First, a stargate: sg-1 fanfic

Stargate SG1 is somebody else's, probably MGM/Gekko Corp/Sci-fi, and I freely admit that whoever's it is, I'm borrowing their show and they retain all rights, etc

Author's Note: Sam/Jack UST-RST. Written for the Gateworld Ship Day but slightly late!

First

The first time Jack O'Neill sees Samantha Carter she's nothing more than a blonde in the periphery of his visual field signing into the secure section of the base as he's exiting one elevator and sliding into the next with his escort. Jack's bag is tossed over his shoulder and he's dressed in civvies again to underscore his official retirement. Of course, Jack is trained to take notice of things in the periphery – it's kept him alive in the field for longer than he deserves. He registers the neat Air Force uniform, the bars on her shoulders and the long lean line of her legs despite the shapeless skirt; he assesses her as a partial threat since just her basic training is enough to warrant caution.

There's a half-formed thought of vulnerability though, and beautiful before that's trumped by I'm married – and the hope that accompanies the last, that he is still married and Sara hasn't given up on him even if he'd essentially given up on them haring off to another planet on a suicide mission, is more of a miracle than he ever expected to get after…after Charlie (and God but the thought of his son and the echo of the gunshot that had killed him still hurts worse than anything Jack has ever physically experienced including that disastrous 'chute jump in Iraq).

So he half-forgets the blonde, his mind drifting to the imminent return home that awaits him and the possibility of reconciliation and reunion with his wife. It's the scientists that scramble into the elevator before the doors slide shut that brings her back into focus.

"I see they brought Captain Brainbox back." The tall guy – the one whose translation of the cartouche Daniel Jackson had corrected complains loudly.

The woman beside him huffs exasperatedly. "You just don't like her because she turned you down."

"I never asked her out!" The guy splutters.

Jack feels half-sorry for his fellow unknown officer. God knew female officers had it tough enough without being hit on by creepy geeks, he thinks dryly. Daniel, Jack thinks with more fondness than he had ever thought possible in relation to Daniel, wouldn't have hit on her. But then Daniel had been totally oblivious to the fact that the Abydonians had married him to Sha're. He hopes Daniel is going to be alright on Abydos; that he and Sha're will thrive.

"I heard that she's been brought back to confirm it can't go anywhere else and they should bury it." The woman says capturing Jack's attention.

Jack is pleased if that's the case. They should bury the gate. He'd recommended as much.

"She's got to be pissed that she didn't get to go." Creepy Guy responds.

Jack shivers. As much as he doesn't hold with the chauvinistic views of some of his colleagues, he can't help but think it was a good thing that the Captain had stayed at home. He'd lost too many before they'd made it back; the thought that he might have lost her with that faint aura of shiny naivety she'd exuded…something violent twists in his gut.

He shakes it off as the elevator stops; as he makes his way through the checkpoints and out of the Mountain. But when he gets home and finds the goodbye note from Sara and wonders whether he'll ever love someone again, her memory flickers in his thoughts for a moment before fading away.

The first time Samantha Carter sees Jack O'Neill, he's scribbling in a report over the conference room table in the briefing room that overlooks the Stargate in Cheyenne Mountain.

She's had a year to get past her initial hurt and anger that they'd gotten the damn thing to work (only a month after she'd been reassigned because they couldn't find the last part of the puzzle) and she hadn't been told, never mind considered for the mission, despite the fact that she'd worked for years on the project and left behind her flying career to delve into the science behind the device.

That frustration had eked away once she'd read the gritty realism of Colonel O'Neill's mission report in detail; the losses he'd suffered in an alien desert that wasn't on Earth; the clashes with aliens so much more powerful and advanced than they are. She still feels she should have gone – nothing will alter that belief – but she's not unaware of the unwritten truth that everyone who had gone through the gate had been considered expendable, and she's too aware of her own scientific worth to the Air Force not to understand why Jack O'Neill hadn't even been told about her, hadn't been given the option of taking her.

It's frustrating but it's a reality that she's come to accept in the year she's been working in Washington – initially on alternative uses for the Stargate before she'd slowly branched out into other related research. Just as she's come to accept that she's read Jack O'Neill's report so many times she could be considered obsessive.

