Title: Land of Sky Blue Waters

Four hours later, Jack stopped work on the wiring in the addition, deciding it was time to break for the day. The sun was streaming through the windows he'd framed in the last time he was here. They were going to miss the afternoon, which had turned out to be beautiful after the fogs of the morning had cleared. The air was crisp; the sun was shining; the lake was beckoning and reds and golds of fall in Minnesota were at their best. It was definitely time to stop.

He wiped his hands on a rag, put it in his back pocket, and headed out into the living room. He pulled out some topos of the area off the top shelf next to the fireplace and opened them up on the table, mentally revising his plans for them for the afternoon. Carter was clearly intent on having a busman's holiday, and given that his own inclinations lay in that direction anyway, he saw no reason not to accommodate her. His review complete, he replaced the topos they were unlikely to use today, pulled his binoculars out of the drawer, and headed back to the workshop, where he'd last left Carter happily mired in the electrical connections between the solar batteries and propane generator.

What he found was precisely half of her. The rest was underneath the generator, muttering.

"Sam." She ignored him.

He tried again. "Sam, it's nearly--".

The next few seconds were a blur in his memory. There'd been a flash of electricity, and before he knew what had happened, they were both on the floor, she was out from underneath the generator, and his upper body was covering hers with his arms and shoulders protecting her head.

"Sorry."

"Damn it, Sam..." He stayed put, still recovering.

She leaned back and pushed up on her elbows, staring at him apologetically. "I know. I thought I could adjust the current flow more efficiently if I monitored it while the system was active. Dumb."

"Yeah, it was." He ran his hand along her hairline and then the side of her face. "Your hair's singed and your face is... greasy?"

She shrugged, staring at him, questioning. " I don't know--maybe the generator gears?"

"Yeah." He knew he should get up; he was practically on top of her, but for some reason he couldn't move. It didn't make sense. They'd been through a lot worse on a good day off-world. Of course, off-world he expected accidents, crises, whatever, on a regular basis. Here, they were as about as safe as he ever felt these days.

He shifted off of her, and then took out the rag he'd used earlier in the day from his back pocket and started wiping the grease off her face. She stared back at him, her eyes wide, but he looked away from her gaze, carefully working at the grime. Somehow, he just needed to do that; just needed to... whatever. She stayed surprisingly quiet during his ministrations and he was silent himself, damning himself for being an idiot. But the thing was that he'd already decided he wasn't going to let anything happen to her, not in his lifetime and not on his watch. The idea that anything could happen in the safest place he knew left him more shaken than he was ready to accept.

"Sir?" There was honest confusion in her voice, and he thanked whatever was out there that she couldn't read his thoughts.

He handed her the rag and pulled himself together, his tone gruff, but hell, he couldn't quite help that, and that was normal anyway.

"Carter, the next time you plan on possibly electrocuting yourself and burning down a building during this trip, I expect some advance warning. I'm on vacation." He sat up, his elbows on his knees, hands clasped between them, and tried for calm. The whole damned incident was just flat out embarrassing.

"Oh, for.. " Then she stopped, suddenly seeming to understand, and smiled. "Noted, sir. The next time during this trip that I plan on burning down a building I will warn you in advance."

He grinned back at her, glad that they were back in synch, and she was willing to ignore his aberration. "Thank you." Relieved, he changed the subject and got back to the point at hand. "It's nearly noon. We should call it a day on this. I'd like to get some time out on the lake."

She maneuvered next to him, her shoulder next to his and absently played with the rag he'd handed her, seemingly lost in thought. "It was pointless to try improving the plan anyway. It's too good; and the way the back-up connections have been wired between systems is especially well-done."

She paused and then looked at him inquiringly, smiling. "I'd love to talk to the designer. Who did it?"

There it was. The question that he'd successfully avoided all morning, and yet, at the same time, was slightly annoyed that she hadn't figured out.

