When All Else Fails

Chapter Thirteen

Disclaimer: See first-last chapters.

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The first stop they made was at some boutique in town, she searched around for a few minutes and when nothing caught her eye they went onto the next store. She spent ten minutes looking there before they went on to the next. All in all, the first half an hour was uneventful. Jack wasn't exactly hopeful for the next hour and a half; but then again he had never been one for shopping.

"We should probably just go to the mall," Sam suggested as they climbed back into Jack's truck. "Hit the department stores. They're bound to have something." She snapped on her seatbelt, "I should have figured as much from the beginning, shopping never changes."

Jack sighed and began the ten-minute drive to the mall. When they got there Sam maneuvered her way through the large building as if she had never left; her first stop was Sears. "I'm not sure how good they are on men's clothes," she told him, "but they normally have beautiful dresses."

"Why do we have to get dressed up anyway?" He inquired, following her as she walked through the store. "What exactly does Cassie have planned for tonight?"

"This is very important to her, Jack," Sam scolded. "The very least we can do is look nice, this is her fiancé we're meeting up with. With Janet gone we're the closest thing she has to parents." Glancing over at him she smiled weakly, "I've always been really close to Cassie, I don't want to disappoint her."

Her strategic move worked, he bought her excuse. Which, since it was the truth shouldn't have been that hard to believe in the first place ... even if she had left the dancing detail out. "Fine," he mumbled, "I guess I can dress up ... but I'm sure I have something at home."

"Like what?" she asked, looking at him suspiciously. "I've never seen you dress up for anything that wasn't military related."

"Well, it's not like I have to wear a suit or anything, is it?" He asked, throwing an inquisitive look her way. "I don't have to wear a suit ... do I?"

Holding back a giggle she shook her head. "No, Jack," she assured him, "you don't have to wear a suit. Just a pair of nice pants and a nice shirt ... you think you can suffer for a couple hours?"

"Oh, I don't know," he replied with a sigh. "It might be too much."

"Well ... I guess if you've already got something that you could wear there's no use in looking for you something." A slight grin stretched across her face, which should have been a harbinger for things to come, he just didn't connect the dots. "That leaves me with about 90 minutes to find something, which isn't exactly that long. So, we'd better hop to it."

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By an hour later he was bored out of his skull, occasionally she would run off to a dressing room and try something on, but other than that he had to stand around waiting. Thankfully she wasn't the type who carried a purse, otherwise he was sure he'd be holding it. Sighing to himself he glanced around the clothing store he was in, it was the eighth they had gone too so far. A while back, at the fourth shop, she had found something that she had fallen in love with. But, they still had an hour left, she argued, that was plenty of time to do some comparing and contrasting.

The dress that she was currently trying on was red and would probably just fall short of her knees. He wasn't sure, she was still in the dressing room, but after watching her try on twelve or thirteen different dresses at around the same length he was pretty sure that's what it was. The bottom of the dress was wavy and it had a sheer material over it which tented the whole thing black. If you asked him it was just like ever other one she had looked at, but for some reason she had fallen in love with the thing immediately.

Caught in his thoughts he didn't notice when she walked out of the dressing room, she cleared her throat to get his attention and he swung his head in her direction. She was standing in the doorframe of the dressing room, almost awkwardly, tugging at the fabric nervously. Stepping out of the doorframe completely she shrugged her shoulders, "Well ... what do you think?"

"That, like every other dress you've tried on, you look great. I do like the red though, that's different."

"Well," she asked, "do you like this one or the other one better?"

"Well, pink really isn't my color, so I'm gonna go with the red one. Of course, it is up to you. Which do you like better?"

"I think I like this one better," she began to twist, causing the bottom of the dress to sway. "The other one didn't do this," she explained upon receiving a look from Jack. "It's very important."

"I'll bet," he agreed. "So, are we getting this one?"

After thinking a moment longer she nodded, "Yeah ... this is the one. Do you have anything that'll go with the red or the black?"

"Yeah, I have plenty of things that will match the black."

"I'll just go get changed and then all we have left to do is get a pair of shoes, which won't be hard. I'm not as picky with my shoes."

"Thank God," he mumbled to himself.

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Half an hour later they were in his truck on their way back to his house. Sam hadn't been lying when she said she wasn't picky when it came to shoes, she had found the perfect pair at the first store that they went to. After that she managed to get him into a department store so she could get some make-up and hair supplies, then she was done. Thus, they left the mall.

She wasn't as good at hiding things as she thought, he didn't know exactly what Cassie had planned for the evening but he knew it had to be more than just dinner at a nice restaurant with her fiancé. He was determined to figure out exactly what it was before leaving for the actual dinner, but doubted that he would. There wasn't that much time until then and he would be getting ready during most of it.

As soon as they got back to his house she ran off to the bathroom to shower, leaving him by himself to find something suitable to wear. After searching through his closets for at least ten minutes he gave up and decided to wait until she was finished. Nearly half an hour later she emerged from the bathroom, still wearing her jeans and T-shirt.

"All that time and you're still not ready?" he asked from his position on the couch.

"I was taking a shower," she explained. "My dress is still in your truck."

"Well, before you go and get it help me find something to wear."

"What, can you not dress yourself?" she asked with a smile.

"I just didn't want to have to change because what I picked out wasn't good enough," he said with a shrug.

"Sure," she replied incredulously. "Alright then, let's go and have a look."

Five minutes later after searching through his closet she had pulled out two outfits for him to choose from. One was a pair of jeans with a red collared shirt, with a black sweater to go over it. The second matched her outfit in no way, khaki pants with a blue button up shirt. She had mentioned that she liked the blue better but the red would match, but it was ultimately his decision. In the end, he went with the red and black.

