Spoilers: HUGE for Heroes and quite a bit for the eighth season in general.

Summary: He hated witnessing the loss of innocence. More so when it was he that initiated it.

O O O

"Baited Memories"
by The X-Woman
http://geocities.com/starlightstudio1121

O O O

"We can if you want to, but it just doesn’t feel right."

Jack pulled away from the warmth of her nude body and scooted to the end of the bed, his legs dangling over the side, the heat of the moment fading into the coolness of her words. "Of course. Nothing feels right anymore."

"Because it’s so quiet. She used to laugh when it got quiet." A pause. "I miss her laugh."

Sam stood, her pale, slim figure contrasted against the starkness of the cabin behind her. She passed by him without a word into the bathroom; the wooden door creaking shut, reminding Jack vaguely of a haunted house in a horror movie. He shuddered, and stood to look around the room, finding his pants and a shirt: the old shirt, the one she used to wear before she died. Was killed. Murdered, maybe. He bit his lip and heard the toilet flush, looking up to see the door open with another creak. She emerged, a pale mass of blonde hair wrapped in Janet’s old robe, and she wiped her red face with a sleeve.

He did not say anything, just stared at her, unsure of what to say. Had Janet been there, he thought, she would have laughed. Instead, Sam cried.

"It’s all wrong. I keep expecting her to walk through that door… and then I close my eyes and I can see her, crumpled on the ground, what Daniel told me and…" She choked, covering her face. "Why was she there, Jack?" Her head shot up and she looked at him, eyes hard, damp with her sorrow. "Why the hell was she even there!" She slumped against the door and Jack was frozen, sick, watching her weep for the woman they both loved so desperately. A woman, he suspected, they both loved more than they loved each other.

Without a word, he toed his feet into battered combat boots. Her sobs filled the room and he sighed, wanting to reach out to her, not finding the strength to do it. He did not know if he could touch her again the way that he used to, the way that he would when Janet watched. They had not made love since the battle, since Janet faded and Sam watched him recover, strong as ever, and he could not ignore the way that Sam seemed to look at him like he was a stranger to her. Like he should have been the one that died. It took her almost a year to share a bed with him again, and even then, when he tried to touch her, she would shrink from his hands, as if they bore poison, deadly with the absence of Janet’s healing touch. He yearned for that peace again; for the feel of Sam’s body pressed against his own.

"I’m going outside." He told her, pushing down the betraying thoughts that flooded his mind.

She sniffled. "To do what?"

"Hell if I know. Catch a fish, maybe." He left before she could respond, not wanting to hear her cry anymore. He did not know how to comfort her; he never did. He made love to the women; held them, protected them, assured them he loved them when they came. But when death almost claimed her, when Sam would weep at night from the sheer pain of the wounds that would inflict her, it was Janet would held her until she cried herself to sleep; it was Janet who calmed her sobs into slumber. Jack remembered so many nights, lying next to them, hearing Sam’s sobs and Janet’s whispers, wishing, for a moment, that he could be a part of it. That he could understand the bond that held them together, and he suspected that soul mates did not come in threes, as much as he wished it to be so. For as much as he shared with Sam and Janet, there was always something he felt missing: even more so, since Janet died.

He gathered the tackle box from the closet and made his way outside to the lake, basking in the relatively warm day, thankful for the fresh air that filled his lungs. He breathed in and collapsed in the chair near the dock, pulling out the fishing rod and baiting it robotically, so used to his solitary that he did not need a moment to think. This was the first time he managed to get Sam up there with him; he still had yet to get her fishing. He brought Janet up once, a weekend getaway that ended up more lonely than passionate, the absence of Sam seeming to chew away at their souls as they made love. Sam approved of the weekend tryst; anything, Jack assumed, to get out of a weekend of sweating and fishing, and Janet had agreed only reluctantly. It did not surprise him that on his following trips he was alone.

