Delayed Reaction
Delayed Reaction
by Laura Y
TITLE: Delayed Reaction
AUTHOR: Laura Y
EMAIL: MrdrDoc@hotmail.com
CATEGORY: Missing Scene/Epilogue, Angst, Romance
PAIRING: Sam/Jack
SPOILERS: Chain Reaction
SEASON / SEQUEL: 4
RATING: PG
CONTENT WARNINGS: none
SUMMARY: Missing scene from the end of Chain Reaction, after Jack talks to Hammond.
STATUS: Complete
ARCHIVE: Heliopolis
DISCLAIMER: Stargate SG-1 and its characters are the property of Showtime/Viacom, MGM/UA, Double Secret Productions, and Gekko Productions. We have written this story for entertainment purposes only and no money whatsoever has exchanged hands. No copyright infringement is intended. The original characters, situations, and story are the property of the authors. Not to be archived without permission of the authors.
Jack O'Neill stood outside the open door wondering if he should just pass by. Knowing that in his present state of mind, he shouldn't be here, in fact he should be anywhere but here. After the events of the past days with Maybourne and Senator Kinsey, he needed some rest, and he needed to mentally deal with the repercussions of what he'd done to get the General back in command of the SGC.
What he didn't need was to be standing outside his Major's office thinking "what if" thoughts. What if he'd gone to see her after finding out that his team had been split up? What if she'd come to see him? Would anything have happened? Would she have turned him down? He'd been ecstatic, and then the doubts had hit him, and he'd felt the kind of fear he usually only felt in life-threatening situations.
He'd never realized how much he relied on the regulations that kept them apart. With those rules in the way, he could always pretend. He could make up scenarios, happily-ever-afters, about what would happen once they were out of the way. But when it came down to it, he'd been scared. What if her feelings were there only because they weren't supposed to be? What if he'd read more into things that were there...what if it was only him?
And so, instead of having had that both longed for and dreaded conversation then, he was watching his second in command from her doorway and from behind the invisible and familiar barrier of military regulations. It never occurred to him that the same thoughts might at that very moment be running through the head of the woman he studied.
"So, Carter. I hear you saved the base again. Good work."
Sam Carter looked up from the report she was writing to see Colonel O'Neill leaning against the door to her office.
"Well, sir, it wasn't actually me. The Gate shut down on its own. I had nothing to do with it."
"That's not what General head-up-his-you-know-what Bauer said. He's singing your praises to all and sundry."
"I don't know why, sir. Really, it wasn't me."
O'Neill pushed away from the doorframe to move over to stand next to Carter's desk.
"Ah well, you know what they say. Don't look a gift General in the mouth. You stopped him from the largest mistake of his career. He's your new fairy godmother, maybe you can get something out of it, huh?"
"Largest mistake?" Carter pushed her chair away from the desk and stood up to pace. "Colonel, if the Gate hadn't shut down it would have been thelastmistake of his career. And his life. We'd have been the first ones caught in the radiation when the iris melted."
As she passed him for the third time, Jack grabbed her arm to stop her restless strides. The shock of the contact stopped her immediately, and she looked at him with her eyes wide. She felt as if an electric charge had been lit on her skin. Sam wondered how much it had to do with the fact that she hadn't been writing a report at all when O'Neill came in. She'd been staring at the paper, trying not to think about what could have happened if they'd seen each other in the time that they'd been split up.
She hadn't realized how much she'd come to rely on being a team with the other members of SG-1, how much the team meant to her. She knew they'd all still be on base, all still see each other, but it was as if she'd lost her family. And yet, even with that immediate sense of loss, a small corner of Sam's mind had rejoiced. Finally, the regulations were no longer an issue. If she was honest with herself, it wasn't even such a small corner. She'd been overjoyed. And scared to death. What if he'd changed his mind? What if his attraction and those feelings were there because of the rules?
The two officers stood so still, an outside observer would have thought them frozen in time, never guessing the thoughts and fantasies that were running through both their minds at that moment.
O'Neill stared back at Carter. He, too, was stunned by the touch. Neither had ever realized how infrequently they made skin-to-skin contact. They touched a lot, less so since the whole zatarc incident, but it had almost always been pats on the back, arm or other body part, and always through clothing. Except for those not-so-rare crisis times when one of them was in danger, dying or in some way incapacitated. Then there was a stroke on the brow, holding hands.
But that infrequent contact was always in highly charged situations, when there was so much going on that there was no time to dwell on the feelings that those touches brought out. Only time for the longing, and the realization that it couldn't be, not then, maybe not ever.
But this last few days it could have been. They'd had the chance, and standing in Carter's office staring into each other's eyes, both wondered how they could ever have doubted how it would have turned out. Jack slid his hand down her arm and heard her breath catch, realizing that his own breathing was less than even.
They continued to stare at each other, neither wanting to break the spell, to destroy the moment that they knew shouldn't have been happening. The moment they'd waited so long for, and had missed.
And finally both of them sighed, and Jack's hand slid down to Sam's and held it tightly for a moment. She took a deep breath and opened her mouth as if to speak but he shook his head slightly and squeezed her hand. Sam nodded and squeezed back, and then they both let go, knowing that the time would come, and that when it did, they would both be ready. They'd used this chance to finally realize that, and that was good enough for both of them.
Carter and O'Neill went to the briefing, neither one of them distracted any more. The base was safe, Hammond was back in command and SG-1 was back together. And its two military members were content to wait, both of them knowing what the answer would be to the next fishing invitation.
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