Filling the Spaces

Friends With Benefits, Blind Date, Jealousy

This story is set post-Shades of Gray and references another story I wrote called "Cracks in the Glass" which is set post-Point of View. In my head, the conversation that Jack and Sam have in that story is very much canon.

TL/DR:

"Because if I'm going to kiss a Carter, it's going to be the right one," he said. "And damned if you aren't the right one."

-OOOOOOO-

If Sam Carter didn't have bad luck, she'd have no luck at all.

She leaned back in her chair, swishing the water in her glass. Why these places served water in fancy drinking vessels was beyond her. Tap water in a wine glass was still nothing more than tap water. Sam glared into the glass. The waiter hadn't even deigned to add an ice cube.

Warm tap water in a crystal goblet.

If that wasn't the perfect metaphor for this entire cluster of an evening, she had no idea what was.

"I'm still just blown away at this coincidence." Eric shook his head, his jovial face relaxing into an even broader grin. "It's just weird, right? June and I have been at the same firm for ages—but the fact that the two of you work together, too? What a hoot that we happened to be at the same restaurant tonight."

Sam managed a smile at that. Her own description wouldn't have been quite that gracious.

She'd arrived at the restaurant a little late. She'd lost track of time as she'd analyzed one of the alien devices recovered from the dark ops site. Gunning the Indian down the mountain at breakneck speed had gotten her home with just enough time to change, smooth on some lip gloss, and drive to Le Fleur, where she'd found her date already seated at a table.

Only, he'd run into a friend from work, who was there with a blind date. Naturally, gregarious Eric had invited his friend Janie and her gentleman friend to sit with Sam and him. Sam hadn't really wanted to be there in the first place. But now?

Of all the stinking, rotten, damned-awful luck.

The Colonel raised his bottle in a semblance of a toast. "A hoot and a holler."

"What is that, anyway?" June mused. Melodically. She leaned forward, folding her arms on the table.

"What's what?" Eric and his friend had carried the majority of the evening's conversation.

"That phrase. My PopPop used to say that all the time. 'You'll have fun, Janie. It'll be a hoot and a holler.'" She leaned forward, folding her arms on the table in front of her. It didn't seem to occur to her that her posture pushed certain of her—assets—into greater prominence.

Or maybe it did.

Sam flickered a glance at the Colonel, who was taking a slow swig from his bottle. He didn't appear to be paying attention to anything but the beer, but Carter knew better. It was one of his talents—pretending to do one thing while he was really doing another. That ability had been on full display in the past few weeks, as he'd acted as if he was betraying his team and his country, only to actually be saving the planet. Again.

Beside Carter, Eric laughed. He'd acted the gentleman, rising and pulling her chair out to help her sit. But then, he'd scooted his own chair closer to hers, making suggestions about appetizers and wines, commenting on her food as it had been served and suggesting different items for next time. He'd offered bites of his own entree to her from off his fork throughout the meal, which she'd not-so-politely declined.

Who did that? Especially on what was ostensibly only a second date. That was third date stuff. When you had a reasonable expectation of getting more than a handshake on the porch step.

His knee bumped Sam's as he shifted on his chair. "I think it has something to do with owls, doesn't it? Because owls hoot."

Janie squinted a little, her full lips pursed as she considered. "But what about the holler part?"

"Perhaps that's from Appalachia."

He pronounced it wrong—with a long 'a' sound at the end and the rest of the word sounding like a kitschy statuette that grew hair from seeds. Sam looked down at the tablecloth and stopped herself from rolling her eyes. It hadn't been for the first time this evening.

"Don't they call small pockets of farmland 'hollers'? Probably derived from the word 'hollow'." Eric liked to do that. Display useless factoids as if they were worthy of anthology.

Sam had found it slightly endearing on their first date.

Tonight? Annoying as hell.

"Actually, that colloquialism can mean a few things." O'Neill stretched one leg underneath the table. His foot brushed against Carter's once—then twice—then moved away. He gestured with the hand holding the bottle. "It can either mean a short distance or journey, or it can refer to something that's a good time."

