forget this simple basic fact over the past ten years -- and that's another reason why it's impossible; one inappropriate longing can be explained away, but she's only managed to hold off the whispers of favoritism and the rumors about sleeping her way to the top by being so flawlessly good at what she does that nobody would dare question. She can't risk it again.

"Baby," he says, and has there ever been anything sweeter in the world than the way the corners of his eyes crinkle up when he smiles at her? "We been dating for fifteen years. It just took you this long to notice it."

She looks at him. She's spent ten weeks expecting something complicated, full of self-recrimination and painful angsting about What They Want versus What They Can't Have, but she should have known him well enough to know that her fears were just extrapolations from conversations she's had in the past with different people altogether. Things are easy around Cameron Mitchell. Too easy, sometimes.

"And besides," he adds. "It's not like anything we could do would make me love you any more."

He shouldn't be allowed to say things like that.

She puts her face in her hands. God is an iron, she thinks, some half-remembered old science-fiction novel; if someone who commits felony is a felon, and someone who commits gluttony is a glutton -- Because she's spent years dreaming of something this settled, this easy, and apparently it was under her nose the entire time, and now that she knows it's there, it's the one thing she can't ever consider. Again.

She's not sure what this says about herself. She doesn't like what this says about herself.

(Jack never would have been able to be that for her. She's not quite sure when she realized, not intellectually but emotionally. Later than she likes to think about, but Cam makes her think about it, makes her spread out all the little lies she tells herself to get herself through the day and confront them, just by sheer virtue of his patient waiting presence. She always forgets how he can do that. It's nothing he says. It's just something he is.)

"I," she starts, and then stops, because what can she say? Something must be showing on her face, though, because he turns away from her, fussing with the oven, opening the door and squinting against the rosemary-flavored steam. She can't see his expression from here. She wishes she could. It might make it easier.

"This is why I never said anything," he says to the stove. "Because in your head, there's guys you date and guys you're friends with, and I like who you are around guys you're friends with better."

Her hands are shaking. He's always been able to see too much. And usually he never says it until she asks him to, but there have been three times in their friendship when he's hit her in the face with a slap of cold water like this, and he was dead to rights on all three.

"You make me sound so pathetic," she says. Her voice is high and tight in her ears, and she's thinking of being angry or upset or both, but this is Cam. There's no malice here. Just love.

Love. Oh, God, he really does love her. And she doesn't even know what love means.

"Not pathetic," he corrects, setting the baking dish full of roasted potatoes on the top of the stove to cool. "Just human."

"What do you want?" she hears herself say. He looks up at her, and his eyebrows draw together -- it's a Daniel expression, she thinks, and then feels like laughing, because they're all painting themselves all over him, influences and confluences, and it makes her wonder what he's doing to all of them. She knows him well enough, even in this bizarre alternate universe they seem to have fallen into, to know that he's about to say something like I want you to be happy, and she cuts him off before he can. "Without the selflessness."

And that's anger, she realizes. It's licking along her veins, rushing through her skin, and it takes her a minute to recognize; she's angry because he never said anything. He never gave her the option to make the choice.

Trying to save her from herself. Trying to save himself from her.

A touch of that anger flares in his eyes, is locked down quickly. "What do you think I want?" he snaps. "You. In my life, in my heart. In my bed. I just happen to be willing to settle for two out of three."

There's something about Cameron Mitchell that breaks apart her usual way of doing things. That's her only possible explanation for the fact that -- before the echoes of his voice off the tiles have even faded -- someone is saying, "I thought you always told me never to settle for second best."

And yes, it was her, because it sure as hell wasn't him and they're the only two people in the room. He gapes at her like she's just punched him in the stomach -- she's angry enough to actually do it, but she knows, now, that it's the kind of anger that's really fear in disguise. Fear of losing him, fear of screwing this up, fear of falling and never coming back up for air.

He recovers quickly, though. Shakes his head, runs a hand through it. She can't remember the last time she saw him this off balance. "Baby," he says, low and rough and ragged, "don't fuck with me, please God don't make this weird, I'm so damn sorry I ever said anything --"

She crosses the kitchen in four steps, on shaking knees, and fastens her arms around his chest like she's drowning and he can save her. His arms automatically come up to circle her, and she turns her face into the hollow of his shoulder and breathes. He smells like fabric softener and spices and soap and sweat. He holds on like he's afraid she might break away at any second but he still wants to keep her safe for as long as she'll allow. She wonders if there's any kind of relief in having his secret out in the open at last.

She's got the degrees, but on some things, he's smarter than she is. Always has been. Maybe it's time to take some expert advice.

"I have no idea what I'm doing," she says against his sweatshirt. He's still, almost trembling, and she doesn't think it's from his injury. "Help me keep from screwing this up."

He breathes out; his arms tighten, and he turns his face to nuzzle her hair like he's just been given a precious gift. "Easy as hell," he says; "we'll figure it out together," and yeah. Things are easy around him. He makes them that way.

It's the only less-than-perfect meal she's ever had him cook for her, but some things just don't taste right when they're allowed to get cold and are reheated at two in the morning. It doesn't matter, though. By then, she's too happy to care.

. : | read comments - post comment - back | : .