Loose ends

Missing Scenes to "Threads"

Here we are. A long time in the making. The part of the Sam-Jack-Story I've been writing towards. This is the first part because Threads deserves more than just one chapter. So I hope you enjoy this one and I'm trying not to let you wait too long for part two. Thank you for sticking with me through this story. I'm always happy to read your comments.

Some things aren't a choice—like falling in love with Carter. Other things are a choice like never allowing yourself to love her because duty comes first. Jack can twist and turn in all directions, but it was his decision. First, it had been hers. Deciding that they were okay, that it would never have to leave the room. As time moved on, she seemed willing to open the door, but he had pulled it shut. His choice, his own fault Jacob, is reminding him about her wedding looming in the rose bushes. Even though Carter doesn't seem particularly thrilled about getting remembered either. It might have something to do with the way Jacob teases her, spells it all out, and the fact that he is doing it in front of Jack. But then again, it doesn't help to think about it this way. They've moved on, and most of the time he's really ok with it. She has Pete. He has Kerry. They are better friends than they've been in a long time. It's all good, he tells himself but can't help but feel a slight satisfaction when she cringes after he says, "Teal'c and Bra'tac are meeting with the Jaffa. There's nothing to do around here. Go pick flowers!"

Carter heads off with the deathly glare Jack can very much imagine 16-year old Sam used to throw Jacob. Just like Jack can imagine Jacob pretending he didn't know what's wrong—like right now.

"Alright, fellows." Jack claps his hands and turns back to Teal'c and Bra'tac, who seem oblivious to the underlying dynamics of human wedding dramas. "We'll expect you back in 12 hours."

The jaffas bow and head out of the conference room. Jack is on their tail when Jacob stops him.

"With Sam doing wedding stuff, I've got some time," Jake reminds, and Jack is pretty sure he is testing the waters.

"Cake?" Jack suggests lighthearted not to give Jacob any reasons to keep doing whatever he is trying here.

"Whiskey?" Jacob counter-offers.

It's only 4:30 pm, but well.

"Sure," Jack says tentatively, somehow certain there's more to come.

When they arrive in Jack's office, Jacob slumps very un-General and un-Tok-Ra-like into a chair before he pulls himself together and rights to full impressive posture. Quietly Jack pours two drinks while stealing glances at Jacob and bracing himself for what is bubbling in the man. Jack doesn't have to wait long.

"Will you do me a favor?"

"Anything, Jake."

Something tells Jack that he's going to regret this immediate response.
"You know things between Tok'Ra and Jaffa are tumultuous. Even within the Tok'Ra themselves, we're trying to figure out what comes next. So I might not be around for Sam's wedding."

Oh, here we go.

"I'm pretty sure if things are tumultuous, Carter won't be around for her wedding either," Jack says and gets the cut-the-crap look as a response from Jacob.

"There are things that are out of my control, and I don't want my girl to push off her life for me," Jacob says and takes a sip of his whiskey. Jack musters the man in front of him who seems different. The vigor that usually surrounds him is gone. His face has a pale and grey look even whiskey can't cure.

"Okay, what is it really?"

Jacob doesn't even try to deny Jack's implied accusation and takes a deep breath.

"Selmak is sick."

"Okay," Jack formulates as a question.

"I might not be around for Sam's wedding."

"What are you suggesting?"

"We're dying, and it's only a matter of time."

Before Jack can ask if Carter knows or tell him to go to the infirmary, Jacob continues, "I haven't told Sam. I'm still hoping we'll make it through the next to weeks. Her life is always so dramatic and chaotic, and I don't want to spoil her wedding."

"She has a right to know."

"Please, Jack. I'm telling you as the base commander, to be ready in case you have an alien collapsing out in the world. Not to get advice on how to deal with my daughter."

Carters might just be the most stubborn humans in the universe.

"I'm not happy about it," Jack says. "But I guess I said, I'll do you a favor."

"Well actually, there's something else," Jacob now sounds dangerous, something is coming for Jack, and all he can do is brace.

"If I'm not around, can you walk her down the aisle for me?"

