The good news was that Jack wasn't the only one running late. SG-1's Tuesday mission had turned into a four-day affair, but they'd returned nearly two hours prior, and Carter would be off duty in time for dinner.

The bad news was that those four days had encompassed all their time to talk specifics, so he had no idea what time dinner was actually supposed to be. Or any other details, frankly. And he'd had to run from a day of meetings at the Pentagon straight to a military flight, so he was walking into the SGC in his blues. With no game plan. It just wasn't the way he'd wanted to start this new phase in their lives.

But he'd been told their med evals were done and they were debriefing, which was progress, at least. He could hear Daniel's excited babbling as he turned into the conference room. "General," Landry greeted, and Jack wasn't entirely sure, but he thought he'd cut the archaeologist off mid-sentence.

"Hank. Everybody," he greeted magnanimously. "How was your little trip?"

"The Utallans are fascinating people, Jack." As usual, Daniel went from zero to a hundred in no time flat. "They have such respect for history. They've maintained pristine records, transcribing old documents to keep them legible. They have documentation all the way back to when the Goa'uld first transplanted them. It's really incredible."

He was obviously the only one who felt that way. Jack had no idea how long the briefing had been going, but even Landry looked over it. The other members of SG-1 had clearly reached that threshold long ago.

"I mean, they actually still teach cuneiform. Our most ancient written language, and their children can still read it! They do consider it an ancient language, but -"

"Daniel," Jack interrupted, "you know I have a dinner to get to, right?"

Carter perked up, but so did the others. It had nothing to do with their date; they were just happy Jack was going to make him shut up.

It didn't work. "Oh, yeah!" Daniel exclaimed, effectively rerouted. "Where are you two going?"

"None of your business."

The younger man scoffed. "What, you think Teal'c and I are gonna be peeking in the windows?"

"I guarantee you won't be. Because I'm not telling."

Daniel narrowed his eyes. "But you picked someplace nice, right? Italian, or steak, or… not O'Malley's?"

Jack just stared at him. And that might have ended things had his opponent been anyone other than Daniel. Who knew him a little too well. Because the next thing he said was, "You did make reservations somewhere, right?"

And he was caught. "Carter and I didn't exactly have a chance to pick a place, what with your four-day excursion into cubism, Daniel."

Every eye in the room turned to stare at him, silent. He looked only at the woman seated across the table, but she knew he was trying to read her. She closed her eyes.

Frankly, Jack thought that was cheating.

It was Daniel who found his voice first. "You didn't make reservations." It came out stunned, but the followup was downright accusatory. "You forgot to make reservations!"

"I'll be in my office," Landry excused, beating a hasty retreat.

"And I'll…." Mitchell didn't bother to come up with an excuse; he just headed for the door at speed.

"I did not forget, Daniel," Jack pressed. "Just as things occasionally happen to derail SG-1's schedule, bringing them in, I dunno, three days late, sometimes things happen here, as well. You are not the only team I oversee," he reminded the archaeologist pointedly. "This is not the only facility. And by the time I got around to something as menial as food, places were booked."

Daniel's eyes went impossibly wide. Even Teal'c raised an eyebrow, and Jack realized he'd made an even worse mistake. He turned back to the woman at the conference table, who still had her eyes closed and had bowed her head, as well. "I did not mean that last part like it sounded."

Her shoulders rose as she took a slow, deep breath in, then dropped as she blew it out. Finally, her eyes opened.

And she pushed back her chair and walked right past him to the exit.

Jack waited until she'd cleared the doorway to snap at Daniel, "Thanks a lot."

"Right. It's my fault," the younger man shot back acerbically. "Because it was going to go over so well when you told her she wasn't a priority to you later."

That wasn't at all what he'd meant, but he quipped, "We'll never know now, will we?" and trotted down the corridor after Carter. She wasn't hard to find; she could only be heading to her lab or the locker room, and she needed the same elevator for either. Sure enough, he spotted her heading that direction. "Carter. Carter, wait up," he called.

She didn't. And she didn't have to; he wasn't her CO anymore. Still, it drew glances from the other people in the corridor, especially when he broke into a jog to catch her. When he did, he told her profile quietly, "I'm sorry."

She turned up a hand in a shrug and kept walking.

"I really did try."

Coming to a stop in front of the elevator, she hit the button with her knuckle.

"Okay," he tried. "One to ten, exactly how pissed at me are you?"

"Honestly?" she asked, watching the elevator display tick closer.

"Honestly."

