(no subject)
Okay, so I promised to update last night - and I'm really sorry :( But I got back from work at oh-dark-hundred, inhaled my dinner and then crashed. Jetlgag does go away eventually right? riiiiiight??
Anyway, here is the next installment of Operation Stepford and just remember - we're ignoring the plot holes :)
Title Operation Stepford
Part Two
World: Stargate
Pairing: Sam/Jack (... have I ever written anything else?)
Summary: When given a mission by themselves in a world that they're not sure they understand - Col. O'Neill and Maj. Carter are forced to navigate the dark, and treacherous waters of Operation Stepford
Teaching High School physics was a new experience for Sam Carter. For somebody who weekly travelled to new planets hundreds of light-years away, discovered and redefined the laws of physics on a monthly basis and had brought about the downfall of at least three ‘Gods’ - she was terrified of teenagers.
She had lectured at the Academy a couple of times but didn’t feel that was the right sort of approach to High School. So instead, she decided to call in those hours spent with Cassie hanging out in front of the TV.
The class sat in front of her expectantly and she took a breath. “I’m Sam Denton,” she smiled and started up the computer. “I'm the new phsycis teacher, or tormentor depending on your point of view. We’re going to look at some ‘real life’ applications for physics for a few moments, just to prove that yes - what you learn here can be used in the real world.” So what if her proof of this was a TV show called The Big Bang Theory, it was funny ... and almost proved a point ...
After that, it seemed the kids were on side enough to begin with the basics.
Jack on the other hand was having a ball. He had always loved history, and relished the chance to be back in it (but please don’t tell Daniel). According to the lesson plan, they were to begin in the Roman Empire and work their way forward. His class seemed like an interested bunch, despite Ross Horace trying to be like his brothers and interrupt at every interval. With a wry smirk Jack remembered last night when he had discovered that the Gulf War was the final topic discussed that year - he’d turned to Sam and told her that he really was ancient history. She had told him to stop saying stupid things with such a grin that he had to laugh.
He shook his head, back to the task at hand. How the hell do you make the complicated Roman political system interesting to a bunch of twelve year olds?
“What have the Romans ever done for us,” he muttered as he walked around the room, watching as they all completed a time line worksheet.
“The aqueduct?” a small voice piped up. Jack’s head snapped up but whoever had answered him was keeping their head down and working.
“Yeah yeah,” he quoted, “Yeah, that’s true.”
“And the sanitation!” There were about thirty kids in his class, and one of them had seen Monty Python.
“All right, I'll grant you that the aqueduct and the sanitation are two things that the Romans have done...”
“Roads, irrigation, medicine, education, health…” Jack had found him, a tall sandy haired boy sitting to one side, his head down and working diligently on his timeline, “and the wine!”
He chuckled and came to stand in front of him, “I think you may be a bit young for the wine young man.”
The boy looked up, a cheeky grin on his face that reminded his teacher hauntingly of his son. “Yes Sir,” he said. “But the rest of it is pretty good.”
“What’s your name?”
“James,” the boy replied. “James Pollack.”
The boy was thin, with clothes that seemed to have been made for a boy about twice his size. Now that Jack was taking the time to study him, he noticed several other points of interest. The boy had a leather band around his wrist; worn and weathered it reminded Jack of the ones he and Sam both had, in fact, when he looked closely he recognised the writing on one of the strands of leather. It was close to Arabic, but not exactly, considering it came from a planet roughly twelve hundred light-years away. As if an alien arm band wasn't sending off enough warning signals, he noticed bruises on the boy’s left shoulder, just peaking out from underneath the sleeve of his shirt.
This all took place with the practice and ease of a man who had spent many years taking in dangerous situations at a glance. Jack smiled to the boy, “Glad to see that the greats are still being watched,” he said.
The boy finally looked him in the eye and Jack caught a glance at his work. His writing was neat and small and from the short look Jack got - it seemed to be all correct. But there was something in the quiet and unassuming way in which he worked that worried him.
“Good work,” he murmured and walked away. He barely saw the small smile the boy gave him.
He had a quick break between classes (the kids were having some sort of speech from the principal) so he quickly ducked into the Nurses office. Unlike Janet who seemed to instill calm and assurance with all of her patients, the nurse seemed to be in a bustle of confused stress - constantly moving from one cupboard to the next, taking things out, making notes and answering phone calls. When he walked in, she took one look at him and sighed. “If you want a day off, don’t bother. There aren’t any subs. I can give you Tylenol and take your temperature, but anything else and you’re on your own.”
Jack smirked and shook his head, “Not here for me. I just wanted to ask a question about one of the kids in my class that I’m a bit worried about.”
She took a look at him and crossed her arms, “You’re the new history teacher right? Denton?”
“Jack,” he held out his hand, she shook it roughly before turning back to a book of notes.
“And you were wanting …?”
“James Pollack? Seventh Grade? Tall, blonde hair-“
“Yeah. I know him.” Finally the Nurse had stopped moving, coming to look at him intently. “Is there anything new?”
“New?”
She sighed and indicated he should sit down pulling out a folder from the draw to her right. James’s name was printed clearly on the front and she opened it to reveal photographs and written reports from the past three months. “I’ve recorded everything I could. But if you’re new, you probably won’t understand, it’s a very difficult situation.”
Jack held the photographs in his hands, blood running cold through his veins. “How difficult?” he asked.
“Robert Pollack and his wife Rebecca are -“
“Rich?” But then, Jack thought, their house wasn’t much different to the one he and Sam had, and the credit records hadn’t looked spectacular when they’d looked on the flight.
“Not exactly. More like Royalty.” Jack just raised an eyebrow; he was sure that if they were royalty it would have come up. “They have diplomatic immunity. I’ve been on the phone to child services-“
“They have what?”
She sighed, “Diplomatic Immunity. Rebecca Pollack is the Ambassador from Georgia.”
Jack swore under his breath and looked back up at the nurse, struggling to keep himself from exploding at the poor woman. “So all we can do is keep an eye out for it?”
