Work Text:
“Wait! Don’t close the -”
Jack turned in surprise toward the voice and the heavy door behind him slammed closed.
“ - door,” Sam finished.
She let out a sigh and sat back down on the bench. He thought he heard her mutter the words, “so close” under her breath.
“Um, Sam...what are you doing in the men’s locker room?”
She looked up at him and he noticed that her hair was damp and there was a bead of water trailing down her neck.
Had she showered in here?
“They’re renovating the shower area in the women’s locker room. Didn’t you see the sign on the door? We’re supposed to be sharing this one for the next two weeks. Although, considering the door, that plan might not work out.”
Jack tried to remember whether he’d seen any sort of sign on the door, but frankly, he hadn’t been paying attention. There were other things on his mind at the time. He just wanted to change clothes, grab his briefcase and coat, and head out of the mountain so he wouldn’t be late for the dinner reservation he made earlier this week from his D.C. office.
“I thought you went home already.”
Sam sighed.
“I was planning on it, but I got distracted trying to fix the generator SG-4 broke last week. By the time I looked at the clock, I figured it would be better to wash off the grease and change here.”
“And what about the door?”
“It’s broken,” she said with a wry smile. “I’ve been stuck in here for a while. The door only seems to open from the outside.”
He glanced back at the door. It didn’t look like there was anything wrong with it.
“That’s not possible. People must’ve been in and out of here all day. How did no one notice?”
Sam tapped her fingers on the bench. She’d painted her nails a deep maroon that had somehow survived her generator-fixing activities. He wasn’t used to seeing color on her nails and he liked it. Every time Jack got a new peek at “outside of work” Sam Carter, it felt like he’d won a prize.
“It’s been fussy the past couple of days,” Sam admitted. “And people were in and out of here a lot earlier today. They might not have noticed if people were coming in here the same time they were leaving.”
“Fussy? Is that a technical term, Colonel Carter?” Jack teased.
Sam rolled her eyes and he laughed. If he had to be stuck in a locker room, at least he was stuck with her.
“There were times when you had to tug on the door a little harder to get it to release,” she said. “I assumed they were going to fix it soon. Instead, I was the last one in here and discovered that at some point today, it broke completely.”
“Why didn’t you call anyone?”
Sam gave him a slow and steady look - the one that told him he was missing an obvious detail.
“I didn’t think I’d need my cell phone while I was naked in the shower.”
Suddenly, the broken door was the last thing on Jack’s mind.
“That’s quite the visual, Carter.”
Sam leaned back on her hands and that didn’t help Jack’s focus any. The long-sleeved crimson top she wore had a deep neckline that showcased her cleavage to perfection.
She knew it too.
“Just explaining why I didn’t have a phone with me, sir,” she teased.
“You’re such a troublemaker.”
Sam straightened and rested her hands on her black pants.
“Give me a break,” she said lightly. “I’ve been bored in here all alone. I had plans this evening, you know.”
“Yeah, there’s a rumor going around that you have a hot date tonight.”
Jack reached for his tie and started to undo the knot. If they were going to be here a while, he might as well get changed.
Sam watched as he put his tie in his temporary locker and started to unbutton his service dress jacket.
“Well, I was planning to go out with this guy, but now that I have you doing a striptease in the locker room, I might just decide to stay here.”
He winked at her and shrugged off his jacket.
“I’ll try to give you a good show then.”
“I expect nothing less,” she replied.
Jack loved when Sam was in the mood to banter. It was always a fun time.
He hung his jacket up and moved on the buttons of his shirt.
“You talk to Cassie today?”
Sam nodded. “Yeah, she was packing when I called her earlier. Her roommate already went home, so she said she’s going to spend the night playing video games and watching movies. Her flight gets in tomorrow at 10 a.m.”
“I still think it’s crazy she’s flying on Christmas Day.”
Jack felt lucky he didn’t need to fly commercial when he made his way out to Colorado early this morning. He just hoped that Cassie didn’t regret the dates she picked for her trip out here.
“She took on some extra shifts so that people would cover for her when she stayed through New Year’s,” Sam reminded him. “It’s why she didn’t head out right after her finals were over.”
Jack hung up his dress shirt and grabbed the black sweater from the duffel in his locker, pulling it on over his white undershirt.
“Traveling on Christmas is a nightmare.”
“She wanted to spend more time with you, Jack.”
Sam was right and it was sweet, really, that Cassie had planned her trip to maximize the overlap for when Jack was in town. He just wasn’t sure seeing him a few more days was worth the hassle of a hellish “Christmas Day at the airport” experience.
“I hope she still thinks it was worth it after we pick her up from the airport.”
“She will,” Sam promised.
Jack straightened out the sweater and turned back towards her.
“Hot,” she declared with a grin. “Although, I feel like I’m not getting my money’s worth out of this striptease since you didn’t even go shirtless.”
“Some of us are trying to be professional,” Jack said in a deadpan tone while he continued to undress.
