Author: Kimberley Jackson
Title: Only One Road
Pairing: Sam/Jack
Category: Romance, Humor
Rating: NC-17
Summary: Set after the events of 8x18 (Threads) / 8x19 (Moebius) and before the beginning of season 9, and explains how Sam Carter and Jack O’Neill finally get together, and why they get reassigned.
Author’s Note: There’s a dustjacket available for this story on my website.
Do you like my stories? Then please support me by visiting (and subscribing to) my official website under http://www.kimberley-jackson.com
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Prologue
How did she end up in this awful situation? How did this good idea turn into a disaster that made her feel nauseous to the bone?
Sam Carter was feeling horrible. Horrible and nervous, and her fingers were clutching the napkin from the table in order to relieve the nervousness somewhere. She needed that, in order to keep that calm look and the smiling expression on her face. It was a mask, but this was the official armed forces Independence Day party, and she was one of the chosen representatives. This was a job. She had to consider it as one. If it just hadn't become so hard; and it was all the fault of this damned McKay guy...
Unwanted Attention
"Jack!" Daniel protested, looking up from his plate of food and keeping the fork in his hand while he was looking at his friend with the usual half-annoyed, half-amused expression on his face.
"Daniel," Jack returned his look, and put one of the French fries from his plate in his mouth. It was one of those rare, calm days where they actually had time to go to the commissary and have lunch together, and as always, the discussion between Jack O’Neill, commanding officer and general of the SG-1, and Daniel Jackson, leading anthropologist slash archeologist of SG-1, got out of hand. The two men, as different as they were, were close friends, even though neither of them would have ever admitted that openly.
Samantha Carter couldn't help but smiling when she saw the stern, mock-ignorant face of her commanding officer, and looked down at her food quickly. Being the correct soldier that she was, she would never dare to openly laugh or even smile about her commanding officer. Even though by now they had built a strong friendship - and emotionally more - and she was sure that he would never hold it against her, she couldn't just shrug years of military training of.
"Jack, you cannot honestly call an artifact that is thousands of years old "a piece of junk"," Daniel started passionately. "That table is probably older than the pyramids, and that world never came in contact with the Goa'ult until about 50 years ago. The secrets..."
"No, Daniel..."
"Jack..."
"Daniel! I am not sending you back on a planet that the Goa'ult may not have been on in the past, but claim for themselves NOW, just to retrieve a piece of junk!" when he saw Daniels outraged expression he lifted his hands. "Fine... a piece of ANCIENT junk. Were you not there on the last mission? You barely got out alive!"
"But don't you wonder why the Goa'ult left them alone all this time? Maybe the writings on the table would give us a clue as to why..."
"Carter!" Jack looked at his 2IC almost desperately. "Care to remind Daniel of how close SG-1 – accompanied by myself as I might want to add - came to getting killed?"
"Actually Sir," Sam looked up, keeping a straight face even though she was highly amused, "I am with Daniel on that one. It would be fascinating to find out why the Goa'ult left the people on the planet alone, and only returned when the population had downgraded to an agrarian lifestyle. It would also be fascinating to find out how exactly that happened."
Jack shook his head almost desperately. "You know... one of these days I'm going to have to teach you two the real meaning of the word 'fascinating'." He exhaled, and then sighed. “Fine, if you can come up with a strategy to get through the gate, retrieve the ---thing--- and get back, preferably without getting killed, turned into hosts or altered in any other way, I will consider – and I emphasize CONSIDER - authorizing it."
"Oh come on Sir, don't tell me you didn't enjoy a little bit of physical exercise!" Sam joked and Jack look at her somewhat grumpy.
"Not if that exercise consists in running from three dozen angry Jaffa warriors and ducking from the fire of their weapons. Besides, if I remember correctly, you were the one saying…"
"Excuse me..." Their banter was interrupted by an all too familiar voice, and all three of them looked up. Sam sighed inwardly.
"Doctor McKay. I didn't know you were back from Atlantis."
"Yes, along with Dr. Weir and some of the others. Since we have debriefings, we will be here about a month. Anyway... I wanted to say hi, since... you know, given our chemistry and all..." He chuckled somewhat arrogantly and Sam turned her head to look down at her food and roll her eyes.
The other two men watched, with a mixture of amusement and confusion, Sam's rather hostile reaction to the obviously unwelcome advances of the man.
"What do you want, McKay?"
"Well, I just wanted to say hi - and tell you that I cannot wait for our date."
"Our… what?" Sam almost dropped her fork and looked up at him in complete bewilderment. For the fraction of a second she considered the possibility of having switched universes somehow in the past seconds? "McKay, what are you talking about? I am not going out with you!"
