Promise
by Bil!
K – Romance – S/J – Complete
Summary: A wedding on an alien planet and a promise.
Season: Early 4. Extremely minor spoiler for Divide and Conquer.
Disclaimer: Stargate SG-1 is the property of MGM and miscellaneous others. I am not a miscellaneous other.
A/N: Can't write romance and can't write Jack. But other than that...
After packing away the last of the soil samples securely in their case, Sam sat back on her haunches and glanced around. The Colonel hadn't returned from his "perimeter check", but across the field, dry and dusty in the local summer, she could see Daniel, with Teal'c standing long-suffering guard, gesturing excitedly at a native. Even from this distance the woman looked bemused and Sam bit back a smile as she dusted her hands on her knees. The locals spoke a variant of Arabic that the Colonel, much to Daniel's annoyance, spoke much better than the linguist.
"He been strangled yet?"
She stood and turned, smiling at her CO as he strolled up with a hand resting lightly on his MP-5. "Do you think he might be, sir?"
"I'd strangle him," he said with disarming frankness. "His accent is just atrocious."
Her smile widened. "I'm done here, sir, so we can go and rescue him." She bent to pick up her sample case.
"Wait, Carter. Let's... postpone saving Daniel from dying yet again. Just for a minute." She hesitated, then stood up, looking at him questioningly. Though he was joking around, she suddenly realised he was nervous, fidgeting with something in his hands. Jack O'Neill, nervous?
"Sir?"
"Carter – look, you know I'm not a genius, and I'm not a romantic guy. I'm just a tactless, grumpy old Air Force Colonel." He dug his toes into the ground, but went on before she could protest. "But I – I care about you. A lot."
He shoved something small and warm into her hand, but she just stared at him, touched deeply by the confession yet wondering why he brought it up. They had turned denial into a way of life, and that way of life did not include uncoerced confessions on alien planets. He didn't meet her eyes, though, intently studying the dirt on the toes of his boots instead, and so she looked down to see what it was he'd pressed into her hand.
It was a tiny ring, formed in the shape of a snake biting its tail, with every scale engraved in exquisite detail. It was silver, more valued here than gold, with tiny green eyes. She'd never been fond of snakes, especially since the Goa'uld showed up, but it was beautiful. "Sir?"
"It's the local equivalent of a wedding ring." She stared at him and he rocked uncomfortably on his heels, shoving his hands into his pockets. "You'd have to ask Hasheem for the exact meaning, but I guess it symbolises – love without end."
Which was quite as beautiful as the ring, but this was a very disconcerting conversation to be having with her CO. "I haven't seen anyone wearing rings," she said, trying to divert the conversation into more neutral channels. "And it's very small."
"You don't put it on your finger, you put it on a chain around your neck." He shrugged. "So it's close to your heart."
"Oh." She blinked, surprised by his knowledge. "Sir, why are we talking about this?"
He didn't look at her. "That ring's for you."
She froze, staring at him. He didn't elaborate and so hesitantly, not sure she wasn't just dreaming a very strange and impossible (but welcome) dream, she carefully framed the words, barely able to consider their meaning. "Sir, are you asking me – to marry you?"
He hunched his shoulders protectively. "I know it's not exactly legal – and it can't change anything, it won't change anything – but... yeah, I guess so." He finally met her eyes. "It's more like a promise. A promise that I'll wait as long as you want me to. Just so you know, you know? You don't have to do it, only if you want to. But whatever you decide, keep the ring." He looked down at his boots again. "That's my promise to you."
Frankly gob-smacked, she stared at him. He looked up, winced, and looked down again.
"Think about it," he said gruffly. "You don't have to do it. It was a dumb idea."
She realised, with the sudden force of understanding usually reserved for when she solved a tricky physics problem, that he'd expected to be turned down. He'd made the most romantic, amazing gesture anyone had ever made to her, expecting she would refuse. Expected it and come anyway.
It had to be a dream. How could this man go to all this trouble just for a nebulous, maybe-one-day future with her?
"No, sir," she said, and her eyes were damp, "it's not a dumb idea." She clutched the ring tightly, feeling it dig into her skin, real and solid and real, as he lifted hopeful eyes to her. She smiled through her tears. "It's perfect."
Sam Carter was married in a massive temple on an alien planet forty-nine thousand light years from Earth, with unfamiliar incense burning in the torches and the image of some strange, foreign god smiling down upon her. She wore BDUs, dusty and grass-stained from her sample collecting, and her hair was a mess. There were only four people involved in the entire wedding: her, the Colonel, and two priests who chanted strange, dissonant harmonies over their heads. She didn't understand a word of the ceremony, she didn't get to kiss the groom, and there were no friends to congratulate her and cry over her.
Yet, walking back to the village beside the man who was her husband and feeling the additional weight of a small serpent ring on her dog-tags, she couldn't imagine a wedding she would have loved more. They didn't speak about it as they walked; they hadn't exchanged a word since they'd entered the temple. They didn't need words.
They reached the field again, the field where her life had suddenly changed forever. This should be a dream, just a dream. And yet it wasn't. Maybe there was some kind of hallucinogen in the soil? Maybe she'd gone temporarily insane? Had she really just...?
But she looked at the Colonel, meeting his eyes, and knew that she could never regret her actions this day. And neither would he.
He nodded to her, his face calm but his eyes warm and... blissful? She wondered if she looked the same. She certainly felt it. "I'll rescue Daniel's victim and round up Teal'c. You go grab those samples."
"Yes, sir. Thank you, sir." They both knew what she meant.
The Colonel lifted his hand to touch the bump in his t-shirt that was his dog-tags (and now something more) and she mimicked him. They smiled.
Fin.