It hit Sam while Daniel had his head under the sink.

It was a curiously domestic position in which to see him, and one completely unsupported by reality. If anyone should be looking at the pipes, it was her. If anyone had a fighting chance of taking them apart and getting them back together, it was her.

And in fact, she'd been in the middle of taking them apart when Daniel had come over. So she'd washed her hands and they'd put their heads together over the report on the boxes from P4G-782 with the inscriptions on the side that claimed they were treasure but which had turned out to be, as near as she could tell, batteries.

After some entertaining discussion of the situations in which a primitive culture might develop lead-acid batteries before they developed refined petroleum products, she'd gone down to the basement to figure out what she had in the freezer that she might turn into dinner.

And when she'd come up, there he was, lying on his back, head under the sink, poking around in the pipes with a flashlight in one hand. She could just see the crinkly Daniel-frown between his brows that indicated how hard he was concentrating.

"You know, I had a colleague once who used to rave about how much you could learn about a culture from its plumbing," Daniel said conversationally from under the sink while Sam stood there and looked at him, her hands going numb from the solidly-frozen gallon bag of chili. "I wish I'd listened more to him at the time. Of course I spent most of my time in Egypt where plumbing systems tended toward the -"

Suddenly realizing that she was just standing there, staring at him, Daniel went quiet. In that particularly oddly thoughtless way he had sometimes, he shone the flashlight into her eyes.

"Sam?" he said.

With his chin tucked under she could see he'd put on a few pounds recently, and spiky wisps of hair were peeking from over his forehead where they'd gotten a little sparse lately.

Sam's mouth was dry.

He looked so normal, so real. This was what she was supposed to have at this point in her life. There was supposed to be a man under the sink. He was supposed to take care of things like leaky traps, and he was supposed to be proud of her and love her, and she was supposed to come home to him every night.

It wasn't. But it was supposed to be.

"Daniel," Sam said, and her throat felt tight, and she thought to herself with stunning clarity, You must not cry.

"What is it?" He wiggled out from under the sink, came over to where she was standing in the middle of the floor. He tried to take the chili out of her hands but she was gripping it.

"Daniel," she said again, and then in a rush, before she could stop herself, "If I asked you, would you kiss me?"

The chevrony frown deepened, and his lips pursed. He was a few inches taller than her. Oh God, he was just like he was supposed to be.

"Sam, are you okay?" His tone was worried and gentle at the same time.

"Daniel, I mean it. If I asked you to, would you kiss me?"

And against all odds, Daniel reached way back in his brain and found the right answer. "Of course I would," he said.

No questions. No problems. No past, no future, no struggle.

He would have been the easiest thing in the world to do.

Taking a deep breath, Sam turned toward the counter, set the frozen chili down with a thump. She glanced back over her shoulder, smiled at Daniel still standing in the middle of the kitchen, still looking puzzled.

"Thanks," she said, and opened a cabinet.

"Sam, I asked if you were okay."

"Oh yeah. I just... I saw you under there, and I suddenly thought, that's supposed to be a husband for me under there, right? I'm supposed to have a husband who fixes the sink." The six-quart was right where it was supposed to be; who else would have moved it? "Just had one of those moments where you suddenly think... Oh well, you don't think. I just wanted to know." Opening another cabinet, she pushed some containers around. "You want rice with the chili?"

"Sam."

Dammit, she should have kept her mouth shut. She'd known it as soon as she'd said it. Every once in a while her mouth just opened and things came out and she couldn't take them back and it was never --

Daniel came up behind her, took the Tupperware container of rice out of her hand, set it on the counter. He turned her around by her shoulders to face him, but she couldn't seem to look him in the eye. Until suddenly she remembered this was Daniel, after all. So she looked.

He still had his puzzled frown on, but when he spoke he sounded more like determination. "Do you even realize how much I love you?"

Her heart thumped in her chest; she figured he must have heard it.

"You know what they say about us all at the base, right? Crazy SG-1. Everyone's always trying to figure out which of us is sleeping with which other one. They can tell. We can't hide it. We love each other, all of us."

