General Jack O'Neill looked up from the sea of reports on his desk at the hesitant knock on his open office door. Colonel Carter stood poised for flight in the door frame, her lower lip caught nervously in her teeth. Seeing her there so unexpectedly, so beautiful and so his, sent a rush of heat coursing through him. He had worked with her nearly every day for nearly a decade, but now memory filled in what imagination had previously only guessed. He found himself for the first time completely unable to control his body's response.

"General?" she asked hesitantly, blushing slightly under his scrutiny.

If she could sense the direction of his thoughts from a mere glance, it seemed his physical response wasn't the only thing he was no longer able to control. Jack really needed to figure out how to get away from the SGC, and the sooner the better.

"Yes, Colonel?"

"I'm sorry to disturb you, I know you're busy." She gestured to the piles of paper on the desk in front of him as she spoke. "It's just that, I'm still technically on leave. And now that Daniel's checked out okay, I thought I'd take off. I promised Mark--"

Jack interrupted before she could finish her sentence and bolt out the door. Even slightly distracted as he was, he knew her every feature well enough to notice the slight puffiness around her eyes. He also knew her well enough to know how difficult it would be, even now, for her to ask for help. Physical desire temporarily forgotten, he made his decision. He'd be damned before he'd let her go through this alone. "Come inside and close the door, Colonel."

"Sir?"

"Carter."

"Yes, sir." She stepped inside his office, though just barely, and shut the door behind her.

He looked at her, straight into those brilliant blue eyes, forcing her to meet his gaze. He asked her, as gently as he could, "Do you want me to come with you?"

Her eyes watered over, and she glanced down at his cluttered desk. "No, I - I couldn't. I mean, you must have a million more important things —"

"That's not what I asked."

Carter looked up again, but this time with a new light shining through the unshed tears. Hope. "Would you…" She trailed off, barely daring to give voice to her desire after long years of denial.

He would take that as the invitation he knew it was. Jack bent forward and slammed shut the report he had been working on. It made a satisfyingly loud thump as it closed. "Go home, Carter, that's an order." Then, deliberately reminding her that he was now more than just her CO, "And you should probably change out of the civvies you wore yesterday."

Carter blushed again, only now with the slight smile he had been trying for. "Yes, Jack."

"Good." He smiled at his success. "Then I'll be at your house in about an hour to pick you up." She turned to leave, but before she could open the door, he added, "And, Samantha?"

She paused, hand on the doorknob, and looked back over her shoulder at him, "Yes?"

"Nothing is ever more important. Never forget that."

For one brief, glorious moment he was given the full brilliance of her smile. Then the knob turned, the door opened, and with a quick, "Yes, sir," she was gone.

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Jack had arrived at Sam's house almost exactly forty-five minutes after she'd left his office. After Jack waited a few more minutes for her to finish getting ready, they had gotten into his truck for the short ride to the hotel where Mark and his family were staying.

At first, they rode in the companionable silence grown so comfortable over the years. Summoning her courage, though, Sam finally broke that silence with the conversation she had been dreading, "I told Mark about Pete."

"Ah. I'd wondered. So, am I here as your CO, your friend, or…" he trailed off, waiting for her to fill in the rest.

"My best friend, Jack," she paused a moment before adding. "And my boyfriend." She couldn't resist smiling in response to his smile at the word 'boyfriend.' It felt so damn good to finally be able to say it about Jack.

He shot a quick look at her out of the corner of his eye, without taking his full attention off the road ahead. "Yeah. Boyfriend." Jack paused for a moment on the word, and Sam sensed something else there, some emotion he was still hiding, but he continued too quickly for her to respond. "And how did he take the news about Pete?"

"Okay, I guess. I didn't go into details, its really none of his business, and we had other things we needed to discuss. But I did tell him about you, that you and I – Well, that you were the reason I broke it off with Pete." She didn't tell Jack the rest, though he probably knew it already: he was also the reason she had been with Pete in the first place. Still, she couldn't help smiling now as she concluded, "And that you and I were seeing each other. He wasn't happy about it, but I think he accepted it. He seemed more upset about Dad's request to have a military funeral."

"And?"

"It was in Dad's will, so, reluctantly, he's agreed."

"Good. That'll make things easier. I talked to Colonel Santee and Peterson can host the funeral. He's already making preliminary arrangements. We could hold it at Arlington, but with Tok'Ra and Jaffa wanting to come, I can't see it working logistically."

She nodded in agreement. That much had been immediately obvious to her, as well. "Yeah. And it'll be easier to…" she paused, the reality a bit too fresh for easy acceptance, "To visit. You know."

Jack reached over the center console and squeezed her knee. She lay her hand on top of his, lacing their fingers together. "Yeah," Jack agreed, then he added softly, "maybe."

Sam understood. Everything was different now: her father was gone, the Replicators and the System Lords were gone, Teal'c had his new Jaffa nation to worry about, she and Jack had each other. She could barely imagine what going back to the SGC in a week would be like, let alone where she would be or what she would be doing a year from now. The future was filled with 'maybe's', but… She squeezed Jack's hand beneath her own. He was the one thing she was certain of now. The millions of 'maybe's' could sort themselves out later. "Yeah," she echoed in agreement, "maybe."

Then, exactly as if he had read her mind, Jack squeezed her fingers in return. "Not all change is bad."

She smiled across the car at him, and he glanced over at her, smiling in return. They fell into their companionable silence for the remainder of the trip, hands linked together in her lap. Jack only pulled his hand back after they had reached the hotel, to make the turn into the parking lot. The drive was over.