The next day they had Sam, Jack and Teal'c visit and the curtain between them was thrown open. It was the first time they had seen each other since waking up. Daniel had to force himself not to stare. His last memory of her was that of his almost eighty-two year old wife lying in his arms and not the young woman in the other bed. He hadn't seen her in forty-seven years. God it almost hurt to see her.

Candice was also not really prepared to see Daniel. She had a mental image of him from the last night they were together and she could picture every line on his face and his long gray hair and beard glowing in the firelight as he held her. It just didn't match the handsome man in the bed next to her. This man was the one she fell in love with so long ago. She almost had to bite back a sob.

Jack tried teasing them both and Sam was chatting about what they knew about the beam that hit them, both of them realizing that their audience was very quiet and pensive. Teal'c did not say much but rather stood back and observed the two.

Teal'c kept his observations to himself until the three of them were at lunch, "There seems to be a great sadness between them that was not there previously."

Knowing that Teal'c didn't make random statements like that Jack pressed for more, "Whatdaya mean?"

"I observed that they would barely look at each other. And that their initial reaction upon seeing one another was one of shock. I believe there is something that they are not telling us."

"I thought they were getting along fine before getting zapped Teal'c."

"Indeed, they appeared to be very comfortable with one another and were both enjoying the exploration of the ruins. Which is why I do not understand this sadness that I see."

Sam had been sitting quietly absorbing Teal'c's words, "Do you think something happened between the time they were zapped and the time they woke up?"

"I do not know. But it does seem likely."

"Carter…" Jack started.

"I know sir, I will look into it and bring it to the Asgard's attention as well. They probably shouldn't leave the base until we know for sure."

"I'll take care of that. I don't want to freak either of them out any more than they are but I don't want a potential situation here in the SGC either. Do you think we need to quarantine them?"

"Hard to say sir, we should talk to Dr. Fraiser and see what their actual medical tests indicate. We can just as easily confine them to the base and assign teams to monitor their activities."

"Good plan."

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Dr. Fraiser released them both the next day, confining them to quarters unless it was to go to the commissary for meals and she kept stressing that they both needed rest. A lot of rest.

Daniel and Candice hadn't spoken since that first night and they didn't as they went their separate ways to their quarters. Neither of them noticed the guards trailing behind them.

Candice fell into her bed and hugged a pillow to her chest and sobbed, letting out all the pent-up emotions from the last couple of days. She finally cried herself to sleep with all of the lights on in her quarters. The airman watching the video loop from her quarters made careful notes about her behavior for the Colonel.

Daniel made it to his quarters in a daze. He didn't go to his bed, he didn't know if he would ever be able to sleep in a bed without her. He leaned back against a wall just staring at his bed and slid down it and just kept staring. He finally laid his head on his bent knees and fell asleep. Another airman documented his behavior for the Colonel as well.

Candice woke eight hours later and realized she needed to eat and she wanted a cup of tea. She headed for the commissary and looked over the choices, everything seemed heavy and too much. She finally settled on a plain baked potato and a pile of simple salad greens. She got a cup of mint tea and settled in at a table to eat.

She picked at the food, eating very little. But the mint tea was familiar and gave her comfort. She finally gave up the effort and made her way back to her quarters. She missed Daniel entering the commissary by a mere moment.

He too looked at the food as being too heavy and processed. He finally settled on a plain baked potato, a couple of raw carrots, and a bowl of salad greens. He went to get coffee and found that the smell almost turned his stomach. He went for a cup of mint tea instead. He picked at his food without much of an appetite. The tea made him almost want to weep it was so familiar. He finished it and got another cup as he left to go back to his quarters.

The airmen observing the pair made their detailed notes for the Colonel and continued to watch.

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This routine of theirs continued for almost a week after being released from the infirmary. The two had made no effort to contact each other and their behavior was worrying those that cared about them.

Janet had been analyzing their brain activity during their period of being unconscious and she found something startling.

"Basically sir by comparing the data from Daniel and Candice to normal human sleep patterns it is almost as if they crammed almost fifty years of brain activity into the eight days they were unconscious in that beam of light. It explains why they are exhausted and sleeping all the time. And if we knew what their brains were actually doing we might have a clue as to their current mental state and behaviors."

"Do you think they are a danger to this facility Doctor?" General Hammond asked pointedly.

"I don't believe so sir, they were both friendly extroverted people before the incident and what I see happening is them becoming more and more withdrawn and introverted. I am worried about their mental status for them personally and not as a security risk."

"When are the Asgard going to reach the planet to survey?"

