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More String Theory: An AU Series:
Dr. Samantha Carter joins the SGC and discovers a life she never expected.
Action/Adventure, Drama, Angst, Romance, S/J
Teen: minor language and violence
Ficlet 17: Spaces Between
Jack’s strides shorten measurably and his pace slows to a downright crawl as he passes through a particular hallway on level 18. He shoves his hands casually in his pockets and dawdles momentarily, scraping a nearby wall with his security card.
Daniel glances back at Jack in confusion, even as he gamely matches Jack’s unusual pace, just like he hadn’t bothered to ask about this rather circuitous new route from the commissary to Daniel’s lab. Four years with Jack have taught Daniel that sometimes it’s better not to ask.
Jack glances at his watch again, slowing down even more.
A moment later, a door bursts open and white coated scientists begin to pour out into the hallway. Jack nods satisfactorily at his watch. “Right on time.”
Daniel, meanwhile, having figured out the reason for Jack’s bizarre song and dance, snickers audibly. “You’re pathetic,” he notes cheerfully.
Jack doesn’t have time to respond though, because at that moment Sam and Bill step out into the hall, deep in discussion.
Daniel is happy to step back and watch the ensuing show. Typical of her behavior since Jack returned to Earth a couple weeks ago, Sam doesn’t quite meet Jack’s eyes, her face tingeing faintly pink as she makes a big show of greeting Daniel.
Daniel, good friend that he is, magnanimously resists laughing at her.
Jack rocks on his feet, not even trying to hide his sick pleasure at Sam’s discomfort.
These two really are some piece of work.
“We were just leaving the commissary,” Jack says almost proudly, nodding his head down the hall.
Sam doesn’t comment on the fact that the commissary is four levels down, which Daniel thinks is rather charitable of her. “I really should get back to work,” she says instead, rushing to catch up to Bill with a hasty wave and a smile back at them.
She disappears down the hall and Daniel turns to Jack. “Why don’t you just go visit her in her lab?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about, Daniel,” Jack replies in his best clueless tone.
Yup, something has definitely happened there and Daniel is dying to know what. But meanwhile, he’s happy to watch the bizarre mating ritual the two seem to have developed. Sam can continue to ignore Jack and Jack can continue to make up excuses to ambush her.
“I meant what I said, you’re pathetic.”
“Thank you,” Jack says, disappearing into the nearest stairwell, no doubt on his way to stalk the women’s restrooms on level 19.
Daniel wonders if he should start selling tickets.
* * *
It’s not that Sam is avoiding him, Jack tells himself. Sure, he hasn’t had more than two minutes in a crowded hallway with her since that day in the firing range. But more than likely that is due to the fact that she has proven herself to be invaluable. She is now second only to Bill, overseeing many of the smaller departments by herself. She’s understandably busy.
As for Jack’s own admittedly stalkerish tendencies, he blames that on his boredom. With Kawalsky transferred, Jack is stuck on world until he finds a suitable replacement, which is a lot harder than it sounds. No off world missions means that Jack has a lot of time and very little to do with it, other than annoy Daniel and watch Sam squirm.
But as the days continue to slide by Jack can’t help but wonder at the back of his mind if she is avoiding him.
It was just a kiss after all. It didn’t necessarily mean anything.
Fate intervenes on that thought though, somehow ensuring that Jack is in a storage closet in the middle of Project Boobytrap when Sam happens to walk in on him. Sure, Jack chose this particular storage closet knowing it was on her floor, but he didn’t actually expect to see her. Certainly she is important enough to have flunkies to do the resupplying for her these days.
She sucks in a startled breath when she sees Jack and for a moment he’s convinced she’s going to turn around and walk right back out. But her office supply need must somehow be greater than her instinct to flee because she smiles nervously and gestures vaguely to a stack of yellow legal pads behind Jack’s head.
Jack graciously steps out of her way. Her eyes travel over the stack of highlighters and tongue depressors Jack has gathered with no comment, probably deciding it is safer not to know. Plausible deniability. He likes to think she learned that from him.
“How have you been?” Jack asks, breaking the awkward silence as he watches her pull down multi-colored post-it notes.
She flinches almost reflexively and he wonders if that is guilt that crosses her face. Has she been avoiding him? “General Hammond gave me some time off.”
Jack nods. He noticed. But she does look much better rested than she had when Jack first returned. He was so relieved to be home that he hadn’t noticed at first, but dark circles had been burned under her eyes and Jack hadn’t needed Daniel to tell him of her long hours.
