Disclaimer: I do not own Stargate Sg1 or any of it's characters, I post this strictly for entertainment purposes.

Chapter 4

Sam yawned and stretched, her neck sore from sleeping with her head upon the arm of the couch. According to the clock on the wall, it was already nearing noon. She looked around the room, unsure of what she should be doing with herself. Feeling much better after finally getting some decent sleep, she felt she should try to stay active, otherwise she'd be right where she was last night; an emotional wreck. She had enough of crying and she didn't think she had the energy to deal with with any more tears.

The house was already clean thanks to her brother and sister in-law's organization of the wake the other night, so there really wasn't much housework she needed to do. She remembered then the broken cup still laying on the floor in the kitchen and decided to go sweep it up.

After cleaning the shards off the floor she looked around for something else to occupy her time. Since she had retired a few months ago, she had no work for her to focus on and without any household chores left to accomplish, she was at a loss.

While Jack had been content in retirement, enjoying the freedom to go fishing or watch a hockey game anytime he wanted, Sam had found it harder to settle into life after work. She had spent the majority of her adult life buried up to her eyeballs with projects that demanded her rare and unique skills in astrophysics, computer science and technology, so the switch to the mundane world of the everyday life the majority of people her age enjoyed, left her with a feeling of incompleteness.

She had tried her best to enjoy not working, even going so far as to take cooking lessons and taking up the cello, but truth be told, she missed the SGC. While she hadn't been on a front-line unit in quite a few years, she still had plenty to do with all of the new technology that came in all of the time from all over the galaxy. However, after nearly thirty years in the Air Force, Jack had convinced her to retire so they could spend more time together. She thought at the time that she retired that it was what she really wanted, but after just a few months, she was restless, itching for something to do. She hadn't told Jack how unhappy she found herself increasingly becoming, hoping that she would get over her boredom eventually. She also never told him about the offer she had received from the IOA to oversee a project in Atlantis for six months. She didn't think he would take too kindly to her going so far away for half a year, so she had turned the offer down, but secretly she had been tempted.

Still finding nothing that she could focus her attention on, she went out the front door hoping to find some weeds that needed pulling or roses that needed pruning in the flower beds. The flowers were mostly dead now that autumn had swept in and she had already pulled the majority of the dead annuals out, but a few still remained and she ripped them out of the ground along with a few weeds that had popped up here and there in the little flower bed. Next she set her sights on trimming the hedges, carefully leveling them out with a pair of gardening shears she found in the tool shed until they were perfectly flat on top and at the exact height as the bushes next to each other. However, she found the repetitive snapping motion of the shears gave her the kind of distraction she needed, hacking and slicing them with abandon until the were nearly half of the bush they were before she started. When she was finished, sweaty and tired from the physical exertion of using the heavy two-handed shears, she cleaned up the clippings, so that not a single leaf from the bushes remained on the ground.

With the front yard now immaculate and perfectly groomed, she found herself once again inside the house looking for a chore to do. She just couldn't sit still, she needed to keep moving, there had to be something else she could clean or take care of...

It was then that the knock came at the door and she opened the it to face a concerned looking Daniel.

"Sam?... You okay?" he asked taking in her current state of dishevelment. It was then that she realized that she hadn't bothered to brush her hair since getting up and she still had little leaves from the bushes that had flown into her hair sticking out. Still sweaty and dirty from the yard work, she must be quite a sight to her old friend, he probably thought she had completely lost it.

"Uh, I'm fine, Daniel. I was just doing a little work in the yard." She explained while pulling a few leaves from her hair and trying to smooth it down with her fingers. "Why don't you come in?" She opened the door wider for him as he came across the threshold.

"I just wanted to come by and see how you were doing."

"I'm okay." She lied. He nodded, not believing it, but not calling her out on it. The stood there in the foyer not sure what to say to each other, an awkward silence descending upon them.

"Why don't I make some coffee?" She asked, breaking the tension.

"Sure, sounds good." He followed her back to the kitchen where she reached into the cabinet and pulled out the coffee filters.

"Here, I can do this." He offered. "Why don't you sit down?" He tried to grab the carafe, but Sam snatched it before he could claim it.

"No, Daniel." She began, growing irritated. "I am capable of making coffee. God, why does everyone think that I need to have everything done for me?" She snapped without actually meaning to take it out on him and seeing his face fall, she immediately regretted raising her voice to him. God, what was wrong with her? She knew he just wanted to help, but she was just sick and tired of it all. Closing her eyes and breathing in deep she opened them again and placed a hand on Daniel's arm. "Look, I'm sorry, I didn't mean it. I'm just a little..."

