A/N: I'm so sorry this has taken forever! I haven't been allowed on the internet…shoulda seen the bill…but here's the next part…maybe couple of parts!

Chapter Nine

The three of them sat silently around Sam's living room. Only a couple of weeks earlier they had sat there celebrating Sam's engagement, now they were sitting there, doing quite the opposite.

"More cake?" Daniel offered.

Sam shook her head. She wasn't hungry. They'd had the wake at General Hammond's place and afterwards the three of them had headed back to Sam's. She sighed loudly and both the guys looked at her.

"It's not right," Sam said. "Something's not right."

"What do you mean?" Daniel asked.

"I dunno, maybe I'm just feeling off because…he's gone…" she sighed. "It's like someone's come and eaten half my soul and left the other half to rot away…"

"It feels strange without him around," Daniel said.

"Indeed," Teal'c said.

Sam looked around. She felt empty. Pete would be home any minute, but she didn't want him there. The past few days she'd realised how little she really cared about him…no that sounded harsh. Sure she cared about him – but not in the way she did about Jack.

He wasn't a part of her.

"Sam?" Daniel said after a moment.

She looked at him. "Yeah?"

"Are you OK?"

"Oh sure, I'm fine. General O'Neill just died Daniel! He's not ascended, he's not in possession of aliens…he's dead!" she shouted, standing up. "And now I have to live here with Pete never knowing what I might've had with the General! I can never be as happy with Pete as I feel around Jack…I loved him more than anything."

She broke down into tears again. "I still love him," she whispered.

Daniel was standing next to her, his arm around her shoulder. She leaned in and tried to stop herself crying.

Bang

The front door. Sam wiped her eyes, walking into the hallway and expecting to find Pete. Instead she found no one. The sudden noise of a car engine starting up told her that Pete had been there.

He was gone too.

Suddenly it seemed as if she had no tears left. Her eyes went completely dry and she turned back to face Daniel and Teal'c.

"You should go," she said quietly.

"No, Sam we're staying here," Daniel said.

"No! I'm gonna hurt you, go away," Sam shouted. "I'm completely useless! Everyone around me either ends up hurt or dead! Leave!"

"No," Daniel said. "We're not leaving."

She glared at him and spun around, running into her kitchen area. She saw that photo of SG-1 and pulled it out of its frame, revealing the one of her and Colonel O'Neill from a few years earlier.

She placed it back on the kitchen bench and stared at it. They looked right together. Why hadn't she ever seen it? And now she'd been stupid enough to open her mouth and actually say it, Pete had been in the room and heard every word. Now he was gone too.

She was alone.

Again.

She picked up the photo frame and threw it at the ground. "I'm USELESS!"

"SAM!" Daniel ran into the room and looked at the broken picture frame.

Sam turned around and grabbed the photo of her and Pete off the bench, also throwing it at the ground. It landed next to the one of her and Jack.

"COMPLETELY USELESS!" she screamed.

"No, Sam you're not. There's nothing any of us could've done to save Jack," Daniel said, then looked at the second photo. "And I'm sure Pete will forgive you, just give him time."

"No," Sam said. "It will never be the same. I'll just grow old alone, that way I won't hurt anyone."

"Sam, I lost Sha're, I know how you feel…" Daniel said.

"And I lost Drey'ac," Teal'c added. "We are here for you ColonelCarter."

She looked at them, for the first time realising she wasn't alone in the world. They had both lost people they loved. She sighed.

"Thanks guys," she said quietly. "I appreciate you being here…"

"Want us to set up camp on the couch?" Daniel asked.

"I'll be fine," Sam said, shaking her head.

"Are you sure?" Teal'c double checked.

"Yeah, I'll be fine," Sam said, watching her friends and knowing while it still must hurt them, life goes on.

Life goes on.

"You care for her so much that you would sacrifice your own life to save hers?" Grace asked.

They were both sitting down and leaning against a wall that had mysteriously appeared in the dark room.

"Yeah," Jack said.

"Then in effect is that not what you have appeared to her to have done?" Grace asked.

"No…" Jack said. "I died, not saving her…but her trying to save me."

"I see," Grace said.

Jack looked at her. "If you see, then why can't you let me go?"

"My superiors…" Grace said.

"Screw your superiors," Jack said.

"You would not," Grace replied.

"Sure I would," Jack said, truthfully…for the most part.

"Except when it concerns your feeling for Sam?" Grace said.

"That's different," Jack said.

"How?"

"It just is."

"Then this is different…"

"No, its not!" Jack said. "You'd be helping me. Please…"

Grace stared at him. "I will be back."

She disappeared.

"Ah, for crying out loud," Jack said loudly into the emptiness.

"UNAUTHORIZED OFFWORLD ACTIVATION," Walter's voice came over the loud speaker.

Sam ignored it and continued carefully turning the screw in the naquadah enhanced machine she was working on. One wrong move and the entire thing was screwed. She'd been working on this for a whole week and if she was made to leave at that exact moment she'd have to start all over…

Her phone rang and she jumped.

"Damnit," she said.

The screw fell out and bounced off the table onto the floor. She picked it up and jogged to the phone, picking it up.

"Carter."

"Colonel, you might wanna see this," Johnson's voice sounded familiar. "Briefing room."

"Yes, sir," she said, hanging up the phone.

She placed the screwdriver and the screw on the table next to the machine she was creating and made her way quickly to the briefing room.

"Hey Carter."

She stopped in her footsteps and looked up. Jack O'Neill sat on the chair he always had when he'd been a part of SG-1. He looked thinner and rather dishevelled, he'd grown what almost looked like a beard – and Sam could only imagine how bad he must smell, but it was him.

"Sir?" she asked. "No…you…you're dead!"

"Apparently not," Daniel replied for him.

"I saw you die," Sam said.

Suddenly she was overwhelmed with emotions. She didn't believe it. He wasn't alive, no way could he possibly be alive. But he was sitting there. So he wasn't dead? So she could be happy again? But it couldn't possibly be him, this had to be a dream.

She shook her head. "It's not possible…"

"It wasn't me, Carter," he said.

"Yes, yes it was! I watched you die!" she still hadn't moved from her position atop the stairs.

"So did I," Jack said. "But it wasn't me, it was an image."

"An image? It was a god damn good image," Sam said.

Jack stood up and walked towards him. "Carter, its me.'

"No, its not," she said.

He reached forward to take her arm. She pulled away.

"No you're dead," she repeated. "You can't be alive."

She turned around and ran out of the briefing room. She didn't know where she was going, but she wasn't staying on this base.

Jack watched her run off, an empty feeling filling his stomach. She didn't want him there. He thought she'd be happy for him, but she wasn't. She'd just run off.

"She needs time," Daniel said quietly from next to him. "She's, ah, been through a lot."

"What? Loverboy wasn't there to cheer her up?" Jack asked.

"He left last week," Daniel said.

"Oh," Jack decided to keep his mouth shut.

"She lost you Jack," Daniel said. "I'm surprised she dealt as well as she did."

Jack didn't reply. What was he supposed to say to that?

"Give her time," Daniel said.

"I don't have time," Jack whispered, so quietly Daniel couldn't hear it.


A/N: Please review!!