Repairing the Void
by B. Cavis

Repairing the Void
by B. Cavis

It starts.

They both knew it would, of course. Trying to leave it in the room was hopeless, but taking it out and trying to put it back just quickens the process of their mutual deterioration. It is like a horror movie; once you look, it is impossible to put it out of your mind. It's inevitable to look again.

It's inevitable that neither one of them can forget the feeling of that night when they consumed each other against his car, inside his car, over the hood of his car, and then inside on his carpet, because going to the bed would have destroyed them both.

Once something is ruined, it is impossible for it to ever be made "Good as New" again.

She is the first one to realize when it happens, because he has been so intent on not appearing any different, that he has become paranoid; convinced that everyone knows and that every thing they do gives them away. She is the one to know what is going on, because he is so out of his mind with the memory of her ruination that he can't recognize paranoia from reality.

Her moment of clarity comes after the "melting" situation, as she likes to refer to it. The mission where she felt her insides start to turn to water and her head start to go light and fuzzy, and she was overcome by the smell of his hair and neck as she fell asleep on him more for his comfort than for her own.

The mission on which he could not stop touching her.

It wasn't hard to figure out; she's actually surprised that Teal'c and Jonas didn't sense something on the walk back to the gate. Didn't see the way his fingers and hands trailed over her on every free moment.

She felt his palms burning through her uniform and his eyes soaking every inch of her body with concern and relief and that edgy, dangerous emotion that he is not allowed to feel for her under any circumstance, but definetely not on a mission.

They got her home. How, she's not quite sure. All she could focus on was the way that his dark whiskey gaze coated her and cradled her with each step they took.

Janet shot her up with some drugs to help the residual affects of her body being remolded from the inside out twice in one day. Having her DNA fucked with really killed her stomach, and she lay in the infirmary with a pillow pressed tight against her abdomen, feeling like she was having the worst case of cramps ever.

She drifted off to sleep. And when she woke up, he was there.

Jack was sitting by her bed. Not the Colonel. Not "sir" Jack. The man who she had snuggled up to on the warm fuzz of his dark blue carpet after a night of searching for herself in the sweat-coated heat of his arms. Jack was sitting by her bed. Watching her.

"Hey."

"Hey," she whispered back. What exactly does one say to the man one slept with and then walked away from in order to save them both? How's the weather?

"How you feeling?"

Such mundane questions! "Like I was rearranged and put together by a man with a hangover."

He grinned darkly, but it didn't reach his eyes. "But you're overall..."

"Fine."

"Fine."

"Yeah."

He leaned over her suddenly, his hands reaching out to touch the (most definetely forbidden) bed on either side of her body. She looked over and found her fingers wrapped around his arm; pale ivory against dark, haired forearms. Now how did that get there, she asked herself, but the question was gone quickly enough.

His face loomed over hers, nose pressed gently against her cheek, and mouth searching hers for some hidden secret that she can't possibly know the answer to.

He tasted (still!) of heat, teeth, and dark chocolate that enveloped her in a warm blanket of sexual frustration and lust and the memories that haunted her no mater how many times she went back to that bar trying to find someone else.

One hand came down to touch her breast, trailing sensation over her with all the delicacy that he didn't exercise the last time they did this. His unshaved cheek, the same one that had felt so deliciously naughty on her skin, dragged across her throat followed by teeth and wet thick tongue.

How did she survive without this, she asked the ceiling as her fingers tangled in his hair and pulled him closer. How would she survive again when it was taken away?

And as suddenly as he was there, he was gone once more. Her skin bemoaned the loss of warm Jack flesh upon hers, and she searched her mind for something she might have done wrong in response.

Jack looked down at her, a twisted smile on his face. "I'm glad you're okay." She stared up at him; what the hell was he doing, she asked the ceiling. "I'd hate to think I'd never be able to taste that pretty little mouth of yours ever again," he joked.

She felt like she was going to cry. He left quietly.

That was three days ago.

The day that Janet releases her, she drives home from the complex in a daze, reluctantly remembering that she actually did have work she needed to do this time. The fact that his was the one voice crying out the loudest for her to go home reinforces her initial suspicions; she has to be the adult here. She can't allow this to go on anymore.

There is no way this will end in any manner even slightly resembling good if she allows this thing to continue.

There are five possible outcomes, as far as she can tell, though she's never been very good at predicting the future. Three of them are simple. Three of them only hurt the two of them. Either she gets court marshaled, he gets court marshaled, or they both get court marshaled. All of these are contingent on the idea that someone notices their attitudes towards each other. The way their eyes seek the other out and focus with sharp passion, searching for those spots on each others skin that have been tasted, touched, owned.

God. How have they not given each other away before now, she wonders, and tries not to think of the way she scans his face for the stubble coated cheek that she kissed upon her departure from his house every time they sit down in the briefing room.

Dismissal is the best-case scenario in a situation like this. Their options get much worse from there on in.

Colonel Jonathon ONeill is a former Black-Ops man. One whose wife left him for a lack of communication. There is very little chance that he could ever be so open with his emotions for someone (besides her, of course; when a man has come and slept in your arms, he can hide very little) to determine what he was thinking and hold him accountable.

He's been molding her into a commander for the past seven and a half years. He'd be disappointed if she failed her training in such a display, and she would be disappointed in herself for failing him. No one will be discovering their secrets from either one of them.

No, the much more likely scenario is that they will end up distracting each other. Distraction is a much worse fate than court marshal, because distraction is much more final. Distraction means death. And death does not discriminate.

She could end up becoming so absorbed in the smell of his aftershave that she screws up in the field. Thats the worst case scenario for SG-1. He could get lost in the curve of her breast underneath that regulation black shirt and by the time he realizes what's happens, Daniel and Teal'c will already be dead.

