Fire
Fire
by Robinson, Amy
Summary: When Dr. Sam Carter comes to Jacks rescue she's left wondering if he'd have been better off dead. to her at least.
Category: Alternate Universe, Angst, Drama
Episode Related: 317 A Hundred Days
Season: Season 3
Pairing: Jack/Sam
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: language, none
Disclaimer: Stargate SG-1 and its characters are the property of Showtime/Viacom, MGM/UA, Double Secret Productions, and Gekko Productions. I have written this story for entertainment purposes only and no money whatsoever has exchanged hands. No copyright infringement is intended. The original characters, situations, and story are the property of the author(s).
Archived on: 10/27/03
The Stargate cast a blue glow over the control room - though everyone had already turned blue from all the breath holding - and SG-1 as they waited to see if the particle beam generator would have the desired result on the solid rock iris keeping Jack O'Neill trapped on Endora. "It's working!" smiled Sam, glancing over at Daniel and Teal'c who wore similar expressions of guarded optimism. "112% of predicted efficiency." Carter sat back in her chair. The precedure would take almost forty minutes and she didn't really need to be there but after spending three and a half months thinking of nothing else she felt the need to be on hand in case anything went awry - it was her husbands future at stake after all. "You okay?" she felt a comforting hand on her shoulder to accompany the words. "I'm fine - well I feel better now we're underway." She covered his hand with her own. "Thanks, Daniel." "S'Okay," he smiled, "You want anything? Tea, coffee, sandwich?" She laughed. "Maybe later - I don't think I can keep anything down." "Still?"
"Still." She nodded ruefully, stroking the material of her jumper over her barely noticeable 'bump'. "God bless the person who invented morning, noon and night sickness." He smiled sympathetically, "Well I'm gonna get a coffee - won't be long." "Take your time," she offered, "We won't be done here for at least thirty minutes anyway." "I suppose I should get my allergy booster..." "Well go on then!" she chuckled, "You're not using me as an excuse to avoid Janet." Daniel glared at her.
"And I promise not to let anything disastrous happen until you get back." "I'll hold you to that." He warned as he disappeared into the corridor. Sam shook her head woefully and turned back to stare into the wormhole again. It had been almost fourteen weeks since Colonel Jack O'Neill had been declared missing in action and twelve weeks since Dr. Carter had discovered she was pregnant - not the most fortunate of circumstances. Since then she'd spent every waking moment trying to get him home again even if it was only to tell him that he was going to be a father. "Please work." She whispered urgently. "God, please let it work."
There was a soft drizzle in the dawn lightening air when SG-1 stepped through the Stargate. Sam could hardly control her excitement and she had to work at not running down the slippery track into the village. After almost four months Jack was coming home, her husband was finally coming home. She turned and beamed at her teammates. Daniel smiled back, knowing how hard she'd worked. He vaguely wondered how Jack was going to react when he found out he was going to be a father in five months but even more interested in what his face would look like when his former team turned up out of the blue. Teal'c was happy. Exhausted - maybe. Dirty - definitely. But happy (You can tell by the way he kinda tilts his head to one side and grins like an idiot :)). He'd spent a good hour and a half digging through solid rock and then helped dig the 'Gate out properly with a team of commando's from the SGC. Happy... "You think he'll mind us waking him up?" asked Daniel, eyebrow arched, "It is a little early..." "If it was me, I'd wanna be woken up, wouldn't you?" Sam asked, mimicking his expression. "Maybe - depends if I'm having a good dream." "Why dream when I'm the real thing, Danny boy?"she grinned cheekily, "I can't wait to see him." "Really? I thought your eyes always bugged out like that." "My eyes do not bug out."
"I can see the village." He pointed, distracting her, "Nearly there." "I know, Daniel, stop getting me worked up!" Sam took a few more steps before shaking her head and speeding down the valley with the words, "What the hell, let's just go!"
I'm in heaven, I'll show you heaven
It's so much heaven
Let's make a move, let's leave this world behind
"Hey! Wait up!"
