As appealing as it sounded to sleep in Sam was too military to stay in bed for long. She dozed until the room grew light and then got up. She made coffee and had oatmeal for breakfast, straightened up the cabin and then left Jack a note.
I went up to the mining camp to check on the new geological reports. I left at 8:15 zulu. I have my radio.
She hesitated for just a moment and then signed it:
I love you.
Sam
It was the first time she had written it out. The first time she had dared to, really. It wasn't something she could immediately process.
But between this and the hand-holding, Sam was starting to have an entirely different relationship with Edora than the one she'd had for years.
She was starting to really love Edora.
Even though they had gotten off to a rocky start the partnership between Edora and the SGC had become a model for mutual cooperation and benefit. The mining camp was about three klicks out of the village. It maintained as quiet a presence as possible and always stepped up when anyone or anything needed help.
As a result, naquadah flowed out of the mines in a steady stream. If the survey teams were correct about the new veins being discovered on the other side of the mountains, this relationship could continue for many decades.
The journey was pleasant, unhurried, more of a walk than a hike. She spent a little more than an hour with Col. Ross going over the reports, visited with the personnel and got a general feeling for what the operation was. Then she took advantage of their generators and facilities to take a short but wonderful shower and change into the clean clothes she had brought with her.
It was nearly noon by the time she walked back to the cabin and the day was promising to be warm. It was early summer in this part of Edora and Sam realized that she had no idea how hot the summers actually were here.
She was within several yards of the cabin when the front door burst open and Jett came running out on his sturdy legs, churning up dirt and yelling,
"Sam! Sam! Guess what! Guess what!"
Before Sam even had a chance to guess what he had skidded up to her, jumping up and down.
"We caught three fish!"
"You did?" Sam answered, hoping she sounded suitably impressed.
Jett caught her hand and started pulling her forward. "Uh-huh! And Jack says we can have them for dinner. Is that okay? Do you like fish?
"I like fish very much," Sam answered, "and I am sure this is going to be the best fish I ever had."
Jack stepped out onto the porch at that point.
"I'm thinking it's going to be the greatest, most incredible, tastiest fish Sam ever had," he said.
As he stepped down off the porch into the early afternoon sunshine, Sam felt her breath catch in her throat.
He had changed into a t-shirt and shorts and was barefoot. A day and half in the sun and he was tanned again. The hard lines that time and tragedy had etched into his handsome feautures seemed to have been smoothed away. He looked openly relaxed, happy. He looked ten years younger. She had completely lost track of Jett's chatter. Jack was absolutely beautiful and Sam could hardly take her eyes off him.
Her heart was pounding by the time she had walked up to him.
Something in her eyes, or her expression, or maybe in her silence caused a confused look to cross his features. He put his hand in the center of her back and she shivered.
"What?" he asked.
She answered by standing up on tiptoe and kissing the strong edge of his jaw.
"Sam!" Jett cried, "Come see! I brought you something."
"You brought me something?" Sam asked. Then she let him pull her into the cabin.
The little boy dropped her hand and ran to the table, where a glass jar held a small spray of wild flowers. Jett climbed up on a chair, got the glass in both hands, climbed down and turned around.
Some of his exuberance faltered and he carried it over to her with his head ducked and shy look on his face.
"I picked some flowers for you," he said.
"Oh Jett, that was so sweet!" Sam said. She knelt down to take the glass from him and give him a tight, hug.
"Are you sure?" Jett asked.
"Yes!"
"Then why are you crying? Did I get the wrong kind of flowers?"
"No!" Sam said, wiping her misty eyes on her sleeve, "These are exactly the right kind of flowers that I love! I'm just not used to anyone getting me flowers."
From behind her, in a voice husky with love, Jack said, "Well that's going to have to change."
Sam twisted around and looked up to find him gazing at her with the same kind of wonder he reserved for when she blew up suns and bent alien technology to her will.
"So we've progressed from a new relationship to a romance?"
Jack shrugged. He was standing in the doorway, framed in light and looking so handsome her breath caught again.
"No reason we can't," he said, lightly. "You know I don't want to screw this up."
"I don't need flowers, Jack," Sam said, even though she had no doubt that a man with Special Forces background could find a way to send her flowers every day and never get caught.
"But you deserve them," he said, coming in. "Doesn't she Jett?"
"Uh-huh!" Jett said, with the same exuberance he brought to everything else in his life. "Are we going to clean the fish, Jack?"
