AN: Just finished watching S4:Ep2 'The Other Side' and this one came to me out of nowhere. The tensions in that whole episode seemed a little off and there was never any explanation for it, they all just moved on...anyhoo that is kinda beside the point. This one is a sort of missing scene tag between the first Eurondan contact with Alar and the SGCs ability to respond. Just after they get confirmation that it was in fact people who hit the iris.

If you haven't seen it for a while you might get a little bit lost. Unedited and subject to change...as always. Also it's worth noting that this is a much colder and pragmatic version of Jack O'Neill than I usually write, more of a 'tough love' O'Neill I suppose. I am a little rusty on fanfic these days, got too much in the way of Law and Psychology in my head to make much sense of Jack and Sam at the mo...sorry :/

Summary: Set during S4:Ep2, so spoilers alert. Jack has just returned to the SGC to find out Carter never left. Concerned, given that they had already had a discussion about this kind of thing he goes to wait for her and as her CO remind her of a few things and get some answers. Friendship/Angst. Rated K. Jack/Sam NON-ship. One-shot.

NOT YOUR FAULT

"Not you fault Carter, move on." He told her and left the room. He had heard her hesitant agreement and knew exactly what she needed to hear. First he would go get changed and then he was going straight to the one place she would go when she finally got to the point where she needed to be alone and there he would wait for her because talking to her in the Control Room, or before she was ready to listen just was not going to work, besides there were just a few things he, as her CO needed to find out first.

OoO

Two hours later Sam could not take any more. Sitting in the control room with the conformation that she had not been fast enough in deciphering the codes to save the three Eurondan volunteers was getting to her, she needed to be alone. "Walter, this next run over the data stream is going to take a while. Do you think you can handle it? I need a break."

"Sure thing Major, I've got it."

The little guy nodded confidently and Carter felt herself sigh. "Thank you. Can you-"

"Call you if there is anything new, of course Major."

"I'll be in my lab." With that she left them to it. Ten minutes alone, that was all she was prepared to allow herself, then she needed to grab a sandwich and get back to it. She should have figured it out sooner. She should have been able to save those people. The Colonel told her to move on, but in reality that was not so easy. Logically she was not personally responsible for what had happened but her delay in making contact had caused three lives to be lost.

OoO

She was still deep in thought when she closed the door of her lab and so when he spoke he half frightened the hell out of her.

"Thought you would have got here sooner, Carter."

"Gee, god! Sir! You scared me. What are you doing here?" she demanded, unintentionally snapping at him.

Jack ignored her tone and cocked his head at her from his chair near the corner of the room. "I came to make sure you were okay." he told her levelly.

"Sir?" she asked, her own head tilting at the same angle as his.

Jack moved from his place, immediately coming closer to her. "You never left the base, Carter. You look stressed. How long has this whole them calling us dealie been going on?"

Sam hesitated, she did not want him to pull her off this one, not even for a few hours to rest. "Just a few days."

"Days?" he asked, his real question left unsaid but Carter answered it anyhow.

"I'm fine Sir. Walter and I have been rotating the workload."

Jack made an effort to hide his frown, he knew that was simply not true but he instantly let it slide. That was not why he was here. "Good, so long as you are looking after yourself."

Sam's relief at him not picking at her lie was probably more evident than she wanted it to be and she knew what he was trying to say so she decided to meet the veiled issue head on. "Look Sir, I know when we were trapped off-world while waiting for the gate to be reinstated I promised you that I would take things easier when we got back, but this was just too important. There was too much at stake...there is too much at stake."

Jack felt his eye twitch slightly. "You are talking about that planet...the one that has contacted us? And more specifically about the volunteers that they tried to send through. How long ago did they make their first attempt?"

Carter dropped her head taking her time about answering and choosing to move around him and towards her work bench, she did not want to talk about this, not with him, not with the mood he was currently in. He was outright grilling her and if his words in the gateroom were anything to go by he was in 'let's just get the job done' mode and that meant he would not take the time to try and understand how she was feeling...not that he really should. "Around 06:30 hours yesterday."

"And you've been at it ever since." It was not a question.

"Yes Sir, I have." she admitted softly.

O'Neill made his way over to stand beside her. "Carter-" he started but she cut him off.

"Please Colonel. I don't need a lecture right now." She had not really meant to say that but the fact was she had come here to get away from the weight of what had happened and to try to begin the process of shifting her perception of personal responsibility.

Jack let the silence ride out for a few moments. He realised by her words that she was taking this whole thing a lot more personally that she wanted him to know about. "I'm not here to lecture you. That doesn't work any more. You've been spending way too much time with me for that technique to be effective and we both know it." he told her with a slight air of humour.

The corner of her mouth twitched up into the ghost of a smile before it faded out again. "So why are you here?" she wondered. If it was not to have a go at her for not taking her downtime it had to be about something.

"Like I said, to make sure you are okay." He placed his palms flat on the end of her bench that she was now leaning against. "I don't want you getting caught back up in another cycle of overwork. That whole Thor thing took a lot out of you and if we had not been trapped off-world you would not have stopped. It's not good for you. You promised you would break the cycle."

"I know and I am...I mean I had intended to but...just as I was preparing to leave last week there was an incident and Siler needed my help and then this happened and I couldn't go anywhere. Straight away I was worried they were going to try to send people through before we got a chance to decode the message and I was right...what if they try to send more Colonel? I can't just go off base knowing that could happen and that I can prevent it if I just work on it for a little longer."

"Of course you couldn't Carter, and no-one is asking you too." She sighed deeply and Jack pulled a discontented face. "Do you really think I would do that? Make you leave when you can help?"

