Tattoos and Motorcycles
*
Cassie's language had seriously deteriorated over the years, Jack thought with old-fashioned horror as he listened to her talk on the cordless phone in the hallway.
"That *skank*! No!" A gasp. "No. Fucking. Way."
He knew they never should have let her go to an east coast college where he couldn't look out for her vocabulary. Not that they'd let her go or had had, in fact, anything to do with it. Her college plans had all been finalized before Fraiser died.
He glanced at Carter to see if she was hearing what he was hearing, but Carter just continued to shovel cookies from the tray onto a plate. Obsessively.
Oh, yeah, the Carter household was really dealing well.
"Should we be doing something?"
"Hmm?" Another cookie. And another. Jack's finger slid towards the plate and Carter wasted no time in whacking his hand with the spatula. Yowch.
"Should we be doing something for about Cassie, Major?" he said sternly, yanking his hand back and wincing. She sure was defensive about her cookies.
"I'm not entirely sure. He was her first serious boyfriend," she said, as if this explained everything.
He absorbed this for a moment. The only talk they'd had about Cassie's love life had been an awkward so-this-is-us-drinking-coffee-together type conversation earlier that week, before she'd gotten called back to base and he'd been left holding the biscotti. "You didn't like the guy, though, did you?"
"Hell no. Too old for her. Too many tattoos. Motorcycle."
Jack felt the corners of his eyes crinkle. "You have a motorcycle."
"And a tattoo," she added without looking up, flipping the last of the cookies onto the plate with apparent casualness.
His mouth gaped. "Really? Where?" Was it anywhere near the mole? Maybe they could put Cassie up in a motel...
Carter gave him an inscrutable look. Or what had once been an inscrutable look; Jack was now learning to translate it as her 'you'd-be-shocked-if-you-knew-what-I-was-thinking' look.
She'd given him that look a hell of a lot when they worked together; he just hadn't understood it then. On certain occasions, Carter had been queen of 'inscrutable'.
"I'll show you later," she murmured.
Jack's eyebrows slid up in surprise. He'd kinda figured their romantic plans would be put on hold during Cassie's emergency (surprise) visit and, sure, he'd been pretty irritated because his romantic plans had involved a lot of enjoyable nakedness, but Cassie was, well, *Cassie*. She was practically SG-1's communal daughter and Jack wasn't entirely sure he was comfortable with her being around when he and Carter... got to know one another better. "You sure about that?"
She sighed and leaned on the counter, broke off a piece of cookie and popped it into her mouth. The lipstick that she'd put on that afternoon before they'd gone out, before Cassie arrived, had faded, but that didn't make her mouth look any less appetizing. Jack had spent a lot of the evening fixated on her mouth.
She scrutinized him like she would an experiment. "Are you being cute?"
"I'm trying to be sensitive and...," he blew out a breath because, damn, this had been easier twenty years ago, "...stuff."
She snorted and wolfed down the rest of the cookie. "Sensitive and stuff?" She sucked on one long finger and Jack's mind momentarily went one-track.
"Uh.... huh."
He shook it off and swiveled on the stool as a method of distraction. Out in the hallway, leaning against one wall and looking through all the junk mail that Carter saved for her, Cassie was 'mmm'ing to something her friend was saying. She'd done something scary to her hair again. Big chunks of blonde at the front and shorter at the back.
Jack thought it looked awful but he knew *way* better than to comment.
"I'm sorry, Jack."
He swiveled back as Carter's words hit him and was surprised to see a guilty expression replace her teasing one. "Hey, it's not your fault." He covered her hand with his own quickly and resisted the urge to lift it up and... play with her fingers. " I don't mind. She needs you."
Carter rolled her eyes. "No." She shifted awkwardly. "It's becoming increasingly apparent that she doesn't."
He rubbed his thumb over her hand. He knew, not because she'd told him but because he knew her, that she found her not-so-new role in Cassie's life difficult. Hard to be like a mother to a young woman who'd lost two already. "She came home, Sam."
She shrugged, stood up, and stretched. His eyes automatically trained on the thin strip of pretty pale skin revealed. He just about stopped himself from licking his lips. "I think she just wanted to get away." Pulling her sweater back down over her jeans (damn), she picked up a roll of plastic wrap and began to tear a piece off it with all the concentration she used on alien technology.
