Disclaimer: All recognizable characters and settings are property of their lawful owners. No copyright infringement is intended. This story was written for entertainment purposes only and no profit was made.
Timeline: This story takes place in a universe that goes AU after the end of season 8.
Spoilers: Seasons 1-8, especially the last half of season 8. And I guess the beginning of season 9 because that's when they explained where everyone went.
Summary: Jack has been dead for almost a year but now he's standing on her porch. Sam is sure this is just another dream again because it's a little late for miracles. Or is it?
A/N: First of all, I'm sorry. I know I should be writing "Empty Page Is a New Beginning". And I will finish that story.
It's just that I've been stressed out and took an involuntary 3 week break from stuff like sleeping and eating solid food and knowing what's real and what's not.
And I didn't want to ruin Empty Page by writing when my judgement is compromised.
So I wrote this instead. Because the first two sentences jumped into my head and refused to leave until they got turned into a story.
This story is very different from what I've written lately. But I love it. It flows like a dream, surreal yet somehow solid.
I'm blaming that on the sleep deprivation.
English is not my first language so I apologize for any and all errors you will find in this story.
I also apologize for the fact that Sam might appear OOC in this story. On the other hand, it's a very different setting than what we've seen on the show so we can't be sure how she'd react. We all have our breaking point and I think this just might be hers.
"What the hell happened to us, Carter?" Jack sighs as he sits down next to her on the steps outside her house.
"You died," she says casually, eyes never leaving the horizon, her hands wrapped around the coffee mug to keep them warm. "That's what happened."
"Well technically I meant what happened before that. We had plenty of time to... you know. Make it happen. Make us happen."
"I guess I always thought we would have more time." She shrugs and stares into her mug which is half empty already. She tries to decide if the coffee will warm her more if she keeps it in the mug or if she drinks it.
She can't look at him, not anymore. They've had this conversation so many times and she knows he isn't real. Yet every time she makes the mistake to look at him, she forgets that and when he fades away, the pain of the loss is raw and fresh just like the first time.
"Sam, sit down," Daniel ordered and put both hands on her shoulders to push her into the chair. She could see in his eyes that something was very, very wrong.
"Jack?" she asked on instinct and saw him nod.
"How bad?"
He didn't answer and Sam saw him swallow a few times to hold back the tears. She nodded. Really bad, then. Hopeless bad because Daniel wouldn't be that close to tears if there was any hope left.
"What happened?" she heard herself ask but didn't really recognize the voice. She felt numb all of a sudden.
She still hasn't managed to get rid of that feeling.
"I always thought we'd find a way," Jack whispers next to her and pulls her out of her memories.
"Yeah..." she sighs. "Me too. And it's my fault we never used the chance we had."
"I had a phone, too, Carter."
"You called more often than I ever did."
"First of all, I disagree about that one. I think you called twice as often as I did. Second, I talked about Simpsons for crying out loud. That can hardly be counted as a conversation."
"And hockey," Sam smiles at the memories of their phone calls. Neither of them really knew what to say so they just took turns with monologues. He talked about TV and hockey, she talked mostly about science.
"And hockey," Jack repeats. "There are so many things I should have said instead." He never elaborates, never tells exactly what those things are. In a way she's happy about that because it feels more realistic that way. On the other hand it's sad that even in her imagination she can't allow herself to slip past that certain line which they draw years ago.
"I didn't mind," Sam says absentmindedly. The coffee is getting cold and that means her hands will be freezing soon. Soon she will have to get inside and then he will leave again. "I loved hearing your voice. No matter what you were saying." She downs the rest of her coffee in one go, hoping the caffeine buzz will warm her a little.
"I know," he whispers. "That's why you sit here talking to me. You can't look at me anymore because you know I'm not real but you can't stop talking to me."
"I miss you," she sighs. "More than I've ever missed anything in my life." She won't cry, not anymore. There are no more tears left in her. Some days she wonders if there was anything left in her anymore.
