Title: The Knitty Gritty Truth
Author: Christi and Katrina
Rating: PG-13
Timeline: After The Light.
Summary: Three weeks is more than enough time to get them in some serious trouble.
Author's Notes: Seriously, WHY isn't there more Light fic? I mean, it's basically a fic writer's cliché dream: they are trapped on distant planet together for a significant period of time. With a mood-altering alien influence. COME ON, people!
Also, I would like to say that before we started writing this, we had no idea that it was really the heart of Stitches. But as it turns out, it kind of is. Which would be why we go from an average of maybe four pages a fic to this insanely long opus.
--
Day One
Jack grunted, picking up a tub of supplies from in front of the Stargate. Hammond had sent more than enough through to last them for the first week - food, extra clothes, bedding, hygiene supplies, and a few boxes filled with recreational items to pass the time. They were set to get one more shipment that evening before the four of them would be on their own until the next check in.
He and Daniel worked smoothly, designating different corners of the room for different types of supplies.
"So what's the plan as far as sleeping arrangements go?" Daniel asked, picking up a storage tub off of the gate ramp.
Jack adjusted his own tub and followed Daniel to the temporary food storage corner. "Well, I figure we can hunker down here or where Loren has been staying for the time being."
"You realize, as you earlier mentioned, that this is a palace. I'm sure we could find actual sleeping quarters."
"I know," Jack said as he set his tub down, "but we probably should stick close to the crazy light room for a few days before we venture out and about. Carter and I didn't get too far down the beach before withdrawal kicked in."
Daniel set his tub down and headed back to continue clearing room for the next supply transport. "But after a few days we can break up the slumber party? I mean, short of the 'gate, doesn't seem like anyone is around to bother us."
Before Jack could answer Sam and Loren walked around the corner, "We just did another sweep of the areas closest to the light room. I didn't find anything that looked like a bedroom, Daniel. And no signs of any inhabitation either, sir. However, I did find a close substitute for a kitchen. And a bathroom."
Daniel sighed, wiping his brow. "Running water?"
Sam grinned, "Shower and everything seems to be in working order."
"Oh, thank God."
"You know, you two take the fun out of everything," Jack lightly growled. "Who needs a shower when you've got the ocean?"
Sam and Daniel exchanged looks.
"Technically, we don't even know if the water on this planet is safe, sir." Sam offered.
"And we camp on a regular basis, Jack." Daniel reminded Jack. "Well, given that we're not taken prisoner or captured or run off or…" Daniel stopped, and looked up at his two friends eyeing him. "What?"
"Are you trying to jinx us?" Jack scolded, his eyes widening as he tilted his head towards Loren, "He's kidding."
Daniel merely waved Jack away and moved to grab more supplies.
"Three weeks in an alien palace. You must be excited to check out the sights, huh?" Sam asked, falling into place behind Daniel.
"Well, the good news is I have three weeks to explore and collect as much as I possibly can." Daniel grunted, lifting a rather large tub. "However, the bad news is I only have three weeks to explore and collect--"
"—as much as you possibly can," Sam finished for him. Daniel flashed her a grin.
"I'll let you know if I find anything that looks technical and complicated."
"What about you, sir, any plans yet?"
"It's an impromptu vacation, Carter," Jack scowled. "I'm not ruining this by making plans. I figure I'll just go where the wind takes me."
"The walls are actually quite sturdy," Loren jumped in. "Not too much wind gets in here."
Jack opened his mouth and then shut it while Sam tried to stop the smile that itched at the corner of her mouth.
"Huh, good point," Jack recovered, heading to an area full of boxes. He pushed a few aside before leaning over a particular box, and then opening it to reveal a collection of sporting equipment. Picking up a ball, he walked towards the boy. "You know how to play catch, Loren?"
Day Two
Now that the basics were covered – power, plumbing, and the like – Sam felt more free to spend some time on fun things. And what could be more fun than studying the intricacies of wiring and technology that made up the Light machine?
