Road to Nowhere

Part 3

After Sara left, Sam followed Jack up the stairs into what looked like the master bedroom. He set down the duffle bag he had been carrying and immediately went into the bathroom where he began digging through the drawers. "Why are we here, sir?"

"That's one of those meaning of life type questions Daniel's better off answering."

"Sir."

He had known she wouldn't hold her questions forever. He knew she trusted him and would follow his orders but she wouldn't follow them blindly and indefinitely without some answers. He'd always liked that about her. He had no use for mindless drones. He turned around meeting her determined gaze. "Major?"

"What's going on, sir?"

He continued his search and said over his shoulder. "The NID is after us."

"Why?"

"Why not?"

"What about Daniel, sir?"

"What about him?"

"Aren't they after him too?"

"No."

"How do you know all this?"

"Maybourne."

"Maybourne?"

"Yep."

"And you trust him?" she asked in disbelief.

"Not entirely." Jack allowed himself a small smile. Even though he hated to admit it even to himself Maybourne had kind of grown on him, but Sam's opinion of him hadn't changed since she first met him even after he'd help save her. He thought that was kind of funny. Usually Jack was the grudge holder and Sam the forgiver. "But he's come through before. Besides we're not in NID hands, are we now?"

"No, sir," she conceded. "But why just us?"

"He didn't know." Jack lied. He didn't want Sam to know that the NID were only really after her. It had taken her long enough to get over being captured and experimented on by Adrian Conrad's people. She had awakened screaming more than once off world. He also knew Janet had prescribed her sleeping pills for some time after the incident. He didn't want her to have to revisit those memories.

"How do you plan on getting to the SGC?"

"We're not. They'll be expecting that."

"So what are we going to do?"

"Disappear."

"How?"

He turned and smiled his slightly roguish smile. "Trust me."

"Always, sir," she smiled back.

"Here," he tossed a small bottle to her. "Paint your nails."

She stared at the glittery hot pink polish in her. "It's not exactly my style, sir."

"That's the point, Carter."

"Right."

Sam sat at a small dressing table in the bathroom while Sara applied the bight red color to her hair. She couldn't explain why, but she felt more than a little uncomfortable in the presence of her CO's ex-wife. She got the feeling the other woman was sizing her up. Why exactly she didn't know.

"So what do you do in the Air Force, Major?" Sara asked conversationally.

"I'm an astrophysicist."

"You're kidding right?" Sara laughed and then called out, "Jack, your second is an astrophysicist? What in the world do you do in that mountain?"

Sam could see in the reflection of the mirror as Jack stuck his head in the door and then moved to lounge in the doorway, "Deep space radar telemetry."

"What is that?"

"Y'know, I don't actually know. Carter, what is that?"

Sam smiled at his reflection. "Nothing you would be interested in, sir,"

Jack smiled back at her. "Ah, well. Good. I'm glad I don't do that then."

"So what does a special ops officer and an astrophysicist do together?"

Sam felt herself blush. She clearly heard the innuendo in Sara's question.

"Sara," Jack said in a warning tone. "You know better than to ask questions like that." Sam wasn't entirely sure he was talking about their insinuated unprofessional relationship or the classified nature of their work.

"My father always said you were the most closed mouth Irishman he'd ever seen," Sara said with a trace of irritation in her voice.

"He also said you talked too much, too," Jack said as he went back into the bedroom.

Jack was systematically going through his ex-wife's closet looking for un-Carter-like clothes for Sam. Most of Sara's clothes were very un-Carter-like. Sara had often verged on the frumpy-side, though not to say that Sara dressed unattractively. She just seemed to have a more sedate sense of style than Sam. There were no leather pants in Sara's closet. Not that Sam could have worn Sara's pants anyway. Sara and Sam were nearly the same height but their body styles were completely different. Sara had a skinny boyish figure and Sam…didn't. Jack decided to stop thinking about Sam's figure before his imagination got away from him. He began to dig through Sara's shoe's. "Hey, Carter," he called out.

"Yes, sir?"

"You wear what- a 8 ½ in shoes?"

"Yes, sir. Sometimes a 9."

"Good." Sara wore a 9. That worked out well.

Jack dug deeper into the shoe boxes until he came to rather large shoebox that was familiar to him. He pulled out and lifted the lid and looked down at the boots lying in the yellowed tissue paper. He remember having these boots made in Italy for Sara. They had just started dating when he had been deployed overseas. When he left the states it had been the height of the country and western craze in the early 1980s influence by Dallas and Urban Cowboy. In fact their last date before he left had been in a honky-tonk in Denver where they had danced all night. Well, up until Jack had gotten dragged into a fight and they had gotten thrown out. While he was stationed for a short time at an Italian air base he had spent a small fortune on a pair of custom made cowboy boot for Sara. He picked up one of the supple chocolate suede and caramel leather boots and looked at the perfectly clean sole. "You never wore these," he told the woman that had come to stand behind him.

"The whole Urban Cowboy fad was over with by the time you got back."

"I guess," he sighed. It was true. "I'm sorry."

"For what?"

"For being gone so much."

Sara sat down heavily on the corner of the bed, "I understood. Mostly. It was hard. We had some good times though, Jack."

"We did," Jack replied and they sat in silence for quite sometime. Each remembering the happier times of their marriage.

"Sir?"

Jack broke from his reverie and looked up to see a darkly tanned Sam standing in the doorway in Sara's bathrobe and a towel wrapped around her head. "I guess it's my turn, huh?" Jack stood taking the boots out of the box, and adding them to the small pile of clothes on the bed. "There's some clothes for you, Carter. I think that stuff should fit."

"Yes, sir."

Jack turned to Sara, "You gonna help me out?"

"Wouldn't just be easier to shave your head?"

He gave her a dark look as he picked up his bag. "No."

-

TBC