Clichés
Clichés have never applied to them.
After all, you can't really swoon with delight when you're on a mission, can you? Apart from being very impractical, it's also rather...well...demeaning.
She feels guilty for never having 'tingly feelings' around him - the ones that are supposed to signify 'love'. Then she feels angry at herself for believing that she needs to feel that way.
Oh, sure, she still remembers the bright intensity of wanting him, of needing his tongue in her mouth, his hands on her waist, his body in hers - the impulse might have been virally-induced, but the passion of the moment remained long after the incident was pushed to the back of her memory.
Still, in her maturity, she knows that wanting and loving are very different things.
In a way, she's relieved that it was never 'passionate' between them. Passion flares and consumes. Passion eats at the mind and heart. Passion dies.
She learned that with Jonas. Jonas-the-unspoken-of. The fiance she's almost forgotten from those long-ago days when she'd just made Captain and was drunk with pride at her accomplishments.
She learned that with Martouf. Or rather she never learned it with Martouf - the faint memory of Jolinar's disillusionment with her lover remained among the fragments the Tok'ra left behind. The Tok'ra relationship began in passion and desperation and the early years of their relationship were marked with arguments and fights. It was only as time smoothed out the jarring spikes of intense emotion that they fell into a pattern of habit and care that was no less powerful for it being familiar.
Familiarity does not always breed contempt.
They became familiar long ago, through the need to stick together. Both human, both military. Trained in the same ways, thinking the same thoughts, coming from the same angles - even if their disciplines were vastly different.
Small things at first, the trust between comrades and men-and-women-at-arms, reliance on each other, as they similarly relied on Teal'c and Daniel. Learning each other's strengths and weaknesses and striving to restrain where a need was already met and to fill the gaps where the others did not measure up to what they needed to be - as officers of the USAF and as a team.
A team - both of four, and of two - learns to rely on each other in their work. And, over time, given the right conditions and circumstances, you grow together - towards each other.
The warp and weft of the cloth that binds them is multi-layered. More than mere passion or the feelings of the moment. They are there, but she doesn't give them any credence. They will come and go with time and mood and proximity. The strength of their bindings lies in other ways.
She has learned to trust his leadership, he is a hero to her and many others and much-admired. But those who admire him openly or subtly do not see the mere man behind the hero. He is not perfect: not in character or in morals, in personality or in action. But he does not ask perfection of himself - only success in what he sets out to do: to protect the people he considers under his care and to serve his planet and his country.
She has learned to be trusted, to be relied on by this man. So much so that it is second-nature to him - an automatic assumption that she can fix what he needs her to fix, solve what he needs her to solve. And while the assumption is presumptuous among some, it is the highest of compliments among soldiers, the deepest trust in her capability to do the job.
And now she will have to learn to trust herself and her judgement. She will have to learn to command and conquer her own demons of old insecurity and uncertainty. She will have to put into practise all the things she learned in her years of serving under him and know that the responsibility lands on her shoulders.
After seven years, he has decided that enough is enough.
He knows he will never make the rank of General. He knows that his body cannot keep up the pace. He knows that his time in the SGC is ended.
She knows that he is afraid they feel he is letting them down.
She knows they do not.
Over in the corner, nursing a coke and arguing Greek philosophy with one of the nurses, Daniel has an air of relief about the Colonel's retirement. She never asks him what happened when he saw the Colonel imprisoned in Ba'al's fortress. She never asks him why he couldn't break the Colonel out. But she's seen the concern in his eyes this last year as he worked with them again - the faint frown that shadowed his expression as the toiling got harder and the Colonel grew more weary. He'd seen things that the rest of them hadn't, and those things worried him.
Teal'c is explaining Jaffa tactics to one of the Majors whose team has been trying new manuevres against Jaffa patrols. He will miss the Colonel - they had more in common with each other in history and mindset than they did with the rest of the team. But Teal'c knows that there comes a time when the body fails and cannot be fully utilised, and he understands that when abilities begin to fail to meet the challenges a soldier faces, the soldier must either be prepared to step back from the fight or risk those who follow him in strength and weakness.