"No." Sam conceded. "I know you would not do that, but it's just...it's hard to leave this place sometimes."

"In case something happens and your presence could have made a difference."

"Yes Sir, that's exactly it...and I know that sounds a little arrogant but there are a lot of things that happen around here that only I can deal with."

"Oh I know how you feel Carter, I really do. There are so many things around here that just wouldn't function without my influence but look..." He indicated their surroundings. "Two weeks and it's all still here!"

Sam finally looked over at him and could not help but grin at his playful features, he was trying so hard in his own way to make her feel better. "While there are things you influence around here Sir." Like the levels of cake in the commissary. "I hardly think what you and I are needed for are the same things."

Jack pretended to be hurt. "What's that supposed to mean? Are you saying I am replaceable, Major?"

Sam, completely missing the falseness in his sharp tone rubbed her eyes, she was too tired for this. "Not at all. It's just...Colonel..."

"Hey, hey, it's okay. I'm just teasing you...relax Carter...that's all I want you to do." He cut her off before she started to protest his request. "Not straight away! Let's deal with this whole Euronda thing first, if we can and then you can take a few days off. No need to go far, but I will be here in case someone tries to contact you unnecessarily about fixing a lightbulb or something."

"I dunno, Colonel." Sam did not want to think about taking downtime, not right after this, it would give her too much time to think about those poor people that had hit the iris.

"Why?" Jack asked, there was more going on in Sam's head and he wanted to know the truth.

Sam instantly knew he was not leaving until she talked to him and so she reluctantly told him what he wanted to know. "It was my order." She swallowed hard. "General Hammond was not around and SG-3 were off-world when the klaxons went off yesterday morning. I told Walter to keep the iris closed...then there was the first impact..."

Jack felt his gut clench, he knew exactly what the weight of that one felt like. He also knew this was Carter's first personally ordered 'iris hit', as he grimly called them, he was also acutely aware that not making any big deal out of it was vital. If you worked in the SGC for long enough it was bound to happen and now that Carter was climbing the ranks it was likely to happen to her more often. "It's a standard order Carter. If you had not made it Walter would have taken the same decision upon himself."

Rationally speaking he was right, but Sam knew in her heart that that fact did not help. "I know." she responded blithely.

Jack watched her for a moment, she did not believe that. "Was there anything you could have done to prevent it?" he asked, resisting the urge to make her look at him as she answered.

"No." Carter told him. "We did everything we could to make contact and prevent something like this from happening."

"There you go then. I know it does not change anything but that is the thing you need to be thinking about right now."

"No Sir, the thing I need to be thinking about is how to finish the process of making contact so that it doesn't happen again!" She looked up into his eyes, she needed to get him to understand, the more time she wasted standing around or sleeping the higher the chances were that the klaxons would go off again and the people on the other side would lose more good men.

"Okay." Jack conceded, as he read the need and the want to prevent this from happening again that shone clearly in her eyes. "You are right, concentrate on that...for now. But afterwards I don't want you beating yourself up for something you cannot change...believe me it gets you nowhere but into the bottom of a whiskey bottle." He grimaced as the last of his sentence left his lips.

Sam blinked at the Colonel's forthright and obviously accidental confession but she could think of nothing to say.

Jack forced on, over the top of his unintended words. "You are a good person Carter and everybody around here knows that...I think even you know that. Those volunteers...from Euronda...no matter how you look at it, I'll bet you there was nothing you could have done, you could not have decoded the message any sooner or safely made the call to open the iris...it was not your fault." She nodded, still not speaking and Jack reached out, gently took her upper arms and turned her to face him. "Not your fault Sam...you hear me?" Some of his own desperate need to believe those words carried forward in his voice. Anyone who had to order the iris closed was not to blame for what happened on the other side.

Sam found herself nodding more earnestly as his eyes repeated the message. "I hear you, Colonel."

Jack nodded back. "But do you believe me?" he pressed, needing her to fully acknowledge his words.

It was a long moment before Sam felt her chin moving of it's own accord and the truth tumbled out of her. "Yes Sir...actually...I do."

"Good." He gave her arms an encouraging rub before he let her go. "Because it's when you decided to close that iris when there are other options that you really gotta worry. If you are capable of feeling that level of coldness in your own heart that you would consciously allow a man to die against the iris, then you got a problem."

Sam felt herself shudder in horror at the mere thought, that really would be nothing but murder. "I could never do that...not when there are other options." and there were always other options.

Jack smiled thinly at her, wishing he still had half as much black and white conviction as she had. There used to be a time when he could have said those words using the tone she had but ever since Iraq his military world had become much more grey. "Well then Carter, you don't have anything to worry about."

"Thank you for that, Sir." She moved a little away from him. "And I will take what you say under advisement, both about the trying not feel responsible and the downtime. In truth it would be good to get out on my bike for a few days after all this is over."

"Well that's just great Carter." He told her genuinely, proud that she would be so open to what probably sounded like criticism on his part. "I'll keep an eye on the place for you. You'll have nothing to worry about." he assured her.

"Sure thing Colonel, the lightbulbs are in the second drawer." She grinned at him and he glared hard at her before breaking eye contact and smirking at her. "No problem Carter, I got it covered." With that he gave her a bright smile and left her to it knowing she needed some time alone.

Sam sighed and once again about the Colonel's words.

"Because it's when you decided to close that iris when there are other options that you really gotta worry."

If the only thing that was to ever make her worry was a cold action like that then she should be able to sleep soundly for the rest of her life. There was not a person on this base that would be capable of such a heartless act...

END

AN: And we all know what happened at the end of this particular episode...and that, by the way, is not having a go at Jack!

Thoughts would be good, if you have the time...