Yeah, trying to date a woman who was never around was a distinct pain in the ass. Hell, at the moment, Sara was around more than Sam was. (Jack had bumped into her three times that week - once at the market, once at the motor show, and once in a restaurant they used to frequent. Apparently, not a lot had changed.)
Carter's voicemail kicked in, Please leave a message after the tone. BEEP.
Jack breathed for a moment. Loudly. Then he scrunched up his face as he realized he really needed to say something. Quickly. "Er. Carter. It's ... me. Hi." Oh shit. "Obviously, you're not there." Well, *duh*. "And so I think I'll just..."
He hung up the phone because, without a doubt, that was the worst message he'd ever left, and waited a few moments while the voice mail did its thing. Then he picked up, redialed and keyed in Carter's code.
Jack deleted his message and told himself to get a life.
Almost immediately after that thought, the phone in his hand rang and Jack looked at it, kind of confused for a moment at the coincidence of it all. Seriously, what were the odds? He shook it off and answered briskly, "O'Neill."
"Did you just call me?" she said, accusingly.
Oh, so she *was* home. "No," he lied, with ease. Hell, if she was going to screen her calls, he was going to lie.
"You did, didn't you? Then you deleted it."
"Deleted it? How would I do that?" That's right. He was Dumb O'Neill. Never in his life had he investigated her phone and found out the voice-mail code. In fact, he'd never, ever, deleted his messages to her before. He wouldn't know how to do that, would he?
"I *heard* you leave the message as I came in the door. I was just going to call you, then the phone rang again, and now the message you left is gone."
Shit.
He picked up one of the knick-knacks he kept on his mantelpiece - a tiny little figurine holding a hockey stick. He walked it over the mantel and pretended to shoot an imaginary puck at the mantelpiece clock. "Maybe it was someone else."
The imaginary puck missed the imaginary goal. How embarrassing. "Who the hell would be that paranoid?"
She was calling him paranoid? "I don't know, Carter, give me a break."
"Just admit it was you," Carter said.
Jack carefully positioned the little figure so it was casually leaning against the clock. "I'll do no such thing."
"God, you are just so..."
She hung up.
Jack wasn't entirely sure but on a scale of one to ten of assholeness, he was probably... a fifteen. A twenty? He knew this. He knew, recently, whenever he opened his mouth around her, his asshole nature seemed to just... appear. Like magic.
He leaned his head against the mantelpiece. The figurine seemed to be laughing at him.
The phone in his hand rang again and he answered quickly. "O'Neill."
"Let's just pretend you decided to call me and apologize."
Huh? He lifted his head from the mantelpiece. "What?"
"Play along, *General*." He winced. "Just apologize."
"I'm sorry."
There was a pause. "You do know why you're apologizing, right?"
He nodded eagerly, keen to take this second chance. He turned the figurine around so it was facing the wall and no longer smirking at him. "I'm an asshole."
"Yes."
"I suck a lot." He emphasized the 'a lot' because he figured it was important she knew that he knew that he was an ass.
"Uh-huh."
She didn't sound quite convinced. "I screwed up."
"You did."
"It's possible I panicked."
"Yeah."
"Then I lied."
"Not good."
"Particularly since... well, you know." That he likes her. A lot.
And, also, at some stage, he'd quite like to get into her pants.
"Yeah."
He really hoped that meant at some stage she'd *let* him get into her pants. Even if he was an ass.
Bolstered by this thought, and with the knowledge gleaned when he was a teenager that if you were going to do something unpleasant, it was best to do it fast, he hurriedly asked, "You wanna go out?"
"Now?"
"Sure!" Whenever. He didn't care. If she'd said two the following morning, he would have agreed.
"Um."
Jack closed his eyes tightly. God. He hated this. This was like... being sixteen and having no clue how the female mind worked. Then again, he still had no clue how the female mind worked, for crying out loud. He'd been *married* and yet he still had no clue. None.
He knew she liked him. There had been a hell of a lot of kissing last year before, well, *it*. Before his big sacrifice to save the world. Now there was nothing. He'd even retired so they could resume the kissing. Okay, maybe he hadn't retired for precisely that reason but he'd figured it would be a *big* retirement bonus.
"What would we do?" she queried.
