Fic: Never Easy (Elizabeth/Jack)

Title: Never Easy
Author: paranoidangel
Characters/Pairing: Elizabeth/Jack
Rating: PG-13
Written for: irony_rocks who asked for:
1) The next time Elizabeth sees Jack O'Neill, for real, she tells him about the events of "The Real World."
2) cake
3) Atlantis-based
Beta: by tanaquisga who made it much better
Spoilers: 306 The Real World and 310 The Return part 1
Word Count: 3000
Disclaimer: Not mine, guv.


Until John interrupted her, Elizabeth felt that she had been doing quite well with her packing. Although admittedly it had been going slowly. She found her possessions held so many memories that she ended up doing more thinking that actual packing. Until she had pulled everything out she had not realized how much she had accumulated in the past two and a half years since they first came to Atlantis. Seeing it disappear again into crates only reinforced the message that they were leaving and not coming back.

After John left she got lost in thought for a while, before she decided to throw the contents of her office into boxes and bring them down to her room. Which was completely illogical, she knew, and meant that she could not see her floor for work-related boxes. Her bed had already disappeared under all the books she had begun piling there, and her desk was covered in clothes. She no longer cared about how much sense any of it made, since nothing made sense any more anyway.

By the time Jack O'Neill knocked at her door, she was glad of the distraction.

"Hi." He had a shy grin that she would not have expected to see on him. "Can I come in?"

"Um." She looked round at what was normally a neat and tidy place where she did not spend much time. "Sure," she said eventually, hopping back over to the bed to clear a corner. There was a chair somewhere in the room but she could not quite see it. "Sit down." She indicated the small space on the bed.

Jack grinned at her and sat. He had a box with him which he put down behind him, risking losing it in the mess of Elizabeth's possessions. She wondered what was in it but wanted to know even more what he was doing here. Maybe he just did not have anything to do while everyone else was busy packing. Not that she wasn't happy to see him, even if it meant that she would end up finishing her packing in a rush in the morning now. Although, she had to admit, Jack being here probably did not really change that, the rate she had been going.

"Sorry about the mess," she said. She took another pile of books from the bed and balanced them on a box that was mostly flat with files. It turned out not to be flat enough, because they slid off, with most landing between that box and its neighbor and two ending up under the bed.

"You should see my office. And that's just on a daily basis."

She smiled, knowing he was lying - the Air Force tended to create tidy people out of messy ones. Gingerly, she sat on the edge of the bed. She winced as she felt various things slide towards her. "So, to what do I owe the pleasure of a visit from the esteemed General O'Neill?"

"Just Jack. We're not at work now." He waggled a finger at her. "We've been through this before. And I wanted to apologize. Again."

She shook her head. "It's not your fault. I know you did everything you could."

"I just wish I could have left that ass, Woolsey on Earth. Then maybe you could have stayed."

"We can't change the past; what's done is done." She guessed the platitude probably helped him as little as it did her. The trite words reminded her of something that had happened not so long ago that, suddenly seeing Jack again, now seemed so strange. "Speaking of the past, I wanted to thank you."

He frowned. "You did?"

"Yes." She paused for a moment. "This is going to sound weird."

"I work with the SGC. I deal with the wacky every day. Did I tell you about the time I had the Ancients' knowledge downloaded into my brain?"

Elizabeth smiled. She could hardly forget, given he had done that right before they first met. She had read reports of the previous time that had happened to him and had thought he was brave for willingly doing it a second time. Her limited experience of Air Force Colonels meant she had not expected it of him. Now that she knew Jack better, she wondered how she could ever have thought anything less of him.

"I was attacked by the Replicators recently." She folded her hands on her lap and looked down at them. "Well, it was their nanites really. They made me think I was back on Earth, that the Stargate program didn't exist and I was going mad."

"As attacks go, it could have been worse."

As she looked up she saw him raise his eyebrows at her. She tucked an errant lock of her hair back behind her ear as she thought about what could have happened. "Except that it would have killed me eventually. Carson told me afterwards the nanites were trying to convert my body into a Replicator."

"Those nasty... microscopic beings."

She had to bite her lip to keep from smiling. "Actually, they're smaller than can be seen under an ordinary microscope."

He waved his hand. "Details."

Shaking her head, she continued with her story. "Anyway, in that world, in my head, we still met, even though there was no Stargate. You called me in to help with a treaty against the proliferation of nuclear weapons."

"Which sounds exactly like the sort of thing you're qualified for." He nodded his head at his words.