“He says as he unzips his pants,” Sam narrated.
Jack shook his head in amusement as he tugged off his shoes and dropped his trousers. He did his best to ignore the fact that Sam was now looking at him in his boxer briefs. He’d gotten undressed before her countless times before, but never on purpose in the locker room when no one else was around.
His mind helpfully reminded him that there were no security cameras in this part of the locker room for privacy reasons.
Jack tried to remember that he was at work, but it was tough with Sam’s eyes on him.
“See, this is more what I was talking about,” she declared.
“Keep it in your pants, Carter.”
Jack heard her laughter as he grabbed the gray pants from his duffel bag and pulled them on. After he buckled his belt and zipped up his uniform in his garment bag, he went over to sit next to Sam on the bench.
She rested head against his shoulder and he draped his arm around her neck. Normally, they wouldn’t let themselves have moments like this on base, but it was Christmas Eve and they were stuck here. They were allowed a little leeway.
It had been a month since he was in Colorado for Thanksgiving. Three weeks since she came to D.C. for a short visit. They talked on the phone a lot, but there still wasn’t nearly enough Sam Carter in his life. Jack missed seeing her on a daily basis.
Jack ran his thumb along the curve of her shoulder. The fabric of her top was as soft as it looked from across the room.
“This was the first place I ever kissed you,” Sam said while she leaned back against him.
Before they made upgrades to the room and added a women’s locker room down the hallway, this had been the locker room used by all SGC personnel their first couple of years here.
The space looked completely different now, but the memory stayed fresh.
“Yeah, it was. Weird day.”
Jack didn’t really have time to enjoy any of it as it happened because he’d been so thrown off by her actions, but now it felt like an essential part of their story together. He dropped his arm and turned so he could see her while they talked about this.
“I wish I remembered it better,” Sam said softly.
“It was…” Jack’s voice trailed off as he tried to decide how to describe those events. “A little much.”
Sam winced in embarrassment and he didn’t want her to feel bad about something she had no control over. The fact was that her forcefulness and intensity that day helped him realize something was wrong with her. If she’d been more in control of herself, it might have been more difficult to push her away.
“It spurred some really hot dreams, though,” he added with a sly grin, “which I did not appreciate nearly enough at the time. So, thanks for that.”
The tension in her face released and she gave him a tilted smile.
“In fact,” he continued, “now that I think about it...stuck with Sam Carter in the locker room? I may actually be dreaming. I think I’ve had this dream before.”
Her smile grew.
“No, we’re awake,” she replied. “Dreams are good, but reality’s better.”
At Sam’s words, Jack remembered why tonight’s dinner was so important. They were finally in a place where reality could be better than dreams.
And his plans tonight didn’t involve getting stuck at the SGC.
“Oh, there’s not a snowball’s chance in hell we’re missing that reservation.”
He walked over to the door and flipped the lock between the locked and unlocked position a few times, but it didn’t release. The latch assembly itself was probably broken. In desperation, Jack started tugging on the handle with as much force as he could.
“You think I didn’t try that already?”
“You’re smaller than me,” Jack pointed out. “Maybe it just needs a little extra leverage. Also, I’m highly motivated.”
“Go ahead,” she said, way too generously and with a wave of her hand. He ignored her and kept pulling on the door handle.
The locked door still didn’t budge.
Jack looked down at the door and back over to Sam.
“Do you have a screwdriver?”
If they couldn’t get the latch mechanism to release, they might at least be able to pop the hinges.
“Does it look like I brought a screwdriver? I only had my clothes, shampoo, soap, and towel. I don’t think any of that is going to help us get out of here.”
Jack let out a frustrated sigh and banged on the door a few times to make some noise in case anyone was on this level.
Nobody showed up.
“Given how many times we’ve saved the world, it’s a little sad that we’ve been brought down by a broken door.”
Sam’s lips curved into an amused smile.
“Someone will check down here eventually, Jack.”
She was probably right, but it was the “eventually” part that he was worried about. It was Christmas Eve and the base was mostly empty. Jack didn’t want to be stuck here ‘til morning. He hadn’t even wanted to be stuck on the base past noon and look how that turned out.
He didn’t know how Sam was staying so calm. She was the picture of relaxation, sitting on that bench watching him pace.
Jack stopped moving and just looked at her.
“You look beautiful, by the way. In case I didn’t tell you that yet.”
He always thought she looked beautiful, even when covered in mud on a distant planet, but there was something about the way she looked right now that went beyond what she was wearing.
Maybe it was just that fact that he was in love with her and this was the first time since he arrived at the SGC today that he could gaze at her openly.
“I must’ve missed that part of the briefing this morning,” she joked.
“It’s what I meant when I said the recent upgrades to the Prometheus sounded fascinating.”
Sam tried to hold back a smile and couldn’t quite manage it.
“Oh, that makes complete sense. And what did you mean when you complained that any meeting over an hour could be considered torture under the Geneva Convention?”
That was an easy one.