Carter didn't listen. She didn't even seem to notice that the rain was getting harder or that by the time she reached the village square she was drenched. Noticing a light on in one of the nearby houses, she knocked loudly on the door. The man who answered it looked less than impressed at the early morning interruption. "Excuse me, I'm looking for Colonel Jack O'Neill - have you seen him?" The aged grey man frowned testily and peered at her bedraggled figure for a moment with distain. Herumphing, he pointed towards the largest house, "He's staying at Lara's." he slammed the door shut bad temperedly and Carter thought she heard something to the effect of 'damn women, always interrupting when you're sitting down to grub'. She smiled and turned on her heel towards Lara's house. As yet there were no lights on inside and she doubted if anyone was awake. Still she lifted her knuckles to knock on the door but before her fist made contact the wooden sheet flew open and a boy nearly knocked her off her feet on the way past. "Garren!" she exclaimed, "Have you seen Jack?" "Yeah, he's asleep inside." His eyes grew wide as he realised his blunder and who he was talking to as she made her way inside. Seeing that she was heading for the bedroom he tried to stop her but was too late. "Doctor Carter, Don't!" Sam stopped dead in her tracks, eyes wide and lips parted as if she couldn't breathe. Jack and Lara were spooned in each other's embrace fast asleep and, though she couldn't see much for the sheets, she could see enough to know that this picture was far from innocent. "Oh..." it was less of a word than a choked squeak, pain convulsing cross her face. Her husband stirred on the bed, roused by Garren's sudden yelp. As his eyes blinked open he had just enough time to see the heart wrenching look on Sam's face before she turned and fled into the rain storm.
"Sam!" bellowed Jack in hot pursuit, barely able to see her stumbling over the terrain, trying to reach safe harbour through the Stargate. They'd left the others behind in the turmoil. "Sam, please! It's not what it looks like!" he pleaded, trying to explain without knowing how. "Then what is it?!" she screamed turning on him, lanks of hair whipping at her face with the whiplash movement. "What the hell was it, Jack!!" her eyes burned into his through the semi-darkness, fury painting every contour of her body as the rain sloshed over her clothes. "A mistake! A huge terrible mistake!" he cried into the wind. "You accidentally fell into bed with her, did you?! Well fuck you!" she was mad - worse - she was crazed. "Please!" he begged, water running down his face, arms outstretched towards her as though he still wasn't sure that she was real. "Please! Let me explain." "You can't! There isn't an explanation, Jack, and there's no excuse!" she cried, shaking her head in disbelief. "I thought I was trapped here!" he argued, trying to find a way to justify himself. "How can you say that? You knew I'd find a way!" her temper flared, "You just saw the chance to cheat and took it!" "It wasn't like that!" he argued still harder, chasing her up the slope. Anyone else might have stopped dead had they seen the look on the doctors' face as his words seemed to slap her in the face, only making her fury grow exponentially. "Then what was it like! You wanna tell me every sordid god damn detail! Tell me how good it felt to have her?!" she half screamed and started walking away again. "I'm sorry!" he cried out desperately.
A look of something akin to murder passed over her face and she sneered, "You're sorry?! I'll give you sorry!" she searched around her feet until she found a sizeable rock to throw at him, missing by only a few centimeters. "Sam!" he shouted, "Please..."
"No! I just found you in another woman's bed! I'll never forgive you for this!" she found another rock in an uncontrollable burst of anger, hurling it at him so hard that she knocked herself off balance. At least she hit him this time, if only a glancing blow to the shoulder. Jack made to help her but she grabbed still more ammunition to throw at him. "Sam, please..." he edged closer, kneeling in the mud, fingers gripping her wrists in an effort to make her listen. She wrenched her arms away. "It would've been better if you'd died out here." She choked vehemently, voice hoarse, fingers digging into the soft flesh of the land. "At least then I could go on loving you." she sobbed, almost seeming to collapse into herself, forehead resting in the mud, anger gone as her soul shattered into a million tiny shards and scattered on the wind. "Sam..." he pleaded, not daring to touch her for she seemed so fragile and so incredibley pissed off. "Who are you?" she asked, lifting her face into the rain, eyes filled with tears and pain, indescribeable pain. "I'm your husband, the man you love -"
"No." she rebuked harshly, "My husband's dead...And you're the man who killed him." Shoving him away, she scrambled to her feet and stumbled over the last few metres to the DHD, punching in the address home and signalling the GDO before disappearing through the Stargate. Jack was terrified that she was disappearing out of his life.
The house was dark and quiet but this was a deceptive cover to hide the woman within from the man without. The chase had started three days ago in which time Jack had tried to think of a way to make amends, desperately seeking a way to say how sorry he was to the wife he'd hurt so badly.
The others didn't seem to know - which was strange considering the fact that the Colonel had been sleeping on the base since he got back from Endora. Jack took this as a good sign - if she still cared enough not to spread the word of his adultery then maybe there was still a chance for a reconcilliation.
Stood on the doorstep he raised his keys to the lock, lingering for a moment before he lowered his hand again, knocking. It didn't take long for her to answer. "Hey Sam." His voice sounded clumsy to his own ears, all the eloquent speeches evaporating on the breeze.
