Daniel

She was feverishly switching around between sections of the pocket notebook she kept in her coat, writing away unaware of the world around her. Since she had come back from the jump she kept a notebook in her pocket always jotting things down. It was a habit that she had teased me for before and now she adapted it as her own. Her curls half pinned back, gnawing on her bottom lip, fern green sweater slouching across her shoulders and making freckles peer just past them. How I lavished in counting every one of them over and over again in the early mornings as she was asleep beside me. The waiter brought over our warm mugs of my Irish coffee and her spiked cider with a basket of cheddar scones, placing them on the worn and nicked wooden table we sat at. I gave him a small gesture of appreciation and he walked off.

"What are you working on?" I asked quietly, taking a sip of my coffee and reaching for a sugar packet.

"Um, Hammond and Jonas asked me to compile a few things for a meeting next month and I can't seem to figure out the pattern link between these four planets. I know I had it back before the, well before," she paused and went back to writing. I tapped the journal and she looked back up at me as I playfully put on a stern face.

"Now darling, you chose this pub because we could walk home after a drink, unwind, take in the scenery, and you are doing the opposite. Worry about work on the SGC's time, not ours."

Her face flushed that adorable rosey pink across her cheeks and nose and she closed the notebooks slipping them into her bag. "Fair point, ironically coming from you. But the sooner I can finish this project, the sooner..."

"You will delve into another one." I stirred the sugar packet into my mug and she scrunched her nose back.

"I'm not a master puzzle solver like you," she grumbled and it took great resolve for me to keep from laughing.

"It takes me a while to figure it out, and I don't want to give anyone questions about hiring me."

"You've already well done your initial quarter projections in the first two months you've been working. You have time to unwind." I reached out taking her hand and squeezed it gently. "This is our time to just be together." Her face softened and she squeezed mine in return. The waiter came back asking for our order and she stared blankly at the menu forgetting to look at it earlier.

"Do you need another minute?" He glanced over at the neighboring booth and tapped his foot before turning back to us.

"She'll have the shepherd's pie half plate and I'll have the fish and chips please." I collected the menus and handed it over to the waiter. "An order of the Dutch apple cobbler and Guinness chocolate cake after, to go." He turned on his heels before heading to his next collection of customers crowding by the front doors of the small pub. "I assume you want some of mine, I'll have some of yours?"

"Always, yes. Thank you." She gave a weak smile and took a long chug of her warmed cider. "I was going to work on wedding plans earlier but then Jonas asked about this project last Thursday and I haven't had a chance to really hunker down and sort it out. It's been eating at me and I got carried away."

"Wedding plans?" A smile perked around my lips and I took another slow drink, maintaining eye contact with her as I saw the flush creep over her cheeks once more. Before there was an established us, she'd bring me coffee in the mornings and I'd enjoy listening to her as she would talk about whatever she saw on her drive or any problems that morning she was facing. Something about my eye contact when slowly drinking a mug of coffee always made her breath hitch and that little flush of her skin that made my own blood rush in response. I'd do anything to get those small unaware responses from her. That her body unknowingly craved me as much as I did her.

"Well we don't have a date set yet," she started.

"Pick a day, tomorrow, a week, a year." I set the mug down and crossed my arms over my chest leaning back.

She sighed, putting her head in her hands. "A few years before I started at Area-51, my sister had this big wedding. Her reception was at Union Station back home. It's this grand art deco old train station. It was gorgeous, expensive, but gorgeous. I always wanted something intimate and small though. So, when I was a little girl there was a botanical garden we would go to all the time outside the city. They had this wooden and glass chapel nestled into the garden. It looked like a miniature Frank Lloyd Wright work. I remember on the flight home from her wedding thinking something like that would be whimsical." She paused and a melancholy smile spread as she continued looking down at her drink. "I remember seeing my sister in my mother's wedding pearls. The ones our father gave her on their wedding day." A small mournful laugh escaped her and she looked back up at me with longing in her eyes. "They clearly didn't have the best luck with those pearls, but my sister looked so beautiful in them. I, I don't really know what I want now."

"I'd be content just eloping with you to be honest." I took her hand again, running my thumb across her knuckles gingerly. "Only the two of us." Her face softened and those eyes sparkled back making my stomach churn into a molten mess.

"Really?" Her voice became hopeful once more and my heart warmed.

"As long as I am with you, I will do whatever, wherever, whenever."

An impish grin spread from cheek to cheek as she looked back at me. "Let's do that. It'll just be something for us."

"Love it, what day shall I circle on the calendar?" I took another amusing drink and she paused in thought.

"Will you be ready by the second weekend of December? I have three days off and I hear the courthouse down the road is beautiful in the winter." This time she took a long drink from her mug without breaking eye contact and I felt the heat of her gaze on me.

"I've been ready to marry you since that afternoon you barged into my office telling me to get my head out of my ass, and I nearly took you on my workbench." I watched as that flush creeped heating her face again in memory of what led after at her house that night when I did have her, in more ways than expected. The waiter came back with our meals placing them in front of us, and she remained staring back at me, thoughts swirling through her head and I flashed her a coy smile. "Eat up, we have dessert to take home."

Jack

"I want to get a new car, or maybe a motorcycle." Sam thought out loud as I traced my hand along the back of her neck, her head resting on my chest as we were a tangle of limbs on her couch.

"I think the ride you had was perfectly fine." I mumbled with my eyes closed and she swat at my arm. A laugh echoed through me and I pulled her deeper into my lap, straddling me rather than whatever motorcycle she had planned. Her sultry smile coaxed me right back to her. The humor left my face, and I looked up right back to her. My thumb traced along her inner thighs as I went to tenderly kiss her once more. When I pulled back she looked more puzzled than anything.

"Why did you call me this morning Sam?" My voice coaxing a response from her that I hoped was just as agonizing as I felt.

"I," she paused mulling it over and then looked back at me earnestly, "I missed you."

"It's been too long," my hands moved back to her hips, "not just this, but us."

"Why do we do this to one another?" She chuckled nervously and all I could do was answer honestly.

"I will come every time you call." I saw the churning of emotion behind her eyes as her hands ran down my chest and back onto my hands.

"So this is on me?" She asked pained, I blinked stupidly back.

"I'm up for a General position," I swallowed, "and I'm taking it because it is the only way for there to be an us. Even if that means doing something I find meaningless every day." I looked down, unable to allow myself to see her shock.

"Where will you go?" Her voice sounded weaker than I had hoped.

"Hammond's retiring and they're asking me to step in temporarily until they find a replacement. Then, probably Washington. I'm not sure." I looked back up at those baby blues and felt my face crack a small hopeful smile. "But, I'll be visiting often and I will no longer be a direct superior. You'll be free to continue with SG-1 or do whatever you want. You'll be free to have me, if you finally admit it to yourself that you do want me, permanently. Not just this fling where you call me and the next day we pretend that it didn't happen."

"It'll take some time to adjust to," she leaned in, placing her head on my shoulder. "You want to be publicly open? Us?"

"I want you Samantha Carter, however you want me back is your choice." I kissed the side of her head and it just felt right. Our always pushing away, pretending we don't fit together like we do, neither of us wanted to budge on our careers, but if leaving the SGC gave me Sam I'd take it in a heartbeat.