Feeling not a little awkward, Jack carefully shifted her in his arms as her weight began to make his back twitch in complaint. She wasn't particularly heavy, in fact the last time he'd carried her she'd been a few pounds heavier, but then again she'd been covered in mud at the time and her clothes had been soaked.
On this occasion, however, he wasn't pulling her out of some Godawful alien bog. She wasn't unconscious. He wasn't rescuing her in the proper manner of a CO looking out for his team. In actuality, he had very little to do with the fact that Carter was in his arms.
Really.
On this occasion, he was completely innocent.
Leaning her against the wall he was able to gain access to his right hand so he could reach into his pocket and fish out his keys. She'd... well, jumped on him only a minute or two after he'd climbed out of his truck and since she hadn't seemed able to talk - or at least respond to his short and fairly confused questions - he'd felt the only thing to do was to get her into his house. He had no idea how she'd got to his house in the first place. He hadn't seen her car outside, nor had he heard a cab drive up and if there was anything Jack had practiced on that alien moon, it was the ability to listen and listen hard.
Keys found, he shuffled over to his door, trying to keep Carter's weight balanced as he peered over her shoulder in search of the keyhole. He couldn't see anything; Carter's shoulder was blocking his view.
Keeping a sigh to himself - did she really have to climb all over him to demonstrate her feelings? couldn't she just have told him she'd missed him, given him a kiss or something? - he felt out the keyhole with a finger first before he jabbed the key in the general direction of the lock. Finally, he caught it and he swiftly opened his door.
Ah. The smell of a musty house.
Jack could sense a spring clean in his immediate future.
He kicked the door closed behind him and threw his keys into a nearby drawer, hoping to God that his back and legs didn't give out and he'd drop her on the floor.. "Carter, since you're here, I guess you can help me clean my house," he said, trying to keep his tone light and professional - ignoring the fact that she was currently clinging to him.
She didn't respond.
Jack heaved her up in his arms again, since she'd slipped uncomfortably down his body, and he walked through the living room and into the kitchen. He had some groceries in his truck - things like frozen pizza, fries and chips; nothing green or remotely vegetable-like - but Carter's arrival had put a stop to any thoughts he'd had of bringing the bags in.
Still, he knew that there were probably things growing in his fridge after his unexpected absence. Certainly the cold dogs that he'd left so abruptly after Maybourne's arrival were probably crawling around by now. He needed to remove everything and clean out the fridge before he could unpack his groceries. And Carter was very definitely in the way.
"Okay, I'm gonna just slide you on here," he said, walking to one of the kitchen counters, which was about the right height for him to put Carter down without much hassle. He perched her on the edge of the counter and waited, hopefully, for her to release her hold around his neck and unwrap her legs from his waist.
She did. Reluctantly, her arms and legs falling to their natural places, releasing him. His body suddenly chilled with the loss of body heat.
Jack studied her for a moment. She didn't look like she'd been crying - her face was tanned, no doubt from spending so much time on the planet searching for him and her blue eyes were clear and bright against the darker color of her normally pale skin. Hair was mussed, also not unusual. In fact, he would have said she looked remarkably calm considering she'd all but tried to crawl inside him a few moments ago.
On impulse, he ran his hand down the side of her head, stroking his thumb over the soft skin by her ear. She shivered a little, but otherwise reacted in the most neutral manner possible. Jack let his hand drop to his side and he pulled open the fridge quickly, prepared for the worst.
It was empty.
"What the..." Unless the hot dogs had actually evolved into powerful sentient beings and managed to open the fridge themselves, he didn't see how his fridge could have been empty. He'd had some milk, too. Eggs. Bacon. Some leftover ham. The usual assortment of vegetables in the compartment at the bottom. Where were they? He really couldn't picture the bag of salad muscling its way out of the glass drawer at the bottom and...
Jack glanced at Carter, who was still staring fixedly at him, her expression unmoving. "Did you guys clear out my fridge for me?"
She blinked a couple of times. Then went back to staring, her eyes moving over his face, taking in the details.
He remembered the last time he'd been stranded off-world, someone had gone round to his house and cleared out his fridge, and his freezer. But he'd always assumed it had been Daniel. After all, Daniel had a key to his house for emergencies. Actually, he wondered where that set of keys was. It wasn't like Daniel had given them back before he'd...left. No one else had a set of keys for his house, except for his neighbor down the road.
