Fic: Ocean's Pull (SG1/SGA; Jack O'Neill/Elizabeth Weir) [NC-17]
Title: Ocean's Pull
Author: havocthecat
Pairing: Jack O'Neill/Elizabeth Weir
Rating: NC-17
Category: Post-Ep, Vignette
Content Warnings: Het
Disclaimer: Not mine. Duh.
Spoilers: 3.04 - The Real World, 3.11 - Return II
Word Count: 2,782
Author's Notes: Thanks to amitee and muppetmanda for betareading. The title is inspired by the poem This Space, by Ruth Stone. Written for medie for the sg_rarepairings ficathon. She asked for: "The Real World AU? Such as they were sleeping together in it but...whatever really! Them in that AU (or even mentioning that AU) is *FINE*. Just, have Elizabeth in that shirt, maybe their dogs making an appearance?" (So you wanted that shirt? I think I can manage Jack/Elizabeth yummy goodness easily.)
***
The knock on her door is tentative, almost awkward-sounding. Elizabeth frowns, hands braced on her waist, and tries to decide who it could be. Carson and John are clearing out their desks at the SGC. Rodney is spending one last day terrorizing lab assistants at Area 51. The rest of the Atlantis expedition was being hurriedly recalled from where they'd scattered across the globe.
Another knock, this time slightly sharper. Possibly irritated. "Just a minute," she calls, winding around cardboard boxes and haphazardly-tossed clothing, until she can brace one hand against the wall and use one leg to shove her large box full of bubble-wrapped knick-knacks away from in front of the door. She opens the door, slightly out of breath and tucking a loose strand of hair behind her ear.
General O'Neill is standing there, a white jacket zipped up to his neck, and dark blue jeans, his cheeks red and his hair slightly mussed from the cold wind. It's not as messy as John's hair ever is, which makes her smile. "Well," he says, a tight grin breaking onto his face when he sees her. "For a minute there I didn't think you were going to answer your door."
"It was a near thing," says Elizabeth, her voice full of wry humor. "The decorations and I were fighting about whether or not I wanted company." She nods at the box, slid far enough out of the way that Jack can inch inside as she moves from in front of the door.
"Nice place," says Jack, hands shoved inside the pockets of his jacket. He glances around, alert even now, and Elizabeth has spent enough time around military men and women to know that he's marking the exits and planning for a worst-case scenario. Sometimes she wonders at the fact that every man in her life is constantly planning for the worst-case scenario. "So I guess it's a good thing you won, huh?"
She brushes the thought aside, along with the knowledge that she's now in possession of that particular personality trait. "I guess so," she says, then gestures towards the kitchen. "Want some coffee?"
"Oh, gee," says Jack, a smirk totally hidden behind serious eyes. "And here I'd have thought the coffee machine would be the first thing you'd pack to take to Atlantis."
"Ah, but there's where you're wrong." Elizabeth's eyes gleam, though one too many diplomatic negotiations have calmed her exuberant grin into a small upturn of her mouth. "It's the last thing I pack. How am I supposed to get anything done if I don't have coffee around?"
Jack shakes his head, following as Elizabeth turns and winds her way to the kitchen. When she glances back, she sees him stepping around boxes with a lithe grace she wouldn't expect from a two-star general, except she's read his file. "I guess diplomats aren't much different from scientists after all," he says, shaking his head and sighing loudly.
Elizabeth stops at the door to the kitchen and turns, one hand on her hip. "Oh, we're very different," she says, looking up at him. "For one, I get far less sleep than any of them."
"Daniel might have something to say about that," says Jack, opening one of Elizabeth's cabinets. He frowns at it. "You packed up all your coffee mugs already?"
"Daniel might still be jealous," says Elizabeth, arching a curious eyebrow at Jack. "They were never unpacked. I used a travel mug."
"And what, pray tell, would dear Daniel be jealous of?" asks Jack, turning to her, his hand still holding her cabinet door.
"Atlantis," says Elizabeth, her eyes lighting up, and something in Jack's face freezes.
With his expression, and that white jacket, Elizabeth is reminded of the last time she's seen him look like that. The sparkle in her eyes dims, and she glances down. The realization that she's wearing that same shirt, the one she'd never taken to Atlantis, but one glance at the floral edging and the plunging v-neck of this white blouse that flows down her hips, everything about that time--all those awful weeks--comes back to her in a heartbeat.
"Elizabeth?" Jack's voice is sharp, and breaks through the distraction that Elizabeth is trying to cover by a sudden turn away to rummage for coffee.