But what about potential screw-ups at home? The things she works with in her lab are often so combustible that one wrong move could take out the entire base, if not all of Colorado Springs. All he would have to do would be to come into her office, lean just a little bit too close to her and her fingers would lose dexterity at the smell of him. She is a professional. But he is her man. She can focus all she wants, but eventually, her mind is going to start to drift to the idea that his stubble would feel really good dragged along her breasts, and his fingers would be just excellent if one of them curled up inside her and stroked her from behind for a few minutes, and his...

Shit.

Samantha Carter takes one long, deep breath, and flops down on her couch, kicking off her shoes and unbuttoning her fly. She's already wet for the memory of him, and her fingers have to wipe away some of the moisture to get any friction. Her panties are uncomfortably damp, but she can't bring herself to care much.

She wore a thong the last time. The next day she went out and bought five more.

He would feel so good if only he was here right now, she thinks to herself, biting down on the arm of her sofa with perfect white teeth. If she could just get him to sit down on her couch, she'd sit on his lap and grind into him until he went just as out of his mind as he did that night. Until he grabbed her hips, bit down on her neck, and burned through their clothes in enough strategic places for him to get that cock in her while his fingers kept hold of her nipples, creating delicious tension every time he bounced her.

Bounce. Jump.

Eyes holding her in place, throat grumbling a warning if she tries to reposition. "Move and I'll tie you to the bed and fuck you till you cry..."

Oh. Oh. Oh...

She's done.

Sam takes her fingers away from herself and absently licks them clean. She swears she can taste a difference in herself ever since that night. Maybe it's one of the long-term effects of her ruining. She can't tell.

Sam walks into the kitchen and sucks down a beer to try and numb her senses, but it doesn't work nearly as well as she had hoped. She can still feel him moving around behind her as she lay panting on the cool metal of his truck, her skirt turned up like a bad (naughty) catholic school girl's. She can taste the deterioration in her mouth at the memory.

She's dying. She's so alive. And she can't deal with either one of them the way they are right now.

The beer bottle shatters as she throws it into the sink.

There has got to be a change.

Jack O'Neill has never classified himself as a romantic, and he sure as hell isn't going to start now.

Hearts and candy aren't his style. Flowers die and start to smell bad, but he's not quite sure if that's just what happens when you don't spend nearly enough time at home and aren't around to take care of such trivial matters or if it's something that just goes on with everyone.

He can't see himself ever having an endearment for a woman besides the normal ones: honey, baby, etc. He can't call anyone "lover" without blushing and thinking how utterly ridiculous it sounds to be addressing a woman with that degree of sexual innuendo in front of everyone else.

He doesn't like women who like stuffed animals. Plush novelty items are for those members of the sex who still wear pajamas with feet sewn into them and put their hair in pigtails with those little ball things holding each tail together. Stuffed bears are for girls. And Jack is definitely not into girls.

Real women wear combat boots.

Sam knew this about him, he reminds the silent jury who seems to be judging his every move these days (and who look an awful lot like Mrs. Ripkin, his third grade teacher with the wart that closely resembled a brown banana on her throat). Sam does not lie to herself, nor does he lie to her. She knew from the beginning that he was not going to be the one to surprise her with rose petals strewn everywhere, or poetry recited by moonlight, or a thousand other little things that are glorified by Valentine's Day and every teen movie from the 80s.

Say Anything is not their movie, and they both know it because anything less would be lying to themselves and each other.

Still, when the memory of just how soft she feels just about everywhere on her body hits him (as it does at least seven times a day), he wishes desperately that he was able to let her know how amazing she is to him; how she steals away his voice and all his thoughts just turn into "When can I get that woman out of her clothes and sucking on my cock?" whenever she walks by.

Especially when she smiles. Oh God how she smiles, he sighs to himself, like he's the most important person in the world because he's been able to evoke this reaction from her.

Jack sighs and looks down at his red Jell-O as one more team is called to the Gate Room. He hates downtime on base. It's a study in uselessness and the tedium of inactivity. He takes a deep breath, leans back on the bench, and becomes gently aware of another presence in the world.

He can smell her. Her skin, her shampoo, her light hint of Chanel body powder (she sprinkles it liberally in her boots) that he recognizes as one of her few female indulgences while shes in BDUs.

Jack dives back against the table and hides his face in his cup once more. If he doesn't see her, she's not there, he repeats to himself over and over again, hoping that eventually he'll be able to believe it.

Sam sits down besides him, crosses her legs and rests her elbows on the table. Her eyes trace his skin, and he squelches the urge to shudder.

He knows what that gaze is capable of doing to men like him.

"Sir?" Her voice. Damn it, he thinks, she's pulling out the big guns.

He looks up from his Jell-O to find a pair of soft blue eyes (that close in delicious agony when her orgasm grabs her, he remembers) focusing in on him. He looks back down pointedly, but she doesn't take her eyes off him.

"Sir?"

Grunt. He doesn't want to be too committal right now. The second he commits to giving her his attention, he's lost. He'll end up doing anything she asks of him.

And she knows it, which makes him hate and love her all the more.

"Is something wrong, sir?"

Grunt.

She chuckles dryly, not at all amused and not at all resigned to her fate. He gets the feeling that she's mocking him. "Are you going to try to ignore me for the rest of the day? If so, tell me now, and I'll just throw something at your head and make you pay attention..." he looks up sharply and she flushes. "...sir"

"What do you want, Major?" He emphasizes the "Major" part to make her sit up and pay attention. They're at work. He's not allowed to think of her as anyone else, and even though she knows it, it never hurts to remind her. Safety is good.

She fidgets with her fingers shyly for a moment, before clearing her throat and straightening her shoulders. She wants this, she reminds herself, and they need it. "I was wondering if you could help me out with something, actually, sir." She waits for him to say something sarcastic and witty, and when it doesn't come, they sit in silence for a moment. "Uh, right... Listen, I've been taking your advice-"

"MY advice?" She's been listening to him? Since when? Jack examines his fingernails quickly. If she's been reading between the lines, he's in major trouble.

