Way More Than I Should

By BadgerGater

E-mail: [email protected]

Category: drama, sequel to Window of Opportunity

Summary: Jack's POV as he thinks about what he really thinks about Carter

Season: Four

Spoilers: Divide and Conquer and Window of Opportunity

Pairing: None

Warnings: None

Rating: PG

Disclaimer: I don't own Jack or any of the other Stargate characters (sigh). They belong to big companies like Showtime/Viacom, MGM, Gekko, etc. No copyright infringement intended. It's all done in fun and absolutely no cash or other valuables change hands. Story is the property of the author. Read it all you want, but please ask if you'd like to post it. Okay, campers?

Author's Note: There was a little scene in Window of Opportunity that got me thinking about why I've never been able to picture Jack and Sam as anything other than teammates and friends. This is it. I know it's a different take, but then, I've always liked being different... Throw the rocks and bricks gently, okay campers? And always remember, if we all thought alike, life would be way too boring.

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I can't tell you when it started, but I remember exactly the point at which I saw it was never meant to be. I didn't know it then of course, not consciously at least. It took me a long time to realize it, with a little assistance from the 20/20 hindsight perfect vision we all tend to develop long after we've made perfect idiots of ourselves.

Hey, Jack, can you spell midlife crisis?

I *am* totally dense when it comes to personal relationships, just ask any woman who's ever had the misfortune to get involved with me.

So, yeah, it took me a while to figure out that the fact was, I was never going to be the love of her life; I'd never be anything but second banana, second fiddle and an afterthought to the real passions of her existence.

I'd always thought those 40-something guys trying to recapture their high school days were pretty pitiful.

Look in the mirror, Jack.

So, no, I didn't turn in the mini van for a convertible; join the Hair Club for Men or stock up on Grecian Formula; I didn't still have the little woman around to throw over for some younger model.

I just mooned after Carter like a horny teenager with a crush on the new girl in school.

Can you define fool, Jack?

I like women. Women have always liked me (no brag, just fact). From the time I was a teenager, I never had to chase them. More often than not, I spent my time running as fast as I could in the opposite direction of anything resembling a serious relationship or a commitment.

So many women, so little time.

Then I met Sara and everything changed.

When my marriage to Sara ended, it was a long time before I even looked at a woman again, before I cared about anything or felt anything or let myself wonder about what I was doing or what the future would hold. For a long time, I had no future, and then, gradually, while I was busy with other things, life just sort of seeped back into me on the sly.

By the time I figured out I was missing something, I was in the Stargate program, more secret than anything else I'd ever done. It consumed me, well, okay, I *let* it consume me. I wanted and needed the SGC to take over my life because work was the only life I had. I went home exhausted on the nights I went home at all; more often than not, I just stayed on the base, camping out on the cot in my office until it seemed more home than my home did.

Of course, that might have had something to do with the fact that my home wasn't a home, it was an empty house masquerading as a home. A home, see, isn't the place where you park your coat and your car, it's the place where you keep your heart. For a long time I had mine so well buried, fully armored and well hidden under a ton of denial that I all but convinced myself I had no heart.

The job was my life, my life was the job. There was no me, no Jack O'Neill, civilian; he didn't exist.

There was only Colonel O'Neill.

And then, somehow, when I wasn't looking, life snuck up on me.

When I finally started to feel, what I felt was lonely.

I tried the dating thing. It had seemed so damned easy when I was 16 or 18 or 20. It wasn't easy anymore. The old hunting techniques were a little out of date and the hunting skills pretty damn rusty. I felt odd. Out of place. Old. I couldn't talk about myself, about my life or what I did. I didn't fit, out there in the real world.

So, yeah, I noticed her.

Call it proximity.

Call it opportunity.

Call it what it was, a damned attractive, available (sort of, I know, I know, the rank and chain of command thing) woman within sight. Make no mistake, Carter's a damn desirable woman. Easy on the eyes. Smart. Tough. And hell, she laughs at my jokes, and that's a rarity on any planet.

I was tired, tired of going home to an empty house and an empty bed with an empty heart. I was tired of being alone. I've never liked being alone. Sure, sometimes I need a little privacy, some solitary time to think, but not four years worth.

So, yup, there it was, motive and opportunity, like a two by four right between the eyes.

We flirted and teased, gave each other long, longing looks. Juggled the dynamite. Danced around the issues. Used our careers as the reason why nothing ever came of it.

Look, but don't touch, Jack.

I'll cut myself a little slack and claim I was weary, burnt out because the only other possible excuse is the trite old midlife crisis insanity defense.

