Author's Notes: This is Chapter 1 (there are 4 chapters total) of my very first Sam/Jack ship ever and I would dearly love to hear what you all think of it. Please review!
I also wanted to mention that this story assumes that Pete and Kerry are no longer a part of their lives and are not even mentioned here at all.
A storm was brewing in Colorado Springs. The wind whipped through the trees, tearing the leaves from the branches and causing the leaves that had already fallen to dance along the ground. Samantha Carter ignored nature's ballet as she stood there staring at the house. She knew that he was home; she had seen his shadow pass by the windows as he moved through his daily routines, but she stayed where she was, waiting for her chance.
She shivered and pulled her coat closer around her as the wind angrily tousled her hair about her head. Still she stood there, ignoring the promising warmth she could have if she went into the house. Sam wasn't ready for that yet; everything had to be just right. She figured she only had one chance at this, so she waited, calmly and quietly.
A few cars passed by on their way to God only knew where, but Sam wasn't interested in them. She slipped her hand into her pocket, feeling the strength build up in her as she touched the cold steel of the gun. Her eyes went back to the window of his house, hoping to see him again, half afraid she would.
A light went on in the house as the darkness seeped into the neighborhood. Still Sam waited, breathing in the sweet smell of rain, knowing she would be drenched if she didn't do something soon. But now was not the time. She had to know for sure before she made her move.
The street lights came on, illuminating the sidewalk and the dancing leaves, while the thunder in the distance seemed to reflect her mood. She had been dealing with the anger and the feelings of betrayal pretty much all day; it was what had brought her here. He was in there safe and dry, not even realizing that he was going to pay for what he did.
She closed her eyes and lifted her face toward the sky as she felt the first drops of rain. The wind and the thunder giving her the courage that was threatening to dissolve as she waited. She opened them and looked toward the house when the door opened and she heard General O'Neill say, "Carter? Are you just going to stand out there in the rain? Come on in."
She didn't answer him, just stood there staring at him. The rain was starting to come down in droves now, but she ignored it. He was standing there on his porch, with his hands in his pockets and smiling at her. Her breathing became rapid as she struggled with the intense rage that had begun in her heart and was now racing through her veins. He was acting like nothing had happened!
"Carter?" he said again, leaning forward to look up at the sky from under the roof of the porch. "It's gonna get worse. Why don't you come on inside?"
She continued to stand there, caressing the gun that was still in her pocket. She was starting to doubt her resolve as she stared at her commanding officer. He was so handsome. She knew him inside and out, his quirks and idiosyncrasies, what made him happy and what made him angry, yet she had learned just this morning that he was also a hard boiled bastard who would sell his own mother if the price was right.
Sam watched as the General took one more look up at the sky, then heave a sigh as he stepped off the porch to come over to where she was standing. She didn't move a muscle, just watched him move closer, panic rising within her as her emotions and feelings toward him came to the surface. She hadn't counted on this.
The gun was still there and she kept touching it to give her strength and to remind her of why she came. The General walked up to her and bent his knees a little while tilting his head so that he could look into her eyes, which were slightly downcast.
"You know, I don't mind telling you that you are creeping me out," he said, reaching out to grab her arm. "I mean, you've been standing out here for at least two hours now. What gives?"
"I'm here to take care of something," she said, raising her eyes to look at him. The rain was pouring down now and the thunder and lightning would have been a spectacular show if she had been paying any attention to it. She was too busy dealing with the storm that was building up in her own heart to even notice.
"Can we take care of it inside?" the General asked with a longing look at his house.
She took a few more minutes to debate her options before nodding her head. He took that as an affirmative and pulled her along after him as he ran toward the house. The warmth of the house immediately began to course through her as she stood just inside the front door. Jack left her there and took off for the back of the house, coming back a few minutes later with two towels, one of which he handed to her while he used the other one to wipe the rain from his own face.
She took the towel, but didn't move. She had just thought of him as Jack, something she had always avoided at all costs. Her emotions were now at war with themselves and she felt the confusion as she watched him pull the towel away from his face. The Air Force would not allow her to think of him as anything other than her commanding officer. Why is it that all of a sudden he was everything to her? She was here to make him pay, but all she could do was fall apart when he looked at her.
"Carter?" Jack asked, his eyes were now staring at her warily. "Are you okay? Maybe we should go back to the base and have the Doc take a look at you."
