Commanding Offiicer Chapter 3

A/N: Continuing to follow SG1 through the end of Season 4 into Season 5, this chapter veers a bit (okay more than a bit) off the beaten cannon, exploring O'Neill's inner struggles with his command responsibilities along with the added complication of his growing closeness to Sam. This chapter is a loose rewrite of 'Exodus' with the intention of exposing all the scenes the original writers 'omitted' (heh heh :) )

If you've been following along, you'll notice I changed the name of the series to 'Commanding Officer.' I found another Stargate fanfic called 'Command Decision' written by MHE Priest. Wow, it's good! Read it! Has a somewhat similar theme to this series, but it's Sam, not Jack, doing the soul-searching. I didn't want to steal a title so I changed mine.

General Hammond waited until all of SG1 had seated themselves, freshly arrived from the showers and their routine infirmary visit. Jack was the last to arrive, due to Dr. Frasier's alarm over the story she got out of the team as it pertained to Jack's role in the mission. Much to his dismay, she checked him over very thoroughly before finally releasing him to attend the debriefing.

"Welcome back, SG1. I know this was not exactly how you all had envisioned spending your downtime, so I want to thank you again for doing such an excellent job on short notice. Thor kept repeating how much in our debt he is."

"Right where we want him, sir," Jack quipped. Hammond chuckled, then cleared his throat and became serious.

"Colonel O'Neill, unless you're ready to tell me you've changed your mind, the two weeks of downtime still stands while you are deciding what you are going to do."

The atmosphere in the room grew suddenly more chilled as the three teammates waited to hear what their CO was going to say.

"I haven't changed my mind."

Sam repressed an urge to kick him under the table. When she had first heard, she had been heartbroken that he was retiring. She couldn't imagine them not being on SG1 together. But after the last few days, after the streamlined way in which the team had worked together on this latest mission without a hitch, Sam was working up a good head of steam.

There was an awkward silence in the room in response to Jack's curt answer.

"Very well," Hammond sighed, " You are all dismissed and on down time for the next..."

Blaring klaxons interrupted the General's statement, and the five jumped up at once and ran down to the Gateroom.

"Here we go again," grumbled Jack to Sam as she brushed past him. As she rounded the corner of the door in front of him, she looked back momentarily and flashed him an impish smile. Maybe, she hoped, if SG1 remained this busy, Jack just wouldn't have a chance to retire.

In the control room, the airman monitoring the gate turned as the General arrived, SG1 close behind.

"It's not a standard IDC, sir. It just says, 'Comtraya.'"

Jack's face immediately morphed into an exasperated grimace.

"What's that mean?" Hammond asked, mystified, needing to find out quickly if it signified friend or foe.

Jack stepped forward and gestured with his hands. "It means...Shalom...Aloha...that sort of thing."

"It is the greeting of the artificial life form named Harlan from PX3-989," Teal'C volunteered.

"You mean the Harlan that cloned all of you?" A heated argument between Jack and Sam ensued over whether or not to open the iris to the unpredictable alien.

Hammond suddenly seemed to realize it was now or never, and cut them short.

"Open the iris."

O'Neill groaned and glared at Carter. She gave him a distasteful look as they all went to the Gate to see why Harlan was there. There at the Gate stood the nervous old man, smiling appeasingly and shaking.

"Comtraya!" He cried out his well-known greeting.

Sam stole another amused peek at Jack's stormy expression.

"What are you doing here, Harlan?" Jack growled.

The man bowed and smiled again, but his eyes were desperate.

"You need to help...you."

By the next evening, the dangerous, fast-paced attempt to save Harlan's SG1 clones was over. Jack and Sam had managed to avoid injury, but Teal'C had not been as fortunate. Jack had finally found Teal'C, dazed and wounded from the torture he had endured at the hands of the now dead Cronus. He had a similar story to the others, in that his clone had given his life to save his human counterpart.

