Opportunities Lost and Found
He just couldn't face her today. This supposed opportune loop he had created for himself had become a nightmare. He believed he was starting to go insane, which he was sure his team was probably thinking the same at that very moment. The beginning of the loop had started like all the others, in the commissary, a mouthful of pancakes, sitting across from her, Sam. She was smiling at him as if he had said something funny, which he probably just had but the loop started just after his words and he could no longer remember what it was that he had said.
Today he couldn't face that smile, the smile that could light a whole room and melt his heart. And those eyes, so full of expression that you could always tell what she were thinking. He couldn't face it today. Not when moments ago he had stared into her sightless eyes, a trickle of blood leaking from her lips.
As he made it through the entryway to his home, he shirked off his jacket and let it fall to the floor and made his way to the kitchen. He grabbed a bottle of whiskey from the cupboard before stumbling blind with grief and anxiety down the hallway to his bedroom. His mind briefly wandered once more to his teammates he had left behind. They were probably still baffled by his actions. Hopefully they won't have realized he had left the base and come home. For all they knew he had left to go and prepare for the next days mission. Hopefully they wouldn't come looking for him; he just needed to take this loop off.
He flopped down onto his bed, kicking his shoes from his feet. They all lasted around a day and a half. They all looped back to the day right before that fateful mission. He closed his eyes and his senses filled with the memory.
o o o
Λ Λ Λ
'Damn these simple recon missions!' Nothing ever turned out to be simple about these missions. The MALP hadn't indicated any intelligent life forms in the vicinity of some ruins near the gate. According to Daniel, the MALP visual indicated they could be ancient and this warranted a closer look. So the plan was gather some ancient artifacts and a standard meet and greet if any inhabitants came close but no! Of course his life couldn't be that easy. No meet and greet took place just a belligerent attack from the natives.
His scent was overwhelmed with the smell of sweat, blood and burning flesh, trees and surrounding brush. His stance was tense with anticipation for his next move. There hadn't been that many and they weren't Jaffa but apparently had contact with the Go'auld as they were using staff weapons. He knew Daniel and Sam had taken refuge behind some boulders to his right and Teal'c to his left. He was about to signal for Sam to lay down cover fire for Daniel to run to the DHD when he got this weird feeling something was about to go terribly wrong. An intense sensation rose from his gut leaving him wanting to retch. He watched in suspended horror as one of the few men still standing fired off a final blast as Teal'c shot him down. The ball of fire whizzed through the air and struck Sam square in the chest. He felt all the air escape his lungs leaving him gulping for air before he stood to run to her side. He slid to his knees, the blazing flashes narrowly missing his head as Sam's hit the ground.
Daniel had already dropped his gun and was grabbing at Sam's shoulders uttering over and over, "Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god."
"Daniel! Pick up that firearm and finish them off! We don't have much time." Daniel regained some focus and realized their situation and turned to follow his orders. Now Jack turned his attention back to Sam, who was desperately gasping for air, that all too familiar gurgling sound coming from her chest. The wound was quite extensive at least the blood flow had been cauterized. His gaze found hers unwillingly, knowing what he'd find there, eyes filled with desperation and fear. Hers however, was laced with something else, strength and…
She raised her hand to his face and tried to say, "Jack," but she was wracked with another bloody cough, "I… I…"
"Sam?" He clutched at her hand to his face and pressed a kiss to her palm as he felt it go limp and heard her last breath expire. His eyes returned to hers, which were now closed. Had it been love he had seen? He had to know. He realized the sound of gunfire had ceased and finally looked up to see that Daniel was now also hunched over Sam, the tears freely flowing and Teal'c was making his way over to them, the threat obviously eliminated. Jack took in one last look at the scene before him before he was consumed by a blind rage. This was not going to happen. Not like this, not ever having spoken his love for her. With that he stood and grabbed the back of Daniels jacket and started hauling him towards the gate. Teal'c moved to stand in his way but he raised his gun and pointed it directly at him and yelled his face a deep shade of red.
"Stay out of my way, watch over Sam until I come back."
