Blue Dark
Title: Blue Dark
Author: ardvari
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: Sam/Jack
Disclaimer: Not mine.
Spoilers: Microscopic ones for Window of Opportunity.
A/N: I asked for prompts a few days ago and supplyship showed me this picture. I immediately fell in love with it, stared at it for two days straight, and finally let the muses run off with it. This is just fluff, the kind you could spread on a warm toast on a cold morning, I guess. Concrit welcome!
Blue Dark
The sun’s barely peeking above the horizon and already she’s up, perched on a stool at the breakfast bar in his kitchen, her index finger circling the rim of her coffee cup.
“And we have to go to this?” she asks, taking a sip of the hot beverage.
It’s strong, the kind of coffee he always makes when he has to work this early, when the caffeine is the only thing standing between him and a slew of bad decisions potentially leading to the demise of the planet.
“Well… I have to go. I suppose you don’t really have to come,” he grumbles, already pulling at his tie as if it’s too tight and choking him.
He leans across the breakfast bar and snatches the mug out of her hand, winking at her.
“But you’d like me to come,” she concludes, and he smiles.
“I’d be forever in your debt, Colonel,” he says and hands back her mug.
“Careful there, flyboy,” she grins.
The rising sun is bathing everything in an orange light and she stretches, watches him get ready with her hands wrapped around the warm mug. Maybe she’ll go back to bed after he leaves, catch a few more precious hours of sleep. She’s on downtime and should probably indulge in that luxury while she can. On her ship she only sleeps for a couple of hours at a time, wakes up to the eternal darkness of deep space.
She hasn’t seen the sun rise in over six months.
“So… the White House, eh?” she asks, taking another sip of her coffee.
He disappears around the corner, then backtracks into the kitchen, already in his coat. It’s still cold outside and he’s going to be standing outside for quite some time today. All part of the ceremony before the banquet. A banquet to which she is, apparently, going.
“Yeah, y’know? Big, white… fence around it,” he quips, resting gloved hands on her knees as he comes to stand in front of her.
“Sounds familiar,” she grins, leans up and kisses him softly. “Go save the world.”
He drops another kiss onto her mouth before he leans back, straightens his back and pats her knee.
“That job’s reserved for you, remember?”
She listens to him shuffling along the hallway, cursing a little when he drops something. When he closes the door behind him, silence descends on the apartment. She closes her eyes, listens for a moment. On the Hammond all she can hear is the perpetual hum of the engines, the static of the stars, the eerie, complete silence between galaxies, where there are no sounds, nothing at all.
Somewhere in the building a door slams, a car honks on the street, an ambulance drives by. She likes these earth sounds, sounds that help her come home. It always takes her a while to find her way back here, find her way down from between the stars, and she’s only been here since last night.
If it wasn’t for the ceremony today she’d be at the SGC for a week of debriefings. Instead she gets a long weekend in between, a long weekend in Washington with Jack.
She finishes her coffee by the window, watches the colors of the sky change from orange to pink and blue, the kind of pale blue that still holds the promise of winter. It’s warm inside the apartment, the furnace blowing hot air into the room. He has a fireplace too, and they often end up in front of it on the few evenings they have together, curled around each other while she tells him about the things that happen out there on her ship, little things she doesn’t mention in her reports. They laugh about plastic mistletoe strung up in the small commissary, about the blue jell-o cake her second in command made her for her birthday. How they’d sat at a table with the witch head nebula outside the window, had shared jell-o and stories before flying back to fight a war.
Another ambulance rattles by far below and she shakes herself out of her reverie, decides that she’s too awake now to go back to bed. She might as well have a shower instead, one of those long, hot ones that leave her skin tingling because that’s another luxury she doesn’t get on her ship. It’s three minute showers up there, and the water never really gets quite hot enough to sting.
