Chapter 2 – Near Misses

Elapsed time on board (ETOB): LD-13. Elapsed time at origin (ETAO): LD-13

"Sam, get over here now if you want to do this." Sarah Jackson's urgent voice had come over the phone. With the words repeating themselves over and over in her mind, Lieutenant Colonel Carter fumed at the idiot who had pulled out from a parking space only to be hit by an oncoming car, blocking the road and causing the traffic to back up several streets back.

A momentary wish that no-one might have been seriously hurt in the accident was quickly overcome by a white fury at the situation, at the traffic cop who was holding them there, at why she had chosen to take her car and not her motor bike, at Jack O'Neill for disappearing from the SGC without so much as a goodbye, and at herself for absenting herself from his life these last three years. So as soon as a small gap opened up when the car ahead edged forward, she caused heads to turn and car horns to blare as she slammed the accelerator to the floor and executed a near-perfect one hundred and eighty degree, wheel-spinning, skidding U-turn almost within the car's own length. Almost, because the flower border of the garden opposite would not be in bloom alongside that of the neighbouring house: she ploughed up most of it as the car fish-tailed slightly before she sped off in the opposite direction. A citation and a fine were on the cards if anyone caught her number, but she could sense that many other drivers were just watching in envy. It was of little importance anyway compared to the urgency of getting to the Jackson's house before he could escape.

Cutting through back streets and avoiding the downtown intersections that she knew would be congested, she forced herself to slow down just enough to avoid being stopped by any patrol cops, and nearly twenty minutes had passed before she turned into their street. As she approached, she saw Jack getting into a small red saloon in the driveway, with Sarah and Daniel apparently arguing with him. Sarah suddenly walked round to the front of his car and sat on the hood, but despite this Jack still started the engine. Sam responded by accelerating hard and coming to an abrupt, tyre- skidding halt across the sidewalk and into the drive right in front of them, blocking his path and causing all heads to turn her way.

Sarah beamed at her as she got out of the car, and Daniel looked more relieved than anything, but her focus was on the figure behind the wheel, who stared back at her for seconds before closing his eyes and allowing his head to slump forwards. His unseen hand turned off the ignition. Fired by the anxiety and adrenalin of her journey here, Sam stomped up to the open driver's door.

"So, running away again?" she said icily. Jack looked back at her with a steady gaze, his face expressionless. "What the hell do think you're doing, Sir?" The irony of the way she had just addressed him, in total contrast to their situation at so many levels, was not lost on the Jacksons.

"Your car is blocking my way, Colonel." replied Jack coolly, as though he were making a casual observation about something almost abstract in nature. It only caused Sam to become angry instead of just fired up.

"Why can't you face up to me?" she stormed at him. "You slink away twice from me like some chickenshit thief in the night. And were you coming over to see me before you disappear from all our lives? Like hell you were!"

"You're still blocking my way." retorted Jack, a little less calmly.

"You're damned right I am!" cried Sam, pulling at the neck of her shirt and dramatically dropping the car keys down her chest. "You get out of that car right now, O'Neill! Tell me why you're doing this?"

"Sam!" Sarah interrupted. "This isn't the way......"

Sam glared at her. "Tell me why this asshole won't talk to me!" she practically shouted. "What have I done to......?"

"Nor the place." said Daniel firmly, cutting off her flow of invective. "Both of you come inside right now. We kind of like our neighbours, and this isn't fair on them."

Sam looked shocked, suddenly realising that she had been too highly focussed for the last few moments. She stood still until Jack heaved a sigh and started to get out of the car, when she set off towards their open front door. He swung the car door shut with a little more force than was necessary and followed. Sarah and Daniel exchanged 'raised eyebrow'' looks as they completed the retreat.

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The words 'knife' and 'atmosphere' came to mind as Sarah, unasked but with fine anticipation walked through from her kitchen with two open bottles of beer, placing one in front each combatant where they sat at opposite ends of a low glass-topped coffee table, she in the armchair and he at the end of the sofa. Jack lifted his up and took a sip, then proceeded to pick idly at the edges of the label, while Sam took a surprisingly deep gulp from hers and replaced it on the table.

"So?" said Sam, eyeing him with a look that many men in Cheyenne Mountain fantasised about.

"So?" he repeated, staring back still with a granite set to his jaw.

