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Story Notes: The Whole Affair 9: Dedication: For Heather, who gets Showtime... even if she doesn't like 'Into The Fire'


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"Chances are you'll find me somewhere on your road
tonight, seems I always end up drivin' by, ever since
I've known you it just seems you're on my way, all
the rules of logic don't apply."
~ Bob Seger with Martina McBride, "Chances Are"

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We restrain ourselves admirably, and by that I mean we keep our hands off each other off-world. Daniel and Teal'c are our friends, our best friends, but they can't know about this any more than Hammond.

It's harder at the base. There are so many secret little rooms - empty quarters, closets, supply rooms - and the temptation to use them, to drag Sam in with me and loose myself in her, is incredible. But our one close call in the infirmary last week sufficiently scared us from trying anything. I'd cut my arm... Sam came in to check on me... there was no one else there and things got a little out of hand. If Janet hadn't bumped into a airman in the corridor just outside, alerting us of her presence... I don't want to think about it.

So we limit our extra-curricular activities to home, or, more accurately, my place.

I don't know what she tells Rick, how she explains it when she's not home until after midnight, when she's been at my place. Then again, she was at work quite a bit even before all this started, including overnighters on other planets, so I suppose in her husband's eyes not much has changed.

Rick... I try not to think about him, because when I do I get this hollow, sick feeling in the pit of my stomach. One half of me still hates him, because he's the one who gave her that ring on her finger. He's the one she 'belongs to'. But the other, more sensible half feels nothing but pity for him. Between our missions and our trysts, Sam spends more time with me than she does with him.

It's not just about sex. I love Sam too much, respect her too much, to let it just be about sex. I won't use her like that, and she won't either. If it ever came to the point where we didn't talk, didn't have fun, didn't lay together afterwards, arms around each other, whispering conspiratorially of all manner of things... well, I couldn't handle it. I couldn't take it if I knew that Rick was getting her spirit and I was left with her body. But that's not the case, and I'm so glad.

She doesn't usually stay long. Lately, we've been leaving the SGC earlier - finally I have some incentive to finish my paperwork - and we have dinner together. Usually it's at my place; the few times we've eaten out it's been at obscure little joints cities away, and even then I can tell Sam's fearful of being caught, by Rick or by someone who knows him.

We eat dinner, and watch some television, or sometimes we just talk. I'd forgotten how strange and... refreshing... it is to talk about something OTHER than work. We talk politics, even though we don't really see eye-to-eye there. We talk entertainment - "Did you see Friends last Thursday?" "No, but I got the highlights from Teal'c". And we talk about more personal stuff, too. How I ended up in the military. Sam's mother's death. And, once, about Charlie.

And when we can't think of anything else to talk about, we go to the bedroom, and for all too short a time put all those foolish things aside and give ourselves over to the other. That's when I can truly forget, about Sara, about Rick. That's when I can honestly tell myself that we're in love, which makes this okay. The end justifying the means and all that.

It's only later, when she's curled against me, asleep, that doubts start to surface. That I start feeling like scum... for lying here with someone else's wife and trying to pretend that it's all right. For lying when Danny wants to get together for the weekend, and I tell him I have errands to run. For... for everything.

But I can't make myself feel bad enough to stop doing it.



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Sam and Rick both take some vacation time, and leave for a week at Valentines Day.

I'm left with Daniel and Teal'c.

It's been almost four weeks since that Saturday, and I've grown out of habit with this 'boy's night in' kind of thing. No matter; soon I'm back in the swing of things. Sports! Beer! Manly men types of things!

Daniel sneezes.

I pitch the Kleenex box at him.

"Thanks."

Teal'c has, as usual, claimed the remote, and he's engrossed in some Lifetime women's movie about a girl who thinks she's been adopted but eventually discovers that she was kidnapped. I sit up straight in the chair. If I'm following the plot, I must be really bored.

I go into the kitchen and open the fridge, searching for another beer. The bottle of wine that Sam brought over that night still sits in the door tray.

Sam...

She should be back from California in two days, I remind myself. And what then? Will she have realized that she really does love Rick, as she's maintained all this time... that she loves him more than she loves me? Will she have told her husband why she's been spending all these nights away from home? Will she admit to all of it? And what if she does? I have military training on my side, but if Rick really wants to hurt me, he's younger, bigger, and he has Neanderthal instinct on his side as well. He'll do what he feels in necessary to protect what's his. In short, he'll kill me.

At least then there'd be something on his damn record.

There's babbling from the living room. Apparently Daniel changed the channel during commercial, as Teal'c is none too pleased. I sigh and close the refrigerator. All my problems should be so trivial.

Someone knocks on my front door. I hold my breath, wondering if Daniel and Teal'c heard, but no, they're still locked in debate over Television For Women and The Learning Channel. I sprint to the door, and open it.

Déjà vu. There stands Sam.

She's dressed warmly - long sleeves, a corduroy jacket and a gray fleece cap pulled down over her ears - and she's grinning wildly at me. Instinctively, I return the grin, and when she bounds inside and wraps her arms around my neck, I reflexively welcome her zealous kiss. Christmas in February, it seems. "What are you doing here?" I whisper, mindful of the boys in the other room as I close the front door.

She beams. "I told Rick I wasn't feeling well, and we left a couple days early." She seems proud of herself.

"Where does he think you are now?"

"He had to go to his office to pick up some mail." Rick's office, which he shares with a psychiatrist and a dream psychoanalyst, is about an hour away. "And I told him I might go over to Janet's." Conveniently, Rick does not have Janet's number.

I shake my head at her slyness. "All for me?"

Sam raises an eyebrow. "Mmm... don't flatter yourself," she advises me, and then presses her body against mine again, grabbing my head roughly and kissing me like there's no tomorrow. This is one of the things I love about Sam... she doesn't need to be wooed. And she doesn't feel it necessary to woo me, either. Which is just fine.

Then I remember: Teal'c and Danny came home with me straight from the base. Meaning there's no other cars in the driveway. Meaning she doesn't know they're here. "Uh, Sam?" I mumble against her lips. "We have company."

She jerks away, eyes wide. "Who?"

"Daniel and Teal'c."

Sam glowers, rips off her fleece hat and smacks me with it, fiercely. "When were you going to tell me about this?"

"I don't know... I kinda wanted to see the look on Daniel's face when he saw-"

"When I saw what?"

Daniel strolls into the entryway and we both jump, though Sam recovers almost immediately. "Hey, Daniel."

"Hey." He seems surprised to see her, even as he hugs her briefly. "I thought you were still on vacation."

"We got back a little early. I called around, couldn't find you or Teal'c, so I decided to stop by."

Daniel's eyes dart between us. "Um, why?"

A millisecond of panic flashes in her eyes. Dear God, he suspects. Doesn't he? Or am I imagining...

"I got you guys some stuff," she blurts ingeniously. "From Disneyland. But I left it at home. I was halfway here when... and I figured I'd just stop by and see how you guys are doing."

"Ah." Danny seems to swallow it, smiles, and then turns to me. "Jack, we're gonna go. I have that meeting with Doctor Ruben tomorrow morning and I don't want to be a zombie."

I have no idea what he's talking about. "Oh, okay." Ride, oh yeah. "You want me to take you?"

"Naw, it's okay... I'll just call a cab."

Fifteen more minutes of admirable restraint passes. First words out of Teal'c mouth were, and I quote: "Major Carter... what did you get me?"

Then Daniel and Teal'c are out the door.

Sam smiles.

I'll feel like scum later. But now...



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The End.




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