It had been a month now since I left Lara, and despite my protestations of undying love when I left her, I was beginning to forget her face. But then again, it was the child she probably carried within her that I missed, not really her. I wondered if he be like Charlie. Would he look like Charlie, behave like Charlie?
One thing was for sure. Whatever technology we gave that world, it wouldn't include guns. I wasn't going to lose my second child.
I looked up to see Tech. Davis walking down the corridor to me...a nice woman, and one of Sam's friends. I liked her. I thought she liked me.
"Laura." I said, as I passed. She didn't stop. She just barely acknowledged me, and glared at me. A lot. I winced. If looks could kill, right now I'd be a smoking pile of ashes on the floor. And not for the first time today, either. Even Siler was upset at me. I'd never even realised Siler could get upset.
I walked into the rec. room, where Danny was playing chess against himself, trying to work out for the thousandth time a strategy to beat Teal'c. I bet he regretted ever teaching the big bald one to play.
"Danny," I asked, "why the hell is everyone looking at me like I'm a complete bastard?"
Without looking up from his game, he replied calmly, "Because you are a complete bastard, Jack."
Well, that sort of threw me. I rarely hear Danny swear, and I know I can be a bastard, but I didn't expect my best friend to say it, out loud, calmly like that. He's supposed to fudge, ask what I'm talking about, explain things, not sit there like he doesn't care.
"What?"
"You heard me. You are a complete bastard. A complete, total and utter bastard. In fact, I don't think the word's strong enough for you, but I can't think of a worse one right now."
He said it calmly enough, but he was shaking just a little. Danny doesn't like confrontation, but he was starting an argument with me. I couldn't understand.
"Danny, are you going to tell me why...."
"Sam." he said, getting up, and moving away. I went cold. Sam was a subject I didn't want to discuss. "You've treated her like dirt ever since you got back. You're demanding, you argue with her..."
"I was always like that with Carter!"
"No, you were never spiteful before, and you are now, Jack. And you were never cold before either, and you are now. Everything you say or do hurts her, and you never even notice, do you?"
His voice was beginning to rise, and I could see that Danny was getting really really angry...and there was no alien virus to blame it on this time.
"She worked so hard to get you back. When everyone else gave up, she carried on. You have no idea the scale of what she achieved to get to you back. She built a particle beam generator, for crying out loud! She achieved the impossible, yet again, for you, and you haven't even had the grace to say thank you!"
"Danny...."
"No! Not Danny. That's what my friends call me. You call me Dr. Jackson from now on, do you understand? I don't wish to be friends with a hard-hearted, selfish cold bastard like you!"
He was shaking, but by now, so was I. Not with anger. I was...upset. I know I've never acted like it, not to his face anyway, but Danny is my best friend, practically my brother, and I really don't have many close friends.
"Daniel, I'm sorry I..."
"No." he was calm again. "Sorry isn't good enough any more. Look Jack, I know you left a woman you claimed to love back on that planet. But you said you loved Sara too, once. How much of that love is based on your need to have a child, and how much on the woman herself? No, don't answer that. But I can tell you this. Sam is my friend. In a way, I love Sam. But since you came back, you've acted like she's nothing to you, and that hurts her, which upsets Teal'c and I. You should put things right, or you won't have any friends left."
He left, and I sank down on the chair by the table.
I had loved Sam once. I tried so hard not to. I mean, lets face it, its a relationship doomed to failure. Come on, she's hardly going to risk a career for a romance with a battered, old, cynical soldier who can't think of anything profound to say when he's about to die. And even if she temporarily lost her sanity, and did decide that for some strange reason she wanted me, I wouldn't let her. I wouldn't let her destroy her life and career that way.
I thought I'd covered it all up okay. But obviously I hadn't. I could feel myself watching her, smiling at her, getting jealous of Marty and Narim... okay guys in their own way, and probably a lot better for Sam then I was.