"Jack?" She turns, a bag of ground coffee in one hand, and a carefully casual expression on her face. "Is something wrong?"
"I don't know," he says slowly. He hasn't shut down any more. He even looks slightly worried, which causes a furrow between Elizabeth's eyebrows. "Why don't you tell me."
"It's nothing, really," she says, her voice a note higher than usual, and she sets the coffee down on the counter. "It's just that the last time you and I talked on Earth--" They hadn't spoken since he'd told her that Helia and the IOA had asked for Richard Woolsey as their ambassador.
"What, it wasn't really me?" Jack's lips firm into a smirk for an instant, before smoothing out into a reassuring smile. "I read the report, Elizabeth. How much whitewashing did you do on that one?"
Elizabeth studies Jack, crossing her arms as she does so. After a moment of unflinchingly taking her scrutiny, he gives her a look that says 'well?' "As much whitewashing as SG-1 ever did in their reports," she says, granting him the courtesy of an answer, if not the truthful one she knows he's looking for.
Jack's laughter huffs out, almost breathlessly, and he leans back against her counter. "Thought you hadn't noticed that," he says.
"I was waiting for the right moment to bring it up," she counters, smugly, because she's only human, after all. Who can resist needling the nigh-legendary General Jack O'Neill when he shows a flaw?
"You ever talk to anyone about this?" asks Jack. "Mackenzie always swears it can help." Sarcasm drips from every word.
Elizabeth's laugh is short and sharp. "You don't want to hear what Kate has to say about therapy, then," she says. "I've talked. It's helped."
"Please," scoffs Jack. "How much didn't you tell her?"
Elizabeth's soft smile is serene. "That's between Kate and myself."
Jack nods. "Right," he says dubiously.
Elizabeth gives him a look, because she knows SG-1's history almost as well as Jack does. "Some of us don't hold back in therapy," she says, and a small, niggling voice in the back of her mind says she should be glad neither Carson nor Kate are there to contradict her.
"Learn anything exciting and new about yourself when you were taking a vacation in Replicator Land?" asks Jack, changing the topic with a speed that's remarkable, even if he's not as deft about it as she is.
"Well." Elizabeth starts out slowly, but her words increase in speed as she continues. "It seems I can kill Replicator nanites with the power of my mind." The gleam in her eyes is absolutely mischievous when their gazes meet, and then lock for all too brief an instant.
He snorts, then, and makes an aborted gesture that stops far short of actually touching her arm. "You should learn to do that on a larger scale," he says. "Save us the trouble of pulling off these last-minute rescues. One too many of those, and you start wondering when the odds are going to catch up with you."
Elizabeth nods once and shifts awkwardly. The silence between them stretches out again, until Jack starts talking abruptly. "Look, Elizabeth, I was just stopping by to check and make sure that there wasn't anything you needed before you went home," The pause before he says 'home' is so slight that you'd have to have a lifetime's worth of experience with reading people to notice it.
"That's very thoughtful of you, Jack," says Elizabeth, studying him. "Atlantis has become--"
"I know what it's become," he says, cutting her off.
He's going to go on, but Elizabeth interrupts him in return. "You can't talk, you know," she says. "You led SG-1 on an unauthorized mission to stop Apophis from invading Earth."
"And look how well that turned out," says Jack, grimacing.
"I think it turned out pretty well," says Elizabeth, tilting her head and smiling wryly. "After all, we're still around."
"True enough," says Jack. "And on that heartily cheerful note--" He pauses, shaking his head to clear the bitterness laid thickly on those particular words. "I'm going to leave you to your packing."
He moves to go, and Elizabeth steps out, in front of him, and puts one hand on his chest. He's almost as shocked as when she hugged him in Atlantis, when he couldn't figure out where to put his arms, and Elizabeth doesn't smirk at the memory. "Jack," she says, and the silence draws out again as they take each other's measure. "You know you're welcome on Atlantis at any time."
"I know," he says softly, and the depths in his brown eyes are absolutely unfathomable by anyone who hasn't been where he is right now. Elizabeth has, and it's only sheer luck and a hell of a lot of guts on the part of her and her team that she's not there any more. "But there are things I've got to do here."
"I know," says Elizabeth, shadowing his words, her voice gentle. Home, for Jack, is the SGC and going offworld, but to keep his team--and her people as well, frankly--safe, he's got to stay far away, watching their backs to the best of his ability. The look in her eyes is knowing. "That doesn't mean you can't visit us every once in a while."
