Disclaimer: I do not own the characters of Stargate, or any elements of the show. I did create this storyline however. Sequel to "A letter, or two".
No moreParty and cover uncovered
The next day Jack decided to visit Carter in her lab. He knew that even though SG-1 had been placed on downtime, she couldn't help but show up here. Always a chance of new technology to study, of some naquadah reactor to tinker with. Been like that for years now, and as hard as he had tried, the term 'downtime' just didn't fit into her vocabulary. He had asked her at least a dozen times to go fishin— Okay, another thing of the past, he thought ruefully. Back then people suspected we were having some kind of affair, by the number of times I came by her lab. But I can't come by that often anymore. A General couldn't afford looking like a lovesick puppy, now could he? But it had been a while since he'd been down there, so it wouldn't look too suspicious.
When he neared the door to her lab he could hear soft curses and the clangs of metal tools banging on the table and knew he was on the mark about her being here. Mmm, perhaps another piece of mysterious and incomprehensible technology, brought back from an alien planet for Carter to dissect and study. In other words, a doohickey. Yeah, the simple terms are always best, he thought.
He stuck his head round the corner, assessing the situation. Carter was bent over some metallic orb, trying to pry it open with several tools, but failing so far. Deciding his head wouldn't get chewed off the second he opened his mouth Jack moved up and leaned against the doorframe.
"You know, I could get some C-4 from storage, and open that gadget right up for you."
She looked up a bit surprised, but when she recognized him she gave him an exasperated smile. It told him that she was at it for quite a while now, and probably wouldn't object to a break. Sensing this opening, he risked it.
"Come on, Carter, how long have you been at that whatchamacallit? On your downtime I might add. And I'm guessing you never even thought of lunch either. Let's go. Something to eat, drink and Jell-O before I allow you to continue this . . . fruitful exercise."
He could imagine the cogs turning in her head, taking in his words and their implication. Then when she opened her mouth to protest, Jack held up his hand in a pre-emptive strike.
"Ah! No this project is not going well, and I know for a fact that you're hungry."
'There, take that, Carter. I know exactly what you're gonna say, so no matter what, you are coming to lunch with me.'
Again he could see a few cogs spinning, trying to think up her next response. Then her eyes brightened a bit always when she had a new solution to a problem. She opened her mouth to say something. But, again, Jack took the wind out of her sails.
"And no, there is not a whole array of other projects that need to be done, so no excuse there either. Face it, Carter, you're having lunch with me."
Still she looked a little indecisive, but Jack knew she was just about to cave in. All he needed to do was deliver the final punch. Proverbially speaking of course.
"Don't you like going to lunch with me?"
And with that he saw the change in her eyes, and knew she was hook-line-and-sinker. She demonstratively placed the tool she was holding on the table and hopped out of her chair. Still in a somewhat playful mood Jack couldn't help but mock her a little bit. He held out his elbow, offering her his arm.
"Milady. Do I need to escort you to the commissary, or art thou familiar with the place?"
She snorted quietly and swatted his arm. As if fearing she had crossed some line of appropriate behavior she pulled her hand back, and adopted that indecisive look again. Jack decided to overlook it the look that is, he would never mind the swatting, and once again toke the situation in his own hands.
"Fine, fine, never knew you'd turn down a real gentleman like that. Come on, commissary, this way!"
He startled a bit when he felt her hand touch his elbow. He looked at her hand, and then moved his gaze upwards, to her eyes. He caught something there he couldn't describe, but the smile on her lips suggested amusement. Still, he wasn't entirely sure.
"Lead on, good knight." she joked in a goodhearted and light tone.
He felt a grin warm his lips, and he tugged her forward. They walked to the elevator, and to his slight disappointment they quickly dropped their hands when an airman exited the elevator cab. During the ride down Jack pondered about a good way to find out what happened yesterday, again without being blunt. Oy, when did things become so damn complicated, he thought.
In the commissary they took up trays, and loaded up a decent lunch. A bowl of soup, allegedly tomato, and to its credit it did look red, sandwich and a bowl of Jell-O. One red, one blue.
They sat at the usual able, and dug in with gusto. While chewing his turkey sandwich, Jack had another epiphany. At least, he'd thought of a way to start this conversation, and that was quite something to him.
"So, Carter, how was your evening?"
'Not too inquisitive, and not too detached to be swept aside with a single remark. Way to go, you'll be the next Oprah if you keep this up.'
She paused a second, stopping right after she slurped up a spoonful of soup. Jack's initial thought was she needed to think of a way to formulate her answer, but he caught a very quick flash of pain pass across her eyes. When she didn't answer he decided to press a little.
"Carter?"
She looked up at him, and again he caught another painful look.
