Firsts

By KaseyJae

Summary: Jack and Sam weren't their firsts. In nothing. And they were both aware. Both had known when they met each other that given their respective ages, they couldn't very well be the others first in anything. Astonishing, how wrong that thought had been.

Author's note: A little something that has been bouncing through my head for a while and demanded to get out. A bit of my thoughts on and my view of Sam's and Jack's relationship. Hope, you'll enjoy.

Genre: Family/Romance, one-shot.

Pairing: Sam/Jack

Rating: K+

Feedback: As always I appreciate all constructive feedback and love to read your thoughts about this!

Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters, places and settings belong to their rightful owners: Stargate Productions, Showtime/Viacom, MGM, Double Secret Productions and Gekko Productions. Any resemblances to people, events, stories or locations are purely coincidental. This work is simply for entertainment purposes and no copyright infringement is intended. Also, no money is made out of this. However, this story, any original characters, the settings and situations are property of the author and not to be copied or distributed!

Firsts

Jack and Sam weren't their firsts. In nothing. And they were both aware.

Both had known when they met each other that given their respective ages, they couldn't very well be the others first in anything. Astonishing, how wrong that thought had been.

Jack wasn't Sam's first Commanding Officer, far from it. She had served with quite a lot of different CO's already despite her rather young age and she had gotten to know almost every type she had deemed to be there within the Air Force: from the arrogant asshole that hadn't seen anything but a hot blonde in her to the understanding, fatherly type that tried taking her under his wings to the somewhat friendly men that were trying their best to not consider dating her. With any of them, Sam had always been the professional that she was expected to be, but never more. It was Sam's character to give her all for her work, to do her best with every task she got confronted with, but in hindsight and in honesty, Sam could say she hadn't done anything beyond that. She had coped with a few of her CO's, maybe even gotten to like one or two, but it never progressed farther from that. Sam just never felt respected by them. Yes, they had all valued her abilities, and her good looks as well, but she had been at the receiving end of many bad jokes long enough to begin to feel that she could be best within her profession and not gain any ground as long as she was a pathetic woman by the standards of 'this man's army'. It was highly unfair. Sam did everything she was asked to and she did it far better than her male colleagues, yet she didn't get the recognition they were being given way easier. By the time Sam finally got transferred to Cheyenne Mountain she had convinced herself that all military men – including a stupid ex-fiancé of hers – believed women to be weak and superfluous in the Air Force. So in hindsight Sam could understand why a few had deemed her slightly feministic when she'd started at the SGC. He had thought her to be so, too, this much she had seen right from the start, even though she had told herself to not care in the least that time. Jack O'Neill was just another CO, in no way different than all the others. She'd thought. Boy had she been wrong. So yes, Jack O'Neill hadn't been her first CO. He'd been the first though to ever recognize her the way Sam had always wished for all those years. He'd been the first to completely trust her abilities. He'd been the first to not judge her differently just because she was a woman, even if he was clearly aware of that fact. He was also the first CO to make Sam go all out, way beyond pure professionality. The way he relied on her made Sam strive for nothing but pure perfection and she had to admit she liked how he challenged her. And Jack O'Neill finally was the first CO Sam wasn't annoyed with when she noticed his interest in her. Maybe because he did his hardest to fight it so he wouldn't get in the way of her career.

Samantha Carter wasn't his first subordinate. Hardly. She wasn't even the first female subordinate Jack had had. No throughout all the years he'd spent in the Air Force he had come across almost every type of officer imaginable. Jack had had his differences and troubles with most of them and maybe he'd even liked a few of them. With a selected few he'd even become friends. No way would he ever be that with rookie-Captain Carter. He'd thought. At the time he'd met her, she'd been a loudmouth, feministic, overly fake-confident and bombshell hot. All bad points he didn't really need in a subordinate officer. Too bad she didn't leave his image of her at that. No she just had to prove him wrong on the very first mission Hammond had practically forced him to take her along. She was so much more than that, he quickly realized. Actually was so much more than he could have ever wished for in a 2IC it was slightly scary. Scary because Jack soon realized the complications this would have for him. Yet he could do nothing than to keep her close. Both because he had to, professionally, and because he wanted to, personally. Yes, Samantha Carter wasn't his first subordinate. Yet she was the first and only one Jack found himself wishing to break the frat regs with. Jack had always had the utmost respect for female officers and he truly valued the treatment of women being the old-fashioned type he was. He had never meant any disrespect for another woman, let alone Carter herself, and he had always been convinced of the need for the frat regs seeing what he had had to witness during his years in the Air Force. Still, Jack couldn't help but condemn them to hell times after times after he'd gotten to meet Sam Carter.