“I was thinking that my time would be better spent making out with you than listening to some scientist drone on.”
Jack loved that he could still make Sam blush.
“Probably best for everyone involved that you said that one in code,” she admitted.
“I can be a subtle guy when I need to be.”
“Of course you can,” she lied.
Jack put his hands in his pockets and leaned back against the wall.
“So it looks like tonight’s date is going to be a bust.”
“It’s the company not the location that matters, isn’t it?”
Sam always was the smart one. It didn’t mean he was fully ready to concede the point.
“We had plans for a Christmas Eve dinner at one of the nicest restaurants in Colorado Springs. I made reservations, damn it.”
Jack had plans and those plans were not going to be destroyed by a broken door. He was not going to spend Christmas Eve with her on Level 25 of the SGC trapped in a locker room.
He made a reservation. He brought a nice change of clothes. He told everyone who might be tempted to call him tonight that the imminent destruction of the planet was the only valid reason to make such a call.
Jack O’Neill had plans for his night with Sam Carter and he wasn’t going to be derailed by a broken door.
“What about your phone?” she asked. “Can’t we just call someone at the main switchboard and get maintenance down here?”
“My phone’s dead.”
He pulled it out of his pocket and tossed it on the bench next to her.
“I told you that you should upgrade to a new one.”
Sam had told him that, repeatedly, whenever he complained about his phone losing battery life or running out of storage space. He knew that she was right, but he didn’t want to have to go through the hassle of getting a new one, learning different features, and transferring over all of his settings and contacts.
“I was going to charge it in the car on the way to the restaurant,” he said, instead of admitting she was right.
“I could have gotten you a new one for Christmas.”
Jack really hoped that she didn’t go ahead and buy him a present after specifically telling him they shouldn’t exchange gifts this year.
“I thought we said no presents.”
Sam looked a little sheepish and he immediately knew that she’d ignored her own directive.
“We did…”
“And you got me something anyway?”
Guilt flashed across her face before she reigned it in.
“I wasn’t going to get anything, but then I saw something at the store and it reminded me of you. It’s really something small, I swear. A trinket, really.”
Damn it. He never should have listened to Daniel. Jack’s instincts told him that the whole “no present” thing might be a trap, but the archeologist insisted that Sam wouldn’t say something she didn’t mean.
“The problem, Sam, is that I’m completely without a Christmas present to give to you...because you told me not to get you anything.”
Instead of the apology he was expecting, Sam bit her bottom lip and tilted her head. She gave him a slow once-over.
“Well, I can think of something you could give me.”
Jack still wasn’t used to the teasing, sultry voice Sam used sometimes when referencing sex. It was deeply unfair of her to use that voice when they were still on base and he still hadn’t kissed her since he’d arrived in Colorado.
“Hey, no seducing on government property, remember? That was your rule.”
The expression that crossed her face was as close to a pout as he’d ever seen and Jack had known Sam Carter for more than eight years.
“I didn’t know that we’d be stuck in the locker room on Christmas Eve when I came up with that rule. I missed you.”
Jack reached out for her hand and tangled their hands together. It was a nice feeling, being missed.
He sat down on the bench.
“Hey, I missed you too. All those other meetings were hell knowing you were only a few levels away.”
“Too bad we couldn’t cut out early,” she said, running her thumb against the back of his hand.
The truth was that Sam could have left by lunch, but she decided to stay and catch up on projects while he and Landry were putting out unexpected diplomatic fires between two of their off-world allies.
“The trouble with extraterrestrial issues is that they don’t follow the traditional Earth holiday calendar.”
The original plan had been to pop into the SGC for a couple of short meetings in the morning and have the afternoon off, but a supposedly urgent call from P5X-498 had thrown everything off schedule.
Eventually, he and Landry sorted things out between the Jaffa and humans who were sharing the planet, but it had taken longer than expected and Jack was more than ready to get away from work (as much as someone with his job possibly could) for the next week.
“There has to be some way we can get out of this room.”
Jack grabbed his briefcase and started to pull things out and put them on the bench between them. He took out a few folders filled with paperwork, his keys, the keys to his rental car, a Nintendo DS, a yo-yo, an airplane magazine from his flight this morning, and his wallet. His suitcase might have had more useful contents, but it was locked in the trunk of the rental.
“What? You think you’re going to MacGyver your way out of here?”
Jack stopped pulling things out of his briefcase and looked up.
“Well normally that’s your job, Carter, but you’re still here, aren’t you?”
He held up his new Nintendo DS.
“Think this will do anything worthwhile?”
She cracked a smile. “Not unless you want to play Mario Kart until help arrives.”
“Cute.” He took the Nintendo out of her hand and set it on the bench between them. “That’s not exactly how I wanted to spend my time tonight.”
And then, because he couldn’t help himself anymore, he kissed her. It was brief and intense and made him feel like he could breathe again.
Sam’s eyes fluttered open when he pulled away.
“Was that a preview of tonight’s plans?”
“It is if our luck turns around.”
