"You're awfully quiet."
Sam turned from where she looked out the car window at the peaceful scenery of Colorado Springs. Two weeks. Two weeks ago, she'd been ordered to go to Washington, D.C. Two weeks ago, her family had been under attack from all sides. And still, Colorado Springs looked peaceful.
Sam winced as she moved the sling which immobilized her left arm a little closer, jostling her injured shoulder. "It's like nothing happened."
Jack didn't speak, only looked slightly in her direction as he drove through town toward their home of the last seven years.
"I used to take comfort in that. Some big, intergalactic emergency would have the SGC scrambling to mobilize, and Colorado Springs looked like nothing had changed." She looked out the window at the subdivisions as they passed. "I thought it meant we were doing our job. Protecting the public."
"And now?"
She sighed as she leaned the back of her head against the front seat's headrest. "Now, it just seems insensitive, like the metaphorical earthquake that's left my family in shambles isn't worth slowing the rest of the world down for a minute."
"Sam..."
"I know it's not rational. It's just how I feel."
Jack didn't answer, forcing her to look at him. Her stomach twisted in knots. It wasn't fair to take this all out on him. He'd been the one holding them all together. Her voice softened. "What?"
"I was just going to say, I'm glad we're going home. Means we'll be able to start picking up the pieces of our lives again."
Home.
On the one hand, she was just as eager as Jack. On the other...
"It's going to be so strange walking in the door and not hearing the pitter-patter of paws against the hardwood floors."
Jack didn't look at her. "Yeah. That took some getting used to."
A subtle hint that he'd been going home almost every night to help Jacob who had such a crippling case of separation anxiety that more than an hour of Teal'c, Daniel, or Charlie as his adult supervision rendered him hysterical.
Sam pressed a fist to her sternum, her heart aching for her children. For the pain they had to endure at such young ages. "Do you remember what I was like after the whole Adrian Conrad thing?"
Her husband cleared his throat. "Uh, yeah. You called me that first night. Asked if it was okay that you were calling me at home."
At one time, her cheeks might have colored at the implication, but she just nodded. "If I wasn't on base, you, Daniel, and Teal'c rotated who would stay with me. Lasted a little over a month."
"Closer to two if memory serves."
She tensed. "I was a grown woman with more than a decade of military service under my belt. Jacob and Grace—"
"Will be fine."
Sam settled back, readjusting where her arm fell in the sling. She winced pain shot up her arm, reverberating through her whole body.
"About time for some more meds?"
She shook her head as they approached the driveway. "It's fine."
Jack parked the car, turning to face her after he cut the engine. "Sam, everything's going to be fine. We're home. We're safe. It's going to be okay."
"You don't know that." The words surprised even her as they came out of her mouth. She opened her mouth a couple of times, no words coming out as tears flooded her eyes.
"You're right. I don't know that." Jack tossed the keys in the air only an inch or two from his palm, looking anywhere but at her as he collected his thoughts. Then, he zeroed in his gaze on her, scooting closer with his arm across the front seat of his truck so that even though he didn't touch her injured shoulder, she still felt like his arm was around her. "But I know them, and I know us."
She anchored her gaze on his lips as he came closer to her, knowing that he was going to dust a chaste kiss on her like he had a hundred times since they'd come back from DC, not just to reassure her but also, she suspected, to reassure himself that she really was going to be all right.
She brought her uninjured hand up to his cheek as he pressed her against the window, not because he was pressing for this kiss to deepen, but because he was desperate. Like tasting the tears on her lips clued Jack into just how scared she was.
His hand dropped to her knee as he pulled back a fraction of an inch. "We have beaten the odds so many times, Samantha Carter. In so many ways. We weren't supposed to have either Grace or Jacob. We weren't supposed to get married. Hell, we're not even supposed to be alive."
Her hand dropped to his chest, and though she would have preferred a steady heart rate, that erratic, racing heart beat still gave her some measure of comfort. "I know that, Jack, and I swear I'm not trying to make this more difficult than it already is—"
"But you want to know when we run out of luck."
She stared into his brown eyes, wishing she could lie to him and tell him she thought they'd never run out of luck. But she knew that transparency she could read in him worked both ways. He knew her too well. "Yeah."
