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The next morning Jack drifted awake as the sun crept into the room. It was the only way to wake up in his opinion. The perfect morning after a perfect night. His only problem at the moment seemed to be that his arms were empty.

He rolled over and reached out, needing to feel her, warm and soft from sleep, and kept on reaching. His searching fingers found only air. That popped his eyes open and his senses to alert as he scanned the room. He was alone. Even the depression in the bed where she had slept beside him was cool to the touch.

Where was she? He reached for his pants and firmly and deliberately ignored that corner of his mind that told him exactly where she was. The house wasn't that big. He'd just find her the old fashioned way.

Downstairs in the kitchen Anna's mind was too preoccupied to be aware of the man waking up above her. She kneaded the sweet dough she'd started when she'd gotten up, her thoughts focused elsewhere. It was an action she could do on automatic and she found the rhythmic folding and pressing soothing.

When she sensed him behind her in the kitchen door she didn't even hope he'd missed the minute break in her rhythm. "There's fresh coffee if you want." She said without turning to him. She'd never had a morning after before, and hated feeling awkward with him.

He didn't answer as he moved across the room behind her to get a mug and pour a cup. Her nerves forced her to speak. "I thought you'd like some cinnamon rolls before you go into work today."

"I'll take your cinnamon rolls any time, but I'm not going into work today." Jack took a sip of coffee and waited her out.

"You're not?" Surprise made her glance at him, he was dressed only in his jeans. Shyness, with him, with the situation, made her look away.

"One way or another, I wasn't going to be in very good shape to lead a team through the Stargate."

"I see." Though she didn't. She grabbed a rolling pin and began to work the dough into a large rectangle. "If you had plans...."

"The only plans I had involved staying in bed with you all day." He took another ruminating swallow. "I woke up wanting you, but you were gone."

"I --" Anna cut off her automatic apology. New habits, Anna. "I had some thinking to do and I wasn't being very successful lying in bed next to you."

"I'll take that as a compliment." Good. She wasn't so nervous that she couldn't smile at him. "What kind of thinking needed that much concentration?"

Anna rubbed softened butter over the flattened dough. "I was thinking about you, and Richard, and --"

Jack cut her off in a quick move that had her chin in his fingers, turning her widened eyes to his. "Don't ever compare me to him, Anna. He never loved you. I do."

"See." Anna sighed, setting the rolling pin aside. "You never even met Richard and you understand what was wrong better than I did. What kind of a fool does that make me, Jack?"

"It doesn't make you a fool." He backed off, his point made. "It means you tried to make it work. You stayed with him for - what? - fifteen years?"

"There's more to love than loyalty." Anna shook a canister of sugar and cinnamon over the buttered dough. "And loyalty means more than staying because you don't know where else to go."

"You said you were glad you stayed." She sent him another quick look before concentrating on rolling her dough into a perfect log.

"For Maia. I stayed for her, not for me." Slices of roll lined up like soldiers in the pan. "I had a daughter that I loved, and I wasn't going to abandon her or my responsibilities, no matter how empty the rest of my life felt."

"Do you want me to tell you that you did the right thing?"

She shook her head. "No. I know I did the right thing. It's just...." The pan went into the warming oven. "Humiliating - to reach what most people would consider middle age and realize exactly how much of life you've missed."

"That just means we get to make up for lost time." His arms encircled her waist as he nuzzled into her hair. "Those have to puff up some now, right? Ever made love in a kitchen before?"

Anna chuckled, turning into his embrace. "No, that would be a first for me. Everything about you is a first for me, Jack."

"Remind me to tell you about Jonas Quinn sometime."

"That would be sometime later."

"Oh, yeah. A lot later."

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By the time it was dark Anna had experienced quite a few firsts and she felt very smug about each one. It might have taken her a while to get to school, but she was a very good student.

They had made love in the kitchen, and all of the rooms of the first floor, besides gorging on gooey cinnamon rolls and - much, much later - delivered pizza. She knew she should feel sick and exhausted. Instead, she was content and relaxed, and thinking about the left-overs in the fridge.

They had finally made it back to the bedroom and Jack had found it a reason to celebrate. Again. After, he'd rolled onto his back, taking her with him. She now rested draped over him, his heartbeat strong and sure under her ear.

Curious, Jack lifted his hand and watched the play of light and color shimmer across his skin. The glowing hadn't been as obvious during the day. "So, are you going to tell me about this 'witch thing' that's making us glow all the time?"

Anna regarded him, her chin resting on her crossed hands. "Are you really sure you want to know?"