She nodded sadly looking at the file in her lap. “I’ve tried to talk to James, but he just closes off.”
“What are they doing at a public school?”
The nurse had to crack a wry smile at that, "Her Majesty - that’s what we call Rebecca - wanted her child to have the real experience of high school.”
Jack groaned, thanked the Nurse and left trying to figure out how to talk to Sam in private later. He decided lunch seemed his best option and made his way to class.
Sam was ready for lunch. Although she had discovered that she really loved teaching these kids (yes, even though many of them did not want to be there) - she was ready for a break. Then she shook her head, Sam Carter ready for a break? She must have started to subconsciously listen to her CO sometime in the past few years.
She wandered into the staff room, ready to meet the other teachers when Jack fell into step next to her. She had no idea where he had come from, but smiled at him brightly. “How was your first day?”
He gave her a smile that was clearly forced and said, “Feel like getting something to eat?”
“Sure.”
That was their code. That said: we need to talk.
She smiled at him again, taking his hand and leading him through the corridor. “I forgot to bring lunch with me,” she said and laughed, “then again - the kitchen’s still a tip. Come on, there seemed to be a nice Chinese place just around the corner. We’ll easily make it back before lunch finishes.”
Sam tried to keep herself under control as they wandered off the school grounds hand in hand talking softly. She really was too old to be feeling like a teenager on their first date.
“I found out something very interesting today,” Jack told her in that light casual voice of somebody completely at ease. “You know that family across from us? With the son? The ones we haven’t met?”
“Yeah?”
“They’ve got diplomatic immunity,” he said still smiling. But Sam could see the look in his eyes was cold and angry.
It was then that his words seemed to penetrate her brain and she gasped. “What?”
“Rebecca Pollack, Robert’s wife.” Jack told her, “She’s an ambassador for Georgia.”
Sam raised an eyebrow, “Georgia?”
“Not the one in the US,” Jack smirked. “The one on the boarder of Russia, Armenia and Turkey.”
She just looked at him, “Don’t tell me,” she said, “You have a degree in geography as well.”
“No, I was sent to Georgia several times, good way to get into Russia.”
She just nodded and it wasn’t until they reached the restaurant that she addressed the main issue. “So, what the hell are we going to do about the diplomatic immunity?”
“Ask Hammond?” Jack suggested. “There’s not much we can do until then.”
She just nodded and moved to order. It was only Jack’s training that could tell she was shocked by this information. To all other eyes she would have been the picture of casual and calm as she joked with the waitress about her ‘husband’s’ order but he could see the way her back was set and her eyes peeled.
He lightly touched her elbow and smiled, “Want to grab it and take it back to the school? Have lunch with the other teachers?”
She shrugged; one of them would have to make the call to General Hammond pretty soon and organise a way of getting information home. They grabbed the boxes and headed back to the school, Jack filling her in on James Pollack’s condition.
When they eventually got home that night - Sam having to plan an exam for the next day - Jack flopped onto the couch and looked up to the ceiling. “Who’s idea was it to be teachers again?” he groaned. “I mean seriously! Who’s idea was it?” Sam simply sat on the other end and looked at him patiently. “Yeah I know,” he said. “Remind me the next time Uncle George gives me an idea to tell him that I want to play pro hockey.”
She chuckled, “I’m pretty sure I remember your mother telling me that you did tell him that.”
Jack stopped smiling and looked at her closely before leaping up and walking out into the back yard. She didn’t follow him; they both needed a break from the game they were playing.
As Jack made dinner later (pasta + pasta sauce = banquet!) Sam called the contact number for their person in the SGC. He heard her say that she ‘feeling a bit lonely in the new city’ and concentrated on stirring the sauce in. When she came back into the room she sat at the counter and watched him. “You’re good at this,” he told her.
She beamed before seeming to rethink it and concentrated on dinner. “Really,” he said - because suddenly making sure that Sam believed him was infinitely important. “I’ve worked with guys who have been doing this for years and they haven’t managed nearly as well as you.” He purposefully didn’t mention anything about ‘teaching’ or ‘students’ - he wanted to make sure that she understood.
For posterity, he was going to claim that it was because he was proud of his 2IC (and while that was definitely the truth) - the fact that he was in love with her had nothing to do with it. At all. Honestly.
She gave him a brilliant smile and started to set the table. “It’s different work than I’m used to,” she told him, “But it’s interesting.”
Jack laughed, “That will change,” he warned, “That will change.”
Sam had this look on her face that he couldn’t read, but it was familiar. Now usually he could tell what was going on with just a moment’s glace. Out in the field just one look from her could tell him what was going on, give her opinion on the regional politics or tell him which MRE to pass to her. But this was different.
She was nibbling on her lip with a soft smile and finally looked right at him. “I’m pretty positive certain parts that I like are not going to change.”
DANGER! DANGER WILL ROBINSON!
This was bad. Very bad!
Well no, actually it was very very good. But something had happened in the past week or so and it was screwing with both of their heads.
“Sam-“ he warned (really wanting to be able to call her Carter or Major).
“It’s okay Jack,” she said giving him that look. “I know.”
They ate dinner in silence before going to bed, each staying as far to the edges as they could. It wasn’t that they didn’t trust the other person - it was their own strength that was seriously being questioned.
Sam woke up early the next morning to the sound of their front door bell. She gracefully turned away and steadfastly ignored the way Jack’s hand was resting on her stomach (and those chills down her spine were due to … an open window. That was it, an open window).
There was a UPS van out on the road and Sam grinned. She pulled on a jumper before opening the door.
“Morning Ma’am,” the deliveryman said. He kept his head down as he passed over two large envelopes. “Please sign.”
She figured these were the reports from Daniel and Teal’c’s latest missions that she and the Colonel were to copy.
“I have some news,” she told him. He looked up and she had to grin. Sergeant Siler in a UPS uniform was incredibly entertaining. She passed him an envelope and waved him goodbye.
