Chapter 5

About 20 minutes later Sam walked up to the Colonel's slightly ajar office door and quietly rapped on it to alert him of her approach. 

As she slipped in the door she saw Jack flexing his left arm.  She also took note of the freshly discarded bandage that he had just unwrapped from where Janet had done her most recent blood draws.  Upon seeing Sam he stopped and motioned for her to come in and close the door.  So much could be expressed between the two of them silently.  So much could stay hidden too.

While Jack stalled by winding the bandage into a ball and tossing it into the trashcan Sam took a seat in the chair opposite his desk.  He could tell by her body language that she was ready to talk business.  Hence his decision to be the first one to break the ice.

"So Major, you wanted to discuss something?" he asked aloofly.

"Well, Colonel," she replied with quite a bit of emphasis on his title, "As you already know Doctor Frasier is running some extra blood work on us to check for foreign substances.  We also already have the analysts in the lab going over the samples that Daniel and Teal'c brought back from last night's dinner.  If anything is found in our blood work it will then be cross examined with the chemical components of-"

Jack could already hear blah blah blah beginning to build up in his brain and had to cut her off.

"Carter, cut the techno crap for a minute, 'k."

She looked up with surprise and indignation behind her eyes.  He may as well have just told her to 'shut the hell up'.

"Well excuse me for trying to be the reasonable one here…'Sir'."

Jack grimaced at the severity in her tone of voice and at the emphasis on his title.

Suddenly finding the stray papers on his desk fascinating he began to shuffle them around.  He then cleared his throat and attempted to bring the conversation back down to a civil point.

"I'm sorry," he said sounding truly ashamed.  "I already know what you're trying to say.  I'd just really like for us to talk about what happened without all the distance that you're putting into it I guess."

"I'm putting in distance?"  Sam started with her voice now rising dangerously.  "You can hardly even look me in the face and I'm putting distance between us?"

The change in the tone of her voice prompted Jack to change his tactics.  He rose from his seat and came around to the front of his desk, squatting in front of Sam and looked directly into her watery eyes.

"Sam, please," came out barely more than a whisper.  "I'm a jerk, okay.  I'm crap at talking things out… but if there's one thing I know, it's that what happened between us wasn't all just drugs or foreign substances or whatever."

He gently grasped her hands and when she did not try to pull them away he settled them on her knees, while still holding them within his own. 

Sam stayed silent and continued to hold back the ever-threatening tears, so Jack continued on.

"Whatever they find in those tests, it doesn't change anything."

Finally finding her voice Sam spoke up.  "Yes it does…Jack.  It changes everything."

"It doesn't change how I feel about you.  It doesn't change the fact that at some point this was going to become inevitable anyway.  The only difference it makes… my only regret, is that I wish it could have happened differently."

Sam opened her mouth to speak, but Jack gave her a look informing her that he wasn't finished yet, so she closed it.

"I don't want to pressure you here Sam.  If you still want to leave it in the room or in the tent or the lab we still can.  Whatever happens now, it's your decision.  I just had to let you know."

Without a word Sam slid down out of her chair and into Jack's arms.  They stayed that way in a fierce embrace for what seemed like an eternity.  The whole time Jack prayed to any god that was out there not to let her break his heart.  It felt like it was truly beating for the first time in ages. 

Eventually Sam sniffed and pulled back enough to look at him and said with a slight smirk, "You know, I was the one who was supposed to do most of the talking here."

Both broke out into heartfelt grins and Jack stroked her hair and dropped a few kisses along her hairline.  Becoming braver he brought his face more closely in alignment with hers and brushed his lips against the corner of her mouth.  When her response was nothing more than becoming tense within his arms he began to pull back reluctantly.  He tried to steady his breath as the fear began to creep into the back of his mind that he had gone too far.

At that moment the shrill ring of the phone on Jack's desk decided to break them apart.  Sam pulled out of their embrace and stood waiting for Jack to do the same.  However after two more rings he was still gripping the side of his desk with a pained expression on his face.

"Jack?"  She questioned.

"Damn knees are locked up.  Just gimme a minute."

She shook her head, then reached out an arm to give him a hand.

"I'm not that old and incompetent.  Just answer the phone, would ya?"

Sam obliged and picked up the receiver as he groaned and began his slow ascent into a standing position once again.  "Colonel O'Neill's office."

"Sam?"  Janet's voice sounded in surprise on the other end.

"Yeah Janet, it's me."

"Well, I was looking for you anyway to see if you wanted to come back down and look over some of these test results with me."  As a second thought she added, "Is everything okay up there?"

"Everything's fine Janet.  We were just talking about the last mission."

"Oh."

"I'll be down in a few minutes okay."

"Sure Sam, see you then."

"Bye."

As Sam hung up the phone Jack asked, "So, Janet's got some results huh?"

"Yeah, I need to get down there and see what's going on."

"So, back to business as usual?"  Jack asked hesitantly.

"For now.  We'll talk more later," Sam replied and gave him a reassuring squeeze on his arm before walking out of his office. 

After she was well on her way a sigh rattled out from deep within his chest and he slumped back down into his desk chair.  Thoughts spinning in his head as to what would happen next.