She lets her hair dry against one of his frayed, old t-shirts, lounges on the couch for a while and goes through the stacks of science journals that have arrived while she was gone. The first day back on Earth is always the weirdest, her body still wound tight, ready to jump up, to run, to take command. She has to concentrate on settling down, has to focus on tasks like frying herself a couple of eggs for lunch. These tasks are no longer familiar, not after six months in space with food that’s reconstituted, six months of being on alert constantly. Six months of being aware of the fact that at any moment someone could attack and blow them all to pieces.
Jack calls in the afternoon, sounding tired. He’s not really into all the official business his job comes with and days like today make him grumpy.
“I had to stand in the sleet for an hour,” he complains.
She looks out the window, hasn’t even realized that the wind’s picked up, that clouds are covering the sky.
“I’m sure someone scrambled to hold an umbrella over your head,” she says.
“That’s not the point!”
She chuckles, tells him she’ll be ready and waiting for him in the lobby later on. The fact that he lives in an apartment with a lobby and security still points out quite nicely just how weird all of this is.
She always has a couple of black dresses around for occasions like this. It doesn’t take her long to settle on the short one, the one that reaches to just above her knees. She’s been wearing a flight suit for six months straight, a dress and a pair of heels will be a welcome change. She’s always dressed girly outside of work, likes feeling the warm summer breeze against her bare legs. Even now, with the weather so uninviting, she chooses the short dress, puts on earrings with red stones and a matching bracelet. The dress is soft, clinging to her in all the right places and she looks at herself in the mirror for a moment, catalogues the lines on her face, the small scar on her left knee. Despite a decade of fighting wars she doesn’t look broken. She looks a little weary, a little worse for the wear, but she’s still here and she’s alive.
The security guard in the lobby gives her a once-over when she steps off the elevator, her coat slung over her arm. Her heels click on the floor and she stands by the large windows, watching Jack’s car pull up in front of the entrance. He opens the door and climbs out before his driver’s even put the thing in park.
“You look…” he says, gesturing at her dress, unable to find words.
“Thanks,” she grins, cutting him off with a kiss.
“Stunning, Carter,” he adds, narrowing his eyes at her.
He holds her hand on the ride to the White House, his thumb gently stroking her palm. It’s still sleeting outside and there’s talk of snow tonight, snow that may stick. Winter’s not ready to give up quite yet, it seems.
The banquet room is crowded, a sea of dress blues mingling with civilians in suits and dresses. She’s not here in an official capacity but the fact that she’s not wearing her dress blues doesn’t mean people don’t recognize her and stop to chat.
None of them seem surprised that she’s here with Jack and sometimes she feels as if they’re the worst kept secret in the galaxy. They usually try to keep it quiet and there are no public displays of affection. It’s her career that’s on the line here, her career that could shift, every promotion falling under the shadow of having slept her way to the top. She knows that people might talk, knows what they’d say. All of her accomplishments wouldn’t matter, it wouldn’t matter that, for years, they’ve been so good.
Still, after dinner and making the rounds, she finds herself on the dance floor and in his arms. There aren’t a lot of people dancing yet and so there’s the appropriate amount of space between them that talks of people being comfortable with each other after years of serving together, but nothing more than that.
It isn’t until later, when the dance floor is full, that he pulls her closer. She slides against him easily, she’s always marvelled at how well they fit together, how closely she can tuck herself against him. She slips her hand up, rests it against the back of his neck. They’re so close now that his breath is stirring the errant hairs fluttering against her cheek and ear.
The music isn’t obnoxious or loud, it’s classic and quiet, the din of people talking fading to the background. The hand on her back slides along her skin, his thumb rubbing up and down gently.
“The First Lady just winked at me,” he whispers into her hair.
She chuckles, looks up at him with sparkling eyes.
“Because you’re here with your former second-in-command, who’s absolutely nothing more than a friend?” she quips.
“Absolutely. I’m just a nice guy, you know, and you were in town so I thought, hey, for old time’s sake,” he plays along, making her smile again.
