Title: "Perfect Future"
Author: Jackie W.
Email:
Rating: PG-13
Hammond and the orthopedic surgeon arrived in a flurry several hours later to find Sam sound asleep. Dr. Stevens went off with Dr. Brightman to go over the x-rays and Hammond headed to his old office to find O'Neill. Dr. Jackson had been sitting with Sam and told him they had finally shooed Jack out once she'd fallen asleep again.
Jack was staring at some requisition forms on his desk trying to focus on them when Hammond knocked on the open door. He was relieved to see the man. Quite frankly an entire squadron of Jaffa could have walked through the gate at this point at Jack would have been oblivious. It was good to have someone here as backup.
"General, it's good to see you Sir," he said standing as the now three star general entered.
"You look like hell, Jack," George Hammond told the younger man. Motioning for him to sit.
"It's been a long two days," Jack acknowledged.
"How is she handling things?" Hammond asked.
"Frankly, she's so doped up at this point that I'm not sure how much she's comprehended. She knows it's bad, and she knows that she has a long road ahead of her. But she's Carter, and she's playing it pretty close to the vest so far," Jack sighed. The only signs she had given of how this was affecting her had been her request for him to stay while the doctor explained things and the death grip she'd had on his hand the whole time.
"Well, the Joint Chiefs and the President want to assure her that she will always have a job here at the SGC. And she is not to worry about medical care or how long she is unable to work. She will be taken care of," Hammond assured Jack. "In addition, I am authorized to temporarily relieve you whenever you think you need leave to help care for her," Hammond told him.
The first pieces of news were expected. He hadn't lied when he told Sam he wasn't the only one who realized how important she was to the planet. She was the Stargate expert, especially now that McKay was off to parts unknown. The last part of Hammond's statement gave him pause until he realized that chain of command was no longer a problem. Sam would be officially discharged from the Air Force, most likely by the end of the month.
He didn't know if the sudden tightening in his chest was due to excitement at the thought, or panic.
The first surgery went well and two days later Sam was ready to go home. Hammond had stayed in Colorado Springs visiting his family and checking on Sam's progress. Now he insisted that Jack take a few days off to help her to get settled. Knowing the base was in the best of hands, Jack agreed. Since the rest of SG1 was grounded until they could decide on a new team configuration, all three men were available to help Sam home.
When Hammond visited her before she left Sam couldn't resist rolling her eyes and asking him, "Are you sure you can spare all three of them, Sir? Maybe one or two of them are needed elsewhere for a few days?"
He chuckled and said, "They wouldn't go anywhere right now even if I ordered it, Colonel. You should know that."
Sam nodded and smiled. She was one lucky girl and she knew it. She was about to be pampered and fussed over by the three most eligible bachelors at the SGC. She hoped they all survived the experience.
.
As it turned out Sam was glad for all of the help. Her cast was unwieldy and the doctors had been most insistent about her staying off of her feet. Teal'c proved to be invaluable and possessed a saintly patience as he carted her from the couch to bed, and back during the day, and even into the bathroom when needed without making her blush. Daniel made sure that she had something other that pizza and take-out to eat, which would have been her choices if left to Jack's care.
The real surprise came the first time Sam tried to change clothes. Since none of her pants or sweats would fit over her cast she was trying to decide which ones to sacrifice to be cut up when Jack went out to his truck and brought back in a bag of cheap sweatpants one size bigger that Sam's norm.
"I thought these might come in handy," he said as he took scissors to the left leg of a pair. "You want them big so you can easily get them on and off over the cast," he pointed out. "Just pull the drawstring tight at the waist and they should be fine."
His thoughtfulness was a surprise, but then that was the General she thought. His actions always spoke louder than his words. The real shock came though when she had problems getting her fresh underwear on. The bra had been no problem and she was total dressed on top, but reaching down to get the panties on over her left foot was impossible. Her body just couldn't bend that far over the full-length cast when her knee was totally immobilized in a straight position. When Daniel finally yelled in through the door to see if she was ok, she paused for a moment and then asked if he could send in Jack. Making sure she was totally covered by a blanket, she had him come in and shut the door, then stammered out the problem. She wasn't sure which of them was redder, and she wished that Cassie was home from college or that Janet's ghost would magically appear to help her out.