General Hammond is leaning against the counter and chatting with the barman. His eyes range around the room, reading his people, keeping an eye on them. He drinks a light beer - they are off duty - and observes his people with affection. She has wondered if the Colonel's retirement might start the General thinking about the way he would like to spend his own twilight years, but she suspects he has fewer activities outside work with which to occupy himself.
Jonas is sitting with Lieutenant Rush quite openly on his lap. Sam isn't sure how an interplanetary romance works, but both parties seem to be happy with it, and her curiousity isn't great enough to actually ask how it goes. She chatted with Jonas earlier - she'll have to catch up with him more, there are a few ideas for new tech developments she wants to run by him. That'll happen later. Or maybe tomorrow. If the hand he has curled over the Lieutenant's thigh is any indication, he'll be staying the night on Earth and going back tomorrow - and Lieutenant Rush will probably be a very tired, but very satisfied woman.
And the Colonel is sitting amidst his peers - other Colonels and Majors who have led or are leading SG-teams through the gate. He has moved around from group to group tonight, a word here, an opinion there, lightly socialising with the various people who've come to the party - some closer to him than others, but all welcome.
He hasn't yet spoken anything more to her other than what he uttered when she first arrived. "Carter. Glad you could make it." And a brief smile.
She turns her attention back to the conversation taking place around her - the female officers from the base discussing family pressures in their line of work. An old discussion and one that Sam has never been able to join. Her life is her work - her work and her friends. Her brother is an absent figure, her father serves the Tok'ra - the men of SG-1 have been more like family to her than her own family. They are the people she turns to in a crisis - the people she takes comfort from at the end of the day. The people she trusts with her life, her sanity, and her credit cards. Friendship is merely a bonus.
Her professional loyalty was bound up in the Colonel from the first day she met him. She knew of him from his reports, and it only took one mission to know that here was a man she could trust with her life.
It took years to be sure that here was a man she could trust with her heart.
He has gained her personal loyalty, to the point where she will break rules for him - he would do the same for her, and each of them has done so.
She doesn't know where things lead from here. There have been hints and insinuations from various people, some subtle, some not.
None of the hints has come from him.
It doesn't bother her that he hasn't asked. He will in his time, and if he doesn't, her life will go on.
There is a school of thought that states that if your heart does not break, if you feel no great emotion, then what you feel cannot be all that important anyway. The strength of attachment is considered to be rooted in the push and shove of feeling, not in the anchor of commitment.
Feelings come and go. Commitment, once made, does not - unless you choose that it should.
And when you are committed to someone - to an organisation, to a team, to a command, to another person - the feeling is there, but it does not control you.
And that is why others fail to understand what is between them.
"Well, Sam's got her attention somewhere else," someone says laughingly from across the table, and she blinks herself back into the conversation, the centre of their attention.
"Probably on what happens when the party finishes," teases someone else.
"So, Sam," one of the women leans in, a conspirator's air about her. "Give us the dirt. What's the real deal between you and Colonel O'Neill?"
The answer they get is the same as the answer they get every time this question comes up.
The truth.
The general air around the table is of disappointment - but respect. They know the rules and regulations as well as she, they've seen the reasons for them in their daily work at the SGC. But they are torn between what they would like to see as people - the happily ever after - and what they must hold back from as soldiers - emotion that could destroy their teams.
And yes, there is the sense of the 'grand romance' about it all. Sam is well aware of the pull of what is reputedly between her and the Colonel - the yearning for the happy ending.
Would it disappoint them to know that while she has considered it, it has never been half as powerful as they think it must be? Not the way they envisioned it, not the way they imagine it.
Romanticism has a lot to account for.
Her daily joy is in her work - not just in the tasks she performs, but in the people with whom she interacts.
Her joy is in the success of her endeavours at the SGC, in the admiration of her peers, in the respect of her friends.
Her joy is in the presence of her friends and team, their different personalities and the things that bring them joy.
Her joy is in being who she is, where she is, what she is, how she is. Her joy is in living and being alive one more day to fight against creatures like the Goa'uld and against people like the NID, and for the advancement of the human race into a galaxy that is beyond their wildest dreams.
And if he never asked her out to dinner, back to his place, into his room, then her life would not be over.
