“Names please.” A smiling, middle aged woman looked up as they neared, both looking as though they shouldn’t be there.
“I’m Jack O’Neill and this is Samantha Carter,” the tall, greying man told her, indicating the woman next to him as he told the second name.
The receptionist smiled up at them, pity obviously evident in her eyes.
“Ah, Appointment 3,” she told them, consulting a large book on her desk. “If you’ll just go through, someone will be there in a few minutes.”
“Thanks,” Jack replied, flashing a quick smile at the woman. He gallantly held the door open for Sam, avoiding looking at the sign on it proclaiming “Forbidden Love.” A quick, nervous smile was his reward as she stepped from the cold, sterile corridor. Jack felt a bit like Alice as he stepped after her into his wonderland.
The room they entered was small, but cosy. A comfortable looking sofa was against the far wall; a small table with a jug of water and two glasses and a light either side. To their right, there was a single chair with another table next to it. The room was tastefully decorated in warm, welcoming colours, completely contrasting with the stark corridor outside.
They were both quiet as they crossed the room, and sat down side-by-side on the sofa.
Jack resisted the desire to place his arm around Sam, until she moved closer and laid her head on his shoulder wearily. He placed his arm around her waist and pulled her close. They were silent – just enjoying the contact.
The door opened, and they leapt apart immediately as though they had been bitten. Sam’s cheeks flushed crimson, and Jack was having trouble maintaining an outwards appearance. A smartly dressed young woman entered, carrying a folder. She smiled when she saw the couple, and Jack was struck by how familiar it was, although he couldn’t place it.
“Hi,” she greeted, sitting down in the chair, and turning it to face them. “I’m Caitlin, and you must be Jack and Sam.
Sam just nodded, while Jack croaked “Yeah.” This experience was so surreal and he was unnerved by the young woman’s familiarity. Neither picked up on the fact that they had registered as Jack and Samantha, while the young woman had greeted them as Jack and Sam.
Caitlin turned to the papers that she had deposited on the table next to her, and picking up a pen, she placed them on her lap.
“I just need to clarify a few details before we begin,” she told them. “You’re both in the USAF, currently part of SG-1 stationed at Cheyenne Mountain Complex – correct?”
“Yeah,” Jack confirmed, Sam still embarrassed from having almost been caught together with her superior officer. Something told Jack that “classified” meant nothing there – wherever, or whatever “there” was.
“Good,” Caitlin declared, scribbling down on her pad. Looking up, she stared first at Sam and then at Jack, ensuring that she made eye contact each time. “Now we talk.”
“About what?” Jack wanted to know. “The weather, hockey, how stupid Daniel looked on the last mission? Take your pick.”
Caitlin smiled, and again Jack tried to place it. “We talk about what you cannot talk about away from here. Or rather, you talk about what you are not allowed to admit given your ranks, your current working relationship.”
Caitlin used virtually the same wording that Sam had used concerning the incident when they had both been believed to be za’tarcs, and Jack looked at her in surprise. She couldn’t have known about that surely?
“Oh. Oh that,” Jack mumbled, repeating his answer back then. “I don’t know how I’m supposed to talk about that.”
“Just try speaking from your heart,” Caitlin urged them. “Here there are no rules and regulations governing you. Here you are no longer Colonel O’Neill and Major Carter. You’re just Jack and Sam – man and woman.”
Jack exhaled loudly. “So I tell you that I love her?” he asked.
Sam turned to look at him. “You love me?” she asked, surprise evident in her voice. “I knew you... cared, but not that you loved me.”
“Yes I love you,” Jack declared, wondering how someone so smart could have missed that. “I love how excited you get over all your science things. I love how you always stand up for yourself, and don’t take no crap from anybody. I love the way you make me feel whenever I’m around you. I love you Samantha Carter.”
Sam looked ready to burst into tears as Jack finished his heartfelt declaration. “I love you too,” she replied. “I love how you pretend to listen to Daniel, or how you don’t even try to pretend to understand my science. I love it how you don’t do what’s expected of you. I love the way that looking forward to seeing you, spending time with you makes my days a lot better. I love you Jack O’Neill – I always have done.”
“Well, that was a good start,” Caitlin decided, smiling as Jack wrapped Sam in his arms. “I realise that what you’ve just said you can’t say anywhere else, and I assure you that anything said in this room will not leave here.”