"That's probably why it seemed so real. You were really great, helping get on with my life after I thought I had a nervous breakdown, and being a friend. I just feel like I should thank you for what you did. The you in my head."

"Well, in that case, you're welcome." He frowned. "I think."

"Of course, after that it turned out you were really a nanite, trying to keep me in that world so they could take over my brain more easily, but...." She shrugged. It was generally better not to dwell on that too much.

"Ah, well, easy come, easy go. At least I was mostly the good guy."

She could not help but laugh at that. Now that she had said it out loud and told him what happened, it somehow seemed more unreal. It did feel good to laugh, though. There had not been much opportunity for that lately, but Jack always had a talent for finding the humor in any situation. That was partly why she liked him so much.

"Aren't you going to ask what's in the box?" he asked, when she had sobered.

"I wondered if you were going to keep me in suspense."

"Well, if you hadn't hijacked the conversation.... I planned what I was going to say and everything."

He looked so terribly serious for a minute that she felt compelled to hide her grin behind a hand.

Without giving her a chance to ask, he said, "I brought you cake."

Elizabeth frowned. "Is this an Athosian dish or did someone--?"

"It's one of Sergeant Siler's creations. Apparently he's doing a cake decorating course in the evenings and he sent this over as a celebration of Atlantis, so he said."

She tried for a mental image of Siler and icing but it was just not possible. He was good with a wrench but cakes were a whole different thing. "You're kidding me?"

"No." He fished the box out from behind him and opened the lid dramatically.

She leaned over to see in. "Wow," she breathed. "If he ever gets tired of working at the SGC, he's definitely got an alternative career." It was only a small, round sponge cake, but somehow Siler had managed to ice a Stargate on it. Some of the tiny symbols were even identifiable from the Milky Way Gates.

Jack angled the box towards him so he could get a better view. "I don't believe it."

His words surprised her. "You didn't look?"

"I promised Siler faithfully I wouldn't spoil the surprise."

"And you weren't tempted?" she asked, with a grin.

He sighed and gave her a look. "I'll have you know I can always be trusted to keep my word. Well, mostly. Probably."

She shook her head. "I'm sure I have a knife somewhere." She frowned. "I definitely saw one earlier." She stood and picked her way across the floor to root around the desk. When she moved a stack of clothes, she could not stop some of her underwear from falling. She thought she saw a pair of panties disappear inside a thick file on John Sheppard but could not quite care about that at the moment. Perhaps it would give someone a good laugh later.

The knife turned out to be in a different pile entirely. She did not even remember thinking it would be a good idea to wrap a sharp knife in a towel, but obviously she had done it anyway. It did at least mean it was probably clean enough.

Getting back over to the bed was equally fraught, especially now she was in danger of stabbing something on the way, but she managed to make it without incident.

Standing in front of Jack, who held the cake box on his lap, she said, "It almost seems a shame to cut it."

"It was made to be eaten."

Elizabeth gave him a look.

He shrugged. "That's what Siler told me."

She rolled her eyes, cut two slices and slid them out, passing one over to Jack. He put the box, with the knife now in it, on her nightstand. There was just enough space to perch beside him on a small pile of books, so she did so. She took a bite of her piece, one hand underneath to catch any crumbs, not that it mattered much now. She closed her eyes, savoring the taste. It was very good cake; she wondered if Siler had made as well as decorated it.

When she opened her eyes again to take another bite she saw Jack grinning at her. "What's so funny?"

"I can tell you're really enjoying that."

"I am." Another mouthful finished the slice off. Let Jack think whatever he wanted. It was good cake.

"You have a crumb," he said, reaching out one hand to brush his thumb gently against the corner of her mouth.

She looked at him as he did so, but his eyes were on her lips. Yet his hand lingered even after he was finished. She wondered if he was going to do something more, but his eyes did not meet hers and she could not guess what he was thinking. On impulse she turned her head to press a kiss to his palm.

He took his hand away. "This probably isn't the best time. You're upset about leaving Atlantis."

She stood up and turned away from him, so he would not be able to see the expression on her face. "This wasn't what you came here for. I'm sorry." With living in different galaxies they had not seen much of each other recently. Maybe he really had turned up just to offer her cake, as unlikely as it seemed. But his being there had stirred up all her old feelings.

"I didn't say that exactly."

She heard him stand, and then he was behind her, one hand on her shoulder, warming it with his touch. With his other hand, he gently brushed the hair away from her neck. She could feel every tiny part of her skin his fingers touched. She closed her eyes, wondering what he would do next, trying to decide if she should respond the way she wanted to, or whether she should stop him. After all, he spoke the truth; she was looking for someone to make her world right again and this was not necessarily the best way to do it.