She closed the door and turned back into the house. Jack smiled her from the top the stairs, “Delivery?”
She sighed, “you know; paperwork. Something for work I think.”
Jack jumped down the stairs and took an envelope from her. “Let’s knock this off over breakfast.”
According to the reports, Daniel and Teal’c had had a rather boring week. There was one report from Daniel about the tablet he and Teal’c had been working on before they left, and another about the planet they had gone to on Friday (a planet summarized in Daniel’s post-it note as We came, we ate, we danced, we left). “He’s starting to sound like you,” Sam smiled.
Jack sighed, “They grow up so fast,” he smirked and went back to typing up his own version.
The next couple of days went along much the same as Monday did. Siler the UPS man came back the next morning to pick up the reports but that was the only contact they had with anybody from the SGC. He told them that General Hammond was going to look into the Diplomatic Immunity issue, but to just keep gathering Intel until then. Legally they were on shaky ground. The General had ordered them not to use any devices to gather information - so no bugging of the house, only following them for a certain length of time and if any law enforcement officer approached them, they were on their own.
Jack kept a careful eye on James Pollack, noting down any new injuries in the small book in the observatory. When he wasn’t observing the boy, he was engaged in varied and interesting conversations that ranged from the long term effects of Monty Python on the brain to how Cesar Augustus would have failed miserably if he attempted any sort of empire in the 21st century. The boy was intelligent, with a wicked sense of humour and Jack honestly enjoyed the teasing and joking that went on during their classes.
He enjoyed teaching the other students as well, for the most part finding them all intelligent and interested young kids. Of course, amongst those interested and intelligent young people lay those like the Horace boys. Dianne’s description of them as “small thugs” was very apt, Jack had decided. The eldest, called only Junior, had been caught multiple times behind the bleachers smoking various substances. Sam had turned to Jack with a small smile and said, “Remind you of the 70’s?”
He had chuckled, before the memory of Teal’c in an afro wig and ‘psychedelic’ clothes had made him burst out laughing in the staff room. (The other teachers hadn’t found a student being caught smoking marijuana that funny but had come to accept that there was something decidedly odd about Jack Denton).
About a week after they had started teaching, Sam walked into her seventh grade class to see a new face in the front row. A small note told her that James Pollack had transferred to her class from Gym, and she grinned. “Alright guys, working on convection today. Consider what happens to the water in a pot as it is heated over an open camp stove. The water at the bottom of the pot heats up first. This causes it to expand.” She went on to explain about the heated water rising then falling again and had a bit of fun drawing on the blackboard. She then set them all on a task and turned back to James. “So Mr Pollack, you’ve come to the dark side,” she smiled.
He looked up with a small smile, “Mr Denton said it might be better than Gym.”
She raised an eyebrow, “Mr Denton advised you to take up science?”
“Yes,” he said. “I told him I didn’t like gym, so he asked what I did like.”
“And what did you say?”
“Space.” James said with a slightly dreamy look. “The planets, black holes, the stars-“
Sam grinned, “Ahh, then you’re definitely in the right place.”
James nodded enthusiastically, “Mr Denton said you worked with space a lot. He said you could give me some stuff to work on.”
Sam leant against the table and smiled, “What Mr Denton didn’t tell you is that he’s just as obsessed about space as I am. Secretly, he loves it. He’s got this great book that I stole from him last week - I don’t think he’s noticed. I’ll bring it in tomorrow and you can have a look at it. It’s got some great stuff about black holes in it.”
James’s face lit up and she understood immediately what Jack meant whenever he talked about this boy. “Oh, one thing Mrs Denton?” Sam turned back to him. “Um ...” she went back to the table and smiled at him. “I think my parents are going to invite you and Mr Denton over sometime, they said they want to meet you.” She nodded.
“That would be nice.”
“Um. Could you ... just ... not mention to my Dad ...”
“Want me to keep your budding career as a Nobel Prize Winning Scientist under wraps for a little while?”
He looked so relieved that Sam couldn’t help the thread of worry that wound through her. “Yes please.”
She nodded and lay a hand on his shoulder, “Your secret’s safe with me. And Mr Denton.” He smiled up at her, “And I’ll see about getting you that book for tomorrow.”
James had been right about his parents. They had come over Friday night to invite them both to dinner on Saturday. Mrs Rebecca Pollack looked every bit the Ambassador. She was tall and thin, and wore a black pencil suit with heels tall enough to be considered murder weapons. Her hair was dark brown and pulled back from her face to curl around her ears and she had a necklace of very expensive pearls. After she had left, Jack had sat on the stairs and looked up at Sam, “That’s it,” he had said, “We’re living in a bloody cliché”.
She had said how sorry she was that it had taken this long to invite them over, but she had been out of the country on business and had only returned earlier that day. She had heard her son talk about his new teachers and really wanted to get to know her new neighbours, “I may be busy and away often, but I do know the meaning of a good home,” she had smiled to them. “We have a tradition,” she had told them, “Of a formal Sunday roast. I would love if you could join us.”
Sam had replied that they would love to.
A few minutes after she left Jack looked up at her from the stairs. “We’re being initiated into their social circle,” he smirked. “Stepford wives here we come.”
“Speak for yourself,” Sam laughed, “the minute I start wearing lace and gingham is the minute I book myself into a psych institute.”
“Certain sorts of lace would be okay,” Jack said before he could stop himself.
This was the danger of this sort of mission. They had gotten comfortable. Very comfortable. That was the job; they had to be comfortable with each other. And there was no space for backing away or for second guessing. This left them at this odd sort of flirting limbo of close calls and careful silences.