Sam dropped her eyes to her lap. Her napkin had made its way to the floor at some point during the evening. She could see it down there between her left foot and the Colonel's right dress shoe. That shoe, though—his whole ensemble, really, had thrown her. She didn't think she'd ever seen him in dress clothes that weren't a uniform of some sort, except for that Christmas Eve when they'd taken Teal'c to church. Even then, he'd worn a sweater rather than a sports jacket.

Tonight, he was actually wearing a suit. Dark gray. His tie was varying shades of blue on a navy background, his shiny black Oxfords looked as if they were new. He looked like a normal man out on a fancier-than-normal first date. And Jane, in her satiny low-cut halter dress and sky-high heels looked eminently complimentary to O'Neill's classy—although unexpected—suavity.

Eric's sports jacket was tweed, which Sam found more humorous than anything else. The last time she'd seen anyone wear tweed, it had been Daniel. Only—Daniel could pull it off. Something about his inherent geekiness meshed with leather elbow patches. Eric? Not so much.

Sam, on the other hand, was underdressed for the evening. She'd worn a skirt, at least—bought for Cassie's adoption party a few years before. Some sort of floaty fabric that swirled when she moved. Pretty—but juvenile when compared to Jane's sophisticated sheath. If she hadn't been in such a hurry, she would have rethought the sleeveless silk blouse she'd worn, or at least decided against checking her coat. The table they'd gotten was right under a vent. Sam had been cold the entire evening. That's how she'd lost her napkin. She'd spread it out on her lap like a tiny blanket, only to move wrong and send it sliding down the slick gauze of her skirt to land on the floor.

So classy.

"Is that so?" Eric humphed a little. "Interesting."

Janie swished her wine again, reaching out to splay her fingers on the Colonel's bicep. Her manicured nails made perfect arcs against the deep navy of O'Neill's sleeve. "PopPop told me that you were smart."

PopPop.

What self-respecting grown-ass woman called her father 'PopPop'?

Perfect ones obviously, with perfect family dynamics, and perfect relationships. Probably daughters who never worried that they were disappointments. Daughters whose fathers felt it incumbent upon them to set their beautiful, perfect daughters up with the good-looking next-door-neighbor who was also conveniently single.

Perfect daughters like Jane. She was beautiful—one or two years older than Sam, shorter, a hell of a lot more buxom. She was the petite, vivacious kind of woman who managed to make other girls feel brutish and clumsy without really meaning to. Exotic hazel eyes, dark hair that fell in a perfect sheen just past her shoulders. Perfect teeth. Perfect makeup. Perfect manners.

Just—perfect.

Sam glanced over at her own date. Eric was nice enough. Attractive. Mildly amusing. Smart enough that conversation wasn't completely banal. But tonight—in such flagrant juxtaposition against the Colonel—well, hell.

Sam was finding it difficult to remember why she'd even given him a second glance when she'd first met him the week before.

Maybe it had been the wine. It had been an exhausting, gut-wrenching past few months, culminating in a supremely crappy week. She'd ended up at O'Malley's, sitting alone at the bar pushing a limp salad around her plate and slowly nursing a glass of red. So, when this nice guy had intrepidly plunked himself down on the bar stool next to her and tossed out some lame pick up line that shouldn't have worked, she'd let herself be convinced.

She didn't drink much as a rule, so the single glass may have lowered her defenses. Perhaps that's why she'd let him talk her into a second glass. And why she'd accepted his invitation to dinner a few nights later.

If she were being honest with herself, though, she'd been nursing more than the wine.

She'd been nursing her pride.

"No, Carter. I haven't been acting like myself since I met you." He'd been standing near the control room, dressed in BDUs. His face had gone hard. "Now, I'm acting like myself."

And then, he'd left. Gone back to retire with Laira on Edora. At least, that's where he'd said he was going. In reality, he was single-handedly taking on a dark-ops crew of traitors and saving Earth's relationships with vital intergalactic allies.

So, the limp lettuce and the Cabernet had been a coping mechanism, maybe, or perhaps a crutch.