She'd like to pretend that it's all professional but there's a part of her that acknowledges that she's drawn to the dry witticism of O'Neill's narrative; he has a talent for story-telling that survives the basic format of Air Force mandated report writing strictures. She falls asleep on many a night, her head filled with desert and pyramids; bombs and rebellion. But more than that, O'Neill's personality speaks to her; his blunt honesty and wry comments making her laugh more than once; his terse accounts of the losses and aliens provoking her into contemplation.

So maybe, possibly, she's romanticised not only the mission but the man who led it by the time she'd gotten the call that had returned her to the Mountain that morning. And maybe, possibly, she spends a minute simply in the doorway drinking her fill of her first real sight of him.

He's an Air Force recruitment poster; short brown hair, square jaw, and a uniform that doesn't quite camouflage just how dangerous O'Neill is. His official jacket is more black lines that can't be read than snippets of facts that can – although Sam has hacked the databases and found the unedited version – something she never intends to admit to anyone least of all O'Neill.

There's an instant tug of attraction that takes Sam's breath away again and she pauses to berate herself. It's a crush; a stupid crush and she will get over it immediately. He's going to be her CO on the mission and she will not make a fool out of herself.

Then she hears him complaining about her assignment – his assumption of her as a man – and the reality of him tears down the illusion of her crush. All her head is filled with is the want and determination to prove she's just as a good an Air Force officer as the men sitting beside him. She straightens her shoulders and strides out to meet him.

The first time Jack truly acknowledges that he cares more than he should about Carter he's standing in an infirmary room watching her fight for her life after a Goa'uld assassin has tried to kill her – or rather the Goa'uld inhabiting Carter's head. The assassin hadn't been bothered about Carter; she's just collateral damage.

But seeing her so pale and still and lifeless…hearing the sharp but worried tone of Doc Fraiser as she shouts out medical orders and tries to save Carter…

He can't deny that at some point in the previous year he has slipped from the purely professional regard of a senior officer for a junior with potential to something more personal.

When Carter's saved and tucked up in bed asleep later he sits by her side and considers the problem – because it is a problem no matter that he wishes it wasn't.

He's always been careful to keep a certain boundary with Carter; he is her CO. They are Air Force officers and there are regulations that govern how close they can be. He's too aware of how bad it would go for Carter if there was even a suspicion of non-regulation shenanigans to even think about breaking those particular regulations. And so he calls her Carter not Sam to remind himself that team-mates, camaraderie, even a comradely friendship is OK; nothing more. But this – this is something more.

And it's something more than the goddamn attraction between them too. He's never denied that he's found Carter attractive; a pull of 'yes' and 'mine' that a virus had made all too obvious but equally and thankfully had easily been explained away by Fraiser's medical babble. Carter's a beautiful intelligent woman and he's always had a soft spot for those. She's feisty and not afraid to stand her ground, but she's also compassionate and loving; she's taken on the role of big sister to the orphaned Cassie and Jack has nothing but admiration for her. Carter has a lot of personal qualities that draw Jack's attention like a moth to a flame; not least that she laughs at his jokes.

It isn't helped by the fact that the rest of the team aren't Air Force officers but an alien and a civilian. Daniel doesn't appreciate Air Force rules on good days and while Teal'c understands there are rules, he sometimes doesn't understand the human reasoning behind them. Add to that life-threatening escapades on a regular basis, fighting shoulder to shoulder with each other, for each other…the result is that their little rag-tag band of four has slowly bonded into something more than a team, something that feels more like family, something that has healed the wounds of his broken marriage and eased his lingering pain and guilt over Charlie's death.

And his relationship with Carter has definitely slid outside of the lines the Air Force would set for it.

Is it so bad, Jack wonders as he stares at her sleeping face; lines of tension pulling at her delicate features even in dreams. Is it so bad that he cares about her more than he should? He cares about Daniel and Teal'c too. Wouldn't it be favouritism not to act the same with Carter as he does with the guys? There's a nagging voice in his head that tells him he's fooling himself; that he should nip his extra-curricular feelings in the bud and re-establish his boundaries, but as she shifts restlessly and he picks up her hand to comfort her, he already knows what his decision will be.

The first time Sam truly acknowledges that she cares more than she should about the Colonel – about Jack – she's trying to save his life.

