Sunday, November 29, 2020, final

Sam looked up from the couch as the garage door opened. She checked her watch. Five hours of running away from her, and he was back.

Her eyes were swollen and gritty from the tears which had come after he'd left. She knew he'd needed to process, could see it in his eyes that there was something he couldn't quite put his finger on, but that didn't mean that having him leave her the way he had wasn't a painful exit.

Jack set his keys on the hook inside the door as Sam wiped at her face with both hands to hide the evidence of the tears which had watered her cheeks off and on since he'd left. "You're back."

He was quiet as he walked over to the sink and filled a glass of water.

She swallowed. "I should warn you. I canceled dinner with Cassie. I thought we needed to talk when you got back. Since I wasn't sure when you'd be back or how long it would take for us to talk, I thought that would be best."

That statement didn't seem to surprise him. "Yeah, she told me."

"She told you?"

He settled into the seat and crossed one leg over the other. "Yeah. I stopped by for a visit about an hour ago."

Sam pressed her hands together and rested her forehead against her thumbs. She should have guessed he'd go there at some point. She was the closest thing either of them had to a daughter.

The feeling that the space between them was getting bigger, harder to navigate, pressed in on her, and she dropped her hands as another round of emotion threatened to drip from her eyes. "Feeling better?"

He didn't answer the question, and in some ways, she was grateful he didn't. If he'd even tried, she wasn't sure she would have believed his answer.

Jack drank half the glass, then emptied the water into the sink. "We never really tried again."

Sam frowned at him, confused by the non-sequitur. "Excuse me?"

"We lost a baby, Sam."

Sam crossed her arms as if the action could protect against the pain. "I was there."

"And immediately afterward, there were these whispers. You and I told each other we'd try again. Then you went back to Cheyenne Mountain, defeated the Ori, spent six months in space building the Midway station, commanded Atlantis—"

It was hard to breathe, not because of her body's new limitations but because of the way he recited her resume as if it was the list of reasons he didn't love her anymore. "As I recall, I wasn't the only one making those decisions. Those orders originated from your office."

Jack sank into the accent chair across from where she sat on the sofa. "Yeah. I know."

Sam swallowed down a second round of hurt. "So, the reason you pulled away earlier was because you blame me?"

Jack shook his head as she finished. "This isn't about blame, Sam."

She raised an eyebrow like she didn't believe him. "It's not."

Jack gave her a look, and without him saying it, she knew he was thinking about how his first marriage ended. That he refused to make that same mistake here. "All I'm saying, Sam, is that there was this nebulous promise out there that we'd try again."

Sam's throat thickened. "And now it's too late."

"Yeah."

Sam closed her eyes, trying to squeeze off the emotion that was threatening once again. "So, what now?"

Jack raised his fingers as if to say I don't know.

Sam scratched the spot over her right eye. "Well, I'm not willing to give up on us."

Jack grimaced before he looked over at her. "Give me some credit, Sam. That's not on the table. Never has been."

Sam couldn't help but breathe a sigh of relief. "Okay..."

"Look, I know how this is going to sound coming from me."

Sam met his gaze, trying to steel herself against whatever he was going to say. "What?"

Jack's hands raised, then lowered as he exhaled. "I need us to talk more."

She frowned. "We talk all the time."

Jack gave her a look that seemed to say Don't kid a kidder. "There are things we don't talk about Sam. Things we need to talk about."

"Like?"

Jack's eyebrow shot up. "Like except for a few logistical things, we don't talk about how you used to command a ship that was regularly shot at by the Lucian Alliance. How there were several close calls where you might not have come home."

Sam chewed on the inside of her cheek. "Okay, I'll give you that one."

There was tension in the silence, like there were more things they needed to say in order to clear the air.

Unfortunately, Sam couldn't even begin to identify the taboo topics off the top of her head. Her brain was getting too fuzzy from worrying about him when he was gone, from wracking her brain to figure out where everything had gone wrong.

