And she did. She missed all of them. Which in the end was why, still torn and uncertain, she came back to the cabin on the lake. But now, when she walked along the shore she didn't fear she was dissolving into the evening mists. She had both the boys and Daniel to keep her from scattering in the wind.
She'd found Daniel in Chicago though she hadn't known she'd lost him and she hadn't gone looking for him. She'd never let more than a month go by without calling him, reassuring herself that he was still there. But, he hadn't been. Not her Daniel anyway. The angry, bitter man striking out at her over the phone had not been the friend she'd depended on for all those years. But, he was back now.
Until her time in Chicago, they'd both been shutting themselves off, denying their grief, refusing to mourn for Jack and everyone else they'd lost in fear that by doing so they'd be letting them go. But, finally, they had come together and mourned their losses. They'd wept and railed and laughed and remembered. And when she called him now, while she waited for him to pick up, her insides no longer clenched in suffocating fear that the phone would go on ringing forever.
~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+
"Maggie's happier now," David told Jon one evening while they cleaned up the galley.
"Is she?" Jon asked. The boys were once again spending their afternoons with her now that she had returned. He himself had yet to run into her, but the boys mentioned her several times a day.
"Well, maybe happy's not the word for it, but she's not as sad anyway. "
Jon paused in his work. "That's good, Son," he said.
"Yeah, she smiles and laughs now."
"I didn't notice that she had a problem with that before," Jon told him. The first time he'd met her he'd recognized the grief she carried with her. He'd had too long of an acquaintance with it himself to not. But, still she'd managed to grin at all the right places and keep the boys laughing the afternoon she'd been aboard. He hadn't expected them to see the sorrow behind her smile.
The boy frowned trying to explain a difference he saw but couldn't explain, "I mean she almost means it now. When she smiles? It almost looks like it's real."
"Maybe she's in love," Jon said. The boys had not relented in their matchmaking, and he did what he could to discourage them so they wouldn't be disappointed when their efforts failed.
"No," David said but whether because he didn't believe it or because he didn't want to believe it Jon couldn't tell. "That guy, that Daniel, she went to visit...she's says he's just a friend. Just an old friend."
"Sometimes friends fall in love, David. She left sad and came back happy...sounds like it could be love to me. What does she have to say about him? Did they used to work together or something?"
David frowned again and shrugged, "She doesn't say. I don't think she likes us to ask about stuff like that. She only likes to talk about us, what we're doing or where we've been. I don't like to ask her, because..." He glanced up at his dad and let the thought go because he didn't want to admit that when they pushed her he was pretty sure Maggie's answers were always lies.
"Well, then don't. She doesn't have to answer to us, remember?" Reminding the boys of that fact was becoming an automatic response: 'Pick up your socks.' 'Quit swinging that fishing hook around before you take out someone's eye.' 'Not until you've eaten supper.' 'Get down from there before you fall and kill yourself.' 'Maggie's a grown woman and if she wanted you to know whatever it is this time, she'd tell you.' But, he was beginning to wonder if he shouldn't demand some answers from her. He was trusting her with his sons--if whatever she was holding back from them blew up in their faces...
No matter how uncomfortable he felt with his obviously ridiculous interest in her, he needed to get to know her better. Make sure she wasn't going to hurt them. They'd already gone through the pain of losing Jamie; they didn't need Maggie to break their hearts all over again.
~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+
The boys relayed his invitation to her the next morning. "You'll come won't you, Maggie?" they begged, and though she'd known seeing him again was inevitable she still hesitated before agreeing that yes, she would go on a hiking expedition with them. It would be the right thing to do; it would be her good by.
She'd cried in Daniel's arms, grieving for Jack, and at the time she had thought she was coming to terms with his death. But she hadn't. She still woke from her dreams desperate to get back to him, desperate to fight time itself for him. And to be honest, she knew now she was unwilling to let that go...till death do us part the wedding vows read. Well, death could just forget that. She would love Jack O'Neill as long as she lived regardless of the distance that separated them. She would never willingly let the bond that held them together unravel. She would have to be wiped from time itself before she would ever quit searching for a chance to save him.
