I adore Stargate, and I adore Jack/Sam, and what better way to spend 12 - 1 am than...writing a fic about them! (That is a rhetorical question.) Just spreading the J/S love, hope you enjoy~
gelatin rendezvous
It wasn't that she enjoyed eating jello, really.
It was too mysterious for her to enjoy– too strange and slippery, too impossible to hold onto. Too…blue.
Food should not be blue.
Yes, this was what Captain Samantha Carter decided in the commissary at two in the morning, staring down a spoonful of jello with much greater attention than it actually warranted: Food should not be blue. With, she amended as she took another jiggling bite, the possible exception of icing. Blue icing was good, blue jello was only good for looking at. She raised her next spoonful into the light a little to watch the colors playing through it, briefly organized an equation for discerning the quantities of light particles traveling through her midnight snack, and then discarded the idea on the grounds that it would be of no use whatsoever.
"You all right there, Carter?"
At the familiar man's voice her gaze broke from her food and she blushed. "What? Oh, yeah, I'm fine, sir."
It wasn't that she enjoyed eating jello.
She didn't come here because she couldn't sleep; the hard tabletop was alarmingly beginning to resemble a pillow.
And it absolutely wasn't that the commissary was pretty– no, definitely not that. Damn, the place was drab. It looked like they'd hired some sort of colorblind Spartan interior decorator, everywhere blocky and gray and stiff.
No, the reason she forced herself out of her lab to come sit on an uncomfortable chair in a boring room and question the mysteries of gelatinous substances across the universe was…
"Mind if I join you?"
"Go ahead, sir."
"Good, because I was going to sit down whether you liked it or not."
"No, I like it. I mean it's fine. Sir."
Colonel Jack O'Neill– who didn't have any problem whatsoever with the color of her food, judging by the speed at which he was inhaling it.
She blinked. "Uh, help yourself to my jello, sir…"
"Thanks, Carter," he said belatedly, gesturing at her with the spoon and humming something that sounded vaguely like a jingle for detergent.
2 am gets to everyone, apparently, she thought.
"I see you're up again tonight?"
"Oh, um, yessir."
"Couldn't…sleep again?"
"Yessir, I believe that was it."
"You should see Frasier for some sleeping pills or something."
"Oh, that's not necessary."
Jack paused mid-chew. "Want me to steal some for you?"
She hid a smile. "That's very generous of you, sir."
"Uh-huh. 'ma jenerush pershun," he agreed solemnly.
She winced. "Try swallowing, sir."
He swallowed. "Really though, Carter, do you need to, you know…" he sighed uncomfortably while clearly trying to appear at ease. "…talk about anything?"
"No sir. Thank you, but I really just, um," she cast about for an excuse, "got a craving for jello."
Jack raised an eyebrow.
"Blue…jello," she clarified uncomfortably.
"Ah, perfectly understandable," he agreed, and the humor in his words was so subtle that if she hadn't known him she'd have thought he believed her. "Jello is so mysterious, so delicious, so…" He observed the blue gel quivering on his spoon. "Gelatinous."
"That it is, sir."
Sometimes the universe was like that, too, she thought– sometimes everything was like that: strange and incomprehensible. Impossible to hold on to.
Beautiful.
Jack looked at her. "Is this the reason you don't usually stay up late?"
"What?"
"You're waxing philosophical, Carter. Almost makes me miss your usual technobabble."
"Sorry, Sir."
Jack pushed back an olive-gray sleeve (clearly the colorblind architect had taken up fashion design as well) to check his watch. He sighed. "Well, Carter, it's time for all good little boys and girls to hit the sack."
She raised an eyebrow. "You're hardly a good little boy, sir."
He sniffed in mock affront. "I'm going to pretend you're questioning the 'little' part and not the 'good' part."
"I'm questioning a lot of it, sir."
"It's not nice to question a superior officer, Carter."
She swallowed the last bit of jello and smiled at him. "Goodnight, Colonel."
"Night, Carter." She watched him leave the mess with that casual amble he had, trying to memorize it.
It wasn't that she enjoyed eating jello, really.
What she enjoyed was the curve of his mouth when she'd said something clever, the sleepy chaos of his silver hair, his warm eyes reflecting her laughter, his hands…him. She loved Jack O'Neill.
She loved falling asleep with the taste of jello making her remember everything about him.