A/N: I kind of had to write myself out of a corner here, as I really hadn't expected O'Neill to turn up at the end of the last chapter, but there you go. Hope someone out there likes it. Thanks to those who have said nice things, it means a lot.
Janet almost gets up and tells Sam to forget the drinks, that they can go back to hers for a glass of wine instead, but before she can move the bartender is there and Sam's asked for two more beers. Janet looks at O'Neill again and he's smiling slightly, raising his glass at his second in a kind of half-salute. Sam sticks her hands in her back pockets and nods back as the bartender puts the two drinks down in front of her. Janet sees O'Neill looking at them, calculating that Sam isn't alone, perhaps, although she doesn't think he's clocked who it is she's with. She wonders what he's thinking. He makes no move to close the space between them, to walk around the bar. His attitude has gone back to his usual relaxed whatever, campers stance, and it's so convincing that Janet almost believes it. But there's still smoke drifting in the air from his expression when he first saw her standing there, and as good a soldier as he is, that was a visceral reaction he couldn't contain. It's enough to convince Janet that Jack O'Neill is fighting his own internal battle where Sam Carter is concerned.
Sam slides back into the booth and puts down their drinks. There's a high colour on her cheeks that makes her cheekbones seem as if they're carved out of marble.
"He's here."
"I saw. It's okay. We'll just finish our drinks and head out."
Sam nods, fingers restless against the condensation on her glass. "Maybe I should talk to him."
"Maybe. It depends. What is it that you want to talk about, and what do you want to say?"
Sam stares at her drink for a moment, and then shakes her head, as if working out that everything she can currently think of would be wrong. "This is such a mess."
"It doesn't have to be. There's things you can avoid and things you can't, Sam. And the things you can't avoid you just have to find a way to deal with as best you can."
Sam presses a thumb into her forehead. "I am such an idiot."
"You're not. You just think your commanding officer is hot. As it happens, so do I. I would definitely slide him into my isolation chamber, if you know what I mean."
Sam's in the process of taking a mouthful of her beer as Janet says this, and almost spits it across the table in a shocked laugh that ends with a spluttered, "Janet!"
As calculated, the absurd and unexpected filth of her words puts a distinct crack in the tension. Janet watches as Sam wipes the back of her hand across her mouth, both of them still laughing.
"Don't be so hard on yourself, and don't make this bigger than it is," Janet says, then. "What happened with Doctor Carter – no one would expect you to treat it as business as usual. Anyone would find it a strange situation, and it's been going around and around that huge brain of yours for two days. It's not surprising it's all you can think about. But tomorrow you'll be back out in the field, doing what you do best, you'll be working with him the same as always, and other things will take priority. Fancying Jack O'Neill does not make you an idiot. Kissing Jack O'Neill would make you an idiot, and whatever you're feeling right now, we both know you're not going to do that, any more than I would do… the other thing. So everything's fine. Okay? Cut yourself some slack, Sam."
Sam takes a deep breath, releases it slowly, and nods. "You're right." She reaches out and puts one hand over Janet's, squeezing gently before she lets go again. "Thank you."
"I'm always here if you need to talk, you know that. And for the record, I don't think you getting a life outside work would be such a bad idea. You could do with blowing off some steam somewhere other than your lab."
"Yeah. It's just… time. And everything else has a habit of paling into insignificance compared with… you know."
"I get that. But hey – this weekend I'm planning to take Cassie up to Estes Park. Do some hiking, some riding, some climbing. Might be a good place to start. Why don't you come with us, if you're free?"
Sam smiles. "I'd really love that. Thanks."
"I can't promise you scintillating male company, but we'll find another way to tackle that."
"What was that about scintillating male company?"
His shadow falls across the table just a second before his voice reaches them. Janet and Sam both look up at the same time to find Jack O'Neill standing at the end of their booth, bottle in hand and a familiar amused expression on his face.
"Doctor, Major," he says. "Good to see two of the Air Force's finest supporting the local economy."
"Sir," Sam says, shooting to her feet, but he waves her down again.