"Yeah," Sam says, more comfortable now that he's uncomfortable and nervous. "I've been going out, y'know, getting a life." She smiles quickly and brilliantly to help her mouth keep talking. "I've been going out a lot more, with, you know, friends."

Jack grunts. The last time he met one of her "friends," the man was licking salt off her back and giving her thong a taste test. He doesn't think he likes Sam's "friends" much.

"And one of them is having this party."

He looks up at her, noting the cautious tone she used when saying the word "party." It's suspiciously like the tone he used when he told his mother he and Donna Williams were "studying."

Studying. Heh. He got so much pussy when he was studying.

He's getting too old to think of it as "pussy" anymore. He's getting too old to get spontaneous wood, too, remarks a little voice on his shoulder, but that hasn't seemed to stop him in this case. Sam leans a little bit closer, and he shifts into the table until his stomach is pressed up against the hard plastic edge.

"And the friends I was going with sort of flaked out on me." He grins into his Jell-O; Sam using the words "flaked out" is just too good. "But the problem is... I still really want to go." She leans over to him to underscore her point. "REALLY want to go." Her whole body shakes in one dramatic sigh. "Janet's busy. Daniel's busy. Even Teal'c is working with the liason from the Tok'ra that night-"

Jack grits his teeth together and bares what he hopes is an evil look. "Carter, get to the point or get lost."

"Come with me. To this party...Sir."

How does one go about undoing Jack ONeill?

Sam has been searching for the answer for years.

How does one (or namely, Sam) go about making a man who holds such a monopoly on his emotions, who controls every thing about himself to such a degree that it is impossible to determine where his sterilized, harmless little press releases end and where the real Jack begins, break into little lustful, totally under her control pieces?

She knows him, of course. Knows enough about him to know that he's a good man who would never hurt her or anyone else. She knows he loves children, the Simpsons, and the way she crosses her legs when theyre sitting in the briefing room (so it rubs up against his own leg just so). She knows he's her friend. He's her commander. And that he loves her.

Goddamn how he loves her.

But that's just about it; she doesn't know his favorite color, his favorite movie, or what position he likes the best. She can't figure out if he likes her hair, and she most definitely does not know how to get him as worked up as she needs him.

Well, until now.

Sam examines her dress hemline in the mirror with a critical eye. The thin, short, stretchy thing comes down to mid thigh, but the boots are what make it overwhelmingly sexual. Her thigh high, skin tight, high-heeled hooker boots. The ones that make her legs look even longer than they usually do. The ones she knows he'll just love.

They scream "Pick me up and fuck my ass with your tongue" and she grins as she blushes.

The doorbell rings. Sam gives her cleavage one more push up and runs her fingers one last time through her hair before exiting her room. She almost falls twice when going down the stairs, and takes a moment to accustom herself to the height of the heel before treading through the thick carpet to her front door and inviting the wolf in.

Sam gulps. Loudly.

He is leather and sex and pleasure all wrapped up in a beautifully rugged looking casing. Her thighs become damp-- no underwear this time and now she's paying the price for it.

Jack looms in front of her, eyes hooded. He takes one good whiff of the air and grins darkly. He can smell her. God, why is that so hot, she wonders.

"Carter." Her name is rough. A grumbled curse and a prayer all at the same time, and it sounds too wicked to be fair. "All ready?"

"Uh huh." Monosyllables. He's reduced her to third grade in less than a minute. Things are not looking good on the "I'm going to make him lose control" front.

"Really? Didn't forget anything now? Purse? Jacket? Panties?" His grin is dark and not entirely playful.

"What was that last one?"

"Jacket?"

"It's warm out."

He takes her by the arm and she pulls the door closed behind her. The truck is suspiciously absent, replaced instead by a wicked looking Ducati. She wonders briefly where he got the money for that wet dream with wheels, and then remembers that she knows very little about him and that he could very well have a trust fund or a black mail victim out there somewhere supporting his little... quirks.

"A bike."

He blinks and grins. "Yeah. A bike." He slips his thick leg over the bike and pulls a spare helmet out of no where. She looks at the offering for a split second, then smiles and pulls it over her head. He puts his own on and revs the motor just as she slips on behind him, arms around his waist and fingers linked just above his abdomen. It's a tight fit, but not dangerously so, and she runs her fingertips gently over the cotton-coated stomach. His muscles clench and relax under her fingers, but she doesn't allow herself the pleasure of going lower. Crashing in a mini-dress and fuck me boots is not in her plans for the night.

"Hold on tight, Carter."

Oh, she thinks smugly, I intend to. I so intend to.

There's a wet spot on the black leather of his seat when they arrive. Sam has been silently directing him by pressing on either his left or his right side, and he turns accordingly until they arrive at a house that looks like someone has spent a lot of money making it look that way. He wonders idly how she can have friends like this, and then remembers that he knows nothing about what Samantha Carter is when she leaves the mountain and his arms. For all he knows, she could be a Hilton heiress.

Jack doesn't really care all that much right now. There's a wet spot on the black leather of his seat.

As in, right where Sam was sitting. Right where she was sitting. Right. Friggin. There.

She dripped onto his seat, and he finds the thought that she has marked something of his extremely attractive. His fingers reach out to drag the wet across the seat, tracing thick circles until it starts to go tacky on his fingers. In a brief moment of weakness, he licks the residue on his thumb and has a moment where his brain evaporates into nothingness.

Sam... god he wants her. The thought draws his attention back to the important things in life, and he turns to look for her. She has somehow managed to get herself half way up the walkway, with a man wrapping her up in his arms with the greeting cry of "Samantha! Darling!"