She's building a particle beam generator similar to the one Sokar had used on the iris at the SGC. If she could make it work then she – they – would be able to burn through the hardened naquadah protecting the Edoran gate and send a rescue party through to the Colonel who had been trapped there during the meteor shower.

She and Teal'c had waited until the last possible moment for the Colonel but they'd had to abandon him, leave him behind, and the knowledge that they'd had no choice does nothing to alleviate the sour taste of failure. For all she knows intellectually that it's not her fault the Colonel is stuck on another planet, there are days and hours when she can't help but feel that it is. Then there are days she blames the Edorans and specifically the kids that had gone missing in the caves and who are the actual reason why Jack missed the Stargate home. And then she has to tell herself off for blaming children for being scared and…and children.

So, here she is working on a particle beam generator – something that others have proclaimed is decades beyond their ability to create including the so-called expert sent to help her who'd left after he'd declared it impossible one too many times and Sam had thrown him out of her lab. She knows it's possible. It's just a question of making it happen; figuring it out. She can do it. Because the alternative is that the Colonel comes home in a year or more and he shouldn't have to wait that long.

Daniel understands and so does Teal'c. They're both assigned to other teams and to supporting the misplaced Edoran population that had evacuated through the Stargate to Earth but they pop by and give her a sounding board occasionally. Teal'c brings her doughnuts; Daniel brings her coffee. Sometimes though the collective guilt of SG1 is more stifling than inspiring and she has to kick them out.

Janet's worried about her. Physically, Sam knows she's pushing herself. She's spent hours in the lab – long, long days and barely any sleep. And yes, OK, she keeps forgetting to eat. But she's warm and comfortable and…and who knows what the Colonel is dealing with in comparison? But Sam knows Janet is worried about more than Sam's physical health – she's worried about the mental and emotional state that is motivating her.

"You miss him."

Yes, she misses Jack. She misses his jokes and his dry wit and his steadfastness and his temper and his strength of will and his care for his team, their team – the family they've made of each other – and their attraction, never mentioned but a constant undercurrent that's there between them all the same. She misses him madly and regardless of her answer to Janet, she knows it's a problem because she isn't supposed to miss her CO this much. Somehow, somewhere, she's managed to start caring a lot more than she's supposed to about him.

Sam shakes her head. It doesn't matter if she cares more than she's supposed to about Jack, about the Colonel, all that matters is getting him home.

The first time Jack knows he's in love with Carter he's standing on one side of a blue force shield and she's standing on the other.

They're trapped in the depths of Apophis's shiny new toy, moments away from an explosion that will take out the shiny new toy and everything in a decent distance around it, and there are sounds of approaching Jaffa on Carter's side of the blue shimmering energy that separates them.

He's tried to get the panel off to destroy the field but it hasn't worked and she's just begged him to get out and go, to leave her behind and…

And he can't.

He would rather die himself than lose her.

Because he loves her.

That realisation is followed swiftly by the startling epiphany that Carter might just feel the same way about him. He can see she's devastated at his remaining with her, her blue eyes beseeching him to go still, and yet…

They say they love each other without saying a word.

And for a moment, a long infinitesimal moment in which he forgets the danger and imminent death, Jack's world is perfect and peaceful and right.

They love each other.

Somehow they get a miracle. The force shield goes down and the Jaffa get thrown to the floor and they make their escape.

A few hours later, they're tucked up in infirmary beds – Fraiser's displeasure at their escapade is only surpassed by Hammond's (who they've apologised to several times) but luckily she's not as pissed off with them as much as she's pissed off at the Goa'uld Anise and her host Freya who are banned from the infirmary and running any kind of test on SG1 ever (and who knew Fraiser could be that scary). Daniel is snoring in the bed to Jack's right but his eyes are on the bed to his left.

Carter is lying on her side, her eyes wide open and simply looking at him. He's mirrored her; lying on his side, eyes open and drinking in the sight of her alive and well. Only the thin space between their beds actually separates them but it might as well be a blue force shield.

But they don't say a word. They don't need to say anything. They both know without talking about it that they love each other but that they can't be together. Not yet. Not while they have a mission. They've both taken vows to put country before self and…it might be arrogant but he thinks SG1 is needed. And God he'd love to break the regulations but he won't. He won't put her in that position – put her career and her reputation at risk that way. He loves her too much.

