A Vinculo Matrimonii
A Vinculo Matrimonii
by Major Clanger
Title: A Vinculo Matrimonii
Author: Major Clanger
Email: MajClanger@aol.com
Category: MissingScene/Epilogue
Episode related: 106 Cold Lazarus
Season: Season 1
Pairing: Jack/Sara
Rating: G
Warnings: none
Summary: I never thought Sara had enough of a reaction to seeing her "dead son" in Cold Lazarus. My idea of how it might have been for her.
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).
A Vinculo Matrimonii
by
Major Clanger
"How about this?" The girl held up a small bouquet consisting of yellow rosebuds, purple freesias and some gypsophila.
Running a finger around his shirt collar he grunted assent, then extracted his wallet, handed over the requested bills, took the flowers and fled. Tossing them on the passenger seat Jack ground the truck into gear and reversed at speed from the parking lot, causing one or two other men, each with at least one small child in tow, to shake their heads.
Jack's heart hammered as he reversed carefully into a parking space at his next port of call. He had no idea how long he'd been sitting there, lost in some kind of dreamworld, before he finally opened the door and got stiffly out of the jeep. Opening the door once more with an impatient sigh, he reached over and grabbed the flowers before slamming the door closed with a lot more than what could be described as 'justifiable force'.
It was warm. The sun was bright even at this early hour and the birds were revelling in the beautiful May day. Insects buzzed from flower to flower, and Jack stifled the urge to kick each of the rhododendron bushes that bloomed with an excess of pink flowers. After what seemed like an interminable trek, Jack's feet finally brought him safely to his destination.
Awkwardly he held out the flowers. "Happy Mothers' Day," the sad half whisper made lies of his words as he bent and almost threw the flowers on the grave.
It was dark. An insistent pain in his ribs forced him to reluctant wakefulness.
"Gerrofa me you..." Jack curled into a ball and tried to protect himself.
Instantly the pain stopped and instead a gentle hand laid itself on his shoulder.
"Jack. It's me."
"Oh." There was no need for apology. It wasn't the first time Sarah had seen him react like this, and - as she well knew - it was very doubtful that it would be the last. "Wassamatter."
When he didn't get an immediate reply he sat up and clicked on the bedside lamp. "You okay?"
Sarah held up her hand, her lips moving but no sound coming through them. After about thirty seconds the penny finally dropped.
"Um... are you... I mean is it..."
She glanced at her watch and Jack noticed for the first time that she was fully dressed. "Yes, Jack. The contractions are six minutes apart and I think we have to go..."
"But the baby isn't due for... what, three days." Quickly pulling on pants and a t-shirt, Jack shoved un-socked feet into his sneakers, walked around the bed and picked up Sarah's small bag. He opened the door to the bedroom and looked pointedly at his wife as she took her time getting off the bed and walking over to him. Although, he had to admit, schlepping eight pounds of baby -and whatever else is in there - around wasn't exactly conducive to fluid movement. That much he did allow.
"Jack! We've been through that. This isn't one of your airmen, this is your child. And they arrive when they want, not when you want."
Sara took the bag out of his hand and put it on the floor, wincing slightly as she straightened, put her hands on his shoulders and leaned into him with her feet wide apart. Her head was resting on his chest before he recognised one of the positions she had shown him, and he stretched his hands around and began to massage the small of her back. After a minute she straightened up, left the room and walked downstairs.
"Should I come back for the bag then?"
Jack grabbed the duffel bag and hurried after her, solicitously opening both the front door and the door to the car. He ran to the driver's side, started up the engine and was about to shout at his wife when the sealtbelt light flashed at him. Looking over he saw her crouched by the side of the car, with her forehead buried in her arms, in a squatting position. She bobbed up and down gently until the contraction had passed. Jack wracked his brains to think what he was supposed to do when she did that one, but he drew a blank.
Another thing for her to hold against the USAF I guess. Jack sighed as Sarah finally clambered into the passenger seat, pushed it back as far as it would go and struggled with the seatbelt.
"I've got it!" Her impatient snap accompanied by a stinging slap of his hand made him roll his eyes. A reaction that didn't go unnoticed by his wife. "I can drive myself if you'd rather. I've done the rest of this pregnancy thing alone."
Winning the fight against the choice phrases that battled against his tightly pursed lips, Jack jerked the car into gear and drove to the hospital.
He cursed as the one and only light between their house and their destination changed to red as he approached, but the respite in driving gave him a chance to look over at Sarah. Her eyes were closed and her hands were making sporadic clutching movements over the bulge of her stomach. No stranger to pain, Jack had more than a little sympathy with the woman, but he had been totally unprepared for her behaviour tonight.
Looking back on the evening before, he guessed that he should have noticed the signs of a woman in labour the minute he'd walked through the door, but all he'd wanted was a cold beer, a shower and bed. In that order.
It was only now that he realised that the house was way beyond its usual spotless state. It was gleaming. There had also been, he realised now, the smell of freshly baked bread. Barely glancing into the nursery on his way to the bathroom, the first indication that all was not well with Sarah had come about five minutes after he had settled into his favourite chair, beer in hand, grabbed the remote and started randomly flicking through the tv stations.
Used to his 'back from a mission' routine, Sarah had complained once, as usual, and then stormed upstairs - not usual. Jack heard a door slam upstairs, a few seconds of silence, then a great shout and a strange noise, rather like the flapping of flags in the wind. Another door had slammed and then there was nothing.
Bone weary Jack had put down the fact that Sarah hadn't come to sit with him on her pregnancy hormones, and had only noticed the pile of dirty laundry and two wet towels that formed a heap at the bottom of the stairs when he nearly tripped over them on his way to bed. He'd left them where they were and went up to brush his teeth and collapse into bed.
