Notes: I was really glad to see so many people starting to figure out what's going on here, catching up to shiny silver grl, who picked up on the very first clue that was dropped many chapters ago. Speaking of shiny silver grl, you are absolutely correct about Sam crying. The other show I watch all the time is Alias, and on that show, Sydney cries in practically every episode. The difference in my head is that Sydney's usually crying for herself, and Sam's always crying for other people. Don't know if that makes sense to anybody but me, but you're right, I definitely should have made that clearer.

Warning: This chapter contains a death. It's not Sam, it's not Jack, but it does take place at the cabin. I thought it was necessary.More about that at the end.

Ch 10 - One Small Sacrifice

"You look terrible," Sam said honestly over her cup of coffee the next morning.

"Well, thanks a lot. Not everyone can stay up all night and still be bright-eyed and bushy-tailed…"

She raised an eyebrow pointedly. She was neither bright-eyed nor bushy-tailed that particular morning.

"Okay, so today you're not your usual… chipper… self, but still… you could go without sleep for a year and still not look as bad as I do today."

Sam sighed, studying him closely. "Did you sleep at all?"

"Tried. A little. Couldn't," he said into his coffee mug.

Okay, that was more than a little strange. He never had trouble sleeping, whether it was during an extra-long briefing or on the floor of a musty Goa'uld prison cell. She took a deep breath. "It's the fishing," Sam admitted, pouring herself another cup of coffee and taking it out onto the dock.

Jack watched her out the window as she approached the dock. "Okay, so if it's the fishing why are you sitting on the dock," he muttered under his breath. He was missing something obvious, of that he was certain. Still didn't help though, because he was still missing it.

And besides, she had said she liked fishing. And he had believed her. So she liked to catch the fish and he just liked the challenge of catching one, that didn't mean… oh. Wait…a thought… sounded a lot like Daniel explaining something important… and kind of felt like Teal'c whacking him in the back of the head too. Weird. Crap, where'd the thought go… OH! He suddenly burst out laughing.

The idea that had just occurred to him… it made sense but there was no way in hell Sam Carter could be that dense about something, was there? He set his coffee mug down and hurried outside barefoot.

He sat down next to her, very close but not touching her at all. She glanced at him as he sat down, but didn't offer a further explanation. Still, she didn't tell him to get lost or shove him in the lake either, so that was good. Time to see if he was right or not.

"Sam… I think I finally figured it out. And you're wrong. What I said about fishing… it's only about fishing."

"I really don't want to talk about it."

"So I'm right?" he asked, hoping he kept the surprise in his voice to a minimum.

"What part of 'I don't want to talk about it' are you having trouble with?" she asked, shocked at her own audacity. Hey, she may have thought things like that at him for years but until very recently she wasn't allowed to say them.

"You don't have to talk then, that's fine. But unfortunately for you this is one of the rare times when I do want to talk about something, and you do have to listen because there's a force field around us and if need be I can just follow you around talking non-stop until you've heard everything I have to say."

"Okay, fine. What do you want to say?"

"I don't know," he admitted. "I haven't got that far yet."

She looked like she wanted to scratch him.

"Just… what I already said I guess. It's only about fishing that I… think like that. I can't explain it. Well, maybe there's a way I can. Okay. Grab your fishing pole."

"I'm not in the mood to fish…"

"Okay. I'll do it by myself. I need a fish to make my point."

He got up and disappeared, returning quickly with their rods and the tackle box.

When he caught a fish, he thought about stopping but changed his mind. She was just as stubborn as he was, the bigger the demonstration here, the better.

"What are you doing?" she asked as he dragged an ice chest out to the dock, filled it with some water, and threw the fish in.

"Showing you the less-fun parts of fishing."

"Why?"

"Because we don't have any apples or donuts," he said absently as he cast his line back into the water.

"What does that mean?"

"Nothing. I'm just preparing for a demonstration. Go on about your business."

"I really don't think this is necessary…"

"I do. Humor me." She rolled her eyes but stayed there all morning.

