Chapter Ten: The Man-Rules
The SGC

"How's it coming?"

Sam glanced up at the colonel with a small smile. "It's, um, okay. You were right – the notes are good. And anything that's already been fully examined, I can pretty much eliminate, so I'm starting with that."

Seemed like a decent enough plan to Jack. "You've been here a couple of hours. How 'bout some dinner?"

"Thanks, but I'm not very hungry."

"O...kay." He debated forcing her to take a break, much as he would have with his own Carter... but she wasn't. And that was what tipped the scale. "I'll, uh, leave you to it, then."

He was most of the way out the door before she said, "You know, actually, I... wouldn't turn down the company."

In hindsight, he thought as they stepped into the quarters she'd been given and she didn't even turn on all the lights, this had been a really, really bad idea. She probably didn't mean it to, but dinner... her quarters... dim lights... It all had this aura of impropriety about it that would have made Jack oddly giddy.

In any circumstances but these.

She glanced up at him and caught him staring, her wide blue eyes liquid and completely unguarded in a way they hadn't been in years. Quickly, before he could do something he'd regret later, he choked, "So how long have you and Daniel been married?"

He really didn't want to know the answer – really didn't want to know – but he needed to steer the conversation somewhere safer.

"Four years," she answered easily.

Jack nearly choked on his mashed potatoes. "Uh, wow."

She raised an eyebrow. "Wow what?"

"It's just that, uh... Damn, he got over Shar'e quick." The words were out of his mouth before he realized the can of worms he was opening.

It was her turn to choke. "Who? Excuse me?"

Well, crap. This line of conversation was safe for him... but apparently not for Daniel. Could you screw over your best friend if he wasn't your best friend in the other reality?

Yeah, Jack was pretty sure that was still against just about every man-rule there was. "Must've been different over there," he shrugged.

She shot him a dirty look – of course he couldn't get off that easily. "'Splain, Lucy."

"Shar'e is, um..." He coughed. "She's the woman Daniel was, um, given. On Abydos."

She blinked. Then again. "I don't even know what part of that to address first." Taking a long sip of water, she finally managed, "Given?" Then, "No, wait, don't answer that. But... Abydos?"

"Yeah."

"That's not one I've heard of."

Was that even possible? "You know, Abydos," he insisted. "It's... Abydos. The address on the thing from Giza? Abydos."

"Oh," she said softly. "I didn't know it had a name. But Daniel didn't go there – that was purely a military mission."

Jack sucked in a breath. "They blew it up, didn't they? They blew the whole damn thing up." It was a difficult thing to conceive of – Skaa'ra, Shar'e, Kasuf... all dead. At their hands. His hands. "Well, now I get why you don't know me," he offered wryly.

"I'm sorry? I don't follow."

"That mission – I never came back."

She smiled, but it was twisted, confused. "You never went," she corrected. "He had a Polish name. Kaslewski, Kaminski..."

"Kowalsky."

"No, that was his second-in-command. The military guys used to make fun of them all the time because their names were so similar. You weren't there. In my world, you and I have never met." She met his eyes over the rim of her water glass as she took a sip, and this time, Jack was pretty positive the electricity wasn't just one way. "Believe me," she murmured into the glass, "that I would remember."