Happy New Year Everyone!
My New Year gift for all J&S ship fans is a brand new story, which I will be posting in four parts over the coming week. Please note the dedication in my author's notes. I hope you enjoy this new story!
Su
Title: The Future is Unwritten
Category: Angst, Romance, Drama, Friendship
Content Level: Age 13+
Content Warnings: Some vulgar language and sexual situations
Pairings: Jack & Sam
Season: After "Continuum"
Spoilers: "Continuum" and anything before it
Summary: Ba'al's execution sends Jack into an emotional tailspin and places his chances of romance with Sam in dire jeopardy
Disclaimer: Stargate SG-1 and its characters are the property of Stargate (II) Productions, Showtime/Viacom, MGM/UA, Double Secret Productions, and Gekko Productions. This story is for entertainment purposes only and no money exchanged hands. No copyright infringement is intended. The original characters, situations, and story are the property of the author. This story may not be posted elsewhere without the consent of the author. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author. Copyright © 2009 Su Freund
Author's Note:
1. The title of this story is a shameless steal from Julien Temple's movie "Joe Strummer: The Future is Unwritten". Bless you Joe. I miss you.
2. Many thanks to ImmerRDA for her heroic efforts in beta reading and getting this fic back to me during difficult circumstances when her PC was uncooperative. As usual, her comments and suggestions helped me make this a better fiction. Any remaining mistakes, however, are entirely my own.
3. I dedicate this story to all those people who read and enjoyed my stories in 2008, particularly all those who took the time and trouble to send me feedback. Thank you for all your encouraging words about my work, which help feed my muse and keep me writing. I hope 2009 brings you everything you would wish for.
The Future is Unwritten
To describe the day's events as bizarre was an understatement. Witnessing an execution did not appear on Daniel Jackson's list of one hundred things to do before he died. Jack O'Neill's either, he reckoned. Despite that the execution was of an old enemy, and rescued a tormented host from the awful thrall of its parasitic symbiote, Ba'al's death was nowhere near as gratifying as he had imagined. Actually, it made him feel slightly queasy.
On and off, he'd kept a wary eye on his old friend Jack, trying to gauge his reaction to events. Jack was a tricky man to fathom and although he appeared either ebullient or composed, Daniel was concerned about what might be bubbling under the surface. He said as much to Sam and she agreed. O'Neill had many reasons to feel more than a little unsettled by the day's events.
Jack would never say anything to any of them about his feelings, of course. That was a bit too much to expect. His tendency toward internalization worried them and Daniel suggested they should not leave O'Neill to smolder alone. Sam concurred but they both realized Jack was likely to blow them off if they tried to interfere.
"It wouldn't hurt to ask him out for a drink, though, would it?" Daniel suggested. Sam looked thoughtful and nodded agreement, a vague idea brewing beneath her visibly troubled facade.
They had prepared one of the VIP rooms in anticipation of O'Neill's visit and expected him to stay. The general, however, had disappeared once they returned though the gate and now they were searching for him.
Despite trying to make it appear he was hunky-dory, O'Neill actually felt unclean and somehow tainted by the execution. Old Bocce was dead, yay and thrice yay, but long live Old Bocce – inside his head. The death he liked but the memories conjured by Ba'al's presence were not nearly as palatable.
In fact, the execution had not been even half as pleasurable as Jack had anticipated. Long, drawn out and boring, without much in the way of satisfaction at all. Now if he could have strangled the man with his bare hands, it might have been an immeasurably more agreeable experience. Okay, so it wasn't the host's fault, O'Neill knew that, but the very sight of the man disturbed and disgusted him. An utterly shudder inducing experience.
Try to shrug it off though he might - smile the smile, walk the walk and talk the talk – the whole oddly macabre and freakish event affected Jack more than he had expected. Feeling thoroughly contaminated, and an acute desire to be alone, he'd headed for the shower as quickly as possible as if he could purify himself through that action. Unfortunately, a man cannot wash away the thoughts inside his head quite so easily.
Not feeling in the least bit sanitized after his long hot shower, O'Neill changed into civvies determined to hit a couple of his old haunts in town. He sincerely hoped to get out of the mountain before any of his former team mates saw him, took pity and decided he required their company. Almost the last thing he needed was the likes of Daniel Jackson trying to creep inside his head. Jack could picture the hard sympathetic stares and hear the many dumb-assed probing questions Daniel would subject him to. No freakin' way!