He found himself at a loss as to what to do, what to say. Hey, he was new to this. New to home-Carter, Earth-Carter, the Carter he was allowed to touch in a non-platonic way.
They'd returned home from dinner (lip-locked, groping on the doorstep, bumping into the wall in the hallway, laughing as they shrugged out of coats) only to find (fall over) a pile of luggage. He'd heard the TV chattering in the living room, Carter'd spotted the trail of Pringles crumbs from the kitchen and they'd found Cassie slouched in one corner of the couch, tears running down her face. Carter had gotten enough out of her to find out that the boyfriend had dumped her for a girl whom she'd considered to be a close friend.
Then Cassie had clammed up.
And Carter had started making cookies.
"So, do you always make cookies when you're upset?"
She nodded tightly and began to plastic wrap the plate and its delicious contents.
"When was the last time you made them?" he asked, just out of interest.
"Tuesday."
"Tuesday? What happened on Tuesday?"
She paused infinitesimally and glanced up at him through her lashes. "Igotalibraryfine."
"What? You got a..." Instinctively, he knew he wasn't supposed to laugh at that, so he clamped his teeth together, pressed his lips into a tight, fine line and held his breath. Then he swiveled on his chair again so his back was to her. If he looked at her, he just knew he'd lose it. And probably never have sex.
"Don't you dare laugh."
He flapped a hand helplessly and closed his eyes tight. //Kinsey, Kinsey naked. Maybourne, Maybourne naked.// He breathed out calmly. Well, that tactic had worked disturbingly well.
"Bastard," she muttered.
Cassie walked into the room, heavy boots clomping on the floorboards. She gave them both a miserable look. "Hi," she said dourly.
"Want a cookie?" Carter offered. Somewhat desperately, Jack thought.
Cassie nodded and the blonde streaks sort of flopped into her eyes. Man, he would totally sue her hairdresser. "Yeah."
Jack swiveled back again and watched as Cassie picked the largest of the cookies and began to munch. Carter had this pained, helpless expression on her face that intermingled with a somewhat timid smile.
He tried to think of something to say. And got nothing.
"So, are you two like... dating now?" Cassie asked, gesturing with the cookie and spilling crumbs on the counter.
Jack and Carter glanced at each other. He was somewhat surprised; Carter hadn't told her already?
Carter's pained expression increased and Jack's heart sank.
What the hell?
"Uh, yeah," Carter replied, clearing her throat and looking fixedly at the calendar by the note board.
"Mum... she always said... well, not so much said... oh, never mind." Cassie slumped down on a convenient stool dejectedly. Her bottom lip protruded and she scratched the knee of her jeans. "You know Caroline?"
Jack, still hung up on the Carter-hadn't-told-Cassie thing, grunted in a non-committal way. Carter shook her head and bit her lip, as if not knowing Caroline was a punishable offense.
Fraiser had probably known who Caroline was.
"Of course you don't. She's this girl. From high school. She's a total..." Cassie's eyes flickered to Jack, assessed, and then went back to her cookie. "She's just run off with her boyfriend's brother."
"Run off?" Run off where, he wondered. Ooh....
"Yeah, you know. To live in sin. Or something." Tears filled Cassie's eyes suddenly and her face crinkled up. "Men suck."
"Oh, honey..." Carter slid her arm around Cassie's shoulder as she cried silently.
"I'm sorry I ruined your evening," she spluttered through her tears, her skin red and blotchy.
Jack helpfully slid a box of Kleenex over the counter towards her. "You didn't ruin our evening." Well, she had. But not in a totally bad way.
"It's just..." Cassie hiccupped and blew her nose. "I felt so bad. I just wanted to come home."
Sam's bottom lip trembled. "Of course you did." She kissed Cassie's hairline and smoothed one of the chunks of blonde away from her face. "Tell you what, there's some ice cream in the fridge. Why don't you go get that and we'll go watch a movie?"
Cassie sniffled into a tissue. "You sure?" Watery, red-lined eyes turned to Jack. "You don't mind?"
Jack guessed this wasn't a movie he was invited to watch. Girl time. He got that. He was the enemy, after all. He smiled. "I don't mind. Eat ice cream. She keeps the good stuff in the bottom drawer behind the frozen peas."
