"Hey." He knocked on the door to her lab.
"Hey." She said looking up for a second then looking back down at the device.
"How's your new toy?" He asked walking over to her.
"It's really quite interesting. I can't be positive but I think what it does is," She paused waiting for him to cut her off.
"What does it do?" He asked her.
"Really?" she asked a little taken back.
"Yeah, isn't that what you were just about to tell me?"
"Well yeah, but you never let me ramble on about these things."
"Can't a guy be interested in a funky alien device thing?" He picked up device she'd been studying.
"Please be careful with that."
"So what's it do?" He turned it around a little.
"It's incredibly fragile." She said as he continued to play with it. "Sir, no disrespect but why are you here?"
"I work here."
"I mean here, in my lab."
"Ok Carter I've got a confession." He set the device down. "Remember earlier in the week when you asked if there was something else I wanted to say and I said no, well I lied. There is something else I wanted to say, you know I've never really been good with talking and I've been trying to find a way to tell you this all week, but I'm just going to come out and say it, I'm retiring." Her big blue eyes shot open and stared at him not sure what to say. "Yeah I was afraid you'd say that."
"Congratulations." She finally said. "I know you've been trying to retire for a while now."
"Yeah." he laughed a little. "I have been trying to retire for a while now."
"So…." She was unsure what to say. "What finally pushed you to retire?"
He thought for a second debating whether or not to tell the truth. He shrugged "It was just the right time."
She looked down and bit her lip afraid of how he might answer her next question. "It's not because of… because of me right?" she looked around refusing to meet his eyes.
"Oh course not." She let out a sigh of relief. "Like you said I've been wanting to do this for so long and everything has just finally lined up, but way to be big headed." He joked.
Sam giggled a little "I'm sorry I didn't mean to sound conceded. I just wanted to make sure I wasn't-" She stopped talking once she finally let their eyes meet and just stood there staring into his eyes silently. "Well congratulations again." She said once she finally able to pull her eyes away from his stare.
"Thank you." He looked down at the device on the table. "Well you probably wanna get back to that and I should probably go tell Daniel and Teal'c."
"Oh, you haven't told them yet?" she acted like she was surprised he told her first.
"No. Your lab is the closest." He lied, with a bad lie. They both knew Teal'c quarters were the closest and Sam's lab was actually the furthest from Jack's office but neither one said anything because they both knew why he lied. "Do me a favor, don't tell anyone. I'm going to tell Daniel now, then Teal'c, you may need to check on T after that, I know how emotional he gets." They both laughed. "and then I'll make announcement or something next week. Maybe I'll send out a memo." He joked.
"I forgot to ask, what's your last day?"
"End of the month."
"That's next Friday." She said surprised by how soon it was happening.
"Yep." He nodded awkwardly.
"Well good luck telling the boys." Sam smiled at him then went back to working on the device.
"Thanks." He said walking away.