The Darker Side of Paradise - Part Three

The Barachi had been very interested in SG-1’s clothing. So interested that fights had broken out when Jack offered his jacket to one of the greeting party so he could try it on. At first, he hadn’t been all that pleased with losing it, the wind-chill factor had made things a little chilly.

It appeased him a little that the rest of his team ended up having to hand over their jackets to others so that none of the Barachi greeting party felt like they were missing out.

It appeased him even more once they discovered that the Barachi had some very interesting technology.

“Somehow,” Carter explained to Hammond in the briefing afterwards, “They’ve managed to develop technology which can convert the fusion of their planetary core to a useable form of energy.”

“Did you get a look at this technology?” Hammond asked, decidedly interested.

Carter glanced over at Jonas, then at Jack before she turned back to Hammond. “Only a brief look, sir.”

“The Barachi have the idea that a person can only know about one area of expertise,” Jonas offered. “Their scientists study in a single discipline and don’t ever learn anything beyond precisely what they need to know.”

“Sounds restrictive,” the General commented.

“General, you have no idea,” Jack said, tapping his fingers on the table. “Teal’c and I were obviously not scientists, and Jonas had already established himself as a cultural expert. Which left Carter.” He grimaced. “Except that she had been explaining about the Stargate to one of the greeting party and they assumed that she was...” he turned to Carter. “What was it they said?”

“‘Knowledgeable about the stars and the way the universe works,’“ she said with a faint grimace. Their reluctance to reveal anything about their technology had infuriated her - the kind of frustration people experienced when they could see what they wanted right before their eyes but had no way to get at it. “Sir, they’ll probably talk to some of our geothermal scientists about the technology, but apart from a quick tour through the plant...”

“...a tour that didn’t include any of the important rooms,” Jonas added.

“...they didn’t show or explain anything.”

Hammond considered their words. “Surely they answered your questions, though?”

Teal’c answered that question, “The Barachi answered with the same response each time Major Carter or Jonas Quinn requested information regarding the facility.”

“Which was?”

“‘This knowledge is restricted to those whose understanding is of this field.’“ Carter and Jonas chorused in disgusted voices. “

I see.” Hammond looked resigned. “Colonel O’Neill, can you see any further problems in our interaction with the Barachi?”

Jack glanced around his team, considering the experiences they’d been through in the last couple of days. “Well, sir, apart from a serious clothes fetish and general close-mindedness about our ability to absorb knowledge not in ‘a field of our understanding’, they seemed fairly friendly and open to trade. I’d recommend sending someone who knows about fibres and clothing and stuff like that. Oh, and take a gift of jackets.”

“Jackets?”

“Many jackets,” Teal’c said, not without visible amusement. “As you saw when we returned from the mission, sir, there’s nothing we won’t do in the service of the SGC. Even giving the clothes off our back,” Jack quipped, and was pleased when General Hammond gave him what was supposed to be a quelling look. He saw the amusement in his superior’s expression, even if the General was trying to appear unmoved by Jack’s humour.

“Very well, SG-1, you’ve done an excellent job. I’ll arrange for a follow-up contact team to visit the Barachi in the next couple of weeks and we’ll take it from there. This...geothermal technology sounds promising.”

“General, you have no idea,” Jack said. Then honesty compelled him to add, “Of course, neither do I, but Carter got pretty excited and when that happens...you know that it’s gotta be big.” He’d been about to say, When that happens you can’t help but get excited, too... Then he’d thought over his statement and decided to change it to something a little less...loaded. Although, thinking over his subsequent statement, he wasn’t sure that he’d succeeded after all.

Carter had her ‘I’d like to laugh but the General is sitting right there’ look on her face as she said, “Sir, If we can develop their geothermal technology for Earth’s core, then this could be an unbelievable clean energy source for the planet.”

“Thank you, Major. Colonel, SG-1.” Hammond glanced behind his chair, “Airman, would you please show our guest in?”

Jack looked on in confusion when the General didn’t immediately dismiss them. He had a date with a hockey game and a couple of aliens - and possibly Carter if he could persuade her to come over and watch it with them. In the week since their ‘talk’, he’d been careful not to push her boundaries. If anything she’d maintained a distance between them, polite and friendly with the occasional closer moment of amusement.

