The infirmary felt so cold. Sam sat crumpled against the side of her father's gurney. She shivered uncontrollably but couldn't bring herself to release his cold hand yet. There was something too final about letting go. She was half on the bed and half on a chair that was pulled up so close it touched the bed rail. Her arms and legs seemed paralyzed other than the involuntary shaking they were doing all on their own.
She wanted his hand on her shoulder again. She needed to hold his hand like she had in the observation room just minutes before running down here to her father's side. She wanted to latch on to him and never let go, for she had found comfort in his firm grasp like she had found nowhere else during these past few painful days.
“Sam,” he said so quietly that nobody but her could possibly overhear. His warm hand, so gentle, slowly crept onto her shoulder.
“Come with me,” he urged. At first there was no response, but soon she turned around on the chair to face him and buried her face against his chest. Relieved to have gotten a response of any kind, he knelt down further so as to get his arms around her properly and he hugged her tightly.
“I'm so sorry,” he whispered, trying to warm her with his arms and hands. He urged her up onto her feet and walked with her to the door, never letting go.
“Let me take you home, Sam. You need to sleep.”
“I can't leave him here,” she said brokenly.
“He's in good hands, Sam. You can come back later.” Jack was intimately familiar with the denial she was experiencing in the wake of her father's passing.
He took her up to the surface and guided her to his truck, intending to take her home and be whatever she needed him to be to see her through this. Something inside him had finally broken open while he had sat with her in the observation room, keeping vigil over Jacob. He'd thought back on all the years he'd held back his well-guarded love for her, even his friendship at times, in the name of military regulations. And how he'd hurt her in the process. They'd both tried in recent months to find happiness with someone else, in relationships outside the confines of the air force. But right now all that mattered was she needed him, and he was going to be there for her.
It was night outside the mountain, and the moon was full, with the mountains cut out in sharp relief against the starry sky. Jack didn't expect that Sam would feel like talking right now, he reached across the seat and grasped her hand. A returned pressure from her fingers, a lot stronger than he had expected, communicated her gratitude for his comfort, his support; his presence.
“Jack, I...” Sam halted, swallowing hard. “I can't believe he's gone. I just assumed, with Selmak, he'd outlive all of us.”
“I know. Me too.”
“For years, I barely spoke to him. We weren't close. These past seven years have been the best years of our relationship.”
“They've been great. He's been a wonderful Dad.”
Sam glanced at Jack through her tears, loving him even more. She could hear the deep feeling behind his statement, his thick voice betraying his own grief. It took her a minute or two to be able to go on.
“I need to call Mark. And you know what's amazing? Mark will miss him, too, a lot. I never thought I'd see the two of them reconcile, but they did, and they're even what I would call close now. Were. Were close.”
“Sam,” Jack consoled her. He pulled into her driveway and turned the key off in the ignition. Neither got out just yet. Sam pulled Jack's hand the rest of the way into her lap and held it with both of hers. Jack waited, not wanting to intrude on the life she had made for herself outside of work, knowing she needed to make the first move. Sam was still compulsively grasping his hand, showing no signs of getting out of the car. He sat still and waited patiently.
“Sam,” Jack finally broke the silence, “anything you need, anything. Just ask me. I'm here for you. I want to help.”
She nodded her head and finally released his hand to dig out her house keys. Opening the car door, she slid out and stood up, and then leaned down so she could make eye contact with him.
“Can you stay for a little while?”
Jack felt as if his heart had begun beating again.
“You bet.”
He was out of the car and by her side in a few seconds.
Sam let them in and threw her purse and keys on the desk in the foyer before she turned around to face him. She moved into his arms at the same time that he moved towards her. They held on to one another silently, each allowing the other to give and take comfort and solace, soothing their shared grief. Sam could feel her insides spiraling out of the tight snarl they'd been tied in all day, and helpless to hold back any longer, she gave in to scalding tears. Jack cradled her even more securely and nestled his face against her damp cheek, whispering soothing words she couldn't hear but understood.
She was unable to immediately regain control once she had let go of her tightly guarded control. Frightened by this unforeseen breakdown, she pulled away from the warmth of Jack's body and wrapped her arms around her stomach like a person in pain, struggling to compose herself but still sobbing in great shuddering gasps.
“Sam, you need this, let it happen. Don't fight it.” He had never completely released his hold on her arms and soon managed to coax her close again. He rubbed across her back and down her arms, then back again, steadily, over and over, until the repetitive motion began to soothe and calm her.
“Better?”
Sam was returning the hug now. Her hands crept up his back to grip his shoulders. Her answer was a shrug into his shoulder. Her body began to sag against his supporting frame.
