HAPPY NEW YEAR!

~The Kerl

CHAPTER 13 – If You Were a Stone, Then I'd Be the Rain

Unable to concentrate on her work after speaking with Janet, Sam opted to leave early. Jack would be upset with her for playing hooky without him, but she needed some time alone before the inevitable confrontation. The path from her lab to the elevator was clear, as was her ride to the surface. A tech stopped her in the parking lot to ask about a thermal model he couldn't make compensate for the lake effect present on a moon one of the teams was surveying. "Ask Dr. Hamilton." That had been Jack's idea of a punishment for the scientist, and Sam was more than happy to oblige by sending the silly problems people burdened her with his way. When she got home, she locked the front door behind her and headed straight to the bathroom. Spinning the water dial to start a shower, Sam shrugged out of her clothes and tossed them onto the pile that was steadily growing on the far side of the small room. There were, what, three clean pairs of socks floating in the laundry basket? Laundry could wait a few days, at least.

After adjusting the heat of the shower spray once more, Sam all but collapsed on the floor of the tub. She pulled her knees to her chest, angled so that the falling water stung her shoulders. Though the water pressure was too low for her liking, the heat was nearly scalding to make up for it. For a moment she was able to imagine that her arms belonged to someone else, that her mother was there wrapping her in a tight embrace. Almost twenty years after her passing, Sam was still able to recall the blissful peace that came with her mother's hugs. Between the guilt of keeping the tests from Jack and the anxiety over the results, she had withdrawn from the friends she needed at that moment, having convinced herself that only her mother would withhold judgment. The nervous energy she'd been suppressing for the past few weeks bubbled to the surface and she barely noticed when her tears mixed with the water streaming down her face. She choked on the water dripping from her nose, but the sobs did not subside.

Her mother was gone. Her father – who she was slowly beginning to confide in – was out in the galaxy somewhere. She'd briefly considered calling Mark, but remembered how much sass he'd given her during her last visit. And while she wanted nothing more than to talk to Jack about the fear that had grown from a distant worry to a constant weight pressing against her chest, she couldn't justify burdening him with –

A cool rush of air made the hair on her arms stand on end and she looked up to find a silvered head looming over her. His normally teasing brown eyes were dark and manic.

"Sam, what the – ?"

She did her best to shrink away from him, praying she was mostly covered. "Go away!" she choked out pathetically, belittling her anger.

"Not before you tell me what's going on."

"Didn't I lock the door?"

"To the bathroom? No. And I've had a key to your house for years."

"Wait, just – wait until I'm out, OK?"

He jerked his head in dismissal. "I've been waiting for weeks, Carter. Talk. Now."

She bristled at the command in his voice, fully prepared to lash out until she saw just how worried he was. There was fear broiling beneath all of that anger. Another wave of guilt washed over her and she buried her head in her arms, ashamed he'd found her like this. She was a strong, independent woman, now reduced to a mewling heap doing her best to avoid the world. And him. Didn't he know that if she'd wanted his help, she would have gone and found him instead of hiding in her shower?

Another cool waft of air set her shaking once more. Sam raised her head to tell Jack to leave her the hell alone, only to see he'd stripped down to his boxers and was planning on joining her on the floor of the tub. She flinched when he tentatively reached for her shoulder. The next thing she knew she was in his lap, clinging to him as though her life depended on it. Constricted in his arms, Sam finally acknowledged that she'd been wrong to push him away. She needed him. She'd always needed him.

Where the hot water had failed to warm her, Jack succeeded. His hold did not weaken as she continued to sob into his shoulder. She tried to explain, to apologize for worrying him, to assure him that she loved him. All that she was able to vocalize was a string of slurred apologies that she doubted Jack was actually able to understand. To his credit, Jack said nothing, seemingly content to hold her together until her breathing calmed somewhat.

He'd seen her panic. He'd seen her grieving. He'd seen her resigned to a public execution. He'd seen her cornered. He'd seen her tortured.

He couldn't remember seeing her like this.

"Hey, talk to me. Sam," he pled. "Please, just – just tell me it's not…"

"I'm sorry. It's not what you think." She sniffed and tried to pull away, suddenly self-conscious about sitting naked in his lap.

"Then what it is? Sam, you're scaring me. I heard you and Janet talking about tests, and I thought – . Christ, it was like my mom all over again."

