Samantha Carter sat back in her chair at the Air Force Academy Library. A self-satisfied grin spread over her face, her curiosity finally sated. Hours of searching the Internet and a variety of electronic and paper indexes had finally paid off. She chuckled softly at the joke that had been played on her--and everyone else--for years.

She completed the request for an article via interlibrary loan before signing off her terminal. The confirmation indicated she'd have a fax copy within 24 hours. Quickly, she photocopied all pertinent evidence she had found. As she left the library, she pondered how she would confront him with the documentation.

Oh, this is going to be sweet, she thought.

Carter cornered Teal'c as he came out of the locker room. "Oh, Teal'c, do you have a few minutes to come with me? I'm on my way to see Colonel O'Neill, and there's something I want to show all of SG-1." She patted the manila folder she hugged to her chest.

"Indeed I do have a few minutes. I am curious. Is what you wish to show us of small or great significance?"

"I think you'll agree it is of huge significance."

The Jaffa smiled tightly, nodded, and followed Carter's lead.

Jack O'Neill, propped on his side in an infirmary bed, studied the chessboard. His competitiveness cried out for another victory, but he didn't think it would happen this game. So far, he'd won only one of the four matches he'd played against Daniel Jackson during this visit. He found that unacceptable, always did, even though the archeologist-slash-linguist could add "card-carrying chess master" to his résumé.

Suddenly, the move came to him. He could visualize checkmate six moves away. "Hope you didn't have any money riding on that pony, Daniel," Jack said as he captured the knight with his bishop.

After a few seconds, Daniel advanced his rook to take the suddenly unprotected enemy queen. "Check, Jack."

Now he saw that his teammate had a win in three moves--and any move he could make would simply prolong the inevitable. Dammit! Why didn't I see that? He knocked over his king. "Where did you learn to speak Russky, eh? At the chess table of Kasparov?"

Daniel gave him a smile that was one part condescension, two parts humility. "Jack, you know --"

"Yeah, your parents. Both chess masters. Still can't believe they had you playing this game at four. You were a kid, for crying out loud, Daniel. You should've been playing…Candyland."

"Uh, well, Jack, my parents objected to sweets." Daniel squinted and smirked.

"You know, that's another reason why I hate scientists. Really crappy sense of humor."

"Aw, come on, Jack. At least we aren't as bad as the Goa'uld." He began setting up for another game, with him taking the black and his friend the white.

"Not by much," O'Neill snarled with mock disdain. He watched, unseeing, Daniel move about his task. He knew Daniel didn't really want to play chess; if he had wanted a really challenging match, he would have sought out Carter or Teal'c. No, he was here for another reason.

Distraction.

O'Neill knew Daniel, despite the agony of withdrawal and the determination to kill anyone standing--including his best friend--between him and the chance to go back to P3R-636 and the sarcophagus, had somehow remembered everything Jack had said in that storeroom.

The young man practically had to be extracted from the infirmary to go on the mission to PXY-887 to find the missing SG-11. Before leaving, he had coerced several people into visiting frequently with O'Neill as he recovered from surgery to remove the trinium arrow from his arm.

Distraction. A proven intervention in the control of pain.

And Daniel Jackson was using it…well, almost to distraction.

As Daniel slid the last black pawn into starting position, O'Neill had to admit it was working. It had been at least six or seven hours since his last narcotic dose.

Yes, the craving was back. It always came back, like a scorned but obsessed lover set on re-establishing her rule of his heart and head, whenever he received some sort of opiate.

And the craving was especially strong this time. Recent events--whether one considered them two weeks or two days ago--had forced the psychic pain he had cordoned off in a steel room in his brain out into the main ballroom.

All because of that jackass Cromwell.

He was the best of friends, he was the worst of friends, Jack thought ruefully.

But Daniel, one of his best of friends, was helping him repress the pain and the seductive, harsh mistress he now unfortunately knew himself.

Yes, the craving was there, so strong but made vulnerable by something as simple as distraction and as complex as his friendship with a scientist. He was in control and winning that challenge was much more important than winning some game.

