Stargate SG1 Fan Fiction ❯ The Secret Life of a Major General ❯ Chapter 40 ( Chapter 40 )

Chapter 40

Washington Dulles International Airport, Dulles, VA
July 2, 2005
Noon

Sam spotted her brother and his family disembarking from their flight from San Diego and she waved at them, smiling when Amy waved back and enthusiastically rushed towards her. She pushed firmly from her mind what little she had overheard in the kitchen between Jack and Daniel and what she’d said to both men to focus on her brother’s family.

“Aunt Sam!” Amy cried happily as the ten year old wrapped her arms around her aunt’s waist in a big hug.

“Hi Amy, did you enjoy the flight?” Sam returned the hug.

Amy’s head bobbed up and down enthusiastically as the rest of her family approached.

“Laura, Ryan, Mark,” Sam greeted them in the order that they approached. Laura gave one of her quiet smiles and murmured a hello in response. Her nephew, who was entering the teenage rebellious stage, unbent enough to give her a true but fleeting smile. Mark was clearly reserved as he gave a curt nod in her direction.

She was not surprised by that. What she was surprised by was that he had unbent enough to fly out and attend her wedding to a man he knew nothing about, the day after she was supposed to marry his friend.

“Let’s get our luggage and get on our way shall we?” Laura said pleasantly as the group moved towards the baggage carousal.

“Sorry,” Sam apologised, “but we have a bit of a wait for another friend whose plane has been delayed from the Springs.”

“Oh?” Mark questioned with an edge to his voice.

“Yes, it might take a bit so if you and the kids are hungry, you should grab a bite to eat from the food court,” Sam responded politely in the face of her brother’s aggression. Mark gave another curt nod and turned his attention to locating his bag on the carousal. Baggage found by the Carter family, they moved towards the food court and ordered lunch as Sam had suggested.

After they had finished their meals Laura kept up a light conversation as she updated Sam on events in their lives to amicably pass the time even with Mark acting like a disapproving sentinel.

Finally the flight that Sam was waiting for arrived and the Carter family gathered their bags and moved to the departing area. Sam searched the arriving faces for the smiling one of Jonas Quinn. Spotting the attractive alien, she waved which allowed him to spot her in the group of people waiting to greet the disembarking passengers.

“Sam,” Jonas greeted warmly as he wrapped his former teammate in a hug. “It’s wonderful to see you again.”

“You too Jonas,” Sam returned the hug whole-heartedly. Thankful that Jonas had been able to arrange some time away from his advisory duties on Langaran to attend her and Jack’s special day.

As the hug ended, Sam turned to the four waiting behind her and introduced the Carter family to Jonas and vice versa. Pleasantries exchanged between the five they moved to the baggage carousel once again to claim Jonas’s luggage. That done they moved out of the airport to the parking lot to the vehicle and began the drive to Jack’s Alexandrian house.

Sam, with Laura’s assistance and Jonas’s enthusiasm, managed to keep up a light conversation in the vehicle during the forty minute drive to their destination. Pulling up in the driveway the six people exited the vehicle and soon more introductions were ongoing in the house as Mark and his family were introduced to Sam’s family.

Introductions finally done, the twins wrangled Amy, Cassie, and Laura into playing with them in the backyard. Jonas struck up a political conversation with Teal’c, Jacob, and Daniel with all four men careful to speak in code. That left Jack to his happily fierce argument with Ryan about The Simpsons and Mark was able to corner Sam in the kitchen as she prepared drinks.

“Sam, can we talk?” Mark leaned against a counter.

“About what?” Sam asked warily as she lined up glasses on the counter. Like she hadn’t already dealt with emotional stuff this morning overhearing Daniel and Jack talk. She was not looking forward to dragging up more personal emotional muck.

“About him,” Mark jerked his head towards the living room. His irate tone of voice clearly indicating that the ‘him’ he was referring to was her just-met fiancé.

“Mark—” Sam began with a sigh, only to be cut off.

“Look, I’m not—I’m not going to yell at you for what happened with Pete,” Mark said earnestly, “I just—I just want to know what’s going on. How’d all this happen?”

Sam paused in front of the open refrigerator door. “You’re not? Going to yell that is?”

Mark sighed heavily—torn between anger at his sister, anger at Pete, and anger at himself—and dragged a hand through his sandy hair. “Look, I am upset about the stuff with Pete, he’s my friend and I hate that my introducing the two of you ended up hurting both of you.”

Sam was a little surprised and very touched that Mark stated that he was not just concerned about Pete, but her as well.

“Thank you Mark, that means a lot,” Sam admitted honestly as she shut the fridge door and turned to her brother.

Mark gave her a half smile. “So, you going to help me out here?”

“Alright,” Sam braced herself emotionally and gestured for Mark to seat himself at the kitchen table. “Look, I don’t know how much Dad, or Pete told you about my life—” Sam held up a hand to forestall any response, “—but I just want you to hear me out. Even if I say something you already know.”

Mark closed his mouth reluctantly and nodded.

Sam took a seat across from him and took a nerve fortifying breath. Looking at her brother’s blue eyes her own blue ones soon turned down to gaze at the table top. “Eight years ago I was assigned to working deep space radar telemetry at the NORAD base. There were—are—some unusual aspects to that position, one of which was my assignment to a team with Colonel Jack O’Neill as my commanding officer.”

Mark’s eyes widened. He was an Air Force brat after all, and if Sam’s story was leading where he thought it was, then his sister’s engagement to the Major General he had just met…

“In the beginning, I admit to having a hero’s crush on him,” Sam confessed with an embarrassed half smile and slight blush. “But as time past and things happened it turned to infatuation of the man, and then…” Sam’s blush intensified as she looked determinedly at the table top. “And then I fell in love… but I—we—buried it, ignored it, obeyed and did our duty.

“About oh, a year and a half ago, I was involved in an accident that caused me a rather serious concussion that had me revaluate my life—my personal life. And I decided that I needed to move on, to not hold onto my feelings for him, not if I was doing it because it meant I was ‘safe’ from having a relationship with someone else, with all its emotional ups and downs—because he was off-limits. It was later that he was promoted to base commander, then promoted out to Washington.”

Sam looked up and met Mark’s slightly less angry eyes. “So I agreed to that date with Pete that you set up last year. And Pete… Pete made me feel special. And he is a… good person. But there were other things. Things that when added up just meant I couldn’t go through with the wedding. Not when it meant that compromises—I felt—were on my part and beyond being compromises, compromised who I am.”

Sam held up a hand once again when Mark opened his mouth to speak, his face half-mad, half-understanding. “I know that’s what relationships are about. Compromises, but they didn’t feel like compromises. They felt like concessions.

“Then I was re-assigned from NORAD base to R&D at NTTR and we were no longer in the direct line of command. And so, some time after I broke up with Pete, I was in Washington for some work-related stuff and ran into Jack. And things just came to a head, and… well…” Sam shrugged self-consciously as she looked away again. “I don’t regret my time with Pete—I regret that we were both hurt, and others—but being with him made me realise that my feelings for Jack couldn’t just be buried and ignored. They would always be there, and he was a safe bet because he was my safe bet.”