Sursum Corda
by Pough
Part 3

Back to Part 2

Sam stepped back from the door, lowered her head and listened. When she was met by continuous silence, she knocked again. "Colonel?"

"I do not believe he is home, Major Carter," Teal'c said, raising his chin.

"Maybe he's in there, but doesn't want to come to the door." Sam began to walk around the side of the house. Teal'c followed.

"If he did not wish to greet guests, would he not be disturbed to find prowlers in his backyard?" said Teal'c, sidestepping the neighbor's dog's gift.

"Well, okay, what if he's re-injured his hip?"

"Pelvis."

"Whatever," she said, peeking in the windows. "I'd like to think he'd be glad to see us."

"I am certain that is not the case," Teal'c said, stopping short of joining Sam on the back porch.

"Colonel, you in there?" she called out, checking to make sure the door was locked.

"Major Carter, we have been here for over ten minutes. I feel quite confident that O'Neill is, in fact, not home."

Sam's chin dropped, her shoulders sagged. She touched the glass one last time for good measure and backed away.  The colonel has a great backyard, she thought, standing on his deck, looking over his land.  I wonder how much he gets to enjoy it.

"Where do you think he is, Teal'c?" she asked, taking a seat on the top step.

Teal'c sat down next to Sam, and said, "I am only certain of the fact that he is not here. Beyond that, I am lacking in evidence."

Sam had to smile, once again comforted by Teal'c's malapropism. "You do that on purpose, don't you?"

"I believe answering in the negative, yet implying the affirmative would be appropriate at this time."

Sam scooted closer to him and rested her head on his shoulder. Teal'c glanced down at the top of his friend's head. "I worry about him, Teal'c. I worry about both of them."

"As do I."

"The colonel's been through a tremendous ordeal, Daniel's just getting his...mortal feet under him again. They both seem so scattered." The warmth of an early spring breeze touched their faces. Sam closed her eyes, enjoyed both the comfort of the air and the strength of her friend at her side. "I don't know. I just worry. Do you think their friendship will withstand this latest...crap?"

"O'Neill and DanielJackson are, as we say on Chulack, like mates who have lived long and withstood enough together that the only thing stronger than their dislike for each other is their true devotion."

"Like an old married couple."

Teal'c eyed Sam. "I did not infer any impropriety where O'Neill and DanielJackson are concerned."

"No, it's just..." she began, always caught off guard, never knowing just what Teal'c understood and what he didn't. In seven years, she still couldn't quite get a handle on him. It made her love him that much more. "I guess my point is this: Since Daniel came back, he seems a little...off. Have you noticed that?"

"He has, indeed. However, give him time," Teal'c said. "In order to regain one's original strength, the recuperation period must last as long as the injury lasted."

"Is that more of Master Bratac's sagacity?" she asked, slipping her arm through his.

"No," he said, taking her hand. "I came upon that in 'Runners' World.' The depth of it seemed fitting for this particular quandary."

"I gotta tell ya, Teal'c," Sam said, giggling, "after this stint at the SGC, you might want to think about the comedy circuit."

"What is this comedy circuit that you and O'Neill speak so highly of?"

"It's not important." Sam wrapped her hand around Teal'c's bicep and felt herself relax, or maybe just surrender to her impotence. "I wonder what Master Bratac would say about the colonel's present condition."

The corner of Teal'c's mouth turned up, along with one eyebrow. "You can be assured that Master Bratac would inform O'Neill that should he not draw upon his capacity to rebound within a short period of time, Master Bratac would swiftly connect his boot with O'Neill's hindquarters. He would next inform O'Neill that this action would continue until O'Neill found himself to be in the twenty-second century." Sam looked up, saw that Teal'c was smiling, and began to chuckle. Then laugh. They both laughed, until their faces were wet with tears.

"Oh, Teal'c," she said, after a moment, "what are we gonna do?"

"The SGC is the very marrow in O'Neill's bones. He will return."

"I hope so. I hope so."

Eight miles until Ely, and finally he'd be home. Home to that hardly inhabitable cabin in the wilds of Minnesota that had come to be his refuge. Of course, even a refuge needed work. He didn't know how long he would be staying, but he thought he'd look into getting a new water heater. Roughing it with cold showers or baths in the lake was fine when he was younger. Now, well... Probably meant he was getting soft and all, but if enjoying a hot shower meant he was old, so be it.

He hoped the old Log Cabin Party Store and Bait Shop was still open. Every year that he went in there it looked like it was on its last legs. The store's saving grace was that it was so far north (100 miles out of Duluth, for crying out loud), the state's health people probably didn't even know it was there. The beer distributor knew it was there, however, and Norbert, the owner, survived the long winters by catering to the expensive tastes of the hunters. The man knew how to stock beer. Nonetheless, Jack was fairly sure he'd seen the same pimento loaf in the refrigerator case for the last three years.

He began to make a list of the things he'd pick up: Coffee, beer, water bottles—he couldn't take his meds with beer anymore. Another lovely effect of age. Pretty much, that was all he really wanted. Maybe some bread for toast in the morning with his...beer.

He wondered how the roof had held up over the winter. It was gathering moss, and Jack, not the handyman that Sam was, thought that wasn't a good sign. He tried to think back when the last layer of shingles had been laid—twenty, thirty years ago?

Some months back Jack had called an old friend and asked how much snow they had received. "Oh, ya know, we haven't had the snow, maybe only up to the window casings. But the cold has been awful bitter." Okay, first the hot water heater, then a new roof.

He'd have to hire someone, but that would entail having to speak to another person, which didn't fit in with the hermit's life Jack was hoping to begin.

"Ah, the hell with it. If the roof caves in, that's the way it goes."

For years he told himself he'd put some money into the place, spruce it up. More than likely it was so far out of code the county could have torn it down two decades past. That is if they knew where it was. And that's why he loved northern Minnesota so much—nobody ever bothered crotchety old recluses or degenerate PCP producers.

People understood privacy. Up there on the Canadian border, with no more paved roads between Ely and Thunder Bay, a person could regroup. Disappear, if he so pleased. Up there in Boundary Water territory, where it never got too hot, but it certainly got cold, a person could live in peace. A person could live out his life without ever having to hurt another person, or be hurt. A person could stand still and forget.

Six miles out of Ely, and Jack could almost breathe again.

Almost.

"May I come in, sir?" Teal'c asked, just outside the general's office.

"Why, certainly, Teal'c." General Hammond capped his pen and offered Teal'c a seat. "How can I help you?"

"It would seem Colonel O'Neill has gone on a holiday, of sorts."

"Yes, I believe he has." The general wove his fingers together and regarded Teal'c with warmth and respect. "Colonel O'Neill has a lot on his mind."

"Indeed." Teal'c bowed deferentially. "It is my hope that O'Neill finds a measure of peace during this respite."

"Mine, too."

"Since leaving the SGC two days ago, Major Carter and I have been unable to locate him."

"I'm sure you haven't."

"Perhaps you could provide me with information regarding his whereabouts," Teal'c said.

"I'm sorry, Teal'c," the general all but whispered. "I can't. The colonel checked in with me this morning, and all I can tell you is he's fine. He just needs our patience and our understanding."

"Which he already has," Teal'c said, rising from his chair. "Thank you for your time, sir."

"Certainly. Teal'c?"

"Yes, General."

The general tipped back in his chair, ran his fingers over his scalp and weighed his words carefully. Something in Jack's voice that morning told him that Jack needed more than rest. He needed a friend, someone he could trust. Someone who wouldn't judge him. Hammond met Teal'c's gaze, studied the Jaffa for a moment, and an idea came to him. "When's the last time you went on a vacation?"

"Sergeant Siler and I went to Albuquerque just last fall to observe the migration of hot air vehicles. It was indeed an...interesting event."

The general laughed. "I'm sure it was. I hear the Midwest is particularly lovely this time of year. Plenty of saplings, spring blossoms. You might consider making that your next trip."

Teal'c locked eyes with the general, tipped his head and said, "Then perhaps that should be my next destination."

"Perhaps it should."

Teal'c let a smile as gentle as breath fill his lips. "General Hammond, would you be so kind as to allow my leave of absence from this base for a short time?"

"By all means."

Teal'c nodded, and the general bowed in return. Teal'c rose from his chair and began to step toward the door.

"Teal'c," Hammond called out just before the other man stepped outside. Teal'c turned around, looked at him with a patient but expectant expression. Hammond rubbed a hand over his jaw before speaking again. "Tell Colonel O'Neill—tell Jack I'm sorry."

"I am certain there is no need," Teal'c said, reassuring the general. "However, I will pass along the sentiment."

"Thank you, Teal'c," he said, and with that, Teal'c began his vacation.

Jack forced open the warped door, and the bell jingled. Old scraped and pitted pine flooring underfoot, yellowing shelves held miscellaneous goods, coolers whose glass doors were occluded with condensation—the Log Cabin Party Store and Bait Shop, where right next to the one-pound brick of butter you'd find night crawlers and crickets. It didn't get much better than this...

Jack picked up a loaf of spongy white bread, fortified with eight essential vitamins and minerals to make bones strong. Yeah, he'd need some of that. He looked over the individual fruit pies, wrapped in wax paper, their edges slightly curling. Fruit, good. He'd read somewhere that blueberries had anti-oxidants, and there were probably a couple berries in each of those pies. He'd take two.

His items began to slip from his one free hand, so he brought them up to the counter, where the proprietor of the establishment sat on a milk crate between the counter and the gnarled pine shelves filled with liquor. A smile crept over Jack's lips.

"Got any lottery tickets?" Jack asked, placing the bread and pies on the scratched plastic counter top. The owner didn't look up, a grainy picture on his eight-inch television held his attention. He merely pointed to the rolls of embossed tickets hanging next to the gin.

Jack's eyes twinkled. He took hold of his cane and limped toward the coolers. A couple six packs of Guinness in his hand, and a six-pack of water under his arm, and back to the counter. "So, is there a lake nearby? I'm thinking of doing a little fishing," he said.

The man turned from his TV, his expression dull. "Uh, there's about a thousand—Well, I'll be!" he said, clapping his hands, jumping up. "If it isn't Jack O'Neill! How's she goin', eh?"

Jack took the man's hand with its craggy fingers in his own. "How are ya, Norbert?"

"Oh, ya know. Real good." Norbert stood looking over his old friend, smiling wide enough to show off all his plates. "Yah, real good."

"Well, I'm glad to hear it," Jack said, turning to the snack food aisle. He grabbed a couple bags of chips and returned them to the counter.

"I see dat yer limpin' again," Norbert said, waving his hand toward Jack's leg. "Dat ol' knee givin' ya da business, or'd ya finally break a hip?"

Jack saw no point in the truth, so he simply laughed noncommittally, nodded and perused the assortment of frozen burritos.

