March 3rd:
"Can you drive me to Peterson in the morning before you head to the mountain?" Jack asked her over enchiladas he'd baked earlier in the day while she was at work. The boys were busy shoveling Mexican food into their faces and not paying attention to the adults.
"Sure. Washington need you? I'll let the school know so they can put the boys on the NDC bus in the afternoon." Sam said. Jack had paid for the days it was his fault she didn't have childcare. He couldn't get away from DC entirely. It meant he'd be staying the night at the house too. A topic they didn't actively discuss. He would not be sleeping on her couch in the den and they both knew it.
Jack nodded absently. "The usual Joint Chiefs nonsense. Nothing to worry about, just stuff I have to handle in person." He'd been summoned, a situation he didn't care for even slightly but he'd been told in no uncertain terms that he needed to explain at length exactly what he'd been up to playing house here with his ex-girlfriend.
Oddly enough because his Carter was brilliant, she'd managed to hack into both their private e-mails and dummy an old conversation between them about the fertility procedure. One that deeply implied he'd known about both boys almost all along but which also clearly stated out of respect for her marriage he could not be a part of their lives. Anyone who knew him well would know what a steaming load of utter crap that was but Jack was banking on the other Joint Chiefs assuming Jack's sense of duty and honor would override his feelings as it had many times in the past.
"Will you be gone long?" She asked wondering if she'd need to arrange childcare while he was gone. With her pay increase she could at least squeak that out though she was hoping to start paying down the second loan on the old house. She could let it default which meant they would garnish both their wages but Lorin had reminded her that sort of thing attracts CPS in military families and she had enough issues all things considered. …Which reminded her…
"Just a couple days. Meeting, layover, and back home. They don't really need me. They just want to make sure I didn't run away from home."
Sam chuckled, "I talked to Lorin today. She called my cell instead of the house for some reason. She suggested we have you sign some paperwork making you the boy's legal guardian until the adoption goes through."
Jack nodded thoughtfully. "All right, I'll sign it when I get it." He agreed, concerned the paperwork might not be ready until he had his plan in motion.
"Dad, what's a legal guardianship?" Georgie asked.
Jack really wasn't over the boys calling him dad all the time yet and he grinned in spite of the serious question. "It means that if something happens to your mom, the state can't make you go live with Pete or anyone else in his family as long as I'm around."
"Good." The boy said savagely.
Jack and Sam exchanged a look. Georgie had admitted he'd heard every word Pete had said about him that day on the driveway which had further confirmed for the boy that the man he'd thought was his father had never loved him. He had only ever been a pawn to the man and Georgie was pretty good at chess. He understood strategy well for his age. He was tricky like his father and brilliant like his mother and Jack felt nothing but pity for anyone who thought George James O'Neill was just a cute little kid. He'd caught the boy writing his name that way the other day and told Sam what the boy had been doing. She'd agreed that if the boys wanted his name they had every right to it no matter what happened between the two of them.
"Dad! Can you come to career day? We get lots and lots of military parents but no one has been a General before." Jake asked. "Mrs. Anders says it's ok that you aren't my real dad yet. I told her you abopsing me and Georgie because the judge said our old dad is... is… unfits! And then she asked if you were going to marry mom and I said I don't know they don't talk about it to me but I caught you kissing the other day so I think so."
Sam was turning pink and Jack was trying not to laugh when Jack's cell phone rang. He put a finger up and Jake stopped rambling. He now knew the 'work is on the phone' signal.
"O'Neill." Jack barked even though it was Daniel. Jack nodded a couple times then smiled savagely. "Good. Get it cleared with Landry. I'll be in DC for the next couple days. We'll go over the details when I get back." He said to the other man and hung up.
Sam looked at him inquiring.
"Just the usual fate of the world stuff Carter. Tell me what else you told your teacher about your mom and me, Jake." His eyes twinkled as he turned to the boy, clearly egging on the situation to traumatize Sam. He squeezed her knee under the table though, so she'd know he was only giving her a hard time because it was funny.
"Well, I told her I caught you guys kissing and she said well that doesn't always mean people will get married, some people just like each other and kiss because they are friends and I said well I think my mom likes Jack lots more than as a friend because she gets this dopey smile on her face when she thinks he's not looking and-"
Jack laughed. "Ok, I get the idea. Your mom and I care about each other very much. We always have." His eyes were on Sam, telling her that he never stopped loving her even when she wasn't his and that's why he stayed away. "But it will be a while before we talk about getting married buddy, probably not until after the adoption finalizes and only if your mom wants to marry me. She might meet a famous TV star and fall in love before that."
