Another jack_built ficlet (Sam/Jack)
CLUNK. Whirrrrrrrrrrr...
"SAAA-AAAM!"
Ah, the familiar noises of home, sweet home.
"It wasn't me!"
"Well, it wasn't me!" bellowed Rodney McKay, from the apartment opposite. "Probably Zelenka." People were coming out of their apartments, and Rodney leaned over the banisters. "Zelenka! What have you broken this time?"
There was a short, sharp Czech phrase, and then an indignant voice from the second floor. "It was not me!"
Sam clicked on her torch, blinding Liz. "Sorry. I'm surprised we haven't heard from -"
"OH FOR CRYIN' OUT LOUD!"
"- him yet."
"Sam Carter, get your ass down here, right now!"
"It wasn't me!" she called back down, in protest.
"NOW!"
Sam handed her torch to Liz, who put a hand on her shoulder. "Go with God," said Liz, solemnly. Sam poked her tongue out at her. Then she trooped downstairs, passing groups of people who were beginning their usual rituals when this happened. It was a fairly regular occurrence, what with all the scientists in the building, and a wiring system that had been top of the range when it was first installed, in 1923. Murray in 340 always had a plentiful supply of candles (and the speculation about what he used them for was getting steadily wilder), as did Vala in 440 (speculation on what she used them for was non-existent: she kept telling people), and Daniel had some weird old lamps that he was okay with them using so long as they were careful. She passed Janet and Teyla from 100, who'd collected the perpetually home-alone kid from 110, and were heading up to the roof to look at the stars. She gave them a wave, and the girl grinned delightedly back. The kids in the building loved the blackouts.
Mr. O'Neill was waiting for her at the entrance to the basement.
"I didn't do it," she told him, quickly.
"I know," he said, surprisingly mildly. "But you're better at fixing it than me."
Oh. Well, that was okay then.
Actually, he'd been much less gruff to her since she'd fixed the fuse box that first time. She'd explained what she was doing as she did it, and - although he hadn't given any indication that he was listening, or that he was happy about what she was doing - he hadn't stopped her, and the building had consequently had a lot fewer wiring-induced blackouts. The scientist-induced ones, of course, continued apace. There was only so much she could do without taking it all out and starting again.
It was cold, dark and damp in the basement, as ever, and she was glad that he'd got his unnecessarily manly torch with him - the wide-beam, roadside rescue-type one. She felt a little guilty about the time she and Liz had laughed about it, speculating whether he was trying to compensate for something else. There was a very nice man hidden somewhere underneath that grouchy exterior. A very nice, very attractive, very single man - even if he was about fifteen years older than her, and obviously not going to be interested in a science nerd who regularly blew his fuses. An extremely -
"Hey, where're you going?" asked the extremely attractive man, grabbing her arm. "You just walked right past it."
"Oh! I, er, got confused in the dark." In the light from the torch, she could see him give her a funny look. "Hey, you know it's nearly Hallowe'en?" she asked, quickly changing the subject. "If we were in a horror movie, we shouldn't have come down to the basement."
The light disappeared, just as she was reaching for the fuse box, and she pulled her hand back hurriedly and glanced back, to find he'd stuck the torch under his chin, casting menacing shadows over his face. "Maybe you shouldn't have come down to the basement with me," he said, giving a dark chuckle.
Sam rolled her eyes. "Oh, please. It's the twenty-first century - maybe you shouldn't have come down to the basement with me." She grabbed his hand and forced him to angle the torch in the right direction. "I could be a mad scientist," she said, as she began to fiddle with the fuses.
"You are a mad -"
"I might have sinister experiments going on down here," she continued, overriding him. "I might have opened a portal to a dark underworld that sucked out my soul and replaced it with the darkness that lurks in wait between dimensions."
"I see McKay as more of the dark portal type," said Mr. O'Neill, thoughtfully. Sam grinned at the fuse box. "I see you more as the sort who might have... an evil twin that she keeps locked in the basement. An identical twin, who occasionally gets out and goes wild, brings strange men back to your apartment and wrecks your relationships."
"I wish," said Sam. "If only I had something that simple to blame."
He chuckled. "Yeah, I guess it would be a good excuse: 'Sorry, it wasn't me, it was my evil twin.' So," he said, casually, "no evil twins bringing men home?"