Her eyes were twinkling and he realized there was no need to explain. Exasperated, and still slightly unnerved from the accident and his reaction, he resorted to sarcasm. "Why bother to ask when you know the answer?"

She smirked, not picking up on his mood, which was odd. Carter always picked up on his moods in the field. Maybe vacations were just an anomaly, or maybe this was all a very bad idea.

Sam shook her head, as if confirming some private thought. She shrugged and smiled. "No need to answer, sir. If you don't want to admit to anything, I un--"

He broke in. "Admit to what?"

She grinned, and started reciting from memory. "Jonathan 'Jack' O'Neill, born-"

"That's OK, Carter. I think I know when I was born. As far as I know, senility hasn't hit yet."

Undaunted, she continued. "Commissioned in 78 with a B.S. in Engineering, Airforce Academy, overall GPA 3.5 out of 4. MS in aeronautical engineering '80."

He stared at her and kept his tone calm, hoping that just the monotone strength of it would carry the day and save him from a possibly embarrassing conversation to come. "What have you been doing, breaking into the classified SGC personnel files?"

She shrugged, meeting his gaze, seeming not to notice his irritation. But then Carter was always good at ignoring him when she thought something was important. And that was a scary thought… his past should not be important enough to her for her to pay attention.

" That's about the only piece of your record that isn't classified. I found it in the Academy database when I did some guest lecturing there last summer."

Before he could say anything, she broke in again. "And c'mon, sir. After all, you are a commissioned officer, not enlisted, and everyone knows that the minimum educational degree required for the rank of Colonel is a Masters, an MBA or a law degree. Somehow, you don't seem like the type for the last two. "

"Yeah, well. So, what's your point, Carter?" He'd hoped that would be enough to stop the conversation, but when Sam was on a roll that seemed naively optimistic, even for him.

"Besides, I've seen you in action. Even your training in explosives and as a pilot can't account for the way you operate in the field."

"You're imagining things, Sam." He shifted, uncomfortable.

"I'm not. But I guess I would like to understand why you're so reticent about what you know. A lot of the suggestions you've made about how to solve some of the problems we've faced in the last three years have been really helpful. There was the time when we were off world with Catherine and your Franklin reference about electrical current; and you were able to hook up and jury-rig the power source in the alternate reality in seconds, and don't tell me that was Kawalsky because I won't buy it. And then there was when you suggested how to save Teal'c's symbiote. "ER", my tail. You knew that we'd missed that basic biochemistry states that there's a small electrical current going through all organisms, and just made up the example of ER and the paddles to point it out."

She grinned, thinking. "Have you even ever watched ER?"

"Of course I have." He raised his eyebrows in mock outrage, ignoring the first piece of her comments, focusing on the last, and tried to divert the conversation back to the casual, where it belonged.

She stopped, suddenly diverted. "Really?"

He grinned, starting to relax now that the conversation had veered away from the personal. "Really. I saw a few commercials for it during the Simpsons and decided to check it out."

She stared at him, surprised. "Why?"

He shrugged. "Wanted to make sure Frasier hasn't been pulling a lot of fast ones. To be fair, their needles look bigger than hers, not that I'd mention that to anyone but you. Wouldn't want the Doc to start to feel competitive." He grinned again. "And I gotta admit, that as Carter's go, that one's pretty scary as well."

She rolled her eyes, smiling. "Oh, for – it's not going to work, sir. You still haven't answered my question."

He took the rag from her hands, fidgeting with it himself. "If I've mentioned anything that helped, I'm glad to hear it. But all of that's pure accident, Sam. I'm not a scientist and never was. "

"Sure."

"I'm serious."

She looked out the window of the workshop, smiled, and shrugged, accepting his comment. Somehow that annoyed him even more than talking about himself so he offered a bit more as a truce of sorts.

"OK, yeah, I know explosives and how to rig them up and, yes, I've been flying for a long time, but that's it, Carter, that's all there is to know. I graduated over twenty years ago, and what I remember, which isn't much, is as out of date as it gets. I may have the calling cards, but I am not an engineer. I never was."