Jack hates people who call people "darling." He never knew it before, but now he can see it clearly.

Resisting the urge to yank her out of the stranger's arms and do her on the front lawn to ward off future suitors, Jack settles for coming up beside her and wrapping his arm around her waist, effectively pushing the other man out of her embrace. As he pulls back, Jack quickly memorizes his features and identifying marks He tells himself that no, it's not in case he has to pull a hasty hit contract out on the guy. Not at all. Jack has no need for contracts. He can kill this man tonight if need be, and Osama bin Laden will end up being blamed for it if he plays his cards right.

Sam doesn't push his arm off her waist. Sweet. "Samantha." She shifts uncomfortably and her hip cocks out to one side, brushing up against his thigh in a moment of brief intimacy. He has nothing to fear from this man, her body murmurs to him, and he relaxes slightly, but does not release her.

The man grins cheerfully at them both, displaying the signs of intoxication like a merit badge. His eyes shine like a dull penny. "Ooh, so this is the man that Charlie was talking about! Aren't you just Mr. Tall Dark and Dangerous?" Jack doesn't answer. "Silent too-- Sammie, you got yourself a keeper, don't you." He waggles his eyebrows conspiratorially.

"Hello Michael."

Michael greets them both once again with the enthusiasm of a drunk, and they side step him easily. The front door is open, but neither one of them make a move towards it yet. They're not quite in the right mindset for the noise and rush of a party.

Jack slips his fingers around her waist and squeezes. Hard. Sam pushes herself up against him accordingly, not wanting to break the mood by being intransigent or difficult. His fingerprints are heavy and rough through the thin cheap fabric of the dress. She smells like baby powder and vanilla and the secret spice that's all her.

His mouth takes inventory of her ear quickly and roughly, and she gasps even as she pushes herself closer. The heat is intoxicating. "Sam?"

Wait, does she have vocal chords? Is she, like, supposed to be able to answer back? "Huhhhhn..."

He grins. Incomprehensible already ? Damn, he is the man. "You can fuck as many men here tonight as your little heart desires." She's breathing thick and short. "I'll let you go and indulge yourself; just like you keep doing at that club." His hand comes down suddenly on her ass, and his fingers press into her through the fabric. Hot sticky wetness soaks through the fabric, turning cool as the night air hits her. "But keep in mind, love. No one will make you feel the way I do." He grit his teeth against the upcoming rage at the idea of someone else touching her, and felt the lump of emotion come up into his throat at the knowledge that he has no right to feel anything resembling possessiveness towards her; she is her own woman and he is his own man and never the two shall meet.

He bites down on her ear. "And before the night is out-"

"-we are going to have to ruin each other again," she finishes, baring her teeth viciously at him. Their eyes glint, sharp and fierce. "Looking forward to it, love."

"Go have your party," he says, and sends her off with an affectionate swat on the ass, trying desperately to hold onto this persona hes taken on for tonight.

The last time was different. The last time was easier.

He'd gone to the club, leaned up against a wall, and waited for someone to be drawn to his combination of dark indifference. It didn't take all that long-- people like people who don't give a damn about them on the outside and are "ragging, passionate men" on the inside (thank you Sara). He'd stood, waited, and let the eye candy test his waters.

And then he saw her.

Flirting. Flaunting. Taunting. Laying herself out on a table as a blond appetizer for anyone who happened to come along. Wearing that-that thing that did not even qualify as a skirt and arching her butt up into the air, just begging for someone to appear behind her, rip off that thong, and--

And right about there was where The Colonel vanished and Jack came in. Jack knew what to do with horny, beautiful, amazing women whom he just happened to be desperately in love with. Jack could make Samantha Carter beg and whine and give him those dark seductive eyes that melted through all his barriers. Jack was allowed to let Samantha Carter through his barriers, and Samantha Carter was allowed to let him through hers.

The next morning, holding her in his arms and watching her become Carter again in front of his eyes, Jack slowly vanished under his uniform and the Colonel came back. Sir. It'd been an automatic response, one done to protect them both from the pain of being faced with knowing their loss. And he is eternally thankful it happened. The name change had saved him. Had saved them.

Jack is going to have to come back out tonight if he is hoping to pull this off. He's relishing the idea way too much right now to go into the party.

Sam's hips swing seductively as she enters the smoky house, the wet spot on her dress drying fast as she moves. Those damn boots make a plastic noise that should sound cheap but just sounds... damn sexy.

Jack is here.

Watch out.

Someone is playing a remixed Smiths song. Sam is gyrating between two men who have only a peripheral interest in her. Jack is nursing his vodka tonic while a seductive looking blonde talks politics with him. His eyes haven't left Sam's body all night long. And she knows it.

"All I'm saying," the blonde begins, "is that the death penalty is a bad idea, and constitutionally, it's bad." She hiccups. "Really, really bad. Naughty, almost." He laughs. Jack hasn't enjoyed himself like this in well... 58 days.

Morrisey wails out a teenage angst moment. "...the heir of a shyness that is criminally vulgar..." Sam throws her head back triumphantly. Jack pauses in his thought process.

"Hm... See, I'm not for it because as a convicted murderer myself," he explains to the dazed and starry eyed woman in front of him. "If they find out that I wasn't criminally insane during those killings, my ass is fried." She laughs with him, and Sam bares her teeth in a silent tease. He teases right back.

The woman's eyes are all seeing. "You and Sam... you got a thing?"

He blinks. A thing? That sounds... strangely on the nose. "Yeah. I don't know. We got... something." He sighs. "it's a thing, but it's, you know, not. We're still not quite sure what's going on."

"Ah." She nods slowly. "I've never really met her, but the reputation precedes. Never knew you could do that kind of stuff with a beer bottle and a lighter." Jack blinks, slowly, trying to figure out what Samantha Carter could do with a lighter and beer bottle that isn't out of a porno, and fails. The lady is still talking. "Nice woman?"

