Disclaimer: All recognizable characters and settings are property of their lawful owners. This story is written for entertainment purposes only and no profit is made. No copyright infringement intended.

Warning: Character death. So don't go hoping for a miracle cure.

Timeline/ Spoilers: Diverges from the canon timeline after season 8 so anything up until then is fair game but no specific spoilers.

Summary: Sometimes the happiest moments of our lives are wrapped in a tragedy. But that doesn't mean they don't matter. Because even when everything else fades, the memories remain. I'm grateful for the months we shared, even though there were nowhere near enough of them.

A/N: Sometimes when I'm sad and stressed out and need a good cry, I kill people. I'm sorry.

English is still not my first language and once again I write about a subject I have no personal experience with.

Thanks to ladiosabri for the title and encouraging words. They mean a lot to me.

Mitä toivot että jää, kun pihan poikki kuljet, ja jäljet häviää?
(What do you hope remains, when you go across the garden, and the footprints fade away?)

Closure

It's a struggle sometimes to find words for Carter and the moments we've shared over the years. A big part of our communication was always non-verbal and trying to describe a specific smile of hers always falls a little flat from the real thing. Most of my memories are flashes, emotions, smells, touches. A million little things shoved into a tiny box together so that they can't be separated from one another yet at the same time each and every one has a specific time and place.

She knocked on my door late one Friday evening. Knocked, didn't use the doorbell like normal people would. I asked her about that, months later, and she admitted that it was a decision based on evidence and previous experience. "There was a big risk that you had removed the battery of your doorbell," she told me and I huffed like it was the most ridiculous suggestion ever. But we both knew she was right. I got tired of people wanting something. Hell, I got tired of the neighbors introducing themselves. I had to play nice and be polite at work all day, I just wanted to be alone when I got home.

But anyway. There she was, standing at my door. I had lived in D.C. for three months back then. Three months of bad excuses why we had to stay in touch. After she called me and started with "Sir, you wouldn't happen to know where Daniel put his glasses?" we didn't even bother making believable excuses anymore. But we never quite learned to admit that we simply missed each other, either.

I hadn't heard from her for a couple of weeks but that was nothing unusual in our busy lives.

I hadn't even realized how much I missed seeing her until she was standing right there in front of me. I guess I always thought it would be me who would show up behind her door and make the first big move in our relationship. I should have remembered that she's the smart one.

So there she was, leaning against the door frame, looking at me with a little smile on her face. I remember thinking that something was different because I had never seen such an intense, unguarded look on her face. Well, apart from that time when we were separated by a force field.

Then she let that smile fall and I realized that not only was something different, something was wrong. She had lost some weight and she looked, well, sick. I had to help her to the couch, she was too exhausted from just standing at the door.

I think I got her something to drink. An apple juice, probably. I don't exactly remember it, but every time I see apple juice, I find myself thinking of her and that evening. I remember offering food but she went a little green at the mention of pizza. I sat down next to her and asked casually what's up, fully expecting to hear one of the usual replies of "Nothing special, sir" or "I'm fine, sir", perhaps even a humorous excuse why she had to come for a visit but not that time, no.

"Cancer," she said instead and I don't think there is a strong enough word in the English dictionary to cover the panic I felt in that moment.

It's a horrible word, cancer. By default, it fills you with terror and worst case scenarios. It sounds like a synonym for death and to me, that had always been my biggest fear. Not dying, no. I was used to the threat of dying, it comes with the job. But losing Carter to death. Well, losing Carter, period.

I remember taking a deep breath, trying to focus on the fact that a lot of cancers can be cured. I was waiting for her to start stating the statistics to me, explaining odds and probabilities, drawing comfort from math but she didn't. That's when I realized that she had done the math already and it didn't look good. She just looked at me with that intense gaze of hers again, those blue eyes so full of strength but also tired, and I remember the horrifying moment when I started to suspect she came here to die.

"Single tumor in left ovary," I remember her saying. "No big deal."