She shook her head emphatically. "No, no, it's not cancer." He nodded slightly in response, not bothering to wonder how she'd known the cause of his mother's death. "I miss my mom," she said before sniffing and finally met his eyes. He waited for more, but Sam shook her head and attempted to disentangle herself from him without exposing her chest or brushing against his soaked boxers. "I – Can we, uhh, get dressed?"

"… Right. Clothes. Uhh…"

"Guest bedroom. Dad keeps all of his stuff here."

After throwing on a pair of sweats and a baggy sweatshirt herself, Sam found Jack staring out of the bay window in the kitchen, a Guinness hanging limply from his trembling fingers. "Helped myself. Hope you don't mind." She grabbed herself a bottled water from the refrigerator and raised it in a mocking toast before settling into a comfortable position on the sofa. He joined her and sat the beer on the coffee table. The bottle was still full. "Soo…"

When she started talking, he knew right away that she was in full Carter mode. "I know you're upset, and you have every right to be. I didn't handle this well, and to be honest I wasn't even planning on bringing this up until I had something more definitive to bring to the table, but… But I guess I wanted to sort through this on my own before we talked about it."

He still had no idea what she was talking about. "So… it's not cancer?"

"No, no, nothing like that."

"And your heart's fine. No funky lumps, or palpitations, or – ."

"I'm fine, Jack."

"Then why is Janet running tests?"

She shook her head and took a deep breath. "As soon as I tell you, you're going to tell me I'm crazy, but Jack, I needed to know before we take this any further. I know what I want, now. What I want for us. Can you understand that I needed to figure out what I want my life to be without you?"

"Without me," he repeated, his voice hollow.

Reflexively, she grabbed his hand. "I didn't mean it like that. Jack, I spent so long telling myself that a normal life isn't in the cards that I wasn't sure I even wanted to try for a normal life. You seem so sure about what you want – for yourself and for us – that I felt like I hadn't put enough thought into it, because, honestly, I did my best not to think about it."

"Sam… Forget I said anything. I didn't mean to pressure you and – ."

"I know you didn't, but regardless I know what I want now."

He sighed into his palms, waiting for the other shoe to drop. There was always another shoe. "What were the tests for, Sam?"

She shifted beside him, drawing her legs to her chest to rest her chin on her knees. Jack braced himself as she took another deep breath.

Sam watched him closely, unsure of how he would respond. "I wanted to know if I can have children." Nothing. "Jack?"

He shook his head and turned to face her. "I'm sorry – what?"

"I wanted to know if I can have children." For a good twenty seconds he only blinked. His mouth contorted and she could read the curse forming on his lips, but his jaw dropped in confusion before he said anything. He leapt to his feet, only to fall back to the sofa a moment later. He stared at the carpet for a minute and Sam gave him time to compose his thoughts.

"Oh."

"Oh? That's all you have to say? I'm really freaking out over here!"

Still staring at the carpet, he shook his head. "I didn't… I guess I thought…"

"What?"

"You didn't want kids. When Cassie showed up, I thought you made it pretty clear you didn't want kids. Whenever it came up, you'd get this look on your face…" The floor still held his attention and Sam was growing antsy, thinking she'd been wrong about him. "Why are you doing this?"

"I told you."

"No, I mean why is this so important to you all of a sudden? What changed?"

Desperate to bridge the gap she'd unwittingly created between them, Sam curled into his side and rested her cheek on his shoulder. He was trembling. "You're right. I didn't want kids. I love the Air Force, but I also know what it's like to have a parent gone for weeks or months at a time without any explanation of where they are and when they're going to come home. I think that's part of the reason I went to the academy: I wanted to know what my dad got up to when he was away. I couldn't imagine purposefully putting a child through what I went through, not to mention the maternity leave putting my career on hold in a way my father never had to. And with Cassie… I couldn't give her the stability she needed, not on my own." He shuddered and muttered another apology for pressuring her. "I'll be honest with you, Jack. Ever since that day in your yard, I've been trying to find a way to tell you that my idea of a family ended with you, me, and a dog. And no, you've never said it outright, but I assumed you wanted – "

"And that is exactly why I didn't bring this up!" His expression when he chanced a look in her direction was pained, a contradiction of hopeful eyes and a worried brow. "I figured if I said I wanted kids, you'd give in. Not right away, but you'd let me talk you over."

"You're right. I would. There's never been a question in my mind that I would lose that argument."

"Oh." He raised his bottle to his lips, sighed, and lowered his arm again without taking a drink.

"Jack, it's not like I was hoping for bad news; it just didn't make sense for us to get worked up about it if it was a moot point." Her words were met with more silence, causing her to jump to her feet in exasperation. "Will you please say something?"