"I know," and she leaned back against the counter, suddenly disappointed. Of course, that was what he meant. That was all she WANTED him to mean. That was how it had to be.

"No, I don't think you do," said Daniel, and he took her hands, cold from frozen chili, and put them around his own neck as he stepped in close, her face in his hands, and he kissed her.

Her heart jumped again as he tasted her, coaxing her lips apart, worrying her bottom lip, tilting his head.

Sam sank into it, enjoying the sensation of being held in a strong man's arms, enjoying the sensation of trusting Daniel. When he was done, she was smiling.

"Thank you," she said immediately, stroking the hair where it curled up the tiniest bit at the back of his neck.

His hand made circles in the small of her back. She usually hated it when people did that. This time she liked it.

He said, "Can you tell me?"

"You didn't have to do that. I just had one of those ... moments, I guess. You know, where you suddenly feel lonely for no reason, or as if you're just..." As if you've done everything in your life wrong, and it's your own fault there's no one to hold you and love you and make you feel like it was all worth it. But she couldn't tell him that.

Daniel's tongue flicked against his own upper lip and she realized that now he knew what her mouth tasted like.

"Okay, here's the thing. Something's up, and I'm not letting you heat up this --" he reached past her to poke at the solid lump in the pot " -- what is this?"

"Chili," she said, working to keep from laughing. He was so serious.

"--this chili, okay, until you tell me what's bothering you."

So funny that such a big man could be such a Jewish grandmother, Sam thought to herself, and grinned at him.

"You think you could stop me if I tried to get past you?" she said jokingly.

"I know I could try. You'd be surprised. Teal'c and Jack have both taught me some dirty tricks over the years."

"Oh, me too."

"I don't want to fight, Major, believe me." Rubbing her cheek with a thumb, he suddenly startled her again, looking so much like a lover would look, if there was a lover in her life, if there was a man in her house like there should be --

"There it goes again, I saw it in your face, just tell me. Come on. What's wrong?"

"I don't know! Nothing. Really, it's nothing. Just one of those moments where it suddenly hits you, you know? How lonely it really is, how lonely I --" From covering laughter she went right to covering how thick and closed up her throat suddenly felt, and wondered if there was really something wrong with her. Emotional ups and downs like this weren't like her. Maybe Janet should run some tests.

"How lonely you are? Oh Sam."

And Daniel folded her in his arms, hugged her close.

"If you keep hugging me like this I'm going to cry," she warned him, trying to sound like laughing even as the moisture filled up her eyes.

Standing in her kitchen, next to her stove, where there was a pot with frozen chili in it, Sam felt as frightened as she ever had.

She didn't know if Daniel was making it worse or better, but he really was a big strong guy and she couldn't make him stop all that easily, plus she didn't want to.

"You are not alone. You will never be alone. As long as one of the three of us is left you will never be alone."

She wrapped her arms around his big shoulders and let the tears run out over the corners of her eyes. "I know. That's not what I --"

But she couldn't explain. She didn't think the guys felt the same thing, didn't think they felt like such failures. They'd all been married, after all. They knew what it was to have someone at home for you, just for you, cooking dinner or washing clothes or fixing the sink. They'd all had something she'd never had, maybe never would have. Plus, they could even share that. It was part of their male bonding, one of the looks they gave each other that they never gave her.

It was different for her. She was the alone one.

"I mean it. We love you. Sam, I love you. There's nothing I wouldn't do for you. Nothing."

"Careful, Daniel. I'm going to think you're making a pass at me," she said, forcing it to sound lighthearted, but she clung to him and she was sure he could feel her heart beating against his chest.

"Do you want me to?"

Oh God yes, she thought to herself. But I could never say that. And I couldn't explain, couldn't explain what I want, what I need, why I'm being so ridiculous --

Looking into her eyes again, Daniel frowned, a very peculiar expression to see so close up. Then he very deliberately reached behind her, put the lid over the chili, then pulled her back into his arms to spin her away from the stove, away from the distractions, the excuses, and the normal.

