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Sam slammed her front door shut with unnecessary vigour, switched off the burglar alarm before it could make rude noises at her, and flung her damp coat at the hook. Even coming from where she'd parked her car, walking down the short path across the front lawn had been enough to get her wet. The rain was the last straw at the end of a really crap day. What she needed was a long, hot soak with a few drops of lavender oil in the water, followed by a massage. What she was going to get was an evening spent trying to find a way of undoing a Gate problem created by an over-eager technical sergeant attempting a quick fix while Siler was away visiting some aunt he claimed to have.
Muttering under her breath about the irritating habits and general ineptitude of half the SGC, she headed for the kitchen area to make herself a hot drink.
Reclining in an armchair, feet resting casually on her coffee table... The absolute last person she wanted to see. She wasn't up to this. Not today, not even tomorrow, maybe never.
"Maybourne, what the fuck are you doing here?"
"Drinking coffee." He held up a cup and saucer by way of demonstration. "You weren't here, so I helped myself."
Her mother's best china, the tea service with the little pink roses on it. The one they'd used after her funeral...
"Put that down!"
He wrinkled his nose in protest, but placed the cup gently down on the table. He'd helped himself to a cookie too, on a plate beside the teacup.
And how the hell had he gotten in without setting off the burglar alarm? Enemy, NID, everything screamed it at her -- no regard for privacy, no regard for anything except their own personal ends. Maybourne might no longer be with them, but he still bore their taint. She edged carefully around the room towards the book shelf where she kept a Beretta wedged a behind a boxed set of The Lord of the Rings.
"Why did you come here?" she demanded.
He sat easily in the chair, the apparent picture of unconcern. "Isn't wanting to see you a good enough reason?"
"No," she snapped. "You're not my boyfriend."
Maybourne leaned back and laced his fingers together behind his head. "I got the impression you quite liked the idea. You'd make a good top."
"I don't know what you're talking about." Didn't know, didn't want to know, didn't even want to think about it.
She snatched wildly at the book-box, almost knocking it on the floor and grabbed the Beretta from behind it. The touch of it reassured her as to who and what she was: Samantha Carter, Major, US Air Force. She gripped it firmly; when she pointed the gun directly between his eyes, her hands were steady.
"Get down on the floor."
As he walked slowly around the coffee table, familiarity tugged at her. The way he moved was known to her, the line of his shoulders, the backsweep of his hair. Time spent in his company had been short enough, but it had stamped him on her mind. There was a solid physicality to him, something about his stocky build that made her all too aware of his presence.
She fought back a sudden urge to touch him, concentrated instead on his eyes, watching for the split-second warning of any intent to move against her. His gaze was too dark, too deep, too wary -- she didn't want him wary. She needed his eyes to be yielding, submissive, reaching out to whatever it was in her that...
She pulled herself sharply together. "Did you really think," she said, "that I'd let you go again, after what you did to me last time? You promised you'd turn yourself in."
He knelt awkwardly before her. "Would you rather I was back on death row?"
Maybourne, jerking in the final throes of electrocution, probably incontinent, screaming in-- She struggled to shut the intrusive image out of her mind to concentrate instead on the present.
"Flat on your front!"
Maybourne lay belly down on the carpet, reached his arms behind him and crossed his wrists submissively in the small of his back.
"Don't do that!"
And don't look at me -- don't let me see your eyes, because I won't be able to handle it if you show me what I want to see, and I'm not sure I can handle it if you don't.
"If you're to reach a phone before I get out of here, you'll have to bind me." He sounded as though he were a teacher offering helpful advice to a third grade student.
"I can phone and keep the gun on you at the same time."
"I cut the wire. Your cellphone is in your coat pocket in the hall. You can't cover me from there."
"So, make like a snake. Get into the hall."
"No." It was as though she could hear him saying: "I won't sign my own death warrant." But then why had he come here? Don't ask, because you don't want to know the answer.
Maybourne twisted his head round to look at her. "There's rope in my jacket pocket."
Bastard.
Right hand keeping the gun firmly pointed at his skull, she used her left hand to rummage in the pocket of Maybourne's jacket. It was there. Soft to the touch, smooth almost silky, laden with unbidden images and associations. It couldn't be the same rope. It didn't matter. Maybe in some obscure way, all rope was the same rope. Her heart was beating, too fast and too shallow.