She committed to him as a leader when he led her on SG-1. She committed to him as a friend when it became obvious that the customary limits of acceptable colleague interaction were not going to cut it for the work they had to do. She committed to him as a man when she realised that he liked her as she liked him.
But even that last does not need to step over the line into the personal, intimate commitment for her to retain her joy and purpose
Joy is more than frissons down the spine - more than romance or sex.
Joy is smiling at his jokes, enjoying his presence and the pleasure it brings, hearing his approval of her as his 2IC, and sensing his approval of her as a woman. Joy is being encouraged to be all that she can be - and more, of discovering that the people you respect have given you wings and shown you the sky. Joy is 'caring' about someone in the daily toil of life, feeling frustrated when they're being blind, and angry when they're baiting you, forgiving when they fail your expectations, and working harder when you've failed theirs.
Would she appreciate his attention? Yes.
Would she reciprocate such attention? Of course.
It doesn't need to happen.
Once again, she has lost the thread of the conversation, musing over her relationship with him. The women laugh at her distraction and she makes a face at them and calls for the next round of drinks.
At the bar, she waits for the attention of the barman. A casual touch at her elbow turns her head. "Hey, Carter."
"Sir."
"Jack."
She rolls her eyes. "Colonel."
"Jack."
"Mister?" She grins.
He mock-scowls at her. "You know you don't have to..."
"I know." She understands that it's a sore point with him that she has never used his name, but it is hard to overcome the habits of many years.
Once everyone called him 'sir' and 'Colonel'. As of midnight tonight, probably only she will call him 'sir' - and that will be as a personal appellation.
She won't ask what he's going to do with the rest of his life. Apart from having had everyone else ask him that question today, she trusts that if he wants her to know, he'll let her know.
"So what are you getting?"
She reels off the list of drinks like a recitation of the periodic table and watches him arch a brow. "Good memory."
Her answer is just a smile and an urge to make light conversation.
"Did you like the present we got you?" A white-water rafting adventure down in Chile, and a four-day trek through the mountains. Daniel nearly drooled on the images of ancient ruins. Sam told him he might get one for his next birthday if he was a good boy. His response was to curl his hands over in 'paws', tilt his head to one side, and drop his tongue out one corner of his mouth - looking like nothing so much as a human dog begging.
"It's great," the Colonel tells her. "Although I don't know about all that cold and wet on the knees..."
"We figured you'd enjoy it, sir. My cousin went last year and had a great time. She came back raving about the trip and with about seventeen rolls of photos..."
"Well, maybe not the photos," he notes with a smile. "I'll be too busy clinging to a rock waiting for my lifesaver to appear."
"They give you lifejackets, sir," Sam responds promptly, trying to ignore the rather interesting thought of the Colonel trapped up against a rock, his t-shirt sticking wetly to his torso and his pants giving his legs the same attention.
Hey, she's celibate, not dead.
"I meant you, Carter."
Her brain takes its sweet time connecting the dots, and even then the picture doesn't register for a couple of seconds. "Oh." She's never really known what to do with compliments. Especially ones from him. "Well, I won't be around to save you, Colonel, so you'll probably have to learn how to do..."
"Actually, I was kinda hoping you'd stick around," he says, hands stuck firmly in his jeans pockets, but his gaze firmly on her face. "Around me, that is. Not to rush anything and if you don't want to, then that's okay, but I was thinking - and I know I don't do that too often, and when I do it can be pretty bad - but I figured that if you were still interested - you don't really have to if you don't want to - you might like to consider..." He falls silent when she keeps missing her cues for encouraging noises, and his gaze drops to the floor. "It was just a thought."
"Yes, ma'am?" The bartender is trying to get her attention, ready to serve her, and if she doesn't get him now then she'll miss her chance and it looks like Lieutenant Lamb is about to place a huge order of drinks, but if she doesn't say something now she'll miss her chance and it looks like he's about ready to walk away...
Not needing something has nothing to do with not wanting it. So she puts one hand out to grab his wrist, lightly shackling him with her fingers as she places the order with the bartender. It's as effective a way of letting him know the conversation is not finished as she can manage at this point in time.
Once she's given the order in its entirety - repeated twice to be sure the barman got it right - Sam glances at him. He is still standing there, his wrist in her hand, uncertain of what she intends to do with him.
