I've written this scene for both the POV of Jack and of Sam and couldn't decide which I liked better. So I'm posting them both. First up is Jack. Still at the cabin after Moebius.

(0)

Jack had a reputation, well deserved, for taking risks. He had spent his entire life seeming to take risks. Secrets were something he was used to keeping.

But what always looked like risks to the outside world were always calculated actions, taken after as much consideration as he could give them, with contingency plans and exit strategies.

Exit strategy was the most important, or so he had been trying to drum into Daniel's thick skull for the last eight years (without success.)

But this ….This thing with Sam. It was a risk. The biggest one he had ever taken. No Plan B, no fallback, and most certainly no exit.

They made this work or they failed on a grand scale.

At the moment he wasn't actually thinking of any of that. He was thinking that he hadn't had his arms around her since the rest of the team had arrived early that afternoon.

They were alone in the cabin with Daniel and Jillian off in the row boat somewhere on the pond and Teal'c energetically chopping wood in the cool of the evening. Sam was washing dishes, holding up her end of the deal after the guys had handled the grill and the chopping of the salads, table setting and general preparation and Jillian had tackled the potato salad and dessert.

Sam was wearing a white sweater with the sleeves rolled up to her elbows and a tight pair of jeans. She was currently off on a pretty rant about some show she'd seen on the Discovery Channel about the 100 Greatest Discoveries and how the hell had some of them made it into the top 10. Apparently she didn't think germ theory and penicillin should have been in the top 10 and they must have only let biology students vote on this thing. She was incensed that the Bernoulli Principle had been ignored entirely.

She had her back to him, which gave him a great view of her long legs and curved hips and delicious derriere – something he had spent eight years trying not to stare at. Her arms were in the sudsy sink and she was working industriously at the pots.

The sun was coming in the window and glinting off her tousled hair and he wasn't really thinking when he walked up behind her and slid his arms slowly around her waist and pressed close to her body in a possessive, familiar hug. He bent his neck just far enough to reach hers with his lips and echo kisses along the soft skin behind her ear.

Sam went completely still, stopped talking, stopping scrubbing the pot in the sink, almost stopped breathing. He nuzzled his face into her hair and said her name in a long, contented sigh.

It was wonderful and domestic and he realized that this was what he had wanted with her. All this time. All he had wanted was to be home, like this, with her. They had danced for years around true domestic tranquility, when the team gathered at his house or hers and they had the buffer of Teal'c and Daniel.

That was why he had been asking her all these years to come to the cabin with him. He had lived on Bases all over the world but this state and this place in it were really his home. He had wanted to see if she could belong here too.

And he was happy now because she liked it here. She was relaxed, moving around the cabin as if she had always been here, fitting into it like a comfortable pair of old jeans.

So he molded to her even more closely, clasped his hands one over the other against her waist and pressed his face against her precious head and thought Christ, this feels exactly like I knew it would and I want to stand here forever.

"So," he said, into her ear, "What would you put in as the number 1 greatest discovery of all time?"

He could feel the shift of muscles in her jaw and cheek as she smiled.

"Bernoulli," she said, instantly.

She started moving again, finishing the pot and rinsing it and her hands under the warm water.

"Oh yeah? What did he do that was so important?" He was murmuring it distractedly, eyes half-closed, breathing in the Sam-scent he adored.

"The theory of fluid dynamics," she answered, putting the pot in the drying rack and using a paper towel on her hands.

"Fluid dynamics?" Jack asked. "Isn't that kind of a strange thing for you to be enamored of?"

Sam turned in his arms and linked her fingers behind his back.

"It led to the theory of flight," she answered.

Jack gazed down into her eyes for a moment.

"Really?"

"Really."

"Good choice."

"Ya think?" she asked, "Without flight we don't have international mass transit, the space program…"

"McDonald's in Russia? Disneyland in Tokyo?"

She frowned at him but couldn't sustain it. She put her forehead against his chest and laughed softly, ruefully, affectionately. When she looked up again with a toss of her tousled hair her eyes were shining.

"Okay so what would you say was the number 1 most important discovery of all time? Beer?"

"I was not going to say beer," he said, definitively, shaking his head.

"Oh really? What were you going to say?"

"Was the number 1 most important discovery?"

"Yes."

Jack's head dipped, his mouth sought hers. "You," he said, and then he made it impossible for her to say anything at all.

(0)