The words are like a heavy punch in his stomach—no, in his balls. They make his heart skip in all kinds of directions, and Jack is not sure if he is doing a remotely convincing job at keeping his face together. It shouldn't be a problem, he recites mantra-like, but who is he fooling here?

"Uh," is all he can utter at first. Luckily a smart reply gallops to help on a white horse. "Wouldn't George do a much better job at that? He's a father figure for her."

Jacob tilts his head, and a wicked smile plays on his lips. He set out a trap, and Jack walked straight into it.

"Jacob…" Jack growls as a warning, but a dying father is not afraid of the man who's secretly in love with his daughter.

"You don't have a problem with her wedding, do you?" Jacob teases.

Who thought it was a good idea to make the dad of your 2IC your most important ally?

Jacob watches Jack closely, which makes it even more important to keep a straight face and act like, no, he really doesn't have a problem at all with Carter getting married. All peachy. But then, Jacob must have forgotten the rule of not hitting someone when they are down because he says, "You know, Tok'Ra write reports too. Anise tends to be especially detailed in hers."

Jack's masquerade fails him horribly. He pinches his nose, chugs his whiskey, and gets up for a refill.

"That's a very long time ago," he says when he's turned his back to Jacob. No way he's going to face this man now. The father of his 2IC knows that he's been in love with her. Oh, and of course he's a General, so he very much knows that there's a problem with this and he could get him in trouble right away.
"Jack."

Jack is surprised by how soft Jacob's voice sound. Not at all angry or disappointed.

"What do you want me to say?" Jack sighs. His eyes are still hefted on the picture of SG-1 that's hanging on the wall. God, were they young back then. Young and free from the ballast they carry now. No forced love declarations, no tortures, and losses, no giving everything up.

"Do you still feel for her?" Jacob's voice breaks through the montage of the past eight years. Carter in it in every scene. And suddenly, deep inside him opens the door to the room he hasn't visited in a very long time. For the past year, he has told himself the room is empty, that he moved everything out of there.

Oh, what a lie. She's it. He loves her. And yet he can't. To Jack's rescue, the gate alarm starts. He shoots Jacob a sorry-not-sorry look and stumbles out of the door.

As they walk through the house she always wanted, Sam starts to wonder when she stopped wanting it. The kitchen is enormous, and according to Pete, it's easy as duck soup to take down the wall to the dining room to make it a big open space. He has it all mapped out. Bedroom to the right, nursery *wink* to the left. The garage fits her car and the bike, and he can park on the street. The sun falls onto the back porch in the mornings, so that's going to be their weekend breakfast spot. It's perfect, and it makes her want to throw up. Pete's got that happy smile on his face and saunters towards Sam all in for a kiss. Instead of embracing her fianceé, she pulls out her phone and pretends the SGC is calling with an emergency. The way Sam acts, it's a the-world-is-going-to-end-situation. Without even getting off her fake phone call, she gestures him that she has to leave and finds herself driving around town just a couple of minutes after Pete's big surprise.

Her fugue is not right. Not when she's running from the next logical step with her future husband. At least, in the beginning, she should feel like she wants it. Yes, he makes her happy, but the moment just now reveals that she won't be able to make him happy in return. Not the way he deserves. It would mean going so much out of her way, changing so much about her, and she can't do it. She won't start now bending for a fantasy which, if she's honest, isn't even what she wants.

Sam lets out a sigh and notices where her thought-driving has brought her: Jack O'Neill's house. She huffs a desperate laugh. Yeah, well, there's also that.

The never extinct feelings.

The still nagging question of what if.

Maybe it's time to find out once and for all. Sam has been at this point many times. The longer she had tried to build up courage, the more reasons why this was a bad idea populated her mind and eventually won the battle over the control of her motion functions. But the thing is: she still cares for him. Unfortunately, and it becomes clear right this moment, more than she cares for Pete.

