Chapter 6: Learning

Samantha Carter walked down the long gray corridor toward the elevators. She had been across the universe, lived with alien races, fought countless enemies, she could do this. She could go home alone with her husband. 'Come on woman you have a PhD in Astrophysics, you're a Lt. Colonel in the USAF, Director of R & D, earth's leading expert on alien technology ….. yeah you're just a big chicken.'

The door opened, "Carter, you don't look ready to go." He said surprised to see she was still in her BDU's.

She raised her arms, "I don't have any civvies here, Sir."

"Come on." He gestured with his invitation. She focused all of her energies on willing her legs to move her into the elevator.

As she looked at him fidgeting with his keys, wearing khaki pants, a light blue shirt and jacket she became very aware of her current circumstances. All of her civilian clothes were in storage. She didn't have a cell phone, wallet, or keys; only the card key for the SGC. They signed out and made their way to his truck. Even the simple ride home seemed foreign. She felt alien in this world.

They drove in silence; he was wrapped up in his own internal struggle against the questions fighting for answers in his head. When he did finally glance over at Sam, his struggle was forgotten. Because sitting right next to him Sam's struggle was playing powerfully across her face, and he found it much more unsettling than all of the emotions bombarding him.

"Penny for your thoughts," he offered.

"Suddenly I am not sure where I belong." He remembered similar feelings when he would return from tours oversea. How foreign everything felt; life simply had gone on without you. He saw her try to discreetly wipe away her tears.

She was overwhelmed with the feeling that coming home was a huge mistake. She had grown accustomed to life out there; she knew how to do that. She didn't know how to protect her kids here or be married to him. And while normally the thought of a challenge excited her; she felt she had so much more to lose now.

"Daniel's coming over for a late dinner tonight, I asked him to bring Janet." She looked at him surprised. "Sorry to spring that on you. He came by the office right before we left and asked about you. I didn't think either one of us wanted them to find out Monday morning and with the kids coming home tomorrow, I thought it would be our only chance to tell them."

"No, you're right." The evening had just got a lot more difficult. But she couldn't ask him to wait to see the kids so that she could face things one at a time. He had lost almost four years of their lives, she wasn't going to ask him to wait any longer. "Stop! Turn here."

"What?" but he did before she answered.

"The mall."

"The mall? You want to go shopping?" He asked confused.

"Please I know it sounds silly, but I just want some clothes of my own. I don't want to have dinner with my best friends in a pair of your sweats and a t-shirt. Just let me get something. Maybe it will help me feel….human again." The expression had taken on all new meaning to her.

She didn't take long in the department store. She wasn't on a shopping spree or looking for that perfect black dress, she just needed a couple of things for now and didn't feel comfortable having Jack pay for it anyway. "I'll pay you back."

"Don't worry about it, what's mine is your's Carter." He said as he pulled out the credit card. She shook her head. "No really legally what's mine is yours Mrs. O'Neill." She smiled and he found a sense of peace knowing he could still make her smile.

Jack couldn't believe he was happy to be shopping in a mall, he watched as Sam transform from solider to woman in front of him. Out of the uniforms that defined their ranks and the regulations that governed their behavior they should be able to have the conversations they needed to have as husband and wife, rather than General and Colonel, he hoped.

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At home Jack marinated the steaks and then joined her on the couch, their stares alternating between looking straight forward and at their hands as both searched for where to start. Jack realized that she wasn't the only one who wasn't good at being married, after all his last attempt was not a rousing success. He didn't want to lose Sam because they couldn't figure out a way to communicate what they needed from each other. At the very least, they needed to learn to communicate about what was best for their kids.

She wasn't sure how to do this. She stood and walked around his living room looking at the pictures on his mantle of Charlie, Cassie, a picture of her, Teal'c, Daniel and Jack in Vegas. She remembered the peace she had found in his arms that morning knowing that from there on out he would know how she felt, no more regrets. Life is funny that way. Just when you think you've made things right in your world.… She stole a glance at him and saw him looking intently at her. She felt tremendously self-conscious, on trial for her decisions. "Go ahead ask." she invited him to start.