…Yes, it was possible that she enjoyed her work a little too much sometimes. Someday, she might feel the need to work on that. For now, though, she was perfectly content being elbow-deep in alien tech.
"Well, that didn't take long," said an amused voice from behind her.
She should've known he would show up sooner or later. While this palace by the sea came equipped with many niceties, a lab wherein he could bug her when he was bored was sadly lacking. But apparently, he had decided that the actual setting was not a necessity.
Somewhere deep down, she suspected that she should probably be a lot more annoyed by his behavior.
Instead, she just grinned. "It was fairly predictable, wasn't it?"
"Wouldn't have it any other way," he assured her. "Just be careful with that thing. Going off the deep end and drowning myself in that ocean out there? Not on my list of things to do today."
"I'll keep that in mind, sir," she assured him.
"You do that," he affirmed, leaning against the wall and allowing the conversation to lapse. She turned back to her work, but was interrupted a short time later when he began pounding out a rhythmic beat against the walls.
Now it was her turn to be amused. "Sir?"
"Yeah?"
"Something on your mind?"
"Not really, no," he replied, watching her and then looking at the mess of exposed wires she had been examining. "Is it really so fascinating?"
"Not really, no," she parroted back at him, giggling at the surprised look he shot her. "Sometimes, alien tech is a wealth of information that can be applied to all sorts of useful things. Other times…"
"It's just alien drugs?"
She grinned. "Pretty much, sir."
He waved at the mess. "Well then, why bother?"
"There's nothing else to do, now is there?" she pointed out.
Jack groaned. "Don't remind me."
"Bored, huh?"
"Well, Daniel has Loren with him, which means playing catch is out for now. I'm starting to think I might need Hammond to ship a tv through next contact."
She tried to imagine how that request would go over and had to laugh. "Oh, I'm sure he'll love that."
"Don't think he'll go for it?"
"Somehow, I think your myriad of reasons why life is meaningless without The Simpsons will fall on deaf ears when it comes to General Hammond." At his disappointed look, she tried to think of something comforting. "You could always ask for a book."
He eyed her with a slightly wrinkled nose. "I'm more of a magazine guy."
"Sir, I've been to your house. You have shelves of books."
"Never opened one, I swear."
She rolled her eyes. "Right," she allowed, letting the subject go. "Come on, I'm done here. Let's go save Loren from Daniel's geeked out bliss."
"You are a great humanitarian, Carter," the Colonel proclaimed with a smile.
"Or I just have a really good sense of self-preservation."
"Or that."
Day Three
Contrary to popular belief, it wasn't that Jack lacked an attention span. He could deal with the occasional mind-numbing monotony as well as the next Armed Forces grunt.
No, what got to him is know that the monotony wouldn't end for at least another eighteen days. That was what had him crawling out of his skin.
Three days and he was already running out of things to do. While Daniel was off exploring the lower levels of the palace to his heart's content, Jack had run out of interest after the second and third hallways that looked just like every other hallway. And he'd already taught Loren how to play catch with a football. And a baseball. And a Frisbee.
He sighed and moved to grab his pack. He hadn't wanted to give in so quickly, but with Loren busy showing Daniel around and Carter off doing...something, Jack didn't see much alternative. Besides, he had a sweater he was working on for Cassie just waiting for attention. And given the situation, it looked like there was going to be a lot of down time while under this alien head-juice device. He looked around warily and then froze as his last thought hit him. A smile crossed his features as he now eagerly opened his pack and settled into a comfortable position.
"So, tomorrow you'll show me some of the rest of this place?" Jack could hear Daniel ask who he assumed was Loren.
"Oh sure," Loren eagerly responded.
As they neared Jack simply continued to loop his yarn.
"I had fun today." Daniel offered to the boy who rightly seemed overly starved for attention.
"It was good," Loren agreed.
The two entered into Jack's line of sight.
