Carter was always talking, so it only made sense that she spoke first.

"Sir, none of this has to leave this room," she'd blurted. There was fear behind those gorgeous blue eyes.

It's not what he would have said. He would have said something like, "Let's go talk to the General" or "I'm sorry I didn't say more about my feelings, that lady Tok'ra with the crush on me made it weird" or "hey, Carter, you're a national treasure, wanna get a pizza?"

But she spoke first, and there was fear behind her eyes as she spoke so he wasn't going to say any of the things that he meant. "We're okay with that?" he asks.

"Yes," she nods. Eager. Relieved.

He's not okay with it, but he's not going to tell her.

He's her superior officer. If he ever did or said anything it would be sexual harassment. Even thinking the thoughts that ran around his head every single day was a betrayal of the frat rules. If they ever acted on anything, it would be her career that took the hit, not his.

She wanted to leave it in the room, and so he would.

Only it wasn't really fair, was it? She realized that the stupid xanex detectors weren't working because of their feelings. So does she sit down in the chair and let them do their mind reading voodoo on her? No, of course not, they plop his butt down in the chair.

"I care for her a lot more than I'm supposed to."

That's it? That's all he gave her? It's not like he was all touchy feely about his emotions or anything - just ask his ex-wife. But he felt like his declaration of feelings for the great Samantha Carter should have been more than this.

Of course, his declaration of feelings for her also shouldn't have come in front of a bunch of aliens, and the good Dr. Fraiser. Not that he minded Fraiser so much. He was pretty sure the good doctor had known about their mutual feelings for a long time.

Anyway, it wasn't like Sam had said much more about him.

"I couldn't stand the thought of him dying, not him."

That was enough. That, and that stupid facial expression had apparently been enough for the xanex detector.

If only he could make facial expressions like that he would have been able to hide the truth better, and then he wouldn't have had to share so much of his soul.

Of course, maybe she just didn't have as much to share. Maybe she just didn't feel as deeply about him as he felt about her. Maybe that's why she was ok with leaving it in the room.

He really wasn't anymore. That was the thing about love though. When you love someone you will do whatever they want you to do, even if it kills you.

Carter wants it left in the room. It stays in the room.

-0-

"Sam, are you ok?" Daniel asks staring across the table from her. It's a habit that they got into when they first became a team. He'd work in her lab, she'd work in office. Sometimes they were working on something together, most of the time they were not. At first it was a way of building up team unity, but by this point it was just a way of staving off the horrid loneness that was their life.

"Yeah," she says.

"It must have been scary when they decided to put you to sleep for goodness only knows how long," Daniel says staring at his friend. For someone whose job it is to make peace with natives he really isn't that good with social clues.

She just nods, hoping he would move on.

"I'm still a little unclear on how exactly you guys proved you weren't xatarcs," Daniel says gently.

She sighs, and used her patented answer, "I just knew." Hey, it worked for Cassie, it should work now.

"I wasn't asking how you figured it out, I was asking how you proved it," he presses.

"Daniel, can we not do this?" she asks.

He sighs, as exhausted by the never cans as she is. "If that's what you want, Sam."

"It is what we want, the Colonel and I," she says.

Daniel doesn't call BS on them, because it doesn't seem like the kind of thing that friends should do.

-0-

She didn't want to take it out of the room, and he was going to respect it. He really was. Time loop or not, it would be a violation to start a relationship with someone that you know didn't want you.

Well, at least that is what he thought until he'd lost track of how many time loops he's been through, and lost all hope that the time loops were ever going to end. It felt like it had been an eternity.

So he resigned, and he kissed her, and she kissed him back. It was worth the resignation to him.

Still, she'd said that she wanted to leave it in the room, but maybe… maybe she'd didn't know what another answer would have meant. Maybe she'd assumed that it meant she had to give up everything she'd ever dreamed of. Maybe she thought that it meant that they were going to sneak around, get caught, and ruin both of their careers.

Maybe she had just never considered that he would be the one to give up something.

Then again, maybe he just wasn't good enough.

Either way, he wasn't sure he could deal with the uncertainly.

-0-

Three days later:

"Hey, Carter," Jack says, entering her lab. He sits down on a stool. The first year she didn't understand her commanding officer very well, and he used to make her nervous. She always thought he had a motive for every encounter. Now she knows him well enough to know his main motive is just checking on those under his command - mentally, emotionally, and in her case scientifically, too.

She smiles and nods, and he just sits.

It works for them.

"My house at seven?" he says, standing.

"Good, it's been a while since we had a team night," she says.

He channels Teal'c in order to show no reaction to this. He should have known. She is so careful about never being alone with him, but they really need to talk.

"You've got it, Carter."

-0-

The next night:

"Am I early?" Sam asks as she arrives at Jack's house that night. She always comes to team night twenty minutes late just to avoid this kind of thing.

