Disclaimer: Stargate SG-1 and its characters are the property of Showtime/Viacom, MGM/UA, Double Secret Productions, and Gekko Productions. This story was created for entertainment purposes only. No copyright infringement is intended. The original characters, situations, and story are the property of the author(s).
It was Friday night and Lieutenant Colonel Samantha Carter sat on her couch drinking tea and watching Las Vegas. Happy, beautiful people enjoying themselves in the sun. She'd been to Vegas, recently, and most of the people there were old and gambling. So much for reality TV, she snickered to herself. She yawned, and realized that it was only 9:00 pm. She was getting old, and lonely.
She might have been married now. She didn't think about Pete to often, she still felt bad about ending it the way she did. She wasn't sorry that she'd ended it, they wouldn't have been truly happy together, but she shouldn't have let it go on so long. She'd known before he'd asked her to marry him that she would only be trying…trying to convince them both that the feelings she had for him were stronger than they were…stronger than what she felt for…
The doorbell rang before she finished her thought.
Who could it be? The SGC would have called before sending someone for her. Daniel was visiting Sarah making sure that she was still okay. Teal'C was visiting Ry'ac and Cameron and Vala were in Vegas, which meant it could have been law enforcement of some kind. She scrambled to her feet and ran over to the door.
She flung it open without looking through the peep hole, and gasped.
"General O'Neill?"
He looked awful. Dark circles rimmed his eyes, a white line tightened around his mouth and even his dress blues looked like they needed a nap. He smiled with out it making it to his eyes.
"I thought we were passed that Samantha?"
"You surprised me…are you okay, you look…"
"Like hell? Yeah, I know. It's been a long week. May I come in?"
"Of course." She stepped back from the door and ushered him in.
He looked at her and sighed. Closing his eyes he made his way passed her and she thought she heard him inhale through his nose as he did.
"Come in to the living room, sir, Jack." She fumbled with his name, still discombobulated to find him in her home.
He walked into the room and zeroed in on the couch. He let out a sigh as he sat down.
Sam walked into the kitchen and grabbed a beer out of the fridge. She'd kept beer in her fridge for him, but he hadn't been there in months. The fact that he was here now concerned her.
"Jack," she whispered as she came back to him in the living room. His eyes were closed and his breathing even, he may have been asleep.
She stepped to the couch and his eyes opened. Even if he'd been asleep, he wasn't now. She reached out with the beer.
"Drink?"
"Thanks Carter… flaked out there. Not much of a greeting, sorry."
"That's okay. What are you doing here?"
"Not happy to see me?" He noticed two cups on the counter, Cassie had been there earlier and Sam hadn't taken her tea cup back into the kitchen yet.
O'Neill straightened as if to get up.
"Am I interrupting something?" He asked and looked towards the stairs that led to her bedroom.
Sam felt the accusation like a slap to the face. He thought there was another man there? Anger began to boil within her. She had been feeling lonely, missing him, all evening and he thought she'd had some other guy here with her?
"No sir...Cassie was here earlier."
"Sir?"
She looked at him, knowing he was exhausted but feeling angry that after all this time, he still didn't think that she was committed to, whatever it was that they'd had.
"Is everything okay? You don't usually just show up unannounced."
"Sorry, I just wanted to see you. Daniel said that you were all taking some down time, and I wanted to see you." He sighed and took a sip from the beer.
"Why didn't you tell me that you were taking time off?" Jack asked her.
"You've been busy. I didn't think…"
"Now that I don't believe…you are always thinking."
"I didn't know if you had time or even…"
"Or even what Samantha?"
"Nothing."
Sam walked away from the couch. Jack stood and pulled off his tie. He threw it and his cover onto the chair across from the couch. His jacket followed and he pulled his shirttails out of his pants."
"What is that supposed to mean?"
"Exactly what I said, nothing."
"We haven't seen each other in two months."
"We had a video conference last week. I remember you were wearing BDU's…why were you wearing BDU's in the Pentagon?"
"I feel less like a useless old man in BDU's, that's not the issue. Why haven't we seen each other in two months?"
"Well, we've been off world fighting the Ori; you've been in Washington, fighting the government. It's been busy."
She'd stopped moving away from him. She hadn't turned around but at least she wasn't moving away.
"We need to talk…about us."
He was here to end this, she knew it. When he'd first moved to Washington they'd talked almost every night. She'd been at Area 51 and at the little apartment they'd set up for her every night. Like clockwork, he'd call at 10:00 pm. Midnight in DC but at least he was pretty sure she'd be home. She tended to work long hours, but soon the pleasure of talking to him every night, had her sitting by the phone.