"Okay, let's go on the basis that one of you, or all of you, came round and cleaned out my fridge for me. Thanks."
Jack slammed the fridge door closed and scratched the back of his neck. He'd had about thirteen showers in the past two days, in between all the routine checkups and inoculations, but the urge to scratch himself all over as if he was still revoltingly dirty hadn't left him. He knew it would go, soon. But it was bugging him that he couldn't get out of the conditioning as fast as he wanted.
"I'm gonna go get the groceries out of my truck," he told her, gesturing over his shoulder to the front of the house. "Don't suppose you'd like to make yourself useful and open some windows?"
Carter remained silent, but Jack saw what he assumed was an agreement in her eyes so he left her alone.
When he came back, carrying the first set of bags, the back door that opened out onto the deck was open, a couple of kitchen windows and a window in the living room.
And Carter was sitting exactly where she'd been when he left. Watching him. Silent. She didn't even look flushed and he knew she would have had to run like the devil to get around the downstairs of his house before he'd come in with the groceries.
Giving her an odd look, he put the groceries down on the table and went off to get the next set of bags. He took a little longer this time - one particular bag broke as he was walking up the pathway and he had to chase cans of beans down the path. He couldn't have been gone more than four minutes, though, but when he came back, the two grocery bags he'd left on the table were empty.
He narrowed his eyes, looked at her, still perched innocently where he'd put her, her palms pressed against the counter.
What the hell was going on with her?
Maybe she hadn't actually missed him, per se. Maybe she'd just missed winding him up. As if he hadn't had enough trouble with Maybourne...
"Clever, Carter. Real clever." He dropped the next set of bags down next to her. "I appreciate the help, though."
She watched as he unpacked, her eyes running over the items he put away. Feeling the need to eat something unhealthy immediately - Fraiser had been feeding him 'nutritious' meals for the past couple of days - he opened the bag of chips and offered her some but she shook her head.
He stood in the middle of the kitchen, munching on the chips, listening to the sound of the kind of Earth silence he enjoyed. The humming of his kitchen appliances, the sound of his own breathing, the crunch of chips between his teeth and outside, the trees rustling in the breeze.
"I kinda want to clean now, Carter," he muttered thoughtfully, mid crunch.
She raised her eyebrows a little.
"Nothing serious. Bit of dusting. Hate dust," Jack told her matter-of-factly. He didn't think he'd ever discussed cleaning with Carter before. "Did you water my plants as well?" Sensing he wasn't going to get an answer, he continued talking, aware that even if she wasn't here he would have been talking to himself anyway, "Well, if you had anything to do with it, I guess you did. They certainly don't look like they're gonna keel over."
She wrinkled her nose a little. Or she could have just taken a really big breath. Carter didn't seem to be all that keen on communicating properly with him and he couldn't think why. She'd never reacted this way before. After Edora, she'd just gone all kinda professional on him. 'Yes sir'd' and 'No sir'd' until he'd been ready to strangle her. He hadn't really understood it at the time, though after the Zay'tarc questioning it had hit him that he'd probably hurt her in truly magnificent Jack-O'Neill-style. It had been unintentional. He hadn't known Carter felt anything remotely un-platonic for him. He'd been pretty certain - or at least had convinced himself - that the feelings had gone one way and one way only.
Whether that would have affected his decision to take things further with Laira, he didn't know. It wasn't as if he and Carter could have anything with each other and it wasn't as if he fully understood his feelings about her. At that time, in the third year of knowing one another, the only thing Jack really knew about his feelings was that when Carter was in the room, his heart beat erratically. When he thought about her, his heart beat erratically. And, occasionally, he'd had dreams about her.
NC-17 dreams.
So, no, Carter hadn't given him the silent treatment last time. But, he decided equably, he preferred this to the constant reminder of his title.
"Wanna help me clean, then?"
*
She cleaned with determination, scrubbing at his bath with both her hands on the cloth, the spray sitting on the soap ledge to her right. She was perched in the middle, legs folded underneath so she could lean forward. He'd felt a little strange letting Carter help him clean his bathroom but since she'd followed him from room to room, he'd had no choice in the matter.
Thankfully, he had a big bathroom.
