This is what he wanted

Title: This is what he wanted  
  
Summary: She may have all those degrees in astrophysics, but he's still the one wishing on shooting stars.  
  
Story notes: A 2010 filler and another 'what-went-wrong' fic. It's a bit dark and a bit mean, but I think it kinda had to be.   
  
*   
  
*  
  
Carter comes by later when he's been Colonel Jack O'Neill (USAF, retired) for just over 3 hours and 40 minutes.   
  
His cleared out office is still sitting in a box just inside the hall. He's out of uniform (it's only fitting) and wandering round his house, trying to figure out if what he's feeling, this feeling, is anger or relief.   
  
She knocks, and he lets the sound ring through his house, hollow, for a while, because he knows she'll wait.   
  
He unlocks the door and she's standing there staring at him, in civvies, and he can describe exactly what she's wearing (black wool, blue denim, brown boots), but he really doesn't want to think about the look he's seeing on her face.   
  
There's no pause, he doesn't bother with greetings, he just takes his hand off the door and walks back down his hall, listening to her following footsteps and sound of the door closing softly.   
  
His house is too dark, so he flicks a switch that he passes, opens his fridge that is almost all beer and almost no food, and grabs two bottles, walks back to his living room where she's sitting nervously on the edge of the couch and swings a bottle to her.   
  
He thinks he deserves a toast.   
  
"Sure was fun while it lasted."   
  
She ignores the obvious refrain and takes a swig, but mainly out of courtesy. His house, his beer, his toast.   
  
"We tried, sir, god knows, we've looked through everything more than twice. Just because we can't find something, doesn't mean there's anything there..."   
  
He's been acting like ass, so this is probably as close to an apology as he's going to get, but he's really getting sick of the party line.   
  
"No, it just means they're smarter..."   
  
But that wasn't supposed to be so mean. He's made her really angry, he can tell by the sudden sharp angle of her back, and the focused little movements she uses to pull the label off her beer bottle. He could have just said "it's your fault, Carter" and saved himself the sub text.   
  
It's stupid (he knows) but just for once he wants someone to side with him, and if it wasn't this, it would be anything else. He's just so sick of having to remodel his morals to fit around every situation. He can't remember anything from Sunday school that could prepare him for this. Any of this.   
  
(God is love. God is good. So why isn't love good?)   
  
And he should probably stop to explain this to her, but right now his fury isn't going to let him.   
  
"Aren't you going to ask what I'm going to do now?"   
  
She looks at him silently, indignant at best, indifferent at worst.   
  
He counts off on his fingers.   
  
"Cabin, fish, fresh air, no Aschen, no Air Force."   
  
It's a crappy invite, but he gave back his subtly with his side arm and his pass card.   
  
She just looks sad.   
  
"Don't do this."   
  
He feels like he's cheating a kid out of candy, but just once he wants someone to choose him.   
  
"Please don't do this."   
  
There's no reason for this, except the inevitable smug satisfaction he'll have when she turns him down. It'll be ok then, if he almost hates her, because he'll be right, she'll be wrong and he can gallop off on the moral high ground.   
  
That's what he tells himself.   
  
"It's your call, cap'n."   
  
And he's joking with her, so it can't be true that his palms are sweating and his heart just stuttered into overdrive.   
  
"Don't you dare. You know me, you know what this project means to me so don't you fucking dare."   
  
She's angry, he's angry, so why are they doing this?   
  
Oh yeah, love.   
  
But all the good and logical knowledge he has can't make him give her that answer.   
  
"So that'd be a 'no, sir'...?"   
  
Because life can't give him any rawer deal, if he gives himself one first.   
  
"You're the one who's doing this."   
  
And he is, really.   
  
See, Carter's not dumb; she knows this isn't about her. She stretches out, puts her half empty beer with its fluttering label on the coffee table. He hears rather than sees her stand up, and she doesn't move for a long while.   
  
Answer, dammit, but he can't.   
  
He hears boots on his floorboards, echoing carefully through his empty house. She reaches his front door, but comes back. He doesn't have to look up to know she's standing just inside the living room doorway.   
  
"Do you have any idea ... how much I wanted ... thought about ..."   
  
She's as military as he is, so he knows this is an uncomfortable speech. She doesn't finish, and there's a painful silence where he should answer, but all he can think about is how just for once he wants someone to choose him. He wants her to want him, even though he's made it impossible.   
  
Right now that's all he can want.   
  
She stands there for a long time, while his clock ticks and a car door slams outside and he listens to her breathe in soft wounded hitches.   
  
(Or maybe that's him.)   
  
He doesn't look up until he hears the front door shut, and a long time later a car start up and drive away. When he looks up, he catches his reflection in the coffee table. He looks tired, a little greyer than he remembered. It's not for some years that he looks at his reflection and sees a foolish old man.   
  
  
  
*   
  
  
  
He doesn't see her again until he meets Lieutenant Colonel Carter after General Hammond's funeral. Three years later he thinks she looks the same, until he sees the ring on her finger and the husband on her arm.   
  
Stupid to forget she always was so much smarter than him.   
  
She's married the ambassador, and deep deep down he knows that this guy is one of the better ones, but he can't shake the stomach settling feeling of disappointment.   
  
Where's his moral high ground now?   
  
They greet, as you do, and three years is long enough for her to ask, "So, how are the fish?" when she's finished reacquainting him with her husband. But it's not long enough that he can shake the bastard's hand and say "good to see you" and mean it.   
  
It's making his head hurt, all these things he doesn't want to think about, so he heads to the bar, empties several club sodas and tries to work out when everything got so screwed up.   
  
He doesn't like the answers.   
  
Later when the bar is busy and he is surrounded by glasses, she comes and sits down next to him, not touching of course, just parallel.   
  
"How are you doing?"   
  
It's soft and it's earnest and she's looking at him, but not the way she used to.   
  
And there are so many things he could say. (Most of them start with 'sorry'.)   
  
They're just there, on the edge of his tongue, but it's too late now.   
  
"I-I-I'm---" he stutters the beginning of 'I'm sorry' (a test) to find he still has the strength. "I'm drunk, Carter, go away."   
  
So then it's just him.   
  
After all, this is what he wanted. 


End file.