Sam had come to the conclusion that despite the limbo, this chance of being ‘married’ to Jack was worth it. She now knew what it would be like. She could die on the next ‘normal’ mission and die knowing what it was like to be married to Jack. She would know what it felt like when he came home with Chinese because he knew that she had been at working for 12 hours straight between teaching and marking papers. She would know that he liked to take a shower after she had because he liked the bathroom warm and steamed up. She knew that he wrote everything down and only used a laptop for the big things like reports or longer letters. There were notepads and post-its all over the house with his scrawl reminding him to do something or call somebody. She now knew that even though none of the clothing or personal items were actually theirs, he had found those that he loved. There was a very large jersey (seriously, Sam wasn’t sure men’s shirts came this large) that he wore when he just couldn’t be bothered thinking about anything else.
Then, of course, there was the series of wonderful images that were burnt onto her memory. These images would be saved for when everything else looked completely screwed up, like her DNA was being altered, she was kidnapped on the way home from the gym, she was stuck in a space ship in the middle of nowhere hallucinating…
Images like:
Jack emerging from the bathroom wrapped in only a towel and her mind went headlong into a gutter
Jack slowly waking up next to her, and the smile on his face before he realised that he shouldn’t be that close
And her personal favourite, for those moments that were worse than all the others, for those moments when he was lost in another galaxy, or trapped to the wall of the gate room or on an alien moon and she had no way to save him. This was the moment just before the exams were due. They had stayed up most of the night working on reports for the General and exams for the Principal and she must have fallen asleep on the couch. The next thing she knew she was curled up against a warm body and being carried up the stairs. She opened her eyes only to have him whisper; “It’s okay, go back to sleep”. And then there was the part that she was sure she had imagined: Jack would never have kissed her forehead as he put her to bed. It would never happen. But a little denial never hurt anybody ...
She shook her head from the memories and smiled at him. “Wait and see,” Sam whispered. “One day, maybe there’ll be lace.”
Sunday morning, they both woke up early and dressed quickly for a run. They didn’t speak as they jogged down their street and down several blocks. They made it a couple of miles before they came to the big park. They made their way through the park until they reached a point they guessed was about the centre. Jack stopped by a bench and flopped down onto it while Sam stood to the side and stretched out her sore muscles.
“So,” she said, “What the hell are we going to do?”
He smiled at her and shrugged. “Eyes open, memorise the layout, take note of any areas they want to keep us away from, go to the bathroom and have a look around if you can.”
“Watch Mr Pollack,” Sam noted, “and ... I know it’s not part of the job, but I want to watch how James is.”
Jack nodded immediately, “Absolutely. I consider that part of our job,” he told her, “I have every intention of watching how his family interacts with him. Other than giving us more of an insight into his father ... the boy’s in trouble.” He had a dark look in his eyes, a quieter fury then she remembered from a time loop devise and a cry of "I LOST MY SON!" This was the subtler version, that she doubted anybody saw.
Sam knew how much it was killing him to sit by and watch as James came to school every day with newer marks replacing the old ones. Jack was amazing with children and would fight till his dying breath rather than have a child suffer - his kidnapping of Merrin had shown that, as had his treatment of the Re’tu boy Charlie (who Jack visited whenever he could) and the continued father-role he played in Cassandra Frasier’s life. The worst has been just this Friday when a slip of the boy’s collar revealed a cigarette burn on his shoulder. Jack had had to physically stop himself from doing something, anything to take that boy out of that situation. The fact that nobody seemed to be able to thus far was astounding to them both - the red tape of Diplomatic Immunity was beyond them.
“I’ve got this idea,” Sam said. “It’s not much, but ... I don’t know, it might help.”
“What is it?”
She sat next to him (but not too close), “I mean, this is entirely up to James and I just thought it might help him out a bit at home.”
“Sam, what is it?”
“Well, I asked the school and there’s this tutoring program. We’re allowed to tutor the kids after school. I was thinking of asking James if he wanted to try that out.”
“But he’s one of the brightest in his grade?”
“I was thinking more as a gifted thing. We could go through stuff for next year, help him do some harder stuff.”
Jack nodded, "Sounds great to me - how do we get his parents to agree to it? The school hasn't told them he's swapped classes - they don't even know he's doing physics."
"How does that work by the way? Why don't they have to know?"
Jack just shrugged a little helplessly, "I've learnt to stop asking questions," he said with a smirk. "Easier that way."
At about 1730 Sam started to get a bit nervous. She hadn’t expected it to be so easy to get into the Pollack household and the prospect of a ‘Sunday Roast’ was daunting at best. Sam had memories of her mother telling stories of how her grandmother had kept up the tradition despite having left the UK years before her birth.
“My mother used to do the Sunday Roast thing,” Jack muttered as he walked through their closet. “”The whole thing, we all had to be home by a certain hour - no matter what we were doing - and had to sit around the table and make polite conversation, no matter what had been happening during the week.” Sam desperately wanted to ask him about his family, but couldn’t bring herself to pry into the intensely private life of her CO.
She came out of the shower, took her dress off the bed and went back in talking through the door. “My mother was the same,” she smiled at the memory. “Mark would always complain, right up to the minute he took a bite - then he’d just shut up. Dad would try and make it back, he didn’t always manage. But Mom would always make a big deal of the meal and of at least the three of us being in one place.”
She walked back into the room, tying the sash of the dress around her waist and looking to the floor. She missed the look Jack gave her as he caught a glance of her. Her hair was lightly pinned back and she had very light and natural make up on - but he had never seen her so dressed up. She looked beautiful. He figured that was the only way to describe it.
Sam looked up just to catch him as he turned away and had to smile. After spending the vast majority of her time with him in either full combat gear or occasionally jeans and a sweater, it was nice to dress up and have it appreciated. “Ready?”
Jack just rolled up the cuffs of his dress shirt and smiled, “yup, ready.”
The day before, through Siler the UPS man, they had told the General the plan for tonight and both were glad that at least the SGC would realise if they went missing (not that they were seriously thinking that would happen). Jack had wanted to get a few listening bugs but that had been vetoed until the bureaucrats had gone through all the red tape for how to get around Diplomatic Immunity whilst maintaining the complete secrecy of the SGC.
“Let’s go,” Jack said leading the way down the stairs, out into the cold and across the road. “You okay?”
