A/N: okay here's the latest!
So, Just to Get This Straight...
Part I
AAAHHHHHG! Six months and I'm still in this Damn chair! Why the HELL can't I do this? I've never had this problem before. I've been doing everything they tell me to, but we just can't get this knee to move, much less put any weight on it. It hurts all the time, but hell if I'm going to let them see that.
"General, how are you doing today?" the Doc had the audacity to ask me. I was sitting in the frickin' infirmary waiting for my weekly check up.
"Just fine, Dr. Fraiser." I smiled at her. She'd stopped showing any sign of shock about four and a half months ago. Unfortunately, my knew attitude still hasn't stopped her from poking and prodding me with the biggest harpoons she could find.
She picked up one of those weapons to take blood and I put my hand gently over the fingers holding the needle. I'd been poked, jabbed, and glared at by every member of the SGC medical staff since I'd woken up.
"Janet, what's going on?" I looked straight into her eyes, hoping to portray some form of understanding to her.
She didn't answer, just continued running her tests.
"Fine. Maybe you can answer me another question. Why's Carter avoiding me?"
"Lt. Colonel Carter has been very busy lately, Sir!" Boy, she's snappy today, and very professional. That means it's some personal reason.
Can nobody around here give me a straight answer!
Part IIGod, my lab is boring. Never thought I'd hear myself say that. There's just nothing left in it for me. I can't concentrate long enough to work on anything, but my required projects.
Oh, thank God, Daniel's here. I am so ready for an interruption.
"Sam, we're going down to see Jack, you wanna come?" he asked, leaning on my desk. Oh, great, it's about him.
"No, that's okay. I have too much stuff to get done here," I answered. Pretty lame if you ask me.
"Stuff? Sam, have you gone to see him at all in the last six months?" Daniel stood and started pacing in front of me.
I shrugged dismissively.
"Janet said that by all accounts her initial assessment was wrong. He should be up and walking around by now. Okay, maybe hobbling around with crutches, but up and moving." He walked around the desk and approached me, laying his hand on my shoulder.
I threw down the tools in my hands and glared at him. "What has this got to do with ME!"
"It's got EVERYTHING to do with you!" Wow, forceful Danny-boy. Wait, did I just say 'Danny-boy'? Crap.
I narrowed my eyes at him. "What exactly do you meant by that?"
"What happened between you guys, Sam? We were a great team."
"Daniel, please-"
"No!" He actually interrupted me. He never interrupts me. Little brother's on the rampage now. "I'm not leaving this lab until you tell me what's going on. Jack's smiling, which is just scary, but he looks for you every time we go to see him."
"You really want to know?" I asked. I sighed, realizing I was going to have to appease him.
He nodded, taking a seat on the stool next to me, and grabbed my hand.
"I didn't believe Janet when she said there was a possibility Jack could hear what we said. I told him, Daniel. Everything. He heard me, told me he loved me too."
Daniel laughed curtly, but stopped immediately when I shot daggers his way.
"I'm sorry Sam, but you're doing all this just because you both finally admitted to each other just what the rest of us have seen for years?"
"No, he's just so… so… so chipper. He doesn't fight Janet about anything. He smiles all the time, but his eyes are dead. He knows he's done here and without the military, he's dead. I don't want that shell."
"You ever stop to think that he smiles because he remembers the day you told him how you felt? Or that he's depressed because he hasn't seen you in six months?"
"He's seen me!" I protested loudly. He has! I mean, we've crossed paths, right?
"Yeah, but he hasn't seen you smile or heard you laugh."
I shrugged again.
"You're the reason he's stuck with the SGC for so long."
What? I know my face reflected my confusion, but I was too confused to even hide it. If Jack had really loved me, or even remotely liked me like that, wouldn't he have gotten me out of his chain of command? Or at least talked to me about it?
"Jack would have retired after the Za'tarc thing, but the only person he ever wanted to relinquish his command to after that first year was you." Daniel knew about the testing? "He knew if he retired too soon, you would end up under the command of some schmuck. He kept trying to push through your promotion so you could take over SG-1. He didn't want you to have any other team because he knows you love gathering the new information first."
I sat back at Daniel's explanation. Jack had been thinking this moment through for years. I shuddered. I had been so selfish, never wanting to be the one to leave the SGC. But I also know that Jack would go stir crazy with out the front line action.
"Go talk to him, Sam. The rest of us can wait."
Part III
Okay, now she's just being a bully. She took the Damn chair away. Dr. Napoleon put a brace on my knee and gave me crutches. She told me I was going to learn to walk again with in three months, or she wouldn't even clear me to fly a desk.