"No." His snorted chuckle made her head bounce. "But it's there, right?"

Anna joined her hand to his and the glowing intensified. "It's called a Bonding. The glowing's only a sort of a symptom."

"Bonding. That sounds... permanent." The look he gave her was serious.

"It is, usually. It's a rare phenomenon, even among witches. I've never heard of it happening with someone who wasn't a witch." She moved off him to sit on the bed and Jack sat up to face her. "Hold up your hand again." He did, and with a focused thought, she had the light returning to play around it. "This is your field of energy. Everyone, everything has one, because everything is made up of the same basic building blocks."

"My field of energy. Is that like my aura? Cool."

"Aura, if you like." She held up her own hand, with her own energy field in evidence. "The Bonding means that at their most basic level, our energies combine rather than repel. The glow is the excess energy that's created by the fusion." She moved her palm slowly toward his. Jack could see the way the colors of his aura intensified and almost reached out to hers, like two amoebas merging.

"So it's like magnets, kinda, right? If you hold 'em the right way they stick together, and if you hold 'em the wrong way they won't." He moved his hand away from hers and back again, watching the joining and the separation.

"Very much like that. But it's not only a physical Bonding. It takes place in the mind, as well, connecting us."

"So you can read my mind." Even loving her, the thought made him uneasy.

"It's not like that. I can tell where you are, a little of what you're doing, what you're feeling. But it's more like a... a GPS system than telepathy. I can't read your thoughts." Seeing that did little to reassure him, she continued. "I'm a high level empathic healer, a ten-plus rating. The same as a telekinetic, but I barely register as a telepath."

"Yeah, right. Okay." Since what she described was exactly what he experienced, he had to believe her.

"Jack, I..." No. She refused to apologize. He would deal with it, or he wouldn't. "There's other parts of you that interest me a lot more than your thoughts."

When he looked up, surprised, she laid her lips on his with enough heat to make him forget his uneasiness. "Oh, yeah? What parts exactly?"

With a temptress's smile she moved over him. Seduction was new to her, but she thought she could fumble her way through. "Let me show you."

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Over breakfast the next morning, Jack brought up something else that had been nagging on his conscience. "Anna, can I ask you another question?" He said casually, stuffing his mouth with a bite of fresh omelette.

She glanced up at him over the morning paper, very much aware of how cozy and - well, coupled - it was to have breakfast with him. "You're just full of curiosity these days."

"Yeah. Well..." He swiped a napkin across his mouth, shrugged a shoulder uncomfortably. "It's just... I was wondering why you waited so long to heal your cheek."

"My cheek?" She reflexively put her hand to her face, though Jack saw it was to the wrong side.

"Yeah, you know, where I..." He made a punching motion toward her left eye. "I was just noticing, you know, you still had a pretty good shiner when I first got here, but it was gone the next morning. And I was just wondering why you didn't heal it right away."

"I guess I forgot about it. But it wouldn't have made any difference. I can't heal myself, Jack. It's one of the drawbacks of my particular manifestation. None of my talents can affect me directly."

"Then what happened to it?" Jack wondered idly if he could get Anna to make some pancakes, too. The woman was a wonder with breakfast.

"The only thing I can think of is that it's another side effect of the Bonding." She rose to take her coffee cup to the window, thinking the process through. "When we're... Close, physically and emotionally--"

"You mean when we're making love."

"When we're making love." She agreed with that blush he loved to see. "A witch's gifts can be shared across the Bond. That means that for all intents and purposes, you healed me. Probably the first time we were together."

"That's... weird."

"I wish I knew more about it, but it might not pertain to our situation anyway."

"Because I'm not a witch."

"Yes. Though... there's something...." She came back to him and placed her fingers on his forehead, probing against the slick shield in her way. She didn't really know what she was looking for in the first place. "I wish Finn was here. He knows more about these mind games than I do."

"Hey. Quit it. That tickles." He moved her hand away. It had felt like somebody poking a feather through his skull. "Who's Finn?"

"See. You shouldn't even be able to feel that. I wonder..." She was looking at him, or rather, looking at his head, like a specimen, speculatively, answering his question reflexively. "Hmm. Finn's my brother."

"Your brother? I thought you didn't have any siblings."

"So did I. So did he. Until he became the head of the Irish Council and had access to all the genetic records. He found me only weeks before I left New York. It was one of the last straws for me, in fact."

"You said you went to Ireland for a while. Was it to see him?" Jack found himself jealous of her brother and tried, for her sake, to put it aside.

