a/n: The Hundred Days-Shades of Grey arc is really sticking with me right now.

Your hands found a dark switch in me
That I didn't know existed

Snow Patrol

After a month, someone had moved the colonel's truck back to his house.

Sam doesn't know which poor SF got assigned to drive the battered old pickup. It must have been a strange feeling. No one even knew if the colonel was still alive, let alone coming back. There wasn't really a protocol for how long an officer's car sat in the parking garage before they gave him up as lost forever on another planet.

In the darker moments, Sam sometimes asks herself how long she would have kept working before giving up. Apparently, one month was the limit for the parking admins.

What's my limit?

Looking back, she honestly doesn't know.

Not that it matters.

And it's not that she regrets those months of work. She did something good, something with incredible ramifications for the future of planetary security. Sam can still take pride in the purity of science, the simple satisfaction of hard work that solves a thorny problem.

Physics is clean. Precise. It only gets messy when applied to reality. And suddenly, her neat, tidy work was a matter of life and death.

When Janet asked her if there was a problem, she'd said No.

As soon as she hands in the bare minimum of paperwork - she'll deal with everything else tomorrow - Sam hightails it to the locker room, intent on swapping her BDU's for something less drab. She's not really sure what time it is, and she doesn't care. She's beyond exhausted.

She shrugs on her jacket, shoves her wallet in her pocket, grabs her keys, and shuts her locker door. Janet had asked if she wanted to come over for dinner, but right now, Sam's not up for it. She needs to go home. She needs to go home and not think about Stargates and work and science and a commanding officer who doesn't seem like he wants to be on Earth anymore.

She shakes her head. I'm just tired. Everything will be better after a good night's sleep.

Outside the locker room, she turns the corner to get to the elevators, but runs into a flustered-looking Daniel, with Colonel O'Neill following him. The colonel's in his civvies, but Daniel's still in BDU's, a massive notebook tucked under one arm. He brightens when he sees her.

"Oh, hey, Sam." He pushes his glasses up his nose. "Hey, can you do me a favor? I told Jack I'd drive him home, but I got pulled into a meeting with SG-4, and it's going to be at least another hour. Could you take him?"

Rather than a self-deprecating wisecrack, the colonel just watches her, his face unreadable. She can't think of a single polite reason she could refuse, because I really don't want to would require more a more honest explanation than she can give.

Even to herself.

"Sure."

"Thanks. I owe you." Daniel blinks, like he's finally focusing on her. "And hey, you should get home too. I know you've been working hard."

She gives him a faint smile. "See you tomorrow."

Daniel hustles off, leaving her alone with Colonel O'Neill, who hasn't cracked a joke (at least, not that she's heard) in three months, and it's just all wrong.

She forces a smile. "Ready?"

He nods, not quite meeting her eyes. "After you, Carter."

They're almost to her car when she remembers - Daniel stopped at the colonel's house a few weeks ago. He mentioned clearing out the fridge. The term "bio-hazard" was mentioned.

"Sir, would you like to stop at the grocery store? It's on the way. I know Daniel cleaned out your fridge."

He accepts hesitantly, but with the lack of surprise that tells her he knew he'd need to go, but he wasn't going to ask. That hurts. How uncomfortable is he with her, that he can't ask a simple favor like that?

The colonel's brisk about the groceries thing, just grabbing some staples, and before she knows it, they're walking into his house with arms full of paper bags. And of course, she's not just going to walk away without helping him put everything away, is she?

She doesn't know how to feel.

This should be easy. It's domestic. She knows his kitchen as well as he does, thanks to team nights. He hands over a jar of pasta sauce, she gives him the eggs. But it's off. It doesn't feel right.

There's one brief moment as she puts away a box of cereal, stretching up on her toes to reach the top shelf, and turns back to find him looking at her, an odd expression on his face.

"What?"

He blinks, seems to snap out of whatever it was. "Nothing."

It's very obviously not nothing, but Sam's starting to feel frayed, threadbare from the strain of trying to act normal around him, and she needs to be done. She needs to go. So she focuses on the work. Just a few more things to put away, then she can make her excuses.

It happens so fast.

One moment she's helping him put away groceries, and then suddenly he's kissing her.

It's slow. Gentle. Perfect.

Sam's frozen in shock for a split second, but instinct takes over and she melts against him, willing and easy. Trusting.

A soft noise of pleasure escapes her, and his reaction is immediate.

He backs her up against the cabinets, and she's pinned there, trapped against the hard, lean lines of his muscular frame. The impact jars them apart, and Sam catches her breath, her hands finding the edge of the counter behind her. His eyes are blazing, dark, fixed on her with an intensity she's never seen before.

She's flushed, hot, trapped between the counter and his body. After three months locked in a dark room, all alone, she feels buzzing and aware and alive. And now she's tired and emotionally worn and just too weak to pretend she doesn't want him.

There's just a moment, a breath, and then he takes her face in his hands and kisses her hard, desperate. There's something deliberate about him, like he's been thinking about this for as long as she has. Like he's spent months working up the nerve to touch her.

He tilts her head back, kissing her more deeply, and his thigh slides between hers. She sinks down against him, the hard, muscular line of his leg putting pressure right where she needs it. She gasps at the sudden heat, and he bites at her lower lip, soothing the sting with his tongue. Her back arches, heat flaring under her skin as her body presses up against him.

When he finally lets go of her, takes a step back, Sam opens hazy eyes to find him staring at her with something she can't figure out. Shock, yeah. He looks as shocked as she feels. But it's more than that.

Sam swallows hard, trying to ignore his gaze flickering to her mouth.

"I should go."

She doesn't want to. But there's something in his eyes - he's never looked at her like this. Like he's shocked at what he's just done.

But he wants to keep going.

She all but bolts to her car, before she can turn around, walk back into his house, and see just what it is he wants to do with her.

Before she can say yes.