"Be careful with that!"
Jack O'Neill caught the object he was tossing in the air and looked at the man across the desk from him. "It's just a rock, Daniel."
Daniel Jackson sighed. "No, it's a fragment of a ten-thousand-year- old temple, containing a hitherto unknown script which I have been trying for weeks to decipher."
Jack squinted at the chicken scratches on the stone tablet, then shrugged. The object sailed into the air again.
Daniel frowned, then bent his head with determination to the documents he'd been translating. The artifact made a slap-slap sound in O'Neill's hands. After a few moments Daniel threw down his pen. "OK, why are you so fidgety, Jack?"
"I'm not fidgety." He was just restless. He couldn't sit still in his office. Couldn't focus on his reports. Couldn't rid himself of the gnawing discomfort in his soul. Restless, that's all.
"Perhaps I should rephrase that. Why are you choosing to be so fidgety *here*? In my office?"
"It's nicer than my office. None of that damn work sitting around waiting for me to do it." Why couldn't Daniel just let him sit here? It was much better than being alone at the moment.
"Oh, all right, have it your way." Daniel blew out a puff of air and picked up his pen. He scrawled a few words in his notebook. Minutes passed. Daniel said, "I called you last night."
"Oh?" Jack stopped tossing the rock for a moment. "What about?"
"Nothing much. Just reminding you of the briefing this morning."
"Well, I remembered. I was there."
"I noticed." Daniel kept an oblique eye on the fragment hurtling into the air and back into Jack's hands. "So where were you last night?"
"Out."
"I gathered that. Out...um...where?"
The stone went up, then down. "I didn't feel like cooking. I ate out."
Daniel raised his eyebrows. "At ten o'clock?"
O'Neill stopped his tossing and glared at the other man. "Well, I STAYED out." The artifact flew into the air again.
"Do anything fun?"
Jack gave an exasperated sigh. "What is this, an inquisition?"
"No, Jack, it's called conversation. Perhaps you've heard of it."
"It's overrated."
Daniel gave a shrug. "If you'd prefer not to talk about it--"
"You got that right."
Daniel blinked. "Er, OK." He turned back to his work with a furrowed brow. The soft slap, slap of the rock was the only sound for several minutes. Finally Daniel looked up. "Why don't you want to talk about it?"
"Oh, for crying out loud!" Jack turned and faced him. "I was out with a girl. There. You satisfied?"
Daniel stared. "A GIRL?"
"Yes, Daniel, a *girl*. Woman. You may have heard of them. Is that a problem for you?"
Daniel adjusted his glasses. "Um, I'm just surprised, is all. You don't exactly...none of us exactly...well, get out very much."
"Well, I did." Jack was turning the fragment over and over in his hands, a sulky expression darkening his face.
Daniel cocked his head. "And...well...?"
"Well, what?"
"Well, who is she? Where did you meet her?"
"She's just a girl," Jack mumbled. "I met her in the restaurant."
"Where you went last night?" Daniel's eyebrows climbed into his hair. "You just met her last night?"
"Yeah. So? I was eating at the bar. And she was there."
"And you just...what? Picked her up?"
"I did NOT 'pick her up.'" As Jack fuzzily recalled, it might have been the other way around. Or maybe not. Hell, what difference did it make? When the young woman had telegraphed her interest in him, he'd hardly been able to wait through the requisite small talk and two or three drinks before he'd made his move. She had been blonde, blue-eyed, and anatomically correct, and that was enough for him at that moment.
"We just went *out*," Jack repeated.
"Out where?"
"Christ!" Jack raised his hands in supplication.
"Sorry, Jack. It's just...I don't think I've ever known you to...you know... pick up...that is, without being alien-drug-induced."
"Look, I was horny, OK?" O'Neill"s voice rose angrily. "I wanted to get laid. We went to her place. OK?"
"Whoa! Jack--"
"Ah-ah!" The other man waggled his finger. "Don't go all Boy Scout on me, Daniel."
His friend fell silent, thinking. Then he said, "Do you like her? Are you going to see her again?"
"No," Jack said curtly.
"Why not?" Daniel asked.
"Look. Daniel." O'Neill spoke slowly, exasperated. "She was a girl. A *female*. I wanted..." He turned away, his hands playing with the artifact distractedly. "I wanted that." He subsided into an even deeper glumness.
