What Doesn't Kill Us

"What am I going to do? How can I face her?"

I wipe the tears from my face and want to fill the empty hole that's in my heart.

I look up at them.

They have no answers.

I turn away and take another swig of whiskey.

It burns as it goes down my throat. I do this to remind me that I can still feel. Even though I feel hollow inside, my heart shattered my guilt to heavy to carry.

"Carter enough we have a long day tomorrow."

The voice of reason finally speaks up.

If he only knew the truth he'd have me continue my quest for oblivion.

"Sam, come on lets get inside its cold out here."

I can see the sadness in Daniel's eyes thanks to the full moon that's decided to peek out from behind the clouds. He will not care if I freeze to death once he knows.

The heaven wept earlier like it knew what I had done. The steady falling of the rain came to wash away the blood on my hands. The blood that was only visible to me.

They thought I was cold? That I may become ill.

If they only knew that coldness is what I've been feeling since I'd seen her face staring up at me with no life behind her eyes just emptiness.

I take another swig of the whiskey and mumbled.

"How cold do you think she feels right now? Why couldn't I stay with her? Why did you make me leave her there in the dark? "

I want to cry but the tears wouldn't come. I'm being punished for what I did; God is not letting me weep for my dead friend.

The Colonel comes and sits down next to me and tries to take the bottle.

"This won't solve anything. Carter, give it to me."

He tries to take it and I pull away from him.

"Cassie needs you, we needed you and Janet would have wanted you to be here for her and us."

I close my eyes.

Can't he see the pain I'm feeling?

We've lost people before but this, this could have been prevented.

If they only knew the truth they would not be trying to comfort me.

I had to unburden my soul.

I look at my friends and hope they'd understand what I am about to say.

"It should have been me," I whispered.

"Carter, no don't say that. I know this is hard but…"

I raise my hand to stop him from continuing, I have to tell them while I still had the courage.

Teal'c bent down and took my hand, "MajorCarter, we are all feeling we have failed JanetFraiser but she would want us to continue our battle and to win this fight, she would not want her death to be for not."

Daniel shakes his head. " Teal'c's right Sam it was a fluke it was…"

"What Daniel what was it? You guys don't understand. You don't have all the facts."

They were all puzzled and I continued.

"My jacket wasn't closing correctly it must have happened when they put in the new shield linings. Something must have happened to mine. Janet was worried for me since I was going to be on the front line. She tried to help me fix it I gave up and I took it off. I was going to get a regular jacket when she gave me hers. She put mine on and it clasped correctly."

I was crying by now but I had to finish my story.

"You see I was wearing her vest. If she had it on she would have survived! She was worried about me when I should have been worried about her. I took her vest and her life!"

I let go of the bottle and covered my face with my hands.

They knew the truth now.

I was the one responsible for Janet's death.