Pretending to be something you're not

AN: Thanks to Eternal Density for the idea that led to this particular scenario!

Sam twirled the ring on her finger, wondering what people would think if they walked in to see her so absorbed in thought over a simple piece of jewelry.

A simple piece of jewelry in the form of ring that should have been discarded by now, or at least returned.

The President had requested that Sam and Jack go undercover- together. As in, they were an 'item'. Sam had a feeling that if anyone but the President had made the request, the Colonel would have flat out refused, probably using some choice words in the process.

But he hadn't and neither had she. So undercover they had gone as Samantha Jackson and Jack Hamilton. Supposedly, Sam was currently involved in some ultra-top-secret project guaranteed to make her millions in addition to the riches she already had. Jack was her military boyfriend who also happened to be involved in said project.

Neither had complained about their cover stories, well at least not too loudly in hearing distance of the other.

Sam's biggest concern was how they were supposed to pull off the job of convincing everyone at the resort that they were a couple without overstepping the boundaries set by the Air Force while also setting the two of them up as the seller of 'ultra-top-secret' government secrets. They even had Sam mock up some schematics.

Sam had the most fun that she'd had since she built the naquadah generator drawing up something that ended up looking like a cross between a toaster and a DHD. She just hoped that they were good enough to fool whoever would be looking at them.

It turned out that the schematics weren't a problem and neither was the supposed relationship between Sam and Jack. Well except the one little hitch in whoever had come up with the plan.

/Flashback/

"The signal for the spy to contact us is a proposal?" Jack yelled into the secure cell phone, complaining to which ever one of their 'contacts' had been given the nasty job of informing them of this piece of information which had been clearly left out of their pre-mission briefing.

Meanwhile, Sam tried to figure out how she was supposed to feel about this.

Samantha Jackson's heart was singing with joy at the realization there was no way that Jack Hamilton, played by Jack O'Neill, would be able to get out of proposing to her that evening.

On the other hand, Samantha Carter was scared for the first time in recent memory. Give her a Kull warrior, an army of Jaffa, or even a damp, dark prison cell any day over trying to figure out her emotions, especially where Jack O'Neill was involved.

If it had just been Jack O'Neill proposing to Sam Carter, it would have taken her all of three seconds for her to tackle him to the ground, kiss him silly, and say 'yes'.

But this wasn't Jack O'Neill proposing to Sam Carter.

It was Jack Hamilton proposing to Samantha Jackson.

So Sam was going to have to play along like she was the surprised and happy newly engaged woman that Samantha Jackson would have been.

/End Flashback/

Looking back, Sam thought she had managed to pull off the appropriate response to the proposal Jack had hastily thrown together.

/Flashback/

Jack had invited her to dance, something that he had never done during their previous two nights at the resort. They had danced, but it had always been initiated by Sam, and never for long than a few songs.

When one of the slow songs came to an end, the band didn't immediately begin another song. Instead, the spot light which had previously been focused on the band was now directed towards the middle of the dance floor, where Sam and Jack happened to be standing.

Without prelude, Jack dropped to one knee and whipped a ring box from his pocket.

'I wonder where he got that from so fast,' Sam thought for an instant before she turned all of her attention to listening to Jack.

"…and it doesn't matter that I can't understand most of what you say half the time. Actually it's probably more like I can't understand half of what you say most of the time," Jack chuckled and the crowd that was eagerly watching joined in.

"You mean the world to me and I would give you the stars and the moon if I could because you deserve them. You'd make me the happiest man in the world if you'd agree to be my wife. Samantha… will you marry me?" Jack finally asked.

Sam didn't answer him.

Instead, she leaned down and pulled him to his feet before she kissed him.

A kiss that brought cheers, whoops, and whistles from their audience.

When a lack of air forced them apart, Sam was so dazed by the kiss that she barely noticed Jack slipping the ring on her finger.

To everyone else, they looked like a happy, newly engaged couple as they stood gazing into each other's eyes.

In reality, they were trying to figure out what the other was thinking and worrying about everything that hadn't happened in the past few minutes.

'He never said he loved me,' Sam thought.

'She never said yes,' Jack reflected.

Still, they both managed to smile as they danced to a couple more songs, one of which the band dedicated to the newly engaged couple before departing for their room.

/End Flashback/

Their mission had moved so fast from that point that they never had the opportunity to discuss their feelings and how they would deal with the things they had to do to 'get the job done'.

Pretending to be a couple hadn't been too hard. An occasional kiss on the cheek and an increase in the number of the 'innocent' touches they had often engaged in off base was all it had taken for everyone to believe that they truly were a couple.

And Sam was convinced that had that been all they had needed to do; they would have been able to return to work, brushing off their gestures as nothing more then a mission 'necessity', much like the marriages Sam occasionally endured on off-world missions to keep her from being 'claimed' by some native.

But getting engaged had thrown those plans out the window.

And brought to the forefront the issue of sharing a bed.

The first night they had been there, Jack had suggested they take turns sleeping in the king sized bed and taking the couch, and not wanting to argue, Sam had agreed.

