Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

“Wasn’t sure how you drank yours.” Jack takes the empty seat and drops a handful of creamers and sugar packets on her lab bench.

Sam keeps standing not-awkwardly. “Black is just fine, sir, thank you.” And the coffee does taste good, better than the slop she’s been getting.

Jack files that tidbit away and lifts his cup. “How’re the Security Forces holding up?” He leans back and manages not to loosen his tie.

Maybe if you’d bothered to see them, you’d know. “It’s a struggle.” Sam forces herself to sit down despite not wanting this to seem natural. She pushes her chair away in the process.

Jack just watches the captain’s move and waits. She did want you to see them with her, you idiot. Someone tell his ex-wife he still can’t read women.

Sam studies her coffee calmly, still a foot too close to him. “They feel betrayed, sir. Confused. They don’t know who to trust.” You do know you’re talking about the security guards, right?

Well, at least Carter’s finally talking about herself. Jack glances at the files he put on her desk. “Yeah. They weren’t my biggest fans down there.” Not that they’re anyone’s. He’d seen the tape of Apophis’s attack. Completely blindsided, for no reason. Central Colorado is so unbelievably lucky that wasn’t an alien nuke. “But I’m trying.”

She can’t keep her eyes from jumping to him.

Jack waves at his liquid explanation. “Coffee only gets me so far.” He needed to see them, though. And to be honest, he’s glad he didn’t do it with her. Two years into captain, Carter is more than capable of handling herself alone.

Sam stares at her coffee cup and kicks her head. Of course the colonel met the grieving airmen himself. He’s a jerk, not a total idiot. Or, one of the two. She’s still not sure which one it is. And why hadn’t Sam thought to bring them coffee? Those kids just watched five of their friends get slaughtered and abducted, and she can’t even think to bring them coffee? “I’m sure they appreciated seeing you, sir.” Not that she at all knows the feeling.

That remains to be seen. Actually, most of the junior airmen here don’t really care about Jack one way or another. They’ve heard he was in a holding cell, but mostly he’s just a lofty rank with an asshole reputation. Carter’s the one who lied to the Security Forces at read-in, and Hammond’s the one headquartered here. Jack’s luck only runs out with the senior geeks. You know, the ones he stonewalled for West last year. “And how’s it going down here?”

“Busy, sir.” And then less pointedly, “I sent you my initial report.” Because, you know, he’s a full colonel, and she’s being kind of an asshole.

Jack nods. “I got it. Good work.” It was. Detailed, good insights. She knows how to write. She spent three years duking it out at the Pentagon.

“Thank you.” Sam studies his elbow on her desk. “I know I can be over-thorough sometimes.”

He shrugs her a smile. “No such thing for you. Filtering is my job.” When he has a job, at least.

Then you’re terrible at it, sir. Sam moves behind her desk and tries to look like she’s standing dutifully. Please leave me alone.

“What else ya working on?”

She swallows. “Technical intelligence reports, task delegations, research plans, equipment requisitions.”

“Busy,” Jack says by way of compliment. He pulls his own papers forward. Jack has no intention of leaving here until they kiss and make up. Metaphorically.

“Yes, sir. What’re you working on, sir?” Besides sitting in her office like he belongs here and driving her nuts.

“Capabilities requests, advocacy briefings, team training standards,” he rattles off. It doesn’t make a dent in the wall between them.

“Sounds busy, sir.” Goodbye.

“Yeah.” He pulls himself up to her desk and opens a folder.

Sam stares dumbly at him for almost a minute before accepting that a full colonel really did just start splitting her desk with her. God, this is ridiculous. She sits down and pulls the keyboard forward.

This isn’t going to work on her. Sam no desire to initiate a relationship with the man who took her job last year without ever seeing a Stargate. Two years! Two years in D.C. working to operationalize the Giza Program, to build up a team and prove they could travel. Two more as the Air Force’s technology lead before Doctor Jackson could finish. Hell, she’d done enough in those four years to still be the only Giza person Hammond’s recalled. But O’Neill pushes her and Catherine out, with no clue what he’s doing. She should probably type something. ‘Standards for backfilling SG vacancies’. And then he immediately decides to lock out and piss off the entire lab as soon as he walks in the door.