She looked skeptical and then grinned. " Yeah, sure you betcha, sir, anyone could set up this kind of electrical system."

"It's common sense."

She smiled a full-blown smile. "Of course it is. And of course, no one needs to mention that it's damned good; it's better than good and it's based on solar technology that's only came out in the last year."

"Sam, can we drop this?"

This time she caught his tone, and backed down immediately. "Of course, sir. Consider it dropped."

"Good." Relieved, he stood up and pulled her off the ground as well. 'So, I was thinking that.."

"It's just that –." She stopped suddenly. "Sorry. That was out of line, sir."

He sighed. He should have known that Carter, being Carter, couldn't let anything go once a question was percolating in her brain. It was an annoying characteristic when he was the focus of her attention, and yet, that same intensity was what had saved their butts so many times he knew he had to give her some slack. She was Carter, after all.

"For crying out loud, Sam, just get it over with and ask me what you want to know."

"Nothing. Really, sir. "

He stared at her, exasperated. "What?"

"I just thought—well, this is … It's just that I thought this trip was off the record. I thought you invited me up here as a friend."

"I did." He stared at her, confused by sudden change of direction in the conversation.

She stared back, her blue eyes mesmerizing him in their honesty and their questions. "I guess I just.. well.. I guess my question is do you usually refuse to talk about your background with your friends?"

He blurted out the first thing that came to mind. "Uhh… actually, yes."

"Oh." She looked stunned by his admission.

He defended himself. "Ninety-five per cent of what I've done for the last twenty-five years is classified. I've gotten used to not talking."

She smiled. "I do have clearance, sir. "

"So did Kawalsky, but he never wanted to know what I studied at the Academy."

"Yes, sir." She turned away, and began to clean up the tools she had left out that were lying on the workbench.

Oh, hell. Now, he felt like an ass. "Sam, I'm sorry. Finish your question."

"It's really not important, sir."

"Damn it, Sam. I know I can be ... a bit difficult at times, but I am trying here. "

She grinned. "A bit difficult?"

"All right, maybe I can, upon occasion, just possibly be a serious pain in the ass, but you are not helping in the slightest. So, just…" He gestured for her to continue, and she bent her head, considering.

"Sure?"

"Yes. Just get on with it."

She crossed her arms, thinking. " I guess what I'm saying is that friends do know more about each other than '95 of my life is classified.' They usually ask, and answer, questions about themselves in order to get to know each other better. I'd kind of hoped that--well, honestly, sir, this is really not important."

She turned away and started fiddling with something on the bench. What was surprising him more than her words was that he could have sworn he'd seen her blush before she'd turned away. Sam Carter blushing for any reason was a new idea he couldn't quite wrap his head around.

And more to the point, she had a point, at least from her perspective. From his, the last time someone had wanted to 'get to know him better', he'd been twenty years old and the inquisitor had been Sara. And to be honest, he couldn't imagine having this conversation with Teal'c or Daniel. On the other hand, he couldn't imagine Teal'c or Daniel staring at him in quite the same way Sam was now that she'd turned back again. It was doing strange things to his breathing.

He broke eye contact, and tried to focus. The fact was that Sam was a brilliant, beautiful woman, emphasis on the female part. And he'd never been friends with a woman before. It was entirely possible that there were a whole new set of rules that he needed to figure out, and he was pretty sure that the first was not to mention that it seemed that being friends with a woman appeared to be … different. Carter would be sure to kick his ass. Besides which, for all he knew, maybe this was just Carter being Carter and he was extrapolating wildly. She was a scientist, after all. Maybe she really did expect him to talk science when he could.

He grimaced. The only thing he really knew for sure was that he was way in over his head and didn't have the sense to bail when the boat was sinking. But the real truth of the matter was that he doubted he could refuse Carter anything. He hadn't been able to often in the last three years. No reason today was going to be any different.

