Ch 6
For all of Colonel O'Neill's protesting that she needed to learn how to relax, Sam was starting to think he wasn't that much better at it than she was. Take away the pond with no fish in it and he was just as desperate for something to do as she was. They had played four games of chess, watched the entire "Indiana Jones" trilogy, and played on his XBox until their thumbs were sore. They had both read the first "Harry Potter" book, which Cassie had been trying to get them into for years. Sam had cleaned his entire already-clean house. He had successfully smuggled away her cell phone and switched it over to Russian, only to realize he couldn't switch it back. She had been forced to call the base and find someone who spoke Russian and could tell her how to fix it. She had found his high school yearbook on a shelf somewhere and spent the better part of an hour laughing at his hair in the picture, only sobering up when he took her cell phone hostage and threatened to drown it in the toilet if she didn't swear never to mention the photo to anyone.
Now, they were both out of things to do, and they were both extremely bored and getting more irritated with the awkwardness that kept springing up between them at random times throughout the day, as they struggled to balance the surprising ease of the situation with the fact that they both knew it had a definite expiration date. And it had only been a day and a half.
Which was how they found themselves sitting on the couch after dinner, watching something about mummies on the History Channel because it reminded them both of Daniel, although even Jack had already noticed four factual errors in the program.
"You know," he said at the commercial, turning the volume down. She glanced over at him. She had noticed over the past two days that he had a tendency to pick up conversations that had been left off hours before, or start completely new ones out of the blue that he'd apparently already been having in his head. "If I hadn't broken my ankle, I'd be at my cabin right now."
"Very true," she said evenly, suspecting she knew where this was going but not liking it one bit.
"I really don't think my minor injury prevents me from being able to fish," he continued, looking at her hopefully.
"Oh, I think it does," she said, steeling herself for another match.
"Well, I mean, it would probably be a little dangerous to go out on the boat, but I could sit on the dock without a problem..."
"And how exactly do you propose to GET to Minnesota when you can't drive?"
"Well... you could drive."
"Or not."
"It could be fun."
"Or not."
"What do you have against fish?"
"Nothing. Although from what I hear, that's not really even the point."
"Huh?"
"I heard there aren't any fish at all in your precious lake."
"That's a lie."
"My sources are quite reliable, Colonel. Have you ever caught anything there?"
"Of course!"
"Within the last five years?"
"Of..." he thought for a moment and tried to remember. Then he gave up and just said, "Of course I have!"
"Sure. So let me get this straight. First you go and break your leg, so I get stuck babysitting you for two weeks. Then you expect me to drive you all the way to Minnesota to watch you sit on a dock and stare at the water."
"Yes?" he asked hopefully.
"Over. My. Dead. Body." She said it with a smile though, not wanting to accidentally offend him. Sometimes he could be touchy about things like fishing.
"Well, at least you're not still worried about silly little things like being out of line with a superior officer," he said with a triumphant smirk, for all the world as though that had been the entire point of the conversation.