Help Me Rhonda

So I say from me to you, I will make your dreams come true

It turned out that while the Asgaard knew where the “thingie” was, they didn't have it in their possession, which meant that SG1, or at least the part of SG1 which had footwear, was going to have to recover the artifact. As a result, recovery became Teal'c and Daniel's job, with Sam and Jack waiting apprehensively for their return, only then could the next phase of operations begin ... making it work.

Gathering the artifact wasn't too much trouble. Using materials provided by Thor, Daniel located its hiding place. It was in an Ancient building in a remote area far from the Goa'uld stronghold which controlled the planet, where the device was stored. Collecting the thing was a little more complicated, because when Thor beamed Daniel and Teal'c into the area, their energy signature alerted a battalion of Jaffa, which came down on them like a ton of bricks. It took some fancy maneuvering, and a great deal of dodging, but our renegade Jaffa and his archaeologist pal were safely beamed aboard Thor's ship and out of orbit before the Goa'uld in charge knew what hit his snakey ass. At least that's how Jack saw it from his anxious perch on the command deck next to the Asgaard Supreme Commander.

Once the thingie was aboard, Sam set it up in a make-shift lab, where she tinkered with it, hooking it up to a power source, and wouldn't let anyone else touch it, even Daniel, who was chomping at the bit to read its Ancient inscriptions. By the time she figured out how to get the thing powered up, everyone else had bunked down for the night. It was a long day.

Sam was too keyed up to sleep and went looking for Jack. She told herself it was so he could activate the device, but when he opened his sleepy brown eyes and saw her there, the rapacious look he gave her, the possessive, predatory expression with which he observed her standing before him in Daniel's too big BDUs, made her belly warm.

“Somethin' I can do for you?” he asked, flipping the sleeping bag open for her. He was perched absurdly, his legs sticking over the edge of the top “bunk” of three sleep shelves. He was already a tall man, but in this little room he looked gigantic.

“I...” She swallowed, eyes downcast. She knew what she wanted to do, slip in beside him, feel his big, calloused hands on her skin, his hot mouth on her flesh. A shiver quirked her shoulders. “I finished hooking the device to the generator, sir,” she said, unable to look at him.

He held completely still. What the fuck was this? “For cryin' out loud,” he muttered under his breath, sitting up, careful not to hit his head on the low ceiling, swinging his long legs over the side. “You can't do this, Carter,” he said.

“Sir?” she said, her eyes finally venturing towards him.

“You can't do this, Carter,” he repeated. “Not after what we did. You can't go back. We can't go back.” He emphasized the pronoun. “I won't let you,” he said finally. He reached for her, hoping she wouldn't resist, hoping he understood her better than she understood herself, hoping he was right, that she wanted him, as much as he wanted her.

She let him pull her into his strong arms, between his knees, but she was limp, unresponsive. “Don't...” he said, pressing her to his chest, his voice hitching, his hands roaming her back, pulling her head down onto his shoulder. He could feel her soft breath on his neck, and her heart beating hard. And then he felt the tears, the stiffening of her body, the racking sobs.

He gathered her up, as if she were a child, and pulled her onto his lap. She was curled in on herself, trying to make herself small, as her tears overtook her and all the sadness spilled out of her, for the pain she caused Pete, for breaking Jack's heart and making him wait, for Janet's death, for her mother, who died so long ago. All of it welled up in her and flooded her heart until she was gasping for breath, drowning in sorrow. And through it all he held her. He stroked her hair. He pulled her to his side and lay next to her, her head on his chest, strong heart beating solidly, rocking gently, saying nothing, kissing her temple, holding her close.

And when she quieted, gulping air, red-faced, he waited, arms encircling her. Finally she spoke. “Nothing's changed,” she said grimly.

He raised on one elbow and looked down at her, taking her chin in his hand, brown eyes boring into blue. “Are you kidding me?” he asked. She looked back at him, sorrow threatening to break anew. He leaned down and kissed her, a thorough and passionate kiss, rising from her mouth only when he was satisfied that she knew she'd been kissed. “Everything's changed, Sam,” he said with a quiet ferocity.

“But the regs...” she started.

“Ah!” he interrupted. “I've got it all figured out,” he said, his eagerness giving him an air of urgency. “I'm gonna retire. I've already drafted the letter,” he said, reaching into his pocket and pulling out a folded piece of paper and handing it to her. “And I've talked to Thor,” he said, his voice getting a little louder. “He said he'd back me as civilian head of the SGC. In fact, he said he'd insist on it.” Jack looked a little smug. He smiled down at her. “Read it,” he said, motioning with his chin toward the letter in her hand.

