Chapter Four: An Interesting Invitation

A/N: Enjoy!

"So you took the weekend – the whole weekend – off to go to a wedding and you didn't tell me." Jack had pouted all the way back to the lobby, pausing only to greet a few personnel along the way.

"Well, sir, I didn't think it was something you would care about." Sam picked her way through this particular conversation carefully. Had she wanted to use this wedding as an excuse to forget about the very unattainable colonel for a night? Maybe. Had she been a little worried that he would make fun of her? Also maybe.

"What, you didn't think I would notice that you just weren't on the plane back to the SGC?"

Sam's heart did a funny little thing here that she chose to ignore. "I figured that you would be sleeping for most of the flight, sir. Besides we've taken different transports in and out of DC before."

"Yeah, but I was thinking -," Jack cut himself off abruptly, ostensibly to wave at two SFs, but Sam was reasonably certain he had never seen those two men in his life.

"You were thinking?"

"Easy, Carter."

"Sorry, sir." But she couldn't help the grin that pushed at her lips. "What were you thinking?"

"Better." He shot her a look as they emerged into the late afternoon autumn sun, the street around them filling up with rush hour traffic. "I had been thinking that I could finally convince you to come fishing. I know a great little place in Minnesota where the bass grow this big – sorry." Jack pulled his hand back against his body quickly, giving the woman he'd accidentally knocked into an apologetic look.

Sam was pretty sure he'd court martial her if she laughed out loud in his face, so she settled for turning completely away from him while she tried to reign in her laughter. When she turned back he was glaring at her, which, honestly, just made her want to smile even harder. Seeing this, Jack took a measured step forward, slowly and intentionally invading her personal space.

With no small amount of pleasure, he noticed her smile falter as her eyes flicked down to his lips for the briefest second before finding his eyes again. He felt more than heard the catch in her breath as he let a dangerous smile tilt the corner of his mouth up.

"Colonel…" Sam didn't know what she was supposed to say only that she knew she should say something.

"Mrs. O'Neill." 'What?'

"What?" Sam's extremely confused question echoed his own.

He had definitely meant to say "Carter." He was 100% positive that he had meant to say "Carter." But despite this certainty, he had most definitely not said "Carter."

So now he had to make it seem like that slip was absolutely and completely intentional and definitely not in any way an accident.

"Ha. Gotcha." Raising a single finger, he pressed it gently to the tip of her nose and then spun and strode away down the street where he simultaneously realized two things:

He had just effectively 'booped' his second in command on the nose

He was going the wrong way

Blinking stupidly into the sun-drenched street, Sam took a few seconds to reflect on the last few minutes of her life. Huh. Definitely not anything even she could have predicted. Looking back up, she located her colonel almost immediately in the packed street and noticed just as quickly that he was making a beeline for the National Mall instead of where the transport vans were waiting.

Debating for a half second whether she wanted to follow him, she finally decided that this was probably still all her fault and she should at least try to make up with him before he got on his flight back to Cheyenne. She had a sudden idea – it was dangerous, but so, so tempting…

'Sir, wait up!" She called when she had finally jogged close enough for him to hear her. She wasn't exactly dressed for exercise and he had gained a good amount of distance before she'd decided to go after him.

"Major." 'Ah, yes, much safer.' Jack mentally patted himself on the back.

Blowing her bangs out of her face, Sam grinned up at him. "I don't want to go fishing, sir."

"Ouch. Jeez, Carter, do you have to look so gleeful when you shoot me down?" He pressed a sarcastic hand to his chest.

"No, sir. What I mean is," Sam paused under the guise of catching her breath, but really it was because once she said what she wanted to say, there was no taking it back. She had a sudden and vicious understanding of how much the colonel was really putting himself out there every time he asked her to go fishing and she said no. A fleeting sadness filled her heart with that thought, but she had to push it out of her head. Not right now. "What I mean is, do you want – I mean, would you want to gototheweddingwithme?" She finished all in a rush, too nervous for his answer to even ask properly.