“Come on, sit down. You're wiped.” Moving further into her living room and sitting down on the sofa together, Sam used the opportunity to nestle further into Jack's comforting hold and to hook her arms around him more tightly. She reached for his face and tenderly wiped away his tears, now flowing in concert with hers.
“Stay with me,” she whispered. He pulled away.
“You're engaged, Carter, remember that?” He raised her left hand up between them and paused to give her a quizzical look. There was no ring.
“Have you called Pete yet?” Sam felt stung, as if he'd pushed her away.
“No.” She sat up on her own and looked back at him with defiant tear-swollen eyes.
“Sam, what's going on in there?” He tapped gently on her temple.
“I 'll call him tomorrow, or the day after that. I need to tell him what I promised my Dad.”
“What?”
“I promised Dad I wouldn't marry a man I didn't love.” The tears were threatening again, but she pushed on. “I don't love Pete. I know that now. Dad helped me see a few things more clearly.”
“Like what?”
“He asked me who I most loved to spend time with. Who I went to when I needed companionship, or advice. Who I am totally myself with.” She stopped and distractedly played with the sleeve of his shirt for a minute.
“Well, if he'd asked me that, I'd have said you.” Jack's simple honesty was the best balm this side of heaven. Sam looked up, eyes shining even as the tears still seeped out.
“And I told him it was you. He wasn't surprised at all. He already knew.”
She couldn't keep from wrapping her arms around him again and gratefully embracing this man who had been at her side all these years, years that had slowly, silently forged an amazingly strong connection unlike anything she'd known before.
“Dad said I wasn't in love with Pete so much as I was in love with what he represented. A normal life, like everyone else. He said I'm not normal.”
“How did you take that?” Jack asked.
“He meant I shouldn't settle for what's normal for other people, but what makes me happy. And that's when I told Dad I'm in love with you, Jack. That I'd only let myself admit it when I realized that the thought of marrying Pete was making me unhappy. And he said that this kind of love is worth the wait.”
His arms tightened around her in response. “I love you, too.”
He raised his head from her shoulder to look into her eyes with a purposeful intensity, as if he was trying to memorize every inch of her face and commit this moment to memory forever. She'd never felt so prized, so cherished, as she did in the heat of his gaze, held so closely in his arms. She felt tears once again coursing over her cheeks.
“I can't believe I'm not dehydrated by now,” she sniffed with a tremulous grin. “I've been crying for days. But these,” she pointed to her face, “these are happy ones.”
“Well, good, because I'd hate to think I'd made you sad by telling you that I love you,” Jack said.
“I love you, too,” Sam said. “And I'm done pretending, I'm done hiding from it.”
“Good. That's good. We don't have to figure it all out right now. I think we've settled the important stuff.”
“I agree.”
“Right now, all you need to think about is getting a good night's sleep. And that's an order, just in case you thought you had anything to say about it.”
“That's fine with me,” Sam nodded wearily.
Neither moved. Finally Sam grinned nervously.
“I'm not really sure...”
“what to do next,” Jack finished for her. “We've waited a long time for this. But today's been difficult for you, and you're exhausted. You really need some sleep.”
She nooded and got up, still holding his hand, and walked him to the guest bedroom, following him in halfway. He stumbled to the bed and flopped heavily across it.
“Thanks Carter,” he mumbled into the pillow. “Go get some sleep, I can take care of myself.”
“Good night, Jack.” She left him and went to her own bedroom, crossing the dark floorboards to the window. She stared up at the stars, unusually bright tonight, and felt the tears coming again. So many nights, after her Dad had become a Tok'Ra, whenever she was on Earth, she had stood at this window and felt a connection with him, knowing he was out there somewhere.
She was going to miss him so much.
“Thanks Dad,” she whispered to the stars, needing to talk to Jacob wherever he was now. “Thanks for leaving me the best gift you ever could have given me. You helped me see that my happiness was right under my nose all these years. I've been chasing a dream when the real thing is so much better than anything I could have dreamed up. Thanks for opening my eyes. Thanks for loving me enough to let me take some wrong turns along the way. Because now I know without any doubt that what I have is real.”
She looked back down the darkened hallway at the door to Jack's room, dark and quiet, unspeakably thankful for his presence. She could almost hear his steady breathing if she concentrated. Tomorrow would be hard. She had some things to make right and it wasn't going to be easy. She had to call her brother Mark. She had to...
Jack was right. She turned off the flow of thoughts through her mind and lay on the bed.
They'd settled the important stuff.
As for the rest?
She would sleep on it.
The End
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