Chapter Text
December 20th, 2004.
It was a shit year, to put it bluntly. They had lost so many people and taken so many hits that it was painfully evident that they were still carrying the wounds. They were all tired and sore and needed time to heal and process; No one more so than Sam. She had lost her best friend, her father, her fiancé and everything that the latter had promised for her life in the space of a few months. She was feeling it; her eyes couldn’t lie to Jack, no matter how much her mouth tried.
So in that spirit, Jack decided to throw a party. Christmas was less than a week away and having signed SG1 off for vacation until the new year, a team blow-out was organised to see the year out in style; BBQ, beers and the nearest and dearest. The invite list was small: SG1, Hammond, Cassie –with a boyfriend in tow – and, peculiarly, Sara and her partner.
Jack had been at the store buying, literally, a truck-load of beer when he had nearly crashed his cart into Sara’s. Her shock melted almost immediately to the look she would give him after he returned from a rough tour, when she would be assessing him for damage. He shooed off her concern and learned she was doing well, had a boyfriend called Jeff who coached football at the college and her Dad was out of town for the holidays, so it was looking to be a quiet holiday for her. It wasn’t long before he heard the words ‘You should come!’ leave his mouth. They were both a little shocked at his exclamation but he assured her he meant it.
They weren’t the only people surprised at his invitation. He was in his kitchen coating chicken in a beer marinade when he heard a voice.
“Jack!”
“Daniel.”
“Jack! Sara’s here,” he stage-whispered.
“What?” He animatedly looked over the younger man’s shoulders. ”Oh my God, she is!”
Daniel sighed, straightening his glasses and waiting for Jack to remerge into his eyeline. “Are you two…?”
“No, Daniel. That’s her boyfriend over there.”
Daniel followed the gesture, his mouth dropping in to an ‘o’ shape as he spotted an unfamiliar face speaking with Teal’c. He looked like he had just come off a football field. Or a WWE ring. “…he’s big.”
“Yes, I believe he goes by ‘Big Jeff’.”
Daniel took the proffered beer, ignoring the mischievous glint in Jack’s eyes. “You invited your ex-wife and her new boyfriend to your Christmas party?”
“I did.”
“And that doesn’t strike you as…odd?” his eyebrows rose as he brought the beer to his lips.
“Many things strike me as odd, Daniel.”
“And this isn’t one of them?”
“I forgot how much a conversation between you two could be like dodgem cars going around in circles.” The ex-wife in question stepped up behind Daniel, a smile in her voice at the nostalgia.
“He started it.”
Jack handed her another beer and gestured over her shoulder to the approaching figure. “Beer?”
“Please.”
“Daniel, Big Jeff,” Sara introduced, garnering a flash of confusion from her partner at his new name.
Daniel fiddled with his glasses before holding his hand out, “Er, hi.”
“Hey, it’s… just Jeff.”
“Yeah, I figured as much.”
Jack and Sara were stifling laughs as Jeff stroked a hand down Sara’s arm. “You okay? I’m just talking football with Murray.”
“I’m fine, go. Football-it-up,” she smiled, shooing him away.
“Teal’c knows football?” Daniel asked Jack quietly.
--
Winter was definitely upon Colorado Springs and the heat coming from the BBQ wasn’t doing much to warm him. He lifted the lid to the grill, a cloud of steam, smoke and amazing smells filtering into the frozen air. He turned some meat, basted others and shifted things around to make room for the tray that Sam was bringing out.
“Jesus, it’s cold,” she shivered, her shoulders bunching up as the frigid air hit her neck.
He beckoned her closer to the grill and under the umbrellas, taking the proffered tray from her. She rubbed at her hands and hovered them over the heat, lifting up when he needed to use the space. “Need anything else?” she asked.
“Fresh beer and a few hours’ sleep, but otherwise no.”
