Ch 3: Multiple Distractions

Once they were left alone in Jack's guest room, Sam and Daniel both turned their attention back to the albums they were still holding.

"These must have taken him so long to do," Sam said quietly, unable to hide the affection in her voice.

"Yeah," Daniel agreed. Sam knew he was just as moved as she was by all the effort the Colonel had put into their gifts.

After a few moments of quiet thought, she said suddenly, "Let's see what it is we're supposed to change into."

"I'm sort of scared to look," Daniel admitted as they set their albums down and went over to the closed closet door.

"Yeah, me too," Sam muttered, opening the closet bravely.

Daniel pulled out his outfit and looked at it with a shrug. A new dark blue dress shirt, some black slacks that were his own, and his own shoes. When exactly had Jack and/or Teal'c broken into his house and stolen his clothes? he marveled slightly. A piece of paper poked out of the pocket of the shirt. He pulled it out and laughed loudly.

"What?" Sam asked.

"It's from Jack, it says, 'you should have seen the shirt Teal'c wanted to get for you,'" Daniel read.

Sam laughed but her attention was still on the dress she was holding out at arm's length. The very small black dress.

"Woa," Daniel said as he looked at it as well.

Sam turned it around to look at the back and groaned. The back was practically non-existent. "I'm going to kill Cassie," she said quietly.

"Umm, are you absolutely certain she's the one who picked that out? I mean, it could have been..." Sam glared at him. "Someone else," Daniel finished, although they both knew that wasn't what he was going to say. "It could be worse," Daniel offered. "It doesn't look very low... in the front."

"True," Sam admitted with a sigh, longing suddenly for the tight jeans and the O'Neill tee-shirt Cassie had made her wear last year. "It also doesn't look like I'll be able to wear a bra, with the way the back of this thing is... configured."

"Sam, I really didn't need to know that," Daniel said, wincing in distaste at the thought of her going braless all night. It was much the same look Jack had given Cassie when he had noticed the length of her skirt.

"Sorry," she apologized absently. "Okay, well, do you want to take the first shower?"

"No, you go first. You take longer, so you'll have longer to get ready if you go first," Daniel offered, hanging his outfit back up and stretching out on the bed, reaching for his photo album. He wanted to look through it again, slower, without everyone else around.

"Thanks," Sam called, hanging the dress back up and grabbing her bag. She went into the bathroom and started the shower.

An hour later, Daniel was shifting nervously in the bathroom, where he was waiting while Sam got dressed. "Can I come out yet?" he called hopefully.

"Yeah, come on out!" Sam called back.

Daniel let himself back into the bedroom and stopped, smiling broadly at her.

"What?" she asked self-consciously, smoothing the dress down.

"Nothing, you look great, Sam. Really. Whoever picked that dress out did a really good job."

She smiled at the compliment but fiddled with her earring nervously. Daniel had been right, the dress wasn't very revealing in the front at all. It nearly reached her knees and was a silky black material with a loose, almost cowl-like neckline that didn't show off any cleavage, really, unless you happened to be several inches taller than she was and looking straight down. It was held up by very thin black straps that wove across her back as well.

"I need you to tie this thing at the back actually, I can't get it tight enough myself," Sam said, turning around.

Daniel raised both eyebrows at the sight of her back, which was bare except for all the straps going across it. "Looks like shoelaces," he commented as he moved to tie off the straps where they stopped, just above her butt. "Do you want a bow or a knot?"

"Bow." He nodded and quickly tied them off in a bow, then double knotted it just to be sure.

"What are you doing?" she asked.

"Don't want this accidentally coming undone," he said matter-of-factly. "If Jack picked this dress out I'm going to hurt him," he decided.

Sam laughed at his overprotectiveness and stepped away from him. "Well, one thing I'm happy about this dress, the neckline is absolutely perfect for the necklace you gave me." She took it out of her bag and put it on carefully, checking it in the mirror. Just as she had thought, it was perfect.

"Well?"

"You look beautiful, Sam."

"You look very handsome too, Daniel," she said truthfully as she strapped on her shoes reluctantly. They looked great, but they hurt like hell.

"What now?" Sam asked, realizing they still had the better part of an hour before they were going to be let out of their room.

"Chess?" Daniel asked.

Sam eyed the board in the middle of the bed. "If I sit down I'll get this dress all wrinkled."

"Well, you can't stand up all night," he reasoned.

"True," she agreed. She stretched out on her stomach on the foot of the bed, quickly making sure the dress wasn't going to wrinkle like that. "All right. This works. You go first." Daniel sat down across from her behind the white pieces and opened the same way he always did.

"Everybody decent in there?" Jack called through the closed door as he pulled the chair away.

"Yeah," Daniel called back. Jack opened the door. He was expecting them to be dressed up, waiting for him, playing chess. He wasn't expecting his 2IC to be stretched out across the bed on her stomach, legs bent up behind her, heels on and ankles crossed.

He'd known she was going to be all dressed up, of course, but she just looked so casual sprawled across the bed, so inadvertently sexy and different from herself, but not so different really, because she was so into the chess game that she hadn't even noticed he was there, and she had the same look of concentration on her face he'd seen a million times... he cleared his throat and left the room quickly.

