Jack awoke on the couch several hours later with Sam still curled against his chest. The house was quiet and dark. He couldn't remember Daniel or Teal'c leaving. For that matter, he couldn't remember the end of the movie. Intense pins and needles were shooting up his arm alerting him to just how long it was that he was sitting like this. His neck ached in anger at his body. He also knew that the moment he tried to reposition himself, she would wake up, and he just wanted to watch her for a little while. He supposed that one would eventually get used to things like this, but right now, he wasn't taking it for granted. Waking up with Carter in his arms was still something wonderful. It wasn't like this was the first time he had woke up in the near vicinity of her. Many missions, many nights, they have woken up in adjoining sleeping bags, but they were always so careful of actually touching. This was still something special.

His gaze must have been sending subliminal messages to her brain because she, too, woke up. For a brief second, there eyes met, and time stood still. He couldn't help but notice something wonderful.

"You're smiling."

"I was having a good dream, sir."

There was that glow in her eyes, the one she got whenever she was pouring over a new discovery in her lab. It was the look that made Jack listen to a whole lot of techno-babble just because it made her so gosh darn happy.

"Do tell. What was the dream about?"

"The Loop of Kon Garat. One of the best missions."

"Well, I wouldn't consider it one of the best missions, but I'm just glad you're dreaming about that and not other things."

"To tell you the truth, sir. I was dreaming about that, too, but the emotions of that must have triggered something in my mind of how I felt when we were about to fall into the corona sphere of their sun, and there you go."

"So normalcy is in there somewhere?"

"I hope so, sir."

"Good."

.............

She waited until she the bathroom door was closed, and she was finally alone, before she let the tears fall down her cheeks. It wasn't that she didn't appreciate everything Jack was doing for her. There was just that moment, on the couch, where she knew he was happy because she was happy. It wasn't like she was lying when she had woken up in his arms. At the time, her dreams did contain the Loop, and she, and the smile on her face was genuine, but then reality hit. She already felt like a failure for letting this happen to her. She didn't want to let him down again. She held on to both sides of the porcelain sink and starred blankly into the mirror.

Her hair was a little bit longer than usual. She had been growing it out for the wedding, a useless measure now. The blonde waves and the look of her very blue eyes starring back at her through the reflection made her feel too girly, too beautiful, and she didn't want to be beautiful any more. Frantically, she started digging through the vanity drawers trying to find something useful. There was no scissors. That would be too convenient. In the medicine cabinet, though, a glare of shiny silver shined through from the blades of a bic razor.

She grabbed the soap dish from the top of the sink and smashed the bic razor until it was no more. She grabbed the blade and examined it. Surely, it would do the trick if she was careful. She thought it through for, oh, about a second, before grabbing one of the longer pieces of hair flowing over her face. With her normal precision, as if she was working with a delicate artifact, she began slicing away the hair. Blonde strands quickly started gathering into the sink. As the pile of hair grew larger, so did the quantity of tears falling. The sounds of her sobs combined with the dedication in her work drowned out the sounds of Jack breaking open the door.

He worked with desperation. He heard the pounding of the soap dish on porcelain followed by growing sobs coming from inside the bathroom. Worry started to fill ever inch of his being, and it was making it that much more difficult to break down the door. Luckily, though, he never switched out the simple latch on the door, and it was able to be jimmied open. He crashed through the door, and his heart instantly broke apart.

"Sam! Sam! Wait. Oh, Sam."

He restrained her from behind, and she collapsed into his arms once more. The razor dropped with a thud into the drain.

"I don't want to look this way, anymore. I don't know what to do, but I don't want this anymore."

He could hear the desperation in her voice, the sincerity. He held her that much more tighter.

"It's okay, alright? We're gonna get you dressed, and then I'll take you somewhere to finish what you started, okay? But let someone else do it. No more playing with small razor blades."

She continued to sob into his shirt as he stroked her hair and kissed the top of her head. He was just glad that she was using the blade to cut her hair and not something else. He was thrilled to be able to hold her in his arms once more.