This was written for my ultra-awesome beta reader BethanyActually. She once asked me for a "Jack and Daniel do lunch" series, which evolved somehow into "Jack does lunch with various members of the team".

Sam stared at the text message and contemplated whether or not she'd be suspected if Jonas was shot from a distance.

Sorry, can't make it. Will do next time.

Then she sighed and let it go. She really had come to love the guy, and it wasn't his fault if he didn't get the vitally important role he had to play in being the 'safety valve' in the very complicated relationship she had with Jack O'Neill. And Teal'c was still coming with Jack. So it would be fine.

She leaned back against the car, crossed her feet at the ankles and clicked on the next message, from Jack.

On my way. Teal'c not coming. Some Jaffa thing.

Sam took a deep breath. I'll have to shoot them both, she thought. Jonas had an excuse; he was new. Teal'c had been the silent observer of what went on between Sam and Jack for six years and he knew better. Teal'c understood his role as buffer and he should be there.

So their 'team' get-together for lunch at O'Malley's was down to two of them. All right. Fine. It was the middle of the day at a crowded restaurant that was a favorite place among the SGC personnel. If she and Jack ever decided to have some kind of clandestine affair, O'Malley's would be the last place they'd pick.

Or maybe it would be the first. Jack's expertise in Special Ops might make hiding in plain sight appealing….

With a sharp inhale, Sam shut those thoughts down abruptly because what the actual hell was she thinking? Jack O'Neill was stunning. He was a larger than life hero. He took her breath away.

He was also one hundred percent off-limits.

Sam stood up and jammed her cell phone into her purse, shaking herself in the process.

Get a grip, Major, she thought firmly, just as Jack's ultra-macho black pickup pulled into the parking lot. It's just lunch.

She forced a professional smile as he parked next to her car and climbed out of the truck.

"Jonas isn't coming," she said, quickly, like ripping off a bandage.

The faintest shadows of something flickered through Jack's eyes and then his expression was carefully neutral again.

"So," he said, gesturing with the sunglasses in his hand, "you want something else? Besides O'Malley's?"

"No, this is fine," Sam answered, uncertain why she was still talking so fast.

"You sure? There's that little Thai place you like not too far from here."

"No, really, this is fine. I already had my heart set on a BLT."

Jack shrugged. "Okay." He made an expansive gesture with his arm. "After you."

Sam smiled again and led the way up the stairs to the front entrance.

(0)

A half an hour later, Jack was spearing the dill pickle off her plate and she was taking the coleslaw cup off his.

"Can I ask you a question?" Sam said.

"Sure."

"Would you have really shot Felger if he'd disobeyed you one more time?"

Jack grunted and smirked as he poured ketchup on his fries. "I was close to shooting him after the second time." He handed her the bottle, meeting her eyes as he did.

Sam made a neat little puddle of it next to her fries, because they disagreed about dipping versus drenching when it came to ketchup. She lifted her eyebrows in response to his statement and he amended, "You know, just to wound, so I could be sure he'd stay in one place. Or zatted him. Whichever."

She studied him carefully, knowing that she was partially smiling at him and partially unnerved by him.

Because Jack was like that. He liked keeping everyone off balance, even his team. Anyone who thought Jack never got angry had never seen him the way he had been in the Goa'uld cell when Felger and Coombs had shown up. Even Sam hadn't known he could get that angry. She had realized with sudden clarity how much crap he had taken from Daniel all those years and how – for all his bluster – Jack had never, ever really been angry with him. Sam had seen a variety of expressions cross Jack's face when he argued with Daniel – usually frustration, mixed with resigned exasperation. He expected Daniel to disobey him, to argue with him. Guys like Felger and Coombs, Jack expected to do what he said.

"Remind me never to piss you off," she said, in an attempt at lightness.

She made the mistake of looking up as she said it and when she met his eyes, there was warmth and affection in them. The armor briefly fell away in the secluded booth at O'Malley's.

"You could never do that," he said, quietly.

It was one of those moments that they'd had too rarely in the year before Daniel's death, and had too often since losing him. It was as if they felt the pressure more now.

As if they were more willing to admit what they were in danger of losing before it ever came to fruition.

Sam chose to break the moment by looking at her plate and gathering up her sandwich. She took a few bites, chewing, swallowing and washing them down with Diet Coke before speaking again.