Jack really hoped that their luck turned around.
“Maybe I wasn’t properly motivated before to figure out a way out of here,” Sam replied before grabbing his briefcase. “Let’s see if you do actually have anything useful in here.”
“Wait, don’t -”
“What?” she asked, but by then it was too late. Sam had dumped the rest of the contents of his briefcase onto the bench.
She smiled at the candy canes he bought on a whim at the store, smirked at the condoms he probably should have left in the car, and then her hand froze next to the navy blue velvet ring box.
He should’ve kept that in his pocket.
Sam picked the box up and Jack had a sudden memory of another conversation with her over a different ring box. He hoped that he handled this conversation much better than he handled that last one. At least she wouldn’t end up engaged to another man if he handled this wrong.
Jack just didn’t want her reminded of that awkward moment on base when he gave her this ring. It was why he paid a little extra for a jewelry box that wasn’t the standard black. It was why he made a reservation. It was why he planned a little speech that he wasn’t going to be able to use.
“You don’t have a trinket to give me for Christmas, Jack?” she said with a teasing smile on her lips as she flipped open the lid. “This is - ”
Sam cut herself off when she glanced down at the diamond ring. She looked completely and utterly baffled.
“These aren’t earrings.”
“That’s not for Christmas,” he insisted. “I didn’t get you anything for Christmas. Just like I promised.”
Sam pulled the ring out of the box and held it up.
“What’s it for then?” she challenged.
Jack almost laughed, but figured that he might be walking a bit of a tightrope here, so he did his best to keep his expression blank.
“It’s for a non-Christmas occasion.”
“My birthday?” Sam asked, even though he could tell she was still confused.
None of this was going according to plan. This conversation was supposed to be happening over a nice dinner with candlelight, after a glass of wine, when she got to that stage of relaxation where she couldn’t stop grinning at him and touched his hand across the table in public.
“I got you something else for your birthday,” he told her.
At least if tonight’s reservation went to waste, the one five nights from now on her birthday wouldn’t. The restaurant Jack picked for her birthday was a little more casual, but one of her favorites.
“I really think you’ll like the birthday gift,” Jack added. Maybe if he distracted her and took the ring back they could both just ignore it until they were off base. “Maybe you should try and guess what I got you for your b-day. It could be a fun game while we wait.”
He’d considered getting her something traditionally romantic for her birthday, but this was Sam Carter he was talking about. He knew her. Although getting her jewelry or something wouldn’t have gone awry, she cared more about the thought behind gifts than actual items. So, instead, he got her a gift certificate to Action Cycles - the local motorcycle shop that she loved. She’d been talking about wanting to make some upgrades to her bike so he knew it would go towards an activity she was excited about.
“Want to take a guess?”
Sam continued to stare at the ring in her hand. It was a single diamond recessed into a platinum band. He figured that way it would be less likely to catch on something if she ever wore it while she worked on any of her various mechanical projects.
“This looks like an engagement ring, Jack.”
He took the ring from her and turned it between his fingers, angling it so the diamond sparkled in the overhead fluorescent lighting.
“It does kind of look like an engagement ring, doesn’t it? Imagine that.”
“Why do you have an engagement ring in your briefcase?”
Jack considered trying to evade her direct question, but Sam was smart. She’d see right through him. He was planning to give it to her in a couple of hours anyway. This just wasn’t the location he’d expected for a proposal conversation.
That didn’t matter, though. One thing he’d learned about a relationship with Sam was that if he waited for things to happen the perfect way in the right order, they never would have gotten together in the first place. And being with her was better than waiting on a perfect moment.
“I had this whole plan, you know,” he said. “A nice dinner, some expensive wine...I was going to tell you how amazing you are and how lucky I am to be with you, that sort of thing. And then I was going to propose.”
Her face softened as he spoke, the way it sometimes did when he caught her off-guard by telling her how he felt about her.
Then she burst into giggles.
“Way to hurt a man’s pride, Carter.”
“I don’t mean to,” she said between laughs, trying to catch her breath.
Jack put the ring back in the box and moved to put it back in the briefcase, but her hand shot out to try and stop him.
“Wait, that’s mine!”
He pulled the ring box out of her reach and shoved it in the briefcase, along with the other items scattered on the bench seat between them.
“Sorry, Sam. Now you have to wait until you’re ready to take this seriously.”
She curled over as another burst of laughter overtook her.
“I’m glad the idea of me proposing is that funny.”
Sam took a deep breath, wiped tears from her eyes, and looked up at him with a grin.
“Jack, we’re already married.”
“So?”
“So, typically, the proposal comes before the wedding,” Sam pointed out. “Plus, technically you did propose to me once already.”
Jack didn’t think it counted as a proposal when his exact words had been, “It’s a hell of a crazy idea, Carter, but if you’re in, I’m in” after he shared General Hammond’s heavy hints that a legally binding marriage when Sam transferred to Area 51 might be the only loophole they’d get for a while.