I knew there was a but coming. And oh, was there ever. I don't remember her exact words but basically they had removed the tumor with no problems and she had started a treatment to make sure the microscopic cancer cells were killed as well.

The naquadah in her blood had reacted rather violently to the chemotherapy. I remember bits and pieces from her explanation, things like "taking meds to stop it" and "irreplaceable damage". Her body was attacking itself, a war going on inside her that she couldn't fight with guns or strategies.

"And you came here," I remember thinking the words out loud.

"I spent a weekend with my brother and wrote a couple of letters just in case. Stopped at the SGC to greet old friends and get fixed up well enough to fly here."

"Why?"

She took a deep breath and I knew I wouldn't like her next words. "We have no way of knowing what will happen. If I die, I want to go without regrets. You're my biggest one. Well not you, us. The fact that there is no us."

Instead of trying to come up with an answer, I kissed her, gently and slowly. When I buried my hands in her hair, it fell out in lumps and my hands were covered with the blond strands. She buried her face in my neck and I could feel her tears sliding down my skin and under the collar of my T-shirt. I might have shed a tear or two as well, resting my chin on the top of her head while the weight of it all sinked in.

If Carter had no idea what was happening, that was bad. If things were out of her control, I couldn't figure out anyone who could fix them. That was a scary thought.

Despite my protesting knees, I scooped her up and carried her to the bedroom. We didn't really talk that night, just held each other.

She only brought a duffel with her but somehow I got the impression that she came to stay. Turned out I was more right about that than I wanted to be.

We talked a lot that weekend. It wasn't the kind of conversations you'd expect people to have when they're facing the possibility of death, no. It was just little, everyday things. We talked about our childhoods a lot, confessed our most irrational phobias, talked about everything from favorite coffee brands to failed relationships.

I'm not much of a talker but somehow the stories just flowed out of me as we lay there in my bed, holding each other. She was tired, exhausted, from the treatments and traveling. She couldn't really hold any solids down so I kept bringing her juice and some nutrition shakes she had gotten from doctor Lam.

I didn't eat much myself that weekend. You know those whackos that claim that it's possible to live off the energy of the sun alone? That's how I felt that weekend. Carter, even when sick, always had that special kind of radiance about her and right then I felt like it was all I needed.

I couldn't keep my hands off her hair but every time I stroked her head, a bunch of blond hairs covered my hand, sticking from between my fingers, and every time I apologized to her and tried to keep my hands to myself.

"It's going to fall off anyway," she finally whispered on Saturday afternoon when we were watching Simpsons in bed. "And that's not a bad way to go."

So I kept stroking her head while we watched TV, just drawing comfort from the fact that she was there, in my home, my bed, snuggled against my shoulder. We didn't talk about dying, not really. Not about future, either. We didn't bother making plans that might not happen, we just focused on the moment because we had no idea how long we'd have.

That whole weekend had a surreal feel to it, almost magical. We opened up to each other in a unique way and I've never felt more close to another human being before or after that weekend.

I shaved her head on the Sunday evening.

And on Monday morning, with a heavy heart, I went back to work.

She started to get better after that. I don't know what the meds were that she kept taking four times a day. Carter tried to explain to me but all I understood was that they included about fifteen different chemicals I can't even pronounce, were specifically modified to match her unique blood chemistry and were keeping her alive.

I only really cared about the last part.

She slept a lot during the days when I worked. On Thursday evening when I got home, I found she had organized my DVDs in alphabetical order. That was the moment when I let myself hope for the first time, let myself think outside that little bubble we had created and think about the possible future.

On Friday evening I offered to take her out for a dinner before I realized her body still couldn't handle solids. We ended up in McDonald's. I had a burger and she had a milkshake and we sat at the corner table and chatted about mundane things like gas prices and favorite movies and how I really should buy new sheets because the old ones I had were scratchy.

It's still the most romantic date I've ever had. But I'm not going to tell that to anyone except Sam.