"You have to admit they probably saved our lives," she said. "In hindsight, your suggestion that only three of us get captured so that we had someone on the outside was probably the way we should have played that."

They were on rocky ground again because Sam knew how Jack felt about the Tok'ra, and his feelings were even more hostile now than they had ever been. Jack hadn't been happy about the entire mission. He'd had no desire to let his team fall into the hands of the Goa'uld, not after his imprisonment by Ba'al. She knew that had been on his mind every moment of their last mission. It had shown in his over-the-top smartassery.

It had shown, she was just now realizing, in the anger he had directed at Felger.

Jack didn't answer, even though she gave him ample time. She let them eat in silence for a bit and then distracted him with a discussion of tactics. She never minded doing that, though. She was learning a great deal from him and he seemed to love teaching her.

"Who would you have left on the outside? Which one of us? No, wait. You aren't going to tell me, are you? You're going to ask me who I would have left."

Jack grinned at her and took a bite of his double cheeseburger. Sam took a breath and thought it through out loud.

"Not yourself. You'd never send us into a situation like that without you. Not Jonas. He's too new. That narrows it down to me or Teal'c, and either one of those is a viable option. But I'm thinking that you'd leave Teal'c, because he understands the way the Jaffa operate better than I do and he's more at risk every time we're captured. So while I would possibly stay on the outside - because I trust you, and I know what I can do if I'm the one responsible for getting all of you out – I'd assign it to Teal'c, because his safety is more at risk." Sam looked up to see if Jack was going to agree with her and then added quickly, "But don't tell him I said that."

Jack sat back in his chair and raised his beer in a salute to her before drinking. When he leaned forward again he asked, "What would you do with Felger?"

"Threaten to shoot him if he disobeyed me again," she smiled.

Jack huffed out a short laugh. "Felger's obsession with SG-1 is way past being cute," he said, "and he crushes on you in particular. If that becomes a problem, you tell me."

"Crushes on me?" Sam said, with lifted eyebrows again.

"Yep," Jack said, "Like a teenaged girl on the Beatles. You're awfully easy to crush on, Carter."

They both let that sentence hang in the air for a moment, breathing it in for all the implications it had. Pink stained her cheeks and she felt the heat of it.

"Like I said," Jack went on, "let me know if he gets obnoxious about it."

"If he gets obnoxious about it, I'll take care of it myself," Sam informed him. She tilted her Diet Coke in Jack's direction and said, "But thanks for the offer," before she drank.

"Then let me know if you want backup," he insisted. "You know, I can hold your coat or something."

"I'll be sure to wear one," Sam answered, because she was learning to keep up with him and she'd stopped being intimidated by him years ago.

Jack grinned at her, dark eyes warm again. "You want dessert?"

"I was thinking about it," she said.

"How about if we go to that ice cream place you like?" Jack asked.

The fact that Jack seemed to know all her favorite places was an intense turn-on for Sam, one she had to firmly ignore.

"Isn't there a place you like?" she asked.

"Um...well, there's that donut place on Fountain Boulevard-"

"The one where they fill any donut you want with whatever you want?" Sam guessed, instantly interested.

"That's the one," he agreed.

"Yeah, let's do that," she said, pushing her empty plate to the side and reaching for her purse. "Get the checks and we'll go get a dozen to take to your place. There's a hockey playoff game tonight, isn't there?"

Jack shrugged. "Jersey versus Tampa Bay, not a matchup I care about, but we could watch."

Sam frowned at him as she slipped out of the booth on her way to the ladies' room. There wasn't a hockey matchup Jack didn't care about, not as far as she knew anyway. He was either mildly interested or vitally invested. She knew he was excited about the idea of watching the game and eating donuts, because when all was said and done he was a man who loved simple things.

As for Sam, she would never truly be satisfied when earthbound. She'd always want to be out among the stars, even if it meant being hip deep in trouble. She wanted to go faster, farther; she wanted to push past boundaries of speed and distance and just keep going.

But she needed to return to her point of origin, to rest and reset and Jack understood that in ways she didn't.

He caught her hand as she walked past him. Instinctively, her fingers tightened. "What?"

"One check, okay? I'll treat."

Sam hesitated, but honestly, what harm was there in coworkers treating each other to lunch occasionally?

"Sure," she smiled, squeezing his hand before letting go. "Thanks."

(0)