She pushed her key into the lock, twisted, and pushed open the front door. Pete didn't lift his head from where he lay, stretched out on the sofa with his eyes glued to the television. "Hi," he called out and she deposited her keys with an oddly jolly jingle onto the shelf near the door.

"Hi," she called back, feeling even more miserable. Once there had been a kiss on the cheek when she re-entered their dwelling, a dinner for two. Now there was television and meals in the microwave. Once there had been a house filled with an equal measure of lust and love; happiness and pleasure. Now, the shadows in the corner of the room seemed to lengthen. Two people rattled around like peas in a drum in a house really built for a small family.

She moved to the microwave, turned it on and watched her meal spin as it was re-heated. "Good day?" she asked.

"Not too bad," he replied, still watching the television. Maybe he couldn't bear to look at her anymore. Maybe to see her face was a reminder to him of those happier times, before they had settled into this listless relationship.

She took her meal on a tray to the sofa, despite her hatred of television meals. He moved his feet obligingly so she could sit next to him. His foot touched her thigh as she ate. She barely noticed; felt no desire once she had eaten and washed up to curl up with him on the sofa as they once had.

She sat back down and he poked her with a toe. At last, he met her eyes. "Are you okay?"

She looked away, feeling the damn ridiculous tears welling up. A part of her knew she would never be 'okay' again. She was to be haunted forever; deserved the life of melancholy.

"Yeah. It's just... you know."

He nodded, as if her incoherent sentence had made sense. "I know," he agreed, turning his attention back to the television.

Is this what you wanted from married life? she found herself thinking, the tears turning bitter and forcing themselves from her eyes, unseen by a husband who could no longer reach her; however much he wanted to. Is this what you wanted? Television meals; no conversation? Awkwardness, a feeling of being a stranger in your own home?

Of course not, she answered herself.

She closed her teary eyes and the taint of burned flesh seemed to rise up within her, until the terrible stench filled her world and made her retch. She leapt up from the sofa and ran to the bathroom. Head in the toilet bowl, she revisited the dinner she had only just eaten. When she had finished heaving she wiped her mouth and flushed the toilet.

"Here."

She jumped. Silently as a ghost Pete had appeared behind her, holding a glass of water. She took it gratefully. "Thank you," she gasped, sipping from it.

"It's okay," he replied, the saddest of smiles touching his lips and a baleful look in his eyes. She touched his arm lightly, but he drew away; knowing it was a lie.

She sat on the lid of the toilet as her stomach rumbled ominously, sipping more water intermittently. As she stared into the glass the words played themselves again in her consciousness.

"I have always loved you."

They hadn't been his last words. Jack O'Neill refused to die with a cliche on his lips. But he had needed to say them. And she had replied utterly honestly.

"I know."

He had chuckled, blood bubbling at the corners of his mouth. "You should go."

"I won't leave you."

"Please. You don't have to die too."

"You're not going to die!!"

"Carter," he had looked into her eyes as she spoke, and she had felt the silent tears course down her cheeks knowing that he spoke the truth and refusing to believe it. "I am going to die here. Please... go."

"No."

He had sighed. "I guess, if it were the other way round, I'd do the same."

His groping hands had found hers. "Sir... Jack. I wish things could have been different. Between us."

Again, that grotesque, bubbling chuckle. "And me, Sam. And me."

His eyes had closed at that point and she had begun to sob, thinking he had gone. She stroked the rough skin of his cheek and begged him to hold on, just a moment longer.

After a few minutes, when her grief has almost burnt itself away to be replaced by a deadened feeling; he had opened his eyes again, his face now wracked with pain.

"Make sure Daniel and Teal'c look after themselves."

"I will."

"Look after yourself too."

"I will."

His breath had begun to come less easy. He had shuddered as his lungs laboured to draw enough oxygen to keep his shattered body alive."Sam?"

"Yes?"

"Be happy. That's all I want. Be happy." He had grimaced as his body began to fail him.

She had kissed his mouth, splattering tears on his bloody face. "I love you."

He had given no answer, only smiled, in spite of his pain. She knew that in this moment he was prepared to believe her, and she was grateful. He had not taken her words as pity on a dying man but as truth. And it was a truth.

He did not speak again until the very end; when the crackle of staff weapon fire was becoming audible in the distance.

"Charlie. I'll be with Charlie again."

She had begun to sob again as his body juddered with the spasm that would proceed his death. "You know, they always told me the cigarettes would kill me. This makes me wonder whether it was worth quitting." He had met her eyes, laughter shining out of them and he had gripped her hand so tightly her bones creaked. "I could murder a beer."

The pulse in his cold hand had stuttered and failed. He was gone.

Grateful to the fates for allowing her the time to spend his last moments with him; she had kissed his face again and placed his hands neatly in his lap. She wished she could have bought his body back, but the simple fact of the matter was he was too heavy for her to carry. She had slipped away like a ghost through the trees; past the body of the Jaffa who had finally killed General O'Neill by shooting him five times in the back, the Jaffa she had then shot.