Hi everyone! It's my first try to do an english fic! This is the traduction of "Partir à la pêche" for ShipDay! Thanks you so much Dana for corrections. I hope you will spend a good time. Sorry in advence for my english and thanks all for support! Enjoy!
Episodes Tag: end of Threads/Moebius, saison 8
note: Stargate, its characters, its universe, ect. don't belong to me, this is just for fun
Edit: I tried to make changes based on the comments. thank you ;) I master the series well in VF but quite badly in VO and it shows, hence my fear of publishing in English. I hope it's a little better this way
Go fishing
.
"Are you sure you have taken everything you need, O'Neill?" The jaffa asked with an amused voice.
"It's not funny Teal'c!" Jack turned around, frowning.
"I never said anything like that O'Neill. " Teal'c said raising an eyebrow and the corner of his mouth in one motion.
"Yeah...I hear what you're not saying." Jack grumbled.
"Do you have hearing problems, O'Neill?" Teal'c asked, tilting his head slightly.
Jack stopped his movement, a much too heavy bag in his arms: "You're kidding, aren't you?" He stared at Teal'c for a moment until he was sure he saw the look of amusement he was looking for : "You kidding me."
Jack sighed as he looked at the mass of bags and trunks lying loosely at his feet in the base parking lot and his trunk which already contained at least as many.
"I did not remember we packing so much last time," Teal'c pointed out learnedly.
Jack could see what his friend was suggesting, he himself was trying to avoid thinking about it but he couldn't. It swirled over and over in his head, like a hellish carousel, and wonderful, and scary, potentially beautiful or deadly. Different scenarios swirled around in his mind, waking him up at night, distracting him during the day. Assessing the possibilities, the unforeseen, the risks, he knew how to do, that was part of his job, it had even now become the main part of his job but there... So he had tried to anticipate. To each problem a solution, to each situation its equipment. And now he had this whole pile of crappy, unstowable things in the truck and he felt shitty.
"Do you still have things to load in the truck, Teal'c?" Jack asked.
"No, O'Neill, I put my stuff in the trunk first."
Of course, the guy was planning.
"I suggest we put what does not fit in the back seat." Teal'c offered.
"And where are Daniel and Carter going to sit?" Jack grimaced.
"We will advise, if necessary, we can perhaps leave some of the objects at Doctor Jackson's house, or at Colonel Carter's?" Teal'c suggested, tilting his head slightly.
Jack grumbled, unconvinced, and opened the back door anyway before starting to toss the bags out the back without really caring about their position. They had wasted enough time as it was. Jack hated being late, especially to pick up Carter, especially now, he didn't want to worry her, she didn't need that, and they had to pick up Daniel first! Space monkey would inevitably be late. They would never be on time at Carter's!
"We really should have taken two cars," Jack muttered, slipping behind the wheel.
"Trouble, O'Neill?"
With a sideways glance, Jack caught Teal'c laughing, which didn't really help his mood: "Nope"
"Why did not you just go to the cabin with Colonel Carter?" Teal'c inquired.
"It's a team vacation, Teal'c! So, with all SG1," coughed Jack who had almost choked.
"You are no longer part of SG1," Teal'c noted.
Jack took the hit. Even though he knew it, it was still difficult and painful, it had been so from the first moment and it had lasted all year. He knew he had made the right choice in taking over from Hammond, but he also knew that it was not for him, he had just kept the place warm, waiting to find the right guy who he too could run the shop for a few years until Carter takes over. That had always been the goal, everyone knew it, except her probably, it wasn't just a personal whim, to see his second become general at the head of the SGC, all the brass familiar with the program were considering this possibility as an inescapable prophecy. Her successes rubbing certain of them the wrong way but Jack was determined to silence them if need be. Carter fully deserved all of this, but before that she still had things to live for and he knew it, she still had to travel the galaxies before landing in this famous armchair that Jack had found far too big for him. And to think that he was going to leave it for an even bigger one, at the Pentagon! But that, too, was necessary, Hammond was hanging up, he couldn't leave Home World Security in anyone's hands, and Jack confidently handed over the base to Landry. Everything was going to be fine. And then it was also necessary for the other thing, if there was finally something else at the end of these holidays...
"Are you okay, O'Neill?"
"Yeah," Jack forced himself to smile at him.
"We do not have to be a team to be a family," Teal'c said quietly.
