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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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.

Jack touched her hand lightly, squeezing after a few moments. "It was my fault. Came home too tired one night and didn't unload the gun. Charlie didn't know how to load one; I'd never taught him that. Sara and I had been having some damn fight out in the yard...about lawn ornaments or something and I heard it and there was nothing I could do."

Sam squeezed his hand back, hard. She didn't say it's not your fault; he wouldn't believe her if she did, even though she didn't think it was his fault. It was an accident.

"I'm so sorry," she said, her voice low. Sam knew what it was like to lose her parents and her dearest friends; she could not even begin to imagine what it would feel like to lose a child, especially not in the way that Jack had lost Charlie.

"What was it that monkey said in that Disney movie? Just because it's in the past doesn't mean it doesn't still hurt?"

Jack laughed, but it was a little more subdued than usual. "Looks like I did make general though," he said, nudging at the uniform in the box. "Stars."

She let go of his hand, squeezed his shoulder, and let her hand drop. Thinking of her father still hurt, just a few years later, but she was sure that even twenty years from now it still would. She didn't know, but she suspected, that losing a child was even worse. Parents should not outlive their children.

The uniform, though... "I told you," she said, smiling a little.

"Do I look good in it?" Jack asked, turning to look at Sam. This would be a good time for her to be honest and move toward that dating thing they'd discussed, but he would hold his breath until it happened.

"Yes," Sam said honestly, a small fond smile bringing out the dimple in her cheek. "You did." Not that he'd ever looked bad in his dress uniform; on the contrary. But there was something about the general's stars that just... well.

Jack teased a little more, smile just that much wider. "Do I look good enough that you'll go with me to the wedding?"

"Maybe." She blushed a little, touching the stars on one of the shoulders of his uniform jacket. "Though I'd go with you even if you wore something else."

They'd sort of been planning to go together anyway, in that 'we live right next door to each other and are going in the same direction' kind of way, or at least they had been before everything blew up. But this was different; a subtle difference, but different regardless.

Jack nudged her a little with his shoulder, trying to elicit that blush again.

"Then we'll go. Pick you up on time and everything. I can be a good date when I want to be, promise."

As opposed to the day before yesterday, when he'd pushed things way too far.

"Sounds good."

So they were going to Jennifer and Ronon's wedding together. That made it something like a date, didn't it?

Oooh boy. A date with Jack O'Neill.

She wasn't entirely sure how she felt about this still, but really, she didn't need to be entirely sure. It was just a date.

With Jack.

And she was as nervous as a sixteen year old over it.

"Doesn't weird you out or anything?" Jack asked, lightly touching her knee. Knee touching had to be okay. He couldn't possibly make that erotic, right? Nope, touching clothed knees just had to be fine and not rule breaking in any way shape or fashion.

Because for all he kept moving the line before, now that he'd gotten Sam to concede to being open about her feelings for him, he wasn't going to push the physical aspect of the relationship. She'd come when she was ready and Jack could just wait.

But nothing said he couldn't wait impatiently.

"No," she said honestly. She nudged him a little with her knee."It doesn't." It was just a little step, and that she could handle. It wasn't island weirdness, and Jack wasn't being pushy, and she wasn't getting that weird vibe that set her on edge that she kept getting most days she was here.

It felt normal, and she liked it.

"Let me know if it does," Jack said quietly, shifting his gaze from her to New Atlantis itself. The sun was up fully now and it was kinda pretty, just to watch. "Last thing I want is to screw this up again, Sam. Means too much to me to do that."

She found his hand and squeezed it gently. It hadn't been him that screwed it up; it was their crazy situation. But they weren't going to rehash that. They were just going to move on, in small steps. Blank slate and all that.

"I will," she told him. "It means too much to me, too."

"So coffee's the way to do it, huh?" Jack teased, trying to introduce a little levity. They'd gotten way too heavy for his tastes. "To get you happy to see me in the morning?"

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Man on a Mission [For Keller]

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