We had a few amazing weeks after that. Carter was still tired but better. She started eating solids again and we often cooked when I got home from work. We went for short walks in the many parks of DC and just enjoyed the little things. She read a lot while I was at work and I teased her about her definition of light reading.

There was lots of kissing during those two weeks, even a couple of heated make-out sessions, but we didn't go further than that. She was fragile and I found myself wishing for a better time, waiting for her to get better.

We made love for the first time the night she heard her kidneys were failing and she'd have to start dialysis the next week.

"People can live years on dialysis," the doctor said but even then we both knew what it meant. The kidneys were just the first step. Her organs were starting to fail, one by one, despite the medication and there was nothing we could do but wait for her to slowly fade away.

She called her brother the next day and I organized them the flights for the next weekend.

Her family arrived around noon on Friday and I took the afternoon off so I could entertain the kids while Sam talked with her brother and sister-in-law. We went to the zoo, ate ice cream and played in the park. It was a sunny weekend. I remember that much even though the details are a little hazy.

Mark's youngest daughter looked so much like a mini-Sam that the ache in my chest was almost physical when I watched her running around the park and realized Carter would probably never get kids. I didn't even know if she wanted any but it still felt like a tragedy.

Another important thing I did was to keep Carter, Sam, comfortable. I actually started calling her Sam more often that weekend because there were so many Carters around but Carter had always been special to us, almost like a pet name.

Sam was exhausted after the day of talking and she was starting to get some weird neural pains in her limbs. Not that I minded back then, I was more than happy to massage her calves and arms until she could sleep. She went to bed early, around the same time with her nieces and nephews, and when she finally fell asleep, I walked to the back porch with a beer and sat down next to Mark.

We sat silent for a long time, sipping our drinks, thinking what to say or nothing at all.

"It's not a normal cancer, is it?" Mark asked and took a long gulp of beer like he was trying to wipe the taste of those words from his mouth. "It's classified, like always."

"Yes and no," I said and took a sip of my own drink. "The cancer was perfectly normal."

"Was?"

"Yeah. It's gone now. But there's something classified in her bloodstream and it reacted violently to chemo. The side effects are killing her."

"Cancer could be treated but... How do you treat a treatment that's killing you?"

"You don't," I said and now it was my turn to down a reasonable amount of beer because even thought we knew what would happen eventually, it was the first time I had admitted out loud that there was nothing we could do.

"But you'll take good care of her, right?"

"Yeah," I sighed. "I will." The best I could.

It was late on Saturday evening when I felt her lips moving against the skin of my shoulder but couldn't tell apart the words.

"Sorry, what was that?" I asked.

"Will you marry me?" she whispered, so softly that I had to go through the words in my head a couple of times before I believed she really said them out loud.

"Of course," I remember answering. "Tomorrow okay?" I would have pulled a rank and arranged a flight to Vegas right then if that's what she wanted.

"Jack," she sighed, exasperated, and I realized she didn't believe I was serious. So I reached into the drawer of my bedside table and pulled out an old, worn velvet box. I had kept it in the top drawer for years, not really knowing why. But right then it kinda made sense.

"It was my mother's," I whispered and gave her the box, giving her the option to either open it or give it back. "It's yours if you want it."

It was a simple ring, a narrow golden band with one diamond in the middle, mounted instead of bedded so it probably would have gotten in the way at work. I would have bought her something very different but from the look on her face when I slid the ring in her finger, she was more than happy with that one.

It was exactly the right size which was a little sad because the ring was tiny and it only fit because she had lost a lot of weight. But I pushed that thought away because the woman I loved was wearing my ring and that was the important part.

We made Mark and his family stay for one more week. They moved to a hotel, though, because they didn't want the kids to see how sick Carter was. We applied for the marriage license first thing on Monday morning.

The ceremony was a small one, held at the town hall on Friday morning. Teal'c and Daniel flew to DC to celebrate with us, as did Cassie.