Not just Jack, but that world she'd been forced to leave behind...
So. Where did that leave this world in which she lived? There were times when she thought it didn't matter. Everyone on Earth in this time stream was living on borrowed time, waiting for Baal to quit stalling and get around to delivering the deathblow. So eat, drink, and be merry for tomorrow we die. But that didn't leave much room for integrity and service before self, and whether she was Samantha Carter, Colonel, United States Air Force or Maggie Clark, lost soul and friend of little boys, she couldn't change who she was--integrity and service mattered, living well mattered.
Living mattered. It wasn't enough just to keep breathing. She needed to more than just exist. In the days since she'd come back to the town she'd made a decision. Baal was coming. If she couldn't go back in time and save the world she knew; she would do what she could to save this one.
Jack had called her a natural resource if not a national treasure, but so far she hadn't proven to be anything here but a national burden. That however was going to have to change...they might not want her help but somehow or another she was going to have to make them recognize they needed it. Okay, she'd keep her hands off the StarGate, but what about the Ancient weapons in Antarctica? She could be working on developing an alternate power source so they'd have something to fight back with when Baal returned. And there were other options, other weapons and defenses she could be working on. If the government refused her offer to help...well, there was the private sector. There'd be a way to do something besides waiting around hoping to disappear.
Either way, she wouldn't be staying in the backwoods of Minnesota--there was a limit to how much you could accomplish via the Internet. The move here had been good for her, but it was time to move on.
And not just for her. Summer would be drawing to a close with school starting in just a few weeks. It was time to tell the boys good by. They'd soon be off on the year's last boating expedition before leaving for the winter. They would have only a few more afternoons to waste on entertaining her anyway.
Before she'd fled to Chicago, before she'd started living again...she'd thought--well, she hated to admit even to herself what she'd thought would become of her when they left the boat, the town, and her for the winter. They'd anchored her to this life, kept her from disappearing, and she had thought once they left for the fall, once their happy voices weren't calling to her, once their laughter wasn't ringing out around her, once their small hands weren't holding her together...she had thought that would be it, she would vanish into the vast nothingness of time and be lost forever. But that wasn't going to happen now. They could get back to their happy, busy little boy lives; they'd sacrificed enough of their summer for her already.
And Jon? Better to leave it, to not give anything time to develop between them. Walk away, keep the distance. She loved him. She'd accepted that fact. Not understood it but accepted it. Did she love him because he was so very much like Jack and regardless of what sort of man he'd been she couldn't have helped but love him? Or did she love him because he was so very much not like Jack leaving her free to love him for the kind, good-hearted family man he was? She really couldn't say.
But it did not matter. She loved him, but she would be saying good by to him as well. It wouldn't be that difficult: she'd loved Jack for years before she'd been unable to leave it in the room. And that had been when they'd been thrown together in extreme conditions every other week. When the final good by could have come every time they walked through the Gate. And when she'd been forced to smile and say good by time after time. This would be one quick good by and hopefully, if he'd allow it, an occasional hello when she called to check on the boys.
~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+
The day had started out bright and clear; a perfect day for a hike. But, the Suburban decided it wasn't such a great day for a drive before they'd quite reached the trailhead. He coasted to a stop on the side of the road, and they all scrambled out to frown under the hood with him.
"Can you fix it, Daddy?" Zech asked rubbing a smudge of grease onto his nose.
Looking up the road, Travis suggested, "We're almost there. We could leave it and walk. Fix it when we get back."
Jon, scowling at the vehicle's inner workings, grunted a nonanswer to them both.
Maggie edged her head farther under the hood and inspected the problem. "Looks easy enough to fix," she said.
"Ya think?" Jon retorted without glancing up at her.
"Sure. Shouldn't take more than a few minutes if you've got the tools here somewhere."
