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Chapter Ten

Sam returned with the other cadets. She'd already taken her place in the line before Jack even realized she was back. He'd been expecting her sloppy uniform and that blinding, untamed mass of blond hair. What he saw was a squared away cadet - her uniform was perfect, her hair had disappeared under her cover, she saluted the lieutenant in a perfectly respectful way. Jack smiled as he looked on. She broke from the line for a moment, to look back and smile at him. He winked at her. He was too far away to see her blush, but he still knew it was there. And he couldn't help but feel proud when the lieutenant congratulated her on her performance.

When the cadets were finished, they filed away to head to class. Sam lagged behind the group, coming to a stop at Jack's side. She smiled at him brightly. "So, what's next, sir?"

He smiled, something he'd done more in the previous few days than he'd done in the previous few years. "I think my work here is done."

A hint of sadness tarnished Sam's smile. "I'd really like to come with you. Even if I can't go through with you, I'd really love to see how you get there." She bit her lip and hesitated for a moment. "Please, sir?"

Jack closed his eyes and steeled himself against her plea. He wasn't used to Sam asking him for anything. It wasn't easy to resist her. "Aw, Sam, don't." He took a deep breath and opened his eyes, trying to force all of the emotion out of his expression. He may have looked stern and uncaring, but his heart threatened to mutiny and take her along for the ride. He started to debate with himself - that maybe she was supposed to go with him, that maybe he'd need her help, that maybe without her, he'd screw up the timing again and wind up worse off than he'd been when he left.

"Jack?" Her eyes were begging him with an amazing bright blue depth that nearly drowned him.

The sun was bright that morning, lighting up her face in a way he'd only seen once before - the first time she'd ever walked up to the active stargate. He remembered the amazement on her face when she started in on the fluctuations in the event horizon. He'd had no idea what she was talking about, hell, he still didn't know, but he'd been blinded by her fascination for the moment. He'd been so angry at himself because of his newly-developed soft spot for a scientist, of all people, that he'd shoved her right through it. He'd never told anyone, but it was his favorite memory of Carter; the look on her face had been absolutely priceless.

And he knew right then that he couldn't risk taking her with him. He couldn't let her anywhere near the stargate until that day. He couldn't chance changing that day, or any other. He shook his head. "You and I both know why you can't come with me."

"But we might have already changed things, so what difference does it make?"

"Because we're not changing anything else, ok?"

"But you wouldn't know any different. If we change something, you wouldn't remember otherwise. None of it has happened yet. It won't make any difference." She was pleading with him, but he couldn't give in.

"Look, Carter, I know it's all in the future for you, but it's the past for me. I have memories I don't want to lose, can you understand that?" He didn't want to tell her the memories were of her; he feared he'd already told her too much about them as it was. "You can't come with me, Carter. Your place is here right now, ok?"

She nodded and looked away, trying to hide the tears that formed in her eyes. "Yes, sir."

He looked around to make sure no one would witness it and then reached out to turn her chin up to his. "It's going to be all right, Sam." He leaned down and kissed her cheek, watching once again as that precious blush swept across her face.

"Thank you, sir. For everything." Sam reached out for him, grabbing him before he could react and hugging him close. "I'll miss you."

His instinct made him give in to the hug, squeezing her tight for a brief moment before releasing her. "Nonsense. I'll see you soon."

"You'll see me, but I won't see you." She started to cry again.

He reached out and wiped the tears from her face. "No crying, Carter."

She shook her head and fought to regain control of her emotions. When she looked back at him, he saw the same way she'd looked at him a million times before - and he wondered how in his right mind he'd ever been able to resist it. He leaned down and kissed her on the forehead.

"Get to class, cadet."

"Yes, sir." She stepped back, biting down her feelings and saluting him.

Jack smiled as she walked away. He wanted to run after her, follow her, make sure she was ok. But he knew he'd already interfered too much. She'd had a valid point - that he wouldn't know any better if they'd changed things because his memory would only consist of the new things. He forced himself to turn away, pondering if any of his memories had changed. He wondered if the zay'tarc detector would know. He laughed at himself as he got in the car for even contemplating going back into that thing voluntarily. He'd have to tell Carter that someday. She might get a kick out of it. Provided, of course, that he hadn't changed that. If she was even still there when he got home.

"I'm never going time traveling again." He made the solemn promise to himself in the rearview mirror. "Never." It wasn't worth risking his relationship with Carter. She just meant too much to him.

The drive to DC took much longer than Jack figured it should have. He spent the entire time checking his rearview mirror for cops, maintaining a good five miles per hour below the speed limit, and thinking up convincing things he could tell people if he got caught. It took three days. By the time he pulled up to the warehouse that he believed housed the gate, he had seen about as much car interior as he could take. He'd never been one for sitting still for extended periods of time and he was ecstatic to be able to leave the car behind - after he wiped it clean of his and Sam's fingerprints.

The warehouse was in an industrial park, with the same bland gray bricks walls and padlocked doors as all the other buildings. The whole park seemed to be abandoned, possibly due to the ten-foot, barbed wire fence surrounding it, but Jack crept through carefully, just in case. Naturally, he had no trouble finding the gate itself. It would have been hard to hide such a huge object; they hadn't even tried. It was packed in its crate, sitting up just like it had been when they'd found it in 1969. There were, however, no trucks he could use to power it up. There was, in fact, nothing else in the warehouse at all. So Jack turned back around and started breaking into the other buildings one at a time. He got lucky in the fourth building - there were a pair of generators. Lugging them back to the gate took time. Carter had been kind enough to provide him with a list of times for the flares, but he'd already missed two and he didn't want to miss anymore.

He jerry-rigged the generators to the gate, checked his watch carefully, and then started dialing manually. It was a lot harder to do than Teal'c made it look. Somehow, Jack made it in time. The gate roared to life and he checked his watch again. He had a few more seconds. He checked around continuously, peering over his shoulder to make sure no one was creeping up behind him.

Finally, he decided it was time. He checked his watch one last time as he entered his code on the GDO. He stepped through, praying his signal hadn't gone to some other time, praying that Sam's calculations were right, praying that he'd still recognize his life when he got back to it.

He'd know in a second.