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Title: Don’t ever be sorry
Author: Venom_69 & Divine Joker
Category:
Angst, Hurt/comfort, Romance
Pairing: Sam/Jack
Rating: R
Summary: Sam reacts to Janet’s death
Spoilers:
Heroes
Season/sequel: Set in season 8
Archive: SJ, Heliopolis, my site. Anywhere else, sure, just let me know
where so I can come visit.
Disclaimer: Don’t own them, never will. Promise to put them back in the state I found
them.
Author’s notes Venom: Something to help me deal with it all.
Authors Notes DJ: …Yet another foray
into death and loss. It feels good to try and find the good in loss and pain and I hope that this represents some of
my feelings on the issue.
Feedback: Hell yeah! Don’t make me beg, hit reply and stroke my ego please.
Dedication:
As always, for LEW. For DJ and her help in finishing this.
Date: 4-11-03
Copyright © to Venom, 2003
***
It's
just no good any more
Since you went away
John Farnham, One
***
"How are you?" He's sure that people
have been asking
her that question for the past two days, and he's sure
that she's probably sick of the repetition,
but he has
to ask.
"I'm okay." She replied, and he's sure that it's
become her standard reply.
He nods
a little, and they both fall silent. "How are
you really doing?" He asks and watches as she takes a
shuddering breath,
trying to keep her emotions in
check.
"I'm a mess." She admits quietly and he doesn't think,
doesn't hesitate
and doesn't even consider the
regulations as he pulls her into his arms. He tells
himself that it's a natural reaction
as he kisses the
top of her head, supposedly in comfort. He tells
himself that it's a normal reaction for her to counter
his
kiss to her head with one of her own on his chest.
But he doesn't think it's right for her to look up and
press her
lips to his.
He doesn't fight it, either.
But he doesn't think it's normal.
His thoughts were fleeting
under the gentle pressure
of her lips, but he couldn't seem to bring himself to
move away from her. Thoughts of comfort,
of helping
out his best friend after a terrible loss flickered
briefly behind the realization that it could just very
well
be her grief reaching out for a desperate grasp
of normalcy.
But then, this didn't qualify as something normal,
did
it?
Frozen between action and reaction, he knew without a
doubt that he had to stop her. He knew that he
had to
push her away from him. His love and his sense of
duty were warring within him as he pushed back on her
shoulders.
At
some point during the previous five minutes, Sam's
hand had snaked its way under his shirt to lightly
dance across his
hair smattered chest. As he pushed
her back, she used her nails to scrape along his flesh
a little harder as she groaned
in protest.
He hissed in response. His lips furled. "Carter."
He desperately hoped that the harsh tone he had
used
would snap her out of whatever state of need she had
immersed herself in.
Instead of her eyes snapping up
to meet his as he
wanted, they closed and her head descended greedily to
the collar of his shirt. Her mouth attacked
his neck.
One of her hands descended to the zip of his fly, and
Jack knew that he had to end this now, if he was
going
to at all. For a start, on his back porch with his
house full of people was not the most idyllic place
for
this to be happening. But more importantly, he
wasn't sure that Carter was in her right mind and the
hand that was going
down his pants only confirmed his
suspicion.
"Carter." He growled, his hand reaching down and
placing a bruising
grasp on her wrist. The blood
pounding through his veins was almost enough to make
him forget the fact that they were
at his house to
commemorate the passing of a dear friend and dedicated
soldier.
But the jerking movement of a
woman he had grown to
respect for her control was enough to spark the
warning lights within his head and his heart.
He
didn't know if he could live with himself if he
allowed her to do something that he knew she would
regret in a
few hours time.
"Carter!" He growled again, only to be ignored as her
mouth descended towards his groin. This couldn't
be
happening. He'd fantasized about this many times, and
now that it was here.
Grasping her head forcefully,
he pulled it away from
his navel to face him.
"Sam, stop!" he ordered. This time her eyes did snap
up to meet
his. This time she did realize what she
was doing; and he watched helplessly as her eyes
filled with tears of shame.
Seconds
ticked past as he held her wrist tightly to
his chest, his eyes glued to hers as he watched her
change from a creature
of desperation to one of
embarrassment. She began to struggle.
When he refused to let her go, she scowled at him.
"Let
me go." She intoned, her voice low and seeming
to carry dangerous threats.
"Carter."
"Sir." She spit. The
woman she had been mere moments
before was cowering behind the scrambling dignity of
the soldier before him.
He
closed his eyes and took a deep breath, trying
desperately to quell the torrent of desire that she
had sent coursing
through him.
"Let me go." She repeated and he couldn't help but
notice the fire in her eyes, masking the passion
that
she thought she was feeling. He knew that it had been
grief that had made her act the way she had, and he
knew
that it was a mixture between shame and anger
that was making her glare at him the way she was now.
