Because You Told Me So PG-14
CATEGORY: Sam/Jack UST plus a bit
RATING: PG-14 (for a few racy thoughts and a bit of cussin' that might offend some)
SUMMARY: Sequel to For Better or For Worse. After *not* talking things over once again, Jack and Sam come to an agreement about the future of their relationship.
DISCLAIMERS R US: You'll recognize all the
characters I don't own in this story -- they are
the famous, well-loved ones. I didn't ask anyone's
permission to take them out for a spin. However,
once you read it, you'll realize this is a non-profit
venture 'cause no one would actually pay me for
writing it ARCHIVE: Yes, SJD
STATUS: Complete
SPOILERS: Specifically, nothing but anything
up to Season Six (but only because of the
glowy Daniel Jackson situation.)
FEEDBACK: Both positive comments and
tough critical feedback help to improve my writing.
Feedback very much appreciated and adored.
tmpotter@widomaker.com
"Now, describe your pain. But, please, be honest.
This is, after all, for posterity."
AUTHOR'S NOTE: A follow-on to For Better or For Worse
This won't make _any_ sense without that one. I'd like to
thank those of you who have encouraged me in this story.
And who knows, Carm: You might get waffles before it is
all over. Any mistakes are all my own fault.
##########################
...Because You Told Me So
She slammed her hand on the whiteboard in an
uncharacteristic outburst of temper, smearing the
numerous equations written there and ruining an
entire afternoon's worth of work.
"Great, Sam. Just great."
She was fairly certain that neither the blow to the
board nor her low mutter carried outside the lab, but
she immediately regretted her slip into childishness.
Her shoulders fell into a slump and she looked up at
the badly smudged letters, trying to decide if she
could salvage any part of it.
Nope, it was all going to have to be rewritten and
there was no way she could finish this without being
able to read what she had already done. She was
going to have to reconstruct it from her paper notes.
She grabbed the whiteboard eraser, conceding that the
whole thing was a wash and stopped before she had
rubbed away even the first one.
To be honest, she wasn't getting much quality work
done here anyway. Her mind wasn't on her work and
her heart wasn't in it either. She dropped the
eraser and slouched back over to her chair, plopping
down in the seat with and audible sigh.
The only thing she could think of was *him*...
The same man who'd been on her mind for three days.
The Colonel.
Jack.
Three days ago, she'd stood facing him, her heart in
her throat, staring into his eyes, waiting for him to
say *something*. She had felt certain that if he
would say *anything*, then they would be ahead of the
game and perhaps everything would be all right.
As Professor Goward used to say, "My, my, how
assumptions can be mocked."
He'd said something all right. And the Fates, if you
believed in all of that, laughed when he did.
"I need some time...to think...to..."
He hadn't even been able to continue looking at her
face when he'd said it.
She'd been horrified and mortified to think that he
honestly didn't want to acknowledge what he felt.
She'd been heartbroken and close to frustrated tears,
because she'd been anticipating this moment between
them for so long.
She'd been close to ripping his head off and handing
it back to him stuck on top of a Phillips-head
screwdriver for breaking her trust and refusing to
talk things over.
She'd managed to neither beat and curse him nor burst
into those frustrated tears, but only just barely.
She sighed and dropped her chin into her hand,
pulling up short as she felt the now dry smudge from
the whiteboard marker slide tackily across her skin.
Great. Perfect.
She couldn't believe it. She'd 'done the right
thing', telling him how she felt about him. She'd
put herself on the line, making it easy for him, so
he didn't have to think too hard about what to say or
do. She had let him know every little thing she felt
for him and about him.
And he'd decided he needed 'time'.
Now she was left alone, sitting in her lab with
multi-color dry-erase marker smeared on one side of
her face and no apparent way to fix this thing
between them because he 'had to think'.
Scrambling through her desk drawer, she came up with
a pre-packaged wet-nap left over from the time they
had introduced Jonas to the wonders of chicken wings.
After digging around a bit more in the drawer to
ferret out a hand mirror she knew she had left there,
she scrubbed at the blue and red markings on her
cheek, then the matching ones on her hand, before
tossing away the now-stained, lemony-smelling towel.
It hit the floor just to the right of the trash can,
landing with a wet splat and leaving a mark on the
concrete floor.
Great, even her trash was conspiring to make her day
worse. She shut her eyes in frustration. After a
moment, she released another sigh even bigger than
the last.
More than disgusted with her day, she checked her
watch. It was late enough that she could probably
sneak off for the rest of the day and not feel too
guilty about it. It wasn't like she was getting much
done here, anyway.
