He doesn't want to waste time bothering with a shirt, but he saw the way her eyes had gone wide at the sight of his bare chest just moments after a pretty flush stained her cheeks. He's been a man a damn long time – he knows what that look was in the split second before her panic. So, he spares a half-minute to return down the hall for his t-shirt before following her out the sliding glass doors and towards the woods he think she probably disappeared into.

He stands at the edge of his yard in bare feet and shouts after her, "Sam!"

He can hear the snap and crackle of twigs and leaves beneath her feet and thanks goodness that while she did flee she wasn't exactly beating a hasty retreat. "Sam? Can you come out here, please?"

He shakes his head feeling like an idiot. "Sam, c'mon. I'm not wearing any shoes. Don't make me come in there." The footsteps stop. "I'm dressed." After a moment he hears footsteps again. They're a little slower now, but definitely moving toward him.

When she appears she looks both nervous and embarrassed.

"Well, that wasn't exactly unexpected, was it?" he says with a crooked smile. And that's when she starts yelling.

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

"I yelled at my commanding officer for not wearing a shirt," Sam moans after burying her face in her hands.

Natalie tries not to laugh but manages only to dial it back to a chuckle. "Sam."

Sam shakes her head but doesn't look up.

"Sam, you yelled at Jack."

"I know," Sam wails.

"No, Sam," Natalie says in her best teacher's voice and Sam looks up, "I mean, you didn't yell at your commanding officer. You yelled at Jack."

Sam looks shocked for a moment and then she slumps back into the couch with the revelation. "He's not my commanding officer right now."

Natalie waves that off. "That's not even the important part."

Sam raises an eyebrow.

"You've got to start separating the man from the uniform, Sam. The relationship you've had with Jack for the past several months doesn't have anything to do with the relationship you had with Colonel O'Neill for the past several years. You'll be doing both of you a favor if you don't make them interchangeable in your head."

When Sam doesn't say anything Natalie moves on. They can make progress on that front another day. "How're things going at home? How's the hand?"

"It's only been four days."

"Does that make the questions irrelevant?"

"No."

"So, how're things going at home? How's the hand?"

Sam sighs. "My hand's fine. The stitches will come out in about a week. You know we're staying at Jack's now? Because of the mirrors."

"Yeah. How're you doing with the mirrors?"

"Mostly, I avoid them."

"How're you doing with Jack?"

"I don't avoid him."

"That's good."

"I'm really angry."

"At him?"

Sam wrings her hands. "Yes. A little. Maybe. Only about some things." She says it all so fast Natalie can't imagine what that must have felt like inside her head.

"Things like sometimes he doesn't wear a shirt?"

Sam starts to shrug but then stops with a wide-eyed look on her face. "Actually, he's pretty careful to be dressed," she says with slow suspicion.

"That sounds okay considering your response to his being shirtless."

"No, that's not like him."

"So he's not all that modest?"

"Well, no. We're in the military. It's pretty hard to maintain a lot of modesty," but Sam waves off that line of thought. "Wait a minute, I'm angry about something," but she pauses like she's not sure about what, exactly. She stews a moment and then, with vigor, "He's mollycoddling me!"

Natalie swallows back a guffaw at Sam's choice of words. "Mollycoddling you?"

"He's walking on eggshells trying not to provoke me."

"Is that so bad?"

"It's so not Jack."

"He cares about you. About how you're feeling. It's not outside the realm of possibility that he'd be protective."

"Well, yeah, but even I didn't expect those feelings."

"Which feelings?"

"The ones I got when I saw him in the hall."

"What did you feel?"

Sam blushes a vivid pink and presses her lips tightly together.

"Sam, it's okay. Whatever you felt, it's okay."

Sam shakes her head.

"It'd really help if you said it out loud."

"We both know what I felt."

"It's okay to feel however you felt."

Sam shakes her head again. "No. It's not."

"Desire is a perfectly acceptable response."

"Not from me, it's not."

"Why not?"

"Because I don't deserve it." And just like that the fear, the anguish, the embarrassment…it's all replaced with a seething black anger that shadows Sam's face.

"Why not?"

"Because I'm not blameless."

"What do you mean?"

And then Sam reveals something Natalie already knows because it had brought Colonel Jack O'Neill to tears when he'd repeated it during his own session, but having heard it once before doesn't really prepare her for the anguish in Sam's voice when she says, "Because I begged more than one of them for sex."

"You didn't," Natalie objects.

"I did," Sam counters.

"A choice between two awful things isn't a choice. Choosing intercourse over near fatal beatings makes that intercourse rape, Sam, not sex. It doesn't make you undeserving of a sex life later on if that's what you want. It certainly doesn't mean you don't ever deserve to feel desire or arousal ever again."

