Sam, meanwhile, still had the feeling that things were going too fast. Pete had driven her somewhere for a surprise, and as she closed her eyes, as instructed, her feelings that this was all wrong grew more and more. It had to be more than cold feet. To calm herself, she tried picturing her wedding day, picturing herself in her flowing dress, her longish hair swept up, and then she gasped quietly in surprise when her groom turned to reveal a pair of round-rimmed glasses framing the bluest eyes that she had ever seen.

Oh boy.

Sensing something was up, Pete glanced at her from the driving seat, asking, "You ok?"

"Me? I'm fine."

"You gasped."

"I did?"

"Yep."

Sighing silently, she replied, hoping that it sounded casual, "Pot hole... and did I ever mention that I hate having my eyes closed?"

Smiling slightly, he said, "Oh yeah, ten minutes ago."

He pulled up outside of a house with a 'For Sale' sign, and he said, looking at her as he slapped his thighs, "Right, we're here."

"I gathered that."

"Right..."

Grimacing, she opened the door and he got out, going to her side to help her out before telling her that she could finally open her eyes. She opened her eyes and was shocked to discover that they were standing in front of a house, a house that she vaguely recalled describing to him once.

Oh boy, indeed.

She felt more and more sick as he excitedly pointed out things, finding her speechlessness funny, and when he mentioned the dog, she suddenly thought of Daniel's on-off fur allergy.

'Ok Samantha, you're a serving combat officer – you can do this... it's just a house, and it's on Earth so there's no jinxes if you say 'what could possibly go wrong?'.'

--------------------

After a tour of what was admittedly a beautiful and idyllic house, Pete rabbiting on a mile a minute about what they could do to improve the interior, she knew that she couldn't go through with it, and she needed advice... but who to turn to? She wanted to talk to her father but his recent bout of ill health worried her and she wondered how much more he could take.

Next, Teal'c. The big man was busy with defending Dakara with Bra'tac, so that left... Jack.

Sitting in his driveway, the tell-tale sign of a towering plume of black smoke letting half the state know that he was home, Sam went over her feelings. It wasn't that Pete was moving things too fast, although putting down a deposit for a house without so much as consulting her did cheese her off somewhat, but she just had this nagging feeling that it was all a huge mistake.

To be honest, she needed Daniel's sympathetic ear, but as she held onto the steering wheel with a vice-like grip, she bitterly recalled how her relationship with him had begun to slip during her time with Pete, how she hadn't talked to him much about her fiancé, even going so far as asking Jack about whether to accept the Cop's proposal.

What the hell had she been thinking!?

She sighed as the tears rolled down her cheeks as she contemplated Daniel being who-knows-where, and she silently prayed for him to come home again, to give her yet another chance to repair their friendship. The last time he had died, it even hurt to think the 'd-word', she had almost told him how she had felt about him but stopped herself on the grounds that it wasn't fair to burden him with feelings she suspected were unrequited.

And then after that hell of a year, she had contemplated telling him again as she sat on the mountain surface one night, but had once again dissuaded herself, convincing herself that he didn't return her feelings.

So now she was left feeling empty and needing her best friend when said best friend was now out there somewhere. He had to be somewhere, right? Come on, this couldn't be the last time, could it? The idea that it could be made her feel even more sick, and she hoped that they could do something about getting him home again instead of sitting around and listening to how the Jaffa situation was developing without him to work his magic.

She tried hard to think of the words to say to Jack, but came up empty each time. She knew of his feelings for her but she had long since realised that she didn't return those feelings, him having been a safety net of sorts for her. How could she tell him that she wasn't in love with him, or Pete, but with her best friend who was now quite possibly dead?

Whoa, hold up a second!

She groaned as she realised that she had admitted to herself that she wasn't in love with Pete, and she wept harder. How could she hurt so many people like that? She had genuinely believed that she was in love with Pete but recent events had led her to doubt those feelings, and whether they should even get married.

Drying her eyes, she decided to improvise as SG-1 had done on so many missions in the past when walking into unchartered territory or a conflict. Composing herself, she took a deep breath and reminded herself that she had known Jack for eight years now and that he qualified as a friend, distant as he tended to be with matters of the heart.

Getting out of the car after redoing her make-up, she purposefully made her way to the back of Jack's house where the man was cooking – or burning – pieces of meat that looked as though they had seen better days.

After an awkward moment, she decided to start at the beginning, "I've been sitting in your driveway for the last ten minutes, trying to work up the nerve to come and talk to you... The truth is I've been trying to work up the nerve for a lot longer than that."

Surprised and intrigued, Jack said, "Oh?"

She then told him that she was having second thoughts about the wedding, which baffled him, and he glanced back into the house, hoping that she wasn't going to declare that she loved him right now... especially not where his, uh, house guest could hear her.

Not noticing his awkwardness due to her own, she continued, "I'm sorry to bother you with this, but uh, see, there's actually a very good reason that I'm bothering you with this, and if I don't tell you now, I might never…"

She trailed off as Kerry Johnson, the CIA Agent assisting with the investigation into the Trust, emerged from the backdoor, saying, "Jack, I looked everywhere, but I could not fi…"

An even more awkward moment followed as Sam felt sad at her words that she had managed to dredge up regarding Jack would now go to waste as he had apparently moved on without telling her. Jack tried to keep the tension away but he wasn't successful and three of them stood there, not knowing what to say.

'Oh crap... how... why should I even tell him? As for Daniel... how I can I tell him in front of her?'

Kerry remarked, stating the obvious, "Well, this is awkward."

Sam shot back in true Jack fashion, "Ya think?"

As Jack waved a burnt sausage about, Kerry said with a shrug, "Well, you know, now that the cat's out of the bag, you're here, why don't you just stay? I'm sure there's enough charred meat on the grill for all three of us."

Just as Sam got an overwhelming urge to participate in a sprint to Atlantis, her mobile phone rang, thus reaffirming the cliché 'saved by the bell'. Quickly getting it from her belt as the other two watched, she answered it, quickly replied to what the other person was telling her before disconnecting and telling them as she looked worried,

"I've got to go... it's my Dad."

As she ran away, still getting the urges for an intergalactic sprint, Jack and Kerry exchanged another glance, but for a completely different reason than Sam had surmised for the awkwardness.