I'm starting to think I did a disfavor to myself by posting so many fics at the same time. I can't keep straight which one was posted the last and which one wasn't. So, my apologies for long update intervals.

Just to explain something about the intensity of Jack's hurt and bitterness which you have already noticed: I'm building this on the fact that even though he hides it (not very successfully) and closes off Jack is a person who feels very deeply and is also a king of grudges. He hadn't forgiven, nor forgotten Cromwell even after 8 years and even after the man was dead for leaving Jack behind in Iraq.

Because of their connection, history and feelings he would take what Sam did even worse because it was a deeply personal matter and would no-doubt see it as a betrayal. Even worse, after he'd already resigned himself to living the rest of his life out alone she had then again awaken hope in him for love and happiness in the future, only to squash it with Chimera and Affinity. And we all know what destroying hope for a person does to them. Please also remember the ep 2010: Sam betrayed him personally and then professionally and he never forgave nor forgotten. He left the SGC and retreated to his cabin where he lived in complete isolation for 10 years, cutting off all and every contact with her and the rest of SG-1. He helped her only to undo what she had co-allowed to be done to Earth. The other source I'm drawing what he's feeling is also my personal experience that was exactly identical to Jack's, with the small exception of being in a not-really-defined-yet-committed-and-exclusive relationship for 1 year instead of 6 years. That's why I know what he's feeling and how bitter he would be. Trust me when I say an experience like that makes you very bitter about the person who did that to you. It had taken me a long time to forgive (but not forget) and expecting JACK of all people to do either or both in less than 2 years is completely unrealistic. Besides the fact that he has it rubbed in his face everytime her wedding preparations or Pete are mentioned and when he sees the guy. The only way he could quickly come to the point where he'd forgive her and/or when it wouldn't hurt so much anymore would be a lengthy total discontinuation of any contact that would allow him to move on.

I hope I explained my reasoning sufficiently.

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That stopped Jack short, even his heartbeat. He quickly calculated. 4 days ago, at night. His heart sank.

"You know, huh?"

"Yeah." Daniel nodded.

"Daniel..." Jack started apologetically.

"It's okay, Jack." he cut him off. "I didn't see anything. You two were sleeping and were completely covered. Besides, your love life is not my concern. You'll tell everyone when you're ready." Seeing Jack's frown deepen he quickly assured. "It's no-one's concern, not even Sam's, she doesn't need to know about your private life. Not anymore. She made that choice, by finding someone else, so whatever's going on in your life, who you're seeing, is just your own concern, not anyone else's. But if she wasn't with anyone else then it would've been her concern and she would've had the right to know. I just wanted to say I'm glad you finally found someone. It's about time you have some happiness in your life."

"Carter knows about Kerry." interrupted Jack, stopping Daniel short, still uncomfortable about the fact Daniel had seen him in bed with a woman.

"What?" blinked Daniel.

"Yeah." sighed Jack, running a hand through his hair. "Came by yesterday when Kerry and I were having a BBQ."

"Oh." Daniel was busy processing that. So, Sam knew about Jack and Kerry. That must've gone down well...

Like a rock.

"Yeah. And today..." Jack sighed, he was still having trouble coping with it. It had been unexpected and, he had to admit, it hurt. And he was also missing her. "... Kerry visited me just a couple of hours ago and dumped me."

"Oh?" this time the sound was different. It was more surprised, baffled and definitely shocked. Daniel couldn't imagine the woman who had laid in Jack's arms with such a content, even happy, smile on her face to dump the source of her happiness.

"Yeah, she said I have 'issues'." Jack even made quotations with his fingers.

"She was right." mused Daniel absently, completely missing the glare Jack sent him. "The question now is: are you going to do anything about Sam?"

"Daniel, she's still engaged, if you haven't noticed. Just as she was a week ago. Just as she was with someone else when I got my head sucked for the second time and she wanted to 'talk' on the Tel'tac." growled Jack, completely missing his slip. Daniel hadn't known about that before. Well, he sure did now... "Like hell am I gonna spit into her soup. If she decides to break off her engagement it has to be for her own reasons out of her own will and it definitely must not have anything to do with me."

"Jack..." Daniel tried, but the man cut him off.

"And, don't forget, I'm still her CO, nothing's changed. It never will change... I'm not gonna retire anytime soon and I'll always be her superior at the SGC. And for the first time in my life, I actually like it in the Air Force, I'm actually enjoying my posting. This is the first time the Air Force has put me in the position of being the good guy and it feels great. I don't want to lose that."

Daniel clamped down on his protests at Jack's words. His best friend had just faced him with one of the terrible truths of his own life, the truth Daniel had intentionally ignored in favor of the man who was a good person in essence. Jack's career had been black, literally, until the SGC, it was public knowledge. From what Daniel knew of Black Ops he also knew Jack's statement of between-the-lines of the Air Force always forcing him to be the bad guy was correct. From everything he'd heard, everything he'd read, he knew Black Ops were the bad guys much of the time. If all the literature and documentation on the subject is to be believed their operational zones are mostly continental USA, operating against it's own people. Eliminating security risks and plugging leaks is simply put killing people, sometimes whole families, because there is a chance or suspicion or proof they know too much.

Many accidents that happen to people in the know, or suspected of being in the know, are not accidents at all. A car crash is actually being run off the road, a faulty line is actually arson, botched robbery is actually assassination, a suicide is not really a suicide when the suicidee has hands bound with wire behind his carseat, like that scientist who had worked on the Philadelphia Project and wanted to talk to the writer Berlitz, and so forth. Just as the hit-and-run killing of that reported who'd wanted to blow the story of the SGC hadn't been an accident, but eliminating a security risk. Daniel knew that the NID, CIA, NSA and all other security/intelligence/counter-intelligence agencies, many of them even without names, borrowed military Black Ops for doing their dirty work. Jack had been in the Black Ops. Jack had done such work in the past. They call it 'wet work'.

He knew Current Jack and he'd known the Black Ops Jack (was the only one on the base who had known that Jack) and the last one had always scared the shit out of him.

But the current Jack, the Jack of the last 8 years, was a good person and Daniel had to wonder how, with being a good person and with having been raised by deeply religious Irish Catholic parents, Jack was coping with having done, as he'd put, "so many damn distasteful things" during his previous assignments. It was no wonder the man had woken up from nightmares every night they'd been off-world and Daniel was sure he still did it in the privacy of his own home.

But whatever Jack had done in Black Ops the man had redeemed himself. If not with his actions and deeds with the SGC, then by dying in the worst possible ways, through the cruelest and most painful torture human and alien mind can come up with. Torture that sometimes went on for days before death came. Acid, knives, castration, amputation, decapitation,... all that had been done to Jack by Ba'al. And not only once. Jack himself had admitted he'd lost count of the number and ways he'd died...

Yes, Jack had definitely redeemed himself and deserved not only the chance to be a good guy for once, but to have stars on his shoulder and especially to have happiness in his personal life.

The problem was just that the man himself didn't believe he deserved it.

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