When he'd finished with the mirrors, he tucked the window cleaner away and turned to suggest that she give up on the bath. There was no way it was going to get any cleaner than it was, but she'd already stopped and he'd managed to catch her staring at him again.
"Carter, what is it?" he asked, reaching out to touch the hand that was clasping the side of the bath.
She pulled her hand away and lowered her head for a moment. He watched her closely, saw her mouth part slightly. He waited, on edge, for the revelation. He knew it had to be something big for her to be acting this way.
Then... nothing. She shook her head and put both hands back on the cloth and continued to scrub.
Fine, he thought. If she wasn't going to speak to him, then he wouldn't make a fuss about it. He'd leave her alone.
"I'm going downstairs to watch some TV. Come down when you're done." He couldn't keep the sharpness out of his voice, though he regretted the use of it.
Carter didn't respond, just kept on scrubbing, her bottom lip pulled tightly between her teeth.
Jack ended up watching some documentary on hibernating animals which, while it wasn't quite The Simpsons, was still entertaining enough to keep his mind off of his 2IC. He wondered if cleaning your CO's bathroom came under fraternization regulations. Probably.
He didn't have to worry. Twenty minutes into the program and Carter came downstairs slowly. She climbed onto the recliner adjacent to the sofa Jack was slouched on and tucked her legs up to her chin. He'd noticed before - years ago - that though Carter was far taller than most women, she had the ability to make herself look very small.
He watched her watch the TV for a while, willing her to talk to him. Hammond had already told him Carter considered it her fault that Jack had been stranded on the alien moon - it had been her zat, after all. Strictly speaking, she'd let her defenses down. She never would have let an alien she didn't know get near her zat gun.
Strictly speaking.
On the other hand, he genuinely didn't think it was her fault. After all, Jack hadn't expected it either. He hadn't been watching Maybourne for any sort of betrayal, and he should of.
If anything, Jack considered it his fault. He shouldn't have believed Maybourne would do anything that wasn't wholly for his own benefit and no one else's. His own mood had put Carter at ease, or as at ease as she got off-world. She picked up his moods better than anyone else, even Teal'c. Better than Sara had ever done, to be truthful about it, though he really tried not to compare the two women.
"Don't suppose you taped the new episodes of The Simpsons for me?" he asked over the smooth melodic voice of the narrator.
She turned her head to look at him, resting her chin on her knee. "Yeah," she said.
Jack had been joking. His eyebrows shot up. "Really?"
"It was Teal'c's idea. He said you'd want to watch them when you came back."
There was an underlying current in her words that Jack was missing and he felt that it was suddenly very important to understand exactly what she was trying to say. "Where are the tapes, then?" he asked, casually.
"At home." She turned her head back to the TV and Jack wondered if she was going to clam up again. He had to keep her talking.
"Didn't think to bring them over?"
She shrugged. "I didn't... I didn't know I was coming over until I was here."
He felt his eyebrows lower automatically. He knew Carter very rarely did anything on impulse so this sounded absurdly out of character. But then she'd hardly been acting normal around him today.
No, that wasn't true. She'd been the epitome of Majorly perfection from the moment the Tok'ra ship had landed on the moon to pick up him and Maybourne. She'd listened calmly to the orders he'd given about Maybourne's relocation, she'd suggested it would be a good idea to let the Tok'ra - Mel? Mol? Shol? - do the healing thing on his leg rather than let Fraiser lock him up for a week. And all the while, Teal'c had been hovering in the background with Jonas, watching.
Jack had assumed Teal'c had been watching him. Brotherly concern and all that. But now that he thought about it, whenever Carter left the room, Teal'c had followed her rather than stay behind with him. Jack wasn't entirely convinced it was him Teal'c had been watching. Maybe it had been Carter.
"Teal'c suggested you should tape The Simpsons?"
Was it his imagination or did Carter's face suddenly tinge with red? She wasn't prone to blushing so this had him considerably worried.
"That was thoughtful of him," Jack said, hoping this would prompt her into some kind of a response.
She didn't respond.
Jack was sensing a theme.
They sat and watched the rest of the documentary in silence. Jack propped his head up on his hand, watching through heavy-lidded eyes. He knew he was going to doze off - he never slept well in the infirmary unless he was doped up to his eyeballs. Maybe he'd get lucky and when he'd wake up, she'd have come to her senses. Then again, maybe when he woke up she'd have gone, which would solve all his problems.
