Title? Distractions

Author? MerlynLover

Summary? Jack has way too many distractions while working at the Pentagon… including someone pacing outside his door.

Ship? Sam/Jack

Rating? K

Disclaimer? None of these characters are mine, please don't sue me

Now, on with the story… Enjoy!

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Jack O'Neill needed a vacation, a break-away to a little cabin he knew of smack in the middle of nowhere Minnesota. He was sure he needed some quality fishing time soon as he had gotten absolutely zero, zip nada, zilch work done in the past hour and a half. He had been staring at the blank Word document on what he was sure was a very expensive computer monitor, but was finding more enjoyment in listening to the dust particles fall to the floor. He had heard every single minute sound humanly possible (he could check with Carter next time he emailed her) including the sound of a roller desk chair slide across the carpeted floor of the office above him. He had only been working at the Pentagon for a week, but was already bored out of his skull. He had thought, when he put in for the transfer, that he could do a better job in D.C. than he could running the SGC. Running the SGC had been taxing and stressful, he had gotten about as much sleep each week as the amount of work he had done in the past hour and a half. He had thought that with his transfer to the Pentagon, the SGC would find someone who was actually qualified and adept at running Stargate Operations and that his life would become so much easier. He was so wrong. He didn't have the kind of brain they needed to run Homeworld Security! What was he thinking? This was a job better suited for the brilliancy that was Lt. Colonel Sam Carter.

Speaking of Sam (as he now allowed himself to call her in his mind) seemed to be ignoring him since he moved to D.C. He, Teal'c and Daniel were keeping up with regular phone calls and emails, but Sam never took his calls, or if he called her at work, she said she was busy, which effectively ended any conversation. When they emailed, she was distant and didn't banter with him like she normally did, she hadn't even offered a ":)" for his teasing and kept her replies short and to the point, never any more than there needed to be. Very unlike the Sam Carter he knew when he was still at the SGC. He was pulled out of his reverie by the "ping" that said he had received a new email. It was revisions of a document he had sent to yet another officer under his control at Homeworld Security. He decided to look at the revisions later, he had his own work to get done.

The next half hour drug by with the same amount of nonexistent progress, this time though, the past ten minutes had provided some more audible distractions than the previous length of time. For the past ten minutes, having started at 12:23, someone had been pacing outside the door to his office. The steps had begun by coming up to and stopping in front of his door, but a moment before he called "Enter!" the steps had backed off and begun their laps. At first they had only seemed to move a few steps to one side, pausing before moving several paces in the opposite direction. The width of the track the person was wearing in the floor got slowly larger over the ten minute period however, and now had a ten or eleven step diameter. Diameter, ha! A term he remembered that came from as far back as High School. He made a note to tell Carter that as well next time he sent her a message, she would be so proud he thought with a small lopsided smile. He looked at the clock: 12:34. Cool, he thought, one – two – three – four, he did a little dance in his chair and his smile widened a little. Okay, it's nearly lunch time, I really have to get some work done, he chided himself and again attempted to focus on writing his proposal.

The pacing outside his door was driving him crazy, he couldn't ignore it, and if he didn't find out who it was, he was never going to get a single thing done. Letting out a sigh, he got up from his chair, wincing slightly as his knee protested and moved across the room to his door. Placing his hands on the wood of the door, he leaned down to peer through the tiny peep hole that was installed in his door about a foot too low. His eyebrows shot up when he recognized the tall, slender frame and short mess of blonde locks that could belong to none other than his former second in command.

Jack backed away from the door wondering why in the world Lt. Colonel Samantha Carter would be pacing outside his office door in Washington, D.C. And for the past fifteen minutes no less! There's no way she would come here for that… would she? He had dropped a small hint before he left that the frat regs would no longer apply to them and if she wanted to give anything a try, he would be open for suggestions. But after Pete and Kerry, he hadn't really expected her to do anything about it, although he had certainly hoped. Well, there was only one way to find out he thought as he shrugged and opened the door.

Jack O'Neill had only ever seen Sam Carter so lost in herself that she had no idea of what was happening around her when she was in her lab messing with some odd doohickey or another. This time however, she was lost in her own mind while pacing up and down a hallway in the Pentagon before a Brigadier General. He often enjoyed just watching Sam, no matter what she was doing. She had often caught him leaned up against the doorjamb of her lab just watching her with an almost imperceptible smile on his face. A small upturn at the corners of his lips, a slight shimmer in his eyes, the only time his hands were ever still. That same description could now be used for the Jack standing in the doorway to his office watching Carter pace the hallway.

Finally deciding to break the silent reverie, in which she was probably trying to talk herself out of being here, he spoke. "Looking for me?" He asked with a small tease in his voice, his lopsided smile gracing his face. Her body froze while her head snapped around so fast, she could have gotten whiplash.

Blushing a nice shade of pink, (it was a kind of pink that seemed to match her dress blues he thought while simultaneously deciding not to tell her that bit of information), she tried in vain to form a coherent sentence, "I… uh…"

His smile got a hair wider as he watched her expressions. "Look," he started "you had any lunch?"

Her brain and muscles apparently decided to work together as she answered his question, "I had something on the plane…"

"Alright, give me two minutes," he said as he turned to re-enter his office.

"Sir, I…" she began, but was cut off.

"Hey, if you flew all the way from Colorado Springs to D.C., and if you were pacing outside my door for fifteen minutes, then I think you're here to talk to me about what I think you're here to talk to me about…" he paused an extra moment between the last few words and trailed off at the end while a puzzled look crossed his face. He shook his head and smiled again when he noticed that Sam had ducked her head slightly, grinning at his sentence structure. "Then we're going to want to be somewhere other than a hallway… and we might as well go to lunch since neither of us has had any… I'll buy, make you feel better?" He concluded the thought when he saw a hint of doubt and hesitation flicker across her features. "So, just give me two minutes and we'll go down the street to a place I know of that serves the best seafood," he explained as he went around his office, locking his file cabinets and logging off the computer. "Shall we?" He asked sweeping his arm down the hallway after he had fully locked up his office.

"We shall," she answered with a grin, falling easily into their normal banter as they walked together down the hallway to what Jack hoped would be the start to a great rest of the day.