Lifelines

Part Two

"So. No weapons." Daniel was the one that found her. Naturally. He plunked himself down next to her on a stump. "Turns out that entire place is a graveyard."

Despite herself, Sam grinned. "Seriously?"

"All those dandy obelisks?" He rolled his shoulders, one at a time, trying to work out some tension, before throwing her a wry smile. "Headstones."

"Son of a bitch."

Behind his lenses, Daniel's eyes narrowed. "You know, Jack said the exact same thing."

"It's just a colloquialism, Daniel."

"Mmmm." His nod was noncommittal—and given in anything but the spirit of agreement.

Sam scowled, busying herself with lacing her boots back up. "So, are we heading back to the SGC?"

"As soon as possible. General Hammond wants to debrief before heading off with his granddaughters for Christmas break."

"That's right." The Major finished tying with a little tug and straightened. "Phoenix, right? Something about the General's sister?"

"They're having a reunion. He told me he's driving with his daughter and the girls and then his son in law will join them later on."

"Ah."

"And then, of course, Janet is leaving with Cassie tomorrow. I'm assuming that you three will be doing something before they leave for Florida."

"Yeah. I've got to go pick up Duke tonight. I'll give them their gifts then."

Daniel snorted. "That dog's about as smart as dirt."

Smiling, Sam made a tiny shrug. "Cassie loves him. I really don't think that Janet would tolerate him for any other reason."

"Has he figured out the dog door yet?"

The Major stood, then waited for the Archaeologist to follow suit before starting back towards where she'd left the MALP earlier. "That's asking a lot of that animal."

Grimacing, Daniel trudged out of the copse of palms, blinking in the brighter light on the beach. "You're going to be taking a lot of walks in the next few days."

"As my grandmother would have said, 'It's good for my soul'."

Several hundred yards away, the Colonel and Teal'c had nearly completed packing up what little there was of camp. The sun had started its descent towards the horizon, casting a pinkish hue over the sand and making the odd, shuttling crabs on the beach nearly luminesce.

The 'Gate sat a little further down the beach on a black-stone outcropping. The Ancient inhabitants had created a lava-rock path of sorts from the dais towards the beach and then carved a stone walkway up to the obelisks. Still yards away from the rest of the team, Sam and Daniel watched as Teal'c remotely steered the MALP back onto the path and towards the 'Gate.

"So, you still hanging solo for Christmas?" Daniel touched her elbow to bring her back into the conversation.

She nearly stumbled on the loose sand. "Yeah."

"Really?" Her companion's brows furrowed as he looked sideways at her. "I would have thought that you and Jack would have decided to do something together, since you're the only ones staying in the Springs."

Sam's answering grunt was non-committal and, she hoped dismissive.

Daniel had long-since learned to see through her grunting. "Mark's in Switzerland with his in-laws, your dad's a zillion light-years away, Janet and Cassie are going to Disneyworld with her sister and family, and Teal'c is heading to meet up for some time with Bra'tac and his son. I'm going to Oxford on the red-eye as soon as we get back to the SGC for my lecture. Neither of you have anyone else, right? You oughta get together for the holiday."

"It's not that easy, Daniel."

"It's complicated." He fingered his glasses higher on his nose. "I'll grant you that."

Her snort was utterly derisive. "And thanks for pointing out that fact that I'm the loser being left behind. I appreciate that."

"Sam." He sounded like her father. "That's not what I meant."

She stopped short, breathed, balanced herself in the uneven sand. "I know. Sorry. I'm just still a little—" She didn't know if it was progress or not that she couldn't give a word to her current state.

"I kinda hoped that you and Jack would have talked things over." Daniel turned towards her, blocking the Colonel and Teal'c from her view. "I'm not obtuse. I know that's it's been a struggle."

"Daniel—"

"Wait—let me finish." He ducked his chin, shoving his hands into the pockets of his jacket. "Things happened. We all know that. The three of us know, at least. And then you two were expected to just—not be together. And I'm fairly sure that you didn't talk it out, or anything, because you two are the poster children for bathing deep in that lovely river of Denial."

