AN: Started this one months ago but got stuck on the second half as I was not exactly sure what way to go with it and all of a sudden on this, a snowy sleepless night a vague pathway emerged like tracks in the white...weird that...sort of... Anyhoo. I managed to get a draft of a second half sort of done and I think it's finished enough to feed this one into the pages and see what happens...so enjoy.
Unsurprisingly this is unedited etc at the time of posting, it's 1:30am and I have been up since 6am...will fix tomorrow, as per usual :)
Summary: Jack has done it again. It's the end of the month and he has not completed his mission reports that were due yesterday. Hopeful as ever he approaches Sam in her lab with his usual bribe in mind, but the reception he receives from his long time friend and 2IC is not as warm as he might have hoped. Season 7 Jack/Sam in cannon humour/friendship. Two-part fic.
BRIBERY AND CO-OPERATION
Jack poked his head in around the door of her lab, she looked busy and so he hesitated, this probably was not the best time for this but it could not really wait. He fidgeted a little and bit the inside of his lip. When he did finally decide to just chance it, he chose his most cheerful tone. "Hey Carter, would you..."
"No." She cut him off without even so much as looking up from scanning the complicated data stream.
Jack's eyebrows bounced. "But you don't even know what I was going to ask yet. You wanna try listening to your CO?" he half ordered, trying hard and failing to capture even the slightest fraction of her attention.
Sam instantly dismissed his false attempt at flouting his authority. After seven years she could tell when he was bluffing and right now he was...big time and that confirmed her suspicions. Basically she had been waiting for this all day. "Oh I am listening and I know exactly what you are going to ask." she voiced, taking care to make sure she still sounded distracted by pitching her voice just about loud enough to be heard without having to repeat herself. She was not doing his overdue mission reports for him. He could damn well do his own homework...this month at least. Her workload was high enough what with having just taken Felger under her wing.
"No you don't, you don't know." Jack insisted, still staying by the door. He was already so busted and he knew, no harm in trying though.
"It's the twenty seventh. How many are you behind on this month?" she queried, feeling a flare of annoyance at his regular pantomime. She just did not have time this month.
"What do you mean?" he asked, feigning innocence.
Sam finally looked at him. She could tell he was just about to start into his I'm-really-only-here-because-I-care routine and that was nothing to do with why her was here. He was here because he wanted something. She did not have it in her to play this game...not tonight. She was stressed, she was hungry, she was tired and she still had way, way to much to do to even consider turning in for the night. "Colonel, please..." she began, in an exasperated tone, hoping he would just drop the O'Neill antics for once.
Jack understood her tone exactly and raised his hands in submission. "Okay, okay, I'm sorry." he conceded and using his foot he slid the file box that had been hidden in the hallway into the room. With a barely suppressed wince he shrugged off her obvious disapproval. "To be honest," he sighed "I really did only dropped by on the off chance that you would still be here. I'm taking this lot home and part of me did hope you would take one or two of them." Sam glared hard at him so he forced on as quick as he could, one finger raised for emphasis. "But...I realise now that the fact that you are actually still here, especially at this hour means you must be really busy, so I won't ask." He shoved his hands into his pockets in a gesture of apology.
Sam was not one hundred percent sold in the sincerity department of his apology and set her jaw. "Right and like I wasn't busy last month...or the one before that and so on for the last seven years!" she grumbled sarcastically under her breath and returned to the data stream that she realised had continued to fly across the screen unchecked. She sighed as she reset the number string back to where he had caused her to lose concentration. The green on black digits blurred together as they started moving again.
Jack took a moment to watch his 2IC. She was drained, she was tired and she was once again in too deep. Much as she claimed to love being busy it was bad for her and it was his job to fix it. He kind of already had, that was why he was here...the second reason that was. First he needed to capture all of her attention and the easiest way to do that also deployed the riskiest strategy. "A little grumpy are we?" he goaded, bouncing onto his heels.