To his credit, Jack didn't make any sarcastic remarks, just slid the garment over her feet and pushed it up to her knees where the blanket ended. Then he took the sweats from her and did the same with those. Once he was back out in the hallway the irony of the situation struck him. He'd had a lot of fantasies over the last seven years about removing Carter's clothes. Putting them on her had never been featured, yet had been strangely erotic.
'Not surprising Jack. You find Carter in BDU's erotic,' he thought with a shake of his head.
Meanwhile, back in the bedroom Sam had raised up her hips and shimmied the garments into place then laid back to catch her breath.
'Wow that had taken a lot of energy' she thought, then snorted. That so wasn't why she was breathing hard.
After a few days it was decided that the three men would take shifts at Sam's and return to work as much as possible. Jack took the evenings unless there was a crisis on base, and Daniel and Teal'c split the days. Sam devised a method of getting dressed after a couple of days of experimentation (and two frustrated calls out to Jack to rescue her). Hammond returned to Washington, and Sam's second surgery was set to take place in two weeks, when Cassie would be home for spring break. Immediately after that surgery Bray'tac sent a message requesting Teal'c's assistance and he went off for an unspecified period of time. Daniel was splitting his time between his lab and going out with teams that needed someone to translate. Jack was able to spend time with Sam almost every day, and they fell into the habit of having dinner together.
The good news was that after the second surgery they had shortened the cast and told Sam she could be bit more mobile which had improved her mood greatly. Jack was concerned therefore when he got her discharge papers. He hoped that making it official wasn't going to set her back again.
She knew as soon as he came through the front door that something was up, and he knew that she knew, so he didn't beat around the bush. He pulled out the papers and showed her where she needed to sign. She was surprised to find that she was having trouble keeping her hand steady. After he'd put the paperwork back in his briefcase he sat down next to her and gathered her into his arms.
"I'm so sorry," he whispered.
Sam let his arms comfort her, but slowly realized that her momentary grief was not what was keeping her from moving out of his embrace. Damn he smelled so good. She smiled into his shoulder. And as of a couple of minutes ago she could officially enjoy this without it being wrong. Her smile grew.
He must have noticed a change in her, be cause he pulled back slightly and was surprised to see her with a goofy grin on her face. Then he looked into her eyes and felt his own grin growing. She buried her face back in his shoulder with a chuckle.
"Hey, are you laughing at me?" he complained.
"At us. I'm laughing at us, Jack," she told him, and he felt warm in all the right places at the sound of his name. She looked up at him and shook her head. She still felt that her future needed to unfold naturally but it couldn't hurt to give it a nudge in the right direction.
So she leaned forward and kissed him.
It took a minute for him to react, and then Sam Carter was in for the ride of her life. Good lord. If she'd know the man could kiss like that she never would have made it through the first year on SG1. Hell she'd have resigned that first day in the briefing room and thrown herself into his arms right then and there. She had a brief fleeting thought of how shocked Hammond would have been by that before she lost the ability to think at all as Jack's hand found their way under her top.
They came up for air eventually, both looking slightly dazed. Sam's first coherent thought was that that had been one powerful nudge. Then Jack was kissing her again and she had much better things to think about.
She woke in the morning slowly, relishing the feel of the arms wrapped around her, the solid weight of a hand resting on her ribcage just below he breasts, and the strong legs intertwined with hers. Best of all was the rhythmic breathing against her neck and signs of Jack's arousal that she felt pressed against her back.
'Please don't let it be a dream this time,' she thought as she struggled to open her eyes. She felt Jack's breathing change as she did so, and turned carefully in his arms to face him, keeping her casted leg out of the way as much as possible. Sleepy blue eyes met sleepy brown ones.
"So. Not a dream," Jack sighed echoing Sam's previous thoughts.
