He broke away, his lips lingering on hers, two spots of colour burning in his cheeks that had nothing to do with embarrassment. He was too breathing too deeply and too quickly, his dark eyes burning with an emotion she had never before seen in them, something he buried too deeply to ever show her until this moment.
She reached for his collar, intending to pull him back towards her for a second try.
Brriiinggg!
"If that's Daniel...."
He laughed out loud.
Brriinggg! Brrriiiinnnggg!
"You going to answer that?"
She sighed. "I probably should. Can you take the pizzas through and set up the DVD player?"
He grinned, picking up the boxes and disappearing into the other room.
She padded across her hallway, unable to stop the smile from breaking out across her face and wondering if she had ever felt this happy in her entire life up to this point.
She pulled open the door.
"He's here, isn't he?"
Her smile disappeared. "Pete?"
"I came back to see if you were okay..." He seemed on the verge of tears.
"If it's Daniel, tell him he's definitely interrupting so–" O'Neill stopped as he entered the hallway and saw Pete.
Carter felt every muscle in her body tense.
"Shanahan." O'Neill said after a moment's pause.
"O'Neill." The word dripped with distaste.
You bastard. I loved her with all my heart and you stole her from me. You bastard!
The General folded his arms, matching the policeman stare for stare. "I was just leaving," Pete said after another measured pause. His eyes flickered for a moment to his ex-fiancé, and she read his thought as clearly as if he had spoken it.
Traitor.
He turned away and into the night. She shut the door and stared at her feet, unable to turn around and look at O'Neill.
His hand touched her shoulder, spinning her around and pulling her back into the embrace she had not wanted to leave to open the damn door in the first place.
"I'm sorry," she mumbled into his chest, "He..."
He watches my house.
She found she could not finish the sentence. How on earth could she say the words and not make Pete sound like a deranged stalker?
She didn't want Jack to think of him that way, to think of her that way for letting such a man into her life. He wasn't that kind of man. He had loved her, still did and she had hurt him. She could empathise, maybe even understand his odd actions.
O'Neill kissed her neck, demanding no explanation. "I should probably go..."
She hesitated, the twin desires of wanting to hide from the world and wanting to be with him and reclaim their brief moment of non-awkwardness battling.
"No... I'll never manage all that pizza by myself." She managed a small grin as she pulled away from his chest.
"They're probably cold by now..."
"I have a microwave."
"And then what happened?" Daniel demanded.
O'Neill, leaning against the archeologist's desk and distracting him from the translation he was supposed to be working on, sighed, a frustrated look crossing his features.
"Well... we watched the movies."
"And...?"
"And... nothing. It was... all awkward again. I left after the Fellowship finished."
Daniel huffed, pushing his glasses up his nose with his good hand.
"I will never understand you. Or Sam for that matter."
"What do you mean?"
"Well, you'd rather die than live without her..."
"Yes?"
"She'd rather die than be without you..."
"And? So? Therefore?" O'Neill started fiddling with what looked like a lump of granite, apparently acting as Daniel's paperweight.
"I'm just not understanding how things can 'get all awkward again.' Don't mess with that."
O'Neill put it down. "Sorry."
"I mean how difficult can it be, really? I want you, I need you, I love you, please marry me."
O'Neill shifted uncomfortably. "I dunno."
"You want my advice Jack? If you really love Sam, seize every opportunity with both hands. You don't get to choose how long you have to spend with someone you love. Be grateful and thankful for every minute. You never know when it's going to be snatched away from you."
Jack felt his gaze drift to Daniel's framed picture of Sha're. He realised who Daniel was referring to but felt moved to speak.
"I've lost things I've loved too, Daniel. I'm scared of losing them again."
"There's truth in the old saying 'tis better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all," countered Daniel.
"Maybe."
"Certainly. Invite her out for dinner. Be romantic."
There was silence for a while. Daniel waited patiently for Jack to voice the next issue concerning him.
"You do approve of me and Sam, don't you?"
Daniel gave him a piercing glance. "I do now. I haven't always."
O'Neill's eyebrow's quirked in surprise. "Really?"
"Mmm. When we first started out as SG-1. I could tell you were attracted to her and I... well, I didn't like it very much. I thought you were looking at her like she was a thing rather than the wonderful person she really was. But I came to realise all that macho bravado is just a front you put on when confronted with women that fluster you, that you cared deeply for the woman underneath. And after the za'tarc testing... well... my guesses were confirmed." He thought for a second and then added: "Teal'c's always thought you make a great couple. Long before I did."
"I'm shocked."
"Good."
"Dinner you reckon?"
"You can never go wrong with a romantic meal."
"Can you imagine me and Carter on a... a date like that though?"
"Well... no. Not if you keep calling her Carter certainly."
"Damn! Do I still do that? I forget..."