Title: Though a Candle Burns…

Chapter: 3 of ?

Email: What if Daniel had managed to get Jack to ascend in Abyss?

Category: Angst/Romance

Rating: Teen

Pairing: S/J

Season: 6

Spoilers: Meridian and Abyss are the obvious ones, but anything up to the end of season 6 is fair game.

Content Warnings: Apparent character death (Jack in Abyss), nothing bad.

Archive: My Site: Yes

SamandJack: Yes

Anywhere else: Yes

Disclaimer: Not mine, sadly.

Author's Note: Want to thank all the lovely people that sent feedback. And to Jessica (Jessie88), you're right, I did think about having Selmak speak to the Tok'ra, both for the reason you said and because poor Jacob might be upset, but I decided against it because I felt that it was a personal matter more for Jacob than Selmak, and that he would want to question the Tok'ra. Its one of those things that I wanted to see both ways, just to see how it would read.

On the astral plane, Daniel was fixing Jack with a piercing look.

"What?" Jack asked.

"What do you mean, 'what'? Have you just seen something different to what I saw?" Daniel retorted.

"Daniel…" Jack warned.

"Don't try to bully me out of making you think about this, Jack." Daniel snapped. "It won't work here." He thought for a moment. "Besides, I know you'd never really kick the crap out of me." He smirked.

Jack glared. "Don't push it."

"Shall we go and see how Samantha Carter is coping, now that she is at home?" Oma said, forestalling the argument.

Sam was in her kitchen. She had been there since she got home, and would remain there until she was absolutely certain that there was nothing more she could do to her toaster to increase its efficiency.

At the moment it was lying in about eight hundred different pieces on the counter top. She was glaring fiercely at it, as though her inability to put it together were the toaster's fault.

Her phone rang, destroying the silence that pervaded the house.

Sam reached for the receiver. "Carter… Hi Janet… No, I'm fine… I don't need… Janet!"

She glared at the receiver in her hand before slamming it down on the kitchen counter. The plastic cracked.

"Great." She muttered. She looked guiltily between the phone and the toaster for a moment before turning and walking into her living room, where she sat heavily on the couch.

Jack walked around the couch and looked at her. Daniel followed him.

"She's been crying." Daniel observed.

"I can see that, Daniel." Jack snapped. "She cried after you died too."

"She can't fix her toaster." Daniel said, trying another tactic, "When have you ever known her not to be able to fix something?"

There was a knock at the door. Sam didn't move.

Jack, Daniel and Oma walked through the wall of Sam's house. Janet Fraiser was standing outside, still in her dress uniform, but minus her doctor's coat. She must have come straight from the SGC.

"Sam? Honey, I know you're in there!" Janet yelled through the door.

"Go away, Janet." Sam yelled back.

"Major Carter! Open this door at once!" Janet yelled back.

"You can't order me, Janet."

"I'm your doctor!"

"I didn't ask for your help, doctor."

"Fine!" Janet yelled. "Sam open this door before I go get Teal'c to come open it."

"I don't care." Sam yelled back.

Janet sighed and glared at the door. "Screw it." She said to herself. "I'm through being nice. Sam!" She raised her voice so her friend could hear her. "What do you think Colonel O'Neill would think about you hiding yourself away in your house, refusing to see your friends? What would he-"

The door was flung open by a furious Sam. "Don't you dare, Janet!"

"Then let me in." Janet said, unperturbed by her friend's ferocity.

"No."

"What do you think the General's gonna say, Sam?" Janet said quietly. "How is he going to explain away the fact that Colonel O'Neill's second in command won't come out of hiding because her CO is dead?"

Sam stared at her friend for a moment. When she spoke, her voice was a whisper. "What am I supposed to do, Janet?"

"Let me in."

Sam turned and walked back into her house. Janet followed her in, closing the front door.

When Jack made no move to follow the two women, Daniel said, "Jack? You coming?"

"We shouldn't watch this." Jack said. "It's not fair to Carter."

"The reason she is in this state is your death, Jack." Oma said gently.

