Author's Note: I separated the action in the different locations with a line breaker, to avoid confusion.
"You are distracted O'Neill …" said Teal'c, assisting him up from the floor for the fifth time in as many minutes.
Jack shook his head as though to clear it and took up his sparring stance again.
"Just thinkin' …"
"Indeed. That is worrisome."
"Hey!"
"I merely meant, O'Neill, that when one is engaged in battle, mock or otherwise, it is unadvisable to let one's mind wander." He proved his point by knocking him down again – this time a little harder.
Jack jumped to his feet and took off his helmet.
Teal'c did the same and they headed for the locker rooms.
"So … any idea what time Daniel's coming back to base?"
"I do not believe he intends to come back tonight O'Neill."
"That's … odd. I thought he was translating that rock that Sg-14 brought back from …"
"That may well be, but I believe that he is having dinner with Colonel Carter and is planning to devote his evening to her."
"You didn't go along?"
"I did not. There were personal matters to be discussed following Colonel Carter's change in status. I am not as intimate with Colonel Carter as Daniel Jackson is."
Change in status? Intimate?
"Care to clue me in here T?"
"I would not. I have already divulged more than is appropriate. Goodnight O'Neill."
Teal'c walked away without another word. Jack snapped his mouth shut and walked back to his office, bemused.
Teal'c stepped into his quarters to pick up his car keys, intending to head back to his apartment for the night. Before he did so he picked up the phone and dialled a few numbers.
"It is done" he said – and replaced the receiver.
He smiled to himself in the dark and headed for the exit.
Daniel left the study in search of Sam with a smile of his own. He found her where he had left her - curled up on the sofa, sipping her wine and staring vacantly. He sat down beside her.
"Sorry I'm such lousy company" she gave him a watery smile.
"Understandable …"
"I couldn't wait around any longer to get a life, you know …"
"Yeah …" Daniel put his arm around her shoulders and she leaned into him.
Sam felt tears threaten immediately at the element of human comfort Daniel was providing. She struggled against them. Daniel seemed to know this instinctively.
"Sam .. this is me. You don't have to be Soldier Sam here – nobody's watching. No military, no protocol, no regulations, nobody to impress with how strong you are. I know you're hurting. You don't have to prove anything to me."
Sam's silent tears escalated into sobs.
"Why did you leave Pete?"
Sam looked up at him in confusion
Hadn't she already told him why? It wasn't fair to Pete that she couldn't share with him all the details of her work; it was unacceptable that every time she stepped through the gate she might not return and he would never have proper closure; she might not be able to have children due to the naquadah in her blood … the list went on and on.
"Sam, none of these things are new – you knew all of this when you took up with him. Why did you let things get so far?"
Sam shrugged.
"My life was going nowhere Daniel. I felt like I was an empty shell. He gave my life some kind of stability. I felt like a woman."
"And yet he couldn't replace Jack could he?"
"Oh please Daniel … General O'Neill doesn't even know I'm alive half the time."
Daniel noted with interest that she hadn't denied his claim.
"General O'Neill ..." he mused. "Is that how you think of him in your head as well? Not Jack? Wow … talk about denial."
Sam's sobs wracked her body, taking Daniel along for the ride. He held on and pressed a kiss to the top of her head, absorbing her pain.
"And just for the record I think you're wrong you know - about him not knowing whether you're alive or not. He knows."
"Daniel … he has a girlfriend."
"He does?"
This was news.
"I called him last night and she answered the phone."
"Ah …" the elusive pieces of the puzzle started to fall into place in Daniel's brain. He was pretty sure the girlfriend was no girlfriend and that Jack had been supremely embarassed at having been caught with his hands in the proverbial honey pot - by Sam of all people. Which would explain his foul mood this morning.
Sam stood up and snagged a piece of kitchen towel.
"I think you're wrong about that Sam …"
Daniel heard his cell phone ring. He picked it up and looked at the caller id.
Jack.
Surprise surprise.
He looked at the time and smiled – took him long enough, he thought to himself.
"Aren't you going to answer?"
"Telemarketers … brrrr" Daniel said, opening the door to the bedroom and tossing the phone on the bed as he went back to Sam.
Jack O'Neill sat in his office wondering what was going on. Daniel's home phone had been giving a busy signal for the past hour and he wasn't picking up his cell phone. Carter wasn't answering her home phone - but he wasn't about to call her on her cell. He couldn't believe he was irked by this – but he was.
Against his better judgement he brought out his palm pilot. He activated it and punched in the code for SG-1. Three flashing dots came up on the screen – two in the same location: Daniel's apartment.
If Sam's cell was at Daniel's house it followed that she must be there too. Just as it followed that Daniel must have taken the phone off the hook purposely.
Jack turned the little machine off and returned it to the safe. He headed out of the mountain.
"Wrong about what?"
"About Jack seeing someone …" he said off-handedly as he refilled her glass.
"She answered the phone Daniel… at ten o'clock at night."
"What were you doing calling him at that time anyway?"
"I needed to tell him about a report he was after me to finish …"
Great, she was perpetuating the lie with Daniel as well, she thought to herself.
"Jack … was after you for a … report … and you called him at home … at ten pm … to talk to him about it?"
Daniel shook his head.
"Pull the other one Sam."
Sam drained her wine glass.
"Have you ever told him how you feel Sam? Because it is obvious to all of us that there's stuff bubbling beneath the surface here and has been for years"
"I've tried Daniel" Sam decided to come clean with him. "I think it's just me."
"I beg to differ, but go on …"
"I've thought about this a lot. I think I may be confused about what I feel for General O'Neill."
Now Daniel was confused.
"You mean you think it's hero worship not love?"
"Yeah. You know I've always really looked up to him. I learnt a lot being his second-in-command all those years; and I wonder sometimes whether that's what I feel for him – whether he's been up on that pedestal for so long that I can no longer tell the difference."
"Sam …" Daniel stood by the window, looking down into the street with an amused look on his face, as something caught his eye down in the street.
"Daniel .. I know he has this thing about scientists, but he respects me .. and I know he's proud of me. But I just feel like somewhere along the line I took that respect and that pride and ran with it – took it way beyond where it was meant to go and fashioned my emotional security around it. But it's all in my head Daniel. Regulations apart there's just no way that he would"
"No there isn't" Daniel interrupted harshly "because the thought of there being something tangible between you scares the crap out of him."
"What?"
Sam had been on a self-recriminating roll and was expecting anything but that kind of a come-back from Daniel.
"You want my opinion? You think he doesn't feel anything for you? Well I think he feels so much for you that he doesn't know what to do with it. As for the regulations … well … we won't go into what I think of regulations. I don't have the same military mind-set as you guys anyway. I would have done anything to get Sha're back Sam .. and you and Jack are both right here and can't get your act together. You're going to stand there and talk to me about regulations and hero worship? I've seen Jack when you're missing or you're laid up in the infirmary. I've watched him closely Sam .. and believe me there is nothing platonic about the way he feels about you. You're just too wrapped up in yourself to see it."
Sam took several steps away from him, unable to believe that she'd opened herself up to Daniel and he was throwing it in her face; taking Jack's side …
"I think I should go now Daniel .." she picked up her jacket and bag and crept towards the door.
"Yeah. I'll see you Monday"
He didn't look at her as she left.
Daniel switched off the lights and turned back to the casement.
The occupant of the familiar truck that had driven up a few moments before he started his tirade climbed out just as Sam walked out of the apartment building.
Daniel watched as he approached Sam.