Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Sam watched the scrolling alien code move across the monitor in front of her and let out a sigh of relief. The system was updating, which hopefully meant that Jack and Teal’c were going to be safe.

She could only imagine what they’d been going through up on the surface as the computer system turned the brainwashed citizens of the village into dangerous enemies.

Sam hoped to god that her plan had worked. She and Pallan didn’t have much time. It had taken her longer than she wanted to convince him to remove the link in the first place and then his confidence in working with the system in the control room had completely faltered when he was no longer in contact with the database.

Carter, now would be a good time.

Jack's voice had been tense over the radio and Sam wished she had the ability to do the coding herself.

There had been a slight delay while Pallan figured out what to do, but the re-programming was completed soon after and she hoped it had been uploaded in time.

“It should be done uploading now,” Pallan said.

Sam nodded. “We should also let them know that it’s safe to take off the link devices.”

Even when she first learned about the links - curved devices placed on an individual’s temple that allowed them to access a database full of information - she had a bad feeling about them. It wasn’t her usual reaction. Normally she’d be happy to dive into learning about new tech and she had been for everything else on the planet. The holographic technology was beyond impressive and implications were immense for a dome that was permeable to people and objects, but blocked the toxic atmosphere outside. She hadn’t even scratched the surface on what had to be great advances in sustainability and agriculture.

They had a lot of amazing technology here on P3X-289, but there had been something creepy about the way that people’s faces went blank when they were getting an update from the system.

Now that they knew the computer system was altering memories, she was glad that she stopped Daniel from trying on Evalla’s link.

Poor Evalla.

It didn’t hit Sam just how bad things were until she discovered that Pallan didn’t remember his own wife. He didn’t remember being married at all.

They needed to get everyone to take the devices off before more people died.

“We need to tell everyone that it’s safe to take off the links,” Sam reiterated.

Pallan nodded, but looked reluctant.

Even now, his hand reached out towards the small, curved contraption.

She covered his hand with hers to stop the movement.

“That’s a really bad idea. We haven’t disabled the system. Another update could populate. We need to convince people that it’s safe to take the links off and that they should.”

Sam lifted her hand. Pallan continued to stare at the link before shaking his head and turning back to the screen.

“I don’t know if I could do it. Adding information is different than deleting and even that, I’m not sure if I -”

“You can do it,” Sam promised.

Pallan frowned and still didn’t look like he believed her, but his hands started moving rapidly over the alien keyboard.

Sam stared at the monitor that displayed what must’ve been the computer’s system code. She saw details changing as Pallan typed, but couldn’t read it. Maybe later they could build an interface that would translate the code in addition to the raw output data.

“Major Carter.”

Teal’c’s voice came over the radio and at first she was still too focused on the machine in front of her to catch his tone of voice.

“Did it work?” Sam asked.

She watched the update process and knew it had been put into effect, but it was always good to get confirmation.

“Teal’c,” she asked again, “did it work?”

“Major Carter, I require you and Daniel Jackson to join me immediately.”

This time, she recognized his unyielding tone of voice. Sam also noticed that Teal’c didn’t mention Jack. Something had gone wrong.

She remembered how the computer system liked to get rid of people by pushing them out of the dome. What if they were forced to the edge of the dome? What if…

Sam shut down that thought before it could gain purchase in her mind.

“What happened, Teal’c?” she asked, voice shaky.

“Major Carter. I need your immediate assistance. You may need to take command.”

Something had happened to the Colonel.

Something was wrong with Jack.

Sam broke into a run.

Chapter Text

Sam ran as quickly as she could, not knowing if Pallan and Daniel were following her. She just had to get to Teal’c and Jack.

She thought they had saved the day just in time, but now she had a pit in her stomach. What if she’d been too late?

She thought about the missing council member and about Pallan’s wife Evalla. They both disappeared without a trace and then no one remembered them. Countless people had walked right out of the dome into the toxic atmosphere and died, sacrificed so that the automated computer system could keep the dome functional.

What if the villagers had seen SG-1 as such a threat that they tried to shove them out of the dome?

What if they succeeded?

Sam pushed that thought out of her mind. She couldn’t let herself think that way and Teal’c would have let her know if the worst had happened.

Maybe he had just gotten injured.

Sam slowed down when she reached the crowd of people at the center of the town. She gripped her weapon tightly, but no one paid attention to her. It looked like Pallan’s edit to the programming did prevent the villagers from seeing the members of SG-1 as a threat.

The crowd parted and she saw Teal’c and Jack.

He was alive. Thank god.

Jack was leaning against a brick wall, arms crossed, and looking intractable.

She walked right up to him, barely hearing when Teal’c said her name.

“Sir, are you okay?”

He didn’t look injured. It didn’t seem like he’d gotten into a fight with one of the villagers who were now aimlessly wandering the streets, confused about how they got there.

Colonel O’Neill glanced over.

There was something wrong with his eyes, or maybe it was his expression.

He seemed irritated, which wasn’t anything new, but there was an angry edge to the emotion that she wasn’t used to seeing.

His brown eyes also looked cold.

Sam felt a shiver of anxiety go down her spine.

“I’m just peachy, Major,” Jack replied.

She let out a relieved breath. She had overreacted. Jack was in a mood, but everything was fine.

“Thank god,” she said. “When Teal’c told me I had to get over here right away, I was worried that something might have happened.”

Jack lifted an eyebrow, but otherwise didn’t move.

She felt a hand on her arm and looked over at Teal’c. The Jaffa wasn’t an expressive man, but the subtle changes in his countenance told her that he was worried.

“Major Carter, something has happened.”

Sam was just about to open her mouth and ask him what happened when Jack unfolded his arms and pushed off the wall into a standing position.

“I’ll say that something happened,” he said, with a glare at Teal’c. “The guy with the forehead tattoo won’t let me leave.”

Sam froze and tried not to panic. Her brain was already leaping ahead to possibilities, but she couldn’t allow them to be true.

“What, sir?” she managed.

“Major Carter,” Teal’c interrupted, “Kendrick attached a link device to Colonel O’Neill and I was unable to remove it in time.”

Jack held up the device in his hand.

“I don’t know why you’re so worried about it. It’s a useless piece of tech. It didn’t do anything to me like it did to the rest of them.”

He gestured to the people wandering around the square.

“When did you have it on?” Sam asked.

Jack put the link device in a pocket and shrugged.

“Kendrick shoved it on my head and a few seconds later, he tore it off.” Jack nodded in Teal’c’s direction. “Lot of fuss over nothing, I think.”

“Major Carter, I believe it was still attached during the update.”

Her hand flew to her mouth as her mind filled in the blanks.

“How’s your memory?”

Jack looked at her, eyes narrowed with pent up frustration.

“My memory is fine.”

She looked over at Teal’c, who did not seem to accept the Colonel’s assertion.

“The villagers were unaware when a council member was wiped from their memory,” he pointed out.

Jack rolled his eyes.

“My memory is completely fine. The thing was barely on. I’m not following its orders. In fact, I don’t want to stay in this creepy dome like all these link zombies. I very much want to leave.”

She hoped he really was okay.

Given what it had done to the villagers - rewriting their memories and feeding them false information - Sam could only imagine the damage the link might have done to Colonel O’Neill.

“Hey guys. What’s up?”

Sam glanced over at Daniel, who had finally joined the group. Pallan wasn’t with him, so he must’ve stayed in the control room. Hopefully he was uploading the message so that the remaining villagers felt it was safe to remove their links.

“Just hanging out,” Jack responded sarcastically. “Indefinitely.”

Daniel shot Jack a confused look and then shrugged. “I can’t wait to show you all of the documents that I found relating to the city’s original history. We can’t trust any of the data that’s in the computer. I bet more and more of it has been falsified over time.”

“The shield has been failing and the dome keeps shrinking. The updates are an automatic population control measure.”

She spouted the details on auto-pilot, not sure how much of this she’d already explained to the rest of her team.

Sam kept glancing over at Colonel O’Neill. She needed more details about how long he wore that link device, when it had been placed on his temple, and whether it was affecting his memory. As she told Daniel when he wanted to try on the device earlier in the mission, they had no way of knowing if their brain physiology was compatible with the technology.

She had no idea what the side effects might be and she was still concerned that he hadn’t referred to Teal’c by name.

Daniel mentioned his conversation with Evalla about how they were restricted in the number of kids they could have and Sam wondered if that was just a leftover rule from an earlier time before the computer system just started having people walk out into a toxic atmosphere to keep the numbers down instead.

“I’m still curious about what it would be like to actually experience the link,” Daniel added. “Imagine having all of that knowledge within easy access.”

Sam thought it stopped sounding like a fun idea right about when people’s memories started getting wiped. She was so glad she’d prevented Daniel from trying it on the night before.

Jack was the only one who’d experienced the connection to the link, and he hadn’t done so voluntarily.

“We don’t know what it would have done, Daniel. It killed people. It’s not something to mess around with.”

“Yeah,” Daniel said, “but if you were able to fix it so it was just data access, it could be an incredible tool.”

“It’s dangerous,” she snapped.

Daniel gave her a puzzled look.

Even though she’d prevented him from trying on the link device before, Sam was still usually on board with playing with new technology. It had just finally hit her how horribly wrong it could go to use technology before fully understanding it.

“O’Neill was briefly connected to the device,” Teal’c explained.

Daniel looked at Jack, who bristled at the appraising glance.

“I’m fine,” Jack insisted. “And I don’t need a bunch of babysitters.”

Sam turned to face him.

“I need to ask you some questions, sir. The link could have caused some brain damage.”

Jack ran a hand over his face before responding.

“This is why I hate alien devices. Fine. Ask away.”

He still remembered that aliens were real. That was a good start.

“Name and rank?” she asked.

He looked at her like it was a stupid question, and maybe it was, but they had to start somewhere.

“Colonel Jack O’Neill, USAF.”

“Birthdate?”

Jack rattled off the correct day and year.

“Who was recently elected President of the United States?”

“Henry Hayes.”

“Where do you live?”

“Colorado Springs, Colorado.”

“Good. Where are you stationed?”

“Cheyenne Mountain.”

Sam breathed a sigh of relief. Maybe he was okay after all and the comment about Teal’c was just a fluke or a brief after-effect of wearing the device.

“Um, favorite television show?”

Jack looked surprised and a little confused at the question.

“Really?”

Sam nodded. “Unless you want me to start asking you questions about military protocol or previous tours of duty.”

Jack grimaced at the thought, just like she knew he would, and answered her.

“The Simpsons, which I will probably end up missing due to this game of twenty questions.”

Everything seemed to be going well so far. Janet could do a full workup when they got home, but in the meantime, it seemed like they’d gotten lucky. His earlier reaction was probably just temporary confusion.

“Marital status?” she asked, continuing to test his memory.

A slow smile spread across Jack’s face.

“If you wanted to know if I was single, Major, you could’ve just gone to that question and skipped all the rest.”

Sam’s eyes widened in shock and she quickly closed her mouth and turned to Daniel and Teal’c. Teal’c looked unsurprised and Daniel was glancing between her and Jack with a slight frown on his face.

It wasn’t that Jack O’Neill never flirted with her, but he was hardly ever this direct, especially when there were other people around. She could only remember a handful of similar moments from their first year as a team - like offhand comments about her “sweet little tank top number” and a blue dress that “really did it” for him. It flustered her, but she was also concerned by the fact that he was flirting with her like she was a stranger who didn’t know basic details about his life.

Jack was waiting for her to respond, a challenging and amused look on his face.

Sam had to get this whole thing back on track and then figure out what was going on with him.

“You haven’t answered my question, sir.”

If her words came out slightly less professional than she intended, she just hoped that no one noticed.

“Divorced,” he replied. “How about you?”

The way he said it was more well-suited to a conversation at a bar or coffee shop than off-world on a mission. It felt suspiciously like being hit on.

She saw Teal’c and Daniel looking at her out of the corner of her eye and felt her cheeks begin to flush. There was no way that link could have had some sort of programming to make the Colonel flirty, could it?

“Who is your commanding officer?”

His face got serious when she didn’t flirt back and she couldn’t help but get the feeling that he was disappointed. She couldn’t worry about his feelings right now, though, not when the link might have altered him somehow.

“General George Hammond.”

Sam opened her mouth to ask another question, but Jack cut her off with a wave of his hand.

“Major, no offense, but this all feels like a waste of time. I’ve got a killer headache, but there’s nothing wrong with me. I’ll take some Advil when I get back to base and be right as rain.”

Daniel cleared his throat.

“You’re not exactly acting like yourself, Jack.”

“He is correct, O’Neill,” Teal’c added.

Jack narrowed his eyes and folded his arms again.

“I’m acting completely normal,” he insisted. “You’re the ones who are acting strange.”

The four of them stood there, staring at each other, unsettled by the belief that something wasn’t quite right.

Jack was the one that broke first, turning towards Sam and throwing up a hand in emphasis.

“Look, I just want to get the hell out of here. I get that you’re probably just following orders, Major, but I’m gonna need to speak to your commanding officer.”

Sam heard Daniel’s sharp intake of breath, but she had to remind herself to keep breathing.

When Pallan had entered the system earlier, he asked her what to do to prevent the villagers from going after her team.

She’d been worried about Teal’c and Jack on the surface, especially with the tension in Jack’s voice when he said, “Carter, now would be a good time.”

Pallan had asked her what to do and she told him to cut the biggest corner of all.

“There's no time to explain everything,” she remembered saying, not thinking through the potential implications, “Try to erase all memory of us completely.”

It all fell into place.

Jack’s comment about Teal’c.

That cold, distanced look in his eyes.

The unexpected flirtation and the fact that he hadn’t called her Carter since she arrived.

“Is there a problem, Major?”

Jack looked concerned and she wondered if it was because of the fact that she hadn’t responded to his request or if it was because of the look of horror that was surely on her face right now.

Jack O’Neill wanted to speak to her commanding officer.

She told Pallan to try to erase all memory of SG-1 moments before Kendrick placed a link device on Jack’s temple.

Colonel O’Neill was treating them like they were strangers because to him they were.

He had no idea who they were and it was all her fault.

“Oh god. What have I done?”

Chapter Text

Jack had been through a lot of weird missions, but this one was starting to take the cake. Villagers were walking around aimlessly like zombies, the guy with the tattoo told him he couldn’t head home, and the guy with the glasses kept looking at him like he was an exhibit at a museum.

Plus, he was a little worried about the blonde. Her face had turned pale after he asked to speak with her commanding officer and she looked like she might throw up.

It wasn’t like he’d been planning to ream her out to her CO. He just thought speaking to someone with authority might help sort out whatever was going on in this village so he could head back. His head really was killing him and it was making it difficult for him to think clearly.

After her whispered comment taking responsibility for some mysterious occurrence, the blonde walked over to the brick wall, slid down the side of it until her ass hit the ground, and covered her face in her hands.

“Is she going to be okay?”

Jack looked at the two men standing behind him. They exchanged a glance and then the one wearing glasses spoke.

“At the moment, Jack, we’re a little more worried about you.”

The statement was so ridiculous that at first he thought he misheard. His confusion must have been evident on his face because the guy with the weird gold tattoo on his forehead - Teal’c, the blonde had called him - seconded the statement.

“Daniel Jackson is correct, O’Neill. We are concerned about your health.”

He looked at the woman who was still curled up against the brick wall, head in hands. Even if something was wrong with him, which he doubted, the Major was still clearly in worse shape.

He gestured in her direction.

“Look at her! Something’s wrong.”

It irritated him that neither of the men were trying to help her.

“Major Carter will be fine,” Teal’c tried to assure him.

Carter, that was her name. It suited her. He wondered what her first name was.

“Maybe we should get a medical team here,” Jack suggested.

He would feel better if a professional was here to look at her. He had field medic training, but he doubted those skills would help with whatever was going on here.

Daniel and Teal’c shared another one of those suspicious looks.

“I think that’s a great idea, Jack,” Daniel said. “I’ll contact the base and see how soon they can get a team out here.”

Teal’c nodded. “I shall remain here.”

Jack thought it probably would have been better if Teal’c accompanied Daniel in case they needed to bring a lot of supplies back, but he wasn’t in charge so he let it go.

Speaking of in charge, he wanted to know where in the hell this team’s commanding officer was.

Daniel left and Jack turned to Teal’c.

“You’re a team, right? Where’s your CO?”

Teal’c gave him a long look that gave Jack the impression the man knew much more about what was going on than he was saying.

“The leader of our team is lost, O’Neill.”

Teal’c didn’t say anything else, but the few words he’d given Jack were enough. Lost was never a good thing in the military, regardless of which specific truth was hidden behind those words.

Damn it, that was probably why Major Carter’s face had crumpled when he asked to speak with her CO. That officer might be injured or captured or dead right now. Hell, maybe he or she had perished outside of the dome.

Jack couldn’t say that he’d never seen another officer break down in front of him on duty. It was rare, but it happened. There was just something different about the way this officer’s breakdown tugged at his heartstrings. He wanted to comfort her. He wanted to fix whatever had gone wrong.

“I’m worried about her.”

The words slipped out of his mouth and he didn’t realize he’d spoken aloud until Teal’c replied.

“It is easy to worry about those we care about.”

It was a strange thing for the man to say, considering that Jack didn’t know Major Carter well enough to care about her, but he brushed that aside and walked over to the woman.

He heard a slight sniffle and thanked his lucky stars that she wasn’t sobbing. Full on crying might have been more than he could handle, but he hoped that he could help a little with whatever emotional state she was in.

He wondered if the loss of her commanding officer was recent. It would have to be to cause a reaction like this. They must have been close.

Jack crouched down beside her and rested a hand on her shoulder.

“Hey Carter,” he said in the same soft voice he used to use when Charlie was in the middle of a crying jag. “Are you doing okay?”

Major Carter looked up and there was hope in her red-rimmed, watery eyes. Her irises seemed bluer now somehow.

His breath caught at the intensity of her gaze. Major Carter looked at him like she could see into his soul. Jack wished he could be whoever it was she saw when she looked in his direction.

“Jack?”

Her voice was shaky when she said his name. He just wanted to do whatever he could to make her feel better.

“Yeah, Carter?” he responded.

She scrambled up and threw herself into his arms. He had to steady himself against the wall to keep from falling over.

“Easy there.”

Her arms were wrapped tightly around his neck and he could feel the warm moisture of tears against his skin just below his ear.

Whatever was going on wasn’t normal. Air Force Majors didn’t usually break down like the one in his arms was doing, especially not in the midst of what looked like a relatively safe situation around them.

He let his free hand run up and down her back. She was wearing a tac vest, so it wasn’t like she’d be able to feel much of his movement, but it felt like the right thing to do when she was in his arms.

Jack lowered his face by the side of her head while she continued to grip him tightly. Major Carter’s shampoo smelled familiar and he liked the way she fit against him.

She never did answer that question about whether she was single.

Jack heard her take a loud, shaky breath and felt guilty about the direction his thoughts had been going. The poor woman was clearly distraught. She didn’t need anything more than comfort.

“It’s all going to be okay,” he murmured into her short, blonde hair. “Whatever’s upset you, we’ll figure it out.”

Major Carter pulled back and gave him a tremulous smile.

“I was so worried, Jack,” she admitted. “I thought I’d screwed everything up.”

He wasn’t sure what the woman in his arms thought she’d screwed up, but he hoped for her sake that it wasn’t anything too bad.

“Considering it looks like we’re on a first name basis now, how about you tell me yours, Major Carter?”

Those wide eyes and hopeful smile shut down immediately.

“Oh no. I’m sorry, sir.”

For some reason, it felt like she was apologizing for more than using his first name.

“I don’t mind. So you gonna tell me or is this going to get awkward?”

She didn’t respond.

His eyebrows lifted and he made an encouraging gesture with his hand.

“Samantha,” she eventually replied. “My name is Sam.”

Sam Carter. He liked it. Jack was starting to suspect that he could like her a lot. Maybe after this mission was over he could see if she was interested in grabbing dinner sometime.

Jack bet she’d be even more fun to hang out with when she wasn’t an emotional wreck.

“Now that wasn’t so hard, was it?” he teased.

She opened her mouth as if to refute him and then closed it again.

Jack continued to rub his hand up and down her back.

“Are you feeling better now? You had a bit of a freakout there, Sam. Your friend Daniel went to contact the medical team.”

He watched as the information filtered into her brain. As soon as it did, she looked over at Teal’c and then down at where her hands were still gripping his vest.

Sam dropped her hands.

“Oh, god, I’m sorry, sir.”

She pulled away, wiped her eyes, and tried to straighten her clothes. He missed the warmth of her body against his.

“It isn’t everyday I have an attractive blonde hanging all over me,” Jack replied. “Trust me, I don’t mind.”

He tried to make it a joke so that she would laugh instead of feeling embarrassed, but his effort must’ve fallen short because her eyes welled up with tears again.

“I am really so sorry, sir.”

Jack didn’t think that she was apologizing about the embrace.

“I’m sorry if I was insensitive. The guys said that you lost your CO recently. When I said I wanted to talk to your commanding officer I didn’t know and I also wasn’t trying to get you in trouble. I just wanted to head back to base. That’s all. It’s been a long day and I have an awful migraine.”

Sam nodded.

“I understand. And you weren’t insensitive.”

Jack wasn’t sure about that. After all, he suspected that his words had been the catalyst for her breakdown.

“This mission has been a shock for all of us, O’Neill.”

Teal’c had moved to stand next to Major Carter. Jack thought the protective act was too little too late, but at least it was something.

“Like I said, I’m sorry about your CO. It’s always difficult to lose people.”

“I can’t do this again,” he heard her mutter.

Jack watched as Carter reached out a hand to grip Teal’c’s forearm, as if the contact was the only thing keeping her upright. He wished that he could be that steady presence for her.

“I believe that he will be returned to us,” Teal’c said with confidence, “Just as Daniel Jackson was.”

Jack looked at the two of them and watched as Carter’s hand dropped and she set her jaw. When she looked at him next, it was with determination.

“I hope that you’re right,” Jack said.

He wasn’t sure what had happened, but he could already tell that this team was more like family than a lot of teams he’d been on. They were hurting and he wished for their sakes that they’d be able to find their missing CO.

“We have a rule on SG-1 to never leave anyone behind,” Carter said. “No matter what.”

Jack liked that motto. He’d known far too many people over the years who wouldn’t think twice about leaving others behind to save themselves.

“SG-1?” he asked, caught on the term. “What’s that?”

Sam Carter looked at him with a bittersweet smile.

“It’s our team.”

Jack wondered what the story was behind these three people and their rule never to leave anyone behind.

“It sounds like a good team.”

Tears still glistened in the Major’s eyes, but she didn’t let them fall.

“It’s the best,” she confirmed.

Chapter Text

Later that night, Sam was in her lab looking at the data she’d downloaded onto her laptop from the control room on P3X-289. She knew more than she needed to about the failing dome, but her knowledge of the link updates was minimal at best. She had no idea what exactly had been done to the Colonel’s brain and that scared her because it meant that she also didn’t know how to fix it.

She still remembered the look of betrayal that Jack had given her when the medical team arrived and she told Janet that he had to be prioritized because he was suffering from memory loss.

They got into an argument because Jack insisted that there weren’t any problems with his memory and that she was blowing things out of proportion. He pointed out that she was the one who had some sort of breakdown and he wanted to make sure she got looked at first.

Janet glanced between the two of them in confusion, not sure who to believe.

“Colonel O’Neill doesn’t remember SG-1,” Sam said by way of explanation.

Jack seemed to remember Janet, though, and that felt like its own betrayal. He continued to argue with her as she led him away.

Sam hadn’t seen Jack since then. While Daniel and Teal’c organized the evacuation of the villagers, Sam went back to the control room on her own and downloaded as much data from the central computers as she could. Unfortunately, her hard drive could only store a small fraction of the information and she doubted that it would be enough to solve the problem. She also carefully packaged several of the link devices to bring back with her to Earth.

She didn’t leave until Teal’c came to get her and forced her to don the necessary protective gear and head back to the Stargate. Before they stepped outside of the dome, he told her that Colonel O’Neill was physically in good health according to Doctor Fraiser, but she was keeping him in the infirmary overnight for observation.

Sam wasn’t sure if she felt better or worse at hearing the news. She didn’t want him to be hurt, but at least if his memory loss was the result of a physical injury, they might have more information about how to heal it. She had no idea how to recode someone’s brain.

She and Teal’c were quiet on the hour-long walk back and Sam appreciated his silence. She wouldn’t have reacted well to attempted conversation.

As soon as she got back to base, she headed straight for her lab and closed the door. She’d been there ever since in an ever-blackening mood.

Sam knew that she needed to get back to that planet, but General Hammond was prioritizing the relocation of the local population and wouldn’t let anyone go back until they had a way to stabilize the power fluctuations while SGC staff was on the planet. Even without the links, the shrinking dome was dangerous.

Sam just knew that she wouldn’t be able to fix Jack from here and she was starting to feel useless.

The link devices sat on the table, taunting her. She never would have guessed that such a small piece of technology could cause so much pain.

What would happen if Jack didn’t regain his memories? What would her life and her work be like if he wasn’t a part of them?

Sam felt like she’d lost a piece of herself.

She picked up one of the gray devices and turned it in her hand. It was so lightweight. She was tempted to place it on her temple to know what he’d felt. Would it erase her memories of SG-1 too?

If she couldn’t remember Jack O’Neill, would the pain of losing him and guilt of what she’d done be erased...or would they linger as phantom feelings, like how amputees continued to reach for phantom limbs?

“How are you holding up?”

Sam looked up and saw Daniel in the doorway. She put down the device. Once Daniel had her attention, he walked over and set a fresh cup of coffee in front of her. Sam took a sip, but didn’t feel like she deserved it.

“I messed up, Daniel, and I can’t fix it. How do you think I’m doing?”

Sam was glad to have Daniel back, but things between them didn’t feel as easy yet as they’d once been. They were still finding their footing. It wasn’t surprising that there might be an adjustment period after someone basically came back from the dead.

Even with that slight distance, Daniel Jackson still knew her better than almost anyone on Earth. She didn’t doubt that he knew exactly how she was feeling and why she’d hidden away in her lab. That’s why he came to find her.

He looked at her like he’d hug her if she let him and was only holding back for her sake.

“It wasn’t your fault, Sam.”

Daniel meant well, but it didn’t help to keep being told something so contrary to the truth. Jack wouldn’t have told her that it wasn’t her fault. He would have said something more helpful, like if she caused a problem she should get her head out of her ass and fix it. Or that she was a genius and should stop wallowing and figure out a solution.

But Jack O’Neill wasn’t in the position to give her a pep talk right now. He didn’t even know who she was.

“I need to go back to that planet, Daniel. I need to fix this.”

Daniel sat down on a nearby stool. She wished that he would stop looking at her in that careful, caring way of his.

“You will fix it. And even if you don’t, he’s safe and he’s on Earth. Janet thinks it’s possible that Jack might even recover his memories on his own.”

Sam wasn’t beyond hoping for a miracle, but she knew better than to just wait around and assume that Jack would just regain his memories. Pallan forgot his own wife, for god’s sake. This wasn’t a temporary amnesia type of situation. It was targeted and looked to be permanent.

“Teal’c is with him now,” Daniel mentioned, “trying to keep him company.”

“Good.”

Sam was glad that he wasn’t alone. She just didn’t feel up to going to see him yet. Every time she thought too much about what had happened, the guilt threatened to pull her under.

“He wouldn’t blame you for what happened, you know,” Daniel continued.

She hated the fact that everyone was trying to make her feel better. Daniel, Teal’c, and Janet had all told her not to blame herself. General Hammond had even made a comment about how none of them could have predicted the consequences.

She didn’t deserve the sympathy and she certainly didn’t deserve to be absolved for her actions. She’d erased seven years of his memories...more if you counted his time with Daniel on the Abydos mission.

Sam had destroyed Jack O’Neill and she wouldn’t let anyone try to tell her differently.

“He’d have to know who I was to be able to forgive me, Daniel,” she snapped.

There hadn’t been a hint of recognition when Sam told Jack her first name. That lack of familiarity in his gaze had broken her.

“You should go talk to him,” Daniel suggested. “He’s been asking about you. He was worried about you.”

Sam took another sip of coffee to avoid talking about this, but Daniel sat there patiently awaiting a response.

“He’s not worried about me. I’m a complete stranger. He’s wondering why the basketcase of a Major who cried in his arms isn’t in the infirmary when he is.”

She almost couldn’t handle the sympathy on Daniel’s face.

“Sam, he may not remember who you are right now, but the Jack O’Neill who I spent time with in the infirmary today wasn’t worried about a random stranger. He was concerned about you, specifically.”

Sam put down the mug and wiped a bit of moisture from the edge. Daniel was trying to give her some hope and she appreciated that, but she couldn’t go through it again. It was hope that propelled her into his arms back on the planet when Jack had called her Carter and asked if she was okay in that warm, caring voice. Then minutes later her hopes had been dashed when he asked for her first name.

She refused to let herself think that he might care about her right now because if he’d forgotten them all and didn’t remember her name, then the idea that he might be worried about her for reasons beyond the fact that he was a good guy were a practical impossibility. To Jack O’Neill, she was just the woman who asked him a million questions and couldn’t handle being asked about her commanding officer.

“I erased his memories, Daniel. He shouldn’t be concerned about me. I don’t deserve it.”

Daniel took off his glasses, wiped them on his shirt, and put them back on.

She thought that he would make a comment about her indulgent self-pity and how it wasn’t helping the situation, but when he spoke, Daniel took another tack.

“When I came back from being Ascended, I didn’t remember anything. I didn’t remember who I was or what my life had been like. I didn’t remember Sha’re and I didn’t remember SG-1.”

He gave her a pointed look.

“It’s a scary thing not to remember your own life, but all of you helped me through it. Jack deserves the same type of help.”

“I’m trying to help him,” she said, gesturing to the computer and link devices in front of her. “And if the General would just let me go back to the damn planet, I might be able to fix things!”

Daniel didn’t express any shock at her outburst, but Sam was frustrated that she wasn’t doing a better job bottling up her anger. Flipping out would be the quickest way to get kicked off this project and she wouldn’t be able to help Jack at all then.

“Sam, this isn’t doing either of you any good right now.” He gestured at the lab around them. “You should go see him. I think it’ll make you feel better.”

Sam thought that it was far more likely that seeing Jack would make her feel worse.

“I don’t know if I can,” she finally told him, shocked when her voice hitched halfway through. “I don’t know if I can handle that look in his eyes. He doesn’t see me anymore and I…”

She couldn’t make it through the sentence. Daniel got up from his chair and walked over, pulling her into his arms.

I don't know why we wait to tell people how we really feel.

Sam remembered saying those words to Daniel as he was dying. She never told Daniel how much she loved him. She had been closer to him than her own brother and she hoped to rebuild those bonds now that he was back.

“I missed you so much, Daniel,” she whispered.

It also hit her that she’d never told Jack how she felt about him. At least, not since they both made carefully worded admissions while attached to the Za’tarc detector. Now she might never get the chance to say them to a version of Jack who would understand the weight of the words.

Sam wrapped her arms around Daniel and told herself that she’d already shed enough tears around co-workers today. She didn’t need to do this again.

“I’m sure if I remembered being Ascended, I’d remember missing you too.”

She chuckled through the tears and Daniel hugged her tighter.

“We’ll get through this, Sam, but you can’t hide from him when he needs us. You wouldn’t do that if it were Teal’c or I in the infirmary.”

Sam hated that Daniel was right. She released herself from his hug and stepped back.

“How much does he remember?” she asked, wanting to prepare herself.

Daniel’s jaw clenched before he answered and Sam realized that she’d been so focused on how she felt that she hadn’t given a thought to what Daniel and Teal’c must be going through. They cared about Jack too.

“As far as Janet can tell,” he replied, “everything but us.”

Sam wasn’t sure if that made her feel better or worse. As irrational as the thought was, she couldn’t help wishing they weren’t so easy for Jack to forget.

“And how’s he taking it?”

Daniel sighed.

“Not great. Just like Pallan and Kendrick and the council members, he doesn’t believe that his memories have been messed with. He’s frustrated. He just wants to go home, but Janet can’t release him until we have a better idea of how to handle this.”

“And you think that going to see him when he’s like that will make me feel better about what I’ve done?”

Sam looked down at the table and picked up one of the links, twirling it in her fingers.

“I think that even when the worst happens, it’s better when we deal with it together.”

Daniel Jackson was more successful at guilt-tripping people than almost anyone else she knew. There were countless missions where he convinced Jack to stay longer or follow questionable hunches.

Sam just didn’t usually have those skills directed towards her. It worked, in part, because she knew that he was right. There was only so long that she could avoid Jack and it wasn’t like she’d been making much progress in her lab with partial data on an emulated interface on her laptop.

“I’ll go see him.”

Daniel nodded in satisfaction. “Good. I’ll see you tomorrow for breakfast. We can put together a game plan for what to focus on when we’re allowed back in the dome. There might be some information in the library that can help us figure out how the link was designed to work.”

Sam thought that was a long shot, but she agreed anyway.

Daniel left and she shut down her computer and exited the lab.

When she finally got to the infirmary, she hesitated outside.

Sam tried to give herself a pep talk and tell herself that everything would be okay and that seeing Jack was what she needed to do, but all she could remember was the comforting feel of his arms around her and then the way her stomach dropped when he asked for her name.

Her own words - try to erase the memory of us completely - rang in her head.

She almost didn’t notice when the door swung out and Janet stepped out into the hallway.

“Oh, Sam, I was wondering when you were going to stop by.”

Her friend’s assumption that she was planning to come to the infirmary made Sam feel even worse that she’d been holed up in her lab with no intention of leaving.

“How is he?”

Janet gave a slight shrug, apparently at a loss for how to describe Jack’s condition.

“I don’t know.”

“Janet,” Sam prompted.

“Physically he’s in almost perfect health. He has a headache and it looks like we might be dealing with some minor inflammation in the brain, but at this point we just need to keep an eye on it. I’ve given Colonel O’Neill some pain meds and fluids and he needs to rest, but all of the labs so far have come back clean. He’s not experiencing any symptoms besides the headache and memory loss. Even the memory loss is so targeted that sometimes it’s hard to remember that he’s suffering from it. We had an entire conversation about how Cassie’s doing at school and he didn’t miss a beat.”

“So it really is just us that he’s forgotten?”

She’d known that was the case, but it felt different hearing it confirmed by a medical doctor. Janet tilted her head and gave Sam such a look of sympathy that she knew what the response would be even before the words were said out loud.

“It looks like it. I’m sorry, Sam.”

She really needed people to stop apologizing to her. It was going to drive her crazy.

“What about all of the missions we’ve been on together? What does he think happened?”

Janet looked back towards the infirmary door.

“It’s weird, Sam. I tried to ask, but it just made the headaches worse and he got agitated. I’ll try to get into it again tomorrow after he’s had a good night’s rest.”

That didn’t sound good. So far, Daniel’s claim that going to the infirmary would make her feel better was failing on all counts.

“I was just going to grab coffee. Do you want anything?”

Sam shook her head.

“I just need to get this over with.”

“Your team has gotten through worse than this.”

Somehow, that didn’t make Sam feel any better. She said goodbye to Janet and opened the door.

Colonel O’Neill was sitting on a bed in the far corner of the infirmary, with one knee bent, dropping a yo-yo over the side and pulling it back up again in a smooth motion. Teal’c sat in a chair next to the bed. Neither of them were talking. It could have been any other mission where Jack had been sent to the infirmary to recover from an injury.

She walked closer and he lifted his head and caught the yo-yo in his hand.

“There she is - the final missing puzzle piece.”

Daniel was right. Jack had been waiting for her after all.

Sam was struck by how healthy he looked for someone sitting in a sick bed. He wasn’t an ideal patient in normal circumstances. She could only imagine how difficult it was going to be for Janet to keep him here when it didn’t appear that there was anything wrong with him.

“Hello, sir.”

Her hands gripped tightly together in front of her, as if the pressure was the only thing that would keep her from falling apart.

Teal’c stood and briefly inclined his head in her direction before walking away and leaving her alone with this version of Jack O’Neill who had no idea who she was.

“He’s not a very talkative guy, is he?”

“You’ve got to learn to read his eyebrow lifts,” she quipped, and then cringed because it was a very Jack O’Neill type of thing to say.

“I don’t usually fall apart like that,” Sam added, referring to her behavior off-world. It had just all been too much to take in at once. She never wanted to hurt him and now she had even if he didn’t realize it.

“I don’t imagine you do, Major. From what I’ve been hearing about you today, it sounds like you’re usually a tough cookie.”

That was an overstatement, but aside from a few notable exceptions Sam was good at keeping her feelings close to the vest.

It just so happened that a lot of those exceptions involved the man in the infirmary bed in front of her.

Sam sat down in the chair and he kept looking at her like he was trying to figure her out.

“I heard you’re having trouble accepting that your memory’s been modified. None of the villagers believed that their minds had been affected either.”

Jack let the yo-yo drop again and pulled it up.

“Sorry, but I can’t just take your word for it.”

“Do you think we’re all just making it up?”

He grabbed the yo-yo again and glanced at her. Sam realized that he did think they were making this whole explanation up.

“Major, this wouldn’t be the first time I’ve woken up in a fake SGC.”

This was worse than she thought. If he didn’t believe them, it was going to be that much more difficult to help him.

“You know most of these people. You know this base. Do you really think this is fake?”

Hathor’s fake SGC had been shockingly realistic, but it had been filled with people they didn’t know. Maybe Sam could use the fact that Jack did remember people like General Hammond and Doctor Fraiser to her advantage.

“I’ve been turned into a robot, I’ve been cloned, I’ve seen an almost exact replica of the SGC created by Hathor, I’ve been sent to a near perfect version of my past in a virtual reality. I’d be nuts if I didn’t consider the possibility that this might be fake.”

Jack released the yo-yo again and Sam watched its movements up and down as she considered the fact that his logic was unimpeachable. After all they’d been through, it was entirely realistic for him not to take this situation at face value.

“Hell, one of the council members talked about experiencing mountains through the link. Maybe the device Kendrick put on my head is still attached and this is some sort of virtual environment to keep me from leaving the dome.”

Sam’s heart broke for him.

“You think you’re trapped inside the dome?”

He shook his head and kept playing with the yo-yo. “No.”

“Why not, if you’re so convinced that this isn’t real?”

Jack stopped the yo-yo and set it on the side table.

“Occam’s razor,” he replied. “It’s unlikely that the computer system would use up extra energy to conjure a fictional reality for me when it had the option to just walk me out of the dome. Still doesn’t mean I believe you about the rest of it.”

He wasn’t acting like himself. The Jack O’Neill she knew never would have referenced Occam’s razor out of the blue. Sam knew that he was smart, but he hardly ever let it show. Did he normally play dumb because she and Daniel had the academic side of things covered?

Sam didn’t like the idea that he might be more himself if they weren’t there. She liked to think that the four of them all brought out the best in each other, but what if that wasn’t the case?

He was still looking at her with that same appraising expression he’d had on ever since she entered the infirmary, like he was cataloging her every reaction and trying to make sense of them. She tried not to worry too much about what she might be giving away.

If he was thinking through his options using the framework of Occam’s razor, she had to ask why he hadn’t defaulted to the obvious.

“Don’t you think that the simplest explanation is that the link device affected your memory like everyone has been telling you?”

Jack shrugged, but she couldn’t help but think that the motion was carefully calculated.

“It’s an option, but with my track record it’s one of many.”

“Is there anything I can do to convince you?”

He looked at her with an intensity that she wasn’t used to. It left her feeling hot and cold all at the same time.

“I don’t get it.”

“Get what?” she asked.

“I don’t get you,” he told her. “There are just a few people that don’t seem to fit and you’re one of them, Major. You’re the one that doesn’t make sense.”

She assumed that Daniel and Teal’c were the others who didn’t fit. His suspicion was a side effect of the memory loss.

“I understand that the three of us don’t seem to fit right now, but we’re all here for you, even if you don’t remember us.”

He tilted his head and narrowed his gaze.

“This is a military operation. I’m apparently the commanding officer of Stargate Command’s flagship team. And that team consists of a civilian archaeologist, a member of the same race that’s constantly trying to kill anyone who goes through the ‘gate, and you...the supposed foremost expert on the Stargate, who for some reason is allowed to go on dangerous missions through the ‘gate on a frequent basis, risking that knowledge -”

“Sir, I -”

“Someone who manages to have a PhD in Astrophysics, extensive hours in enemy airspace during the Gulf War, and be close to the rank of Lieutenant Colonel at your age.”

Sam wanted to believe that he remembered those details, but knew it was just wishful thinking.

“Who told you all that?”

Jack leaned slightly forward.

“It’s amazing what people will tell you when they want you to convince you to remember something.”

He tapped one hand on the railing of the bed.

“Make it make sense for me, Sam. Because I don’t get it.”

She could understand, from an outsider’s perspective, how it might all seem a little unbelievable. Daniel was necessary because of what he knew and his contributions to the program. Teal’c had shown his loyalty again and again. And Sam, well, she couldn’t help the fact that she was an overachiever and had accomplished more in her professional life than people a decade or more her senior.

Fat lot of good that overachieving was doing now. In fact, if she’d been less confident in her abilities, she might never have taken the risk that led to this mess.

This wasn’t about her guilt, though. It was about SG-1 and how much they all needed each other even if the team didn’t make sense on paper.

“It’s all true. I promise.”

Jack leaned back against the wall and his eyes passed over her face. She could tell that he was trying to read her and looking for tells. He was trying to decide if she was lying or not.

“Since you’re so eager for me to believe this reality, what exactly would you do to convince me?”

His question had a dark, magnetic edge to it and her mind blanked. Surely, he couldn’t be insinuating that she had something more in mind than just talking with him.

It felt like a test. She just wasn’t sure what the correct answer was.

“I suppose I’d explain exactly what happened and why you don’t remember our team and what we plan to do to hopefully fix that. In as much detail as you’d like.”

She also would have to explain why it was all her fault, but Sam wasn’t looking forward to that and figured it wouldn’t be good to mention it right off the bat.

Jack crossed his arms over his chest, which didn’t seem like a good sign.

“Everyone seems to think that me not remembering you is a big deal. Want to tell me why that is?”

Even calling it a big deal was an understatement. They were like family, all of them, and being part of SG-1 was the main focus of their lives. Sam didn’t know who she would be without the men she spent most of her time with.

“All of us, we’re a close team. We know each other well.”

Jack shook his head and looked at her as if she’d gotten an answer wrong on a test.

“They were concerned that I didn’t remember SG-1, but it was you in particular...for some reason they thought I’d be most likely to remember you, Major Carter. Now why is that?”

Chapter Text

The look of panic on her face at his question was obvious. The reaction only made him more curious about what the situation was with Major Sam Carter.

Jack just kept thinking about all of the circumstances he’d gotten himself into at Stargate Command where his reality had been adjusted. The most direct parallel was the mission with the Keeper’s virtual reality simulation. The first time he thought he’d escaped, it ended up being just another simulation.

Based on what he’d been told, the people of P3X-289 had similar technology with their links. He had to question everything and figure out what was real and what was not.

It didn’t escape Jack’s notice that Sam Carter was his type - tall, blonde, and undeniably smart. Daniel explained earlier that she was both an Air Force officer and an astrophysicist.

Jack thought about his love of the night sky and the fights he and Sara used to have over his Air Force career.

Major Sam Carter’s mere existence made him suspicious. It was like someone had fashioned the woman of his dreams and placed her right in front of him. That didn’t happen in real life. Not to mention that even if it did, he wouldn’t deserve it.

The archaeologist, Daniel Jackson, gave him a knowing look when he asked about Carter and how she was doing.

Janet Fraiser repeated her questions twice when asking if he remembered the mysterious Major from SG-1. Her eyes scrunched in a way they didn’t when he confirmed he didn’t know Daniel or Teal’c. The first time Doc Fraiser asked, she used Carter’s name and rank. The second time, she asked, “You really don’t remember anything about Sam?”

Teal’c - who was a Jaffa, but also somehow on a Stargate Command team - explained that Major Carter found it difficult when her commanding officer was lost or injured.

At the time, Jack couldn’t help thinking that Sam Carter’s reaction seemed over the top for a typical CO/2IC relationship. Teal’c then asked if Major Carter seemed familiar to him and there was a weight behind the question that made him uncomfortable.

Jack couldn’t tell if the woman seemed familiar because they were telling the truth about what had happened to him or because he’d spent the entire day around people who were convinced that he should know who she was.

Dr. Lee stopped by the infirmary at one point and looked surprised that Carter wasn’t there. He said that he assumed that she would be here when he heard Jack was injured.

When General Hammond visited, there was an odd emphasis in his voice when he asked, “And you don’t remember Major Carter?”

It was countless little comments that all added up to the fact that there was something unique about the Air Force major who was supposedly his second in command. He had ended up asking more questions about her than the other two members of SG-1 and no one seemed surprised by Jack’s curiosity.

He could tell by the shifting emotions on her face that she knew exactly what Jack was referencing, even if he didn’t.

“I...I don’t know why you would get the impression that I was in any way more significant than Daniel or Teal’c.”

Jack didn’t have the energy to be anything but blunt. The pain meds he’d been given could only dull his migraine so much and it had been a long, frustrating day.

“When people tell you they’re trying to help you remember the truth,” he pointed out, “it’s a lot more useful when they don’t lie to you.”

Jack expected her to look offended by the suggestion. He didn’t expect her to blush.

“I’m not lying,” she insisted.

If not outright lying, she was at least hiding something.

She seemed so uncomfortable that he started to believe that maybe they were telling the truth about him having an issue with his memories. If this was a virtual environment, she’d be a better liar. If this was a fake SGC, everyone would be starting to dig for specific intel by now instead of feeding him more and more information. The only suspicious thing he’d been asked by Sam Carter was the name of his favorite television show. Jack doubted that knowledge would be worth anything to an enemy combatant. He still wasn’t sold on the fact that they were telling the truth about his memory, but he had to consider that it was a possibility.

It wouldn’t be the first time his memories had been messed with in this job.

“I’m not lying,” she repeated, and he wondered if it was for him or for herself.

Jack had the feeling that if he could only figure her out, then all of the rest of the answers would fall into place.

“Sam, you don’t have that good of a poker face.”

She gave a choked little laugh. “You know, my dad used to say that to me when I was younger.”

“Your dad?”

He had a vague impression of a stern bald man with a dry sense of humor. The memory was fuzzy around the edges.

“Jacob Carter,” she said, her eyes lighting up. “Do you remember him?”

The more Jack tried to think about the name the more his head hurt.

“General in the Air Force?” he asked. “I think I met him at a ceremony once and a few times on the job.”

He reached a hand up to rub at his temple and closed his eyes. He set his other hand on the bed.

“If you remember him, that’s a good sign. I was worried that he might be too closely tied to me and SG-1 in your memory.”

Jack felt pressure on the top of his hand that was resting on the infirmary bed. His eyes blinked open.

She was standing next to him now, one of her hands covering his. Her fingers curled under to touch his palm. It was almost like they were holding hands.

“Maybe if you remember my dad, you’ll eventually remember everything else.”

Sam Carter looked hopeful and a part of him wished he could give her what she wanted, but it was still so hard to believe he was suffering from some type of amnesia when it didn’t feel like anything was wrong with him.

There was an intimacy between them there in the infirmary with their hands clasped together that he didn’t understand.

“How’s the headache?”

“Not great,” he admitted. It had gotten worse when they started talking about her father and Jack wasn’t sure if that was a good sign or a bad one.

She lifted her free hand as if she was about to press it to his temple. Jack could just imagine what it might be like to have her fingers caressing his skin to try and make the pain go away.

Then she seemed to realize where they were and what she’d been about to do and she let her hand drop to her side.

“Why are you the one I’m supposed to remember, Major Carter?”

Jack wondered if he was reading this wrong. He never thought he’d be the type of person to cross the kind of line it was looking like he might’ve crossed with the woman in front of him. If what Daniel had said was correct and he was really the CO of SG-1 and Major Samantha Carter was his second in command then things between them should have stayed completely above board and professional. COs and their subordinates did not hold hands and have tension-leaden moments like the one he was currently tangled in.

He remembered the way that she had felt in his arms and the way he recognized the scent of her shampoo.

“Why you, Carter?”

“I…” She closed her mouth and frowned, as if she was trying to find the exact right words. “We were close. We are close.”

The way that her thumb swiped back and forth against his hand wasn’t even a conscious movement. It came naturally to her.

If this was real...if he had forgotten part of his life...Jack had to know.

“Carter.” He stopped and cleared his throat, keeping his voice low when he continued. “Sam, were we sleeping together?”

She gasped and dropped his hand immediately. Her eyes darted around the nearly empty infirmary and her cheeks flushed.

“Um, sir, I...uh...have to get back to the lab.”

That panicked look was back on her face and Jack wished he could take the question back. It was probably inappropriate that he’d asked it at all, but he had to know.

She turned and started to move away from him before halting and turning back.

“I swear that I’ll fix this,” she promised. “I swear. Then you’ll remember everything.”

“Sam, I’m -”

She cut off his apology before he could finish it.

“I can fix this.”

“Carter.” He said her name with a clipped, hard edge and she stood still. Maybe she was used to following his orders. Maybe he’d gotten it all wrong. “About what I asked…”

He wasn’t sure what to say. How do you apologize for asking if you were sleeping with someone? Now he had a headache and was embarrassed all at the same time. Jack wished that he could go home and escape this entire mess. Maybe he’d luck out and when he woke up in the morning it would turn out that it had all been a dream.

“Perfectly understandable mistake, sir. We’ll forget you ever asked.”

She gave him a curt nod and left as quickly as possible.

Apparently the answer to his question was no.

Chapter Text

The next morning, Sam woke up and immediately cringed with embarrassment over the memory of Jack asking if they were sleeping together. No one had heard, but the fact that he asked her that and asked while they were on base was a little more than she could handle.

Apparently a Jack O’Neill who’d never experienced SG-1 was much less restrained when it came to acknowledging the attraction between them that they typically kept very much unspoken.

She still couldn’t believe that he’d asked her that. Sam turned over and groaned into her pillow. Thank god no one else had been there.

A memory-impaired version of Jack O’Neill thought it was likely that they had been sleeping together. If Sam had any doubts about whether he was still interested in her...years after the forced confessions of their less-than-professional feelings for each other, long after her hopes of some possible future for the two of them had begun to fade...his question brushed the doubts aside with an ease that surprised her.

Warmth had filled her at his question before she recalled why Jack shouldn’t even be voicing the question and glanced around, terrified that someone would hear their discussion.

Sam remembered when Daniel had asked her if there’d been anything between them after he descended and before he regained his memories. That conversation had surprised her and made her feel a little awkward, but they moved past it quickly. When Jack asked what was essentially the same question, it wasn’t something she could just breeze past.

With Daniel, it had been a simple no. They were friends and that was all they’d ever been.

With Jack, things were...complicated.

Not for the first time, Sam wished that she’d felt a spark for Daniel instead.

Even if it had been unrequited, it would have been easier.

It was a particular type of torture pining after the one man her job prevented her from being with. It would be a different situation if she didn’t care about her job, but Sam felt like working at the SGC as a member of SG-1 was what she was meant to do.

Even if that did mean relegating any potential fantasies about Colonel Jack O'Neill to the never gonna happen bin.

Her face must’ve gone entirely red before she blurted that she’d fix things and practically ran out of the infirmary. She needed to hang onto those feelings of embarrassment.

Embarrassment was safer than any of the other emotions that might come up in relation to the idea of sleeping with Jack.

If she didn’t stop thinking about the intense look in his eyes as he questioned her and held her hand, she’d never be able to look him in the face again.

Jack wanted to know why everyone assumed that he’d be most likely to remember her. She tried to act like the concept was ridiculous, but he didn’t believe her. She wasn’t surprised that he’d drawn the conclusion that he had with the way she’d been acting.

What the hell was she supposed to tell him, though?

We were engaged in one alternate reality and married in another.

I kissed you while under the influence of an alien virus.

We once admitted to caring about each other more than we were supposed to.

We were kind of a couple when we couldn’t remember who we were.

We’ve never slept together, but I used to wonder if it might just be a matter of time before we broke.

Jack didn’t know who she was. Saying any of those things to him would just complicate matters.

So of course she ran away from him.

Sam planned to do what she did best - ignore the personal side of things and throw herself into work. It was what she needed to do anyway if she was going to be any help getting Jack’s missing memories back.

Luckily, Bill Lee found her before she left base last night to let her know that they thought they had a way to temporarily power the dome with a modified naquadah generator, which meant General Hammond would likely let them return to the planet soon.

Sam just wanted to be able to make progress...any progress. She had to feel like she was doing something.

While she got ready to head into work, she mentally started putting together a To Do list:

1. Double check Bill Lee’s work to make sure that his team’s plan would feasibly keep the shield up and running
2. Ask General Hammond when they would be allowed back on the planet
3. Consult with Janet to see if the doctor had any further information on the effects of Jack’s memory loss and what limitations there might be on any experimentation to get those memories back
4. Find out if she could bring Pallan back to the planet with her, since he was the most informed about the system in the control room
5. Determine the amount of data storage needed to copy all of the files from the automated system onto portable drives that could be brought back to the SGC for research
6. Identify the specific lines of code that Pallan used to modify the memories of those individuals wearing the link
7. Determine an innocuous, non-destructive command to use for experimentation of the upload process
8. Go through lots of trial and error
9. Avoid Jack as much as possible

Unfortunately, she messed up on number nine immediately. When she went to meet Daniel for breakfast at the base, she saw that Jack was sitting next to him and Teal’c was across the table.

“I didn’t realize this was a team breakfast,” she said when she got to the table. Both Daniel and Teal’c gave her a look that showed just how disappointed they were in her attitude.

Jack shrugged and pointed to Daniel. “This guy’s really annoying until you give into what he wants. Plus, the food’s better here than in the infirmary.”

Sam sat down.

“So they let you out of the infirmary, huh?”

He smirked.

“Next to nothing wrong with me. They couldn’t keep me trapped there.”

“Colonel O’Neill is confined to the base,” Teal’c added.

Jack glared at him.

“Traitor.”

Teal’c lifted an eyebrow and dug his fork into the huge pile of cheesy scrambled eggs in front of him, taking a large bite.

“I thought it might be nice if we all ate together,” Daniel said. “All four of us.”

Sam knew exactly what Daniel was trying to do and it was admirable. She just felt like her time might be better spent trying to return Jack’s memories instead of getting to know a version of him without them.

“I’m going to grab food and I’ll be right back.”

Jack’s voice was just loud enough for her to hear as she walked away.

“I think she’s pissed at me.”

He was probably thinking about the question he’d asked her in the infirmary. This here was exactly why avoiding Jack as much as possible had been part of the plan. She needed to focus to solve the problem. She didn’t need him around asking questions that resurfaced feelings she thought she’d buried deep.

“No, Jack,” Daniel replied. “She’s pissed at me.”

At least one of them was on the right track, but there wasn’t much she could do about it now. She got some cereal and a cup of coffee and headed back to the table.

“- just wanted you to know that I relate. That’s all. And my memories came back. Maybe yours will too.”

Sam sat down and put her tray on the table. She picked up a spoon and started eating. It sounded like Daniel was discussing his recent return to humanity.

Sam still couldn’t believe that Jack lost his memories so soon after Daniel finally regained his. What with that and the almost fatal staff blast that Teal’c had only recently recovered from, SG-1 was in the midst of a horrible string of misfortune.

Jack’s face pulled that almost squinting look he had when he didn’t really trust what someone was saying. He didn’t think he was getting any memories back.

“See, the thing is that I don’t have big memory holes of nothingness. I remember every mission I’ve been on as part of the SGC. And you seem like very fine people, albeit a little odd, but I met you yesterday on a planet that gave me a very bad headache.” He looked at Daniel and pointed. “Now you’re trying to adopt me like I’m some sort of stray dog.”

Sam saw a brief hint of amusement cross Teal’c’s face before Daniel turned to address her.

“It’s fascinating, Sam. Before you got here we talked about a few missions and he remembers going alone or with other SG team members. It’s like his brain just picked people and used them to fill the slots where we used to be. Adjustments like that were probably a feature written into the program somewhere so that the villagers couldn't identify gaps in their memories. I bet the fact that he didn’t forget himself too is due to some sort of fail-safe in the programming.”

Sam thought back to some of their missions. She wondered if she’d been replaced or if he’d been alone.

Did he admit to caring about someone else more than he was supposed to? Did he look at someone else’s face across that forceshield? Was he alone in Antarctica? Who was with him when he was Jonah?

“Stop looking at me like some ancient broken tablet you want to study, Jackson,” Jack bit out. “I’m not a science experiment.”

“I have also had my memories altered, O’Neill,” Teal’c said. “I was brainwashed to believe that I served Apophis as his First Prime.”

Jack tapped his fork on the edge of his plate.

“But I thought you were the First Prime of Apophis,” he said, lifting the fork to point at the gold tattoo on Teal’s forehead. “Isn’t that what that bling on your head stands for?”

“Indeed.”

“Well,” Daniel jumped in. “He was First Prime, but then he defected and joined SG-1. Later he was captured and brainwashed to believe that he was still the First Prime and that joining us to defeat the Goa’uld was an elaborate long con where he was a double agent.”

“Sounds complicated,” Jack said.

She wasn’t entirely sure if it was a serious response or if he meant to be sarcastic.

“There was also the time when we thought Daniel burned to death,” Sam added.

Jack frowned.

“Pleasant.”

Teal’c looked in Jack’s direction. “When I lay dying, I believed that I was a fireman and did not remember my true life.”

Jack looked around at the three members of SG-1. Instead of helping him understand that they’d been through similar situations before and had gotten through them together, Sam worried that listing all of those events just made them sound a little crazy. And they hadn’t even gotten to the mind stamps or Urgo yet.

He calmly ate a bite of oatmeal, drank a sip of coffee, and they all waited. Finally, he looked at Daniel and spoke.

“So am I here because you’re forming some sort of lost memories support group? Because I gotta tell ya, all of that self-help mumbo jumbo isn’t really my kind of thing.”

Sam couldn’t help but laugh. It was nice to know that even without his memories of them, Jack O’Neill was still himself. Gruff, witty, a little folksy, and scared of talking about his feelings.

“Don’t worry, Colonel, no membership necessary,” she teased. “Daniel’s going to try to adopt you like a stray dog whether you join our new support group or not.”

Jack looked at Daniel’s eager, supportive expression. He tilted his head and pursed his lips.

“Is SG-1 a cult? Because I’m getting some cult-y vibes here.”

“No,” Sam replied. “Definitely not a cult.”

“Although there was that one time where we infiltrated a cult,” Daniel offered, leaning his elbow on the table. “I really hope we don’t come across like that.”

“Indeed,” Teal’c agreed.

“Now you just sound suspicious,” Jack pointed out. “And like you’re in a cult and just don’t realize it.”

Sam put her face in her hands.

“I don’t know why I agreed to come to breakfast. This is going to be another one of those days, isn’t it?”

Sam wasn’t sure if anything else could go wrong, but at this point she wouldn’t be surprised.

“Hey, it could be worse,” Jack said between bites of oatmeal. “You could be back on that poison planet.”

Sam set her coffee mug back on the table with more force than necessary.

That stupid poison planet was exactly where she needed to be.

Chapter Text

Teal’c found Jack in the gym, working out his anger and frustration on the punching bag in front of him.

“How do you fare today, O’Neill?”

Jack turned, wiped the sweat from his forehead, and glared.

“I’d be a whole lot better if everyone stopped asking how I’m feeling. It makes me want to punch things.”

Teal’c looked over to the punching bag and then back at Jack. “Indeed.”

It was weird, Jack thought, that one of the members of a race they spent a lot of time and effort fighting was a supposed part of his team. He assumed that he would feel more on edge around Teal’c given the number of times he’d been on the opposite side of a staff weapon from a Jaffa. There was something about the man’s calm demeanor that made it difficult to think of him as coming from the same background as their enemies.

“How did you come to be here? To the SGC? And to Earth?”

Jack tried not to ask too many questions that might aggravate his headaches, but he felt like the answer to this one might be worth it.

“I believed that you could help me fight the Goa’uld and free the Jaffa.”

Jack let out a slow breath. That was a lot of pressure and not much detail. Although he supposed that if he wanted the lengthy version of the tale, he could just ask Daniel Jackson.

“Together we have defeated many enemies,” Teal’c added.

“Uh, that’s good. Always nice to defeat the enemies.”

Every time someone talked about life experiences they supposedly shared, it left Jack feeling off-kilter. He did his best not to try to remember, instead letting the details wash over him like a fictional story he was listening to. Listening was fine. Trying to remember was bad. Jack knew that he should want to remember if he really had lost a set of his memories, but every attempt to remember the things everyone wanted him to left him with painful, nauseating headaches. He just couldn’t function like that.

Teal’c’s gaze was steady and the gold raised tattoo on his forehead almost glowed in the fluorescent lighting.

“Recently, I felt weak and unfit for battle because I no longer had my symbiote. My injury took much longer to recover from than I was used to and I believed that I was no longer useful as a warrior.”

“I’m sorry?”

Jack really had no idea what to say. He wasn’t good at pep talks.

“You told me that I needed to regain my mojo.” The word sounded odd coming out of Teal’c’s mouth. “I believe that now, O’Neill, you need to regain yours.”

Oh. It turned out that he was actually on the receiving end of a pep talk.

From a Jaffa.

Who was on his team.

Would wonders never cease?

“Would you like to spar, O’Neill?”

It wasn’t like Jack had anything better to do while he was off the mission roster. Plus, he was already in a fighting mood.

“Sure, why not?”

Half an hour later, Jack was exhausted and sweating hard. He was feeling a hell of a lot better, though. While he was sparring with Teal’c, he could let all of his thoughts and worries drift away because he had to focus on the movement of his body and the actions of his opponent.

Jack suspected that Teal’c knew this would be good for him and that was why he made the offer to spar. If they really were on the same team, Jack wondered how often they did this.

As soon as he started thinking and lost attention, Teal’c forced him onto the mat.

“I believe that is enough for today,” the Jaffa announced. Jack had to agree, especially if he was starting to lose focus.

He picked himself up off the floor and slapped Teal’c on the shoulder.

“If that’s you feeling weak, I don’t know how I ever kept up when you were feeling strong.”

Teal’c’s face hardly moved, but Jack thought he could catch a hint of amusement.

“You are a brave and strong warrior, O’Neill. It is an honor to fight beside you. I will be here for you through this process until you regain your mojo.”

Jack still had no idea how a Jaffa became a member of a Stargate team, but he liked the man. And considering his skills, Jack would much rather be fighting with Teal’c than against him.

“I appreciate the offer.”

Jack wasn’t sure if it was even possible to get his mojo back the way that Teal’c had meant the phrase. Those supposed missing memories were out of reach, perhaps permanently. The most difficult part was that it didn’t even feel like he was missing anything. Before he’d headed to the gym, Daniel had showed him mission reports written in Jack’s own handwriting that didn’t match his remembrances of those missions at all. He made it through two before the headaches and frustration got too bad and he fled to the gym.

After showering, he made his way to the infirmary where Doctor Fraiser had another battery of tests set up for him.

It took a few hours of blood loss and scans only to hear that there was no change in his results.

Then Janet sat him down and started to ask some questions about his memory. When he complained, she offered to let Doctor MacKenzie run through the questions with him instead. Jack, of course, relented to the interrogation.

Janet pulled out a stack of mission reports and started to go through them and ask his recollection of the events and then would quote from a corresponding mission report he had supposedly written that featured Major Carter, Teal’c, and Doctor Jackson.

He made it through the discussion of three relatively minor missions before he had to ask Janet for more pain medication. Then as soon as she dismissed him from the infirmary, he went to the bathroom and threw up.

After that whole fiasco, Jack went back to his quarters and fell asleep. It wasn’t like he was really on duty anyway.

His dreams were a confused mix of memories and imagined scenarios.

Sam Carter’s voice washed over him in the haze.

“We could experience anything that we remember or that we could imagine.”

He turned and saw the Keeper from that weird garden planet with the virtual reality chairs. Kawalsky was there too.

“Want to go again, Colonel?” the Keeper asked. “We can come up with another scenario for you. We can convince you to stay.”

Jack blinked his eyes and he was in the locker room. He turned and Sam was there.

“Carter? Sorry, I didn’t know you were in here.”

There was a wild look in her eyes as she grabbed his shirt and pulled him towards her for a kiss.

“Carter, what the hell is going on?”

She reached for him again. “I want you.”

Sam pressed her lips against his, hard and unyielding. He couldn’t help thinking that this wasn’t right. It wasn’t supposed to be like this.