Sam closed her eyes momentarily and changed her expression to a hard glare. "Before we get on to this latest episode, just tell me why you resigned from the SGC and disappeared. Leaving me to face a disciplinary hearing into what happened on Marabess. That hurt, Jack."

"I had my reasons." he replied gruffly. "They're not important now."

"Jack, if you don't tell her, I will." said Daniel from where he stood behind the sofa. "Military secret or not. And Sam, that hearing was a front in the search for a scapegoat, not a real investigation."

"You knew?" asked Sam. "Why didn't you tell me, Daniel?"

"Because I asked him not to." said Jack firmly. "Daniel, I....."

"Jack changed the records to indicate that he had sent your party on a 'search and destroy' mission instead of 'armed reconnaissance'." Daniel continued, his firm tone taking the agenda away from Jack. "Washington wanted somebody's head for the killing of the chief of a potential ally, and you were lined up for it, Sam, since you were leading the section that got into the fire fight."

"That's enough, Daniel!" Jack retorted, staring hard at his friend. Sam sat back in shock.

"Jack, you're going away from us all forever, however stupid a decision that may be." said Daniel. "So there's not a reason on God's Earth why the truth shouldn't be told." He turned back to Sam. "Sure, Sam. You would have been busted for exceeding your orders and acting recklessly if he hadn't taken the fall. They wanted his resignation and a hush-up as the best solution. You may never get promoted beyond your present rank, but at least you're still doing the job you love."

Jack sat red-faced, the bottle label suddenly becoming an object of fascination. A steady, glutinous silence settled in, broken by Sarah.

"Daniel, let's go for a walk." she said, leaving no doubt that it was an instruction. "About two hours would be good, I believe." She dragged him away and moments later, the front door closed behind them.

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One part of Sam was fuming: the other was confused and hurt. She swallowed before speaking, as it appeared that Jack was not going to break the ice.

"Was I such a poor officer that you had to fight my battles for me?" she asked. "Or did you do this kind of thing for all the men and women on your staff?"

"I did it for the good of the SGC." said Jack, in a voice that sounded sincere. "You heard Daniel. Someone was going to take the fall for that mission that didn't go according to plan. Better me than someone with years of service ahead."

"And that was the only reason, right?" she retorted.

"I stopped lying to myself about that a while back." Jack said calmly, much to her surprise.

"And?"

"No, it wasn't the only reason, Carter, as you well know. You'd changed, I hadn't. But I accepted a long time ago that you'd moved on and that's that. You made me remember how a superior officer should act towards a subordinate and that's what I got back to doing." His voice remained gentle: he was making a statement, not a plea. "I was wrong in ever admitting my feelings for you, but it was that or get our brains fried by Anise's machine way back when. Will you move your car out of the way now?"

His iron grip on concealing an outward show of emotion was as strong as ever, and Sam winced. She recognised that facing him down over his reasons for protecting her was the wrong tack to take, and that it had no bearing on the future. If there was to be one.

"I haven't changed as much as you think, Jack." she said in a softer voice. He snorted in derision, and that hurt her. "I know what you think about me going off with Pete, but you said that you'd always be there for me, no matter what."

"I don't recall ever telling you any such thing." he replied in amazement. "If you had the slightest idea what I thought, you would never have done it before telling me that you wanted to move on, and that you didn't care any more. You just went off and started living with the guy. But that's OK. You didn't owe me anything, and I should have expected...... Do you know what it's like to feel empty? Do you? Because that's all I've known since, Carter." Sam closed her eyes as the bitterness he was trying to quell almost rose to the surface, and the rush of blood she was feeling rang in her ears.

Jack got up and started pacing around the room, while Sam sat in stunned silence as he carried on speaking. "Since Daniel says it's a time for truth, then you should know this. I realised a few months back that if I couldn't find something to do to fill the hole that you'd left in my life, I'd find it difficult to do anything at all. When I did that little dance with the records to get the hounds off your back, it was an opportunity. And yes, I did do it for the good of the SGC as much as for you. It wasn't your fault those natives attacked first and got themselves shot in the process, but that wasn't on Washington's agenda and somebody was going down for it." He stopped and looked out of the window, his hands deep in his pockets. "And then I did get lucky, for once. I was no sooner out of the Air Force when some insurance company came out of the blue and offered me this mission with Stevens. It took me all of five minutes to make up my mind about that one. I'm sold up, signed on and ready to go. Running away? Call it that if you like, I don't care. You can show me the junior Shanahans graduating from college in twenty years time if you like. I really have no idea why you're here at all, and that's the truth. What more do you want from me, Sam? 'Cos I'm pretty sure that I've nothing left to give. You seem to think I'm made of stone: I just wish to God that I was."

