Disclaimer: I own nothing of consequence. Never have, never will.
A/N: For Dena, Michelle, Maria, Jara Dax and all others who keep hassling me into letting Jack and Sam kiss. I did promise to try…

Just A Kiss
He came to her in the night, his eyes shining with anticipation and nervous excitement. He'd been waiting outside of her front door for a little over three hours, his pacing to and from the bottom stoop having worn a pathway into the moist ground beneath his feet.

Every time he made the short trip from his truck to her doorbell he had chickened out at the last minute and ended up hightailing it back to his vehicle before he could even press the button. Still, not to be outdone by something as insignificant as nervousness, he had tried again.

And again, and again until eventually he figured someone was bound to have called the cops on him. So in actuality, he had spent more than half that estimated time sitting in his truck, straining his ears in order to hear the inevitable sound of sirens wailing and some security guard with a God complex asking him to 'step out of the vehicle please, sir.'

Sir. He cringed every single time he heard that word these days. Not just when she said it, he reasoned, but when *anyone* said it. Be it a subordinate or a damn shop assistant trying to sell him the latest in high potency perfume for the 'woman in his life'.

Yeah, 'cause he could see Carter spraying herself liberally with some overpriced deodorant that had the audacity to call itself 'Eau d'amour or something equally as pretentious, when in fact it stank like something a Skunk would leave behind.

Not that Carter was 'the woman in his life' per se, it was just that she happened to be the only woman he would consider buying a gift for these days. And not that buying her presents was a regular occurrence, but he had been known to nip into the local Tower Records and hunt through the bargain rack for Christmas and Birthdays.
And more to the point, he certainly never felt the need to justify his behaviour towards his 2IC before. Not that he was justifying anything, merely explaining.
To himself. At night. In his truck.

…Man, he had it bad.

So, with that in mind; here was the plan.

Simple, really. He was going to walk boldly up to Major Carter's front door, ring the bell and as soon as she answered, he was going to lay a kiss on her that would have her knees knocking together and her toes curling in sheer pleasure. Then? Then he was going to get the hell outta dodge.

After all, he had the rest of the night to think up excuses to give her when he had to face her in the morning.

You may well be asking yourself why now? Well, the answer is really quite simple.

Seven years.

Seven years of travelling to other planets, seven years of fighting pompous Snakeheads, seven years of watching your best friend die of radiation sickness, your chances at happiness stolen from you at every available opportunity, the woman you love being overrun by a computer-thingy, your worst memories coming back to haunt you, being tortured, killed and revived only to be tortured and killed again, the list goes on and on.

After seven years worth of a hell he could never wish on his worst enemy, finally he decided he wants a chance for just a single moment of happiness. And Jack O'Neill, for one, would be damned if he was going to let it slip by again.

But why today in particular? Well, they'd had a pretty rough day for a start, but none worse than the day Carter had had. For starters she'd arrived on base to find that the Pentagon had denied her request for another Astrophysicist to be assigned to the base. Her justification had been that she needed to spend more time off-world and that she felt her scientific role was holding the rest of the team back from their field unit duties, but the joint chiefs had argued that Daniel and Jonas were fundamentally scientists as well and if she had a problem handling both areas of her work then they would be more than happy to have her replaced on SG1, with a veiled threat that unless she continued to play the good little soldier she would be reassigned to NASA or area 51.
After that little blow she had then gone to her lab only to discover that some moron (her words…) had snuck in overnight and broken a very important piece of alien technology retrieved from P4C 523 only the day before by SG4. Her temper got worse when she discovered after watching the security tapes that no one had been in her lab and the machinery had, in fact, metamorphosised overnight into the new technology she found on her desk in the morning.

In actuality, Jack had found the whole thing a rather cool experience. The machine had reminded him of those little Transformers Charlie had played with when he was alive and even now, years later, Jack still had them in a box in his bedroom, telling himself he kept them because they were memories of his son and not things for him to play with when he was bored.

Of course, judging by the borderline feral look in his 2IC's eyes as she made this momentous discovery, he decided not to bother sharing that little piece of himself with her just yet.

He knew pretty much straight away that she was madder than hell because under normal circumstances she would have found the whole 'overnight transformation' thing so interesting that she wouldn't have left her lab for at least six days except for bathroom breaks – even *she* drew the line there. But instead she simply grumbled incoherently about the myriad of reasons why she should have been allowed to keep an overnight vigil in her lab instead of being frogmarched to her car by two heavyset SF's at four in the morning.

If all that wasn't bad enough, her extremely vocal disappointment at the lack of Blue Jell-o in the Commissary at lunchtime had one member of the kitchen staff in tears and another threatening to brain her with a frying pan.

You can imagine how things got worse from there.

So, in his infinite wisdom, Jack figured that after the day she had had, she needed some serious emotional therapy. And that's where he came in.

Stepping out of his car, he walked once again towards her front door and this time made it as far as the top step before chickening out making a dash for cover. Having chosen a different direction to escape in, Jack found himself flattened against the side of Carter's house, right next to her bedroom window. And how did he know it was her bedroom? Because in her wisdom, she had not only decided to leave the curtains open, but the window as well.

Edging underneath the exterior ledge as only as black-ops trained officer can, Jack peered surreptitiously through underneath the glass and into the blackness of the room beyond.

What with it being nearly midnight, he wasn't at all surprised to hear the sounds of his 2IC's shallow, steady breathing and slight whimpers…the noises he was used to hearing when she slept off world. Smiling to himself, he pulled lightly on the window, wincing at every little creak of the latch as he eased the window open wide enough to allow himself entry.

After taking one last look around outside to assure himself that no one was paying attention to his ever-so-slightly-illegal actions, he looked back in through the window and allowed his eyes to become adjusted to the darkness. Eventually he was able to make out the silhouette of Carter in her bed, watching with some fascination as she shifted slightly in her sleep and turned to face him.

Jack waited for a couple of heartbeats before swinging his left leg over the ledge and hauling himself up so the he was straddling the frame. A very painful experience that ensured they would be doing no more than a bit of kissing tonight.

Lifting his right leg, he manoeuvred himself so that he was sitting on the inside ledge and as quietly as possible hopped down onto the floor below.

Jack stood still for a moment, contemplating the pro's and con's of taking off his boots so as to ensure stealthier movement and the chances of rendering her completely unconscious by the smell.

Decision made, Jack made quick work of his bootlaces and pulled the offending articles off his feet – along with his humming socks that had been threatening to walk themselves to the laundry for the past two days, and threw them out of the window. He then did an impressive gymnastic move for a forty-seven year old man by bending his knees and bringing his left foot up to his waist, then, balancing precariously on one foot, his bent his head and took a good sniff.

Satisfied that his foot odour had improved since introducing them to the wonders of fresh air, the Colonel tip-toed over to where the object of his desire still lay sleeping.

He stood for a moment, taking in the ethereal beauty that was Sam Carter, marvelling in her ability to look incredibly stunning even with black mascara smudges on her cheeks and a line of drool wandering slowly from mouth to pillow, then he reached for a tissue.

Hey, she may *look* cute, but no one in their right mind would want to kiss slobber…except maybe Marge Simpson.

Wiping her mouth gently with the Kleenex, Jack grinned suddenly as his soft caress caused Sam to turn once again in her sleep, this time until she was laying on her back.

The perfect position for him to reach her lips.

Jack knelt down on the floor and inched his face closer and closer to hers until he could feel her breath on his face. He placed one loving hand on her upper arm for support and leaned in just a little more…almost there…his eyes were closing of their own accord…just a little…He could almost taste her already…just a little…they had to be sharing Oxygen now…just a little…

End.