Please be indulgent with features of the Stargate universe and characters I may have slightly altered. I think you'll know why when you read. Above all, I hope you tell me what you think.
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Part I – What the?
The door closed behind him and Sam was left all alone. In the space of a minute everything had changed and she was literally speechless. She had the impression that her brain, mind, body and everything else had been replaced by lead. He hadn't just done that had he? Had he really left? Had he really said what he'd just said? But that made no sense… only a short while before that he'd been just like normal. Why would he have such a sudden change in character? Why would he suddenly leave? What just happened?
Without knowing how, Sam realised she had moved from the couch and was now standing fixed in front of the door, studying the uneven wooden surface. She realised her entire body was tense, her neck arching towards the wooden barrier before her – her ears straining to capture any sound that could indicate he was coming back.
As the adrenaline seemed to ooze out of her through her legs and feet into the carpet beneath her feet, she became acutely aware of the chill fast spreading across her apartment. The simple sensory observation made her turn around. She'd forgotten that just 5 minutes beforehand she'd turned the heating off and returned into her lover's embrace on the couch. That was just a moment before her world had disappeared, dissolving just as the warm air dispersed and cooled.
Ignoring the heating control unit on the wall she set her eyes on the couch instead and stumbled clumsily towards the comforting cushions and blanket heaped at one end. Her eyes now filling with incoherent tears, she burrowed into the corner of the couch. A wrenching sob escaped from her lips as her entire body jerked with the silent pain that paralysed her. A single mantra filled her mind as her life seemed to escape through her tear ducts: That didn't just happen. He didn't just do that. Everything will be ok.
The last two months of her life ran through Sam's mind seemingly all at once.
The moment she'd got the papers confirming the reassignment to Cheyenne Mountain she'd known her life was going to change. And it wasn't before time either. Her life in DC had plateaued and every new day seemed to bring more of the same, comfortable, but unchallenging existence. Her work analysing the Stargate was, of course, enthralling. But not being able to actually see the technology and phenomena she'd spent so long researching meant that even the world's first encounter with matters extra-terrestrial had become jaded, ordinary even.
It didn't help that she'd failed to expand – let alone have – her social life for what seemed like an eternity. Sure, she had had a core group of friends and spent a lot of time with her colleagues, but it had felt like she wasn't living – merely existing instead. Long story short: the Stargate Program hadn't only the opportunity of a lifetime – or the fulfilment and surpassing of her dream to visit other planets. That was certainly the case, but more than anything else Sam had recognised the move as heralding a new scene and a new start.
She hadn't known how much her life was going to change – and she hadn't known that the change wouldn't be limited to her day-to-day job. That first meeting where a roguishly-handsome Air Force Colonel had spoken his mind with such biting wit, and with no thought for the pseudo-niceties of politically-correct madness that had taken over much of the world… that first encounter with Jack O'Neill had sealed her fate.
The attraction had been instant, and Sam had been oddly conscious of the fact even at the time. What she hadn't been aware of, and what had completely shocked her, was the fact that he not only returned the sentiment but it also seemed to exceed her own. This was something that had never happened before.
There had always been a measure of unevenness to her relationships before Jack. Mostly the men she went out with wanted more from her than she from them. She'd never understood how people could serially date. If the feeling wasn't there, she never saw the point. One night stands? They just left her feeling ashamed and depressed about the lack of a real relationship in her life. She'd even thought there was something wrong with her. Maybe she was unable to really feel or show affection? Maybe she was gay?
The day she met Jack all those concerns and fears had evaporated, lifting the burden of loneliness from her shoulder and streaming hope into her life. For the first – and what she was sure was the only – time in her life. Everything was right.
The TV blared back into life abruptly as the VCR couldn't hold the pause function any longer, stopping the tape and exposing Sam's fragile senses to the brutish sounds of a hardware commercial. She looked at the box of moving pictures, not recognising what it was, why the colours were changing, nor even what the garish sounds emanating from it meant.
All she could think of was how right her life had been with Jack in it; how effortlessly contented she'd been and how everything had seemed to exist in a periphery to what was most important – her life with him.
It couldn't be over. It just wasn't possible. He didn't just run out of the apartment and leave her to dissolve in despair. That just wasn't who he was…
At that moment, Sam made an unconscious decision and went into numb denial. Her mind closed off the portion that was being difficult as she did anything not to think about reality. Taking a deep breath, she reached shakily for the remote control, pulled the blanket over her body and up to her chin, and channel surfed until she found a TV show she wanted to watch – something with just enough plot to keep her mind occupied. She settled for Law and Order: Criminal Intent and let her mind waft into the hypnotic lull of crime drama.
She didn't think about how the man she loved had just left – she didn't even think of the man she loved, or even the fact that she did indeed love him. Instead she let her mind wander with Detective Goran's instinctive reasoning style as yet again the streets of New York City were faced with a diabolical serial killer.
Despite the instant attraction, both Sam and Jack had remained strictly professional during their first mission and the subsequent couple of outings off-world.
Although not obviously spending time together, they seemed to constantly be bantering in one on-going conversation around base or off-world. Miraculously, both would appear at the mess hall at the same time in search of the less-than-adequate base coffee. In truth, Sam would purposefully saunter slowly passed Jack's office as he would languidly throw a rubber ball against the wall. She would speed up as soon as she was clear, just as he would be scrambling to get out of his chair before anxiously waiting, looking at his watch, and finally following her down the corridor with an extra light spring in his step.
