Pete sits next to her at the funeral. And while she wants it to feel right – she really does want it to feel right – it just... doesn't. She thinks a lot about sitting in the observation room with the General's arm around her shoulders, about the soft way he'd said always and she wonders how it would feel if he were sitting next to her right now.

She wonders about it so hard that she misses most of the eulogy given by the minister who'd never met her father, who repeats generic and yet oddly personal stories shared by herself and Mark over coffee in his office two days ago. He makes comments about the hard man her father was and it makes her incongruously angry that the final thoughts these strangers are going to have of Jacob Carter are about how he wasn't the best father to two kids. He was a fantastic father to a Major in the Air Force, though, once he'd become half alien. He'd been exactly what she needed. And part of her wishes that Mark had gotten to have some of that.

When it's over she stands between Mark and Pete accepting condolences from mostly people who never met her father, people who are friends of Mark's and who are there for him. She's glad he has that. Because the memorial that had been held at the SGC had been for her and for the people who knew her father as the man he was, she truly believes, meant to be.

Later, she sits on her brother's back deck holding her cell phone in her hands in case, just in case, a text from back home comes through. She tells herself she's waiting for word that they need her back, but the truth is, she's waiting for a message from him. She won't even let herself think his name. Because, she's been feeling more for him than she has been for Pete and she feels guilty. Guilty that she's betraying the man she loves and guilty that she's lying to a man she doesn't.

Her thoughts flit to Kerry Johnson and she knows, just knows, deep down inside that while she might be a nice distraction for him she's not the right woman for him. She seems nice, and smart, and she's certainly beautiful enough to stand next to him and not fade away, but she's not right. Sam's smart enough, too, to admit that she's feeling more and more that the right woman for him is, well, her.

But it's a fine mess she's gotten herself into, agreeing to marry Pete. And while she knows it's wrong and while she doesn't want to do it anymore, she can't bring herself to end it. She knows what Pete's going to say: that it's her grief talking, that she doesn't know what she's saying. She hates that he purports to know her so well when he doesn't know anything important about her at all. There are people who know her, one person who knows her better than she even seems to know herself, and Pete, sadly, isn't among them.

Behind her, the door opens. In her hand, her phone trills softly, heralding a text message. "I brought you some wine," Pete's voice interrupts in the next moment – the moment she wanted to use to read the text message. She's suddenly angry for his very presence and she knows in that moment, that even if she can't end it, she can't marry him. She can't pretend. She can't fake it.

"I don't want it," she says and she hears the rebuke, the cruel edge to her voice. She's talking about all of it.

He thinks she's talking about the wine. "Okay," he says, uncertainly.

"I want to be alone." Not true. She just doesn't want to be with him. Not when she's possibly holding in the palm of her hand some words from the one person she wants most.

"Sure. Okay." His voice is more timid than she's ever heard it.

No, she can't end it, but she can force him to.

She flips her phone open and reads the text message. It's from her cell phone provider.

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

At home, in the Springs, Pete walks on eggshells around her. She's gone hard and edgy and he's clearly not sure how to handle this version of her. She spends as much time as she can under the mountain and wonders how long it'll take him to get the picture. He's always at her house when she comes up for air, though, and it makes her irrationally mad.

After a couple of weeks she notices that Kerry Johnson isn't around anymore and while she's elated to not have to deal with the physical reminder that he'd moved on, she's also very cognizant of that fact that he could be feeling lonely. It's hard not to be with the person you want – she's intimately aware. The more she focuses on Kerry being gone, though, the more she thinks about what she'd shown up at his house to tell him. The more she thinks about all the things they've always left unsaid. The more she thinks about how life is short and wonders if the SGC, if Earth, is really worth the sacrifice of her own happiness.

She remembers, almost too late, her duty. But she's sitting in his driveway – again – when she comes to realize that no matter how much she wants him, no matter how much her life has changed and no matter how much she wants to sabotage her relationship – she can't. Not with him anyway. Her engine is purring, she hasn't even yet bothered to shut off the car. The slight hum of the air conditioning fills her senses along with the buzz of all that she can't have and she's so startled she jumps when a knock sounds on her window.

Her initial reaction is to throw the car into reverse, to flee, but she finds she's as rooted to the spot as he's rooted inside her so she rolls down the window.

"You gonna sit out here all night?" is all he says.

