Tying up
Part 2 to "Threads". But don't worry, you guys, I'm working on Part 3. There's just so much more to this episode. But for now, they finally made it!
"Go to bed."
Carter can't even sit up straight in her chair anymore. Up and out, birds are chirping, and the sun is rising behind the mountain in which much has changed in the past hours. They've eaten four slices of cake and finished the bottle of whiskey Jacob and Jack had shared. It was only two days ago, and yet it feels like a lifetime.
"I don't want to be alone," Carter answers, and Jack thinks: yes, a lifetime. Carter would have never been so open, so vulnerable, and now she sits here, with hazy eyes and an adoring little whiskey-blush, and tells him that she needs him.
"Okay. I need to sleep, so come on." Jack gets up from behind his desk and pulls Carter out of her chair and after him. Willingly she follows as he navigates the hallways up to the levels of the private quarters. Whiskey is a lousy companion when you should keep a clear head, but he doesn't care. If people want to understand this situation wrong, it's their problem. Jack comes to a stop in front of Carter's room and nods encouragingly.
Carter's eyes grow big when she understands what he is doing only that she doesn't shy away. She digs her keycard out of her pocket, energetically swipes it, and steps into the room, holding the door open for Jack to follow.
It's only comfort, he tells himself. Nothing wrong about sleeping in the same room. They've shared tents and prison cells, spaceships cargo rooms, even a cabin in the woods once—a room on earth is not different. Yet they stand here without knowing where to with themselves. Maybe this is the moment he understands that things will change. They will unchangeably change. How is still not clear.
Eventually, Jack nods to the bed and settles down in the armchair on the other side of the room. Carter hesitates and stares at him, then as if switched on, she sheds her shoes and lies down. The moment her head hits the pillow, her eyes fall shut, and Jack lets out a relieved sigh. They are going to sleep now and think later.
A rustling sound wakes him. When he opens his eyes, he finds Carter lacing her boots. The glance at his watch comes as a huge surprise. It's almost 9 am, and the earth hasn't ended even though he didn't show up for work at 7 am.
"Morning," Carter says with a soft smile.
"Morning," Jack answers and cracks his knee. He's getting too old to sleep in a chair on the side of her bed.
"I'll be back in three hours," she says and ruffles through her hair. Jack allows himself to look at her a little longer than usual. He's come out of the routine of waking up, and the first thing he sees is a still sleepy Carter. With her, it's only a matter of seconds from sleepy innocence to a wide-awake soldier. Maybe waking up like this is one of the things he misses most behind his desk.
"I have something to take care of," Carter adds and slips into her jacket.
Jack is pretty sure that this something has something to do with Pete, but after a night's sleep, he has lost the courage to ask her. Instead, he asks, "Do you want me to set everything in motion?"
She nods with a sad yet thankful smile.
Besides making sure Carter is fine, he also has a job to do—Jack almost forgot in between eating cake, drinking whiskey, listening to stories about Jacob, and waking up next to her. This workday, however, is just another reminder that retiring wouldn't be too bad. If retired, he would be looking at his lake with a bottle of beer in his hand and maybe— an image he has tried to shoo away for quite a while comes back with stunning clarity—Carter on his side. But instead of taking in the beauty of Minnesota, he's staring at the blue shimmer of the gate. He's not holding a beer but clenches his hand into a fist. The only similarity to his fantasy is Carter next to him. And even though they are only seconds away from being blown into a million pieces either by the self-destruct or the super-weapon on Dakara, having Carter here gives him comfort. At this revelation, there, behind Walter's back, far below anyone's eye line, Jack's finger flings over to Carter's hand. They don't look away from the countdown that's ticking at the pace of their heartbeats when Jack wraps his hand around hers.
Jack has come to peace with dying at the hand of the Goa'Uld. He really has. It just makes him unreasonably angry that of all times, it might happen now when there's this slight shift in the things between them and opportunity in the air. Galvanized by those thoughts, his grip around Carter's hands tightens, and then, without much fanfare, the gate deactivates.
"Wormhole disengaged," Walter confirms.
"What's going on?" Carter inquires. She pulls her hand out of Jack's and jumps into action. He's more disappointed about the lost skin contact then excited about the lost gate contact even though it means they escaped death once more.
"I don't know. It must be some kind of… system malfunction."
"That's impossible," Carter declares.
"Shut it off," Jack says when his senses are back in the here and now.
Carter aborts the self destruct. Even Teal'c looks relieved and asks immediately for permission to travel to Dakara. Jack nods, and Walter starts dialing the gate while everyone presumes their daily work. Strange, how used they all are to Goa'Uld attacks and self-destructs.
They send of Teal'c, and Jack heads into his office when he notices Carter right behind him. She's got that scary look of there's more work to do on her face, so it comes as a surprise when she says, "Let's go home. Siler can analyze the gate date, and self destruct."
"Yes, Siler can," Jack answers carefully. Carter not wanting to analyze whatever there is to analyze is a dangerous sign. Maybe her father's death has taken a higher toll than he thought. But then she surprises him again when she says, "So, meet you at your house in an hour?"
