fic: five times jack sees sam out of uniform
title: Five Times Jack Sees Sam Out Of Uniform
series: Stargate SG-1
pairing: Sam/Jack
rating: R, but not all of them are. arrr.
word count: 4,486
notes: mmm, delicious otp. I don't come up with the fancy five things titles; that's missparker's job. You can also read this on AO3 if you'd like.
1.
Jack doesn’t really do Halloween anymore. There’s the obvious reason why, but there aren’t a whole lot of kids in his neighborhood and what kids are around probably only know him as the weird old guy who sits on his roof. Or maybe just the weird guy. Regardless, he usually keeps the outside lights off and coasts through the night like any other.
It’s a bit of a surprise to him, then, when he hears the doorbell ring. What he finds when he opens the door is even more of a surprise.
“Trick or treat!”
The visor on Cassie’s helmet drops down over her face with a thunk. She pushes it out of the way and grins as Janet leans down and puts a hand on her shoulder.
“We’re not here for any candy, remember?” she chides, pointing at the nearly overflowing plastic pumpkin at Cassie’s side.
“I know,” Cassie replies. “I just wanted to say it.”
Cassie’s dressed head to toe in plastic medieval armor, which Jack thinks is awfully fitting. Janet’s donned a tall starry wizard’s hat and…
“Hope we’re not intruding, sir. Cassie really wanted to come over and wish you a happy Halloween.”
…and are those little green alien heads dangling atop Carter’s headband?
“Not intruding at all,” Jack responds with a grin.
He invites them all inside and Cassie wastes no time talking a mile a minute about her very first trick-or-treating adventure. Janet looks tired and so does Sam, but they’re happy.
Jack’s happy, too: happy that Cassie had such a good time with something so new to her and happy that they’re all here sharing this with him.
He lets Cassie dump her haul out all over the kitchen table, and they spend a good fifteen minutes going through her candy. Most of it is completely foreign to her, so he takes her through all the different names and is quick to point out the ones he likes. She listens with rapt attention and even lets him have one of her Butterfingers.
When she yawns and gives him a few drowsy blinks, he pats her on her armored head and lets Janet take her back to the car. Carter stays behind to help pack up the candy.
She’s very quiet, and out of the corner of his eye, he catches her glancing at him periodically.
“Carter?” he finally asks. “Something on your mind?”
She looks a little startled at being caught staring and her cheeks flush a bit.
“Oh,” she says. “Oh, no, it’s nothing.”
But it’s clearly something and she continues to look a little embarrassed, so he patiently waits for her to relent.
“It’s just that…” She shakes her head, pops a few more pieces of candy into the pumpkin. The little aliens on her headband wobble around with the movement, and he hates to say it, but it’s weirdly distracting.
“She seems happy with Janet,” Sam says, “but sometimes I wonder if… I don’t know.”
She trails off into silence after that, and Jack gives her a few moments to find her words.
“I just didn’t think I’d be a very good mother,” she continues, voice soft, gaze averted. “And I still don’t, but after all we went through…”
She shakes her head again and focuses back on the candy. “I can’t believe I’m still worrying about this.” She chuckles softly. “She’s happy with Janet.”
They load the rest of the candy back up into the pumpkin, and when it’s all cleared from the table, Jack just puts a hand on her shoulder.
“You’re there for her when she needs you,” he tells her. “That’s enough.”
A few expressions pass over Carter’s face all at once. She finally settles on something really, truly grateful, maybe even a little misty-eyed.
“Thank you, sir,” she says, and already her voice sounds as if she’s been freed from a massive weight.
He smiles back and follows her to the front door.
“Hey, Carter.”
She turns to face him, and he reaches up, poking one of the little headband aliens. It bumps into the other one, making them both gently sway back and forth.
“Nice costume,” he says.
She laughs and reaches up herself to flick an alien with her finger. “I keep forgetting I’m wearing these.”
He opens the door for her, and as soon as she steps out, she looks over her shoulder.
“Good night, sir,” she says with a smile. “Happy Halloween.”
Happy Halloween indeed.
2.
They are so unbelievably screwed.
Daniel sucks in a breath through clenched teeth as another one of the gigantic hell bats descends upon him. There’s really no other way to describe them: huge fangs, piercing screeches, and a wingspan that would put the Spruce Goose to shame.
All right, maybe not that big. But Jack’s shooting blind and fangs sink into his flesh and he can smell blood, their blood, and he’d hate to think that after all they’ve been through, they’re going to meet their end here, getting torn apart by Batman’s demonic cousins.
And the worst part is, they’re already down by one.
“Where the hell is Carter?!” Jack yells over the screeching, taking a quick shot at a bat’s head. He can’t tell if he misses or not.
“She was behind us!” Teal’c yells back between hard swings with his staff weapon. “She is not here now!”
Well, yeah. She would never abandon them, especially not under the extremely imminent threat of death, so Jack hopes this doesn’t mean she’s already lying in a pool of blood behind a rock. He winces half at the thought, half at the teeth in his arm.
Long claws sink into his shoulder and he can’t help crying out, it hurts so much. It’s hard to see under the shadows of rapidly fading twilight, but he catches Teal’c’s knee buckling out of the corner of his eye and Daniel takes a few consecutive hits to the face that threaten to throw him completely off balance.