Jack got out of his chair and sat beside her. Even wrapped both of his arms around her. "I went to Cassie's house because I needed something. I couldn't put my finger on it until I held the baby. And I realized as she curled on my chest that all I'd really mourned thirteen years ago was an idea, the idea of being a father again. Charlie was different because I had concrete memories I could associate with him. Had a hole in my life after he left. His room. The stuff we would do together, just him and me. I could really put into words what I had lost when he died."

Sam's eyes shone with tears as she looked up at him. "And it's different now?"

He nodded. "When you said you had envisioned us with a daughter. When you called her Grace..."

His voice hitched, and Sam's grip on his arm tightened.

His words grew hoarse and quiet. "I don't know why it landed differently after that. Daniel would probably say something about how it was too abstract a loss. That naming that baby, even with all the questions we still have about who he or she might have been, somehow humanized everything."

She leaned her cheek on his shoulder. "I get that."

He looked down at her. "I wish that was something we'd gotten to do together. Parenthood. It's not easy, but it's an incredible bond."

Sam didn't move, didn't look up at him. Just kept hold of his hand on her arm.

"My default has always been work, Jack. You know that. When my mother died, my dad threw himself into his work, and he got promoted a few months after the funeral. Maybe it's not right, but that was pivotal for me. Every other time I lost someone or something, I threw myself into work. The only time it was remotely different was when I left to take care of Cassandra, but it was the same thing really. Throwing myself into a project because the loss was too painful otherwise. The project was just more personal."

Jack interlocked his fingers with hers, and she played around a little with how they fit together. Grateful that as painful as this talk was, they were finally getting it all out in the open. They could rebuild once they knew the real landscape of their relationship. Not just what they did well, but also the things they wanted to do differently. Needed to do differently.

Sam's voice lowered to a whisper. "I thought that with each assignment, you were really saying you didn't want to try again. That you couldn't take the chance that the story would end in loss again. That you thought—"

His voice was almost too soft for her to hear. "That I thought what?"

She swallowed down emotion as she admitted the thing that haunted her the most. "The hardest part of losing our baby was knowing that I was going through a fraction of what you'd already experienced with Charlie. Knowing that if you were with anyone else, if I were with anyone else, you wouldn't be hurting. That I failed in helping you get a second chance at fatherhood."

Jack pressed his face against her cheek as he held her so tightly it almost hurt. "How long have you been carrying that around?"

She looked into his brown eyes. "Thirteen and a half years."

He squeezed his eyes shut, his hold not letting up on her. "It's not true, Sam. Nobody failed anybody, and if I had to choose all over again, even knowing what I know now, it would be you. It was always you."

She didn't argue this time, just gave up the pretense of being strong for him. Cradled the back of his head in her hand as he leaned his face into the crook of her neck.

She didn't know when, but at some point, his lips found their way to hers. She needed him. One hand traveled down to her waist, fingers toying with the hem of her shirt, dusting the sensitive flesh at the small of her back.

She stiffened, remembering how only a few hours ago, she'd offered this. How he'd pulled away.

She could taste salt on her lips. Almost apologized for her tears until her fingers dusted his cheeks. Felt uncharacteristic moisture there as well.

"I'm sorry about this morning." His voice was gruff, almost hoarse with emotion, as the need naturally ebbed out of its apex. "I couldn't get that image of the goa'uld force shield between us out of my head. Of the locked bedroom door that brought it all back."

Sam pulled him close again, regretting that she'd let her need to follow the rules stand between them. Again. "I'm so sorry, Jack, if I'd known—"

He kissed her again. It was raw and vulnerable like that first kiss had been at the cabin, a couple weeks after her dad had died.

His calloused fingers caressed her cheek. "I'm beginning to think it was never about the door."

He trailed kisses from her ear to the little spot in the crook of her neck that always seemed to make her go a little dizzy.

"You think it was this?"

She didn't have the presence of mind to explain, but she hoped he understood that what she meant was all the admissions that had finally slipped out today.

Jack looked in her eyes, and the love was back. In such force that her knees went weak. "There was something keeping us apart, and I couldn't put my finger on it. That's always going to bother me."

"Because of how we started?"

There was an ironic smile on his lips as he shook his head. "Because I care about you."