Narrowly escaping injury colliding with a dresser he didn't know they possessed, it barely penetrated Jack's tired brain that his bedroom furniture had moved, and that the colour scheme was no longer what it had been two months before. This observation had gone unnoticed by Jack until he realised that he was still looking over at Sarah instead of paying attention to the traffic light, which had changed to green.
"I am not having this baby in the car. Drive!" Sarah could speak with surprising venom through clenched teeth and Jack complied immediately.
A few minutes later they were being bustled along corridors and people were asking him questions to which he had no idea of the answers. As they approached the delivery room, he was dragged aside by one of the nurses and could only gape at her as she thrust a set of scrubs at him.
"You are the father?"
"Yes."
"So, if you want to be there when the baby is born, get into this outfit pronto!"
Jack finally made it back to Sarah's side looking around him suspiciously at the array of bleeping machines, one of which spouted a long stream of paper. It looked like a seismograph. A young girl was looking at the printout. She smiled over at Sarah.
"You're doing fine according to the machines, so let's have a look then and we can get a better idea of what's going on..."
The girl talked for a while until Jack, suddenly realising that she was about to give his wife an internal examination, let out a shout.
"Shouldn't a doctor be doing that?"
"Jack, this is Doctor Mancini. Doctor Mancini, this is my husband. The father of this child, although goodness only knows how." She waved her hand between jack and 'the girl', performing the polite ritual of introduction while her husband stood stiffly at her side. The doctor ducked down behind a sheet draped over Sarah's legs.
The needles on the seismograph started to jiggle about and the iron grip that Sarah had on Jack's right hand intensified. He watched as the doctor straightened and waited until what was obviously a contraction passed, all the time looking back at him with a quizzical expression.
Noticing this, Sarah nodded at him when she could speak again and spoke to the room in general "Air Force."
Doctor and nurses nodded in sympathetic unison and Jack felt the doors of sisterhood close on him as the medics attended to his labouring wife, while he stood around like a spare part. Sighing he tried to pull his hand from the vice that was Sarah's gripping hand, but she refused to let him go.
"Oh no, flyboy, you stay here! This is one occasion when you, me and our child are going to be together."
"Sarah, I'm not going anywhere... I'd like to have the use of my fingers for the future though." His words were ignored as another contraction took hold.
"Mr. O'Neill, how about you do the breathing exercise with your wife? That usually helps and it will take your mind of the pain in your hand." The nurse nodded approvingly at the marks on the paper coming out of the machine that was connected to Sarah's abdomen. "That's fine, they're much closer together, you're doing well."
The doctor made another examination, "You're at nine centimetres now. If you get the urge to push you'll have to do the panting thing," she laughed at Sarah's expression of distaste, "or else you'll cause a lot of damage."
"The panting thing?" Jack looked at Sarah in alarm.
"Yeah," she sighed. "The panting thing. Don't worry about it." Once more her body cramped up and she dug her nails into the fleshy part of Jack's hand.
"In... two three... out... two three... in... two three four... out... two three four..."
The nurse's counting was hypnotic and Jack, who had existed on very little sleep for the past few weeks was mesmerised. So much so that his eyes closed and he fell forwards onto his face. The nurse carried on counting, there really was nothing she hadn't seen before. When the contraction had finished, Sarah laid her sweat soaked head back and sighed.
"Is he okay?"
"I'll just check..."
Sara let out an almighty scream and the nurse hurried to the machines as Doctor Mancini commenced yet another examination.
"Sarah, you're now at 10 centimetres. When you feel the urge to push, just go for it. Don't forget..."
"Yeah yeah. I'll close my eyes." Sarah took a few deep breaths. "How's Jack?"
"Jack's fine." The man himself gained an upright position and looked at Sarah. She raised her eyebrows and, satisfied when he gave an almost imperceptible nod, seemed to draw herself together.
She looked over at her husband and patted his hand. "You ready for this?"
"Not really."
"Me neither. Okay, here we go now." The needles on the foetal monitor jiggled again and Sarah took a huge breath, closed her eyes, leaned her head forward and pushed with all her might. Again and again. The needles stopped moving and Sarah relaxed back.
Doctor Mancini looked over the sheet with a smile. "That was good. Three more of those and it will all be over."
"Can I get that in writing?" Another contraction took all of Sarah's concentration and she repeated the pushing.
Jack felt helpless. Heck he was helpless. His wife was in agony, his child about to be born and he couldn't help either of them. He watched a small drop of sweat as it emerged from beneath Sarah's hairline and trickled along the back of her neck and into her t-shirt. Hell's teeth, what the hell was he doing... marriage, children? Was this really what he wanted? Did he deserve it? One thing was for sure, they didn't deserve him. Not the him that he had been recently.
Fighting the urge to run away to join the Navy, Jack resolved to be the model husband and father. He held his wife's hand, rubbed her back and watched and waited.
"I can see the head! Next contraction I want you to get this head out, then the one after that we can do the rest. Okay?" The doctor looked up, "Sarah, I'm going to have to cut you, I'll do it when the contraction comes, you won't even notice."
Jack looked on agahst as she took a pair of surgical scissors from a tray beside her and ducked down behind the sheet again. Surely Sarah couldn't be agreeing to this. He was sure she had said she didn't want it.
He looked at her and noticed that she was so far gone in the pain she probably didn't care. Been there, he thought and decided not to give voice to his doubts.
Sarah somehow summoned up the strength to nod, before the next wave of pain rolled outwards from her stomach. Afterwards she never quite had the words to describe how she felt as she gave birth to her child. All she could remember was a feeling of complete peace and contentment, as the baby was placed in her arms. Everything that happened between the head suddenly popping out and her son being given to her was a complete blank. The first thing Sarah noticed was when a small drop of moisture appeared on the fuzzy little head and she looked up to see a tear trickle along the side of Jack's nose.
She reached up to wipe it off. "This makes it all worthwhile, right?" Extending her free arm she drew Jack into their first hug as a family and she didn't know who needed her the most, the baby or the man.