"I'll get 'em," David volunteered and ran after the toolbox, and Jon muttered, "If you say so." He watched her rummage through his tools and make her selections before he decided she wasn't just pulling his leg. With a grin, she held up the tools for his inspection, and he was struck with the knowledge he'd just gotten a glimpse of a Maggie Clark he'd not yet met. With it came a sudden and intense desire to know her more, to keep a smile always on her face.
"Ok, Travis," he said, "you can take the boys on up to the trail, but wait for us there...we'll be along one way or another." By the time he'd helped the boys sort out their packs and sent them on their way, she was almost finished.
"Know what you're doing?" he asked sticking his head under the hood with her.
She laughed and answered, "Turn it over, will you? I think that got it." The Suburban purred back to life in agreement, and he dug around in the back to find an old tee-shirt one of the boys had dropped sometime or another. It was past saving and he handed it to her so she could wipe the grease off of her hands.
"So, when you're not the mysterious lady of the lake, you're a mechanic?" he asked, and was rewarded with another smile.
"Something like. In another life," she said handing him his rag and moving off to toss the toolbox into the back.
"By the way, thanks...you know Wally's can always use a good mechanic--if you're interested."
"I'll keep that in mind," she said.
As they climbed into the vehicle he looked her way and said, "I...uh...well, I guess I was kind of wondering--not really my business, but with you spending so much time with the boys...just what are you doing here?"
"Fair enough," she said giving him a small, pinched smile. "I can see why you might want to know...I'm uh..." she turned away then and looked out her side window before continuing. "I just needed the change. My husband died...over a year ago now...this seemed like a good place to disappear for awhile, you know?"
"Actually, yeah, I do."
"Is that why you spend the summers out in that boat?"
"No. I live on the boat. I disappear in the city." He frowned over at her but she was still looking out the window. "So, what happened?"
"Uh...he uh...he died...in the line of duty."
"Cop?"
"Armed Forces."
"Iraq?"
"No."
He waited a beat but that was all he was going to get. "I'm sorry."
She looked at him then with an expression he couldn't read. It was almost like he'd said something ludicrous in expressing his sympathy over her loss, and he wondered if she'd realized that he was attracted to her. After an awkward moment she said, "You're very much like him."
"Oh," he said trying to lighten the mood. "He was remarkably handsome then?"
"Extraordinarily."
"And exceptionally witty."
"Oh yeah."
"Smart."
"Not that he'd admit to."
"Oh, well, see, we're not that much alike then," he said. He failed to see how his words brought tears to her eyes because by then he was pulling into the graveled parking lot and able to see that his sons were climbing the rock cliff at its back. He stuck his head out his window and hollered, "Get down from there, before you fall and kill yourselves!" By the time, he looked back over at her she was already climbing out the door and pulling on her own pack.
~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+
She knew before she had finished speaking that she had miscalculated badly in assuming the boys would take her leaving in stride.
David stood stricken glaring at her in anger and disbelief. Josh was shaking his head and glaring as well. The younger boys weren't as angry though they were just as upset; Zech and Ty were sobbing in Jon's arms refusing to even look at her.
Only Bryan appeared unfazed by her announcement. And that, she knew, was only because he hadn't heard. He'd been listening to the clanging of swords and the roars of dragons in his mind instead of her. But, slowly he became aware he'd missed something. "What?" he asked looking around in puzzlement and growing concerned. "What did Maggie say?"
It was Travis who answered, "She's leaving us...moving away." Maggie was surprised at his answer and at the bitterness in his voice. The boys--she should have seen that coming. How she could have been so blind as to not realize that they loved her as much as she loved them? How had that happened? They'd never known her, not really. Just the shadow, just Maggie who didn't even exist.
But Travis? What 'us' had he experienced? A few afternoons on the shore, the one in the boat...how could he possibly sound as though she was personally deserting him?
"I'm sorry," she said to all of them. "I...I didn't think you'd care so much...summer's almost over. You'll be leaving anyway-"
David came to life with a wounded cry of outrage, "But you were supposed to come with us! You were supposed to marry Dad and come with us!"
