8Sam found herself in a room in the White House with an obviously bewildered Jack O'Neill.
"OK, what did I miss?"
"Miss, sir?" replied Sam innocently. "The President offered me a job."
"I heard that bit, but what was all the guff about legal issues? Far as I know you get offered a job by the President you tend to accept. You don't usually study the fine print first."
"The fine print makes a lot of difference in this case."
"Why? And what was that about being called Dr. You've always had a thing about using your rank rather than title. Practically the first thing you ever said to me." As he said the last bit Jack realised how revealing it could be and hoped Sam had not noticed. Oh, no, too much to hope for, she had that look the women had all been wearing in the Oval Office, like they had just seen a cute puppy or something. He just hoped he was not the puppy. Although if Sam was offering him a home…
"That's the fine print that makes all the difference. The post is a civilian one, but apparently the arrangement would be that my rank would be suspended so that I could return to duty afterwards if I chose."
"Why not just make it a military position, like mine?"
"That's why, because yours is a military position."
Sam seemed to be getting very riled and was starting to blush again, yet Jack was at a loss to understand why, or what she was talking about, for that matter.
"Nope, still in the dark."
"Oh, Jack," (she never called him by his name, however bad things got, so what was going on here?), "can't you see without making me spell it out?" Sam took one look at his face and got her answer.
"Ok, the post is a civilian one so that, if I chose, I could enter into a relationship which would not be possible otherwise."
Jack was starting to get a good feeling about this, but surely if the snags were apparent to him, then they would be glaringly obvious to others.
"But if you returned to the Air Force…."
"Apparently the lawyers think an existing relationship falls into a different category."
"Think? That's one heck of a gamble."
Sam blushed even more and looked at the floor.
"The Joint Chiefs have issued a clarification, so I was told."
Finally Sam raised her eyes and looked Jack straight in the eye.
"So it would not be a problem, if I chose to come on to Siler."
Jack snorted, grinned, and then unexpectedly swooped to quickly kiss her.
"Poor Siler, he wouldn't know what had hit him. You do know you have quite the reputation at SGC?"
"Me, sir?" Sam put her hand on his arm, the first physical contact other than the kiss since they had seen each other outside the Oval Office.
Jack gathered her into his arms and kissed her more thoroughly before reluctantly pulling away and putting her at a distance.
"That was extremely inappropriate given where we are. I would hate for you to end up being court-martialled and not being able to take this job."
"But I didn't…."
"Sam, at the risk of being inappropriate again, you only have to be there and when you smile at me like that, well, it was definitely your fault."
Sam laughed and patted his arm.
"Tell that to the court-martial."
"You better get back to the President and accept this job. When do you become a civilian?"
"I'll check, sir."
"The sooner the better."
Sam left the room with a last smile over her shoulder for Jack and so nearly bumped into Donna stood outside.
She smiled at her and simply said, "I think I might accept the job."