Title: In A Name
Fandom: Stargate SG-1
Pairing: Sam/Jack
Rating: G
Summary: Jack still calls her Carter sometimes.
Notes: Established relationship. Fluff. 1132 words
He still calls her Carter sometimes.
It’s not intentional, at least, he doesn’t think so, but it took a long time to stop calling her Carter and start calling her Sam. He’s not really one for nicknames, despite a career in the military, and has only really used them on the odd occasion. He’s considered a few, considered endearments, but for some reason, nothing seemed to fit her. Babe, sweetheart, darling, nothing sounded like him or felt like her. And he liked calling her Sam, because he couldn’t call her Sam for so long.
But sometimes, he still calls her Carter.
Sam, of course, was very accommodating of him calling her Carter.
At least for the first year they were together.
After a while, it definitely grated on her, he could tell, especially as he had no problem with her changes in rank over the years. He covered it mostly by telling her that she was his Carter, followed by telling her he loved her, and it was mostly enough for her to forgive him. And he made the effort, recited her name in his head, ended up calling her Sam on base a few times instead of Carter at home and given that he was a general at the time and not her direct supervisor (and very clearly sleeping with her), no one was really going to question it.
He likes calling her Sam, he loves her name and all, but he fell in love with her when he could only let himself think of her as Carter. He spent years
forcing himself to think about her as Carter, Captain Carter, Major Carter, Lt. Colonel Carter, because she couldn’t be anything else except Carter.
She couldn’t be Sam, Samantha, girlfriend, wife, mother of his kids, because it was against regulations and for all his rule-bending (and breaking) over his time at the SGC (and if he’s honest, the entire time he was in the Air Force), he couldn’t breakthat one. No matter how much he wanted to – and how much Sam wanted to as well. Because it wasn’t just going to come down on him, but Sam too, and well, he cared more about her career, her reputation, her more than he did himself.
Even if he couldn’t admit it out loud.
He’d explained that to her once, after calling her Carter in bed, of all places and while he knows he hadn’t articulated himself very well (when does he ever), it seemed to be enough for her to forgive him. A lot. He still thinks about it. Top ten definitely.
Now, though, after retirement, marriage and kids, he calls her Sam 99% of the time.
He calls her Carter when he’s really angry – which, given that he lucked out with two great kids who mostly listen (well, mostly listen to Sam anyway) and a life that is pretty easy all told, isn’t all that often. He can’t even remember the last time he was angry over anything except hockey scores.
So in the mornings, when she wakes up, and he calls for her and calls her Carter.
Apparently.
He never really remembers it, and she thinks it’s adorable (he hates that she thinks he’s adorable but also kinda delights in it), plus it usually means she will kiss him goodbye if he’s (half) awake.
He calls her Carter when he’s on painkillers, too. Not when he’s drunk – not that he really drinks so much he’s drunk. That one New Year’s he doesn’t remember, and at least two nights on their honeymoon he mostly remembers, but painkillers seem to short-circuit parts of his brain, and he calls her Carter. He doesn’t really remember that either, and he didn’t believe her at first, but she had witnesses too – once when he got back from Atlantis and then, when he had knee surgery, and Daniel was helping out while she had meetings in Washington. Also, three nurses and a doctor all asked him who Carter was, so really, he couldn’t deny it.
Mostly, though, he calls her Carter when he’s sleepy. When she’s up at the crack of dawn, before the rest of the house, getting ready for a meeting or just a day on base or the kids’ activities. He always wakes up when she gets up, even if he’s sound asleep; he senses when she wakes, shifts, and gets out of bed. He always has been a light sleeper; it was part of the job, but the years have attuned him to Sam Carter specifically. He could distinguish between all of the team when they were off-world together, could tell which one was getting up and which one was bunking down, and it carried over into his relationship with Sam.
Sam only ever calls him Jack; she stopped using his rank entirely when she got back from Atlantis and moved in with him. He was still working, technically, but he was more of a consultant to the SGC than anything else and very rarely actually consulted anything (and when he did, he tended to consult with Carter first). She never called him Colonel accidentally, or General, though he could swear he could hear the S for Sir sometimes when she called him Jack. Which would be fine, and kinda hot (not that he’s ever admitted that to her). She never called him O’Neill, so it seemed like it was easier for her to start calling him Jack all the time instead of Sir or Colonel.
Though after another sleepy Carter, he’s pressed to ask, still half asleep and the words mostly into his pillow.
“It wasn’t easy,” she tells him, kissing him on the cheek as she does so. “I just had a headstart.”
“A head start?” he mumbles, finally rolling onto his back but still not quite opening his eyes all the way to look at her.
“When I realised I was falling for you, I started to compartmentalise,” she says, and there’s something annoyingly hot about the way she uses five syllables at five in the morning. “Colonel was who I worked for, Jack was who I was in love with.”
“You never got mixed up?”
“All the time,” she laughs and kisses his lax lips. “Why d’you think I worked so hard to save your life all the time? No one else was that invested in your survival, Jack.”
He smiles at that and finally opens his eyes. She’s always a vision, but he does very much like first thing in the morning rumpled Sam, having spent years seeing her so put together.
“Don’t sleep in too late,” she says. “I’ll be home by lunch.”
She kisses him again, and he rolls back over to doze off.
“See you later, Carter,” he says before he drifts off again.