Jack blinked twice, his eyebrows arching upwards. He turned fully to face her, finding himself not for the first time that afternoon standing much too close to her. Their chests were practically touching, for crying out loud. "I'm sorry, I did not quite catch that."

His smirk practically guaranteed that he had, but Sam cleared her throat and took the bait. "Would you want to go to the wedding with me?" She squared her shoulders and set her jaw as she met his eyes determinedly.

Letting his head drop ever so slightly to one side, he brushed an imaginary piece of lint from her shoulder. "Why, Carter, I'm honored."

Sam's jaw clenched and she ignored the disappointed thrum in her heart. "Forget it, sir. I know it's not fishing-,"

"Well, now, hold on." Jack turned and took a few steps away, fingers to his chin as he pretended to mull over her offer. "That's quite the invitation, Carter."

Sam huffed an amused, but indignant breath. "You don't have to go, sir. I just thought if -,"

"But, Carter, I didn't even bring anything to wear." He swept a hand dramatically down the length of his jacket.

Biting back her laugh, Sam fixed him with a glare. He was messing with her…did that mean he was saying yes? "Your dress blues are perfect, sir" She didn't want to admit it, but he looked damn good in uniform. Even if she knew first hand how uncomfortable that uniform could be. "I'm wearing mine too."

Jack wasn't even surprised. He wasn't sure, but he'd be willing to bet that Carter didn't have much in the way of formal clothes outside of her dress uniform. "Maybe no?"

"I'm sorry, colonel?" Sam blinked, unsure of what exactly he was saying no to. Her invitation? Their uniforms?

Sure, so a wedding was not exactly what Jack had pictured for this weekend, but if he played his cards right he may end up with the same result he'd hoped to get by asking Carter to go fishing one last time. Maybe even a better result. But he didn't want to spend their weekend in a uniform that did nothing but remind them of their working relationship per military ranks…even if the recent change in regs had blurred those lines a little bit.

Besides, Carter didn't yet know that there had been any significant change to regulation. General Hammond had hinted that the memo wouldn't go out until next week even though the dispensation was effective immediately. And then the older man had basically emphasized that Jack could tell the members of his team prior to the memo's release. You know, if he wanted to.

Jack wasn't always the fastest on the uptake, but he had gotten the message embarrassingly loud and clear. This was okay.

But because his major didn't know that, he didn't really want to be wearing glaring reminders of the thing previously preventing them from even discussing how they may feel about each other…

"Yes to your invite. Yes, I think it would be fun to go to the wedding with you." He told himself that he had not infused too much eagerness into his tone, but the rapid blinking Carter was clearly trying to win a world record for told him that he had miscalculated. Oh well. Anyway, "But maybe no to the dress uniforms."

"I, well, I didn't bring anything else." All she had in the overnight bag she had stashed in the locker at the convention center was some underwear, a pair of pajamas, some sweats and sneakers for the plane, makeup, and a few toiletries.

Jack winced, knowing what he was going to have to suggest all along. "Then, uh, shopping?"

Now Sam was sure he'd lost his mind. "Shopping." Her tone indicated disbelief. Her slack-jaw staring indicated she was convinced he'd been taken over by an alien entity.

"Well, this is the Mall." He spread his arms wide to show where they were, taking care to avoid smacking anyone this time.

Sam stifled a real laugh. "Har har."

Grinning stupidly at her for a moment, Jack half rolled his eyes. "Look, I'm not suggesting we go shopping for hours or anything. I'm just saying, if we didn't want to wear the blues, we could go find something else. And then maybe get food."

"Are you hungry, sir?" Now things were starting to make sense. Her colonel was clearly suffering from low blood sugar.

"Maybe." He winked at her and turned his palms up in a silent question, 'Well?'

"Okay, sir. Shopping and then dinner."

"Brief shopping and then long dinner." He amended.

This time, Sam did laugh and Jack felt his heart thump in his chest. He knew they should enjoy these next few hours – once he said what he had to say tomorrow, there would be no turning back. They would either be okay or they wouldn't be. So he'd take this little excursion with his 2IC and he'd enjoy every second of it. Maybe he could even lay a bit more groundwork for the lead up to tomorrow.

TBC