Eleanor
"Tell me if I'm being annoying," I chuckled as I stared out the window of his car while we drove from Cheyenne Mountain to our apartment.
"You're never annoying," he paused, "well except when you do that thing."
"What thing?" I snapped my head back to him and he laughed in return, a full robust sound that pulled a smile from me and coaxed my hand to fall on his lap. "Stop it," I swat at the air with my free hand, "you're terrible."
"But honestly, your retelling about the routes you took on bicycle or the things you saw and endured before the jump back, even life before that, anything going on in your head." He parked the car along the street and faced me. "I want to hear it all."
I looked up at the apartment building, anticipation budding in my stomach. "Did I tell you that I would come here, and try to find pieces of you?" I was surprised at how calm my voice finally sounded. It was a bizarre thing to tell someone. That once I used to go out and scavenge for supplies but also look for trinkets of him around his apartment I could keep in my pocket to keep for myself. "I found a journal once, by mistake, and it read like it was past tense. I mean that sounds silly, it read like when you wrote it, I was past tense."
He reached over and squeezed my knee. "I have that journal, I know exactly which one. The ink smudged and..."
"Yes!" I gasped, "yes, the ink was still wet on my fingers somehow."
"Sam is looking into a quantum tether we created between us, but there were times that I would hear you talking to yourself, and I would try to answer back. Sometimes you'd answer me, sometimes you wouldn't." His eyes searched my face and I felt his mood shift slightly. My hand took his in response and he gave me a melancholy half smile. "I would hear your crying some nights, and knowing there was nothing I could do, it was agonizing. I cannot begin to imagine how you felt on your end."
"I thought I was going crazy, constantly." I softened and looked back at the building. "Let's get inside and see how bachelor life was treating you while I was away."
Each footstep closer into the apartment made my pulse flutter and when I finally saw him put the key in and turn I had to close my eyes and remind myself I was here, in reality I was home. When my eyes opened he was watching me, his nose crinkled and mouth upturned. He nodded at the direction of the door and moved to the side waiting for me to walk in first. It was like walking back to a time capsule of the night I came home with him alone for the first time. Looking around everything was exactly the same. Books in piles on the desk offset in the corner of the living room, rugs layered over the wooden floorboards, the smell of it was even the same. Everything except the windows, perfectly preserved.
"You changed the curtains?" I walked over feeling the off white gauzy material and I heard him set what few belongings I had by the front door and close it gently behind him.
"I did, they are similar to the ones you had pointed out in our hotel in Seattle." He walked up next to me and wrapped his arms around my shoulders. "I believe you said that they would lighten the room, and I agree. The sunset in the evening now fills the entire space in this orange glow. You're going to love it."
"I don't remember," I whispered, dropping the fabric and resting the back of my head against his chest. "But it is a nice choice, so I don't doubt I said it." He kissed the top of my head as we stood there for a moment, and I reveled in the silence. There was no gate whirring, no one knocking on the door, just the calmness of us.
That night was the first real night I had been able to sleep without terrors. Wrapped in the comfort of Egyptian cotton sheets and Daniel by my side I woke the next morning with his alarm and an internalized metamorphosis. I had decided I would venture out today and see where my feet would take me. Daniel gave me a quick kiss goodbye as he ran out the door for work. I took my cup of coffee out onto the balcony and saw a small farmers market setting up around the corner. The weather was gorgeous, and I had loved the farmers market last year, well this year now. That's when it dawned on me, an entire month has passed since I came through the gate and Daniel's birthday had been overlooked. Last year we had gone to Chicago, we had made an entire event of it he and I. Birthdays were so important to me, especially after my parents divorce. My mother made a point to make the day exclusively about us. Celebrating the importance of our birth, our life, and how special we truly were to her. I looked over at the house phone back at the house and knew I couldn't call her, even just to hear her voice again. It would've been a torture to easy for me to just give into. Daniel, he never had the same excitement over birthdays. To him it was just kind of another day, because for him there was no nostalgia behind it. I looked back down at the farmers market and an idea sparked. He wanted to make new traditions, well I was going to start with his birthday.