A grotesque kind of coincidence intervened when Daniel and Sam happened to be walking down exactly the right corridor at precisely the right time. O'Neill left the changing room just as the pair rounded the corner and, naturally, the old team mates spotted his retreating back striding forcefully toward the elevator. They paused in their step, watching him march down the drab SGC corridor, close to leaving the mountain and them behind.
"Jack!" Daniel called after him.
'Crap!' cursed O'Neill inwardly. 'Close, but no cigar, Jack.' The only thing he could think to do offhand was pretend he hadn't heard.
When he found himself ignored, Daniel followed his friend, continuing to call out his name. Jack's obviously deliberate attempt to play avoidance frustrated him and incited his stubborn streak.
While searching for her former CO, however, Sam's reflections motivated her into taking some kind of action. She had been concocting her own plans, something she had been thinking about for a while now.
Sam had missed Jack and thought about him a lot over the past few months. The fight against the Ori and her subsequent posting to Atlantis had thwarted any possibilities of that relationship with him she still yearned for. Or at least, she still wanted the chance to try, but neither of them had kept their unspoken promises to each other. Now seemed like a good time to make the attempt.
She was thinking if they went for a friendly drink then nothing would be lost and at least she would have tried. If it didn't work out then it had just been a couple of old friends having a drink together, right? If it did, well, that would be great. So, no pressure. Not a date, just an amicable get together over a couple of beers. No harm no foul - and no embarrassment should nothing come of it.
Hence, Sam placed a restraining hand on Daniel's arm. "Back off Daniel," she growled, taking the archeologist by surprise. "Let me, please."
He was about to respond when she went tearing off down the corridor, leaving him standing there open-mouthed and wondering what she was up to. Curious, but trusting Sam and willing to go along, Daniel stood and simply watched.
"General O'Neill, sir!" she called, a voice Jack found difficult to ignore.
Reluctantly, he turned to face her and eyed her suspiciously. "What do you want, Carter?"
His aggressively defensive stance and tone intimidated her a little but she took a deep breath and carried on regardless, trying to quell her trepidation. You started it so finish it, Sam, she told herself.
"Um, after what we just witnessed I could use a drink sir. I wondered if you you'd like to come with."
O'Neill snorted, retorting in an irritated manner. "I'm tired, Carter. I just want to be alone."
He detected disappointment in her eyes, a dejected and wounded look, and something else slightly indefinable that got him thinking. The one thing he had miserably failed to do since leaving the SGC – express his more tender feelings for Carter. So, the shaken Jack softened his tone.
"Unless… um… you-you wanted… Carter, were you asking me out on a date?" he finally stammered.
It so seemed to him that this was what she intended. Wishful thinking on his part, perhaps. When she looked horrified, O'Neill became self-conscious about his apparently erroneous conclusion, cussing internally at what he considered must be a dead giveaway concerning his feelings for her. He had thought about her on and off in DC, contemplated calling her many times, but self-doubt had stifled any actual action. In fact, inaction seemed the best policy. Hadn't it always been so?
"A-a date? I… sir," she spluttered feeling her cheeks burn with consternation. "I… I just thought after everything you might need a drink, sir, with a friend."
Sam did not wish for Jack to think she was chasing him. These days, women appeared to ask men out on dates all the time but that did not seem the right thing to do with Jack. Not as far as she was concerned anyway. Sam had been waiting for him to make a move but it had never happened, and she never plucked up courage to pursue him.
O'Neill could not help but think that if he wanted a drink with a friend the last person he would choose would be Carter. They'd never had that kind of relationship, had deliberately avoided it most of the time. Her suggestion threw him, caught him by surprise. She had never asked him to go out for a drink, or anywhere else, with her before. He did not know how to respond or what she had in mind. Unless… His moments of indecision cost him dearly.
"Never mind. Forget it," she said hastily, turning tail and all but running down the passageway, passing Daniel without even a small acknowledgement of his presence. O'Neill stared after her, dumbly stupefied. It was not until she had already disappeared from view that he found his voice.
