Title: The Date

Author: Lisa Yaeger

E-mail: lisayaeger@hotmail.com

Rating: PG-13

Category: Angst, Romance

Pairings: Sam/Jack

Content Warnings: mild language, hints of sexuality

Summary: Sam has a date.

Season/sequel: Happens in season 6

Spoilers: Up through the present.

Archive: SJD & whoever else wants to- I'd be flattered!

Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters and places are the
property of MGM, World Gekko Corp and Double Secret productions. This
piece of fan fiction was created for entertainment not monetary
purposes and no infringement on copyrights or trademarks was intended.
Previously unrecognized characters and places, and this story, are
copyrighted to the author. Any similarity to real persons, living or
dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

Status: Complete- 2nd part's right behind

Author's notes: Thanks to Sel for the fic on Harry for inspiration!

Feedback: Welcomed!

Date: 25-10-2002

********

Another whiskey. That would do it. He signaled the bartender and
ordered his third. Not yet feeling its effects, or rather still
feeling too much of other things, he stared straight ahead, slightly
aware that some guy had taken the stool two down from his.

The guy glanced at Jack, catching his peripheral vision and nodded.
The bartender came back with Jack's whiskey, and the guy ordered the
same. He spoke first, "Rough night." It was a question and a
statement all in one.

"Yeah." Jack poured the drink down his throat and waited. Hoping for
the numbness that wouldn't come.

The guy was obviously a talker, and either didn't notice or didn't
care that Jack didn't really seem to respond, "Started out all right."

Jack nodded in agreement at that. It had started out all right.
Teal'c, Jonas and him had come up with the not-so-original idea of
grabbing a pizza and watching some movies at Jack's place. They were
sure if they agreed to watch a chick flick that Sam would join them,
so Jack stopped by her lab at the end of the day to invite her. It
never once occurred to him that she would say 'no' let alone have
other plans. But she did, on both counts.

"You should have seen the woman I was with tonight."

'Yeah, right, buddy. That's why you're here talking to me now.'
Jack's thoughts didn't make it out of his mouth, but rather he offered
a tight smile to the guy wishing he would just shut up.

"Blond hair, long legs..."

It couldn't be her- the odds were too great. Weren't they? Well,
weren't-

"Green eyes, and a great pair of-"

Okay, not her. Any idiot would remember those eyes. Blue as can be.
Where the hell was that bartender anyway?

"You know the type."

Boy, did he.

"So, we're out on this date. It's been fun. Really nice. She's kind
of quiet, but who cares? I'm mean, with a body like that..." He
drank the rest of his glass down, "Want another? Hey, bartender!"

What the hell? A free drink, why not? He could listen awhile longer.
Just please let it stop hurting.

"We get back to her place, and I'm thinking I'm gonna get lucky,
right? She lets me in, we sit on her sofa, and she kisses me. I mean
really kisses me. So, I kiss her back. We fool around- you know what
I mean?" He gives Jack this look, like a man-to-man-all-knowing look.

Jack drinks the fourth whiskey down and notices this guy isn't nearly
as annoying as he first thought. Must be the booze.

"Then, just as we're really getting into it, she says another guy's
name. Talk about a mood killer." The guy just shakes his head,
looking down at his glass.

Okay, nobody deserves that, "Ouch. That's rough."

"Yeah. I decided to leave. She starts apologizing, saying how she
thought she could forget about him for a night. She looks like she's
going to cry, and god, I hate it when they do that, you know?"

Jack smiled a little at that. No guy knew how to handle that well.

"I listen to her for a minute going on about how she loves this guy,
and that she didn't mean to use me, blah blah blah." He takes a
drink. "I just drove to the nearest bar and thanked my lucky stars I
got out in time. She was really the kind of woman a guy could fall for."

Jack *definitely* knew that type, "Can I buy you another?"

The guy stood up, "No, thanks. I think I'm going to turn in early."
He turned around to leave, but then stops and faces back toward the
bar, "A word of advice, though. If you ever run across one Sam Carter,
turn and run the other way. Whoever this Jack is, she's got it bad
for him."

Dumbfounded. Completely and utterly dumbfounded. But that was
impossible- he said her eyes were green, "Hey, wait!"

The guy turned around.

"I don't even know your name." Keep him talking...

"Paul." He holds out his hand for Jack to shake.

"Nice to meet you, Paul." Silence. "Did you say her eyes were
green?" He has to know. How many Sam Carter's can there be? In this
reality anyway...

"Yeah, I think." His forehead scrunches up in thought. Then he
laughs a little. "But to tell you the truth, I wasn't really looking
at her face, you know?"

Fool. Wait- was he talking about Paul or himself? Hard to tell. She
*loved* him? "So she loves this guy, huh?"