He still wished the Powers That Be would have accepted his request for retirement, but at least he got a relationship with Sam out of the deal. Now, he just wanted to keep making sure she thought that spur-of-the-moment decision was worth it.
“We didn’t get to do the whole romance part of it,” Jack said. “We basically got married so that we could date without worrying about circumstances putting you back in my chain of command. Everything we’ve done has been out of order, Carter, and I think that things have been going really well for us, aside from the distance and various threats to the universe.”
“Yes, they have,” she agreed.
“And I felt like you deserved a real proposal from your husband, one that you could tell people about and could look back on as something more than a rushed attempt to get paperwork in order. The fact is, Sam, even if we hadn’t already gotten those logistics out of the way, six months of being with you would have been more than long enough to know that I wanted to marry you.”
“Oh,” she said, her voice a little breathless. “That’s really sweet.”
Jack brushed back a few strands of hair that had fallen down by her eyes. It was just an excuse to touch her.
He couldn’t help himself. He needed to touch her now that he finally could. Maybe his hands were making up for all the times they had to pull away from her without making contact.
“Try again,” Sam said when his fingers finally moved back. “We’ll do it right this time. I swear I won’t laugh.”
Jack didn’t get down on one knee, but he took her hands in his.
“Samantha Carter,” he began. “There is no one else I’d rather be stuck in a locker room with...or anywhere really. And not just because you’re really good at pulling my ass out of the fire.”
She bit her lip to keep from laughing, but he didn’t mind. He’d been trying for the reaction that time.
“I look forward to loving you, with every fiber of my being, for the rest of our lives. Will you - ”
Before he even finished his sentence, Sam’s hands went to his jaw and she pulled him in for a kiss.
“Yes!”
He smiled against her lips and pulled back to look at her.
That joyful expression on her face was what he’d been waiting to see. It looked like she was lit up from the inside. Her flushed face and happy smile were the reason Jack had come up with the ridiculous idea of proposing to his own wife. They deserved to have normal moments like this.
Their relationship story didn’t have to just be alien viruses and mind stamps and being lost a galaxy apart.
It could be a proposal on Christmas Eve and saying “I love you” before hanging up the phone and smelling the scent of her shampoo on his sheets.
It could be the everyday things as well as the extraordinary ones.
“You do realize that you didn’t actually let me finish proposing?” Jack said as his mouth moved down to her neck. “I might have to go ahead and try this a third time next year.”
Sam ran her hands through his hair while he explored her soft skin.
“You keep proposing and I’ll keep saying yes.”
“Deal.”
Sam pushed him back against the bench and straddled him. Jack was reminded of that first locker room encounter, but this was way better.
“Maybe I’ll propose sometimes too,” she said with a grin before leaning down to kiss him.
“Works for me,” he replied when they took a breath.
Jack slid a hand under her shirt. There were reasons why they did their best to stay professional at work and the one that crossed his mind right now was that it was too easy to get carried away.
He was getting carried away fast.
After all, the room was locked.
There were no security cameras here.
He had condoms in his briefcase.
It had been weeks since the last time they were together.
And the fact was, Jack had experienced way too many dreams over the years about Sam Carter seducing him in this exact locker room.
He kissed his way along the deep neckline of her top.
“Wait!”
Suddenly, the skin that had been under his lips was replaced with air. Jack looked up to see a bright grin on Sam’s face, the same one she always had when she solved a problem. This had happened countless times since they’d gotten together and he just tried to roll with it when she had a brilliant idea while they were making out. There were worse things than being a muse for a national treasure.
“What?”
She climbed off him and started rummaging through his briefcase. Jack sat up.
“I know how to get us out of here.” Sam pulled the Nintendo DS out of the briefcase and held it in front of his face. “We can use this.”
It might have been the fact that he was still a little light-headed from all the blood that had been rushing south, but Jack was confused.
“Carter, I’m pretty sure I suggested using that somehow and you told me that we weren’t going to be saved by playing Mario Kart.”
“You were right,” she admitted. “And I was wrong.”
Jack really wished that he had a tape recorder with him so that he could have proof of her saying those words. It would probably be years before she said them again.
Sam turned on the Nintendo.
“Cassie was telling me all about it after you sent one to her last month. You can get a wi-fi connection on these things.”
Jack shrugged and watched as she started clicking through the settings menu on the device.
“I thought it would be fun if she and I could play together.”
Letting Cassie kick his ass in Mario Kart once or twice a week was a small price to pay to stay connected while he was busy with work and she was busy with school.
Sam gave him a soft smile before continuing her explanation.
“There’s an alert that goes off if a device without the proper security protocols tries to connect to the staff wifi on base. It’s in place to detect hacking attempts. If I connect, they’ll be able to trace the signal to the closest router, which I’m pretty sure is across the hall. Somebody will have to come down to investigate and they’ll hear us.”
It was a good plan, but he saw one potential flaw.
“Carter, is this going to end with someone busting in here and destroying my Nintendo?”