He began to march towards the gate dragging a sniveling Daniel, who was trying to gain his footing as he was screaming,
"Let me go! Sam! SAM! Jack let me go!"
Jack dumped Daniel in a heap at the foot of the DHD and bellowed,
"Dial P4X-639 now!"
Daniel looked up, confusion washing over his face briefly before pure grief returned.
"What are you talking about Jack, we have to bring back Sam, we have to get Sam."
His voice fell off as more tears came to his eyes.
"Now DANIEL!" Jack pressed the tip of his weapon to his temple. Daniel, finally realizing that Jack was no longer in his right mind did as he was asked. As the wormhole engaged Jack just continued his journey by picking Daniel back up and shoving him through the circle of shimmering light.
Once on the other side he walked Daniel to the ancient device and in a calm voice said,
"Daniel, activate a time loop."
Daniel noticed the change in Jack's tone. He looked into his face to see that the anger was diminishing but there was a steely resolve set in his eyes. In that moment he knew there was no arguing. He knew that he should tell Jack that this wasn't the answer but he was too wrapped up in his own grief to argue. He simply nodded and began inputting the right sequence to charge up the device. With a glimmer of hope he turned to Jack, thinking maybe Jack could save her, maybe this could be the answer. Jack pushed Daniel out of the way just as a beam of blue energy struck Jack and within moments everything faded to white.
o o o
Λ Λ Λ
Jack groaned to himself and wrapped his arm over his eyes trying to block out the morning light that was now streaming in around the edges of his blinds.
He was feeling very hung over when he heard a soft voice ask,
"Sir?"
She had tiptoed to his bedroom door and was peeking in; he could hear the worry in her voice. Through the post alcoholic haze he whispered in reply,
"Sam"
Sam was taken aback at first by his use of her first name and decided to enter his sanctuary, knowing something serious must be up. She perched herself on the edge of his bed. He shifted his arm so he could peek out at her with one eye.
"What are you doing here?" as always she looked like a vision.
"Well when you abruptly left yesterday morning and than you didn't show up for this morning's pre mission briefing, I was worried. I thought I'd come check up on you."
"I'll be fine, it'll be better tomorrow."
Sam knew he had been drinking, and the colonel had been prone to depression before, something was obviously wrong and she felt this wasn't a time where she could leave it in the room. She crawled up the bed and pulled his head down to her chest, she was somewhat surprised that he didn't question her uncharacteristic movements; she settled down and began stroking her fingers through his hair.
"Jack" she quietly pursued, the use of his first name caused him to curl his fingers around her waist tightly, "want to tell me what's going on?"
He simply answered, "You."
The blood drained from Sam's face at his words. Has he finally cracked, like she had wanted to on so many occasions, he couldn't keep it in the room anymore?
"Jack, you know we agreed to wait, Earth needs us right now, and we have to keep believing that one day we will have our chance."
"That's just it, we will never get our chance." With these words she stopped the movement of her hand and placed both on either side of his face and tilted his head to look at hers. Had he given up on them? He'd lost his faith in them?
Starting to become upset she answered, "What do you mean?"
"I guess there isn't any other way to say it but to just say it, you died," he said bitterly.
She moved his hand to her chest so he could feel her heart beating.
"Jack I'm obviously not dead, I'm right here with you, waiting for you." She hoped her words would start to convince him, she didn't know what had gotten into him and it was starting to scare her.
"Well than you are going to die." Now she was really scared, was he going insane?
"What?! What are you talking about Jack?"
"You died, so I activated a time loop." He stated simply.
Now the gears were starting to turn in Sam's head, she was beginning to understand what was going on.
"Jack, are you telling me that I died on a mission and you activated a time loop to change things."
She just felt his head nodding up and down against her chest. Her voice came out so quiet that if the room hadn't been dead silent you wouldn't have heard it.
"You shouldn't have done that."
He just inhaled deeply and squeezed her tighter, "I couldn't lose you."
"How long are the loops?"
"Just under 36 hours."
She thought to herself, ok, so it was now the beginning of the second day since he had acted strange at breakfast which she presumed must have been the beginning of the loop.