Capturing her mouth again with his, Daniel proceeded to kiss her again.

Not tentative. Not nervous. Not possessive or hurried, either. He had nowhere to go, nothing to do but this.

A girl could get used to this, thought Sam as she just held on.

He tasted of coffee, of course, just like she knew he would. He always smelled slightly of coffee, and some sort of soap or something that she supposed another woman would be able to identify but to her just smelled like Daniel. He was as real under her hands, in her arms as he was when they were back to back shooting for their lives, side by side at some negotiations, or face to face in the lab, puzzling over some alien technology that defeated them both.

He was, she suddenly realized, just about the most familiar person in the entire galaxy.

She wanted to ask him what he was doing but she was afraid he would stop. He was doing it so very well.

He kissed along her jawline, nuzzled her ear. "Do you like this?" he asked her, breathing just a little, the warm moist air making her shudder, before he captured her earlobe between his teeth.

"You know, I do," she breathed back, sliding her arms down to wrap them around his waist.

"Okay then," and they proceeded to neck like teenagers, standing in the middle of her kitchen.

Sam didn't know how long it was later when she surfaced for a moment. She felt warm and soft, wrapped in something sweet. "Daniel, you can stop anytime you like," she felt obliged to say, even though her heart felt lighter every time his breath swept across her throat, every time she could hear him from just a centimeter away.

"Do you want me to?" he asked again.

"Want you to, uh, what?" She'd lost track of what he was asking about. His hands had slid around her waist; one had traveled up her rib cage and was cupping her breast, through the fabric of her bra, as if he were weighing it.

"Want me to make love to you?"

He meant it. She had to pull back a little so she could look in his eyes. There was nothing secret there, nothing longing, nothing complicated. He meant it. If she wanted him to, he would.

And oh God, she did.

She couldn't say it. She wasn't that person. There was no way in the world, no way.

His thumb brushed over her nipple and that discussion was over.

"Let's go," she said with the decisiveness she usually reserved for combat situations, turned, and led him toward the bedroom.

There was nothing awkward about taking off her clothes with Daniel. Military regs were nothing when you were planet-hopping. She already knew his body as well as she'd ever known anyone's who wasn't a lover; she realized he must know hers the same way.

It was odd, how different it wasn't, taking off their clothes in her bedroom the way they took them off in the locker room, in alien's houses, in the field. There was the scar on his right bicep that she'd patched once when he'd taken a shrapnel hit. There was his appendectomy scar; despite Daniel playing coy with Jack right after the surgery, there had been a late night on an alien world not too long after when they'd all gotten to comparing scars and everyone had poked at Daniel's new one. There was the burn mark from a staff weapon graze that had slowed him down on P81-244. He was so completely familiar to her.

She wondered if she looked as familiar to him.

Or maybe it was just because it was Daniel. It was hard to tell as they rolled on the bed together, revelling in the feel of all that skin against skin, his masculine furred legs tangling in hers, which she insisted on keeping shaved the way she insisted on wearing lipstick, because she was afraid that if she stopped observing the rituals she might forget she was a woman.

His hands, so infinitely patient with artifacts caked in thousands of years of dirt, were just as careful and thorough as they explored all the parts of her he had simply never gotten to touch before. He wasn't the least bit shy about stroking every inch of her, teasing one breast, one sensitive nipple while he licked the other, or sliding his hand between her legs when she moved them apart in invitation.

She gasped when he touched her there and was shocked to realize how wet she already was, how ready.

It was as if her body agreed with Daniel, as if this were the most reasonable thing in the world, not unlike carbon dating procedures or the vocative case.

Her brain engaged for a wild second.

"What exactly is it that we're doing?" she gasped as he moved his fingers, stroking into her.

"We're making love," he mumbled into the soft spot just below her right breast.

"And that was why again?" Her language skills were out the window; her stomach muscles were tensing.