He didn't even have to finish the sentence before she wrapped her arms around his neck again, needing him closer. Then, she finished his sentence. "A lot more than I'm supposed to."

It wasn't an exact quotation, but then these were vastly different circumstances.

His breath was warm on her ear, and she shivered in anticipation. "That hasn't changed in over twenty years. Probably won't for at least fifty, and even then..."

She threaded her fingers through his gray hair as an overwhelming wave of love for him, for his patience, and so much more crashed over her. "God, I love you."

He kissed her lips again. "Samantha..."

Her lips turned upward with the way he said her name. "Please... Jack..."


Sam's arms tightened around her husband's torso as one last admission weighed her heart down. He'd been so open and honest with her, and it had been incredible. She owed him access to this last secret. "Jack?"

"Hmm?"

She swallowed. "The last time we did this, you asked me if I'd take a promotion... If I'd command the SGC if they offered it to me."

She didn't know if it was his basic training days or if it was bringing the Air Force into their bedroom, but Jack stiffened. "And?"

Disappointment welled up in her with such fury that she almost stopped herself from finishing what she'd set out to say. "And... I think it's time we admit that is not going to happen."

He relaxed. Then, kissed her temple as he pulled her closer. "How do you feel about that?"

"I'd be lying if I said I wasn't disappointed. But I doubt that surprises you."

"You weren't just good at your job. You loved it. It's only natural you should feel a sense of loss."

She snuggled close to him. "Maybe you'll get to retire to that little cabin in Minnesota earlier than you thought."

"As much as I would love that—"

She looked up into his eyes. "What?"

He swallowed. "Do you remember when you had that entity downloaded into your brain?"

She shuddered. She still sometimes had dreams that she had no voice. That the only way she could see her teammates was through robotic camera movements. That she was shouting and nobody could hear her. The dreams weren't as often or as intense as they'd been those first few years after the incident, but they were still there. "Yes."

He rubbed the pad of his thumb over her arm as if to tell her he knew how painful the memory must be. He had his own stuff that haunted him. "I only mention it because Janet came in at one point after that second zat."

She could still hear the guilt in his voice when he talked about the time he thought he'd killed her. He'd done the right thing, and it had worked out in the end, but there was still that little hesitation in his eyes that seemed to wonder if he couldn't have done something differently.

She kissed his shoulder, giving him space to explain.

He cleared his throat. "Anyway, Janet came in, and she asked if I knew about your living will."

Sam's heart stopped. "You never told me that."

Jack swallowed, thickly. "Your body was on life support, and Janet thought maybe you'd want us to pull the plug."

"No extraordinary means," she quoted softly.

"Yeah."

Sam rested her cheek on his chest. Felt his steady heart beat. "I can't imagine."

"Yeah, well—I asked her to give you a minute."

Sam's lips slipped apart as she processed the implication. That was why she'd still had a body to return to when they booted up the system. Because he'd been reluctant to let her go.

Jack put a finger under Sam's chin and guided her vision to meet his. "If you really think this is the right step, then I'll support you."

Sam's eyebrow ticked up. "But?"

He kissed her. Slow and sweet. Let his thumb caress her cheek. "Just give yourself a little more time to heal, will you? Be patient with yourself. You'll get there."

Sam looked at the bedroom door. The one that had become a symbol of so many things in her life, in her marriage. Her thoughts whirled at dizzying speeds, and she wasn't sure if she knew how she felt about Jack's request. "And if I said that I don't want to risk it. That I wanted to call Landry today and start the process of a medical discharge?"

Jack kissed her temple again. "It's your career. It's your decision."

"But?"

"But I think you should give it a little more time." Another kiss. "I'd hate for McKay to think he really was the expert on the stargate."

Sam buried her face in his chest as she snickered, though there was a moment when she felt a pang of sadness for her intelligence. Everything she used to take for granted seemed to be so much harder now, and it bothered her how much it bothered her. "It doesn't bother you that I'm not as smart as I used to be?"

"Sam, you not being as smart as you used to be still puts you a helluva lot smarter than me." She rolled her eyes as she got up on one elbow to face him. "That's not true."