Gathering her laptop, briefcase, and jacket, she
hurried out the door before anyone could wander by
and keep her here.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
She spun around on one leg, lining up the trajectory
in her mind even as her lower leg and foot connected
with her assailant's upper torso. The solid thunk of
bone meeting bone was gratifying and the deep 'oof'
that echoed from the walls helped buoy her spirits.
Landing on the balls of her feet, she immediately
came back on her guard, only to see a waving hand
near the floor and hear a deep voice speaking to her
from the general area just below it.
"Uncle! Uncle!"
Mike's deep voice was slightly wheezy and she felt a
certain satisfaction that she had managed to do that
to him. She reached out a hand to catch his,
shifting her weight back to her heels and bracing
herself as the big man pulled his considerable mass
up to his over six foot height.
"You 'kay?"
"Beautiful lady, whoever that was you just beat to a
pulp, I'd hate to be him, right now."
"I wasn't--"
"Girl, you can deny it all you want with your mouth,
but that last roundhouse was *angry*."
His chocolate eyes twinkled with humor under raised
ebony brows and he shook his head as wiped his sweaty
face with a towel. Taking the bottle of water she
offered, he slung a beefy arm around her shoulders,
making her feel like a skinny, under-sized, midget
despite her own height and physical fitness.
She smiled as she remembered that first day she'd
wandered into the darkened building, wondering if it
was really a smart idea to come to a 'macho-man' gym,
especially after she'd just been worked over by a
couple of Jaffa on the last mission. Mike had taken
one look at her and, in what she now knew was typical
Mike fashion, had taken charge. He'd laid a heavy
arm across her shoulders and spoke in a low, kind
tone.
"Whoever he is that did that, he isn't worth it,
girl. You agree to leave him and I'll make sure I
teach you enough so that no one else'll ever be able
to lay a glove on you."
She'd eventually convinced the young mountain of a
man that she hadn't been beaten by a lover, but she
wasn't certain that he'd really believed her. Either
way, since that first day, he'd served as her
personal trainer and punching bag while he taught her
fighting techniques that had saved her life on more
than one occasion out in the field.
Mike knew as much about her job as any civilian
could. He'd been there to help her work her battered
body back to fighting trim after the many times she
had been injured in the line of duty. He was there
to listen on the days when she was frustrated beyond
all belief by the situations of her life. The big
man had served as a confidant, a psychologist, and a
big brother all wrapped into one. She'd come to
depend on him as she did Daniel and Teal'c.
Today, they sat on a bench, him helping her to remove
the thick foam pads that enveloped her hands and
forearms as well as the ones that covered her feet
and shins. She pulled at her headgear, running a
freed hand through her sweat-soaked locks, pulling
them out in a halo of spikes that would do any punk
rocker proud. She returned the favor of pulling at
his Velcro straps, freeing his arms from the pads but
letting him work on his headgear and leg pads
himself.
"Mike, after what, five years of my coming here-"
"Six. It's six years since you first walked up to
the door, all skinny and outta shape, with that huge
bruise on your forehead and around your eye..."
"It's just...You remember...the man I told you
about?"
"That guy you work with? The one who's too stupid to
see what he has working next to him every day?
She felt a flush wash over her face that had nothing
to do with her exertions.
"I don't know if I'd say tha-"
"I just did."
A huge grin flashed in his sweating face.
"Anyway, yeah, he's the guy. It's just that after
all of this time, he's..."
"What happened, kiddo? He finally wake up?"
"Something like that...I thought everything was going
to get...better...between us. He and I...we were
talking...And then he just stopped...And...I don't
know..."
"Just say the word...I can visit him anytime you
want. A little conversation between Mike and the man
might make a bit of a difference in his outlook on
life."
"Thanks, Mike. But I don't think that would be a
good idea. Besides, if you 'talk' to him, he might
not be able to talk for a while afterwards."
"Awwww...I'm hurt. You don't think I'd break him, do
you?...Much?"
"Mike, I've seen you 'talk' to the heavy bag. Even
he doesn't deserve that, believe me."
"Well, maybe *you* ought to 'talk' to him. Seems to
me that I'd pay attention if you wanted to 'talk' to
me. Sometimes it takes more than a hint...I mean,
some guys have been known to need a good whack up
side the head to recognize what's right in front of
'em."
His eyes were shining with humor, but she could tell
he was serious.
Mike was a happily married man who was a danger to
any single female he met. His wife Jeanine worked in
the front office of the gym and, shortly after they'd
met, Jeanine had warned Sam about Mike's tendencies.
