Author's Note: In order to make it all work, I had to jostle the timeline a little. The story still takes place within the series precisely where I said it did, but the actual dates of things have moved around some. I actually put it on a timeline so I could keep track but the I realized it might be useful for all of you if you're getting lost within the framework. So I prettied it up a little. You can get to the timeline through my FFN profile or the chapter 1 story notes on AO3.
Also, some of you may have noticed that as of last chapter we've entered "Joy". Woo-hoo! (But that doesn't mean there isn't any more angst…just that we're in the upswing of the healing.)
There's a scene herein that exists solely for my beta. Because she is wonderful and she's been so very patient. I'll warn you that this chapter was met with mixed reviews and I only changed about half the things that generated questions. It's a balancing act. If it doesn't work, it's entirely my fault, 'cause chances are she fixed it and I blew her off. The good news is that between the two of us we probably caught all the typos. ;) (You know I love you, girl, because I torture you so.)
Also, there's sex in this chapter. But that's all I'm saying right now. Anyway, the story is earning its rating for something other than violence now.
"I wonder if we could be something without all the adrenaline. If we really need the stress and the fear and the pain, the all-out threat of torture, a pack, and a half dozen bricks of C-4 a piece." She finishes washing the plate in her hands and relinquishes it for him to dry without meeting his eyes.
"What?" he asks evenly as if she hadn't just questioned the very nature of the most basic parts of what they are, as if she didn't just stop his heart, as if she can't tell he's a half a breath away from panic. "You don't think we're something right now?"
She chooses not to answer and he dries three more dishes. "I know this isn't exactly what you wanted but it's more than I ever let myself want. I'm not going let anyone just take it away, Carter. Not even you."
She sweeps breadcrumbs and sesame seeds into a little pile on the floor with her toes. "You're not my Colonel anymore. You don't get to say my name like that."
He tosses a clean Tupperware container at her and she snags it out of the air. "You're just trying to get a rise out of me."
"It's working," she says with a shrug.
"It's working because you know exactly what to say to make it hurt."
"I don't really want to hurt you," she says in a way that makes it clear that while she might not want to, she does it because she can. She hates what that says about her.
"The trick is to know how to hurt me but not do it."
"I have literally no idea what I'm supposed to be doing, you know that, right?"
"Any ideas about what you're not supposed to do?" he leads.
She gives him a half smile because she knows at least one thing, for sure. "Yeah."
"Well, start there. That's better than a lot of people do."
-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-
Later, it's packed into the tiny space of his inadequate laundry room – oh, how he misses the wide and airy laundry room at her house – that she tilts his world a little. "You were right – this, here with us, isn't exactly what I wanted."
While his world disintegrates and he tries not to panic, he folds the shirt in his hands and does his best not to vomit into the heap of clean clothes in front of him.
"How could it have been? I didn't know there was something out there like this that I could ask for."
He exhales sharp relief. "Well, hell, Sam. How's a guy supposed to follow something like that?"
-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-
"We have talked about it," Jack emphasizes over beer.
Daniel resists the urge to snort into his glass. "You mean the two dozen sentences you two have exchanged on the subject?"
"We do a lot more talking than actually makes it back to you, you know?"
"I mean, Jack, that you have to have a conversation that includes the words 'exclusive' and 'relationship' and 'love'."
"Girl stuff," Jack shrugs and takes a drink.
"Uh, she is a girl," he points out like it would matter.
"Why?"
Daniel looks at Jack likes he's grown two heads. "Why is she a girl?"
Jack rolls his eyes and spins his mug on the bar before quirking an eyebrow. "We're sure you're a genius?"
-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-
"What does being happy feel like?"
"I really feel like we've done this before."
"Sam," Natalie scolds gently, "we'll stop doing it when you actually answer the question."
Sam swipes a small rock from the decorative bowl on the table next to the couch and turns it over in her hands. "Do you think it's possible I've never been happy?"
"I think there are degrees of happiness. And I think you've probably attained one or more of them at various points in your life."
"I'm not ready to be happy. Not yet."
"Okay," Natalie nods. She can understand that. She, herself, spent many years not quite ready to face what she needed to truly be happy. "So, what do you feel ready for?"
"I guess I'm just hoping for…hope."
-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-
"You want a glass of wine?"
She looks over her shoulder at him from where she's curled up in the recliner he dragged over in front of the fireplace for her. "Can I?"
He looks at the clock. "You're right in between doses. It's probably safe."
"Probably?"
