Thanks for taking this journey with me—we're almost done, and I'm finding it's tough to let this one go. But just so you all know—I don't write smut, so when this is all said and done, you may have to fill in your own blanks. Feel free to review, and I hope that you have enjoyed this trip through Jack's psyche with me.

Thanks.

Passing Out

He supposed that there was no possible way to have anything happen normally around the SGC.

The 'Gate had been rigged to explode again, Anubis posed to use the Dakara weapon to wipe out all life in the Galaxy—but a mere few hours later, Daniel had appeared in his office, naked as a jaybird.

And really, one of the most creepy parts about the naked thing had been Bra'tac's reaction to the naked. Frankly, it had make Jack wonder about the older Jaffa's orientation, so to speak. He wondered in a moment of further oddness if the Jaffa subscribed to 'Don't ask, Don't tell'.

Not normal. Normal offices would not have that sort of thing happen. Of course, what he knew about working in offices was exactly not much, but he couldn't imagine employees at a Kinko's having to staple paper together in order to cover up a re-human formed Ascended being. Again.

But the deep worry he'd felt with Daniel missing had been alleviated, and now all he had to do was concentrate on the remarks he would make at Jacob Carter's memorial service.

And worry about Carter herself.

She hadn't told him that she'd called off the wedding—Daniel had done that as they'd eaten dinner his first night back. In fact, she hadn't spoken with him since their embrace outside the room where her father had died. In typical Carter fashion, she'd internalized it all to the point that no one else got to participate. Or commiserate.

"She really didn't tell you?" Daniel gestured wildly with his fork, a piece of Salisbury steak impaled on the end of it. "Wow. I mean. I kind of figured that she'd tell you."

"She also didn't tell me that she requested a transfer to Area 51."

"So how do you know that?"

"General Hammond called me." He didn't mention that George had also hinted at a new assignment for himself.

"Why don't you just go and talk to her, Jack?" Daniel took a drink of his milk. He'd done nothing since his return but eat. And get dressed, of course. But mostly, eat. "I mean—doesn't that raise certain possibilities—her being in Nevada?"

Jack grimaced. It wasn't like he hadn't considered that.

"Do you have to give permission for the transfer?"

"They'd like my endorsement, but it's up to Hammond and his crew to make the final decision."

"Would you give it?"

Jack frowned, the little line between his eyebrows deepening. "It's Carter, Daniel, how could I not?"

"So stuff's changing."

"Looks like it."

Daniel chewed thoughtfully for a few minutes. He swallowed, then speared a chunk of pineapple from his fruit bowl before speaking again. "So I hear you had a little fling while I was gone."

"Hmmph."

"I met her in the supply room. She's pretty." He mumbled around his pineapple.

"Hmmph."

Daniel swallowed again, then put down his fork. This time, he impaled Jack with his gaze. "You have to talk to Sam, Jack."

"I know."

"You guys have to sort this out."

Daniel still had it—a knack for saying things that really didn't need to be said.

----OOOOOOO----

Mark came to the memorial service, with his wife and two kids. Jack watched, quietly facilitating, as they arranged a cremation with an SGC approved funeral home. They'd stayed for a day, gathering the few mementos left for them by the family patriarch, and then piled back into their minivan and driven back to San Diego directly after the small gathering of old friends and SGC personnel at Sam's house.

Daniel and Jack stayed behind to help clean up. Teal'c had returned with Bra'tac, both of them wearing hats low down over their gilded tattoos. Cassie and Craig were there, too. They folded and stacked chairs, wiped down the rented tables, and cleared away paper plates and cups. And through it all, Carter remained stoic, her face a pristine, emotionless mask.

Eventually, though, the chores were done, and the group found themselves standing in the living room, while Sam puttered in her kitchen.

"I'll stay." Daniel offered. "I've got nothing else to do. And she needs a friend here."

"Mark should have stayed." Cassie twisted her habitual lock of hair. She'd dyed it all one color for the funeral. "It's not like he did anything to help out."

"Cassie—everyone has to grieve at their own pace." Craig put his hand on her shoulder. "When my grandmother died, my mother went shopping. She called it retail therapy. We can't judge how people react in times of trial."

