Trilogy: Part Three: 1700 Hours

by Linda Bindner

A/N: Sequel to Still a Chance?

I'm an idiot, Sam Carter thought to herself, a satisfied grin on her face. Just an idiot in love... She mentally sang the words, letting them run through her mind like the song she had heard on the radio this afternoon on her way home from the SGC.

Sam abruptly stopped her silent singing as she thought about what she had just sung to herself.

God, was she really in love?

Yeah, well, that's what she'd told Jack earlier that day.

Sam held her breath, considering her swirling feelings and the way her stomach clenched every time a vehicle careened around the corner to her street, only to see that it still wasn't Jack's truck. She had to admit to herself that the fact that it was now 1701 made her slightly dizzy...

I'm in love I'm in love I'm in love, she chanted to herself. With each silent repetition of the words that she made, the sound of that phrase that she had spent years avoiding came easier and easier. Being in love seemed old, and somehow new, and somehow blasé, and somehow as electrifying as lightening. She was charged to the splitting point at just the thought that she might be in love.

And she could admit to herself now that she was most definitely not in love with her former fiancé, Pete Shanahan. No sirree, she was in love with Jack O'Neill, her Commanding Officer, her friend, her confidant, her other half, her soul. And she finally, after eight long years of denying it to herself, was now able to admit to her feelings. Because he shared those feelings with her, shared an inner burning to be with her just as much as she wanted to be with him. Always.

The sound of a turning car broke into Sam's train of thought, but she was disappointed to see that once again it wasn't Jack's truck making the noise. Sam sighed, then tried to wiggle into a more comfortable position on her top cement step leading to her house. She glanced at her watch, noting that it was now 1702. She was a bit surprised that he hadn't been pulling up to her curb at 1659. After they had waited eight long years to be together, and had finally agreed to give this 'together' idea a go, she would have thought that he would be early instead of late for the date they had made that afternoon.

Just then, Sam's attention was caught by the sound of another vehicle turning the corner onto her street. This time her diligence was rewarded as she saw Jack's huge green truck pull slowly around the corner and up to her curb. There it stopped. Sam held her breath again as she watched Jack slowly emerge from the cab, hauling a pizza box behind him.

He momentarily leaned on the hood and fixedly stared straight at her. That stare made her gut clench, her heat thump, and her breath catch in her throat. He looked damned fine in his civvies and leather jacket, and he knew it. And now, so did she.

Sam swallowed, but couldn't get around the lump of... something... in her chest. It might have been fear that she was feeling. It might have been excitement. It might have been the burritos she'd had for lunch making a comeback now that she had something else to focus on.

And what a something! God, he looks good, Sam thought to herself. How did I ever last for eight years? How did I last for fifteen minutes? Her fingers itched to touch his gray hair that was currently blowing enticingly in the wind. The charge to the situation was almost overwhelming now as she watched him push himself away from the truck and saunter in her direction.

Hope you like pepperoni, he called to her. Because that's what I got for both of us: one large Pepperoni pizza, and chips for dessert. Not much of first date, I know. And he smiled somewhat apologetically at her as he sauntered across his front lawn in her direction. But it's an easy meal, relaxed, and... Then he was standing before her. He dropped the pizza box beside her on her step, and stopped his talking to just stare at her in his first look of open appreciation that he had ever indulged in. He joined her in sitting one step below her so that their eyes were on the same level. He lazily grinned, then took her face between both his hands.

Jack smiled into her blue eyes, looking as if he was enjoying her startled expression of frozen wonder that was stuck on her face, and sighed a huge exhalation of breath. Sam, you're beautiful, he said without leading more gently into such a personal topic. I should have told you that during our late night talk in your lab a few months ago. I'll say it now... I think you're beautiful, whether in civvies, or mud-splattered BDUs, or that divine blue dress uniform of yours, or...