Sometimes, I hate that woman.
So now all I can do is paperwork and sleep. I've already finished both for the day. Might as well spend my time trying to find ways to get around the base. I could always get the Airmen to bring me whatever I needed, but that would really piss off the Doc, and I know she's got larger needles hiding somewhere for me.
Okay, so now I'm freakin' hungry. I'm going to have to attempt the long trek to the commissary. Jell-O, that's what I need, a nice, big bowl of Jell-O.
I grabbed the crutches and slowly made my way to the door. I never expected the other side to hold such a wonderful surprise for me.
"Carter?" I started to fall backwards. Thankfully my chair was facing the door.
"General, are you okay?" She rushed over to my side and helped me settle a little more comfortably.
"Sir, Daniel said you weren't up and moving yet."
"Eh, Doctor's orders. I guess she's getting sick of me." I smiled at her and noticed as she looked away quickly.
"So, what brings you to my humble… office?" I joked.
"Um, Sir, I think we need to talk." She was all business and I knew she was dead serious.
I straightened up and looked into her eyes. I have a feeling I know what this is about, but with Sam, you can never be too sure.
"Topside, let's go." I used my crutches to help me stand.
"But, Sir, what about-"
"I can make it. Don't you worry about me, I'm a big boy." I allowed her to open the doors and push buttons for me, knowing it would be more embarrassing trying to do it myself.
We reached the top and headed towards our boulder. It was a little spot about a normal ten minute hike up the mountain, still within the borders of the complex, but nowhere near the paths the SF's take. Today, though, it took us nearly twice as long to reach it.
Exhausted, I flopped down on the ground. It was hard climbing up that mountain without being able to use both legs.
"Sit… down… Colonel," I breathed between gasps.
"Here," she told me holding out her hand. "I grabbed some of your painkillers on the way out."
I took them gratefully and swallowed them dry. Nasty, but it worked. I grinned as she made a face.
"So," I said, figuring if I didn't jump right in we could be dancing around the problem all afternoon. "What brought you to my office?"
"I think we need to talk, Sir." She was fidgeting from foot to foot.
"Sit. Down. Colonel," I repeated my earlier request.
"Yessir." She sat next to me on the ground and pulled her knees up to her chest. "Permission to speak freely, Sir?"
"Granted. Now, Sam, there's something I'd like to tell you." I made sure I was facing her, this was not something I could tell her without making eye contact.
"I wanted you to be the first to know my official decision. And before you get all huffity, you should know I made my decision as soon as I found out you'd made it to Lt. Col. Sam, I'm going to retire-"
"But, Jack, Sir-"
She cut me off? Doesn't she know me by now? I could see the frustration lining her face. I told her the truth, I did want her to be the first to know. I wanted to talk over my options, our options with her, but I had been forced to let General Hammond know first. I already put my letter in.
"If you'd let me finish!" She looked down, blushing. She looked amazing when she blushed. The flush of her cheeks accented her cheekbones. It was then that I'd realized just how hard she'd been pushing herself these past few months.
"My God, Sam!" I whispered. I brushed my hand along her cheek and under her eye. It broke my heart. It wasn't her embarrassment that made her cheekbones stand out, it was the fact that there was almost nothing there to cover them. Here eyes were sunken deep into her head.
I wrapped my other arm around her waist, not caring how it bent my leg. I could easily reach right around her. I looked into her eyes, but my focus was drawn to the dark circles surrounding them.
"You're doing it again," I spoke gently into her ear.
She breathed in deeply and sighed, nodding in admission.
"Does the Doc know?"
Another nod.
"Does it have anything to do with me?"
She hesitated this time and I could tell she wanted to shake her head no, she even started to, but then she just sat silent and unmoving.
"Dammit. I knew there was a reason Cpt. Ahab was treating me like Moby Dick."
Success! That brought a grin and slight chuckle.
"Okay, well, I'm going to explain what I started to tell you earlier." I lifted her chin. "Could you please look at me?" She allowed her head to be lifted and I continued.
"There's no way I can ever fully retire from the SGC, I would just go crazy, but with my recent injuries it has been brought to my attention that the only way I can stay in the Air Force would be to become a Desk Jockey. That's just out of the question and Hammond's known that for years. They've been planning for this all along." I took a breath here, waiting to see if she had caught on yet. She hadn't.
This is so out of character for me.
"My Black Ops training gave me the equivalent of a Masters in strategy and tactics. We're going to use that to allow me to retire from the Air Force and become the new 'Civilian' Strategy and Tactics Advisor. The President has agreed and my clearance will be kept the same. The only difference is I'll most likely never step through the Gate again."
