She sure was tossing those back, Jack thought, watching as she finished off her third glass of wine and reached for the bottle again. Unconsciously, he looked over to his own half-empty glass, his first of the night. It was looking decidedly lonely where he'd put it on the window sill, away from the mess of cooking.
Of course, he was doing all the cooking, he reasoned, turning back to the strips of chicken that was stir frying and giving them a little stir with the wooden spoon. If it had been her cooking (unlikely though that was), he'd have more time to drink. And anyway, it was their special dinner - the one they'd arranged to have when she got back from the three day mission to ... wherever she'd gone. She had a right to wind down however she felt necessary.
Jack settled on being amused.
Despite knowing her for over seven years, he'd never actually seen her get drunk, or even slightly tipsy. Whatever the situation they'd been in - off world or on - she'd always acted in an entirely professional manner. Sometimes too professional, he mused, recalling a couple of social occasions when she could easily have let down her guard a little.
Still, that in itself wasn't entirely unsurprisingly, judging from how chatty she was getting - more so than usual. Sam was probably a talkative drunk. And, considering the state of their relationship before he'd retired, she'd presumably figured staying sober around him would be for the best.
Deciding the meat was cooked enough, Jack reached for the chopped vegetables and scraped them into the pan, careful to avoid dropping some on the floor as he was usually prone to do.
Sam chattered away, following him as he took the chopping board to the dishwasher and then back over to the cooker. Turning to look at her, he noted the glittering eyes and flushed cheeks. She was still spouting four-syllable words, though.
Pretty impressive.
Strangely, she wasn't smiling a lot, which seemed to go against what he knew of her. Then again, she was discussing the ozone layer - with some passion, by the way - and that wasn't a particularly cheerful topic. He'd never known she was quite so environmentally friendly.
Still, there was something... off about her.
He couldn't quite put his finger on it, but if there was anything Jack knew a great deal about from intensive (and, often, secretive) study, it was Sam Carter.
She finished off her glass once more, her fingers clasping the glass stem tightly, and reached for the bottle again.
Frowning, Jack picked up his own glass of wine and sipped thoughtfully.
They ate dinner, knees bumping under the table. Jack began to grow a little concerned. The way she was acting wasn't normal, despite the fact that she appeared to be intentionally getting drunk. Her conversation was skittish, as if she was picking topics from out of the air, and he noticed she didn't once mention Jonas or one of the others. Usually, she had some kind of story to tell him - carefully censored, of course, which was a matter that was beginning to bug the hell out of him, but that was beside the point.
Tonight, there were no stories. No anecdotes. No rants on the misbehavior of her teammates, of the pranks Jonas had pulled thanks to the help of some internet site.
Sam held her drink well, he admitted to himself, watching her after dinner as she helped clear up. Very steady on her feet, seemed to know what she was doing. Certainly, the glasses and plates weren't slipping through her fingers as she put them in the dishwasher and ran a wet cloth over the counters.
After washing her hands, she picked up what was left of the chocolate torte and swiped a finger through the gooey chocolate layer. Standing just a foot in front of her, he watched with rapt attention as she slowly sucked the finger into her mouth, looking at him through her lowered eyelashes.
The meaning was clear.
His thoughts and worries pushed aside temporarily, Jack turned off the lights and let her take him to bed.
Which was where he realized what had been off with her all night.
Desperation.
For once, unusually alert after having sex, Jack watched her sleep. He wasn't actually the kind of guy who watched a woman sleep. He'd never done it before - certainly not while she was his subordinate. There had been no lingering looks over the campfire, no studying the top of her head sticking up above the sleeping bag.
Tonight, he watched her for a reason, noting the lines of exhaustion around her mouth, the slightly grey color under her eyes. While part of him would like to put her exhaustion down to his clearly fantastic stamina and aptitude in bed, it was obviously due to the wine she'd consumed and her tiring week.
She always had tiring weeks. In fact, Jack couldn't remember a day or a week that hadn't been a tiring one for her. He'd begun to read the signs - in her body language and even in the way she talked. Bizarrely, the more tired she got, the longer her words became.
Occasionally, he got the feeling she was actually making up the words, but who was he to contradict the astrophysicist?
For the life of him, he couldn't remember if he'd noticed the same things when they'd been working together, though. God knew they'd had tiring weeks back then. It wasn't anything new. Hell, they'd had tiring years but there had always been something to pick them up.
For Jack, it was them. SG-1. His family, in a way. The closest group of friends he'd ever had. People he saw, now, on a very irregular basis.
Okay, now he was starting to get depressed. He'd really been trying hard not to think about it at all.
He wondered if he was overanalyzing the situation. After all, he was retired. He could, officially, do nothing for the rest of his life now. Not that he had any intention of doing nothing, of course, because he would probably go out of his mind with boredom. He was feeling... if not relaxed, then definitely laid back. There was very little sense of urgency when he woke up in the morning any more. The first couple of months, yes, he'd woken up with a jolt, thinking he ought to be *doing* something, but that had pretty much worn off now.
