Having spent most of his adult life on the move and on different planets, much less different time zones (provided that he wasn't in fear for his life or the life of someone he loved or disturbed by a nightmare), Daniel woke after six hours no matter what time it was in the morning. In the days before Jillian that had often meant he was up before dawn. Now he was just a likely to wake up, find that it was still dark and turn to his wife thinking I'll stay if you want me to, please always want me to. He would gather her into his arms and she would nestle close and he would go back to sleep.

The morning after the feast he woke up first to the first pale gray light that signaled the night's end. He started to get up but Jillian made a soft, disappointed noise so he settled back down again. The next time he opened his eyes the room was flooding with bright yellow light and Jillian was slipping back into bed with him, coming back from a trip to the bathroom.

He smiled and ignored the fact that he should probably get up and find the bathroom too. There was time. He wanted her back in his arms for a moment. She was still tousled and her body still felt sleep-heavy as she settled back down with a sigh.

They didn't speak at first. The love in her eyes was breathtaking. For a moment his chest hurt and he had to swallow the ache in his throat. Under the light sheet his hand found hers and touched the only thing she was wearing – her wedding ring. It was soothing, comforting. Jillian reached up and stroked her thumb over his jaw, over the sandpaper-fine early morning beard shadow.

"Let this grow," she said.

Daniel lifted both eyebrows and looked amused. "Yeah?"

"Yeah." It was a purr, throaty, happy. She tilted her head and looked up at him hopefully. "You told me once that you would, when you didn't go off world any more. You said it was too much trouble to maintain in the field but now….. Now we're going to Atlantis, so we'll be closing up the house and tying up loose ends for a month and then three weeks to Atlantis and then, I hope, days and days spent in the library there."

He cut her off by putting a finger over her lips.

"Okay," he said.

"Really?"

He laughed a little. "Considering what you're doing for me right now, for us? Yeah, I think 'not shaving' is a pretty simple thing for you to ask from me."

The delight in her forest green eyes warmed him to his soul. He held her for a bit longer until he realized she was falling back to sleep.

"Jill?"

"Hm?"

"I'm going to get up now."

"Hmmm."

He waited until she was asleep and slipped gingerly out from under and around her, fixed the sheet over her shoulder. He kissed her on the forehead, mindful of using just his lips and avoiding the scratchy stubble.

He showered and didn't shave, dressed, checked on her one more time and then went out into the common room. The only occupant was Teal'c, though it was obvious from the banquet spread out on the center table that their breakfast had been delivered not too long ago. Teal'c was piling a selection of bread, cheese and fruit onto a platter.

"Who else is back from the party?" Daniel asked.

"You and I, presumably Jillian is with you, Ishta is still sleeping. There is movement and sound from O'Neill's room but none of the others."

"Where is Sam?" Daniel was suddenly alarmed.

"I believe she is in the room with O'Neill," Teal'c said, blandly.

Daniel stopped in midstride slack-jawed. "What?"

Teal'c reached into his back pocket and pulled out a strip of fuchsia colored fabric.

"I found this on the floor in front of his door."

Daniel and Teal'c shared a long, conversational look at the end of which Daniel exhaled slowly and said, "Wow."

(0)

Jack stood in the middle of the room between the bed and the door and said, "So what do you want to do?"

Sam was seated on the bed wearing yesterday's hot pink lace panties and one of Jack's t-shirts. Jack was finding this almost as sexy as the skirt and bandeau top from the night before but Sam's mind was on other things.

"I want to get a shower and get dressed," she answered.

He gestured towards his bathroom door. "There's a shower in there that you can play basketball in. I plan to take one. We could take one together."

"I know," she said, "But I can't use your soap! It dries my skin and I'll smell like you all day."

He gestured to the front door. "I can go get stuff from your room."

"Yeah, that won't look at all suspicious."

Jack sighed and resisted scratching at his spikey hair. They had seriously overslept and now they weren't sure what to do about getting Sam back to her own room.

"Just look out there and see who is awake. It's still early." Sam suggested.

Jack went to the front door, opened it cautiously and peered out.

Daniel and Teal'c were seated on the couch that ran perpendicular to his door. They both looked up curiously. Daniel had an electronic notebook balanced on his knee and a mug of the local coffee in his hand. Teal'c was eating.

"Morning," Jack said, holding the door against his body to block the view into the room.

"Morning," Daniel agreed, with feigned cheerfulness.

"Anyone else awake?" Jack asked, conversationally.

"No, no. Just me and Teal'c," Daniel answered.

