Authors Note: Here it is. Thanks to everyone who gave feedback on Three Hour Intervals. I feel I should warn you this will be angsty. This has Pete. This has outright explicit content in later chapters (don't worry, Pete isn't in that). I hope you enjoy.

Meridian Altitude

"The zenith distance of a heavenly object at meridian altitude is the difference in latitude between it and its observer."

He was on his roof, telescope neglected for simply optical observation of the moon and pondering the words spat at him early from the insufferably beautiful lips of the woman he'd dared to love. They meant nothing to him at first. She did this sometimes, she's shout something ridiculously over his head that had nothing to do with anything they were arguing about. Only it always did. It took him two serious fights for him to realise she was using science to try to tell him how she was feeling. It made sense, really. They never really figured out how to communicate, not even in the past year of building a semblance of a relationship. He had to admit it was never easy. He'd never thought it would be but he didn't expect it to be this hard. They couldn't do anything normal couples did, a movie night? Forget it. Ice-skating? Got a private rink? It didn't matter at first, but eventually it started taking its toll. They weren't hiding from court martial; instead they were trying to protect the SGC from rogue NID elements that would not hesitate to use their relationship to try to tear down the Stargate.

It was almost hilarious to him how little their relationship affected anything they did at work, they'd considered that to be the biggest challenge going into this thing and they were so sorely wrong. It wasn't that he didn't worry that little bit more when they were in a combat situation, or that he didn't check on her that one extra time before she entered the wormhole. Oh no, he worried more than he did before. It served to make him a more vigilant leader to their whole team. They all played a role in getting Carter back home to him. They didn't affect work... but work affected them.

He knew what she was trying to say this time, with her meridian altitude lecture. He'd been sailing plenty enough to know how to calculate your latitude. She was trying to tell him that he was so damned far away from her. She was begging him to come back to her. He had no idea what he could say or do to make her feel better. Other than coming back to her that is...

It was one month since they'd watched Daniel die, since Jack had made Jacob stop healing. He knew Daniel wanted it, he'd asked for it, he saw what happened as a result. It didn't make it hurt any damned less though. He hadn't had a chance to grieve, the world seemed to be constantly under threat of this or that and it had provided an excellent distracted. Now he had a chance, for the past two days they've been at his house, trying to find normalcy in their lives but nothing could ever make it normal and he could see it killing her happiness.

He heard her foot hit the first rung of the ladder and soon after felt her presence next to him. He looked over to her, she'd been crying, she'd been doing that a lot lately. It wasn't always because of him, sometimes it was because of Daniel, and sometimes it was because of work. Tonight though... this was all him.

He pushed himself over enough for her to squeeze onto the chair with him. She'd brought a blanket wrapped around her shoulders and placed it over their legs. She put her head on his shoulder and wrapped both arms around his waist. She didn't say anything, simply clung to him. He clung to her. They clung to each other as though it would save them from themselves.

AN: Hmm, so not all is well in this fairytale land after all.
I do check this for mistakes before I publish but sometimes I fail, so just let me know.
Reviews are always nice. xx