Author's Note: I got thinking about Sam and Jack in the future and if Sam would still suffer insecurity about her affair with Pete that had almost cost her a future with Jack. And that as brainy, assertive and confident as Sam is on the job, she still can't fathom how much Jack loves her.
I hope you enjoy and if so, let me know. See, I have insecurities too -- HailDorothy
It Doesn't Matter.
The paradox being that it never has mattered. To him.
However, her hormones gone amuck, she lets it. Matter. A lot.
For the last six months he's stated as only Major General Jack O'Neill can,
"Forget it. Let it go. Drop it. Put a lid on it, Carter. Seal the coffin. Clam it. Oy! Zip and bury it. Cool your jets. Flush the toilet. Crap, enough already. Nah ah! Whatever. Oh, for crying out loud!"
Still, she can't let it go. Heaven knows she wants to.
"I'm sorry," her insistent whisper rouses the former Black Ops operative from where his face is nestled between her full breasts. Cool air makes contact with her skin and a puddle of warmth. He drooled. Again. She smiles through her tears and blows her nose into a tissue.
"For what?" he yawns and nuzzles closer, tighter. He's a cuddlier. Go figure.
"All those wasted years we could have had this," her voice trembles and she fingers the soft hairs of his forearm that's slung possessively over her extended tummy.
"Oh, tha-at." He lifts his gray bed-head, squints and exhales on a weary breath. He's exhausted. Another inward smile. They'd made love twice before collapsing in each other's arms. His long manly haired legs remain tangled with her smoother limbs. He makes no effort to unravel himself. He never does. She loves that. A lot.
In the shadows of predawn, she knows he's shut his deep brown eyes with the same regretful expression as when her father Jacob had died three years back. After all, this isn't the first time she's resurrected the forbidden topic. Nor will it be the last. She hears his habitable sniff as he shifts onto his back and rubs the nape of his neck. He winces but it has little to do with the kink he probably acquired from sleeping on top of her.
"It doesn't matter, Sam, never has." He eases his left arm about her and offers his shoulder for a pillow. She accepts, taking solace that the former regs be screwed, his shoulder has always belonged to her. Always.
"Now go back to sleep, Babe." Their hands intertwine and she repeatedly strokes her thumb over the top of his larger hand. She inhales. After all these years his masculine scent still draws her like a moth to a flame. His breathing levels out as he starts to doze. She can't let it go.
"Yes! Yes, it does matter," she insists with a guilt burdened heart. Although she rarely thinks of that blunder, memories of Pete Shanahan rise to haunt and shame her. An uncontrollable sob shakes her body. She feels him stiffen. He hates when she cries. It breaks him and she selfishly knows his weakness.
"Why?" He's forever patient with her newest mood swings, especially in the middle of the night. He'll be even more tolerant and loving with their kids, not to mention midnight diaper changes and feedings. The imagery of Jack rocking their babies induces an internal smile but doesn't erase her insecurity.
"Because I hurt you," she wetly snuffs, "a lot."
He doesn't argue because it's true. She plunges ahead. "And yet you've never stopped loving me, not even when I walked out on what we had back then." She chews her lower lip, hard. "And . . . I don't understand why."
"Only because we're not talking rocket science, Carter," she hears the O'Neill smile in his voice and imagines his dimples tucked deep alongside his lean mouth.
"I guess." She confesses and sniffs back tears. She knows he's rolling those gorgeous brown eyes as he reaches for the tissue box on the bedside table.
"So, did you ever stop loving me?" His cinnamon gum flavored breath soothes her. "Even after you walked?" He shoves a fresh tissue into her hands.
"No. But—." She blows.
"Then it doesn't matter," his CO tenor cuts her off. He'll be a stern father when necessary.
"Jack, I—"
"Hush." He draws her against his muscled chest and presses a passionate kiss to her tear salted lips. "All that matters is here and now, Samantha." He whispers against her trembling chin, "You do realize that first day you sashayed into the Briefing Room with your, 'I am woman hear me roar,' attitude that you stole my heart and later, when I'd said, 'Oh, I adore you already, Captain,' I meant it?"
"Yes and I felt the same." She smiles at the memory of when he'd shoved her through the event horizon with the patience of a frustrated pit bull.
"Sam, since that day, we've always been together where it counts."
"We have?" He presses another tissue to her running nose and she blows. Loud.
"Yeah sure yabetcha." He tosses the soiled tissue and then places his calloused palm over the firm roundness of her breasts. "Here, in our hearts. No matter what crap the universe throws at us, Sam, I'll always love you. Besides, always means forever."
"It does?" She needs to hear his words of affirmation while fresh tears sluice down her face.
"Yes, Mrs. O'Neill." He kisses away her wasted tears and then with the gentleness of a seasoned lover, caresses her swollen tummy that holds their unborn child. "Always."
"Now let this tired old general catch some zz's, huh?"
"K," she agrees with a yawn.
Baby Grace kicks twice against her father's gentle touch. Jack chuckles and Sam smiles against his warm naked chest, shuts her swollen eyes and snuggles with him. When their limbs instinctively intertwine she feels him tuck the blanket around them as he mutters about her bare assets catching a draft. He's attentive. She likes that. A lot.
Yeah, through the good and the bad, even back then as her CO he's always been there for her. He still is. Listening to the sure and steady beat of his Irish heart, sleep finally reclaims her within the strapping arms of the only man she's truly loved. This black and white man loves her more than she'll ever deserve. He has not only died a hundred deaths for her, but more importantly, continues to live for her and their unborn daughter. Only now, does she theorize and then rationalize that per usual, her husband is right.
It doesn't matter.
Because—Always means forever.
Fin