He could let the distance stay, or he could do something which showed that he was still more or less willing to cross the lines that separated them if she was willing as well. At the very least open a door and give her the option to step through or stay where she was.

And with the guys around there would be chaperones, so she wouldn’t have to worry about how it was going to be seen.

He was almost looking forward to it.

Once they got out of this briefing, of course. “Sir?”

The General turned back to the table. “As you know, the Joint Chiefs have decided that it is time for the SGC and the NID to work together. To this end, they have assigned a liaison between the two organisations to encourage co-operation in the passing of information.” Vaguely, Jack recalled the conversation at the barbecue.

“So, the guy’s arrived, then?” Jack asked, even as footsteps became audible up the stairs behind Hammond’s office.

His commanding officer didn’t bother to answer, instead choosing to wait until the NID liaison reached the top of the stairs with his SF attendants close on his heels.

“General Hammond.” The voice was smoothly tenor, polite and wary. It was the kind of voice that had practise in evasion. A diplomat’s voice – like Davis, singing the middle line and working to placate both sides.

Wonderful. It wasn’t that Jack had any particular dislike for Major Davis, just that he automatically distrusted anyone whose continuing business was politics. That distrust could be overcome – as in Jonas’ case – albeit slowly, but it was a starting point.

Still, he had to look upon the face of the latest SGC liaison sooner or later. Jack swivelled in his chair as Hammond began speaking.

“Agent Barrett, welcome to the SGC.”

“Thank you, General.”

“I trust that Airman Steins gave you the basic tour of the facilities?”

“Yes, sir. It was quite educational,” the stranger responded. He glanced briefly over SG-1, nodding his head at Carter. Jack raised his brows as he looked towards Carter, asking a silent question. She returned his gaze neutrally before turning back to regard Agent Barrett.

Teal’c showed no change of expression, which probably meant he was reserving judgement about yet another NID employee come to rock the SGC’s boat. Jonas gave a brief nod, but showed no specific animosity - his interaction with the NID had been minimal so far, so he had nothing other than the reports filed by SG-1 and other members of the SGC upon which to base his opinions.

Yup, SG-1 were warm, fuzzy, and all ready to take on the NID yet again.

“SG-1, this is Agent Malcolm Barrett of the NID. Agent, Colonel Jack O’Neill, Major Sam Carter, Teal’c, and Jonas Quinn. He comes well-recommended, and has already interacted with some of you before.”

Jack’s eyebrows went up. He didn’t remember this man from any of the SG-1 missions - although, in the last six years of work at the SGC, he’d met and spoken to more people in the sixteen years before that. The sheer volume of people he’d met meant that remembering who was who could occasionally become a Herculanean effort.

Then again, Hammond had said ‘some of you’, so maybe he wasn’t talking about Jack.

Come to think of it, the guy was kinda familiar...

Memory dawned, “You were the guy who was trying to get hold of Martin Lloyd’s spaceship when he was working on that awful show...”

“Wormhole X-Treme, Colonel,” Agent Barrett supplied, a faint smile on his face. “Yes. That was my assigned task at the time.” He glanced at Carter. “I also worked with Major Carter during the attempted-assassination of Senator Kinsey.”

Carter’s mouth quirked, turning up at the corners. “Agent Barrett.”

“Major.” Barrett returned the same kind of smile to her, “It’s good to see you again.”

She didn’t respond with any platitudes, for which Jack was grateful. Bad enough to have to deal with another smooth and oily political player from the NID, worse to have him trying to get cosy with one of Jack’s team-mates.

Especially Carter.

“So, how’d you draw the short straw, Agent Barrett?”

It was one way to start a conversation – or kill it.

However, Barrett didn’t seem to take any offence at his comment. Instead, his face returned to its customary neutrality. “As a matter of fact, Colonel, this role was one of the more popular options among those awaiting reassignment from project to project.”

“They just can’t get enough of us.” He got a brief glare from Hammond for his sardonic comment.

“So how did you get the job?” Jonas asked, curious.

