He awoke slowly, in the type of way where it takes a moment for the world to come into focus. His head was still a daze, and the actions of the last twenty-four hours had yet to come to the front of his mind. Both of them had been so tired, that neither of them tossed and turned during the sleep. He was in the exact same position he had fallen asleep in, and tuffs of blonde hair greeted him from slumber. For a moment, the tiniest of moments, everything seemed right. In fact, everything seemed so right for that second, that he considered the fact that he was dreaming. Countless times he had dreamed of waking up next to her, her in his arms. However, the perfection couldn't last. As his mind woke up further, the bruises on her arms came into sight. Her soft muffled cries of pain began to register in his ears. He began to realize that the pain medication that Carolyn had given her, mixed with the absence of the adrenaline of shock, must have worn off. She wasn't awake, though, to even realize it, and he made a decision to leave it that way for a moment.

As quietly as humanly possible, he slipped out of the bedroom, closing the door behind him. Once he was a safe distance away, he pulled out his cellphone to make the necessary calls to Stargate Command. He knew that Carolyn was going to take care of making arrangements today, telling the higher up's that he had a family medical emergency, which wouldn't completely be lying. Carter was a part of the small group of people he would consider family. However, he knew, or at least had firmly made up his mind, that today was not going to be enough. Carolyn had given Carter a week off of work for not only her physical healing, but to get a little bit of a head start of the emotional part as well. He knew she wouldn't want to go back to her house, at least not right away, and he planned to stay here with her. He wasn't even taking into consideration that she might not want company. He knew that she might put up that famous wall of hers, blocking everyone out, but he also knew that he was going to at least be in close proximity for the first couple of days in case that wall came crumbling down around her.

After his phone calls were made, with him being as discrete as militarily possible to the ones in charge, he set out to the kitchen. He couldn't cook. Well, he could, but it usually wasn't anything worth eating. He also had this gut feeling that she probably wasn't going to be much in the mood for heavy eating at this point in time. However, as shocking as this may be, he had been paying close attention to the directions Carolyn had given about her pain medication. Without something in the stomach, oxycodone could cause some pretty decent GI distress. Heaven only knew that Carter had enough things in her life right now to make her nauseous, her pain medication shouldn't add to that. He grabbed the package of saltine crackers, the stash he kept for when his bad nights turned into bad mornings, a glass of milk, and two pills before heading back to the bedroom.

He did his best not to make any noise when reopening the door to the bedroom, but that particular door had the slightest creak, and well, his hands were too full to try to muffle it. In the end, it didn't matter, because she was already starting to violently stir on the bed. He dropped everything that was in his hands onto the dresser, nearly spilling the glass of milk over it all, and practically flung himself back into the bed. Within seconds, his arms were holding her close again, rocking her gently.

"Hey, hey. It's okay. I'm here. It's okay."

She openly began sobbing again against his chest.

"I was having...having a bad dream, and I woke up...and I didn't quite know where I was...and it hurts. Everything hurts."

"Oh, Sam, I shouldn't have left you here alone. I'm so sorry. I thought I could make it back before you woke up, and I went to go get some pain medication for you, and...."

He couldn't help it; he started crying, too. Although he hadn't had to endure everything she had in the last twenty-four hours, he had this emotional turmoil that had been building inside of him, ready to burst. He had wanted to stay in control for her, be her rock, but he just couldn't do it any longer. As much as he could try to deny it, when she was hurting in such an awful way, he hurt, too. It wasn't supposed to happen. They weren't supposed to have developed such a close bond, but things don't always go as planned. He didn't even notice that he had slipped up and called her Sam. Frankly, at this point, he wouldn't have cared even if he would have noticed. After a good five minutes or so, she hesitantly pulled away from his chest.

"Did you say...you brought...pain medication?"

He slowly got up, wiped his eyes, and nodded. He took a deep, cleansing breath, regained his composure, and picked up the abandoned items from the dresser.

"I took the week off to stay with you."

She just nodded as she swallowed down the medication. Truthfully, she had expected him to do so. There were some things that they didn't necessarily need words to explain.

"Now, I'm not going to pressure you into anything. You feel free to do whatever feels best, but I was thinking that Daniel and Teal'c are going to notice us missing. You know how Daniel gets..."

Again, she nodded.

"It's okay. They can know now, but do you...you know....mind telling them for me? I just...well, I just don't want to say it out loud anymore right now."

He nodded. That was certainly something he could do for her, but that could wait until a little later. Although unspoken, as were many things between them, she needed him to stay with her as she fell back asleep.