Wasted by Mandarax
Rated T
Summary – Jack's having an angsty Christmas.
Author's Note – my little come back, after 3 months of a wasted muse who wouldn't cooperate, I've finally managed to get something out to the virtual JS world. Anyway, I try to keep the angst out of my JS world because 1. They have had plenty of it. 2. I have plenty of it in RL. But this sort of came out anyway.
He'd just picked up the bourbon glass when the phone rang. He looked between the bourbon and the phone several times, as if trying to decide which was more appealing.
The phone won for the time being and he lowered the crystal glass to the coffee table, snatching the phone with the same hand. He clicked the button and replied a gruff "O'Neill" even before the cordless device was by his ear.
"Okay, so I'm home," the female voice on the other side of the line said.
He lifted his left hand, took a look at his watch. "What? It's only 2130 hours over there."
"I know, right? The most disastrous date ever."
He shrugged his shoulders, picked up his bourbon again and settled back against the sofa to listen to the details of the most disastrous date ever.
At some point during the hour long conversation he switched the sofa for his bed and settled into the thick pillows, still listening to her go on about this date. Maybe he should have picked the bourbon over the phone. Somewhere in the back of his mind he was trying to figure out what he'd done wrong.
The weekend at the cabin had been tranquil. The four of them spent three glorious days and two glorious nights in utter comfort and relaxation. Birds chirped, fish didn't jump in the pond, the water was calm, the sun came up and went down, the world didn't end, their troubles nearly completely dissolved and the future of SG1 undefined. Well, the original SG1 anyway.
He'd been sure that this was it, this was his time with Sam, and this was what nine years had been leading up to. He'd urged her to call him Jack as soon as she settled herself in his truck, and she didn't seem to mind it at all. It wasn't that she wasn't at ease around him because she could win a burping contest with him and the boys, but she would need to adjust to the shift in balance between friends and colleagues.
What it all came down to was that he didn't want to push her. Firstly, because he had been her CO for nearly nine years and this is a big change, even to just friendship. And secondly, because she'd had a week that was even worse than the rest of them, and Daniel did just ascend and descend again. No, with her dad's passing, he didn't want to take advantage. He wanted to be there for her as a friend. So he didn't try more than randomly hugging her on three different occasions during the weekend. Not even when she curled up to him under a blanket as they watched some silly old black and white movie on TV one evening. He'd put his arm around her, drew lazy circles on her shoulder with his thumb, but didn't try anything more, though god knows, he wanted to. So badly. But if this were to work he had to do it just right, for both their sakes. Maybe he took it too slow.
The drive back was as entertaining as the drive up to the cabin, with the non-stop conversation and the silly arguments and the lectures and the metaphors and the word plays. They really weren't just a team; they really were a little family and the four of them enjoyed their downtime together on Earth just as much as they enjoyed working together.
She was the last he dropped off because she was closest to his house (and maybe Daniel tried to put together a plan to get her home last).
He parked the truck in her driveway and jumped out to help her carry her packs. It wasn't awkward and it wasn't weird. They just went on talking about his new post and he wanted them to come up to DC for a weekend so he'll feel that he still has friends. He'd been joking about the friends thing for most weekend, but he did want them there for a few days. He casually followed her inside and while she took her duffle bag to her bedroom he started putting away the leftover food they'd divided between them and brought back.
She put the kettle on without asking if he wanted coffee, and he stayed for another hour. They drank tea and coffee and ate a piece of leftover cake before he said it was late and he didn't want to impose. So she walked him to the door and hung on the doorknob when he made a silly joke because the knot in his stomach was tightening. He pulled her into an easy hug, and whispered words of thanks for a well spent weekend and he knew this was his chance.
He pulled back just enough to look in her eyes, enough to be able to read into them, and he saw, he felt, that she knew what was coming next and welcomed it. So he leaned in and saw her eyes flutter shut and her lips open just a breath before their mouths meet. At the last second he moved away and kissed her cheek instead.
