AN: SOooo... MKH paid for me to get a massage. He says I'm tense. Why does this seem familiar? Hehe. Anyway today is day one of first shift for this Goat. It's only 2 weeks and I USED to work first shift all the time so I will survive... I hope.

Chapter 2

He met her at the SGC Gate and watched as she marched down the ramp.

"Reporting for duty, sir." She snapped at him and saluted, dressed in her class As, and ire in her eyes.

"At ease, Colonel. You have some down time before you have to report to the Pentagon." Jack said, his serious expression giving nothing away.

"Thank you, sir. If it's all right, I'd like to collect my things and head home for a day or two then."

"I've been considering doing the same." He agreed. "There are fresh clothes in your locker. Feel free to take a shower. I'll meet you topside. There's a motor pool kid we can share." He gave her a small, amused smile.

Sam just shook her head in amusement. "It's good to see you, sir."

"It's good to see you too, Colonel." He told her as he grabbed one of her bags, he waved her ahead of him out of the Gate room.

From his position in the Control room, Walter watched them leave.

"Do they really think they are fooling anyone with that act?" Landry asked absently.

"Yes sir, they do." Walter told Landry.

"But everyone knows now." He said mystified.

Walter just shrugged. "I think they like playing pretend."

Hank just shook his head. "Make sure they both leave before Vala finds out and tells Jackson."

"Agreed, sir."

Sam all but flopped into the passenger seat of the SUV she and Jack had bought shortly after their wedding to accommodate their growing family. She arched her head back and closed her eyes.

Jack glanced at her, concern written on his features. It wasn't like Sam not to want to drive. It also wasn't like her to act defeated. "You okay?" He asked gently.

Sam just sighed. "Can we go home?"

"Do you want to pick up Gracie first? I dropped her off at Wil and Mare's this morning."

Sam shook her head. "I need you more." She admitted.

Jack nodded shortly. He got it. It wouldn't really solve anything but it would remind them both who they were and why they did what they did. And he wasn't unhappy about getting out of the monkey suit. He started up the SUV and rolled out of the NORAD/SGC parking lot, waving at the guard pleasantly as he passed through the security gate.

"Do you want to talk about it?"

Sam didn't say anything for a long moment. "In three days, I have to report to Washington to explain why I got fired to the guys that fired me."

"Yah… sorry about that. I told them it wasn't a good idea."

She shook her head. "I don't know, Jack. What if I was out of my depth and everyone could see it but me?"

Jack's jaw squared. "That's not true, Carter, and you know it. I advocated for you for the position because you were the most qualified person to take it under the circumstances. It's not your fault the Pentagon and the congressional committee handling that shindig can't read a report for content." His hands tightened on the wheel in frustration. He'd told them she'd be angry. This self-doubt was something he'd hoped not to see, mainly because Sam had always been confident in her abilities. Until this change of assignment – which was ironic. When she was first 'offered' Atlantis, she had hesitated. Grace was barely two, Sammy's life was finally getting back on track, literally and figuratively. Daniel was becoming more receptive of Jon. By going to Atlantis, Gracie's life was uprooted to DC where her daily care was relegated to her nanny who was also her CIA handler. She missed all the drama with the mini's. So after one year where she succeeded in removing the Pegasus replicators as a threat and kneecapping the Wraith, they rewarded Carter by removing her command.

"Honestly… All I want is to go home, make love to my husband, take a very long nap, and go get Gracie and watch movies with you guys."

Jack gave her a gentle smile and brushed his knuckles on her cheek while he drove. "I think I can manage most of that and some take-out too."

Sam chuckled but it was watery. "I've missed take-out."

"I bet." Jack agreed and Sam turned and kissed the hand on her cheek before he moved it away.

"I love you."

Jack grinned. "I know that." He said in the voice Sam used to think was defensive but was really a cover for when his emotions were overwhelming him.

Sam turned and looked at her husband. He'd picked up a little weight. A tendon tear while out running had forced him into inactivity again. He'd played down the little incident with the minis and having to tell Sean who they really were. It was a good thing Mac was already aware of the situation and Sean had clearance having taken over his father's previous position when Mac had been pushed into the head of Phoenix after Pete Thorton had died a few months ago. Jack had liked Bub's boss. He reminded Jack a lot of Hammond from the few meetings they had.

"How's the knee?"

"It will hold up if that's what you are asking." Jack told her with libidinous leer.

Sam chuckled. "I figured it would. For someone who is special genetically, you sure are accident prone."

Jack pressed his lips together though and didn't reply which raised silent alarms in Sam's head. Sam looked at him suspiciously. "Jack." It wasn't a question.

Crap, Jack thought. "Crap." Jack said out loud. Realized he'd said it and closed his mouth again.

"Jack." There was now a warning in her tone.