There's smoke coming from the back of the house. It's almost painful how well she knows what he would be doing on a day like this when there's no drama in the SGC. Sam lets out a sigh then gets out of the car with a pace that's almost ironic. This time she's not going to lose courage or let him say 'I know.' Once Samantha Carter picks up momentum, there will be no stopping. Tabula Rasa. Not that she knows what to do once the words are spoken. Keep working with Jack O'Neill? Marrying Pete Shanahan? Probably no to all of it. But then how much longer can she pretend and try to be happy just to realize at one point it's not enough. She's never been one to settle for an alternative. That's how she got to become a doctor at 24. That's how she ended up at the Stargate Program.

Sam is marching around the house as she marches onto alien planets: Confident, yet ready to be attacked at any time. She doubts that her P-90 is going to help her in this conversation, but wishes for its comforting heaviness. When Sam turns the corner and spots him standing behind the grill, her determination falls apart like a replicator in the disruptor wave. She forces herself forward. Today she's going to be honest with him—and with herself.

Carter's head rests on Jacob's bed. They are both asleep when Jack enters the observation room. They moved Jacob here to give them more privacy than in the always bustling infirmary. Dr. Lam has confirmed what Jacob told him earlier the day: Selmak is dying and Jacob with her. It's well after midnight, more than ten hours since he followed Carter into the mountain and left Kerry at his place. She had been so very understanding. No questions, no accusations, not even a suspicious look, although Jack would understand if she had reacted differently. Jack doesn't know what Kerry overheard from his conversation with Carter, but he's pretty sure that situations don't come much more awkward, and he's maneuvered himself into many strange ones. Kerry seems to be equipped with all the right sensors to notice that this between Carter and him is complicated at best. It's just a matter of time until it will blow up. Because even though he tells himself that he doesn't need to hear what Carter was going to say to him, that they have moved on and it's good this way, his heart is betraying him horribly because ever since the moment earlier it started beating just for Carter again.

Jack sighs lowly and steps closers. Even in her sleep, Carter looks tired. Her hair is tousled, and her complexion pale. They've seen so many people die. Strangers, team members, close friends, family members—but the own parent is always something else. When his father died, Jack was on some alien planet. Stuck in some sticky situation, he can't remember right now. All Jack knows is that he had missed it. He never had the chance to say goodbye. So he's glad for Carter, that she can be on her father's side, no matter how hard it is in the moment.

Carter stirs, and her eyes flutter open. Slowly she gets up, and when she spots Jack, he doesn't feel uncomfortable for being caught watching her sleep.

"Hey," he says quietly, and Carter gives him a faint smile. "You should get some rest. I can stay with dad."

Carter turns back to her father. Something twists inside of Jack when he sees her so helpless and hurt. If not today, when can he ignore the rules and barriers he has built up? He squeezes her shoulder and is surprised to feel her lean into this contact and grab his hand to squeeze it back.

"Thank you, Sir. I don't want him to be alone and if…" she chokes on the words of what is inevitably going to happen.

"I'll get you as soon as anything changes, promise."

Carter nods and walks past Jack towards the exit.

Jacob is pale and haggard. Nothing left of the imposing General Jack first met almost eight years ago when a nervous Captain Carter introduced him over a glass of punch to her star-stud dad. Of course, she hadn't told Jack that she grew up as an Airforce brat. Probably afraid he would think less of her. That her father had pulled strings to get her where she was. Jack smiles at the thought of Carter over-explaining herself for her family later on the way back from D.C. His smile falters at the memories on how angry he had been at all the jealous Captains or Doctors or sexist Colonels or Generals who had tried to diminish Carter's achievements because she was a woman and her dad an Airforce General. Jack should have taken his fierce need to defend Carter's honor as the first sign that she started to grow on him—and not only as his 2IC.

"Sir," Carter's whisper pulls Jack out of his thoughts. When he turns around, he finds her standing in the door, looking nervously at her fingers, and it takes him right back to hours earlier at his house.

"I wanted to apologize for earlier. I didn't want to invade your privacy," Carter says without looking at him. As she stands there, shoulders slumped forward. There's nothing left from the strong Colonel that blows up suns, fearlessly faces enemies, and saved his sorry ass more than he can count.