"Okay, Why?" he looked her straight in the eye.

"Which why?" There must be so many why's, he would need to be more specific than that, she thought.

"Why didn't you come to me?" There was only one question he needed an answer to.

"I did at first…I called you. I was going to ask you to come over, but you weren't there." She paced the floor remembering. "When I went through all of the possibilities, I realized you wouldn't let me take the best course of action, so I decided to talk to you after I resigned."

"Well it wasn't the best course of action." His voice rose, which escalated her defense mechanisms.

"See!"

"See what!" the tense exchange brought him to his feet.

"You wouldn't have let me resign."

"Of course I wouldn't," he readily admitted.

"Well I wasn't making this decision as your subordinate, you couldn't order me to do what you wanted. This wasn't about letting me or not letting me. I had a say in this."

"But, I didn't?" She turned frustrated, but didn't respond. "This wasn't a decision about you it was about our family." With each exchange their voices grew louder.

"We weren't a family, all we had was a piece of paper."

"Of course not because you did what you wanted to do – left."

"What I wanted to do….what I wanted to do – you think this was about what I wanted to do?"

"How would I know you didn't come to me!"

"I tried and you weren't there!"

"Damn-it Sam, they're my kids too! You had no right. You knew what this would do to me. You know me, of all people you know me. I don't get those years back!"

"I had no right? You were going to lose those years either way - to a court-martial or me leaving. Despite what you think, it was the right thing to do. You couldn't stop the court-martial because neither Hammond nor President Gordon could. In that scenario, they thought the best they could offer me was retirement. Kinsey would come after you and I couldn't watch them do that to you or let our kids get caught in the cross fire!"

"It would have been alright Sam. We would have figured out a way. We always did."

"In the Air Force, you were going to be court-martialed. Without the Air Force we couldn't protect them. I couldn't lose you and my only way to take care of them. What was I supposed to do, get a teaching job and bring the kids by to visit you on Sundays?"

He ran his hand through his hair, "You should have trusted me Sam."

"You wouldn't have let me do what I needed to do," she repeated in a calmer voice.

"I might have." She looked at him skeptically. "Okay, maybe I wouldn't have. But….you just should have trusted me." He calmed down.

"I trust you with my life. I just haven't learned…" she almost admitted, but caught herself. She was working so hard to not say 'General' or 'Sir' that she almost blurted it out.

"Learned what?"

"I don't know what I was thinking when I asked you to marry me." She turned away, but not before she saw the look on his face. He looked so hurt; oh man, she really didn't know how to do this. "No I didn't mean…"

"I think I know what you meant," he accused.

"No you don't." She walked around the room like a caged animal and stopped at the fireplace. She was trying to figure out how to explain it, and she couldn't. When she asked him to marry her she couldn't bear being on the other side of another force field with him not knowing how she felt. Finding out that he felt the same way about her, and then watching Martoff die in her arms solidified her need for him to know before anything happened to either one of them. And, now she felt like she was going to ruin her marriage.

He felt like he was about to start yelling again until he remembered what Jacob said. He walked over and stood next to her. She was softly kicking the stone fireplace. Not in a way she would do damage to the stone or her foot, but the sort of thing you do when you have no other way to get out what's screaming inside of you to get out. "So tell me. What did you mean?"

"I didn't mean that I regretted marrying you. I just didn't understand what being married meant when I asked you." She wasn't made like this. She couldn't do the open, vulnerable thing, not with him. He expected her to hold her own; be the strong solider and stand and fight.

He took hold of her shoulders and turned her towards him and lifted her chin. "Sam? Look at me." He knew there was more. If she was going to break his heart he was going to make her look him in the eye when she did, but if she just needed help opening up to him, he would try to help her.

His thumb wiped a tear that had not received the message that she was trying to be strong.

"Sam?"

"I…" The tears were now completely disregarding her orders and jumping ship. "I made a tactical decision, not one as your wife or their mother…..I don't know how to do this, okay?" She looked away.