"I don't know. Stuff." It was half past four on a Saturday afternoon. What did reasonable people do? "We could... " He sighed as he came up with nothing. "I don't know, Carter. I have no idea."
Jack could *hear* her smiling. That had to be a good thing, right?
"We could rent a DVD," she suggested, still smiling.
Oooh. Good idea. Couch time. Popcorn. Salty lips and tongues. Couch sex? Was he too old for couch sex? Maybe if she was on top...
Jack looked at his couch, working out the logistics of it all. Was his couch long enough for couch sex? Was it wide enough? Was it too early for couch sex? They hadn't, technically, gone on a date yet but he wasn't sure if they were in a dating-type situation. Maybe couch sex wasn't out of the question. "Sounds good."
"Okay. Let's do that then."
Oh yes. Let's.
Two hours and three minutes later, Jack couldn't have named the movie for all the gold in ... somewhere with a lot of gold. He had Carter's tongue in his mouth (and it was ever-so-slightly salty *and* buttery). He had Carter's cotton-covered breast in his hand. He had Carter's long fingers toying with the top button of his jeans, and he was now convinced the couch was long enough and wide enough for couch sex.
Carter sucked his bottom lip into her mouth and unzipped his fly.
Not to be outdone, he pushed the bra up and tweaked a nipple. Man, Carter's nipples. Best retirement bonus *ever* and he'd retired a lot so he would know this.
Sadly, Carter abruptly removed her tongue and put a hand on his chest. "Something..." She swallowed and Jack decided that right now she was probably the hottest he had ever seen her look. Seriously *mind-bogglingly* hot. And he really hoped she wasn't about to tell him to stop.
"Your phone is ringing."
What? Phone? Ringing? It was? Hey - it was! He released her and sat up, reaching over to the phone as she dealt with the DVD. "O'Neill," he panted, trying not to watch as she adjusted her bra and fixed her T-shirt.
And ignoring the fact that his fly was undone because there was no unobtrusive and cool way to do that up without leaving the room.
"Jack!" chirped a very familiar voice.
His eyes nearly popped out of his head. "Sara?"
Carter's head swiveled around sharply and he wondered if there was any way this could get more awkward. Jake could show up at his house. Maybe Teal'c. Hell, Daniel too, but only because Daniel would enjoy ruining the moment for pure entertainment value.
"Is this a bad time?"
"Er..." Carter made a move that suggested she was about to get up and, reflexively, Jack grabbed her thigh and pressed down. Stay, he mentally ordered. "No, no, it's fine."
She raised her eyebrows. Don't want to *interrupt* anything, she mentally shot back. Or something along those irritated lines.
He gave her a pleading look. A this is the mother of my child look and Carter's face immediately softened. She patted his knee and mouthed 'I need to go pee'.
Jack let her go and slumped back in the couch, awkwardly adjusting his uncomfortable jeans. So *close*. He gave his crotch a sympathetic look. Or was that empathetic?
Nevertheless, he pulled his shirt down and decided it would have to do.
"Look, I just wanted to ask your advice. I'm going to put Dad's house up for sale..."
She was? "You are?"
"Well, it's just been sitting around since Dad... I mean, it's..." She swallowed and Jack had no doubt that it was grief that was causing her to pause. "It's a nice house. There's got to be some nice family who'd want to move in."
"Needs a little work," Jack pointed out, mentally walking around the place. The kitchen hadn't seen a decorator since the Eighties, which was around the time when Sara's mother had died.
"Yeah - that's just it. You had some work done to your house before you moved in, right?"
He was surprised she remembered. *He* barely remembered. Then again, he'd been in no mood to consider such trivial things as kitchen counters and decking - or he would have done it himself. Instead, he just handed it all over to someone else. "I did. Do you want their number? They were good." Well, nothing had fallen apart. The kitchen was still in working order and the back deck had served him well.
"Great. Thanks, Jack. I appreciate it."
His address book was lying by the phone cradle and he leafed through it, trying to remember the name of the company. Cheyenne something? He flicked past the 'B's, mentally chanting 'C... C... C....' until he located a number in his inimitable black scrawl. "Oh. Here it is." He read out the number slowly and he could hear her murmuring it to herself as she memorized it. Sara had always been adept with numbers. "Pretty sure they're still in business. I saw one of their trucks the other day."
