Secrets and Shadows: Taking Sides
Part Four
Jack knew it was a bad week, when he found himself thinking it had been a long one.
And it was only Tuesday.
Carter turned away from him, her back rigid at his snap.
Jack turned on his heel. He felt like the worst kind of scum, but his anger held back his apology until she'd gone around the corner. Then he cursed himself for being a bastard. He knew better than to take his anger out on his subordinates, that didn't stop his better judgement from occasionally being overridden.
It wasn't her fault that his truck had been stolen yesterday afternoon.
He was just in a bad mood this morning.
His aide wasn't much luckier than Carter in the greeting arena. "Good morning, sir."
"Is it, sergeant? I hadn't noticed."
The sergeant arched a brow, but the man had a considerably more placid temperament than a five-month pregnant woman. The state of mind of his superior was not his concern, his job was his concern and as Jack sat down in his chair, he merely placed the forms and reports for the morning in Jack's hands. "General Hammond would like to see you about your trip to Petersen yesterday. He's scheduled a meeting from 1000 hours until 1100 hours to discuss the personnel you reviewed."
"Okay. No problem with that." Jack flipped through the top report and scowled. "Dixon, too?"
"I don't know if Colonel Dixon is included, although it would make sense. I can check...?"
Jack shook his head. "Doesn't matter. If he's there, he's there. If not..." He handed the report back, "Send this back to Dr. Abadi and ask her to rewrite it in English. I don't care how excited she gets when she discovers something - reports are to be submitted in English. If she has to use another set of forms, that's her problem for not writing notes first."
"Yes, sir. Dr. Jackson asked you to call him when you got in."
Yeah, like that was going to happen in Jack's state of mind. If he'd snapped at Carter for no good reason, he'd probably take Daniel's head off at the slightest provocation. And Daniel didn't do slight provocation. "Call him back and tell him I'm busy." A sense of shame nagged at him, "And call Major Carter and ask if she's good for Jell-O in the commissary at 1100 hours."
If Sergeant Halliwell was surprised that Jack had time for Carter but none for Daniel, he kept his expression bland. "Yes, sir. Is there anything you need?"
"Other than my morning coffee, no, thank you, Sergeant." See? Jack could be civil when he was in a bad mood.
He just wished he'd been civil to Carter this morning.
Oh well. No point in crying over what was done. And Jell-O in the commissary would be a kind of apology. And he'd take chocolate. She'd understand. At least, he hoped she would.
If she didn't, then he'd actually say the apology. Out loud. Possibly loud enough for the neighbouring tables to hear, although Jack really hoped it wouldn't come down to that. It suggested he'd been enough of an ass to warrant an apology, and that was never good. Hardass, yes. Asshole, no.
Anyway, Carter had enough stuff going on in her life without Jack adding to it.
Even if he was pissed off that some teenager had stolen his precious Ford 250 from the parking lot of Wal-Mart and taken it joyriding.
He probably would have been in a slightly better mood had the officer taking the report been even the slightest bit sympathetic. But the man had all the interest of a lump of clay. Granted, he probably saw a million of these forms a day, but even a little bit of sympathy wouldn't have gone amiss to a grumpy, tired, bad-tempered Colonel who only wanted to go home and relax in front of his TV with a beer.
Jack sat down to a morning of reports and his coffee.
He was nearly halfway through the pile when Sergeant Halliwell knocked on the door. "Sir?"
"Sergeant."
"Colonel Dixon will be at the debriefing, Major Carter said 1100 hours will be fine, and Dr. Jackson says, and I quote, 'What the fuck is wrong with him this morning?'" The sergeant was good. He managed Daniel's delivery deadpan.
Amusement overtook irritation. That didn't mean Jack was going to tempt fate and call Daniel. "I'll leave Daniel for a few more hours yet," he told the Sergeant, as he scrawled another remark on the comments sheet of a personnel report. "Remind me when it's time for the meeting."
"It's in ten minutes, sir."
Jack looked at his watch. "That was fast."
Halliwell's mouth curved in the faintest of smiles. "Yes, sir."
