Enjoy,
M.
Chapter 79
Tuesday, November 27, 2012.
It was a long time since Jack arrived at a house that didn't look so depressingly dark. He knew Connor had arrived during the morning, but he had explained to Jack that he had places to go and things to see so he shouldn't worry.
"So, is Father O'Neill finally thinking about leaving the church? After going to places and seeing things in Colorado Springs?" Jack joked as he found Connor in his kitchen.
"Not a chance." Connor snorted.
"Something smells good."
"Yup, can't have word get out that an O'Neill doesn't know how to cook." Connor wriggled his eyebrows.
"Oh, it can come out now. That I won't have to be the one cooking at a campsite." Jack said. "How are you, Connor?"
"I'm good, Jack. You're the one that's not okay. But we can cut the small chat and have dinner… Then we can start the gut-clenching chat."
"Sounds like a plan."
"So, what? Are you channeling your inner Connor or something?" Connor asked. Looking at Jack's dark jeans, black turtleneck, and black jacket. "Don't get me wrong, black suits you. It's weird to see you using it… Well, for a while it was."
Jack looked down at his attire. Then at Connor, who was wearing almost the same but without the jacket. He shook his head. "I wish I was channeling my inner you. But… I didn't feel like wearing anything colorful."
"Ah, it's related to the gut-clenching chat then." Jack nodded. "If you help me clean up, we can do dinner fairly quickly."
Not even an hour later, they were sitting in Jack's living room. Jack had a glass of whisky in his hand. Even when Connor had insisted what he needed was some herbal tea.
"So, what brings me here?" Connor asked. Crooking his head, knowing full well what it was. Especially when Jack kept stealing glances towards the front door. Connor had some insight into what had happened against it. "Are you waiting for someone?"
"Huh?"
"You keep watching the door as if you're hoping someone will pop out of it. Or I don't know, as if it's telling you something that ain't telling anyone else."
"Whatcha think you are doing here?"
"I don't know, Jack. Visiting my brother, who seems distressed? What happened that you felt you needed to call me?" Jack took a deep breath and looked at the door again. "Jack?"
"You are here for the same reason you've been here before…" he said cryptically.
"Your wife." Jack nodded. "Hey, I know I'm not the blonde-haired, blue-eyed, long-legged goddess you want to speak to. But you called me, Jack. I'm here, aren't it? Maybe things will be better if you practice speaking for once?"
"Yup, you are definitively not her. We most likely wouldn't be sitting here if you were."
"What does that mean?"
Jack looked down, embarrassed. He took a sip of his drink and lowered it slowly on the table, avoiding looking at his brother. Connor knew plenty of Jack's sins and had found a way to live without showing how much he knew. Without looking at him with embarrassment or disappointment in his eyes. Would this add finally some weight to his brother's shoulders? Would this be the breaking point? Jack wondered.
"I'm… I'm not sure you can handle it." Jack mumbled. Connor raised a challenging eyebrow. "No, that's not what I mean… I'm not sure you won't look at me differently if I tell you this one."
"I won't, Jack. Most of what you told me, it's between God and you. As your brother, I won't ever look at you differently. Not because you chose to speak to me. It's actually pretty nice to know that of all people in the world, you call me." Jack took a deep breath.
"I… Went down to her office and invited her to my birthday party. She came. She looked so damn hot that I had issues keeping my hands to myself. I cornered her in my kitchen, and if someone hadn't laughed. I'm sure there would be much more happening than just sharing some really close quarters." He took a deep breath. "I wanted her so much, Connor…"
"Wanted or want?"
"Both? I think I'll always want her, no matter what goes on in our lives. I think I'll always love her too damn much."
"Knowing you… You will," Connor grinned. "So, I'm here because she came to your birthday party?"
"No… I almost got her killed."
"What?" Connor frowned. Sam hadn't mentioned that in their chat. "How? Did you?"
"No! No... Not like that! God, what kind of monster you think I am? You better don't answer that."