Sam is very uncertain about what she's going to say to him - but she'll have to say something.
Her mouth opens. Then it shuts again.
Nope. Nothing.
"Carter?"
Possibilities beckon her on the other side, but the fear of failure yawns between them, a daunting chasm.
"I'd like...I'd like some help with the drinks, sir. If you don't mind." It's easier asking for help than really facing what he's asking and she feels like a coward. She's only brave when it comes to physical action. Taking emotional action is new and terrifying ground, even if she knows what the answer will be.
She leaps and hopes that she hasn't misjudged the distance to the other side. "And I don't mind...staying around."
His hand twists out of the prison of her fingers, closes around her cold hand, and squeezes once. Just once.
She lands on the other side of the chasm, jarred to her eye-teeth, but still soul-whole. She feels like panting, like screaming in exhilaration. Small steps, small victories, small parts to make a journey, a success, a whole.
He drops her hand and leans on the bar beside her, the familiar half-mocking smile on his lips and in his eyes. "I really am looking forward to the rafting adventure, Carter. It's just not the usual kind of present given to someone retiring."
"Well, you're not the usual kind of retiree." Several of the drinks arrive and she hands them over to him and points him in the direction of the table of women. When the rest arrive, she pays and heads over to the table where the Colonel is preening - yes, preening! - under the admiring gazes of no less than eight women.
Sam smiles faintly to herself as she passes out the drinks and looks pointedly at the Colonel where he sits on her seat. She's not about to sit on his lap. He should know that.
The grin he gives her as he gets up indicates that he knows it well. "Ladies, enjoy the evening."
"Thanks, Colonel." "Yes, sir." "Enjoy your retirement, sir." "Congratulations."
Sam sits down, the toes of her heeled boots pinching a little, and the inquisition begins.
"So," Beth Reeve inquires, arch as any Southern belle. "You're still quite sure that 'nothing's happening', Sam?"
"If that's 'nothing happening', then I can't wait to see when things happen," Peta Meridian smirks.
"Oh, shut up," Sam mutters, knowing she is flushing and that her response will only fuel the rumours. She changes the topic to discuss Lieutenant Ros Haberfield's pregnancy and career paths after motherhood. The general consensus is that motherhood is tantamount to career suicide among the officers.
"So, lesson number one when thinking about getting a man," Peta says to the single women at the table as she knocks back her beer, "Make sure he doesn't want kids more than you want your career!"
The conversations drift into small talk and gossip. There's a disagreement about the recent appointment of an 'international' team. "We've done well enough without other countries coming in and messing things up," complains Peta. "It's becoming political - and we already have the politicians in this country trying to get their shoe in the door. We don't need other countries' politicians trying to do the same thing..."
There are varying opinions on this kind of thing, but the general consensus is one of annoyance. The Russian SG-team haven't exactly made any enemies, but neither have they made many friends. Sam has personally experienced the difficulties inherent in coexisting with the Russian SGC personnel and can see trouble looming in the administration of the varying nationalities with their inbuilt prejudice and their different manner of operations.
That's not even considering problems inherent in the chain-of-command under the mountain. If the international personnel are responsible to General Hammond, then they're responsible to the US government - of whom the General is a representative. If they're not responsible to General Hammond, then that's a whole new can of worms.
She doesn't envy General Hammond's job one bit.
And, again, she wonders if the Colonel's retirement hasn't made the General think twice about his own retirement.
When the speeches start, she tucks her thoughts away and concentrates on what is being said. Both Teal'c and Daniel agreed to give speeches, she refused.
Oratory is Daniel's specialty as a one-time academic, and Teal'c learned how to rouse the emotions of those he spoke to in his work as Apophis' First Prime, but Sam's no good at speeches. Oh, she can give a class on wormhole physics, teach spatial theoretics, and explain things that most people can't even study because it gets too confusing; but motivational, encouraging speeches are beyond her.
So she listens with a smile and a laugh for the anecdotes that her team-mates produce and fondly remembers the incidents of which they speak, and the darker, harder times - left out from this recounting - that forged them together.
"And now that you've heard all about Jack's shortcomings as the leader of SG-1 from the civilian side of things," Daniel says cheerfully, "You're going to hear all about his shortcomings from the military side of things. Sam, will you come up here?"
