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More String Theory: An AU Series
Dr. Samantha Carter joins the SGC and discovers a life she never expected.
Action/Adventure, Drama, Angst, Romance, S/J
Teen: language and violence
Special thanks to Trout, Kat, and Sharon. Mostly for the snark.
Ficlet 35-Be Still
As Jack approaches the Carters’ house for the second time, he is more than slightly pleased not to see Jacob out on the front porch. Of all the things that happened yesterday, Jacob’s belligerence was probably the least surprising, but that doesn’t mean Jack is looking forward to another round with the guy.
To be honest, Jack hadn’t thought much past what he needed to say to Sam. He always knew she deserved an answer; that she was struggling to live with the knowledge that there are people out there capable of treating her as less than human, just an object to be used as a means to an end. He’s spent more than half his life dealing with that realization, but seeing her in that hospital bed, her face still swollen and bruised from something he hadn’t been able to protect her from… He couldn’t have said a rational word to save his life in that moment.
It took almost a week for the rage to recede long enough to see her side of it. It’s still there, simmering just beneath the surface, and Jacob had unknowingly jabbed just a little too close to it last night. Jack can’t promise to keep his cool through another round of Jacob demanding to know why his daughter hadn’t been protected, because he’s still trying to answer that himself.
But Jack hadn’t been lying last night. He knows that when it came down to it, Sam had done the saving. He’s still in awe of the memory of her striding across that room, ignoring her broken body, not even the slightest trace of hesitation as she jabbed Apophis. He doubts she’s ready to see herself as a hero, though.
But she’d asked him to stay. He hadn’t seen that coming. And when she’d looked up at him from across that fence and asked him to come back the next day, he’d agreed, even though he still has no idea what to expect from her.
Looking into the house from the sidewalk, Jack can see Sam’s mother through a large window, both hands working something on a low table. As he opens the gate and starts up the path she catches sight of him.
“Colonel,” Elizabeth says, calling out through the open window. “Come on in!”
She meets him in the hall, wiping her fingers free of flour and bringing with her the yeasty smell of rising bread. “Nice to see you again so soon,” she says, seemingly genuinely pleased to see him.
Jack smiles wryly; she must assume he’s a glutton for punishment. Maybe he is. “I just dropped by to say goodbye to Sam before my flight,” he says.
Elizabeth brushes back a strand of hair from her face, leaving a streak of flour above her eyebrow. “Leaving already?”
“I have to get back,” Jack says with a shrug. He looks back into the house, wondering what his chances are for getting out of here without seeing Jacob.
“Jacob’s in town today,” Elizabeth says as if reading his mind. She’s looking down at her hands, freeing one last nail from stubborn clinging flour, but he can see a hint of a smile playing on her lips.
“Okay,” Jack says for lack of anything else.
“You’ll have to forgive him for the way he behaved last night. He’s not dealing particularly well with Sam’s…injuries. Jacob is one of those people who desperately needs to know things. Though I guess it’s always difficult to see your child suffering even when it isn’t classified.”
“I’m sorry,” Jack says.
Elizabeth shakes her head. “It isn’t your fault Sam got hurt, now is it?”
Jack couldn’t have stopped the attack on the Beta Site. He knows that. But if Sam hadn’t felt the desperate need to get far away from him, maybe she never would have been there in the first place. Maybe he could have done something.
“Oh, I see,” Elizabeth says and Jack’s scared that she actually might. She leans forward conspiratorially, resting her elbows on her knees. “I’ll let you in on a secret, Jack. We womenfolk are perfectly capable of messing things about all on our very own.”
There’s a ding from inside the kitchen and Elizabeth waves her dishtowel at him. “Sam’s out back,” she says, grabbing one of her wheels and swinging around to head back into her kitchen.
Jack’s left feeling a bit stunned, like somehow the incredibly genteel woman has just slipped something by him without his noticing. Suddenly she seems the perfect match for Jacob’s stubborn sullenness. What a house this must have been to grow up in.
He passes through the dining room they ate in last night and catches sight of Sam leaning on the railing on the back deck.
“Jack,” she says, looking windblown and strangely nervous.
Some of his stunned confusion must still be visible on his face because Sam frowns, leaning around his shoulder to look back into the house. “I take it you got a dose of my mother’s idea of small talk.”
Jack nods. “She’s pretty…amazing.”
“Yeah,” Sam says, smiling to herself.
Jack steps up next to her and they both look out over the rather impressive view of the harbor below. There’s a small fleet of tiny sailboats playing follow the leader, pairs of little kids trying to learn the intricacies of harnessing the wind. When a gentle gust comes up the hill at just the right angle, they can pick out laughter and the screeching voices of the amateur captains.