Jack was preparing to make the first move of the new game when the other two members of his team arrived at his bedside. "Hey, Teal'c! Carter! Pull up a chair and stay a while, eh? Daniel's beating the pants off me" -- he waved a hand at the chessboard situated between him and the archeologist -- "that is, if I had any pants on…oh, sorry, Carter."

She shot a conspiratorial look at Daniel Jackson, who hadn't budged from his chair. He nodded, then folded his arms across his chest. Soon, one hand began playing with his lower lip. "Uh, yes, sir," she said. "And, well, in a few minutes, you may not want me, Teal'c, or Daniel in here."

Jack, now very suspicious, glanced at Daniel. The boy wouldn't make eye contact. Looking back at Carter, he imagined he saw canary feathers poking out of her smirky mouth. Teal'c had one eyebrow raised that spoke of his puzzlement. "Does this have to do with you asking General Hammond where I was stationed in the '80s? You do know that's classified, don't you?" His eyebrows arched expectantly.

Carter blushed but recovered quickly. Of course the general would've told him… "I do now, sir. I was trying to establish a few facts. You know me, sir, ever the scientist."

Jack heard the slight emphasis on the last word. This is so not good. Okay, Jack me boy-o, don't let 'em see you sweat. "Are you going anywhere with this, Captain, or are you just yackin' away, tryin' to get my eardrums to ache as much as the rest of me?"

"Sam," Daniel whispered with an urgency that told her to get on with it.

"Well, Colonel, when we were gearing up to go to Cassie's homeworld, you seemed to know an awful lot about black holes. I chalked it up to your layman's interest in astronomy."

O'Neill cringed inwardly at the oh-so-slight stress on "layman."

Teal'c angled his head a fraction of an inch to one side on sensing a minute increase of tension in O'Neill's muscles.

"But you also knew your way around a sophisticated telescope, which," Carter continued, "it seems to me, is beyond the expertise of a rooftop astronomer."

"Sam's right. You did know a lot, Jack."

"No, I didn't, Daniel."

"Yes, you did."

"Did not."

"Did too."

"Did not."

Daniel rolled his eyes and sighed, giving his friend this round because he'd win no other today.

"Anyway, I pretty much forgot all about that until this base was nearly destroyed a couple of weeks ago."

O'Neill's mood darkened. No, Carter, only been a couple days for me. My muscles feel like mush. Don't even want to think about the cracked ribs, cuts, bruises. Way too fresh. And so is losing Hank and his team. And…Cromwell… "And what does that have to do with the price of tea in Boston?"

"Sir, when you were explaining black holes to General Hammond, it jogged my memory."

"Carter, my memory is suffering. This conversation has been going on so long that I forgot what it's about."

"Okay, sir, I'll get to the point." Carter cleared her throat and stood straighter. "Are you the Major J. J. O'Neill, USAF, who graduated from Rice University in 1986 with a master's degree in astronomy concentrating on black holes?" She handed him the copy of the list of graduates and titles of their theses. "The next page is the abstract for the thesis."

Jack's eyes were drawn to the highlighted part of the first page. His name, rank, and thesis title looked like the yellow brick road to his past. I am so busted. "Not me, Captain," he said with a straight face and voice. "Must be a typo or something. I don't even know where Rice University is. Sounds like some sort of agriculture school."

"CaptainCarter, do you not think ColonelO'Neill would have shared this accomplishment with us before now if it were true?"

Carter shot a testy look at Teal'c. "It's in Houston, Texas, Colonel."

This whole thing just might suck more than a black hole. "Houston, you say? Hot, humid? I just hate hot and humid, don't you? Can't do a thing with my hair. Dry heat isn't too bad, though. A little tough on the skin..."

Sam huffed impatiently, frustrated that she hadn't even ruffled him. She thrust more paper at him. "This is a fax copy of an article about black holes in the May-June 1989 issue of Junior Astronomer magazine. Note the author, Colonel. J. J. O'Neill. And the dedication." She hesitated in sudden indecision. But she cleared her throat and continued. "'For Charlie'." Soft, gentle, caring.

Teal'c raised his other eyebrow but did not betray his growing impatience with Carter. Daniel watched Jack's face closely.