“Why?” he asked. “I mean no!”

He pushed her away when he wanted to pull her close.

“No need to hold back now,” the Keeper said. “The experience can be exactly what you want it to be.”

Jack shook his head and held her away from him. “No, not like this.”

Someone needed to help her. She wasn’t herself.

“Life’s short, Jack,” Kawalsky said. “I know. How long are you going to keep running?”

Jack didn’t feel like he was running from anything. He was fine, perfectly fine, and no one would believe him.

Sam threw her arms around his neck and pressed close.

“I was so worried, Jack,” she said as warm tears soaked his skin. “I thought I’d screwed everything up.”

She said the same thing before, in the dome.

How the hell was he supposed to know what was real and what wasn’t? How was he supposed to trust himself when his own memories could be lying?

Jack O’Neill woke up in the darkened room with a killer headache and a soul-deep sense of loss and confusion.

He blinked, turned on the light switch by the side of the bed, and saw that it was only seven o’clock at night.

Jack decided that he deserved cake.

He walked to the commissary and ended up getting two pieces on a single plate with two forks. He took an elevator to the floor where most of the labs were and asked a very surprised scientist where Major Carter was.

Jack wasn’t sure why he assumed that she would still be there hard at work, but she seemed like the type.

He stood in the doorway for a while just watching her work. Her hair was sticking up at all angles, like she’d been running her hands through it all day. There were three coffee mugs on the table. Sam was typing furiously on a computer and only paused that to scribble in a spiral notebook on her lap.

Jack walked over and then cleared his throat when she didn’t notice she had company.

“Sir?” she asked. “What are you doing here?”

He shrugged.

“I asked around and found out that your lab was down here. Seemed like a cake kind of day.”

He set the plate down on the table between them and handed her a fork.

“A cake kind of day, sir?”

Jack shoved his fork into the piece closest to him and brought it up to take a bite. Marble cake. Not bad, even if he always thought that marble was just cake unsure of what type it wanted to be. Not vanilla, but not chocolate either.

“There’s celebration cake,” he explained, “and then there’s cake for days like today, when you want things to be better than they are, but you can’t do a damn thing to change them so you have cake instead.”

She nodded like she understood and took a bite of her piece of cake.

“I think I might be having those days for a while,” Sam said. “Not sure if I can keep eating cake for all of it.”

“There’s also alcohol, Carter,” Jack said. “Or getting Teal’c to beat you up.”

Sam laughed and he was glad for it. She hadn’t managed a real smile since they’d gotten back to Earth, but Jack figured he would work towards that as a goal. It would feel like an accomplishment to make Major Carter smile.

“I’ll leave that to you, sir.”

After another bite of cake, Jack cleared his throat.

“Look, I’m sorry I was an ass last night back in the infirmary. I never should have implied-”

She cut him off with a wave of her fork.

“Don’t worry about it. Daniel basically asked me the same thing when he lost his memories.”

“About us?”

“About me and him.”

Well that was one way for her to reinforce that the way she’d been acting towards him wasn’t different than the way she was with the other members of their tight-knit team. Jack couldn’t help feeling a little jealous.

“There’s nothing going on between Daniel and I besides friendship, obviously.”

She looked over to see his reaction and he did his best to hide what he was thinking.

“Apparently that’s not any of my business, Sam.”

Her fork froze over the cake.

“You don’t usually call me that.”

“What, your name?”

Sam nodded.

“My first name,” she clarified. “Before this mission…well, it’s been a long time since you called me Sam.”

It felt like there was a lot behind her statement and Jack wondered what had caused the change in how he referred to her.

“Is that a problem?” he asked.

Sam ate a bite of her cake before responding.

“I don’t know.”

They ate the rest of their cake in companionable silence and when they were done, Jack decided to force her to leave her lab. The annoyed look she gave him when he told her to pack up and go home made him feel a sense of dejà vu.

“You’re off the roster,” she said, even as she packed up her bag and turned off her computer. “I don’t need to follow your orders.”

“Fine,” he agreed easily. “I’ll give you one in exchange. You leave tonight and I’ll let you have one order. One order that you give and I have to follow, within reason of course. Use it wisely.”

It was a risk and he knew it. He wouldn’t even jokingly make such an offer for people under his command in normal circumstances. Jack just thought she needed it. She needed to go home, yes, but he also suspected that she needed to feel like she had some control. He could give that to her.

He might not know Sam Carter well, but Jack could tell that she was going to burn herself out if she wasn’t careful.

“You better watch out. I might make you watch a musical,” Sam joked.

Jack didn’t think watching a musical with Sam Carter sounded all that bad. She didn’t need to know that, though.

“You’re going to make me regret this, aren’t you?” he asked.

She smiled and that was what he’d been aiming for all along.

“Guess you’ll have to wait and see.”

Chapter Text

Sam had been trying to make progress for two days and it all felt useless. She didn’t have the data she needed. It was all back on that planet and she was trapped on Earth.

She spent most of the day yesterday checking Bill Lee’s work to ensure that the power fluctuations of the dome would be reduced to a safe enough level when they went back to the planet. They ironed out the details and submitted their proposal to General Hammond. Unfortunately, even with the naquadah generator, staff had to be limited and they’d have to have hourly checks of the power levels to watch out for any precipitous drops that would indicate if the dome was going to fail completely.

The General hadn’t signed off on the proposal yet and it also seemed highly unlikely that he would agree to her request to disassemble the entire control room and bring all of the equipment back to the SGC. She knew that he thought it was too risky, especially since they’d have to do a significant portion of the disassembly while wearing protective gear.

Sam just wasn’t sure if she’d be able to do enough research in the limited amount of time she would likely be granted on the planet. It would be so much easier if she could bring everything back and work on this on Earth.

Instead, she’d have to download as much of the system code as possible and try to build an emulator of the computer system so that she could run the simulations she would need to before testing out anything with the link devices.

Her entire to do list was overwhelming and she hadn’t even checked the most important thing off the list yet: telling Jack that his memory loss was her fault.

He deserved to know and she deserved to face his ire.

Jack brought her a piece of cake the night before and convinced her to leave her lab and the interaction almost felt normal. Spending time with him in the infirmary after they returned from ‘289 hadn’t made her feel any better, but those quiet moments in her lab did just a little.

The guilt and helplessness didn’t hit her again until she got home. She tossed and turned all night trying to work through a problem that might not have a solution.

By the time she got back to the SGC the next morning, she felt decidedly worse for wear. She grabbed coffee and went straight to her lab, only stopping by General Hammond’s office to see if he knew when they would be allowed to return through the planet. He told her, once again, that the staff priority was getting all of the villagers settled on a new planet. They were in the process of reaching out to various allies to see if anyone could take the refugees.

Sam spent the morning frustrated that she couldn’t get back to the planet and frustrated that she only had a portion of the data she needed in order to even attempt to solve the problem of fixing Jack’s memory. Most of what she’d downloaded were useless reports about the power levels, dome integrity, and environmental data.

She spent a few hours prepping the technology she’d need to interface with the control room computer and hopefully do a bulk download of information and then tried to calculate how many terabytes of data she’d be able to transfer given the hard drives she’d been able to requisition. It was all necessary, but felt like busy work.

Throughout it all, she wondered what Jack was doing. Hopefully Daniel and Teal’c were keeping him company.

Mid-afternoon, Sam checked in with Janet in the infirmary where she was able to get some answers, but not enough.

“I’ve compared Colonel O’Neill’s test results with several taken from the refugees,” Janet said as they sat in her office. “There are small, but noticeable differences between them.”

Janet pulled up some of the data side by side on her computer.

“What am I looking at here?”

“It seems that the refugees have an enlarged hippocampus and evidence of advanced adult neurogenesis - the creation of new neurons.”

“Is that good or bad?” Sam asked.

Janet looked over from the computer. “For now, let’s just say it’s different.”

“And Colonel O’Neill?”

“His results are fairly normal for a human male of his age from Earth, aside from the continuing inflammation and the genetic marker we became aware of after he accessed the Ancient repository. His symptoms look similar to a very mild case of encephalitis, only with him it wasn’t caused by a virus. Nothing showed up in the blood tests.”

Sam looked at the computer, but the numbers didn’t calm her like data usually would.

“That still doesn’t sound good, Janet.”

“It’s not as bad as it sounds and we’re keeping an eye on it in case anything gets worse. I’ve given him some meds for the pain and to hopefully reduce the inflammation.” She gave a small shrug. “It’s entirely possible that the inflammation was triggered by an immune system response of some sort.”

Sam thought back to what Janet said about the refugees.

“And Colonel O’Neill is the only one suffering from these side effects? None of the refugees are having trouble after the update?”

Janet shook her head.

“No, but I think I know why.” She pointed to the screen. “The enhanced neuron production - I think it has a purpose. I have a theory that their brains have a higher level of neuroplasticity than ours do.”

Sam had heard of the term, but this wasn’t her area of expertise.

“What does that mean?”

Janet didn’t exactly smile - the situation was too serious for that - but her eyes widened and she leaned forward the way she sometimes did when she thought she was close to a breakthrough.

“Well, human brains have a certain level of plasticity, which is good. It’s the ability of neural networks to change through growth and reorganization. It helps us learn and adapt and recover from brain injuries. That ability for reorganization does have a limit, though. As we grow and gain experiences in life, some neural connections are strengthened and some are eliminated. It’s about efficiency - most of our neural pathways follow the path of least resistance. It’s just the way our brains work.”

The more that Janet talked about it, the more Sam worried that fixing Jack’s memories was beyond her abilities. Sure, she could blow up a star or stop an asteroid from hitting Earth, but the mind was a delicate thing.

“And how do their brains work?” she asked.

There were so many things she was going to have to learn if she wanted to help Jack. Somehow, Sam doubted that she’d be able to solve the problem by adjusting a few lines of code.

“Basically, the brains of the refugees are more malleable,” Janet explained. “I believe they adapted that way so they could better handle the input from the link devices. More neurons, but weaker connections. It’s easier for their minds to be restructured and reset.”

“So is that good news or bad news?”

Janet clicked out of the test results.

“Right now, I have no idea. All I know is that the Colonel’s brain didn’t take to the programming as naturally as those of the people who’ve been wearing the links for generations. That’s probably the cause of the constant headaches and inflammation.”

“Is it reversible?”

“Unfortunately, I don’t have enough information to tell you if it’s reversible or if putting him through another update would just make things worse. I’m sorry, Sam. I know it’s not what you wanted to hear. Maybe if Daniel can find some archived medical journals when you go back or specs on the link so we know exactly how it works and then -”

“Yeah.” Sam stood up. “Thanks for working on this.”

She turned to leave, but when her hand was on the door handle, Janet spoke again.

“He’s been through worse than this, Sam. Physically, at least.”

It was a cold comfort.

“Let me know if you find out anything else.”

Sam walked out the door before Janet could say anything else that might make her feel worse.

She headed to the elevator, filled with the inner certainty that she had to do something soon or she would break. The inhabitants of P3X-289 were set up in temporary housing on levels five and six. Sam wasn’t even sure where they were able to find enough cots for everyone.

She eventually found Pallan on level six, in close conversation with several of the other refugees.

Sam thought, spitefully, that he looked more happy than someone should be who lost the person they loved. He might not remember Evalla, but Sam would have assumed that there would be some way in which he felt her absence anyway.

She wondered if Jack felt her absence...and Daniel’s and Teal’c’s. She could ask him, but that might start one of those dangerous conversations she was trying to avoid.

“Pallan.”

He turned and greeted her with a bright smile. “Hello, Major. We were just discussing our plans for once we’re relocated.”

Sam hadn’t been following the relocation plans. She assumed that they would be able to find a suitable planet with one of their allies where the refugee population would feel comfortable.

“I was hoping that you could help me with the computer system. I need to know what you did in that last update - how you coded it and if there might be a way to reverse its effects. It’s important.”

The smile slipped from Pallan’s face.

“I heard about Colonel O’Neill. I’m sorry for your loss, Major.”

He reached out to touch her shoulder and all she wanted to do was step away. Pallan was acting like Jack was dead and it made her feel ill.

“We can still fix this, Pallan, and I need your help. We can get his memories back. Maybe we can even get your memories of Evalla back too.”

Pallan briefly looked pleased at the idea, but then shook his head.

“The systems are so complicated,” he told her. “Without access to the link, I'm not sure I know what I'm doing.”

Sam tilted her head in confusion. It felt like dejà vu. Pallan had said those exact same words down in the control room.

“You said that before.”

He stepped back and smiled as if she told a joke. “Of course I mentioned it before. Those systems are complex.”

“No,” Sam said, “after I removed the link and asked you to reprogram it, you said that without access to the link, you don’t know what you’re doing and then I pointed out that you’d been working with the system your whole life and you were going to have to try to remember the old-fashioned way.”

If he didn’t get that amused look off his face, Sam was going to be tempted towards violence. Something weird was going on.

“There is no “old-fashioned way,” Major. As I’m sure you noticed, even children wore the link. I never accessed the system without it until you forced me to. I’m sorry about Colonel O’Neill, but I did the best I could in the time allotted. Now our population is safe and resource allocation is no longer stretched thin for the dome.”

Sam didn’t want to believe what she was hearing. She’d been so naïve and arrogant, thinking that Pallan would be able to handle the re-programming. Of course, he’d never accessed it without the link.

Of course.

“How did you…” Her voice cracked and she had to start over again. “How did you know how to do what I asked you to then?”

Sam thought about how quickly his fingers had danced across the keyboard. It had assured her that he knew what he was doing.

Pallan looked confused.

“I did what I always do and followed the instructions I remembered.”

Instructions, she realized days too late, not from her, but from the computer system.

Back on the planet, she’d realized what the updates were doing and that the changes were automatic. She just didn’t think that through to its logical conclusion. The computer was, for all intents and purposes, an artificial intelligence system built to prioritize the dome and as much of the population as it could sustainably maintain.

The AI was a predictive algorithm with immense power. It knew when to walk people out of the dome to their deaths and it knew when to reconfigure an entire town.

Before she took Pallan’s link off, she told him that they needed to reprogram the link to convince the others of what was happening. She basically told the AI her plan before she disconnected him.

The computer is programmed to maintain the community. Individuals had to be sacrificed for the good of the whole.

The explanation she gave Pallan back in the control room echoed in her head.

Individuals had to be sacrificed...

The AI knew what she was going to do and it planned ahead. It knew Kendrick’s location and what it was directing him to do. It knew where Jack was. It knew what she was asking of Pallan. It saw SG-1 as a threat and wanted them to leave. What better way to do that than by applying Sam’s memory wipe orders to one of their own? To SG-1’s team leader?

Individuals had to be sacrificed.

“God damn it!”

She slammed her hand against the nearest wall.

“Major Carter, are you all right?”

No, she wasn’t all right at all.

Chapter Text

Once Doctor Fraiser ran out of tests to run on him, she finally cleared Jack to leave the mountain for the weekend after making him promise that he would have someone drive him home, check in twice a day, and would return to the SGC if he experienced any worsening symptoms.

Jack was planning to just get one of the SFs to drop him off at home, but Daniel appeared while he was grabbing his keys and wallet from his locker.

“Need a lift, Jack?”

“Fraiser called you.”

“Yes,” Daniel replied.

Jack sighed. “You’re going to force me to be your friend, aren’t you?”

Daniel put his hands in his pockets and rocked on his heels. “Pretty much. Ready to go?”

Jack shook his head, but couldn’t keep a smile from lifting the corners of his lips. Daniel had persistence. Jack had to hand it to him.

“Yeah, I want to get the hell out of here.”

They took Daniel’s car to Jack’s house.

Jack could tell that Daniel wanted to talk and ask a lot of questions, but was holding back on his account.

In a way, it was Daniel’s silence that convinced Jack to speak up.

“So how long did it take you to get your memories back?”

Jack looked out the window at the familiar neighborhoods passing by. He didn’t know how everything could look so normal outside when the rest of his life was such a disaster.

“They filtered in over a few weeks. There are still a few holes, but I don’t really mind not remembering my own death.”

Jack chuckled.

“Yeah, that's not a good thing to remember.”

Then the thought of his deaths at Ba’al’s hand briefly crossed Jack’s mind and his face scrunched up at the unpleasant memory. It definitely was not good to remember your own death. Or deaths, as it were.

“The point is,” Daniel continued, “all the important memories came back.”

“Bad luck, isn’t it, to have two memory-damaged men on the same team?”

Daniel looked over at him.

“I’d try not to remind General Hammond of that. Saving the world multiple times probably only gives us so much leeway. Plus, my memories are almost all back and hopefully yours will be soon.”

Daniel was much more hopeful about this whole memory thing than Jack was.

“Yeah, we’ll see. Although Carter is supposed to be a genius, so maybe...”

Jack let his voice trail off. For all of Sam’s promises, no one knew if she’d be able to undo whatever had been done to him.

They turned onto his street and Jack was glad to be almost home.

“Hey, go easy on Sam if you can. She thinks all of this is her fault and is probably going to go a little manic to fix things.”

Based on how many times Sam already promised that she would fix things, the manic part seemed accurate.

“Why does she think it’s her fault?”

“Sam usually thinks that things are her fault when they aren’t. She was trying to save you and Teal’c and couldn’t have known that things would go so wrong.”

Jack knew how it was when you tried to do the right thing and it all blew up in your face.

“Don’t worry. I don’t plan on making things any tougher for her.”

Daniel parked the car and offered to come inside with him, but Jack just wanted to be alone. He said goodbye to Daniel and headed inside the house, pausing at the entrance and glancing around. It was like he expected something to be different, but it wasn’t.

This was his house. It looked like his house. It even smelled like his house, the subtle scent of pine from an air freshener in the guest room.

It felt like he’d been gone for weeks instead of days, but nothing was different.

Jack tossed his keys down on the kitchen counter and opened the fridge.

There was some leftover Chinese that was probably past its “eat by” date, lettuce that was looking a little slimy, half a carton of eggs, and some American cheese. He grabbed a beer from the bottom shelf and was surprised to see a can of Diet Coke behind it. Jack hated drinking diet anything.

He shut the fridge door, opened the beer and told himself that Janet Fraiser never had to know. Jack tried not to think too hard about the fact that there were a few cans of pop in the back that he never would have purchased for himself.

Jack needed to go to the grocery store, but realized that his car was still on base because Daniel had driven him home. He picked up the phone and ordered a pizza for dinner. While he was waiting for it to arrive, he decided to look around his house and see if anything else was out of the ordinary.

He started in the bedroom.

There was still a picture of him, Sara, and Charlie on the nightstand - a warm memory of the family he once had. He and Sara didn’t talk much anymore, but when they did it was easier to focus on happier times than it used to be. The love they used to share had been transmuted into something close to friendship. She was happy now with her new husband and Jack was glad that she got a second chance, something he doubted he would get for himself.

A model space shuttle and a few other doodads sat on the top of his dresser. One of his jackets had been tossed haphazardly onto the chair in the corner of the room. The bed was unmade. The laundry basket was almost full.

Jack felt guilty, again, for that awkward question that he’d posed to Sam. This wasn’t a bedroom that had any small female touches. There weren’t any of those subtle things that he hadn’t noticed until he stopped sharing a bedroom with Sara. No extra decorative pillows, no lighter bedspread in the warmer months, no small items on the other nightstand that indicated the presence of another person sharing the bed.

This was the bedroom of a man who was used to living his life alone. He’d known what to expect, so Jack wasn’t sure why a part of him had hoped for something different.

There was nothing unusual in the guest room or laundry room either.

Jack walked into his office. He didn’t use it often, but he had a desk and a computer. He was about to leave the room when he caught sight of a yellow Post-it note stuck on the corner of the monitor.

He didn’t remember leaving that there.

Jack pulled the Post-it off the monitor. The handwriting was minimalist, without any fancy flourishes.

Next time you break it, you owe me dinner.

That was weird.

He put the note back in place and then the doorbell rang.

Jack paid for the pizza, put a few slices on a plate, and grabbed his beer. The weather was nice enough to eat outside.

As he sat there on his back deck, Jack thought about how good it was to be home. Things here were normal and he felt less out of sorts than he did back on the base with everyone constantly asking how he felt and what he remembered.

Jack had no idea what next week would be like and no idea where he’d go from here. He didn’t want to believe it, but based on all of his observations, he was starting to think that everyone might be right about the alterations to his memory. The other options just made less and less sense as time went by.

That, however, was Monday’s problem. This weekend he was supposed to rest and relax.

Once he was done with the pizza, Jack went inside to watch TV. Maybe he’d luck out and there would be a good movie on. He went to the living room and grabbed a coaster for his beer from the coffee table.

Only he didn’t remember buying these coasters. They were engraved stone coasters with an artistic image of the pyramids of Giza on them.

Daniel, he thought. They had to be from Daniel.

The low, throbbing pressure in his head reminded Jack that it was time for him to take more of the meds that Janet had prescribed to him. He got the bottles, shook out the required numbers of pills, and chased them down with beer.

When he went to turn on the television, Jack noticed a pile of movies next to the TV.

He couldn’t remember ever watching the Star Wars trilogy. Sci fi wasn’t really his thing. He lived science fiction every day at work.

He wondered which member of SG-1 had left the movies behind.

Jack felt his headache start back up again and hoped the pain meds kicked in soon. It would be a lot more difficult to zone out watching TV if the pain increased.

He grabbed the remote, turned on the television set, and started flipping through the channels. When he saw that SportsCenter was on, he put the remote on the coffee table and sat back on the couch.

Pale blue fabric caught his eye. It was tucked under the cushion in the corner of the couch. Jack reached for the fabric and tugged.

It was a cardigan with white buttons. The fabric was soft against Jack’s fingertips. He lifted it to his face. A light, flowery scent still lingered.

Jack wondered why her cardigan was here.

His mind reached to remember and he noticed, again, that the pain meds weren’t working yet.

Jack tried to focus on the sports highlights in front of him and he tried not to think about the fabric in his lap that he knew was hers.

The headache got worse so he reached over to place the cardigan on the side table. Jack’s hand hit something unexpected on the table.

He picked up a thick volume with the title Annual Review of Astronomy and Astrophysics printed across the front. Colorful page markers were sticking out of the side.

That wasn’t his either.

Jack scanned through the pages and saw the same neat handwriting that was on the Post-it note in his office.

Sam’s comments in the margins were brief and to the point.

Could have practical applications.

Wildly inaccurate.

Is this a joke?

Recommend author for Area 51.

Adapt equation for X-302 update.

He must’ve seen her here, curled up in the corner of the couch, wearing the soft blue cardigan. She would have sat there, flipping through the pages with a pen in her hand, a stack of Post-it page markers on the side table beside her, and a can of Diet Coke on one of Daniel’s coasters.

Jack smiled at the thought.

The pain spiked sharply and he closed his eyes. It felt almost as bad as a staff weapon blast. He couldn’t keep doing this.

“Crap,” he muttered.

Jack leaned over and put his head in his hands and tried to breathe deeply. He tried to think of his cabin - peaceful and relaxing - but the headache got worse. He turned his mind to things that happened years ago, before he could have met any of them: his first time flying a plane, Charlie’s birthday, graduating from the Academy, learning how to fine tune the settings on a telescope...and the pain slowly started to ebb.

It took several minutes before Jack could sit up and open his eyes again. He had it under control. He briefly thought about calling Janet to let her know, but he figured that it could wait until his scheduled check in call with her later. He didn’t want her to worry and force him back to the base a few hours after he’d gotten home.

Jack decided to get up and get some water and maybe another dose of those pain meds since the first couple pills he took obviously didn’t work.

He took a deep breath and stood up.

On his left, a picture on the wall caught his eye. He didn’t notice it before.

It was a framed picture of four individuals in desert BDUs. Himself, Major Sam Carter, Doctor Daniel Jackson, and Teal’c.

SG-1.

It was more proof that they’d been telling him the truth.

Even though he knew he shouldn’t, Jack looked at the picture more closely.

Daniel’s hair was longer and sort of falling in front of his face. He had an arm around Sam’s shoulders and was staring at the camera with a relaxed smile on his face.

Teal’c looked stern and imposing, but Jack got an impression of slight impatience from the lift of his eyebrows. His skin had a burnished gold sheen to it.

Sam was sporting a wide grin, but although she was facing forward, her eyes were focused up and to the right.

She was looking at him and he was looking right back at her with a careful tilt of his lips that made Jack feel like he was observing the aftermath of an inside joke.

The backs of their hands were brushing in the image and he could almost feel it.

He tried to remember the warmth of that day, the laughter, and the camaraderie. He tried to remember whatever he’d said to make her grin like that.

Pain ripped through his head and he realized he’d made a huge mistake.

Jack turned and ran for the trash can in the corner of the room and emptied his stomach. He reached for the phone he knew was on the table above him, but otherwise didn’t move from the trash can and didn’t open his eyes.

What the hell had he been thinking? He knew that trying to remember made everything worse for him.

Jack picked up his phone and forced his eyes open through the blinding pain. He dialed an SGC number he knew by heart.

The phone rang and rang and he did his best not to pass out.

Then the line finally connected and he didn’t even wait to hear her greeting before he spoke.

“Doc, headache’s worse.”

Chapter Text

“O’Neill has also used that method to deal with his frustration over the current circumstances.”

Sam let her fist slam into the bag and then steadied it, turning to face Teal’c.

“Well, it’s not helping as much as I thought it would,” she admitted.

“Indeed.”

Sam just couldn’t stop the anger bubbling inside her ever since that conversation with Pallan. It was such a rookie mistake that she couldn’t believe she’d done it.

“The computer system was targeting Colonel O’Neill and I gave it the perfect way to take him out of play. Pallan didn’t know how to code an update on his own, Teal’c. He had no fucking clue what he was doing.”

She turned and slammed her fist into the punching bag again. Breathing heavily, she held onto the bag and rested her forehead against the leather. Teal’c rested a hand on her shoulder in comfort.

“Major Carter, you could not have known what events would transpire.”

“How can I fix it if he doesn’t know what he did to the code?” Sam whispered. “I can’t even read it myself.”

She’d been able to connect her laptop to the system and convert the output data about the power demands of the dome and environmental conditions, but that was just numbers. It was easier. She hadn’t been able to read anything of what Pallan typed into the console or the update that scrolled across the monitors.

She’d been counting on Pallan’s expertise to show her which lines of code to focus on and translate what they meant. It would have been a good plan if the man’s supposed expertise wasn’t a work of fiction.

“O’Neill would say that that it is time for a Plan B,” her teammate said in his deep, soothing voice.

Sam let go of the punching bag and turned around. “What if I can’t fix things this time, Teal’c?”

Everyone always expected her to fix everything. After all this time, Sam expected it of herself. She wasn’t used to failure. She couldn’t fail with this.

“Colonel O’Neill is not gone, Major Carter. If we must, we can rebuild those bonds that we share.”

Sam thought of everything the four of them had been through together. Their friendships had been forged in battle and laughter and experiences that no one else would be able to understand. How long would it take to rebuild those bonds if they needed to start from scratch?

What about that other bond that neither of them spoke of that had stayed mostly dormant until this memory-wiped version of Jack O’Neill started flirting with her? He didn’t instinctively know to keep his distance, but he also didn’t remember all those fragile moments that tied the two of them together.

Sam didn’t know the last time she felt so helpless...maybe when Jack had been captured by Ba’al and they weren’t sure if they would be able to rescue him.

“I’m not sure what to do next.”

Teal’c looked at her with sympathy.

“I came to find you because General Hammond wished to speak with you, Major Carter. Perhaps he has some good news.”

Sam nodded. “I hope so.”

Twenty minutes later, she found out that it was good news after all.

General Hammond gave the go ahead to return to the planet to see if they could supplement the dome’s power with the modified naquadah generator. Sam was ordered to head back with Doctor Lee, two of the other scientists on his team, and SG-2. The General wanted them back within eight hours, which meant they would only have a little less than six for their task. Sam hoped it was enough time.

During the briefing, Sam had to admit what she had only recently figured out.

“The dome is managed by an algorithmic computer system that I now believe has some level of artificial intelligence. It specifically targeted Colonel O’Neill because our team was seen as a threat. While we’re in the dome, I recommend that we keep our protective gear within easy access at all times and do frequent checks of the dome radius just to be safe.”

General Hammond looked at her from the head of the table.

“How big of a risk do you think this computer system is, Major?”

It didn’t matter how big of a risk it was. It was a risk that she was willing to take.

Sam couldn’t say that out loud, though, so she gave him a professional response that was mostly accurate.

“I think we’ll be fine. We’re trying to give it more power, so hopefully it won’t see us as a threat. It will also be getting less data about our presence now that it doesn’t have a village full of people acting as its eyes and ears. We won’t take any undue risks.”

Hammond nodded and they all spent the next fifteen minutes walking through the plan and assigning tasks to everyone in the room.

“You all have one hour to get ready,” the General said. “You’re dismissed.”

Everyone started to leave, but General Hammond asked her to wait.

“The mission objective is only to get the generator up and running to supplement the system’s power source, Major. I’m sure that I don’t have to remind you to avoid any other systems in the control room on this trip to P3X-289, especially in light of what you’ve told me about the advanced nature of the AI in the dome.”

Sam knew that George Hammond could see right through her, to her desperation and anxiety. If he were only her base commander it still would have been easy to tell, but he was an old family friend so it was probably like she was wearing a bright neon sign that said, “Sam Carter will do anything to get Jack O’Neill back.”

“Do I have to remind you?” he asked sternly.

“No, sir. I am well aware of the mission objectives.”

General Hammond nodded. “Then get this done, Sam.”

“I will, sir.”

Two hours later, she was back in the control room on P3X-289. Two members of SG-2 had stayed by the MALP to ensure they had a direct line of communication to the SGC if needed and the other two helped carry the modified generator.

Sam put the black equipment case that she was carrying on the and took out a device she used to scan the surrounding atmosphere. They had already confirmed that levels were good near the garden when they had entered the dome, but Sam wasn’t taking any chances.

After looking at the results on the device, she pulled off the protective hood.

“We’re good. No radiation or other toxic factors in the building.”

Lieutenant Sands and Sergeant Bell unclipped their weapons and set them down before putting the generator on the floor and starting to take off their protective gear.

Doctor Lee and two members of his team, Doctor Watson and Doctor Grant, placed the cases they were carrying by one of the consoles and started to take off their red protective suits too.

Sam wiped the sweat off her forehead. Walking an hour in those sealed suits was hot and uncomfortable. She got to work taking the rest of it off until she was left in her more comfortable BDU pants and black t-shirt.

“We’re going to take a walk around the village and make sure the perimeter is secured, Major,” Sands said. “You good here?”

She nodded. “We’ll get started. Watch out for the edge of the dome as you walk around. You won’t see it, but you’ll feel a static charge if you get too close.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Bell replied before they headed back up the stairs.

Heather Grant and Jim Watson started unpacking the equipment they brought with them and Bill was looking over the generator.

“How’s it looking?”

Bill glanced in her direction. “Nothing was disconnected in transport. We should be good to turn it on and start adjusting the output levels soon. We’ll want to match the frequency as close as possible to the existing power source.”

While the three other scientists worked on calibrating the equipment they’d brought with them and analyzing the power output data that Sam had already programmed to display on her laptop, she sat down on the floor under the main console. There were a few different access panels around the room - both under the consoles and on the wall - and Sam figured she would have to expose the hardware for all of them to find the best place to connect the generator.

It felt odd to be back in this room...a room where she had made such a monumental mistake in a split second decision.

Sam wondered if the AI had any sensors in this room and if it was assessing them even now. It didn’t have an entire population at its disposal, but it could still control all of the dome’s technology.

Maybe one day, if she was able to fix what happened to Jack, they could safely study the technology on this planet and get some benefit out of this bad experience. The protective shield could be amazing. Whatever the town did to restructure its architecture at a whim was astounding. There were so many possibilities. All she had to do was help Jack first and not anger the artificial intelligence in charge of the town.

“We’re only here to help,” she whispered, her head close to the panel. It felt ridiculous, and Sam doubted that there were any nearby sensors able to pick up what she said, but she was ready to try just about anything.

With that said, she started to pry back the first panel.

It took five hours to get the generator connected and up and running. It didn’t completely compensate for the reduction in power from the geothermal vents over the past several centuries, but with the population off-world and the generator running, it would be stable enough to let them come back and do the work they needed to do.

Sam was relieved that one thing had finally gone right.

The group was quiet on the hour-long walk back to the Stargate. Jack might not realize it, and even if he did, he’d fervently deny it, but most of the staff at the SGC respected and admired him. Everyone hoped that he’d be able to get his missing memories back.

General Hammond was waiting in the ‘gate control room when they returned to Earth.

“Welcome back,” Hammond said over the microphone. “Briefing in one hour.”

Sam pulled the protective hood off her head and breathed deep. It was a weird life she lived when she was appreciative of the air pumped deep into a mountain.

“Major Carter,” he added, “The scheduled check in with Jonas Quinn is in twenty minutes if you want to join me for that after completing your post-mission health check.”

“Thank you, sir. I’ll be right up.”

The infirmary was unusually full because SG-5 came in hot during a battle with Jaffa and a few of them had been grazed by staff blasts. Some of the lights were off in a sectioned-off area in the far corner and she wondered if the were having problems with the power, but before she could think too much about it, Sam caught sight of one of the nurses and submitted to the limited tests that were necessary when they returned from non-combat missions where they didn’t encounter a native population.

Normally, she’d head for a shower after the long walk they had back to the gate in those sealed protective suits, but Sam didn’t want to miss a chance to talk to Jonas so everyone would have to deal with her sweaty hair during the briefing.

By the time she got back to the control room, Jonas and General Hammond were already mid-conversation talking about the current socio-political situation on Langara.

“Major Carter just joined us,” Hammond mentioned.

“Hi, Sam!”

She smiled at hearing Jonas’ ebullient voice.

“How are you doing, Jonas?”

“Sunny, cloudless skies and lots of indoor meetings,” he replied.

There was something a little off about his tone when he mentioned the meetings, but Sam didn’t read into it. After all, as positive and curious as Jonas was, he probably had a breaking point for boring meetings just like the rest of them. She imagined that his life was filled with a lot of meetings now as one of the members of his planet’s Joint Ruling Council.

“Hopefully you can enjoy some of that nice weather,” she said.

“Sure, I’ll figure something out. So how’s the rest of the team?”

General Hammond indicated that he had to take a phone call in his office, so she was left to continue her conversation with Jonas alone.

“We’ve been better,” Sam admitted. “Daniel’s finally recovered his memories and Teal’c has recovered from the staff blast that he took, but we ran into a problem on our last mission and now Colonel O’Neill is suffering from selective amnesia.”

She tried to tell Jonas what happened in as detached a manner as possible and explained how she was going to go through the computer code and Daniel through the written records as soon as General Hammond approved the next step of her plan.

“I’m hoping that I can figure out a way to reverse-engineer the command code that was sent through the link, but it’s going to be a lot more challenging without Pallan’s assistance.”

Sam breathed deep through the sudden, overwhelming sense of helplessness. She made progress today and she would keep making progress.

“Need some help?” Jonas asked. “I’m sure they can spare me for a few days and it will make things go quicker if I can help Daniel go through all the old records.”

Sam knew that the Kelownan’s ability to soak up knowledge and new technology like a sponge could be a real asset here. She didn’t really know what she was doing and Pallan...well, Pallan had been unknowingly following the directions of an artificial intelligence. There might still be some remaining programming in his brain for all she knew.

Daniel would appreciate the backup and Sam knew that Jonas had enough experience with the technical specifications for alien technology to be able to help her too if they found some documentation for the link devices.

Sam needed all the help she could get.

She also couldn’t deny that it would be nice to have Jonas here for personal reasons in addition to tactical ones. Jonas Quinn’s eternal optimism would buoy her spirits in a way that Daniel’s empathy and Teal’c’s steady support couldn’t quite manage.

Jonas Quinn was no longer a member of SG-1, though, and was dealing with bigger challenges on his home world. She couldn’t ask him to step away for that for one person, even if that one person was Jack.

“You probably have a lot of important things going on. I don’t want to drag you back here just because…”

Her voice trailed off, unsure of how to end the sentence.

Because I screwed up and don’t know how to fix it?

He must’ve heard something in her voice anyway because his response was immediate.

“I’d be happy to help, Sam. We’ll figure this out.”

She couldn’t turn down his offer a second time.

“I really appreciate it, Jonas.”

Chapter Text

“Can we turn the light down a little?”

He heard the flip of a couple of switches.

“Is that better, sir?”

Jack moved his hand away from his eyes and blinked slowly. Janet had turned off a couple of the lights in his corner of the infirmary. There was still light streaming in from the rest of the room, but at least it wasn’t harsh above his head any more.

He breathed out a sigh of relief.

“Yeah, that helps.”

“Good.” She walked closer to his bed. “Now do you want to tell me what happened?”

Jack sat up, relieved beyond belief that the headache was starting to abate.

“I went home and everything was fine. I had some pizza.” He didn’t mention the beer even though Janet hadn’t explicitly warned against it. “I wandered around the house, noticed a few things that seemed out of place. Things that weren’t mine. Some movies, Diet Coke in the fridge, coasters that seemed very much Daniel Jackson’s style, a Journal of Astrophysics something or other that Sam must’ve left.”

Jack didn’t bother mentioning the soft cardigan either.

“And then what happened?”

Jack wasn’t sure how to describe the longing he felt when he looked at that picture. He felt like he almost had a grip on a memory before it was snatched away from him and replaced with pain and nausea.

“I looked at a picture of SG-1 on my wall and then felt like someone kicked me in the head - hard. I threw up and then I called you. That’s about it.”

Janet frowned.

“So the headaches are being triggered by your attempts to recall your memories?”

“Seems like it,” Jack admitted.

“Have you actually been able to recall any memories?”

Jack thought briefly of Sam kissing him desperately in the locker room, but that never would have happened. It was just a dream.

“No, but I’ve tried.”

Janet put the clipboard down on the table with enough force that the sound echoed through the infirmary. It didn’t help his headache.

“You need to tell me these things, Colonel. I need to know what’s going on in order to help you.”

“Yeah, figured that bit out about the time I threw up.”

Jack wasn’t a doctor, but even he knew that what was going on was unusual. It seemed like trying to regain any memories of the members of SG-1 triggered a physical response. He just hadn’t realized how directly it was connected until he’d gone home.

“I’m going to restrict you to the base until we have a better idea of how to treat you.”

It was about what he assumed, but not at all what he wanted. Jack just wanted to figure this out so he could get back to work. He’d been pulled off duty before to recover from physical injuries, but even though this technically was one, it didn’t feel like it. He was starting to get antsy.

“I probably shouldn’t have let you go home in the first place,” she continued.

He couldn’t let her take the blame for something that was essentially his fault. He should have just had some water and watched TV and not started to dig into what his life might have been.

“It’s not your fault, Doc. I thought it was under control too.”

She gave him a grim nod. “I want you to stay here in the infirmary now and try to get some rest. I’ll need to set you up with an IV to administer the necessary medication because of the nausea and I’d like to run another EEG to see if there are any detectable differences in your brain waves.”

Jack nodded, unable to say anything else. He pushed himself too hard instead of just relaxing with mindless entertainment all weekend so as far as he was concerned, it was his own damn fault he ended up back in the infirmary.

By the time Janet had checked everything off her list, Jack’s headache was nearly gone and he was able to drift off to sleep. He briefly woke up to the commotion when SG-5 returned with some injuries, but closed his eyes shortly thereafter.

He didn’t wake up again for another few hours and when he did, Daniel was sitting at his bedside.

“How are you feeling, Jack?”

Jack sat up. “You should learn a new question to ask, Daniel.”

Daniel set a pile of papers on the side table. He must’ve been doing work while he waited for Jack to wake up.

“I’ve found that repetition is usually the quickest way to get you to relent and answer my questions.”

“So you annoy it out of me?”

“Sometimes,” Daniel admitted.

Jack wanted to ask more and figure out why the man waiting at his bedside was so persistent, but he realized that the last thing he should be doing right now was digging into a past he didn’t remember. So instead, he answered the question.

“Truthfully, I’m actually feeling good right now. The rest and whatever the Doc gave me must’ve done the trick.”

“I’m glad to hear it,” Daniel replied. “It was sort of a two part question, though. How are you handling everything, you know, emotionally?”

Jack tried to stare Daniel down, but the man was unmoved.

“Did I ever seem open to emotional conversations before?”

“Well, no, but -”

“I didn’t think so.”

“I just...” Daniel paused and looked at Jack as if he was hoping to be able to read his mind. “I just want to make sure you’re okay, that’s all.”

“I’m fine.”

“Jack.”

Daniel had mentioned before that he went on the first Abydos mission, the one after Charlie died. Jack couldn’t risk trying to remember again, but he could use logic. Jack didn’t remember Daniel being there, but he knew what he was like on that first mission through the Stargate. He was angry and bitter and ready to give up his life in the aftermath of personal tragedy.

If Daniel Jackson had known the version of him who’d been willing to walk through the gate and never come back…

“I’m fine, Daniel. You don’t have to worry about me.”

“Okay.”

“I’m not how I was back then, even without -”

“Even without us,” Daniel filled in.

“So stop being a pain in the ass.”

Daniel grinned.

“Okay, Jack.”

They sat there for a couple of minutes in silence and Jack wasn’t sure why. Daniel picked up the pile of paperwork and started going through it. Jack couldn’t help wondering why Daniel was still sitting there.

“Was there anything else you wanted to say?”

Daniel looked over at him. “Sure, but I promised Janet I wouldn’t do anything to aggravate your headaches.”

Jack sighed.

“How about what you did today? That has nothing to do with memories.”

Daniel smiled, probably glad that Jack was voluntarily engaging with him. Jack figured that conversation was less dangerous than sitting here alone doing his best not to think about a past that he was incredibly curious about.

“Well, SG-14 brought back some really interesting artifacts yesterday and General Hammond asked if I’d help with the translations. The language looks like a cross between Goa’uld and Ancient, which is fascinating because normally languages steal from one another, but don’t mix in quite this way and -”

Daniel cut himself off and Jack wondered if it was because he was used to being cut off and decided to do it preemptively.

“And?” Jack prompted, willing to listen to the rest of Daniel’s explanation.

“Teal’c is working with some of the trainees on hand-to-hand combat,” he said instead. “Oh! And Sam went back to P3X-289 today. I heard that they figured out a way to stabilize the dome. It’s good news.”

That was good news and Jack hoped that it would help fix whatever was going on with him, but now that he knew he had a team, he couldn’t help feeling frustrated that they were all off doing important things while he was stuck here being a pincushion because of a headache.

“That’s something. Good for her.”

It looked like Daniel expected him to say more, but Jack was saved by Janet’s arrival.

“You’re awake.”

“I’m feeling amazing,” Jack said before she could ask. “Almost as if nothing had ever gone wrong.”

Janet chuckled. “I’ve heard you say something close to that when recovering from broken bones so forgive me if I don’t believe you.”

Jack supposed he deserved that, especially since he hadn’t been entirely upfront about what he thought was causing the headaches.

“I swear, if Daniel being nosy didn’t give me a headache, I’m pretty sure I’m good for now.”

He saw Janet throw Daniel a stern look and Jack grinned.

“I didn’t do anything!” Daniel protested.

“Even so,” Janet’s calm voice interrupted, “you need to keep taking it easy, Colonel. We’re going to do a few tests and if the values are in range, I’ll release you to stay in base quarters overnight. We’ll see how things are again in the morning.”

“Sounds good, Doc.”

“And I thought I’d never need to say this to a patient, but try not to think so much.”

Daniel laughed, but Jack didn’t think it was all that funny. Jack sent him a look that shut him right up.

“Sorry.”

“I’m sure I can figure out ways to entertain myself,” Jack told Janet. “Let’s get these tests finished so I can get out of here.”

Janet nodded. “We’ll wrap it up as quickly as possible.”

Daniel promised to drop off some movies later - not documentaries, Jack insisted - that they’d never watched as a team.

Janet did some tests and felt comfortable enough to let him leave half an hour later.

Jack left as soon as he could and went directly to his assigned base quarters. He’d just changed into sweatpants and a t-shirt when he heard a knock on the door.

He assumed it would be Daniel and was surprised to see Sam when he opened the door.

“Hi,” she said while he was still taking in the fact that her hair was wet from a shower and she smelled like that shampoo he recognized. “Here.”

His hand reached out automatically and he found it full of a pile of DVDs.

“Thanks, I guess.”

“Daniel said you wanted some movies to watch tonight while you were stuck on base.”

That was an interesting twist of Daniel’s offer to bring a couple movies over, but he didn’t mind. It was nice to see her.

Jack looked at the DVDs. Jurassic Park, Terminator 2: Judgment Day, and Back to the Future.

“You didn’t think the whole technology gone wrong theme was a little on the nose?”

She flushed.

“I didn’t mean...these are just some movies I had that I like and we never watched them together so I figured they were safe.”

He couldn’t help but be amused at how quickly she started to backtrack.

“I can see if anyone else has some movies if you’d rather -”

He put a hand on her arm.

“Sam, it’s fine. Thank you.” He stepped back from the door. “Want to come in?”

She hesitated and he watched her eyes pass from his face to the movies to the television that had been rolled in and finally land on the bed.

It was a small room and there wasn’t any other furniture.

He knew that Daniel and Teal’c wouldn’t pause and that it wouldn’t be a big deal, but with Sam it was.

“You don’t need to. I just thought...it would be nice to have company. I could put on one of the movies.”

It should have been an easy yes or no, but her face looked so torn. He almost started questioning why before he remembered that he couldn’t dig into the past. He had to do his best to live in the moment and not think about anything else.

“You’re probably busy. Nevermind,” he said. “Thanks for the movies. Better selection than what Daniel would have gotten me, I’m sure.”

Sam laughed. “Not in the mood for documentaries about the great pharaohs of Egypt?”

Jack couldn’t help the lazy grin that crossed his face. “I figured he might be the type. Now are you in or out?”

He watched her face closely, saw the moment she recognized that watching a movie with him in his quarters might not be the smartest idea, and tried not to feel disappointed when he saw her look back out the hallway. Then she surprised the hell out of him when she stepped inside and closed the door behind her.

“In,” she said, her voice a little breathless. “Haven’t had a movie night in a while.”

“Movie nights are good,” he replied, impressed that he was able to manage a complete sentence.

Sam looked good in that black long-sleeved shirt and green uniform pants. It was probably something he shouldn’t have been noticing.

“So, um, you have a preference?”

It took him a second to realize that she was talking about the movies.

“All good choices, but let’s go with Jurassic Park. I watched Back to the Future a couple months ago when they were rerunning it on TV. And I’m not really in the mood for the whole evil artificial intelligence thing.”

Sam breathed out a heavy sigh. “I know what you mean.”

Jack gave her a puzzled look, but she didn’t elaborate and he didn’t press her. If she wanted to talk about whatever was bothering her - besides the obvious, of course - then she would.

He put the movie in, grabbed the remote, kicked off his shoes, and got onto the bed, leaning against the headboard. Sam took her shoes off and got on the bed too, careful to position herself with a respectable distance between them.

Jack wondered if they’d ever sat on a bed together watching a movie and then regretted the thought as he started to feel the early pressure of a burgeoning headache.

He had to focus on the present instead. Only the present had Sam Carter on a bed with him close enough to touch, so that didn’t exactly seem like a smart plan either.

Jack hit the play button so he would at least have the distraction of the movie.

He got more comfortable as the movie played and noticed that Sam did too.

She lit up talking about all of the scientific errors in the movie and although Jack would never admit it, he found it kind of adorable how worked up she got over the inconsistencies of a movie that she liked enough to own.

He baited her by asking if she thought the Asgard had a Jurassic Park theme park somewhere since they were so obsessed with cloning.

She shook her head with fond exasperation and pointed out that as advanced as the Asgard were, they probably wouldn’t make the same mistakes as the greedy capitalists in the film and assume that a park full of dangerous dinosaurs was a good idea.

At a point about an hour into the movie, there was enough of a lull that he felt like he had to fill the silence.

“There’s...a book at my place. A journal. Some astrophysics thing. If you need it. And a blue cardigan I think might be yours.”

After he said it, he wondered if he shouldn’t have. He was positive the astrophysics journal was hers, but maybe the cardigan wasn’t. Although if he had a girlfriend or something, he would have remembered it. He only forgot the members of SG-1.

His mind started to wander down a dangerous path and he stopped himself. He shouldn’t even have brought up the items that she might have left at his place. He was supposed to be thinking only about the present and not about details of the missing past.

“Just...in case you were wondering where they were.”

“Oh.”

She looked surprised and a little embarrassed.

“We hang out at your house sometimes. SG-1 does. Team nights.”

Jack liked the sound of that.

“Who likes Star Wars?”

“Teal’c,” she replied with a grin.

“Not sure I would have expected that. I thought it might’ve been you.”

Sam shook her head, the corners of her mouth slightly upturned.

“I like Star Wars just fine, but he’s obsessed with it. He once asked me if I could build a lightsaber because he thought it would be a ‘formidable weapon against the Goa’uld.’”

Jack chuckled and leaned his head back against the wall. He noticed a slight pressure against his left arm and turned.

Sam Carter was a lot closer than she’d been at the start of the movie. Somehow, their bodies had drifted closer together until they were sitting side by side.

Her face was turned towards his, still brightened by the comment about Teal’c wanting a lightsaber.

“So, could you do it?”

She blinked and cleared her throat.

“Do what?”

Somehow, Jack doubted that Sam also lost her train of thought like that around Daniel and Teal’c.

“Build a lightsaber, Carter.”

“Probably,” she replied, and it sounded a little flirty.

“I call dibs then. I get the first lightsaber you build.”

“Teal’c would call that cheating.”

“Teal’c’s not here.”

The comment was meant in relation to the banter about calling dibs on a lightsaber, but Jack suddenly felt very aware of the fact that the two of them were alone and in his bed. Jack tried to tell himself that Sam Carter was on his team, but he didn’t remember her being a member of his team. He remembered trying to flirt with her on ‘289 and holding her in his arms and talking over cake.

Jack angled his body towards Sam and brushed a fallen strand of hair back behind her ear, needing to touch her.

She leaned towards him, caught in this moment as much as he was.

“Sam.”

He couldn’t help saying her name, but he watched as it broke the spell between them and she pulled back.

“It was my fault,” Sam blurted out.

“What was?” Jack asked, confused by her tone and the turn of the conversation.

“What happened back on P3X-289, the reason you can’t remember any of us, the reason you’re calling me Sam for crying out loud!” She muttered a curse and scrambled out of the bed while fictional dinosaurs roared in the background and Jack’s brain tried to catch up. “It’s all my fault.”

Jack got out of the bed.

“Talk me through it, Carter,” he said, careful to use her last name. “Why do you think this is your fault?”

Jack was aware of the basics of the situation based on what happened on ‘289 and what Janet had told him that first day in the infirmary, but Sam clearly had more on her mind than an accidental mindwipe caused by one of the village’s citizens putting a link device on his head.

“I told him to do it. I told Pallan to erase our team from the memory of anyone wearing those links. The AI made sure you were wearing one of those links when the update was executed. I gave it the idea and now I don’t know if I can fix it.”

She looked anywhere but him as she ran through the list of her supposed faults, her voice getting shakier as she went.

“It sounds like it was an accident, Carter. Accidents happen.”

Sam finally looked at him.

“I broke you.”

Jack didn’t feel broken. Memory loss or not, here in this room with her, he felt whole.

“You didn’t break me. I’m still here.”

Jack took a step forward and wrapped her in his arms. After a second’s hesitation, Sam draped her arms around his neck and leaned her head against the fabric of his shirt.

“I’m sorry.”

“Carter,” he said as her hair brushed his cheek, “it’s not your fault. I don’t blame you. Stop blaming yourself.”

She nodded against his shoulder, but didn’t say a word.

They stood there, holding each other, while a T-Rex roared in the background. Then Sam stepped back and he let her go.

“I should leave. We shouldn’t…I should leave.”

He nodded because he didn’t have anything else he could say.

Jack didn’t realize until she was gone that Sam hadn’t called him “sir” all evening.

Chapter Text

“How is he?” Jonas Quinn asked as soon as the Stargate shut down behind him.

Sam felt better now that Jonas was here and General Hammond had approved SG-1’s return to the planet. Or rather, SG-1 minus Jack and plus Jonas.

“I wish I knew how to answer that question,” Sam replied. “He’s almost normal except -“

“The memory loss,” Jonas filled in.

“Yes, and the headaches.”

It had only been a couple of months since they’d last seen each other, but Jonas looked different. She didn’t realize that she’d gotten so used to seeing him in Earth clothes. His hair was also a little longer and not quite as spiky. Sam remembered Jack teasing him about using too much hair gel. Maybe they didn’t have it on Kelowna.

“It’s really good to see you, Jonas.”

She took a step towards him and wrapped her arms around his neck. He returned the hug and then they broke apart.

“It’s great to see you too. Wish I was back for a better reason, but even so....”

His voice trailed off and he looked around the room.

“Daniel and Teal’c -”

Jonas cut her off with a wave of his hand.

“It’s fine. I’m sure they’re busy. I didn’t expect them to drop everything to meet me at the ‘gate.”

“They wanted to be here,” Sam explained, “but Daniel got pulled onto a translation project for SG-14 and Teal’c is training some new SGC recruits.”

If she was irritated that the General had assigned them other tasks while approval was pending to return to the dome, she tried not to let it show.

They left the gateroom and carefully made their way through the crowds of people and carts full of supplies that were lined up in the hallway, waiting for the next opening in the ‘gate schedule. Sam wasn’t even sure what planet they’d decided on for the refugees, but based on the limited supplies, she’d guess the Land of Light. They’d been good about offering to take in refugees before. If the Land of Light was where they were headed, she wondered how the population from P3X-289 would handle the transition. They had claimed to have very simple lives because technology had destroyed their world, but even as they made the claim they were reliant on an AI system and advanced technology for everything. Sam hoped that living lives outside of that technological control would be good for them.

As they walked, Jonas greeted a few of the SGC staff members who were helping to organize the resettlement and made promises to catch up with a couple of them later if there was time. None of them knew how long this might take, but Sam was appreciative that Jonas would be able to stay for at least several days.

Once the two of them were past the crowd, they continued on towards Jonas’ temporary quarters so that he could drop his bag off.

“Do you think he’ll remember me?”

Sam shrugged. They still weren’t a hundred percent sure how Pallan’s update had been interpreted by Jack’s brain. Janet had eased off trying to dig into which memories Jack did have after they discovered it only made his headaches worse. Did the link erase all of SG-1 from his memories or just the current members? Jonas would be a test of those boundaries.

“I have no idea. He doesn’t remember me, Teal’c, and Daniel, but somehow he seems to be able to remember most of the missions we went on together. His brain just filled in other SGC staff or interpreted them as solo missions. Since this is an SG-1 specific memory loss we’re not sure if it’s just based on the three of us because we were on the planet with him or if it will extend to you as a former member of the team too.”

A quick frown crossed Jonas’ face before he grinned.

“Well, I guess we’ll find out soon! In spite of the circumstances I’m glad to be back and see all of you.”

Sam smiled back. It really was great to see Jonas. He had to leave so abruptly before that their goodbyes were brief and perfunctory. As happy as she was to have Daniel back, it felt like Jonas got shoved out of the way as soon as Daniel returned. That didn’t sit right with her. He’d given his all to the team and had saved her life more than once.

“I’m glad to see you too, Jonas, and I really appreciate the help. I figured that if you and Daniel go through all of the records together, it will speed up the process. Then we can dive into translating the system code. I’m hoping we can figure out something to restore the Colonel’s missing memories.”

“You said that Daniel was able to recognize the language?”

Sam nodded.

“Yes, it was similar to a language we’ve come across before so he was able to translate chunks of it. I’m not sure how directly the written language will align with the computer code, but we should be able figure it out.”

They continued to walk side by side down the SGC hallway to the visitors’ quarters.

“Sounds like a good plan. I’ll check with him later and see if I can get a head start learning the language. Like I said, I’m happy to help and contribute wherever I can.”

Sam was starting to feel that slight background buzz of energy when a plan was starting to come together. All she had to do was get them back to the planet, set Daniel and Jonas loose on the translations, and figure out how to write a targeted update for the link.

“How are things back on Langara, by the way?” she asked.

Sam wasn’t used to Jonas Quinn looking anything less than positive, but she could tell by the expression on his face that things on his homeworld weren’t going well.

“It’s been...frustrating.”

“I’m sure it’s difficult rebuilding after the attack by Anubis.”

Jonas nodded and Sam stopped in front of the quarters that had been assigned to him, swiping the keycard to open the door and then handing the card over to him.

“Thanks.”

They walked inside and he dropped his bag on the bed. She assumed that he’d want to keep moving after he dropped off his things, but instead he sat down and placed his hands flat on the bedspread.

“I assumed that the attack would bring people together, give them a sense of perspective,” he began. “After I started traveling with all of you through the Stargate all of the problems and disagreements between Kelowna, Terania, and the Andari Federation seemed so small and petty. Then when Langara was attacked by Anubis…”

Jonas paused there and took a breath. Sam wondered if he was still feeling guilty about the attack on his home planet.

“It was tragic, Jonas, but it wasn’t your fault.”

He looked up and there was a darkness in his eyes that hadn’t been there when they first met. Sam couldn’t help but wonder if being part of SG-1 had ruined him somehow.

“Sam, I could say the same to you about what happened to Colonel O’Neill, but I don’t think either of us will erase our guilt completely any time soon.”

It was a blunt and accurate statement and one she never would have expected to hear from Jonas Quinn.

“Anubis did less damage than the Kelownans did setting off that naquadria bomb,” Jonas continued, “and I think they learned even less from the destruction this time.”

Sam could hear the grief in Jonas’ voice. She sat down on the bed next to him.

“I’m sorry, Jonas. At least you’re in a position now where you get to help make things better.” She tried to lighten her tone and help him look on the bright side. “Kelownan representative on Langara’s Joint Ruling Council. A bit of a step up from SG-1.”

Sam knocked her shoulder into his.

Jonas forced a false smile and then stood up. “Let’s head over to Doctor Jackson’s office. I want to make sure he’s been feeding my fish.”

Sam felt like she was missing something. Jonas went to open the door, but she grabbed his arm to stop him.

“What’s wrong?”

He turned and put his hands in his pockets.

“Sam, you can’t think that they’d let me come back here for this on short notice if I had any actual power.”

“I don’t understand.”

Sam had let herself feel better about Jonas leaving by telling herself that he was going to be able to do great things and help his people.

“Ambassador Dreylock talked me into going back because she knew it was the only way to get the Andaris and Teranians to agree to forming a Joint Council. She wanted me as a figurehead. Told me I no longer understood the perspective of the Kelownian people so she would guide me.”

“Oh, Jonas.”

He took a hand out of his pocket and began rotating the keycard through his fingers.

“Do you remember what Dreylock told me in the gateroom before I said my goodbyes?”

Sam wished that she did. It was obviously something important that she’d missed.

“What did she say?”

“The Ambassador pointed out that the last time I returned to Kelowna, I was considered a traitor. She assured me that would not be the case this time.”

Jonas opened the door and walked through. Sam followed him into the hallway.

“What happened?”

She was almost afraid to find out. Jonas hit the button on the elevator and the door opened. They stepped inside and then he spoke.

“I was meant to be forging a better future for our planet and using my experiences to help guide our path. It all devolved into bickering and in-fighting. Even now, after everything that happened. Ambassador Dreylock didn’t agree with my suggestions and tried to go around my back with the other Council members. Then someone leaked the fact that Anubis got Langara’s position from me.”

Sam leaned back against the elevator wall. That wasn’t anywhere near the positive homecoming she had hoped for him.

“Was it Dreylock?” she asked.

The elevator door opened and they started down the hallway.

“Could be her, could be someone framing her, could be someone who hasn’t liked me since the first time I was branded a traitor.”

Jonas shrugged like it didn’t matter, but Sam knew that it had to hurt.

“Can’t you fight it?”

“It’s hard to fight the truth,” Jonas said.

Sam felt indignant on his behalf. He shouldn’t be blamed for what happened with Anubis and he shouldn’t have people using that experience against him.

“You were tortured. It’s not like you gave up the information on purpose.”

Jonas gave another shrug.

“Let’s just say that my future in politics isn’t going to last much longer.”

Sam didn’t know what to say except to apologize for what he was going through. The look that Jonas gave her in return told her that he’d come to terms with all of this a while ago.

This time, the smile he gave her was genuine.

“Come on, let’s go check on my fish.”

Sam wanted to ask what he planned to do next, but Jonas was clearly done with the conversation for now. She’d have to ask him later. They would probably end up spending plenty of time together over the next few days.

“Jonas!”

Jack shouted the name as they rounded the corner towards Daniel’s office.

Well, that answered the question of whether Jack would remember Jonas Quinn.

“Hi, Colonel O’Neill. It’s good to see you.”

“Great to see you too,” Jack replied with a smile, clapping a hand down on Jonas’ shoulder. “How long are you in town for?”

Sam and Jonas exchanged a look, both taken aback by the Colonel’s effusive greeting.

“Well, Major Carter told me what happened on P3X-289 and I figured I’d come and help out.”

A look of frustration crossed Jack’s face before he could hide it and he dropped his hand from Jonas’ shoulder.

“Well, have fun with your science projects and let me know if you want to grab dinner sometime. It would be nice to catch up.”

Jonas recovered from his shock quickly.

“Yeah, sure. I’d love that! Just let me know when and where.”

“Will do.”

Then Jack looked at her and her breath caught in her chest.

“Hi, Sam.”

They hadn’t spoken in two days. She’d been avoiding him ever since she left his quarters the night they watched Jurassic Park together. Most of Jurassic Park anyway.

“Sir,” she replied, trying desperately to reassert those boundaries.

“Can we talk?”

Sam was so surprised that those words came out of Jack’s mouth that she almost wondered if she’d imagined them. It wasn’t the first time he’d found her and tried to start a personal conversation, but he hadn’t been so direct about it in the previous attempts.

“Later?” she offered, with some hesitation. “We really need to focus on our plan to help get your memories back. I think General Hammond is going to let us go back to P3X-289 as soon as relocation is complete for the refugees. The dome has been holding steady with the additional power source.”

Sam couldn’t miss the look of frustrated disappointment that crossed Jack’s face.

“Fine. Good luck switching me back to normal.”

Jonas, thankfully, missed the tense undercurrents of the conversation.

There had been a moment that night in his room where she almost thought they were going to kiss in spite of all the reasons they shouldn’t. Then he called her by her first name and the warm illusion shattered around her.

The only way this balancing act worked between the two of them was when they were both keeping certain walls intact. Given their working relationship and military ranks, Sam couldn’t even hope for anything more. In fact, she had stopped hoping for anything more because she thought they had moved past it...as much as you could move past a relationship that had never really happened in the first place.

Sam shouldn’t have stayed in his room to watch a movie, but she’d been missing Jack more than normal ever since he lost his memories and thought they could handle a friendly couple of hours together. Sam hadn’t counted on the fact that Jack no longer had his walls up. She had seen, in his eyes, how much he wanted her and she almost gave in.

Only...she wasn’t sure if it counted when he didn’t really know her. What if his memories came back and he regretted anything that might happen between the two of them while those memories were gone?

She had confessed everything in that moment, blurting out her guilt to stop what had felt like inevitable progress towards a kiss - a kiss that couldn’t happen while he was her commanding officer.

Instead of blaming her for what she’d done, he’d comforted her and told her that his memory loss wasn’t her fault.

Sam had tried to push him away with her confession, but he only pulled her closer. Being in his arms felt right in a way she couldn’t let herself think too much about.

And now she had no idea what to do. He was obviously mad at her for avoiding him and he was right that they needed to have a conversation, but she wanted to have that conversation with a Jack O’Neill who remembered her. She did want him back to normal.

“We’ll do our best to figure this out, Colonel,” Jonas chimed in. “It really is great seeing you!”

Jack pursed his lips and nodded at Jonas before turning back to Sam. He used to be able to read her well. She wasn’t sure what he saw now.

“Good luck, Carter.” The way he said the words felt like an admonishment. “Hope you find what you’re looking for.”

As Jack walked away, Jonas grinned at her.

“He remembered me!”

Sam told herself not to be jealous. This was just another clue about what was going on in Jack O’Neill’s brain. It wasn’t a slight against her.

“Yes, he did.”

They walked into Daniel’s office, but the archaeologist wasn’t anywhere to be seen. Jonas peered into the fish tank with a pleased look on his face and then turned back towards Sam.