"Yes," Jack answered, "Then we're going for a swim in the lake."
Jett looked into Sam's eyes. She was still kneeling so he was only a few inches from her face. It was startling how much like Jack's those liquid chocolate eyes were.
"Will you come with us to the lake Sam? Jack is going to teach me to swim like a fish! Right? Right, Jack?"
"Yes."
Sam stood up and turned to Jack. Miss a chance to see Jack in nothing but swim trunks, soaking wet? Not a chance.
"Yeah, I'll come swimming but you're on your own for cleaning the fish. I just took a shower," she answered.
"Guess why we're going to the lake after we do that," Jack said, even though it was pretty obvious.
Sam smiled.
"Come on, Jett," Jack said, reaching for his son's hand. "We gotta get started so we can get to the lake when it really gets warm outside."
"Okay," Jett said, then shocked Sam by throwing his arms around her hips and hugging her tight.
Sam watched them walk out the door, hand in hand, and wondered when she had ever been this content. She had once told Jack she didn't really have any fantasies out the future.
She thought now that maybe she had lied. To live like this with Jack, openly. To watch him interacting with his son and to be part of them somehow, even on the periphery.
It was a tease really, a small taste of what they could have.
But for the moment, it was enough.
(0)
Hours later, Sam dragged herself out of the lake, exhausted. She had no idea how Jack was keeping up with the ball of perpetual energy that was his son. At the moment, Jett was jumping off the wooden dock into Jack's arms and screaming with laughter. Jack would catch him and then say, "Hold your breath!" and duck under the water with him for a few seconds. This was finished up with Jett swimming back to the dock and scrambling up the ladder only to do it again.
Jump, duck, swim, repeat.
Sam couldn't help but smile as she toweled off her hair and sat down on the blanket to watch them.
It lasted for a few more minutes before Jack called a halt.
"Awwww!" Jett wailed as Jack carried him back to the shore.
"You've got me all worn out, buddy," Jack complained.
"No you aren't!" Jett protested.
"Yes I am! Play in the sand for a while until I can catch my breath."
Jack walked, dripping and half-naked, over to join her on the blanket. He dropped onto his back and threw an arm over his eyes to block the sun.
"I am too old for this," he grumbled good-naturedly.
Sam leaned over him and put her lips close to his. "No you aren't. You're in the prime of life and I've never seen you look so handsome."
The kiss they shared went on a long slow journey from chaste to insistent to teasing, gentle to firm, laughing to groaning. They came up for air, breathless, rubbing noses, pressing foreheads in mute bliss.
Sam rolled away at last and laid on her back for a moment. Jack sat up beside her and Sam thought she might actually doze off for a little bit when Jack's frozen voice said,
"Where's Jett?"
Sam got to her feet in a bound, instantly on military high alert. Jett was no where in sight. Had he wandered off? God, the lake…. What if he had decided to go back into the water.
They called out in the same breath, in the same panicked voice,
"Jett!"
Jett's shiny dark head popped up from behind the boat nestled in the sand by the dock.
"What?" he cried, jumping to his feet and running across the beach as fast as his legs could carry him. They had scared him almost as much as he had scared them.
Sam's heart was pounding and she was still frozen with a kind of fear she had never experienced. Jack surged forward, met Jett half way and scooped him up in a fierce hug, eyes closed in grateful relief.
"What?" Jett asked again. He wriggled in the hold of Jack's powerful embrace. He knew Jack and Sam were both freaked out about something and it upset him.
"Nothing," Jack said, kissing his tousled curls and putting him back on his feet. "Just stay where we can see you."
"Okay," Jett said, uncertainly. He added quickly, with a series of quick nods. "I will. I promise."
Sam had reached them by that time. She knelt to hug Jett tight; then held him at arm's length and looked him over. He was fine but she needed to see that for herself. She needed to feel his warmth and the reassurance of his heartbeat.
As Jett ran off to play in the sand again, Sam took Jack's hand and squeezed tight.
He glanced briefly down at her before once again turning his attention to Jett, as if he couldn't look away from the boy for too long. The look on his face was still relieved but it was also haunted by his past again. He was shaking but he wasn't the only one.
All those years she had told him she understood what he had lost. All that time she had really believe that she understood. For one immeasurable instant in the peaceful sunshine of a beautiful afternoon she had experienced a fragment of Jack's private hell.
And she knew that she had never really understood at all.
(0)