Sam
I was staying in the office going over some of the already decoded journals that Eleanor had brought. With Daniel's time remote to my left and an open journal to the right I had spent the entire Friday going over it with a fine tooth comb trying to figure out which piece did what and reverse engineering it before we contacted Rodney McKay to come back. Ever since we got our hands on the journals Eleanor left at our feet as an offering of good will, every scientist and engineer in Stargate command was itching to rip into them, all with little progress now. I heard a throat clearing and saw Jack leaning against the doorframe watching me hunched over the table.
"Sir," I nodded in his direction as a way of greeting and he shut the door behind him as he walked in and pulled up a stool to plop into.
"Carter," he grunted back and looked down at the mess around me. "You're up late."
"I could say the same for you," I huffed a laugh and took my gloves off to check my watch. It was well past what was considered a normal work hour for me, and I felt the weight of the day build onto my shoulders.
"I got off the phone with Major Davis who had a report in hand from NASA. Apparently, two moons have blinked out of existence. One that our telescopes are reporting, and one at an equal distance opposite to Earth the Tok'ra sent in a dispatch message yesterday." He rubbed at his temple and sucked in the air between his teeth. "So that's new."
"It never gets slow around here." I placed the journal neatly on the shelf with my other inventoried projects and felt the heat of his gaze on my back. I stilled, wanting it, wanting him. But knowing that we had been playing with fire before and clearly even more so now with Eleanor here. Her new position within the SGC had to be written so delicately that if we were audited it wouldn't seem as if we hired Dr. Jackson's girlfriend just to keep her on staff. She was already a valuable asset, just her past three weeks of volunteering to tidy up behind us she managed to uncover things we had looked over in Goa'uld and Ancients tech alike. The program she had asked Hammond to create, her database for referencing planetary cultural similarities and cross referencing them with mission reports would be such a time saver it was the solidifying piece to get the funding to hire her on. The hard part was having it known she didn't work under Daniel but alongside him in a different department completely. Jack and I didn't have that luxury. Not only were we on the same team, but he was a higher rank than me and if there was even a hint that my direct leader was having an affair with me outside of a workplace expected conduct we would both be punished in ways that would ruin our careers.
"Penny for your thoughts Carter," his voice grew dark and I looked over my shoulder at him sitting there. Eyes warm causing parts of me he couldn't see to tighten, but it was like he felt it as well and I had to ignore it. I had to remember what we were fighting towards, and hope that at some point in the not too distant future we could find happiness in each other or I would have to let him go and find something else with someone else.
"I'm hoping my weekend is uneventful," I smiled nervously and walked over to the hook that held my laptop bag collecting my belongings.
"So you'll be home all weekend?" His eyes followed me as I moved around trying to busy myself. I nodded in answer and he stood up, "see you Monday Carter." His voice was rich and lulling as he walked out the door and I had to steady myself on the table before pulling myself up by my bootstraps and making my way out.
Eleanor
He had bought a record player at some point after making his initial jump through the gate, I only thought of it because I had been the one to bring mine over prior to all of this. I had a small collection, and I remembered thinking it was so bizarre he didn't have one.
"Why would I?" He had asked equally as puzzled.
"Look around Dr. Jackson," I teased, "among all of these relics decorating the walls you never thought about the importance of classical music?"
"Oh really?" He had clutched his heart and rolled his eyes at me and I could tell I struck a nerve. It took everything in me not to smile. "First, I'd hardly call ABBA classical music." He motioned at the milk crate of assorted albums I had brought up from my car. "Second, I do listen to music, on CD's, like any modern sane person would."
But now I was staring at a turntable of his own. It was still in the packaging this morning when I found it, with an assortment of albums he must have found at a resell shop nearby. I took it upon myself to open it and set it up and filled the house with the crackling sound. I had thumbed over the albums he bought and realized a lot of these were mine. Well, not actually mine, but copies of the albums I used to play when making dinner and he sat on the couch reading. I pulled a Simon and Garfunkel vinyl out and placed it on, dropped the needle, and went to clean up my mess in the kitchen.
Some time later I heard the door open and Daniel shouted my name letting me know it was him coming in. I looked over at the slightly misshapen imperfect cake and felt my stomach flop in nervous anticipation. Poking my head around the corner I watched as he pulled his boots off and hung his work bag on the hook by the door.
"Slow day at the office?" I joked and he scrunched his face in teasing amusement.
"Would you believe it if I told you somehow the Tok'ra are once again displeased by something we did? What we did I have no clue, but it was us. It's always us." He straightened as I playfully ran and jumped into his arms. "But," he grinned, kissing me lightly. "It is the weekend, and you have my undivided attention." He took a moment and looked around. "Did you make dinner already?"