We have a winner! And it ain't the black hole. He gave Carter and Daniel nothing. Teal'c, he realized, knew everything. "So?" Crap, Jack, is that the best you can do?

Carter frowned her annoyance. "Sir, you can't expect me to believe this is just purely coincidence. The odds of two Major O'Neills-with-two-Ls in the Air Force with someone significant in their lives with the same name are, well, astronomical."

Jack gazed back at her, his face the epitome of innocence.

The captain was not about to give up; it was an integral part of her nature to dig until she had answers. "Here are two more articles on black holes by J. J. O'Neill, dated 1990 and 1996," she pronounced as she handed him the copies, "that appeared in professional, peer-reviewed journals." She paused, drilling him with her eyes in hopes of intimidating a confession out of him.

O'Neill snickered to himself. He had gone up against the best--or worst, depending upon one's point of view--interrogators and given them only name, rank, service number, and, on occasion, lots of lip. "Prolific bugger, don'tcha think?"

Sam flushed a deep red. "This person is you, Colonel. This means you are a scientist. I want to know why you dislike your own kind and why you've been hiding this from us."

O'Neill focused on Daniel's face. The look was expectant, with a hint of you-owe-me. Carter and Daniel wanted answers…

~~~~~

His life was strewn with black holes.

Sniping…

Snapping necks…

Slitting throats…

Dragging his broken body with its ceaseless agony and thirst across endless desert to get home to Sara, with only the sun by day and the stars by night to guide him back to her and the stars becoming a part of him, his hope…

Finding stretches of temporary release from the black holes that sucked the humanity out of him, but that release becoming another pit, a very black one, for him, an extraordinarily difficult one to crawl out of, having sucked him in so deep…

The stars--and Frank Cromwell--rescuing him again. Finishing his master's degree in astronomy in a record three years, earning him the vocal jealousy of his "fellow" scientists--people voluntarily enslaved by the ring of curiosity in their short-sighted noses--and occasional attempt at sabotage of his work. Frank, along with a couple other friends, getting him through yet another hell on earth--withdrawal…

That blackest of holes…Rescued again by the stars. And by a freakin' scientist, of all things, from another type of withdrawal…

~~~~~

"So, Jack, does the cat have your tongue?"

"DanielJackson, I see no feline -"

"Just an expression, Teal'c. It means someone can't or won't respond. That he's at a loss for words."

"Perhaps O'Neill has said all he wishes to say."

Mentally thanking Teal'c for the partial shove out of painful reverie, he took the moment to prepare a comeback. "Carter, I can't explain it," he said stridently. "But this stuff" -- he gave the papers back to Carter -- "wasn't done by me. Get real, Carter. You know me." He paused to take a breath and soften his tone. "Look, we've seen all kinds of strange things we can't really explain. Add this to the list." Come on, Sam. Let it drop. Please.

Carter, her frustration building, opened her mouth to retort, but something about the colonel's eyes during his short silence stopped her. It had been there for only a miniscule fraction of a second, before he had shifted back to neutral. It was eerily familiar…

Daniel uncrossed his arms and leaned toward the dumbstruck Carter. "Sam?"

She had seen that something before. Time seemed to slow as she racked her brain. She looked deeper into the dilated pupils until blips from her past entered her present…

~~~~~

~~~~~

Oh…my…God. You're Star Dog. And you've known it was me flying…for how long? What did you suffer because of me?

"Sam?" Daniel asked again. "Are you okay? You look like you've just seen a ghost."

"CaptainCarter, are you not feeling well?" Teal'c chimed in. Inconspicuously he grasped her elbow firmly.

"Carter?" O'Neill's voice held only concern. Aw, crap. Enough for a double flush. You let your guard down, you stupid jerk.

She flushed self-consciously. You have no idea how right you are, Daniel. "I-I-I'm fine, thank you, sir, Teal'c, Daniel."

"That is good news, CaptainCarter," said Teal'c as he slowly removed his hand from Sam's arm. "I am pleased with the resolution of this significant issue." Though it was soft, there was no mistaking the stern finality in his tone.