"Boy, and it shore don't get no easier after a certain age, eh," Norbert said, beginning to ring up the goods.

Jack tossed two bean burritos on the counter, pulled his money from his pocket and started counting out bills. "No, it sure doesn't."

"So, ya still wid da Air Force, then?"

"Just until they kick me out."

"Haven't seen ya 'round dese parts much." Norbert craned his neck to see past Jack, to the fruit pie shelf and its sign. "Oh, thems are two-fers."

"Really? I'll get two more." Jack hooked his cane on the edge of the counter and hobbled over to the shelf.

"So, ya been o'er seas?"

"Uh, yeah," Jack said, placing a lemon and a strawberry pie down with the rest. "Here and there."

"Nice to be home, though, yah?"

"Yah sure," Jack said, with barely perceptible sincerity. He slapped a fifty on the counter. "You betcha."

Norbert slid the bill off the countertop and handed Jack his change. He pulled a crisp paper bag from under the counter, shook it open and began placing Jack's items inside. "Hey, so ya wannna beer? Alise is in da backroom, going over the books. She and I was just havin' a couple. She'd be tickled pink ta see ya."

Jack looked at his watch. "A beer? It's 8:30 in the morning," he said, deferring to the civilian timekeeping and standard alcohol-consumption decorum.

"Oh, jumpin' jiminy!" Norbert said, cracking his hands together. "Alise, finish 'er up, eh! We gotta make 9 o'clock Mass."

"My, how the catechism has changed."

"Oh, not so much as ya'd notice," Norbert said, pulling a handful of summer sausage sticks from a jar. He held them up for Jack to inspect and summarily placed them in Jack's bag. Norbert grabbed the bag and the water, and came around the counter. Jack, appreciative, took the two six packs of Guinness and met him at the door. "So how long ya gonna be in town, there, Jack?"

"Not sure, Norbert," Jack said, fishing out his keys. "Just enough time to build up my tolerance for well water again, I suppose."

Norbert handed Jack the bag and then the water, and said, "Don't forget about the euchre tournament every Wednesday, down at the K of C."

"That's still going on?"

"Oh, yah, sure."

Jack slid into his truck and put the key in the ignition. "I haven't played in...God, who knows?"

"Wha'? Not played euchre?" Norbert said, shocked. "Dey don't play euchre out yer way?"

"Oh, you'd be surprised how few euchre players I run into." And with that, Jack thought it best to crank the engine.

"Well, ya come on down. You'll pick 'er right up before ya know it."

"Right and left bower?" Jack asked, with a wink.

"Dems would be da ones."

"Maybe, Norbert," Jack said, shaking the man's hand. "Tell Alise to keep one cold for me."

"Oh, yah and so," the old man said, shutting Jack's door. He slapped the hood for good measure, and Jack was off.

My dear Major Carter, the note began, and Sam, having never actually received a note from Teal'c, found it oddly humorous that the Jaffa was now resorting to handwritten notes.

With General Hammond's permission, I am taking a brief holiday. I shall return within a week. There is no reason for concern. I am merely familiarizing myself with your geography.

Teal'c

Sam turned the note over, a ridiculous thing to do, as if there would be more on the other side. There never was. Part of the human condition to hope, she thought.

With the colonel gone, Teal'c off gallivanting around the countryside (she very much hoped not in that cowboy hat), and Daniel holed up in his office, Sam felt about as alone as anyone could in a military base staffed by a few hundred people.

"Hey, Sam."

Sam spun around and was greeted by her friend. "Hey, Janet."

"Anything wrong?"

"Um," Sam waffled, looking over the note once more, "I'm not really sure. My teammates kind of keep disappearing, and this time the Asgard have nothing to do with it." She handed the note to Janet.

"Huh." Janet read over the note, smacked her lips together and gave it back to Sam. "He has rather elegant handwriting, doesn't he?"

Sam, chagrined, sighed and said, "Yeah, but aside from that, where does that leave me?"

"I suppose that leaves you to your lab." Janet shrugged, and the hurt in Sam's eyes made her rethink her callousness. "Look, SG1 has overcome worse, Sam. You know that. I mean, for goodness sake, Daniel came back. That in itself was a minor...no, major miracle."

"Speaking of Daniel," Sam said, folding the note and placing it in her jacket pocket, "do you know where he is?"

"I believe he checked out of the base to go to the Academy's dental office."

"Great," Sam said, tossing her hands in the air. "Everybody gets to leave the mountain except for me."

"Where would you like to go?"

"God, I have no idea. Anywhere. Nowhere. I don't know." Sam raked her bangs off her forehead.

"How about dinner tonight. Just you and me. We'll throw back some green apple martinis, wear something devilish and decidedly not military, and toy with Colorado Springs' most eligible and gullible bachelors. What d'ya think?"

Sam had to smile in spite of her bad mood. "Yeah. That would be nice."

"Good. I'll pick you up around seven," Janet said. "Oh, and Sam?"

"Yeah?"

Janet lifted one eyebrow and tweaked a wicked grin. "Bring the note. I think we should discuss Teal'c familiarizing himself with our geography—particularly mine."

"Janet!"

"See you at seven," she said, spinning on her heels. Sam snickered, once again buoyed by her friends.

Jack stood on the four-by-four cement slab, chipped and dotted with lichen, that signified the entranceway to the cabin, reached up and lifted one of the shingles at the ridge of the roofline, just above his head. The edge crumbled in his hand. Just as he had suspected—the place was disintegrating.

The key to the cabin, as it had for decades, hung on a hook just behind the lantern next to the door. Jack didn't really know why they even bothered locking the old cabin. Except for that incident with the lost deer hunters, nobody had ever been in the place that hadn't meant to be there. He unhooked the key, swiped it against his pant legs, and jimmied it into the rusty lock. One of those locks you had to finesse—a jiggle here, pull up on the handle, turn one way, then the other, and before you know it, you're in. Okay, that probably needed replacing, too. The whole place was in disrepair, more than he even remembered. The caulking around the windows was cracked and peeling, the panes rattled when he shut the door.

As soon as he closed the door, he smelled it—musty, damp, rot; generations of dusty cushions and baked insulated wiring. Fifty winters of bone-cracking cold, and fifty summers of oppressive humidity. Ashes left in the fireplace had absorbed some of the moisture, but now they sent out their own acrid scent. The faded wallpaper's integrity seemed to lie only in the years upon years of fish fries, boiled down coffee, and evaporated beer. Dead flies and withered spiders sprinkled the windowsills. Floorboards buckled and separated. The mixture of odors settled on the back of Jack's throat and deep in his sinuses, and he gagged. It smelled to him like a compost of years, like something left to rot.

Clamping his jacket sleeve against his nose, Jack clambered about the place, throwing open decades-old curtains and even older windows, whose rotting edges stuck to the casings, finally lifting with a shriek. He grappled to the front door, threw it open, and made his way to the back door. One way or another he'd have to get rid of that stench, or there was no way he could stay there. Not if it smelled like that other place.

Jack tried to breathe only through his mouth, but the stench was organic, almost palpable, and it heated the fetid air inside the cabin. His head buzzed and whirled. His stomach roiled. He didn't need to be in a place like this, not again. He closed his eyes as though that would somehow lessen the rankness of the very air assaulting him. Except, somehow, behind his closed lids, he saw the eyes.  Their eyes. Watching him, studying him. Even here he couldn't escape them. He was sure he could feel his bones shattering again. Jack scraped against the back door trying to get out, a strangled sound of protest escaping his tightly clenched teeth.

And then it was gone, the stench of death and decay. Jack's eyes blinked, his heart raced. His mouth slung open, sucking in clean air. He moved slowly to the edge of the lake, the tip of his cane sinking in the spongy ground. A soft mist floated over the still lake.

Water bugs, like miniscule rowing crews engaged in a haphazard race, skittered across the surface of the water. Loons warbled in the distance, and at the boundary of yard and woods, lilacs. Gentle mounds of soft lavender. Their perfume filtered through the air, a lush fragrance, mercifully replacing the smell of decay that filled Jack's swooning head. To touch the supple buds, pluck one and taste its delicate nectar—gather an armful and carry them to your mother, your teacher, your wife. Place them in a vase and brush the pollen from your sleeves to the sounds of, "Oh, they're beautiful." A lifetime ago...

Had he imagined all those details? Had his memory embellished the simple beauty of the lilacs and the placidity of the cabin? Were they exaggerated sensory memories, just like his exaggerated sense that all would be well once he reached the cabin? Jack lost himself in the mosaic of the bush—spring green and soft mauve, the tender morning sun glistening off the tiny buds. He had the thought that if he could hold the lilacs in his hand, bury his nose deep in their blossoms, that the tactile presence would make it all right and real. That he would be fine and grounded. But the land between the edge of the lake and the bushes looked a little wet, a little unstable, and Jack decided he'd have to appreciate them from a distance. Distance seemed to put most things in perspective. Anyhow, maybe nothing would ever be right or real again, and not even the lilacs of his childhood could bring him fully home.

Home to a place that was falling down all around him. Everything passes its state of usefulness, he thought. Everything and everyone.

The overused muscles in his hip and legs burned. His head pounded. A fatigue had cascaded over him, and Jack plodded back to the porch. He reached out for one of the covered Adirondack chair, pulled off the stained and mildewed tarp, wiped off most of the cobwebs, picked at the flaking paint. He let fall the old duck-cloth covering and lowered his body into the creaking chair. The hard wood didn't help matters, but the angle, the way his head was forced to fall back, made his fatigue all that much more pervasive. He pulled the collar of his jacket up around his ears and hoped the song of the birds would carry him to a quieter, less troubled place. Crows cackled at squirrels; squirrels barked at chipmunks.

Still, it could be worse. He could have been sitting in his office. His office. They were probably emptying it at that moment. Who would take his place? Major Kipfer was due for a promotion. Major Bannon was too, though he didn't deserve it. And, of course, there was Major Carter. She more than deserved it, but knowing Sam as he did, he knew she'd never take the eagles if it meant he was leaving on less than wonderful terms. She'd rather spend the rest of her career as a 2IC than betray her commander.

But he wasn't her commander anymore, and he could hardly be trusted to command anyone again.

"God, Daniel..."

There would be no promotion, no failing upward. He had struck Daniel, and now he was pretty sure they would graciously accept his resignation. Besides, the Air Force had spent enough money on medical expenses on the old guy. Why would they ever bother with the expense of court proceedings?

He'd resign. Even if they didn't court martial him, what did he realistically have left? Nothing. No, he was done. Sell the house, move back to Minnesota. Nothing keeping him in Colorado anymore, nothing important. Move to the cabin for the summer; look for a place closer to Duluth in the fall. Nothing fancy—just a place with enough space between him and the rest of the world so he wouldn't have to deal with anyone. Maybe a place surrounded by trees. In the woods he could trust himself again. Trust that he wouldn't hurt anyone.