"What kind of man could want me?"

"You think Jack doesn't want you?"

"He wouldn't if he really thought about what happened to me."

"Outside you, Sam, I don't think anyone has thought harder about what happened to you than he has."

"Then no, I don't think he could want me."

"Before all of this, did knowing what happened to him in Iraq make you want him any less?"

"He was my commanding officer, I didn't want him at all."

"Lying to me doesn't help you. And we both know that isn't true."

Sam doesn't say a word; she just storms out of Natalie's office. She slams the door so hard behind her when she goes that a picture slips off its hook and slides precariously down the wall. The glass breaks when it hits the floor and Natalie starts at the sound.

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

"She looked at me like I was …ah, a man." He shifts his eyes downward and grasps the back of his neck as he blushes. "You know, in the good way." Then he swallows and seems to shore up his resolve, and Natalie has to give him credit for reestablishing eye contact.

"Does it make you uncomfortable that she thinks about you sexually?"

A lazy grin spreads across his face. "Hell no, doc. It makes uncomfortable talking about it."

"But then she ran."

The grin falters and a shadow darkens his eyes. "Yeah."

"Why do you think she did that?"

"Isn't that sorta your department?"

"Humor me."

His gaze turns steely in a way that tells her he hates having to answer the question. He does it anyway. "I think a lot of bad things happened to her. I think more than one individual in a position of authority raped her. I think she equates power with pain. And I think she equates me with power."

Natalie nods. "Several kinds, as a matter of fact." She pauses and takes a sip of water just to give him a chance to absorb that before moving on. "Neither one of you are doing a very good job separating the individual from the officer."

"Look, you've gotta know, Carter and I haven't talked about this. We're just, sorta…doing it. Not it it," he rushes to supply. "But being together. It just…is."

"Is that what it is? You're together?"

"Yeah," he says with a shrug. "I mean, that's what it is for me. I'm all in. Whatever she needs. Whatever she wants."

"You should talk about it, you know," she says and he shrugs. "What if she doesn't need you? Doesn't want you?"

He's silent for a moment. "Well, then I guess I'd have to convince her she's wrong."

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

When Jack walks into Janet's office, it's just in time to see Daniel brace one hand against her desk and lean down to press a heated kiss against her lips. When the two part, Janet is flushed and smiling happily.

"Tonight?" Daniel asks and Janet tosses him a wink.

When he turns comes face to face with Jack. He stops for a half a moment, flicks his eyes towards Janet, and strides forward. "Jack," he says with a nod. Then he's gone.

"Be right back," Jack lobs at Janet then takes off after Daniel.

"Wait a minute," he calls to his friend's retreating form. "Daniel!"

He jogs a couple of step until he's right beside the younger man. "Are you serious?"

"About what?" Daniel detours into the commissary and grabs an apple off a cart of fruit.

"The accusations you've been hurtling my way for weeks about hiding a relationship with Sam and you're, what, screwing the chief medical officer?"

Daniel whirls on him. "Hey! I don't think I like your tone."

"I don't think I like your sanctimonious double standards."

"Janet wasn't just rescued from a Goa'uld prison. Besides, I apologized," Daniel wheedles.

"How long?"

"Since you broke your hand."

"Wow. That's…quite a while."

"Yeah."

"So."

"So…" Daniel leads.

"Well. Congratulations."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah."

"That's it?"

Jack grins. "Yeah, that's it." He turns to leave but pauses at the door and looks back over his shoulder. "You see how easy that was?" Jack's grin turns icy. "Remember that. You might be on the other side of that conversation one day."

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

"I saw something today that you might find interesting," Jack says with a smirk as he chops vegetables and she dumps a scoop of protein powder into the blender.

This is the part about living with someone she doesn't like and, moreover, doesn't really remember how to do. She's mad at him. Really, really, mad at him – though probably unrightfully so. And he wants to talk about something trivial like nothing's wrong? Has he forgotten how she laid into him this morning? Isn't he mad at her?

He sighs and when she chances a look at his face she realizes he has, indeed, read her silence as lingering anger rather than confusion. Well, that solves that, she supposes. "Are you really so mad at me that you don't want the juicy gossip?"

Juicy gossip? Well, she could do with a little of that. It's been a long time since she's been interested in idle passings and longer still since there's been any juicy gossip to be had. On one hand, if she gives in and gets the salacious details, how is she supposed to revert back to angry without seeming shrewish? On the other hand, she is sort of mad at Jack for something that's not his fault. She could let him off the hook and get the gossip.

Then his fingers curl around the back of her neck and he's maneuvering her so they're face to face. "Sam."

She waits but he doesn't continue. Instead there's a sad look in his eyes. "Jack?"