Carter wanted to hug Teal'c for giving her a graceful way out. "I am, too. This is just a coincidence, like the colonel says. There have been stranger things. No offense, Colonel, but we know you couldn't have earned an advanced degree in astronomy." She felt sick and deeply ashamed.

"Sam, don't back down on this. You know you're right. He wouldn't dare hurt your career over this. I won't let him."

"Daniel -"

"Daniel," Jack snapped, unceremoniously cutting Carter off, "do you really think I'm that petty?"

Jackson sat back in his chair and blinked several times. "Well, no, not really. I, uh, I got carried away in the moment, I guess. I just don't want her to get into any trouble, either for saying you are an astronomer or for saying you couldn't, um, hack it."

"She's not in trouble, Daniel, as long as she didn't and doesn't stick her nose where it doesn't belong." O'Neill sighed with exhaustion and pain. "Now, thanks for the chess games, Daniel, and Carter, this little…errant goose chase has been…interesting, and of course, Teal'c, I always enjoy our witty repartee, but I need some shut-eye. Later?"

"Sure, Jack," Daniel agreed. As he gathered up the game pieces, he gazed at Carter through hooded eyes, trying to get a read on her. They were both so sure the astronomer O'Neill was Jack, and now… Well, she'd reversed herself for absolutely no good reason. He had to know why.

Carter could feel Daniel's eyes on her. Studiously avoiding them, she chose to gaze directly at the colonel. She brought herself to a more formal stance and held the folder at her side. "Yes, sir. Get some rest. Please forgive my -"

"Nothing to forgive, Captain," Jack interrupted again. "Anybody can misinterpret data. Even you." He, too, had adopted a more formal posture--at least as formal as he could lying in bed with abused bones and muscles.

Sam relaxed on seeing the gentleness and understanding and lack of blame in his eyes. His tone told her the forgiveness covered today and that years-ago yesterday. "Yes, sir. Thank you, sir." She turned and left the infirmary quickly, hoping she had succeeded in hiding the onslaught of tears in her voice.

Daniel hurriedly fumbled the last of the chess pieces into the box. "See you at dinner," he said, though he never took his eyes from Sam's rapidly receding back. He scooped the box and board into his arms and followed her.

O'Neill looked up at Teal'c, who had not moved a muscle. The Jaffa, generous mouth slightly upturned at the corners, simply looked at him. Jack answered with a frown and a cranky "What?"

The mouth turned into a full smile. "Rest easily, O'Neill. I shall return later with DanielJackson to share our evening repast with you." He bowed more deeply than was customary for his good-byes.

Carter reached her office/laboratory well ahead of Daniel, thanks to him dropping the chess game in the corridor. She closed the door but neglected to lock it and headed straight for the document shredder.

Her sight was so blurred with unshed tears that she had to feel for the staples. After ripping off those edges, she clumsily shoved the papers into the machine, wishing she could suffer the same fate as her "evidence."

How could I have let that SF lunatic bully me?

Holy shit! That was Cromwell!

Why now? Why did I have to find out now?

How could I have violated your privacy, Colonel?

How can you even look at me, much less work with me?

The shredder was scissoring the last piece when she jumped at the soft touch on her shoulder. She whirled to face Daniel.

He had stepped back a pace. Instantly noting her wet, red eyes, tight lips, and rigid posture, he gulped and half-turned away from her. "Sorry, Sam. Didn't mean to startle you. I knocked, but then I realized you might not be able to hear…" His voice trailed off. He gestured with both arms like a traffic cop at the door as he said, "Ah, I can go if, you know…"

Her head nod was as stiff as the rest of her tense body. "Yeah, I think that's a good idea right now." Impulsively, she stepped close enough to him to give his cheek a light kiss.

Furious with himself for the involuntary blush her affectionate act brought on and for not deserving it to begin with, he ducked his face away from hers. "Ah, okay then. I'll, uh, be going." He practically sprinted for the door. Once there, however, he stopped and took a deep breath. He looked over his shoulder at Sam. "You are right, you know. I don't know what his problem is, why he feels he has to hide all that from us. He --"

"Daniel," she interrupted with noticeable force.

