-Nothing Changes-

He awoke sweating from the nightmare again. He made sure he had not disturbed the sleeping form beside him and then made his way gingerly out of the tent. Jack stood outside and stretched until his back creaked. He grimaced at the noise. His back had only recently started making such protest. He didn't much like the years piling on top of him.

He was still a handsome man. He was not the tallest of men but he had a rough charm that was appealing in it's simplicity. Warm brown eyes and tousled brown hair shot with grey had made sure that he had never been lonely for long. He was only a few days off his 50th year and he supposed that time had been kind to him.

He rummaged through his pack which had been sitting right outside the tent and pulled out a clean shirt. He pulled it over his head and looked around at the dawning day. He stretched his muscles again and this time he was without creaks.

Samantha Carter now clambered sleepily out of the tent they had been sharing and looked up at him through bed-knotted hair. Jack grinned at her and dropped his bag to the ground again. "How come you manage to always get up before me even when I rise before the sun?" Sam grumped and started to search for her bag in the surrounding undergrowth. Jack watched her for a few minutes in amusement. "I guess I can't sleep with all your snoring." He said just as she found her bag. She turned around and launched it at him immediately. Jack was caught off guard as the heavy army pack hit him squarely in the chest. He fell backwards over a tree stump he had been standing in front of and hit the ground with a thump on the other side.

He lay there for a few seconds before Sam's blonde-haired head, haloed by the sun, appeared above him. "I don't snore." She said primly and retrieved her bag.

Jack clambered awkwardly to his feet and brushed dirt off what had been his only clean shirt. "How do you know, you're asleep while you're doing it." He said and stepped over the large stump gingerly, mindful that at any moment he could be hit with something else. Sam threw him a scathing look instead. "I just do. I can't imagine you could hear anything over your own snoring." She said and smirked at him. Jack sighed and strode back to the tent.

"Well I'm looking forward to getting home in any case. All this warm weather is just unbearable." Jack said good-naturedly. It was actually a chill day to anyone but people who spent most of their lives in Colorado. Sam nodded vigorously. She finally snagged the object she had been digging around in her bag for. She pulled the hair brush free of a tangle of clothing with an 'Aha!" of triumph. She immediately started pulling it through the unruly mess that was her hair.

Jack lowered himself onto the tree stump he was standing next to and watched Sam attempt to wrench the brush through her untamable locks. He saw her wince as she tackled a particularly bad snarl and he couldn't help but chuckle.

"What?" Sam snapped, finally passing the brush through the knot, only to come upon one that was much worse just below it. "You're just such a refined lady." Jack laughed. Sam gave him a withering look and turned her back, working through the rest of her hair. Secretly, his comment cut deeper than he would ever know. Sam was fully aware that almost permanently being in army fatigues made her more one of the guys than she would sometimes like. Every now and again she regretted that her hair was always a mess and dirt under her nails. Her mother would not have left her bedroom in such a state, let alone trekked across worlds.

Sam had absolutely no idea that most men who met her thought her beautiful, ragged fingernails and all. Many had lost their hearts to this wild and tough woman, but would never admit it, the first and foremost of these being Jack.

Jack had known Sam for almost eight years now. He had at first treated her like a scientist, an outsider. He guessed he had treated Daniel Jackson the same way when they first met. Daniel had turned out to be one of the best friends he had ever, or thought he would ever have. He had treated Sam with a mild annoyed tolerance and didn't know when that changed to a brotherly affection, or when that grew into a full-blown attraction. Often he had meant to tell her exactly how he felt. He had even started to say the words more than once, but one thing always stayed his tongue.

He watched her now. She cursed brusquely as she managed to pull a chunk of hair free of her scalp when trying to bully it into some kind of order. She was wearing a pair of his own trousers with the belt cinched tight at her waist as she had torn a big hole in the knee of her own pair clambering over some rocks. She had managed between the time of waking to that moment to already have a smudge of dirt across her forehead and her eyes were still bleary with sleep. All this did not over-rule the truth that he was her CO, and to do anything about the attraction, or he had to admit, love, he felt for her would doom both their careers.

They slept in the same tent, side by side; they knew each other more intimately than most married couples, yet she was still totally unreachable and unattainable. She raised the hairbrush again to attack her hair from a different angle and her engagement ring flashed in the sun. He had thought he would be used to seeing it by now but still the little band of metal managed to stab him through the heart when he glimpsed it.

Jack thought about their last mission together. He had pushed her out of the way of a Jaffa's blast. He had saved her life over and over. She had also saved his more times than he could count. The engagement ring had appeared shortly after they had returned to the base after that mission. He had realized that saving her that time was different. It had pushed her to make a decision that she had been debating for a while.

Jack sighed. He had saved her life so she could give it to another.