"Very... nice. Smart woman. Blinds me with bullshit every time she can, but she's the smartest woman I've ever met." He kisses the blonde affectionately on the forehead. "Besides you of course, lover." She laughs and flutters her eyelashes. Sam's eyes narrow on the dance floor. "And I am currently using you to make her very jealous."

"I noticed. don't worry about it. She looks pretty forgiving. Or at least, I think you can convince her." She winks conspiratorially, but moves away anyhow. "I'm going to get a drink. You might want to go get her-- the song's about to end and Ed over there is looking like he might want to make use of the empty room upstairs. You know, the second one on the right."

Sam escapes from between her two companions just as he stands up. They meet halfway, each suspicious of the other. She can smell the woman's perfume, he can see the mens' grubby sweat marks on her back. They look like betrayal, but they know of their fidelity.

The stairs are the next step. They stumble up them and almost fall three times because while they're both looking forward to reaching that room (the second one on the right) hey, they both have hands and they both have bodies and both are working right freakin now.

Hallway. Confused bystanders. Door. Room. Bed.

His fingers are inside her before they make contact with the bed, and both of them falling backwards jars him just right. Sam's breath has started coming out rough and uneven. Her hands clutch his shoulders angrily, scratching and pulling and searching for weakness.

Jack's fingers, the ones not shoved inside her body and making her gasp and thrash, scrape short trimmed nails against the inside of her thighs. Sam plants her feet flat against the bedspread, vows to make this night last, and pushes him off her body, his fingers out of her cunt.

Jack's head comes up, eyes angry, jaw clenching and unclenching. Sam straddles his chest, freshly shaved smooth legs on either side of him and tucked around his arms. He could throw her off in a second. But this has just gotten a little bit more interesting.

How far would she take this, he wonders. Would Sam actually think to try and challenge his authority over her body? The last time he was the dominant one, though she played him like a cheap music box in order to get and keep him that way. Would she try and change her mind now?

He knows enough about Sam to realize that she does not like being told what to do in every day life. He knows enough about "their" every day life to understand that it has no place in the bedroom right now, beyond the obvious physical limitations it brings.

Sam once told him that she has a thing for the lunatic fringe.

The music blares through the floor, and it occurs to one of them (are they even separate entities anymore, the same person asks) that someone has hit replay and that, hey, they own this cd.

"I am human and I need to be loved-"

"What do you think youre doing, Samantha?"

"-just like everybody else does.."

Her back arches, recognizing the tone as a variation on the 'You are my subordinate, I am the Colonel, therefore I am in charge and you will do what the Hell I say' tone she hears rarely, even when shes in BDUs. He trusts her and she understands him; his commander voice never touches her. It's touching her now.

"I'm changing the balance of power, love." The boots are thrown over in the corner before she pulls her dress over her head and runs the clump of fabric through her fingers. "How would you feel about being tied to the headboard?"

Jack's eyes narrow. "How would you feel about me throwing you off the bed and leaving you to walk home?"

Grin. Her's. Sam leans over him and bites down on his tensely coiled neck, catching something vital looking between sharp teeth and tracing the skin with thorough strokes of her tongue. "So thats a maybe?"

And that's about as rebellious as she gets before his hands wrap around her ankles and pull. Sam's hands fall out and she thumps, flailing, to lie back on his legs and stomach, her thighs parted.

Sam feels his fingers part her, his eyes trace her, and then his mouth is just there for the second time in her life and analyzing the situation goes out the window.

He is sex and sin and heat wrapped up in one package, and it burns as it soothes. Shes been revved up all night long every night for the last 58 nights, actually, and this is exactly what she needed. Him. Here. With her.

He was right, not that it matters. She did go back to that club and she did try and find a temp. How hard could it be, she had wondered, to find someone else who can make her come like that. It was all a matter of pressure and textures; push here now, rub this that way, et cetera. Sam is a scientist. She didn't want to believe him when he said that the pressure at pivotal moments would no longer be enough.

But he was right. He had ruined her. She had searched out any number of men who all bore more than a passing resemblance to him; all with stubble on their cheeks, gray in their hair, and a dark look on their faces. She had recreated the scene as best she could: parking lot, car, house. Her hips swiveled, her throat was marked up accordingly, and she would leave in the morning disappointed and wondering if he would agree to do it with her in the locker room after lunch.

Damn Jack ONeill, she thinks. Damn him straight to Hell. The one time he's not joking, lying, or being sarcastic, and it just has to be about her ability to orgasm.

His teeth have found her clit at the same moment his thumb has found her asshole.

...No more thinking...

"You shut your mouth, how can you say I go about things the wrong way?"

"Missed you," he whispers against her, and she whines, grinding herself against his chin. Less talking. More tongue.

She tries to shift, tries to direct him with words and pants and fingers and nothing is freaking working. His thumb twists violently against her, and she sighs and moans at once. Why can't he just move? Why can't he just... move?

"Love the way you come," he grumbles, "but don't rush me."

"Jack..." Ooh, the teeth. She likes the teeth. They dig into all those places that should hurt but don't when it's him doing it. Her skin is ignited when he does things like this to her. Maybe she can somehow work this into his job description, her fuzzy brain suggests helpfully. Save the world from the Goa'uld. Make allies and get new technology. Eat out Samantha Carter until all she can think about is reaching the pinnacle and screwing the next thing she sees with a dick.

Which will, of course, be him.

Nice how that works out.

"There's a club if youd like to go..."

Wow, they think in the altered mind state that accompanied sweat and lust and love, we have a song.

"I've wanted to do this to you again for so long. Wanted to do it that time in the Infirmary." Tongue, tongue, tongue... Not as good as teeth, but pretty damn nice anyway. She grinds herself closer to him, wishing he had more hands.

