Author's Note: Lots of thanks to the people who help me make this story better – the beta who pinch hits for my common sense all the damn time, the reviewers who take the time to let me know what's working and what isn't (and when I've goofed and published a typo), and most of all, the readers who make me want to keep showing up.
Sam knocks on the door and tries to tamp down the trepidation in her stomach.
"Come," the General's voice filters through the closed door.
"Sir?" She pokes her head inside his office. "Do you have a moment?"
General Hammond smiles. "Major Carter. Come in. Sit down." He waits until she does and when she doesn't speak he prompts her, "What can I do for you?"
"There's no easy way to handle this, sir, and I apologize."
"Major?"
"Last week you went to visit Colonel O'Neill." She takes a deep breath and decides to change her tack. "Jack. You came to visit Jack. And I was there."
"Yes…" he leads.
"I'm always there."
He leans back in his chair and rubs a hand over his eyes. "Major Carter, did you break any fraternization regulations before PX6-432?"
"No, sir," she affirms.
"How about after you came home?"
"Well, technically speaking, sir, I'm not sure."
"Look, as much as I like you two, I wouldn't sit back and watch you break regs without addressing the situation. I've addressed it as needed already with Colonel O'Neill."
"You have?" She supposes this must be true; she's heard a few stray comments here and there about Jack's state of mind while she was gone. Surely a question or two had come up.
"Months ago. I removed him from your rescue detail when it became clear I needed to."
"You did?" Well, that was news. Talking to Jack and benching him were two entirely different categories of addressing a situation.
"Yes. And since that time you've been reassigned to the science department."
"Yes, sir."
"Between your coming home and that time, you weren't fit for duty, Major Carter."
"So neither of us is doing anything wrong?" It's not as if she didn't intellectually know this, but hearing it from the base commander wasn't exactly a bad thing.
"No. Though we might need to reassess that in the future if you're interested in re-joining SG-1."
When she doesn't say anything he leans forward, rests his forearms on the edge of his desk and implores, "Are you interested in re-joining SG-1?"
"Sir," she says carefully, "my personal relationship with Colonel O'Neill precludes that option."
"I see."
"But… I don't want to lose my work here," she offers and is mortified to hear tears in her voice.
"You won't. Not over this. Sam," the General tries and she's shocked to hear him use her given name, "if you don't want to go through the gate again, we're not going to put you out to pasture."
She sags with relief; she'd been worried - despite her obvious value to the SG program - that she'd be more valuable at Groom Lake or perhaps the Pentagon if she was no longer willing to step through the gate. Moreover, she was afraid she wouldn't even be given the option.
With that weight off her chest she's ready to broach her next reason for braving a meeting with the base commander. "I'd appreciate it if I could come back to work full time. It's been eight months. It's time."
He considers her carefully but she sees the small smile hovering around his mouth. "You'll have to clear medical."
"I can. Teal'c's been working out with me."
"Then I see no reason to postpone the inevitable. Welcome back, Major Carter," he peers at her but smiles fully, "pending medical evaluation."
"Yes, sir. Thank you." She says with a smile. "For everything."
"It's good to have you back."
-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-
"Sam?" Jack calls out trying to rein in his frustration. Forty-nine years old. He shouldn't be turning a living room upside down for reading glasses. Not yet. "Sam!"
"What?" She comes in from the yard through the sliding glass door and the sight of her long, bare legs in cut-off jean shorts momentarily flummoxes him. "Jack?" she prompts when he continues to gape.
He shakes his head to clear the Carter-induced cobwebs. "My glasses?"
She smirks. "You owe me ten bucks."
"Yeah, yeah," he grouses. He never should have bet her he could go three days without misplacing something.
"Nightstand?" she offers but he can tell she's not sure either.
He wanders down the hall to check and she trails him. At his bedroom door she stops and leans against the jamb. There are his glasses, right where she thought they'd be.
"I talked to Hammond yesterday," she says.
He sits on the edge of the bed. "Yeah?"
"I'm not coming back to SG-1."
He exhales heavily. He'd suspected as much. "I thought you'd have talked to me about it first."
She sighs and considers him carefully before entering his room and sitting next to him on the bed. "I can't go back through the gate, Jack. And even if I could, I couldn't do it as part of your team. You know that."
He slides his hand into hers so they're palm to palm with fingers laced. "So this is about us, not about what happened to you?"
"It's about both. But…what happened to me, that's in the past. And us, well, we're…" she trails off like she's not sure. Or maybe just not sure how to say it.
He's not sure how to say it either. He's not sure he's ready to be that vulnerable. Whatever they're doing is something they just started and then kept at. He certainly didn't give it a lot of conscious thought, she probably hadn't either. He'd always been more likely to be in a relationship than out of one when a good candidate came along. A serial monogamist, the boys in his first couple of units had teased when he wouldn't join in their one-night-fling-fun. And the truth is he's been with Sam in his head for a lot longer than he's willing to admit - even to her.
