"Seasons 3: All Things New" by Carol S Comer

Title: All Things New.

Author: Carol S. Comer

Status: complete

Category: SJR, angst

Spoilers: 100 Days (again, sigh).

Season/Sequel info: 3rd Season prior to Shades of Grey sequel to "Through the Bitter, Bitter Cold" and "The Coming of Spring."

Rating: PG

Content Warnings: Pretty tame stuff here.

Summary: Sam's still reeling from Jack's return from Edora

Disclaimer: Last time I checked, the characters were still owned by Stargate (II) Productions, Showtime/Viacom, MGM/UA, Double Secret Productions, and Gekko Productions. However, should they become available, I'll gladly invest in the consortium seeking to purchase them. Accessories sold separately.

Author's Notes: This was going to be the end, but then I thought about Shades of Grey and how any fragile healing would be undone by the circumstances of that ep. So - once more into the breach, my friends - "An Early Summer Storm" is following, but it'll hurt folks. You've been warned.

ALL THINGS NEW

He just held her while she cried. Colonel O'Neill didn't know anything else he could do to make her feel better. He couldn't undo the past four months. He couldn't take away the source of Major Carter's pain - hell, he WAS the cause - and he couldn't stop her from hurting. She had to grieve ('a hundred days' his mind supplied) before she could move on.

It had been the middle of autumn when they were last together on Edora. Four months ago, thirty feet of solidified naquada and billions of miles of space separated them from each other. THAT distance hadn't been a problem, Sam had conquered that expanse and reached him against all odds, defying the laws of physics and denying the basic needs of her body.

It was in the following forty-eight hours that the gulf between them was built. It wasn't that he wasn't happy to see her - he was. God, he had missed her. Jack had never stopped thinking of her. He had wished Sam was on Edora with him on each one of the one hundred days he was trapped there.

It was just that the colonel had been confused. Jack was overwhelmed by everything that had happened in the days prior to his rescue - finally accepting Edora as home and then hearing Teal'c's voice over the radio, the two of them digging out the Stargate and the subsequent arrival of the remaining members of SG1. He could barely make sense of it all himself.

WHAT he would do was clear, but Jack didn't have a clue as to HOW he could do it without hurting someone. If he stayed on Edora, he betrayed his team. If he went with his team, he would disappoint Lara, her son Garan and the villagers he now called friends. Danny and Teal'c were his teammates and friends. He owed them the utmost loyalty. Sam was, well, Sam, and he owed her so much more, but Lara had taken Jack in and cared for him and loved him and the Colonel had an obligation to her too.

As he listened to Sam excitedly explaining how they had reached him (something about particle beams and horizontal gates), Jack grasped the full meaning of his rescue and how that would effect Lara. Respect and decency required that he ask her to accompany him back to Earth. The colonel fervently hoped she hadn't seen the look of relief cross his face when Lara said she belonged on Edora.

Jack never thought far enough ahead then to realize how it all might have effected Sam. Now he knew. Jack looked down at the top of Sam's head and sighed with regret. She had worked and worried herself sick and then he brushed right by her, mid-sentence, to say goodbye to Lara. 'Can't Sam see?' he thought. Jack couldn't simply high-five everybody, or hug them all and cheer for his good fortune, or dance in glee to see them without causing Lara immense pain. Of course, he was ecstatic to have been rescued, but Lara did nothing but feed him, shelter him and offer him her love. She deserved better than a casual 'thanks, bye.'

But Sam didn't know that and she got hurt. Jack had caused her this pain and now he vowed to help her through it. The Major was still buried in his arms, curled up in the middle of her bed. She was quieter now - no longer gasping for breath between sobs - but he could still feel the silent tears coursing down her cheeks falling on his forearms.

Jack hoped the tears would be cathartic for the major. Sam couldn't go on the way she was. She needed to eat. She needed to sleep and, more than anything, she needed to know that he had WANTED to come home to her.

"I can't tell you how happy I was when I heard Teal'c on the radio." He told her casually. Jack wanted to ease her in to the conversation at hand. She had pushed him away repeatedly when he tried to explain what happened to her and he didn't want it to happen again. "I knew it was you." Jack said. His right arm held the Major and he fingered the bright strands of gold hair lovingly with his left hand. "I knew no one else could get me home but you."

Sam laid still in his arms. Her eyes were shut, but the tears had ceased. This time she didn't stop him mid-sentence and ask him to leave like she had the day before. The colonel pushed forward, growing more bold. 'She hasn't ran away from me yet,' he thought.

"I missed you." He told her. His lips lightly brushed against her hair. "I missed you on every one of the days that I was gone." Jack said. She rolled over in his arms and turned her face up to him. It still shined from the wetness of her tears. "Every one of those one hundred days." He repeated.