"You are not a monster, Jack," Connor said, rolling his eyes at him. "You are a man who had to make tough decisions. Impossible ones even. I know there's a lot you haven't told even me. I know there's plenty you haven't confessed. Maybe because you fear it will break me. Maybe because you can't help but carry the guilt. A confession would lead to some level of acceptance and the absolution of your sins. Right? Maybe there's a part of you that thinks you don't deserve absolution. It's just your wording that made me ask that. You said you almost got her killed… How did that happen?"
Jack rubbed his face tiredly. "She came searching for me. On the eve of my birthday… It was totally unexpected, but somehow she ended up at my door before I left for the cabin."
"Ah, that's why you flew there." Jack nodded.
"Did you two talk?"
"That's the one thing we didn't do."
"You had sex…" Connor pretended to conclude, already knowing that was the case. Jack nodded. "You are both consenting adults, consenting married adults too."
"Yeah. She got a message that night and I… I thought she had cheated whoever she was with. I wondered if she had ever mentioned me at all. If she had the decency to let whoever she had in her bed know she was married. You know, before? When she was just Samantha Carter and life seemed… Simpler."
"Did you consider you were the other man in this case?"
"I did," Jack sighed.
"Did you ask her if she was seeing someone else?"
"Hell, no! She has a daughter, Connor, for crying out loud! She had to fuck someone! We've been through this before."
"All right, all right. So, what happened then?"
"Her dad came visiting, and he told me she isn't sleeping. That there's no one else. I felt like a stupid asshole. Fuck, I should've started by asking her if there was someone else in her life. Try to, I don't know… Get along with her child, so we could become a nice little family or something. I know we have no chances of growing a family ourselves… Not when it took me so fucking long to get her back. I didn't even help in her final return."
"Jack... You're rambling. I still don't know how you almost got her killed."
"Right. Well, after her dad said that and lots of other stuff. I couldn't take her out of my mind. So, I cornered her in the parking lot, and she followed me here."
"You do realize she could've just not followed you, right?"
"But she did. I swear to God I wanted to talk, Connor. I wanted to fix us… But…" He shook his head.
"You made love and didn't talk." Connor completed.
"Yes! No… I, we… Fucked. It wasn't sweet and romantic. I was desperate and needy."
"Jack, have you stopped to consider she might want you in the same way? That she was desperate and needy and that's why it went out like that?"
"Why? Why could she be desperate and needy when it comes to me, Connor? I'm only an old guy. One who couldn't even help her to get back. Why would she want me?"
"Because she loves you?" Jack laughed at this.
"Love me? How could she? She doesn't even know how pathetically useless I am. I couldn't even help her get back here. Fuck. I couldn't… I couldn't even fulfill the promise to let her go. What kind of sick bastard would keep waiting for the only woman he can't have? When he doesn't have any ideas of where she is?"
"A man in love." Connor pointed out. "What happened that night? How does this become an almost kill?"
"I asked her if there was someone else. She said no. I asked her if she wanted a divorce. Then she asked me if it was enough. I'm not sure what she meant. I think she meant sex. God, I nodded. What would I say to her, no? When I would grab blindly to any second, she can throw towards me? In any case, she left… And I wanted to call her back. To tell her to come back, that we needed to talk. And if all she could give me was sex. Then I would take it, if only to have her close to me. That I needed her forgiveness for how I failed her…"
"But you didn't call," Connor stated.
"Not for a while, I thought she was going home. So, I kept myself from calling, until I knew there was no way she wouldn't be home. She wasn't, though. The first call I placed happened seconds before her car crashed. She was unconscious for a couple of days, nothing too bad. At least that's what Janet said, but she was unconscious. Her face was marred and there was a huge bruise covering her side. It was my fault… If only I hadn't called her. If only I hadn't let her go. If only I hadn't asked her to follow me."
"You need to let go of the what-ifs, Jack. She is alive, and well… Isn't she?" He asked. Jack gave him a curt nod. "Then what's the issue? It was a huge scare, and maybe it's what you needed to put things into perspective. To finally sit down and talk like the grown-up you're supposed to be."
"I can't…" Jack whispered. "I'm not nearly enough for her. I almost got her killed. I almost orphaned a girl who, as far as I know, knows no one but her mom."