“Mostly because of my previous experience with the SGC. Specifically with Colonel O’Neill and Major Carter at various times in the last few years.” Barrett looked amused. “I suspect they figured I’d survived previous interactions with members of SG-1, therefore, I had enough skill to keep myself out of the situations in which previous NID personnel found themselves when dealing with the SGC.”

The man had the slightly deprecating attitude down pat, anyway. Not arrogant and demanding like Kennedy, nor oily and smug like Maybourne, and certainly not the disdained condescension of Simmons. Instead, this liaison appeared amused, calm and apparently quite confident of his ability to handle the situation.

Heh. We’ll see about that.

“General, we’ve had some very bad experiences with the NID.” Understatement of the millennium, but there you had it. “Most of them had very little to do with a lack of communication, and a lot to do with a lack of respect for what was our business and not theirs. Interference and so forth.”

From Kennedy to Simmons, the NID had been steadfastly trying to keep one finger in the SGC’s pie - hell, they’d had their whole hand in there at one stage with the second Stargate. Jack was a realist, especially when it came to politics and the military. “With all due respect to Agent Barrett, I don’t see appointing an NID liaison as doing anything to help the situation.”

Hammond glanced at Barrett, evidently deciding to leave such an explanation up to the NID Agent.

“Colonel, the point of my role is certainly not to interfere with the running of the SGC in any way. This role is not about influencing the politics between our organisations...”

“It was a political appointment...” “It was an appointment made with the intent of eliminating the politics that have set back both our organisations,” Barrett corrected Jack. “It was the hope of the Joint Chiefs that we might be able to formalise our interactions so that situations which have turned out less than pleasantly in the past might be avoided in future.” The dry note in Barrett’s voice made it clear that he knew every detail of the previous dozen interactions between the SGC – and how the NID had ended up with the short end of the stick in all of them.

“The appointment has been made, Colonel,” Hammond interrupted Jack before he could say anything more. There was a clear warning in his voice as he said, “I am counting on SG-1 to assist Agent Barrett’s smooth transition into the workings of the SGC.”

Could you get any more pointed, sir?

Then and there, Jack decided that he would be helpful. Just. Whatever nice spin the Joint Chiefs put on the situation, he wasn’t about to throw the doors of the SGC open for the NID to waltz in and play ‘happy families’.

Jack rarely forgot, and he rarely forgave.

There was a lot to forget about the NID – mostly how big a set of assholes they were – and just as much to forgive. And, as Frank Cromwell knew, Jack could take a long time to forgive someone.

“Is Agent Barrett going to be stationed here?” Carter sounded surprised, and Jack couldn’t tell if she was pleased-surprised or surprised-surprised from the quick glance he shot her.

“General Hammond has granted me permission to remain on the base for the next couple of days, to attend meetings with the General and the team leaders of outgoing Stargate teams to discuss ways in which our organisations can work together amicably.” Barrett nodded at Sam, “At some stage, I’ll probably wish to speak with the SGC’s scientific division, Major, since a large proportion of the difficulty between our organisations has been related to technology.”

“Try ‘all’,” Jack muttered.

“Colonel.”

“You’d have to talk with the science and technology department spokesperson, Major Anthea Fredricks,” Carter said simply, as if Jack had never made his comment. “She’s the one overseeing the technology side of things. She’s also the one who liaises with the Area 52 scientists.” There was no challenge in her voice as she made that statement, merely innocuous fact.

Jack nearly smirked, but decided against it as Hammond gave him another look.

“Agent, I’d like to see you in my office to discuss those meetings. SG-1, I see no further reason to keep you.” Hammond nodded at them as he placed his hands flat on the table and looked around. “Dismissed.”

They climbed out of their chairs, and Jack deliberately slowed to wait for Carter to catch up with him out in the corridor beyond the control room.

“Sir?” She glanced up from the notes she’d taken from the briefing and smiled faintly.

“What do you think of this whole finger-in-the-pie NID situation, Carter?” Innocuous question, easy to answer, openings available.

It was a few more steps before she answered, “Well, it could be the kind of thing we need, sir. More co-operation with other government bodies.”

