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Sorry it took so long, but the characters are being difficult again…!

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O'Neill kept glancing at Carter as she ate, always looking down at her plate instead of him. It felt awkward to just keep eating in total silence. His thoughts kept coming back to the time they spent in D.C. General Hammond said to him the death of that journalist was an accident. And there weren't many people O'Neill held in such high regard as Hammond, but still – it was too convenient, and it felt too much like a professional hit.

He wasn't naïve, he participated in too many black ops to think it was impossible for someone to order the journalist's death. He remembered feeling a lot of despair in the following days, staring at his medal that just reminded him of what had happened in Washington.

He didn't share any of this with anyone, let alone Carter. He didn't want her to get caught up in anything like that, plus one thing he really admired about her was how much military meant to her, how dedicated she was all the time. He didn't want to jeopardize that.

Still he was the one who held the head of the reporter as he died. It was his bloodied hands he saw every time he thought back to that moment, examining if maybe he saw something that would lead him to the people who did this. There were many cameras where it happened and the fact that they never caught the person who drove or they didn't even interrogated anyone was pointing to government cover-up. Well, at least it was him and not Carter. He was glad he saved her from this horrible consciousness guilt-trip.

Of course over the years they encountered organizations like NID that were in their nature so bad it would correspond to the murder of a journalist. But as a good obedient soldier he never looked for any answers. And he couldn't help but think about how different Carter was from him. She would look. She wouldn't stop until she would know the answer. No matter what the cost to her career. She was so amazing, so innocent in comparison to him. He had so much darkness in him.

He sneaked a little peak in her direction again, noting how slowly she was eating and moving. It seemed she was still recovering from what happened after the birthday party, but she may have been only tired. Who knew? He felt pretty tired himself. He didn't even remembered when he had gotten a solid goodnight sleep without waking up all the time worrying about this or that.

The Washington party was also where he met Carter's dad and where she learned about her dad's bad health. She didn't say anything to him at first, but he knew something was up. Then during the lengthy flight back he'd been irritating enough for her to confess what had happened. He wondered whether she recalled anything about that part of their trip and just didn't mention it to him. He knew she wasn't too happy about General Hammond inviting her dad, no, she might have looked surprised, even shocked, but definitely not happy. There was definite tension between the two Carters back then. Their interactions after Jacob accepted Selmak only confirmed that. So if she had some memories of meeting her father now, maybe she did not want to go into them. But he knew that if her memories will continue to resurface at the same pace and in the chronological order as they seemed to until now, very soon she'd remember the Tok'ra. And she would need to deal with memories of Jacob then.

"Hello, you two. Enjoying your meal?" Laura walked in, greeted them and then headed to the fridge.

They both offered their greetings and Carter then thanked Laura for the food she prepared.

"How are you feeling, Sam?" Laura asked, grabbing a small sandwich and her usual orange juice from the refrigerator and sitting down at the table.

"I am okay." Sam smiled, putting down her fork. "When will we be in Earth's orbit?"

"About twenty hours." Laura stated and then took a sip from her bottle. "I have to take a detour to drop off some food to people of Cordia. But it won't delay us by much, just need to get to the planet's orbit, beam the supplies down and we'll be on our way again." Laura took in the atmosphere, how the general was just nodding to what she said and how Sam was not making eye contact either. These two were really making every situation so uncomfortable. What was up with that? Laura didn't actually ask, since she didn't feel like getting into all their problems, but sooner or later those two need to work things out, because something was happening there or had been happening before Sam lost her memory or something…

"Good." O'Neill said absent-mindedly.

Laura sighed loudly and rolled her eyes at him. "Anyway… As I said, I have thought about another present for you. The technology I have in the infirmary allows treatment of your knees. Now before you say anything, I know that your experience with alien tech had not been ideal…"

"That's an understatement."

"But I was not thinking of doing anything major." Laura argued. "Just encourage a little regeneration, since your knees suffered a lot throughout the years and also during the last mission. You had to notice how bad they are. What do you say, general?"

"You still call him general?" Sam blurted out, obviously startled. By the look on her face, she wished to take her question back, but couldn't. So she just chewed on her lower lip, awkwardly looking away from both of them.

"Yeah, I don't think either of us are ready for me to call him, you know…" Laura said, starting with a nice solid tone of voice, but in the end whispering. She thought about calling him father many times, but her mouth just never let her do that. It was just too foreign to her. She wondered if they would ever feel as close as most fathers and daughters.

"Well, okay. Sorry, I just…" Sam stuttered to explain herself, but was way too unsure of what to say.

"You can call me Jack." Suddenly the general interrupted her.

"Ehm… Okay." Laura shrugged, not really knowing what to say. She was surprised he offered that, but it made sense to find some middle ground between father and general.

"By the way, so can you, Carter."

"No, sir…I mean I don't think that is appropriate. You are a superior officer and…"

"I will retire soon enough, you should get used to addressing me differently."

"Why do you want to retire? That last mission wasn't your fault, you did everything you could. Our country needs you."

"Oh, Carter. In case you haven't noticed I am twenty anymore." He gave both women a sad smile, and after drinking another mouthful of coffee, he changed his tone to a serious one. "But really, it's time. It's been agreed, I just haven't set the date yet."

"Oh." That was all Sam said, seemingly deep in thought.

Laura waited, if she'd say anything else, but she didn't. "You still call her Carter, why should she not call you sir?"

"With her not remembering much, I thought it would make her feel uncomfortable if I called her by her first name."

"What did you call me before I lost memory, Sam or Carter?" Sam asked, looking at the general.

Laura again felt like she was invisible.

"Well, ehm. Sam." O'Neill admitted hesitantly.

"Interesting." Laura said, and immediately she felt two sets of eyes on her, giving her the death stare.

"Am I interrupting something?" Teal'c asked, obviously uncomfortable with uneasily read situation. Nobody present had noticed him before he spoke.

"That's a good question, Teal'c." Laura shook her head and got up. "Good question!"