Stitches: Fuzzy Around the Edges
Title: Fuzzy Around the Edges
Author: Katrina and Christi
Rating: PG
Timeline: After Paradise Lost and Metamorphosis
Summary: Sometimes, dates happen and you forget to notice.
Author's Note: They've had a rough couple of weeks. They can be clingy if they want to be.
--
Paperwork days, Jack reflected as he walked down the hall to the elevator, always seem to fizzle away and leave him wondering what the hell happened to the day. Even if the stack of unfinished mission reports cluttering his desk would disagree, the clock said that work was finished. To Jack's stomach, that meant one thing - food. As he leaned forward to press the call button, he caught sight of his second turning into the hall.
"Carter," Jack called down the corridor, pleasantly surprised to see that for once she was leaving at a reasonable time.
"Sir," she greeted him cheerily, picking up pace a little to join him when the doors slid open.
"How are you?" His question was more earnest than he'd intended as he realized he hadn't seen her all day. Normally, he stopped by her lab to check up on her. However, today she had been holed up in meetings with a room full of people in white lab coats - people he made sure to avoid.
"Mmm, I'm good. Long day, though."
"Meetings went well?"
"As well as can be expected when you've got a room full of people arguing about energy output models and unstable elements."
"That sounds...horrible," he admitted.
The doors slid open again and she shot him an amused smirk as they began the walk out to the parking lot. "Actually, I loved it." His face must have exposed his distaste, because she just laughed before asking, "What about you, have a good day?"
"I don't know," Jack answered honestly. "But it's over now and I'm still standing, so I guess it wasn't that bad. What are you up to tonight?"
"I don't have any plans, really. The presidential candidate debate is on later and I should track down some food.""
"I was just thinking that same thing," Jack agreed. "You grabbing something on the way home?"
"Probably," Sam replied easily.
"Meet you at O'Malley's instead?"
"Oh, they have a new sandwich I've been wanting to try, so definitely."
He smiled at her before they parted ways. "See you in a few."
One short truck ride and an entirely too perky waitress later, they were comfortably relaxing in a booth, sipping their drinks. The food was always good and the atmosphere comfortable and relaxed - exactly what he needed. And he certainly couldn't fault the company sitting across from him either. "So," he ventured, feeling conversational, "it was a Scientist Samantha Carter day."
She nodded, leaning back with a whimsical smile. "About time, too."
Her nearly palpable relief had him pausing in thought. "You like it that much more than field stuff?"
"Not more, exactly," she replied thoughtfully. "It's just...different. Science is...well, I love SG-1. I love going through the gate. I love using science on the fly to save the day."
"...But?" he ventured.
"But science, I've loved longer. It's like..." she paused, her eyes searching his, "Well, for example, why did you join the Air Force?"
"To fly," he said promptly, not needing to think about his answer. "I always loved planes, and there was a chance that if I waited too long, I'd get drafted into the Army instead."
"Sure," she confirmed. "So you joined to fly. But you ended up in Black Ops."
Starting to see where she was heading with this, he nodded. "Yeah. It was a good career opportunity. And I was good at it."
"Right. But it wasn't flying."
"No," he agreed.
"Understand?" she asked, tilting her head a little.
"I do," he confirmed, trying to sort out what to do with this new information. "Thanks for explaining."
She shrugged. "Thanks for asking."
A contented silence fell over their table that was conveniently interrupted by the perky waitress bringing their food - always an excellent distraction from dwelling on things like how irritatingly hot Samantha Carter was.
Not to mention that the next subject she brought up had him horrified enough to put any and all inappropriate thoughts on the back burner. "So," she started lightly, "Cassie asked me about sex the other day."
Jack froze, a fry halfway to his mouth. "She did what?"
"I know," Sam nodded, eyes almost comically wide. "I almost swallowed my tongue when she brought it up."
Jack dropped the fry, his sizable appetite suddenly forgotten. "I am so not ready for her to be discussing...that."
"Well, ready or not..." she trailed off, taking another bite of her sandwich before continuing, "She and Dominic have been together for over a year, so it was bound to come up."
"I don't trust him," Jack insisted, which only caused Sam to smile.
"Of course not," she said with mock sympathy. "The good news is you don't have to be worried about it."
"You tell me this part after the sex part?" Jack exclaimed.
