Jesus! I'm must be in a really weird mood, this keep coming too darkish... anyhow! Fingers crossed for a brighter chapter(?) Italic is memories btw.
Enjoy!
M.
Chapter 2
The car ride at that time and to the White House took more than it used to, the never-ending line of cars going through security and inside the building was slow, to say the least. He played with the neck of his shirt and fixed his bow tie for the umpteenth time since he left the house.
He was still two blocks away from entering, and that meant he was going to survive seating in the car for another half an hour, or just walk away and face the music, before his grumpiness took the better out of him. Choosing to try and have a nice evening, without chewing someone's head off, just because he was condemned to the darn DC traffic and the extremely complicated safety measures of having people over the Presidential house, he opened the door of the car.
"Sir?" the startled driver asked nervously.
"You can sit here and wait to get in, son. But, if I wait a minute longer, and then I have to face more questions than when I was a POW. I won't be so nice to people and I might end up wearing orange, and my wife used to say that orange wasn't exactly fitting for my skin tone," he added dryly.
"Oh…ehm… Okay, sir. Should I wait for you?"
"Or just pick me out from that corner around 12:30ish? Here, this is my card… phone number is there. Just call me at 12… and we figured this out. Unless, you fancy to wait and sit in there with all the other guys who were hired to wait up tonight… which ever you want… just call me and let me know," he added closing the door.
He looked around, yes. He was the only one who chose to walk. People were waiting in their cars and they probably needed to. For him, his credentials made the walking entrance a fast way in. Even if he wasn't wearing his scary dress blues.
He walked the blocks separating him from the main fence, with a smile. It wasn't the first time he did something like this, no. And it probably wouldn't be the last. His wife used to tell him he was crazy, but she would step out of the car and walk with him anyways.
"I will have more time in your arms," she explained with a loving smile and that was all he needed to be a puddle at her feet.
"Stop it, O'Neill!" He muttered to himself, "you can't go all evening thinking of her, you are bound to screw it up if you keep this mood," he finished, and clenched his jaw. He walked slowly, the last meters were becoming inches as he strolled slowly towards the guards.
"Sir, you can't be here?"
"Right... I have an invitation, well, I don't have one." He remembered. "I have orders to present myself inside," he explained, bringing his ID out. "Check with Hayes if you need to"
The guards fumbled with the phone line a bit, and were transferred over and over again until, apparently, they hit what they were looking for. Whatever whomever told them was not too nice, because the one on the phone was blushing fiercely and signaling the other to move quickly to open the doors for him. Jack shook his head, it was probably Hayes himself making a joke or two. The man thought he was funny, maybe he was… but considering the powerful position he held, it was very doubtful he was thought as that by the guys on the gate.
Galas were nothing but awful for him, except for that beautiful period in which his wife would join him and keep him dancing or entertained. Those nights ones were the best. But now, he was already depressed enough to consider them something nice.
The amount of people in the room, made it a little bit too claustrophobic. The live band was a hertz or thousand too loud. The women were too shiny and the mix of several perfumes brought a bit of nausea to him, and the men, they were all too polite… and that, often sucked. He groaned.
He knew by the structure of the groups, where the military brass was, who were the gold cradle guys and which one were the trophy wives. He also, found the gold-digger groups (both male and female). And all of them were mingling and making his way to the bar a tad too difficult.
When he managed, he sighed. Yup, most definitely, he was one of the few who had come alone.
He hated that, he hated small talk. His wife used to tell him that by someone of so few words, he loved the deep conversations a tad too much. They could talk for hours to no end, she used to tell him she loved that, the way they could talk about everything and anything and just be.
Someone bumped him and she excused herself with a silly laugh and what he knew was a practiced blush of feigned innocence. He didn't need to be a genius to know the girl was going to try and catch him.
"Hi, I'm Lily…" she smiled at him coquettishly, batting her fake eyelids slowly. He watched the motion amazed at how dexterous the girl was to keep those things on. His wife only used mascara and that was more than enough.
"I'm not interested in having to fight with a spidery looking thing hanging in my eyes!" She told him laughing once, "It's like having a curtain over your eyes, and the weight! It keeps bringing your lids down and you have to make all this effort just to keep your eyes opened!" He had laughed wholeheartedly at the eyes she had made.
The girl cleared her throat expectantly, bringing back from his reverie. He smiled sideways at her, and purposely extended his ring hand to her.
"Jack O'Neill. Nice to meet you, Lily"
"Oh, is she near? I'm not jealous"
"She is not around…" he told her and the girl grinned, he lowered himself to speak to her ear, she shivered at the contact of his breath on her neck, "I could be your father. You should search someone else," he whispered. He wasn't exactly expecting the slap, but it had happened before.
Yes, his wife used to laugh at his inability to avoid those kinds of situations.
"That's why I bring you along, honey. So you keep them at bay," he used to tell her.
"Oh! The big bad General can't defend himself?" She teased him
"Why would I need to defend myself, if I have you?"
He grabbed his beer, and took a sip. He hated coming alone, not because of the extreme alienation feeling or because he was sure to become a desperate girl magnet just by being there. Not that he considered himself handsome, but some of the girls were just desperate enough to try and catch him. But no, it was because, even on the military groups he had a tendency to try and avoid for the whole night, bringing someone along gave you at least five to ten minutes of nonsensical chat. Half an hour to an hour, if you knew how to play your cards. Instead of jumping straight to work conversation.
And he didn't mind straight conversations, however, most of the people who came, didn't know what he did, nor had the security level to know. For them, he was just another General they didn't know what to do with and brought over to the Pentagon so he was out of sight.
"Out of sight, out of mind!" she had told him once when he complained. "Besides, if it is need to know, and they don't need to know, what's the whole issue with them trying to know?"
"Power"
"Ah, the thing which moves the world."
"I thought that was money…"
"Well, there's that too"
But, no matter how much it should be them not knowing and him shutting them out, with the 'need to know' thing. They still kept trying and he was marked as non-polite in more groups that he liked to count. Not even when she used to come with him had made a difference in that. But back then, she would laugh and excuse them and lose them on the dance floor.
The other thing he hated about being alone, was the fact that he felt like a bait. Like a black tux worm waiting to be eaten by the sharpest mouth available. His wife used to bring attention to him, more than he liked even, because with her personality and her beauty, she attracted all the guys with a pair of eyes, and her incredible ability to make them talk was outstanding. They could be hours on a group and only said a couple words, and nothing about work, after the introductions and vague explanations of what they did.
He sighed, he had lost the count of how many times he had done it in the last hour, and grabbed another beer and walked. He decided that facing the brass was easier, than just hide in the corner and drown his sorrows in Guinness, with a deep breath and a long swig he walked to the area he wanted to reach.
PS: I'm working on next chapter and doesn't seem like I've found the light...