It was a whim, a fleeting moment of courage, that caused him to ask her, "You want to have dinner tomorrow?" A proposition for Saturday night.
She seemed distracted – moreso than should have been caused by the case file in front of her that she'd been looking at for forty-five minutes – when she said, "Thanks, but I can't."
He was pretty sure she didn't realize that he'd asked her on what amounted to a date. Then again, he was out of practice when it came to asking for dates and he was pretty sure he remembered needing to make a little more fanfare than he had just then. But considering she'd said no, he damn sure wasn't trying again.
It never even occurred to him to ask her why.
He had the passing thought that maybe she said no because he had more than a decade and a half on her. Or because she'd found out about his son not six weeks ago. Maybe she felt like he wasn't worth it. That was a lot of damage to take on, he knew.
-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-
On Sunday he found himself bored and wandering around his house. She might have turned him down flat for a date, but it didn't mean they weren't still partners, friends even. He picked up the phone and dialed her apartment, knowing she hated talking on her cell.
"Hello?" The voice was deep and masculine.
"Sorry," Jack said quickly, "wrong number." He hung up and dialed again. A slightly miffed and yet equally deep and masculine voice answered again. He knew he had the number right, too. "Uh, sorry. I'm looking for Sam."
"She's in the shower. I can tell her you called?" But the man didn't sound pleased at all about Jack being on the other end of the line.
Jack leaned back on his heels, stunned. She hadn't mentioned she was seeing anyone. How could he not have known about this? "Um, right. It's Jack. O'Neill."
"Okay, Jack O'Neill."
"Thanks," Jack said dumbly and hung up.
He hadn't felt so blindsided in years.
-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-
On Monday she breezed into the precinct looking tired. Jack thought uncharitable things for a moment before he remembered he liked her, no matter what she was doing with her personal life.
"You called yesterday," she said to him first thing. "I'm so sorry I didn't call you back. I got busy, and by the time I remembered it was late."
He wanted to tell her she could call him anytime, no matter how late it was. But that sounded pathetic, even to his own ears.
"Did you need something?"
"Yeah," he said, thinking quickly. "What was the color of the van used in the robbery last week?"
She tipped her head to the side, squinted her eyes at him and said, "Black. Why?"
"Just had a thought. No big deal."
She raised an eyebrow at him but didn't press him for details. He wondered if his cover story was as flimsy as it sounded.
-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-
He remembered, belatedly, that he wasn't trying to date his partner. Sure, he'd spent the better part of four days rather obsessed over the idea of taking her out on a date. But, he knew partners who had dated and something always went sour – the relationship, the partnership, often both.
The realization had him feeling right for the first time since he'd had the idea to ask her out in the first place. He hadn't realized how discombobulated he'd been over the whole thing.
He was on her side of the city for reasons unbeknownst to his higher consciousness when he decided to stop in at their backup diner for something to eat, not relishing the thought of the television dinners in his freezer. Besides, they usually had good pie.
He spotted her instantly, sitting in a booth against the back wall. The guy with her registered a moment later. Great. He'd run into her and her boyfriend. It was then that Jack began to notice details about the guy – like his build, the way he held his coffee cup, his grey hair.
Turned out Sam had a thing for older guys. Which made him feel worse, not better. Was she not interested after all? He thought he'd picked up on some attraction. Had he waited too long and she thought he wasn't interested? It didn't matter. It was too late now.
He moved to turn on his heels and leave, but she looked up in the next instant and spotted him. Crap. Her face lit up with a smile that socked him in the gut and she raised a hand to beckon him over. Resignedly he headed in their direction.
"Jack," she said warmly as he approached, "I'm surprised to see you over here this time of night."
"I'm a little surprised to be here," he said uncomfortably.
She quirked a curious grin at him but then scooted closer to the wall and patted the vinyl seat next to her. "Join us."
Oh, he really didn't want to do that. And he started to make an excuse.
But she beat him to talking. "This is my partner. Jack, this is Jacob."
His stomach knotted.
In the next moment she said, "My dad."
Jack looked at Jacob so sharply that he nearly gave himself whiplash. He saw amusement on the man's face. If it was because Jack was painfully obvious he wouldn't be surprised. "Uh, hi," Jack stuttered.
Because he had nothing else to do, he slid into the booth next to Sam. He thought maybe it made him seem a little less obviously relieved that Jacob was her dad, not her date.
