has_2ls | Man on a Mission [For Keller]

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Man on a Mission [For Keller]

Jack didn't like being on the outs with Carter, not even when they had a purely working relationship. He'd always loved her company and thought she was funny and sincere before he started having thoughts about how to make her laugh and what would drive her crazy. That said, he'd landed himself in the dog house pretty good after the sex fiasco and Jack couldn't for the life of him understand why he'd let himself get so carried away with her. It wasn't like either of them.

Still, an apology would probably do them some good and Jack intended to snag fruit and coffee from the Compound just after dawn and sneak it into Carter's hut by way of making peace. She'd wake up to her favorite thing and a note from him and maybe it'd start smoothing things over. Or making them civil. Hell, he didn't know what to do. He just had to try.

Coffee in hand with a folded note, he started making his way back down to New Atlantis, hoping nobody ran into him.

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"As long as you show up, the suit is optional," Jennifer assured him. "Just bring yourself in whatever clothes you've got... and bring Sam with you." Maybe it wasn't nice to insist on that if they were obviously fighting about something, but Jennifer suspected if he was bringing her breakfast they couldn't stay mad at each other for long.

Kind of like the way she didn't think she and Ronon could stay mad at each other for long if they had a fight. The idea kind of made her want to turn around and go back and spend the rest of the day with him.

"Now go, before that gets cold," she said, making a shooing gesture.

"Yes ma'am," Jack said, grinning as he made his way back down the path to his and Sam's huts. He thought of her as Sam now, not Carter, and Jack wondered if the change had just been because they'd had sex with one another. He pushed that back though, and tried to quietly enter the hut. Special Forces training made that easy, but Sam had been well trained too.

...and she was asleep, sprawled across her bed in all her clothes and looked exhausted. Jack set the coffee and the note on the table and turned to go but something made him pause. He'd wanted to wake up beside her Tuesday morning, even if she didn't want to wake up beside him, and the sight of her vulnerable and unguarded...well. He took a liberty.

He stepped closer, lightly brushing her hair from her face and leaned down to kiss her cheek softly.

"Get some rest, Sam. Love you."

See? She couldn't protest if she was asleep. Perfect plan.

Sam hadn't slept all night. She told herself this was because she was working, but most of that time she was supposedly working she was staring off into space thinking about what had happened, trying to sort it out, and ending up falling onto her bed around 5 am fully clothed to "rest her eyes".

She'd fallen asleep before her head hit the pillow, and she slept hard.

As hard as she slept, though, she was dimly aware of the smell of hot coffee and the sound of a voice. Jack's voice, saying something she couldn't make out. It took her a few seconds, but she forced herself awake enough to see him almost walking out her door.

"Hey."

Jack froze, hand lightly touching the door frame of the hut. He didn't turn around, not after what he'd just done (really, he was supposed to be staying on his side of the line, not crossing it again by kissing her when she couldn't say no) but he did stay.

"Uh...just thought you might need something to get your brain working since you've got...math and stuff to do."

She'd smelled coffee.

It took her a second to realize there was a mug of coffee right by her bed, but when she did she pushed herself up to sitting and picked it up in both hands. It was still warm.

"Thanks."

Jack had gone to the compound to get her coffee. She was surprised, and oddly touched, and that was enough that she almost couldn't drink it, but she took a sip. He'd even fixed it the way she liked it, cream and double (okay, a little more than double) sugar. She hadn't known he even knew that.

"Jack--" She was about to ask him why he wouldn't turn around, why he was still lingering in the door, when she saw the folded piece of paper where the coffee cup had been. She picked it up, unfolded it, and read it silently.

I love you, and I'm sorry for taking advantage of you.

"Jack," she said quietly.

"Yeah?"

This was starting to get incredibly awkward incredibly quickly. Had to be a new record for them. Resigning himself to another hard conversation he turned around. She'd at least called him Jack, which was better than sir by far for things like this.