The sound of footsteps on the tarmac path drove Jack away from the graveside and onto a secluded bench that was hidden from view of passers-by by some of the ubiquitous Rhododendron bushes. From his hidden vantage-point he could see a family walking slowly along the path, a father and three small children. The children each carried a small bunch of flowers and were chattering happily, the oldest of them couldn't have been more than six or seven years old, the others looked around two and a half.
Jack looked at the man with them. His eyes were red and his cheeks hollow. It was obvious that he was putting a brave face on for the children, swinging his toddler daughter up onto his shoulders and chasing after the two boys until they came to a well kept and obviously much visited grave.
The short moment of silence that they observed when they stopped walking was quickly broken by all the children talking at once. They placed the flowers in what were obviously 'their spots', sat down and started chattering about what they had done over the last week. The oldest boy proudly took out a card that he had obviously made himself and placed it next to his flowers.
"Happy Mothers' Day, mom."
For a moment it looked as though he would cry, but he looked up at his father, swallowed a few times and the moment was over. The other children seemed oblivious, playing together while their brother and father held hands tightly and watched them. After about fifteen minutes they each touched the headstone and, with the twins on the inside, walked away.
Jack watched as they left, wanting them well clear before he came out of his hiding place. He felt as though he had been spying on something very private.
That's rich coming from you O'Neill! Don't start getting sentimental, it won't do your career prospects any good.
Finally the little family had gone and Jack could get back to 'his' graveside. He pulled up a few weeds, straightened the flowers and brushed a few imaginary specs of dust from the small headstone. Not wanting to leave yet but equally reluctant to stay Jack resumed his hidden seat and looked on as the cemetery gradually got busier.
"Here, you'd better take this," Sarah tossed a large tub of petroleum jelly onto the bed.
"Are you trying to say something about..."
"Nope. It's just that where you're going, you'll need it."
"Whaddya mean 'Where I'm going' Sarah?" Jack winked, "I'm going on a four week training exercise."
Sara sat on the edge of the bed and patted the bulging duffel bag. "Yeah, right." She held up her hand, "okay okay. I'm saying nothing. It's just that sand gets in all sorts of places. Trust me," she tucked the tub into the middle of the bag, "you'll regret it if you don't take it."
There was no more talking as Jack finished up his packing. Years of watching him do this, together with a keen ear for what the news reports didn't say about international hot-spots meant that Sarah knew exactly where her husband would bee for the next... however long. It was a matter of pride with Sarah that she let him know that she knew, without Jack having to spell it out for her.
It was a pre-mission tradition that she watched him pack, he never knew if she had worked out that he deliberately left things out of the bag, for her to give to him with a sigh, in order to gauge the extent of her knowledge. Privately half of him was proud of her intelligence gathering abilities. The other half hated the fact that she knew where he would be, could work out what was happening to him.
Finally he closed the zipper with a flourish and set the bag by the door. Looking surreptitiously over at the clock - something else that Sarah subtly let him know she had noticed - Jack sat down next to his wife and pushed her until she was lying on the bed. She scooted up a little and laughed as Jack gave her his best leer and lay next to her.
"Where's Charlie?"
"He's gone to the shop with my dad. They'll be back soon."
"How soon?"
Sarah linked her hands behind Jack's neck and pulled herself closer, "Not that soon, flyboy."
For a long while they communicated only by touch, the silence of their lovemaking punctuated only by Sarah's occasional gasp. Afterwards they took a shower, enjoying this time together as always, before a mission, in near silence. They were dressed and sitting at the kitchen table when Charlie returned with his grandfather, full of stories of reindeer, elves and Santa.
"What are these?" Jack fingered the flashing Santa deelyboppers on his son's head, as he pulled him onto his knee.
"Sorry, Jack. Couldn't resist." Mike pulled out a chair and sat down heavily. "He's worn me out, I think I'll be off to bed in a short while.
The buzzing of a kitchen timer interrupted their conversation. "Right you guys," Sarah looked at each of them in turn. "One of you lay the table, one of you organise drinks and the other one of you can tidy away his legos." She kicked at a few stray plastic bricks on the floor, and turned to the oven.
Another pre-mission tradition was a home cooked meal, this time she had pot roast. Looking over at her small son, she wondered how long it would be before Charlie started to cling to his father's legs every time Jack left the house.
She sighed as she thought of her friend across the road. Her boys were eleven and thirteen. Difficult ages at any time, but they had worked out the connection between what they heard at school about world affairs and their father's absences. Once or twice he had come back in an air ambulance and it was now difficult for him even to go away for a weekend fishing with Jack without having to spend the week before reassuring his sons that he would come back.
Forcing her mind on dishing up the dinner and away from the thoughts of body bags that were never far away on these occasions Sarah put on her best bright smile as she carried the first two plates over to the table. Nobody attempted conversation and soon the meal was over.
"I'll put the little fella in bed then," Jack scooped up the child and went upstairs leaving Sarah and her father to clear away the dishes.
Half an hour later he came back down again, to find Mike alone in the kitchen. At Jack's raised eyebrows he pointed at the back door and watched in silence as his son-in-law went out onto the porch, embrace his daughter and break her heart for the thousandth time. Sarah's father was pleased that she had found love, that she was happy, but he wished with all his heart that she had fallen for anyone other than Major Jack O'Neill of the USAF.
Sarah's father wasn't stupid. He'd known that Jack was involved in Black Ops almost from their first meeting, he'd even been the one to break it to Sarah.
Jack had been honest with his daughter, he had to admit that. Even giving her the option of breaking off their relationship after he'd introduced her to some of the people he worked with and their wives. Marrying into the military community was never easy for someone who didn't have a military background, and marrying someone who was involved in secret work was doubly difficult. He knew that Sarah had thought long and hard over Jack's proposal before giving her affirmative answer.
