His last meeting with General Hammond had gone over much better than the first, the older man seeming to have forgiven Jack for the fudging on his original mission report.
Then Hammond had ordered him to the Infirmary for a pre-reactivation check-up.
The man was evil. But he was Jack's kind of evil.
Heh.
He snickered, drawing a strange look from a young blonde woman with wide blue eyes. Geez; had he ever been that young? You could practically still see the soft spot on the back of her head!
"Moron," she mumbled under her breath.
"Lieutenant?" he hazarded.
"Captain, actually," the young woman replied, her shoulders stiffening. Pretty in a wholesome peaches-and-cream kinda way. If he'd been twenty years younger, he would've been trying to get in her pants by now.
God, he was so old.
"Who's the moron?" Jack said, giving her an eyebrow-waggle.
"Oh, some Marine Corps idiot," she said. "Tried hitting on me a couple of minutes ago and now I'm going to be late for ...". She trailed off, her cheeks going a sweet pink. "Sorry, Colonel," she said. She looked at her watch. "I should go."
"Yeah," he said, looking at his own watch and realizing he was due up in the briefing room. "Maybe I'll see you around," he offered.
She smiled at him. "I'd like that," she said then went pink again. "Oh ... uh ... not like that," she blustered.
Jack fought the urge to pat her head - he kinda thought she might bite his hand. "I know what you meant, Captain," he reassured her. Very young, but very cute. He could understand why the jarhead had hit on her.
Oh, such a grown-up!, Sam Carter chided herself twenty minutes later. Now dressed in her Class As, she was still ruminating over the strange would-be flirtation with the Colonel and knew she'd come off like an idiot.
She'd been out of the dating/flirting arena for a while - having lost the inclination after things had gone sour with Jonas - and she'd never been good with guys, anyway. Her natural good looks had made her a target for flirtation, and for those dinosaurs who thought she'd slept her way up the ranks ... or batted her lashes at daddy.
But there was something about the handsome brown-eyed man she'd met that made her think maybe things would be different here.
"Carter?" she heard a male voice query as she got to the briefing room.
A distinctly familiar male voice.
Oh, shoot me now!