She stood in his doorway for barely ten seconds before he noticed her. He looked up, smiling briefly.
"Am I interrupting?" she asked, nodding towards the paperwork.
"Yes. And please, I'm begging you, interrupt me." he told her, happily pushing the paperwork aside. He glanced at the clock. Almost midnight. When he had still been Colonel O'Neill, he'd have been by her lab long before now, teasing her into finally going home for the night. General O'Neill didn't always find the time. And besides, lately, other things had come between them. Other men.
It was a quite an occasion, for her to come to him, but he leaned back, tried to relax, try to act as if it was perfectly normal for the woman he loved and was losing to visit him at midnight.
"I bought cake." She said, smiling mischievously, and pulled two plates out from behind her back.
"Carter, keep this up, and you'll get another promotion within the year." He joked, happily taking the luscious chocolate cake, and digging into it with the fork.
"Then we'd be the same rank. Could be interesting." She said wickedly. He thought about replying, but his mouth was full of cake, and he couldn't say a thing. Besides, given the way things were lately, maybe it was better not to say a thing.
They ate in companionable silence for a moment. Or rather, Jack ate, and Sam watched. Daniel's story kept running through her head. Did she have regrets? If Jack died tomorrow – and inwardly she winced at the thought - what would she regret most? And she kept thinking about Daniel, wanting to tell Janet he loved her, and being afraid to.
Jack looked up, and saw Sam's eyes staring steadily at him. There was something different in her gaze, but he wasn't sure what.
"How's the work going?" he asked. "You know, the thingy, with the whatsit, and the other thing..." his voice trailed off.
"I don't want to talk about my work."
Jack almost swallowed his cake the wrong way. When did Carter ever not want to talk about work? Lately, that had been their only topic of conversation.
"How's Pete?" he asked, though he hated asking, and half-hoped her answer involved lots of swearing and the word 'dumped'.
"Can we not talk about him?" she asked.
"Ok." He said, confused. She stood up, and walked towards the side of his desk, closer to him.
She took a deep breath. She tried to ignore the little voice inside her that was screaming at her to leave, go home to Pete, stop right now, before she went too far and couldn't take anything back.
"We used to talk." She said, perching on the edge of his desk. It wasn't sexual, the way she sat there, only inches from him, but he still felt the heat rise a little. She swallowed, and wouldn't look at him. "I mean, not about work. We used to talk about us. I mean, proper conversations."
"We still do." He said slowly. He felt something electric in the air, something changing, shifting.
"Not really. We only ever talk in half-sentences. We don't ever say what we really mean, do we?" She looked up, at him, sitting there in front of her. Somewhere inside, she was terrified that she had got it all wrong, but she owed this to Janet, and Daniel. No regrets. She had to try, just once. "At least, you used to. I stopped you. I'm sorry."
"Carter..." he started to say, anxious to stop her before she said something she regretted, but she leaned forward, put her hands on his face, and kissed him.
He'd thought he remembered what it was like to kiss her. He thought he remembered the passion, and the heat, and the feel of her lips, but it was a dull, watered-down memory compared to this. He could feel himself melting into it, instinctively reaching out to her, standing up so he could pull her closer to him, wanting to touch her with every inch of his body, not just his lips and hands. She responded eagerly, her hands entwining behind his neck, then tangling in his hair.
Eventually, she pulled back, breathless, her eyes unnaturally bright.
"Wow." She breathed, and sat down on the desk suddenly. "Wow." She said again. "That...that..."
"I know." he told her, as breathless as her.
"I should have done that sooner."
"No, Carter." He said, coming back to his senses. "You shouldn't have done that at all. Sam, think about it."
"Jack." she said, smiling brightly, and the use of his name shut him up. "I am sick of thinking. We have a dangerous job, and anything could happen, and I don't want any regrets."
"And you don't regret what just happened?"
And she grinned, breathtakingly beautiful.
"The only thing I will regret is if I don't do it again, and everyday." She reached out to him.
"There's a few things we should sort out." He murmured, but he lacked the ability or the will to pull away from her.
"Tomorrow." She murmured, grasping his jacket and pulling him towards her.