"But Lara?" She asked quietly. Jack sighed at the question. Sam had a right to know, but he didn't know how to explain what had happened between them without hurting the major more.

"Lara took me into her home." Jack told her cautiously. "She fed me, cared for me." Sam nodded. "She even loved me." Jack added softly. Sam involuntarily winced, but Jack knew he owed her the whole truth even if some of it could hurt. "I couldn't just walk away from her." Sam nodded with grudging understanding and pulled herself up into a sitting position off of Jack's lap.

Jack and Sam sat in silence each lost in their own thoughts. "But you asked her to come home with you." Sam said, voicing the thing that had bothered her most about his rescue from Edora.

"Yes." Jack agreed softly.

"Why?"

"I had to." He answered simply. Sam frowned and turned away. It wasn't that she was hurt, so much as she just needed time to take it all in. So much had happened.

"I understand." Sam said quietly. Her look told him she didn't need any more explanation. "I'm glad you're back, sir." She added. Jack planted a soft kiss on the top of her head and stood to leave the Major to her thoughts. When the bed shifted, relieved of his weight, Sam turned her head to look back. There was still so much to say, but she didn't know where to begin.

"Will you be alright now?" He asked her. Sam nodded in response and managed a small smile. Jack turned to leave but stopped in the doorway when he heard Sam call his name. Jack swung around and focused on her sitting facing the window.

"Do you love her?" She asked quietly, looking over her shoulder in his direction. Jack paused thoughtfully before responding.

"I could have learned to love her." He said. Sam turned back to look out the window. The ice on the awning was melting and rivulets were running down the window pane. She watched the water pool on the sill with interest.

"Do you love me?" Sam asked. Her voice was as soft as the skittering of kitten paws across a wood floor. Jack barely heard the question.

He frowned and looked at his hands before answering in a halting voice. "I..." Jack shifted nervously on the balls of his feet and fumbled for the right words. "Sam?" Finally in exasperation, he threw his arms in the air and asked "where did that come from?"

Sam turned around on the bed and looked meaningfully at him - patiently awaiting a response. Jack sighed and shrugged.

"I don't know, Sam." He said in resignation. "I can't tell you how I feel." Sam looked away mentally distancing herself from Jack. "There's so much between us that makes this hard," he said. "Old scars, new scars, fear, pain, careers, regulations." He sighed in frustration. "I just don't know how I feel about anything right now." Sam closed her eyes and dropped her chin in disappointment.

"I know I don't want to work without you on my team." Jack said tentatively. Sam tensed and frowned at the gray wetness in the courtyard below - she was asking about them, NOT the SGC. "I know I'd be lost without you." Jack told her, resting his head against the doorframe pensively. Sam turned back to face Jack. "I know I need you." He added quickly, seeing her frown. Sam's brows furrowed thoughtfully. "I know no one else makes me feel the way you do," he shrugged and cautiously started moving toward the bed. He raised his eyebrows and lifted his hands in a silent question. 'Am I welcome?' "I know I'm a better person when you're around me." He said smiling, uncertainly sitting on the very edge of her mattress. Sam shifted toward Jack on the bed - an unspoken response to his silent question. "I know I don't want to live without you in my life." Jack leaned in and held her gaze. Sam smiled that peculiar Mona Lisa smile that comes when laughter and tears coexist like a rainbow when there's both sun and rain. "And I know I want to hold you." He said reaching for her hands. She looked at his hands resting over hers and marveled at their size. She felt physically small and emotionally vulnerable at his touch. "And I know I want to love you."

She laughed softly and crawled into his arms. "You just don't know IF you love me." She said, a hint of playfulness crept into her voice. Jack wrapped his arms around her and hugged Sam to his chest.

"Something like that." He said with a grin. Sam responded with a smile that brightened her face. They sat reveling in each other's arms and then Sam pulled back a little. She frowned thoughtfully. There was something familiar about being in his arms.

"You were here that first night, weren't you?" She asked indicating her bed. Jack nodded slowly and waited for her to continue. "I was so exhausted that I fell asleep on the couch. I thought Daniel had put me to bed, but then you came in the next morning and got me the aspirins for my headache." Sam looked down at the mattress as if she were trying to see them together on the bed. "I remember waking up that morning and feeling like my bed was empty but I didn't know why." Sam squinted as if she were trying to remember still. "Now I do." She said. "I was missing you."

Sam looked up and smiled at Jack, her eyes shining. "Stay with me?" She asked quietly resting her head on his shoulder. Jack nodded. And the coming of spring brought all things new.

The End.