Ch 15: Plan B

"You want to talk?" Jack repeated quietly after she didn't say anything for a long time.

"Yes," she said, nodding at him.

"Okay." He slid his arm back across her shoulders and returned his hand to his lap. "What do you want to talk about?" he finally asked.

She gave him the look that said 'now is not the time to play dumb.' He nodded. "All right. Where do you want to start?"

"You fit in with my family better than I do," she said quickly.

Okay, that wasn't what he was expecting. "What? No I don't..."

"Yes, you do," she insisted. "You've known them a few days and you already fit right in with everyone. All I have in common with them is our childhood. This is the first time I've seen them in years that there hasn't been a big serious argument about the Air Force or whatever, and it's because you're here."

He had no idea what to say to that. "You're welcome?" he finally tried, wincing as he saw her reaction and figured that was the wrong thing to say.

She got up off the couch and started pacing between the couch and coffee table. He watched her, trying to think of something to say. She finally turned to face him and stopped, her hands on her hips. "You kissed me during the time loops," she said. It wasn't a question, it was a statement. And she didn't look happy about it.

"Did ah... did Teal'c..." he started.

"No," she said shortly. "It wasn't too hard to figure out based on how you were looking at me and the fact that if it had been me I probably would have done exactly the same thing."

"Huh? What?" he said. He felt like he was about five steps behind her in this conversation. Not unusual for them, but this time they weren't talking about naqadah or something, this was important.

"Oh, you heard me. I really don't think it's fair that after the whole zay'tarc thing, you kissed me and I have no memory of it."

"But... how do you know all I did was kiss you?" he asked, suddenly curious.

She rolled her eyes. "You wouldn't do anything else when I couldn't remember it," she said simply. Well, she was right about that. Still, it was nice to know she trusted him. Even though she was obviously still pretty mad about the whole thing.

"You're the one who made the decision not to take it anywhere. To leave it in that room," he reminded her.

"Maybe, but..."

"Not maybe. It was you. I thought we were pretty clear that was up to you."

"I know, but... when we left it at that, we were both in the same situation. Now you've done something I haven't done. Twice actually."

"Twice? Hey, I only kissed you once!"

"Do the words 'quantum mirror' mean anything to you?"

"That wasn't you!" he insisted, getting to his feet as well, squaring off with her. "That was not you. And for the record, in the time loop, I resigned before I kissed you so I could do it without you slugging me."

"I... you... what?"

"I knew we were going to start over again, so I handed Hammond my resignation and then I kissed you."

"In front of General Hammond?" she asked, suddenly sounding more curious than mad.

He couldn't help grinning. "In front of a lot of people actually. In the control room."

"The control room!" she yelped.

"Yup," he said with a smug smile, sticking his hands in his pockets.

He watched her closely. She wasn't mad anymore, for whatever reason (he wouldn't even try to keep up with her when she was thinking and changing her moods so quickly.) Her shoulders relaxed slightly and she met his eyes again.

"What?" he finally asked.

"Kiss me," she said quietly.

He was pretty sure she should be speed-dialing Dr. Frasier right about now, because his eyes were definitely about to pop right out of his head.

"Wh...what?" he repeated.

"You said I was in control of this," she reminded him.

"Yeah, but... that's like the worst idea you've ever had."

"Why?" she asked patiently.

"Because... because I can't promise to kiss you, knowing we won't be able to go back in time, and just be happy with that," he confessed. He always felt very verbally inadequate. He hoped his eyes were helping fill in the gaps in what he was trying to say.

"I'm ready to take the risk now," she said simply.

"Are you... are you sure?"

"Yes. Exactly like you did it before."

He nodded slowly. Okay, so they were actually going to do this. Well, at least he had gotten in that trial run during the loops. Although he hadn't been scared then, since he knew exactly how it would end (with Daniel blabbering and Jack eating froot loops.)

"Trade places with me," he said, stalling for time.

"What?"

"Last time, I was standing there, you were standing here."

"Oh. Okay." They switched sides awkwardly. Yeah, this is soooo romantic, Jack thought, resisting the urge to roll his eyes.

After several moments, he still hadn't moved. "This must have taken up an entire loop," Carter commented.

"Very funny. And no it didn't, if you must know, but when I did it before, you were surprised. Now you're expecting it and..."

"Jack."

That did it. Something in his brain clicked into place and he closed the gap between them, slid his hands up to her face, and kissed her. Remembering the loop, he turned and dipped her back. He felt her lips curl into a smile of surprise against his as her arms went around his shoulders and she started kissing him back. The kiss went on longer than it had in the loop, mainly because he had lost all sense of time and couldn't really believe this was happening.

Finally, he decided to take some degree of control back in the whole situation. He stood up, pulling her upright as well, and forced himself to pull away from her. He watched her carefully. Huh, he thought, patting himself on the back. First time he'd ever seen her where she didn't look like she was thinking about something.

"You did that in the control room?" she finally asked, her cheeks pink.

"Yes, I did," he said, grinning uncontrollably and not caring.

