Title: The World's Dumbest Instructions
Pairing: Sam/Jack
A/N: Thank you to mrspollifax for her beta work.

"Sir." Carter knocked on the doorframe of O'Neill's office. The general held up a figure to indicate that she should hold on for a second. With the other hand he finished filling in and signing some paperwork, then he finally looked up.

"What's up, Carter?"

"A new weapons shipment came in and you're supposed to—"

He cut her off, "Yeah, yeah. Do my thing, I know." He stood and put his jacket on. She still wasn't used to the sight of him walking around the SGC in such formal wear on a regular basis. The fact that he put on the BDUs as much as he could get away with told her that some parts of him would never change, no matter how many stars they gave him.

"So…" he began as they walked side-by-side through the hall toward the elevator. "Getting lots of interesting things done today?"

She smiled at him, knowing he really did not want to hear about whatever it was she was working on. But he was giving her an opening in case she really wanted to tell him. "Nothing too exciting, sir."

"Ah." They arrived at the elevator and he pushed the button to call it. "Sounds a lot like how my day is going. And it's about to get even better because inventory is here."

She could almost hear the "Oh joy!" being added inside his head. Sarcastically, of course.

The elevator arrived, and they stepped inside with about a half-dozen other people already packed in. She had to squeeze next to the general, close enough that she could smell his aftershave. Sometimes weeks could go by that she'd not have any reaction to him at all, and then, suddenly she's pushed up close to him in a elevator and smells his aftershave and… yeah. Still there.

The other group got off a few floors before theirs, and Sam let out a breath and stepped apart to give them both room. After all this time and all the schooling of feelings that she'd gotten so good at, there were still these moments that came out of nowhere and managed to remind her that repressing something isn't the same as making it disappear altogether.

Exiting on the proper floor, several people were waiting for the general, including the guy with the clipboard. Sam felt sort of bad for the clipboard-carrying guy. It wasn't his fault that Jack had to provide the final sign off on any major shipment of arms coming into the base. And everyone knew that Jack hated this particular part of his new job most of all.

"OK, let's see what we got here," Jack said, his tone telling Sam that the next half hour was going to be a tedious one.

"We can start over here," one of the airmen said, "with the M18 claymores, sir."

"Yes, lets." Jack turned to Sam. "And why, oh why do they have to label them with 'Front Toward Enemy' in big letters, Carter?"

"I really don't know, sir. Perhaps someone got it backwards once and they sued?"

"The claymore company?"

Oh, he was really in fine form today. She tried, "Maybe?"

"No, I think it's because the military, who so wisely promoted me to the rank of general but still makes me do things a monkey could do, thinks we're all stupid."

A few of the airmen nearby actually took a step back from Jack.

"Do you think I'm stupid, Carter?" he asked. And she saw by the look on his face that the moment it came out of his mouth, he regretted it. Because really, he shouldn't set himself up like that. Especially to the only person in the room who could get away with being a little bit insubordinate to him and answer that question honestly.

Jack cleared his throat. "Don't answer that."

"Yes, sir." But she smiled a little, despite herself.

"I saw that, Colonel."

"Well, I'll leave you to it, General." She turned, her smile growing wider.

But he followed after her, "Hey, Carter."

"I just, I wanted to say…" But he stopped himself and seemed to struggle with something for a moment.

"Sir?"

He shook his head, his hands dropping to his side, almost like he'd accepted defeat. "Never mind."

"Everything alright, sir?"

"Yeah, everything is fine." He gave her a crooked smile. "It's just that you make things bearable, you know?"

She wasn't completely sure, but she got the sense that he was talking about more than just inventory. The moment in the elevator, perhaps it wasn't just her that still…?

"You too." She glanced away, unable to meet his eyes, unwilling to let him see too much in hers. She needed something to break this, whatever it was, before it went too far. "But no, I am not helping you with your inventory."

"Damn." Despite it, she heard the humor in his tone. "Can't blame a guy for trying."

"No, you can't." She lifted her eyes to his then, and whatever was there a moment ago had been replaced by amusement. Leave it to this man to enjoy going toe to toe with her and like it when she got the upper hand. "Just goes to show that you're not stupid."

"I'm not! So why in the world do they need to print the world's dumbest instructions on those claymores? Scratch that, the dumbest in the universe. Imagine if Ba'al saw that. It's embarrassing."

And with that, he was off again. She shook her head and began heading back to the elevator, back to her lab, and back to uninteresting experiments.

But maybe things wouldn't remain uninteresting forever?