Title: Safe Bet

Chapter: Filling in the Blanks

Summary: "Hmm," he muttered, shoving his hands in his pockets and avoiding eye contact with her. "You can talk to me, you know?"

Disclaimer: Not my show. Not my characters.

Spoilers: Divide and Conquer


XXXX

They were all still staring at each other in confusion when he returned to the table, a steaming cup of coffee in his hands. He looked at Sam with a raised eyebrow and took the open seat next to her, saying nothing and taking a sip of his coffee. Davis, realizing that he was staring, mouth agape, stuffed a piece of pie in it and did his best to look like he wasn't completely out of the loop. "So," he said, starting up a new conversation. "From what I hear you're supposed to be on downtime, right?"

Sam tried not to notice that he was staring at her with a burning intensity in his eyes, and by "he" she didn't mean Davis. Smiling faintly, she shrugged her shoulders, "Downtime for me normally means working without interruptions here on the base. I did good to stay away yesterday and for most of today..."

"Oh," he said in realization, that made sense. Her job was very demanding. He, himself, used some of his time off to catch up. "How is your father doing?" He had met Jacob a few times before, and the retired general seemed like a decent guy... of course, it could have easily been his symbiote that was being so polite. With Tok'ra you never knew. But, he got the feeling that the elder Carter was just easy to get along with as his daughter was. And Davis considered Samantha Carter as a good friend, along with Teal'c, Doctor Jackson, and General O'Neill, although he got the impression that O'Neill wasn't thrilled when he came around; if only because that usually meant offical Pentagon business, or in other words, long and boring briefings. Paul himself wasn't that fond of them, although he did like being at the mountain. The atmosphere was a lot better there than at the pentagon, with all of it's stiff politicians who would kiss the backside of anybody for either money or votes. Which, was one of the biggest reasons he accepted being the liaison between the Pentagon and the SGC. "He was in town, right?"

"Yeah," she replied, sighing when she felt him take his eyes off of her and look over at Davis. "He's doing good. In a few days he'll be coming back in, to discuss the alliance again in full detail."

"Well, it sounds like I'll be busy with work for awhile," the man replied with a smile. Anything that had to do with the SGC and off-world allies normally meant paperwork for him. "You too, General."

Jack grumbled something along the lines of "oh joy", to which the others at the table smiled. Sam's was very brief and as soon as it disappeared from her face the anxiety of being so close to him got the best of her and she pushed away her jell-o. "I think I'm going to head home," she announced, looking over at Daniel. "I've got a lot of things that need to be taken care of." Like, figuring out how I'm going to let Pete down gently.

Daniel smiled, knowing both reasons that she was leaving. He stood up along with her, "I'll walk you out."

"Don't worry about it, Danny boy," Jack interrupted, "I'll do it. Colonel Carter and I have to talk, anyway."

The man looked at her apologetically, wincing at the brief flash of panic in her eyes. "Are you sure?"

Jack nodded, "Don't worry about it Daniel."

"I can go with you," he replied, trying not to make it seem as if he was doing anything and everything to make it so that she didn't have to be alone with him. "I have a few things that I need to talk about with her, as well."

"If you don't mind, Doctor Jackson," Davis said, as soon as he had stopped talking, "I'd like to have a few words with you, myself. I'm sure General O'Neill and Colonel Carter have a lot of Tok'ra related things to talk about." That was his best guess anyway. Since Sam's father was a Tok'ra. "Is that alright?"

The archaeologist looked at Sam and frowned, "Yeah, that's fine. I guess. Call me though, Sam... I do need to talk to you."

She nodded, "As soon as I get home."

Then Sam left out of the commissary, Jack following behind her, and Daniel and Davis were left alone at the table. "So... you wanted to talk to me about something?"

XXXX

"Are you ok?" he asked, as soon as the two of them entered the empty elevator, away from prying eyes and ears. "You seem... distracted."

"I'm fine," she falsely assured him. "I just have a lot of things on my plate lately. With dad coming back and the new alliance... it's thought consuming."

"Not to mention planning a wedding is hard work," he added, almost nonchalant. If an outsider had been listening they wouldn't have noticed the hidden bitterness in his voice, but Sam did, and he meant for her to. For the most part, at least. "How is that going, anyway?"

She shrugged, "I haven't really had time to even think about a wedding. If anything has been done, Pete did it." Sam tried her hardest to put an underlying message into her statement, but he didn't catch it, and nodded simply. Trying her hardest not to sigh in frustration, she bit down on her lip and watched as the elevator inched its way up to the surface.

"Are you sure there's nothing wrong, Carter?"

Holding in a snort, she nodded. "Everything is normal." Except for the fact that I love you, not my fiancé, and there's not a damn thing I can do about it, except leave him and hope you'll stop being a stubborn ass and notice me. "And... well, normal for me isn't really the norm for most. So, I'm as fine as anybody at the SGC can be."

"Hmm," he muttered, shoving his hands in his pockets and avoiding eye contact with her. "You can talk to me, you know?"

The doors to the elevator opened, but she didn't move and neither did he. When he finally looked over at her, in anticipation of her response, she smiled coyly and tried her best not to sound insubordinate, "No... I can't." And with that, she left the elevator, knowing his mind was turning with confusion.

He'd figure it out soon enough.

At least. She hoped.

XXXX

"What is going on here?" Davis asked, not defining exactly what he was talking about. Not that he needed to, though. Daniel knew just what he meant. Sam and Jack.

"It's very complicated, Paul."

The Major smiled wryly, he liked Daniel, but he was not going to let the man run circles around him and treat him like a child who couldn't understand a complex explanation. He hadn't gotten to the pentagon on his looks, contrary to popular belief. "Just try me. I think you'll be surprised at how much I can understand."

