AN: It's Monday. You know what that means.

I will admit, I know very little about pole-vaulting so if I get any details absurdly wrong blame Wiggiesmom for the idea. Lol. Arguably I think this would be something challenging that Sammy WOULD enjoy trying out.

High Sticking

Taking a Different Track

"Miss Carter, a minute of your time." The tall slender track coach called out to her.

"Sure thing, Coach Bonnie." It had taken Sammy weeks to stop calling the woman 'Ma'am' or 'Coach Reynolds'. Some stuff just became your personality. She jogged over after finishing her stretch routine.

"How's your upper body strength, Sammy?"

"Ma…er…coach?"

The woman grinned. "You're one of my fastest sprinters but lots of kids are fast, Sam. How do you feel about launching yourself through the air?"

"As in?"

"There is an opening in the pole vaulting team. If you're interested, I'd really like you to try out. I think you would be a good fit." And then coach Bonnie appealed to the thing Sammy loved the most. "It's the only sport that requires math to be good at it."

Sammy's eyes lit up.

"That's what I thought." The woman said with a grin. "Try outs are this weekend. We have extra equipment the Rotary club donated if you don't have the money for a pole yet or want to test the waters before you commit."

Sammy thought about it for a minuet. "When are meets?"

"Wednesdays."

"I'd have to skip watching hockey practice." She said softly to herself.

"I'm pretty sure your boyfriend will understand, Sammy." Her coach said. Even if he didn't there was more to high school than boys in Bonnie's opinion. Sammy was very young to be in such an obviously committed relationship anyway. She wasn't sure she'd be as ok with this as her parents apparently were.

"He would." Sammy said brightly. "My best friend is dating his wingman though and she's going to have to decide who she wants to cheer on." Sammy said in amusement, knowing full well the woman had mistaken her reluctance for being boy crazy rather than concern for a friend's time management. As if she, Sam Carter was even remotely capable of being boy crazy made her want to laugh. Especially over Jack O'Neill. Arguably, had she met him as a cadet she might have been a little starry eyed. Even if he had been married. He was a good looking man at any age though honestly, his looks weren't what she was in love with.

"Well, try out is 2 pm this weekend." Her coach told her.

"All right, I'll talk to my folks and see what they think." Sammy said.

"So how interested are you in doing this, Sammy?" Wil was asking her.

Sammy shrugged. "She just kind of dropped it on me honestly. It's going to be a pretty big time commitment beyond everything else. I'd have to change piano practice days."

"Do you really need lessons, Sammy?" Mare asked her pointedly.

Sammy had the decency to blush. "Ok, not technically." She admitted.

Mary smiled with amusement. So many things about this girl made so much more sense knowing exactly who she really was. "I know you enjoy them, which I'm sure is why you signed up for them in the first place, but I think if you keep doing the things you have always done eventually you will get bored with everything and I'd honestly hate to see you take that out on Jon." Not that they didn't have a right to move on with their lives if they chose to, she thought, but it would be a shame to see the effort Jack and Sam went through for these kids to have them strike out as a couple.

"I don't think I'm capable of getting bored with Jon, Aunt Mare." Sammy said with amusement. "He's actually just a bit too random to ever be boring."

Wil laughed. "She has a point, Mare." He told his wife.

Mary shook her head in amusement. Jon was a good kid but Sammy was right, he was a tiny bit random. It made her wonder how much control the General had to exert on his natural tendencies to not be labeled the town kook in DC. She wasn't sure he wasn't anyway. There had been some rumors.

"So, I don't know. I guess I'll give it a shot and see if I even make the team and see if I like it." She shrugged. Lynn would just have to either split her time or hang out by herself at the rink while the guys practiced. Jay would be there more often than not, though he was making noises about getting a job lately.

"Well, don't let us twist your arm." Wil told her dryly.

Sammy giggled.

"No giggling, Carter." Jon muttered from behind her as he came in the door before plopping an affectionate kiss on top of her head.

Sammy snorted in mirth. "I was beginning to think you weren't going to make it for dinner."

"And miss out on Aunt Mare's beef stew? Are you kidding? Flying space snakes couldn't keep me away."

"Hey technically…" she said laughing.

"Yah yah." He said grabbing the empty chair. "Mrs. B. got a late shipment and Myka couldn't get in this week to log it in so she was trying to do it all herself."

"I thought she'd gone off to be a secret service agent?" Myka had finished school recently and been tapped by some Dickenson guy fresh out of university.

"She still wanders in and out. Just not as much. Had some time off after her training session."

"Like leave after basic."

"More or less. She doesn't talk about it much for obvious reasons."

"That's just par around here. Wait until she figures out her parent's employee is her boss's golf buddy." Wil said.

