What the Curse May Be

Author's Note: Thank you everyone for reading and for the reviews. This is going somewhere.

Chapter 3:

Pausing in the doorway, Sam instinctively steeled her nerves almost going into full "Solider Sam" mode. She breathed deeply and then exhaled trying to soften herself just a bit before facing what was behind the door. It was not quite what she expected, thankfully.

As the door was pushed open, the room was bathed in a light glow from the hallway. It illuminated most of the corners that the setting sun through the open blinds had not. Jack was, as expected, lying on the bed but unexpectedly (to Sam's mind, anyway), not asleep and not passed out.

She took a moment to look at him before she said anything. He was half undressed, his dress jacket draped over the footboard, shoes haphazardly discarded in the floor. Tie loosened and shirt-tails out, Jack certainly reeked of Guinness and whiskey (something Sam had not seen displayed in the living room). Sam blinked a few times, but it was he who spoke first.

"You're home early."

"I've missed you."

"I'll clean it up," He gestured into the air; obviously indicating his binge in the living room.

"It's your house, Jack. You can do what you like."

"Don't be like that, Sam." He hoisted himself into a sitting position and put his head into his hands. "It's our house. You're here more than I am now, anyway."

"Fine." As this exchange was going on, Sam was taking inventory of the situation. Jack was obviously in a haze. Probably not as drunk as he had been before she came home, but still foggy. Even in the dimly illuminated room (made more so by her shadow filling the room), she could tell his face and eyes were red. She cautioned a glance for any firearms, mentally kicking herself for letting that thought even cross her mind. She didn't know that Jack, she had no reason to think that--

"Aren't you even going to ask?" Jack's voice brought Sam out of her reverie.

Sam simply raised her eyebrows and stammered, "I…I didn't know if you wanted me to." Though their relationship had been great, she was hesitant to push him too much. He was a private man and occasionally that privacy did not include her. As much as it hurt her when those times came, Sam did have to admit to herself, he was doing better.

"She's dead, Sam," Jack said before she had a chance to actually ask.

Sam panicked. Jack had only just arrived from Washington this morning! What in the world was he talking about?! She mentally went through the list of names of their friends, of his staff, anyone whose death might have upset him this much that she wouldn't have heard about already as well.

"Who?" The word was out of her mouth just as she realized who he meant.

"My wife," Jack clarified shakily. "Sara. Sara's dead."