Still, he did have some sense of self-preservation left, and right now it was screaming at him to clarify what she'd said. "So, you're suggesting solar energy systems and uhh… degrees are… friends… topics."

She shrugged.

And you're suggesting we could talk about stuff like that, off the record on this trip, as … friends."

She shrugged again.

He cleared his throat, repeating himself. "So… like friends."

"Yeah, like friends."

He grinned, and let the boat sink. "I can do that."

"Uhuh, sure you can." But this time, she was smiling and she'd turned back from the bench.

He tried avoidance one last time. "You sure we can't just talk about the Broncos chances this year?"

"I told you, sir. I don't follow—"

"Yeah. You don't follow football." He sighed loudly and, he hoped, clearly regretfully.

She grinned. "It's all right, sir. I think I understand."

He leaned back against the bench in the workshop and then lifted himself onto it, looking at her, determined now that he had sunk the boat to just dive in and see if he could swim back to shore in time. "No, it's OK. I can cope, Carter. Ask me what you want to know."

"That's all right, sir, really."

"No, you started this. Now ask."

"You sure you can handle this, sir? I would want to … frighten you or anything." If anything, her expression was a full-blown grin.

He grimaced, conceding. "Cute. So, shoot. I can 'handle it'."

She jumped up on the counter next to him and they sat shoulder to shoulder. She tilted her head, thinking. "OK, let's start with something simple. How many languages do you speak?"

"Languages?"

"Yes, sir."

He stared at her suspiciously. "You're not going to mention this conversation to Daniel, are you? Given his …enthusiasm for all things intellectual, if he even has a wiff of the fact that I've studied anything ever, he'll probably expect me to start conjugating Latin verbs or some such rot in a future life."

"Completely confidential, sir."

He was still distracted. "Why that? Why are you asking about my academic background? It's such old news even I've forgotten it."

"I guess that's why."

"Because I've forgotten it?"

"I –no, sorry. Because it's part of your past and as I said you never talk about your past. Besides, it seemed like a safe topic."

"Safe?" Jack finally, suddenly made the connection about the different levels of the conversation, acknowledging and finally understanding some of the differences between them. In his experience admitting to any kind of knowledge was tantamount to giving up power. If your opponent was aware of the extent of your understanding, your options were limited accordingly. For Sam, however, talking about academic credentials was like asking the time of day. It wasn't about power; it was just data.

And truth be told, she did have a point. They were hardly opponents. There was no reason not to answer her questions.

"Yeah, OK, safe stuff. That sounds good."

"Languages?"

"But I'm not playing if you keep calling me 'sir.' " If he was going to have to talk about …safe stuff… he was at least going to get something out of the deal.

"We went over that last night."

"No, we straightened out part of the friends part last night. You're upping the ante, Carter, and if you keep calling me sir I'm likely to forget that I agreed to a new pot, and fold, clam up, or start issuing orders when things get a little…"

"… uncomfortable?"

"…friendly."

"It's not a dirty word, si--"

"Ah--," he broke in, correcting her.

She grimaced, giving in. "Jack."

"Try the whole sentence on for size, Carter. Repeat after me: 'It's not a dirty word, Jack'."

She groaned and then smiled. "It's not a dirty word, Jack."

"See? That wasn't so hard."

"Are you going to answer my question or not?"

"What question?"

She practically ground her teeth. He smiled, amused. It was definitely fun baiting her.

"How many languages do you speak?"

"Oh, that one. None."

"Not possible."

"Well, I do speak English, of course, although not the four syllable variety you're so fond of."

"Jack."

He smiled, liking the sound of his name coming from her.

"Give."

"Ah.. jeez, Carter. All right, so I fulfilled the required two years of study of a foreign language at the Academy. And before you ask, Spanish, but what I remember, which isn't much, just enables me to get by in casual situations if I have to. Satisfy your curiosity?"

"Nope. You forgot to mention that you must know some Serb and Arabic. You have to have had some immersion courses. The Air Force wouldn't have sent you on some of the missions you described yesterday without them."