Perhaps he was comparing his own attitude to hers, when really he ought to bear in mind that, professionally, she'd taken on a lot more responsibility that was bound to be stressful. Hell, she had his old job, after all. He of all people should understand.
Tonight, he felt, she'd been too animated, too passionate. In bed, she'd been two steps ahead of him the whole time and he was pretty sure - but not *totally*, his ego insisted pathetically - that she'd faked her orgasm.
Which was... weird.
She was usually much more forthright in bed - if she wasn't getting what she wanted, she'd sure as hell say so. Tonight, she'd been going through the motions, just like she'd been doing through dinner - striking up conversation for the hell of it, drinking for the hell of it, seducing him because it was expected.
Desperately trying to appear normal. Or whatever normal was for them.
Sitting up in bed, Jack swiveled his legs out from underneath the covers and putting his feet on the floor.
Oh, God, what if she was bored already?
*
Morning brought with it a burst of winter sunshine through the gap in Jack's curtains and the biggest headache Sam Carter had ever had.
Ever.
Not even capable of moaning, she tried to bury herself - very, very slowly - under the covers, pushing her face down into the pillows in an effort to slip back into the oblivious darkness of sleep.
It didn't happen.
After five minutes of working herself up to it, her head rose out from beneath the covers and she carefully turned, blindly, to the clock. One eye cracked open.
Okay. That didn't make sense.
How could it be 13:33? That was... half past one in the afternoon. Jesus!
She sat up abruptly, realized her mistake, and dashed into the bathroom as the contents of her stomach decided to make an appearance.
By the time she was finished, her head was splitting open, her skin was coldly clammy and her stomach and throat raw. She didn't even want to *think* about the taste in her mouth.
Never.
She was never going to drink again.
The cold tiles of the floor felt really nice against her face, though.
Oooooooh.
Sam Carter didn't do hangovers well. Part of the reason she didn't drink much when the occasion called for it. She could handle drink - could, apparently, handle a *lot* of drink - but the morning after was another thing entirely.
Careful not to jolt her head too much, she rose from the floor and wondered why her skin felt so exposed. It took her a moment to realize that she had nothing on. God. She was so glad no one was here to see her brought this low.
Pulling the lid off of the laundry basket Jack kept just outside his bathroom, she pulled one of his T-shirts out. Perfect. Baggy and the smell didn't offend her delicate stomach. Slipping it over her head was hard enough, though, and she decided that dressing beyond that would be impossible for the time being.
For a while, she stood in the cool bedroom and listened to the quiet beyond her pounding head. It was nice in his bedroom. She'd always thought so. Decorated in gentle, calming greens and large windows that let in a lot of light when the curtains were drawn back, it had always seemed so peaceful to her.
She needed some Advil.
That, or she could beg Jack to knock her out.
Shit. Jack.
She moaned and made her way back into the bathroom to rifle through the cabinet for some pain medication. She refused to look at herself in the mirror - not just because she was afraid of her appearance, but also because she couldn't look into the face of a failure.
A really *spectacular* failure.
Finding an unopened box of Advil, she took the required dose, cupping her hand under the tap for water to swallow, then she put the lid down on the toilet seat and sat down.
She was pretty sure she'd pulled it off last night. Dinner had gone okay, even if Jack had been a little less talkative than usual. And he'd sure stared at her a lot, she remembered with some nervousness. There hadn't been many awkward silences that she hadn't been able to fill, which was good, even if she had a vague recollection of talking about why she liked skiing so much.
Odd - particularly bearing in mind that she didn't. Like skiing, that is. In fact... she hated it.
The sex had been good, though she hadn't quite got there. That wasn't completely unsurprising, taking into account how much wine she'd drunk, how tense she'd been and how damn hard she'd been concentrating on pretending to be all there.
Sam doubted he'd noticed though. Like most men, there was a point when he wouldn't notice if an army of Jaffa ran into the room. Her faking it probably wouldn't have registered - particularly not if she'd faked it well.
So, yeah, fingers crossed he'd seen nothing wrong.
God, she thought, cradling her pounding head. If only she didn't have to drink so much to pull that off. Who would have thought lying to him would be so damn hard?
No, not lying. She wasn't *lying*. She was just putting off talking to him about a couple of things. What he wouldn't know couldn't hurt him, after all.
She really needed to go home.
Story Notes: Matter of Tact 07: Email: randomleaves@yahoo.co.uk
Archive: SJD, please
Spoilers: Vague Season 7
A/N: Set a couple of months after 'Thinking About... Hockey'. Thanks to Melly and Emry.
Archive: SJD, please
Spoilers: Vague Season 7
A/N: Set a couple of months after 'Thinking About... Hockey'. Thanks to Melly and Emry.
DISCLAIMER: All publicly recognisable characters, settings, etc, are the property of their respective owners. Any original characters and plots are the property of the author. No money is being made from this work. No copyright infringement is intended. ... [ read more ]