Her laughter was surprisingly unapologetic. "I think she was just curious and didn't want to talk to Janet about it."
"Thank God," Jack sigh as he let out a breath and picked up his glass. "She really talks to you about that stuff?"
Sam nodded again. "She made it clear that she just wanted information and not...I don't know, tips?"
Jack sputtered into his glass. If he didn't know better, he'd say Carter was messing with him.
"I decided that it was good to know she felt comfortable enough to come talk to me instead of other potentially unreliable sources of information." Oh, that smirk definitely meant she was messing with him.
"When did she start dating and growing up?" Jack snipped, grabbing his burger. "I definitely don't remember getting that memo. And who is this Dominic kid?"
"Oh, you know," Sam waved her hand lightly, "Just some kid from school."
"Sounds shady."
Sam giggled, and no, that was not charming. "He's actually quite sweet. Good grades. Very polite."
"Yes well, I reserve the right to despise him on the grounds that I remember being a teenage boy."
Sam's eyebrows rose and she took a drink of her soda.
"What?" Jack could practically hear Carter's silent laugh across the table. "I do."
"Oh, I'm sure," she offered in a very matter-of-fact way. "I imagine you were one of those boys, huh?"
Jack eyed her suspiciously before admitting, "I may have been the cause of several sleepless nights, yes. What about you?"
Her grin was more than a little evil. "Oh, I was the perfect student by day."
Wow. Jack didn't think she could have said anything more enticing as a response. "And by night?" he dared ask.
A devious smirk and small shake of her head were her only immediate responses.
"Don't think you're getting off that easy," he warned. "I have a hard time trying to imagine my second in command as a troublemaker."
"Oh, I never got in trouble," she corrected breezily.
"That just means you never got caught," he observed shrewdly. Her sweetly faked innocent expression actually left him chuckling. "I'm learning all sorts of new things about you tonight, Carter."
"Too much?" she questioned lightly, though there was a worried undertone in the question.
Carefully, he caught her gaze again, smiling. "Not possible."
Her smile and nod meant that she understood, and while he would have been more than happy to continue their conversation, the waitress chose right then to drop off their checks. "Damn," he muttered, fishing out his wallet. "This means I have to go home and work."
"Work?" she questioned, dropping a few bills next to his. "Don't tell me you actually brought your mission reports home."
"Don't be ridiculous," he scolded lightly. "My garage door opener is on the fritz. I'm going to have to spend a few futile hours banging it with tools before I break down and buy a new one."
She frowned. "I can take a look at it."
"Oh, no, that's all right. It's not a big deal."
"I know it's not. Which is why I should come over and fix it," she declared. "It won't take long."
Simultaneously touched and a bit confused, Jack shrugged. "You sure you don't mind?"
"Not at all," she replied. There was something that he couldn't quite place in her tone, lying just underneath the easy assurance.
"Okay..." he drawled easily. "I'll meet you at my house then?"
She nodded and with that, they grabbed their stuff and were out the door.
He had the short drive home to puzzle over that strange little catch in her voice - almost like desperation. But that was ridiculous. This was Carter. She was fine. And she would tell him if she wasn't.
At least, he hoped she would.
Before he knew it, she was perched on a ladder in his dimly lit garage, digging around the gears and looking happy as could be. "It really doesn't matter, does it?" he asked from his position on the stoop to his kitchen. "What kind of machine it is, I mean."
She shrugged. "Tech is tech. Machines in particular are fun. It's like your yo-yos, or something. Why do you think I have the motorcycle?"
As a matter of fact, Jack tried very, very hard not to think about the motorcycle. It made thinking at all entirely too difficult. "Ah."
After a few more minutes of Carter poking at his garage door opener she snapped a piece in place and leaned back, "Okay. Try it out."
Jack grabbed the automatic door opener he'd slipped into his pocket and pressed the button. As if nothing had been wrong, the device quickly began working.
"I'll be damned," Jack muttered, pressing the button a few more times to ensure its functionality. "Remind me to tell Hammond you need a raise."
She snorted, "Yeah, that's ethical."
Jack grinned. "Well, I wasn't going to tell him it was for fixing my garage door."
"Ah," she mused, smirking up at him. He watched her discretely as he replaced the remote in his truck. If he didn't know better he'd say she looked a bit lost now that she didn't have something to do. "So, are you watching the debate tonight?"
