A/N: This chapter is disproportionately long, I know, but since it's basically all one conversation I couldn't find a good spot to break it up. Thanks for all the great reviews, everyone!

Ch 8 – Then must you speak

The last thing in the world Sam Carter wanted to do right now was make peace with her CO. Yet she felt that if she let the dreams start affecting not only her own performance at work, but the entire dynamic of SG-1, she would never forgive herself. It wasn't his fault, after all, that she was suddenly having dreams about kissing him. Besides, it wouldn't take much to smooth things over.

"Sir?" she asked as soon as he had stopped squirming around in his sleeping bag, deliberately, she was certain, making as much noise as possible.

"What?" he asked flatly.

"Thanks."

"Sure. Night, Carter."

He was absolutely silent for a full five minutes. Just as Carter had started to think he had definitely gone to sleep, he said, "I can't sleep."

"Sir?"

He got up again and sat down around the fire, not too close to her, but close enough. "Might as well keep you company."

"I'm wide awake, sir, if you're worried about me falling asleep..."

"I'm not. I'm just wide awake now too."

"Oh."

They both stared into the fire for several minutes, although she thought he was probably looking at her quickly in concern every once in a while. She knew what he was doing. He was waiting for her to start talking so that she knew it was she who brought up whatever was bothering her. That way she couldn't say he had forced her to talk. She had seen him use this technique when interrogating people before. That he was using it on her now, and that it was starting to work, was maddening.

She held out for the better part of an hour. Finally, she couldn't take it any more. Janet was right, apparently the only way to go about getting rid of these dreams was to figure out what it was about 'the incident' (as Janet had dubbed it so they could speak of it around Cassie) that was bothering her so much. Besides, she wasn't likely to get as good an opportunity for a serious conversation with her CO without the risk of being overheard anywhere else.

"Umm, Colonel?" she said quietly, glancing over at Daniel and Teal'c to make doubly sure they were asleep or meditating.

"Something on your mind?" he asked innocently.

For a second, she wondered if he truly thought she was oblivious to the tactic he had used. Then she decided it was irrelevant: she had decided to do this, she was going to do it.

She just had to do it slowly.

"I was thinking..." she began. "When the... alternate reality Kawalsky and Dr. Carter were here..."

He barely moved at all, but she rather thought he had gotten tense all of a sudden.

"That night when I ran into you in the hall, and you asked me how I was doing with the 'whole twin thing?'"

"Yeah..."

"I thought you were joking."

"I wasn't," he said simply.

"I realized that. I just... I guess I just wondered if the offer was still on the table?"

"Oh fer cryin out loud, you've been thinking about alternate realities this whole time when I offered to listen to you a month ago even though I KNEW I'd only understand about 5 of whatever you had to say..."

"No."

He looked at her in surprise. She rarely interrupted him, and when she did, she was always polite about it.

"Sir," she added quickly. "No, sir. I haven't been thinking about alternate realities this whole time, it just... something has been bothering me lately and last night Janet, Cassie and I figured out that it must be relating to that... I hadn't realized the connection before."

"Oh. Wait. You told Cassie about the alternate realities?"

"No, sir," she said quickly. "We skipped that part when she was around."

"Oh," he said, nodding, although he was clearly confused already.

Carter sighed. "I guess I just... I mean, I think I'm okay with most of it... at first I started wondering about the possible different versions out there, of myself and everybody else, started wondering about different decisions that could have been made at any point..."

"Like what?"

"Well, in the other two realities we've encountered so far, I wasn't in the military."

"That just doesn't seem right."

She smiled. "But it's a legitimate choice."

"So what made you decide to join the Air Force? Here, I mean."

"Well... I really wanted to go to NASA, and I wanted to fly before that..."

"What were the reasons not to join then?"

She bit her lip. "Mainly stuff with my dad, I think. I was very young, of course, and I still resented how absent he was from our lives. And I think part of me still blamed his career on my mom's death."

"So you didn't want to be like him?"

She nodded. "And also I think it was that I knew me joining the Air Force would please him. Mark is an accountant, and he always liked to pretend I was a son rather than a daughter. Anyway. I knew logically the Air Force would be my quickest way to NASA..."

"So you made a smart decision rather than an emotional one."

"I guess I did."

"And now you're not sure if it was the right decision?" he asked.