The sudden longing he lets her see almost breaks her heart, and she shows him a quiet acceptance of everything this visit has been. Jack's always been more complex than most people have given him credit for, or that he's ever let on. The negotiator in her has always respected him for that, but it's not the negotiator in her that gives in to the sudden urge to step closer, to slide that hand on his chest up, over his shoulder, to cup his neck and draw him to her for a kiss that begins gently. When his hands grip her shoulders tightly and pull her in even further, crushing her to his body, the sparks they've always ignored between them flare up.
She's never told anyone that she derives an almost sexual satisfaction from making emotionally unavailable men open up to her. Then again, she doesn't need to. The look in Kate's eyes during their therapy sessions tells her that someone out there understands what part of her drives those needs.
Elizabeth and Jack break apart, heaving breathlessly, and he stares at her with a dark intensity that has her shivering. "Bedroom?" she suggests.
Jack laughs, amused somehow, and she looks at him curiously. "Anyplace else and my knees would have me shot for cruel and unusual punishment," he says
Elizabeth's smile is wider than usual. "We can't have that," she says. "Not after all the work we put into getting you back." She tilts her head in the direction of the bedroom and starts walking, letting Jack follow behind her, silent and sure-footed.
She closes the door behind them, despite the fact that she's alone in her apartment, and no one's going to walk in. Besides, her locks are heavy and her door scrapes against the floor, so she's going to hear it if it happens. In a heartbeat, Jack is in front of her, and he's lifting up the hem of her shirt, pulling it off her and tossing it into a corner. Maybe she'll burn it before she leaves for Atlantis. Right now, though, she's unzipping his jacket and pushing it down his shoulders, leaving the white shirt underneath.
His hands are skimming up her stomach, under the tank top she'd slipped on underneath that blouse this morning, as she reaches for the buckle of the belt cinched around his waist and a pair of dark blue jeans. Soon enough they're naked, clothing tossed haphazardly across the entire bedroom, and they're kissing, their bodies tangled together as they back towards the bed, lowering themselves onto it slowly, and she's straddling him as she reaches into a bedside drawer for a condom.
Within moments, Jack is buried inside her, thrusting as she rides him, at first slowly, then, when their gazes are locked and his hands are on her hips, so much faster. Elizabeth's sitting upright, her hands cupping her breasts and toying with her nipples as she's fucking Jack. His eyes are dark and heated, and everything she has is focused on them, so she barely notices when one hand leaves her hip and his fingers slide across her clit. An instant later, she's buried under the rolling waves of her orgasm, falling forward, but Jack catches her, and Elizabeth slides her arms around his neck and, with a wicked smile, tightens herself around him, grinding down just so. When he comes, it's almost silently, but he jerks against her. She can hear his hoarse gasp in her ear and feel him breathing hot against her neck before she stretches, up and bends backwards just slightly.
As she straightens, Jack chuckles appreciatively and Elizabeth shakes her head at him, wryly amused. "So what does one say after a liaison with the head of the Atlantis expedition?" he asks.
"I haven't the faintest idea," says Elizabeth, sliding off and rolling over to lay next to Jack. "What does one say after a liaison with the man in charge of Homeworld Security?"
"Probably something about how he's the best lover you've ever had," says Jack, pillowing his head on one arm as he reaches over and wraps the other around her. "Also, how nothing can ever compare to him and you're going to pine over him from a galaxy or two away."
Elizabeth turns, fitting herself very comfortably next to Jack, and she grins. "I think we're both going to be too busy to do any pining," she says.
"That's kind of a shame," says Jack. He smirks at her, and while she doesn't roll her eyes, she does arch one eyebrow at him. He's unrepentant. "I find myself in need of a good pine every now and then."
"How about a shower instead?" suggests Elizabeth, rising up so she's half-sitting, one hand splayed out on Jack's chest. "Then we can order delivery, have dinner, and you can decide if you're going to spend the night and see me off to Atlantis in the morning."
"Ooh," says Jack. "A whole night with the incomparable Elizabeth Weir?" He's back to hiding behind the mask, but they both know that doesn't matter. They both saw beyond those masks tonight, and they've never been as inscrutable with each other as they have been with everyone else.
Elizabeth laughs at him, then leans over to press her mouth softly against his. "I know all the best delivery places around here," she says. "We don't even have to get dressed."
Jack's arms encircle her and he grins. "Then I guess we'd better enjoy ourselves while it lasts."
