Chapter 15
Sam took a deep breath, raised her hand to knock… And dropped it back to her side. This is ridiculous, she thought. She'd taken on Goa'uld who'd affected her less. She was insane. She should just turn away, get back in her car, and head for the nearest psychiatric institution.
She turned to leave, but apparently she didn't move quite fast enough. Before she could make it halfway down the sidewalk, the door behind her opened. Damn. She looked longingly at her car.
"Carter?"
She stopped. Sighed. Turned around. Took a deep calming breath, and made a weak attempt at a smile. "Sir!"
"Not even going to say hello?"
"Sorry, Sir. I didn't want to disturb you." Lame excuse, she knew. Why would she have driven all the way over here if not to talk to him?
"Well as long as you're here, why don't you come on in? Take a load off. Have a beer…"
She suspected he would've kept talking indefinitely if she hadn't surrendered. With a deliberate glance at her watch, she looked up. "I guess I can stay for a while."
She walked toward him, hoping he would interpret her clenched fists and stiff-shouldered walk as soreness rather than nerves. Taking a deep breath, she crossed the threshold into his home. For better or worse, by the time she left this place she'd know more than she did now. Maybe, she thought, more than she really wanted to know. But she had to face it. The dance of denial they'd both been doing for years needed to come to an end before she really did end up in a straitjacket.
The click of the deadbolt jolted her into action, and she practically leaped to the other end of the living room, putting much needed space between the two of them. When she turned around, he was watching her quizzically.
"Beer?" he offered.
She shook her head.
"Right." He looked mildly disappointed. "There's pizza…"
Her stomach churned and she lifted a defensive hand. "No. Thanks."
"So," Jack said when he realized she wasn't going to say anything else. "What brings you here… to my neck of the woods…" He didn't finish the comment. Both of them knew immediately where he was going with it, and the memory wasn't a happy one.
"I just…" She paused, and then tried again. "I need…"
Damn. Why did she always trip over her tongue at times like this?
"What you said the other night. About why you left…" Actually, he hadn't said much of anything, but she wasn't about to bring up the subject of that incredible kiss. "I…"
She bit her lip in nervous frustration and pushed the words out in a thoroughly Daniel-like rush. "I just need you to tell me, Sir."
He arched an eyebrow. "Sir?"
"Jack."
"You sure you don't want that beer?" he asked, hiking a thumb toward the kitchen.
She wondered if he was suggesting it as a way to calm her nerves or his own. "Positive."
He took a deep breath, his chest rising and falling beneath his shirt. "You're a bright girl," he said. "Surely you can figure it out."
She shook her head. "This isn't a physics problem, Jack." There. For once his name felt almost natural in her mouth.
"No," he said. "I guess it isn't."
And with that, they stumbled to an impasse. He couldn't, or wouldn't, say anything else, and it didn't take long for her to feel the first twinges of humiliation. Maybe she'd dreamed the kiss. Or maybe… Maybe he hadn't meant it the way she'd taken it. Abruptly, she decided it was time to get the hell out of Dodge before she made an even bigger ass of herself. She started toward the door.
"I'm sorry. I shouldn't have come."
"Sam." His hand on her arm, and the quiet way he said her name made her stop and turn to look at him. "Don't go."
"Why not?"
"Because I don't want you to go."
She stared at him, pulse racing. "What did you say?"
"I said I don't want you to go."
The words hovered between them like living things, harbingers of a turning point in their relationship.
"Why?" She held her breath. So much hinged on his answer.
Again, he hesitated.
Frustrated, she blew out a breath. "Damn it, Jack. If we can't talk about this…"
"Because I love you."
It was a moment in time that would be forever imprinted on her mind in exquisite detail. She would remember the play of late afternoon sun against his features, the woody smell of fresh mown grass, and the call of a blue jay from the yard. And she would also remember her sharp intake of breath, the sudden ache of emotion in her chest, and the vulnerable look in his dark eyes.
"Because you…"
"Love you. Yes."
He'd said it twice. Clearly that meant she hadn't imagined it. She took a step closer.