She laughs thinly, but soon her laugh has turned maniacal and he reaches for the lock on her door, pulls it up, pulls her door open and reaches across her lap to pop her seatbelt. He's pulling her out of the car as her laughter becomes a sob. She's wrapped up in his arms when the tears start and she clings to him, completely aware that she shouldn't but past caring.

He murmurs things to her, combs his fingers through her hair, calms her down, but most importantly, doesn't offer to call Pete. "Come inside," he says when her sob wanes to hiccups.

She wants that more than anything, to be surrounded by him, by his scent, by his things. And while she knows she shouldn't have what she wants, she doesn't turn him down. She shuts off the car and follows him, docilly, into his home. Takes the offered seat on the couch and then, a minute later, the beer that he presses into her hand.

They're both silent for a long time. And then? Then, she starts talking.

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

When she's done she's changed both their lives irrevocably. Because now, it's out there. All the things they never said because it was too dangerous to give voice to their feelings, she's said them.

He blows out a breath through pursed lips. She wonders what he's going to say, if her declaration is going to be returned. Instead, he says, "Kerry ended it."

It wasn't what she was expecting, she was expecting denial or perhaps, even, acceptance, but his words lighten her heart.

"You can't marry Pete," is the next thing he says.

"I know." But she reminds herself that she can't end it, either, that she's waiting, patiently, for him to break up with her. But the man sitting in front of her, looking at her like he is, makes her want to feel like herself again, makes her want to take charge of her life, and she finds... she finds... she wants to be strong again.

"You've been through a lot lately," he says carefully. "Normally I'd recommend against big decisions, but in light of what you're feeling, you can't marry him."

She realizes then that he's on board about her not marrying Pete, but he doesn't quite believe the things she said about how she feels about him. She can understand his hesitation. She felt it herself before clarity set in. "And if I don't, what then?"

He clears his throat and looks down at the floor. "I'm not sure what you want me to say here, Carter."

She feels herself deflate, then. The nearly unbearable lightness she'd felt when Kerry was out of the picture fades into a blackness that threatens to overtake her. Why had he told her about Kerry if he didn't want her? Had she really had it so wrong all this time? Had his feelings changed?

"You don't have to say anything," she finds herself saying, her voice thick with tears that are threatening to fall. She feels, all of a sudden, completely unlike herself and she doesn't enjoy the feeling at all.

He looks up at her then and his face softens into something she doesn't want to see. "It's not that I don't feel strongly for you," he reassures her quickly. But his words are tainted by the look of pity in his eyes. She notices he doesn't use the same word to express himself that she had.

She doesn't say anything.

"But nothing's changed," he reminds her gently. "We can't..."

She exhales sharply. "What if I changed it?"

Understanding lights his eyes. "No big decisions right now."

It doesn't feel right when she nods her head.

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

She changes her mind about forcing Pete to end the relationship and takes pity on him and herself and ends it sitting in front of the house he'd bought them. She's not entirely sure what she expected to feel but is a little surprised by the relief.

Weeks pass. The world continues to turn and she finds herself back out on missions, commanding her team, but she feels hollow. He avoids looking at her, even during briefings he'll hardly meet her eyes.

Until one day.

He shows up at her house. He's fiddling with the arms of his sunglasses when she answers the door.

"You don't have to change anything," he says by way of greeting.

A sinking feeling takes up residence in her stomach. "Why not?"

"I'm being re-assed."

She shakes her head. "What? No."

"And so are you."

In the living room, he explains about Washington and why he has to go. And Nevada and why she has to go. She's so stricken that she doesn't catch the slight smile on his face. She can't understand why she should want Nevada. Or why he doesn't seem so upset about Washington. Why should she be happy about giving up SG-1?

"Your assignment there is only temporary," he says suddenly and she wonders if her feelings were spilling out of her mouth while she wasn't paying attention.

"And your assignment to Washington?"

"Permanent, until new orders come through, I guess, but I'm pretty close to retirement, either way," he says with a shrug.

"Why are you so calm about this?"

"Because Carter... Sam..." He falters. He meets her eye for the first time in what feels like forever. "I'm not, exactly, your CO anymore."

It takes her sixty full seconds to understand what he's telling her. "You're going to be everyone's CO," she says slowly.

"Not for the time you're in Nevada. I'll be here. You'll be reporting to someone else. And by the time I'm your CO again..."

"What, exactly, are you saying?" she asks, too afraid to hope for any one – a particular – thing.

"I'm saying that we feel the same way."

"Say it, then." Suddenly, she doesn't believe it unless he says the word.