He felt Daniel's eyes on him. Curiosity must have vanquished reticence because Daniel asked, "And how was...that?"
"Oh, just peachy." Jack remembered lying in the girl's bed, spent and utterly unsatisfied, and thinking, What the hell am I doing here? He had hurriedly pulled on his clothes and escaped in a kind of desperation. "How do you think it was?"
"Um, well," Daniel murmured, "I'm not sure..."
"Daniel, I don't even remember her name," Jack said with a hard edge to his voice. "She was just...I was just...using her." He stared at the wall on the other side of the room.
"Ah." The archaeologist tapped his pen on his notebook. "Would that be 'using her,' um..." He paused, considering his words, "...as a substitute for someone else?"
Jack's eyes were on the wall, but his mind was somewhere else. On *someone* else. He lifted one shoulder and let it drop.
Daniel let out a breath. "I'm sorry, Jack."
"Sorry for what?"
"That you can't, um...that it's not possible to..." O'Neill gave him a sharp look, silencing him momentarily. But after a moment Daniel resumed. "Actually, I don't know how you do it."
"Do what?"
"Not give in to your feelings for her."
Jack's lips pinched together in a tight line. He really, really did not want to talk about this.
Daniel went on, "I mean, working beside her every day, in the most intense conditions, even sleeping beside her in camp, day in, day out, year after year--"
"DANIEL!" Jack exploded. "Enough already!"
"Sorry." Daniel doodled on his pad.
Jack leaned his head back, and it thumped against the file cabinet, once, twice. Dropping the stone into his lap, he covered his face with his hands. "God, I'm too damn old for this!"
"Too old to be horny? Studies have shown that the human male libido--"
"NO! Not that. Well, yeah, that too." God damn the male libido! He had run into Carter in the gym yesterday. Mostly he tried to avoid the hours she frequented the place, for good reason. He must have forgotten yesterday, because there she was, all tank top and shorts and long legs and sweat and smile. God, that smile! He had been condemned to a state of semi-arousal the rest of the day, ripe and willing for the girl on the barstool whose name he couldn't remember.
"No," Jack explained, his hands crawling down his face, "I mean I'm too old for this...this foolishness."
Daniel looked at his friend with sympathy. "I think love can blindside us at any age."
Jack lurched forward. "Hey! Don't use that word!"
"You mean the L--"
"Ah! Don't say it!"
Daniel stopped with his mouth open. "Why don't you--"
Jack's hands flailed wildly. "No! Stop right there!"
Daniel closed his mouth.
Jack subsided into the chair as though exhausted. After a few moments he said, "You know something I can't figure out?"
"What's that, Jack?"
"Why she likes me."
Daniel blinked and pushed his glasses farther up his nose. "Um, well..."
"I mean, she's WAY smarter than me. Way."
"Well, yes, I suppose that would be an accurate assessment."
"She could have her pick. Teal'c is stronger. Simmons is cuter. You're nicer."
Daniel cleared his throat. "Um, erm."
"I'm just an old soldier," Jack said sourly. "*Old*. And did I mention she was way smarter than me?"
"Yes, I believe you said that. Smart is sexy, you know."
"Ohhh, yeah." Jack fingered the fragment in his lap, a small smile curving up his lips. Then he frowned. "But I just don't get it. What does she see in me?" He knew what the girl last night had seen in him: "Air Force," "top secret," and "older man." Simple. But Carter was anything but simple.
"Gee, Jack, I don't know. What's not to like? You're irascible, short-tempered, mulish, irksome, ornery--"
"Hey!"
Daniel responded with a half-smile and a shrug.
"You're no help," O'Neill said.
"All right. I'll give it a shot. Although it's a little hard for me to address the, um, physical part, since I, ah, don't exactly see you...the way a woman would."
"That's a GOOD thing, Daniel. We'll skip that part."
"OK. Good idea. Well, then, um..." Daniel's brows drew together in concentration.
"Well?" Jack said impatiently.
"Look, Jack, why don't you just ask her?"
Two index fingers carved the air. "No. No, no, no. We do NOT talk about that."
