Okay okay...I am an awful excuse for an author, but between college and everything else that's gone on, my freaking muse decided to take a vacation on me, dangit! Anyway, major props/bowage go to Rose Stetson for helping me out with the Sam/Jack scene in this chapter. You roc my sox woman!
Sam could tell that Lena wasn't really into the chick flick, but kept it on anyway. She watched the other woman from out of the corner of her eye and wondered what was troubling Nick so badly. She heard the door open slowly and turned around to see Nick poke his head around the corner of the door. She was about to welcome him, but he held up a finger to his lips and shook his head. He motioned her leaving the couch and him taking her place. Sam understood immediately what he meant and rose to her feet stealthily as Nick crept forward into the room, his steps smooth and soundless.
As he passed her, he gave her a grateful smile. Sam could see the evidence of his earlier tears on his face and placed a gentle hand on his good arm. She gave him a questioning look, and he nodded. Instinctively, she knew everything he wasn't saying. Punching him lightly on the shoulder, she left the room.
Looking before him, Nick closed his eyes and allowed himself to breathe. This was not going to be easy, but she deserved to know...
After wandering around for awhile and generally getting in everyone's way, Jacob went into the cafeteria to find Kinsah eating candy with Liam. Looking up, Liam snapped to his feet. "General Carter." he said briskly, giving a sharp salute. The older man returned it in an amused fashion. "At ease son...
Liam took his seat with a look of embarrassment on his face and Jacob felt a surge of sympathy for the young man. "What's your name?" he asked kindly.
"Lt. Harris." came the quick reply.
Jacob raised an eyebrow and said with mock seriousness. "Your mother named you lieutenant? What's going to happen when you change rank?"
A chuckle escaped the young man and he shook his head. "Liam Harris."
"A pleasure to meet you, Liam...please, call me Jacob."
The two shook hands and Kinsah looked confused.
"Who this, Leem?" he asked.
"A great leader of our people, Kin." Liam supplied.
"And Samantha Car-O'Neill's father."
Liam smiled at the near slip while Kinsah studied the man in question for a long moment. "What happen to hair?" Kinsah demanded.
"It's called having two kids and getting old."
Kinsah reached up and put a hand on top of his head. "Not look forward to be old." he said seriously.
Jacob chuckled as Liam fixed his eyes on his Hershey bar and wisely said nothing!
As "You've Got Mail" drew to its happy close, Lena dabbed at her eyes with a tissue. "That movie always makes me cry." she sniffed.
"I know." a distinctly un-Sam like voice replied from her left.
Her head snapped in the direction of this surprise and found Nick seated on the other couch, his gaze fixed on her. "Hi." he said simply.
"Hi...what are you doing here? Not that I mind or anything..." she said quickly.
Looking down at the ground, Nick composed himself before rising to his feet. "I came to tell you what happened."
She raised an eyebrow. "You? Talk?"
He sighed. "It happens every once in a while." he joked weakly but Lena could hear an underlying tone of hurt in his voice and decided to cut him a LITTLE slack.
"Well, are you going to stand there, or are you going to come sit by me?" she asked.
As he took a seat and made himself comfortable, Lena could see that he had been crying. "Nick, what happened?" she asked.
"I talked to Jack." he replied.
"You talked...to Jack?"
"Guess he's been where I am." Nick replied.
Looking at him, Lena placed a gentle hand on his injured arm. He covered her hand with his good one and exhaled slowly. "I'm going to just be blunt and say it." he began. "Okay." she replied.
"I had a little brother who died." he stated bleakly.
Lena stared at him. "Little brother?" she asked in disbelief.
"I was 12 years old..."
The alien device was sitting on the lab table just begging Sam to come take it apart and see how it worked. Walking toward it with an almost manic gleam in her eye, she was stopped by the sound of Jack's voice.
"Samantha..." he said.
She turned to find Jack with a serious look on his face standing in the doorway.
"Jack, is everything okay?" she asked.
Exhaling heavily, he strode further into her lab and shut the door. "I just got done talking with Nick."
Sam raised both eyebrows. "He talked?"
"Yes, he did and to make a long story short, his little brother died when he was 12 and he's been thinking that it was his fault for the last 20 years." He gave a mirthless chuckle. "I'd know all about blaming yourself, wouldn't I?"
"We don't have to talk about this right now if you don't want to..." she began.