Heads swivel, and the room spins. Daniel's kidding her, right? There was nothing about this in their arrangement. Nothing.
"Come on, Sam. People, give her a hand..."
People are clapping. Daniel is dead. Deader than Tutankhamon. Deader than Hathor. Deader than...than...than something very dead. She'll spike his coffee with an emetic one morning before a long briefing. Or something.
Sam doesn't move an inch. "Sorry, Daniel. It's not going to happen."
"You sure?"
"Quite."
He pouts. It's really quite a charming pout, but Sam's immune to it. "Sure?"
"Very."
He rolls his eyes. "And now you're not going to hear all about Jack's shortcomings from Sam since she's too wussy to come up and take the microphone."
Sam figures Daniel's had too much to drink. His tolerance of alcohol hasn't improved since his descension - in fact, just about nothing's improved since his descension. He's still entirely Daniel. But she doesn't care how stupid she looks, cowering down here, she's not going to go up there - either to list the Colonel's shortcomings or to give a farewell speech.
Besides, there's nothing she can say that Daniel and Teal'c haven't already said.
He's a great commander, a good friend, and a man they've all been honoured to serve alongside.
Amen to that.
The rest of the night consists of various attempts at toasting, which the Colonel swiftly shoots down. He gives a quick thank you to all the people who came along.
"...including those who so kindly got me the white water rafting holiday down in South America," he adds with a smile. "And now, I want to call all my team up. And no, Carter, you don't get to stay seated, and Jonas, that includes you - get your ass up here right now."
Sam rolls her eyes as Daniel grabs her shoulder as he passes, unceremoniously hauling her along beside him. "I'm not going to run out the door, Daniel."
"You weren't going to come up and make a speech," he points out, sotto voce.
"Because I didn't prepare anything. And exactly how good do you think it looks to be making fun of a commanding officer - however retired he may be - when you outrank half the people in the room and they'll be taking your behaviour as an example?"
His expression shows that he hadn't thought about it. "Oh."
"Yes, Daniel, 'Oh.'" Sam shakes her head. His mind might be brilliant, but sometimes her team-mate seems to lack skills in deducing the consequences of basic actions - especially when it comes to military protocols and why they're there.
"As you all know, I'm a man of few words..."
A spate of coughing breaks out amidst the Colonels and Majors sitting at the table of SG team leaders, and assorted people smother laughter - including General Hammond.
"Of. Few. Words." He repeats for emphasis, glaring at his peers, "So, I'll make this brief. It's been an honour to serve with you all. You're all excellent officers and I've been fortunate enough to see you in action, to benefit from your knowledge, and even to get to boot some of you in the ass and add to your education thereof." That last comment is aimed at the young officers giggling over by the bar. "I wouldn't be leaving at all, if it wasn't for the fact that the Doc has informed me I won't be passing any more of her torture sessions." There's laughter from the corner where most of the medical staff are gathered. "Otherwise known as fitness reports."
"Yet you're still going white-water rafting, Colonel?"
"I'm not bedridden yet, Dunfeld!" The Colonel retorts. "And it was a present." He glances sideways at his team. "Anyway, I didn't get up here to talk about my retirement..."
"Although that's what we're here for!" Ferretti yells.
"...or to make fun of Doc Fraiser..."
"Really, sir?" Janet's cynical sally prompts more laughs from the crowd.
"...or even to embarrass my team..."
"Could have fooled us, Colonel," Jonas mutters, and the Colonel points a finger at him.
"...although I'm sure that Jonas wouldn't mind us telling the story about the time he got kidnapped by a bunch of Amazons and found himself strapped to a..."
Jonas' eyes widen and he goes beet-red. Daniel nudges the Colonel, exasperated. "Get to the point, Jack!"
"The point is that I'm incredibly proud to have served with you all, but I'm particularly proud of serving with these guys up on stage. And I just wanted to say that in front of this audience. As if they didn't already know. But what leader could possibly pass up the chance to embarrass their team?"
"You're so thoughtful, Jack."
"I know, Daniel. I really try."
"It shows."
"Get a room already!" someone yells from down in the darkness and Sam doubles over laughing as her team-mates look at each other in revulsion and take a careful step away from each other.