Jack pressed his fingers to his searing eyes. "Jesus..."

What if he sent Daniel a note, something. An apology. "Dear Daniel, I'm sorry I smacked you, but sometimes you piss me off." No. "Dear Daniel, you had no idea what was going on, so when you came in I took my anger out on you. Sorry about that. Next time, maybe notch down the questioning when my head is about to explode." Not helping. "Dear Doctor Jackson, you knew this would happen at some point."

This was getting him nowhere.

Disappear. Move to the fringe of civilization, and live out whatever was left of his days. Maybe legitimately break a hip on the ice, like people were supposed to do, not falling from a sensory deprivation stasis beam while they all watched...

Disappear, so no one else will see the truth—the truth of his worthlessness. That he's no good to himself, or anyone else. That from here on out he'd probably only be a burden, and, Christ, the last thing he ever wanted was to be a burden. Or beholden.

No, best to just leave it all behind. Forget. Forget. Never forgive...

Sam looked over the results of the spectrum analysis she had run, and Daniel stared at a book on Minoan dialects. When he slammed the book shut, Sam jumped and glared at him.

"Was that necessary?" she asked, touching her fingers to her carotid artery.

"I gotta get out of here," Daniel said. He raised his hands to the ceiling, stretched his shoulders and arms.

"Fine. Let's go." Sam put her computer on standby and grabbed her jacket off the back of her chair.

Daniel froze mid-stretch, and said, "Um, okay. Where?"

"I don't know," she said. "Up. Out. We'll go for a ride. Who knows?"

Daniel's arms fell into his lap. He thought about it a moment, couldn't think of anything that seemed more important, and said, "How'd you get here?"

"The 1952 Volvo," she said with pride, pulling on her jacket.

"Then I'll drive," he said.

"Are you kidding? Didn't your car win all sorts of safety awards?"

"Yes, I believe it did. 'Car and Driver' said it was the safest sedan on the market."

"Yeah," Sam said, scrunching up her nose. "You know what? I think I'll drive."

"Does your car even have seat belts?"

"Probably, but it's so low to the ground the center of gravity issues are almost negated, thereby forcing its occupants into the seats at low Gs, rather than torquing—"

"This is like a physics thing, isn't it?"

"Do you understand anything that I'm saying?"

"Enough to know I'm being bamboozled."

"Come on, Daniel!" Sam sighed, dropping her hands to her side. "I thought you wanted to get out of here."

"Fine," he said, carefully stacking his pile of books. "We'll take your car. But you do realize we're expected back, and—here's the kicker—we're expected back alive." Daniel winked at her, and Sam was fairly certain she would be able to excuse him this last time for his sarcastic eye-thing, and after that she'd have to kick his ass.

"You'll be fine, pretty boy," she said. "I'm a licensed pilot. Besides, the government trusts me."

"Please tell me you're not going to recite 'Top Gun' lines now," he said, finding it curious to discover that he'd tucked a pencil behind his ear at some point. Someone's initials were carved into the end near the gnawed-on eraser.

"What? No." Sam turned off the lights in her lab. "Besides, that's Navy. Don't know if you noticed, but Air Force officers don't tend to recite lines from movies about Naval aviators." And then it was Sam's turn to wink at Daniel.

"No, of course, because you're too busy reciting lines from 'The Wizard of Oz,'" he said, holding the door open for her.

"To Oz, then?" she asked, gliding by him.

"To Oz," he said, and they proceeded to the exit, only a short corridor and eighteen flights away.

Once outside, they paused just at the mouth of the mountain and shaded their eyes.

"Was it this sunny this morning?" Daniel asked, clipping his sunglasses on over his frames. When his hand dropped from his glasses, his fingers grazed against the still tender lump on his jaw, just turning from hard purple to jaundiced yellow.

"Couldn't tell ya. I was stationed on base last night," Sam said. "I'm parked over here."

While they walked, Daniel toyed with the new filling in his tooth, still rough and unfamiliar to his tongue, and therefore irresistible. A nervous habit, he thought, and told himself to stop it. Find something else to occupy your mind, or, at the very least, your tongue.

"Ya have any gum, Sam?" he asked.

Sam nodded toward her car, and said, "Yeah, in the console."

"Sugarless?"

"No."

"Good."

"The Nutrasweet makes me dizzy."

"Oh."

"Aspartame is also bad."

"So I've heard."

"Do you remember saccharine?"

"Um..."

"My mom used to drink Tab. Remember Tab?"

"Not..."

"And Diet Rite."

"Sam?"

"I don't mind Diet Vanilla Coke, but..."

"Sam," Daniel said, reaching for her elbow. "Is there a point to this?"

Sam looked at him, not quite seeing him for a moment, and said, "Uh, no. I guess not. I think I'm tired."

"Okay, so tell me why I'm getting in a car with an exhausted, spacey driver?" he asked.

Sam glowered. "You wanna go, or not?" Daniel shrugged, and Sam unlocked her car door, slid behind the wheel and reached across to unlock Daniel's door. Daniel perused the low opening and tried to decide how best to get his six-foot frame into a sardine can. Very carefully, he thought.

"Daniel, let's go," she called, leaning across his seat, the motor already revving. Daniel harrumphed and wedged himself into the car. He had just grabbed the door handle when Sam began to pull away. It was going to be an interesting ride.

But once out on the open road, Sam was the model of responsible driving. Daniel wondered if just getting out of the mountain was enough to bring her a modicum of peace. What, he wondered, would do the same for him? He couldn't remember the last time he felt at peace. With the Ancients, yes, he was at peace, but he was also very much alone. And lonely. That, he remembered.

God, his memory—it was so scattered and piecemeal. The damnedest things bubbled up at the most inappropriate times, or the strangest things disappeared in the endless black of his mind.

When they had first brought him back to the SGC, he remembered telling himself to act natural. Greet people with the same amount of candor and effervescence as he had always greeted people. Or not. He couldn't be sure. Those were the hardest days, the days and weeks when whole chunks of his past bombarded him, always scrambled and always askew. He relied on his teammates in those days to help reconstruct the pieces, especially Jack. Jack had always been the one to not only help him with the chronology of things, but do it in a casual manner, as if a little amnesia here and there was no big thing. Jack was always the one who patiently let Daniel blabber on until the parts came together, and he was always the one who patted Daniel on the back and either congratulated him, or consoled him.

Of course, there was the two-day period when he led Daniel to believe his favorite food was mashed potatoes with taco sauce. Neither Daniel nor his intestines had forgiven Jack for that.

But more often than not, Jack was there to help guide him through the labyrinth of memories. Like the week after he had descended, when, in a quiet moment, the face of a woman popped into Daniel's mind. He had closed his eyes to better concentrate on her features. He knew the face, but for the life of him he couldn't figure out who she was to him.

He breathed deeply and slowly, willing his mind to provide him with more details—an action, a scent, a voice.

"Honey? Time for dinner, Danny."

Daniel was up and out of his chair, and racing down the hall before the woman could turn around again in his memory. His jacket billowed behind him, his mind bursting with images and sounds.

"Jack!" Daniel cried, rounding the corner to Jack's office.

Two levels of carefully constructed playing cards tumbled down to Jack's desk. Jack's head slumped forward, and from his chest, he barked, "What?!"

"Oh, um...sorry about..." he began, but he could hardly be bothered with such minor details. "So, Jack, I remember something."

Jack swept up the cards, rattling off one profanity after another, just under his breath. "Is that so?" Jack turned the cards over, slapping each one face up in order to begin his tower again.

"I remember my mom," Daniel stated, breathless, his eyes sparkling with delight.

Jack lost interest in the deck of cards, focusing his compassion on Daniel's smiling face. "Your mom."

"Yes! I remember her!" Daniel jumped two-footed in front of a chair and plunked down, extraordinarily pleased with himself.

"That's...that's great, Daniel, um," Jack said, pushing away from his desk. "So, your mom—tell me about her."

Daniel's focus raced around the room, his patented look of "Is it just me, or are you an idiot?" "I don't know. She's my mom, I guess. And I was thinking," he began, shaking a finger near his face, engaged in thought, "did you call her? I mean, like, does she know about my..." He looked at Jack for a minute, trying to find the words, and when those failed him, he pointed his finger down to the ground and whistled like a cartoon character falling off a cliff.

"No. No, we didn't call her," Jack said, narrowing his eyes.

"Well, maybe we should. Don't you think she'd want to know? I mean, think about it, maybe if we could talk, she could bring some family pictures..." Daniel lifted his empty hands, showing he, too, was in murky waters. "I don't know, but I...I think it might help."

"Daniel..."

"Why don't we just call her? I'm not...sure about the number. Things kind of come and go."

"Daniel..."

"She should know, though, right? Wouldn't you agree that...she would want..." He searched Jack's face for capitulation, for understanding, anything. "Why haven't you called her?"

"Daniel," Jack said, brushing his hand under his nose, "tell me what you remember about your mom." He took the seat next to Daniel, propped his heels up against the legs and elbows on the armrest.

"Like what?"

"For starters, what does she look like?"

"She's...she looks like a mom. Jack." Daniel stood up, began to pace around the room. He talked with one hand in his pocket, one hand out to help clarify his speech and to provide appropriate sign language. "She has, um... glasses and blond hair, and she's about this tall," he said, lifting his hand well over his head. Daniel looked at his hand and after a moment at Jack, realizing how nonsensical that would be. "Apparently, my mom is seven feet tall. Why do I think she's so tall?" Jack shrugged and tried to smile, the kind of smile you offer your best friend when you think he's nuts. "Is she that tall, Jack?"

"Uh, no. Daniel," Jack said, dovetailing his fingers, "what did she get you for your last birthday?"

Daniel blinked, stood still, and said, "Chess set. Made of soap stone."

"The one you have in your apartment?"

"Yeah."

"She just got that for you?"

Like water running off a tin roof, Daniel's face changed. "Didn't she?"

"When did you learn to play chess?"

He licked his lips, his cheeks began to color. "Um, I don't know—when I was eight?"

"Yeah, sounds about right. I taught Charlie how to play when he was seven."

Daniel bit the inside of his cheek, and hoped his voice would hold. "She, uh, she made me a cake, I think. She wasn't very good at baking cakes. I remember that." He laughed, more to let loose the tension building in his voice than anything else. "Yeah, she...she made two round cakes and put them on a big platter, end to end. White frosting. Along the edges were chocolate chips so it looked kind of like a figure eight." He paused in his meaningless pacing and looked at Jack. "It was fairly ugly, but...I loved it."

"Sounds nice," Jack said, holding his friend's beleaguered focus.

"Jack?"

"Yeah?"