Surprised at her uncharacteristic tone, his eyes and mouth opened wide.

She quickly smiled her apology. "Sorry, Daniel," she said softly. "Guess this whole thing has upset me."

"Sam, are you afraid of, um, repercussions?"

"No, heck no, Daniel," she responded adamantly. "I…I made a mistake. I was wrong, that's all." I was wrong to ever have let my curiosity override my better judgment and then drag you into it. "I'm sure there is some sort of logical explanation for this coincidence. It just isn't our Colonel O'Neill."

After a moment, Jackson nodded his head several times. For some reason, she had determined that Jack needed her protection and complicity. He chose to trust once again the teammate who had earned his trust every day since they first met. "Sure, Sam, whatever you say. You know best." He gave her a tender smile and left, glad to join her in returning the favor to their team leader and his best friend.

Carter, staring at the closed door, took comfort in the fact that Daniel had so easily let the issue die. She knew he would; he was so trusting, sometimes to a fault, empathetic, and compassionate.

Abruptly realizing she was exhausted both physically and emotionally, she made for the nearest stool. Resting her head on folded arms and too tired for directed thought, she let her mind wander.

~~~~~

"I've had worse," Colonel O'Neill said so matter-of-factly and without rancor to her disgusted face after he swallowed and drenched himself with the brown, sludgy water on P3R-636.

After the colonel decided to leave a dying Daniel behind on Klorel's ship, she had caught a darkness of misery clouding his face when he thought no one was looking, though he, she, Teal'c, and Bra'tac were all doomed to meet the same fate on Apophis' ship minutes later. The darkness persisted for weeks even after their reunion with Daniel in the 'Gate Room.

~~~~~

What did that cost him? I know what it cost me to leave some unknown SF in the desert. What did it cost him to leave Daniel? I just can't imagine…

~~~~~

He commanded her to leave him when he knew he was near death in the Antarctic cave.

He wouldn't leave Teal'c alone to die for his alleged sin committed as First Prime on Cartago.

He drove nearly everyone insane with his agitated and ceaseless efforts to find the bug-bitten Teal'c after he escaped from Maybourne.

~~~~~

She sat up and squared her shoulders. She believed his forgiveness and lack of blame genuinely sincere.

After a deep breath, she made an unspoken vow to never, ever leave him behind and if circumstances ever dictated otherwise, to do anything and everything in her power, including moving heaven and hell, to get him back.

Although Teal'c had left several minutes ago, Jack was still thinking about him.

He knew Teal'c knew Carter was correct, but he also knew Teal'c was aware that he considered virtually all of his past off limits. He'd have to thank the big guy for running interference, for saving him again.

Jack was thankful as well for how little he and Teal'c needed to talk, and when they did, it was often abbreviated, because they were cast from the mold, alien only by definition.

His thoughts switched to Carter and Daniel. He wasn't angry--just disappointed that both of them seemed not to give the invasion of his privacy a second thought. To be frank, he had to admit he was surprised that Daniel hadn't done more probing long before this. But Carter--well, that was another story. She was military and should've known better.

And they were his friends. He thought.

But, he reminded himself, they were scientists. How could they deny their nature? Cursed with insatiable curiosity to find the truth, whatever the hell that was. Burdened with both under- and over-thinking, never seeming to simply think, especially about all the possible consequences. This time, not thinking or respecting why he kept that part of his life to himself.

He knew about that--thinking about all the possible consequences of his actions. He could do it in the time it takes to inhale, because he had to. And too often, his chosen action was the least of many evils.

God, I gotta stop thinking. Stop remembering.

He sighed and reached for the call bell. His thumb hovered over the button for several heartbeats as he tried to deal with his pain.

Muscles, bones, skin hurt. So did his soul, his spirit. The totality of him ached like some abused pooch that had been screwed and dragged across hot coals and broken glass then abandoned in the nowhere space of the forgotten and unwanted.