"Carter!" he shouted.
She heard but ignored him, wishing to hide from her humiliation. What had she been thinking, almost throwing herself at him like that? Then he brushed her off. His rejection should not have surprised her. If he had wanted to see her, he could have called anytime but he hadn't. Now, after making a fool of herself, how could she face him again?
Sam had thought to make something of an opportunity. Like Jack, uncertainty about the two of them had riddled her thoughts for months. Caught up in the moment, this had seemed like a good time to take action, but she had been wrong.
He was not interested in her, that much was clear. She should have realized, taken the hint. The general never contacted her unless work motivated his call. If he had wanted a more personal relationship, he would have done something about it by now. An almost totally lost hope and a small chance had provoked her actions today.
"Carter!" he called again, eliciting no response. O'Neill started after her down the corridor, close to colliding with the perplexed Daniel.
"What the hell did you just say to her, Jack?" he asked, thinking Jack had barely noticed he was there, not any more than Sam had.
"Nothin'," Jack replied brusquely, pushing past his old friend.
"It must have been something," Daniel persisted.
O'Neill was thinking Daniel could be just about the most irritating man on the planet. His friend never seemed able to give it up and simply back off. He stopped, facing Daniel with an irate glare.
"It's none of your damned business, Daniel, okay."
Daniel looked hurt and defensive. "I just want to help, Jack. You think I don't understand why you might be a bit antsy today?"
"I'm fine!" O'Neill barked.
"Sure you are," agreed Daniel in a sarcastic tone but Jack ignored him and continued on his way. "All right, if that's the way you want it," he said, throwing up his hands in a gesture of submission and walking off.
"I think I just screwed up big time," O'Neill admitted, pausing in his stride again and speaking to his friend's rapidly disappearing back. "Carter."
Daniel stopped, turning toward Jack. "Yeah, it doesn't take a genius to figure out you upset her." He thought his friend might say more but should have known better.
"So I should find her," O'Neill said, abruptly stalking away.
"Maybe you should leave it. Talk to her later." Jack, however, did not appear to be listening. "When you've both calmed down a bit…" he added to the empty air where his friend had previously been. Shaking his head in dismay and wondering what the heck was going on, he followed, thinking that if Jack didn't find Sam, perhaps he should.
Neither of them found her. Then, in no uncertain terms, O'Neill rejected Daniel's invitation to join him for a drink. The rebuff left his archeologist friend reeling, but ruminating on the subject of Jack's under the breath mutterings about Sam.
Meanwhile, she hid herself well until she thought the coast was clear and then snuck off home to lick her wounds. Sam did not want to speak to anybody. Instead, she opted to take a comforting long bath, wallowing in the hot steamy water and self-pity for quite a while. The bath made her feel a little bit better, although she still felt her cheeks flush at the thought of encountering the general again any time soon.
It was with shocked surprise then that, when she checked her beeping cell phone later on, her former CO's name came up on the caller ID. He had left two messages while she was bathing.
His first was a curse. "Shit, Carter, answer the damned phone will ya?" His tone was one of impatient annoyance and she stared mutely and apprehensively at the phone for a while before picking up the second message.
"Um, Carter, about that drink…" his voice said, sounding way more subdued, sorrowful and needy this time around. "I tried to find you earlier, but… well, there we are. I guess you didn't want to be found. I regret…" He heaved a sigh before continuing and did not complete his near apology. "I'm in O'Malley's if you want to… um, meet up. I'll get it if you don't come. I always was an ass. If you aren't here by nineteen thirty, I guess I'll just drink myself into a stupor. Bring Daniel, if you want but…" He trailed off and the message ended there.
Although his tone was contrite and conciliatory, she spent the next five minutes debating whether to go or not. Once she decided to give it a shot, Sam realized she was short of time and already late, so she hurriedly got ready.
Before leaving her house, she made an appeasing call to Daniel, who had also left a message. He was concerned about Jack, whom he had tried to raise without success, and about her. She reassured him while also warning him off going to O'Malley's. Jack had not genuinely sounded like he wanted Daniel to be there and that suited her just fine. Tonight, she wanted to see Jack alone. It was almost unheard of and that very fact was ripe and overdue for change.
TBC