Sam piped in, "They should be there tomorrow sir."

"Very well, we will continue as we are for the time being. Hopefully the Asgard will find an answer."

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She liked sleeping, sleeping and dreaming allowed her to return to her dream world and relive memories of happy times with Daniel. She found that if she thought of some specific event or time right before she went to sleep that her dreams would pick right up on it. She tried not to focus on making love with Daniel because although the memory/dream was wonderful her heart and body ached for him when she awoke.

Food was becoming a problem, she really had no appetite. She longed for the simple meals they shared, and the foods that she could so clearly remember eating for so long. She found comfort only in the mint tea. It reminded her of home, well her dream home anyway, and her Daniel.

Daniel had mixed feelings about sleep, he could hold her when he slept, could breathe in her scent and the softness of her hair. He could feel her heartbeat and the shape of her breast in his hand. He could remember what it felt like to slide himself into her and hear her cry out his name. He hated waking, alone and on the floor because he still couldn't sleep in the bed, with an arousal so intense it hurt. Cold showers fixed part of the problem but the ache in his heart grew and he almost hated to go to sleep just because he had to wake up.

He also wasn't eating, he wanted the tangy grilled yellow tubers that they never named, he wanted the large beans that Candice had found a hundred and one ways to cook, he wanted the sweet berries that she dried so they could eat them like candy. And he wanted to have her beside him sharing it. His only solace was in the many cups of mint tea he drank each day. If he closed his eyes as he drank it he could almost go home.

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Two weeks after they woke up Colonel O'Neill was called to the commissary ASAP. When he got there he found Daniel's two monitors holding him back from attacking the officer in charge of the commissary.

"WHAT is going on here?" Jack demanded.

The officer tried to explain that Daniel became very upset to discover they were out of a particular tea and when the officer told him it was on order and they would have it in a couple of days Daniel went ballistic.

Daniel was practically snarling as the airmen held him, "Jack it doesn't take days to get tea. I can go to the damn store right now and get it myself. I want the mint tea, not the oolong, not the raspberry, not the chamomile. I want the mint tea."

There was something in Daniel's eyes that Jack had never seen before. A pain and longing that was inexplicable. Even Daniel's drive to find Sha're hadn't been that intense. Jack didn't understand but he was suddenly very afraid for his friend.

He ordered the airmen to escort Daniel back to his quarters after Daniel heard him order another airman to drive into town and secure the preferred tea at the local grocery store. Jack then turned to the commissary officer and told him in no uncertain terms that he wanted three cases of that mint tea in the commissary tomorrow, no excuses.

He decided to give Daniel a little time to cool down then went to see him. He found him sitting in the dark in front of his computer just staring at the screen. As Jack came around to see what he was looking at Daniel quickly closed the computer window and Jack missed what he was looking at.

"Daniel talk to me. What is going on in that brain of yours?"

"Nothing Jack."

"Obviously Danny, because you always try to rip people's heads off when they are out of tea."

"I overreacted."

"Uh YEAH. But why is what I want to know."

"Jack I'm tired and gonna get some sleep. Can we do this another time?"

Sensing that Daniel had shut down and he wasn't going to get anywhere Jack left. But he made a pit stop into Sam's lab and had her pull up the file that Daniel had been looking at that he didn't want Jack to see. They were both surprised and wondered what it meant. They had a meeting with Janet that afternoon to discuss Daniel and Candice.

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"I'm getting worried about them physically at this point. They aren't really eating. They both went from being die-hard coffee drinkers to living on that mint tea. Daniel still isn't sleeping in his bed, and Candice won't turn off the lights in her quarters and seems to be rubbing the top of her left wrist all the time and I haven't figured out why. Both are getting more and more despondent. If I had to put a label on it I would call it grief. Like you would see when a long-term spouse dies."

Jack's ears perked up at that last comment, "Janet when I went to see Daniel earlier he had something up on his computer screen that he didn't want me to see. I had Sam pull up the file and it was Candice's personnel picture. Not the whole file, just the picture."

Sam sat up, "According to the monitor's reports they haven't seen each other since they were released from the infirmary. They haven't even tried. But it was mentioned that Candice took a picture off the community bulletin board in the commissary, it was a casual shot of Daniel at the New Year's Eve party."

Janet looked puzzled, "We are missing something. Have the Asgard come up with anything yet?"

"They found the device responsible and are analyzing it. But have no clue as to its purpose."

"Well if their behaviors get much worse we should consider maybe sedating them until we can figure out what is going on."

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