She smiles at him, understanding and gratitude shining from the same blue eyes that tell him she loves him too. He falls asleep with the knowledge tucked into his heart.

The first time Sam knows she's in love with Jack she's standing on one side of a blue force shield and he's standing on the other.

It's impossible and terrifying and…

And absolutely the best moment of her life regardless of the circumstances because he loves her too.

She can hear it in his voice when he refuses to leave her; she can see it in the desperate chocolate gaze that meets hers through the blue shimmer. She can see the instant he realises the same thing.

Jack O'Neill loves her.

The next minutes are complete chaos as they make their escape from the planet and it's not until they're safely hidden away from prying eyes in the infirmary that she gets a chance to assimilate what their new knowledge means.

It means everything. Her heart is almost bursting with the joy of it. He loves her. He doesn't care that she's smart and that she babbles when she's enthusiastic or that she has short hair and she chose to be in the Air Force: he loves her.

It can't mean anything. They're Air Force officers; sworn to protect and to put their mission above all else including their own romantic hopes and dreams. And the mission is important; the safety of Earth and SG1 is needed; they're needed. They can't be together.

And that hurts.

They don't discuss it because discussing it would mean acknowledging it and having to deal with it. They know and it's a bittersweet knowledge.

Still, she's warmed every time he aims a smile in her direction; at the way he always makes sure to get her blue jello for a snack; at how he sneaks into her lab and commandeers a corner of the lab bench to write his reports in a companionable silence that she revels in.

It's too good to last, of course. This unspoken love between them is dangerous and just how dangerous is revealed when they're both mistaken for brainwashed za'tarcs because of it, because they hide it within their memories as naturally as breathing.

Sam works it out just in time, and the next moments are excruciating as he vaguely confesses his love for her and she vaguely confesses her love for him, and they both for a moment waver on the edge of shallwechangesomething before she offers them a way out with leaving it in the room…and he takes it with a regretful look that doesn't lessen the hurt that he takes it anymore she suspects than it lessens the hurt she causes him by offering it in the first place.

Then she has to kill Martouf, the lover of the dead symbiote whose memories she carries, whose love for Martouf she feels in his presence. The reason why people who love each other shouldn't serve together is starkly clear as Sam cradles Martouf's head in her lap, blinks back tears and refuses to look at Jack standing beside her and loving her anyway.

The first time Jack truly regrets burying his feelings for Carter and trying to put some distance between them, he's stood in front of Harry Maybourne of all people trying to get information about Carter's whereabouts.

She's missing.

She's been missing for days and he hasn't realised, hasn't noticed because he's been purposefully looking in the other direction since he'd raised a zat gun with every intention of killing her – or rather the computer entity inhabiting her.

(But he had killed her. He had sat by her bedside and watched the machines and known she was dead. But she wasn't all the way dead. She'd found her way back to her body and she was alive, but no thanks to Jack.)

Jack had only realised Carter was missing when she hadn't turned up for work. He's been looking for her every minute of every day since. Guilt curdles in his belly.

Yes, they needed distance and to re-establish some boundaries but they didn't need so much distance between them that he wouldn't be aware that something was wrong; that she was missing, taken.

It hasn't been easy stepping back for either of them. Carter hasn't said anything but he knows her and he knows she's been hurt by his brusqueness. Sometimes they're more oddly formal to each other now than they ever were in the first year they served together – and God knows Carter knows how to make 'sir' an insult sometimes.

He's been hurt by her too – by pictures of her walking in a park with an alien she had harboured – an alien she had trusted more than she trusted Jack (not that he can blame her – he hadn't believed her and he wasn't sure the distance he'd put between them had helped any). He's been hurt by the knowledge that at some point she really is going to move on and meet someone without his baggage; someone free to love her the way she deserves to be loved. And every time he's hurt, he's put more distance between them.

Stupid, stupid, stupid.

Maybourne's warning him that she might not come back but he can't accept that. He can't accept that Carter won't come back, that he won't find her.

Because he can't bear the thought that Carter might die any more now than he could when faced with her imminent death with only a force shield separating them.

He still loves her.

