*ring ring*

'Carter' I say picking up the phone in my office on base

'Hey'

'Hi Daniel, what's the matter?' knowing that he should be to busy to be ringing me

'Nothing. I just wondered if you had any ideas about what arguments I could use'

'I'm surprised you need to ask, I thought you'd be in your element' I say with a slight chuckle in my voice.

'You'd think, but this is really important, I mean this is our chance to get our hands on some of the Tollan technology, this could help us no end' He tells me what I already know, sounding wistful

'I know Daniel, but negotiating is your area of expertise, I'm the scientist' I state the obvious.

'I've been hard at it since the briefing this morning and my ideas are all over the place. I can't actually believe they are giving us this chance'

'I know, it does seem a bit out of the blue, odd if you will'

'Yea. Anyway I suppose I should get back to it, you know, clocks a ticking'

'Alright, talk to you later' I smile down the phone at him.

I turn back to my laptop, the higher ups want a write up of my particle generator, apparently it's a cool bit of physics that they are looking to expand upon, and even though I am managing to remain very professional, it still is the generator I built for Jack and hence it has some very painful emotions attached to it.

The briefing was unusual this morning and I don't just mean because of the invitation to start trading talks with the Tollan's that has been received, I obviously mean Colonel O'Neill, after all that's who everything revolves around at the minute with me, how childish do I feel! Sitting across from him was so difficult, but it was the lesser of two evils, my other option was to sit next to him, which as grown up as I am attempting to be I just couldn't do.

While I was in the briefing, listening intently to what General Hammond was saying, I could feel him looking at me. I got goose pimples, and I knew that if I turned and looked at him, I would be staring straight into those gorgeous brown eyes. I also knew I couldn't take it so I didn't look, not once. Not so long back I used to love just catching his eye, just quickly, not long enough so anyone else would notice but just so that he would, and he would know that I was thinking of the things we had done to each other the night before, the little fantasies we had played out. Now all I could think of was what he'd done to her, of whether he had touched her the same way that he used to touch me and I couldn't bear the idea of looking into his eyes in case they confirmed my worst fears.

So I got through the whole briefing without looking at him and haven't seen him at all this morning. This is so stupid I am going to have to face him soon, after all we are still both in the same team.

Some hours later I hear a knock at my open lab door, I look up and I see Jack.

'Hey Carter, watchadoing' He asks in a light tone though watching me tentively

'Just typing up the plans for the particle generator Sir' I reply in a matching tone

'Ah sounds interesting' he says in that tone that means come on ain't there a Simpson's on or summit.

'It is Sir. I created this myself from scratch and from what I can tell they are going to perform tests on it and set about putting it to the many uses there is for it' I explain finding the talking a little easier that I thought it would be

'So you ready for a break' he asks and I just look at him and then quickly look away, running my hand through my hair.

'I was going to see if Danny, T and you wanted to go to the commissary,' He added quickly. 'Knowing you and Danny you'll have both missed lunch, and Teal'c is always up for food. That's all I was thinking.' He says and I know he is just trying, scared of pushing to far.

I can feel myself feeling sorry for him, just for a moment and then I remember why he has to try so hard, because he broke my heart and I won't spend any time with him. But then maybe he doesn't want to, I mean the whole of last weeks downtime he came round once, and stopped phoning me after the first few days, and ok, yea now he is here in my office but he only wants me to sit with him and the rest of the team, he just wants SG-1 to be ok, he's only concerned with me because I am on the team.

And then for the first time a horrible thought occurs, maybe he fell in love with Laira, maybe I'm the one holding on to nothing.