Jack laughed. "The fact that you say that with a straight face is a little impressive. Hammond was very clear when he introduced us. You are way smarter than me."

"If I recall correctly, he specifically said it was in matters relating to the stargate. I seem to recall you coming up with a few ideas that eluded the rest of us eggheads."

Jack's eyebrows shot up. "Eggheads, huh? Yeah, well, you always did say I saw things at their simplest."

She laughed softly.

"Besides, I could never say this before, but you were a little intimidating with all your probabilities and astronomical terms."

"Intimidating, huh?"

He nodded, a teasing grin playing on his lips.

It was nice to have the barriers down between them. The joking and camaraderie which had built their relationship all those years ago back.

"And yet, you stunned Daniel with your knowledge of black holes."

Jack snorted. "Oh, come on, you know you fed me the accretion disc line, and you know it."

She stopped for a second. "I did?"

Jack's eyes brightened. "You don't remember?"

She shook her head.

"I asked you about black holes before we ever got geared up. When Daniel asked the same questions later, I couldn't help but pretend I had known it the whole time."

Amusement played on her lips. "Really?"

"I always suspected Daniel missed the important part of that question, actually. How you knew I had a telescope on my roof."

Sam pressed a finger to her cheek as she tried to think through her earliest memories with Jack. Then, she blushed. "Oh, right."

Jack grinned as he let his fingers tangle in her blonde hair. "I'll never forget how you showed up a half hour early to that first team barbecue and found me setting up for the meteor shower that night."

Her eyes danced as the memories came back. "That's right. I was so nervous back then."

He raised an eyebrow. "Nervous? Could have fooled me. Lecturing me on how to address you five minutes after we'd met."

She bit back a smile. "Yes, well—I felt like I had to prove myself to a legend that day."

Jack preened. "Yes, a legend."

Sam rolled her eyes. "I'm going to regret telling you that, aren't I?"

Jack chuckled as he leaned in for another kiss, then trailed the kisses down her jaw.

Her eyes fell closed in pure ecstasy.

Then, the memories shifted until she found herself at a less pleasant one. "Jack?"

"I'm a little busy at the moment."

She played with the gray hair at the back of his neck as she fought the impulse to give in. "I never did say I'm sorry."

His expression was confused as he pulled away. "For what?"

"For being so quick to leave everything in the room. For not giving you time to say what you wanted to do after that."

His brown eyes grew warm with compassion. "What makes you think I wouldn't have suggested the same thing?"

She shrugged. "I never gave you the chance to. The easy defense is that I was in a damage control mindset, but if that was the only thing going on, I wouldn't have shut you down later when you mentioned the bald man you were trying to remember when we realized we weren't Jonah and Thera. I always suspected you were trying to tell me something that day. Something you hinted at when I told you Pete had proposed and I asked about you, if things had been different."

"What did I hint at?"

Sam swallowed. "You can't say it even after all these years? That you would have retired again after the za'tarc testing?"

Jack grimaced. "You figured that out, huh?"

She nodded. "I knew you'd never ask me to give up my career. Once I really accepted that you had feelings for me, I had to admit that was the only other option. You giving up your career for me."

"Would that have been such a problem?"

The regret, the question of what might have happened if Sam had been younger when she'd first gotten pregnant...

She turned away from the thought. Nothing they could do about that now. "We needed you. Still do."

"Not gonna be around forever, Sam."

She tightened her hold on him. "Don't talk like that."

He caressed her cheek. "It's true. Hopefully, it'll be a long time before we really have to face that, but it's not going to be the end of the world if I retire."

She drew a lazy circle on his chest as she considered that. "What are you saying?"

"Maybe if you take a medical discharge, I retire. We spend the rest of our life up in the middle of nowhere in Minnesota. Playing Samma and Jackpa to Cassie's kids."

Sam's head snapped up. She couldn't have heard him right. "What?"

Jack leaned in for another kiss as he snickered. "That's a story for another day."

For the first time in a long time, she leaned into the haze that played at the edge of her brain with each of his feathery kisses.