"Zero."

The doors opened, but Jack was too stunned to follow her in. Zero? What did that mean? Sticking a hand out to stop the closing doors, he stepped in beside her, just the two of them. "I don't… know how to take that," he managed.

Finally, she looked at him – really looked at him – and there were a thousand emotions in her eyes. But mostly, she just looked weary. The deep, deep down kind. "I just spent four days with the most annoying civilization in the known universe," she said sharply. "They were…." Frustrated, she bit back whatever she'd been about to say, then changed her mind and said it, anyway. Harshly. "They were like Daniel, frankly. Overexcited and positive that every little discovery would change the world and emotional and needy. For four days. Non-stop. And I might have been able to handle that if not for the actual Daniel, who fed on this energy like the world's finest caviar."

Jack blinked.

"Alien influence aside, I came closer to actually killing him on this mission than…. No, maybe including alien influence. At one point I thought Teal'c was actually going to take my knife away. So no. I'm sorry; I am not particularly upset that you didn't make reservations at some overly pretentious place where they clear the crumbs off the table with those little blade things. I mean, I am in the abstract, but I'm not right now. Because I'm tired. I'm exhausted. And if I have to put on a fancy dress and heels tonight and smile and pretend to be somebody I'm not, I am going to lose it."

The elevator doors opened and she stepped out.

And as the doors closed in front of his face, it finally occurred to Jack that he was supposed to follow her.

~/~

~/~

The detour Jack took was not entirely the elevator's fault. It took a solid twenty minutes for him to reach Carter's lab and the keypad that glowed red, signifying that the door was not just closed, but locked. It was possible, given the time delay, that she'd left. But he didn't think so. She wasn't the type to storm through the SGC in a bad mood. She'd gone to her haven and would stay. He thought about knocking, opted not to, and scanned his access card.

She was asleep at her lab table, her arms folded and her face buried in them. He thought she was asleep, anyway, until she muttered into her arms, "I'm really sorry, sir."

Jack stepped inside but didn't close the door. One of the conditions they'd agreed to was to keep it professional on duty, and the two of them locked in her lab was just poor optics. "I'm sorry, too," he told her, crossing half the distance. "I brought you something."

Her face read sheer misery as she shifted her head… until she spotted the parfait glass full of blue Jell-O in his hands. Her eyes softened one corner of her mouth turning up. Both hands reached for it, and he closed the gap between the two of them. "Thanks. I'm pretty sure my blood sugar's in the tank."

"Kinda thought it might be." Pulling a second stool closer, he perched on it as she took a bite, then another. "So, something you said in the elevator."

"God, can we forget about that?" she cringed.

"Most of it," he agreed. "But you said you didn't want to dress up and pretend to be somebody you're not. And I don't know if I know exactly what you meant by that, but I know this: I don't want you to pretend with me. Ever. I like you a lot just the way you are."

With a shy smile, she ducked her head and ate another spoonful of Jell-O.

"So." Jack rubbed his hands along the tops of his thighs a few times, putting off what he had to say next. "We should really try this first date thing again sometime. And I'll actually make reservations at a not-quite-so fancy place where they don't do the crumb scraping thing. How's that sound?"

"You flew all this way," she protested weakly.

"Yeah. And I can do that again." Hopefully sometime when her nerves weren't so raw and she'd actually slept. "But you're obviously not up for dinner tonight."

He'd meant to leave after that, but she was staring at him in the oddest way. Finally, her eyes dipped to the parfait glass in her hands as she offered, "I could be up for take out."

His heart leapt at the opportunity. "Are you sure? It's okay if you wanna go home and sleep."

"I… do," she admitted slowly. "But I need to eat, and I'd end up picking up food anyway, so…."

Jack couldn't stop the stupid grin that spread across his face. "Go home and take an hour for yourself. I'll bring something."

"Sounds good."

~/~

~/~

Sam really hadn't meant to fall asleep. She didn't even know when it had happened, but the crappy black and white movie he'd brought had ended long ago, ceding the screen to static. Her empty wine glass and the remnants of their pasta dinner, long ago cold, still sat on the coffee table.

With the benefit of a rested brain, it was so obvious – the dull movie, the carbs. General O'Neill hadn't let her fall asleep. He'd put her to sleep. Intentionally. She found that both obnoxious and incredibly sweet.

What he probably hadn't meant to do was fall asleep himself. She listened to his soft, even snores as she carefully moved his arm from around her and pulled away from her place against his shoulder. She wasn't entirely sure how that happened, either, but it didn't really matter. Tugging the afghan off the back of the couch, she tucked it up around his shoulders and went to bed.