"So." Sam shot out, curt and impatient. This was her lab and he should know by now that she needed space when she was working at this level.
"Major?" Jack commanded with a carefully placed half step forward and warning tone.
Carter stopped the playback on the screen and dutifully turned fully to face him. "Sir?" she asked in a manner that marginally scraped the line of protocol.
"Better." Jack informed her. "But not enough."
"Sir?" she asked again, crisper but not really hiding her irritation, she really did not have the patience for this.
"You...need to eat." he told her in that deliberate nagging way that he knew she hated so much.
Incensed by his condescending tone Carter's frayed temper finally snapped, she slammed her fist on the desk. "Oh so food, that's your angle. What...you thought you would come in here and bribe me with blue jello at nearly midnight and then pass off a couple of files for me to do for you? I don't need your jello or to have to do your work, Colonel...I don't have the time. What I need is to be left alone so I can get this done and get-"
She pulled up short, reigning in her inappropriate anger. She knew he would not take offence, they were well beyond that point as CO and 2IC, at least when they were Earth-side but when she was mad like this she had a habit of saying too much and this time she had almost said 'and get Felger out of my hair.' Yeah that was true, part of her would really like that and she knew if she said it out loud that Jack would make it happen. But the project was not finished and while she was supervising she had allowed Felger to take lead as was only fair, so not wanting to work with him meant that she would not get to work on the project at all. Much as Simon was annoying and extremely hazardous to work around his mind was sharp and his project was good this time...real good, exciting even and she wanted to work on it with him...even if he did end up accidentally irradiating her or something. The man could probably do that with an inactive prototype!
"Carter, I don't have jello." Jack protested into her abrupt angry silence. Boy she really was in a bad mood tonight and that just proved to him that he had been right in doing what he had done earlier that day and in what he was about to do now. "But I do have this and you are hungry, your bad mood attests to that. Now take five minutes and have a midnight snack with me, that's an order."
Initially bubbling with frustrated rage at his mothering Sam found she just had to smile as he pulled a plate of chicken jambalaya, her favourite, out of the box she though had contained more work for her. It was followed by a slice of apple pie, clearly for him as it already had a bite out of it. "You couldn't wait?" she enquired, trying hard to find a more rational tone.
"No not that." Jack said as he cleared a space on the cluttered desk beside her workbench. "Elevator got stuck, otherwise I would have been here half an hour ago."
"In that case I'm surprised there is any of it left!" she attempted to tease. The light hearted tone still came as a bit of a struggle but she was almost there, all he had done was showed that he cared about her. She came across the room to sit beside him on one of two seats he had pulled up.
"Oh there almost wasn't believe me! But then I would have had to just dropped this off and wouldn't be here to make sure you eat it all."
Sam had to try very hard not to let his fussing tone grate on her frazzled nerves. It was deliberate, she knew it and it was designed to get her to dig her heals in and do as he asked without protest. Something along the lines of "Fine, you want me to eat. I'll eat. I haven't had anything for ages anyway." Briefly she forced her eyes shut, damn the man was good, she so had not intended to say that out loud...especially not that last part. She waited for his victory dramatics.
Jack made a show of his almighty sigh. "Ca-arte-er." he moaned.
"It's not that bad Sir, I ate at three o'clock." she placated, she still did not feeling very much like playing his games.
"And what was that, your lunch?"
There was a short silence.
"Breakfast? Carter...seriously?"
Sam reluctantly nodded and poked at her food with her fork.
Jack just rolled his eyes. He had enough sense to know to leave it alone now, he had made his point, any more on the subject and she would down tools on him. So as casually as he could he moved on. "I had a look at your work schedule this morning." he informed her as he stole a piece of chicken off her plate.
"Oh?" Sam said, following her food as it made it's way into his mouth. Suddenly she was feeling quite possessive and pulled her plate a little closer.
"Yeah, and I don't like it Carter. There's too much on it."
