AN: Oh look! A plot! Whoever put that there?

Fledgling

"I've been thinking."

Jack looked up from scrubbing the wriggling beagle. "A dangerous pastime –"

Sam thumped his shoulder before he could get into all out Disney Sing-a-Long mode.

"I've been thinking seriously, Jack."

He sobered…which lasted exactly three seconds before Homer's tail gave an especially energetic wag and sent a miniature tsunami up Jack's nose. Post-compulsive-sneezing-fit he straightened out his much abused dignity and said, "Thinking about what, Sam?"

She smiled uncertainly. "University."

---^---

"You're sure?"

"Well, not really…"

"But you want to?"

She gave him an earnest, wide-eyed look. Whispered, "Yeah. I mean, I love working at the BC, and honestly, that's kind of amazing to me, but…but I need to…"

"You need to be you."

How did he always get it right?

A sigh. "Yeah. I mean its not even physics, y'know? It's just…the need to do something, to pull something apart and see how it goes together, to make it work better, to build something. I want…I want that sense of accomplishment back."

He watched her for a moment. Careful, assessing. She realized he wasn't just going to back her up, he was going to be…well, he was going to be Jack about it. He'd be there, encouraging and cautioning in equal measures, the hand that stayed and steadied in one motion.

The sense of relief was quick and warm.

"There's the practical side to consider, Sam. I mean, we don't earn much; enough to get by, but its café work…"

"I know." And she did, she'd thought about this, and talked to some of the part-timers who went to school on the mainland. "Student loans are interest free here, and there's a program for repayments once you hit a certain pay bracket. I can get a student pass for the ferries and buses. I can study part time, and still do half weeks at BC…"

Jack grinned out right at her. "Part time, really?" There was that look in his eye.

She thumped him again. "You're teasing me," she groused.

"Yeaaaah, just a little." He snorted. "But come on, Sam, this is you we're talking about here. When have you ever done anything part time?"

She felt herself blush, even as she rolled her eyes at him.

"What would you study?" There was honest curiosity in his voice, and she paused to really think about the question. This was part of why she'd wanted to talk to him about it. Not just because he was her quintessential other half these days, but because she was struggling with that particular quandary herself.

What would she study? Not astrophysics again. Even here, across the world, it was still too dangerous; the field itself narrow enough that anyone as young and bright as she inevitably was would get noticed…and if she got noticed…

Besides, she couldn't shake the feeling that she had run that course. That had been the other life, the one she had memories of, but hadn't actually lived. It was a source of secret smiles and reminiscence and vague in-jokes that made Shan and their work mates give them raised eyebrows and second glances, but it wasn't who they were now. It wasn't who they were becoming.

Sam sighed and let her head drop onto Jack's shoulder. His arm went around her automatically, and the simple fact of that made her smile.

"I don't know," she murmured. "I'm not sure yet. But when I am…"

He gave her a squeeze and kissed her hair.

"When you are," he agreed.