Disclaimer:i don't own Stargate sg-1 and i don't own macgyver. i wish i did, but i don't, i'm just playing with them. promise to put them back in decent shape.
A/N:yeah yeah, i know, this isn't chapter 18 of worlds collide. i had the chapter written and when i was typing it i found that i didn't like it, so i'm working on it but it's slow going. so i found this on my computer, finished it, polished it a bit and am presenting it to y'all in place of chapter 18. rest assured, chapter 18 is coming, but not only do i not like what i had, but rl has invaded again. but i plan one writing on the flight home this week so i promise y'all will have chapter 18 next week. anyway, in honor of my name and my upcoming birthday here is a macgyver-sg-1 crossover. please remember to review and also remember, reviews make me smile.
What Happens When Uncle Pete Comes To Town
Sam Carter smiled as she read the e-mail from her Uncle Pete. Even though he was nearing 70 and blind, he was still the director of the Phoenix Foundation, and he still attempted to master new technology. Sam's smile grew as she remembered her mother's older brother the way he was when she was a child. Pete Thornton had never been the best husband or father, but he had never disappointed his adventure-seeking niece. She was still reading his message when she felt a pair of eyes on her. General Jack O'Neill's eyes to be exact, she always knew when Jack was watching her, it probably helped that he spent most of the day watching her, she had learned the feel of his eyes on her quickly. And just as quickly, she had realized that she liked it. Oh, she was used to men checking her out, she wasn't beautiful, at least in her own mind, but she knew that some men found her attractive, but before Jack she had always called the staring guy on it, but she liked it when Jack watched her. In the beginning, she had thought that he was making sure she did her job right that he was just supervising her; then as time past, she realized that the feel of his eyes became different, and that he was always watching her, no matter what she was doing. Shortly after she realized that she like him watching her, she finally admitted to herself that she liked watching him as well. And, admitted to herself that if she knew that he watched her, then he probably knew that she watched him, whether or not the Special Ops training helped was still unknown. Not long after that admission to herself, she realized something else, he wasn't just her CO anymore. He was also more than her friend, she quickly realized that she was falling in love with him. And despite the problems that caused, and the sleepless nights spent cursing him, Sam had finally accepted it, even if it taken another failed engagement, this time to police detective Pete Shanahan, to make her realize that her feelings for Jack O'Neill weren't going anywhere, and were in fact getting stronger with time. Pulling herself out of her thoughts, Sam realized that Jack had been watching her for about five minutes, and deciding to put an end to his staring session, she asked without turning to the door, "Is there something you needed, sir?"
"Uh, just wanted to check in with my favorite astrophysicist, make sure the blue jello was up to snuff…"he trailed off. There was no way he could tell her that as soon as Daniel had told him that her engagement was off he had practically come running to her lab. Of course, that was just one of many things he couldn't tell her, like Jack O'Neill wasn't his real name, like he really wasn't stupid, that he had a degree in Physics and loved science. But after eight years, he didn't know how to tell the woman he loved that he had been lying to her the entire time he had known her. He'd seen Sam Carter truly angry a few times, and though he had never told anyone, it had been frightening. She had learned well from her father how to be truly scary when angry, and years in the Air Force herself, well, she had only gotten better at putting the fear of god into anyone who crossed her.
"The blue jello is the same as always, sir. Are you sure you didn't want anything?" She asked, smile still on her face. She wondered if he knew that Pete Thornton was her uncle. She didn't think he knew, but Sam knew better than to underestimate this man.
"Just wanted to see how you where doing, uh, Daniel mentioned that you and Pete, uh…"
"That Pete and I broke up, sir? Yes, the engagement is over, permanently. And I'm fine with that," she just kept on smiling.
"You know that you can have some time off if you need it, right? It's not like you don't have eight years of downtime and vacation time still unused. Your boss wouldn't be upset or anything if you needed some personal time," he said, looking very nervous.
What was he trying to say? That the General wouldn't be upset if she needed personal time because of her breakup with Pete, or that Jack wouldn't be upset if she needed time to nurse a broken heart? Why was nothing clear cut with this man? "Sir, I'm fine. Besides I have work to do."
