Worth the wait
Author: Proby'sgirl
Summary: Some things are just worth the wait.
Pairings: Sam/Jack, Sam/Other, Janet/Daniel
References: Threads/ Ripple Effect/ Beachhead
Warnings: um… none I don't think
Disclaimers: I don't own any part of this franchise and any views in this story are those of the writer and reflect nothing on the franchise.
She stood at the door to his house. If anyone knew she was here she'd be in trouble. She had lied to too many people to get to this spot right now. She'd told Cam she was going home for the weekend, she could still make him think she actually was leaving to go home and rest. She'd told Daniel and Teal'c that she was going to see her brother for the weekend. She'd lied to the Colonel at Peterson that she was supposed to be on the C130 heading for Andrews. As she got off the plane she'd got in the taxi and sent him to a bike hire shop. She'd gotten on a bike and drove the familiar roads to the little two bedroom, real fireplace, observation platformed house he now called home. Which was where she was now, sat on his porch. It was raining heavily and her hair and clothes were sticking to her, yet she couldn't bring herself to knock on the door. He had company, he could hear them laughing. They were probably playing poker, it was Friday night.
Why was she here anyway! What crazy thought had made her travel against jetlag, across the country when the last time she spoke to him three months previous she had told him she wouldn't mind never seeing him again. At the time she really had been that furious, they both had. When she finally allowed herself to think about it when she was half a country away she realised what an idiot she was and how huge a mistake she had made. She still hadn't called him, he had started it. She had finally thought she was moving on from him until she realised that she never could. She had a second chance with Martouf and when she got right down to it, she couldn't do it. She couldn't take that step, cross that line. She loved him but she'd also lost him, killed him. He knew as soon as he kissed her that she wouldn't go through.
"You can't do it can you?"
"I'm sorry Martouf."
"Don't be. Tell me about him."
"You know." He smiled and shook his head.
"I know what happened in my reality. But in my reality you were about to have his baby when I left." She just shrugged at him.
"We had a huge argument about me coming back here."
"Yeah I meant to ask. Where were you?"
"He took over Hammonds place at the head of homeland security. I took a sabbatical of sorts, Cassie was having a hard time in college after losing Janet, so I said I'd move over there until she got settled in. I transferred to R&D for a while but after three months, Cam asked me to come back and I agreed. He wasn't happy."
"Why? Because you get to go back to what you love?"
"Yes and no, because I was going back to Cheyenne Mountain." He just cocked his head and looked at her. She took a deep breath.
"When my dad died he was there, he sat with me in the observation room just before he died and was watching over me. A week or so later when we'd found the ZPM and we'd been fishing, my transfer request crossed his desk. He called me into his office and was like what the hell is this about? Waving the transfer request at me, so I told him about Cass and why I wanted to get away for a bit. He nodded his head at me I thought he was going to yell or something and he turned around and said here was me, thinking it was because you'd found out they were sending me to homeland security to replace Hammond. I just kinda stood there looking at him. He just stood there and told me that he thought we should continue this conversation later. We met up that night, we didn't do much talking. He'd filed my transfer and he was definitely not my commanding officer. It had been all we needed. We spent every possible moment we had together, which wasn't all that much when you took into account both our jobs with mad hours on different ends of the country, weeks away at a time. Cass had finally settled in at college and I was madly in love with Jack, loving living with him but there was a restlessness about me and then Cam started asking me to re join SG-1 and I said no but the more I thought about it the more it made sense to me that that was what I wanted. So after we destroyed the Ori beachhead I agreed to re join SG-1. Jack didn't know."
"You hadn't talked about it with him."
"I never really got chance. Between the time when Cam first asked me to rejoin SG-1 and when the Ori beachhead was destroyed was about two weeks, one week of which I was on the Prometheus and the other Jack spent four days of it at Area 51. We got three nights and I just couldn't find the right way to tell him. When I got back to Washington, I walked in the front door to find him with my bag packed. I was like what's going on? He was like were you going to tell me? I caught on to what he was talking about. Now, when we actually got chance to talk. He found out by Cam rubbing his nose in that he owed him $100 because he had betted against getting the team back together. He went on the offensive started yelling at me, all hell broke loose. I hadn't slept in three days and I didn't want to argue with him. The last straw was when he turned around and yelled I know how Pete felt now. I smacked him across the cheek and asked him when had I ever said that I wanted to break up with him, I would have been willing to put the effort in to make it work long distance but what was the point if that was his attitude. I grabbed the bag from his feet and yelled something like I don't ever want to see him again. That was three months ago and I haven't heard from him since." He just looked at me.
"How do you get past people talking about him around you?"
"Only Daniel, Teal'c, Cassie and General Hammond knew about us and the guys realise that it's not a good topic to bring up. They've never asked about him."
"Do you still mean it, about never wanting to see him?"
"I never meant it at the time, least of all now. I miss him like crazy."
"Then why aren't you talking?"
"You met my father what do you think?"
"Pride? Stubbornness?"
"Precisely. I hate myself, I'll get to the point of dialling his number but hanging up before I type in the final digit."
"You need to talk to him or you're going to spend the rest of your life miserable Sam."
"When the hell did you get so wise?"
"Hey I was always wise but I saw two members of our SGC, not you, almost do the same thing over a slight misunderstanding by Cassandra. I assume by Dr. Jackson's response to Janet that they were lovers in this reality too."
"Oh too briefly." Martouf raised his eyebrow. "They finally got together about a month before Janet died. Daniel was devastated at the time as we almost lost the General too."
"You don't see how lucky you are Sam. The reason he did that is because he was hurting, he thought you wanted to leave him."
"Did he give me a chance to explain?" She was starting to get mad, why was he butting in.
