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It was very hard for Sam to admit that she was jealous of Daniel. But she knew that she was. She hated that she was, and it made her wonder what kind of person it made her.
Even more than being jealous of Daniel, she was jealous of the relationship he had with Jack. Daniel had Jack in all the ways that she wished she did; their friendship transcended any other that she'd ever known; even their friendships with her were pale echoes of what they had with each other.
They were close enough to communicate without words; Jack *listened* to Daniel when he didn't listen to anyone else; she'd seen it in action herself.
Sam had no way to get that close to Jack; her rank kept her at his arm's length when it didn't factor into Jack's relationships with Daniel or Teal'c in the least. It wasn't at all fair.
Daniel got to Jack in ways that she had only dreamed about; they could share an office wordlessly for *hours,* while jack couldn't stand to stay in Sam's lab for more than five seconds. Jack talked *to* Daniel, not at him, and not at a rank. Daniel got the familiarity of a first name, even a diminutive sometimes; Sam was stuck with her rank and her last name.
Jack loved Daniel, and Sam got left out in the cold.
She wanted to hate Daniel but couldn't; she wanted to hate Jack, but didn't. She *couldn't* hate Daniel, who was like a brother to her, who had never been anything but her friend. And she *didn't* hate Jack, because Jack was being... himself.
She couldn't fault Jack for the personality that drew people into his radius, and she couldn't fault the suave charm or the mischievous laugh that made people smile and embrace the sometimes-obnoxious behavior. And she wasn't going to belittle the leadership or the camaraderie that made the entirety of the SGC willing put their lives on the line for Jack O'Neill if he asked.
In the whole scheme of things, it was herself that Sam hated the most, because she envied two people who loved each other that love. She hated that she was selfish enough to have tried to take Jack away from Daniel, and that it had driven such a wedge between them that Daniel had been willing to die rather than deal with it.
But now Daniel was back, and so was Jack. He wasn't the sullen, withdrawn bastard that he had been; no, he was himself again because Daniel was there.
Sam hated that she was jealous of that, too, but she promised herself that this time, it was going to be different.
But even as she hugged Daniel, genuinely thrilled to have her friend back... she resented the competition.
Then Jack's arm fell around Daniel's shoulder, smile beaming out brightly as the sun, and the competition was over when Daniel grinned back and everything seemed right in the world again.
Sam smiled, too, but it was bitter in her mouth as she watched Jack and Daniel together, and wondered what she'd do when the jealousy got to be too much to bear. Daniel had already proven that not even death could keep him away from Jack for long; what chance did she have against that?
The End