“I have to tell you, I didn’t think he was going to. After all, if he didn’t remember the three of you -”

“Yeah,” she interrupted, not wanting to hear again how odd it was that Jack didn’t remember them.

“Was it just my imagination or did he seem to like me more?”

It was weird. Jack did seem a lot happier to see Jonas than Sam would have thought he would be. She assumed that Jack either wouldn’t remember the Kelownan man or that he would treat Jonas with the same reluctant respect that he did before Jonas left.

All of the sudden it hit her.

“Daniel,” Sam said. “Before, it took a long time for him to get over the part you played in what happened to Daniel. But now he doesn’t remember Daniel, so -”

“He doesn’t remember blaming me,” Jonas finished.

They both stared at the hallway that Jack had walked down, thinking through the potential implications. Sam always thought that Jack and Jonas would have gotten along well if the weight of Daniel’s death and ascension hadn’t been a gaping wound between the two of them. Now she knew for sure.

Granted, Jack would still probably get annoyed sometimes at Jonas’ sunny disposition, but this was the first time since everything had gone to hell that she’d been able to see anything positive about the situation.

“That’s fascinating,” Jonas said as he turned back to face her. “I mean, it’s awful what happened and I’m going to do whatever I can to help you fix it, but it’ll be nice to have a few days where Colonel O’Neill actually likes me.”

“I’m sure he’ll appreciate you being here. It’s weird for him with the rest of us so it’ll be good for him to have another friend around that he actually remembers.”

All of this still sucked, but at least Sam had one person around who could see a silver lining just about anywhere. Hopefully, if she, Daniel, Janet, and Jonas worked together, they’d be able to figure this out.

“Hey, do you think they have any bananas today?” Jonas asked. “Fruit is so much better here on Earth.”

Sam laughed, thinking back to how Jonas brought a banana with on his first SG-1 mission.

“Sure, let’s grab a bite to eat and then we’ll start planning for tomorrow.”

Chapter Text

“This isn’t a punishment, Colonel.”

Jack tapped his fingers on the arm of his chair and tried his best not to slouch, as much as he wanted to. It wouldn’t bolster his argument.

“It sure feels like one, sir.”

He never liked being pulled off the mission roster. He liked it even less when there was an upcoming mission he wasn’t allowed to go on that directly affected him and his life.

He never thought he’d want to return to that toxic wasteland of a planet, but now Jack wanted answers. He felt strongly that he needed to get those answers himself.

Jack also needed a distraction because he’d been too all up in his head the past couple of days and dealing with that while also trying not to think about his missing memories at all was a tightrope that was getting more and more difficult to walk.

He wanted to do his job.

He needed to do his job.

“It isn’t, Jack, and you know that.”

No one trusted him anymore to do what he was here at the SGC to do. Sam Carter, in particular, seemed to think that he was less than some other version of himself.

She claimed that she broke him and as much as he tried to reassure her that he wasn’t broken and that she didn’t need to feel guilty about the accident on ‘289, he was getting sick of the look in her eyes where it seemed like she was searching for someone else when she glanced his way.

Twice over the past two days, she’d left rooms in a hurry as soon as he entered them. There had also been a handful of occasions when he’d gone to talk to her, but she claimed she was too busy for conversation. It was hard not to take that personally.

He’d probably completely misread that moment between the two of them in his quarters based on how quickly she’d moved away and started blathering about everything she thought was her fault.

It didn’t matter what she thought...or that it seemed like she was set on ignoring him because he wasn’t the Jack O’Neill she wanted to deal with. He had to get his life back on track and that meant returning to work. He hadn’t had a hint of a headache since that incident at his house.

“If SG-1 is my team,” Jack insisted, “I should be going off-world with them.”

Jack caught General Hammond’s expression at the start of his sentence and realized too late that he should have left off the “if.” It was those two letters that had everyone around him so worried. They showed that he still wasn’t entirely convinced by their version of the truth. He’d have to do better next time.

“Doctor Fraiser hasn’t cleared you for duty.”

Jack knew that Janet was just trying to do her job, but sitting around doing nothing wasn’t helping him in the slightest.

“They’re just headaches.”

Jack knew that the General saw right through him.

“I heard that they aren’t just any headaches, Jack. Debilitating, I believe is the word that Doctor Fraiser used. She said there was one instance where you threw up the pain medication that she’d given you and she had to treat you using an IV.”

He never should have called Janet after the incident at his house. He should have just powered through the pain.

“That was days ago and it hasn’t happened since,” Jack said through gritted teeth. “I’ve had headaches before and wasn’t grounded then.”

General Hammond sighed and leaned forward with his elbows on his desk and hands clasped.

“I think we both know that these aren’t regular headaches.”

Jack couldn’t voice his agreement, but they both knew Hammond was right. There was nothing normal about the blinding headaches he’d been having whenever he tried to dig too deep for memories he was supposed to have.

“You will be allowed off-world if, and only if, Major Carter requires your presence in the control room of the dome on P3X-289 or if the headaches cease for an extended period of time and you pass both a physical and psychological assessment.”

He’d be much more likely to be able to convince Sam than get these headaches to stop, so that would have to be his plan for tomorrow, regardless of whether she wanted to speak with him or not.

“I might never get these memories back,” Jack admitted.

It had been almost a week since returning from that planet and all Jack had to show for it was a trail of migraines and an overall feeling of disorientation.

“I know.” General Hammond didn’t look happy about it and Jack wasn’t either. “We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.”

General Hammond closed the file folder he had in front of him and pushed it to the side of his desk. Normally, Jack would ask if he was dismissed, but it looked like the General still had more to say.

He waited while Hammond found the words.

“Jack, if the memories don’t return, we may also want to discuss a medical discharge.”

“Yes, sir.”

It didn’t surprise him, but it also wasn’t what he wanted to hear.

General Hammond leaned back in his chair.

“I know that there have been times in the past where you have hinted at an interest in retirement.”

Hammond said the words delicately, as though there were layers to the conversation that Jack should be picking up.

“Do you mean after Ba’al?”

Jack’s imprisonment and torture by the System Lord was something he still didn’t like to think about, but he’d recovered about as well as someone could after going through that experience. He wasn’t about to let it stop him from going through the Stargate.

Hammond pursed his lips and Jack could tell he wasn’t happy to be having this conversation in the first place.

“And other occasions,” Hammond finally said, “for what I believe were more personal reasons.”

Jack couldn’t remember considering retirement in the past several years outside of that experience with Ba’al, but when Hammond said it, it sounded right.

“As I advised before,” the General continued, “it was unlikely that you would be granted retirement given your value at the SGC. However, a medical discharge if necessary would not be denied.”

Jack got the impression that Hammond was telling him about a loophole, but he had no idea what he’d need that type of loophole for. The job wasn’t usually pleasant, but he felt like he did a lot of good out there and he enjoyed exploring the universe. Plus, he had already saved the planet a few times. They needed him.

“What personal reasons?” Jack asked.

“We shouldn’t go into this now.”

“What personal reasons?” he repeated.

Jack wanted to know what was so important that he considered retirement again. When he took early retirement before, it was because he was still a mess after Charlie. Jack wasn’t the type of guy who liked to take an easy out. He believed in honor and duty and all that jazz. It didn’t make sense that he would try to retire for personal reasons, not unless something happened on the scale of Charlie dying from Jack’s own weapon.

“Jack, it’s best if we don’t talk about this now. Not with your current medical condition.”

“I’m fine,” he insisted.

If General Hammond didn’t want to tell him, then Jack’s personal reasons were tied somehow to the members of SG-1. One particular member of SG-1, if he had to hazard a guess.

What the hell kind of situation had he gotten himself into?

I shot her, twice.

His own voice rang through his head, admitting to something he didn’t remember.

Jack had a brief flash of aiming a zat at Sam and firing two times.

He heard Hammond’s voice say, “We may have to make some difficult choices. I know that Major Carter means a great deal to you.”

He saw vitals flatlining on a monitor, just like when Charlie died.

None of that made sense. It never happened. People died when you shot them twice with a zat and unless all of this was a simulation, Sam was alive and well.

Maybe she wasn’t alive. Maybe she was dead. Maybe she was a figment of his imagination.

His chest clenched at the thought of her dead by his own hand.

If only he could remember.

The pain returned with a vengeance.

“Shit.”

This was why he didn’t try to remember things. It hurt like hell.

Jack closed his eyes and bent over, trying to breath through the pain.

He heard General Hammond pick up the phone.

“Get Doctor Fraiser to my office immediately. Colonel O’Neill’s had another episode.”

Jack wanted to get up and brush this off and say that he was fine, but he couldn’t quite bring himself to do anything but curl over in the chair with his head in his hands while waves of pain ran through him.

This really wasn’t going to help his argument that he should be allowed back through the ‘gate, Jack thought, just before passing out.

Chapter Text

“SG-1, please report to the infirmary. SG-1 to the infirmary.”

Sam dropped her fork at the announcement over the intercom and it landed with a clank against her plate.

“What do you think that’s about?” Jonas asked.

The fact that Sam didn’t know what was going on only made her worry more.

“I believe that O’Neill’s health may be in jeopardy,” Teal’c said, standing up from the table and picking up his half-eaten tray of food.

“He looked fine when we saw him earlier today,” Jonas said.

Sam wasn’t sure if that was completely accurate. Jack had looked healthy, but he also looked upset. She wondered now if she had missed something because she was trying to reassert some distance between them.

She stood up and grabbed her tray.

“Let’s go, Jonas.”

He stood up and followed them to drop off their trays and head out the door.

“I’m not part of SG-1 anymore,” Jonas pointed out.

“Close enough,” Sam replied.

Lunch with Jonas and Teal’c had been fun up until they heard the announcement. Jonas had carried most of the conversation and Teal’c had been shockingly verbose when speaking of Ry’ac, Bra’tac, and his own extended recovery from a staff blast now that he was reliant on tretonin. He even answered one of Jonas’ questions with two sentences instead of one.

Jonas spoke a lot about how things were in Kelowna, and although he tried to put a positive spin on things and didn’t go into his frustrations and troubles the way he had with her before, she could tell that being back on his home world wasn’t what he’d been hoping for. He joked around about what Earth customs he wished he could bring back and how he missed having a weather channel while he was home.

In a way, it felt almost like Jonas had never left. His presence was a great distraction from the problems with Jack’s memory.

Or rather...it had been a great distraction right up until they were called to the infirmary. Sam didn’t run, even though she was tempted to, but the three of them rushed down there at a faster pace than they usually walked through the halls of the SGC.

Daniel met them at the infirmary entrance.

“Do you know what happened?” he asked as they pushed through the doors.

“No clue,” Sam replied.

She spotted Janet speaking with General Hammond, but she didn’t see Jack anywhere. She walked directly over to them.

“Where is he? What happened?” Sam asked, emotion leaking into the tone of her voice.

Janet looked over to the General and then back towards the group.

“Colonel O’Neill had an episode when speaking with General Hammond and passed out. He’s over there now, hooked up to an IV.”

Janet pointed to the far back corner of the infirmary, where the overhead lights were off and a privacy curtain had been pulled around a bed.

“Is he conscious?” Daniel asked. “Is he still dealing with the pain? I know after the last time -”

Sam turned to face Daniel.

“The last time? What last time?”

“I told you he was having headaches and that’s why he was staying on base. That’s why I suggested you bring over movies for him to watch.”

“You didn’t tell me it was something like this!”

She gestured towards the infirmary bed. There was a huge difference between someone having headaches and someone having headaches so bad they passed out.

“Major Carter.”

At the implied reprimand, Sam turned to face the General.

“Doctor Fraiser was trying to give us an update on Colonel O’Neill’s condition. He collapsed in my office fifteen minutes ago after trying to argue for a return to duty.”

Sam felt her stomach drop to the floor. This was worse than just losing his memories. The panic she’d been feeling ever since that last mission started tightening her chest. Jack was hurting and he needed her help and she couldn’t do a damn thing.

Teal’c placed a hand on her shoulder, as if he realized how much she would need his support.

“Is he awake?” Sam asked.

“Yes,” Janet said. “Thankfully he woke up a few minutes ago and one of the nurses is checking his vitals. He wasn’t disoriented, which I take as a positive sign.”

“Doctor Fraiser, what can you tell us about the progression of Colonel’ O’Neill’s illness?”

Janet looked briefly down at the chart before responding to the General’s question.

“At this point, we’re still not sure what’s going on. I can only treat the symptoms. I’ll continue giving him medication for the pain and inflammation, make sure he’s hydrated, force him to rest, but beyond that I’m at a loss. If it continues, I might recommend a course of antibiotic or antiviral medication to see if those might have any effect, but I’ve never seen anything like this.”

Sam knew that Janet, like her, hated when she didn’t have the answers.

“He seems to be having these episodes when he tries to remember any of the true versions of events for any of his memories that have been modified,” Janet continued. “I’m not sure if the range in severity and duration of symptoms is due to the memories he’s trying to access, how long it’s been since the incident on P3X-289, or some other factor.”

Sam told herself that this team was used to dealing with seemingly impossible problems and they’d all survived this far. They had to figure this out.

“Maybe we should try to get a list of every time his headaches have re-occurred and what he was trying to remember.”

“We could try. He said the last incident happened after he looked at an SG-1 team photo in his house.”

That didn’t narrow things down much, considering he could have been trying to remember anything with the four of them.

“General, you were talking to him when he passed out,” Jonas said. “Do you have any idea what he might have been trying to remember?”

General Hammond nodded.

“We were discussing the fact that Colonel O’Neill may need to accept a medical discharge if the situation does not improve.”

“No!”

For a second, Sam was worried that she’d spoken her thoughts out loud, but the shout had come from Daniel.

“That’s completely unfair,” Daniel continued. “Even if he can’t get his memories back, once the headaches are gone he’d still be able to do his job.”

No one pointed out that the headaches might not go away. Sam didn’t want to entertain that possibility.

“Doctor Jackson -”

“General, you let me go on a mission even when my memories weren’t back and Jack remembers a hell of a lot more than I did!”

“Doctor Jackson, as you very well remember, there were special circumstances to consider in that instance. You also were not dealing with physical pain at the same time. The discussion of a medical discharge is no judgment on Colonel O’Neill’s skills.”

Sam wasn’t sure how a medical discharge would relate to anything other that Jack’s skills. It would basically be saying that he couldn’t do the job.

Then Jonas spoke up.

“General Hammond, if your conversation prompted him to try to remember something that made him pass out, I’m guessing it wasn’t talking about a medical discharge unless you’ve had another conversation about that with him related to SG-1 before. Was there anything else you talked about that would have caused him to try to remember even when he knew the possible effects?”

Hammond briefly glanced at Sam before responding.

“He’s hinted a few times in the past that he might be open to retirement. I told him that if he actually wanted out, the Powers That Be would be far more likely to accept a medical discharge given his value to the program.”

“He never mentioned wanting to retire,” Sam said in disbelief.

She was shocked. It felt like she should have known if Jack was considering that possibility. The fight against the Goa’uld was so important to them - and so personal for their team - that she was taken aback that he would take the General’s temperature on the topic without talking to the rest of the team first.

“You think he was trying to remember why he thought about retiring before?” Jonas asked.

“It’s a possibility.”

“Did O’Neill remember?” Teal’c asked.

“No,” Janet replied. “Or at least he doesn’t really remember anything pertinent now. Colonel O’Neill said he had a vague memory of discharging a weapon, but that’s it. He couldn’t recall any other details.”

A memory of using a weapon, if it was related to his experiences with the members of SG-1, could have related to just about any mission they’d been on. It didn’t exactly narrow things down or even confirm if that vague clip of a memory was connected to the three of them at all.

“Do you know why?” Daniel asked. “I mean, why he’d considered retirement in the past? I know that he retired before after Charlie and Abydos, but he never mentioned anything since then.”

Once again, the General looked at Sam before responding.

“He had personal reasons that we didn’t discuss. As you all know, working here at the SGC has its challenges.”

The group was silent and she knew that they were all drawing their own conclusions.

If it hurt Jack to try to remember those reasons for wanting to retire, it had to relate to SG-1. It had to be related to Daniel, Teal’c, or herself.

There had been a handful of times when she’d seriously considered resigning her commission. After Jolinar, after her time as Thera, and after Jack returned from that moon he’d been stranded on with Maybourne.

Sam didn’t know his reasons for considering retirement from the Air Force, but if she had to guess, at least one of them might have had to do with her.

She wished Jack would’ve told her at the time, but they’d never been great at communicating when the topic wasn’t work-related.

“So what now?” she asked.

“We keep trying,” Janet said.

Sam looked at the group around her and knew that every single one of them would do as much as possible to try to heal Jack. She just hoped they figured it out in time.

“Major, you and the rest of SG-1 are still cleared to return to P3X-289 tomorrow at 0800. Doctor Lee tells me that the generator has continued to maintain the strength of the dome and we’ve finished transferring the last of the refugees. There’s adequate room on the Stargate schedule now for a flexible return time.”

“Thank you, sir,” she told General Hammond, her mind already racing to figure out everything she needed to do on that planet the next day. “I’ll need to interface with the system this time.”

As dangerous as it might be, she wouldn’t be able to help Jack at all unless she could identify the update that had been sent to the links before his memories had been erased.

“Understood, Major. Be as cautious as you can and do as much work as you can back on the planet. If we do need to bring any of that code back to base, I want it isolated on devices that can’t connect to our network.”

“Yes, sir.”

Sam felt like she was under even more pressure now that Jack’s symptoms had taken a turn for the worse, but she was glad that General Hammond had okayed the mission.

“I think we should bring the entire contents of the library back to Earth,” Daniel mentioned. “In addition to hopefully providing some answers for Jack’s condition, I think we could learn a lot from the books and documents. Plus, it would be good to give them back to the refugees after they relocate.”

“I agree, Doctor Jackson.” Hammond looked around at the group. “I need to head to a briefing for SG-6. We’ll do our pre-mission briefing at 1800 hours. Doctor Fraiser, I’d like you to attend as well to advise us on any updates on the Colonel’s medical condition.”

“Yes, sir,” Janet said.

After the General left, Daniel asked if Jack could have any visitors.

“You can visit him one at a time, but don’t stay long and don’t reference any previous memories. I don’t want him triggering any side effects while he’s still recovering.”

Teal’c went first and then Daniel, while she prepped Jonas on the plan for the next day and Janet attended to other patients.

Eventually, it was her turn to go talk to Jack.

She pulled back the curtain and stepped inside, more nervous than she thought she’d be.

Jack was sitting up, a pillow supporting his back, and he looked more pale than she was used to.

“Hi, sir. Are you okay?”

He turned to her and she could tell, in the extended pause, that he was choosing his words more carefully than normal.

“So this is what it takes for you to want to talk to me?”

She was used to Jack being this direct in the field, but not with personal matters.

“I -”

“Come on, Sam, we both know that you’ve been avoiding me.”

She couldn’t help her slight flinch as he said her first name. He said her name like that and she thought of things she wasn’t supposed to think about.

“I haven’t been avoiding -”

“Don’t lie to me, Carter. For all we know, I may be on my deathbed. I at least deserve the truth.”

His comment was flip and harsh. If he remembered what they’d been through together - that she’d sat beside him as he was dying before - he would never have used that to score points in a fight. He was upset she’d been avoiding him and he was baiting her.

Unfortunately, she couldn’t stop herself from taking the bait.

“If you’d let me get word in edgewise, then maybe we could actually have a conversation!”

All of the sudden, it hit her that she’d snapped at him in the infirmary where anyone could hear her. She wasn’t used to losing her cool like this. He wasn’t playing by the same rules anymore and she was already stretched to a breaking point trying to find an elusive solution to the problem.

Jack smiled, and she realized that he’d been provoking her on purpose to get a reaction.

“You shouldn’t yell at a dying man, Carter,” he teased.

Sam froze, his previous deathbed comment finally sinking in.

“That’s not funny!”

Jack shrugged and Sam deflated.

“Sir, Janet didn’t say anything about your symptoms potentially being that bad.”

“You know as well as I do that she has no idea what’s going on here. This time was worse than last time. It might keep going in that direction. I’ll get kicked out of the SGC with a medical discharge...and that might end up being the best case scenario. If the pain gets worse, I mean…” He closed his eyes and took a breath. “Frasier doesn’t know how to fix it.”

He didn’t say it, but she heard you don’t know how to fix it either.

“You can’t think that way,” she said, grabbing his hand and holding it tight, surprising him into opening his eyes. “And I swear if you’re doing this just to make me feel guilty about avoiding you over the past couple days, you might actually die because I’ll kill you.”

He laughed and ran his thumb back and forth over her hand.

“Knew I could get you to admit it. Want to tell me what that was all about?”

It was dangerous holding his hand like this in the infirmary. She knew that. The last time she had, he asked whether they were in a relationship and she hadn’t known what to say that would be the truth.

Then when he comforted her a couple days ago, she so badly wanted to sink into his point of view. She wanted that too much and he wasn’t himself so she forced herself to stay away.

“I wouldn’t know where to start,” she told him.

She had just felt overwhelmed and not strong enough to stay close to him and still keep that necessary distance.

Sam wasn’t going to run away this time. She didn’t have the energy anymore to stay away from him when he needed her.

“How bad is it really, sir?”

Jack’s gaze was serious and she could tell that underneath all of the teasing and bravado, something about this last incident had shaken him.

“Most of the time it really is fine. It’s just that the headaches...it’s like with that Ancient repository except I’m not learning a new language or inventing anything cool. And we all know where that train would’ve ended up if it weren’t for the Asgard.”

It was sad how Jack remembered having his brain overwritten, but he didn’t remember how he’d saved her with his plans to fix the DHD while their team had been burning alive on that planet with two suns. He didn’t remember how relieved she’d been when he walked back through the Stargate after meeting the Asgard. He didn’t remember how they’d all gone out to O’Malley’s to celebrate afterwards, drinking beer in a corner booth while Daniel peppered Jack with barely veiled questions about the Asgard.

Jack’s brain didn’t hold any of the good parts.

“You’re not dying,” she assured him. “I won’t let you.”

“I might be missing a lot of memories, but even I know that you can’t control everything, Sam. Nobody can.”

Jack squeezed her hand.

“Who knows? Maybe I’ll be fine,” he added. “Stranger things have happened.”

“Just don’t try to remember anything else,” Sam said, aiming for a light-hearted tone and almost making it.

Jack looked at her and the heavy weight of his gaze made her feel overheated.

“Then don’t look at me like there are things I need to remember.”

This was why she tried to keep those barriers up between them. Because if she wasn’t careful, Jack O’Neill could so easily break those barriers down.

Something he said was sinking into her brain, slowly like molasses. It was something important.

“Sam?”

Jack tugged on her hand, pulling her attention back to him.

“The Asgard!” she blurted. “I don’t know why I didn’t think of it before. I should’ve thought of it.”

They helped fix Jack’s brain when he was in trouble before. They could fix whatever was wrong with him again.

“You’re a genius,” Sam told Jack, placing a hand on his shoulder and leaning down towards him. She kissed him swiftly on the cheek, barely brushing his skin. “I have to talk to General Hammond about contacting the Asgard.”

“Happy to brainstorm anytime,” Jack said with a crooked grin when she pulled away.

She was halfway to General Hammond’s office when she realized that in her excitement over discovering a potential solution, she’d kissed Jack O’Neill. Sort of.

That was a hell of a one-eighty from ignoring him...and definitely unprofessional.

Sam just added it to the list of things she’d done wrong lately that she’d have to fix later.

She had some aliens to get in touch with.

Chapter Text

“Sam left in a hurry.”

Jack looked over to where Jonas Quinn had just taken the seat at his bedside and tried his best to wipe the smile off his face. He couldn’t quite manage it.

Was this what Jonas felt like all the time? If so, he might start getting jealous of the other man’s frequent smiles.

“Yeah, she needs to place a long distance call to the Asgard.”

Sam Carter had kissed him.

Jack wasn’t even sure if she realized she’d done it. It was brief and he barely got to enjoy it, but he could still feel the soft press of her lips against his left cheek and the way her smile lit up when she had that idea about contacting the Asgard.

Sam was, technically he supposed, his second in command...even if he didn’t remember. He shouldn’t feel quite so happy about the fact that she’d kissed him as naturally as she’d held his hand that first night in the infirmary.

Jack sort of wished it was a real kiss, but he’d take what he could get.

He just liked Sam, in spite of her singular focus on fixing his brain and tendency to disappear whenever their conversations got a bit too personal. Maybe he liked her more than he was supposed to, but there wasn’t much he could do about that.

If the headaches didn’t stop, he might have to take a medical discharge anyway and then this would all be a moot point.

Normal headaches would have been fine, but Janet was right...what he was dealing with was debilitating and had the potential to stay that way or get worse. He couldn’t risk passing out like that on an off-world mission. He couldn’t lead a team if he was a liability and desk duty didn’t hold any appeal.

“Colonel?”

Jonas was looking at him expectantly and Jack realized he missed whatever Jonas had said.

“Hmm?”

“Do you think they’ll be able to help?” Jonas asked again. “The Asgard?”

Jack shrugged.

“Who the hell knows?”

The last time he’d seen the Asgard, it was during that whole cloning debacle where one of them hadn’t so much helped as kidnapped him and messed with his life. Thor swooped in at the last minute to deal with Loki’s mess, but it was just for damage control.

As much as Jack hated to admit it, the Asgard had been acting a lot more like the Tok’ra lately. Only reaching out when they needed help and being suspiciously incommunicado most of the time when Earth could use a helping hand.

“We’ll figure it out, you know,” Jonas said. “It’s not like this is the first time we’ve been in a tight corner.”

Jonas was right, of course, but it also wasn’t the first time they had to deal with bad consequences. Even if there was a potential solution, it could just make things worse.

“I could just take the medical discharge, move away, and never think about SG-1 again.”

Jonas shook his head, with an amused smile on his face.

“You could never do it. You want those memories back too bad. You’re too curious. Look at what happened today, Colonel.”

One of the problems with Jonas was that he was too observant sometimes.

“I liked it better when you were scared of me.”

When Jonas had first come to Earth after a dangerous lab explosion during treaty conversations with Kelowna, Jack thought the man was misguided and naive. He’d been filled with nationalistic “us vs. them” propaganda.

Jonas made the right decision in the end and brought naquadria back to Earth, but when Hammond started letting him go on missions, the man’s enthusiasm needed to be tempered so he didn’t get himself killed.

So yeah, Jack thought it worked better when Jonas was a little scared of him.

Jonas leaned back in his chair and folded his arms.

“I like it better when you’re not trying to intimidate me. You know, you didn’t exactly like me before, Colonel O’Neill. We probably can’t go into it because it involves - ”

“Dorothy, Tin Man, and the Scarecrow?”

He knew that Jonas would catch the reference, based on the time he’d spent confined to the base before they started working together. There were months where he was desperate for anything to entertain himself, including catching up on Earth culture.

Jonas laughed. “Really?”

“Maybe it’s not a perfect analogy,” Jack admitted. “Have you ever had someone tell you not to think about something?”

He leaned back against the wall.

“It becomes the only thing that you want to think about?” Jonas guessed.

“Yes!”

It was a pain in the ass. Jack wanted to know what those memories were. The need to know was starting to make experiences he’d been confident of the week before feel shaky at best.

“We are going to do our best to help,” Jonas said.

Jack rolled his eyes.

“Yeah.”

He should feel glad that everyone wanted to help. He still wasn’t sure why the continued insistence that they were doing everything they could to find a solution kept rubbing him the wrong way. Maybe because it made him feel like a placeholder until the real Colonel O’Neill came back. Maybe because he was here sitting on his ass while everyone else was working on fixing a problem.

“So how are things back home?” he asked, desperate for a change of subject.

Jonas’ smile shifted just a little, as if it was held in place by force of will.

“Not meeting expectations. I’m not going to last long on the Joint Council. Trying to figure out what I do next. I doubt they’ll want me back overseeing research either.”

Jack was surprised. As far as he remembered, Jonas had been practically begged to return to Kelowna by the Ambassador and her counterparts in the two other Langaran countries.

“What happened?”

For the first time Jack could remember, Jonas was reticent. He just sat there for a few seconds, looking around the infirmary, and Jack wondered if he was going to answer at all. Eventually, Jonas returned his gaze to Jack.

“Before I came here, I was mentioned in the newspaper every once in a while because of the position I held. They always liked quotes from advisors to the High Minister.”

Jonas paused again, but Jack knew that wasn’t the end of the story. It was just the prologue.

“I felt proud of that, you know?” Jonas said. “I didn’t want to take any credit, but it was nice to know that the country was aware that I was doing my part. It felt like an acknowledgment that I was making a difference.”

“Sure,” Jack replied. “Makes sense.”

He’d never been the type of man who enjoyed attention for the actions he took, but he could understand how Jonas would feel differently. Academics tended to get a rush seeing their name sprinkled all over the place.

Jonas let out a sigh.

“Last week was the first time my name was ever in a headline in one of the major Kelownan newspapers. Jonas Quinn, it read, Revealed Langara’s Location.”

Anubis. This was all about how Anubis had forcefully pulled information from Jonas Quinn’s mind and used it to attack the man’s homeworld.

“Shit, Jonas. That’s -”

“There was a little subheader too: Can we trust Kelowna’s future to a traitor?”

Jack let out an audible breath. That was worse than he suspected.

There were only a handful of people on Langara who knew that Anubis got the planet’s location from Jonas Quinn and all of those people were in powerful positions.

“I always hated politics,” Jack said carefully. “The people who want power are usually the worst option for any sort of leadership position. They’re greedy and selfish and you can’t trust them.”

Jonas gave a jaded sort of laugh.

“I figured that part out a little late.”

Jack wasn’t surprised that someone on or close to the Langaran Joint Ruling Council would pull that shit. He’d considered that planet a political disaster since the first time they made contact with it.

“You gonna fight to keep the job?” Jack asked.

Jonas wouldn’t be the first politician to ever weather a scandal. It could be done. It was just a question of whether or not Jonas wanted to take that approach.

Jonas didn’t answer the question directly.

“I wanted to do good. I thought I could help my people.” Jonas looked down. “I don’t know...I hoped that I could be a good leader.”

It occurred to Jack that he wasn’t used to a pessimistic Jonas Quinn and he didn’t really like it.

“I’m sure you would have been a great leader, if they’d let you be one. If the Joint Council is a shitshow, then figure out another way to do good. You’re not responsible for all of your planet’s problems, Jonas, and you can only help people who want to be helped.”

Jonas leaned back in the chair and crossed his arms.

“You know, I’ll miss this when you remember. You never really wanted to talk before...at least not with me.”

Jack wasn’t sure how to respond to that. Even Jonas was comparing him to who he used to be before. Regardless of what happened in the past, Jack doubted that he disliked Jonas as much as the kid seemed to think he did. He scratched at the back of his neck while Jonas waited for a response.

“Don’t get used to it,” he eventually replied.

Jonas laughed and stood up, explaining that he needed to head out, but hoped that Jack felt better soon.

Jack didn’t bother mentioning that he felt fine at the moment. Who knew how long that would last? He hadn’t just been trying to provoke Sam into a reaction with his deathbed comments. The side effect of trying to remember had been a lot worse this time and as smart as all of the people around him were, Jack was well aware that they had no idea what to do.

It could get worse.

Jack watched Jonas start to walk away and then realized there was one more thing he wanted to say.

“Hey, Jonas.”

Jonas turned back towards him.

“I suspect Daniel’s still getting his bearings from the whole being dead for a year thing that he told me about,” Jack said. “And even I can tell that Carter’s really off her game. You and Teal’c need to keep an eye on them tomorrow.”

Jonas nodded. “We will.”

“That also means you can’t be the one getting in trouble.”

A slow, genuine smile spread across Jonas’ face.

“I knew you cared.”

Jack would never admit any such thing.

“Don’t get yourself killed. It’s a lot of paperwork.”

“It’s an abandoned planet. I think we’ll be fine.”

“Just don’t let your guard down,” Jack replied. “Getting me a few memories back isn’t worth any of you getting hurt.”

“We’ll be fine,” Jonas reiterated, before leaving to meet up with Daniel and discuss the language they used on ‘289.

Jack sat in the infirmary for hours, bored out of his mind and desperate enough for entertainment that he read through several issues of People magazine that one of the nurses had laying around.

Janet finally let Jack leave after he spent most of the day there. He could tell that she was tempted to keep him overnight for observation, but the fact was that nothing had changed in any of his test results and he’d be on base if anything went wrong again. After promising to go to bed early and report back to the infirmary if he started to have any symptoms, however minor, Jack left the infirmary and went to grab some dinner.

Jack added the healthiest looking food available to his tray, not wanting to give the doc any additional reasons to lecture him, and looked around the room.

He spotted Dave Dixon and Al Reynolds sitting at a table and decided to go over and sit with them.

“This seat empty?”

Dixon gestured for him to sit down. “All yours, Jack.”

“You just missed Ferretti,” Reynolds said. “We were saying that we should get a poker night together if you’re interested.”

A poker night sounded nice and normal. It was exactly what he needed.

“Count me in.”

“We’ll try to pull something together soon. I’m going to ask some of the other COs too.”

“Might have to wait until I’m allowed off base again,” Jack admitted reluctantly.

He really wished he hadn’t screwed himself over by triggering those two unbearable migraines. He could be at home watching The Simpsons tonight and instead he was stuck here in this concrete prison for the foreseeable future.

Reynolds shrugged. “A lot of missions have been on hold because of the relocation efforts so we’ll be playing catch up for a while. I doubt we’d be able to get something on the calendar in the next week or two anyway.”

“I heard you got your brain scrambled again on ‘289, Jack,” Dixon said.

That was one way of putting it.

“Yeah, lucky me,” Jack replied. “Missing some memories and still have to show up at the office.”

Reynolds chuckled and Dixon smirked.

“Weird job we have,” Dixon said. “Hey, did I mention you owe me fifty bucks?”

The question felt familiar and tugged at his memory, but Jack brushed the feeling aside and shook his head.

“Nice try,” he replied lightly. “I didn’t lose my memories of you, asshole.”

Dinner was nice and relaxed and filled with more laughter than Jack would have expected. It was exactly what he needed. They could talk about things that had nothing to do with SG-1. There were no mentions of Daniel or Sam or Teal’c. He didn’t even have a hint of a headache.

Hanging out with Reynolds and Dixon, he didn’t feel the pressure to be Jack O’Neill of SG-1. He could just be Jack O’Neill.

Chapter Text

By 0800, they still didn’t have a response from the Asgard. Sam had been hoping for a miracle, but it wasn’t going to be that easy. It never was.

She loaded the last of her equipment into the motorized cart that they were going to take to the dome. There wasn’t much - a couple laptops, a power converter so she could plug it into the generator when it ran low, and a few external hard drives - but they planned to fill the cart with content from the library and bring it back to the SGC.

Sam’s original plan of downloading the entire system code and transporting it back to the SGC hit a snag when she realized how powerful and dangerous the AI was. They couldn’t risk connecting anything that Sam brought back to the SGC’s computer systems.

It could end up like like that situation with the entity from P9C-372 where it took over the entire SGC mainframe...and her own body.

She still had nightmares sometimes about being trapped in a cold, lifeless void screaming out for anyone to hear her.

Sam wasn’t going to risk something like that happening again. She was going to work in the dome until she isolated the update that had been published to the links and only bring the necessary code back to Earth to study.

Getting this done felt more urgent today than it had been before. Jack scared the hell out of her with all of that gallow’s humor in the infirmary.

“Hello, Major Carter.”

Sam looked over and saw Teal’c standing there, one hand holding his staff weapon and the other holding the hood of his red protective suit.

“Hi Teal’c. Ready for today?”

“I am prepared to guard the MALP and the dome perimeter.”

It almost sounded like sarcasm, but Sam couldn’t quite tell.

“I know it’s not the most interesting mission for you, but I do appreciate it.”

Teal’c inclined his head. “Whether the mission is interesting is far less important than its effectiveness.”

“Yeah, you’re right. I just hope that we find what we need.”

Before Teal’c could respond, Daniel and Jonas arrived in the ‘gate room. They were both dressed in their red protective gear and Jonas was carrying a small, sealed cooler.

“Hi guys, ready to go?” Daniel asked.

“Just waiting on you two.”

“I’m really excited to see the dome,” Jonas said. “Daniel was telling me all about it. The technology needed to create something like that must be amazing.”

Jonas added the cooler to the cart, away from the electronics.

“What’s that?” Sam asked.

“Food and drinks,” he explained. “Doctor Fraiser and General Hammond thought it best we didn’t eat or drink anything produced on the planet.”

That made sense and she was glad they’d thought of it. Otherwise, the entire team would be starving a few hours from now and they’d have to risk the options in the village or come back early.

Daniel put the cart’s lid in place and attached it securely so that the toxic atmosphere wouldn’t reach any of their supplies.

Sam looked up to the control room, where General Hammond and Sergeant Harriman were waiting.

“We’re all set, General.”

General Hammond nodded and Sergeant Harriman started the dialing sequence.

They’d already sent the MALP through an hour before to double check the atmosphere and get the device in position for communication with the SGC. Based on the readings that Walter had acquired, the dome itself had actually expanded by approximately ten meters since the last time they were on the planet, which everyone thought was a good sign.

The event wormhole settled and Teal’c maneuvered the motorized cart into position on the ramp.

“I expect hourly check-ins, Major Carter.”

Sam looked back up at the control room window.

“Yes, sir.”

General Hammond nodded. “SG-1, you have a go.”

The team put on the protective hoods and started running the oxygen tanks in their suits. Teal’c moved through the wormhole with the cart and the rest of the team followed one by one.

Once they were on the other side, she calculated the direction towards the dome. She didn’t need any of them getting lost on the way. They started walking with Teal’c in front, Daniel and Jonas in the middle, and Sam pulling up the rear.

The red toxic fog was just as unsettling as the last two times she’d been here.

“Spooky,” Jonas commented.

“Yeah,” Daniel agreed.

They were all more than happy to get out of their protective gear once they were inside the dome and enjoy the air and blue sky, as artificial as it might be.

Teal’c stayed by the MALP and Daniel took over the controls for the motorized cart so they could bring it into the village with them.

It was a ghost town. When Sam had been here the last time, there had been just enough people around, with SG-2 and the scientists, that the village didn’t feel empty. Now it did. She didn’t like the feeling.

“That one’s new, isn’t it?” Daniel asked, pointing at a nearby building.

Sam looked over where he was pointing. She thought she remembered that lane dead-ending with a brick wall. Now, there was a small home with a door, windows, and a flower garden.

“Yeah, I think it is.”

“New?” Jonas asked. “Since the last time you were here?”

The dome had expanded and there was at least one new building. Sam wondered what else the artificial intelligence might be doing with that additional power they provided.

“Be careful around here,” Sam said. “The AI can rearrange basically anything on its own.”

She peered around them, but didn’t notice any other changes.

“When we stayed here during the original mission, the house Jack and Teal’c stayed in completely disappeared overnight and the people who lived there had no idea,” Daniel elaborated. “The system just moved them to another building and they thought they’d always been there.”

Jonas’ eyes were wide and he spun in a circle looking at the village surrounding them. “That’s just...wow.”

Wow wasn’t exactly the word that Sam would use.

“Let’s get to work.”

Daniel parked the cart by the control room first and they helped her bring the supplies down to the underground room.

“Here,” Daniel handed her a thermos. “There’s coffee in there and some sandwiches, water, and power bars in the cooler whenever you want to grab them. We’ll leave it here with you.”

Sam knew that they were leaving the cooler with her so they’d have another excuse to come check on her, but she didn’t mind. She had other things to worry about.

“Thanks.”

She picked up one of the laptops, put it on the console with her thermos, and looked around the cavernous white room, feeling suddenly overwhelmed.

Sam watched Daniel and Jonas each grab a thermos from the cooler before sealing it back up.

“We’re going to get started going through all the texts in the old library building and loading them onto the cart,” Jonas said. “One of us will be back in about an hour to help you with translation.”

Sam nodded. She wouldn’t need their help yet anyway.

Before she could even bother with translating anything, she needed to figure out how to connect to the main system instead of just the reporting output like she did last time. She’d also have to analyze the data structure and get a better idea of how everything worked before she knew where to find the code for the updates. She had enough knowledge from working with Pallan on an interface between their systems and from dealing with a variety of alien computers to be able to get that far on her own.

As Jonas and Daniel walked up the stairs, Sam sat down at the console in front of her laptop. She opened her thermos to take a sip of piping hot coffee and then got to work.

By the time Jonas stopped by an hour later, Sam had made some progress, but not nearly as much as she’d hoped for.

“Brought you a present,” he said with a grin as he placed an unbound stack of yellowed pages on top of the console.

“What’s this?”

She grabbed the pile and started flipping through it.

“Partial tech manual for the system. Daniel and I found it under a bunch of boring legal documents on a back shelf. We only went through it enough to figure out its purpose and that it’s incomplete, but it should still be some help.”

Sam let out a sigh of relief.

“That’s amazing. I was making some progress figuring out how the data and programs within the system were partitioned, but this could be a big help.”

Jonas pulled up a chair and they started going through the document. It took a couple hours and it didn’t give them everything they needed, but it helped Sam and Jonas figure out not only where both the update program and data storage were on the system, but also the best way to access them.

Once they had that sorted, Jonas went back to help Daniel and Sam lost herself in the challenge in front of her.

She was able to use the information from the manual to modify the interface she’d already developed on her laptop so that she could access information using the keyboard she was used to instead of having to muddle through using the alien keyboard on the console.

The display on her monitor still showed the alien language, but at least the numerical values and a few scattered words related to what she’d previously done were translated.

She got into the zone after that - digging down into the code to try and figure out the system’s secrets.

The database was huge. It would have to be to store all of the information about the environment inside the dome, the materials it created and moved, and the history of the planet and its people. It would take years to go through it all and, even now, it was changing and adapting. Sam wondered if they’d see any more architectural adjustments before they left.

She was just glad that the dome and environment were holding steady so they didn’t have to worry about a threat there.

Sam was careful while she looked into the program that initiated the updates of the link devices. She didn’t want to trigger any retaliatory action by the AI. The program had millions of lines of code. She wouldn’t be able to analyze it all here on her own, so she started to prep the transfer of the program code onto external hard drives she brought with that would be isolated from the SGC network.

It was a long and arduous process.

Daniel and Jonas alternated stopping by every hour to update her on new information they’d discovered in the historical texts and help with tricky translations, but for the most part they focused on sorting through everything in the library and packing up the most important items into the cart. There was too much to bring everything back, so they’d have to send a retrieval team back later for the rest.

At one point, Daniel showed up to grab food out of the cooler for himself, Teal’c, and Jonas.

Sam looked up. “Lunch already?”

Daniel tilted his head and gave her a weird look.

“Dinner, Sam.”

She looked down at the console and noticed a half-eaten sandwich next to her thermos. She barely even remembered eating it.

“Oh yeah. Sorry. I kind of got sucked into all of this.”

Daniel nodded. He understood when she got pulled into a project to the exclusion of everything else, because he did it too. He worked late just as often as she did.

“Jonas and I are going to eat over by Teal’c. It’s still light out. Want to join us?” He finished putting sandwiches, snacks, and water bottles into a bag. “It’ll be like a picnic.”

She looked back at the computer.

“There’s so much to do.”

Daniel didn’t let her get away with the excuse.

“You can take twenty minutes. You need a break. Get some fresh air.”

Sam chuckled. “Fresh air...yeah.”

This entire place was artificial, right down to the sunny sky and the air they were breathing.

In the end, she agreed to join them for dinner, if only because she would have wasted those twenty minutes arguing with Daniel if she refused. Sam ate her sandwich, engaged in minimal conversation while her brain continued to work on the problem in the control room, and then headed back as soon as she was done.

As soon as she finished moving the program code over to the external hard drives, she started to search for the updates themselves. She did her best to narrow it down by day, but there were multiple updates per day and sometimes per hour and each one was thousands of lines of code.

It was painstaking work and she lost track of time.

“Hey, Sam.”

She looked up from the computer and saw Daniel at the bottom of the control room stairs, holding the railing.

“Hi, Daniel. How are things in the library?”

As he walked over, she grabbed her insulated thermos to take a sip of coffee.

It was cold. That was weird. It should have stayed hot for at least ten hours.

“We’re all packed up. Jonas and I filled up as much of the cart as we could and still have room for your equipment. I think we should probably head back.”

Sam shook her head.

“I need two more hours, Daniel.”

She needed at least two more hours to finish identifying and transferring the likely updates. Sam wished she could look into the database too and see if it backed up any of the memories it stole from people and if they could restored. She didn’t have time for that, but she needed at least two hours to finish the bare minimum. She had the link program copied and now just just need to get the correct updates transferred so they could translate them back at the SGC.

“We’ve been here for twelve already. We still have an hour’s walk back to the ‘gate. You need to go home and rest.”

Sam kept typing and scrolling through the code. She hadn’t slept well all week, but could rest when they got back.

“General Hammond said that our return time was flexible,” she reminded him.

“He didn’t mean we should stay here overnight and you know it.”

“I need two more hours,” Sam said firmly. “I’m in charge of this mission and I say when we go.”

Daniel put a hand on her shoulder.

“You know, Sam, this isn’t like Edora. He’s not stuck on another planet this time. You don’t need to work yourself to the ground.”

Sam wanted to deny it, but Daniel’s accusation hit close. Maybe that’s why the anxiety in her chest felt so familiar. She’d felt it before.

“It’s not Edora,” Daniel repeated, “and it’s not Ba’al and it’s not Maybourne’s moon.”

“Teal’c told you.”

Daniel hadn’t been with them when Jack was tortured by Ba’al in an unknown location. Daniel also wasn’t there when Jack was lost after she foolishly let Maybourne steal her weapon.

During both of those occasions she’d cried on Teal’c’s shoulder.

“He did,” Daniel admitted. “He thought you might be like this. We’re worried about you.”

“I’m fine.”

“You and Jack use the exact same lines sometimes, you know?”

Sam let out a frustrated sigh.

“I thought you wanted me to hurry up. I need to get back to this and I can’t do that if you keep distracting me.”

Sam couldn’t think about those other times right now or she might lose it and she had to keep herself together. She had to focus on the work.

“I just wanted to remind you, so you can remind yourself, that Jack is on Earth and he’s safe and we’re going to figure this out,” Daniel said calmly. “This is different than those other times, even if it might not feel like it.”

Sam took a deep breath.

“I know, Daniel.”

Jack was safe and he was on Earth and even though it scared the hell out of her when he passed out yesterday, he was okay. He wasn’t lost or trapped or in enemy hands. It wasn’t life or death.

“I still need at least two hours,” she whispered. “Then we can go.”

Daniel squeezed her shoulder and nodded. “Okay, Sam. I’ll send Jonas back here to see if he can help speed things up.”

“Thank you.”

Chapter Text

“Where are they?” Jack asked, jumping off the last step to enter the control room.

General Hammond looked his way. The ‘gate technician on duty glanced over and then returned her attention to the screen in front of her. Jack couldn’t remember her name. Walter had been training her for a couple weeks. It was something alliterative with the letter S...Sally? Susan?

It didn’t really matter anyway.

“Where are they?” he repeated.

“How were your test results?” Hammond asked.

“No noticeable change in the values,” Jack said, quoting Doctor Fraiser. “Although I haven’t had to deal with a headache all day, which has been a delightful change of pace.”

Jack thought part of his lack of symptoms might have been the fact that Daniel, Teal’c, and Sam were gone all day. There were less opportunities for his symptoms to be triggered.

He figured they would have been back by now, though. He assumed they’d been back on base for hours, but then Janet told him SG-1 hadn’t returned yet when he stopped in to do his check-up before heading to bed.

“That’s good to hear,” Hammond replied. “And we’re expecting SG-1 any minute now. They radioed an hour and a half ago to say they were on their way back.”

They left at 0800. It was 2345 now. They’d been gone for almost sixteen hours on a toxic planet in a dome an hour away from the Stargate.

It made Jack nervous. They shouldn’t have been gone that long. He knew they’d been in a pre-mission briefing at 0700 and god only knows what time they woke up to get here in time for that.

The walk back to the gate should only take an hour, but they hadn’t dialed in yet.

“What’s taking them so long?” he wondered aloud.

He stared at the Stargate, with its closed iris, and watched closely for any sign of movement. It shouldn’t take an hour and a half to get from the dome to the Stargate.

“I’m sure they’re fine, Colonel. They’re bringing the cart back with them too. Jonas and Doctor Jackson probably have it filled to the brim with books.”

Hammond’s assurance didn’t make him feel any better.

“Heard anything from the Asgard yet?”

General Hammond shook his head. “Radio silence. We’ll still keep trying.”

“Yeah, sure,” Jack grumbled.

His entire life now was just sitting around and waiting. He knew he wasn’t handling it well. It would be different if he could spent this time at his cabin or even at home, but here on base he felt stuck.

Jack had spent the day alternating between going to the infirmary, doing light duty busywork for General Hammond, and flipping through channels on the TV that was still in his quarters.

He’d been beyond bored.

“Why did they stay so long?” he asked Hammond.

“Major Carter’s choice. I assume they made some progress. Doctor Jackson said they were getting somewhere.”

Jack frowned and looked back at the gate. They were on a dangerous planet with a potentially hostile AI controlling their main means of survival and too far from the gate. They were only there because of him.

“Long time if they weren’t planning on staying overnight,” he commented.

“Not your mission, Colonel.”

The problem was that it should have been. He should have been out there and instead four people he felt unexpectedly close to, regardless of whether or not he had years of memories of them, were taking risks on his behalf.

Before he could think too much about it, the Stargate started to move and the chevrons lit up one by one.

The technician looked at the screen. “It’s SG-1’s IDC.”

“Open the iris, Sergeant Stevens.”

Jack watched the iris rotate open and waited.

The motorized cart came through first, followed by Teal’c, who guided the machine down the ramp.

Jonas followed him and pulled off his protective hood, heading over to the motorized cart to remove the lid. There were black cases for electronics sitting on top of piles of books.

Jack’s eyes moved back towards the glowing blue event horizon.

Daniel and Sam came through the Stargate together. Her arm was around his neck and she was limping, bad.

“Oh, for cryin’ out loud.”

Jack ran down the stairs and into the ‘gate room. He barely heard General Hammond welcome the team back and set a time for the post-mission debrief.

“What the hell happened?”

Daniel was awkwardly helping Sam pull off her hood after dropping his to the floor. All four members of the team looked over at him.

“Didn’t I tell you to keep an eye on them and make sure nobody got hurt?” Jack yelled in Jonas and Teal’c’s direction.

“Colonel O’Neill, I -”

“Didn’t I tell you not to let your guard down?”

Jack knew that he was overreacting, but he couldn’t stop himself. Hell, no doubt Sam Carter had been injured worse on previous missions, probably when he’d been there.

“I’m fine,” Sam insisted. “Stop yelling at Jonas. I tripped when we were walking back to the ‘gate. I sprained my ankle. There was some debris and I didn’t see it and I fell.”

“It’s been a long day, Jack,” Daniel said as he continued to help Sam down the ramp. “We’re all a little tired, but nothing bad happened.”

Jack watched Sam yawn and reflexively put a hand over her mouth to muffle the sound. He wondered how late she’d been working last night and if she’d even gone home to sleep before the 0700 pre-mission briefing.

“Do you think you might’ve seen the debris if you’d left when you were still fully awake?” he asked, unable to keep the sarcasm out of his voice.

“I did what I needed to do to help save your ass,” Sam ground out.

She pulled her arm away from Daniel and gingerly put weight on her injured foot. Jack caught her slight grimace before she schooled her expression.

“What if your suit had been punctured when you fell? You could have died!”

Jack could tell by the shocked look on her face that she hadn’t considered that possibility. Unfortunately, she switched rapidly back to anger.

“You arrogant -”

“Um, guys,” Jonas interrupted. “Maybe it would be better to have this conversation elsewhere.”

“That would be wise,” Teal’c agreed.

The five of them walked to a storage room off the ‘gate room, tension apparent in their movements and anxious glances.

Teal’c shut the door and they all looked at each other. Finally, Sam spoke up.

“No, you all need to leave. This is between me and the Colonel.”

No one moved.

“We’re just going to talk,” Jack said.

He thought about calling the three of them overprotective, but even he realized the comment would have been hypocritical.

Finally, Daniel broke the moment with a sigh.

“I’ll tell Janet that you’ll be on your way soon,” Daniel said.

“We’ll get you some crutches,” Jonas added.

Teal’c didn’t bother to say anything before moving towards the door.

Sam’s eyes stayed locked with his. They were silent until the door shut behind Jonas, Daniel, and Teal’c.

The latch clicked and it was like someone pressed play on a scene that had been paused.

“Don’t call me out like that in the ‘gate room!”

Her eyes blazed fire. Jack took a step closer.

“Then don’t take unnecessary risks for me! You could have gone back tomorrow.”

“Sure,” Sam scoffed, “tell me that now, Mr. I’m on my deathbed.”

Jack flinched and ran a hand through his hair.

“You know I didn’t mean…”

He didn’t actually mean that he thought that he was in immediate danger of death. Sam knew that too. He just didn’t think she would appreciate him pointing out the distinction.

“You don’t understand,” he continued. “I’d rather die myself than lose you, Carter. Whatever is happening to me doesn’t matter enough to jeopardize your safety like that. Stop pushing yourself so goddamned much. I don’t blame you for the memory loss.”

Her eyes went wide.

“What did you say?” Sam asked, voice breathless.

“Just that you don’t need to risk yourself for me.” Jack didn’t know why she seemed so surprised. “I’m easily replaceable and I’m guessing you aren’t.”

She shook her head absently, as if she didn’t agree, but didn’t verbalize the thought. There was something unexpected about the way that she was looking at him, like she was really seeing him for the first time.

“You said that...before,” she whispered. “The whole thing about losing me.”

“I’m not surprised, if you do this type of thing a lot...running yourself ragged.”

She laughed and ducked her head.

“Weren’t we just fighting?” Jack asked, amused by the change in tone.

“I think we were being idiots.”

Jack shrugged. They probably were. “You were right. I shouldn’t have called you out in the ‘gate room.”

She leaned against one of the cabinets and lifted her foot to take the weight off.

“I shouldn’t have pushed myself as much as I did today either. Daniel gave me a whole speech about it too. He just did it without the audience.”

Jack grinned. “What do you expect? He’s a hell of a lot smarter than me.”

She smiled and let out a long, heavy breath.

Maybe they needed that blow-up to release some of the tension that had been floating around since ‘289. It felt like they were trying to find a new equilibrium and kept swinging too far in one direction or another, but they were getting closer to something that felt right.

“How have you been feeling?” Sam asked. “Any more headaches?”

There she was, leaning against a cabinet so she wouldn’t put weight on her ankle, asking him how he’d been feeling instead of getting her injury taken care of.

“Not a one,” Jack replied. “Now let’s get you to the infirmary.”

He moved closer so she could lean against him and put her arm around his neck. He put a hand on her waist to steady her. Once they got settled she looked up at him.

“You really don’t have a headache?”

“No, why? Isn’t that a good thing?”

Jack thought things were getting worse after he passed out in General Hammond’s office, but now he wasn’t so sure. Maybe he could get a handle on it and even if he didn’t get back the memories, it could be manageable and he’d get back to work. The headaches would only keep him off missions if they couldn’t be controlled and if there was a risk of unconsciousness.

Of course, there had been time between incidents before so he wasn’t getting his hopes up too high, but Jack did have some hope.

“Of course it’s a good thing,” Sam said.

She looked at him intensely and he felt like he could see her brain spinning.

“You really don’t remember saying that before? That thing about losing me?”

Jack wasn’t even sure if he remembered exactly what he said a few minutes ago, but apparently it struck a chord with her.

“No. Sorry, Sam. I still don’t remember anything about you before ‘289. Why?”

She shook her head and leaned into him.

“Doesn’t matter now. Just...hope, you know?”

He wasn’t sure if she meant hope that he would regain his memories or hope that they would find a new normal. Either way, it seemed like their conversation had settled Sam somehow. She seemed less brittle and the smile she sent him as they moved towards the door was less hesitant.

“Yeah, hope’s a good thing,” he replied.

Chapter Text

Sam felt a little like she was floating as Jack helped her hobble in the direction of the infirmary, his strong arm wrapped around her tight. When Jonas, Teal’c, and Daniel met them halfway with a pair of crutches, she was almost disappointed that she would no longer have an excuse to have Jack’s arm wrapped around her.

“Things okay now?” Daniel asked while Jonas handed over a pair of crutches.

Jack and Teal’c helped her stay steady as she moved the crutches into place and transferred her weight. She missed the warmth of Jack’s body as soon as he stepped away.

“Things are fine. We didn’t kill each other.”

Daniel looked at her to confirm Jack’s claim.

“Sam?”

She just kept thinking about how he said he’d rather die than lose her. Sam wasn’t even sure if he realized that he’d said the words in the middle of his rant at her, but they made her heart stop. Some of Jack’s memories still had to be in there somehow. They hadn’t all been erased. If they had, then he never would have said something like that to a woman who he only remembered knowing for a little over a week.

It felt like a miracle, even if he didn’t know why he said those words or remember saying them before.

“Things are great, Daniel,” she assured him with a smile. “All a misunderstanding.”

They walk together to the infirmary, all of the men ignoring her statement that she didn’t need an escort. Daniel and Jonas filled up the time chatting about some of the weird and random documents they found in the dome’s library. She let their voices wash over her, comforted by the sound, but not really listening. Every time she glanced over at Jack, he was looking back at her, his warm brown eyes holding steady on her until she looked away. Sam always looked away first.

Janet greeted them as soon as they made it to the infirmary.

“Sam, get settled in that bed,” she said, pointing at the nearest infirmary bed. “We’ll start with you first and then move to the rest of SG-1.”

Teal’c took the crutches and leaned them against the wall, while Jack helped her onto the bed.

“We seem to be spending far too much time in infirmaries,” he joked.

It had to be wearing on him, the constant back and forth to the infirmary and the unending tests Janet needed to do as she tracked his medical status and tried to figure out a way to better address his symptoms.

“You more than me,” she teased.

Jack raised his eyebrows.

Sam knew that he was probably confused that she was letting down her guard even further, but she was happy and she couldn’t stop herself. He might not have lost all his memories. That was a cause for celebration as far as she was concerned.

Daniel, Teal’c, and Jonas went to sit on other nearby beds to wait for Janet or one of the night nurses to start their post-mission medical exams.

“I should probably…” Jack pointed a thumb towards the door.

“Stay,” Sam asked. “Please, sir.”

He opened his mouth to speak, but then Janet came over and started examining her ankle. Jack stayed.

“It’s a minor sprain. I’m going to wrap it and get you an ice pack and something for the pain.”

Ever since she’d been host to Jolinar, traditional pain medication had been less effective for Sam, but Janet was usually able to find a dosage that worked well enough without causing negative side effects. Thankfully, it didn’t hurt much unless she tried to put her weight on it and she’d heal from this type of injury fast.

“I want you to keep it elevated,” Janet added. As soon as she did, Jack grabbed a pillow from a nearby empty bed and carefully put it under Sam’s ankle.

“Thanks, sir,” she whispered.

Janet turned to get the supplies she needed, but Sam called her back.

“Was there another injury besides the ankle? We’re still going to do the rest of your post-mission exam, but I wanted to focus on treating that first.”

Sam shook her head.

“No, I think Colonel O’Neill might still have some memories. He said something earlier -”

Jack’s eyes narrowed.

“Carter, if I knew that helping you to the infirmary would put me in line for additional medical tests, I might not have offered.”

She ignored him and turned to Janet. “He almost exactly quoted something he said during the Za’tarc test.”

Janet’s face went slack with surprise. “He did?”

Sam really wished that she didn’t have to talk about this. She and Janet had only ever had conversations that alluded to what had been said in that room, but the two of them had never talked about it directly. It was dangerous to talk about what she and Jack had admitted in that room.

“I didn’t though,” Jack insisted. “The machine was faulty. It wasn’t hooked up correctly. They retested me and I was fine. You weren’t there, Sam.”

That wasn’t what had happened at all. She stood there and listened to him confess that he cared about her a lot more than he was supposed to and then she made one of the most difficult personal and professional decisions of her life and shut him down before he had the chance to say anything else.

It had been years ago, but maybe that moment had been important enough to him to stick somehow when everything else got erased.

“You could try to remember,” Sam said softly. “Maybe it would work this time.”

He looked disappointed in her.

“Come on, Carter. I’ve been doing well all day. It’s bad enough when I bring on those headaches by accident. I don’t really want to do it on purpose.”

She wanted to beg him to try to remember, but she couldn’t.

“Maybe see if anything’s changed on the EEG…”

“Sam,” Janet interrupted, “We went through all of this an hour before you returned. Nothing has had a noticeable change.”

Jack had that blank look on his face she only ever saw when he was trying to obscure his emotions from everyone around him.

“I’m done being a pincushion for one day,” he quipped. “Gotta go rest up. Doctor’s orders. Hope you feel better, Carter.”

Jack didn’t look back as he exited the infirmary. Sam wondered if her choice to tell Janet had unsettled the balance they found after their argument in the ‘gate room.

“He’s upset that I pushed it.”

Jack almost acted sometimes like he didn’t want his memories back. At the very least, he didn’t seem to like that Sam was so focused on finding him a cure. She didn’t understand why. If their places were swapped, she’d want him to be doing everything he could to help her.

“You shouldn’t, you know,” Janet replied. “Not until we have a viable solution or a better way to manage the symptoms.”

“I don’t want him hurt. I just want him to remember.”

“He either will or he won’t, Sam. It’s not your decision.”

It wasn’t fully out of her control. Not if she could figure out the code.

“Janet, when he saw that I’d gotten hurt he said that he’d rather die than lose me. According to his version of his memories we haven’t known each other that long. He wouldn’t have said something like that, so something’s got to be seeping through.”

Janet glanced at the door that Jack had just left through and frowned.

“I don’t know, Sam. It could be a good sign that his memories might return or it could just be because you’re you and he’s him and that’s how he feels when you get hurt.”

Sam couldn’t believe that it was all coincidence.

“Some of it’s still in there, Janet. It’s got to be.”

A nurse came over with an ice pack and elastic bandage. Janet thanked her and then started to wrap Sam’s ankle.

“Why aren’t you more excited about this?”

Janet paused and looked up.

“Sam, I want it to be the progress you’re looking for, but as important as that moment might have been for both of you, right now he still doesn’t remember it. I’ve been putting him through a lot of medical tests and there has been no significant change. He’s being a trooper about it, but right now his entire life revolves around something he has no control over. He can’t do his job, he’s trapped on base, and his life isn’t what he remembers it being. All I’m saying is that we can see this as a potential positive occurrence, but we can’t push him. Not when it might make things worse and not before we have a potential solution.”

Sam thought about Janet’s words long after she moved back to on-base quarters and laid down in bed. She wished she was home in her own room, but it was late and with her injury she would have needed to have someone else drive her home.

Janet was right that she shouldn’t have pushed Jack to try and remember. If it wasn’t the middle of the night, she’d go and apologize to him. She had just been blinded by the thought that she might be able to get him back.

Even if Jack got all of his memories back, Sam wasn’t sure anymore if she’d be able to go back to the status quo. She always hoped that there might be some day in the future where the job wasn’t the most important thing and they could talk about whether a relationship between the two of them might still have potential.

Now, there was a chance that he wouldn’t be able to have that conversation with her in any meaningful way and she was worried that she’d lost her shot at it. Was it any wonder that she was desperately clinging to a handful of words that echoed what he’d said on the day of the Za’tarc testing?

Sam had promised herself when Jack was in the infirmary that she would stop running away from him. It probably meant that she should also start being more honest with him about why she was so focused on getting his memories back, beyond the obvious reason that she would want to help any of her teammates. It wasn’t just because of the guilt. It was because if he didn’t also carry the memories of all those small, undefinable moments between them over the years, then it was almost like they didn’t happen.

She couldn’t be the only one who remembered. If she had to accept that, it would be like losing him all over again.

It wouldn’t change anything to try to explain why she was pushing so hard, but maybe it would help him understand.

It took Sam a long time to fall asleep, but when she did, she dreamed that Jack was on the other end of a broken Stargate and she couldn’t fix it no matter what she tried.

Sam didn’t have a chance to talk with Jack before or after the briefing the next morning. He got to the meeting just on time, hair sleep-ruffled. After the meeting, he left the room with Teal’c and she had to stay to answer some of General Hammond’s additional questions.

Accepting the fact that she would have to talk to him later, she went to her lab with Daniel and Jonas as they started to go through everything they brought back from the planet.

Daniel focused on entering translations into the interface program so that it would be easier to read more of the code. Jonas alternated between helping with the translations and combing through the code with Sam.