Stubbornly, Sam refused to look at him.

"To be perfectly honest, I was hoping that leaving you down on the beach today would give you the chance to work things out."

"Daniel—it's not us. It's the situation."

"Really? Seriously? You're using the regs as an excuse?"

"They're not an excuse, Daniel."

"No, they're much more than an excuse. They're your lifeline. Without them, you two would have to actually make a decision about something—about anything—that might lead to actual happiness." He cast a frustrated look at the heavens before returning his earnest, intense face back to her. "Geez—Sam. I don't understand what you see in him. Really—he's a great guy. You, however—you're amazing—but however much I don't get the attraction, there's obviously something there. And you're wasting it."

Sam frowned. Something—fear?—washing over her, threatening to drown her. When had she become this person, who ran towards physical danger, yet who ran away from anything even remotely emotional? But flee, she did.

"We've got to get back." She said, shoving past him and making her sandy way back to the 'Gate.

-OOOOOOO-

Duke apparently barked at anything. Sam had long since stopped going to the door as soon as he started booming at it. The tragedy was that Sam seemed to live on a particularly well-traveled street. She'd had no idea that was true before her canine alarm system had arrived. Seriously, how often did you watch the goings-on out your front window?

Constantly, if you were a dog of indiscriminate parentage and questionable intellectual prowess.

And there he went again.

Sam groaned, pulling herself away from her computer monitor and heading to the door. "Duke, you stupid mutt. Shut it, already."

She'd already started drawing up the plans for a dog muffler. If she couldn't teach him not to bark, she could surely make it not as loud, right?

Reaching down, she grabbed his collar and flipped the lock in the same motion. Then she pulled the dog back and braced herself as she opened the door. The evening light was still abundant enough that she hadn't turned on the lights, but the large figure on her porch blocked much of it, anyway.

"Stupid? Give the poor guy a break, Major. It's Christmas."

Sam rose, letting the dog's collar go. Stepping backwards, she let Duke around her so he could throw himself onto the man at the door. If the aforementioned mutt adored anyone more than Cassie, it was O'Neill. "Sir. What are you doing here?"

He didn't answer, merely stepping through the door, neatly herding Duke back into the entryway. He handed Sam a large paper bag before kneeling—a little stiffly—to treat the dog to an all-over skitch. Practically sighing in joy, Duke flopped to the ground and rolled over, splaying his limbs to beg for a belly rub.

"He's not completely moronic, Carter." The Colonel didn't look up at her as he raked his fingers through the mutt's thick fur. "He knows where the good stuff's at."

"Ending a sentence with a preposition? Wow. You're slipping."

"Yes, well. What have I said about dwelling?" He ended up making a little growl and treating Duke to a series of massaging five-finger rubs before standing back up.

Depositing the paper sack on the entry table, she crossed her arms over her body and tried again. "Colonel O'Neill—what are you doing here?"

Gleefully ignoring her question, he held up his hands, where dog hair clung tenaciously. With an air of familiarity, he strode down the hall and towards the kitchen, proceeding to wash his hands, before drying them on a towel hanging off the oven door handle. Straightening the cloth, he finally turned back towards where Carter now stood next to her island. "Daniel told me that you were hanging around the Springs with Duke, here, so I thought I'd come help."

"Help me?"

"Yup."

"With the dog?"

"Mmm-hmm."

"Because I'm so pathetic that I can't handle the basic care and maintenance of a canine by myself?" She leaned against the tiled edge of the kitchen island, raising a brow.

His eyes took her in, searching her face, her expression, the way her body was tensed against his answer. Taking a step towards her, his sardonic smile made the dimple crease his right cheek. "Let's take a walk."

-OOOOOOO-

Duke didn't like leashes, but he loved walks. More out of habit than anything else, O'Neill had taken point with the dog, clipping on his lead and reining in the overgrown furball to what some might generously call a "heel".

"So, how many times has he peed in the house?"

"None, actually. I'm a little surprised at that. I should probably find some wood to knock on." Sam pulled her coat more tightly around her. It was frigid, but the last snowfall they'd had was days ago. Freezing rain, and a little sleet, but nothing more. The only snow still on the ground was dirty and grainy. Duke took it in stride to melt every inch of it, one potty break at a time.