"Ha," muttered Sam, darkly, poking at the fuses. "Not likely." There was a distinct smell of burnt metal, but she couldn't see scorch marks anywhere. She reached back and pulled the torch closer. "Just hold it there," she instructed.
Mr. O'Neill cleared his throat, a little uncomfortably, just above her shoulder. "Not that you're not allowed people visiting," he continued, doggedly. "That's fine, of course. It's your life. But you might want to warn me if there's going to be strange me- um, strange people around. Just for security, you know. People don't really lock their doors around here."
"Sure," said Sam, absently. There was something odd about this fuse box. She would've sworn that was the blown fuse she pulled out last week...
"Only I couldn't help but notice the man who stayed over last Thursday," he said, tightly.
"There's something odd about - the man who did what?" she asked, turning quickly only to find she'd pulled him awfully close, along with the torch.
"Some guy," he said, determinedly. The light was behind her, now, so she couldn't read his expression, but his voice was tense. "Tall. Brown hair. Geek. Your boyfriend?"
Sam searched her memory for a visit from anyone who might possibly have resembled a boyfriend. Last Thursday, last Thursday... "You don't mean Jay, do you?" she asked, suddenly remembering what she'd been doing last Thursday. "Um, tall, brown hair, a bit..." she searched for an adjective to describe Jay that wasn't actively insulting, "tall," she finished, lamely. She raised a hand to approximately Jay's height. "The undergrad who's assisting me with my particle accelerator project?" she added, pointedly.
Mr. O'Neill might have blushed, but it was too dark to tell. "Oh! Really?"
"Yes, really!" she snapped, a little insulted that he might have thought she was dating Jay Felger. Not that Jay wasn't a lovely guy, extremely intelligent, great scientist when he managed to focus, but, well... he was Jay. Anyhow, he was dating that girl in his class. Wouldn't stop going on about her. Chloe something.
"So when he stayed over..."
"He didn't stay over!" She thought about that statement. "Well, okay, he may have been around the whole night, but we were - we weren't - he didn't stay over. We just... didn't finish talking until sometime the next day."
Apparently he understood the difference between staying over and staying over. "Oh," he said, voice full of comprehension. "So... not your boyfriend?"
"Not my boyfriend," she said, firmly.
---
"Hey, Liz!" Sam said, brightly, as she stepped back into the apartment.
Liz looked up from the desk where she was deeply entrenched in papers, and then glanced at the clock. "Hey. Hi," she said, slowly. Her gaze travelled up to Sam's hair, and she narrowed her eyes. "So you got the electrics fixed," she said, tapping her lamp with the end of her pencil.
"Oh, yeah," said Sam, tugging off the warm cardigan she'd thrown on when the lights went out. The building tended to get cold pretty quickly. "Just a mix-up with the fuses. I think someone was playing around with them or something. Lucky they didn't get themselves electrocuted. Jack's going to fix a lock to the fuse box."
"Oh, Jack is, is he?" asked Liz.
Sam threw the cardigan at Liz. "Yes, Jack. I keep fixing things around here, it's only natural he asked me to call him Jack." She smoothed her hair down self-consciously.
Liz threw back the cardigan and set down her pencil. "So, young lady, how do you account for your whereabouts for the last three hours?" She leaned forwards. "Just how big was this fuse?"
Sam blushed, vividly. "Oh, get your mind out of the gutter, Elizabeth Weir! We had coffee."
"I hear coffee's nice this time of year," said Liz, blandly. "In his apartment?"
"At Murray's!" exclaimed Sam. "Ask Janet or Teyla! They were there!" At Liz's surprised expression, she realised that might sound like she'd been excluding her from a mostly-girls evening. "But at another table," she added quickly - and then realised just what she was tacitly admitting. "Damn you're good," she huffed. Liz tipped an eyebrow, and pressed her lips together in a smile. Sam dropped onto the couch, and covered her face with her hands to avoid giving anything else away by her expression. "We had coffee," she said. "We chatted about... stuff. It was nice. Then we walked each other home."
"And?" demanded Liz.
"And I had a good time," said Sam, firmly, "and now I'm going to bed because I have to be up early for class tomorrow. Goodnight." She got up and headed quickly for her room.
"And?!?" called Liz.
"Goodnight!"
---
END.
Crossposted here for to archive.