She put up another
short, less violent struggle as he
continued to hold her close to him. He knew without a
doubt that if he let her dwell
on her actions, if he
let her think that he didn't want her, she would never
see him as Jack O'Neill again. If he let
her walk
away, go back into the crowded house, Jack O'Neill
would forever disappear in the shadow of Colonel
O'Neill.
He
didn't know if he could live with himself if he let
that happen.
"Carter." he started softly, his heart snapping
as she
let her eyes finally fall as she turned her head to
the side. She acted as if his whisper had been a slap
in
the face. "Look at me, Sam."
Watery eyes rose to meet his once more and Jack felt a
deep pit open within him at
the pain and sorrow and
loss and shame that overshadowed her blue eyes.
"What?" She whispered, her voice broken
and lost.
"I understand..."
"How can you understand?" She suddenly snapped. "How
can you understand that
I just lost my best friend?
That Cassie just lost her mother? How, Jack? How?"
He looked at her soberly, noting
the frustration
lurking in her furrowed brow. "Sam, she was my friend
too."
His calm assurance of his understanding
swiftly
deflated the heated anger that had arisen within her.
She took a shuddering breath, her shoulders shaking
with
the intake. Slowly, hesitantly, Sam's eyes
closed and her head fell forward to rest on his
breastbone. He finally released
her wrists, his own
hands rising to wrap around her silently quivering
frame.
The same pain that had moved her
to kiss him now
pushed her into his comforting arms and she was
helpless to refuse its summons. She sank into his
embrace,
her cheeks resting against the solid and
steady beat of his heart. Something within her broke
and her first tear fell
into his shirt.
As he held her, Jack was oddly reminded of Charlie as
he unconsciously rocked her back and forth,
his hands
roaming comfortingly along her back.
"Let it out Sam, just let it out." He whispered, one
of his hands
coming up to cradle her head against him.
"God...it hurts." She gasped, sobbing harder into the
material of
his open shirt.
It seemed like hours, but was probably only minutes
when she pulled back, wiping the mascara tracks
from
her cheeks and moving a regulated distance away from
him. The night air hit his chest and Jack felt oddly
bereft
without her warmth. Trying to regain some of
the moments that had just passed, Jack reached forward
and put his hands
on either side of her face, his
thumbs tracing down the curve of her cheek and
following the tracks in his own way.
He felt her jaw
clench convulsively in the palm of his hand and his
fingers tightened in her hair.
The desperation
that had tainted her movements only
minutes ago was fading much like the damp spot on his
shirt, but he couldn't have
cared less. He hoped that
her release would allow her the time to deal with the
loss and that she wouldn't dwell on
the need to fill
her loss with something else. Jack's hand cradled her
face and her eyes rose to meet his again.
"It
still hurts."
He took a deep breath, preparing himself for the
admission that he knew had to come. "It will probably
always
hurt Sam. I can't tell you that it gets any
easier, because it doesn't. You'll still think of her,
and you'll probably
still feel the raw pain like you
do right now. But in time, you'll remember to think of
the good things. You'll remember
the time that you and
she cried when Cassie started high school; the time
that we taught Cassie and Teal'c to play hockey.
You'll think about what it was like when you two used
to sit together and talk about the men in your lives,
you'll
remember her laugh, her smile, how she smelled,
the little things. And when you remember the good
things, it won't hurt
so much."
He paused, his breath hitching as he caught himself
thinking of the fight that she had, the spirit that
overwhelmed
him in her presence. He remembered how
she laughed with them and respected them, how she
loved them and disciplined
them. He especially
remembered how she worried and fretted as they sat in
her infirmary, healing under her care.
"But
Sam. God, you're not the only one hurting and so
help me, if you do something stupid, I'm going to
haunt you forever."
His voice was laden with feeling
and there was nothing he could have done to make it
stable.
Suddenly, the shame
and the anger that had encompassed
her faded and left Sam with a feeling of pure
selfishness. She had loved Janet, yes,
and she had
been her best friend, but she wasn't the only one
hurting because of the good Doctor's death.
Her
hand flew to her mouth in horror at her own
actions. "God...I'm sorry...."
"Don't ever be sorry for needing someone,
Sam," He
replied. And then, quieter, "Don't ever be sorry for
needing me."
Her breath caught in her throat and
she sniffed, one
of her hands rising to cup his as he held her still.
The calm silence enveloped them as they stood
together
in the shroud of their loss. Finally his hands left
her face only to cup her shoulders and bring her into
his
embrace. Standing quietly, Jack looked over her
shoulder at the sight of the people within his house:
talking and laughing
in memory of a great woman.
"What say we." he paused slightly, hoping to find the
right words. "Raise a little hell
in honour of a tiny
terror?"
He felt her nod against his chest as she drew back
from the embrace.
Moving
his hands from her shoulders, Jack entwined his
fingers with hers. Together they turned back to his
house, ready to
regale the group with tales of the
Late Great Janet Fraiser.
***
The End
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