She finished whatever she was doing and put the device down on the bench.
“Probably not.”
Sam didn’t look as confident as he would have liked about the long-term survival of his Nintendo DS.
“And you couldn’t have waited until after we fulfilled a long-standing fantasy?” he asked.
Her eyes shot to his.
“You didn’t actually think we were going to have sex in the locker room, did you?”
“No? I mean it did seem like things might be going in that direction, but we would never be that irresponsible.”
It was a lie. Jack would definitely be that irresponsible if Sam would allow it.
“Knowing our luck,” Sam said, “As soon as we started losing clothes, security would open this door and catch us in the act.”
She stood up, walked over to the door, and started hitting her fist against it in a slow and steady rhythm.
Jack followed her, still thinking about her luck comment.
Sam stopped hitting the door and turned around.
“Are you going to help?”
He took a step closer and crowded into her space, sandwiching her between his chest and the door.
“Well, I was thinking...if you believe our luck is so bad that us kissing might hurry them along…”
Jack grabbed Sam’s wrists and held them against the door above her head.
“We should test your theory,” he said, tilting his head down.
Sam didn’t bother to respond verbally. Instead, she leaned up and captured his lips with hers.
This.
This was exactly what he’d been missing.
He’d gotten a taste of it back when they were on the bench, before she got distracted, but he loved when Sam let loose.
And three weeks was way too long to be apart.
They hadn’t been together nearly long enough for Jack to be used to the rush he felt whenever his body was pressed against hers and her mouth explored his.
He let go of her wrists and one hand immediately went to his neck and the other slammed back against the door.
Jack braced his hands on either side of her, knowing that if he really started touching her, he wouldn’t be able to stop.
When he remembered, he hit his hand against the door to make noise, but most of the time his focus was fully on his wife.
The movement of her lips against his.
The soft sigh she made as he kissed the side of her neck.
The way her body strained towards him.
Jack felt as much as heard a bang against the door and pulled back before Sam’s body could get shoved into his.
Apparently her theory was right after all.
They both stepped out of the way and Sam ran a quick hand through her hair before the door opened. She looked flushed and Jack hoped the rescue team wouldn’t notice. Thank god she hadn’t been wearing lipstick.
Two members of the base’s Security Force team entered the room. Jack recognized the older man, but the younger one must’ve been a new addition since he moved to D.C.
Jack reached for the door handle and held tight before the door could swing closed again.
“Thanks for getting down here so quickly,” Sam said.
The men lowered their weapons.
“Either of you happen to bring a doorstop with you?” he asked.
The confused SFs shook their heads.
“No, sir,” one answered.
“I’ll get something from the office across the hall,” Sam said before making a quick escape out the door.
The older SF turned his way while the younger one looked out the door where Sam had disappeared.
“Sir, we got an alert from the system that an unauthorized device was trying to gain access to our internal network. We checked the rest of the floor. Did you and Colonel Carter see anyone?”
Jack picked up his DS and handed it over to the man. “Carter wanted to play Mario Kart.”
“Mario Kart?” the younger SF asked.
“General,” the older SF cut in, “I’m sure you’re aware that it’s against policy to connect unsecured devices to the wireless network on the base.”
Jack wasn’t actually aware of that policy because it had never come up before, but he didn’t have to answer because Sam jumped back in the conversation.
“I was trying to trigger the alert on purpose,” she said as she wedged a chair in the doorway and stuck a piece of duct tape over the bolt to prevent the door from locking on its own again. “Maintenance needs to fix this door. We got stuck in here.”
Sam Carter in action was a thing to watch. After she finished with the door, she went over to the SFs and explained what she’d done with the Nintendo and they watched her disconnect it. Then she handed it back to Jack, mercifully intact. She mentioned something about additional adjustments they could make to the security system that Jack didn’t follow and finished by explaining the whole thing with the door.
By the time she was done, Jack had finished gathering up all their things and was ready to leave. The SFs promised to contact maintenance about the door and Jack wished them a Merry Christmas and uneventful rest of their shift.
Sam grabbed her purse and coat from her locker and Jack let out a sigh of relief that they were finally leaving. It wasn’t late, but it had been a long day and he was ready to be away from anything resembling work.
In the elevator, Jack looked at his watch.
“You know, we still have time to make that dinner reservation.”
Sam narrowed her eyes at him.
“Do you really think that a steak dinner is at the top of my priority list right now?”
It stopped being at the top of Jack’s list once his proposal plan went out the window, but he still figured he should offer.
“Sometimes women are mysterious,” he said lightly. “I didn’t want to presume.”
“I have frozen pizza at home. That’s what we’re having for dinner,” Sam said. “Eventually.”
Most people would have said that frozen pizza was a huge step down from a fancy dinner at a nice restaurant. Those people didn’t have Sam Carter in a rush to get home and pick up where they left off in the locker room.
“Sounds perfect.”
Jack tried to wipe the smug look from his face before they said goodbye to the guard on duty.
The drive home in separate cars felt unbearably long.
