TITLE: Strange Fits

AUTHOR: Divine Joker

EMAIL: souls_darkangel@yahoo.com

RATING: G

SUMMARY: Stolen in a moment, Sam does something that she's not prepared to handle the consequences for.

SPOILER: Itsy-bitsy for 100 Days… but who hasn't seen that ep?

ARCHIVE: SJD, my site: http://www.geocities.com/souls_darkangel

A/N: The title's spawned by the quick glance of an index for an anthology of William Wordsworth. The poem is written for a lady, but the title applies well to this. The first verse goes thus:

Strange fits of passion have I known:
And I will dare to tell
But in the Lover's ear alone
What once to me befell.

A/N II: Thanks to Venom for the thorough read-through. Love you, hun, and feel better.

**<<****>>**

Oh my.

"Carter?"

Holy.

"Did you just…" his brows furrowed together in a thoroughly adorable look of confusion.

She couldn't close her mouth and her eyes were frozen open in complete embarrassment at what she had just done. She took a quick step backwards, her hands gripping his shoulders, unwilling to relinquish their hold. She could only remove herself the two feet that her arms allowed her to move.

Regardless, even as she was moving that limited distance, his hands had risen to grasp hers and hold them in place. He looked at her inquisitively.

"Carter?"

Innocence. Maybe innocence would work.

"Sir?"

He snorted and tried to look her in the eye; something she was studiously and successfully avoiding. "Don't you go `Sir'-ing me, Carter." Furtively, he looked around to see that they didn't have an audience; not too surprising considering that they were in her lab. He sighed.

"Carter…"

His tone was enough to make her shiver and she shook her head forcefully, starting to pull her hands from where they were held securely to his chest. He held on to her, and Sam knew with a certainty that he wouldn't allow her to run from the room, let alone move away from him. Sam closed her eyes in reluctant surrender, but she still refused to look at him. He gave her a small tug and brought her back within his embrace her head burrowing into his chest. Her vigorous shaking reduced to pitiful twitches as the previous minutes flitted tauntingly through her mind.

It hadn't been anything unusual, seeing him standing in her doorway when she looked up from her work. He hadn't been dressed in anything different or said anything out of the ordinary. In fact, the entire scenario was something that she had seen at least twice a week for the last three or four years.

Ever since he had come back from Edora.

He had idly inquired after her weekend and went straight to harassing her about her lack of life, seeing as she had spent 24 of the 48 hours of downtime within the mountain. The small part of her heart that was irked by his continuing pressure for her to expand her off-duty repertoire fluttered mercilessly within her rib cage. That little part of her wanted to scream at him that he was the reason she didn't want to get a life… he was the reason she couldn't even consider moving on yet.

He had been leaning on her lab table, his left arm leaning it's forearm to provide him balance and his right hand reaching over to play with a pen that she had idiotically left lying out in the open. For some reason she found it extremely captivating.

She had known something was wrong the moment she found herself staring at his fingers. The feeling of dread spread as she realized that her gaze was wandering slowly and steadily up his arm to rest appreciatively on his shoulders.

His *shoulders*?

It wasn't until the deep seeded knowledge of impending doom blossomed within her chest that her eyes snapped to his and she found him looking at her… looking at him.

It hadn't been any different.

Seriously.

Until she again found herself moving. Only this time it wasn't her eyes, but her entire body.

Towards him.

Swallowing convulsively, Sam noticed herself standing in his personal space. So much so, that she could feel his surprised breath fluttering almost innocently across her cheek.

He had stood up somewhere between her standing on the other side of the table and her standing within inches of him. He knew what she was going to do; she could see it in his eyes.

He had stood up for her.

And now she found herself looking into his eyes.

Two seconds elapsed between her realization that she was about to kiss him and the actual event.