He leaned in and nipped at her lips, and she tried to reach after him, to catch his bottom lip between her teeth so he couldn't go anywhere. Instead, he leaned his forehead against hers. "I wish I could give you a guarantee, Sam, but the only one I can give is the promise I made to you when I put that ring on your finger."
She glanced down at where the diamond ring peeked out from the sling.
"I promised for better or worse, Sam. In sickness or in health. I promised you always, and that's all I can control."
She swallowed. "I understand."
"But if I could make another promise right here, right now?"
She took a chance to look up at him. "Yes?"
"You and the kids, Carter, you're my priority. Always have been. Always will be. So, you want to go to the shelter in a couple weeks and get a new dog? I'm there. You want to move to the cabin and go off the grid? I'll pack the boxes myself. You want to find an uninhabited planet on the edge of the galaxy and disappear from off the face of the planet, I'll make the calls."
"You'd do all that for me?"
"I let them put a Tok'ra symbiote in my head because you asked me to, Carter." His fingers cradled the back of her neck as he leaned in for another kiss. "I'd do anything for you, Samantha."
He nipped at her lips. "I love you, Jack O'Neill."
He slanted his head and went for another angle, like he was trying to get more comfortable. She hoped that meant he was planning on a longer, more passionate kiss. "I love you, too, Samantha Carter."
He didn't press her, but his fingers dusted her chin as he pulled back for presumably the last time. "There are a lot of people inside who will be awfully glad to see you."
"I've missed them."
His lips curled into a small smile. "I know. You ready to go in now?"
She straightened his shirt. "As long as you promise me something."
His face was as serious as it had been their first night as a married couple, when they'd known she was leaving to command the Hammond. "Anything, Sam, you know that."
She leaned in so her lips were only a hairbreadth away from his ear. "Hold that thought, General. I expect a proper homecoming later."
He grinned. "I was hoping you'd say that. I have this trick I can do with a sling that I've been dying to show you."
She couldn't help but laugh, and for one brief moment, all her problems seemed to disappear.
Sam walked into the house, almost dreading the silence, the stillness. She'd always been a cat person, but something about the golden retriever who'd grown up with her young family that had stolen her heart. Not getting attacked with puppy love ten seconds into her return would feel hollow.
"Sam, you're home!"
Sam hardly had time to register the words before Cassie's arms were around her neck, her pregnant bump jostling Sam's arm. The astrophysicist bit back a cry of pain, and Cassie pulled away. "Oh. I'm so sorry. I wasn't thinking."
Sam gritted a smile as Jack guided her to the couch in the lying room. "It's fine."
"I'm gonna get that prescription they gave you."
She watched her husband go as her family crowded in. First, Cassie and Charlie. Then, Jacob with Teal'c as his shadow du jour. Even Vala, Daniel, and little Nicole showed up, followed by Mitchell, John Neill, and Jennifer Hailey. Sam couldn't help but smile at her friends and family.
"I have to admit, Sam, when I saw the news..." Cassie rubbed her bump as tears glistened in her eyes.
Sam patted her hand. "I'm fine, Cass. Really."
Sam looked around the room, her eye scanning for the one person she didn't see. Even as Jacob stood at her knee. "Can I give you a hug, Mom?"
Sam turned her attention away from her search and to her youngest. "Of course, sweetie, but how about you come over to this side?"
She guided the six-year-old to her uninjured side, and he knelt on the couch beside her, burying his face into the shoulder with the strap supporting her sling. "I'm glad you're home."
Tears streaked his cheeks as he pulled away, and Sam awkwardly wiped them away with the hand closest to him. "I'm glad you're safe, too, sweetheart."
She glanced up at Teal'c. "Thank you."
The Jaffa just bowed in acknowledgment.
"Here you go." Jack handed her the pills which she knocked back, then a glass of water, which she took a swig from. "You might get a little drowsy, so we might need to make this quick."
Sam shook her head. "It's fine. Where's Grace?"
Charlie exchanged a strange look with his wife. Teal'c, Daniel, and Vala did the same.
Jack cleared his throat. "Hey, guys, there's cake in the dining room." He pointed across the hall to a room decorated with a welcome home sign which Jacob had clearly taken point on, a large sheet cake, and a few balloons tied to the backs of chairs.