"I got the feeling it was necessary," said Daniel and she realized when the frames were cool against her skin that he was still wearing his glasses.

"Just because I was feeling a little lonely? Daniel..."

"Was is the correct verb tense. You're not lonely now, are you?" And he chuckled as he rolled her toward him, hooking her leg over his hip, maneuvering himself between her thighs.

"No." She fought the mad urge to giggle as she felt Daniel, hot and hard, against her thigh, and then she fought the urge to scream out loud as he slid into her.

No discussion necessary. They already knew they were the most disease-free people on the face of the planet, and he already knew about her birth control. They didn't have any secrets.

Or rather, the last of her secrets were out the window as Daniel rapidly discovered how she thrust back against him, how she gripped him, how quickly she came, how she grabbed his hair when he came, and a little while after that, how she tasted just about everywhere else and how many more orgasms she could have within the hour.

***

They were sweaty as they lay on the sheets and Sam played with Daniel's hair. It would be wierd if he were holding her against his side the way most men did. She felt no obligation to assume whatever they thought was the appropriate position for the woman after sex.

Sam had the feeling that Daniel wouldn't mind if she leaped out of the bed and performed a Sioux war dance, naked. In fact, he'd be entertained.

"Later, this is going to be really awkward," she said conversationally. She didn't feel awkward. She felt great. She was boneless with pleasure and more relaxed than she could remember being in, well, years. She had realized immediately that with Daniel she could be exactly as much of herself as he'd already seen her be in the lab, in the battlefield. No buffers were required, no practice versions of herself while she figured out what he could take, what put him off.

He already knew her. And he loved her.

"Oh, I don't think it will be," said Daniel, pushing his glasses up his nose. He'd taken them off at some point, she couldn't remember when, but they were back now. He looked completely comfortable too, sprawled naked on her bed and smelling of enthusiastic sex.

"How do you figure that?"

"Well, nothing has changed, has it? I told you, everyone already knows."

"That we love each other. I heard you. I don't think that that --" she waved a hand around as if to include the whole room "-- is necessarily what's meant by team cohesion."

"It is in our case," Daniel shrugged, and she allowed herself to admire what were really extraordinarily fine shoulders. She'd noticed them before, of course, but decided she shouldn't be looking at them, and then for years they were just there. It seemed the right moment to appreciate them.

"Come on. You're telling me you would make love to the Colonel, or to Teal'c, if they were feeling lonely?"

He shrugged again. "I probably would. If they wanted me to. If they needed me to."

She didn't want to admit how much she'd wanted and needed it. Apparently, she didn't have to.

She peered more closely at Daniel's face, the luscious lips, the profile that reminded her of Greek statues, the way the planes of his face transformed into the surfaces of his throat, his shoulders. So familiar, and yet with a veneer of the bizarrely new. For a second she thought she might not recognize him. Who was Daniel, after all? Was his love that unconditional, that giving?

He knew she was looking for something and met her gaze unflinching, a smile lurking a little around the corners of his mouth, the mouth she'd known so well even before she knew the taste of it.

"You would," she said, and was surprised at how surprised she sounded.

"I said so."

"Oh god," she said, suddenly fighting a case of the giggles, "can you just imagine the Colonel's face if you offered to --"

He smiled outright, stroking her leg absently. "I have."

"You have -- oh. You mean --" Suddenly blushing, Sam couldn't figure how to back out of this conversation gracefully.

"Imagined it, I mean. Please don't panic. Don't laugh. And don't mention it next time you see him, either, please."

"Sorry. No, of course not."

They went back to quiet for a few minutes, Daniel stroking Sam's leg, her fingers playing in his hair.

"I hope that's not the wrong thing to say," Daniel finally volunteered.

"No no. Of course not." And actually, it wasn't, and a little piece of Sam stopped worrying. It made it better, not worse, that Daniel meant exactly what he said when he said he loved all of them, that they loved each other. It meant just what she'd seen in his eyes: that there was no two of them without the four of them, that this was not the beginning of something secret and horrible that would end badly and damage the team and make her feel like the biggest idiot on this or any world.

