Lying in the warmth of each other’s arms, Sam and Jack listened to the noises of the family downstairs. Smiling at the overheard argument between parent and child, Jack whispered into Sam’s ear.
"Sure am glad I’m not down there, it’s gonna get ugly if Patty loses her temper."
"It can’t be any worse than what I’ve seen when you blow up." Sam said back to him.
With a gentle shake of his head, Jack denied, "Nowhere near. You’d have to add in the PMS and ‘Mom’ mode to compare my temper with hers. She doesn’t fight fair, either. At least I usually have a legitimate reason for my outbursts, not Patty, sometimes she just goes off like an unstable volcano."
Sam laughed softly, then pulled back to look at his face. "Oh, right, every time a woman gets upset about something it has to do with her hormones, is that what you’re saying?"
"No, I’m not. But I know my sister, and she tends to use her emotions to her advantage. She can drudge up crap from years ago and fire it at the target unexpectedly. The things she’s still holding against me would surprise you, and I’ll never be forgiven for the hair prank I pulled when I was only 12. She makes sure to mention it at least once a year, and usually at Christmas." Jack grimaced at the thought.
"What’d you do? Cut her hair or dye it? Stick gum in it?" Sam guessed.
"Not even close, though I did some of that stuff on occasion, too. Nah, this incident was much worse than that. Sean, that’s my younger brother, he had this idea about how most mammals liked to nest in warm places. We had this pet gerbil and well, it being winter and all, he was worried the it might get cold, all alone in its cage." Looking contrite, Jack continued.
"It was HIS idea to let Mickey sleep with Patty, not mine. How could we know that it would nest in her hair? It wouldn’t have been quite so bad if she’d have noticed, she probably wouldn’t have even cared. Mickey belonged to all us kids, so she’d have felt the same way, if she’d have thought about it."
"What happened that made this whole ‘prank’ so devastating?" Sam inquired, now very curious.
"Well, I guess I should mention that Ma has a huge aversion to mice. We had to beg Dad to let us get Mickey in the first place and in order to overrule mom’s vote, we had to pay for him ourselves by working at the family store every Saturday for two months. Ma told us if she ever saw the gerbil anywhere but in its cage, she’d kill it in an instant."
Chuckling at the image the memories brought with them, Jack told her the story.
"Well, the morning of the school program was when all hell broke loose. Normally Sean or I were the first ones up and we’d go and get Mickey from Patty’s room. But all excited about the day, Patty got up first and went downstairs for breakfast. No one even noticed Mickey until we had finished eating, and unfortunately, Ma was the one who did. I thought that Sean had put him back in the cage already. But no, Ma saw a tail dangling out of Patty’s braid and grabbed the broom before we could stop her. She swung so hard that it knocked Patty out of her chair and onto the floor."
Sam’s giggling interrupted the storytelling and Jack waited until she had marginally composed herself before completing the saga.
"As you can imaging, pandemonium reigned that day. Patty was on the floor balling, Ma was chasing Mickey out of the house with the broom, Dad backhanded both Sean and I and then it really hit the fan. Ma insisted that Sean and I be beaten to within an inch of our young lives, and Patty, well, being an unwilling accomplice, she suffered a ‘fate worse than death’. Due to Ma’s paranoia about disease that vermin carry, she chopped off all of Patty’s hair. It was shorter than yours is now. Patty was mortified; she was to be the lead in the Christmas Program and was supposed to wear this halo thing around the bun in her hair. With no bun, Ma had to rig it to the top of her head instead. Didn’t look so bad, but Patty’s still pissed off about it. Said it ruined her ‘representation’ as the mother of Jesus. We teased her and said it made her look more like Joseph. Dad slapped us for that one, too."
Unable to control herself any longer, Sam burst into a fit of laughter. Snorting was usually unattractive, but Jack thought Sam looked radiant as she rolled over and held her sides. After wiping the tears from her face, she sat up and gazed down at the man lying there.
"You’re awful, you know that. I can’t believe, well, actually I can believe you were that bad. Your Mom warned me you were devious, but I didn’t expect something like that."