Maybe the attack was successful, and they replaced Carter with some alien entity that is going to seduce him and then eat him, but then he's always been an optimist, so maybe no eating.
"What are we doing?" he asks carefully.
"I don't know about you, but I'm starving."
By the time he gets out of the mountain and into his car, he's already 20 minutes late. Can't stifle the president because the woman you've been secretly in love with for the past five or so years is finally waiting at your house after everything went haywire, and now it's time for a change. Oh, not to mention that this woman is your very own 2IC—Carter to spell it all out after all the president knows her too. Jack had contemplated texting her, but typing the little words 'Running late' had strangely felt like jinxing it. Either she is waiting for him knowing that a call with the president always takes longer or she changed her mind, and without this text, they could go back to work and pretend nothing had happened just like so many times before. He doesn't want to get his hopes up, so he prepares for situation two only to be surprised to find her car parked in front of his house. There's no sight of Carter, so he walks around to the backyard, where she sits on the steps to the porch. Seeing her there, in his world, flicks something on inside of him, something he didn't think was working anymore. He walks closer, and she notices him when he stops right there where only two days ago, she was standing to tell him that marrying Pete was a big, huge mistake.
"Hey," Jack says softly.
"Hey, Jack."
Okay, this is new.
"Sorry I'm late." With a simple smile, she forgives him. Just like she has forgiven him many other things before. He walks over and sits down next to her. His arm brushes along hers, and he notices that she's wearing one of his flannels.
"Hey, I know that shirt."
"It's from the time we got caught in the rain. I was going to give it back."
"Nah. It looks good on you." He whisks a non-existing lint from her shoulder. Yes, coming home to Carter in his world, in his shirt, is a scene he wants every day for the rest of his life, and maybe now it's time to admit it.
"Should we order pizza?" She is looking at him with more questions in her eyes than the one about dinner, but it's the only one that crosses her lips.
"I bought some stuff on the way here. Thought about making a stew my aunt used to make. It works wonders on days like this."
Surprise flickers over her face, quickly followed by relief. Only now he realizes how much she had risked by coming here. Not just tonight but also last time—pre-break-ups, before her father's death and the almost-apocalypse. Him planning to cook a proper dinner seems to answer at least one of the questions that are burning in her.
"No steak?"
"I only serve burnt meats when I want people to leave eventually." It is meant to answer more than the obvious, and when she smirks, he knows it does.
Like many things they do, cooking together is effortless and in a strange way symbiotic. And for the first time, physical contact doesn't have them jolt apart. No, it's quite the opposite. The first touch is a mere coincidence. Her shoulder bumps against his when she steps to the sink to wash her hands. From then on, they become part of the recipe.
Dice the onion. Brush her arm.
Cut the carrots. Feel her hand on your shoulder as she moves past you.
Add the beef. Touch the small of her back when you reach for a spoon.
Stir frequently. Let your finger lingers on hers when you take the spoon from her hand.
Let simmer for 30 minutes. Hell, this has been simmering for nearly eight years, and Jack finally wants to get a taste of it, but this is not the moment to rush things. He is still not even sure what this is; he only knows that if it keeps going the way, it is he won't be able to go back from here. Back to a workday when they pretend none of this happened, and they are just co-workers again. He watches her as she navigates his house and sets the table as if she'd done it many times before. There's a rogue expression on her face—the one she fashions when she disregards orders or blows up suns, and it makes him think that everything about this evening feels like either an end or a beginning. There's no clear line to draw on what either or means. An end can be a beginning and vice versa, but at this point in his emotional state, he needs one or the other. Closure, you might say.
The stew tastes nothing as he remembers. How could it? After tonight's cooking session, the innocent dish aunt Pheeps used to make is loaded with so much sexual tension that he can probably never eat it again—unless with Carter. Besides, he's really trying to ignore the sexual part because even without it, there's enough tension in the room that you could slice it like a dense cake.
"Area 51 offered me a job as head of R&D," Carter mumbles with a piece of meat in her mouth. Jack's reaction is slow and tells her everything. "You knew they want me?"
"Of course. They are trying to get you for years." He looks up from his plate and watches how she keeps eating casually as if she is talking about the weather. "They approached you directly?" Jack says. It's not a violation of any rules, yet he thought he had made pretty clear that the destiny of planet earth, heck the universe, was dependent on Carter being in the SGC.
"Not really. I was testing my market value." The glance she throws him over the next spoon of stew she's scooping into her mouth is as insubordinate and challenging as Carter looks can come.
"Well," he declares and raises to full posture. "Your market value was 'over my dead body.'"
She smirks, and he doesn't know where she takes this mischievous grin from after losing her father, her best friend, blowing up her engagement and almost being blown up by some evil Goa'Uld all in one week.
"That's a high price," she says in that playful, flirty tone, but he can see beneath it. It's one of Carter's fine shows she has perfected. Just that this time, he won't let her off the hook because this time he is not protecting himself from what might come next.
