What do I have to do to prove my love for you?
Gater101
She lay in bed staring unseeing at the ceiling. Jack had left to go the base – she glanced at the clock: 7.02 – thirty two minutes ago. She knew she should get up but no amount of self-will would move her.
She had told him in no uncertain terms that she would not be the other woman. And for the past three weeks that is exactly what she had been. It was strange though – almost every night that SG-1 was not offworld over the past three weeks, Jack had stayed at hers. She could count on the one hand the number of times she had slept alone and each of those times was for work related reasons: being knocked up in the infirmary; working through the night and then crashing out on her lab top; Jack being rudely awakened at 12.30 and ordered into the SGC by Hammond.
Not once had Jack been with Angela. He had been home to his house a few times to collect fresh clothes and male necessities: non-floral scented shampoo and non-feminine smelling deodorant.
Sam rolled over so she lay in the centre of the large bed with her head leaning into Jack's pillow. She smiled. It was fitting that she and him preferred opposite sides if the bed: him to the left, her to the right. She sniffed and her nose was filled with Jack: no one scent that she could pick out, it was just the many different smells that added up and created the Jack O'Neill smell she knew and loved.
Deciding it was time to get dressed, Sam threw back the covers and moved into the en-suite bathroom. She growled in frustration at the sight that greeted her: the Jack-O'Neill-morning-mess. His shaver was left lying in the bottom of the white sink, his toothbrush lying discarded on the shelf, his used wet towel hanging limply over the door. She groaned: this man has spent too long living alone.
She grabbed up his razor and ran cold water over the blade and saw the shavings dripping down the drain. She shook her head, half amused by his laziness, half annoyed by it. She clipped the razor onto the holder for it on the wall and then picked up the toothbrush and rinsed that too – just for good measure. She turned and plucked the towel from over the door and briefly held it to her nose before throwing it in to the laundry basket less than a foot away.
She then showered and dried herself, cleaned her teeth and ran her fingers through her towel dry hair. She was dressed and out the door for 7.45 and had pulled into the base carp park at 8.17. She smiled as she drew up next to Jack's big black truck.
Ten minutes later, Sam was in Hammond's office staring in wonder at the distraught man across from her.
"I don't think I should be the person to tell you this, Major, but Jack is off base as of…" he glanced at his watch "…seven minutes ago."
Sam frowned; she had just pulled in next to his truck ten minutes before and had not sighted him on her journey into the deep bowels of the SGC.
"Sir, what happened?" She asked quietly, fearing the worst.
"Major… Colonel O'Neill's house suffered a massive fire last night, there really isn't much left of it. The fire department is calling it arson. There was evidence of petrol bombs." Hammond interrupted Sam's interruption and continued. "I'm aware that is the same method used to burn your house, Major, and the appropriate authorities have been notified. However, that's not all." Hammond paused and he looked down to his hands, which were clasped tightly on the oak tabletop. He cleared his throat before continuing. "There was a body found near the main entrance to the house. It's suspected to be Angela."
Sam didn't say anything; instead she chose to allow the silence to say all that needed to be said.
"Colonel O'Neill has gone to identify the body, it wasn't too badly burned, magnificently," Hammond continued and Sam's mouth dropped open.
"Oh God," she muttered and looked down.
Jack had enough nightmares as it was; he didn't need to add the charred body of his wife to the long list. Sam closed her eyes and felt her throat begin to close up. Despite everything, Angela was still Jack's wife and Sam was simply the other woman who had come between them. She blinked back her tears and looked to the bald, Texan General.
His expression was almost unreadable but the small flicker of his greying eyes betrayed his impassive face. There was a steady silence where Sam could see the General's internal fight with himself.
He coughed to clear his throat and ducked his head slightly before speaking, his gravely voice echoing around the room was that was filled with an assortment of books and pictures.
"Sam – before Jack left, he and I had a little talk – nothing big, just a talk. He told me a few things about his relationship with Angela. I know it isn't my place to be telling you this but…" the older man trailed off.
"You will anyway?" Sam's voice sounded distant to her ears, as though the air were eating her words before they could go far.
She held the General's intense blue gaze until he grunted and his eyes slid easily away from hers.
"Something like that," he continued and Sam smiled at him slightly. "He told me that his situation with Miss Trungsten has changed somewhat."
The fact that he had called Angela Miss Trungsten did not go amiss by Sam and she frowned.
"Jack and Angela never consummated their marriage-"
"General Hammond, Sir! I'm not entirely sure I want to hear this!" Sam interrupted vehemently and stared wide-eyed and incredulous at the General.
Sam's stomach rolled within her body and she froze her jaw in place so as not to say anything that she would most definitely regret.