"Wonderful."
Carter walked back into the room and dropped down on the couch next to him. The DVD was still on pause and she stared at the screen fixedly. She'd tidied up her hair, he noticed, and some of the flush on her cheeks had died down.
Shame.
"Hope it goes well, Sara," he said, distractedly.
"Me too. Thanks again."
"S'okay. Bye."
"Bye."
He slotted the phone back in its cradle and threw the address book onto the coffee table. "She wanted the number of the guys who fixed up my house."
Casually, Carter toyed with a few strands of hair. "Oh?"
"Yeah." He cleared his throat and reached for the DVD remote. On the screen, two characters were paused in what appeared to be some overly well lit sex scene.
His finger froze over 'play' and he slowly lowered the remote back onto the coffee table. "Maybe we should have ... gone out somewhere," he suggested, pulling his eyes away from the scene.
Carter wiggled uncomfortably. "This is kinda awkward, isn't it?"
He smiled wryly. "A bit."
"Um." She looked at her watch - a move that spelled instant doom to Jack. His eyes widened; she wasn't thinking of leaving, was she? "We could go catch a movie."
"We haven't even seen this one," he pointed out. "Wanna watch the movie from the beginning?"
She nodded and curled up her feet onto the couch. "Yeah, good idea."
"Cool." He reached for the remote and hit 'menu', selected the 'play from start' option, and then paused the movie as he recalled that there had been a bowl of popcorn... somewhere. "You seen the popcorn?"
"Oh." The long legs uncurled. "I think I left it in the kitchen."
"I'll get it." He started to stand up, but stopped when she put a hand on his thigh.
"I'll do it. Do you have any sodas?"
"There should be a couple in the fridge." Along with the wine he'd run out and bought just before she'd arrived.
He watched her walk out of the sitting room and then, well, he did a very small dance of triumph on the couch.
Carter came back, bowl of popcorn in one hand and two sodas cradled in the other. The popcorn and the sodas went down on the coffee table nearest to them but when she headed back for the other end of the couch, he grabbed her free hand. Raising one eyebrow at him, she let him coax her down next to him, virtually in his lap, in fact.
He put his arm around her shoulder and she shifted about until she was comfortably pressed against his side.
"You know," she began, "I like having messages on my answer machine."
Jack grinned. "You do?"
"Makes me feel popular."
"I'll make sure to leave you some tomorrow." Lots of messages. Hopefully ones with excellent sentence construction.
"I'll look forward to it. What's this film called again?"
He pressed 'play' and decided that the popcorn was too far away and he was too comfortable to bother reaching for it. "I don't know. But I distinctly recall you saying you didn't care so long as it had Colin Firth in it. I don't even know who Colin Firth *is*."
Carter mock-gasped and one long arm reached out and grabbed a handful of popcorn. "Blasphemer."
He smiled happily to himself. He liked it best when she teased. And this was nice. This was very date-like. *Normal*. He'd always appreciated normal.
Plus, he hadn't put his foot in his mouth in at least two hours which was, frankly, miraculous.
"Well, would you look at that," Carter murmured around a piece of popcorn.
He stared at the top of her head and decided that sniffing her hair wasn't entirely out of the question. He snuck some popcorn out of her hand. "What?"
She pointed at the screen, where the credits were rolling. "Mary Steenburgen."
Jack's head swiveled, exorcist-like. "No way!"
She nodded. "Yup."
"This is the best movie *ever*."
"You dork, we haven't even seen it yet."
"If it's got Mary Steenburgen in it, it's gotta be good."
Carter snorted. "I'm no longer listening to you."
"I have a very healthy respect for Mary Steenburgen," he explained patiently as the camera panned in on a busy city street.
"Good God, Jack, just shut up and watch the movie."
Story Notes: Spoilers: Vague, non-descriptive ones for the season finale (The Lost City), based on Gateworld spoilers and speculation on my behalf. And one spoiler for Season 8 but otherwise its just stuff I've made up. Heh.
A/N: Thanks to Karen and Melly.
Also available here: http://www.randomleaves.com/fanfic/healthyrespect.html
A/N: Thanks to Karen and Melly.
Also available here: http://www.randomleaves.com/fanfic/healthyrespect.html
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 ]