"If you're sure. There's this guy from some think tank coming in tomorrow. The higher ups aren't too happy with the fact that people keep breaking in here. I want you to meet him when he arrives, give him the nickel tour, you know, the usual." Jack shoved his hands in his pockets, partly because he was nervous around Sam and for him nervous turned into fidgeting, and because he had no other way to control his natural impulse to tinker with the many doohickeys scattered throughout her lab.
"Oh? Which think tank, sir?" Sam's smile only got bigger.
"One out of California, uh, the Phoenix Foundation. The guy who's coming is the director, guy by the name of Peter Thornton."
"Really? I just got an e-mail from him. Of course since he doesn't know I work here, he wouldn't know to tell me that he was coming."
"You know him?" Jack's eyebrows rose in surprise. If she knew Pete, then how much did she know about him and his past?
"I hope I know him, he's my uncle. He used to tell Mark and me these wild stories about situations he and a friend of his, MacGyver, got into. His friend was very good at getting out of bad situations; maybe you should consider hiring him, sir." Her smile was a full blown grin now.
"Uh, it might be possible. But why would the guy want to come here?"
"Oh, I don't know, but as amusing as working with him is, and could be, I'm afraid Felgar would definitely be in the throes of hero worship if he were visibly around."
"Maybe he'd start leaving me alone then."
"Oh I don't know about that. Besides count yourself lucky that it's not you he has a crush on."
"Hey, you just said two whole sentences without the words 'sir' or 'General' in them. Is something wrong Carter? Do you feel alright?"
"Now why would I call my uncle's old friend 'sir' or 'General?' He's not in the Air Force."
"What? Carter, I have no idea what you're talking about. Maybe you need to go to the infirmary."
"Wonder what Daniel would say if he knew you actually like archaeology? Better question is what the Marines would say if they knew that a pacifist anti-gun activist was running the base."
Giving up, mainly because it was obvious that she knew the truth, and because lying to Sam was one of the hardest things he'd ever done, he leaned against one of the walls in her lab, hands in his pockets. "How long have you known?"
"Ever since I met you. Remember, my talkative favorite uncle is your best friend."
"So that was your reason for using my name as a verb on Abydos. Why'd you let me get away with playing dumb?"
"I figured if you were here and not talking to Uncle Pete, then there was a reason for it. But don't think I haven't hated you a few times for the dumb act. Believe me; my revenge will be worse than anything you've ever faced."
"I don't know about that, you're too nice Carter. You would never torture a friend." Inwardly he gulped, angry Carter was probably just around the corner.
"Are we friends? After all you did just spend the last 8 years lying to me, and were going to continue, for who knows how long. Besides, what makes you think I can't make your life a living hell if I so choose?" Sam's voice was quiet, for her that could mean that she was either upset, embarrassed, or very very angry.
"I thought we were friends," Jack began, taking a deep breathe before taking the greatest leap of faith he'd taken since first stepping into what looked like a giant vertical pool of shimmering sapphire water, "I had hoped we were more, or at least could be more."
Sam almost gasped audibly at that. Never in the last 8 years, and certainly not in the last 4 had he come that close to saying it out loud. Well, unless you counted the things he'd said as Jonah, under the memory stamp he's had no difficulty expressing himself to her, and she hadn't had any problems either. "Can we? After everything, can we even manage to stay friends? Because….I'd rather have that than nothing at all." She replied quietly.
"I don't want to lose that either Carter. But at this point, I'd rather try for everything and fall flat on my face than lose you because I didn't try."
"Why now? If I was still engaged to Pete you wouldn't be here. Even when I asked you, ASKED YOU, you said nothing. I gave you so many chances to stop me from saying yes, hell I practically asked you too, and you gave me some nonsense answer. So why now? What changed your mind?"
"I wanted you to be happy. He made you hum, I thought you were happy and I couldn't and wouldn't ask you to put your life on hold, not while I couldn't figure out a way for us to be together and actually be able to tell people about it. I didn't want to hurt your career, so I said nothing."