Out on the porch with her husband Sarah watched her husband detach himself from his family and she wondered how she had ever thought she could cope. Not with the absences, God knows they were hard enough to endure, but with the uncertainty. Wondering if he would return and, more importantly, what state he would be in. He never said anything about the injuries he sustained but she saw the bruises, the carefully stitched wounds, the broken bones. She woke in the night to his sobbing, his screams and tried vainly not to wonder what sort of treatment caused it. Giving him her quiet support was what Jack needed, up until Charlie's birth it had been their strongest bond.
No matter how much Sarah tried she could never hide from Jack the heartbreak his missions caused her, although she tried not to talk about it, tried not to sap his strength before he left. They stood, as usual, on the back porch, holding hands, looking over the garden.
Jack pointed out a few things that needed to be done, the length of the list usually gave some indication of how long he would be away. The possibility that he might not come back remained an unspoken weight on both their hearts, but even then the terrible events that were about to happen never entered their heads. Without communicating this to each other, they kept those thoughts at bay; a superstition that maybe just thinking such things might make them happen.
The last evening together before that long separation was, therefore, much like all the others that had gone before. In later years Jack often wondered if they would have done anything differently if they had known that it would be six months before they saw each other again, if Sarah could have prepared herself better for the two months of thinking him dead before it became clear that he was a prisoner. Would the long months of his recovery have been have been shortened with foreknowledge?
When the time came to leave Jack went upstairs to kiss the sleeping Charlie's forehead, said goodbye to his father-in-law with a brief shake of the hand and the unspoken promise that Sarah would be taken care of. Finally he grabbed his bag and left the house, Sarah could never watch him leave and was, as usual, sitting in the kitchen looking at, but not reading, a magazine.
With the exception of the buzzing insects and the twittering birds, silence once again descended upon the small cemetery. Still unwilling to leave the sanctuary of the bench Jack sat lost in his thoughts of the past.
Doctor MacKenzie would have a field day with this, my inability to 'let go of the past'. Jack shook his head, lay down on the bench and threw one arm over his eyes. The sun was much warmer now and he was getting hot in his leather jacket, but for the moment Jack was content to simply relax and let his thoughts drift back into the foreign country that is the past.
"Did you bring me something?"
"Charlie! Let your father get through the door."
Jack ruffled his son's hair, making the boy pull a face, and planted a kiss on his wife's lips. "I only brought something if you took the trash out every day like you were supposed to."
The boy looked over at his mother who shook her head and laughed. "It's okay. Apart from that one time you were pretty good."
"Okay then, looks like you got it. But first you have to help me unpack." Jack grabbed one handle of the duffel bag while his son took the other and they disappeared upstairs.
"Don't be too long, dinner in one hour you two!" Sarah retreated into the kitchen and clattered around with the pots and pans.
Upstairs, Jack stood on the landing listening to the noise and smiled. If Sarah was cooking then he'd passed the homecoming test. Had there been any doubts in his wife's mind about his health, she would have been up there with them, unpacking and watching him like a hawk for any signs of injury.
"Come on then, let's see what found its way into my luggage."
The next hour was taken up with Charlie, nearly bursting out of his skin to see what his father had brought him, ferrying things to the bathroom, to the laundry hamper and to Jack's dresser. As he returned from a trip to the bathroom Jack pushed the drawer in the bedside table closed with a snap, directing the over-inquisitive boy gently away from the nightstand and over to the nearly empty duffel bag.
"Look in there and see what's left to put away."
"Wow! Cool dad, just what I wanted." Carefully lifting the model kit from the bag he chattered excitedly to Jack about the kit, asking when they could build it, wondering if he had enough of the correct colour paints and generally going into pre-teen excitement overdrive.
Sarah's voice penetrated his jibber-jabber and his face fell when Jack took the box out of his hands. "Go and get washed up then, I'll put this away for you."
"Aw, dad..."
"Aw, dad nothing..." Jack made a mock lunge at Charlie, who skipped smartly out of the way and did as he was told.
A few minutes later they were sitting around the table sharing their first family meal in three weeks. Sarah looked at her husband covertly, she knew that he knew that he was under inspection, but it was her ritual and he wouldn't deny her. He knew that he would come in for closer scrutiny later, but for now she was content to watch him re-establish contact with their son.
In between mouthfuls of fried chicken Jack told them a little about the country he'd been in, without actually mentioning its name. It had been hot and dusty but the mission had been a relatively easy one training the local militia, and there had been time for sight seeing. As well as the model kit for Charlie, Jack had brought a beautifully embroidered silk shawl for Sarah and a small porcelain figure in the national costume to add to her collection.
"Please excuse me from the table," Charlie was impatient to get back to his model kit and headed for the stairs as soon as permission had been granted.
"Um... aren't you forgetting something?" Sarah looked pointedly at the trashcan.
"Aw mom, do I have to?"
"Yes you do. And you're not starting with the model until tomorrow. When you've taken out the trash you can tidy your room and get your stuff ready for school tomorrow."
"Okay mom."
Later, long after Charlie had gone to sleep, his new model kit on the pillow beside his blonde head, Sarah had taken Jack to bed. Another ritual that he was more than happy to go along with.
"Aren't you going to draw the curtains?" Jack sat on the edge of the bed his body still glistening with moisture after his shower, rubbing at his hair with a towel.
"Getting shy in your old age? You'll be wanting me to close the window next!" Sarah went over and took the towel from his hands. "Look at you, you're making everything wet here." She rubbed his hair a little more, it didn't take much drying with the short cut he'd adopted on the latest mission.
Pushing gently at his chest until Jack moved along the bed she knelt next to him as he relaxed against the pillows. Having satisfied herself from her vantage-point at the window that his back was unmarked, Sarah rested her hand lightly on his damp chest. A visual inspection of his upper body revealed nothing so, with a predatory grin, she twitched at the towel that covered his modesty and gave him the once over.