The debriefing was about their trip over to Petersen Airbase the day before. Admin had tagged a dozen possible recruits for the SGC. While the SGC took in new graduates every year, what they needed just as much were experienced officers, ones who had history in combat and tactics. Theory and training was all very well, but in a crisis, nothing worked like experience.
Even if that experience was dealing with situations that had never before come up in any training manual on the planet.
"I wouldn't take Valenti," Dixon was saying. "Too inflexible."
"He gets results," Hammond noted, playing devil's advocate.
"He's the type who would," Dixon replied. "Looks good on paper, but fifteen minutes with him and my hackles were up. Jack?"
By agreement, they hadn't discussed this beforehand. Each man would get to form his own opinion and then lay them out before Hammond for his judgement.
"Not Valenti," Jack agreed. "He wouldn't deal well in this command. Daley might. He was leader of one of the Black Ops that went into Afganistan after Bin Laden's lieutenants."
He remembered the watchful stare of the man as they interviewed him. Easy manner, but shadowed eyes; this guy kept his cards close to his chest, but played as though he had nothing to lose.
"He lost two men on that mission," Dixon remarked. Jack eyed him, trying to work out if the other Colonel had taken on the devil's advocate role.
"I looked at the reports from his team and his commanders," Jack remarked. "All things being equal, he should have lost more."
"And the reason he didn't lose more was because he took a lot of leeway with his standing orders," Dixon added, bland as milk.
Jack smirked at Dixon, then turned to Hammond. "One more point for Daley. He'll fit right in here."
One by one, they went through the personnel who'd been suggested and subsequently vetted by Jack and Dixon. It was a standing joke among base personnel that Hammond deliberately sent the most outrageous of his commanders to vet the incoming officers. The command only worked as well as the people in it, and both Jack and Dixon had been with the SGC long enough to know who they could use, as well as who would fit in.
Of course, sometimes they were wrong.
Two more officers were tagged for further investigation before their meeting concluded and the two Colonels went back up to their office levels.
"I wouldn't have picked Jess Packard," Dixon was saying as they shuffled back to let in a bunch of airmen head up to the commissary level.
"No?" Jack had suggested Packard, Dixon had disagreed.
"Too mouthy, and with issues..."
Jack thought of another Captain he'd met years ago who'd had 'issues' when she walked into the briefing room. He grinned as the airmen got off at the commissary. "Carter was mouthy with issues when I first met her." It was worth the revelation just to see Dixon do a double take. Major David Dixon had arrived at the SGC two months after the program started, and within a year, he had his eagles. But, unlike officers like Ferretti, he'd missed the initial adjustment period, and arrived to find SG-1 a functional unit.
"You're kidding, right? Major Carter?"
"Not kidding," Jack smirked. Over the years, Carter's edges had smoothed out quite nicely.
Jack suspected that all his team had smoothed the edges off each other over the years. They pulled together in harness like a well-practised team - which they were.
Even if they did sometimes snap at each other.
The door opened at the office levels and they stepped out into the corridor, nodding at the aides that saluted them as they passed. "Back to the reports," Dixon grumbled, but good-naturedly.
"Jell-O break." Jack didn't say with whom; he didn't need to.
Dixon nodded at another airman, then paused as Jack stopped outside his office door, "Which reminds me. Bel wanted to know whether you and your team would like to come around to dinner."
Jack blinked. That was an odd request. "You want my team to come around for dinner?"
"Well, she actually wants to meet the Major," Dixon shrugged. "Some female thing, I guess. She offered something on that list you made for the Major - I don't know. She told me to ask you."
Daniel would have had something to say about the choice of verbs. Dixon's wife told him to ask SG-1? Jack resisted the urge to say something about whipped men. "I'll ask the guys. It'll either have to be really soon, or after the Targonian delegation. Carter and Daniel will both be pretty much useless while they're here, and they'll still be going on it for weeks after."
"Well, tomorrow night is free as far as I know - and if that's not too soon for you guys - but I'll check with Bel and let you know." Dixon turned away and headed off down the corridor as Jack swiped his pass and let himself into his office.