"Sam, it doesn't really matter if I want to or not...this needs to be talked about BEFORE our child is born..."
"Okay. But let's move this to our quarters. You never know when Felger's going to come in asking for my 'expert opinion.'"
They walked down the hallways and into their room. "So..." She prompted.
"I never really told you what happened, did I?"
"No."
"Two weeks before he died, I came home and found him in his little cardboard fort in the backyard. He jumped out with a water gun and pointed it at me. He pretended to pull the trigger and told me that I was dead."
She gasped.
"I told him that guns weren't toys, and got really cross with him. He ran inside, and we didn't play catch. Little did I know that would have been the last time we could have played catch."
"Jack, you couldn't have known." She said, softly as she placed her fingers on his hand.
"The day he died, I was supposed to take Charlie to a baseball game." A nostalgic smile graced his face. "He loved baseball. Anyway, I was on my way back from the base, but I was a little late. I had a few reports that I hadn't quite finished..."
She smiled. "Nothing changed there."
"Anyway, I got there, and I found Sara on the porch. She was doing some gardening and I snuck up on her."
Sam was trying not to feel jealous as he told her of his relationship with Sara. After all, she was his ex-wife. But on the other hand, she could tell that he still had a tender place in his heart for her.
"Well, she showed me Charlie's school pictures when we heard the gunshot."
She heard the catch in his voice and waited for him to collect himself before he continued. "We raced up the stairs. By the time we reached him, he was on the floor of our room, the blood..."
He took a deep breath. "We took him to the emergency room, but by then, it was too late. He died only ten minutes after we made it there. In fact, it was the same hospital that we saw Sara at a few years ago, you know...when that energy thing decided to be my twin."
Tears were in Sam's eyes as she recalled the event. He had emerged from the emergency room with a small boy, causing Sara to start crying. "Charlie."
"Sara, this isn't Charlie."
It was her first glimpse into how tender Jack O'Neill could be. She was sitting on the bed, and motioned for him to come to her. It was time for them to switch roles. "C'mere." He walked trepidaciously toward her and she tenderly held him as he let the tears fall. "Sam, I never want to go back there." He said, hoarsely.
"You don't have to." She whispered.
"I'm not talking about Chicago, Sam. I'm talking about that place. Where I didn't think life was worth living. Where I couldn't even appreciate the beautiful things in my life."
She swallowed down a few tears. "You don't have to go back there." She promised.
"...and after my mother left, I just stood there for hours until Rad finally came and took me home." Nick finished, wiping at his eyes for the second time that day. "Nick, why didn't you tell me?" Lena asked gently.
He shook his head slowly. "Once I left Australia, I wanted to make a new life for myself, one where people didn't look at me pityingly or whisper about me as I walked past. I wanted a life where I was just like everyone else, not...marked and set apart for what had happened to Tommy."
Rising to his feet, Nick paced. "No one ever really talked about it...my extended family came and I was pretty much shunned by them."
"They shunned you for something that wasn't even your fault?" his wife cried, outraged. He smiled sadly at her and she could see some of Nick's childhood self breaking through. "I was supposed to watch him..." he whispered.
Standing up, Lena turned Nick around to face her. "Yes, but you were only 12 years old, Nick! How could you have known this was going to happen?"
The pain and grief etched on his face tore her heart worse than anything and she longed to give him even a small measure of comfort. "It still hurts so much..." he choked.
"Of course it does...you loved him."
Closing his eyes, Nick breathed evenly. Lena was tired of watching him try to put up a brave front again and stepped forward, pulling her husband into a gentle embrace. She could feel how tense he was and held him that much closer to her. Wrapping his arms around her, Nick allowed himself to put his head on her shoulder, momentarily leaning on her. Little by little, the tenseness in Nick's body ebbed away along with the defenses he had built up over the years until she had a sobbing, heartbroken Nick in her arms.
"I'm not going anywhere..." she said quietly as his crying eventually slowed. Raising his head, he gazed at her for a long moment. "What did I do to deserve you?" he asked tenderly. Taking a hand, Lena gently wiped his face. "Who says you deserve me?" she asked, one eyebrow raised. This made him chuckle and she thought that she had never heard a more beautiful sound.
"Are you okay?" she queried. He smiled at her, and she realized that for the first time since she'd known him, his smile was in his eyes too. "Not completely yet...but I'm starting to get there."
As usual, please read and review so that I know what you thought of it. Thanks!
