It started that morning in the Commissary. It wasn't unusual for the Colonel to completely ignore what Daniel was saying, so his inability to answer a simple question wasn't exactly strange. What was strange, however, was the odd expression on his face, and the way he kept staring at her.
She'd caught him looking at her occasionally before. Before the whole Zatarc incident. He'd always look away when she caught his eye, or hold her gaze for just a moment, a look of something, (perhaps regret, maybe sadness, certainly nothing particularly happy) on his face. When he realised he'd been caught staring, she'd get butterflies in her stomach. When he held her gaze she'd share in those wistful feelings, and she'd have to bury the gnawing sense that she was missing out on something.
But this was different. For a start, she hadn't spotted him looking at her like that at all in over two weeks. She'd missed it. She'd had to tell herself she wasn't allowed to miss it, wasn't allowed to feel those feelings that caused him to look at her at all. They were supposed to be returning to their normal roles; Colonel and Major, CO and 2IC. She wasn't supposed to be missing the butterflies.
Except now he was staring again. Not looking away, not a wistful expression on his face. Outright staring. If anyone else looked at her that intently she'd have felt extremely uncomfortable. But something about having those deep brown eyes locked onto hers filled her chest with warmth and awakened the butterflies. She felt herself blushing and had to bite her lip to stop herself from grinning at him.
Then he looked away, and she missed him again.
"Sorry, Daniel, I wasn't listening the first time."
Daniel looked between Sam and Jack, confused, and just a little offended. "Right, thanks…"
He'd been staring at her right before the briefing started too, a dopey grin on his face. Not subtly. And this time she couldn't stop herself from smiling back.
"What are you smiling at?" She had to ask, the colour rising in her cheeks.
He was gazing right into her eyes, a dreamy expression on his face, and she felt naked.
"Nothing."
And then the General had come into the room and he'd looked away. As the General sat with his back to Sam, she shot a glance back at the Colonel, but he was paying far too avid attention to Daniel's presentation. Which was even weirder than the wistful look he'd been giving her. She forced herself to focus on what the General was saying to Daniel.
"What have you got for us Doctor Jackson?"
"Uh," Daniel began, "with the help of Teal'c and Jack I've managed to complete the translation. As I originally suspected, P4X-639 was once a colony of the Ancients. They thrived there for thousands of years until they were struck by some sort of unspecified cataclysm, perhaps a disease but we'll never really know for sure. Uh, in any case, facing certain destruction, they built the time machine."
"They were gonna go back and change their history," Jack piped up, "to avoid their fate."
"Right. But it didn't work. Instead of sending a team of scientist back to the key moment in their history, the device caused a short-term, continuous loop. Just like the one we've been experiencing. They experienced the same day dozens, perhaps hundreds, of times, trying to get the machine to work, but in the end… they gave up. They shut it down, and let the end come."
"So, the loop can be broken?" Asked the General.
Sam caught sight of Jack nodding and allowed herself a moment just to look at him as Daniel continued talking. He'd lived hundreds of loops. The same hours, over and over again. He must be exhausted. And yet… and yet, he'd looked positively gleeful. Sam was puzzled. And there was nothing she enjoyed more than figuring out a puzzle. But now was not the time. She turned her attention back to Daniel.
"…deals specifically with the geomagnetic storms that power the device. Apparently, they recur every fifty or so years. Which is why, incidentally…"
"Yes Sir!" Jack interrupted. "The loop can be broken."
"I was getting to that. When we activate the symbols on the altar in the right sequence, I think we can shut it down."
"Colonel, have your team geared up and ready to embark in thirty minutes." The General commanded.
"Yes, sir." He stood up and shot another grin at Sam over the General's head. Sam bit the inside of her cheek to suppress a smile.
They'd managed to shut it down, though Sam had felt her heart sink a little hearing the Colonel's passionate speech to Malachi. They'd returned to the SGC, no time loops, just a de-brief, and an agreement between SG-1 to meet in the Commissary for breakfast the next day.
Sam had spent her evening finally giving herself time to work out her little puzzle. Her only conclusion was that something had happened during the loop to make him look at her like that. Part of her wanted to imagine what that might have been. What would she have done given the opportunity? Endless loops… no consequences… She knew exactly what she would have done. And, therefore, exactly what Jack had done. She smiled to herself, wondering how far he'd taken it.
The next day, at breakfast, Sam let herself watch him. There was something bizarrely sexy about the way he was eating the oatmeal, she thought.
"I don't think I've ever seen anyone enjoy oatmeal so much." Daniel said.
The Colonel looked up from his spoon. "When you've been eating Froot Loops for who knows how long, a little variety helps."
As he returned to chewing on the oatmeal, Sam forced herself to join in the conversation and stop focusing on the spoon.
"Well, we got a message from the Tok'Ra. Apparently, they've been trying to contact us for over three months."
He didn't look particularly interested, though she supposed three months of the same few hours repeatedly would do that to a person. "Really?"
"Who knows when they first realised that we were cut off. I mean there's really no telling how much time passed."
"Let me ask you something," Daniel started, "In all the time you were…uh…looping, were you ever tempted to, erm… do something crazy?"
Sam's ears pricked, and the Colonel looked up.
"I mean, er, you could do anything without worrying about consequences." Sam wondered if Daniel knew something. Maybe not what had happened during the time-loops, but had the Colonel told him about the Za'tarc testing?
She looked at Jack as he replied.
"You know it's funny. You've asked me that before."
"And?"
Then Jack was smiling at her again, and she had to stop herself smiling, in case Daniel didn't know and she gave anything away. She tried to look confused as she turned her face towards Daniel, who was staring between the two of them. Well, if he didn't know about the feelings between them before, she was pretty sure he did now.
But Jack just kept staring at her, spooning oatmeal into his mouth. And the butterflies in her stomach woke up once again.