He turned to the jaffa who gave him a comforting smile. He was right, of course, as always, great Jaffa wisdom, it had been a long time since they had left the team stage to become a family, even if he had tried to close his eyes to it. This relieved him while adding an extra layer to his angst: He was threatening that too. What if it didn't work?
"We will always be a family," Teal'c added confidently.
Jack frowned slightly, Teal'c regularly surprised him in this kind of moment, and Jack wondered if he had a special ability that allowed him to read minds, his own anyway. . He knew he didn't, but sometimes it was…disturbing.
% % %
Obviously recovering Daniel did not help matters, quite the contrary:
"For crying out loud, Daniel! Do you really have to bring all this?"
With one finger the archaeologist pushed up his glasses and stared at him:
"Are you kidding me Jack? Did you see everything you took? "
"Yes, but that's necessary," Jack protested.
"Really? But that too is necessary!" Daniel sneered, causing the air between them to vibrate.
"You took a suitcase of books Daniel! We're only leaving for a week!" Jack exclaimed.
"But we're just leaving for a week!" Daniel defended himself, waving his arms.
"And you'll read it all in a week?" Jack quipped.
"Of course. And I still have tablet from P…"
"Ahh!" Jack held up a finger under Daniel's nose. "We said: no work for a week Daniel!"
"No, you said no work for Sam, not for me", Daniel grimaced.
"For everyone Daniel! Even for you! Hiking and fishing, no work!" Jack asserted.
"Pffft."
"So that stays there," Jack bit back a laugh at Daniel's annoyed look and grabbed his suitcase.
"No, that's just the books I want to read, the dictionaries and notebooks are in the other one," Daniel growled.
"The travel bag?" Jack asked dubiously as Teal'c grabbed the huge, shapeless black thing by the strap." That ?"
Daniel nodded.
"Well then it stays in your house," Jack decided as he put the suitcase back in the truck.
While Teal'c was pulling Daniel's bag up to his apartment, Daniel pushed the things as hard as he could to try to attach himself to the back:
"It's tight," he commented sarcastically.
"You can sit down"
"And Sam?"
Jack sighed and grabbed the rear-view mirror to look at Daniel without looking back:
"What, Sam?"
"Where is she going to sit?"
"I'll tidy up better," grumbled Jack.
Daniel pursed his lips and shook his head.
" Mm-hm"
Jack was horrified when he did this:
"Okay spit it out Daniel."
The man passed a hand on the back of his neck, visibly a little uncomfortable before catching Jack's gaze through the rearview mirror:
"Did you take all this for her?"
"I don't see what you mean.
"Jack…"
"Daniel?"
Daniel rolled his eyes:
"Seriously? Do you want to play this again?"
Jack sighed:
"Nope"
"Good. So, Sam…"
"Sam," Jack repeated, trying to ignore how his heart raced when he said those three letters, he had long forbidden himself except in near-death or fever dreams.
"Sam," Daniel said, still staring at him.
Jack surrendered; Daniel wasn't going to leave him alone anyway:
"I just want…. Rah, listen Daniel, I don't know, we really have to talk about this?
"Yes, I think."
Jack felt his shoulders drop.
"I just want her to have a good time. She just lost her father…"
"And her marriage," Daniel added, pushing up his glasses.
Jack shivered despite himself, he didn't want to think about this wedding, he especially didn't want to think about Pete. As for the rest, for now, he avoided looking too much in the mirror, he would assess his share of responsibility in this massacre later, after the week of vacation: the guilt would always arrive enough vote anyway. This familiar companion had her habits, she knew all the paths leading to his soul, he trusted her.
"Yeah, that too," Jack finally admitted. "In short, I just want everything to be perfect, so I tried to prepare for all eventualities."
"Mm-hm."
" What?" growled Jack.
"Nothing," Daniel smiled as Teal'c settled back into the truck.
"Did I miss something Daniel Jackson?" asked the Jaffa.
A smile stretched Daniel's features as he turned his head and gazed aimlessly outside:
"Nothing, I was just telling Jack that these weren't things that were going to make Sam's weekend perfect."
"Indeed," Teal'c agreed.
"Coughing and spitting, coughing and spitting!" think Jack, chomping at the bit. He looked one last time in the mirror and put the car back on the road:
"Tell me one thing, Space-monkey: If the travel bag contained your work and your suitcase contained your books to read, where are your spare clothes?"
Daniel brutally suppressed his satisfied smile:
"Stop the car!"
.
% % %
.
