AN: Morning campers! Today I take my youngest on his first field trip to Henry Ford Museum. His dad gets to go too. Everyone is pretty excited in my house. I sound like such a mom. lol. Business is slow at work. My boss has finally figured out HER boss is actually a moron and the first inventory I do this coming year.. is my own. Oh and my AM is on assignment at another store because yet another manager has given up on trying to run a store with our current DM.. yah know... the moron. lol

Chapter 11

James was on the phone with Melinda the next Monday morning. "They seem to be working." He said of the bugs Sam had planted. He had sat outside in another lot and waited for Sam to activate her listening devices so Melinda could scan the signal and listen in as well. Melinda had deduced the painting was a cover for something like this and waited out Sam and Jack leaving. She sat on the roof that night listening in on their conversation. Whoever they were… Whatever they were after… They were clearly professionals

"This is the first decent idea you've had." She said to him.

"Thanks." Jimmy said brightly, not catching her sarcasm for what it was.

"You're welcome." Melinda May said dryly. "Hopefully at least one of them is chatty."

"Yah. Yah that would be great! We might even find out what they stole from Jack and Sam's division to explain why they are here too." They still didn't know what branch of spies Jack and Sam were but someone at SHIELD was working on that part for them.

Agent May really didn't care what else was missing beyond the alien technology stolen from SHIELD. Had she known the other technology was also alien in nature she might have been more interested but with all such top clearance operations she fell into the trap of believing if there were other aliens out there… she'd know about it.

"Well, whatever else they stole isn't my problem." Melinda said.

"Right. Right. You know… I kind of think we should try talking to them, you know? Feel them out a little? See if they want to team up. That kind of thing."

Melinda just looked at the phone for a moment like he was stupid. "Jimmy… They are unknown agents from an unknown agency that we haven't even been able to identify let alone find out their motives. The closest I have gotten is a redacted report. I can't get any information on signed off by a S. Carter and J. O'Neill which can only be them. The only reason I even found it was because I searched their names together and it's a single report referencing some kind of gate and an invasion of some kind. It didn't have a branch seal on it either. Just code letters of SGC and nothing else." She couldn't find any references to anything called the SGC or any details on what it might mean. She doubted it meant Standard General Condition for instance or Scottsdale Gun Club.

"Wow. Really? What do you think it was about? There's lots of stuff in the Middle East that might sound like that. We should see if we can find out what mission it was so we can find out what branch they are."

Melinda sighed inwardly. SHIELD had mostly lost interest in the other agents on this. She wasn't sure if it was because they did, in fact, know who Jack and Sam were, or if it was because the focus was on retrieving the Tesseract and getting out of there with minimal civilian involvement on their part. This had been a quiet op from the start. The town wasn't small but it was a fairly out of the way average size suburb where you start to recognize people in your area after a while. Fury didn't want this to become a PR fiasco which meant they should just try to work around the other Agents or, in this case, through them as they seemed to be having better luck infiltrating the facility then she had. This irked her to no end and she partially blamed Jimmy but it was on her as well that a pair of unknowns with a borrowed kid had done better than an experienced field agent and her… puppy.

"We'll play it by ear." She finally told him. Who knew. The other agents might play ball if it was in their interests to work together. Or they might disappear into the wind they had blown in on. Whoever they were, they were so deep they may as well be exactly what they appeared to be on the surface. A substitute English teacher and a secretary taking night classes at the local community college with aspirations of being a lab assistant one day.

"Right right. Okay, well I have to get to work."

"You do that, Jimmy." She said over the phone. "Come to the diner when you get off your shift."

"Yah. Yah I will." He said enthusiastically.

Melinda sighed and hung up.

"Auntie Sam. You have a hickey." Lisa said giggling when Sam leaned over to put her breakfast in front of her.

"What? How do you know what a hickey is?" Sam squeaked, immediately her left hand came up to find the spot blindly.

"I watch TV." She said matter-of-factly.

Sam blushed brightly. How had she not noticed it putting her makeup on.

Jack chose that moment to walk up behind her, wrap his arms around her waist and nuzzle her neck affectionately. "Nice hickey, Carter." He muttered against her ear with humor.

"Jack!" Except instead of indignation it came out more a squeak of protest.

Jack just chuckled and released her so he could ruffle Lisa's hair. "Did you have fun with the babysitter last night kiddo?" He asked the nine-year-old. He'd spent a lot of his spare time on the details of the 'painting' project and wanted to make sure she was doing all right when he didn't have an eye on her. Mark would probably kill him if anything happened to Lisa on Jack's watch. As it was he owed the other man a bottle of scotch at least.

"Yup. She's nice."

"Good. We got Aunt Sam's office all painted last night." He said with a friendly grin.

Sam's blush refused to abate as she was now thinking about what they had been doing after said painting that had caused the hickey in question.

"Grandpa George called last night." Lisa piped up.

"Oh?" Jack asked blandly while Sam pondered where she should probably crawl off to die.

"Yup. He said you and Auntie Sam should call him as soon as you can because he misses you."

"I bet he does." Jack said with an ironic smile and a wink at Sam whose body language involved very obvious chagrin.

Lisa shoved a piece of toast in her mouth. "I need to get to the bus stop." She announced and grabbed her backpack to rush out the door. "Bye Auntie Sam." She said and kissed her aunt absently. "Bye Uncle Jack." She said and kissed Jack's cheek as she bounced by and out the door.

After the door swung shut, Jack looked at Sam with a twinkle in his eyes. Prior to this he'd been Mr. Jack not Uncle Jack. Sam moved to the window and watched Lisa wait with her school friends for the bus at the end of their street. Once her niece was on the bus, she turned back to see Jack with his trademark smirk adorning his face.