"OK. Right. Of course not. Um, why does Sam like you? Well, you, uh, you're an effective leader." Daniel raised his eyes to the ceiling, groping. "Um, you have a sense of humor. If you could call it that."
Jack smiled. Yes, she DID laugh at his jokes.
"You, er..." Daniel sucked in a breath and screwed up his face. Thinking hard. "Ah, integrity. You have integrity."
Jack waved a hand. "Oh, please. This is too weird."
"Yeah." Daniel sighed. "I still think you should just ask her."
"Ask her what?"
Daniel spun around in his chair, and he and Jack froze. Samantha Carter stood in the doorway, her eyes darting from one man to the other. They in turn regarded her dumbly.
At last she shrugged. "Maybe I don't want to know," she said with a sly smile. And then she was gone.
The men sat in stunned immobility for a long moment. Then Daniel jerked his head toward the door, his eyebrows rising up and down as if to say, DO something! Jack's mouth made an O, and he leaped from his seat.
"Hey!" said Daniel, grabbing Jack's arm as he hurtled past. "My rock!"
***
Jack caught up with Carter quickly, and they fell into step beside each other. She looked up at him, her face asking the unspoken question. He opened his mouth, reconsidered, closed it. He felt squirmy inside, remembering what he'd done last night, as though his indiscretion was etched on his features. Suddenly any question of her liking him seemed moot. He didn't even like himself. Why the hell had he followed her out here? It was all Daniel's fault.
He shrugged nonchalantly. "It wasn't anything. Really."
Carter nodded. "Okay."
They continued their progress down the hall, matching each other stride for stride. Her shoulder brushed his arm lightly, and he felt the current that had ignited him yesterday begin to buzz again. He cast a surreptitious glance in her direction, and caught her doing the same to him. The both snatched their eyes away from each other and forward again.
Suddenly Jack stopped. Sam pulled up and faced him. "Sir?"
He stared at his boots. Every sensible impulse he possessed screamed at him not to speak. "Actually, it was something," he said.
"What, sir?"
"Well, you know how you explained to me the wormhole business?"
Her face lit up. "Yes. Got another physics question?"
"Uh, not exactly." He rubbed the back of his neck. "There's something I don't get about, um, about that...thing."
"'Thing,' sir?" She frowned, puzzled.
"Y'know, that 'thing'...that we left in the room."
Her eyes widened. "Oh! That." Her eyes darted to the side. "Sir, I'm not sure this is the best place to talk about...that," she said as one of the maintenance personnel emerged from the elevator.
"Colonel, Major," the man greeted them as he passed.
"Sergeant," O'Neill replied. They waited till his footsteps faded. Jack tugged Sam's sleeve and pulled her around a corner. He sensed her nervousness and waved it away. "Don't worry, that's still in the room."
"Well, sir," she whispered, "then what...?"
"It's just something I've been wondering about." He cleared his throat. "I'm trying to figure out..." Shit, this was ridiculous. "I was wondering..."
Sam clasped her hands behind her back, stood more stiffly, trying very hard to look absolutely professional, but he could see something glimmering in her eyes: a combination of anticipation, dread, excitement, and affection.
It was the last that was his undoing. Jack expelled his breath. "I was wondering why you like me." It tumbled out in a rush.
The whites around her eyes enlarged still farther. "Sir?"
"I mean, you being way smarter than me and all that."
"Why I like you?" she repeated.
God, he was NUTS. Damn Daniel for his suggestions! The next time he saw the man he was going to wrap his hands around his thick neck. "N-no," he sputtered, gesturing frantically. "No, forget it. This is stupid."
"It's not stupid, sir."
"You're right, Major," he said, ignoring her words, "we shouldn't be talking about this. Let's just forget it." He spun on his heel and rounded the corner, walking fast. Insane, that's what he was!
A moment later he heard rapid footsteps behind him.
"Colonel!"
He remembered another time when she had called him back. Remembered his hopes in that moment, how his breath had tightened in his chest, how he'd put on the most casual, unconcerned mask in his repertoire as he'd turned to face her, hoping, willing her to--. He took a deep breath, and swiveled slowly around.
Carter was flushed and a little breathless. She looked to her left and right to confirm they were alone. Then she said, "You really don't get it, do you?" A pause. "Sir."