~/~

~/~

Sleeping on the couch had been a terrible plan. In Jack's defense, of course, it hadn't actually been the plan – he'd meant to carry her to bed and go crash in the guest room – but he also hadn't planned on her falling asleep against his shoulder. Or how warm and soft she would be. Or how incredible it would feel to have her body against his without those pesky rules in the way, even if they were both dressed and she was fast asleep.

But his neck really didn't care about any of that, and he gingerly rolled his head from side to side, trying to loosen it up. His shoulders weren't complaining quite as loudly. But that wasn't saying much.

On the plus side, he'd spent the night at Carter's house, one way or another.

And that house smelled like bacon.

Turning his head – that was a bad idea – to see over the back of the couch, he spotted Carter at the stove, her back to him. Her hair was damp, and the light blue t-shirt she wore hugged all the right places. He could deal with a little bit of a sore neck for that. Running a hand through his hair, he pushed himself off the couch and to standing.

Okay, his back wasn't thrilled, either. "Morning," he offered, pleased that it came out smooth rather than as gruff and grizzled as he felt at the moment.

Offering him an amused smile over her shoulder, she answered, "Morning. Breakfast will be ready in a few."

"Feeling better?" He moved stiffly around the couch to the end of the kitchen island, setting his hands on it for a lack of anything else to do.

"Much." Cracking one last egg into a pan, she wiped her fingers on a towel. Then she closed the distance between them and pressed her lips to his cheek. She stayed close far longer than she really needed to, murmuring in his ear, "Thank you."

His heart puffed up in his chest. "For what?"

She shot him a look over her lopsided grin as she pulled back, because he knew exactly what. "How are you feeling?"

Not bothering to answer, he rolled his head side to side again and didn't attempt to censor the facial expressions that wrought.

"Mm. Sorry. I thought about waking you, but you were really out." Turning back to the food, she opened the oven door and peeked inside, then closed it again. "Bacon and eggs and cinnamon rolls."

The bowl of white goo beside her was icing, then. "Yum."

"What are your plans for the weekend?"

She was still busily tending the eggs and bacon, so Jack told her back, "My flight out's at eleven tomorrow. Other than that, I got nothin'." He'd been hoping to spend the whole thing with her, and so far he'd gotten lucky. Even if he hadn't actually gotten lucky. "You have stuff you need to do?"

"A couple of things," she told the stove top. "I can try to get some of the kinks out of your neck," she offered, and the thought of her hands on his bare skin brought his pulse up a bit. "I thought breakfast, then maybe a nice walk around the neighborhood. I need to vacuum, maybe some fooling around on the couch, laundry, an oil change -"

Thank God he'd actually been paying attention, because she'd said that so matter-of-factly he might have missed that invitation. But he hadn't. "Oh, now, hold on," Jack interrupted, stepping closer as the grin tugged at one side of his mouth. "You had a rough week. I really think you should simplify. One, maybe two things."

Flipping off the burners, she set the spatula aside and turned to face him, the playful smile on her face matching his. "Yeah? What do you think I should do?"

Another step put him close enough to touch her, and his hands landed lightly on her waist. "The fooling around part sounded good."

The grin widened, making her eyes sparkle. "I thought it might."

He couldn't wait another second. One more half-step closed the distance and he leaned down to kiss her, light and playful. She responded in kind, one hand on his shoulder and other sliding around his neck to hold him close. "No massage, then?" she murmured against his lips.

"Not of my neck."

She laughed at him through the kisses, molding against him as his arms encircled her and held her tight. His mouth found her jaw, then her neck, then the crease of her shoulder, and he tasted her with abandon even as the oven timer sounded and she reached back with one hand to shut it off. "The cinnamon rolls are done."

"Let 'em wait."

"They'll burn."

He frowned as she turned out of his arms. But she pulled the pan from the oven, set it on an empty burner, and told him, "They need to cool for ten minutes before I can ice them."

"Excellent." And they picked up right where they'd left off. His neck didn't like leaning down, though, and he crouched to scoop her up and park her on an open space on the counter.

Giggling, she told him between kisses, "I said fooling around on the couch."

"Oops." He kissed her again. "Guess that's still on the to do list, then."

"Guess it is."

His lips found the soft skin below her ear and he murmured, "It's gonna be a good weekend."

Her legs wrapped around his waist. "Yes, it is."