"I didn't want you to worry."

Sam narrowed her eyes. What on earth had happened that he hadn't wanted her to worry? "What actually happened?"

"It wasn't that big of a deal."

It was a huge deal and Sam knew it by his defensive body language. "How did you really injure your knee? You told me Sean flew out with the kids who decided to come nurse you back to health and found out. How much of that was a lie?"

Jack held up his finger and thumb indicating only a tiny bit.

"I swear you're worse than Daniel some days." Sam huffed.

"Well, it's not like I did it intentionally." He said defensively.

"Did WHAT?!"

"I might have been a little kidnapped." But he mumbled the last word hoping she'd miss it.

She had not. Sam sighed, rolled her eyes, and asked him drily. "How did a black ops trained three-star General manage to get kidnapped?"

Jack winced but didn't answer immediately. They had pulled up to the house by now and he pulled into the garage. "Look, can we talk about this later?" Like never perhaps? His pride was still hurt. He hopped out gingerly, favoring his bad knee and bruises and went to the back of the car to grab her bags.

"Oh no, you don't. That knee isn't going to heal if you keep abusing it." Sam admonished him and grabbed her bags from him and headed for the door leading to their small laundry and mud room as he trailed behind her.

Jack threw up his hands in defeat. One of two things were about to happen. "Carter, before you open the door, I should tell you—"

He was too late. The door swung open and Sam stood astonished, looking down at the small bundle of fur, excitedly yapping at her in greeting. "Jack… there's a dog in the house."

"Yah. I know." He told her as he came to stand beside her.

"Is it our dog?"

Jack huffed a sigh. "I didn't know what else to do with her."

She looked at him and then the dog and back up at him again. She took pity on him. His expression was miserable. "What happened?" She asked softly.

Jack sighed deeply. Better get it over with now first, he decided. With a hand, he waved Sam to walk into the house. Might as well get comfortable before he gives her the whole story. Minutes later that they were sitting on the couch, beers in hand but neither were drinking them.

"I hurt my knee trying to protect her from them. Once she wasn't useful, they were going to shoot her." He told her, after taking a tiny sip of his beer. The dog sat patiently by his feet, wagging her tail.

"Oh Jack." She said in sympathy and understanding. Jack was almost as adoring of dogs as he was of kids.

He sighed. "I was out for a run because you got on my ass about staying active with my work schedule. They had injured her and put her in my path. They knew how I am about dogs. I bent down to see if she was okay or if she had a tag on her collar and they shot me in the ass with a tranq dart." He admitted sheepishly to his wife. Trained black ops officer fooled by a simple plan.

Sam deeply suppressed the chuckle that mental image created. "What happened after that?"

Jack sighed and scooped up the fluffy little brown and white dog who started licking him enthusiastically and seemed utterly unconcerned about the cast on her right back leg. "The kids showed up, then SG Dev Group rolled in complaining about civilian strike teams and got us all out of there quietly. It was that emergency bunker in West Virginia. Sean works pretty good with the minis. Might be useful to bring him in as a consultant at some point." He said thoughtfully. "Probably should put that past Bub before I make any offers." He mused.

"Jack…"

"Oh right, yah well long story short my knee was fine until the guy running the show got mad that I wasn't cooperating and told one of the guys to shoot the dog." Anger tinted the edges of his voice and his eyes flared darkly as he gently held the dog.

Sam smiled softly at her husband. He was leaving out a lot of details but the long and short of it was he was safe, and that their mini me's were just as effective as an extraction team as they had been in their heyday… and now they had a dog. "You do know I'm going to read the file, right?"

"Yah."

Sam quirked an eyebrow at him.

Jack gave her a bland look as a reply.

The small dog whose shaggy hair was an odd assortment of brown and white woofed.

"So what is she?"

"Some kind of terrier mix from what I can tell. She's probably always going to have a limp because of what they did to her. I had a local vet try to correct the damage but she says there's only so much she can do for her. The injury had already started to heal badly before I got her in." He said, his voice gruff with suppressed emotion.

Sam nodded. She imagined her husband probably exacted revenge for that. He loved animals in general but dogs had an especially soft spot in the man's heart.

"So we have a dog, huh?" Sam said.

"Seems like it." Jack said with a rueful chuckle. She was a nice little mutt. Jack's dogs had usually been bigger but he and his small buddy had bonded during their mutual incarceration.

"She's going to be extra work for the nanny when you're in DC." Sam reminded him.

"Well… that depends on where you end up." Jack said thoughtfully.

"Oh?"

"See there's this ship we're working on and it's just an orbital security assignment but with Asgard beaming technology… you can come home on weekends and at night." Jack suggested.

Sam looked at him thoughtfully. "This wouldn't be at all motivated by you missing me, would it?" she asked archly.

