Cheap Clothes by Michelle Birkby
Summary: THAT CHEAP CLOTHES PLACE IN 1969 (WHERE A CERTAIN FIFTEEN YEAR OLD IS HANGING AROUND)
Rated: G
Genres: Humour
Original Archive Date: 2000 Feb 3
Warnings: None
Series: None
Chapters: 1 | Word count: 1465 | Completed: Yes | Published: Sep 01, 2009 | Updated: Sep 01, 2009 | Read: 2692
Chapter 1 by Michelle Birkby
"This place is real cheap. I buy all my clothes here." Michael said, stopping outside a battered old shop that seemed to have most of its goods displayed on the street.

"Great!" said Jack. "Hear that Danny boy? You can dress just like Michael."

Danny merely glared as Jenny led him by the hand into the shop and started to pick out clothes for him.

Sam stopped outside, glancing through the sunglasses on display. She found a pink pair, and turned to Jack.

"Very groovy Carter."

"Thank you Sir!"

"Why do you two call each other Carter and Sir?" Michael asked.

"They're nicknames." Jack said lamely, glancing at Carter who was mouthing 'nicknames?' silently at him.

"But man, this is the summer of love! Use your names. Say Sam and Jack, and be cool. Love each other!" and with that Michael floated into the store in a cloud of odd-smelling cigarette smoke.

Jack looked at Sam, who was giggling. "You're enjoying this, aren't you?"

"Well, Sir, I mean Jack, I've read about this time, and it always sounded really fun."

"How old were you in 1969? No, let me guess....you were four as well."

"Actually, I was three." Sam said, walking into the changing rooms with a pile of floaty, gauzy clothes. Jack wandered around the store, trying to ignore the bits of uniform that kept landing outside Sam's door.

"Three." he muttered. "I'm travelling the galaxy with a bunch of children."

And then he spotted it. It was perfect. It was all he'd ever dreamed of. Reverently he reached forward and lifted the leather jacket off the hanger. It felt good. He slipped it on, and looked in the mirror at the back. He looked....rebellious. Wild. Not like a soldier at all.

"What do you think Sir?"

Jack turned to see his very correct and proper second-in-command floating around the store, looking like every flower-child he'd ever fancied madly when he'd been a teenager. The sight of her bought back a million teenage dreams, and hopes and bought back memories of forgotten loves and gropes in the back of his car.

"Very...cool, Sam." he said.

"Thanks. Nice jacket, by the way, but isn't it a bit out of date for 1969?"

"I am not dressing like a hippy. Or I'll end up looking like that." he said, pointing at Daniel.

"Thanks a lot." Daniel said, walking awkwardly towards them. "These pants are too tight." he complained.

"But they're you." Sam said. "Remember, an anthropologist should dress like the culture he's in."

"Oh, very funny." Daniel snapped. "You know what the worst part is? Teal'c actually looks good in this." and he stalked off to join Jenny at the front of the store.

Jack smiled, and slipped off his jacket.

"You know, " he said to Sam, "when I was fifteen, in 1969, I only ever wanted four things. To join the air force, have a fast car, meet a beautiful bl...woman, and have a leather jacket like this."

"You weren't a hippy then." Sam said, picking out a pair of jeans and handing them to Jack.

"Oh no." he said, slipping into the changing room. "I didn't like hippies. All I cared about was my car. And yes, I know I was too young to drive, but that didn't make a difference. I just wanted to be James Dean."

"James Dean died, Sir."

"I know!" he said, stepping out of the cubicle. Sam nodded in approval at his outfit, and, satisfied, he slipped the jacket back on. "I wanted to be in a fast car, with a beautiful woman. As far as I was concerned, the rest of the world could go screw itself. And then that happened."

He gestured outside. A small civil rights march was meandering down the street. The demonstration was quiet, and there was support from most of the crowd, but Sam could sense a lingering tension in the air.