But he can't be with her and he can't let himself pretend that it's OK to love her when it's not – when it leads to them standing faced off in a corridor and her dead by his hand. He rubs his eyes and turns away as Harry leaves. He'll find her and then he'll do something – he doesn't know what but something – to close the distance.

The first time Sam truly regrets burying her feelings for the Colonel she's cursing Harry Maybourne for getting the drop on her; for getting her zat, for shooting the Colonel and opening the portal, and for escaping with the Colonel in hot pursuit to God only knows where.

Maybourne is missing, the Colonel is missing and Bill Lee has given up!

Asshole.

She's not entirely sure which one she means.

Definitely Maybourne's the biggest asshole because this is All His Fault – capital letters mandated. But Bill is definitely Asshole Junior because he's a good scientist but he rarely thinks outside of the box and she knows, knows, there's more to the doorway and the key than Bill has considered – and so he's an asshole for not listening to her and reaming her out for her insistence on him continuing to investigate. Not that she can blame him entirely because she had gone a little nuts on him so maybe he's a Mini-Asshole.

But damn it, the Colonel – Jack – is missing!

So, OK, maybe she doesn't think that Jack's an asshole (although that thought had occurred to her more than once in the immediate aftermath of Daniel's death – Ascension – before they'd somehow reconciled their different feelings about Daniel leaving) so much as she thinks he deserves some of the blame because for all she had been stupid enough to turn her back on someone like Maybourne, the Colonel was supposed to have been watching said back. It doesn't quite lessen the guilt coursing through her as she sits in the darkness of the locker room and contemplates the fact that the Colonel is missing and she still loves him.

Sam considers herself truly pathetic in that moment.

She swipes at her eyes. He's made it clear ever since he had to take the shot that could have killed her (did for two minutes until Janet got her heart beating again which Sam doesn't remember since her consciousness was in the SGC computer at the time) that there'll never be anything more than friendship between them. Whatever he'd once felt for her isn't there anymore. Oh, sometimes she thinks she sees a glimmer of it but it's maybe an echo of the attraction they're now ignoring. And she's gone along with it because what choice do they have really? They still have ranks and regulations keeping them from being together never mind the real reason; that he can't make objective decisions in the field if he loves her.

But right at that moment she doesn't care; she just remembers asking a dying Daniel why they always waited until it was too late to tell people how they felt, and now all she wishes is that Jack had known that she still loved him when he went missing. It doesn't matter that he doesn't feel the same way; Sam just can't bear the thought that he might have….might be gone and never know…

A few minutes later, she's weeping on Teal'c's shoulder, and a day later she watches as the Tok'ra load Maybourne into a cargo ship to take him somewhere far, far away, content to listen as the Colonel chats amiably about his experience on the alien moon with Teal'c and Jonas. She'll tell him, Sam promises to herself; but when Jack turns and smiles at her, her courage flees.

The first time Jack meets Carter's boyfriend, Pete Shanahan, the man's bleeding out after getting caught in the crossfire between Osiris and SG1. There's something bugging Jack about why Shanahan is there but he ignores it in the face of Carter's visible concern for the man she's been dating.

The man who has made her happy in a way Jack can't; who has her humming in the elevator and wishing she could tell him the secrets of the Stargate.

Jack manages to ignore the couple as he deals with the clean-up of the operation – Carter's their medic so she's best placed to look after Shanahan until the SGC medical team arrives anyway – and it's not until he's at his one-to-one debriefing with Hammond and the topic of Shanahan comes up that he has to face the subject again.

"Detective Shanahan told Major Carter that he was searching for her when he came across the operation. What are your thoughts?" Hammond asks, his kind blue eyes giving away his own suspicions.

"That it stinks." Jack says with blunt honesty. He raises his hands and rubs them furiously through his short grey hair as he considers what to say beyond that. He sighs, torn as always between his feelings for Carter and the objectivity he needs. He wants to tell Hammond that Shanahan is no good and that they should kick his ass out of the SGC and ban Carter from ever seeing him.

Not that Jack is jealous.

But Carter is happy. And in the end isn't that all that matters? Doesn't Jack want her happy above all else including wanting her for himself? Hasn't he blown that anyway? Waited too long? She has Shanahan now.