Have you ever even run an organization, Colonel? Do you really think it’s wise to ignore and destroy the jobs of people you’ve never met? The only people who have any idea what it is that you’re dealing with? Completely idiotic leadership. And you know what else is idiotic? Bringing a bunch of now-dead junior lieutenants who didn’t even know the Gate was unidirectional to the other side of the galaxy. Lieutenants! That’s completely idiotic. And another total lack of foresight. It’s not like Giza spent fifteen years doing this without realizing they should train a team. They’d actually prepared! Or how about not doing any technological or political reconnaissance on a freaking recon mission? And instead using it blowing up an alien god-king that you know absolutely nothing about. Just nuke the damn Kremlin next time, sir, at least that we sort of understand. Hell, throw in Beijing and Baghdad now. Oh, and how about hiding the existence of an alien Dial Home Device and mass-manufactured plasma rifles and spaceships? That’s…what’s word she’s looking for? Really fucking stupid. And deadly, if you happen to be one of the innocent SFs that had absolutely zero warning for zero goddamn reason.

‘Standards for backfilling SG vacancies: Have seen a Stargate before taking command. Specialize in something related to Gate missions. Actually be good at it.’ She probably shouldn’t’ve rolled her eyes like that with him sitting right there. ‘Excel in comprehensive Gate team training. Not be an idiot.’

Jack’s a little worried she’ll chip a tooth if he doesn’t stop her. Or maybe break the keyboard, which would also suck considering how low they are on cash. “Everything all right?”

‘Have some ability to read human body language.’ “Fine, sir.”

“Okay then.” He looks down and counts to three.

“Is something wrong with your office, sir?”

Damn, he counted to four. She’s got a long fuse. “I have an office?”

Sam huffs. “Do you have orders yet?” He doesn’t have an office? The whole base is vacant.

Okay, taking him seriously then. “I don’t. Charlie and Castleman are on command orders.” Jack wonders how much she really intended that to sting. It’s pretty winding. “Nothing on me yet.” Because apparently withholding his legal command and demoting him to a squad leader is Hammond’s way of saying ‘I don’t have a shit clue what to do with you yet, Colonel, but I want everyone to know it’.

Sam nods. That’s…reassuring. Or something. He’s really not that bad, you know. He got eight people killed! For what? “Feel free to call either of them, sir.” She gestures to the phone on her desk. Her desk. “Thank you for the coffee.”

Jack scans the table but doesn’t move. “And how are you doing?”

Her head jerks back from the computer screen. “I’m trying to put Giza Engineering back together.”

Wow, he walked right into that. “That’s good.” Apparently Jack needs a longer list for things she blames him for.

Yes, that’s her job. You know, the thing she takes responsibility for doing. The thing that fell apart under you last year? The one where people lost their jobs, their pensions. Their lives. …The one he ran away from. At least she’d tried. What the hell is his excuse?

Jack studies her non-response. “You did a heck of a job fighting for this place at the Pentagon, you know.” He waves at the not-particularly-impressive mess around them.

Sam glares behind him. “I did my best, sir.” Which wasn’t good enough. Shut up.

Jack smirks. “I bet your bootprint’s on every door of the C-ring.”

“Some.” Sam just barely manages not to huff at him. “I don’t wear boots in the Pentagon.”

He snorts genuinely, though with very deliberate speed. “High-heel print, then?”

She eyes the computer screen. “Low quarters mostly. With the trousers.” Sam really hates that damn skirt. Hey, stop picturing her like that!

Jack nods without looking up. Shame. You do realize you’re exactly the kind of guy she hates, right? He exhales and tries to look just serious enough. “It could pay off now.” He hands her a standard eighteen-page list.

Sam finally turns to him directly. “‘Special Tactics Basic Tasks’?” It’s swarmed with margin notes, but she can see the thought behind it clearly.

“I’m drafting the SG Leadership version. The good news is you won’t need any of the airborne stuff; the bad news is—”

“I don’t need any of the airborne work. Or most of the vehicle skills.” Also, if they run these as light infantry units, she’s going to be rucking a dismounted approach pack that weighs more than she does. He seems to be ignoring that minor detail.

“I marked up the suggestions.” And also realized he can’t do half of this crap automatically anymore. “You should take a look.” The captain nods to the table, already reading. She looks…well, he won’t look. “And I’d like you to help teach the first JTAC class either way.”