"I feel like a piece of meat!"
"Don't tell me you don't enjoy being the object of my complete and utter undivided attention, Jack, because I won't believe you."
"You know I only do this job to get the girls." That was enough banter for Jack, he twisted around and without knowing quite how he'd done it, Sarah found herself lying on the bed with a human blanket covering her from head to toe.
That night their lovemaking reached an intensity that it had achieved only three or four times before. Lying together afterwards, Jack rubbed his hand in gentle circles on Sara's abdomen.
"That was nice." He winked.
"Oh yeah. Nice."
"Just nice?" The warm hand travelled south, but was halted abruptly when Sarah grabbed it and placed it back on her abdomen.
"You were the one who said 'nice'. I was merely agreeing."
"Last time it was that... nice..."
Sara put both hands over Jack's. "Yeah, we got Charlie. Maybe we got lucky this time." She couldn't stop a small tear sliding out of the corner of her eye.
Jack watched as it disappeared into her hairline. "Honey, I don't know. Maybe it's for the best. I've heard some..."
"Don't say it. I know there's all that talk about... you know... the guys who were in Iraq... sorry." Snuggling into his side, Sarah put her hand on Jack's cheek and turned his face towards hers. "It would be nice, that's all, a little sister for Charlie."
"Then let's hope we got lucky." Jack kissed her head and extracted himself carefully from her embrace.
Sarah sighed quietly, pulled away a little and curled up on her side. This was the only part of the homecoming that she really didn't like, but there was nothing she could do. It would take Jack little while to get used to sleeping in their bed, she was grateful that he had stopped sleeping on the sofa for the first few nights. She fell asleep in that position, with her arms wrapped protectively around her belly, hoping against hope that this time they had made a child but knowing instinctively that it wasn't to be.
Jack watched her in the silvery moonlight and wondered if he would ever get used to her love. He hadn't been able to believe his luck when she agreed to marry him, the fact that they were still married all these years later, when so many of his comrades lived alone again was, he thought, a testimony to her strength.
Some time in the night Sara woke shivering. She had lost the light summer blanket to Jack, a small breeze coming through the open window was now too cool for comfort. Getting back into bed after closing the window, drawing the curtains and checking on Charlie, she noticed that Jack had his eyes open.
"Sorry, did I wake you."
"No, this did." Pressing himself against her body Jack's arousal became obvious, and for the second time since he got home they made love. This time with more abandon than before, leaving them both gasping and sated.
"Now that was nice." Jack reached out for her hand and pressed it to his lips. "Goodnight."
Choking back a sob Jack scrubbed impatiently at some moisture that had pooled in the corners of his eyes.
Must be hot, I'm sweating here. Jack knew perfectly well that he was lying to himself.
He sat up and took off his jacket. Looking over at the grave he was surprised to see that the flowers were gone. A movement at the periphery of his vision attracted his attention. Sarah was standing beside the bush that formed the end of the horseshoe of shrubs that nearly surrounded the bench.
Holding the flowers down by her side, Sarah looked confused and sad. Without speaking she turned as if to leave, but then changed her mind and walked over towards Jack. Two paces away from the bench she stopped and looked down at the motionless man. He was leaning forwards with his face in his hands, elbows resting on his slightly spread knees.
"Thank you for the flowers, Jack."
"They were always your favourites." His voice was muffled by the hands that he kept in front of his face.
"Actually, they were always... Charlie's favourites." Sarah still couldn't say her son's name without stumbling over it. She closed the gap between them and knelt between Jack's legs. Gripping his wrists firmly she pulled at him until, suddenly, he stopped fighting her and let his arms go limp.
Shocked at his tear-streaked face Sarah gave a small gasp - she had never seen her ex-husband in this state, and she couldn't imagine how much pain he must be in to display it in public, however hidden he thought he might be, like this. For years she had resented the ice cold command he had kept on his grief after their son's death, even though she knew it was all he was capable of.
Automatically stretching her arms around his neck she embraced him, pulling him from the seat as she did so. They knelt together on the grass with Jack's face on her shoulder, his body shaking with the sobs he was finally able to submit to. Sarah rubbed her hands up and down his back, saying nothing, giving the only comfort Jack had ever been able to take from her: her presence.
When the cramp started to hurt more than she could bear, Sarah manoeuvered Jack back onto the bench and sat beside him. Close but not touching. She fumbled around in her purse and gave him a Kleenex.
He accepted it wordlessly and wiped it over his face. Anything that gave him a few more to avoid looking at her had to be good, in his book. He must look awful, he surmised, to make her touch him again. Jack looked at Sarah.
Sitting on the bench, with her arms wrapped around her stomach, Sarah's expression and position reminded Jack suddenly of Daniel. He often had that same empty, desperate look. Oh God, I hope I don't look like that too!
"So," Sarah didn't look at him, just stared at her knees as though they would answer her. "What were you thinking about just then."
"What do you think?" Jack couldn't believe the question he had a sudden flash of anger and stood up abruptly. "I am not a monster, whatever you think."
He turned on his heel and left the sanctuary of the bushes, into the shocked faces of some other cemetery visitors. Stalking along the path back to his jeep, lost in his own thoughts he didn't notice Sarah running up behind him until she was almost upon him.
Keeping pace with him, she accompanied Jack to the parking lot. When they got to his jeep he stopped and turned to face her, finally acknowledging her presence.
"Here!" She threw the flowers at him forcefully, not knowing if he were more surprised than she, and they both watched as the bouquet came apart on impact, showering their feet with blooms.
Jack merely raised his eyebrows, which sent her into more of a fury.
"What the hell do you think you're playing at? How dare you do that to me? Have you any idea what the last week has been like? No, no you haven't because you're too busy playing your stupid secret games to give a flying..."
