Author's Note: First off, I want to thank all of you for your supportive comments on the first chapter! It's so great to get that kind of response. When writing the second chapter, the story expanded more than I thought it was going to (more Daniel and Teal'c, more time at the cabin) so this is going to end up being a three chapter story.
Fingers crossed that you like chapter two! I look forward to reading your comments.
Fun fact: There is apparently more than one Silver Creek in Minnesota, which I did not realize until after I wrote this chapter. The first one that came up in Google is in Wright County and about an hour and a half drive from a small museum for the Kensington Runestone, which I thought Daniel would find fascinating, so I kept Jack's cabin there.
Sam was glad when Daniel asked about Jack's trip to Washington during lunch. The questions had been on the tip of her tongue since they'd arrived at the cabin, but she hadn't been able to force them past her lips.
"So, how was the trip? See anybody while you were there?"
"Just the brass," Jack replied. "Had dinner with Hammond and he said to say hi."
Sam felt her body relax knowing that he probably hadn't seen Kerry Johnson while he was in D.C.
"That is kind of General Hammond," Teal'c said. "He was a wise leader and has been missed."
"Is that a knock on my leadership style, T?" Jack asked, with clear amusement.
"Of course not, O'Neill."
Jack admitted to her once, when she was trying to find her footing as the CO of SG-1, that he had his own struggles trying to fill Hammond's chair. She still remembered what he told her: Sometimes you can't wait until you feel ready. You just have to try.
They both figured out their new roles eventually. Sam hoped that he knew that he was just as good a leader as General Hammond, just in a different way.
"And the rest of the trip?" Daniel asked. "How'd it go?"
"It was weird."
Sam had no idea what that meant. She took a bite of her sandwich so it wouldn't look like she was overly invested in the conversation.
"Weird, how?" Daniel asked.
"Well." Jack scratched the back of his neck. "I tried to retire. You know, that was the plan."
It was only through pure luck that Sam swallowed the piece of sandwich in her mouth before Jack answered. Otherwise, she might have ended up choking at the table. As it was, she still had to put a fist up to her mouth to cover the cough caused by her swift intake of air.
Jack's eyes slid her way and she nodded that she was okay.
"Were you not successful, O'Neill?" Teal'c asked.
Jack tapped his finger on the aluminum top of his Coke can.
"They kinda promoted me instead. Transfer to Homeworld Security."
She heard Teal'c and Daniel offer congratulations, but she was still hung up on Jack's first statement.
"You tried to retire?"
Daniel and Teal'c didn't look surprised by the retirement attempt, but Sam felt like it came out of nowhere. He hadn't even mentioned that he was considering something like that.
Jack's eyes held hers. "I figured it might be time."
"Time to do what?" Sam asked, forgetting for the moment that Daniel and Teal'c were also at the table.
"To pursue other interests, Carter."
Something about the way he said her name was different. It was almost as if she could feel the way it rolled over his tongue.
Daniel started coughing and Teal'c hit him twice on the back.
"Sorry, went down the wrong pipe."
Sam glanced at Daniel to make sure he wasn't dying...again...and then turned back towards Jack.
"Other interests?"
She felt surprisingly slow on the uptake, like she was missing something, but she kept getting distracted by the subtle play of expressions across his face. She was so used to him hiding behind a blank stare recently that it was like she'd been gifted a whole library of Jack O'Neill's emotions.
"Yeah, Carter," he told her with an amused smirk. "Fishing."
For some reason, that answer set Daniel off on another coughing fit. This time, Sam turned to him.
"Are you okay?"
Daniel nodded and coughed and Teal'c kept patting his back. Sam passed him her cup of water and he took a long sip and then a full breath.
"I'm fine, I swear. Just-"
"Went down the wrong pipe, Danny?" Jack teased. "Did the Ancients erase your memories of how to drink out of a can without choking?"
Daniel cleared his throat. She assumed he decided to take the high road until he replied, "This is all your fault, Jack."
"And how's that?"
"The euphemisms, Jack!" Daniel gestured around the table haphazardly and shot a quick glance her way. "Not that I'm not happy for you, but still..."
Jack just crossed his arms and looked smug.
"I don't know what you're talking about. I just have some interests outside of work that I think are long overdue for some proper care and attention."
Sam had no idea how Jack managed to make an innocuous statement about fishing sound sexual, but he did.
"See, this is exactly what I-"
"Daniel Jackson," Teal'c cut in, "I believe we are in need of supplies for the evening meal."
Jack grinned and pulled out his car keys from his pocket, tossing them onto the table.
"Great idea, T."
Daniel rolled his eyes. He and Teal'c both stood up.
"I feel like I missed something," Sam muttered.
Sure, she'd been distracted by thinking about the fact that Jack tried to retire and the way his lips moved when he talked, but Daniel's outburst seemed like it came out of nowhere.