“You seem pretty busy these days,” Jack observes, fishing for anything to say to get a conversation going, to keep her in the same room with him for more than two minutes.
“Yeah,” she says noncommittally, clearly side stepping the open invitation to start talking about her work at great length.
She keeps picking at various supplies that he doubts she really has use for unless she’s saving up for some apocalypse he hasn’t heard about yet. After long minutes her arms are completely loaded and she seems ready to step around him and disappear again, but can’t figure out how to do it without brushing past Jack.
It hurts a little bit, the way she is so obviously skittish around him. He knows long months have passed since the days they developed a comfortable camaraderie with each other, but the way she is acting, you’d think he’d attacked her or something, rather than just kissing her. But clearly she wishes to be anywhere but in here with him.
“Look, Sam,” Jack says as he steps out of her way and she begins to edge past. He’s willing to let her off the hook, despite his own inner protests. “If you just want to forget that day ever happened-.”
But he doesn’t get to finish his altruistic gesture because the next thing he knows she is kissing him, pencils and post-it notes falling to the floor. Some small part of Jack registers that this is a rather abrupt 180 degree turn on her part, but in all honesty he doesn’t give a crap because her tongue is in his mouth and it’s short-circuiting his brain.
He happily meets her halfway, fingers tangling in her hair, moving closer to deepen the angle of the kiss. She tastes faintly of coffee and something sweet, and some indefinable flavor that is still new, but that he hopes to get to know very, very well.
With three short steps he backs her up against the closet door, every point of contact between them electric and some part of Jack’s tactical mind must still be thinking because in this position no one can walk in on them unexpectedly and Sam is rather effectively pinned in case any of her earlier fleeing tendencies resurface. Not to mention that he’s able to feel every curve of her body and, oh God, she’s so damn soft, but she’s the exact perfect height, he thinks as his head dips down to taste the skin right below her jaw and his thigh presses between her legs, feeling the pull of the fabric of her skirt against his knee.
Her head falls back against the door with a soft thump nearly obscured by a deep throaty sound that Jack thinks must be the hottest thing he’s ever heard.
Her hands are pushing against him, though, and he feels a moment of dread puncture his haze, until he realizes she is just fighting with the buttons of his shirt, trying valiantly to get to the skin underneath.
That’s when it hits him that they are making out in a storage closet inside one of the most top secret bases in the world and somehow his hand has slid up under her skirt and is currently making a serious front line campaign to conquer the wonders of her thighs.
As much as he would gladly have sex with her right here among the post-its and ball point pens (he will never find writing reports boring ever again), it just doesn’t quite seem right. Not with someone like Sam.
And that’s when he realizes he’s never even seen her outside of the Mountain. He wants to know what she looks like in the sunshine.
Reluctantly, and ignoring the screaming of a very selfish part of his body, Jack slides his hand back out of the promise land, moving back up to spend at least a few more minutes just kissing her. He’s trying to scale back incrementally, because somehow he just knows Sam is not going to deal well with coming back down to reality.
Sure enough, when Jack leans slightly back, just enough to create a sliver of space between their bodies, he can feel her stiffen.
Jack leans back in, his hands sliding leisurely down her sides to rest low on her hips. “I would like nothing more than to continue this, Sam,” he says, just against her ear. “But perhaps this isn’t the best place?”
His voice is low and full of promise, leaving no room for her to misunderstand his position, but she still straightens up against the door as if she’s been caught doing something wrong, her hand traveling to cover her mouth.
“Oh, God,” she mumbles miserably. That is not the way Jack hoped to hear those words escape her lips.
“Sam,” Jack murmurs, working his mouth over a certain part of her neck he has already learned is particularly sensitive in these mere fifteen minutes in a closet. He can feel her fight the urge to melt against his touch again, but his victory is fleeting as she side-steps out of his embrace, leaving him leaning against the hard metal door.
He watches her rebutton her shirt with shaky fingers (when had he done that?) and collect her abandoned supplies, picking up half of his with her own in her haste. She pats her hair and reaches for the doorknob and Jack sighs.
“Don’t you think...maybe we should talk about this?” Jack finds himself asking. God, he never thought those particular words would ever pass his lips.
But Sam just shakes her head and takes a desperate tug at the door. “I’m sorry,” she says when Jack finally steps aside, consigning himself to watching her disappear down yet another hallway.
When he is alone once again, he hunkers down to pick up the remaining supplies strewn about. He should have known better than to get involved with a scientist.
“See?” Jack announces to the empty room. “I told you they were damn unpredictable.”
The room doesn’t seem to find the comment particularly enlightening and to be honest, neither does Jack.
