"all that i've got" by sam carter o'neill wagtail
WARNiNG: SPOiLERS FOR SEASON EiGHT'S "THREADS"
chapter 5: crisis
He drove down the road at 75 miles an hour. It was 4am and he was tired from all the driving but he couldn't even think of sleep. Jack O'Neill's nerves made him feel like he was fourteen years old and about to go on his first date. He couldn't eat, he couldn't think straight, he'd had butterflies in his stomach since he got Cassie's call, and he'd had an annoyingly perky ditty in his head since he realized the repercussions of the almost accidental reunion.
The signs by the side of the road coupled with Jack's calculations told him that he had about 6 more hours of driving to go before he reached Colorado Springs...and he didn't have to be at Frank's Funeral Home for another fifteen hours. He decided to keep driving until he needed to stop.
To him, driving was a soothing lullaby. When he drove, especially on an empty road like this one, he could think. He could even think out loud and no one would know. Tonight, or rather "this morning," his thoughts were all over the place. They were in Minnesota, Colorado Springs, D.C., the SGC, and… Connecticut. But wherever his thoughts wandered, they always found themselves back on one specific night five years ago—the night when she…
Oh, a Dunkin' Donuts. The thought of coffee appealed to Jack and he thought about stopping off to get some but then quickly rejected the idea as he figured said event would probably spark a star-sighting. Hmph, Jack O'Neill helped save the world and as a result he couldn't stop off for a cup of coffee because he was afraid of being jumped by rabid fan-girls who thought he was amazing. And he wasn't.
Jack O'Neill was far from amazing. Hell, at the very beginning, he came this close to sending an atomic bomb to a planet because it had been so much easier to just shoot at problems.
Then came SG1.
SG1 had been his family… Yet another reason Jack O'Neill was far from being amazing—he hadn't been in touch with his "family" for five years. And it wasn't that he had wanted to lose contact with them, they just seemed so far away since… oh here he went again. His thoughts had returned to that night. That night five years ago.
SG1 plus Jack himself had been informed that the SGC would become public knowledge two weeks before it'd been disclosed. That was the beginning of the end…
It was the fishing trip of a lifetime, almost nine years in the making when the original SG1 went fishing, just after the death of Carter's father. And after she broke the engagement to Pete Shanahan... and after she and Jack had realized that they were in love.
In each other's arms, they had discussed the status of their relationship. They decided that they could never be happier with other people. They also decided that the Air Force was wrong to decide who could love whom. But it went no further than that—talk.
A week after that was when they were told about the disclosure of the SGC.
The next day, Carter submitted her resignation. In her letter, she made it clear that she wished to be stay at Cheyenne Mountain as "Dr. Samantha Carter" and she gave her reason for leaving the military as "pursuit of a personal relationship."
If he closed his eyes and concentrated, Jack could still see the letter in his memory.
Jack had submitted her resignation to the Powers That Be an hour later for their approval.
Then they told him.
Hammond had retired and Jack himself had been promoted to Hammond's old position… in D.C. These were to be Jack's final two weeks in Colorado.
Crisis erupted when Carter's resignation was approved. Now she was to be a civilian at the SGC and Jack was moving halfway across the country.
They spent the night Carter's resignation was official together. When Jack removed her dog tags, there was explosion of bottled-up emotions: Love, the Desire to express that love, and Passion.
In the morning, Jack had asked her to marry him… and she said no.
He remembered every detail, from scent of her hair to the way she screamed,
"I WON'T DO IT TO YOU, TOO!"
He didn't know what the hell she'd meant. And he begged her; he pleaded her... but she left. Just like that, she left. He ran out of his house to grab her and explain to her until she understood that she was his world—his sun, his moon, his earth, his sky, his love, his LIFE—but she left anyway. And the next morning he did too.
Jack was so engrossed in his thoughts—memories— as he drove down the highway that he didn't see the oncoming truck until its headlights nearly blinded him and it was too late.
A/N: Sorry I took so long to update, something weird happened to my computer and on my day off I ran into an unexpected glitch in my schedule, so I wrote tonight (Sunday… I have school tomorrow and I wrote! That's how much I love you all!) Next chapter up by Wednesday. Hope you enjoyed my lovely little cliffhanger. XOXO