Author's Note – glad you've enjoyed this fiction. For a piece that was supposed to be a quick 1 chapter job it certainly seems to have grown legs and run away with itself. Thank you to everyone for your fabulous reviews and messages of support. There will be one final chapter after this but it's definitely not going to be up for another couple of days as I need to get some sleep! For all of you who liked the Monopoly, I'm still thinking about whether to do more with that (ie – a completely separate piece). As far as I'm aware, there is not a Stargate Monopoly already out there although I would love to hear to the contrary.

Same disclaimer as previous chapters applies. I'm borrowing everything from everybody who owns them and I gain nothing except pleasure from their use. If I could have a little more use of Jack O'Neill, please, that would be good.

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'So, Sam …'

'Yes, Daniel?'

He did his best to ignore the warning in her tone. 'Umm. Have you spoken to Jack recently?'

'You know I haven't, Daniel, so just let it go.' She picked the Naquadah generator up off the floor and heaved it onto the table in the middle of her lab with an audible thump. Daniel flinched as he tried to remember whether or not Naquadah was radioactive. She continued conversationally, without looking up from her task 'If Colonel Jonathan O'Neill has anything to say to me, anything at all, he knows exactly where to find me.', before picking up the alien artefact Daniel had earlier placed on the desk as an excuse for visiting her lab and hurling it forcefully at the closed door behind him.

Daniel barely managed to leap out of its path before it ricocheted off the doorframe and skittered past his foot. 'Right. Well. I guess I'll just take my …I have no idea what that was, Sam, but I'm pretty sure you've broken it!' Catching her eye, he decided that discretion might be the better part of valour in this case and settled for nudging the remains of the device out the door with his foot. Not wanting to aggravate her further he muttered a brief 'Okay then, I'll just be heading back to my lab now.' and slid around the door, closing it quietly behind himself before she could find anything else to throw.

It was ten minutes later in the Commissary and Daniel was half way through his second coffee, when Jack slid into the seat next to him. 'So how'd it go, Danny Boy? Did ya manage to persuade her to forgive me?' The tone might have been light-hearted but Daniel had been looking directly at Jack when the words were uttered and he knew exactly how much his friend was suffering.

Daniel went back to starting into his coffee cup and sighed. 'Jack, she's still throwing things. It's been six weeks and I think you might have to resign yourself to the fact that you really could have blown it this time.'

Jack slumped forwardacross the table, letting his hands flop over the edge and resting his face on his arms. His voice was muffled when he finally spoke 'I can't, Daniel. What the hell was I thinking?' He took a deep breath and leaned back in the chair, 'How did I ever convince myself she'd see it as a joke?'

Daniel finished his coffee and stood up from the table, taking a moment to rest a hand on his friend's shoulder.

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In his dreams, Sam was whispering his name. He smiled and reached for her but she moved away and he was too tired and too pleased she was there at all to try and catch her again. 'Samantha, honey, come to bed. I'm too old for games.' There was a giggle, which didn't sound like Sam's, but then the dream faded and he was descending into blackness again.

'What did he just say, Janet?' Sam turned to her friend in shock.

Janet had both hands over her mouth and was trying to muffle her giggles. Finally managing to exert some degree of control over the laughter, she turned a wide-eyed gaze towards Sam and deadpanned 'I believe what Colonel O'Neill just said was 'Samantha, honey, come to bed. I'm too old for games.', but I could have been wrong. Did you hear something different?' The tone was solicitous but Sam wasn't fooled.

Fixing her 'dear friend' with a wide-eyed stare of her own she replied 'No, that's exactly what I heard. And if I ever find you've told that to a soul, I promise that your daughter will be hearing the full un-abridged version of exactly what, or should I say who, you did on your prom night.' She smiled sweetly and watched the colour drain from her diminutive friend's face.

'Okay, okay, no need to bring out the big guns! He's just dreaming,' Janet put her head on one side and considered the sleeping Colonel. 'which is actually quite surprising given the amount of sedative we've just pumped into him.' Even asleep, she could understand what Sam saw in him (Hell, most of the women on the base understood what Sam saw in him!), he was a beautiful man. To her mind he was way too paranoid about getting old however. That his hair was almost more white than grey these days detracted nothing from his looks, in fact in her personal opinion it served to add a certain gravitas that merely enhanced his appeal if anything.