Worried that she was about to tell the world about what he did for a living, even though she had no clear idea, Jack grabbed her arm and bundled her roughly into his jeep. He pushed her over to the passenger seat and climbed in beside her.
Gunning up the engine he ground out, "Seatbelt!" before roaring out of the parking lot and onto the highway. Not caring where or how fast they were going Jack clenched his jaw tightly and looked resolutely straight ahead.
Regarding him from where she had squashed herself against the passenger door, Sarah saw nothing of the man she had fallen in love with. A complete stranger was driving her who knew where -if we ever get there.
Sarah flinched as they swerved to avoid a minivan turning left. She wondered if this were another of those... whatever it had been that had come to her house last week, it hadn't been Jack. That was for sure.
Remembering that brought back the memories of taking Jack to the hospital, then being confronted with what hadn't been her dead son... Burying her face in her hands Sarah began to cry. Huge, heartbreaking sobs broke through the fence of her fingers and filled the cab.
It had no effect on Jack, who had only seen Sarah give into tears like this once before. He ground his teeth together, turned on the radio in an attempt to block out the noise and carried on driving. After a short while he spotted a rest stop, devoid of all other traffic, and pulled over.
"You sonofabitch!" Sarah wrenched open the door and jumped out. She looked around, not sure where she was, and then headed for the highway.
"Sarah, wait!"
"Go to hell!"
"Sarah... please..."
She had never been able to take his pain, nor resist his 'helpless but trying to play tough' act, but this time she put up a good fight - almost believed that she was going to be able to get over to the highway and hitch a ride back into town. Already on the ropes from the 'please' she was out for the count when she looked back at the jeep.
Holding her hands up in defeat she walked slowly back to where Jack was standing. "Okay, you have my complete and utter attention for... let's say, what, thirty seconds?"
"Sarah... I..." Words failed him.
"Thought so." She folded her arms across her chest and looked directly into his eyes for the first time since she had thrown the flowers at him. "So you listen to me."
Sarah took a step closer. "Perhaps we should... take this somewhere less public?"
"Here is fine."
"Here is not fine." Looking around and spotting a picnic table to one side of the rest stop she nodded towards it. "Over there." Without waiting for his acquiescence, not relishing the fight that was about to happen and not caring if he came with her or not, Sarah walked over and sat on the table, with her feet resting against the wooden bench next to it.
After a momentary hesitation Jack decided to follow her. He had no idea what to say to her. Of all the stupid ideas you've ever had Jonathon O'Neill, this is up there with the stupidest of them!
The silence was oppressive, but Jack was determined that Sarah must speak first.
Her idea was to let him sweat a little. She fiddled with one of the buttons of her blouse, tucked her hair behind her ears, re-tucked her too-short hair behind her ears then gave up the fight with her hair. Picking imaginary lint off her skirt she tried to formulate what she wanted to say but nothing came to mind.
Remembering her question back at the cemetery, Jack suddenly spoke into the silence, earning him a sharp look from her, until the meaning of the words sank in.
"I was thinking about," he swallowed "the last time we made love."
Ten small, insignificant words. One short sentence. The type of sentence some women would love to hear from their husband, ex- or otherwise.
They sent Sarah's anger rocketing skywards where it expanded into a massive cloud of fury which then turned and descended upon Jack with a force that stunned him into silence.
"How dare you? How dare you? You haven't been to that grave since the day we put Charlie in it. Not one time. Not one single time!" Sarah lept from the table and stood in front of Jack, her face screwed up with years of pain and pent-up recriminations. "I hear from your lawyer, you just agree to everything. Everything! What is the matter with you? You just signed the checks as if what we had was a blip in your life. Then, after two years of nothing you... that person... thing, oh whatever... come to my house, and bring it all up again. But you couldn't leave it there could you... oh no. You got that... person to impersonate my son...my dead son... and... how could you? Did Charlie mean so little, did I mean so little to you that you use us for your work?
"Still that wasn't enough for you. Every week I go there, to the cemetery. I tell Charlie everything, although God only knows there is little enough to tell. Every week, I tidy it all up, keep it nice for him..." Sarah hated the fact that tears were pouring down her face, blurring her vision. But she couldn't stop. She had to make Jack see that he had to leave her alone, let her get on with the grieving, even if he was over it. "Then what? You can't let me even have today with my son. No sir. You just have to steamroller in and buy me flowers...his favourite..."
Finally her voice gave up, she staggered back and sat abruptly as the wooden bench hit the back of her knees. Instinctively Jack reached out towards her, but recoiled as she flinched away from him. He made a helpless gesture.
"Sarah, I'm s..."
"Don't you say 'sorry' what are you sorry for? Killing him? Marrying me? Leaving me to deal with everything on my own? Losing my s..." Her hand went up to her mouth and she stopped talking. The only sounds were the small hiccups as she tried to swallow her sobs.
Not knowing what to do Jack did nothing, simply stood there and watched Sarah slowly recover her composure. Finally she spoke again.
"Take me home. Now." She stood and walked over to the jeep, keeping her eyes on the ground. As he reached over to open the door she took a small side-step out of his way. Anything rather than have physical contact.
They drove in silence with Sarah once more sitting as far away as possible in the confined space, twisting the strap of her purse in a nervous gesture. When they came to an uncharacteristically jerky halt outside her house, she looked at Jack for the first time. Thinking about the other people that might be involved if she let him drive home in that state she rubbed her hands over her face.
I must be a complete idiot, she thought, then spoke to him.
"Do you want to come inside? You look like you could do with some coffee."
"Not really. I'd better go."
Sarah opened the door and unbuckled her seatbelt. She was halfway to the front door when she realised that he hadn't yet driven away, so she walked slowly back, around to the driver's side and knocked on the glass. After repeated knocking Jack sighed and wound down the window. Her anger had gone as suddenly as it had arrived, as was her usual way. All that remained was an empty, bitter feeling. The knowledge that whatever they had meant to each other had gone, from his side at least, hurt her deeply.