"I can't call her, can I?"

Jack rounded out his lips, blinked a few times, wondered if there was any way he could allow his friend this one delusion, just this one. "No, Daniel. I'm sorry."

Daniel's eyes closed and his head lowered. "When?"

"Best of my knowledge, a couple months after your eighth birthday."

Should he cry? Should he try to understand why such things happen? It felt so raw. Like flesh had been ripped from his body, flesh that didn't belong there in the first place.

"Well, the surprises never end, do they?" Daniel finally said, feigning his chagrined acceptance of things that he had lived through but had no recollection. "Wife's dead, Mom's dead, I was dead. Lots of death around me. You notice that, or is just me?"

"Yeah," Jack said, watching his friend carefully, knowing full well Daniel was putting on a hell of an act. Impressive one, at that. But it couldn't last. One. Two. Three...

Daniel jabbed one fist into his hip, and planed a hand across his mouth, nodding. "Yeah. Yeah." He sniffed a time or two, nodded some more, wiped his hand across his mouth again, and gave up. When his eyes locked on his friend's, Jack could see the pain, the exasperation in Daniel's watery eyes.

"Ya all right?" Jack asked.

Daniel knocked his fist against his pursed lips and tried to control his emotions. He squinted and held firm until the tightness in his throat began to ache. "I..."

"What."

"This whole, uh..." He waved circles in the air and tried to swallow. "Kind of tired of the whole ... 'peeling back the onion' thing. Maybe you could just..."

Jack stood up, repositioned Daniel's chair so it faced away from the window, and shut his office door.

And for the next two hours he gave back Daniel as many of the missing pieces in his friend's scattered life as he was able.

"What are you thinking about?" Sam asked, and Daniel, hearing her voice from somewhere far away, just stared at her, mouth agape. Sam glanced at Daniel before returning her attention to the curved mountain pass. "What?"

"Nothing."

"Was it about Colonel O'Neill?"

Daniel turned to his window and watched the shoulder of the road drop off. "Yeah, it was about Jack."

"Wanna share?"

"Not really."

"He was wrong for having hit you, Daniel, but..."

"That's not—"

"No, it needs to be—"

"Sam—"

"No, now wait!" she said, and pulled to the side of the road. This time when Daniel looked out his window, he could see the valley below. "We need to talk about this."

"Yes, I'm sure we do, but—"

"So let's talk." And she switched off the ignition and waited, arms crossed over her chest. "Go ahead. You first."

Daniel watched rocks tumble over the edge of the cliff, just inches from his view. "Um, are you sure all four wheels are safely on the shoulder, Sam?"

"Daniel!"

"What, Sam?" he asked, turning his attention toward her. "What...what do you want to know?"

Sam just looked at him, sighed and shook her head. "Where are you?"

"Well, presently, I'm about two inches from the edge of the mountain. Is this one of those torture techniques listed under acceptable practices by the Pentagon?"

Sam was out the door and slamming it before Daniel could get another word in. His ire rose, and he grabbed for his door handle, and suddenly remembered just how far down the first step was going to be. "Chit," he said, through clenched teeth, realizing the only way out was across Sam's seat and out the door, without becoming too familiar with either the stick shift or emergency break.

Tumbling hands-first out of the tiny car, Daniel grunted and groaned before finding his footing. Once up, he brushed the dust from his body and rounded the front of the car just to see exactly how close he thought she had come to the edge, and found he was exactly right.

"Either you're really good, or you're really lucky, either way..."

"Dammit, Daniel." Sam threw her arms around her midsection, gritted her teeth and looked out over the valley below. "Since you came back...Don't get me wrong, Daniel, I'm thrilled beyond words to have you home, but since your de-ascension..."

"It's like my seventh chevron's not engaged?" he asked, nudging her with his elbow, hoping to awaken her humor, maybe finding the same in himself.

She pivoted to face him, her hands free to gesticulate as sharply as she felt necessary. "It's like you're a quarter turn from center, Daniel, and you're making us all miserable trying to pretend that you're not."

"Wow," he said, stunned. He was prepared for a dismissive comment, for a "get real" adjustment to his sensibilities, not a validation for his own feelings. "I didn't..." He felt a sudden, odd twinge of embarrassment, no, hurt, if he were to be honest, at Sam's words. "Well, it's not like I'm doing it on purpose, or anything," He turned away from Sam's anger, crossing his arms over his chest. He realized that he probably looked as sulky as he felt, but for the moment, he was at a loss for what to do, what to say.

Sam sighed, pressed her fingers into her eye, and said, "Look, don't worry about it. You're...you. You're fine, it's just that..."

"That quarter turn scenario."

"Yeah."

"Yeah."

"Like, every time I go into your office I find something that doesn't belong to you. What's the deal with that?"

Daniel's eyelids fluttered, and he had to ask himself the same question. "I don't know."

"And you've always been relentless, dogged, even, but this thing with Colonel O'Neill," she said, shaking her head, peering into his far-away eyes, "you've gone way beyond curious. It's like you're obsessed, and you can't even see how obsessed you really are."

"I...I'm just..."

"What? Explain it to me. Please." And she waited for an explanation. It wasn't a taunt, it was a plea for edification, and Daniel could only stare back at her, shaking his head.

"I don't know, Sam. This thing with Jack—it's under my skin, and I'm not sure why."

Sam looked deep into his troubled eyes and led with her heart. "Then I'm going to make a decision, for the good of us all. The inquiry into what exactly went down on L57-264 ends now."

"We can't just let it go."

"Give me one compelling reason why not." Once again, it wasn't a taunt. Once again, Daniel was stymied. "Until Colonel O'Neill is back, and until SG1 returns to...something like normal, that's the way it's gonna be."

"Are you telling me that as my acting CO, or as my friend?"

"Take your pick, because, honestly, I don't give a damn." Sam looked away for a moment when she saw only confusion in Daniel's eyes. She tore a hand through her hair and decided to change tactics. "I'm just worried about you, all right? I'm worried that-"

Daniel frowned, trying to follow the train of Sam's churning emotions. He scanned her face to read any sub context, but found only honest determination and fatigue. "Worried that what?"

Sam took a short breath and said what she'd been afraid to for so long. "That maybe... maybe this time, we're not to going to get over this. That maybe nothing will ever be the same again." Sam turned from him, filled her lungs with the cold mountain air, and when she exhaled, the air came out a staccato peal. "I just want things to be the way they were..."

"Okay," he said. "Um, poof! Voila! Turn back the clock and make everything...normal again." Sam straightened, and the muscles along her jaw line contracted. "Oh, wait. I forgot—I can't do that glowy magic stuff anymore." Daniel raised his eyebrows, watching her reaction, hoping to lessen some of the tension zigzagging between them.  "Of course, you also have to ask yourself—just exactly what is normal?"

"This isn't helping, you know."

"I know," Daniel said, lowering his eyes. "I wish I could say I missed the way things used to be, too, before Jack got hurt, before... you know..." He waved his fingers in front of his chest in a fluttery gesture, "but I don't remember how exactly those things were. I'm starting to remember some of the things we did, and when we did them, it's just those subtle grayer areas that are a little harder to recollect. I just..." Daniel shrugged, felt his face redden. He let out a soft chuckle to try to hide it.

"Why didn't you tell me this, before?" she asked, watching him.

Daniel licked his lip, quirked a brow. "I wanted to do it on my own. I suppose I had to prove something to myself."

"You don't have to prove anything, Daniel."

"Not to you, maybe." And he left it at that.

"Then to whom?"

"It's getting cold out here. Are you cold? I'm cold."

"Daniel, to whom are you trying—"

"You know, I could really use a coffee. Want one? I'll buy. Good coffee. Not from—"

"Daniel." Sam pinched his elbow. She could feel him careening away from her and from the subject.

Daniel looked at her, bit the inside of his cheek, and considered his response. Considered his reaction. "There's this...void, Sam. This," he said, and paused. He sucked in his lip, shook his head. How could he give words to something he didn't understand? "I wish I could tell you, but I can't."

"Why?"

"Because it's all mixed together at this point. It's...whatever this blending is, of who I was, who I am—it's mixed together, and...there are these pockets of air."

Sam closed her eyes and really tried to follow along. "Daniel, I have no idea what—"

"I know. And that's what I'm trying to say."

She opened one eye and grimaced. "What?"

He hunched his shoulders, leaned as if he were going to begin an explanation. A tense, disquieted moment passed, and his shoulders and his posture fell back. "I have no idea."

"Well, when you do, you'll tell me, right?" she asked.

He waffled for a moment, and after a time nodded. "Yeah. I will."

Sam looked down and noticed the precipice of the cliff. She glanced over at her car tire, flush with the edge. "Did I do that?"

"Yeah, Sam. Ya did," Daniel said, grimacing.

"Why didn't you tell me I was so close to the edge?"

Daniel opened his mouth to refute her, but thought better of it. "I should have. My fault."

"Let's just...let's go back."

"Coffee?"

"Yeah, I think I could use some."

"Me, too. Maybe a Valium, as well."

They stepped to the car, paused and Sam told Daniel to stay put while she inched the car off the shoulder. Daniel, grateful, opened his car door and jimmied his body into his seat.

The breeze brushing against his face woke him. It was cool, not bracing, but with just enough residue of winter to prickle the skin. The afternoon sun, however, slowly migrating back into the northern hemisphere, was warm, and Jack felt like his cheeks were glowing from the inside out. There was a comfort and an uncertainty being caught between disparate seasons.

The thing is, he couldn't remember falling asleep. He checked his watch—1427—and decided it was past time to eat, so maybe a beer would do. He hoped the beer and the rest of the groceries were still cold in the back of his truck

Jack rolled his neck, trying to think, trying to fully wake up. Then he remembered the cabin and its stench. That had to be taken care of first, or he was fairly sure he'd end up burning the place down just out of sheer anger.

Burn. Fire. That was it! You want to get rid of the mustiness, you dry it up. Jack pressed his body out of the chair, took time and pains to do so slowly, straightened his torso and the muscles around his hip as carefully as he could, and allowed the feeling of being vertical to settle in. He shrugged.  Not too bad, considering, he thought. He grabbed his cane that had been propped up against the side of the cabin, and shuffled to the pile of seasoned wood off the corner of the place.

It was always kind of interesting to uncover the pile for the first time after a long winter. Jack never knew what animal he'd find had nested in the protected crannies. Usually mice and chipmunk. Occasionally he'd find bigger animals. One year he found a twenty-dollar bill on top of the pile, which had dwindled in the months between visits. Hunters had their own set of morals, and Jack respected that. You do what you need to get by, but you don't take advantage.

