Another whiskey. That would do it. He signaled the bartender and ordered his third. Not yet feeling its effects, or rather still feeling too much of other things, he stared straight ahead, slightly aware that some guy had taken the stool two down from his.
The guy glanced at Jack, catching his peripheral vision and nodded. The bartender came back with Jack's whiskey, and the guy ordered the same. He spoke first, "Rough night." It was a question and a statement all in one.
"Yeah." Jack poured the drink down his throat and waited. Hoping for the numbness that wouldn't come.
The guy was obviously a talker, and either didn't notice or didn't care that Jack didn't really seem to respond, "Started out all right."
Jack nodded in agreement at that. It had started out all right. Teal'c, Jonas and him had come up with the not-so-original idea of grabbing a pizza and watching some movies at Jack's place. They were sure if they agreed to watch a chick flick that Sam would join them, so Jack stopped by her lab at the end of the day to invite her. It never once occurred to him that she would say 'no' let alone have other plans. But she did, on both counts.
"You should have seen the woman I was with tonight."
'Yeah, right, buddy. That's why you're here talking to me now.' Jack's thoughts didn't make it out of his mouth, but rather he offered a tight smile to the guy wishing he would just shut up.
"Blond hair, long legs..."
It couldn't be her- the odds were too great. Weren't they? Well, weren't-
"Green eyes, and a great pair of-"
Okay, not her. Any idiot would remember those eyes. Blue as can be. Where the hell was that bartender anyway?
"You know the type."
Boy, did he.
"So, we're out on this date. It's been fun. Really nice. She's kind of quiet, but who cares? I'm mean, with a body like that..." He drank the rest of his glass down, "Want another? Hey, bartender!"
What the hell? A free drink, why not? He could listen awhile longer. Just please let it stop hurting.
"We get back to her place, and I'm thinking I'm gonna get lucky, right? She lets me in, we sit on her sofa, and she kisses me. I mean really kisses me. So, I kiss her back. We fool around- you know what I mean?" He gives Jack this look, like a man-to-man-all-knowing look.
Jack drinks the fourth whiskey down and notices this guy isn't nearly as annoying as he first thought. Must be the booze.
"Then, just as we're really getting into it, she says another guy's name. Talk about a mood killer." The guy just shakes his head, looking down at his glass.
Okay, nobody deserves that, "Ouch. That's rough."
"Yeah. I decided to leave. She starts apologizing, saying how she thought she could forget about him for a night. She looks like she's going to cry, and god, I hate it when they do that, you know?"
Jack smiled a little at that. No guy knew how to handle that well.
"I listen to her for a minute going on about how she loves this guy, and that she didn't mean to use me, blah blah blah." He takes a drink. "I just drove to the nearest bar and thanked my lucky stars I got out in time. She was really the kind of woman a guy could fall for."
Jack *definitely* knew that type, "Can I buy you another?"
The guy stood up, "No, thanks. I think I'm going to turn in early." He turned around to leave, but then stops and faces back toward the bar, "A word of advice, though. If you ever run across one Sam Carter, turn and run the other way. Whoever this Jack is, she's got it bad for him."
Dumbfounded. Completely and utterly dumbfounded. But that was impossible- he said her eyes were green, "Hey, wait!"
The guy turned around.
"I don't even know your name." Keep him talking...
"Paul." He holds out his hand for Jack to shake.
"Nice to meet you, Paul." Silence. "Did you say her eyes were green?" He has to know. How many Sam Carter's can there be? In this reality anyway...
"Yeah, I think." His forehead scrunches up in thought. Then he laughs a little. "But to tell you the truth, I wasn't really looking at her face, you know?"
Fool. Wait- was he talking about Paul or himself? Hard to tell. She *loved* him? "So she loves this guy, huh?"
"Apparently. He's a fool if he doesn't know it."
That settled it. Jack was the fool. Paul was just an innocent bystander.
"Better luck next time." He meant that. Better luck, with another woman, that is.
They walked out together. Paul reached his car first, "So, you're going home, too?"
Jack studied the keys in his hand for a minute, "Yeah. I thought I'd try going 'home' for a change." He got in his truck and turned the key, not hearing Paul call out after him, "Hey! I never got your name!"