They dance for a while, waiting for the first people to file out of the room and leaving is deemed acceptable. Neither of them enjoys official functions like this and when they finally step outside, he sighs.
The air is cold and it’s definitely snowing now, thick flakes that land on his cover and settle on her hair. His driver pulls up and helps them both into the car. It takes them a little longer to get back to the apartment because the roads are icy.
“It’s supposed to snow all night,” he says quietly, their hands clasped together on the middle seat.
“I haven’t seen snow in two years,” she says wistfully.
It just never worked out; she always came home in the fall or the spring, too early or late for snow.
“We could go skating tomorrow,” he whispers.
She smiles and squeezes his hand. Sometimes they do manage to leave the apartment when she’s on downtime. Mostly they just hole themselves up though, leaving only because she wants to buy new underwear or warmer socks or hair ties because she keeps losing them on the Hammond.
She leans against him when they’re finally in the elevator and he presses a kiss into her hair, slowly pulling out the bobby pins and putting them into the pocket of his jacket. Her hair is wavy and long, reaching past her collarbones now. He likes playing with it, likes running his fingers through it to untangle it. By the time they get up to the apartment her hair is loose, the light catching the strands and turning them to gold.
He unlocks the door, watches her kick off her heels and walk barefoot into the living room. She stops by the window and watches the snow fall, hears the door fall shut, and his footsteps as he walks up behind her.
She doesn’t turn, just leans back until she’s resting against his chest. His arms come up automatically to hold her in place while his lips press against her neck, finding her pulse, staying there. She closes her eyes, sighs contently. He’s a little restless though, finally turns her around, his hands on her cheeks drawing her in for a kiss.
Before she has time to object, his arms are around her and he’s dipping her as if they’re doing some elaborate dance. She clings to him and it feels natural, as if they’ve done this before, as if he knew exactly how she’d react.
“I’ve wanted to do this for years,” he murmurs, brown eyes locked on hers.
She smiles and then he kisses her again, his hand warm against her back. He won’t let her fall, and she’s home, finally and completely and unequivocally here with him in this moment.
Author: ardvari
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: Sam/Jack
Disclaimer: Not mine.
Spoilers: Microscopic ones for Window of Opportunity.
A/N: I asked for prompts a few days ago and supplyship showed me this picture. I immediately fell in love with it, stared at it for two days straight, and finally let the muses run off with it. This is just fluff, the kind you could spread on a warm toast on a cold morning, I guess. Concrit welcome!
Blue Dark
The sun’s barely peeking above the horizon and already she’s up, perched on a stool at the breakfast bar in his kitchen, her index finger circling the rim of her coffee cup.
“And we have to go to this?” she asks, taking a sip of the hot beverage.
It’s strong, the kind of coffee he always makes when he has to work this early, when the caffeine is the only thing standing between him and a slew of bad decisions potentially leading to the demise of the planet.
“Well… I have to go. I suppose you don’t really have to come,” he grumbles, already pulling at his tie as if it’s too tight and choking him.
He leans across the breakfast bar and snatches the mug out of her hand, winking at her.
“But you’d like me to come,” she concludes, and he smiles.
“I’d be forever in your debt, Colonel,” he says and hands back her mug.
“Careful there, flyboy,” she grins.
The rising sun is bathing everything in an orange light and she stretches, watches him get ready with her hands wrapped around the warm mug. Maybe she’ll go back to bed after he leaves, catch a few more precious hours of sleep. She’s on downtime and should probably indulge in that luxury while she can. On her ship she only sleeps for a couple of hours at a time, wakes up to the eternal darkness of deep space.
She hasn’t seen the sun rise in over six months.
“So… the White House, eh?” she asks, taking another sip of her coffee.
He disappears around the corner, then backtracks into the kitchen, already in his coat. It’s still cold outside and he’s going to be standing outside for quite some time today. All part of the ceremony before the banquet. A banquet to which she is, apparently, going.
“Yeah, y’know? Big, white… fence around it,” he quips, resting gloved hands on her knees as he comes to stand in front of her.