"No, not okay." She was afraid of looking at him and seeing the disappointment in his eyes, but he held her face gently facing him. "Don't know how to do what?" he asked softly.

Laughter escaped from her and she wondered what kind of mutiny her body was exercising. Trying to regain her composure, her eyes swept across his face and she saw concern and love, but no disappointment or anger in his eyes. She stayed focused on him.

"I don't know how to do this with you."

"Do what?"

"Be something other than a solider."

"Trust me. Now tell me, why didn't you come to me?" he said in a softer voice.

"I didn't know what you would do. Every decision you made in the field, I knew what you needed me to do before you said it out loud….I just knew. But I didn't know what you would say or do about this. I didn't know how to come to you. I was afraid I'd lose you."

"You wouldn't have lost me. You don't even know how happy you've made me, do you? Sam I can't wait to have all of you home with me, to meet my kids and finally have our someday." Then the very thing she had tried to control so far with little success, poured out. In his arms she cried all the tears she had been saving up from the moment she stepped onto Thor's ship.

He held on to her letting her cry. He was concerned, it was not the reaction he was going for. When the sobbing abated he loosened up a little and pulled back so he could see her face.

"You okay?"

"Getting there. Sorry about that."

"About what?"

"Losing it." She avoided his eyes.

He saw her retreating again, and he was afraid they were already losing the ground they had gained. "Sam, what is your biggest fear now?"

"Wow you know how to ease a girl in, don'tcha?" but she took in a deep, shaky breath and tried wiping some of the tears from her face. "That we won't be able to make this work."

"Oh that, piece of cake," he said confidently and she smiled. "This definitely works, it just needs some fine tuning in this particular area."

Holding on to his belief in them, she treaded into deeper territory. "That you'll find out, that I'm not….the woman you think I am. I'm not just Colonel Carter you know."

"Oh, I know that, those non-Carter parts are some of my favorite parts."

"There are parts of me that aren't strong enough….and to have you break my heart would…..."

"Those are some of my very favorite parts, soft mushy Sam parts." She smiled shyly and blushed. He dropped his hands and laced his fingers with hers. "I fell in love with Sam Carter and not the officer you are. That's only one part of what I love about you."

"So how do we do this? What do you need from me?" she asked.

"Me, I'm a simple man, all I need to know is that you won't run off again. From here on out you trust me no matter what you think I might do. That you understand from here one out it's us. Well that and your continued love and understanding of this foolish old man."

"I think I can do that."

"What do you need from me?"

"Be patient with me while I figure out how to do this, wife stuff with you."

He laughed. "Wife stuff? You're going to be fine Sam. It's just like field work – we have to trust each other, communicate, and you watch my six and I'll watch yours." He waggled his eyebrows and she giggled.

"I think I'm going to enjoy watching your six," she grinned.

"Likewise." He wanted to kiss her, but he was afraid he wouldn't stop and it was getting late. "Sam?"

"Hmm?" His hands felt so warmed laced with hers, he was so close, and she had missed him. She was biting her lip trying to pay attention to what his lips were saying. But, the memory of being kissed by him was haunting her and making it very difficult to concentrate.

"I think the details of all of this should remain our family business. As far as everyone else is concerned the decision to keep our marriage and children a secret was a decision we together, for the good of our family. We can trust Janet, Teal'c and Daniel they're family. After all, I am sure Danny will wear me down." He rolled his eyes toward the ceiling. "Iraqi prison guards and Ba'al have nothing on Daniel Jackson, 5 minutes with the man and I swear – he's relentless." He smiled and leaned his forehead down on hers. "Okay?"

"Okay." She agreed.

"You are awfully agreeable Sam." His face was so close to hers. She giggled and he loved her giggling in his arms.

"You haven't said anything I disagree with yet, Jack." She emphasized his name.

"I think I may need to take advantage of your agreeable state."

She lifted her chin and kissed him. That was the end of the conversation. Nothing else needed to be said. When the need for oxygen became an issue, they parted reluctantly. "They're going to be here soon. You ready for Phase 2 of the evening?"