Chapter fourteen

One month later on December 1st...

Janet and Sam stood in the commissary, surrounded by rolls and rolls of red and green crepe paper streamers, packages of red, white and green balloons and boxes of glass ornaments. On a nearby table there were a few cardboard boxes containing various Christmas decorations too. General Hammond was just leaving them to their task.

"Well, ladies, I'll let you get to work!"

"You don't have to leave on our account, Sir! In fact, we'd be happy to have your help, if you've got the time," Janet said.

"Actually my granddaughter has a recital tonight, and I have to be at the school in thirty minutes. Good-night, ladies!"

"Good-night, General!" they both called out, watching as the bald man left the room.

"I brought all of my tree decorations down here, because I'll be away for Christmas this year. But I will be having a New Year's Eve party," Janet assured Sam.

"Oh? Are we invited?" Sam asked with a smirk. She knew they would be. She just liked to tease her best friend, who tended to put off till tomorrow what she should have done today. In her private life Janet was a bit of a procrastinator, but at work Dr. Janet Frasier was quick and efficient.

"Yes, of course you're invited! You'll be getting your invitations one of these days. So are you and Jack planning to do anything special during the holiday break?" Sam knew that Janet and Daniel were going skiing over the holiday, and that the two were getting quite serious.

"Funny you should ask; Jack and Amy and I are going to his cabin in Minnesota for a week," Sam said, as she tried to suppress her smile. Janet took one look at her face and screamed.

"Sam! He asked you, didn't he?" Janet shouted gleefully.

"Asked me? Asked me what, Jan?" Sam asked innocently.

"You know what, Sam. Now fess up!" Janet pleaded

"If you mean did Jack ask me to go to somewhere romantic with him...then yes, he did."

"But Sam, did he ask you to marry him?"

"No, not yet. But I think he plans to while we're there," Sam assured her.

"Well, just in case, maybe you had better take along something special to wear. You know...maybe a white wool suit?"

"Actually I plan on taking a new teddy I bought at Veronica's Secret," Sam confided with a wink

"Oh! I'm sure that will put him in the mood," Janet nodded, but a wedding suit was what she had in mind, not a skimpy piece of bedroom apparel. Apparently Sam thought a romp in the hay was more important than a wedding band. If that was the case, then Jack and Sam were even more alike than she'd imagined!

"Jack doesn't need to be 'put in the mood'. I tell you, that man is the horniest..." Sam heard footsteps and stopped just in time, because who should walk in but the man himself! Jack strolled over to the table where Sam was removing the decorations from one of the boxes.

"I thought you two would be finished by now," he said with obvious annoyance. He could see that this was going to take a while, and his plans for him and Sam that evening didn't include decorating the commissary for Christmas. ...planning for their Christmas trip maybe, and a lot of hot wild sex DEFINITELY, but not THIS!

"No, Jack. Remember I told you I had a test to complete first, before I could get to this?" Sam reminded him.

"Ah, yes. Well, I wanna go home," he whined, and Sam smiled up at him. "You and Amy can go home without me, you know."

"I know, but we don't want to," he said with a pout, reaching out to put a large hand across the back of her neck. She continued to pull out decorations, while Jack's hand began to squeeze and massage her neck muscles. When he worked his hand slowly and seductively down to the middle of her lower back and his fingers stretched toward her bottom, she turned toward him suddenly, causing his hand to lose contact with her backside.

"Ja-ack, not here," she whispered, eyeing the security camera. Even though they were allowed to be together off base, touching her familiarly ON base was still a no-no. "I'll be home in a few hours," she said softly. "You take Amy home and fix dinner. I'll be home by 20:00, I promise!"

"Okay, but I'd rather you came with me," he whined some more.

"I promised Jan I'd help." They hadn't even started yet, and there was a lot to do.

"What's Daniel doing? Why can't he help? Or some of those nurses of hers?" Janet overheard him and raised an eyebrow at him. Just then Daniel, Teal'c and Ferretti walked into the big room. Ferretti whistled.

"Whoohoo, girls! The place looks better already," Ferretti joked.

"Smart ass! It WOULD look better, if you MEN had been here to help! We had to carry all this stuff down here from the parking lot by ourselves," Janet complained, but she gave Daniel an affectionate smile anyway. She knew that he had been busy working in his office, but she had a feeling Teal'c and Ferretti, and Jack as well, had been goofing off all day.

"I'll see ya later, Sam. Amy and I will be waiting, so don't be very late. Okay?" Jack squeezed her arm and let his hand slide down it, until he was gripping her fingers in his.