Until one of their new 'friends' had come knocking after the first night and had commented on why

/Flashback/

"Did you two have an argument?" Jarred asked with interest, gesturing towards the discarded blanket and pillow on the couch.

"Uh… yeah," Jack was quick to say before Sam had to come up with something. Believe it or not, he actually had experience with being kicked out of bed and could probably come up with a cover story better then Sam.

Luckily Jarred didn't seem interested in knowing what they had fought about as he was in getting Jack to play a round of golf with him.

Still, that led to a revision in the sleeping arrangements.

They got ready for bed, which actually meant Jack was changing while Sam had sole possession of the bathroom before they traded places. Sam stood in front of the bathroom door, nervously wringing her hands.

Jack opened the door and came to a skidding halt to avoid running into her.

"We have to share the bed tonight," Sam blurted out and then blushed at the audacity of her statement.

Jack was glad that he hadn't been the one forced to bring this up, but he had been thinking the same thing. "I was thinking the same thing," Jack admitted.

"So…"

"The way I see it, we've slept in tighter quarters then this before. I mean, our tents are smaller then this right?" Jack asked and Sam nodded in confirmation. Jack walked over to the bed and sat down on the edge of it.

"So we shouldn't have a problem sharing it, right?" he asked as he bounced up and down on it a few times like he was five years old again.

Sam giggled and headed for 'her' side of the bed, feeling slightly more relaxed.

Even though they both had agreed to share, they each hugged the edge of the bed as the drifted off to sleep.

So waking up the next morning to find themselves intertwined had come as quite a shock. Jack's hands where touching Sam's skin in places that he had never seen, and were dangerously close to touching skin that a woman's CO should never, ever touch.

For Sam's part, she was half laying on top of Jack, her head resting on his chest, and one leg between his.

That particular experience was repeated every night and morning thereafter, in some form, even after Jack began sleeping on top of the sheet to avoid putting his hands where they shouldn't have been.

No matter how hard the two of them tried to stay on opposite sides of the bed, they always ended up rolled together in the middle.

Every.

Single.

Time.

Jack was convinced that whatever real god was out there was trying to torment him by waving the one thing he wanted most and couldn't have right under his nose.

Sam knew she was enjoying it way too much considering as soon as this mission was over, she was going to have to go back to sleeping all alone in her own bed.

/End Flashback/

The suddenness with which their mission ended meant that Sam and Jack didn't have any time to sit and discuss anything until after they returned to the mountain and had been granted the leave that Hammond had already promised them.

/Flashback/

"Good work, both of you," Hammond congratulated the two officers. "The President was happy to hear that the potential threat to the United States and more specifically, the SGC had been eliminated. I'm supposed to remind the two of you that the offer for dinner at the White House is still open, along with the rest of SG-1 if you're ever in Washington."

"Not if I can help it," Jack said sarcastically.

Hammond gave him a look which basically said 'shut up so we can get this over with or I might change my mind about giving you leave'. "Do either of you have anything to add to the report you already filed?" he asked.

"No sir," they both responded.

"In that case… enjoy your leave. I'll see you in a week," Hammond said, waving them both off in a form of dismissal.

Jack rushed from the room, but Sam remained behind.

"I just want you to know General," Sam began, "That I stand by everything I included in my report, right down to the last page."

General Hammond had looked at her confused for a moment before pulling her report from one of the piles in front of him. He flipped to the last page of the rather bulky document and quickly gazed through it. "Are you sure?" he asked.

"I can't go back, not that I'm sure where I'm going from here, but going back isn't an option," Sam admitted.

Major General George Hammond nodded. "I'll see that this gets processed immediately," he promised.

Sam smiled as a way of saying 'thank you' and retreated to her lab.

/End Flashback/

So now Sam sat, constantly spinning the ring around her finger, wondering what she was going to do now.

There was nothing to stop her from chasing after Jack O'Neill.

There was no reason she couldn't go fishing with him, if he asked, that was.

And still, she sat in her lab wondering if 'someday' had finally arrived.

It wasn't Jack O'Neill who interrupted her thoughts, but Daniel Jackson.

"Do you have the…" he asked as he walked into her lab. "He finally asked you? That's great!" he exclaimed.

"Huh?"

"The ring," Daniel explained, grabbing her hand to get a closer look at it. "I found it in Jack's desk about a year ago and when I asked him about it, he said it had been his grandma's and he was holding on to it for the day when he could use it to ask you to marry him."

"Really?"

"Yeah," Daniel said slightly confused. "That ring did come from Jack didn't it?"

"Yeah, it did," Sam said slowly. She got up and gave Daniel a quick hug. "I gotta go," she called over her shoulder as she ran from the room.

She had a plane to catch to Minnesota to see a man about some fishing.

Sam rushed through packing and calling the airport, only to find out the next plane wouldn't be leaving for several hours. She made it to the airport in plenty of time to catch the plane to Minnesota and when she landed again, she realized she had no clue where Jack's cabin was even at.

So while she filled out the paperwork to rent an SUV, she resolved that problem with a call to Teal'c, who was able to give her surprisingly detailed directions of how to get there.