Carter was wearing a simple ivory dress and she had a silk scarf in the same color wrapped around her head to cover the fact that she had no hair. When it was time to take the official pictures, though, she pulled my old baseball cap from her purse and put it in her head. It looked a lot better than the scarf did. Not very official but in a way, very Carter-like.

I have one copy of the picture in my wallet. I'm wearing my dress blues and she's in her wedding dress and the cap. She's laughing so hard that she's doubled over. Or at least that's how I prefer to remember it. It's possible that she was just so sick that I needed to keep her standing.

I run my fingertips over her laughing face and try to find a word for how I felt that day but once again the scale runs short when I look for a way to describe the happiness. And the fear, because it was there as well.

We had a little celebration at my house afterwards. Well, our house because at that point it was already Carter's place as much as mine. She didn't have energy to actually redecorate the place but she did some online shopping for sheets and small pillows. I used to laugh at her about the pillows but when she started having more of the bad days and used a pile of the brightly colored things to prop herself up on the couch, it wasn't so funny anymore.

There was cake, of course, for the majority of us. Carter was worried that eating cake might upset her stomach too much so Cassie made her a protein shake with the same flavors, raspberry and chocolate.

Daniel and Teal'c left the next day, after giving Sam hugs that lasted for minutes, but Cassie stayed. There was something in her eyes that gave me the impression that she would be staying until the end and I had nothing against that. Against the staying that is, I had a lot against the ending part, but that was out of my control.

Carter was oddly calm about it from the very beginning. Like the good soldier that I knew her to be. I had no doubt that she would fight as long as she could but she also knew that some battles can't be won.

A month later Sam spent every night in dialysis and the humming of the device was part of the usual background noise in our bedroom. Eating was getting harder for her again and there were more and more of those days when she couldn't keep solids down.

Something changed in her the day we found out her liver was failing as well, like she was starting to prepare for the loss already. That's when I started to fight for her instead. Or I guess I fought against her if I'm perfectly honest.

She didn't meet the requirements to be put to the organ waiting list. It wouldn't have cured her, only give a little more time. And even if they could have put her on the list, Sam would have said no. She made it clear she would rather die and let somebody else get the kidney, someone whom it would cure, someone who'd have many good years ahead of them. That's Carter, alright. Willing to sacrifice herself for somebody else's happiness.

I offered to give her my other kidney and a piece of my liver but she shot that offer down as well.

"We're married, Sam," I remember saying. "They're not my organs anymore, they're ours."

Bit of a stretch on the definition of marriage, I admit, but I wanted to try the humorous approach at first. It didn't work out.

In the end I just shouted at her that if she dies on me right now, I'm going to put a bullet to my head and that nice little kidney and liver will just go to waste.

I don't think I've ever seen such fear in her eyes and I realized for the first time how similar we were. Neither one of us was afraid of our own death but the thought of losing the other one was terrifying. I saw a hint of regret in her eyes as well and I know she was thinking that she never should have showed up behind my door, that it would have been easier for us both if we never had gotten this close.

Three nights I spent on the couch before she had calmed down and I had gathered enough courage to try talking again.

"I don't regret this," I told her when I took her the liquid breakfast. I never understood how she could live on that stuff but that has nothing to do with our conversation. "Any of this. No matter what happens, whether you die tomorrow or in fifty years, I will never regret marrying you, Carter."

"Did you mean it?"

I almost asked which part but then I realized that it didn't really matter. "I haven't lied to you since you showed up behind my door telling you had cancer."

"If I die... Will you do it? Kill yourself?"

I heaved a sigh and sat down on the edge of the bed. I remember thinking how soft the sheets were. They were pure white with little blue flowers, the exact same shade with her eyes, and made of satin.

"If you die right now? I would," I admitted but kept my eyes on the sheets.

"Even if I tell you not to?"

"Would you ask me to die for you?" I asked, looking straight into her tired blue eyes.

"Of course not," she replied, a little frown forming on her face, obviously thinking what I meant with that question.