Charlie caught Cassie by the hands and helped her up, the first to guide the rest of the party away from Sam.
She turned to her husband with a note of affection in her voice. "You know, he's my favorite."
Jack grinned though something seemed to leach the joy out of him. "He's a good kid."
Sam sighed. "Now, Grace?"
Jack took her by the hand. "Come on."
Jack led her down the hallway, through the kitchen, past the kids' bedrooms, down into the den, and out to the backyard. Even before they walked through the French doors which led out to the balcony, Sam could see the figure kneeling just outside the dog house.
Sam's heart clenched, and she looked over at her husband as if seeking confirmation of what she already suspected.
Jack motioned for her to join her daughter though he made no move to join her. "We'll save you two some cake."
Sam nodded, already mentally steeling herself before she walked out the door.
Grace only turned momentarily as the door opened and Sam walked over the deck and onto the lawn. "You're home."
Sam eased herself onto the ground beside her daughter, knowing it would be tricky to get back up but sensing this was a time to meet Grace where she was. "There's cake inside."
Grace nodded. "Vala and Daniel brought it, but I think it was Dad's idea."
Sam leaned over to her daughter. "I suspect you're right. You can pretty much guess that where cake's involved, it's your dad's idea. Even indirectly."
She didn't win a laugh, and Sam sensed that it was time to get to business. "You miss Doc."
Grace played with the dog's collar in her hands, running her thumb over the metal info card every few moments. "He was my best friend."
Sam's eyes watered. "I know, honey."
"We should have left him here. He would have been okay."
Sam wrapped her uninjured arm around her daughter's shoulder, blinking upward as she tried not to cry. "Sweetheart, I know it's not much comfort right now, but I don't doubt for a second that Doc was where he wanted to be, protecting you and your brother, when he died."
Grace passed her arm by her cheek as if trying to dry off her own tears. "But it didn't work, did it? Jacob and I were still kidnapped. So, why couldn't we have just left him home that one time?"
Sam resisted the urge to hold her daughter tight, a feeling that there was something else coming.
"Why did you and Dad have to go to Washington? What was wrong with telling the Air Force that you had other priorities? You knew it was a trap. I could see it on your faces. You knew my dream was coming true, and you didn't even try to stop it."
Sam let her daughter rant, so angry that the teenager only caught herself seconds before she chucked Doc's dog collar across the lawn.
"Are you finished?"
Grace exhaled, her shoulder slumping as she lost the little vigor her little tantrum had granted her. "Yes."
"So, you remember?"
Grace's eyes were hooded as she looked back at her mother. "Bits and pieces. Not the whole thing. Maybe I won't ever get that back, but I get a flash or so whenever someone tells me part of the story."
Sam nodded. That was about what the doctors had led her to expect. Of course, she couldn't help but shake that what might be normal for Sam or Jack might not be normal for their gifted daughter. Especially given that Sam's own parents had been balancing the scales a bit where Grace was concerned.
Grace hinted at looking at her mother, her gaze still consumed by the doghouse in front of her. "Dad—"
"Dad what?" Sam asked.
Grace sighed, heavily. "Dad said that you helped Cassie when she had powers."
Sam sat back a little. "That was a long time ago. I'd almost forgotten about that. Why do you ask?"
There was a jingle as Grace played with Doc's ID tag again. "Am I a freak, Mom?"
Sam's first instinct was, of course, to deny that her daughter was different at all. Not because she wasn't, but because at thirteen, being different seemed like the kiss of death. Unfortunately, that would be too obvious a lie. Grace already knew she was different. She just wanted to know if she was alone.
Sam pivoted so she could look at her daughter as they sat in the grass and smelled the fresh cedar scents of the evergreens behind their house. "When you look at your brother, what do you see?"
Grace squinted at her mother. "What?"
Sam half-expected her line of questioning to confuse her daughter. "What do you see when you look at Jacob?"
Grace shrugged. "My brother."
Though Sam's emotions about her children's abilities were in flux right now given their kidnapping just a few weeks before, her lips lifted in a smile. The girl was proving her point beautifully. "Grace, your brother could play by himself against a team of professional soccer players and win because he can do something they can't. Completely control the soccer ball."