Eventually, she narrowed down the update to the one that was used on Jack.

“This is it. I’ve got it.”

It was still thousands of lines of code, but now she had it. Sam deleted all the extraneous code to focus on the update they needed to reverse.

Jonas walked over and looked at the computer screen. He scrolled through the first few lines and then all the way to the bottom.

“Major Carter, I don’t think this was set up to just run once. The code is set to repeat and reinforce the original command.”

Sam scrolled through the beginning and the end of the code block. It was a mix of translated words and alien symbols, but she recognized enough of the formatting and basic code to confirm it.

Jonas was right. The code was written as a loop. More specifically, it looked like it was written as a “while loop” - a type of loop used to repeat a section of code an unlimited number of times until a specific condition was met.

“You’re right. It’s supposed to run on a loop. The question now is what specific condition needs to be met before the command stops.”

“Do you think it’s still running in him somehow?”

Now that Sam thought about it, it could potentially explain the symptoms that Jack was having. If the pain was caused by Jack’s attempts to remember, maybe it was being triggered by the code in this loop.

“It might be. It’s a block of computer code that’s just running in a loop. It’s set to keep going until it reaches its goal and completes the program.” It didn’t make Sam feel any better that the update might still be at work doing something damaging to Jack’s mind. “It’s possible that it’s progressing either the memory loss or the pain or both.”

“So it’s basically a computer virus?” Jonas asked.

It took her a few seconds to hear him - she’d been thinking of how much worse things could get for Jack if this program still hadn’t completed what it was meant to do - but then one word triggered a thought.

Virus.

Janet had said that Jack’s symptoms looked similar to an illness that was usually caused by a virus. She said that it might have been caused by an immune system response.

“Oh my god,” Sam said. “His body is treating it like an actual virus.”

It was still only a piece of the puzzle, but it was something. If his brain was reacting like it was a virus, maybe they could use that to their advantage somehow. Maybe they could stop it before the programmed condition was met.

“How do you cure a computer virus in someone’s brain?” Jonas asked.

“I have no idea.”

“So you think it’s causing the headaches and the loss of consciousness?”

Sam wasn’t sure. The inflammation and other conditions that were constant could be easily explained by an immune response. But while the sudden onset migraines could theoretically be related to an immune response, they might instead be caused by the code within the loop, trying to finish what it was programmed to do.

“It could,” Sam said. “We’ll have to ask Janet and finish going through all this code.”

Daniel moved over to look at the computer.

“Do you think it’s trying to erase more?”

The computer virus had already erased the memories of the three people who Jack was closest to. Sam didn’t want to know what else it could do.

“I hope not.”

Jonas walked over to the phone and picked it up. “I’ll call Doctor Fraiser and ask her to meet us down here.”

Janet joined them fifteen minutes later and it took another ten to walk her through their hypothesis.

“So if it’s acting like a virus then this actually is an ongoing immune system response, right?” Sam asked. “The virus is still active and his body’s trying to fight whatever it’s attempting to do.”

Janet looked back down at the computer screen filled with alien code and sighed.

“It’s possible, Sam, but even if that’s the case, I don’t know how to fight a computer virus in someone’s brain. I know human viruses and to a certain extent alien ones, but this is different. And the brains of the individuals from P3X-289 were different enough that I don’t have a direct enough correlation for how to handle that type of computer/human brain interface. Maybe once we’re able to do more research on the link devices and how they connect -”

“What about my records?” Sam asked. “From when that entity came through the ‘gate and took over my body.”

When she’d been worrying about the AI and preparing all the devices to make sure that the code she brought back couldn’t connect to the SGC network, Sam kept thinking about the entity from P9C-372 that took over her brain. It wasn’t the same situation, but if Janet needed a medical comparison for how computer code could affect a human brain, it might be worthwhile.

“I’ll look back over them, but Sam, that was an entirely different situation. Not only was it an entity from a different planet, but it co-existed with you in your brain and body. It didn’t erase parts of your memory and replace them. There were two separate EEG patterns. I don’t see anything like that in Colonel O’Neill’s results.”

Every time Sam thought she was making progress, she hit another dead end. It was beyond frustrating.

“There’s got to be something helpful in there, Janet. Some insight that can move us closer to understanding -”

“If nothing else, we should at least be able to get a better idea about the data transfer process based on how the entity moved you to an external computer database and then how we were able to transfer you back into your own body. It’s not much, but -”

“It’s something,” Sam interrupted.

Something was better than nothing. If they could understand what exactly had been done to erase Jack’s memories then they could figure out how to treat it. If they could figure out how to treat it, then hopefully they could figure out how to reverse the process and return his missing memories.

“Jonas and I will go back to translating,” Daniel offered. Jonas nodded his head.

“And I’ll let you know if I find out any important details after taking another look at the medical records,” Janet offered. “The thing is, we’re going to have to understand the virus itself better if we’re going to treat it. Traditional antiviral medication is developed to work against specific viruses. It’s not really a general treatment.”

“We have the code isolated,” Sam said. “We can figure it out.”

She hoped she was right.

“Who knows,” Jonas added, “We might have this figured out by this time tomorrow.”

Sam, who had never been prone to superstition, crossed her fingers and wished that Jonas’ prediction would come true.

Chapter Text

Jack stayed quiet through most of SG-1’s briefing about the progress they made on P3X-289. He asked to be included, but once the meeting got underway, he wished he hadn’t. The whole mission was ostensibly about him, but he felt like an outsider. He was glad, at least, that Sam didn’t suggest he try to remember something again.

Most of the meeting was technobabble that he barely followed when he was at the top of his game and he didn’t feel that way now. It was lots of discussion about computer code and really old legal documents.

In other words, it was all the parts of a mission that he was usually helpless with.

It was frustrating.

He was beyond relieved when Teal’c asked him to help with training new SGC recruits. At least that felt like a task with purpose. He couldn’t help Teal’c with the actual hand-to-hand combat demonstrations, given the restrictions that Janet had him under, but he could question the trainees on their knowledge and skill.

There were ten trainees in the class. Some of them were hesitant, some of them were overconfident, and only two of them looked like they might be ready to go up against a Goa’uld.

Jack watched Teal’c force another trainee to the ground.

“What did you do wrong, Lieutenant?”

The young woman didn’t do a good enough job hiding the automatic flinch at Jack’s angry, authoritative question.

“Sir, I’m never going to be as strong as him.”

Other instructors wouldn’t like the excuses, but Jack was at least glad that she had it in her to talk back. She wouldn’t survive on an SG team without confidence.

“You think that it’s going to be any easier out there when you’ll have to deal with multiple Jaffa?”

She shook her head, dark ponytail swinging.

“No, sir.”

“So if you’re not as strong, what advantages do you have?”

Lieutenant Hirano tilted her head in thought, but didn’t have an immediate response.

Jack glanced around at the class. They all looked so young.

“The Jaffa that you will encounter off-world, if you become good enough to join an SG team, will be stronger than you and most will be larger than you,” Jack reminded them. “They can recover faster from injuries and they will often have a numbers advantage.”

The class looked at Teal’c.

“Indeed.”

One of the marines, a big bulky guy in the last row, opened his mouth.

“Shut it, Johnson. If you want to say anything about your size and supposed strength, I’ll remind you that you ended up on the floor too.”

Johnson shut his mouth and was elbowed by one of the men next to him.

“So if that’s the case,” Jack continued, “you all gonna just give up?”

“No, sir,” the class said in unison.

“So what are your possible advantages?” Jack asked again.

This time, Lieutenant Hirano was ready with an answer.

“We have to be smarter,” she said, “and more agile.”

Jack gave a slight nod, but didn’t give her the praise she’d been expecting. Hirano was an overachiever, as much as Johnson was a cocky loudmouth.

“That’s a start. What else?” he asked. “What are your options when you don’t have an advantage with size or strength?”

“We can use their size against them,” Hirano tried again. “Heavier mass means greater momentum. It’s tougher for them to stop and change direction.”

“Yes,” Jack agreed. “Anyone else?”

“They’ll underestimate you,” a young man with close-cropped red hair answered. “It’ll make it easier to catch them off guard.”

“Good.”

“You can use a distraction, sir,” one of the other trainees offered. “Work as a team instead of individually.”

“Yes. You’ll have to rely on each other out there and the odds are always better when you’re not on your own.”

Teal’c shot him a sympathetic look that Jack ignored.

The group shouted out a few more suggestions and then Jack asked Lieutenant Hirano to try again, suggesting a few additional moves she could use as well.

Teal’c and Hirano stepped up to the mat.

Teal’c still took her down, but she held out longer and got in a few good hits. One of her fellow trainees even tried to shout at Teal’c to distract him when Hirano faltered. Teal’c didn’t fall for it, but another Jaffa who was less experienced might.

“Okay, break for lunch and meet back here in an hour. You’re dismissed.”

The trainees filed out of the gym and to the locker room. Jack turned to Teal’c.

“Thanks for the invite.”

Spending his morning training potential SG team members was a whole lot better than his current alternatives.

“General Hammond thought that it would be a better use of your time,” Teal’c said.

Jack turned and grabbed the two water bottles from a nearby bench. He handed Teal’c’s over and opened his.

“That’s for sure. I was starting to go a little stir-crazy.”

Teal’c regarded him silently for a minute before speaking.

“Do you believe that you are no longer in possession of your faculties?”

Jack had no idea what Teal’c was talking about, but if it was a joke about his missing memories, it was a bad one.

“What?”

“You once also used the terms nuts and bonzo as comparable phrases.”

It took a moment for it all to make sense.

“Comparable to crazy, not stir-crazy.”

“I do not see the difference, O’Neill. Is the latter term not a psychological disturbance due to confinement in one location? If so, both situations are similar.”

This felt like a conversation more well-suited to Daniel Jackson’s skill set than his. Linguistic nuance was not Jack’s area of expertise.

“They’re different,” he insisted.

Teal’c raised an eyebrow.

“Oh sure, act like I’m the odd one when the Jaffa use the word kree to mean twenty different things.”

As they walked to lunch together, Jack’s mind kept going back to something that had been pulling at his attention the past few days. He needed to figure out what his plan B was going to be if the plan A of restoring his memories didn’t work out. If the time spent confined to base had taught Jack anything, it was that he wouldn’t be happy unless he had something productive to occupy his time. He may have hinted at retirement...apparently...but even if he retired or had to take that medical discharge General Hammond mentioned, he could only see himself sitting around part of the time. He got bored easily and he had decades ahead of him. He’d have to do something with his time.

“You ever think about what you’re going to do once you’re done at the SGC, T?”

Teal’c handed him a tray and they got in line.

“I will continue to fight until all Jaffa are free from the false gods.”

He still wasn’t used to Teal’c’s intensity. “I meant after that. Once you’re done fighting.”

Teal’c was stone-faced.

“If I were no longer fighting, I would be dead, O’Neill.”

Jack shook his head. Apparently the Jaffa didn’t have the concept of retirement.

“Nevermind. I’m just thinking that if I can’t keep going through the ‘gate, maybe training is a good place for me to be.”

He grabbed a burger and fries for lunch. Teal’c followed him to an empty table with three times as much food piled onto his tray.

“Teaching the next generation of warriors is an admirable task, one to which you are well-suited.”

The next generation thing made Jack feel a little old, but it was nice that Teal’c thought he’d be good at it if he switched his focus to training.

Jack thought about the idea more that afternoon as he and Teal’c tried to whip the trainees into shape. They weren’t where they needed to be yet, but several of them showed potential.

And Jack...well...he thought the training idea held potential, but he wasn’t sure if he was ready to stop going on missions through the Stargate yet. He wished that this was a decision he could make in his own good time instead of being pushed away from off-world work because of physical limitations.

It sucked.

The day went by quickly and after grabbing dinner with some of the other COs, he headed to his quarters. He hadn’t heard anything from the science-y members of SG-1 all day and Janet didn’t even make him come in for additional tests. He wasn’t sure if that was a good sign or a bad one.

He changed out of his BDUs into sweatpants and a t-shirt and flipped on the TV before sitting on the bed and trying to get comfortable.

One of the most annoying parts about being confined to the base was that he couldn’t enjoy a beer with the hockey game he was planning to watch.

They were a few minutes into the second period when he heard a knock on his door.

When he got up and opened it, Sam Carter was standing on the other side. Her ankle was bound and she was leaning on crutches.

“Déjà vu.”

“Hello, sir.”

Jack wondered if constantly being called sir got on his nerves this much when he still had his memories. He’d never been one for military formality unless it was necessary.

“Hi, Sam.”

Her reaction was barely noticeable, but he caught a slight flinch when he said her first name.

“How much longer are you on the crutches?”

He caught a flash of frustration in her expression.

“Hopefully only a couple more days and then I should be able to put weight on it. Janet said I’ll probably be fine to resume normal activity in a week or two.”

Jack was just glad that she was only dealing with a sprained ankle. It could have been much worse.

“Can I come in?”

Considering the last time she was here, she’d left in a hurry, Jack was surprised that Sam wanted to join him in his quarters at all. He gestured into the room and she entered. He closed the door behind her.

“What’ya doing here, Carter?”

She straightened and moved further into the room.

“I offered to update you on the progress we made today with the code from ‘289.”

“Great.” Jack sighed and sat down on the bed.

She didn’t speak right away, her hands tightening on the grips of her crutches as she observed him closely.

“Well, get on with it.” He pointed over at the TV. “My team is hopefully going to have a comeback. If they win, the buzz of victory might almost feel like a cold beer.”

Sam chuckled and relaxed.

“We made a lot of progress. We were able to isolate the update code that affected your memories and get it partially translated. We’re hoping to dive more into that tomorrow, but the important part is that we figured out why it’s affecting you like it is.”

It was a serious topic, but Jack couldn’t help but enjoy the way her eyes started to light up and the indent of a dimple appeared in her cheek as continued to talk about her scientific research.

“It’s like a computer virus written for the wrong operating system,” she continued. “It worked on the population from ‘289, but it didn’t fully work on you.”

Jack put his hands on the bedspread and leaned slightly back.

“Feels like it worked on me.”

Sam shook her head.

“It didn’t, at least not entirely. We think the programming of the virus might still be running.”

Jack sat up straight.

“I’m sorry, what?”

Sam moved over to the foot of the bed and sat down, leaning the crutches against the bedspread.

“The update virus, it’s still there, doing something. We don’t know exactly what, not yet, but at least part of your symptoms are because your body’s trying to fight it off like a normal virus. In the refugees, it did what it was meant to do. It erased the memories quickly and shut down.”

Sam might be excited about the fact that they were figuring things out, but none of this sounded good.

“Let me get this straight, so it’s like a cold or flu that erases my memories? And it’s not done doing whatever it’s supposed to do?”

The situation he was dealing with was already difficult enough. Jack didn’t even want to know what it would be like if he started to lose even more of his memories.

“Basically, sir.”

“No offense, Carter, but how does this help me? It sounds like bad news.”

“We think it’s a good sign that your immune system is fighting it and that your neural connections are stronger than those of the refugees. Janet thinks it ran its course in the refugees and dissipated because it finished what it was programed to accomplish. Your body is still fighting it.”

Jack ran a hand over his face. This whole thing felt like a neverending nightmare.

“I may be fighting it, but I seem to be losing so far. How much is it going to take?”

Would he lose his memories one by one until all he was left with was an empty shell?

Sam frowned.

“We don’t know yet, sir. You could lose more memories, it could cause worsening symptoms, or there may be other possibilities we simply haven’t thought of yet.”

“Oh joy,” Jack drawled. “Sounds like fun.”

“Sir, I-”

“Thanks for sharing that super positive update, but I’m going to go back to hoping my team doesn’t lose.”

He scooted further onto the bed and leaned against the headboard, expecting her to leave, but she didn’t. She just stayed at the foot of the bed, hands on her lap, crutches like a barrier between them.

“Do you want to watch hockey, Carter?”

She shook her head. “Not really.”

“Then what?”

A loud horn sound came from the television speakers. Second period was over.

“I wanted to apologize, sir, about the way I pushed you last night to try to remember.”

He raised his eyebrows. “Seems to me I have a ticking clock running in me now. A little pushing might make more sense than I realized.”

“Still, I shouldn’t have pushed you. I got my hopes up and I wanted to believe you were remembering something and that was important to me so I pushed it without worrying about how you might feel about it.”

Based on what Sam told him, how Jack felt about the entire situation probably had to be a non-issue now. It wasn’t go back to normal or adjust to a new normal. It sounded like they had to fix it or he might be turned into a blank slate.

“It’s water under the bridge.”

Sam bit her lip and he wondered what she was nervous about. She had to have told him the worst of it already.

“I want to talk to you about some things, but I don’t want to end up triggering anything. I don’t want to hurt you. It’s not about what I wanted you to try to remember last night.”

Well, this was unexpected.

Jack was curious about what she needed to say, but he also wanted to watch the rest of the third period and get to bed early. He knew if he had to go through that entire cycle of pain and recovery again, his whole night would be shot.

He found himself offering her advice, trying to smooth the way.

“Janet and Daniel seem to think that talking around things works best, not diving too deep into specific memories or emotions.”

She let out a light laugh. “Talking around things is what we do best.”

Jack remembered the way Sam seemed to shy away when any conversation strayed to a topic she wasn’t comfortable with. He wanted her to feel comfortable talking with him about whatever she needed to.

“I’ve also noticed that if I can think about the facts I’m told as someone else’s story, that helps stave off the headaches,” he added with a shrug.

Sam seemed to take in the information and then nodded.

“I told you before that Daniel gave me a whole speech back on the planet about how I was pushing myself too much. I’ve always been a workaholic and most of the time that works out well for everyone involved. It’s not easy to save the world, you know? A lot of the time it falls on me. You blow up one sun…”

She chuckled softly and he tried not to think too hard about what she meant by the comment.

“Anyway,” she continued, “I handle it well, most of the time. I don’t lose myself in the pressure. I’m good at what I do.”

Jack liked when she sounded confident. He might not remember experiencing it himself, but she’d obviously saved his life multiple times and she was the type of smart that a person rarely got to interact with up close. She deserved to be proud of her skills.

“I don’t doubt it.”

She gave a slight nod of acknowledgement and continued talking. As she did, her gaze drifted to the hands folded neatly in her lap.

“But there have been a few times where I couldn’t keep it under control, where I lost it a little. Where, as ridiculous as it sounds, the loss of a single person felt bigger and more important than a global catastrophe.”

Sam lifted her head and looked him directly in the eyes before he could even catch his breath.

“I miss you,” she told him bluntly. “You’re here, but I miss you.”

He wanted to reach for her, but she was all the way at the other end of the bed and it wasn’t the type of move he could make and still be subtle about it.

“Sam, I - ”

“What you asked me that first night in the infirmary,” she interrupted, “I didn’t handle it well. I mean, we’re not together...It’s not even something that should even...Nothing ever...I mean, given our ranks and working relationship -”

She was faltering and it was painful to watch. He started to feel a building pressure in the back of his head.

“Carter, take a breath.”

She took a deep breath and steadied herself before continuing.

“But that doesn’t mean that we don’t...care about each other. Or I do, anyway.” Sam’s mouth curved into a sheepish smile. “And I know that you used to.”

Once again, Jack had the suspicion that they didn’t just care about each other...they both cared about each other a lot more than they were supposed to.

The headache changed, went sharp and painful. Jack ignored it. He wanted to get through this conversation.

He wished that he could reassure her, but as confident as he was that there couldn’t be a version of him out there that wouldn’t develop feelings for Sam Carter, he couldn’t convince her of what his feelings might’ve been when he didn’t know himself.

“Did we ever talk about this before?”

She shook her head.

“Not really. You and I are very good at not talking about things that we can’t change.”

That sounded about right. Communicating about emotions had never been Jack’s strong suit. And if she’d been his second in command the entire time they’d known each other, it would have been a topic too dangerous to broach.

“Why are you telling me all this now?”

He wasn’t sure if he’d be able to define the look on her face if someone asked him. There was something that looked almost like regret and empathy, but tinged with anxiety.

“I know that I’ve been a little...erratic ever since ‘289. Mostly around you. I just wanted to try to explain that I’m not doing it because it’s a problem to solve or because there’s something I need to fix. It’s not even because I feel guilty about my part in what happened.”

Sam stood up, awkwardly, and although he wanted to help her he could tell that she wouldn’t have appreciated it. She moved slowly back and forth on the crutches, like she just didn’t have it in her to stay still anymore.

“You being hurt...it’s...personal, for me.”

He wondered if she would say the same about Daniel and Teal’c. The steady thrum of the headache made it difficult for him to catch the subtleties of the conversation, but it sure as hell seemed like she was admitting she had feelings for him.

“It’s fine, Carter.”

Fine wasn’t exactly the right word, but everything she’d said was helping Jack see the push and pull of her previous interactions with him in a different light.

“There’s not a lot I wouldn’t do to help you, sir.”

The pain of his headache continued, but Jack did his best to ignore it. He wasn’t sure, given the amnesia circumstances, but he wouldn’t be surprised if this was one of the most honest conversations that Sam Carter ever had with him. He wasn’t giving it up early.

“I suspect there’s not a lot I wouldn’t do for you, either, Sam.”

This time, when he said her name she didn’t flinch. She stopped and turned to face him. He almost missed the longing in her expression before she hid it behind an over-bright smile.

“That’s why we’re a good team.”

Jack got the hint. Sam Carter might care about him, but as long as they were teammates, nothing was ever going to happen.

“Anyway,” she continued, “I’ll let you get back to hockey, sir. I just wanted to apologize for being a bit single-minded right now.”

Jack stood up as she moved towards the door.

“Sam, I -”

Her hand stilled on the doorknob and she gave a slight shake of her head. Her fake smile faltered.

“We’re going to fix this soon and then things will go back to normal.”

Jack got the impression that normal wasn’t working out too well for either of them, but he let it slide.

“Thanks for stopping by, Carter.”

“Have a good night, sir.”

She left before he could say another word. It was probably for the best. If she stood next to him much longer, he might have been tempted to reach out and touch her.

If he’d been in front of her when that look of longing crossed her face, he would have reached out to caress her cheek. He would have brushed his thumb across her bottom lip and leaned down to kiss her.

It would have been a mistake, supposedly. Sam wanted them back to normal and on the same team. There must be a reason why that overruled everything else.

Jack just didn’t know what it was. To him, SG-1 was just a team designation, just a number. Sam was a real live woman who just stood in front of him and said that she missed him so much she was losing it.

He didn’t see how there was any comparison, but he’d follow her lead.

Jack took some pain medication and went back to watching the game. His head hurt like hell and his team lost. But on the plus side, he hadn’t passed out and Sam Carter voluntarily came to see him to talk about her feelings. Overall, he’d call that a win.

Chapter Text

Sam stared at the computer screen.

“This doesn’t make sense.”

She’d been staring at the monitor for so long that it was beginning to blur. If she was right about what the code meant, something was wrong about their hypothesis.

“What doesn’t make sense?” Jonas asked, before placing a coffee mug next to her keyboard.

“Thanks,” she muttered before lifting the mug and absently taking a sip.

“So what doesn’t make sense?”

Sam looked up and over at Jonas, who was waiting with a patiently curious look on his face.

“I’ve been going through this code for hours and don’t understand how the virus could still be active in him. The condition that had to be met for the loop to stop was erasing the memories of Daniel, Teal’c, and I. It did that. He should be fine - medically anyway - just like the people from ‘289.”

The descriptions hidden in the code were long and detailed, but they clearly indicated that the memories of the group of outsiders (SG-1) had to be removed. The only reason Jack hadn’t lost more was because of a fail safe in the system meant to protect an individual’s own memories of themself. After all, how could you direct a person to take actions like walking themselves out of the dome if they no longer had a sense of their own identity?

The point was that the condition had been met. Jack didn’t remember them, so why would the virus still be running?

Unless of course, the memories were still in there somewhere and Jack just couldn’t access them.

“Jonas, do you think -”

Sam looked up when she heard commotion at the door and saw Daniel swerve to barely avoid a passing airman and then crash into the wall.

“You okay?” she asked.

Daniel righted himself and entered the room carrying a pile of books and notebooks.

“Yeah. How are you doing in here?”

“We’re not there yet,” Jonas said. “Something’s still missing.”

“Yeah, I know,” Daniel walked over and set the two thickest books on the lab table next to Sam. He put the others on a nearby chair. “I think we messed up on the translation.”

Daniel started flipping through the yellowed pages of the book that was on top. Sam noticed several images of paintings and drawings interspersed in the alien text.

“Art history?” Jonas asked.

Daniel nodded and kept turning the pages.

“Yeah. I knew I’d seen one of the symbols in the main command code before and then I remembered that I’d been looking through this book while Teal’c and I waited for you and Sam to finish up in the control room.”

He finally stopped turning the pages and pointed down at a piece of text.

“Our initial translation of the command code was rough. We didn’t have the contextual clues that native speakers would have had.”

Daniel pointed out a symbol on the computer screen - the one they had translated to mean “replace” - and back down to a matching symbol in the book.

“That word doesn’t mean replace like we thought it did. Not in terms of erasing something and putting something new in its place. I think in context, it’s closer to overwrite or overlay.”

Sam didn’t see how that made much of a difference, but Jonas was nodding along.

“Okay, I see it now.”

She looked at both of them bent over the old book.

“Either of you want to explain exactly what this means?”

Whatever it was, Sam hoped it was good news. She didn’t want to go back to Jack again to tell him something else might be wrong.

After last night, Sam felt anxious about seeing him again in general. She couldn’t believe she’d basically told him that losing him would feel more important than losing Earth. She wanted to be honest, but didn’t intend to end up sounding obsessive.

Hopefully, he would just give her a little leeway and understand that she wasn’t at her best right now.

“It means the memories might not be gone after all,” Jonas said.

That got Sam’s attention. It was everything she’d been hoping for.

“Exactly,” Daniel agreed. “It’s like these paintings.”

Daniel adjusted his glasses and flipped a couple of pages further into the text. Sam saw two paintings side by side, one more rough than the other. In one, a woman held a basket. In the other, she held a lantern.

“In artistic circles on Earth, this would be referred to as a pentimento. An Italian word that means repentance. It’s when an earlier version of a painting is present underneath the final version of the painting. Typically in these situations, there was an underdrawing that showed one element of a painting in a different position on the composition or otherwise adjusted. Sometimes you can tell visually. Other times, it can only be seen using X-Rays or infrared reflectography.”

Daniel grabbed the second book and put it on top. It was modern and clearly from Earth, but still looked like it was an art history book. He continued to speak as he flipped through the pages.

“You can only really call paintings pentimenti if there are minor changes, though. The reason the word pentimento is used is because it occurs when an artist changes their mind during the process of painting. It’s not planned ahead of time. At least not far in advance.”

Jonas nodded and pulled the book closer. “I watched a documentary about this topic about a year ago. They often use these slight changes to identify the original artist, at least here on Earth. Sometimes the slight changes will match up with an earlier sketch or the change will be consistent with the artist’s known style in some way.”

Sam looked between the two of them, both so intent, glancing between the book and the computer. She knew this was important because they both thought it was, but she didn’t know why. She wondered if this was how Jack felt when she was going on about detailed scientific topics.

“What does this have to do with Colonel O’Neill’s memories?”

Daniel held up a finger and flipped to the next page where there were side by side images of completely different paintings.

“In a different, but related topic, a lot of artists would completely paint over existing paintings with new ones either because they didn’t like the original work or didn’t have the money to buy new canvas.”

“Daniel.”

“It’s like Picasso,” Jonas chimed in. “The Spanish artist who co-founded the Cubist movement.”

“I know who Picasso is,” Sam ground out.

Jonas wasn’t deterred by her tone.

“He used to paint over his own work and sometimes work by other artists. In the 1950s, he told people that they should do X-Rays of his work because they’d find things underneath. For example, in 1954, conservators suspected that there might be another painting beneath one of his works called The Blue Room because the brushstrokes didn’t match the completed image. There was an irregular slash of horizontal lines that wasn’t completely brushed out. They weren’t able to confirm the existence of the original image until the 1990s, though...until technology was sufficiently advanced.”

Sam sometimes forgot about the ability Jonas had to soak in and retain encyclopedic levels of knowledge. It was astounding.

“Sometimes, you couldn’t tell that there was ever a painting underneath the existing one,” Daniel jumped in. “Other times there was what was effectively a ghost image underneath where you could see the outline or effect of previous brushstrokes. You could tell if the light hit it just right, that there was something underneath.”

“Like Picasso’s The Old Guitarist, where you can see a ghostly image of a woman’s face,” Jonas added.

“What happened to Jack’s memories was somewhere in between. Not a minor adjustment, but not a full redo either. He remembers the same general events, but people and details have been modified. It’s like the original got painted over.”

All of the art history information was interesting, but that wasn’t the important part of this for Sam. What was important was that this new translation pointed them to the same conclusion she’d suspected before Jonas and Daniel arrived in her lab. Jack’s body was still fighting the virus because his memories of SG-1 were still in his mind somewhere.

“You’re saying his memories are still there,” Sam said carefully. “They haven’t been erased. The new memories just got layered on top of them.”

“Exactly!” Daniel said with a grin. “And that’s why the virus is still active in his system.”

He shut the book and stole her coffee, taking a congratulatory sip. Sam was feeling too hopeful to even call him out on his act of thievery. She finally felt like she could breathe.

“The loop is probably to try to reinforce the connection to the new, top layer version of a memory,” Jonas theorized. “Any time his brain tries to reconnect to the lower layer - the original image - there’s negative physical feedback.”

“The headaches.”

“Yeah.”

Sam thought back to everything Janet had told her about the brain structure of the refugees from P3X-289. They were basically built to be rewired easier. With more neurons and weaker connections, it wasn’t as hard to “paint over” existing memories.

Jack’s brain was as stubborn as he was, and right now that was a good thing. It gave them time to fix this.

“This is good news,” she said as much to herself as to them. “It means we might be able to stop the reinforcement of the false memories and help him reconnect to the real ones. At the very least, we should be able to stop the headaches and passing out whenever he tries to remember.”

Sam took a deep breath. This wasn’t exactly a light at the end of the tunnel, but things were getting brighter.

“I’ll go ahead and let Janet know,” Daniel said. “One of the devices SG-11 brought back should let her synthesize an antiviral treatment that can be used after we upload the new code into Jack’s brain...or at least something close enough to help with the symptoms.”

None of them were convinced that the solution would be as easy as uploading new code, which Sam was already nervous about. Janet thought that some of the effects could linger because of Jack’s human brain chemistry, the same way a normal virus took time to resolve, so they wanted to be prepared. Thankfully, Janet was convinced that with the device SG-11 found a few months ago and the data from Sam’s day as a digital host, she would be able to figure out something to help the process along.

That just left the code itself. Sam still wasn’t confident about using Jack as a human guinea pig. She didn’t want to make things worse.

“Daniel, before you do that, are you sure there won’t be any more surprises in the translation?”

He adjusted his glasses again before he gave a little shrug of his shoulders.

“That was the big one, I think. Shouldn’t be any other major changes and it’s not like this one even made a difference to what you’re planning to do anyway, right? If you’re just reversing the code, any minor translation differences shouldn’t matter.”

Sam really felt like Daniel shouldn’t have said the last part. If felt like he was tempting fate and should go knock on wood or something.

“It shouldn’t,” she admitted, “but we’re talking about his brain here. It’s not something I want to mess up.”

“You won’t.”

“I really wish we’d heard back from the Asgard,” Sam said.

At least they would know what they were doing. Even with all her knowledge, Sam still felt like she was making it up as she went along.

“What about contacting the Tok’ra?” Jonas asked.

Sam had considered that idea when they didn’t hear back from the Asgard. She’d even resigned herself to the fact that she’d have to tell her dad about her massive screw up, but it wasn’t a feasible option right now.

“My dad is off on a mission,” she explained, “and I don’t want Anise anywhere near Jack’s brain after the last time.”

If either of them noticed her slip, they didn’t mention it.

“It’ll be fine, Sam,” Daniel told her as he picked up the books and notebooks he brought with him.

“You’ve solved bigger problems than this,” Jonas reminded her.

She might have, but as she told Jack last night, this problem felt more important than most of those others.

“I guess we should get back to it then.”

Daniel left to talk to Janet and Jonas pulled out the link devices they brought back from the planet and the specifications they found in the library. The devices were basically inert right now, but they wanted to get a better idea of how they worked before they tried anything on Jack.

Sam went back to writing the new version of the code while Jonas checked one device with a multimeter and compared the inner workings of the other to the specs.

“It uses an electrical current to send the signals to someone's brain,” he said about an hour later. “The programmed oscillation uses the body’s own cells to simulate a virus. It targets a few of them and modifies them just enough to follow the given instructions. That’s probably why they didn’t show up on Janet’s medical tests. They don’t have a normal virus structure. Some of the Colonel’s own cells have been basically hijacked until the condition is met, at which time they’ll go inactive.”

Sam looked up from the computer. “Is that the good news or the bad news?”

Jonas set down the tools he was using.

“Good, I think. It’s a variation on what happened to his brain when he looked into the Ancient repository and what happened to yours when that entity had to convert your brain to digital and back again to return to your body. It’s all based on electrical signals and how the human body interprets them. The device should convert the code to the correct signals once we upload it.”

Jonas’ observations calmed Sam down a little. She was much more comfortable in the areas of electrical engineering and computer science than she was in medicine.

“We’ll have to test all of this in a different location. There’s a room a few levels down that’s not connected to the network and has walls thick enough to block a wifi signal.”

Sam had stripped as much extraneous code as she could, but she still wouldn’t take the risk of the AI from the planet jumping onto the SGC’s system. It was better to be overly cautious. She’d recently relearned that lesson the hard way.

They worked for several more hours. Janet and Daniel stopped by at one point with an update on the antiviral treatment, which could be synthesized in a day or two. Teal’c also came to check on them. He’d spent most of the day with Jack, training new SGC recruits.

When Sam asked how Jack was doing, Teal’c told her that he appeared to be in a good mood in spite of troubles sleeping the previous night due to a headache.

Sam felt a stab of guilt at that piece of information. She tried to be careful in her conversation with him, but apparently she’d gone too far and had triggered some headaches after all. She kept causing him pain when that was the absolute last thing she wanted to do.

Jonas left the room around seven to get some food, only after Sam promised that she would eat soon too.

Half an hour after that, she heard footsteps by the door to her lab and looked up. She expected it would be Jonas or Daniel back to drag her to dinner, but Jack was framed in the doorway instead.

“Where’s the rest of the gang?”

He walked until he stood next to the chair that Jonas recently vacated.

“Dinner break.”

“Sounds like something you should be doing too.”

It was so like him to try to pull her away from work to eat. Just like how he’d bribed her with a “free order” to get her to leave work the week before. She almost forgot, when he did things like that, why she was here in the first place. Even without his memories of her, they still fell into some of the same patterns. If she wasn’t so stressed out by the whole situation, she might find it fascinating.

Then she remembered that she caused him to have headaches last night and that there were more important things to focus on than dinner.

Sam looked at Jack, shook her head, and continued to type on the keyboard.

“I have to finish this. We think we can get your memories back. Or at least stop the headaches. I’m sorry about the ones you had last night by the way.”

He sat down in the chair.

“Not your fault, Sam.”

It was and they both knew it, but it was kind of him to say otherwise.

“You don’t have to wait for me. I’ll be here for a while.”

She expected him to ask about the progress they made today, but he didn’t.

“It’s almost eight, Carter. I’m pretty sure there’s some saying about all work and no play.”

“There are some things more important than having fun and getting a life,” she snapped.

Jack froze and then tilted his head to look at her like he was trying to figure her out.

“I wasn’t telling you to get a life, Carter. I was telling you to get food.”

It was her fault she’d reacted the way she did. It was just that he’d used that all work and no play line several times before when trying to convince her to leave her lab and she flashed back to all of the insinuations that there was something wrong with her because she prioritized her job.

She sighed and turned to face him.

“I’m sorry, sir.”

He leaned a hand against the lab table.

“Is this a fight we’ve had before?”

It surprised her that he asked. She still wasn’t used to this version of Jack O’Neill who confronted the personal issues between them because he was missing years of context.

“You think all I do is work and that I’m boring outside of the SGC,” she admitted, a little sheepishly.

“I doubt that,” he laughed.

He put his hand on the notebook in front of her and slowly started to slide it away, like she wouldn’t notice that he was still trying to push her towards taking a break.

“You’ve said on more than one occasion that I need to get a life outside of the mountain. That I need to relax.”

He still looked amused and she tried not to take it personally. The notebook was under his palm now, fully out of her grasp. Jack didn’t even look down at it.

“I’m pretty sure I think you’re fascinating in or outside of work, with or without my memories. Did it ever occur to you that I’ve suggested you relax because I think you should relax? Because relaxation is good for you?”

The funny thing was that it never had occurred to her. Sam always took his statements as a judgment.

“Well, no. Not really.”

She wondered if there were other things she’d misread over the years. Jack didn’t seem surprised at her comment. Suddenly, it felt like she was the one who was trying to manage without past context instead of him.

“Sam, I’ve seen a lot of people flame out over the years in jobs like ours and I’m guessing you do more than all of them combined. It’s important to watch the balance of it all. The job’s important, but you need more than the job. Otherwise, what’s the point?”

“I’m starting to realize that, sir.”

This current situation had shown Sam that she was at a breaking point. She screwed up on a mission and then she let her emotions run her ragged trying to find a solution. She didn’t know what balance would look like in her life. She honestly couldn’t remember a time when she hadn’t focused on work with an all-consuming drive.

“Do you think I need to take up new hobbies?” Sam asked, feeling a little silly that she was stuck on this point. There was just a freedom in asking him these types of questions now, without the baggage that usually surrounded them.

“Well...what hobbies do you have?”

Jack’s expression was serious, but Sam almost felt like he was playing with her. If he had his memories, she would have been sure that he was teasing her.

“I like working and my motorcycle. Flying. Playing card games. Winning at pool. Stargazing sometimes.”

It did sound sort of pathetic now that she started to list it out. She rarely did any of those things except work.

“Saving the planet?” he added.

She shrugged. “I guess so.”

“Sounds like a pretty spectacular list of hobbies to me,” Jack replied with a grin. “I would know, considering we have a lot of them in common.”

Sam forgot, sometimes, how much the two of them had in common. Maybe it was because she was always so focused on the science, or maybe it was a way to distance herself from him.

“What do you do to relax?” Sam asked, just because she could...even though she was sure she knew the answer.

His face got a dreamy quality to it that she wished she could capture on film.

“I’ve got this cabin up in Minnesota. Beautiful place, but simple. It’s like a step back in time. Going back there recharges me.”

“Really?”

“Yeah,” he replied. “The best part, though, are the sunsets. They’re orange and red and pink. The light hits the ripples in the pond and it glitters in this indescribable way.”

She could almost see it in her mind and a wave of longing hit her. Every other time he talked about the cabin, he talked about fishing. Hearing him describe the sunsets felt different and far more tempting.

“I bet you’d like it.”

Sam was sure she would.

“Maybe one day I’ll see it.”

It was the closest she’d ever come to accepting his numerous invitations. Jack nodded once, as if he knew that verbally acknowledging her comment would be a step too much for her to handle right now.

“Let’s go to the mess. Even workaholics need to eat.”

“You don’t think I should take up golf?” She asked him, just to be sure. “Or knitting?”

His lips curved into a barely-there smile. “I think you should do whatever you want to do, Sam. But I suggest starting with dinner.”

She knew that he was right and she didn’t really want to argue about it any more, so she saved her progress and stole her notebook back from under his hand so it would be by the keyboard where she wanted it when she returned from dinner.

“I’m coming back after we eat,” she told him.

“I’d expect nothing less.”

“If you do take up golf,” Jack said as they left the lab, “you should hit one through the Stargate. You’d definitely break some distance records that way.”

Sam laughed. “I’ll consider it.”

Chapter Text

“Okay, just to double check...this isn’t going to fry my brain, right?”

Sam winced at Jack’s question. She didn’t think he would appreciate it if she told him that she was only about eighty percent sure this was going to work the way they wanted it to.

“The silence is not making me feel better about this, you guys.”

“It’s not going to fry your brain, Colonel,” Jonas said as he worked to calibrate the link device properly.

Jack was sitting on an infirmary bed with his legs hanging off the side. They were in a room that was usually used for storage. It just happened to have walls and a location that made it next to impossible for any wireless signals to reach another computer.

Just in case.

Sam tried not to look in Jack’s direction because she knew he was too good at reading her. He’d see her nerves and her doubt and right now he needed to hear Jonas’ confidence instead.

“We’ve tested the code to make sure it transfers to the link and the electrical output is within an acceptable range,” Janet said. “We set up a temporary medical suite next door just in case it’s needed.”

Janet hadn’t exactly been happy when Sam and Jonas recommended keeping all the monitors and other medical electronics in a separate room, but they wanted to be as isolated as possible during the transmission of the code. It was either this or gating off-world to a site without technology and they all felt like staying at the SGC was the better choice.

“See, it’s that ‘just in case’ bit that I’m worried about,” Jack said.

Sam kept her eyes focused on the screen in front of her, doing last minute checks of the upload program and the code itself.

“On the bright side,” Daniel said from the corner of the room, “it’s not like it’s going to erase your memories of us again.”

Sam gave a frustrated sigh and turned around. “Not helping, Daniel.”

He didn’t even have the decency to look chagrined. Sam turned to where Jack was sitting, hands gripping the mattress and feet swinging slowly.

“It’s going to be fine, sir.”

Jack didn’t look like he believed any of them.

“All I’m saying is now that we know this virus isn’t going to kill me or erase any additional memories, maybe we don’t need to rush into it.”

Sam tried not to take it personally that Jack was so ambivalent about restoring his memories of them.

“Do you not wish to regain your memories, O’Neill?” Teal’c asked.

Jack leaned back on his hands and blew out a breath.

“It’s not that I don’t want to, it’s just that I want to avoid making things worse. Want to keep what’s left.”

He tapped the side of his head with his index finger.

Sam got out of her chair and walked over to him. She had to convince him that this was a good idea. The longer they waited, the more likely he would completely lose the ability to access the original versions of his memories and the more pain he would experience in the meantime.

“Sir, we’re not certain if this will restore all of your memories, given how long the virus has been at work in your system, but we’re hoping that it will at least deactivate the negative feedback that you’ve been experiencing...the pain response...when your brain attempts to connect to the original versions of your memories.”

She was tempted to reach out and touch his hand, which was tightly gripping the edge of the thin infirmary bed mattress.

“We’ve tested out as much as we could, Colonel, and we think this is the best bet,” Jonas added. “The human brain is fragile, but can also be surprisingly resilient.”

Sam saw Jack grimace at the “fragile” comment.

“It’s your call, sir,” she told him, “but we don’t have any other options right now.”

He blew out a breath.

“What would you do, Carter? If it was you?”

Sam tried to put herself in his shoes. Missing memories would be disorienting and unsettling, but she also knew the risks of using experimental alien technology on the human body. It was a difficult decision, but she knew exactly what she would do.

“I would take the chance. I would want those memories back.”

“You know it’s not that I don’t want my memories back -”

“You’ve never backed down from risks before, sir.”

It was manipulative to say so, but it was also true. If Jack O’Neill really was the same man even without some of his memories, he wouldn’t back down from this. All he wanted was a reason to go through with it.

“They’ve made it about as safe as they can, Jack,” Daniel said.

Jack continued to look at her and nodded his head.

“Might as well get this over with, then.”

Sam stepped back so that Janet could check Jack’s heart rate and Jonas could attach the link to his temple.

“Heart rate is good for now. I’m going to check right after the upload too so that we can make sure everything is holding steady.”

Janet shot her a glance and Sam knew the doctor was frustrated that all of her equipment was in a different room.

“How does that feel?” Jonas asked.

“Like I’m a science experiment,” Jack quipped.

“I think he meant physically,” Daniel pointed out.

Irritation flashed across Jack’s face.

“I don’t know, Daniel. It feels like I have something stuck on my head that shouldn’t be there.”

Jonas looked between them.

“It should be painless, Colonel. It has natural adhesive properties. You may feel a slight shock when we upload the code, though. An electrical signal will be sent through the device and we haven’t been able to determine how strong that signal will feel on your end.”

“Sounds like fun.”

Jack’s sarcasm was in full force today.

Sam was torn by dual impulses. Part of her wished they could hold this off until it was perfected and there was no risk of failure. The other part wanted to just start the process so they could begin dealing with the results, whatever they might be.

At least this time, she wasn’t acting impulsively. She’d rewritten the code herself and walked through the various permutations. She made sure there wasn’t anything extraneous in there that could harm him. Sam didn’t have control over how the instructions she’d written would be translated to his brain via the link, but she oversaw every other step of this process.

Daniel was right. They made this about as safe as they could.

Sam looked around the room at Jonas, Daniel, Janet, and Teal’c. Each nodded in turn to signal that they were ready. She looked at Jack.

“Are you ready, sir?”

“As ready as I’ll ever be.”

Sam turned back to the computer and connected the software program to the link.

“Upload software connected wirelessly.”

She shouldn’t be nervous. She knew that she’d done the best she could and she was supported by smart people who also contributed a lot.

Sam heard Jonas ask Jack if he felt anything from the link. Jack said no and she took that as a good sign.

“Maybe you should lay down on the bed, Colonel,” Janet suggested.

Teal’c spoke up.

“O’Neill did lose his footing during the last update.”

Jack glared at him.

“I tripped and it wasn’t a big deal. I didn’t even fall.”

“Sir-”

“I’ll be fine sitting here and I don’t need all of you fussing over me. It’s exhausting. Let’s just get this done.”

Janet gave her a look and Sam shrugged. There was only so much you could boss around a grown man and this was Janet’s fight if she wanted to deal with it.

Jack kicked his legs back and forth. It wasn’t good when he got fidgety. Sam watched Janet signal to Teal’c to stand closer to the infirmary bed just in case.

Sam took a deep breath and hit a few buttons on the keyboard to begin sending the update.

“Five seconds for it to complete the upload.”

She watched as the code scrolled across the screen and the progress bar filled in. Everything seemed to be working. Sam looked back at Jack. He looked bored and was still moving his feet.

“Do you feel anything?” Jonas asked.

“A little. Feels like static electricity, but it’s -”

Jack’s body went limp and Teal’c caught him before he slid to the floor.

“Shit.”

Sam rushed to his side while Teal’c lowered him the rest of the way to the concrete. She saw Jonas out of the corner of her eye shutting down the program. Her ankle throbbed at the sudden movement, but she ignored the pain.

“Sir? Are you okay?”

Sam reached up to his temple and pushed the link off onto the floor. She pressed her fingers to his neck and was relieved to feel his pulse strong and steady.

“Janet, his pulse is strong and he’s breathing, but -”

“I don’t want to move him until he’s conscious or we have a better idea of what’s going on. Daniel and I will grab some of the equipment from next door.”

She heard the two of them rush out the door and looked down at Jack. His eyes were closed and his face was slack. She reached up to gently touch the side of his face.

Sam was tired of feeling like she might lose him.

“Are you okay, sir?” She repeated. “Please, Jack. Wake up.”

Maybe she shouldn’t have pushed him to try this.

Jack groaned and felt like she could breathe again. He lifted his hand to his head and opened his eyes.

“Ow.”

“Next time maybe you’ll listen to me when I say to lay down on the infirmary bed,” Janet said as she and Daniel rolled several medical devices into the room.

“No one likes people who say I told you so, Doc.”

Jonas and Teal’c plugged the equipment in and then helped Jack get over to the bed. Sam picked up the link and set it on a nearby table.

“You are the worst patient,” Janet muttered as she began placing sensors on him and shoved a thermometer in his mouth. “You’re lucky you didn’t hit your head.”

Jack tried to say something, but it was unintelligible.

“I do not believe that Doctor Fraiser can understand you,” Teal’c said.

Jack frowned and stopped attempting to speak. He put his head back on the pillow and let Janet slide a blood pressure cuff onto his arm.

From what Sam could tell, the values on the monitors Jack was hooked up to all seemed to be in a normal range.

“All of the code uploaded before I shut it off,” Jonas told the group. “Before he lost consciousness.”

They all stood around the bed, waiting for some answers.

The thermometer beeped and Janet pulled it out of Jack’s mouth.

“99.1. Slightly higher than his normal temp, but not significantly so. Blood pressure and heart rate are normal.” She glanced back at the monitors. “Pulse ox is fine and no noticeable difference so far in his brain waves either.”

Jack sat up.

“You don’t have to sound so surprised that I’m fine.”

“You did pass out,” Janet reminded him. “That’s a pretty good indicator of not being fine.”

They still didn’t know if anything had changed with his memory. Jack rubbed a hand over his face and then looked at everyone gathered around his bedside. He got to her and stopped. The weight of his gaze felt heavy.

“So what happened?” Daniel asked.

“A reboot of his system?” Jonas suggested.

Sam heard Janet say something about needing to run more tests and she knew that she should focus, but Jack was still looking at her.

“Do you remember us now, sir?”

She knew that this entire plan was a long shot, but it still broke her heart when he replied.

“Sam. I tried.”

He called her Sam.

On the one hand, that meant he didn’t lose any more memories. The upload of her antivirus program didn’t make things worse. On the other hand, it didn’t bring any of the old memories back. She didn’t fix the problem. All this work - the long, sleepless nights - and it was a failure.

She heard the buzz of conversation around her as Janet, Jonas, and Daniel discussed the apparent results of their experiment. Teal’c sent her a questioning look and she nodded that she was okay.

It was just a letdown.

For all of her attempts to manage her own expectations, Sam realized that she’d been hoping for a miracle and she didn’t get one.

There wasn’t a plan B unless the Asgard called or her dad and Selmak became available.

Sam felt a hand slip into hers and squeeze. She looked at him and tried to smile, but must’ve missed the mark.

“I’m fine. Don’t worry so much.”

He was hooked up to sensors after passing out, again, because of something she did. Sam pulled her hand away.

“It didn’t work.”

Jack opened his mouth to respond, but Jonas piped up first.

“We don’t know that it didn’t work. All we know at this point is that it didn’t work yet.”

Sam knew that Jonas was right, but she didn’t feel reassured.

“It worked quickly the first time,” she pointed out.

“And we all knew that it might not this time,” Janet reminded her. “The virus has probably adapted. And the unfortunate truth is that the healing process usually takes a lot longer than getting injured.”

Sam knew the facts. She just felt worn down.

“You were a pain in the ass in school, weren’t you?” Jack asked. “Wanting to ace everything on the first try and feeling disappointed if you ever got a B?”

She looked up at the teasing tone of his voice and caught the challenge in his eyes.

He was trying to distract her.

“There are options below an A, Colonel?” she replied, trying for an innocent expression.

The corner of his lips curved up.

“I knew it.”

Janet cleared her throat.

“Colonel, we’ve got to take you to the infirmary and run some tests to see what’s going on.”

Sam expected Jack to complain again, but he didn’t. Maybe he was getting used to all the medical tests Janet kept running him through.

“Daniel Jackson and I will assist,” Teal’c offered.

Jonas unplugged the equipment and hung the power cords on the machines before heading over to the computer. Sam knew that the two of them would be responsible for looking at the data and packing up everything else, but she still couldn’t keep her eyes from following the infirmary bed as Teal’c rolled Jack into the hallway.

Janet stopped at the doorway and looked back.

“Sam, Jonas...it’ll take a while to run through all of the tests. Take your time.”

“You really think he’s okay?” she asked.

“That’s what the tests are for,” Janet replied. She walked out the door, dragging a monitor on wheels behind her.

The room was quiet now, and empty. Jonas picked the link up from the floor and put it back in its case.

“Jonas, what do you think?”

He put the case down by the computer and leaned against the table.

“I think if it were an easy problem to solve, you would have done it days ago. Just because it’s difficult doesn’t mean it’s impossible.” He smiled at her. “And the truth is, it may still work out. That thing’s been running in his system for more than a week. It might take at least that long to reverse itself.”

Sam moved over to the computer and started to run an analysis on the signal that was sent to make sure there weren’t any errors in the transmission process.

“And what if it doesn’t?” she asked.

Jonas looked at her with compassion. “You know what we do then. Whatever it takes to fix the negative feedback, whether or not we can restore the memories.”

Sam sighed and looked at the report on the screen, which showed no errors.

“Yeah.”

Jonas did his best to distract her while they brought everything down her her lab and it helped. Jumping off of Jack’s earlier comment about grades, he asked about how the educational system worked in the U.S. and talked about how growing up in Kelowna they didn’t really have grades. Their schools were set up with a competency-based framework so that students could advance at their own pace regardless of their age or environment. The setup was part of why he’d been able to earn multiple degrees and become a special advisor to the Kelownan High Minister at such a young age.

“Of course,” Jonas continued as they put the equipment away, “there were a few times when I slowed down my advancement on purpose so I could stay alongside my friends a little longer.”

He grinned like it was a big accomplishment and Sam wondered what tricks he had to pull to spend more time with his friends.

“Was it worth it?”

“Sure,” he replied easily. “Sometimes learning and advancement are most important. Sometimes the personal stuff matters more.”

Sam had never really prioritized the personal stuff, not since she was a kid. The one time she tried, her engagement had blown up in her face. She focused on school and she focused on her career because she understood how to succeed there.

An hour later, Jonas had to return to Kelowna for some meetings. He’d been checking in daily, but Sam got the feeling he’d have to go back for good soon. It sounded like there was a lot of political in-fighting that he needed to deal with to protect his position on the Joint Council. He’d taken a risk spending so much time here with them to help Jack when his own government was in upheaval and he was the focus of a smear campaign in the papers. It was a sacrifice and she planned to tell him how much it meant to her when he got back.

Sam realized that the choice Jonas made paralleled the decision he made in school, placing the personal above his own career. If others could make that decision so easily, why couldn’t she bring herself to seriously consider doing the same?

The past couple of weeks had shown her that she wasn’t doing a great job any more keeping her personal feelings separate from her work. Something had to change.

Sam wondered if this was a version of the burnout Jack alluded to when he told her that she needed to find a way to relax and have more in her life than work.

She was so used to pushing herself and powering through when faced with problems, but she just ended up exhausted and unfulfilled. There was always the immediate rush she got after finding a solution, but it never lasted long.

Sam knew that she would never stop being a workaholic, but maybe there was a better way to live her life. She just didn’t know what that better way would be.

Once she’d wrapped everything up for the day, she went to the infirmary to see how Jack was doing, only to discover that he’d just left.

“The Colonel’s still restricted to base, but he’s well enough to go grab dinner from the mess.” Janet told her. “He was getting bored. Daniel got pulled onto a project for SG-7 because their linguist is on maternity leave. Teal’c had to go to an off-world meeting with Bra’tac. You and Jonas were busy. Based on his vitals, there wasn’t any reason to keep Colonel O’Neill here.”

“That’s good, right?”

Janet shrugged. “I think so. He had a slight headache, but nothing as bad as before. I gave him the antiviral, so hopefully that will help reduce the inflammation. No memories back yet, but it could still happen.”

It was just more waiting to see if something was going to change.

Sam asked if Janet wanted to grab something to eat, but she already had plans to take Cassie to the movies. Sam turned down an offer to join them. All she wanted to do was grab some food and head home.

Her eyes searched for Jack automatically when she opened the doors and entered the mess hall. He was sitting with Colonel Dixon and Colonel Reynolds and the three of them were laughing, half-eaten meals in front of them.

It surprised her.

Sam knew that Jack and Dixon and Reynolds got along, but she couldn’t recall the last time she’d seen them eat together or the last time she’d seen those three men laughing together like friends. She hated that she was feeling possessive. He was allowed to have other friends. Just because she spent most of her time with her teammates, didn’t mean that Jack O’Neill had to do the same. He deserved to have other friends.

It wasn’t another sign that she was losing him.

Sam placed a sandwich and drink on her tray and heard more laughter ring out from the table behind her. She wasn’t used to hearing Jack laugh and that felt like its own sort of loss.

She was suddenly reminded of every time she had to transfer to a new school and didn’t know where to sit at lunch time.

Normally, she would sit with Jack. She just wasn’t sure if the men would welcome her intrusion. Plus, they seemed like they were having fun and she felt like every conversation she had with Jack recently was weighed down with emotion. She didn’t want to ruin things.

Sam decided that she would bring the tray down to her lab and eat there. She turned towards the door and started walking towards the exit when she heard her name.

“Sam! Over here!”

She looked back and saw that Jack was gesturing her over.

Without another option, she headed in the direction of the table.

“Hi, sir.”

Sam sat down across from him and placed her tray in front of her. Dixon and Reynolds greeted her politely.

She shouldn’t feel awkward sitting here, but she did.

“Sam, have you heard about Dixon’s recent little jaunt to ‘483 yet?”

Her brain was still stuck on the fact that Jack had called her Sam twice in a row on base in front of other COs, but she shot a questioning glance towards Dave Dixon.

The man in question rolled his eyes and shook his head. “O’Neill here just enjoys other people’s misery.”

Sam knew that Dixon was joking around, but she couldn’t think of any description of Jack that would be further from the truth.

“What happened?”

Reynolds chuckled.

“We were looking at an abandoned lab and Balinsky touched something he shouldn’t have.”

“Bad decision on his part,” Jack said with a grin.

“Oh, like you’ve never touched something you weren’t supposed to, sir,” Sam said, thinking of all the times he’d gotten them in a minor jam because of his own curiosity and the weird quirk of his genetic code.

Only this Jack O’Neill didn’t remember those times with her. She saw the quick flash of heat in his eyes before he hid his thoughts beneath a blank expression and realized that the only thing he probably remembered touching that he wasn’t supposed to was her. Sam thought about the hugs that lasted too long, the way his body felt pressed against hers as they watched a movie, and the soft touch of his fingers as he brushed hair out of her face and leaned towards her.

Crap.

“Like that Ancient repository,” Reynolds suggested. “Or alien cake on Argos.”

Neither of those experiences had been the laughing matter Reynolds’ joking tone implied, but she could have kissed the man for providing a distraction anyway.

“Oh, screw you, Reynolds,” Jack said. “Like you haven’t had plenty of your own off-world mishaps.”

“I thought I was trying to tell a story here,” Dixon cut in.

Jack moved his hand in a sweeping gesture in front of them. “By all means, continue the tale of your embarrassment. We’re all ears.”

“Carter, don’t judge me if I kill your C.O. before the day is out.”

“Colonel,” she replied, “if you’re trying to get away with murder, you might want to avoid confessing ahead of time.”

Dixon tilted his head and one corner of his mouth lifted.

“They did always say you were the smart one.”

Sam didn’t feel like the smart one these days. She’d never been more stumped by a more important problem.

Dixon didn’t notice the way her smile slid off her face, but Sam could feel Jack’s eyes on her.

“Anyway, Balinsky was an idiot and all of the sudden this gas is released into the chamber. I think we’re done for, right? It’s gotta be some nerve gas or poison or, shit, something else that will kill us.”

Dixon gestured with his hand and had the look of someone warming up to a punchline.

Sam couldn’t help thinking she never really seemed to get used to the close calls the way some of her colleagues were able to.

There were some missions she could joke about, but not the ones where she thought they might die.

“And?” Reynolds prompted.

“It turned all of us blue. Non-toxic, but literally everything - and I mean everything, even through our clothes - was dyed the color of a freakin’ blueberry.”

“Blue?”

She wasn’t sure how she had missed that story. It must’ve been making the rounds of the SGC grapevine.

Jack laughed.

Dixon shook his head in memory.

“Turns out it was a room they used to dye their cow-like animals blue for some special religious ceremony. It took weeks for the stuff to fade.”

She couldn’t believe she didn’t see blue members of SG-13 walking around the base.

Then again, there had been a lot going on lately, with Daniel’s return, Jonas leaving, Teal’c’s injury, and Jack’s memory loss.

“His kids thought it was hilarious,” Reynolds cut in.

“They’re young enough to be stupid,” Dixon explained. “I told them I was in a play.”

She didn’t want to think ill of Dave Dixon’s children, but he really could have come up with a more believable excuse. A chemical spill or something.

“Did they ask to go to opening night?” she teased.

Dixon grimaced.

“Thank god, no. They’ve been to enough of my sister-in-law’s boring plays to be put off the idea entirely.”

Reynolds smirked and glanced at Sam. “They did make him perform the supposed opening number in their living room.”

That shocked her even more than the full-body blue dye. She couldn’t imagine Dave Dixon performing the opening number of anything. She wondered if his wife recorded it. People at the SGC would pay big bucks for that video if it existed.

“What did you perform?” Sam asked. “Did Lainie film it by any chance?”

He gave her a cocky grin, which probably meant there was no video evidence.

“Bill Pullman’s speech from Independence Day. They loved it.”

Sam laughed.

Yeah, that sounded about right.

“Anyway,” Dixon continued, “Lainie absolutely refused to sleep with me until it faded. Kept laughing and said it would be like making love to a smurf. Gave new meaning to the term -”

He cut himself off with a glance at Sam.

“Blue balls, apparently,” she completed with a smile and slight shake of her head.

All the men gave a pleased chuckle. Sam would never classify the humor of most military men as high class, but she had to admit that it could be entertaining.

“Exactly right, Major,” Dixon said. “A+.”

Jack gave her an amused look and she knew he was thinking about his earlier comment that she was a straight A student.

“So SG-16 went back later to get samples,” Reynolds continued, “and one of the guys wasn’t careful enough packing the dye away and got it all over his hand and half his face.”

“Thank god it wasn’t toxic,” Sam said.

“Apparently he’s new,” Jack added. “Not sure if he’s gonna last at the SGC.”

“Speaking of people moving on, did you hear that Kent might get transferred to the Alpha Site?” Dixon asked.

Jack and Reynolds both looked surprised. Kent was the CO of SG-7.

“Is the whole team being moved?” Reynolds asked. “It would suck being based on the Alpha Site full time. No restaurants, no television...”

“No sports,” Jack added with a frown.

“Not sure,” Dixon replied. “Don’t think it’s final yet.”

They spent a few more minutes chatting about what was going on with the other SG teams before Reynolds and Dixon left to gear up for the scheduled missions their teams were leaving on tonight.

“So, how are you feeling, sir?” Sam asked as they returned their dinner trays.

“Exhausted, but fine. Headache’s faded. Haven’t lost any other memories as far as I’m aware.”

Without consciously intending to, they both walked in the direction of his on-base quarters and stopped at the door.

“I’m sorry it didn’t work,” she said.

Sam wasn’t sure if the look Jack gave her was one of sympathy or pity.

“This problem might not be fixable, Sam. What then? Am I really that different from the guy you used to know?”

“You’re not that different, and that’s why it’s difficult.”

He pursed his lips and opened the door. She wished she knew what he was thinking.

“Get some sleep, Carter. You need it.”

“You too, sir.”

Jack nodded and closed the door. Sam headed up to the surface.

She was glad that she’d driven her motorcycle to work. The speed and the rush of the wind against her skin was comforting. She felt the tension she’d been holding all day start to drain from her body. She took the long way home.

It was late by the time Sam finally got ready for bed. Jack’s question kept running through her mind.

This problem might not be fixable, Sam. What then?

She pulled the covers over her head and drifted off into a deep and dreamless sleep.

Chapter Text

It was cold in this part of the tunnels and his clothes were itchy. He was exhausted after a long day and hungry because the rations were never enough to make him full. His muscles ached. If he was smart, he’d be in bed recuperating so the next day wouldn’t be even more difficult.

“Jonah.”

He looked up and got caught in her smile.

“I wasn’t sure you’d make it.”

She sat down beside him, her back against the wall.

“I do have a very busy and important schedule.”

He smiled because she meant it as a joke, but he couldn’t help but believe that she deserved to do important things. She deserved better than to be stuck here working on the heating system underground during an ice age. Yes, it was their honor to serve, but he couldn’t help thinking that he should be able to see her face tilted up towards a warm sun or stars reflecting in her eyes.

“Then I’m a lucky man that you can fit me into your schedule.”

She let out a light laugh and pressed her head against his shoulder. “Maybe I’m the lucky one.”

Jonah doubted that, but he wasn’t going to correct her. Thera was the only bit of light in the darkness and he’d take whatever she wanted to give him. He wrapped an arm around her shoulder and pulled her close.

“If we could ever go anywhere other than here,” he said, “I’d take you on a date.”

It was all a fantasy, but he wished that he could give her more than the life they had.

“A date?” she asked, her face turned up towards his.

“It’s an expression,” he replied automatically. He was sure it was. “Thera, if I could, I’d take you all over the universe to see every amazing thing that’s out there.”

She made a soft humming sound and curled into his side, wrapping a hand around his bicep. “That sounds nice. I think I’d like seeing the universe with you.”

