There’s something about Janet’s house that makes Sam feel at home the way her own apartment never has. Even now, moving the rest of her own things in and sorting through Janet’s, there’s a sense of peace and comfort that soothes the pain a little, and she’s grateful for it. She can almost feel Janet’s arms around her, standing in the living room where they first kissed, staring at the couch they first made love on. Everything in this place has a memory attached, and it’s so hard to let go.
There are boxes that will go to the Salvation Army, but they’re mostly empty; there isn’t much she can bear to part with this soon; it’s still too raw. Jack and Daniel have offered to help, and the General has even cleared Teal’c to leave the mountain, but this is something she feels she has to do by herself. They all think they know: she’s mourning her best friend and co-parent, but there has always been something more, something both deliciously and frustratingly forbidden, something they could never share with their friends.
Cassie is in her room, crying. The sound of her muffled sobs breaks Sam’s heart, and as much as she wants to comfort her daughter, she knows from experience there’s nothing she can say that will make this better. Jacob tried, in his way, but in the end Sam had to work through her grief at losing her mom on her own, and Cassie will do the same. She’s strong, like Sam. Like Janet. She’s the thing that brought them together in the first place, and the thing that held them together against impossible odds. She’s all Sam has left, really, with Jacob off with the Tok’ra doing his part to fight the Goa’uld. She and Teal’c have never been as close as maybe they should have, and since Daniel came back he’s kept to himself, mostly, apart from Jack.
She doesn’t hear the knock on the door, or Jacob’s footfalls in the mud room, but she feels his presence when he walks into the room. Rather, she senses Selmak, and recognizes that where he is, her father must also be.
“Sam,” he says softly, holding open arms to her; she smiles, though her eyes well up as she turns to him. Someone, probably Daniel, has provided him with civvies, and he looks more like the dad she remembers than he has in a long time.
“Daddy,” she manages before dissolving into tears and letting him bundle her into his arms, guide her to the couch, and hold her while she sobs. She hasn’t called him that in years. Decades, maybe, and she doesn’t know how he knows what’s happened but she’s so, so grateful that he’s come.
“A father knows,” he says, as though he’s heard her thoughts, but he means about her and Janet, not about Janet’s… god, it still hurts too much to think about it. “It wasn’t my place to judge. I was just glad my little girl was happy.”
‘Was’ being the operative term, Sam thinks, sniffling and wiping her nose on her father’s shoulder without a second thought. “She’s gone,” she whispers, and she’s surprised to find he’s heard her when he responds.
“I know, baby,” he murmurs, rubbing her back like he’s soothing a skinned knee, or hurt feelings from a playground bully. But he’d never done those things then. He wanted her to be strong, and she is. But even strong people break, and even heroes cry. “I know.”
And she knows he means it. He’s been where she is now, sorting through the things, simple objects that on their own seem like nothing important, but as a whole, represent the life of the person she loved. Loves, she corrects herself. Just because the funeral was two days ago and the memorial service at the Mountain was the day before that, just because she’s not here anymore, doesn’t mean Sam’s stopped loving her.
“I never stopped loving your mother,” Jacob tells her, and she realizes she’s said it out loud. He looks apologetic, but she stops him before he can tell her how sorry he is that he wasn’t there for her when she was a child, that he let his own pain keep him from soothing hers.
“I know,” she whispers, her voice unable to form the words any louder. Her throat is dry and her nose is running; her face is puffy and her eyes red.
He gets her a glass of water and a box of tissues, and when she’s blown her nose and wiped away what’s left of her decimated mascara, she clears her throat and says, “Cassie…”
“I’d like to meet her,” Jacob tells her. “I can’t think of worse circumstances, but…”
Sam nods. “She’s in her room.” She begins to stand, but Jacob rests a hand on her arm and goes toward the door decorated with twinkling Christmas lights. She can hear their voices, low and even, and thinks how much Janet would have loved to see them get to know each other.
This time, she hears the sound of someone knocking on the door, and she drags herself off the couch in time to see Daniel and the Colonel, toeing off their boots. It’s an old habit; Janet kept the house and especially the floors immaculate, and always insisted they take their shoes off before coming into the house. What’s the point of a mud room if you don’t use it, after all?
“I know you said you didn’t want company,” Daniel says, by way of apology, and he and Jack both hold up sixers of Guinness.
“Teal’c’s in the car,” Jack offers, and goes to find a bottle opener. “Trying to find a good place to park.”
Sam just nods and follows them into the kitchen. She accepts the beer Jack presses into her hand, and sips at it numbly.
Jacob appears with a tear-stained Cassie and tells Sam he’s taking her to the movies, and don’t worry about supper because there’s a great little burger place he saw on the drive over he thinks they’ll try. Cassie gives Sam a rib-cracking hug, and Sam offers a weak smile in return.
Teal’c has given up and parked in the driveway behind Jacob, so he has to move the car, and finally things are settled. The Guinness goes fast, between the four of them, and pretty soon Jack’s sniffing out the key to Janet’s liquor cabinet. It isn’t even three in the afternoon, and already Sam knows she’ll be hung over in the morning.
“I love her,” Sam says abruptly, after three beers and two Jack O’Neill Specials.
“We all do,” Jack replies, and she wonders why he’s so obtuse when it’s important and insightful when she doesn’t want him to be.
