Jack O'Neill didn't run, but he liked to think that he 'walked with purpose' as he followed his escort and searched out Agent Gibbs. He was accompanied by Major Davis who had looked surprised to find the General already at NCIS and trailed by two uniformed Air Force officers, both of whom had become his bodyguards slash drivers ever since Ba'al had been found on Earth, never mind how much Jack protested.

Hayes had ordered him to keep them around as long as he was on-duty, but had relented on making them travel with Jack as long as another member of the SGC was with him. In exchange, a high tech security system had been installed in all of his residences, even his beloved Minnesota cabin, and as long as he used it, which he did after some serious harping from Sam, he wasn't required to have bodyguards during his off hours. Though Jack was pretty sure that someone was still probably in charge of at least driving by his house once or twice a night, though he had yet to prove such an event actually happened.

It had taken them too long, by Jack's standards, to get through security and into the building.

And the elevator in this building moved way too slow for his standards too.

He wondered if he could talk the President into getting rings installed instead of elevators in every government building. Jack filed that thought away to bring it up later in a meeting, or at least run it past Sam. He knew it probably wasn't possible, but it would be a distraction, meant solely to keep her mind off of losing the position as Commanding Officer of Atlantis.

Their escort directed them to a set of desks where three agents were working at their desks. The man closest to them stood up.

"Major Davis I presume?"

"Yes. And you are?" Davis asked. He tried looking at his CO out of the corner of his eye, but was unable to read him.

"Special Agent Anthony DiNozzo. I'm curious as to why the Air Force is so concerned about our suspect in a murder investigation," the Agent questioned, keeping his tone neutral to see what kind of reaction he would get from the Air Force officers.

"Suspect?" Jack repeated in disbelief but was still slightly relieved. The use of the word suspect confirmed that she was alive, even though Davis had already told him as much.

"Mrs. O'Neill was found at a crime scene. She refused to give us a blood sample in an attempt to rule her out as a possible suspect, so what else are we supposed to think?" Special Agent DiNozzo asked in a tone intentionally meant to garner a reaction, if one was there to be gotten.

Now Jack was mad. There was no doubt in his mind that Sam had nothing to do with this case. In fact, when he had arrived home just in time for lunch, he had been worried that she might be in the morgue, not in an interrogation room.

/Flashback/

He had managed to schedule only a half day of work for today, as part of a surprise for Sam. Jack had planned to make it home in time to suggest a late lunch or early dinner at one of their favorite restaurants.

The last thing he had expected was to come home to a place where Sam wasn't. Her dog tags still rested on the dresser, evidence that Sam hadn't gone far, and had probably just forgotten them when she had gone out for a run. She hadn't worn them the night before when Jack had taken her out for a nice dinner and a little bit of dancing D.C. style which really meant attending some Washington D.C. function required by his position as the Head of Homeworld Security.

The fact that they were still laying there at noon gave Jack reason to worry. An inspection of her shoe pile left him with the conclusion that she had, as he had suspected, gone for a run and hadn't come back yet. Her cell phone still sat on the charger, her gun still in the nightstand.

Jack waited patiently for thirty minutes (and not a second more) before he gave into his fears and had Walter locate her subcutaneous transmitter.

When the address came up as NCIS, Jack had his driver slash bodyguards make the trip in record time, unable to shake the feeling that she was dead.

Finding out she was very much alive, had been a relief.

/End Flashback/

"Where is she?" Jack demanded, giving into his desire to see her.

"Are you her lawyer?" Tony asked, looking between the four men in front of him.

"No, I'm her husband," Jack responded.

"I'm sorry sir, but you can't speak to her right now. Special Agent Gibbs is currently speaking with her," Tony said firmly.

"Agent Donato-"

"DiNozzo."

"DiNozzo," Jack repeated, trying really hard to pretend that he cared. "I want to speak with your boss. And if you don't want to spend the rest of your career at the most miserable job they give people here, I suggest you find him. Now!"

"Ziva," Tony instructed with a toss of his head.

Jack didn't bother to wait for the offer to follow, he just did. He pushed right past the agent and followed Ziva.

Within seconds, he found himself face to face with one Special Agent Gibbs, which meant that someone had informed him that he was coming, probably the nerdy looking young man that hadn't moved during the short exchange between the Air Force officers and NCIS agents.

"He insisted on seeing you sir," Ziva offered as way of explanation.

The two men starred at each other, as though trying to get the other to back down.

"You have my wife in custody?" Jack questioned, finally relenting and breaking the ice.

"Depends on who your wife is," Gibbs said offhandedly.

"I think you know who she is. Colonel Samantha Carter."

The look of shock was evident in both their faces.