She looked at him in surprise. He actually looked a little bit scared. "No. Of course not. No. I love my job. I can't imagine doing anything else, it just... when somebody shows up looking like you, it kind of... makes you wonder."

"Yeah. I'm glad no other O'Neill's have stopped by."

"I'm sure General Hammond shares that sentiment, sir," she said without thinking.

He laughed. "That was good, Carter."

"Thank you, sir."

They were quiet for a little while, and finally he said, "So was that all? You weren't sure if you made the right choice? Because you seemed pretty sure to me when you were going at it with your twin..."

"No, that wasn't all. Just... it was weird having her around."

"Yeah, it was," he agreed.

They were getting close to the inevitable topic, but each was carefully avoiding it. Neither wanted to be the one to bring it up. Suddenly Carter remembered a long time ago, being shocked to learn that Colonel O'Neill had had a family. Even more shocked when Daniel had told her what happened to them. He wasn't exactly a very talkative guy, but then again, he had been more communicative tonight than she could remember. Even though he wasn't really saying much, he was surprisingly good at the listening part.

She would have to be the one to bring it up.

"You... spent a lot more time with her than I did. Sir," she said carefully.

"Well, Hammond and I figured it would probably be best not to leave the two of you alone together very much... he was concerned you'd blow up the base in an effort to out-smart each other," he said casually with a grin.

She laughed and said, "I'm sure. Are you... she seemed very different. To me. From me."

"She was. She... confused me."

Feeling brave, she said lightly, "So not so different, I guess."

He laughed again and said, "Another good one. You should give Teal'c some lessons. Confused me in a different way though."

"What do you mean?"

"I just... didn't see how she could be you. She was just so different, but she looked like you... it was just... weird."

She wondered if different meant better, but she knew she would never ask.

"The hair?" she asked lightly.

He laughed. "Yeah, the hair was weird. But I mean, I guess it was just because she had never had any military rules or anything... she wasn't so... the way you and I both have to be."

"Guarded?"

"Yeah. I mean, it was weird. She was kissing Teal'c and General Hammond and hugging everybody... it was... weird. I mean, were you like that your whole life? Before you joined the Air Force? All... open?"

"No," she said quickly. "Not at all."

"Me neither."

They were getting dangerously close now, and she was losing her nerve.

"What about you?" she asked.

"Huh?"

"I mean... did you think about your alternate reality... self?"

"I was dead."

"Sir."

"I tried really hard not to. I'm not a very complicated guy, Carter. I'm probably basically the same everywhere."

While it wasn't theoretically true, she felt like he was probably right. What did that say about either of them, though? His alternate version had married her alternate version. It was so hard to think about. Not only did that little snippet have the entire base gossiping like little girls for weeks... it was just a very strange idea to understand. How many different ways could their relationship have gone if they themselves weren't defined by such strict rules? It was mind boggling in and of itself, but when coupled with the fact that they were also talking about different versions of themselves, with different personalities and different life experiences... it was impossible to say how that could translate over into their own lives. Yet it had, and this wasn't even the first time... Carter remembered Colonel O'Neill being more puzzled by the fact that the two of them had been engaged in another reality than the idea that Daniel had actually visited another reality in the first place.

"Carter?"

"Hm? Oh, sorry, sir. Kind of spaced out there."

"Yeah, I noticed," he said quietly.

She glanced at him. He was watching her as if trying to read her mind. Say something.

"You, um, seemed to get along well."

Anything but that, she screamed at herself. Hoping her cheeks weren't red and if they were the firelight would hide it, she had no other choice but to wait for him to say something now. Was he going to make a joke, or continue speaking plainly and honestly?

He poked around in the dirt for a few moments with his stick and finally said, "I felt sorry for her."

"Oh."

"Even before I found out about... I mean, she seemed so sad already... and I don't think she's as smart as you are. Is that possible?"

"I don't know... what makes you say that?"

"She was confused too. I mean, she knew her... husband was dead, but... she didn't seem to understand that I wasn't him. That I was different."

"She knows the laws of physics just as well as I do. She knew you were different. Maybe you just... I don't know, maybe you were right earlier, and you weren't that different."

"Plus she was sad. She wasn't thinking clearly."

"I suppose not," she agreed half-heartedly.