“Sounds familiar,” she grins, leans up and kisses him softly. “Go save the world.”
He drops another kiss onto her mouth before he leans back, straightens his back and pats her knee.
“That job’s reserved for you, remember?”
She listens to him shuffling along the hallway, cursing a little when he drops something. When he closes the door behind him, silence descends on the apartment. She closes her eyes, listens for a moment. On the Hammond all she can hear is the perpetual hum of the engines, the static of the stars, the eerie, complete silence between galaxies, where there are no sounds, nothing at all.
Somewhere in the building a door slams, a car honks on the street, an ambulance drives by. She likes these earth sounds, sounds that help her come home. It always takes her a while to find her way back here, find her way down from between the stars, and she’s only been here since last night.
If it wasn’t for the ceremony today she’d be at the SGC for a week of debriefings. Instead she gets a long weekend in between, a long weekend in Washington with Jack.
She finishes her coffee by the window, watches the colors of the sky change from orange to pink and blue, the kind of pale blue that still holds the promise of winter. It’s warm inside the apartment, the furnace blowing hot air into the room. He has a fireplace too, and they often end up in front of it on the few evenings they have together, curled around each other while she tells him about the things that happen out there on her ship, little things she doesn’t mention in her reports. They laugh about plastic mistletoe strung up in the small commissary, about the blue jell-o cake her second in command made her for her birthday. How they’d sat at a table with the witch head nebula outside the window, had shared jell-o and stories before flying back to fight a war.
Another ambulance rattles by far below and she shakes herself out of her reverie, decides that she’s too awake now to go back to bed. She might as well have a shower instead, one of those long, hot ones that leave her skin tingling because that’s another luxury she doesn’t get on her ship. It’s three minute showers up there, and the water never really gets quite hot enough to sting.
She lets her hair dry against one of his frayed, old t-shirts, lounges on the couch for a while and goes through the stacks of science journals that have arrived while she was gone. The first day back on Earth is always the weirdest, her body still wound tight, ready to jump up, to run, to take command. She has to concentrate on settling down, has to focus on tasks like frying herself a couple of eggs for lunch. These tasks are no longer familiar, not after six months in space with food that’s reconstituted, six months of being on alert constantly. Six months of being aware of the fact that at any moment someone could attack and blow them all to pieces.
Jack calls in the afternoon, sounding tired. He’s not really into all the official business his job comes with and days like today make him grumpy.
“I had to stand in the sleet for an hour,” he complains.
She looks out the window, hasn’t even realized that the wind’s picked up, that clouds are covering the sky.
“I’m sure someone scrambled to hold an umbrella over your head,” she says.
“That’s not the point!”
She chuckles, tells him she’ll be ready and waiting for him in the lobby later on. The fact that he lives in an apartment with a lobby and security still points out quite nicely just how weird all of this is.
She always has a couple of black dresses around for occasions like this. It doesn’t take her long to settle on the short one, the one that reaches to just above her knees. She’s been wearing a flight suit for six months straight, a dress and a pair of heels will be a welcome change. She’s always dressed girly outside of work, likes feeling the warm summer breeze against her bare legs. Even now, with the weather so uninviting, she chooses the short dress, puts on earrings with red stones and a matching bracelet. The dress is soft, clinging to her in all the right places and she looks at herself in the mirror for a moment, catalogues the lines on her face, the small scar on her left knee. Despite a decade of fighting wars she doesn’t look broken. She looks a little weary, a little worse for the wear, but she’s still here and she’s alive.
The security guard in the lobby gives her a once-over when she steps off the elevator, her coat slung over her arm. Her heels click on the floor and she stands by the large windows, watching Jack’s car pull up in front of the entrance. He opens the door and climbs out before his driver’s even put the thing in park.
“You look…” he says, gesturing at her dress, unable to find words.
“Thanks,” she grins, cutting him off with a kiss.
“Stunning, Carter,” he adds, narrowing his eyes at her.