Jonah thought it sounded like a dream come true. He tilted his head down and saw her smiling up at him, her blue eyes shining even in the darkness.

It was only natural to press his lips to hers. She leaned into him and opened her mouth on a sigh. Her tongue stroked his and his attention narrowed until she was the only thing he knew. There wasn’t an ice age. There weren’t days full of back-breaking labor.

There was only her.

Thera pulled her head back and her soft hands cupped his cheeks.

“Hey, Jonah?”

“Yeah?”

“I remember feeling feelings for you too.”

He lifted a hand and moved his thumb over the crease of a dimple in her cheek. Her smile widened.

“Buried in there among all those numbers?” he teased.

The numbers and acronyms she mentioned made Jonah feel anxious, like there was a shadow coming. He moved his hand to rest on her arm. He liked being close to her and he didn’t want this feeling to end.

“Yes, and the big blue puddle.”

He gave her a look of disbelief.

“You know that doesn’t make sense, don’t you? You can’t have a puddle that’s upright that you can walk through.”

She gave a huff and leaned back. He was thankful that only one of her hands dropped. The other was absently caressing his unshaven cheek.

“I know it doesn’t make sense, but it feels right somehow. Just like being with you feels right.”

He tilted his head to press a kiss to the palm of her hand.

“Thera, I -”

A loud alarm sounded and he looked up and around, unable to see the source. When he looked back at Thera, she faded into thin air.

“Don’t go,” he whispered.

The tunnels around him faded too.

Jack blinked his eyes and woke up. He hit the alarm on the nightstand and tried to grasp at the memories of his dream.

Sam was there in the tunnels of P3R-118 with him and she had a different name. The dream was so vivid. He could still remember the taste of her and the way it felt to have her cuddled up against his side.

For a brief moment, Jack wondered if some memories were finally seeping through, but he knew that was only wishful thinking. Sam said nothing ever happened between them. She may have some feelings for him, but she said she wanted everything to return to normal. It wasn’t her fault he kept having dreams about kissing her.

Jack didn’t know how he used to feel about her, but he was sure as hell falling for Samantha Carter now, which only made everything more complicated.

It had been two days since they uploaded that code into his head and not much had changed. He still had some headaches when he tried to remember his missing memories, although the pain wasn’t as bad. No memories had resurfaced.

He was still stuck on base and everyone was still asking how he was doing all the goddamned time. Sam was moping around, Daniel kept observing him as if he thought a change would happen any moment, and Janet made him do more medical tests. It was a lot.

At least Jonas and Teal’c weren’t bothering him. Jonas was still back in Kelowna and Teal’c didn’t say much in the first place. Teal’c, understandably, was Jack’s favorite member of SG-1 to hang out with at the moment.

Unfortunately, it was Daniel who found him at breakfast.

“You okay?”

“Like I’ve told you before, Jackson, I’m fine.”

“You don’t usually call me by my last name,” Daniel pointed out.

“You people are weird about names,” Jack grumbled into his coffee. “You get touchy about the last name, Sam gets touchy about the first name. Why do you have to make things so complicated?”

Daniel just gave him a patient look that made Jack feel like he’d been the one acting weird.

“Are you okay?” Daniel asked again.

Jack realized he might’ve gotten past the interrogation if it weren’t for his minor outburst about the name thing.

You live and you learn. If Daniel wanted to be called by his first name, Jack could do that.

“Fine, Danny.”

He couldn’t help but still be a bit of an ass about it and used a nickname instead. To his surprise, Daniel lit up like he’d done the exact right thing.

Then the interrogation continued.

“I don’t believe you. You look tired.”

Jack liked Daniel Jackson. He was a good guy, if a little excitable at times. He just didn’t like being the center of the younger man’s curiosity. It felt like being under a spotlight.

“I just didn’t sleep well, that’s all.”

“Bad dreams?”

Jack hesitated. Dreams were the cause of his exhaustion, but he didn’t think he could categorize them as bad.

“No.”

Once again, Jack found himself under the weight of Daniel’s stare. Daniel opened his mouth to speak and Jack could almost feel the barrage of questions he was about to endure, but then Daniel pursed his lips and shook his head and started to tell a story instead.

“When I lost my memories, the first thing I remembered was my wife’s name. Sha’re.” A soft smile spread across Daniel’s face. “You met her before. In fact, you were there when I met her and married her.”

Jack had a vague impression of a vast desert and a woman with long, dark hair. His head started to ache again and he let the image go.

“I dreamt of her and details started to come back piece by piece,” Daniel continued. “We had a conversation about her photo and after you left my quarters that night, I spent a long time looking at that photograph. When I woke up the next morning, I wasn’t sure if my dreams had been memories or just a side effect of staring at that picture and imagining what I wanted my life with that woman to be like.”

“Makes sense,” Jack said, fingers playing with the torn cover on the book next to Daniel’s coffee.

Only in Daniel’s case, he really had been married to the woman in question. The dream Jack had last night wasn’t what had happened in reality. He’d been separated from his team on P3R-118. Major Sam Carter hadn’t been on that mission. She hadn’t been beside him as he toiled in the tunnels of a godforsaken alien city. Her smile hadn’t been there to brighten the dismal days and nights on that ice-covered planet.

Daniel’s dreams of Sha’re had been memory. His of Sam were fantasy. It was just his imagination running away with him because he was falling for his second in command.

“You came to get me for breakfast the next morning,” Daniel said, continuing his story. “And I told you that I had a dream about the woman in the photograph and you asked if I remembered her name. I told you what I had called her in the dream and you slapped me on the shoulder and told me we were going to celebrate. I still felt lost, but now I had this one truth to cling to. We ate dessert for breakfast and for the first time I wasn’t worried about what it might mean if I got my memories back.”

Jack wished that he could remember any of what Daniel was telling him, but it still felt like fiction.

“I sound like a good friend.”

“Sure, when you’re not being an ass.”

Jack looked up, but Daniel was smiling. He wondered if this was how they usually interacted, with fond mild antagonism.

“I’m still not remembering anything new, Daniel. Not all dreams mean something.”

Daniel put down his coffee. Jack didn’t like the way that the archaeologist was looking at him.

“So there have been dreams?”

“No,” Jack said.

No way was he talking about the dream he had last night with the man in front of him, especially if they were all meant to be a team again some day. He had to try and keep it professional.

Plus, he didn’t want Daniel Jackson all up in his personal business.

“You know,” Daniel said, drawing out his words in a way that made Jack realize he wasn’t going to like what followed. “I thought that you might start remembering Sam first.”

Jack wasn’t sure he liked the implication. After all, Daniel had just told a whole long story about how when he lost his memories, he remembered his wife first.

Sam had made it clear that there wasn’t anything going on between them. There might be a spark, a mutual attraction, but nothing was going to come of it. Jack had to accept that. A part of him was even glad that he hadn’t crossed that line into inappropriate conduct with an officer under his command.

“You weren’t exactly subtle when you kept hinting at it back in the infirmary after we got back from ‘289. It led to a really awkward conversation with her later and things are finally getting back to normal again. She wants things back to normal. Leave it alone. And Daniel, I’m telling you this now: if I remember you or Teal’c first, don’t read anything into it.”

Daniel laughed and shook his head. “I definitely won’t.”

They sat in silence for a few minutes while Daniel drank his coffee and flipped through the book he’d brought with him. For some reason Jack didn’t leave. He should have. It would have prevented the next set of questions.

“Which mission were you dreaming about?”

“Ice planet with the mind-stamp.”

The reply was out of his mouth before Jack realized it and he winced. This was just going to lead to more questions. It didn’t take a psychologist to realize he’d been dreaming about the last time he lost his memories. His mind was probably just working through the experience in his sleep.

“Interesting.”

“Not really.”

This was exactly what he didn’t want. Jack didn’t want Daniel looking at him like a fascinating puzzle to solve.

“We had our memories overwritten on that mission, but we got them back. Maybe that’s a good sign.”

Jack almost pointed out that Daniel hadn’t been on that mission, but he didn’t feel like making the effort when he knew what the result would be. He was getting tired of all of the corrections to his supposedly corrupt memories of his own life.

“Who do you remember from that mission? What names?” Daniel asked. “Your version. Not anything else.”

Jack huffed and adjusted his position on the chair, not that he’d be able to get comfortable for this conversation.

“Griff, Warren, and Bell went with me for the initial meet and greet with Administrator Calder.”

Daniel had that look on his face that Jack had just said something fascinating, which irritated him to no end.

“Stop looking at me like that. You’re going to drive me crazy.”

If Jack wasn’t careful, Daniel’s curiosity would spark his own curiosity and then he’d try to remember Daniel’s version of events and get a headache all over again.

“Sorry,” Daniel apologized. “Just thinking about the way the link works.”

“If you don’t want to hear this, I have better things to do.”

He started to stand, but Daniel threw up a hand to stop him.

“Wait, no, sorry. I didn’t mean to get distracted. Tell me what happened next.”

“We got separated. I got mind-stamped. The end.”

“Who was down there with you, Jack?”

“Janet’s going to kill you if I end up back in the infirmary,” he pointed out. Daniel’s questions were walking a fine line. “The headaches aren’t gone. They’re a lot better, but they’re not gone. Plus, we’ve already spent two days playing twenty questions.”

“Come on, Jack. Who was down there with you?”

Jack tried to remember the people he’d been trapped underground with, but the memories had faded with time and they started to swirl together with the dream he had last night.

“I don’t know, Daniel. It was years ago. Plus, I’m not a people person. I didn’t bother learning most of their names.”

He was there to work and there to serve and it was a life of drudgery except for her rare smiles.

Jack shook his head.

There had been no smiles and no soft kisses.

That was all his mind constructing a way that mission could have actually been pleasant. It was a good thing she hadn’t been there or he might never have remembered his real life at all. He might’ve been content to stay there.

“You’ve got to know a couple,” Daniel prompted. Jack could tell he was getting frustrated so he decided to rattle off a couple he did remember to get the man off his case.

“Brenna...Kegan…” He tried to stretch to remember the details. The whole thing had been years ago. “Thera?”

Jack didn’t realize that he’d shared the name from his dream until he saw the massive grin on Daniel’s face.

“Bingo.”

All of the sudden he felt exposed, as if he had revealed too much of himself.

“What?”

Daniel’s expression didn’t change. “You might not realize this about our working relationship yet, but there are times when you hate that I’m right. I’m guessing this is going to be one of those times.”

“It’s just a name, Daniel.”

If the archaeologist often wore this smug expression, Jack could understand why there were times they didn’t get along. It was annoying.

“Did that name happen to be attached to a tall blonde with short hair who bore a striking resemblance to Major Samantha Carter?”

Jack’s eyes widened. It couldn’t be true. He was trapped out there alone. There was no way that she had been there with him. If she had been, that meant his dreams might be real.

He doubted that he should know how his second-in-command kissed or the sounds she made when he pressed his lips to the curve of her neck.

Damn it.

“It was just a dream,” he insisted.

“My memories of Sha’re weren’t just a dream.”

Jack didn’t like the way that Daniel kept trying to parallel his relationship with his wife to Jack’s with Sam. It felt dangerous.

As dangerous as the fact that at least one part of his dream was true.

“Sam was Thera?” he managed to ask.

“Yes,” Daniel replied. “She was Thera and you were Jonah and I was Carlin and Teal’c was Tor.”

He barely heard the names that Daniel claimed he and Teal’c went by.

“Thera was real?” he asked again, just to confirm.

“Well, as real as a mind-stamp on Sam could be, I suppose. This is great news! You remembered something.”

This didn’t feel like something that should be celebrated. It felt like trouble.

“Shit.”

He leaned his elbows on the table and put his head in his hands.

How much of his dream was real and how much was fantasy? There was no way in hell they would have stayed on the same team if they’d gotten together on a mission, even if they had been memory-wiped at the time.

He still remembered the version of events with Griff, Warren, and Bell. He couldn’t remember a version with Sam, Daniel, and Teal’c. All he had was the dream.

This was confusing and it sucked.

“Jack, this is good news. What’s the problem?”

“No problem,” he muttered into his hands. “This lovely conversation of ours brought on another slight headache.”

Jack knew they wouldn’t clear him to go back through the ‘gate until the headaches were gone and he was beginning to lose patience, both with the physical discomfort and the way everyone was walking on eggshells around him.

“We should go see Janet,” Daniel suggested. “I’ll walk with you.”

“At this point, I might as well start living in the infirmary,” Jack grumbled. “I’m never going to get back through the ‘gate if you keep asking annoying questions every time I start to feel better.”

Jack finished the rest of his coffee and stood up. He had to get the door for Daniel, who still had a mug of coffee in one hand and his book in another.

“You should tell Sam,” Daniel said as they walked to the infirmary.

“Tell her what?”

Jack knew exactly what Daniel was suggesting and all he could think was that it would only make things worse.

“Tell her about remembering Thera.”

“Nope, not gonna do it. You tell her.”

“Why? She’ll be ecstatic if she knows you’ve remembered that.”

Jack didn’t have Daniel’s faith that a conversation with her would go well. What if Sam started asking questions about the details and it turned out that the making out portion of his dreams was a figment of his imagination? It would get awkward between them all over again.

If he had to talk to her about it, he’d keep to the basics.

“I remembered a name, Daniel. That’s all.”

“You remembered Sam, just like I remembered Sha’re. It’s an important first step. It might mean that your memories are coming back.”

“Maybe.”

“If it all comes back then General Hammond will reinstate you,” Daniel continued. “We can all start going on missions together again. It’ll be like old times.”

The trouble was, Jack didn’t remember what those old times were like. He didn’t know what he would gain if SG-1 went back to normal. All he knew was what he would lose.

Jonah couldn’t take Thera out on a date in his dream, but a Jack O’Neill who was C.O. of SG-1 also couldn’t ask out Major Samantha Carter.

“What’s the team like, Daniel? What would it be like if I remembered?”

A smile brightened Daniel’s face.

“The four of us together, Jack...we’re the best.”

That’s what he was afraid of.

If SG-1 really was the best, Jack doubted that Hammond would let him move to training full time if he got his memories back. The headaches were getting better, so a medical discharge would be off the table soon.

Jack felt like he was finally starting to understand the broken look Sam would get sometimes when she glanced in his direction.

They were too good at what they did to be anything more than teammates.

“Jack?”

He turned to see Daniel’s concerned face.

“Just thinking.”

Jack pushed open the infirmary door.

“Tell Sam, Jack. She deserves to know.”

“Why don’t we just pull together the whole gang, tell everyone at the same time? Or better yet, you tell everyone. I don’t really need to attend another meeting about me. I’m bored of myself.”

Daniel rolled his eyes.

“I’ll figure something out while you have Janet check you out.”

“Thanks.”

“It really is a good thing that you remembered something.”

“I know.”

Jack just needed to keep telling himself that until he believed it.

The medical check-ups had gotten so monotonous that he kept himself entertained by asking Janet questions about how Cassie was doing and when they’d finally let him go home.

His headache had passed by the time he entered the infirmary and nothing bad showed up in the test results so they both took that as a good sign. The inflammation had also slowly started to reduce.

Since it was related to his medical condition, Jack told Janet how he remembered a little about Sam from the ice planet. The doctor thought that was a move in the positive direction.

She told him if he could go forty-eight hours without a headache, she’d let him off base. He finally had a goal to look forward to.

Jack just had to try not think too much about the past over the next two days. Knowing his luck, the task would be much more difficult than it sounded.

After all the medical tests concluded, he headed to the gym. Janet had okayed him for light exercise so he went to the treadmill and set it for a manageable, steady pace.

Jack had been running for about twenty minutes when Sam showed up. Her eyes cast about the room and stopped when she saw him. He turned the machine off when she started to walk over.

He pulled up the hem of his t-shirt to wipe the sweat from his forehead and didn’t miss the way Sam’s eyes shot from his abdomen to his face when the fabric dropped.

“What’ya doing here, Carter?”

“Daniel, um, mentioned that you wanted to see me, sir.”

Of course he did. Daniel Jackson was a meddler who couldn’t leave well enough alone.

“He didn’t tell you why?”

She shook her head.

“No, he didn’t.”

Jack sighed and gestured towards a nearby bench. They walked over and sat down.

“Did he ever do what I told him to do when I was in charge?”

“Daniel?”

“Yeah. I’m starting to realize he could be a pain in the ass in the field.”

Sam looked confused at the turn in conversation.

“He’s a real asset off-world, but there are times where -”

“Got it. That’s what I thought.” Jack leaned his head against the wall. “I wanted him to update everyone, but he sent you here instead.”

“Update us on what?”

The dream was still too vivid in his mind to be sitting this close to Sam, listening to her voice wash over him. He wished he had a little more time to distance himself before a one on one conversation with her. Jack pulled himself together and then turned to face her.

“I remembered a name in a dream,” he admitted.

“What name?”

“Thera.”

Jack watched as the information seemed to transform her - briefly - into the open, smiling woman from his dream. He tried to memorize that dazed expression before she locked it away again behind a reserved military facade.

“Oh.”

“Yeah, Daniel told me.”

“What exactly did you remember?” she asked. “Sir?”

Sam’s expression was guarded now, as if one wrong word from him would destroy her.

“Not much,” he replied. “A conversation.”

Jack didn’t divulge more because he was still mostly convinced that his brain had made up his favorite parts of that dream and it would be a little mortifying to describe it out loud. He certainly didn’t want to discuss it on base anyway and it wasn’t like they could go anywhere else to have this conversation.

“About what?”

“About a glowing blue puddle and numbers that were driving you crazy. It was after a shift.”

Her eyes widened.

“You really remembered something.”

Sam said the words with something close to awe.

“Guess so.”

Jack was mid-shrug when she enveloped him in a hug, even though he was a little sweaty. He felt her release a heavy breath against his neck and tried not to think about how right it felt to be this close to her.

Even so, one of his hands settled on her lower back and the other moved to thread through the hair on the back of her head.

Almost immediately, she pulled back.

“I’m sorry, sir. I just...this is a great development. I’m really happy for you.”

Jack thought Sam would be relieved by this new development. She’d been working frantically for weeks to get his memories back, but now she seemed unsettled. He wondered why.

The smile didn’t reach her eyes.

“Daniel said if I get my memories back, it’ll be just like old times with the four of us going on missions together again.”

Her smile faltered before she recovered.

“Yes, it’ll be just like old times. I’m looking forward to it, sir.”

Sam seemed a lot less excited about that possibility than Daniel had.

“What was it like?” he asked. “All of us working together?”

She took the time to think before responding.

“I don’t know how to describe it. Before SG-1, I’d never been on a team that worked so well together. It wasn’t smooth right away, but eventually we were all able to read each other so well and it’s like we filled each other’s gaps.”

“Like a well-oiled machine?”

She almost looked like she was about to agree, but then she shook her head.

“Something better than that. Less robotic.”

Sam looked over at him, softly smiling. This time the smile was genuine.

“Something with more heart,” she added.

Jack wished he could remember that part - the part where they all worked together smoothly and happily as a team. It might offset the frustration he was currently feeling.

“I guess I’ll find out what that feels like if my memories come back.”

“I guess you will, sir.”

Jack wanted to reach out and touch Sam’s hand, but he didn’t. He had to start training himself now if he was going to end up the C.O. of SG-1 again.

No touching her.

No flirting with her.

No calling her Sam.

The dreams would be all Jack had. He’d keep those to himself and no one ever had to know how he felt about his second in command.

Chapter Text

“Another glass?” Janet asked.

Sam nodded her head and held out her wine glass for more cabernet. She watched the red wine pour into the glass until Janet cut it off halfway.

“You know I’m going to be driving you home, right?”

Sam sighed. “Yeah.”

Normally, she would cope by throwing herself into work, but that didn’t feel like an escape right now. It was all tied up with the thoughts and feelings she was struggling with.

So when Janet invited her over for dinner and drinks, Sam decided that getting a little drunk was a viable coping method. She just wasn’t sure if she had enough to drink yet to talk about the thoughts that were rambling around in her head.

“What if…”

She stopped and wondered again if she should even talk this through with her friend. Janet wouldn’t break her confidence, but once she said it out loud, the possibility would be out there.

“What, Sam?”

She decided to take another tack.

“Janet, how likely do you think it is that Colonel O’Neill will regain all of his memories?”

Janet took a conservative sip of her own wine before answering.

“I don’t know. I wish I could tell you. It’s been a few days and all he’s remembered is that you were on that ice planet with him and went by the name Thera. It’s going to be slow going if he remembers at this rate. On the positive side, his vitals are looking great and the inflammation has gone down. If he hasn’t had any headaches by the time I do our daily check-in tomorrow, he’ll be cleared to leave base and go home.”

Sam had been overjoyed when Jack said that he remembered Thera. It felt like a weight had been lifted off her chest. That joy, unfortunately, was quickly followed by the realization that the sooner Jack regained his memories, the sooner he’d be cleared to be back in command of SG-1.

She wasn’t sure how she felt about that.

Jack O’Neill was meant to lead SG-1. Sam just didn’t know if she could go back to the way things were. It had been too hard this time. She wasn’t sure she had the strength to shove all the feelings that had been spilling out back into the room where they belonged.

“When’s he going to get cleared for duty?”

Janet swirled the wine in her glass.

“He’s got a psych eval tomorrow morning. General Hammond will decide what he wants to do after that. He might want to keep you all off the mission roster until we see if more of the Colonel’s memories come back. Physically, though, he’s good to go.”

Jack would pass the psych eval because he knew how to pass it. He would give MacKenzie all the answers he wanted to hear about how he felt comfortable working with a team he still didn’t fully remember.

He would be back in the field with the rest of them before they knew it, memories or not. Just like old times, as Daniel said.

Sam took another sip of her wine, frustrated that she wasn’t feeling the effects enough yet. She wanted that “fuzzy around the edges” feeling.

“He remembered Thera,” she muttered. “All of this and he remembered a version of me that I can’t even be.”

Janet set her wine glass down on the coffee table and turned to face her.

“Sam, what’s going on?”

She remembered a time years ago when Janet asked her a different question in a similar tone of voice. Back then, she claimed it wasn’t a problem. Now, she knew it was.

Sam drained her wine glass and refilled it.

“I’ve been having a tough time lately.”

Janet looked at her with sympathy.

“That’s understandable. It’s been a difficult time for your team and for you in particular. Maybe it would be good to use some of your leave. You never take time off and now that we know the Colonel’s health isn’t in danger this could be a good time.”

Sam thought about all of the times she’d spent her leave at work in her lab. She didn’t know when she last had a real vacation. She didn’t even know where she would go or what she would do if she took time off.

“Yeah, maybe.”

She wondered if Jack would ever remember inviting her to his cabin. One day she wanted to see what it looked like.

“Janet, what if I…” Sam took a deep breath and forced the words out. “What if I requested a transfer from SG-1?”

It was a stupid idea. She couldn’t believe she said it out loud.

To her surprise, Janet didn’t dismiss the idea out of hand immediately.

“You’d have to give General Hammond a really good reason.”

“I can figure one out.”

She certainly couldn’t give him the real reason she wanted off the SCG’s best team. It would feel like career suicide.

“Is this about Colonel O’Neill?” Janet asked gently.

It was and it wasn’t. It wasn’t only about him at any rate.

“It’s just...I did this to him and I worked for weeks day and night and it’s still not fixed and I’ve just been thinking a lot lately. Jonas talked about balance and the Colonel talked about burnout and I feel like my life is in stasis. I feel like I’m going to break if nothing changes. Bad things happen, but we need to power through and fix things and save everyone and nothing changes. Nothing is ever going to change.”

“Sam.”

Janet’s voice was soft and comforting, but Sam wasn’t finished talking yet.

“It’s been seven years on SG-1. I’ve never been on a team this long and maybe it’s time to move on.”

Sam put her wine glass down and curled up in the corner of the couch with her socks on the cushion and her arms wrapped around her knees.

“I don’t think I can keep pushing through for the greater good.”

“Sam, this has been a unique situation. You might feel differently in a couple weeks when things have settled down.”

If only it was that easy. Sam had spent years ignoring her feelings and pushing off this kind of decision. She didn’t think a couple weeks would make her feel any better.

“Janet, you asked me once if it was a problem,” she said, alluding to the conversation they had when Jack was trapped on Edora. “I think it’s a problem now. It probably has been for a while. It’s just all caught up with me.”

“All I’m saying is that you should take some time to think and -”

“I care about him, a lot more than I’m supposed to,” Sam admitted, echoing Jack’s words during the za’tarc test.

Sam was sure that Janet already knew how she felt, but this was the most she’d ever admitted out loud. She passed the za’tarc test by talking about her fear that Jack wouldn’t leave and relief that she wouldn’t die alone.

Jack’s words on that day had been careful and calculated, revealing only as much as he had to. Her words had revealed even less.

“I know, honey.”

Sam acknowledged Janet’s words with a nod and took another sip of wine, her mind already racing ahead.

If she was going to do this, she had to be strategic about it. She had to convince General Hammond that moving her to another team was the best option.

“There are three other teams right now that have an open spot. SG-7, SG-11, and SG-14. They think one of the guys on ‘16 will be out before the end of the month too. I’ve got plenty of options.”

She loved her job. She wasn’t willing to give it all up to move to work full time in the labs, but maybe she could compromise. Maybe moving to another team would be good for her.

She just worried about what might happen if she did transfer. So many things could go wrong.

“If I leave SG-1, am I endangering them?” she wondered aloud. “There were times where we only survived because I pulled a random idea out of my ass at the last minute.”

Sam looked at Janet.

“Oh, do you want my input now?”

She tried not to be irritated by the quip and insinuation that she’d been ignoring her friend.

“Yes, please.”

Janet leaned forward.

“You’ve been on missions without them before. Each of them have been on missions without you. The four of you are remarkably resilient.”

“It’s luck.”

“It’s because of how good all of you are at your jobs,” Janet corrected. “And I know it doesn’t seem like it because of how often the four of you are the ones on the front lines, but there are lots of other smart, qualified people at the SGC. If you did transfer, they’d only fill your position with someone who could do the job.”

It was difficult to believe that when Sam felt like everyone was always looking at her to solve the biggest problems, but there was some truth there. SG-1 wasn’t the only team that regularly survived off-world challenges.

“I suppose.”

The fact that the men of SG-1 could get injured or die if she wasn’t out there with them wasn’t Sam’s only concern.

What if Daniel and Teal’c got mad at her for leaving and breaking up the team? What if Jack remembered and didn’t want to be with her? What if he didn’t remember and still didn’t want to be with her?

What if she switched SG teams and the rest of her life still stayed the same?

What if she drifted out of contact with the men of SG-1 because they weren’t together on a daily basis?

Was it worth the risk?

“It’s a big decision, Sam. You should take some time to think about it. Maybe wait until everything with Colonel O’Neill has settled down, see if his memories keep coming back, and maybe take some time off. It’s harder to think clearly when you’re feeling worn down.”

“You’re probably right.”

Sam added a little more to her wine glass and leaned back against the couch cushions.

“Do you know if Jonas is coming back soon?” Janet asked.

The question surprised her, but Sam was happy about the change in topic.

“He’ll be back for a couple days at least. There were just some things he had to handle in Kelowna, but he left a bag here. I think he wants to make sure that things are all right with the Colonel before he heads home for good. Why?”

Sam was surprised to see a knowing smirk light Janet’s features.

“Lieutenant Rush was wondering,” she said. “I got the impression there might be something going on between the two of them.”

Sam laughed.

“So you’re trying to get gossip then? Did I ever tell you that Jonas asked me to find out if she wanted to go out with him?”

She was still mostly convinced that Jonas made up the bit about it being Kelownan tradition that a date request was passed on by a friend.

“Oh, she wants to go out with him,” Janet said emphatically. “She just wasn’t sure if he was sticking around.”

Jonas wasn’t going to stick around on Earth. He had big responsibilities on his planet now and it sounded like things were falling apart back on Langara. He’d have to fight the media reports against him and try to hold three enemy nations together. It was a lot to expect of one person.

Still, she wished that the relationship could work out for him. He deserved to be happy.

“They could always try for a long distance relationship.”

“She’s never been through the ‘gate before,” Janet pointed out.

“A decade ago nobody on Earth was going through the ‘gate. We all get used to it.”

Janet nodded in agreement.

“True. Enough about that, though, and back to you.”

Sam wasn’t sure she wanted to talk about herself anymore. She wished she could focus on a stranger’s problems for a change. Then her mind wouldn’t be so focused on Jack and SG-1 and her career and trying to figure out what she wanted in life. She was really good, usually, solving other people’s problems. Her own just never seemed as simple.

“He almost kissed me a couple weeks ago,” she admitted.

“Jonas?”

Sam was confused by Janet’s shocked tone until the name she said sunk in.

“No, Jack.” Her brain caught up with her and she corrected herself. “I mean, Colonel O’Neill.”

“When did he almost kiss you?” Janet asked.

“Which time?” Sam replied, finishing her wine and setting the glass back on the table, holding it steady for a second so it wouldn’t tip over.

“I love drunk Sam Carter,” Janet laughed. “Cassie’s going to enjoy this when she gets home.”

Sam made a face at her and got comfy on the couch again.

“So, when did the Colonel almost kiss you?” Janet teased.

Sam looked up and realized what she’d admitted. In her plan to get drunk, she’d forgotten this possible side effect.

“Damn it. I wasn’t going to tell you that.”

She could normally stop herself before getting to the “revealing personal secrets” stage of drunkenness. Sam looked at the wine bottle and remembered that was the second one Janet had opened and the doctor wasn’t drinking much at all.

Oops.

She was feeling better, though, so maybe it wasn’t all bad.

“Sam? When did he almost kiss you?”

She supposed the horse was already out of the barn.

“We had a movie night and I promised he had dibs if I ever made a lightsaber. I told him I missed him.” She paused and realized she’d gotten things out of order. “No, I told him I broke him. Later I told him I missed him.”

Sam looked over at Janet’s wide eyes and concerned expression. She shrugged.

“Anyway, nothing happened. Nothing’s ever going to happen.”

“Jesus, Sam. I was hoping for fun gossip, not for you to go all morose.”

Sam let out a breath and played with the sleeve of her shirt. Janet was right. She was morose.

“My brother thinks I’m pathetic too. Keeps trying to set me up with his friend from college so I can actually have a life.”

Janet stood up. “Okay, I’m going to go make some coffee and hopefully we can steer this back on track.”

A few minutes later, Janet handed her a cup of coffee and Sam held it in both hands and took a long sip. The heat was nice.

“You know that this won’t actually sober me up. And I’m not that drunk, I just...”

She was just sad and she didn’t want to be.

“The caffeine makes you more alert and you’re drinking that instead of another glass of wine. I think that’s good enough.”

Sam thought about that for a second. It probably was good enough. The alcohol wasn’t really the problem anyway. The problem was that she was feeling like a mess and was unsure about whether to throw her life into more upheaval when she was already off kilter.

She’d never been good at decisions related to her personal life.

“What if he doesn’t want to go out with me?” she asked.

“Who? Your brother’s friend?”

Sam waved away Janet’s suggestion.

“No, not him. What if I leave SG-1 and then Jack remembers and is pissed at me for breaking up the team and isn’t interested in a personal relationship? What if I take a huge risk and it’s not worth it?”

“Then I get to terrify him with some of those big needles he complains so much about,” Janet quipped.

Sam couldn’t help but laugh at the image.

“I was in the room during the za’tarc tests, remember?” Janet said more seriously. “A Jack O’Neill with his memories doesn’t care about you any less than this version of him does. It might not be easy and it may or may not work out in the end, but I don’t think that him being uninterested is anything you have to worry about.”

She wanted to let herself believe that.

“You did literally just tell me that he almost kissed you,” Janet continued. “There’s lacking confidence and then there’s completely oblivious, Sam. You’re smarter than that.”

“You’re right.”

For a moment, she let herself sit in the feeling that Jack might want to be with her. The thought - one she rarely allowed to cross her mind - was like a warm blanket on a cold winter’s day.

“I usually am.”

Sam was starting to realize that Janet was definitely right about needing time off too. It would be good for her to get away from all this for a while and clear her head.

“I think I will take some leave after things settle down. At least a few days.”

“Good.”

Sam was starting to feel better now that she had a plan. She would let herself relax now that Jack wasn’t in immediate physical danger, she would speak with General Hammond about taking some leave, and she’d plan a trip somewhere - maybe rent a small cabin in the mountains and catch up on some reading. She had several unread journals piling up, but maybe she’d take a novel too. Something that had nothing to do with work. Then, when she came back, she’d make her decision with a clear head.

She took another sip of her coffee and looked at Janet.

“You know it’s your turn, right? To spill all of your deep, dark, emotional secrets? Didn’t you have a second date with some guy last week?”

Janet laughed.

“A bad date doesn’t amount to a deep, dark secret,” she replied. “He kept insinuating that his job was more complex than mine because vets work with lots of different species.”

Sam burst out laughing. “If only he knew what you dealt with at work.”

“Can you imagine if I told him that I’d operated on aliens?” Janet said with a grin.

By the time Cassie got home from her friend’s house, the two of them were giggling over SG-13’s ordeal with blue skin and another recent debacle where SG-6 brought back a glowing device that they thought was a weapon, but turned out to be a children’s toy.

Cassie just looked at them with the kind of extreme embarrassment that only teenagers could manage and agreed to drive Sam’s car back while Janet drove Sam home in her car.

When they got to Sam’s house, Cassie handed over the keys, wished Sam a good night, and headed to the passenger seat of Janet’s car.

“Remember,” Janet said, “you don’t have to make any decisions now. Take some time to think about it.”

Sam thanked her for the company and advice. She watched as the Fraisers drove away and headed inside to get some much-needed rest.

Janet stopped by her office the next morning with a bottle of aspirin, some water with an electrolyte mix, and a greasy breakfast sandwich.

“How are you feeling this morning?”

Sam took two of the aspirin with a sip of the electrolyte mix.

“Better, if you can believe that. Even with the hangover. I think I really needed someone to talk to.”

“Anytime.”

They chatted for a few more minutes until Janet needed to head to the infirmary. Sam started working on a project that had been backlogged since their mission on P3X-289. It was a nice, relaxing morning until she got called into a briefing at 11am.

She and Teal’c arrived first. He didn’t know what they were meeting about either. Daniel arrived a minute later, also clueless as to the purpose of the briefing.

When Jack came down the stairs, it was with a grin on his face and pep in his step.

“Why are you so happy?”

“Getting off base tonight, Daniel,” Jack replied. “I finally get to leave these concrete walls behind me.”

He pulled out the chair beside her and sat down.

“Hey, Carter.”

All this time she’d been having trouble hearing him call her “Sam,” and now it felt unexpected for him to call her “Carter” in that easy, casual tone.

“Hi, sir,” she replied calmly, as if she hadn’t spent the previous night wondering if she should quit SG-1.

General Hammond exited his office to enter the briefing room and sat in his chair at the head of the table. He looked troubled.

“What’s this meeting about, sir?” Sam asked.

Jack spoke up.

“If it’s about me, I’ll cut to the chase. I’m cleared for duty and finally get to leave this underground dungeon. Party at my house if anyone’s interested. I’m getting myself some Chinese takeout, a few beers, and catching up on The Simpsons and SportsCenter.”

Daniel furrowed his brow.

“Jack, do you really think it’s good to be hosting a party right now?”

Sam thought it was less about Jack intending to actually throw a party and more about him wanting to pretend everything was fine now. She doubted he’d actually go around and invite other people over.

He probably wasn’t even expecting them to take him up on his offer.

“I think finally seeing the sun again is a great reason for celebrating.”

“Did Janet say - ”

General Hammond cleared his throat and everyone went silent.

“This meeting is not about Colonel O’Neill. We have something more urgent to discuss.”

They all sat up straighter at the announcement. Daniel voiced the question they were all thinking.

“What happened?”

The General opened the folder in front of him, but didn’t look down.

“Jonas Quinn missed his scheduled check-in at 0900,” he began. “From what little we were able to ascertain when we reached out to the Langaran governmental liaison, he has been removed from his position as Kelowna’s representative on the Joint Ruling Council and is currently being held under guard awaiting trial.”

“For what?” Daniel asked.

Sam knew already. When Jonas told her about the problems he’d been facing back home with the press, she should have taken it more seriously.

She opened her mouth to say the word, when the answer came out of Jack’s mouth instead.

“Treason.” The disgust was evident in his tone. “They’re blaming him for Anubis.”

Jonas was one of the most positive and friendly men she knew. She still couldn’t believe that anyone who’d met him would ever want to turn him into a scapegoat.

Daniel looked shocked.

“They can’t possibly blame him for that. He was tortured on that ship. There’s no way he could have fought against that mind probe.”

Even after this many years, Daniel’s faith in people still surprised her sometimes. She wished that people were as good and logical as he seemed to believe they were by default.

“They can do whatever the hell they want.” Jack said with a hard edge to his voice.

“Execution is often a punishment for revealing the location of one’s army to the enemy, regardless of the circumstances,” Teal’c added.

“He’s not going to get executed!” Sam blurted. That wasn’t possible.

The General flipped a few pages.

“Actually, Major, according to our contact, the most likely outcome of this trial is either life in prison or a death sentence. The trial is planned to take place in three days, hence the urgency.”

A pall fell over the room as they thought about their former teammate facing execution for something he had no control over.

“So we’re going to go extract him?” Jack asked, as if it was a forgone conclusion.

General Hammond closed the folder in front of him.

“I haven’t made the decision yet to let you go back into the field, Colonel.”

Sam watched as Jack’s expression turned smug.

“Yes, you have. Otherwise I wouldn’t have been included in this briefing. Doctor Fraiser cleared me and MacKenzie cleared me. You were going to wait, but then this came up and you know I have experience with missions like this. I’m your best bet to get Jonas out if we need to.”

Sometimes it was amazing watching Jack’s strategic mind work. She hadn’t given a second thought to the fact that he’d been included in the briefing and assumed it was because they all knew Jonas well. Jack caught on that the invitation to the briefing meant something more.

“What do you remember about the Langarans?” the General asked him, sidestepping Jack’s assumption.

It was a test, she knew, before the General confirmed if Jack would be allowed on the mission. His memories of the Langaran people should be mostly intact, even if the circumstances might be slightly altered.

“I remember I don’t trust them,” Jack said. “They bicker and compete and any alliance between the three countries is tenuous at best. This has all the markings of a political coup. It’s not safe to let them go through with a trial. Jonas may have been born on another planet, but just like Teal’c, he’s one of our own. We have to get him back.”

Jack was right. They had to make sure Jonas was okay and bring him back to Earth if possible. Based on what Jonas told her before, she was worried that a trial wouldn’t go his way. And if execution was a possible punishment...

“We’d be interfering directly in their justice system,” Daniel said, interrupting her thoughts. “It would likely break off all remaining ties to the planet.”

“Are you always like this?” Jack asked. “I don’t think we want to have diplomatic relations with untrustworthy people like that anyway.”

“Jack, if we want people to respect our laws, we have to try to respect theirs. There’s got to be a way out of this - some sort of plea deal or even a trade we can make. Let them save face while still rescuing Jonas.”

Jack made a frustrated noise.

“It’s not going to work. I’ve dealt with people like this too often. If whoever is responsible for leaking Jonas’ connection to the attack on the planet is trying to oust him from power and take over the government, they’re not going to just let him leave. They need someone to blame.”

“They need us more than we need them,” Daniel said. “We have a lot of things we could offer in exchange.”

Sam hoped that diplomatic negotiations could get Jonas out of trouble, but she knew that it was highly likely they’d have to get Jonas out of there without the agreement of the Langaran government.

“We could lose our access to naquadria,” Sam pointed out. “What’s left of it anyway.”

Kelowna had emptied out their main naquadria stockpiles for Anubis during the attack, which meant that although there were still sources of the element on the planet, they currently weren’t within easy access.

“There’s no guarantee they were going to give us more, Carter. Plus, correct me if I’m wrong, but we’re still having trouble stabilizing the element, aren’t we?”

Sam wondered what he remembered about their failures related to using naquadria in the X-302 and Prometheus.

“That’s true,” she admitted, “but it still shows a lot of promise. I just think that we need to acknowledge that we’re losing access to a valuable source of energy that could be useful in our fight against the Goa’uld.”

Jack’s brief glance was full of irritation, like he was mad at her for reminding them all of what they stood to lose. She didn’t want to play devil’s advocate. She wanted Jonas safe. She just wanted to remind them so that they all understood the potential scientific set-back that could occur so they were going into this situation with their eyes wide open.

“The fact is,” Jack said, “if Kelowna’s government has gone south, it’s dangerous to leave Jonas there anyway. He knows too much about the SGC to leave him in potential enemy hands.”

Sam didn’t want to think that the Langaran government would use Jonas to attack Earth, but their history with the people of that planet had shown the government officials to be impetuous and more than willing to make dangerous decisions to gain power.

“Try diplomacy first,” Hammond said. “I’m assigning two members of SG-9 to go with the four of you to support Doctor Jackson’s diplomatic efforts. If that doesn’t work, you have orders to extract Jonas before trial and return him to Earth. You leave in one hour.”

They all stood up to leave and the General spoke again.

“Doctor Jackson, please stay behind as the rest of the team gears up so we can discuss negotiation options with Lieutenant Hadden and Major Graham. The rest of you, make sure you’re prepped with the equipment needed in case an extraction becomes necessary.”

“Yes, sir.”

She and Jack spoke in unison. Teal’c merely nodded. She turned to share a look of amusement with Jack at their in-sync response, but he was stone-faced.

“Meet you at the armory, Carter.”

He left and Teal’c followed closely behind. She headed to the women's locker room to grab her BDU jacket.

Sam knew that it would be only a matter of time before SG-1 was sent out in the field together again. She just didn’t think it would happen this quickly. She wondered if Jack had remembered more. He seemed more like his old self.

It felt like a “be careful what you wish for” situation. All this time, she wanted Jack back like he was before and now she realized that this wasn’t what she wanted at all.

He barely looked at her in the briefing room and only called her by her last name. She realized he’d been acting differently for the past couple of days...more distant and less relaxed. Something had changed since he told her about remembering Thera. His walls had gone back up.

Maybe Janet was right and she should think about it a little more before asking to transfer. She should at least figure out what was going on with him first.

She met Teal’c and Jack at the armory where they gathered their weapons and additional equipment that might be needed if they had to break Jonas out of a prison cell. They discussed a plan to gain information while Daniel and their two loaned teammates from SG-9 worked on negotiations.

Sam hoped that Jonas was doing okay and that they were treating him well even if he was locked up.

The four members of SG-1, along with Hadden and Graham, gathered in the ‘gate room at the hour mark.

“All right,” Jack said as he adjusted the brim of the cap he was wearing and they waited for the final chevron to lock, “SG-1 to the rescue.”

Chapter Text

When he stepped out of the Stargate, Jack breathed a sigh of relief. It had been way too long since he’d been out in the field, and as dire as the circumstances were, he was glad to actually be doing something.

He took in the room, the three people waiting to greet them, and then glanced back at his team to make sure that everyone made it through the gate in one piece and was ready to take action if needed.

Jack stepped forward towards Ambassador Dreylock and the two guards that flanked her sides. She was wearing her red hair pulled back in a chignon and an expensive-looking orange patterned tunic with matching pants. The guards kept their weapons lowered, which Jack appreciated. He would hate for them to have to shoot someone right off the bat.

The whole diplomacy plan was a hell of a long shot, but it would be nice if it worked for a change.

“Ambassador,” Jack greeted.

Dreylock lifted her chin. “Actually, it’s First Minister now.”

Of course.

At least he knew who to blame now for this whole mess.

“That’s funny,” he said. “I thought you were Jonas Quinn’s advisor because he was chosen to represent Kelowna on the Joint Ruling Council. Now you’re running the whole damn thing?”

The woman didn’t back down or even so much as flinch.

“Unfortunately, Colonel O’Neill, Jonas Quinn has been arrested and will stand trial for treason. Kelowna and Langara as a whole needed someone to stand in his place. As the former Ambassador, I am the most qualified candidate.”

Jack didn’t stop himself from releasing a low chuckle.

“Of course you are.”

Dreylock pursed her lips.

“Colonel O’Neill, we may have had our differences in the past, but your team is here because we allow you to be here. We value our relationship with Earth. However unseemly our current events may be, I’d appreciate it if you would take this seriously.”

If Dreylock thought he wasn’t taking this seriously, she was really underestimating him. That was fine with Jack. He preferred it that way.

“Hey, I’m mainly just here to escort the people you’re actually going to be speaking with.”

He turned to gesture at Daniel, Hadden, and Graham.

“Doctor Daniel Jackson, Lieutenant Liz Hadden, and Major Ryan Graham.”

Hadden had a legal background and Graham had a master’s in poli sci. With the two of them and Daniel at the table, they might manage to make some progress.

They exchanged greetings and Jack noticed that Dreylock looked uneasy when she shook Daniel’s hand. Daniel didn’t seem to notice or care about the woman’s reaction, though. Sam and Teal’c said a subdued hello to the First Minister.

Dreylock directed them to a conference room and introduced them to the two men in suits already seated at the table, one of them a legal advisor and the other was the new Commander of Kelowna’s military.

“So, where’s the rest of the gang?” Jack asked casually. “The other people on the Joint Ruling Council.”

Dreylock pursed her lips, as if annoyed that she even had to address their absence.

“I thought it would be best to speak before the Tiranian and Andari representatives arrived.”

That wasn’t suspicious at all.

“About what?”

As far as Jack was concerned, this wasn’t a Kelowna-only issue. Based on what they’d heard, Jonas was going to be tried in a newly established international court because his supposed treason had planetary repercussions.

Dreylock sat down. Jack nodded at Daniel, Hadden, and Graham to take a seat. He stayed standing with Sam and Teal’c.

The First Minister clasped her hands together on the table in front of her.

“Jonas Quinn is a citizen of Kelowna. I assume that all of you are here to argue for his release, against the standards of our justice system.”

Daniel jumped in.

“We’re not asking you to defy your laws or values. All we’re asking is for you to consider the circumstances under which Anubis discovered your planet. Jonas doesn’t deserve to be punished for something he was unable to prevent.”

“If the jury determines that to be the case, then Jonas will be released,” Dreylock’s legal advisor said.

“Of course,” Dreylock herself continued, “there is quite a case to be made against him. The people are angry about the death and destruction that resulted from the attack, as well as the loss of our main supply of naquadria and many of our antiquities.”

“You told Jonas that if he returned to Kelowna, he would no longer be branded a traitor,” Jack pointed out. “That was after Anubis.”

The rest of SG-1 must’ve been in the ‘gate room for that conversation too, now that he thought about it. They probably also heard the promises Dreylock made to get Jonas to return home and serve on the Joint Ruling Council.

“And we had an agreement that you wouldn’t interfere with our planet’s internal affairs,” Dreylock replied. “In fact, your superiors were quite insistent upon it. Now here you are doing your best to meddle. Things change.”

He knew they never should have gotten wrapped up with this messed up planet. He’d told General Hammond that from the beginning.

“So you’re doing this for PR reasons?” Jack asked. “So that you look like the good alternative in front of Kelowna’s angry citizens?”

It made sense. She wanted power and was able to replace the person in the position she wanted and sacrifice him to an angry populace all in one fell swoop. It was a good plan. She had to know that they would come here because of their vested interest in Jonas’ well-being. Dreylock looked smug about the fact that she could brand them as being unreasonable.

“All I want,” Dreylock said, “is to protect my people. As you know, Tirania and the Andari Federation have attempted to make an alliance against Kelowna in the past. Jonas Quinn has a history of stealing top secret material from the government and revealing the planet’s location to a powerful enemy. The only way for the Kelownan people to be safe is to have a powerful and trustworthy First Minister.”

“It doesn’t mean that Jonas Quinn has to die.”

Dreylock nodded, as if it was the statement she’d been waiting for them to make.

“No, it doesn’t,” she acknowledged. “However, if you plan to break the non-interference agreement for one person, I think we should get something out of it.”

There it was. The exact greedy politicking that Jack expected. It would give Daniel, Hadden, and Graham the opening they needed. Jack just thought it proved how untrustworthy the Kelownan government was. The fact that she was bringing this up without the representatives from the other nations meant that she was planning to do a deal behind their backs if she could.

“And what? You want some sort of separate trade deal that benefits Kelowna more than the other two nations?”

“Jack.”

He caught the warning tone in Daniel’s voice.

“Hey, not my area,” Jack said with a wave of his hand. “You can all continue to discuss while Carter and I go check on Jonas. I assume that we can borrow one of your guards to show us the way.”

Dreylock clenched her jaw, but nodded.

“Of course.”

She directed one of the guards to show them to Jonas’ cell. On the way out, Jack told Teal’c to keep his eyes and ears open. The diplomatic part of the team would have all the conversational details when they reconvened, but Jack was expecting Teal’c to provide insight on any tactical details in case they needed to make a quick escape.

The prison cells were in the same building. Unfortunately, they were on a different floor than both the conference room and the Stargate. It would make things more difficult if they had to extract Jonas.

He and Sam didn’t speak at first as they followed the guard through the halls, both conscious of the fact that anything they said would be reported back.

They turned another corner and then she asked him a question.

“Seen any good movies lately, Colonel?”

Jack was sure that there was a quizzical expression on his face when he turned her way.

“What?”

“I’m torn between watching Escape from Netu or The Ion Cannon,” she continued. “What do you think?”

Jack had no idea what in the hell she was talking about.

Wait...hell...Netu.

That was a mission he helped the Tok’ra with, to help break one of their own out of a planetary prison.

And the ion cannon was something they tried to get in a trade deal with the Tollan.

The details were fuzzy on both counts.

SG-1 must’ve been involved in those missions with him even if he didn’t remember them being there.

Damn it, she was smart.

He might still remember being on all of his missions with other SGC staff or alone, but she knew all the missions he’d been on with her in real life. She knew all of his points of reference and she turned it into code.

“I really wanted The Ion Cannon to be a great movie,” he finally responded, “but I didn’t like the actors. I think Escape from Netu is a better bet.”

Sam grinned at him.

“Of course,” he added, “Daniel might have a different opinion on The Ion Cannon so that might sway your decision.”

“True,” she replied.

“Which movie are you leaning towards?” he asked.

They approached a locked corridor with a single guard. He and Sam paid close attention to the lock, the key used by the guard, and the rest of their surroundings.

“Netu,” Sam said, “even though it’s a more challenging film.”

“Yeah.”

They entered the corridor and saw that Jonas was in the second cell. One guard stayed with them and the other remained by the main door.

He and Sam walked up to the bars. Jonas looked up from where he sat on a small cot.

“Sam! Colonel!”

He got up and moved towards them.

“We heard you got yourself into a jam, Jonas,” Jack said. “I appreciate you going to all the trouble, but you didn’t really need to get yourself thrown into jail so that Hammond would let me go off-world again.”

Jonas cracked a smile.

“Anything to help the team,” he joked. “Seriously, though, what are you doing here? I don’t think they’ll let me have legal representation from Earth.”

It wouldn’t matter anyway, because Jonas’ case was never going to trial. They’d cut a deal or break him out.

“How are they treating you, Jonas?” Sam asked. “Are you okay?”

Jonas ran a hand through slightly greasy hair.

“I’m okay. They brought me here yesterday afternoon. Wouldn’t let me contact anyone, but I got meals.”

At least he was being fed properly. That was something.

Sam kept up the flow of the conversation while Jack carefully got a look at the construction of the cell, nearby cameras, and the lock itself. The fact that most Kelowna’s technology was in the same place theirs had been in the 1940s was a huge advantage. Actually breaking Jonas out wouldn’t be that difficult. It was the timing of all the moving pieces that would be the challenge. That, and the access to the Stargate once the building went on lockdown.

He noticed as Sam shot a look to the guard, who was watching them intently. She turned back to Jonas and asked a seemingly random question.

“You know how we were all having that conversation about Beethoven’s symphonies the other day? The Colonel and I disagreed about how many movements there were in your favorite.”

From the brief flash of confusion that crossed Jonas’ face before he caught on to her emphasis on the word movement, Jack assumed that they hadn’t actually had a conversation about the classical composer.

“You liked the 25th best, right?”

Sam looked down at her watch and then made a small circle with her index finger. There weren’t that many symphonies by Beethoven, but the guard wouldn’t have a clue. There did, however, happen to be 25 hours in a Langaran day.

“I was hoping you could clear it up for us,” she concluded with a smile.

“Carter, I don’t really think this is the time or place for trivia,” he said, to keep up appearances.

“I’m going to win this bet. You’ll see that I was right.”

“Four movements,” Jonas replied. “And that one might be my favorite, but symphonies 1, 7, 13, and 19 are in close competition.”

Jonas did always catch on quickly.

Sam turned to Jack. “Looks like I win, sir.”

“As always, Carter,” he said with an exaggerated sigh.

Four different guards. Shift changes at 0100, 0700, 1300, and 1900 hours. They could work with that.

“Is there anything we can do to make your stay here easier, Jonas?” Jack asked. “Or anyone you want us to call?”

He watched Jonas’ positive attitude falter before he recovered. “No, don’t call anyone. Everyone in Kelowna probably thinks I’m a lost cause. And I’m okay here. Just not looking forward to the trial.”

“We’re going to do what we can,” Jack promised. Then he lied for the sake of their audience. “We’ll try to find you some good legal counsel in the city. Someone to argue your side.”

They told Jonas they’d visit again later and began the walk back to the conference room. Jack mapped out potential exit paths as they walked and could tell that Sam was doing the same by the movement of her eyes. Every once in a while she looked at him and Jack knew that she was almost bursting to have a conversation about what they’d learned. Unfortunately, the conversation would have to wait until later.

When they returned to the conference room, it was more populated. The Tiranian representative, Vin Eremal, and the Andari representative, Lucia Tarthus, were there with members of their staff.

As far as Jack could tell, they were arguing about whether having access to Earth’s technology would be worth undermining the population’s faith in their justice system.

This was all going to be a disaster.

He and Sam walked over to where Teal’c was standing in the corner.

“Has it been like this the whole time?” he asked under his breath.

“There is little common ground between the three nations. I believe any of them would be willing to leverage Jonas Quinn’s fate to gain an advantage against the others.”

Jack nodded and leaned back against the wall to listen in. Sam stood next to him since all the chairs in the room were filled.

He leaned over and whispered.

“Nice job earlier, by the way.” The codes she’d thought up on the fly had been impressive. “I can see why you make a great second in command.”

An odd look crossed her face before she replied, “Thank you, sir.”

“The Ion Cannon’s looking like a crap movie so far, don’t you think?”

She cracked a smile.

“You never know, it might have a good twist ending.”

Jack heard a shout from the table and turned his attention back to the negotiation. It was probably for the best. The conversation with Sam was starting to veer into flirting territory anyway and he was trying his best to avoid that. She was clearly a damn good second in command. He wasn’t going to mess with the team dynamics.

The shout didn’t end up being anything more than the Kelownan Commander getting all up in arms about a decades-ago military conflict with the Andari Federation.

Jack tried to listen to the conversation, but most of his mind was on planning a potential exit strategy if they needed it. He and Carter would both be able to pick the locks in the prison corridor, but it might be more efficient to simply blow the locks and get Jonas out that way. They could zat the guard and just had to steer clear of the time periods when the guards changed because then they might have to take out two of them. They’d need to limit the charges they used to blow the locks so the sound didn’t alert anyone. Thankfully, the hallways had been mostly empty on the way there.

The most challenging part would be getting Jonas out and getting to the ‘gate at the same time as their diplomatic team. Jack wasn’t worried about that, though. Based on how the conversations were going, he had plenty of time to figure it out. The talks would probably continue tomorrow at this rate.

A couple hours passed and he signaled Graham, who leaned over and whispered to Daniel.

“I think it would be good for us to take a break,” Daniel said. “Let’s reconvene in an hour.”

They couldn’t go outside, so the group from Earth met in a nearby empty office that had been offered up by the Kelownan legal advisor.

They waited until Sam ensured the room was free of listening devices before they started talking.

“All right,” Jack said, “status report.”

“They’ve been incredibly antagonistic, sir,” Hadden said. “With each other and with us.”

Graham nodded. “I don’t even know how many of them really believe that Jonas is at fault, Colonel. They’re using him as leverage to get military technology from Earth. And they’re not very subtle about it.”

“It’s been frustrating to say the least,” Daniel admitted.

Jack suspected that they were making it frustrating on purpose in hopes that they would win the negotiations.

“We walked into the middle of an unstable government. What did you expect? Friendly conversation?”

Daniel sighed.

“This is diplomacy, Jack. It’s the way the game is played. It takes patience.”

“Daniel, we don’t have much time for patience. Jonas is on trial in three days unless we get him out of here.”

“They still need us more than we need them, Jack. We can use that to our advantage. They seem open to the idea of a plea deal that would waive the death penalty.”

Jack had no intention of giving up military tech to Langara and still letting Jonas rot in a prison cell for the rest of his life.

“What’s Dreylock’s play?”

She wanted a meeting before the other reps got there for a reason. Jack just needed to know if what she wanted would complicate matters or if they could use it to their advantage.

“She seems to think that because Jonas is a citizen of Kelowna, she can have his trial moved to their justice system from the international court,” Daniel said. “In exchange for information that would allow them to develop a functional squadron of fighter jets.”

“Exactly what we refused to give them last time,” Sam pointed out.

“She didn’t outright say it, but hinted that Kelowna’s court might be more favorable.” Hadden added.

Jack was missing something. He could tell. Dreylock’s actions only made sense on the surface.

“Okay, what do we know about the new Commander and legal advisor?”

“The lawyer seems like a rule follower with no political inclinations,” Graham said. “He wasn’t pushing for any particular outcome. Commander Lott and First Minister Dreylock...they have a whole wish list, including technology they probably only heard about from Jonas when he came back.”

Jack ran a hand over his face. He hated all this political crap. It was way easier when you knew exactly who to shoot and why.

“Anything else?”

Hadden nodded. “Dreylock was called out of the meeting once to speak with a Mr. Vondri. She was gone for about half an hour. Vondri is the editor of one of Kelowna’s largest newspapers.”

Dreylock wouldn’t have left in the middle of these negotiations unless it was important. Jack felt like he was so close to putting it all together. Jack wondered if Vondri’s paper had been the first to depict Jonas as a traitor.

“Okay, let’s go back to the drawing board. I want you to dig into the fault lines between the three nations. There’s a lot we can offer them, but we need to find out if they’re going to turn on each other the second we cut any kind of deal. The fact that Dreylock wants to negotiate separately isn’t sitting right with me.”

He got a firm “yes, sir” from Hadden and Graham before Daniel spoke up.

“Does that mean you aren’t going back into the room with us, Jack?”

“Carter and I’ll take a walk and do some investigating of our own. Hadden, I want you to split off too. Ask to speak one-on-one with one of their legal experts and find out more about the international and Kelownan court systems. Dig into whether there really is a legal difference that’ll affect the outcome of a trial depending on which court Jonas’ case gets sent to. I want to know just how shady Dreylock’s offer to get him tried in a Kelownan court is.”

“Yes, sir.”

They headed out right away and Daniel agreed to stall a little so the Langaran government officials wouldn’t notice their disappearance right away. Jack doubted that Dreylock and the others would want them wandering around the complex unattended.

Jack spotted a directory on the wall and they walked towards Jonas’ former office. It was locked, but Sam got it open quickly. Just like Daniel’s office at the SGC, it was piled with books. He headed towards the desk and Sam followed. She started going through the documents on the top of the desk while Jack began rifling through the drawers.

“Vondri wrote the first article exposing Jonas as the source of the leak that brought Anubis to the planet. He suggested Dreylock as Jonas’ replacement.”

Jack looked up and saw Sam holding a newspaper clipping.

“Well, that’s convenient for her.”

“Yeah.”

He opened the bottom locked drawer and pulled out a thick file. It looked like policy proposals and there was unfamiliar handwriting in the margins, shooting down nearly every one of the listed ideas. Jack passed it to Sam.

“What do you want to bet that these are Dreylock’s edits to Jonas’ proposals?”

He watched Sam’s eyes comb the pages before she lifted her head to meet his.

“She doesn’t trust the distribution of power. In fact, it doesn’t look like she wants the Joint Ruling Council to exist at all. Every edit is to ensure that Kelowna doesn’t make compromises that could give the other countries an advantage. Why did she even convince Jonas to come back to Kelowna if she didn’t want the Council to happen? The other countries weren’t going to sign on without him. She could have kept it from happening in the first place.”

At least he wasn’t the only one confused by this situation.

“This whole thing is all kinds of screwy,” Jack said. “Dreylock wanted the power, but why did she wait? Why did she need Jonas? Was it just for another shot at military tech from us? To use him as bait?”

Sam frowned and looked back down at the paper.

“I don’t know. It doesn’t make sense.”

Jack kept trying to think through the pieces as they continued to review the contents of the desk, but it wasn’t coming together. After he finished looking through the last drawer he straightened and turned to Sam.

“Carter, is there anything I need to know about our previous interactions with the Kelownans - or hell, any of the people on this godforsaken planet - that is specific to you, Daniel, or Teal’c? I remember meeting Jonas, trying to do the trade deal, finding out they were planning to build a naquadria bomb, hearing about an explosion, and Jonas coming to Earth. I remember the Kelowna reps asking for military tech and threatening a first strike with a naquadria bomb if we didn’t give it to them when Jonas’ old professor was going schizo. I know they used the damn bomb. I know Anubis came to the planet because of the naquadria and a data crystal from Thanos. I know he got that information from Jonas using a mind probe.”

She looked at him wide-eyed.

“Sir, you remember -”

“I know all that,” he interrupted, “but I don’t remember the three of you there. Where are my gaps? What do I need to know?”

Jack watched the question churn through her head. There was likely a lot of information that he was missing, but she would know the important pieces. As his 2IC for seven years, she would know the details he couldn’t go without.

“Daniel,” she finally answered. “You need to know about Daniel and how he died.”

Considering Daniel Jackson was alive and in this very building, Jack assumed this was going to be an interesting story.

“I was not expecting that one,” he told her. “Really?”

She wasn’t joking.

“Well, ascended, but that’s not the point. The Kelownans were trying to build a naquadria bomb and didn’t understand how volatile the element was. Sir, they built a weapon of mass destruction and were housing it in an ordinary lab. They couldn’t control the experiment once it started. Daniel broke through the glass to remove the core, exposing himself to lethal levels of radiation.” Her voice got shaky. “They blamed him for the accident even though millions would have died if he hadn’t prevented the explosion. They wanted our acknowledgement that it was Daniel’s fault...an apology from our government while his organs were shutting down one by one.”

Jack had been expecting something bad, but he hadn’t been expecting that. It fit with his opinion of the government officials on this planet, though.

“Yeah, I figured that’s the type of people they were.”

Jack understood exactly why Sam had picked that story to tell. It showed exactly how far members of the Kelownan government would go in their own self-interest. Dreylock’s initial awkwardness around Daniel made sense now.

“Sir, when that happened with Daniel, you were -”

“I know exactly how I was, Carter.”

Jack didn’t need the memories to know how he would have reacted in that scenario. He would have raged at the injustice of it all.

He looked over at Sam and saw that she understood. Her anger was softer, but not lacking in intensity.

They were using Jonas as a scapegoat the same way they had used Daniel. He and Sam just needed to figure out why.

Jack opened his mouth to speak when all of the sudden he heard a key turn in the lock.

He and Sam adjusted their grips on their weapons.

The door opened.

Chapter Text

“Who are you and what are you doing in Jonas’ office?”

The woman who entered the office put the key back in her pocket. She had short, dark blonde hair and was carrying a notebook. She didn’t look nervous to see two people with weapons in a room that was supposed to be locked.

“My name’s Jack, this is Sam. You see, Jonas borrowed my yo-yo and forgot to give it back. We were hoping to grab it from his desk since he can’t exactly get it himself right now. You know, what with being in jail and all.”

The woman frowned.

“You’re from Earth. You shouldn’t be in here.”

They lowered their weapons. The woman in front of them wasn’t an immediate threat.

“I’m guessing that neither should you,” Jack said.

The woman ignored the statement and walked over to one of the bookshelves. She ran her hand over several notebooks and eventually pulled two of them out.

“Who are you?” Sam asked.

The woman flipped through the pages of the notebooks and closed them before answering.

“My name is Kianna. I’ve been working with Jonas to study the new veins of naquadria that have been discovered and translate the information on the data crystal left by Thanos.”

Something about the woman set Sam on edge, but she couldn’t figure out what it was.

“New veins of naquadria?”

Kianna nodded. “Yes, it’s been a really important find. It will give Kelowna an edge in scientific research.”