"Yeah, but he's my little brother. He likes Star Wars too much, and he still cries when he's scared, and—"
Understanding dawned in Grace's brown eyes. "Oh."
Sam reached out and squeezed her daughter's hand. "We love you for more than just what you can do. Just like you love Jacob for more than what he can do. Anyone who's worth your time will see that. Will see you."
Grace bit her bottom lip. "Mom?"
"Hm?"
For a brief moment, the kindergartner Sam and Jack had adopted eight years ago emerged, and Sam's throat thickened.
Though careful not to jostle her injury, Grace wrapped her arms around Sam's neck and squeezed. "I missed you, Mom."
Sam's eyes misted with tears as she held her little girl, wishing with all her might to be able to protect her from every bad thing that might come. "I missed you, too, angel."
Jacob O'Neill sat on the top step to the den, watching everyone around him. There was something different about how his family celebrated. Quieter. Sadder.
"You want some cake?"
He looked up as Nicole sat beside him. She looked almost like a grownup, dressed in a shirt that didn't have cartoon characters on it or anything, her long brown hair in a ponytail that hadn't been messed up by playing outside.
"No thanks. I'm not hungry."
Nicole didn't laugh, just offered him a plate with a corner piece of cake on it. "Not even a tiny bite?"
He muttered a thank you as he took the cake, playing with his fork in the frosting.
"I'm glad your mom's okay."
A lump grew in Jacob's throat, and he put his cake on the floor. He almost picked it back up, afraid that Doc would eat it, but then he remembered...
He sniffled, wiping his nose with the sleeve of his shirt. His face grew hot as the tears came, embarrassed to have an audience.
Nicole just scooted closer to him and put her arm around his shoulder. "I'm sorry about Doc. He was a good dog."
Jacob sniffled again. "Yeah. He was."
"You know, you could have taken Vala up on her offer to use the hand device. It wouldn't make you any less noble."
Sam gritted her teeth as Jack helped her exchange the button-down dress shirt she'd worn home from the infirmary for an old buttoned pajama top he'd unearthed from some bygone era. "This isn't about nobility, Jack. This is about teaching our kids that there aren't any shortcuts to healing."
Jack stopped. "Seriously? You think making them watch you wince and knock back painkillers is going to translate to their mental and emotional wounds?"
Sam frowned at her husband as she tried to button the top of the shirt with one hand. "You're tired, so I'm going to let that slide."
"Yeah, Sam, you know what? I am tired." Jack sighed as he finished buttoning the rest of the top for her. "I'm tired of worrying. I'm tired of replaying in my head what I could have done differently. I'm tired of wanting to throttle Brandon Marks...again for being manipulated into this whole set up."
Jack sank onto the bed beside Sam, his hand reaching for her uninjured one. She gave it freely.
"Is it that awful that I wish you'd let someone help you with the one problem we could effectively get rid of with the push of a button?"
Sam leaned her cheek on his shoulder, and Jack wrapped his arm around her, letting his hand fall to her waist instead of her shoulder. "No."
He kissed the top of her head. "Thank you."
She was quiet for a moment. "Jack, I respect your position, I really do, and if you feel strongly about it, I'll call Vala in the morning."
"But?"
She pulled away so she could look him in the eyes. "Maybe it's silly, but I think I can make a point over the next few weeks to show how I've had to be patient, work, and innovate in order to heal from this injury. Those are the same principles you and I have had to use to deal with our emotional battle scars. Maybe—"
"Maybe we give it a week or two and see?"
She sighed in relief. "I can live with that."
Jack stood again, this time helping Sam lift her legs onto the bed so she could lie back against the pillows. Then, he walked over to the other side of the bed and slipped between the covers.
Silence hung between them like an iron curtain, awkward and seemingly impenetrable. Though he suspected his wife was already asleep thanks to the heavy painkillers she was on for her shoulder, Jack turned to face her, hoping to find something he could say to break the silence. "Sam?"
"Hm?"
"I know it probably seems too soon. Probably seems a little insensitive, too, but—"
"You want to go to the shelter and get a new dog."
Sam's eyes reflected the moonlight coming in through the window as she glanced at him, unable to turn completely because of her injury.