He sighs and takes a half step closer to her. He's in her personal space and he's got a grip on her and she can feel something akin to panic scratch at the edges of her insides. Instinctively she reaches up and plants her palms against his chest and pushes. Hard. He stumbles back a little. "What are you doing?!" she hisses.

A shocked look crosses his face. "Jesus, Sam. I'm sorry. I didn't think—"

"No, you didn't!" she cuts him off with a shout. "You can't do that to me."

"I didn't know," he says with hurt in his voice as if she accused him of doing it on purpose.

But now she's really in touch with her anger from this morning again. "Don't touch me."

"I touch you all the time."

"Don't touch me like that."

"Okay."

But his easy acquiescence just irks her further. "And don't walk around the house naked!"

"I didn't," he points out unnecessarily. "And I thought you were outside when I walked into the hall this morning."

"Do you know what seeing you like that does to me?"

"Yeah," he says. "Do you?"

"What?"

"Well, yeah I know what it did to you. Why are you mad at me for that? Not being ready isn't my fault, Sam. So is it that you're mad because you're embarrassed because I know what it did to you, or are you mad because you were turned on in the first place? Because that's not my fault either."

"How can you just talk about things like that?"

And then he takes his life in his own hands and she's got to give him a little credit for that, at least. He reaches back toward her and lays his hand on the place where her shoulder turns into her neck and runs his thumb lightly up and down the tendon that's straining with her anger. "Because it's okay, Sam. It's okay if you're turned on. It's okay if I know. It's okay if we talk about it. There's no pressure here. No pressure to feel something you're not feeling or to not feel something you are feeling. And certainly no pressure to act on anything."

And there it is. He really doesn't care if she's turned on by him because he doesn't want her anymore. She shakes off his hand and flees to guestroom she'd appropriated as her own. A loud thump followed by a curse comes from the direction of the kitchen. His patience with her, it would seem, is wearing thin.

She flops onto the bed ready to commit to a night of staring at the ceiling. Twenty minutes later she hears the engine of his big truck roar to life. She starts putting the planets in the SGC database in order by median observed temperature and hopes to keep her mind mostly quiet.

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

Daniel swings the door open to find a sheepish Jack O'Neill on the other side holding one hand cautiously against his body.

"I'm guessing you're not here to see me," he says with a lopsided smile and steps back so Jack can step into Janet's living room.

Jack looks amused when Janet steps into the living room in bare feet with a dish towel flung over one shoulder.

"Colonel O'Neill!"

"Hiya, Doc. I need you to patch me up and then go see Sam."

"Patch you up?" Daniel watches as his girlfriend shifts from the soft woman with whom he'd just been cooking dinner to the in-command CMO he's used to dealing with on base – all without donning a lab coat (or shoes). And it's pretty damn sexy.

"Damn it; I think you re-broke it." She gestures towards the couch then looks over her shoulder at Daniel. "Can you get the white kit out of my bathroom, please?"

Daniel retrieves the first aid kit as requested and when he returns it's clear he's missed the 'what happened?' portion of the conversation because Janet's replying, "I don't know if I'm the best person for the job, Colonel."

"She needs a friend right now."

"Like I said…"

"She's having problems reconnecting with everybody."

"She's been outright avoiding me, Colonel," Janet says quietly.

"Janet," Jack starts and Daniel looks up abruptly – he can't ever remember hearing Jack use her given name, "please. I need your help. She won't talk to me about this. Not right now."

Janet prods at Jack's hand gently but he still hisses in pain. "Yeah, it's definitely broken."

"If I promise to make Daniel take me to the ER, will you go talk to her?"

"Hey, how did I get dragged into this?"

"Daniel," Janet says in a voice she hasn't used on him since before they were sleeping together and he takes it as a warning.

He raises his hands in supplication. "Two stupid men going to the ER." He pulls her up off the couch and into a hug so he can whisper into her ear, "Don't let her bully you too much, okay? It's been long enough."

Janet kisses him once on the mouth, hard, and then pulls his head down so she can kiss his temple. She turns back to Jack, "Deal."

"Need anything while I'm out?" he asks just so she knows they're still spending the night together when they've done their respective duties.

"No. And Colonel, let him drive, okay?"

To Daniel's surprise, Jack hands over the keys without any argument. They're only minutes down the road when the silence – and curiosity – get the better of him. "What happened?"

"I broke my hand."

"I know that."

Jack heaves an aggrieved sigh. "Sam and I had an…argument…and I hit the countertop."

"Jack! Don't you think she's been through enough without you scaring her by getting violent around her?"

"For crying out loud, Daniel, what do you take me for? She wasn't even in the room when I did it. And it's not like I meant to hit the countertop hard enough to break my hand."

The two ride in silence for a few minutes more. "When did we stop being friends?" Daniel finally asks because he knows Jack isn't going to broach the subject.