As for Eric? He'd been a distraction. A nice one for the past week or so, sure. But Sam found that his milquetoast blandness was quickly curdling.

Turning her attention to Jane, Sam schooled her expression into something acceptably benign. "I understand that your father lives next to Colonel O'Neill?"

"Right next door." Janie nodded, leaning forward even more. She tilted her chin winsomely in the Colonel's direction. "For several years now, all I've heard about is Jack O'Neill this and Jack O'Neill that. They both love fishing, both have ridiculous trucks, and my father flew in Vietnam, so he thinks that Jack's pretty much perfect."

Of course he was. So damned perfect.

Jane's expression was cautiously speculative. "And the two of you work together as well?"

"Yep." O'Neill had adopted a similar pose to Carter's, scooted back from the table, one arm draped across his midsection while he balanced a bottle of beer on his thigh. He kept his focus on the centerpiece in the middle of the table. "Same unit."

The woman in the next chair over perked up at that. "What kind of unit?"

"We work in Cheyenne Mountain, monitoring deep space radar telemetry." It always sounded more believable coming from Carter rather than O'Neill. Nobody in their right mind would look at the Colonel and think 'desk job'. Sam tried to sound casual. "Colonel O'Neill is my commanding officer."

"So—what—that's like your boss?"

"Basically." She passed a furtive glance at said boss. He still hadn't met her eyes. Impressive, really, since they were waiting on the check.

"So, that's it."

O'Neill took this volley. "What's what?"

"There's a tension between the two of you." Despite her sweet and shallow affectation, Janie was an astute observer. She leveled an assessing look between her date and Sam. "At first, I thought that you two were just bored because Eric and I were monopolizing the conversation with lawyer stuff. But now, I think that it must be something else."

Eric's eyes widened. Drawing back in his seat, he looked between Sam and O'Neill with a keen eye. "You know—I think you're right, Counselor."

"Voir Dire." Jane sat up straighter, all business. "Let's figure these two out."

"Let's not."

"There's nothing to figure."

Sam bit her lips together. She and the Colonel had spoken at the exact same time. And of course, Janie and Eric had noticed.

"Maybe we shouldn't." Eric picked up his unused spoon, turning it over in his hands as he scanned the table before shifting focus back on Jane. "It's pretty obvious that they'll be hostile witnesses."

"Not hostile. There's just not much to talk about." Forcing a smile, Sam kept her tone light.

"So private. So hush-hush." Janie narrowed her eyes at Sam before glancing at O'Neill. "The two of you are incredibly tight-lipped."

"Maybe it's a military thing?"

"No offense to either of you, but what we do is classified." The Colonel gripped the neck of his beer bottle between two fingers letting it swing slightly just above his thigh. "There are rules about what we can and can't share."

"Aren't there also regulations about you people hanging out together?" Eric scooted his empty plate towards the middle of the table. "Even at Brimley, Brimley, Duncan, and Cross we have rules about who the senior staff are allowed to date."

"We just work together. That's it." Sam was instantly aware how defensive she'd sounded. Pausing, she tried again. "I mean—yes, there are rules against fraternization in the military. But that usually only encompasses intimate relationships."

"So, sexual relationships."

"Yep." The Colonel squinted at his bottle, a tiny smile playing on his lips as he looked over the table at Eric. "That."

Eric's tone was edging more towards 'cross examination' than 'conversation'. "So, therefore, you should be able to socialize, right?"

"Of course." Why she felt the need to explain, Sam couldn't say. "We hang out all the time. Our whole team. All four of us. Or, at least, we used to."

"Used to?"

Eric had asked the question, but Sam's attention was on the Colonel. She'd hazarded a look at him, only to find that he was looking back at her, his eyes dark and unreadable. She wasn't sure what to make of that—but both relief and shock worried their way through her system. Before this past mission—before Edora—he'd always treated her with a mixture of amusement and admiration. But now? She didn't know how to interpret the look he was casting her way. She only knew that she could feel his gaze all the way through to her center.