It’s too much. The three of them, they won’t last like this.
Just as Jack’s about to think this might really be it, there comes a high-pitched whine from atop the nearby plateau. The bats freeze in place. Shrieks turn into frantic chirps and they fly up to hover above them, transfixed by the noise and its accompanying blue light.
He sees it standing at the edge of the plateau: plates and plates of sleek black armor in the shape of a person. Tall metal legs, shining solid arms, and massive round shoulder pads as big as a human head, all illuminated by the crackling blue orb growing from the end of the right arm.
The orb keeps growing and so does the light, until they can finally make out short blond hair.
Carter’s arm shakes with the effort of holding the giant ball of energy just before she lets it fly. It slams into the flock of bats, dispersing them and sending them tumbling into dizzying loops. Distracted by this new threat, they zoom toward Carter, too fast for Jack to have a clear shot.
But Carter’s one step ahead of the bats, already charging up another blast, and it hits the bats with such force that they scream and flail and a few of them crash right into the side of the plateau. The remaining creatures beat a hasty retreat, wings flapping weakly as blue energy sizzles around their bodies.
Carter sprints down the rocky path, taking a leg-breaking jump onto the ground that the metal suit seems to absorb easily.
“Are you all right?” she asks them, but they’re all a little too dumbfounded to answer.
“They let you use the-” Daniel begins, but Sam cuts him off with a hard shake of her head.
“No.” She glances back toward the plateau. “And they’re not too happy about it.”
They can see wisps of black smoke and a faint orange glow, although it’s quickly becoming not so faint. There’s also an awful lot of yelling, and it sure isn’t the panicked kind.
She turns to Jack, eyes wide. “We really need to-”
“Run,” he finishes quickly. “Got it.”
Maybe they can worry about how to return the villagers’ sacred suit if they make it back home in one piece.
3.
Nudity isn’t a taboo on this world. These are people who have grown up with daily decontamination showers, so stripping down in front of a crowd is about the same as taking the dog for a walk.
If only the same could be said for SG-1.
The city officials take pity on them and lead them to the private showers, the ones that, as far as Daniel can decipher, are either reserved for dignitaries or the state bird. Jack really doesn’t care one way or the other; he just wants to get this over with and go home.
They head through some big doors and end up in a room with two little doors. The officials talk at the speed of light and Daniel struggles to keep up.
“Okay, well,” he says. “Apparently there’s an entryway inside where we’re supposed to, ah, disrobe. And…” His expression veers toward deer in the headlights. “…I’m pretty sure we have to be in there at the same-”
The officials turn him around, turn them all around, and usher them inside, two to each door. They’re pretty strong for scrawny politicians and there’s no time to protest, and because the universe really likes to screw around with him, it doesn’t take a genius to guess who Jack ends up standing beside in the entryway.
The door shuts and clicks behind them. Now it’s Carter’s turn to be the deer in the headlights.
“It’s locked,” she says, yanking the doorknob a little harder than necessary.
Jack peeks into the shower area and it’s a little cramped, like it wasn’t really built with two people in mind. At least it’s clean, so clean, in fact, that it shines and the walls are- …Well. The walls are a little reflective. A lot reflective. They’re going to be seeing every last bit of each other.
He bites back a curse and foregoes weighing their options because they don’t have any. It has to be done and it has to be done this way and they just have to deal with it.
When he turns around, Carter’s standing there like she’s ready for a mission: back straight, eyes hard, all business.
“It’s fine, sir,” she says, and then she turns around and he hears the sound of the zipper on her jacket.
It’s only been a couple of weeks since P3R-118 and they had the zatarc thing before that, and the universe truly is a grade-A bitch. But then, Jack’s not really sure he has the right to blame it on the universe, because the universe doesn’t create the dreams he still has of her leaning against him, soft and warm.
The floor is cold beneath his bare feet. They’re standing shoulder to shoulder as they step into the shower, so close that he can feel the heat radiating off her skin. He keeps his eyes focused on the reflection of his shins because if he looks anywhere else, he’ll get a full view of them both and he’s already gotten a glimpse of her neck, smattered with freckles and flushed pink.
They stand back to back as the water hits them. It’s hot and it stings and the edges of the mirrored walls cloud over with steam. There’s only one bar of soap and they keep having to pass it back and forth to each other, hands bumping against hands, fingers brushing against thighs.
After the water shuts off, they’re blasted with warm air for a few minutes and when that’s done, they’re completely dry. They stand very still. Jack hears the door click.
He’s about to make the first move when Carter just goes, leaving a rush of cool air against his back. He stays in the shower while she gets dressed and they’re both silent. Then the door opens and shuts and he makes sure that she’s gone before finally going to get his clothes.
Back outside, they all look fine, if slightly rumpled. Daniel thanks the officials as best he can and they all start the trek back towards the center of the city.
While they’re standing in front of the gate waiting for it to fire up, Jack steals a quick glance at Sam out of the corner of his eye. She looks fine, but stares straight ahead.
When he looks a little closer, he sees her fingertip tucked under the collar of her shirt, tracing a slow line along the chain of her dog tags.
4.
They don’t know where she is, and they haven’t known for 21 hours.
Jack and Daniel sit at the table while Teal’c waits by the door. They’re all tense and none of them meet each other’s gazes for too long lest they all get dragged down by their encroaching hopelessness.