And I realised I was giving out little signals. Actually, rather big signals, since Janet had sat me down one night and told me she knew I loved Sam, what the hell was I going to do about it? I told her that since Sam didn't love me, not a lot (after about two hours trying to deny it. That woman is STUBBORN). She said Sam had no idea how she felt, and I shouldn't make assumptions.
Okay, so I shouldn't. And Urgo came along, and he was there, in our minds. And Urgo liked Sam. Sam liked Urgo. And the more and more I thought about it, the more and more convinced I became that Urgo had told Sam exactly what he found in my mind while he was floating around it. Especially after he let slip that thing about the tiny bikini. And that made me... uncomfortable. And I decided to step back from Sam, be a little more distant, before something happened that she would regret.
Alright, so now I'm really thinking about it, and thinking, if that's true,she must have known I loved her when I left. She must have been expecting me to love her when I came back. Instead, I brushed her off, with barely a thank you, invited another woman home. I must have confirmed what Jonas had taught her....never trust any man who claims he loves you.
And while I'm thinking clearly for once, how about admitting I wanted to bring Lara back not only for the child, but as a shield between me and Sam?
I mean, Lara was there, and I was lonely, and Lara was always so insistent, and I was drunk, and yeah, it felt good to be wanted, and needed for the first time in forever. I'd never felt like Sam needed me, wanted me, but I'm not blaming her. Sam's always been so damned self-sufficient. Lara was so dependent on me. It made me feel...special.
She built a particle generator to get me back?
Damnit, Danny, and the rest of the base were right. I really was a bastard. But I had no idea how to fix things. I laid my head on my arms, in the desk,and groaned very loudly.
"Feeling sorry for yourself?" a familiar voice added. I didn't look up. I just nodded. "Good." she replied.
"Please Janet, don't you start too."
She shrugged.
Janet knew everything. Being a doctor, she's naturally intuitive. Being Janet, she had no hesitation in getting the truth out of me. Being Sam's best friend, she had no intention of telling me anything about Sam.
"I really have upset Sam, haven't I." I said, slowly.
"Oh yeah." she replied, stirring milk into her coffee.
"Janet....what went on while I was away?"
She looked at me disbelieving, but she must have registered the confusion on my face, because she sat down at the table, put her coffee down, and said, "Sam finally realised how much she cares for you."
I held my breath. I'd been waiting to hear those words for ages, but then again, I dreaded it. Me and her...it was wrong. Was I the only person in the world that thought that?
Janet took a deep breath, and continued.
"She was devastated when she realised you were gone. I mean erally, truly devastated. She never stopped thinking of a way to get you back. Hardly slept, hardly ate, lived off coffee, didn't even leave the base for three months. Eventually she came up with a plan involving building a particle beam generator. Now, that isn't like building a house, or a wall, or anything like that. It took a long time. And a lot of work. She knew the Tollans would have been able to pick you up next year. She said you shouldn't have to wait that long. I told her to rest. She refused. All her energies were focused on getting you back as quickly as possible. Imagine her surprise when she succeeded, and discovered not only had you not being trying to get back, but you'd built a whole new life for yourself, one with no place for her."
I was silent. I imagined Sam working in the lab, performing miracles, desperate to rescue me. And every time I thought of it, it twisted a knife in my gut. Those images, of her working so hard, pushing herself so hard, for me, not because I was lost forever, but because she thought I 'd want to come home as soon as possible, twisted the guilt in me. I'd merely assumed she'd come up with one of her brilliant solutions. I'd never thought about the work behind it, the driving force that pushed her on. I never even thought that she'd suspended her own life to rescue me.
"I was glad to come back." I said.
"Really? Because you don't act like it."
"I...Janet, I'd decided before I left to cool things with Sam. I wanted it over, Janet. I just wanted to end those desperate, lonely nights. I wanted to stop wanting to reach out to her, and not being able to. I just wanted it all to stop."
"So you can do that can you? Just stop loving someone?"
"I thought I could."
"And Lara was part of the healing process?"
