Shades of Guilt
Jack walked with a guilty shuffle towards his destination. He raised his hand to knock on Daniel's apartment door, then withdrew it in an uncharacteristic show of indecision.
'Get it over with,' he cheered himself on.
He knocked three times.
Daniel opened the door a few moments later, smiling half-heartedly at the Colonel as he stood at his door.
"Hi, Jack."
"Daniel." Jack shifted from one foot to the other, waiting. When Daniel remained silent, Jack suggested, "Can I come in for a minute?"
"Oh. Sure." Daniel stepped back out of the way and allowed Jack to enter. The older man meandered hesitantly through the entranceway into Daniel's living room, then turned to look back.
"I, uh, brought you something." Jack handed a box to Daniel along with a six-pack of cola and followed Daniel into the kitchen where he placed the items on the table.
"So what's in the box?"
"Doughnuts. All different kinds. Teal'C said you liked them."
Daniel gave him a quizzical stare.
"So... you got me doughnuts because Teal'C said I..."
"Well, yeah, just a friend to friend thing, you know, no big deal." Jack cleared his throat and stared at the corner of the room, his hands clenching and unclenching nervously, trying not to turn red as he remembered the unkind words he'd said to Daniel about the 'friend thing' just last week.
Daniel continued to stare, which served to increase Jack's uneasiness. Daniel suddenly seemed to become aware of the tension he was creating and gesturedat the table.
"So, breakfast?"
"Thought you'd never ask," Jack responded uncomfortably and sat down. After eating a doughnut at a record pace, Jack was back on his feet, restless and distracted.
"Well, I have a lot to do, so I'll leave you to enjoy your...breakfast. See you at work, Daniel."
Daniel stared in confusion as Jack practically ran out the door.
Teal'C was practicing a few moves in the gym when Jack O'Neill finally found him. Teal'C stopped and gave a slight nod of his head to his commanding officer, a faint look of mistrust on his usually placid features.
"Hi, Teal'C," Jack greeted him. "How's it going?"
"Nothing is going anywhere, O'Neill." Teal'C was not familiar with the rhetorical question.
"I, uh, thought you might be able to use this," Jack offered by way of explanation for the brown paper package he now held out to Teal'C. The Jaffa took the package after a moment of indecision and opened it.
"Portable telescope," Jack explained cryptically. Thought you might enjoy studying the stars at night from Earth. Just a thought." Jack paced a few steps back and forth, then stopped and addressed Teal'C again.
"If you need some help getting it set up I'd be glad to show you. Just ask. Anytime. I mean it. You know where to find me, right Teal'C?"
"I do, O'Neill. Thank you for the..."
"Telescope."
"Telescope."
"You're very welcome. Just ask. Anytime. It would be fun. Uh, bye."
Jack was out of the door and gone before Teal'C could react further. He stared at the scope in his hand, then looked back at the spot where O'Neill had last been, not sure what had just happened.
"Carter!" Jack was standing in the door frame of Sam's lab, much to her surprise. After his three month absence on the planet Edora, and then his undercover mission without his teammates' knowledge to uncover the NID mole in the SGC, Sam hadn't quitebecome accustomedto seeing him around again. She jumped at his sudden appearance and knocked a pencil on the floor.
"Sorry, I didn't mean to startle you. What are you up to?"
Sam studied him suspiciously for a moment, then visibly relaxed.
"Just finishing up a few trials with a new subroutine for running the UAV's," Sam answered proudly, gesturing towards her desk littered with half finished calculations and sketches.
"Cool," Jack replied, using the usual response he reserved for when he wasn't sure what she had said. "Are you almost at a stopping point?"
Sam would be the hardest of his three teammates with whom to smooth the waters, although at the moment he wasn't feeling all too confident about his success with the first two.
"Yes sir, this is as good a time as any. What can I help you with, sir?"
'Do you think you could squeeze a few more 'sirs' into that sentence, Carter?'
"I was hoping you'd join me for a cup of coffee?" Jack asked quietly. He held out a beverage box with two coffees inside.
She didn't answer at first.
"Please?"
"Sure. Sounds good."
"That for me?" Sam asked easily, sipping the hot drink, pointing at another box he had placed on the lab table.
"Yes. Open it."
Sam smiled, one of the first smiles he'd seen from her in way too long. She carefully pulled up the lid to the box and dumped out what seemed to be seashells, but unlike any she'd ever seen before. Thin, delicate, and intricate, she gasped at their uniqueness. There were a lot of them.
Jack smiled to himself, knowing he'd scored on more than one level. Sam's scientific curiosity was peaked.
"Where did you get these?" She asked, enthralled.
"There was a lake near the Edoran village, and I found them there. I knew you'd like them. There's one hundred- I counted them, one for each day I was gone."
At the mention of Edora Sam's face grew troubled again, but Jack had been expecting that.
"I went down to the lake shore when I needed to get away, when I wanted to think. About home. About you, Sam. I'd find the best shell on the beach for you. And then I'd imagine me giving it to you. I'd imagine seeing you get all excited, like you were just a minute ago."
She raised her eyes to him, and he was encouraged to see hope beginning to bloom in their blue depths.
"This one..." Jack pulled out a dark, almost black swirled shell, "I imagined giving this one to you right here, in your lab, sitting right where you are now-"
"Like this?" Sam asked, sitting up a bit straighter, beginning to get into the sweet game he was playing with her.
"Actually..." Jack walked up behind her and arranged her arms so she was leaning over her work on her elbows, "like that. I slide the shell under your nose and you turn, surprised that I got all the way into your lab without you hearing, and..."
"And I say, that's incredible, I've never seen anything so beautiful..." Sam was giggling at their make believe.
Jack grinned and pulled out another shell, this one lemony yellow and covered in a pearly sheen.
"This one I give you in the lab as well. I come in and find you sleeping on the lab table..."
"You've never really seen me sleeping on the lab table!"
"...and I leave it right where I know you'll see it when you wake up. Then, I sit right here next to you. I watch you sleep for a while. You're so..." Jack stopped as he realized he was still talking out loud.
Sam stood and turned, and took the box into her hands, looking in at the rest of the shells as if seeing them in a new light. Then she gazed up at Jack with an open, longing expression.
"Does each one of these have a story?" Sam whispered.
"Yes." He returned her gaze with equal fervor.
"Will you tell me?"
"I'd like that." Jack whispered back, only a breath away from her now as they stood face to face. He put his hands over hers where they held the box.
"Sam, I'm sorry for how hard these past few months have been for you. I wanted you to know it was hard for me too. It was incredibly hard being away from you. I missed you. All the time. No matter what you may have thought, or how things may have appeared. I was missing you."
Sam hugged the box of shells to her chest.
"Wow," she replied shakily, her eyes shining and swimming. Jack backed off a step, relieved, feeling secure in the knowledge that she now understood.
"I should get back to my office."
"Alright. Thank you, sir. This is amazing."
"I'm glad."
Jack turned around at the doorway. He boldly decided to push the envelope a bit further.
"I could tell you some more shell stories over dinner?" He suggested.
Sam smiled so brilliantly it almost blinded him.
"Do you like Chinese takeout? My place? Around 1900?" She returned.
Jack nodded. "I'll be there, Major."
There was a guilty spring in his step as he returned to his office, entertaining a whole new set of daydreams in his mind.