"Yes. It was wonderful. He wanted me to stay there with him. To be a family, even if it was a small one. But it wasn't my place, and my being there caused trouble for him. So I came back to the States."

"Why would having a sister cause anybody trouble?"

"It wasn't because I was Finn's sister, but because I had been cast out. It's a very serious thing for a witch to be shunned." It shouldn't hurt so much, after so many years, but it did. It still did.

"You said you left on your own."

She shrugged, tried to make it unconcerned. "It all depends on your point of view. It didn't matter to me, but Finn's position is important, and I didn't want to cause him any harm."

"Council-shmouncil. You were his sister. Why didn't he use his position to help you."

She laughed. "Finn would agree with you. He would have tried, if I'd let him. I hope you get to meet him sometime."

"Yeah, me too." He'd have something to say to that guy. Ya sure yu betcha.

"Don't worry about me, Jack. I've chosen my way, and it lead me to you. I'm not going to regret any of it because of that." She came back to him and he gathered her onto his lap. "This is where I belong. You're who I belong with. That's all I need to know."

"Okay. Then that's good enough for me." He held her close as the sun rose and the birds sang, and both of them were content.

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Two days and nights later, Jack lay wakeful before dawn. It had been a peaceful interlude for him, something he'd experienced too rarely in his dangerous life. He was ready for it to be a feeling he had a little more often.

Anna was snuggled into his chest, deeply asleep. He hated to wake her, but.... "Anna." He whispered in her ear. No response. He tried again, a little louder. "Anna." All she did was burrow closer with a protesting sound.

"Anna." He shook her this time. "Are you awake? We have to talk."

"Hmm. 'Kay." She sighed and wrapped her arms around him. "Later."

"We need to talk now, baby." He kissed her lightly on the temple, the only part of her he could reach. "I've got to go back to work today."

That woke her all the way up. She pulled back to blink at him with sleep heavy eyes for a long moment. "All right. You should have a good breakfast before you go." She made to get up to fix it, but he caught her to him again.

"We've got time for that later. Anna," God, he was bad at this! "You know every time I go through the Stargate there's a chance I might not come back. We've got enemies besides the Goa'uld. Then there's natural disasters, misunderstandings with the natives, even something wrong with the Gate could keep us stranded out there with no way home."

"I know what you do is dangerous, Jack. Why are you telling me this?" But an answer came to her. "Are you going to use this as an excuse to walk away from me? From us?"

"Part of me thinks I should." He brushed a strand of hair back from her face. "Part of me thinks it would have been better if I'd walked away weeks ago."

"If that's what you think, why do all this? Why tell me you love me? Why let me tell you I love you? Was it just a convenient lie to get me into bed?"

"No. I've never lied to you. I never could." He hated to see the hurt in her eyes, though the words she'd spoken had been calm. "Any more than I could walk away from you. Because the rest of me knows that walking away from you would be like cutting off my own arm." He pulled her back tight against him and buried his face in her fragrant hair, relieved when her arms came around him. "I've lived without parts of me before, Anna. And I'd live without you. But I'd never be whole again."

She closed her eyes over tears. "You're a fraud, Jack O'Neill." He chuckled and she smiled against his lips. "You're really a hopeless romantic underneath all that macho colonel stoicism."

"Don't let it get around, okay?" Her mouth was sweet beneath his. Breakfast, even one of Anna's breakfasts,would have to wait a little longer. "I love you, Anna, but I don't want you here never knowing if I'm coming home or not."

"Is that what this is about?" She sat up to look at him. "Jack, this isn't like before, for me or for you. I know about the Stargate and I won't be waiting in the dark. I'll be with you, wherever you go, even when you don't want me to be. And I'll know if something happens to you." She raised their clasped hands between them. They were glowing faintly in the pre-dawn twilight. "You're not comfortable with this, but it's part of both of us now."

He gave her a crooked smile over their hands. "I don't know," Jack gave her knuckles a quick nibble. "I'm starting to get used to it." Her smile was all he needed to see. "You think it will work, even when I'm light years from Earth?"

"I don't know what will happen for sure, but the Bonding doesn't have any boundaries. It doesn't depend on time or space. I guess we'll just have to see." She kissed him once more and reached for her robe. "Now, what do you want for breakfast?"

Jack pulled her back down to the bed and covered her body with his own. Her robe slithered unnoticed to the floor. "I think I want to start my day with dessert."

Her sighed of agreement only intensified the pale light emanating from them.

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