The archeologist grabbed the car keys.
"Hey Danny, can you get us some cake?"
Sam glanced between the two of them. Jack looked mischievous and Daniel looked exasperated.
"If you say one thing about working up an appetite…" Daniel threatened.
Jack chuckled as they walked away. Sam turned towards him.
"What was that about?"
He drank the last of his Coke and set it on the table before answering.
"Nothing important. I think Daniel is just learning the consequences of asking questions he didn't really want the answers to. He came over the night before I went to D.C. We had a few beers, I told him I was planning to retire, and he was being nosy about why."
The response was just vague enough that it didn't answer her question at all, but Sam found she didn't care. It was enough that she finally made it to Minnesota after all these years. She could feel the sun warm her skin and the breeze ruffle through her hair.
And Jack O'Neill was sitting across from her looking at her with open affection.
"So you tried to retire?" she asked softly.
"Yeah, Sam."
"And none of those other interests are in D.C.?"
She had to check.
"Nope."
Jack tried to retire and she requested a transfer to Area 51. Maybe they were on the same page after all.
"Come on, Carter. I want to show you something."
Sam gathered the plates and napkins, while Jack picked up the empty drinks. He told her to leave the folding table and chairs set up for later.
They headed inside, dropped everything off in the kitchen, and then Jack gestured towards the old, worn couch in the living room. She sat down and smoothed her hands over the faded red fabric. He placed his sunglasses on the mantle and joined her.
"What did you want to show me?"
"I'll get there."
Jack lifted one arm to the back of the couch and faced her. Sam wished the couch was smaller so he wouldn't feel so far away.
In the silence, she heard Jack's truck start up and then back out of the driveway, wheels rolling over rough gravel as Daniel and Teal'c pulled away. Then a few birds filled in the emptiness.
Eventually, Jack started to talk.
"There were a few missions back when I was in spec ops that were pretty bad," he began. "They made me see this shrink. The guy was mostly an idiot, but he had this one idea that kinda stuck with me. Told me to write letters about the things I couldn't change and to people that had been hurt...and anything that bothered me, really. Next step was to burn the letters over an open flame until they were ash. It was a way to unload myself without leaving a record."
Sam didn't know what to say. Jack wasn't an open person by nature and she wasn't sure why he decided to start talking to her about this. He'd only told her bits and pieces of his time before the Stargate program because so much of it was classified. She knew that Charlie's death, while more personal, wasn't the first time Jack had to deal with darkness in his life.
"I'm glad it helped."
She wished that she could say more, but she thought this might be one of those situations where it was better to listen.
"I did that, on and off, for some of our SG-1 missions too," he continued. "Then one day I wrote a letter and lit a fire and I just couldn't burn it."
Then Jack looked at her and Sam realized what type of letter he was talking about. It was a letter that he hadn't burned, but also hadn't delivered...not yet.
She was curious what the turning point was, but he seemed like he wasn't done talking and she didn't want to interrupt.
"And I just kept not burning them. I'd bring a letter up here when I came to visit the cabin and just add it to the pile."
Jack stood up and walked over to the other side of the room. He lifted up the small, woven rug in front of the fireplace.
Sam watched as he pried up a loose floorboard and pulled out a stack of envelopes with a rubber band wrapped around them. He didn't bother putting the floorboard and rug back in place.
"You don't have to, you know, read anything into them and we don't have to talk about it ever again if you don't want to. I just thought you deserved to know that you're the type of woman that men write letters to."
He left off the word love, but she heard it nonetheless.
Jack handed over the pile and their fingertips brushed as Sam accepted the letters.
A part of her had known all along what he meant when he said that he had letters he couldn't deliver yet. She had just been too surprised by his declaration at the time to accept the obvious.
She was moving out of his chain of command by going to Area 51, so he could deliver the letters now.
"You kept them up here? Why?"
He looked at her like she should have already known the answer.
"Carter, I don't lock my front door half the time. You can't think I'd keep anything important at my house."
The fact that he thought the letters were important touched her heart. He thought they were too important to burn and important enough to hide someplace safe.
He didn't say so, but she knew then that he always intended to give them to her someday.
She couldn't believe she'd almost missed this chance.
"Do you want me to read them now?"
Sam didn't know what heartfelt letters from Jack O'Neill would look like. She also had no idea what the etiquette was for receiving anything like this. Was she supposed to read them while he was in the room? Was she supposed to save them for later?
"They're your letters," he replied simply. "Read them whenever you want."
With that said, he grabbed his sunglasses from the top of the mantle and walked outside.
Sam's eyes normally would have trailed after him, but instead she looked at the pile of envelopes in her hand. It wasn't a massive pile, but there were more of them than she expected. She pulled off the rubber band and set the letters down on the wooden coffee table in front of her.
