It's a perfect day. He's in the park. The sky is blue, the grass is green, and nature is basically doing it's thing. The girl beside him is pretty and intelligent, no-one is currently trying to kill him, and Jack O'Neill has a sneaking suspicion he's happy.

"Ice-cream?" Cassie, his companion, asks. He nods, and offers to pay for it, and when the ice-cream seller refers to him as Cassie's dad, he feels an absurd flash of pride. She sees it, and smiles, and takes his arm, confiding and close, as Cassie has always been.

They walk a little further. Cassie is trying to explain the university course she will be doing. There's quarks, and protons and magnets, and he basically gets the gist of it. After all that time listening to Carter, he should be able to understand basic physics. But to make her laugh, he pretends to be dumb, and to make him laugh, she plays along, until she sees something over his shoulder, and her smile fades.

Jack turns, and looks around. She's looking in the children's play area. She's looking at a man, leaning forward, talking to a woman in pink.

It's so rare to see her in anything but BDU's that it takes a moment to realise it's Carter. He never envisioned her in pink. He doesn't think it suits her. Nevertheless, she shines, glowing, from across the park, and he wonders how he can have missed her till now. But she looks tense, and nervous, and then he sees why.

He's holding out a ring to her.

The son of a bitch, stalker, weirdo policeman is actually proposing to her. That's bad enough. What's worse is, she flings her arms round his neck, and says yes, and slips the ring on her finger.

Jack O'Neill's world is falling apart. He can feel it, in his gut, where his soul is in tatters. He's helpless, unable to move. He just stands there, staring across the park, at the woman he loves, who still doesn't see him. He'd known about Pete, but never known, never suspected it would come this far. Never known, never suspected it would kill him.

He tries to hold it together, for the sake of the girl by his side.

"This can't be happening." Cassie says, and Jack bends forward, hands on knees, and takes a deep breath. Then he runs his finger, roughly through his hair.

"It is."

"But she's supposed to be with you."

Jack turns to look at her. She's staring at him, squinting against the sun behind Jack, holding her long, wind-blown hair back from her face.

"Cassie, honey..." he starts to say, but she stops him.

"No. It's all wrong, all of it."

Then he looks around. Isn't the light a touch too bright? The sky a touch too blue? And isn't a rather wild coincidence that he should be here as Pete takes her away from him? And since when did Sam wear pink, anyway?

"This isn't real." He murmurs, and with that, he snaps back.

"No." Fifth said. "It wasn't. But I have plenty more, and we have time. I'll find a moment you believe, and then..." he leaned forward, to Jack, on the floor, in pain. "And then, I'll break you."