}~{ Gild the Lily }~{

~One Month After Daniel's Death~

Sam, Teal'c and General Hammond watched as the two continued to go back and forth. It had been going on for an hour. Just back and forth. Jack would ask a dumb question and Rose would snap a reply back at him. It had been amusing, at first, and was quickly seeming to become a pattern between the two.

"I told you this already, Jack!" Rose exclaimed as she sat at the table in the briefing room. She pushed around a pencil as Jack laced his hands and placed them on the table top. He leaned forward.

"Well, tell me again. Why can't we dial Luxima?" Jack asked yet again as Rose flicked the pencil away and leaned closer towards him. A few more inches and their noses would have touched.

"I DON'T KNOW." Rose elongated each syllable hoping that perhaps it might sink in this time. She and Jack had been on tense terms for a few days now. Things had been fine. Jack had given her space. Allowed her time to pull herself together. Now, however, he felt that they needed answers about everything that had transpired well before Daniel had gotten sick. Really, he was looking for a distraction and Rose was it.

"Okay, what was the research you were doing?" Jack asked again as Rose leaned back in her seat. She shook her head, jaw tight. She was beginning to seethe. The only reason he knew she had been researching anything was because of Gaenor, who wasn't hanging around anymore. That was a whole other issue that Jack cornered her about when they were alone. At least he had that much decency.

"What happened before that necromancer threw you like a sack of potatoes through the Stargate?" Jack was also growing heated as no new information arose. He just needed something, anything, to distract him. "What are you hiding?!"

"Spirits damn you, Jack O'Neil! I don't know anything! I can't remember!" Rose pushed herself back from the table and stormed off, not bothering to ask to be excused. Jack threw a pencil towards the door she left through and then fell back against his seat. The others stared at him, unsure of whether to speak or not.

"What?!" Jack snapped, looking from Teal'c to Sam. Neither said anything and only looked to the other. Teal'c turned back to Jack first, face as serious as ever.

"Perhaps she truly does not know anything, O'Neil." He suggested calmly. "Her story has not changed since she has awoken."

"That's another thing." Jack suddenly remembered and slammed a hand down on the table, causing Sam to jump. "How in the Hell did she wake up? She was dead! We all saw it."

No one knew how to answer that either. They had seen many things through their travels across the universe. Never before though had they seen someone come back to life quite like that. It was unsettling.

"She has to know something!" Jack snapped, arms flailing. He leaned forward on the table again with his arms stretched out before him. "There's gotta be something."

"You believe she's lying to us?" General Hammond asked, making his presence known. "You really think she'd do that after everything?"

Jack turned and looked at him, remembering that he was the one who called this meeting in the first place.

"I wouldn't say it like that, sir." Jack started, anger beginning to deflate under the stare of his commanding General. "I don't think she would intentionally lie or hide something from us. Not unless she was more concerned with protecting us. Sir."

"Protecting us from what, Jack?" General Hammond placed his laced hands on top of a folder that sat before him.

"Perhaps the evocatorem." Teal'c offered, looking from General Hammond to Jack.

"Yeah, that guy!" Jack butted in and pointed at Teal'c, swiveling back and forth in his chair. Teal'c looked back at General Hammond to continue.

"O'Neil did say that Rosalina appeared to be afraid of this evocatorem when she awoke in the Gate Room that day. Perhaps she worries that if she informs us who they are and what happened before entering the Stargate that we too may be in some kind of danger."

Jack stared at Teal'c, mouth open and ready to argue, but he couldn't. It was a very good assumption.

"If this, evo-cat-orem, is a threat, then we need to know it. We need to know what we might be up against when or if we can ever get Rose back home again, Till then, Jack," General Hammond stated with a stern look, "she's your responsibility. Maybe consider being a little friendlier to her seeing as we aren't getting anythin' out of her unless she decides to share."

General Hammond stood up, collected his folder and then headed into his office. Jack watched him go and then shook his head, leaning forward on the table again. He suddenly stood up and then heatedly walked out of the room.