Whatever he wanted to call them, Jack O'Neill had written her love letters.
Sam spent so many years wanting to know what was really going on inside his head, but now she was almost afraid to open the treasure trove in front of her. No matter what the letters said, she knew that reading them would change her irrevocably.
Sometimes you can't wait until you feel ready. You just have to try.
She knew that she could put these letters away and Jack would never mention them again. She could keep with the status quo if she wanted.
That would be the coward's way out. Sam had spent way too much time over the years on that path as far as her personal life was concerned.
She had promised herself and her dad that she would aim for happiness. That was why she'd asked to transfer to Area 51. It was why she finally agreed to come to Jack's cabin.
You can still have everything you want.
It was time now. She had to be brave.
Reading these letters was part of the inevitable.
She still loved Jack and she had to know how he felt. The fact that he handed her these letters gave her hope that he felt the same way.
Sam fanned the letters out on the table in front of her and selected one at random. The envelope wasn't labeled or dated. She ripped it open as carefully as she could and unfolded the single piece of paper it contained.
Surprisingly, the first letter she picked wasn't addressed to her.
Dear Thera, it began.
You were amazing. A single bright light in a world full of darkness and hard labor. I think that if I never recovered my memories, I would have lived a happy life by your side.
The part of me that was Jonah will miss you, deeply. I will miss the closeness we were able to have in a life without rules and regulations. I worry that it will be a challenge for me to redraw the boundaries we need to live with again.
But in spite of all that I lose in losing you, I'm glad that Sam Carter is no longer stifled under a mind stamp. As amazing as you were, Thera, Sam is even more. She deserves to be out there in the universe pulling off miracles for fun. And I want her to be happy, even if it means she's not with me.
I suck at goodbyes, but I couldn't let this go without one. Thank you, Thera, for being there for Jonah when he needed it.
Always,
Jack
She dropped the letter to her lap, tears welling up her eyes. Reading this now, Sam was shocked that she ever doubted that Jack had feelings for her. He hid it so well. She tried not to think about the time they'd lost.
Sam pulled another envelope from the pile at random and opened it. This letter was longer and Jack's familiar handwriting was messier, the way it was on mission reports after particularly difficult events off-world. Several sentences were scratched out and illegible.
She started to read.
Dear Sam,
If things were different - if you wanted them to be different - I wouldn't be at the SGC anymore. I'd retire or transfer in a heartbeat, but you'd never ask me to.
And as Teal'c has pointed out, ours is the only reality of consequence. In this reality, you're getting married. You're happy. That's all I ever wanted for you.
Maybe I can console myself with the knowledge that in some other realities, things did work out between us. There's got to be one out there where we're together and Apophis didn't destroy the Earth.
If I need to stand there on your wedding day with a smile on my face -
Sam threw the letter down on the coffee table. That stupid, romantic, self-sabatoging man. She moved the other letters to the coffee table and stood up. She didn't need to read anymore. Not now.
She had more important things to deal with. Namely, the man who thought he could hand her those letters and believed there was a chance in hell they wouldn't talk about them afterwards.
The man who wrote her a pile of love letters and would have let her marry another man without saying anything just because he thought she was happy.
Thank god she didn't marry Pete. If she had known that Jack still felt this way, after all these years, Sam would have done so many things differently.
She should have pressed him that day when he said that he wouldn't be there if things were different. She misunderstood and made the wrong choice.
They both made mistakes and it was time to stop making them.
She wasn't careful when she exited the cabin and the door slammed against the side of the exterior before bouncing back.
Jack was standing at the edge of the dock and turned at the noise, taking off his sunglasses and hanging them from the collar of his shirt. His face scrunched in confusion.
It didn't take long to reach him.
"That was fast."
"I only read one and a half of them, Jack."
He winced and she could only assume that he came to the wrong conclusion about why she stopped reading.
"Like I said, we don't have to talk about it. You were just sad the other day that no one had written any for you and I thought -"
"You want me to be happy so badly? Then stop pushing me away. I'll be happy with you."
"I -"
"You're an idiot," Sam said as she grabbed hold of Jack's flannel shirt to pull him close, "and I love you."
She didn't wait for him to respond before leaning up to press her lips against his.
The kiss started too forceful and Sam knew that she was afraid he would pull away. She didn't relax until he set one hand on the small of her back and the other cupped her jaw. The kiss gentled, became more of a conversation, and Sam stopped thinking so much.
Jack was a good kisser. Better than she imagined on an abandoned spaceship, better than it looked like with a mirror image of herself, and better than she barely remembered from a virus-induced embrace.
This, she thought as the kiss pulled her deeper, was worth the wait.
Jack moved back before she was ready to separate from him.