He nodded. "I think we all could use something to look forward to. Frankly, I don't think Doc would want the house to stay this quiet. Especially if it was for him."
Sam's lip quirked upward, and he suspected she was reliving a particularly pleasant memory with the lovable dog. "I think you're right, but let's give it a couple more days. Grace was pretty upset outside."
"Okay."
They fell back into silence for a few seconds before Sam cleared her throat. "Jack?"
"Hm?"
"How are you handling all this?"
Jack turned onto his back, staring at the ceiling. "Uh...I'm not. Not really."
"For you and Charlie, it must have felt like life was just repeating itself. Like you two were stuck in a pattern that you couldn't break out of. His wife. His children. Your wife. Your children."
Jack's chest constricted again, not painfully like it had during his heart attack, but rather like pressure on a balloon. If he hadn't talked to the doctors in Cheyenne Mountain, he would be tempted to worry about it, but they assured him he was healthy as a horse. Just a spot of angina.
He grimaced. "Yeah. That, uh, wasn't great."
There was a long pause.
"C'mere."
Jack raised an eyebrow before he turned a sardonic smile to his wife. "I thought that was my line."
"Are we seriously going to argue about this now?"
Careful not to move his wife's sling, Jack rolled onto his stomach, leaning his cheek against the space just lower than her sternum. It was a comfort feeling the ebb and flow of her breath as her fingers toyed with his hair.
The last time he'd been atop her like this...
He closed his eyes and tried to keep the memory from pressing in on him again. The White House. The gunshot. The blood.
He kissed her stomach, and she lifted his chin so he'd look at her.
"I never thanked you for saving my life. If you hadn't tried to push me to the ground, this injury could have been so much worse. For a second, I thought..."
He knew what she'd thought. Truthfully, it was what he'd intended. To take the bullet for her. Things hadn't worked out that way.
His breath hitched. "No need, Carter. Pretty sure that's what it means to have your six."
"Jack..."
"And if that's not enough, there's that whole so long as we both shall live part of our vows."
Sam leaned back against the pillow. "Are you seriously going to joke right now?"
His gaze grew distant, his hold on her growing tighter. "Sam, if I don't joke right now, I don't know what I'd do. Truth is, you scared me. Even though it was different, it was like Charlie all over again. The kids gone. I was losing you. I was all alone, trying to keep everything from slipping through my fingers. The fact that we're all home, all safe. That even Charlie and Cassie are in the guest room downstairs..."
He sighed. "If I didn't joke, I'd have to face all of that all over again."
He let himself stare off into space. "I don't think I'm strong enough to do that again. Even knowing how it all turned out."
He could feel from how Sam's breathing lengthened that the painkillers had finally taken effect. Despite how she'd try to fight it, she'd drift off to dreamland soon enough.
He raised himself so that he could face her, even as her eyelids started to droop. With one hand, he flicked a couple stray strands of her hair from her face. Then, dropped his lips to hers.
They fell open, warm and inviting, and he could almost feel her smile grow as he took his time releasing the suction. He didn't press for a deeper kiss, just took strength that she was well enough to enjoy it.
Her blue eyes were soft, sleepy, vulnerable in a way she only ever got with him. A privilege that pressed in on him sometimes with the weight of that responsibility to keep her safe, even from himself.
Jack lay back down, his thoughts consumed with how to protect his family. Where their vulnerabilities were. How to fortify against another unimaginable attack.
"Sam?"
"Hm?"
He steeled himself for what he was sure would need to be a longer conversation, one he probably shouldn't broach now, but that he had to get off his chest. "I think we need to prepare ourselves that Grace has new gifts. I read the transcripts of the interrogations, and—I think we need to be ready for what might come next with her. For her."
Sam was quiet, fingers still playing with his cowlick.
He lifted his head again.
"I heard you."
Her voice was barely above a whisper, and he couldn't tell if he'd frightened her or if she was that close to falling asleep.
"Get some rest. We'll all be here in the morning. We'll figure out what to do after we get some sleep."
Jack kissed her forehead before he returned his cheek to the valley between her breasts, content to hear her heart beat and feel the wave of her breath lull him into what he hoped would be a dreamless sleep.
