Jack emerged from the bedroom while Sam was serving up pancakes at the kitchen table. A quick look over her shoulder told her that he was still in his rumpled t-shirt and sweats, but other than that, nothing seemed out of the ordinary. That is, there was nothing out of the ordinary until he walked up behind her, squeezing her waist and kissing her neck lightly with the roughness of his chin and cheek leaving a lingering sensation that would be distracting her for the next few minutes.

Then when she retreated to the kitchen to wash the skillet, the giggles started. First from her niece Ashley, and then from her nephew Michael where they sat at the kitchen table with Mark.

"What?" Jack asked as he sat down across from Ashley.

"Your hair," she giggled, and pointed a probably sticky finger at Jack.

"What's wrong with it? I wanted it this way," he retorted, brushing his fingers through his unruly strands and making them, if possible, even worse.

"You look like you got a swirly," Michael joined in on the assault.

"Maybe I did. Aunt Sam was mad at me this morning so she took care of business," Jack excused.

"What's a swirly?" Ashley wanted to know. "Why was she mad at you?"

"Uhh, I don't know. Aunt Sam, why were you mad at me?" Jack asked, trying to rope her into the conversation.

"Jack's just being silly. I'm not mad at him," she told them from the kitchen sink.

"Aunt Sam, if you're our Aunt, and you married Jack, is he our Uncle now?" Ashley asked.

"Oh, uh... yeah, I guess he is." Sam hadn't even thought about the kids when she had dreamed up this scheme. Of course they would love Uncle Jack. Then he would just... what? They'd be asking for years to come why he hadn't come with her to visit. They'd think that they weren't important or that he hadn't really liked them unless they had a fake divorce in their future to match the fake marriage. Just great.

"Uncle Jack, are we gonna play hockey again today?" Sam heard Michael ask through a mouthful of pancakes. The boy quickly adopted the new title for the man sitting next to him who had the audacity to be in freaking pajamas with rumpled hair. Why couldn't he be in BDUs? She was used to ignoring him in those.

Sam scrubbed the skillet maybe a little harder than was strictly necessary as she regretted every decision she had made for the past two days, starting with that emergency stop button in the elevator, to dinner downtown, to goodnight kisses downtown... no, damn it. She still couldn't regret that. It was the one redeeming feature of this whole situation.

Even this morning, when she had remembered how temporary this arrangement was through a lust-addled sleepy haze, she didn't regret it. She was in it. She needed to show more of that commitment that she had that first night. If this was what she could have of Jack O'Neill, she was going to have it as long as it lasted.

Dropping her skillet into the drying rack and picking up the last plate for Jack, she approached the table where the conversation had gone on without her and ended while she pondered her future failed marriage.

The table only had room for four, so Sam set the plate down in front of Jack, and moved behind him, dropping her hands to his shoulders.

"Thanks," he tossed over his shoulder, and Sam just dug her fingers into his shoulders in response. She was committing when she let her thumbs brush up the back of his neck teasing just into the fringe of his mussed hair. Sam was committing when one hand slid down from his shoulder over the soft, wrinkled t-shirt that covered his chest. She was committing when she pulled that hand back up to his shoulder. There were kids in the room, after all. Damn it.

Jack had the kids on the Playstation after breakfast, and Sam sat with Mark at the kitchen table drinking way too much coffee while they talked. They talked mostly about Mark and the family. He was used to her and her dad not really talking much about their lives, but now... now she was "married" to Jack.

"He's good with the kids," Mark noticed with a nod toward the living room.

"He always is," she smiled thinking of Cassandra and Merrin and Rya'c and all of the other kids that they had encountered in seven years at the SGC that had all gravitated toward him. And he had gravitated to them as well.

"Are you thinking about some of your own?" Mark asked, taking her by surprise, and she couldn't answer with anything other than a blush. This was definitely a question for which she should have planned. It was bound to be a sensitive subject, particularly for Jack.

"We haven't decided yet," she answered. It was probably the safest answer she could give.

"Well, don't think about it too long. I don't know if you noticed this, but your husband is..." Mark trailed off with a suggestive glance toward the living room, but didn't finish his sentence.

"Is what?" she shoved at her brother's shoulder. It didn't take a genius to know that he was about to make a crack about Jack's age.

"A really nice guy. Seems like it, anyway." Sam tossed a balled up napkin at his head for his rudeness.

"Very funny. I'll have you know that he could run circles around you and most men your age."

Mark was grinning now at her agitation. Brothers could be such a pain in the butt sometimes.

"Well, you are uniquely qualified to comment on his stamina ," he needled.

"Ugh, gross," Sam let out a little too loudly, and she saw Jack's head flip back toward the kitchen table from where he sat on the couch.

"Changing your answer already?" Mark asked her.

"No, I'm not changing my answer, but I'm not talking about that with you," Sam insisted.

"About what?" Jack threw over his shoulder.

"Nothing." The siblings answered in unison, but Sam saw the grin on his face as he turned back to the game. How someone who had been in as many firefights as he had could still hear her from the living room, she would never understand.

The doorbell rang, rescuing her from the distasteful discussion, and she stood to answer it.

"Expecting company?" Jack asked over his shoulder as she casually touched his arm, and ran her fingers up to his shoulder, just for show, of course. It wasn't because she had been looking for excuses to touch his arms for the past seven years. Not at all. That would be weird.

"Probably just a solicitor," she answered.

"Oh good. I was just thinking we could use new windows," Jack quipped as Sam opened the door, and she would have answered him if her heart hadn't been in her throat.

"Dad. General," she greeted the smug looking men on her front porch. "I didn't think you were..."

"Happy birthday, sweetheart," her dad smiled and pulled her into a hug that she absently returned. Why couldn't it have been a window salesman? At least if she had new windows, she would have something out of which to jump.