"Sir," Sam called after him and followed him down the hall. Jack looked to her and then faced forward again, "If she is suffering from some kind of memory loss, then pushing her isn't going to help. It may make things worse."

"You're point?" Jack didn't particularly care at the moment. He just wanted answers… and someone to argue with. Sam grabbed his arm to stop him short. He looked at her hand and then at her in surprise.

"Sorry sir." Sam apologized and stood a little straighter. "Rose died. Not once, but twice according to what she's told us."

"Annnnd?"

"And, sir, she was brought back to life; twice."

"Carter if there's a point, make it."

"My point, sir, is that people change from things like that. They die and come back. Suddenly, they have a whole new outlook on life. Sometimes they retreat into themselves." Jack raised an eyebrow at Sam. She was beginning to lose him again. "Maybe in Rose's case, dying and coming back was just too much for her and to protect her, her mind forced the memories into her sub-consciousness."

"Okay, say that is what's going on." Jack pulled out a hand and held it between them with the palm down. "Will her memory ever come back?"

"It might. It might not, sir." Sam's voice had an odd undertone. Jack had caught it.

"Buuuuuut…?" Jack asked, pushing his hands into his pants pockets. Sam gave a small dejected laugh.

"But… sir, if there was something, let's say 'bad,' that happened and her mind was protecting her from that, it could all come back gradually or all at once. If it came back gradually she could work through it, but if it came back in one swoop, then Rose could be worse off."

"How so?"

"She could become mentally unstable, sir. She could potentially, for lack of a better term, lose her mind."

"Like the lady that stands behind the 7-11 talking to the 'demons' that want to use her body for evil?" Jack asked, mockery in his tone.

"Yes, sir, or even worse." Sam was trying to convince him. Rose was a sweet girl and Sam did believe that she remembered nothing of what happened. Jack nodded his head and then began to walk away again. Sam had made a good point just as Teal'c had.

Rose had stormed down the hall, grumbling under her breath. She knew that this was Jack's way of coping with what had happened to Daniel, but she had enough. She didn't know anything. She didn't remember what happened before coming through the Stargate. She remembered nothing while she had been unconscious. All she did remember was dying; the darkness, the bitter cold.

She knew people were watching her. They were whispering about her. She had listened to whispers like these her whole life on Luxima. Why should she care about some damned Tau'ris then?

Rose stopped at the elevator and impatiently pressed the down button. She knew there was a group of soldiers behind her by a hallway, staring at her, burning holes into her back. She could hear them talking about her.

"Who does she think she is?" A man asked, looking at the others in his group. "Disrespecting Colonel O'Neil, talking back?"

"She's so smug. Thinks we're all nothing special." Another man commented. "Like her planet's the only one in the universe."

"She's a spoiled little princess on a strange, alien planet." A woman laughed, making the men laugh as well. "It's no wonder her own people didn't want her."

Something inside Rose hurt. Her eyes became blurry as she fought the will to cry. She blinked the tears away and pressed the button again, hard. Suddenly the door opened. She quickly walked in, pressed the button for the floor she wanted and ignored the group still laughing at her. They stared at her as she stared at them, doors closing.

The doors closed. She was separated from them. She pressed her tongue hard against her teeth, trying to keep from releasing a cry. Her eyes burned again, but she stood straighter with her shoulders back. She swallowed the soreness in her throat away the best she could, but it wasn't enough.

"They're wrong, you know." A voice came from the back of the elevator. Rose hadn't even noticed anyone else when she had answered. She had just wanted to escape the taunting. She looked over her left and saw Jonas Quinn leaning in the corner, a folder at his side. Rose said nothing and looked back at the closed doors.

The elevator stopped, but it wasn't the floor she wanted. She stepped to the side and allowed other onto the elevator, pressing her back against the opposite corner of Jonas. Their eyes met; sapphire met stormy blue and locked in a silent conversation. The elevator dinged and the doors opened. Rose rushed out in a brisk walk without looking back.