The decision was taken away from her when she felt his lips against her neck. "Jack," she began, a little unsteadily, "I don't want you to do this just to offer comfort."

He spun her round and kissed her, his lips firm on hers. Her arms went round his neck; one of his was around her waist, pulling her to him. "Any version of me," he said, when they parted, "would always help any version of you. Either way, I want to do this. You're beautiful, smart, and you laugh at my jokes."

She smiled in response and touched his cheek with one hand. This time, she pulled him down to her for another kiss, enjoying the taste of the cake that still lingered. They both jumped at a crash outside her door, followed by shouting. She hoped no one had dropped anything fragile. Just because they were going back to Earth did not necessarily mean they did not need some of this stuff.

She bit her lip, wondering whether she should go out and check. Jack, who was still holding onto her, took the decision out of her hands by maneuvering them round so the back of her legs hit the bed. She fell on it, with him on top of her, and the world outside of the two of them was mostly forgotten as he reminded her how good a kisser he was. However, she was distracted by the books with hard corners under her back, and the way some of them fell onto the floor as Jack moved round to apply his mouth to other parts of her body.

"It's no good," she said, as he wrestled with taking her top off. She stilled her hands on his chest, under his shirt. She almost wished he had his jacket on; he looked good in uniform. "This is just too uncomfortable."

"Oh." He sat up and awkwardly pulled his shirt back into place.

She had to bite her lip to keep from smiling. "I meant the bed, you idiot." To punctuate the point she threw a book that had been trying to cut her spine in two at him.

He caught it easily, with one hand, and turned it over to look at the cover. "Danielle Steele?"

She blushed. "One of my guilty pleasures." She really wished she had looked more carefully at what she had thrown before she did it. "Why don't you help me pack? Then there'll be more space on the bed." She began piling things up, although she was still not sure where she was going to fit it all.

Jack, though, solved the problem by stripping the blanket and taking everything else with it, raining books onto boxes and leaving her holding a file slightly awkwardly. "I can't wait that long," he said, taking the file off her and sending it with wild abandon to join the others before attacking her top enthusiastically, so that he had it off before she even had time to think. By the time he had her on her back again, with his mouth making its way towards her breasts, she was not going to complain. It was a much better way of spending her last night in Atlantis.

~*~*~*~

Afterwards, while Jack slept, Elizabeth unearthed her robe from under a pile of papers and stood at the window. She had seen this view a thousand times; it was etched on her brain; but that no longer seemed like enough. When they got here she had not missed Earth that much: maybe because she had been so busy. She was already feeling homesick for Atlantis, and they had not even left yet.

She gave a sigh and sat down on the floor: her muscles protested as they begun to ache from the distraction Jack had given her. Now she was alone - or nearly - she allowed a tear to fall down her cheek unchecked. It was just the start, though, because more followed.

She did not even hear Jack get up, and only knew he was there when she felt his arms around her. She leant her head against his chest for a minute and told herself she was being stupid. This was the Ancients' city: they had every right to it, whereas she had none. Lifting her head, she gave him a small smile and a kiss. He did not let go but settled down next to her.

"When you get back, give me a call," he said. "I'll tidy my place for you."

Jack somehow always knew what to say to make her feel better.

"Just so we can make it messy again," he added.

She laughed and she felt him laugh too.

"It will be just like in the nanite world," he went on. "Except without the nanites and with the Stargate program still existing."

It was only now that she trusted her voice to speak. "And what exactly do you think we got up to?"

"I wouldn't have been able to resist you."

"Except you were really a nanite...."

"Oh, well...."

She smiled to herself. She was not going to tell him exactly what had gone on between the two of them. Not yet, anyway.

Fortunately, given her lack of success with stalling tactics around him, he changed the subject. "What are we looking at?"

"Over there," she pointed towards a tower capped with a tall spike, "the moon is setting and the sun will rise. There are colors in the sky never seen on Earth."

"I bet I've seen better."

"Oh, yes?" She turned to face him. "Can you prove it?"

"I'm sure Daniel has photos. I'll get him to find them when we get back to the SGC."

"And what if you're wrong, and an Atlantis dawn is the best sunrise in two galaxies?"

"I'll buy you dinner. But I'll be right, and you'll be buying."

He grinned at her, and she could not but help return the grin; his happiness was infectious. She kissed him again, to show him how much she appreciated him. He pulled her closer and broke off exploring her lips to to kiss along her jaw and nibble at her ear.

They nearly missed the sun rising.