"Mike is the first 300 pound, muscle-bound Cupid
you've ever met. If you're not careful, he'll have
you married to one of these gym rats before you can
blink."
Thinking back on those words, she knew that Mike only
wanted to see other people as happy as Jeanine and he
were. Truth be told, Sam would love to be as happy
as Jeanine and Mike were together.
"Maybe...Maybe we're going to manage to
talk...soon..."
She smiled, feeling the sweat running down her back
and between her breasts, knowing she looked grubby
and probably smelled bad. She mopped at her
shoulders and arms with her towel, walking away from
Mike with a grin thrown back over her shoulder at
him.
"You know you can always hang up that 'Be All You Can
Be' crap and come work for me. I can always use a
new trainer..."
Mike yelled his comment at her from across the gym
floor, so she returned it in kind, without bothering
to stop and look back at him.
"I'm Air Force, Mike, not Army. And besides, you
already have a full crew."
"Yeah, but you clean up prettier than any of these
guys...Hell, you actually look better all sweaty than
any of the guys, too."
His hearty laughter followed her escape into the
women's locker room.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Relaxing back against the tiles in her shower
surround, she settled more comfortably on the built-
in seat, preparing herself for a long, undisturbed
pummeling by the hot water.
She had turned down the ringer on the phone, turned
off her cel phone and pager, and logged off her
computer. She was completely disconnected from the
world at large and happy to be that way.
It was almost a perfect night. She wished she'd
remembered to pick up a bottle of wine on the way
home from the gym. It would have been nice to
further take the edge off the day by indulging in a
little too much spicy Merlot, but once she'd gotten
home and had realized that she'd forgotten to stop,
she was unwilling to go back out for anything.
The raucous sound of the spray from the faucet
accompanied her racing thoughts as the water washed
over her. She was completely enclosed in the warm
white noise of the running water and she allowed her
guard to drop and her mind to wander free.
He was due back at work tomorrow and she wasn't
certain what that would mean. He seemed determined
to step away from...Them.
Despite the fact that she had put everything out
there on the line and shown him what she felt, told
him that she didn't want to leave it in the room
anymore, he was backing away...
And it made her so angry sometimes that she could
spit nails. Other times, it just made her sad.
Maybe Mike was right. Maybe she needed to be more up
front. Tell him *exactly* what she wanted.
But she wasn't 100% certain exactly what that was.
She knew that what her heart wanted couldn't come
true. Not as things stood right now...What they did
for a living, who they were in their jobs, all of the
things that made them into the individuals they were,
made the possibilities of...pursuing...what was
between them impossible.
And she didn't want to change who she was or who he
was...She just wanted...To have him be who he was and
have her be who she was, but still...
She wanted them to be together.
She knew that either she or the Colonel could quit
the SGC.
But having one of them in the SGC while the other
wasn't didn't seem to be much of a solution for the
problem of them being together. Need-to-know rules
of disclosure would keep them from ever discussing
the work if one of them was outside the command
structure of the SGC. And since the work was so much
a part of who they were, it would be hard to share
their lives with someone who could never know the
answer to the questions 'Why aren't you able to come
home on time? How can you disappear for weeks at a
time into the mountain complex? When did you get
hurt?'
This fact alone made the reason for one of them
giving up their work a pointless one.
Anything less than an absolute crystal clear
separation of their interests at work would result in
an infraction of the fraternization regulations and
all of the damage to good order and discipline that
would result when they were caught. Even if they
were not officially caught and reprimanded, there
would be rumor and innuendo -- the SGC was a small,
private world in a small, private command and gossip
traveled faster than the speed of light within the
echoing concrete hallways.
If Hammond ignored the rumors, there would still be
damage to the discipline within the command as others
thought less and less of breaking the rules that
their leaders chose to ignore. Morale would break
down as it was perceived that the illicit
relationship between two of the members of a field
team were given special privilege and consideration
by the leadership in the SGC. No, being on a field
team together or even just on separate field teams in
the SGC meant they could never be together...
While she knew that they had more in common than what
they did for a living, she also knew that they both
lived too much inside their professions to separate
the person from the job all the time. She was not
going to ask him to give up something that he loved
and did well just for her. Likewise, she could not
imagine giving up her work with SG-1 -- even to be
with him.
The possibility for either of them to come to resent
sacrificing something that they loved for something
else they wanted was too great.
But, what *did* she want?
It was really very simple: She wanted to keep her
career at the SGC, her friends, her life, and have
him become a permanent and very personal addition in
that life. She just wanted...To have her cake and
eat it, too...