"Okay," Jack said, and then shut the door quickly so he missed the speculative look that passed between Teal'c and Daniel.

Sam looked up at him.

"It's just Daniel and Teal'c. No one else is here or up yet."

Sam sighed and ran her fingers through her tangled hair. She was being indecisive and she hated it.

"What do you think?" Jack asked softly.

She looked up, sapphire eyes haunted. Jack made an aggravated noise in his throat. "Come on. I can hear you thinking. Just talk."

"Those two men are my best friends."

"Same here."

"I trust them with my life. I trust them with your life. I'm closer to them than I've ever been to family."

"Same here."

"We've kept all this from them to protect them."

"Yes."

"But I'm not sure there's anything we need to protect them from anymore. Teal'c is leaving to be with the Free Jaffa Nation and that's exactly what he should be doing. Daniel is going to Atlantis at the request of the Langford-Littlefield Foundation and no one can argue with that; not even you."

Jack frowned. That was also true. He just didn't have to like it.

"So?" He prompted when she stopped.

"They won't betray us."

"They haven't so far," Jack agreed.

"You think they know."

"Neither of them is stupid. What are you trying to talk yourself into here, Sam?"

She sighed and looked at her hands for a while. Then she looked up and met his eyes with unwavering certainty. She was so much in love with Jack, with this man who had survived every blow life had dealt him; who still challenged the world to accept him on his own terms. Sometimes he did that with acerbic biting humor and sometimes as a warrior born and bred. But either way she loved him.

Unable to tell the rest of the world, she suddenly fiercely wanted to tell the other people in her life that she loved.

"I want to tell them." She stated it bluntly. "It doesn't feel right now, when we're all going our separate ways. I don't want anything secret or left unsaid among the four of us. They should know."

She saw the concern fade out of Jack's eyes and knew the decision was made for both of them.

"So let's go," Sam said, jumping up off the bed and heading passed him to the door.

Jack caught her arm. "Wait. Wait. Dressed like that?"

Sam looked down at the oversized t-shirt. "They've seen me in less."

Jack made a gesture in the air as if he was trying to pull what he wanted to say out of the air. "The ….. context is…. Different."

"I could walk out there dressed in a nun's habit and they'd still know what we did," Sam said, shaking her head.

Jack nodded though he still looked reluctant. Driven by an instinct to protect her as old as time, he got between Sam and the door, blocked her from going any further and slowly opened it again.

Teal'c and Daniel both looked up again. Jack hesitated and then stepped aside, pushing the door open wider. Sam moved from behind him to his side and stood looking uncertainly at the rest of their team.

For a moment no one spoke. Then Daniel held his hand out to Teal'c, who produced a long strip of fuchsia fabric from somewhere behind him. Daniel held it up.

"You dropped this," he said.

Sam felt heat rise up into her face and knew she was blushing the same color as her outfit from the previous night. Jack also seemed to turn ruddier under his tan. But the mild embarrassment was bearable. In fact it was hardly anything after what they had been through for eight years. There were greater emotions flooding Sam, and from the profound look on Jack's face, him too.

While they had been in Jack's room debating whether or not to tell their secret to the two people they trusted most in the world, Daniel and Teal'c had been out in the common room guarding that secret unasked.

The sense of gratitude and love that filled Sam was not something that could be put into words. Jack was also speechless but he swallowed tightly.

Sam walked over to Daniel and took her top back from him. She couldn't quite help the silly, goofy affectionate smile that pulled at her lips.

"I'm, ummm, gonna go take a shower," she said, backing away from them in the direction of her room.

"Okay," Daniel said. It was obvious he was trying very hard not to smile back.

She turned and disappeared behind her own door. Daniel and Teal'c looked back at Jack. He jerked his thumb over his shoulder.

"Uh, me too," he said.

Jack sealed the door and leaned back against it for a moment. Whatever Teal'c and Daniel said after that, Jack never knew.

(0)

Sam came out a while later wearing jeans and a t-shirt and fluffing her hair with a towel. She paused and took in the room. Its only occupant was now Daniel. He didn't move or say anything, though they shared a brief look. There was still a smile in his eyes that bordered on laughter. He went back to reading, sipping at the liquid in his mug. Sam went to get some food from the buffet. He let her eat in silence. His presence was calm, accepting and Sam could feel herself relaxing in it. It was something unspoken they had always depended on Daniel to do – be at home anywhere, in any situation no matter how off-kilter; and help them all feel the same way.