"Hey!" Loren's face lit up, "Oh, what's that?" He enquired, rushing over to examine the purple yarn and Jack's working hands.
"We call it knitting," Daniel answered, moving to set his pack down on his bedding.
"Now, Daniel," Jack admonished, a satisfied grin across his face as his hands continued to work, "we all know that you see things when you're high on alien drugs."
Day Four
Carter firmly believed that Daniel was going to get shot. By the Colonel. And that it would probably be sooner rather than later. She sighed as she followed the two bickering men to the kitchen-like room she'd discovered their first day here. In her arms was a crate full of every cooking and baking ingredient she could imagine and some she'd never heard of. An identical crate rested in the Colonel and Daniel's arms as they made their way down a hallway.
Sometimes, she wondered if Daniel drove Jack crazy on purpose. It hadn't even been four days and yet, the Colonel was already developing that twitchy sort of energy – part "I've been stuck in one place too long" and part "I've been in Daniel's company consistently for too long."
They had come a long way in four years, but no amount of brotherly affection could remedy the occasional basic personality clash.
"I'm just saying," Daniel was waving his hands now that his crate was resting on a counter, "It's been four days, can't we start exploring farther out?"
"Daniel, Daniel, Daniel," Jack set his crate down and began removing items, "I've explored as much as I want to at this point. If you think you can handle it, go nuts."
"And if I find a bedroom?"
"You'll have found a bedroom."
"And if I decided to sleep in said bedroom?"
"You want to sleep in a dead guy's bed?"
Daniel tensed. "It's a palace. With potential palatial beds!"
"You know," O'Neill leaned Carter's direction, "I've never heard him complain about camping before now. You give a guy a vacation in a palace and suddenly, all he wants is a five star room."
"You've been hovering over us for the past three days! We're fine. I'm fine." Daniel looked at Sam imploringly. "We're fine right?"
Carter's mouth opened and closed as the two men stared at her intently, "You know," she began, setting her own crate down, "I never did finish looking at the cooling unit over here. I think I'm going to go grab some tools…."
Daniel gave a tight smile in Jack's direction. "See, we're fine."
"Oh yeah, you're running off the only person who can fix up this alien-tech-kitchen. A bed, oh, a bed you're worried about. But food, non perishable food?" He turned to the ingredients.
"Oh, I'm running her off, am I?" Daniel practically stomped his foot, "If you'd just say yes, I'd be out of your hair and you two could happily mix and mingle."
Naturally, at that moment an out of breath Loren stumbled into the kitchen. "I heard yelling. What's going on?"
"Nothing," Jack answered tersely, glancing at Daniel.
Daniel crossed his arms over his chest, "I'll give you one more day of being paranoid," he growled before vacating the tension-filled room.
Sam smiled at Loren from the corner she had retreated to and shrugged, "We call it cabin fever. Don't worry about it, it'll pass."
"It's Daniel, of course it'll pass," Jack agreed as he turned to grab a can out of his crate. He held out the can to Loren, "Campbell's chicken noodle soup. You'll love this stuff."
Sam sighed. Daniel was definitely going to get shot.
Instead of dwelling on the men and their juvenile spats, she turned her attention to the technology in the room – always a welcome distraction. What appeared to be an alien oven had been a surprisingly quick fix so she'd moved onto the refrigerator unit. It wasn't nearly as complicated as she'd worried it would be. With a few more pokes, prods, twists, and turns she'd hopefully have a place to safely store anything the Colonel might make.
Which kind of boggled her. The colonel cooking. She'd been all set to eat MRE's the entirety of their stay. But suddenly he was asking her if she thought she might be able to get the units in the kitchen working. When she'd offered to take a look at it, he was quickly barking orders for Daniel to help him grab crates and move food items.
She turned one last thing before scooting away and replacing the panel she'd removed, "I think we're set, sir."
"Really?" He came over to examine the now humming unit.