Jack just gave her a bland, bemused look as though the thought never occurred to him.

Sam shook her head and laughed. "I need a shower. A real one. The Midway sonic showers do not cut it." She announced as she stood up and started walking through the house. Halfway through the living room, she had already unbuttoned her jacket and shrugged it off her shoulders. "Coming?"

"Still just breathing heavily but I'll get there." Jack said, getting up with a grin, and caught up with his wife. Currently very, very glad he'd had the sense to make sure Lynn knew to go stay with friends for a couple of days.

"So how long do we have a house guest?" Sam asked him as she continued to strip as she walked up the stairs.

"How did you know?"

"There's an 'Earth Girls are Easy' coffee mug on the counter. I only know one person who owns that and I was there when she received it."

"Ah." Was all Jack said because he was very distracted by the curve of his wife's hip as she unzipped the back of her skirt and shimmied out of it at the top of the stairs.

Sam continued on her way and Jack followed her as if in a trance, picking up her clothes along the way. As he stepped into their bedroom, Sam's bra landed on his face as she stood fully naked by their bed. A low growl was his response as he closed the bedroom door behind him, dropping Sam's clothes on the floor as he shed his in pursuit of his wife.

He smiled and kissed her hair. They both had the same contented look on their faces. They hadn't even bothered to shower yet. No point, he supposed. She'd wake up and make love to him again in about half an hour. He knew her well enough to know that. She'd at least been sympathetic about the bruises and hadn't pried much from him about the beating. Their dog, who had been whining outside the bedroom door before Jack let her in the bedroom, lay at the foot of the bed apparently passed out.

"What are we naming her?" Sam asked him sleepily from the surface of his chest where she was nuzzling, her arm draped over his middle and one leg casually covering his.

"She hasn't liked any of the ones I said to her so far." Jack admitted.

"Well… what do you suppose a dog from West Virginia would want to be named?" Sam said sleepily.

The dog's head came up.

Jack looked at her thoughtfully. "Virginia." He called softly.

Her ears flopped forward and her tongue lolled out in a doggy grin before she got up and pranced over to him and woofed softly.

"Well… I think we figured out your name." he said affectionately and stroked her ears fondly. "Your mommy is so smart." He cooed at the dog.

Sam chuckled.

"What?"

"You used that same tone with Gracie when she was a baby." She said snickering.

"Dogs are pretty much emotionally toddlers, Carter." Jack said in an injured tone which earned him a laugh and an elbow to his ribs.

"At least she's in like-minded company." Sam teased.

"Cruel woman. I pine after you for over a year only to have you come home and abuse me." He teased her.

"I missed you too." She said softly and turned her head away into his shoulder.

Jack held her and tried to ignore the reality that his shoulder was getting damp from her tears. "Hey…"

Sam shook her head. "I'm sorry, Jack. I let you down and now I'm acting like a stupid weepy cadet about it." she admitted.

"Did you cry in front of Woolsey?" He was still unhappy that the task of telling her had fallen to the head of IOA and he'd not been allowed to give her a heads up.

"No."

"How about the guys at Midway?"

"No."

"So you've been upset about this for what three days now and this is the first time you cried about it?"

"You make it sound like this is normal."

"Sam." He took a finger and tilted her chin up so she was looking at him. "You worked hard to gain that command. You kicked ass at it too. I have the reports to prove it." He smiled gently at her. "You are the toughest person I know. I'm honored you trust me so much you can let your hurt show."

Sam looked at him perplexed.

"I'd be pretty miffed too." He admitted. "Hell, I was miffed and I told Henry I'm miffed."

Sam chuckled a little. "Thank you." She said to him softly.

"Any time, Carter." He told her with a small, concerned frown. He was glad he'd decided not to broach the subject of them having another baby right off the bat. Sam needed to decompress from this and not see it as a personal failure. Besides there was Lynn to consider. She'd need their emotional support until Frank came home. "So, on another note…" He hedged.

"Jack, what did you do?"

Jack smiled smugly. "I'm reassigning Hopkins and Schultz back to the SGC." He said smugly.

"But Frank's tour isn't up yet."

Jack just grinned.

"Jack?"

"Just a little presidential order thingy…" He said in smug amusement.

Sam chuckled and shook her head. "You're incorrigible."

"You're beautiful." He said sincerely.

"Jack." She said and smiled at him.

Jack gave her one of his innocent frowns of mild interest.

She chuckled and shook her head. "Thank you."

"Any time, Carter." He said gruffly, his voice thick with emotion. "Monday, you're going to march into that congressional session and kick their collective asses."

"Yes sir." Sam said with alacrity.

"There's my wife." Jack said grinning. His hands started to rove as he flipped her on to her back. "We still have time before we have to go get Gracie."

Sam just smiled, twined her arms around his neck as she pulled him down.