They’d been welcomed to this world, but the welcome was short-lived. Never have they seen a planet so blatantly hostile toward the Goa’uld, which would normally be fantastic and a one-way ticket to Earth’s list of allies. The trouble is that they’ve never heard of the Tok’ra, nor have they ever seen anyone survive being a host.
It took one pass under the mandatory scanners for the prime minister to go apeshit and order Teal’c’s and Carter’s arrest.
There was yelling first, then thick white smoke suddenly billowing into the room from out of nowhere, and then came the hand on Jack’s shoulder and the woman’s voice that said, “Come with us. We will hide you.”
And they were hidden, in some rebel safe house in a skeezy part of town, except Carter never made it out of the smoke so it’s just the three of them, clueless and completely on edge.
“They will have taken her underground by now,” the woman had said to them, this shady mystery woman who never gave them a name. Jack doesn’t trust her when she says they’re all better off this way but they’re not exactly overflowing with options. “By this time,” she continued, “they have already begun to torture her.”
Jack could feel it: their collective twitch, their burning need to go get her instead of standing around talking about it, but the woman just gave them a dark grin, like she’d seen this dozens of times before.
“It is a labyrinth down there,” she’d told them. “You newcomers will never find her on your own.”
So they were here, alone in the safe house, sitting in the dark and waiting. God knows how much Jack hates waiting.
He leans back in his chair, toying with the idea of forcing some Power Bar into his stomach, and then the door opens. Teal’c steps back and the woman’s team comes into the room, the woman herself not far behind. She heads straight for Jack and pushes something into his palm. It looks like a computer chip, pathways and circuits glowing yellow in his hand, and it feels warm.
“It is a map,” the woman tells him. She reaches out, pushes it with her finger, and a little beam of light shoots out and blossoms into a golden holographic array of corridors and passageways. She pushes it again and it all collapses into itself in an instant. “Easy to activate, even easier to conceal. With that,” she says, gesturing toward the chip, “you will find her.”
“Not coming with us, I take it,” Jack says as he passes the chip to Daniel, who takes it without a word.
The woman chuckles. “After what it took to get you that?” She shakes her head. “Besides, you will be fine. The government continues to assume we common folk could never navigate the underground. It is not a well-guarded place.”
She doesn’t offer them much else as she sends them on their way, but they find an entrance pretty easily with help from the map and dive into the maze undetected.
The hallways are long and blackened, dimly lit by lamps hanging from the ceiling. Jack lets Daniel puzzle over the map while he and Teal’c zat any guards who get in their way. The woman had been right about the sloppy security, but it grows less and less benign as they get deeper inside.
He knows they’re close before Daniel says it; the three of them pinned down under heavy fire from guards big enough to be wrestlers is a great indication.
“She’s right around the corner!” Daniel yells over his shoulder before firing off another shot. “Third cell from the left!”
So close, and none of them can move. Getting an opening in this mess is no small task, but they’re relentless and soon the guards are running out of ammo and dropping like flies. It’s an opening if Jack’s ever seen one.
Teal’c nods at him and gives him a little bit of cover as he darts toward Carter’s cell. There’s a guard there that’s so persistent he has to take him out with two shots, but he makes it to the door without a scratch. The door is rusted but solid and it takes him a few seconds longer than he’d like to force it open.
The cell is empty except for Carter, passed out on her side in dirty rags that barely constitute as clothing. There’s a sizeable smear of blood on the floor nearby.
The weapons fire starts to die down outside and Jack finds no traps waiting for him. There’s a moment when he gets down on his good knee and sees her up close, so beaten and bruised, that he thinks for the shortest of seconds that she might not even move when he touches her.
He’s never been so glad to get kicked in the stomach (although his stomach begs to differ.)
“Carter!” He tries to still her as she thrashes. “Carter, it’s me! We’re here!”
She doesn’t stop until he cups her face in his hands, careful to avoid the dark bruise on her cheek. Her eyes are bloodshot and glossy and he’s not even sure she can see him with the way her gaze keeps slipping away from his face. She mumbles something around the cloth in her mouth and breathes hard.
“Okay,” he says, removing her gag. “You’re all right; just stay with me.” He puts a hand against her back to steady her, but she cries out and when he manages to turn her over, he finds a red, shredded mess. She clenches her teeth and shivers as he cuts the rope off her wrists.
“Cold,” she chokes out. She’s so pale and it’s clear they’re going to have to carry her out of here.
He pulls her against him as best he can as Daniel and Teal’c finally make it into the cell. They rush to Carter’s side, offering her warm hands and soothing words. She’s still too out of it to respond coherently, but her shivering is already subsiding.
Jack feels her breathing even out just before she reaches up to grab his sleeve, gripping it so hard her entire arm shakes.
5.
He likes the dress. It’s smooth and silky, a deep and vivid blue, and it hugs her body in all the right places.
Yeah. He likes the dress a lot.
She looks over her shoulder in the middle of fiddling with an earring.
“What?” she asks, smirking at him.
He smirks back. “Nothing,” he says, and turns on his heel. He thinks he’s being sly, but with the way her snickers follow him out of the bathroom, he guesses he’s bordering more on insufferable dork. That’s just fine with him; he’s discovered that he’ll eagerly do the stupidest shit just to hear her laugh.
