Deadline by GenVarel

Deadline

Category: Romance/Friendship/Humor

Spoilers: None

Season: End of Eight, after Moebius

Pairings: Sam and Jack

Rating: PG

Warnings: None

Summary: Daniel informs Jack of an important deadline.

Author’s Note: Just a short piece of humor. Special thanks to my beta, Buddy, for being there for me.

Disclaimer: Stargate SG-1 and its characters are not my property. I have written this story for the enjoyment of Stargate SG-1 fans all over the world. No copyright infringement is intended and no monetary gain is expected.

Jack walked into the briefing room to find two thirds of SG-1 patiently waiting for him, comfortably seated on the right side of the table. The rest of the table was conspicuously empty, the owner of the seat to his left uncharacteristically late for the pre-mission briefing.

“Where’s Carter?” he asked curtly, making Daniel gaze up distractedly from the catalog he’d been perusing.

“Oh, ah… she said she was finishing up with an experiment and that she’d be a few minutes late, but not to wait for her,” the archeologist rapidly answered, his eyes immediately returning to the leaflet in his hands. Something seemed to catch his attention, and he put it down on the table to circle the item with a black marker.

Teal’c was impassive as usual, also immersed in the latest issue of AXL, the fitness publication he had recently discovered. But he looked askance at his friend, curiously trying to peek as the archeologist turned another page, apparently looking for something in particular.

“What are you doing?” Jack asked nosily as he took his seat.

“Well… I’m shopping for wedding rings,” Daniel answered nonchalantly, oblivious to the startled expressions coming from both sides.

“Wedding rings?” Jack asked.

“Uh-huh.”

“Why?”

“Why what?”

“Why are you buying wedding rings?”

“Oh!” the younger man replied, finally giving Jack his full attention. “Sam’s birthday is coming up.” He then attempted to continue “shopping,” as if that answer explained it all.

Jack frowned, exchanged a baffled look with Teal’c and then sardonically asked again. “Excuse me for being dense, but what the hell does Carter having a birthday have to do with wedding rings?”

“They’re for Sam and me. The deadline is on her birthday.”

“What?! What deadline?” Jack asked grumpily, his hackles rising at the mention of wedding rings, Sam and Daniel in the same sentence.

“Oh, right! Sam probably never mentioned it, either,” Daniel commented a little uncomfortably. “Well, this is the deal: Sam and I made a pact a couple of years ago. We agreed that if she was still single by the time she turned forty, and I was also single and unattached, she and I would get married. For a while there, it seemed it was a non-issue with Pete in the picture, but now…” he shrugged. “Anyway, her birthday is coming up, so…” he pointed to the jewelry catalog in his hands.

“WHAT?!” Jack’s voice snapped in the room, making Daniel sit more upright in his seat and glance at Teal’c as if to make sure protection was readily available.

“Well, Jack, how can you blame us? We figured we both want to have children before we get to be too old, and we’re comfortable with each other… we love each other well enough, and we can share a lot that we wouldn’t be able to share with other people…” Daniel was rambling on as a rushed Lt. Colonel breezed into the room and hurriedly took her seat.

“Sorry, sorry, sorry! The experiment ran a little too long! Did you start with the pre-mission briefing already?” she breathlessly asked… then she froze, catching Jack’s black look directed at a rapidly shrinking archeologist across from her. “What’s going on?” she asked in bewilderment.

“Daniel Jackson is, as usual, playing with fire,” Teal’c answered cryptically, a complacent smile on his face.

Daniel looked at his Jaffa friend and narrowed his eyes at him. “You’d been wanting to use that line for a while, hadn’t you?”

Teal’c’s smile did not waver, but he didn’t bother to answer.

“What?” Sam asked, still baffled. Her eyes returned to her CO, who slowly turned his dark, ominous eyes toward her, which made her lean back on her seat and visibly quake with momentary trepidation.

“WALTER!” Jack suddenly barked, making Sam and Daniel jump and the Sergeant miraculously appear as if from thin air.

“Sir!” the man answered, and he looked like he was ready to commit hara-kiri if Jack ordered him to do so.

“Disable the cameras in this room for the next five minutes. Now!” he ordered, and everyone in the room looked at each other in outright alarm as the little man yelled, “Yes, Sir!” and disappeared.

Teal’c looked ready to intercede and restrain O’Neill from pounding on his reckless friend. Daniel’s eyes were rounded with alarm behind his glasses, and Sam was looking at her CO as if Jack had lost the few marbles he had left in his head.

When Jack got off his seat Teal’c tensed up further, Sam worriedly cried, “Sir?” and Daniel pushed his seat away from the table, as if ready to leap up and run for his life. So when their CO instead took two steps to loom over Sam, who looked up at him with outright dismay in her eyes, Teal’c visibly relaxed and Daniel loudly sighed, while she gulped nervously. “Sir?” she fretfully squeaked again.

Without a word, Jack grasped his Lt. Colonel’s shoulders, pulled her out of her chair, and planted a firm, passionate kiss on her open mouth, making her head fall back and her body melt against his.

Her arms automatically came up to wrap around his waist as he prolonged the kiss, carried away with enthusiasm. It didn’t last too long, but the dead silence in the room seemed like it had gone on forever. Their lips smacked loudly as they separated, leaving a limp and breathless blonde swaying unsteadily on her feet, looking at her CO in utter confusion.

“Sir?” she finally gasped, a look of complete perplexity on her face.

Jack smiled at her crookedly, and then he shrugged guiltily, “Sorry, Carter. But I had to make something clear.”

“Huh?” she dumbly asked, blinking at him and looking at his mouth as if she were wishing he’d just shut up and kiss her again.

“Daniel, are things clear?” he asked the now smirking archeologist, raising an eyebrow Teal’c-style when he caught the satisfied grin on his friend’s face.

“Oh, yeah!” Daniel chuckled, smugly throwing the catalog over his shoulder and letting it land on the floor.

“You sneaky, slimy, conniving little worm! There was no deadline, was there?!” he suddenly yelled, letting go of the swaying blonde, who helplessly flopped back onto her seat, her giddy eyes looking at her other two friends in bewilderment.

“Nope!” Daniel laughed.

“Ohfercryin’outloud!” Jack yelled again, his hands now itching to squeeze his self-satisfied friend’s neck and his eyes threatening even worse.

“You have been outmaneuvered, O’Neill,” Teal’c drolly informed him, shaking his head in utter disappointment.

“I guess I have,” Jack grudgingly agreed, nodding as a smile reluctantly tugged at the corners of his mouth. “Oh, what the hell!” he said; then he turned his eyes to the still slack-jawed woman seating before him. “Carter, how about dinner tonight?”

“O-okay,” she smiled automatically at him, but Jack wasn’t sure she’d really heard what he’s said. She was still staring at his lips.

“Okay,” Jack smiled back. Then he glanced at his smug friend and nodded with grudging respect. All those years of putting up with the Space Monkey had not been in vain. Daniel had learned something from him after all. “So, Daniel, what’s with this planet you wanna go visit?”

Ignoring the flabbergasted expression of a still confused colonel, the three men proceeded to discuss the upcoming mission as if nothing unusual had just transpired.

Sam shook her head as if to clear it, finally closing her mouth, and her eyes gradually turned a darker blue with sudden determination, watching her flippant CO conduct the meeting as if he hadn’t just kissed her senseless.

Okay, she would let it go, but she made herself a promise. Tonight Jack was going to kiss her again… just… like… that! Whatever happened after, he had brought it upon himself.

The man had it coming!

THE END