"Babe, you ain’t heard nothin’ yet! That was my preteen years. You haven’t even scratched the surface of the trouble I got into. My parents were very familiar with the local sheriff and the school principals’ offices. The community literally threw a block party when I left for Basic, and it wasn’t a ‘Good luck, son’ it was more of a ‘Good riddance, kid.’ Ma had the priest say a special prayer over me at the bus station, it was to keep me out of harm’s way and keep everyone else out of mine."
Shaking her head, Sam lay back down and pulled him close to her.
"Did you just call me ‘babe’?"
"Uh yeah, oops?"
Jack kissed her temple gently as an apology and whispered seductively in her ear.
"For the record, you are a babe. You happen to be an extremely brilliant and beautiful woman and that definitely qualifies as a ‘babe’."
Kissing his cheek just below the ear, Sam murmured, "Hmmm, so what does that make you? A Dude? No, how about a Hottie? Maybe a stud?"
"I’m not a surfer, playboy or horse, so no, none of those are appropriate."
"So, what are you then?" Sam asked, slipping her fingers to intertwine with his.
"The luckiest man in galaxy." Jack responded smugly.
"That works for me." Sam agreed. "Although, doesn’t that title require actually ‘getting’ lucky? We haven’t done that yet, so I guess your status is still pending."
Rolling her onto her back, he positioned himself above her carefully as not to re-injure her ribs. He leaned to kiss the tip of her nose and waggling his eyebrows, suggested. "Well, there IS a way to fix that, ya know."
Sam reached a hand to caress his face and smiled. "I know. Just not yet, okay. I really don’t want our first time to be in your mother’s house with your family downstairs as an audience. I want to be sure we’re alone when the time comes."
Jack couldn’t resist the Cheshire cat grin. "Comes?"
Slapping his chest playfully, Sam admonished, "You know what I meant, get your mind out of the gutter."
With a gently shove, Sam sat up and began to straighten her clothes. She ran her fingers through her tousled hair, and then laughed in remembrance of the tale Jack had previously told about Patty.
"So would Patty have any other ‘weapons’ to browbeat you with?"
Getting up from the bed with a grunt, Jack teased, "Wouldn’t you like to know? Besides, I could tell you, but then I’d have to..."
"I know, but this has nothing to do with your career, it happened before you joined up." Sam interrupted.
"Not all of it. There are a few things that shouldn’t get out, if you know what I mean. Some things could harm a man’s reputation, and I don’t need to mess with the fallout of stupid stuff I did years ago."
Sam nodded her head in agreement and admitted, "Yeah, there are a couple of things I did that wouldn’t look too good on the record as well. I guess we need to be careful about how much we let people know about ourselves."
Unsure whether she was referring to their separate pasts or to their present ‘relationship’, Jack quietly confided, "I’ll tell you anything you want to know, if it’s something you feel you think is important, okay?"
Nodding again, Sam whispered, "Back at ya’."
To refocus the conversation a lighter tone, Jack asked casually, "So, anything trivial you dying to know about me?"
"Actually, yes. Dozens of questions come to mind, but one that’s been bugging me since I met your Mom. Why does your family call you Jon, and yet you call yourself by Jack?"
"Oh, that’s an easy one. In school, there were four boys in my class all named John or Jonathan; we went to a Catholic school, so Bible names were the norm. In order to alleviate some of the confusion, I opted to go by Jack. Sean said it was rather fitting, since I tended to be the most athletic of the guys."
Sam frowned and shook her head.
"I don’t get it, what about Jack fits that description?"
Grinning at her, Jack explained, "Ya know, the rhyme: ‘Jack be nimble...’ I was on the Track and Field team in High School, so I guess Sean was right."
"So when did you decide to join the Air Force?"
At the door, Jack extended his hand to her and said, "Nope, that question can wait for another day. We’d better get down there, or Ma will assume the ‘worst’."
"I thought she wanted me to ‘get to know’ you."
"Yeah, well, she does, but she also has a habit of being nosey, and I’m sure she’d want exact details of our ‘conversations’."
Taking his hand, Sam blushed a deep shade of red. "She wouldn’t, would she?"
As he led her down the stairs, he laughed, "You’ll see."
