The smell of coffee intrudes on Jack's sleep. It's more intense then he remembered it... just yesterday. The rain changed him somehow. He'd been locking out life for a long time. He'd forgotten how good it was.
Every sensation burst upon his senses as if it were the first time he had ever felt it.
The feeling of warm sheets on skin chilled by the desert morning.
The sound of the distant city bell proclaiming the beginning of the day in its sweet, slow melody, full of harmony and just enough discord to make you long once more for the harmony when it returns.
The shock of cool water on his face as he washed up.
The slippery feel, and ashen smell of soap.
The needlework of his clothes. A reminder of his wife. Had he really denied himself a daily link to her all this time he was shutting out his senses?
The sweet, unique smell of Samantha she leans forward to give him a good morning kiss.
No, wait.
He pulls away, and doesn't miss the hurt look on her face at the action. He'd forgotten that not all sensations and emotions are welcome ones. "Sam, I feel like I might have deceived you last night. I didn't do it on purpose."
She looks away from him trying to hide her disappointment, "No, you really didn't lie to me. If I recall, all that happened was you tried to marry me off to someone, and then I dragged you against your will into a rainstorm."
"It wasn't exactly against my will. Look, there was a moment there…"
"You told me that you were still in love with your wife. I respect that. Hell, I admire that. If you were someone else, someone that I wasn't married to, like a father or a brother or a friend, I'd even like you the better for it. But I can't help but wish that you were in love with me instead of her. I know now that that's too much to hope for. I don't know, maybe I should give Walter another chance. That is, if I haven't offended him too much."
Jack feels a surge of jealousy rise up inside of him at the suggestion that she give Walter another chance. Which is, of course, ridiculous, because he was the one that suggested that the two of them get together in the first place. "Sam, there was a moment for me."
This is almost too much confession for him. She pauses, and looks at him, longing for more. Needing some form of clarification. But she knows that this, too, is a moment, and that a word from her could shatter it.
He takes a deep breath, "This isn't fair for you, because I don't actually know that I can do this. I don't know if hearts are made to fall in love more than once. Most people, they don't even think that a heart is made to fall in love once. So I don't exactly have a whole bunch of people that I can go up to and ask about it. What Sara and I had, it was intense. And if I can't have that again, I don't want anything. It's really unfair of me to ask you if you want to wait around for something which may never happen."
Sam smiles at him, and works to close the distance between them to give him a kiss.
"No, Sam, it doesn't work that way. The real things, they're slow. If you can't wait for this slow thing between us to blossom, then I can get Walter back. You'd probably be better off with him anyway. He doesn't go on missions, and he's smart, like you. I won't be offended if you choose him over me. You deserve to have a choice."
"You," she says.
He looks at her, confused by what didn't feel like a full thought.
"My choice, it's you. And you are smart. You may have fooled other people with your dumb act, but I'm your wife, and you aren't going to fool me," she says.
"So, we're going to be patient, and see what happens between us?" Jack asks.
Sam nods.
"Dada!" Charlie says, pulling on the edge of his father's pants. He's not used to going this long without his father's attention. Jack picks him up in an exaggerated heave and grunt which causes his son to giggle.
Did Charlie always smell like this? This fresh baby sent? He looks into his son's eyes just as the little boy lets out a giggle.
Whatever trace of guilt he had left in his heart is gone. He knows that Sara would want him to live without her. She would demand it. Charlie deserved a father who did something besides care for him. He deserved a father who played with him out of something besides duty. He deserved a father who completely enjoyed being his father, and in order to do that, he would have to enjoy life.
He was going to try to live again. Yes, even love again.
"Daddy loves you, little man," he whispers in his son's ear.
His son's tiny arms go wide around him, "'ove!" the boy repeats.
-0-0-0-
Flowers. Such a silly wasteful thing. You had to kill them in order to enjoy them.
Sam had only been two years old when her mother died. She couldn't remember the funeral, or the way that her body was covered with the bouquet after bouquet. Flowers were useful for hiding the scent of rotting flesh when people laid their dead ones to rest.
But they weren't good enough at it that that smell hadn't been associated with the sight and smell of flowers forever in Sam's mind, even though she couldn't remember why.
But Jack seemed to view the constant replenishing of the vase on her dresser as one of the primary ways of courting. He had made no other move besides this.
Maybe this was what courting was. She wished that she knew someone who had actually been courted so she could ask if everything was going at the speed and way that it was supposed to. Maybe she was the one who was supposed to make the next move? But he had said that he wanted to take things slow.
"What's wrong, Sam?" a breath on her neck says.
She wants to turn around and see his face, but this is the closest to her that he has ever been, and she is afraid that any motion is going to break the spell.
"Nothing," she lies.