"Jack, come on, come on..." Her voice degenerates into a low keening moan, and he grins. Wickedly.

So she's missed him as much as he's missed her, he thinks snidely and with more than a small feeling of self-satisfaction. He wonders if she's woken up in the middle of the night reaching for him as he's reached for her, hands clamped around the memory of her waist, hips seeking the bare contact of hers, skin on needles. Needing her.

This may be the last time they do this for god knows how long. He's going to make it good. By God, he thinks more than a little desperately, if she hadn't been wanting him before, he's going to make damn sure she wakes up reaching for every little bit of him from this night on.

"Convince me you want it, Sammie, and well talk." Lick. Suck. Bite. "Come on, let's hear that brilliant argument for why I should let you come. I'm sure you have one." Lick. Bite. Draaaag. Stubble and teeth and tongue are conspiring against her and rubbing in all the right places just short of the right times.

"Jack," gasp. "Jack." Gasp. "Oh shit, Jack. Come on, please, please, pleeeeeeeeeease..."

She can feel the little death coming for her, the pressure building and the blood rushing in places that it hasn't rushed in for months, and her skin feels tight, her ass is heavy and thick and needs to be grabbed and dear god why can't he just make her...

But right when the tingling turns from sensation to all consuming touch, Jack decides to stop.

"Nononononono... Jack, no, no, Jack, don't..." But he closes his mouth quite firmly, blinks with lazy, sleep related intent, and smiles. Freakin' smiles.

Sam does not think she has ever been this angry in her whole life. Not when Mark and her father forgot her seventeenth birthday, not when she failed her driving test for the third time (god damned parallel parking; made her the only 18 year old who couldnt drive her own ass to the movies), not even when Jonas has called her a frigid bitch and asked if she was "turning dike" on him. Nope, she thinks, this takes the cake.

Jack is supposed to be better than all those assholes, after all.

She gets just as far as the corner (have to find her shoes before she can walk out on him after all) before he grabs her around the waist and propels her back to the bed.

"And just where do you think youre going?" That voice. The one that spoke (mocked, ignited, fucked) her last time; the one she recognizes as purely... Jack.

She slowly gets to her feet, finding the fact that she's four inches shorter than him suddenly very offensive. He looks like he could make her do whatever he wants under threat of bodily harm.

...not just bodily, intones the wanton little voice that made her go without underwear tonight.

His arms cross over his chest and his face hardens quickly. "You were just going somewhere, weren't you, Samantha?"

"I was leaving, Jack." No, no, no, she kicks herself. The forbidden word. You had a chance of getting out of her unruined until you said that word. She watches his nose flare and wonders what hes trying to smell on her: is she stinking of fear or arousal? Or did his name just claim her scent along with everything else he has of her?

"And you think I'm just going to allow that to happen?" Grin. His, not hers, and not really all that pleasant. "Sammie, you've got more brains than that..." One foot in front of the other, slowly but surely, and he's invaded her personal space. One more step, and he's gotten so close she can feel his skin radiating warmth.

It occurs to her that he's done this to her before in a non-sexual way. Maybe this is why he keeps having her explain the "wormhole" thing to him with whatever food stuffs are handy.

"You're here because, well," that irritating grin is back, "I ruined you." His left hand comes up to gently skim her cheek bone. The right gently runs down her naked stomach from sternum to soaking wet cunt. His fingers part her, gentle and firm, and now she can smell herself in the air.

"Youre not that good," she whispers back, even as she arches her back to try and force him to touch her. He chuckles roughly against her, his skin sandpaper on hers.

"Oh, Sammie, yeah. Yeah I am."

There's a thick smell in the air. She wonders if this was around last time and she just didn't notice it.

Time to stop thinking.

"I am going to fuck you," he pronounces, calmly and sweetly, but with a very matter of fact tone in his voice. He could be telling her to stop playing with the alien doohickey for all the emotion his voice reveals. His teeth have found that place on her throat and collarbone that he loved last time and seems to have lost none of his affinity for now. She can feel her skin liquefy. "And you're going to love it."

She catches herself nodding like the young girl she hasn't been since she was fourteen and compliant, and whimpers. Damn it.

She has the sudden urge to go against him. To fight the predetermined ideas of how this will play out. Rebellion runs in her family, after all: take a look at Mark. He disappeared for a good three weeks when he turned seventeen.

His cock is pressing against her stomach, the belt buckle rough against her skin.

Ooh, buzzes a little voice that she knows Cassie would be able to recognize, What does this button do?

Shes on her knees.

"Sam," his voice is repentant; soft.

Belt undone. Zipper down.

He has a peripheral awareness that some women really dislike doing this. While his porn star fantasies always imagined Sam being able to deep throat him, lick him like a lollipop, and somehow manage to get herself off on it at the same time, he realizes through the wet cotton sheet wrapped around his head that this is reality. And she has her own limitations.

Her hand is on him, cool and soft. He flinches from the chill hiding in her palm, but she soothes it away by huddling closer to him and licking her lips.

Uhhh...

"You don't have touhh..."

Her perfect little pink tongue comes out, hovering a bare millimeter over the head of his cock. He watches it twitch and glisten in the light from outside, and gulps. Her eyes trail up to meet his, she grins, and her tongue lifts the drop of precum up and off his cock. His eyes roll back in his head. She swallows softly.

"Dear God in Heaven..."

"Nope," she grins, "just me." Her mouth is warm and tight and everything he ever dreamed it would be. Her tongue swirls and swishes in alternating patterns. And she swallows him whole.

When he asks himself about it later, he can't remember any of what follows; just flashes of images.

Sam with her tongue tracing the thick blue vein up the side of his cock.

His contrasting dark fingers tangled in her hair, twisting and searching for an anchor to reality.

Her lips stretched tightly around him, eyes flashing lustful and warm up at him as his hips tried to take on a mind of their own and bash her nose against his lower abs.