"Oh no… Jack already knows." Sammy said in amused horror. She'd bet some money on him having something to do with Myka's appointment too.

Jon smirked.

"Jon. Honestly." Mary told him. Her voice exasperated.

"What? I don't have any control over anything he does." Jon shoveled a chunk of potato into his mouth.

"He doesn't, Mare." Wil said.

"I know, I know. Should we warn Sam?"

"The only one it makes sense to warn is Myka and she'll find out soon enough." Sammy said with a philosophical shrug.

"That poor girl," Wil said with a snort.

"You guys are terrible." Mary admonished all three of them.

"It will build character." Jon said with a grin. "Sammy, what's this scuttlebutt about you trying out for pole vaulting?" he asked her with a shoulder nudge.

"You heard about that, huh?"

"Kind of hard not to when your coach is buddies with my coach, Carter."

"Oh, yah, suppose." Sam poked at her meal.

"Sammy."

She looked at him shyly.

"I think you'd be great at it."

Sammy's expression went from shy to beaming and Jon didn't notice the amused look Wil and Mare exchanged at Jon's huge answering grin.

"Ok, but Lynn is probably going to be mad."

"Why?"

"Well, meets are on Wednesdays the same day you have practice which means she either has to watch you guys alone or come to my stuff alone." She explained.

"Oh, that. I wouldn't worry about it too much."

"But we're the first real friends she's ever had, Jon. Now we're making her choose."

"Sammy, you're worried that Lynn won't be able to spend time with Brian if she has to split her time between the two of you. Aren't you?" Mary asked her.

Sammy looked a little startled that the older woman had figured it out so quickly then mentally kicked herself as she should have expected she might. "I don't want her to have to openly lie to her mom. It's one thing for her to hang out with me while I hang out there and another for her to go because she personally wants to be there."

"Jon is Jay's best friend, that's reason enough for her to be there as long as she goes on days Jay can be there too." Mary said. "On days he's not, she can go to your meets."

"I probably should have thought of that on my own." Sammy admitted.

"Sometimes it's hard to see the forest for the trees, kiddo." Wil told her. "Jon, you can keep an eye on Lynn for Sammy right?"

Jon executed a sloppy salute then went back to devouring his second helping of stew.

"There. Problem solved." Wil said.

They were sitting in the living room together on the couch, a spiral notebook between them. "Ok, so the math is pretty simple." Jon said and scribbled the equation on the top of the sheet.

"The mass is the same both sides so you don't need that number." She told him.

"Worried I'll find out what you weigh, Carter?" He asked her, warmth in his chuckle and she flashed back to a conversation with Sam about what he wanted to say when he used Carter in that tone.

"Not even a little. I weight one ten right now depending on the size of my last meal and if I've pooped today." She said primly.

Jon gave her a scandalized look.

"You'll catch flies." She told him.

His jaw snapped shut. "Ok… disregard the mass. You can run about 9.5 meters per second so we'll square that to account for our mathematically polite gravity on Earth.

"Assuming I don't do this on another planet, of course."

"Of course." It amused him that she was letting him do the math even though it was her purview not his. "So you technically could clear about twenty feet if you wanted to though I wouldn't recommend it to start." He admitted.

"Do you do this much math for hockey?"

"Not usually." He admitted.

"It's just transferring the kinetic energy from my feet to the pole to my center of gravity really."

"Yup."

"Seems like gymnastics."

"It is a little." Jon agreed. "But with more manliness."

Sammy giggled. "Mary told me I should try doing new things because she was worried I'd get bored otherwise." She admitted to him.

"Was that a suggestion we date other people?" Jon asked her, concerned.

"I think the opposite. I think she didn't want me looking at myself being bored and start thinking getting rid of you would cure it."

"Well, I wouldn't worry too much about it." He told her gruffly.

"You aren't worried I'll get bored with you?"

"I'm always worried you'll get bored with me." He admitted. "What I'm not worried about is me ever getting bored with you. I'd probably just hang around in the background until you needed a dose of lunatic."

"I'm not going to live that admission down, am I?"

"Not in a million lifetimes no." He told her but softened his opinion with a gentle kiss. "It's kind of nice being able to do this when I want, Sam." He said of their kiss.

"Yah. It kind of is, isn't it?"

"We're going to be adults again before you know it and hopefully planning our life together like normal people in a few years."

She chuckled. "Jon, you've already been doing that for a year." She teased him.

"No way am I taking my chances on you hooking up with some random archeology professor or something. I can live with a really long engagement though if that's what you want."

"Talk to me again about it in three years, Jon." She told him gently but gave him a kiss to show she meant it.

"Don't worry, Sam, I have no intention of tying you down until I've graduated the academy and you have a doctorate."

"Ok." She agreed and snuggled into his shoulder.