[Originally published in 2007 by SJAuthor]
Chapter 2: Touchstone
Jack walked into the control room to find the rest of his team transfixed by the various monitors. Sam was running through 'gate records, and Daniel and Teal'c were. . . watching television? "Anything yet?" he asked.
"Not on the Touchstone, sir," Sam answered him, continuing her search for unusual activity.
"Possibly its effects," Daniel interjected. "Have you been watching the Weather Channel?"
"I'm more of a C-SPAN guy," he answered, hoping to solicit a grin from Sam's direction.
Teal'c, at least, didn't take any notice. "Observe, O'Neill," he said, replaying the report they'd just been watching.
Jack took a seat next to the two as he watched the story on unusual, heavy flooding. "And that's not all," said Daniel. "There's record rainfall in Albuquerque, golf ball size hail in the Panhandle, and three major rivers are cresting."
"Something is definitely altering this planet's weather," surmised Teal'c.
"And you think it's this Touchstone," said Jack. He couldn't resist playing devil's advocate. "Kind of a reach, isn't it?" he added for extra effect.
Daniel, sufficiently baited, immediately launched into his theory.
Jack turned back to the monitor disinterestedly. "We don't know it's on earth," he said dismissively.
"I'm thinking it is," Sam interjected. She started talking about transitory glitches and energy spikes. Jack gave her his undivided attention, watching her talk animatedly, and hardly taking in a word she said. He loved how excited and confident she became whenever she got a hold of a workable theory. "You remember what happened the last time the 'gate's power supply was overloaded?" she asked.
"It jumped to the second 'gate in the Antarctic," Daniel answered.
Despite the harsh circumstances, Jack immediately and fondly recalled his last conscious thought from that adventure: kissing Sam, albeit only in his mind. Maintaining his gruff façade, he simply said, "Yeah, thanks for the memory," as he stood to walk closer to Sam's monitor.
Jack casually glanced at Sam, while Teal'c asked her something. Jack was a bit too distracted to listen, because to his utter and complete shock, Sam was unconsciously licking her lips. There was just no way, he thought, glad he still had a hand on the back of his chair. No way could she be thinking of the kiss—it was his imagination, right? Jack shook himself out of his musings enough to hear the tail end of Sam's explanation. "Kind of like shooting off a gun when a train's going by," he surmised, blurting out the first thing that came to mind in an attempt to sound like he'd been listening. Well, he had been listening, he really could multitask, but the blank stares of his colleagues were making him hope he hadn't missed something huge while he was off in fantasy land. "To hide the sound," he explained.
To Jack's relief, Sam nodded with an understanding, "Yes, sir," and continued her work at the computer, attempting to verify her theory. He couldn't let this go, though. One way or another, Jack needed to find out if that kiss was real or not. The question was, how?
To be continued.
