Three Simple Words by Stacy L.

Three Simple Words

By: Stacy L.

CATEGORY: Established Relationship, Angst, POV

TABLE FIC PROMPT: 037. Sound

WARNINGS: None

COMPLETED: January 20, 2007

AUTHOR’S NOTE: This story serves as a response to a table fic prompt from the stargatefic100 LiveJournal challenge community for my Jack/Daniel table.

Jack’s POV

I love you, three simple words, three tiny little words I never thought I’d ever hear again. I had had my chance at happiness and I blew it. Why? Well, I used to blame it on my captivity but in all honesty I didn’t love Sara as a husband should. Oh I loved her, but it was more a friendship kind of love, a comfortable kind of love, a love in which I didn’t need to sacrifice all, to share all and that was fine with her. It was safe to love her. It was “appropriate” to love her. When she said “I love you” she meant it. I never returned it and though I knew it saddened her, though I knew she hoped each time she said it I would say it back, I rarely if ever did. Those three words were some of the hardest for me to speak. She understood that, and she accepted it.

When Charlie came into our lives those three words took on a whole new meaning and made me feel so good, so warm inside. He would say it in that quiet voice of his “I love you daddy” and I would say it back to him. I still struggled each time to say it, and I never said it enough. Instead I would often prefer to show him how I loved him with hugs and attention. When he was gone so was my ability to speak those words, except in a soft choked whisper as I stood at his grave and released them one final time.

After that I had no desire to say those words. I didn’t feel that I deserved them. I didn’t think I was worthy of receiving such a precious gift…from anyone. After all I had killed my own son by leaving my gun lying around the house. If I had been more cautious, more careful, then he would still be alive today and those precious words would still be music to my ears. After Charlie died I felt love was a foolish notion, and I never wanted to hear those words again. Apparently someone had other plans for me because several years later I heard those words spoken again, whispered in my ear so softly, so quietly that I had at first thought I was hearing things, but then they came again “I love you, Jack,” whispered so softly from the lips of a blue-eyed angel.

At first I held back refusing to speak those words aloud, pausing and hesitating for several minutes. He didn’t complain. He didn’t sigh in frustration. He didn’t turn away. He didn’t become sad like Sara had. Instead he snuggled up closer to me and pressed a tender kiss to my cheek before lowering to rest his head on my chest, content and satisfied. He started to drift asleep. No complaints uttered, no questions asked, no expectations set. He just settled against me and started drifting asleep with the softest of smiles gracing his handsome face. Those three words were very difficult for him to say. I knew it, and he knew it too but he had found the courage to utter them. As he settled further drifting deeper into rest I found myself smiling at him. And as he sighed in contentment I further tightened my hold before saying those same three special words back to him: “I love you. I love you too, Daniel.”

** The End **

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