She was sitting back down on the couch where it had all happened not even an hour ago. Where in the world had *his* name come from?? She never called him Jack, except in her head anyway. It wasn't like her mouth was used to saying it. But there it was- blurted out at the most inappropriate time. Or maybe it was just in time to stop a huge mistake from happening. Damn him! Damn her! Damn Paul! Why couldn't he just have been named Jack? She laughed at herself- this was ridiculous. She needed to sleep and forget about it. It's not like she would ever see Paul again anyway. What a night.
She was half-way into a tank top and boxers when she heard a knock. Deciding she had better change completely before answering, she took a few minutes before getting to the door. She silently prayed it wasn't Paul- she really couldn't handle that scene again. Then she heard *his* voice as she headed into the hallway, "Carter! Open up!"
She did as ordered, not stopping to think what in the world had made her CO come knocking on her door in the middle of the night. She opened the door for him to enter and felt her body shiver as the cold air reached the inside of her house. Sure, it was definitely the air, not him, causing the goose bumps all over her body. She closed the door and turned around to see him smiling at her. She returned the obvious playful look in his face, "Sir?"
"Hope I'm not interrupting anything?" He strolled into her kitchen, searching for a drink. Finding only juice, he started opening cupboards in search of a glass.
Watching in disbelief at the surreal scene before her: he knew she had a date, and yet here he was. Oddly confident given the crushed look that she caught just seconds before he told her to have a good time as he left her lab earlier that night. She really didn't know what to say to him, but she had to know, "Sir, what are you doing here?"
"Ah! Here they are." He poured juice into a glass, "Want some?"
Her CO was offering her a glass of her own juice at 0100 in her own kitchen with a ridiculous grin on his face. What the hell? "No, thanks."
"Okay, but it's good." He walked past her and settled himself on the couch picking up the remote searching for something to hold his interest.
"Sir, can I help you with something?" She was flustered to say the least, and he didn't seem in any hurry to explain his presence.
"No, thanks, just do whatever it was you were doing before I got here." He continued to channel surf not seeming interested in her discomfort.
"I was actually getting ready for bed." She positioned herself between him and the TV, "What are you doing here!?" Exasperation evident in her voice, but all she got in return was that same self-satisfied smile, that god help her, she loved.
"So, your date ended early, huh?"
Why did it look like he knew that before he got here? Had he been spying on her? No, he wouldn't do that, would he? "Obviously."
"Nice guy?"
"Nice enough." He just wasn't you!
"So, what happened?"
"It just- ended."
"Did he try something?"
Why was he still smiling? If he really thought that a guy had tried something, he would have been a little upset, right? Okay- enough of this, "Colonel, why do I get the feeling that you already know something about how my night went?"
"How would I know that?" The eyebrows wiggled and she knew something was up!
How could a man be so cute and so irritating at the same time? That was the charm of Jack O'Neill though, wasn't it? "Yes, how would you?" She sat down next to him on the couch, her eyes never leaving his, demanding an explanation that he wasn't quite ready to divulge.
He left her curious gaze and returned to the kitchen to put the now empty glass in the dishwasher. She was impressed- most guys only made it to the counter, or the sink at best, "I couldn't, right?"
"Normally I would agree, but since I've had cameras in my house before..."
"Jesus, Carter! You really think I'd spy on you?" He wouldn't unless he thought she was in danger. Probably.
"I don't know. You're not giving me a lot to work with here."
He took a deep breath and sat back down on the couch, facing her, "I ran into an old friend in the bar earlier."
Okay, so...
"He started talking to me about how his date hadn't gone off as well as he'd expected, and I thought I would just check on you."
She raised her eyebrows at his rather curious explanation.
"I mean, not that I think you can't take care of yourself. But there are a lot of wackos out there, you know?'
Yeah, and she was beginning to think he was one of them! 'That's sweet." It really was, but it was even more strange than sweet.
Ignoring the compliment, "Yeah, it turns out that my friend's date was just using him."
She really didn't care, but it was obvious he wasn't leaving until he'd had his say, "Using him how?"
"To try and forget about this other guy." He searched her face for a reaction.
Blank-faced she replied, "It happens." To the best of them.
"Yeah, well, she actually went so far as to call him by the other guy's name."
Her eyes were as big as he had ever seen. He couldn't know. What were the odds that Jack and Paul actually knew each other? No, they couldn't. Paul had specifically said he'd never met anyone in the Air Force before. This was just all coincidence. Trying to calm her breathing, she managed to say, "That sucks."
"Well, it turned out all right."