It’s his birthday and he doesn’t usually do fancy dinners to mark the occasion (especially since he’s marked enough of them that the joy of party hats is long gone) but he wants great steak and smooth wine and Carter in a hip-hugging dress is always a plus.
If he’s going to be serious for a fraction of a second, though, what he really wants is for the two of them to have this one nice thing. One night where they go out and blend into some crowds together is the only gift he needs. It’s not that he wants them to be normal, it’s just that he could do with a little less stress. A little less of the Ori kicking their asses, a little less of Sam’s voice coming through tired and worn over the phone, and a little less of the dark circles under both their eyes.
One good night. One reminder of why they keep doing what they do. He keeps his fingers crossed.
When Sam finally emerges from the bathroom all polished and sparkling, linking her arm through his with no hesitation, he knows they’re going to be just fine.
---
Dinner is a rush of laughter and candlelight. They’ve eaten their weight in incredible steak and Jack settles back against his chair, slowly swirling the remaining wine around in his glass. Sam appears almost drowsy as she looks at him across the tiny flames.
Their waiter returns to clear their plates and deposits a small dessert menu between them. Jack thinks that’s pretty crazy, dessert after all that food, but Sam just plucks it from the table and starts reading. She always seems to have to room for cake, which is just one reason out of many that he’s totally crazy about her. Not that he keeps a mental list or anything.
“Chocolate raspberry torte,” she murmurs, glancing at him over the top of the menu. There’s a challenge in that gaze. It just wouldn’t be dessert with Sam Carter if it wasn’t somehow a contest.
“Well, when you put it like that.” He slips the menu out of her fingers and scans it himself. “Think they give any of this away for free on your birthday?”
She snorts. Right at that moment, the waiter comes back again, and Jack immediately asks him, “If I were to tell you that I’m another year older today, would it get us a free slice of this raspberry chocolate torte?”
The waiter stares back, and whether he’s baffled or amused, Jack can’t really tell. “I’m sorry, sir,” he says. “We don’t have any birthday specials at this establishment.”
Yes, even Jack’s been here enough to know full well that this is an establishment. Sam tries to be subtle about hiding her grin behind her fingers.
“Well, we’ll take a slice anyway,” Jack replies, folding his hands in front of him as Sam so utterly fails to hide her amusement.
The cake is a revelation, all lined in drizzle and chilly on his tongue. He gets into a fork duel with Sam only once, which he thinks is rather mature for both of them.
There comes a point where they split the final sliver of cake, and when Jack looks up at Sam, she’s pulling the fork out of her mouth in slow motion, eyes closed as she savors every last bit of chocolate raspberry bliss. She doesn’t notice him staring at first, and when she finally does, she has this moment where she looks from right to left, apparently baffled that he’d be mesmerized by her eating cake. But then she gets this impish glimmer in her eyes, and she leads the fork right back into her mouth, drawing it out at that same slow pace with her eyes locked right on him. She even licks her lips when she’s done.
“Very good cake,” she says as the corners of her mouth threaten to turn up, like she’s just realized she’s done this totally stereotypical romantic comedy thing and can’t believe she’s sunk so low.
It takes every ounce of self-control Jack has to not lean across the table and kiss her right there.
He has to admit he doesn’t really know how they make it back to his place, but Sam’s mouth tasting ever so slightly of raspberry in the car is the one thing that’s perfectly clear. Her dress ripples onto the carpet in his room while his suit falls away and they slide onto his bed with soft sighs. His hands smooth over her skin, her fingers run through his hair, and there’s no rush, no all-consuming need: just slow, simmering warmth that spreads to every corner of his body.
Sam eventually looks up at him with a smile so gradual and deliberate that his breath catches just long enough for her to place her hands against his chest and ease him onto his back. He hears himself groan as his head settles against the pillows and he watches her while she settles herself against his hips. His eyelids slide shut as her mouth descends on his neck, breath hot against his skin, and she cradles his head in her hands. Always supporting him, always centering him. Always keeping him safe.
He gasps when she finally sinks down onto him and his hands automatically move to her hips to steady her. She finds her balance easily, which never surprises him, and when she starts to rock against him he has to close his eyes again.
Somehow he manages to hold out through her grinding, through the heavy breaths and little sounds that slip out of her mouth, and when she tightens around him he exhales her name as the flood washes over him.
When he floats back down to Earth, he feels her lips against his, soft and gentle, and he’s grateful for the little wellspring of energy that allows him to kiss her in return. She slides down to settle her head against his chest and he feels her hand move up his arm, her fingers threading through his. He plays with her hair a little and listens to their breaths.
“Are you happy?” he asks her. He’s surprised by how quiet his voice sounds.
She doesn’t respond right away, but he can feel her thinking. She tenses slightly, her fingers twitching, and he’s pretty sure their thoughts are about the same: her bleeding out on P9C-882, Daniel’s face covered in Prior markings, Teal’c possessed by his bloody rampage of revenge.
Eventually, she relaxes and squeezes his hand.
“Yes.” Her voice sounds steady. “I’m happy.”
He squeezes back, lets his eyelids drift shut, and then he hears her say, “Are you?”
He opens his eyes. She’s not looking up at him, but he can see her staring at their hands.
“As a clam,” he answers.
She grins against him and laughs softly.
“Seafood tomorrow, then,” she teases.
He hums approvingly.
