paradisalogs | Things are never quite what they should be

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Things are never quite what they should be

Who: Sam Carter and Jack O'Neill
What: Discussions and post family event awkwardness.
When: a few days after the family event ended.
Where: The workshop Huey left behind.
Rating: PG-13

Sam had been actively keeping herself busy for the days preceding the extremely bizarre events of that family thing. She'd been keeping even more busy in the wake of it. She had a first hand grasp of the perfect life O'Neill had talked about.

She'd spent the last three days straight in the lab. Working on the schematics of the gate project, as well as a few other systems she felt would help them for the remainder of their time here at Paradisa. She wanted to measure what she could of this place.

Three days no sleep, nothing much but coffee and the occasional bit of food the robot Huey left her would force her to take. Well some habits never change.

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He knew precisely what she would be doing. It was her way of dealing with, well, nearly everything she didn't understand. And he'd taken enough time to figure it out for himself.

He'd been trying to make it simple for her. To stay away, to let her have what he presumed she wanted - which was, in short, not him. Then the castle had thrown them together, as husband and wife. And it had been fantastic.

He was only thankful that they hadn't gone too far with it. But kisses, curling together as night came - that had been enough. So he tracked her down, sticking his head in the door.

"Hey," he said, for lack of a better thing to say. "Whatcha doin'?"

She worked, it was what she did. Frankly on Earth getting caught up in her work was what had saved their lives, the SGC, and the world itself. Working was how she coped with things and usually it was a good mechanism for her.

Unfortunately it made her easy to find, especially to someone who knew her as well as General O'Neill did. Sam was wrist deep in wires and metal when his voice broke her concentration.

"Just working on a improvised dialer, the easy part. If I can get the mechanics of it down then maybe a full scale gate is possible...if I can even find the right materials, manage to create the necessary power supply, reinforce a stable wormhole...oh right and decipher the planetary position from a place with a fake sky to give us coordinates." The sarcasm was there, it hid a lot. "So,nothing much, Sir, you?"

"Ok," he said, after listening to all that, "should I make an appointment? Sometime on a Thursday, next December, when you've got a break scheduled?"

He stepped into the room further, hands in his pockets.

"But if you want me gone, just...say the word, and I'm gone."

She spared him an exasperated look.

"Sir, I've never asked you to leave before, I don't think I'd start now." But that was it, uncharacteristically quiet for her.

He nodded, quietly. Then he responded just as simply.

"Yes, dear."

Because that was one way of reminding her of what had happened, thanks to the castle. Where they had been man and wife.

That made her pause. Sam set down her tools and leaned forward on her knuckles for a long minute.

When she turned, she grabbed a cloth and wiped her hands. "So that wasn't just some dream or alien spore influence delusion or alternate reality shift...this time."

"Nope, that was real. As real as anything gets around here, anyways."

He stepped forward, hands in his pockets, without the proper words for such a situation.

"It's like it gets inside your head," he said, finally, "and gives you precisely what you want."

"It felt real." She nodded and remained quiet as he moved deeper in the room.

Sam chewed on her lower lip while he silently hemmed and hawed in the way that screamed he had no idea what he was going to say.

"And you wanted that back, I understand." She was still reeling about it all, it had been a week of heaven. If only she was the one he wanted to be with.

"That's because," he said, stepping closer to her, "it was. And I figure it's about time we talk about things now, rather than trying to avoid each other. I know, I know, I'm crap at the talking thing."

He held up both hands to forestall her from jumping in immediately.

"It wasn't having it back. Not this time. That was you. The you you. The...it was the same, but not the same. Little bits different. Also? You wore sun hats. I never, ever knew how great you'd look in sunhats before."

He seemed to run out of track there for a moment, and shoved his hands in his pockets.

"Look, I know you don't want...that...but it was nice. I can't lie about that. It was better than nice."

She swallowed and stood a bit taller as he moved closer. "I haven't been avoiding you, I've just been working and you know how I lose track of time." But that was only a shadow of the truth, she had been intentionally working, to give them time apart.

"I love sun hats, my grandmother used to let me wear her's when we," That was a pointless comment and she just let it fade out.

"Sir, I know you're still hurting after everything, and I am trying to be understanding and supportive like I have always been. But don't belittle my feelings about all this." She stepped forward stabbing her finger down in the air.

"Right, and I haven't been going on long jogs just to avoid thinking about you, and what happened, for a couple of minutes. Not at all."

It was, frankly, quite the admission from him to begin with. Made all the more important, in his mind, by what had passed between them. At her second statement, however, his jaw dropped open.