"It did?" She wondered how that was possible.
"Yeah, it made her realize that she was in love with the other guy, and the next time she saw him, they decided to give it a try." He looked up at her with caution. Gone was the glibness that he had walked in with.
"How did you find all of this out from your friend? Did he stick around to watch his date with another guy?" *That* was weird. *This* was weird!
"Not exactly." For a Doctor and a Major, sometimes she was a bit slow.
"So, what then-" Oh. No. It couldn't be. How? No! Oh.
He just looked at her beautiful blue (how could anyone think they were green?) eyes and waited for the realization to dawn on her.
It did. "How do you know Paul?"
"I just met him the bar, and we started talking."
She eyes him suspiciously at that. Jack didn't just 'start talking' to anyone.
"Okay, he started talking to me and I felt sorry for him, so I listened."
Oh. Colorado Springs really was a small town.
"He warned me to stay away from a Sam Carter, and the pieces just fell into place." Kind of like a ton of bricks hitting him all at once.
"Was he angry?" He had run out of her house so fast after the tears started falling, she hadn't really noticed. Oh god- had he told Jack she was crying over him? Could this night get any worse? No. It couldn't.
"I don't think so. He just seemed kind of disappointed." Who wouldn't be?
A huge sigh escaped her mouth. What the hell was she going to do now?
"Look." Where was he going to go with this? "Sam." He'd better think fast before she threw him out.
Standing up, "Colonel-"
"It was Jack before." That was hitting below the belt. He stood up next to her.
"You weren't here then." She had been wrong earlier, the night was getting worse.
"I'm here now." He took her shoulders in his hands and stared right into her eyes. No turning back, no hiding.
She could feel the tears starting to form. Crying was really not her style. Crying twice in the same night was just absurd, "It doesn't change anything."
"It doesn't change some things, but it can change others."
What the hell was he talking about? A lone tear made its way down her cheek.
"We both know I'm not very good at this kind of thing." He smiled a little hoping to get one in return.
He did. But the tears were really coming now.
Paul had been right before, guys didn't handle crying women very well. He enveloped her in his arms and waited for the pent up emotion to pass through her.
Still sniffling, she pulled back to look at him, "You're not that bad at it."
He chuckled, but felt a sudden void as she pulled away to find a tissue. Waiting for her to return, he came to a decision. One that he should have made years ago.
She re-entered the room still dabbing at the corners of her eyes and sniffling intermittently. She sat back down on the sofa and looked at up him expectantly to explain how things could possibly change in their favor.
He kneeled down in front of her, resting his hands on her knees. "I'm not going to pretend to know how this is going to work, that's usually your department."
The smile he knew would appear, did. And he smiled back.
"But I am going to talk to General Hammond on Monday."
"And say what?"
"I don't know. But I do know I'm not leaving his office until I've found someway for us to try- well, 'us.'"
"Are you sure you're ready for what that could mean to you? And your career?"
"I know that whatever it is, it's better than drinking myself into oblivion whenever you have a date. Or watching you cry. Or not being able to touch you." As if to prove his words, he lifted a hand to stroke her cheek.
"I meant what I told Paul. About how I feel about you." She couldn't say it to him. Not just yet.
"I know. That's why I came."
"I thought it was for the juice." The banter was back.
"Well, that and your TV." They both turned toward the screen which was now playing an infomercial for some exercise machine. He lifted himself back onto the couch next to her, drawing her into him with an arm around her shoulder. "I wonder if those things actually work?"
"Maybe. If the person buying it actually takes it out of the box and uses it."
He started channel surfing again, neither one actually paying attention to what was on. And certainly neither one of them noticing Jack's 'new friend' Paul peeking inside the window of his former date's house. As he slipped out of sight around the corner, he pulled out his cell phone and dialed a number stored in his memory years ago, "Hey, it's me." A garbled question. "Yeah, it went just as planned. They didn't suspect a thing." Laughing on the other end. "You were right, the smarter they are, the easier they are to fool." A few mumbled words. "See you around, Harry." Paul stuffed the phone back in his pocket and wondered just how the two nice people in the house he just left could have gotten mixed up with the likes of Harry Maybourne. What a night.
Story Notes: Thanks to Sel for the fic on Harry for inspiration!
Feedback: Welcomed!
Date: 25-10-2002
Feedback: Welcomed!
Date: 25-10-2002
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 ]