Chapter 7: Yo-yos

Jack stared a moment at the closed door, the only barrier between himself and Sam, not to mention the only worthy distraction from his thoughts. She had kissed him, again! But even stranger than that was the difference between that kiss and the one he had received in the hallway on base.

The first one had been playful, this was all still a joke to them at the time.

The other one had been filled with gratitude, and trust, and maybe even...well, he shouldn't read too far into that.

But there was still the fact that they weren't on base anymore. Without any gossipers to confuse they didn't have to keep up the act

Oh, yes, there was that.

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When Jack got to his house the automatically reached in the fridge for a beer, flicked the cap to whatever oblivion other bottle caps go to after they've served their purpose, and took a swig, pondering the current situation.

This was so messed up...there was no denying this was what he wanted, but the circumstances were far from ideal. He felt truly sorry about making Sam cry, it wasn't his intention at all, and if this little mission of theirs would set her off that easily then maybe they should stop right now.

But that would be an unfortunate waste of a perfectly good opportunity to freak out the entire base and finally get to date Sam. Then there were those rumors they were supposed to be getting rid of. It would be nice to have those out of the way.

After realizing that those five minutes of careful consideration had gotten him no where, Jack vowed to never waste his time in such a way again, and reverted to his usual practice when confronted with a situation he'd rather not think about. He pulled out a yo-yo.

Jack looped the string around his finger then threw the object toward the ground. It got stuck at the bottom and spun out. He wound the yo-yo back up and tried again, achieving the same effect.

He would be pro at walking the dog if he could ever get the animal to come back to his hand.

They were kind of like yo-yos, he and Sam, always bouncing towards and away from each other. On again, off again, although more off again than on. All right, fine, practically never on, just like his yo-yo; he could never seem to catch the damn thing.

There were more similarities than that, though. Sometimes the yo-yo sprang back perfectly into his hand and everything was happy and wonderful.

Sometimes it swung around his head and took out someone else, like Orlin, or Martouf, or Narim, or his beer bottle.

And...ouch!...oh, yes, sometimes it did that.

So what was keeping him from catching the yo-yo? Well, gravity, but was there a good way to fix that? Would a yo-yo even work without gravity? No doubt Sam would be able to explain it in painstaking detail, and no doubt Jack wouldn't understand a word of it. Maybe that was part of the problem.

Jack pulled off the string and put the toy away, all this yo-yoing was making his brain hurt and cutting off circulation to his finger.

A/N: Alright, sorry this is so short, I meant for it to be longer but ran out of yo-yo metaphors. The next one's longer, I swear, and I'll get it posted tomorrow or Friday, hopefully.