"At ease, Carter. I don't want to spoil your evening. Just thought it polite to say hello. Feel as if I haven't seen you in the last two days."
"Uh… no sir. I've been pretty closeted in the lab, working on some… engineering issues."
He smiles easily, then glances at Fraiser. "Mind if I join you for a moment?"
Janet shifts up. "Of course not, sir."
The Colonel drops into the space she's left on the bench and leans his elbows on the table, long fingers fiddling with the label on his bottle of Fossil Evolution. Janet watches his profile, the slight frown on his face as he works out how to say whatever it is that's on his mind. She wonders what he's playing at, sitting here in a public bar opposite a junior officer that he seems to be on the cusp of developing feelings for, with another officer right there next to him.
"This probably isn't the place," O'Neill begins, "but I just wanted to apologise, for not talking to you sooner about the whole… twin thing."
Janet looks at Sam. Her friend is sitting as still as a statue, and suddenly Janet understands exactly what O'Neill's doing. He can't bring this up in the SGC any more than Carter could talk about it in her office, and he's choosing to do it now precisely because Janet's there. He wants a third party, a witness… Maybe, she thinks, he even wants Sam to have someone she trusts available after he's said whatever it is he feels he has to say. Janet feels a little humbled that he has such confidence in her discretion.
"The truth is," O'Neill says, "I guess I've been having a hard time with it myself. Because we've encountered two alternate realities now, and in both… I've failed."
Sam's eyes widen for a second. "Failed, sir?" she asks, with blank incredulity.
O'Neill sits back a bit, chugs a mouthful of beer and whisks a finger around to indicate the bar, Colorado, the world. "Couldn't stop it. It's gone. And I'm dead. Twice. So what does that say about the twin versions of me?"
Sam blinks. "Sir, that doesn't make either of those versions of you a failure. It means that both versions of were ready and willing to make the ultimate sacrifice. To put everything else first, no matter what the personal cost."
O'Neill watches her for a moment, his eyes dark, and as he repeats her words back to her, Janet knows without a doubt that he knew that's exactly what Sam would say. "'To put everything else first, no matter what the personal cost.'"
Sam stares back at him, their gazes locked. "Yes, sir."
He drops his gaze back to the bottle. "I like to think I'd do the same in this reality, Carter. Whatever form that took."
There's a split second of silence, and Sam says, "I have absolutely no doubt that you would, sir."
O'Neill's watching her again, his lips drawn tightly together as he says, "I have the same faith in you, Major. Which is why there is no one else I would prefer to have on my team."
"And I would never want to serve on any other, sir, if I could help it."
A silence settles between them, and Janet thinks that they've both forgotten she's even there. They look at each other with a single table, an intergalactic war and the entire Air Force between them, and she knows she's seeing two people take a vow that couldn't be more binding if it was made of a physical chain. Yet that little knot of unease in her chest doesn't loosen, it doesn't slip away. Because Janet gets the sense that the first sacrifice has already been made, and neither of them realise just how big it is, or that from here on out there will be more, and they'll be greater every time. But what else can they do? If you can't avoid something, you just have to deal with it as best you can.
"I've got your back, sir." Sam says, quietly.
He smiles. "And I've got yours, Carter." He swallows the last of his beer and slaps his hand down on the table. "Right. I'm gone. See you bright and early for the briefing tomorrow, Major." He stands up, nodding at Janet, "Doctor."
"Goodnight, sir."
Sam sits silently for a moment or two after he's left. Then she lets out a long, shuddering breath and looks at Janet with a faint smile. Janet smiles back, but it's hiding the anxiety, because she knows now that she's watching one of her closest friends fall in love with a man she can't ever have.
"You know who you should call?" she says. "Graham Simmons. That boy would hear your voice and think all his Christmases had come at once."
Sam looks at her, and the smile turns into a sad kind of laugh. She pushes the forefinger and thumb of her left hand into the bridge of her nose, and Janet can't help looking at the bare skin of the finger where, in two other realities, the same man had put a ring.
[END]
