I did some major revisions since my characters were drifting and I had some pretty major inconsistencies. I hope this makes it better. I also plan on added some chapters. I'll put a * by chapters are new or have parts added to them.

AU-A couple of big changes that lead to other changes here, folks.

1. Sam broke up with Jonas much earlier in the relationship, while still at the academy, and before they got engaged.

2. Jack never met Sara.He has, up to the start of this story, had no real long term relationships.

3. Sam and Jack have their first encounter during Desert Storm.

Part 1: December 1990, Iraqi desert

Jack O'Neill was going to die. He could feel it. He'd been close to death more than once, but none of those times felt like this.

It wasn't like he'd expected it to be. There was no life flashing before his eyes. He felt no need to make a long speech of goodbye (not that there was anyone to give it to, the joys of flying one man aircraft). Death wasn't noble, and it didn't make him understand everything about the world.

It was just cold, and as painful as hell.

And then there she is, her blond hair like a halo. Halo... so she must be an angel. Well, hell, if he'd known this was what heaven was like, he would have offed himself years ago.

"Angel," he whispers.

"Sir, you've lost a lot of blood, try not to speak," his angel replies.

Damn, why is his angel calling him 'sir'? Maybe he's in the wrong heaven. Some guys would get off on this, maybe, having authority over a woman. But that's not for him.

He doesn't even like it when his men call him 'sir'; he prefers that they and he use the last name instead of rank.

"Sir, you have to stay with me, focus," he angel demands.

And he feels her putting pressure on her wounds. Damn, that hurts. Wait, it still hurts. So he's not in heaven, because the pain is supposed to stop when you die. Right? God, he hopes so. Because if heaven could hurt, eternity was too damn long.

"Damn, F-15 ran out of fuel," he explains.

"I know, sir, it was the weather," she says as she ties something around his wounds.

"We can't get out of here," he tells her. She has to know they are doomed.

She smiles, "Sir, when your plane went down, my squad leader ordered me to land, and save your ass."

"You're a pilot?" he asks.

She heaves him up with more force than necessary, "I also hold the arm wrestling record in my squadron."

"Then you are my dream woman," he says with a semi-lucid smirk.

Her somewhat limited medical training informs her that this man is going to pass out soon. "Sir, you've lost a lot of blood, so I'm going to ignore that comment."

"But you are beautiful, angel," he says, reaching one delirious hand up to stroke her cheek.

Normally Sam hates nicknames, especially cutesy ones. She'd broken up with her last boyfriend for the offense of repeatedly calling her "Babe" in an obnoxious possessive way. But somehow she likes the name 'angel'.

"Come on, sir," she says, heaving the man into the plane. Once he's in the plane, she does one more check on her patient before getting back into the pilot seat.

He grabs her arm, "I was sure I was dying, and when I saw you I knew I was in heaven."

"That's an old line, sir," she replies.

-0-0-0-

Samantha Carter never really liked hospitals.

She'd gotten very sick when she was little. She didn't really remember it, but her mother had claimed that's where her fear of hospitals began. They'd banished Sam's family from the room and held her down to take her blood while she screamed for her mother.

Sam's fear of hospitals had gotten a lot worse when she was fourteen, and she'd sat in a hospital for two days watching her mother slip form life after her car accident.

Her father had done everything to get her out of that room, to sleep or to eat or to shower.

But as much as Sam hates hospitals, as much as she hated watching her mother die, there are more important things than her hatred. Her mother didn't deserve to die alone, and she could hold her mother's hand so she would know that someone was with her.

Death was different than she thought it would be. She always thought it would be loud, or obvious, or grand. But death was just empty. She'd known right away though. Her mother had just laid silent for two days, unconscious. But the second that she died, Sam had known.

She'd left her mother's hospital room the second it happened. Being near to death was something she never wanted to be again.

His eyes flutter open, "Angel, there is a whole war going on out there, what are you doing standing guard over my bedside?"

"The mission is over, and I'm on leave," she tells him.

"Did we win?" he asks boyishly. She can't help but smirk at the inappropriateness of his question.

"Some mission objectives were accomplished, but the main one was a failure," she admits.

"And you got nothing better to do with your leave than hover over an old man's bed?" he teases.

"Well, being a guardian angel is a big responsibility, sir," she says.

"Jack," he corrects.

"I'm glad to see you conscious, Jack," she says.

"Listen, when I'm a little bit better, I have to buy you a drink for saving my life," he says.

She blushes.

"Unless you don't drink," he adds, confused by her look.

"Actually I win about as many drinking contests as arm wrestling contests," Sam admits.

"My kind of girl," Jack says, then another explanation for her bashfulness occurs to him, "Unless you're already someone's girl, Angel."

"I'm no one's girl," she says with an edge of offense, "And I got rid of my last boyfriend for precisely the kind of male chauvinism you just demonstrated."

"I'll just have to make sure not to display it again," he says with a smirk.

"You're pretty sure of yourself for someone in a hospital bed," she says.

"Well I've got a lovely Florence Nightingale Effect going for me right now. I've got to take advantage of it while it lasts."

"Oh, and he's got a brain behind that handsome face," she says.

"Well, they don't promote based on looks. If they did, you'd be a hundred-star general, Angel," he says.

She shakes her head, "Hundred-star general? Do you find girls who actually enjoy that sort of hyperbole?"

"Not really," he says, and there is a bit of honest sadness in his eyes.

She wishes the teasing had stayed light. She realizes that he's all alone. And that it's not his choice. Not like it is for her. Sam had never had a problem with getting someone to date her. It was just getting someone worth her time.

"I don't know you took a cliché like the heaven pick-up line and it came off… less lame than you'd expect," she says.

"Less lame, exactly what I was aiming for," he says.

"Sir, you're awake? Would you like your dinner?" a nurses interrupts.

Jack nods, and the nurse brings in soup and jello.

"Hey! The supply manager swore to me they were out of jello a week ago!" Sam protests.

"Maybe they got some more," he says with a shrug.

"He told me that he was going tell me when he got some more," she pouts.

"Have mine," he offers.

"Sir, you were in a plane crash today," she informs him.

"It was not a crash! It was an emergency landing!" he exclaims.