"Apparently. He's a fool if he doesn't know it."

That settled it. Jack was the fool. Paul was just an innocent bystander.

"Better luck next time." He meant that. Better luck, with another
woman, that is.

They walked out together. Paul reached his car first, "So, you're
going home, too?"

Jack studied the keys in his hand for a minute, "Yeah. I thought I'd
try going 'home' for a change." He got in his truck and turned the
key, not hearing Paul call out after him, "Hey! I never got your name!"

She was sitting back down on the couch where it had all happened not
even an hour ago. Where in the world had *his* name come from?? She
never called him Jack, except in her head anyway. It wasn't like her
mouth was used to saying it. But there it was- blurted out at the
most inappropriate time. Or maybe it was just in time to stop a huge
mistake from happening. Damn him! Damn her! Damn Paul! Why
couldn't he just have been named Jack? She laughed at herself- this
was ridiculous. She needed to sleep and forget about it. It's not
like she would ever see Paul again anyway. What a night.

She was half-way into a tank top and boxers when she heard a knock.
Deciding she had better change completely before answering, she took a
few minutes before getting to the door. She silently prayed it wasn't
Paul- she really couldn't handle that scene again. Then she heard
*his* voice as she headed into the hallway, "Carter! Open up!"

She did as ordered, not stopping to think what in the world had made
her CO come knocking on her door in the middle of the night. She
opened the door for him to enter and felt her body shiver as the cold
air reached the inside of her house. Sure, it was definitely the air,
not him, causing the goose bumps all over her body. She closed the
door and turned around to see him smiling at her. She returned the
obvious playful look in his face, "Sir?"

"Hope I'm not interrupting anything?" He strolled into her kitchen,
searching for a drink. Finding only juice, he started opening
cupboards in search of a glass.

Watching in disbelief at the surreal scene before her: he knew she had
a date, and yet here he was. Oddly confident given the crushed look
that she caught just seconds before he told her to have a good time as
he left her lab earlier that night. She really didn't know what to
say to him, but she had to know, "Sir, what are you doing here?"

"Ah! Here they are." He poured juice into a glass, "Want some?"

Her CO was offering her a glass of her own juice at 0100 in her own
kitchen with a ridiculous grin on his face. What the hell? "No,
thanks."

"Okay, but it's good." He walked past her and settled himself on the
couch picking up the remote searching for something to hold his
interest.

"Sir, can I help you with something?" She was flustered to say the
least, and he didn't seem in any hurry to explain his presence.

"No, thanks, just do whatever it was you were doing before I got
here." He continued to channel surf not seeming interested in her
discomfort.

"I was actually getting ready for bed." She positioned herself
between him and the TV, "What are you doing here!?" Exasperation
evident in her voice, but all she got in return was that same
self-satisfied smile, that god help her, she loved.

"So, your date ended early, huh?"

Why did it look like he knew that before he got here? Had he been
spying on her? No, he wouldn't do that, would he? "Obviously."

"Nice guy?"

"Nice enough." He just wasn't you!

"So, what happened?"

"It just- ended."

"Did he try something?"

Why was he still smiling? If he really thought that a guy had tried
something, he would have been a little upset, right? Okay- enough of
this, "Colonel, why do I get the feeling that you already know
something about how my night went?"

"How would I know that?" The eyebrows wiggled and she knew something
was up!

How could a man be so cute and so irritating at the same time? That
was the charm of Jack O'Neill though, wasn't it? "Yes, how would
you?" She sat down next to him on the couch, her eyes never leaving
his, demanding an explanation that he wasn't quite ready to divulge.

He left her curious gaze and returned to the kitchen to put the now
empty glass in the dishwasher. She was impressed- most guys only made
it to the counter, or the sink at best, "I couldn't, right?"

"Normally I would agree, but since I've had cameras in my house
before..."

"Jesus, Carter! You really think I'd spy on you?" He wouldn't unless
he thought she was in danger. Probably.

"I don't know. You're not giving me a lot to work with here."

He took a deep breath and sat back down on the couch, facing her, "I
ran into an old friend in the bar earlier."

Okay, so...

"He started talking to me about how his date hadn't gone off as well
as he'd expected, and I thought I would just check on you."

She raised her eyebrows at his rather curious explanation.

"I mean, not that I think you can't take care of yourself. But there
are a lot of wackos out there, you know?'

Yeah, and she was beginning to think he was one of them! 'That's
sweet." It really was, but it was even more strange than sweet.

Ignoring the compliment, "Yeah, it turns out that my friend's date was
just using him."

She really didn't care, but it was obvious he wasn't leaving until
he'd had his say, "Using him how?"

"To try and forget about this other guy." He searched her face for a
reaction.