Jack O'Neill wasn't the first friend Sam had ever had. Far from it. She had had friends and even male ones before. To be honest, Sam had always had more luck in finding male friends than female, but that may have had something to do with her job that honestly took up most of her life, if not all of it. And truthfully, Sam had expected Jack to be one of the last people she'd ever call her friend, if only because their work relationship would prevent it. Any closer contact to him would be off-limits for her thanks to the frat regs. Yet, somewhere along the way, she realized she'd come to respect him more than she had respected any of her previous CO's. It may not be visible but they were also doing their best to hide it, but emotionally, Sam and Jack had gotten closer than she'd ever been with another friend of hers, whether she'd been ready to allow it or not. So before Sam really had realized how this could have happened, Jack had become the first CO she had gotten close friends with.

Samantha Carter hadn't been the first woman Jack had ever been attracted to. Not at all. Still, she was the first woman he'd been so strongly attracted to in a long, long time. Sometimes, Jack wondered if she wasn't the woman he'd been attracted to the most in his life. Jack certainly knew he had been greatly fascinated by Sara too, but the hard times and feelings they had behind them left Jack wondering how great this attraction had really been. And if it could really compare to what he was feeling for Sam.

Jack O'Neill wasn't the first man Sam had ever fallen in love with. No, to be exact, Sam wasn't even surprised when she finally realized what she was actually feeling for her CO. It matched, in her opinion. She liked the military type and she never went for the easy ones. And in addition to meeting all her criteria, Jack O'Neill honestly made it rather hard for her to not fall for him; in the all heart-crushing, desperate, but oh-so-wonderful kind of way. So, yes, Jack O'Neill wasn't the first man Sam had fallen for, even if, that much she knew immediately, he was the first CO she'd fallen for and the man she'd crushed on hardest yet. And she had been convinced he would be her first major heartbreak, because, in all honesty, what could ever become of this immature, hopeless crush of hers?

Sam wasn't the first person Jack had ever trusted. Even though Jack didn't give his trust freely, he had quite a few good friends he trusted implicitly and while his Special Ops career didn't really do anything for this list, his job at Cheyenne Mountain certainly elongated it. Jack was usually careful with new encounters and checked the other person out thoroughly first. He did a threat-assessment and took his time to get to know the person before he would decide whether they would land on his good or bad side. So with Sam's attitude and her abilities it didn't really come as a surprise for Jack when noticed he trusted her. He kinda needed to anyways, seeing that she was responsible for having his back in the field. Still, just because he should do something normally didn't mean Jack actually did so. And given their somehow awkward start, Jack hadn't really thought her to grow so close to him. Yet he realized one day that she was one of the few people he really trusted. He trusted her abilities. He trusted her knowledge to always get them out whatever the situation. He trusted her to have his back and to save his sorry ass if need be. He trusted her to trust him. And with this, Jack formed a special bond with Sam that made their relationship truly unique and unrivalled by others. And so Sam became the one Jack trusted most.

Jack wasn't the first man Sam had ever kissed. He wasn't even the first man she should have better not have kissed. In fact, they hadn't even officially kissed at all. Whenever they did kiss each other throughout all those years, it was supposed to not have happened and so it hadn't. They were only allowed to slip up when they were deemed to be under alien influence. Because then it didn't count. But to Sam, every stolen touch from him, every however brief contact she had gotten granted, was valuable and treasured. And Jack was the first man to make her feel like that. She had always taken pride in always doing the right things, never really screwing up or going wrong, but Jack O'Neill finally made her wish she could. Never had doing the wrong thing felt so right.

Sam wasn't the first woman Jack had ever slept with. No, given his wild years in his youth, Jack wasn't even sure what number Sam would have been, had he bothered to count. Then again, she was so much more that even thinking of her being another number made him want to wish he could be at least a little bit more romantic. Because she definitely deserved it. But unromantic or not, Jack always knew what Sam meant to him. She was the very first woman he was acutely aware of how much she mattered to him and he took great care so he would never forget that. Because she was special to him. And that made sleeping with her also so much more than simple sex. He always told himself he was far too old for an earth-shattering, soul-shaping, all-changing experience, but he had to say if he would admit believing in something like that, his first time with Sam definitely had been such an experience.

Jack wasn't the first man Sam had gotten engaged to. And given that she had never really believed herself to care for such mundane things like marriage, it was surprising she had actually been betrothed two times already. Okay, she was honest enough to admit that she had let herself get roped into it with Jonas, without really wanting to commit to him in that way. No such qualms with Jack however. Despite not thinking herself the girly type who would dream of a marriage in white, a suburban house with the proverbial white picket fence around it and maybe a child or two, Sam found herself doing that quite a lot where Jack O'Neill was concerned. Sam had never really seen the sense in wasting time daydreaming about something she didn't want or couldn't have, so she simply didn't do it. Yet, Jack was the very first man that made her brain leave its usual ways. No matter how unrealistic her odds were with him, he was the first man Sam wanted so much that succumbing to daydreams were her only real chance left. And never had Sam been happier than on the days her daydreams turned into reality.

