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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"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.

"I am private," Jack agreed, words mumbled by the pillows. "But that doesn't mean that when I'm happy and I've got a gorgeous woman that I'm not proud to talk about her. I'm not telling our sex life to people, Sam. I'm just...I'm really happy to be with you."

This conversation was getting worse and worse.

"I told Jane we were together too. Sort of. But that's it. Daniel and Jane."

And Jane was the closest thing to a daughter or a niece that Jack had ever had, so he didn't figure that was too out of the ordinary. She was special to him, just like Daniel.

Sam had told... well, no one, except for Daniel, and then only in a vague way. Then again, she'd had almost four times as many years as Jack had had to repress, deny, and ignore their feelings, so it was probably a little easier for him to let go of that than for her. Maybe it said a little about how repressed she was that she couldn't talk about this with anyone without feeling like an idiot.

She needed to lighten up. But that was easier said than done.

"Jack, it's fine," she assured him. "It doesn't need to be a secret. There's no reason for it to be, not here." Her hands went from kneading his shoulders to more of a smoothing, stroking motion up and down the middle of his back, following the lines of muscle and spine. "Just because I don't really talk about us to anyone--well, except Daniel--doesn't mean I'm not happy with the way we are."

Edited 2010-03-12 02:45 (UTC)

"I get worried, you know? It's serious to me," Jack murmured, half to himself.

"It's a serious relationship on my end, Sam. I don't...I don't know what it is for you and it worries me. And I'm not trying to pressure you or anything but you're it for me. I just...I just don't know where you are, you know?"

God, he sounded like a girl.

He must really be tired to be this talky, Sam thought, and she didn't know whether to keep working on his back until he fell asleep or ease up so they could talk...

She dithered over it a few minutes, and then despite her lecture to McKay the other day about him being a chickenshit, she took the complete chickenshit option herself and kept working on Jack's back in the hopes that he'd relax about the whole thing and maybe fall asleep. Miss Perfect Relationship indeed. Because in Sam's mind there was a huge wall of separation between being head over heels in love with him--which she was--and letting herself act on it like she wanted--which she wasn't quite yet. And the reason for that was both last month's craziness and because she was still working on a way to get them home.

The former they'd hashed out, and she hoped he understood, but the latter.... well. She didn't like to bring it up to him anymore, because it was kind of a sore spot, and if there was anything in the world she wanted right now it was not to be on bad terms with him. She liked too much this thing they had going, this kissing-and-cuddling-and-holding hands thing that made her feel sixteen and naïve and not forty-one and kind of jaded.

"It's serious for me, too," she said finally. "It couldn't not be, with you."

Jack rolled over, eyes open and honest and letting his emotions shine through in a way that they just wouldn't when he was more awake than this.

"I wanna have sex again, Sam."

Stupid, O'Neill. Way to ruin it.

"Uh...that didn't come out the way I wanted it to. I meant, uh, if you wanted to, I wouldn't be opposed to it? I mean, we've been dating almost a month now."

When he turned over, her hands ended up resting on his stomach, and they went very still when he said I wanna have sex again. No, she shouldn't really be surprised by that, considering that he'd made it clear these last few weeks even if he hadn't come out and said it as blatantly as he just had, but still... she was surprised.

And she had no idea what to say that wouldn't come out sounding like she didn't want to be with him.

She just sat there for a minute with a hand on his stomach, feeling his breathing, taking in the naked honesty in his expression. "You know I want that too," she said quietly. "But it's not that simple. God, I wish it was."

Sam wished that, just for once, she could take the easy way. She wanted to just wash her hands of her responsibilities to the timeline and to Earth and to the Air Force and just do what she wanted. But she had never been one to take the easy way, ever, and it was too late to walk that shortcut. When it came to her effort to get them home, she had to see it through to the end, whether it was successful or not, and if she was with Jack like that again she would give up on her work completely.

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