And she had a snowball's chance in Hell of getting
it...
----------------------------
Sam closed her eyes, letting the steam clear her
head, and trying to turn off her mind. She wiped her
fingers across her face, reached over to the shelf
where the waterproof CD player sat and let the
soothing sounds of Jim West waish over her. Sighing,
she leaned back against the wall and let the music
carry her troubles away.
She must have succeeded better than she'd imagined
she would, because when she woke from her doze, time
had passed, the CD was repeating itself, and she, as
well as the shower, was ice cold. She lifted a pruny
hand to wipe at her face and stopped, amazed at how
shriveled she had become.
Right. She pushed the valve to off and ran her hands
back through her hair. She'd better get out of here
before she turned into one huge wrinkle.
She jumped, banging her left knee against the edge of
the toilet as she stepped out to dry herself and
heard the distinctive sound of the front door opening
down the hall. She dropped the towel into the
shower, cursing under her breath as she tried, as
quietly as possible, to wring out the extra water it
had soaked up from the shower floor.
She quickly wrapped the close-to-sopping towel around
her torso, wishing like hell that she'd remembered to
bring her robe out of the bedroom. Every sense was
on alert as she opened the bathroom door, trying to
slip back through it to her bedroom and the safety
represented by the phones on her bedside table.
She had just picked up her home phone and dialed 9-1
when she heard a man's voice, saying something she
couldn't make out because of his soft tones. She
held her breath, trying to hear what he was saying
over the rapid beating of her heart. Instead of the
voice, she heard something that sent her heart into
overdrive: soft footfalls, coming up the hall towards
her unlocked bedroom door.
She had just pressed the second 1 on the keypad and
was waiting for the line to connect when she heard
her own name called in a voice she definitely
recognized. Her heart did a stutter-step and she
could actually breathe again as she realized who was
in her home.
She plopped the phone down before it connected,
hoping that the Colorado Springs police wouldn't be
sending out a car just because she'd dialed.
She wouldn't need them. Not if that was who she
thought it was coming up her hall.
"Carter?"
His voice was clearer, and now very obviously right
outside her partially closed bedroom door.
"Sir?"
She blindly reached for the edge of the bed, sitting
down on the corner as she felt the weakness of relief
run over her, followed closely by confusion, and then
the beginnings of anger. She hitched absently at the
sagging towel, trying to get her emotions under
control.
What the hell was he doing here? Besides scaring the
hell out of her. Her sudden ire brought her voice
back and she asked just that question.
"What the hell are you doing here?"
"Don'cha mean, 'What the hell am I doing here,
*Sir*'?"
Her door swung open, brushing across the carpet with
a familiar swish. His shadow cast forward from the
soft green glow of the catalyst nightlight she kept
plugged in out in the hallway. The supernatural
green glow lit him from behind, obscuring his
features as he strode into the room.
He came around the door, seemingly waiting for his
eyes to adjust to the half-light in the room before
he spotted her sitting on the edge of her bed. His
eyes widened, his mouth fell open, and he stopped
dead in his tracks, a stillness falling over him that
spoke to her.
She had seen that body language before, when they'd
walked into something unexpected that was likely to
prove deadly if they weren't careful. Her battle-
trained nerves went on immediate alert and her
fingers twitched, looking for the familiar weight of
her P-90 in her hands.
"What? What's wrong?"
She stood up, looking around the room behind her,
trying to figure out what had set him off. His
voice, when it came from behind her, was strangled
and gruff...and full of something else that she had
never heard there before and couldn't identify right
away.
"Sam...You, uh...You're uh-...I need to leave."
What the heck was he tal-
As she turned back to catch his retreating back
slipping through her closing bedroom door, she felt
her towel slip again and realized that she had just
faced her CO wearing nothing more than a wet bath
towel.
She felt the flush climb her chest, staining her face
and making her ears burn. She grabbed up her robe
from the foot of the bed, wrapping it around herself
as she ripped the towel away, tying the sash as she
ran out the door after him.
"Sir!? Wait!"
She caught him at the end of the hall, his hand on
the doorknob and the outside door half open. He
stopped at the sound of her clattering down the
hallway after him, but didn't turn around.
She had seen something in his face, just before he
turned away from her in the bedroom...She wanted to
know what it meant, why he was here. She pulled out
all of the stops, using the one thing she thought
would get his attention again. His back stiffened
when she used his first name.
"Jack, don't go. You came here for a reason...What
do you want?"
He stood still, even now refusing to turn around.