So what on earth was she supposed to think now? She had thought he liked that version. He had certainly spent enough time with her, and kissed her, for crying out... NO, she told herself firmly. Do NOT start incorporating that phrase into your inner dialogues. Now he sounded as though he had only been being as kind to her as he would have to anybody else, no matter whose twin she happened to be. He had pitied her. If that was all, shouldn't that knowledge have made her feel better about the whole situation? Why then did she now almost want him to feel the opposite? At first she had been mad that he had liked that version, now she was mad that he didn't?

She sighed in frustration, wishing her alternate self had just stayed in her own reality. She had brought out a lot of things Carter had carefully hidden away long ago and would have been perfectly happy to leave alone. She realized he was still talking and hoped she hadn't missed anything important.

"... I just felt so sorry for her... I mean, most of the people she knows get killed or worse, her planet is invaded by the Goa'uld, and if she's anything at all like you she was beating herself up over not being able to prevent it even though it wasn't her fault... then she finally figures out a way to save herself but that turns out not to work either... plus I'm walking around looking like somebody she... cared about."

"I didn't know what to say to her. I mean, I wasn't alone with her much, except when we were working on the generator, but... that's terrible, isn't it? I should have tried to talk to her I just... it was hard."

"General Hammond was right." At her questioning look, he explained, "He said there are some lines that shouldn't be crossed."

"Yeah." That applies to a lot, Carter thought. Including the reason for this incredibly uncomfortable conversation in the first place.

"I didn't know what to say to her either," he said after a few minutes. "Every time I tried I just... couldn't come up with anything. You're a lot easier to talk to," he said with a sudden smile. "Of course, maybe if she hadn't just been through such a horrible ordeal she might have been easier to get along with."

"You seemed to get along with her all right as it was," Carter said evenly, hoping she didn't sound jealous or anything embarrassing like that.

"I was talking about you. Easier for YOU to get along with."

"Oh."

Suddenly she felt incredibly stupid. She would gladly spend a week explaining blackboards full of impossibly complex astrophysics calculations to anyone... even to Colonel O'Neill... over having a conversation with him about ideas and feelings she didn't even understand herself.

She was running out of ways to hedge around the subject. She was certain he knew what she was getting at and was just playing dumb, which was infuriating the hell out of her. He wasn't going to help her out here at all. She played with a leaf absently, tearing it up into tiny little bits in her hands. It seemed a much better use of her time than actually continuing the conversation, which had come to a screeching halt in front of the giant roadblock that was The Issue, as Carter had now taken to calling it in her own head.

She jumped as Colonel O'Neill's watch beeped loudly, shattering the silence. He raised both eyebrows at her. "Any particular reason why all of a sudden you're jumpier than a kangaroo on crack?" he asked as he turned off the alarm.

"No, sir," she mumbled.

"Daniel's turn," he said unnecessarily as he stood up and brushed himself off. "Umm... was that... all you wanted to talk about?"

"Yes, sir."

"Sure?"

"Yes, sir," she said, nodding enthusiastically. Too enthusiastic, she scolded herself as she got up to go back to her sleeping bag.

"All right. If you're sure..." he trailed off, going over to Daniel and nudging his side with the toe of his boot. Daniel stirred but refused to wake up. "Oh Danny boy, get up. Time for school."

No response.

Carter settled back down in her own sleeping bag, watching the wake-up-Daniel show with concealed amusement.

"Danny, Carter decided to use your really old rocks for an alternate energy source of some kind... she ground them all up into a really fine powder and..."

Daniel's eyes snapped open and he looked distraught for a moment as he reached for his glasses. As soon as he put them on, the figure leaning over him came into focus: upside down, smug-grinning Jack O'Neill.

"Funny," he said with a yawn as he sat up. "What's going on? I'm supposed to relieve Sam..."

"Her shift just ended. Your turn Daniel-son."

While Daniel put his shoes back on, Colonel O'Neill turned back to Carter. "Get back to sleep, Carter. That's an order," he said firmly.

"Yes sir."

He nodded, satisfied as Daniel made his way over to the fire with his pathetic little thermos of instant unknown-substance-pretending-to-be-coffee. Colonel O'Neill went back over to his own sleeping bag and got into bed loudly, various joints popping and creaking as he made himself comfortable. Finally, with an over-dramatic sigh, he closed his eyes and was asleep in less than a minute. It was a skill most soldiers developed. Then again, most soldiers (hopefully) also didn't develop the habit of dreaming about their Commanding Officers.