Title: Daydream Believer
Author: Christi
Rating: Uh, maybe PG because it could cause mass death by sugar
overdose?
Timeline: Season 9, post-Ripple
Effect
Category: A touch of melodramatic and easily resolved angst hiding
amongst insane amounts of sappy S/J fluff. (Ahhh. Feels good to get back to my
roots.)
Author’s Note: Okay, so I think I’m trying to get out all of my fic debts out in one fell swoop. Let’s see…llorelei asked for Sam/Jack in
--
Obviously, Jack had imagined this whole scenario before—probably more
times than he’d like to admit, actually. But as he struggled to make out Sam’s
features in the tiny storage closet lit by only one flickering light bulb while
simultaneously trying not to trip over an industrial-sized bottle of floor
cleaner, he couldn’t help but acknowledge that like most fantasies, this lost
something in translation.
Finally, he asked, “Well?”
“Well what?”
“Isn’t this the part where you jump me?” That’s how it always went in
the daydreams, anyway—he walks down the hall unawares and is delightfully
surprised when Carter drags him into the nearest storage closet and proceeds to
have her way with him.
Apparently, admitting this is one of those things that in reality, gets you an annoyed slap on the
arm instead of a quickie against the wall. Damn.
Rubbing his arm briefly, he shrugged. “Well, it was worth a shot,” he
said dryly. “So, what’s up, Carter?”
She was biting her bottom lip—never a good sign. “I need to tell you
something.”
Again, not good. “And it’s something
that you couldn’t tell me in my office?” Actually, now that
it had occurred to him that raised a good point. “Carter, we’re in the
Pentagon.”
“…So?”
“Soooo…” he drawled, “what are we doing in a
storage closet at all? It’s not like we need to be clandestine, here. We’ve
been out of the chain of command for months now. Many long,
pleasant months.” Memories of said months swamped his mind and Jack
couldn’t stop the smirk—not that he would want to, really.
This, of course, seemed to annoy her further. “Jack.”
He blinked, dissolving the images. “Right.
Sorry. What was it you needed to tell me?”
As he watched, Sam seemed to gather herself, looking downright
miserable. “I’m an idiot.”
Disbelieving laughter was his immediate response. At her glare, he held
up his hands. “Sorry, sorry. It’s just…if you’re an idiot, then there’s really no hope for the rest of us.”
If anything, this just served to make her look even more depressed. Now,
he was really starting to worry. One “C’mere” later, he
had her gathered close, rubbing a hand up and down her spine in a smooth,
repetitive motion. “So. Is the world ending?” After
all, that was always a legitimate question in their line of work.
Because her face was now buried in her chest, it took some straining to
hear the small little, “No” of her response.
“Well then, whatever it is can’t be that
serious.” Of this, at least, Jack was quite certain.
She pulled away just enough that he could see her face. “It’s just…I
mean, I can figure out black holes and singularities and broken DHDs…but I’m kind of an idiot about the important stuff.”
Remembering his most recent sitrep from the
SGC and suddenly seeing where this was going, Jack blinked. “Ah. Marty?”
“Yes. I can explain, though, because nothing happened, but I was all
confused and he was there and Janet was there too and I missed them and it was
just…but then the Asgard, and the evil alternate us,
and I just…but I didn’t and I’m really glad. But I’m sorry, because I’m with
you and it was just me being stupid.”
That was probably the most incomprehensible babble he had ever heard
come out of Carter’s mouth—and God knows he had heard some pretty insane stuff
over the years. The whole conversation about riding an asteroid through the Earth still gave him
nightmares. Luckily, over the last few months, he had gotten more adept at
speaking Carter, so somewhere in that mess, he had
deciphered ‘nothing happened’, which was all he really needed to know. “Sam,
it’s fine.”
Cue the wide blue eyes. “It is?”
He shrugged. “Well, I’m not exactly going to go dancing down the halls
shouting ‘my fiancée nearly made out with an alternate version of her dead
snake’s ex-lover’, but yeah. We’ve all got…stuff. Marty is part of yours. I can
deal with that because at the end of the day, I get you.”
She blinked once, then again. “Oh. Good.” One more blink, followed by a
“Jack?”
“Yes, Carter?”
“We’re not engaged.”
Ah. That was a good point, actually. Best take care of that little
detail. “Oh. Right. Wanna be?”
Now, there was the Carter grin
he had missed so much. “Yes, please.”
He kissed her and that really
never got old. “Good. Now come on, let’s track down some food. Successfully averting
emotional crisis makes me hungry.”
Obediently, she followed him out of the closet and they proceeded down
the hall in search of sustenance. He kept his arm around her shoulders because,
well, she was Carter and at the risk of seeming a bit sappy, he had missed her.
But the question had to be asked. “Carter?”
“Hrm?”
“Seriously. Why were we in the closet?”
She smiled an impish sort of smile. “Oh. That. Dragging you into a
storage closet is just something I’ve always wanted to do.”
And to think that she had slapped him on the arm
for insinuating that very thing. Still, the fact that they had both considered the
option meant in Jack’s book that it was obviously a brilliant plan. As such, he
paused in front of yet another storage closet. “Well, then, by all means….”
To his great astonishment, she proceeded to glance down the hall in
either direction and then actually take him up on the offer, pulling him by the
lapels into the small space and slamming the door behind them. And this time,
it really was as hot as he had always
imagined it would be.
It was easy to guess where she was by following the sound of the giggling,
and then she switched the light on and behold, a much happier Carter was gazing
up at him. “I really do love you, you know,” she informed him between giggles.
Somehow, he was starting to feel disturbingly sentimental about the
whole situation, and the giant stacks of toilet paper were not helping because they only made everything that much more
surreal. Tenderly, he tucked a stray piece of hair behind her ear, smiling all
the while. “Carter, just shut up and kiss me already!”
She rolled her eyes. “Yes, sir.”