His refusal to even look at her unnerved her, making
her panic from earlier return in spades.
"Please. Jack. Tell me what's going on."
She reached out and pulled on his arm, her firm grip
on the rough cotton making him let go of the knob and
turn to face her. The door swung shut with a snap
and he backed up towards it until he could feel the
solid surface at his back, long-honed instincts
keeping him in a defendable position.
His eyes were tightly closed, his face scrunched up
in a silly grimace that made him look about five
years old.
"Look at me, please."
He shook his head, eyes scrunching harder together.
She touched him, one hand coming to rest on his
forearm, where he held it in a defensive posture. He
still refused to look at her, his body tense, almost
as if he was expecting her to hurt him.
She tried to get him to respond to her, her touch
becoming bold to provoke a reaction of some sort.
She moved her hand to his cheek, sliding her fingers
over his short whisker stubble, stopping at the peak
of his jaw. She leaned in closer to him, feeling his
exhale brush across her own skin as she spoke to him.
"Open your eyes and tell me why you came here."
One eye slowly cracked open, then the other popped
open in startlement as he realized how close she was
to him at that moment. He jerked back from her, fast
and hard enough that her short nails scratched across
his jaw and his head cracked sharply on the wooden
door behind him.
"Shit."
His voice was low and rough, his expletive heartfelt.
She heard real pain there.
"Oh, wow! I'm sorry!"
She pulled him forward, her fingers now searching the
back of his head, her fingers running through the
soft hair, trying to feel for the place he'd banged
it. She heard him take a deep breath, felt him
stiffen, and then felt him take her arms and
carefully push her back away from him.
"It's okay. Not your fault."
She studied him for a moment, trying to figure out
what was going on behind those impossibly bland eyes.
She knew she wouldn't get past those shutters until
he was ready, so she just needed to wait him out.
"Come on. I'll make coffee while you tell me what
this is all about."
She could feel his eyes following her, boring into
her back as she started to retreat down the hallway
into the kitchen. She looked back to where he hadn't
moved, realizing he was about to speak again, when
the doorbell rang, making them both jump.
She looked at the clock on the hall table, glanced
back at him, and raised her eyebrow in a perfect
imitation of Teal'c. He smiled thinly at her and
opened the front door as she stepped up behind him.
Seeing who it was, she hit the switches to flip on
the indoor and outdoor lights as she stepped forward
to speak.
"Good evening, Officer. Can I do something for you?"
The good officer was a large policeman, dressed in a
dark uniform with the tell-tale Kevlar bulge
underneath and the butt of a holstered heavy
automatic pistol gripped in his right hand. He
looked ready to take on just about anything as he
glanced speculatively at Jack and then made a careful
inspection of her robe-clad form.
"Are you Ms. Samantha Carter?"
"Yes, sir. Is there a problem?"
"You tell me that, ma'am. We got a 911 from this
location six minutes ago. Did someone here call for
help?"
As he asked the last, his eyes were mapping over
Jack, checking the position of his hands, the body
language he was getting from the other man. She saw
her CO's back relax and his stance become less openly
aggressive and thanked her lucky stars that he wasn't
going to make this any more difficult that it had to
be.
"Yes, sir. I started to call...but I hung up before
the line connected, I thought."
"Not quite, ma'am. The call was recorded on the
system. And we check out *every* call..."
Officer Storms (a quick glance at his uniform shirt
gave her the name) hadn't pulled his hand away from
his weapon yet, indicating that he was still not
comfortable with the situation. A crackle preceded
the blatty call from his radio and he reached up his
free hand to tap the key and acknowledge the call.
He said something to the effect of he was
investigating, and Sam knew she was going to have to
let him come in and explain what was going on before
he would be satisfied.
"Why don't you come in, Officer Storms? That way
I...uh, we...can explain what happened."
She pulled Jack back out of the way as the other man
stepped into the house.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"Thank you again, Officer."
She closed the door behind him, letting out a gush of
breath and closing her eyes as she leaned against the
closed door. She had changed clothes after she let
the police officer into the house, hastily pulling on
a ratty old USAF sweatshirt and a pair of sweatpants
before shoving her feet into a fuzzy pair of socks.
Score one for her: she didn't have to give the police
officer a statement while sitting there, clothed in
only a damp silk robe, while Jack O'Neill listened
in.
The officer had been understanding of the mix-up when
Jack explained that he'd become worried when she
didn't answer her phones or pager. He hadn't even
raised an eyebrow when he found out that O'Neill had
a key to her place, and had left with a request that
Jack be more careful about surprising her in the
future.