No, she thought, as she shook her head all the while still staring at him. He took the towel away from her and used it to wipe her face, then to blot up the water in her hair. "Will you at least say something? What is the matter with you?"
She couldn't answer him. The reasons she had for killing him now taking a back seat to the reasons she wanted him to live. She reached up to touch his face, rubbing her thumb across his cheek all the while staring at him, trying to bring back the anger that had brought her there in the first place.
"Carter," Jack said, taking a step back in panic. "Please talk to me. What were you doing standing out in my neighbor's yard all this time?" She could see that he was trying to keep his distance and she wasn't so sure she wanted him to.
"Jack," she said, moving so that she was as close as she could get without actually touching him. He didn't move away, but she could tell he wanted to. His brown eyes were fathomless, she noticed as she stared into them.
She was so close she could hear him swallow hard as he stood there staring back at her. He was extremely uncomfortable with their positions, but he still didn't move away. Instead he said, "Uh Carter? What are you doing?"
"You don't want me here, do you?" she snarled at him, backing away. This was so like him, keeping the regulations between them like a shield. Never mind what she wanted, what she needed. "Would you rather SHE was here?"
"She?" he asked her with a confused look on his face. "Which she are you talking about?"
"Oh so there's more than one?" she asked, the anger she harbored earlier building back up in her heart, the thunder of the storm outside mirroring the anger raging within her.
"Colonel, if you don't tell me what this is all about in the next two minutes," Jack threatened.
"I saw you with her this morning," she snarled at him, her eyes taking in the confused look on his face. She wanted to shoot him where he stood, all the while wishing he was kissing her senseless.
"Well, that narrows it down some," he snarled back at her. He was now glaring at her, which helped her to hang on to the fragile threads of her anger. "What's it to you who I talk to?" he asked her indignantly.
Her response was to pull the gun out of her pocket and point it at his heart. "You have no right hanging onto other women, knowing what I feel for you," she said evenly. His only reaction to having a gun pointed at him were the emotions that flashed across his face as he realized what she was thinking.
He finally reacted by reaching out his hand toward her. "Put the gun down, Carter," he said. "You don't want to hurt me. In fact, I think that you may have run across something on that planet you visited yesterday. We are forever bringing stuff back through the Gate." His expression faltered then, as he asked her tentatively, "It is Carter I'm talking to, isn't it?"
"Yes," she said. Why couldn't he see that? She knew he had feelings for her and she had finally decided to tell him exactly how she felt, only to see him kissing that blond bitch in his office this morning. Jack was in love with her, Samantha Carter, not that witch he held in his arms just that morning.
"Why were you kissing her?" she asked him, holding the gun steady.
"Kissing who?" he asked impatiently. "Look Carter, I have no idea what you're talking about. Why don't you just put the gun down so that we can talk about this," he continued as he moved closer to her. He was holding his hand out, begging her with his eyes to give the gun to him, but she couldn't let him hurt her like that ever again. He stopped when she cocked the gun, daring him to take another step closer.
Oh God, she thought, as she stared at him. She was not going to be able to go through with it, she just knew it. The hand that was holding the gun began to shake as her emotions started fighting with each other again.
"Carter," he said quietly. "You really don't want to shoot me, do you?"
She didn't move, just stood there with the gun aimed at his heart. She tried to steady the gun by using her other hand to help support it, but she knew she would never use it against him. She blinked as the tears she had been holding back all day welled up in her eyes. "Jack?" she said as she lowered the gun.
A huge clap of thunder rolled through the house, but Sam was too lost in her own grief to realize it. She collapsed to her knees, folding her arms around her stomach and began to rock back and forth as she sobbed out her frustrations. She cried even harder when she felt herself being pulled into Jack's arms. He held her while the anger and the feelings of betrayal that had grown in her heart since that scene in his office worked their way out through her tears.
She stayed in his embrace long after the tears had abated; hanging onto him and pulling him close every time he tried to sit back. This was where she belonged, in his arms, and she was afraid she would lose him forever if she let him go.
"Hey, you ready to go back to the mountain to see the Doc?" he asked her after awhile.
She shook her head, then sat up to look at him. "Not now," she said just before she grabbed his head and kissed him with everything that she had. He resisted her after a few seconds, pulling back forcibly and holding her off by her shoulders.
