A/N: This is technically the prequel to "A Moment in the Park", but I think that, if you intend to read them both, it might be cuter to read the other one first. Just my opinion. Neither really is intended to take away from the other. This story is an expansion on something that was mentioned in "A Moment in the Park", but they're not really related. So, all-in-all, this is just a shippy one-shot that takes place towards the beginning of Season 9.

Disclaimer: I don't own anything.

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Phone Calls

Lieutenant Colonel Samantha Carter entered her apartment to hear her cell phone ringing. She had just spent the last eighteen hours working on the latest R & D project, and she was looking forward to having a moment to herself. She had expected to have more time when she transferred to R & D; it had been her reason for transferring. She had wanted more time to spend with Cassie and to contemplate her own life. But since she had arrived, she felt as if she had had nothing but problems to deal with. Some days, she missed the SGC and traveling with SG-1, but she had needed the change.

Still, when Carter answered the phone, she was annoyed that someone needed her so soon after she had left. "Carter," she answered in an annoyed tone.

Silence. She heard nothing from the other end.

"Carter," she said a little louder, with increasing annoyance in her voice.

Still nothing. Then she heard a sound that she would not have heard if it hadn't been for her years of field work (and time spent with Teal'c). Light breathing on the other end. Carter listened for a moment, convinced that she had heard the breathing before. "Sir?" she questioned.

She heard a deep breath and then a voice she had scarcely heard in the last few months. "Hey, Carter," said the man on the other end of the phone.

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Major General Jack O'Neill was not sure why he had dialed the number or why he had allowed the ringing to continue until she picked up. He was not a fan of using the phone, but he hadn't heard that voice in what seemed like ages. In fact, he hadn't heard a truly friendly voice since he had moved to Washington. So, when he had come home from a particularly hard day at work, a comforting voice was the only thing on his mind, and she was the first person that he had thought of.

"How ya doin'?" he inquired.

"I'm fine, sir. How are you?" he heard her say, cautiously.

"Fine, fine," he answered. Then he stopped talking.

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Carter waited a few moments for O'Neill to continue, but she heard nothing. Her heart had jumped upon hearing his voice. It had been far too long, and she had been wondering what would happen if they did speak again. She had considered their positions. He was no longer her commanding officer, but she was still afraid to act on her feelings, after everything they had been through over the last eight years. But what was a harmless phone call? she asked herself.

"Anything I can help you with, sir?" she asked, hoping beyond hope that this was not a business call.

"Can't I just call to talk, Carter?" he asked. "I thought we were friends."

"Of course, sir," she responded, trying to keep the immense happiness that she was feeling out of her voice.

"Well, then, Carter," he said with a satisfied tone, "what's up?"

"Not much, sir. We're working on a new engine for the X-305s. We're trying to perfect the hyperdrive so that we can cut down travel time from three weeks to one between here and the Pegasus Galaxy," she told him.

"Carter, I didn't call to hear about the latest project," he said.

"Oh?" she questioned, knowing full well that he didn't want to or need to hear about the X-305.

"I'm checking up on you, Carter," he said.

"Well, sir," she said. "There's not much to tell. I'm at the base most of the time, and otherwise, I've been spending time with Cassie."

"How is she?" O'Neill asked, happy to have been presented with a subject to talk about.

"She's doing better," was her reply.

"Good," O'Neill responded. "So…" he started. "At the base most of the time? Nothing's changed, has it, Carter?" he asked, referring not to her work habit, but to the situation in general.

"I wouldn't say that, sir," Carter replied, aware that the general was not talking about the schedule she kept. "I'm in Nevada now," she said with a laugh.

He chuckled. "Yes, you are, Carter."

"How about you, sir?" Carter asked. "Anything new?"

"Not much going on here," he answered. "You know how much I love paperwork… and meetings… "

"Yes, sir," Carter said with a laugh. "Navigating your way around Washington all right?"

"I've lost my house three times already," he answered.

"What?" Carter laughed.

"It's out there… and I can't remember how to get there," he responded defensively.

"Well, sir, you'll let me know if you need any help," Carter said.

"Was that an order, Carter?" he asked.

"No, sir. Just a request," she responded.

"Well, Carter, I'll call you the next time I get lost," he said.

Carter's breath nearly stopped at the mention of another phone call. She didn't think that O'Neill would even suggest future correspondence, let alone promise to call again. Catching herself, she said, "I'll look forward to that, sir." Did I just say that out loud? she thought to herself.

O'Neill's smile widened at her response. "Good," he said. O'Neill was getting happier by the minute that he had called. It was so great to hear her voice, and he suspected that she was lonely in Nevada, away from the team that had become her family.

Carter heard an annoying beeping noise coming from somewhere. She was so lost in her conversation that it took her a while to realize that it was coming from her phone. With a sigh, she said, "Sir, I'm sorry, but I have to go. The office is calling."

"All right, Carter. I'll call you again later then," he said, much to Carter's elation.

"Sounds great, sir!" she said with what she felt might have been too much enthusiasm. "Bye!" she said cheerfully.

As she changed the line and said, "Carter," she found that she was no where near as annoyed with the base as she would have been about ten minutes before, and she suspected that a certain general had everything to do with that.

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The phone calls became more frequent over the next few weeks. At first, O'Neill would be the only one to call, as Carter had been afraid that calling O'Neill would be constituted as stepping over professional boundaries. However, she soon rationalized that the phone calls were just conversations between two very old friends, so she began calling O'Neill too.

Twice a week, both would find themselves waiting expectantly for the moment when the phone would ring and they would hear the other's voice. No matter where they were, as long as there were no extenuating circumstances, they would both stop everything in order to talk.