One disaster averted, one to go.
She opened an eye to peek down the hallway at her
living room.
Yup, he was still there: Hurricane Jack, looking back
at her from the safety of her sofa.
He'd been surprisingly cheerful and helpful in
diffusing the tense situation that was the result of
her phone call to the local authorities, bonding with
the policeman in that 'men in uniform are all
comrades' way he had and making Officer Storms
understand that he'd just surprised her.
She glanced at the clock and realized it was almost
0200. So much for her 'go to bed early and deal with
the Colonel tomorrow' plan. Her direct approach
hadn't worked to get him to talk at the door, and
then the officer had interrupted. She'd give him one
more chance before she threw him out of the house.
As if on cue, not a moment later, he appeared at the
entry to the kitchen, resting a hip against the
counter top.
"Sam, I..."
He paused, shifting positions until he had his hips
braced against the counter top, his feet splayed out
in front of him. His arms were crossed in front of
his chest, their protective posture giving her some
idea that he was not feeling 100% comfortable right
now.
"I came here to talk to you about...The other
night...About what happened..."
Her silence, she hoped, spoke volumes.
He sighed, and she knew he was trying to figure out
the best way to tell her what he was feeling, to
explain.
"I know you think I welched on our agreement. I said
we would talk about what went on, what was on that
device."
He paused, but, again, she didn't fill in the
silence, afraid that breaking in would let him stop
without finishing what he came here to tell her.
"I want you to know...I didn't welch. I just needed
time to adjust. To think about all of this...What it
means to us..."
"Then why won't you talk to me?"
"I *want* to talk to you. I *need* to talk to you.
But I can't think straight. I can't figure all of
the angles on this one. I can't..."
"Can't?"
"Can't...Couldn't...Figure out a way around who we
are and what we do. I've spent every minute since
you gave me that device, trying to figure out how to
make this work. Trying to find the right way for us
to continue our work at the SGC and manage to find a
way to be together...Trying to figure out what we're
going to do."
"And did you come to a conclusion about what we're
going to do?"
"Well, yes. I guess...Maybe...I mean, if it
works..."
She looked up at him, standing there with a dejected
look on his face, consternation and confusion lining
his features.
"I've been thinking about us, too. About what I
want...And I...I want it all...I want to have my job
at the SGC with a field team. And I want to...To
have you in my life. And I know it isn't possible.
That we can't have both. We can't have it all..."
She took a deep breath and caught his eyes, her own
open and just a bit challenging in their gaze. Her
voice was soft when she spoke, but she knew from the
way he looked up at her that he heard her.
"There's another question here, though. What do
*you* want?"
His eyes burned into hers from across the short
distance of her kitchen. What she saw there made her
heart do a stutter-step. It was almost like
experiencing his emotions on the Tollan cube once
again, except this time she didn't have to imagine
she could hear his breath, feel the heat of his skin,
see the look on his face.
Suddenly she realized he had closed the distance
between them, crowding into her personal space,
removing the bag of coffee and the scoop from her
hands and setting them aside. He was close, and her
body's heightened awareness of him sang through her
blood, speeding up the pounding of her heart and the
breath filling her lungs.
She felt one of his hands slip to her waist while the
other climbed her back and came to rest at the base
of her skull. She suddenly found herself pressed
back against the pantry cabinet and up against the
long hard plane of his body and she hadn't felt this
way in a *very* long time. Her head buzzed with his
nearness and she could hardly put words together into
a thought inside her own head.
"What I *want* involves you and me and every
horizontal and vertical surface in this house that
will support our combined weight. What I *want*
might just kill me, but I'd die a happy man. What I
*want* will definitely get us both court martialed
and kicked out of the SGC. What I *want* would take
the next eighty or ninety years to finish properly.
What I *want* is a life with you and a lifetime to
live it."
As he said the last, he pressed his mouth to hers,
his cool lips settling against hers as if they had
always belonged there and she'd just never realized
it.
As kisses went, it was...
Wow...
It didn't build, didn't even surge from the cool
hesitation of a first kiss into something more. As
soon as his mouth touched hers, they were devouring
each other, a hot, bruising rush, sweeping away
before it any sense of control. His now burning
mouth continued to explore her lips, sliding sweetly,
slickly across her own mouth and begging entrance
with a quick nip at her lower lip.
She opened to him, losing herself in the swirl of the
sensations he was creating, reveling in the sweet
taste that was Jack O'Neill. Her head spun and her
lungs burned, all of it combining in a high that was
better than anything Janet had ever dosed her with in
the infirmary.