"Jack. O'Neill?"
"Yeah," Jack said uncomfortably.
"Good to meet you," Jacob said affably.
Jack felt his shoulders relax, he hadn't even realized they'd been up around his ears. "Likewise," he said, his voice still not as strong as he'd like.
"When Sammy here invited me to town, I told her I wanted to meet her partner, but she didn't want to bother you with me. But a dad's got to know his little girl's in good hands." Jacob smiled.
Jack relaxed the rest of the way. The guy was nice. Go figure.
"I'm not a little girl," Sam protested.
"You'll always be to your dad," Jack said instantly, thinking back to the brief years he had with Charlie and how, no matter how old the kid got, Jack always felt like it was his baby things were happening to.
"The two of you aren't going to start ganging up on me now, are you?" She said, casting side-eye at Jack.
Jack found he didn't want to be categorized with her father in any way, shape, or form, no matter how nice the guy was. "Nope." He flagged down the waitress and ordered a cup of decaf. He was tightly strung enough, he didn't need the caffeine.
-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-
He found himself thinking about asking her out again. She had turned him down, as it happened, because she was busy. Of course, she could have had secondary reasons that still stood, but he was feeling bolstered by the idea that there was still a chance she might be interested.
The trouble was, he couldn't get up the nerve to do it.
He'd never been very smooth and he'd always harbored a little self-doubt when it came to women. He'd been a good-looking guy in his younger days, thought maybe he still might be for an old guy. But fifty had a way of making you rethink, well, everything. Good-looking wasn't enough to offer at fifty. And while he had other things that might make him desirable, he came with a damn lot of baggage. Baggage a young woman might be less inclined to take on.
So he didn't rock the boat. They worked their cases, had a few meals together outside of working hours, and did, mostly, as two friends who work together do.
And then, Jack noticed one of the beat cops hanging around a little more than might be normal. Out of nowhere, so it seemed to Jack, the guy asked her out to dinner, right there in the middle of the bullpen. She smiled and then she spoke but Jack's ears were clogged by white noise. The guy smiled, Jack noticed it wasn't a brilliant smile by any means, and then turned and walked away.
Sam visibly sighed. Said something else, directed at him.
"What?"
"Let's get out of here," she repeated.
"Yeah, okay." He grabbed the file he was working on off his desk, he'd simply take it home with him. He'd need something to distract him anyway from the thought of her going out with the beat cop.
They were halfway to Millie's when she stopped walking. He took three steps beyond her before he noticed. He stopped and turned to face her.
"I've never even talked to him before. Why would he ask me out?"
Jack could think of a lot of reasons a man would ask her out. Not the least of which was because she was easy on the eyes. "Uh..."
"He had to know I'd turn him down."
"Well..." Wait. She'd turned him down? "You can't blame a guy for trying, Carter." Or, at least, he hoped she couldn't.
"I wish he'd put in the time to get to know me a little first. So it wasn't so out of the blue."
"I think people date so they can get to know each other."
"I'm a friends-first kind of girl, I guess," she said, walking again.
When she caught up to him, he started walking, too. "Nothing wrong with that."
"I mean, look what happened last time I started dating a guy I barely knew."
Jack thought about the encounter with Jonas, and what she'd told him later. "Not your fault."
"But I might have dodged the bullet if I'd gotten to know him first."
"Maybe, but hindsight is always twenty-twenty."
"The next guy I go out with? I'm going to know him really well."
Jack wondered if that was a hint or just the opening he needed.
-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-
They got busy and they both got tired. They were lucky to catch pie and coffee, let alone do something as time-consuming as go on a date. Not that he'd asked her. Yet.
But he was hyperaware of every look she gave him and he was searching each for something under the surface. He analyzed each of the conversations that weren't strictly case related to try to suss out whether or not she'd be receptive to an overture.
She was relaxed around him. Clearly comfortable with him. And in the past, she'd sometimes looked at him speculatively. But lately there'd been little more than fatigue in her eyes. It wasn't time to spring something on her like going out as something more than friends.
He wanted to know, if she said yes, that she was saying yes truly because she wanted to be with him and not because she was too tired to come up with a convincing no. He wanted her with him fully. And truthfully, he wanted to be his best self for her. So, he decided to wait. The right time would come. Eventually. And when it did, he would make his move.