"Maybe he's just finally getting enough walks. I can see how Janet and Cassie would have a problem with that from time to time. Poor guy gets cooped up and has to go somewhere."

"To hear Janet tell it, his bladder and brain are roughly the same size."

"About the size of a walnut."

They'd spoken at exactly the same time, and O'Neill instantly passed a look at her that reeked of certain other shared familiarities. Sam pulled her coat tighter around her, gripping the edges as if for protection.

"I think that ol' Doc Frasier blames me for Duke." He tore his gaze from Sam and looked down at the mutt, instead. "Since I was the one that gave him to Cassie."

"Inflicted." Carter corrected him. "She says that you 'inflicted' Duke on her."

The Colonel stopped again, as Duke took interest in sniffing every conceivable side of a park bench. "But he's a good boy. His heart's in the right place."

"It's kind of nice to have him around." Despite herself, Sam had to concede that point. "I can see how people get attached. I think that, deep down, Janet likes him as much as Cassie does."

They started walking again, down the middle of the park where a long sidewalk made its meandering way past the playground and a small-ish baseball field. Not many people were around, but more than Sam had imagined would be out at dusk on Christmas Eve. Someone had decorated the tree closest to the jungle gym with large plastic balls and some tinsel. As the sun dimmed, the lights suddenly blinked on, casting odd, broken shadows across the path.

"So. Your house." O'Neill passed a look pointedly between her and the brightly lit conifer. "No tree?"

"I didn't see the point." Sam shrugged. "It's just me, so—yeah. No point. That, and I was a little afraid that Duke would consider it his personal potty area."

"Good way to get electrocuted."

It took Sam a moment to get the implications of that, but when she did, she snorted out a little laugh. "Ouch."

Both dimples showed, this time, as he grinned. "But still. People ought to have trees at Christmas."

"I don't recall you ever having one."

"Ah—but who says I'm 'people'?"

Banter. Easy, friendly, familiar. Sam could almost imagine that this was the real relationship that they shared. She'd always found him to be funny—funnier than other people did, that was for sure. Once she'd gotten past her awe of him during those first few missions, she'd found him to be human and interesting and filled with a puckish humor that delighted her at times, and maddened her at others. It wasn't until she'd lain next to him, slowly freezing to death in a glacier in Antarctica, that she'd discovered that her fascination with him had become something dangerous, that he was a serious threat to her. It wasn't until then that she'd realized that he was someone that she responded to in ways that she wasn't prepared to face.

"So, you're the exception?"

He stopped again, pulled slightly backward as Duke found something in the grass to sniff and worry over. Thrusting his hands into his jacket pockets, the Colonel cast her a sidelong glance. "Haven't you figured that out by now?"

She didn't know what to say that, so instead, she turned to watch as the sun made its final dip down below the houses across the way from the park. Suddenly, she was bathed in shadow. Metaphoric? Maybe. She didn't really want to think about that. The Colonel had told her not to dwell.

"Mmm." Noncommittal. A non answer, in a non-coversation.

"So." His response was more of a grunt. Filler, no more.

For some reason, that made the Major feel better. "So. Why are you here?"

He took a moment, switching the leash into his other hand, spending an inordinate amount of time wrapping the strap just right around his hand. He wasn't wearing gloves—but then he rarely did, except for the fingerless ones he sometimes wore off-world.

She'd never asked him why. "Aren't your hands cold?"

He looked down, seemingly intrigued at the question. "No. My hands don't get cold."

"Really." Raising a brow, Sam gave him a pointed look. "Always the tough guy."

He grinned, then raised his free hand and laid it against her cheek. "See? Warm."

And it was. Warm, and strong, and dry. A frission of energy sizzled through her at his touch, and she fought the urge to turn her face and meet that warmth with her lips.

She stepped away—two full paces backwards—before shivering, trying to shake the suddenly arisen want from her system. "Point taken."