Somewhere inside her she wished Jonas had followed her. She wished someone had, that someone would just be… a friend. She was all alone. Jack at her throat. Daniel dead. Gaenor vanished. It was her and four walls that were beginning to close in around her.

"I miss you, Daniel…" Rose mumbled as she rounded a corner. She headed further and then stopped before a door. She opened it, letting the knob drift from her fingers. The light from the hall left a path into the room, but also left so much darkness. The light extended to the far wall ahead and hit a picture frame on the night stand.

It was a blue stargazer lily, pressed and forever preserved behind glass. Avia had done it for her a few years ago. So, that when she came to visit Earth she wouldn't miss home too much. So, that she could feel at home there, at Stargate Command with him and Jack. She would have a part of it no matter where the Stargate took her.

Rose looked down at the floor and then reached out for the knob again, closing the door once more. She didn't drop it though. She just stared at her hand on the knob. Tears made trails down her cheeks, falling to the floor.

She heard boot falls and looked, hoping to see Jack. The two soldiers walked passed her without even a look her way. Rose looked up at the ceiling and took a deep breath, sighing heavily; sadly. She felt cold.

"I don't know how things work on Luxima, but here," a hand took hold of hers and twisted the knob to open the door, "not all the doors are automatic."

Rose looked to her right and stared at Jonas Quinn. He looked at her with a goofy smile, folder in hand and at his side. Rose looked back at the room and spotted the lily again. Jonas peeked around the doorway and spotted it on the nightstand. He looked back at Rose and questioned what was wrong.

"I can't go in." Rose breathed out, forgetting Jonas was there beside her.

"Why not?" He knitted his eyebrows together and looked between her and the room again. Rose said nothing. She couldn't say it because she didn't understand herself.

Was it the lily? The memories? …the darkness that engulfed the room, holding them both locked away inside?

"Okay," Jonas began and reached for the doorknob. "The best thing about these doors is that you can close them and open them again later."

He shut the door and looked back at Rose with a comforting smile.

"Wanna grab some lunch? I was on my way to the cafeteria. I'd love the company." Jonas opened his arms to his sides and gave a boastful smirk. He lowered his arms and then extended a hand to her. Rose look at it and blinked. She blinked again and then again. She shook her head, questioning him silently. She suddenly stopped.

Hadn't this been what she asked for? A friend? Here was someone, hand literally extended for her to take in friendship, and she was questioning it; questioning him. She knew very little of Jonas Quinn other than Jack resented him because of Daniel's death. She had never heard an ill word cross Daniel's lips though. In fact, Daniel had never mentioned Jonas at all.

"Come on, Rosalina. Say yes." Jonas tried to hold back a grin, bouncing from foot to foot eagerly. Rose found it hard to deny her lips from forming a small smile. In a strange way, Jonas reminded her of Daniel.

"…yes." Rose took his hand and allowed him to lead the way a few step before letting go. She looked back over her shoulder at the door to her room and gave a small huff of a laugh. She looked forward again and bit her bottom lip, shaking her head.

"What? Did I say something?" Jonas asked and looked to her.

"Just something Daniel used to say to me." She shook her head at him and licked her lips at the memory.

"Oh yeah? What was it?" Jonas asked and opened the door to the cafeteria, holding it for her. She stopped and stared at the door, laughing again. She brushed her teeth back and forth over her bottom lips in an attempt to keep herself from laughing insistently. "You gonna tell me or am I gonna have to guess?"

Rose looked back at Jonas and began to laugh wholeheartedly for a long, long moment. She walked through the doorway with Jonas following close behind her.

"What are you laughing at?" Jonas asked again. Rose looked to him, her gaze the happiest he had seen since she sat at Daniel's bedside laughing with him.

"Anything could happen, Jonas Quinn." Rose smiled at him so warmly he thought he might melt into a pool at her feet, "Anything could happen."

"When one door closes, another opens; but we often look so long and so regretfully upon the closed door that we do not see the one which has opened for us."

- Alexander Graham Bell