"...that you love me," I sing as I make my way to Carter and her telescope.
I love Monty Python. This song is short and sweet and to the point. And I'd love nothing more than to have Carter sit on my face.
"Lots of interesting nebulous things going on?" I ask when I'm close to her.
"Yes, sir."
I move myself to the telescope and look through the eyepiece. It's daylight and I know darn well I won't be able to see a thing. But this is one of the cute little things I do with Carter to make her smile.
"I don't see squat." I can almost feel her laughing at me with my head still down.
"Well, you wouldn't, sir, during the day," she replies.
I stand straight up and play the dumb Colonel. And it works. Carter smiles at me. She continues to smile at me when she explains the next thing about this planet and its view.
"When the local sun sets and it gets dark, you can actually see a luminous layer of ionised gas around the dying core expanding."
"Fascinating," I say.
"You don't care," she says.
"Hey, I like gas as much as the next guy."
I turn and lightly touch her shoulder as I walk away. She laughs. I like that I can still make Carter laugh.
"Five hours to darkness, sir," she reminds me.
"Okay," I acknowledge.
I sit down on a rock to tie my boots a little tighter. I notice something on the ground. It's a badly-creased photograph of a woman. As far as I know, there have been no humans here. So how the hell is a photograph presumably from Earth here?
"Carter?" I ask.
"Yes, sir?"
"We've never been to this planet before, have we? We meaning humans from Earth."
"No sir, why?"
I start to show her the photo, but I am interrupted by Jonas calling on the radio.
'Colonel, Major. You have to see this,' Jonas says.
"Okay. You'll have to let us know where you are," I reply into my radio.
'Right. Ah, head east,' he tells us.
I tighten my second boot up and stand to face Carter.
"Alright, you heard the man. Let's saddle up and move out east," I say, pointing my hand to my right.
Carter laughs a little bit at me and averts her eyes downward. She raises her eyes to me and she has a huge smile on her face.
"What?" I ask.
"East is that way. Sir," she says, pointing in front of us.
I look at her with my smarmy look. The one where I look like I already knew that.
"I knew that, Carter," I say with a smile. She rolls her eyes at me and turns to get ready to leave. I really like our quiet and fun moments alone.
We gather up our gear and grab our P-90's. We start the walk East to find Jonas.
"I never knew you could sing, sir," Carter says.
"What do you mean?" I ask.
"Oh, well I heard you signing as you walked to the telescope just a few minutes ago. It wasn't too bad," she says a bit sarcastically. Is she flirting with me?
"Well, I'll have you know I was in a band in the 70's."
"A band?" she asks with wide eyes and mischievous smile, "Oh, do tell. Uh, sir," she quickly adds.
"Oh, yes, Carter. It's true. We were huge. Very huge. We called ourselves Jack Dean and Dante", I said, glancing over to her. My band was never popular. But we had fun.
She had a huge smile plastered on her face. She was enjoying this.
"Let me guess. You had a mullet?" she asked, not even trying to hold back the laugh.
"C'mon, Carter! You know mullets were the 80's. But I had longish hair. I probably had a mullet. It was a long time ago," I said, letting my eyes settle on the horizon, still walking towards the East.
It was a long time ago. Over twenty years ago. Before Sara. Before….and I stop that thought. It was before the Stargate and before Carter.
She didn't notice the change in me. If she did, she didn't let on. She was still smiling and looking forward.
"I know what song you were singing," she eventually said.
"What song?"
"The one just a few minutes ago. Monty Python Sit on my Face," she said rather assuredly. I watched her face and neck turn red. Oh this could be fun.
"I have no idea what you are talking about," I tease.
"You do too know," she said, trying to get me to acknowledge that it was that song. Of course it was that song. She doesn't know that I know that she knows that I know. You know?
"I do? I would know a song about cunninglingus?" I joke again.
She glances at me and giggles a little bit. Then she starts to sing.
"Oh, c'mon, sir, you know. Sit on my face and tell me that you love me, you know, that one. I can't believe I'm signing this in front of you," she said and turned a deeper shade of red.
"I don't think I know that one, Carter. Seriously," I try not to smile and give myself away.
We walk for a few more moments in silence. I hope I haven't made her too uncomfortable. So I try something different.
"Sit on my face and let my lips embrace you," I start to sing.
She laughs and glances at me.
"Life can be fine," she starts, then I join in for the rest of the song, singing with her.
"If we both sixty-nine. If we sit on our faces in all sorts of places. And play, 'til we're blown away!"
We both are smiling and laughing. Of course I know that song. This was fun singing with Carter.
"See. I knew you knew. You can't fool me, sir. I'd like to think I know you pretty well by now. And you are a pretty good singer."
Her words and her tone tug at my heart. I wonder if she knows just how much more I want to get to know her. I wonder if she knows if she ever sat on my face that it wouldn't be a cheap one time thing with her. For me, it would be so much more with her. Once would never be enough with her. I'd want her forever.
"Oh ya? How well, Carter?" I ask, my voice perhaps a bit too serious.
She stops walking. We turn to face each other. She just stands for a moment looking at me.
"Um, what?" she asks nervously.
"Me. How well do you think you know me?" I ask quietly.
I'm a little nervous about where this may go. But it's not like we haven't had similar conversations in the past. Or have we? Or do we both come up with things we want to say, but then lock it in that fucking room of hers? I don't know. I'm about to turn and walk on when she starts talking again.
"Oh, well, I just mean that, you know, we work together. We have close quarters sometimes. We talk a lot. I don't know you like that to sit on your face or anything. I mean, before we did something like that, I thought we could go for dinner. You know, together. I'm going to shut up now," she said. She is rambling and I can tell she is nervous.
Then she turned to start walking again. As she walked by me, I gently grabbed her arm to stop her from walking.
"I'm sorry. I shouldn't have...I didn't mean to…" I say, stumbling over my words.
"I know. I'm sorry, too. I kind of started it," she replies.
My hand was still on her arm. We stood there and stared at each other for a while. Or what felt like a while.
"You OK?" I ask softly.
She looked down at my hand on her arm. I watched her inhale, and let it out. She looked up at me. We were so close I could kiss her.
"Ya, I'm fine. Maybe one day," she whispered.
We didn't take our eyes from each other. Here we were again, saying what we could not say in the silence between us. I really hope this changes one day.
"C'mon, let's get moving. Jonas sounded excited about something," she says.
"Ya, right. OK. Let's go," I agree.
I feel her place her hand over mine that was still on her arm. She lets go and continues to lead the way to the location in the East that Jonas wanted us to meet him.
I bring up the rear as I watch her rear. My mind keeps going over what she said. 'Maybe one day.' And a dinner date with her. I hope she remembers this conversation. Because one day will happen. I silently promise her that one day will happen.