Christmas 2005
Sam woke up with a start, shaking the last of the dream away. 'Wow, I wonder what I ate to make me dream of that horrid Christmas a year ago,' she thought with a grimace.
She looked at the clock – 02:12. Something had woken her up. She turned and looked at the side of the bed where a warm body should be. Empty. With a frown she wiped the sleep from her eyes and reached for her robe and slippers. It didn't take a genius to know where her husband would be at this time of night. She crept across the hall and slowly opened the door and then stood drinking in the sight before her. If she had just woken from a Christmas nightmare, in front of her was her Christmas dream come true. Jack was sitting in the rocker giving a bottle to their six-day-old baby daughter, while humming some tune that only the two of them could make out. She watched him in silence as she remembered everything that had come after her admission to Teal'c.
Teal'c had simply nodded without a hint of censure and slipped away. Ten minutes later Jack was there, and Sam had simply folded in his presence like a balloon that had suddenly sprung a leak. Jack's arms were the only thing that had kept her from collapsing onto the floor in a puddle. The tears had come instantly. Everything she had been holding inside, some of it for years came flooding out. Jack didn't understand most of what she said as she sobbed, but he had gotten the general idea. Muddled into worries about her father and missing Janet and being tired of saving the world there had been two pertinent pieces of information. She had broken up with Pete, and she loved Jack. That had been enough for him.
Despite the security cameras he'd held her until she'd worn herself out. He didn't even blink when her brother came back in and found his sister wrapped in the General's arms, or when Jacob woke later to find Sam asleep in the bed next to him and Jack hovering protectively. Nor did he budge when he called Hammond to tell him of his decision to resign. He had to admit to being relieved when the President called him back with a compromise though.
Six days later, after Sam had officially ended it with Pete and her father had left the infirmary and Mark had gone back home, Jack had announced that he was officially retiring, but staying on as the civilian head of the SGC. His first order of business had been to have a long private talk with Jacob Carter. His second had been to kiss Sam at midnight on New Year's Eve.
They spent the next month getting used to the idea that after eight years it was finally alright for them to admit to the feelings they shared, and another month having sex like they were eighteen again. Then one day Jack simply asked her what type of wedding she wanted, and two weeks later they were married in a simple ceremony in the gate room, and then having wrangled four days of downtime they headed to a friends condo in Vail for a short honeymoon.
Sam's pregnancy had been a surprise, but after the shock wore off they had both been positively beaming with joy, tempered with more than the normal concerns for a healthy pregnancy. But other than the trace of naquada in her bloodstream, Grace Emily O'Neill was perfectly normal.
As Sam stood and watched something alerted Jack to her presence and he looked up and smiled. "I didn't want to wake you," he apologized.
"I was having the oddest dream, reliving last Christmas. I'm glad I woke up," she confessed.
"That was a tough one," he agreed.
"But it ended well," she said with a fleeting smile.
"If I remember correctly, it ended with you sobbing your eyes out," Jack reminded her.
"But I was in your arms, so that was good," she amended.
"Hard to believe that was all only a year ago, so much has happened," Jack commented as he put Grace down in her crib.
"We had to make up for lost time," she reminded him with a grin. "Come back to bed, it's lonely without you."
"Sounds like a plan to me. Think Gracey will let us sleep in?" Jack asked.
"You can always dream," Sam told him.
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The end