"Belittle your feelings? I...I'm just going from what you told me here, Carter! And I don't want your damn support! Not this time! You know what I want, and it's the one thing I can't have."

In short, her. What it always boiled down to, the basic unit of his life.

"I'm sorry." What more could she say? Not that it was even her fault or she should apologize, but the whole situation was one mixed up mess of emotions.

"What I told you? What did I say? You were involved..in love with the other Sam that was here. You had a child with her. What am I supposed to say to that?" She stood her ground, chin held steady and high.

"You looked me in the eyes and told me how crazy this whole thing made you and how much it hurt and the perfect life that you lost. It didn't exactly seem like the ideal time to be discussing how I've felt about you for years. It wouldn't have been fair and it was damn sure not what you needed to hear. So I kept my mouth shut."

Those blue eyes that normal sparkled with such good humor and intelligence were blazing now with something a bit more ferocious. "But don't think for one minute that this has been easy on me. You're not the only one who has had to give things up."

He realized he'd put his foot in it. And in a huge way, as always.

"I was in love with you! I didn't know there'd be a second one along! I thought that, hey, for once, we were both in the same damn universe, and we could, and here we are, and it's all messed up again."

He rubbed the back of his neck. "And I'm making it worse. Look, I'm sorry, really. I don't...I don't mean to say it wasn't hard. I thought that, in two years, whatever you felt for me..."

He left the rest unsaid.

"You were in love with her, I may look like her, sound like her and share the same DNA, but I was not the one here with you. I read the papers, I know how things were between you, and...the worst part of all of it, Sir, is that I can't begrudge either of you any of it."

Sam wasn't backing off this, she had to follow it through at this point.

"I have never stopped caring about you. But do you want to know something? Remember when I was lost on the Prometheus? Well what never went into the official file was what happened to me while I was there. I was exhausted and scared and lost and under the influence of who knows what. I saw people, my Dad, Daniel..you. All telling me how to survive, even given me insight about my life. You told me two things: that as long as I focused on you the unobtainable man I could never really get involved with anyone else and get hurt. Two, that you were a safe bet."

She should not be saying this, why couldn't she stop?

"And I saw a little girl, a child I bonded with while I was there. Someone I cared about deeply, her name was Grace."

All of it was like a sledgehammer against his heart, it really was. But the last statement stopped him cold. It took him a moment to realize that she could see that.

"You know why I did it?" He said, slowly. "Because after all those other times where it wasn't us, and the near misses, and the messing with our heads - there was a shot. A clear, perfect shot. You remember Kerry? She told me I should just retire, and be with you. And I was a damn idiot not to listen. Maybe then it'd have turned out..."

He shook his head, banishing that thought.

"No. No more might-have-beens, false memories, or magically done marriages. Because of Grace. And Gracie. Something's here, and while I'm scared to hell of losing you again? I can't keep away from you. I just can't. And for a while there, I had the thought in my head that every day involved coming to a home, and to you. So you know what I want. Pain and all. What do you want?"

"You can't change the past, well technically you can but it causes paradoxes and can make things worse than the original time line." Jesus even that got sidetracked by her compulsively scientific mind.

Sam just stared at him, was he really that dense? Sure he might not have been in the same intellectual crowd as Daniel and herself, but he was far from an idiot. He tended to down play his intelligence to let him act more freely, but she knew how smart he was.

"Permission to speak freely, Sir?" She waited for his nod, exasperated as it was for her even asking, before she continued. "I've been in love with you for years. I had some sort of crush just by reading your mission briefings before I even met you. I thought I'd blown everything when we were introduced at the initial SGC meeting. But you gave me a chance to prove myself, and I've been trying to do that every day since."

Sam licked her lips and pulled on that reserve of strength to carry her forward on this. "I've worked side by side with you for years, and in that time never once have I wanted it any other way." Now she stepped closer, chin held high and meeting his eyes levelly. "What do I want, Sir? A chance, that's all. One fair shot to see if all these years have been because there is something real between us or if you've been that unattainable man the hallucination of you said you were."

Her cards were on the table, next move was his.

And so, it all came down to a moment.

He watched her eyes for a long moment, those beautiful, brilliant eyes. If they were truly the window to the soul, as people said, then what a soul he was gazing at. She was, and always had been, the woman.

He reached out, a hand gently touching her cheek, as if expecting her to disappear. To prove to be a hallucination, once again. To be somehow not real. But she was. He felt the warmth of her skin under his hand, the smoothness of it.

"There's only one way to find out," he said, then brought his lips against her.

The potential upside, really, was that given everything that had passed, he already knew what she wanted in a kiss.