Still aghast at his revelations, she managed to utter "I volunteered for that mission myself a few months ago, and they turned me down. Doesn't that tell you something about the state of my life as well?"

"Well, I'm sorry if things aren't going too well for you. But you're young enough to start over with Pete or somebody else." He paused and stared hard at her, his eyes as dark as coal amid an expression of the deepest despair. "Time to move your car now. Goodbye, Sam, means goodbye. Not au revoir or other euphemisms. I'm just not strong enough to be there for you to put me through more of this. I'm so sorry."

He was surprised to see her shoulders start to shake, and not just one or two, but a stream of tears shone on her cheeks and fell in a steady rain of droplets from her jaw line. She uttered a single word, barely audible through the sobs that had started. "Jack."

Involuntarily, he stepped forward to comfort her without realising that he had moved. Instantly she leapt out of the armchair and threw her arms around his neck, pressing her face into his shoulder. Driven by a force as old as humanity, he hugged her to himself without thinking about what was right or wrong, or what he'd said only moments before. Within seconds, or perhaps it was minutes – only a fool would keep track – his lips were pressing on hers and their almost frantic hand movements were covering parts of each other that both had only dreamed about in years gone by.

Her car keys clattered to the floor as he pulled the hem of her shirt from her waistband, while she was simultaneously tugging at his shirt buttons. For the first time in her life, Sam was seriously out of control, overwhelmed by longing and the illogical but irresistible desire to consummate their love right there and then. Guttural sounds issued from her throat past his lips, and his hands were making short work of undoing any buttons or fastenings that he came across.

They paused suddenly in shock at the sound of raised voices just outside the door, and Sam breathed "Oh, God! What are we doing?" between gasps. She stepped back from him just as the door opened and Sarah walked in backwards.

"And I'm telling you, Pete, that you really don't want to come in here now!" she said loudly, and scuffles were heard from outside.

"That's Sam's car out front!" yelled Pete Shanahan. "I demand to see her! Just get out of my friggin' way!" He burst into the hallway, having shoved Daniel aside into the flower beds. His first sight was of Sam standing in shock, her clothes out of place and tear tracks down her cheeks. Without hesitation, he launched himself at Jack, taking him by surprise as he jumped onto the coffee table at a run and took him down with a tackle that would have made a linebacker proud. Jack fell back onto the sofa under the onslaught, winded by the impact of the well-built man some seventeen years his junior.

Pete half-landed a haymaker against the side of Jack's head, grunting swear words in a furious attack. He was brought up short by Jack's knee in his groin and the surprisingly strong grip of Sarah Jackson pulling him off by his hair. By herself, she was no match for him, but Daniel quickly added his own weight to subduing the irate would-be lover.

"You bastard, O'Neill! I'll have you for this!" shouted Pete. He suddenly subsided, and looked round for Sam but she had fled to the bedroom in shock, her first desire being to cover herself up again. "Hold him there!" he mouthed at Daniel and Sarah. "I'm arresting him......"

"Like hell you are!" yelled Sarah. "Daniel and I will swear that you made an unprovoked attack on him. Now calm down!"

He shrugged the pair of them off, and headed towards the bedroom, while the Jacksons turned their attention to Jack, who was sitting up on the sofa, nursing a red welt on his left cheek. He was trying to listen to the sounds of the conversation in the bedroom as his friends fussed over him. The exchange that was more audible than the rest, that shook him to the core, was unmistakable.

"Sam! I came here to tell you that I can't live without you!" came the policeman's voice. "Marry me, Sam! Marry me."

"Pete, you should have asked me three or four months back." was all they caught of Sam's voice before the conversation quietened down again.

Jack bent forward, picked up Sam's car keys and stood up. He placed his hand on Daniel's arm and smiled grimly at him.

"G'bye, old friend." murmured Jack. "I think we both know what's best here, don't you?" He turned to Sarah and nodded. "You're great for him, Sarah. I hope he tells you that."

"Jack, don't....." she started to say, but stopped at his gently raised finger.

The voices from the bedroom rose and fell as he quietly left, his two great friends shocked to silence in the empty room.

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