"Without Regrets: Tomorrow Comes"
The first rays of the morning sun touched the surface of the lake and glittered upon the still water just as the moon had done a few hours before. The thin curtains of the cabin stirred, and the breeze that passed through the partially open bedroom window was cool, but promised in its breath the warmth of the day to come. A cardinal's song greeted the morning, followed by a flutter of wings as the bird took flight in search of food for its newly hatched offspring.
The piercingly sweet song caused Jack to squeeze his eyes tighter, groan, and roll over in his bed, stretching and trying to work out some of the kinks from his body. Too damn early, he though. Not gonna get up yet.
As he moved, however, Jack's hand made contact with the warm body next to him. Smiling, he reached out, wrapped his arm around her back and pulled her closer to him. Sam didn't wake, but she responded to the increasing warmth of his body by nestling comfortably into his arms and wrapping a flannel-clad leg around his as she slept.
As he looked at her, golden hair rumpled from sleep, eyelids somewhat puffy from her tears, lips definitely swollen from his kisses, his heart swelled with emotion. With gentle fingers, he brushed a stray lock of her short hair from her forehead. It's silkiness felt strange against his calloused skin. He had touched her hair before, of course. Whenever he had found cause or opportunity over the years to hold her, he had, touching her hair and taking what brief pleasure he could in the forbidden caress. But now he could take his time, and the sense of freedom that knowledge gave him made her hair feel softer, shine brighter, and smell better than he remembered.
He wanted to pull her to him and never let go for fear that she would disappear from his arms like mist with the coming morning. Sam meant everything to him now. Hell, she always had. But because he had never been able to give true voice to his love, it had seemed almost intangible. An illusion. An illusion that had been destroyed by a reality so amazing he had a hard time believing it was true.
As he held her close, a forgotten phrase of a forbidden love from long ago popped into mind. Granted, its origin annoyed him just as much now as it had then, but only now, nearly forty years later, did he fully grasp its meaning.
"I am afeared, being in night, all this is but a dream," Jack murmured to the sleeping figure in his arms, "too flattering sweet to be substantial."
Sleepy blue eyes opened in surprise at his soft words. "Shakespeare?" Sam asked, incredulous. "You're quoting Shakespeare!"
"Yeah … well … you were supposed to be asleep," he mumbled, uncomfortable at having been caught. "Besides, I know things," Jack insisted, pulling back from her, brown eyes wide in mock indignation. "Theoretical physics of wormhole thingamabobs might be bit over my head, but I still know things."
"I know you do, Jack," she chuckled, snuggling closer against his body. While he would be the first to admit that in some arenas he wasn't the brightest bulb in the pack, she also knew that General Jack O'Neill wasn't nearly as stupid as he let people believe. There were depths to this man that even she hadn't seen yet, but she knew they were there. He claimed that he wasn't a complex man, and in some ways he was right. In others ... well, in others his "simplicity" was more intricate than most math equations she had seen come out of M.I.T.
"Besides," he grumbled, shrugging his shoulders, "Shakespeare's supposed to be romantic, right?"
The question was rhetorical, so she didn't answer. Instead, Sam considered the quotation Jack had chosen. "It's not a dream," she said after a few minutes. "We're not a dream. You do believe that, right?"
"I do, but ..." he paused, running his hand along her bare shoulder, and sliding his finger under the thin strap of the white tank top she had worn to bed last night. God he loved those things.
" ... but, it's not going to be easy to make it all work," Sam finished for him.
"Something like that," he sighed as he leaned back against the pillows. Silence descended on the small room as they both considered the complexities of their situation. There were several possible solutions. That they would each have to make sacrifices, they knew. But the matter of deciding which sacrifices they could live with was the problem.
Jack turned his head on the pillow. "It will work, Carter," he said emphatically. "We'll make it work."
Sam's only response was to capture his lips with her own in a deep and lingering kiss.
Ohyeah, gotta make it work, Jack thought as her fingers caressed his ribcage. He wrapped his arms around her and rolled across the bed, pinning her beneath him. He plundered her mouth with a searing kiss as she twined her legs around his hips, arching herself against his arousal. Kisses, caresses, and loving words were all that they had shared upon returning to the cabin last night. In light of her emotions surrounding Jacob's death, it had been the right thing to do at the time. Now, the only right thing to do was this.