He got all of his luggage inside and even managed to have a halfway intelligible conversation with Sam about their menu for Christmas dinner before they gave up all pretense and reached for each other.
They left a trail of clothing as they made their way to the bedroom, halting and getting distracted several times on the way.
Jack wasn’t sure if it was having to deal with a long distance relationship or the years they’d spent before that trying to deny their feelings, but every time he got to be with her felt like a miracle. Every time she told him she loved him felt like a gift.
Somewhere between the hallway and the bedroom, as Sam moaned his name, Jack realized that his out of order proposal wasn’t just for her. He had wanted that experience too. He’d seen Sam be hesitant about a marriage and a part of him wanted to know that she wasn’t hesitant about theirs…that she hadn’t only agreed to this because she thought it was their only choice to give a relationship a shot.
She didn’t need two weeks to think it over. He’d barely gotten the question out of his mouth before she answered and when she did, something settled in him.
Sam Carter chose him, unequivocally.
“Love you so much,” he told her while he threw the last of their clothes to the floor.
“Love you too,” she replied when he joined her on the bed.
They moved together with the familiarity borne of months of experience and years of fantasizing.
“Welcome home,” she whispered in his ear afterward, running a hand through his hair.
Even though Jack spent most of his time in Washington D.C., Colorado Springs still felt like home, especially when he was with the woman in his arms.
Before they fell asleep, he took the ring out of its box and slid it onto her finger.
They never got around to making that frozen pizza.
The next morning, Jack opened his eyes and looked down. Sam’s left hand rested on his chest and the new ring on her finger, nestled next to the thin platinum wedding band she wore outside of work, sparkled in the morning light.
He ran his index finger over the ring and the back of her hand. Sam snuggled closer.
“Morning,” she whispered against the crook of his neck.
“Merry Christmas, Sam.”
She made a soft humming noise against his skin.
He kissed the top of her head.
“What time is it?”
“Hours still before we have to leave to get Cassie,” he told her. Both of them were early risers by necessity and that military schedule tended to seep into their days off. “Want breakfast?”
“Omelets would be nice. I heard they’re world-famous.”
Sam had been teasing him about that ever since he made the claim, but she asked for them enough that Jack was pretty sure he was right. Or, at the very least, they were Sam-famous, which was just as good.
“Cheese and spinach?” he asked.
“I’ve got bacon in the fridge too.”
“A woman after my own heart.”
Jack leaned down to kiss her. She closed her eyes and made that soft noise again, the vibration transferring from her lips to his. This needed to become a tradition, he decided. Sleepy Christmas morning kisses with his favorite woman in the universe.
When they separated and he started to leave the bed, she grabbed his arm.
“Wait,” Sam said before jumping out of bed, pulling on a robe, and opening her closet. She pulled out a gift covered in red and green wrapping paper.
She climbed back on the bed and handed him the present.
“Merry Christmas, Jack.”
“This looks bigger than a trinket,” he teased while he pulled wrapping paper away from the object’s rounded edge.
Jack let the wrapping paper fall to the comforter and let his eyes fall to the snowglobe in his hand.
Inside the glass was a small cabin surrounded by trees on the edge of a body of water. There was a tiny Santa with a fishing pole standing on a wooden dock. Jack turned the globe over and watched snow fall down on the scene.
“I saw it and thought of you,” she said.
It was funny because Jack saw it and thought of her. Somehow, over the years of inviting her to go fishing, Sam and the cabin had gotten inextricably linked in his mind.
“It’ll be a perfect addition to my office.”
Jack looked forward to people glancing at the snowglobe on his desk in the middle of summer. It would throw them off and that was always a nice start to any meeting.
“All it’s missing is a tiny Mrs. Claus,” he said, poking at the glass.
Sam took the snowglobe from his hands.
“Maybe she’s inside.” She flipped a switch on the base of the snowglobe and the windows of the cabin lit up with warm light. “Santa probably blew a fuse and she had to replace it.”
Jack was so charmed by her idea that Mrs. Claus was at the cabin too that he didn’t even care that she was giving him a hard time about accidentally overloading the circuit on their last trip.
“I told you that you can rewire our cabin next summer.”
He didn’t know why she thought that would be a fun way to spend her leave, but he was more than happy for her to have at it and update things if she wanted to.
“Our cabin?”
“Yeah.”
“I like that.”
Jack liked it too. He liked that they could have things now that were theirs together instead of just his and hers. Their relationship might be unconventional, but what they had now was a hell of a lot more than he’d even been able to imagine having before and he was so grateful for it.
“I feel more married to you now that I proposed and you said yes, is that weird?”
Sam laughed and shook her head.
“Considering all we’ve been through, you think that’s weird?”
“Good point.”
When your normal life is full of aliens and accomplishing the impossible, it wasn’t weird at all in comparison. Jack took the snowglobe and put it on his nightstand.
“We don’t need to have another wedding though, right?” Sam asked.