It felt both foreign and familiar to be his target. She'd missed him—so badly—when he'd been stranded on Edora—worked so hard to get him home, only to have him look right through her as if she didn't even exist. And then he'd launched into the act he'd had to play for the Tollan and Asgard, pushing her even further away. She'd tried not to think about it, tried to let go of whatever emotions had assuaged her during his absence, but late at night, without other distractions, she'd found herself staring at the ceiling trying to interpret what it had all meant.

Trying to chase away the grief she'd harbored at what she'd lost.

"I've been away on another assignment for a while." O'Neill moved closer to the table, somehow divesting himself of Janie's touch without seeming to do it on purpose. "I just got back a few days ago."

"How fortuitous, then, that I happened to meet you yesterday." Janie dodged to one side as a member of the waitstaff took her plate. She'd ordered something elegant and light—and left half of it uneaten. Picking up her wine glass, she swished her chardonnay absently as she leaned on the table. "I go to visit my dad and there's this virile, handsome manly-man that my dad's always talking about. I was totally bored with the guy I'd been dating, so, really, the timing was ideal."

"Ideal." Sam sat up, scooching her chair closer to the table. She threw the waiter a smile as he tidied her plate away. "The Colonel, or just the timing?"

Janie touched O'Neill again, this time squeezing his forearm. Her lips relaxed into a grin. "Well, you have to admit he's pretty hot."

"Which means that 'hot' is your ideal." Eric stretched his arm across the back of Sam's chair, his fingers coming to rest on her shoulder.

"A girl has to have her standards, Eric."

"Since when?" He laughed out loud at that. "I mean—after all—you dated me for a while."

Sam's brows rose, and she shot a sideways look at her date. "Excuse me?"

Eric snorted, angling towards Sam even as he raised his wine glass. "It didn't last long, and we were never really together."

"We didn't really date, Sam." Jane shrugged. "Let's just say that we were friends with benefits."

"It was on one of those schmoozy professional conference cruises." Eric grinned, remembering. "Janie and I were the only ones there who were single—"

"And not disgusting—"

"Or ancient." He looked over at Sam. Sheepishly, maybe, or just embarrassed. "We got bored and there was a lot of alcohol involved."

"What can I say? I'm a modern woman." Jane patted the Colonel on the arm. "Only—don't tell PopPop. He still thinks I'm a lily-white virgin."

O'Neill lifted the corner of his mouth in what might have been termed a smile. "Your secret's safe with me."

"So, what do you say, Jack?" Jane removed her napkin from her lap, folding it neatly before placing it on the table in front of her. Resting her elbow on the table, she narrowed a look at the man beside her. "Let's go somewhere else for dessert."

"Even better." Eric's palm was light against Sam's shoulder. "I know of a great little jazz place a few blocks from here. Great cocktails—live music. We could make a night of it."

Sam sat up straight, shaking her head as she moved her chair away from the table. "I'm sorry, Eric. I've got to get home. I've got an early morning briefing."

"We both do." O'Neill gestured towards the waiter, asking for the check. "Maybe another time."

—-OOOOOOO—-

"Well, that was awkward."

He'd shown up quietly, coming around the side of her little house to stop at the foot of her porch steps. It felt a little like deja vu. He'd come here a few months ago. After he'd saved another Earth in an alternate reality. After Sam had watched him kiss Dr. Carter-O'Neill goodbye on her side of the quantum mirror. Sam had fled the Mountain, escaping to this exact spot on her porch to watch the sun set.

And here he was again. Fresh off a date with another woman. Judging by the fact that he was still wearing his suit, he'd most likely just dropped Jane off at her apartment.

Awkward? Hell, yes.

"Kind of." She gathered the quilt more tightly around her body, tucking it around her toes. It was frigid outside, but she'd needed it—needed the fresh air and night sky. Needed to look up at the stars to help clear her head after the muddle that the evening had made in it. Find her center. Quiet the doubts and misgivings roiling around in her soul.

His voice was low, but earnest. "I had no idea that you'd be there tonight."

"I can't imagine how you could have known, Sir."

"I didn't know that you were dating anyone."