"Then don't ask me to live for you if I'd rather die. Because in the end we're talking about my life and my right to decide about it."

I remember her swallowing a couple of times while my words sinked in.

"The surgery is dangerous, for both of us. And it will just prolong the inevitable. What next? Are you going to give me one of your lungs? Lend a piece of your brain? Half of your heart?"

"You already have half my heart, Carter," I told her honestly. And I knew it wasn't a solution, just an extension to our time together and I knew my reasons were selfish. I have naquadah in my blood just like she did. So far the meds had managed to slow down the tissue damage but not completely stop it so there was a good chance that at some point it would attack even the new organs. But I also knew that she would probably die long before that.

"Jack," she sighed and leaned back against the headboard.

"Sam," I replied. I still called her Carter most of the time but sometimes, on moments like that, her given name felt like a better option. "If you want to go, I'll let you go," I promised. Because in the end, I never knew how to deny her anything. Not even if it killed me, figuratively or literally.

"Just like that?"

"It won't be easy and but I'll do it if that's what you want."

"Of course not," she sighed and turned her gaze to the ceiling. "Of course I want to stay, I want to fight and spend every second I can with you but... There will be a time when we have to call it."

"It doesn't have to be now."

"Alright."

"Just like that?"

"Just this. Nothing more," she said firmly.

"And blood."

"What?"

"I keep the right to donate you blood should you ever need it."

"Alright," she sighed again like she was giving in to an annoying kid. "I can accept blood. But no more organs."

"Bone marrow?" It was unlikely that she'd ever need that but I wanted to list as many things I as could now that she was, for once, accepting my help.

"Anything that doesn't require an operation. Do you want that in writing?"

"No. I trust your word."

I remember her smiling and squeezing my hand, stronger than she had for a long time.

Knowing what I know now, I probably wouldn't have insisted. She never showed how much pain she was in, not until much later. It was only later that I understood the hypocrisy of my speech. I just told her she has no right to ask me to live for her yet that's exactly what I asked her to do, to live for my sake instead of her own.

It was touch and go for a while, after the surgery, for her. She caught an infection and almost didn't make it in her weakened state. But once the antibiotics kicked in, she quickly regained her strength.

I retired before the surgery. It felt like the right thing to do. It was becoming harder and harder to focus on my job and I knew her time was running out and wanted to spend every second of it with her.

Sam's general health improved greatly once she had recovered from the surgery. Her stomach was still upset and she lived mainly on the nutrition shakes and sometimes fruits if she was feeling better. But she had energy to walk again and didn't need to spend time at the hospital every week. It took a while before we learned to sleep without the dialysis machine as a background noise but we did.

Her hair never grew back after that first Sunday when I shaved it but I didn't even pay attention to it.

Our sex life improved as well, a fact that made Cassie inform us she was tired of listening to us "going at it like rabbits", which wasn't even true by the way, and was getting her own apartment. It was very embarrassing back then but now I can already laugh at it.

We had fabulous six months. We went to the cabin and traveled around the country. Not too much, because stress made her symptoms worse, but a little. We went to visit Daniel and Teal'c, her brother and even her aunt. But mostly we just spent time at the cabin. She never managed to get back the weight she lost so she looked very small and fragile but her smile and laughter were as infectious as they always were.

It was magic. Not magic like that first weekend because that still feels like a dream now, long time later, but magic in a way that we couldn't believe we finally got the chance to be together. For the first time we were like a normal married couple. We argued about who does the dishes and who takes the trash out, we wrestled over the TV remote and cuddled on the couch. We talked and we were silent. We made most of every moment.

I started noticing she was in more pain week by week and finally we had to return to DC when the over-the-counter painkillers weren't enough anymore. She said it felt like her nerves were on fire, an agony all over her body and nothing helped, nothing made it better. But I did everything I could to make her comfortable. I ran her baths, cold and hot in turns, gave massages, and finally, administered safe amounts of morphine when everything else stopped working.