"Yeah, from what I can gather it didn't have a cooling core, it was just a matter of redirecting the energy from the…"
"Yeah, yeah," he interrupted, "you made it work. That's all I need to know."
"Yes, sir."
"We are so having lasagna!"
"Lasagna?"
"And meatloaf."
She cocked her head to the side, amused. "Okay."
"Maybe some steak and eggs…" he continued before turning towards her, "You cook, Carter?"
"Not often. Or well."
He smiled. "No matter. You know what's best of all?" She couldn't help smiling back at him as his eyebrows jumped, "Beer."
She raised an eyebrow. "You really think Hammond is going to let you have beer?" she paused before adding a belated, "sir."
"Hammond, no. But I have my ways." He didn't even try to look sheepish.
She took a deep breath, studying him. He was in a considerably better mood now. "Sir," she began, grabbing his full attention with her tone, "he's not entirely off base, you know." Her declaration caused his brows to furrow, but she continued on. "Daniel…he's right."
His eyes narrowed, "Is he?"
"A few hundred yards in each direction is going to drive him nuts. And if this morning is any indication, you won't be far behind him."
"Well, what do you suppose I do about it, Major?"
Her jaw tightened, but she refused to back down. "Test it yourself. Set a perimeter for him each day until you don't need to."
He eyed her, scratching aimlessly on his arm, "I'll think about it."
"Thank you, sir." She let out a puff of air and turned to put her tools away. That had gone much better than she'd anticipated.
"So Carter, you wanna go for a walk or something?" he asked with a familiar, crooked grin.
She spun to look at him incredulously. "You didn't mull that over long."
He shrugged. "Well, you're right – better me than Daniel. And company might keep me from, y'know, throwing myself into the ocean or something."
How do you turn down an offer like that? "Sounds good."
--
Well, it had sounded good. In theory.
Like most things involving Jack O'Neill, the reality was quite a different thing. Because as Sam was starting to realize, walking alone with her CO on an alien beach had been a fatally flawed plan to start with.
Beaches were places for friends and family and…well, dates. Not bosses. Keeping the Colonel strictly regulated to the CO portion of her brain required enough effort without placing him against the enticing backdrop of soothing ocean waves and salty wind tossing his hair about in the breeze.
Not to mention the lack of conversation. Because really, what was there to say?
"At least the weather's not so bad here," he finally offered in place of the silence.
"Yeah," she agreed with false enthusiasm.
Interesting – Sam now knew for certain that weather made a lousy conversation topic no matter what planet you were on.
As it turned out, there really were some things she'd rather not know.
Day Five
Gazing at the gargantuan bed before him, piled high with entirely too many pillows, Jack just shook his head.
"Annoyed that Daniel was right?" Carter asked from the doorway, an amused undercurrent lacing her tone.
"Well, does it have to happen so damn often?" Jack retorted, spinning to look at her. "Between the two of you, it's enough to give a guy a complex."
She just smiled rather than needling him further, which of course forced him to smile back. "If you hurry up and strip the bedding, I'll wash it with mine," she offered.
"You're washing the bedding?"
The look she shot him this time was distinctly less pleasant than her previous expression. "You're not? It's been sitting in this abandoned castle for God only knows how long, gathering…whatever."
He turned back to the bed and eyed the pile of pillows with that new and disturbing thought front in his mind. "That hadn't occurred to me." Now, he wasn't sure he'd ever forget it. "Hey Carter?"
"Yeah?"
"Maybe we should check all the mattresses, too."
"Oh, definitely," she agreed fervently.
Because working with Carter was easy and familiar, they breezed through the work together. Efficient hands stripped beds and flipped mattresses and he even refrained from throwing one of the extraneous pillows at her – though curbing the impulse actually required a lot of effort.
By the time they had dumped all of the linens in the giant pot she had found somewhere and filled with boiling water, he was feeling a distinct need to get out for awhile – to separate himself from all things that were Carter and bed in the same sentence.
