(A/N: My symbiote, or muse for terminology reference, has informed me that he would like to see this dynamic through, so blame him for the hopeless romantic routine lacing this fic.)

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Alternate Reality Twelve

It was an adorable sight he had to admit. Seeing them scrunched up together on that too small chair in Daniel's office.

Checking up on them was the highlight of his overtime.

It'd start two hours after their shift had ended. He would stroll on down to Sam's lab and find them working away together, lost in their realm of genius, science, and archeology. They worked so well with each other you would have never thought that they were working on totally different things.

Their movements were fluid and communicative. It was reminiscent of a ballet. Almost. A lot more crude of course, being as to what kind of jobs they had, and her, roughened by her chosen profession as an Air force officer.

Jack had given up years ago trying to force Daniel Jackson and his 21C to go home. He had done everything short of directly ordering Carter off the base. Which is the one thing she would respond to but the one thing he was unwilling to do for the simple reason that he enjoyed watching them.

The sight calmed him. It was methodic, their motions, and lethargic their random mutterings and exclamations of breakthroughs.

It wasn't hard to get hypnotized by the appearance they created. On more than one occasion he had come down here and found an SF lingering in the doorway, completely transfixed by this presentation of their abilities.

After about five minutes or so, he'd head back to his office and continue the excruciating duties that entailed the rank of General.

Another three hours would pass. Five hours after the time that Doctor Jackson and Colonel Carter were supposed to be heading home.

He would come to take another peek at the SGC's resident magicians of all things intellectual.

Only this time he would head in the direction of Daniel's office. They would've needed to stretch their legs about an hour or so ago, and would have walked around the base animatedly chatting about their doohickeys and languages and naquadah.

They would've taken some of Sam's research with them, and then ended up outside of Daniel's office.

They were there. After eight years of this practiced habit, it's hard to be wrong.

This time you could here them talking with each other. Where as in her lab you would not be privy to such dialogue, Carter liked things quiet, but now that they were in his designated environment, she was gladly taken with conversation while they hacked away at a different workload.

Their movements changed to compensate for the smaller space and cluttered array of artifacts and books, but they were no less mesmerizing, and it wasn't hard for them to draw an audience of lingering over-timers and the scant graveyard shift crew just because they had a kind of enchantment about them.

It wasn't just the way they did things; it was their personalities, the people they were and those who knew them. Almost a complex combination of factors, like one of Sam's astronomical equations.

Almost that complicated. Almost as much out of his mind's reach as her advanced form of technobabble. Almost…not quite eluding his grasp though.

Around the seventh hour of their after-shift efforts, one of them would find that they had suddenly become immune to the caffeine effect of two hundred cups of coffee…yeah, it would be about two hundred by now…and that one would give way to the comfort of Daniel's too small lazy chair.

Another hour and he or she would be asleep. Then the other miscreant in the room would note how welcoming a rest seemed, and she or he (probably she, Sam never drank as much coffee as Daniel, so on night's like these she was able to reap the full benefit of the caffeine) and would head over to settle next to the other one and eventually fall into a quiet slumber.

Jack felt so fatherly watching them as he mused about the day while hovering in the doorway.

It was a wonder that they hadn't pursued anything together after being forced to admit their feelings four odd years ago under the observation of that Zaytarc testing device.

But they wanted to wait. They were good at taking things in stride. Life in general was more of a walk for these two than a race. At least when they had the fortune to be on Earth and not some alien planet getting caught under fire by bad guy Goa'ulds and such.

They were not bound by the rules.

Just the ones they had created for themselves so that SG-1 could function properly.

Jack was content, at least, to simply know they loved each other. He would probably be scared to death every night, seeing them work the way they do and not knowing that they had feelings for one another beyond those of friendship. He'd probably think they were aliens.

That sounded maybe a bit too narrow minded.

Of course they didn't need to love each other beyond friendship to have this type of work effect. He supposed that eight years of them such being in a platonic relationship would promote the same.

But this routine…their ballet…had started when they first laid eyes on each other on Abydos.

You had to think they had some sort of supernatural power that bound their souls, and that made the relationship more than platonic.

And perhaps that's what gave them such control to wait until the very last battle had been fought.

It was because they knew each other…Spiritually, intellectually; emotionally…they could wait for the physical aspect of it all…they could wait to declare these feelings to the world.

He felt so old watching them…yet so timeless…

The most radiantly adorable thing in the universe he knew was tucked up on that chair. Samantha Carter and Daniel Jackson. He couldn't imagine a better pair.

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(A/N: Yes, I know…Not Jack and Sam…But what do ya' think? My symbiote wont critique)