Sam wasn't the first woman Jack had married. In fact despite how much he loved her, he had been unsure if he really should do it. After all, he had already wrecked one marriage because he had been unable to commit to his partner's needs and he really didn't want his relationship with Sam to end similarly. He cared about her way too much. And yet, when the timing was finally right, he found himself popping the question, nervous as hell. He was questioning himself, his behavior and his motives every second along the way, until she beamed at him with her thousand-watt-smile that always got his insides all tangled and probably made him smile back with a downright stupid grin. He didn't doubt his decision ever again.

Jack wasn't the first man Sam had to see at work every day no matter what had happened between them in their personal lives. No she already knew from experience how much it sucked to have to see the one you love at work when you had just had a major fight with them. She may be able to hide in her lab when she really didn't want to see him, but given their chain of command she still had to obey to his orders whatever they were, when all she really wanted to do was to tell the jerk he could screw himself as far as she was concerned. She had to give this to Jack however, he never used his superior position against her. He respected her and the distance she needed whenever she needed it. He let her be for as long as she needed it. He had a unique ability to know when he could bother her in his very own way of apologizing or when he should better avoid her lab's level for a while. And it was ironically this considering trait of his that made Sam fail to stay mad at him for long. Before she knew it, she would search him out in the commissary where he would have waited for her with a tray of food and that certain lazy smile that usually got her knees all wobbly and she would sit down beside him as a sign of 'apology-accepted' and they would go on as usual. Daniel would bug them to talk about their disagreement but they both knew they didn't always need to, they understood each other just as good without the actual need for the words spoken out loud. Yes, Sam knew it sucked when you couldn't get away from the one you loved whenever you needed a moment of distance, still Jack was the first man to never make her feel crowded. And no matter what had been between them, they never went home mad with each other.

Sam wasn't the first woman to bear Jack a child. He had gone through the whole we're-pregnant routine before, from the moment she'd told him about it as nervous and insecure as he'd ever seen Samantha Carter ever before to the whole hurray-our-friends-have-found-out-moments to the strange cravings and morning sickness to the overdrive sex drive (hell, yes) to the tricky am-I-fat-questions and eventually to the mess of feelings of pride, helplessness, stress and unbridled joy in the delivery room of the hospital when the time finally came. Jack had been through it all. That didn't prepare him in the least, though. It was all as he remembered it and yet all painstakingly new. To be able to go through that with Sam when he had never actually let himself believe there was any chance for them made him as happy and awed as he'd never felt in his whole life. It was somehow familiar no matter how many years had passed since his first time experiencing it, but going through it with Sam made it all unique and different. And there was no other woman on this world or any other Jack would have rather wanted with him in that situation.

Jack wasn't the first CO who had ever stood at Sam's side, when she had gotten promoted. He was however the one who went with her through the most of her promotions. Whether it had been her rise to the rank of Major, Lieutenant Colonel, Colonel or later on Brigadier General, he was always there with her, even rewarding her the promotions as long as he was still on active duty. And whenever she would rise up in the ranks, he would hand down his worn insignia to her. Nobody knew aside from SG-1 and they both intended for it to stay that way, but Sam wore Jack's golden and silver oak leaves on her collar and then his eagles and stars. She hoped it would help her focus and maybe let her reach a rank even remotely close to the one he'd achieved. And it actually made him the first man to ever be with her, wherever she was. It made him the first and only man Sam had an infinite connection with, wherever she was within this galaxy or the next.

Sam wasn't the first woman Jack had been married to, when he retired, once again. She was, however, the one not surprised when he did it. Knowing him as well as she did, she had probably seen it coming a mile away. And by this time, Jack was truly looking forward to retirement. He was tired of his job and felt it was finally the time to give the steering wheel over to younger, more promising candidates, one of them his own wife he had taught the ropes years ago. And, admittedly, the thought of staying home, in their house, to help her focus on her career, to finally get a dog and, most importantly, to raise their children was the most intriguing picture Jack had been tempted with in his whole life.

Neither Jack nor Sam had been strangers to meeting new people, given their jobs. When they had met each other however, they had both been scarred by the past and hadn't been looking for a new love. Far from it, actually. They had both wanted their distance and to be left alone. But neither of them had really had a chance. Because the moment they had locked gazes in the middle of Cheyenne Mountain's briefing room with the Pentagon lackeys as witnesses, they had both known that, while this wasn't the first time they had met a stranger they would be expected to work with in the future, it would still become all special. Call it soldier's instincts or fate's loud screaming but they had both known instantly that this wasn't a usual new meeting. This would be so much more. Nothing they hadn't experienced before and yet all new, unique and uniquely strong. Fate hadn't disappointed either of them.