"Sir, my work schedule is always pretty busy. It's not much more than usual, I can handle it." she informed him between covetous mouthfuls.
"Oh I'm sure you can but my point is you shouldn't have to...and ah...Hammond...he agrees with me."
"What?" Sam practically dropped her fork, her face going serious and still despite the fact that she was mid-chew.
Jack held up a stalling finger. "Now don't panic Carter, nobody is going to be taking away any of your toys. We've just fixed it so you don't have to try to play with them all at once. Here, take a look at this." He reached back into his box and pulled out a printed copy of SG-1's new quarterly schedule, her personal one on top.
"Downtime?" Sam queried as she scanned the document.
"Yeah, in two weeks...and then look, more later on." He pointed the second gap out to her. "All subject to not having to save the world again of course."
"But Sir I can't afford that much downtime at the moment. A lot of this stuff is time sensitive, there's more than just the SGC involved in some of this."
"Yeah and our off-world allies can wait. Your genius belongs to us, not them and we want you at your best...besides, it's not just about you."
"It's not?" Sam scratched her head a little, still distracted enough by her new assignment distribution around the same mission list to not notice that Jack had switched tracks and was hedging at something else entirely.
"No...Daniel needs it too." He looked down at his fingers. "Sha're's abduction anniversary is coming up."
Sam instantly set the paperwork down. "You do know I hadn't forgotten that don't you? It's part of the reason I want to get this done...so it doesn't interfere."
"Yeah I kinda figured that, but right now he's...he's not exactly doing so well, Sam. It's the first anniversary since he came back and I think he is still having a hard time reeling in his emotions and stuff."
Sam felt instant guilt over the fact that she had not noticed. "I didn't know...I mean, he never said anything..."
"Yeah well, I suppose he didn't want to disturb you what with you having to deal with all of this." Jack indicated the room and watched as Sam closed in a little at the notion of being inaccessible to her friend. "But he will be okay. He hasn't actually spoken to me yet either by the way. He just needs the space to...mole. He'll talk when he's ready."
Carter nodded in agreement, feeling a little better. Daniel quite often did need time and space and she appreciated the fact that the Colonel was just looking out for him by telling her this. She tried to change the subject a little "And I suppose Teal'c does need to go and talk to Rya'c face to face. Is the kid still giving him a hard time over what happen?"
"Yeah, I think so, but Teal'c talks to you more about that than he does me, so..."
Carter nodded and returned to her food. She had surmised a good while back that Teal'c thought it would be difficult for Jack to talk about the problems of having a son when he had lost his own. Secretly Sam thought the same. "Yeah well teenagers can be very easily embarrassed...and for a young jaffa having Daddy rescue you is probably right up there with bad wedding day dancing."
Jack smirked as the crazy mental image came into his mind of Teal'c doing the funky chicken and Rya'c hiding in the corner in shame. "Yeah Teal'c's bad dancing would be embarrassing that's for sure, but Rya'c should be proud of the fact that his father cares enough about him to put his life on the line like that. That should not embarrass him."
"Oh believe me he is proud, Teal'c assured me of that. But I think Rya'c still feels a little...emasculated by the whole experience." Jack visibly winced at her choice of words causing Sam to do the same. "What I mean is, he feels..."
"Inferior, made to look a fool, less of a man, yeah I get it. Just don't say it like that!"
"Sorry Sir." Sam offered as she scraped the last of the sauce off her plate. "I suppose it's a pride thing really."
"Yeah and we all know jaffa's and their pride!"
Sam nodded and set her fork down realising she felt infinitely better, she really had needed to eat something.
"Oh look at that, you are done!" Jack exclaimed in his overly cheery way.
Sam looked back down at her plate and then over at his, she noticed he still had not touched his pie. "What's the deal?" she asked curiously and pointed at it.
"The deal..." the Colonel replied as once more he dipped into his box that could so easily be a tardis or something. "...is jello." He grinned widely.
