Sam paused over the box of science journals she was unpacking in her office. "Bottom drawer," she decided.
From the other room, Jack said, "Thank you."
She studied the taller of the two bookshelves, wondering where she could squeeze in the several dozen engineering and physics books she had acquired in the last year. How had that happened? They didn't even have Amazon in Pegasus.
"Carter, why do you have twenty-two ponytail holders in the same color?"
Because she had long hair now, obviously. Instead of being a wiseass, she said, "I lose them a lot."
"You lose things?"
Sam smiled, shaking her head, and rammed two As and one B into their proper places on the top shelf. She'd need a shoehorn to get them out.
"Hey, what about --" His voice cut off. She hadn't heard a crash, so he couldn't be dead, and there were no Asgard left to beam him out at inappropriate moments. Probably he'd just answered his question for himself.
When she finished her current stack of books without a word from the back of the house, Sam decided she needed a coffee break and went to ask Jack if he wanted anything. She found him sitting on the bed, his back to her, the contents of a blue plastic box scattered on the comforter. "Hey."
He turned around when he heard her. "Look what I found."
In his hands was a collection of postcards from D.C., from Northern Minnesota and Colorado Springs, a few from New York, Beijing, Tokyo. Not one of them was postmarked, and most had only the letter "J" scrawled on the back. "I can't believe you kept all these," he said with a crooked smile.
His teasing made her feel a little defensive, for being sentimental, but she knew he was glad to see them again even if he'd never say it. She rounded the bed and said, "I couldn't put them in the recycling. Woolsey would have found them."
Jack narrowed his eyes at her. "Yeah, I'm sure that's it."
Grinning, Sam sat next to him and took a few postcards from his hands. There was a Babe the Blue Ox statue, a satellite shot of Bemidji, a "Land of a Thousand Lakes" with a stick figure of a fish on the back. Those were from February, the only time he'd made it to Minnesota while she was gone. She flipped to the next one and laughed at a picture of Red Square on which he'd written, "So lucky not to be here."
"You never said anything about them," Jack said beside her. Ford's Theater was at the top of his pile.
Sam handed the cards back, kissed him on the cheek, and stood to go back to work. "I was going to make coffee. You want some?"
He looked pointedly at the window, where the blinds had not been drawn though it had been dark for hours. "You're not going to sleep tonight until everything is where it belongs, are you?"
"Probably not."
"Even if you get a better offer?"
She pretended to think about it. "Well, that would depend on the offer, wouldn't it?"
Jack nodded as if he were absorbing the most important information in the world, and Sam, grinning again, left for the kitchen.
She was balancing her mug under the drip, the carafe in her other hand, when she heard him say, "Carter? Did you really have to keep them in a biohazard specimen bag?"
"Yes, Jack, I really did."
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