"I've got you exactly where you damn well want me, haven't I?" Tying him was too dangerous, too likely to release the inner demon that kept insisting she throw duty to the winds and take what was being so blatantly offered.
Maybourne said nothing, eyes watching, waiting.
Stop trying to manipulate me! I've got a bloody gun pointing at you; isn't that enough?
She drew out the rope, still looped up in a long crochet chain -- to prevent tangling, an interfering corner of memory informed her -- trapped one end under her foot to hold it down and undid the last knot left-handed to allow it all to pull free.
She shifted the gun to her left hand, found the rough centre of the rope and made a folded loop about two feet in length.
Bastard
Standing astride his legs, she swung hard with the rope, slashing him across the buttocks.
Is this what you want?
His breath caught, but he lay still beneath her.
She swung again. Harder.
Maybourne's hands clenched in the small of his back, but he made no other sound or movement.
No feedback. No connection.
"I thought you liked this sort of thing? Isn't this what you want?" Her sarcasm fell harsh on her own ears.
She was dead and she was dry as dust and there was no love in her life. Martouf was dead, Jack forever out of reach. What was Maybourne to her?
"Do you treat all your prisoners this way?" He sounded indifferent, distant. "Or is the SGC's boy scout image pure propaganda?"
Her hand jerked convulsively; the Beretta bucked in her grip as though it had a life of its own. For one horrifying moment, she thought she'd actually pulled the trigger.
This wasn't safe.
It wasn't sane either.
It sure as hell wasn't consensual.
What was she doing?
She took a step back and lowered the gun.
"Get out. Get out of here, before I change my mind and shoot you."
Maybourne rolled over and came to his feet, all in one smooth motion. "I wouldn't try it if I were you. I reloaded it with blanks."
Had she thought once that he didn't like being in control? Hell, the man was a bloody control freak. He'd engineered the entire situation from beginning to end. And now he was going to leave, and she was still no closer as to any real understanding of what he wanted. Did he want her or didn't he? One moment she'd thought he did, the next it all seemed like some elaborate joke. If he wanted her, why hadn't he made a move? He hadn't even tried to kiss her.
"Goodbye, Major." He dipped his head briefly in formal acknowledgement. "I apologise for intruding on you."
Always in her life, she'd been the one waiting to be asked. If no boy asked you for a dance, then you didn't dance. If no one asked you out to the pictures, then you went on your own. If you saw a boy you liked, you hung around and looked as obvious as was decent and waited for him to ask you out. She thought of herself as a liberated, independent woman, but there were still some barriers she found it hard to cross. You didn't ask a man out and you certainly didn't ask him if he wanted to have sex with you. Especially if he was Harry Maybourne.
"Maybourne!"
He paused, half way to the door.
"Why did you come here?"
His eyes met hers for a moment, then glanced away. "I needed someone I could trust."
"You thought you could trust me?"
"We all make mistakes."
No trace left now of the man who'd lain on her carpet and crossed his wrists in that unspoken request. Why? What made a man do that? Any how had she let her own anger get so out of control? Apology didn't come easily, but it had to be said:
"I'm sorry."
"A word of advice, Major. If you ever get involved in anything like this again, remember that the key words are negotiation and consent. It doesn't matter whose side anyone is on, you play by the rules. For instance--" his hand flashed inside his jacket and reappeared with a small pistol-- "suppose I have a loaded gun and you don't..."
Something inside her finally snapped. "Stop playing games, Maybourne. What the hell do you want? If you want to be in control all the time, why do you want to be tied up?"
He looked faintly surprised. "Because that's what I am. I'm a submissive. When I work, I like to be in control -- totally. When I play, I go to the opposite extreme; I need to be able to let go completely The whole point of bondage is to be helpless, to know that you can't get out of it. When you know you have no control over what happens to you, then you can relax -- and that's only possible if I can trust the person I'm with."
She could feel it again, the tug that said, "Take me, use me, control me." The memory of his eyes, of the need in both of them.
Maybourne was a traitor.
Sometimes, she needed... Staying with SG-1 was a choice made willingly, but there was always the awareness that other people of her rank commanded teams of their own. To take command, to have a subordinate not only willing, but eager to give her control...
He was still a traitor.
There was no choice. There never had been a choice. There was only one order she could ever give him:
"Get out."