"Like that guy who can fix things with a chewing gum wrapper and a paperclip? Mom has a huuuggeee crush on him." Jake informed Jack.
"Oh yah that guy that looks just like Dad? I think he's married or something in real life. That would be kind of cool though or that guy from that doctor show Aunt Carol thinks is so dumb because all the medical information is wrong." Georgie added.
"This is what passes for normal dinner conversation in our house, huh?" Jack asked Sam.
"Apparently." Sam told him, her face a mixture of amusement and embarrassment.
That evening, after the boys were in bed Jack had brushed his teeth was sitting up in bed reading a report, his black framed reading glasses that Sam had found weirdly sexy for years perched on his nose. He'd noted that though they really shouldn't, when the situation arose, their habits became entirely domestic on their part without any of the odd awkwardness he'd expected with the passage of time.
Neither had closed the bathroom door during their evening rituals or left the room to change though both had covertly eyeballed the other with banked lust as they changed for the night. At one point Jack had been down to nothing but his shorts and Sam had groped his ass on her way by to brush her teeth. He'd been so surprised by her casual fondling that he'd nearly dropped his tank top he slept in when it was cold.
He didn't think he'd be needing it in a few minutes but he put it on anyway. It did show off his arm muscles nicely after all. Sam came back and got into bed. Sliding between the covers she tugged his report out of his hands, set it on the nightstand and turned off the overhead light, leaving only the glow of the nightlight she had so the kids wouldn't kill themselves if they stumbled into the room in the middle of the night after a bad dream.
"You can leave the glasses on General." She told him as she maneuvered herself over him and claimed his only slightly surprised mouth in an insistent kiss he didn't deny.
"Colonel Carter, you appear ready for your debriefing." He said after the kiss broke, both of them panting softly, his hands had a mind of their own and one was gripping her bottom tight against his crotch so she'd know exactly what her calculated assault was causing. The other was deep into her night shirt and rolling the hardened tip of her nipple between thumb and forefinger. It wouldn't have taken much more than a few nips on her neck and a gentle stroke between her legs to get her off right then and there but they had a lot to make up for so Jack took his time and brought her to the edge without letting her finish before he finally gave in to her needy little sighs and pleas and lifted her enough to enter her while she sat in his lap.
They rocked slowly together while they kissed, not in a hurry to get to their destination. Reveling in the taste of each other's skin, enjoying the sweet slow friction until he felt her tighten around him and knew she was too close to draw it out anymore. He swiped his thumb roughly over her clit no more than a dozen times before he felt the orgasm roll through her. As she came down he grabbed her hips and rocked her hard and quickly over him until his rhythm faltered and he was pulling her hard against him while he throbbed out his release inside her.
She lay panting and limp against his chest. Boneless and sated. His hands rested on her, unmoving for several long moments, he was as spent as she was. "Missed you." He said against her hair. They hadn't made love since the night of the hearing, hadn't had the reasonable opportunity to do so. It might be a while before it happened again and they were both ok with that. They knew the risk of being lovers at all. It wasn't like they hadn't talked the topic to death in the past.
"I've missed you too Jack. So much." She said softly against his neck.
Jack slid his glasses that were cockeyed on his face now anyway off and slid down against the pillows until they were both lying down. "I want this back Sam. All of it." He told her and his arms reflexively tightened on her. "I'm not letting them take you from me again." He promised. But Sam had dozed off. It was just as well. She'd have asked questions he shouldn't answer about what he planned to do and it might all be moot anyway if the other Joint Chiefs told him flat out to back off on this. Not that he would, but it would draw out his timetable further.
He rolled them on their sides, one arm under her head as he pulled her back against his chest and tucked her in tight with his arm. His hand splayed across the now soft belly that had carried both their children. "Wish I could have given you a girl too Carter." He murmured into her hair. Amused at the idea of her having to learn exactly why the boys drove him up a wall simply because they were boys some days. "I bet she'd be a silly smart ass just like her mom."
And the thing with wishes wasn't that you could make them come true but if you happened to have the particular Alteran genetic marker that gave you healing abilities if your physiology was just a bit more evolved, you could wish for things to physically happen and sometimes with enough emotion involved, make them happen. There was an unnoticed soft glow where Jack's hand rested on Sam's belly. His unreliable healing ability, following his desire, did the one thing it could do if the conditions had been otherwise right, the pH of her uterus raised slightly. A condition that would make things inhospitable for most of the male sperm if there were any to kill.
Jack fell asleep making a mental note to talk to Sam again about getting his vasectomy reversed.
