You're packing up your lab when he enters.
"Whatcha doin', Carter?"
"Just packing up a few more things." You put your notebook filled with unfinished equations, half-thought notes and semi-concocted ideas in the box before you, "Are you all done, Sir?"
"Sir."
He repeats the word like an epitaph and it hangs between you.
It will always be between you.
Sure he's accepted the position in Washington and you're moving on to Research and Development at Area 51, but this is the military you're talking about here, and he's now in charge of Home World Security. No matter how you look at it you're still under his command and he's still out of your reach.
You grab something else off the counter and shove it into the box, not caring what it is and suddenly he's there. His hand is stopping yours mid motion.
"You can't pack everything away in a neat little box, Carter. Life doesn't work like that."
Well, it should.
In the perfect world that you can imagine it does. But here the world isn't perfect and you're more than acutely aware of that. You try and ignore the touch of his hand around your wrist. Try to pull away from him but he's not letting you go.
"I know that." Your voice is barely more than a whisper and you close your eyes doubting he could even hear you.
"Then why do you try so damned hard?"
His breath brushes over your face as he speaks and you can feel his words as much as you can hear them.
You want to yell at him. You want to tell him that this is the hardest thing that you've ever had to force yourself to do. Want to tell him that pushing him away always has been.
You open your eyes and you know that that action alone will be your downfall, because in his eyes you see everything that you've never let yourself hope could be there.
Which makes it hurt even more when he begins to lean his head towards yours and you place your hands against his chest to stop his forward movement.
"We can't do this, Sir."
His eyes close and his jaw tightens.
You can tell he's gritting his teeth and you almost want to tell him not to, but you don't. You almost want to lick your lips because they're getting increasingly dry as he stays ever so close to you, but you don't trust yourself to do just that.
"Carter, I took this assignment for a reason. I thought you understood that."
You're not sure you follow him, but he's leaning in again and you're also not sure how much more of this you can take.
His lips connect with yours and they're warm and soft and you've suddenly lost sight of why you hadn't done this, years ago.
A strong arm snakes around your waist and pulls you closer; pressing your body flush against his and all you can do is groan in response. He takes full advantage of your lapse and moves you against the – now mostly cleared – work station.
Your hands move from his chest to his shoulders, pulling him insignificantly closer and deepening the kiss to the point where you think that alone may fry every last brain cell you have remaining.
A hand moves between you and before you can even stop to wonder what he's doing his hand is slipping past the waistline of your BDUs.
For a moment you think that you ought to be angry, that you should stop him and ask him just what he thinks he's doing. Then his fingers reach their destination and you realize that he knows exactly what he's doing and that's the point.
Your mouth breaks free of his but whatever you had thought you wanted to say doesn't bother to come forth. Instead there's nothing but an incomprehensible groan, and his lips decide to take their turn on your earlobe and neck.
You feel like you should be doing something, like you're being awfully selfish from your position, but your brain can't begin to process any kind of alternate action at the moment.
Jack's teeth nip at your collarbone and you give a gasp of surprise as the small jump is accompanied by another action much lower.
His hand moves up your back a bit and your neck relaxes, granting him more access.
No matter what arguments you were going to put up against this, it's useless. And why were you going to argue anyway? Were you mad?
Your eyes roll back as you feel your muscles responding, your breathing increasing and your fingers digging into his shoulders as the tension builds.
And then he's there again.
His mouth claims yours and any thoughts you had of calling out anything are vanquished as he holds you to him.
You're both gasping for breath when you break and Jack takes a step back, carefully balancing you before resting his forehead against yours.
"Try packing that away in a box, Carter."
You want to hit him. You want to scream at him. But you don't, instead you smirk, give him the lop-sided grin that you're so accustomed to seeing on his face and reply.
"Don't think I can do that, Sir. It wouldn't fit, and it's definitely not neat."
He huffs out a laugh and kisses your nose. Then looks up into the corner, "Guess I didn't exactly think of everything."
Knowing your lab as well as you do you don't need to turn to know what he's referring to. Someday you'll tell him that the camera hasn't worked for a few months, since you overloaded the circuit with one of your experiments.
Someday.
But not today.