That sentence never ended well.
"Walk?" he suggested hopefully.
Sure, yesterday had been weird and awkward. But in his mind, Carter with a side of weird and awkward was yards better than no Carter at all. And just because he needed to not gaze at her over an armful of bed sheets, didn't mean he couldn't spend time with her.
"Sure," she agreed after a moment's hesitation.
--
Jack wasn't sure which was worse, talking about weather or not talking at all. Normally, he was a man comfortable with silence – he even preferred it most of the time. But with Carter, he didn't want silence. He wanted…well, a score of things he wasn't supposed to. Seeing as he couldn't have those, he didn't think it was too much to ask for a short conversation. They managed all right inside – not great, but all right. Why was a walk on the beach so much harder?
"It's windier today," Carter said abruptly, apparently unable to stand the awkward silence any longer.
And now, they were back to the weather. Why had he thought it was a good topic yesterday? "Yeah. Not bad, though."
"No," she agreed. "There are definitely worse places to be stranded for a few weeks."
"Like the planet with the tar pits," he offered.
"Or the one with the giant bugs."
He raised an eyebrow. "Which one?"
She laughed, "Good point."
Studying her face out of the corner of his eye, Jack knew that he was right about this – there had to be a way to talk to her, really talk, without bringing in work to grease the wheels. And he would figure it out. If nothing else, the law of averages had to be on his side by now.
Day Six
"Hey Sam, can I show you something?"
Sam looked up from her breakfast. The colonel had made omelets and her fork was half way to her mouth when Daniel, a plate of his own balanced on his knees, had spoken up.
She nodded, chewing quickly before answering, "After we finish up here I'm all yours."
Daniel took a bite and glanced at Loren who sat across from them intently staring at his own untouched plate, "You might want to try it before Jack comes in here."
"It's yellow."
Sam frowned. "You've never had eggs?"
"I don't remember eating anything yellow. Brown and gray, mostly."
Daniel and Sam exchanged a glance.
"My parents left rooms full of packaged food. Just add water."
Sam waved her fork at Loren's plate, "It may be yellow, but it tastes worlds better than ready-made meals." She took another bite and chewed carefully before swallowing, "You should at least try it."
"Try what?" O'Neill came into the room, a plate in one hand, and pulled up a crate next to Loren. "Something wrong with breakfast?" He asked, eyeing Loren's full plate.
Loren's posture straightened, "No, it's good. I'm sure it's good anyway. Major Carter and Daniel were just telling me that it's good…" He trailed off nervously and picked up his fork, "I was just waiting for you."
"You shouldn't have. Now yours is gonna be cold." Sam watched the colonel carefully as he switched Loren's plate for his own. "It's better hot," he offered at Loren's surprised look.
Loren brows knit together as he moved to taste the omelet before him.
"Sam, that thing?" Sam blinked and jerked her head ever so slightly at Daniel's interruption.
"Right." She stood, watching as Loren chewed carefully before he smiled up at Jack. She turned, barely shaking her head. This was a whole can of worms and she could see it slowly begin expanding from the inside out.
"It is good," she heard the boy affirm as she dropped her paper plate into the makeshift garbage can and followed Daniel out of the room.
"What's up?"
Daniel looked over his shoulder. "Oh, I found something yesterday I wanted to show you."
"How much did you explore yesterday, Daniel?"
"Well, I showed you the bedrooms, and the luxury bathroom. But I wanted to save this."
Sam raised an eyebrow. "Be careful Daniel. As much as you had a legitimate point in not wanting to remain cooped up, Colonel O'Neill has valid concern, too."
Daniel let out a long breath before admitting, "I know. But I was to the point where I preferred the possible suicidal ideation to any more time stuck in such a small area."
"It's just his way."
"Yeah, well, that's no excuse."
"No, it's not," she sighed. "But it's still his way. And you, better than anyone, know why."
