Hi all,

This is a little bit of introspective of what I imagine is Jack O'Neills headspace early on in the series when he just keys into what's going on. We meet the Colonel on a warm evening on his porch, alone with his thoughts about the recent events and his 2IC.
As always: Charcters are not mine and only borrowed for some fun.

After "The Serpent's Lair" and some thoughts about Daniel's stint in the parallel universe in "There But for the Grace of God"

Travelling Thoughts

When the lid of the second beer bottle of the night pops of and hits the wooden deck with a dull clinking sound, Jack O'Neill still can't stop his thoughts from going round and round again. Ever since Daniel returned from this parallel universe, making a short statement about him and Carter being engaged to be married, his thoughts go haywire. It's not, that he hasn't seen Carter, really seen, he means. Not the uniform, not the scientist but Sam Carter.
He saw her the moment, she entered the briefing room more than a year ago, when his face slipped into the first real smile in months without him having any saying in it.

But after that, he just shut that part of his brain down. Because it's not what she's supposed to be. She's his second in command, she is a brilliant scientist and so much smarter than all of the rest of them combined, she is a warrior as much as he or Teal'c are.

But she can't be a woman in his eyes. Because if she is, it's that small smile on his face again, that's not supposed to be there. Not right now, thinking about her. Not then in the briefing room, when she put all of them down with a rather pathetic speech about her being female and very well capable of everything he is.
Then he said, he liked women just not scientists. What he really meant, was he liked her. From the moment, she stepped into the room, he was taken aback by her. And her attempt to ground him, to put him into his place and to stand up against him without any hesitation just made him very aware that in other circumstances, she would be the woman, he'd take home with him.

Jack groans in desperation, when he kicks the lid of the bottle against the wall of his house. His thoughts have taken a road, he shouldn't allow himself to follow. But he can't help. Not tonight, not with the looming adrenalin still pondering through his veins.

It was always hard for him to come down the high of a mission. The more secret it was, the more dangerous, the harder it got. It doesn't get more secret or more dangerous than to blow up an alien space ship in earth's orbit while being on it. In the past, he'd return home to Sara, get the steam and the surplus testosterone of in her arms in the save space his marriage was.

He misses being married for a lot of reasons, but right now, he realizes, that this is just another reason to add to the list. Another one is, that he wouldn't find himself alone on his deck, thinking about his second in command in a totally-against-the-regulations way.

When Daniel brought it up, their engagement in another reality, Jack was quick in stating, that it's against the regulations, his eyes on her blue ones and that she said, it would be possible while holding his gaze, totally screwed with him. He knows very well, that she meant the other universe, that her super brains were on the scientific fact, Daniel presented them with.
Jack might play dumb a lot of times, because it was the easiest way to let his science colleagues get their heads into that stuff. But he knows, that the parallel universes before were a mere theory at best. There wasn't any indication, that it could be true, other than mathematical equations.

Though he knows that she meant the parallel reality, his brain jumped to another notation of her statement. The one that was pure fantasy to begin with. He should be glad, that she didn't get on that train of thoughts with him. The Air Force regulated Colonel in him, is glad about it. But the man Jack O'Neill isn't. And tonight, this is not the Colonel standing on his deck, but the man.

He knows, that he has to get a grip on himself, before he gets under the mountain in the morning. He has to get the young, blond, brilliant, smart, beautiful, blue-eyed woman out of his system. When he closes his eyes against the cooling night-time air, he sees here blue eyes in front of him. They are pretty, the kind of get-you-in-major-trouble pretty, the kind of she-isn't-aware-of-said-trouble pretty.

It's probably the only thing, that'll save him. That she is not aware of the effects, she has on him. Or probably she is, because she might know that she is good looking, that she is attractive. But then he is 16 years older than she is. To her, he's probably just another old, greying superior who's a little beyond his time on the front line. He chuckles slightly. She would be correct with that assessment, with his bad knees and pushing fifties.

If everything just went like it should have, he wouldn't be on a testosterone high because of blowing up a space vessel filled with snake infiltrated humans. If everything would have gone, as it should've, he wouldn't even know about the snakes. He'd been retired for almost 5 years now, with a wife at home and a son in high school. They'd probably tried for that second child they were always talking about and he wouldn't have had a Captain Samantha Carter getting under his skin. It's a sharp tang of pain and guilt, when the thought arises, that not everything is bad about the things that went down so wrong.