Sam walked back down her driveway, looked to the right, walked back up her driveway, then plopped down on her porch with a sigh: an hour late. She stared at her phone screen: no message. She slammed the lid before sending a message or worse a call. He was just late. The general was not late. But there it was not the general, isn't it? It was Jack. Maybe Jack could be late? Maybe Jack had changed his mind? The idea twisted his insides beyond reason. No, it had to be Daniel and Teal'c who had made him late, yes, that had to be it. She tried to ignore the slanderous part of her being that told her that she was veiling her face. She didn't want any more pain, the year had been tough enough: Replicators, Five, Anubis, and then Janet, her father, Selmak, Catherine. The cements of her life had given way collapsing with them her foundations, she still had the guys, but she had been so close to losing them too. Daniel had only been back ten days. Teal'c had nearly died in Anubis' trap. And too often in her nightmares she saw Jack again trapped in the ice of Antarctica.
Even for her it was a lot.
And then there was the whole circus with Pete and that horrible marriage. How the hell could she get caught up in something like this again? She felt guilty. Guilty of agreeing to go out with the guy already, guilty then of saying yes to him, guilty of letting him hope when deep down she always knew it wouldn't work. Guilty of lying to herself, guilty of hurting Jack especially. Guilty deep down for not feeling guilty enough about Pete…
She was there in her thoughts when the familiar, reassuring sound of the truck's engine echoed through her neighborhood. Without even thinking she jumped to her feet, grabbed her duffel bag, and almost ran up the aisle.
You're getting carried away, whispered a little voice in her head, stop acting like a child...
Sam ignored him. Jack had told her «Always", he had been there, he had managed the funeral, he had hold her, he had left Kerry, or rather Kerry had left him, she knew it but Jack had accepted it with relief he had said he would find a solution… she had found a solution too… And then there had been his hand on hers at the briefing about the discovery of the ZPM and the strange tape and then that kiss, gentle, almost chaste, yesterday, on the porch when he had dropped her off at the house to pack her things. He hadn't changed his mind; he wasn't going to change his mind. He said "always" it was their time, it was now and forever.
Jack stopped the car beside her and gave her a shy smile.
"Sorry Carter," he began, walking around the car to join her, "we had some issues with uh…loading. "
She put her hands against the window to see better through the tinted glass. Daniel rolled down the window and she found herself face to face with glasses:
"Hi Sam!"
"Hello Daniel!"
One of the bags from the monstrous pile of objects cluttering the back seat lost its balance and ended its fall on the head of the archaeologist, who grimaced. In spite of herself Sam burst out laughing, the tension of the last few days which was no doubt trying to escape.
"What is all this?" she gasped looking at Jack but it was Daniel who answered:
"Jack wanted to cover 'all eventualities'."
He mimed quotation marks with his fingers which earned him a glare from the general and Sam had to bite her lip to keep from laughing harder. She took a deep breath, fluttering her eyelashes to chase away the tears of laughter that were beading at the corner of her eyes:
"Well, then, I suggest we empty everything and try to put it away."
"General O'Neill tried to do it for over an hour in the base parking lot to no avail," Teal'c said, sarcasm on the tip of his tongue and a smile on his face.
"Thanks, Teal'c," Jack growled, and Sam jerked her head around to avoid a giggle.
"Can we open the trunk, General?" she half-chuckled, hidden by the car.
"Oh, please Carter, do it, have fun!"
Her heart quickened as he brushed her lower back as he moved behind her to open it. He stuck closer to her as the tailgate lifted revealing the unstable slaughter that after hesitating for a moment fell on them. The old reflexes having the hard life, Jack pulled her against him and turned around offering his back to the waterfall of suitcase and protecting her with his body. She closed her eyes for a second to savor the warmth of his chest against her back and tried not to sniffle too visibly as she realized he had put on some aftershave. He squeezed her waist briefly before letting go:
"Well, I think the "let's empty the trunk" part is already well advanced. "
"Looks good, sir."
He grimaced, falsely annoyed:
"What did I say about that Carter? We're on vacation. It's Jack. "
"So, it's Sam. Jack," she added, suddenly feeling light and adventurous.
He gave her that smile, the one that always made her heart ache. He held out his hand to help her into the car and she began to pass him what was in the bottom of the trunk.
"Why is there a cooler full of ice?"
"It's Teal'c," Jack told her as she continued her digging.
"That too, I suppose?"
She pulled out his Staff weapon stuck under a bag of candy bars and handed it to Jack.
"Um…Teal'c, my friend, I know I told you you could put whatever stuff you wanted in the truck, but do you really think you need that?"