Jack didn't know what to say to that. As he plowed his brain for a response, she crossed the space till she stood before him.
"Look," she said, "why don't we talk about this somewhere else."
Somewhere else. Talk. About why she liked him. Maybe Daniel's life would be spared. "Um," was all he could manage.
Carter elaborated, "Later. When we're off duty. Somewhere off base."
Off base. The two of them. Alone. Jack plunged his hands deep into his pockets. "Oh, sure, you betcha. I could do that."
**
Jack arrived early and took booth at the rear, his back to the wall. Sam had suggested O'Malley's, but Jack was loathe to appear in a watering hole frequented by base personnel; to say nothing of the fact that they'd been kicked out of there awhile back. So he proposed Wooglin's, a beer and sandwich shop on Tejon near Colorado College. Far from prying military eyes.
He tried to catch the eye of the waitress, a young woman with dreadlocks and a ring in her nose, but she retreated through the swinging doors into the kitchen. College students occupied most of the booths and tables, but Jack also spotted a couple of professor types, betrayed by their silver hair and tweed jackets. He ran a hand through his own hair. Gray. Old. Too damn old for this. For her.
He'd had second, third, and fourth thoughts all the way from his home up in the Skyway, along highway 24 to downtown, and for the dozen or so blocks down Cascade to the college. He'd parked and sat in his truck and had fifth, sixth, and seventh thoughts. They shouldn't be talking about this. He should never have brought it up. He was stupid and wrong and he would apologize to her.
Then he would kill Daniel.
A table of students nearby erupted in laughter at someone's joke. Jack looked over at them, at the young men with their arms around their girlfriends, and felt a stab of envy. He looked back at the door. She was there, a flash of blonde hair floating above a dark jacket, and all thoughts of envying those kids fled his mind. Jack lifted a hand, and Sam moved between the tables and slid onto the seat opposite him.
God almighty. How had he ever thought anyone could substitute for her?
She was her usual stunning self, straight and poised and sparkling, intelligent eyes flashing their lights at him. Under the black leather jacket she wore a lavender blouse plunging into a deep V, revealing...
Whoa! Eyes up, Jack! He focused with effort on her face. There was a bright color in her cheeks. Maybe he wasn't the only one feeling on edge.
"Hi," Sam said. "Been here long?"
"No. Just got here a minute ago."
They fell into an uneasy silence. Sam clasped her hands together primly on the table and smiled at him a little stiffly. Jack looked around desperately for the waitress, but she was nowhere to be seen. He looked back at his companion. His fingers drummed the table. "Uh, Carter, I was thinking on the way down here..."
She watched him expectantly.
He went on a little gruffly, "I was thinking..." He cleared his throat. "That this is a mistake. This--" His hand fluttered. "What we were gonna talk about. Sorry I brought it up. I shouldn't have." Was that disappointment he saw on her face? If it was, it vanished quickly and was replaced by a studiously neutral expression.
"Oh," Carter said. "Maybe you're right, sir."
Yes, it was disappointment. He heard it in her voice, though she covered it well.
Damn.
Oh, well, Jack thought. He slapped his hands on the table. "Good!" he said with forced cheeriness. "Now that we're agreed on that--" He gestured urgently at the waitress who had appeared a couple of tables away. The girl finished taking orders and came over to them. Jack ordered a Dos Equis, and Carter said she'd have the same.
"So," Sam said when the girl left, "what shall we talk about then?"
She smiled that 10,000-megawatt smile, the one that seemed to have a direct connection to Jack's spinal cord, and his knee started bouncing, bumping hers. "Sorry!"
"My fault," Sam said, shifting on her seat.
"Well, um." Jack grinned, swallowed. He looked up. "Ah, here's our drinks," he said with relief.
The waitress set the beers and glasses before them and left. Jack ignored the glass and immediately took a swig from his bottle. His mouth was awfully dry. He tipped the bottle up and took another gulp.
Sam poured her beer into the glass and sipped. "Been fishing lately?" she asked hesitantly. Making conversation.
He shrugged. "Went up to Eleven-Mile Canyon a couple weeks ago. Tried out a new fly."
"Fly fishing? My dad used to do that."
"Jake's a fisherman?" he asked with surprise.
"Used to be, hasn't in years. He used to do it when I was a kid, to get away from the pressures of his job."