She watched as he stepped nearer, as he stopped at the bottom of the stairs opposite her. She was sitting on the top step, leaning against the rickety railing. In the light filtering through the kitchen window behind her, she could barely make out his features. His eyes—still shuttered—seemed fathomless as they studied her. She looked away—suddenly, and ridiculously—self conscious. "I wasn't, really."

"Wasn't?"

"It was only the second time I'd seen him." She tangled her fingers in the fabric of the quilt. "And I'm not interested in seeing him again."

O'Neill shoved his hands into the pockets of his slacks. He'd loosened his tie, unbuttoned the top button of his dress shirt. He'd checked a coat at the restaurant, but he wasn't wearing it now–it was most likely still in his truck.

Sam hadn't heard him ring her doorbell, but that wasn't unusual. He had probably seen the light in the kitchen and come around to the back rather than continue knocking up front. He'd done it before. He knew her habits. Knew where she liked to think. Even at midnight in the chill of a Colorado Springs February.

"So, a briefing, huh?"

It had been an excuse, and of course, O'Neill had known that. "Too obvious?"

"Just obvious enough, I think."

Sam grimaced. "I just really wanted to get out of there."

He murmured an assent, looking down at where his shiny shoes made indentations in the dead grass. "Me, too."

It hadn't snowed much this winter, but it had rained copiously. As a result, Sam's yard wasn't as much dry, dead grass as it was wet, muddy, dead grass. She hadn't ventured further than her porch since New Year's Day, when she'd pitched her withered Christmas tree in the trash, a chore that had left her with dirty, sodden slippers and cold feet. She'd wisely kept to her tiny porch ever since.

Carter cast a furtive glance towards the detached garage just to the west, where she'd stowed her patio furniture a few winters before. Internally, she chided herself once again for never having gotten it back out. Despite the quilt, her butt was cold on the hard wooden slats of the porch.

But she digressed. "Didn't you like her?"

"Who, Jane?" O'Neill tapped at the bottom step of her porch with the toe of his Oxford. "She was alright."

"She was beautiful. Funny. A great conversationalist."

"She was." But his tone said that he was unimpressed. He looked at Carter, his expression carefully bland. "Eric seemed nice. Smart. Successful. Moderately interesting."

"He was." Sam dipped her chin towards the quilt, pressing her nose to the patchwork.

"But?"

Carter raised her brows, turning his question back at him. "But?"

He let out a strangled breath, climbing onto the bottom stair. "If he was so great, why don't you want to see him again?"

"If Jane was so great, why don't you want to see her again?"

Slowly, he took another step. Then another. He was standing on the step below hers, now, his back against the rail opposite her. His hands made tight fists in his pockets. His deep eyes found hers through the darkness. "I think that you and I both know that it wouldn't have been fair."

It almost hurt, to be caught by his gaze. Pierced to her core. And all of a sudden, all she could remember was the feel of him against her, his hands on her throat, her cheek, her back, as he'd kissed her five months ago. The taste of him, his smell. How easily he'd filled every bit of her emptiness and left her wanting the impossible.

She'd thought she'd moved past it. Thought she'd accepted what had to be. What couldn't be. She'd thought that there had been some understanding between them. She'd thought—well, damn it, she'd thought wrong. Allowing her eyes to drift closed, she fought through the memories, the images tumbling through her head like a river current over boulders.

"So, what is fair, Sir?" Sam's toes curled around the lip of the step. "Was Edora fair? And what happened after Edora—was that fair?"

"Carter—"

"Because it didn't feel fair, Sir." Her voice tasted bitter in her throat. "When I practically killed myself getting you home and you turned around and betrayed me."

He turned away from her, scanning the yard briefly before looking down at where his shoes were dark forms against the pale white of her porch steps. "I didn't betray you."

"Logically, I know that." Sam ducked her chin, brushing her cheek against the softness of the fabric encircling her. "Intellectually, I know that."

Silence stretched between them—the darkness making them feel closer. Making the porch feel intimate rather than out in the open. Sam loosened the quilt at her throat, wriggling her shoulders to free her arms. Her fingers instantly ached in the cold. But just now, that pain was more welcome than the other ache assailing her. The one closer to her heart.