"Well we have time to go back and end the loop, we'll tell General Hammond the situation and we just won't go on our mission."
"It won't work."
"How do you know?" she gasped in shock, "You've already tried haven't you? How many loops have we been through?"
He looked into her face again, and she could see a few tears glistening in his eyes.
"I've lost count, it just doesn't work."
She gulped at the implication his words had. She took a quivering breath and said, "Tell me."
He laid his head back down unable to look her in the face for this.
"The first one, I left in much the same way and you came and found me here. I was so overwhelmed at seeing you beautiful, alive and well that I kissed you. You reacted and well, we moved it to the bedroom.
"We made love?" she said, somewhat sad that she couldn't remember it.
"Yeah" he didn't tell her though that it had been less making love than a primal, animalistic urge. He had been rough with her and she had understood, letting him ravish her body if it was going to help him.
"Then I told you about the mission and the loop and we came up with much the same plan as you've already stated."
"We didn't go on the mission."
"No, you went to your lab to work instead. Then the next thing I'm hearing is Janet coming to tell me that there had been nothing she could do, some sort of freak accident in your lab. Then the loop started all over again."
"Oh Jack," she said with sympathy, not being able to imagine what he had gone through.
"Than I decided to try it again, same thing this time, only there was an explosion in the gate room after a hostile weapon was able to come through the gate. Than it was a car accident on your way back to your house from mine. It's always something new and every time there is nothing I can do to save you."
Sam wrapped her arms around his upper body and held him firmly against her as his voice cracked into a sob. It was the first time he had finally broken down and started to cry. Tears appeared in Sam's eyes too.
"Than why Jack?"
"Because even though a part of me dies every time you die, I still get to spend one more day with you, I've learned so much about you that I never knew before."
"Really?"
"Yeah and I think you've learned a lot about me too, we would have had such a great relationship."
Sam caught the 'would' in his statement and knew that he knew what she was going to ask next. She pushed him off and onto his back and than climbed on top of him, straddling his waist.
"Jack, look at me." When he didn't turn his head she placed her hands on his cheeks and
turned his face to meet hers.
"Jack, I think this might be fates way of telling us it's my time. We've been lucky so many times; maybe our luck has finally run out."
She saw in his brown depths the deep sadness at her words but hoped that he would begin
to understand.
"Don't you see, you've given me a gift, us a gift, an opportunity to finally know each other in ways we only dreamed of. But this can't go on and you know it."
He began to shake his head violently and she had to grasp him harder making her afraid that her fingertips would leave indents in his head.
"Shh…shh…This isn't fair to you, you can't keep living this, this isn't fair to the rest of the planet, stuck living like this."
She took a deep breath, "and it's not fair to me. You know that I wouldn't want this, I wouldn't want other people to suffer for the sake of us." She closed her eyes and sadly thought, 'the way we waited for our relationship so that other people wouldn't suffer.'
A single tear slipped down her cheek and landed to mix with his on his face. She lent forward and nuzzled his forehead with her nose before placing a kiss on the spot. She than repeated the procedure for each of his eyes, nose and then finally his mouth. Her hands gently caressing his cheeks as her lips lingered on his. Than with no words needed she sat up and pulled her shirt over her head, her bra following quickly after. Jack still in awe of her body every time they did this began to run his rough hands up and down her sides, making detours to circle his thumbs over her nipples eliciting a sigh and a shiver from Sam. She lent back down and locked in a much more passionate kiss, tongues exploring as he made circles across her back. She brought her hands down to the hem of his shirt and started bringing it up, when she hit his armpits she broke the kiss and sat back up, pulling him with her. She pulled the cotton over his head and threw it aside. She ran her hands across his chest and down over his abs once before standing. He joined her and they each watched as the other removed the rest of their clothing. Sam placed her hands on his chest and than gently pushed him back down on the bed so that she could re-straddle him.