"I always sort of thought this is how it would happen. Not with you," she's quick to point out like maybe he'd take it wrong. "When I was younger I thought I'd look up one day and the man I was closest to would look up at me and we'd just realize we were together. Or that we wanted to be. And that would be that.
Then I got older and realized it didn't happen that way."
"Then it did happen that way," Jack observes. She nods. "Was it that way with Jonas?"
"No," she hedges after a moment. "With Jonas everything was very…deliberate. We were never friends. We had three dates. We slept together. We decided to be exclusive. We dated for a year. He asked me to marry him. I said yes."
"And I moved into your house," he says, chagrined.
"Yeah," she agrees, but she's smiling. "But in your defense, you did own it for a couple of months. Sort of."
"I don't think paying the mortgage made me the owner."
"I'm talking about the paperwork."
He freezes. "What paperwork?"
"My will."
"Your will?" He hates how talk of her not being around still slices open his insides.
"Yeah. Didn't you guys go through the paperwork while I was gone? How did you deal with all the loose ends?"
"Sam," he shakes his head, "you were never dead. Not in actuality and not in my mind. I didn't go looking for paperwork because I knew I didn't need it."
"You couldn't have known that."
He chooses his words carefully and while he thinks she rubs the back of his hand gently with the pad of her thumb. "Sam, I was a wreck while you were gone. I told you that before. I did everything like you were still here but just couldn't do it for yourself."
"You're lucky that worked," she chides gently. "You should have looked at the paperwork." He tries to interject but she cuts him off. "It's important. I…I didn't have anyone, Jack. That paperwork was the only way I had to tell everyone they were important to me. That you were important to me. And you never even saw it but you did what you did anyway."
"You think I needed a piece of paper to tell me how you felt?"
"I needed a piece of paper to tell you how I felt. That's my point."
"You don't need a piece of paper anymore."
"Well, I've got one, anyway."
"What do you mean?"
"Transfer orders. Groom Lake; permanent detachment to the SGC. Pending medical approval, of course."
He's quiet. "I've got very mixed feelings about that," he finally decides.
"Me too," she agrees.
"So we're not going through the gate together anymore?"
"No," she shakes her head. "Just everything else, I guess."
"Coming home to you sounds pretty exciting."
"I'm glad you think so. This is probably the biggest thing I've ever done."
"Sam, we're not even close to the biggest thing you've ever done."
"In this way? Yeah, we are."
-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-
"So, it turns out Jack and I are together," Sam says as she plops herself down on the couch.
Natalie hides a grin behind her coffee cup. "I'm trying to decide if I should respond professionally or if I should just go with my gut."
"Mix it up, Natalie," Sam says in an irreverent way that just smacks of Jack O'Neill. "Tell me what you really think."
"I think it's about damn time the two of you saw what the rest of us have been seeing for a while."
"It's not that we didn't see it, it's that we didn't talk about it. Which is apparently important to a whole bunch of you."
"Talking is sort of my bread and butter," Natalie feels compelled to point out.
"And General Hammond says I can come back to work full time if I pass a medical evaluation. Between Teal'c and Janet I'm ready to pass the physical portion. Can I pass the psych?"
"You're not beating around the bush today, are you?"
"I feel like things are coming back together. I have a purpose. I have a plan."
"You have a man."
"One of those, too," she agrees cheekily. "Yet no canal."
Natalie groans. "That's not even a good joke."
"Ha! Then my sense of humor is back up to par."
"What about gate travel?"
Sam shakes her head and bites her lip. "Certainly not now. Maybe not ever. I've got transfer orders to Groom Lake but I'd stay here on permanent detachment. I'll be working full time in the science department."
"Are you okay with that?"
"I like not losing this part of my life. It's not hard to give up gate travel. Not now."
"What about your team?"
"They'll still be my friends. If nothing else, that's what the last eight months have taught me."
"And Jack?"
"It appears that I'm stuck with him."
"Sam."
"It's…okay. It's not perfect. I'm in love with him. I can't separate myself from that intensity of feeling I get whenever he's around. But I still can't think about…a lot of things."
"You can work on that. It'll take time, but it'll get better."
"Are you sure? Because what if it doesn't?"
"It will."
"Jack's not the kind of guy that would leave. He's the kind of guy who'd just curl up on himself and be unhappy but never tell me he was unhappy."
"He's already told you that not having a physical relationship isn't a deal breaker for him."
"He's also a healthy, virile man."
"This is just me talking here, but I think he can hold out while you're deciding what you want."
"He shouldn't have to."
"That's his decision to make, Sam. In the meantime you can figure out what you want, what you need, and how to work through the intimacy issues that are remaining.
"You've done well at working through the fear, the sadness and the anger. You've learned to identify those emotions, to allow them. You've dealt with surprise. All of this has happened the way it usually does – in fits and starts with imperfect boundaries, lingering issues and the occasional flare-ups. Now, you've got to learn how to experience joy again.