"I know...really, I do." He gave her a sympathetic smile and clasped her shoulder. She forced the tears that pricked behind her eyes to go away and gave him a weak smile in return before resuming her coffee making task. He left her side and walked over to the sliding glass door, looking out into the back porch and yard. Finally getting the coffee brewing, she turned to see him quietly contemplating with his hands in his pockets, watching the leaves fall from the trees that marked the edge of their property behind the house.

She remembered how he had come outside to be with her last night after the wake and how he had helped her to finally fall asleep at 2 in the morning. He really still was a good friend, even if he had been gone for so long, she knew why and she couldn't blame him for being absent for so many years. But that still didn't change the fact that they weren't as close as they had once been. There was a time when they could finish each other's sentences, where they would collaborate in to the wee hours of the mornings and where they could read each other's expressions and know exactly what the other one was feeling. She had to admit she missed those times, but so much had happened over the years to change them both.

Looking at him now, she realized that she wasn't the only one who was missing Jack. Those two had shared a closeness that defied understanding. Those two really couldn't have been any different, but Daniel had showed Jack how to care again after his son died when they embarked on that first mission to Abydos. And after Sha're was taken and later killed, Jack had been there to help Daniel get through it. However, things had been different with Vala. Jack had tried to help, to get him to move on, but maybe it had been the fact that they had never found out what happened to her nor ever recovered her body that had made it so difficult for Daniel to let go. He never had the closure of a funeral or even a headstone to visit, perhaps he felt that she might still be alive out there somewhere. She wasn't sure, since he hadn't even mentioned her name in years.

He must have sensed her looking at him for he turned to face her and give her a smile. Noticing that there was enough coffee in the pot for two, she poured them both a cup and they sat at the table.

"So..." He began as though searching for the right words to say.

"So." She mirrored, recalling many conversations between Daniel and Jack that began this way. Both of them testing the waters first, neither one wanting to be the first one to dive in and truly get to the heart of what they needed to say to each other. Jack especially had a hard time expressing himself, opting more often to show people that he cared through his actions rather than his words. Daniel on the other hand was a master of words and could talk a lion into becoming a vegetarian, but when it came to dealing with his own feelings, he clammed up.

"How have you been doing?" He finally broke through first. "The truth this time, Sam."

She put her chin into her hand, staring into her coffee. She was tired of everyone asking her how she was. What could she really tell them? 'Oh I'm fine except for the fact that I had to pull the plug on my husband and I'm an emotional disaster.' She wanted to lie to him, hoping he would drop the conversation, but what the hell. Why not tell him how it really was.

"Fine." She agreed with a sigh. "You want the truth. The truth is, I think I'm going to go crazy. I'm not sure I can take this anymore. A part of me just wants to crawl into bed and never come out again, while another part of me needs to keep moving all of the time. I just want to feel normal again."

Daniel nodded. She could see it in his eyes that he understood.

"I know. It's just gonna take some time before things are truly back to normal."

"Tell me, if that's true, why are you still hiding out in Atlantis?" Her mouth spoke before her mind had time to catch up.

"I'm not hiding out."

"Cut the bullshit already! You can't lie to me, Daniel. I know you. How can you tell me things are going to be alright and normal again? When was the last time you felt normal? Huh?" Why did she suddenly feel so angry? She wasn't so much ired by him, he had only been trying to help, she just felt so overwhelmed by the entire situation. Maybe it was because he was so far from okay and he hadn't been the same man she had been best friends with in so long. It had been over a decade since Vala disappeared, is this what she had to look forward to?

At Daniel's hurt expression she felt horrible. Why had she said that to him? Maybe she really was cracking up. The tears she had promised herself to keep at bay coming back to her eyes. "I'm sorry... I don't know why I said that." she whispered, barely able speak over the muscles constricting in her throat. She had to get out of there. Springing from the table, she bolted up the stairs to her bedroom and into the bathroom, slamming the door behind her. Catching the sight of herself in the mirror, she hated what was reflecting back at her. What she saw was a crazy looking, teary-eyed middle-aged woman on the edge of breaking down with leaves still sticking out of her hair.

She was stronger than this, she couldn't allow this to consume her, not like it had Daniel. If Jack had seen her like this he would have told her to snap out of it already and get a grip. She decided she needed to get it together, so she stripped off her dirty clothes and started the shower, getting in and letting the hot water scour the dirt off her body. She scrubbed and scrubbed, washing that person she saw in the mirror out, hoping that underneath it all she could find herself again.