Author: Regency

Category: Angst, Romance

Pairing: S/other, Sam/Jack UST, Jack/Other

Summary: Jack finds out the hard way that Sam is seeing someone else.

Disclaimer: No body's mine, K?

AN: Oooh. I'm feeling evvvviiiiillll. {insert maniacal laughter} Okay, 'nough of that.

Jack sits there in a familiar dark, surprisingly unsmokey bar, drinking his drink silently. He's been nursing the same ginger ale for the last hour or so. He's drinking ginger ale, because he thinks he's gonna have enough trouble getting home without enebriation as an additional distraction.

He's ruminating over what he just saw a while ago. Sam with another guy. They were looking kinda cozy in fact.

How does he feel about it? Hurt maybe? No, definately hurt. He was actually gonna go about his business, but Carter had apparently caught him and came over with a serious argument over not having to justify her relationship to him, barely giving him time get a word in edgewise. What hit him most deeply was her statement.

"Sir, we've never made any promises. We've always lived on the unspoken, maybe someday. Well, sir, someday's not looking like any point in the next decade if you get my drift? You don't really expect me to wait all that time alone? I mean really." Before he could say anything to that she'd stalked back to her guy and pulled him out of there.

He'd been sitting there since then, completely agreeing with her.

But it still hurt. Sam obviously felt bad about how harsh she'd been and sent Janet after him to make sure he was all right.

Janet sat down beside him and watched him silently, discreetly (not to him) leaning over his cup to sniff his drink. She nodded realizing it was something non-alcoholic.

"Jack, you okay?" He turned to her and nodded.

"You have to understand where she's coming from here, right? Someday isn't tomorrow, not for you guys, anyway?"

"I do, but that doesn't mean it didn't hurt Janet. She didn't even tell me herself. I had to find out this way. I accept this. There's nothing else to be done about it. She was right and I want her happy, if not with me, with what's-his-name. I wish her and what's-his-name the best, okay. Let her know that." Jack threw a few random bills onto the counter and walked quite leisurely towards the exit.

"Jack, where are you going?" He turns to look at her with a sad smile.

"Anywhere, but home tonight. Anywhere, but home forever. Anywhere where memories of her aren't. Anywhere, Janet. Anywhere else."

"Will I see you tomorrow?" He shrugs.

"Maybe you will and maybe you'll never see me again. Maybe...I don't know yet. Maybe..." And it trails off into a shrug of carelessness.

He leaves a concerned Janet in his wake.

He drives to his home silently. Parking in his garage, he gets out and after locking his truck and garage door, enters through the kitchen door.Taking care to lock it behind him he proceeds to the third (? right or wrong? I'm not familiar with the levels of his house)level where his bedroom is. Not bothering to shed his coat, he goes to his closet and pulls out his luggage. Neatly, but hurriedly packing all of his clothes, including his dress uniforms in garment bags.

After having that packed, he goes through his things and decides what trinkets he want to take with him and puts those into his spare baggage. Finding he has a great deal more space he takes a few photos of SG-1(with both Jonas and Daniel)+ Cassie, Gen. Hammond, Jacob,and Janet. These are things he'd originally wanted to leave.

He stares at the trinket bag, before yanking most of the pictures he'd just put in out and throwing them away from him. He couldn't take these things with him. He could distantly hear his bedroom phone ringing and feel himself reaching over to answer it.

"O'Neill?"

"Jack, it's Janet. I just wanted to make sure you got home okay."

"I'm fine, Doc. Just tired. You know emotional upheavals will do that to you."

"Oh, well, okay. Jack, please, forgive Sam for not telling you. She just didn't know how you'd react." He could do that. No, he couldn't, but he could say he could.

"I can do that, I understand. Well, look Janet. I've got something to do right now...um, bye." He hung up the phone. I've got something to do. Great going, O'Neill. He had to get out of there.

Reaching into his bedside table, he pulled out a smooth, round, opaque blue oval stone, with the point-of-origin for Othala engraved intertwined with the symbol for the Baliskner. This was a personal communicator Thor had given him if he ever wished to leave Earth for any reason.

He had to get away from Sam for a while and what better way to get away from her than to leave the planet.

Before activating the device he did a mental checklist to see if there was anything else he wanted to take with him. Confident that he could get anything else he needed later, he took another look at his efficiently packed luggage, and zipped up the last suitcase.

Running his thumb over the anagram, the communicator activated.

"Yo, Thor. It's O'Neill. Think you could drop by here and get me. I think I'll take you up on that ambassadorial leave if the offers still open."

"It is always, O'Neill. Are you ready now or do you need time to prepare?" Jack took a cursory look at him bedroom more time, assuring himself he needed to do this.

"I'm re...wait." He walked over to the pad on his bedside table.

Picking up the accompanying pen, he wrote, 'understood, but unforgiven.'

"I'm ready Thor." A muted blue beam shot down and took Jack and his things up to the O'Neill2. Hey, they made another one!

Janet's POV

I keep looking nervously between my watch and the door. It's 1100 and this briefing was scheduled to start half an hour ago. The Colonel isn't here yet. Damn. I was really hoping he wasn't serious about last night.

The General sent some airmen to the Col.'s house to check on him.

They're not going to find him there. I just know he's gone.

"They won't find him, sir."

"Now, what makes you think that, Dr.?"

"Let's just say the Col. and I had a conversation last night and we didn't exactly mince words. He's gone for now and for a while, sir. He doesn't want to be found and as long as that remains to be so, he won't be found."

After the unfinished briefing

Still Janet's POV

As I hurry back to my office to try and contact the Col. I hear Sam running to catch up to me. I sigh and take a deep breath before turning around to face her. She speaks first.

"What happened when you went to see the Colonel last night?" I close my eyes momentarily. I'm afraid of that question and the answer I don't have and the one I couldn't tell her if I wanted to.

"Nothing. He was nursing a ginger ale. We talked a bit. He was fine." Kind of, I guess. "He left and went home. I called him a while later and he was there, but had to get off, because he had something else to do right then. I don't know what though." Packing probably.According to the airmen his clothes were missing and almost all of the photos of SG-1+ were strewn across the floor and bed. Most or all (it's impossible to tell) of the rest of the pictures from his bedroom were gone. He was gone.

"Janet, did this have anything to do with what I said at the bar, because it came out a lot harsher than I meant it to?" I shrug.

"Sam, he's gone. Long gone and I have no ideas for how long."

"Fine. Okay. Then, just tell me what 'understood, but unforgiven' means."

Damn, I knew he was lying to me.Way to go, Frasier.

"That I can answer, but truthfully... You don't want to know. But you should add an 'until gone' to the end."

"Why?" She looks confused.

"Because, now that he's gone, he can forgive damn near anything."