"But?"

"But nothing." She shook her head, turning her face into the breeze. At least the brisk wind would give her an excuse for the wetness that threatened behind her eyelids. She swallowed hard—then sniffled, then sighed. "There's nothing more to say, is there?"

Nothing to feel. At least—nothing that she was allowed to feel.

"I think that you and I also both know that's a crock." He slid towards her, so that his shoes were next to the quilt covering her. Tugging his hands free of his pockets, he indicated the spot next to her. "May I?"

She hesitated for a breath, then tilted herself up and pulled the quilt out from underneath her. Lifting the edge, she extended it in invitation. Foolhardy. Stupid, even, to share warmth with him.

Still, when he sat, she reached around to tuck the quilt around his back, feeling what—relieved? gratified?—when he scooched closer to her and pulled the quilt around to cocoon around them both. He was wearing cologne—something else that was new. Sandalwood and a hint of citrus, when she'd never known him to smell like anything but him.

"Thank you."

"It's cold, Sir." As if that could explain away her immediate capitulation.

This—this closeness—should have been anything other than comfortable, but instead it felt right. As if the porch, the night, and her quilt had lacked nothing but his presence to become perfection.

Damn that luck, too. That the one person who could make her space in the world feel like home was also the one person who wasn't allowed to live there.

"For what it's worth, Carter, I'm sorry." The Colonel angled his head towards her without looking at her. He spoke down to where the quilt overlapped between their bodies. "Daniel and Teal'c told me what you did—how hard you worked to bring me home. I haven't told you how much I appreciate it. I owe you."

"You don't owe me anything." She was too quick to dismiss him, but she flailed forward, anyway. "I was just doing my job."

"I owe you everything." His voice gritted through the space between them. "Without you—well, I'd still be there. Still miserable. Still hating myself for—well, for the whole damned situation."

"I thought you'd want to come home." Sam futzed with the quilt, tucking it back around her bare feet. "But when I got there, you seemed happy. You'd built something there. With the village. With her."

"I didn't want any of it." He raised his free hand to scratch at the shadow on his chin. "I just wanted to be here."

"Then why—" She didn't need to finish the question. They both knew what it was.

"Because I'd lost everything, Carter. My life here. My team. Everything. Everything was just gone." He clenched his jaw, remembering. His entire body went tense. "I kept hoping that I'd get a radio signal. That the 'Gate was active underground. Any kind of sign that I hadn't been left there to rot. I worked in the village during the day, and spent hours every night trying to dig up the 'Gate. It was exhausting and infuriating. But in the end, I got nothing. The job seemed impossible. Was impossible."

"You had to know that we wouldn't give up."

"I hoped you wouldn't."

"Then why—" She stopped herself again, hesitant.

"Why did I sleep with her?" He covered his eyes with his hand, sighing heavily. "Is that what you want to know?"

"I don't have the right to ask that, Sir."

Sir.

Sir.

For the longest time, he merely sat and glared out into the quagmire that was her yard. His lips, his expression—his entire being tight. When he finally spoke, his words were reedy and thin. "Yes, you do. Although you may not like the answer."

"Then I won't ask it."

O'Neill raked a hand through his hair, groaning a little in frustration, or maybe in pain. "I lost hope, Carter. I lost faith that I mattered anymore."

"Of course you mattered."

"In our world, people are expendable. I've been deemed an acceptable loss a few times. I thought it had happened again." He moved a shoulder. A shrug, or just acquiescence—that was unclear. "And after so long—I didn't expect to ever hear from home again. From any of you."

His thigh, his shoulder, were solid against hers. She hadn't changed when she'd gotten home, and the stiff fabric of his suit coat rubbed against the bare skin of her arm. She could feel the subtle play of his thigh muscle through the gauzy fabric of her skirt—could see this man as Jane had seen him—as he appeared to strangers. Virile, handsome, masculine. But Sam knew him in ways that Jane never could. His compassion, his humor, his innate sense of honor and integrity. His courage. His strength.