"You don't like flowers, do you?" he asks, pulling away from her a little.
"I'm sorry," she says.
He nods, "That's probably for the best. You aren't Sara, and I shouldn't romance you like I romanced her. I'll try something else."
"You don't have to get me things," she says.
-0-0-0-
"Dada!" a voice sobs from Charlie's room. Sam jumps up and runs toward his room. As she rocks the tears out, she realizes that it's much later than it normally is when the family wakes up. She quickly gets Charlie to the bathroom, and heads out to the kitchen.
Breakfast is made, and all of the dishes are washed apart from the ones that holds two shares of food. One of them is already cut into Charlie sized bites, because Jack wanted to spare her even that small amount of work.
A note is folded on the table, and Sam picks it up as she slides Charlie the seat.
"Hey, I had to go to work early. I couldn't tell you before because of the level of security clearance. Sorry, I know it's got to nerve-wracking to not know where I am or where I am going. I did a couple of chores around the house so that you could have the morning pretty much off (if you want it completely off; Sha're is free to watch Charlie, I checked). So you can get some science done, or you can paint your toenails or whatever floats your boat."
Sam holds the note to her heart for a long silent moment. It is a long way from a love note, but it's really sweat. If she wasn't already more than half in love with Jack this might have pushed her over the top.
He said that he wasn't good at this, but it's clear that he is a lot better at all of this than she is.
-0-0-0-
As Sam hangs up her husband's clothes in the closet, something shoved into the back catches her eye. She pulls it out to examine it more closely.
A hockey uniform? In Egypt? If that wasn't, crazy Sam didn't know what was.
But then an idea struck her. This would be the perfect way to let her husband know how she felt about him. She might not be capable of little notes, and thoughtful actions, but this was something that she could do.
-0-0-0-
"Close your eyes," Sam commands when Jack comes back from a mission a few days later. He's exhausted, but there is so much delight on his wife's face that he can't deny her whatever she is asking him to do.
He obeys, and she grabs onto his arm, and pulls him much faster than he is comfortable moving with his eyes closed. He discovers with surprise that he trusts her much more than he thought he did.
"Ok, open them up!" she exclaims with furnish.
She's flattened the backyard. She dug all of the hills, and even the bumps out of the back yard, and used the dirt to fill in every single dent and depression. He turns to her, confused by her wide grin. He has no idea what would possess her to do this, but she is so proud of it that he isn't willing to do anything that is going to quench her spirit.
"That's awesome… Are you planning on doing some gardening?" he asks, confused.
She giggles, and points to objects that had escaped his notice.
He bends over to look at them, and discovers that they are shoes. Shoes with wheels on them.
"You want to play hockey?" she asks with delight in her voice.
He blinks at her. "Hockey is a game that's played on ice." He hopes that he isn't going to disappoint her too much by ruining whatever kind of plan she had in store for them.
"Well, it was until today, when I invented a whole new kind of hockey!" she exclaims.
"Hockey on dirt?" he asks.
"Yep!" she exclaims.
"With skates with wheels instead of blades?" he presses.
"Yep," she says, her enthusiasm beginning to wane. She is starting to wonder if she hasn't made some kind of mistake.
He grins, "You're crazy, you know that?" he asks.
"Yep," she says, bending down fasten her own pair of skates onto her feet. He follows her example.
He stands and tries to glide over the dirt. It's different than he imagined it, less smooth. But it's works.
"So how could you be into hockey anyway? It is something which usually involves ice, like you said."
Jack takes a rather long glide, he feels like he's starting to get the hang of it, "Well, I've never actually played hockey. See, it was my father. He was originally from Ireland. He was part of the 'gift of relocation' when he was just a teenager. He was sold as a slave. But he was really good as a businessman, a salesperson. So he bought his freedom from his slave owner before too many years had passed. He worked his way up in the business world quite well. But he never forgot what they did to him. He never stopped longing for home."
Sam gets so focused on his words that she doesn't notice a rock, and takes a high speed tumble. In his rush to get to her Jack forgets that he is wearing skates instead of shoes. He glides into her side. The impact, besides causing her pain, throws him off balance enough that the falls-on top of her.
"Are you ok?" he asks the person who provided him with soft landing.
"Well, I was ok, until someone landed on top of me," she says with a giggle.
"I'm sorry," he says, climbing off and starting to laugh himself.
They both lie there laughing so long that Charlie, who is relaxing in the shade under a tree, comes over to see what is wrong with them.
Sam grabs him and begins to tickle him. Charlie falls down, laughing, between them.
All at once, the giggling stops, and the little family pulls together in a long, silent hug. Sam and Jack's eyes lock over the boy's head, and they smile at each other.
Any doubts that there isn't a "someday" at the end of the waiting disappear from two minds in unison.