"Sir, none of this has to leave this room."

And none of it should. Whatever we felt..he felt..it's against regulations. it could mean the end of both our careers. It could mean the end of SG1, and I couldn't bear it.

And I can't bear to see him like this, so vulnerable, so stripped of the Colonel, just plain Jack, in love with a woman he's not certain loves him. I never knew that underneath it all he could be so easily hurt. It's too much for me. I can't bear to see that much emotion, and I can't cope with it. I want my old, battle-hardened, joking, carefree, Colonel back again.

"And we're ok with that?"

Why wouldn't we be? I want it that way. I don't my emotions involved. I want to remain calm. I have to remain detached. I can't...I can't take the risk. I can't love someone as much as I loved my mother, and lose them..and I could so easily lose him.

So yes, it stays in the room. And I'll get over my little crush. It's just a crush. And I haven't lost a friend, and I haven't lost my commanding officer, and I haven't lost my tight control over my emotions.../

I told him to keep it in the room. And he did. I don't think he's even called me Sam since then. And the little touches have lessened, and if he's ever looked at me with love in his eyes, I haven't seen it and now that I'm no longer there, in that moment, I can see that he would have done the same if it had been Daniel or Teal'c behind the barrier...no-one gets left behind, whether it's me or not.

And I was happy. Well, content. I worked well. I was surrounded by my friends. And my emotions, my wild turbulent emotions were safely locked away, where no-one, least of all me could get at them.

And then Daniel died. And I looked to Jack to help me, to grieve himself so I could comfort him, to stop me being so alone. But he stepped away. I knew he was doing it for my own good, but still, it hurt. And then came Nirrti, and I thought I would die, and as I felt my cells separating I leaned on his shoulder, and gave up my defences with a little sigh, and let down my guard, and loved him.

And I waited ever since for one sign from him, for him to say he loves me, in words, because I am a scientist, and I must have proof, for him to ask me fishing, do something, say something, and yet I was terrified he would because how I would deal with the brave new world that would open up.

But he didn't say a thing, and everything went back to normal, and I realised, I knew, that given the absence of all the evidence pointing towards him loving me, the reverse hypothesis must be true, and he'd stopped loving me.

"Damn!" My hands slips inside the control panel, and I cut myself badly on one of the cut crystals.

"Major Carter, are you alright?" Teal'c asks, concerned, and he pulls out my hand, and wipes the blood away.

"Well, at least I found the problem." I say.

"The flaw is very deeply hidden. I do not believe you have finished this work." He says, and I look up at him, and for a moment, it's like we having a separate conversation, about what I was thinking, not what I was doing.

"Did you fix it?" The Colonel calls, as he returns, and I wish I could stop my stomach doing a little lurch as he walks into the room.

"Not yet, we'll have to take it apart."

"Well, we've got all day. Did you hurt yourself?"

"It's not much."

He turns away, and I know there was a time when he would have come over, examined the cut, bandaged it, and I also know I stopped that part of him.

I have to get over this. I have to move on. Anything, anyone to help me move on from the sudden raw ache in myself. This feeling that I've lost the better part of me when I told him to keep it in that room. I would do anything now to open up that door again, and let him love me, but I'm the one that stopped it . I'm the one to blame.

I stopped him loving me.

JACK.

Jack. She actually called me Jack for the first time, and it was her, not a Gou'ald or an alternate version, it was her.

I wish she'd call me Jack again.

Dammit, I still love her.

I've never been able to leave it in that room.