'Damn, something is wrong. But what?'
"It was fine, sir." she finally answered, her voice strained.
The way she started eating her soup told Jack she wasn't ready to say any more, so he tried a different approach.
"Sooo…Cassie still coming to your house for a girls night, Colonel?"
Yep, that did it. He eyes brightened again, and enthusiasm injected into her voice.
"Yes, sir. She'll be here around 1900 hours, and I bought enough ice cream to bring down the temperature in my house with 1.2 degree."
"You actually calculated that!"
She smiled. "No, sir. Just a figure of speech."
'And still you're talking in tenths of degrees. Way to go, Carter, science geek to the last.'
"Good, Cassie loves ice cream. Which reminds me, I have to buy some more ice cream for the party."
"Why, did you eat it already?"
Again with the playful, he thought. Then he realized his misstep, and nearly choked on a mouthful of turkey. Painfully he swallowed, and coughed lightly.
"Yeah, I had a sudden sweet tooth yesterday."
'Nice save, bit lame though.'
"Cassie gonna call you when she gets here?"
"Yeah, but I'd like to clean the guestroom a bit before she comes. Could I leave a little early today, sir?"
Jack's eyebrows shot up to his hairline. This was just too good an opportunity to let go.
"You, Carter, leave early?" he asked in his most incredulous voice.
A slight blush crept up her cheeks, and she looked down at her sandwich with a large smile threatening to break out.
"It does happen sometimes, sir."
"Mmm, not sure about that, but you have my permission to leave early."
The twinkle in her eyes was the only gratitude he needed.
"Thank you, sir."
"Yeah sure, for you—" He stopped himself saying 'anything' by biting into his sandwich.
"Well, thanks for lunch, sir. I think I'm gonna take another shot at that sphere before I get out of here."
"You do that, Carter." He casually waved his hand in a theatrical way. "Dismissed."
She smiled again, picked up her tray and moved to the exit.
'God, how I love that smile. Gives me enough energy to do anything. Even paperwork.'
But as she walked out of the commissary his good mood came crashing down. She didn't know about Cassie's early arrival. He wearily shook his head. Why did his paranoid side always have to make sense? He stood up, and dropped his tray off in the kitchen. Then he went up to his office, and punched in a familiar cell number. A muffled voice came on the other end of the line.
"Hey Cass, it's me, Jack. Yeah, I'm fine, you? Good, good. What? Oh right, yeah, why I called. Well I talked to Carter just now. Where are you? Ah, the mall. Doing a little birthday shopping are we?"
On the other end Cassie forcefully reminded Jack not to change the subject.
"Right, right. Well I talked to her, and she explained that the phone company couldn't connect her, so she couldn't call you. She was really pissed, and bullied the phone company into fixing her phone line right away, but this morning was the earliest they could come. She's really sorry, but she'll make it up to you with a lot of ice cream tonight. Yeah I know, you're getting a lot of that these days. Cassie, listen just do me a favor? Don't say anything about it, okay? It happened, she couldn't do anything about it and she's sorry. Just, forgive and forget, and have a nice time, okay sweetie?"
Cassie agreed, and told him they would be all right. She'd take a small sleepover bag with her, and sleep at Sam's tonight. But, she assured him she'd be back the next day and stay with him the rest of the days.
"Okay, have fun tonight, and I'll see you tomorrow for the party. Call me if you need me."
With that they hung up. Jack hoped he made the right decision. To him his choice was limited to these two options; one, tell Carter everything and drive a wedge between her and Pete. But that would make him a jealous and sore loser, and even though it hurt him to see Carter with someone else, he wasn't gong to ruin it over some stupid misunderstanding. So that left him with two, ignore what was said and not tell anybody. For the second time today he shook his head.
'I hope I made the right decision. If not, who knows what the consequences might be.'
- ∞ -
Cassie's birthday party was a shindig they would remember for years to come. Despite a somewhat dodgy reputation in the organization business Jack had planned the party perfectly, right down to the last details. Granted, the group of people currently laughing, drinking and eating in his backyard was an easy group to please, but still, everything was going swell. Teal'c and Daniel were discussing weird birthday rituals from Chulak, Sam and Cassie were playing a game of tag with General Hammond's granddaughters and Jack was taking care of the last bit of meat on the barbecue. He felt a hand slap him softly on the shoulder, and a cold beer was presented to him. He accepted and turned to face the person.
"Thank you, General."
General George Hammond casually waved his hand. "Oh come one, Jack, George. The name's George."
He softly chuckled. "I think we've been here before."
Now the other chuckled. "Yes, yes we have."
"Good you could make it, si—George."