Sam. Looking at him.

He finds her in his arms sometime later, his pants suspiciously missing. She's got her hands up his shirt, pulling at it and his flesh in the process. He gathers enough control to rip it up over his head and throw it far, far away as he starts to back her up towards what his instincts scream is the nearest flat surface... which just happens to be the sharp corner of a desk.

Sam cries out and grabs at her back, and he pulls back for a moment, biting the inside of his cheek against the guilt. "Hurt?"

"Uhmm..." Sam whimpers unhappily, trying to reach around to grasp at the injury. He gently turns her around so he can see her wounds, and sighs at the absence of a bruise or blood. It will definitely be purple and blue later, but until then she'll be fine.

Sam peers down at him over her shoulder, wishing she looked cuter when she tried to turn her neck around like this. "It takes you this long to get me to something solid, and when you do it's a desk corner? Nice, Jack."

He grins inwardly at her willingness to play; if Sam's cheerful, she's not out of the mood he's been so carefully organizing all night long. "Ah, but it did get you in exactly the position I've wanted you in, didn't it?" He puts a hand on the small of her back and applies enough pressure to get her to lay her torso flat on the classic (ugly as all hell) oak and brass monstrosity. She looks back at him and grins. "See?"

"You are going to fuck me on a desk? Not very original, lover." She shifts uncomfortably. "Or soft."

He sighs. "I've told you my position on putting you in my bed, Samantha. It's not an in and out type of thing. Or even a once every 58 days thing."

"59," she corrects automatically. He glances over at the clock on the nightstand.

"59," he agrees. "But I still can't... That is, I won't..."

Sam nods and chews her lip for a second. "But Jack... it's not your bed."

He looks over at the queen sized quilt covered platform bed, and back down at the desk. Bed. Desk.

The chance to get Samantha Carter in a bed, wrapped around him, snuggled up under blankets with him for the entire night.

Priorities have to win out in the end, he reasons, and he helps her back to a standing posture. "On the bed."

She nods and they walk over to the large expanse of cotton and stitching. She looks up at him and traces the grinding of his teeth with her eyes. Her brain starts thinking about all the various ways that this is wrong, that this is bad, that this will lead to nothing good, and she closes her eyes quickly.

"Jack..." He can hear the hesitation, the fear in her voice, and he soothes it by wrapping both of his arms around her from behind, cupping her breasts, and biting on her ear with more roughness than he had intended upon.

"Samantha," he says with a dark grin in his voice, "no one ever mentioned anything about you having a say in this."

The tension ebbs away from her in one huge sigh, and she smiles happily. "Thank you."

She crawls up onto the covers and he follows immediately behind her. Legs and arms trip her up and flip her over onto her back. His fingers clench and unclench around her waist, sandpaper on cream. "Just... let me remember this for a second."

She grips the quilt between her fists in frustration. "You'll have plenty of time to wallow in this image later. Just-"

Ahhhhhhh....

There are three times in his life that Jack has felt completely and utterly beyond himself. One was when Sara said yes. The next was when Charlie wrapped his tiny little hand around one of his fingers and gripped. This is the third.

This is where he belongs.

He pulls his face back, and Jack disappears into blue. Her face is relexed. His jaw is slack in awe. There is sweat... everywhere. They are everywhere.

...breathe, they remind each other... breathe...

"I missed you," she whispers, and the dirty sex goddess is suddenly reformed.

"I love you," he whispers, and his leather and lust persona is gone.

He starts to move first. His feet plant themselves onto the footboard of the bed for leverage, his hands dig into the bed on either side of her chest, and there's nothing in the world except the woman beneath him.

Shift.

She's panting; she never got her first release, and the fact that hes taking his sweet time getting towards the second is close to physically, sexually painful. Her skin is tingling in all the places that only he seems to be able to excite.

His jaw works itself clockwise tighter and tighter every second he's inside her. Her fingers come up to grab his back muscles, trying to pull him even closer into fusion with her body.

His mouth is moving again, without his control, and the words that spill out are so far beyond him that he can't even think to process them.

"Missed you, love you, want you so much." Thrust. "God you feel so good, feels so hot and wet and Jesus wrap your legs around me..." He's so beyond understanding himself that when she complies, he wonders if she's started reading his mind along with his body language. "I've wanted you, wanted this, for so long..."

"I know," she gaps, "I know, I know. Oh, Christ, Jack, please. Pleeeeeeeaseee... I'm so..." Her head thrashes in search for the impossible to touch adjective, panting and begging and hoping beyond hope that hell manage to sprout another hand and make her come just that much faster. "Touch me, fuck me, something..."

"I am baby, I am, I am, I am..." And beyond that, things get even more incomprehensible and no longer worth being said.

The bass of a song is beating up at them through the box spring.

His left hand reaches down to touch her in the right spot, because goddamnit he is not going to be able to last beyond the next five minutes, and he wants to make it a good five minutes for everyone involved. Her head goes back to the sweaty pillow and her eyes squeeze close as she fights for release. She wants to keep her eyes on him, to make him as hot as she feels whenever he stares at her like shes made of fire and sugar thread, but it's just too much, too hot, too all encompassing...

His fingernails pinch her clit together angrily, and she forgets everything but the heat and the pounding, and oh dear sweet God...

He feels her grip him, pull at him, suck him into her body hard and wet, and things go fuzzy, and he's go...

Wow.

The moon comes through the slitted blinds to wrap around the both of them. He picks his head off her shoulder, she untwists her aching legs from his back, and they look at each other.

Just... look.

He rolls over. Sam slides out from underneath him. They yank the blankets down quickly and smoothly, and slip in under clean cool cotton and a quilt that smells of sex. There's a wide enough bed for them both to have ample room. They don't want it.

