WARNING. This chapter should possibly be rated R rather than PG-13. If you'd rather not risk it then feel free to skip it, it isn't necessary reading in terms of continuity. Oh, and thanks to HecatonchiresLM for the idea about Asgardian surgery on O'Neill's knees... brilliant idea which I unashamedly stole and haven't yet thanked you for.. :-)

--Lunar

O'Neill's street had the oddly shut-in look of residential areas after a burst of heavy rain. Washing had been hastily grabbed off lines, scattered trails of brightly coloured pegs half-lost in wet grass marking the dash of the clothes' owners into their homes. There was a tricycle abandoned on its side outside someone's front door, a baseball bat hastily dropped on a patio.

O'Neill entered the correct code into the keypad mounted on the wall next to his own front door. There was an electronic buzz and the door opened. They stepped inside; Carter was surprised by the disarray.

"Decorating?" she asked, raising an eyebrow.

The door shut behind them with an audible click.

"Uh huh."

He ushered her into his living room. The largest television she had ever seen in her entire life dominated one wall, a huge bookshelf the other. There was a broad red leather sofa, very comfortable looking. She sat down on it. Her gaze was drawn to the book on the coffee table, a Simpsons episode guide currently acting as a coaster to several bottles of beer. O'Neill hastily attempted to tidy away some of the clutter. He grabbed the bottles and a moment later she heard the clink of them being thrown into the trash can.

"Want a drink?" he called from the kitchen. She shook her head and he came away empty handed to sit beside her. "So," he said, fixing her with a stare. "Do you think I should rejoin the SGC?"

"If you can stand having me as your commanding officer," she replied shrewdly, giving him eye for eye.

"I can... if that's what you want," he responded instantly.

She dropped her gaze to her knees, unable to meet his hazel eyes. "No..." she murmured, "But..."

"Look," he interrupted her softly, "It's not a difficult decision to make. Either you want to be with me or you don't."

She stared fixedly at her knees, willing herself to think cooly and logically.

Why was it so hard to say yes? This was ridiculous, she realised. This whole situation should never have been allowed to happen. If only they had been able to pursue their feelings in the first place this, whatever this was, would never have ballooned out of all proportion. It *wasn't* a difficult decision at all, it had been made into one by circumstances beyond their control...

Righteous anger was coursing through her veins now as she paused. Anger at the world, anger at the system, anger at him and herself....

She looked him in the eyes again. "I want to be with you," she said slowly, moving with shocking suddenness to kiss him fiercely, the anger transmuting into... something else.

It wasn't a neat, choreographed embrace. It was a jumble of fumbling hands, a tangle of shaking limbs, sliding under shirts and knitting themselves into hair as they slid sideways to lie on the sofa. Neither of them spoke. There was still feeling, shared between them, that talking would destroy the wonderful spontaneity of the moment. Even now there was a taint of guilt in air, as if they could be discovered at any moment and reprimanded for their actions.

Wet clothes were peeled from their beautiful young bodies in a strange, controlled frenzy. O'Neill, suddenly finding himself in nothing more than his boxer shorts, decided the sofa was far too uncomfortable for this kind of thing. In one fluid movement he scooped Carter up in his bare arms, carrying her up the stairs and feeling a kind of joy at the realisation of what he was doing. Less than a week ago he had been unable to pull this woman into his lap for fear of the damage it would wreak on a fragile body. He deposited her gently onto his bed where they shed the rest of their clothes and he scrabbled through his bedside drawers for a particular item.

If O'Neill was ever in the right frame of mind, he would (when severely pressed and possibly injected with some kind of truth drug, not generally being the kind of man given to recanting his sexual experiences to anyone) have admitted that the most memorable of said encounters had been with his wife, after he had returned from nearly three months active service abroad. It had been the realisation that their moment together might never have occurred; if a sniper had aimed slightly higher, if the landmine had exploded twenty seconds earlier, if a thousand variables that had worked out in his favour hadn't.

*This* was something more. This wasn't three months. This wasn't even three* years.* This was a quarter of a century, twenty five years of waiting to express an emotion he wasn't allowed to feel. Sometimes the emotion had been easier to repress than others, but it had always been there, from almost the first time he had met Sam Carter. Sometimes it a had simply been lust, sometimes something much deeper, but he had grown to accept that this feeling was something that would never,*ever* go away.

And, he came to realise as their bodies were wracked with the inevitable outcome of their activities, slick with a mixture of rain water and sweat; it was never *going* to go away. They had fought together, experienced some things human beings were never meant to experience together, even died together. He knew at that moment with absolute clarity, that he was never, ever going to stop loving this woman.

Hell, he'd propose to her... well not at this *exact* moment, but damn soon if he didn't know her so well.

Instead they lay, sweat-streaked and satisfied, his nose touching hers; neither of them willing to move from where they lay, the weight of O'Neill's body pinning her to the his mattress. She stroked the back of his head, reminding herself not to feel guilty. He drew away at last and for a moment she thought she saw the suspicion of a tear in his eye.

Then he smiled at her, that boyish, devil-may-care smile. It had been boyish when she had first known him, aged forty five, and it only looked more so on his younger face. She returned the grin with her own radiant smile, reserved solely for those who she truly cared about. It was a smile O'Neill had always felt honoured to receive.

"Worth the wait?" he asked, breaking the silence at last. Words that would have been embarrassing and wrong at any other time and on anyone else's lips were made right because it was him saying them

Her smile changed, eyes filling with mirth. "Well, it was a little quick," she said and his grin broadened, knowing she was teasing him, "But yeah."

He disappeared into his en suite bathroom for a moment, returning to lie next to her on his side on the duvet. She traced the outlines of various muscles in his torso dreamily and he snuggled closer to her, enjoying the warmth of her close proximity.

Outside another band of rain was passing overhead, the water running down the window pane in vertical riverlets. Carter watched the rain for a moment, O'Neill's arm snaking around her.

This, she thought, was perfect. There were no declarations of undying love; there didn't need to be. Repeating a statement they both knew to be true would simply make it tired. It was enough to simply lie beside Jack and not feel guilty; enough to be Sam and Jack rather than Captain and Colonel or Major and Colonel, Colonel and General or General and Ambassador.

"Are you hungry?" he asked suddenly.

"Hmm?" she replied, still lost in her own thoughts.

"Hungry. Are you hungry?" he repeated, "I have... cake in the kitchen if you want some."

Some things never change, she thought wryly.