"Oh come on Sam. When have you known the General to be rational? When emotions come into play he's insecure and he puts up barriers, did you ever think that that was why he didn't call you because he actually thought you didn't want him?"
"I… er…" she sighed. "Why are you doing this?"
"What trying to help you?" She nodded. "I love Sam Carter, in general which ever one, no I'm joking. I love the Sam out of my reality as the Martouf from this reality would only love you. You were in a room of 18 Sam Carters and every one of them but you are happy. Happy with the same man. I could never begrudge him your love. Come on lets go get some Jell-O. Green?"
"Blue." She said laughing as they stood up to leave her quarters. "Martouf." He stopped and turned around. She smiled at him. "Thank you."
Here she was 10 days later, sitting on Jack's doorstep in the pouring rain not willing to knock but not totally convinced to leave.
"Jack, were you expecting a drowned rat tonight?"
"What?" Jack looked at his friend who was standing watching for the pizza.
"Drowned rat."
"Rat?" Carl rolled his eyes.
"Drowned rat, soaked person sitting on your stoop."
"Why haven't you opened the door to see who it is?"
"Your house man. I'm not looking for psychos sitting in the rain." Jack walked over to the door and opened it. He stared in disbelief for a moment as the person sitting on the step turned startled by the door.
"Sam?" It was all he could say. He didn't expect that she would call him ever after what happened the last time they spoke but to have her sitting on his stoop in the rain, he was shocked. He realised that she hadn't knocked because part of her wasn't sure of her being here.
"I'm sorry sir. I shouldn't have come." She saw the look of pain in his eyes as she used his title. What had she been thinking? She turned and started to walk away from him.
"Sam." He called after her but she didn't stop until she felt his arm spin her around.
"I shouldn't have come."
"But you did." She hung her head. Before she knew what was happening she was enveloped in his arms sobbing into his chest. He just clung to her after a few minutes, he titled her head up, rain dripping off her nose.
"I've missed you Sam. I'm sorry I was such a jerk."
"I shouldn't have flown off the handle, I should have tried to calmly explain." He tilted his head towards her.
"I love you Sam." He bent and kissed her gently before pulling back slightly, she never looked more beautiful with tears and rain dripping down her face.
"I realised recently that I don't want to live without you Sam." He looked at her and saw what could be hope in her eyes. He felt her hands in his hair pulling him to her, he smiled as she opened her mouth to his kiss. Breathlessly they broke apart, he held her until he felt her shiver.
"We should go inside." She nodded into his chest and they turned to see all of Jack's guests watching them, grinning. As they got to the front door, one of their guests, who Sam was avoiding looking at, passed them a towel.
"Thanks George." Her head shot up to meet a pair of smiling friendly eyes.
"Pizzas here." He called distracting the attention from the saturated pair.
"My wallets by the door. Oh and George…" he turned towards him. "I know how much is in there." Sam heard him chuckle as she was herded to the bathroom. He started removing his wet clothes, it was then that Sam noticed that he only had a t-shirt and sweats on. No shoes or socks either.
"Don't make me have to strip you too as that could get a little embarrassing with our guests." She blushed slightly when she realised he had caught her looking. He briefly kissed her forehead before walking out in a towel to find clean clothes. He came back in with a bundle of her clothes he hadn't packed her. And wearing a pair of underwear.
"You should take a shower, warm you up. Hank will kill me if one of his flagship team gets sick because of me."
"I'll just tell him I got caught in a storm in San Diego, considering that's where he thinks I am."
"Sam?"
"What? I didn't want the questions if I hadn't actually made it to see you." He raised his eyebrow.
"You may have noticed, I didn't exactly knock did I?"
"Were you going to knock?"
"I hadn't figured that one out."
"Then why were you even here if you weren't sure?"
"Martouf."
"Who's been dead for almost six years."
"In this reality."
"OK. This has something to do with the last mission."
"Yeah. Long story. You should possibly go back to your guests while I shower." He raised his eyebrow again, smirking.
"I was thinking of staying and watching." She started laughing.
"You were the one that didn't want to cause a scene."
"Have it your way." He said winking at her before slipping out of the room, only to re enter it and place a kiss on her lips.
"We'll save you some pizza." She smiled at his disappearing back.
30 minutes later, she emerged to find the four men seated around the poker table. She walked straight past them into the kitchen to retrieve the promised pizza slice, she was starving. As she walked back in she brought each guy another beer and passed them around.
"Why haven't we thought of waitress service before?" Carl commented
"Coz she'd kick your ass if you didn't pay up." George countered
"Yeah whatever."
"You'd be surprised, she's over powered me in combat before now." Jack said placing an arm around her waist as she kissed his forehead.
"Yeah, in combat." He winked at Jack then realised he was being serious.
"That's Carl with his sexist butt over there and of course you know George and Paul. Carl this is Sam."
"You can't really kick our butts, he's just trying to make you look good right?"
"No I could." She said as she walked around and hugged General Hammond and Paul Davis who were the other two men at the table.
"I heard you made lieutenant Colonel Paul, Congratulations."
"Thanks Sam, not before you did though."
"Yeah but your work is more behind the scenes rather than on the frontline." He smiled at her.
"If you weren't taken." She laughed.
"Lieutenant Colonel?" Carl sat there with his jaw almost hitting the table.
"Yeah. Lieutenant Colonel Samantha Carter, PhD."
"Jesus she's smart as well. You know how to pick 'em. How did you guys meet then?"
"Cheyenne Mountain is how we met."
"9 and a half years later and the rule no longer applies as we aren't in direct command anymore."
"Jesus." Sam smiled as she re joined Jack.
"Worth the wait."
"Definitely." Jack concluded before Sam's lips met his.
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