Carter could not conceive of a moment—a single millisecond—when this man would not be vital to her existence. When she wouldn't move the heavens and earths in every galaxy in the universe to bring him home to her.

"You have never been, and never will be, expendable to me, Sir."

He stilled. Expectant, unsure. "Not even when I've hurt you?"

"It was the situation that hurt, Sir." She turned to look at him, and again was struck at the intensity of his eyes on her. "It was seeing you there, with—her. And then being cut out of the other mission as if I weren't good enough, somehow. As if I were no longer necessary."

He merely waited, knowing that she had more to say.

"Teal'c broke through on Edora expecting to see you working to get home, and instead we found you happily making a new home for yourself. I thought you'd welcome us with open arms, and you almost seemed disappointed to see us."

Somewhere beyond the little house, a car wended its way through her neighborhood, its engine cutting through the relative peace of the night. It cut a bit of the tension, too. Offered a buffer from the moment.

"I was ashamed of myself, Carter." The Colonel smiled down at the quilt, but the expression was humorless. "I was disappointed in myself for what I'd allowed to happen. For being weak."

"Not weak." Sam shook her head. It was testament to her admiration for him that she could defend what had caused her such pain. "Human."

"I should have known you'd figure it out." Shifting under the quilt, he moved closer, his heat seeping into her body. "I should have—aw, hell."

Sam went back there in her mind. Standing on the path, watching him. Seeing Laira, her face cautious, yet hopeful. The picture had come to Carter with immediate clarity—what had happened there between O'Neill and the village woman. It had hit her with remarkable, devastating force.

She'd been immobile. Could only stand there as she struggled against the knowledge. She'd felt stupid and used. Like some junior high geek who'd done the cute popular guy's homework. She'd been embarrassed and jealous and a little angry. Still was, maybe. And yet, she still hadn't had an opportunity to resolve it. Not with the Colonel leaving almost immediately afterward to deal with bases full of dark ops thieves stealing stuff from their allies.

Sam pressed her eyes closed, only to feel it all again. The shock, the despair. The embarrassment. "Everyone was staring at me. Or watching the two of you. I had to shove everything down and try to act as if—"

Act as if my world hadn't been shattered. As if my heart hadn't been broken. As if I wasn't aching, hurting, bruised. She couldn't say the words but they were there. Implied rather than spoken. Hanging in the dark between them.

And of course, he interpreted the silence perfectly. "Act as if the whole situation wasn't FUBAR."

"That." She should have stopped there, but the spigot had been turned. Once the words started to flow, Sam found that they wouldn't stop without effort. Sucking in a deep, frigid breath, she shrugged, further roughing her shoulder against the nap of his suit. "And then, to be cut out of the dark ops mission. It felt like a further rejection. And I know—logically—strategically—it had to happen how it did. What you did, how you acted, was mission-necessary. What you said was appropriate for the situation. But damn, Sir."

It hurt.

His hand found hers under the quilt, the weight of it—the heat of it—welcome on her skin. "For what it's worth, I was chosen for the dark ops mission because nobody would have believed you going rogue. You're too good. Too golden."

"Still." Sam knew that she sounded a little petulant, a little small. "It still didn't make me feel better. I felt like I'd failed in some way. When we found out what was really going on, it made it worse. As if I'd been rejected again."

"On top of everything else."

She nodded. "Yeah."

His fingers threaded themselves between hers, lifting her hand to rest on his thigh. "I'm sorry, Carter. I wish it could have been different. That everything could be different."

He wasn't just talking about the mission. Hell—he wasn't even just talking about Edora. Sam could feel the callouses on his palm, the rough strength of his hand around hers. Could feel the tension in his body, the way his voice caught on his words as if he were trying to control more than his tone.

She tilted her chin downward, and somehow her cheek ended up against his shoulder, and he'd lowered his head to press his cheek against her crown. Switched the hand that held hers in order to insinuate his arm around her back—dragging her even closer against him, until she was enveloped completely by his heat—his body—his smell.

