Jack's not one for showy displays of emotion, but when she gets up Christmas morning she finds hot coffee and a note from him on the counter saying he'd gone to drag Janet's little car out of the snow. The thought of him going out into the cold on Christmas morning without complaint to help a friend makes her heart flop over in her chest. He's a good man. This isn't the first time she's noticed, but the reminders never lose their poignancy.
She thinks of the way he kissed her as Christmas Eve turned into Christmas day, about the look in his eyes when he slid inside her, their hands tangled together, and she realizes she's never in her life felt the intensity of emotion she feels when he looks at her that way.
She'd long ago drawn a line inside herself – before Jack, before Votan, before the SGC, even – between loving someone and being in love with someone. She's been in love several times in her life but, in her experience, in love is a completely different, often fleeting emotion than a real love – the kind of love she shared with her family – tended to be. But when she looks in Jack's eyes, the distinction is either gone or it doesn't matter, or really, she's just loved him for a long time. Because she's known she was in love with him for a while. But there's no doubt now that she simply loves him. Full stop. He's a part of her. She's not melodramatic enough to say she couldn't live without him, but she's honest enough to admit she's glad she doesn't have to; she wouldn't want to.
Later, he sets a platter of perfectly prepared goose in the center of a table surrounded by her dad, Teal'c, Mctierney, Daniel, Janet, and Cassie, and she realizes, as she meets his eye, that there are a lot of things she doesn't want to do without these days. She hasn't ever had a group of people like this in her life. And she's never felt quite as full as she feels with her friends and her family gathered around her table for Christmas dinner.
-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-
Sometimes he'll wrap himself around her and sway with her, his chest pressed tightly against her back, hands splayed across her ribs. There's always some silent music that must play in his head as he guides her feet in an intricately rhythmic back-and-forth she can't fight and can only give herself over to. He tucks his face into her neck and she can feel his smile against her skin.
Neither is inclined towards verbal declarations of love, and in little moments like this she hopes he doesn't need her to say it; she doesn't need to hear him say it. She knows it by the way his heart beats against her and his palms press into her body.
-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-
Sam is a woman constantly in motion except, he's discovered, on Sunday mornings. More often than not she wakes him up for slow, rolling sex in the silver light of dawn. He loves the way the cobalt blue Egyptian cotton sheets she bought pool over his lap and around his hands on her hips as she rocks above him. After she comes, her hand planted in the middle of his chest and her head thrown back in rapture, she'll sprawl across the bed letting her skin cool in the slight winter chill the heater can't quite chase away. She'll let him write love notes on her glistening skin with the edge of his index finger while he draws promises over her scars with his tongue.
-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-
For her birthday he wakes her up with breakfast in bed and hides his grin when she opens a pastel pink box filled with tissue paper, burgundy silk and cream lace. She smiles sweetly and kisses him slowly, completely oblivious to his nearly palpable excitement. It's late afternoon when she finds the '51 panhead in the garage. He finds himself with an armful of Samantha Carter, her legs wrapped around his waist, her tongue down his throat.
"Hey," he says, and squeezes her ass, "I know what my girl likes."
-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-
On New Year's Eve she laughs tipsily when he pulls the engagement ring from her finger and drops it into her flute of champagne. Golden bubbles race her giggle to the top of the glass. At midnight he dips her for a kiss that goes on longer than the one he stolen similarly more than a year before. She tells him he'd better not drop her but she smiles and strokes the hair at his temple. Later he sees her with her glass, her engagement diamond still twinkling at the bottom of the sparkling wine. She's talking to Janet but she has eyes only for him. He wonders how long she's been watching him and enjoys the slow burn of pleasure in his belly.
-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-
She knows it's love when she gets in a stupid, snow-fuelled accident and wrecks his truck. Even when it's clear she's okay, more irritated than anything else, he fusses over her scraped knuckles and not his mangled quarter panel. Later she catches him bemoaning the repair estimate to Teal'c but smiles because he didn't giver her hell for it, not even once.
-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-
"How are you doing these days?" Natalie asks. Now that Sam's sessions are down to once every two or three weeks she relies more heavily on Sam's responses – especially now that she believes them.
"I'm," Sam falters, then smiles, "I'm good." She nods enthusiastically. "I'm really good."
"The wedding is in a couple of weeks."
"It is. My dad's gating in. My brother and his wife are going to come for the weekend." She grins. "Teal'c's got a new hat."
"It's going to be lovely, I'm sure." Natalie closes the notebook that's always open and on her lap. "Sam, I'm clearing you for active duty."
Sam's eyes go wide. "What?"
"You knew this was coming," Natalie soothes. "You're cleared to go through the gate."
"I don't want to go through the gate," Sam says with a hint of panic in her voice.
