Work Text:
No light
Four months after they say goodbye at the cabin she flies out to Washington for the first time. She’s been at Area 51, and she’s been happy, and she’s been completely steeped in science and progress and the development of things. She likes working at Nellis, it’s back to the roots for her in a good way, without the dangers she faced going through the Stargate. It lets her relax and gives her just enough time to find herself again, to sort through her life. It also lets her keep a closer eye on Cassie because her schedule is flexible and they can talk on the phone more often and visit, too.
She’s flying out to Washington in the morning, giddy and a little nervous, and just before she boards the commercial flight, Jack calls.
“Hey, I won’t be able to pick you up from the airport. Just take a cab; you have the address, right?”
He sounds edgy and unhappy and she tells him not to worry, she’ll be fine. He sent her a key to his apartment a couple of months ago for no apparent reason and he didn’t want to talk about it either. Now it comes in handy.
She settles herself into her seat, thinks about Cam and Daniel and Teal’c, about how Cam wants her to come back to Stargate command, and she does kind of miss it, but she likes the science more right now. She likes Nellis, she likes working at the lab and not getting interrupted by anything, and maybe she even likes not having to face death every day. Maybe she’s a little too old for all this fighting, too.
By the time she gets to Washington she’s read one half of a book she’s been meaning to read, and she takes a deep breath of air. She’s been in Washington for years, coming here always reminds her of a younger self, of someone enthusiastic and brilliant, taking on the world, willing to take on the universe without knowing about the terrors out there.
Truth is, she’d do it all over again, even if she had known in miniscule detail about those eight years of fighting an intergalactic war. It’s changed her, this war. It’s changed all of them.
She looks out the window while the cab ferries her through this big city, dusk already lingering around the edges. She decides not to call Jack until she’s at his apartment, butterflies in her belly all of a sudden.
There’s a security guard in the lobby and she has to show him her key and then he reads through his log and Jack has actually left a note saying that she can come in, that she’s welcome.
She takes the elevator up and the entire building looks like something out of a Goa’uld mothership. Less gold maybe, more marble. Still, this is the kind of building that gives her the creeps, undoubtedly makes him incredibly uncomfortable. But he’s a General and he’s important and this is where the Air Force makes people like him live.
His apartment is on the top floor and all the way at the end of the hallway. He’s got a silly doormat with a dog on it that makes her smile when she pushes the key into the lock. At least the Air Force hasn’t furnished his apartment; it’s all hardwood floor and large windows and distinctly Jack. Comfortable, slightly dated and very homey. She likes it, drops her bag off in the bedroom and then wanders around, poking through things, feeling like a spy. Her phone rings and she holds it to her ear almost absent-mindedly.
“Are you snooping through my stuff?” he asks, trying to make his voice sound serious.
“Yes,” she answers, biting her lip while she looks at some of his framed pictures.
He’s probably traced her flight, knew exactly when she’d be at his apartment. She picks up the one with Charlie and his baseball bat, finds Jack in his dead son’s smile and cringes.
“Did you have a good flight?”
“Yes,” she answers again, her mind still occupied with the boy in the picture.
She puts it back down, runs a finger down Charlie’s cheek. She wonders if she’d be here now if he was still alive. If she would have met him. If he would have liked her.
“I’ll be home in a couple of hours. I guess you know your way around DC so… when you’re done snooping you can… y’know, wander around or something,” he says and she can pretty much see him gesturing with his hands.
“I will. I’ll see you later,” she says and then hangs up.
She’s supposed to meet with some people from the IOA tomorrow and then there are a couple of other meetings about this bomb she’s been developing throughout the week. She doesn’t want to leave the apartment again today, has a shower instead and then settles down on the couch to finish her book, to make notes for the meetings, to prepare herself as best she can.
It doesn’t quite take two hours for Jack to come back, and because she doesn’t want things to be awkward, doesn’t want to not know what to do with her hands and where to look, she meets him at the door when she hears his key in the lock. She grins up at him and then wraps her arms around his neck and kisses him soundly. He’s a little surprised and throws her one of those crooked grins.
“It’s nice to see you, too,” he says and drops his briefcase to the floor.
She follows him into the bedroom, watches him undress. He keeps glancing at her and then she smiles, arms crossed over her chest.
“How’s Nellis?”
“Good. How’s the IOA?”
He cringes at that and throws her a look before he brushes past her and into the bathroom. He closes the door behind him and she sits down on the bed, running her hands over the cover. She can hear the toilet flush and then water running in the sink and finally he emerges again, wiping his hands on a towel.
“Have I ever told you how much I hate politics?” he asks, sitting down beside her.
“Once or twice maybe,” she shoots back and smiles.
He drops the towel beside him on the bed, wraps an arm around her and pulls her against his side.
“I’m glad you’re here,” he says and kisses her temple.
“Yeah, me too.”
“So, found anything interesting while you were snooping?” he asks playfully, taking her hand and pulling her with him into the kitchen.
“Your fridge is empty,” she says when his hand is already on the handle.
He shrugs, points to the Chinese takeout menu on the side of it. Apparently he’s been eating his version of healthy. She gives him a pointed look, wondering how long it’s going to take for him to realize that eating like this while having a desk job is going to catch up with his metabolism eventually.