No money this year, and only a couple scrapings and piles of animal droppings. Must have been a bad winter. He stacked three logs in the crook of his arm and turned. If he didn't have to use the damn cane, he could have taken more. He could always make more trips, which meant more use of his aching hip. Either way—more trips, more wood—he was going to be hurting. As much as he couldn't stand the thought of the SGC at that moment, he did kind of miss the whirlpool. If the Cheyenne Mountain was a big ol' thundercloud, then the whirlpool was its stainless steel lining. With Epsom salt.

Jack paused at the back door, took a deep breath and stepped in. Screw it. He'd hold his breath, plug his nose. He'd be okay. Nonetheless, the sooner the rot was gone, the better. He dropped the three logs—clonk, clonk, clonk—on the heat shield over the old pine floorboards, and began scrunching up old newspapers and paper bags. With a wail, the cast iron door opened, and Jack shoved in the crumpled paper. He palmed one of the logs, was very surprised at his lack of strength in his arm, and tossed the quartered log on top of the paper. And next a second log.

The tin can of matches was still on the spindle table as it had been forever, as far as Jack was concerned. His grandfather had warned him not to play with the can of matches when Jack was a little boy; his father had warned him not to burn the place down with the same matches when Jack was a teenager; Jack showed Charlie how destructive matches could be when Charlie was six. One lesson learned, he supposed. No fires, and the place was still standing. Barely.

One good blaze, and the newspaper began to ignite. Jack closed the door, and again it wailed from neglect. He opened the flue, and watched the belly of the old stove fill with orange and yellow flames.

"That oughta do it," he said, brushing the bits and pieces of bark from his hands. The sharp smell of burning oak escaped the fire and filled his nose. Good. Excellent. He'd rather smell hardwood burning than dank rot anytime.

The burritos! D'oh! When he had reached the cabin, he tried to remember if there was anything in his bags that had to be put away immediately. The beer—well, that could be stored in the fish cage in the lake at the end of the dock like it traditionally had been stored, and so it could wait. Nothing like spring-fed waters to keep beer cold. But the frozen burritos...Jack trudged out to the truck, grabbed the bag and beer, and trudged back in. He set the packs of Guinness on the counter, reached into the bag, and his fingers came upon a summer sausage stick. He jammed one in his mouth and searched again for the wrapped burritos. Squishy and flaccid, Jack pulled them out of the bottom of the bag. He dropped one on the old Formica counter top and tossed one in his hand.

"When in Rome, do like the Minnesotans do," he said, and crossed the open space to rest the burrito on top of the stove. In about ten minutes, he'd have a hot burrito, and if there were any botulism in it, well, by then the tremendous amount of beer he hoped to have in his system would attack the bacteria.

He rooted around in his jacket pockets and found the orange vial of pain medication Fraiser had given him. He hooked his cane on the counter edge, rotated his hips and found, aside from the stiffness of the nap and the drive, he wasn't too bad. He scooted the container onto the back of the counter and decided a celebratory beer was in order. He grabbed one of the six packs and thought how nice it would be to drink a beer out on the porch, that is after he put the other five in the 'fridge.' They were getting a little warm. Time to introduce them to the kind of cold only a Minnesota lake in spring could produce. He might even try to make it without his cane. He got to the back door, saw the uneven ridges in the tall grass, and decided caution was the better part of walking.

On the way back out of the kitchen, Jack grabbed not only his cane but also one more summer sausage. It was greasy, tough and full of gristle, but it hit the spot. He stopped at the pot belly stove, hooked his cane onto his arm, checked his burrito, flipped it over, and took a whiff of the cabin so far. It was getting there. Far from dried out, but getting there.

Jack stepped out of the cabin, took a better hold of his cane and his beer, and was careful to watch his step off the two boards that served as a stoop. He pushed the tarp that had covered the Adirondack chair out of his way with his cane. Jack felt beads of sweat on his forehead. More walking than he had done in a long time. Felt good to be on his own, with nobody asking him what he wanted and if they could do anything for him. What they could have done was to leave him alone. Jack wiped the sweat off his skin and continued on toward the dock.

"I find the weather here very pleasing."

Jack spun to face the voice.  God dammit, he thought. Adrenalin skittered through his limbs. His heart tapped a nervous cadence in his chest.

Teal'c rounded the side of the cabin, strode onto the dock and looked out over the lake, his hands woven behind his back. "Much more pleasing than the last time I was here."

Jack squinted into the late afternoon sun, resentful that his sanctuary had been invaded. "What are you doing here, Teal'c?"

"I have been assured that Minnesota is quite lovely this time of year." Teal'c tipped his head and glanced at Jack behind him. "Seeing your cabin surrounded by spring flora, I must concur."

"Oh, must you?" Jack said. His tongue played with a chunk of dried beef in his teeth, and tried to think how best to get rid of the unwelcome and uninvited visitor. But first he had to get rid of his beer. Jack's fingers choked the handle of the beer carrier. "You know, as much as I love Minnesota, Wisconsin is breathtaking." He hobbled to the edge of the dock, tried everything in his power not to show Teal'c how much it cost him to crouch down, and reached for the lyme-encrusted chain that held the fish cage. "Michigan, spectacular. In fact, I think you should take the circle tour of the lakes."

"Would you be joining me, O'Neill?"

"Me?" he asked, grabbing the chain. "Nah. That much beauty is a little too rich for my diet." The box came up from the depths, effortlessly pulling through the water. Jack placed it on the edge of the deck, opened the trap and put five of the beers inside. He closed the trap and pushed the cage off the edge. He grabbed the sixth beer between his thumb and forefinger, and used the dock mooring and his cane to push himself up. Once up, once he'd taken a much needed sip of beer, once he'd stared at a smiling Teal'c long enough, Jack said, "Again I gotta ask, what are you doing here, Teal'c?"

"I am pleased to find that I am not being attacked by your state bird, O'Neill."

Jack grimaced, tried to think back when such an attack might have happened, and asked, "You've been attacked by loons?"

Teal'c turned to face Jack, raised one questioning brow, and said, "I have been told that the state bird is the mosquito, however, it is my understanding that mosquitoes are, in fact, insects."

"It's a joke, Teal'c."

"I find little humor in carnivorous insects."

Jack stared at Teal'c for a moment, trying to decide if he cared enough to continue on with the conversation. He realized fairly quickly that he couldn't care less.

"Don't suppose you'd want one," Jack said, waving a bottle at the Jaffa.

"No."

"Well, that's all I have to offer, so, Teal'c, good to see you. Tell everyone I said hi, and—"

"I believe we both know why I'm here."

"I believe one of us does." Jack screwed off the top of his beer and dropped the cap into his pocket. "The other one believes the first one is wasting his time with all his misplaced beliefs."

"Why are you not fishing?" Teal'c asked.

"I think that's obvious. I'd rather be spending my time making small talk with you."

Teal'c bowed in deference, and Jack rolled his eyes. The Jaffa strolled off the dock, smiling at the pleasant surroundings, and motioned toward the one uncovered Adirondack chair. Jack didn't give in that he had any inclination what Teal'c was offering. He stood on the dock, sipping his beer, swallowing his bitterness.

Teal'c stood perusing the covered chair, deciding after a while to take the chance that it was, in fact, another piece of furniture. The things he had found covered by Tau'ri in the last seven years made him always think twice before haphazardly excavating them. He lowered his body into the chair, smiled and closed his eyes. "This is most enjoyable, O'Neill. I believe I now understand the attraction of this place."

"I may have asked this before, but my memory isn't what it used to be," Jack said, pressing his cane close to his hip while he walked. "Why the...hell are you here?"

"Norbert of the Log Cabin Party Store tells me that to catch a trout, one must have an intelligence quotient only five points higher than the fish."

"That explains why Norbert buys his fish frozen."

"I took the liberty to read about aquatic animals indigenous to these waters. I am most interested in the hunt for sturgeon."

Jack felt his resolve lessening. He shook his head and dangled his beer from his fingers. "You don't hunt for sturgeon. You fish for them."

"Are they not mighty warriors?"

"Uh, they fight, if that's what you mean. Yeah, they'll give ya a good go."

"Then perhaps we should go out onto the water in search of sturgeon."

Jack found his headache from earlier returning. "For crying out loud, Teal'c, would you stop with the fish? You didn't come all the way up to Minnesota to talk fish! You hate fish!"

"I do not despise such creatures."

"That's not really the point, is it?"

"What else shall we converse on?"

"Nothing!"

Teal'c hunkered down deeper in the chair, making himself quite comfortable. "Have you not invited me to join you here often?"

"In the past, I suppose so. I don't remember having done so recently."

"I am merely taking you up on your offer, my friend."

Jack roared off the dock, the water rippling below him. "Dammit, Teal'c, I'm in no mood for this!"

Teal'c opened his eyes and looked up at the menacing expression on Jack's face staring down at him. "There is a great deal of anger within you."

"There wasn't five minutes ago!"

"I am here to help you rid yourself of that anger, and many other useless emotions."

"Well, thank you, Dr. Phil, but I think a few days of the northern life, and I'll be just fine. And when I mean northern life, what I'm really describing is seclusion. Meaning me. Alone. As in you're not here!" A whiff of smoke, and Jack glanced past Teal'c and into the cabin where he could see his burrito beginning to smolder. "Dammit, now my lunch is burning." Jack hooked his cane on his arm, hopped into the cabin and to the stove. He touched the packet, found it to be scorching, pinched the edges of the foil, and carried the hot package into the kitchen. He tore open the wrapper a bit at a time, blowing on his fingers and the steam rising from the burrito.

Teal'c, whom Jack hadn't realized had followed him in, was standing behind Jack, peering down into the singed package. "Was that a cheese burrito?"

"Yes!" Jack growled over his shoulder. "And no, you can't have it."

"I would never presume."

"Oh, yes you would."

"Perhaps you are correct."

"Look, T," Jack said, holding up his hands, pulsing them in front of him, as if pushing back the edge of his contempt, "I appreciate what you're doing."

"Do you, O'Neill?"

Jack paused to study Teal'c's face, and his shoulders drooped. "Well, no. Not really."

"I am here to lend my camaraderie."

"Couldn't you do that in a nice email?"

"I do not...e-mail my friends," Teal'c said, and the words left his mouth as if covered in rancid oil.

"You should consider it. Especially for those friends who wish to be left alone."

"Did you bring your laptop with you on this sojourn?"

"No, not this time."

"Do you own a laptop?"

"I've had a lap dance," Jack offered, hoping Teal'c would grow tired of the ridiculousness of it all and leave.

"You struck DanielJackson."

Jack eyed his friend, searching for anger, for disappointment. He found only concern, and Jack thought he could deal with anything else a whole lot better. He turned away from Teal'c, grabbed hold of the edge of the counter and slung his head low. "Yes. So I did."

"Do you not feel a sense of remorse over the incident?"