"Precisely," says Elizabeth.
--end--
Author: havocthecat
Pairing: Jack O'Neill/Elizabeth Weir
Rating: NC-17
Category: Post-Ep, Vignette
Content Warnings: Het
Disclaimer: Not mine. Duh.
Spoilers: 3.04 - The Real World, 3.11 - Return II
Word Count: 2,782
Author's Notes: Thanks to amitee and muppetmanda for betareading. The title is inspired by the poem This Space, by Ruth Stone. Written for medie for the sg_rarepairings ficathon. She asked for: "The Real World AU? Such as they were sleeping together in it but...whatever really! Them in that AU (or even mentioning that AU) is *FINE*. Just, have Elizabeth in that shirt, maybe their dogs making an appearance?" (So you wanted that shirt? I think I can manage Jack/Elizabeth yummy goodness easily.)
***
The knock on her door is tentative, almost awkward-sounding. Elizabeth frowns, hands braced on her waist, and tries to decide who it could be. Carson and John are clearing out their desks at the SGC. Rodney is spending one last day terrorizing lab assistants at Area 51. The rest of the Atlantis expedition was being hurriedly recalled from where they'd scattered across the globe.
Another knock, this time slightly sharper. Possibly irritated. "Just a minute," she calls, winding around cardboard boxes and haphazardly-tossed clothing, until she can brace one hand against the wall and use one leg to shove her large box full of bubble-wrapped knick-knacks away from in front of the door. She opens the door, slightly out of breath and tucking a loose strand of hair behind her ear.
General O'Neill is standing there, a white jacket zipped up to his neck, and dark blue jeans, his cheeks red and his hair slightly mussed from the cold wind. It's not as messy as John's hair ever is, which makes her smile. "Well," he says, a tight grin breaking onto his face when he sees her. "For a minute there I didn't think you were going to answer your door."
"It was a near thing," says Elizabeth, her voice full of wry humor. "The decorations and I were fighting about whether or not I wanted company." She nods at the box, slid far enough out of the way that Jack can inch inside as she moves from in front of the door.
"Nice place," says Jack, hands shoved inside the pockets of his jacket. He glances around, alert even now, and Elizabeth has spent enough time around military men and women to know that he's marking the exits and planning for a worst-case scenario. Sometimes she wonders at the fact that every man in her life is constantly planning for the worst-case scenario. "So I guess it's a good thing you won, huh?"
She brushes the thought aside, along with the knowledge that she's now in possession of that particular personality trait. "I guess so," she says, then gestures towards the kitchen. "Want some coffee?"
"Oh, gee," says Jack, a smirk totally hidden behind serious eyes. "And here I'd have thought the coffee machine would be the first thing you'd pack to take to Atlantis."
"Ah, but there's where you're wrong." Elizabeth's eyes gleam, though one too many diplomatic negotiations have calmed her exuberant grin into a small upturn of her mouth. "It's the last thing I pack. How am I supposed to get anything done if I don't have coffee around?"
Jack shakes his head, following as Elizabeth turns and winds her way to the kitchen. When she glances back, she sees him stepping around boxes with a lithe grace she wouldn't expect from a two-star general, except she's read his file. "I guess diplomats aren't much different from scientists after all," he says, shaking his head and sighing loudly.
Elizabeth stops at the door to the kitchen and turns, one hand on her hip. "Oh, we're very different," she says, looking up at him. "For one, I get far less sleep than any of them."
"Daniel might have something to say about that," says Jack, opening one of Elizabeth's cabinets. He frowns at it. "You packed up all your coffee mugs already?"
"Daniel might still be jealous," says Elizabeth, arching a curious eyebrow at Jack. "They were never unpacked. I used a travel mug."
"And what, pray tell, would dear Daniel be jealous of?" asks Jack, turning to her, his hand still holding her cabinet door.
"Atlantis," says Elizabeth, her eyes lighting up, and something in Jack's face freezes.
With his expression, and that white jacket, Elizabeth is reminded of the last time she's seen him look like that. The sparkle in her eyes dims, and she glances down. The realization that she's wearing that same shirt, the one she'd never taken to Atlantis, but one glance at the floral edging and the plunging v-neck of this white blouse that flows down her hips, everything about that time--all those awful weeks--comes back to her in a heartbeat.
"Elizabeth?" Jack's voice is sharp, and breaks through the distraction that Elizabeth is trying to cover by a sudden turn away to rummage for coffee.
