A/N: Follows season 5 episode 21 Meridian and steals a bit from episode 22. Jack and Sam deal with Daniel's departure a little more. Friendship, Hurt/Comfort. Hardly a ship in sight.
"Carter!" Jack yelled harshly. He and Sam had been bickering all day and her last remark had just pushed him over the edge. Out of the corner of his eye, he noted the various airmen stationed in the corridor were disappearing hastily. Ignoring Sam's challenging glare, he pressed on to the real issue. "Daniel's gone. We need to move on."
Sam shook her head. "Maybe you can pretend that you didn't kill him and go merrily on your way, but I can't!"
"What do you I mean I killed him?" Jack demanded.
"The healing device was working until you told my dad to stop!"
"We don't know if it was working or not!"
"Now we'll never know!"
Jack sighed. "It was what he wanted."
"How can you possibly know that?" Sam retorted.
"Daniel told me," Jack replied, quirking his mouth and shrugging slightly.
Sam rolled her eyes.
"I know how that sounds, believe me. But as we were all standing there watching Jacob work the Goa'uld magic, Daniel transported me somewhere and told me to stop Jacob. He didn't want to come back here. He wanted to move on."
Sam didn't look quite convinced and that frustrated Jack even more. "Look, Sam, I'm just as pissed off about it as you are, probably more so. That four-eyed twerp just decided to head off into the unknown, the rest of us be damned. I'll never forgive him for this 'understanding the secrets of the universe' crap." Continuing in a much softer tone, he said, "That's Daniel for ya. Of course he couldn't resist something like that."
Sam had to agree and she smiled ever so faintly. General Hammond's earlier words came to her mind. I learned to live with it. She'd learned to live with sharing her father with a Tok'ra symbiote. She'd learned to live with the constant ache of working side by side with Jack knowing they would probably never have a chance to be together, not in this reality at least. She could probably learn to live with not knowing if SG-1 would ever see Daniel again.
Seeing Sam had cheered up a bit, Jack broke out his winning grin. "Come on. There's a parfait glass of blue jell-o in the cafeteria with your name on it."
Sam finally caved in and chuckled. As the pair made their way to the elevator, a gust of wind ruffled Sam's hair and caused Jack's unbuttoned blue shirt to flutter. "He's still a pain in the ass," Jack muttered. A bright flash of light surrounded Jack for a moment before vanishing with another wind gust.
"I'm still getting the last word," Jack said to no one in particular.