Their fingers stay linked even as they fall asleep.
series: Stargate SG-1
pairing: Sam/Jack
rating: R, but not all of them are. arrr.
word count: 4,486
notes: mmm, delicious otp. I don't come up with the fancy five things titles; that's missparker's job. You can also read this on AO3 if you'd like.
1.
Jack doesn’t really do Halloween anymore. There’s the obvious reason why, but there aren’t a whole lot of kids in his neighborhood and what kids are around probably only know him as the weird old guy who sits on his roof. Or maybe just the weird guy. Regardless, he usually keeps the outside lights off and coasts through the night like any other.
It’s a bit of a surprise to him, then, when he hears the doorbell ring. What he finds when he opens the door is even more of a surprise.
“Trick or treat!”
The visor on Cassie’s helmet drops down over her face with a thunk. She pushes it out of the way and grins as Janet leans down and puts a hand on her shoulder.
“We’re not here for any candy, remember?” she chides, pointing at the nearly overflowing plastic pumpkin at Cassie’s side.
“I know,” Cassie replies. “I just wanted to say it.”
Cassie’s dressed head to toe in plastic medieval armor, which Jack thinks is awfully fitting. Janet’s donned a tall starry wizard’s hat and…
“Hope we’re not intruding, sir. Cassie really wanted to come over and wish you a happy Halloween.”
…and are those little green alien heads dangling atop Carter’s headband?
“Not intruding at all,” Jack responds with a grin.
He invites them all inside and Cassie wastes no time talking a mile a minute about her very first trick-or-treating adventure. Janet looks tired and so does Sam, but they’re happy.
Jack’s happy, too: happy that Cassie had such a good time with something so new to her and happy that they’re all here sharing this with him.
He lets Cassie dump her haul out all over the kitchen table, and they spend a good fifteen minutes going through her candy. Most of it is completely foreign to her, so he takes her through all the different names and is quick to point out the ones he likes. She listens with rapt attention and even lets him have one of her Butterfingers.
When she yawns and gives him a few drowsy blinks, he pats her on her armored head and lets Janet take her back to the car. Carter stays behind to help pack up the candy.
She’s very quiet, and out of the corner of his eye, he catches her glancing at him periodically.
“Carter?” he finally asks. “Something on your mind?”
She looks a little startled at being caught staring and her cheeks flush a bit.
“Oh,” she says. “Oh, no, it’s nothing.”
But it’s clearly something and she continues to look a little embarrassed, so he patiently waits for her to relent.
“It’s just that…” She shakes her head, pops a few more pieces of candy into the pumpkin. The little aliens on her headband wobble around with the movement, and he hates to say it, but it’s weirdly distracting.
“She seems happy with Janet,” Sam says, “but sometimes I wonder if… I don’t know.”
She trails off into silence after that, and Jack gives her a few moments to find her words.
“I just didn’t think I’d be a very good mother,” she continues, voice soft, gaze averted. “And I still don’t, but after all we went through…”
She shakes her head again and focuses back on the candy. “I can’t believe I’m still worrying about this.” She chuckles softly. “She’s happy with Janet.”
They load the rest of the candy back up into the pumpkin, and when it’s all cleared from the table, Jack just puts a hand on her shoulder.
“You’re there for her when she needs you,” he tells her. “That’s enough.”
A few expressions pass over Carter’s face all at once. She finally settles on something really, truly grateful, maybe even a little misty-eyed.
“Thank you, sir,” she says, and already her voice sounds as if she’s been freed from a massive weight.
He smiles back and follows her to the front door.
“Hey, Carter.”
She turns to face him, and he reaches up, poking one of the little headband aliens. It bumps into the other one, making them both gently sway back and forth.
“Nice costume,” he says.
She laughs and reaches up herself to flick an alien with her finger. “I keep forgetting I’m wearing these.”
He opens the door for her, and as soon as she steps out, she looks over her shoulder.
“Good night, sir,” she says with a smile. “Happy Halloween.”
Happy Halloween indeed.
2.
They are so unbelievably screwed.
Daniel sucks in a breath through clenched teeth as another one of the gigantic hell bats descends upon him. There’s really no other way to describe them: huge fangs, piercing screeches, and a wingspan that would put the Spruce Goose to shame.
All right, maybe not that big. But Jack’s shooting blind and fangs sink into his flesh and he can smell blood, their blood, and he’d hate to think that after all they’ve been through, they’re going to meet their end here, getting torn apart by Batman’s demonic cousins.
And the worst part is, they’re already down by one.
“Where the hell is Carter?!” Jack yells over the screeching, taking a quick shot at a bat’s head. He can’t tell if he misses or not.
“She was behind us!” Teal’c yells back between hard swings with his staff weapon. “She is not here now!”
Well, yeah. She would never abandon them, especially not under the extremely imminent threat of death, so Jack hopes this doesn’t mean she’s already lying in a pool of blood behind a rock. He winces half at the thought, half at the teeth in his arm.
Long claws sink into his shoulder and he can’t help crying out, it hurts so much. It’s hard to see under the shadows of rapidly fading twilight, but he catches Teal’c’s knee buckling out of the corner of his eye and Daniel takes a few consecutive hits to the face that threaten to throw him completely off balance.
It’s too much. The three of them, they won’t last like this.
