Jack
loved calling her 'Samantha'.
He
hadn't meant to start using her full name; it had just happened, the same
way that their relationship - wait, make that 'relationship' - had just happened.
Thoughtlessly. Impulsively.
With the same recklessness with which he'd kissed her that first time, about
a week down the road he found himself calling her 'Samantha'. And he liked
it. He really liked it.
He
supposed it had come from a basic need to call her SOMETHING. Initially they'd
had more pressing issues to worry about, like whether or not she would or
could or should report his 'improper advances', or the whys and wherefores
of the fact that she DIDN'T, or whether or not they would or could or should
make out in his truck when someone from the base might drive by and recognize
them.
All
of these things and more had taken priority over the name issue. And really,
when it was just the two of them, it wasn't like they had to differentiate
between people in the room. And when it was just the two of them, talking
was not exactly what his mouth most wanted to do.
Having
kissed her once he wanted to KEEP kissing her. It was addictive. SHE
was addictive.
Eventually
the whole name deal did rear its ugly head, which really was a shame because
it meant that WHILE he was kissing her, he also had to be partly aware and
concerned about what he would say if she did THAT again. Because a wordless
moan, while classic, was just so impersonal... and then she did THAT again
and he didn't worry about names for a while.
They'd
been on her couch - well, she'd been on her couch and he'd been on HER - the
first time that 'Samantha' slipped out. The local news was on, because for
some reason they both felt better when there was some background noise, and
he had a hand up her shirt. It had proved to be a memorable moment. He hadn't
first stuttered over 'Captain' or gotten stuck on 'Carter' or even made a
pit stop at 'Sam'... it had been "Samantha", all three syllables,
bubbling out over his lips as he kissed her jawline,
neck, collarbone. She'd shivered; all altogether new type of shiver that he
was pretty sure hadn't come from his slightly cool hands against his skin.
He'd pulled back, afraid he'd done something wrong, overstepped some kind
of boundary... which was really kind of ridiculous considering he had a hand
up her shirt.
But
she didn't push him off her and onto the floor, and she didn't look upset...
just a little confused. And a lot aroused. "Where did that come from?"
she'd asked in a sexy-breathy little voice that could not possibly have come
out of his second in command. Her eyes were somewhat glazed and her chest
rose and fell rapidly, and it was increasingly, ah, DIFFICULT to concentrate
on the former instead of the latter.
He
couldn't even remember how he answered her; too little blood remaining in
his brain. In fact, his answer could well have had something to do with the
fact that there was little blood remaining in his brain. It was equally possible
that he said something both romantic and poignant and seductive because she
immediately pulled him back down and started kissing him like a crazy woman.
He
liked crazy woman Samantha. He really, really did.
And
sure, that was part of the appeal. The craziness of it.
The wrongness. For some people, rule breaking was
just a... well, a turn-on. He'd suspected that about himself, but he was surprised
to learn that it was true for her. She'd always seemed so straight-laced,
and while he was perfectly willing to admit that appearances were deceiving
she just didn't strike him as a bad-boy kind of girl.
But
hey, if she wanted bad, he'd be bad. Oh would he
ever be bad.
He
wasn't exactly sure what BAD these days entailed, but risking court martial
simply for the sake of her intimate company seemed like a good start. He'd
work from there.
It
probably should have seemed strange, dealing with her on base, going on missions
with her, even sharing the occasional tent while knowing without a doubt that
they wanted to be all over each other. It probably should have been somewhat
awkward, sitting across from her at meetings and realizing that he was trying
to recall and locate the exact position of that mole through her t-shirt.
Surprisingly... it wasn't. At least not for him.
At least not to the degree that he'd anticipated. During those minutes offworld
between the end of her watch and the start of his... sure he wanted to jump
her, drag her off into the woods and have his dastardly way with her, but
he never seriously considered it. Sure that first instance of eye contact
the morning after a heavy night of 'making out' was weird, but ultimately
one would smile, and then the other, and work would insert itself somewhere
and everything would get back to normal.