He'd just dumped the files into his out tray - Halliwell would sort through them later - when his cell rang. He picked it up, "O'Neill."
"Sir? It's Detective Michaels of the Colorado Springs Police station. We've found your truck."
An hour later, he and Carter arrived at a rest area on the Interstate and surveyed the burned-out wreck.
Overhead, birds twittered, an odd counterpoint to the steady zoom of the traffic and the occasional roar of a truck down the interstate. Carter walked up to the truck and peered in one of the broken windows.
"Looks like they battered it up pretty good before they set it on fire," he remarked, glancing around to find the cruiser he'd been assured would meet them here.
A moment later, the cruiser drove into the rest area.
"I think your insurance premium's gone," she noted as she walked around it.
Jack grimaced at her, and her mouth tugged to one side in slight amusement.
The chocolate had worked by way of apology. However, according to her, he now owed her a caramel fudge sundae to make up for the lack of Jell-O. Jack wasn't sure quite how that worked, but after seeing his beloved truck reduced to scorched scrap-metal and broken glass, he figured he could do with a caramel fudge sundae, too.
Maybe they'd drop by a Wendy's on the way back or something...
The officer who climbed out of the cruiser was middle aged, balding, and on the heavyset side. "Mr. Jack O'Neill?"
"Colonel Jack O'Neill."
The guy belatedly took in the uniform. "Colonel, sorry. Detective Michaels." The officer glanced at Carter as she circled the wreck, inspecting door handles and crouching down to regard the pattern of scorch marks down the side of the car. She didn't look up, so he waved a clipboard at the blackened wreck. "This was reported in by a driver early this morning. We only cross-referenced it an hour ago. It's yours?"
"Yeah." Jack winced. "It's mine."
"Was there anything valuable in it?"
"No." Taking work home was out - the reports he had to read through and authorise were classified and too hard to easily explain away. Carter or Daniel could get away with it under the guise of experimental technology and unpublished findings, Jack couldn't. "Just the truck itself."
"Okay." The guy made a few checks on the clipboard. "The number you left at the station is the one that's easiest to get you on?"
"Yeah. Not always reliable, but if I don't answer, just leave a message."
"Well, we'll take the truck in as evidence, but you know, it was probably just teenagers mucking around." The guy shrugged. "If we find anything, we'll let you know."
And that was that.
"Time to go truck shopping again, sir?" Carter asked as they climbed back into her car.
"Guess so."
"Another Ford?"
"Don't see why not. They're big, reliable, comfy..."
"Gas guzzling, unwieldy...and you don't really use it, sir."
"What are you saying, Carter?" They were heading down the interstate on the way back to Colorado Springs now.
She rolled her eyes, "Never mind, sir."
He watched her as she drove them back towards the mountains. In her fatigues, the pregnancy wasn't immediately obvious, unless you counted the eye-catching radiance about her. Of course, Carter attracted attention anyway, so that was nothing new.
Jack bit back a grimace. Okay, so maybe it hadn't been the wisest thing to be sitting with Carter in her bedroom on Saturday evening. But she'd wanted to talk away from their team-mates, and he'd been willing to talk with her.
Her willingness to talk about Melissa had surprised and hurt him. On one hand, he was relieved that she wasn't going to make a fuss about the other woman. On the other hand, he felt angry that she could discuss Mel's place in his life so calmly, while the thought of Shanahan and Carter made him want to punch something. It just wasn't fair.
He wished she didn't have to understand.
He wished Mel didn't have to understand, either.
He'd cancelled his Friday night 'dates' with Mel for the time being, having the feeling that Carter needed him around more than he needed whatever relief he found by being with Mel. He'd miss her and the...services she provided. But, much as he enjoyed her company and the time spent with a woman who didn't see him as a commander first and a man second, he owed first allegiance to Carter, and always would.
"Are we going to get sundaes?" He asked as they passed Wendy's.