Sam glances upward. He really does have a strong grasp of the training they’ll need. She’s trying not to be intimidated. “Sorry?”

“JTAC, Captain, Joint Terminal—”

“Attack Controller. Yes, sir.” Concentrate. Dammit, she’s going to look like an idiot. Again. “For artillery and UAV missiles.” Which is true. Coordinating fire support is going to be painfully complicated.

Jack nods. “The standard Earth course is already a month in the pipeline.” He slides forward another file and brushes her hand. By accident. “I’m hoping two weeks for a Gate upgrade, what with the whole…” he waves, “physics thing.” Weather, air density, gravity and magnetic differences, communication delays.

She nods over the page. “And weather, distortions, vectoring…” Of course, he knows all that; she’s reading his notes. Why does he do that? Sam jots ‘Earthside launch considerations’ beside his handwriting.

Jack smiles. “Looks like it’s up your alley.” Finally.

“I’ve thought about it, sir.” She pulls forward her keyboard and searches for the file.

“And here I thought you were just a wanna-be astronaut.” Jack cocks his head with the cautious joke.

She freezes. “Sir, my high-g training was for Gate travel.” As if he or Kawalsky ever would’ve set foot in an F-16 without her training syllabus.

It’s barbed, but Jack figures he deserves it at this point. It’s not as if any of them are flyers, least of all Charlie. Still, “And Major Matt Mason?” Jack decides he has the gall to fly a jetpack loop with his hand.

Sam almost snorts at that. He looks like a nine-year-old. She focuses on his other hand above their notes. “My dad wanted me to be an astronaut.” Why did she just say that?

Jack’s heart pauses slightly. He lets down the fake action figure. “And what’re you working for?”

She struggles to look back at the screen. “Mobile combat engineer.” Don’t you laugh too.

He nods agreeably and manages to control his smile. She’d said that exactly like a five-year-old’s ‘I want to be a princess’, and he’s pretty sure he knows why. She’d said it exactly like Charlie’s ‘I’m gonna be the Cubs pitcher’. He pulls back in his seat.

Sam hits print and doesn’t look at him.

“Combat engineer?” Jack manages blankly.

She looks up as something else flits across his face. “Yes, sir.” Sam shrugs and turns away to the printer. “Astronaut is important, but it’s…” She trails off and starts thumbing through the pages. “It’s complicated, challenging. But…contained. Land combat is different. It’s—”

“Every mission. Every time. It’s always more.” Jack walks up and studies her. Err, the notes.

“You know?” Her eyes fix almost electrically.

Something in Jack’s head tells him to back away. He doesn’t. “Nope. Not a clue.” He smirks lightly.

She misses half a beat. “Right. Of course, Colonel.”

He reaches out and takes the papers from her. Jeez, those eyes are really bright when you look at them.

God, is he flirting? She can’t be. How could she even do that? Because clearly you want to speed up your coronation as slut of the SGC.

Jack stands in front of her and almost kicks the metaphorical wall between them. He chickens out.

Chapter Text

Jack exhales and steps back. Someone should really tell the captain that she smells too good even with unscented recon-mission soap. Maybe not him. Unless you’re miraculously short on reasons to get court-martialed. “So, read the training standard when you can.” His voice is a little gruff. Jack thumbs through her notes and keeps his head down. “Tell me how it goes. You’ve got a lot of weird career options right now, Captain.” He finally finds something behind her to concentrate on. “Part of my job is to help you.”

Sam just nods. “I appreciate that, sir.” Him actually doing his job. It’s appreciable. Him standing a foot away from her in the middle of her lab is… “Thank you.”

“I’ll be back later.” Jack doesn’t-dodge away from her and scoops up the rest of his files. “We’re kinda short on time.”

“Yes, sir.” She hasn’t moved.

Jack stops in her doorway again. “Anything else for now?”

Sam has to force her brain to rack. “Just anything that needs coordination, sir.” Yeah, bet he didn’t know that already.

Jack nods amiably. “You betcha. Keep in touch.”

Sam drops into her chair and stares at the ceiling for too long. This sucks. How can she even consider being on that team long term? A single team, led by a full-bird. She’s being babysat by a full bird colonel on a six-person squad meant for a tech sergeant. Because maybe her career hadn’t been decimated enough by Giza failing. Not that Sam expects him to keep her around for long. But how does she even start anything here after last year? She swallows past the headache. That’s what he’s trying to do you know, fix you two. Yeah, well. Interesting approach. Some people might just fess up to all the stupid shit that they’ve done. That’d take him a while. Sam stretches her shoulders and finds the mouse again.