"Is that… Are you…" She swallowed hard. "Do you mean that?"
He grinned crookedly. "Do you really think I'd say something like that without meaning it?"
Her thoughts raced, putting the pieces together with lightning speed. "You left because of me."
He shook his head. "Not entirely."
"Then why?"
"They wanted me to take Homeworld Security."
"General Hammond's job?"
A nod. "He wants to spend more time with his granddaughters. Can't say I blame him."
"And you don't want it."
"I'm not a desk jockey, Carter. I'm an Airman. Hell, I didn't even like being head honcho at the SGC."
"Then why did you take the job in the first place?"
"Because you were right when you said we could've ended up with somebody much worse."
She cringed. "I really wish I hadn't said that."
"Like I already said. You were right."
"And yet…"
"Landry's a good man," Jack said. "I wouldn't have left if I didn't believe that."
Sam considered him for a minute. "Why," she asked, "did you leave without saying goodbye?"
He scrubbed a hand through his hair. "Carter…"
"Jack. I need to know."
With a sigh, he met her eyes again. "If I had announced my intention to retire, what do you think people would've said?"
She shrugged. "That you'd earned it? That you'd served your country with honor? That you were a hero?"
"And that I'd left because of you." The words hit her with all the force of a Goa'uld flash grenade.
"Excuse me?" Shock made her speak more loudly than she'd intended.
"Damn it, Carter, you and I have been fodder for the gossip mill ever since that damned za'tarc incident."
She spoke with rather more vehemence than strictly necessary. "Who the hell cares?"
"I do."
"Let me see if I've got this straight. You left the way you did in order to keep people from talking about us?" Anger straightened her spine and gave her words a knife sharp edge. "In case you haven't noticed, I can take care of myself."
"Don't you think I know that?"
"Then why the martyr act? Why put the rest of us through hell like that?"
He answered her question with one of his own. "Are you planning on retiring from the Air Force anytime soon?"
"No, but…"
He interrupted her before she could complete the thought. "What do you suppose would happen to your career and to SG-1's reputation if rumors started circulating about us?"
She shook her head. "You said it yourself, Jack. The rumors are already out there."
"Damn it, Sam. Think about it!" He bracketed her upper arms with his hands. "What would've happened if I'd stuck around for the big send off and then you and I got together right after?"
"Why should anything happen?"
"Come on, Carter. You're smarter than that," he said. "You know damn well people would've taken it as confirmation of their suspicions, and all that effort we put into 'keeping it in the room' would've been for nothing. Every mission we'd been on together, every tough call we'd made, would've become the subject of endless speculation."
Frustration bloomed inside her. She knew what he was getting at. The stain on SG-1's reputation would have been permanent and ugly. Still, she was thoroughly sick of other people controlling her personal life.
"I wouldn't care if it did," she said, but some of the fire had left her voice. She would care, and they both knew it.
She pulled out of his grasp and walked to the window, staring out at the deepening gloom. "So you were protecting me."
"I was protecting the team." He tried a weak smile, but was met with stony silence. "Sam…"
If it had been anybody else, she would've kicked ass first and asked questions later. But this wasn't anybody else. This was Jack; the man she knew would readily sacrifice his own life to protect a friend. She realized then that this wasn't about being a martyr. It never had been. It was about honor, and pride, and doing the right thing no matter the cost. "You thought that if Daniel, Teal'c, and I were angry over the way you left, everybody would stop thinking there was something between us."
"Dumb, huh?"
"Not exactly the brightest plan you've ever hatched."
He shrugged. "That may be true."
Turning back to him, she took a deep breath. "You took a hell of a risk. What if we hadn't forgiven you?"
Another slight shrug, "The risk of that was pretty minimal."
"Because…"
"Because family doesn't turn its back on family."
"You turned your back on us."
"No!" he said forcefully. "I didn't. I turned my back on the Pentagon, and the politics, and the next over-the-top bad guy to come walking through that gate." He closed the distance between them. "I never turned my back on you."
His logic made a bizarre kind of sense when viewed in the context of his 'protection at all costs' mentality. Still, there was one minor problem. "Jack?"