"Nope, I tricked you, the rest of the team isn't coming," he says.

There is a long second when she tries to figure out if this is one of his strange jokes or not.

"Carter, we need to talk about that room," he says.

She crosses her arms defensively across her body. It's a Daniel move, the team has been together long enough that they have picked up on all of each other's bad habits.

"Sir, I don't think the frat rules have left us a whole lot to talk about," she says, exaggerating the first word just like he really needed a freaking reminder about rank right now.

"See, I think they do. The whole idea of frat rules is that you're not supposed to get too close to people. It doesn't really have anything to do with romance, it says clearly in them that friendship can be as much of a break in frat rules as dating. Not close enough that you ever chose their life over the mission. Well, I think we've both been in the military long enough to know that's crap."

"Sir?" she asks, alarmed.

"Come on, the only airman I know willing to sacrifice one of his team members for the mission was Frank Cromwell, and I think we all know how I felt about him." She nods her head. This is one of those forbidden topics that they never touched on, and he's talking about it, without Daniel nagging him, without Janet threatening him with psychologists, without Hammond puffing out his chest in that way where you just knew his angry voice was about to come out. "It's the way a good airman, hell, a good person works. You can't ask people to risk their lives without feeling that someone has their back, and that's always a break in the frat rules. Besides, on that day the xanex flipped out about, Teal'c wouldn't leave either. Teal'c broke the letter and intent of those frat rules every bit as much as you and I did. We'd do it for the whole team. You know I wouldn't have left Daniel or Teal'c any more than I'd leave you."

"You left Daniel once," she says. There is no bite to the words. She's dealt with what happened on Apophis' ship one way or the other. Jack wasn't sure how she got over the constant trauma that came with being a member of SG-1, but he suspected that Fraiser and wine had something to do with it. He didn't ask questions, as long as it all stayed dealt with.

"Yeah, but I waited for him a lot of times when I shouldn't have, too," he says. He's dealt with what he did to Daniel, too. He'd drunk-dialed the man at three am, and found him still in his freaking office translating something. They'd talked around the issue without ever saying anything real. It worked, though.

Whatever kept you standing. Whatever kept the team functioning. Just go with it, and don't ask questions.

"I still think this conversation is a waste of our time," Sam says, pleading with her eyes to be released from this agony, to be set free to forget it ever happened.

"See, it's not, Carter, because if we dated it wouldn't even matter. There is no way that I could ever feel more for you than I already do."

Terrified eyes meet terrified eyes.

He hadn't meant to say that.

Or maybe he had, it was hard to tell. He'd almost said it during the xanex testing. If there had been two more rounds of "Sir", pleading with him to be more honest it would have been laid bare in front of the Tok'ra and all.

"Sir, you can't quit," she pleads. What will she do if he's not her CO? No-one has ever showed her how to be a leader before. She owes her last promotion to him, not in some sleeping-to-the-top-even-though-we-aren't kind of way, but because he had honestly made her a better officer. There were a lot of asses in the air force who still didn't believe that a woman could do this job. There were also a lot of people who simply didn't take time or risk to instill confidence, tact, and good ole boys charm in a female under their command.

Not to mention the fact that she would see 'dating Jack' way less often than she'd see 'work Colonel', and that just might kill her.

"I think if I just talk to George he will…"

"Give us permission to ignore regs? Or maybe he'll just bump me to another team. Probably SG 16. Have you seen those nerds try to run?" She glares at him as he opens his mouth, "You better not be about to say that I'm a nerd."

"Would never dream of it Carter. I was going to say that I seriously doubt Hammond would reassign based on me coming to him when we haven't done anything besides team things. Worst case I'll ask to be moved to SG-2. It's about time that you had your own command. I wanted to talk to you to make sure you knew that if we did something it wouldn't have to be your career taking the hit."

He says it like he believes it, but Sam is pretty sure that she isn't ready for a long term command. Sure, she'd had command when the Colonel was injured, but that wasn't the same as being in charge of the leading team in contacting alien planets.

"Sam, are you worried about rumors?"

She rolls her eyes like he's treating her like a junior high girl, "Sir, if I didn't want people to talk about me like that, I would never have joined the Air Force. I stopped feeling all sad inside about those 'serving under' jokes by the time I was done with my plebe summer."

She was back to being a tough as nails feminist. That only came out when she felt threatened.

"Look, I'm obviously not going to do anything without your permission, but if you want me to talk to the General…" he says, and he looks just so hopeful.

"Sir, I can't lose you," she whispers, scared.

"I know it's a risk, but either way you're not going to lose me," he says, "And I won't let him take you off SG-1, no matter what."

She sighs her assent before adding, "If the universe dies because of this, it's on you, sir."