"You don't have to. Not right now. But one day you may change your mind. One day, you might not have a choice."
"I don't know if I'll ever really be ready for that."
"I think you will. We can keep working on that. Now that you've found yourself again, we can start working on your fear responses."
"So I still have mandated sessions?"
"Not mandated. I hope you'll still come see me to work through some things. But I'm not your treating physician anymore. You just come see me when you need to."
Sam nods and looks down at her hands. After a few deep breaths she looks back up and meets Natalie's eyes. "Janet and I get together on Thursday evenings and have a glass of wine. You should join us."
"I'd like that."
-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-
Sam and Jack get married in their living room then take everyone to dinner, in their wedding finery, at O'Malley's. Teal'c and Mctierney hustle a couple of guys at pool until Sam steps in and wipes the floor with all of them. Daniel makes a couple of attempts at a too-long speech that Janet thwarts with kisses that make him blush and Cassie gag. Her brother and her dad both tell embarrassing stories until she threatens to tell everyone about the WD-40 incident. Sam sings bad karaoke with Janet, Erin and Sylvia, her sister-in-law. Natalie waves them off and steals a fresh bottle of beer out from under Jack's nose while he laughs at them. Cassie buries her head in her hands and tells anyone that will listen that her mom is definitely not up on that stage.
-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-
A year in, they still sometimes fight about the little things. He leaves wet towels on the floor; she forgets to recycle beer bottles. Sometimes they fight about the big things, like Jack trading himself for Mctierney and spending three nerve-racking days in an alien version of a psychological experiment.
Sometimes she's a bitch just because she knows how to be. Sometimes he's insufferable because it's the quickest way to push her buttons. And sometimes their demons make command appearances in the middle of the night and the fights get sidelined for the really important things.
She soothes his frayed nerves with Guinness and space; he takes her to the hammock and wraps himself around her. Somehow they work out all those little details she'd never had to figure out before and he proves that he can say whatever he likes but he's damn good at being a husband. Because no matter what they fight about, and no matter which demons rear their ugly heads, she never goes to bed thinking he doesn't love her.
They're still not good at saying the words but they don't really need them. They say them when it really matters and the rest of the time they just work on proving it. Proving it turns out to be more fun, anyway.
-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-
It takes two years but when she steps foot onto an alien planet it feels like her life. To her left, Teal'c's hand tightens on his staff weapon. Mctierney comes barreling out of the gate behind her. SG-3 takes up a defensive position around the gate. In front her, she watches as Jack surveys the landscape with cold calculation.
He doesn't even take his eyes off the horizon. "You okay, Carter?"
"She is fine, O'Neill," Teal'c answers for her when she hesitates slightly.
Her nerves settle as the man she's come to know as her gentle husband steps into the old, comfortable role of her Colonel. He spares no soft, sweet words for his wife who was visibly nervous as she'd ascended the embarkation ramp. As always, better than anyone else she's ever known, Jack knows exactly what to say to her, despite his insistence that he's crap with words.
Her fingers tighten around her P90. "Yes, sir. I've got your six."
With the same integral trust he's always had in her he steps off. "SG-3, you've got the gate. Teal'c, Carter, Cap'n, you're with me. Let's go get Daniel."
She slides her sunglasses into place and follows him down the stone steps into the sea of sand.
Author's Final Note: Well, that's is it. The final chapter. A coda, if you will.
Very nearly four years after it's conception, I'm finally able to put a period on this. Eight months ago, though prepared to write this tale, I didn't really know what I was getting into. It was my first giant leap into this fandom (and my first venture into a fandom for a show that had been off the air for many years). I have met so many incredible people through the forums – where I gathered the strength to burst full-force into a new fandom – and the comments you all have been kind enough to leave. You've challenged me and made me think as often as you've blatantly stroked my ego. There have been painful moments for me as I know there have been for some of you but I like to think those moments made me a better person as well as a better writer.
I have other projects in the works – both fannish and not – and am anxious to rest my head from this for a while. But as stories of this length frequently do, ideas for supplemental material have spawned. In the coming days I'll clean up a few deleted scenes and post them. I've got plans for a few one shots and perhaps another muti-chapter work in this universe. But I'm definitely going to go breathe for a little while before I get to work on them.
Thank you to everyone who stuck with me for so long. Thank you to those of you who had faith in an unknown writer that you wouldn't be left in the dark place this story shed light on. Thank you to those of you who put your hand up to let me know I'd typo'd, to ask questions, or to offer friendly advice. Thanks to the people who challenged my conceptions and perceptions. And thank you, most of all, to the friends I've made along the way. Writing is the way I tap into the parts of me I often leave unexposed. Thank you for treating me with care.