"Nothing of that, Carter," Jack answers, and then the following words just fall out of his mouth like overly ripe fruit from a tree: "I'm sorry we got interrupted."

He is as surprised as she is, and it must show because a relieved smile curls her lips. He loses himself in her eyes. Dives deep into her blue and drifts there for a second. He doesn't know for how long they stand there, but suddenly Jacob coughs. Sneaky guy, Jack thinks, when he turns around to a pleased smile on Jacob's face.

"Dad."

With a few steps, Carter is back by Jacob's side and grabs his hands.

"Still here, kiddo. Go get rest. Jack can keep me company."

Jack narrows his eyes at the apparent pleasure Jacob is getting out of this situation.

Carter presses a kiss on Jacob's forehead and heads out.

"Thanks, Sir," she says.

Jack mentally prepares for another round of dad-talk, but when he turns around, Jacob has fallen back asleep. Jack sighs and sits down next to the bed.

The Tok'Ra start chanting a soft melody that crawls under Sam's skin and fills her with warmth from within. Dr. Lam is detaching the monitors from her father's body and tells Sam how sorry she is. Sam nods stoically but can't drag her eyes away from her father's peaceful face. Her thoughts wander to Mark, who never had the chance to reconnect with her father the way she had, and she feels sorry for him. A single tear sneaks out of the corner of her eye, paving the way for many more. She feels an eruption somewhere deep inside, but before it can break out, she is pulled into arms and pressed against a strong, broad chest. The unmistakable scent of Jack O'Neill fills her nose with a calming effect. His hand wanders over her back into her hair, holding her like no one has ever held her before. In his arms, she let's go of everything. There's no need to pretend in front of the man that has seen her in her worst moments and is still here by her side. He whispers soothing mumbles into her ear, which her brain can't form into words but are precisely the right thing she needs to hear. Sam digs her fingers into his shoulders, and then, when the stream of tears runs dry, she lets them sit in his neck, brushing along the soft skin ever so often. Eventually, she peels herself out of his arms because she needs to look into his eyes. She needs to see that she's not alone. That even though her father died, she still has a family. His eyes tell her all of that and many things more.

Jack stands right behind her when the Tok'Ra give their condolences and shoos them when they start talking about the burial of Jacob and Selmak.

Jack has his hand on the small of her back when the nurse covers Jacob's face and rolls him out of the observation room.

Jack squeezes her hand when she lets out a long sigh and turns around to face him. He musters her before he says, "Go home. I'll take care of things."

Why home? There's nothing that is making this better.

"What should I do there?"

"Go to bed, watch a movie. I'm sure Pete can think of something."

Right, she forgot. This is just the little push she needs to finally make up her mind. She pulls herself together and says forcefully, "No Pete."

A range of emotion flickers over his face. Sam knows him well enough that he wants to tell this isn't the right time for big decisions, but her look must be sufficiently determined, so he swallows his words and worries, and another look appears on his face. Hope maybe.

"As in?" He says, his voice just a little bit unsteady.

"No Pete anymore."

"Ah."

He nods and looks at his boots, then back up.

"Well, I've spotted cake in the commissary. How about we meet in my office in 30? You go and uhm take a hot shower, and I'll get the cake?"

"Sounds good."

It's all she needs: Jack O'Neill. Cake isn't so bad either.

But then she thinks back at—wow it was more than a day ago—his house and Kerry coming out of it like she's never done anything else.

"Sir, don't you have somewhere else to be?" Sam says even though she's not sure the answer isn't going to rip her apart once more.

"Nope," Jack says.

„As in?"

"There's no one else I need… want to be with, Carter."

The smallest pocket of surprise lodges at the top of her chest.

"Since?"

He smiles. "Most recently since today."

"Ah."

"Yeah."

Sam feels an embarrassing bright smile on her lips. Jack twists in the lame attempt to make him look less happy because, given the circumstances, that's just wrong, but then again, what was ever right between them.

"So, two pieces each?" Jack finally says, and she nods.

She's going to be fine.

They are going to be fine.

To be continued