Friday-Evening

"Hi" Sam said when he finally opened the door.

"Carter"

Jack's voice conveyed nothing as he looked her over calmly. Sam watched his eyes, blank, unmoving, indifferent, and yet she knew he was looking her over and sizing her up. Not studying her and deducing, so much as just looking at her and knowing everything he needed to know. It was one of his particular talents, and Sam was never quite sure whether she admired that or hated it. Mainly it depended on whether he was doing it to her or someone else.Though to be perfectly honest, she used to like it when he did it to her, as long as she didn't have something to hide, something she didn't want him to see...

"What can I do for you?" he asked coolly.

"I just, I was on my way home and I realized I didn't want to get there so I..." Sam gave him a watery smile. "I stopped here."

Jack backed from the doorway and tilted his head in the general direction of the living room. "Come on in"

"Thanks" Sam bit her lip and walked in.

"Want a beer?" Jack offered. Her discomfort softening him.

"Sure" Sam waited by the door, then changed her mind and followed him to the kitchen.

Jack opened two beers. "Glass?" he offered. "I have some clean..."

"That's okay" Sam took the cold bottle gratefully. "It's hot as hell in here."

"Air conditioning broke." Jack said with a grimace.

"Bummer" Sam felt the sweat starting to bead up on her forehead and cursed the heat. Although she had to admit, it was making her drinking partner's t-shirt cling rather nicely to his abs. She returned her attention to herbeer and raised it towards him until Jack caught on and clinked his bottle against hers. "To the Goa'uld," Sam toasted glibbly "who give all of us something to do."

Jack raised his eyebrows, but didn't call her on it. "To the Goa'uld" He took a swig of his beer, then watched as she took a series of unusually long swallows, stopping only when she pressed her hand against her forehead.

"Cold" she explained.

Jack bit back a sarcastic 'That's the idea' and opted for something that might actually get them somewhere. "So," he leaned back against the kitchen counter and crossed his arms over his chest, still holding his beer. "You going to tell me what's bothering you?"

"Pete and I had an argument." Sam looked up at the ceiling."He said I'm 'not committing to our relationship'."

"Well, considering every time I've heard you mention him to someone you say it's not serious I can see how he could get that idea..."

"Well, things have been getting serious"

"I see" Jack was detached.

"He asked me to marry him," Sam's hands played over her condensating bottle. "I told him I'd think about it...two weeks ago" Sam added wryly.

"And he doesn't appreciate your timing?"

"I don't know why I'm telling you this" Sam suddenly felt like an idiot.

"You were on your way home and you stopped." Jack followed his simplification with a long draw on his beer. And Sam almost smiled at the way he had of making things easy. When he wanted to.

"He's at my place." Sam told him finally. "We're supposed to have a talk."

"And your bailing out?" Jack looked vaugely amused. "I thought only guys were supposed to do that?"

"Yeah well, I guess we have the cliche role reversal. I'm avoiding 'the talk',I'm commitment shy, I want to keep things status quo..."

"So all you need is the old 'Only interested in his body' line and you'll be set."

Sam almost winced as that one hit a little close to home. "I think he was saving that one for tonight."

"Along with 'You don't respect me' ?" Jack continued adding up the cliche's.

Sam sipped her beer. "Maybe I respect him too much" She said darkly.

Jack looked at her closely. "What does that mean?"

Sam sighed. "I don't know." Then she looked straight at him for the first time that night. "I think I'm going to screw this up."

Jack knew that feeling. "Do you want to?"

Sam realized that was one question she'd never asked herself. She'd asked if she loved Pete, if she wanted to be with him, if she wanted to spend the rest of her life with him. But the answers to those question seemed to change with her mood, while Jack's question seemed simpler, easier to answer. It was probably just an illusion, or the result of her most recent mood, but she thought it helped anyway.

"I think I do" Sam's eyes conveyed pure honesty.

"Why?" Jack told himself he was just trying to help her. That he was asking her these questions because she obviously wasn't very good with relationships and she needed his -if not quite expert- at leastrelatively objective point of view. He wasn't about to admit that he was actually curious about why Carter's relationship was failing.

"I don't know" Sam sighed again and brushed her hair back from her face. All this personal talk was making her nervous, antsy, she wanted to go home and forget both Jack and Pete. Except Pete was home; which left her with Jack. "I guess I'm just tired of waiting for it to end. I'd rather...put it out of it's misery..."

Jack blinked. "Well I guess that says it all doesn't it?"

Sam met his eyes. "Does it?"

"Last I heard your 'gloom and doom' outlook wasn't considered a sign of a healthy relationship"

"I think I just have a natural talent for screwing things up." Samsaid darkly."I mean, I can meet a really great guy, and as soon as I start seeing him, he becomes this anoying, irritating..."

"Maybe they're not really great to start with."

"I think I just drive them crazy" Sam considered the average mental stability of the men in her life.

"That's possible" Jack knew this from personal expierience.

Sam shot him a look that said 'thanks a lot'

"Hey, I'm just saying that two 'great' people aren't necessarily great together." Sam looked like his words were hitting home so he continued. "It's like one of your math problems. Two and two makes four is easy. But two and two makes one is...almost impossible."

Sam swallowed. That was just about the most romantic thing he'd ever said. Next to 'C'mere' maybe, and..., and why'd she have to think of that?

"Sir" Sam used the word like a shield,trying to shut out the name circling through her mind. 'Jack' 'Jack' 'JACK' She felt the sweat dampening her back and was currently finding it very hard to ignore the broadening sweat stains on Jack's torso. She'd never seen him sweaty like when they weren't at work. Fighting goa'uld, walking deserts, working out in the gym... But never at home, in his kitchen, looking earthy and accessable and oh so inviting. Sam closed her eyes and tried to shut it out. She'd picked a hell of a time to be on an estrogen high. Or maybe she'd just picked a bad time to visit. If she'd been home she could have taken these feelings out on her boyfriend. But who was she kidding? If she was home with Mr. Let's-talk-about-our-future she wouldn't be having these feelings.

Jackknew it was just the heat. The crazy, sexy heat that could drive people lunatic -and yes he did know the origin of the word- in broad daylight. It was simply the fact that Carter was drinking beer in his kitchen, and the world wasn't ending, and neither of them were dying, and she was talking about dumping her boyfriend...Come to think of it those things would normally make them more restrained. It had to be the heat.

It had to be the heat. She thought, the air in the room was thick, humid and hard to breathe. She could smell him from where she stood and it irritated her that he didn't smell bad. He smelled like sweat, but it was a testosterone laced sweat that her body was reacting to in ways she rather not think about. And she suddenly knew she had to get out of there. Fast.