Jack shook his head. "I don't – God, Sam, do you really think I would force you to have kids? I know you aren't keen on it, and I knew we'd have to talk about this eventually, but I'm not the only one that has a say here. If you don't want kids, we won't have kids. Do you actually think I won't be happy with you? It doesn't matter if we have kids or not."

Sam saw his hands clench the bottle, his knuckles turning white with restraint. "You're lying, just like I knew you would. No, don't say it. I know you, Jack O'Neill, and I know that in spite of what you tell me or anyone else, you want to be a father again. And the truth is, I love you too damn much to deny you that chance. None of the excuses I came up with would have prevented me from giving you a family. I didn't want the pregnancy hormones or the maternity leave or the diapers or the spit rags or any of it, Jack, but I would gladly put up with all of that if that's what you wanted."

A brief glimmer of hope brightened his eyes before he buried his face in his hands again. "I don't understand – why didn't you talk to me about any of this?"

She knelt down at his feet, gripping his knees for support as she confessed. "Because I didn't want to get your hopes up if there was something wrong with me, so I asked Janet to run some tests."

'I don't want to worry him about it if there isn't even anything wrong,' she'd said to Janet. Jack finally looked down at her. "She said… I heard her say the results were inconclusive. What…?" He trailed off, thinking back to how broken she'd looked in the shower.

"Thanks to the trace amounts of naquadah in my bloodstream, we weren't able to find out much. Janet ran the standard uterine tests, but the naquadah threw the readings off and the other tests, uhh, wouldn't have made any difference at this point?"

"Huh?"

"Because I'm still on military-grade contraceptives and we aren't actually trying for a baby yet."

"Oh, yeah… Right."

Sam sniffed, but went straight back to scientist mode. He took a little comfort in her mind going into overdrive. "The results of my hysteroscopy show that I have a minimal amount of scarring along the posterior wall of my uterus. Janet doesn't think that will complicate anything, but I may have a more difficulty conceiving. We can't really run more tests for that until I'm fully off of my birth control. The big problem is the naquadah. We know that the goa'uld and jaffa live with much higher concentrations of the element in their systems, and as far as we know it doesn't affect fetal development. Obviously neither Janet nor I have much to go on here, but the goa'uld don't seem to have any qualms procreating with humans, especially because the majority of their hosts are human or jaffa. My concern is that we can't know how their bodies really respond to the naquadah because of the healing properties of the larval and adult goa'uld. For all we know, the naquadah in my system would negatively impact the development of a baby's immune system, and it would need a symbiote just like a jaffa!"

Jack reached for her as the panic started to set in. "Hey, c'mere. Sam… What we have now, that isn't going to go away if we can't have kids. I'd be lying if I said I hadn't thought about us starting a family, but there's a difference between us not agreeing on the subject and us not being able to have kids." It warmed her heart the way he said 'us,' like it would be their problem if it was her problem.

"I know, but Jack…" She pulled back from his shoulder so she could make sure he understood. A slow trail of tears fell from her earnest eyes as she finally confessed what she'd been hiding, even from Janet. "Jack, I want to be a mommy. I didn't know it until I thought it may not be a possibility. I mean, I wanted you to be a father again, and I wanted to be the one to give you that. But this is me, wanting this for me. At first I thought maybe we could adopt so I wouldn't have to go on full maternity leave, but I want to actually have a baby. I want the morning sickness and the ugly maternity shirts and the weird cravings. I want to stress myself out trying to find the perfect way to tell you I'm pregnant, and I want to see the look on your face when my water breaks. I want to wake up in the middle of the night and stumble around in the dark with a crying baby. The minivan and football practices and birthday parties and putting out cookies for Santa and I want to parade her around and tell people she looks just like her daddy," Sam sobbed, fighting to get it all off of her chest. "And I want all of that because it's not going to be just me and a baby, because it'll be you and me and a baby and oh, God, Jack, what if I can't give you that? What if we can't have a baby?" Where the new onslaught of tears came from, she didn't know, but Sam somehow still had tears to cry.

For his part, Jack could do little more than hold her as she wept again and, after wearing herself out, fell asleep in his arms. Her words struck a chord and he understood why she'd needed time to figure this out on her own. He remembered a time when the thought of having kids was the last thing on his mind. It had been Charlie that irreparably changed his thoughts on the matter. He thought Sam might experience the same revelation after she found out she was pregnant, but he hadn't anticipated this reaction – this overwhelming longing for a child – that he'd just witnessed. He was thrilled, of course, but was still hurt that she'd pushed him away in order to come to this conclusion.

