Jack and Daniel never could do anything quietly. Sam winces at the shouting coming out of the small room at the back of the cabin. She's sure they've scared off all the deer in the forest outside even.

Teal'c quirks an eyebrow at her from where he's sitting at the kitchen table, trying to make it through one of Jack's fishing magazines, with little apparent success. Sam offers him a tense smile. It's not as though they don't all know why they're here.

The volume of the argument has risen so that she can actually make out words now: ascension, hope, giving up, jackass. Even from the outside Sam can hear the fight approaching critical mass, Daniel ejected from the room like a solar flare from the corona of the sun.

"Daniel . . ." Sam begins, only to have Daniel hold up his hand and storm right by her.

"I'm going for a walk." Daniel never was one to let things go. And the last person he's ever going to let go of is Jack.

"I believe I will accompany him," Teal'c remarks, nodding to Sam before he follows unhurriedly.

That leaves Sam alone. She's been putting this off, but she knows what she has to do. They've got most of the stages of death here in this cabin: Teal'c down and the end with acceptance; Jack's in denial; Daniel's bargaining; and Sam . . . Sam is caught between anger and depression. She looks down at her hands, takes a deep breath and walks through that door.

"Sir," she says, making her way stiffly around the bed. It's a solid wood frame with a high, hard mattress. No hospital beds here, no monitors. The only thing that signals her that something might not be right is strange translucent quality of his skin – the way he suddenly looks so much older. Cancer will do that to you.

"I think that on my deathbed, you should be able to call me Jack."

"Jack," she reaches out to grab his hand and she can't even get his name out before she can feel the moisture building in her eyes. She rubs it away self-consciously.

Jack, for his part, stares at the tears in horror, trying to make light of it as always. "So, Daniel's pissed off."

"You mean a lot to him." Jack's seen Daniel from academically outcast geek to marriage to death and back again, and even though they see less of each other now then they used to, Sam knows that in Daniel's hectic life of moving from planet to planet and country to country and language to language, Jack has been the most constant thing in the midst of it all. To be honest, she doesn't know what will happen to Daniel at the end of all this. She doesn't want to think about it.

"Yeah, well, I saved his geeky ass enough times, he'd better appreciate it."

Sam nods. "Nobody can get into trouble like Daniel." The tears are starting to fade, but the elephant in the corner is still milling about, blowing awkward silences out of its trunk.

"Look, Carter . . ." he squeezes the hand she didn't even realize was still clasping his, "I don't know about the etiquette of these things – if I'm supposed to bravely take secrets to my grave or . . ."

"Tell me, Jack." She's a big girl and she needs to know.

"Well, did you know that his forehead isn't the only place T's got a golden tattoo?" he winks at her lewdly.

"Jaaaack," she punches his arm lightly.

"Watch it, Carter. Don't abuse the invalid."

"Sir, you're not . . ."

"And here I thought you were doing well with the whole ‘Jack' thing."

"I'm sorry." She swallows the Sir, feeling the tears come welling back up. She hates being the weepy one, falling into the feminine role with ease. But someone's got to do it. As mad as she is at the universe for making it cancer after all Jack O'Neill has survived, he deserves to see how deeply he's touched her.

"Don't apologize. I can't stand it when you do that. You were always too damned smart to need to say you're sorry."

"But I am sorry, Jack. I wish . . ." the tears cripple her then, because she wishes that they had more time, even if it would never be time well spent.

"Don't wish, Carter. Just . . . let me tell you my secrets and die in my favorite bed in my favorite cabin by the lake with no fish.'

She wants to interrupt and tease him about the admission, but she sees how hard this is for him and bites her tongue.

"Remember back with those superspeed devices and the pretty by creepy Tok'ra woman and the whole . . . you know?"

"Yep." It's etched pretty damned well into her memory, considering that they could have been anything from incarcerated, to discharged, to killed, even, had they not found out the real cause that the Goa'uld lie detector device was flashing red.

"And how when parallel universes tend to unfold, you and I are . . ."

"Except for the most recent time when I'd been married to Rodney McKay."

Jack grimaces. "Well, that's an image I don't need floating around my head."

"We divorced, if that helps."

"Marginally. But, what I'm trying to say, Carter . . . Sam, is that if things had been different, I would've . . ."

She looks at him then, suddenly, aged and fragile, but still Jack and asks, "What's stopping you?"

"What?"