Sam's eyes lit up just like they always did. "I thought you said you didn't have jello."
Jack shrugged and waved a spoon at her. "I lied. Now hurry up and dig in so I can eat this, I've been waiting ages!"
Carter capitulated without hesitation to his order and rammed the spoon into the top of the dessert and in no time flat it was completely demolished. So too was the pie. Sam sat back in her chair, her hands on her stomach and let out a contented sigh.
Jack grinned widely as he admired her. "Now that is the Carter I like to see. All relaxed and well fed...and I would like to see her more often now that the workload is off a bit." He rose from the table and reached for her plate.
"I mean it, Sam." he said when she started to protest.
Sam pressed her lips tight, he had used her first name, that meant it was not the Colonel telling her off it was her friend. "Okay." she assented, he was probably right.
"Good, so you are going to bed?" he asked.
Sam sucked in a sharp breath. "We-ell..."
Jack made an exaggerated gesture of defeat. "Oy vey!" he exclaimed. "Fine, do what you want, you have the morning off either way."
"And the afternoon it says here...until the mission briefing that is..." Sam flicked the page back over to check and see if there had been a mistake.
"Ye-eah, about that..."
"What?" she asked once again glancing suspiciously at him.
Jack had made it as far as her workbench but had been hoping to be a little further away before she noticed that detail. "I kinda pulled a string on that one."
"What string?" Sam pressurised as she pushed to her feet.
"I got Felger sent off-world with SG-7 so you wouldn't have to meet with him tomorrow. Call it a favour if you will."
"I don't think I will...not just yet." She fancied she knew where this was going...back round in a circle.
"Come on Carter, it's Felger, half a galaxy away rather than here in your lab, under your feet...breaking your stuff?" he added hopefully and pointed at the broken microscope in the bin.
"That was his, he's not allowed to touch any of my stuff." Sam was not prepared to let him off the hook that easily.
"Yeah but..." Jack stopped, this was not going right. Time for tactic two. "Okay, fine, don't call it a favour then but the way I see you do owe me." he stated assertively.
"For what, getting us scrambled onto a rescue mission when he screws up out there and gets SG-7 into trouble?" Sam retorted sardonically.
Jack shook his head, ready for that one. "No, no, no, SG-3 have been put on standby for that eventuality, Hammond insisted on it, so you see you really do have the afternoon free from Felger. A Felger Free Friday...sounds good to me!"
Sam could not disagree with that statement.
Suddenly Jack looked a little uncomfortable and visibly squirmed. "So I was wondering if..." One last time he reached into the box and lifted the file until just the title 'MISSION BRIEFING' peeked out. "Please?" he asked, overly sweet.
"No." said Sam.
"Oh come on! I brought you jello!"
Sam laughed and placed a hand on her hip. "I knew that jello was a bribe...it always is!" She shook her head.
"Please!" Jack tried again. "I'll bring you more jello?" he offered meekly.
Sam felt herself relenting, he was never going to leave her alone. "How many?"
"Five?" he ventured, knowing he was chancing his arm.
"One!" Sam stipulated flatly.
"Four?"
"One!" she insisted.
Jack sighed, "Okay three." He took half a step back as Sam came over to rummage in the box.
"Two. Take it or leave it."
"Done."
"I have been." she muttered as she lifted the top two uncompleted reports, there were more underneath...a lot more. "How many of these have you not finished?" she asked incredulously as she began to leaf through them.
"Ummm...all of them." Jack confessed, not anywhere near as sheepishly as Sam would have liked.
"Si-ir!" she scolded, her face falling into a frown.
"Hey, it's not my fault!"
"So who's fault is it then?" Sam demanded, not believing she was hearing this. "I mean you had two full days off to do these at home. These and last month's. At least that what you told Hammond you were doing."