Jack watched as Cassie put her hand over his. He had to admit, he was kind of starting to like Craig. Maybe he'd even learn his last name soon.

"In our home, it is customary to sing praises to the dead far into the night while the fire dies down." Teal'c stated. He and Bra'tac had not said much—just offered their quiet support.

Daniel lifted a water bottle to his lips. "Yes, well, lacking a fire and singing, I'll stay with her tonight."

But they hadn't noticed Carter entering from the kitchen. "No one needs to stay with me." She walked forward, her eyes too bright, a plastic half smile on her face. "I'm fine."

"I was planning on moving back in, Sam." Cassie stepped towards her, wrapping her arms around her waist. "It's time, don't you think?"

Sam returned the hug without really feeling it. "Sure, Cass. Whatever you want to do."

"You gotta have someone here." Daniel sat down on her couch, as if that settled it. "You can't be here alone."

But Sam just gave that fake half smile again. She gently pushed Cassie away and held up both hands, palms out. "I'll be fine. Really. Thanks for helping out, and all. I really do appreciate it. After all this—company—Mark and the kids and all—I really am ready to spend a quiet evening alone." She moved towards the front door, opening it pointedly.

Daniel stood back up. With a lingering look towards Sam, he lifted a single shoulder in a partial shrug. "Okay. But call us when you need us." Bra'tac and Teal'c were already on the front porch, soon joined by Cassie and Craig. Daniel stepped in behind Jack as they made their way out of the house.

Sam didn't say another word, she just shut the door behind them.

----OOOOOOO----

Jack had dropped Daniel off at his rented apartment and then gotten home just as Cassie and Craig were on their way out to a friend's condo. He had his house to himself. It was too big, felt too empty. He retrieved a bottle of soda from the fridge and made his way out onto his porch, trying to escape the solitude.

As soon as he sat down, though, his cell phone rang. He rested his soda on the floor beside his chair as he wrestled the device from his pocket.

"Jack!"

"Hello, General Hammond."

"You should call me George."

"I think you can pretty much rest assured that's never going to happen, sir." They'd gone over this many, many times, now.

"Whatever." The Texas came out in his voice as he dismissed Jack's reticence. "The honchos over here have made a decision, and we'd like you to head East and be a member of the Homeworld Security team here at the Pentagon."

"Oh."

"There's a promotion involved—you'd get your second star."

"But I just got used to the first one."

Hammond chuckled. "Jack, we all believe here that you're the right man for the job. And it will get you out of Cheyenne Mountain."

"Okay—well." He really didn't know what else to say from there.

Apparently, Hammond had some ideas, though. "Jack, I just got off the phone with Colonel Carter."

"Yes. The memorial service went well."

"She said that." There was a pause. Jack waited—knowing that there was a shoe preparing to drop somewhere. "She said that you were helpful."

"I didn't do anything special."

"Jack—now I know that the past years have been tough."

"Nothing I couldn't handle."

"Jack." Hammond used the voice he used to use with delegates that didn't play nice. Like the Kelownans.

"Yes, sir."

"It's time. It's time for what comes next."

"And what would that be, sir?"

"I would hope that I wouldn't have to spell it out. You're a bright guy underneath the smartassiness."

"Is that even a word?"

"Do I have to make it an order?"

Jack paused, watching as the sun glinted briefly through the trees on its way down. It was twilight—the time of day he liked the best. Like early morning, it carried a certain melancholy, a certain hope. The day wasn't done yet, but night hadn't yet descended. He'd seen a hell of a lot of twilights just this way lately—alone, on his own back porch, a bottle of something on the deck next to him. Was he in the twilight of his life? Some might say so—but there hadn't been a lot of beginnings, lately—only endings.

Like General Hammond had said. It was time.

"No, sir." Jack cleared his throat as quietly as he could. "You don't have to do that."

"Good. I'll send a memo later in the week with transfer information." As if that settled everything.

As if that settled anything. "One question, sir."

"Yes."

"Me in DC, her in Nevada, how is that supposed to work?"

Hammond sighed, obviously at the end of his patience. "You're the hotshot pilot, son, you figure it out."

