Well guys here it Chapter 4. This one seems a bit long but I really couldn't find a good cut off point. Again I say thank you to all of those who have left me reviews, and those who have chosen to follow Jack's Samantha. You really do mean the world to me. Hopefully this new chapter will not disappoint any of you. I changed my rating back to M – not sure if it should be M or T but I do know the further it goes with my Mr. Muse, the M is going to be the likely choice. Enjoy!
Chapter 4
Trust & Faith, a twisty kind of road!
Sam saw the look and read the message that Jack held in his eyes. It was the same message she had in her eyes every time she looked at him. But that did not change the fact. Loving him the way she did, she could not – no she would not allow him to damage his career to the point that there was no way to rectify it. If they went back now – if he turned his self in now, then maybe there would be just enough time left to save him from never being able to do what he loved to do.
"We have to go back, Jack. We cannot let this happen. You cannot ruin your life because of me."
"I don't think that is your choice. It is after all my life. How do you know I am ruining it? I may finally be living the life I want to live. Maybe being with the one person I dream about even when I am awake is enough of a life for me." He looked at her to see if the words he had just spoken even registered in her mind. Obviously not because she continued on with the same old thing. She did not even get the hint that he was talking about spending the rest of his life with her. Jack rubbed his hand behind his neck. It was a sign of frustration that Sam knew all too well. Was he frustrated at her for trying to stop him from ruining his career? Well tough tomatoes!
"But Jack, you are putting everything at risk and you don't even know if this is going to turn out the way you think it is. You have no way of knowing if any rogue NID guys are involved. Kinsey, while being very untrustworthy, is after all a Senator. He has every right to see what is going on at Nellis."
Jack looked over at Ferretti and with no words spoken, informed him not to utter a word about the rogue NID officer that Jack had taken down outside the plane. He knew that Sam needed to know they were involved, but not yet. Ferretti shook his head and walked to the cockpit where Matthews was. The look they gave each other said more than any words could ever say. Ferretti did not agree with Jack's plan of waiting. Major Carter was a smart woman and she could handle just about anything you threw at her. Why did Jack want to hide this from her? It was going to blow up in his face. Jack had never treated her like she was porcelain and it would piss her off royally if she found out he was doing it now.
"Yeah, right! You know damn well that if Senator Kinsey is messed up in this then so is the NID. You don't play the dumb part as well as I do!"
"Yeah and you seem to be playing it all too well right now!" Sam shot back at him.
Than something clicked in the back of her mind. Sam had felt the anger melt out of her seeing him, knowing he was risking everything for her. Now without any warning at all a different type of anger seemed to pour through her. Was he just as confident in her abilities now as he had been before he had been blended with Kanaan? Had he lost the faith he had in her to do the job that needed to be done? Come to think of it, it was right after she had talked him into blending with the symbiote so that he could be healed that she had started feeling like he was watching her every move. That's what it was! Oh my God! He did not trust her anymore. Becoming blended was not the part that ate at him. It was what had happened while he was a prisoner of Ba'al's. He blamed her for his being tortured literally to death and then being brought back with the sarcophagus. Getting her to stay at the SGC or staying with her the whole time she was at Area 51 was his way of knowing she would not screw up again and put him in the place of having to have that done to him again or to someone else he cared about!
"Why are you so bent up on getting yourself kicked out of the service? Or is it something else, Colonel O'Neill?" Sam spat his name at him like venom coming out of her mouth. "Is it you have lost your faith in me? You no longer trust that I can make the decisions necessary to save your life. I would never have made that decision had it not been to save your life or did you think I wanted to do it because I was pissed off because I had been turned once? You don't even realize how much I wanted to kill myself when I heard you at the debriefing about the times you were killed and brought back. I blamed myself for every time."
"What?!" Jack shook his head and closed his eyes. The lines literally ran together on his forehead when he scrunched it and looked at her. Where the heck had that come from? Did she not know that there was not anyone whom he trusted more with a mission, let alone his life? What in the world had caused this? Jack looked intensely at Sam, seeing the hurt masked over by the anger. Holy Hannah, she really thought this! She really thought that he was doing all of this because he did not think she could keep herself safe.
Jack let his anger calm down before he started towards Sam. He had to let her know. He had to let her know that he was not just being obnoxious. That there really was danger waiting for her at Area 51 and he did not like having to do it. But if she thought for one minute that he did not trust her, then holding back that information would only cause her to think it more. He reached out to her but she literally backed up. The hurt that was coming from her eyes was more than Jack could bare. Why would she think this? He shook his head and started towards her. She honestly believed that he thought that he no longer trusted her at all – not with her life, his life or anything else. My God, how had this gotten all screwed up?!
