O'Neill drove Daniel home, slightly ashamedly relieved to be presented with an excuse to leave as the younger man was sick all over his shoes, long before Pete arrived back from work.
They drove in silence for a while, wind from the open window whipping their hair away from their faces.
"Jack?"
"Daniel?"
"You're being very noble about all of this."
O'Neill chanced a glance to his right. The archeologist was staring at him, his gaze slightly glazed due to his intoxication, but his face was serious.
O'Neill sighed, fed up of having this conversation. "Yeah."
"I mean, we know how you feel about Sam... and we expected you to be more..."
"More what? Angry? Upset?" The words burst from his throat. "Betrayed? Why? Why should I feel like that? She's a free woman, it's her choice to marry who she wants. I-we.. Well, we could never have a relationship, could we?"
Daniel continued to regard him steadily and O'Neill, his frustration rising, realised his reaction had been deliberately provoked by his companion. He had just presented Daniel with all the answers he craved as to exactly how O'Neill was feeling about current events. "She resigned for you, as well, you know."
"What?" O'Neill snapped, skidding in mid-anger.
"She did it for you as well as Pete. She was tired of not being allowed to be your friend. She was fed up with being Carter and Sir. She wanted the chance to get to know you as Jack."
"Is that supposed to make me feel better?"
"No."
"Good, because it doesn't."
"I didn't think it would."
The rest of the drive was completed in stony shush. O'Neill helped Daniel to his door, abandoning him once he was safely over the mat and continuing on his way home.
"She did it for you as well as Pete."
"Is that supposed to make me feel better?"
"No."
He pulled up on his own drive, killed the engine and rubbed his forehead with the palm of his hand.
"Is that supposed to make me feel better?"
"No."
It didn't make him feel any better. In fact, Daniel's revelation had only driven him back to the dark place he had been inhabiting for the last week. The fact Carter had resigned to be a better friend to him only made things worse. Yes, he would have given almost anything to stop their dance on eggshells, to end the fact that he could never be a companion to her in the way that Daniel and Teal'c could; remove the wedge that regulations placed between them. But in the hazy someday he had always pictured the 'getting to know you better' had always possessed a vaguely less platonic connotation.
The crux of the matter was he had always hoped that when either he or Carter resigned they would be more than just friends. The fact that she had resigned simply in order to be his friend hurt more than their lack of a normal friendship previously. It meant that... it meant that...
It means that she is over you while you're still clinging to an impossible dream. She never loved you enough to resign for you. She loves Pete more than she ever loved you. That's the meaning of it, all wrapped up.
He got out of his car, slammed the door shut. This wasn't him, he was good at dealing with emotional trauma and loss. He'd lost his son and his wife had divorced him, for cryin' out loud! He'd dealt with that, he could certainly deal with this.
Funny, he found himself thinking, I don't recall dealing with it too well at the time.
The weekend rolled around, as it always did, and O'Neill found himself playing host as normal to Cassie. The teenager was unusually grouchy; blaming her bad mood on an excess of homework. He made her cups of tea hourly and ferried them up to her room (which seemed to grow messier by the hour, despite the fact she hadn't moved from her desk) as her essays grew longer and maths calculations more complex.
It was late Sunday night when she emerged; sleepy eyed and disheveled, and announced she had finished. O'Neill was watching the Simpsons.
"Jack?"
"Uh-huh?"
"You know when... when they get married?"
His attention diverted; he looked at Cassie, sensing this was serious and hoping it wasn't another replay of their earlier conversation. "Yeah?"
"Can I... um, can I live...?" She couldn't quite finish the sentence.
O'Neill had a stab at completing it for her. "Live with them?" he asked, hollow voiced.
Cassie's troubled look dissipated. "Live with you," she said quietly.
He blinked in surprise. "Me? I thought you'd want to stay with Sam all the time. I mean, it'd be like a ready made family."
He regretted his words instantly, Cassie did not deserve to hear them, but the thought had been lurking in his brain all weekend and had bubbled to the surface.
Cassie grinned slightly. "Yeah. I thought that. But then I thought, well, Sam obviously wants to start her own family, doesn't she? That's why she resigned from SG-1, I thought, to stop 'Gate-travel so she can have kids."
O'Neill felt like he'd been slapped in the face and kicked in the guts simultaneously. Why am I so blind? "I guess... I didn't think...well... no danger of that happening here..."
She blundered on through his blustering. "So, y'know, I'd rather not intrude on that. As much as I love Sam and like Pete. I don't want to be...." She lost the ability to speak again, what were unmistakably tears welling up in her tired eyes.
O'Neill hugged her. "You wouldn't be a burden," he reassured as she began to sob.
"Oh, but I would. I wouldn't be part of them, would I? I'm not her daughter, or his. I'd feel like an intruder."
O'Neill didn't know what to say; he felt like the bottom was falling out of the world. "Cassie, you are always welcome in my house. But Sam will be upset. She loves you too."
"I know! I don't want to upset her!" Cassie responded, now positively bawling.
"Cass. It's okay. I would-I-I'd really like it if you lived here. Stop, stop crying. It's okay."
Ten minutes ago, life had been simple. He'd been happy, watching the Simpsons, his mind distracted from miseries of all kinds by television. Now he'd just agreed to permanently look after a seventeen year-old girl who'd been born on another planet and lost every family she had ever known to the Goa'uld. He hugged her, rocking her gently and reassuring her unthinkingly, wondering what it was like to have a life free from complication.
When she seemed slightly calmer he spoke again. "Don't make a decision yet. Wait until after they get married. If you still feel the same, I'll welcome you with open arms, Cassie, I promise. But give it a try first, alright? You can still live half and half and if you aren't happy you can move in here."
"Okay Jack," she said, drawing away at last. He dug in his pocket for a tissue, finding one and holding it out to her.
"Blow," he instructed, feeling ridiculously motherly.
She did as he asked, rather noisily. "I feel like an idiot," she confessed.
"It's alright, Cassie. When it comes to idiocy, I above all others, understand."