AMOR CAECUS EST
Summary: Sam and Jack meet before that fateful day in the SGC briefing room.
Why is it that they don't
remember?
Disclaimer: Unfortunately, none of these
characters are mine. But the story is. However, if someone from Gekko
or MGM felt that they would like to use it, by
all means….
Pairings: Like you don't know. Sam & Jack, possibly Janet & Daniel (btw, Janet is alive in my little world - I'm slightly in denial about the whole Heroes' segment
A/N: Words in italics indicate thought, and will also have '…' around it
A Special Thank You to VisualIDentificationZetawho caught many of my inaccuracies regarding military protocol and the dates of the Gulf War.
Chapter One: The Beginning
December 18, 1986
Sam is 21 and Jack is 36
Cadet Samantha Carter sat impatiently in squeaky plastic seat at the Chicago O'Hare airport. She had known that the holiday traffic would be bad; but she hadn't prepared herself mentally for the six-hour delay of her flight from Chicago. She was on a connection from Ft. Lauderdale, Florida, and was supposed to be going to the Denver Airport, where someone (not her father) would pick her up, and take her to Peterson Air Force Base. Her father, General Jacob Carter, was not on her top-ten peoples list. She was still not over the death of her mother, even several years later, and as she always did, was planning on addressing HIM as General the whole trip.
The intercom beeped annoyingly, and the oh-so-happy voice of the counter attendant came on.
"Flight 294 to the Denver International Airport has been cancelled. Please come to ticket counter C23 if you would like to make other arrangements for flying with AirTran this afternoon. Thank You."
Sam leaned back, and barely contained a grown. 'I just remembered why I hate commercial flights...' She SO hated her father right now. She would have happily stayed with her cousin, and her cousin's new husband, but no, she had to go to some stupid Air Force Base, and spend Christmas with a bunch of old "flyboys", as her father called them.
She stood and stretched, noticing the look on the hot guy's face across from her. Yes', she decided, those crunches are looking good right now.' After a lazy yawn and a quick glance at "hot guy", she set off in search of a pay phone.
Sam dropped her coins in, and dialed her dad's number - she thought. Ring... ringring..ring, . ri-
"Hello?" came a man's voice, unfamiliar to Sam.
"Hi, I need to speak with General Carter," Sam said, twirling the phone cord around her index finger.
"Well, you might try his office..." The man's voice replied.
"I thought this was his office," Sam replied, starting to get annoyed - and she'd only been on the phone for a couple of seconds!
"Nope. Sorry to disappoint you. This is Lieutenant Kawalsky. Would you like me to connect you?"
She took a deep breath, trying to calm herself.
"Yes, I would like you to tell my father that if he doesn't get on the phone, I will go right back to the city." The airman promised to do so, and Sam waited while the cheesy elevator music was played over the earpiece.
Suddenly it stopped, and there was a click, and then Jacob's annoyed voice came over the line.
"Samantha Carter what the hell is going on? I was in a meeting with the General of the Air Force!"
"Well, excuse me, GENERAL but Cadet Carter is trapped in enemy hands."
"WHAT?"
"My flight got cancelled, so unless you can get me on another one, I'm turning myself right around."
Jacob cursed under his breath, and covered the mouthpiece. A minute later he came back on, the stress evident in his voice.
"There is a transport plane coming to Peterson from O'Hare, okay? Get yourself on that." And with that, Jacob hung up, just in time to realize that Sam had no idea where the flight was scheduled to depart from.
'109, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3..."'Ring! Ring! Ring!" went the pay phone.
"Wow, Dad, it only took you 7 seconds to figure out that I had no idea where I was going, and get the number. Is that a new record?" She said sarcastically.
"Samantha Carter, that is not funny. You will go to gate D18, and the pilot will be waiting. His name is... something Irish, I forget. Make sure to say thank you, alright young lady!"
"Yes Dad," she said with syrupy sweetness, and then slammed down the receiver.
On the other end, Jacob Carter was apologizing profusely to the General of the Air Force, trying desperately to explain why he had had to leave the meeting so suddenly.
Sam took her time walking through the airport. That was one of the perks of being a general's daughter. None of the lower ranking officers dared to reprimand her for anything, because she was their commanding officer's child. None, except this particular flyboy.
