I never wanted to leave you, Jack.

I should've found a way to stay there, in the outpost, because once they had me 'home', they wouldn't let me go back.

I can't bear to think of you alone, trapped in that thing, even though you don't know you're trapped. There are so many unknowns, so many things that could go wrong. What if the chamber doesn't stop things, but merely slows them down, and you die anyway, while we're not there? What if it fails, the power cuts out, it has some kind of timed 'off' function?

Or what if you're stuck, frozen there for years. I still remember being told everyone I knew was dead – remember, back when Hathor showed her ugly face again? It's a cliché, and I know how much you hate those, but I swear my heart stopped. I felt this horrible pain in my chest, radiating from that space right below and between my ribs – what do they call that, the xiphoid process, or something. Janet would know...God. Janet.

I quickly scribble out the last line, damning myself for writing all my journals in ink. I don't need to dump that on Jack, to remind him of that. When we get him back, we'll have had time to grieve; for him, it hasn't been so long. I sigh; I've started writing my notes to Jack, instead of that whatever-it-is part of myself that one to whom most people write in a journal. My eyes burn, and I scrub at them before continuing.

Anyway, it hurt, Jack. It hurt like nothing else, knowing that everyone had been dead for decades, that not only was everyone I ever knew gone, but also that they'd been gone so long there was nowhere for me to mourn them and no way to really say goodbye. For all the people whose lives had been lost, for Catherine and Ernest, Sam, Teal'c, General Hammond, Feretti, everyone...all I wanted was you. I wanted your strength, Jack. I wanted to break down and cry like I did in that storeroom so long ago, and have you hug me just like you did then. I have never truly felt alone when I've been with you, Jack, not since somewhere during that first trip to Abydos. I grieved for everyone else, yes, but it was the loss of you that truly left me alone.

If you were reading this, you'd be rolling your eyes and telling me to get on with it. Actually, you'd have been doing that quite a while ago. My point is that I don't want you to be in stasis for so long that when you get out, your whole world has changed – and certainly not so long that those who love you are gone.

You've already woken to a stranger's face telling you that you were the lone survivor. You don't need to go through that again. I won't let you.

Hang on, apparently Sam just got Weir to agree to a rescue mission. We're coming, Jack. We're coming.

TO BE CONTINUED: (Sorry it took so long, real life got in the way.)