"Very... 'Gone with the Wind,'" she said finally.

"Thank you." He looked down at his feet for a long time.

"So what now?" she finally asked, sounding uncertain.

"I don't know. By now I was trying to convince you guys for the millionth time that we were in a loop."

"That must have been terrible," she said suddenly. He nodded and shrugged. Not much else to say about that.

"Why... why is it up to me?" she finally asked.

He ran his hand through his hair. Should have just kept kissing her, stupid, he thought.

"That's just the way it is. I don't know... look, remember when General Hammond called yesterday?"

"Of course."

"Well, he said he was sure nothing was going on because he trusted you. Not me. You though. Enough to make up for me."

She nodded, letting that sink in, and said, "That still doesn't really..."

"You've thought all this stuff through, right? If I did, I know you did. Tried to work out different solutions? It's what you do."

"Yeah," she admitted, sitting back down on the couch. He sat down next to her and took a deep breath.

"Run through them."

She looked at him impatiently.

"I know, we've both thought of them all, but separately. Come on. Run through them."

"I retire," she said evenly.

"And then we're stuck off-world somewhere without you because you work strictly from the base and nobody else but you can get us home, and Hammond won't let you come through after us. That one doesn't work. Next."

"You retire."

"Next."

She looked at him in mild surprise.

He sighed and elaborated. "I retire, I'm out of the SGC for good, and if you think I'm going to sit around knowing you, and the rest of SG1 for that matter, are off-world somewhere in a dangerous situation, you're insane. Next," he said firmly. "We keep doing nothing for the time being. And we're right back where we've always been."

She looked down at her hands for a long time, and finally said, "What about Plan B?"

He looked at her slowly. "Plan B? There is no Plan B."

"You told me once there was always a Plan B," she challenged.

"Plan B is always completely insane and it only works because so far we've had the best damn luck in the galaxy," Jack objected.

"Well... okay, then. Plan B," she repeated.

"What are you talking about?"

"I'm saying, what if we... moved everything."

"What do you mean?"

"The room we agreed to keep everything in. What if we..." she looked around. "Made this that room."

His eyes widened by themselves. "You're saying you want to sneak around and... Sam, that's crazy! If we got caught we'd probably be thrown in jail!"

"Maybe. But we've been in jail lots of times."

"Not on Earth."

"I don't think Hammond would let that happen to us," she said with a shrug.

"I'd rather not test the man, Sam!"

"You're calling me 'Sam.'"

"Well... Carter's not crazy, and this is definitely crazy!"

"It can't be any harder to stay together than it was to stay apart," she argued. She froze suddenly, her brow creasing as she starting doing that quick-search-through-all-the-information-stored-in-her-brain thing.

"What?" he asked.

"That's a line from my sister's favorite movie," she realized, shaking her head to try to get back on topic.

"Sam, think about what you're talking about here. This is crazy," he said firmly.

"But..."

"Your career would be completely over."

"If we got caught, maybe. Although I think I would just be forced into retirement and would keep working at the SGC. I keep all the 'doohickeys,' as you call them, working, after all."

"Maybe, but..."

"If we can keep the entire Stargate project a secret, don't you think we could hide this as well?" she demanded.

"Not from Daniel and Teal'c..."

"You convinced us you had turned all evil when you were on that undercover op last year," she pointed out.

He sighed in frustration. How the hell was he supposed to win an argument with her? Especially when he didn't even really want to win it in the first place.

He looked at her in defeat.

"You said it was up to me," she reminded him quietly. "It's my risk to take too."

He nodded and asked, "Why now?"

"I don't know," she confessed. "Just... a combination of a lot of things, I guess. I mean, obviously the zay'tarc detector and the loop, and then me figuring out what you must have done in the loop, although I have to admit I was a bit off on that one."

"Really?" he asked with a grin.

"Yeah, I didn't think you'd go to the trouble of resigning, much less kiss me like that in front of General Hammond."

"What did you think I would do?"

"I don't know, kiss me when nobody was around, I suppose."

"I can do that too," he said seriously.

She laughed and continued. "Also, I think it was... I don't know, this whole holiday thing with my family... you and I haven't spent tons of time together outside of work, I guess... knowing we get along easily when we're not in mortal danger... that we can be sort of normal together... I guess it was just sort of the last piece of the puzzle."

"Now, see, you should have been listening to me all those times I invited you to go fishing!"

She laughed again, which set him off as well. "So what now?" she finally asked.

"Well... tomorrow when your family leaves, I leave with them, halfway through the departures so as not to arouse suspicion..."

"I have to take my dad back to the base."

"Okay. And then we meet back here."

"That easy?"

"Yup. Only person who'd be able to find us is Thor." He smiled at the mental picture of Thor interrupting them during something intimate. He had a feeling it would probably only happen once.

"So... we're definitely doing this?" he asked, giving her one more chance to change her mind. He really, really hoped she wouldn't.

"Yeah, we're definitely doing this," she said, leaning forward and kissing him.