Just as Jack’s about to think this might really be it, there comes a high-pitched whine from atop the nearby plateau. The bats freeze in place. Shrieks turn into frantic chirps and they fly up to hover above them, transfixed by the noise and its accompanying blue light.
He sees it standing at the edge of the plateau: plates and plates of sleek black armor in the shape of a person. Tall metal legs, shining solid arms, and massive round shoulder pads as big as a human head, all illuminated by the crackling blue orb growing from the end of the right arm.
The orb keeps growing and so does the light, until they can finally make out short blond hair.
Carter’s arm shakes with the effort of holding the giant ball of energy just before she lets it fly. It slams into the flock of bats, dispersing them and sending them tumbling into dizzying loops. Distracted by this new threat, they zoom toward Carter, too fast for Jack to have a clear shot.
But Carter’s one step ahead of the bats, already charging up another blast, and it hits the bats with such force that they scream and flail and a few of them crash right into the side of the plateau. The remaining creatures beat a hasty retreat, wings flapping weakly as blue energy sizzles around their bodies.
Carter sprints down the rocky path, taking a leg-breaking jump onto the ground that the metal suit seems to absorb easily.
“Are you all right?” she asks them, but they’re all a little too dumbfounded to answer.
“They let you use the-” Daniel begins, but Sam cuts him off with a hard shake of her head.
“No.” She glances back toward the plateau. “And they’re not too happy about it.”
They can see wisps of black smoke and a faint orange glow, although it’s quickly becoming not so faint. There’s also an awful lot of yelling, and it sure isn’t the panicked kind.
She turns to Jack, eyes wide. “We really need to-”
“Run,” he finishes quickly. “Got it.”
Maybe they can worry about how to return the villagers’ sacred suit if they make it back home in one piece.
3.
Nudity isn’t a taboo on this world. These are people who have grown up with daily decontamination showers, so stripping down in front of a crowd is about the same as taking the dog for a walk.
If only the same could be said for SG-1.
The city officials take pity on them and lead them to the private showers, the ones that, as far as Daniel can decipher, are either reserved for dignitaries or the state bird. Jack really doesn’t care one way or the other; he just wants to get this over with and go home.
They head through some big doors and end up in a room with two little doors. The officials talk at the speed of light and Daniel struggles to keep up.
“Okay, well,” he says. “Apparently there’s an entryway inside where we’re supposed to, ah, disrobe. And…” His expression veers toward deer in the headlights. “…I’m pretty sure we have to be in there at the same-”
The officials turn him around, turn them all around, and usher them inside, two to each door. They’re pretty strong for scrawny politicians and there’s no time to protest, and because the universe really likes to screw around with him, it doesn’t take a genius to guess who Jack ends up standing beside in the entryway.
The door shuts and clicks behind them. Now it’s Carter’s turn to be the deer in the headlights.
“It’s locked,” she says, yanking the doorknob a little harder than necessary.
Jack peeks into the shower area and it’s a little cramped, like it wasn’t really built with two people in mind. At least it’s clean, so clean, in fact, that it shines and the walls are- …Well. The walls are a little reflective. A lot reflective. They’re going to be seeing every last bit of each other.
He bites back a curse and foregoes weighing their options because they don’t have any. It has to be done and it has to be done this way and they just have to deal with it.
When he turns around, Carter’s standing there like she’s ready for a mission: back straight, eyes hard, all business.
“It’s fine, sir,” she says, and then she turns around and he hears the sound of the zipper on her jacket.
It’s only been a couple of weeks since P3R-118 and they had the zatarc thing before that, and the universe truly is a grade-A bitch. But then, Jack’s not really sure he has the right to blame it on the universe, because the universe doesn’t create the dreams he still has of her leaning against him, soft and warm.
The floor is cold beneath his bare feet. They’re standing shoulder to shoulder as they step into the shower, so close that he can feel the heat radiating off her skin. He keeps his eyes focused on the reflection of his shins because if he looks anywhere else, he’ll get a full view of them both and he’s already gotten a glimpse of her neck, smattered with freckles and flushed pink.
They stand back to back as the water hits them. It’s hot and it stings and the edges of the mirrored walls cloud over with steam. There’s only one bar of soap and they keep having to pass it back and forth to each other, hands bumping against hands, fingers brushing against thighs.
After the water shuts off, they’re blasted with warm air for a few minutes and when that’s done, they’re completely dry. They stand very still. Jack hears the door click.
He’s about to make the first move when Carter just goes, leaving a rush of cool air against his back. He stays in the shower while she gets dressed and they’re both silent. Then the door opens and shuts and he makes sure that she’s gone before finally going to get his clothes.
Back outside, they all look fine, if slightly rumpled. Daniel thanks the officials as best he can and they all start the trek back towards the center of the city.
While they’re standing in front of the gate waiting for it to fire up, Jack steals a quick glance at Sam out of the corner of his eye. She looks fine, but stares straight ahead.
When he looks a little closer, he sees her fingertip tucked under the collar of her shirt, tracing a slow line along the chain of her dog tags.
4.
They don’t know where she is, and they haven’t known for 21 hours.
Jack and Daniel sit at the table while Teal’c waits by the door. They’re all tense and none of them meet each other’s gazes for too long lest they all get dragged down by their encroaching hopelessness.