Sam turned to him before ringing the door bell, “Yeahsureyabetcha.”
Anyway, here is the next installment of Operation Stepford and just remember - we're ignoring the plot holes :)
Title Operation Stepford
Part Two
World: Stargate
Pairing: Sam/Jack (... have I ever written anything else?)
Summary: When given a mission by themselves in a world that they're not sure they understand - Col. O'Neill and Maj. Carter are forced to navigate the dark, and treacherous waters of Operation Stepford
Teaching High School physics was a new experience for Sam Carter. For somebody who weekly travelled to new planets hundreds of light-years away, discovered and redefined the laws of physics on a monthly basis and had brought about the downfall of at least three ‘Gods’ - she was terrified of teenagers.
She had lectured at the Academy a couple of times but didn’t feel that was the right sort of approach to High School. So instead, she decided to call in those hours spent with Cassie hanging out in front of the TV.
The class sat in front of her expectantly and she took a breath. “I’m Sam Denton,” she smiled and started up the computer. “I'm the new phsycis teacher, or tormentor depending on your point of view. We’re going to look at some ‘real life’ applications for physics for a few moments, just to prove that yes - what you learn here can be used in the real world.” So what if her proof of this was a TV show called The Big Bang Theory, it was funny ... and almost proved a point ...
After that, it seemed the kids were on side enough to begin with the basics.
Jack on the other hand was having a ball. He had always loved history, and relished the chance to be back in it (but please don’t tell Daniel). According to the lesson plan, they were to begin in the Roman Empire and work their way forward. His class seemed like an interested bunch, despite Ross Horace trying to be like his brothers and interrupt at every interval. With a wry smirk Jack remembered last night when he had discovered that the Gulf War was the final topic discussed that year - he’d turned to Sam and told her that he really was ancient history. She had told him to stop saying stupid things with such a grin that he had to laugh.
He shook his head, back to the task at hand. How the hell do you make the complicated Roman political system interesting to a bunch of twelve year olds?
“What have the Romans ever done for us,” he muttered as he walked around the room, watching as they all completed a time line worksheet.
“The aqueduct?” a small voice piped up. Jack’s head snapped up but whoever had answered him was keeping their head down and working.
“Yeah yeah,” he quoted, “Yeah, that’s true.”
“And the sanitation!” There were about thirty kids in his class, and one of them had seen Monty Python.
“All right, I'll grant you that the aqueduct and the sanitation are two things that the Romans have done...”
“Roads, irrigation, medicine, education, health…” Jack had found him, a tall sandy haired boy sitting to one side, his head down and working diligently on his timeline, “and the wine!”
He chuckled and came to stand in front of him, “I think you may be a bit young for the wine young man.”
The boy looked up, a cheeky grin on his face that reminded his teacher hauntingly of his son. “Yes Sir,” he said. “But the rest of it is pretty good.”
“What’s your name?”
“James,” the boy replied. “James Pollack.”
The boy was thin, with clothes that seemed to have been made for a boy about twice his size. Now that Jack was taking the time to study him, he noticed several other points of interest. The boy had a leather band around his wrist; worn and weathered it reminded Jack of the ones he and Sam both had, in fact, when he looked closely he recognised the writing on one of the strands of leather. It was close to Arabic, but not exactly, considering it came from a planet roughly twelve hundred light-years away. As if an alien arm band wasn't sending off enough warning signals, he noticed bruises on the boy’s left shoulder, just peaking out from underneath the sleeve of his shirt.
This all took place with the practice and ease of a man who had spent many years taking in dangerous situations at a glance. Jack smiled to the boy, “Glad to see that the greats are still being watched,” he said.
The boy finally looked him in the eye and Jack caught a glance at his work. His writing was neat and small and from the short look Jack got - it seemed to be all correct. But there was something in the quiet and unassuming way in which he worked that worried him.
“Good work,” he murmured and walked away. He barely saw the small smile the boy gave him.
He had a quick break between classes (the kids were having some sort of speech from the principal) so he quickly ducked into the Nurses office. Unlike Janet who seemed to instill calm and assurance with all of her patients, the nurse seemed to be in a bustle of confused stress - constantly moving from one cupboard to the next, taking things out, making notes and answering phone calls. When he walked in, she took one look at him and sighed. “If you want a day off, don’t bother. There aren’t any subs. I can give you Tylenol and take your temperature, but anything else and you’re on your own.”
Jack smirked and shook his head, “Not here for me. I just wanted to ask a question about one of the kids in my class that I’m a bit worried about.”
She took a look at him and crossed her arms, “You’re the new history teacher right? Denton?”
“Jack,” he held out his hand, she shook it roughly before turning back to a book of notes.
“And you were wanting …?”
“James Pollack? Seventh Grade? Tall, blonde hair-“
“Yeah. I know him.” Finally the Nurse had stopped moving, coming to look at him intently. “Is there anything new?”
“New?”
She sighed and indicated he should sit down pulling out a folder from the draw to her right. James’s name was printed clearly on the front and she opened it to reveal photographs and written reports from the past three months. “I’ve recorded everything I could. But if you’re new, you probably won’t understand, it’s a very difficult situation.”
Jack held the photographs in his hands, blood running cold through his veins. “How difficult?” he asked.
“Robert Pollack and his wife Rebecca are -“
“Rich?” But then, Jack thought, their house wasn’t much different to the one he and Sam had, and the credit records hadn’t looked spectacular when they’d looked on the flight.
“Not exactly. More like Royalty.” Jack just raised an eyebrow; he was sure that if they were royalty it would have come up. “They have diplomatic immunity. I’ve been on the phone to child services-“
“They have what?”
She sighed, “Diplomatic Immunity. Rebecca Pollack is the Ambassador from Georgia.”
Jack swore under his breath and looked back up at the nurse, struggling to keep himself from exploding at the poor woman. “So all we can do is keep an eye out for it?”
