He loved everything about her. Her smile, her eyes, the way that she would refuse to explain a situation in plain English, but especially the fact that she loved him back. Once, many years ago, he had thought he was in love with Sara, but now he realised the extent of true love and found it was not something he had shared with her. Sometimes he felt that the depth of his love for Sam would kill him. He loved her so much that it hurt; like a burning heat in his gut, yet it was not an unpleasant or unwelcome feeling. After the whole fiasco with the time loops he had felt guilty, kissing her just before the loop ended, but would he have changed it? Hell, no! He had taken a few loops off just to talk to her and get to know her better. They'd had many long discussions, made longer by her techno-babble. He understood what she was saying of course, he just loved listening to her talk. The dumb act was an excellent way of getting her to speak more. He placed a tender kiss on her hair, careful not to wake her slumbering form. She was curled up against him and he savoured the feeling of holding her close. He began to idly caress her arm as he continued to think. Once, after being taken over by the Tok'ra Kanan, he had gotten captured by Baal. Every time Baal's Jaffa had dragged him off to be tortured or when he awoke in the damned sarcophagus, it was the thought of her that kept him going. He had, in fact, died several times, but the very thought of her was enough to keep his will to live alive. He didn't know what he'd do if he ever lost her. It'd been hard enough on him when Daniel had ascended, but if he were to ever lose her, it would destroy him completely. He would lose his will to live, as he had done when Charlie died. Every year, on the anniversary of Charlie's death, Jack would slip into a melancholy. Sam helped him get through this and was the only one he let near enough to help. Patient and caring, she was the only person that he allowed to see him cry; the only person in the universe that he trusted with his feelings and his heart. It didn't take an astrophysicist to see that others saw these things in her too. Jonas Quinn was one. He constantly flirted with her and in doing so, annoyed the heck out of Jack. Being overly protective of Sam, Jack would go out of his way to wind Jonas up and then ignore him. Unfortunately, the alien didn't appear to have the intellectual capacity to realise that the real reason Jack was being so hateful to him was because he, Jack, was in love with Sam. Jack could smell the sweet scent of her hair and he snuggled closer to her, cradling her in his arms. He didn't think he could ever let her go. He wanted the world to know that they belonged to each other and to scream out that he was the happiest man in the universe. The quantum mirror had proved on more than one occasion that they were destined to be together and this made him very happy. The room grew lighter temporarily as a car drove past. Jack sighed. He was seriously contemplating retirement. He wanted nothing more than to devote the rest of his life to making Sam happy, but he wasn't sure that he could leave the SGC knowing everyday she was there, going through the Stargate and putting her life at risk. Jack supposed that he could become a civilian consultant, after all he had been through the Stargate enough and the Asgard did like him; even named a ship after him. He didn't care that their being together was against regulations; he would choose her over the Air Force. Jack supposed that he ought to go to back to sleep, but he was loath to do so. He wanted to experience every moment he was with her, he didn't want to waste a millisecond. All because he was completely and totally in love with his second in command, Major Samantha Carter.