"Well, it's not an issue anymore, is it? We came to an agreement and are fine."
She shot him a disapproving look. "I don't mind the end result, Daniel. Just…next time, maybe go about getting what you want a little better. Give him some slack."
Daniel eyed her suspiciously for a moment before asking, "Okay, what's going on?"
She met his stare, point blank. "I'm worried about him and Loren."
Daniel sobered instantly, confirming her fears weren't unfounded. "Yeah. Me too."
"But he'll be fine," she tried to assure herself, stopping at a doorway with Daniel. "This the place?"
Daniel watched her carefully before nodding and offering a smile, "I'd tell you to close your eyes first, but that's a bit cliché."
Sam smiled back at him and followed him into the room.
--
Sam sat surrounded by stacks of books, papers, and journals of various sizes. Daniel's room had turned out to be a study full of page after page of scientific, historic, and cultural research and information the previous dwellers had left there. While Daniel had grabbed a stack of books and taken them to his claimed quarters, she'd been so overwhelmed she'd simply grabbed a stool and a table and began discovering what she could.
"Pssst."
She jerked her head up from the book she had been absorbed in to see Jack poking his head around the doorway of the room. "Huh?"
He smiled, apparently amused at her reaction. "Hey, Carter. Take a breath."
"But-" she hesitated, glancing down at the tomes surrounding her.
"Come on, Carter. Let's get some fresh air."
"Yes, sir. I just need to finish up this last section," she said, flipping forward a few pages.
"Finish up later. You've been cooped up in here for hours. Time for a walk."
She frowned at him before standing, stretching her shoulders and back before she nodded. "After you, sir."
He grinned as he led the way to the beach.
"So…" he drawled out agonizingly slowly after they'd walked in awkward silence.
"So," she agreed.
Well, that had been pointless. Or so she thought until quite out of the blue, Jack exclaimed, "Alien drugs!"
"What?" Maybe she hadn't heard him right.
"We're on alien drugs!"
"Well, I wouldn't really put it like that, sir. It's not like we're voluntarily shooting up."
"Even better!" he insisted.
She was officially lost. "Okay…."
"I mean, we're trapped on this alien pleasure planet while our minds are being pumped full of these happy, mind-altering drugs, through absolutely no fault of our own!"
"Right…" Sam wasn't used to feeling like she was missing something. It was a disconcerting sensation and she didn't much care for it.
"And if those same mind-altering alien drugs cause us to do…" at this, Sam raised an eyebrow. His grin was immediate and unrepentant. "Okay, or say things that we might not normally do or say, well, who could blame us?"
The full implication of this actually made Sam stop in her tracks, staring at in him in growing bewilderment. This was…well, it was probably very wrong and incredibly stupid. But it was also irresistible. This was a man that she had spent four years tip-toeing around, afraid of doing or saying too much.
The idea that she could talk to him, just talk, without worrying about crossing some invisible line was…it was all she could have asked for.
"No one. No one could blame us," she agreed slowly. "After all, it's the drugs."
Their eyes met and the gaze held as they shuffled down the walk, basking in this new idea of freedom. "So, Carter…" he drawled finally.
"Yes, sir?"
"…What's your middle name?"
Day Seven
"Good morning, Daniel!"
Jack's downright cheery greeting obviously flustered the archeologist as the younger man rubbed sleep out of his eyes and blinked at Jack. "You're…chipper."
Unwilling to let Daniel's observation dampen his mood, Jack just shrugged. "It's another beautiful day here on P4X-347 and I'm making pancakes."
This idea seemed to cheer Daniel up as well. "In that case, I withdraw my complaint."
"Duly noted," Jack replied as he slid a few hot pancakes straight onto a plate. "Now eat up."
Happily, Daniel seemed more than eager to comply, and the next few minutes were spent in blissful silence. Seeing as he was with Daniel, however, it didn't last long.
"So listen…" Daniel started around a mouth full of syrup and cake, "I'm sorry about the last few days."