Upon entering the kitchen, Sam and Jack were surrounded by the hustle of the family diverging in different directions.
Patty steered the boys to the front door, while Matt carried a basket with an array of goodies to take to Grace at the hospital. Maggie was instructing the boys to behave while at the hospital and told Matt and Patty to give Grace a hug for her.
"Me, too." Jack chimed in.
"No problem, Jack, I’m sure she’d love for you to come for a visit. She still has a ‘thing’ for you. I swear, I don’t think she’ll ever forget that birthday stunt you pulled. It’s a good thing you got transferred, or she would never have dated anyone else if you’d stayed here."
Matt shook his hand and gave him a pat on the shoulder. "I prefer having you as Patty’s brother and that’s all, thank you very much." He turned to his wife and added, "And Patty agrees with me."
Seeing the raise of his sister’s eyebrows, Jack smiled. "Well, it all worked out for the best in the end, right? See you guys later."
Jack closed the door behind them, and turned around to notice the ‘look’ his mother was giving Sam.
"So, Ma, what’s for lunch?" Jack asked, attempting to break the icy glare.
"Well, Jon, I think we need to clear the air first, before we sit down to eat. It’s never good to eat with something weighing on one’s mind." Maggie implied to them.
Leading them toward the loveseat, Maggie sat in the chair across from them and directed her gaze to her son.
"So, Jon, what happened?"
Sam nearly laughed out loud at her question.
With a roll of his eyes, Jack responded, "Nothing Ma, we just talked and worked some things out. That’s it."
"That’s it, huh? Then why is Samantha blushing and you won’t look me in the face? You had sex, didn’t you?"
At that, Sam stood, crossing her arms in front of her and said, "No Maggie, we didn’t. We just needed to figure this whole thing out. I’m not ready for any more complications and Jack knows that. As for my embarrassment, well, I’m not used to such personal questions. And for the record, it is personal. Jack and I are adults and though we may not always behave like it, we are responsible ones as well."
Retaking her seat on the couch, Sam let Jack interject.
"Ma, I know you want to help, but we really need to work this out on our own. Sam and I’ve ‘cleared the air’ so to speak, but we still have a lot of stuff to deal with and we don’t want to make a mistake." Jack reached forward and grasped his mother’s hand.
"We’ll let you know when we decide anything, okay?"
Sam leaned against Jack and gave Maggie her hand also. "I’m very grateful for everything you’ve done for me, I want you to know that you have meant so much to me and that I hope we can become closer as time passes."
Maggie gave both hands a quick squeeze and smiled warmly. "You two are so good for each other, I wished this would have been under different circumstances, but at least it’s happened. Good thing Patty showed up, huh?"
Trading glances, Jack and Sam looked back to Maggie and said in unison, "You knew?"
"Of course, dear, she called me as they were leaving home. You didn’t think I’d abandon them, did you?"
"Ma, you could have told me they were coming." Jack argued.
"But then you wouldn’t have let me invite Sam to stay. You would have let her get a room at a hotel. She didn’t need to waste her money and you wouldn’t have ‘worked’ things out between you two." Maggie’s logic was nearly infallible.
Sam just shook her head and laughed at the deviousness that the O’Neill’s seem to all inherit. Sobering at the thought that she was the cause of all this deception, Sam made a suggestion to the others.
"Speaking of hotel, maybe I should see if I can find a room near to the clinic, in case Dr. Moran needs me to stay a few extra days."
Both O’Neill’s protested at her idea and insisted that she stay there at the house.
"Really dear, it’s no problem. I can put the boys out here in the living room if you don’t wish to share with Jack again."
Adding his two cents, Jack agreed. "Sam, I don’t think a hotel is necessary. Like Ma said, I could sleep in the other room and the boys could camp out in here. Besides, we still have some things to discuss, remember?" He implied, waggling his eyebrows at her.
Despite her best efforts not to, Sam smiled shyly. "Alright you two, but I do need to call Janet and let her know what the findings of the biopsy were, if she says to stay, then I’ll stay here, in my own room."
Nodding in agreement, the trio headed into the kitchen for lunch.