He can still taste her.
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Dr. Samantha Carter joins the SGC and discovers a life she never expected.
Action/Adventure, Drama, Angst, Romance, S/J
Teen: minor language and violence
Ficlet 17: Spaces Between
Jack’s strides shorten measurably and his pace slows to a downright crawl as he passes through a particular hallway on level 18. He shoves his hands casually in his pockets and dawdles momentarily, scraping a nearby wall with his security card.
Daniel glances back at Jack in confusion, even as he gamely matches Jack’s unusual pace, just like he hadn’t bothered to ask about this rather circuitous new route from the commissary to Daniel’s lab. Four years with Jack have taught Daniel that sometimes it’s better not to ask.
Jack glances at his watch again, slowing down even more.
A moment later, a door bursts open and white coated scientists begin to pour out into the hallway. Jack nods satisfactorily at his watch. “Right on time.”
Daniel, meanwhile, having figured out the reason for Jack’s bizarre song and dance, snickers audibly. “You’re pathetic,” he notes cheerfully.
Jack doesn’t have time to respond though, because at that moment Sam and Bill step out into the hall, deep in discussion.
Daniel is happy to step back and watch the ensuing show. Typical of her behavior since Jack returned to Earth a couple weeks ago, Sam doesn’t quite meet Jack’s eyes, her face tingeing faintly pink as she makes a big show of greeting Daniel.
Daniel, good friend that he is, magnanimously resists laughing at her.
Jack rocks on his feet, not even trying to hide his sick pleasure at Sam’s discomfort.
These two really are some piece of work.
“We were just leaving the commissary,” Jack says almost proudly, nodding his head down the hall.
Sam doesn’t comment on the fact that the commissary is four levels down, which Daniel thinks is rather charitable of her. “I really should get back to work,” she says instead, rushing to catch up to Bill with a hasty wave and a smile back at them.
She disappears down the hall and Daniel turns to Jack. “Why don’t you just go visit her in her lab?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about, Daniel,” Jack replies in his best clueless tone.
Yup, something has definitely happened there and Daniel is dying to know what. But meanwhile, he’s happy to watch the bizarre mating ritual the two seem to have developed. Sam can continue to ignore Jack and Jack can continue to make up excuses to ambush her.
“I meant what I said, you’re pathetic.”
“Thank you,” Jack says, disappearing into the nearest stairwell, no doubt on his way to stalk the women’s restrooms on level 19.
Daniel wonders if he should start selling tickets.
* * *
It’s not that Sam is avoiding him, Jack tells himself. Sure, he hasn’t had more than two minutes in a crowded hallway with her since that day in the firing range. But more than likely that is due to the fact that she has proven herself to be invaluable. She is now second only to Bill, overseeing many of the smaller departments by herself. She’s understandably busy.
As for Jack’s own admittedly stalkerish tendencies, he blames that on his boredom. With Kawalsky transferred, Jack is stuck on world until he finds a suitable replacement, which is a lot harder than it sounds. No off world missions means that Jack has a lot of time and very little to do with it, other than annoy Daniel and watch Sam squirm.
But as the days continue to slide by Jack can’t help but wonder at the back of his mind if she is avoiding him.
It was just a kiss after all. It didn’t necessarily mean anything.
Fate intervenes on that thought though, somehow ensuring that Jack is in a storage closet in the middle of Project Boobytrap when Sam happens to walk in on him. Sure, Jack chose this particular storage closet knowing it was on her floor, but he didn’t actually expect to see her. Certainly she is important enough to have flunkies to do the resupplying for her these days.
She sucks in a startled breath when she sees Jack and for a moment he’s convinced she’s going to turn around and walk right back out. But her office supply need must somehow be greater than her instinct to flee because she smiles nervously and gestures vaguely to a stack of yellow legal pads behind Jack’s head.
Jack graciously steps out of her way. Her eyes travel over the stack of highlighters and tongue depressors Jack has gathered with no comment, probably deciding it is safer not to know. Plausible deniability. He likes to think she learned that from him.
“How have you been?” Jack asks, breaking the awkward silence as he watches her pull down multi-colored post-it notes.
She flinches almost reflexively and he wonders if that is guilt that crosses her face. Has she been avoiding him? “General Hammond gave me some time off.”
Jack nods. He noticed. But she does look much better rested than she had when Jack first returned. He was so relieved to be home that he hadn’t noticed at first, but dark circles had been burned under her eyes and Jack hadn’t needed Daniel to tell him of her long hours.
“You seem pretty busy these days,” Jack observes, fishing for anything to say to get a conversation going, to keep her in the same room with him for more than two minutes.