The bad guys are gone, there's a peace in the galaxy, Daniel finally got to Atlantis, Teal'c went back to Chulak, Hammond retired, Cassie moved in with her boyfriend and Sam rarely sees her anymore. Janet died, her Dad died, Jack died. If she ever gets a kid or a dog, its name will not start with Ja. They always seem to die before their time. Janet, Jacob, Jack... She's pretty sure she had a cat named Jasmine who got run over by a car when she was five. But that doesn't really matter.
She is leading a team of scientists on Area 51 now, a nine-to-five job with the newest discoveries in the world of alien technology. The problem is, she doesn't enjoy it anymore, not like she used to. Yes, it is interesting and sometimes even exciting but she doesn't feel like a kid in a candy store anymore when she walks into her lab. It's a job now, nothing more. Most of her life is "nothing more" nowadays. She briefly wonders when she gave up and became so pathetic.
They offered her the command of the new SG-1. She could pick up anyone she wanted, they said. But she couldn't have the ones she wanted and she couldn't imagine going through the 'gate without them, without her team. So here she is, sitting on the back porch of her little house in Nevada, talking to a man who has been dead for almost a year now.
"I need to get a dog," she thinks out loud and Jack chuckles next to her.
"Yes, that would be a good way to keep you sane."
"Yeah. Because talking to a dog is a little less pathetic than talking to plants," Sam says with a little smile. "Or a dead friend."
"Well, really you're just talking to yourself here so..."
"Carter," the voice suddenly comes from behind her and the hair on the back of her neck stand up. That voice is so much like the one she has been talking with for the past half an hour yet there is something so different about it. It sounds firmer somehow, more powerful, yet also a little hesitant. She glances next to her and sees Jack fade away with an apologetic smile on his lips. She sighs but doesn't turn around.
"Carter?" the voice asks again and she wonders why her imagination came up with two Jacks at the same time.
"Yeah?" she finally answers when she comes to a conclusion that this one probably wants to say something that wouldn't have fit into the conversation she just had with the other one. And it is a little sad that her imagination can't fit all the different sides of the man into one character like reality did.
"Am I interrupting something?"
"Just a little chat with my imaginary friend," she sighs.
"You OK?"
She shakes her head. As a matter of fact I'm slowly but surely losing my mind. "Not really, no. Haven't been since you died, actually."
After all they survived, all the near deaths and last second survivals, he died in a car crash. The irony isn't lost on her. It probably would have been easier to accept if he had died on the field.
"Yeah... About that," he grunts and she can imagine him scratching the back of his neck.
"The Asgard or the Tok'ra?" she asks, keeping her eyes in the horizon.
She's heard him explain so many times how he wasn't driving that day, how somebody saved him, how he was beamed out from the co-driver's seat right before the crash or right before the fire that destroyed his car and only left behind the remains of a body, too damaged to even get a DNA sample. A body that matches his height and age and wears his dog tags. She hasn't hear a good enough explanation about the dog tags yet so she's waiting for this version of the story.
Because they never got a DNA sample, they never knew for sure and that's the main reason why she hasn't stopped hoping for a miracle. But now it's getting a little late for miracles already. He's been gone for almost a year and she knows she should let go and move on but she can't. It feels like there's nowhere to go. So she sits here and lets him talk even though she knows he's not real. Because she misses him.
"Actually..." he sighs and sits down next to her. Sam can almost feel the heat radiating from him and she can feel the little spark of hope lighting inside her again. "It was the Trust."
"The Trust?" she repeats. Well, that's a new one.
"Yeah... They had some evil plan about conquering the world. Nothing unusual there."
"And for that they needed you?"
"Yeah, so they said."
"What happened?"
"Honestly? I don't know. I was pretty out of it for the first few days but then I found myself on the other side of the galaxy, tortured for information. They really were stupid enough to think if they kept me locked up long enough and tortured me enough, I would give them what they wanted."
"That was their plan?" Sam asks, curious. That's lame, even for her imagination. Even if she's already used all the complicated intergalactic conspiracy theories, that's still lame.
"I got the feeling it was plan B, actually. But I never found out what plan-A was. If I had to guess, I'd say they were going to make me a host and then return me to Pentagon but something happened for the symbiote."