She reached the D concourse, after coming through the AF security, and meandered down to gate D18. She had a large slurpie in one hand, and her Walkman in the other.
As she arrived at Gate D18, she saw the man that she assumed was her pilot. She approached, and he stood, eyeing her.
"You Cadet Carter?" He asked, glancing down at his sheet of paper. "Yeah." She said. "Who are you?"
"Major Jack O'Neill." And with that he swiftly took her slurpie, and disconnected her headphones.
"What was that for?" She asked.
"That was for being half an hour late, Cadet - now get on the planet!" "You obviously don't know whose child you are talking to!" She retorted. "Wow," Jack said under his breath, "Never thought I'd see the day when
this would happen." With this, he spoke loudly, command evident in his voice.
"Cadet Carter, please stand at attention."
Sam did as she was told; this was the downside of being a general's daughter that just happened to be enrolled in the Air Force Academy. She had to listen to him; he outranked her.
"Cadet, with all due respect to your parents, I don't give a damn whose kid you are. You are a Cadet in the USAF, and will behave accordingly. Now please board the aircraft"
She did as she told, and he climbed in after her. Sam was surprised. Normally, people wanted to know whose kid they were addressing even if the person was acadet, but apparently not this guy. She respected him a teensy bit for that; she hated kiss-ups to the higher ranking officers, although it normally got her what she wanted.
"So, how did you get stuck running transports?" She asked. But, he didn't answer, just climbed into the cockpit and sealed the door. Grumpily, she settled in for the ride, already antsy.
Throughout the flight, Sam tried to get into the cockpit, but Mister Highand-Mighty Major wasn't buying it. When they finally landed, she hurried off the plane, glad to be there. She loved flying, but hated not being in control. It was her dream to planes, and eventually to enter NASA as an astronaut. And, as soon as she blew out of the academy that was exactly what she planned on doing. She hated the academy. It was so elementary, even for someone who was 21 years old, and two grades ahead of her contemporaries, and in graduate school, working at a double Ph.D. in Astrophysics and Quantum Mechanics. She had skipped kindergarten all together, and when she reached middle school, had jumped to seventh grade. Her mother had been ecstatic, her father as well. So it's true; speak of the devil and he will appear.' shethought, as her father rounded the corner on his AF-issued golf cart. She threw her bags on the back, not noticing the one small item that fell from her purse. Jack stepped off the plane at that moment, and started to run, hoping to catch her. But, it was too late. She had already gone. He picked up the item gingerly from the tarmac. It was an exquisitely carved bracelet, with the initials S.E.C. ground into the under portion.
Jack slipped it in his pocket; making a mental note to turn it into lost and found later that day. But, it slipped his mind, and when he returned to his base quarters, set it on his dresser But, the years went by, and the bracelet was no longer of any importance to him, as he readied himself for the rigorous training ahead of him. He was scheduled to be sent off to Iraq and the Middle East with a small group of other black ops guys, with orders straight from the President himself. And, to make matters more complicated, his girlfriend insisted on marrying before he was scheduled to deploy. The cadet he had flown from Chicago was no longer in his memory, and he soon forgot about the bracelet hidden in his sock drawer.
While Jack was training, Sam was finishing her Ph.D. And, four years laterin 1991, she left for the Persian Gulf, as a member of a flight crew for the F-16 pilots going into enemy airspace. The man who had flown her to Peterson had quickly fallen out of her head. She had other things to concentrate on, and had soon forgotten the bracelet as well.
Jack returned from the Middle East that year, and while Sam was working on her infamous 100+ hours in the Persian Gulf, Jack welcomed his first son, Charlie O'Neill.
Jack was re-arranging his sock drawer one day; making room to hide his .45 caliber, when he found the bracelet. He shrugged, and put it on top of his dresser, wondering what had become of the insolent cadet. He bet that she had gone on to do bigger things than black ops. He picked the bracelet up, and twirled it through his fingers, as he remembered the spark in her eye; and the defiance in her posture.
A/N: Where I grew up, sixth grade starts middle school, versus the traditional "junior high" which is only seventh and eighth. Sorry if that confused anyone.