"I didn't mean--"

"Doctor," the Major cut him off. "If you would please stop pretending as if I don't have eyes and can't see what's going on in front of me, I would appreciate that."

Daniel sighed, "You're talking about Jack and Sam?"

"Yes," the man clarified. "But I suspect you knew that from the start."

Well... yeah. "There's nothing going on, Paul."

"If they're breaking regulations then I need to know--"

It was Daniel's turn to cut the Major off, "They would never do anything like that, Davis, and I know they would both be ashamed to hear that you even entertained the idea that they would."

If the man's words had been meant to cause the man to squirm and feel bad about himself, Daniel failed. "I'm not accusing them, Doctor Jackson. But, I have noticed things... I'm not a stupid man. I can see it. I know you can see it. I'm sure every single person on the base can see it."

"That doesn't matter, Davis. Like you said, there are regulations. They're both to devoted to the military to even consider breaking them, even though they seem to not have a problem breaking various others," Daniel explained. "There's nothing going on there... short of prohibited feelings."

"There are ways around the regulations." Davis said. "They know that, right?"

"Sure they do. But they're both to stubborn to admit how they really feel... short of that one time, and then it had been forced and played down, severely. And neither one of them would ever want to leave the SGC. There are some things in this world more important than happiness to them, and well, they're work is one of the very few. They know they're both needed here."

"You don't understand, Daniel," the Major told him. "There are ways around the regulations that they probably haven't even considered yet."

"What do you mean?"

The man shrugged, "Well... besides talking to the president in person, there are a lot of people who owe both of them favors, including myself and General Hammond. Hell, every person on this planet owes each member of SG-1 their lives... including Hayes. All they would have to do was ask themselves, or have somebody else do it for them. Somebody stupid enough to do it or somebody who owes them big time."

"And you owe them big time?"

"In more ways than one."

"You would talk to the president?"

"Not alone..." the man smiled slightly. "I know one man who would be willing to do anything for the two of them."

Daniel nodded, "Hammond."

"Well... him too. But, I was talking about you."

"Me?" Daniel questioned. "What makes you think the president would listen to anything that I said?"

"You did uncover the way to open the 'gate." Davis reminded him. "That's something big..."

"Well... yeah."

"I can get you to DC, easily."

"So let me get this straight," Daniel said, "you want me to fly to DC with you. Go to the president and ask him to suspend the fraternization regulations... I'm guessing for just the SGC?"

He shrugged, "It is kind of hard to carry on a relationship when you have to constantly lie to your significant other. And Hayes likes O'Neill and Carter. He'd do it, if he knew everything... You know there is a camera in the room where they did the Zatarc questioning?"

"You've seen it?"

"It's part of my job... well, not my job in specific. But, yeah. Don't worry though, I've put it away."

"So what was that beginning talk about?" Daniel questioned. "You knew the situation..."

"That was years ago, Daniel. I had to be sure."

"Well..." Daniel said with a sigh. "Like you said, I'd do anything for them... So, when do we leave?"

XXXX

Sam parked her bike on the side of the curb and kicked down the stand, sitting there for a few moments before she took the keys out and headed up to her house. The first thing she did when inside was straighten up, putting the large box she had carried down from the closet up, but only after she took the picture she had been smiling at the previous day out and setting it on the coffee table. She had a frame lying around somewhere, and there were no pictures of Jonas in her house, so why not?

After she had that done she went outside and checked the mail, frowning when she found a bill in her box, and nothing else. That was her luck. When she was done with that she brought her bike around back once more, since she wasn't going to be riding it anytime soon.

Then, she had nothing to do, and she didn't feel like reading, so she turned on the TV. It was still fairly early, only 1700 hours, and from what Pete had told her he wouldn't be there for hours, so she would be stuck with nothing to do until 2200, and although she would be bored out of her skull, sitting in front of the TV was much more appealing than breaking up with the man she was engaged to marry.

She flipped through the channels, but didn't find anything interesting. Then, remembering that she had promised Daniel to call as soon as she got home, a curse escaped her lips and she got off of the couch, headed for the phone.

He answered on the third ring, "Doctor Jackson."

"Hey, Daniel," she greeted, wincing slightly. "I forgot to call... I'm sorry."

There was a slight pause before he replied, "Oh... right. I guess I forgot too."

Sam was slightly taken aback, he had seemed adamant about talking to her earlier, and she had been sure that it had more to do than just to keep her from being alone with Jack. "What was it you wanted to talk about?"

Again, there was a pause. "Oh... you know. Stuff."

"You're with him, aren't you?"

"...Yeah..."

"Okay, well... call me later then, if you need to talk."

"Do you need to?" he questioned. She was the one dealing with having to break up with somebody, after all.

"I'll be okay, Daniel. I just need to focus on what I'm going to say to him, that's all."

"Alright, we'll call me when it's done."

"I will."

"Bye."

She said her goodbyes and hung up the phone with a sigh, leaning forward in her chair and running her hands through her short, unruly hair.

"What you're going to say to who?" a voice, instantly recognized as Pete's, called from the front door.

Sam looked up abruptly and saw him standing in the doorway, a travel bag in his hands and a suitcase sitting beside him.

Well... shit. This sucked.

He smiled at her and she could feel all of the color draining from her face. What was he doing here? He wasn't supposed to be back for hours. She wasn't ready for this. Not now. Not now.

"Are you okay baby?" he questioned, coming into the house, a concerned look on her face.

No she wasn't okay. This was too soon. She didn't have anything planned yet. How on earth could she break up with him now? She didn't know what to say. Not a clue.

Oh man. This was not good. Not good at all.

XXXX


Authors Note: Heh, cliffhanger. Let me know what'cha think.