"Don't touch me! I cannot believe you would think me inadequate to do my job! I never thought I would get that from you! Not you!" No matter how hard Sam tried to control the tears, they came any way. There was no stopping them. She continued to back up until she was almost against the back wall of the jet.
Jack continued towards her. He had to straighten this out. He could not let her keep thinking that he no longer trusted her. He attempted to reach out to her again when he finally got to her but she turned her back.
"Major Carter!" Jack snapped and because of the training embedded in her, Sam turned around to look at the commanding officer that stood in front of her. More out of instinct than anything else, she quickly snapped to attention. But the anger, the hurt and the tears were still there, staring out at him. The one person he never wanted to hurt in the whole world was hurting and she blamed him for it.
Before she had a chance to rethink her position, he gripped her arm so she could not turn around again. He was so close up on her that he could smell her shampoo. The scent of that and her own personnel scent was enough to start the quaking in the pit of his stomach. The smell of honey and lavender overcame his senses and he had to close his eyes and try to slow his heartbeat or he was going to do something that neither was ready to do right now. He let out a slow breath and looked at her, ready to tell her everything so she would not feel this way about him.
"Samantha, I know I cannot say anything to change what you think I feel about you right now. But know this, there is no one, nowhere that I trust my body, my soul, my heart, my team with more than you. I hope you can in some way or another believe me when I tell you this. I know that you would have never allowed them to put that snake in my head had you thought I could have survived without it! I also know that you were just as pissed about what happened to me when I was captured and tortured as I was. I also know that you were at the SGC trying everything in your power to find me! You are the only person I trust enough even now to make that decision for me. I mean, I have to have someone to look after me – it was you who finally figured out why my ass was pinned to the wall in the gate room because you made a decision that everyone else thought was ludicrous. It was you who kept me alive when we were stranded in Antarctica and you busted your ass tearing the DHD apart to try to get us home!" Sam started to say something but before she could Jack continued, waving his hands like a mad man. "AHhhh don't even say a word – how were you to know that we were trying to dial to a place on Earth. And let's not even talk about who did without sleep, food or rest working day in and day out trying to get me home from Edora! And that's just in the first three years I knew you. Don't you understand that I am not doing this because I don't have faith in you or your skills? Can't you get it through your thick skull just what you mean to me! I am doing this because as I told you once before. I would rather die than to live without you"!
The tears were still flowing from Sam's eyes but the look on her face had begun to change the more Jack talked to her. She was not completely convinced yet but she was beginning to accept the idea that maybe he did still trust her. Before she could say anything, he took her by the hand and led her to the back row of the plane. Sitting in the seats were the two men that he and Ferretti had knocked out on the tarmac. Sam had been so worried about Jack that she had not even noticed the two men sitting there.
"Look real good Sam, and tell me if I have a right to worry about you and who you will be around at Area 51?" Jack grabbed the man whose jaw he had broken and turned his face so that he was looking at Sam in the eyes. Jack saw the light growing in her eyes as the recognition surfaced. Jack knew, she knew, and he knew she knew who he was. This man had caused them so many problems. First he had tried to take them over by blending them with symboites in Oregon and then he had almost killed her, and Jonas when he and his friends had ambushed the Prometheus. Jack saw the anger cross her face and then he saw her as she turned to him, and the guilt of accusing him of what she did took over the anger and she dropped her head, unable to look at Jack.
Jack, still holding her hand in his, headed back up the aisle of the plane. When they had gotten far enough away from the two men in the back but not too close to the cockpit, he pulled her into a seat and he took the one next to her. Turning so he faced her, he placed his finger under her chin and raised her head to look her in the eyes. And whoosh! There it was again, that feeling like he was falling into a lake of sapphire blue diamonds. With the tears still glistening in her eyes, Jack could not help it. He reached over with his other hand and with his fingers pointed towards the palm of his hand, he wiped away the tears that had leaked out and onto her checks. She was so beautiful. So put together. Why would she ever think that he would do something to hurt her? Ever since she walked into his life in that dress blue outfit – he had not been able to get her out of his life.
Oh he had tried. So many times he had tried but it never worked. He remembered mentioning Edora earlier and he remembered thinking to himself while he was on that planet that if he fell in love with Laira then he would not have to worry about hurting so bad when he could not see Sam again. He had actually seen the way Laira had looked at him before the team was set to leave and he could not help but think that if he could get her to go with him back to earth, there would not be any rules he would be breaking – no military regulations that would cost a young officer her great career. Because he knew, sadly he knew that he would not be able to hold off much longer. Sooner rather than later, one of them was going to break and when they did – military regulations be damned!