Jack and Sam saw to Teal'C's injuries, which were not as bad as they had thought at first, and he was now resting comfortably. Jack and Sam were now making their way down the dark path through the woods from Darien's village to Juna's Gate in order to make a report to Hammond.

"Daniel should be back from his dig by now, sir," Sam commented as they walked along in the beam of their flashlights.

"I was just thinking the same thing. Hope he's ready for a quick turn-around. He'll have to Gate here to join us for the next phase of this wild ride."

"Where would that be to, sir?" Sam knew they couldn't take the ship to Earth and risk it being detected in orbit.

"Hammond will let us know. But my guess is the Tok'Ra base on Vorash. It's the best place to hide the ship for now. You'll get to see Dad this trip, I'd bet."

"I'd like that," Sam smiled. It had been a while since she had last visited with Jacob Carter.

"I'm glad this part of the mission is over, though." Jack said no more, but Sam knew he was referring to the uncomfortable experience of watching their cloned selves suffer and die in order to save the lives of the real team.

"Me too. I'm sorry for Harlan. I wish it could have ended differently. And it was...very wierd." Sam replied. Jack glanced over at her and saw sadness and confusion clouding her eyes.

"Here we are. Dial up." Jack kept up a lookout while Sam quickly pressed the symbols for Earth. The wormhole opened with a roaring whoosh.

Only a few hours later, the team and Jacob Carter were on their way in their newly acquired mothership, courtesy of the late Goa'uld, Cronus, hurtling towards the Tok'Ra base through hyperspace. Daniel had come through the Gate from Earth even more quickly than Jack had predicted and was now reunited with his team for the mission to Vorash. The huge ship, so empty now, was quiet to the point of eerie as they warily explored their new possession.

At least, Sam, Daniel and Teal'C were exploring. Jack, who would normally have been crowing with glee over the turn of events that had dropped a Goa'uld mothership in his lap, was sitting on the 'throne', as he called it, on the Pel'tac level, gravely going over in his mind all that had happened in such an incredibly short space of time.

One memory was particularly troublesome. Although it had been unsettling to watch his own clone die, Jack couldn't stop mentally replaying what he had seen and felt while watching Sam's clone die. For one awful instant, it had seemed to him to be his Sam lying there on the cold floor, dying. It had been way too real. He desperately wished he could banish the scene from playing out on the stage of his mind, but it torturously refused to stop...

As the last of the huge metal doors lowered into place, cutting off the Jaffa that had been shooting at them, Jack turned, panting from the exertion of battle, to see Sam kneeling by the side of her clone. The cloned Sam had a horrific wound on one side of her face, made even more shocking by the fact that it exposed a greyish liquid mingled among her complex circuitry, rather than bone and blood. She had crumpled in a heap moments before, just after plunging her hand into the electrical currents of the control panel, saving their lives by manually closing the blast doors surrounding them.

The Sam robot wore a dazed look and, unbelievably, seemed to be in pain. The anguish evident on her dying face still haunted Jack even now.

Her head had faltered, her eyes had closed, and then she had died, all while Carter was crouched next to her, frozen in place as she tried to process the wrenching scene.

Then it had happened.

Sam had looked up just as Jack's eyes had strayed from the dead clone to her wonderfully alive face.

Jack's heart had felt like it was on fire as he stared at her. Ever since they had returned from this last mission, he had been slowly convincing himself that maybe he could stay on SG1 after all. They had worked together just fine on this mission, hadn't they? His fears were beginning to look silly to him, and he had begun to entertain the possibility that he and Carter could maintain a professional relationship without any dire consequences.

But now, seeing Sam lying on the floor dead, even knowing it wasn't really her, made him irrationally want to grab the real Sam and lock her away where she would be forever safe from harm.

He could still see her eyes, wild and distressed, looking to him for comfort after effectively watching herself die.

He couldn't begin to imagine losing her for real.

"Hey." The softly spoken greeting caused him to jump and reach for his gun. He turned like lightning and saw Sam there. He'd been so preoccupied he'd never heard her come in.