"It wasn't that funny, Carter." The Colonel says, suddenly irritable.
Daniel nudges her ungently, and she suspects that he's leaning against her slightly in reaction to the unseen person's innuendo that he and the Colonel might be romantically or sexually attracted to each other. It's understandable, but his sexuality issues are not her problem. She likes Daniel, she really does. He's a wonderful friend and everything...but if he lays one hand where he shouldn't, he's going to get himself bitchslapped.
"Anyway, I know the guys have done a good job of singing my praises, so I just wanna say that these last seven years serving with these guys have been the best. I am proud to have commanded these guys, or," with a pointed look at Daniel, "Occasionally influenced them as it sometimes happens. When I first got command of them, I'll admit, I wasn't too happy about it. But...they've done me proud. And much of what SG-1 has done has had nothing to do with me and everything to do with them."
"Jack's getting sappy," Daniel mutters into her ear, and she turns her head a little to give him a small, wry smile.
"And if Carter and Daniel would wait until they were off the stage to do their canoodling..."
Oh, he's dead for that. Bad knees and ex-commanding-officer notwithstanding, she's going to make him pay.
"...then maybe we could get a group photo?"
They assemble themselves with some shuffling. The Colonel is in the middle with Sam and Daniel on one side, and Jonas and Teal'c on the other. Photos are duly taken, and nobody lays hands where they shouldn't.
No more speeches are given, no more embarrassments are perpetrated, she escapes back to her corner with the girls and manages to refuse all dance requests from Daniel, Jonas, Lieutenants Simmons and Grogan, and assorted scientists from the labs. Peta rescues her from Felger, and Lieutenant Haley launches into a convoluted discussion of multi-directional wormholes and theta values as Major Brereton sits down to chat Sam up. For all that, it looks like the Major is not to be deterred until Daniel practically flings himself into her lap with a slightly tipsy, "Sam loves me - don't you, Sam?"
Several people at the table choke on their drinks, and Sam smiles sweetly. Only the thought of the huge hangover Daniel will sport tomorrow keeps her temper in check. She appreciates Daniel's consideration in trying to get her off the hook with the Major, but there had to be a dozen other avenues for dissuading the man!
Daniel is peeled off her - although he seems to feel that she needs protection from the people who drift by and talk to her in passing or in purpose, and sits very close beside her. Of the people who speak with her, some are just being friendly, others are fishing for information. She talks easily to the former and politely to the latter, and endures the teasing from those she considers her friends.
One of the older Lieutenants practically drags Daniel off Sam and onto the dance floor, and the others engage in various conversations as Sam sits and studies the room.
The size of the retirement party has thinned considerably. There's no sign of General Hammond, and most of the SG-team leaders - the married ones - have gone home to their wives and children. The younger lieutenants and captains have left - quite possibly to go nightclubbing.
Peta Meridian comes back to the table to pick up her jacket. "Beth and me are heading out, Sam. At our advanced age, we need our beauty sleep."
"Have a good night," Sam responds easily, smiling at Peta's lightheartedness.
"You too!" Peta turns away, then pauses and turns back with a wicked grin. "Don't do anything I wouldn't do!"
Sam glares briefly at the other woman, and Peta leaves in a hurry, pausing to kiss the Colonel on the cheek without even the faintest trace of self-consciousness.
Sometimes, Sam has to admit, she envies the people who can interact without every move being analysed and reasons speculated as to what it might mean.
And other times, she considers that part and parcel of who she is and her role in the life of the SGC.
She's pondering going home when the Colonel sits down opposite her, a faint smile on his face.
"Carter."
"Sir."
"Actually, it's 'Jack'." He's obviously been waiting to say that.
"Sorry, sir," she responds, unrepentant, even when he makes a face. She drink the last of her beer and sets her hands down on the table. "Have you enjoyed yourself?"
There's that smile. The one full of good-humour and wry amusement, and incredible tenderness. The one she's only seen a couple of times before. "Oh, yeah."
To escape the smile, she glances around the room, looking for the familiar shadowy figures of their team-mates. She can't see Daniel or Teal'c, but Jonas has Lieutenant Rush on his lap again, and Sam's pretty sure that Jonas has his hand under the Lieutenant's skirt.