"Oh... I know..." Rodney McKay laughed. "I know you would never openly admit your deep lust for me. But it came to my ears that you broke up with your fiancé so I figured… you know… I heard that you were going to be one of this year’s donation hosts at the annual Armed Forces Independence Day Party."
"The what?" Daniel interrupted and Sam waved him off slightly annoyed.
"It's that thing, where they auction off people for the evening and the collected money goes to the families of fallen soldiers and the veterans' fund.” Jack explained to him, and then turned his attention back to the very unusual scenario in front of him. He hardly ever saw his 2IC that hostile. Aside from that he could not help feeling slight anger inside when he saw the advances of the scientist with the oversized ego. He knew, he had no right to, since they had not in any way discussed their relationship. That however did not keep him from wanting to wring the man’s neck.
Sam nodded and explained, “They asked me if I was willing to be one of this year’s hosts, and I agreed." Then she turned her head back to Rodney. "What did you do, McKay?"
"Oh, I placed my bid and I am sure nobody will outbid my bid, because... in all humility... it is quite high."
Sam just stared at him, her eyes slightly narrowed, when she, in her mind, though of all the ways that she could possibly kill this man using just her fork.
"Well..." Rodney smiley brightly. "As I said just wanted to say hi and... oh! Wear something nice. You know, I really always had the hots for women in red dresses. Plus you have quite the body, so go for some cleavage and..." When Sam got up abruptly with a dark stare, he stopped and looked at her, taken aback for a moment.
"Whoa..." Jack interfered, having gotten up as well, when he recognized the 'ready-to-kill' expression on the face of his officer, and slowly leaned over, placing his hand on Sam's shoulder. "Let it go, Carter."
Sam looked at him, then back at McKay and relaxed visibly. She realized beating the leading scientist of the Atlantis expedition up in the middle of the mess hall probably wasn't the smartest approach of the problem.
"Well then, Blondie." McKay smiled. "See you on the third of July, which is in - oh, exactly one week! I can't wait."
"Yeah," Sam nodded. "Me neither." It was obvious irony, but McKay didn't even notice. He was convinced as ever that she was secretly having the hots for him.
"I knew it! Maybe we could even spend the night after the auction at my place if you..."
"Doctor McKay," Jack interrupted him darkly, his face showing his command authority and something else – something very dangerous. Daniel noticed it with fascination. "We were having a briefing here, so if you don't mind, we'd like to continue."
"Oh, of course..." McKay nodded and smiled, then looked at Sam. "Well, I guess I see you then, blue eyes."
Sam watched him leaved the mess hall with his usual overly self-confident stroll. She let out a tortured moan and nearly stabbed her fork into the steak on her plate.
"Wonderful."
"What was that all about?" Daniel asked interested. "Did you and him..."
"Daniel! No!" Sam interrupted him before he could even say it. "No. Not even if he was the last guy on the face of earth – or the universe."
"Then how..." Daniel asked, and again Sam didn't let him finish.
"I met him back when Tea'c's pattern was lost in the Stargate. One of the first things he said to me was that he had always had a thing for 'dumb blondes'." Sam explained, and Daniel winced and commented "Ouch".
"Yes, and he was even convinced that he had made a compliment. However, ever since then he's been convinced that there's some kind of mutual attraction between us, and that I have a hard time keeping my hands off of him. Don’t get me wrong, he is a good scientist. He can even be a nice person if he is not a complete… jackass."
"You didn't tell us you were invited to be a host on this year's Independence Day party!" Daniel commented, his eyes still lying on Jack’s face with interest. Jack stared back at him when he became aware of Daniel’s amused look and mouthed a “What?” silently. The archeologist simply grinned at the response and looked back at Sam, who was completely unaware of the silent discourse since she was staring down at her plate, steaming inwardly.
"I didn't want to make a big deal out of it. Initially I didn’t even want to do it, but they were persistent, and it’s for the veterans after all, so I couldn't say no," she commented.
Jack now turned his eyes away from Daniel, and looked at the woman under his command, "So they can just put a bid in on you?"
"Yes, the winners will be announced in the beginning, and I will be the date for the evening for whoever won the bid on me. It is highly professional. Mainly like a meet-and-greet. I expected to spend the evening with a boring scientist who is eager to discuss his research with me. It is really mainly about the donation." She sighed. “At least it was. Now that I know that McKay placed a bid, I guess the thing is going to get a lot more painful.”
Story Notes: Do you like my stories? Then please support me by visiting (and subscribing to) my official website under http://www.kimberley-jackson.com
You can also like my facebook page, or follow me on Twitter, Tumblr or Pinterest to stay up to date with sotry updates and new releases.
You can also like my facebook page, or follow me on Twitter, Tumblr or Pinterest to stay up to date with sotry updates and new releases.
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 ]