"What are we going to tell him?" Sam asked Jack in a slightly horrified voice. Knowing Jack would know she meant Hammond.

"Not a damned thing, Sam."

Sam huffed out a sigh and nodded her head jerkily. "Right. All right."

"Look, I was ready to take what happened to Danny to the grave with me. Just let me handle this, Sam." He reminded her.

Sam gave him a searching look but the one he returned was confident and full of reassurance. He had her back. They may have slipped up with the sleeping together thing but what did it matter? The mission was proceeding and it hadn't compromised their professionalism otherwise. "You're sure?"

"Positive." He said with a grin. "Besides, I didn't get called in today. It's perfect timing. I'll go sit on the deck, play with the cat and call Uncle George."

"Okay." Sam said, not entirely reassured but fairly glad she didn't have to be part of this conversation at all.

Jack made a showing motion. "Go on. Git." He said in a cheesy southern accent.

Sam chuckled. "Yes sir." She said and saluted him in amusement.

"Stop that." he grumbled good naturedly but snagged her waist to pull her in for a quick kiss before she left. When she drew back, he looked at her with his heart in his eyes. "I've got this covered." He told her.

Sam nodded and left for work.

Not long after Sam's car had rolled out of the driveway, Jack made himself another coffee and grabbed a snack when he saw the box of muffins. He missed Sam's baking but he could understand why she wasn't bothering right now. He then headed out the back door to sit on the deck away from James's bugs. Jack made sure his voyeur was already gone for work before dialing Hammond's private cell phone.

"Jack! How's the fiancé of my favorite niece?" Hammond asked him jovially over the phone.

Jack chuckled. "You're enjoying that a bit too much, sir." Jack said to his commanding officer.

"Well, it's not every day she gets engaged to a guy I think might actually stick around." George said with a drawl. "How's Lisa? Weathering the transition well?"

"Fairly well." Jack agreed. "We left her with a sitter a couple of times this weekend and she said she had fun while Sam and I painted her office. They paid me pretty good for the work. Might be a good side gig."

"Try not to get distracted, Jack. You need steady income. Lisa told me where you were last night. I expect photos, of course."

"It wasn't much to look at. Just freshen up how dull the whole thing looked. Seriously Uncle George, it looked like it hadn't been repainted since people chain smoked in there in the seventies and—"

"Jack." George interrupted in a long suffering warning tone about the other man getting off track.

"Right." Jack said and nodded even though Hammond couldn't see him. "Sam picked the paint and did all the taping off so any credit for it looking nice belongs to her." Jack said, figuring Hammond would read between the lines.

"She always was good at that sort of thing."

"She really is." Jack agreed. "I'm kind of hoping they liked my work enough that they recommend me to their friends." Jack said hopefully.

"Is that an option?"

"No idea but if it is it could lead to a pretty decent side gig."

"You should worry about that after the wedding when you aren't focused on what's going on currently." Hammond admonished him, subtly referring to his taking on black ops jobs outside of Gate travel. "Try not to get ahead of yourself, son."

"Yah, I know. Hey, did Sam tell you about our crazy neighbor?"

"The nosey one?"

Jack chuckled. "Yah, real nosey. Nice guy and all but he's over a lot and is a bit more interested in our life than most people would be."

"He's probably just lonely, Jack." Hammond said and made mental note about them being under observation. Jack hadn't stressed it but George wasn't born yesterday. Jack was probably referring to surveillance of some kind. Probably audio as cameras were harder to hide in a house that is cleaned regularly.

"Nah. I think he's sweet on the waitress at the local diner but she doesn't like him back that way."

"Sounds like he needs to look for someone who's interested." Hammond said reasonably though he sounded a bit perplexed as he wasn't sure what Jack was getting at this time.

"I think he just needs to work harder at it. She's nice enough. Not everyone clicks instantly like Sam and I did."

"If I remember correctly, you two bit each other's heads off when you met."

"Yah but it was love at first sight." Jack said with a chuckle.

"If you don't count the shouting." Hammond said, chuckling himself as he recalled the initial meeting.

"Mine or hers?"

"Mostly yours." Hammond reminded him jovially. "I take it you have the day off?"

"Yah, no one called off today so I'm sitting on the deck having a beer later and petting the cat."

"You have a cat?"

"We can't seem to find his owner and he's gotten attached." Jack admitted.

Hammond sighed. "The cat is not visiting my house." He said tiredly.

"I wouldn't dream of it." Jack said in an offended tone. Sam was not giving away any more cats. They would figure something out if they couldn't find Goose's owner.

"Just remind yourself you have responsibilities, Jack." Hammond said almost gently to him.

"Right. Right." Jack said absently. "Would you be upset if Sam and I just did a quickie wedding in a few weeks?"

"Well, son, that depends on how prepared you are to get married?" Now this, George understood. Jack thought they had the guys. He just needed their support staff to be ready.

"She's pretty happy at her job, mine's going well. I'm worried we'll slip up and need to do a quickie wedding to avoid embarrassment."

"The pressure is getting to you, huh?" Hammond asked Jack dryly.

"You could say that." Jack admitted.

"I have no objections." Hammond said.

"Okay. Right." Jack said with relief.

"Listen, I have to go. Keep me in the loop, Jack."

"Right. I will."

"And give Sam my love."

"Of course." Jack agreed and they hung up on each other, each satisfied they understood what the other had been getting at.

Hammond turned in his chair to Walter who had been standing by the door while Jack was unwittingly on speaker phone. "Move my betting square to 'lying about sleeping with each other', Walter."

"Yes sir." Walter agreed with a quick grin.