And then the connection clicked off.

He stared at the cell phone, willing it to ring on its own, but it betrayed him by keeping silent. Lightly, with his thumb, he dialed the number he'd dialed so many times before.

This time, it felt new. He misdialed, and had to press 'end' and dial again.

Finally, he set the phone at his ear, listening as it rang on the other end. He waited, eventually pressing 'end' again when it bumped him into her voice mail. He wasn't going to leave that message.

He dialed again—her cell phone. But again, there was no answer.

Leaning forward in his chair, he stared at the compact device in his hand momentarily before tossing it into the grass. It landed with a quiet 'piff' after bouncing once. Useless piece of crap.

"That'll suck to mow over."

The voice came from his left. He glanced over to see Carter standing on his porch. She'd traded the sleek black dress she'd worn at the memorial service for a pair of faded jeans and a soft-looking blue sweater. But the blue failed to bring out the startling color of her eyes. They were too dim for that, too hurt.

"I have a service. I'll tip."

She took an unsteady step forward. They had mastered the work place conversations in the past years—it was the personal ones that threw them. Her nervousness showed—his discomfort did, too, he was sure.

"We need to talk, sir."

He stood, thrusting his hands into the pockets of his slacks. He remembered that he hadn't changed—just flung his uniform coat over the back of a chair on his way to the fridge. He still wore the rest of his monkey suit—right down to the shiny black shoes.

"Yes. We do."

Jack watched as she moved toward him. She had captured her bottom lip with her teeth, and was rasping her palms against the sides of her thighs.

"I'm going to Nevada."

"I know."

"I've been reassigned there indefinitely."

"I know that, too. I signed off on it."

She didn't meet his eyes, but looked down, instead, at the white sneakers she wore. When she spoke, her voice was quiet—nearly a whisper. "Are you that anxious to get rid of me?"

Was that what she thought? He broke a little, knowing that she'd felt that way. He waited to compose himself before answering. "As I recall, you requested the transfer."

"I didn't really want it. I just wanted to see if you still wanted me around."

"Carter—haven't you figured out by now that I will do whatever it takes to see you happy?"

She looked up at him then, and he cursed inwardly when he saw the tears—the ones that had been so absent at the funeral home, at the service—they were there in full force now. "And you think I'll be happy at Groom Lake?"

"I thought that was what you wanted."

"How would you know? We haven't discussed this at all."

"What was there to discuss? I thought you'd made your decision."

She balled her hands into fists. "Sir. Please."

"As of now, Carter, we're no longer in the same chain of command. And this is a personal conversation. You don't have to call me 'sir'."

But she just looked at him, stubbornly silent, her bottom lip trembling almost imperceptibly.

"So what are we talking about here—Groom Lake, or the rest of this whole mess?"

Still, she didn't speak.

"Sam."

"There's just too much. Too much has happened." She was back to rubbing her palms.

"It's not necessary to rehash it all, is it?"

"When I came here that afternoon—and she was here, I was angry—and so—." She paused, her hand rising to rest at her midsection. "It was painful."

Kerry. They were talking about Kerry. He took a deep breath. "Carter, I'm sorry you were hurt."

She wiped at her eyes with her fingertips, taking a step sideways. "I'd come here to talk—about us—about everything. To see if I was doing the right thing. And I interrupted what—a date? An affair?"

"Sam." Jack removed his hands from his pockets, spread them to her in supplication. "Do you really want to do this?'

But she barreled on. "You said that you cared for me. You told me always. Was that before or after you jumped into bed with her?"

He shook his head in disbelief. He knew that she'd essentially buried her father today. He was trying to be sensitive to that, but she wasn't making sense. "Sam. Listen—there's too much to—" he faltered.

"Maybe it was all a lie. One of your jokes."

"Do you really think that?"

"I don't know—you've never given me any reason to think otherwise."

O'Neill just stared at her. He teetered on the precipice of true anger. He breathed in deeply, through his nose, his lips tight. But he'd been hurt, too, and it bubbled over. "Carter, don't pin this on me. I'm not the one that wanted to leave it in the room."

"But that's just an excuse, isn't it? You've been using that one for years."