She blinked. "Oh, sundaes," she said, almost as if she'd forgotten entirely about the ice-cream. "Could we stop somewhere and get a pint of Ben and Jerry's instead?"
He arched a brow, "Got a craving for something?"
"No," she denied, flushing. Then she looked at him, abashed, "I just want some chocolate..."
Jack smirked. "You're the driver, Carter."
He followed her inside the supermart, noting that she knew exactly where the frozen foods department was. Did women have a radar that enabled them to know exactly where the things like ice-cream and chocolate were placed in a supermarket? Jack had no idea.
She handed him a pint of Chocolate Fudge Brownie - a flavour that Jack had always considered just a little over the top. He preferred Cherry Garcia himself. She handed him a second tub, which he took without a murmur. Women could go through that stuff at ridiculous speeds.
Then she reached for a third tub...
How much was the woman going to eat, anyway? "Uh, are you actually going to eat all..." He should have known better than to protest. Sara had given him that look when he questioned something that she didn't think merited an answer. Jack held up his hands in surrender. From pregnant women with military training and PhDs, good Lord deliver him.
She took the first tub from him and headed down the aisle, towards the registers. Jack shook his head and followed after, only to have someone pluck at his sleeve.
The guy was maybe seventy, but the grey eyes were sharp as they flickered from Jack to Carter and back to Jack again. "Buddy, just let the little woman get the food she wants to eat. Believe me, you're better off just sticking to the bedroom - sometimes it seems it's all they think we're good for..." The grin grew cheerfully lascivious, and Jack froze as a sudden image flashed through his brain; Carter naked in his bed, her mouth in his, her hands on his skin...
Shit. He smiled, and hoped it was less of a grimace than he suspected it was. "Thanks," he managed through a mouth that was drier than the Saudi desert. The guy moved away, and Jack stared at the ice-cream compartment for a long moment before he decided, What the hell, and grabbed a tub of Cherry Garcia. The odds of getting any of the three pints of ice-cream she'd already taken was less than finding Anubis sitting on the SGC's doorstep having had a change of heart about taking over the galaxy.
Carter, thank God, hadn't apparently heard the old guy's comment, because she was standing in the queue, eyeing the magazines. Jack went and stood behind her. "You know, I've never understood the attraction of Cameron Diaz's cellulite." He pointed at one of the magazine headlines.
"Except that it's on Cameron Diaz?" Carter smirked slightly.
"Well..." Jack didn't mention that Cameron Diaz was also blonde-haired, with blue eyes and long legs. Of course, it was Diaz's job to be beautiful; Carter's job was to be functional - and yet along the way, she was beautiful too.
He wondered if Carter had cellulite.
"How many times have you watched Charlie's Angels, sir?"
"Um... I plead the Fifth."
The Carter-smirk was both disconcerting and adorable as they moved up to the checkout counter and the kid standing at the register swiped the items through. Her eyes flickered up over the fatigues, over Carter's face, and up to Jack's. She gave him a shy smile.
As they walked away, Carter leaned towards him, "I think she's a bit young for you, Colonel."
"I was just smiling..." Jack protested before he caught the wicked gleam in her eyes. And maybe a hint of vulnerability. Carter turned heads wherever she went, but she was heading towards forty, and that always occasioned a certain panic in a woman.
Sara had developed this need for reassurance that Jack still found her attractive, which had been fun, just...tiring. Hard to arrange, too, especially with an energetic and inquisitive eight year old running around the house.
The problem with Carter was that Jack wasn't supposed to find her attractive, so he couldn't reassure her that he still did. And he definitely couldn't reassure her in the same way he'd reassured Sara.
"...you're better off just sticking to the bedroom..."
Definitely no. Bad Jack.
Damn he hated being her commanding officer. Loved it, but hated it, too. He was still trying to think of something to say when his cell hummed in his pocket.
Saved by the bell?
"Probably the cops again," he said with a light smile for her, as he opened it up. "O'Neill."
"Jack." Daniel's voice was quick and relieved. "Thank God. Dr. Warner just called my office from Memorial Emergency. Teal'c's been hit by a car."