No, Daniel had meant it with the exactitude of a person for whom analyzing language was second nature.

"You love me."

"Yep."

"Did I tell you I love you too?"

He grinned, the one that crinkled his nose, and her heart thumped again. He was so dear, so precious. She suddenly wanted to keep people from ever shooting at him, ever again. He said, "You don't have to."

"Because?"

"I already know."

Well, she thought. She might as well believe him.

And a few minutes of quiet later, he added, "I meant all of it, Sam. You should know. We all love you. More than you know. More than we should."

"You guys talk about this?"

"We don't have to. Uh, we're guys." He had the grace to look sheepish so she grinned at him, but he was being serious so she put her "I'm believing you" look back on her face. "We just know. It's, you know, understood. It's tough to talk about, because of course you're a woman," and Daniel, naked and dissheveled and discussing love as analytically as he would in his office in the mountain, suddenly seemed like the least sexist person on the face of the planet and Sam wanted to kiss him again.

"I noticed," she said.

"I did too," he added, as if this were a new discovery he'd been wanting to mention. "I'd forgotten, uh, if you don't mind my sharing, I'd forgotten how delightful, uh...." It was as if getting this far Daniel suddenly remembered to be shy.

"Share, Daniel," she ordered him.

"I'd forgotten what a woman tastes like," he admitted, and this time it was a tug she felt on her heartstrings. "And I've always liked the way a woman's body curves, here," and he ran his hand over the hollow at her waist, just before her hip flared out, not too soft as to tickle, not too hard, just gently perfect.

"Oh Daniel. I don't want you to be lonely either. Any of you. But you..." How lonely had Daniel been feeling? And she hadn't noticed? Had he been hurting?

Of course he'd been hurting, she told herself fiercely. Ever since the day she'd met him. Ever since he'd lost his wife, and kept losing her. Every once in a while it looked like Daniel might have a shot at someone caring about him, and circumstances continued to cruelly yank that chance away.

Maybe she wasn't the lonely one, she suddenly thought. Maybe she was the lucky one. Her men - they'd all loved someone and lost her. At least she'd never lost the one she loved. Not really loved.

Every once in a while she came close. Every once in a while they thought Daniel was dead, or the Colonel, or Teal'c. And the pain, the horrible dull achy pain in her chest on those occasions showed her what it must be like, even a little. If it hurt worse than that, to have someone who loved you utterly, completely, and exclusively, and lose it --

"Will you promise me something?" she said, arching her toes to rub them through the hair on his shin.

"Of course," he said, in exactly the way he'd said it in her kitchen.

"If you are hurting, if you have that lonely kind of pain --" she didn't mention Sha're, she didn't think she had to, "you promise me that you'll come and tell me right away."

"Oh, I don't think I could do that. I mean, I don't want you to think you'd have to -- well, do anything." Still managing to look shy despite the way they were sprawled naked in bed together.

"Did you feel obligated, oh," she surveyed the clock, "about an hour and a half ago?"

"No!" He looked incensed.

"Then why would I?"

"Well, I mean ..." He had nothing. He trailed off.

"Daniel." She scooted down the bed to look at him face to face. "I love you too. I do. I'd do anything for you. If you're allowed, I'm allowed. Right?"

"Okay, Sam. Whatever you say. You're Air Force, I'm not. You give orders, and I, uh,..."

"You just do what you normally do and everything will be fine." She smiled. His eyes really were so blue. He was beautiful, absolutely beautiful.

If it was as close as she ever got to having a real husband under the sink, it was better, oh, light-years better, than most other people ever even dreamed of.

He was brilliant, and beautiful, and he did love her. Loved all of them. The way they loved each other. They'd never be alone. Not until it was down to just one of them.

And maybe not even then, thought Sam, stretching her legs luxuriously, realizing she was hungry, and that the chili was probably slowly thawing, forgotten, in the six-quart pot on the stove, and that if she heated it to boiling it'd be just fine.

Better than fine, really.