"If it is, don't wake me up this time," Sam murmured burying her face in his neck and pressing her lips against his skin, loving the smell and taste of him.
"Was this what you were dreaming about?" he asked curiously.
"Maybe I shouldn't say. I wouldn't want to influence anything," she replied with a frown..
"Why not?" he asked with a raised eyebrow. Then he sighed. "Fine, I'll tell you some of my dreams and you can see if they fit in with yours," he proposed, as one hand began to trace a path down her body. "First off, there is a lot of nakedness," he confessed, earning him a soft punch in the arm. "Oh like there isn't any in your dream," he accused.
Sam had to give him that one. "Definite nakedness," she confessed blushing.
"Then there is fishing," he continued.
"Real fishing?" she asked skeptically.
Jack looked sheepish. "No that one pretty much always involves nakedness too," he admitted and Sam gave a satisfied smirk. She'd always known they'd never actually fish if they went to his cabin.
"I'm sensing a theme here," she teased.
"Then there is the one with you in a white dress and Jacob walking you down the aisle," he added watching her carefully. To his relief she smiled and nodded and he could swear there were suddenly tears in her eyes. "Of course that one ends up with us on our wedding night and honeymoon and a lot more nakedness," he grinned. "Did I miss anything?"
She almost said no, but there really was one more thing to make it a perfect future and she needed to know that he wanted it too.
"Well, my dream actually took place after the nakedness and fishing and white dress and more nakedness," she told him, "so there was one more thing. Actually two more." She took a deep breath. "Mine included a daughter and another baby on the way."
Jack's heart swelled. He hadn't dared to dream that for himself but it was something he was open to as long as Sam was the mother of those children. He knew she was watching for his reaction now as anxiously as he had watched for hers when he mentioned marriage. "Just two kids?" he asked meeting her eyes with a twinkle in his.
She smiled her megawatt smile. "That's as far into the future as I saw. After that who knows?" she offered.
"I guess after that we'll just have to make it up as we go along," he suggested.
"That sounds perfect," she whispered.
The End
Author: Jackie W.
Email:
Rating: PG-13
Hammond and the orthopedic surgeon arrived in a flurry several hours later to find Sam sound asleep. Dr. Stevens went off with Dr. Brightman to go over the x-rays and Hammond headed to his old office to find O'Neill. Dr. Jackson had been sitting with Sam and told him they had finally shooed Jack out once she'd fallen asleep again.
Jack was staring at some requisition forms on his desk trying to focus on them when Hammond knocked on the open door. He was relieved to see the man. Quite frankly an entire squadron of Jaffa could have walked through the gate at this point at Jack would have been oblivious. It was good to have someone here as backup.
"General, it's good to see you Sir," he said standing as the now three star general entered.
"You look like hell, Jack," George Hammond told the younger man. Motioning for him to sit.
"It's been a long two days," Jack acknowledged.
"How is she handling things?" Hammond asked.
"Frankly, she's so doped up at this point that I'm not sure how much she's comprehended. She knows it's bad, and she knows that she has a long road ahead of her. But she's Carter, and she's playing it pretty close to the vest so far," Jack sighed. The only signs she had given of how this was affecting her had been her request for him to stay while the doctor explained things and the death grip she'd had on his hand the whole time.
"Well, the Joint Chiefs and the President want to assure her that she will always have a job here at the SGC. And she is not to worry about medical care or how long she is unable to work. She will be taken care of," Hammond assured Jack. "In addition, I am authorized to temporarily relieve you whenever you think you need leave to help care for her," Hammond told him.
The first pieces of news were expected. He hadn't lied when he told Sam he wasn't the only one who realized how important she was to the planet. She was the Stargate expert, especially now that McKay was off to parts unknown. The last part of Hammond's statement gave him pause until he realized that chain of command was no longer a problem. Sam would be officially discharged from the Air Force, most likely by the end of the month.
He didn't know if the sudden tightening in his chest was due to excitement at the thought, or panic.
