has_2ls | For Sam [TR]

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For Sam [TR]

Island life meant a lot of fishing and sitting around twiddling his thumbs but at least the ITF provided him with something to work toward, even if it was Special Forces reserves or something. Something was better than nothing, after all, and it gave him the motivation to do the intense PT that he hadn't really done since showing up on the island.

PT was easy when you were in the field; running for your life didn't really seem like work so much as...running for your life. Jack tried to keep that in mind while he swam and ran and hiked until his lungs burned and his knees twinged. He'd still run with Sam later but he...he'd been having a hard time sleeping since the night she'd stayed with him and he refused to acknowledge that might be because she wasn't sleeping next to him.

He knew Sam would probably be awake; it was first light now and she had always been an early riser. Still damp from the shower, he brought her coffee just the way she liked it and some fruit from the compound and knocked on her door, hoping he'd catch her before she went to go fiddle with whatever she was fiddling with these days.

"Sam? You up yet?"

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Sam was indeed awake and up and dressed, sitting at her table with some books and papers, but she wasn't really paying much attention to them yet. She had realized not long after waking what day it was--it was easy to lose track of the exact date here--and she was thinking a little more about that than about the equation-filled pages in front of her.

"Yeah," she called, very grateful that Jack had interrupted her thoughts. "Come on in."

Jack held up the coffee and fruit and placed them on the table in front of her before dropping a kiss on Sam's hair. Quick and easy, then he crossed the room to flop on the nearest available flat surface, which happened to be her bed.

"Remind me to never spend my nights doing PT instead of sleeping. I'm not 25 anymore, you know?"

"Ooh, coffee," she said gratefully. "Thanks." At this rate he was going to spoil her if he kept this up. It was just like she liked it, too, and she took a long, satisfied sip.

Then she watched him flop down on her bed. "Why were you doing that instead of sleeping?"

"Couldn't sleep," Jack mumbled, voice a little muffled by her pillows. Mmm. They smelled nice, kinda like Sam's hair. Maybe he should just start sleeping during the day in Sam's bed. It wasn't like she'd be using it then and he'd have the benefit of her scent to lull him into sleep. Or maybe that was a stupid idea.

"Trying to make sure I'm gonna cut it for ITF."

"Mm, I doubt you have anything to worry about there," Sam said. "It's nothing you haven't done before." She suspected it had more to do with the fact that he couldn't sleep, for whatever reason that was.

She picked up her coffee and sat on the edge of the bed, and her fingers wandered to the back of his head, stroking his hair. "Take a nap, then," she suggested.

Jack hadn't expected Sam's fingers in his hair and it felt nice enough that he let out a satisfied little moan and snuggled deeper into the pillows. Nice and relaxed and he wasn't moving for anything in the world.

"You can keep doing that."

He was aiming for casual, but Jack figured he might be just to the left of it. It was hard to gauge what was and wasn't okay with Sam and he'd been trying to figure out how to ask her to sleep at his hut again since the last time it happened and...well.

Every night he ended up pacing around his hut for an hour or two trying to get up the nerve and then gave up and tried to occupy himself to not think about it and then he eventually fell asleep. Not his idea of a good time.

"I mean, if you want. Not gonna say no. Might say yes. Repeatedly. And call you God."

"Well, I might be good at blowing up suns and all that but I never made it to parting the Red Sea," she joked, still dragging her fingers lightly through his hair, "so don't call me that just yet." She hadn't realized it until after she said it, but it was the conversation she'd had with her dad on their last mission together, and she got quiet for a little bit.

As relaxed as he was, Jack noticed the quiet and after a few minutes of just basking in the fact that Sam was touching him, he rolled over to look at her, frown turning down the corners of his mouth.

"Something's going on with you," Jack said softly, watching her face to see if she'd crack. "And for once I don't think it's me that's got you less than chipper, considering I just brought you the nectar of the gods. Talk to me."

Even though he'd turned over, she kept touching his hair with the hand that wasn't holding her coffee cup; this time tracing the soft hair at his temple. "I was just thinking of my dad," she admitted. "He died five years ago, this week. At least, by the island's calendar."

"I'm sorry," Jack said softly, reaching up and catching the hand at his temple so he could kiss it lightly. "Don't guess there's anything I can do to make that better, huh?"

Edited 2010-03-11 19:45 (UTC)

"No," said Sam, and then added, "it's okay. You don't have to do anything... and I'm not that sad, not really, not now. I had a lot of years with him that I thought I wouldn't get, and thanks to Selmak we got along better than we had since my mother died. I just think about him a lot, this time of year, and I miss him."