It started slowly, hesitantly; like every other uncomfortable aspect of their current `relationship' that hovered precariously between `friends' and `friends with something more.' However, also like those other events, it soon became comfortable and special. The first tentative touch passed and was followed by firmed and more controlled exploration of their mouths. Her hands fisted into his BDU jacket and pulled him against her chest as one of his hands furled into the short blonde hair at the nape of her neck. They didn't let their hands detract from this first shared feeling of their kiss. Sam felt her nerves melt into a solid mass of appreciation of the feeling he was evoking within her and was slowly losing her grasp of rational thought.

Mercifully, or not, the soft click of heels retreated down the hall and it's sound caught up with Sam's rapidly fleeing brain cells.

Then, just as quickly as her hypnotic entrancement of her commanding officer had overtaken her rationale, it snapped cleanly down the middle, exposing a scary underbelly of rules and regulations, fear and confusion. Her harsh breaths snagged in her throat and she gasped in understanding of their actions. She pulled herself away from the magnetism of his kiss.

And now? Now, she was still standing within his embrace.

Shit.

She felt a sigh reverberate through his chest and took in a deep breath. There was not a chance in hell that he would allow her to walk out of this lab without at least promising that she would talk to him later. Although, she was thinking that he would rather do that right now.

She felt him take another solid breath and then, "I thought we were leaving this in the room, Sam." It wasn't a question by any stretch of the imagination, but within his tone, she could hear so much more than she would have thought possible.

He had never wanted to leave it in the room. Her rushed assessment of the situation had left him with nothing left to work with and he had allowed her to play it as she wanted. He had lived and abided by her rules for years and had never once made a move to suggest that he wasn't happy with it. His acceptance was enough to make her start to cry, but she ruthlessly squelched the feeling. This was an entirely different scenario. Still, he was admitting to something that she hadn't even considered.

He had followed her command without question, as she had done for years.

"I'm not…" she took a deep steadying breath, but now refused to lift her head from the nest of his t-shirt. "I'm not saying we're taking it out." She paused. "But I'm not saying that we're leaving it in, either."

A soft puff of amusement ruffled her hair and an odd sense of comfort washed over her. "You can't have it both ways, you know."

A mutual silence enveloped them and Sam wondered why he was being so calm about this. He wasn't pushing her to make a decision, one way or another. He was playing this entirely out of her hands.

That was exactly it, she realized, a dark pit of comprehension forming in her stomach. He wouldn't have to change at all if she wanted to keep the room locked tight. He was giving her control of something that she wanted, but didn't know how to handle. By allowing her to make the decision, he was letting her know, in his own indirect way, that if she did choose to unlock those steel doors, he was more than willing to go with the flow. Her eyebrows furrowed in disquiet, a sense of her lack of control of this situation enveloping her calming nerves. She felt both elation and frustration at the idea.

Deciding the future of both the Colonel and herself?

Her breath hitched in her throat.

And here, standing in his arms – something that she had never allowed herself to indulge in – she didn't know which way she was leaning. Too many thoughts weighed heavily on her mind, giving pros and cons to each option.

The Colonel sighed, his arms giving her a gentle squeeze for a few seconds before releasing her. She watched him step away from her, his arms dropping to his sides for a few stiff moments before his hands were stuffed into his pockets. He looked at her intently for a moment, his lips pursed in a thoughtful smile.

Feeling the loss of his comfort and support, her arms rose to wrap around herself, each hand gripping a bicep and spreading to cover as much abandoned skin as possible. Self-conscientiously, she lowered her eyes to the floor.

"I've, uh, got a meeting with Hammond." She heard his feet move and then pause a few feet away. "Wanna grab a beer later?"

His calm confidence steeled her nerves and she looked up to him, her eyes nearly betraying the threat of tears. She didn't want to decide on this. She didn't want to think about it. She wanted to leave it locked away, tight and forbidden.

But that smile, the glimmer, that tone of voice…

Was it worth it anymore?

She nodded swiftly, deign to lose any time that she could spend with him, even with this awkward moment clearly labelled for discussion.

Maybe she wanted to force the issue.

Maybe she was ready to unlock that door.

Maybe leaving it in the room would kill it.

The first certain thought that she had since he had come into her lab blared out it's intentions as she watched him leave.

She didn't want it to die in that room.

~~FIN~~

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