He holds her hand on the ride to the White House, his thumb gently stroking her palm. It’s still sleeting outside and there’s talk of snow tonight, snow that may stick. Winter’s not ready to give up quite yet, it seems.
The banquet room is crowded, a sea of dress blues mingling with civilians in suits and dresses. She’s not here in an official capacity but the fact that she’s not wearing her dress blues doesn’t mean people don’t recognize her and stop to chat.
None of them seem surprised that she’s here with Jack and sometimes she feels as if they’re the worst kept secret in the galaxy. They usually try to keep it quiet and there are no public displays of affection. It’s her career that’s on the line here, her career that could shift, every promotion falling under the shadow of having slept her way to the top. She knows that people might talk, knows what they’d say. All of her accomplishments wouldn’t matter, it wouldn’t matter that, for years, they’ve been so good.
Still, after dinner and making the rounds, she finds herself on the dance floor and in his arms. There aren’t a lot of people dancing yet and so there’s the appropriate amount of space between them that talks of people being comfortable with each other after years of serving together, but nothing more than that.
It isn’t until later, when the dance floor is full, that he pulls her closer. She slides against him easily, she’s always marvelled at how well they fit together, how closely she can tuck herself against him. She slips her hand up, rests it against the back of his neck. They’re so close now that his breath is stirring the errant hairs fluttering against her cheek and ear.
The music isn’t obnoxious or loud, it’s classic and quiet, the din of people talking fading to the background. The hand on her back slides along her skin, his thumb rubbing up and down gently.
“The First Lady just winked at me,” he whispers into her hair.
She chuckles, looks up at him with sparkling eyes.
“Because you’re here with your former second-in-command, who’s absolutely nothing more than a friend?” she quips.
“Absolutely. I’m just a nice guy, you know, and you were in town so I thought, hey, for old time’s sake,” he plays along, making her smile again.
They dance for a while, waiting for the first people to file out of the room and leaving is deemed acceptable. Neither of them enjoys official functions like this and when they finally step outside, he sighs.
The air is cold and it’s definitely snowing now, thick flakes that land on his cover and settle on her hair. His driver pulls up and helps them both into the car. It takes them a little longer to get back to the apartment because the roads are icy.
“It’s supposed to snow all night,” he says quietly, their hands clasped together on the middle seat.
“I haven’t seen snow in two years,” she says wistfully.
It just never worked out; she always came home in the fall or the spring, too early or late for snow.
“We could go skating tomorrow,” he whispers.
She smiles and squeezes his hand. Sometimes they do manage to leave the apartment when she’s on downtime. Mostly they just hole themselves up though, leaving only because she wants to buy new underwear or warmer socks or hair ties because she keeps losing them on the Hammond.
She leans against him when they’re finally in the elevator and he presses a kiss into her hair, slowly pulling out the bobby pins and putting them into the pocket of his jacket. Her hair is wavy and long, reaching past her collarbones now. He likes playing with it, likes running his fingers through it to untangle it. By the time they get up to the apartment her hair is loose, the light catching the strands and turning them to gold.
He unlocks the door, watches her kick off her heels and walk barefoot into the living room. She stops by the window and watches the snow fall, hears the door fall shut, and his footsteps as he walks up behind her.
She doesn’t turn, just leans back until she’s resting against his chest. His arms come up automatically to hold her in place while his lips press against her neck, finding her pulse, staying there. She closes her eyes, sighs contently. He’s a little restless though, finally turns her around, his hands on her cheeks drawing her in for a kiss.
Before she has time to object, his arms are around her and he’s dipping her as if they’re doing some elaborate dance. She clings to him and it feels natural, as if they’ve done this before, as if he knew exactly how she’d react.
“I’ve wanted to do this for years,” he murmurs, brown eyes locked on hers.
She smiles and then he kisses her again, his hand warm against her back. He won’t let her fall, and she’s home, finally and completely and unequivocally here with him in this moment.