"I think it's a partial truth?" Jack says eventually and shakes his head. "I think he was looking for her but there's more to it than he's saying? But then…I think they'd had a…" he gestures weakly in Hammond's direction as he searches for an appropriate term, "disagreement before we set out?"

He'd found Carter upset; it had sounded over. Or maybe that was his wishful thinking.

"It's probably that, maybe." He shrugs. "I'd be more suspicious but she said her brother set them up."

Hammond nods slowly and Jack guesses the General, a close friend of the Carters has already checked that out. "She's requested permission to give him the standard briefing."

Jack nods and swallows the negative words that he wants to say. He doesn't want Shanahan knowing about the Stargate, about how incredible Carter truly is; doesn't want him near Carter at all. But…there is always that but. He has no right to keep Carter from seeing someone else and if she's happy…if Shanahan makes her happy…

"We should probably tell him." Jack hears himself say.

He leaves with the sad knowing eyes of the General following him out of the room.

The first time Sam meets Jack's girlfriend (lover? date?), Kerry Johnson, the woman steps out of Jack's house looking more at home there than even Daniel has managed to look in all the years they've been part of SG1, part of Jack's – the General's life.

Sam feels a surge of irrational hatred and jealousy for the younger woman which is entirely inappropriate because Sam has no claim on Jack and Sam is engaged to Pete and days from marrying him…and suddenly the whole idea of actually taking the bull by the horns and just telling Jack the truth about how she feels about him seems like an incredibly bad idea.

Actually it has seemed like an incredibly bad idea every time she's thought about doing it – and she's thought about it a lot – but trust her to find the most unsuitable moment in all of the unsuitable moments she could have chosen from to do it. It's just…

Pete had bought them a house. A house. And he'd talked about a dog. A dog. And they're getting married and…and Sam knows in her bones, in her heart, that it's a mistake; a really, really big mistake.

She loves Pete. But she loves Jack more. She's always loved Jack. She thinks she always will love Jack. And she has begun to realise that as much as she doesn't want it to matter in her decision to marry Pete, it matters a lot. She can't help but think back to her Replicator double and concedes that the other her might have had a point about denial of desires and playing by the rules and, more importantly, just how much Jack O'Neill means to her.

Still, as Kerry awkwardly invites her to join them for lunch and Sam awkwardly declines, Sam knows she has picked the wrong moment – oh, there was never going to be a right moment for the conversation where Sam admits she loves Jack (and maybe a part of her wants, needs, him to admit he loves her too which clearly he doesn't – well, he does – she knows he loves her but presumably it's exactly as she's feared for years that he loves her just as a friend) but out of all the wrong moments to choose from…

Her phone rings and she's grateful for the interruption until she actually hears what it's about: her father has collapsed. She makes her escape from the awkwardness with Jack and his girlfriend (significant other? partner?).

Later, as she watches the Tok'ra visiting her father and saying their goodbyes, she considers her father's advice and knows she can't marry Pete regardless that Jack is with someone else. Pete deserves more than a heart which belongs in truth to someone else. She hasn't meant to use him, to deceive him, to lie to him – and on one level she hasn't; she truly had thought she loved him enough to make it work – but she has all the same. Peace settles around her for all the circumstances with her father are heart-breaking.

Ten minutes later, Jack slides into the observation room and the chair beside her. A minute later, he's comforting her and a moment after that he's promised her 'always.' She looks at him, searches his gaze and knows that whatever Kerry was to him, she's gone; that what Sam had tried to tell him in his back-yard he knew. And for the first time in the years since they'd stood either side of a blue shimmering force shield, they admit that they love each other without saying a word.

The first time Jack takes Carter fishing at his cabin, he's still her CO; there's still a line he won't cross, and there's the not-so-small matter that Carter is grieving for her father and the ending of her engagement to another man.

So, Jack muses as he swings his rod and casts the line far out into the pond, he'll settle for friendship for their first fishing trip. And friendship – this friendship they've settled into in the days since Jack wrapped his arm around her in an observation room before she said a final goodbye to Jacob Carter – is a miracle in Jack's mind.

It has none of the spiky sharp edges of no-go areas that have characterised their relationship since Carter had started to date Pete; it has none of the distance that Jack had put between them after he'd almost killed her. But it also isn't the sweet forbidden love they'd acknowledged silently separated by a force shield, or the intense unresolved attraction that had simmered for years, or even the solid friendship they'd carved in the wake of Daniel's Ascension.