"Oh, David," she said softly. "That wasn't going to happen."
"Why not?"
She shook her head mutely and looked to Jon for help, but he was as angry as his sons. She was the one who'd made this mess and she could very well dig her own way out.
"Why not?" David demanded again.
"We're from totally different worlds," she said.
"You don't have to be! You would like our life, Maggie. You would. The boat and the house and everything..."
"It's a very nice life, honey. A good life...but...I'm sorry, David." She held out her arms, and he threw himself against her and sobbed.
"Please," he pleaded. "He's perfect for you, Maggie--he'd make you happy."
"I know, I know," she said, rocking him and crying herself. Jon wondered if she realized what she'd said. He knew she hadn't meant it the way it sounded. It had been just a sympathetic comment to let David know she understood his sorrow and turmoil. It had not been an agreement that he was perfect for her, that he was the one capable of making her happy.
Still he looked around at the devastated faces of his sons and knew they reflected his own feelings. She was going to leave the lake and go back to whatever it was she'd done before she'd come to their world. And he had to admit to himself that that was as unacceptable to him as it was the boys.
"Travis, take the boys up the trail...feed them lunch and wait for us at the spring," he said.
"Yes, Sir," Travis said. He reluctantly began herding his little brothers up the path. David clung to Maggie and shook his head violently when called.
"Let him stay," Jon said with a frown, and the others went on their way.
She wet her lips and swallowed down tears to look over at him and say, "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to ruin your hike...I..." she shrugged her inability to excuse her thoughtlessness.
He pursed his lips and shook his head. "Well, you can't change what's already done," he said.
"No," she said with a wavering breath. "I can't."
"Answer me something...I'm getting up there you know? My hearing--could be going, but did I just hear you tell David you knew I was perfect for you? That I could make you happy?"
She shook her head helplessly while David pulled away from her embrace to look from his father to her. "Isn't that what you heard, Son?" Jon asked.
"Yes," David said though he'd been crying so hard that Jon doubted he really had.
Jon stepped over to stand over them. He looked down at her and said, "Well?"
There were a multitude of answers that she could have given that would have denied what he was implying. One of them, any of them was what he expected her to eventually say. Because for all he now knew his own feelings for her were stronger than he'd even suspected, she had never given him cause to think she shared them.
He wasn't sure what he was doing having this conversation. He should have packed up the boys and taken them home, fed them hot dogs and ice cream, let them slam doors and kick bulkheads, and cry and get it over with. He should have let her have it for putting them all through this, instead he stood over her waiting for her to deny his words with a joke, a snort of derision, or at least an apologetic 'sorry'.
He was not prepared when instead of a rebuttal he got an affirmation of sorts. "You don't even know me," she said almost in a whisper.
"Introduce me then," he said and though he hadn't meant it to come out they both could heard the need in his voice.
She came to her feet in an anguished rush as though she could flee down the trail and leave him and his demands behind. She didn't though. She stood there, shaking her head. "I can't!" she cried. "Not now and not ten years down the road. Never! There are things I'll never be able to tell you. Everywhere you look there will only be silence and lies...can you live like that? Can you let the boys live like that?"
It was David who answered for him, "We don't need to know those things, Maggie...we just need you."
She began to shake her head, open her mouth to deny it, but Jon didn't let her. He pulled her into his arms and kissing her found that for all he'd believed she could never love him...she did. She was still crying and tasted of salt and tears. "I love you, Maggie," he said when he pulled back to look at her.
"That's the problem," she said quietly with an uneasy glance at David, "I'm not Maggie." He drew in a deep breath and closed his eyes against her words. He'd known she had secrets. Who didn't? No one wanted strangers discussing their life story over coffee at the café. That didn't mean they had anything to hide. But living under an assumed name? That was another ball game.
The silence and lies she'd referred to a moment before...he'd thought, he'd assumed they were just the holes left behind from a grief and sorrow she didn't believe she'd ever be able to share with him. There were memories of Jamie he held so close that even now five years down the road he'd never shared them with her sons...those were the silences and lies he could live with, could let his sons live with.
