Chapter Text
Actually, when Pete took me to the house, I panicked. I’ve never lived with a guy before. Maybe it should be easy, but there are a lot of things in my space that I like a certain way. Some of it’s organized. Some of it’s organized chaos, but it’s all mine. And in that moment I knew that I couldn’t mix my chaos with his. I didn’t want to. The only chaos I was interested in incorporating into my life was Jack’s.
But what did Jack’s chaos look like? I guess that was a rhetorical question since I already knew, but where would I put it? Would his pictures of Charlie and Sara nestle onto the mantel next to my dad’s and Mark’s? With all of the chaos, all of the photos that were already there for both of us, would there be room for one more?
Was there room for a photo of just us? It had never been just us before, and that made me nervous. I know that I love him, but I know that fact in context of everything we’ve lived together. What would happen if it were just the two of us in the photo? No Daniel to take my side in an argument, and no Teal’c to back him up. Would those differences of opinion break us if it were just the two of us in the picture?
Did it even matter now that he had someone else in his picture? I tried cutting Jack out of the photo and replacing him with someone else. But his side of the photo, at least the one in my mind, was still empty.
It was his place. It was where he belonged. Maybe we wouldn’t always smile in our photo. Maybe it would still be hard sometimes like it has been, but it couldn't be harder than being in that photo without him. I didn’t mind being alone really. I could take care of myself, and the family I made for myself would always be there for me. Always. He was already a part of that family. Could we really change that dynamic after all these years? Did I even have a choice, or was I agonizing over this for nothing? It had already changed, and I couldn't stop it. He knew why I went to his house. He knew why I called off the wedding, and I knew exactly why he found himself a girlfriend for the first time since his divorce.
I gave up on Jack, and he knew it. I was ashamed to say it was true, but life was too much. There were too many voices, too many factors. On paper, Pete seemed like the right move, but it never sat right in my gut. And now I was paying for it. I didn’t know. I wasn’t sure that Jack still cared. How could I be? It wasn't like we could talk about it. And the times that I tried to talk around it, he didn’t object to me being with someone else.
I think now that it was just more of the self-sacrificial bullshit that I should have expected. He’s been putting his own ass on the line since day one, but outside of that battlefield context, I didn’t see it for what it was. I didn’t know what it looked like when Jack gave up something he wanted because someone he cared about wanted something else. It looked a lot like rebutting every reason I could think of to give the ring back to Pete. The truth is, I didn’t know what I wanted back then. I didn’t say ‘yes,’ but Jack was right. I didn’t say ‘no’ either. The option was on the table, and I had put it there.
I didn't want to think about how much that could have hurt him, but I needed to. I was supposed to be the one that took care of him. I was supposed to always have his back. Always. But I didn’t. I should have known he was just pushing me away.
I didn't want to think about how I would have felt if it were the other way around, but I needed to. I needed to think about what I would have said to him if I had walked into his office to see him staring at a diamond ring. What would I have said if he was trying to talk himself into giving it to some nameless, faceless woman, but he just couldn’t decide. How would I have felt knowing that he had put an option like that on the table with someone else? The things he must have shared with her, the moments they must have had leading up to this, the heated nights, and the quiet mornings were enough to turn my stomach. I wanted those things with him, but she took them from me. But it isn’t just that. He gave them to her. He gave those things to Ms. Anonymous in the same way that I gave those things to Pete. And it hurts. I did that to him.
The ring wasn’t the beginning of the pain I caused when I set it on the table in front of Jack. It was just the evidence of the thousand tiny cuts that had gone before it. The thousand cuts that I had been so careful to hide from him because I didn’t want to live that moment where he realized that I had given away moments that should have been ours to someone else.
So, in a way, I understand why he pushed me away. It was because I had already been pulling away, but he knew me. He knew I couldn’t sever myself from him completely. He knew I couldn’t make the final cut that would set him and myself free. But the ring on the table between us, and every moment leading up to it told him that I was trying to, and like he had ever since he had been in my life, Jack took the bullet for me. He told me that it was okay to say ‘yes.’ All of my reasons for doubting were practical. He should have appreciated that, but instead, I think all he noticed was that ‘I don’t want to marry Pete’ wasn’t on my list.