It would make sense that when they found out their plan wasn't working, they would frame his death and move on to plan B. There are questions she knows she should ask but she wants to cling to the hope for now. "How badly tortured?" she asks instead.
"They didn't have a sarcophagus and they needed me alive." Though she still refuses to look at him, she's certain he's shrugging now. How badly? Just a little. No big deal. "And they took it easy the last few weeks, let the broken bones heal. Well, most of them. They did that every once in a while... Beat the hell out of me and then leave me alone for weeks before the next round."
Sam isn't ready to look at him and see which limb he has in a cast so she only nods. "Why are you here now?"
"Thor saved my ass. He had heard some rumors that I might be alive after all."
"Thor? Rumors?"
"Yeah. Apparently now that the replicators aren't bugging them all the time, they have a lot of time in their hands." She can hear his smirk but she still refuses to look at him.
"So they sit around a table, sip tea and gossip, huh?" This is quickly turning out to be even more absurd than her dreams. In the past that would have meant this is real but now she doesn't even trust that indicator anymore.
"So it seems."
"Why are you here?" she asks again. "Here, here." Not on this planet but on her porch, late on a Friday evening.
"They've been running tests on me for two days at the SGC and they finally came to a conclusion that I'm really me. I wanted to tell you face to face. Daniel thought it was a bad idea, though. Thor gave me a ride."
"Daniel was right." She doesn't see the archaeologist often enough but somehow she knows he's aware of her state of mind at the moment.
"He was?"
"I've had dozens of these conversations with you this past year. I have no reason to assume this is any more real than the one I was having when you walked in." Or out, actually, since she is sitting outside but that really doesn't matter right now.
"You want me to get Daniel for you? Would you believe him?"
She shakes her head but she's not sure which question she's answering.
"What do you need me to do, Sam?" he asks softly. Not want, but need.
"I need you to be alive," she admits. "I need this to be real and I need my life back."
"First two are taken care of already but we need to work on the last one."
She chuckles and shakes her head. She lowers the empty coffee cup next to her and rubs her hands together to keep them warm a little longer. To her surprise his large hand covers hers and she turns to look at him, shocked. He's never touched her during these conversations before.
What is even more shocking than that, though, is what she sees when she looks at his face. He looks a lot older than before. His hair looks even more silver now -she didn't know that was possible- and the lines in his face are deeper and there are more of them.
And he has a black eye. A very black eye. Jack's left eye is barely open because of the swelling.
"What happened?" Sam asks and gently traces the edges of the bruise with her index finger.
"Take a guess."
"You had to fight your way out?"
"A little. Thor found me, sent one of those holograms to explain he couldn't beam me out because there was some fancy interference system that made the beaming system unstable."
Sam nods. She's familiar with the technology.
"So... he told me the way out, warned about the guards... You know, the whole... tour-guide deal. That actually kinda rhymes, tour-guide Thor. Anyway... I only had to knock out one guard but he managed to get a few punches in. I wasn't exactly at my best after eleven months."
"Any other injuries?"
He raises his left hand and she sees both his index finger and his middle finger have splints. Sam can almost hear the sickening crack in her ears, the sound of breaking fingers. She wonders if he screamed. She would have. "Plus a few bruised ribs," he continues. "And my knee's in bit of a rough shape. Oh, and one of the knife wounds infected. Nothing life-threatening, though. I'm fine."
"Carolyn let you out of the infirmary?"
"Uh... Not... exactly."
Sam sighs and gets up. It's funny, really, how adult and responsible he normally acts in her imagination. This, however, is so much more like the real Jack. After a year of being tortured, he would escape the infirmary just to tell her he's alive. Well actually she suspects big part of it is that Daniel told him not to. Daniel should have learned by now that Jack will always do exactly what he tells him not to do.
Part of her thinks it's kinda sweet that he's here. But part of her knows he's just being stubborn and childish. But even then, it's kinda sweet. "Come on," she offers her hand to help him up. "Call Thor. We need to get you back to the SGC."
"So you believe me now, huh?"
"Not sure," she answers honestly. "This isn't a hallucination. That much I've figured out. Might still be a dream, though. But I guess I'll just play along for now."