He snorted, suddenly serious, remembering part of the past that he did his best to forget. "Yeah, I was immersed all right. Most of what I know of Arabic includes the basics: food, water, blood, pain; the usual polite chat you pick up when you're being tortured with regularity."

She stopped smiling, suddenly quiet and very serious. "God, I'm sorry."

He interrupted, annoyed with himself. "No, Sam, stop. You have no need to apologize. I'm the one that's sorry. You didn't deserve that; it just came out. I'm not very good at this…personal discussion stuff. "

Her hand moved from the counter to cover his, a quiet gesture of support. "That makes two of us, then."

He left his right hand under hers and used his left to rub his eyes, thinking about the conversation. He tried for a combination of honesty, friendship and distance. It wasn't easy. "For what it's worth, Sam, I have talked to you more in the last twelve hours than I remember talking to anyone in the last six years. The only person besides you who knows I own the Cessna is Tom, and Harry's the only one out here, or anywhere for that matter, who knows the story behind the cabin that I told you this morning."

He swallowed and offered a bit more. "The thing is that most of what I've been involved in over the years I don't particularly want to remember. And, after Charlie died, and Sara left, I got used to not talking much to anyone. Habit, I suppose. "

Her worry was apparent in her eyes. "I didn't mean to intrude, Jack."

He shrugged. "You didn't. Sam, asking about electrical systems, credentials and languages could in no way be considered anything except casual conversation by any sane person on the planet." Swallowing, he tried to joke to break the tension. " And you should note the emphasis on 'sane' here, because I do think that's an important point you ought to be thinking about."

She gripped his hand and looked away, back out toward the window. "You're one of the sanest people I know."

He smiled to himself and returned the clasp. "If that's the case, you definitely need to get out more, Carter."

She just gripped his hand tighter and smiled, a private Carter smile, not really looking at him.

He watched the fall sun come in through the window, creating patterns on the workshop floor and adjusted his position on the workbench, pushing himself back with this arms locked, palms on the edge, to a more comfortable location. Sam shifted as well, her shoulder brushing against his as she moved. They settled into a comfortable silence, even while his thoughts were in overdrive. All told, he'd never been more unbalanced in his life, and that was saying a lot. He wasn't sure how it was possible, but Carter was able to take him from amused to annoyed to confused and back to amused in seconds. In the last day, he talked more seriously with her than he had to anyone in years, and yet couldn't remember joking quite so much as well. When she touched him, his emotions ranged from simple pleasure to desire to flat out lust. And he'd better get the last one under control, fast. But one thing was sure; given that he knew where this couldn't go, wherever it was possible to go he'd see out to the end of the story.

She finally broke the silence that had settled. "So, fishing."

He grinned, and let go of his meanderings. "Nah, I've changed my mind."

"We're not going fishing?"

The surprise in her voice was unmistakable; so was the relief. He stored the latter into his "ways to torture Carter" file, and continued. "Nope. Well, you're not. I am. Fishing's an active sport and you need to relax. I figured you might enjoy bird watching."

"Bird watching?"

"Not a member of the Audubon Society?"

"Haven't had that pleasure."

"Ah. Well, you're missing something. This time of year you should be able to sight Great Blue Herons."

"Is that right." The irony in her tone was unmistakable.

He called her on it. "Carter, sarcasm does not become you. And as for the herons, I should mention that they like to hang out in the tributaries entering the big lakes, so we'll need to do some scouting around."

"I see."

He grinned. Clearly, she was getting the point. "Yeah. Of course, if I was by myself, some of the folks around here might think it was odd if I was …exploring. I do have my own well-known preferences for fishing holes. But given that you're a bird lover, and want to see the herons, well, nothing could be more natural than looking around."

She smiled. "I'd love to look for herons. Sounds perfect."

"I thought you'd agree." And with that, he got up, and pulled her up off the workbench as well, ready for the rest of the day.