Jack nodded. He understood that. "He ever take you?"
She made a rueful face. "No. I'm sure a pesky little girl would have ruined his R&R."
He grinned at the image. "You were pesky, huh?"
"God, I was awful," she said with a laugh. "Talking constantly, asking endless questions. I used to exasperate the hell out of my parents."
He smiled at her warmly. "I'm sure they didn't mind having a smart daughter." His smile faded. Smart. That was just the problem, wasn't it? She was studying him curiously. He put his mask back on. "Remind me to invite Jacob to go fishing the next time he's here."
"I'll do that, sir."
Jack took another pull on his beer. He could do this. Just two colleagues--friends, if you will--having a drink after work. Talking about ordinary stuff. Just having a beer with Carter. *Major* Carter, he reminded himself. His 2IC Major Carter. Golden hair ruffled slightly, blue-sky eyes, dimples, her blouse cut down to... He gave himself a mental kick in the pants. "So," he said, "whatcha working on these days?"
She grinned. "I'm analyzing those crystals we brought back from P3X- 285. They exhibit photonic features to an incredible degree."
Jack looked at her blankly.
"Well, you see, sir," Sam began to explain, "with photonic crystals, it's possible to create waveguides that permit 90-degree bends with 100 percent transmission. You can't do that with, say, fiber-optic cables, where the light is confined by total internal reflection. So with these photonic crystals, light can literally bend around corners, allowing huge strides in the creation of integrated optical..." Sam's voice faded.
Jack shook himself out of his glazed state. There ought to be a law against dimples like that. "What?" he said.
She smiled. "This is where you usually say, 'A-a-a-a-AH!'"
"I do not!"
"With all due respect, sir, yes, you do." Her eyes were twinkling.
"Well, not this time, I wasn't going to." As a matter of fact, he had become quite lost in those blue eyes and had no intention of interrupting her prattle. "Go on. It's, uh, cool."
"No, that's OK. It's pretty esoteric stuff."
"See?" Jack almost shouted, jabbing his index finger in the air. "THAT's what I mean."
"Sir?" Carter's forehead knitted in confusion.
"You being so smart. And why--" He gestured between them. "Y'know." Then he cringed. Shit! He was NOT going to talk about this.
"Why I like you?" she finished for him.
Oh, hell.
His shoulders slumped and he looked down at the table. "Yeah." Venturing a glance up, he saw that the color in her cheeks, which had subsided during their innocuous conversation, had returned in force. Damn, was she blushing? "N-no," he said. "Forget it. You don't have to explain, really."
"But I want to."
"Really, Carter--"
"No," she interrupted him. "It seems so wrong that you don't know why."
"Well, I have been known to be dense on occasion."
She smiled. She didn't disagree.
"OK, then," Jack said, putting his hands flat on the table and straightening his shoulders in a soldierly fashion, "if we're gonna do this, let's get it over with. Lemme have it."
Carter chewed her lower lip in a most endearing fashion. "OK. You're..." More chewing. "That is, you have..." Her eyes darted over his face, down to his chest, back up a bit. Stopped. Stared at his lips.
Jack felt his blood rush southward. His fingers clutched the edge of the table. Hard.
Carter's blush deepened, the rosiness spreading down her neck. She lifted her eyes to his again and said, "I mean, there are a lot of things..." Her voice faded as her gaze locked with his. She seemed to be having a bit of trouble breathing. He wasn't having much success with it either.
Suddenly she exclaimed, "Dammit! You're simply the most wonderful man I've ever known!" Her eyes suddenly became saucers. "Sir!"
Jack's mouth dropped open. By the look on her face, Sam seemed as incredulous as he was at the baldness of her statement. They sat staring at each other in stunned silence. Jack was aware of a feeling in his chest which he could only describe with a cliche: his heart was swelling. Of all the things she might have said, he had never expected... Yes, he would definitely spare Daniel's life.
Apparently embarrassed by her outburst, Carter dropped her eyes. Her hand when it reached for her glass was trembling. Say something, you idiot, Jack rebuked himself. She had laid herself raw before him, and he simply sat there like a tree stump.
"You haven't seen my closet," he croaked.
Sam snorted, then covered her mouth, smothering giggles. As the tension snapped, Jack let out a breath. He felt a big stupid grin crack his face.