As he reached the mess hall, Jack would casually draw up along side Sam and continue their conversation – often completing a sentence he'd left midway through the last time they'd taken to the corridors together.
It had become clear early on that Sam's expertise was invaluable to the SGC. It was no surprise that her request to serve on a separate team to Colonel O'Neill's SG1 was met with some resistance. Her insistence and importance to the Program, however, proved too much for the brass to ignore. Despite the strong case against the move, Sam had convinced General Hammond at least that she would be just as useful in a different SG team – spreading the expertise, as it were. She didn't doubt he was aware of the real reason for the move. The man seemed oddly tuned in to the wellbeing of those under command. What's more, his friendship with Jack was obviously a factor.
Still, that wasn't going to be for another six weeks when more personnel had been properly trained. She and Jack had an unspoken arrangement whereby they were getting to know each other, but were not moving towards a relationship while still in the same direct chain of command.
Then one night a bookshelf and some spicy pasta had brought all that sensible-ness crashing to the ground.
The distinctive theme tune common to the Law and Order series reverberated through Sam's mind and she absent-mindedly turned the TV off. 11.30pm. If she was going to be able to get up in time for work, it was definitely time for bed. She walked into the kitchen, turning off the light while considering her wardrobe for the next day. Sure, she would only wear her civilian clothes for about 45 minutes out of the whole day. But it was the 15 of those spent with at the café in town on the way to work that she usually planned for. If she just acted like nothing had changed, then maybe he would be there in the morning, waiting for her as usual.
Without looking where she was going or even thinking of anything in particular, she brushed her teeth and performed her rituals in the bathroom before mechanically changing into her pyjamas and sliding under the covers of her bed. It occurred to her briefly that it was the first time she'd slept in her own bed for some time. It would be the first time she'd slept alone for even longer.
She thought it odd that she wasn't upset. She hadn't cried following her initial episode on the couch. She'd always heard of people not being able to sleep or eat when something of this nature happened. The eating part she could understand. She felt almost sick with an uneasy queasiness settled in her stomach. But the insomnia? How could people rob themselves of such blissful nothingness? Maybe they were afraid of dreams or nightmares, but she knew her own body. There would be no dreaming tonight. She stared at the white wall with cold, lifeless eyes and let sleep overcome her senses. She welcomed the heavy feel of her eyelids closing not only over her eyes but also over her foggy mind. Maybe when she woke up everything will have returned to normal.
It was a bookshelf and spicy pasta that changed Sam's life.
During a portion of their ongoing conversation, Jack had mentioned a bookshelf that needed replacing at his house. He was going to buy one on the weekend but Sam had an infinitely better idea. She had been going to donate a perfectly respectable bookshelf as it didn't match the rest of the furniture in her new apartment. She'd told him this and the matter had seemed settled. He could come round to her place anytime to pick it up.
When Jack had asked if that Thursday would be convenient, Sam's mind had gone into overdrive. She'd always scorned those she'd perceived to be weak: those girls who fell apart if their clothes were 30 seconds out of fashion; those girls who completely lost their heads when it came to boys in school, college – and scarily enough – adult life. Yet there she'd found herself, newly transferred to Colorado Springs and suddenly spending much of the day conspiring to pass by a certain corridor at a certain time, or purposefully driving to the supermarket that little bit farther from her place – not because it had a better choice of specialty cheeses (although this was blissfully true), but because she had figured logically that it would be his supermarket (little did she know at the time that he didn't do supermarkets).
Needless to say, an impending visit on Thursday night meant action was required. As luck would have it (and tended to in the early stages of their relationship – another thing that Sam still hadn't come to terms with), she had made a couple of other significant contacts in her short time with the SGC. Among these she had quickly discovered that the Doctor on base enjoyed the same passion for swimming as she and they had taken to swimming together twice a week, sometimes sharing a meal afterwards. Thursday was one of these nights. As soon as Jack had suggested Thursday for the Pick Up, she had formulated the plan and casually put it in place: she had told him to come round after 8 as she wouldn't be home before then, and put it to him that there was spicy pasta to be had and good company in the form of herself and Janet – if he was interested. He was.
The Friday following the fateful Thursday event, Sam hadn't been able to help holding her head higher as she drove into the SGC. As she had passed the security checkpoints and waved at the guards just before she reached the elevator, she had found herself wishing she could tell them all: she and Jack O'Neill had kissed – and he was a damned good kisser! Her heart had filled with something beyond joy and she her eyes had sparkled with radiance.
Both she and Jack had acted as if nothing had happened during the day. At O'Malley's that night – the usual haunt for SG teams at the end of the working week if they weren't off-world – both of them had acted as per usual before Sam had taken the bull by the horns. You wanna go somewhere? He'd started walking while she collected her things – winking at Janet – and they had disappeared into the night.
What had followed met Sam's wishes and desires and made her want to smile to the point of idiocy. She they had both sat in the Wine Bar in the centre of town, sipping Shiraz in a secluded corner both, the idiotic grin on Sam's face had only been matched by the idiotic grin mirrored on Jack's. The smooth, velvety feel and taste of the wine had relaxed them both and she had felt beyond content in his strong and comfortable arms.
Little had she known, within three months that warm embrace would be painfully absent, and she would have absolutely no idea why.
A/N: Well? Do you care what happened? Wanna know what happens next? Let me know!
Also, thanks to whoever it was who nominated 'Solid Blood of the Spirits' for a fanfic award! I was completely stoked when I got the email – please vote for the story if you liked it!