Jack manages not to actually bang his head against the cement wall. This is definitely not making up. Though it is…something. He’s not sure what, but he’s perfectly comfortable running away from it for at least the next three hours.

One hundred seventy-two minutes later, Jack turns up again and tilts his head at her doorway. It’s dark. It’s technically after hours. But why’d she leave the door open? He flicks on the light.

“Hey!” Sam almost hits her head trying to close the UAV hatch. “I really need that—” It goes dark again. “Thanks.” She exhales and quickly reopens the photosensitive panel. Crap. “Can I help you?”

D’oh. “Chow time, Captain.” Jack aims for ‘sorry but not embarrassed’ and probably misses.

“Colonel! Sir.” Sam debates standing for him but doesn’t. This is sensitive. “Thank you, sir. But I’m not hungry.” And maybe next time don’t light-saturate the atmospheric transmittance probe?

He shakes his head vocally. “You’re on status, Captain. Gotta eat.”

She…wait, she’s on deployable status? Already? Sweet. “Thank you, sir. But I really do need to finish this. In the dark.” It’s far too pointed for as nice as he’s acting.

So much for starting off on a new foot. “Okay.” Jack waits. His eyes have adjusted; she’s behind some kind of tinted curtain. Welding, he thinks, with a mask. He really shouldn’t be interested in looking at her in BDUs from behind a freaking welding curtain. Jack’s gaze shifts to her lab bench and finds the skill list her gave her, open. He can wait. The UAV makes something that sounds very much like a sigh.

Is he really still there? “I’m sorry, sir, I should’ve secured the door.” It’s honest this time. Sam hears him shift and tries to explain herself. “I was thinking someone might…” Come by to talk. You know. Someone. Doctor Diallo or something, maybe.

“Stop in and turn on the light?” Jack quirks an easy smile.

Her lips twitch. “Lack of foresight on my part. Sir.”

Jack leans against the wall and very determinedly doesn’t look at her. He is not leaving her again. ‘Weeks Three through Seven of tactical training for the recapture of off-world Stargates,’ he puts it aside in his head, ‘Mission plans training for retaining your off-world Gate’. Oh, and, ‘Hostage situation tactics for outgoing and incoming wormholes’. Or, ‘How to get the hell out of Dodge when Dodge is a solar system and ‘out’ is a 16-foot exposed, known, immovable circle with a stationary key.’ If he’d shown that to his captains a few years ago, they’d’ve kicked him. Not that he has any respectable number of captains to tell at this point.

Sam sighs. “This is going to take me a bit, sir. I won’t skip lunch.”

Lunch? “That ship sailed a few hours ago, Captain.”

She accidentally bangs her head on a control surface. “Oh.” Ow.

Jack shrugs. “I’ll let you finish.” And he’s gone.

Sam rubs her head and blinks at the door. That was…sudden. He’s busy, Sam. …You do realize you can’t be upset at him both for coming and for leaving, right? Actually, she doesn’t seem to be nearly upset at him enough in general. Despite too many good reasons. Cutting apart Giza, no staff weapon, no DHD, destabilized galaxy, zero admission of guilt, and at least four needlessly dead airmen on her watch. Her loyalty is with them, whether he likes it or not. Goddammit, she is not going to be the girl that trusts some bomb-toting jackass with an overinflated rank just because he’s nice to her. Sam fell for that with West once; it’s not about to happen with his protégé. Fix what you broke if you care so damn much, Colonel. Because she is not broken.

Chapter Text

The light is on, the curtain’s moved, her mask is up. Isn’t she done working? “Captain.” Jack snaps it more strongly this time.

Oh, for the love of God. Bug off. “Yes, sir.” Sam doesn’t even move from under the UAV, which is really more disrespectful than she should be letting herself get.

“Chow time.” It’s an order now, though hopefully not one that’s head-bang inducing.

She grits her teeth but closes the panel above her without slamming into it. You’re being a four-year-old. She’s not sure who she’s talking to. “As ordered, sir.”

Yeah, definitely the right call. “Captain, the correct response is, ‘Why thank you, Jack, that looks delicious’.”