He was kissing her.
He.
Jack.
O'Neill.
The man she loved.
The man who mattered to her.
The man who...
Was her CO.
She broke away, pulling her panicked, flailing mind
from the tar pit of his kiss and physically pushing
him a few steps back by sheer force of will.
----------------------------
"No! I...I can't do this! We can't do this! I'm sorry!"
"I'msorryI'msorryI'msorry..."
He was whispering it aloud, his eyes closed as he
leaned backwards over the sink, where he had landed
as she pushed him away. His stance was awkward, one
hand in the sink and the other braced on the edge of
it and, like her, his chest was heaving and his
breath rattling in and out of overtaxed lungs. Also
like her, the look on his face was a combination of
amazement, horror and abject fear.
He opened his eyes, pinning her with his gaze as
effectively as he'd held her with his body a few
moments before.
"Sam, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to...Well, I *did*
want to...But I wasn't going to..."
He stopped again, drawing in a deep breath before
continuing. His gaze wandered away from hers, moving
down to her mouth in an almost physical weight.
"I didn't come here to do...that. I came here to
talk to you about us - about what we're going to do.
How we're going to work this out."
"What we're going to do?"
"Yeah, what we're going to do. Because if you expect
me to walk away from this...Walk away from us...After
what you showed me on that device...And after what
just happened...Sam..."
He stumbled to a stop on her name, looking directly
into her eyes once again as he stepped forward and
took her forearms in his hands.
"If you think I'm walking away from this for
*anything* - my career, my country, my mental health
- you're crazier than I am right now."
She felt her throat close around her heart. She was
pretty sure that was what the lump there in her
throat was. She heard a buzzing in her ears again,
and wondered if he had caused some kind of brain
damage with that killer kiss.
"But how-"
"I have a plan, Sam. It isn't going be easy. And it
isn't going to be fast. This is going to take time
and you're going to have to trust me. Can you do
that? Can you trust me?"
His expression was serious, his gaze intense, his
grip on her arms almost painfully tight
"I already trust you."
"With your safety in the field, Sam. You trust
Colonel O'Neill to lead your team. Can you really
trust 'broken-down, damaged-goods, Jack O'Neill' with
your heart?"
"It doesn't matter."
His face lost all color as she spoke, his hands
spasming and releasing her arms.
"It doesn't matter if you're broken or damaged or
whatever you want to call it. I trust you. I trust
Jack. I have, for a very long time."
His breath rushed out with the smile that slowly
crept across his face.
"Oh, Sam. Sam..."
He couldn't seem to stop repeating her name and
smiling.
"But Jack, can't you tell me what your plan is? I
mean, I need to know what you're going to do so I
can-"
"No. If you know, then we can both be held
accountable."
"I *don't* like the sound of that."
He turned away from her for the first time, his gaze
firmly locked on the living room across the counter,
refusing to look at her as he spoke.
"What I have planned isn't illegal. I want you to
know that I'm still going to play by the rules."
"Then why not tell me?"
He glanced over at her, flashing a smile that made
her want to taste that mouth again.
"Because one of the things I have learned after
almost thirty years in the Air Force is how to bend
the hell out of the rules without actually breaking
them. I won't ask you to do it, but I will use every
available advantage to achieve the objective."
She was flabbergasted. He sounded like he was
planning an operation into a Goa'uld stronghold. His
voice was grim and determined as he said the words
and she shivered as she realized he was deadly
serious.
"You sound like you're going to war."
"This is war, Sam. The Air Force has told me that
the one thing I want the most in the world is going
to cost me everything I have ever worked for. Like
it's all some kind of game and you have to trade a
life for the work. When I was younger, I fell prey
to that way of thinking."
He turned to look at her, keeping his distance when
he did so.
"Even now, I think you've fallen for it. You don't
want to believe that we can have it all."
"Jack, I just-"
"It's okay, Sam. I know what's at stake. I know how
I feel and I know how you do, too. I refuse to
believe that playing the game by the set rules is the
only way to play. And if I can't win the game by
their rules, I'm going to change the rules to give me
the advantage I want."
"Setting up my own little version of the Kobiyashi
Maru."
She felt a sharp bark of surprised laughter escape
her at the ridiculousness of him even knowing that
detail.
"What?"
His grin was infectious and she felt her own smile
forming.
"Teal'c has been broadening my horizons. He's the
*biggest* Trekkie. I blame Daniel."
She couldn't help it. She had to laugh out loud.