"Jonah said a lot." Sam turned her back to him, not wanting him to see her tears, "But like I said, why now?"
"I almost lost you. And it almost killed me."
"So what now?" Sam turned her mind, for the millionth time, to trying to solve their dilemma.
"That's the $64 million question," he had turned his own mind to the problem, when he had run down here he hadn't thought beyond telling her for once and for all how he felt.
"$64 million question? What did you do? Adjust for inflation?"
"Yeahsureyabetcha." He drawled, causing her to smile.
He watched as her smile suddenly blossomed into a full-blown Sam Carter grin, the one he usually only saw when she was blowing up a sun or participating in an intergalactic space race, "Pete!"
"Huh? What's spud boy got to do with us now?" she asked earning a glare for using the nickname the men of SG-1 had created for her now ex-fiancé.
"Not him. Uncle Pete. He's been offering me a job running the science department at the Phoenix Foundation for years, he keeps upping the salary too, as an incentive to come work for him. If the Phoenix Foundation is going to get involved here, then I just go work for him and talk him into letting me be a liaison to the SGC, like Paul Davis is for the Pentagon. I'll still get to be involved, you get to keep your secret, and the chain of command is history." She explained, all in one very quick breath.
"No, you worked hard to get where you are, I can't ask you to throw away your career to be with me. Trust me I'm not that great of a catch."
Sam turned fierce sapphire blue eyes on him, "You listen to me Jack O'Neill, or MacGyver, whichever you prefer. I am not giving anything up, not really. If you'll remember from our conversation about Pete's proposal, I have some very serious concerns about going though the Gate if I have children. It's always been my plan to give up Gate travel if I were to have children, because I don't want any child on mine to grow up without a mother, I know exactly how much that situation sucks. Uncle Pete will still let me be involved here, and all you would have to do is say that you needed me here for some tests or something, I'm still the world's expert on the Gate, and the dialing computer is still my program, my continentally ongoing program. I'd still be here, just not part of SG-1 anymore."
"What about travel? Pete would need you in Los Angles, and believe me, I nearly drove Daniel, Teal'c, and well the rest of the base crazy the last time you were out of the state. Can we do a long distance relationship? Cause I'm in this for the long haul, you really can expect a proposal sometime very shortly if we figure this out."
"Thor likes us remember?"
"And? But? So? Therefore?"
"He once gave me a set of transporters. I'll live here in the Springs and commute Asguard style to work."
Jack laughed at that, the grin forming on his face nearly rivaling Sam's. "A perk of saving the world every other week?"
"Saving the world has caused us to give up our personal lives for a very long time, its only fair that our dear friends from on high help us out a bit," she grinned.
"What if Pete doesn't go for this? He might not agree Carter," Jack didn't want to get his hopes up too high.
"He'll go for it. Trust me Jack, I'm not only his favorite niece, but I'm his only niece. And once he hears your voice tomorrow when he gets here he is going to recognize you, what makes you think he wouldn't help his best friend?"
"I don't know, the fact that I haven't spoken to him in a very long time?"
"Trust me, he may give you a hard time about that, but he still considers you his best friend. He'll help, after all, in the bargain he's getting what he's wanted for years."
"So we're really going to try this? After all these years, we're actually going to try to do something about….."
"Yeah, we are."
"Cool."
"Yeah. You know, you can call me Sam now."
"I know. But you are always in some ways going to be Carter to me, you know that right?"
"I know, and in some ways you're always going to be sir."
Jack's grin nearly over took hers in brilliance, "C'mere." With the same goofy happy grin on her face, Sam walked into his arms and let him enfold her in his arms. She had always loved his hugs because no matter who was on the receiving end of one, he always made that person feel special, like they were the only person in the world. And his hugs always made her feel safer and more loved than she ever had. His head was ducked into her neck and she had no desire to move out of his embrace ever. Standing like that, so close that anyone who would dare interrupt them wouldn't be able to tell where one ended and the other began, safe in his arms, listening to the steady beat of his heart, he whispered into her ear, "Always Sam, always."