"What debate?"
Sam raised her eyebrows. "The presidential candidate debate. Remember?"
"Oh." Jack pressed the garage remote to close the door and hopped out of his truck. "Um. Right."
Sam eyed him suspiciously. "You weren't going to watch, were you?"
Jack could never properly express how much he didn't want to voluntarily watch anything that included that weasel Kinsey. "Well...not so much, no."
"How were you going to know who to vote for?"
"Easy." He motioned for her to follow him into his house. "Just vote for the guy who's not Kinsey."
Sam shook her head and sighed. "Sir...that's so incredibly...."
Jack smirked, waiting for her to continue. "Yes?"
"Okay," she started, a familiar determined look on her face, "what if I watch it with you? With a bowl full of popcorn to throw any time Kinsey is on screen?"
Jack studied her, contemplating the proposal. That almost desperate tone was back along with her questioning gaze. "You okay?" Her gaze dropped to the floor, the sudden topic change revealing more cracks in her facade than he'd expected. "Carter?" She was shaking her head when he stepped closer to her. "Hey, what's going on?"
"I just...." she sighed. "No. I'm not okay. I'd just like to stay here with you for a while. Is that all right?"
The words rang with bare, brutal honesty, and it was certainly a sentiment he could relate to. Hell, the whole alien moon thing was still recent enough that he was a little afraid she'd disappear when he wasn't looking. Or morph into a deranged Maybourne. "Yeah," he said softly. "That would be fine."
Better than fine, really, but he wasn't one to quibble over details.
So somehow, he found himself ensconced on his couch with Carter and a giant bowl of popcorn watching Kinsey make an ass out of himself on national TV. "It's a good thing this is just the primaries," he pointed out as he lopped another handful at the screen. "There's still hope for the world."
Instead of answering right away, Sam threw another handful herself. "Actually, this other guy isn't so bad. Henry Hayes? He seems...thoughtful."
"So would swamp moss when standing next to Kinsey."
"Good point."
Absently as she watched, Sam chewed on a piece of popcorn. He glared at her, tsking loudly. "Now Major, I thought you knew better than that."
"Better than what?" she asked quizzically.
"You're wasting perfectly good ammo!" he exclaimed, heaving another handful at the screen.
Her giggles were infectious, and for a moment he let himself relish the feeling of having someone with him for a change instead of staring into the face of another night alone. "So," she ventured after calming some. "Do you really not care who wins? Other than it not being Kinsey, of course."
He shrugged. "I'd care more if I thought it would change anything. But I've served through...way more administrations than I want to talk about. From where I'm sitting, shitty orders are still shitty. The only difference is who gets blamed."
"You are the strangest man sometimes," she proclaimed, though if her small scoot toward him was any indication, she didn't seem to mind.
"Probably true," he allowed, jumping a bit as her cold fingers wrapped around his arm. "Jeez! You could have told me you were cold, Carter."
Without moving, he reached around and snatched what he somewhat fondly thought of as the Big Blanket of Doom from its resting place behind the couch, wrapping it around both of them. She seemed fine with this development, snuggling into the fabric. "I love this thing," she said as she played with an odd, fluorescent orange bit.
"And you call me strange?" he pointed out.
"All a matter of perspective, I guess," she replied with a smile.
The blanket was immediately warm around them, with the flickering light of the TV creating a drowsy, easy sort of feeling. Her head was on his shoulder, though for the life of him he couldn't figure out how or when it had happened.
Not that he was complaining, of course. There were definitely worse things than being cuddled up on your couch with Samantha Carter.
His arm went around her almost absently, pulling her in tighter. Almost like he was checking to make sure that she was really there and not melting away on some alien planet where he couldn't stop it. "You had me scared, you know."
Her head turned a little more toward his shoulder, almost nuzzling into him. "Look who's talking. Teal'c had to talk me down from the proverbial edge."
On one hand, Jack hated that he had caused her pain. On the other, it was...sort of nice to know. "Really?"
Her fingers clenched his shirt tightly. "It's been a rough year, that's all."
He heaved a sigh of his own, burying his nose in her hair. "Won't get any arguments from me."
She chuckled a little, a dry, half-hearted sort of thing that sounded more tired than amused. "I should go home soon."
His grip didn't loosen a bit and he refused to feel bad about that. "Later. We've still got popcorn to get rid of."