She looked, shell-shocked, at the paper, and slowly unfolded it, her eyes scanning the page. It read:

To whomever it may concern, I, Brigadier General Jack O'Neill, resign my commission from the United States Air Force, because I love Lt. Colonel Samantha Carter and won't live my life without her.

It was signed and dated. Her eyes flicked from the page to his face and then back again, scanning the simple note once more. He watched her over the top edge of the paper. She lowered it and fixed him, blue eyes to brown. “You can't send this,” she said vehemently.

“Yes, I can,” he said quickly, his eyebrows rising slightly.

“No, you can't,” she said emphatically.

“Yes, I can,” he replied flippantly.

“No, you...” She stopped. Slowly, like liquid rising in capillaries, he watched realization dawn on his oh so brilliant companion. She blinked. “Jack,” she said.

“Yes, Sam,” he said.

“I love you too,” she said, a smile breaking across her lovely face. And then the rest of his declaration hit her, and her eyes grew wide. She swallowed. “Did you mean...?” She sat up abruptly and turned to him. “Are you asking...?” She put her hand on his forearm. She shook her head to clear it. “Just what, exactly, are you saying?” she asked.

He lay down flat, one hand behind his head, looking at her. Lazily, he reached out and grabbed her arms, pulling her unequivocally toward him until she was perched on his chest. “I meant what I said,” he offered, stroking an errant strand of blond behind her ear. “However you'll have me, as husband, lover, boyfriend, partner, companion... whatever...” He shrugged. “I just want to be with you. I don't care who knows. I don't care what anyone other than you thinks about it. I only know that now that I've had you in my arms, I won't let go. I can't.” He craned his neck to kiss her, hooking a big band behind her head and pulling her down. “I'd like to marry you, Sam,” he said, “but if it's too soon, or you don't want to go there again, I'll understand.” He kissed her again softly, stealing her breath with the quietly banked passion of his embrace.

The Asgaard sleep shelf was definitely too short for them, and too narrow for the two together, at least as far as what Jack had in mind. He pushed her up and stood himself, pulling her with him, slamming his head on the ceiling in the process. “Ow!” he cried, rubbing the spot, his hair spiking. “Damn aliens,” he muttered. “Come on,” he said, hunching over, pulling her by the arm out of the room. In the corridor he could stand upright and he looked first one way then the other, before deciding on a direction.

“Where are we going?” she asked.

“That lab where you set up the ... the... thingie... there's enough room there, right?” he asked, hurrying her along.

“For what?” she asked, scampering to keep up. “And what's your hurry?”

Abruptly he stopped and turned to her, as she slammed into him, unable to stop her forward momentum. He didn't intend to grab her right there in the corridor and nibble on her collarbone through the too big opening of Daniel's BDUs... but when she arched her neck and all that succulent, pale flesh was revealed, he couldn't help himself. And she didn't intend to moan like that as his lips traced her skin, but ... well, she just could help herself.

“It's been driving me crazy,” he said, between kisses and bites, “knowing you have nothing on under Daniel's BDUs.” He took her hand and guided it to his hard-on, impressively tenting the front of his borrowed clothes.

“So we're going to the lab to... make love?” she asked, her eyes luminous in the low Asgaard light, her fist tight around his girth.

Jack leaned his forehead against hers, his breathing hitching. “I promise, Sam, when we get back, when we have a bed and time alone together, I'll take you to a nice dinner and we'll talk and we'll laugh and we'll make love.” Then he looked straight into her eyes. “We don't have time for any of that now.” He licked his lips. “We're soldiers, for cryin' out loud. All we have time for is a good, hard fuck.”

Sam's face went slack, her eyes flat as pennies, and for a moment he thought she was going to haul back and slug him, and everything would go to shit. She brought her hands up and grabbed his face, and then she was stealing his breath, her mouth on his, her tongue in his mouth. She took his hand and pulled him down the corridor to the lab, bringing him around behind the three panel console, the Ancient device on a small shelf in front of it. She stood with her back to the console, Jack standing in front of her and she began unbuttoning her borrowed BDUs, looking him in the eye, daring him. It was all he could do not to explode right there watching her.

And when she had the top part completely open, her creamy skin showing, the inviting mounds of her breasts just peeking around the edge of the open shirt, she pivoted, executing a 180. She looked back at him over her shoulder, baring it as she shrugged out of the shirt. Deliberately she leaned over the console, her hands splayed over the top to hold herself up, her ass nudging him as she bent forward. And then he heard something he never thought he'd hear from Samantha Carter. “Fuck me, Jack.”