They’d been welcomed to this world, but the welcome was short-lived. Never have they seen a planet so blatantly hostile toward the Goa’uld, which would normally be fantastic and a one-way ticket to Earth’s list of allies. The trouble is that they’ve never heard of the Tok’ra, nor have they ever seen anyone survive being a host.
It took one pass under the mandatory scanners for the prime minister to go apeshit and order Teal’c’s and Carter’s arrest.
There was yelling first, then thick white smoke suddenly billowing into the room from out of nowhere, and then came the hand on Jack’s shoulder and the woman’s voice that said, “Come with us. We will hide you.”
And they were hidden, in some rebel safe house in a skeezy part of town, except Carter never made it out of the smoke so it’s just the three of them, clueless and completely on edge.
“They will have taken her underground by now,” the woman had said to them, this shady mystery woman who never gave them a name. Jack doesn’t trust her when she says they’re all better off this way but they’re not exactly overflowing with options. “By this time,” she continued, “they have already begun to torture her.”
Jack could feel it: their collective twitch, their burning need to go get her instead of standing around talking about it, but the woman just gave them a dark grin, like she’d seen this dozens of times before.
“It is a labyrinth down there,” she’d told them. “You newcomers will never find her on your own.”
So they were here, alone in the safe house, sitting in the dark and waiting. God knows how much Jack hates waiting.
He leans back in his chair, toying with the idea of forcing some Power Bar into his stomach, and then the door opens. Teal’c steps back and the woman’s team comes into the room, the woman herself not far behind. She heads straight for Jack and pushes something into his palm. It looks like a computer chip, pathways and circuits glowing yellow in his hand, and it feels warm.
“It is a map,” the woman tells him. She reaches out, pushes it with her finger, and a little beam of light shoots out and blossoms into a golden holographic array of corridors and passageways. She pushes it again and it all collapses into itself in an instant. “Easy to activate, even easier to conceal. With that,” she says, gesturing toward the chip, “you will find her.”
“Not coming with us, I take it,” Jack says as he passes the chip to Daniel, who takes it without a word.
The woman chuckles. “After what it took to get you that?” She shakes her head. “Besides, you will be fine. The government continues to assume we common folk could never navigate the underground. It is not a well-guarded place.”
She doesn’t offer them much else as she sends them on their way, but they find an entrance pretty easily with help from the map and dive into the maze undetected.
The hallways are long and blackened, dimly lit by lamps hanging from the ceiling. Jack lets Daniel puzzle over the map while he and Teal’c zat any guards who get in their way. The woman had been right about the sloppy security, but it grows less and less benign as they get deeper inside.
He knows they’re close before Daniel says it; the three of them pinned down under heavy fire from guards big enough to be wrestlers is a great indication.
“She’s right around the corner!” Daniel yells over his shoulder before firing off another shot. “Third cell from the left!”
So close, and none of them can move. Getting an opening in this mess is no small task, but they’re relentless and soon the guards are running out of ammo and dropping like flies. It’s an opening if Jack’s ever seen one.
Teal’c nods at him and gives him a little bit of cover as he darts toward Carter’s cell. There’s a guard there that’s so persistent he has to take him out with two shots, but he makes it to the door without a scratch. The door is rusted but solid and it takes him a few seconds longer than he’d like to force it open.
The cell is empty except for Carter, passed out on her side in dirty rags that barely constitute as clothing. There’s a sizeable smear of blood on the floor nearby.
The weapons fire starts to die down outside and Jack finds no traps waiting for him. There’s a moment when he gets down on his good knee and sees her up close, so beaten and bruised, that he thinks for the shortest of seconds that she might not even move when he touches her.
He’s never been so glad to get kicked in the stomach (although his stomach begs to differ.)
“Carter!” He tries to still her as she thrashes. “Carter, it’s me! We’re here!”
She doesn’t stop until he cups her face in his hands, careful to avoid the dark bruise on her cheek. Her eyes are bloodshot and glossy and he’s not even sure she can see him with the way her gaze keeps slipping away from his face. She mumbles something around the cloth in her mouth and breathes hard.
“Okay,” he says, removing her gag. “You’re all right; just stay with me.” He puts a hand against her back to steady her, but she cries out and when he manages to turn her over, he finds a red, shredded mess. She clenches her teeth and shivers as he cuts the rope off her wrists.
“Cold,” she chokes out. She’s so pale and it’s clear they’re going to have to carry her out of here.
He pulls her against him as best he can as Daniel and Teal’c finally make it into the cell. They rush to Carter’s side, offering her warm hands and soothing words. She’s still too out of it to respond coherently, but her shivering is already subsiding.
Jack feels her breathing even out just before she reaches up to grab his sleeve, gripping it so hard her entire arm shakes.
5.
He likes the dress. It’s smooth and silky, a deep and vivid blue, and it hugs her body in all the right places.
Yeah. He likes the dress a lot.
She looks over her shoulder in the middle of fiddling with an earring.
“What?” she asks, smirking at him.
He smirks back. “Nothing,” he says, and turns on his heel. He thinks he’s being sly, but with the way her snickers follow him out of the bathroom, he guesses he’s bordering more on insufferable dork. That’s just fine with him; he’s discovered that he’ll eagerly do the stupidest shit just to hear her laugh.
