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Klaus is Senior Airman on base. She’s 17 and he’s 20. He drives her around in his vintage Camaro and makes her feel free. He says they need to keep their relationship a secret. She’s not stupid. She also knows part of why she’s dating him is because it will anger her father if he finds out. But he’s deployed again, as always. Besides, Klaus is fun and makes her forget about her future which seems more and more already written. About how her brother hasn’t talked to her since she got her acceptance to the academy. Or how when her father calls, he only talks about her career.
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She meets Greg while she’s working on her masters. He’s a tenured English professor and she’s infinitely grateful he was never her professor. Being 22 and a dating someone who happens to works on campus is much different then being 22 and dating her professor.
At least that what she keeps telling herself.
He reads her Coleridge and Keats, serenading her with romance and the sublime. She peeks into a world view so very different from her own. Less about equations and regulations and more about the human condition and nature of existence. It makes her dizzy and leaves her thinking about possibilities.
Still, when he takes her to a faculty event one evening, she can overhear the whispers.
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She meets Jonus after her tour in the Gulf ends. She still reeling from loosing Lizzy and Shepard. He’s still reeling about things he’ll never tell her. She knows dating someone in the Air Force is a mistake. That even if they don’t work together, there may still be talk. But she takes the leap. He’s happiness and a future.
When he comes back from another deployment, he’s quiet. That night he clutches her, sobbing into her chest as he whispers he sorry to someone that died a thousand miles away. She clutches him back, repeating that she’s here.
A few months go by and he’s deployed again. When he comes back this time the quiet is gone. The relief she feels spreads through her whole being. She sends a silent thank you to a god she doesn’t believe in. That night he chokes her while he’s sleeping.
She knows this happens, that with a flashback you can lose sense of where you are and whats going on. So she puts on concealer and makes an appointment for him for a therapist. She’s not going to leave him when he needs her the most.
When he comes back from his next deployment, he hits her. She waits until he leaves in the morning for duty shift, then she packs her stuff and leaves the ring on kitchen counter.
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She meet Adam when she’s in Washington. He’s ex-Army and had just finished his 20. She’s figured out by this point she has a type. Brown hair, dark eyes, tall and athletic. Someone who makes her laugh. Not a bad boy but someone who has some colour their story. And always just on the edge of being age appropriate.
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When she first meets Jack O’Neill she’s convinced he will be another one of those commanding officers. The kind you endure. Within 24 hours she realise she wrong. He strong and steady. Loyal and constant. A surprise.
Its months later, well after the Broca incident that she realises. He had smile at her and she felt the world. So she has a crush. Its not first time.
A few months go by and she beings to worry. She needs to button this up. She’s a professional. But she keeps laughing at his jokes and smiling back when he smiles at her.
When he’s gone for 3 months she counts the days. She refuses to leave him behind. She’ll rewrite physics for him. She’ll work herself ill for him. Maybe it is going to be problem.
The relief she feels when she finally sees him again is jarring. She’s bursting when she begins to explain whats she done. What’s she’s done for him. But mid way through he walks away. Dismisses her. The shock is physical. Its the feeling of a staff being shoved into her diaphragm just at that spot where your lungs refuse to work. That all the pleading in the world wont force air into them.
When she gets home she pores herself a drink. Just one. She needs to button this up. She’s a professional. So she’s in love. Its not the first time.
She spends the next few months trying to fix herself. To stop this feeling. She tries to stop laughing at his jokes. To spend a little less time with him. She beginning to wonder if he’s trying to destroy her. The more she pulls away the more he pushes himself forward. And the way his eyes glint when we finally gets her laugh is intoxicating. The cat got the cream.
More time goes by and then she there on that ship with a force field between her and him. She sees it plainly now. His shout of no is a confession and his eyes are a promise. He wont leave her. She’s damned him.
They survive and promises are made to leave it in a room. Duty, Earth, the lives of their love ones must come first. So they shove it down. Less jokes, less smiles, less time with him fiddling with things in her lab. And everyday she tells herself its better this way.
Years go by. Enough time to hollow her out and doubt truth. When a phantom of her father tells her she’s not happy and that she needs a man to be fulfilled she wants to rage. Somehow that garbage had wormed its way into her. But she so tired and pulsing in her head wont stop. So she doesn’t rage. Just capitulates. She is not happy.
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When she meets Pete its just another confirmation her brother doesn’t know her at all. He’s more blond then brunette. Blue eyes not brown. The same age as her. While he carries a gun he couldn’t run a five mile to save a life. But he does make her laugh. That’s something.
There are flags and alarm bells. Moments that remind her of Jonus’ possessiveness. But she determine to make a new path forward. Its been 3 years since that ship. Since he wouldn’t leave her. Enough time to convince herself she saw wrong. That’s he’s moved on. That she completely misread the situation. She’s brimming with uncertainty but she knows one thing for certain, when she hummed in an elevator, Jack O’Neill didn’t fight for her.