"What?"
"I don't exactly think of you as a brother." Her heart started racing again, and she took a deep breath.
"No?" Hope flared in his eyes.
She reached out, resting the flat of her palm against his chest, and he wrapped his fingers around hers. He couldn't have found a more willing captive.
"Why did you come here tonight?" he asked quietly.
"I had to see you."
"Why?"
She took a deep breath. "Because I love you, too."
His lips crooked into a satisfied smile. "Yeah?"
"Yep."
He slid his free hand along her arm and up to her shoulder, coming to rest at the nape of her neck. The touch of his long fingers against her skin sent a delicious tremor through her body.
He tilted his head to one side, amused. "Ticklish?"
"No." She shook her head, her voice unaccountably shaky. "I just never thought…"
He rested his forehead against hers. "Yeah. Well…"
"I'm not dreaming this, am I?" she asked. "This isn't some sort of cruel alien mind game?"
"If it is, remind me to thank somebody later." She felt the gentle caress of his lips against her temple and sighed her pleasure, the slight breeze ruffling the fabric of his shirt as she tilted her head up to meet him.
And then the telephone rang.
Jack cursed under his breath and lifted his head to glare in its direction. He didn't release her though, and she laid her cheek against his shoulder, dropping a kiss on the lean fingers still wrapped around her own. She looped her free hand around his waist, hooking her fingers into his waistband. She listened to the steady beat of his heart while they waited for the intrusion to end.
She was dimly aware of his disembodied voice from the answering machine, and then the muffled tones of the unknown caller. But those things happened at a distance, lost in a Brigadoon-like fog along with all thoughts of work, and aliens, and the groceries she needed to get later.
When the machine finally clicked off, she felt him take a deep breath. "So," he said.
She smiled up at him. "So."
A dip of his head, a kiss on the end of her nose, and a grin. "So."
"Eight years I've waited… for 'so'?" She teased.
"You were expecting something else?" He raised an amused eyebrow, and she ran a playful hand across his chest in retaliation, pleased by his low groan of response.
"Ya think?" she asked.
He pulled his head back, looking into her face with an expression of mock confusion. "So... What? You want to go out for a beer or something?"
"You know what?" she said, pulling out of his embrace. "That might be fun." She almost laughed aloud at the stunned expression on his face. Hiding her grin, she marched toward the front door, curious as to how far she'd get before he took action.
Apparently not very far.
In fact, she'd barely gone two steps before she found herself spun back into his arms with a "Where the hell do you think you're going?"
"But you said…"
The rest of her words were lost as he captured her mouth with his own. After that, all she could think about was the strength of his arms as he held her close, the warmth of his breath as it fanned against her cheek and the taste... God. After all those years of wanting and wondering and wishing, it was the taste of him that undid her, that made her make that low mewling sound in the back of her throat, made her move restlessly against him, hands knotting in the soft fabric of his shirt as she strained to get closer. She wanted him with an intensity she'd never experienced, wanted the physical barriers of buttons and zippers and fabric to go the way of the emotional barriers that had already fallen.
He responded in kind, saying by touch all those things he'd never been able to say with words, and it was a long time before he lifted his head enough to meet her heavy lidded gaze. When he spoke, his voice was low and rough with need. "Tell me again why we waited eight years?"
"Um…" She nibbled at a particularly fascinating piece of O'Neill real estate just east of his chin. "I don't remember."
"And," he murmured, one hand coming to rest at the base of her spine, the other along her ribs, thumb brushing idly against the outer edges of her breast. "Now that we're finally here…" He pressed a row of tiny nibbling kisses along her hairline. "What happens next?"
She moaned. Even through the fabric of her shirt the light touch was nearly more than she could bear. "I can't speak for you, but I know what I'd like to have happen next."
He pulled her closer, thoroughly eliminating any doubt as to his own desires. "I mean," he said, his voice rumbling near her ear and sending yet another shiver through her. "Besides that."
"Oh," she said, and licked her lips. "Can we talk about that later?"
He smiled. "Samantha Carter, you are a woman after my own heart."