"You are worth it, Carter," he whispers in just the same tone from the Zar'Tarc testing—the first time he confessed he would die for her. The realization that after all those years, after all that happened between them, those words still hold shatters her pretense and stripped from the role she is playing, there's nothing but openness.
"I'm going to take it."
Jack is so schooled in only allowing the innocuous thoughts that float on the surface of his mind that he can't dive deeper into where his wishes and hopes and longings are drowned. So he thinks that she is taking the job because she wants to be closer to Cassie. That she needs to start all over after her failed engagement. That maybe after defeating their enemies, she's finally done with all this loss and pain and hurt. He thinks that she's making a mistake because her career is prosperous.
"Are you sure about this? You finally have your own team, you can make a full bird Colonel in no time," Jack says for lack of something smarter to say.
"Someone once told me to get a life. And I think he's right."
"Carter, I don't doubt that you will do fantastic over there. You'll invent doohickies that are going to save our sorry asses. But you are too much of an adrenaline junkie not to miss gate travel and kicking evil alien butts." He's talking himself into trouble. Every word that crosses his lips is a contradiction from what he really wants to say. It's his very last attempt to stop this avalanche of emotions before it will pick up in speed and carry away whatever it comes across.
A smile tucks on her lips. It's the sort of smile she wears when Jack is slow to grasp what's happening. "Someone once told me to get a life. Last time I tried, it went horribly wrong because I didn't go for what I really wanted," Carter says, pushing her hand over the table, so her fingers touch his and send sparks throughout his body. His inner voice is suddenly very silent, and when he opens his mouth and words come out, it doesn't sound like his voice. "And what do you want?"
Taking a huge, bracing breath, she says, "This."
She squeezes his hand.
"Everything ended. The war with Gou'Uld. The fight with the Replicators. SG-1. Relationships. Lives. But not this."
She squeezes his hand again.
"This never ends. And I'm done feeling miserable about it."
Somehow Jack manages to not explode from happiness and years of pressure that's been building up in him. He turns his hand in hers and starts stroking his thumb over her skin.
"I was never a fan of feeling miserable."
She smiles lovingly before her face turns serious. "Do you still want this?"
Jack was naive to believe he wouldn't have to give away what he is feeling. It's not that he doesn't want to—heck he wants to scream that he loves her from the Cheyenne mountain top and precisely that's why he's afraid of his feelings. This is everything Jack has ever hoped for. Everything he has never allowed himself to believe would ever happen. Now with the possibility within grasp, daunting thoughts loom in the back of his mind. But her hopeful face shoos them away, and he says, "I always have, Carter. Always."
Repeating the words he had whispered earlier is the easiest thing he has ever done. Doubt is gone. They made it this far. They would manage everything that would come next.
Slowly they drift into a conversation. About Cassie and Nevada. About her father's funeral and Daniel. About what the SGC will do now that the Goa'Ulds are defeated. They don't lose a word about what this decision means for them. Baby steps after this huge leap. Jack is glad there is this table between them—a barrier that prevents them from making more decisions for now. Words are said, actions are missing, and the prospect is exciting and daunting all at once.
Somewhere from far, a phone rings, and Carter's eyes widen.
"Shit," she curses and jumps up. "I was supposed to pick up Cassie from the airport." She's in the hallway, slipping into her jacket, checking her phone. Within seconds she has picked up momentum, a pace that looks much more familiar on her than the earlier calmness. When Sam swirls around and spots Jack standing in the hallway, leaning against the wall watching her, she comes to a stop.
"Sorry. I wish I…"
"It's okay," he cuts her off. And it really is. Just because they might change things between them, they don't need to change.
"Thank you. It was a very nice evening." Carter says, and he is surprised how quickly she has changed from his 2IC to a woman acting like he is not her boss but something entirely else. His desires and wishes in flesh and blood. Now that the table is not between them anymore, he becomes painfully aware of their bodies. Of the energy that's there—that's always been there and that he can finally acknowledge. Carter smiles with a soft redness that draws down her neck and disappears in her sweater. She is about to turn around and open the door when he calls her back.
"Carter," Jack says with a raw voice. His heart starts pounding in his chest as if it wants to break free to meet hers. Before this can happen, he takes a step closer to her and crosses a lifetime of professional distance. His eyes sink into hers, and he starts falling. It's like they are not in his hallway anymore but in freefall from the edge of the atmosphere. They tumble through clouds of fear and air pockets of excitement. The last thought that crosses his mind before he's unable to form another thought is: I'm going to kiss Carter. And then he does. Jack strokes his fingers upwards Carter's arms and burrows them in the soft hair in her neck. Her breath tickles his skin. Her wide eyes pull him closer, and then his lips meet hers. It's a sweet, shy contact. A mere flicker of a kiss and yet the best Carter kiss ever. Because this one is a beginning. A promise of many kisses to follow. It tastes of possibilities and future, and Jack wants more of it but not tonight—they have the rest of their lives after all.
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