Sam was starting to regret that she didn’t get more information from Jonas about what was happening on Langara. She’d been so focused on helping Jack, but it would have been good to know that they found additional naquadria in Kelowna.

Jack was right. Something wasn’t adding up.

Dreylock waiting to take power until now meant that there had been some sort of catalyst. Did it have something to do with the naquadria?

“What’s in the notebooks?” Jack asked.

“Why are you here?” Kianna asked in response.

Sam saw the brief look of frustration cross Jack’s face and knew he was calculating the odds that the woman in front of them would alert Kelownan officials that they’d been trespassing in a locked office.

She could tell, in the moment before he opened his mouth, that he was about to take a risk.

“It’s sort of an Earth tradition to visit our friends when they’re imprisoned for a crime they didn’t commit. If you know Jonas, you know he’s an idealist at heart. He wouldn’t sell out his own people.”

There was a flash of emotion in Kianna’s face when Jack mentioned Jonas, but she covered it quickly.

“Jonas tried to be a good leader and he was an excellent scientist,” she said. “He was the one who convinced the Tiranian and Andari Federation governments that it was important for us to work together on scientific pursuits. What better way to build up our global knowledge and defense than by working together and sharing data?”

She gave a nod to the notebooks in her hands.

“What type of data?” Sam asked.

“Information on a wide range of projects that are being pursued by the various nations, with a focus on global defense priorities,” Kianna said. “Not everything, of course, but much more than anyone offered up before. It’s been especially useful for our naquadria research.”

She looked at Jack and he nodded in agreement. He may not remember being in the field with her, but their communication on missions was still second nature.

Dreylock used Jonas to pull together the nations long enough to get their compliance and gain what must’ve been massive amounts of sensitive data. Even if they didn’t share everything, Kelowna’s scientists and military must have a much clearer picture of their past - and potentially future - enemies.

“What are your thoughts on all the recent changes in the government?” Jack asked.

Sam watched his hand drop to loosely hang by the zat strapped to his thigh just in case Kianna ended up being a threat.

“Everyone has their own priorities,” Kianna replied. “Mine are scientific, not political, in nature. I don’t intend to interfere in whatever you’re planning to do here. I have no loyalty to First Minister Dreylock.”

“Who do you have loyalty to?” Jack asked.

Kianna tapped her fingers on the top edge of the notebooks in her arms.

“Myself,” she replied. “Like most people. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have more important things to get back to.”

Sam watched Jack’s fingers twitch next to the zat, but he didn’t pull out the weapon.

Neither of them knew if this woman could be trusted. If she told anyone she’d seen them in this office, it could bust the covert and diplomatic options for getting Jonas out of here.

Of course, zatting her would mean they had to make an incredibly hasty exit.

They needed the extra time, so Sam and Jack had to let her go and hope for the best.

“When you see him,” Kianna said as she paused in the doorway, “tell Jonas I’m sorry he won’t be able to make our date.”

The door clicked shut and Sam turned to Jack.

“Did you know -”

“That Jonas was hooking up with a scientist back home? Not a clue. He never mentioned her.”

Sam wasn’t sure why the detail surprised her so much. Maybe the relationship wasn’t serious. Jonas didn’t bring it up and he’d spent a lot of time on Earth lately, some of that flirting with Lieutenant Rush.

“At least we know now that she probably won’t rat us out,” Jack said with a shrug.

“I guess not,” Sam replied. “She didn’t seem particularly broken up that Jonas was in jail either, though.”

Jack walked over to the bookshelf where Kianna had grabbed the two notebooks.

“Not our problem to worry about, Carter. We’ll just hope she doesn’t say anything. If she does, do you think Dreylock’s security will buy my yo-yo excuse?”

She couldn’t help but smile at the possibility.

“I doubt anyone would believe that, sir.”

Jack pulled out the notebooks closest to the ones Kianna had taken and passed one over to her.

“Do you think she’s a spy?” Sam asked as she flipped open the notebook and began to scan the pages. The notebook was filled with details about scientific projects being conducted by Tirania and the Andari Federation. Some of it was surprisingly advanced.

“Maybe,” Jack replied, “but I don’t care.”

She heard him flip through the pages and then replace the notebook with another on the shelf. He also handed another notebook to her.

“I’m shocked the other countries gave up this much information,” he said. “And that the Kelownan government was open to this type of information exchange is...well, I thought it would be a cold day in hell before they all worked together.”

Sam closed the second notebook in her hands.

“Jonas was the glue,” she realized. “He made this happen. Dreylock said that herself - they weren’t going to sign onto a Joint Ruling Council. I’m sure they were devastated by the naquadria bomb and the fact that Kelowna’s Commander at the time tried to make a deal with Anubis that only benefited them at the expense of the other nations. Their representatives heard Jonas arguing that the planet needed to stand together the last time we were here. They trusted him more than the others.”

Jack put his notebook back on the shelf.

“Right up until the press started to tell everyone that Jonas was the problem. It was a long con. We should have seen it. These people hate each other.” He closed his eyes and let out a frustrated sigh. Sam couldn’t believe Jack was blaming himself for not catching this when they’d spent the past several weeks trying to get his memory back. “Dreylock and whoever’s backing her needed Jonas to get intel on the other nations and right after they got it and knew exactly where Kelowna stood in comparison, they started a smear campaign to get him out of power. They didn’t need him anymore.”

Sam set the notebooks in her hand down on the table and took a step closer to Jack. She placed a hand on his bicep and he looked down at her fingers curling around his arm and then back up to her eyes.

“They might not need him anymore, but we do,” Sam said. “We don’t leave anybody behind, right?”

“Right,” he agreed, with a question in his eyes, no doubt about the times in the past when they had to rescue each other.

“It’s an SG-1 thing,” she told him.

Jack nodded and Sam dropped her hand and put the notebooks back on the bookshelf.

“I guess the real question now is whether she actually wants to make a plea deal with us and use Jonas as leverage or if she’s just stalling and wants him out of the picture for good,” he said.

He shifted everything on the desk back in the positions they were in when they first entered the room.

Sam looked to the corner of the desk and noticed, for the first time, the two framed photographs there. She picked them, ignoring Jack’s narrowed eyes because she was messing up the desk again.

The top picture was a family photograph, with adults of a variety of ages in the back and several children sitting in the front row. She spotted a pre-teen Jonas immediately, with that large, familiar grin.

“He was a cute kid,” Jack said, looking over her shoulder.

“Yeah.”

Sam switched to the other photo. Jonas was older in this one and dressed formally. He stood next to a woman and man who were in their forties or fifties. Jonas held a framed document in his hand. It must’ve been for a graduation or award ceremony.

Whenever Sam had asked Jonas about family in the past, he’d neatly deflected her questions, telling her that he was an only child and didn’t have much family around anymore. She assumed that his immediate family was dead, but maybe there was more to it than that. He made that statement in jail about people here thinking he was a lost cause. Maybe aligning himself with Earth had cost him more than Sam realized.

“Should we - ”

“Stuff ‘em in your jacket. Jonas should have something from home if we’re able to pull him out of here.”

Sam knew that Jack was breaking standard protocol in allowing her to take these pictures, but he didn’t seem to care. Or maybe the fact that he did care was why he let her make a noticeable change to the contents on the desk. Hopefully, no one would notice that the photographs were gone. She tucked them away and they exited the room, making sure the door locked behind them.

When she and Jack entered the conference room, everyone looked up.

“Sorry, got lost looking for the bathroom. Carry on,” he said with a wave of his hand.

Sam and Jack moved over to the wall by Teal’c, who was standing with his arms crossed with exact posture. The man looked bored out of his mind, which Sam could only discern from his blank expression through years of practice.

“Having fun, T?”

Teal’c scowled.

“Indeed, O’Neill.”

The discussions dragged on for hours. Daniel kept trying to argue for leniency due to the circumstances and Graham tried to steer the conversations about any potential trade deal with Earth towards medical and communications technology and away from military tech. Lieutenant Hadden rejoined the group a couple hours after she and Jack got there. Sam watched her give a quick, meaningful glance in the Colonel’s direction and knew that the woman discovered something in her conversations that she wanted to share. When Hadden got to the table, she leaned over and whispered something in Graham’s ear. The man nodded and then turned back to the conversation as if the Lieutenant hadn’t said anything.

As the discussion flowed on, Sam looked around the table.

The participants were mostly civil, but every once in a while an argument bubbled up. Sometimes it was one of the Langarans railing at the representatives of the other nations for previous slights and wars. Every once in a while the Langaran nations expressed their anger at the Earth team for even being there and trying to interfere. The tension was thickest, however, when the Tiranian and Andari Federation leaders disagreed with something that First Minister Dreylock and Commander Lott said.

Sam caught Jack’s eye and he gave a nod of acknowledgement.

The alliance between the three nations was about as stable as a house of cards.

When they broke for dinner and headed to a large dining room for an awkward meal, Sam watched Dreylock frown when Vin Eremal and Lucia Tarthus chatted with each other on the way over. The woman pulled Major Graham to the side while the rest of them entered the room. Sam would have to wait until later to find out what they discussed.

The food was good and the conversation was, for the most part, superficial. Sam was glad that she got to sit between Jack and Teal’c and didn’t have to carry on a conversation with any of the Langarans. She wasn’t sure how well she would have kept up a friendly conversation under the circumstances.

This mission did feel like old times, just like Daniel said it would, and it made Sam feel a wave of nostalgia. Being on SG-1 was a privilege and an honor. She’d worked so hard to prove her worth in the beginning and become an accepted member of the team. If she’d left the SG-1 years ago, it wouldn’t have been as hard. Now, it felt like if she left, she would be leaving family.

“Earth to Carter.”

Sam snapped out of her daze and looked to her right, where Jack O’Neill was lifting an eyebrow in question at her, an amused smile playing at his lips.

“Sorry, I was just thinking.”

“About what?”

“Some experiments I need to finish back home,” she lied.

“Ah, quarks and magnets and such,” he guessed. “I can see how that would be more interesting than the dry conversations around this table.”

Sam couldn’t hold in a laugh. “Exactly, sir.”

He grinned, as if making her laugh had been his entire goal.

Could she give up SG-1 for the chance to see him smile at her like that every day?

Then Jack cleared his throat and the moment passed and he started talking about how they were going to stay over in rooms provided by the Kelownan government and still take watch shifts at night just in case. Jack was going to share a room with Teal’c, Daniel with Graham, and Sam with Hadden.

After dinner, they all met in Jack and Teal’c’s room. Sam checked for listening devices and Jack asked for updates once they knew the room was clear.

Daniel spoke first.

“Vin Eremal and Lucia Tarthus...I get the impression that they actually like Jonas, but once the papers started to sway public opinion, they couldn’t support him. And it’s not just about the attack from Anubis,” he said. “Their countries are still having difficulty recovering from the effects of the naquadria bomb. It was detonated on the border between their two countries, destroyed a lot of buildings, and killed a lot of people. Tens of thousands are suffering from radiation poisoning. Some of those articles mentioned that Jonas was supposed to be overseeing the ethics of the naquadria project while Kelowna was working on the bomb. His reputation can’t come back from all this.”

“That’s bullshit,” Sam said, getting angry at the situation all over again. “He told them not to use the bomb. We all did.”

“There’s no way the Kelownan government would release any details that would set the record straight,” Graham added. “As far as negotiations go, they’ve been stalling all day. All of them want the military tech. The Tiranian and Andari reps actually did seem interested in the medical and communication technology offers, but Lott and Dreylock wouldn’t budge on that. The Commander also has a lot of pent up animosity towards the other two nations. Apparently, he fought in the last big war and lost a lot of people. Dreylock pulled me aside on the way to dinner and mentioned again that they’d be willing to redirect Jonas’ case to their court system in exchange for military technology. She said the time was almost up for that possibility.”

“So they’re all trying to run out the clock in hopes that we’ll up our trade offers,” Jack said, “but also getting a little desperate.”

“Most likely,” Daniel admitted.

Jack sighed.

“Well, you know our limits. If we can’t cut a deal tomorrow, we’ll go with Plan B and time it around your check-in with General Hammond. Based on Jonas’ intel, there will only be one guard on duty.”

“Jack -”

“Daniel, I know you want more time with this and think you can pull a miracle out of your ass, but we have a ticking clock here. We’re not staying another day if a deal isn’t done. It would cut things too close.”

Daniel pursed his lips and nodded his head. “Yeah, I know.”

“There’s something else,” Lieutenant Hadden said. “I went over the major laws and regulations for both courts this afternoon. As far as I can tell, there is no significant legal difference that will influence the outcome of Jonas’ case depending on which court it’s tried in. So either Dreylock and Lott are planning to illegally influence the outcome in exchange for military tech or they just want the outcome in their control.”

“Under our laws, he can qualify for asylum. Same as when he came to Earth last time,” Major Graham pointed out.

“The Langaran governments have asylum laws of their own,” Hadden added. “Technically, they should respect ours.”

Based on the expressions of everyone in the room, no one thought that the Langaran governments, especially Kelowna, would be happy to hear that Jonas was granted asylum.

“Good work, everybody,” Jack said. “I think we can all see where this is headed unless tomorrow goes well. Get some good rest for tomorrow.”

He detailed the order and timeframes for their watch shifts that evening and then everyone headed towards their rooms.

The room that Sam and Lieutenant Hadden had been given was small and perfunctory, with two twin-size beds and a single dresser with a mirror.

Sam put her pack next to her bed and stored her weapons underneath. She pulled out the photos she’d been carrying around all afternoon and packed them behind her emergency first aid supplies. She sat down on the bed and started untying her boots. Lieutenant Hadden was doing the same.

“So what’s Jonas Quinn like?”

Sam looked up and saw the interest in the younger woman’s face. Lieutenant Liz Hadden had only joined the SGC a couple of months ago and Sam had never really interacted with her before, although she’d heard good things. The woman was said to be smart and dedicated to her work.

“Sorry, I don’t mean to overstep, Major. He left the SGC before I arrived and we’re going to a lot of trouble to get him back. I was just curious. I didn’t meet him when he was back on Earth recently.”

Sam waved away her concern.

“It’s fine. You did get pulled into this at the last minute. I don’t mind answering your question.”

She wasn’t sure where to start in describing Jonas.

“He was a member of SG-1 for about a year. It took a while for him to click with the team because we all missed Daniel, but Jonas has one of those personalities that just draws you in. He’s more upbeat, somehow, than most people are. Smiles all the time. Colonel O’Neill and Teal’c didn’t know what to do with that.”

Sam smiled at the memories.

“He’s smart and idealistic and obsessed with the weather channel. Jonas contributed a lot in his time at the SGC...saved a lot of people.”

Lieutenant Hadden tilted her head, her chin-length brown hair falling over her cheek.

“Sounds a little too good to be true,” she said. “Then again, that seems to be a running theme with the members of SG-1. From the stories I’ve heard, you’re legends at the SGC.”

“I don’t know about that,” Sam replied. “We’re just doing our jobs like everyone else. I’m sure you’ll end up with crazy stories of your own.”

Hadden smiled. “Somehow, I’m thinking tomorrow could end up being one of those crazy stories.”

“And here I was hoping it would be a boring day.”

The Lieutenant laughed.

“Here’s hoping.”

Hadden took off her jacket and got under the covers in her bed.

“Goodnight, Major.”

“Goodnight.”

Sam took her jacket off and set it on top of her pack before turning off the light and curling up under the covers of her bed.

She fell asleep quicker than she thought she would. Her dreams, for once, weren’t full of missions gone wrong and calculations she couldn’t solve.

They were dreams of a cabin she’d never seen and cold nights cuddled up on a couch in front of a warm fireplace.

“Carter?”

She felt a hand on her shoulder and her eyes fluttered open. The light from the hallway made his face just barely visible in the darkness and a smile spread across her face.

“Hi, Jack,” she whispered before a yawn took over. She didn’t want to keep her eyes open. He should just come back to bed.

Sam felt Jack’s thumb brush across her forehead, pushing her hair out of the way.

“Wakey, wakey, Carter,” he said with that amused tone she loved. “It’s your watch. Nice, comfortable hallway waiting for you.”

His words filtered in and the dream faded. She opened her eyes and sat up.

“Sorry, sir. I’m awake now.”

He sat on the side of the bed while she put on her boots and jacket. She grabbed her zat and P-90 and followed him into the hallway.

“Nobody’s come by so far, so I think we’re good. Hadden’s up next,” he reminded her. “Should get you a few more hours of sleep on the other end.”

“That'd be nice.”

She leaned back against the hallway wall and hoped she’d be able to go back to the dream she was having before Jack woke her up. It felt cozy and happy.

“Have a good dream?”

Her eyes shot up and connected with his. For a split second she was worried that she’d spoken out loud.

“What?”

“You were smiling in your sleep, when I came to wake you up.”

There wasn’t much she could tell him without giving too much away.

“Must’ve been a good dream. I remember feeling happy.”

“I’ve had a few of those recently,” Jack admitted. “They’re nice.”

Sam didn’t realize how close they’d been standing until she looked over at him.

She wondered if he was talking about the dream he had about Thera. He said that he only remembered them having a conversation, but that didn’t matter. She remembered all of the details of that mission. Even when they were just talking together, she was happy to be with him.

“Yeah, happy dreams are nice.”

Neither of them moved and she watched his eyes drift down to her lips before quickly returning to her eyes.

He shook his head and cleared his throat.

“Hey, Carter?”

“Yeah?”

“I get it now,” Jack said. “All that stuff that you and Daniel said about being on SG-1 and how well we work together. I can see why you’d want that back.”

Sam realized that Jack was slowly and methodically reasserting the distance between them, all in the name of SG-1. She couldn’t fault him for it. She’d done the same thing often enough in the past.

Still, it hurt.

“It wasn’t SG-1 I was worried about,” she admitted softly. “I’m just glad you’re feeling better.”

“Me too, Carter. Those headaches were something else.”

Sam got the hint. There weren’t going to be any more personal moments tonight.

“Sleep well, sir.”

“See ya in the morning, Carter.”

As she watched Jack walk away, Sam realized that she didn’t need time away reading a novel to figure out what she wanted to do. If Jack had leaned towards her tonight after his eyes strayed to her lips, she would have kissed him.

She didn’t want to be limited to happy dreams if there was a chance she could have more. What did it matter if she was part of a “legendary” team, if she always went home alone?

Sam spent the rest of her time on watch trying to decide what she was going to say to General Hammond and when. She also, at some point, would have to figure out why Jack had been making such an effort to pull away from her.

When Sam’s shift was over, she drifted off into a dreamless sleep and woke feeling unsettled about the day ahead.

Unfortunately for everyone, a miracle didn’t happen during the discussions the following morning. If anything, the situation got worse as tensions rose between the various parties at the table.

When Vin Eremal shouted after lunch that they needed the medical technology because the Kelownans murdered their people with a naquadria bomb and Commander Lott shouted back that they only used the bomb because Tirania and the Andari Federation were about to attack Kelowna, Sam heard Jack curse under his breath.

Daniel tried to calm everyone down and Jack closed his eyes for a ten-count. When he opened his eyes again, the argument was still going on.

“I’m going for a walk,” Jack announced to anyone who was listening. “Be back in ten.”

Sam watched him walk out the door, his frustration evident in his gait.

“Major Carter, perhaps you should -”

“I know, Teal’c. I’ll be back.”

Sam found Jack around the corner, leaning against a window still and looking down onto the busy Kelownan streets.

“Sir?”

He looked over towards her and kept his voice low when he replied.

“It’s going to be a political disaster no matter what. They all want different things. You can tell Dreylock and Lott are prepping to break from the Council anyway. Lott in particular is starting to spew nationalist bullshit. They think they’re in a better position than the other nations and they might be right. They’ve got the Stargate, new veins of naquadria, scientific intel on the other countries, and aren’t dealing with the repercussions from the bomb. We need to get Jonas home safe and put all this behind us.”

“Escape from Netu, sir?”

A small smile tugged at the corner of his lips and she was glad to see it. Everything had gotten too serious lately.

“Yeah,” Jack agreed. “Daniel is scheduled to discuss the current status of the negotiations with General Hammond at 1500 hours.”

Sam gave a swift nod. At 1440, the two of them would leave the room, explaining that they had to discuss their preliminary military recommendations for General Hammond before the call. They’d head directly to the cell block and break Jonas out in time to meet the rest of the team at the Stargate by 1500. The Langaran officials agreed not to enter the room housing the Stargate while they gave Hammond an update.

If they were lucky, they’d get Jonas through the ‘gate before anyone noticed he was gone.

“I didn’t want Daniel to be wrong,” Jack said, still looking out the window at all of the people who were unaware of the Stargate in this building and all the complications and wonder that came with it.

“I know,” Sam said. “Sometimes we have to pick the best of a set of bad options.”

“Far too often, Carter,” he replied.

They headed back to the conference room together. Daniel and Teal’c looked over when they entered the room and Sam nodded, giving them a signal that the plan was on. The diplomatic team kept talking with the Langarans as the countdown started.

When the time came, Sam and Jack gave their excuses, waited in the hallway for a minute to make sure that they weren’t followed, and then went to Jonas’ cell block.

As soon as the guard looked in their direction, Jack shot him with his zat and the man’s body fell to the ground. At the same time, Sam fired hers at the overhead camera to short out the video feed.

They moved in front of the door.

“This one I can open,” Sam said, “but we should blow the one in his cell. It would take too long otherwise.”

Sam got out her lockpicking tools while Jack prepped the explosives.

She took a long, slow breath and got to work. She inserted the tension wrench into the lock with her left hand and applied slight pressure. Then, she inserted the rake pick with her right and started to move it to apply pressure to the pins. Sam was adept at lock-picking, but it had been a while since she’d done it under circumstances with this type of time pressure.

She could feel Jack’s movements beside her stop and knew that he was done with the explosives. It was all up to her now.

“All the time in the world, Carter.”

She let out a light huff of a laugh and another pin moved into place. They didn’t have much time, but she appreciated his support.

Finally, she got the last pin and the lock turned. Jack opened the door and Sam looked behind them to make sure the guard was still out cold before ducking inside.

Jonas stood up at their entrance and walked over to the cell door, his eyes large with confusion.

“Hey, Jonas, buddy,” Jack greeted as he set the charges on the door. “We figured you might want to get out of here, what with the political coup you got roped into and all.”

“What about the trial?” he asked.

“Probably not going to go your way,” Jack said.

“The trial isn’t really about you, Jonas,” Sam added. “It’s about having someone to blame and consolidating power.”

“We have orders to extract you and give you asylum back on Earth. Now back away from the door.”

Jonas didn’t move.

“It was my fault that Anubis found out about our planet. And what the papers have been saying about the ethics about the naquadria bomb project...I should have put a stop to that.”

Sam placed her hand over Jonas’ where it was resting on the cell bar.

“Anubis isn’t your fault. And with the bomb, you didn’t know and once you found out you tried to do the right thing and they ignored you.”

“Dying because you feel guilty is a coward’s way out,” Jack said, with a force she wasn’t used to hearing. “Now back the hell up while I blow this door.”

This time, Jonas responded to Jack’s voice and moved to the back of the cell. Sam was left wondering if Jack’s strong reaction was about Jonas or about his own past history with guilt and suicidal feelings.

She didn’t have time to ask or attempt to comfort him, though, because the cell door blew and Jack pulled it open. He checked his watch.

“Let’s move.”

Thankfully, the three of them didn’t see anyone until they got to the room that housed the Stargate. Sam zatted the guard on the right while Jack got the one on the left. When they entered the room, the wormhole was already open and Daniel was talking to General Hammond via his radio.

Graham, Hadden, and Teal’c were there, weapons at the ready.

“They just arrived, General,” Daniel said.

They heard Hammond’s voice over the radio.

“All right, get everyone home.”

Jack clicked on his radio. “Yes, sir. On our way now.”

Jonas introduced himself to Major Graham and Lieutenant Hadden before greeting Teal’c and Daniel. The group moved towards the Stargate, but then Sam heard commotion outside the doors.

“Incoming!”

The door burst open and several soldiers entered the room with First Minister Dreylock and Commander Lott.

Sam turned on her radio signal so the ‘gate would stay open and General Hammond would be able to hear what was going on. They could have tried to make a run for it, but no one wanted to risk getting shot in the back when they were so close to making it home.

“We really didn’t need a goodbye party,” Jack quipped, P-90 pointed in the direction of the Kelownans.

Commander Lott moved to the front of the group.

“Jonas Quinn has been charged with treason in an international court of law,” he said. “He must face trial. Surrender him now.”

Sam expected Jack to reply, but Lieutenant Hadden spoke up instead.

“In light of his circumstances,” she said with a steady voice, “Jonas has been granted political asylum on Earth. He’ll be coming with us, Commander.”

One of the Kelownan soldiers took a step in the direction of the DHD, likely intending to shut down the gate. Teal’c sent a staff blast towards the floor between the soldier and the DHD. It left a burn mark on the concrete. The man froze in position.

“That would not be wise,” Teal’c said.

The First Minister turned her attention towards Jack.

“We could consider this an act of war,” she said.

“You could,” Jack replied, “but you won’t. You know we would kick your ass in an armed conflict and you need Jonas out of the way anyway. You’re getting everything you ever wanted. Except for our military technology.”

Dreylock clenched her jaw at that.

“You’ll regret this,” she said.

Jack looked at Jonas and then back to the First Minister.

“You know what? I don’t think we will. You’re the one who will have to live with your mistakes. Jonas Quinn could have helped you make this world better, but you were too focused on your petty grievances and past conflicts to do what was right.”

Over the course of that brief speech, Sam Carter fell a little more in love with Jack O’Neill. It had something to do with the way he was standing up for Jonas and the practical idealism of his words.

Dreylock turned towards Jonas. “You can never come back. Your friends, your family...you’re giving it all up.”

Jonas frowned and Sam saw Hadden place her hand on his shoulder in support before returning her weapon to a ready position.

“Thanks to you, I don’t have much of a choice, do I?” Jonas said. “I wouldn’t have been able to see any of them if I was dead or stuck in a cell for the rest of my life. At least on Earth, I can make a difference.”

Dreylock didn’t bother to respond. Commander Lott took another step forward.

“You’re making an enemy here today.”

“You like having more enemies, don’t you, Commander?” Jonas asked. “All the more reason to keep fighting.”

“Enough of this,” Jack said. “Let’s move out, people.”

Daniel, Major Graham, Jonas, and Lieutenant Hadden went through first. Teal’c kept his staff weapon pointed at the Kelownan soldier closest to the DHD to ensure there were no last minute attempts to shut the Stargate down. She and Jack kept their weapons pointed at Dreylock, Lott, and the other soldiers who flanked them.

Once everyone else was through the Stargate, the three of them backed up before turning and running through the wormhole. Sam thought she heard a weapon discharge behind them and when they got back to the SGC, she saw a bullet crash into the wall under the blast door and embed itself in the concrete.

Sam felt relief flow through her as the iris slid shut behind them. They were home and safe and uninjured. All things considered, the mission had gone surprisingly smoothly.

“Hey, Sam.”

She turned towards the sound, shocked to hear her dad’s voice. She thought he was still on a top secret mission, but there he was at the end of the ramp.

“Dad?”

She ran to the end of the ramp and threw her arms around him in a tight hug she didn’t realize she needed until just that minute. When Sam stepped back, Jack was by her side looking at her father.

“Get outta town! Sam’s dad?” he said. “I remember basically nothing about you, sir.”

Sam was overwhelmed with a sense of déjà vu. Jack was quoting himself again without even realizing it.

He reached out a hand to her dad and they shook.

“So I’ve heard,” Jacob Carter replied. “Nice to see you again, Jack.”

Chapter Text

Jack felt a vague sense of familiarity when confronted with Sam’s dad, and he recognized him as General Carter, but it wasn’t exactly enough for him to agree that it was nice seeing the man again. Jack suspected that his memories of the elder Carter were like Swiss cheese because too many of them were directly related to Sam.

“I’ll have to take your word for it,” he quipped.

Jacob gave him an appraising look and Jack wondered what he saw.

“What are you doing here, Dad?” Sam asked.

“The mission went sideways so we headed home early. Then I called here and George gave me a few interesting updates. I thought I’d come and check things out for myself.” Jacob looked back at the hole in the wall. “Who’d you have shooting at you this time, Sammy?”

Sam frowned. “Kelownan security.”

“I take it the diplomatic approach didn’t go well.”

“Not so much.”

Jack wanted to stay here for the interaction between father and daughter, sure somehow that it would give him some insight into Sam and the walls she built up around herself, but General Hammond called him over.

Jonas was in the corner chatting with Hadden, Graham was starting to remove his gear, and Daniel was gesturing enthusiastically to a stone-faced Teal’c.

“How bad was it, Colonel?” General Hammond asked when he got close.

“Well, sir, I don’t exactly think they’ll be sending us Christmas cards anytime soon.”

Hammond sighed.

“De-briefing in one hour so I can hear exactly how badly this went. I’m glad you’re all back in one piece.”

The General walked away and Jack moved over to tell Jonas, Hadden, Graham, Daniel, and Teal’c about the scheduled de-briefing. Everyone but Daniel headed to the infirmary for their post-mission check-ups.

Jack would have to wait to update Sam. She was still in deep conversation with her father.

“Sam’s dad. General Jacob Carter,” Daniel said as he stood beside Jack. “Host of the Tok’ra symbiote Selmak for a few years now, ever since he almost died of cancer. They were estranged when she first joined the SGC, but they’re close now. Sam’s got a brother too, plus a sister-in-law and niece and nephew.”

Jack looked at Daniel and lifted an eyebrow. Daniel shrugged.

“You seemed like you were interested.”

“Well, thank you Mr. Cliff Notes.”

Jack knew he sounded defensive, but he couldn’t help it.

Daniel was right - he was interested in Sam’s relationship with her father. He was interested in just about everything about her, but he needed to keep reigning it in. General Hammond was probably going to reinstate him for real soon and he had to be prepared to be her commanding officer again.

“It’s okay to be interested,” Daniel said low enough that his voice didn’t carry.

“Daniel, don’t be a pain in the ass.”

Daniel never understood the military side of things. He always thought that problems could be fixed with communication and sharing feelings. It was annoying.

“I’m just saying - ”

“Shut up. Hammond’s going to put me back on the team even if the memories don’t come back and things are going to go back to normal the way you all wanted. Don’t make it worse.”

Daniel gave Jack a look like he wanted to say a whole lot more, but wouldn’t out of deference for Jack’s mood.

Sam and her dad walked over and Jack mentioned the timing for the post-mission debrief. Sam joined him and Daniel while Jacob Carter went to speak to General Hammond.

They dropped off their gear and headed to the infirmary. Everyone got through their post-mission physicals quickly, although Jack had to stay longer for a more thorough screening given his recent physical and memory issues.

The briefing room was packed, with all of SG-1, Jonas, Hadden, Graham, and General Hammond seated around the table.

Jack sat down between Daniel and Teal’c and caught the tail end of Teal’c’s conversation with Sam, who was sitting across the table. Apparently her dad went to go discuss something with Janet.

Jonas was at the end of the table and looked shell-shocked. Jack guessed that all of the recent events were finally catching up with him.

General Hammond entered the room and sat down at the head of the table.

“All right, people, let’s keep this relatively short. I’m sure we’ll have follow-up meetings about the repercussions these events will have on our tenuous relationship with the Langaran governments, but for now I just want to know what happened.”

Daniel started with a summary of the diplomatic discussions, with Lieutenant Hadden and Major Graham jumping in every once in a while with additional information.

Jonas talked about the events that led up to his arrest and the minimal information he gained while in captivity.

Teal’c provided an overview of security procedures that he observed while they were in Kelowna and military implications from some of the conversations that came up in the diplomatic negotiations. As always, his observations were kept to a minimal word count.

Then Jack and Sam traded off detailing what they learned from the materials in Jonas’ office and their encounter with Kianna.

“Wait, Kianna was there?” Jonas interrupted.

“Who’s Kianna?” the General asked.

Jonas frowned. “She was working on the translation of the Thanos data crystal. We were friendly and worked together sometimes, but I don’t know what she would have been doing in my office.”

Jack caught Sam’s eye and mouthed the word “friendly.” She rolled her eyes and shook her head, but he saw her crack a smile.

“She took some of the data that had been shared with Kelowna from the other nations,” Sam said. “Two notebooks.”

Jonas continued to look confused.

“That mystery has no bearing on recent events and is therefore out of scope for our conversation,” the General said. “And given that we are unlikely to retain our diplomatic relationship with Langara, it is a mystery that will have to remain unsolved.”

Jack supposed if there was a problem with Kianna, it was the problem of the Kelownan government now. He was okay with the fact that they might get screwed over considering the way they screwed Jonas over.

“Lieutenant Hadden will draw up the paperwork for Jonas’ asylum. Major Graham, contact Major Davis with this update. You’ll need to pull together a report for the Pentagon and propose next step options. Jonas, you can stay in your temporary on-base quarters for now. Talk to Walter if you need anything to be purchased for you while we restore your credentials.”

“Thank you, General,” Jonas said, hands folded in front of him. “And I just want to say to everyone at this table…I’m not really sure what I did to deserve it, but thank you for doing what you did and risking your own lives so I could come back to Earth.”

His smile looked shaky.

“Jonas, it was pencil pushers and boring meetings,” Jack said. “It wasn’t exactly a death defying rescue.”

“Except for that bit at the end,” Lieutenant Hadden chimed in.

“I enjoyed the opportunity to use my staff weapon,” Teal’c added.

“Yes, well, there was that,” Jack agreed.

“Either way,” Jonas said with a laugh, “thanks.”

“Anytime,” Daniel replied for the group. He reached for the coffee pot and poured himself another cup.

General Hammond closed the folder in front of him.

“And now to our second order of business,” Hammond said, “We need to talk about the progress with the recovery of Colonel O’Neill’s missing memories. Lieutenant Hadden and Major Graham, you’re dismissed. Please send in Jacob Carter on your way out. Doctor Fraiser will be unable to join us due to some injuries sustained by members of SG-4 on their most recent mission.”

Now that Jack was back on Earth, he wanted to go home, not talk more about his missing memories. It felt like that was the only thing anyone wanted to talk to him about. That was why the mission to Kelowna felt like such a breath of fresh air - it was about something other than him being broken and needing to be fixed. It gave him a chance to be productive and focused on something other than himself.

He’d sort of been hoping to have a twenty-four hour period of not thinking about all this memory stuff once he got back. Apparently he was being too optimistic.

Jacob entered the room and sat in the seat recently vacated by Major Graham. He placed a box on the table and pulled out a familiar-looking device.

“Oh, this’ll be fun,” Jack muttered.

Just what he wanted, more people playing around in his head.

“You brought a memory retrieval device,” Sam said.

“Yes,” Jacob said. “When George told me what was going on, Selmak and I thought we might be able to help resurface some of those memories. If you’re okay with that, Jack.”

Jack gave a wave of his hand. “Sure, why not. Might as well let anyone who wants to have a crack at my brain.”

He almost joked about Jacob being the second Carter to have a go at it, but didn’t want to bring that guilty look back to Sam’s eyes.

General Hammond asked if anything had come back to him while he was out in the field and Jack had to explain that things were just about the same as they’d been this whole time. He felt like he was getting a better sense of the members of SG-1, but he wasn’t sure if it was because knowledge was seeping in or because he’d just been spending a lot of time with them. Sometimes, he felt like he was remembering something, but it always faded before he could capture the thought.

And last night, well, there’d been another dream about Sam that he had to shove into a locked room in his mind. He didn’t bother mentioning that detail for obvious reasons.

“We’ve got a projector and examination chair set up in one of the isolation rooms, Jack. The Tok’ra have had great results assisting with memory recall. I think we should be able to make significant progress, although it may take multiple sessions.”

Jack considered asking where sitting on his couch and watching TV fit into this plan, but he kept his mouth shut and nodded his head.

“Should we all be there for this?” Daniel asked.

General Hammond shook his head. “Jacob and I decided that it would be best to limit the number of personnel in the room. We’ll have you, Major Carter, and Teal’c join Jacob and Colonel O’Neill for separate sessions. Major Carter will go first since she played a part in the sole complete memory that Colonel O’Neill has been able to regain so far. Daniel and Teal’c, you can help Jonas get settled and we’ll let you know when you’re needed.”

General Hammond dismissed them and Jack followed Sam and Jacob to one of the isolation rooms. Sam chattered the entire way about how this could be the break they were looking for to help restore the original set of memories. He wasn’t looking forward to this, but at least she was in a good mood.

When they got there, he saw that there was an examination chair in the middle and a projector screen set up in front of it. Jacob set the box with the memory retrieval device on a nearby table and pulled out the small circular object that Jack knew would be attached to his temple.

“If this can reconnect those memory pathways, sir, you’ll be back to good in no time,” Sam said with a grin.

“The obvious place to start is with the one mission you do remember accurate parts of. I’ve been told that you had some memories of when you and Sam believed you were slaves named Thera and Jonah. Let’s start there and then move on to other events.”

Jacob pressed the flat disk to the side of his head and Jack felt a sudden, sharp pain.

“Ow!”

“Don’t worry, the rest of this should be relatively painless.”

Jack doubted that would be the case.

Jacob pulled the handheld activation device out of the box and adjusted its settings before pointing the end of the device against the disk. There was a low buzzing noise and Jack felt a vibration along his temple. Then it stopped.

“It was a dream,” Jack felt compelled to explain, “not a memory. It’s probably all wrong.”

“I’ve been told that at least one part of it was right,” Jacob said. “Let’s start from there. The device should help pull up the real memories instead of the false ones.”

Jacob attached some wires to the device that were connected on the other end to a projector.

“Jack, try to remember the events of P3R-118.”

Maybe it would be okay, Jack thought. Maybe he’d luck out and it would show what actually happened instead of the details of his dream. He hoped that would be the case.

It was not.

Jack had forgotten how realistic the images were when the memory recall devices got hooked up to these Tok’ra projectors.

There he was, as Jonah, cuddled up with her and saying he wanted to take her on a date.

Jack really wished he was in this room with complete strangers right now instead of Sam Carter and her dad.

He wanted to turn off the memory and switch to something innocuous, but the problem with these devices was that they showed what you thought about and the more Jack told himself not to remember the details about this dream, the clearer they became. If he pulled out the wire from the disk, he’d just have to go through this process again from the beginning.

It was a nightmare.

He couldn’t believe that he’d agreed to wear this device. His only excuse was that he’d been distracted by Sam’s excitement that her dad might be able to help and he hadn’t thought through the long term ramifications. He also assumed it would work well enough to show the real life version, not his unconscious fantasy.

Jack looked back at the screen just in time to see his tongue dip into Samantha Carter’s mouth as they kissed.

The only thing that would have made it worse was if they were naked.

It was bad enough that Sam was seeing this, but Jack was also a little worried that Jacob Carter might murder him. Jacob was the type of man who knew how to make it look like an accident.

He breathed a sigh of relief when Jonah and Thera went back to talking.

Jack didn’t look at Sam or Jacob. He couldn’t bring himself to, which left him still watching the scene in front of him with a version of him and a version of her looking close and in love. Jack felt deeply uncomfortable, but couldn’t deny the longing he had as he watched them together on the screen.

This whole situation was just so damn unfair.

Jonah kissed Thera’s hand and then the memory faded.

Well, that was awkward.

Jack disconnected the wire from the memory retrieval device just so none of his other dreams would pop up on the screen.

Sam was the one who finally broke the silence in the room.

“Oh.”

Her face was flushed.

Jacob cleared his throat and Jack knew without looking that the man was pissed.

“Well, it’s not like I can control my own dreams,” Jack said defensively. They couldn’t court martial him for a dream, right? “I’m sorry, okay. It was inappropriate. I just figured your Tok’ra doohickey would show what actually happened instead of that.”

It wasn’t his fault the Tok’ra device didn’t work.

Jacob glared at him before turning back towards his daughter.

“The memory, was it accurate?” Jacob asked, his voice tight.

Sam didn’t look at either of them and he waited for her to say no. Of course it wasn’t accurate. It was embarrassing that she’d seen it at all, but it wasn’t like he had much say in what was up on the screen with one of those devices attached.

“Yes, it was accurate.”

There was a formal, prim tone to her voice that kept her response from sinking into his brain for about half a second.

“Wait, what?”

Jack sat up in the chair and turned towards her.

“It was accurate,” she said evenly, her eyes begging him not to make a big deal out of this.

He couldn’t believe that she would keep something like this from him. How the hell was he supposed to regain his memories with all these damn secrets?

“Jacob, we need the room.”

“I really don’t think -”

“Carter, stop.” Jack stood up and looked over at her dad. “Jacob, your daughter and I need to have a conversation and I don’t think you want to be here for it.”

Jacob glanced between the two of them with a stern look. Jack was just about ready for the former General to dress them down. Instead, he nodded.

“Don’t think this means we won’t discuss it later. You’ve got five minutes.”

“Yes, sir,” Jack said.

“And to think that earlier today I kind of missed you calling me Dad.” Jacob sighed and shook his head. “Five minutes, no more. Then we move on.”

Jack waited until the door closed before he turned around.

“I call your father Dad?” he said in disbelief. “Carter, what the hell?”

Sam shifted her weight and he knew she was uncomfortable, but right now he didn’t care.

“It's a joke that you call him Dad,” she said. “Mostly anyway, and for whatever reason he allows it.”

There it was again, in that mostly anyway aside. It was like she couldn’t help hiding things from him. Like she had so much practice doing so that she couldn’t stop herself even when he asked for the truth.

Hell, they’d kissed on that ice planet and she didn’t tell him even when she knew that was the one mission he was starting to remember.

“You said that nothing happened between us,” he hissed.

“Well, not when we were in our right minds,” she shot back.

“Right.”

Jack took a step closer to her.

“Were there other times?”

Her eyes shifted away. The mindstamp dream hadn’t been the only dream he had where they kissed. Jack thought they had all been wish fulfillment.

What the fuck had been happening between him and his second in command?

“Was there a time in the locker room?” he asked.

Sam looked up with blatant shock in her expression. “You remember that?”

“I assumed I made it up,” Jack ground out. “You know, this would have been helpful information to have, Carter.”

She briefly looked chagrined before regaining her bearings. “I’m sorry, but how was I supposed to know you’d been dreaming about kissing me?”

“You should’ve known it was a possibility,” he argued, “considering it apparently happened in real life.”

Jack felt like they’d been moving towards this moment ever since P3X-289. He deserved the truth and for once, he didn’t care if the truth was that he’d messed up and fallen for his second in command. He just needed to know what really happened.

“Okay, Sam. We’re going to play a game called fantasy or reality.”

“Sir, I really don’t think -”

“Carter, so help me god if you don’t start telling me the full and unvarnished truth right this minute we’re going to have a whole host of other problems.”

“Okay,” she agreed. He didn’t like how meek her voice sounded, but he’d have to worry about that later.

Jack looked into those wide blue eyes and started to question her.

“We kissed on that ice planet. Fantasy or reality?”

“Reality,” Sam replied softly.

“We kissed in the SGC locker room.”

She looked a little embarrassed by that one.

“Reality.”

Jack cleared his throat and brought up the dream he had the night before.

“One of the storage rooms, next to the quantum mirror.”

Sam’s face seemed to pale a little.

“That, um, wasn’t me. Not really. It was you and another Samantha Carter. From an alternate reality.”

As far as Jack was concerned, that counted as close enough.

“The control room.”

Her face scrunched and he could tell he’d taken her off guard.

“What? No.”

Jack shrugged. “Must be one of mine then.”

Neither of them said the word fantasy, but they didn’t have to. Jack had basically just admitted to dreaming about her in a non-reality-based, very unprofessional sense.

That was another one of those things they’d have to deal with later.

“So, we only kiss when we’re not in our right minds?” he asked, needing to clarify.

The alternate Samantha Carter situation didn’t seem to fit with her theory, but he wasn’t going to dive into the possible extenuating circumstances now. Her dad would be back soon.

“Yes, that’s right,” she replied.

Jack took another step closer to her.

“Just like I’m not really in my right mind now?” he questioned.

Her eyes flicked up to the corner of the room where Jack knew there was a security camera.

“Sir,” she admonished.

The tension stretched between them and he took a step back.

“Before your dad comes back in here, is there anything else you haven’t told me about our relationship, professional or otherwise - especially otherwise - that I should know?” Jack asked.

Sam bit her lip and he could tell she was still thinking about filtering her answer.

“Sam, the truth.”

“You should probably know that in one alternate reality we were engaged and in one we were married.”

Jack felt like someone had punched him in the stomach. He reached for the table behind him and leaned back against it.

“Shit. Married?”

“Yeah,” she said. “In those realities I was a civilian.”

Jack ran a hand over his face. He knew he felt drawn to Sam Carter and even knew there had to be some feelings between them based on some of her reactions and things she said, but marriage was a whole other ball game.

He could only imagine how he must’ve felt knowing that they were together in those other realities if he already had feelings for her in this one and couldn’t do anything about it.

“And we were okay with that?” he finally asked. “With not, you know…”

Sam pursed her lips and briefly closed her eyes before responding.

“We had to be, or it would break up the team.” She sighed. “When you save the world as many times as we have, even the thought of prioritizing anything else feels selfish.”

Jack just stared at her. He took in the anxiety in her clear blue eyes, the dark shadows that showed that she hadn’t been getting enough sleep, and the barely there frown lines. He wanted to take her in his arms to comfort her, but he couldn’t and that was a problem.

“Hammond might not put me back on SG-1,” he said. “This last mission was a trial run, but he could change his mind.”

It felt so damn good to work with her out in the field, but at what cost? He’d been willing to accept her “back to normal” proclamation when he thought that was what she wanted. Now he wondered if she just thought she couldn’t ask for more than what they already had.

“The General will reinstate you to SG-1 and you know it,” she said. “We shouldn’t talk about this now and we shouldn’t talk about it here.”

“So what?” he asked. “We just ignore the fact that your dad, who is friends with Hammond and a retired General himself, saw me making out with my second in command? You really think this can be brushed under the rug, Carter? What were you thinking letting me share memories of that mission when you knew what really happened?”

He watched the indignation spark in her eyes.

“You told me that we had a conversation in your dream and that was it. Don’t act like I was the only person hiding things!”

“The difference, Sam, is that you knew the truth. I didn’t. So I believed you when you said nothing had happened between us. And I sure as hell wasn’t going to make you uncomfortable by bringing up anything to the contrary.”

She rested her hand on his arm.

“Jack, I’m sor- ”

The door creaked open and Sam removed her hand, her apology interrupted.

Jacob re-entered the room and threw them both the sort of look that Jack assumed he’d often given to anyone under his command who royally screwed up.

Normally, Jack would crack a joke or try to explain away what Jacob had seen on that projector, but he didn’t have the energy for it today and he also flat out didn’t know what to say.

“Ready to continue?”

“We’re ready, Dad,” Sam said while Jack went over to the chair and sat down.

“Let’s keep it PG, please.”

Sam blushed and Jack couldn’t help feeling a little uncomfortable himself.

“I’ll do my best, Jake,” he replied, with more levity than he was actually feeling.

Jack settled back into the chair and Jacob reattached the wire to the memory retrieval device.

“Okay, now let’s pick a memory that has few external factors. Not many additional people around, minimal elements that would clutter the memory. Just Jack and one or more members of the team.”

Sam thought for a few moments before responding.

“Let’s try Antarctica.”

“I hate that continent,” Jack muttered.

Sam turned to face him. “Sir, try to remember your version of the events when you were stranded in Antarctica and we found the second ‘gate.”

As soon as she asked, an image burst to life on the screen.

It was a dark and icy cavern. Jack remembered the pain and cold and despair.

He remembered being alone, splinting his leg, and talking to himself…joking about redecorating and adding a fireplace.

The memory started playing on the screen. Unlike the memory of Jonah and Thera, this one wasn’t as clear. Smudged sections of the video seemed to be moving and parts of it felt out of focus.

It took him a while to realize what he was seeing.

“Wow. It’s amazing,” Sam said. “Like those ghost images in the paintings Jonas and Daniel were talking about. You can almost see my face and body.”

His gaze followed her finger and it suddenly clicked, like one of those Magic Eye pictures. What he thought was a moving smudge was actually a nearly transparent Sam Carter.

“And you were actually on the other side of the DHD, sir. I can see the outline of your body.”

She was right. There was something amazing about the barely visible overlapping memory that was moving over what he thought he remembered. It was beautiful in spite of the tragedy of the memory. It was also incredibly confusing.

Jack saw his own body like a phantom on the other side of the DHD, bent over in pain, while the opaque version of him desperately chipped at the ice covering the Dial Home Device and tried to ignore the fact that he was coughing up blood while doing so.

Sam’s ghostly image was next to his solid one, continuing to move confidently to get rid of the last of the ice even as Jack watched his own body fail and falter over and over again.

When the DHD was clear, Jack watched his hand reach out to press one symbol after another while Sam’s ghostly hand followed the same pattern only a few seconds out of sync. Their hands pressed the activation dome in the center of the DHD console. It glowed red beneath their overlapping hands and then shut off. Just watching it, Jack almost felt like he could sense her warmth on his skin.

“Look at that,” Sam said, her voice full of awe.

The projected scene flickered as Sam reached out her hand to touch the image, with the underlying memory briefly becoming more visible and then quickly fading behind the false memory. The false memory held steady and the ghost images didn’t return.

“What happened?” she asked. “Where did it go?”

Sam turned around and looked at her dad.

“I don’t know, Sam. Let’s try another one, Jack.”

“How about something more recent?” Sam said. “Sir, try to remember when you flew the F-302 to attack Anubis’ ship and destroy his superweapon.”

That was easy enough.

“Coming right up, Carter.”

Jack remembered that mission. He thought it was crazy at the time, but he ended up getting the missiles where they needed to be to blow up that superweapon. Major Sullivan flew with him.

The memory pulled up on the screen in the middle of a firefight with Goa’uld gliders. His co-pilot flickered, going from Sullivan to Carter and back.

“Did you see that?” Sam asked.

Jack heard her voice saying that they needed Anubis to power the weapon as the image flickered again.

“The memories are there. There’s got to be a way to make them stay. We’re so close.”

She looked so hopeful. Jack wanted to do whatever he needed to so that smile stayed on her face.

At that thought, Sam’s ghostly image and voice disappeared and Sullivan stayed in the F-302 for the rest of the mission.

“I don’t understand.” She turned to her dad. “Does he just need more time to heal before the real memories stick?”

“We’ll figure it out, Sam.”

Jack looked at Jacob and he could tell that the man was holding something back.

“You think you know what’s going on, don’t you?”

“Selmak has an idea.”

Whatever the idea was, Jacob didn’t seem happy about it.

Sam opened her mouth, no doubt to ask about Selmak’s theory, when the announcement over the P.A. drew their attention.

“Major Carter, please report to the control room immediately.”

Sam looked at him and he could tell she felt bad about leaving him alone with her dad, but it’s not like there was anything she could do about it.

“Go ahead, Carter. Don’t want Walter to accidentally blow something up.”

She nodded. “I’ll be back soon, sir.”

Jack caught the pleading look she gave Jacob, but didn’t think it would do much good. If Jacob Carter wanted to interrogate him…well, he could hardly confess to doing anything wrong when he didn’t really remember doing anything wrong in the first place.

“So…things with the Tok’ra good? Take down any System Lords lately?”

Jacob looked up from adjusting settings on the device.

“Do you really want to do small talk right now, Jack? Because if you do, I have plenty of questions to ask you.”

Jack grimaced. “Nope, that’s fine. As you were.”

Jacob worked in silence a few minutes before Jack felt like he had to say something.

“Just don’t give her a hard time about it, okay? She already feels bad enough that she wiped some of my memories. I don’t need you giving her crap about what you saw on that screen. I may not know all the context of what happened, but I take full responsibility.”

Jacob clenched his jaw and finished adjusting the device before he spoke up.

“You and Sam are too much alike, you know. Always having to do things the hard way. I’ll kill you if she ends up getting hurt over this whole mess.”

“Yeah, I figured you would,” Jack acknowledged. “You don’t have to worry. I can keep things professional.”

He’d keep things professional and in the meantime try to figure out what Sam wanted. They were clearly at an impasse that wasn’t working well for either of them except out in the field.

“Shockingly, Jack, the professionalism aspect of this problem isn’t what I’m worried about right now. Now, let’s try another memory. Start with when you went to D.C. to receive the Air Medal.”

“You know, I didn’t actually get that medal there,” Jack pointed out.

“I know. Now think of the reception.”

Jacob kept adjusting the settings of the memory recall device as they ran through memory after memory. Each time, the original memory would start to come to the surface and then it would disappear beneath the false memory. Some memories held longer than others before they faded away.

“Jack, I can’t help you if you keep fighting it,” Jacob snapped.

“I’m not fighting anything! Don’t you think that if it was in my power to fix this that I would?”

Jacob disconnected the device and set it down on the table.

“I really don’t know.”

Jack watched the other man sigh in frustration.

“Maybe there isn’t a solution to this one and we all need to move on,” Jack suggested.

Everyone kept spending so much time and energy on getting his memories back and maybe it just wasn’t possible.

“I can deal with the way things are now,” he continued. “I’ll be fine if the memories don’t come back.”

Jacob fixed him with a hard stare.

“Jack, we may want to consider that there’s a psychological component to why you aren’t getting your memories back.”

Jack immediately felt defensive about the insinuation that he was holding back his own recovery.

“You’re suggesting this is psychosomatic, Jacob? That’s bullshit.”

“All I’m saying is that your previous attempts to remember have been met with pain so you may instinctively be trying to avoid that… or maybe you’re having some inner conflict about what it might mean to get all of your memories back. Maybe there’s a reason you don’t want to permanently go back to being the CO of SG-1.”

Jack wasn’t holding back and it irritated him that Jacob was acting like this might be his fault somehow. He was just sick of people spending so much time trying to fix him. Sometimes in life you just had to accept things as they were. You couldn’t fix everything. Sometimes bad things happened and there was no undoing them. You just had to move on.

“I’m not saying that you’re doing anything on purpose,” Jacob continued, “but there was a pattern in how long those original memories surfaced and how quickly they disappeared. Some of them were clearer and more opaque than the others. The recovered memories when you and I were talking held steady until Sam, Daniel, or Teal’c came back into the picture. And when Sam was still in this room with us, they started to surface until she got excited about the memories coming back and then you shut it down.”

Jack scratched the back of his head. It just wasn’t possible.

“It’s just a coincidence. I didn’t shut anything down.”

“So you don’t think this could have anything to do with that memory I saw of you kissing my daughter?”

Jack froze.

“I don’t see why it would, Jacob.”

“Come on, Jack. Do you want to have to talk to McKenzie about this?”

He shuddered at the thought. There was no way he’d say anything to McKenzie about any of this. He didn’t care if it got him kicked off active duty.

“No, but I sure as hell don’t want to talk to you about it either. Even if I am holding back somehow, it’s not conscious.”

“Jack,” Jacob asked, “do you really want back on SG-1?”

“Yes, of course I do. I just -”

He stopped himself. Yes, he wanted to keep going through the Stargate. He might do training in the future, but he was needed in the field now. He wanted SG-1. He just didn’t want to accept the trade-off. Not now that he knew those kisses had been real and alternate versions of them had made lifelong commitments.

“Just what, Jack?”

He just didn’t want to have to keep letting her go.

“I don’t know,” he replied. “Just that meaning of life stuff Daniel’s always going on about.”

Jack frowned.

Didn't he and Daniel have a “meaning of life”-style conversation recently? Or was he remembering something from before?

Jacob put a hand on his shoulder.

“Remembering doesn’t remove your options.”

It sure felt like it would. Maybe Jacob was right. Maybe a part of his subconscious brain was still stuck on the options that could open up if he was pulled from active duty, even if his conscious brain knew that was no longer a possibility. Even if Sam was interested in something more, it couldn’t happen anytime soon and not without breaking up the team.

“Like I told Daniel, Hammond’s not going to pull me from SG-1. I passed all the evals. I’m going to do my best not to make things awkward for Carter. My personal feelings about anything beyond that don’t matter.”

“Jack - ”

“Jacob, what’s plan B? ‘Cause this mental block you think I have isn’t going to change in one afternoon.”

Jacob looked disappointed in him, but Jack didn’t care. He still just wanted to get through this and go home and not think about anyone with the last name Carter.

She should’ve told him everything…but he understood why she didn’t. Jack just didn’t know what to do with that information now.

“We’ll need to confer with Doctor Fraiser, but Selmak thinks the next step is to try combining use of the Tok’ra device with a low dose sedative. See if that helps.”

“How will that change anything?” Jack asked.

“That one memory came through when you were asleep. It might be easier if your mental defenses were lower.”

Jack thought about the other dreams he had that contained unexpected moments of truth and internally acknowledged that Jacob and Selmak might be right.

“I’ll give it a shot.”

Half an hour later, Janet had him hooked up to a sedative drip.

“It’s a very low steady dose,” she explained. “We don’t want to put you on anything stronger right now while we’re testing this method out.”

Daniel and Teal’c showed up soon after the sedative took effect, making him feel a little out of it, but not tired.

Both men took turns offering up moments from their years working together for Jack to try and remember.

Slowly, carefully, a few of the oldest memories resurfaced, replaced the false memories, and held.

Talking with Daniel in an Abydonian desert.

Catching a staff weapon from Teal’c in a prison on Chulak.

Telling Captain Samantha Carter that he adored her already before shoving her through a wormhole.

It was only a handful of memories, forcefully prompted by drugs and alien technology. It wasn’t nearly enough…but it was something.

And with the return of each of those scattered recollections, Jack wondered if something just as important was slipping away.

Chapter Text

Sam found Jack in the office he always pretended he didn’t have.

“I was starting to think that you might’ve gone home, sir.”

She’d checked the isolation room, the infirmary, the gym, Daniel’s office, the mess hall, and even Jack’s on-base quarters after spending hours updating the dialing program. He wasn’t in any of the normal spots, so she decided to try his office.

And here he was, almost like he’d been hiding out on purpose.

“I’d love to be home right now,” Jack said, “but I have a meeting in half an hour with the General and your dad…so that’ll be fun.”

She wasn’t surprised by the sarcasm. Sam wouldn’t want to be in a room with her dad right now either. She was curious what happened after she left the two of them alone to fix the problem in the control room, but she couldn’t bring herself to ask right away.

She just hoped her dad wasn’t too hard on him.

“I also can’t drive until the sedative is done wearing off,” Jack added.

“Sedative?”

“Don’t ask.”

Sam wanted to find out, so badly, what had happened, but she also didn’t want to push him when he was already mad at her.

“I brought you some cake, sir.”

She set the plate and fork down on his desk. It was a peace offering she’d grabbed in the mess hall after her guilt billowed to near catastrophic levels. He joked once that cake could solve any problem and while she didn’t believe that was true, it was worth a try.

“You call me sir more than anyone else I’ve ever worked with,” he huffed in frustration. “Did I tell you before how annoying that is?”

“I think you got used to it, sir,” she said and then immediately cringed because her initial goal had been to say the sentence without the honorific. “It’s a hard habit to break.”

He picked at the chocolate cake with the fork.

“I bet that’s why I stopped calling you Sam,” he said.

Sam remembered how he brought her marble cake with vanilla icing when she was having a hard time after he first lost his memories. She told him then that he hadn’t called her Sam in a long time, but she didn’t know why.

“Because I called you sir too much?” she asked, trying to understand.

“I think we were both overcompensating,” he explained.

“Oh.”

It made sense.

It was a way to reassert distance and professionalism between them. He wouldn’t call her Sam and she wouldn’t call him Jack.

“I get it now, by the way,” he said, putting the fork down and looking up at her. “This thing between us, it’s marble cake.”

“What?”

“You think it’s going to be great because you get to have a little bit of both and you don’t have to choose. But then when you eat it, you can’t help wanting it to be either chocolate or vanilla instead of some sort of purgatory, in-the-middle cake. It’s not reaching the fullest potential of what it could be in either direction. It’s fine, but not great.”

She sat down in the chair opposite his desk and was suddenly very glad she’d closed the door on the way into his office.

Chocolate or vanilla.

Teammates or more.

“Marble cake,” he reiterated.

That summed up the problem rather succinctly.

“Yes, I guess we are.”

He took a bite of the cake and then handed the fork over to her. She took it, their fingers brushing, and then ate a bite of the cake. It was good cake, and comforting to eat it together. She couldn’t help acknowledging the intimacy of sharing the cake with a single fork as she passed it back to him.

They ate in silence, trading the fork back and forth until the piece of cake was gone.

“I really am sorry,” Sam said as soon as he set the metal fork back down on the plate. Apologizing was the reason she tracked him down in the first place. “I thought…I mean we had so many conversations in those tunnels like the one you described that I didn’t think it would be the one time that…anyway, I definitely didn’t want my dad to see that.”

“Yeah, you and me both, Carter.”

“And you were right,” she continued. “I should have told you everything. I just didn’t know where to start or how you would feel about it without the context and history. I didn’t want to mess things up any more than I already had.”

Jack nodded and she knew that he accepted her apology.

“I could have saved us some embarrassment too, if I was more upfront about the dream I had,” he admitted. “The multiple dreams, I guess. I just didn’t know.”

Neither of them had handled this situation as well as they should have, but they’d also spent a long time trying to avoid the hint of anything personal between them. It just reiterated for Sam, once again, that she couldn’t go on ignoring her feelings for him.

“So what happened?” she asked. “When I had to leave you with my dad?”

Jack leaned back in the chair and put his hands behind his head.

“He seems to think I’ve got issues. I don’t necessarily disagree.”

“Issues?”

“Yeah, but it’s fine. We’re working around them. Even got a few memories to pull through after you left.”

She wanted to celebrate and tell him how great it was that he was starting to remember, but she was stuck on one point.

“What issues?”

Jack sighed and leaned forward, clasping his hands above his desk.

“It’s not anything you have to worry about, Carter. I’ve got it handled.”

His serious tone just made her more concerned, but she wasn’t going to press it.

“What’s the meeting about? You don’t think my dad said anything to - ”

“No, I don’t think it has anything to do with that. In fact, I’m pretty sure I’m going to be put on medical leave for at least another week while your dad pokes around in my head some more.”

Sam winced.

“Yeah, that’s how I feel about it too.” Then Jack tilted his head and gave her a teasing smile. “Any other memories that I should steer clear of when Dad is messing with my brain?”

Sam couldn’t help but feel her lips curve at the corners as she shook her head. “No, I think you and I just about covered it in our previous conversation. It was only those two times - three if you count the other Samantha Carter - that we…”

She stalled out, unable to say the word.

“Kissed?” he suggested.

Jack’s eyes were steady on hers and she couldn’t help remembering their argument earlier in the day about all the things they should have told each other. At the time she felt tense and off-kilter because of what her dad had seen.

Now that tension was stripped of the earlier embarrassment, frustration, and anger. All she could think about was the passion in his eyes as they argued and how natural it looked when they kissed in the tunnels of that ice planet.

“Yes,” Sam replied. She watched his eyes dip down to her lips at her breathy tone.

“So Sam, what kind of cake would you want? If you had your choice?”

Her gaze fell to the empty plate between them and the fork they’d shared.

Before, she thought she couldn’t have an open and honest conversation with Jack about the future when he didn’t remember the past. Now, she knew that was mostly just an excuse to keep her walls up. She’d learned over the past several weeks that Jack O’Neill without all his memories was still the same man.

Sam didn’t know which type of cake it would be in the metaphor, but she knew what she wanted.

She just didn’t know if he was as certain.

“What if I transferred to another team? Would that change anything?”

Shock crossed Jack’s face before he schooled his expression and straightened in his chair. She knew that she’d taken the conversation straight from light-hearted flirting right to serious questions with real-life consequences. She probably could have eased into it more, but after everything that happened today, she was finding it harder to hold back.

“I would never ask you to give up SG-1.”

His words were firm.

“I know you wouldn’t,” she said.

“You shouldn’t have to give up anything,” he added.

That was part of why they were still stuck in this limbo.

It occurred to Sam that Jack wouldn’t ever ask her to make a career sacrifice because of him, but he also couldn’t stop her.

“What would happen if I transferred, Jack?”

“Sam, you can’t - ”

His desk phone rang and he picked it up, still keeping his wary eyes on her.

“Yes, sir. I’ll be right down.”

Jack hung up the phone and ran both hands over his face. He looked exhausted.

“Why did you even bring this up, Carter? Did your dad talk to you about this?”

Her dad would be the last person to tell her to transfer off SG-1, so she didn’t know what he was talking about.

“I wasn’t planning on doing anything more than apologizing, but then you brought up marble cake.”