He shrugs one shoulder. "Doesn't matter to me if you get loopy."
She's suddenly struck by how much she wants to touch him. It's a visceral feeling of anticipation that prickles across her chest and then heats the skin of her belly. "Come here."
He pushes himself off the wall where he's leaning and saunters her direction. "Okay," he says when he's next to the chair, "I'm here. Now what?"
She reaches out to him and he snags her fingers. She twists her wrist until their fingers tangle together. It's not enough. She tugs and he takes another step forward, but his thighs bump into the arm of her chair. "Sit with me," she requests.
"This chair isn't built for two," he says, but still he pulls her up and takes her seat before coaxing her down into the small space between his lap and the arm of the chair. The awkward position tilts her into him and she arranges her legs so they're half draped over his and tucks her shoulder under his arm. Left with a free hand she flounders then finally settles it on his chest.
She's overwhelmed by her feelings in this moment. She's in love with him. It's not new. It's certainly not news. But it's strong and powerful and a little frightening and even though she knows it isn't, it still feels a little wrong. He's in love with her too. That's not news either and it's something she knows without a single doubt despite the fact that neither one of them are likely or inclined to actually say the words. She doesn't need him to say them. He shows her. All the time. But in love isn't quite the same as love and trusting emotions isn't her strong suit. It wasn't before and it's especially not now.
She presses her face into his neck and breathes deeply. He's familiar and comfortable, solid and strong. She has a powerful urge to open her mouth against his neck, to find out what his skin feels like against the softer inside of her lips but she doesn't. She doesn't think he'd stop her, but she doesn't trust the feelings inside her and he probably wouldn't either. Instead she presses her forehead against his cheekbone and exhales shakily.
"Yeah," he says, and strokes a hand down her spine, "I know. Me too."
And there it is, blooming wide open in her chest. Hope.
-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-
Janet draws her foot up Daniel's leg until she can cup the arch of her foot around his knee. The sheets are cool but his skin is warm and she enjoys the juxtaposition. The hairs on his thigh tickle the side of her foot and she twitches. He smooths a hand across her skin to quiet her and mumbles into her hair.
She tickles his ribs until he flinches away from her hand and closer into her and the feel of all her bare, hot skin against him forces him awake and she's underneath him before she's aware he's fully awake.
"I didn't go to bed until three thirty," he says into her mouth, around their tongues.
She wriggles against him. "Well, you're awake now."
"I'm tired." But still he scratches his nails lightly down the side of her breast.
"I went to bed alone last night."
"And now you're looking for reparations?"
She laughs against his mouth, "Something like that."
He touches the tip of his tongue to the corner of her mouth in that way she inexplicably likes and she presses up into him. He's inside her before either of them had planned that far ahead and they both hiss at the contact. She pushes on his shoulders and he rolls over onto his back and takes her along with him. From above him, she can take advantage of the way the morning light streaks across his face. She plants her hands on his chest and uses the leverage to stroke up then slide back down.
"Why were you late?"
He tightens his hands – left on her hip, right on her waist, "I stopped for dinner with Jack and that put me behind."
He pulls her down on him hard and she doesn't bite back her moan and her next words are breathy. "So what do you think? Are they okay?"
He hisses when her fingernails bite gently into his pecs. "Ah! I don't know. You know how he is. He doesn't talk about anything."
One of his hands slides down to rub against her clit. That means he's close. "He talks to her."
She rolls her hips and he grunts with the new sensation. "About important stuff?"
"They talk like we talk," she says but her voice shakes with the effort of not coming – she's not ready to give up the feeling of him inside her.
"I don't think they talk like we talk," he says with a wink and surges up inside her.
"Maybe they should," she points out as she loses the battle with her restraint.
He groans when she clenches around him. "Fuck, Janet," he grinds out and then he comes too.
She sits astride him, catching her breath. "Do you know how insane it is that you're one of the most impressive linguists in the galaxy and when you come you're reduced to 'Fuck, Janet'?"
He licks his lips and she feels an answering twinge deep inside her. She tightens around him and blesses his refractory period.
"Let's go again and I'll try to come up with something in ancient Sumerian."
She finds herself underneath him again and she grins. "That sounds fun."
-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-
Very conscious of having inadvertently abandoned Teal'c, she finds herself curled up in the easy chair in the corner of his room early one evening while he lights dozens of candles.
"Does the General know you have this many open flames in your room?" she queries.
"I have been given permission to Kelno'reem as I see fit."