“Sara seems to be joining in okay,” she briefly glanced over her shoulder and through the glass doors. He didn’t usually bother decorating for Christmas, when he would volunteer to cover shifts for those with families and kids, but this year was different; he needed the time off to recoup. So he got a tree, found some decorations in the attic and bought some lights for outside. Sara was sat next to the tree, pointing out things she recognised to a rapt Cassie.
“She was always the social one.”
“Is it weird her being here?”
He stepped past her, his hand trailing across her back as he shuffled in the small space, “Yeah.”
“Too weird?”
He thought about it, the basting brush hovering over a steak. “No, I don’t think so.”
She nodded, “I’ll grab you a beer.”
Jack stepped back into the house a short while later and gave the living room a once-over – everyone seemed happy enough. Teal’c could almost be described as ‘animated’ as he still talked with Jeff – he caught the word ‘Wookiee’ so figured Jeff must also be a ‘Star Wars’ fan. Give him his due, Jeff was able to look past santa hat and even the outlandish ‘ugly sweater’ that insinuated Teal’c’s head was an Elf’s head. Daniel was talking with Hammond, an exasperated look on his face and glasses in his hand, so he was likely still trying to get an ally for a ride to Atlantis and coming up short. Sara was sat with Cassie which left…
Interesting, Jack thought, sighting Cassie’s boyfriend, Nate, looking at the photos and medals on his mantelpiece. He caught Sam’s eye as she returned from the kitchen with his drink and gestured almost imperceptibly to the young man; silently saying to her ‘Let’s have some fun’.
They appeared at his side, making the young man jump just a little. “So,” Jack began, his face solemn. “Nick.”
“Er, it’s Nate.” He swallowed, adding a “Sir,” as an afterthought.
“I’m gonna call ya Nick. So you’re dating Cassie, eh?”
“Yes, sir.” Nate’s green eyes searched behind his stony-faced interrogators for his girlfriend, finding her back to him as she chatted with Sara.
“How’s that treatin’ ya?”
“I-, er, Well? Sir?” He looked to Sam for a friendly face and found ice-blue eyes staring back at him, lips in a tight-line. No ally there.
Jack nodded, his eyes looking over the photo frames. He began to trace a finger over the dark wood in which he had encased his common-knowledge medals, “Do you know what I do for a living, Nick?”
“You’re in the Air Force, Sir.”
If it wouldn’t have broken his character, he would have laughed at how often he used the honorific. He gave Sam a run for her money. “That’s right. Do you know what I do in the Air Force?”
Nate eventually shrugged, his knuckles white around his glass of soda. “Fly planes?”
“I hurt people who hurt people.” Kinda.
The younger man swallowed.
“Do you know what she does?” He hooked a thumb to Sam. Nate shook his head, his eyes wide. “She’s a scientist, as well as an Air Force Lieutenant-Colonel. That basically means she also builds the stuff we use to hurt the people we hurt.” Kinda.
Sam gave a stoic nod.
“Hey, Murray?” Jack called. Teal’c stood slowly, somehow making himself look ten-times bigger and scarier than he could already seem to outsiders, even with the whimsical sweater and santa hat. “You know about him?”
Nate seemed to be frozen in fear.
“Should I go on, or do you get the picture?”
“I-“ Nate began, his voice breaking before he cleared his throat. “I won’t hurt Cassandra, Sir. I promise. I really like her. Sir.”
Jack clapped him on the back, maybe a little too hard, and smiled. “That’s all I wanted to hear. Enjoy the party.”
Nate scurried away in the direction of the bathroom.
Jack took a drag of his beer, bouncing a little on his toes as he smiled. “That was fun.”
Sam smirked, “What would you have said if you had to point to Daniel?”
“I had this whole thing about Archaeologists and digging holes. It would’ve sounded menacing.”
Sam laughed, shaking her head a little. “He seems like a nice kid, though.”
“College guys are rarely nice, Carter. Trust me.”
“Oh, I remember,” she fought the smirk on his lips but the twinkle in her eyes gave her away. His eyebrows rose in reply. She turned on her heel and went over to Cassie and pointing in the direction of her boyfriend.