"Or I could be a bad guy in disguise, here to kidnap you."
"You know what's the scary part about that option?" Sam asks and stares straight into his eyes. Well, eye because the other one's swollen closed. "I don't care." Because even that is better than another night sitting on this damn porch, staring into the desert and wondering what she should have done differently.
"What the hell happened to you, Carter?" Jack asks, sounding shocked and maybe even a little angry. Sam flinches at how close that phrase is to the normal conversation opener of her hallucinations and she fights against the urge to respond with her normal answer: You died, that's what happened.
"Call Thor," she says firmly. She keeps telling herself that will be the deal breaker. If they really do get beamed up, this is real. If not, he will just fade away and she will wake up either in her bed or on the porch. She really hopes it's the bed in that case. Last time she fell asleep on the porch, she caught a pneumonia.
"Thor," Jack calls into the communication device. "Get us to the SGC. Infirmary, preferably."
For a blink of an eye they are on Thor's ship and the next at the infirmary.
"I would appreciate it if you wouldn't go AWOL with broken ribs, General," doctor Lam says firmly and without missing a beat as soon as they appear in the infirmary.
"Bruised, doc. And hey, I'm still officially dead, I can't get court martialed."
"Alright. Colonel Carter, you might wanna join the rest of SG-1 in the briefing room. The General needs to rest and take his medicines."
"You gonna be OK, sir?" she asks him and frowns a little, big part of her still convinced that he'll disappear the moment she leaves him out of her sight.
He flashes a wide grin at her and looks like the happiest man on Earth. Sam frowns a little more, wondering what she did to earn that one.
"You know how I always tell you to drop the sir, Carter?"
"Yeah...?"
"Well this time it's the sweetest word I've ever heard."
"Because..."
"Because I'm sure you don't bother with the titles anymore with your imaginary friend."
Sam thinks about it for a few seconds and realizes he's right. She's starting to believe this is real, starting to act like this is real. She flashes him one of her big smiles, too, surprised her face still remembers how to do that because it's been so long since she's had a reason to smile.
"You should go, Carter. I'll be here when you come back."
"You'd better be or I swear to God I'll..."
"You'll what? Drive off a cliff and come kick my ass on the other side?"
"I guess I should be worried about the fact that that sounds like a great idea, actually."
"Alright, that's it. Once I get out of here we're going fishing. We need to drag you out of that misery."
"Fishing, sir?"
"I did leave the cabin for you, right? You didn't sell it, did you?"
"God, no! Of course not. We haven't sold or destroyed any of your stuff. Well apart from the food in your fridge."
He nods. "Good. We'll talk later. Go."
"This really is real, isn't it?" Sam whispers next to his bed. He opens his eyes and he flashes a little smile at her. He has no idea how long she's stood there but apparently long enough to come to that conclusion.
"So it seems."
Her eyes look a little teary when she smiles at him.
"Come here," he taps the bed next to him.
"You have broken ribs, sir."
"Bruised," he corrects. "And they're on the left side." He moves to the left side of the bed to make space for her.
"Sir..." she hesitates.
"I'm still officially dead, Carter."
"How does that help? Instead of being charged of fraternization I get charged of necrophilia?" Her eyes twinkle with laughter and the tears and her eyebrows rise ever so slightly.
He chuckles and then groans in pain. "Broken ribs, Carter!" he grunts and she doesn't bother to correct they're only bruised.
"Alright, alright," she sighs and climbs onto the narrow hospital bed. She doesn't have the heart to argue with him when he looks miserable and in pain. And especially when she doesn't really want to argue with him.
"I'm gonna fall off the bed at some point," she tells him as she tries to find a comfortable position in the narrow bed that definitely isn't meant for two people.
"No, you're not." He slides his right arm under her neck and pulls her closer.
"Ribs," she reminds him but his only response is to pull her right hand on his left shoulder.
"Stay still and don't tell any good jokes. I'll be fine."
"Bad jokes still OK?" she whispers against his shoulder and breaths in his scent. He smells like the standard military soap, infirmary and scrubs but still somehow like him. She's forgotten a long time ago what he smells like but she knows this is right, this is the way it used to be.