"This reminds me of that time…" he started to say, but stopped when she put her finger to his lips to shush him. "What do you really want?" she asked him, desperately needing to know his true feelings for her.
"Carter," he said on a sigh, "You know we can't get into this. C'mon, let's go see the Doc," he coaxed.
"I have to know," she insisted. "I mean you've told me before that you care a lot about me, but we've never talked about those feelings." Her anger took hold again as she thought about what she had seen earlier that day. "Then the next thing I know, you're kissing that bitch!" she spat out, anger making her look for the gun again. Damn, Jack was holding on to it!
"I didn't kiss anyone this morning," he responded, warily. "I think I would have remembered if I had."
"Oh come on Jack, I saw you. It should have been me you were kissing," she said, as she began to calm down. "I love you Jack. I have for a long time now," she found herself admitting.
Jack didn't acknowledge her statement. She could see the wheels turning in his mind as he stared at her, trying to figure out what she was doing. "Jack?" she said taking a deep breath to gather the courage she needed to ask her next question. "Do you love me?"
He sat there for a few seconds longer as she held her breath, waiting for his response. "Carter..." he began, then stopped to take his own deep breath. "Let's just go see the Doc, okay?" he insisted, taking her by the arm and pulling her up off the floor and toward the door. He stopped when he realized that he didn't have his keys and he released her so that he could go find them.
She didn't move as she watched him hunt for his keys, her heart aching as she dwelled on the fact that he didn't answer her question. Why wouldn't he just admit it, she wondered. The more he denied it, the more anguish he caused them both. She knew without a doubt that she had to make him admit it, for both their sakes.
With that in mind, she pulled off her coat and dropped it on the floor where she stood. "I'm not going back to the mountain right now," she said. Jack turned toward her when she'd said that and she saw a flash of impatience in his expression before he hid it and turned back to the task of finding his keys.
"Yes you are Carter," he said, "Just as soon as I find those keys."
"Jack," she said.
"Don't argue with me about this Carter," Jack said, then gave her a triumphant look as he held the keys up high for her to see. "Let's go."
She smiled at him before turning to walk down the hallway toward the back of the house. She knew where she was going and apparently so did he because he came bounding down the hallway saying, "Oh no you don't. The front door is this way."
"Yes, but your bedroom is this way," she said. She continued down the hallway until she came to the bedroom door, unable to go through it because Jack had grabbed her arm to pull her back. She took that opportunity to turn in his arms and kiss him again. He was weakening, she could tell, as this time he kissed her back.
He pulled back from the kiss and took a few seconds to get his breathing under control. "We can't do this," he said sadly. "Not while I'm your CO." He looked away for a moment, then back at her and she wanted to cry at the heartbreak she saw in his eyes.
"Yes we can," she told him. "We can do anything if we wanted it badly enough. I want this badly enough," she told him. Say it Jack, she pleaded silently. I need to hear you say it.
Jack just shook his head with finality. "We can't do this, Carter."
"Yes we can," she snapped at him. Why does he have to be so stubborn? She loved him and he loved her. How hard is that? "I love you Jack O'Neill. Do you love me?" She'd punch his lights out if he avoided this question again.
"Let's talk about this after the Doctor has had a chance to look you over, okay?" Jack said, apparently unaware that he was in danger of getting the crap kicked out of him.
"Let's talk about it now," she growled at him. "Look, either you do or you don't," she raged. "It's not really that hard to say. You open your mouth and let the words come out. How hard is that?"
"Colonel," Jack ground out.
"Either you do or you don't," she said again. "Well?"
"I do," he shouted at her. "Are you happy now? There's not a damn thing we can do about it, but I've said it." He sighed, then took a deep breath before asking, "Can we go see the Doc now?" The calmness of his words contradicted the anger simmering in his eyes.
"There is something we can do about it," she smirked as she put her arms around his neck. Her own anger appeasing as she realized that he wasn't resisting her as she pulled him in for another kiss.
"Sam," he said between kisses. "We can't be doing this. It's against…" She wouldn't let him finish that thought, the exhilaration flowing through her when she'd heard him use her name. She kissed him more passionately, while at the same time dragging him along with her through the bedroom door.
"Oy," he said with a smile when she let him up for air. She smiled back at him as she came back in for more. "I just know I'm going to regret this," he told her just before their lips met again.