Even when Carter had moved back to Colorado Springs and rejoined SG-1, the correspondence continued. In fact, the relationship did not suffer any changes, regardless of the fact that they were both in the same chain of command once again, albeit their inability to talk when Carter was off-world.

It was during one of these casual bi-weekly talks that O'Neill suddenly broke off as he babbled on about something that he had long since forgotten the point of and said, "I talked to the President today."

"Really?" Carter asked with somewhat feigned interest. No doubt, it had been about some political thing that bored her (and O'Neill for that matter) as much as her talk of wormhole theory bored anyone around her. "What about?" she asked anyway.

"Us," he responded.

"Us?" she questioned. What could they possibly have to talk about concerning the general and me? she thought to herself. Surely, the General wasn't planning to do something crazy like retire.

"Yeah," he responded, still being vague on the details.

"And what specifically did you talk about?" she asked.

"Well, I might have diplomatically mentioned that if he didn't look the other way when it came to us, that I would conveniently disappear through a large stone ring in Cheyenne Mountain," he responded, the less-than-innocent laughter that he was trying to suppress evident to Carter.

"You threatened the Commander-in-chief of the Armed Forces?" Carter asked, horrified.

"I said 'diplomatically'," he responded innocently.

Carter scoffed. "I've seen your diplomatic side, sir."

"Yeah, well," he replied. "In any case, he agreed."

"Agreed to what?" Carter asked, caught off-guard.

"He agreed to turn the other cheek. He said we could do whatever we wanted," O'Neill replied, his smile increasing by the second at the thought.

"He said that?" Carter questioned.

"Okay, not in those exact words. I might have… tweaked it… a little bit…" he said.

"Right," Carter responded. The news then began to sink in. "So, where does this leave us?" she asked.

O'Neill sighed. "Wherever we want to be, I guess."

"Really?" Carter questioned, the smile on her face that was now lighting the room becoming very apparent in her voice. "Guess we're lucky you're so important then," she said.

"We're so important, Carter. He didn't even want to hear about you leaving the Air Force. Said you were way too vital to the program."

Carter beamed at the praise. It wasn't every day that she heard a compliment from the President. Her thoughts quickly drifted back to O'Neill's other news. "I guess we have a lot to talk about," she said.

"Yeah," O'Neill replied, settling in for a long conversation.

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Over the next few weeks, Carter and O'Neill settled into their new relationship. The phone calls still continued; both desired to see the other, but it was impossible due to their pressing work obligations. They continued to talk about anything and everything. They had opened up to each other in ways that they had never been able to do; perhaps it was the fact that they had both sacrificed so much for their duty, but they were able to relate in a way that neither had ever been able to experience with another person. Carter listened to O'Neill talk about his son and the pain that he had felt at losing him. O'Neill heard about Carter's sorrow at losing her father, and about her desire to have a real family and maybe even a semi-normal life one day. They were able to comfort each other through their pain, and soon, they were able to talk about themselves and the relationship that had been blossoming, regardless of regulations and self-restraint, for the past eight years.

During this time, they both easily fell into the habit of calling each other by their first names. It had been an unspoken agreement between them; as soon as they had been given the president's permission, they had given in easily to the temptation of a first-name basis. Although both occasionally slipped up and reverted back to old formalities, it was rare. They both relished in the new tradition.

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A few weeks after the President gave his permission, Carter walked into her house, soaking wet from the downpour that appeared to have started the moment that she had stepped out of the Cheyenne Mountain Complex. She had already been in a bad mood, due to the lack of progress on the latest anti-Prior instrument, and the rain had only served to annoy her further. She entered the house, threw down her keys and her coat and moved into the kitchen, searching for a warm beverage.

Her cell phone rang. She contemplated not answering it, fearful that she would be called back to the SGC immediately, through the storm that was raging outside. She put down the mug in which she was about to make tea and moved over to her bag with a sigh, knowing that it could be something important.

"Carter," she answered, with more bite than she had intended to have.

"Whoa, I can call back later," O'Neill said jokingly.

"Oh, it's you," she said into the phone. Relief washed over her at hearing his voice, but it must not have translated into her tone because O'Neill replied sarcastically, "It's good to hear your voice too."

Carter caught herself. "Sorry, Jack. Bad day. But I am glad to hear your voice." She glanced at her watch and realized that she completely forgotten that he was supposed to call.

"One of your doohickeys isn't working?" he asked.

"Yeah," she said with a sigh. "I can't figure out for the life of me what's wrong with the thing. Theoretically, it should act something like a magnet towards the Prior's staff. We figure, the Prior doesn't have his staff, he doesn't have his power. But it's difficult to engineer something that will attract wood like that, especially wood with those specific… properties."

O'Neill listened with a smile on his face. When he didn't say anything, Carter said, "Uh, Jack. You still there?"

"Yeah, I'm here," he replied.

"You didn't say anything," she said.

"I was just enjoying the sound of your voice," he replied.

"Really?" she asked.

"Yeah," he replied. Then his tone changed to a serious one. "Sam, there's something that I've been meaning to tell you," he said.

"Oh?" she questioned, trying not to sound concerned with his tone. With her luck, her bad day was about to become even worse.

"Yeah. Listen, I'm not a man of words, so I'm just going to come right out and say it," he said. Then he stopped talking.

"Say what, Jack?"

"I, uh, Sam, I, uh, love you," he said quietly.

Carter was taken aback. She had not expected those words. With the distance between them, it hadn't seemed the right thing to say. But suddenly, hearing the words coming from O'Neill, Carter felt that nothing could be more right with the world; she could have flown without a plane at that moment. "Really, Jack?" she asked, wanting to assure herself that his feelings were genuine and that everything was real.

"Never been more sure of anything in my life," was his reply.

"I love you too," she said softly, suddenly forgetting that there was anything wrong at all in her life. At the moment, everything was perfect.