"Sorry, sir, I didn't mean to alarm you. It's a bit spooky in here, isn't it?"

Jack relaxed and resumed his slouched position in the chair. "Yeah, it is that."

"What are you doing here? I thought you'd be checking everything out."

"Just thinking."

Something in his tone brought her up short. Sam had been so caught up in the traumatic clone rescue mission that it was with dismay she suddenly remembered the Colonel's resignation still hanging in the balance. He saw her face fall and guessed what she was thinking. Slipping down from his perch he moved over to her.

"Not about the issues back at home. About something that happened today."

"Tell me."

Major Carter was gone, and it was Sam who stood before him, warm and alive and familiar. Once again they had seamlessly crossed the line from professional to personal. Jack reached out and took her hand so he could draw her in close.

"I watched you die," he finally answered.

"It wasn't me," Sam countered automatically, but she knew she wasn't fooling either of them. It had been incredibly difficult for her too, watching the Sam-clone die after sacrificing herself for her counterparts. It had reminded Sam that neither she nor any of her team were exempt from such a fate. Sam believed herself to be a loyal and faithful soldier, but she didn't know if she truly had it in her to die for someone else, even after watching her cloned self do it.

"I don't ever want you to save my life by dying for me. I wouldn't want to live without you in my life anyway, Sam. Promise me we'll stick it out to the end, together, if we ever get cornered. You know...Butch Cassidy and the Sun-Dance Kid. Bonnie and Clyde. Marge and Homer."

"Thelma and Louise."

"Thelma and Louise?" He shook his head, chuckling. His expression grew melancholy as he studied her face. "What are we going to do?"

"Now you really are talking about issues back home. And as long as we are talking about this, why do you have to do anything? We're handling it. We've just been on two missions back to back, full of danger and hairy situations, and nothing between us compromised our ability to do our jobs. Nothing."

"Maybe not this time. But it will eventually, Sam. I can't watch you die again. It seems like a recurring theme lately. I keep wondering when it's going to be the real thing: no magical reversals, no handy clones around to take the fall for us."

"It goes both ways, you know. I can't imagine losing you, either."

"I need to be reminded of that sometimes," Jack conceded. His eyes caught hers, and Sam was amazed to see that the usual guarded reserve was gone. His gaze now willingly revealed the depth of his love and longing for her, as well as his inner conflict.

Unable to stop herself, she reached up and trapped his face between her hands, wanting more than anything to ease his pain.

"It doesn't have to be this hard," she soothed.

"I wish I could believe that."

"I wish..." Sam's sentence fell away and she finished her thought without words, for she couldn't find any. Moving in slowly, she hesitantly touched her lips to his. A thrill ran through her when he eagerly responded. She had half expected to be pushed away again, as he had done earlier in the week when she'd shown up at his house. Instead he leaned into her embrace and took control with a sweet and fiery possessiveness. It was a long time before they broke apart.

"You're right. That wasn't hard at all," Jack gently teased.

"Why do I have the feeling that I'm not helping my side of the case too much?" Sam murmured.

"Uhh. Because you're not," Jack retorted softly. "But...it doesn't really matter right now what I've decided, does it? We're on our way to the Tok'Ra base in a Goa'uld mothership. Who knows what's coming next."

They suddenly scrambled to keep their balance as a jolt shook the ship. They had come out of hyperspace precisely on schedule and were orbiting the Tok'Ra planet, Vorash.

Jacob was pleased to see his daughter again and seated himself next to Sam in the Council meeting that had been called upon the arrival of the victorious T'auri. All of the Tok'Ra were buzzing with excitement over the capture of the ship and consequently the Council Hall was full of Tok'Ra wanting to hear the details of their encounter with Cronus.

Tanith sat confidently at the table with the Tok'Ra, unaware that his status as a Goa'uld spy was no secret to them. Teal'C was eyeing him with barely concealed fury. Jack watched Teal'C uneasily, knowing the Jaffa wouldn't rest until he had exacted revenge on Tanith for the murder of Shon'ac, Teal'C's former lover and close friend.