She nodded sadly looking at the file in her lap. “I’ve tried to talk to James, but he just closes off.”
“What are they doing at a public school?”
The nurse had to crack a wry smile at that, "Her Majesty - that’s what we call Rebecca - wanted her child to have the real experience of high school.”
Jack groaned, thanked the Nurse and left trying to figure out how to talk to Sam in private later. He decided lunch seemed his best option and made his way to class.
Sam was ready for lunch. Although she had discovered that she really loved teaching these kids (yes, even though many of them did not want to be there) - she was ready for a break. Then she shook her head, Sam Carter ready for a break? She must have started to subconsciously listen to her CO sometime in the past few years.
She wandered into the staff room, ready to meet the other teachers when Jack fell into step next to her. She had no idea where he had come from, but smiled at him brightly. “How was your first day?”
He gave her a smile that was clearly forced and said, “Feel like getting something to eat?”
“Sure.”
That was their code. That said: we need to talk.
She smiled at him again, taking his hand and leading him through the corridor. “I forgot to bring lunch with me,” she said and laughed, “then again - the kitchen’s still a tip. Come on, there seemed to be a nice Chinese place just around the corner. We’ll easily make it back before lunch finishes.”
Sam tried to keep herself under control as they wandered off the school grounds hand in hand talking softly. She really was too old to be feeling like a teenager on their first date.
“I found out something very interesting today,” Jack told her in that light casual voice of somebody completely at ease. “You know that family across from us? With the son? The ones we haven’t met?”
“Yeah?”
“They’ve got diplomatic immunity,” he said still smiling. But Sam could see the look in his eyes was cold and angry.
It was then that his words seemed to penetrate her brain and she gasped. “What?”
“Rebecca Pollack, Robert’s wife.” Jack told her, “She’s an ambassador for Georgia.”
Sam raised an eyebrow, “Georgia?”
“Not the one in the US,” Jack smirked. “The one on the boarder of Russia, Armenia and Turkey.”
She just looked at him, “Don’t tell me,” she said, “You have a degree in geography as well.”
“No, I was sent to Georgia several times, good way to get into Russia.”
She just nodded and it wasn’t until they reached the restaurant that she addressed the main issue. “So, what the hell are we going to do about the diplomatic immunity?”
“Ask Hammond?” Jack suggested. “There’s not much we can do until then.”
She just nodded and moved to order. It was only Jack’s training that could tell she was shocked by this information. To all other eyes she would have been the picture of casual and calm as she joked with the waitress about her ‘husband’s’ order but he could see the way her back was set and her eyes peeled.
He lightly touched her elbow and smiled, “Want to grab it and take it back to the school? Have lunch with the other teachers?”
She shrugged; one of them would have to make the call to General Hammond pretty soon and organise a way of getting information home. They grabbed the boxes and headed back to the school, Jack filling her in on James Pollack’s condition.
When they eventually got home that night - Sam having to plan an exam for the next day - Jack flopped onto the couch and looked up to the ceiling. “Who’s idea was it to be teachers again?” he groaned. “I mean seriously! Who’s idea was it?” Sam simply sat on the other end and looked at him patiently. “Yeah I know,” he said. “Remind me the next time Uncle George gives me an idea to tell him that I want to play pro hockey.”
She chuckled, “I’m pretty sure I remember your mother telling me that you did tell him that.”
Jack stopped smiling and looked at her closely before leaping up and walking out into the back yard. She didn’t follow him; they both needed a break from the game they were playing.
As Jack made dinner later (pasta + pasta sauce = banquet!) Sam called the contact number for their person in the SGC. He heard her say that she ‘feeling a bit lonely in the new city’ and concentrated on stirring the sauce in. When she came back into the room she sat at the counter and watched him. “You’re good at this,” he told her.
She beamed before seeming to rethink it and concentrated on dinner. “Really,” he said - because suddenly making sure that Sam believed him was infinitely important. “I’ve worked with guys who have been doing this for years and they haven’t managed nearly as well as you.” He purposefully didn’t mention anything about ‘teaching’ or ‘students’ - he wanted to make sure that she understood.
For posterity, he was going to claim that it was because he was proud of his 2IC (and while that was definitely the truth) - the fact that he was in love with her had nothing to do with it. At all. Honestly.
She gave him a brilliant smile and started to set the table. “It’s different work than I’m used to,” she told him, “But it’s interesting.”
Jack laughed, “That will change,” he warned, “That will change.”
Sam had this look on her face that he couldn’t read, but it was familiar. Now usually he could tell what was going on with just a moment’s glace. Out in the field just one look from her could tell him what was going on, give her opinion on the regional politics or tell him which MRE to pass to her. But this was different.
She was nibbling on her lip with a soft smile and finally looked right at him. “I’m pretty positive certain parts that I like are not going to change.”
DANGER! DANGER WILL ROBINSON!
This was bad. Very bad!
Well no, actually it was very very good. But something had happened in the past week or so and it was screwing with both of their heads.
“Sam-“ he warned (really wanting to be able to call her Carter or Major).
“It’s okay Jack,” she said giving him that look. “I know.”
They ate dinner in silence before going to bed, each staying as far to the edges as they could. It wasn’t that they didn’t trust the other person - it was their own strength that was seriously being questioned.
Sam woke up early the next morning to the sound of their front door bell. She gracefully turned away and steadfastly ignored the way Jack’s hand was resting on her stomach (and those chills down her spine were due to … an open window. That was it, an open window).
There was a UPS van out on the road and Sam grinned. She pulled on a jumper before opening the door.
“Morning Ma’am,” the deliveryman said. He kept his head down as he passed over two large envelopes. “Please sign.”
She figured these were the reports from Daniel and Teal’c’s latest missions that she and the Colonel were to copy.
“I have some news,” she told him. He looked up and she had to grin. Sergeant Siler in a UPS uniform was incredibly entertaining. She passed him an envelope and waved him goodbye.
She closed the door and turned back into the house. Jack smiled her from the top the stairs, “Delivery?”
