Disclaimer: I don't own Stargate… it owns me. Kudos to MGM, World Gekko Corp and Double Secret Productions. No infringement intended.

Summary: Because turning off the Time-Loop device might not necessarily have gone as smoothly as it did.

Genre: Romance/Humour

Characters: Jack, Sam, Daniel, Teal'c and Malakai

Spoilers: Massive spoilers for Window of Opportunity!

Author's Note: Blatant Sam/Jack. Do I need an excuse? Yes? Um… (shrug) I got nothin'.

Not Nothing

The skies over P4X-639 were a tumultuous storm of colours, a blazing aurora of fire spread from horizon to horizon and the air tingled energetically. Far above the planet's surface the geomagnetic field of the planet collided ferociously with the riotous solar flares that the local star boiled and burned with. The atmosphere quaked as trillions of charged particles strafed the sky and tore it into a million, million colours.

Far below another storm raged.

Jack stared stonily across the top of the alien control panel and into the eyes of Malikai, the alien archaeologist. He could see the torment written on the man's face and right there in the man's eyes, far down inside his soul was a burning ember of agony created by the death of that man's wife twelve years previously. Jack saw it and recognised it because it was his own... he had pain just like it and for that reason he understood. He understood the man who had started the time loops in a vain effort to go back and be with his wife once more, because if he could... if he could...

"Then what'll happen?" Jack asked the man, knowing that he could do this, had to do this.

"She'll die," Malikai whispered, his horror spilling from the words.

"And then what? You start over?"

Malakai felt his resolve break, shattering into pieces as he watched the altar began its process of activating the time mechanism once more. The ancient and roughened shafts of stone, carved with the language of it's masters, it's creators, the long gone Ancient Ones inscribed on each - and even as he watched the hypnotic rise and fall of the control stones he knew the truth. He could not make this work, he could not save his wife... and she would not want him to make others suffer in her name. Fourteen worlds, billions of people… not for her.

Jack watched the control altar begin it's routine again, watched the alien and yet entirely too recognisable man standing on the other side of the force-field in front of him. All around them the ruins began to emit a distinct and all too familiar energy, blue and white lighting crackled and slithered up and down the tall stone pillars on their left and right and arced viciously along their path towards the gate. The air audibly hummed with awe-inspiring power, the hairs stood up on the back of his neck. It had to stop now.

The last of his calm, the last of his restraint breaks and he can hear himself.

"Listen to me. I know what it's like."

Malakai felt the anger surge up in him and overpower the and grief and guilt strangling him.

"YOU CAN'T!"

"I LOST MY SON! I KNOW!" Jack yelled back with the same stricken tone, his voice raw and furious.

Daniel turned and anxiously looked at the ruins which were now boiling with energy, flaring, spiking and spitting as it reached out towards the Stargate, to complete a circuit, to reach critical mass and start the whole cycle once more. He turned to look at Sam only to find that she might not have even noticed the process, she wasn't checking her instruments for radiation or to check the energy being emitted by the alien technology, she wasn't even trying to deactivate the force-field. Instead he found her staring at Jack, her face nearly ashen and her gaze filled with compassion for her commander's loss, for his pain, her head bowed slightly as she tore her gaze away, her breath stuck in her throat. Sam, Daniel knew, was an extremely caring person... she'd stood by him and helped him both times he had lost his wife - the first time when she'd been taken and she had hardly even known him yet and the second time when she'd died and by then Sam had been his best friend. Sam cared a lot and Daniel suspected sometimes she cared too much, like how much she cared about Jack, how much she felt his pain and how much she made it her own.

"And as much as I..." Jack continued, the anger and pain draining away as he paused, his voice calmer only for being slightly broken by his anguish, "I could never live that over again. Could you?"

"No." The word was that of a broken man.

"Let her go." Jack offered, throwing the man a lifeline.

Malikai looked down at the altar, his vision obscured by tears so that he couldn't read the text... but he knew the stones well, he knew what he had to do even though he'd swore to himself he would never give up. He reached down and depressed two of the stone tablets and with a finality that ached, he pressed the button on the side of the altar, the one that meant that his quest was over... and that he had let his love go. He reached to deactivate the force-field that was holding them back but suddenly lightening, bright and azure, cracking like an angry whip lashed out of the two pillars and backfired towards the altar, shattering the force-field and rebounding savagely towards SG-1. It lashed across Jack and he felt the pain rip at him but as soon as it was upon him it was gone again, he blinked it away and turned to look at the rest of his team.