At half an hour until 1900 she phoned Cassie to get all the information about where they were going to eat and what time they should be there. Cassie told them to meet her and Dominic at a restaurant called 'The Chop House' for dinner at seven thirty. She also mentioned to Sam that they would be going dancing at a place called Two to Tango. Sam thought the name was a bit odd, but Cassie had explained that she had been before, and it was very classy. All Sam had to do was make sure she didn't mention dancing to either Jack or Dominic.

The left the house at a few minutes past 1900 hours, since neither Sam nor Jack knew where the restaurant was. On their way there Sam kept her eye open for Two to Tango, but it must not have been on the way there.

Sam was confused when she looked at the dashboard clock and it was already 1937, "Jack ... are we late?"

"The clock's a little bit fast," he explained, "you didn't notice?"

"I guess I wasn't paying attention," she replied with a sigh. "How fast is it?"

"Let me do the math...." He said, a smile spreading across his face. "About fifteen minutes."

She relaxed and sat back in her seat, allowing her eyes to drift shut. It wasn't that she was tired, she was just comfortable, and the fact that he had the heat going didn't help much. She stayed that way for the ten or so minutes that it took for them to reach their destination, whereupon she opened her eyes to survey their surroundings. Confusion once again took over.

"...Jack, this isn't Chop House," she stated, as if he had yet to realize it.

"I know," he replied.

Irritation started to take over confusion when he didn't explain further, "Well...?"

"Well, what?" He asked, turning the truck off and opening the drivers' side door. When she didn't mimic his actions he gave her a look, "You gonna stay in here all night?"

She was having a hard time keeping her jaw from hanging open, "I don't understand...." She admitted, an eyebrow slowly climbing up her forehead. "Why aren't we meeting with Cassie?"

"You're not supposed to understand it, Sam. But you are, however, supposed to trust me enough to get out of the truck and follow me inside." He motioned towards a large brick building with no identification markings. "So ... are you gonna stay in here all night with no air and no music or are you going to follow me inside?"

She glared at him incredulously, "What do you have planned Jack O'Neill?"

"Nothing," he assured her. "Just ... come inside. You'll understand, I promise."

Hesitating a moment, she studied his face to gauge his truthfulness. "Alright," she finally gave in, opening the truck door and stepping out onto the concrete. In a second he was at her side, shutting the door for her and then slipping his arm around her waist either protectively or possessively. She contemplated which would be worse, him feeling the need to protect her in general or him feeling the need to inform others she was currently taken ... by him.

It wasn't a long walk to the building, although when she glanced around the parking lot she saw it was packed, and they had obtained nearly the last parking spot. Where were they going that so many people would be attending? What exactly did he have up his sleeve? Did Cassie have something to do with it, or was she still waiting for them at the restaurant?

She hesitated again before allowing him to open the door, wondering what exactly she should expect. There was a long corridor from the entrance of the building that led to a set of gray double doors with no windows. Everything was oddly quiet, the only noise being the click of her heels against the wood floors. He smiled at her before pulling one of the doors open and stepping inside, pulling her with him.

Darkness was all that she could see for the first five seconds, all the lights in the room were turned off. Turning around in her place she tried to figure out where exactly he was standing, but she could make out no outline of him standing close by. "Jack?" She called out into the dark room, "What's going on?"

A light switch clicked and the room was flooded with the florescent glow, she glanced around quickly, a gasp escaping her lips as her eyes fell upon a mass of people scattered around a decorated room. One decoration in particular stood out to her, it was a large banner in the front of the room that, in big, colorful letters, spelled out "WELCOME HOME SAM!".

As soon as the situation registered in her mind a loud, simultaneous, "SURPRISE!" filled her ears. Her hand flew up to her mouth as a bubble of laughter erupted. Glancing around the room her eyes fell upon another's, soft brown and sparkling with laughter and love. Somehow she knew he had one of the biggest parts in the surprise. Next to him an equally soft pair of brown eyes shown with the same laughter, only a completely different type of love. The same part of her mind said that he had planned the brunt of this, no doubt about it. Reminding herself to move she walked over to the two general's, the smile on her face growing with each second.

"You are so sneaky!" she squealed as she hugged her father. "Having Hammond tell me you wouldn't even be told about my return for two days! I can't believe you."

Jacob hugged her back tightly, "I missed you so much, Sammie."

Pulling back enough to look at him she nodded, "I missed you, too. How are things with the Tok'ra?"

"They're good, but, right now we're not going to discuss work. This is a party, for you. Go tell everybody hey first."

She smiled and kissed him on the cheek, "Thank you, dad."

He glanced over at Jack, "He planned most of it, I just did what I was told."

Breaking away from her father she stood in front of Jack, "So the dinner with Cassie...?"

"All part of my plan," he explained. "Cassie's around here somewhere, so is Dominic."

Stepping forward she wrapped her arms around his neck and pulled him close to her, "Thank you, Jack."

"No problem," he said before kissing her briefly. "Now ... let's go around and see everybody. You don't know how hard it was getting all these people here in less than 24 hours, without you knowing no less!"

Smiling she pulled back out of his arms and allowed him to slip is arm back around her waist. Looking over at him she could feel her smile growing and she kissed him quickly on the cheek, "I love you, Jack."

He squeezed her side in reply, "I love you, too."

Turning back towards the room she noticed Cassie sitting at a table in the corner, a dark haired boy in the chair next to her. At the same table were Daniel, Teal'c, and General Hammond. Nudging Jack she pointed in the direction of the table and his eyes followed, with a nod of confirmation the two walked over to them, Jack's arm still wrapped tightly around her waist.

It was good to be back home.

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A/N: This chapter turned out totally different that I had expected it would! I'm guessing that fourteen will deal with the party and all that. Anyway, let me know what'cha think about it! I live for reviews.