“No, sir,” she insists. “I love her. Janet and I…”
There’s a silence as the meaning behind her words settles in. Daniel and Teal’c have both buried their wives, and Jack has watched his walk away. They all realize that her grief is something vastly more profound, now, and their efforts to cheer her up turn into efforts to help her drown her pain the way they all have in some way or another. For Teal’c it was the Jaffa cause, and for Daniel, his work. She doesn’t know the Colonel well enough to know how he dealt with it, and if Daniel knows, he’s never told her.
“There is a saying among your people,” Teal’c says, placing a warm, solid hand on her shoulder. “It is better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all. I am heartened by the knowledge that you and Doctor Fraiser found that in each other, for however brief a time.”
They drink a toast to lost love, and for the first time Sam notices the way Jack and Daniel sit close to one another, their legs touching, and the way Daniel leans into Jack after downing another Special. She looks at her commanding officer with new eyes and wonders aloud, “God, how did you do it?”
Jack looks confused, more because of the buzz than the question. “You mean when he…?” Sam nods, and Jack looks at Daniel affectionately before answering, “Crawled into a bottle every chance I got between missions. Stayed there as long as I could.”
Sam feels stupid for not noticing. She should have known they were involved, should have known Jack was going through what she’s going through now. And then suddenly she hates. Hates Jack for having Daniel back, hates Daniel for coming back, hates Janet for not coming back. “It’s not fucking fair,” she snarls, and Jack ducks an empty beer bottle only to hear it smash behind him.
“No,” he agrees. “It’s not. If I could bring her back for you, Carter, I would. In a heartbeat. The woman wielded a hell of a mean needle, and she had a serious Napoleon complex goin’ on, but she was good people, and if she made you happy…”
Sam cracks a smile at the image of Janet chasing Jack down with a needle and syringe. A real smile, not a pitiful, forced attempt. For a while the mood changes, and they share their memories of Janet, in the form of anecdotes and impressions. At one point, Teal’c attempts an amusing story that nobody gets, but they all laugh and drink to her memory anyway. At another, Jack orders Chinese for everyone while Daniel clears the broken glass from earlier; Sam chooses General Tso’s and spicy dumplings. Janet was from the south and loved her food spicy and fried.
It’s late when Jacob returns with Cassie and several large shopping bags in tow, and a sheepish look on his face. “Six years of grandkid spoiling to catch up on,” he explains, but Sam doesn’t care. The smile on Cassandra’s face is all she needs to see. Material things can’t bring back her mother, but for a little while, she has been able to forget, and that’s a blessing in itself, a gift far more valuable than Jacob’s credit limit could ever provide.
He joins them for a few drinks before retiring to the spare room. Sam can’t face sleeping in the bed she’d shared with Janet for six years on her own, so Daniel and Jack take the bed and she takes the couch. Teal’c opts to doze in a recliner in the living room, and Sam suspects his true intention is to watch over her for the night.
Morning comes, and nothing has been sorted into boxes for storage or charity. Sam still feels cold and broken inside, in addition to a hellacious headache. She knows well the proverb about liquor and beer, but nobody was planning on a bender when they cracked open the first few bottles; nobody planned on any of this.
Teal’c starts a pot of coffee, and Jacob is the first to join them at the table, followed soon after by Daniel, who, as always, is mysteriously drawn by the silent promise of caffeine.
Sam draws circles on the table with her finger; how many mornings like this had she and Janet sat here like this, eating breakfast and sometimes helping Cassie with last-minute homework? She looks at Daniel and her father over her coffee cup and asks, “Does it ever stop hurting?”
The two men exchange a look, and Daniel answers, “No. But it hurts less, after a while.”
“Eventually, you stop waking up expecting to find her beside you,” Jacob adds. “That helps, not having that brief moment of hope and the disappointment after.”
“A time will come when you no longer see her face among the people of different worlds,” Teal’c says. “One day, if you are fortunate, your heart may once more find love.”
Sam rises to pour herself another cup of coffee, and drops the mug, Janet’s mug; it shatters, and so does she.
~*~
Sam wakes up to the sound of Janet’s voice, filled with concern. She’s shaking, and crying, and Janet’s warm presence in the bed beside her is comforting.
“This is the third night in a row,” Janet says softly, stroking her cheek, wet with tears. “Honey, I wish you’d just tell me what the dream is about.”
It’s been more than three, but Sam doesn’t tell Janet that. It’s only three nights Janet’s been home since she was injured. Sam curls around the soft curves of Janet’s body, clinging as though for her very life. “I love you,” she whispers. “I almost lost you.”
“But you didn’t,” Janet reminds her. “I’m almost good as new, and soon I’ll be back to terrorizing Colonel O’Neill with empty threats of rectal thermometers and big, fat needles again.”
Sam laughs, sniffling. “I don’t ever want to come that close again, Janet.”
Janet runs her hands through Sam’s hair. “Sam, I love you. You know I won’t leave until you do,” she reminds her, “and you know you’re too in love with the stars to give them up just yet.”
Sam nods, but she’s starting to think that’s something she’s not sure about anymore.
“Go back to sleep,” Janet continues, pulling the covers tight around them. “PT tomorrow, and I need my own personal cheerleader by my side.”
Sam wraps Janet in a firm but gentle embrace, mindful of her still-healing wound. “No place in the universe I’d rather be.”