A blush stains his cheeks but he sits up straight, resolutely, takes a deep breath and tells her, "I'm in love with you."

She sags with relief. "Why didn't you say so? Before?"

"Because I wasn't going to make you wait. I wasn't going to make you cling to something I couldn't fully give you."

She laughs then, thinly. "You think it was easier this way?"

He nods once. "Yes, I do."

She finds she has to wipe tears from her eyes.

"We need to get married, before things change again, and we can't."

She feels like she could have whiplash from that perceived change of topic. "Sir," she says, feeling strange about calling him 'sir' when he's just proposed marriage, "that's ridiculous."

"No, dating, under our circumstances would be ridiculous. I want you, Sam. And unless something's changed since that day at my house, you want me, too."

She nods, dumbly, and he slides off her coffee table and onto the couch next to her, takes her face between his hands, and kisses her.

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

When she goes back to the SGC, she's a married woman who has never actually lived with her husband. No one knows what they've done and they've made specific plans to keep their marriage under wraps for the time being. She dallies about telling Daniel and Teal'c but finds herself wound up in the fight against the Ori with no time for comparatively minor things such as her love life.

And as the days drift into weeks and then into months it almost seems wrong to tell them. Because now it feels almost like a dirty secret she's been keeping. She doesn't talk to Jack nearly as often as she should and she doesn't remember the feeling of him inside her – a feeling she didn't get comfortably familiar with before they were separated by duty once again.

It takes her winding up in the infirmary, injured, to bring him to town. He walks in with an overnight bag slung over his shoulder and she knows he hasn't even stopped by his house. It makes her feel lighter than she has in months to see his face and to know he wasn't stopping until he got to her.

"Jesus, Carter," he says, dropping his bag next to the bed, "you took ten years off my life, and let's face it, I don't have that many to spare." And then, he leans down and kisses her quickly before pressing his forehead to hers in an intimate way that, when he stands up and she looks at the stricken faces of her team, makes her almost giddy with the enormity of the news she has to share.

"Um... guys?" Daniel finds his voice first, naturally.

"I guess it's time we told them," Jack says conspiratorially.

"We've waited long enough," she agrees.

Jack sits down on the edge of the bed and begins to tell their story.

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

It's years later when she finally takes the time to think about how close she came to not having him at all. She's watching him make coffee when the idea of never having had this time with him hits her in a way that makes her gasp.

He looks over at her, over his glasses, and asks, "You okay?"

She looks at him so intently that he stops making the coffee and turns towards her. "I love you," she says.

He crosses the room, sifts his fingers into her greying hair, bends down and presses his lips against her temple. "I love you, too."

She can count the number of times they've actually said the words in the years they've been together. It makes the words sweeter and every time she hears them, it's like a revelation.

She thinks back, often, to her father's last day and of all the things he said. Things that, ultimately, pushed her right to where she is right now.

Jack's already gone back to the coffee but she tells him, "My dad always liked you."

"Yeah? Even when we first met and he thought we were sleeping together?"

"He never thought that!" She's incredulous that Jack would even suggest such a thing.

"Oh, yes he did," he says with a chuckle. "You didn't see the way he looked at me."

She hadn't seen whatever look Jack thought he saw, but her dad had never once hinted to her about any perceived improprieties.

"But yeah, I think he grew to like me, and to trust me."

"He did," she says wistfully, remembering only the good parts of her father.

"I thank him, everyday, you know?"

"For what?"

"For whatever it is he said to you to make you rethink Pete. Without him putting the ball into motion..."

It's a name that is rarely spoken in their household and it startles her that he uses it so casually. "How did you know..."

"I always suspected because of the way it unraveled. It seemed like you were suddenly... awake."

She supposes he was right. It had felt like that. Like a slow realization of what her life was supposed to be.

She often wonders how things might have turned out if they'd gotten together during the early years when they'd felt so strongly that they even found each other when they'd thought they were different people. But she feels like the love they have now is hard fought and hard won and it feels almost like it would have been cheating if it had happened earlier.

She gets up from her place at the kitchen table and crosses the room. She wraps her arms around him from behind and lays her head on his shoulder. He covers her hands with his own, his touch warm and familiar. She waited a lot of years for this but she realizes, quite suddenly, that it was worth every moment of worry and doubt that it would ever happen.

"Look," he says, "the sun's coming up."

She picks up her head and looks over his shoulder and together, for the thousandth time, they watch the sunrise.