The first surgery went well and two days later Sam was ready to go home. Hammond had stayed in Colorado Springs visiting his family and checking on Sam's progress. Now he insisted that Jack take a few days off to help her to get settled. Knowing the base was in the best of hands, Jack agreed. Since the rest of SG1 was grounded until they could decide on a new team configuration, all three men were available to help Sam home.
When Hammond visited her before she left Sam couldn't resist rolling her eyes and asking him, "Are you sure you can spare all three of them, Sir? Maybe one or two of them are needed elsewhere for a few days?"
He chuckled and said, "They wouldn't go anywhere right now even if I ordered it, Colonel. You should know that."
Sam nodded and smiled. She was one lucky girl and she knew it. She was about to be pampered and fussed over by the three most eligible bachelors at the SGC. She hoped they all survived the experience.
.
As it turned out Sam was glad for all of the help. Her cast was unwieldy and the doctors had been most insistent about her staying off of her feet. Teal'c proved to be invaluable and possessed a saintly patience as he carted her from the couch to bed, and back during the day, and even into the bathroom when needed without making her blush. Daniel made sure that she had something other that pizza and take-out to eat, which would have been her choices if left to Jack's care.
The real surprise came the first time Sam tried to change clothes. Since none of her pants or sweats would fit over her cast she was trying to decide which ones to sacrifice to be cut up when Jack went out to his truck and brought back in a bag of cheap sweatpants one size bigger that Sam's norm.
"I thought these might come in handy," he said as he took scissors to the left leg of a pair. "You want them big so you can easily get them on and off over the cast," he pointed out. "Just pull the drawstring tight at the waist and they should be fine."
His thoughtfulness was a surprise, but then that was the General she thought. His actions always spoke louder than his words. The real shock came though when she had problems getting her fresh underwear on. The bra had been no problem and she was total dressed on top, but reaching down to get the panties on over her left foot was impossible. Her body just couldn't bend that far over the full-length cast when her knee was totally immobilized in a straight position. When Daniel finally yelled in through the door to see if she was ok, she paused for a moment and then asked if he could send in Jack. Making sure she was totally covered by a blanket, she had him come in and shut the door, then stammered out the problem. She wasn't sure which of them was redder, and she wished that Cassie was home from college or that Janet's ghost would magically appear to help her out.
To his credit, Jack didn't make any sarcastic remarks, just slid the garment over her feet and pushed it up to her knees where the blanket ended. Then he took the sweats from her and did the same with those. Once he was back out in the hallway the irony of the situation struck him. He'd had a lot of fantasies over the last seven years about removing Carter's clothes. Putting them on her had never been featured, yet had been strangely erotic.
'Not surprising Jack. You find Carter in BDU's erotic,' he thought with a shake of his head.
Meanwhile, back in the bedroom Sam had raised up her hips and shimmied the garments into place then laid back to catch her breath.
'Wow that had taken a lot of energy' she thought, then snorted. That so wasn't why she was breathing hard.
After a few days it was decided that the three men would take shifts at Sam's and return to work as much as possible. Jack took the evenings unless there was a crisis on base, and Daniel and Teal'c split the days. Sam devised a method of getting dressed after a couple of days of experimentation (and two frustrated calls out to Jack to rescue her). Hammond returned to Washington, and Sam's second surgery was set to take place in two weeks, when Cassie would be home for spring break. Immediately after that surgery Bray'tac sent a message requesting Teal'c's assistance and he went off for an unspecified period of time. Daniel was splitting his time between his lab and going out with teams that needed someone to translate. Jack was able to spend time with Sam almost every day, and they fell into the habit of having dinner together.
The good news was that after the second surgery they had shortened the cast and told Sam she could be bit more mobile which had improved her mood greatly. Jack was concerned therefore when he got her discharge papers. He hoped that making it official wasn't going to set her back again.
She knew as soon as he came through the front door that something was up, and he knew that she knew, so he didn't beat around the bush. He pulled out the papers and showed her where she needed to sign. She was surprised to find that she was having trouble keeping her hand steady. After he'd put the paperwork back in his briefcase he sat down next to her and gathered her into his arms.