It's your fault for not opening up about Charlie, he chided himself. Lost in thought, Jack settled Sam into a more comfortable position against his chest as he waited for her to wake up.

Blinking away her nap one eye at a time, Sam worked to bring Jack's face into focus. "Hey." He eyed her nervously. "I'm alright, I just… I'm sorry about all of that, I – "

"Ah! The only thing you need to apologize for is keeping all of that bottled up. You're supposed to talk to me about that sort of stuff. It's in my contract," he added jokingly. Sam looked away guiltily, and Jack bit the bullet. "I know I made this hard, because I don't talk about, about Charlie, and I – no, just wait," he said as she started to tell him he didn't need to talk about this. "Now's as good a time as any to talk about it. Charlie wasn't just my son, Sam. He was the reason I made it back from all of the FUBAR missions. He was everything to me, and to be honest he was what held my marriage together."

"I know," she whispered against his him, her face pressed his arm. She wanted to cling to him, but understood he needed a bit of breathing room for this conversation. Her compromise was to attach herself like a koala to his arm.

He nodded before shooting her a look she couldn't see. "What? You couldn't know that."

Sam sniffed, but when she spoke he could tell she wasn't going to break down again. "I – that is, Sara told me about, you know, what happened."

"What? When?" Jack's mind raced to figure out when Sam could have possibly met with his ex-wife without him knowing about it.

"It was a few years ago, after that alien copy came back impersonating – "

Jack shook his head. "Sam, that was years ago. Why…?"

For the second time that day, Sam unburdened herself to Jack, thinking he would run screaming from the room at any moment. Who was she to demand that he put up with her insanity? "I got a call a few days after the incident. Apparently she had questions and changed her mind about wanting to talk to you, so General Hammond – "

"Hammond!?"

" – suggested that I be the one to talk to her, because I'd studied the crystals and, more likely, because I'm a woman. I asked him to send someone else, because I didn't want it to seem like I was prying into your personal life, one that I'd had no idea existed until Daniel explained a few days before. Anyway, I went over to her place and we, uh, talked." Sam tried to gloss over her visit, but Jack demanded she tell him everything. She suspected he didn't need to be told that Sara was a heartless, manipulative bitch.

She told him anyway.

The woman had fallen hard for the exciting young Air Force pilot. His duties kept him away so much that she'd had plenty of time to embellish their relationship in her mind when, in reality, they hardly knew each other. When he came back from Iraq, broken and in need of comfort, Sara mistook his need for human contact as love. After two years passed with very little change in their relationship, Sara took matters into her own hands and announced that she was pregnant. Shortly after the wedding, she confessed to a miscarriage, but by that point Jack was stuck. He was as distant as ever when she announced her "second" pregnancy. It had been her hope that having a wife and child would be enough to convince Jack to retire, and she brought the subject up every time he was called out on another black ops mission.

Sam was sure Jack already knew this, so she skipped ahead to Sara's confession. "She told me that you tried to keep your job and your home life separated because you were worried about how Charlie would respond if he realized what it was you did while you were away. She said that despite your ban on war movies and toy weapons that he picked up a lot at his friends' houses and that she was happy to turn a blind eye. Did you know about the, what did she call them? Water wars?"

He nodded. "Charlie was terrible at keeping secrets. Especially from me."

Taking another deep breath, Sam forged on. Jack seemed calm for the moment, resolved to finish this conversation. "Apparently there was a neighbor boy with a water pistol that was modeled after a police service piece. It had clogged up, and Sara offered to fix it for him. She hid it in her sock drawer because she didn't want you to find out about it…"

"… and Charlie found my gun sitting on top of the dresser." He was grateful for Sam's silent presence as he replayed the events of that day for the millionth time. Knowing that his son had been looking for a water pistol gave Jack an understanding that he'd been missing all of this time. A curious boy picking up a gun was easy enough to accept, but what hadn't made sense to him was why he would've felt the need to look down the barrel of the gun when he pulled the trigger. He'd just been looking to see if it was still clogged.

While Jack lost himself in his memories, Sam clenched a fist as she fought the urge to let Jack know exactly what she thought about his ex-wife. Sara had complained about Jack not being there for her after the accident – because that's what it was, Sam reminded herself – when she had practically driven him to Cheyenne Mountain with all of the unnecessary guilt she'd heaped on him. How was he supposed to be there for his wife when his wife refused to be there for him? Sam would always regret the pain Jack had been put through after losing his son, but she was secretly thankful that the tragedy had freed him from her.