Seeing and talking with Cromwell had opened that door, which he almost had closed, with Daniel's help. Stirred up that unhealed and forever-festering wound. Living it all over--again. The freefall to earth, the marathon crawl out of the desert, hospital, rehab, morphine, addiction, withdrawal, graduate school, and prison that surely ranked well below Hell as an eternal residence, the marathon stagger out of Iraq, hospital, rehab, morphine, addiction, withdrawal. All of which came down to one thing: he was left behind.

Screw you, Cromwell. You worthless glob of protoplasm.

Soon after his discharge from the rehab unit, he had searched out a buddy in the JAG corps who owed him a favor. Thanks to him, Jack read a purloined transcript of the inquiry that was called soon after he and the two Marines, who had been prisoners for two weeks, he had escaped with had been picked up by a patrol in Kuwait. The co-pilot--one First Lieutenant Samantha Carter--had tried to go back for him but had been stopped almost literally dead in her tracks.

I DON'T KNOW WHAT HIS INTENT WAS, SIR. YOU WILL HAVE TO ASK HIM. MY…INTERPRETATION OF HIS ACTION WAS THAT HE WOULD SHOOT ME IF I DID NOT LEAVE THE AREA IMMEDIATELY, she had said.

After the inquiry, only his team was told that he lived. Now Carter knew who the SF was she had left behind; he had never wanted her to find out. When he finally met her just before the second Abydos mission, he could see that she wouldn't be easily intimidated now. He tried to blame her finding out on everything but the real reason--his lack of control over his emotions.

Control eluded him on the other front as well. The craving escaped from its crypt in that graveyard part of him, where neither that vampiric whore nor nothing else ever seemed to stay buried permanently. She sang to him, caressed and excited him, asked to come out to play.

Sweat beads popped out on his forehead, in his armpits, in the small of his back. His hand shook just above perception. He pushed the call button with desperate vehemence.

To him, it was an agonizingly long time before the nurse came. In reality, it was five seconds. "Colonel, are you in pain?" he asked.

"Ya think, Lieutenant?" he snarled sarcastically. "Just get me a shot."

"On a scale of one -"

"For cryin' out loud," he shouted, anger and volume increasing with each syllable. "Just get me my damn shot!" Sweat now coated every square inch of his tense body.

"Yes, sir," the nurse said evenly and left.

O'Neill clamped his eyes shut to concentrate on trying to control the tremors that had come out of nowhere, so he didn't see the lieutenant place two calls. He jerked when he felt a cool, familiar hand cover his. He opened his eyes. "Abby."

"Jack," she countered with a smile. "Grayson tells me you're in pain. Tell me about it."

He stared longingly at the syringe in her other hand, then at the lined, nonjudgmental face of the nurse who had pulled him out of yet another of the black holes littering his life after his imprisonment and torture in Iraq. After the team's little adventure with the virus from the Land of Light and the remarkable amount of injuries all the teams were suffering, he had arranged for her transfer to Stargate Command when it became apparent that they would need someone with her expertise in pain control.

He said nothing. His mouth had gone dry from intense desire for the drug that would eradicate all his pain and bury everything.

"Talk to me, Jack," the lieutenant colonel whispered. "I need you to be sure that this is the right pain med for you right now."

"Oh, God, I need it, Abby," he responded quietly.

"Okay, you know the drill. Where does it hurt and what's the number on the pain scale."

Jack choked on his desire, weakness, and humiliation at being at the mercy of some friggin' chemical. He covered his eyes with his free hand. "Dammit, Abby. I want it. I don't need it."

She smiled and squeezed his hand. "You think some ibuprofen might do the trick?" At his nod, she said, "One day at a time, Jack. I'll be back in a minute."

He snorted. Sometimes, Abby. Sometimes it's one second at a time. He began to close his eyes but a new presence in the room made him open them widely and look around.

Griff. The thickset, scrappy Marine he had recommended for SGC, because he knew first hand what a determined sonofabitch the man was. "Just one step at a time, Jack," he remembered hearing Griff say as the jarhead half-dragged him through the hot sand.

O'Neill nodded once in acknowledgment of this rescue of sorts. And in his mind's ear, he could hear the crypt sucking the whore back into its unforgiving darkness.