Stargate SG1 Fan Fiction ❯ The Secret Life of a Major General ❯ Chapter 27 ( Chapter 27 )

Chapter 27

Onboard the Daniel Jackson, Earth Orbit
June 14, 2005
Late Evening

Both hesitant and still angry, Sam paused in the doorway of the room that Jack stood within. The long and revealing conversation with Thor had finished some twenty minutes ago; which was how long it had taken her to marshal her thoughts and girdle her loins to approach the general. Jack’s back was to the door as he leaned his forehead against the massive window-like wall that provided a stunning view of the planet below.

Gathering her courage Sam entered the room and made her way to stand beside him. Her eyes also fixing on the green, blue, and white colours of Earth as seen from orbit.

“I still don’t know why you didn’t tell me about them,” Sam spoke softly.

“I told you before Carter,” Jack rumbled tiredly, “you didn’t want children and most importantly, you were getting married.”

“I still don’t know why you think I don’t want children, so I’ll state it now—I do.”

Jack snorted but did not take his eyes off Earth. Silence descended between them for a time before Jack spoke again.

“In the end, it doesn’t matter—you’re getting married. If you want children, I’m sure your cop would be only too happy to give them to you.”

“You keep saying that.”

“Saying what?”

“That I’m getting married,” Sam stated as she looked at the profile of his face.

“It’s true Carter, you are getting married. July 3rd is the date isn’t it?”

“But what does that have to do with anything?”

Jack finally looked at her with an incredulous expression on his face. “Excuse me? How the heck would you have explained Emily and Tyler to your fiancé?”

“I would have told him the truth—”

“Carter, he isn’t authorised to know the truth!” Jack cried out. “All he’s allowed to know about is the basics of the program itself. Nothing about day-to-day operations, ongoing missions, and certainly nothing about other alien races beside the snakes. It’s in that damn form he signed.”

Sam looked down at the floor at his chastisement.

“And if you couldn’t tell him the circumstances, do you really think that he’d be so accepting of suddenly learning that you had twin children? That you had never told him about? And that you had had them with your commanding officer none the less? And the military had done nothing about the violation of the frat regs?”

She had to acknowledge that those were very valid points, ones she was not able to think of answers to. Especially considering her detective fiancé’s pestering curiosity.

“He wouldn’t have Carter,” Jack said tiredly as he looked back at Earth. “He would have ran a goddamn trace on them just like he did on you. And I will not allow anything to harm them. Even if it meant protecting them from their mother’s husband by lying to their mother.”

Knowing as she did of Charlie and what people like Daniel had said of the devastating effect his son’s death had had on him, she could only imagine the ferocity that he would use now to protect his children. Suddenly she frowned, her mind picking up on one other thing he had said. “Trace? What trace?”

Jack mentally cursed his Freudian slip but he could not retract it. Not if there was going to be honesty between them. “Hammond told me that after the Osiris Op at Daniel’s a year and a half ago that someone in the FBI department had run a background trace on you. It was only after Hammond had authorised the disclosure to the cop that our investigation revealed that the FBI agent had done it on Shannon’s behalf.”

Sam paled and asked shakily. “When was the trace done?”

“It was requested a day before the op,” Jack shrugged. His expression turned to one of alarm as Sam turned even whiter and waved unsteadily on her feet. “Whoa there Carter,” he reached out and caught hold of her arm to steady her. “Easy now.”

“It was just a day before the op?” Sam’s tone was pleading with him to lie to her, and tell her it hadn’t been that day. “You’re certain.”

“Yes Carter, I’m certain. I’m still dealing with the aftermath at HWS ’cause the policy about the matter is still being debated and have read the report one too many times.”

“I think I’m going to be sick Sir,” Sam said faintly.

Jack yelped, “No you’re not. Sit on the floor and put your head between your knees,” he guided her down and crouched beside her, ignoring the protest of his knees. “Now take deep breaths.”

Sam did so, the steady breathing she did and Jack’s hand rubbing soothing circles on her back grounding her, the dizziness and sick feeling fading. Fading to be replaced by a burning flush of shame as she mumbled under her breath, “God, Sir, I can’t believe I was so stupid.”

“Hey Carter, you’re never stupid.” Jack stated with conviction.

Sam refused to look at him as she confessed, “Yes I am Sir. Pete ran the trace the morning after I slept with him the first time if what you’re telling me is true.”

Jack’s hand paused rubbing circles on her back. Disquieted to be told when she had first had sex with Shanahan and by what was meant by the cop running the trace after being in bed with her.

Sam scrubbed her hands over her face, through her hair, and then lifted her head to look at him. Her face twisted into an expression of self-loathing, “Guess I really do go for the lunatic fringe, huh Sir?”

Jack sought for the words to reassure her in his mind. “It’s not your fault Carter, for trusting him—he’s a police detective for cryin’ out loud. It’s his fault for not trusting you. For not stopping at the boundaries you placed. At the boundaries he knew, as a cop, not to cross.”

“That doesn’t make me feel better Sir,” Sam confessed sadly. “It still says I have crappy taste in men—or at least, in judging men. Has… has he done anything else?”

Jack shook his head. There was nothing that he knew about but that did not mean Shanahan had not done more, like his stalking at the Osiris Op and who knew when and where else.

“But Sir, why didn’t you or General Hammond tell me?”

Jack sighed and looked away from her questioning and accusatory blue eyes. “By the time we knew that it had been the cop and not a legal FBI inquiry, you were seriously dating. And then…”

“And what Sir,” Sam prompted after he trailed off.

Jack’s mouth twisted. “I just wanted you to be happy and being with him made you happy.”

“Everyone seems to say that,” Sam grumbled. “That they want me happy, that I should be happy.”

“You should Carter, everyone deserves to know happiness.”

“Do you Sir, do you know happiness? You deserve it as much as I do if everyone does.”

“I knew it,” Jack said with a distant look in his eye. A look that said his memories were lingering on times long past. “And I know it again.”

Sam had to look away when he said that, “The twins and Kerry?”

“Kerry?” Jack genuinely sounded confused.

Sam turned back to look at him at his tone and could not keep herself from prompting, “Kerry Johnson?”

Jack shook his head. “No, just the twins. Kerry’s gone. Has been since the twins were kidnapped.”

“Gone,” Sam blinked, stunned by the revelation and the euphoric feeling that swelled within her.