She looks away, back to the Colonel, who's still sitting there, staring at her with that smile. Suddenly, she has this feeling of déjà vu. They've been here before; she feeling uncomfortable, he looking satisfied.
"What?"
He plunks his chin into his hand, still smiling. "Nothin'."
Sam's tempted to look away yet again. She's also tempted to stare back, just because she can.
In the end, the urge to give in to that which she's spent years avoiding becomes too much. So she catalogues the familiar features in her own mind, noting the deepening creases of skin that portend wrinkles, and the faint shadows of scars marking his face.
He has softened in the last couple of years; age and comradeship easing the harsh planes of his face.
And she has been honoured in knowing him, being trusted by him,
There is no urge to drift closer, no particular desire to finish the night - or start it - with a kiss.
She feels her own smile beginning, infected by his own private amusement.
The noise around them fades. Then Sam realises that the silence is not in her mind, but in the breathless expectation of the remnant of people from the party.
A glance around shows that they are all staring at her and the Colonel, and warm embarrassment sweeps over her - like stepping out into a Texas summer.
When she looks back at the Colonel, he hasn't moved. At least, he's still staring at her with his chin leaning against his hand and that smile on his face. And that smile is rapidly turning into a full-fledged shit-eating grin.
He doesn't say anything, and so neither does she.
Someone starts tapping their beer glass with something hard. Others join in, finding keys or pens to create the clink-clink-clink that is a signal for a kiss.
That rouses him.
He turns to the other inhabitants of the bar, "Don't you guys have anything else to do?"
"This is way more fun, Jack!" Ferretti hollers, and Sam stares down at the rings of condensation on the table top.
She's really not sure she can do this. To admire the man is all very well, but with him comes a whole heap of baggage from his past. And then there's the matter of dealing with the baggage regarding their professional lives together on SG-1.
Ferretti is only one of those who likes the idea. There are others, less forgiving, more rigid in their views, who see her as the woman who slept her way to prominence. Never mind that she and the Colonel, Hammond, the General of the Air Force, the Joint Chiefs, and the President are well aware that there has been nothing between them.
But slander comes with the job of being a woman in a man's world, and innuendo is the inevitable result.
Doesn't mean she has to like it.
Doesn't mean it doesn't hurt.
Doesn't mean she wouldn't avoid further painful slander if she had the opportunity.
She looks up when the Colonel doesn't seem to have anything more to say, and finds him watching her with a too-knowing gaze.
"Are you gonna chicken out on me, Carter?"
He's smarter than he pretends to be, and he knows her too well.
Even back in the early days of their acquaintance, Sam knew that the man before her was the risk-taking kind - mitigated by his training and the aching wounds of experience.
Then, she also knew that while her profile threw up a similar risk-taking aspect, more of her was anchored in the deeply analytical - no bad thing. But it is in her nature to analyse all things - possibly to the point of over-analysing them - before acting.
Now, she wonders if she can truly do this, or if she is better off just avoiding him entirely.
His hand reaches out halfway across the table, apparently just randomly placed there, but Sam has learned that very little of what this man does is random. He is a strategist to the core, and an opportunist where an opening presents itself.
But in this, he's always left the choice up to her.
She can walk away.
She can.
Still, if there was one thing her father taught her over the years, the weight of sacrifice weighs ounces and is easily discarded, but the weight of regret weighs tonnes and can never fully be removed.
Would it be worth walking away to regret this?
To regret having been within ten inches of reaching out to touch the hand of man whose honour and duty bound them in a holding pattern for seven long years.
Even the biblical Jacob earned his beloved Rachel after seven years.
And is he her 'Rachel'? Is she his?
Would it be worth walking away to regret this?
No.
Never.
So she reaches out across the table, turning his hand over so it lies palm up, and runs her fingers gently down around the crease that starts between index and thumb and curves through the centre of the hand to end at the wrist. "I'm considering it."
"What can I do to persuade you otherwise?" In another man's voice, maybe it would be overt innuendo, but it's a question, slightly curious, gentle and understanding. "Is there anything I can do to persuade you otherwise?"