Apparently he decides to ignore her look, handing her the menu to study. She’s not going to fight with him, she’s not sure when she’s going to see him again and this week’s supposed to be nice and relaxing for both of them.
“Lemon chicken?” she asks without looking at the menu.
He nods and grins.
They eat in the living room, her laptop pushed to the side of the coffee table. He’s looked over her notes, has let her explain the bomb she’s building to him. It’s not quite done but it’s powerful and promising and he can tell that, deep down, she’s a little unsettled that she’s getting paid to build this kind of stuff. This kind of deadly stuff.
“So… meetings all day tomorrow?” she finally asks, setting down her plate.
“Pretty much. Now that you’re here everyone wants to meet with the famous Sam Carter,” he smirks.
“Anything I should be aware of?” she asks and he looks away, chews thoughtfully on a piece of broccoli. “Jack?”
“I was hoping we could… not talk about work tonight,” he says, knowing from the look on her face that she’s not going to back down now, that he’ll have to spill the beans. “There have been… some new developments at Stargate command.”
“And?”
“Landry’s requested for you to come back. It’s a big deal, whole new set of problems.”
“Yeah… I talked to Cam Mitchell a couple of days ago,” she says.
She’s not sure how she feels, wonders if she’s really been so caught up in her work that she honestly hasn’t even thought about this, hasn’t realized what these meetings would be about.
“So you knew,” he says, almost relieved.
“No… I mean, not in the sense that I was going to get ordered back. I thought if I was to go back I’d get the choice,” she says.
She thinks that maybe she deserved this one thing, deserved to get this choice. She should know better but after eight years of fighting at the front, she’s just a little bit selfish.
“That’s what I said.” He looks down at his hands, clearly unhappy.
“No dice?”
“They’ll tell you tomorrow. It’ll be my order. You’re gonna report to Landry on Thursday,” he explains and cringes.
Her jaw drops and she gets up off the couch, runs a hand through her hair, walks over to the window, and stares at the city lights sprawling out in front of her.
“Thursday? Already?” she asks, almost too quiet for him to hear.
She was supposed to stay with him for an entire week and now she’s already running through all the things she’ll have to do before returning to the SGC. She never sold her house in the Springs, thankfully, but then there’s Cassie now with her issues in California, and all these other things, and her work, and her brain is already going a mile a minute when she feels Jack coming up behind her.
“I’m really sorry. I mean, I know you needed time and I know you’re okay now. Maybe I was selfish to want to keep you at Area 51 where you’d be safer than out there, going through the ‘gate. Ultimately it doesn’t matter what I wanted though, it’s that I wanted to give you the choice and you’re not gonna get it,” he says.
His hands find her shoulders and he tugs her back against his chest. She takes a deep breath, blows the air out and shakes her head, dislodging all her thoughts.
“I shouldn’t be surprised,” she says, letting her body relax against his.
He wraps his arms around her, breathes in the scent of her shampoo. He’s missed her, waking up with her, even though they’d only had two short weeks. Sometimes it feels as though the past eight years just absorbed themselves into their relationship, that all the tension is gone and what’s left is just them and a closeness he sometimes marvels at.
“I guess not,” he says finally, shrugging behind her.
She turns around, blue eyes finding his brown ones.
“I don’t mind. You know I love what I do. I just thought that maybe, after eight years, this was my step into safer territory. Let someone else do the fighting while I… build bombs to make the war easier,” she says, pressing a kiss to his lips before she walks back over to the couch and sits down again.
“They need you out there, Sam,” he says. More than I need you here, he adds in his mind.
He rubs a hand through his hair, throws one last look out at the brightly lit city before he joins her on the couch. She’s relaxed and her mind is wandering, he can tell from the far-away look in her eyes. No doubt she’s already worrying about moving her life back to Colorado Springs. No doubt she’ll have figured everything out before the meeting tomorrow; before she’ll officially find out she’s going back.
“Landry doesn’t know you’re coming back yet,” he says, pulling her back into the here and now.
She blinks, cocks an eyebrow at him.
“You haven’t told him?”
“Nope. The way I see it, he’s been pestering me for a while now. A long while, and I’ve spent this entire long while holding against him until I was overruled. My plan is to leave him dangling for a while and for you to… just show up in his office on Thursday,” he says, grinning like a little boy.
She smiles back, shakes her head and then laughs.
“So this’ll be your personal revenge thing?” she asks, tucking her feet underneath herself and leaning closer to him.
“Might as well be,” he retorts, resting a hand on her knee.
He lets his thumb trace circles on her jeans, watching her face, her eyes growing softer.
“What about us?” she asks, placing her hand over his so she can trace patterns on his skin, too.
She’s still not used to this, to being able and allowed to touch him, to not feel guilty about wanting to touch him and be around him.
“We will… do what we’ve always done. But this time around it won’t be so painful. You’ll go and save the world and when you get back I’ll… be here, dealing with the politics,” he says, lifting her hand to his mouth, pressing a kiss into her palm.
She closes her fingers around it wistfully.
“I just wish…” she says quietly, letting the unfinished sentence hang above them, suspended and full of feelings.
“Sam. Our time will come. And when it does, I’ll be here,” he promises.
She smiles at that, leans closer so she can breathe in his scent, so that when she goes through the ‘gate again, she’ll be able to close her eyes and there he’ll be.