Needing to escape, she angled towards the park bench they'd passed earlier. It was wrought iron—painted green. Although in the now-dark evening, it looked black. The only reason Sam knew its real color was that she'd passed it on many a walk in this park lately. Orlin had loved coming here and observing the Tau'ri. Carter steeled her spine against the memories. The betrayal she'd felt at that incident still stung. Nearly as much as the ache she felt returning from the pits, feeling abandoned a second time.

"So, now you're afraid of me?" So soft. His voice held that slightly brooding quality that it did when he was bone-serious about something.

"Not afraid, Sir."

"Then what? Still pissed?"

Sam had to think about that. "Not really. Maybe a little. I don't want to be."

"You ran away from me earlier."

"I'm sorry."

He paused, dragged the dog away from a light pole, and took a purposeful step closer to where she stood. "I don't know what you want from me, Carter."

And that was the biggest issue of all. Neither did she. She finally looked directly at him, at where his deep eyes had become little more than shadowed hollows. "Just like I don't know what you want from me."

Silence fell, broken only by the sometimes-frenzied sniffing of the dog browsing around their feet. They stood only a few feet apart, but it may as well have been light-eternities. Sam could smell him when the breeze gusted towards her. No aftershave or cologne—he'd affected her just as strongly when they'd been under the ice city, and there had certainly been no niceties there. It was just him. His being that made her want to bury herself in him and breathe him into her soul.

"Back at the beach. You left before I could say anything."

"But you didn't speak, Sir, you just sat there." She shifted her weight on the cold pavement, trying to keep loose. "Besides, I said enough stupidity for both of us."

"Will you stop that?"

"Stop what, Sir?"

"Stop the 'stupid' crap." The moon had risen, its light catching at the silver in the Colonel's hair, limning the shoulders of his leather jacket in a milky glow. "You're the least stupid person I've ever known. None of this is your fault—Hell—none of it's mine, either. It would have happened—we would have done what we did—regardless of whatever you think you could have done to stop it."

"But—"

"But what?" His boots scuffed at the cement of the walkway as he moved nearer to her. "What do you think we could have done to prevent the mind stamp? And once we weren't ourselves, once we weren't Colonel and Major, how in God's name could we have stayed away from each other?"

Sam couldn't answer that—it was too true to debate.

"We've been dancing around this thing since Day One. Since the moment you walked into that briefing room and started prattling on about Matt Mason."

"It was just the doll. Not really him as a per—"

"Whatever, Sam." He sighed, his breath catching at the sparse light in the park. "The point is that you're beating yourself up about something we had no control over."

"We had no control after the whole Land of the Light thing, either, right? The minotaur people with the allergy thing."

He frowned, shook his head a little. "I don't—"

"The Broca divide thing. Remember? Our brains regressed to their most basic level, banishing out logical or civilized thought."

Unbelievably, he smiled, remembering. "You went all cavewoman and tried to seduce me in the locker room."

"My point is, Sir, that they tried to split up the team after that. What do you think they'd do if they found out about the pits? About what we did in the pits? How fast do you think they'd assign me to some base in Germany or Alaska?"

"It wasn't our fault, Carter." He'd tensed, his jaw tightening, his nostrils flared slightly.

But still Sam was insistent. "It was—It was because we didn't stop it."

"How the hell were we supposed to do that?" He took a step closer, his voice ominously low. "We'd had our memories suppressed. We were working on pure instinct. The fact that we did—what we did—wasn't our fault."

"We should have—"

"We should have what? Didn't you say—just a few hours ago—that it would have happened because we're us?"

"But we could have taken precautions." Lame. Lame—her voice faded at the ridiculousness of her own statement. "Or something."

"It was inevitable. It was unavoidable." He wasn't shouting, but his voice was terse, biting. "And it wasn't. Our. Fault."

"Damnit—Colonel, it was!" She came closer to him, eyes impossibly wide. "Because we've let this thing—as you called it—get to a point that's unbearable—completely untenable. Because we've sublimated and denied and deflected until we don't know what's real and what was induced by some alien influence! I don't know what I want, because I don't know what's real anymore and what's been planted in my mind!"