“Or it could royally screw us up if they try to take control of our operations.” Jack was trying to be positive. It wasn’t working.

“That, too, sir.” Carter glanced at him. “Sir, we’ve had bad experiences with the NID for the most part – wouldn’t now be a good time to try to work together?”

They reached the elevator where Teal’c and Jonas were still waiting. Jack nodded at Teal’c and kept talking. “As long as it’s just working together, and not ‘jump when we tell you to’, Carter.” He didn’t need to mention any more about the NID and their issues of control of the Stargate. They’d tried to pull that trick on the SGC too many times.

“I didn’t find Agent Barrett too difficult to work with, sir.”

The elevator arrived and the doors pulled back to let out a few airmen. “Maybe he was being nice,” Jonas offered.

Jack snorted. “NID being nice means they want something out of us.”

“And this time it looks like it’s co-operation,” Carter said.

“Which will depend on whether they let us run our base as we see fit, not as they see fit.” The others looked at him with their various degrees of exasperation and he defended his position and attitude. “What? In the past, when they came to us saying they wanted our ‘co-operation’, they really meant they wanted us to comply with all their demands. That isn’t co-operation. That’s just co-opting our base for their own uses.”

Jonas was regarding him intently, “You don’t trust the NID, do you, Colonel?”

“Not one quarter as far as I can throw them, Jonas.” The doors opened for the lab levels and Carter started walking out. Jack followed her, earning him an arched brow from Teal’c and a double blink from Jonas. “My place. Nineteen-hundred hours!”

She seemed to be walking rather slowly down the corridor, but once he caught up with her she started walking at a regular pace. “Guys’ night at your place, sir?”

“Team night, Carter. You’re invited, too.”

The sideways glance she gave him was filled with amusement, “When were you going to tell me I was invited?”

He spread his hands wide as he leaned against the wall beside her lab. “I’m telling you now.”

Her fingers dipped nimbly into her pocket to retrieve her pass card and she swiped it through the reader. “Thank you for the invite, sir. But I was going to have a quiet night at home.”

Jack was not about to be refused. “You can have a quiet night home any day of the week, Carter,” he cajoled as the door opened and he followed her in. “You can spend one night of the week out...”

She seemed to be thinking it over, which was definitely a plus. The only question was whether she’d accept or decline. Her lips were pursed as she moved about the lab, unlocking her computer and fiddling with the papers on her desk.

To all intents and purposes, it appeared that she’d forgotten about his presence. Jack knew better. She was thinking it over and would answer him in her own time – or would ask him to go away.

At last, she stopped moving stuff around. “Teal’c and Jonas are going, too?”

“Yes.” He’d asked them, knowing it was the only way he’d get to spend time with Carter off-base. Not that he was intending to ignore the other two guys, just that he knew she’d never come along if it was just the two of them. And he wasn’t willing to push it – not yet.

She glanced up, actually meeting his gaze. “Okay.” She wasn’t quite smiling – not quite, but it looked like a smile might be forthcoming.

“Great. Bring your own beer,” he told her, “Jonas has a little more taste in beer than Daniel – but not by much.”

Now she smiled openly. “That bad?”

“Oh, yeah.”

He strolled out of her lab, whistling to himself. It wasn’t much, he had to admit, but their relationship had been largely built on many small things building up to big ones. And that was probably the best way to do things. You could avoid sweating the small stuff and just let the big stuff go.

And spending time with the others was the safest way to hang out – and always had been.

Jack was so looking forward to it.

***

He ended up being disappointed in the end.

"Calibrating?" He demanded of her in her lab the next day as she ran various tests and typed up the results in her laptop.

She was apologetic, but not at all contrite. "Sir, Drs. Vedder and Caseman asked me to help them calibrate one of the new seismic gauges that we're sending out on the MALP to P2X-573. The mission to P2X-573 left this morning – 0600, bright and early, and we didn't get the gauge calibrated until past 2300." When his expression didn't change, her expression set. "I did call you."

"At 1930!" Jack felt decidedly stood up. Which was silly, because it hadn't been a date. "You owe me one, Carter."

So it was the wrong tone of voice to take. So they weren't going out or dating or anything like that. So he really shouldn't have made it sound like he had a right to her time.