Five minutes have gone by, and they are asleep, curled around each other, naked and hot and relaxed for the first time in months.

No one comes to check on them.

When she wakes up, he's calm and quiet and watching her with wide dark eyes. It's not the Colonel, and it's not her dark leather coated, masterful lover. It's... just him. It's just Jack.

"Love," she whispers to him, staring up into that face that she knows oh so very well and not at all at the same time.

"Light," he responds, and pauses to reflect on it. It suits her and him. It's not one of the normal, cliched names that he thought hed never be able to rise above, but it's not a cheesy 'Honeybear' name that would make everything manly about him rebel. It's a balance.

"I've..." she whispers softly. "I've missed you so much. I was beginning to wonder if I'd ever see you again."

He smiles, and it softens his eyes. "I know. I've missed you too. It was so hard not to..." He swallows, shudders, and moves on. "I've been looking for you for so long."

"I know. I would see you looking at me in meetings. Late at night off-world. I..." She smiles suddenly. "It made me miss you even more... Though I was a little glad to see you still... looking."

Grin. From both of them. "Oh yeah?"

"Yeah."

"We can't do this anymore, you know."

Her smile fades quickly and suddenly. He feels like his chest has just been split open and sucked dry. She licks her lips, sighs, and nods. "I know."

"We're going to get ourselves and everyone else killed if we don't find a way to keep this under control."

"I know." Well, she thinks, wasn't this what she wanted? Him to face up to facts and help her solve their little (huge) dilemma? She got what she wanted. Why isn't she happy?

"We need to keep this under wraps."

"I... I know." She thinks she's going to cry. Isn't there someway to make her leave here as happy as she was three minutes ago?

"We need to find some times and places to do this without it getting out of control. And we need to come to some arrangements. A few long talks."

Wait... What just happened? Sam blinks, looks up at him, and feels her eyes start to tear up angrily. He's smiling. Softly, with his eyes focused on her and his hands warm on her back. He looks like someone's just offered him something he's always quietly wanted. Like she's the ultimate Christmas gift.

"I'm not done with you yet, Light. Or... whatever this thing with us is. I... meant what I said."

Missed you, love you, want you so much.

She can feel her eyes tearing up and her back clenching and unclenching. Her whole body is shaking, not from cold, and every part of her that's touching a part of something else is on pins and needles. She feels like she was just thrown into something big and electrified.

Well, she thinks dryly, got the big part down.

"I want this to work." He looks away uncomfortably. "I... just thought you should know that." He can't think of anything else to say; her silence has unnerved him to the extreme.

Why isn't she answering? If only to turn him down and tell him that all she was looking for was a quick hard fuck against a rough surface; he needs to hear her voice right now, and the fact that it's not forthcoming is starting to frighten all those parts of him which remember the feelings of abandonment that came when Sara left and Charlie died.

God. He is never going to be able to live through this twice. The gut wrenching realization clenches him tightly and firmly, and he feels the message electrify itself down his legs and across his skin. Making up pet names, watching her sleep, holding her all night long; these are the actions of a man that he was never meant to be. Never able to be.

He has to get out of here.

Her strong clean hand plasters itself to the side of his cheek and grabs his panicking mind in short nailed fingers. He can feel her working him over with the slightest changes in pressure between her fingertips. It feels suspiciously like something a lover would do, and he closes his eyes against the tactic.

A vague memory from his childhood: "If I don't see it, it can't hurt me, if I don't see it, it can't hurt me..."

Sam doesn't seem to want to adhere to the same rules of physics that bound the thing in his closet. "Jack."

"Hm."

"Jack, look at me."

His eyes remain tightly cemented closed.

"Jack!" And the same clean hand that had cupped his cheek so lovingly a moment before tangles in his hair, grips near the scalp, and pulls.

His eyes shoot open with a yowl of pain, and he blinks away the tears of reaction. She raises an eyebrow.

"You pulled my hair," he says, stunned.

"Are you through being all pouty and silent?" She answers back.

"You left me hanging."

"For all of five seconds before you vanished off into Jack World." The happiest place on Earth, intones a little voice in his head. "Jack, I love you."

...Oh.

Well, he thinks, fuzzy and uncomprehending. That certainly explains a few things.

"You love me?"

Sam's face screws up angrily. "Look, if you could stop sounding so incredulous, that would be great."

"Sorry. But... You love me?" He likes the sound of that. Sam Loves Jack. Has a very nice ring to it, actually. Like Bread and Butter, or Cookies and Milk. Sam Loves Jack. He thinks those three words should always go together for the rest of his existence on this planet.

She sighs. Heavily. "Jack."

"You love me."

"Yeah."

"Oh."

Her brow raises mockingly. "Oh?"

"Well, I've just... I never actually thought that you could feel like that for, well, me. I mean, I'm old." He blinks. "Really, reall old."

"You're going to be forty-seven next month."

Blink. "How did you know that?"

"I hacked your personel file. Daniel and I were drunk and disrespectful to authority." She's starting to look pretty impatient with him. "This is the part where you're supposed to hug me or kiss me or do something to stop this conver-"

His hips jerk up against hers, his morning erection pressed hard against her stomach, and her voice drops off.

"How's that?" he asks in a tone that has dropped several octaves in preparation of whispering dirty things into her ears as he fucks her from behind.

"That works," she concedes.

He nibbles on her neck for a few moments, and smiles into her skin. "Wanna see how many times I can make you say God before we're kicked out of here?" Her eyes go dark and meaningful, and he breathes in the smell of her being serious.

"Love," she whispers.

"Light," he responds, and all feels right within their bedroom of a world. Outside the window covered in eggshell blinds, the sun is just starting to come above the tree line. No one thinks to look for them, to check if they have given into each other once more, if anyone truly knows about the first time. Here there is only Sam and Jack.

And the occasional hair pull.

FIN