She sighed, “you know; paperwork. Something for work I think.”
Jack jumped down the stairs and took an envelope from her. “Let’s knock this off over breakfast.”
According to the reports, Daniel and Teal’c had had a rather boring week. There was one report from Daniel about the tablet he and Teal’c had been working on before they left, and another about the planet they had gone to on Friday (a planet summarized in Daniel’s post-it note as We came, we ate, we danced, we left). “He’s starting to sound like you,” Sam smiled.
Jack sighed, “They grow up so fast,” he smirked and went back to typing up his own version.
The next couple of days went along much the same as Monday did. Siler the UPS man came back the next morning to pick up the reports but that was the only contact they had with anybody from the SGC. He told them that General Hammond was going to look into the Diplomatic Immunity issue, but to just keep gathering Intel until then. Legally they were on shaky ground. The General had ordered them not to use any devices to gather information - so no bugging of the house, only following them for a certain length of time and if any law enforcement officer approached them, they were on their own.
Jack kept a careful eye on James Pollack, noting down any new injuries in the small book in the observatory. When he wasn’t observing the boy, he was engaged in varied and interesting conversations that ranged from the long term effects of Monty Python on the brain to how Cesar Augustus would have failed miserably if he attempted any sort of empire in the 21st century. The boy was intelligent, with a wicked sense of humour and Jack honestly enjoyed the teasing and joking that went on during their classes.
He enjoyed teaching the other students as well, for the most part finding them all intelligent and interested young kids. Of course, amongst those interested and intelligent young people lay those like the Horace boys. Dianne’s description of them as “small thugs” was very apt, Jack had decided. The eldest, called only Junior, had been caught multiple times behind the bleachers smoking various substances. Sam had turned to Jack with a small smile and said, “Remind you of the 70’s?”
He had chuckled, before the memory of Teal’c in an afro wig and ‘psychedelic’ clothes had made him burst out laughing in the staff room. (The other teachers hadn’t found a student being caught smoking marijuana that funny but had come to accept that there was something decidedly odd about Jack Denton).
About a week after they had started teaching, Sam walked into her seventh grade class to see a new face in the front row. A small note told her that James Pollack had transferred to her class from Gym, and she grinned. “Alright guys, working on convection today. Consider what happens to the water in a pot as it is heated over an open camp stove. The water at the bottom of the pot heats up first. This causes it to expand.” She went on to explain about the heated water rising then falling again and had a bit of fun drawing on the blackboard. She then set them all on a task and turned back to James. “So Mr Pollack, you’ve come to the dark side,” she smiled.
He looked up with a small smile, “Mr Denton said it might be better than Gym.”
She raised an eyebrow, “Mr Denton advised you to take up science?”
“Yes,” he said. “I told him I didn’t like gym, so he asked what I did like.”
“And what did you say?”
“Space.” James said with a slightly dreamy look. “The planets, black holes, the stars-“
Sam grinned, “Ahh, then you’re definitely in the right place.”
James nodded enthusiastically, “Mr Denton said you worked with space a lot. He said you could give me some stuff to work on.”
Sam leant against the table and smiled, “What Mr Denton didn’t tell you is that he’s just as obsessed about space as I am. Secretly, he loves it. He’s got this great book that I stole from him last week - I don’t think he’s noticed. I’ll bring it in tomorrow and you can have a look at it. It’s got some great stuff about black holes in it.”
James’s face lit up and she understood immediately what Jack meant whenever he talked about this boy. “Oh, one thing Mrs Denton?” Sam turned back to him. “Um ...” she went back to the table and smiled at him. “I think my parents are going to invite you and Mr Denton over sometime, they said they want to meet you.” She nodded.
“That would be nice.”
“Um. Could you ... just ... not mention to my Dad ...”
“Want me to keep your budding career as a Nobel Prize Winning Scientist under wraps for a little while?”
He looked so relieved that Sam couldn’t help the thread of worry that wound through her. “Yes please.”
She nodded and lay a hand on his shoulder, “Your secret’s safe with me. And Mr Denton.” He smiled up at her, “And I’ll see about getting you that book for tomorrow.”
James had been right about his parents. They had come over Friday night to invite them both to dinner on Saturday. Mrs Rebecca Pollack looked every bit the Ambassador. She was tall and thin, and wore a black pencil suit with heels tall enough to be considered murder weapons. Her hair was dark brown and pulled back from her face to curl around her ears and she had a necklace of very expensive pearls. After she had left, Jack had sat on the stairs and looked up at Sam, “That’s it,” he had said, “We’re living in a bloody cliché”.
She had said how sorry she was that it had taken this long to invite them over, but she had been out of the country on business and had only returned earlier that day. She had heard her son talk about his new teachers and really wanted to get to know her new neighbours, “I may be busy and away often, but I do know the meaning of a good home,” she had smiled to them. “We have a tradition,” she had told them, “Of a formal Sunday roast. I would love if you could join us.”
Sam had replied that they would love to.
A few minutes after she left Jack looked up at her from the stairs. “We’re being initiated into their social circle,” he smirked. “Stepford wives here we come.”
“Speak for yourself,” Sam laughed, “the minute I start wearing lace and gingham is the minute I book myself into a psych institute.”
“Certain sorts of lace would be okay,” Jack said before he could stop himself.
This was the danger of this sort of mission. They had gotten comfortable. Very comfortable. That was the job; they had to be comfortable with each other. And there was no space for backing away or for second guessing. This left them at this odd sort of flirting limbo of close calls and careful silences.
Sam had come to the conclusion that despite the limbo, this chance of being ‘married’ to Jack was worth it. She now knew what it would be like. She could die on the next ‘normal’ mission and die knowing what it was like to be married to Jack. She would know what it felt like when he came home with Chinese because he knew that she had been at working for 12 hours straight between teaching and marking papers. She would know that he liked to take a shower after she had because he liked the bathroom warm and steamed up. She knew that he wrote everything down and only used a laptop for the big things like reports or longer letters. There were notepads and post-its all over the house with his scrawl reminding him to do something or call somebody. She now knew that even though none of the clothing or personal items were actually theirs, he had found those that he loved. There was a very large jersey (seriously, Sam wasn’t sure men’s shirts came this large) that he wore when he just couldn’t be bothered thinking about anything else.