"Yeah, Sam?"

"Can we talk about this?" she asked. "I know we said we weren't, but we should." And she needed to be more awake for this conversation and not sitting in her bed.

She got up, coffee mug in one hand and rubbing her eyes with the other. God, she felt worse now than she had before she laid down. Waking up from a hard sleep would do that to you. It was almost as bad as a hangover.

"Look, what I did to you was inexcusable, Sam. The fact that you haven't thrown me out on my ass is good enough for me," Jack said quietly, settling at her table. The table was safe. He couldn't touch her if she was across the room from him.

"You didn't do anything to me," Sam said in a tired voice. "Whatever happened, I know you well enough to know that you wouldn't have done it if I had been affected by this island whatever it is, craziness, and you weren't. But you were just as much under it as I was, and I don't blame you, okay?"

She took a big gulp of her coffee, clearing the cobwebs from her head just a little. "I told you, it wasn't what we did, but how it happened that bothers me."

This was way too serious a conversation to have on an hour's sleep, but she couldn't let him walk away under the impression she thought he was a rapist or something.

"It's not how I wanted it, Sam," Jack admitted, voice pained. He'd taken to looking at his hands, since looking at Sam herself usually ended bad for the both of them.

"I've fantasized about you for longer than I can remember and you always...we were as good in bed as we were out of it. I didn't want...I just wish I had it to do again and to do it right so you'd be happy with it."

Happy with me, he thought silently, studying the tabletop.

"Something about this damn island makes me where I can't keep my hands off you and I'm not...look, I have no idea what I'm saying. I'm going to stop talking."

Don't just spout off with the first thing that comes to the top of your head, she told herself. She drank the rest of her coffee while she thought about what to say. When Rodney told her his fantasies it kind of weirded her out and she'd shoo him off with a go check my calculations, McKay, but this was a little different.

Why were they saying the same things over and over every time?

"Jack." She sat down at the table across from him, hands folded in her lap. God, she was not awake enough for this and she was terrified she'd go all mushy-mouthed and say something inane. She thought about spending most of the day with him in bed, the picnicking, the flower-picking, the lazy whiling away the day, and she couldn't find it in herself not to want that on a more regular basis.

She just couldn't let herself have it. Not yet. Not even when he was bringing her coffee and looking all sheepish in her doorway.

"All that stuff I said about loving you, that you were the best thing that ever happened to me... all that was true," she said carefully. "I just wasn't ready to say it yet. It's like..." She struggled for the right metaphor, but she was so tired her brain felt like it was full of fog.

"It's like you're in this brand new X-302," she said, forgetting for the moment he hadn't even heard of that yet, much less seen it, "and you think you know exactly how to land it, because even though you've never actually done it before you've studied it for years, but you realize it's something totally new and way better than what you thought you had, and it's the only one there is and the only one there's ever going to be, so you don't want to wreck it. You don't want to crash it and burn it up, so you pull up... and God, this metaphor sucks," she finished lamely. "I can't think straight. Just... do you have any idea at all what I mean?"

Jack half smiled at her, eyes finally meeting hers.

"You don't want to wreck it because it's so damn beautiful, but because you're afraid you can't really let her fly, right? Is that about it?"

Because that was exactly how he felt about her just about every day and he kept crashing the plane on the runway before he could really get going good.

"You don't have to be afraid to fly, Sam. You're allowed to be happy, I swear. If it's me that makes you happy, I'm a damn lucky man, but you deserve it regardless of who or what it is."

"Yeah."

Just one word, soft, but certain. Every romantic relationship in her adult life had ended in loneliness of some kind, whether by death or spectacular breakup, and Sam was so afraid to set herself up for that again. It was why she was burying herself in her work even here on this island. Not duty, or at least not entirely; it was fear. Fear that it wouldn't work, fear that it wasn't real, fear that it wouldn't last. And it was petrifying in a way that all the crazy things she did on the job never had been--because that was the job, and this was her life.

