Chapter 46
Klerk Residence, Washington, DC
November 16, 2010
Dominic, in his private home office, worked at editing the preliminary interviews that he had had with the O’Neill’s over the weekend. Interviews meant to document their lives from their meeting with the Aschen to now.
Most of what he had done had been to get the O’Neills—who were intensely private people—used to his questioning and being under the camera lenses so a lot of the footage shot over the weekend wouldn’t be used. Watching it again helped him analyse their reactions better so that when he really interviewed them, he hopefully would be able to predict how they would react and how to counteract if need be to get what he wanted to show, and not just what the O’Neills wanted to share.
So the final result would be a mixture of prepared questions and unprepared ones that he thought to ask that resulted from whatever answer they gave.
Smiling slightly at the current scene he was viewing, Dominic hit the fast forward button, knowing that none of it—as entertaining and illuminating on the O’Neill family dynamics as it was—would appear as the O’Neills’ had forbade any footage of their children appearing on TV. But, Dominic hit the resume button just as Jack had hustled dogs and children from the room, this would.
A tender expression on her face Sam watched her husband and children depart. No longer as hyperaware of the cameras set up in the farmhouse’s living room as she had been in the beginning.
The sound of Dominic clearing his throat had her blinking, almost as if she had forgotten that he was there but calmly she turned her attention back to him. The quiet look still shadowing her face, giving her the first natural and open expression since Dominic had began interviewing her.
“Mrs O’Neill,” Dominic picked up the topic thread from before the dogs interruption, “We were speaking of the events that led up to your disappearance, would you please continue?”
Sam nodded her head in agreement and picked up the conversation. “As some may recall or look up from the news then, before I departed Earth I had attended many public functions, most relating to Disclosure and the Alliance, in the company of Ambassador Joseph Faxon.”
“There were some rumours at the time that an engagement was imminent between you and the Ambassador was there not?”
“There was,” Sam said calmly and declined to speak further.
Dominic frowned slightly, looking puzzled. “Forgive me then Mrs O’Neill, but as you yourself was at that time a major spokesperson for the Alliance and had a close personal relationship with the Aschen Ambassador, how is it then that with the schism within SG-1 with yourself, Dr Jackson, and Mer Teal’c, against Mr O’Neill—when’d that change? Changed enough that you quite literally disappeared off Earth without a word to anyone?”
Blue eyes shifted to the side as Sam seemed to not look away, but look back in her memories to that time eight years ago. Back to the events that had led up to the day when she had made her fateful decision to join with the freshly retired colonel.
“Back then,” Sam began to speak quietly, “it wasn’t just a schism within SG-1, but SGC against Jack. To understand how great a rendering of our relationship with each other, you have to understand that we lived by his moral code—all of us. When we, his team and SGC stood against him, the words we said… vicious doesn’t even begin to describe our fighting.”
The regret on Sam’s face as she paused was heart rendering. She did not need to say much more about the fighting that had gone on, some caught on tape years ago and titillated viewers around the world when broadcast.
“The night I left, shortly after Jack’s retirement had been finalised and another fight between us personally, he came to my house. I was getting dressed to attend a function with Joe and once again… we started fighting. It was like it had gotten to the point where all we could do when seeing each other was argue.”
Sam fell silent.
After a moment Dominic promoted, “So, you were arguing.”
“And, as usually when you argue, you say mean things, but this time, as he turned to leave—for the final time I knew, and not just from the Springs but me—he turned back to me.” Sam shifted her eyes to look directly at Dominic. “He turned back to me and held out his hand and said ‘Prove me wrong Carter.’”
Dominic leaned forward eagerly, sensing that this was a pivotal moment.
“‘Come with me. Prove me wrong.’” Sam repeated what Jack had said all those years ago as anger and what had almost been hatred for the other burned through them. “‘Prove me wrong and I will never speak against the Aschen again.’ I don’t know why, considering I was so angry at that time… but, something about how he asked and how I knew that was the end for us… for some insane reason I don’t understand to this day, I agreed.”
Sam’s eyes turned surprisingly bitter at what she had to say next. “So, I went with him. And I proved him right.”
Dominic hit the pause button. That was what he was looking for, the honest emotion and the moments that had led to the O’Neills fighting a war for Earth’s freedom even though Earth had not known it had been conquered.
The real moment had perhaps been more complicated than what she had just said, and even with what their marriage indicated, and Dominic suspected that it was only really Jackson and Teal’c that would be able to understand and maybe convey how deeply the schism between the team had carved its emotional wounds into the O’Neills.
And just how significant Sam following Jack from Earth on ‘Come with me. Prove me wrong.’ had been.
He would also dig deeper into how the removal of her mission person’s record from the National Crime Information Center database had been overlooked by the media and public upon her return to Earth in 2007 considering the fame that surrounded her and her disappearance.
Feeling another presence, Dominic turned his attention from his computer screen to see his wife with Boomer at her heels standing in the doorway to his office.
“Think you can join me for lunch?” Cassie invited.
Dominic nodded as he rose from his seat. He had already reviewed most the material anyway and he was just now getting into the process of editing it and getting copies of the few pieces that he wanted to use.
Together they walked into the kitchen and after each fixed themselves a taco, seated themselves at their four-person dinning table. After a few minutes of companionable eating, when Dominic was up to fix himself a second taco Cassie inquired about his progress.
“Good, good,” Dominic responded as he seated himself across from her again, Boomer contentedly at their feet underneath the table. “Even being totally unexpected by O’Neill’s presence, and thus unprepared for what questions to ask him, the time I had with him went well.”
While there had been an uproar on Friday from the United Worlds Assembly about the sudden absence of O’Neill and his warship over Alaris, he’d had no idea that ships could travel that fast and that O’Neill had already returned to Earth.
“When will the real interviews happen?” Cassie asked.
“First weekend in December,” Dominic answered. “You’re welcome to come with me if you want, but I will be taking a camera and sound guy from the Post as well so quarters might be a bit tight.”
Cassie inclined her head in response and as she rose from her seat at the table to begin clear away the food, thought that she would return to the O’Neill farmhouse with Dominic. There had been something that Sam had said she had wanted to tell her, but did not have all the calculations figured out yet.