A/N: So, here we go! Another chapter up and ready to go! I hope you guys like it! This is the start of the build up to the finale. It's gonna be awesome!

Enjoy!

Jack paced the street outside their appointed café, a crisp envelope tight between his fingers. Tension coiled in his gut, torn between apprehension and excitement. He froze when he saw the car pull up, and Sam was almost out of the backseat before Ronica could come around to scope things out.

"Jack!" She bounded up to him, hurriedly hugging him before drawing back, her eyes big with anticipation. "What's going on? You sounded so urgent on the phone… Is something wrong?"

He offered a sheepish smile. "No… I don't think so." He handed her the letter, caving to his inability to verbalize. "Here," he grunted.

She opened it, and spent a few moments reading its contents. Her eyes widened as she read, then brightened when she broke into an elated grin. "Oh, my god! Jack! You were accepted into the Air Force Academy?"

Jack nodded, breaking into a ready grin. How could he imagine she'd be anything less than excited for him? "Yeah. I start this fall, with the new term."

With a sharp yelp of joy she launched herself at him, wrapping her arms around him in a fierce hug. He caught her with an oomph and then fought to catch his breath against the tight hold she had on his ribs. But he wasn't complaining.

"Jack, this is amazing!" she pulled back. "I didn't even know you had applied! Why didn't you tell me?"

He shrugged, suddenly sheepish. "I dunno… I guess, if it didn't work out, I'd have rather you think I was a slacker than know I didn't make the cut."

A sharp finger jabbed him in the ribs. "First of all, there's nothing you could do or say to ever convince me that you're a slacker. I know you too well by now. And secondly, even if you had been rejected, I wouldn't think any less of you."

She probably wouldn't. After all, she'd met him when he was just some bitter guy riding on a lawn mower all day. But he'd care. He'd know he hadn't been good enough for the Academy, and therefore, not good enough for her. This way, he could at least begin to close the distance between them.

He answered her with a kiss, grinning as she giggled against his lips. "I'm so proud of you."

And that meant more to him than anything the letter said.

Spring came quickly that year, and with it heat of summer proportions. By May, Washingtonians darted from building to building as fast as they could, thirsting for the air conditioning that kept them from melting into puddles on the street. But Jack suffered through it as often as necessary, doing his best to spend as much time with Sam as they could manage.

Her final exams were just getting underway, but they both knew that this summer would be the same as the last—political functions and ceremonies abroad, only this time they didn't have the reassurance of having the coming fall together. In August he would be relocating to Colorado, and Sam had yet to announce which university she'd selected. She'd promised to tell him, and the rest of the world, on the day of her graduation.

So he stood in the shade of a towering oak tree just outside the campus of the high school, sweating through his civvies as he waited for Sam. She'd agreed to meeting him for dinner, but the appointed time had passed almost 45 minutes ago. He tried to be offended, really he did, but he knew all too well how absorbed she became in an experiment—which he knew was her preoccupation, having heard all about it the night before. In his mind's eye, she was hunched over a computer, her brow furrowed as she struggled to put the pieces together.

His attempts to be slighted were thwarted by how damn cute she looked in his head. So he waited patiently, knowing that Geordie would be moving her along before too long. In way, Ronica and her partner had become Jack's wingmen, gently reminding her that she had a date.

"O'Neill!"

Jack looked up at the shout, finding Bill Meyers waving at him from the guardhouse. "Hey, Bill," he called back.

"You nuts, O'Neill? What're you doing standing around in this heat? Come over and say hello to an old man where it's nice and cool, eh?"

Jack grinned, and loped over to the post. Bill was a retired vet, and the most friendly of the school's employees. They'd gotten friendly while Jack had worked on the grounds, and their rapport had continued as Jack had spent many an afternoon waiting for Sam. Bill was pretty cool, for an old guy.

"How's it goin' Bill?" he said, as soon as he stepped into the air conditioned hut.

"Well, the knees are acting up again," Bill returned, easing himself back into his chair. "So's the back, and the shoulder. So not too bad, really." The gentleman bared a rakish grin. "And you? Still holding doors for our venerable First Lady?"

Jack grinned. "You bet. Amazing she hasn't kicked me to the curb yet, huh?"

Bill considered it. "Maybe not," he responded pensively. "Seems to me she's the kind of girl who don't let go of something she wants until she's good and ready."

"S'pose that's true." An easy quiet fell between them for a few short moments. "Got accepted to the Air Force Academy." He'd told Bill of his intentions back when he'd first started bouncing the idea around.

"Did you, now?" Bill broke into an approving smile. "That's a smart decision, son. And quite an accomplishment."

"Thanks." A pause. "I go in the fall."

Bill regarded him for a long moment. "Am I sensing cold feet?"

Jack shook his head. "Nah. It's the best move; makes sense for me."

"But you're gonna miss her, ain't yah?" Jack didn't answer. "Ain't nothing to be ashamed of. I know I'm gonna be missing that girl when she graduates next month. But it's gotta happen, don't it? It's the natural way of things, y'see?"

Jack blinked, staring down at his toes as a grin tickled his lips. "Yeah. Yeah, I guess—"

His voice trailed off abruptly as a low tremble suddenly shook the guard house. It grew in intensity, until Jack's hand gripped the window ledge out of reflex against the tremor. The window A/C unit squeaked and rattled in place, almost shaking loose of its screws at the tumultuous motion. When it died, as smoothly as it had come, Jack looked to Bill in alarm.

"Detonation?" he asked, though he instinctively knew that wasn't it. The shaking had been too prolonged, too uniform. Bombs were quick and fast, not the steady rumble they'd just experienced.

Sure enough, Bill shook his head, already rising to his feet. "Earthquake."

"In DC?"

"I spent the first 21 years of my life in San Francisco, son. That right there was an honest-to-God earthquake." He grabbed the radio pinned to his shoulder, turning to speak into it. "All units be advised: We are now Code Yellow."

Jack's eyes widened. "An evac? You said it was an earthquake!"

"The whole damn campus is an antique. A quake that size coulda caused structural damage in every foundation on the grounds. Aftershock could damn well bring one or all of them down."

Jack whipped out his cellphone, but calling Sam's cell got him nothing but an error signal. He cursed, even as he belatedly acknowledged that the whole damn city would have had his same thought. Every single person in the tri-state area was trying to check in on their loved ones as they feared the worst. The cell towers weren't meant for that kind of call volume.

He quickly moved from the hut, pressing close to the gate as it opened, his eyes glued to the building he knew housed the labs. It was one of the tallest on campus.

"You can't go on campus, son," Bill told him.

"Bill—"

"Don't add to the confusion," he was told. "She's got good people looking out for her. They'll keep her safe. Let them come to you."

Jack forced himself to obey, torn between his need to get to her and not wanting to cause trouble for Bill. But the decision was made for him when the ground shook again, but this time longer, and more violently. This wasn't just an aftershock. Jack knew it in his gut, and was confirmed when Bill cursed beside him, stumbling in place.

The lab building quaked on its foundations, then in a symphony of chaos the stone and mortar exterior crumbled, a fault line arcing from ground to roof in a deafening series of crackles. Columns of windows shattered as the building tore apart, then tilted alarmingly. For a heart-stopping moment it listed, motionless, then collapsed in an explosion of dust and flying debris.

"BILL!"

"Go!" the old man shouted, throwing policy out the window. "Rescue's on the way!"

Jack was already sprinting through the gates, his eyes glued to the patch of vacant sky where the building had been standing just moments ago. Through panting breaths he stared at the growing pillar of dust, praying to God, any god, that Geordie had gotten her out in time.