Colonel O'Neill rounded the corner into Carter's lab. As predicted, she was hunched over some alien doohickey, prodding it with some sort of probe thingy. She looked much better than she had two days ago, two full night of rest and several full meals doing much to restore her color and normal vibrancy.
"So, Carter. Watcha doin'?" Jack rocked on his toes for a moment and shoved his hands into his pockets awkwardly, suddenly uncomfortable. It was the first time he'd been alone in her presence since they'd figured out his altered blood chemistry and starting him on the hormone therapy. It had worked remarkably quickly, his thoughts returning to normal by the very next day in fact, though Janet had insisted on keeping him confined to the infirmary until his hormone levels had returned to normal. His guilty conscience however, was another matter entirely.
Her head shot up at the sound of his voice and she whipped around, a faint blush coloring her cheeks. "Sir!"
Jack waved his hands, shrugging nonchalantly. He hadn't meant to startle her; he should have known his mere proximity would have set her off. "Sorry Carter. Just checkin' on ya. Thought we should, you know. Talk." He shrugged, as if it were no big deal. He studied the things on her desk, and shoved his hands back in his pockets to avoid the temptation of picking things up and fiddling, a sure way to piss her off.
Her eyebrows shot up. "Talk? Sir?"
"Yeah. You know, its what people do." He sighed, turning to face her. "Look, Carter, I owe you an apology. I should have said something sooner, but I let it get out of hand."
"Sir, it's not your fault…"
Jack held up a hand, "Ah, Carter, let me finish. I know what you're going to say. And, well, it was the hormones."
She looked perplexed and confused. "The hormones, sir?"
He paced a few steps away, before turning back towards her again. "Doctor Fraiser said my blood levels were like a hormone driven teenager on his first date. Everything I thought, everything I felt, it wasn't real. It was just the hormones Carter."
She blinked, biting her lip and swallowing, not quite meeting his eyes. "I-I see sir. Is that all?"
Jack wanted to kick himself, but he forged on ahead. It had to be done. "I'm sorry Carter, I just wanted you to know, that I didn't mean it. Not in that way. You know we can't." He saw the hurt in her eyes, but it was better, that's what he told himself, he'd already thought it through. And so he told himself again that the regulations wouldn't permit them to be together, and the war needed both of them too much where they were. And it wasn't fair to her to keep her waiting, and he wouldn't ask her to give up her career, not when he wasn't ready to do the same thing himself. And maybe if he kept telling himself these things, eventually, he'd believe them.
But her eyes were too bright, and Jack felt like a total bastard, even though he kept telling himself he was doing the right thing. Because if he was doing the right thing, then why did it feel so wrong? Finally, she regained control enough to speak. Picking up a folder, she clutched it to her chest like a shield. "I, I have to take this to General Hammond, sir."
Jack sighed, and nodded, and she turned, hesitating a moment as if she wanted to say something else, but seemed to change her mind suddenly squaring her shoulders. When she got to the door, Jack called her, not wanting to let the conversation end the way it had. "Carter," he said softly.
She turned back around, her expression troubled, but focused. "Sir?"
"My door is always open you know." He shoved his hands back into his pockets and watched her silently.
For a moment, she was silent, unmoving. After a while, she nodded, and he continued.
"I still care about you, you know. I hope this… this thing doesn't change that." He studied her face intently, watching the emotions play across it. A flicker of surprise, confusion, the earlier hurt still there, and finally a little understanding. He could live with that maybe he decided finally. He would still find it harder to live with himself.
She smiled briefly then, shifting awkwardly, blinking several times. "Thank you sir."
"And Carter?"
"Yes sir?"
And now Jack did pick up something from the desk, but he made sure it was only a pen, and not something alien or expensive. "SG-1's on some downtime, was thinking of having a little team night later this week…"
"Actually sir, as soon as Janet clears me for active duty in the next day or two, I'm joining up with Colonel Ronson on the Prometheus. Seems they need a little help with the engines and asked for me. General Hammond must not have told you yet." Sam shifted again, as if suddenly uncomfortable. "I, should ah, get this to the General, sir."
Jack blinked at the unexpected news. Maybe it would be for the best, give them some time alone to sort things out. He made a motion with his hands dismissing her, trying not to notice as she brushed at her face with the back of her hand and sniffled slightly as she turned her back on him yet again, trailing his fingers along the smooth surface of her desk.
As he let her walk away from him this time, he was filled with regret. Regret over the rules that wouldn't let them pursue any sort of relationship. Regret that she was alone, when she deserved so much more. Regret that he couldn't be her prince, but right now as he let her walk away again, he didn't feel much like a prince at all, he felt more like a frog, and so Jack O'Neill convinced himself that maybe it was better this way, and turned away from the one thing he might regret.
FinisA/N: Well, I hope you don't hate me for the ending! This one sorta evolved on it's own, and as I wrote it, I'd originally set it in season 7, and then I thought, what if I set it just before Grace… Then I thought, what if this were the catalyst for Sam's visions/hallucinations of Jack telling her he's a "safe bet" and Jacob telling her she deserved to be loved etc, and for her getting a boyfriend. And so the little bit of conversation and Jack being hurtful in the end, but thinking he was doing them both a favor while he did it, even though he knew he was hurting her… And then Sam going off on the Prometheus… Well that's my take on things… Like I told SG1-Fanfic in an email before I even attempted this sequel, I fell into this one, in this setting, so I refused to use any of the old cliché presidential pardon, Jack retires, Sam quits, one of them transfers etc etc used and abused means of getting them together so that left me with UST, which would frustrate us all in the end, but I hope it was fun along the way! Special thanks to SG1-Fanfic for being my idea beta, and for all the lengthy discussions on why Sam's a great character (lol!) and why Jack can be a real bastardo sometimes lol.
Anyway, again, I hope you don't all hate me for not putting Sam and Jack together in the end. I'm still working them together in my mind, and trying to work out how that feels, and to be honest it's still a bit like sleeping with one's boss, which I tried to explain a bit from Jack's point of view in the story as to why he didn't think it would work, at least not then. Anyway, I haven't written any real J/S before, so this UST is the first major break for me, and I do hope to write some real J/S romance one day, this one just wasn't it. Someday though, I'll think of a plausible, different way of doing it. Maybe. But I still think aliens should demand they have hot monkey love on the briefing room table in exchange for their naquadah. Hrm. Yeah.
Well, Thank you to everyone that stuck through til the bitter end, and for all the lovely comments, and for not killing me if the ending didn't live up to your expectations! I hope you'll continue to read my other fics, as I have a few more in the works.
PS: Janissima, you don't know how hard it was for me to sit on my hands and not go rewriting things and make Sam pregnant after your earlier review lol. That was an idea I hadn't thought of lol. She could have gotten pregnant in either the initial blast or when she kissed Jack the Frog. But then when I thought about it, I didn't want them basing a relationship on a baby coming, and if I was writing J/S the baby would come after the relationship was established, which is as it should be, since I already have so many doubts about the commander/subordinate roles their current relationship already have, throwing a baby in the works would make too much of a mess for our Jack and Sam. Besides, there's already one great (well more than one… lol) J/S baby fic out there isn't there? ;)