"Jack applied for an annulment to his marriage with Angela a fortnight ago, Major. She ranted and raged for a few… days, before she finally relented. Angela Trungsten is no more Jack O'Neill's wife than you are mine," Hammond told Sam, who sat dumbfounded.
Why hadn't her told her? Why hadn't he felt the need to inform her of this drastic lifestyle change? And why was Hammond telling her this?
She tilted her body forward in the chair and leaned heavily on the arms the leather chair, her gaze fixed on the model of the new X-302. She pursed her lips a few times and attempted to speak but failed.
She turned her gaze towards the important man wearing a short-sleeved shirt and shrugged.
"I don't know what to say, Sir," she finally managed through her tight throat.
She could once again feel the burn of tears at the corners of her eyes and she blinked furiously.
"I thought you might know best what to do with this information, Major," Hammond's voice washed over her in a comforting wave and she breathed in deeply. "You're dismissed," he informed her quietly after another long silence.
Sam rose slowly from her chair and began walking towards the door when Hammond's voice cut through her fog marred brain.
"I'd like my pen back, if you please, Major," his tone was mocking.
Sam looked down to her hands to where the General had pointed and she felt a deep blush creep across her cheeks. She retraced her steps and placed the pen on the desk, where she had unwittingly plucked it up.
"Jack teach you that in 'How-to-act-in-front-of-Hammond' class, Major?" Hammond teased and Sam's blush roared to her hairline.
Could he know? But considering her actions of late, Sam wondered how the whole base didn't know. She smiled slightly, turning up the corners of her mouth a millimetre or two only and left the General's suddenly stifling office.
When she reached her lab, Sam found she had greeted what felt like half the base and her 'IN' tray full with at least seven reports she would have to read and she knew that she had about the same to write.
She groaned and as she slunk into her chair. She raked a hand through her short blond hair and ground her knuckles into her eyes. She couldn't believe Jack hadn't told her that his marriage to Angela was now invalid. She couldn't believe that he had slept in the same bed as her for a fortnight and let her believe that he was cheating with her. She could feel her anger bubbling up and she breathed deeply in attempts to calm herself.
Her eyes wandered to the pile of reports on her desk and she yanked the first one off and opened it, deciding this was the only way she would be able to prise Jack O'Neill from her mind.
When Sam worked, the first thing that happened was that she lost track of time, so when Jonas bounded (grinning) around the corner asking her if she wanted lunch, she was surprised to find that almost five hours had passed since she sat down and it was 1330 hours.
In the commissary she seated herself at a table with Jonas and Teal'c's mounded trays, Janet's coffee and banana and her own blue jell-o. She noticed herself continually glancing to her diagonal left to the empty seat Jack normally occupied with his red jell-o.
She laughed with the group at something she didn't think she had heard. She noted that none of the three mentioned Jack's absence, which meant that they knew exactly what was happening.
After an hour, Sam was back in her lab typing up her second report. Her mind was racing but she forced herself to continue working and soon found herself being torn from her typing by the shrill of the telephone.
She looked to her laptop and found she had almost completed her seventh report then looked at the clock in the bottom right hand corner: 9.27
The phone shrieked again and she grabbed it up.
"Carter," she almost barked to the intruder.
"Sam," it was Jack. "Come home please?" he pleaded and Sam found her resolve crumbling as she heard the desperation in his voice.
"Sure," she whispered before hanging up.
She closed up her lab and grabbed her long winter coat from the cupboard to the right of the door and threw it on. It fell to her ankles, the black exterior contrasting with the light colour of the sheepskin inside.
She walked out of her lab, towards the surface and towards the chill February air. She reached the surface and signed out before moving across the glacial path to her car.
'Come home," he'd said and Sam smiled slightly. She looked at the road ahead of her and hoped the authorities had gritted the roads or she wouldn't be able to make it… home.
What do I have to do
To prove my love for you?
What do I have to do
To prove my love for you?
I gave you my love
I gave you no less
If you want to, babe, you know
I'll give you the rest
Now tell me what do I have to do
To prove my love for you
What do I have to do
To prove my love for you?
Oh what do I have to do
To prove my love for you?
I gave you my love
I gave you the best
Go all the way if you know
I'll give you the rest
Now tell me what do I have to do
To prove my love for you
What do I have to say
To make you come back and stay
What do I have to say
To make you come back and stay
You gave me nothin'
but heartache and pain
You're keeping me
in all kinds of strain
Now tell me what do I have to do
To prove my love for you?
What do I have to ???
To make you know I'm going straight?
What do I have to ???
To make you know I'm going straight?
I won't even speak
To no one else
Sometimes I think
I'm gonna kill myself
Now tell me what do I have to do
I'm gonna prove my love to you!