He got a spontaneous hug - a somewhat wet hug, too - and then Cassie hustled over to the freezer to locate the 'good stuff' before taking the container and two spoons out into the living room.
Carter eyed him over the box of Kleenex. "I wanted to tell her in person," she explained.
Jack shrugged. "That's fine."
"Jack..."
"No, I know. It's fine."
She shifted awkwardly. "It's not fine. Don't say it like it's fine when it's not. I'm sorry, okay? I didn't... I mean, if you remember, Daniel kinda freaked."
"What's Daniel got to do with Cassie? And of course I remember, it was only a couple of weeks ago."
Woah. Were they... arguing?
"Daniel doesn't have anything to do with Cassie." She shook her head, as if she could erase it. "I don't know why I said that."
"Daniel's fine with it." Now. He hadn't actually been fine with 'it' at all - 'it' being walking in and finding Jack cornering Carter to find out what time he, the-nearly-retired General O'Neill, was going to pick up her, Major Carter, for their first official date.
Yeah, Daniel had freaked. It was, as Daniel explained later, like finding out your sister was dating your best friend behind your back. 'A little betrayal', had been Daniel's precise phrasing.
A little betrayal was pretty much what Jack was feeling now.
"Well, yeah. But..." She reached up to touch her fingers to her temples and Jack got the distinct impression that this - whatever 'this' was - had been on her mind for a while. "I didn't want to tell her in case... you know."
"I don't know." And he didn't, either.
She spread her hands earnestly. "In case this didn't work out."
Jack nearly yelled. "You thought it might not work out?"
"No, I thought... I was worried... can we talk about this another time?" she sighed, pressing the plastic wrap down around the plate of cookies nervously.
"Oh, no." He shook his finger at her and slid off the stool, coming to stand next to her. With her heeled boots on, she was only one or two inches shorter than him. "I think we'll talk about this now."
"Sir..." He gave her a nasty look for that little slip but rather than apologizing, she threw up her hands, a steely spark in her eye. "Oh, give me a break. It's been over a week and I've seen you... what, three times out of work? Just be glad I'm not freaking out because my commanding officer kissed me in Starbucks this morning."
Jack blinked. "So, what, you think this is going too fast?"
She nodded. "Yeah. I mean, relatively. Most of the time it feels like we've had eight years of foreplay but..." Her hands fluttered on the table and she traced a tile with her nail, a wry smile twisting her mouth. "We haven't. Not really. Sometimes I'm a little surprised to see you out of uniform."
His lips quirked. He recognized that feeling, at least. "Same goes."
One of her hands came up and touched the nape of his neck. A finger trailed down to the collar of his T-shirt. She seemed to like doing that and since it made him shiver, he wasn't about to complain. "I don't want to break this."
He looked at her, eyebrows raised. "Sam, we're good together. There's nothing *to* break."
"I don't know. My luck with men is notoriously flawed."
"*Other* men, Carter, *other* men," he said, grinning.
She rolled her eyes and looked away, though he thought maybe she was blushing. He decided he liked that.
"I'm special," he emphasized, just in case, you know, she hadn't got the message. And to see if he could make her blush more.
"Oh, you're special, all right."
She got a kiss for that. Or maybe he did. He wondered if behind all that heat and softness, she was freaking out because it hadn't been long since he had been CO of the SGC and her commanding officer. Or if it was just a latte-induced madness. He pulled back just in time to see her open her eyes and, from the dopey expression in them, he guessed she hadn't been thinking at all.
"Call me later?" he asked, touching her hair, her neck.
She nodded. "Even if it's late?"
"I'll be awake." And playing on the X-Box he'd treated himself to as a retirement gift while he waited for her call. He was almost as addicted to that thing as he was to her.
Almost.
-end-
Story Notes: Future. Possible spoilers for Season 8. Spoilers for Heroes Part 2.
Thanks to Karen and Julie. *smoooch*
T'is also here: http://www.randomleaves.com/fanfic/tattoos.html
Email: randomleaves@yahoo.co.uk
Thanks to Karen and Julie. *smoooch*
T'is also here: http://www.randomleaves.com/fanfic/tattoos.html
Email: randomleaves@yahoo.co.uk
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 ]