"I'm so sorry," he whispered.
Sam let his arms comfort her, but slowly realized that her momentary grief was not what was keeping her from moving out of his embrace. Damn he smelled so good. She smiled into his shoulder. And as of a couple of minutes ago she could officially enjoy this without it being wrong. Her smile grew.
He must have noticed a change in her, be cause he pulled back slightly and was surprised to see her with a goofy grin on her face. Then he looked into her eyes and felt his own grin growing. She buried her face back in his shoulder with a chuckle.
"Hey, are you laughing at me?" he complained.
"At us. I'm laughing at us, Jack," she told him, and he felt warm in all the right places at the sound of his name. She looked up at him and shook her head. She still felt that her future needed to unfold naturally but it couldn't hurt to give it a nudge in the right direction.
So she leaned forward and kissed him.
It took a minute for him to react, and then Sam Carter was in for the ride of her life. Good lord. If she'd know the man could kiss like that she never would have made it through the first year on SG1. Hell she'd have resigned that first day in the briefing room and thrown herself into his arms right then and there. She had a brief fleeting thought of how shocked Hammond would have been by that before she lost the ability to think at all as Jack's hand found their way under her top.
They came up for air eventually, both looking slightly dazed. Sam's first coherent thought was that that had been one powerful nudge. Then Jack was kissing her again and she had much better things to think about.
She woke in the morning slowly, relishing the feel of the arms wrapped around her, the solid weight of a hand resting on her ribcage just below he breasts, and the strong legs intertwined with hers. Best of all was the rhythmic breathing against her neck and signs of Jack's arousal that she felt pressed against her back.
'Please don't let it be a dream this time,' she thought as she struggled to open her eyes. She felt Jack's breathing change as she did so, and turned carefully in his arms to face him, keeping her casted leg out of the way as much as possible. Sleepy blue eyes met sleepy brown ones.
"So. Not a dream," Jack sighed echoing Sam's previous thoughts.
"If it is, don't wake me up this time," Sam murmured burying her face in his neck and pressing her lips against his skin, loving the smell and taste of him.
"Was this what you were dreaming about?" he asked curiously.
"Maybe I shouldn't say. I wouldn't want to influence anything," she replied with a frown..
"Why not?" he asked with a raised eyebrow. Then he sighed. "Fine, I'll tell you some of my dreams and you can see if they fit in with yours," he proposed, as one hand began to trace a path down her body. "First off, there is a lot of nakedness," he confessed, earning him a soft punch in the arm. "Oh like there isn't any in your dream," he accused.
Sam had to give him that one. "Definite nakedness," she confessed blushing.
"Then there is fishing," he continued.
"Real fishing?" she asked skeptically.
Jack looked sheepish. "No that one pretty much always involves nakedness too," he admitted and Sam gave a satisfied smirk. She'd always known they'd never actually fish if they went to his cabin.
"I'm sensing a theme here," she teased.
"Then there is the one with you in a white dress and Jacob walking you down the aisle," he added watching her carefully. To his relief she smiled and nodded and he could swear there were suddenly tears in her eyes. "Of course that one ends up with us on our wedding night and honeymoon and a lot more nakedness," he grinned. "Did I miss anything?"
She almost said no, but there really was one more thing to make it a perfect future and she needed to know that he wanted it too.
"Well, my dream actually took place after the nakedness and fishing and white dress and more nakedness," she told him, "so there was one more thing. Actually two more." She took a deep breath. "Mine included a daughter and another baby on the way."
Jack's heart swelled. He hadn't dared to dream that for himself but it was something he was open to as long as Sam was the mother of those children. He knew she was watching for his reaction now as anxiously as he had watched for hers when he mentioned marriage. "Just two kids?" he asked meeting her eyes with a twinkle in his.
She smiled her megawatt smile. "That's as far into the future as I saw. After that who knows?" she offered.
"I guess after that we'll just have to make it up as we go along," he suggested.
"That sounds perfect," she whispered.
The End