"I was watching one of those, one day, when it got out of control. Or rather, the crowd watching and taunting them got out of control. I saw some bastard beating up this tiny woman. Well, you know how pissed off that makes me, so I waded in. Before I knew it, I was fighting three guys. I won the fight though, although I was left with this."

He pointed to the scar across his eyebrow that tended to reopen whenever anybody so much as looked harshly at him.

"So you got involved in the civil rights movement?" Sam asked, looking at her superior with new respect in her eyes.

"I went on a few marches, nothing big." he replied, slightly embarrassed. "After a couple of years I joined the air force, and you know the rest."

"So you could be in there?" she said, pointing at the march.

"No, at this point, it was still girls and cars."

"Jack?" Daniel called.

"Yeah?" came two voices. One from Jack, one from a teenage boy in the corner.

"He meant me, kid." Jack said, then as the boy turned round, he went silent.

It was just a normal teenage boy, nothing to disturb Jack so much. He had brown hair, and brown eyes and was still slightly gawky, although the kid had a cocky, confident air. As Sam stared at him, she noticed something familiar in the open, appraising stare the kid was giving her.

"Wow." the boy murmured. "Hi!" he said, coming up to her. "I'm Jack."

Jack! Sam shook herself. This shouldn't be possible. Not only that Jack's younger self should meet him, but that he should be making a pass at Sam. She wasn't sure whether to laugh or hide. She should have recognised him. That open, relaxed smile was the same as her superior's, though he hardly ever smiled like that anymore.

"I'm Sam." she said, holding her hand out to him. Behind her, she heard Jack cringe, and she smiled sweetly. She was enjoying seeing the boy her Colonel had once been.

"Marry me?" the kid said.

"What?"

Jack the boy took a deep breath, smiled in a heart-winning way ('oh he'll be a heartbreaker when he grows up' Sam thought, then decided she'd think about the implications of that later)and said. "You're the most gorgeous woman I've ever seen."

"I think I'm a little too old for you." Sam said hurridly.

"I don't care about the age difference. Well, okay, you don't have to marry me straight away. We can date a while, say about a week."

Before Sam could answer, a voice came from behind her.

"Beat it kid, she's already taken."

Sam turned to see Jack glowering at his younger self.

"Hey, this is the age of Women's lib." said the boy. "She's free to choose."

"I can't believe I was ever that cocky." Jack muttered.

"Thanks Jack." said Sam, trying very hard not to giggle. "But, another time, ok?"

"Sure." and he smiled in a way that made Sam's heart stir, just a little, and left.

"Oh my God." Jack groaned.

"Sir, did that chat-line always work?" Sam asked him cheerfully.

Jack glared. "THAT was not a chat-up line, that was just...just..."

"Just what, Sir?"

Jack looked at her, and finally joined in her grinning. "I remember now." he said. "I was in a shop, looking for a cheap leather jacket...just like this one, in fact, and I saw this utterly gorgeous woman." Jack was staring off into the middle distance, and didn't see Sam's face colour at his remark. "I'd never seen anyone like her. Then this really cool guy came up, and warned me off, and I decided I wanted to be just like him when I grew up, with a cool leather jacket, and a beautiful woman by my side."

"Looks like you got your wish." she murmured.

"Not quite in the way I was expecting to get it." he added ruefully. He looked outside, at the warm summer sun, and the brightly coloured van, at his new friends talking happily to his old friends.

"Sam." he said seriously, draping his arm round her shoulder. "We've got what I've always dreamed off.....another shot at the summer of luuurve." he kidded, stretching out the last word like Barry White, "and this time, we're both old enough for it." He grinned just like his fifteen year-old self had.

"The answer's still the same Sir." Sam said, laughing.

Jack hurridly removed his arm, then laughed back at her.

"What are you grinning about?" Daniel asked her, as she came out.

"I was Jack's teenage fantasy." Sam said, as she wrapped her arm round Jenny.

"Daniel!" said Jack as he came out of the shop, watching Sam and Jenny walking and talking and giggling. "Smile, Danny-boy. It's the summer of love."



The End.

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