“I did, didn’t I?” Jack said, his fingers tapping on the wood surface of his desk. “I only meant it as an observation, not a hint that you should offer to give up your job. Are you sure that Jacob didn’t - ”

“This doesn’t have anything to do with my dad,” she interrupted.

Jack tilted his head and looked at her like he was trying to read her, but she wasn’t sure what information he hoped to find.

“Carter…Sam…I’m not trying to shut you down. It’s just…I don’t have enough of the context to know what I would normally say in this type of conversation - if we’ve ever had this type of conversation before - but I do know that I wouldn’t want you to give up anything because of me. You’re amazing out in the field and I’m guessing you’re probably the best second in command I ever had.”

She felt warm with pride even as she braced herself for his inevitable next sentence.

“Just don’t do anything rash. It’s been a tough time for all of us. I’m going to get my memories back and then we can talk.”

Yes, there it was. After years of doing nothing, she finally put herself on the line and he asked her to wait. Sam wondered if he felt this disappointed when she asked him to leave all acknowledgement of their feelings in the room after the za’tarc testing.

“You might not want to continue this conversation at all after you remember,” she told him. “You might change your mind.”

Sam had to admit that it was a possibility. After all, things would have continued as normal if she hadn’t accidentally wiped Jack’s memories.

“You know, one of the things I remembered today was a conversation we had right before I shoved you through the ‘gate the first time,” he said. “You were right back then.”

She tilted her head in confusion. “Right about what?”

Instead of answering that question, he addressed her previous comment.

“I won’t change my mind about talking. I just have some things to figure out first.”

They’d both gotten way too good over the years at talking around the important topics. If they really did talk later, she wasn’t going to let him get away with all these vague comments.

She just couldn’t push him now. Not on base and not when he was about to leave for a meeting with her dad and the General.

Sam stood up.

“Good luck with the meeting. Can you let my dad know that I’ll meet him in my lab?”

“Sure,” Jack agreed. “And thanks for the cake.”

“Anytime,” she replied.

At the door, Sam turned back to face him.

“Out of curiosity, what’s your favorite type of cake, sir?” she asked with a teasing grin, hoping to return to the earlier levity of their conversation before she left.

Jack looked at her like he was surprised she didn’t already know. “Funfetti, Carter. You know, with sprinkles. The ultimate celebration cake.”

Sam laughed and he grinned in response.

“I should have guessed.”

It wasn’t until she was halfway down the hallway that she realized what conversation Jack must’ve remembered earlier in the day.

“You know, you really will like me when you get to know me.”

“Oh, I adore you already, Captain.”

A smile slid over her face.

Sure, he flat out rejected the idea of her transferring, but he was also starting to remember what they meant to each other before. Maybe he would want to talk later after all.

Since Sam knew that she would have to wait for her dad before going home, she decided to stop by Jonas’ on-base quarters and see how he was handling everything. She grabbed the photos she took from his office in Kelowna and headed to his room.

Jonas opened the door as soon as she knocked and gestured for her to come in.

A small television in the corner was playing the weather channel, there were several plastic bags from the nearby Walmart that looked like they were mostly filled with clothes, and stacks of paperwork were spread out on the bed.

“Sorry, let me move all of this.” He gathered the documents into a single, large pile and put them on the nightstand. “It’s all the paperwork from Liz…Lieutenant Hadden…for asylum and new credentials. She said the process should go quicker this time because I’ve already been through it once and I’m not considered a security risk.”

“That’s good. How are you settling in?”

Jonas pulled up a chair and Sam sat down on the bed, setting the picture frames down beside her.

“Not much settling in to do. I couldn’t exactly pack anything before we came back here.” He pointed at the plastic bags. “Walter was nice enough to send someone to pick up a few clothes and essentials for me. It’s not the first time I’ve come to Earth and had to leave everything behind, but last time I was at least able to prepare and bring along a few small items.”

It struck Sam how brave Jonas was to start over again with next to nothing. She would have had a hard time if forced to do the same and Jonas had such a calm attitude about it all.

It made her even more glad that she grabbed those photos out of his office. She wished she could have taken more items that might have been of sentimental value to him.

Sam reached beside her and picked up the two framed photos.

“When Colonel O’Neill and I were in your office, I took these. I thought you might want them.”

She handed over the photos.

“I…”

Jonas trailed off as he looked at the photographs, his eyes now glistening with unshed tears. The normally talkative Kelownan was at a loss for words. He ran his fingers over the faces with a gentle touch.

“Do you still have family over there?” Sam asked softly. “You never mentioned.”

He set the frames down in his lap and looked over at her.

“My parents died about five years after I graduated. I had aunts and uncles and cousins, though. Enough to make me feel like I hadn’t lost everything when my parents died. They were all really proud of me for being an advisor to the High Minister and the work I was doing to advance Kelowna’s defenses.”

Jonas looked down at the top photograph, the one with his extended family, and sighed.

“I lost most of them when I was first called a traitor and came to Earth. They wouldn’t talk to me when I returned to Kelowna. For the others, it was good for a while. They were glad to have me back and we were reconnecting, but then the newspaper articles started up saying I was to blame for Anubis’ attack. It all went downhill from there. They stopped answering phone calls and it’s not like anyone checked in after I got arrested.”

There had been years where Sam was mostly estranged from her brother and dad, but it had never been anywhere as bad as what Jonas was describing.

“I’m so sorry, Jonas.”

He pursed his lips and set the photographs to the side.

“As much as you all say it wasn’t my fault, I am the reason that Anubis attacked Kelowna. I had hoped that I could make up for that and use what I learned as a member of SG-1 to help the people of my home planet, but that didn’t work out. All I can do is try and move forward.”

“But still,” Sam said, “that kind of loss - “

She thought about the year Jonas was on SG-1 and how much it affected the team that she, Jack, and Teal’c had all been grieving for Daniel in their own ways.

Jonas gave her a small smile.

“I’ll be fine, Sam. I’ve already done this once before. I really appreciate the photos. It’ll be nice to have something from home.”

She considered asking Jonas what he planned to do now that he was back on Earth, but he only just got back and probably didn’t need the pressure of worrying about the future.

“So are you just planning on doing paperwork and watching the weather channel tonight?” Sam asked.

Jonas looked over at the pile of paper and shook his head.

“No, most of the documents are just for review. I was almost done signing the ones that needed signing. Daniel, Teal’c, and I were actually talking about getting pizza for dinner in about an hour. Do you want to come with us?”

“Well - ”

“Your dad can come too,” Jonas added, “and we’re going to see if the Colonel wants to join in.”

Sam was tempted, if only to delay the inevitable awkward conversation she’d probably be having later with her dad.

“Thanks for the invite, but I should probably just do father-daughter time tonight. I hope you have fun. And just let me know if you need anything as you re-adjust to being back on Earth.”

Jonas smiled. “Thanks. That means a lot.”

Sam pulled him into a hug. As sad as she was for everything Jonas had gone through, it would be nice to have him around. Hopefully, in time, he’d be able to make Earth into his home again.

“It’ll be okay. You have friends here and we’ll all help you through it.”

After she said goodbye to Jonas, she headed down to her lab to wait for her dad.

Jacob showed up about twenty minutes later and confirmed Jack’s suspicion that he was being placed on temporary medical leave, but wouldn’t give her many more details about the conversation with General Hammond.

Sam kept waiting for the other shoe to drop, but as they drove to pick up takeout and bring it back to her house, her dad was mainly interested in questioning her about the strategies they’d already used to try to bring back Jack’s memories and the code that she wrote that removed the physical symptoms.

During their meal, Sam caught him up on everything that was new with Mark’s family as well as all the challenges SG-1 had been dealing with recently, even outside of Jack’s memory loss. As difficult as it was to have her dad out of contact for long periods of time on dangerous missions for the Tok’ra, Sam appreciated that she could talk to him freely about her work.

Unfortunately, she didn’t realize until it was too late that her dad was just lulling her into a false sense of security with his benign questions.

Jacob waited until they finished dinner before he brought up the topic Sam knew had been on his mind since that afternoon.

“So how often do you make out with your commanding officer, kid?”

Sam choked on the sip of water she was in the middle of swallowing. It took her a couple minutes to recover from the resulting coughing fit.

“It’s not what you’re thinking,” she eventually managed, even though what her dad was thinking was probably pretty damn close to the truth.

Jacob gave her a hard stare. “More than once then.”

“Dad!”

“I just can’t believe that George kept you on the same team together after that mission. What the hell was he thinking?”

Sam’s fingers played with the napkin on her lap.

“We didn’t exactly mention those details in the post-mission briefing,” she admitted. “We handled it.”

Jacob raised an eyebrow. “Yeah, it seems like you two moved past it without any problems at all.”

“There haven’t been any problems,” Sam insisted.

“Oh really? You’ve been a mess ever since your mistake in the field cost Jack his memories. I’m shocked you haven’t made any more mistakes. The only thing that’s been saving you is that you’re good under pressure.”

Her dad calmly took a sip of coffee as if he hadn’t just confirmed everything she’d been worrying about over the past several weeks.

“Did General Hammond say that?” she asked, mortified if that was the case.

Jacob gave her a knowing look before shaking his head.

“No, George thinks you’ve been going above and beyond lately,” he said, “but I know you, Sam. I know what you look like when you’re on the edge of a breakdown and just trying to hold it together.”

“I’m fine.”

“You always were a bad liar, kid.”

Okay, so maybe fine wasn’t the right word, but she was handling things as best as she could.

“It’s going to be fine,” she tried instead. “Colonel O’Neill even said that you were able to get some of his memories back today. That’s got to be a good sign.”

Her dad shook his head.

“We’re doing it the hard way and it’s going to take much longer than it needs to. And I won’t be able to stay long enough for him to get all of his memories back.”

“What do you mean, you’re doing it the hard way?”

“We’re having to give him a sedative while we restore his memories. It shouldn’t be necessary. You know that. You’ve used the memory retrieval devices before.”

“What’s wrong?”

Sam wondered if this had to do with the “issues” Jack alluded to in his office.

Her dad took a sip of coffee and she knew he was weighing his words carefully before he spoke.

“The brain’s a funny thing, Sam. Selmak’s of the opinion that part of Jack doesn’t want to remember and it’s holding back his recovery.”

Her heart sank and she started to feel doubts about her conversation with Jack earlier in the day. What did it mean if he didn’t want to remember them…didn’t want to remember her?

“Why wouldn’t he - ”

“I’m saying maybe there’s a part of him that isn’t ready to be reassigned back to SG-1. A part of him that’s enjoyed not being your commanding officer. And based on what I saw - ”

“Are you saying this is my fault?”

It was already her fault that Jack lost his memories. Could it be her fault Jack couldn’t get those same memories back as well?

“No,” Jacob replied, “I’m saying that both of you have been trying so hard to follow the rules and regulations that it’s screwing with your heads. Most directly in Jack’s case.”

Sam didn’t know how to respond.

She’d spend so much time trying to help Jack and it never occurred to her that the same feelings that she’d been struggling with might be holding back his ability to heal.

“How?”

“The code you uploaded should’ve worked, Sam. It might’ve taken a couple weeks for the memories to come back, but all things being equal, it should have worked. The Tok’ra device would have just sped up the process. But Jack is just as stubborn as you are. He’s subconsciously clinging to those false memories because he doesn’t want to go back to the way things used to be.”

Suddenly some of the things Jack said in his office started to make more sense.

“Did you tell him that?”

“Did I tell him that he’s not getting his memories back because he’s in love with my daughter? Not in so many words.”

Sam’s eyes widened. She wanted to ask how her dad was so confident of Jack’s feelings when she still wasn’t sure. She knew that he was attracted to her and cared about her and respected her, but love was something else entirely. The conversation in his office only muddled things further.

He said that his metaphor about marble cake was just an observation.

He said that she shouldn’t do anything rash.

He asked her to wait to talk about what was between them until he regained his memories.

He seemed to think that her question about transferring had been prompted by her dad.

“What did you say, Dad?” Sam asked.

“I asked him if he really wanted back on SG-1,” Jacob said, “and told him he had options. The son of a bitch would rather get doped up than talk about his feelings.”

Sam dropped her face in her hands and let out a groan of frustration. No wonder Jack thought her dad had something to do with her offer to transfer. He probably assumed that she was sacrificing herself to help with his memory problems. He might even think she offered out of guilt.

“That idiot,” she mumbled into her hands before lifting her face and looking at her dad. “I have a plan. I’ve been thinking about it for a while and it might help. Even if it doesn’t, I’m going to do it anyway.”

“What plan?”

Telling her dad felt even more serious and nerve-wracking than telling Janet. She needed to just get it over with quickly, like ripping off a bandaid.

“I’m going to tell General Hammond that I’d like to transfer to another team.”

Sam waited for her dad to blow up at her and give her a lecture about how disappointed he was that she was planning to make a career sacrifice for a man. She expected phrases about how she wasn’t going to live up to her potential and was making a mistake. As much as he tolerated and even seemed to like Jack, Sam thought she’d have to listen to judgment about falling for her commanding officer.

Instead, Jacob Carter just nodded. “Okay, then.”

“That’s all you have to say?”

Jacob set his coffee mug on the table.

“What do you want me to say? Do I wish that you found somebody who worked a normal job and wasn’t your commanding officer? Of course I do. But we have to play the cards life deals us. And at least he’s a hell of a lot better than the last guy.”

Considering the last guy she had a serious relationship with went crazy and thought he was a god, it wasn’t much of an endorsement, but she’d take it.

“Do you think it will help?”

If his subconscious desire to have her outside of his chain of command was blocking the memories, having her permanently off his team could fix that problem once he accepted it as a done deal.

“Maybe,” he said. “Who the hell knows how Jack O’Neill’s brain works?”

Sam sighed.

“There never is an easy answer, is there?”

She swirled the water in her glass and wished that she’d poured herself a glass of wine for this conversation instead.

“Don’t do this because you feel guilty, Sam, or because you want to help him. Only do this if you’re sure. You won’t be able to undo it, even if Jack’s reaction isn’t what you’re hoping for.”

Considering she was planning to do exactly what he told her not to hours earlier, she was guessing that his reaction wouldn’t be exactly what she hoped for.

“I’m sure,” she said.

Jacob nodded. “Then that’s what matters. If Jack is an ass about it, let me know and Selmak and I can scare him a little.”

Sam laughed.

“That’s sweet, but I can fight my own battles.”

Ready to move on from this conversation, Sam gestured at the empty mug in front of her dad.

“Do you want another cup?”

Jacob shook his head. “Selmak doesn’t really like coffee. The one cup I had was a consolation for the type of day I had to deal with.”

Sam, who knew that the worst parts of his day probably had to do with her and Jack, cringed. She could only imagine what all of the awkward moments had been like from his perspective.

“Dad, I’m sorry that this probably isn’t the visit that you hoped for and I really appreciate everything you’re doing to help Colonel O’Neill.”

Her dad stood and picked up their empty plates and silverware.

“Don’t apologize, Sammy. Talk to George. It’s long overdue.”

“Yeah, I know.”

He set the dishes in the sink and turned back to her.

“You realize you’re going to have to get used to calling him Jack.”

Sam laughed. It was just as much about her relief at her dad’s acceptance as it was about his pointed comment.

“I think I can handle that.”

Chapter Text

Aside from the tall grass in his front yard, the house was just as Jack left it more than a month earlier. There was still only beer and Diet Coke in the fridge, although Daniel must’ve cleared out the few remaining perishables when he stopped by to bring his mail inside. Teal’c’s DVDs were still by the TV and Sam’s blue cardigan was still on the couch.

He felt much more worn down than the last time he’d been here, even though the last time he’d been dealing with debilitating headaches.

Jack grabbed a beer from the fridge and opened it. The soft hiss from the release of carbonation was a comforting sound. He let the cold liquid run down his throat and then set the bottle on the counter. He pressed his hands flat on the surface and hung his head.

It was all too much.

He couldn’t believe that Sam offered to transfer today. As much as he wanted to believe that the offer was prompted by nothing more than her feelings for him, Jack was still worried that Jacob might’ve had a hand in it. After all, not only was there a chance being on separate teams might help with the memory thing, but the former General probably didn’t want his daughter on the same team with a commanding officer who couldn’t keep things professional.

If anyone should offer to transfer or quit, it should be him. Hammond might even let him if Jacob had revealed why they needed to use a sedative during the memory recall process. Jacob stayed to speak with Hammond after their meeting ended and Jack wouldn’t put it past the man to meddle.

Damn, it had been awkward today to have Sam’s dad witness that memory of Jack kissing her. It made him feel like he was sixteen all over again.

Jack went to sit down on the couch, setting his beer on the coffee table. He leaned back against the cushions and closed his eyes.

Sam Carter had suggested a transfer off SG-1 and he’d been so shocked that he couldn’t even give her a good answer. He just told her to wait. The only challenge was that he didn’t know what she needed to wait for. It wasn’t like any of his options were great.

Jack was sure that this was one of those problems that would be so much easier to figure out if he just had all of his memories back. Maybe he’d considered options before. Maybe he’d done some sort of mental pro/con list with different possibilities.

Back when he was having those horrible headaches, General Hammond referenced a few occasions when he considered retirement. Jack wished he knew why he hadn’t gone through with it. Was it because he still felt needed in a war with the Goa’uld that he helped start? Was there another reason he hadn’t taken that step in the past?

All he knew was that he would never allow Sam to take a step down in her career because of him.

For the first time in weeks, Jack felt unsteady without his memories of SG-1. He’d learned to cope and even accepted that life would be fine if he could never remember.

All that changed when Sam said she would give up being on the team. He didn’t know enough to know what to tell her or what to do. Jack was suddenly aware that one wrong step could ruin everything.

It didn’t help that Sam had been keeping things from him. He understood her reasoning for not mentioning those kisses and alternate realities out of the blue, and he even appreciated her apology, but it didn’t keep Jack from wondering if he was missing any other important details.

How the hell was he supposed to make a decision about his team and his life when he didn’t have all the information?

Did Sam offer to transfer because she wanted to see if a relationship between them could work? Or did she offer to transfer because she still felt guilty that she’d messed up his brain and her dad told her that might fix the problem?

Jack reminded himself that he didn’t have to solve this tonight. He might not even see Sam tomorrow. Daniel had offered to walk through memories with him in the morning. Then he planned to head home in the afternoon to rest since he was technically on medical leave.

He didn’t have to figure it out now. All he had to do was decide what to order for dinner.

Jack was thumbing through takeout menus when he heard a knock at the door.

He swung it open and saw three familiar faces. Teal’c was in the front, holding a stack of pizzas. Jonas grinned and lifted a six pack of beer. Daniel waved a pile of DVDs in the air with an amused expression that told Jack the archaeologist knew exactly how he’d feel about an incursion into his privacy on his first night home.

“I wasn’t exactly expecting visitors.”

“And yet visitors you have, O’Neill.”

Jack didn’t move out of the doorway.

“I’m not really in the mood for company right now, guys.”

“That’s funny,” Daniel said, “because I distinctly remember you inviting us to a party at your house once you ‘left the underground dungeon’ of the SGC.”

Daniel could only use one hand for air quotes, which Jack might’ve found funny if he was in a better mood.

“Indeed you did, O’Neill,” Teal’c added.

Jack turned to look at Jonas.

“And what do you have to say for yourself?”

Jonas shrugged. “They invited me.”

Jack had planned to spend his evening alternating between thinking about this situation with Sam and distracting himself from thinking about the situation with Sam.

As far as distractions went, the men standing on his doorstep qualified. Plus, he was hungry.

“Eh, come on in,” Jack said. “But only because you brought pizza and I’m starving.”

He told Jonas and Daniel to pick a movie and followed Teal’c into the kitchen to grab plates and napkins.

Jack pulled four plates out of the cabinet and grabbed a roll of paper towels instead of bothering with napkins. Teal’c got himself a glass of water and set all but one of the pizza boxes down on the counter.

“You guys really didn’t need to come here and babysit me on my first night out of the mountain,” Jack said.

Teal’c shot him a stern look like he was being ridiculous.

“Is it not the role of friends to support each other in times of need?”

“Yeah, I guess it is.”

Jack was used to dealing with problems on his own, although apparently that had changed when he became the leader of SG-1. He still wasn’t accustomed to having people around him who cared.

“As you and Jonas Quinn are both dealing with difficulties in your lives,” Teal’c continued, “Daniel Jackson and I determined that it would be best to murder two fowl with a single rock.”

Jack cracked a smile.

“Kill two birds with one stone,” he corrected.

“As I said.”

Jack couldn’t tell if Teal’c was messing with him or not. “Close enough.”

They brought the first pizza, plates, and paper towels out to the living room where Daniel and Jonas had already settled in. Everyone got a few slices and Jack noticed that Daniel and Jonas had already opened two of the beers they brought.

“We just put in Raiders of the Lost Ark,” Jonas said.

Jack looked at Daniel and raised an eyebrow.

“It wasn’t my choice, I swear!”

“Sure, it wasn’t, Danny boy. Just a coincidence we’re watching a movie where an archeologist is the hero.” He gave Daniel a hard stare. “A movie that you brought.”

“The fact that I own it is beside the point,” Daniel said. “And it’s a great movie!”

Jack sat down on the couch and put his plate of pizza on the coffee table next to his beer.

“It’s sort of my fault, Colonel,” Jonas said from the spot where he was sitting on the floor, arms around his knees. “I saw it on a list of the 100 best movies a while ago and - ”

“Jack, if you really want to watch a different movie - ”

“Ack!” Jack lifted a hand to stop Daniel and Jonas from talking. “I don’t care. Raiders is fine.”

It really didn’t matter which movie they watched. He expected he’d only pay attention about half the time anyway.

Jack pointed a finger at Daniel. “Just don’t expect me to start calling you Indiana Jones.”

“I prefer Indy,” he quipped.

Jack shook his head and pressed play. It was funny how giving Daniel a hard time came so naturally. He remembered that back and forth a bit now, from those conversations on Abydos.

It felt just as natural to correct Teal’c’s idiom usage and wonder if the other man was joking. Jack felt like he was settling into his friendships with the men in the room. The only wildcard was Carter.

Teal’c went into the kitchen to put the extra beer in the fridge. Jack took a bite of his pizza as the movie started. He actually did like the Indiana Jones movies. Maybe it would be enough to keep him from thinking about this whole thing with Sam for a couple hours.

After a few minutes, he found out that both Daniel and Jonas were the types to talk through movies. Jack shared a look with Teal’c as the two scientists went off on a tangent about the ethical issues related to archeology after Indiana Jones grabbed a golden statue in the opening scenes.

Normally, he would have told them to shut up, but he didn’t mind having multiple things competing for his attention right now. He even thought it was amusing when a mere mention of the “staff of Ra” in the movie led to Daniel giving a monologue to Jonas about the System Lord Ra and how they defeated him on Abydos.

It was Teal’c who broke first. About ten minutes later, he reached for the remote control and significantly increased the volume.

Daniel and Jonas stopped talking and looked over at him.

“I could not hear the film.”

Teal’c’s voice held an underlying threat warning the other men not to talk through the movie. The threat worked on Jonas and worked temporarily on Daniel, although Jack could almost see his mind spinning with other things he wanted to say.

Jack had just finished his pizza and was about to get more when Daniel spoke up again.

“Do you think there is a real Ark of the Covenant?”

“Shut up, Daniel.”

“I’m just asking.”

Jack didn’t want to encourage him. Let his imagination go too far and all the sudden SG-1 would be tracking down lost biblical artifacts just because Daniel wanted to play Indiana Jones.

“You may inquire at the end of the film, Daniel Jackson.”

Jack and Jonas laughed while Daniel gave a huff of irritation.

“I’m grabbing more pizza,” Jack said, standing and picking up the empty pizza box. “Anybody want anything from the kitchen?”

They all shook their heads.

Daniel offered to pause the movie, but Jack told them to go ahead. He’d already seen Raiders of the Lost Ark several times before.

Jack got to the kitchen, set the pizza box on the counter, and tossed his beer bottle away. He opened the fridge to grab a second beer and thought about how he really needed to go shopping so he’d have more drink options than beer, Diet Coke, and water. He wanted a Coke, but hated the taste of Diet…which was funny, because Carter liked the taste of it better.

“Colonel.”

“Want another?” Jack asked, holding out an unopened bottle to Jonas.

He nodded and took it.

“I could’ve grabbed it for you while I was out here.”

“I wanted to talk to you about something.”

Jack closed the fridge and took a good look at the man they’d recently rescued from a political coup. He realized a while ago that even though he remembered Jonas, his memories of Jonas were incomplete without the rest of SG-1 for context. Even so, Jack doubted he’d ever seen a more serious look on his face.

“You said something when I didn’t want to leave the cell…when I wanted to stay for the trial. You said that dying because you feel guilty is a coward’s way out.”

Jack wasn’t sure that he had the energy to handle this conversation with the nuance it probably deserved.

He also didn’t want to deal with thoughts of Charlie and his suicide mission right now. The emotions of that period were too close to the surface today after regaining some memories of his time on Abydos with Daniel.

Jack said what he needed to say to get Jonas out of that jail cell. And if it just so happened to be the same thing he told himself after returning from Abydos that first time…well, that was something he planned to keep to himself.

“Is there a question there?”

Jonas twisted the cap off the beer bottle and tossed it in the trash before responding.

“How do you get past the feeling guilty part?”

Jack wasn’t sure if anyone ever told Jonas about what happened to his son. He didn’t share that information and Teal’c wasn’t the talking type. Daniel, obviously, wasn’t there when Jonas was around the first time. Carter might’ve told him if she absolutely needed to, but he wasn’t sure.

Jack didn’t want to get into the context of his experiences with guilt, so he just answered the question as best as he could.

“You try to find a way to forgive yourself, and if that doesn’t work, you find other ways to give your life meaning.”

Jonas nodded and seemed to take the statement in.

“I left all of my people in the hands of selfish, destructive rulers,” he said, “after exposing them to a dangerous enemy.”

“You did,” Jack acknowledged.

It wouldn’t be worth wasting time telling Jonas it wasn’t his fault. That was the job of people like Daniel and Sam.

“I wish I could have made things better,” Jonas said, and there was longing in his voice.

Jack opened his beer and took a sip.

“If wishes were horses,” he said, not bothering with the rest of the proverb.

Jonas gave him a weird look, but Jack didn’t feel like finishing the phrase because that would lead to trying to explain it and he never really got the point of the whole beggars riding horses thing anyway.

“Jonas, have you thought about what you want to do now that you’re back?”

Jack wouldn’t have been surprised if he wanted to take some time to adjust and think about his options, but Jonas spoke up immediately.

“I want to be on an SG team again if I can. I mean, I know that Daniel has his spot back on SG-1, so I wouldn’t be able to be on a team with all of you, but I heard there were open spots on SG-7 and SG-11. I was hoping maybe if you gave me a recommendation…”

He trailed off and looked at Jack.

“You thought you’d ask before I remembered why I didn’t like you before?” Jack joked.

Jonas laughed and relaxed.

“No, I just thought I’d ask while we were talking about it. I’ve been thinking all day about what I want to do now that I’m back on Earth and I don’t want to just sit around. I want to contribute. I was thinking that even if I can’t help my people the way I hoped, I can at least fight the Goa’uld from Earth. I can help Langara from here.”

He looked so earnest in that moment, and so young. Jack couldn’t remember exactly how old Jonas was, and he got a headache even thinking about the conversion of Langaran years to Earth years, but he had to be at least a few years younger than Daniel. In fact, Jonas kind of reminded Jack of how Daniel was in those early memories from Abydos…wide-eyed and always looking towards the bigger picture.

“Jonas, you don’t need my recommendation. General Hammond has seen what you can do. I’m sure he’d be happy to put you back on a team.”

“Thanks, Colonel.”

Jack picked up one of the full pizza boxes.

“You know, you can call me Jack when we’re not at work.”

Jack was sort of surprised that he offered, but even more surprised to see Jonas look so hesitant.

“When you remember, you might not want - ”

“Jonas,” he interrupted, “I get that I was an ass to you after Daniel died. I may not remember that part yet, but it was more about me than you. I’m not Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, okay?”

“Who?”

Jack sighed. One of the biggest problems about working with aliens was they never got your references.

“Ask Daniel sometime. I just meant that I’m not going to start hating you if I remember because I probably never hated you in the first place. You were just an easy person to blame for shitty circumstances. So call me Jack off-base if you want, or don’t, but don’t go working yourself up about it.”

Jonas grinned.

“Thanks, Jack.”

It felt a little weird to have Jonas call him by his first name, but he’d probably get used to it. He had with Daniel.

“Let’s go see if Daniel’s started to annoy Teal’c yet with his commentary.”

They arrived back in the living room just in time for another action sequence, which suited Jack perfectly. The four of them ate pizza, enjoyed the movie with minimal interruptions, and relaxed. Jack only had a few spare thoughts wondering if Sam liked this movie and if she was having an okay time with her dad.

As soon as the movie ended, Jack kicked out his three guests, shoving Daniel out the door in the middle of a sentence about the Ark of the Covenant’s potential historical basis.

He was beyond exhausted and went to sleep as soon as his head hit the pillow.

Jack dreamt of feeling invincible and powerful and able to do anything he wanted. He broke the rules and it felt good right up until a force shield went up between him and Carter on an enemy ship.

That was the problem with caring about someone. As soon as you opened your heart there was a chance you could lose them.

She was going to die because of something he could have prevented, he thought, just like Charlie. He defied orders. He led Sam and Daniel to that ship. He was the reason she wouldn’t make it back to Earth.

The barrier shimmered between them, but he barely noticed it. Jack tried to think of a plan, any plan, at the same time he tried to memorize her face.

She was going to die and he knew, in that moment, that he was going to die with her. He didn’t have any other choice. He wasn’t going to leave her behind.

The scene shifted and he was strapped to a chair answering questions about a successful mission that felt like one of the biggest failures of his life.

Sam showed up and pushed him to talk about the things they didn’t talk about. It felt like that conversation in his office all over again, only this time she didn’t want anything to change. He admitted he cared about her and then followed her lead by doing exactly nothing.

When he first woke up, Jack assumed that the dream was a metaphor for everything that had been going on lately. He assumed that the conversations with Jonas and Carter the night before, along with the interrogation from Jacob, had stirred things up.

Of course he felt like an invisible barrier separated him from Sam. That’s what the regulations were supposed to do.

Of course he was worried about her dying - just like his son - when he could have done something to prevent it. That’s what happened when you cared about someone and were responsible for their safety.

And, obviously, there was a direct correlation between being hooked up to the za’tarc machine in his dream and the memory retrieval device in real life…both were pieces of Tok’ra technology that tried to separate the truth from false memories and forced him to talk about his feelings for Sam Carter.

The entire dream left him feeling more tied in knots than he had been the night before.

When he got to the SGC, Jack went directly to the isolation room where Jacob Carter and Doctor Fraiser were waiting.

Jack rolled up his sleeve and sat in the chair and Jacob asked if he’d remembered anything else since their last session.

“Maybe? There were a few little things last night with Daniel and Teal’c that felt familiar.”

Jacob nodded and attached the Tok’ra disk to Jack’s head. He flinched at the brief, sharp pain.

“Any dreams?”

“Yeah,” he admitted. “Carter and I were on opposite sides of a forceshield. And then I was hooked up to one of those za’tarc machines. Probably dreamed about that because I spent so much time hooked up to this thing yesterday.”

Janet’s eyes widened and she spared a quick glance at Jacob before turning back to Jack.

“Anise was there doing the testing?” Janet asked. “And Major Carter was also suspected of being a za’tarc?”

“Yeah,” he answered.

Jack had never really liked Anise. It had been super awkward when she hit on him while he and Carter were worried they’d been brainwashed.

Wait, no, that was Freya. The snake liked Daniel.

Huh.

“So that was real?” he realized. “The armbands, being told we were za’tarcs, volunteering my brain for science…all of it?”

Jack couldn’t stop thinking about the desperate longing on Sam’s face when they thought they were going to die on that ship together.

Janet nodded. “Yes, it was.”

“Looks like we’re making progress,” Jacob said.

It was about time as far as Jack was concerned. He needed his memories back pronto.

When Janet and Jacob suggested slightly increasing the dosage of the sedative to see if that would speed up the recovery process, he was all for it.

“Whatever you need to do, Doc.”

Janet inserted the IV. “You’re being a lot more cooperative than normal.”

“Yeah, well, you’ve worn me down over the weeks. The sooner we get this over with, the sooner I can stop being a pin cushion.”

Plus, the sooner he had his memories back, the sooner he could figure out what to say to Carter.

Jack waited until Janet started the sedative drip and left the room before throwing the question at Jacob that he’d been wondering since the day before.

“Did you tell Sam to get off my team? To offer to transfer?”

Jacob merely lifted an eyebrow, if he’d been expecting the question and wasn’t impressed with Jack’s train of thought.

“Do you really think I have the ability to force my daughter to do anything she doesn’t want to?”

“No, but I think you could’ve been pretty persuasive if you used her guilt against her and said that moving to a different team would help me get my memories back faster.”

There was an all-too-knowing look in Jacob Carter’s eyes.

Jack was pissed.

“Damn it, Jacob! Stay out of it.”

“How could you have let it get this far, Jack?”

He could have gotten away with saying he didn’t remember, but he remembered enough to understand what kept him and Carter in stasis all these years.

“What was I supposed to do, Jacob? Sam’s brilliant…at everything she does. I know enough to know that we need her on SG-1. One man’s feelings don’t matter much when the fate of the universe is at stake.”

Jack scoffed.

“No offense to the universe, Jack, but I care about my daughter’s feelings a hell of a lot more.”

Jack wished that he could put Sam’s feelings before the safety of the universe.

“She’s exactly where she’s supposed to be,” Jack said. He just wasn’t sure if he was where he was supposed to be. “Her career is important to her and you’re going to pressure her into making a mistake.”

Jacob shook his head and fiddled with the activation device in his hand.

“You don’t know that…and neither of you are good to anyone if you’re miserable.”

Once again, Jack wondered what had been said during Jacob’s conversation with General Hammond the day before.

“I don’t even know for sure what kind of cake she wants,” Jack muttered.

Jacob looked up from the device settings.

“What the hell are you talking about?”

“Cake.”

They heard a knock and Daniel entered the room holding a notebook and pen. He looked between them and stopped before coming any further into the room.

“Do you need me to come back later?”

Jack didn’t want to continue this conversation with an audience. Daniel was as good a buffer as any.

“Nope, come on in. Let’s walk down memory lane.”

Daniel pulled up a chair and sat down to his left. Jacob continued to fiddle with the settings of the Tok’ra device.

“So, Jacob,” Daniel said, “how’s things?”

Jacob stopped what he was doing and looked over.

“Jack’s being an idiot,” he responded in a completely deadpan voice. “Otherwise, things are great.”

The sedative had kicked in, so Jack didn’t really mind the insult.

“Uh, well -” Daniel started.

“Jacob’s just being a pain in the ass,” Jack interrupted, “but he likes me anyway. He’s just shocked I have principles.”

He watched Daniel and Jacob share a look and although he wasn’t entirely sure what it meant, he knew that it probably wasn’t a positive observation in his favor.

Jacob looked back at him and sighed.

“Sometimes things work out just how they’re supposed to, Jack. Change is inevitable. Stop making it so goddamn difficult.”

Jack didn’t think he was making anything difficult on purpose. His life just was difficult, except for the parts that were fun.

“Nice pep talk, Dad.”

He said it sarcastically, but for some reason Jacob smiled.

“Did you know our names both start with the same three letters?” Jack realized.

Daniel laughed.

“I think you may need to lower the dosage a bit.”

Jacob shook his head.

“We set it a little higher on purpose to see if that moves the process along easier.”

Jack really wished that Sam was here instead. She was a lot more fun than her dad. She was also less grumpy.

“Oh, this’ll be interesting.” Daniel set his notebook and pen down on a nearby table.

“Stop acting like I’m going to start revealing state secrets or something, Daniel. My head’s just a little fuzzy, that’s all.”

It sort of felt the same way he did when he was just waking up from a really long, good sleep. It felt nice.

“I wrote down a list of major events from the first couple of years of SG-1,” Daniel said to Jacob, gesturing to the notebook on the table. “I thought that might be a good start.”

He started thinking about Jacob’s statement that change was inevitable. Maybe the man was right. SG-1 was the exception, not the rule. Most teams didn’t usually stick together for this many years with the original members. Maybe he didn’t actually need all of his memories back to figure out what to do.

Jack decided that he’d talk to Hammond…tell the General that he wanted to leave SG-1 and not be on the front lines anymore after this whole disaster with his memories. It would be as good an excuse as any. He would let the General figure out what to do next. Retirement, transfer to training, whatever worked. Sam wouldn’t have to change a thing.

Then they could talk without rank in the way. He could even try asking her out on a date. Hopefully she’d say yes.

He’d ask her at his going away party, he decided. He wondered if they could hold the party at O’Malley’s or if they were still banned.

Sam looked great the last time they were there, in that red top and black leather jacket. She’d done something nice with her hair.

Jack wondered what she might wear to his party.

“Daniel, when I retire, try not to start a bar fight.”

If Daniel started another fight, it would wreck the whole evening.

“What?”

“Don’t listen to him,” Jacob said. He pressed the activator against Jack’s temple and turned it on. “He’s not retiring. Now let’s start with that list of yours.”

Chapter Text

Sam reported to General Hammond’s office promptly at one in the afternoon, four hours after she requested a meeting related to - as she told his secretary - a “non-urgent matter.”

It did, actually, feel time-sensitive for her, but she didn’t want to cause concern.

“At ease, Major. Take a seat.”

General Hammond gestured to the chair on the other side of his desk and Sam sat down.

“Thanks for meeting with me this afternoon, General.”

Hammond smiled.

“I was going to put you on my schedule today, anyway. We have a lot to discuss.”

“Yes, sir.”

Sam sat straight and folded her hands in her lap. She had a plan for exactly what she wanted to say, but she needed to ease into it. If the General wanted to speak first, that was probably for the best.

“SG-1 has been through a lot lately,” General Hammond began. “I know it’s been challenging for all of you.”

Sam nodded. Challenging felt like an understatement.

“That’s part of what I wanted to speak with you about, sir. I’ve been doing a lot of thinking lately.”

The rest of the words stuck in her throat. Why couldn’t she just come out and say it? She just needed to tell the General that she wanted to leave SG-1.

“I know that being on SG-1 means a lot to you, Major.” General Hammond linked his hands in front of him on the table. “And I want you to know that I noticed how you’ve helped hold the team together during the recent difficulties facing each of your teammates. Doctor Jackson and Teal’c have both expressed their appreciation for how you supported them during their respective recovery periods. And based on what Jacob has told me, I expect that Colonel O’Neill will be fully cleared for duty soon.”

Sam wasn’t sure that she deserved that much credit, but she appreciated the General’s comments nonetheless. Maybe it would make him more willing to honor her request.

“Thank you, sir.”

Sam cleared her throat. It was now or never. She’d thought this through and she knew she was making the right decision, as much as her stomach was in knots.

“General, I wanted to talk to you about my position on SG-1. Like, I said, I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about my life and my career with everything that’s happened lately. And although I love my teammates…” Damn, that was the wrong word to choose, but she kept going. “And although working on SG-1 has been the honor of my life -”

“Major.”

The General held up a hand to tell her to stop.

She took a breath. “Yes, sir?”

He leaned back in his chair.

“Colonel Kent is going to be given a command position at the Alpha Site.”

Sam didn’t know what that had to do with her or this conversation.

“Yes, I heard rumors of that, sir.”

Hammond gave a small shake of his head.

“For a top secret base, we do have a very effective rumor mill going here.”

He looked at her and Sam wondered what he wasn’t saying.

“SG-7 is also down a linguistic expert because Doctor Miller is on maternity leave. She’s spoken to me about transferring out of field work while her daughter is young.”

“That makes sense,” Sam said, although she wasn’t sure why the General was bringing up Doctor Miller’s post-maternity plans.

“Jonas Quinn spoke with me this morning about wanting to be put back onto an SG team,” he continued. “I know that you worked quite well with him in the past.”

Suddenly it all clicked. The General wanted to speak with her about where to place Jonas.

She was surprised to hear that Jonas had made that request so soon after he returned, but it made sense that he wanted to be back on an SG team. He only left the SGC in the first place out of a sense of duty to his home country.

“I think that Jonas would be a great addition to SG-7 or any of the open spots. He’s smart, he thinks on his feet, and he’s a team player. He’s great to work with.”

She hoped that Jonas got the spot, although it would really be up to Hammond and whoever was selected to replace Kent. She was fine with Jonas on SG-7. She’d be a better fit for SG-11 or SG-14 anyway since those empty positions were military.

“I’m glad you think so, Major. I agree that he would be a great addition to SG-7.”

She smiled. “I’m sure he’d be happy to hear that, sir.”

It would be good for Jonas to get back on a team. It would help him adjust and have purpose after the upheaval he’d been through.

Sam almost missed the small smile that crossed General Hammond’s face before he spoke again.

“I think you would make a great addition to SG-7 too, Major Carter.”

Sam could’ve sworn she misheard. Wasn’t he just telling her that she’d kept SG-1 together?

“What?”

“I’d like to discuss moving you to SG-7.”

She should be glad that she was getting exactly what she’d come to this meeting to ask for, but instead she just felt caught off guard.

Maybe he’d noticed her falling apart over the past month and a half.

Maybe this was a punishment somehow.

Maybe he’d come to the same conclusion as her dad that she should no longer be on the same team as Jack O’Neill.

God, she really hoped her dad didn’t mention the memory he saw of her and Jack kissing on P3R-118.

This was mortifying. She wished that she could hang her head and bury her face in her hands. Instead, she sat up straight.

“Have I done something wrong, sir?”

General Hammond looked surprised by her question.

An insistent voice in the back of Sam’s head asked why she was questioning this when she was getting exactly what she wanted. Her perfectionism and need for success weren’t usually this blatantly self-destructive. If she wasn’t careful, she’d get herself stuck on SG-1 forever.

As much as she might miss them and worry about them being out on the field without her, this experience had taught her she couldn’t stay.

It would be good to be on a team with Jonas again. This was going to be okay.

This was what she wanted.

She was just confused. If Jonas was taking Miller’s spot, then who else was leaving SG-7? Was it Hawkins or Garcia?

“Major, I left you with SG-1 as long as I did because of how well you all work together. That doesn’t change the fact that you’re ready for a command position.”

“A command position? I thought -”

She thought that if she gave up SG-1, it would essentially be a downgrade. She never expected that giving up SG-1 might mean a promotion to a leadership role. It seemed too good to be true.

“As the commanding officer of SG-7, you would be reporting directly to me, Major Carter,” General Hamond continued. “I’m sure I won’t have to tell you about the responsibility you’d hold for the well-being of your team.”

“I understand, sir.”

She already cared about the safety and well-being of her teammates, but she knew from watching Jack over the years how much heavier that responsibility could be as the commanding officer. She would be the one who had to make sure every member of her team made it home.

“Colonel O’Neill would be tasked with finding your replacement for SG-1,” Hammond continued, “although I’m sure he would appreciate your input.”

Sam barely heard the words because she was still in shock. Surely there were higher-ranked Air Force officers than her who were available to take command of one of the Stargate teams.

“But my rank -”

“You won’t be the only Major leading an SG team. As you know, Major Harper, Major Thomas, and Major Brown also have CO responsibilities. You’ve earned it and, frankly, we need you there. You’ll be eligible for a promotion to Lieutenant Colonel in due time anyway.”

This was so much more than she’d expected when she walked into his office. Sam had always wanted to eventually get a leadership position, but somehow she’d forgotten about that goal in the rush of being on SG-1.

“I’m not ordering you to take the position, Sam,” General Hammond said, “but it would be good for your career and I recommend that you seriously consider it. With your off-world experience and technical expertise, we need you in a leadership role. If not now, it’ll have to happen soon anyway, but it might be to a team that deals with fewer first contact missions. I think SG-7 would be a good fit for you and the timing is right.”

A command position. CO of SG-7. This was so much better than what she’d hoped for. She just didn’t know if she felt ready to be the one giving the orders and leading a team through the Stargate.

Sam took a deep breath.

“Have you already spoken with Colonel O’Neill about this?”

She wondered if the idea had been brought up at the meeting Jack had with the General and her dad. Maybe that was why her dad was so calm yesterday about the idea of her transferring.

“We’re in an unusual position here,” Hammond finally said. “Although Colonel O’Neill is currently on record as your commanding officer, he is still missing most of the memories of his experiences as your CO. His input at this juncture would be negligible at best. Besides, we’ve spoken about this possibility in the past. I know that he would think you were up for it.”

Sam relaxed. Somehow, hearing that Jack had been supportive of the idea before he lost his memories eased her mind.

She wanted to make this decision. She’d spent so much time worrying about choosing between the personal and her career and the General had just presented her with a solution that would allow her to advance in her career and open up an opportunity for her to be with Jack.

Before she could open her mouth to say that she would take the position, the General spoke again.

“I know this would be a big change for you and the rest of SG-1. Take the weekend to think it over and let me know on Monday.”

If this offer had come up a few months ago, she would have spent her weekend thinking everything to death. This time, as scary as it was, she knew what she wanted. It was like ripping off a bandaid. No sense drawing out the pain.

“I don’t need time to think, sir. I’d be honored to take command of SG-7.”

As soon as the words were out of her mouth, Sam felt relieved. She knew that she had done the right thing.

Even if Jack got mad at her for leaving SG-1 right after he told her to wait, even if she struggled with the separation and worried about her former teammates, even if she didn’t end up in a relationship with the man she loved…Sam still knew that she made the right decision. It would have been the right decision even if she hadn’t been given the promotion.

“I’m happy to hear that, Major Carter. You’ll do us proud.”

“Thank you, sir.”

Sam didn’t realize until just this moment how claustrophobic her life had seemed lately. Somehow, over the years, she had convinced herself that her only option was to walk the narrow path that retained the status quo.

Now, her world felt open. She was energized by the idea of trying something new for the first time in seven years. She even felt a small flicker of hope that things could work out between her and Jack.

“Sir, will you be informing the rest of SG-1 or - ”

“I think it would be better if you informed Colonel O’Neill yourself. I imagine you’ll want to tell Daniel and Teal’c as well. Let me know once you’ve informed them and we’ll schedule a meeting this week with the entire team to discuss your transition to a new role and what effect that will have on SG-1.”

Sam nodded. It would be better that way. She’d worked with Jack, Daniel, and Teal’c for so long that it would have felt impersonal to let General Hammond inform them of her transfer. She needed to have those conversations herself.

“And what about SG-7?” she asked.

“We’ll schedule a meeting with Quinn, Hawkins, and Garcia tomorrow afternoon. I assume that will give you enough time to update the members of SG-1 and also tell Mr. Quinn that he’ll be back on a team once his paperwork goes through?”

“Yes, sir.”

There was more discussion of timelines and paperwork and everything that would need to be done before she took command of SG-7. Hammond also gave her the personnel files on record for the two remaining members of SG-7, Hawkins and Garcia. She knew them both, but not well, and hoped they would all jell together as a team.

Once they reached the end of what Sam was sure would be the first of many discussions as she changed roles within the SGC, she waited to be dismissed, folders in hand.

“Now, what did you want to speak with me about, Major?”

Sam was confused until she realized General Hammond was under the impression that they hadn’t yet discussed her reason for calling a meeting.

“It’s no longer of consequence, sir.”

Hammond nodded.

“I thought that might be the case.”

That response didn’t reveal much about what the General knew or didn’t know, but Sam was too happy to care.

“Thank you for trusting me with the responsibility, sir.”

General Hammond smiled and stood. Sam followed suit and shook his hand when he held it out.

“Congratulations, Major Carter. SG-7 will be in good hands.”

After the meeting, Sam went down to her lab in a daze.

She still couldn’t believe it.

She went to General Hammond’s office to request a transfer, assuming that she’d switch to one of the military openings on another team. She thought if she was lucky, she’d be able to be someone else’s second in command. If not, she’d do her part as a regular member of the team until she’d earned another 2IC slot.

That had been the plan.

Now, somehow, she was going to be the new commanding officer of SG-7 instead.

Sam was overwhelmed by the things she needed to do, the conversations she needed to have, and the simple fact that her life was about to change in a big way.

She should have realized what was happening as soon as General Hammond mentioned Colonel Kent’s transfer.

Sam laughed out loud in the empty office. She’d been so caught up in trying to say what she wanted to say that she missed the huge hint the General had thrown her way.

“Commanding officer of SG-7,” she whispered to herself.

It had a nice ring to it.

“Hey, Sam. How’s it going?”

She looked up at the sound of Daniel’s voice and grinned. Daniel and Teal’c were standing in the doorway.

“Great. Things are going great.”

“We are happy to hear that, Major Carter.”

At the sound of Teal’c’s calm, steady voice, Sam was reminded of the downside of her new command. She had to leave her team behind.

“So Teal’c and I were thinking that it might be fun to do a team dinner this somewhere off-base. With Jonas back and Jack starting to regain his memories, we thought it might be a good way to help them reacclimate. We could maybe see if Janet and Cassie wanted to join us too.”

Daniel and Teal’c weren’t really the event-planning types. She realized that planning team bonding was a role that usually fell to Jack, but they were filling that gap until he realized the part that he played in their group.

“I think it’s a great idea. I’m just not sure if I’ll have the time this week.”

Daniel gave her a skeptical look.

“Sam, we got Jonas back safely. We’re in the process of restoring Jack’s memories. The team is on stand-down. What could you possibly need to work on?”

She glanced over at the personnel files by her computer. Going through those files was only the tip of the iceberg in terms of what she needed to accomplish over the next couple of weeks.

Sam might as well start by checking one of the big items off her list right now. She turned towards Daniel and Teal’c, who were both waiting patiently for her to respond.

“I have something to tell you both.”

“What is it?” Daniel asked.

She always intended to tell Jack first, but she didn’t want to put this off.

“I just got done speaking to General Hammond. He told me, well…actually, he offered me a new position. Commanding officer of SG-7.”

As nervous as she was telling both of them the news, she couldn’t stop her mouth from tugging up in the corners in the barest hint of a smile.

“I know it’s sudden and that I won’t be going through the ‘gate with you anymore, but - ”

Daniel’s arms were around her before she could finish her sentence.

“Congratulations, Sam!”

Sam hugged Daniel back, so grateful for his immediate support. She looked over his shoulder and caught Teal’c’s eye.

“The members of SG-7 will be quite fortunate to have you lead them, Major Carter.”

She dropped out of Daniel’s arms and went to hug Teal’c. He wrapped his arms around her and held her, strong and steady, until she was ready to release him.

Sam wiped an errant tear from her eye as she pulled back and looked at her teammates.

“I feel like I’m leaving more than a team,” she admitted.

Just because she knew that moving to SG-7 was the right thing to do, didn’t mean that leaving SG-1 felt easy.

“Sam, we get it,” Daniel said, placing a hand on her shoulder. “It’s really okay. We’ll miss you out there, but you deserve this.”

“Every warrior must walk their own path,” Teal’c added. “It has been our honor to share the path with you for this long.”

Sam smiled. “It’s been my honor too.”

The tension in her body started to relax. Daniel and Teal’c weren’t angry with her for leaving. They were proud of her.

“Does Jack know?” Daniel asked.

Just as quickly, some of the tension returned. She had no idea how Jack was going to react to her news. Last time they talked, he very explicitly told her not to transfer.

“Not yet. Is he still on base?”

Daniel shook his head.

“We drove him home after lunch. I think that using the memory retrieval device takes a lot out of him. Plus, they upped the sedative he was on for the session. He got a little loopy there for a while, but it seemed to work. I think the first couple years are clearer for him now and he even made a reference to that bar fight we all got into at O’Malley’s.”

Teal’c lifted an eyebrow.

“Not all of us, Daniel Jackson.”

Sam laughed. Teal’c had very pointedly not apologized to the General after the mission with those alien armbands because he’d been the only member of SG-1 to actually follow orders.

“Do you know where my dad is?”

“I think he was in Janet’s office going over some of Jack’s results.”

She needed to go find her dad so she said goodbye to Daniel and Teal’c, thanking them for being such great friends and teammates. She was so lucky to have them.

She found her dad in the infirmary looking through test results, but Janet was busy speaking with someone from SG-5.

“Ready to head out, kid?” Jacob said as soon as he saw her. He closed down the files he’d been looking at.

Sam nodded and they headed towards the elevator. Jacob gave her an update on the day’s memory recall sessions with Jack, the positive outcomes of the tests Janet ran today, and the certainty they had that all of Jack’s memories would come back.

“That’s a relief,” Sam said as they finished signing out and walked towards the parking lot. “Do you want me to be at tomorrow’s session?”

Jacob shook his head.

“I think we’ll do Teal’c next and then you. Unfortunately, I won’t be able to stay any longer than that, though. General Hammond got a message from the Tok’ra today. They need Selmak and I to head back.”

Sam tried to not take out her frustration on the car door when she shut it. Neither of them spoke again until she pulled out of the parking lot.

“Why can’t it wait? We’re finally making progress with Jack’s memories and - ”

“Jack’s?”

Sam slammed on the brakes as the intersection light flipped from yellow to red.

“Colonel O’Neill’s. You know who I meant.”

He must’ve picked up on her sensitivity about the topic because he didn’t make another comment about the slip.

“He’ll be fine. He’s dreaming again and some things were familiar when he hung out with the guys last night. Pieces are starting to come back on their own and we still have two more days to speed up the process before I need to leave. He’ll get it all back eventually.”

Her dad’s words were comforting, but she didn’t think Jack should have this process drawn out any longer just because the Tok’ra called. Hopefully it wouldn’t make too much of a difference. If her dad’s theory was correct, telling Jack about the transfer might help shake some of those memories loose too.

She just really hoped that he wouldn’t be angry about the fact that she’d disregarded his request almost immediately.

“Memories aside, I just hope Jack’s in a much better mood the next time I come to visit,” Jacob said, giving her a pointed look. “I hope you will be too.”

Sam hoped so as well. At the very least, just knowing that all of Jack’s memories would come back made her feel a whole lot better.

“So, how did your conversation with George go?” Jacob asked as they parked in front of Sam’s house.

She turned towards him and a bright grin spread across her face.

“I didn’t even get the words out before he offered me command of SG-7. I still can’t believe it.”

“I can, kiddo. You’ve got a lot to offer.” Jacob unbuckled his seatbelt and reached over to hug her. His arms felt warm and comforting around her. “I’m proud of you, Sam. You’ll do great.”

Tears glistened in her eyes as she pulled away. Her dad wasn’t usually a demonstrative guy and it meant a lot that he would say he was proud of her.

“Thank you.”

“Did you tell Jack yet?”

That was the one thing Sam was worried about.

“I didn’t have a chance. Daniel and Teal’c took him home after you were done working with him.”

Her dad opened the car door and stepped out, pulling her house key out of his pocket.

“Go ahead and tell him now. Selmak and I’ll show ourselves in.”

It was a good idea to get the conversation out of the way. Sam just felt really anxious about it.

Some of that anxiety must’ve shown on her face because her dad tried to address her worries head-on.

“Sam, you’ve been on this team for so long that you’ve forgotten how common transfers are. It feels like a much bigger deal than it is. Plus, you have to look at the benefits.”

There was one main potential benefit in her mind, but Sam really hoped her dad wasn’t alluding to anything about her love life.

“The pay bump?” she asked instead.

A sly grin spread across her dad’s face.

“That, and now you get to tell other people what to do.”

Sam laughed.

“We have a dinner reservation at six at MacKenzie’s,” he added, “so make sure you get back here in time.”

“When did you make a reservation?”

“George hinted that we might have something to celebrate,” Jacob said with a smile. “Go ahead and tell that former CO of yours that you’re moving up in the world.”

He slammed the door and Sam was still stuck on the phrase former CO as her dad walked away.

For all intents and purposes, she was no longer a member of SG-1. At this point it was mainly just waiting for the paperwork to go through.

She just had to find out if Jack saw this change as a good thing too.

Fifteen minutes later, Sam stepped onto the observation platform on Jack’s roof and leaned against the railing. He was sitting in a folding chair, a mostly full beer in his hand, gazing out at the horizon.

“I thought you might be up here.”

Jack looked over at her.

“You been up here a lot?”

Sam shook her head. “Only a few times. I just know you like to come up here to think. Or not think, depending on your mood.”

She couldn’t tell from looking at him what mood he was in at the moment. He just seemed a little worn down and tired, but she wasn’t surprised with everything he’d been through lately and how it must feel to force your brain to re-incorporate old memories.

He told her to pull up a chair and gestured to an unopened folding chair on the other side of the platform. She set up the chair to face him and sat down.

“You want a beer?”

Sam shook her head.

“I’d better not. My dad’s taking me out to MacKenzie’s Chop House. I can’t stay here long.”

“Fancy, Carter. Although, it makes sense that Jacob would spring for a nice meal when he doesn’t get back here much.”

This was probably as good a transition as Sam was going to get. It was time to tell him.

“My dad wanted to take me out to celebrate.”

A confused look crossed Jack’s face.

“It’s not your birthday, is it? Because if it is - ”

“I’m transferring to SG-7.”

Jack shut his mouth, opened it, and then shut it again. He leaned forward, resting his elbows on his thighs, and sighed.

“Damn it, Carter. Didn’t I ask you to wait?”

Somehow, that soft question affected Sam more than if he’d actually yelled at her.

“I know you did, and I’m sorry.” He deserved the apology even though she was still sure that she’d done the right thing. “But General Hammond offered me command of SG-7 and I decided to take it.”

Whatever reaction Sam had been expecting, it wasn’t for Jack to laugh at her announcement. He leaned back in his chair and an amused grin lit his face.

“Sir?”

“Your dad’s a bit of an asshole, Carter,” he said with a shake of his head. “He knew about your promotion, didn’t he? God, he was giving me such crap this morning.”

Once again, Sam wondered what the hell her dad had been saying to Jack when she wasn’t around.

“About?” she prompted.

“About my stubborn resistance to change.”

The mischievous tilt of Jack’s lips and his slow, deliberate phrasing almost made her forget he was telling her about one of his flaws and another instance of her father meddling.

She dragged her eyes back up from his mouth and reminded herself that this was an important conversation that she had to pay attention to.

“Change can be good,” she replied. It was a lesson she was beginning to learn herself.

“I’m starting to realize that,” Jack agreed.

She told him what she came here to tell him and now Sam realized that she had absolutely no clue what to say next. Every time a sentence ended her brain, it was one she couldn’t use.

I love you.

I want you.

I hope it’s not too late for us.

She couldn’t say any of that yet. Not five minutes after she told him she was transferring when he’d already had a long day of memory recovery.

Sam almost wished she’d accepted his offer of a beer.

Jack cleared his throat and stood up, walking over to the railing to lean his lower back against it. His fingers tapped a brief pattern against the wood.

“So…commanding officer of SG-7. Congrats, Carter. That’s impressive.”

Sam knew, objectively, that it was a big accomplishment to take on that leadership role. She was going to be one of the younger COs at the SGC and one of the only women. It was a big deal that she was still trying to wrap her head around.

She stood up and moved to stand next to him along the railing. The wood was smooth under her hand.

“I’m not sure if I’m ready for it,” she admitted.

Wanting something was different than knowing it would work out well.

“You’ll do great,” Jack said without hesitation. “I may not remember everything yet, but you’re smart and people listen when you talk. You’ll make a good leader. Even on those early missions, when something went wrong, you kept your cool.”

She gave him a skeptical look.

“I didn’t always keep my cool. I was a mess when we got stuck in Antarctica.”

Jack frowned.

“Now, my brain may still be a little fuzzy on this, but I’m pretty sure I remember you doing a hell of a job setting my leg, fixing the DHD, and keeping me from dying of hypothermia. Reality or fantasy, Carter?”

Sam wondered if she’d ever get over the thrill that ran through her when he asked that question.

“I don’t think that anyone would consider being stuck in a cave in Antarctica a fantasy.”

“I don’t know, parts of it might qualify,” Jack teased.

Sam blushed at his vague reference to when they cuddled close together for warmth. She wasn’t sure if the giddiness she felt was because of the praise for how she handled that mission, because Jack was finally getting his memories back, or because they could finally flirt without feeling like it was inappropriate.

Even so, she still didn’t agree with his point that she always kept her cool. The past month and a half was a prime example.

“I was a mess when I erased parts of your brain,” she reminded him.

“Carter, I think you and I have very different ideas of what constitutes a mess. Being in command doesn’t mean that you don’t feel things. It doesn’t mean that you don’t make mistakes. It means you move forward and do the job the best you can anyway. Seems to me that’s what you’ve been doing.”

She must’ve still looked a little lost because he knocked his shoulder against hers.

“Trust me, Sam. You’ll do a great job.”

It wasn’t so much the fact that Jack said the words, but more so the fact that he said them as if he didn’t have any doubt that she’d do a great job. From his perspective, there were still a lot of things he didn’t remember about her.

“Does it surprise you that I’d say that?” he asked.

“A little.”

General Hammond mentioned that he and Jack had discussed her career path before, but it was entirely a different thing to hear straight from his mouth that Colonel Jack O’Neill thought that she’d be a good commanding officer.

“Was I holding you back, before?” he asked in response to her silence. “Not telling you how good you were?”

Sam shook her head.

“No. I’m starting to realize that I was holding myself back. I didn’t want to leave SG-1. I think I’ve been worried that if I did, I would lose touch with all of you or that something terrible would happen when I wasn’t there to help.”

Sam knew now that she’d been held captive by her own fear, like some sort of self-imposed purgatory.

“We’ll do fine, Carter,” he said. “And we’ll have you to greet us at the gate when we get home. And vice versa.”

That would be nice, Sam realized…to have people to come home to.

“There’s another spot on SG-7 open,” she added. “Doctor Miller is planning to hold off on ‘gate travel while her kid’s young. I’m going to ask Jonas to join me.”

Jack nodded.

“Unless you’re going to fight me for him,” she half-joked.

“No, that’s okay. You two get along well and I like the idea of him being out there to help you. I’m sure it’ll be tough to fill the Sam Carter sized hole on SG-1, though.”

Sam remembered the nine people they went through trying to fill Daniel’s spot before Jack relented and gave Jonas the role.

“Try not to be too hard on them for not being me.”

She didn’t doubt that the transition would be difficult for all of them after being on the same team for so many years, but Sam hoped that whoever took her spot didn’t pay the price while SG-1 adjusted.

Jack took a sip of his beer and then gave her a thoughtful look.

“Who do you think I should pick?”

Sam knew her answer immediately. She’d been considering who could fill her spot ever since she started thinking about switching teams. She wanted to make sure that Jack, Daniel, and Teal’c had the scientific support out there that they needed if she wasn’t around.

“Jennifer Hailey. There are other options, but she’s the most likely to get you out of the types of jams I’d get you out of.”

“Hailey? The four-foot-nine fighting machine?”

Sam laughed.

“She’s not that short. You’re just tall.”

Jack took a sip of his beer.

“She’s young,” he said.

“I was young when I joined SG-1.”

Jack shot her a disbelieving glance.

“Not that young. You’d already fought in the Gulf and spent a few years working at the Pentagon before you ended up here. Sure, you had that whole fresh-faced kid in a candy store look about you with the Stargate, but you weren’t exactly green. You were good.”

The confidence in his voice caught Sam off guard for a moment until she remembered Daniel’s comment that Jack’s memories from the first couple of years were becoming clearer. She felt a flutter of pride in her chest knowing Jack must’ve had that positive opinion of her early in the program.

Sam might not have been green at the time, but she had felt young and like she needed to prove herself, even with the resume and experience she brought to the table. Back then, she thought she needed to impress a commanding officer who didn’t want her on his team. She knew better now.

“I was good, but part of that was because I got up to speed quick. She can too.”

Jennifer Hailey was several years younger than Sam had been when she started at the SGC, but Sam had no doubt that the girl could handle going toe-to-toe with Jack O’Neill if needed.

“She hasn’t been at the SGC long.”

“Almost two years. And she’ll grow into it. Trust me, she’s the best Sam Carter replacement we have right now. She also has a problem with authority so you’ll have fun with that,” Sam teased.

Jack rolled his eyes. “As if I won’t already get enough talkback from Daniel.”

Sam knew that Jennifer would follow orders when given, but sometimes Jack and the others needed a push. They needed a different perspective. Jennifer Hailey would give them that. The woman knew how to speak her mind.

“She looks up to you. It’ll be fine.”

Jack tipped the beer back in his mouth and took another drink.

“So, Hailey?”

Sam could tell he was starting to warm to the idea.

“You’ll have to steal her from SG-16.”