After returning to the SGC it was harder to talk every night, she wasn't always at home, hell, she wasn't always on the planet, but they'd tried. They'd seen each other every two weeks at least. He'd come to Colorado, stay at Daniel's and visit…soon though; he'd stopped staying at Daniel's. He'd still be there or she would go to DC but they'd stay together. The sex had been good. She had known that he'd be a generous lover, and he was, but…soon it seemed that the weekends were getting farther apart and when they did see each other one or both of them were to tired for sex. Maybe the ten years of waiting had dulled their hunger for each other. Now it seemed that he was here to say goodbye. She didn't blame him…this wasn't what she'd expected.
He yawned popping his jaw. Then he stretched and shook his head trying to clear his thoughts. He knew he was losing her. The fact that she hadn't told him that she was off for a week, maybe ten days, told him that. He hadn't meant to jump to the conclusion that she had someone else there, but his brain was in overdrive and his mouth just naturally went along for the ride. He couldn't blame her if she was seeing someone else, hell; maybe she'd gotten back together with Shananhan.
"Would you mind if I grab a shower?" He asked. "I still have stuff here right?"
She finally turned to him. "Yeah, your stuff is still upstairs…go shower…when was the last time you got some sleep?"
He had turned to make his way towards the stairs. Sleep? He'd been a man with a mission since Daniel had said that they were taking vacations last Monday. He had tried to finish up what he could so that he could take some time off too. So that he could see her, and try to figure out where they went wrong.
"Wednesday night…I grabbed some shut eye on the plane, but I think the last time I saw my bed was Wednesday."
He left her there and went to find the shower.
Sam heard the shower come on and a few minutes later it shut off. She was doing busy work, trying not to dwell on the impending doom of another relationship. This wasn't the same as Pete, or Jonas, she'd seen the light, she'd asked them to leave their relationship, she'd ended it on her terms. This was Jack, and there were no terms that she wanted to end on.
She'd loaded the dishwasher and cleaned off the cupboards and was listening carefully. He'd been gone fifteen minutes and she hadn't heard a noise in nearly ten. Grabbing his kit bag she headed upstairs to her room.
Jack was sitting on the bed, well more like half sitting, half laying. It looked like he'd sat down on the edge of the bed to get his pants on, he was currently in his smiley-face boxers, and had fallen asleep sideways. His face was still crumpled in thought and fatigue and no matter how scared and hurt she was about him being here to end their relationship; her heart went out to the man lying there. She loved him more than any thing or anyone she'd ever known, and it was killing her to know that he didn't love her anymore.
"Jack?" she whispered.
Instead of jumping up, waking alert and watchful as he usually did, Jack cracked an eye open and smiled at her. The look he gave her was full of love and her toes curled.
"Samantha…tired, sorry." And a second later the other look returned to his face, the one that said he was angry and hurt.
He sat up and shook his head again.
"Jack, why don't you get some sleep, we'll talk in the morning."
He looked at her bed and then at her, "No, we need to get this said."
"I'll sleep in the guest room, Jack, don't worry."
It cut deep that he didn't want to spend the night in the same bed as her. They'd always been able to sleep in close proximity, whether it was in a bed or on a different planet. Over the years she'd gotten used the noises her boys made when they slept. Daniel snuffled, not quiet snoring, mostly because his nose was usually stuffed up from his allergies, Teal'C well, until recently hadn't slept at all, no noise. Jack, didn't make much noise when sleeping on a mission, on a tired night at home, the man could rattle the windows. It was rare that he allowed himself to sleep that deeply, but there had been a few nights that Sam had elbowed him in the ribs to get him to roll over. She would gladly sleep with the noise if it meant keeping him with her.
"You'll sleep right here. We need to talk…" a yawn cut him off.
"You are no longer my commanding officer General Jack O'Neill; you can't order me around anymore. We both need to get some sleep, please, just do this for me."
He looked at her, brown eyes nearly black with fatigue and finally nodded.
"Okay, Colonel Carter, we'll play it your way, but I'm sleeping here, no one needs to go into your spare room."
She sighed; at least she'd have this one more night. Even if they only slept beside each other, they would at some point make their way into each others arms, they always did.
"Fine."
She dropped his bag and moved to the ensuite bathroom he'd used earlier. She washed and changed into her shorts tank top, there was no fancy underwear tonight. She wasn't going to try and seduce him, keep him by throwing herself at him, making him stay by playing games. She was a strong intelligent woman and if he was to stay, it would be because he loved her and not because he was being dragged around by his little soldier.