"You've come in talking about work and a real life outside this place. That's a win, Sam, no matter how you play it. We'll work on all of it – including your relationship with Jack. But you're healing. You've made huge strides forward. And the next ones will be the ones that give you your life – and your confidence back. Can you pass a psych eval for work? I don't see why not. I'm your treating physician so I won't administer the evaluation. And I'm not going to lie to you and tell you it'll be easy. They'll try to exploit known weak points. But you've come far enough; I believe you'll do fine."
Natalie verges on uncomfortable while Sam takes deep stock of her following Natalie's impassioned speech. Apparently Sam comes to a decision. "We're having everyone over on Saturday. Jack's going to burn some meat. You should come. Bring the family."
"Thank you," Natalie starts, "But I'm not sure that's appropriate given our professional relationship."
"This place is like a microcosm, Natalie. It's almost impossible to make friends outside it so you learn to make do with the people inside. Don't make me send Jack. He's nearly impossible to refuse."
Natalie laughs and relents. "Okay. Saturday."
"Good," Sam says with a final nod and scrawls the address down on a piece of scrap paper.
-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-
He hears the front door open and close from the kitchen. He damn near runs smack into her when he wanders into the dining room. She hands him a sheaf of bright white papers with a huge grin on her face but he's been in a weird headspace all day; he sees "Evaluation" printed large across the top of the page and he flashes back to her last fit-for-duty eval – also with the words "Passed: Active Duty" printed at the bottom – and fights the urge to throw up. PTSD never quite picks a good moment to remind you that you have it.
She must see the urge to vomit crawl up his throat and burn behind his eyes because suddenly he's got an armful of warm Sam and he'd swear if he didn't know better, she was trying to climb him.
"I'm sorry," she breathes against his hair, "I didn't think about the last time I handed you that paperwork."
He presses his open, gasping mouth against her ear and clings to her, feels her shudder against him, dips his head until his lips are pressed against her uniform covered shoulder, pretends his eyes didn't just spring leaks.
"I'm just having a bad day, Sam."
"Hey," she soothes and combs her fingers through the hair at the nape of his neck, "it's your turn, don't you think?"
She dances them backwards until his back hits the wall and she presses tight up against his front and he no longer has to concentrate on staying upright. She presses a kiss to his temple and when he looks up at her she presses a tight, hard kiss against his mouth that's nothing like passion and yet the most passionate thing he's ever shared with her at the same time.
He grasps her head between his hands and pushes her back far enough that he can focus on her eyes. "This isn't just about last time." That entity. That fucking entity. He breathes out, watches as his breath makes her hair flutter.
"Because maybe they'll send me back through the gate anyway?"
He licks his lips, watches her eyes drop to his mouth, watches the way she unconsciously licks her lips too and then he's shifting her back so their hips aren't touching anymore. "They could."
"They might," she concedes. "But not right now. Not for a while."
"I really, really need you, you know?"
It's not until she cups his face in her hand and swipes the pad of her thumb along his cheek that he remembers he was crying.
-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-
He's embarrassed for a while after their little interlude in the dining room so she gives him his space. She's watching Leno when he finally decides he's had enough alone time. He sits down in front of the couch and she's about to say something about his knees or his back or his age – anything to get him up off the floor – when he pulls her left calf over his shoulder and presses a kiss to the side of her knee.
It's such an oddly intimate thing to do that she finds herself taken aback when his thumbs stroking the arch of her dangling foot make her giggle. She feels him smile against her skin and figures that it's all going to be okay.
-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-
He is, by far, the most easily affectionate man she's ever known. He's always been the type more apt to touch than to not. She likes the way he trails his fingers along the base of her neck when he walks by her. She smiles when he claps Daniel on the shoulder and gives Janet a warm hug. She loves the way he picks Cassie up and swings her around in a wide arc even though she's too old – and too tall – for such things.
She likes how he very quickly recovers when Natalie introduces the striking blonde by her side as her wife, Erin, and how he warmly shakes hands with Erin first and then Natalie who shrieks with laughter when he surprises her by hauling her into a friendly, familiar hug.
When he refills their wine later – she's in the middle of a cutthroat Backgammon game with Erin while Janet and Natalie try not talk shop while kibitzing – he threads his fingers into her hair and tugs playfully. He teases Erin and she gives as good as she gets and they exchange a look when they both see the way Natalie's eyes soften and warm when Erin gives him a little hell.
It's not until everyone's crowded around the picnic table eating and drinking, laughing and tossing around three conversations at once that she realizes she's happy. Here, with these people, with Jack's warm body pressed against hers from ribs to ankles, she actually does know what happy feels like. And when she meets Natalie's gaze she knows the doctor can see it too and they smile along to the answer of an oft asked question.
After everyone is gone she cuddles up next to Jack in the hammock and they look at the stars and talk about a future that maybe isn't so scary and definitely isn't so painful. And she falls asleep with the feel of his lips in her hair.