Sam blinks and slides out. Oh. “Um, thanks.”

He waits patiently.

He brought you lunch? Dinner? Oh, right. “Thank you, Colonel. That looks…brown.”

Jack snorts genuinely and sets down the trays. “Points for honesty.” He takes up a seat and tugs on his tie. Stupid light blue monkey shirt. “Well, hurry up. Don’t want to keep these waiting too long.” He gestures for her to finish with the head-banging contraption. “They might get upset.”

Sam manages to look neither grateful nor amused and goes back to work. He’s coddling you. Actually, she’s pretty sure he’s manipulating her. Again. But for some reason it’s nice anyway.

So Jack rambles to her knees. “No, we wouldn’t want them to get,” he guesses randomly, “cold.” Or warm. The correct state isn’t altogether obvious. He needs to work on the morale and professionalism of their kitchen staff. The proper response to ‘Does your orange chicken have orange?’ isn’t, ‘Maybe’, even if it is just for zest. And he’s gone a little soft over the last decade about his chicken actually smelling like chicken. Or at least looking like it.

Sam squeezes her eyes closed and tries to follow MIT’s instructions over his mumbling. This terrain mapper bears very little resemblance to the work she did in the Gulf, and it’d be great to have someone who actually understands the underlying technology. They have a flight engineer down here, right? Siler?

She closes the panel after a few…several…minutes and realizes the colonel didn’t start eating. Actually, he’s got a pen buried in some folder and seems almost like she caught him by surprise. He looks…well, she isn’t looking.

‘6) A Stargate’s fixed insertion/extraction point fundamentally alters the nature and prioritization of mission planning.’ Not that Jack’s totally clear on how yet, but something tells him he’ll be hearing about it from a lot of master sergeants. ‘6a) Being unidirectional…’ “Hello, Captain.” He closes his notes as she pulls off her mask completely. It tousles her hair.

Sam studies the colonel and both trays. You know he’s only doing this to make you hear him out. Yeah, she’d gotten that. Not that she has a choice. But God, is she really going to eat dinner here like this? With her own people not even back yet? When he still hasn’t said a word about all the lies he told last year? All the lives he took and ruined?

Jack looks up from the desk to his standing subordinate. Right. God forbid she make this in any way easy. “Please sit, Captain.” He ups his tone and levels her a look. “I think we should talk.”

Oh. That’s literally what you just asked for. Sam gulps and sits down.

He pushes the trays toward her. Isn’t the food supposed to make these things easier? Should’ve brought real food. “Brown-tan or brown-yellow?”

“Yellow’s fine, sir.” There’s less of it. Neither appears to be nutritious for humans.

Right, great. “So…how’s it going?” You know, for a minute there he’d almost forgotten that he doesn’t know how to talk.

Sam forces a shrug over the desk. “Busy, sir.” Again. “Not that I don’t appreciate—”

“Hence the room service.” He keeps wearing the smile.

“Thank you, sir.” For forcing you to sit here and listen to him?

Jack cuts into something too rubbery. “More thoughts on what to do besides SG-1?”

“I do what the Air Force tells me to do, sir.” That’s how this works, after all. ‘Captain Carter, take your team to Nevada while I give your job to someone who’s never seen the Ring.’ ‘Captain Carter, we broke the Ring.’ ‘Captain Carter, get your sweet ass out of that mountain.’ ‘Captain Carter, come back so this colonel can publicly undermine your individualized recall.’ You know, the needs of the Air Force.

Jack’s not quite sure to do with that facial expression. “Come on, Sam.” So he ribs her. “You’re a captain now. It’s not like you can spend your entire tour having fun in one cockpit.”

Sam can’t tell if that’s supposed to be an insult or sexual innuendo, but she doesn’t appreciate either. “I know how these assignments work, sir. And I’m not some fighter jock.” Hell, those guys were still stuck in training for the ’91 campaign. Sam fixes on him directly. “I spent my deployment supervising our upgrade shop. Though that did involve a lot of cockpit time.”

Why does he make her say these words? “A hundred hours. So I heard.”

“A hundred hours validating the new helicopters over enemy terrain,” and rocket launchers, “longer than that total. But I’m not a flyer, sir, and neither are you or Major Kawalsky—”

“Actually, I am.” Well, he was. Jack runs the math quickly. Yeah, it was after she was born.