When he had told her that he had not been acting like himself since the day he met her, whether she knew it or not – it was the truth. Oh, he had said the words at the time to get her to believe that he had crossed the line, that he was really going rogue – not just doing an undercover assignment. And he had to admit he had said them very cruelly. It still bothered him when he recalled the look on her face when he had turned around and told her that. But he had meant those words. Since he had met her, his life had started turning right side up. He found he actually had a little bounce in his step. In the deep dark secret places where he hid things that he did not want to remember and did not want the world to pity him for, he actually thought that maybe there was a little light growing there. Samantha was the one who had done that – gave him the bounce and the light. His Samantha.
And oh let's not forget the jealousy. Every time she met a new guy, he would feel it. He would push for more of her time. Work her a little longer so she would not have time to socialize or talk with anyone but him. Even Daniel did not stand a chance against his green eyed monster. Plague or no plague, he showed what would happen if anyone showed a little too much interest in her.
There was Hanson, the lunatic fringe that he was. Oh he knew about Hanson long before Sam had ever said anything to Daniel back on the planet where Jonas Hanson had decided that he was a god or Jonas thought he was God. He knew how dominate he was when it came to anyone he considered lower than himself and he considered all women lower to him. When he found out that Sam and Jonas had been previously engaged, he tried to get the General to keep her off of this mission but there was no stopping Sam. He knew that if Jonas had his way, he would either kill Sam or she would be made his slave to live there with him.
Then there was Martouf. When Daniel had told him about Martouf and Samantha sitting together holding hands when they were talking about Jolinar, he felt like he wanted to beat the crap out of Martouf. He was already angry because he felt like him and his team were being held prisoner and not trusted no more than you would trust a 20 foot python. Then when Daniel came back after he went to get them for the meeting with the council and he saw the look on Daniel's face, he was pissed. Not to mention when Martouf used the memory device on her to find out how Jolinar had escaped Sokar's prison. When her scream had woken Jack up on that ship and he saw the hurt on her face, he had given Martouf one second to turn the damn device off or he would not be alive to use it on anyone else.
Oh and let's not forget this Shanahan guy. Oh he had to admit he was not that bad of a guy, he just did not like him being that close to Sam. When she brought him to the mountain to be healed, Jack watched him like a hawk. One wrong move, just one and Shanahan would have been sent through the gate to some unknown place. But the way he treated her with kid gloves! That's what turned Jack against him.
What was the deal with the men that she got involved in. They either wanted to dominate her or they wanted to have her act like she was a 9 to 5 housewife. Hanson wanted to dominate her, Martouf wanted her to be someone other than herself and this Shanahan guy wanted her to act like she worked a 9-5 bank job and could be home every afternoon to cook his diner. Did they not see what an extraordinary woman she was just in herself? She did not need the memories of a dead symbiote or to be the beaten down slave of someone. She could do anything she set her mind to do. She was the most intelligent person he had ever met. And he had met quite a few. He played dumb to keep people on their toes but he had been in the top classes at the academy and he had stood beside some very knowledgeable men and women.
He also knew that because of the doubt that others had placed in her, sadly, she had very little trust in her own abilities. She struggled to work harder and make everything perfect. She did not want to disappoint anyone. That was the reason she was so quick to jump on him about his trust in her. Well, he would prove it to her. He never has, nor will he ever trust anyone the way he trusts her. He loved Sara. He always would but theirs had been a different type of love than what he felt for Samantha. He protected Sara. Kept his dark past locked up from her because he knew she would not be able to handle the images that would cross her mind when she would think about the torture he had gone through in Iraq.
Oh she knew he had been imprisoned and she was smart enough to know that he most likely had been tortured. But to allow him to open up to her so she might help him carry some of the baggage, he knew that was an impossible thing to ask. He would come home from a mission and it would be like he turned on a new life. But it was ok at the time because he did not want to drudge up those horrible feelings. Even if he had been wrong before Charlie's death, it was proven at that time. She was so tore up it was heartbreaking to look at her. Oh, he knew he had been suicidal. After all, that was his plan the first time he had gone through the Star Gate. When he set off that bomb, he was planning on being right there beside it and ending it all. It did not happen that way, thanks to Space Monkey and Ferretti but it had been a close call.