“But what’s the point?” Sam asked, enjoying the comfort of Jack’s arms around her. “Just because we know that our love for each other is mutual, it doesn’t change our circumstances.”
“No, but it has allayed your fears,” Caitlin pointed out. “Both of you feared that your love was unrequited. A fear further intensified when other people started to show interest in either of you, and when the attraction appeared to be mutual. Laira, for instance,” she looked at Jack, who visibly squirmed at the thought. “Or Martouf,” Caitlin continued, turning to Sam, who had the decency to blush. “And I think these... trysts, shall we call them - deserve to be discussed. Jack?”
Caitlin had already picked up on the fact that Sam was willing to let Jack always lead – perhaps due to his superior rank in the ‘real world,’ or perhaps for another reason.
Jack took a deep breath as he tried to think of a way to start. “I’m not going to apologise for Laira,” he told the two women. “Because there’s nothing to apologise for. I was trapped millions of light-years from Earth, with the possibility of never coming back. I was never going back again; never going to see Sam again. Laira took me into her home, when no one else would even look at me. Payan said that he’d seen the fire rain hit the Stargate. I didn’t even know if Sam and Teal’c had survived. Laira was there, and she tried to distract me, and in a way she succeeded. But I never loved her.” His voice took on a wistful tone. “I would often sit by the river, thinking of home. I never considered Edora my home. For me, home was wherever Sam was, even if we weren’t together. And when I found Teal’c, trying to dig up to the surface, I knew that I was going home and I felt truly happy for the first time in three months.”
“But when we were finally able to get through the gate, you walked away from me when I was talking,” Sam reminded him, her voice choked with unshed tears. “You left me, to see her.”
“I left before I did something stupid, like kissed you, or told you that I loved you,” Jack confessed, not wanting to meet either woman’s eyes. “As far as I cared, rules and regulations didn’t mean a thing at that point. You were the only thing that mattered.”
“Anything else Jack?” Caitlin prompted, making Jack wonder if the young woman was telepathic.
“It was on Edora that I realised just how much you meant to me,” he said. “And seeing you only confirmed that.”
Sam had tears in her eyes as she turned her head up to look at the man she loved. “It was while you were on Edora that I realised how much you meant to me too,” she told him. “Actually, Janet realised it before I did. A ship could have got to you in a year, but I said that you shouldn’t have to wait that long. I didn’t want to wait that long.”
“So you rewrote the laws of physics to get him home?” Caitlin asked. “Not for advancing science, but to return one man home to you.”
Sam just nodded, gathering her thoughts. “I worked virtually non-stop for those three months. I lived off coffee, and whatever Janet force-fed me – I don’t even know what it was. The only time I slept was when she injected me with sedatives, or slipped them into my coffee.”
Jack looked shocked. “You did all that for me?” he asked. “You nearly killed yourself to get me home?”
“Well, there were all those Edorian refugees stuck on Earth,” she teased, trying to lighten the sombre mood that had fell upon the room.
Caitlin just chuckled as Jack started to tickle Sam mercilessly, trapping her in-between his body and the sofa. She looked away as their mouths met, and started a hesitant, but then more forceful exploration of each other.
After a few minutes the need for oxygen overcame them, and they pulled away reluctantly; Jack caressing Sam’s cheek, seemingly completely oblivious to the fact that they were not alone in the room.
They returned to their previous position of sitting up-right on the sofa; Sam’s face slightly flushed, although to her credit, Caitlin said nothing, despite the fact that both officers could see that she wanted to.
“And now Sam, it’s your turn to explain about Martouf,” Caitlin reminded her. “I believe he’s who Jack would have described as the biggest threat.”
“Hey! It’s not my fault she has her own inter-galactic fan club?” Jack protested, although the smile that was now permanently on his face now Sam was in his arms showed that he wasn’t really being serious.
Sam sighed, and relaxed back into Jack’s arms as she began to speak. “The feelings I had for Martouf were strange,” she started. “They weren’t always there, but when they were they were overwhelming. Jolinar loved him so much that when a part of her was left in me, a part of those feelings were there too. I, as Sam, never loved him. Cared for him as a friend – yes, but never loved him. Jolinar was the one who loved him, and she never fully had control of me.”