He reached out, catching her arm and pulling her flush with his body. The leash dropped, forgotten, to the pavement as Jack fit his hand around her head and lowered his mouth to hers. Heat. Heat and power and frustration. No gentleness here, just raw hunger as he tasted her, relearned her feel and warmth, gave her the only answers he knew. Both hands, now, at her face, his fingers brushing her throat, his thumbs at her cheeks, their bodies fitting together as perfectly as before, line to line, shadow to shadow, curve to curve. Thigh to hip to abdomen, merged together, as she worked her arms up between them, her hands tightening into fists.

She pushed against him with a sob. "Please—"

"Don't you see?" He took her lips again—softer, now, nipping at her lower lip before pressing a kiss to her cheek, her temple, her forehead. His hands shifted, his arms threading around her shoulders, sheltering her in the heat of his body. He breathed in—shaking. "This is real. This is what we've been dancing around."

"Sir—"

"My name. Not 'Sir'. Not right now."

"I—" But she got no further than that single syllable before her voice was choked off.

"Sam. It would have happened." He spoke so quietly that it was practically a whisper. "Regardless of whatever barrier you'd erected, whatever safeguards we'd put in place. It would've happened because I'm me and you're you, and for whatever reason, we're damned good together."

Tentatively, Carter released some internal tension, allowing her hands to splay against the hot plane of his torso. He hadn't fastened his jacket, and the thin sweater he wore was soft beneath her fingers and palms. She could feel his heart pounding beneath his sternum, feel the power in the muscles of his chest, his abdomen. His arms pulled her even closer, until she finally gave in completely and fit her head beneath his chin, her lips at the pulse point of his throat.

Forever. She wanted to stay this way forever.

"You okay?"

An eternity had passed—or a few moments. Sam had lost the ability to think about it. She shook her head a little, then ducked her face more fully into the warm column of his throat. "I will be."

"Cold?"

"Definitely."

"We should get back to your house." He pulled away enough to be able to look down and see her face. "I think the dog's butt is frozen to the sidewalk."

-OOOOOOO-

They walked. More quickly than before. They hadn't really gotten far from the house—there hadn't been any reason to find a private place when the darkness and cold had chased everyone else inside. He held her hand, fingers entwined, the pad of his thumb making casual circles on the knuckle of hers. Duke, finally having emptied himself of all things liquid, now aimed himself with single purpose of thought towards the warmth of home.

"I know what you were talking about, you know."

"When? On the beach?" Sam angled a look at Jack.

"When you said all that stuff about it feeling hopeless."

She took several steps, concentrating on the weight of his hand, before answering. "I get down sometimes. It feels like there's no solution."

"There isn't." His thumb stilled in its rhythmic ministrations. "Not unless we get reassigned. Split up the team."

"Us or the world."

"Us or the world."

She shook her head, nudging his shoulder with her own. "Are we really that arrogant that we believe that we are the only ones that can be on the front lines of this?"

He stopped in his tracks, only a few feet from her front porch steps. "Well, Carter, I don't know. Has anyone else you know ever blown up a sun?"

She smiled. "Anyone with the proper knowledge could have—"

"I could retire."

There it was. The humongous elephant that had never once left this particular room. The Colonel was in complete earnest, his expression, his focus, intent upon her.

"So could I."

"I've been thinking about it."

"Me too. Right after we got back and I was waiting for the test results."

There was no need to elaborate on that. Anxious to get inside, Duke pulled at the leash, but Jack held him tight. "And would you have kept it?"

Sam crumbled a little inside. Even as she'd held the results in her hand so many months ago, she'd mourned a bit at seeing the "negative". It hadn't been the relief she'd imagined it would be. "Yes."

O'Neill's lips tightened, his eyes became more intense. "I could retire."

With a little squeeze, Sam disentangled her fingers from him and started walking again, making her way up the steps even as she fished in her pocket for her keys. "You know, Bra'tac told me something once. A few months ago, after Teal'c had been brainwashed by Apophis."

O'Neill stopped beside her, his hands making themselves busy with Duke's leash. "Do tell."