--
Sam sat in the chair Cassie had vacated, a smile lingering. She had done a pretty decent job, so far, of being welcoming to her C.O.’s ex-wife whilst also keeping her distance. They had met a few times over the years, but generally in emotionally fraught circumstances.
Sara remembered when Sam had appeared on her doorstep in full dress blues. Jack was stranded off-world with little-to-no chance of returning, so not able to attend the divorce proceedings. It was difficult to explain the situation when the whole ‘aliens are real, not just on TV’ was a brand-new headache-inducing confusion, especially when her only contact with aliens thus far – brief contact with Teal’c notwithstanding – was one disguised as her deceased son. Sam had no idea how Jack had managed to explain that to her.
Sara had had similar visits in the past so knew what to expect, though it never made it an easier. Sam was thankful she hadn’t broken down into hysterics, no matter how understandable they may have been. Sara was struck by how quietly upset and frustrated Sam seemed about the situation.
“Did you two just scare the poor boy?” Sara asked, sipping at her beer and resting back into the cushions.
“A little. Cassie seems taken by him so we just gave him a…gentle warning.”
Sara nodded, “Ah.”
Sam laughed, looking over to the kitchen area where Jack was preparing the next round of BBQ.
“He has more scars than he used to.”
Sam looked to her before following her eye-line back to Jack. The sleeves of his tee did show the bullet wounds on his left arm occasionally, and a few scars across his forearms and hands. A lot of them she knew; could list the time, place and alien responsible, but some… some only Sara could name.
“Anything I should know about?”
She shook her head slightly, her eyes dropping to the beer label she was picking at with her nails. They all had more scars than they used to, both physical and mental. “No. He’s good.”
She looked back over to the kitchen island where Cassie seemed to be giving Jack a telling-off for scaring Nate. He soon had her laughing though and then into a gentle tug-of-war with a dish-towel, their honorary niece momentarily losing a battle of rat-tailing. Jack was laughing, pulling the teen forward and into a loose headlock she could have easily gotten herself out of had she really wanted to. Sam couldn’t help but laugh along, Cassie’s giggling was infectious and Jack was grinning up to his eyes.
“You make him happy, y’know.”
“We have a good team. Family, I guess.”
“No, you.”
Sara’s words hit her like a gut-punch. Sam snapped around to look at her. “I-we-“
“I know, I know, frat regs.” Fifteen-years of marriage into the Air Force and she knew the rules and regulations almost as well as Sam did. “Despite all those infractions on his file, and I imagine there’s a few more by now, Jack wouldn’t betray the rules. He only acts out when those with higher authority try to…interpret those rules.”
Sam would have nodded and agreed if she could find her voice.
“He’s a good man, Sam. A rare man. I think you know that. He lights up around you, I remember how it looks, how it feels to be the centre of his universe. It’s like he zones in on you and you’re all that matters in the world to him. He will do anything to make you happy; he’s loving, passionate, funny, charming, gorgeous…” her eyes cast down to her bare ring finger, her thumb going to twist the long-gone band. “He’s a different person in the quiet moments, he can take your breath away. And, yes, everything you think about those hands is true.”
Sam blushed.
“What I’m saying is, don’t overthink it. If he has chosen you, you are one goddamn lucky woman, Sam. And I think it’s safe to say he has chosen you.”
Sam stood, pulling her leather jacket from the pile across the back of her chair. “I have to go.”
“Sam, I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable, I’m-“ Sara reached out.
“No, no. I don’t feel well. I have to go.”
“Sam-“
“I have to go.” She gave a glance to Cassie and managed to lock eyes with Jack before stalking to the door and closing it behind her.
Jack stepped in the living room, “She okay?” he asked Sara.
“She said something about not feeling well,” she shrugged, hoping her face didn’t give away the truth. Her stomach was in her throat.
He trotted to the door in time to see her bike disappearing at the end of the street.