Title: Simplicity

Author: Kellifer

Email: (same for MSN addy)

Category: Angst / Team dynamic

Summary: Flashes of a life together. (Team, S/J)

Disclaimer: DISCLAIMER: All publicly recognizable characters and places are the property of MGM, World Gekko Corp and Double Secret Productions. This piece of fan fiction was created or entertainment No monetary purposes and no infringement on copyrights or trademarks was intended. Previously unrecognized characters and places, and this story, are copyrighted to the author. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

-Simplicity-

xx Now I lay me down to sleep xx

The sleeping arrangements had been an ever-evolving thing. Jack and Sam in one tent and Teal'c and Daniel in the other. Then they'd switched to Teal'c and Jack together and Sam and Daniel in the other.

Finally they'd hit on the one they stuck with.

Teal'c and Sam.

Daniel and Jack.

Looking over his sleeping companions while on watch, Jack decided he liked the mild nights the best when they could sleep out underneath the stars.

His three teammates, all in a row squashed together like sardines.

Daniel whimpered and stirred and Jack saw a slender arm snake out of Sam's sleeping bag and curl over Daniel's chest. He stilled as Teal'c instinctively moved closer.

A blonde head poked out of the end of Sam's sleeping bag and he could see just her eyes. They crinkled in a way that he could tell she was smiling without seeing her mouth.

xx I pray the Lord xx

Every time he got hit in the back of the knees he swore he would learn his lesson and just kneel down on his own steam.

His pride never let him do it.

Sam also would take the blow before lowering herself. He noticed Daniel would kneel before the Goa'uld without prompting, but it wasn't a sign of weakness. Jack understood that Daniel wasn't held up by a bull-headed defiance, what showed his disgust was the strong set of his jaw and his blazing eyes.

Jack looked to his right and saw Sam wince. "We should just wear kneepads as standard issue." He grunted and she glanced at him sideways, a grin in her eyes if not on her face. Daniel had started speaking already, trying to reason, trying to get them out of their most recent predicament and find out where the Goa'uld had stashed Teal'c.

He got a staff weapon to the face for his trouble, a fine spray of blood arcing across the elaborately tiled floor.

Jack and Sam both knew better than to try to go to his aid but did it anyway.

xx My soul to keep xx

"Do you really think you can afford that, Sir?" Sam was looking over her cards at what Jack had just placed in the pot. There were various bits of precious and some cash, plus the item Jack had just laid down on the top.

Glancing back at her cards and seeing the four tens stare back at her impassively, she knew she finally had him.

Jack leaned back in his chair and rubbed hands on his chest. "You can fold Carter." He was wearing the lopsided grin that he thought was his poker-grin, but Sam knew by now was his tell.

He was bluffing.

"Sorry, Sir." She laid her cards on the table and he groaned, throwing down his own. She leant forward over the table as Daniel snorted in amusement and Jack promptly cuffed him over the back of the head. Sam sorted through her winnings slowly, coming back to the last item that was thrown in the pot.

It was a napkin.

On it was written 'Jack's soul'.

She looked at him and he was smiling.

"Probably safer with you anyway."

xx And if I die xx

She'd liked Major Ella Darce a great deal and the damage wrought on the diminutive frame was a travesty. She heard Colonel Friel hitch a ragged and pained breath as Darce was brought back through the Event Horizon and the sheet that had covered her slid free, exposing the blackened torso and the staring, green eyes.

Later she stood in Colonel Friel's office doorway, wanting to offer comfort. She had no idea what to say.

"Major Carter, anything I can do for you?" His voice was hollow and she stood mutely on the threshold, the crazy desire to simply flee almost overwhelming. She opened her mouth and one of his hands came up, palm out.

"Don't." He said simply.

Later she sat in the locker room, feeling foolish and trembling all over. There was a gentle thump as someone sat down beside her and then she was being pulled into a sideways hug. "She stepped in front of him. He'll never forgive himself." Her voice sounded small to her own ears.

