TITLE: Sergeant Biggs.
AUTHOR: A. M. Richardson
CLASSIFICATION: Short, missing scene
SPOILERS: Set S8, vague spoilers for Full Alert
RATING: G Ship/Friendship
PAIRINGS: Jack/Sara
SUMMARY: It's the end of the world. Whom would he call? There's only one person.
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.
E-MAIL: audrich08 Notes: I can't thank Kylie and Jeannette enough for their help with this, it had to be virtually hammered into shape, and for such a short piece, that is a bit depressing! Thanks also to Anna who made me think outside the box – how fulfilling it is to be surrounded by intelligent, creative people. Ladies, my sincere appreciation.
This is for Artifuss and Forcryinoutloud, two more of the aforementioned intelligent, creative people :D
Ring, ring
Ring, ring
Ring, ring
"Don't get up, Mike - I'll get it! Can you turn Oprah down?"
Sara chuckled at the good-natured abuse that emanated from the den. As she snagged the cordless handset from its cradle she mused that her stepfather's grumpy index was directly proportional to the time his ankle cast had been in place.
Flinging the drying cloth over her shoulder she smiled into the mouthpiece, "Hello!"
Silence. Okay, loser, two strikes and out. "Hel-lo."
"Hi, Sara, it's Jack."
Her throat constricted and her peripheral vision dimmed at the sound of the familiar - yet not - ex-husband at the other end of the line.
Okay, Sara, keep calm, you're an adult; you can deal. She glanced back to the den, Mike laughing at the TV, his leg still propped up, and she edged further into the kitchen.
"Hi, Jack, what's up? Cut to the chase; if this was a social call, she was the First Lady. Hearing a short rumbling noise, she recognized it as the Jack O'Neill expression of amusement 3, even after nearly eight years of divorce.
"Does there have to be something wrong for me to call you?" He sounded slightly.. preoccupied - was he at work? Busy at home? Alone?
Turning the heat low under the spaghetti, she shrugged redundantly. "I guess not, but Charlie's birthday was last month, so why are you calling?"
This time, there was a distinct sigh. Yeah, Jack, astute, aren't I? She snatched up a spoon and stirred the Bolognese sauce with distraction, but the next words made her hand still in mid-stir.
"Can you talk?"
Peering through the glass door at her only possible eavesdropper, she confirmed, "Mike's here."
"Good. I mean, okay. How's Mike?"
Taking the handset away from her face, she allowed herself an exasperated huff. "He's recovering from a broken ankle and driving me nuts, but otherwise he's fine."
Plowing on regardless of the ensuing silence, Sara clanked the spoon on the side of the saucepan. "Jack, I've got a hot date with spaghetti Bolognese in about-" she peered into the pasta pan, "-five minutes, so spill."
"Sara, Sergeant Biggs is here."
She dropped the spoon noisily onto the worktop. Sinking further into the room, her hand automatically gravitated to her head; nails tasted so good sometimes. "Sergeant Biggs?" she confirmed through a teeth full of cuticle.
"Yes." Succinct. Purposeful.
Crap.
Twenty years fell away. When Charlie was on the way, they had actually managed a serious conversation without arguing about what to do if the Shit should Hit the Fan. Biggs was their codeword for something-is-going-down-but-I-can't-talk.
Double crap.
"How is he?" Of course, the real answer was six feet under in Arlington, she mused and her thumbnail came off. Well, it was split anyways after that contretemps with her truck's muffler.
"Busy," was Jack's perfunctory reply.
What could she say? "Oh." Her pinkie nail peeled off into her mouth, and she tongued it out with a grimace. What a gross, gross habit. Picking it off her lip, she tossed the sliver into the garbage can. "Can you come home?"
"That would be a no; I'm very busy myself."
"How busy?"
"I might not be coming home at all."
Oh God. "Jack," Sara stared and broke off abruptly when she heard him speaking to someone else. The muted rhubarb of a conversation concluded with;
"-yes, as quick as you can, Walter."
A clunk as the receiver was picked up.
"Sara? Sorry, are you still there?"
Her shoulders slumped and she closed her eyes. "Yes, Jack, I'm still there."
Please stop this tell me what the hell is going on you're so scaring me
"Sara, please listen carefully, we may not have much time."
We? WE. Sara nodded slowly. "I understand. May?"
"May."
Swallowing, she checked her wristwatch. "Any ideas when it will be over?"
"Possibly a couple of hours."
"HOURS!" She couldn't help herself. The left thumbnail came off as well and she found herself peering out the kitchen window looking for vapor trails. A fragment of a long forgotten song sounded in her consciousness.
It's the end of the world as we know it.
Funny, as an AF wife, she'd prepared herself for this possibility. When she and Jack had divorced, she had willingly said goodbye to that aspect of living with Colonel J.J. O'Neill, USAF. Bye-bye to all the empty nights undoing her manicurist's best efforts while her husband was someplace she was not allowed to know doing something she would probably rather not know: East Germany; Sierra Leone… Iraq.
"Jack, when we meet Charlie again, promise me you won't be late."
Sara heard the sharp intake of breath. Sharp. Intake. Of. Breath. Jack would love that cliché. "And wear that navy suit you wore last month when we went to visit him, please." Turning back to the stove, she cut the heat under the bubbling saucepans. Snatching up a sieve, she carried the pasta pan over to the sink and deftly tipped the contents into the plastic mesh, the phone all the while nestled between her ear and her shoulder. "Jack?"
Throat clearing at the other end. "You have my word."
She began to spoon the pasta quickly onto the warming plates; if she were going to be blown to hell, she would do so on a full stomach. "And Jack, if you get there before me, look after him, won't you?"
"For ever."
"Good." I am woman, hear me cope. "I have to go now, Mike is expecting something edible at least today."
Her eyebrows lifted when she heard the low rumbling chuckle again.
"I have to go too."
She nodded in acceptance, and somehow, she knew that he would know. Spooning Bolognese sauce over the pasta, she wondered into the long pause if he had rung off.
But then: "Sara?"
She licked some stray sauce from the ladle. "Uh-huh?"
"I love you."
She caught the handset as her shoulders dropped and the utensil fell into the sink.
What was left to say?
"I love you too, Jack."
ende
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