He let her go, and with a tone of voice he didn't even recognize he said, "Goodnight, Sam," and turned away.
She smiled at him and waved goodbye, yelled at him to keep in touch, and he could see a mix of disappointment and wonder in her smile. And a little relief.
Six months had gone by since then. He moved to DC, settled into his new job. A couple of weeks afterwards, for the 4th of July weekend, the gang came and crashed at his place for a couple of nights. They spent most of the three day weekend laughing.
When it was over and he walked them down to the lobby of his apartment building Daniel hung back a few moments to tell him that he'd never once, in ten years of knowing him, bought into his whole Stupid act. Not once. Not until this weekend. Daniel told him to go to that cab she was loading up with her carryon for the flight, pull her to him and thrust his tongue in her mouth before someone else is smart enough to do it. Again.
But he felt they were past it, they're in the friend zone and there was no going back.
He chickened out.
He waved them goodbye as the cab drove away. Daniel gave him a sad smile, Teal'c bowed his head at him and Sam waved cheerily at him.
He kept his promise to keep in touch, if only so he could hear her voice. He started calling her up every night. At first it was weird but it didn't take more than a week until it became a habit and they'd spend hours on the phone talking. He knew everything that was going on in her life, which at first was fine because it was only work and a bit about Cassie.
He realized he was in a masochistic relationship with the woman he loves the first time she told him someone had asked her out. He paced a hole in the floor of his apartment waiting for her to call him after that first date.
He paced a hole in the floor of his apartment waiting for her call after every date afterwards, too. They weren't frequent, but they were happening and it felt like someone was repeatedly stabbing at his heart. Every time she'd come home and call him and say she'd had a horrible time he would relax just a bit. And he was her best friend – he listened to all the gory details of each date, commented on them, made her laugh with his opinions. All the while his insides were tearing to pieces.
He thought things would calm down after she transferred back to the SGC. He knew the area, knew the people, knew the customs. But it was as if the population of Colorado Springs had been completely replaced since he'd lived there four months ago because the frequency of her dates hadn't changed.
Between every two or three missions SG1 had she would have a date and he'd wait to hear all about it, and hope against all hope that this one too will go just as badly as the rest of them and that she'll find this guys an idiot just like she found all the previous ones. That this one guy is not the one that will pique her interest. That this one is not the one she will eventually marry. Because when she marries someone else, that'll be the day he will die on the inside. He no longer has the luxury to get killed out in the field anymore and political death is not the kind of death he will be looking for when that happens.
A few nights later he started thinking how cold DC really is in December. Colorado Springs was usually snowed in by mid December but it wasn't cold. DC was freezing. Everyone at the office was talking about their plans for the holidays. He was the only one without a home to go back to.
It wasn't true and he knew that, but self pity came in abundance these days. They always spent Christmas together, he and his team, and this year was no different. Except maybe for the last second plans they will have to make once they get back to town from whatever planet they were on now. And if he wasn't mistaken, and he usually wasn't when it came to missions the SG teams were on, they had another one scheduled before right Christmas as well.
Three days later they came back from their mission, and she called him up when she got home. The mission went well, blah blah blah. An NID agent, Barrett something or other, had asked her out on her way surface side in the mountain, she said. She declined, citing a conflict of interest, but really, he was quite cute. She said she just had to call him up and tell him because she knew it would make him laugh that an NID guy asked her out. Then she rushed off to the shower she missed so much when they were off-world.
Make him laugh. Right.
He was wallowing in self pity. DC was making him soft.
Finally Jack O'Neill knew he had to do something about this. He knew missing out on his opportunity for happiness with her would be one of the greatest regrets he will ever have to live with, but that did not mean he had to be part of this perverted relationship. There had to be a solution for this… this thing. These feelings. This status quo he had somehow managed to set with her.
It took him another few days to figure out what he had to do, and by the time he did they were off-world again.