Meanwhile, Jack O'Neill had arrived at his cabin only a few hours before and after spending an hour unloading everything, was now packing it all back up. He planned to leave the following morning and go back to Colorado Springs. He had left Sam a large sticky note on her computer that said 'Gone fishing. Join me? Call me. J.'

He had given her 24 hours to call him and she hadn't, which could only mean she didn't want to talk to him.

Or go fishing.

They had both always known what 'fishing' really meant.

He had told himself that each refusal would be the last one, and this time it was. He just needed to hand in his resignation to General Hammond, and his latest mission would officially be his last.

'At least if I retire,' he thought, 'I'll never have to see her again.'

Which was why he was packing only the items he would need for a quick trip back to the SGC. He would soon be back at his cabin ready to live out the rest of his life as a lonely fisherman.

But all of that would have to wait until morning because right now Colonel Jack O'Neill (soon to be retired) was going to sleep.

oooooooooooooooooooooooo

It was just starting to get light out when Sam made the last turn onto what she hoped was the road that led to Jack's cabin. The road had long since turned from blacktop to dirt and narrowed to only one lane.

So when Sam's SUV met up with a truck, both vehicles stopped, looking for a place that one of them could pull off to let the other by.

At least until each driver realized who was in the other vehicle.

That was how they ended up parked in the middle of the 'road', standing between the two vehicles.

"So…" Sam said.

"Why didn't you call me like I asked you to?" Jack asked softly.

"When did you ask me to call you?"

"On the note," Jack clarified.

"What note?"

"The one I left on your computer that told you I was going fishing and asked you to join me or call me," Jack explained.

"I never saw it."

"Oh. So what are you doing here?" Jack asked.

Sam shuffled her feet a little bit. "I was kind of hoping to give fishing a try."

"Really?"

"Yeah," Sam confirmed, looking up to try and read the expression on his face. "And I wanted to ask you about this ring," Sam added, handing over the ring that become hers during their undercover mission.

"What did you want to ask me about it?" Jack questioned, not taking the ring from Sam's outstretched hand.

"How long have you had it?" Sam asked.

"A while."

Sam raised an eyebrow, telling Jack that his answer wasn't satisfying her curiosity.

"Years."

"Daniel said it belonged to your grandmother."

"It did."

"You should have it back. It's a family heirloom. It should remain in the family."

Jack hesitated. "I was kind of hoping that you'd be willing to hold on to it and keep it in the family at the same time."

"Huh?"

Now it was Jack's turn to shuffle his feet and find the ground interesting. "That last mission… the undercover mission…"

"Yeah."

"Everything that happened between the two people we were pretending to be, I want that to happen between us."

"Um… wow… that's…"

"I'm not saying that it has to happen right now," Jack hurriedly said as he watched Sam stumble for her words, "But just that… I guess that… nothing has changed on my part from what we said in that room. Except maybe… no definitely… gotten stronger."

Jack paused before tacking on, "Iloveyou," all in one breath.

Sam had flown to Minnesota and driven to Jack's cabin, all with the intent of figuring out if they had a future together. She had rehearsed exactly what she was going to say to him, but right this second, she couldn't come up with anymore more intelligent to say then, "Huh."

Jack took her lack of response to mean that he had totally stepped over the line as her CO and she had no idea how to gently let him down. "Never mind," he insisted, snatching the ring from Sam's outstretched hand. "I'll back-up and let you get around so you can get turned around. I was headed back to Colorado Springs to quickly take care of some business before returning here."

Jack walked towards his truck only to have Sam call after him.

"Do you mind if I stay at your cabin until you get back?" Sam asked. "I've got this sudden desire to learn how to fish."

Jack slowly turned around, one hand still on the door of his pickup.

"And do you think I could have that ring back to," she tacked on. "I think I've gotten used to wearing it."

The corners of Jack's mouth began to turn up as he tried to fight off a smile. "Do you think you could get used to wearing it for a long time?"

"How long?"

Jack took a step towards Sam. "I was thinking something along the lines of forever."

"Huh. I don't think I could get used to wearing that ring for forever," Sam responded. "I know I could. I know I could even get used to wearing a second ring. The question is could you get used to wearing just one ring?"

Jack composed his face into an expression of deep thought. "Oh I'm pretty sure that one ring won't be a problem. It seems to me that if you can put up with wearing two, I should be able to wear one without a problem," Jack explained, causing Sam to giggle. "Nope, I just have one question for you."

Jack paused for dramatic effect.

"Does this mean that I can sleep underneath the sheet again?"

Samantha Carter, soon to be O'Neill, didn't even grace his question with an answer, choosing instead to giggle as she walked up to him and kissed him senseless.

When they finally broke for air, Sam said, "Yes you can sleep under the sheets, yes I'll marry you, and yes I'll go fishing with you. Is that good enough for you?"

"That's just about perfect," Jack assured her with a smile as he slipped the ring on her finger.

So in the middle of a dirt road in the backwoods of Minnesota, Jack O'Neill and Samantha Carter got engaged, each of them hearing exactly what had been missing the first time around.