rachel500 | Fanfiction: Falling in Love With Carter

Fandom: Stargate SG1
Series: Five Things
Prompt: Five ways Jack is subtle.
Rating: PG-13
Author's Note: Sam/Jack. Spoilers for SG1.
Disclaimer: No copyright infringement intended. Written for entertainment purposes only.

Falling in Love With Carter

1.Watching her six

OK, so he’s not always subtle.

Hey, he’s a guy. He has eyes. And Carter’s not exactly hard to look at on a bad day – and he pushes away the memory of seeing Carter lying on a floor almost dead.

But revealing alien dresses and sweet tank tops aside, Jack can be subtle.

Like right at that moment.

She’s briefing Hammond on some Tok’ra thing and her attention is on the star-map. Jack is positioned strategically behind her. His eyes drift downward momentarily to her ass. The BDU is fairly shapeless but she isn’t and there’s enough of a hint to conjure up images of what’s beneath.

Oh, yeah. He’s definitely a guy.

She looks behind her and Jack quickly averts his gaze. He figures if Carter caught him staring at her ass, she would so kick his.

2.Hearing her babble

Carter is hot when she techno-babbles.

Really hot.

It’s the way she lights up; hands gesturing, body in motion, agile mouth forming all those complicated multi-syllabic words in between flashes of brilliant smiles, and her eyes become this molten electric blue that spark every time they meet his.

Did he mention hot?

Jack knows he’s safe because he cuts her off enough in the field for her not to catch on. He asks another question about the wormhole to get her going again and she even picks up an apple to demonstrate. He simply stands back and enjoys the show.

3.Holding her close

Jack doesn’t get a lot of excuses to hug Carter – keeping warm and Daniel dying are really the only ones readily available to him as her CO.

But never let it be said he lets an opportunity go by. Carter’s confused from being hit with Hathor’s hand beam thingy and he’s cold after a second round of freezer treatment.

He holds her tightly. He can smell her; feel her; touch her.

And, God, he needs this, needs her.

It takes him a moment to realise she’s holding him back just as tightly. And suddenly the thought occurs to him that maybe he’s not the only one who needs the hug.

4.Confessing her importance

He has only just admitted the whole truth of it to himself in a kind of abstract, possibly, maybe he feels feelings kind of way.

He planned on telling Carter never. She has a great future ahead of her: one that he very much doubts involves her hooking up with an old beat-up flyboy with more baggage than she should have to deal with.

He certainly never expected to tell her by refusing to leave her.

Jack stands with a blue force-shield between them, imminent death marching around the corner, and he’s telling her he loves her without saying a word.

And maybe it’s subtle but he knows she gets the message because he can see quite clearly, and with no small amount of shock, that she loves him back.

5.Tasting her lips

Jack likes to think he’s subtle in how he finally gets to kiss Carter without alternate universes or alien viruses having something to do with it.

OK, so the yellow sweater is not subtle.

Neither is the resignation.

Making his move in front of General Hammond is probably the very definition of unsubtle.

Yet Jack does it with the knowledge of the time loop; in knowing he can kiss her without consequences for either of them.

When his lips meet hers and – oh God, she’s kissing him back and he can taste Carter with the merest hint of Jello – Jack really doesn’t care whether it’s subtle or not.

Stocking little blue Jello pots in his refrigerator just so he can remember that kiss though: that’s subtle even for Jack.

fin.