"Carter—what do you want me to say?" His voice was rising, he knew it, but was incapable of controlling it. "Both of us have screwed up our chances."

She shook her head violently. The hand on her midsection rose and gestured at him. "I tried to ask you if you wanted—us—if you wanted to be with me. You're the one that told me you didn't want me."

"I've never not wanted you!" Jack nearly threw his hands in the air. "I've spent years wanting to be with you—wanting to be able to be with you!"

"Then why didn't you do something about it? And don't preach to me about rules and regulations, because you're pretty good at breaking them when you really want something!"

"You know why!"

"No, I don't!"

He bent down and picked up his water, fingering the plastic cap. He wished desperately that it was a beer. He needed the numbness of a beer. He didn't want to yell—didn't want to have this argument. Didn't want to spell out to the smartest person in the universe that he wasn't good enough for her—that whatever he felt wasn't good enough. So he uncapped his bottle and looked down at it, for something to do to put his train wreck on hold.

"Tell me, General O'Neill. Tell me why, when I offered myself to you—you told me that you didn't want me?"

He looked up at her—her eyes wide with what—passion? Anger? He couldn't tell. She was both of those things, and hurt, and mourning. He struggled for control. "When was this?" He ground out the words. "When was it that you offered?"

"In my lab—with the ring."

If he closed his eyes, he could still see her there, bathed in dim light from her desk lamp. He'd replayed that moment in his head too many times.

"What about you? If things had been different."

And he'd told her that he wouldn't be there. At the time, the words had just ventured forth out of him mouth, and the meaning assigned had been flippant—he didn't care what she did, didn't have a claim on her.

But in the past few months, he wondered if he had misinterpreted his own words. He'd just spit them out, after all—for something to say. If things had been different, he'd have been somewhere else with her. His cabin, another planet—another freakin' Galaxy—wherever—just so that they could be together. But the meaning had dimmed in the light of the fact that she was asking it from behind another man's diamond. From within another man's proposal.

He hadn't belonged there.

So he answered lamely. "I just wanted you to be happy. He could offer you more—"

"He's not you!"

"No. he's not. He's a good man—a nice man." Jack gestured with his water bottle. "And I'm not. I'm damaged, and old, and there are things I've done—"

But she cut him off. "And you think that disqualifies you from what? With deserving to be with someone? If so, then why did you jump into bed with Ms. Johnson?"

His dam broke—frustration spilling out into the deepening evening. He knew he was shouting—knew he was abrupt and curt. Knew he was yelling with anger dripping off each word. "You were engaged to Pete! You were going to marry him! What was I supposed to do—wait for the divorce? Pine away until you got bored and came to torture me some more? Carter—what do you want from me? Just tell me! What the hell do you want?"

She turned—ready to bolt. She took a few steps, but stopped at his words. "Not this time, Sam. You can't run away from this. Make a damned decision. Tell me what you want!"

Sam turned back, but didn't look at him. She stared instead at the spot in the lawn where his cell phone made a slight divot.

"What do you want?" Calmer, now, but still insistent.

She finally looked him in the eye—and it about killed him. She was hurt, and confused, and so very lost. He read that in her—as accurately as if they were still standing over a panel of control crystals in a souped-up cargo ship and he were still influenced by the knowledge of the Ancients. He knew her so deeply—because they were so alike.

She was damaged, too. She was tired, and lonely, and broken, and needy. They had both turned to other people when they should have been finding each other. Put duty and work before their own happiness so often that now it was a habit—a matter of fact rather than an anomaly.

Her lips moved, but he couldn't hear what she'd said. He stepped closer, could see her slight body shivering—not from cold—the night was warm—from everything else.

"Sam. All you have to do is tell me."

But she didn't speak again, merely walked forward, closing the distance between them, stopping directly in front of him—so close that he could feel her trembling.

And what could he do but gather her in to himself—hold her, breathe her, touch her, heal her?

So he did. And she sighed and nestled into him, her own arms gathering him, close, too.

Was it a decision? He didn't know. But she wanted to be there, and he wanted her there, and she was warm, and pliant, and tight in his arms.

And Jack supposed that for now, that was answer enough.