The whole thing seemed way to easy to be real, he thought, worrying slightly. Then he realized he was crazy because Carter was kissing him and he was thinking about other stuff. He turned sideways on the couch and stretched out on his back, taking her with him. She settled on top of him, seeming to agree with his wish to do this extremely slowly.

Hey, he wasn't as smart as her. It might take her a fraction of a second to memorize something, but he needed a lot longer, and he was determined to at least learn the back of her head, her neck, shoulders, and back right now. Which required a lot of time and attention to detail.

He also, unfortunately, still needed to breathe, and so did she. While he caught his breath, he adjusted the throw pillow underneath his head and smiled at her, brushing her hair out of her face. "You know, this is the third time you've been on top of me today," he said matter-of-factly. "I have to say, each time is getting better and better."

She blushed and buried her nose in his neck, which made him shiver. "Yup. Definitely better," he repeated, running a hand up and down her arm.

A knock on the door made them both freeze, then look at each other quickly. "No," Jack said firmly. "There is no way that is your dad, that is NOT your dad," he repeated, as if stating it with enough conviction would make it true.

"I'm pretty sure Dad would be pounding on the door, not knocking quietly," Sam pointed out, trying to calm him down.

"Unless he was trying to trick us into thinking he was someone else so we'll open the door."

"Oh, please," she said with a sigh, climbing off of him. She threw a blanket at him and said, "Pretend to be asleep though, just in case," as she headed for the door.

Rolling his eyes as he tried to unfold the blanket, he held his breath as he heard her open the door.

"Sydney, sweetie, what are you doing out without a coat on, it's freezing!" she exclaimed, slamming the door shut, probably with her foot, he figured as he sat up on the couch and watched her carrying Sydney over to the couch. She sat down next to him and he covered them with the blanket. Sam wrapped it tightly around the little girl, rubbing her arms and cuddling her to warm her up.

"I'm okay, Auntie," Sydney objected. Sam ignored her and wrapped the blankets even more securely around her.

"What are you doing out here, it's..." she glanced at the clock. "Four in the morning!"

"I couldn't sleep," Sydney said with a yawn.

"You look pretty tired to me," Jack commented.

"Matt was being a jerk and scaring me earlier, when we went to bed, telling me and Rory we better sleep with our eyes open, because he was going to get us for me punching him earlier. So we went to sleep with Mommy and Daddy, but Kailey and Gracie were in bed with them already and it was so crowded. Rory kept on kicking me and I kept on waking up. So I went down to sleep on the couch and Grampa was there, so I tried to sleep in the chair but he was snoring SO loud. So I came out here, because I knew it was just you guys out here."

"How did you know we were out here?" Jack asked, getting paranoid that everyone knew.

"I saw you come out here earlier, Uncle Jack," she said with a shrug.

He figured if other people did know, it would probably be good for Sydney to be out here with them, actually, because they'd know nothing happened. Well, not nothing, he thought with an absent smile, still sort of amazed at the sudden turn the night had taken.

"Okay, Syddo. Let's go get you tucked into bed," Sam said, standing up and carrying Sydney over to the little bed in the corner.

"Good night, Uncle Jack!" Sydney called.

"Night, kid," he called back, stretching back out on the couch with a heavy sigh. He could hear Sam fussing over her niece, tucking her in, talking softly to her. Everything was quiet for several minutes, then she came back over to the couch with the blanket, which she draped over him lightly as she sat down next to him on the edge.

"She asleep?" he whispered, absently rubbing her arm.

"Yeah. I'm sorry she..."

"Hey, this is what it's going to be like," he said simply. "We're going to be interrupted a lot. I'm okay with that."

"You are?"

"Yeah," he said with a grin. "I think it'll be worth it," he said, tugging her towards him and kissing her again.

She sat up, smiled at him, and said, "Yeah, me too. I'd better go..."

"Yeah," he agreed, letting go of her slowly. She stood up. "Hey, Sam?"

"What?"

"Try to think of a nicer way to wake me up tomorrow morning than the cold water."

She laughed quietly and said, "I'm sure I can think of something."

He nodded and watched her go back over to the bed. When she had stretched out next to her niece, he reached over and turned off the lamp, settling under his blanket. It was a long time before he stopped smiling and fell asleep.

The end.

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A/N: Wow, that is definitely the longest thing I've written. Kate, who Sam is a natural to replace in this story, actually did get engaged this Christmas, but I'm sorry, guys, I just couldn't bring myself to write the whole cliché where General Hammond calls with special permission for them to 'fraternize,' which of course prompts Jack to immediately propose... I just couldn't do it. If you want to pretend that's how this one ends, go ahead. I myself pretend Dr. Fraiser never died and Pete does not exist, so I won't take it personally if you want to make up your own alternate ending to this. I was going for a happy yet not completely outside the realm of extreme possibility ending. Thank you so much for all of the interest in this story, and especially for all of the great reviews. I'm thinking of doing a sequel/continuation where they actually go to the get-together at Janet's that was mentioned in this story, but if I decide to do it, it just won't be possible for it to come out as fast as this one did. Once again, thank you.