But, this? He felt suddenly thrown into another reality, like a character on TV. The world he'd always known wavered and threatened to disappear. He was no longer in safe and familiar waters but flailing about in unknown and dangerous deeps.
"David, catch up with your brothers. Now."
"Dad?"
"Go."
"Yes, Sir."
"You know, I'm just a guy who works in a lumber mill to put food on the table and hopes he can raise his sons to be as happy with their lives as I've been with mine...I don't have any idea how to respond to what you just said. Help me out here."
She'd taken the time it took David to reluctantly start up the trail to get some control over herself so that she met his eyes with a resigned calm. "There isn't a way to respond to it, Jon. That's the point. Whatever you think you feel for me-"
"I'm not Travis, Mag-uh...whatever. I'm not fifteen; I know what I feel for you. It's this other thing we're talking about I'm confused about."
She had the grace to blush, and he wondered at the incongruity of her life of lies and secrets and the openness of her being. There was nothing hidden or secretive in who she was, the lies were all superficial. And he thought if he had to explain why he wasn't running up that trail to gather the boys and get them as far away from her as he could that would be the only defense he had to offer. He trusted her. Deep down where it mattered, he trusted her.
"We're not talking about that other thing," she said. "Either of them for that matter. I know I made a mess out of it so far, but I'll bow out of all your lives as quietly and as painlessly as I can. I-"
"Whoa! You may not be talking, but I'm not done here. Just let me think a minute. You...you, uh...at no point did whatever we aren't talking about put my sons in danger?"
"No. No, of course not. It's not that sort of a...thing."
He breathed a sigh of relief at that and gave her a half grin. "I didn't think so."
"I know I botched it today, but I do love them...they're great kids. I would never put them in that sort of jeopardy."
"I believe you," he said. "Now about this thing...are you, uh...a fugitive?"
"No."
"So?"
"Jon, please. Fishing isn't going to get you anywhere. John Walsh isn't going to run my story on America's Most Wanted next week. I was once told I might find myself on the cover of the Enquirer one day but then who's safe from that? I'm going to play by the rules.
"You don't have to worry that I'm going to disillusion your boys...I'm just a lady who stayed at the lake one summer and enjoyed their company, they won't ever need to know anything else."
Jon put a hand over his forehead and pinched the bridge of his nose. He felt sick as though his world was still spinning out of control. He knew he should listen to her, let her go, let her always be in the boys' memories exactly what she said.
But, of course, she was already much more than that to them. She hadn't understood how much they loved her before she'd put her foot in it today, and she still didn't.
"You're more than that to them already. A lot more than that. They love you. One way or another I don't think they are going to accept you bowing out of their lives," he said, catching her eye and refusing to let her drop her gaze. "Me either. I love you, too--whoever you are. And I may not have kissed that many women, but you can't tell me you don't love me...not now."
"All right. That's one lie I won't tell you." She'd lost by then the forced calm that had carried her through the conversation up to this point, and he flinched at the raw pain in her eyes and voice and knew regardless of his unanswered questions, regardless of all the niggling fears and doubts eating into his guts he could live with her lies if that meant living with that one single truth.
He reached out, pulled her to him, and said, "Come here." She let him pull her against him, but she was still shaking her head. "Jon, I can't do this...it's not only the lies. I still love him, and I can't let him go."
"Your husband?" he asked gently and she nodded her head against him.
"He's really dead, isn't he?" he wanted to ask just to be sure, but he couldn't. 'Everywhere you look there will only be silence and lies...can you live like that?' she'd asked, and the only way he would ever convince her he could was by swallowing down his distrust.
Deceit was not in her makeup, and he would chase her away if he was constantly pushing her, constantly demanding reassurances she'd already told him she couldn't trust, constantly forcing her to voice the lies.
Chasing her away was the last thing he intended to do, so instead he told her earnestly, "He's gone. He's not here. But I am!"
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