"What kind of a housewife would I be if I didn't?" I tapped the end of his nose and took his hand guiding him into the kitchen. "No I didn't make dinner, but what I do have though is a wonderful sampling of the finest Mexican cuisine that the taqueria down the street had, margarita mix from the corner store, and the pièce de résistance," I did a small shimmy over to the counter and pointed to the lopsided cake. "A chocolate raspberry torte."
"You left the house?" He beamed. "And got all this?"
"I did!" I did another little shimmy in excitement and clasped my hands together, "and I only had two mild panic attacks." I was only half joking. The journey outside alone seeing everything fresh and fragrant and alive nearly brought me to hyperventilation from flashbacks. But, I was able to sit on the stoop for a few moments taking it in, and continue from there.
"What's the cause for our celebration? Homecoming or your sense of newfound freedom?" He looked over my shoulder at the fineries I had proudly taken out of the take away containers and put on various plates spread across the counter.
"I feel terribly that your birthday was forgotten in the chaos of this past month." I gave an exaggerated grimace and rocked back and forth on my feet. "So, I hoped that this would be a small compromise, and I am already planning next year's festivities."
"Are you kidding me? You are standing in front of me. That's it. That's everything." I felt a blush creep over my cheeks and I turned swiping my finger through a bowl of leftover fudge icing and brought it to his mouth.
"And it is clearly professionally decorated, all without a mixer that for some reason I could have sworn you had before." The pulling tug of his tongue wrapped around the sensitive tip of my index finger brought with it a pooling in my stomach, like he was sucking the very essence of me in that swipe of his tongue.
He made an exaggerated moan of appreciation, "magnifique." I swallowed down the thoughts creeping into my mind, my hunger had suddenly turned away from the food behind us onto something more pressing. His eyes lingered on mine, sparkling with intrigue.
"Chocolate shipped straight from Belgium, only organic raspberries," I said in my best attempt at being coquettish as he moved closer pinning me to the counter. I always forgot how much taller he was than me until moments like this where his body was pressed against mine.
"Is that so?" He took the spoon next to me and dragged it along the bowl of buttercream again, bringing it to his mouth making my knees grow weak beneath me once more and reveling in the side of him only I knew. "I've tasted better." His smirk tugged at my heart.
"Doubtful, it was made by the finest pastry chef in all of Colorado Springs." Trying to continue on in the bit was difficult. My voice was much breathier than I had expected, giving every thought I had flowing through me away and I dropped it. "We should eat before the beans get cold." My eyes moved up to his and I saw the pleading in them as well. His lips fell onto mine, softly coaxing, gentle but equally as teasing as he had pulled from me. Lying deeply was a need between us, for me, for him, echoing in one another. My head was thrumming with a pulsing desire, my ears full with the beating of my heart and his breath against me as I craned my neck back and he trailed his mouth along the curve of it setting fire to all of my senses.
"I am starving," voice husky and teeth grazed against the shell of my ear as I heard him then promising me everything. "The way I have ached for you." His words poured into my blood like an elixir causing me to hunger even more for him, and my breath hitched in response. His mouth moved to capture it, my every gasp he claimed as his. Arms swept me up and pressed my own body against his as he carried me to the bedroom and tossed me down. My legs wrapped around pulling him in, hands trailed to his waistband, greedily tugging the black t-shirt up and over his head reveling in his tight chest as he eagerly complied and threw it in the corner.
His hands made no time in exposing the parts of me he promised to devour and I brought my mouth back to his. My body only lasting moments in between each embrace before screaming at me to be touched again. Fingers tauntingly skimmed up my waist to cradle my neck leaving a scorching trail behind and he took a moment to stop, both of us panting in the heady cravings we had been restraining. His blue eyes searching mine for regret or denial, right hand lifting my chin up to him as the pad of his thumb traced over my swollen bottom lip.
"I'm all yours," escaped in barely a whisper. A wicked smile played on his lips as his hands gripped at the bottoms of my thighs and pulled me to the edge of the bed closer to him.
"I plan on greedily drinking you in, savoring every last taste until you've had your fill." He dropped to his knees and looked down at me, "but know I will always beg for more of you." Just as I had said I was his once more, he validated how much he truly was mine in return.