“Oh, like that’ll be hard, Carter,” he said sarcastically. “It’s SG-1.”

It would be an SG-1 without her on it. That would take some getting used to.

“I’ll miss you guys.”

Jack looked over and outstretched his arm.

“C’mere.”

Sam tucked herself against him and it felt like it was exactly where she was meant to be.

“You’re not going to lose us, Sam. In fact, you’ll probably see us so much that you’ll get sick of us.”

Jack was brushing over the difficulties that would come with them being on different teams with different schedules, but she still appreciated the effort and the sentiment behind it.

His arms loosened and she stepped back, still missing the warmth of his body. They both turned to lean against the railing, looking out over Jack’s backyard.

“Haven’t gotten sick of you yet, have I?” she said softly.

Jack glanced her way. For a second he looked almost vulnerable.

“I hope not.”

“Don’t think I could,” she replied.

They stood there in silence for a moment, staring out at his backyard, and Sam wondered what was going through Jack’s head. He hadn’t reacted to her pronouncement that she was switching teams with the anger and frustration that she’d expected, but he hadn’t really said that he was happy that they wouldn’t be in the same chain of command soon either.

Whatever he was thinking, the moment between them felt heavy with possibility. Their hands rested on the railing mere inches from each other, but she didn’t move to touch him and he stayed right where he was.

Sam thought about reaching for him and covering his hand with hers, but she’d moved far out of her comfort zone already today and couldn’t bring herself to take that last step. She told herself that was fine. She didn’t need to change everything about her life in a single day. She knew that he was proud of her and he promised that she wasn’t going to lose him when she left the team. That was enough for now.

“I should probably head out,” she finally said as she stepped away from the railing. “Don’t want to keep Dad waiting.”

Sam was almost to the edge of the platform when Jack said her name…her first name. She turned and for a second she was just struck by the sight of him, his lean muscular frame silhouetted by a slowly reddening sky.

In that moment, she remembered countless sunsets spent with him on alien planets across the universe. There was something about the way his skin glowed in the shallow refraction of the sun’s light that always drew her eyes in his direction. She felt the familiar urge to look away, like she’d trained herself to do for years, but kept her gaze steady on him instead.

“Yes?”

If her voice sounded a little breathy, Jack didn’t call her on it.

“When are you transferring?” he asked. “Officially, I mean?”

“Paperwork goes into effect next Friday.”

There was so much to do before she officially became the commanding officer of SG-7. After the meeting with General Hammond, she felt like her To Do list was a mile long.

“We should do something.”

Jack took a casual sip of beer while he waited for her response.

“As a team?” she asked.

It would be fitting to have some sort of last hurrah: a last team night, or maybe see if they could sneak into O’Malley’s now that a few years had passed since they got kicked out.

“Sure, if you want.” His free hand picked at the label of the beer.

Sam smiled.

“I’d like that.”

They said their goodbyes and Sam felt her internal countdown begin. Next Friday, Jack O’Neill would no longer be her commanding officer. He owed her a conversation and she intended to collect.

Chapter Text

Jack hated to admit it, but Jacob was right. Once he finally began to accept that Carter was going to be on another team, the memories started flooding back on their own.

He caught sight of a neighbor’s landscaping job on the way to work and remembered that Sam liked to talk to her plants.

In the grocery store, Jack heard someone greet a cashier named Jim and remembered how Daniel kept screwing up his name when he came back from being ascended.

He flipped past a golf tournament on TV one afternoon and remembered when he and Teal’c hit golf balls through the Stargate event horizon.

Jacob went back to the Tok’ra base after a couple more memory recall sessions, but it didn’t even matter anymore. The fake memories were starting to fade with surprising ease and the originals were beginning to fill his brain.

Jack supposed he’d never know for sure if he had all of his memories back, but as far as he was concerned, things were moving quickly in the right direction.

He was still technically on medical leave, so he slept in as much as he could and spent the mornings puttering around the house. Around lunchtime, he’d head over to the base for a few hours because he had nothing better to do. He usually ate with whichever of his teammates was around and then spent his time slowly reading all of SG-1’s mission reports.

The reports were a hell of a lot easier to get through now that they didn’t give him headaches. Reading them filled in a lot of the blanks.

Jack felt better the more he remembered. He felt more whole.

He just wished he had a clue what the hell was going on with Sam, who was giving him mixed signals all over the place.

Jack tried not to take it personally that she turned his idea of celebrating her promotion into a group activity. Maybe she wanted to take things slow or maybe she actually wasn’t interested in a relationship with him after all. He wasn’t going to push it.

Things would just be a lot easier if he could get a read on her, but she was never around. He barely saw her on base and she didn’t join them the night that Daniel and Teal’c planned a group dinner. The two days she managed to meet them for lunch, she gave him a wide smile, but left early with excuses about meetings and projects she needed to wrap up.

Jack knew that Sam had a tendency to bury herself in work. He just no longer had the right to order her to take a break.

The last time he basically had to bribe her to step away from her lab, he thought with amusement. Sam never did end up using that “free order” he offered her. She probably forgot about it in the madness of the past several weeks.

Jack hoped she figured out a better balance once this transition period was over.

“You got here early. Didn’t we say noon?”

He looked up to see Daniel holding a lunch tray and frowning at Jack’s half-eaten lunch.

“Got bored,” Jack replied, even though that wasn’t exactly the case.

The trouble with spending so much time at home was that it gave him a lot more time to think. Jack was just plain tired of thinking so much and overanalyzing everything that went through his brain. At least on base there were distractions.
Daniel sat down across from him. Teal’c and Jonas followed soon after.

They spent a few minutes on small talk before Jonas started chattering about how happy he was to be on SG-7 and what he’d learned about his new teammates so far.

“Where is Carter by the way?” Jack asked.

Daniel shrugged. “I asked if she wanted to join us, but she said she had a meeting scheduled with Colonel Kent.”

Jack kept his mouth shut instead pointing out that Sam and Kent had lunch together yesterday and having another meeting today seemed like overkill.

The scene from yesterday’s lunch was still burned in his brain. When he entered the room, Jack saw Sam and Adam Kent at a corner table, heads tilted together in conversation. He watched a smile brighten her face and heard her laugh before he turned away to follow Teal’c to the lunch line.

Jack knew that Sam and Kent were probably talking about work. SG-7 was obviously all she thought about these days, for good reason. He just couldn’t help feeling a little jealous that the other man was getting her attention.

“Carter seems to have a packed schedule these days.”

“Major Carter has many additional responsibilities now, O’Neill.”

“Yeah.”

He shoved a couple fries in his mouth and told himself not to be an ass about the fact that Sam had a lot going on. It wasn’t her fault that he’d gotten used to her being around all the time. It also wasn’t only her fault that neither of them could manage a direct and clear conversation about their feelings for each other.

Jack wished he knew if Sam misunderstood his attempt to ask her out or if she pivoted to a group celebration on purpose.

“So, have you remembered anything else?” Daniel asked.

There were a thousand small things that Jack could have mentioned, but last night he dreamed again of the kiss that Sam said never happened.

“I dreamt I handed in my resignation letter.”

“When you had to go undercover?” Daniel guessed. “Or after that first mission to Abydos?”

“Nope.”

“Before Abydos? Or maybe one of those times General Hammond said you discussed it, but didn’t really resign?”

“How many times have you resigned?” Jonas asked with wonder in his voice.

“A few,” Jack said. “Doesn’t matter. It wasn’t any of those anyway. It was in the control room. Maybe this one was a dream.”

Jack grabbed a few more fries before he noticed Teal’c’s steady stare.

“Perhaps you are thinking of the time loop, O’Neill.”

Daniel looked his way. “You did say that you started to lose it in there, Jack. I wouldn’t be surprised if you resigned.”

Jack had never considered that the memory might be one that he remembered, but Sam didn’t. He wasn’t sure if he should feel guilty about that fact or relieved that it might be a real memory after all.

“I believe you resigned in several loops, O’Neill,” Teal’c continued. “Although I was not with you, you mentioned needing to perfect your timing. There was a task you wanted to accomplish.”

Based on the knowing look Teal’c sent his way, the other man had a good idea of exactly what Jack had spent his time on in those loops.

“Huh. Glad we got that cleared up.”

In that memory, Sam kissed him back. That had to be a good sign, right?

“So what finally drove you to quitting?” Daniel asked.

For a split second, Jack wondered what Daniel’s reaction would be if he said he quit to kiss Carter.

“You know, I also remembered this whole thing about us switching bodies,” he said instead, mainly to keep Daniel from digging. “And how Teal’c wanted to shave my head.”

That redirected the conversation to discussions of Ma’chello and Teal’c’s hair preferences, which was just fine with Jack. Then he just started bringing up other random things that he remembered: singing together because of Urgo, Daniel teaching Teal’c how to drive a car in 1969, that whole mission where they thought SG-1 had a fifth member named Tyler, and more.

It was sort of like a fun party game. He’d bring up names or events and they’d confirm what actually happened. Jonas even got to help out with sharing details about some of the missions when Daniel wasn’t around, like that whole mess with Felger and that other scientist crashing their mission with the Tok’ra.

Thinking of the period when Daniel wasn’t on the team made him remember something else. Jack looked over at the archaeologist.

“Hey, I just remembered that you still owe me fifty bucks! Pay up, Daniel.”

Jonas laughed and the slight adjustment of Teal’c’s facial expression signaled amusement.

“I kind of figured that death was like bankruptcy,” Daniel joked. “I start back at zero with the money I owe people.”

Jack shook his head.

“Always using death as an excuse to get out of things. Fine, don’t pay me back. But if you die and get resurrected again, I’m holding you to it next time.”

“Sure,” Daniel agreed, with a tinge of sarcasm in his tone. “If I ever come back from the dead again my main focus will be on paying you whatever money I owe you. Not on why I died or why I came back or - ”

“Good. Glad we got that settled,” Jack said with a smirk.

As their discussion continued, they focused on the weird and funny things they dealt with as a team instead of the more serious memories. It was nice to spend the time laughing together.

After lunch, Jack headed to his office. He had some more mission reports to read and a meeting to prepare for.

The time passed quickly and Jack soon heard a knock at his office door.

“Come in.”

He closed the mission file that he’d been browsing and watched as Lieutenant Jennifer Hailey entered the room.

“You asked to speak with me, sir?”

He returned her sharp salute with a lazy one and asked her to sit down.

Jack could tell that Hailey was curious why he’d called her in here. They didn’t have much interaction on base aside from training exercises and a handful of multi-unit missions.

“So, how do you like it on SG-16, Hailey?”

Jack watched as an expression of dissatisfaction briefly crossed her face before she was able to hide it.

“I enjoy working at the SGC, sir. It’s been an honor.”

Jack cracked a smile.

“Nice non-answer. Heard one of the guys on your team had a mishap with some blue dye on ’483.”

Hailey pursed her lips.

“A sample spilled. Thankfully it was non-toxic.”

Jack could tell she had a hell of a lot more to say, but she was holding back. “You have my permission to speak freely, Hailey.”

“Lieutenant Hill wasn’t following proper procedure,” she acknowledged.

Jack was in favor of loyalty, but there were times where being diplomatic just made it take longer to get to the truth.

“Hailey.”

“He was goofing off, sir. If we were in a different situation, it could have endangered the team.”

“Yeah, your CO said the same thing when I spoke with him. It looks like there are going to be some personnel changes with SG-16.”

Hailey stayed silent.

“He had good things to say about your work, though,” Jack added. “I was impressed.”

“I try to do my best, Colonel,” she said.

Jack smiled.

“I’m sure you do, Hailey. In fact, that’s what I’m counting on.”

She furrowed her brow. “I don’t understand.”

“We’re pulling you over to SG-1, Lieutenant. Carter’s getting her own command and we need someone to take her spot.”

Jack watched as Jennifer Hailey’s face cycled through a few different expressions: pride, excitement, frustration, and uncertainty.

He vaguely remembered Sam telling him of Hailey’s frustration that she couldn’t surpass Sam’s scores at the Academy. Sam had been baffled that the younger woman considered it a competition. What he recalled now in more detail was the heated debate between the two on Hailey’s first trip off-world.

Jack hoped the woman’s previous insecurity where Sam was concerned wouldn’t be a problem.

“Sir, if you’re expecting me to fill Major Carter’s shoes - ”

“Hailey,” Jack interrupted before she could go too far down that road, “I’m not expecting you to be anyone else. I’m expecting you to do your job, kick ass when needed, and use that brain of yours to save the day every once in a while. How does that sound?”

A rare wide smile appeared on Jennifer Hailey’s face.

“That sounds great, sir.”

“Happy to have ya on the team.”

Jack was sure that there would be challenges integrating a new team member, but he was more open-minded about it this time than he had been with Jonas, which would probably lead to a better outcome for everyone involved.

“I…” Her voice trailed off before she pulled herself back together. “I won’t let you down.”

“Didn’t think you would, Lieutenant,” Jack replied. “We’ll have a team meeting next week once I’m officially back on active duty. It might take a while for you to settle in as a part of SG-1, but you’ll get there.”

Hailey nodded.

“Any tips for settling in?” she asked.

Jack had plenty of advice, but he’d stick with the basics for now.

“Just do your best to make sure we all get home alive. Daniel will talk your ear off if you even mention anything about the history of another culture. He also gets distracted if there’s any kind of writing on a wall. Teal’c does this eyebrow raise thing you’ll learn to interpret after a while and is a huge fan of Star Wars.”

“And you, sir?”

“I like cake, The Simpsons, and not getting shot. Pretty straightforward.”

He also liked Sam Carter, but that situation seemed to be in flux right now.

“I play the piano,” Hailey shared, unprompted. “I like to watch cheesy romantic comedies. I can be stubborn. And people tend to think I’m difficult.”

After she offered the information up, Jennifer Hailey just sat there waiting for his response. She looked slightly uncomfortable, but determined. Carter was right, she’d work out well once she adjusted.

“We’re all a little difficult on SG-1, Hailey. A collection of misfits. It’s part of why we get the job done. As long as you’re more focused on doing what’s right instead of being the one who’s right, we’ll work out fine.”

“Yes, sir.”

Jack stood and she followed.

“Welcome to SG-1, Lieutenant Hailey.”

He reached out and shook her hand. Hailey had a dazed look on her face like she wasn’t sure what had just happened.

“Thank you, Colonel.”

“I only pick the best, Hailey. Your job now is to show everyone you’ve got what it takes.”

She was still smiling when she left his office.

The days passed quickly and Sam’s last day as a member of SG-1 arrived with little fanfare. Jack slept in and then headed over to the base for a check-up with Doc Fraiser and a meeting with General Hammond.

After getting the all-clear from Janet, he headed over to Sam’s lab. Jack wondered if she would even use her new office or if it would sit as empty as his often did.

He knocked against the wall next to the open doorway. Sam looked up from her computer and ushered him in.

“Busy, Carter?”

Sam sighed.

“It’s a lot. I guess I never realized how much additional work you had to do…more paperwork, required trainings, more meetings - ”

“Thought I was goofing off while you were running experiments?”

The sheepish look told him that was exactly what she assumed.

“Sometimes I was goofing off,” he admitted, “mainly to get away from the paperwork.”

A smile flitted across her face before she glanced back at her computer.

“I’m trying to wrap up a lot of the experiments I was working on. Or at least get them in a good place so I can hand them over to the other scientists. I didn’t realize how many projects I’ve been trying to juggle and how many I put on hold while we were trying to figure out how to fix what happened to you.”

Jack could tell the stress was getting to her and wondered if it would have been better for her to take some leave before dealing with all this.

“It gets easier, Carter. And I, for one, am glad you spent some time getting my head screwed back on right.”

“I would’ve done it even if I hadn’t been the one to cause the problem in the first place.”

“I know,” Jack said. “I’m just trying to say how much I appreciate it. I know it was rough for you.”

“For everyone,” she deflected.

“Yeah.”

Jack walked closer and leaned against the metal table in the center of the room. He kept the small wrapped package in his hand out of view.

“You should take some time off.”

“I was planning on it,” Sam said with a small smile. “Starting with a long weekend away in a couple weeks.”

Jack almost laughed at the fact that Sam considered a long weekend time off, but it was better than nothing. She must’ve seen the look on his face because she continued.

“I said, ‘starting with.’ There’s a lot going on right now, but I think you were right before…about the risk of me burning out if I keep going like I have been. I’m going to try to figure out a better balance.”

Jack was curious what her vision of better balance was, but he doubted Sam had even gotten that far in figuring it out yet. She was always going to be a bit of a workaholic, but it would be nice not to have to worry too much about her taking it too far.

“I’m glad. If anybody deserves a little more relaxation in their life, it’s gotta be you, Carter. Even with this promotion.”

Her expression turned thoughtful at his comment and he wondered whether she was thinking about relaxation or the promotion.

“Speaking of that promotion…” Jack said as he handed over the small, wrapped package brought to her office.

Sam looked at him in surprise when she took the gift. Her surprise turned to amusement when she spotted the Christmas-y pine trees covering the surface.

“I didn’t have any congrats on your promotion wrapping paper.”

“You didn’t have to get me anything.”

“It’s nothing big. Go on. Open it.”

Sam tore the wrapping paper away to reveal a shadow box frame with an SG-1 patch displayed neatly in the center.

“Something to remember us by.”

She looked up at him, eyes glistening.

“I…thank you, sir.”

Before he could say anything in response, Sam wrapped her arms around him and hugged him tight, the frame hanging loosely from her fingers and resting against his back.

“Not your commanding officer anymore,” he reminded her, “so save those ‘sir’s for Hammond.”

She let out a light laugh and Jack remembered another time and another place when he told her not to giggle.

“Thank you…Jack.”

It felt so right to have her wrapped in his arms, with her chin resting against his neck and their cheeks touching.

“Anytime…Sam.”

He wanted to stay close to her like this the rest of the afternoon, but they were still on base so he pulled away and took a step back.

Jack let himself really look at Samantha Carter for the first time in years. He took in her bright blue eyes, messy blond hair, and brilliant smile. It was baffling that anything could have made him forget her. When Jack looked at Sam now, it felt like he could see all of the important memories they had together reflected in her face.

“What are you smiling at?” she asked, a curious expression crossing her face.

The question triggered another memory. One day, Jack realized, he’d probably have to tell her about the time loop. For now, he just answered the same way he did back then.

“Nothing,” he replied.

Sam looked down at the three-dimensional frame in her hand and ran a finger over the glass above the SG-1 patch.

“I should…” Jack gestured with his thumb towards the door.

He had a meeting with General Hammond before he was officially placed back on active duty. He was also worried that if he stayed in this small room with Sam much longer, he’d be tempted to take the frame out of her hand and kiss her.

Kissing her on base just hours before her official transfer would be a bad idea. Especially since he still wasn’t completely sure where they stood.

“I’ll see you later?” she asked.

It might have been wishful thinking, but Jack thought he heard a hopeful note in her voice.

“Wouldn’t miss it for the world, Carter.”

Chapter Text

On Sam’s last official day as a member of SG-1, they all met up at O’Malley’s at 1900 hours. Thankfully, no one gave them a second look and Sam didn’t recognize any of the staff from the night they got kicked out of the place.

“I think we’re safe,” Daniel whispered with a grin, leaning against her as he spoke. “As long as we keep a low profile.”

“That means no picking fights, Daniel,” Jack said from behind them. “And no hustling unsuspecting civilians at pool, Carter.”

Sam looked back at him with a smile. “No promises.”

“Why did they get kicked out?” Jonas asked Teal’c.

“Due to a Tok’ra device they were unable to exercise self-restraint.”

“What Teal’c means,” Janet said, “is that they left the base against orders and medical advice because those armbands made them idiots. They picked a fight and got banned from the bar.”

“We were fine until Daniel decided to enact a high school nerd fantasy of beating up the bullies.”

“Hey! Stop acting like that was all my fault, Jack. You and Sam were right there with me.”

Sam laughed. They were both sort of right.

“Maybe you should all stop talking so loudly about how we got kicked out of this bar before,” she pointed out.

This time Janet and Jonas laughed and Teal’c inclined his head in agreement.

The six of them walked to the back and grabbed a large table. When the waitress arrived, Jack offered to buy the first round of drinks and they each ordered something to eat.

The conversation around the table was light and easy. Janet gave them an update on Cassie’s school play, Jonas talked about how all of his asylum paperwork was finally through, and Daniel spoke with excitement about a recent archeological find in Egypt.

Jack mostly sat there and observed, making a clever quip every once in a while and eating his steak.

Sam let their voices wash over her and relaxed. It had been a long week. There was so much to do and so much to catch up on. She was exhausted, but she still had a tendril of hope growing inside her.

Jonas was safe on Earth, Jack had his memories back, and she’d been given an amazing career opportunity. In a life where things often went wrong, it was nice to have things looking up for a change.

When they were done with their meals, Jack hit his fork against his water glass until he got the group’s attention.

“I’d like to propose a toast to the new commanding officer of SG-7,” he said, his beer bottle raised and eyes on her. “To Sam Carter, the best damn second in command I ever had and an all-around national treasure.”

“To Sam,” everyone else replied, lifting their glasses.

She blushed and thanked them and tried not to feel too self-conscious when they all took turns telling her how proud they were of her or, in Jonas’ case, how happy he was to be on her new team.

After they paid for their meals, Daniel suggested they grab the pool table before another group had the chance. Daniel was terrible at pool, so Sam assumed that he was making sure they called dibs on the table so she would have a chance to play later. It was sweet.

Sam and Janet headed over to the bar to get more drinks while the guys walked over to the pool table. Daniel was already tipsy so he didn’t need a second yet and Teal’c wasn’t drinking, but they told Jonas they’d get him another beer. Jack, surprisingly, was still working on his first.

As she and Janet waited, Sam found her eyes drifting over to where Jack leaned against a high top table. He was shaking his head in amusement at whatever explanation Daniel tried to give to Jonas and Teal’c, but wasn’t jumping in to correct him.

“Colonel O’Neill hasn’t been very talkative tonight,” Janet said, circling her straw in the remaining liquid of her cocktail. “Aside from that nice toast he gave.”

“I don’t know why,” Sam replied with a shrug. “Going out to celebrate my promotion to CO of SG-7 was his idea.”

“It was?”

“Yeah, he asked when the paperwork was going through and when I told him, he said that we should do something.”

Janet lowered her drink to the bar and narrowed her eyes.

“That we should do something?” Janet circled her hand around to indicate their group of friends. “Or that you and him should do something?”

“Well, he didn’t specify, but I’m sure he meant…”

Sam stopped talking, hoping that she hadn’t misinterpreted Jack’s suggestion that badly.

Janet raised an eyebrow. “Sam, you can’t possibly be that out of practice.”

Sam tried to replay that conversation in her head. He didn’t mention a party with everyone. She did.

“You think he was asking me out?”

“He asked if you wanted to do something the first night you were officially out of his chain of command. Do you think he really wanted to watch Teal’c and Jonas try to learn pool?”

A sudden horror spread over her that Janet might be right.

“He thought I turned him down?” she asked, her voice barely above a whisper.

“It’s possible,” Janet said with a shrug. She swirled the straw in her cocktail before taking another sip. “You two really need to work on your communication skills. I thought you said you talked with him about your relationship and what could change if you transferred.”

Janet’s clear-cut words made Sam realize how vague both she and Jack had been during that conversation.

“Well, we talked about cake as a metaphor for our relationship in his office one night. And I asked what would happen if I transferred.”

“What did he say about that?”

“He asked if my dad put me up to it.”

“In other words, you didn’t really talk at all,” Janet said, shaking her head. “One word, Sam. Communication. You and Colonel O’Neill should try it sometime.”

Sam looked over to where Jack was picking at the label on his beer bottle while Daniel, Teal’c, and Jonas continued their conversation next to the pool table.

“God, what should I say?”

Janet smirked.

“How about ‘I’m madly in love with you. Want to have sex?’”

Sam blanched at the suggestion.

“I’m not going to just walk up to him and say that! Up until today we were on the same team. I figured I’d ease into it.”

Janet chuckled.

“Sam, it’s been about two months since he’s actually acted as your commanding officer. If you keep easing into it, you might not manage a date with him until your mid-forties.”

About two months. She never thought about it that way. The mission to Kelowna was a one-off, but aside from that SG-1 had been essentially disbanded since they came back from P3X-289.

“Now, I’m not saying you need to rush anything,” Janet continued. “You’ve both been through a lot lately and you’re allowed time to think, but maybe clue the guy in that you are thinking so he stops being so moody. And remember that the main obstacle to a potential relationship isn’t there anymore. Let yourself have fun.”

“Have fun?”

Aside from a few treasured moments here and there, it had been a long time since Sam had any real fun. She was overdue.

“Just go flirt,” Janet said. “You haven’t forgotten how to do that, have you?”

Truthfully, Sam was worried that she might have forgotten. She was definitely out of practice if her recent failure to pick up important social cues was any indication.

“All else fails,” Janet continued, “you can just ask if he wants to go out to dinner sometime. You might want to clarify that it’s a date and not a group event.”

“Haha. Very funny.”

Janet gave her an amused look before taking the final sip of her cocktail.

“I swear I was going to talk to him about all this. After I made a plan about what to say.”

“Sure.”

Sam thought about the promise she made to herself to talk to Jack tonight. Unfortunately, she procrastinated coming up with a plan so now she’d just have to wing it.

They finally got the bartender’s attention. Janet ordered a refill and Sam got three beers. Janet picked up the one for Jonas and Sam grabbed the other two.

“I’m going to see if Daniel actually knows anything about playing pool or if he’s making it all up for Jonas and Teal’c,” Janet said as they walked away from the bar. “Have fun.”

Sam nodded and clinked her beer against Janet’s glass in a quick cheers.

“I plan on it.”

Sam took a deep breath and walked straight to the corner high top table where Jack was standing alone, watching Jonas aim at the eight ball with a hint of a smile on his face. She set one beer bottle in front of him and kept the other in her hand.

“Trying to get me drunk, Carter?” he teased.

“You’ve been sipping that since we got here.” She nodded towards the half-full beer he’d been nursing through dinner. “I thought you might like a cold one.”

“This is your party. I think I’m supposed to be the one buying you drinks.”

She didn’t point out that he bought the first round. It would have been a small thing to quibble over and she had bigger fish to fry.

“I misunderstood, didn’t I? When you said we should celebrate.” Sam watched his hand go still on the table. She was nervous, but she’d promised herself that she would be brave enough for the conversations they needed to have. “You meant the two of us, didn’t you?”

“Yeah, but it’s no big deal. This is fun too.”

There were so many times when Jack O’Neill was hard to read. This wasn’t one of them. He’d been hurt by her deflection the other day and was trying not to let it show.

Janet was right. They were horrible at communicating with each other when it mattered.

“I didn’t realize.”

“I didn’t want to push. Carter, we’ve barely talked since your dad left.”

“I was busy. With moving to my new role and all of the experiments I’d been putting off, I had a lot going on.”

Even though it wasn’t a lie, it felt like she was just giving him excuses. He deserved better than that.

Sam could understand why he’d be confused. The truth was, even though she’d been busy, she’d also been avoiding him for most of the past week. She didn’t want thoughts of him to become a distraction while she made her way through what felt like an endlessly long checklist of tasks. She wanted to prove that she deserved to lead SG-7. She thought she could sort all of this personal stuff out once they were officially on different teams.

Sam ran her thumb over the cold glass surface of her beer. She tried to figure out what to say.

So much for that balance she claimed to want. Over the past week, she’d fallen back into old habits because it was easier to be single-minded and focus on work than to determine exactly how to start a conversation with Jack that they’d been putting off for years.

Sam wasn’t sure why this felt scarier than facing the Goa’uld or the Replicators.

“It’s fine,” Jack said with a shrug. “I get it. No hard feelings if you’re not - ”

“I am interested,” she told him bluntly. “Whichever type of cake in your marble cake metaphor means you and me together, that’s the one I want. I’m not good at this. I never have been, and I don’t know if I will be with you, but that’s what I want if you want it too. I was so worried I lost you when you lost your memories and I can’t keep having all the hard parts of a relationship without most of the good ones.”

Sam was almost out of breath when she finished talking.

About halfway through her monologue, Jack’s face went slack with surprise. Then his lips curved up in a crooked smile.

“We get to have the good parts now, do we? Because I am definitely in favor of that.”

She didn’t even mind how smug he looked because she, too, was looking forward to those “good parts.”

“So we’re on the same page now?” Sam asked to confirm.

Jack took the beer out of her hand and set it on the table. Then he took her hand and guided her further into the corner of the room where it felt a little more private. She could still hear their friends at the pool table behind her, but no one from the main dining area could see them now.

“How about this, Sam…Do you want to go out to dinner with me tomorrow, on a date, with no one else invited?”

She couldn’t remember ever feeling this giddy before in her life and was sure that her face was going to get sore from smiling so much. She looked up at Jack and saw that he was barely holding back a smile.

“I’d love to,” she said.

“Then yes, we are on the same page.”

His smile broke through and Sam felt a massive sense of relief.

“Thank god.”

Jack laughed and reached a hand up to cup her face, running a thumb over her cheek.

He leaned towards her, conspiratorially, and whispered, “Now about those good parts you mentioned…”

Sam opened her mouth to tease him back, but he moved forward and kissed her.

It took her a few seconds to even accept what was happening. She shouldn’t have been surprised. She knew once they decided they were on the same page that a kiss would happen tonight. Sam had just spent so much time thinking that this was never going to happen, that her brain needed some time to catch up to her heart.

Once her mind caught up, she started kissing him back with enthusiasm and fervor.

Sam had never been in favor of blatant PDA, but when faced with the opportunity to kiss Jack O’Neill, she couldn’t help herself.

She wrapped one arm around his neck and placed the other on his hip, pulling him close until their bodies met. His hand trailed along her spine and his kiss was a slow seduction.

This, somehow, was even better than the kiss they shared as Jonah and Thera. Probably because it was their first real kiss, without alien interference, as Sam and Jack.

Kissing him was worth the wait.

Suddenly, Jack pulled back.

“Carter,” he said, his voice a soft reprimand.

“What?”

She could barely think.

“We probably don’t want to get kicked out of O’Malley’s again, do we?”

“I suppose not.”

She had no idea what he was talking about.

“Then let’s maybe try to keep things PG for now.”

Jack placed his hand on her forearm and pressed down. Sam suddenly realized that her wandering hand had slipped under his shirt to touch his back and dragged the fabric up enough that a large strip of his skin was exposed.

“Oh.”

“Not that I mind the intent,” he said with a grin, “just, you know…the audience.”

Sam had completely forgotten that they were within view of their friends and that bar patrons or staff could walk by at any time. It also occurred to her how unprofessional it probably was as a commanding officer to be making out with someone in front of a new member of her team. She knew Jonas a lot better than Hawkins and Garcia, but even so, she wondered if she should have been more reserved.

“Don’t worry so much,” Jack whispered into her hair. “They’re our friends. They know what it took for us to get here.”

With his calm words, her nerves immediately settled.

Sam turned around to face the rest of the group. Jack’s hand resting on her hip was a steady comfort.

She shouldn’t have worried about their reactions. Janet was giving her a look that promised they’d have some in-depth girl talk soon. Teal’c gave a slight nod of acknowledgment. Daniel and Jonas sported matching grins.

“You two really sure about this?” Daniel asked. “You could take another seven years to think about it.”

“Hey, no comments from the peanut gallery,” Jack said.

“How do we resemble an art exhibition of legumes, O’Neill?”

Sam laughed and it dissipated her remaining anxiety.

Jack lifted a finger and pointed it at Teal’c.

“I’m not falling for that anymore, T. You know exactly what I’m talking about.”

“At least it’s funnier than the Jaffa jokes,” Daniel commented.

“What Jaffa jokes?” Jonas asked before looking at Teal’c. “You never told me any.”

“I will share one with you now, Jonas Quinn. A serpent guard, a Horus guard, and a Setesh guard meet on a neutral planet…”

As Teal’c began to tell Jonas his favorite joke, Janet turned to Sam to explain that she had to head out soon to pick Cassie up from a friend’s house.

Sam frowned. Janet had driven her over here, but she wasn’t ready to leave yet.

“I’ll give her a ride, Doc,” Jack offered.

He didn’t realize the possible innuendo in his statement, but Janet did. She shot Sam a look that made her blush.

“Well, you two have a good night.”

Sam ignored Janet’s sly tone and said goodbye, wishing her a good rest of the weekend. Jack said goodbye too.

After Janet left, Sam and Jack heard Teal’c burst out into uncharacteristic laughter and turned back towards the group.

“I don’t get it,” Jonas said, looking deeply confused. “Why does the nose drip?”

“The helmets that are worn by the guards of Setesh -”

Jack clapped a hand down on Teal’c’s shoulder. “Jokes shouldn’t really need to be explained, buddy. Let’s go play some pool.”

Jack and Daniel walked over to the pool table and Sam heard Teal’c assure Jonas that he’d explain the joke later.

Jack racked the pool balls and grabbed a cue. He and Daniel started to play each other and they were fairly evenly matched. Neither were skilled, but they seemed to have fun anyway, throwing laughter-filled trash talk back and forth.

Jack used a closed bridge position to shoot. His index finger curved over the cue and the smoothly varnished wood slid easily back and forth between his thumb and index finger. Each time he took a shot felt suggestive.

Sam pulled her gaze away from his hands and took a drink of her beer to cool down.

“I wondered after the whole thing with Ba’al and after he got trapped on the moon with Maybourne,” Jonas said beside her, “but I was never sure.”

She looked over at him.

“Most of the time I would’ve said I wasn’t sure either.” Now, looking back, she realized that she’d been in love with him for years. “But those moments - when I thought I lost him - were always the most difficult.”

“Like this time, with his memories.”

“Yeah.”

That had been the most challenging part of everything that had happened recently. It felt like she almost lost him, and once again it had been her fault.

This time, however, she’d learned from the experience and decided that a potential future with Jack wasn’t something she could continue to put on hold for the sake of SG-1.

“He and I could have gone on like that for years, always putting the job first,” she said.

Daniel missed a shot and Jack walked around the table to survey his options.

“And now you don’t have to,” Jonas pointed out.

“Now we don’t have to,” Sam agreed.

She looked over at Teal’c, who had been standing near them watching Daniel and Jack play. He glanced at her and nodded. He’d been there to support her when she broke down. He also knew what it meant to make personal sacrifices for a larger cause. Teal’c understood why this was such a big deal for her and Jack.

“In times of war, we must also celebrate occasions of joy,” he said. “This is such an occasion.”

“Thank you, Teal’c.”

Sam hugged him, grateful for the support of her friends. He returned her hug until they heard Daniel give a shout of frustration.

Sam, Teal’c, and Jonas looked back towards the pool table just in time to see Jack make a lucky shot to the corner pocket and sink the 8 ball to win.

Sam played against Jonas next. He had potential, but she had to correct some of the advice Daniel had tried to give him earlier. It felt more like practice than an actual match. After a while they gave up playing against each other and she started setting up practice shots for him to try as she coached him on the correct angle and spot to aim for on the ball.

Teal'c declined to play.

About an hour later, Daniel announced that they were going to head out. He had some errands to run the next morning and was giving Jonas and Teal’c a lift back to the base.

They all said their goodbyes, and then Sam and Jack were alone by the pool table.

She didn’t want the night to end.

“Let’s stay for a bit,” she said, touching the top of Jack’s hand just because she could.

“Works for me.”

Suddenly, Sam was at a loss. Being at the O’Malley’s alone together felt much more private than she was used to, but also less private than she wanted.

“Wanna play?” he asked, solving her problem of figuring out what to do and say next.

“Sure.”

Sam picked up the pool cue that she used for the last game and chalked it. She was in the middle of helping Jack put the balls back on the top of the green baize of the pool table when she realized something.

“How have we never played pool against each other before?”

She’d played against Daniel a handful of times when they went out as a team, but most of the time she played with other random people at the bar while the guys hung out nearby.

Jack grabbed a pool cue off the wall and rubbed the blue square of chalk on the end.

“I was always perfectly happy just watching you win against complete strangers,” he said.

Sam racked the balls and turned around just in time to catch him staring at her ass.

“Watching me win or watching me bend over the table?”

Jack’s eyes widened in surprise before an amused smirk crossed his face.

“Do I have to pick just one?”

Sam walked over to him, set a hand on his shoulder, and lifted her head to give him a brief kiss.

“Not anymore,” she said happily. “And since I’m in a good mood, I’ll let you break. Don’t worry, I’ll take it easy on you.”

“Lucky me.”

The way he looked her up and down told Sam that he wasn’t talking about the game.

Jack moved over to the table and positioned the cue ball.

It was a good break and then Sam watched in surprise as Jack sunk three solids in a row before barely missing the side pocket with the purple 4 ball.

There was a swagger in his stride as he returned to her side of the table. Jack leaned close.

“Really glad you’re going to be taking it easy on me, Carter.”

“You hustled me!” she exclaimed.

He grabbed his beer and took a sip.

“Technically, we didn’t bet anything. Therefore, no hustling.”

“But with Daniel -”

“He would have stopped having fun if I outright crushed him.”

The information blindsided her.

“Wow.”

It was sweet, strategic, and not nearly as surprising as it should have been.

“Afraid you can’t handle some real competition?”

Sam liked seeing Jack this light-hearted. They had both gotten too serious over the past couple of years. She’d missed the banter and was glad to have it back.

“I’m not afraid,” she replied.

She wasn’t afraid of the competition or anything else. The fear that she’d been blanketed in during the many weeks when Jack was without his memories had dissipated. So had the fear of giving into her feelings for him.

Sam had been afraid of what giving into those feelings - in any way - would mean for her life. Now she realized that there were worse things than not being on SG-1. In fact, she suspected that not being on the team anymore was changing her life for the better.

“Then let’s play,” he said, nodding towards the table.

She walked around the table with her pool cue in hand, looking at the options. She decided to aim for the blue striped 10 ball and put it in the corner pocket.

Sam looked behind her at Jack, who was watching intently, before stretching and leaning over the pool table. She lingered in that position, sliding the cue back and forth between her thumb and index finger, before leisurely taking her shot. As soon as she sunk the ball, a hand wrapped around her waist and she straightened, her back against his front.

“You did that on purpose,” Jack whispered into her ear. “I’ve watched you play before and you never took that long to line up a shot.”

She turned in his arms.

“Now that I know you’re actually good, I have to use every advantage I’ve got. And considering you expressed a preference earlier for certain aspects of watching me play…”

She let her voice trail off and he shook his head in amusement before pressing a kiss to her temple.

“Take your shot, cheater.”

Sam was tempted to stick her tongue out at him, but got in place for her next shot, this time facing him. His eyes dropped to her neckline as she started to lean over.

Unfortunately, she got distracted when she saw him slowly rolling up his shirtsleeves and screwed up the angle of her shot.

In retaliation, she walked over to him once her turn was over and kissed him until his hand tightened on her waist. Then she stepped back and smiled brightly at his dazed expression.

“Your turn.”

Jack blinked and his lips curved.

“Oh, you’re on.”

From that moment forward, the competition felt like laughter-filled foreplay. There were lots of subtle touches, brief kisses, and teasing banter as they tried to distract each other in the name of winning the game.

It felt like a metaphor for the fun they could have by not being on the same team.

They played best-of-three and Sam ended up winning, but Jack didn’t seem to care. They were both in such a good mood that nothing could wreck it.

Other people were waiting to use the pool table so they decided to head out.

They didn’t talk on the drive to her house, but the silence was comforting instead of oppressive. About halfway home, at a stoplight, Jack reached for Sam’s hand and held it lightly in his. She brushed her thumb against his skin.

“I missed you this week,” she admitted.

Jack looked over at her before returning his gaze to the road.

“I wasn’t the one who was hiding, Carter.”

“I know.”

Sam looked at the lights of the houses as they drove through her neighborhood. So many people living ordinary lives with no idea what was happening in the universe around them.

She was never going to have an ordinary life, but she hoped that she’d be able to share her extraordinary life with him. It was a bright possibility now, as long as she didn’t keep getting in her own way.

“We’ll get better at this, won’t we?” she asked. “Talking about the things that matter?”

Jack pulled into her driveway, put the car in park, and turned to face her.

“Sam, think about the number of times we’ve saved the universe. In comparison, talking about the things that matter will be a piece of cake.”

“What kind of cake?” she asked, alluding to their previous attempt at a relationship conversation.

“Whatever kind you want,” he replied easily. “The thing is, we got really good at not talking before because that was our goal. I bet, with a little practice, we can get good at the talking part too.”

“Ya think?” she asked, unintentionally slipping into his Midwestern style of asking the question.

“Yeah, I do.”

Her imagination snagged on the last two words, but it was much too early to be thinking like that so she pushed the thought away.

They were at the beginning now, seven-ish years after the first time they met. Yes, they had history, but this was also a fresh start.

“So, dinner tomorrow?” Jack asked, playing with the fingers of her left hand. “Just you and me?”

Sam’s stomach felt like it was filled with butterflies. They were really doing this. She spent all of these years thinking Jack was unobtainable and trying to convince herself that her feelings for him were just a crush.

Her feelings for him were so much more than a crush. The best part was that she didn’t have to hide it anymore.

“It’s a date,” Sam confirmed with a grin.

His eyes were soft and he squeezed her hand.

“Yes, it is. First of many, I hope.”

They sat there in his car for a few moments, just holding hands and looking at each other because now they could do both of those things without feeling like they were breaking any rules.

Jack offered to walk her to her door and she let him, even though it wasn’t something he normally did…or maybe especially because it wasn’t something he normally did.

They were together now and Sam planned to learn and enjoy all the small differences along with the larger ones.

She let herself revel in the feel of their interlaced fingers as they walked towards her door. She noted the relaxed way he leaned against the wall, just looking at her, while she fumbled with her keys. He rested his hand on the small of her back as they walked inside and she looked forward to a future with more of those comforting casual touches.

“Do you want to come in?”

Jack looked back at the door and she laughed.

“I meant further than the entrance.”

He took both of her hands in his.

“I don’t want to screw this up, Sam. Plus, I’ve got big Saturday plans.”

It comforted her that she wasn’t the only one worried about screwing this up.

“I’m looking forward to tomorrow,” she said.

“Yeah,” Jack agreed, “but today’s been really great too.”

“One of the best days.”

Her voice was barely a whisper. He leaned closer.

“Top ten, easily.”

Sam could feel the exhale of his words against her lips.

“Easily,” she repeated. “Right up there with touching the event horizon for the first time.”

He chuckled right before he kissed her and Sam could feel the laughter and joy in the movements of his lips against hers.

She reached up and rested her hands on his shoulders as they kissed, trying to steady herself as she got lost in the sensation of their tongues tangling and bodies pressing close.

Kissing Jack felt like freedom and like flying. It was like an oasis after years stuck out in the desert. It was like winning the lottery. It was like the first time setting foot on an alien planet.

It was a million clichéd similes that he would probably hate.

It was everything she’d been waiting for, even when she thought it was foolish to hope.

Jack broke the kiss and rested his forehead against hers, both of them breathing heavy.

“Much better than the event horizon,” he murmured.

“Told you you’d like me once you got to know me.”

He kissed her again, soft and slow, before he responded.

“You always were smart.”

In her rare hopeful imaginings of a possible future with Jack, Sam always wondered about the transition period between being teammates and being in a relationship. It could go wrong so easily, if either of them balked or struggled with the change.

Instead, it felt like this was how they were always supposed to be and all of the previous restrictions they followed had merely been artifice.

She ran her hand through the hair on the back of his neck, lightly scraping her nails against the skin.

“Jack?”

He groaned and then stepped back, releasing his hold on her.

“You keep saying my name like that and it’s going to be hard for me to say goodnight and walk back out the door.”

They both wanted this and Sam didn’t see any reason to keep waiting. She stepped forward and wrapped her arms around his waist.

“Jack,” she repeated.

Curiosity sparked in his eyes. He lifted his hand to rest his palm against the side of her neck.

“Yeah, Sam?”

She felt like she’d been waiting for this perfect moment, even though she didn’t realize it until she was in the midst of it. Jack didn’t want to go home and she wanted him to stay.

“Remember that ‘free order’ you said you’d give me so I’d leave base and actually get some sleep?”

His eyebrows lifted.

“Ah, the bribe I had to give you so you wouldn’t work yourself to death trying to get my memories back.”

“Yeah, that one.”

Jack seemed to consider that for a while as he ran his fingers up and down the back of her neck.

“Lost a lot of its value now that we’re no longer on the same team,” he eventually observed. Jack’s steady tone made her wonder if he was on to her already.

“I don’t know about that,” she replied. “In fact, I think its value might have increased due to recent circumstances.”

“Oh really?” Jack drawled, his fingers playing with the edge of her hair. “How so?”

Her answering smile was wide and confident.

“I order you not to leave.”

Jack let go of her and took a step back and for a second she worried that she’d made an error in judgment somewhere along the way. Then he closed the front door and locked it.

That done, he cupped her cheeks and a slow, sexy smile lit his face.

“Yes, ma’am.”

Jack leaned down to kiss her. His lips brushed hers, soft and purposeful. Sam’s hands gripped the fabric of his shirt.

He pulled back to look her in the eyes.

“I can’t believe I forgot how long I’d been waiting for this.”

In his expression, she saw love.

“Worth the wait,” she replied before lifting her head to kiss him back.

Jack’s hands dropped to her shoulders and then her back and slid down to her waist. He held her close as her lips parted and their kiss deepened.

She couldn’t believe that not twelve hours earlier they’d been in her lab having a brief conversation about paperwork and her promotion.

Now Jack’s lips made their way down her neck while his hand slid under her shirt.

This was definitely worth the wait.

“Bedroom,” she said, not able to manage more than a single word.

“Yes, ma’am,” Jack repeated, as if her suggestion had been another order.

Sam couldn’t help herself from giggling in response, her heart practically bursting with happiness.

He took her by the hand and they moved in fits and starts towards her room, getting distracted and losing pieces of clothing along the way.

By the time they fell into bed, Sam’s patience was wearing thin. She suspected Jack’s was too. They quickly shed their remaining clothes.

Then Jack started to touch her everywhere she ever fantasized he would.

Sam lost herself in the feeling of her skin against his, his whispered murmurs of affection, and the utter certainty that something in her life was finally going right.

She tugged on his hair to pull him back for a kiss, wondering how they could have possibly waited so long to be together.

When he moved inside her, it felt like home.

The passion between them built and eventually crested. She gasped Jack’s name and his hand tightened on her hip as he groaned against her neck.

It took them a while to catch their breath afterward.

“Gotta say, I’m really liking the benefits of this promotion of yours, Carter.”

Sam let out a breathy sound that was almost laughter. Her eyes went to the top of her dresser, where the framed SG-1 patch that Jack had given her was proudly displayed. It was going to be tough to let go of SG-1, but - like Jack pointed out - the benefits made it all worth it.

She didn’t realize her eye had leaked a tear until he brushed it away with his thumb.

“Me too,” she told him. “I’m glad that we got to be on the same team together, but I’m happy about this too.”

He reached for her hand and squeezed. “Same here.”

They took turns in the bathroom and when she returned to bed, Jack pulled her close. Sam decided that she could get used to having his warm body beside her throughout the night.

“Big day tomorrow,” he mumbled against her hair just as she was about to fall asleep.

She made a hum of acknowledgment.

“Yeah,” he continued sleepily, “I’ve got a first date with this hot blonde genius I know.”

Sam smiled against his chest.

“I normally hate first dates,” she said. “Think I’ll like this one, though. You see, I’ve had feelings for this guy for a long time.”

“Teal’c?” he joked.

Sam put her hand on Jack’s jaw to turn his face towards hers. His eyes fluttered open and she could feel the warmth in his gaze as he looked at her.

“No, you.”

“Well then I feel better,” Jack replied with a boyish grin, echoing a line she said to him in a similar discussion years before.

“I do too.”

He kissed her then - the kind of sleepy, affectionate press of the lips that reminded her that the big obstacles were behind them and he’d still be there beside her in the morning.

Before he pulled back, he brushed another kiss against her forehead.

“Night, Sam.”

“Night, Jack.”

He rested his head back on the pillow and closed his eyes, one arm wrapped around her waist.

As Jack’s breathing evened out, Sam thought about everything they’d been through over the past seven years and the past couple of months.

She thought about the experiences they shared that he almost lost forever and how the tragic circumstances of his partial amnesia ultimately brought them here…to a future where they could finally start to make new memories, together.

Chapter Text

One Month Later…

“You knew she could count cards, didn’t you?”

Jack didn’t think Reynolds would appreciate his amused smile after losing a sizable chunk of change so he lifted his beer and took a sip.

“It was your idea to have a poker night for the SGC commanding officers,” he eventually replied.

“Yeah,” Reynolds groaned. “Think you can convince her to sit out a few rounds?”

Jack was sure he could. Sam wasn’t really here for the poker. She probably wouldn’t even be winning so much if Ferretti hadn’t made an idiotic comment about showing her how to play.

Sam could handle herself and it was pretty hot watching her wipe the floor with the other guys.

“You could just learn to play better,” Jack suggested.

Poker vendettas aside, Sam was fitting in well with the other COs at the SGC and she’d already led her team on a couple of successful off-world missions. He was proud of her.

“Did that work for you, Jack?” Reynolds asked.

This time he didn’t bother to hide the smile.

“Oh, I don’t mind losing to her.”

In fact, losing had its advantages. Sam was always in an exceptionally good mood when she won.

It tended to work out well for him.

Before Jack could start daydreaming, he caught Reynolds’ look of disbelief.

“I can’t help it that you’re a sore loser, Al.”

“I usually win.”

Jack took another sip of his beer.

“Like I said, play better. Maybe Carter’ll even give you some tips if you ask nice.”

Reynolds laughed and lifted his beer for a drink. They both looked over in the direction of his dining room table where six COs were playing for a pile of cash in the middle and their other coworkers were mingling around, drinking and talking shit.

Sam stood out as the only woman at the table, but as far as Jack was concerned, she stood out in any crowd she was in.

“She’s doing well.”

“Yeah, she is,” he replied. “Had to deal with a Jaffa ambush yesterday, but got everyone back through the ‘gate injury-free.”

It was tough being on the other side and just waiting in the control room knowing that she was under fire. It would take some getting used to that he couldn’t protect her out in the field. The whole thing was a hell of a trade-off, but he trusted Sam to take care of herself and her team.

There were also plenty of advantages to no longer being in the same chain of command, like the heated kisses they indulged in before driving over here.

“And how’s your new team member?” Reynolds asked.

“Hailey’s working out. Still over-thinking things a little, but reliable when events go sideways.”

They continued chatting until the doorbell rang and Reynolds had to go pay for the pizza delivery.

Jack heard a mix of laughter and groans and looked over to see Sam gathering up a pile of money from the center of the table. She shoved the bills in her pocket and then shook her empty beer bottle and nodded towards the kitchen. She left her spot at the table and the leader of SG-14 took her place.

Jack grabbed a bottle of beer from the fridge and handed it over when she arrived. They both leaned against the counter.

“Done for the night?”

Sam took a drink before responding. “I wasn’t sure if their egos could take much more.”

Jack laughed. “I loved the stunned look on Ferretti’s face, so thanks for that.”

After a few devastating hands, Louis Ferretti bowed out of the game and Sam’s grin lit up the room.

As far as Jack was concerned, anyone who played her after that knew what they were getting themselves into.

“I just…”

“Didn’t want them to underestimate you.”

He remembered now how forceful she’d been the first day at the SGC when she thought she was being dismissed because of her gender. That hadn’t been the reason - Jack liked to pick his own team for important missions because you needed to have people around you who you could trust - but she’d been full of indignation.

“Yeah,” she sighed.

“You realize you’ve lost your advantage now? You could have taken them all for a lot more money.”

She shrugged. “It was worth it.”

Jack was glad that Sam finally had her confidence back. As much as the whole losing his memories fiasco had been rough on him, it had done a number on her faith in her own abilities for a while.

He knocked his shoulder against hers.

“So...a pool shark, amazing at cards, blew up a sun, saves the universe on a monthly basis…is there anything you can’t do?”

“If there is, I haven’t found it yet,” she joked.

He leaned towards her and whispered.

“Have I told you how much I love confidence in a woman?”

“I prefer actions over words. Why don’t you show me?”

Jack still wasn’t used to that outright seductive tone of voice she slipped into sometimes. He liked it. A lot. If they weren’t at a party, he’d lean forward and kiss her right now.

Instead, Jack slid his hand under her shirt on the side that was hidden from view and moved his thumb slowly along the soft skin at her waist.

“Tempting as that is, I think we should stay here for more than forty five minutes before we sneak out.”

Jack let his hand drop and took another sip of his beer.

He and Sam weren’t really hiding their new relationship, but they weren’t exactly flaunting it either. Both of them bailing on a party less than an hour after arriving was sure to draw more attention than they’d like.

“Who ever would have thought that you’d be the responsible one?” Sam said with a grin.

“You’re right. I don’t know what came over me. Let’s blow this pop stand.”

His agreement came too easily and Sam knew it. She tugged on his arm when he turned in the direction of the door in a false attempt to leave.

“An hour,” she announced firmly.

“Your wish is my command.”

Her eyes flashed with heat and he knew she was remembering the night a month earlier when she playfully ordered him to stay the night with her.

“One hour,” Jack promised, wishing they could leave immediately. He couldn’t believe the patience he used to have, waiting years with just the hope of being with her some day.

Thankfully, Reynolds interrupted the moment with boxes of pizza.

Sam got to the food first and passed back a plate with pepperoni slices for him before grabbing cheese for herself. She grabbed a packet of crushed red pepper as she moved away from the crowd and pressed it into his hand.

It was weird dating someone who knew him so well. Not weird in a bad way, just unexpected. Amazing.

It was like combining the comfort of marriage with the excitement of love at first sight.

Sam knew his history, his food preferences, and the way he’d act in hundreds of different situations. He knew the same about her.

Even with that, Jack was finding out that there were still so many things to learn about his former second in command.

He learned how she argued without rank in the way.

He learned how she kissed in the space between dreams and waking.

Most importantly, he started to learn pieces of Samantha Carter that she kept hidden from him in the past.

Each time she opened up to him, it felt like a gift.

Jack was lost in thought, watching Sam eat her pizza and chat with Major. Dan Harper from SG-5, when Dave Dixon said his name. He looked over.

“Dave,” he greeted.

The other man didn’t say anything at first, so Jack had another bite of pizza before putting the plate on the counter and picking up his beer. He watched Dixon’s eyes move between him and Sam. After a moment she glanced over at him and smiled before turning back towards Harper.

“So,” Dixon said, voice low, “Kent’s transfer worked out pretty well for you.”

“Well for Carter, you mean.”

Dixon chuckled. “Yeah, that too.”

Jack lifted an eyebrow. He didn’t plan to admit anything to anyone in the middle of this party.

“She’s an exceptional Air Force officer. She’s deserved a leadership role for a while.”

“I’m not arguing that, Jack. Look, I’m just saying - ”

“What?”

Dixon gave a huff of frustration and looked around them to make sure no one was nearby before answering.

“I’m just saying, Lainie’s always liked Carter. If you two ever want to come over for dinner, the invite’s open. That’s all.” Dixon finished off the last of his beer. “You’re a pain in the ass sometimes, O’Neill.”

This time Jack chuckled.

“That’s why we get along so well,” he replied. He paused and thought about the conversations he had with Sam about the levels of discretion they planned to have around different co-workers. She wouldn’t mind if Dixon and his wife knew. “I’ll talk to her about it. We’ll get something set up. Maybe not right away, but - ”

“I’ll let Lainie know.”

Jack nodded and their conversation moved on to sports, with Ferretti and Thomas joining them after grabbing some pizza. Next, they chatted about a few of the new recruits to the SGC and some of the weird stuff they’d run into on recent missions.

Then Dixon stared talking about an upcoming vacation he planned to take with his wife and kids.

As he was describing the nightmare it could be to drive out of state with four kids, Jack realized that he’d finally get the opportunity to bring Sam to the cabin with him. Scheduling at least a week’s leave at the same time might be more complicated now that they were on different teams, but it would be worth it to sit with her at the end of the dock and watch the sun set.

He looked across the room and caught her eye. Sam tilted her head at the clock on Reynolds’ wall. It had been fifty minutes. Close enough.

He nodded.

Jack wrapped up his conversation with the guys and walked towards the door. He didn’t bother saying goodbye to anyone else. They were used to him just heading out when he felt like it without observing all the pleasantries.

Sam opened the passenger side door of his car fifteen minutes later.

“I was starting to wonder if you were going to make it out of there.”

She closed the door and put her seatbelt on.

“It would have been rude to leave without saying goodbye.”

He laughed at the small tinge of judgment in her voice.

“Hey, they’re used to me being rude. Plus, I made my girlfriend a promise that we’d get out of there in an hour.”

Sam’s expression softened when he used the term girlfriend.

“In fact,” he continued, “seems to me you were in a rush to leave earlier. Something about how you preferred actions over words…”

He let his voice trail off and waggled his eyebrows at her.

Sam laughed and shook her head. “Just get us home.”

Jack drove them to his place, where she already had a weekend bag tucked away in the bedroom. He liked that even if she meant the phrase generically, she called his house “home.”

Jack didn’t want to rush things - didn’t want to jinx the fact that his relationship with Carter was going so well - but he looked forward to the day they eventually moved in together. It felt like an inevitability that they’d share a home one day.

In the meantime, he planned to enjoy the fact that she felt as comfortable at his house as he was starting to feel at hers. Spending time together required a little coordination because SG-1 and SG-7 had different schedules, but it was worth it, especially when Jack got to wake with Sam curled up beside him.

As they drove, Jack told Sam about the dinner invite from the Dixons and that Reynolds might hit her up for some poker tips.

Sam regaled him with stories of her winning poker hands and they joked about how to spend the money she won, the ideas growing increasingly ridiculous as they got closer to his house.

“Buy Ferretti a shirt that says, ‘Sam Carter kicked my ass at cards,’” Jack suggested as he pulled into the driveway. “And then bribe him to wear it.”

Sam laughed.

“Fun, but I prefer the idea of putting the money towards our weekend getaway. Get a nice dinner or something.”

Sam had been kicking around the idea of actually using some of her leave for a three-day weekend away soon and Jack was going to join her. He was looking forward to it.

“Yeah,” he agreed. “That idea’s better.”

They exited the car and walked to the door. Once inside, Sam dropped her purse to the floor and they hung their jackets on the coat hooks.

As soon as her hands were empty, Jack turned Sam around and kissed her, slow and tender. She tasted like pizza and beer.

Sam hummed against his lips as they parted. Her eyelids fluttered open and a soft smile brightened her face.

“That’s what that party was missing,” she said.

Jack ran his fingers through her hair and played with the strands.

“Funny. I had the exact same thought.”

Jack considered what it might be like to go to a party with her that wasn’t full of their co-workers. A party where he could pull her close and press a brief, chaste kiss to her lips or sling an arm around her shoulders as they talked to family or friends. It was something else to look forward to.

Sam announced that she was going to brush her teeth and Jack followed her to the bathroom. She grabbed her blue toothbrush out of the holder and he reached for his green one. They took turns applying the toothpaste.

He stood there for a while just watching her brush her teeth in front of his bathroom mirror before he started to do the same. He liked the domesticity of the fact that she had a toothbrush in his bathroom and that sometimes they brushed their teeth at the same time, taking turns to spit in the sink and rinse. It was such a normal couple thing to do and they were two people who rarely had moments of normalcy in their lives.

Jack put his toothbrush back in the holder and Sam tilted her face up for a kiss. Jack’s hands went to rest lightly on her hips. Her hands moved to his shoulders.

There were nights when they came home and were all over each other from the time they closed the front door, losing clothes in the hallway on the way to the bedroom.

There were also nights like this, where every touch was a slow, comforting seduction in the midst of everyday rituals.

Sam scraped her nails through the hair at the back of his head and gave him one more kiss before leaning back.

“Minty fresh.”

“Toothpaste and Carter…one of my favorite flavor combinations.”

Sam laughed and he reveled in the sound. She’d been lighter over the past month - happier - as if there was a weight off her shoulders. At first Jack thought it was due to the fact that they’d solved his memory issues.

Then he realized that he felt like he had a burden lifted too.

Jack didn’t understand how much energy he’d been using to hide his feelings about Sam - from her, from himself, from everyone they knew - until he didn’t have to hide anymore.

He still caught himself censoring his own thoughts and actions sometimes out of habit, but he was getting better at it and Sam was too. She smiled more and laughed more. They were breaking down all those barriers they spent years building up. Even though they weren’t in the field together anymore, her happiness made it worth it.

Sam pulled out her makeup remover and began to wipe away the mascara and eyeshadow she had on.

While she was doing that, Jack walked over to his side of the bed to set the alarm. SG-1 had an early morning mission the next day and he knew that if he didn’t set it now, he’d get distracted and forget.

“You know, SG-5 went to go check on the refugees from P3X-289 this week,” Sam said as she walked out of the bathroom. “Harper said they’re doing well.”

“That’s good,” Jack replied, only to watch Sam deflate a little right in front of him.

He walked over to her, suddenly realizing that she’d probably been mulling over that conversation with Harper in the back of her mind ever since they left the party.

“What’s wrong?”

“According to Janet, they’re probably not going to be able to get their memories back like you did. Everything’s been overwritten countless times, like a videotape that was re-used too much. They’ll be fine moving forward, of course. They just won’t be able to get back what they’ve lost.”

She looked up, blue eyes swimming with emotion, and put her palm on his cheek.

“We’re so lucky that code didn’t affect your brain the same way.”

“I knew you only wanted me for my brain,” he joked, trying to break her melancholy mood.

Her lips quirked up.

“Your brain…among other things.”

Jack placed his hand on Sam’s waist, needing to touch her.

“They’ll be okay, Sam. And I would have been okay too if I never got my memories back, but I’m so glad I did.”

“I am too.”

Losing his memories permanently wouldn’t have been the only tragedy in Jack’s life and he would have dealt with it if he needed to. When it looked like they wouldn’t be able to restore his memories of SG-1, he’d at least found comfort in the fact that he already started rebuilding those bonds.

Now that he had the memories back, though, he cherished them. He thought about every time Sam smiled at one of his bad jokes, Daniel tried to argue with him out of good-hearted idealism, or Teal’c stood by his side when he had to make hard choices.

The false set of memories had been lonely and more difficult to bear.

“Thinking about those two versions of my life - with SG-1 or without - I just…my life is so much better with you in it.”

A wide grin brightened her face. Jack felt so lucky that he got to see that smile directed at him. She didn’t duck her head to try and hide it anymore.

“My life is so much better with you, too,” Sam said before wrapping her arms around his waist and resting her head against his chest.

Jack held her close and placed a soft kiss against her hair.

“You know what I thought about you back on P3X-289 when I lost my memories?”

When Jack considered that mission on ‘289 now, he saw it through two different perspectives. He understood why Sam had broken down with the shock of what happened. But he also remembered the feelings and thoughts he had that day on the planet. Jack had been drawn to Sam Carter even without knowing her.

Sam pulled back and looked up, eyes sparkling with amusement.

“That I was a basketcase?”

He shook his head and trailed his fingers down the curve of her cheek.

“That you were sexy, and smart, and definitely someone I needed to know.”

“And now that you do know me?” Sam asked.

Jack knew that in her question, the phrase know me was synonymous with remember me.

He ran his fingers through her hair and cradled her face.

He didn’t know if he had the right words to explain what she meant to him. What was it she said that night in his room on base? Something about the loss of a single person feeling bigger than a global catastrophe?

All Jack knew was that he wouldn’t want to live without her either.

“Now that I know you…I know you’re everything to me, Sam.”

Her eyes glistened with unshed tears.

“I may have been wrong earlier when I said I preferred actions over words. You’re pretty good at both.”

Jack felt like he was only pretty good with words with her, and even that was a recently discovered talent. He’d spent years saying the wrong thing or saying nothing at all before they were able to get to this point.

“You deserve both,” he told her, before capturing her lips in a passionate kiss and trailing his hands down her body the way he never would have been able to a few months earlier.

Sam deserved everything he could offer her now, both in words and deeds.

Jack felt the heat that had been simmering between them all evening come to a boil as Sam tugged at the hem of his shirt and moved her lips along his jaw.

“Jack.”

He could hear layers in the way she said his single syllable name. There was impatience, seduction, tenderness, love, and joy. All somehow expressed in four simple letters.

Jack couldn’t help but smile against the skin of her neck.

He loved her so much.

The war wasn’t over and Earth wasn’t safe, but now - at last - they at least had this. They had each other. As far as Jack was concerned, being able to to love Sam Carter made the sacrifices feel worthwhile.