Daniel had done nothing but watch Jack's eyes zero in on Sam, who of course hadn't even noticed his presence at all. As Jack left the room, Daniel burst out laughing and Sam looked up at him like he was mad. "What is wrong with you?" she asked, moving her bishop across the board. "Check mate," she added casually.

He looked down at the board and said, "Damn. Uh, Jack was just in here. I think judging by the look on his face, he is not the one who picked out that dress."

Sam blushed furiously and got up quickly, smoothing down the dress to make sure everything was still properly in place. Jack came barreling back into the room dragging Cassie with him. "This is not the dress I picked out," he said, pointing at Sam.

"Yes, it is," Cassie said calmly but firmly, crossing her arms over her chest and preparing herself for the argument to follow.

"Woa, woa, what exactly..." Sam started.

Jack spun her around by the shoulders and pointed at her back. "You didn't show me this!" he insisted.

"Jack, calm down," Cassie said, grinning broadly. "I did exactly as you asked, I got a dress for Sam. As you recall, I got three dresses and showed them to you. You picked this one, I returned the other two. It's not my fault if you didn't ask to see the back of the dresses. Everybody's waiting downstairs," she added, winking at Sam and leaving the room before Jack could get in another word.

Sam, who had been initially furious at the problems the dress seemed to already be causing, suddenly burst into hysterical laughter at the look on Jack's face. Daniel followed suit and finally Jack laughed as well and said, "Every year, she manages to mess with my head... I'm going to kill that kid one of these days. I'm sorry, kids." He stepped back from Sam and Daniel and locked eyes with Sam to make sure she wasn't mad or anything. She clearly wasn't.

He sighed in relief and disappeared for a second, quickly returning with their birthday hats. "Almost ready, then we can go down to your party."

As she set the tiara on her head obediently, Sam took the opportunity to appreciate her CO's outfit as well, and wondered if Cassie had picked that out too. She supposed there really wasn't anything special about the dark gray slacks and black sweater he was wearing, but she always got a thrill out of seeing him in regular clothes, and regular but dressy clothes were even more rare.

Whoever made that sweater deserved a big pat on the back, Sam decided. It seemed to have been made to showcase his shoulders and chest, and her eyes were drawn to his eternally messy hair more than they usually were, for some reason. He had a way of wearing clothes that always attracted her attention. Like he threw them on in five minutes, knew he looked great, and was comfortable wearing anything. She blushed as she realized how long she'd been checking out her CO, wondering how much longer they both would have continued to stare at each other if Daniel hadn't coughed pointedly.

"Er, right, you're both ready then. Let's go," Jack said, heading out the door. Sam and Daniel followed, exchanging looks and shrugs, neither really having a clue what could possibly be awaiting them downstairs. As Jack froze on the top of the stairs and called, "Ready, Teal'c?" Sam and Daniel grabbed each other's hands.

"Come on," Jack encouraged, heading down the stairs.

They followed after him, stopping halfway to take in the huge crowd of people in his living room. Teal'c, at the foot of the stairs in a shirt that looked straight out of a Garth Brooks video, started directing the entire crowd in singing 'Happy Birthday.'

As they all sang, Daniel and Sam surveyed the crowd. The entire SGC seemed to be there. Jack's furniture had all been pushed back against the walls, leaving a big open space in the middle of the large room. Looking through to the dining room, there was a large buffet of food set up, and balloons and decorations were everywhere. Grogan, one of the newest recruits, was setting up some sort of sound system over in a corner. The sliding glass doors that led out to his deck showed that it was lit up decoratively and had large heating units going already.

And the SGC must have been functioning on a skeleton crew, Sam thought as she took in all the people who were smiling at her. Everyone, it seemed, was there. Her dad and General Hammond were standing with Janet and Cassie, who was trying to keep Maggie from running up to Sam. As the song ended, everyone started talking again.

Jack blew a party horn loudly and said, "Just a minute everybody, before we get down to some serious partying..." Everyone groaned. "For those of you who don't know already, the food is in the dining room, the drinks are in the kitchen... Grogan here was kind enough to offer his services as DJ for the evening so feel free to dance, just not with me, and... what else? Oh yeah, there will be karaoke later on, so be sure to sign up for that and... that's it. Everybody have fun, but not too much fun, cuz remember, General Hammond IS here..." Everyone laughed loudly. "Okay. That's it. Watch out for my dog, Maggie, don't give her anything to eat. Have fun!"

Everyone started milling around. Jack turned up to look at Sam and Daniel, unable to keep the hopeful look off his face. "Well?"

"This is great, Jack!" Daniel said enthusiastically, hugging him on his way down the stairs to go join all the guests. Jack watched him go, happy Daniel was pleased, and turned back to his 2IC.

"Wow, when you say distraction, you mean distraction," she said fondly, remembering his vow after their spectacular kiss the year before that this year he was going to create tons more distractions.

"Uh, yeah," Jack said, running his hand through his hair and looking her up and down slowly.

She blushed instantly, hating how easy it was for him to unsettle her. "I'd say in that respect I failed spectacularly already," he said sincerely, fixing her with his gaze.

She blushed even more but was thankfully spared having to come up with a response when she heard her Dad and General Hammond calling them.