By him.

She simply breathed for a minute, relishing the feel of him next to her, the sound of his breathing. The beat of his pulse against her wrist. The fervid connection they shared.

"So, like I said, I'm sorry." He squeezed her fingers again, his thumb making a slow arc on the top of her hand. "I never intended to hurt you."

"I know." And she did.

After a long beat, he let go, placing her hand on her own lap. He shrugged the quilt off one shoulder. "So, we're good? Friends again?"

Oh, lord, how that stung. "Friends."

"Okay."

They simply sat there for several more minutes. The temperature had fallen to the point that their breath made little puffs of white in the air. The moon cast a hazy path along the dead grass in her yard, sparkling off the wetness still there from the last bit of rain. Stars—so many stars—littered across the blackness above.

Sam curled her toes again, tucking them into the hem of the quilt. Damn, it was frigid. Less so with him next to her. But she was already mourning his leaving.

He frowned, tilting his chin in her direction. "Friends with benefits."

Ummmmm. "Sir?"

"That must be a new thing." O'Neill narrowed his eyes, gazing off into the hedges that formed a border between her yard and her neighbor's. "I'm assuming they weren't talking about dental and a 401K."

Sam couldn't bite back the giggle. "No. They weren't."

"So, is that some Generation X code word?" A dimple creased his right cheek as he grinned over at her. "I'm a Baby Boomer, so I'm unfamiliar with these newfangled ideas."

"It's like a booty call, Sir."

"Booty call?" He frowned. "As in pirates?"

She could feel her cheeks grow pink. "When people hook up."

"Like you hook up cable, or the internet?"

"No—as in sleeping together." Sam tried again. In for a penny, right? She laid it all out. "Meaningless, casual sex. When it's between people who know each other, and not something random like a one-night stand—"

But when she looked at him, she saw that he was laughing silently, his shoulders shaking gently beneath the quilt.

"—and you knew what it meant in the first place."

"Yes, I did." He nudged her with his shoulder, leaning in to speak next to her ear. "But it was fun listening to you explain it."

She nudged him back. "Dork."

"Yes. I am." He shifted, shaking the quilt off his shoulders and repositioning it around her body. Standing, he tucked the thick folds around her body. "Warm?"

"Yeah."

"Good." He straightened, studying her face for a beat before pivoting a quarter turn and descending. "I'll see you tomorrow."

"Yes." She nodded. "At the early morning briefing."

"That's at three in the afternoon."

"Yep. That's the one."

Nodding, he looked down at his shoes, his smile bright in the darkness. Again, the silence stretched between them. Only this time—it felt different. Resolved, somehow. Or just filled with understanding. And yet he didn't leave. He looked up at her again, capturing her eyes with his.

"You said that it wasn't fair."

"Sir?"

"None of this is fair, Carter." His words were filled with quiet resignation. "To find someone—so—needed. To find someone who makes me want—"

"What?" She had to ask, even though she knew to the marrow of her bones that the answer would hurt. "Someone who makes you want what, Sir?"

He hesitated for a beat. Preparing himself for what he had to say, perhaps. Or maybe just feeling the night, and the cold, and what had passed between them.

"You have to know that I can't answer that." He was practically whispering, now.

She answered him in kind. "I know."

"But you also have to know that I want to."

"I know that, too."

He nodded again, tugging at his tie with the hand that had so recently held hers. "All right then."

"I'll see you tomorrow, Sir."

"Yeah."

And for once, she was grateful for the night, for the darkness. Grateful that she couldn't see him clearly enough to read the expression in his eyes. Thankful that he couldn't interpret hers. Couldn't see just how much she understood what he'd meant by needing someone so much—wanting someone so badly—that it seemed as if nothing in the world would ever be fair again.

He dragged a hand across his jaw, scratching at the stubble there. Frowned again. Sighed.

"Good night, Carter."

"'Night, Sir."

And then he'd turned and gone, making his way across grass dormant in the winter cold, leaving Sam to wonder about wanting, and friends, and need, and hope.

And thinking that she might not be completely luckless, after all.