"I'm afraid you've been misinformed Mr….?" Gibbs suggested.

"O'Neill. Lieutenant General Jack O'Neill," Jack filled in the gaps for them, not afraid of tossing his rank around if it got him what he wanted. Even dressed in civilian clothes, he had no fear that he would get what he wanted.

Having the President on speed dial tended to help in circumstances such as this one.

It was as if pieces of a puzzle had fallen into place for the both of the NCIS agents, who traded quick glances, or glares in the case of Agent Gibbs at Agent David.

"Come with me General," Gibbs instructed.

They walked a few steps down the hallway and into what Jack quickly discovered must be an observation room.

If he had been a little boy, Jack would have had his nose pressed to the window.

But he wasn't.

Lieutenant Generals didn't go around leaving nose prints on windows.

So getting as close as he could without physically touching the glass would have to do.

"Is that her?" Gibbs asked softly.

"Yeah," Jack answered, unable to keep the relief from his voice. He turned to look at the Agent beside him. "She just came back from being deployed on her first command abroad yesterday," he confided. "She was gone for a year. I came home to find her gone, her dog tags still on the dresser. I thought that she had survived everything out there, only to have something happen to her here at home."

Gibbs nodded in understanding. "She won't give us a blood sample."

Jack huffed as he rubbed a hand through his hair.

"Any chance you could talk her into giving us one?"

Jack hesitated. He wanted so badly to talk to her that he almost lied to the man, but he couldn't do that.

Sam wouldn't want him to do that.

In fact, she would probably kick his… butt if he did.

"No," he admitted.

Gibbs' expression darkened.

"It's not that she doesn't want to," Jack explained. "Her medical records are classified. You can't draw blood; take a DNA sample, pretty much anything from her without the appropriate level of security clearance."

Gibbs looked curious but knew enough not to ask, so Jack answered the unasked question for him.

"Lab accident messed everything up," Jack offered up the standard cover-up story for Sam's messed up body chemistry.

Now Jack hesitated again before speaking. "If you let me talk to her, we can probably get you the information you need," he hedged.

He wasn't willing to outright lie, but he wasn't past bending the truth here and there to get him what he wanted.

Gibbs considered his request.

"Okay."

The shock must have shown in Jack's face.

"Didn't expect me to say yes, did you?"

"Not really."

"You didn't lie to me, and most men would have," Gibbs explained. "Besides, I don't think she had anything to do with it."

"Sam didn't," Jack assured him confident in this fact.

Gibbs led him back to the interrogation room door and opened it for him.

Jack stepped through the door to the interrogation room, and couldn't have been prouder of his wife than he was at that moment. A year in a command position hadn't dulled her skills in the field at all. She still ignored the presence of a coming interrogator, just like he would have.

That thought was especially reassuring for him.

Now that he had reassured himself that she was safe, he could afford some humor. "Speeding again were you Carter?"

Sam's head whipped around at the sound of her husband's voice.

"Only if you count foot races," she retorted after a beat.

The only thing that would be able to tell who made the first move was the security cameras, because neither Jack nor Sam could recall who moved first, only that they ended up in each other's arms.

It took several hours for Jack and Sam to coordinate with Carolyn Lam in getting a blacked out version of her physical report, which pretty much they could read her name, service number, and gave them something to compare DNA to.

Davis was left in a daze after monitoring the test performed by NCIS's forensic scientist, which had been Jack's concession in Sam finally giving up a DNA sample.

But even before that Gibbs had sent his team out to look for another suspect, investigate any possible reason why the man had been gunned down in cold blood at a park. He trusted his gut when it told him that these people weren't responsible for this.

He was pretty sure they were involved in something big, especially when Jenny had emerged from her office to greet the General and Colonel personally, and she gave DiNozzo 'the look' when one of the General's bodyguards returned with lunch for the two higher ranking officers, and Tony had been in the process of objecting to giving a 'prisoner' real outside food. Gibbs knew he had trained the Director better than that, so whoever this couple was, they must have friends in high places.

Before he even had the test results back that would confirm the Colonel's innocence, Gibbs walked the couple to the General's car.

"I won't apologize for detaining her," Gibbs said as General O'Neill gave him one last look before sliding in next to his wife.

"You were just doing your job," Jack surmised.

"Yes."

"Notify Major Davis when the case is closed," Jack requested before holding out his hand for the man to shake.

"Will do," Gibbs replied, shaking the General's hand. By the time the car was out of sight, Gibbs' thoughts had already returned to the case, pushing thoughts of the General and the Colonel out of his mind.

"Home Jeeves," Jack said as he shut the car door and wrapped an arm around his wife.