"Jack. It helps sometimes to sit in his room. Come inside." Opening the door, she waited until he was ready and took his hand. It was wet where he'd rubbed it over his eyes, but she said nothing just tugging at him until he accompanied her into the house. "Do you want me to come up with you?"
"I don't think I can. Sorry." Jack looked over to the kitchen, "could I have a glass of water?"
"Sure."
He put the empty glass in the sink and looked through the window at the garden. A lot of work had obviously gone into it, he knew from his own experience that it was a good displacement activity. He turned as the porch door slammed, and followed Sarah into the garden. She stood by a huge fuschia absently pulling off the dead flowers.
More to the plant than to the man standing behind her Sara spoke in a low voice. "Have you any idea how difficult it was, never knowing for sure where you were, when... if you'd come back? How to explain to a five year old that 'yes, Daddy's back, but he can't play with you because he's hurt'? Never being able to share a joke about how good or bad your day was? Not getting any information from the Air Force?"
"Not really. But you knew..."
"Oh yes," she spun round to face him, "apparently I knew what I was getting into when I married the Air Force. Thanks for reminding me. That makes everything okay then, doesn't it. The fact that I knew you'd come back from missions looking like you'd been trampled by a herd of buffalo, that you would spend three months in the desert but still come back looking like a skinny, beaten-up ghost that was afraid of loud noises. Sorry for bothering you with it."
"Sarah, that's not..."
"... what you meant? Not what you were going to say? Gimme a break Jack. Go away. I was stupid to let you come in here. Stay away from me. Just get right out of my life." Walking back towards the house, Sarah stopped to put the dead flower heads in the compost box. Without a word she opened the porch door and waited for him to walk into the house.
As soon as Jack was indoors she marched to the front, opened the door and went back into the kitchen. Jack was standing in front of the fridge, looking at the collection of notes, photos and pictures held onto it with magnets.
It hadn't changed one bit since...
Standing in the doorway Jack watched his wife moving efficiently around the kitchen, his eye caught by the profusion of photographs and pictures stuck on the fridge door. The sun shone through the window, accentuating her blonde hair, making the bright colours she had favoured when decorating shine more brightly than he had ever remembered. This was the vision he had created in his head in Iraq at the beginning, something he had hung on to, to keep him grounded. After a few weeks, however, he had banished all thoughts of home from his head, concentrating instead on staying alive and sane.
Sensing his presence Sarah looked over and smiled. As usual she didn't bother him with unnecessary questions, merely handed him a mug of coffee and carried on with her preparation of their meal.
"Jack, when Charlie gets in, will you play ball with him? I don't want him wasting the sunshine by staying up in his room making that model."
"Ma'am, yes Ma'am!"
The first day home was always strange for both of them. Sarah had a routine and didn't let anything interfere with it. That was her way of keeping sane. She had started soon after Charlie was born to get him used to the fact that although his father was away, he could rely on everything at home staying the same. It had worked well.
She knew of families where the kids were wild because their mothers overcompensated for the lack of a father. Other women were too strict and produced surly children who were, frankly, not a pleasure to be around. Not that Sarah spent much time with the other wives, just the ones she genuinely liked, and mostly they had the same attitude as she.
Jack wandered around the house as usual, touching things, unconsciously checking that everything was as it should be. They both knew that after lunch he would descend into the basement and look over his fishing gear. The first weekend back after a long mission was always the 'boys' fishing weekend', Charlie and Jack loved the time they spent together, even though they had never yet brought anything back with them.
This time it will be different, Jack thought as he sorted through the rods, checked his flies and weights and made a mental list of the things he would need to fetch from the store. As he started to put everything away he thought of the night before, how nice it had been to feel Sara's touch, to feel her skin under his hands, and wondered if she would get her wish. A daughter would be nice, or a son, Jack didn't really mind, but he still worried about after effects from his time in Iraq. Perhaps he should speak to the Doctor when he went back to work?
A loud slamming indicated that Charlie had forgotten the rule about the front door, and Jack smiled as he imagined how he would apologise to Sarah as he dashed up the stairs to look at his new model kit. Just in time to see his son's legs disappearing up the stairs, Jack called after him, "Charlie, bring your baseball gear down, you can show me how good you are!"
"Okay Dad!"
Revelling in the sight of his wife looking relaxed and happy, Jack thought that right now his life was pretty much perfect. A wife who loved him, gave him the strength he needed to carry on when sometimes he thought he should just give it all up, and a son who...
Perfect for those few minutes that Jack waited for his son to come back with the baseball gear. Perfect as long as he was out in the sunshine with his wife.
Perfection that ended when the unmistakable sound of a gunshot brought his world crashing down.
Tears came then. First a slow trickle from one eye over a rough cheek that lost itself in the stubble of a three-day old beard. That solitary tear was soon joined by others, so that by the time Sarah came back into the kitchen Jack had been engulfed once again by a grief that up until that day had been squashed deep down inside him. This time Sarah fought against all the instincts that pulled at her so strongly. The instinct to pull Jack to her, to rest his head on her shoulder and give him the strength to carry on.
Those days were over. She had nothing left to give to this man. This stranger.
Instead his misery spread out like the ripples on the water from the flies that he cast and engulfed her too. Within a few seconds she was sitting at the kitchen table, with her head buried in her arms crying for everything that might have been.
She cried for the loss of her son, the only child she would ever bear and the life he might have had. Sobbed through the memories of the golden haired child that had filled her life, adding to her love for Jack, not spreading it thin as she had feared it might.
She cried hot tears for the way her marriage had come to an end. She had fought so hard to keep it together, not to end up in the statistics of failed military marriages.
