O'Neill had intended to avoid Carter that Monday. When someone held open the elevator door for him on the surface of the mountain complex he thanked them without looking up from the mission report he was clutching.

"No problem," Carter replied, softly.

He swore inwardly and looked up. "Morning."

The uncomfortable silence stretched between them until O'Neill felt moved to break it.

"Let's not do this," he said, voice harsh.

"Sorry?" she murmured, blinking as if she was snapping back to reality from far away.

"Let's not... be awkward, ok?" he paused as she goggled slightly at him and then pushed on, "I wouldn't want things... to be like that."

She exhaled slowly, obviously relieved. "Me neither."

Again silence, broken by the groaning of elevator machinery, but less discomforting. The lift stopped at level nineteen; the level of Carter's lab. She pushed the 'open door' button.

"See you later... Jack."

He did not reply and she left him to continue deeper into the mountain, musing on the pause before his name; the soft way she had spoken it and staring at the report without seeing it.

Carter had re-adjusted and re-calibrated seven pieces of equipment, burnt out nearly a meter of copper wire for no apparent purpose and written three more lines of her paper on naquada decay rates when she became aware of what she was doing.

"Displacement activities..." She sighed, self-mocking, "I've been reduced to displacement activities..."

"I think you should talk to Jack."

How difficult could it be? To actually talk like a sensible adult about what had happened, about how she felt, how he felt...?

"Let's not... be awkward, ok?"

Filled suddenly with a determination she had never known she stepped out of her lab, locked the door and headed towards the elevator. She pushed the button for Jack's floor and leaned back against the steel wall.

His smell filled her world, the pleasant aroma of his aftershave and the more musky scent that was uniquely his own; a scent that was, on a deeper level, the more pleasant of the two. His mouth moved on hers, his hands sliding over her back, touching her face.

The memory made her waver, unsure of how she could deal with talking about, and maybe destroying in the process, one of the most beautiful moments of her life, however wrong that moment was. Then the concern passed and her hesitancy only increased her resolution to see this through. She knocked on his office door before she could think about it, before she could debate the merits of knocking or not knocking and talk herself out of this.

"Come in."

She did as he instructed. He was reading mission reports at his desk, a look of vague perplexity on his face. He looked up and his face seemed to close down somehow, taking on a blank look that gave nothing away.

"Carter."

"Jack."

"What can I do for you?"

She paused for a moment and then kicked his office door shut. Turning back to him she saw his mask had slipped and there was a look of half-fear and half-hope on his face.

She could not have stopped the words from escaping even if she had tried. "Does it really not matter?"

He swallowed, his eyes never leaving hers, brown locked on blue. He did not trust his throat not to creak, so instead he shook his head.

The movement, small enough to be almost imperceptible, had a shocking effect on the former Colonel. She sagged, for a moment he thought she might collapse like a marionette with all her strings cut, but she regained some strength. "No."

He realised he was shaking. He stood up, suddenly wishing they weren't so visible inside the office, the men and women in the control room could see them quite clearly through the star map. "No," he said, voice clear now.

"We should talk about this," she said, her voice quavering slightly.

"Not here," he replied quickly.

"Not here," she agreed, "Uh. Mac's Bar. You know it?"

"Yeah."

"Seven."

"Ok."

He watched her stumble out of his office, regain her composure as she walked away from him and tried to ignore the thumping of his heart, which suddenly seemed too large for his chest.

She wondered why she was here. Why this felt like a betrayal of Pete. She hadn't lied to him, not exactly. She had said she was meeting a friend for a drink, and she was.

That's not that point, her conscience prodded her. She ignored the voice, scanning the bar. Jack was late. She wondered if that meant-

The door opened and she gulped nervously. He stood framed in the lintel, glancing across the crowded room until his gaze fell on her. He walked over, slowly, his steps measured and deliberate.

He stood too close to her, voice low as he spoke. "Fancy seeing you here."

So he didn't feel any better about this than she did. She swallowed again. "Hi Jack."

"Want a drink? I could sure as hell do with one."

She nodded, not caring. "Just a coke. I'm driving."

He ordered a Guinness and a Diet Coke, remembering she liked the taste better. He set down her drink on the bar and took a swig from his own, savouring the taste.

"Talk," he said after a moment filled only with the din of the rest of the room.

"I don't know what to say," she confessed.

"Me neither," he shrugged; nervousness making the movement and tone of his voice too aggressive. The barman shot O'Neill a glance and murmured something to his assistant. O'Neill returned the look with a black one of his own. He took another sip of his beer and appeared to reach a conclusion.

"Oh, for cryin' out loud," he said, putting down the glass, "I do know what I want to say. I love you. Don't marry him."

Carter's breath caught in her throat. "Whu-what?"

He simply looked at her, knowing she had heard. He was too close again, the distance between his body and hers too small, he was making clear thinking difficult. "I know," she managed.

He nodded, almost to himself. "I know you know. That's why I thought... thought that what I wanted to say didn't matter. That I never needed to say it, because you knew." He broke off, looking slightly perplexed, apparently having managed to confuse himself.

Carter understood his words perfectly. "I love Pete," she said, in a small voice.

"I know that too."

She chugged her coke, desperate for anything to do other than face the enormity of their situation. "I do care about yo-" she began.

"No you don't," he said, cutting her off. She opened her mouth to argue, her forehead creasing in annoyance but he continued. "If you cared about me you wouldn't be here. You'd be with Pete right now."

The angry response on the tip of her tongue died a fiery death and she simply responded with a soft syllable more sigh than word. "Aah-" She tried again. "This is coming to grips with a vengeance," she replied softly.

"I don't have long left to plead my case," he stated simply, "You marry Pete in two weeks. Remember?"

Stop it," she spat back, a bite of warning in her voice. "I didn't make this situation by myself."

It was his turn to skid in mid sentence. "No," he was forced to concede, "It was a mutual screw-up."

He finished his beer.

"So what happens now?" she asked, following suite with her coke.

He sighed. "I don't know." He knew she wanted him to present her with some magical answer, the same way she had done so often in a dangerous situation off world, with a million and one pieces of alien technology.

He had no answer; had only the desperate, burning desire within him to kiss her again, as if that could make it all better, make everything else go away. Because it did, everything did go away, if only for a moment. He left the world behind and circled the moon when she was in his arms, however cliched or ridiculously romantic that notion was. It was like being seventeen and in love for the first time again.

And so he kissed her.