He was suffering from the after-effects of a night spent in the company of two aliens, one of whom was positively fascinated by Jim Carrey, the other of whom seemed oblivious to Jack's bad mood after Carter's call to say she wasn't going to make it.

She didn't quite snap back at him – not here. But what she did say had bite, even as she delivered it in the tone of voice of someone holding onto her temper.

"Colonel, I wasn't able to make last night, and I apologise for not calling you earlier. But I had work to finish off and I couldn't go to the video night." Her glare bored through him like a laser – or a particle accelerator. "I would have liked to be there, but I couldn't make it. I explained that before."

It was fairly obvious she was waiting for some kind of answer from him, but he said nothing, trying only to find a graceful way to back out of this situation. When it became apparent that he wasn't going to snap back with some retort, she sighed with echoes of weariness. "If you don't mind, I'd like to get back to work. Sir."

He could leave. He really could. But if he left, then things would just go quiet between them. They'd sit and they'd fester and while no feelings would be actually injured, neither would they move on.

"See you at lunch?"

Her hands stopped moving and her shoulder sagged. "I would really prefer not to, sir." There was a quiet determination in her voice. "Not today."

"Tomorrow?" Jack knew he was walking on thin ice. He also knew that if he didn't push at least this far, then tomorrow he'd be too chicken and the day after that would be worse. The rift between them would grow and he didn't want that.

He didn't want that.

She stopped her work and closed her eyes, for all the world looking like someone who'd just uttered a prayer for patience.

He hoped she'd say yes. He wasn't sure he was up to her saying 'no'. When it came, it wasn't quite either.

"Ask me tomorrow, sir."

Well, he'd tried.

But, as Jack walked away from her lab and down to his office to write out reports and fill out requisition forms for their next mission, he had the feeling that he'd lost his chance at something more.

The feeling persisted through the morning, blocked out to a vague sense of unease by Jack's insistence on not thinking about Carter in any way but strictly military. He had written the book on denial, after all.

He read through the paperwork for the next mission. He wrote down a draft for requisitions. He answered questions to the best of his ability (not much) when one of the scientists from downstairs came to see him about some technology. (Apparently Carter wasn't in her office and the scientist needed an answer now.) He 'had a word' with the scientist.

By midday, Jack was starving. It was hungry work trying to think up new ways to promise that all items would be returned to the SGC intact and unharmed when SG-1 had broken that promise more times than the Requisitions department of the SGC would accept excuses.

He stared at the phone for a full minute, trying to decide whether or not to call Teal'c and drag the big guy down to the commissary. He wasn't exactly in the mood for company, but then, Teal'c wasn't exactly company the way Carter or Jonas was. No chatter for one.

In the end, Jack went down to the commissary alone. He took some files with him - no point in sitting in his office when there was a commissary full of people he could talk to - or con into talking with him.

He walked into the commissary and nearly stopped dead.

Carter was already in there, sitting at a table, eating lemon pie and chatting with Agent Barrett, for all the world like a couple out to coffee.

The vague unease within him tried to sharpen to a concerned point. He stifled it under a fog of commanding officer correctness, collected his sandwich and went over to their table.

"Carter."

Did she sit up straighter? "Sir." Nah, it was just his imagination.

"Colonel O'Neill." Barrett summed him up with a carefully direct gaze, and Jack returned the favour.

He'd only really encountered Barrett once before - during the incident with Martin Lloyd and his fellow aliens who just wanted to go home. Then, Barrett had seemed like any other asshole NID agent assigned to stick their nose into the SGC's business.

Carter's description of the man didn't contradict that, but it did add some insights into the man. Not that Jack was likely to ever fully trust someone from the NID, but the man she depicted - as paranoid as Jack himself could be - was at least halfway human.

"So how're you finding our organisation so far, Agent Barrett?" Jack forced the question to sound jovial, and was pretty sure he failed.

Barrett didn't seem to take offence at Jack's tone of voice. "Well, I suspect that, on the whole, they'd be more friendly if I were a Goa'uld," he responded calmly, "But it's an impressive project you're working on, Colonel."