"He said, 'Life for the sake of life means nothing." The porch was dark, but a single lamp from the living room gave her enough light to see O'Neill. "I thought I understood what he meant, but I didn't. Not until now."

Jack breathed out, heavily. "So, I guess no retirement."

"We both know what has to happen. Until the threat is gone, we need to fight it. What makes us good together also makes us successful as a team."

"We'd always wonder how much more we could have done."

Sam nodded, slightly sad, more resigned than anything else.

"So, no retirement." That expression—depth upon depth—the Colonel's dark eyes narrowed even as his lips relaxed. "That old coot's been known to get a few things right."

"He has."

Beneath her feet, the wooden slats of the porch creaked as Sam leaned into the door, fitting the key into the lock. Duke sniffed voraciously at the door, seeking warmth, or perhaps just angling for his dinner. As soon as the door swung wide, he bolted for the interior, dragging the leash along in his wake.

The clatter of the leash on her hardwood floor almost drowned out Jack's softly muttered, "Damn it."

-OOOOOOO-

"So, what's in the bag?"

Dinner had been simple, canned soup and some crackers. Duke lay on the rug just in front of the coffee table, while Sam and the Colonel cleaned up in the kitchen. He snored. Sam had never before known that dogs could snore. She'd also learned this evening that they could burp.

Education found her whenever it could.

O'Neill finished wiping the counter dry with a towel, then folded it haphazardly and tossed it near the sink. "Oh—that. I brought you a present."

"Oh. But—I didn't get you anything."

Bending, he grabbed the bag and opened it, reaching in to pull out a few boxes of microwave popcorn and several boxes of movie candy. Finally, he brought out a package wrapped in green tissue paper. He'd even tied some curling ribbon into a bow in the center of the present. "C'mon. It's Christmas. Just open it."

Reluctant, she held her hand out, then groaned when she recognized the shape beneath the paper. "It's a movie, isn't it?"

He practically beamed. "Not just any movie, a Christmas movie."

"You're kidding, right? I've had about all I can take of sappy Christmas movies."

"Ah, but this, Major Carter, is the greatest Christmas movie of all time."

"Miracle on 34th Street?"

"Nope.

"It's a Wonderful Life?"

The Colonel flinched. "Does anyone actually like that one? Talk about depressing. And who names their kid Zu-zu? Seriously—he kind of had all that bad stuff coming for that act alone."

Sam rounded the kitchen island and plopped herself down on the couch, ripping away at the tissue paper as O'Neill set himself to turning on the TV and readying the DVD player.

"Trust me, Carter. You'll love it."

And later, she had to admit agreement. It wasn't just the ambience, although that was most pleasant. Warm popcorn in a bowl on her lap, she sat beside O'Neill on the couch. Both of them had their stocking feet propped up on the coffee table. That infernal dog lay neatly curled on the cushion next to her, snoring gently into his tail.

Jack O'Neill had been right about one thing. This was the single greatest Christmas movie of all time.

"This is awesome."

"I can't believe you had never seen this movie."

"Me either." Sam reached for another handful of Dots. "Soooo much better than the Hallmark Channel."

O'Neill motioned towards the screen, where the hero was crawling, bloodied and battered, through the air conditioning ducts of a high rise in Los Angeles. "'Die Hard'. The best Christmas movie ever."

Breathing out a smile, Sam nudged her companion with her elbow. "Thank you. I really needed this."

He looked over at her, capturing her gaze with his dark one. For a few seconds, time paused as they lost themselves in each other. So much passed in that single look—in that moment's communication.

Pain. Healing.

Resignation. Peace.

Yearning. Control.

"C'mere." He shifted, reaching around to gently draw her back against his body. She ended up with her head on his chest, his arm anchoring her to him. His fingers absently tracing a line up and down her arm. "You know, right?"

"What do I know?"

"That you're not really ever alone."

Sam closed her eyes, smiling against the broad expanse of O'Neill's chest. His arm tightened—just for a moment, before his hand started its meaningless meander again.

Comfort. Hurt.

Sadness.

She could dwell, she knew. Maybe should dwell. But for now, she chose to cling to this lifeline-this time and place and man.

For now, it was enough.