Then, of course, there was the series of wonderful images that were burnt onto her memory. These images would be saved for when everything else looked completely screwed up, like her DNA was being altered, she was kidnapped on the way home from the gym, she was stuck in a space ship in the middle of nowhere hallucinating…
Images like:
Jack emerging from the bathroom wrapped in only a towel and her mind went headlong into a gutter
Jack slowly waking up next to her, and the smile on his face before he realised that he shouldn’t be that close
And her personal favourite, for those moments that were worse than all the others, for those moments when he was lost in another galaxy, or trapped to the wall of the gate room or on an alien moon and she had no way to save him. This was the moment just before the exams were due. They had stayed up most of the night working on reports for the General and exams for the Principal and she must have fallen asleep on the couch. The next thing she knew she was curled up against a warm body and being carried up the stairs. She opened her eyes only to have him whisper; “It’s okay, go back to sleep”. And then there was the part that she was sure she had imagined: Jack would never have kissed her forehead as he put her to bed. It would never happen. But a little denial never hurt anybody ...
She shook her head from the memories and smiled at him. “Wait and see,” Sam whispered. “One day, maybe there’ll be lace.”
Sunday morning, they both woke up early and dressed quickly for a run. They didn’t speak as they jogged down their street and down several blocks. They made it a couple of miles before they came to the big park. They made their way through the park until they reached a point they guessed was about the centre. Jack stopped by a bench and flopped down onto it while Sam stood to the side and stretched out her sore muscles.
“So,” she said, “What the hell are we going to do?”
He smiled at her and shrugged. “Eyes open, memorise the layout, take note of any areas they want to keep us away from, go to the bathroom and have a look around if you can.”
“Watch Mr Pollack,” Sam noted, “and ... I know it’s not part of the job, but I want to watch how James is.”
Jack nodded immediately, “Absolutely. I consider that part of our job,” he told her, “I have every intention of watching how his family interacts with him. Other than giving us more of an insight into his father ... the boy’s in trouble.” He had a dark look in his eyes, a quieter fury then she remembered from a time loop devise and a cry of "I LOST MY SON!" This was the subtler version, that she doubted anybody saw.
Sam knew how much it was killing him to sit by and watch as James came to school every day with newer marks replacing the old ones. Jack was amazing with children and would fight till his dying breath rather than have a child suffer - his kidnapping of Merrin had shown that, as had his treatment of the Re’tu boy Charlie (who Jack visited whenever he could) and the continued father-role he played in Cassandra Frasier’s life. The worst has been just this Friday when a slip of the boy’s collar revealed a cigarette burn on his shoulder. Jack had had to physically stop himself from doing something, anything to take that boy out of that situation. The fact that nobody seemed to be able to thus far was astounding to them both - the red tape of Diplomatic Immunity was beyond them.
“I’ve got this idea,” Sam said. “It’s not much, but ... I don’t know, it might help.”
“What is it?”
She sat next to him (but not too close), “I mean, this is entirely up to James and I just thought it might help him out a bit at home.”
“Sam, what is it?”
“Well, I asked the school and there’s this tutoring program. We’re allowed to tutor the kids after school. I was thinking of asking James if he wanted to try that out.”
“But he’s one of the brightest in his grade?”
“I was thinking more as a gifted thing. We could go through stuff for next year, help him do some harder stuff.”
Jack nodded, "Sounds great to me - how do we get his parents to agree to it? The school hasn't told them he's swapped classes - they don't even know he's doing physics."
"How does that work by the way? Why don't they have to know?"
Jack just shrugged a little helplessly, "I've learnt to stop asking questions," he said with a smirk. "Easier that way."
At about 1730 Sam started to get a bit nervous. She hadn’t expected it to be so easy to get into the Pollack household and the prospect of a ‘Sunday Roast’ was daunting at best. Sam had memories of her mother telling stories of how her grandmother had kept up the tradition despite having left the UK years before her birth.
“My mother used to do the Sunday Roast thing,” Jack muttered as he walked through their closet. “”The whole thing, we all had to be home by a certain hour - no matter what we were doing - and had to sit around the table and make polite conversation, no matter what had been happening during the week.” Sam desperately wanted to ask him about his family, but couldn’t bring herself to pry into the intensely private life of her CO.
She came out of the shower, took her dress off the bed and went back in talking through the door. “My mother was the same,” she smiled at the memory. “Mark would always complain, right up to the minute he took a bite - then he’d just shut up. Dad would try and make it back, he didn’t always manage. But Mom would always make a big deal of the meal and of at least the three of us being in one place.”
She walked back into the room, tying the sash of the dress around her waist and looking to the floor. She missed the look Jack gave her as he caught a glance of her. Her hair was lightly pinned back and she had very light and natural make up on - but he had never seen her so dressed up. She looked beautiful. He figured that was the only way to describe it.
Sam looked up just to catch him as he turned away and had to smile. After spending the vast majority of her time with him in either full combat gear or occasionally jeans and a sweater, it was nice to dress up and have it appreciated. “Ready?”
Jack just rolled up the cuffs of his dress shirt and smiled, “yup, ready.”
The day before, through Siler the UPS man, they had told the General the plan for tonight and both were glad that at least the SGC would realise if they went missing (not that they were seriously thinking that would happen). Jack had wanted to get a few listening bugs but that had been vetoed until the bureaucrats had gone through all the red tape for how to get around Diplomatic Immunity whilst maintaining the complete secrecy of the SGC.
“Let’s go,” Jack said leading the way down the stairs, out into the cold and across the road. “You okay?”
Sam turned to him before ringing the door bell, “Yeahsureyabetcha.”