Her lips curve with a faint smile. "Breakfast tomorrow morning." He blinks, and she sees the shock ripple lightning-fast across his face, and her smile turns to a wider grin as she qualifies. "Is 0700 too early to arrive for a morning visit to a retired man?"
Slowly, shock gives ground to amusement. The Colonel - retired! - appreciates that she is willing to come thus far, but no farther. Not yet. And, judging by the way his fingers close about her hand - awkwardly, granted, but with the grip of possession - he doesn't mind the gradual development.
"Make it 0830," he tells her.
They smile at each other, in concordance as they have rarely been out of it.
And when he turns the questions along the lines of what she would like for breakfast and into her plans for tomorrow, she answers with only trace remnants of embarrassment. Her body and mind are too accustomed to keeping to the lines, and the old instincts still hold sway over her immediate responses.
Not for long.
They get into a discussion about the merits of hockey ("Violence, passion, blood, and pucks...what's not to love?") compared with the merits of baseball ("You follow the Giants because of J.T. Snow? Carter, have you no taste?" She eyes him. "Evidently not, sir." He shuts up.) and he cozens her into staying around tomorrow afternoon to watch the Giants-Cardinals game on the sport channel.
Sam's happy enough to be talked into staying, and he adds that she should bring along that book she loaned him a couple of years ago - the one he never got through and returned. She doesn't mention that she loaned him several and only ever got one back.
But secretly, she smiles.
After some time talking, she gets up to go home, and he follows her to the door of the bar.
"0830?" He sounds a little anxious as if she might renege on it.
Sam glances up at him in reassurance. "Sure, sir."
"Jack."
She smiles and doesn't answer his insistence. Instead, she reaches up to kiss him lightly on the cheek in a moment of recklessness and leaves before he can reciprocate in kind.
The parking lot is cold and the world is strangely peaceful tonight, bereft of the usual tension that accompanies the knowledge that they are at war.
They have been loyal to each other 'in battle and in life' as Teal'c would say. The attraction between them has been largely unexplored until this moment - but they have known of the potential for a long time. Then was not the time to act on it as they would have liked - to explore the potential and the possibility.
Now is the time.
Tomorrow, she will have breakfast with the man she loves - even if she hasn't kissed him, hasn't caressed him, hasn't made love to him until he is incoherent with want and need - and they will sit, eat, and speak in mutual respect, loyalty, and interest. And maybe there will be more and maybe there will not.
She has 'loved' him long - in the verb form of the word, where action is fitted to purpose and the declarations are not empty. He has 'loved' her long in the same manner, showing the same loyalty, trust, belief, and hope.
The feelings they engender within each other is not the core of their 'love' - the commitment they have developed to each other - first professional, now personal - is what armours them; a will as strong as trinium determined to hold fast to even the possibilities of what they might have.
Love as 'feelings' is a cliché of the highest order.
And, after all, the clichés have never applied to them.
FIN
Story Notes: CATEGORY: Vignette, thoughts, romance
SPOILERS: Nothing really specific, vague mentions of events from 'First Commandment' 'The Tok'ra', 'Abyss', and 'Homecoming'
SEASON/SEQUEL INFO: Future Season
CONTENT WARNING: Jonas has his hand up someone's dress...but other than that, nothing explicit
AUTHOR'S NOTES: Too much weird shit going on among SJ ficwriters lately. Not enough good SJ romance happening. It's not fluff - I don't think I can quite manage pure fluff - too much intellectual thought involved, but it's definitely got fluffy angles. You won't cough up a furball, but you might just smile.
SelDear@bigpond.com
DATE: 20th July, 2003
SPOILERS: Nothing really specific, vague mentions of events from 'First Commandment' 'The Tok'ra', 'Abyss', and 'Homecoming'
SEASON/SEQUEL INFO: Future Season
CONTENT WARNING: Jonas has his hand up someone's dress...but other than that, nothing explicit
AUTHOR'S NOTES: Too much weird shit going on among SJ ficwriters lately. Not enough good SJ romance happening. It's not fluff - I don't think I can quite manage pure fluff - too much intellectual thought involved, but it's definitely got fluffy angles. You won't cough up a furball, but you might just smile.
SelDear@bigpond.com
DATE: 20th July, 2003
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 ]