"You never know O'Neill, I prefer to be prepared," replied the Jaffa very seriously.
"Nah but seriously, there are no goa'uld in my lake!"
Daniel coughed into his fist:
"Already there are no fish..."
"Hey!" Jack said offended
Teal'c raised an eyebrow, and this time Sam couldn't hold it any longer and the laughter that threatened prevailed over the rest.
Jack squared his fists on his hips, mock annoyed:
"Colonel, don't giggle! And Daniel, I assure you there are fish in my lake!"
Sam used all her willpower not to collapse in laughter, she was even struggling to catch her breath. Jack pretended to be offended, but she saw in his eyes that he was not far from joining her.
"Well, this will be your chance to prove it to us then," Daniel hissed with the smug little air he always put on to annoy Jack and make him want to strangle him.
"But I'm counting on it, Daniel! I'm counting on it!" he turned to Teal'c, still throwing it in his hand: "But I still don't see the point of taking this with us."
Daniel turned to sarcasm:
"Well, that might help flush out the fish…"
Teal'c turned to him very seriously:
"Is not that what they call big game fishing, Doctor Jackson?"
" What?" Jack choked. "Nope!"
Sam reached out to retrieve the staff:
"I'll put it there."
"Very well, but I forbid you to use it against fish, is that clear to you three? Otherwise, I'll send you on holiday with Maybourne!" Jack threatened.
"Why is he fishing with a gun?" Sam tried.
"Worse, with the pomegranate!"
"Do you want me to get your stuff, Colonel Carter?" asked Teal'c gently.
"No thanks Teal'c, it's all there," Sam replied, proud to be able to show off a single, reasonably sized bag face to top of the odds and ends of the boys. "I stick to the basics."
" Really? '' asked Jack's eyes.
She replied with a wink and a smile.
"Um why is there a whole bag of jelly mix? There are at least twenty boxes!" Daniel asked as he began to unload the backseat.
Jack grimaced:
"Do you know the notion of 'surprise' Daniel?"
Sam's giggles broke out again.
.
% % %
.
Finally, Sam had worked miracles with the chest and its contents. Like a Tetris champion she had almost everything intertwined: only her own bag now rested between them on the back seat. They had been driving for more than three hours now, the landscapes followed one another and now looked atrociously similar since they were on the highway. Daniel yawned, cursing himself a little for not being able to sleep the way Sam, no doubt exhausted from recent events, had been doing for almost an hour, also blaming himself for not having remembered to pick up a book before Sam put his suitcase at the bottom of the trunk. No chance now of getting one. He stared at Sam's bag, then at Jack and Teal'c, busy up-front bickering over the radio station, then at the bag again...
Daniel shook his head and forced himself to look outside again…He wasn't going to rummage through Sam's bag anyway…At worst when she woke up he could always ask her to lend him a book, she must have taken some at the minus one. No doubt very different from the books he usually read, but there he was so bored that he would have been ready to read a treatise on quantum physics. He crossed his hands on his knees, still eyeing the zipper of the bag. He watched Jack and Teal'c for a few more minutes, then finally, tormented by boredom, he grabbed the forbidden object and began to open it slowly. It was without counting on Sam's quasi-bionic hearing. She opened one eye, then the other quickly enough to catch him with his hand in the half-open bag.
"I was just looking for a book," he mumbled.
He had expected her to scream, or at least for the storm to rumble in her eyes, but instead her eyes widened, and she became peony. He understood when, instead of falling on a book, his hand fished out a satin bag in the color of a major brand of lingerie.
"Put it away Daniel," she hissed, this time menacing and pale.
Daniel hastily complied, she grabbed the bag, stuffed it on her knees and folded her arms over it.
"Just the main thing, right?" Daniel couldn't help but sneer gently.
She glared at him. Jack immediately sensing the tension with what served as his sixth sense, especially when it came to Sam, risked an eye in the rearview mirror:
"So kids what's going on behind there?"
"Nothing at all," Sam mumbled, his voice far too high to be honest.
In retro Jack frowned.
"Nothing Jack, everything is fine. I don't want to spoil the surprise," Daniel added in a lower tone but loud enough for everyone to hear. Sam nudged his elbow into his ribs.
"Hey!" he cried despite everything.
Teal'c, who had turned around and raised an eyebrow, burst out laughing and Jack and Sam exchanged amused looks in the rear-view mirror:
"Well done, Sam!"
Daniel shook his head, half laughing, he could be the fall guy if it allowed these two to find each other, finally.
.
The End