Author: Katrina and Christi
Rating: PG
Timeline: After Paradise Lost and Metamorphosis
Summary: Sometimes, dates happen and you forget to notice.
Author's Note: They've had a rough couple of weeks. They can be clingy if they want to be.
--
Paperwork days, Jack reflected as he walked down the hall to the elevator, always seem to fizzle away and leave him wondering what the hell happened to the day. Even if the stack of unfinished mission reports cluttering his desk would disagree, the clock said that work was finished. To Jack's stomach, that meant one thing - food. As he leaned forward to press the call button, he caught sight of his second turning into the hall.
"Carter," Jack called down the corridor, pleasantly surprised to see that for once she was leaving at a reasonable time.
"Sir," she greeted him cheerily, picking up pace a little to join him when the doors slid open.
"How are you?" His question was more earnest than he'd intended as he realized he hadn't seen her all day. Normally, he stopped by her lab to check up on her. However, today she had been holed up in meetings with a room full of people in white lab coats - people he made sure to avoid.
"Mmm, I'm good. Long day, though."
"Meetings went well?"
"As well as can be expected when you've got a room full of people arguing about energy output models and unstable elements."
"That sounds...horrible," he admitted.
The doors slid open again and she shot him an amused smirk as they began the walk out to the parking lot. "Actually, I loved it." His face must have exposed his distaste, because she just laughed before asking, "What about you, have a good day?"
"I don't know," Jack answered honestly. "But it's over now and I'm still standing, so I guess it wasn't that bad. What are you up to tonight?"
"I don't have any plans, really. The presidential candidate debate is on later and I should track down some food.""
"I was just thinking that same thing," Jack agreed. "You grabbing something on the way home?"
"Probably," Sam replied easily.
"Meet you at O'Malley's instead?"
"Oh, they have a new sandwich I've been wanting to try, so definitely."
He smiled at her before they parted ways. "See you in a few."
One short truck ride and an entirely too perky waitress later, they were comfortably relaxing in a booth, sipping their drinks. The food was always good and the atmosphere comfortable and relaxed - exactly what he needed. And he certainly couldn't fault the company sitting across from him either. "So," he ventured, feeling conversational, "it was a Scientist Samantha Carter day."
She nodded, leaning back with a whimsical smile. "About time, too."
Her nearly palpable relief had him pausing in thought. "You like it that much more than field stuff?"
"Not more, exactly," she replied thoughtfully. "It's just...different. Science is...well, I love SG-1. I love going through the gate. I love using science on the fly to save the day."
"...But?" he ventured.
"But science, I've loved longer. It's like..." she paused, her eyes searching his, "Well, for example, why did you join the Air Force?"
"To fly," he said promptly, not needing to think about his answer. "I always loved planes, and there was a chance that if I waited too long, I'd get drafted into the Army instead."
"Sure," she confirmed. "So you joined to fly. But you ended up in Black Ops."
Starting to see where she was heading with this, he nodded. "Yeah. It was a good career opportunity. And I was good at it."
"Right. But it wasn't flying."
"No," he agreed.
"Understand?" she asked, tilting her head a little.
"I do," he confirmed, trying to sort out what to do with this new information. "Thanks for explaining."
She shrugged. "Thanks for asking."
A contented silence fell over their table that was conveniently interrupted by the perky waitress bringing their food - always an excellent distraction from dwelling on things like how irritatingly hot Samantha Carter was.
Not to mention that the next subject she brought up had him horrified enough to put any and all inappropriate thoughts on the back burner. "So," she started lightly, "Cassie asked me about sex the other day."
Jack froze, a fry halfway to his mouth. "She did what?"
"I know," Sam nodded, eyes almost comically wide. "I almost swallowed my tongue when she brought it up."
Jack dropped the fry, his sizable appetite suddenly forgotten. "I am so not ready for her to be discussing...that."
"Well, ready or not..." she trailed off, taking another bite of her sandwich before continuing, "She and Dominic have been together for over a year, so it was bound to come up."
"I don't trust him," Jack insisted, which only caused Sam to smile.
"Of course not," she said with mock sympathy. "The good news is you don't have to be worried about it."
"You tell me this part after the sex part?" Jack exclaimed.
Her laughter was surprisingly unapologetic. "I think she was just curious and didn't want to talk to Janet about it."