But would he and Sara been so bad off had they been able to talk to each other about what had happen? They could not even talk about the past and what was between them that had built up a silent wall. But talk was something they did not really do. He knew she no longer blamed him for what had happened but he blamed himself. He could forget when he got drunk but he would not ever forgive himself.
Yet when Sam and he were stuck on Antarctica and she had asked him about his broken bones, he felt a shiver of light cut through the darkness because he somehow knew that he could talk to her about anything. And he could. He had found it out on the nights that they would have pizza and beer at his house and she would drink a half a bottle of light beer but he refused to allow her to drive home. She had argued the first time he had insisted, but he refused to allow her to leave so it had become a ritual. She would drink very little but enough that he would make her stay. It was a silent game between them and no one was the wiser. The first couple of times she stayed over, she would curl up on the couch to sleep and he would watch her before he would slowly make his way to his bedroom. Then with a little convincing because he started being scared about what would happen between the two of them, he finally talked the other two into staying over and they would grill out and have a great time and forget about what crap they had to put up with on a daily basis. She started crashing in one guest room, Daniel in one with Teal'c kelno'reeming in the living room. It was no problem until he realized that the guest room he had given her was right next to his and he found out one night what kind of mistake that was.
Or he thought it had been. He had learned a long time ago to drink enough to help him forget for a while but never so much that he would totally relax. If he did not relax, then the nightmares did not come. And he really hated the nightmares!
Then he and Teal'c had test flew the new X-301 Interceptor and ended up being stuck in outer space. Both of them clinging for life by the time Sam, Daniel and Jacob had found them. It was not a fun experience for any of them. By the time they got back to the SGC and ready to leave to go home, they were all pretty much shaken up by the event so deciding to go to Jack's for a team night. Getting there and talking about the experience seem to bring up all the other times they had come so close to death – or even to death. Like the time with the Nox when they had all died. It made them realize just how fleeting their lives really were. And the beer and liquor started flowing and except for Teal'c, no one really knew any more what was being said. By the time Teal'c had helped Daniel to his room, Sam was already being helped by Jack. When he had opened the door to the bedroom and helped her to the bed, the desire to stay with her was overwhelming. But not like this. Not when neither of them would really remember what had happened between them. So he had trudged off to his room and did not even remember crashing on his bed.
It was not until he was awakened by Sam that he realized the mistake he had made. He had allowed himself to relax. And the nightmares had come and come full force. When she finally had him fully awake and aware of his surroundings, she was standing in the corner of his bedroom. He had scared her so bad when she had touched him that she thought he was going to hit her. And he most likely would have if he had not heard her voice waking him up from his nightmare.
After they had assured each other that they were alright, it was decided to make some coffee and sit out on the deck. Jack usually ended up out there more nights than he stayed in his bedroom. The night breeze and the scenery off of the lake always seemed to sooth his soul and help calm the demons. While they were out there Sam had asked him about his nightmares. At first he was very reluctant to talk about them. But somehow her just sitting out there with him helped ease him a little and after a while of neither saying anything, he started talking. Some details he still left out. She did not need to know about all of it. He did not want to dirty her that way and he still was not sure if she could really handle all of it. But that was a while back. Looking at her now he knew. He knew anything he went through, he could count on her to help him through it.
Jack shook his head to clear his thoughts and notice that Sam was watching him. The tears had pretty much cleared up but his hand had stayed on her check, slowly rubbing it. He had not even noticed it but she obviously had and he saw the fire alight in her eyes. He went to move his hand but hers closed over his and he felt the jolt of her touch all the way through his body. He could have freed his hand but a part of him did not want to and that part won. He leaned closer to her, hoping beyond hope that she was deep enough into the moment that she would not think about the regulations and stop him. With his hand now flat across her check he pulled her towards him and held his breath, praying she would not stop him. He did not think he could control his actions if she did but Sam did not stop him. Her eyelids slid closed as she felt his lips brush against hers like silk. It was not silk that flew through her body when their lips touched. She was on fire and the more she burned, the more she wanted. Before she realized it she was almost in his lap and there was no way Jack could stop her. He wanted this as much as she did. The waiting had built up and the dam was breaking and all he could think was dear God, let it break!
"Samantha, my Samantha" Jack whispered her name just loud enough that she was the only one that heard it. To Sam it sounded as if he had growled it from the deepest part of his soul. Oh this was really going to happen! She was finally going to get what she had been longing for. Him, his body close to hers. Him holding her and never letting her go. They were so in tuned to just themselves that they did not hear Ferretti until it was too late.
"Colonel O'Neill!" Ferretti shouted his name and Jack felt Sam jump and the moment was gone just that quick.