Jack reached down and ran his fingers through her folds feeling she was already very wet. He brought the tip of his cock to her opening and looked into her eyes as she gasped at the sensation of him filling her so completely. She thinking about how this was the first time she's ever felt so complete getting to make love to him and he thinking about how this was going to be the last time he ever got to feel her tight muscles squeezing and enveloping him. No words had still been spoken, each able to read the others thoughts just by looking at them. Sam no longer wanting to think bent down for another kiss as she began to move her hips slowly in time to his thrusts.
The next time she sat up, Jack didn't want to lose the feel of her skin against his so he sat up with her so that their lips could remain locked, their chests heaving, pressed against each other. Sam wrapped her legs around him as he wrapped his arms around her to hold her tight. Her hands continued to run through his hair and he pulled back when he felt them beginning to trace down the sides of his face. She gently ran her fingers down the clefts in his face and they both just stared at each other as their movements below kept pace. It was as if they were both trying to commit every detail of the other to memory wanting the moment to last for eternity. He was holding her so tight against him it was as if he was trying to meld them together his face buried in the side of her neck, committing her scent to memory as well. Unfortunately their physical needs caught up with them and Jack had to drop his hands to her hips to move her faster and harder against him until the perfect friction was met causing them to both explode with very intense orgasms. Each were grasping at each other and groaning before eventually collapsing onto the bed.
She cuddled into his side and he wrapped his arms around her content to be holding her. He looked over at his side table and read the time off of his alarm clock; he only had moments left before the loop ended.
"I love you Sam."
"I love you too Jack." She had caught what he was looking at and guessed their time was almost up.
"Jack?"
"Um hmm."
"Promise me that before the mission, you'll tell me again, because I won't remember this and I want to hear it again before…"
Jack cut her off with another kiss. He replied, "Of course I will" He watched as a smile spread across her features before her whole body tensed up in his arms and than went slack. He worriedly looked into her eyes to see that one was drooping and the other was scrunched up in pain. It was so excruciating she wasn't able to utter another word as her eyes closed to look into oblivion. He rubbed the blood coming from her nose, it was marring her perfection, and than cradled her body to him before he was swathed in a flash of white light.
He found himself once again at the commissary table, knowing that like fruit loops he would never be able to eat another pancake again. He quickly excused himself from the table ignoring the confused looks his teammates were sending his way. He made his way to General Hammond's office and told him that he needed to go to P4X-639 to resolve a time looping problem. His plea had been so desperate and convincing that he accepted Jack's proposal, as always trusting him completely. Jack was able to go and come back without his other teammates knowing, having asked Hammond to keep it to himself.
The next morning came really fast and as Jack sat in the locker room tying his laces, trying to prolong the process in attempt to avoid his inescapable destiny. At least this way it wouldn't be a surprise, he knew exactly what was going to happen in this scenario.
Sam walked in to grab a forgotten item from her locker when Jack stood and pulled her to the side so that they were facing. He looked around to see the room was empty and Sam was staring up at him questioningly, "Sir?"
"Sam" her eyes softened, feeling he was going to say something important,
"There's something I need to tell you before this mission. Every time I look at you
And don't do this," he tilted his head and captured her lips in a quick kiss, "is an opportunity lost. I love you Sam." With that he turned and left the room, leaving Sam feeling very confused, hot and flustered but most of all excited and content. She went to join her teammates in the gateroom before embarking on their next mission.
Not surprising to Jack, everything proceeded the same as it had before on the planet. The staff blasts were flying over their heads and he could hear Sam off to his right. When that sickening feeling returned and he could see that fateful shot arcing through the air. He turned to run to her for all he was worth, a loud, "NOOOOO" escaping his lips.
Epilogue
The minister droned the usual, "Ashes to ashes, dust to dust," which fell on ears that were too consumed with anguish so the words just blended into the background. Tear filled eyes watched as the casket was lowered into the wet ground, the tears mixing with raindrops as they hit the smooth mahogany before cascading in little rivulets down the sides. She clutched the folded American flag to her chest, as Daniel had comforted her with an arm over the shoulder, Teal'c standing guard nearby.
She thought back to his rather inexplicable, last private words to her. He had loved her. He had saved her; the whole thing still seemed surreal. How had he known what to do? More importantly did he know how much she had loved him in return?