Jack turned back and almost laughed at the apprehensive look on her face. He remembered how relieved she was to do a simple courthouse ceremony.
“Nope.” He reached out a hand and ran his fingers through her hair. “You let me know if you ever change your mind and want a big renewal shindig though.”
Sam leaned into his hand and then turned to kiss his palm.
“If I ever say I want to plan a big wedding or vow renewal party, take me to the infirmary immediately.”
Jack laughed and promised to treat any interest in a large celebration of their marriage as a medical emergency.
Sam looked down at her new ring.
“You know, I just realized…even though you didn’t mean to, you proposed to me where we had our first kiss. Alien virus and locked door issues aside, that’s pretty romantic.”
“Yeah?” he said. “Well then I did it on purpose. The whole dinner reservation thing was just a clever ruse to throw you off.”
“Perfectly executed plan.”
Jack could still hear the spaces sometimes where she would’ve inserted the word “sir” in the past, usually when she was being a bit of a smartass.
“Well, it’s a damn good thing you said yes. Otherwise this whole marriage thing would have gotten really awkward.”
An amused smile curved Sam’s lips.
“I suppose it would have,” she said. “Finding another man to fall in love with seems like a lot of trouble, though, so I think I’ll keep you.”
“Good.”
The fact that she loved him and wanted to keep him still felt fresh and new. Jack didn’t think his awe that they made it to this place together would ever grow old.
He kissed her again, slow and sweet, before pulling back.
“You go shower first and I’ll get breakfast ready,” Jack said. “Then we’ll go get our girl.”
They had a quick breakfast and when they were ready to go, Jack grabbed the keys to Sam’s car because he trusted it more in the snowy weather than a rental. She didn’t mind taking the passenger seat and made a quip about how it was nice to have a fiance, husband, and chauffeur all in one. Christmas music played on the radio the entire drive and this year Jack was in such a good mood that he didn’t even care how repetitive it was.
When they picked Cassie up from the airport, she was surprisingly cheerful for a college student who had to wake up early for a flight on Christmas Day. As they drove, she started telling Sam and Jack the list of all the places she wanted to go and things she wanted to do while she was home. Jack wasn’t sure if it was homesickness or nostalgia that made her want to cram as many Colorado Springs experiences into a week as possible. Before he realized it, they’d already agreed to go with her to the Electric Safari light show at the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo, ice skating in Acacia Park, and the old-fashioned Penny Arcade.
“If we play the old games, you might actually be some competition, Jack,” Cassie teased.
“I’ll kick your ass in pinball, kid.”
Sam just shook her head at the both of them.
“Speaking of video games,” Jack said, “Sam and I got stuck in the SGC locker room yesterday.”
“What does that have to do with video games?” Cassie asked.
Jack started to tell the story and then Sam interrupted.
“You got us out of the locker room?” she said incredulously.
“My idea to use the Nintendo,” he retorted. “You just teased me about playing Mario Kart.”
Sam looked stunned and indignant.
“I’m the one who actually knew what to do.”
Jack turned towards the backseat at the stoplight. “Cass, she’s always stealing my ideas.”
“That’s not true!”
Cassie laughed.
“Says they’re beautiful in their simplicity,” Jack continued.
Maybe she’d never used those exact words, and her version sounded a little more condescending, but it was still close enough to being true.
Sam chuckled and playfully shoved at his arm.
“Sometimes I don’t know why I married you.”
“No take-backs, Carter. You said yes twice now. This marriage is double-reinforced.”
Jack watched Cassie roll her eyes in the rearview mirror at the two of them when Sam replied, “Well, I suppose if there are no take-backs…”
He reached over, grabbed her hand, and gave it a squeeze. She squeezed back and then interlaced their fingers together.
“What time are Daniel and Teal’c coming over for dinner?” Cassie asked. “And what’s for lunch?”
Sam almost asked Cameron Mitchell over too, but he already had plans with family, so it was just going to be the original members of SG-1 and Cassie Fraiser for Christmas dinner.
“They’ll be over around five,” Sam said, “and we’re having frozen pizza for lunch.”
Jack smirked, thinking about their aborted dinner plans from the night before.
“The real question, Cass,” he said, “is whether you want to open your presents first or watch Elf.”
“Don’t forget making Christmas cookies,” Sam added.
“Presents first, always,” Cassie replied.
As the three of them drove home, they continued to chat about what they planned to do for the rest of the day and in what order. Cassie also filled them in on the plans she made with friends who were also going to be home in Colorado Springs for Christmas. Jack was glad that would give him some more alone time with Sam before he had to go back to Washington. They also settled on which activities the three of them were going to do together on which days. They laughed and joked around and Jack was overcome with a feeling he hadn’t experienced in a long time, the joy of being a family on Christmas.
“You okay?” Sam asked when she noticed he’d been quiet for a while.
“Yeah,” he replied, “best Christmas I’ve had in a really long time and we’re only halfway through the day.”
“It’ll only get better,” Sam said with a smile.
She was right.