Sam bit her lip. She hadn't stopped crying since she got back from Antarctica. The girls looked up expectantly when she walked in the door as she kicked off her shoes and grabbed a glass of the crappy cheap wine from a box that Pete had put in her fridge. She didn't care that it was garbage. The temptation to go to Jack's house and sob on his bed overwhelmed her so she very pointedly didn't. Had she known what he'd left her on his nightstand she might have been at least consoled with his heartfelt admission that he was always hers.
Instead she plopped on the couch and slugged back half the glass of the overly sweet rotgut Pete liked. Pete. She snorted. What the hell was she doing with Pete? But now Pete was all there was. How stupidly ironically unfortunate.
"Mom?" Grace asked her. She'd seen her mom like this before. When Uncle Danny had been missing, and when Aunt Janet died. Something was wrong.
Cassie and Grace exchanged a look.
"I ah… I have some bad news." Sam told them. Her hands shook. She gripped the glass tighter. "There was an accident on the base. Your uncle… he was exposed to something and… they had to put him in an induced coma to keep him alive." She told them, giving the 'official' story.
"Can we see him?" Grace asked.
Sam shook her head. "They have him in an iso unit in a secure branch of the facility. No one can see him right now. Not even me."
"Is he?..." Cassie asked.
"He's alive… barely… and the only way to keep him that way is to keep him under until we... well, they, can figure out how to treat what's wrong with him."
It was strange really. She'd been unable to say his name without bursting into tears again and yet both girls had understood she meant Jack. As if of the guys, he was the important one. That they recognized him as their father even though Grace didn't know and Cassie had anointed him as such. Sam swallowed a lump in her throat. Then she downed the rest of her glass.
Tears gathered at the corners of her eyes again. "They are doing everything they can to save him." She said… but Sam didn't really think they would figure it out without a miracle. She had not had fun storming the castle.
Weeks later, Sam begs Liz to let her save Jack. She goes as far as refusing to work if she's not allowed to look for a way to save him. Liz finally relents. She knows the look in Sam's eyes. Whatever they might claim otherwise, Sam has a personal stake in the situation.
She and Teal'c leave to contact the Asgard. They helped Jack before, Sam rationalizes. They can save him a second time. They had to. The Asgard owed Jack. They owed him a lot. She'd strong armed Liz into it not knowing the other woman had relented mostly because she knew love when she saw it. Sam would be useless to her if she wasn't at least given the chance to save her lover.
All does not go well. Hala has become a death trap and Thor has to beam them out of their disintegrating ship. Unfortunately… the replicators have a bone to pick with Sam. Fifth resents her betrayal and beams her away from Thor's ship and then leaps into hyperspace. Fifth tries to trick her but her subconscious leaves clues that this isn't reality. Pete would never agree to buying a farm. She couldn't imagine him ever even dignifying the idea. Only one man in her life would ever be interested in such a simple lifestyle and it wouldn't be a farm.
The first thing Jack notices is that he's not really in his own head. Thor has transferred his awareness to his computers. Well this is kind of cool he decides as he tries to get everyone's attention to let them know he's up and around. He asks everyone what's going on and gets a bit suspicious when Daniel winces. But Thor tells him he has access to all the ship's information so Jack does what comes naturally. He starts playing with the environment, in this case, the light switches.
Thor calls him to task and weirdly... Jack can tell Thor is laughing at him. Jack apologizes for wasting time being silly.
Thor tells him he's able to create a hologram of himself so Jack tries it out. "Dang!" He says shaking his holographic hands.
"You okay?" Daniel asks him, concerned.
"It's a little weird." Jack agreed, "But yah, I'm okay."
"At least you aren't speaking Ancient." Daniel tells him, relief in his voice.
"There's that." Jack says, mulling the ramifications.
"Actually, the computer is translating." Thor tells them both.
"Ah." Daniel replies, understanding that this is simply a stopgap for Jack not a solution.
Jack checks himself out and makes more jokes until Thor points out his time is limited. Jack waves them off so he can get to work. Engineering crap is a lot easier with a bunch of Lantian mil-specs in his head to help out he decides as he plugs away at a device Thor can't even make heads or tails of but Thor ends up having to revive his physical body even though Jack technically wasn't quite done.
Daniel asks him if he remembers anything and he lies. What he does remember is fuzzy and almost all of it is about Sam. Where is Sam anyway? He tells Daniel he's got a hell of a headache, which is true. He tells Daniel the last thing he remembers is getting head sucked and something about twins just to see how they would react. No one takes the bait so he asks Teal'c about the hair situation. He and Daniel bicker about his creation. Without the Ancient download in his head, he can't make heads or tails of what he's engineered.
Penegal contacts Thor to ask for help but Thor is still trying to decipher what Jack had made and Jack is no longer any help. The download is gone from his head and without it he doesn't possess the intellectual capacity to decipher it. Hell without Sam he doesn't have it.
And the planet Sam might be on has no life signs. Jack swallows his feelings. They had to find her. She had to still be alive.
Thor gets the bright idea to beam a dead replicator person onto his ship which isn't exactly Jack's idea of smart seeing as Thor admits the stasis pod Jack was in isn't strong enough to contain the replicator if it comes back to life but he's not the one running the show here.
It turns out to be useful though. They find Sam. Jack swallows his heart back down while they get rid of the replicator that's waking up. It's already overwhelmed the ship's computer though and Thor is unable to beam the thing out.
On instinct Jack goes for the device he engineered and shoots the replicator with it. The machine disintegrates.
Thor knows Jack's next priority is Carter and tells him that while he can't get him into the replicator facility but he can get Jack close.
Fifth is waiting for them and attacks. When Jack gleefully obliterates the damned metal bugs, Fifth warns Jack if he doesn't stop he'll kill Sam. Fifth's bugs hear Jack's conversation with Thor and try to escape total annihilation while Jack makes his case to Thor for saving Sam.
Jack, Daniel, and Teal'c go Rambo on the replicators anyway to buy Thor some time. Sam would never want to live trapped by replicators. They would save her or not but they wouldn't leave her this way.
Teal'c is the one that finds her and helps her up but he and Daniel leave it to Jack to talk to Sam first.
In the end... they offer him George's job… and Jack wants to kiss Sam when she tells him if he doesn't take the position they might end up with someone much worse, then frets over how it sounded. He wishes things were right between them again but at least he has her awkward regard.
Danny's final comment is what decides him. He can do whatever he wants. Sam admonishes him within reason but… it's still a great reason.
And the first thing he wants to do… he does first. Much to her surprise, he gives Sam a much deserved promotion to lieutenant colonel. She's deserved it for a while in his opinion and Hammond had agreed with Jack when he made it one of his conditions of his own promotion. There would be others but this one… this one needed to be first. Because she was first.