A/N: This first is set a day or two post Entity—except we're pretending Entity took place in season six because I was full of missing-Daniel emotions when I started writing.

P.S. I'm quite new to this show, so apologies for any inaccuracies.

"Other friends have flown before—

On the morrow he will leave me,

as my hopes have flown before."

Then the bird said "Nevermore."

"The Raven"

Edgar Allan Poe

:|||:

She finds him in Dan—Jonas' office, feet propped on the few inches of clear desk space, his weight balancing precariously on the chair's back legs.

"Sir?"

The colonel's eyes flick up to hers for only a fraction of a second before he pulls them back to the little figurine he's turning over in his hands. She can practically hear Daniel's fuss—Jack, you're rubbing the paint off. Jack, you're going to drop it. Do you even realize how old that is, Jack? This could be the key to understanding everything we've been missing about the early Phoenician cultures! Jack—

"Carter," Jack starts amiably enough, but his eyes remain locked on the artifact she knows he has no interest in. "How's the...head? Body? Mainframe?"

Sam steps fully into the room, leaning against the only bit of wall that isn't covered by a bookshelf. "I'm doing better, sir. Nothing a lot of sleep and a few nightmares couldn't cure."

The spiderweb cracks around Jack's eyes seem to etch themselves a bit deeper before he nods, running his thumb over a rune that had puzzled Daniel to no end.

She catches her sigh just before it slips free. Should have left out the nightmares. "By which I mean I'm fine, sir. Really."

He looks up at her now, only for a second, a smile so weak it's more of a wince lining his face. "Good. That's good, Carter."

He hasn't lashed out or ordered her to leave yet, so she ventures closer, clearing a space on the desk and settling down on the edge of it. Jack's feet remain where they are, an easy display of comfort calculated to disguise something else entirely. The figurine is rotated slowly in his hands, his left middle and right ring fingers rubbing over the smooth porcelain patches on its sides.

"Sir?"

"Carter?"

"What's going on?" She asks the question despite having a pretty fair idea of the answer.

"Hard at work doing absolutely nothing. Maybe Daniel was onto something with the whole archaeology gig. It's almost as relaxing as fishing once you just," he squints, taking the figurine between his thumb and forefingers and moving it forward and back a few times as if lining up a shot at a dartboard, "embrace the boredom. What's going on with you?"

Sam bites her lip, choosing her words carefully. "Sir, you haven't looked me in the eye once since I woke up the first time. Teal'c and Jonas said you've been avoiding them, too."

His gaze shifts down so far that his eyes almost appear closed as the statue settles once more in the cradle of his palms. There's a long beat. His mouth twists and he suddenly seems very weary. "Oh, that."

"Yes, sir." Her voice matches his for softness. "That."

"Yeah, uh...sorry."

"No, sir."

"It's not you, Carter. It's just—"

"I know. I know what it is, and I—I want you to know that you're wrong."

He looks at her again, eyes lingering a bit longer this time, mouth quirking in that same tired smile. "That right, Major?"

"It is, sir."

The figurine makes another orbit in his fingers. "I get that a lot."

He jokes. Of course he jokes. "Sir, it wasn't your fault. You did the right thing." His mouth may as well be set in stone, now, his posture rigid despite his casual position, but she takes it one step further. "I want you to know I don't blame you."

He laughs and a sour chill runs through her. "Yeah, well. Maybe you should."

"No, sir. I don't think so." On an impulse, she reaches out and catches his hands in one of her own. The statue stills, and now she can feel the tension in his fingers, the fine tremors in muscles and tendons. "None of what happened is on you."

The ensuing silence is glass. Jack smashes it.

Booted feet are pulled from the desk and planted on the floor in one swift motion, just as the chair's front legs make a crash of their own. He sets the statuette down with painstaking care and folds his hands in its stead, calloused knuckles blanching in the ferocity of his grip. She adjusts her own hand to rest on top of them and waits.

It takes longer than she anticipated, but eventually Jack does speak, his voice low and full of a loathing she knows is not directed at her. "It didn't happen, Carter, I killed you. It was my choice. My action."

"Yes, sir."

"I pointed my zat at you and I fired. Twice."

"Yes, sir."

"That's it?" His eyes cut into hers, now, and his voice is venom. "Yes, sir?" The words are practically spat.

"Sir—"

"I knew exactly what I was doing, Carter! I was eliminating a threat. I had no idea they could pull your brain out of the computers like a—a rabbit out of a hat, I thought you'd be gone. And I shot you anyway." He has pulled away from her touch now, his finger pounding into the desk in time with his words like a gavel declaring judgment. "I killed you."

"I'm right here, sir." Her voice is low, but it's clear.

He stares at her, eyes livid with enough anger and grief and guilt that she almost has to look away. Instead, she meets his eyes with all the calm assurance she can muster.

"I'm right here."

In the end, it's Jack who turns away, all the fight bleeding away until he's slumped, elbows braced on the desk, face hidden in his hands, fingers scrubbing at closed eyes. "Yeah." His voice is fragile, now.

"Sir…" Sam scoots off the desk and crouches by his chair, bringing a hesitant hand up to squeeze his shoulder. "You did your job. You protected this base. You saved countless lives. You did the right thing."

"I know," he all-but whispers.

Sensing more will come, Sam remains silent. After a while, it does.

"Doesn't feel right. I, uh…" Jack drags his hands down his face and they settle, fisted, twitching, on the desk. "I thought I'd lost you." His face is impassive, but his eyes well and her heart clenches. "Like—" his voice breaks.

Like Charlie.

Like Sara.

Like Daniel.

Sam can't take the hollow expression on the colonel's face anymore. She turns the office chair's seat to face her and reaches up, catching the back of Jack's neck and tugging his head to her shoulder. She'd half expected him to fight her, but he allows himself to be guided into the embrace, even as his own hands lay restless in his lap.

"You didn't lose me, sir," she states gently. "We didn't lose anyone. Everyone made it out. The what-ifs, the might've-beens? They don't matter." One hand keeps firm pressure between his shoulders, the thumb of her other rubs up and down over his hair. "You've gotta let them go, sir."

A shudder wracks through him and he takes a halting breath before something inside of him seems to break and he all but melts against her, burying his face in her neck as his arms envelop her in a desperate clasp. Silent tears soak through her T-shirt and she rests her cheek against his head, squeezing her eyes closed as tears of her own threaten to spill.

They've lost many. They'll lose more. Friends, enemies, family, strangers. In each new loss will be lost bits of themselves. It's taken months for Sam to learn to breathe through the hole Daniel left, and some days it still feels nearly impossible. But the most important thing she'd learned from Daniel—though she doubts it was a lesson he'd been conscious of teaching—is that they must not stop caring, stop trusting, stop loving because they're afraid of loss. She would never forgive herself if it was her near-loss that tore their team apart after all they've survived together.

"Please don't shut us out, sir. We need each other." The tremble in her voice matches the tremble in his frame.

His hair tickles her face as he nods into her shoulder, somehow pulling her even closer.

"We're gonna be okay," she declares as her own tears finally escape, believing it because she has to. Because Daniel would. Because he might come back someday, and she can't stand for him to come back to yet another broken home. "We're gonna be okay."