Sam once-overs the badges on his long sleeve blues again. Um, no, you’re not. “So am I.”

“Helicopter pilot. Army. End of Vietnam.” Great, tell her how old you really are.

Sam’s eyebrows raise in surprise. “Oh. I’m sorry.” She pauses at his silent question. “Private pilot, instrument rated. At the Academy.” Which now sounds really supremely stupid compared to even post-Paris Vietnam.

Jack smirks. “Daddy’s little astronaut.”

The officer in her informs Sam that she can’t actually smack him for that. And shouldn’t laugh either. “It’s not as if any of that matters for this job, sir. In my years as an engineer for special operations,” oh yeah, that was subtle, “Major Kawalsky is the only one I’ve met who actually bothers to wear aircrew wings.”

That riles Jack far more than she would’ve intended it to. “That’s a long story.” Beat. “Gift from a guy over Somalia.” His eyes blacken slightly.

Oh. “Oh. Sorry.” Again. You know, she’d had the moral high ground there for a minute.

“S’okay.” Jack shrugs convincingly. He hadn’t been there, but it’s one of the ones he really doesn’t like to think about.

Sam clinches her jaw and reexamines the interview in front of her. “I am trained for this work, sir.” And if he still doesn’t know that’s how she got here, he really, truly does not deserve those eagles. “I know it’s not the same background that you have, but it’s not like I’m tied to some desk or cockpit.”

“True.” Turns out Hammond actually isn’t stupid enough to assign someone that clueless. “But this is a serious ground warfare problem now.” He tries to look agreeable despite her PhD and lack of training.

“I know you’ve all seen far more ground action than I have, sir.” Which is to say, more than the one time it took her to bleed out and get moved from being a brand new ops lieutenant in the Gulf to starting her mostly-unrelated PhD eight months later.

He snorts. “Captain, no one in regular ops has done that. And getting shot down is nothing like handling major ground combat.” Though, granted, you do end up on the ground in the former, and she’d handled herself well enough to get some attention for this gig. Still, not even close.

“I understand that, sir.” Sam tries to find her argument again.

Jack is now decidedly leaning at her. “Which is nothing like facing attack, ambush, or interdiction when our only supply and extraction line is through a giant immovable ring that everybody knows about.” God, they’re going to have to rewrite entire field manuals for this place. Well, not him. Preferably real tactics experts, if he can get any.

Sam nods. “We thought a lot about that, sir.”

He snorts, which maybe isn’t the best call under the circumstances. “And decided you wouldn’t leave the Gate.” He’d finally read that plan, now.

She balks. “On our initial missions, Colonel. There’s still a lot we don’t understand about the Gate itself. My job was to operationalize it, not blow it up.” God, please tell her she didn’t finish that sentence out loud.

Great, his snort came out, but this wince he controls. Remind me what always pissed Sara off? His heart aches slightly, though less than it used to. Charlie. He winces.

“…Once we understood the technology, teams could press farther forward.” Sam tries to sound matter-of-fact, but it’s still got some of that ‘you are a total idiot, sir’ sound.

“Captain, you are not a battlefield airman.” He tries to count what peg she’s put herself on. “Have you ever led deliberate ambush ops? Formations, elements, firepower?”

Sam grimaces. Next time she doesn’t want to be targeted, remind her not to piss off the senior officer. A lesson you’d think she’d’ve freaking learned by now. “My team is heavily trained in counter-ambush and area defense, sir. Including months of work at Quantico and then longer with our own Gate.” And why has he still not read that? “I’m not well practiced in offensive operations.” In other words, she’d lose to any Jaffa that didn’t just fall out of a Death Glider or a Goa’uld office cubicle. Then again, apparently Teal’c’s done all three. He’s also like eighty.

Jack grunts at their exchange. This is not fixing the two of you. Fuck, He needs to stop acting so goddamn raw. The captain’s got a right to be cold, really. Not disrespectful, but at least distrustful. He grimaces and leans over his tray.

Sam manages not to wince as the chair scrapes. Calm down. “Sir.” Calmer than that. “…Sir, I know I haven’t achieved your level of training or experience in ground warfare.” Is that what he needs to hear again? The blatantly obvious? She’s got a job to do for Chrissakes.