We knew it was just a matter of time but it was still a shock to find out her lungs were starting to fail. It had happened so gradually that we didn't even notice and by the time we mentioned it to her doctors, there was nothing they could do anymore.

"I'm sorry but a lung transplant is the only way to get you a functioning pair of lungs, ma'am," the doctor said. Or maybe he didn't use such harsh words, maybe I just remember what I read between the lines.

"No," Carter said and shook her head, tired but determined.

I remembered our deal about no more surgeries but I was about to start negotiating when I noticed Sam pushing another dose of morphine into her vein. They got her one of those PCA pumps eventually when the pain got too bad. It was the easiest way to make sure she didn't OD on the morphine. It also gave her a sense of being in control of something for a change.

She had been right the first time, when I offered her the kidney and a slice of my liver. We would have to call it at some point. If she got a lung transplant now, she'd need a heart next. But there was no transplant that could take away the constant pain she couldn't hide anymore. Her body was eating itself from the inside and no matter what I tried, I couldn't save her.

I remember nodding at her and she nodded back with tears in her eyes. She was playing with the ring I gave her. I hope it was because she was drawing strength from it.

"Regrets?" I remember whispering to her that evening when we were lying in bed.

"I'll regret dying," she answered, an echo from a conversation so many years ago that it felt like another lifetime. "But not you," she continued. "Never you, Jack. None of this. Not a single second."

"Not even that you let me talk you over? About the kidney?"

"Memories last longer than pain," she mumbled against my shoulder and it killed me a little to know that it was the morphine that was making her words slur a little. But at the same time, she was very aware of the pain right then and she still didn't regret it.

"Besides," she mumbled and moved a little to get comfortable again. "A part of you will literally die with me when the time comes. I find it oddly poetic."

I tried but I couldn't come up with a reply worth saying out loud so I just squeezed her a little tighter against my chest and hoped I wouldn't need to let go, ever.

Cassie moved back in with us for the last month. Carter started sleeping a lot again, tired from the heavy medication. She didn't have the energy to talk a lot but the little she said was always free of any filters, raw to the bone, honest.

"Please don't follow me right away," she told me one night when her breathing was getting shallow already and we both knew the end was getting close but I wasn't brave enough to say it out loud. "Stay a little longer," she pleaded, her thumb stroking my cheek like she was wiping away a tear though I'm pretty sure I wasn't crying. "Let me grow back my hair, alright? I want to be pretty for you."

"You're perfect just the way you are," I whispered and kissed her palm.

"It's just a blink of an eye for me," she continued in low whispers. "Whether you stay a day or a decade longer here, I won't know the difference." She was contradicting her previous reason but I didn't really care.

"I can't promise you that, Sam."

"I wouldn't ask for a promise. Just think about it."

"I will." That much I could do for her.

"Can you get Cassie here?"

Our adoptive daughter climbed in the bed with us for that last night and curled up on her other side. We each held one of Sam's fragile hands in ours and listened her slowly fading away. We didn't talk, not really. There was not much to say.

"Cassie," Sam whispered some time in the early morning. None of us had gotten any sleep, too scared that we'd miss her last moments.

"Yeah?" the girl sighed, her voice full of tears.

"I love you."

"I love you, too."

"Be happy, OK?"

"I will."

Be happy, she said. No be good or fight for your dreams, or some other profound lessons about life, no. Because all she really wanted was for her to be happy. That's the thing that really mattered in the end.

"Jack?"

"Right here."

"I love you. More than... you'll ever know." She ran out of breath in the middle and had to stop to draw in a shaky breath.

"I think I know. And I love you, too. More than words can explain," I managed to choke out. I stroked her head gently, silently giving her the permission to close her eyes because it was obviously a struggle to keep them open.

"Any regrets?" I whispered and kissed the tip of her nose.

She struggled to draw in a deep breath and then sighed a simple "None".

