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Keeping one arm around the woman leaning into his side, Jack's mind was a mess of confusion.

Jack didn't like confusion.

Especially not in his mind.

Which is why the conflicting emotions shooting through him like sparks in an engine weren't really all that welcome.

He just didn't know how to kick their asses.

On one hand he had in his arms, after all too many years, the woman he'd been loving for years.

But on the other hand, this woman was engaged to be married within a week and he'd just been dumped by only the second woman he'd made a real, determined move on in... erm... about 30 years, now, ever since he and Sara had first started dating, if you count Sara in too.

Wow, 30 years. Since that day in the store when he'd met the young, blushing blonde who'd been eyeing him with infatuated eyes, Jack had come within a grabbing distance of happiness, after having divorced Sara, only two times, with Laira and Kerry..

The three months stuck on that planet had been too little for him to forget Earth and Sam, in order to let go of the only thing still holding him back. But it had still been a chance for happiness and Laira had been his age and he knew she'd wanted more children.

Another month or two of being stranded there and he knew he would've been then working on those children with her. He'd been so close to letting go and having another chance at life and family and having finally found life of peace and tranquility after a lifetime of killing, dying and suffering that it was no wonder he'd been less than enthusiastic about the arrival of SG-1. Having to leave the life he'd gotten accustomed to and begun to like had been hard, especially since he'd had to give up again the chance at happiness and go back to again having quiet, secret inappropriate feelings for his 2IC. Who was completely oblivious to them and Jack knew she wouldn't have approved had she known because they were against the regs.

She would've been horrified to know her CO had inappropriate feelings for her and Jack feared she would've been repulsed to know an older man wanted her.

He'd also always somehow known nothing would've ever happened between him and the blond Major. There were the regs, her career and the war, all good reasons for not getting involved.

Yet, he'd quickly forgotten that knowledge when Sam had confessed she'd cared for him, a year later, during their Za'tarc testing.

And then the hope had come to life in his heart, the hope of having a family and love once again.

Empty hope, he should've known better than to expect Sam to enter a relationship with him as long as they were in the same chain of command. She was a stickler for the rules. Whenever it fit her. And because of their qualifications they both knew they would've been in the same chain of command, the SGC, for many years to come. The command was too unique with too small a community, too secretive with too high clearance requirements to allow for normal rotation of personnel. You were there until you were either killed either turned into a host either crippled enough to be medically discharge or you retired.

Yet, he'd still hoped. He'd endured and continued hoping. Until she'd told him of the cop. In a damn ELEVATOR!

He respected Sam, but that was truly a callous and hurtful way of telling a man you know cares for you about you having sex with another man. By humming! Rubbing his face in the fact she'd gotten laid. And then even said "It's nothing serious, sir." which in his heartbroken and angry mind had translated into: "Oh, by the way, sir, I'm screwing another man. It's nothing big, I've just thrown away years of what you and I meant to each other out the window just for empty, meaningless sex."

'Threw away' because she knew that after she'd done that there would be no way Jack would forgive or forget it soon and therefore no realistic way of her and Jack getting together within foreseeable future if her relationship with Pete failed. Jack was the king of grudges and Sam had always known that. And this time he had not only been betrayed, but had also had his heart broken and his pride bruised, which put together was a terminal sentence to any chance for a relationship.

Yes, what he'd just said to her was true, he'd be there for her, but that didn't mean he would ever again be willing to enter into a relationship with her or let her get close enough again to cause him emotional pain.

He was a proud man and even if she broke up with Shanahan he would always have the bad feeling he was just a second chance, a safe bet, a fallback guy and no man, especially not a proud man, would want to be that to a woman.

Not after going through months of her dating and then being engaged to the cop. Not after seeing the way she liked to stare at her ring. Not after the way his heart had ripped when she'd first shown it to him and told him Pete had proposed to her. Not when Jack wasn't in the position to try to change her mind, considering he was her CO and she'd been dating another man for 6 months. Not after she'd told him she'd accepted the proposal.

That was the time he'd realized he couldn't go on like that, he had to move on, start living again and find happiness elsewhere. He had to let go of Sam... something he had never before expected he would have to do.

Which is where Kerry had come in. He now knew he'd been using her to let go of Carter and was deeply ashamed of it. He hadn't used a woman before in his life and was deeply troubled by the fact that he was capable of such a despicable behaviour.

But he wasn't all that bad. He HADN'T been with her for the sex (which was great, btw., that woman could bend like a pretzel and was amazingly responsive, not to mention generous), but had honestly thought he was ready for a relationship with her.

He wasn't the type to go around, having casual sex or one-night-stands with random women, he wasn't that shallow nor that irresponsible. Aside from all the problems such behaviour could cause, for his private life as well as for his career, it was also too dangerous, medically. Not even condoms are 100 percent safe and with all the STD's out there...

And if he did catch something and he somehow got wounded and was helped by someone wounded as well, or would be helping them, and his blood would get into that person's bloodstream... Then the infected medic would operate on someone else and infect them. And their patient would infect someone else. With a right set of circumstances most of the base could fall ill with HIV or other STDs. And those infected members who had sexual partners would've infected them as well. And those partners would infect others...

And Anubis or Ba'al would just have to come at the wrong moment when the base was infected and could not launch a defence and the humanity would be overwhelmed, either destroyed or enslaved.

One night stands and casual sexual relationships were thus not only dangerous to him, but also to others at the SGC and even indirectly to Earth and most, if not all, SGC members were extremely careful about that and were encouraged to avoid one-night-stands and have their partners have STD tests done.

Hell, the efforts to prevent STDs spreading around the base were also part of the reason why Jack allowed relationships within the same chain of command, if the two involved came to him to ask for permission. All SGC members were constantly having their blood taken and thorough medical exams were constantly being done on them, so hooking up with someone within the SGC was the least risky. That went for both team members as well as civilian contractors and liaisons from other agencies.

Which was why Sam's "It's nothing serious, sir.", sexual relationship with that dumb Detective puzzled him so. Sam had always known the score, what the odds were, how many times they came back all bloody and how many times the doctors had to operate elbow deep in their blood, even in the field. Which was why he couldn't understand how could she endanger not only herself, but also everyone else on the base and even the Earth.

No-strings-attached sex had not been his reason nor goal for entering a relationship with Kerry and he had consciously gone into this with her with the full intention of having a relationship. But even so he'd known there would've been no risks about a sexual relationship with her because she was clean. Otherwise the doctorss would've been obligated to notify him of any health matter and risk. And they had not had a talk to him about Kerry.

Even though he'd been a young man during the flower power, make-love-(aka sex)-not-war era and complete-sexual-freedom-and-utter-lack-of-morals-regarding-sexual-relationships part of the era, it had not taken to him. He'd been born into a strict Irish Catholic family, as had Sara, where they threatened with eternal damnation and Hell for sleeping with someone outside of marriage. He'd had a couple of girlfriends, with whom he'd done the petting and oral thing, but his first sexual experience had been on his and Sara's wedding night.

Sara was from a strict Irish Catholic family too and, while they'd lived according to the morals and regs that religion teaches, it hadn't stuck to them enough to really believe in superior beings or go to church. Even though they no longer believed in a god and were Atheists they had a strong sense for morals, which is also the spirit in which they'd raised their only child.

Which all came down to the fact that Jack was a traditional, in-private-life-strictly-moral man and while he no longer believed in Hell for having sex outside of marriage he would never have one night stands or casual sexual relationships.

He just wasn't wired that way.

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