"Yeah. But does he know about all these candles?"
Teal'c, she would swear it, smirks. "He does not."
"Sort of a 'what he doesn't know won't hurt him' situation?"
"I do not believe that to be a true statement."
"It's just a saying."
He regards her carefully. "Do you believe you will not be harmed by things you know nothing of?"
She bites her lips against the sudden onslaught of emotion. "No," she shakes her head. "Not anymore."
He crouches down in front of her and takes one of her trembling hands in his. "Where is O'Neill?"
"In a meeting." Even she can hear the quaver in her voice.
"Should I retrieve him for you?"
She shakes her head. "No, Teal'c, that's okay." She shifts forward until she's perched on the edge of the chair and winds her arms around his neck. He embraces her gently. "You'll do just fine."
"I am glad you came to me tonight, Major Carter."
"Me too."
"You are not yet healed."
"I'm not." She says with a sigh and rests her cheek on his shoulder. "But I will be."
"You will," he affirms. "And I will help you."
-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-
When he catches Sam hugging Teal'c for the fourth time in as many days he can't help but tease a little. "I'm starting to wonder if there's something I should be worried about." He doesn't check his grin as he crosses his arm over his chest and leans against the door frame between the gym and the sparring room.
Sam turns her face towards him but leaves her cheek pressed against the Jaffa's chest. "He's just so big and cuddly," she teases back.
Teal'c frowns. "I am not 'cuddly'," he says in that voice that usually brooks no argument but Jack sees the smile around his eyes that belies his gruff response and reveals his pleasure with her assessment.
"You ready to go home?"
She releases Teal'c. "I want to shower first. Give me ten?"
"Sure," he says mildly.
She disappears into the locker room and Jack helps Teal'c restack the mats against the wall.
"Major Carter appears to be of a lighter mood the last several days."
"Yeah," Jack observes, "she has, hasn't she?"
"She speaks of you more freely now than she did before."
Jack pauses then stumbles when Teal'c's and the mat's forward momentum don't stop. "Yeah?"
"Indeed."
"Do you have an opinion?"
Jack wonders for a moment if Teal'c is going to play stupid. But that's not the man's style and he doesn't disappoint Jack. "If she is happy and you are happy then I believe you are doing the right thing."
"I think she has the potential to be happy," Jack hedges.
"For now, that is enough."
-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-
"You're a real pain now that you're getting laid regularly," Jack grouses and knocks back the last of the whiskey in his glass.
"Geez, Jack. Do you have to be so vulgar?"
"That wasn't vulgar. I can be vulgar."
"Stop saying vulgar."
"You started it."
"Now who's the pain? My point was that perhaps you and Sam don't spend enough time talking."
"Talking talking or talking like you and Janet are talking. Because I was under the impression you were against that."
Daniel's head spins for a moment as wonders whether or not he already talked to Jack about this because his statement rang a little too close to Janet's for Daniel's comfort.
"I'm not against you and Sam. I'm cautious about you and Sam."
"Do you know how long it's been since we found her?"
"What does that have to do with anything?"
"It's not like we're rushing things. And it's not like I'm pushing her. If anything, she's setting the pace."
Daniel spins the pool stick in one hand and rubs the tip with blue chalk with the other. "Weren't you going to rack?"
"Look at her," Jack nods in the direction of the table where Sam and Janet sit talking animatedly. "Really look at her, Daniel. She's doing okay."
Daniel can't help the doubt that flashes across his face.
"You're right," Jack concedes, "She's not better. Not yet. But she is doing okay. And the potential to be better is there. In the meantime," Jack noisily racks the balls, "trust that I'm doing okay by her."
-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-
Sam watches as Jack knocks back the rest of his drink, half lit by the lamp over the pool table he looks good.
"It's nice to see that look on your face again," Janet teases.
"What look?" Sam asks distractedly.
"You know, your Colonel O'Neill look."
Sam blushes. "I don't have a look."
"You do," Janet chuckles and sips her wine. "You know, physically, you're fine now."
Sam's not sure she wants to acknowledge the reasons behinds her friend's observation so she murmurs noncommittally.
Janet seems to take the hint. "But if you're not ready… Well, he's not going anywhere."
She considers him carefully as he bends over to make the break shot while trying to tune out Daniel's incessant talking. "No? I hope not." She smiles, because it's true. She's got something worth holding on to and she wants to hold on to it. For the first time in a long time she sees a path in front of her that might be worth travelling. And it's good.