Jack half smiled. "You'll get your turn for me come August."

He imagined Sam would know what he meant and, if not, he didn't mind explaining it to her.

"How's the coffee?"

Sam did know what he meant, and she rubbed her thumb over the back of his hand in acknowledgement. "It's good," she said in answer to his question about the coffee. "Just like I like it." She looked down in the mug with a disappointed expression, then set the mug aside. "And gone, too, apparently." Because it really had been just the kind of thing she liked.

"Shoulda brought two mugs," Jack said, grinning a little. "Do you have any big plans for the day or are you just hanging out?"

"No big plans," she answered. She'd intended to work at least a little today, but thinking of her dad had put her out of the mood and she felt like putting it aside. "You? Other than napping on my bed?"

"Nope," Jack admitted easily, patting the space next to him. "Wanna snuggle? It'd help me sleep," he added, giving her a goofy grin for her troubles.

"I just had a mug of coffee," she pointed out. "I'm not likely to go to sleep anytime soon. But if you turn over, I'll rub your back and maybe you can sleep."

It dawned on her after she'd said it that it was something very much like that, right here in this very bed, that had started things up on that day they'd been together that they hadn't been themselves. But Sam was definitely herself, and she wasn't intending for it to lead to anything else--and if it did, well, Sam trusted him enough to stop if things got too much for her.

Jack rolled over, dragging his t-shirt up and off on the way and tossed it somewhere over on the side of her bed. He'd find it later, or she'd hang it up, and then he'd be able to get it once he'd left.

"I'm all yours, Sam."

In more ways than one, Jack thought quietly, but he didn't voice it. Inappropriate.

"Just be still." She started with his neck, pressing her thumbs just on either side of his spine and slowly working her way over his shoulders, kneading gently. It was hard not to think of the last time she'd done this, but it didn't feel at all the way that had felt, silly and flirty and outrageously teasing. It was very calm, and it was a different enough mood to keep Sam from thinking too much about the similarities.

"Mmm. You're good at this," Jack said quietly, turning his head slightly on the pillow and cracking one eye so he could look at her. She was beautiful, eyes soft and blue and hair so much longer than he'd ever seen it back home. It was a nice sight to wake up to.

"You really are the best girlfriend I've ever had, you know."

Yeah, he said it. Jack stiffened slightly, wondering what her reaction would be to the dreaded g word.

The movement of Sam's hands only stilled for a second, and then resumed. She was caught a little off-guard by that, not just because he'd said it, but because she hadn't even been using words like boyfriend and girlfriend in her own thoughts. This was partly because they sounded a little ridiculous to describe anyone over forty (even if there wasn't really a better word), but also because... well, she didn't know what they were.

Or, if that's what they were, if it was okay for them to be that, since she was still working on a way to get them all home; and while she hadn't determined if she and Jack were from different points in the same timeline or different points in different universes, the end result would be the same if she worked it out.

But she didn't say any of this. Instead she said lightly, keeping up her attentions to his shoulders, "Is that what I am to you?"

"Well, yeah," Jack said quietly, turning back into the pillows so he didn't have to look at her. It was what she was to him and she hadn't really commented, so he guessed it was okay but...

"It's like I told Daniel. I'm yours and I hope like hell I can call you mine and there's not anybody else. You're my girlfriend, my girl, my lover, my partner...whatever you want to call it. He made fun of me for calling it going steady but I'm too old to do anything else, not where you're concerned."

He sighed, shoulders slumping. If there was a time for the earth to open and swallow him whole, this was it.

The movement of her hands slowed a little, because her thoughts distracted her, but didn't stop altogether. "You said that to Daniel?" Sam was surprised that he'd been so talkative about them, though if he was going to say anything to anyone, obviously it would be Daniel.

Jack winced.

"I didn't know we were supposed to keep it secret."

His tone was apologetic and again, he was wishing for that hole to open up and swallow him whole.

"I didn't say anything about keeping it secret," she replied, and prodded his shoulder a little. Jack sounded like he was apologizing, and she didn't think he needed to feel like he had to do that. "I was just surprised you said that much. You've always seemed kind of a private person to me."

There weren't a lot of areas where she and Jack were alike. He preferred to blow things up when she would rather study them, she hated downtime where he relished it, and most intellectual pursuits that fascinated her bored him to tears, but that had been one of the things they always had in common: they both played personal things very close to the vest.

Then again, he'd been talking to Daniel, so it was still pretty close to the vest.

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