Jack comes in and puts a hand on her shoulder while she cries at Daniel’s bedside. “Come on, Carter. Don’t cry on his bandages.”
She sobs out a laugh and lets him tug her out of the room and into privacy to let her compose herself. His hand is tangled with hers and she follows him unquestioningly, her own words ringing in her head. She doesn’t want to wait anymore. It could have been any of them in that bed. It could have been him.
There’s a few moments of movement and then he’s pushing them into her empty lab, dark and cool and comforting. He knows this is her safe place.
He tugs their joined hands and pulls her into his chest. It’s the most contact they’ve had since Jonah and Thera overruled their better sense of judgement and she wraps her arms around his waist, buries her face in his chest and breathes him in. Hugging him–touching him–is second nature, the thing she always craves just beneath her control.
His hands are large and warm and roam over her back in soothing comforting circles. It makes her cry harder. He’s a good man and she loves him.
Why do we wait to tell people how we really feel?
She’s done waiting. They’ve hidden and denied themselves so long and for what? For it to all be gone in one decision, one stray zat gun bolt, one faulty gate connection? Not being able to tell him how she felt, not being able to kiss him or hold his hand or go home with him at the end of the day had done nothing to lessen her feelings. She still loved him, whether the Air Force said she could or not.
Her head lifts from his chest and she puts distance between them, just enough to tilt back and look up at him. His hands settle on the small of her back, dangerously close to the waistband of her pants. Curling her fingers into the front of his uniform, feeling the thick stitching around O’Neill of his shirt, she smiles softly at him, a sort of steely peace settling over her.
He was here in her arms, real and solid and alive, and she needed to tell him that nothing had changed for her. That she was still his, as long as he wanted her.
Why do we wait to tell people how we really feel?
“You need to know,” she starts, voice just short of desperate and frantic. Her grip tightens on his uniform, keeping him close as if her words could be trapped here just between them. “In case it’s ever one of us. You need to kno–”
He presses a finger to her lips, eyes glinting and intense and focused. “I know,” he says softly. The pads of his fingers are soft and warm on her lips and she considers what it would be like in another life to be able to lick and nip at the skin, to demonstrate her affection the way she wants. For now, the words need to be enough.
She shakes her head and talks against his fingers. “I know. But you need to hear it. Just once,” she begs. “I need to say it.”
He closes his eyes like the words will physically pain him if he hears it but he nods, smoothing his fingers over her lips and curling his fingers beneath her chin, cupping her jaw. An acquiescence. She presses her cheek into his touch, eyes fluttering close.
The words fill the room and the tension drains from both of them, a weight temporarily lifted from them both. She opens her eyes and sees him staring down at her, mouth parted, wanting. He strokes his thumb over the curve of her cheek and leans forward, resting their foreheads together.
“I love you, too, Sam.” She shudders in his arms, lets the words fill her up. “So much,” he adds.
They stand there in that room–pressed close together and breathing in the other’s air, the confession blanketing them in a cocoon all their own. It’s enough for now.