Hammond retracted the glare that made Jack change his words, and with a broad smile surveyed the backyard.
"I wouldn't miss it for the world. It's been a while since I got to see everyone of you, especially Cassandra. And it has been a rough year for her. I'm glad we can have a nice happy moment together tonight." He patted Jack on the shoulder once more.
"Nicely done, Jack, I knew being in charge of the SGC would sharpen your organization skills."
"Ha, you should see me with one of those RF-62 forms, I can scare the hell out of accounting these days."
Hammond grinned, then moved to Daniel and Teal'c to join their conversation. Jack took a moment himself to observe the party. A wave of contentment and joy flowed through him. And that had definitely been a while.
- ∞ -
Gathering glasses and plates Jack and Cassie were cleaning up the remnants of the party, both sated and quiet. It had been a great party. Everybody had enjoyed himself or herself immensely. Silently they cleaned up the tables, put away the trash, gathered empty beer and wine bottles and carried the dishes to the kitchen. Together they stuffed the dishwasher to the max, and waited till it was ready for the second load. Cassie was sipping a cup of steaming tea while Jack finished his last beer of the evening.
"So, did you enjoy your party?"
Cassie nodded.
"It just perfect Jack, you really outdid yourself. It was great seeing all you guys at the same time again." Then she snorted, loudly.
"I didn't know Teal'c learned how to play charades, and I'm even more astounded he wanted us to do it! I mean, come on, how could we have guessed his proverbs. I never heard of things like 'A guard of Apophis hisses like a mighty snake, and a guard of Seth has a dripping nose'. Must be a Jaffa thing. Although you surprisingly got that one pretty quick. Guess you really know Teal'c."
Jack smiled, recalling when Teal'c had told him that particular joke. At the time he was still quite the alien amongst the strange Tau'ri. But now, he truly was part of the family. With a few alien quirks.
"Yeah, definitely a Jaffa thing."
Cassie took another sip of tea and grew quiet. The fact that a small frown was set on her forehead and she was biting her bottom lip made Jack wonder if there was something wrong.
"Cassie?"
She was staring at her tea, and didn't look up. To be perfectly honest, Jack had expected something like this to happen sooner of later. He had hardly heard anything about her girl's night with Sam, and was a bit worried if anything had happened.
'Okay Oprah O'Neill, you're up.'
"Cassie? Something bothering you?"
She was absentmindedly stirring her tea with the teaspoon, and seemed a bit lost for words.
'Okay, so it's up to me to take the first step again. Seems to be happening a lot these days. Mmm, let's see. Has to be about S—Carter. Mmmm. Oh, this could be something!'
"Did you and Carter have a nice time?"
'Yes, Oprah strikes back. Must stop watching Star Wars with Teal'c.'
"You covered for her, didn't you?"
She spoke very softy, and Jack almost missed her words. Almost. He looked at her for a moment, trying to determine how much she knew. When her sad eyes met his, he hung his head.
"Yeah . . ." he quietly responded.
She stood up from her seat, placed Jack's arms on her shoulders and hugged him tightly.
"You shouldn't have."
"Maybe not. But I didn't want to ruin your girl's night, or tonight for that matter. You already had a miserable time when it happened, didn't seem fair that it should ruin the rest of your stay."
"Jack, not telling me only makes it more complicated. And I would rather hear it from you than anyone. You were the one to figure it out!"
'Yeah, almost wish I hadn't though.'
"And if you thought I'd buy that shitty excuse about Sam's phone line not working you really need to work on your excuses. Ever heard about mobile phones?" She poked him in his side.
Dang, he thought. I didn't even think of that. That did make it a pretty lame excuse. Pulling up one eyebrow he also poked her in her side. "Hey, watch that mouth, young lady."
She shrugged. She knew she was legally an adult now and could swear if she really wanted to.
"But that's not what I meant." Her voice came a bit muffled, her face pressed down into his shirt.
Her answer confused him a bit. "What do you mean?"
"I'm not upset with Sam. She didn't know, so it's not her fault. And before you ask, I didn't tell her."
'Phew, load off my mind.'
"But you shouldn't have covered for her, because she didn't do it. Pete did. And now you're covering for him. You shouldn't do that."
His mind froze for an instant. He never really thought of it like that. He didn't tell either Carter or Cassie the truth because he didn't want there to be any resentment between them. Nor any between Carter and that Pete guy. But Cassie was right. He was covering up for the way Pete chose to react. Damn it, why the hell would I do that, he thought. To not hurt Carter by acting the jealous and paranoid friend, his conscience was telling him. Yeah, but was it really necessary for me to do that? Maybe not.
"I wouldn't do it again."
He felt her squeeze him for a second. "Good."
- ∞ -
