With the cadets thoroughly tested and sent home to rest and the rest of the SGC returning to normal following the foothold drill, Jack wanders from the Commissary to the Control Room and finds Sam hard at work doing something he's sure is important but beyond his interest or understanding. He thinks about bugging her to make sure she eats dinner, but decides her distraction is useful at the moment and he can come back to mother her later. There's something else he needs to do first.
He finds the cleaning supplies he needs in a supply closet, and though a young officer tries to offer his services for whatever mess there is, Jack thanks him and sends him away. This one is his to clean up, and he's glad to.
Carter's lab, usually sparkling clean and sterile, still bears the evidence of their afternoon's war games in the form of sticky red drops and smears along the floor and against the counter. His "wound" had been dripping, as she'd mentioned (with some politely guarded irritation, he had thought). He'd ignored it at the time in favor of continuing his role in the simulation, but now seemed like a good time to take care of it. Yeah, the base has a cleaning staff, but he's got the time and he wants to make sure it's taken care of before it settles. The fake blood is essentially a mixture of corn syrup and red dye, so it's already sticky, but gets much worse as it dries.
He begins with the edge of the counter where there are a few drops and a smear from his leaning. The fake blood is sticky and pretty gross, but it comes up with a little elbow grease. He carefully lowers himself to the floor, groaning along with his knees. The mess on the floor is worse, a scatter of more chaotic drops and splashes and a large smear from when the intar blast knocked him on his ass. He gets to work, trying not to let the sour odor of the cleaning solution bother him too much.
It occurs to him that this is a silly thing for him to be doing, that not only does he have other work he's actually obligated to complete, but also that it makes no sense for him to spend time cross-legged on the floor of Sam's lab cleaning up a small mess that would probably have been taken care of in a few hours, anyway. But he also desperately wants to do it. He wants to be the reason she won't walk into a mess, even though she'll never know it was him. He doesn't need her to know.
As he allows himself to dwell on the implications of his feelings (those feelings again), he leans down to scrape at a particularly stubborn drop with his pocket knife. His swimming thoughts and activity focus for once dulling his usually sharp senses, he doesn't hear the light footsteps behind him.
"Sir?"
"D'oh!" Jack is certain his ass leaves the floor as he jumps, startled, and twists to see Sam standing in the doorway with a curious look that started as concern but is rapidly melting into amusement.
"What are you doing?"
"Cleaning my blood stains from the floor, Carter, what does it look like I'm doing?"
"You're doing this now, tonight, yourself?"
"How observant of you."
She crosses the few steps toward him and drops down to his side, bumping their knees. "But why, Sir?"
He shrugs. "I dunno, Carter. I made a mess in your lab."
"It wasn't your fault," she laughs, reaching for the towel in front of his knee and leaning forward to help scrub.
"Still, I, uh, I wanted to." Jack lifts his eyes to hers and smiles sheepishly.
"Thank you, Sir."
He bumps his knee against hers and holds it there just long enough to not be an accident. "Besides, Carter," he says, "we don't want to get ants."