"I am." And she needed him to be patient with her until she wasn't anymore, but she didn't know how to ask him.

Edited 2010-02-16 05:10 (UTC)

"Don't be afraid to fly, sweetheart," Jack said finally, shifting to stand. He crossed over to her and kissed the top of her head lightly, no more than he'd do to Jennifer or to Jane, and smoothed down her sleep-mussed hair.

"Unless you want me to stay, I think I'll go. Let you have your coffee in peace, all right?"

She took a breath, and when his hand fell away from her hair she caught it, squeezing gently. They had had too many painful conversations recently, and she felt drained and a little nuts and she really didn't want to screw up.

"I don't want to wreck this," she said quietly. "It's too important. I just need..." You to be patient with me? To not misunderstand? She couldn't put it in the right words--too much feeling and not enough sleep in the last few day were catching up with her. "A really careful pre-flight?"

Yeah, she had really pushed the limit on that partucular metaphor, but it was what she had to work with right now.

Jack squeezed her hand lightly.

"At the risk of sounding like a teenager, did you want to just date and see what happens? Nothing...physical," Jack said, drawing that line for her, "But maybe just being around me in a capacity that's not friend or CO?"

"I'd like that," Sam said, feeling something like relief and for the first time since she'd come here, almost hopeful. Hopeful. That was an emotion she hadn't felt since Jack died on the Tok'ra homeworld, and it was strange; it was like she didn't know how to feel it.

But she wanted to.

"I'd like that a lot," she amended, glancing up at him. There was a possibility that this might be a conversation that didn't end with her wanting to pull her heart out, and there was that hope thing again.

Jack squeezed her hand again. "Then we're dating. Did you want to go for a walk or anything? Clear your head?"

"Yeah, that would be good." It was very tempting to just crawl back in bed and sleep till lunch, but spending just normal time with Jack was just as tempting. "Give me five minutes?"

She might have just woken up, but she didn't want to look like she'd just woken up.

"I'll give you ten if you'll smile for me," Jack teased, ruffling her hair again. "You've got dimples. I like those. Hardly ever got to see them back home."

Sam couldn't help but smile at that. "I only need five," she said, laughing a little. It felt good to laugh with him instead feeling frustrated and tense. "Go on, I'll be out in a minute."

"Oh, so it's some secret girl ritual I'm not allowed to see?" Jack teased again, dutifully turning to go. He glanced over at his own hut, frowning a little at the box sitting just outside the door. Was this a box like Sam had gotten or something different entirely?

He walked over to investigate, lightly touching the top. His handwriting was there "Crap from my SGC office" and neatly scratched out with an inventory beneath in someone else's handwriting.

Jack's dress uniform, with shoes
Photographs--Charlie; the team; Jack's father.
Miscellaneous--Jack's tags, string bracelet from Cassie?

Jack opened the box, pawing through for the one photo that meant the most. Dammit, Charlie. He missed him.

Sam really only needed a minute; she wanted to change her shirt, brush her hair, and find her shoes, one of which had been kicked under the bed. She did all these with quick efficency, and went over the few feet to Jack's hut.

"Okay, let's--" She stopped when she saw what he was doing. She recognized both the box and the handwriting on the lid, and knelt down beside him. He'd seen the list; she knew what he'd be looking for.

"Need a minute," Jack said quietly, running a finger down the photo frame. There were the other photos in there, but neither got to him the way this one did.

"Never thought I'd get to see this again, you know?"

"I know," she said quietly, and after a moment's thought she put a hand on his shoulder. She'd helped him pack up his office when he left the SGC for the Pentagon; he'd gotten quiet like this when he'd packed Charlie's picture away.

And then wanted to label the whole box as SGC crap until she scratched it out and did a proper inventory.

He'd never really talked about Charlie, other than the obvious, and she had never pried. There were some things that were just outside that boundary, whether in the boundaries of rank or out of it.

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