Normally, Jane really hated Friday night shifts. The up-market restaurant was always a little slice of hell, busier than a dead dog on an anthill and twice as nasty. Waitress appreciation was generally severely lacking and she was rushed off her aching feet. By nine o'clock she had normally developed a tension headache, dropped at least one plate or burnt herself in the relative privacy of the kitchens.
But tonight she was serving a couple so touchingly romantic, that a smile touched even her cynical lips.
From her eighteen year old's perspective, they were quite old, not at all the kind of people she'd normally associate with ridiculously over romanticised notions of love. But there was something in the way their fingers brushed when reaching for the water jug, in the way the man watched his dinner partner with a dark-eyed intensity when she was reading her menu, in the way their feet were almost-but-not-quite touching under the table that made her feel, for once, that there was some love still left in the world, and that romance didn't die past forty. She wasn't a flirt herself but she enjoyed watching the attribute in other people, and it was somehow endearing, how bad this couple were at it. Their lack of subtly, their unabashed staring when the other wasn't looking, was pleasant to watch. There were no hidden intentions in their actions, no calculated purpose or planning, just sheer attraction.
Having grown used to serving un-happily married couples, high powered businessmen and their associates (and mistresses), seeing something as pure as their cack-handed flirtation and soft glances was akin to finding a jewel of rare quality in a spoil heap. She put extra cream on their desserts.
O'Neill watched Carter spoon the last of her apple pie delicately into her mouth. He knew it was rude to stare, especially when she was eating, but to the mild horror of the dwindling, sardonic part of himself, he couldn't stop. The dainty way she put the spoon in her mouth was hypnotic....
... not to mention mildly erotic. It was wonderfully tantalising to know that in this public setting her could not, bound by the rules of common decency, do anything other than brush her hand occasionally, or bump her feet with his under the table.
Oh good grief. Get a grip, Jack O'Neill. You're fifty, not fifteen.
She smiled at him, one of her shy-starting grins that he'd always loved to induce in her, and he was irretrievably lost, the rock hard core of cynicism deep within him folding its arms sullenly and conceding defeat in the face of ludicrously saccharine sweetness. Tonight was not the right time for smart-alec O'Neill to put his foot in it and ruin everything.
He paid the bill and heavily tipped the waitress, who kept grinning at them in a most disconcerting way, before offering his arm to his date. "Shall we go?"
She took his arm, his stomach lurching as her fingers curled around his bicep, her perfume gradually filling his world. It was cold outside and she held him more tightly, a welcome thief of his warmth.
She sat on his passenger seat and he took another opportunity to appreciate her outfit. There were still faint, healing scratches on her arms (the ones on her face were rendered invisible by her make-up) but they didn't detract from her dress. He'd barely been able to keep his eyes in their sockets when she'd opened the door. It wasn't the revelation of her figure, nearly always hidden in BDUs on base, although the clinging red material did accentuate every curve; it was the fact that this amazing, beautiful, intelligent woman had actually agreed to dinner with him.
He made a mental note to profess undying gratitude to Daniel the following morning, because whatever happened from here on in, the first three hours of his night had been enough to render him the happiest he had felt in time-out-of-memory.
He leaned across and kissed her cheek, earning himself a lop-sided look of confusion. He knew she was wondering what prevented him from kissing her lips but he couldn't have articulated it, even if he had wanted to. There was something so much sweeter about kissing her cheek and he oh-so-desperately wanted to be sweet tonight, to distance himself as far as possible from General O'Neill, in order to become ever so slightly goofy plain old Jack. His darkness, his sarcasm, his lust; he wanted to push them all away and allow himself to be consumed by the sheer unadulterated love that burnt brighter than a flame inside him.
He knew that wasn't going to happen, of course, that the darkness and negativity was as much a part of him as the wackiness and frivolity, but he wanted to pretend for a while he could be the perfect man. The kind of man Sam Carter deserved.
She stared at him, and he stared back, his zany smile fading again and the intense look reclaiming his eyes. Carter realised she preferred that look; the lunatic grin reminded her perversely of her ex-fiancé when he was in one of his 'excited puppy' moods.
Or was it Pete that reminded you of Jack? her thoughts prodded her uncomfortably.
After the end of their relationship, she had come to realise the common threads that bound the two men together; the smart humour and occasional bursts of mad exuberance, the occasional flashes of anger and frustration.
The intense look was something unique to Jack O'Neill. She liked that.
She realised he was waiting for her to speak. She gulped nervously, used to Jack making decisions and telling her what to do.
You've always called the shots in this relationship, she reminded herself. You were the one that asked to leave it in the room. You were the one who decided to move on after the advice of a hallucination...
... My life is beyond weird...
"Where to now?"
His lips twitched, laughing inside at her cleverness at deflecting the decision back onto him.
"That's up to you." Take that Sam Carter.
Her lips mirrored the movement of his. Damn you, Jack O'Neill. "Coffee?" she asked.
"Your place?"
He was offering her a way out, she realised, a get out of jail card for later should she decided to change her mind about his presence. She nodded, grateful for his grace, never once considering that fact that Jack might be absolutely terrified about the prospect of more than a quick cuppa, quaking in his boots at the thought of taking this still ethereal seeming relationship, if that was what it was, past the tentative stage it had reached previous to this moment.
He started his truck and pulled away.
He clutched his coffee cup like a chastity belt, sipping it intermittently as she chattered to him about Cassie's progress at college.
"It's still awkward, isn't it?"she said suddenly, interrupting herself in mid-flow about Cassie's unsuitable boyfriend.
He gripped the coffee cup tightly for a second, nearly spilling the scalding liquid as every muscle tensed involuntarily.
He blew out his cheeks, avoiding eye contact before he spoke. "...A little."
It was her turn to sigh. "I'm sorry..."
"It's not your fault. It's just... things are always so much easier when I can–"
"Look but not touch?"
He shifted uncomfortably. "Not exactly."
She looked away, embarrassed. "That's how I feel. I mean, it was great in the restaurant... but now you're here and this is real and really happening..."
"Now it's awkward," he agreed, carefully putting down the coffee cup and placing his hands on his knees.
"I hate the fact it's always awkward," she said suddenly, "I wish it could–"
"Not be awkward?"
"Yeah. But it always is."
He tipped his head back to stare at her ceiling.
"Maybe there's some truth in what Daniel was telling me..."
His head snapped back up. "Telling you about what?"
"About us." She smiled in a guilty kind of way.
"Hmm. What would that be?"
"That repressing things for so long can't have been healthy and that he thinks we have some sort of complex about admitting feelings for one another."
Great. Doctor Jackson turns his hand to amateur psychology. What's worse is he's probably right.
"Maybe he's got a point...?" he suggested tentatively.
"We do always seem to try and.... talk about things in life or death situations," she agreed, an element of relief in her voice.
"Or under duress," he added, trying not to think about her expression on that day four years ago when he had spoken those eleven great and terrible words:
I care about her... a lot more than I'm supposed to.
He was still lost in unpleasant memories when she kissed him suddenly. He found his mouth moving with hers as if no longer under his control, the electric touch of her tongue on his flipping some sort of switch in his hindbrain and switching off all conscious thought and worry. Instinctively he bought his hand up to gently touch her face, reassuring himself that this was really happening, the other hand gently clasping around her arm just above her elbow.
"Is this awkward?" she asked, her mouth still so close to his that he felt her lips brush his own.
"No," he replied, before leaning inwards for another kiss. He sank forward, not entirely sure if he was gently pushing her downwards with the force of his kisses or if she was drawing him inevitably lower by moving slowly sofa-wards.