Instant Message
Chapter 8 – Everything he wants
Disclaimer – Not mine, never will be etc. etc.
A/N OK. So firstly thank you to everyone who took the time to review the last chapter. You are all so awesome and so patient. I hope this chapter is worth the wait!
To the couple of people who were a little more, shall we say critical, of my posting schedule, since you didn't leave your e-mail addresses I'll have to make my offer to you here. If you come to my office and do my job and then come to my house and cook dinner, look after 2 small kids and keep my hubby happy then I'll post quicker. Deal:-)
Jack had been thinking about the question Dorothy had asked him for most of the last 24 hours. However, he had definitely not been thinking about Dorothy for all of that time. A large part of his consciousness had been occupied with alternating between trying not to think about Samantha Carter and thinking about her with such vividness that it truly shocked him.
He had taken a nap when he had arrived home from the mountain, exhausted purely from thinking about Carter way too much. That and the effort to try to avoid her for the remainder of the day after the commissary incident. So the nap was meant to wash away the tiredness that engulfed him. God! He was getting old!
Unfortunately his sleep was once again filled with dreams as it had been the night before. The images that filled his head this evening, however, were starkly different in theme.
He saw Sam as if he were watching her with his own eyes. She was in his back yard, laughing as she watched something, or someone, else in the near distance. He followed her gaze and found a child, more of a toddler really, trying to chase a butterfly, while teetering on the brink of falling down. The little girl had dirty blond hair that fell in curls around her head to a point just above her ears. He joined Sam in laughing at her efforts and the girl turned her head towards him and fixed her eyes on him. Underneath the fringe of curls, wide eyes looked at him, surrounded by long eyelashes framing pools that were deep brown and seemed to have no end.
Jack gasped aloud in his sleep as the realization of what he saw hit him and suddenly the scene changed and he was in his bed. He shook his head trying to wrap his brain around the dream. He had been on the verge of getting up to move towards the bathroom when he felt a gentle breath on his neck. The experience caused what could only be described as goose bumps to form on his arms and the hairs on the back of his neck stood on end. He felt a gentle hand touch his shoulder and out of the corner of his eye he could see delicate fingers trailing down his naked arm. They found their way to his hand and intertwined with it.
Before he had a chance to turn, he felt her spoon up behind him. He took in the distinctly familiar smell as she pressed herself up against him. His body instinctively pressed back as a silky leg drew up from his foot to his calf, moving higher each moment. As her foot moved to his groin he let out a gasp to which a giggle was the reply. Reflexively Jack murmured "No giggling, Major".
Jack shot up right and looked towards the other side of the bed., It was empty but he still was a hard as a teenager waking after a playboy filled dream. "Shit", he muttered. It has all seemed so real.
He moved to the bathroom, turned the shower on and stepped in, making sure it was set to cold. He stood under the freezing water and tried not to think of the dream or its' implications. He grasped for the bar of soap and began to aggressively lather up his body as if hoping to wash away the images that were burned into his psyche. He finished washing, stepped out of the stall and began to towel himself off.
It was all Dorothy's damn fault. She had laid this at his feet by asking him what he wanted in life and once his conscious mind had admitted what that was, his subconscious had taunted him with visions of clarity about what that precisely was. But could never have.
He cursed the day he had ever 'spoken' to her and once again swore to himself that it would end that night. It was getting late, his dreams had caused his 'nap' to be longer than planned, so he quickly threw on jeans and a long sleeved t-shirt and made his way to the kitchen. He pulled a much needed ice cold beer from the fridge and moved into the sitting room where his laptop lay open and booted up. He eyed the computer from the other side of the room with such distaste that anyone who happened to be watching would have thought he believed he could catch something 'bad' by simply touching it.
He slowly stalked around the table upon which the machine sat, trying to decide whether he would even have the conversation. He had never been any good at ending relationships, even when he knew that it wasn't going anywhere, or worse when he truly detested the person. But he rarely ever spoke the words that ended it, preferring instead to do something really crappy, like consistently being late, or outright missing dates. Even he knew that the "I had to work late" excuse was only accepted a limited number of times before a woman's pride finally kicked in.
For someone who dealt with conflict everyday for a living, he disliked intensely confrontation in his personal life. So he would act like enough of a jerk for the lady in question to know that he wasn't boyfriend, or husband in later years, material, but not enough for her to no longer want to be friends with him. So they always ended it and he always protested the decision. Not very hard mind you, but he felt that he should at least make them feel that he cared that they were leaving him. Not that he was trying to be cruel or manipulative. He just hated confrontation and when it came to telling women how he felt he was really bad with words.
How he ever managed to woo Sara, and actually convince her to marry him, still amazed him to this day. And now it was twenty years later and he felt his skills still hadn't improved that much. For crying out loud! The only reason he had ever admitted to having feelings for Carter was because after the Zay'tarc test they would have given him a lobotomy if he hadn't. More to the point, they would have given Carter one, and the world just shouldn't have to live without the genius that she was.
And he had done such a good job of that she had insisted that the feelings be locked in the room never to be spoken of again. And Laira?Well that only happened because she pursued him so aggressively. And she had gotten him drunk! But that was very much in the past and Carter was in his present. But, he reminded himself, she was not his future and that he had to accept.
He took a long drink of his beer and sat at the chair in front of the laptop. He logged on to the IM system knowing that even in this situation he couldn't take the cowards way out. He had to let Dorothy know that he wouldn't be making their rendezvous' anymore.
He heard the now well know 'ding' and looked up at the screen.
"Will you accept a message from Dorothy?"
He looked away from the screen for a moment before turning back to the message. He clicked on the 'Yes' button and saw the message pop up.
Dorothy – Hello Scarecrow!
Jack sighed, shook his head to himself, looked down at the keyboard and typed "Hi Dorothy".
A/N Yes I know it's the same place I left it that last time but I thought you might like to know what Jack was thinking some more – Hope that was ok?