It started innocently enough. Having realized her dad and Charlie were right, that she deserve the full package, when her brother said he had a friend who was single and looking Sam had agreed to a date. She and Jack had always agreed if one of them met someone before this war with the Goa'uld was over that they wouldn't hold each other to what was essentially an unending static inability to be anything more than they were already.

She had no way of knowing that he'd been quiet at the party not because he'd lost interest, but because he'd been terrified to lose her and was afraid of making a fool of himself in front of all their friends and family by clinging to her like he wanted to.

Sam didn't know anything about the conversation Grace and Cassie had in Jack's guest room either.

"I had just the weirdest dream while mom was gone. We were on a spaceship and she didn't recognize me at all." Grace was telling Cassie.

"A spaceship huh? What were you doing?"

"Blowing bubbles." Grace told her cousin perplexed. "It was the dumbest thing and I kept singing the old version of Twinkle Twinkle that literally no one but old people and my mom know all the words to."

"Was Jack there?" Cassie asks.

"Kind of. And Grandpa too. They were trying to tell mom something but…"

"But what?"

"I don't know but I have a really bad feeling about it."

"It was just a dream Grace." Cassie says consolingly.

"Yah." But Grace doesn't seem to really believe her.

Sam had gone home with Grace and Marge the night of the party without explanation to any of them and Jack found himself realizing that whatever had happened, it had changed her mind about wanting to be with him. He drank himself to sleep that night and tried to remind himself that he'd never made her any promises. He supposed in retrospect he should have but it was too late now so he'd need to eat his feelings and settle for just being friends again.

The conversation in the elevator cut him like a fillet knife. Shearing away his heart from his soul that she'd never hummed for him like that. Theirs had always been just this steady soft adoration that made every moment around each other better than any moment away from one another. It was that comfortable familiarity one finds rarely because it's so true and deep that you didn't have to explain or discuss it. It just…. was.

Or… at least he'd thought it was. Had she only been with him because it was convenient? Something already there? He didn't think so but it had been years since they talked about it and Jack had thought that was because she understood and was in agreement with him about their feelings.

Hers had changed. Changed enough to go on a date with another man. One that made her hum happily at work.

Jack felt sick with grief. This felt worse than when the mind stamp had worn off.

When Pete asks Sam to go to the zoo, she doesn't know why she lies about there not being one. It's right next to the Will Rogers shrine. Of course there is a zoo. But the tiny voice in her heart that held the Springs Zoo as her special place for Grace and Jack as a family had compelled her to lie.

She doesn't know why she lies. She likes Pete. He's everything Jack isn't. He's not afraid to joke with her about something stupid. He doesn't seem to care about what he drinks. He smiles easily, he's charming, flirtatious. He listens to her when she talks about things that interest her… not that Jack doesn't but he gets impatient when she gets in-depth. She knows it's because Pete doesn't understand a word she's saying but it's still nice to be listened to.

And okay, so he doesn't like her favorite musical or the same kinds of TV or anything so far really. She's sure they will find things in common besides sex. Not that they have had any yet. She begged off at the end of their date the other night which he'd been gracious about. And he's sweet and into her so when he offers to take her out again even though she made excuses again about ending the date early she accepts.

"Hey kiddo, how abut we go to the zoo?" Jack is leaning on his truck when Grace bounds out of her classroom door.

"Where's mom?"

Jack shrugs a little unhappily.

"She'd got another date with that cop guy again, hasn't she?"

"Give him a chance Gracie. You might end up liking him." Jack tries.

Grace gives him a cynical look as they get in the truck.

Neither of them notice the nondescript sedan across the road with a blond man who looks like every other bored dad waiting for their kid.

Sam had told him Grace's dad wasn't part of the picture… so who was this clearly fatherly person? Who just happened to look like the girl. Pete decided to have Sam's medical records pulled to find out who this guy was. He looked like a cop or military. It was hard to tell which really in this town. Heavy odds on military.

Pete takes Sam dancing. Of course he crashes an anniversary party to do it but Sam is oddly delighted. Jack would have taken her someplace nicer but Jack could afford nicer. Also she and Jack hadn't been on more than a dozen dates in the last eight years.

She decides to just go for it and invites Pete in for the night. Grace is at either Aunt Marge's or Jack's for the night, her money is on Jack. She doesn't care. Being with Jack has made her braver sexually so when Pete accepts her invitation she presses him against a wall and kisses him aggressively.

The next morning Sam thinks things are going well, the sex had been… satisfying. But when he presses her for information on her job she puts him off again because classified means exactly that.

On his way out Pete calls his buddy in the FBI that was pulling her family records on the kid. Farrity agrees to dig more.

Inside the house Sam is confused by his comment about having a future together. She wanted a future with someone. Someone who loved her and wanted to be with her and made an effort like Pete did. He flattered her, made her feel special, pretty. Wasn't that what men did when they loved you?

While Sam and Jack are setting up for their stakeout at Daniel's, he asks about Pete. Sam decides he might have been able to deal with the situation but she's almost certain that after the way he left the other morning he was done with her. They had no idea she'd been followed by him and certainly no idea about the FBI search.

Pete had come up empty handed. There was no father of record for the kid. Sam's info was scrubbed. She may as well be a ghost… and yet… Mark was just an average pencil pusher. He had to know if his sister was an international spy or something. He was going to find out before he did anything else.

Of course ending up shot hadn't been in his game plan. This woman better be worth it he thinks as she fusses over his bullet wound. Or whatever the hell that had been. It hurt like a bullet wound.

Sam read him in. Oh not all the way in, He figured that came later with the wedding vows but enough. He doesn't believe a single bit of it frankly but she apparently does so he goes along with it. After they get married, she'd be a stay at home mom anyway. Possibly pawn the oldest off on her unlisted dad. That kid had given him the hairy eyeball and not said a word when he'd picked Sam up for a date the other night. The Nanny had been nice enough.

Majors made decent retirement money. He could improve his lifestyle considerably being with her. Give her a couple better looking kids too. With pretty pale skin like their mom and blue eyes. It hadn't escaped his notice the guy who shot their assailant had been the same one that picked up her kid. He'd bet a buck this was a 'I slept with my coworker when drunk' thing and they weren't involved.