Tanith's mind was visibly at work trying to figure out what SG1 were doing here.

"How exactly did a Goa'uld mothership come into your possession?" Tanith asked Jack warily.

"Well, it was kind of a trade deal. Cronus gave us his ship, and he got what was coming to him."

"Really?" Tanith responded to O'Neill. "Cronus is dead?"

Jacob answered, still careful to not show his hand. "Now that we have access to a mothership we will be able to move our people and our Stargate as well, and thereby establish a completely new and secure base."

"I don't understand. Why have I been excluded from such important information?"

Teal'C stepped forward, more than eager to be the one to let Tanith know he was found out. "The Tok'Ra do not wish Apophis to be informed."

Teal'C's dark eyes flashed with hate and rage while his lips upturned in a tense smile of triumph. He watched, still not satisfied, as an incredulous Tanith was taken forcefully from the room to be imprisoned. As Tanith neared Teal'C at the doorway, he leaned maliciously into his face.

"You will never escape," Tanith spit at him. "System Lords will hunt you down to the end of the galaxy."

Teal'C's angry smile never wavered as Tanith was led away. Jack heaved a sigh of relief, mirrored by the feelings of everyone in the room.

"That guy is a living cliche," Jack quipped.

It took many hours for the ship to be readied for the trip to the new base. The Stargate had finally been successfully loaded aboard when word came that Tanith had somehow escaped the base and was hiding on the planet's surface.

"Whoa, Teal'C," cautioned Jack, watching his friend sympathetically. "Help down here, Carter, Daniel. I'm going with Teal'C to look for Tanith."

The concern visible on Jack's face implied he was going with Teal'C more to keep him out of trouble than to find the escaped spy. As they walked off toward the ring room, Sam noticed how closely Jack was shadowing Teal'C.He feared the Jaffa would do something reckless to exact his revenge on Tanith. A jolt of worry for both of them shot through her.

Daniel met the two teammates at the underground ring platform hours later when they returned, empty-handed and discouraged.

"Jacob and Sam want us in the Council Chamber now, Jack. There's been a change of plans."

Jack and Teal'C looked quizzically at each other after hearing the news that Tanith had somehow got word to Apophis, and now Apophis' fleet was on the way to Vorash. Daniel's eyes grew wide as they all listened to Jacob and Sam's new plan.

"Wow," Jack began, astounded by Sam's explanation of what they were about to attempt.

"That's..."

"...ambitious," Daniel and Jack chimed together in unison. Sam had come up with some pretty wild ideas over the years, but blowing up a star was a new one. Of course, Jack admitted to himself, her ideas usually worked, no matter how crazy they sounded on paper.

"Well Jack?" Jacob wanted an answer, but it was Jack's decision whether or not to risk the valuable mothership so recently acquired.

"Let me think about this," Jack huffed.

Silence reigned for a long moment. Jacob raised his eyebrows impatiently.

"Still thinking," was all the response he got.

"Sir," Sam pleaded, "we may never have an opportunity like this again."

Jack made the mistake of looking right into Sam's big, blue, irresistable eyes that were gazing passionately into his. He knew then that even though it may look to everyone else in the room like he had a choice, he really didn't.

"Ok." He said meekly.

Jack sought out an empty room where he could grab a quick nap while all the preparations for the change of plans were carried out. It would be several hours before the Tok'Ra were all safely evacuated through the Gate to a secure location and before the team would be able to carry out their grandiose plan to eliminate Apophis and his fleet. Finding a room with a stone platform erected by the Tok'Ra as a sleeping pallet, Jack curled up with his head pillowed on his pack. It was a bit cold, but he was so tired he hardly noticed.

Sam found him before he'd drifted off completely. He heard her come in before he saw her, and sat up half-way.

"Carter?"

"Yes, sir. Just thought I'd find you and let you know the evacuation will be complete in about an hour. It won't be long now."

"An hour?" Jack repeated groggily.

"Yes."