I guess I was expecting her to say once again that she'd regret dying. But she had reached her limit, probably a while ago, and even death felt like a relief at that point. It made it harder and easier for me. Easier to let go but harder not to blame myself. If I had let her go when she first asked me to, she never would have gone through all that pain that made her wish for death. But she had told me she didn't regret anything.

Memories last longer than pain.

It was seven minutes past six in the morning when she drew her last breath and her hold of our hands loosened.

She would have turned forty today. Forty.

One reason why I never seriously pushed our relationship beyond the odd flirty workmate zone was that I felt like I was too old for her. I was worried about the fact that I'd die long before her. It feels like the universe delivered a kick in the gut with that one.

First Charlie and now Carter left long before their time. For a long time after her funeral, I used to look at people I care about and wonder if they would die soon, too, or if they were simply alive because I didn't love them as much as I thought I did.

Now I've given up on trying to find logic in all this. Logic was Sam's specialty and she's not here anymore. The anger and sadness are mixing with gratefulness for the months we got. There were nowhere near enough of them, but we might not have gotten together at all if she hadn't gotten sick.

I run my hand along the smooth stone. We actually argued about the name that would go on her tombstone. She wanted it to say O'Neill, I said it should be Carter. She was only O'Neill for a few short months and actually it was officially Carter-O'Neill even for those but she'd been a Carter all her life. I remember telling her that one evening when she talked about it.

"You were my biggest regret but we fixed that," she reminded me. "That's important to me."

"You've been a Carter most of your life," I reminded her again.

"But I'll die as O'Neill, Jack. That's what you'll remember anyway when you go to my grave, my death. No matter when or how it happens, that moment will always linger there. You want to celebrate my life, call me Carter. But I can bet you won't be doing that at my grave."

I huff and trace the golden letters with my index finger, making an extra round around the O of O'Neill.

"You were right and wrong about that, Carter," I whisper. I don't come here often but when I do, I often find myself thinking of the good things along with the bad ones. In a way our whole marriage was just a series of little happy moments, woven into a huge tragedy. But those moments shine so bright that sometimes, just sometimes, I can almost forget the circumstances that made it possible.

It's a big stone. There's enough space for my name as well when the time comes but it's not yet.

"I'm still here, Carter." That's the main reason why I come here, to tell her that. I don't know if she's out there somewhere, watching over me, waiting for her hair to grow back, or if she's floating in a happy place, unaware of time flying by. But I want her to know that I haven't put a bullet to my head.

Oh, I was tempted, I admit that. But Cassie needed me. And when we had helped each other over the worst grief, I realized that I wasn't quite ready to go yet. I miss her every day but my place is here for now. I think I saw a fish in my lake the other night and I'm determined to catch it. That might take a couple of decades, though, because it's a big lake for one fish.

"I dragged some of your crazy little pillows to the cabin," I say and my index finger makes another round around the letter O. I'm getting old and my back doesn't like napping in the old chairs on the dock as much as it used to. But the pillows make it better. Or maybe it's just the idea of having something of hers close to me. She only had a duffel with her when she moved in so there aren't a lot of her things lying around. But that's alright because we made plenty of memories that aren't tied to objects but places, people, songs and smells and that now keep popping into my head at random times anywhere I go. She's not here anymore but at the same time... It's like she's everywhere.

"Happy birthday, Carter," I say and finally lower a small flower pot on top of the tombstone. It's some kind of green plant, I never bothered to ask what it was called. I never bring flowers here because they die so quickly, fade away just like she did. "The lady said that thing should survive the D.C. weather. And, you know, I might have to come by a little more often to talk to it. The next few months are too cold in Minnesota anyway."

I swear the wind that plays with the leaves and the end of my scarf feels warmer than the average D.C. wind in December.

"Yeah," I sigh and let my finger trace the letters of her, our, last name one more time. "Love you, too."

A/N: For the sake of this story, let's pretend that Sam was buried into a normal graveyard instead of Arlington. Also, I don't know if they've ever shown/mentioned their blood types in the show but let's just pretend that the two of them are a perfect match in that area as well.

Thank you for reading.