Jack sighed and said, "You know, there's a reason Iowa is south of Minnesota. It's our own little buffer to keep everyone else out. Didn't you read the brochure when you drove through Des Moines?"

"I flew into Minneapolis-St. Paul."

"They let you fly here?" Jack asked, facing Teal'c in his astonishment.

"I have been given clearance to venture freely about, as I wish."

"So you decided you'd come up to Ely? I gotta tell ya, Mall of America is much more your style."

"DanielJackson chose not to file charges against you."

Jack grabbed the plate with the burned burrito and jostled Teal'c out of the way. "His decision. I don't care."

"Major Carter is concerned about you, as well."

"She needs to get a hobby." Jack plunked himself down in the tufted armchair, circa 1963. Dust plumed into the air all around him.

"She is concerned about the continuity of SG1."

"Not my problem, Teal'c." Jack turned the plate first one way, then the other, having lost his appetite long before the burrito turned black.

"Are you not the commanding officer of SG1?"

"I'm taking a leave. You might have noticed we're not presently in the SGC."

"The entire SGC is concerned for your well being."

"The entire SGC can go straight to hell, Teal'c. I don't give one good goddamn." And to highlight his resentment, Jack smashed the plate and the burrito onto the floor.

Teal'c, ever the model of serenity, waited for Jack's explosive anger to simmer down. He watched while his friend pinched the bridge of his nose, raked his hand through his hair, and smacked a ricocheted piece of burrito off the chair. Jack muttered a string of profanities, tossed his head onto the back of the chair and just sat, quietly, his air coming in heavy sighs.

"O'Neill."

"What is it?"

"What is a fish boil?"

Jack lifted his head enough to look Teal'c straight in the eye, and decided, in dejected surrender to the inevitable, that he was going to need more snacks.

"Finally, Major Carter, where do we stand on the mission to L57-264?" asked General Hammond, opening the last of the files.

"Well, sir, as you know, both Doctor Jackson and I have stated, in the previous briefings, that we'd like to go back to the planet in search of answers," Sam began, looking at Daniel to gather his support. Daniel frowned, but nodded. Sam wasn't sure if the reaction was to her description, or to the fact that the air in the briefing room was stale and sorely lacking in vitality. "However, in light of the colonel's leave of absence, I felt it best to table that discussion until which time Colonel O'Neill is able to offer his input."

"I agree," the general said, signing the bottom of the file, marking the date, with decisive slashes in between hurried numbers. "Well, I think that just about does it."

"Yes, sir," Sam said, standing at attention.

General Hammond stood up, gathered his files and nodded perfunctorily to his junior officer.

Daniel finished decorating the edge of his paper with hash marks. He pushed his chair away from the table, letting the momentum carry him back a good yard. He sat still for a long time, just thinking, silent. Sam took her seat once again and wilted. Hushed and spent. It had been a long meeting, at the end of a long day, after a long week. It seemed like they had spent the entire week running in one place, with no progress to show, no completion other than to exhaust themselves.

Daniel planted his elbow on his armrest, his chin in his hand, so that when he talked his head bobbed up and down. "Maybe Jack was right. What if I am trying to make up for lost time?"

Sam stared at the center of the bi-colored table, her knuckles against her temple. "What do you mean?"

"What if I am trying to prove myself, trying to gain...points, or whatever? Who knows?"

"Daniel, let it go," she said, with hardly enough energy in her voice to back up her command. "The colonel was just trying to goad you."

"But what if I am trying to...I don't know, compensate for something."

"Then make yourself feel better, and go buy a...a..."

Daniel slanted his head to get a look at her. "A what?"

"I was trying to come up with something cliché, and all I could think of was a sports car and a motor cycle."

"Gee, Sam, don't you have both of those?" Daniel asked, his blinking eyelids becoming heavy with lethargy.

"Yeah, that's why I was trying to think of something else."

"Because you're not compensating for anything."

"Probably, but why analyze a good thing?"

"Because you're a scientist, and that's what you do?"

Sam turned enough to look at Daniel, but not enough to lose contact with her hand. "What were you saying about the colonel?"

"Oh, right. Jack. Anyhow," he said, pushing his glasses on the top of his head and rubbing his eyes, "I've been thinking about it, and maybe my pilfering has something to do with filling a void, making up for lost...whatever."

"Wait a minute," Sam said, lifting a finger but only about ninety degrees from where it laid. "You're saying you've been hoarding rolls of toilet paper because when you were one of..."

"The Others. A follower of Oma. The Ascended. An Ancient. You know, the Others."

"Fine. When you were one of the Ancients, you missed all that cottony softness?" she asked, and as soon as it was out, the nonsense of her statement, and the fact that it sounded way too much like the colonel, made her realize just how tired she was.

"Well, not exactly, but," Daniel said, wondering why he had taken those ten rolls of tissue, "maybe."

"Daniel, I think this is a really important discovery. I mean it. This is...oooof, big. But can we have this conversation another time?" she asked. If her calculations were correct, she had approximately five minutes to reach her quarters before she passed out.

Daniel considered her request, blinked and nodded. "Sure. I'm not sure either of us will remember it, though."

"Mores the pity." Sam dredged up her last ounce of energy and forced herself to stand. She arched her back, her hands pressed to her hips, and yawned.

"Hitting the hay?" Daniel asked.

"Any crop will do," she said, slinking out of the room.

"Sam?"

"Yes, Daniel."

"How smart was Jonas?"

Sam's attention perked up at that. She cocked her head to the side and closed her eyes, confounded by the question. "I'm sorry? How smart was Jonas?"

"Yes." Daniel stared at his hands in his lap, so he wouldn't unwittingly show Sam the self-doubt in his mind.

"Uh," she stammered, leaning against the doorjamb, "he was...Honestly, Daniel, he was brilliant. He had an unnerving ability to learn quickly, an insatiable curiosity, and a quick wit. You met him. You knew that."

"Yeah, I know, but I wanted to hear it from you."

Sam looked him over, the lines in his brow, the tension in his jaw. Was this what the past weeks had been about? "Daniel—"

"No, it's okay. I was just wondering about it, that's all."

"Are you sure?"

"Yes," he said, nodding, as if he were trying to convince himself.

"Okay, well..."

"Would SG1 have been better off with Jonas?"

It took her breath away. She stared at him, slack-jawed and nonplussed.

"Daniel?"

"Forget it, Sam. I'm...tired, I suppose. Forget I said anything."

"Daniel?"

"Sam," he said, turning to face her, having exposed his fear already to her. "Can we talk another time, when we're both rested, maybe?"

"Sure."

"I think something's percolating in...there," Daniel said, tapping his forehead for the inappropriately timed comic relief. The levity, however, quickly turned somber and he rubbed his aching brow instead. "I think I need a little time to sort some things out."

"Okay."

"Sam?"

"Yes."

"It was the right choice."

"What was?"

"Putting the kibosh on going back there. I'm not sure that what I'm looking for is there, anyhow."

"I don't think so, either."

"Sleep well."

"You, too." Sam gave him one last concerned look, offered him a forlorn smile and stepped out of the room. Daniel slowly pivoted his chair to peer out over the embarkation room, and to wonder exactly where he would find the answers to his own questions.

Jack woke to the smell of sausages cooking over the stove, their juices crackling against the hot oil. He lifted his head from his pillow, and for a brief, disconcerting moment thought his mom's ghost was hanging out in the cabin. What he found was no less terrifying—Teal'c in a gingham apron, holding a cast iron skillet and smiling at Jack.

"Good morning, O'Neill," he said, bowing his head. "Norbert of the Log Cabin Party Store assured me these pork and beef-filled links would make a...rather tasty breakfast meal."

"You've been down to the Log Cabin this morning?" Jack asked, one eye covered by the loft of his pillow.

"I have, indeed." Teal'c forked three of the links onto each of the plates. He set the plates on the small chrome and Formica dinette table, next to cups of coffee and a stack of toast. "I have also been out partaking of an early morning swim in your lake."

Jack sat up, blinked the sleep out of his eyes, and said, "Wasn't it cold?"

"Extremely."

Jack watched the proceedings from his place on the old sofa where he had slept the night before. It took a good minute or two before he was able to formulate any thoughts beyond groggy impressions, and when he did he decided the sausages smelled way too tempting. "Wanna share?"

"I thought we'd breakfast together, and then decide what our day should entail."

"Our day?" Jack asked, feeling tight and achy from the sleeping arrangements.

"There is much I wish to explore. There is much for us to talk about."

Jack rolled his eyes. "Maybe Norbert could show you around."

"He cannot." Teal'c began cracking eggs over the skillet, two at a time. Jack watched the entire dozen drop into the hot skillet.

"When'd you learn to cook?"

"Cassandra has given me many cooking lessons," Teal'c said, his chest puffing out with pride.

"You took cooking lessons from Cassie?" Jack said, hoisting himself from the sofa. "You realize Cassie learned to cook from Fraiser, not to mention she's kind of not from this world."

"Nor am I, O'Neill."

"I realize that, believe me, but haven't you ever been to dinner at their house?"

"I find their food as satisfying as their company," Teal'c said, scrambling the eggs in the skillet.

"Yeah, I'll bet." Jack reached for chairs, tabletops and bookshelves along the short path from the sofa to the dinette, wincing along the way.

"Is your injury producing pain this morning?"

"Along with other things, yes."

"I believe you are not receiving enough physical activity. You are allowing your muscles around the site to atrophy, thereby resulting in your morning discomfort."

Jack lowered his body into one of the chairs and smirked. "Cassie giving you lessons in physical therapy, as well?"

"I do not require lessons in basic physiology." Teal'c brought the skillet, popping with hot scrambled eggs, to the table. He scraped some onto Jack's plate, and the rest onto his. Jack looked at the unequal proportions and frowned. Teal'c set the pan in the sink and joined Jack at the table.

"Manga, O'Neill," Teal'c said, smothering his eggs with salt and pepper.

Jack, disgruntled by the meager amount of eggs he was given, stabbed one of Teal'c's sausage links and emptied it onto his plate. He narrowed his eyes and glared at Teal'c. Teal'c bowed and began eating.

And it was good. Crisp casings on the sausages, light, fluffy eggs, toast rich with butter, and good strong coffee. The only thing that could have possibly made it better was if Jack had been enjoying it on his own, without a meddling alien at his side. Of course, Jack conceded that he would have never made such a big breakfast left to his own devices. Who's kidding whom, he thought. He wouldn't have had breakfast.

"This doesn't mean I'm glad you came up here, you know," Jack said over his coffee cup.

"I understand."

Jack chewed more of the sausage, eyeing Teal'c with what he hoped was a glowering stare.