"Thank God," Jack sigh as he let out a breath and picked up his glass. "She really talks to you about that stuff?"
Sam nodded again. "She made it clear that she just wanted information and not...I don't know, tips?"
Jack sputtered into his glass. If he didn't know better, he'd say Carter was messing with him.
"I decided that it was good to know she felt comfortable enough to come talk to me instead of other potentially unreliable sources of information." Oh, that smirk definitely meant she was messing with him.
"When did she start dating and growing up?" Jack snipped, grabbing his burger. "I definitely don't remember getting that memo. And who is this Dominic kid?"
"Oh, you know," Sam waved her hand lightly, "Just some kid from school."
"Sounds shady."
Sam giggled, and no, that was not charming. "He's actually quite sweet. Good grades. Very polite."
"Yes well, I reserve the right to despise him on the grounds that I remember being a teenage boy."
Sam's eyebrows rose and she took a drink of her soda.
"What?" Jack could practically hear Carter's silent laugh across the table. "I do."
"Oh, I'm sure," she offered in a very matter-of-fact way. "I imagine you were one of those boys, huh?"
Jack eyed her suspiciously before admitting, "I may have been the cause of several sleepless nights, yes. What about you?"
Her grin was more than a little evil. "Oh, I was the perfect student by day."
Wow. Jack didn't think she could have said anything more enticing as a response. "And by night?" he dared ask.
A devious smirk and small shake of her head were her only immediate responses.
"Don't think you're getting off that easy," he warned. "I have a hard time trying to imagine my second in command as a troublemaker."
"Oh, I never got in trouble," she corrected breezily.
"That just means you never got caught," he observed shrewdly. Her sweetly faked innocent expression actually left him chuckling. "I'm learning all sorts of new things about you tonight, Carter."
"Too much?" she questioned lightly, though there was a worried undertone in the question.
Carefully, he caught her gaze again, smiling. "Not possible."
Her smile and nod meant that she understood, and while he would have been more than happy to continue their conversation, the waitress chose right then to drop off their checks. "Damn," he muttered, fishing out his wallet. "This means I have to go home and work."
"Work?" she questioned, dropping a few bills next to his. "Don't tell me you actually brought your mission reports home."
"Don't be ridiculous," he scolded lightly. "My garage door opener is on the fritz. I'm going to have to spend a few futile hours banging it with tools before I break down and buy a new one."
She frowned. "I can take a look at it."
"Oh, no, that's all right. It's not a big deal."
"I know it's not. Which is why I should come over and fix it," she declared. "It won't take long."
Simultaneously touched and a bit confused, Jack shrugged. "You sure you don't mind?"
"Not at all," she replied. There was something that he couldn't quite place in her tone, lying just underneath the easy assurance.
"Okay..." he drawled easily. "I'll meet you at my house then?"
She nodded and with that, they grabbed their stuff and were out the door.
He had the short drive home to puzzle over that strange little catch in her voice - almost like desperation. But that was ridiculous. This was Carter. She was fine. And she would tell him if she wasn't.
At least, he hoped she would.
Before he knew it, she was perched on a ladder in his dimly lit garage, digging around the gears and looking happy as could be. "It really doesn't matter, does it?" he asked from his position on the stoop to his kitchen. "What kind of machine it is, I mean."
She shrugged. "Tech is tech. Machines in particular are fun. It's like your yo-yos, or something. Why do you think I have the motorcycle?"
As a matter of fact, Jack tried very, very hard not to think about the motorcycle. It made thinking at all entirely too difficult. "Ah."
After a few more minutes of Carter poking at his garage door opener she snapped a piece in place and leaned back, "Okay. Try it out."
Jack grabbed the automatic door opener he'd slipped into his pocket and pressed the button. As if nothing had been wrong, the device quickly began working.
"I'll be damned," Jack muttered, pressing the button a few more times to ensure its functionality. "Remind me to tell Hammond you need a raise."
She snorted, "Yeah, that's ethical."
Jack grinned. "Well, I wasn't going to tell him it was for fixing my garage door."
"Ah," she mused, smirking up at him. He watched her discretely as he replaced the remote in his truck. If he didn't know better he'd say she looked a bit lost now that she didn't have something to do. "So, are you watching the debate tonight?"
"What debate?"