"Yeah, bad jokes will do," he mumbles and they are both silent for a while, marveling at the fact that they're really here, alive, together. Sam notices the numb feeling is slowly fading, making space for something warm she can't quite recognize yet.
"I missed you," Jack whispers so softly she might have missed it if he didn't tighten the arm around her shoulders at the same moment.
"I missed you more," she answers and at the doorway Daniel turns away, a smile on his face, and lets them be. It's been a long year but somehow he thinks it's felt the longest for Sam.
"So," Jack starts when he sits down on her left side at the end of the dock. Their feet are in the water, both have a bottle of cold beer in their hands and the sun is shining. "What did you talk about with me while I was dead?"
She thinks about his question for a moment, tries to decide if he's mocking her but she hears nothing but curiosity in his voice and decides to answer honestly: "Regrets. A little about hockey, too."
"Hockey?"
"I missed our phone calls." She shrugs and takes a gulp of beer. They just arrived and it's barely noon but they're on vacation and she needs this, this feeling of complete relaxation when the pieces are finally falling in their right places again after a year of numb chaos.
"Ah..."
"And Simpsons."
"You watch Simpsons now?"
Jack notices how Sam keeps her eyes on the lake when she speaks and doesn't even glance at him. These past few days he's seen how hard it is for her to look at him. He sees in her eyes how she still expects him to fade away any moment. He covers her hand with his own, giving it a little squeeze just to remind her he's real.
Sam turns her palm up and laces her fingers through his. "Every episode since you died," she says like she's confessing a crime, something shameful she doesn't want anyone to know.
"You didn't happen to record them, did you?"
"They're on my laptop. We can have a marathon tonight if you want."
"Seriously?"
"Yeah."
"Sweet," he sighs and sees her smile a little. "But not tonight," he continues and squeezes her hand again. He didn't bring her here to watch TV.
"Sure," she whispers and starts to stroke the back of his hand with her thumb.
"Why didn't we get together when we had the chance?" She finally asks the question she has been thinking about for almost a year.
"Too much happened in such a short time. I thought it would be a good thing to take it slow." The answer comes quickly. He's had this conversation in his head, too.
"We took it slow for eight years," she reminds him.
"Yeah, it was a stupid plan. I know that now." He takes a gulp of his beer and she mimics the move.
"You know," Jack says after a moment of silence. "You're not the only one who's had conversations with an imaginary friend lately."
"Oh?" She turns to glance at him and he nods. "What was your friend like?"
He shrugs and stares into his beer. "About the same height as you. Blonde. Smart. Full of ideas and optimism. Kept me going. She was also kinda... you know... hot... too..."
"And how intimate did you exactly get with this hot friend of yours?"
"Well, you know..." He shrugs again. "The bad thing with imaginary friends is you can't really touch them."
"Striptease?"
"No!" he yelps like she had just called him a rapist or something equally offending. Then he turns to glance at her smiling face and raised eyebrows and contemplates the question again. "Now why didn't I think of that back then? The times in between the torture would have been so much more pleasant."
Sam chuckles but doesn't say anything.
"Wait," Jack says after a moment. "Is that what you did with your friend?"
"No." She shakes her head. "We just talked." In an odd way she's happy that she isn't the only whose subconscious refuses to cross some lines.
"About Simpsons."
"And about regrets."
He nods. He's had those conversations, too. And technobabble. Lots of technobabble. He's pretty sure he could now explain how a naquadah reactor works and that's a scary thought because it means he's known it all along.
"So, what are you going to do now?" Sam asks and sips her beer. The bottle is almost empty already but she doesn't care. They have a cooler full of new ones.
"This," he makes a gesture with his beer bottle that probably means cabin, fishing, beer.
"Ah... Retired, huh?"
"Oh, yes. I've done my share. The paperwork came through today."
She nods and this time takes a big gulp of the cool liquid. She wonders if she's too young to retire, too. She feels like she's done more than her share.
"Are you happy in Nevada?" he asks out of the blue and she finally turns to look at him.
She shakes her head, then thinks for a few seconds before she answers. "But then again, I don't think I would have been happy anywhere this past year."