"Jack… You need to stop arguing with yourself. You need to find a way to forgive yourself for the things you did. Overall, you need to learn to forgive yourself for those you didn't. There are things beyond your hands. Bringing her back was one of those. I know you understand that. Don't you?" Jack nodded. "Then?"
Jack let out a strangled sigh.
"What if she finally realizes I'm not the hero she fell in love with? That I'm someone who can't even save himself?"
"The Sam I knew wasn't in love with an image of you, Jack. She loved you, whole. However, I'm sure you won't take just my word for it. I can tell you this. She was with you as part of your team for four years. Haven't you done 'bad things' during those years? Haven't you been presented with tough choices?"
"What's your point?"
"She was there, wasn't she? She kept being there, after those too…"
"I guess …"
"Didn't she tell you she cared about you after years of fighting by your side? Didn't she marry you knowing just how short of a time you'd have? How few both of your hopes were?"
"She did. Sometimes I wonder if she did that out of pity. Knowing that she wouldn't have to face me ever again."
"Jack. You know how I feel about this inner struggle you have. You know I believe you should see someone. Get help to figure yourself. You know this because I've been telling you this since you came back home after your first tour. I understand there are classified things that you can't simply share. It doesn't really make sense to try to find a way to describe what you lived that won't be the real thing too…"
"So?"
"Doesn't she have clearance? Didn't she share some of those experiences with you?"
"Yeah. But I can't talk to her… Not about… I'm not enough."
"Why you keep telling me you aren't enough?"
"Isn't it obvious?" Jack shouted angrily. Connor jumped, scared when Jack's glass shattered against the wall. "Fuck! And that's a dozen!" He shook his head.
"No, Jack. It ain't obvious. Talk to me."
"What do you want me to say, Connor? I'm a sixty years old broken man. She is sixteen years younger. She has a kid. I'm a kid-less father. My kid killed himself with my own fucking weapon. Why would she want me near when she has a kid that could end up with the same fate? I'm a divorced man, which means I failed to a wife even before she was around. I'm a former special-ops… A fucking good one too. I've killed too many people. I've broken too many people. I couldn't help her to return, I couldn't fucking find her. I didn't stop her from getting back to her life when we were put together on the same mission. I'm a mess…" he finished.
"She… She's smart, she used to care about people. Even if she seems colder, I know the care is still there. I know she tries to hide herself from the outside world, maybe because the outside world has thrown a shit ton of stuff on her shoulders. It wasn't even grateful enough to let her keep her name for eleven years. She was twenty-five women, and she raised a daughter that seems to be nice, loving, smart and so fucking caring." Jack clenched his jaw. "She brought herself back single-handedly. She organized a shit ton of things to face the stupid government, so she could get her name back. So, I'll ask you again… What am I in the grand scheme of things?"
Connor looked at him for a while. Then he stood up and placed his hand over Jack's shoulders.
"You believe she managed all that, only to get her name back?"
"Why else would she do it?" Jack shook his head. "Her name, her own identity. The things she was robbed from. It was the one thing she couldn't get if she didn't do whatever she had to do to get back."
"Have you ever stopped to consider that she could've done all that just to get back to you?"
Jack blinked.
"What? No… Why would she do something that stupid? And I'm not saying that's what she did."
"You two are too alike, Jack. What would've you have done in her place? Or better yet, what did you do to get her back?"
"Everything that I was capable of…" Jack said.
"Then… Why is it so impossible to believe she would do the same to get back to you? You said it yourself, she's smart. I'll say resourceful. So, maybe she had way more skills on her side to get back to you than you had to get her back. Think about that, brother. I'm going to bed. I have an early flight tomorrow. Unless you need me for some more…"
He waited for a second, but Jack was speechless. Connor shook his head and walked himself to the guest room.
Jack remained in the same place until the sunlight started to shine through his curtain. Maybe Connor was right… Maybe she had done everything. This enormous feat just to get back to him.
"How would I know?" He mumbled when he noticed Connor entering the living room.
"Huh?"
"How would I know if she did all of that to get back to me?"
"I'd say you need to ask her."
