AN: During Threads - Before Jacob... :(

Bold, italicized text below is not mine. Apologies if you've only seen original air or streaming version. This is from one of the extended scenes on disc.

Sam had just picked out her wedding flowers and was riding back to her car with Pete, but all she could think about was that moment in the briefing room. Her dad's face didn't seem to buy her explanation that it wasn't professional to skip out on work for personal plans, and to tell the truth, Sam didn't really buy it herself. General O'Neill had stood right there next to her dad when he brought it up. Picking out flowers, for God's sake. Who leaves a galactic crisis to go pick out flowers? Apparently, she did. It didn't feel good. It didn't feel like Sam Carter.

She had been nervous to introduce Pete to her dad, but not because she was afraid he wouldn't like him. She was afraid that her dad wouldn't like who she was when she was with Pete. She was a different version of herself. She had been able to share pieces of her work life with Pete, and she was grateful for that. But there were still things that were important to Pete, things that he needed that she wanted to give him. She worked hard to give them to him, but her nervousness about showing that to her dad made her wonder if it was real. Was it really her? Or was it her trying to be something that Pete wanted?

Herself aside, she had seen Jack's face when her dad had mentioned the wedding. He had reacted. Jack O'Neill did not react. Or if he did, he didn't show it. Except this time, he had. She had believed that he was indifferent, that he had moved on. Maybe he had, but he hadn't liked hearing about her wedding plans. She was confident in that.

Just a few weeks ago, Jack had asked her if she was happy. She had done her best to be convincing as she finished her cupcake. It was vanilla, his favorite. She could have gotten chocolate for herself, and vanilla for him, but she had gotten two vanilla cupcakes. She hadn't really assigned it some deeper meaning at the time, but now she wondered if that lingering vanilla on her tongue was the only thing that had allowed her to seem remotely convincing when she had answered his question with an affirmative.

"Chocolate or vanilla?" Pete asked from the driver's seat.

"I'm sorry. What?" Sam asked.

"Chocolate or vanilla for the cake. Just in case you can't make the meeting with the caterer."

At least this was an easy decision. Obviously, it was vanilla.

Sam had graduated from wondering to full-on dread. She was a fraud. She wasn't in love with Pete, whatever that meant. But she was starting to sweat a little. Rolling down the window, she propped up an elbow on the door, and did her best to keep from biting her nails.

She did care about Pete, and that made this even harder. A part of her did want that life with the dog and the kids and the house. Pete deserved it. So did she, for that matter. But she had a hard time imagining that dog without Jack. She had a hard time being excited about a yellow kitchen that wasn't Jack's. Maybe his kitchen was where she had first decided that she wanted a yellow kitchen.

Sam looked up over the roof of his house and saw smoke emanating from the back yard. She could smell steak. He was just standing around back there grilling while she was sitting here trying to decide if she was going to walk back there and make an idiot of herself.

Sam had spent eight years with him not saying things out loud. She had tried a couple of times, or at least she had wanted to. But all she had ever said to him was nothing at all. This was ridiculous, she decided. She was Captain Doctor Samantha Carter, as Daniel used to call her. Colonel Doctor now. If she could knock out an entire galaxy of Replicators she could have a damn conversation. Determinedly, she reached for the door handle, before she froze.

What if his indifference wasn't a mask? It was possible that she had misread his response to the wedding flowers. She really didn't have any way of knowing how he was going to respond to what she was going to say. It probably didn't help matters that she didn't know exactly what she was going to say. Screw this. It was time for Plan B. Winging it. Popping open the door, she decided. The wondering was worse than any possible humiliation.