As Sam clung to him, Jack eased a hand beneath the waistband of her flannel pants. Lifting her hips from the bed in tacit consent, Jack quickly tugged them free from her body. She wore nothing underneath, and Sam moaned his name low in her throat as his hands began to explore parts of her body she only dreamed of him touching.
The pair of boxers he wore did nothing to hide his own excitement from her, and Sam let her hands begin a sensuous exploration of their own.
"God, Carter!" Jack's growl of pleasure in her ear emboldened her actions as she gripped, and teased, and caressed him. Pushing the top clear of her chest, Jack let the fullness of one breast fill his hand as he feasted upon it with his tongue and lips. Below, his other hand stroked and tormented her. With each touch he could feel Sam's passion building toward its climax. His own body was taut with need, but it wasn't time for him yet. It was all about her. They had both waited so long for this there was no way he was going to rush it. He was going to savor very touch, every sensation …
"Jack?" The pounding on the bedroom door was a distant sound in Jack's mind. For now, the only thing he heard were the soft cries of Sam's increasing pleasure.
"Hey, Jack? You up yet?" Daniel called through the bedroom door.
"For cryin' out loud! You have got to be kidding me!" Jack growled in frustration, pressing his face into the pillow behind to Sam's head. Timing! I have got to work on that man's timing!
Sam felt like she had been doused with the proverbial bucket of ice water. Her climax had just been within her grasp when Daniel's voice on the other side of the door reached her ears. Talk about a mood blower. "Tell me again why we brought him?" she asked Jack, her own frustration clear in her voice.
"Go away, Daniel," Jack said, his voice raised in irritation. "Turn, walk away, and I might just let you live," he then muttered into the pillowcase.
But the knocking continued, and Daniel's muffled voice took on an urgent tone. "I'm worried about Sam, Jack. She's not in her room, and considering how she was feeling last night, I don't think it's a good idea for her to be alone right now. I was wondering if you," Daniel opened the door, took one look at occupants (plural) of the bed, his voice trailing off in surprise, "might know ... where ... she ... Oh boy!"
In a flash, Jack pulled the sheet up to cover them, but not before Daniel got not quite so healthy eyeful of their mostly naked bodies. "Damn it, Daniel!" Jack shouted.
Sam risked a quick peek over Jack's shoulder, and in spite of her irritation with her friend, quickly stifled a giggle. In all the years she had known him, she had never seen Daniel so flustered before. His glasses had slipped down his nose from his double take, his mouth hung open in surprise, his natural gift for languages seemed to have abandoned him, and he kept gesturing lamely from Jack to her and back again as he sputtered in surprise. Simply put, Dr. Daniel Jackson was thunderstruck.
"Snap out of it, Daniel!" Jack barked.
Daniel jumped at the sound of the Jack's voice. Tearing his gaze from the long expanse of Sam's naked thigh and hip that still peeked out from under the blue sheet, he noted the angry finger that pointed at the door behind him.
"Just leave!" Jack ordered, his finger punctuating his words. "Shut your mouth, shut the door, and just leave."
Daniel nodded in stupefied agreement, grasping at the doorknob as he backed from the room. "Umm, yeah ... uh, I'm just gonna ... go now. I'm sorr ... Oh, boy!" he blurted again, quickly pulling the wooden door shut behind him.
Daniel leaned heavily against the closed door, mind still a blur with what he had just walked in on. Jack? Sam? Jack and Sam? Wow. Finally? And who ever would have guessed Sam had such a great … jeeze, Jackson! She's like your sister for Pete's sake! But … damn …
Daniel raised his head as Teal'c approached the bedroom door, his brows raised in silent question.
"Umm … hey, Teal'c," Daniel stammered.
"Daniel Jackson, did O'Neill know where Colonel Carter could be found?" Teal'c asked patiently.
"Well … umm, yeah. I guess you could say he did," Daniel said weakly. Then pushing himself past the larger man, he walked away shaking his head. "I really need another pot of coffee," he muttered, leaving the confused Jaffa behind to stare at the closed door.