I nodded. She smiled, all-knowing, the way Janet does.
"You're not a bastard." she said. "You're an idiot. A complete idiot. Did it never occur to you that maybe, just maybe she cared for you too? That the shock of losing you was enough to make her see how much she cares? I asked her, about you. She said she missed you. For someone who's as little in touch with her emotions as Sam is, that's a major breakthrough."
She missed me? I never knew that. I never...I thought my disappearance was another problem for her to solve, another way to stretch her mind. I never thought that maybe she needed me back, I never thought.....
"Janet...I can't tell her. I've got to stop this, now. I decided to before I left, and I'm not changing my mind."
"Go and see her. I'm not asking that you tell her you love her. You try and stop loving her, if you want, if you can. But she's so used to you being tender and protective and close to her, in your own clumsy way, and you've hurt more than you can ever know by withdrawing that. Go and see her, be friends with her again. If not..."
"If not?"
"If not, I'll hurt you. And I'm a doctor. I really know how to hurt people."
So that's why I'm standing here, in the doorway of her lab, watching her work. It's a problem I threw at her two days ago, curtly telling her to solve it. She took it wordlessly, and I get the feeling that she's up ever since working on it.
I don't want to love her. I don't want to care so much for her that it hurts. I want my freedom. But I need her.
She looks tired. How could I have not seen that? And how could I have not seen how the life has drained out of her? She never laughs anymore. She barely smiles. She's lost all her joy. I've been so wrapped up in trying not to love her, in believing that I don't love her, that I haven't noticed how much I've hurt her.
"Carter." I said.
She looks up, surprised, and I see there's shadows under her eyes.
"Sir! I'm almost there. Just a little while longer."
"Carter, go to bed. You're exhausted. It can wait. Sleep. That's an order Major."
She thinks of arguing, but she doesn't. She stands up, and walks towards me, to the door.
"Sam," I say, without thinking. She looks up at me, directly into my eyes for the first time since I came back. Oh God, how could I ever think I don't love her? I lied to myself. I hid from myself, and now I'm paying the price...her pain.
"Sir?" she whispers, too tired to talk properly.
"I never said thank you."
"Thank you?"
"For rescuing me."
"For separating from your wife and child?"
"Not my wife. And probably no child. I was....I really thought home....you....was lost forever, and Lara was always there..always so insistent."
"I see."
She didn't. She didn't believe me.
"I should have had my faith in you, Sam. I should have known you'd come for me."
"You should have, but you didn't. Goodnight Sir."
"Sam!" I called out. She stopped, but didn't turn around. "I missed you, Sam." She said nothing. She merely walked away.
I don't know what to do now. Do I tell her I love her? Have I the courage to admit to myself I love her? Should I continue to hide, to deny a relationship that for her sake, should never happen?
Or do I tell her, that I'm frightened to love her? And that if I'd thought she'd cared before I left, I'd never have touched Lara? That I'm sorry?
I wish I knew. All I do know is, I've destroyed some of the faith and trust between us. And I don't know what to do next.
The End
Story Notes: SEASON THREE
SPOILERS 100 DAYS.
AUTHOR'S NOTES; AFTER GETTING SO UPSET WITH JACK IN 100 DAYS, I DECIDED TO WRITE WHAT HAPPENED WHEN HE CAME BACK. I MAY HAVE BEEN A LITTLE HARSH. LET ME KNOW WHAT YOU THINK.
SPOILERS 100 DAYS.
AUTHOR'S NOTES; AFTER GETTING SO UPSET WITH JACK IN 100 DAYS, I DECIDED TO WRITE WHAT HAPPENED WHEN HE CAME BACK. I MAY HAVE BEEN A LITTLE HARSH. LET ME KNOW WHAT YOU THINK.
DISCLAIMER: All publicly recognisable characters, settings, etc, are the property of their respective owners. Any original characters and plots are the property of the author. No money is being made from this work. No copyright infringement is intended. ... [ read more ]