He nods, then seems to get lost in his thoughts again and she turns to stare at the calm lake again.
"You could stay," he says softly.
"Here?" she asks, her eyebrows raised when she looks at him.
"Yeah."
Sam doesn't answer, just stares at him with an unreadable expression on her face.
Sometimes he forgets it wasn't really Sam whom he spoke with the past year, forgets they haven't really solved any of their issues, no matter how many times he's had those conversations with himself and the walls of his cell. "I have a guest room, you know," he says, thinking he's moving too fast for her. They haven't talked about sleeping arrangements yet. Their bags are in a neat pile in the middle of the living room. Her eyebrows raise again and her expression changes to an amused one, yet she still doesn't say a word.
"What?" Jack finally barks when he can't take the staring anymore.
"Eight years of building up the tension, six months of awkward phone calls, a year of both of us talking to hallucinated versions of each other and then you ask me to move in with you and you want me to sleep in the guest room?"
"I don't want you to sleep there I just thought..."
Her stare stops his rambling and he heaves a sigh. "See? My plans are crappy. You can't just go back to Nevada and leave me here all alone. Who knows what I might come up with."
"Yeah," Sam snorts and then turns to look at the lake again. "I think it might be the best."
"What might be the best?" He's a little confused here. Going or staying?
"To stay here and make sure you don't get into trouble." She smiles at him and his smile is soon bordering a full-blown grin.
"How long?"
Now it's Sam's turn to shrug. "Until the next intergalactic crises boils over." She's on a month-long vacation right now. After that... She has no idea.
"Or until you realize I'm an asshole and you want nothing to do with me."
"Yeah, or that."
They smile at each other and then Sam performs an acrobatic move that ends with her laying on her back, her head on his thigh, while never letting go of his hand. Their entwined hands are resting on her tummy now and Jack can't stop looking at the bare feet she now has up on the dock. Her toenails are orange. Bright - almost bordering neon - orange. And not that he's thought about her toes that often but he never would have guessed that color.
Jack shakes his head to concentrate. He downs the last of his beer and puts the bottle down before starts to stroke her hair with his left hand. Two of his fingers are still broken but he'll manage.
Sam closes her eyes with a content sigh.
"You don't trust your sight anymore, do you?" he asks softly. He's noticed a pattern, how she often closes her eyes when he touches her or holds her close.
"Other senses are so much harder to cheat."
Jack nods despite the fact that she can't see him. He feels the same way and it's not just the touching. He still clings to the pillow she slept on at the infirmary because it smells like her shampoo. Many of his shirts have gone missing lately and he suspects it has something to do with Sam. They are both constantly reminding themselves that this is real. He knows neither of them would get any sleep in separate rooms - hell, he barely got any sleep the past week at the SGC - but he didn't want to assume anything.
"So..." he starts and reminds himself they need to learn how to talk about things before they get complicated. Because this time they're doing this right. No regrets. "You still interested?"
"In what?" She doesn't open her eyes. He doesn't feel offended.
"Us," he says simply. "Giving it a go."
"Of course I'm still interested."
"Good." He nods.
"So," she asks after a few silent seconds and finally opens her eyes. "What are you gonna do about it?"
He shrugs. "We'll you're already moving in. What more do you want me to do?"
Now it's her turn to shrug and she closes her eyes, a flirty smile haunting her lips.
"And of course," Jack starts casually. "As soon as I manage to convince myself this really is real, I'm gonna kiss you senseless."
Sam chuckles at his nonchalant tone.
"But I think we both need a little more of this-" He squeezes her hand gently. "-before that."
"Yeah," she agrees and opens her eyes to flash a beautiful smile at him. "I think I like that plan." She gives his hand a little squeeze and closes her eyes again.
Sam notices the numbness is gone now, replaced with contentment and something warm and beautiful which she now is bold enough to call love. Because the sun is shining, the birds are singing, his hand is warm and firm and real in hers and they got a second chance to make everything right. She's not gonna let it go.
~The End~
A/N: A review would be awesome. Please keep in mind that this story was born out of sleep deprivation.