"What's stopping you? I know you're not eager to take another Tok'ra after what happened last time and I assume what you and Daniel were shouting about was the possibility of ascension, so . . . if this is it, what's stopping you?" After all this time wondering about the what if's and the maybe's, she want to know – if it were ever really on the table, would he do it?

He frowns a little, quirking his head in that trademark Jack way. "You know, I have no idea."

He's sick and lying back in bed, so Sam makes the first move (and she'd always counted on him to make it), leaning down and brushing her lips against his. His lips are chapped and his mouth is neither gentile nor sweet, but she's waited a long time for this and he's dying, so it doesn't matter.

She tangles her fingers in his hair, runs them down his sides and across his chest, kisses him and kisses him and kisses him until maybe she's in denial too, a little bit. The old homemade quilt is silky and firm beneath her, as she peels off her shirt, then his, turning them on their sides, so she can run her fingers along every scar on his soldier's chest and he can cup her breasts tenderly in his hands, rubbing with the tips of his fingers where gun calluses used to be.

She gasps under his ministrations, though this is as slow and lazy as she ever imagined sex could be. He murmurs into her shoulder, but she's pretty sure he's being careful not to let her hear the words. It doesn't matter anyway.

His hands are pulling at her panties now, diving in and playing with her pubic hair a little before reaching up and in to finger her. Sam buries her face in his shoulder when he draws her to climax, gripping his shoulders tight and, she realizes, crying, because he's dying and this is all they'll ever have.

When she regains her breath, she lets her hand trail down his chest, intending to guide him into her, only to find that he's only half hard. "Jack?"

"I guess cancer will do that you," he shrugs.

Sam nods, pushing herself up and scooting down the bed. She doesn't do this often – it makes her feel used and tastes bad, but she wants to badly to make him feel good, if only for the last time.

She uses every trick in the book, and he grunts with pleasure, hardening in her mouth, but not trusting desperately yet. Sam continues the lazy pace until he pulls her up, kissing her. She assumes that his body is just too drained for this, but she lies back on her side, guiding him in, regardless.

He gasps, letting their forehead press together as they rock gently. At this point, maybe an orgasm is too much to ask for, just a steady hum of pleasure, a connection. The thing is, she's not sure she was ever in love with Jack. Maybe he could have been, had things been different, but as things stand . . . she cares about him. She cares about him so much that she thinks her heart might burst, because he's saved her and redeemed her so many times, but they never let themselves find out if that was enough.

She's exhausted by the time they still, as spent from emotion as a hard day in the field. She settles against his chest, grabbing his hand. Jack has so much to offer and even if he'll never be able to give it to her, she wants him to go on. "Why don't you want to ascend?"

"Not my cup of tea."

"How do you know that?"

"Just sitting and watching while all these things happen around you. Not even Saint Daniel could hack it. What makes you think I could?"

Sam bites her lip. She doesn't know much about ascension – that's Daniel's department, and despite how similar they are in their ways, they're wrapped up in different kinds of wisdom, like ships passing in the night. "What did you think before you stepped through the stargate the first time?"

"At least it was bound to be interesting. I had nothing left to lose."

"You didn't feel bad, leaving your life on Earth behind? There must have been people here, and causes that you still cared about."

"I was burnt out, Carter. It's not the same."

But it is. "Every time we step through that event horizon, we don't know exactly what's waiting for us on the other side. What is there to be afraid of, Jack?"

He's frowning at her now, rubbing small circles between her shoulder blades. "I'm afraid that the holier-than-thou club is going to a little bit like that time Sarah made me take up golf – snooty and probably pretty boring."

"You could still choose to fade away, or descend."

"Tell you what, Carter. I'll think about it," he says with a yawn. "Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm a guy and we generally like to nap after sex."

Sam intends to stay awake, sitting there to watch him sleep and memorizing every line of him, lost in memories, but she finds herself drifting, dreaming of ribbons of gold, a calm comforting warmth surging through her, telling her that everything's going to be okay.

She wakes to someone shaking her. It's Daniel, and the urgency and panic in his voice bring her to wakefulness right away. "Sam, it's very important you tell me – where's Jack?"

She smiles then, the truth dancing lazily at the back of her brain, "Here," she gestures all around him.

Daniel seems to almost fall onto the bed, clasping her hand. "He ascended?"

She nods. Daniel is trembling with emotion and she's not sure if he's going to cry or pull her out of bed to start dancing around the room in triumph, but she pulls him to her, not caring that she's naked under this old quilt. She's not sure how long they hang on, but she knows that at least for now, everything is how it's supposed to be.