It was Christmas Eve and instead of spending it on the couch by the fireplace with eggnog in his hand, Jack spent it on the porch swing on Sam's front deck, heavily armored in a thick coat, gloves and a woolen hat. He'd been there for nearly two and a half hours when she arrived. He could have found her at the SGC but there was no way he was going to talk about "them" on base.
"Hi!" she waved at him with a smile as she got out of her car. "What are you doing here? I thought you were only going to fly in tomorrow morning."
She climbed up the porch and headed to the door.
He rose from the swing and walked to her slowly. "I, uh, I think we need to uh talk."
She looked up at him, meeting his eyes for the first time. "Is something wrong?"
He took a breath before replying. "I came to say goodbye."
She had just opened the door when he said it and she turned to look at him. "Goodbye? What do you mean? Aren't you staying for Christmas?"
He followed her into the house, hanging his jacket on the rack on the back of the door.
"No, I'm catching a flight in three hours back to DC."
"Oh." She fixed the thermostat to a normal temperature and headed to the kitchen to fix them something hot to drink. He followed her.
"Sam, I have to say goodbye because you're moving on or at least you're trying to, but I still love you and it's too damn hard for me to hear about your trysts with other men. I'm just not cut out for it. I'm glad you're moving on, you're young, you can have a husband and a family. You don't need an old man hanging around. And if I cut you out of my life completely I might just be able to live a day without thinking about you with another man." He sighed. "So I came to say goodbye. I didn't want to just disappear. You need to know. And you can tell the others whatever you want. I'm still going to be in charge of the SGC, but just like we didn't have too much interaction with them when Hammond was there, you and Landry won't have any with us anymore either."
There was silence for a moment and he wasn't sure what was going on. He wasn't sure if she was angry or laughing... Turned out she was furious.
"God damn it, Jack, you're an idiot!" She threw a towel she'd been holding at him. "A God damn idiot! It's you, it's always been you!" She yelled at him. "All these dates, all these failures in an attempt to get a life just like you ordered me, it's all because none of them were you! Didn't even resemble you!"
She sniffled, her eyes red with unshed tears. "I don't know why you didn't kiss me on the porch that day after the weekend at the cabin. We were so damn close. But I figured you thought it would be too much, rough week, my dad, all that. I figured – that's fine, we have plenty of time to do this now. But I didn't know what to think anymore when nothing happened on the 4th of July weekend." She cleared the tears away from her eyes with a quick movement of her thumbs, "I don't blame you; I don't blame anyone. God knows I didn't try to do anything that weekend either. And then you started calling me every evening and I thought, okay, this is the type of relationship he wants us to have. That's fine. That's okay. I'll move on. He has. And I tried to move on. Only I couldn't. None of them were… None of them were you."
She turned away from him, facing the counter, the sink, the pile of dirty dishes she'd left. Her knuckles were turning white against the material of the counter.
Speechless, transfixed, he stood on the other side of the kitchen he stood. He'd been unprepared for this kind of response. He'd expected tears; he'd expected her to ask him not to do it. He hadn't expected her to confess her undying love. He hadn't taken this option into account when following his dumbass plan to cut her out of his life completely.
He saw the moment she had regained her composure. She flattened her hands against the counter before pushing away from it and turning to face him, her face lacking any emotion. She'd put on a mask he knew quite well.
"Fine, Jack. If you want to go, go. If that's how you want to do it, to deal with it, to run away from it, that's fine. But don't think for a moment that these last six months haven't torn me apart because I've been in love with you for as long as you have been with me. If not longer."
"You never said anything." He didn't know why his voice was so hoarse.
"Neither did you," she sniffled again, giving away her state underneath the upheld mask.
"So we wasted six months?" he took a step closer to her and opened his arms.
"Yes…" She flew into them so fast it knocked the wind out of him.
"I should have taken Daniel's advice back then," he whispered in her ear as he held her close to him.
"What was that?" she whispered back.
He pulled back just a bit, enough to look at her beautiful tearful face, then he lowered his lips to hers and applied just enough pressure so that they opened under his, and thurst his tongue into her mouth.
She kissed him right back.