“My mother loves the sea,” Sam says after a while.
“How did it happen?” Jack asks, his eyes on the wide wheelchair ramp that fills a large portion of the backyard.
“Car accident.”
For a moment he thinks she will leave it at that, but telling tension sharpens the angle of her shoulders, so he holds his tongue and waits.
“We’d been visiting my cousins in Atlanta,” she says, her voice taking on a confessional quality that tells Jack he’s stumbled onto something vital. “My father was supposed to pick us up at the airport, but as usual something came up. We waited for almost two hours before my mom shrugged and decided we could just take a cab. She was trying to make it sound like a big adventure, but kids can always see more than adults think. She was disappointed. We’d been gone for two weeks, after all. I imagine she must have missed her husband.
“I was so pissed at Dad. I could never understand what was so much more important than us.” They share an ironic glance and Jack thinks of her voice, slightly shaky as she held a gun for the first time.
If only my father could see me now.
“We were about halfway home when a drunk driver careened over the divider and hit us head on. The next thing I knew, everything was twisted and I couldn’t tell what was front or back. I was fine mostly, but my mother...” Sam shakes her head, wrapping her arms around herself. “She was unconscious and there was so much blood. I didn’t know what to do. Her neck was cut pretty badly, so I pressed my hands against her and waited. I watched each breath grow slower and slower and I just knew I was watching her die.”
“How long?” Jack asks, surprised by the gruffness of his voice.
“It took them almost twenty minutes to free us. The driver had died on impact and my mother shattered three vertebrae in her back.”
“She would have died if you hadn’t been there.”
Sam shrugs casually, but her hands are clenched tight enough to turn her knuckles white. “I made every promise I could think of, sitting in that car waiting. I swore that I would never be like my father, that I would never let my family be less important than my career. I would make family everything.”
“How old were you?”
“Fourteen.”
It’s the longest real conversation they’ve ever had and Jack thinks that should say something about how they stumbled into each other. Sam is still staring out over the backyard, but she’s radiating nervous tension and he has no idea what that means.
“I’m going back to Colorado tonight,” Jack says, even though she already knows.
She nods, her teeth worrying her bottom lip.
“Do you think you might come back?” It’s not until he’s said it that he realizes that’s the question he really came all this way to ask.
Sam’s head snaps up, something flashing in her eyes that he refuses to call hope. “I want to.” She’s frightened and he doesn’t know how much of that is PTSD and how much is this thing between them.
“You know where to find me,” Jack says and it’s all he has left to offer her after everything that’s been said between them.
She must get that because she stops him, reaching out to touch his shoulder. When he pauses she pulls back, her fingers curling into a tight fist. “I didn’t mean it, what I said that day.”
Jack automatically stiffens, remembering that particular day far too well.
We both know what this was: a pleasant way to pass the time.
Sam takes a step closer to him, the earnestness in her eyes almost painful. “It was cruel and foolish, and I didn’t mean it at all. I just need you to know that.”
We womenfolk are perfectly capable of messing things about all on our very own. Jack doesn’t doubt that. He’s just not ready for Sam to carry all the blame for the sorry state of things between them. He leans one hip against the banister and sighs.
“I let you leave just as much as you walked away,” Jack says. He’d done everything he could to make it easy for her and she’d still ended up smack in the middle of his nightmare. “But it hasn’t really changed anything, has it?”
She reaches for his hand, wrapping her fingers tightly around his. “No,” she says. “No, it hasn’t.”
Jack stares at their hands. “I don’t have a clue what to do about that,” he confesses. It feels a bit liberating, to be that boldly honest for once.
They stand there for a while, four feet of careful distance between them even as their fingers refuse to let go. Then Sam takes one timid step and then another and suddenly she’s invading his personal space, her arms gingerly wrapping around his shoulders as if waiting to be pushed away. She needn’t have worried; his hands are sliding around her waist before his mind registers the impulse. He concentrates on the way his body curls so easily around hers, the warmth of her breath against his neck, and the way all the tension finally drains from her body as his hands run up and down her back.
“Thank you for coming, Jack,” she says against his ear.
He squeezes her once, kisses her briefly on the head and steps away.
Nothing more really needs to be said.
* * *
Sam watches Jack walk away, her skin still buzzing.
Maybe it’s time to consider that this is who you were meant to be all along.
She walks inside and grabs the nearest phone, her fingers trembling as they punch out a number.
“This is Dr. Carter,” she says when someone on the other end picks up. “I’d like to speak with Dr. MacKenzie, please.”
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