Birthday Fic: Sense Knowledge (Sam/Jack, SG-1)
The happiest of happy birthdays to my brain twin and partner in crime, gabolange!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! *throws confetti and twirls around*
And for you, my dear, I have done the impossible: I wrote something that is definitely Sam/Jack and just might also be sorta fluffy. This is a combo I was quite certain was not actually in my repertoire. It's not quite "SaJGMaMSaBB," but perhaps it will do. It's as close as I'm going to come, in any case.
Title: Sense Knowledge
Pairing: Sam/Jack
Spoilers: "Threads," very general season 9 situational stuff
Rating: PG
600 words
Author's notes: Many thanks to grav_ity and holdouttrout for reassuring me in the face of my vast amounts of uncertainty.
--
Being with Jack is different than she imagined.
And Sam has to admit that she imagined it, in dozens of permutations. Perhaps they would be stuck off-world with no hope of getting home. Perhaps a particularly bad mission would get the best of them, one arriving on the other's doorstep at two in the morning for comfort. Perhaps they'd chuck their careers, have three or four kids, and live happily ever after in a house with a white picket fence. Perhaps Thor would kidnap them and lock them in a room until they gave in to the sexual tension.
Perhaps she'd finally go fishing.
Fishing turns out not to be a metaphor for anything. They went, all four of them, and they fished. They sat on the dock and cast out into the lake and drank beer and laughed. There were no furtive glances, no conversations laden with double entendre, no sneaking off together behind Daniel and Teal'c's backs.
A week after they returned, Jack showed up on a sunny Sunday afternoon, and they sat on the back porch and talked calmly and rationally, if a little awkwardly, about the future.
"I can't say Washington is a dream job," he admitted, "but it's important. It needs to be done by someone who knows what's going on with the program." He looked at her then, open and unguarded, and she returned the favor. "And it opens up certain possibilities," he finished.
She didn't pretend not to understand, didn't hide behind protocol and ranks. Instead, she wrapped her hand around his and held on firmly. "There is that," she replied.
It's been easier than she expected, and also harder.
She knew long distance would be a bitch; she didn't realize it would be because they both communicate badly on the phone. She needs to see his expressions, to be aware of the position of his body to understand him. When they are together, they understand each other better than she ever anticipated, intimacy created from years of knowing instinctively which space the other inhabited.
Yet even the sense-knowledge requires fine-tuning. She thought she could always tell where he'd be in a room. It turns out he's usually eight or so inches closer than she expects, sliding into her personal space as if he hadn't spent the past eight years hovering just far enough outside it. He loves to touch her, and she didn't expect that, either. She could count-did count, occasionally, she grudgingly admits to herself-the number of intentional touches that had passed between them over the years. The idea that she can hold his hand, brush a finger across his cheek, grip his arm, feels like an excess of riches.
She was used to his efficient field packing, and the clutter of his home-even the under-furnished Arlington apartment-surprises her. He tosses dirty clothes over a chair, which she finds endearing and does as well; he squeezes the toothpaste from the middle of the tube, which she hates. He's a messy cook, somehow finding a way to dirty half the dishes in the kitchen while making spaghetti; she's impressed he can cook at all.
He's in the middle of a stir fry when she gets in for the weekend. He opens the apartment door with a knife in one hand and a pepper in the other, kisses her. She puts down her bag and joins him in the kitchen.
"Good day?" he asks as he pulls out a new cutting board-the third so far, she counts, glancing around the kitchen-and starts hacking into the pepper with enthusiastic imprecision.
She smiles, gets her own beer out of the fridge, stands close just because she can. "Yes," she says.
And for you, my dear, I have done the impossible: I wrote something that is definitely Sam/Jack and just might also be sorta fluffy. This is a combo I was quite certain was not actually in my repertoire. It's not quite "SaJGMaMSaBB," but perhaps it will do. It's as close as I'm going to come, in any case.
Title: Sense Knowledge
Pairing: Sam/Jack
Spoilers: "Threads," very general season 9 situational stuff
Rating: PG
600 words
Author's notes: Many thanks to grav_ity and holdouttrout for reassuring me in the face of my vast amounts of uncertainty.
--
Being with Jack is different than she imagined.
And Sam has to admit that she imagined it, in dozens of permutations. Perhaps they would be stuck off-world with no hope of getting home. Perhaps a particularly bad mission would get the best of them, one arriving on the other's doorstep at two in the morning for comfort. Perhaps they'd chuck their careers, have three or four kids, and live happily ever after in a house with a white picket fence. Perhaps Thor would kidnap them and lock them in a room until they gave in to the sexual tension.
Perhaps she'd finally go fishing.
Fishing turns out not to be a metaphor for anything. They went, all four of them, and they fished. They sat on the dock and cast out into the lake and drank beer and laughed. There were no furtive glances, no conversations laden with double entendre, no sneaking off together behind Daniel and Teal'c's backs.
A week after they returned, Jack showed up on a sunny Sunday afternoon, and they sat on the back porch and talked calmly and rationally, if a little awkwardly, about the future.
"I can't say Washington is a dream job," he admitted, "but it's important. It needs to be done by someone who knows what's going on with the program." He looked at her then, open and unguarded, and she returned the favor. "And it opens up certain possibilities," he finished.
She didn't pretend not to understand, didn't hide behind protocol and ranks. Instead, she wrapped her hand around his and held on firmly. "There is that," she replied.
It's been easier than she expected, and also harder.
She knew long distance would be a bitch; she didn't realize it would be because they both communicate badly on the phone. She needs to see his expressions, to be aware of the position of his body to understand him. When they are together, they understand each other better than she ever anticipated, intimacy created from years of knowing instinctively which space the other inhabited.
Yet even the sense-knowledge requires fine-tuning. She thought she could always tell where he'd be in a room. It turns out he's usually eight or so inches closer than she expects, sliding into her personal space as if he hadn't spent the past eight years hovering just far enough outside it. He loves to touch her, and she didn't expect that, either. She could count-did count, occasionally, she grudgingly admits to herself-the number of intentional touches that had passed between them over the years. The idea that she can hold his hand, brush a finger across his cheek, grip his arm, feels like an excess of riches.
She was used to his efficient field packing, and the clutter of his home-even the under-furnished Arlington apartment-surprises her. He tosses dirty clothes over a chair, which she finds endearing and does as well; he squeezes the toothpaste from the middle of the tube, which she hates. He's a messy cook, somehow finding a way to dirty half the dishes in the kitchen while making spaghetti; she's impressed he can cook at all.
He's in the middle of a stir fry when she gets in for the weekend. He opens the apartment door with a knife in one hand and a pepper in the other, kisses her. She puts down her bag and joins him in the kitchen.
"Good day?" he asks as he pulls out a new cutting board-the third so far, she counts, glancing around the kitchen-and starts hacking into the pepper with enthusiastic imprecision.
She smiles, gets her own beer out of the fridge, stands close just because she can. "Yes," she says.