Infirmary, SGC - 1997

It was too much.

Sitting on the infirmary bed and wrapped in a blanket, Sam couldn't stop shaking. The perfect soldier no longer controlled her emotions and was showing a side of herself that had no place at the SGC.

They had been back on duty for a few days now, and returning to a professional relationship with Jack was already a challenge, but this was the last straw.

"He's gone, isn't he?" she asked Janet, who was reading her file.

The doc looked up at her but remained silent. An immense pain gripped Sam, and she couldn't hold back the tears welling up in her eyes. She wasn't ready; she couldn't lose him like this. SG-1 had just been reformed, it was their first mission since the program had restarted, and they had returned without Daniel. She had returned without Daniel.

"Why can't I stop shaking?" she asked Janet between sobs. Memories of moments spent with Daniel flooded back, and she couldn't stop the tears streaming down her cheeks. It was too much to handle all at once. She wanted to hear the gate activate, see him return. She wanted to hear his voice, help him find his glasses the morning after late nights when he teased her about the looks she exchanged with Jack.

Hell, Sam was even ready to confess the whole story to him if it meant he could come back.

Janet offered her a sedative, which she accepted without protest. She hadn't slept much since returning to the U.S. Alone in her apartment, alone in her bed, she had woken up startled most nights, reaching for the warmth of Jack's body in a bed where the sheets were far too cold.

Jack.

He was only a few meters away. Sitting on his own bed in the infirmary, yet he seemed light-years away.

Lying down, Sam closed her eyes, trying to remember his comforting scent, trying to think of anything but the loss of her brother in arms.

Carter, meanwhile, reestablished some of her emotional barriers, while the colonel got permission to leave the infirmary for the time being.

However, when he passed by her bed, Jack seemed to slow, as if torn between the idea of caring for her as a lover would or leaving Janet to take care of her as a colonel should.

Jack was also struggling with this grief. Daniel was his friend, his confidant. The memory of his screams haunted him, and he couldn't think of anything else.
He dreamed of being able to take Sam in his arms, bury his nose in her blonde hair, and breathe in her scent until it drowned out all other sensations in his body. Like he used to do back then when the nightmares of Charlie's death were too intense.

He turned toward the doc, ready to ask if he could stay, but he changed his mind and simply whispered, "Thank you," before leaving the infirmary.

A CO doesn't take his second-in-command in his arms, even after the loss of one of their men.

When they stood side by side the next day in uniform in front of the Stargate, saluting the horizon in tribute to Daniel, Jack once again realized just how exceptional Sam was.

The sensitive side she had shown in the infirmary was gone; Carter was back, and her closed-off face showed no emotion.
He also wondered, while watching the wreath of flowers be absorbed by the vortex, how far he should seek counseling if he felt relieved—during his best friend's funeral—to realize that it wasn't her he had left on the other side. He felt selfish thinking that, as if it were a forbidden and unhealthy thought.

The ceremony ended, and Jack offered to host the wake at his house, and everyone agreed to meet there a few hours later.

Jack's house, Colorado - 1997

Sam and Teal'c were the last to arrive, Sam having made a detour home to change and taking advantage of Teal'c's first permission to leave the base to give him a quick tour of the town. She regretted that things had turned out this way; she and Daniel had planned an entire itinerary to help Teal'c discover Earth, and now she would have to do it all without him.

"Sam, Teal'c," Jack interrupted as she explained the concept of a wake to the Jaffa. "I'm glad you could make it. Want something to drink?" he asked, already mentally berating himself for not calling her Carter.

"Yeah, sure, beer," Sam replied without reacting to his use of her first name.

Lost in thought, Jack let the beer overflow from the glass, the sight of the bubbles causing him to relive certain moments from the mission. Something was wrong, but he couldn't put his finger on what it was.

Excusing himself from his friends, he went outside to get some air and played hockey in front of the house. Hitting the puck helped him manage the multitude of emotions swirling inside him. He felt alternately helpless, sad, and angry, and he couldn't decide if the loss of Daniel or the reestablished barriers between Sam and himself weighed heavier on him. And that little voice inside him kept insisting that Daniel wasn't really dead... He had gone through the same thing after Charlie's death. Denial was apparently an undeniable part of his life.

Letting himself get carried away, he smashed a car parked in front of him with the hockey stick. It wasn't enough to quell the anger raging inside him, but it brought him some relief.

Hammond approached him cautiously, gauging the situation after this display of violence. "What's on your mind, Colonel?" he asked.

Jack hesitated for a few seconds, lowering his gaze to the hockey stick in his hands. He knew that Sam had stayed back but was watching him. And at that precise moment, he wanted nothing more than to take her in his arms for comfort. But the fact that she had left Ireland without looking back clearly meant she didn't expect the same thing he did. He was foolish to have fallen in love with his fling, that was all.

In his youth, Jack had gone through a phase of dabbling with drugs, and the detox that Nan had made him endure back then to get him back on the right track suddenly seemed much easier than the detox from Samantha Carter.

"Retirement, actually," he finally replied to the general's question.

George frowned. "You don't mean that."

"I think I do," Jack replied simply, thinking that a return to retirement might at least calm one of his inner storms. And it would solve a good part of his problems.

Hammond didn't seem to approve of the idea. "I can't let you do that at the moment." And that made sense, anyway. He had fought tooth and nail with the President to keep traveling through the gate, probably spending hours in meetings or in his office producing new reports. Of course, he wasn't going to accept Jack abandoning ship now. Even if the ship was sinking.