No, he didn't mean that. Not really. It was just that he'd become so used to not dealing with her that actually dealing with her seemed beyond his capabilities.
God knew what would happen when the day came when there were no regulations or no obstacles for them. It wasn't something he liked to think about during the daytime. At night, it was different. At night it was dark, he was usually in bed and his mind and body were soft with fatigue, leaving him susceptible to dreams just as he was equally susceptible to nightmares. But during the day, the possibility became a reality. It became a complication he liked to put off, knowing it was out there somewhere, in the future, to be dealt with when that time came.
The documentary ended with a family of polar bears walking off into the distance and Jack fumbled for the remote, which had somehow slid behind him, under the cushions. "What do you want to watch next?" he queried, accepting, for the moment, that she wasn't about to leave any time soon.
"I don't mind."
He flicked channels and landed on some sitcom which they both watched without a flicker of a smile. When his stomach rumbled he glanced at the clock. How had it got to eight o'clock already? "Hungry?"
She looked at him, her eyes lingering on his face with unnerving intensity. "Sort of."
"I'm thinking... pizza." He grinned his charming grin. The one that always worked on her no matter what. It had worked after Fifth. It had worked, to some extent, after Edora. It would work here. "With fries."
A flicker of a smile lightened her expression considerably. "Janet would have a fit."
"Well, you're sworn to secrecy." He pushed himself off of the couch and stretched, arms held high in the air. He felt cool air brush his stomach and when he dropped his hands back down and opened his eyes, she was watching. But not his face.
Faintly embarrassed, unnerved, attracted, Jack hurriedly walked away. Had she been doing what he thought she'd been doing? Carter never checked him out. *Never*. And if she did, she was way, way more subtle than that.
Jesus.
He switched on the oven and went to open his freezer, searching for the appropriate pizza. Meat Feast. Perfect. No vegetables on that, oh no. No green plants, nothing remotely plant-like at all.
Except... "Carter, you don't mind if we have the meat pizza, do you?" he yelled to her.
"No."
Jack jumped. She was right behind him. "Jesus! You scared the crap outta me!" How had she snuck up on him like that?
She pushed her hands into the back pockets of her jeans, which had the added bonus of thrusting her chest forward. She was looking out the window so he allowed himself a quick look before finding a more calm spot to study on her forehead. He wondered if she'd worn that green tank top under her zip-up sweater deliberately.
No, Jack decided firmly. She probably wouldn't remember that. It had been years ago.
As he pulled out all the baking trays, the pizza cutter, knives and forks, he kept an eye on her. She was wandering around his kitchen, barefooted just like him, looking at things. At first he wondered why but then he realized she'd been in his kitchen before, but not frequently. It wasn't as if SG-1 met up for weekly barbeques or anything. The occasional celebratory drink, maybe. They'd had a birthday party for Teal'c a couple of years ago, once they'd found out his date of birth, but that had been to show him how things were done on Earth. Of course, they'd had one of Daniel's wakes here, too.
"What's this?"
He looked up from the drawer, trying to find the thing that made knives sharper. He generally threw everything that wasn't related to a knife, fork or spoon into one drawer - which he affectionately labeled 'the crap drawer'. Consequentially, he could never find anything in it. "What?" His eyes fell on what she was looking at, a child's picture pinned to his notice-board. "Oh. My niece sent me it."
"Your niece?"
He laughed - sometimes he forgot she wasn't as involved in his life as he thought she was. Sometimes. Sometimes he knew damn well how uninvolved she was.
"She's not really my niece. She's the daughter of one of my old... teammates. Her mother sends me pictures sometimes, usually around the holidays."
She smiled slightly, then the smile disappeared. "I take it her father's....?"
Jack nodded, closed the drawer and guessed he'd have to deal with a blunt pizza cutter. "Yeah. He's... gone."
Carter didn't say anything at that, instead studied more of the things on his notice-board. She seemed particularly interested in the photographs - photos of Charlie. He'd only recently been able to put them up, just a couple of him when he was a baby. She didn't comment on them, though, instead she moved to look out of the window into his back yard, lit up by floodlights. "Do you garden?"
"Occasionally."
"Me too."
"I figured that. Probably less 'occasionally' than me, right?"
"I don't know," she said in the same soft voice she'd used all afternoon and evening. "You go fishing during your downtime. I garden."