She finished eating, put the plates in the slot on the wall that seemed to whisk them away to be cleaned and went to sit in the chair that angled away from the couch. She inhaled as if she was about to speak and at that instant Jack's door opened and he came back into the room. He was wearing his blue BDU and still looking every bit the General. Whatever she had been about to say it died on a slow exhale.

"You two are going to talk," he guessed.

Daniel gave Sam a questioning look and she nodded though she looked uncertain.

Jack blew out a breath. "Okay. I'm gonna let you do that while I go back to Prometheus."

"Is something wrong?" Sam asked, quickly.

"Nope," Jack answered, casually, "Just don't want to do the talking thing. You two can hash it out."

He crossed the short distance between them and leaned over Sam. His fingers caressed her cheek on the way to cradling her face in his palm for a moment. Their eyes met. For a moment it was just the two of them, shielded from the rest of the world.

"I'll be back," he said.

"I know," she answered.

They kissed with the barest touch of lips. For Daniel it didn't look the least strange. Somehow this was how it had always been. Sam and Jack had always said goodbye like this. It made his heart heavy with happiness to see it in reality at last.

Jack stood up, hit the communicator in his hand to signal Prometheus and vanished a second later in a bright flash of light.

Daniel shook his head ruefully. "He's one of the bravest men I've ever known and sometimes he's just such a chicken shit."

"I'm not sure it's that, Daniel," Sam said.

He gave her a shrewd, assessing look. "You're still in his chain of command; and this didn't just start last night."

"No it didn't. Did Jill tell you? He keeps insisting you knew."

"I did, but not because Jill told me. I figured it out when we were all in Minnesota."

"I thought we were pretty careful in Minnesota. I think we've been pretty careful everywhere."

"You didn't give it away with anything but how happy you've been and I guessed when Jill tried to keep your secret. She didn't let you down, Sam. She never said a word."

"Where is she, by the way?" Sam asked.

"She's asleep," Daniel paused, got a slightly misty look on his face and said, "Fatigue is the new issue she's dealing with and we were out late last night."

"Teal'c? Ishta?"

"They went out. He promised her a tour of the city. He's good with all this anyway."

"Ah," Sam nodded and studied her hands for a while. Then she said, "We should have told you, both of you. It feels like betrayal somehow."

"You've been protecting us."

"Yes."

"And yourselves."

"Yes. We've been trying to be safe."

"It was never safe, Sam. It still isn't. But we don't feel betrayed. I'd like to say that I wish you had told us so that we could have helped you, but you're doing just fine all by yourselves."

"But things are changing. The team doesn't exist anymore."

"The team will always exist, Sam, in one way or the other. What we forged isn't ever going to be broken. Certainly not by two of us finally admitting they're in love. This thing between you and Jack…. We've all felt it was inevitable. There's been sparks and resistance there from the beginning, though I didn't see it. Teal'c did. I was too distracted I guess. But the bond is there. It's different than the one you and I have. It's different than the one you have with Teal'c. But it's there – insanely complicated, seemingly impossible. But so real that we could feel it in the air at times. You're both happy, more relaxed that you've been in years. You adore him. He adores you and he's not tormented and miserable and locked up inside anymore. All of that is good. We're happy for you."

Sam took that in for a while, staring unseeing at a spot on the mosaic floor. "You mean you don't want to yell at us about all the rules we broke? Or the monumental risks we're taking?

"Do you want me too?" A smile was pulling at the corners of Daniel's mouth again.

"Maybe you should."

"What purpose would it serve? It's not like you and Jack haven't thought all this through already. It's nothing you don't know already."

"True."

The smile broke a little. "I might yell at him though, just because."

"Don't," Sam said, and she was utterly serious.

His smile faded and he sat forward. "What?"

Sam sighed, "We're both military, Daniel. We're invested in it. This wasn't something we did lightly. The frat regs may suck but they're the law until someone changes them. The military won't care that we mean the world to each other. You throw all that in Jack's face just to bait him and he's likely to put you on your ass for real, for the first time in your very complex history."

Daniel studied her for a moment. She meant it. Daniel was younger, probably stronger but he had nothing like Jack's combat experience and never would. If he continued to bait Jack now, he was asking for trouble. He held up his hand in surrender.

"Okay."

"So we're all good with this then?"

"As good as we can be until Jack retires and we know you're both completely safe."

"That's fair."

Sam stood, moved over to him and leaned down to kiss his morning-scratchy cheek. "I love you, Daniel."

"I love you too, Sam."

She straightened up, took a communicator out of her back pocket, keyed the code and vanished, following Jack the same way she would always follow him, forever.

(0)