He turned back to her, suddenly stepping close and
pulling her into his arms. She felt his laughter as
she hugged him back, for a moment forgetting that
this shouldn't be happening, shouldn't continue,
shouldn't feel so right...
He buried his face in her neck, his lips caressing
the spot behind her right ear every time he spoke.
She shuddered as he continued, the warmth of his
breath wreaking havoc with her ability to process
what she was hearing.
"In order to reset the rules, I'm going to have to
work the angles. And to do that, I'm going to have
to look like I'm backing away from my true objective
and looking for a different one. I want them to
think I'm giving it up. That's when I make the real
move and get what I want. What we want. It's going
to happen, believe me"
He held her for a moment, then pulled back and looked
into her eyes.
"Do you believe it, Sam?"
"Yes."
No hesitation, no equivocation. Just yes.
"Why?"
"Huh?"
"Why do you believe it?"
"Because you told me so."
She looked into his eyes and hoped he could see the
trust she had for him reflected in her face. She
felt herself smiling at his serious, sincere
expression.
"Besides, it sounds like we can't lose. Even without
hearing the details, you've got quite a Plan there,
Colonel."
"I do. It is. But my Plan isn't going to let us do
*this*."
His arms tightened around her, one hand coming to
rest on her hip and the other on her shoulder.
"We can't take the chance that we'll get caught at
this. So, after tonight, no more. We can't be seen
together alone. We can't appear to have anything but
a very good working CO and 2IC relationship."
"Well, we've had a few years to practice that one.
But after this...It's going to be hard."
He groaned and held her close to him, breathing in
her scent, burying his face in her hair.
"Tell me about it."
His mouth descended on hers again. This time the
kiss was slow and tender. The heat built between
them, going from pleasant warmth to burning
conflagration in a matter of slow, sweet minutes,
robbing them of their good intentions.
Her hands stole up to his waistband, sliding around
and pulling at the place in back where his shirt hung
just a bit loose. Her nimble fingers found their way
under his suddenly un-tucked shirttail and she
groaned into his mouth as they came to rest on warm,
pliant skin covering rock hard lower back muscles.
Her hands crept upwards, reveling in the growl he
made into her mouth as he pressed his body into hers.
His own hands had been busy, holding her head at just
that angle, one gliding down her back to pause at her
waist, delving up under her soft cotton sweatshirt to
even softer skin covering a back that flexed and
moved under his hands as she pressed herself closer.
His wayward hand then slipped under the waistband of
her sweatpants, feeling the firm muscles swoop
downward and tracing the dimple at the base of her
spine. His lungs burning, he pulled his mouth from
hers with an almost audible pop.
She made a noise in her throat, an almost whining
keen that at any other point in her life would have
embarrassed her beyond belief. But right here, right
now, she wanted so much more and knew she couldn't
have it. The frustration made her want to scream.
The small sound was all the relief she gave herself.
"I need to go."
She shook her head, too comfortable in his embrace to
think of letting him go. Ever.
"Sam, if I'm ever going to leave tonight, I need to
go right now."
She leaned back, her eyes opening and coming to rest
on his as she opened her mouth to speak.
He stopped her with a finger placed across her lips.
"Don't. I know what you're going to say. Just
don't."
He heaved a sigh that pushed his body back up against
hers for a fleeting moment before the sliver of space
reappeared between them.
"If you say it, I won't have the strength to leave
and everything I have planned is gonna go down the
tubes. And while I'd trade *almost* anything to stay
right here, right now, our future together isn't one
of those things."
Sam felt the prickle of something close to tears in
her eyes. To know how he felt about her was
incredible. To have him this comfortable about
expressing it was more than she had ever hoped for.
She opened her arms as he pulled back, stepping away
from him and realizing she was not the only one who
would be disappointed about his leaving tonight.
He took her hand, leading her behind him as he
gathered his jacket and headed to her front door.
There, in the darkness broken by moonlight streaming
through the sidelights, he turned and took her face
in his hands.
He placed a delicate, warm kiss on her mouth, leaving
her lips after a moment, traveling in small, nipping
busses across her cheek and the bridge of her nose,
pausing to kiss her closed eyes, before traveling
over to her ear as he pulled her into a tight hug.
"Hold onto this. No matter what you might think is
happening in the future, hold into this. What's
between us is real and good and it's our future. It
may take us a while to get there, and you might not
think it is ever going to happen. But when that
feeling comes over you, remember this, tonight, and
believe that it *will* happen."
With that he released her, stepped back and stopped.
His hand came up, cupping her cheek before he turned
away, opened her door and walked away into the night.
###