"Thank you," he said after a while. Sam twisted to face him, surprised. "It doesn't make what happened any easier, but now at least I understand why it happened."

"It was an accident, Jack."

"But it could have been prevented. Another minute to lock my gun up, and my dinner still would've been warm." She had nothing to say to that. After another pause, Jack spoke up again. "I've been wanting to talk to you about this for a while now, but I wasn't sure how to bring it up without sounding like I was expecting a second chance. You know, at having kids."

"I understand that it's difficult for you to talk about, but if you want to, I want you to know that I would love to hear about Charlie. I don't want you to feel like you can't talk about him, alright?"

"Just as long as you don't pull away without giving me some warning next time. I get that there's stuff you need to work out on your own, but that doesn't mean you have to push me away. Got it, Carter?" he added with mock severity in an attempt to lighten the mood.

"Yes sir," she replied, the yawn ripping through her mouth.

Nestled as she was into his side, the stiffening of her body alerted him before the sound and he ran a hand through her hair. "You're too tiiiaaaaaaaaaaaarrrrrwwww, hmm, tired," he said sheepishly, unable to fight off his own yawn. "You should get some sleep."

Sam's watch read 20:00. "You should too." It was early, and the draw of actually going in to work on a Friday well-rested after a month of restless nights was too strong to resist. Taking hold of Jack's hand, she pulled him to his feet and laughed when he hesitated. "We both know you weren't planning on leaving tonight."

His lips curled into a familiar smirk that made Sam's stomach flip. "I figured worst case I'd be able to convince you to let me have the couch."

"Come to bed, Jack. I'm too tired to flirt."

"That's the most romantic thing you've said to me in weeks!" Ignoring her weak protests, Jack swept her into his arms and carried her back upstairs to her room.

"I'm not an invalid, you know."

"No, but you're really worried about the kid thing, so you should probably just shut up and let me take care of you."

Sam snorted into his neck, her head resting on his shoulder. God, she'd missed their playful banter. "If you're like this now, I don't even want to know how you'll treat me when I'm actually pregnant. Nope, I don't think I'll be able to handle it. Baby's off the table."

"How fickle of you, Carter. If that's what you want, though, alright." He unceremoniously dumped her on the bed and turned to leave. She called out to him, rolling her eyes at his theatrics. Winking over his shoulder, Jack stripped out of his borrowed shirt and crawled into bed. As he pulled her close to settle in for the night, he noticed Sam was actually blushing and he fell just a little more in love with her. "Hey."

"Hey."

"Did I mention how much I missed you?" He felt her shake her head. "Well I did. And – as long as you don't mind – I think I'd like to keep you to myself for just a little bit longer."

"Feel free to be as possessive as you like. Just, you know, don't beat Daniel into a pulp again."

"Once! That happened once! And it wasn't like I had any say in the matter."

"Right… How dare he show concern for me attacking my CO in the locker room."

"He didn't show me any. Besides, you don't try to steal my girl and get away with it."

"Daniel didn't try to steal me, Jack."

"Nope, and nobody else has tried to either. You're very welcome."

"I love you, but you're an idiot."

"Hey, you love me because I'm an idiot."

"That too."

"Don't you forget it!"

"Goodnight, Jack."

"Sam, can we go to the cabin this weekend? You're due in for some vacation with all of the overtime you've been pulling…"

She was silent for a moment, the way she always was when she searched for an excuse that would get her out of his invitations. "After I go over the MALP reading for P9C-372, I should be done for the day. We could be out of the mountain by lunchtime tomorrow."

So, getting back on track here. Obviously things aren't going to go smoothly with the fishing trip because, hey, remember who we're dealing with! Let me know what you think about my portrayal of Jack's family, because I always felt like everything was too black and white in the show, and they glossed over it in the movie. For those of you interested, I have posted a companion flashback story titled Blurred Lines goes into a little more detail about Sam's talk with Sara.

For those of you who have faithfully stuck with this story, I feel I owe you an explanation. At the start of September, I had two deaths in my family within a two week period. One was expected, and the other was not. This chapter was very emotional for me to write, and I just couldn't do this scene justice while I was dealing with my grief.

I'm not finished with this story, but we are certainly nearing the end. I'm thinking about four more chapters with the material that I have drafted, but I would love to hear what you all would like to see happen. If I use your suggestions, you will certainly get a shout out from me. What do you think – does Sam need a dog?