"You work during downtime."
"Not always. Usually only on the day you leave for Minnesota and on the day you come back."
Jack stopped dead still, his hand half in the glass cupboard reaching for a couple of glasses. "What did you just say?"
She nodded to the oven, at the indicator that had just gone out. "Oven's ready."
"No." There was no way in hell he was letting that one go. "What did you just say?"
Carter shifted uncomfortably, avoiding his eyes. She went to pour the fries onto the baking tray. "Sometimes I lie to you, that's all."
"You lie to me?"
"Not all the time. Sometimes I really do work through downtime," she said, her words spilling helplessly out of her mouth and shocking him even further. "But usually only when you don't ask me to go fishing."
Jack snatched the damn fries away from her and shoved it in the oven, set the timer to remind him to put the pizza in and turned around. "You use it as an excuse."
She was watching him again, her eyes huge. "Yes. I do. I just thought you should know that." She turned and walked out of the kitchen.
Anger spurring him on, Jack stalked after her and was surprised to find her in his hallway, pulling on her shoes. "Where are you going?"
"Home."
"Home? Do you mean to tell me that's what you came here for? To tell me you lie to me twice, three times a year?" he demanded, his voice escalating as he remembered, in detail, every single time she had refused him. And every single time it had hurt. Irrationally, perhaps, considering the wisdom of his invites, but more so now that he realized she'd been lying to him the whole time.
She straightened and went to the door but he beat her to it and slammed his palm against the paneling, holding it closed.
Her face crumpled and she pressed her forehead against the door. "No. That's not why I came here. I don't consciously lie to you. In fact, I'm so convinced it's the truth when I tell you... I mean, the whole day while I wait for you to leave, while I know you're driving up there, I find myself at work, doing things I tell myself I wanted to do. And it is fun; I love the advancements the SGC has made, I love new technology, I love working on the new technology. I do. It's just... I know it's an excuse. I know why I do it. Because if there isn't work, I don't have an excuse."
"You don't need an excuse, Carter. Dammit, I'm not a monster, you just have to say 'no'."
Carter started shaking her head. "You don't understand."
"Make me understand, for God's sakes."
"Because I can't say 'no'."
He blinked.
It was official - he was completely confused.
The timer began to beep.
Still staring at her, Jack took her hand and dragged her with him, back to the kitchen. "Stay here," he ordered, pushing her none-too-gently up against the counter as he ripped open the pizza and shoved it in the top of the oven. "What do you mean by that?"
"What does it sound like I meant?" she said and this time there was a shake in her voice that suggested she wasn't half as calm as she'd seemed earlier.
To be honest, Jack wasn't feeling particularly calm any more either. "It sounds like..." At least, he'd thought it sounded like... Now he wasn't so sure. "Well, you know what it sounds like."
"No, I don't. I don't know anything when it comes to you."
Jack rubbed his hands against his face. Of all the things to happen to him... He'd always thought Carter had known exactly what was going on in relation to them. She always seemed to have the answers, the restraint. "I know that feeling. Shit, Carter, talk about bringing everything out into the open."
"I'm sorry I make you uncomfortable, sir," she said, staring down at the floor.
"Uncomfortable? Carter, you make me uncomfortable daily. This... this is just confusing." Well, it looked like he was facing up to reality at last. It had come a lot quicker than he'd hoped but there was little he could do about it now. "Come on, let's go sit down. I don't want to remember us having this conversation in the kitchen in front of the pizza."
"And fries."
He rolled his eyes. "Yeah, yeah, Carter, the most serious relationship discussion I have had, discussed over pizza and fries. Let's not forget the fries."
She followed him out of the kitchen. "I hope you set the timer."
END
Story Notes: Email: randomleaves@yahoo.co.uk
Status: Complete
Spoilers: Paradise Lost. General gist of what happened is vaguely important to plot.
Season: 6
Archive: SJD yes
Author's Note: With thanks to the usual suspects, Emry, Kat, Mel and Sandy. And any formatting gliches are the fault of my computer at work.
Status: Complete
Spoilers: Paradise Lost. General gist of what happened is vaguely important to plot.
Season: 6
Archive: SJD yes
Author's Note: With thanks to the usual suspects, Emry, Kat, Mel and Sandy. And any formatting gliches are the fault of my computer at work.
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 ]