"Oh, it is. And you can thank your predecessors for the warm welcome." He couldn't help the little jab. Really, he couldn't.

"So I hear," Barrett's gaze flickered to Carter before he attended to his meal. "I have said that I'm not here to interfere with the running of the SGC."

"And you'll excuse me if I believe that about as much as I believe anything that your predecessors said," Jack said, bluntly.

"Then why don't you wait and see what my organisation actually does to interfere with your organisation before making a judgement?" Barrett's eyes flickered across to Carter. "Major Carter has."

'Major Carter has', my ass! Jack recognised emotional strong-arming when he saw it. A quick glance at Carter showed that she wasn't exactly happy with either Barrett's use of her as support for his neutral status. But then, she probably wasn't very happy with Jack for stubbornly refusing to give any ground to the NID.

Jack was not about to let the NID waltz in here and take over everything. And he would be a suspicious bastard - as was his job - until such a time as Agent Barrett made good on his promises.

Assuming he was telling the truth, of course.

Jack peeled back the wrapping from his carton and began eating the tunafish sandwich. "No Jell-O today?"

"They don't have the blue raspberry, sir."

"Maybe they will tomorrow."

"Maybe." She was definitely going for non-committal. And, from experience, there wasn't much Jack could do about that.

So he changed the topic, "Carter, you know that thingy we found on P4I-755?"

She blinked, "The 'television without the on switch', sir?"

"That's the one. Was it making the humming noise when we first approached it?"

"Yes. Not very loudly - just like a background static noise." She eyed him, "Why?"

"I couldn't remember," he confessed. "One of the geeks from downstairs came up and wanted to know what it's 'initial state' was. Egghead with the big glasses." He used his hand to describe the man's head, indicating a circle just over his own crown.

Carter grinned. "Dr. Lee?"

"Yeah. Him." He took a bite of the sandwich and shuffled it to one side so he could talk without spraying food everywhere. "Wanted to know all about it, what it was doing, whether I noticed if it was warm - lotta questions. Couldn't answer any of them." He shrugged.

"Dr. Lee does tend to be a little...picky," Carter said. The humour of her understatement was lost on Jack.

"Carter, he's downright anal. And huffy. When I couldn't answer his questions, he got pompous with me." And, remembering that this guy had given Carter a tough time while he was gone, Jack had been pompous right back at him.

"I take it you gave back as good as you got, Colonel." Was there a note of mockery in the agent's voice? Jack nearly scowled at the man before he recalled himself.

"Of course." Jack tried to think of a topic that would interest Barrett. The only one he could come up with was that meeting with the SGC scientists Barrett mentioned yesterday. "How'd your meeting thingy go?"

Barrett blinked. "I haven't had it yet."

"Oh." There went that line of conversation.

This was definitely not one of his better ideas.

"So when do you have it?"

"In about two hours."

Jack glanced at Carter, who looked more amused than irritated by Barrett's refusal to answer the question seriously. Hey, Jack was trying to be friendly - it wasn't his fault that the NID agent was being an ass.

Of course, with Carter sitting next to him, across from the ass in question, Jack kept an admirable restraint on his irritation and merely said, "Well, good luck."

"Thank you, Colonel." Barrett's shuttered blue eyes glanced from Jack to Carter. "So, Major, any tips you care to give me about how to deal with the SGC scientists?"

Her mouth pulled sideways as she considered the possibilities. "Don't patronise and don't pretend everything's going to be okay," she said mildly, then glanced over at Jack. "When Colonel O'Neill said there was a lot of bad blood between the SGC and the NID, he was quite serious."

"I see he was. I'll keep it in mind." Barrett got up from his chair. "I'll see you tonight, then, Major? Five-thirty at the gates?"

Carter coloured. Just a little. Hardly noticeable - unless you were looking. "Yes."

"Colonel."

"Barrett."

"Major."

"Agent."

Barrett walked from the room and Jack asked, "Dinner?"

She kept eating. "I owe him one."

"You owe him one?" This was news to Jack. Interesting - and maybe a little disconcerting.