Teal'c held a shaking Daniel, who was engulfed in a nimbus of blue energy, rippling over his skin as he seized and twisted in the Jaffa's strong, restraining grip. Jack barely spared a glance at the man as he followed Teal'c's gaze to Sam who lay on the ground, her hat fallen from her head, her instruments dropped as she too was seized by the same harsh power which relentlessly coursed through her body. Even before he completed his first steps to her side the energy dissipated and she relaxed into a twisted, limp heap. Jack fell to his knees, not even sparing a thought as the pain from them shot up his spine, and reached out and pulled his second in command into his arms.

Fingers automatically went to her throat, where they found a thready and too fast pulse. He lowered his ear to her mouth and listened to the sound of short, ragged breathes and relief flooded him. She was alive, she lived, she wasn't dead... he told himself the same thing again and again another half a dozen times. His eyes automatically went to hers, looking for her bright blue gaze, the one that he knew so well, could read and know for certain she was okay... but instead he found them closed. Underneath her slightly fluttering eyelids, her lashes trembling, he could see the pupil caroming back and forth frantically, to and fro, like she was looking for something in the darkness, looking for something she could not see. He recognised it, REM, rapid eye movement, the deep cycle of sleep during which dreams occurred... she wasn't asleep though, she was unconscious and that machine had done something to her. Panic seized him. He had to get her back to the 'Gate, back to Earth... he had to...

Wake her up.

"Carter!" No response, he lifted her eyelid and watched her blue pupil careen about randomly. Louder: "CARTER!"

Suddenly she drew a deep breathe, her back arching into his chest as he gathered her closer. Her eyes flicked open, hesitantly, dazed, unfocused and her expression momentarily more blank than it had even been when she was unconscious. Then she blinked and her eyes focused on his, looking straight up, across the few inches separating their faces and Jack was suddenly aware that he was cradling Carter across his lap and holding her tightly around her waist, against his chest. Her face turned up towards him and her beautiful blue eyes awake and alive. She smiled slightly.

"God, Carter. Don't do that to an old man... are you okay? You got hit by something pretty powerful-"

"I remember," was her only reply and Jack frowned as her expression became more amused. Suddenly he saw a grin appear on her face.

"Remember what?"

"You called that 'Nothing'?" she asked with mock anger and disbelief.

"Carter, I don't understand..."

He couldn't finish though. Suddenly he found her soft, warm lips slide against his as she lifted her hand to the back of his neck and pulled him and his mouth tighter to hers, her mouth slipping to just the right angle as she opened it tentatively and carefully coercing his mouth open with just the right pressure. Suddenly he found Sam kissing him deeply, her tongue sliding out of her mouth, brushing along his upper lip, and over his teeth, caressing his own tongue with a short brush that suddenly broke through his shock and flooded his with intense pleasure. Suddenly he was kissing her back, his mouth hungry for her taste, his own tongue sliding into her mouth to meet hers and he felt her passion and made her feel his. Suddenly he was in the Control Room, back at the SGC, holding Sam in a loose dip and kissing her. Kissing her. She was kissing back... she remembered...

She remembered!

The kiss lingered for a long moment and slowly Sam receded and relaxed back into his encircling arms, a warm smile on her face and a coy look in her eye. He smiled at her in amazement. She remembered it, he could see it in her eyes... she remembers the loops and she remembered his kiss and she was okay with it, more than okay with it, she was radiant, beaming. Her face glowed with slightly flushed breathlessness and embarrassment, but nonetheless full of joy, her golden hair and her shining eyes and her playful smile.

He was snapped out of his daze by a poke in the ribs and he looked questioningly at Sam who had the same broad and entirely too pleased grin on her face that he'd shot her across the briefing table not half an hour ago...

"What are you smiling at?" Sam asked, a little confused by his intense look and knowing grin.

"Nothin'"

"I'd hardly call that 'Nothing'." Sam laughed.