That
probably also had to do with the 'Samantha' thing. It made her off-duty, bad-girl
self seem more like, well, another person. Like
He
liked to think that what they did... what they were doing... that it made
them more human. Kept them more in touch with 'normal people'.
Never
mind the fact that 'normal people' didn't battle evil snakes from outer space.
The important thing was that she seemed to like being called by her full name
in those certain situations, and he liked calling her by her full name almost
as much as he liked being IN those situations.
Then
came the night that had actually started out with perfect innocence; they
had planned to have dinner at her house. 'They' meaning the entire team. It had been scheduled a couple
weeks in advance, so naturally it hadn't gone to plan. The mission schedule
had gotten weird and instead of having the day before off, they'd returned
only that morning. They'd been tired and soggy, and then Daniel had come down
with a cold during the afternoon and Teal'c had decided to commune with Junior
for a while longer, as a precautionary measure, and - knowing this - Jack
had still shown up at her house that night. They'd gotten about five minutes
into the creation of dinner - figuring that between the two of them they could
handle a chicken - before they'd found other ways to entertain themselves
and each other.
Yes,
they were bad. Bad, bad, bad.
And
at one point - right after they had pulled themselves together long enough
to turn off the preheated stove and chuck the hapless fowl - she had asked
him, "If I'm going to be Samantha, should you be Jonathon?"
Her
voice was teasing, he noted, but there was something about how she phrased
the question that made him wonder. And then he realized that he had been so
wrapped up in 'Samantha', so wrapped up in her and all of this, that he hadn't
really considered her need to call him something. Her own need to distance
this from 'sir' and 'Colonel' and 'O'Neill' and any other formal labels he
had in her head. So even though he was less thrilled with the idea, he answered,
"I can be Jonathon."
Hell,
if she wanted she could call him Major Matt Mason and dress him up in an astronaut
suit.
But
she simply smiled, stretching out along the wall he had her up against. "I
think 'Jack' works just fine," she said, her expression hesitant for
a moment while she gauged his reaction.
His
reaction was to go back to kissing her. The kitchen radio provided the background
noise. He'd discovered long ago that he could say her name and fit in extra
little 'love bites' between the syllables. 'Samantha' could take a surprisingly
long time to say.
Eventually
he realized that she was saying his name again, not just saying it to say
it but talking to him. "Jack," she said, pulling her face away but
still holding tight to his shoulders. There was an unexpected uncertainly
in her eyes. "Jack," she repeated, "my bedroom is just down
the hall."
Once
more old age kicked in and he was blessed with temporary senility; he couldn't
remember how he answered her. Knowing him it was something along the lines
of 'That's a very good place for a bedroom' but he preferred to think otherwise.
Whatever he said was lost in the haze accompanied by the word 'bedroom' -
specifically the bed part - and when he emerged she was looking at him very
austerely and saying, "...it would complicate things."
Which
was true, of course. She was one smart cookie. While it seemed hard,
in a way, to imagine that things could possibly become more complicated than
this, he knew they had been working hard just to keep things THIS simple.
Jack had done some living, and he knew that after things got down to the skivvies,
after sex entered into the equation, things always got more complex for him.
Deeper. More intense. Harder to let go of and scarier
to hang on to.
For
a second, he could feel them both teetering on the edge of indecision. It
wasn't even a matter of whether or not he would or could or should be the
'bad boy' again; it wasn't about right and wrong because, the Air Force aside,
he didn't even know WHAT was right in this situation. He knew what he wanted,
and he knew what was safe, and he knew that they were two very different things.
"Sam..." he began, wanting to tell her this, and then he froze and
started over. "Samantha..."
The
grave expression on her face automatically softened. She tried to look stern
again, he could tell, but she failed. "I... like that," she said
finally, bashfully. "I like when you call me that. It makes me feel like...
like not just one of the guys."
He
had to laugh. It felt good. "I thought you wanted to be just one of the
guys?" he teased. "Which one is it?"
"Sometimes being 'Samantha' has its advantages," she told him coquettishly, and she turned off the kitchen lights and led him down the hallway, which was indeed a very good place for a bedroom.