This…this is new and better because it's the two of them knowing they love each other and knowing that they're together even though they're not actually physically together – yet.

The yet is important.

There are a lot of details to be worked out; his job, her job, how they'll work together (or not) in the future. There's marriage (or not) to consider; where to live; whether they'll have kids (or not). There's how Daniel and Teal'c are going to react (or not – they've both been smirking knowingly for days – well, Teal'c has raised the eyebrow and Daniel has smirked). And there are emotional eddies to navigate; Carter's losses, his own half-hearted relationship with Kerry, their own joy at being together.

But the important thing is that they are together. The rest will work itself out.

When Carter notes wistfully that they should have done this years ago, he tells her not to dwell. He'd rather leave the past behind and focus on the present – on their future. He casts his line out again and gives a pleased smile as he hears Daniel and Teal'c arriving back with more beer.

Maybe, Jack muses, as Carter shifts in her chair beside him and they exchange content smiles, this isn't the fishing trip he'd dreamed about, fantasised about when he'd thought about him and Carter alone together fishing. And they're not even alone – Daniel and Teal'c are with them, not just as chaperones and for appearances' sake, but because they love the guys too. In the end, this fishing trip feels good and right and real; it feels like them.

Family. He'd thought he'd lost it for good once but he has it again – strange and dysfunctional but SG1 is a family all the same.

Love. He'd thought he'd lost that too…thought he'd set Carter free, that she had slipped to the periphery of his heart, where he was aware of her but didn't see her fully.

Jack angles the top of his beer bottle towards Carter and she clinks her own beer bottle against his with a soft smile, her eyes telling him he is loved again.

The first time Sam goes fishing with Jack at his cabin, he's no longer her CO. They've just watched a very strange video of SG1 in Egypt in the far distant past. Apparently they had gone there two weeks into Sam's future. Time travel gives her a headache.

She wonders idly whether that Sam had gone fishing with Jack and if so, if this truly is her first time fishing with Jack after all. She banishes the thought because this fishing trip is too important to dismiss as second hand. She has even left behind the Zero Point Module that the time travelling SG1 had secured for someone else to examine.

Fishing with Jack.

A thrill shoots through her at the thought. She doesn't deny that there's a part of her that is scared and wants to run back to the lab but she smothers that part with admonishments that they've been hiding in the lab for too long already.

No, despite her recent losses and changes, Sam is assured of one thing; that there is a rightness to her love for Jack and his love for her, and she's not letting anything separate them anymore – not ranks or regulations (although thankfully Jack has already sorted that out taking a new position at Homeworld Security with no command authority over the Stargate programme itself), not idiotic fears, not guilt over Pete and Kerry (and there is guilt because Sam knows they were both hurt even if the former allowed it to happen with his eyes wide open and the latter got out before she got too burned).

She follows Jack out of the truck and into the wooden frame cabin, through the den and open plan kitchen, through to the master bedroom. She puts her bag down next to his. There's no discussion about whether she should be sharing his room, whether it's too fast or too soon (she likes speed and personally she thinks eight years of anticipation is long enough), the minutiae of how they're going to make the logistics of their relationship work with Jack in Washington and Sam at the SGC (and she thinks maybe she should request a transfer herself – Daniel will want Atlantis, Teal'c will be leaving for Dakara), the fact that Daniel and Teal'c will be joining them the next day and what will they think (both of them have been smug the last few days so they probably already know).

Jack holds out a hand and she slips hers into it, lets him pull her closer into a loose embrace; his hands at her waist, her hands on his shoulders.

She remembers half-forgotten fantasies and dreams in the year when she'd had nothing but a mission report to read; the illusory heroic Colonel she had conjured from Jack's words.

The real version is so much better, Sam thinks. Her imaginary Jack had been flawless but Jack is who he is because of his flaws, and she wouldn't have him any other way. She's less than perfect herself now; tempered and honed, scratched and marked through the war they've waged. But they fit together; two imperfect souls.

He lifts one scarred questioning eyebrow; Sam smiles in response. And when their lips meet in a kiss, all she can think is finally.

The End.