"Then we've got an hour before anyone comes looking for us?"

Sam just looked at him in confusion. "What?"

"I'm not trying to compromise your virtue, I'm just cold. And sleepy. Come here."

Smiling timidly now, Sam sat down next to him and allowed him to pull her down onto the cold stone. They cautiously curled up together, seeking out each other's warmth, glad to have this stolen opportunity to be together.

"So where were we before we got interrupted on the ship?" Jack murmured deliciously in her ear.

"I thought you weren't going to compromise my virtue," Sam giggled.

"I won't. Much. Hey, you came in here all by yourself, as I recall."

"I wondered where you'd gone," Sam replied. "I wanted to spend some time with you."

Jack's face lit up at that, then grew pensive.

"I've been thinking about something you said a few days ago. You told me I feel too much responsibility for the members of my team."

"I remember," Sam agreed.

"We were both right, y'know," Jack continued. "As C.O. I'm answerable for everyone under my command. But I was so concerned with keepingeach of you safe that I'd stopped trusting in us as a team. I lost sight of how much I depend on all of you. These last few days have reminded me of that."

"You're right, Jack. You need us as much as we need you. You can't shoulder it all alone."

"Yeah. I guess I'd forgotten that."

"And, so..."

"And so, I'mconsidering withdrawing my resignation."

"Good! But what about...us?" She gestured between the two of them.

"I don't know. We'll cross that bridge...for now it's enough just knowing how you feel."

"Oh?" Sam couldn't resist teasing a little.

"Yeah. Well, and the occasional opportunity to have my way with you, and all that."

"Sir!" Sam burst out. She immediately realized they were way past 'sir' in this conversation.

"Sorry, Jack, it just popped out. Habit."

"Does that mean I can have my way with you?" He had turned to face her and his lips were brushing tantalizingly over her cheek.

"Uh, no." She turned away, determined to not let this get out of hand.

"Please?" he whispered mischievously.

"Go to sleep, SIR," she retorted.

"Rats," he muttered half-heartedly into the back of her head.

Both had now gone so long without sleep that they could barely keep their eyes open anyway. Sam pulled his arms around her more securely and closed her eyes, guessing it could be a while before they had another opportunity to rest.

She had no idea how right she was.

It felt like only five minutes later when Daniel shook him awake. There was no sign of Sam.

"Jack. Jacob and Sam are ready. It's time for us to ring up to the ship."

Jack groaned and shook his head to get the fog out. "Okay, you don't have to keep doing that," he grumbled, pushing Daniel's arm away. "I'm up. Let's go."

The tunnels were dark and eerie and it was obvious to the three soldiers that they were the last ones to leave the abandoned Tok'Ra base. Within seconds, they materialized on the mothership and made their way to join Sam and Jacob on the Pel'tac. Jack ran for the throne.

"Shotgun," he claimed with boyish delight.

Jacob gave him an exasperated glance and then turned to the controls in front of him.

"Setting course for the sun. We're picking up Apophis' fleet on long range scanners."

Sam turned from her console next to her father's and gestured to Jack.

"We should go get the Stargate ready to go."

Jacob turned to Sam with an irritated grimace. "You don't need Jack to help you with..."

Sam was already gone, Jack trailing behind her giving Jacob a confused look as he left the Pel'tac and tagged after her. Jacob had been taking every opportunity to make sure Jack knew he considered him excess baggage on this mission. There had always been a bit of tension between the two officers, but lately Jacob had been outright rude. It didn't bother Jack any, who liked Jacob and wasn't threatened by his blustering. Sam, however, was stomping along ahead of Jack as they headed for the cargo bay. Jack caught a glimpse of her stormy features and stopped her with a light touch on her shoulder.

"What's eating your Dad?"

"It's nothing, he's just being the Dad I know and try to love," Sam spit back.

"Oh, come on, Carter. Something's different. Did I do something to upset him? Is he still mad because I won't give the Tok'Ra this mothership? He's not usually quite this grouchy." Jack raised an eyebrow. "What's wrong?"

