Lunch hour is the best hour

There was a blonde woman in the cubicle furthest in to the restaurant; she was alone in a cubicle made for four people. The rest of the diner was full to the brim, and he wondered if she had the cubicle to herself because she rejected people who asked to sit, or if she just got lucky. But pretty women usually didn't get left alone, he thought to himself.

He hesitated for a moment, looking around again at the other tables and sighing. He didn't want to be the creep that targeted the beautiful woman in the corner if there were other seats available, and so he made a little bit of a show of looking around for somewhere else to sit. Having sufficiently looked around in maybe unnecessarily animated defeat, he approached the woman with caution.

"Hi," he said to get her attention, and she lifted her eyes from her bowl of half eaten chili.

"Yeah," she responded, "you can sit here. It's fine."

Slightly taken aback, he took a moment to admire her directness before sitting down opposite to her, careful not to make physical contact under the table. The creep factor, he thought to himself, mind the creep factor. It was odd how the minute long silence that followed between them was so deafening considering that the whole restaurant was full of uninterrupted noise. He was sure she would be able to hear him chew from across the table. She broke the silence before he could summon the courage.

"What's your name?" She asked casually, and he thanked the heavens for a break in the awkwardness. She was stirring her chili mindlessly with one hand as she sipped a diet Coke.

"The name's Jack O'Neill," he answered, "you?"

She gave him a quick smile.

"Samantha Carter, but everyone calls me Sam." She filled a spoon with a generous amount of chili and chewed it up quickly. "What do you do?" She continued, obviously intent on keeping some kind of momentum going. Jack grabbed three fries, dipped them in ketchup, and bit in to them. The conversation wasn't the best, but anything was better than his chewing noises amplifying slowly in his skull.

"I'm in the Air Force, a Colonel," he said. He immediately regretted specifying his rank as it made him sound like he was trying to impress her. At least he said it quickly and casually, he comforted himself. Sam's eyes widened slightly, and she smiled again. She put on her hand on her forehead in a lazy salute.

"So, "sir", then. Not Jack."

Jack groaned and was about to object to the whole idea that a civilian would have any obligation to use those honorifics, he never liked them in the first place; it was bad enough that he heard them all day at work.

"I'm Air Force, too. A Major." Sam explained, noticing his discomfort.

"So don't worry," she said reassuringly, "I'll still call you Jack. No one likes when work follows them around everywhere."

Jack relaxed and took a big gulp of his soda.

"So, what do you do then, Sam?" He found himself hating everything he said to her; he was just no good at small talk. He had never been good at the "oh what lovely weather we have"-types of conversations. It was odd, but in many ways Jack fought the Goa'uld with more ease than he small-talked.

"I'm an astrophysicist." Sam smiled brightly, waking him up from his self doubts.

"I'm not that kind of cool, I'm afraid," Jack lamented in response, and she smiled at his subtle compliment, "but I do order people around a lot, so that's… something..."

Sam nodded as Jack awkwardly stared at his plate of food, not knowing how to finish his sentence with any finesse. She liked his slightly awkward demeanor; it was a refreshing change from all the macho men that usually came up to her with a million things to prove.

"Colonels do a lot of that, I've noticed." She said, her voice indicating experience with the matter. Jack lifted his eyes to meet hers.

"We're quite a breed," he intoned, "but most of us are fairly harmless."

Sam's eyes twinkled, and Jack briefly leaned over the table slightly but jolted back when he realized that he might come across as a little too eager. He wasn't about to be mistaken for a sleazebag by a woman who could probably kick his ass up and down the aisle of the diner.

Jack was doing desk work for a reason; his knees were barely fit to run to the bus stop with nowadays, and so he had all the fighting technique that came with his training, but he no longer had the legs to back it up. His colleagues kept assuring him that he wasn't "that old" but he scoffed at them; his knees told him exactly how old he was on a daily basis and knees don't lie.

"Either way, I can't really talk about work, it's…" He had no time to finish his sentence before Sam piped up.

"Confidential?" She asked. "That's fine."

"Security clearance and all that stuff." Jack excused himself.

Sam was obviously unmoved by his secretiveness. That was the beauty of talking to other Air Force people, when you told them you couldn't talk about something work-related, they didn't take it personally. Sam slurped up the rest of her soda and pushed her empty bowl away.

"I gotta go, sorry," she said, looking at her watch, "I've got work to do. But thanks for the company."

She took her car keys from off the table and threw a denim jacket that had been next to her on the seat over her arm. Jack smiled at her.

"No, thank you," he responded, "If you hadn't let me sit here, I would've had to sit on the floor."

Sam smiled and turned to leave, but changed her mind mid movement, and turned to face him again.

"Next time I might not be so kind." She teased, before turning around again and disappearing down the aisle toward the door. Jack hoped she didn't see his chin drop and his eyes widen slightly.

There'd be a next time?