Blank-faced she replied, "It happens." To the best of them.

"Yeah, well, she actually went so far as to call him by the other
guy's name."

Her eyes were as big as he had ever seen. He couldn't know. What were
the odds that Jack and Paul actually knew each other? No, they
couldn't. Paul had specifically said he'd never met anyone in the Air
Force before. This was just all coincidence. Trying to calm her
breathing, she managed to say, "That sucks."

"Well, it turned out all right."

"It did?" She wondered how that was possible.

"Yeah, it made her realize that she was in love with the other guy,
and the next time she saw him, they decided to give it a try." He
looked up at her with caution. Gone was the glibness that he had
walked in with.

"How did you find all of this out from your friend? Did he stick
around to watch his date with another guy?" *That* was weird. *This*
was weird!

"Not exactly." For a Doctor and a Major, sometimes she was a bit
slow.

"So, what then-" Oh. No. It couldn't be. How? No! Oh.

He just looked at her beautiful blue (how could anyone think they were
green?) eyes and waited for the realization to dawn on her.

It did. "How do you know Paul?"

"I just met him the bar, and we started talking."

She eyes him suspiciously at that. Jack didn't just 'start talking' to
anyone.

"Okay, he started talking to me and I felt sorry for him, so I
listened."

Oh. Colorado Springs really was a small town.

"He warned me to stay away from a Sam Carter, and the pieces just fell
into place." Kind of like a ton of bricks hitting him all at once.

"Was he angry?" He had run out of her house so fast after the tears
started falling, she hadn't really noticed. Oh god- had he told Jack
she was crying over him? Could this night get any worse? No. It
couldn't.

"I don't think so. He just seemed kind of disappointed." Who
wouldn't be?

A huge sigh escaped her mouth. What the hell was she going to do now?

"Look." Where was he going to go with this? "Sam." He'd better
think fast before she threw him out.

Standing up, "Colonel-"

"It was Jack before." That was hitting below the belt. He stood up
next to her.

"You weren't here then." She had been wrong earlier, the night was
getting worse.

"I'm here now." He took her shoulders in his hands and stared right
into her eyes. No turning back, no hiding.

She could feel the tears starting to form. Crying was really not her
style. Crying twice in the same night was just absurd, "It doesn't
change anything."

"It doesn't change some things, but it can change others."

What the hell was he talking about? A lone tear made its way down her
cheek.

"We both know I'm not very good at this kind of thing." He smiled a
little hoping to get one in return.

He did. But the tears were really coming now.

Paul had been right before, guys didn't handle crying women very well.
He enveloped her in his arms and waited for the pent up emotion to
pass through her.

Still sniffling, she pulled back to look at him, "You're not that bad
at it."

He chuckled, but felt a sudden void as she pulled away to find a
tissue. Waiting for her to return, he came to a decision. One that
he should have made years ago.

She re-entered the room still dabbing at the corners of her eyes and
sniffling intermittently. She sat back down on the sofa and looked at
up him expectantly to explain how things could possibly change in
their favor.

He kneeled down in front of her, resting his hands on her knees. "I'm
not going to pretend to know how this is going to work, that's usually
your department."

The smile he knew would appear, did. And he smiled back.

"But I am going to talk to General Hammond on Monday."

"And say what?"

"I don't know. But I do know I'm not leaving his office until I've
found someway for us to try- well, 'us.'"

"Are you sure you're ready for what that could mean to you? And your
career?"

"I know that whatever it is, it's better than drinking myself into
oblivion whenever you have a date. Or watching you cry. Or not being
able to touch you." As if to prove his words, he lifted a hand to
stroke her cheek.

"I meant what I told Paul. About how I feel about you." She couldn't
say it to him. Not just yet.

"I know. That's why I came."

"I thought it was for the juice." The banter was back.

"Well, that and your TV." They both turned toward the screen which
was now playing an infomercial for some exercise machine. He lifted
himself back onto the couch next to her, drawing her into him with an
arm around her shoulder. "I wonder if those things actually work?"

"Maybe. If the person buying it actually takes it out of the box and
uses it."

He started channel surfing again, neither one actually paying
attention to what was on. And certainly neither one of them noticing
Jack's 'new friend' Paul peeking inside the window of his former
date's house. As he slipped out of sight around the corner, he pulled
out his cell phone and dialed a number stored in his memory years ago,
"Hey, it's me." A garbled question. "Yeah, it went just as planned.
They didn't suspect a thing." Laughing on the other end. "You were
right, the smarter they are, the easier they are to fool." A few
mumbled words. "See you around, Harry." Paul stuffed the phone back
in his pocket and wondered just how the two nice people in the house
he just left could have gotten mixed up with the likes of Harry
Maybourne. What a night.