She looked good, as usual, not a hair out of place, not a wrinkle in her trouser suit. "You'd better come in." she offered, disappearing into the living room. Surprised by the invitation, it took him a moment to collect his senses and step inside, softly closing the door behind him and slipping his jacket off.
The room was softly lit by a lamp in the corner and gentle lilting tones filled the air, carressing his ears. "Thankyou." He murmured, sitting on the settee opposite her armchair, "We need to talk."
"Yes. We do." She agreed, suddenly looking up at him, "Do you think this could work? After everything that's happened?"
"Yes! Yes, of course I do otherwise I wouldn't be here." He answered enthusiasticaly and without hesitation.
"No, I asked you what you thought, Jack. It's so easy to say what your heart wants but have you even thought about it?" she sighed, "I don't even know if I can trust you - if someone had asked me that last week I wouldn't have doubted the answer. It's funny how things can change." Her eyes said it wasn't funny at all.
"I promise you can trust me." He pleaded.
She shook her head. "I don't want your promises. What's the point if there's no trust?" it wasn't an admonition but a question she simply wanted the answer to.
His face said that he didn't understand. "I don't have anything to give you that I didn't have before."
"Then why don't you give that to me?" she asked, leaning back into her chair, one hand slowly rubbing her abdomin. "I'm not asking for anything more."
O'Neill shook his head, "I don't know how. I'm not sure what it is you're asking for."
"I'm asking you to stop making empty promises and start proving that if I let you back into my life you won't hurt me again." She waited patiently for her words to have meaning. "I'm asking for you to be my husband again, but you have to start by being my friend first."
"That's it?" he asked, a look of trepidation on his fae as though he couldn't believe how easily he was getting off.
"I can't forgive you yet, maybe I never will, but I'm not going to throw it in your face every time we have a fight." She sipped something from a mug on the coffee table. "The question is can you forgive yourself? I'm not willing to go through a marriage that's going to fall apart because you're constantly beating yourself up or walking on eggshells."
He shook his head, eyes deep pools of pain. "I don't want a sham marriage either but how am I supposed to pretend I didn't hurt you?" he asked, "What I did was unforgiveable."
She sighed exasperated. "If you think it's 'unforgiveable' then what's the point? You're backtracking over everything we just said!" She calmed herself again, knowing that getting mad now wouldn't do either of them any favours. They were going to have an adult conversation even if she had to bite her tongue all night. "Why did you come here tonight?"
"To talk to you."
"Why? Was it because you thought that if I forgave you, you could forgive yourself?"
"Maybe..." he laughed without mirth, "I was half expecting to get my skull caved in."
"I don't need to beat you up when you're doing such a good job yourself. I just thought you should know what I want and it's no more or less than before." She rose to her feet and looked down at him, "It's entirely up to you now."
"You know what I want."
"Yes, I do, but there are more important things at stake. Don't take me for a fool, Jack, if anything like this happens again then it's over and I think you know that." Her face softened, the exertion of reigning in her instincts to batter him taking it's toll. "There'll be no more second chances."
Come and take the rest of me
I never thought I wouldn't want you near This is all I'll ever be
I understand you
Look around to see this dawning
Oh, does it show, I wanted to catch you falling Oh, do you know I would have done anything for you Take this chance I won't repeat this.
"I understand." He whispered, standing face to face, "And I love you for it."
"Love is the one thing that's kept you alive. God, if I could've turned my feelings off then I wouldn't have spent the last three days wondering how to kill you knowing that I don't want to live without you." she turned away, the first glimpse of tears in her eyes as she stared into the fire. "You hurt me - I thought you were the last person in the world who would do that."
He stared at the floor, guilt engulfing him, choking his words, "Me too." For a moment it seemed he couldn't move. He didn't know what to do or what to say anymore. He'd come to her tonight to beg her to let him come home, to plead with her for a second chance but now he had it he didn't know what to do next.
He'd never felt this awkward with her, never felt his heart straining at his ribcage over the mere thought that he could lose her. He'd come so close to his worst nightmare twice in as many months and still he wasn't sure he'd come out of the other side - even if the saving light was so close.
She was still stood with her back to him, completely motionless as if the wind had been taken out of her sails and she was drifting on deceptively calm waters, unsure of her surroundings. So he did the only thing he could think of, the one thing he'd been wanting to do for the past three months.
He pulled her into his arms. He spoke without words. He showed her what she meant to him in a simple embrace and for the moment it was enough. Her arms wound about his neck, holding onto him as though if she let go he might disappear. He could feel her tears through his shirt and his heart broke over what he'd done.
But he was going to fix it. They were going to make it. They had to.
Song words - 'take me home' and 'move this mountain' by Sophie Ellis Bextor
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