“What about Martouf’s feelings for you?” Caitlin asked, and Jack wondered how she knew all she did. Was this something to do with the Asgard, or another race they had yet to meet, and if so, why were they doing this? And who was their mysterious, yet somehow familiar guide?
“I can’t speak for him,” Sam reminded them. “But I believe that he loved me because of what I still carried of Jolinar. He never got to know me, the real Samantha Carter, so I knew that he couldn’t have loved me. His attraction to me was purely based on what he still felt for Jolinar.”
“I was still jealous of him,” Jack confessed. “It was just that there was this part of you that only he could understand. You never talked with any of us about what happened with Jolinar – only what you had to say about the Tok’ra. And when he came, and he knew that part of you – intimately, I was jealous, and in some ways I was sad and angry.”
He could see the unspoken question in Sam’s eyes, so just continued. “I was sad because I wanted you to be able to trust me enough and I was angry at myself for thinking of myself when it was you who had gone through the blending. I was angry at Martouf for trying to take you away from me, I was angry at the USAF who had taken you away from me. I was sad because I knew that he was a man who you could be with freely without any regulations, and I was sad because I believed that I was about to lose you to him.”
“Jack – I’d never leave you,” Sam replied, holding his hand in hers and caressing it gently with her thumbs. “You are such a big part of my life that it’s impossible for me to even imagine living without you anymore.” “Do you really mean that?” Jack asked. She nodded. “That’s why I won’t leave SG-1. I can’t bear the thought of you being out there in the field without me. I hate feeling hopeless to help you. You’re my number one priority whenever we’re in that field, and that makes me feel guilty, because I know I should be looking out for Daniel. And I know that if ever I have to make a choice, then to prove to everyone else, I can’t choose you. Then the thought of that is so awful that I realise that I can’t let myself get in that situation, and so I work twice as hard to make sure I don’t find myself in that position.”
“I know, because I wouldn’t be allowed to choose you either,” Sam reminded him, tears starting to swell up in her blue eyes. “That’s why the military has the non-fraternisation regulations.” “Yet maybe someday you will find someway around them,” Caitlin reminded them. “There are so many things that can change in so short a time, and each will have an impact on you, and your relationship. We can’t predict what will happen tomorrow – all we know is that you two are kaldon – soul mates for want of a better translation. That is why you are here – because finding your kalda is so rare, and often so unexpected, that often a helping hand is needed.”
“So that is why you are our guide?” Sam questioned, and Caitlin nodded. “But who are you? Why are you here? Why are you doing this for us?”
Another smile, this one of knowing more than she was allowed to say. “We’re not here to talk about me,” she reminded them. “I can’t say anything. But you can.”
“Fine,” Jack declared. “If I can say anything here...” He slid off the sofa; Sam’s hand still tightly clutched in his. Kneeling on one knee in front of her, he began to speak. “Samantha, I know that this is something that I can’t ask you in real life, but I love you, and I always want you to know that. I want to be with you forever. Will you consent to making me the happiest man wherever we are, and become my wife?”
Sam smiled, more tears cascading down her face. “Jack if I could I would marry you in a heartbeat. I would love to marry you, and I swear that as soon as we can when we are back on Earth then I will become your wife in every way possible. Until then, I will cherish what we have shared here, and look forward to a future together.”
Caitlin averted her tear glistening eyes as the couple embraced once again, smiling as her job was complete, and Jack O’Neill and Samantha Carter were happy, or at least as happy as they could be while they were still apart from each other.
“What you have shared here today is more than words,” she began. “You have bared your souls to one another, you have offered your hearts and those hearts have been accepted. Do not ever fear your feelings; do not ever feel ashamed of them. What you share is a bond so rare that there are those who would kill and/or die for that experience. Never let other people dissuade you into thinking otherwise. What you feel is true love; the foundation is so strong that nothing will shake it, providing that even while you are on Earth, you have memory of this place, and you do again what you did here. Just simply talk.”
She got up, as did Jack and Sam, hand-in-hand, smiling at the couple.
“Thank you for this,” Sam told her sincerely, her blue eyes sparkling with happiness.
“There is nothing to thank me for,” Caitlin assured them, the smile still present on her face as she opened the door for them.
Allowing Sam to proceed him, Jack followed when it struck him. He knew that smile, and why the young woman was so familiar. He turned back to face her, recognition, wonder and surprise all showing on his face.
Caitlin held up a finger to her grinning lips and just winked.
Jack understood.