Author: Jennyvre Moss

Rating: K+ just in case. May go up later.

Setting: Half way through and after Divide and Conquer (Start of season 4)

Summary: What if Jacob had been present at the Za'tarc testing? Various POV's. SJ

Other: This story is dedicated to JamSack as she shares my love of this episode. (Also sorry about any grammar or spelling mistakes. For some reason, spell-check and the thesaurus on my computer doesn't work for this story.)

Disclaimer: Daydreaming about owning Stargate doesn't make it real.

This is my longest chapter yet. Yay! Oh and in the last chapter Anonymous pointed out a mistake I made. Instead of 1645, it should have been 1845. And as usual, thanks for reviewing guys (JamSack, SGFan, Puccini, Anonymous, Keegan Paige, nadda, mishy-mo, Ilovesg1)

Chapter 9: Jack's Surprise

Jack's POV

As I sit here in the park, I can't help the feeling that I'm making a terrible mistake, that I shouldn't have brought it up, that we should have left it in that room. But I keep hearing Jacob's words over and over again, telling me to do this, giving me permission. I'd never say this to his face, but I have a whole lot of respect for that guy. He made me promise to at least talk to her, so that's what I'm going to do. And I don't think I've been this nervous since, well, ever.

Over the noise in the park, I hear a car door and familiar footsteps approaching me. That's how far I've gone, I can even tell her footsteps. I look up and she's walking over to me, her soldier face on. Jesus, what is she trying to do to me? Even in jeans and a sweater she's hot. Focus, Jack! Focus!

I give her a small smile in greeting as she sits down.

"Sir-"she begins, but I cut her off.

"Considering what we're going to be talking about, we should probably drop the ranks, Sam" God, how long have I wanted to call her that. Not Major. Not Carter. Just Sam. She looks at me startled, and it's not because I told her to drop the ranks. It's because I called her Sam. Out loud.

She quickly composes herself. "Okay, si…um, Jack." Just her calling me Jack, nearly undoes me. I push away my sudden urge to throw her on the bench and kiss her senseless. God, this is going to be a long conversation.

I pluck up my courage and start this awkward conversation. "Look Sam, I know you wanted to keep everything in that room, but I promised Jacob I'd at least talk to you about it and-"

"Wait. My dad talked to you about this too?" I nod. "Oh, god. I'm sorry."

"Don't worry about it. It was a lot better than the talk I expected from him."

"Which was?"

"The typical 'stay away from my daughter' stuff." This brings a small smile to her face and I can't help but feel that the atmosphere is just that little bit less uncomfortable. At least that's a start.

"Look, you probably noticed by now, but I'm not all that great with this stuff."

"This stuff?" she looks at me, one eyebrow raised and I know she's teasing me.

I give her a small mock glare in return. "This feeling stuff."

She mutters under her breath and I catch a faint 'Join the club', which makes me smile.

We sit in a surprisingly comfortable silence for a few minutes, before I decide to start the conversation again.

"What exactly did Jacob say to you?" I ask her. My question surprises her, but she answers anyway.

"He told me that there are other options, that my happiness is more important than my job and that-" she glances at me quickly before ducking her head, slighlty blushing. "you could make me happy." She finishes.

"Oh." Yeah great reply, wise guy. "Yeah, pretty much the same thing here. And he made me promise to at least talk to you." She nods her head, but looks down again.

The atmosphere has become awkward again. So, gathering my courage, I ask the big question.

"So, do you want to do something about this?" she looks up at me again, shocked. The total 'deer in the headlights' expression.

"I…um…well…I…kinda." She finally says, quietly.

"Yeah. Me too." I admit

"Really?" she asks. I nod, smiling and she smiles back, which makes my heart race. At least we're getting somewhere now.

"So what are we going to do?" she asks me.

"Well, what are our options?"

"Firstly, one of us resigns."

I shake my head. "Not gonna happen. They won't let us resign."

"Okay, well…wait. How do you know that?"

"Well, I tried, a couple of years ago. They wouldn't let me, and if they're not going to let me retire, there's no way in hell, they're going to let you go."

"How did I not know about this?"

"Nobody knew, except Hammond and the Joint Chiefs."

She narrows her eyes at me, suspicious. "When?"

Great, she had to ask that question. "Um…after Jolinar."

Her eyes widen in shock and we sit in silence for a few minutes again.

"So, option two?"

"We keep it a secret."

"Sam, no offence, but that's going to be pretty much impossible. The grapevine and spy network at that place is unbelievable." This gets a laugh from her.

"Okay, so option two, not an option. Option three: we ask for a favour."

"Possible." I say, thinking it over. "We have saved the world countless times, they might just let us get away with it."

"Maybe." She thinks for a while longer and then seems to get another idea. "Option four: I quit the Air Force." I try to interrupt her, but she tells me to hear her out. "I quit the Air Force, but stay on as a civilian. Civilian-officer relationships are still frowned upon as well, but not as much as officer relationships. And if we combine that with asking for a favour, we might be able to get around the regs."

"Sam, I can't let you do that. You love the Air Force."

She shakes her head. "The Air Force was just a quicker way of getting to NASA. And I got into something better, so quitting will be fine. I'll still get to do the same job, I'll just be a civilian instead."

"Are you sure about this?" She nods her head in reply. "Okay, so that's the plan at the moment."

She nods again. "We should probably talk to General Hammond, before we do anything drastic though." Now it's my turn to nod.

She looks at me and smiles. "Kind of glad my dad talked to us now."

"Me too." I reach over and give her hand a squeeze, knowing that, for the moment at least, I can't do anything more than that. Heck, I shouldn't even have done that.

We agree to meet at Hammond's office tomorrow to talk to him about this and head off to our cars. As I drive away, I can't help but smile. Tonight's turned out surprisingly well.

I'm glad this chapter is done. I was actually dreading writing this chapter, but it actually came pretty easy. The hardest part was thinking of a chapter title.

Anyway guys, thanks for reading and now please review. :D

Next chapter: Hammond's mission