Team nights usually meant dinner and a movie at either Jack's or Sam's place because Teal'c still lives on base and Jack thinks Daniel's apartment is creepy. He pretends it's all the masks on the walls, but really it's that he's never forgotten what it felt like to pack it up after Daniel's apparent death and also to have to talk Daniel off the wrong side of his balcony railing when he'd been going through withdrawal from that Goa'uld Light.

Tonight, they're at Jack's house playing Mario Kart, something Teal'c has recently discovered thanks to a Lieutenant on base bringing him a Nintendo. Jack is pretty bad at it, but he enjoys playing anyway. Sam is, of course, the best of the four of them. She and Teal'c would play all night if no one stopped them, but tonight the sky is the clearest it ever gets in Colorado Springs and Jack insists they all take a break and head out to the deck.

It's the part of late spring and early summer where the days are just this side of uncomfortably warm but the nights bring a chill. The four of them sit on a pile of blankets and cushions Jack has thrown out, shooting the shit and ribbing each other at the familiar pace of their friendship. Daniel and Teal'c are arguing about who is better at tetris, the only game Daniel is really that interested in. Jack looks at Sam and sighs quietly. Her eyes are dark and filled with twilight; he can almost hear her reciting the names of star clusters in her head when he feels the breath of her shiver against his arm and realizes she's still only wearing a thin t-shirt. He shrugs out of his flannel button down and drapes it across her shoulders without a word, but he does allow his hand to linger against her waist and across the small of her back as he smoothes it over her body.

Sam smiles and lets her gaze drift from the sky to Jack's face as he wraps his shirt around her. He's giving her that half smile, that just a lip barely turned up smile that would seem innocent if his eyes weren't on fire. "Thank you," she says.

"Always," he says, looking back into the twinkling sky, taking the memory of her gaze with him and mentally wrapping himself in it. It's the warmest he's ever felt.