"No, he won't." Jack agreed.

xx Before I wake xx

She had learned to throw things at him from a distance, rather than shaking him awake. It had only taken one black eye to learn that lesson. A pebble hit his forehead with an audile 'thok' and he was up in a crouch, hands searching for his weapon, before his brain caught on that he was actually awake.

"Carter, what the hell!" He yelped, seeing her standing a few feet away, more ammunition in the form of small stones being passed from one hand to the other.

She was grinning. "It'll take you a while to find your P-90, Sir, considering you didn't bring it."

He looked about himself blearily. Trees, sleeping bags and a fire.

They had to be offworld.

Or camping.

Oh right, they were camping.

"Why the hell are we camping?" He rubbed a hand through his hair, trying to flatten the crazy spikes and snags and only succeeding in smooshing them around. Sam was grinning still, shifting her weight from one hip to the other.

She was wearing one of his hockey shirts and nothing else.

Camping.

He grinned back. "That's right. I love camping."

xx I pray xx

"..." He was holding onto the side of her neck and there was still blood pouring through his fingers. He knew he would have to staunch the flow more effectively but didn't dare remove his hand to hunt around for something more useful.

"Daniel!" He cried raggedly. His radio was with his vest on the other side of the clearing and to reach it he would have to take his hand away...

"DANIEL!" He screamed.

xx The Lord xx

"Why are temples always so... gold?"

Daniel was looking at him, a patient exasperation clear on his features.

"I'll just be ten minutes. I'll take some rubbings and a few pictures and then we're out of here."

Jack looked to Sam who smiled indulgently. "You're never ten minutes Daniel." Jack grumped, knowing he was going to give in anyway. Sure enough, he and Sam were sitting on the same temple steps, two hours later. He had grown bored and was searching through Sam's pockets.

"Are you looking for anything specific?" She had her arms held out, letting him rummage.

"You've gotta have something breakable in here somewhere."

Sam smiled but a hand drifted to a pocket on her left thigh, hovering protectively. Jack grinned, immediately chasing the hand. She tried to squirm away but he gripped her around the waist with his other arm.

"Aha! Oh... ugh!" Jack had liberated a small black cylinder and had pried it open. Inside there had been a foul smelling paste that he managed to flick onto his own face when he had cracked the cylinder open. "Do I even want to know what this is?"

"Frankly Sir, I don't even know what it is. It's a sample I took from P3X-657."

"We haven't been there for two months!"

"Yep."

xx My soul xx

Back to back, covering both entrances. She had her P-90 and all he had was a zat, but he figured they'd been in worse situations.

"Sir?"

"Yeah, Carter?"

"I just wanted to say-"

"Don't you dare." He snapped. "If the next words that were going to come out of your mouth involved serving, honour and a past tense then just stow it. We'll be fine."

"Yes, Sir."

She always followed his orders.

He liked that.

xx To Keep xx

"You'll be needing these back." Sam held aloft the dog tags, which swung lazily back and forth from their chain.

"I was pronounced M.I.A, Carter, why do you still have those?" He was ragged and bloody and bound for the infirmary but he'd needed a few seconds alone with her and so they'd taken a detour to her lab. He just needed to make sure she was alive. He'd spent two months a prisoner, thinking that she, Daniel and Teal'c had been killed when he was taken.

He was unable to describe in words the relief he had felt when he'd stepped through the gate and all three had been waiting for him.

He had a hand on her arm now and although he knew the touch was inappropriate on base, and something he and Sam had agreed never to do, he couldn't seem to unlatch himself.

Like she were a live current.

"Oh no, Sir. Who told you that?"

"I just assumed…" He tilted his head and crooked an eyebrow at her.

"General Hammond informed me that he's come up with a new classification for SG-1, considering our propensity for…getting back."

"Oh?"

"Yep, you were classed M.B.A, Sir."

"And that means?" Jack's hand was walking its way up her arm, heading for the soft skin at her throat.

"Might Be Awhile."