"Jack?" She turns, a bag of ground coffee in one hand, and a carefully casual expression on her face. "Is something wrong?"
"I don't know," he says slowly. He hasn't shut down any more. He even looks slightly worried, which causes a furrow between Elizabeth's eyebrows. "Why don't you tell me."
"It's nothing, really," she says, her voice a note higher than usual, and she sets the coffee down on the counter. "It's just that the last time you and I talked on Earth--" They hadn't spoken since he'd told her that Helia and the IOA had asked for Richard Woolsey as their ambassador.
"What, it wasn't really me?" Jack's lips firm into a smirk for an instant, before smoothing out into a reassuring smile. "I read the report, Elizabeth. How much whitewashing did you do on that one?"
Elizabeth studies Jack, crossing her arms as she does so. After a moment of unflinchingly taking her scrutiny, he gives her a look that says 'well?' "As much whitewashing as SG-1 ever did in their reports," she says, granting him the courtesy of an answer, if not the truthful one she knows he's looking for.
Jack's laughter huffs out, almost breathlessly, and he leans back against her counter. "Thought you hadn't noticed that," he says.
"I was waiting for the right moment to bring it up," she counters, smugly, because she's only human, after all. Who can resist needling the nigh-legendary General Jack O'Neill when he shows a flaw?
"You ever talk to anyone about this?" asks Jack. "Mackenzie always swears it can help." Sarcasm drips from every word.
Elizabeth's laugh is short and sharp. "You don't want to hear what Kate has to say about therapy, then," she says. "I've talked. It's helped."
"Please," scoffs Jack. "How much didn't you tell her?"
Elizabeth's soft smile is serene. "That's between Kate and myself."
Jack nods. "Right," he says dubiously.
Elizabeth gives him a look, because she knows SG-1's history almost as well as Jack does. "Some of us don't hold back in therapy," she says, and a small, niggling voice in the back of her mind says she should be glad neither Carson nor Kate are there to contradict her.
"Learn anything exciting and new about yourself when you were taking a vacation in Replicator Land?" asks Jack, changing the topic with a speed that's remarkable, even if he's not as deft about it as she is.
"Well." Elizabeth starts out slowly, but her words increase in speed as she continues. "It seems I can kill Replicator nanites with the power of my mind." The gleam in her eyes is absolutely mischievous when their gazes meet, and then lock for all too brief an instant.
He snorts, then, and makes an aborted gesture that stops far short of actually touching her arm. "You should learn to do that on a larger scale," he says. "Save us the trouble of pulling off these last-minute rescues. One too many of those, and you start wondering when the odds are going to catch up with you."
Elizabeth nods once and shifts awkwardly. The silence between them stretches out again, until Jack starts talking abruptly. "Look, Elizabeth, I was just stopping by to check and make sure that there wasn't anything you needed before you went home," The pause before he says 'home' is so slight that you'd have to have a lifetime's worth of experience with reading people to notice it.
"That's very thoughtful of you, Jack," says Elizabeth, studying him. "Atlantis has become--"
"I know what it's become," he says, cutting her off.
He's going to go on, but Elizabeth interrupts him in return. "You can't talk, you know," she says. "You led SG-1 on an unauthorized mission to stop Apophis from invading Earth."
"And look how well that turned out," says Jack, grimacing.
"I think it turned out pretty well," says Elizabeth, tilting her head and smiling wryly. "After all, we're still around."
"True enough," says Jack. "And on that heartily cheerful note--" He pauses, shaking his head to clear the bitterness laid thickly on those particular words. "I'm going to leave you to your packing."
He moves to go, and Elizabeth steps out, in front of him, and puts one hand on his chest. He's almost as shocked as when she hugged him in Atlantis, when he couldn't figure out where to put his arms, and Elizabeth doesn't smirk at the memory. "Jack," she says, and the silence draws out again as they take each other's measure. "You know you're welcome on Atlantis at any time."
"I know," he says softly, and the depths in his brown eyes are absolutely unfathomable by anyone who hasn't been where he is right now. Elizabeth has, and it's only sheer luck and a hell of a lot of guts on the part of her and her team that she's not there any more. "But there are things I've got to do here."
"I know," says Elizabeth, shadowing his words, her voice gentle. Home, for Jack, is the SGC and going offworld, but to keep his team--and her people as well, frankly--safe, he's got to stay far away, watching their backs to the best of his ability. The look in her eyes is knowing. "That doesn't mean you can't visit us every once in a while."