There was an abrupt change of the air, the heavy tension between them turned to a completely different sort of heaviness. O'Neill moved and she stiffened, if only for a moment.

His touch made her ache, it was the silly sort of thing that was written about in torrid dime store books. Her stomach felt like a thousand butterflies were circling inside her and her heart was beating against he rib cage like a trapped bird.

And then it happened, no life or death situations, no mind wipes or alternate realities. It was her and him and and this moment. Sam melted from the stiff resistance and returned the kiss. It was so easy to fall into it, everything about it was right, perfect.

And it lasted. Oh how it lasted. Every moment felt like a perfect eternity. One of those rare moments where time doesn't act unfairly - and stays almost still.

When it came to an end, he rested his forehead against hers, drawing in badly-needed oxygen.

"We need to get out of here. And I'm going to make you so damn happy, you have no idea."

Sam needed to catch her breath too, he'd stolen it the instant he'd leaned in to kiss her. But dear god nothing had ever been like that.

She pulled back and eased so there was some distance between them.

"Sir," And coming off of the most passionate kiss of her life that felt awkward. "I need... before we can do anything... I just need to know this is you and me. Not you and some other me. I need to take this slow."

He winced, stepping back himself.

"You're right," he said, berating himself for even saying it. "Sorry, Car- oh for crying out loud - Sam. Gotta get past that part, at least."

She had a damn good point. One he should have thought of before the kiss, really.

"I can do slow," he said, with a fraction of his usual levity. "You've seen me drive, I'm as slow as Mr.Magoo on downers."

This said by a man who had flown an X-302 inside Goa'uld shields with her to blast away Anubis' superweapon.

"Slow is good," She bit her lips to stop the automatic Sir that attached to the end of what she said. "Jack." She managed it with a conscious effort, but it felt good.

"Slow would be good. Please understand I want this, I've wanted this for years. But in order for us both to know that we're in this for the right reasons we need to start from the beginning."

Sam half smiled and reached out to gingerly take his hand in her own. "Let me just say again, I really, sincerely want this. I just want it right."

"Relax, I understand. Really, I do. Me and understanding are like that on this."

He held up two fingers as he said it, crossed.

"And trust me," he added, "You're worth patience. Beginnings are great, too."

His usual humor was flowing back into his response, and he gave her hand a reassuring squeeze.

"Thank you, Sir." She shook her head. "Yeah, that's going to take some getting used to." But it was a good transition, this change in their relationship was one she'd been hoping and waiting for, for a long time.

"So, maybe...I guess a date or something? I don't really know... dating isn't exactly my forte."

She shrugged and ran a hand back through her hair. Funny how she could unravel the intricate workings of alien technology but arranging a date was stumping her.

"Oh, and I know we are taking things slow but," She gestured between them and sort of grinned. "That kiss? Could we try that one more time?"

He couldn't help but laugh at that, briefly.

"Yes, a date. I think that's a decent idea. I'd find a sock hop if they had one. Or if you had bobby socks."

It was funny. It was also one of the more attractive features about her. A beautiful sort of awkwardness. Then she spoke again, and he tilted his head from side to side as if in thought.

"Well," he said, putting on a thoughtful expression, "I think I could manage one more."

"Yeah, I can just see it now. Me in bobby socks with the skirt." Sam shook her head with laughter at the absurdity of it.

"As long as we're taking things slow, it's sort of like practice."

She closed the distance between them, her hands laying flat against his chest as she took a minute to just look into his eyes. Both of them there, freely doing this because it was what they truly wanted. Too soon to put words or labels on things even if they were true, it had to come in time.

"Kiss me Jack."

He said nothing, this time. He'd been, essentially, given an order - one he was more than happy to obey. He dipped his head, a hand coming up to touch the line of her jaw, and brought his lips against hers again.

It wasn't like before. It was better. There was no surprise on either side, but there was the desire to make the most of it. It became not so much a single kiss, but a series of them, an exploration of her lips.

And an entirely fantastic one.

The world stopped, or maybe just her perception of anything else that existed. Samantha Carter lost herself in a kiss that, well, changed her life.

The kiss faded off into smaller kisses, each just as sweet but this time they were in it together. Just like they always had, together.

She eased back and took a long moment to smile. "I guess the sunhat really worked for you, huh?"

And oh how he liked that smile. He wished he could take a picture of it, press it into a little book forever.

"Yeah, it really did. But it was the whole part where you looked up with that smile. The hat just sort of added an exclamation mark to the whole sexy package."

He winced, briefly.

"Right, sorry, not the word for taking it slow, there."

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