"When I went in to face up against the NID consortium, he was in charge of the troops waiting to make the arrest." She chased her food around the plate with her fork. "It was good timing, actually. Enough time to get incontrovertible proof of their guilt, but not so long as to leave me stranded without backup. Anyway," the tips of her ears went a little pink, "I said I owed him one and he offered to take me out to dinner. But then there was all the fuss surrounding your press conference with Kinsey, and...it never happened."

"Oh." Jack tried to sound non-committal. And probably failed.

Probably mindful of their conversation the other week, she offered, "It's just dinner, sir. I'll be perfectly fine."

Positive outlook, Jack. Positive outlook. "Yeah," he murmured, eating. "Fine."

They sat in silence for a bit before she spoke. "So, what have you been doing this morning, sir?"

"I've spent the morning trying to work out how to persuade the Requisitions department that we really aren't out to lose all the equipment they give us."

She smiled slightly. "Do you think anything could ever persuade them of that?"

"Probably not."

"But it would be worth trying, surely?"

"So what would you say?"

He didn't actually listen to what she was saying, just to her voice. He rarely did, unless it was an operational situation. Of course, it made him look stupid when he asked perfectly obvious questions - but Jack had never really cared all that much for appearances. If people underestimated him, that was fine by him.

From what he actually heard of what she was saying, it wasn't bad phrasing. Carter was always much better at the polite stuff than he was. She made it sound much more polished. Of course, Daniel was the big bull-shitter when it came to diplomacy - although Daniel had also possessed that tendency to say 'screw diplomacy' at the most inconvenient times - usually when Jack was really trying to be diplomatic.

"You haven't listened to a word I've said, have you, sir?"

Uh-oh. "I have," he protested. "Maybe even a couple of words."

Carter wasn't quite pissed, but she was annoyed - she had a bad habit of taking herself way too seriously. Just one of her flaws - one that Jack had run up against several times. "Sir..."

"Look, the Requisitions department is like Kinsey. They're never going to actually like us. Attempting to stay on their good side would be like trying to persuade Kinsey to leave us running if he was given the all-clear to shut us down."

"And that gives you the right to ignore what I'm saying?"

"No," he said, quietly. "But it's more interesting to listen to your voice."

That shut her up pretty fast. It also coloured her cheeks.

"Do you do that often?"

For a moment, Jack wasn't sure of what answer to give her. He wasn't sure what she wanted to hear from him. "Not often. Sometimes."

It looked like she didn't have anything to say in response to that. They ate.

"So where you going for dinner?"

Bad topic. Taboo topic. Jack didn't really care.

"Somewhere around." The vagueness was probably deliberate.

"Not O'Malleys?"

She smiled. "Not O'Malleys."

"So..."

"Sir, it's none of your business."

"And the conversation we had the other week?"

The pale flush of her cheeks turned more pronounced. "This is a payback dinner, sir. Nothing more."

"If you say so."

Carter was angry. Really angry. He could hear it in the sharp notes of her voice as she spoke; sotto voce, so people couldn't hear what she was saying. "That conversation was about possibilities, sir. It does not give you a right to dictate my life." She pushed the remains of her lunch together on the plate. "Even if it had been about certainties, it would still not give you the right to dictate my life. And I am not going to discuss this in the middle of the commissary with everyone trying to listen in."

Jack looked around. For the most part, it didn't look like people were listening at all - although that could always just be appearances.

"Then when?" He countered.

She put her fork down with a decided clank. "At the rate you're going, sir, never."

And she got up and left without another word.

*

There was a bite to the air as Jack sat out on his roof, staring up at a star-spangled sky.

It wasn't that he was jealous, he told himself, somewhat rather fruitlessly; it was just that...he was jealous. And he didn't have a right to be.

It was just dinner. It wasn't even a date.

Now, if his fears would only accept that.

It was his insecurities, nothing more. The uncertainties weren't in her character or in her nature - he knew Sam Carter and what she pledged, she would do - as far as her ability would take her.

No. The beliefs he held had little to do with her. Or they did, but not in her character.

Every man put the woman he desired on a pedestal - Jack knew that. However, the chasm between knowing it with his mind, and feeling the terror of lost possession was vast and could not be spanned with mere knowledge.