"I won't be. I promise!"

"Yuck! All this lovey dovey crap is making me sick! I wish you two would get married already," Ferretti complained, making a sour face.

"And who says the lovey dovey stuff ends when you get married, Ferretti?" Janet asked him. They all watched as Sam puckered up and mouthed a kiss to Jack, who mouthed one back to her as he started for the door.

"I say it does! You can ask my two ex-wives!" he replied in a sarcastic tone of voice.

"Stuff it!" Jack yelled back at him, but he smiled when he said it. Then he was gone, and Sam was left standing there, staring at the doorway.

"I can help you decorate now. Then maybe you girls won't have to stay so late," Daniel offered.

"I too will assist," Teal'c said.

"Great! There's a Christmas tree in that box over there. Daniel , you can begin by putting it together for us," Janet told him.

"Teal'c, since you're tall, why don't you help Sam put up the crepe paper, the pine garland, and the mistletoe. And don't forget to use all three colors of the streamers. Twist them together like this. They will look better that way," Janet instructed, her tiny, nimble fingers turning the long pieces of paper.

"Yes, Ma'am!" Sam shouted, giving Janet a mock salute.

"What can I do?" Ferretti asked, as he stood to one side and watched, his hands on his hips.

"I don't know. What CAN you do?" Janet asked the man, her tone hinting that perhaps he was not qualified to do much of anything.

"Hey! I resent that insinuation!" he griped, and everyone laughed.

"Come on, Ferretti. You can help me with this tree. I think it's gonna take two people just to get it out of the box," Daniel said, pulling out the directions.

Sam had already cut and twisted several lengths of crepe paper garlands, and had shown Teal'c how to make more. With her guidance he strung the pine garland around the doorway and around the tops of the food cabinets. Then he got up on top of the ladder and began to affix the crepe paper streamers along the upper walls with a staple gun. Figuring this might be a good time to run down and see if Jack and remembered all of Amy's things, Sam headed down to the infirmary level, where the child care center was located. She rounded the final corner and was about to enter the room, when she noticed the door was ajar, and she could hear two people talking inside. Sam wasn't usually one to eavesdrop, but this time she couldn't help herself. The two voices she heard made her stop in her tracks and listen.

"It's not like I did this on purpose, Jack! I'm as shocked as you are. In fact the only reason I thought to run the test this soon was because someone told me you knocked up Carter. She said Amy is yours. Anyway, that made me stop and think that we should have used protection. Well, I guess we should have alright, because now I'm pregnant!"

"Shit, Sandra! This is just peachy!" Jack yelled.

"I'm sorry! God, you act like I planned it or something!" Sandra yelled back.

"Did you?" Jack asked, the low timber of his voice making it almost unrecognizable. But Sam could tell when he was angry, and right now he was VERY angry.

"No! After Tyler, are you kidding? I never wanted to have another kid! In fact I don't much want this one! I just wish it wasn't yours," she whined. "You know how I feel about you, Jack," she said softly...so softly that Sam could just barely hear her. Sam edged closer to the door, so she could hear better. Her chest actually hurt, but there was no way she wasn't going to hear what Jack had to say to the woman!

"I know. And I'm sorry. I really am." Apparently Sandra was encouraged by his response, so she continued to work on him.

"You say you love Sam, but if you really do, why haven't you married her? You two even have a kid, and still you haven't married her. Maybe you just don't want to be chained to anyone, Jack. Maybe you're not made that way. Or maybe you're afraid someone like Sam is just not right for a guy like you," she suggested. "We're good together. You know that. And I wouldn't mind just living with you...raising our child together. You wouldn't have to marry me."

Sam waited, trembling with trepidation, to hear what he would say next. Would he choose Sandra over her, this new baby over Amy? God, she was dying inside, but she had to hear Jack's answer.

"Sandra, we've had this discussion before. You know I don't love you."

"Then what am I supposed to do? I can't raise two children by myself, Jack!"

"I...I don't know. I can't think straight right now. I'm going home. I'll call you later," he said.

Sam backed up, turned around and headed down the hallway as fast as she could. She wasn't even sure why, but for some reason she didn't want Jack to know she'd been snooping.

Sam went back to the commissary and began working alongside the others, although her mind was not on the task at hand. She could think of nothing else but Jack and the fact that he had lied to her about sleeping with Sandra. And soon she'd have to go home and face him, and she had no idea what she was going to do or say.

TBC