By early afternoon, he had an ice chest full of fish. That would work. He went inside and it took him ten minutes to locate a filet knife, and another fifteen to find the sharpening stone and a protective glove. He took everything back outside and nudged Sam awake, as she had dozed off in her chair.

"Lesson number two about fishing!" he said in a falsely happy voice. "The killing, gutting, and cleaning. But first, the knife sharpening!"

He whet the stone and started sharpening the knife, being deliberately loud. "All right, now, if the fish are still alive, we just reach in here and grab one of these beautiful fish by the tail and… whack it in the head here, like this…"

This particular fish was already dead, but he needed it for the illustration and moved so fast he would have been shocked if she had noticed, particularly because she squeezed her eyes shut and refused to look.

"Come on, pay attention, you're doing the next one," he said with a grin, clapping her on the back much harder than he normally would have. She glared at him and he pulled on the glove and picked up the knife.

"Okay, so first we're going to slit him open, like this… oh yeah, by the way, if you thought fishing made you smell bad before… you're in for a nice surprise," he said with an enthusiastic grin.

He described everything he was doing to the fish corpse in great detail, making each movement exaggerated as he gutted and cleaned the fish. When he was done, he pulled off the glove and handed it to her. She looked rather green.

She pulled it on slowly, glaring at him so hard he half-expected her eyes to glow, and took the knife from him. Okay, maybe he shouldn't be handing her a knife when she was that pissed off at him, the situation had the potential to be even worse than irritating the doc before a check-up… he gulped and opened the ice chest, where several fish were swimming around as best they could in the tiny space.

"So, Sam, pick your first victim. I wouldn't go with the flounder unless you're feeling really ambitious; they're really hard to clean."

He watched her eyeing all the fish and said quietly, "This is the only reason I let all the fish go, Sam. This is messy, stinky, gross, and unnecessary, especially since Thor's doing all our grocery shopping. I did not mean anything symbolic by it. I just don't like to clean fish. Get it now?"

She nodded, the movement barely perceptible.

"Good," he said with a grin, taking the knife from her and setting it down.

"Can I please dump these guys back in the lake now?"

"Yeah. I'll grab this end."

They dumped the contents of the ice chest back in the water. Sam watched them disperse and asked, "Are they going to be okay?"

"Yeah. They're probably a little irritated, I bet we made them all late for work or something, but they're fine." She laughed and shook her head.

"Okay, your way of fishing is way better," she agreed.

"I know. Now, if you'll excuse me, I am going to go take a shower and then sleep all day long. Oh, and just so you know, I fully intend to use all of the hot water."

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Hammond picked up the translucent Asgard communication device and said, "Thor, how did it go?"

He waited for a response and Thor beamed in a few seconds later. "General Hammond. I regret to inform you there has been a casualty."

"WHAT!"

"I was not able to get back in time to remove the fish before one was used as a visual aid by Colonel O'Neill."

"Oh, so… oh. Okay. You scared me, you made it sound like… wait a minute. Thor, did you just make a joke?" Hammond asked suspiciously.

Thor narrowed his eyes and chose to ignore the question. "It appears you were correct. O'Neill and Major Carter seem to have reached an understanding, although they have yet to progress their physical relationship."

Hammond might have been okay with it in theory but he really didn't need to hear any particulars about the physical relationship between Colonel Jack O'Neill and one of his oldest friends' daughters. To change the subject, he said, "So the fish are gone?"

"The fish are gone," Thor confirmed, in that tone Hammond was coming to realize carried a silent 'goodbye' with it. Apparently clothes weren't the only thing the Asgard had little use for. They weren't big on saying goodbye either. Sure enough, Thor beamed himself away.

It occurred to General Hammond that he and Thor were managing to open the lines of communication between themselves a helluva lot faster than his soldiers were.

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More notes: Sorry if anybody was too offended or grossed out by the fish, it just seemed like something Jack might do to get his point across, so that he didn't actually have to say anything. It was hard trying to make it gross enough for Sam but not too gross (I hope) for anybody reading it. My brothers were very surprised when their vegetarian sister asked them how to clean a fish!