Chapter 3 - The Other Man

There was a time not so long ago when I'd thought that there was something more between us. Him and I.

My Dad had passed away and he was there for me while I grieved. Holding me tight for all the world to see. Well those in sickbay at the SGC anyway. I had felt so safe with him and even though the grief at the loss of my Dad was threatening to consume me, his soothing words and warm hands kept me from circuming.

Long before that, however, I had come to the conclusion that we would be together once the war was over. I mean really together. We had been so close for so many years that in my mind there couldn't be any other outcome.

I had tried to break free from him once. But I was really only fooling myself into believing that I wanted to be without him. Even my Dad told me later that he'd always thought that Pete was the wrong choice for me although until the very end of his life he didn't admit that Jack might be the right one.

Pete, that was his name. The "other man."

Ridiculous, I know, but I always felt that I was cheating on Jack when I was with Pete. It started as a bit of fun, a distraction. He was someone with whom I could be myself, someone with whom I could go to a movie, hold hands in public. And it was fun at first. Truly. I enjoyed being a girl for the first time in years. I would get dressed up in pretty outfits and spend time on my make-up and hair. I would look in the mirror and see the woman I was always trying to hide on base.

Looking back, I wonder how the heck I let it get so far so fast. It was like I woke up one morning, looked down and found a diamond ring had taken up residence on my finger. How it had gotten there was a blur of misguided resentment aimed at the U.S. Air Force and a long held wish for a normal life.

But I didn't stop it, even then. I went through the motions hoping that Jack would one day walk up to me in the gate room, grab me in a tight embrace and kiss me until I agreed to breaking off my engagement. I would fantasize about the particular scene everywhere. In bed. In the shower. At the grocery store. Everywhere. And it was always the same. It seemed so real, the kiss so vivid, that I would sometimes wake up believing that it had actually happened. It hadn't, but I realized with a fair amount of guilt, that I wished it would.

And so Pete became the other man.

After that it was just a matter of time. How long it would take for me to swallow my pride and admit that I'd made a mistake by agreeing to marry him? You see, I don't often make mistakes in my professional life, my personal life is where my failures usually lie and this should have simply been par for the course. But I even screwed up my failure this time. By letting it get complicated and my personal affairs had seeped onto the base.

I mean I couldn't exactly hide my engagement from them forever especially when my colleagues had grown to become my best friends. And to my mortification they had tried to be so damned supportive. They even threw me an engagement party for crying out loud!

But I knew they had their doubts. I used to catch them sometimes. They would ask about some aspect of the wedding plans and once I had answered I would see the forced smile that didn't quite reach their eyes, the gnawing of a lip while nodding their agreement. They wanted me to be happy, I know that, but it was like they knew this wasn't going to make me so. And of course, they were right so telling them was going to be even harder than telling Pete.

It didn't help either that in their hearts they would know that I was ending it because of Jack. Thankfully Pete would never get to know me well enough to come to that conclusion. And so, one day, God it was before I even knew my Dad was sick, I plucked up the courage to tell him how I felt. Let him know that I was going to end it was Pete.

I had felt physically sick sitting in my car in the driveway and I chided myself as the bile rose in my throat. It wasn't that Jack didn't already know that I cared for him and he'd admitted he had feelings for me during that awful Tok'ra incident. But at that moment I would have rather faced Apophis himself than Jack O'Neill.

I had taken a deep breath, opened the car door and walked towards the house. I felt a sense of dread building inside my head but my feet acted on automatic pilot and I found myself walking besides the yard. And there he was, standing grilling in the yard and I saw it as a sign. He was waiting for me, with a beer in his hand, and I thought that things were going to be ok.

But then Kerry Johnson appeared and the world seemed to fall away from beneath my feet. I had to will myself to stay standing as my knees buckled under the weight of my horror and mortification. How could I have been so stupid to think that he would have waited for me?

My cell phone rang and although I didn't think it was possible, my world fell further into the pit of hell as I discovered that my Dad was terminally ill.

Which led to the hugs from Jack in sick bay.

Jeez, I had thought that he really did care and looking back I now realize that the forced smiles and strange looks had never come from Jack but from Daniel and T'ealc and even General Hammond. Never from Jack. He had acted as the perfect Commanding Officer and supported me in every way. God damn him.

And then we went fishing.

A/N This is for Melissa - Thanks for the kick!