Sam sighed. "He saw me leaving your sleeping quarters back on Vorash." Sam began walking again, but slower now, and apace with Jack.

"Oh." Jack realized that Jacob had apparently assumed the worst and was now disappointed in their unprofessional behavior. He wasn't so sure about Selmac. She was a die-hard romantic.

"He made some comments to me before you arrived on the ship that hurt. He's already jumped to conclusions about last night without even asking me about it. Even if he'd let me talk, which he didn't, he wouldn't believe me anyway."

"What's he going to do about it?"

"Nothing, Jack, not as far as our jobs are concerned. But he'll make life miserable for us for as long as possible, I would guess."

"He thinks we..."

"Yes," Sam whispered angrily.

"But he's not going to say anything..."

"He's not in the air force anymore. There's no reason for him to take this further."

Jack was silent, frowning while he processed what he'd just heard. "So you're saying we missed a perfectly good opportunity?"

"This isn't funny, Colonel," Sam protested, laughing weakly at his mischievous expression in spite of her words. But the anger was fading from her eyes.

Sam reached the Cargo Bay control panel and Jack took the console to her left. All business now, she got right to work.

"Initiating dial-out sequence."

"Engaging forcefield." Jack watched silently as she unerringly went through the steps to prepare the Stargate. She exhaled nervously and seemed to be unsure of herself for a split second.

"Something wrong?" Jack probed.

"No. I've just never blown up a star before." Jack looked over at her, trying to decipher the emotions written on her features. Nervousness? Dread?

"Well, they say the first time's the hardest." Sam smiled and raised an eyebrow at him, relaxing just a bit at the understated humor.

"They say that..." he trailed off.

After a bemused shake of her head, Sam finished the preparations for launching the Stargate. As he continued watching her, it hit him that it wasn't fear he was witnessing. It was the excitement of a paratrooper about to jump. It was the anticipation of a kid on Christmas morning. She was loving this with every fiber of her being.

"Stargate is away," she announced proudly a moment later.

"Let's get back up to the Pel'tac, Carter," Jack ordered.

As they strode purposefully back up the halls towards the others, the ship shook from an explosion, and then another, and another. Jack's face went taut and he broke into a jog, Sam right on his heels.

"We're under attack."

The mission went south fast after that. The attacking Al'kesh had been hiding in orbit in order to pick up Tanith from the surface of the planet, Vorash. Although Apophis' fleet wasn't in the system yet, they were fast approaching, and Jack's precious mothership had lost power to the shields and weapons due to the attacks of the smaller, faster ship. They'd had no options but to send Jack and Teal'C out in a death glider to pursue the Al'kesh, giving Sam and Jacob time to repair the ship's critical systems.

While they were working on the damaged hyperdrive, the intercom sputtered and Daniel's voice interrupted them.

"Sam, I just got a 'mayday' from Jack."

Panic swept through Sam while she fought to keep her voice and emotions under control.

"What's going on?"

"I don't know. I just lost the transmission."

"Hang on." Sam turned to Jacob. "We have to go back."

Jacob began to disagree, attempting to explain to Sam how dangerous it would be to attempt a rescue, but Sam realized immediately how urgent this situation was. Jack and Teal'C would surely be killed by the nova if they didn't go get them right now. It was now or never. Sam cut him off impatiently.

"We're NOT leaving them behind," she stated sharply. Incredibly, Jacob looked like he was about to say no again, but when he looked at his daughter's determined stance, he finally realized what he was doing. Regardless of what was hanging in the balance, nothing was as important as the lives of her team.

After that, events unfolded like a whirlwind. The sun had novaed on schedule. Apophis' fleet arrived. Jack had been beamed aboard seconds before the ship entered hyperspace. He had been alone, reporting that they'd been ambushed by Tanith and his men on the planet and that Teal'C was probably dead. In the shock that followed his announcement, Jacob turned from the navigational console with fear lining his face, reporting that they'd been caught in the shockwave of the nova while in hyperspace and had been thrown four million light years from home.