"What?"

"We used to talk about things. Now it's just revelations and arguments. You feel like I don't trust you and I kind of don't. I want to know how that happened."

At a stop light, Daniel turns to face him and is taken aback by the thoughtful look on Jack's face where he thought he'd see distaste for the subject matter. But then Jack turns to look out the window and Daniel watches how the red traffic light cuts a swath against a more-defined-than-normal cheekbone and Daniel realizes that Jack's not holding up as well as he'd like people to think and if anyone's at fault for their changing relationship it's Daniel himself.

"I made you deal with it alone," Daniel realizes aloud.

Jack just grunts non-committedly.

"I did," Daniel insists. The light turns green and Daniel applies a little pressure to the gas pedal. "I felt guilty, you know?"

"We all did."

"But it was worse for you." Daniel is sure he's going to deny it. He watches out of the corner of his eye as the muscles in Jack's jaw tense then release.

"Yeah. It was."

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

"You broke your hand?" she asks unnecessarily when he walks through the front door. She's sitting against the wall there on the floor.

"How long have you been sitting there?"

"And then you sent Janet over here to talk to me because you, what? Thought maybe it's just that I didn't want to discuss something incredibly embarrassing with you but that I'd be okay discussing it with someone else?"

"Hey, I didn't say anything to her about what you were upset about."

"You broke your hand?" she asks again, only this time it's with more concern and she pushes herself up off the floor so she can take his bandaged hand gently in hers.

"Just a little bit."

"Jack," she admonishes him in a soft voice that makes him tingle in the wake of that look she gave him in the hall.

He threads the fingers of his good hand into her hair and pulls her against his chest into a hug and he relaxes when he feels her arms wind around his rib cage. "I'm glad you weren't serious about not touching you."

"I was serious about not touching me the way you did earlier. I don't know why, but that wasn't okay."

"It's okay," he soothes as he tucks his face into her neck.

"And I've been really careful not to say or do something that might make you uncomfortable. I swear I thought you were still asleep outside or I'd have put on a shirt."

"I didn't know I'd feel that way."

"Sam, I know we've done a really good job of not talking about it, but we've…felt things… It would be strange if physical attraction wasn't one of 'em."

"No," she huffs and buries her face in the hollow of his shoulder, "I mean my reaction to the…attraction."

"I was serious when I said I didn't care if you never felt like…"

She stiffens against him.

"Hey? What's wrong?"

She pushes against his chest and he wars with whether or not he should hold her tighter or let her go. He errs on the side of caution and releases her. Her eyes flick between hurt and angry. "What did I say?"

"You don't have to keep pointing it out, you know?"

"What?"

"That it's one sided."

"That what's one sided?"

"The attraction," she spits. All the traces of the soft, warm woman he'd held in his arms moments ago are gone.

"What the hell are you talking about?"

"I get it. You don't want me anymore. Not like that."

"Again, what the hell are you talking about?"

"You don't care if I never feel like being intimate again? There's 'no pressure to act on anything'?" She flings his words back at him.

"What are you accusing me of? Because the way I see it, I'm damned if I do and damned if I don't. For crying out loud, Sam! Of course I want you! You. However you come. But what kind of man would I be if I pressured you into something after everything you've been through?"

"What kind of man wants a woman he might never have a sexual relationship with?"

"Okay, now I really don't like what it sounds like you're accusing me of."

She just stands there, breathing heavily.

"Doc Jordan said we should talk about what we're doing here. I think she's right."

"I don't want to talk about it."

"You don't want to talk about anything, Sam. It's not okay anymore. You need to keep talking to the doc about what happened to you. And you need to talk to me about how you're feeling about all of this," he gestures to the empty space between them, "because I sure as hell shouldn't be guessing. I'm really bad at it."

She huffs out a laugh. "I'm not any better."

"No, I think we've cornered the market on not talking about it."

"Did you eat?" she asks him.

"Not unless you count the half a vending machine tuna fish sandwich Daniel tried to make me eat."

"Daniel went with you to the hospital?"

"Yeah. Janet made him drive me."

"Janet?"

"Yeah," he says with a grin.

"You went all the way to the base but she made you go to the hospital so she could come here?"

"No, I went to her house." His grin widens as he watches the pieces start to fall into place.

"And Daniel was there?"

"Yep."

She tilts her head to the side as she furrows her brows. "Wait a minute."

"Uh-huh," his grin becomes a smirk.

"Are you trying to tell me—"

"Oh, yeah."

"Seriously?"

"Seriously."

"How long has that been going on?"

He slings his arm around her shoulder and steers her towards the kitchen. "Since I broke my hand the first time."

"Oh." As they cross the threshold to the kitchen, "The first time?!"