Jack clamps down on a sigh. “Captain, I’m a full colonel.” He looks at her candidly, which doesn’t seem to register. “We’re all going to need months of training. I haven’t been on the front lines in almost a decade.” God, he’s old. He’s felt so old since the divorce. It’s hard to look at her.

Chapter Text

Sam pulls back from her lab bench and starts to write absolutely nothing on a legal pad to avoid looking at him. “Have you figured out who else to call in for the SG teams?”

Jack barely tilts his head at her downcast eyes. The captain really is not a master of subtlety. “Seven more exploration teams. Figure that’s three out of a Force Reconnaissance platoon, two in a Special Forces detachment, one more from a Combat Control flight, and then a tactical Civil Affairs team.” It successfully earns the expected ‘wait, I thought you were an idiot’ reaction with which he’s so familiar.

Sam looks up from the scribbles that’ve turned into yet another sketch of the DHD interior. It’s just…there’s something about it. What? Oh. “That’s why you gave General Hammond the number. Front-line pathfinding, deep recon, cultural liaisons. And a tri-service split.”

“Sounds reasonable.” He’s rapidly growing to like this ‘you’re not an idiot’ expression of hers.

Sam nods at her crystal patterns. “We’ll need linguists.”

He manages not to snort. If there’s a measuring contest Jack can win against the prodigal daughter, it’s how to stand up a new special operations unit. “And dedicated battlefield and hostage rescue, medical extraction, a long-range surveillance detachment, combat weather, tactical air control, scout snipers, and diplomacy planners.” And then more money, but he’s working on it. Back off, Captain-Doctor.

Sam just nods her defeat. It’s a relief actually, though he doesn’t need to be quite so haughty about it. “Will this be different for the support crews?”

Jack levels a meaningful look that manages to draw her eyes. “Captain, every war is different.” He props himself forward on her lab bench. “We’ll need to change a lot. Hammond is pulling in HQs to back up every numbered and support SG team.” Okay, he’s trying to pull in key headquarters personnel with every one. There are those in Washington who’d rather leave this turd squarely in the Air Force’s lap. Jack looks back up at her in realization. “You got something?” Why does he feel like that’s always going to be a stupid question with her?

“I went over the task list.” Sam picks up the file and slides forward with it. “Added a couple things.”

Jack leans over the desk. “Thanks.” He skims for her handwriting and snorts. “‘See appendix D’?”

“DHD training, sir. Protection, basic diagnosis, battlefield repair.”

He may be enjoying this leaning towards each other thing too much. “How long?”

Sam pulls back and shrugs. “Twenty thousand words so far?”

Jack laughs in a way he sincerely hopes doesn’t insult her. It’s hard to avoid. “Training days, Captain.”

Sam’s eyebrows shoot up. “Oh. Two weeks?”

He grimaces. “Considering that’s the only button keeping any of us from a nice retirement pad eight million lifetimes from home, I can buy you longer than that. We’ll need to find an off-world site for most of this crap anyway.”

Sam grabs a pen and notes that on her appendix.

“Scale it off the timeline,” Jack says. Stop touching her. He sets down the file and puts his hand back on his fork. “If basic prep is ten weeks per team, I can give you a few more to teach us how to stabilize traversable wormholes.”

Sam smiles as she finishes writing.

Score one. Stop it. “Anything else?”

She picks up another folder without fanfare but with a few too many butterflies. “I’ve been working on how to examine and report new technologies.”

Jack takes it amiably. “Another one everybody’ll need.” He flips open the cover and doesn’t react. “How long?” Very subtle, Captain. The top sheet is an ‘example’ reporting form, filled out for the DHD using her own notes from Abydos. The second one is of a staff weapon. The third’s on the layout of the cartouche, though it’s mostly blank. Then ships, rings transporters, Jaffa armor…he stops when she starts reviewing individual DHD crystals. Alright, he gets it already. Probably should’ve told the genius team about the plasma blasters and the magical alien telephone. At least.

Sam is paging through his timeline again. “Maybe a week for the basic members. More for all the engineers and main exploration teams. It’ll get longer as we learn more. I’d like to budget two months for new exploration members in the future.”

In the future. Ever the optimist. He likes her…that. That in her. “Two months?” But he can’t let them get too loose with their time.

She glares at his inedible dinner. Do they have to argue about everything? “The galaxy is a very large place, sir.” Sam finds the most pointed look she dares use.