Finally she cried for the love that she still felt for Jack. She ached with the knowledge that he loved her still, she was sure of that, but despite this he would carry on with his career regardless of the personal cost.
For the first time since they met, Sarah found herself wondering exactly what Jack had got into this time. That thing at the hospital was...
Forcing her mind to the present. She looked over at Jack, who was still standing by the sink. His hands gripped the edge of the stainless steel appliance and his face was turned towards the window and the garden, but she knew he wasn't really looking. He had the same unfocussed, blank gaze that she had seen so often before and she knew that she would have to let him stay for a while.
A short while. Very short.
They were both quiet, with that calm acceptance that only comes over someone who has cried all the way down to the bottom of their soul. It was an indication to Sarah of how much Jack was lost in his own thoughts that he didn't notice her going over to get some water until he jumped when she turned on the faucet.
"Coffee."
"Yeah."
Jack resumed his position while Sarah clattered around making coffee. Once the machine had started she muttered something about laundry and went into the basement.
The relief at being out of his presence was overwhelming, and Sarah only realised how tense she had been when she tried to relax her aching neck muscles. Routine tasks would help she knew, so she set about loading and unloading the washer and dryer, folding clean laundry and sorting that which was waiting to be washed. There wasn't much now that there was only herself and her father, and it didn't keep her occupied for long.
Casting about for something to do, Sarah's eyes alighted on a rack in the corner. Jack had built it to house his fishing parapernalia, for some reason it was one of the few pieces of evidence left to show that he had ever lived there. Resolving to ask her father to dismantle it reminded her that he would be due home any time and she quickly finished folding the last remaining items and carried the basket to the foot of the stairs.
The slamming of the front door, accompanied by the instant apology that was issued in her father's voice, told her that she was too late, and she hurried to get up the stairs before he had taken off his shoes. The smell of coffee would be bound to drag Mike into the kitchen.
Too late - how she hated those words - Sarah emerged from the basement a second after her father arrived in the kitchen.
"Out!"
Sarah heard the tension in his voice as he growled that one word, saw the rage in his face as he turned at the sound of her putting down her laundry basket.
"Dad, it's okay, I... he... we had to..."
"Oh," Mike's expression lost some of its angry edge and assumed an expression of protectiveness. "I'll be out in the garden, I have to set these out." He indicated a tray of small plants. Looking at his daughter for any indication that she wanted him to stay, and seeing none, he patted her shoulder as he walked out to the hallway, collected the tray and left through the back door.
Belatedly Jack turned to her. "Thanks." He accepted a mug of coffee, that she was careful to place on the counter in front of him. Physical contact would be too much for her to bear.
They drank in silence.
"Sarah, last week..." Jack had no idea what he was going to say, "... it won't happen again. I promise."
"Don't make promises you can't keep, Jack." The bitterness wouldn't stay out of her voice no matter how hard she tried.
Wincing, he replied, "I didn't make any promises."
"Just the one..."
"I'm sorry Sarah." He put the mug in the sink alongside the glass. "I'd better go."
"Do you want to...?" She looked over at the doorway.
"No. Thank you."
Jack went into the hallway and knew as he heard the scraping of the chair across the floor that Sarah had assumed her habitual custom of not watching him leave. He didn't look back as he drove away, but he knew he wouldn't go back there. There was too much hurt and he didn't have a clue how to heal it. Sarah had her father, he had SG-1 and that was the way it would be from now on.
She was washing up some dishes. Afterwards she could never say why she was doing this when she had a perfectly serviceable, and empty, dishwasher, but that was how she was when she saw the official, black car roll to a stop outside her house.
Knowing full well that her husband was upstairs in their son's room didn't stop her heart sinking to the pit of her stomach wondering what more bad news the Air Force could possibly heap on her. She was unable to peel her gaze away from the uniformed men, who appeared to be checking the address one more time as they began their slow way up the short path to the front door.
Pointing up the stairs at her son's bedroom, Sarah went back into the sanctuary of her kitchen and waited as the two strangers gave each other a glance and walked up. After a very short while they bid her a polite goodbye on their way out and drove away in their black Air Force car.
Too much to hope that Jack had sent them on their way with a flea in their ear. She saw one of the young men ask the other a question. The expression on his face as he heard the inevitable answer was one she had seen hundreds of times, incredulous disbelief, tempered with pity as he glanced over at the house before they drove off.
A noise from her bedroom - since when had she started thinking of it like that? - roused Sarah into action. Knowing what she would find when she got there didn't lessen the impact of the empty duffel bag on the bed. Folding her arms tightly across her chest she gave voice to the question that she had never once uttered.
"Can't tell you." Jack didn't look at her as he continued packing.
With a detached interest she watched what went into the bag but it told her nothing about her husband's destination. There was an uncomfortable silence, but Sarah had decided that she wanted an explanation and stood her ground, she knew that he was too apathetic at this stage to ask her to leave.
Finally the packing was finished and Jack closed the zipper with a finality, and a silence, that told Sarah all she needed to know about where he was going. It didn't matter. Because this time he wasn't coming back.
She stood aside as he walked out of the room, followed him downstairs and stood at the open doorway as he climbed into his jeep and started up the engine. It was a warm day but there was a slight breeze that ruffled her skirt around her legs and gently brushed at her hair, as she finally had the courage to watch her husband leave on a mission.
Reversing carefully, Jack stopped the jeep as he reached the main road, waiting while two cars went past. He looked over at Sarah and their eyes met briefly before he turned the wheel and drove away from their marriage.
Dry eyed she closed the door, leaning her back against it as if to be sure it were properly shut on that part of her life. For a few seconds she was still, the silence was oppressive as it had been ever since...
Making a mental note of the things she would need to pack, she picked up the phone on the way upstairs.
"Hi dad, it's me... look, sorry about this, but is that offer to come and stay for a while still open?"
~The End~
A Vinculo Matrimonii, Month 2002 12/16
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