Two Weeks Later
Sam's hand reaches for Jack's during a dinner in the officer mess. It touches the pinky first. Three of her fingers skitter playfully over the pinky before advancing to new territory. He pulls away slowly, and the loss of contact makes her hover awkwardly a millimeter above his thigh where his hand was resting. He slides beneath that distance, and brings her hand higher, until it touches the metal of the table, then he pulls away and traces his finger along the lines of her hand.
His mother used to be an amateur fortune teller. She'd taught him to read palms when he was a small boy. Sam's lifeline is long and segmented. Her love line is short but deep.
She twists his hand quickly stopping the tickling teasing by grasping the hand firmly in hers. The fingers intertwine, and the palms touch one another.
She turns to him and gives him a quick smile although they are both pretending to listen to a man in Sam's platoon describe some football game that happened when he was in high school.
Jack reaches his free hand over his clasped arm to silently offer her his jello.
She shakes his head. He's always giving her stuff. He has to knock it off.
He grins, and stabs a hunk of mystery meat… or flux meat, more accurately, off her plate. She seems to accept the trade by the way she starts to eat the jello with her left hand while squeezing his with her right.
"And then aliens landed in the field and declared me king of Planet-X," the Airman finishes.
Sam nods her head politely, and Jack briefly wonders if he is making an appropriate 'good for you' face.
"Are you guys even listening?" the Airman says, exasperated.
"Naw, they can't hear anything over the music and the bird's chirping in their ears," Charlie says, sitting down next to them.
"What?" Sam asks in confusion.
Jack drops her hand, "I heard everything, you're a football star."
"That just proves you heard the first sentence," the Airman says with an eye role.
"Hey, look at her, you can't blame the man for having trouble focusing," Charlie says with a grin.
Sam's cheeks blush red, and she takes her last bite of the jello.
"Ready to go? I'll walk you to your tent," Jack says.
"Right, that's all you're be doing," the Airman says quietly.
Jack leans forward. "I am just walking her home, and if you tell anyone otherwise…" he lets he threat hang in the air, all the more terrifying for being unfinished, and then he stands up to walk her out.
When they hit the cool desert air, she grabs his hand again. She lets it swing between them for a couple beats before she says, "You know, you don't have to just walk me to my tent."
She and Jack have been dating for several weeks, and he hasn't made any move besides kissing and holding hands. She's beginning to get insulted.
"Where were you stationed, back home?" he asks looking up at the stars.
She doesn't know why he is changing the topic, "Vandenberg Air Force Base."
"California," he says flatly.
Sam nods.
"See, I'm at Hurlburt Field, myself," he says.
"You're special ops?"
"California and Florida are a long way apart."
"I thought you were a pilot."
"That, too," he mutters.
"Ok, so what's with the geography lesson?" she asks.
He stops cold, "Sam, is this some wartime romance?"
"We don't know where we're going to be when we get back, Jack. We could be stationed near each other."
"Angel, do we have a future?" he asks abruptly.
"I don't know, that depends on whether you learn my name," she teases.
"No, it depends on whether one of us is willing to give up our careers, or if we're both willing to do a long range romance," he says fiercely.
"I'm willing to do long distance," she says, putting an arm on his forearm.
"Ok, then," he says, resuming walking and looking less sad.
"You're not going to return the sentiment?" she asks, knowing already that Jack is not the kind of person that shares his feelings with other people.
"I'll do you one better. There is one way we could get the Air force to station us together," he says.
At first her mind is blank. She has no idea what he means, and then suddenly, she realizes. Marriage. He's talking about marriage. She takes a sharp intake of breath, and stops.
He turns to her with a nervous grin. He knows he shouldn't have said that. That's the sort of thing a crazy possessive stalker would say.
She grins at him, "I want to be an astronaut."
He stares at her in surprise. He shouldn't be surprised, of course, after all, when you add astrophysics and piloting together, you couldn't come up with anything else besides 'astronaut'.
"I like Texas," he says.
She giggles, pulling him closer to her with his arm.
"I'm not supposed to feel like this, not this early," she whispers.
He grins, "It is a crazy out-of-control wonderful feeling, isn't it?"
She nods. They have reached her tent.
He gives her a kiss, which makes all the excitement that has been flowing through her body form a tight coil in her stomach.
"'Night," he says.
"Where do you think you're going?" she asks playfully, tugging at his fatigues at his chest.
He hadn't planned to go into her tent. He really hadn't.
He takes a gentle step toward her, putting one of his legs between hers. It's not even touching her, except a little on one of her knees, but it feels incredibly sensual all the same. He stares into her eyes for a long time.
Long enough that she gets nervous and looks away with a giggle. "You're a national treasure, you know that?" he asks with a throaty voice.
"And you're my supernova," she whispers.
"Then analyze me already."
She wraps her arms around him, and starts to kiss him.
He sweeps her off her feet… literally. He takes a step back, and bends a bit so he can puts a hand under her knee to pull her into a fireman carry.
She screams. Then he tickles her under her knee, and then he giggles. He presses his lips against hers. "You're sure you want to do this, Angel?"
She nods her head wrapping her arms around her neck. He carries her into the tent.
-0-0-0-
Sam shakes her head, trying to get rid of the fly in her hair. The fly only goes deeper into her hair, though, and she opens her eyes in order to figure out what is happening. It's not a fly, it's Jack, and he's running his hand through her hair. No-one has ever touched her with such reverence.
"Hi," she whispers.
"'Morning," he says with a grin.
The memory of last night makes her grin. It was never like that when she was with Jonas. This was just… wow.
"I've only got a half hour," he whispers.
"I wish we could stay in bed all day," Sam mutters.
"Tell you what, the first time we have leave at the same time stateside, we'll do exactly that."
Sam giggles.
Jack runs his fingers through her hair slowly.
"But we can come back here, right when we're done working. There will be the real world, and then there will be the world that the two of us only have when we're off duty."
"I like that plan, all apart from one thing," Jack says.
"What's that?"
"This is the real world, us, that's it."
-0-0-0-
Jack's been gone for two days. Sam knows that she shouldn't worry about this sort of thing. It happens. It especially happens when someone is in black ops. She lived through it once, and she can't believe that she got involved in another guy in black ops.
Sam is sitting outside looking at the stars, trying to think of a way to break up with him.
Suddenly he's next to her. She didn't hear him coming, and she jumps in surprise. She knows that she shouldn't be surprised though. Black ops.
"You ok?" she asks.
He takes her hand, and doesn't say a word. She turns toward him, looking at him. His face has a dismal look. Her dad had it twice, and she never knew why. Jonas had it all the time.
"I'm sorry," she mutters. She knows she should leave him alone. That he's going to get angry and snide, they always did.
"You know, I'm selfish. It's not even that I wish it wasn't done. It needed to be done. I just wish I wasn't the one who had to do it."
She squeezes his hand, understanding that he can't tell her what the 'it' is.
"I'm sorry I couldn't tell you before I left," he whispers, leaning his head toward her shoulder.
She takes him into her arms. He's black ops, that's true. But without even a hint of revealing classified information, he shared more with her than Jonas had in the whole five months they'd dated.
"You're cold, Jack, let's go into my tent, and get some blankets on you," she whispers.
"You're all the warmth I need, Angel."
And Sam once again marvels at the way this man can melt her heart with tired old lines.