I could see the sadness in her eyes. I had just, in so many words, told her that our little family would be broken up.
I sat there, trying to read her, figure out what was going on in that huge brain of hers. Slowly, a small smile crept across her face and grew to a full on grin. I smiled back. It was the first real smile I'd gotten from her since I awoke.
"Sir, this is quite a lot to take in," she said. She was obviously stunned.
"It's Jack, I'm retired now. My letter was accepted the second we left the confines of the compound." I watched the color return to her face and her eyes brighten. I knew talking things over would help us, as much as I usually hated it.
Part IV
I sat, listening to all he had to say, stunned into silence. He retired? I mean, I knew he couldn't go on missions with us anymore, but he was leaving? No, wait eh wasn't leaving the SGC, just SG-1 and the Air Force.
I finally found my voice.
"Jack, I don't really know what to say. I think we should have that talk I was going for." I wanted to talk to him about his reaction in the AU, about him hearing everything I said, about what he said upon waking.
"Shoot."
Oh, man! He was going to make me start? What should I do? It was easy to talk to him when I thought he couldn't hear me. It's just hard to talk to him, knowing he already knows how I felt about him.
I must have sat there for a little too long for him, because he spoke up first.
"Okay then, I'm going to start. I already know how you feel, I guess. I mean if you really meant what you said, so I'm going to tell you everything I've been feeling from the time I thought I was never going to see you again until this point right now."
He pulled me closer, I could see the physical pain racing through his body. I helped him readjust his leg so the bones weren't pulling apart so much.
"Thanks." He winced. "When I realized I was in an Alternate Universe, I thought of how much I needed you there, for scientific reasons. But as I was listening to their story, and I discovered they knew nothing of the mirrors, all I could think of was never seeing you again. I thought of how lucky that other Jack was, and how I would never get to tell you how much I love you.
"I heard once that 'something is never as important to you until its truth or falsehood becomes a matter of life and death.' Pretending that I didn't love you all these years has been a sort of death for me.
"When I saw you, I had already decided I was going to show you how I felt. In a way, it almost tore me apart to have to come back and pretend nothing was there. I hated having to call you 'Major' and 'Carter.' You mean so much more to me than that."
He ran his fingers through my hair. I leaned into his touch, knowing for once I was allowed to.
"I wanted to hold you so close every time I heard you cry. Those two days you were gone were Hell. The day I woke up, my driving force was you. You told me how you felt that day, and I felt so helpless lying there. I wanted to tell you I felt the same, still feel the same. If you don't anymore, that's okay, I guess. I just want you to know that I will always love you."
I felt the tears starting to sting my eyes, threatening to spill over. I could let them now, he was no longer my CO. The one day I'd been waiting for and all I could feel was guilt. Guilt over how I'd treated him for half a year, over how we had come to this point.
"Oh, Jack," I barely choked out. The tears were flowing freely now. "I do still feel the same. I was just so scared of… well, everything. I wasn't quite sure if you felt the same way, then you were so… chipper, all the time, but your eyes were so dull and lifeless." My head dropped slightly, staring at our hands, the fingers interlocking.
"I was so sad. I never got to see you. Maybe in passing, but that was it. It hurt so bad."
I could see him reliving all those lonely months, just like I was. We didn't need that anymore. We had each other and were finally allowed to.
"Jack, please come home with me." I blurted it out, but he didn't give me much of a chance to finish.
"Huh?" I could see the shock in his eyes. It forced a giggle out of me. "No giggling."
"Sorry. Jack, I know you can't drive yourself and you've only left the base for supplies. I figure you could stay with me." I shrugged. It's sorta my subtle way of showing him nothing could be more perfect.
He leaned in close, and I could smell his cologne and aftershave mixing in the wind. As his lips brushed mine I felt a small shudder run through both our bodies. I reached up to hold his face in my hands, but he pulled away.
"Sam, please," he said, hiding his face from my view.
"Does it hurt?" I asked him. I touched the underside of his chin and turned him towards me.
"NO, it's just, how can you stand to be with this horrible, ill-tempered, scarred old man?" I could see him getting nervous.
"I don't think you're old. Your attitude is a reflection of all the crap you've overcome in your life, and I don't care what you look like or that you're going to walk with a permanent limp. All that matters is I love you."
A/N: So, here's the latest sorry it took so long. i know it's a little out of character, but i just dunno. i will put in what was in the envelopes in the epilogues coming up next! if you review tons i just might make it go faster. i know there's an inconsistency in this chapter, but now i can't find it, so if you see it, let me know.
thank y'all.