“Yeah,” she says noncommittally, clearly side stepping the open invitation to start talking about her work at great length.
She keeps picking at various supplies that he doubts she really has use for unless she’s saving up for some apocalypse he hasn’t heard about yet. After long minutes her arms are completely loaded and she seems ready to step around him and disappear again, but can’t figure out how to do it without brushing past Jack.
It hurts a little bit, the way she is so obviously skittish around him. He knows long months have passed since the days they developed a comfortable camaraderie with each other, but the way she is acting, you’d think he’d attacked her or something, rather than just kissing her. But clearly she wishes to be anywhere but in here with him.
“Look, Sam,” Jack says as he steps out of her way and she begins to edge past. He’s willing to let her off the hook, despite his own inner protests. “If you just want to forget that day ever happened-.”
But he doesn’t get to finish his altruistic gesture because the next thing he knows she is kissing him, pencils and post-it notes falling to the floor. Some small part of Jack registers that this is a rather abrupt 180 degree turn on her part, but in all honesty he doesn’t give a crap because her tongue is in his mouth and it’s short-circuiting his brain.
He happily meets her halfway, fingers tangling in her hair, moving closer to deepen the angle of the kiss. She tastes faintly of coffee and something sweet, and some indefinable flavor that is still new, but that he hopes to get to know very, very well.
With three short steps he backs her up against the closet door, every point of contact between them electric and some part of Jack’s tactical mind must still be thinking because in this position no one can walk in on them unexpectedly and Sam is rather effectively pinned in case any of her earlier fleeing tendencies resurface. Not to mention that he’s able to feel every curve of her body and, oh God, she’s so damn soft, but she’s the exact perfect height, he thinks as his head dips down to taste the skin right below her jaw and his thigh presses between her legs, feeling the pull of the fabric of her skirt against his knee.
Her head falls back against the door with a soft thump nearly obscured by a deep throaty sound that Jack thinks must be the hottest thing he’s ever heard.
Her hands are pushing against him, though, and he feels a moment of dread puncture his haze, until he realizes she is just fighting with the buttons of his shirt, trying valiantly to get to the skin underneath.
That’s when it hits him that they are making out in a storage closet inside one of the most top secret bases in the world and somehow his hand has slid up under her skirt and is currently making a serious front line campaign to conquer the wonders of her thighs.
As much as he would gladly have sex with her right here among the post-its and ball point pens (he will never find writing reports boring ever again), it just doesn’t quite seem right. Not with someone like Sam.
And that’s when he realizes he’s never even seen her outside of the Mountain. He wants to know what she looks like in the sunshine.
Reluctantly, and ignoring the screaming of a very selfish part of his body, Jack slides his hand back out of the promise land, moving back up to spend at least a few more minutes just kissing her. He’s trying to scale back incrementally, because somehow he just knows Sam is not going to deal well with coming back down to reality.
Sure enough, when Jack leans slightly back, just enough to create a sliver of space between their bodies, he can feel her stiffen.
Jack leans back in, his hands sliding leisurely down her sides to rest low on her hips. “I would like nothing more than to continue this, Sam,” he says, just against her ear. “But perhaps this isn’t the best place?”
His voice is low and full of promise, leaving no room for her to misunderstand his position, but she still straightens up against the door as if she’s been caught doing something wrong, her hand traveling to cover her mouth.
“Oh, God,” she mumbles miserably. That is not the way Jack hoped to hear those words escape her lips.
“Sam,” Jack murmurs, working his mouth over a certain part of her neck he has already learned is particularly sensitive in these mere fifteen minutes in a closet. He can feel her fight the urge to melt against his touch again, but his victory is fleeting as she side-steps out of his embrace, leaving him leaning against the hard metal door.
He watches her rebutton her shirt with shaky fingers (when had he done that?) and collect her abandoned supplies, picking up half of his with her own in her haste. She pats her hair and reaches for the doorknob and Jack sighs.
“Don’t you think...maybe we should talk about this?” Jack finds himself asking. God, he never thought those particular words would ever pass his lips.
But Sam just shakes her head and takes a desperate tug at the door. “I’m sorry,” she says when Jack finally steps aside, consigning himself to watching her disappear down yet another hallway.
When he is alone once again, he hunkers down to pick up the remaining supplies strewn about. He should have known better than to get involved with a scientist.
“See?” Jack announces to the empty room. “I told you they were damn unpredictable.”
The room doesn’t seem to find the comment particularly enlightening and to be honest, neither does Jack.
He can still taste her.
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