Chapter Text
2009
Jack had never been so unimaginably bored. And as a man who had spent more than eight years waiting around bored as hell on multitudes of planets waiting for his teammates to complete their soil sampling, ruin documenting, technogadget-tinkering or what-have-yous, being unimaginably bored right now was really saying something. He would even go so far as to welcome a mind-numbingly dull meeting in Washington with a bunch of bureaucrats all with their heads up their asses.
And as he whispered that exact last thought word-for-word into the woman beside him’s ear, the sound of her giggle and the sight of her great effort to keep a straight face out of respect for the Tok’ra’s ceremony lit up his weary soul. God he’d missed her so much.
“Speaking of bureaucrats’ asses, Jack...,” she whispered flirtatiously, and he was surprised to feel her stealthily reach down to his buttocks pinching a cheek. He might have been sitting behind a desk for the past three years, and put on a little weight, but yeah, he liked to think he still had it. Well he certainly did with his wife, at least.
“Hey!” he protested in jest, batting away her arm playfully, earning himself a scornful look from Daniel, who returned his attention immediately to the crooning Tok’ra.
Deciding to go in for a tease, he leaned back in subtly to whisper into Sam’s ear again, “Call me a bureaucrat ever again, Colonel, and this particular ass is out of bounds for good!”
He readied a grin in anticipation of her retaliating fake pout- the one he’d come to know and love ever since their early days together on SG-1 of harmless flirting and banter- but to his surprise, there was an unexpected pause in her eyes. And as he turned to look at her- really study her face now for the first time since she’d come back from Atlantis- he noticed that she looked tired. They hadn’t had a moment alone together yet as he’d missed her return from Atlantis while he’d been accompanying SG-3 with Ba’al’s restraint before coming straight here to the Tok'ra homeworld. Probably a good thing he hadn’t been in the Gate Room anyway, he wasn’t sure whether he’d have been able to restrain himself from physically hurting Woolsey for stealing Sam’s prize job, or sweeping his wife up in his arms as soon as she’d stepped through the event horizon and kissing her. The image of both scenarios- along with imagining Woolsey’s reaction to either- made him release the grin he’d been holding.
He saw her eyes flicker to his mouth and then there it was: a flash of that mega-watt smile he loved so much broke out, softening his unease momentarily, but as he continued to gaze upon her l face he saw that she looked paler than usual. Her features seemed thinner, and while he seemed to gain a pound per month spent in Washington it looked like she’d lost a pound or two since he’d last seen her.
He wanted to ask her how she was, but while he’d been lost in his thoughts of concern she’d already returned her expression back to neutral and was re-focused on the Tok’ra; Daniel occasionally sending scathing looks towards him from the corner of his eyes.
”Don’t screw this up Jack. I needn’t remind you that since losing Jacob our ties with the Tok’ra have been strained at best. We’re lucky that they even invited us at all, despite your history with Ba’al” he’d said.
Honestly though, to him, the Goa’uld were wiped out, and now Ba’al was about to be gone. War won, mission accomplished, job done. As far as he was concerned he could live without ever having anything to do with the Tok’ra ever again, but knowing the Tok’ra still meant a lot to Sam, he decided he’d keep up the professional act for her benefit, and maybe Earth's too, he supposed. So filing away those nagging thoughts for later, he decided to force himself to re-focus on the longest, most-boring-performance-in-the-galaxy ever.
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The minutes dredged on and on and he could feel his eyes glassing over, ears no longer bothering to pick out any intelligible words from the droning voices anymore. He barely had the energy or patience to hide the several yawns that were escaping, each time expecting Sam to nudge him in punishment in the side, but she never did. In fact, to his surprise, he noticed that Sam, too, seemed what one might call 'fidgety' next to him. Thinking back over the past ten years he couldn't think of a single instance where he might have described her as fidgety. He'd never met such a professional in his entire career in the Air Force- she was always Soldier Sam, through and through. She'd never even let down her guard on team nights, either, always manintaining a professional distance from him, her CO. Not even beer could even get her to let her hair down as the naquadah in her blood prevented her from getting tipsy. It wasn't until she'd transferred to Area 51 three years ago to escape their chain-of-command that she'd finally lowered her guard and let him in, and he'd promptly made her his wife.
Smiling at the memory, his happy trip down memory lane was interrupted by the sound of a sigh as he saw her shift her weight again for the umpteenth time, looking noticeably uncomfortable. Sure they’d been standing for over two hours now, but past experience told him that she could keep form better. Mitchell was doing a good job of being professional, though maybe he was putting on his best act in front of himself. Teal'c was of course solid and stoic as ever, and Vala was, well, he'd heard enough to expect very little from her. But Sam? Maybe being out of the field for a year heading Atlantis had caused her to lose some stamina? He knew he certainly had since being promoted off SG-1, he wasn’t even sure if he was even physically qualified to go off-world anymore, but at least he was so high up that no one seemed to question these things anymore. He had become "The Man", after all.
Speaking of being fidgety, out of the corner of his eye he saw that Vala was now tugging at Daniel’s arm like a bored child, much to Daniel's annoyance. He couldn't help but smile, thinking that he and Vala might get along if he spent some time with her. They did seem to have some things in common- annoying Dannyboy being one of them. He was glad to see someone on the team had taken up his mantle of tormenting the man.
Seizing the chance while Daniel was sufficiently distracted, he tried to engage Sam in whispered conversation again.
“Sam, everything okay?” he asked gently.
“Yeah, I’m fine.” Hah! As if he hadn’t heard that a gazillion times over the years. She could have been shot in the shoulder and she’d still say ‘I’m fine.’ “Just tired. Gate lag, I guess,” she added at his disbelieving eyebrow raise. He nodded, giving her the opportunity to continue if she wished, which she did, “and if I’m honest, I’m pretty pissed Woolsey’s taking my job.”
There it was. He’d known there was something.
“I’m so sorry. I swear I fought them hard on it. I know what that position meant to you. There’s no question that you are the best choice for leader for Atlantis.”
“Thank you,” she said kindly, “and I know you would have fought them on it.”
“Damn straight I did-”
“But don’t be sorry, at least I’ll be back on Earth again. With you.”
“There’s that,” he said, unable to suppress a schoolboy-like grin. “I’m definitely not sorry about that.”
It seemed that Daniel had tamed Vala for the time being, as he was back to throwing another of his ‘you should be paying attention to the ceremony’ glowering looks, so he ended the conversation and discreetly slid his hand into Sam's, trying to push aside the niggling feeling that there was still something she wasn't telling him. But there'd be plenty of time later to catch up now that she would be back on Earth for good, assuming of course that he didn't drop dead of old age before this damn ceremony was over.
Returning his eyes to the ceremony, he gently voiced, “I missed this,” feeling her give his hand a gentle squeeze in return, indicating that she’d heard him. And as the Tok'ra continued their warbling, the two silently continued their communication through the contact of their entwined fingers.