Sam raised her eyebrows. "The presidential candidate debate. Remember?"
"Oh." Jack pressed the garage remote to close the door and hopped out of his truck. "Um. Right."
Sam eyed him suspiciously. "You weren't going to watch, were you?"
Jack could never properly express how much he didn't want to voluntarily watch anything that included that weasel Kinsey. "Well...not so much, no."
"How were you going to know who to vote for?"
"Easy." He motioned for her to follow him into his house. "Just vote for the guy who's not Kinsey."
Sam shook her head and sighed. "Sir...that's so incredibly...."
Jack smirked, waiting for her to continue. "Yes?"
"Okay," she started, a familiar determined look on her face, "what if I watch it with you? With a bowl full of popcorn to throw any time Kinsey is on screen?"
Jack studied her, contemplating the proposal. That almost desperate tone was back along with her questioning gaze. "You okay?" Her gaze dropped to the floor, the sudden topic change revealing more cracks in her facade than he'd expected. "Carter?" She was shaking her head when he stepped closer to her. "Hey, what's going on?"
"I just...." she sighed. "No. I'm not okay. I'd just like to stay here with you for a while. Is that all right?"
The words rang with bare, brutal honesty, and it was certainly a sentiment he could relate to. Hell, the whole alien moon thing was still recent enough that he was a little afraid she'd disappear when he wasn't looking. Or morph into a deranged Maybourne. "Yeah," he said softly. "That would be fine."
Better than fine, really, but he wasn't one to quibble over details.
So somehow, he found himself ensconced on his couch with Carter and a giant bowl of popcorn watching Kinsey make an ass out of himself on national TV. "It's a good thing this is just the primaries," he pointed out as he lopped another handful at the screen. "There's still hope for the world."
Instead of answering right away, Sam threw another handful herself. "Actually, this other guy isn't so bad. Henry Hayes? He seems...thoughtful."
"So would swamp moss when standing next to Kinsey."
"Good point."
Absently as she watched, Sam chewed on a piece of popcorn. He glared at her, tsking loudly. "Now Major, I thought you knew better than that."
"Better than what?" she asked quizzically.
"You're wasting perfectly good ammo!" he exclaimed, heaving another handful at the screen.
Her giggles were infectious, and for a moment he let himself relish the feeling of having someone with him for a change instead of staring into the face of another night alone. "So," she ventured after calming some. "Do you really not care who wins? Other than it not being Kinsey, of course."
He shrugged. "I'd care more if I thought it would change anything. But I've served through...way more administrations than I want to talk about. From where I'm sitting, shitty orders are still shitty. The only difference is who gets blamed."
"You are the strangest man sometimes," she proclaimed, though if her small scoot toward him was any indication, she didn't seem to mind.
"Probably true," he allowed, jumping a bit as her cold fingers wrapped around his arm. "Jeez! You could have told me you were cold, Carter."
Without moving, he reached around and snatched what he somewhat fondly thought of as the Big Blanket of Doom from its resting place behind the couch, wrapping it around both of them. She seemed fine with this development, snuggling into the fabric. "I love this thing," she said as she played with an odd, fluorescent orange bit.
"And you call me strange?" he pointed out.
"All a matter of perspective, I guess," she replied with a smile.
The blanket was immediately warm around them, with the flickering light of the TV creating a drowsy, easy sort of feeling. Her head was on his shoulder, though for the life of him he couldn't figure out how or when it had happened.
Not that he was complaining, of course. There were definitely worse things than being cuddled up on your couch with Samantha Carter.
His arm went around her almost absently, pulling her in tighter. Almost like he was checking to make sure that she was really there and not melting away on some alien planet where he couldn't stop it. "You had me scared, you know."
Her head turned a little more toward his shoulder, almost nuzzling into him. "Look who's talking. Teal'c had to talk me down from the proverbial edge."
On one hand, Jack hated that he had caused her pain. On the other, it was...sort of nice to know. "Really?"
Her fingers clenched his shirt tightly. "It's been a rough year, that's all."
He heaved a sigh of his own, burying his nose in her hair. "Won't get any arguments from me."
She chuckled a little, a dry, half-hearted sort of thing that sounded more tired than amused. "I should go home soon."
His grip didn't loosen a bit and he refused to feel bad about that. "Later. We've still got popcorn to get rid of."