She also thought he was probably totally unaware that in a base full of barely post-pubescent jar-head and fly-boys with too much time to spend in the gym, his own brand of rangy elegance, combined with his complete oblivion to the effect he had on women, was enough to make him stand out.

With a mental head shake she reminded herself that all of this still wasn't going to be enough to stop her and Sam from hanging him out to dry. She allowed herself a small smirk before getting down to the serious business of removing his clothing.

'Sam, be careful taking his shirt off' she hissed, 'the cast only came off the day before yesterday so he's bound to still be a little stiff.'

The supposedly comatose man on the floor between them mumbled something that might have been 'Am not!' and both women froze.

Deciding that attack might be her best form of defence, Sam moved to stroke the hair off his forehead and whispered quietly in his ear, 'I know you're not, sweetheart, just close your eyes and go back to sleep. I promise I'll be there when you wake up.'

His eyes stayed closed but he moved his head against her hand in pleasure, like a large, sleepy feline. 'I'll go to sleep if you give me a good-night kiss, Sam.' Her hand stilled. She knew he couldn't be awake, because of the amount of sedative Janet had given him earlier, so she just wanted to make sure he was asleep enough not to remember too much of this at any later point.

Sam had always resented the fact she had absolutely no memory of kissing Jack the first time. The only information she had was from the eye-witness accounts provided by the various other occupants of the men's locker room at the time, and their recollections had been lurid and prurient on the whole. The discovery that he'd kissed her during the time-loop episode had stung not because she didn't think he should have done it, in fact she was honest enough to know she would probably have done it herself if it had been her in that position rather than him, but because it was yet another kiss she couldn't even remember being there for.

Without checking to see whether Janet was watching all this, Sam leaned forward and brushed her lips across Jack's before gently pressing a kiss against the softness of his lower lip. He moaned, so she did it again and his mouth opened beneath hers. She found herself tasting the sweetness of him with her tongue.

'Sam!'

Janet's outraged whisper brought her back to reality. 'What the hell do you think you're doing?'

Still slightly dazed from the taste of Jack, as well as by the furious attack from her best friend, Sam tried to defend herself. 'Janet, I never realised he'd taste like chocolate!'

Understanding that Sam was going to need much sterner handling if they were to be able to go through with their plan, Janet decided to let loose at her. She hissed, 'Let me tell you, Young Lady, that's not cutting it for me! I don't care if he tastes like Champagne and strawberries, I did not just breach several hundred sets of Federal and Air Force regulations, along with potentially my Hippocratic Oath, to drug a superior officer just so you could have your way with him on this floor!' She continued in a slightly more reasonable tone, 'You're not here to do that, you're here to make him pay for being a total and complete idiot and for being the reason you've spent most of the last six weeks camped out on my sofa in tears, Sam.' She paused for breath. 'Now, I think for everyone's sake you should just go stand by the door while I get the rest of his clothes off.'

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Jack surfaced from sleep with the realisation that he was cold. Really cold. And his bed was much harder than he remembered it being. He wasn't normally this disorientated first thing in the morning and for a moment he wondered if he was in some strange off-world prison, but when he opened his eyes it was to the familiar grey walls of the SGC Gate Room.

The relief was short lived as other minor concerns began to clamour at his brain. Why am I laying on the floor of the Gate Room? Why am I not wearing a shirt? Hang on … why am I not wearing … anything!

The full truth dawned just seconds before the PA burst to life and he was gifted with a gentle wake up call courtesy of his CO, General George Hammond.

'COLONEL O'NEILL! THERE HAD BETTER BE A DAMN GOOD REASON WHY YOU'RE SLEEPING NAKED ON THE FLOOR OF MY GATE ROOM'

General Hammond obviously turned away from the microphone without turning it off because Jack could now hear the general hilarity being expressed by other voices continuing in the control room. He attempted to curl himself into a ball, shielding himself as far as possible from the gaze of the interested watchers in the control room.

However he could still pick the General's voice, fortunately now returned to a more reasonable level, as he issued the order 'Captain Rice, would you please go down to the Gate Room and escort Colonel O'Neill back to his quarters?'

'CARTER!'

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