"There you see, it's not my fault. Hammond should know better that to allow me to..." Once again he trailed off as she glared at him. Okay blaming Hammond, not a good idea. The truth as to why he was so far behind bubbled up and out of him as she continued to wait for an answer. "It's hockey season, Carter. Teal'c is playing catch up too."
Sam narrowed her eyes. "No, Teal'c handed all of his in already, I was there...handing in my own at the same time...ten minutes before the deadline, even Daniel was there!"
Jack flushed. "Teal'c is playing catch up, just...not his own reports...he's...helping...me too." He winced when Sam looked away with that particular I-can't-believe-you look.
"And Daniel?" she asked, turning her eye back on him.
Jack watched as Carter cocked her head at him in a way that reminded him of their earlier conversation and the strain their friend was under. "He only has one to do. You know it's better that way. He would only feel left out if he found out you guys were helping me and he had not been asked."
Okay so the Colonel was probably right about that, but still. "This is downright irresponsible Jack O'Neill." she informed him as casually as she could while she attempted to choose a second report.
"How about that one?" Jack nudged a file closer. "And it's Colonel." he nipped because he thought it might distract her from the designation of the planet on the cover.
Sam stared up at him, her eyes open wide. "Really? 'Colonel'? You're going to throw that at me while I am doing this? And I'm not touching your report on R2J-8639." She shoved the report back across the bench. "You can write about the effects the indigenous Pheromone Monkeys had on you for yourself. Lord knows I had a hard enough time writing my own report and keeping it..." Suddenly she stopped feeling her face flush. That encounter had been almost as physically close as the Broca one all those years ago. Thank god Teal'c had not been affected. "And another thing..." she continued before things got awkward. "Do you know how far outside of regulations it is for me to even consider writing your report for you? What would happen if Hammond found out?"
"Ye-es, you tell me that every month, besides Hammond is never going to find out. SG-3 get away with it all the time and they're Marines, Carter...Marines!"
"Exactly and we are supposed to be smarter than them."
"We are. Flyboys outsmart Jarheads, everybody knows that! What's your point?" Jack was suddenly lost.
Sam smirked a little. "My point is that we are supposed to be smart enough to know how to manage our time effectively so that this sort of thing does not happen!"
"Oh lighten up Carter, it's not the end of the world." Jack was getting a little fed up with her nerd persona arguments.
"Do you want to do these all yourself?" Sam asked candidly, proffering the paperwork back at him. She was once again on the verge of getting more than a little riled.
"No, what I meant to say was thank you. Thank you so much for agreeing to help me and not making me look stupid...stupid as a Marine." Jack joked knowing it would work. No-one, no Flyboy, not even he himself, could ever look that stupid! He imitated one of his colleagues.
Sam laughed at him as he pulled a dumb face, how could she not. "Alright fine. Now get out of here and let me work...Sir!" she added sarcastically.
"Actually...I kinda had another notion about that."
"Seriously?" she asked.
"Yeah, any chance you could let me work here? It's just that if I go back to my office I will fall asleep and well..."
"You want to pull an all-nighter?" Sam blinked, well that was unusual.
"Sure, you said you were staying anyhow so...you could do those two reports and work on your own stuff and then we could take the morning off properly, with nothing hanging over our heads. Look I'm free too." he was back over at the desk. "Oh and what a co-incidence, so are Daniel and Tealc...we could all go. Team breakfast and then bowling or something, what do you say?"
Carter leaned her hip against the workbench and scrubbed a hand across her face. "The others have already agreed to this haven't they."
"Yep." Jack sang, he knew now he had won.
"Okay fine, just try to keep it down, I really do want to get this data stream finished tonight."
"Excellent! I'll go make us a fresh pot of coffee."
He trotted off quickly before she changed her mind and Carter let out a prolonged groan. It was going to be a long night.
AN: And that's part one of two down...the other, much shorter half probably tomorrow night once I get it edited/fixed up a little...any thoughts so far?
Oh and you will just have to forgive the Marine/SG-3 bashing, could not resist it ;)