"Oma's right, Jack. You need to see this."

Reluctantly, Jack walked through the wall, back into Sam's house.

Sam and Janet were in the kitchen. The two women both had their arms crossed and were glaring at one another.

"Who told you?" Sam asked.

"General Hammond."

"And you immediately came here?"

"No. I cleaned up SG-3 when they came in, checked the SG-5's test results and called Cassie to tell her I would be late." Janet said, her tone equally as clipped.

"Did you tell her why?" Sam asked.

"No." Janet admitted, "I couldn't."

"Why are you here, Janet?" Sam asked.

"You know why." Janet said. "Colonel O'Neill is dead."

"Yeah, thanks, I got that." Sam snapped, glaring at her friend again. "It was my fault."

"You can't tell me you seriously believe that!"

"I was the one that made him take that symbiote." Sam said.

"You saved his life." Janet snapped. "Baal killed him, not you, Sam." She gazed at her friend intensely. "You expect me to believe that guilt is the reason you're hiding?"

"I am not hiding!" Sam yelled.

"Yes you are." Janet said calmly. "Hiding from the truth doesn't change it, Sam, don't you know that after all these years?"

"Leave me alone, Janet." Sam pleaded.

"No."

Sam turned on her heel and disappeared out of the kitchen.

Janet followed her though the house to her bedroom.

"You need to me honest with yourself, Sam, or this will destroy you."

"What do I need to be honest about, doctor?" Sam asked nastily.

"Don't talk to me like that." Janet said quietly, but her tone was forceful enough to get Sam to look up at her. "I was there when Daniel died. I know what you went through. It was like you'd lost a brother. But Jack?"

Janet trailed off as Sam looked away. "Please don't, Janet."

"Sam…"

"I'm fine, really."

"Sam…" Janet said again.

"Go home, Janet. Tell Cassie what happened. She should know about the Colonel."

"Jesus Christ, Sam!" Janet exploded. Sam stared at her. "The man is dead and you still can't bring yourself to call him by anything but his rank."

Sam nodded. "Go home, Janet." She said again.

"Fine." Janet spun on her heel and left, slamming the front door behind her.

"Wow." Daniel said.

Sam was still sitting on her bed, twisting the corner of the coverlet between her fingers.

"I didn't know she'd take it this badly." Jack said softly, standing just in front of Sam and looking down at her.

Daniel snorted incredulously.

"He didn't know, Daniel." Oma said.

Daniel stared from her to Jack. "How can you not have known?"

"I just didn't. I thought she'd be okay."

"Sometimes, Jack, you are so incredibly… dense!" Daniel snapped, angry at his friend.

"Hey! This isn't my fault! I didn't ask to be ascended, Daniel!" Jack yelled, whirling to look at his friend.

Sam's head snapped up as Jack yelled. She stared around the room, confused. "Jack." She said, softly, disbelieving.

Jack turned to face her again. She was staring right through him.

She shook her head.

Then she stood and walked through Jack.

She stopped dead, the same puzzled look on her face. She turned around, so that she was facing him. She waved her hands through the air a few times, then shrugged and walked out of the room.

They heard her speaking to herself in the hallway. "Get a grip, Carter."

Back on the astral plane, Jack narrowed his eyes at Oma.

"She knew I was there!" He accused.

Oma nodded.

"How?"

"The same way you sensed Daniel Jackson." Oma said.

Jack remembered just after their first mission without Daniel, before Jonas. He'd been going to dinner with Carter and Teal'c. Just as he left the SGC there had been a breeze. Carter and Teal'c had put it down to a fault in the ventilation system.

He hadn't.

Daniel was watching his friend carefully.

"So, are you gonna descend yet?" He asked.

"No." Jack said, surprising his friend.

"Jack! How can you be so selfish?"

"They're better off without me, Daniel," Jack said quietly, "Carter's better off without me there."

Daniel just stared at him open-mouthed.

Oma smiled sadly. "That is not so, Jack."

"Really?" Jack asked grimly. "Prove it."