Damn, she’s hot when she’s patronizing. He did not just think that. “Got that.”

“No, sir, I’m not sure you do.” Considering that the colonel’s reaction to ‘oh look, a dangerous alien’ was ‘let’s blow up its army and see if anyone gets mad’. And she doubts he noticed the ‘and’ clause. “There are far more threats to train on than a failed DHD. New members need extensive practice handling of new peoples and  new technologies. That’s a lot of training time. I mean, we know now that Earth is one of the few planets without a DHD, and even Teal’c has heard numerous rumors about entire non-Goa’uld trade networks, con artists—”

“—interplanetary civil wars, black markets, warring factions. Yeah, I get it, Captain.” What part of ‘full colonel in special operations’ is she not processing? Probably the part that made you act like a green lieutenant last year. At best.

Sam snaps out of her own head. “Yes, sir.”

“We’ll work on it.” He gives her an assured nod.

Chapter Text

Jack stays quiet and eats his dinner for a minute. He’s trying to deliberately slow down. She’s not. And he really ought to come up with something before she finishes her plate finds an excuse to bolt out of her own lab. “So…‘DHD’. That’s creative.” Better than whatever Daniel called it, anyway.

Sam tries not to parse his tone. The tone of a full colonel that’s decided to babysit her in her own lab after ruining her team and career last year. “It didn’t overlap with the other acronyms I have planned.”

Jack nods. “And this.” He walks around the desk to snag a signaler for the Iris. “It have a name?” Because it’s going to need a crapload of testing before they take it to prime time. He opens a memo in his head and jots ‘atmospheric and weather interference, jamming, distortion, electrical failures, hacking’. He leans back against the table beside her.

Sam winces slightly as he fiddles with the prototype. “I was thinking PSS. Personnel Status Signaler. I couldn’t think of anything that overlapped—”

“Precision Strike Suite,” He says blankly.

Sam cranes her head to look at him. “We’re getting those?”

He shrugs. “No worries.” They certainly have enough repeat acronyms in this business.

She clicks open her list and squints at the computer screen. Umm, “Personnel…” status, identification, condition…

Jack flips over the remote in his hands. Plus alternative protocols, redundancy, false positives… “How about GDO?”

Sam looks back up at him. How did he get so close?

“…Garage Door Opener.” Jack explains with attempted confidence.

Her lips twitch.

Well that was entirely worth it. “So.” Charming smile. “You think you could make a DHD like this?”

Sam almost laughs. “On a wristband?” Her superior nods. “Sir, it took Giza fifteen years to make a robust and reliable DHD. It weighs twice as much as the Gate does.”

“So…no?” He squints.

Sam glances at him again. “It wasn’t high on my list, sir.”

Jack’s brow furrows. “What about like a remote?” His engineer stops typing and tilts her head at him. “You know, like a ‘remote’, remote.” He turns to the wall and clicks on an imaginary hockey game.

“…I, uh.” Sam blinks and looks back from the wall. “Someone considered that for our own dialer, we but didn’t see a reason. For the alien version?” She turns back to her list. “It’s worth a try. Maybe below improving the autopilot on UAVs.” Her crews are still swamped just with the SG team basics, though. And they need it now, for their airman and for Daniel’s family.

Jack takes the opportunity to lean over her list. “Above UAVs. We’re gonna have a lot of guys coming in hot. Maybe not first-contacts, but deep recon.” They’ll be lucky to ever see those Army guys. Outside of the infirmary.

Sam nods at that but doesn’t relent. “That’s kind of what I’m worried about. We know the Gate times out at some point, though I’m not yet sure how consistent it is. If we’re trying to do overwatch and it hangs up automatically—”

“Then when we dial back, we may not be over the watching.” He nods. Interesting point. “You’re worried about the autopilot?”

She shrugs. “I dunno, sir. I’ve never shortcut a micro-UAV through space-time and then tried to run it from twenty thousand light years away in dozens of different planetary environments.”

He quirks a grin. That is pretty cool. “Below, then. Until you know.”

She nods and notes that almost verbatim.

Good progress. Jack makes himself go back to his own side of the table. “So. Something else you want to talk about?”

Sam finishes writing too slowly. You know, they were doing alright there for a minute. Why does he always have to push everything?