Teal'c rose from his seat and stepped to the counter, and when he did, Jack took his last sausage link. "Forgive me for having let this slip my mind, O'Neill, but Alise, Norbert's wife, sent along a jar of cherry jam." Teal'c returned it to the table and found his plate missing his link. He raised one eyebrow and pelted Jack with the look one reserves for petulant children. Jack returned an appropriately petulant expression, biting off the end of the sausage link. "Indeed."

"So, Teal'c," Jack said, "when did you say you were leaving this morning?"

Teal'c shoveled in a mouthful of eggs and looked out the window to the lake. "There is a small vessel out by the dock. Is it sea worthy?"

"That depends on what sea you're thinking of setting sail," Jack said. "Might I suggest the Caspian?"

"Do you have oars?" Teal'c asked, slathering his toast with cherry jam.

"You're avoiding my question."

"I am not avoiding."

"Yes, you are."

"I am ignoring."

"Well, that's not very nice."

"Do you have oars?"

"When are you leaving?"

"It is my conviction that you are in need of physical activity. Utilizing your upper-body strength to maneuver a small water craft would be highly beneficial."

"After breakfast, then?"

"Norbert feels confident in the fact that today's weather will be as pleasing as yesterday's," Teal'c said. "Your eggs are losing their heat."

"Getting cold, Teal'c," Jack said, correcting him. Jack felt his frustration level rising once again. He put down his utensils, pushed away from the table, and gave pause to the anger building inside. "Look, I'm sure you thought this was a good idea. And who knows, maybe it is, but, Teal'c, I'd really like to be left alone. Got it?"

"Yes, you have told me that many times over the course of the last twenty hours."

Jack's fist slammed the dinette table. "Then where's the confusion, dammit?!"

Teal'c stabbed a forkful of eggs, took a bite of his toast, and kept his focus on the languid vision of the lake. "I have measured the distance from the cabin to the main road, in increments of kilometers. I believe this afternoon we will begin with one kilometer and back."

"Teal'c, I swear to God!" Jack growled.

"You may do whatever you please to your god, O'Neill. It is of no consequence to me."

Jack glared hard at the man, his hands fisted on the table, his skin sizzling with anger. "Now I'm asking you, Teal'c, to get out, or—"

"Or what, O'Neill?" Teal'c said, slowly turning to face his friend. "Will you strike me as you struck DanielJackson?"

Jack set his jaw, stubborn and ornery as a bulldog. "Teal'c..."

"I do not believe you will."

"You sure about that?"

Teal'c dabbed a paper napkin to his lips, placed it on the table and rose to his feet. He laid his dark, foreboding eyes on Jack, and his words rumbled from his lips. "If striking me is what you must do, please be advised that I will not be caught off guard, and I will strike back."

Jack began to tremble. He was trapped in his own home, trapped in his old and ineffectual body. Trapped with the one person who wouldn't back down from him. His air came to him through what seemed like gauze, and his vision began to gray. He needed to get away, and now.

"I'm not hungry anymore," he said, and limped out of the room.

Teal'c waited until he heard the door of the cabin slam, and calmly he sat down and finished his breakfast.

He had managed to stay away from the cabin for most of the day, and Jack resented the hell out of that. It was his home, dammit, and he was being chased out of it, just like everywhere else.

He had thought about finding a place to hunker down in the forest. After all, thirty odd years in the field meant you could be comfortable, if need be, in any terrain, but he didn't need to be. He didn't even want to be. He had a bed and warm clothes, and, if he was lucky, a couple minutes of hot water waiting for him in his cabin.

He also had Teal'c.

Well, fine, he thought. If Teal'c wanted to stay, so be it. Jack didn't have to answer any of his questions, and Jack didn't have to waste his time trying to be a good host, not that he was. Teal'c had made dinner the night before, breakfast that morning, and Jack was fairly sure he had heard Teal'c chopping wood in the afternoon.

Wood for a fire. Jack could be sitting in the warmth of his cabin, his feet near the belly of the wood stove, a beer in his hand. He could be just as happy and content with Teal'c there by following one simple rule—ignore every word and every gesture.

One quick stop on the edge of the dock to grab a beer—better make it two—and he'd put Operation Silent Night into effect. When he stepped into the cabin, Jack kept his focus on the floor, not wanting to make even casual eye contact with Teal'c. He put both beers on the end table next to the tufted wingback chair, and lowered his tired body into it. Even with the feel of a few gouging springs under the time-compressed cushion, Jack closed his eyes and luxuriated in the familiar comfort of the chair. He reached across for a beer, opened it, and downed a third in the first swallow.

No sign of Teal'c. Maybe Jack had made himself clear. Maybe he was finally alone. Good. He needed the quiet, the space. He needed it to spread out his thoughts, far and wide, and try to make sense of what the hell had happened to his life. He couldn't do that with Teal'c in the way.

What had happened to his life? In the span of a few short weeks, his body was broken, his spirit, too, and his command taken away from him.

Jack dropped his aching head into his hand and tried to think of nothing. Nothing at all, and maybe he could just get on with the business of a life without purpose, without meaning. Many people eked out such existences, and they seemed happy enough. Jack could do it if he set his mind to it. If people would leave him alone, he could do it.

The aged floorboards creaked, the dusty bottles standing on the shelves softly jingled, and the sound of Teal'c's voice shattered any of Jack's illusions of peace and renewal

"I have been reading some of the books here in your cabin, O'Neill. Quite interesting." Teal'c brought a stack of books, ten high tucked against his body, into the main room of the small cabin. "I find I am rather taken by the poetry books, especially one Robert Frost." Teal'c lowered the stack of books to the floor and took a seat, cross-legged, next to them. "His words are, at first reading, very simplistic. Upon further reading, I find the subtlety of his thematic representations to be insightful in the extreme."

The only part of Teal'c's entire speech that caught Jack's attention was the part where he said he had found books in the cabin. Jack had no idea where he might have found books. To Jack's knowledge he'd never seen a book, and newspapers were brought to the cabin only to start fires. The search for knowledge through written word had never been part of his tradition in the cabin. Knowledge through solitude, on the other hand, had been part of that tradition. Knowledge through vast amounts of beer—another solid tradition. Having to be ushered into personal enlightenment by a wall of a man quoting iambic pantaloons was definitely not on the list of established rituals.

"One poem, in particular, has captured my imagination."

Jack drank his beer and looked at the cobwebs that laced the corners of the cabin. In the morning he'd wrap an old dishrag around the top of a broom and get rid of them. Or not. What did it really matter in the great big scheme of things?

"The name of the poem is 'Bereft.' Perhaps you are familiar with this poem."

The smell of rot was gone in the cabin. Jack was glad for that. It was still a little musty, but he could live with musty. He finished his bottle of beer, cracked open the second and took a swig.

Teal'c thumbed the pages of the old, crackled book, found his poem, and began to read. "'Where had I heard this wind before change like this to a deeper roar?'" Teal'c looked up to find Jack picking the label off his beer. "'What would it take my standing there for, holding open a restive door, looking down hill to a frothy shore? Summer was past and day was past. Somber clouds in the west were massed. Out in the porch's sagging floor, leaves got up in a coil and hissed, blindly struck at my knee and missed.'"

Jack brought the bottle to his lips and tipped it high. If he had to listen to poetry, he was going to be drunk doing it. He thought about making a snide comment about having another man read poetry to him—something base about hoping Teal'c would at least stay for breakfast the next morning—but he thought Teal'c wouldn't understand the inference, and Jack certainly didn't want Teal'c to stay, especially because he misunderstood a joke. So he remained taciturn. He took the bottle top and snapped it with his fingers, flinging the piece of metal across the room, toward the pot-bellied stove.

Teal'c took his dark eyes off the pages for a moment to glance at his friend. Jack never met his eye, nor gave any indication he was listening, but Teal'c knew that at least a part of him was hearing the words. The part of him that had called out to Teal'c in the silence of his meditation. Knowing the desperation in Jack's soul, Teal'c read on. "'Something sinister in the tone told me my secret must be known: Word I was in the house alone somehow must have gotten abroad, word I was in my life alone, word I had no one left but God.'"

The images hovered in the still air, only to be interrupted by the crackling fire. Teal'c studied the printed words a moment longer, greatly impressed by the author's insight. Jack drank the rest of his beer.

"What is your secret, my friend?" Teal'c asked, his voice as soft and deep as the midnight sky. And although Teal'c didn't look up from the book, Jack knew Teal'c was no longer reading, but directing the question at him. "Do you even know?"

For his part, Jack wouldn't be offering up any secrets, nor would he sit there ruminating just who the hell he did or didn't have left in his life.

Teal'c closed the book, his hand remaining on the cover in honor of the art within. His head began to nod, a mournful smile, born of wisdom and friendship, graced his lips. "You are not alone, my friend. As long as I am able to take breath, you will have my allegiance and my friendship. You are never alone."

Jack pursed his lips and sucked air in through his teeth. His eyes narrowed, and he decided he'd had enough of the hearts and flowers for one night. He positioned his cane in front of him and used it to leverage himself out of his seat. He neither looked at Teal'c nor paused when he passed him on the way to the adjacent room. The heavy pine door clicked behind him, and Teal'c knew full well that his pained friend had heard and understood the meaning of the words and the depth of their friendship.

Janet scanned the room, looking for Sam, and when she found her, Janet smiled to the hostess.

"Hey," Janet said, sliding into the booth. She chucked her purse in the corner and flagged down the waiter.

"I got here a little early," Sam said. She pushed her empty martini glass to the edge of the table.

"Yeah, I'll say." Janet ran both hands through her hair, sighing heavily. "What a day. What a week!"

"Tell me about it," Sam said. The waiter reached their table, and Sam was the first to order. "I'll have another one of these," she said, tapping the empty glass. Janet looked into the depths of the glass and asked what it was she had. "Bomb Pop Martini."

"Bomb pop? Like the Popsicle?" Janet asked.

Sam used her finger and thumb to show the stack up of the different ingredients in her drink. "Grenadine. Vodka. Curacao."

"Sounds..." Janet began, eyeing Sam with a bit of skepticism. "Tell you what," she said, turning to the waiter, "let me have a serious drink first, like Beefeaters on the rocks, then I'll consider a Bomb Pop Martini."

"Coming right up," he said, and walked away.

Janet rolled her eyes, ready to launch into an apology for her drink choice. "It's just that I've had a long day, and I need a little more kick to my drink right now."

"I've been here for half-an-hour. I've done my serious drink already," Sam said, pressing into the padded back of the booth. "A shot of Cuervo, followed by another shot of Cuervo."

"Sounds like we've both had a winner of a week."

"Couple of weeks."

"So, what's first on the agenda?" Janet asked. "Oh, and do we want something to eat with the drinks?"

"I'm fine," Sam said, twirling a stem between her fingers. "I've had cherries."

"And a year's allotment of red dye, no doubt."

"There was a time when I could tie a knot in a cherry stem using only my tongue," Sam told her, staring intently at the flaming red stem.