Weary, burnt out and in need of a vacation. Despite what I'd told George, the old saving the planet routine really *does* get old. Puts a lot of performance pressure on a guy, you know? Hey, I mean, what do you do after you've saved the planet? Save it again? And again?

On top of that, it had been a rough couple of years. I'd been snaked; left for dead, well, actually dead a couple of times; sustained considerable damage to a wide variety of vital body parts, none of it permanent, thanks to good luck and good doctoring; got left behind on an alien planet figuring I'd never see home again; had gone undercover; and in general risked life and limb and sanity. Over and over again.

And every time I scheduled a few days of peace and quiet to annoy the fish up in that lake in Minnesota, some freakin' alien snatched me away.

You really can't blame a man for losing it. Can you?

Exhaustion. Insanity. Same difference.

It never really hit me, what I was thinking. I'd done a swell job of keeping it all well buried deep in the recesses of my brain. I'd kept it damn well locked up in my subconscious until those freakin' Tok'ra and their damned Zatarcs came along.

Damn those Tok'ra anyway. It was all their fault.

I had uncommanderly feelings for Carter, friendship, maybe more, a little boy-girl flirt thing. Okay, I'd noticed she was a woman. Duh. How dense does the Air Force think I am?

I'll tell you now, there were actually a few weeks in there when we'd really been in danger of acting on it. Thank God Carter kept her head. (See, I told you she was way smarter than me.)

And then we'd looped.

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It all started with a conversation after the first loop, in the cafeteria.

"I'm gonna go run a few simulations," she'd told me, that glowing look on her face, the one she gets when she's excited about science. Not excited about me, but enthralled by some bit of alien technology or other. I suddenly realized that as much as we meant to each other, I'd never seen anything remotely like that look when she looked at or thought about me.

I'd sipped my coffee, watching her leave. "You, run...simulate...let me know how it turns out...keep me posted...keep me apprised." Forget I ever existed, no, wait you've already done that, the minute you turned away from me, toward the door, toward the real love of your life.

Boy, Jack, you really can pick 'em.

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It took me a while, even after that, to get the truth to register in my hard head. I'm stubborn that way. When I get an idea, it's hard to let go of it, no matter how bad the idea, even after I realize it was a bad idea.

Not that the idea of me and Carter was so bad. Just so wrong. So off the mark. So waaay off base. So damned stupid, unrealistic and misplaced.

Can you spell infatuation, Jack?

See, Carter and I, we spend more time together than most married couples do. And that doesn't mean we ought to be married, or ah, exchanging marital favors, know what I mean? Don't get me wrong. I like Carter, not just as a teammate, but as a person. As a (gulp) woman. Under different circumstances, maybe more would have happened between us. Hell, in different circumstances, like a couple other alternate realities SG-1 has visited, things *did* happen between us.

But not here.

It's not because I'm too old for her, I'm not *that* much older than she is, actually. It's not because she's way smarter than me, which she definitely is, but which has nothing to do with this subject. It's not even because I'm her commanding officer.

A few more weeks went by, a couple more missions, a lot of long, lonely nights, sitting on my roof, staring out at the stars, and trying to figure out what the hell I was doing, thinking, feeling. What Carter meant to me, what I wanted, what I needed, what was right and what was wrong and what was infatuation and what was friendship.

When I finally came to my senses, I had a good long talk with myself and figured it was time to act my age and rank and grow up.

So, I've moved on, found my equilibrium once more and gotten past that embarrassing stage in my life. Doesn't mean I'm not still looking for that certain someone, I think I always will be. I had a family once, I know how much it can mean to a man, how important it is to have someone to go home to, to care about, to love more than life itself. Life's pretty shallow and empty without it, at least for me. Some people don't need other people. For a long time I'd tried to convince myself that I was one of them, but I finally surrendered to the inevitable and admitted the truth.

I need a life.

And Carter's not it.

I think that I've finally come far enough that someday I'll actually be able to risk my heart again. For a long time I didn't think I'd ever be able to do that, to let one person matter so much, and I do have Carter to thank for that, for making me face up to things I'd denied for so long. I'll always be grateful to her for helping me see that, and for her patience in giving me the time to see that what we had, or what I thought we might have, was something for the here and now, two people who cared for each other in some difficult times.

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Funny how things work out because actually, what I told the Zatarc detector that day is more honest truth than ever.

The fact is, I'd rather die myself than lose *any* of my team.

I care about all of them way more than I should.

That's just the way it is, Jack.

--Finish--

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