"Sam, I -"
Sam held her index finger against his lips before he could say another word. She was convinced that he was going to tell her that they shouldn't do this for one reason or another. He was going to give her another out, just like he did with the letters. She wasn't going to let him.
"Stop," she told him. "We deserve to be happy now. Both of us. You and me. Together."
Sam dropped her hand to his chest to rest over his heart.
"No more excuses," she added.
Jack smirked.
"Are you gonna let me talk?" he asked. "I was going to say that I love you too. I didn't give you the letters just for the hell of it. I figured it was time, and I obviously had hopes about how it would turn out, but I also didn't want you to feel pressured just in case you -"
Sam kissed him again. She kissed him because he loved her back and she was over him trying to give her space she didn't want.
He was right. It was time. Not just for the letters and confessions, but for so much more. It was time to start living the life she wanted.
They made out leisurely in the mid-afternoon sun. After a few minutes, she remembered that she had a question to ask him.
"Do all of the letters talk about me being happy without you? Because if so, that's sort of depressing."
Jack shook his head and a slow smile spread across his face.
"No, I'm pretty sure there are a couple where I talk about how hot you are too."
Sam looked at him and raised her eyebrows. "Hot?"
"Oh yeah."
Jack pulled her close again.
"Hot."
He kissed the curve of her neck.
"And brilliant."
She gasped when one hand slipped under her shirt and caressed her spine.
"And amazing."
Jack grinned at her.
"And kind."
He ran a callused finger along her collarbone.
"And truthfully way out of my league."
Jack captured her lips with his and when he pulled away, Sam found herself sighing his name.
"Yeah," he drawled, as he looked her over. "Definitely hot."
This was exactly what she wanted, but Sam also had years of experience denying herself what she wanted. One of them had to keep a clear head. Sam took a step back, out of his arms, and caught her breath.
Jack lifted an eyebrow in question.
"They'll be back soon."
His responding smile was seductive and she took another step back.
"No, they won't."
He moved a step in her direction.
"But-"
"Trust me, they're not coming back here in the next few hours. You see, there's this small museum more than an hour from here that has a mysterious runestone thing and all sorts of old Nordic artifacts. Teal'c will make sure to suggest they head that way and Daniel will get a kick out of it. Then they'll still have to stop at the store in town on the way home. We have plenty of time."
She was surprised it took her so long to figure it out.
"You planned this."
"I planned the opportunity, Sam. Not the outcome."
Jack always was good at strategy.
Sam had been thinking about those letters ever since he mentioned them. The fact that they existed, along with her father's advice, pushed her to put in for a transfer and come to the cabin. Jack made sure that they would have time alone after he gave her those letters so they could sort through the aftermath without an audience.
"And now you're waiting on the outcome?"
Jack gave her a knowing smile and hooked an index finger into a loop of her jeans, tugging lightly to bring her one step closer.
"It's working out pretty well for me so far. In fact, I'd call this mission a success already."
"I would too."
Sam wasn't really the type of woman to sleep with someone before the first date, but Jack O'Neill was the exception to so many of her other rules.
Don't fall for another man with a black ops background.
Don't fall for a co-worker.
Especially don't fall for your commanding officer.
What was another broken, useless rule to add to the pile?
The foundation they'd built together over the years was worth so much more than a handful of dates anyway.
"Let's go inside," Sam said, taking his hand. It felt warm in hers.
Jack nodded and followed her to the cabin. The door clicked shut behind them.
"Want to watch a movie or something?"
His thumb brushed the back of her hand.
Sam looked at him in surprise.
She realized that Jack always deferred to her when it came to their personal relationship. That was why he kept the letters to himself until she showed him that she might be receptive.
If she didn't want to go any further today, even after their confessions of love and the revelatory kisses they shared, Jack would follow her lead.
He would sit with her on the couch with his arm around her shoulder, cracking jokes about whatever movie was on TV. Sam knew it wouldn't change his opinion about the day being a success.
If she didn't already have her decision made, that would have clinched it for her.
She loved him and she was tired waiting.
"I don't want to watch a movie, Jack."
Some of what she was thinking must have shown in her face. He reached his free hand up to run his fingers through her hair, capturing a strand and turning it before letting it go.
"Board game, Sam? We've got Monopoly, Scrabble, Clue..."
He was teasing her now. She smiled and shook her head.
"No."
"Want to read more than just one and a half of those letters?"
Sam did want to read the rest of those letters, but there was something she wanted more.
"Some other time."
"Well then, Samantha, how do you want to spend the afternoon?"
Sam wasn't sure if Jack had ever called her that before, outside of one memorable hallucination, but there was something soft and intimate in the way he said the three-syllable version of her name.
"Making up for lost time."
Jack smiled against her lips when she kissed him and then followed her lead to the bedroom.
"You always have the best ideas, Carter."