Sam snorted, but didn't say anything to stop his talking. In fact, she could hardly tear her gaze away from his leather coated arms cradling her head. She was pretty sure that she didn't want to interrupt this one-sided dialogue, no matter how much she should want to. Instead, she wanted to keep hearing his low, easy, wonderful voice...

Jack was whispering now, but the sound carried to her ears on the slight wind of the cool evening breeze of early Fall. I love you, Sam, more than I love my job, more than I love your job, more than my own life, I often think. If you don't know how amazing you really are, I'll just have to show you... again and again and again... hope you don't mind. Then, without preamble, or even peering into the street to make sure no one was watching their tiny drama, he kissed her squarely on her lips.

The open overture turned passionate and private in seconds, and without even thinking about what she was doing, Sam raised her arms to let her hands cradle his own head, pulling him imperceptibly closer, tighter, seductive as hell without even knowing it. She ran her fingers through the silver strands of his hair that she could reach, rubbing his cheeks when she couldn't fondle his hair, and throwing herself into their kiss with a wild abandon that surprised even him.

They parted after a heart-shatteringly intense few moments only to rest their foreheads on the other's.

Sam? Jack began by whispering to her. His low voice lilted musically over her ears. Say something. Do you hate me, love me, want to eat dinner, want to marry me, want to have a one-night stand, want to have sex all freaking night, every night, for the rest of our lives... What? He pulled back a fraction of an inch so that he could see into her eyes. I love your eyes, he confessed with a grin lighting his face. I could stare at them forever.

The grin slowly lifted the corners of Sam's recently kissed lips. Welcome home, Jack, she whispered, and leaned into him to kiss him again with as much passion and love as she could muster.

The cool detached part of her brain knew that she was kissing her CO on her very public front steps, and that they should stop immediately, or at least they should go inside. She let that cold logic intrude on her teeming feelings of tumbling passion for just a moment. Want to move this inside?

Jack didn't miss a beat. Yeah.

Neither of them moved. We're going to get caught out here in the open like this, she announced back, as if he wouldn't have thought of that already himself.

Everyone will know anyway just because I'll be so damned happy tomorrow, Jack said back to her. What difference does it really make if we get caught? He grinned sexily at her and affectionately rubbed her right cheek. Besides, I kind of like the foreplay we have going here.

Sam snorted again, unable to halt the tiny explosion of air out of her mouth at his words. She giggled a laugh. This 'foreplay' has been going on for eight years. I don't know about you, but I'm ready to get on with things.

Jack's brows rose as her surprisingly frank words. Too fast for you, though? he asked, as if he wished to make sure.

No, Sam denied. Too fast for you?

Jack blew a denial out of his lips. Nah! After eight years of foreplay, I'm so turned on that I could light up level 28 in the SGC.

Sam laughed outright at that thought. Somehow I'm not so hungry for food anymore, she noted, eyeing the box of pizza he'd brought with him to her house.

Somehow neither am I, Jack said in a whisper. Then he tugged her up to stand beside him, motioned for her to walk through her opened doorway first, then swung it shut just as she hauled him into her for a feast of another kind, right there in her front hallway. Jack was too busy having the living daylights kissed out of him to mind.

Sam's neighbor's yellow Labrador walked by the front step, then cautiously sniffed at the food smell that wafted to it out of the half open, abandoned dinner box left lying on her top step. He sniffed, smelled the food inside, waited a second to see if the Humans would come back out to retrieve their dinner, or not. When they didn't, he promptly grabbed the edge of the box in his mouth and carried it to his doghouse in his own back yard.

The Humans didn't know what they were missing.

Or maybe... A squeal of utter thrilled enjoyment reached the dog's house in the neighbor's back yard. The dog lifted his head for a moment from divesting the strange container from the food lying in wait within. He waited, but the sound didn't repeat itself, and his attention returned to his unexpected dinner.

The Human's next door didn't know what they were missing? They definitely and enthusiastically did.

The End

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