"Oh?"
"Yeah. I just…this whole situation is a bit…and we're finding so much to look at and learn…plus it's just…well, anyway, I'm sorry."
"Okay," Jack replied, wanting this conversation to end. At first, it seemed like it was going to, but then once again, Daniel couldn't let it go.
"Aren't you going to say anything?"
"Like what?" Jack asked.
"I don't know…maybe that you're sorry, too?"
"But I wasn't wrong," Jack pointed out. At Daniel's glare, he just shrugged. "Protecting you and Carter…that's my job, Daniel. It may not be fun, but sometimes, you just have to sit back and let me do it."
"I thought we were a team, Jack."
"We are. But we all have parts to play. Teal'c is on his jaffa quest. You do…research-y things. Carter gets our asses out of trouble. And I try to stop us from ever getting there in the first place."
"You can be…overcautious, though," Daniel pointed out.
Jack washed off the pan he had been using, careful to avoid eye contact. "I'm not sure that there is such a thing."
The silence that followed this observation was more serious than Jack wanted to deal with so he merely shrugged. "Just eat your breakfast, Daniel, and we'll forget all about it."
After all, he had more important things to do today. Like planning dinner. And playing with Loren.
And, of course, taking a walk with Carter.
--
"We're really playing the favorites game?" he asked skeptically.
"Hey, I know it sounds silly, but…I just don't think we actually know that much about each other outside of work."
"Carter, that's ridiculous."
"It's really not. Now. Favorite color."
"Peridot." She shot him a surprised look.
"What, you thought it'd be Air Force Blue?"
She shrugged and he smirked. "Favorite movie?" he asked.
"Mmm, I'm not sure. Not Star Wars?"
He thought about how many times they'd been forced to watch it with Teal'c and smiled. "Fair enough."
"Favorite food? No, wait, let me guess – Guinness."
"And you say we don't know anything about one another."
"No, I said not enough. Not really."
"Carter…" he stalled, looking at her. "I know you. You drink your coffee black. You hum under your breath when you work even though you can't carry a tune to save your life. You're happiest when you're elbow deep in a machine – I'm not even sure it matters what kind of machine, really."
"Those are all work things," she maintained stubbornly.
"Okay…" he drawled, thinking. "You still have nightmares about Jolinar and it freaks you out that you can sense Teal'c coming before you see him. You secretly want long hair, but think it would be too inconvenient in the field. You…" his eyes dropped to her neck and he smiled slyly, "have a very sensitive spot on your neck."
To his surprise, she didn't drop his gaze at the oblique reference, holding her ground despite the faint blush on her cheeks. "And you figured that out halfway through our first year on SG-1 and have used it to your advantage ever since," she said coolly. "But did you know that until I was seven, I wanted to be a ballerina? Or that when I cook, I crank up music and dance around like an idiot in my kitchen? Or that sometimes, I still write my mom letters, even though she'll never read them?"
He studied her in silence for a minute before turning away and continuing their walk. "No, I didn't."
"You know Major Carter, maybe better than anyone, and that's fine. But this…haven't you ever wondered if you'd like Sam as much as you do Major Carter?"
"Not even once," he assured her. "Troubling third person usage aside. Look, I realize that our situation is…unique. And I have no problem answering as many of these random questions as you want to ask. But Carter…I just like you. All of you. No compartmentalization needed."
Next to him, she stopped walking abruptly, and when he looked back, she was gazing at him with a brilliant smile. "How do you always say things like that without even meaning to?"
"The truth will usually do it," he pointed out with a smile before they began walking once again. "And Carter?"
"Hmm?"
"The kitchen thing? Very, very hot."
Her laugh was bright and happy. "I can't imagine why."
"Um, there's food and there's you dancing in your underwear. How could anything about that be more perfect?"
"But I don't do it in my…"
"Shhh, Carter," he hushed her. "Don't ruin it."