The sudden longing he lets her see almost breaks her heart, and she shows him a quiet acceptance of everything this visit has been. Jack's always been more complex than most people have given him credit for, or that he's ever let on. The negotiator in her has always respected him for that, but it's not the negotiator in her that gives in to the sudden urge to step closer, to slide that hand on his chest up, over his shoulder, to cup his neck and draw him to her for a kiss that begins gently. When his hands grip her shoulders tightly and pull her in even further, crushing her to his body, the sparks they've always ignored between them flare up.
She's never told anyone that she derives an almost sexual satisfaction from making emotionally unavailable men open up to her. Then again, she doesn't need to. The look in Kate's eyes during their therapy sessions tells her that someone out there understands what part of her drives those needs.
Elizabeth and Jack break apart, heaving breathlessly, and he stares at her with a dark intensity that has her shivering. "Bedroom?" she suggests.
Jack laughs, amused somehow, and she looks at him curiously. "Anyplace else and my knees would have me shot for cruel and unusual punishment," he says
Elizabeth's smile is wider than usual. "We can't have that," she says. "Not after all the work we put into getting you back." She tilts her head in the direction of the bedroom and starts walking, letting Jack follow behind her, silent and sure-footed.
She closes the door behind them, despite the fact that she's alone in her apartment, and no one's going to walk in. Besides, her locks are heavy and her door scrapes against the floor, so she's going to hear it if it happens. In a heartbeat, Jack is in front of her, and he's lifting up the hem of her shirt, pulling it off her and tossing it into a corner. Maybe she'll burn it before she leaves for Atlantis. Right now, though, she's unzipping his jacket and pushing it down his shoulders, leaving the white shirt underneath.
His hands are skimming up her stomach, under the tank top she'd slipped on underneath that blouse this morning, as she reaches for the buckle of the belt cinched around his waist and a pair of dark blue jeans. Soon enough they're naked, clothing tossed haphazardly across the entire bedroom, and they're kissing, their bodies tangled together as they back towards the bed, lowering themselves onto it slowly, and she's straddling him as she reaches into a bedside drawer for a condom.
Within moments, Jack is buried inside her, thrusting as she rides him, at first slowly, then, when their gazes are locked and his hands are on her hips, so much faster. Elizabeth's sitting upright, her hands cupping her breasts and toying with her nipples as she's fucking Jack. His eyes are dark and heated, and everything she has is focused on them, so she barely notices when one hand leaves her hip and his fingers slide across her clit. An instant later, she's buried under the rolling waves of her orgasm, falling forward, but Jack catches her, and Elizabeth slides her arms around his neck and, with a wicked smile, tightens herself around him, grinding down just so. When he comes, it's almost silently, but he jerks against her. She can hear his hoarse gasp in her ear and feel him breathing hot against her neck before she stretches, up and bends backwards just slightly.
As she straightens, Jack chuckles appreciatively and Elizabeth shakes her head at him, wryly amused. "So what does one say after a liaison with the head of the Atlantis expedition?" he asks.
"I haven't the faintest idea," says Elizabeth, sliding off and rolling over to lay next to Jack. "What does one say after a liaison with the man in charge of Homeworld Security?"
"Probably something about how he's the best lover you've ever had," says Jack, pillowing his head on one arm as he reaches over and wraps the other around her. "Also, how nothing can ever compare to him and you're going to pine over him from a galaxy or two away."
Elizabeth turns, fitting herself very comfortably next to Jack, and she grins. "I think we're both going to be too busy to do any pining," she says.
"That's kind of a shame," says Jack. He smirks at her, and while she doesn't roll her eyes, she does arch one eyebrow at him. He's unrepentant. "I find myself in need of a good pine every now and then."
"How about a shower instead?" suggests Elizabeth, rising up so she's half-sitting, one hand splayed out on Jack's chest. "Then we can order delivery, have dinner, and you can decide if you're going to spend the night and see me off to Atlantis in the morning."
"Ooh," says Jack. "A whole night with the incomparable Elizabeth Weir?" He's back to hiding behind the mask, but they both know that doesn't matter. They both saw beyond those masks tonight, and they've never been as inscrutable with each other as they have been with everyone else.
Elizabeth laughs at him, then leans over to press her mouth softly against his. "I know all the best delivery places around here," she says. "We don't even have to get dressed."
Jack's arms encircle her and he grins. "Then I guess we'd better enjoy ourselves while it lasts."
"Precisely," says Elizabeth.
--end--