"And you said you weren't popular at the Academy." Janet raised one eyebrow and smiled at Sam.

Sam smiled back at the thought, tossed the stem onto the table, and sighed. "It feels good to get out of there."

"I know what you mean."

"First on the agenda."

"Right. First on the agenda."

"Colonel O'Neill."

"Right," Janet said, lowering her eyes, wondering how long they had before the new rank went into effect. "Colonel O'Neill."

"So, what's the deal with him?"

"I can tell you from a physician's point of view that he had a serious trauma and that he's doing remarkably well," Janet offered, not exactly telling Sam anything she didn't already know. "Personally, though? I think he has a lot on his plate, not excluding the fact that something happened...out there, in the field, that...well, changed him."

"Do you have any idea what it was?" Sam asked, leaning toward her friend.

"I wish I knew. You better believe the colonel isn't saying anything."

"You know, Daniel really wanted to go back there, see if we could find anything, but..." Sam stopped, shook her head.

"Ladies," the waiter said, placing Janet's drink on the table, followed by Sam's. "Enjoy."

"Thank you," they both said. Janet twirled the drink in her hand, chilling the gin before taking a sip. Sam picked up her glass with both hands and sipped from it, like water from her gathering palms.

"Here's to the boys," Janet said, holding out her drink.

Sam pulled her glass away from her lip, brushed her hand under her chin, and toasted to her teammates. "The boys."

"Can't live with them—"

"Can't shower with them, either."

"Here, here." Both women drank to their shared misery.

Janet was the first to put her half-drunk glass down. "So. Daniel. Number two on the agenda?"

"I guess we're moving right along." Sam closed her eyes, tired and worn thin by the stress. She laid her hand over the base of her martini glass and brushed her other hand across her clavicle, and enjoyed how nearly desensitized her skin had become from the drinks.

"So what's going on with Daniel?"

"What's not going on with him?" Sam asked, rolling her neck first one way, then the other. "He's obsessed with going back to...that place; he's turned into a klepto..."

"What?"

Sam's eyes flew open at the sound of such incredulity in Janet's voice, and if it weren't for the fact that she was truly concerned for Daniel, she might have laughed out loud. "Have you been in his lab recently? I went in there a couple days ago, and I found one of Siler's huge wrenches."

"Maybe Siler left it in the lab."

Sam grimaced, and said, "I don't think so. Let me ask you something—have you been missing equipment lately?"

"Oh, I don't know. Maybe a few instruments, a couple bags of saline. Nothing too important."

"Check his lab."

"But why would he..."

Sam grabbed hold of the edge of the table, leaned into it, almost knocking over her drink. Janet moved it farther toward the center of the table. Sam said, emphasizing each word, "He has a stockpile of tongue depressors."

"Okay. Well, maybe he uses them on some of his digs," Janet said, shrugging her shoulders, taking another sip of her drink.

"Then how do you account for the case of petroleum jelly I found under his desk last week?"

"He's lonely?"

Sam's brow knitted, her mouth slung open. She stared at Janet, and at her hands clapped over her eyes. The two women began to laugh, loud and long, at Daniel's expense.

Janet clanked her glass onto the table, reached forward and tapped Sam's hand, hardly able to breathe. "Do you think he might want an old blood pressure cuff to go along with the Vaseline?"

Sam wiped away the tears under her eyes. "Now I really don't want to know why he had all that toilet paper stacked up next to his desk."

Janet howled with laughter, brought her hands to her chest and almost fell over.

"Oh, my gawd! Oh, my!" Sam laughed. "I don't mean to make fun of him, but..."

"But he is Daniel."

"And if nothing else, he is a guy."

"In such a big way," Janet added.

Sam's laughter began to diminish, along with her drink. "He's a guy, who's aggravating as hell, totally exasperating..."

"Don't forget stubborn," Janet said, toasting to the sentiment.

"Oh, no kidding!" Sam shook her head. "I gotta tell ya, Janet, some days, I'd like to just..."

"Slap him."

"Some days, yes!"

"Like the colonel did." Janet's expression turned somber, her dark eyes wide open, watching for Sam's reaction.

Sam's drink froze midpoint between the table and her lips, so too did the breath in her lungs.

"Don't worry, Sam, it's between you and me. It goes no further."

"How did you know?"

Janet rolled her eyes and flipped her hand through the air. "Oh, please. Give me some credit for seeing the obvious."

"Daniel didn't deserve being hit, but I can absolutely see how it happened." Sam laid her arms on the table and sighed. "It's no secret that Daniel can be rather...focused," she said, pointing with both hands down an imaginary vanishing point. "But ever since we came back from—"

"Careful."

"—from our mission, Daniel's been completely obsessed. And that's not all!"

"I'll have another. Less ice, this time," Janet told the passing waiter.

For a moment, Sam had a hard time deducing why Janet was saying that to her—there was quite enough alcohol in her system to befuddle even the genius astrophysicist. She blinked and took another sip. Janet looked at her for a while, and decided somewhere in the last few seconds Sam had lost the thread of their conversation.

"That's not all?" Janet prompted.

"Exactly!"

"What's not all?"

"The other things Daniel's been doing!"

"Like what, Sam?" Janet patiently asked.

"Like..." Sam took a quick recon of the room. "Like he's been asking about Jonas, and was Jonas smarter than him, was Jonas a better team member. That kind of stuff."

Janet made a sound, a cross between gurgling and choking on a rancid piece of cheese.

"What am I supposed to tell him, Janet?"

"I think the real question is, why does he want to know?"

"It all is connected, somehow. The stealing, the obsession, the self-doubt—somewhere in his irksome little brain, it's all connected." Sam tossed back the end of her drink, and with it the cherry.

"Careful there, Major."

Sam swallowed and chewed, and began to pull a series of faces. She stared with great intent at Janet, craning her neck and her jaw, first one direction, then the other. One eye would wink, the other would flicker. Janet looked on with growing concern.

"Sam?"

Sam lifted a finger, but continued on, her lips puckered. Finally, she lifted her hands to her lips and pulled from her mouth a knotted cherry stem.

"Still got it."

"And the men fall to their knees," Janet said, watching the stem flip into the empty glass.

"That's my little calling card," Sam said, pointing to her handiwork at the bottom of her glass. "I think the waiter's hot."

"I think the waiter's gay, and the only thing he'll read from your calling card is that you don't have the right equipment."

"Speaking of hot..." Sam settled back into the booth, her arms outstretched across the top. "What's the deal with you and Teal'c?"

"Ah, yes. Number three on the agenda."

"You realize he's old enough to be your..." Sam paused for a minute while her vodka-addled brain worked through the necessary math, "...your great, great, great grandfather."

"So I suppose he has a lot to teach me," Janet said with a wink.

"Oh, please! Really? You have the hots for Teal'c?"

"Surely the sight of that incredible body hasn't sent you off into fantasy land a time or two," Janet said.

Sam thought about it, melted a little in her indignity, rolled her eyes and said, "Maybe a time or two, but...Junior?"

"He doesn't have Junior anymore."

"But there's still the...thing there. I don't know. I'd always be thinking about...it. I mean, ewww."

Janet glanced up at the waiter who had delivered her drink. She thanked him and waited an appropriate time before she began to speak again. "Well, where Junior was concerned, I think it would have been ...interesting."

"Interesting."

Janet brought her drink to her lips and said, "In a three-way kind of thing."

"Ewww!" Sam cried. "Ewww, ewww, ewww, ewww! Ewwwwwww!"

Janet's drink almost left via her nose. She forced herself to remain calm enough to swallow before laughing.

"That's just...wrong, Janet!" Sam said, shielding her eyes.

"I'm kidding, Sam. Relax!"

Sam wriggled her entire torso, trying to shake out the willies. "That just makes my skin crawl."

"Listen, aside from that, I wouldn't throw him out of bed for eating crackers."

Sam closed her eyes and thought that one over. "Okay. What?"

"Nothing, Sam. I'm just saying, I'd be...receptive to an offer, or a gesture, or...a...caress..."

"Really? Teal'c?"

"Yes, Teal'c!"

"I just don't get it."

"It's called personal chemistry."

"It's called weird."

"I'm a woman, he's a—"

"Can we talk about something else?" Sam begged, closing her eyes, as if not having to see Janet would somehow close off audio contact.

Janet giggled, smoothed out the front of her skirt, tucked it tighter around her legs. "That's fine."

"Here's what I want to know," Sam said, plunking her chin in her hand. "When do things get back to normal?"

"Define normal."

Sam sighed, and her head leaned a little to the side. "The four of us, with Colonel O'Neill back in charge."

She has no idea, Janet thought...

How much information could Janet allude to? What could she say to her friend? Janet felt split in two—the military woman, who was under orders to keep information tightly capped, and Sam's friend, who wanted to give her friend a head's up about how the major's life was going to change dramatically. What could she say?

"Sam, what if the colonel—and, again, this is just a 'what if'—what if the colonel decides not to return to field operations?"

"I don't see that happening," Sam said, and Janet had to bite her lip in order to squelch the response that might put her in front of a disciplinary board. She decided to take a different direction.

"Sam, when you were in officer's training school, did you prepare yourself to rise in rank? Did you prepare yourself to take on added responsibility with each of your promotions?"

"Yes, of course. I did when I was promoted to major, but..."

"Sam, there's a reason for everything, especially in the military. Albeit, those reasons can be a little hard to understand, nevertheless, there are reasons. You, of all people, should know that."

"Janet, what are you getting at?"

"I'm just saying, in all your years as an officer in the Air Force, haven't you been preparing to take command?"

"Well, sure, I guess, but..."

"No buts. At any given time, an officer has to be ready to assume command. Either you are, or you're not." Janet locked eyes with Sam, and knew Sam was fully engaged enough to understand each and every word. "You've prepared your entire career to lead. At some point, you'll be given command of a team. Whether that's next week or next year, are you prepared? Are you willing?"

Sam felt the flood of pride and stubbornness pour through her body, straightening her spine. "I am."

"Then don't worry about what's normal, or what has been. Leadership changes, you know that. Just be prepared to step in when it's your time," Janet said, and with that, she finished her drink and hoped she hadn't breeched too many levels of protocol.

Sam kept her focus on Janet for a moment longer, thinking about what she had been told. She had felt out of control in the last few weeks, careening down a path that made no sense. Perhaps it was that she had forgotten the most important tenant of military life—that the succession of leadership can happen in the blink of an eye. Perhaps she was comfortable in the role of 2IC. Too comfortable. Perhaps that was what had fueled her angst in the last weeks.

"You're right," she said, nodding. "What's going to happen is going to happen."

"And?"

"And I am absolutely prepared to deal with it. Whatever it is."

"Good," Janet said.  You'll need to be...

Part 4

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