Unending Devotion 1
Unending Devotion
by Sistine
URL: http://www.area52hkh.net/ass/sistine/unending.php
Summary: A couple of AU missing scenes for 'Unending', where Jack is on board instead of Landry and Sam finally makes her move.
Info: This is how 'Unending' should have gone.
"I'm going to ask him."
Vala Mal Doran looked up from where she was fiddling with a console. She was bored, bored, bored. Six months of waiting for Sam to get them out of this mess - that mess being stuck in a time dilation field as a blast from an Ori ship headed towards them in extreme slow motion - meant that Vala had nothing to do. So she had come down to the lab to keep Sam company in the hopes that she wouldn't be bored. No luck so far. "Ask who what?"
"Jack. I'm going to ask him if he'd like to go on a date," Sam replied. She had been thinking about this on and off for the past six months and had made up her mind to do it. They weren't likely to get out of here for a long time, so fraternisation rules didn't apply, and this was the best chance she was going to get.
"Okay. That's a bad idea," Vala stated honestly.
"Why?" Finally there was nothing to hold them back from acting on their feelings.
"Because... he's not your type," Vala said. She was way more observant than Sam and knew that Jack was already seeing someone.
Sam frowned; this wasn't the way the conversation was supposed to be going. "Why not?"
"Because..." Vala frantically searched for a reason besides the truth. "Because he doesn't respect you enough, that's why. Now Cam, he would be great for you. Or maybe Muscles... unless I get him first." Teal'c fascinated her and was one of the few men at the SGC that hadn't fallen for her charms. Daniel and General Landry were the others.
"Vala--" Sam didn't understand why she wasn't supporting her.
"Oops, got to run. I promised Teal'c I'd play basketball with him. Bye." Vala made a hasty exit, not wanting to blurt out the truth accidentally.
Sam continued to frown. Why did Vala think Jack didn't respect her? Maybe she was just jealous that Daniel wasn't returning her flirting so she wanted to make sure that Sam couldn't have her guy either? No, that wasn't in Vala's nature. But there definitely had been something that Vala knew and wasn't saying. Better go straight to the source and find out.
********************
"Carter," Jack said without preamble as he walked into Sam's lab, "I have an idea. Why don't we just switch the engines on and travel out of the beam's path? Then when we switch the time dilation thingy off, it'll go straight past us."
Sam was so surprised to hear a logical question come out of Jack's mouth that she didn't answer for a few seconds. Then she pulled herself together and replied, "I hadn't thought of that, sir. I'll run some simulations and see whether that would work."
"You do that." Jack turned to head out of the room.
"Sir!"
Jack turned slowly around, a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach. "Yes?"
"Sir... Jack, I was wondering if... you and I could maybe get together. You know, now that the rules won't get in the way." Sam hoped that Jack would reply in the positive but something in his wary expression made her less optimistic about that possibility.
He had wondered how long it would take her to ask him, and he had privately hoped that she never would. Oh well, better bite the bullet. "Sorry, Carter. I'm already with someone else."
"Oh." She hadn't expected that at all. "Vala didn't say that you and she..."
"It's not Vala."
"Oh." If it was someone on the ship, that only left three men... "You're gay?"
Jack hated labels. "No." There was only the one guy he was interested in.
"But..." Sam didn't get it. If Jack was seeing a man, then he had to be gay. She would have to ask straight out. "Who is it?"
Jack looked her in the eye. Time to let her know the truth no matter how much she hated it.
********************
Daniel gazed at the hologram of Asgard writing, trying to memorise as much as he could. He might never get to learn or remember it all but he was going to give it his best shot.
He turned slightly as he heard a light footstep. "Jack, I'm busy."
"I know. I just came to tell you, I told Carter." Jack stepped up behind his lover and put an arm around Daniel's waist. The other arm rested over the younger man's chest, holding Daniel to him.
Oh. "She finally asked?" Daniel knew that his 'science twin' had long had a crush on Jack.
"Yep."
"And?"
"She probably won't be speaking to us for a while," Jack replied. The conversation hadn't gone well.
//"Daniel?" Sam said incredulously. "You and Daniel?"
"That's right." It was freeing to tell someone at long last.
"Since when?" Sam wanted to know how long they had been hiding the truth from her.
"Since Honduras," he admitted. She was going to be furious at him for not saying anything.
"Three years?" Sam couldn't believe it. They had been a couple for over three years and hadn't once said anything! "Why didn't you tell me?" She had wasted so much time, and lost the one man who had wanted to marry her.
Jack shifted uncomfortably. "You know why we couldn't. We couldn't ask you to lie for us if anyone found out." It was a very good reason and it hid the one that admitted that he was scared of what Carter would do when she knew.
"I thought you loved me," Sam accused him, anger rising in her. How *dare* he do this to her!
"That's what you wanted to think, and I shouldn't have let you," Jack stated. He knew he was much to blame for Sam's belief. "But if you remember rightly, I've only ever said that I cared more than I was supposed to."
That was true. In her dreams, she had rewritten that as an admission of love because he had been safe; she hadn't been able to have him. Now she realised that even if she had been able to have him, he wouldn't have been available. Sam turned away to look out the window. She had been such a fool. "Who else knows?"
"Don't know. We haven't told anyone," Jack said truthfully. He guessed that Teal'c would probably know, and maybe Vala as they were both very observant. "I'm sorry."
"So am I," Sam replied sadly.//
"This is going to make things... awkward," Daniel observed. He let himself relax in Jack's arms. "What'll happen if she doesn't accept it?"
"I don't know. But we might have to stay away from any part of the ship that opens up to space," Jack joked. He kissed the side of Daniel's face, happy just to be with his lover.
Daniel rolled his eyes; Jack would never change. Knowing that his partner hated talking about this kind of stuff, Daniel changed the subject. "Meet you for lunch?" He would give Sam a few days to come to terms with the news and then talk to her but in the meantime, he needed to enjoy every second he had with Jack because they didn't know how long they would be stuck here.
"Sure. I'll be back to collect you if you don't show." Jack kissed Daniel again and then left his partner to it. He hoped that Carter would get over it soon otherwise things could become very difficult. Maybe he ought to talk to Cam and see if the younger man was interested in dating her...