Carter bent her head, and her hands came up to cover her face. Her shoulders were shaking as she was apparently overcome by her chuckles. Jack was so flushed with warm feeling that he didn't notice for a few moments the change in the tone of Carter's laughter. Her breath hitched, and she made a strangled sound.
The grin on his face dissolved. What the hell? Was she crying? Wait- -Carter? CRYING?
"Carter?" he asked hoarsely.
Sam gasped, "Oh, God, I'm so sorry, sir."
Her weeping was mostly silent except for the irregular, shuddering breaths that shook her frame. Jack yanked a wad of napkins out of the dispenser on the table and pushed them across to her, nudging her elbow. Sam grabbed them and pressed them to her face. "Thanks," came muffled through the napkins.
Jack looked away while she gained control of her tears. Jesus H....What the hell had just happened here? Everything was going so well. His hands curled into helpless fists, and he swallowed something thick in his throat. He looked back at her. She still held the napkins over her eyes, but the storm had subsided. She was sucking in deep breaths.
He slid his hand across the table, coming just short of touching her arm. "You OK, Carter?"
She scrubbed her face, finally raising red eyes and blotchy skin to him. Deep mortification was stamped on her features. "I'm fine. I'm really sorry, sir."
"It's all right."
Sam crushed the napkins into a ball and stared down at the table. "I think I should go," she said.
And suddenly she was out of the booth. For several seconds Jack was too stunned to react. Then he dug some bills out of his wallet, tossed them on the table, and hurried after her. She was standing on the sidewalk when he emerged from the restaurant, wiping her eyes with the heels of her hands.
Jack said softly, "You wanna fill me in on what just happened back there?"
Averting her face from him, Sam shifted her feet, and a soft sigh escaped her lips. "I guess it was the way you made me laugh. And it was what...what I said. It was everything, all at once. And I got a bit overwhelmed with..." She hesitated. "With how much I--" She glanced up at him with a look that made his heart lurch. "--how much I like you. And that we can't--." Her voice caught slightly, and she stopped, biting her lip to clamp down on any further confessions.
"Yeah, I know," he said roughly. He could feel her warmth beside him, and his mind spewed forth a litany of curses against military regs. He swallowed hard and looked up at the jagged black silhouette of Pikes Peak, as though willing the mountain to lend him its solidity. Carter's emotional outburst had left him shaken. The question of why she liked him now struck him as beyond ridiculous. The depth of her affection for him was greater than he could ever have imagined, and to say he felt unworthy of it didn't even come close to the mark.
"Y'know, Carter," he said, "there are a lot of...bad things about me."
She was quiet. Then, "I know, sir."
He grimaced, shrugged. He certainly couldn't fault her honesty.
She turned to face him, her eyes piercing him. "But they're not who you are."
"No," he murmured, seeing the truth in her eyes, "I suppose they're not." He knew now that he was better than that. Better because he was loved by and loved this extraordinary woman.
For a long time they held each other's gaze, much as they had across the force field on the Gou'ald ship. But this time it was without terror or anguish or the shock of realization. This time it was with a calm certitude and a quiet joy. The diffuse and restless lust that had thrummed in Jack's veins the day before narrowed into a laser- like beam of desire for only the woman standing before him. He would not make *that* mistake again.
Sam held his gaze for a moment longer, then looked down at her feet. "You know, sir, this does kind of beg the question."
He frowned at the non sequitur. "What does? What question?"
"Why you like *me*," she said with a shy, almost embarrassed, smile. "I mean, a pesky, smart-ass, science geek."
He stared at her in astonishment. For crying out loud! Was she serious? "Carter," he growled in his deepest commander's voice.
Two lovely eyebrows arched. She wasn't fooled. "Sir?"
Curling two fingers around hers, he tugged her closer till his mouth was close to her ear, and was rewarded with a little gasp. "We're gonna have to do something about this denseness of yours."
-End-
Story Notes: Spoilers: Nemesis, Upgrades, Divide and Conquer. Takes place sometime in season 4.
Author Notes: My first Stargate fic. Thanks to Emma for her beta work and support.
Author Notes: My first Stargate fic. Thanks to Emma for her beta work and support.
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 ]