The lamp on her side of the bed was on, but the rest of the house was dark. He'd taken the time to lock up and turn off the downstairs lights, before crawling into bed. He was breathing steadily, but hadn't relaxed.
She crawled into bed quietly and snapped of the light. She lay in the quiet room, lit only by moonlight and waited for her thoughts to overwhelm her. She began to cry silently.
"Are you crying?" He asked.
"No." She whispered.
He didn't believe her. She felt the bed shift.
"This wasn't a good idea. I'll go to the spare room…"
He didn't want to go. He wanted to stay with her for the rest of their lives.
"I don't want you to go Jack…" she whispered when she thought he'd left the room.
"What do you want?" He asked from the doorway.
"I…don't know what you mean."
"It's an easy question to answer. What do you want?"
He came back over to the bed and sat on the edge of the bed.
"What about you? What do you want?" She asked back.
He thought about it. What did he want? She knew him better than he knew himself; shouldn't she know that all he wanted was to make her happy? All he'd ever wanted was that, and a good Simpson's marathon.
"Do you realize that in all of the years that we've known each other, we've never really talked?"
Jack reached over and patted her hip through the blanket. He'd come to that conclusion all on his own.
"It's my fault; I'm not very good at communicating at a personal level."
"I'm not great at it either." She replied, "After my Mom died, Dad was never really an open book. Not until he and Selmak…"
"They say that women look for men that are like their fathers…creepy huh?"
"You are a lot like my Dad. I never really thought about it, but I guess you are."
Jack thought about that for a bit. "Well, there are worse people to be like, Jacob was a good guy."
"The Jacob Carter you knew was a lot different than the one I grew up with. But, yeah, he was a good man."
Sam sat up in bed. She tucked her legs up under her chin and looked at him in the shadows. She watched him shift and pull back his hand.
"Carter," he was using his command voice now. "Do you want to see other people?"
There it was, a way out for them both. He was a great strategist and never went into a situation without a way out.
"Do you?"
"For crying out loud, we can't just keep answering questions with more questions. We'll never get anywhere. Do you, Samantha Carter want to see other men?"
It was now or never. She could follow her gut and protect herself, just like a good little Air Force Colonel, or she could take a risk in the hopes that she could save it all. For once the woman in her crushed the soldier and scientist and took the risk.
"No. Do you?"
She heard a rapid release of held breath.
"I don't want you to see other men either."
"That's not what I meant."
"Do I want to see other men?"
"Jack!"
"Sorry, old habits…no I don't want to see other women. But what we're doing, it doesn't seem to be working for us, does it?"
She thought about it. It wasn't working.
"Jack, do you love me?"
He sucked the breath back in through his teeth. Again, this was something he thought she'd known. For ten years, she'd been the only woman in his heart. Sarah would always have a place there, they'd spent too many years and tears together for anything else, but Samantha Carter was the only one who held his heart in her hands.
"Do I love you? No."
He heard her breath catch on a sob. Reaching out he brushed a thumb across the damp skin of her cheek. She'd lied to him, she'd been crying since she'd crawled into bed.
She sputterered, trying to find something anything to say to him.
"I adore you. Every morning I get out of bed and realize that you are out there, somewhere, and just maybe, for a second, you are thinking about me and that makes it possible for me to do anything."
Swish, swish, went his thumb, removing the tears that were falling.
"I can't for the life of me, understand why you think you should spend a second of your life with me. You are the most amazing, beautiful, intelligent woman I've ever met, yet her you are slumming with me."
"Jack…" she whispered.
"No, wait, I'm on a roll. I said it before, I'm not good at talking about private matters, but I guess that maybe, if we are going to work, there shouldn't be private matters between us."
"There's a lot of classified stuff, stuff that you are better off not knowing, but there is a lot of personal classified stuff that you have every right to know. I'm sorry that it's taken me this long to realize it. I am now an open book, but instead of me telling you things, I want you to ask. There is nothing that you can't ask me."
"Would you mind just holding me?"
"What?"
"Tonight, just hold me. I just want you. I just want to think about everything you said and process it. We have the rest of our lives to ask each other questions but now that we've opened the doors we can do anything. Just hold me tonight."
There was nothing she could ask him that he wouldn't do, and if all she wanted was for him to hold her, then he'd never let her go.
They lay down her head on his shoulder, her blonde hair tickling his chin and they slept. It was the closest she'd ever felt to him.