People were attracted to Sam Carter, strength to strength. Drive, passion, and belief gave her depth and sparkle - like a perfectly clear pool of water, depths visible do the bottom. In observing her there was a wonderment in humanity and the degrees to which it could stretch.

Men were attracted to Carter and always had been.

Jack stared down at his hands, turning a beer bottle between them. Even in the semi-darkness afforded by the half-moon hanging in the sky, the fine blue lines of his veins were visible along the back of his hand through the skin. The flesh of his body was still firm and taut, but age was encroaching on his body, an unwelcome visitor who was nevertheless making himself quite at home.

No match for a woman like Carter.

Age would take her, too, someday, but it would seize Jack first. Its depredations on his body were already beginning, and although the requirement of military fitness slowed it down, Jack knew it wouldn't hold off forever.

Carter mightn't be looking for a man, but the men were looking. It was only a matter of time before someone persuaded her that his gaze was worth returning.

Someone normal. Someone with secrets in his life, but no scars on his soul. Someone who wasn't prohibited in terms of her career.

A man like Malcolm Barrett.

The agent was of an age with Carter - not young, but younger. Still in the prime of life. Passion, drive and belief in him, without the jaded cynicism of the other NID personnel they'd encountered over the years. Attracted to Carter.

Jack drank down the last of the beer and climbed down from the roof, his knees aching.

He went into his empty house - empty of the wife and child he'd once had, too many years ago.

He hadn't even been able to repair things with Sara after Charlie died. Sara had been a woman who he'd thought he known; a woman who he'd thought had known him.

Sara walked away from him, needing time; and had never been ready to return until long after Jack had moved beyond her.

If he couldn't even hold onto his wife, how could Jack hope to hold a woman like Sam Carter? Jack's fingers trailed over the dust on the shelves as he picked out something to read himself to sleep. One book stood out; A Brief History of Time. He'd borrowed it from Carter after the black hole incident. At the time, Jack was trying to make sense of what he'd seen in the sky behind Henry Boyd - trying to understand the mechanics of the universe and the way it worked behind the stars he admired through his telescope.

In the end, Jack gave up, unable to really understand anything beyond the introduction. But he'd forgotten to return the book, and Carter never asked for it back. It was probably such basic knowledge in the field of astrophysics that she had it memorised, inscribed behind her eyelids in teeny tiny letters of gold.

He'd always intended to read it again but, somehow, there were always more interesting things to read. Interesting, as in, 'I understood what all those words meant individually and together and the book made sense as a whole.'

He pulled Stephen Hawking's offering to the plebs of astrophysics from its position between two books on astronomical history and switched off the lights.

The doorbell rang.

Carter stood on the doorstep, her arms hugged around her and looking as if she'd rather be anywhere than here.

Jack looked at her. He peered out into the street, looking for her car, or any sign of someone having dropped her off. Then he looked back at her. His heart was thudding in his chest. "Carter?"

"Hello." She made no move to come in. She made no requests. She just stood there, leather jacket gleaming faintly in the porch light.

"Do you usually turn up on people's doorsteps at..." Jack checked his watch, "...twelve to midnight after going out on dates?"

"No," she said at last. "May I come in?"

He nearly said yes.

"If you come in," he said quietly, "You won't leave until morning."

The weariness in her eyes gave quiet witness to her state of mind. "Since morning is in ten minutes, I should be okay, then?"

"You know what I mean."

Maybe it was the late hour, or the fact that he'd been sitting up pondering his own inadequacies and uncertainties. Maybe it was just that he was tired of waiting, and weary of holding back. Maybe it was just that he felt like she had him on a leash. She could tug him this way and that, assured in the knowledge that he would dance to her tune, follow her anywhere in the galaxy, and pause to see her smile.

Maybe it was just plain O'Neillian perversity coming out in him.

He didn't want to play this game anymore. Certainly not at midnight after she'd just been on a date with another man.

She closed her eyes, then opened them up to look him full in the face. "Let me in, Jack."

In answer, he held out his hand. After a moment's hesitation, she took it.

And he led her into the darkness of the house and closed the door behind her.