It’s his birthday and he doesn’t usually do fancy dinners to mark the occasion (especially since he’s marked enough of them that the joy of party hats is long gone) but he wants great steak and smooth wine and Carter in a hip-hugging dress is always a plus.
If he’s going to be serious for a fraction of a second, though, what he really wants is for the two of them to have this one nice thing. One night where they go out and blend into some crowds together is the only gift he needs. It’s not that he wants them to be normal, it’s just that he could do with a little less stress. A little less of the Ori kicking their asses, a little less of Sam’s voice coming through tired and worn over the phone, and a little less of the dark circles under both their eyes.
One good night. One reminder of why they keep doing what they do. He keeps his fingers crossed.
When Sam finally emerges from the bathroom all polished and sparkling, linking her arm through his with no hesitation, he knows they’re going to be just fine.
---
Dinner is a rush of laughter and candlelight. They’ve eaten their weight in incredible steak and Jack settles back against his chair, slowly swirling the remaining wine around in his glass. Sam appears almost drowsy as she looks at him across the tiny flames.
Their waiter returns to clear their plates and deposits a small dessert menu between them. Jack thinks that’s pretty crazy, dessert after all that food, but Sam just plucks it from the table and starts reading. She always seems to have to room for cake, which is just one reason out of many that he’s totally crazy about her. Not that he keeps a mental list or anything.
“Chocolate raspberry torte,” she murmurs, glancing at him over the top of the menu. There’s a challenge in that gaze. It just wouldn’t be dessert with Sam Carter if it wasn’t somehow a contest.
“Well, when you put it like that.” He slips the menu out of her fingers and scans it himself. “Think they give any of this away for free on your birthday?”
She snorts. Right at that moment, the waiter comes back again, and Jack immediately asks him, “If I were to tell you that I’m another year older today, would it get us a free slice of this raspberry chocolate torte?”
The waiter stares back, and whether he’s baffled or amused, Jack can’t really tell. “I’m sorry, sir,” he says. “We don’t have any birthday specials at this establishment.”
Yes, even Jack’s been here enough to know full well that this is an establishment. Sam tries to be subtle about hiding her grin behind her fingers.
“Well, we’ll take a slice anyway,” Jack replies, folding his hands in front of him as Sam so utterly fails to hide her amusement.
The cake is a revelation, all lined in drizzle and chilly on his tongue. He gets into a fork duel with Sam only once, which he thinks is rather mature for both of them.
There comes a point where they split the final sliver of cake, and when Jack looks up at Sam, she’s pulling the fork out of her mouth in slow motion, eyes closed as she savors every last bit of chocolate raspberry bliss. She doesn’t notice him staring at first, and when she finally does, she has this moment where she looks from right to left, apparently baffled that he’d be mesmerized by her eating cake. But then she gets this impish glimmer in her eyes, and she leads the fork right back into her mouth, drawing it out at that same slow pace with her eyes locked right on him. She even licks her lips when she’s done.
“Very good cake,” she says as the corners of her mouth threaten to turn up, like she’s just realized she’s done this totally stereotypical romantic comedy thing and can’t believe she’s sunk so low.
It takes every ounce of self-control Jack has to not lean across the table and kiss her right there.
He has to admit he doesn’t really know how they make it back to his place, but Sam’s mouth tasting ever so slightly of raspberry in the car is the one thing that’s perfectly clear. Her dress ripples onto the carpet in his room while his suit falls away and they slide onto his bed with soft sighs. His hands smooth over her skin, her fingers run through his hair, and there’s no rush, no all-consuming need: just slow, simmering warmth that spreads to every corner of his body.
Sam eventually looks up at him with a smile so gradual and deliberate that his breath catches just long enough for her to place her hands against his chest and ease him onto his back. He hears himself groan as his head settles against the pillows and he watches her while she settles herself against his hips. His eyelids slide shut as her mouth descends on his neck, breath hot against his skin, and she cradles his head in her hands. Always supporting him, always centering him. Always keeping him safe.
He gasps when she finally sinks down onto him and his hands automatically move to her hips to steady her. She finds her balance easily, which never surprises him, and when she starts to rock against him he has to close his eyes again.
Somehow he manages to hold out through her grinding, through the heavy breaths and little sounds that slip out of her mouth, and when she tightens around him he exhales her name as the flood washes over him.
When he floats back down to Earth, he feels her lips against his, soft and gentle, and he’s grateful for the little wellspring of energy that allows him to kiss her in return. She slides down to settle her head against his chest and he feels her hand move up his arm, her fingers threading through his. He plays with her hair a little and listens to their breaths.
“Are you happy?” he asks her. He’s surprised by how quiet his voice sounds.
She doesn’t respond right away, but he can feel her thinking. She tenses slightly, her fingers twitching, and he’s pretty sure their thoughts are about the same: her bleeding out on P9C-882, Daniel’s face covered in Prior markings, Teal’c possessed by his bloody rampage of revenge.
Eventually, she relaxes and squeezes his hand.
“Yes.” Her voice sounds steady. “I’m happy.”
He squeezes back, lets his eyelids drift shut, and then he hears her say, “Are you?”
He opens his eyes. She’s not looking up at him, but he can see her staring at their hands.
“As a clam,” he answers.
She grins against him and laughs softly.
“Seafood tomorrow, then,” she teases.
He hums approvingly.
Their fingers stay linked even as they fall asleep.