It took retirement to get Sam up here with him. It took him finally calling it quits on the Stargate Project and vouching to live his life to convince her to spend the weekend with him; and without the regulations hanging over their heads, she seemed more comfortable in having her name next to his on the plane tickets. He had enough anyway; he lost so much of his life to the military, and he figured he was at rights to live out what he had left in peace. What very little he had left.

He had no idea how much time passed when he heard the door open and swing shut, and Sam’s presence was next to him; demanding, deliberate. He could not help but recall the day he met her, the way she walked into that briefing room as if she owned it. Captain Carter; playful, young, and angry. He missed that passion, sometimes, that seemed to fade over the years. Her strength that seemed to wilt away as the world she once knew collapsed around her.

He hated witnessing the loss of innocence. More so when it was he that initiated it.

"Do you hate me, Carter?"

Her silence spoke more than any words. He knew that she did not really hate him, not the way she hated the Goa’uld, not the way she hated their "real" enemies. But she did blame him; for something he wished every day he could have prevented. For something he had absolutely no control over.

"She was a doctor, Sam. She would have gladly given her life to save any one of us. You know that."

"I know." Her voice was distant. "This just isn’t right… When you retired, we were all supposed to come here together. It should have never ended like this."

Jack turned to face her, taking her in. She still had the robe wrapped tightly around her; her eyes were red and puffy, and her hair was in disarray around her head. Even so, she was beautiful; he remembered, once, coming into her office at the base and seeing Janet standing there, watching Sam as she leaned over a microscope. Janet had looked back at him and smiled, not saying a word, but her thoughts were apparent in her eyes. Sam was the most beautiful thing either of them had ever seen.

"She loved you, you know. More than I have ever seen anyone love."

Sam smiled. "She loved both of us. That was the amazing thing about her… her capacity for love. I’d like to think that maybe that didn’t die with her."

Jack felt a tug on the line and ignored it, never taking his eyes away from Sam. "I don’t think so. She touched so many people’s lives with what she had, Sam. All of us. Me, you, Cassie, Daniel, Teal’c… Everyone you listed at that ceremony. People like Janet don’t just get forgotten."

"It’s amazing, really." Sam muttered. "Amazing how a wound two years old could still hurt so badly."

Jack turned away and took a moment to reel in his line, watching it dangle, dripping quietly, missing the bait he had put on it moments before. He set the pole aside and stood next to Sam, watching her, resisting the urge to touch her. He wanted to be Janet; wanted to know that he could heal her by taking him into his arms. But he was not medicine; his touch was not magic. All he had was his words.

"What we had, Sam… what we have, it isn’t reliant on Janet. She was a part of us, yes… and we loved her. We’ll always love her. But maybe… maybe we should try to keep going."

Sam shuddered, gulping air, tears springing from her eyes. "I don’t know if I can, Jack. I just loved her so much… She was such a part of me. It hurts so much." Her shoulders sagged and she covered her face with her hands, sobbing into them.

Jack’s heart dropped and he reached to her, pulling her into his arms and spreading his palms over her shoulders. "Let me try, Sam, please. Let me try to heal you. We’ll never forget her, never… but that doesn’t mean we can’t live without her. I need to, Sam. I need to live, and I don’t want to do it without you. I can’t lose you both."

She sobbed against him, her tears wetting the shirt that Janet used to wear, and he grasped the robe with his palms, almost as if Janet was there, between them. She let him hold her until her sobs subsided, until she could look up at him and her eyes were not as angry, not as empty, and maybe, he hoped, he could not hurt her forever.

He met her lips with his in a chaste, gentle kiss, and when they pulled apart, he was able to smile. He pulled from her grasp and held her hand in his own, staring out over the water. Her gaze followed his. She pushed a strand of blonde hair from her eyes, swallowing visibly.

"So, what now?"

He looked back to the seat, the fishing rod, the tackle box. He turned again to her and caught her gentle, blue eyes.

"What about I teach you how to fish?"

The following giggle could not fill the void the way Janet’s laugh once did; but it was a start.