They might never get back.

They'd hardly had time to process anything when Apophis' ship had appeared before them, also caught in the blastwave and attacked them again. They'd had to take shelter in the coronosphere of a nearby star, where the radiation would shield them from detection. And when the ship neared the limits of its ability to shield them from the sun's atmosphere, they had crept back out of their fiery hiding place to discover that Apophis' ship had no life signs.

Confused and wary, but in desperate need of new crystals to repair their damaged ship, Jacob, Jack and Sam had boarded the enemy ship to find it crawling with replicators. They grabbed the crystals they needed and barely escaped with their lives.

But it had enabled them to repair the hyperdrive. Then, the first bright spot in many long days had burst forth when Teal'C hailed them, weak but very much alive, from an Al'Kesh that had escaped the doomed ship. Overjoyed, they opened the glider bay doors and allowed his ship to dockonly to find that Teal'C had deceived them. He was under the mind control of Apophis and now lost to them.

Sitting in the prison of the ship they had so recently commanded, they had been discouraged and exhausted. But then, the Replicators, the nemesis of the Goa'uld, had become their unwitting saviors. The techno-bugs had inexorably sabotaged the ship's systems, making it possible for SG1 to escape. Finding Apophis and his Jaffa either dead or fleeing, it hadn't been too difficult for Jacob and Daniel to secure the Al'Kesh for an escape.

At the same time, Jack and Sam had headed out to retrieve Teal'C, both determined to bring him back to the Al'Kesh and safety no matter what it took to do it. Sam knew why Jack had so definitively chosen her to accompany him to find Teal'C. It was more than her reliability as a soldier, although she knew Jack trusted her implicitly in the field.

She had overheard Jack talking to Daniel on the Pel'tac earlier and knew he blamed himself for Teal'C's capture. He had needed her support as his friend, his partner, on this quest to bring Teal'C home. He was afraid of what he might be forced to do.

And he had indeed been forced into a nightmare situation, that of having to shoot his friend to save him. Sam closed her eyes and sadly remembered his stricken face as he lowered his P 90 after hesitating, then struggling with himself, and finally firing that shot. She'd watched the muscle in his jaw working uncontrollably, belying his confident stance. She had instinctively gravitated to his side in that split second of unbearable misery, sensing his anguish, knowing he needed her close, even if he wouldn't admit it. And when her arm made contact with his, she'd seen new strength flood into him. She'd remained close behind as he checked Teal'C for signs of life with a trembling hand.

Teal'C was now securely tied up in the hold of the Al'Kesh, recovering from the bullet wound inflicted by his C.O., still firm in the implanted belief that Apophis was his god. Jack was slumped on the floor of the small ship's main control room, staring dejectedly at nothing. The weary team was finally headed back to Earth.

Sam approached him carefully, well aware of his body language screaming, 'leave me alone'. Sliding down onto the floor next to him, she briefly touched his hand to get his attention. Before she could say anything, Jack glared at her fiercely.

"I don't want to hear it, Carter," he growled in low tones, sending a chill through her heart. He turned partially away from her and stared moodily into the opposite corner.

"Please, sir," she whispered plaintively, "can we talk somewhere?"

Jacob's hawk-like eyes were staring unapologetically at both of them now, a fact not lost on either Jack or Sam.

"There's nothing to talk about," Jack answered, his tone dangerously low. Sam died a little inside when she saw defeat and pain in his dark eyes. She guessed he was talking about more than the situation with Teal'C. She somehow knew he'd given up. Again. Given up on his command. Given up on himself.

Given up on them.

With a small nod, Sam somehow managed to get up and remove herself from the company of the three exhausted men. She found her way to the empty cargo hold and shut the door with a sob. She couldn't hold back the tears any longer.

A/N: Now don't get all worried.
I'm sure Sam and Jack will work it out, 'behind the scenes'.
Next: The battle to get Teal'C's mind back parallels Sam's struggle to help Jack face his fears.