Sam's heart broke. It felt like someone took a hammer and nail and just shattered it a little at a time. Crack by crack it broke until she finally fell apart.

She wasn't used to crying. She didn't do it often. More often than not, she'd just work her problems away. An alien device was enough to keep her mind off the subject that bothered her most.

But seeing Jack on the deck with Kerry a couple days ago, grilling and smiling and laughing, made her realize how unhappy she was. She wanted that. She wanted a life outside her life. She wanted a family.

She wanted what he had…with him.

It wasn't like her to drink her problems away, but she thought she could afford it just this once. A cool beer in her hand while she read some sappy romance book that just added to her self-pity.

She sighed when the doorbell rang. She didn't want visitors right now. She wanted to wallow in her sadness that reeked of selfishness and desperation and leave it at that. But as she opened the door, her heart blossomed a little.

"Sir," she exclaimed a little too excitedly. "I thought you were spending time with Agent Johnson today. Wasn't it your anniversary or something?"

"She left me," he said with a small quirk of a smile on his lips.

She knew she should feel guilty by the happiness she felt at that confession, but she couldn't bring herself to muster up the fake feeling.

"Oh, sir. I'm sorry. Would you like to come in for a drink?" Please say no, she thought. She didn't think she could keep up the faux act of actually being upset by the news.

"Ah, actually, yeah. I would like that, Carter. Thanks." He gave her one of his smiles that made her melt and walked through the door. He threw his coat on the couch, grabbed a beer from the fridge and sat down on one of the kitchen chairs. She smiled at the familiarity of his actions. He basically lived here, she realized.

She felt like a giddy, romance-obsessed teenage girl again.

She grabbed her unfinished beer from the light stand by her couch and sat down across from him. She studied him as he looked into his bottle, thinking.

"She said that there was something between us. Something deeper than my feelings for her."

That startled her.

He looked up from his drink and before she could say anything, he continued on.

"And I've been thinking a lot. Big surprise, I know." A magnificent smile graced his handsome face and he stared at her, chucking a little.

"Ah," he muttered, running his hands through his hair like he did so often when he was anxious. It left some hair sticking up, and she had the sudden urge to run her hands through it too.

"Sir…" She could feel where he was going with this. He would feel awkward now and want to transfer somewhere else, to be away from her.

"Carter, shut up. I know what you're thinking, and no. Actually, I want the opposite." He got up and moved closer to her. He grabbed her hand and kissed her forehead. Her heart fluttered.

"I was thinking and realized Kerry was right. I do have feelings for you, Sam. I've ignored them for so long that I was used to ignoring them. But when Kerry came along, I thought that maybe I could transfer those feelings to my relationship with her. But it wasn't the same and both of us could feel it. Carter, I love you."

Sam smiled bigger than she'd ever smiled before and leaned in to kiss him. "I love you too, sir."

They kissed and it was better than she had imagined. She felt like light was exploding from their lips and her heart was about to fall from her chest it was beating so hard and fast. Stupid teenage hormones.

"But, sir, what about regulations?"

"We'll figure that out tomorrow. In the meantime, I've wanted to do this for a long time." He picked her up, kissed her, and threw her onto the couch.

"Jack!" She squealed, his name rolling off her tongue in a warm way. It felt right to call him that.

"Sh, Carter. Right now, no talking. No thinking. This time is ours."