The evening entertainment for the people of Eden with nothing more pressing appeared to be a large get together around a huge fire on the forest floor. There was food, something both O'Neill and Carter gratefully received. Having been fed intravenously for the past few weeks both were looking forward to some real food. There were all sorts of roasted fruits, Carter was busy dripping piping hot not-pineapple juice down her legs.

There were about thirty people gathered here tonight of varying ages; Uran had said approximately half of the total population were present. Various people kept hurrying up to introduce themselves; a bewildering barrage of alien names and friendly faces. O'Neill caught himself wondering vaguely what they had suffered from before coming here, as he tucked into something that resembled a roasted apple.

The sun was obviously setting and it was dropping colder under the trees, both of the shivered in their BDUs, as the orange light steadily changed to a bloody red, dappled by the leaves of the trees.

"Well, I'm exhausted Carter," O'Neill declared shortly after a few more minutes of meet-and-greet, "I'm going to bed."

"Good night sir," she replied, but the Colonel's response was inaudible.

She sat on her own for a few more minutes and then went to bed herself.

*

She was woken by the sound of someone tapping on the front door. Carter, wearing only her underwear and a tank-top (they had yet to receive any packages from home) wondered if she should answer it.

Muted voices meant that Colonel O'Neill had beaten her to it. She hurriedly pulled on some trousers and went out into the corridor to find out what was going on.

"Hey Carter," he said, "Package from home."

There was a huge wooden crate that had apparently been sent through the Stargate earlier that morning, O'Neill pried it open and pulled out the packages within. Sam recognised the heavily sello-taped parcels for the Colonel, no doubt wrapped by Daniel. O'Neill tossed a more neatly wrapped package at her which she nearly dropped. Janet's neat writing labelled it 'Sam Carter' and there was a card attached. Opening it, she found a note from Cassie.

After O'Neill had finished removing his things she dug out her own.

Janet had thought of everything. There were clothes, underwear, toiletries, a CD player and CDs, her laptop, books, even her own pillow and bed sheets. There was a three page letter from Janet, the aforementioned note from Cassie, even a scribble from Ben.

It was short:

Samantha, I wish you could have told me yourself you were going to be transferred. I miss you terribly. Your messenger says you cannot easily keep in touch. I hope you're safe. There's so much left unsaid. I'll try and contact you, but for now,

All my love,

Ben xx

Carter felt her eyes brimming with tears as she folded the letter back up and put it on a chest of drawers by her bed. She proceeded to put away all of her clothing before pulling on her dressing room and escaping to the bathroom for a good long soak in the largest bathtub she had ever seen.

O'Neill was playing on his Gameboy in the living room when Carter, washed and fully dressed, came in. He turned up the tinny music facetiously to try and prevent conversation. He'd seen the letter from Ben. Carter gave up trying to start a tentative conversation and proceeded to the study, to try and set up her laptop.

*

O'Neill had hung up a mirror in the corridor and he paused as he passed it early one morning, nearly a week after they had settled in Eden. There was a difference in his reflection, so small that it was almost imperceptible. He ran his hand through his hair distractedly, trying to figure out what exactly had changed...?

"Hey Carter!" he yelled.

The Major's blonde head appeared in her door way, hair tousled. "What!?" She did not share the Colonel's penchant for early rises to walk in the forest.

"Look!" He pointed to his temple.

"What?" Carter repeated, not quite as sharply.

"Notice anything different?" he asked, grinning broadly.

"No," she replied, bewildered.

"It's brown. Look, my hair is turning brown," he informed her excitedly.

"Well, what did you expect? Didn't you listen to Uran?"

"Er... no. So what, we're going to get younger?" He looked excited at the prospect.

Carter rolled her eyes. "No. The healing effect replenishes you from your DNA. Eventually you'll just reach your optimum age and just... stay there..." Her head disappeared again back into her room. O'Neill checked his watch; it was only half past six. Perhaps she had gone back to bed?

"Thanks!" he yelled, and she replied with a groan.

*

"Hey Carter!" O'Neill yelled again, giving the scientist a severe case of deja-vu.

"Sir?"

"You still working?" he asked, coming into the study where she was again working on her laptop.

"Yeah," she replied, concentrating on the screen. O'Neill frowned slightly; she was becoming obsessed with solving the puzzle of Eden's power. Dark circles around her eyes were testament to her late night studies and early morning get-ups to spend a day staring at the computer screen.

"Well, take a break. I'm heading down to the camp-fire. Come with me?"

There was a hint in his voice of the old tension between the two of them, his invitation was heartfelt. But Carter, annoyed that it had taken him so long to get over his jealousy about Ben and stop behaving so coldly towards her, shrugged. "No thanks, sir."

"There'll be hot pineapple things..." he wheedled, even though he knew she was resolute.

"Honestly sir... I think just a few more hours and I might have a solution." It was a lie, she was no closer to an answer now than she had been days ago, but she didn't want a pitched battle with the Colonel over attending a camp-fire meeting.

O'Neill knew he should leave it there, simply throw his hands up in exasperation and leave to spend another night brooding alone. But something rebelled. He leaned against the doorframe. "You know, it's not all bad here. There's some beautiful places. You should come for a walk with me tomorrow. I'll show you some of the things I've discovered."

A large part of Sam longed to say yes, but she shook her head. "I've got to work this out. Don't you want to go home?"

It was a throwaway question, one she had thrown at him in an attempt to win the argument. But she had struck a nerve, as over the past few days O'Neill had been questioning whether, if he ever could, he would want to return to Earth. Eden *was* his idea of paradise. He was even sharing it with Samantha Carter. But Carter was desperate to return to Earth, and, in all likelihood, her new man.

The mere thought of him made a fresh surge of anger course through his veins. "Fine. I'll leave you to it then," he snapped, standing up to leave. As he pushed the door shut, overcoming the very strong desire to slam it as hard as he could, he muttered under his breath: "Spend another night moping over you boyfriend. See if I care."

But Sam Carter had very good hearing.

"What did you say?" she demanded, pulling open the door violently, her blue eyes flashing dangerously. Two pink spots of colour burned fiercely in her cheeks and O'Neill felt his own cheeks flush, the deep red of guilty embarrassment.

A denial would be childish. "I said 'see if I care.' About you staying in, moping over your boyfriend like a love-struck teenager." In all honesty, that reply wasn't much more mature than the denial he had originally intended.

Carter's scowl deepened. "What's the matter Colonel? Jealous?"

"Jealous?!" he barked, covering the distance between them in two long, angry strides to grab her shoulders as if he wanted to shake her (1). Carter was horrified to realise that under her anger she was enjoying the grip of his hands on her arms; a part of her was revelling in his envious reaction to her relationship with Ben.

"Sure sounds like you are," she retorted, nose to nose with him as she frowned up at his red face. She felt the shiver that ran through his arms as her angry breath brushed his cheek.

"Of course I'm bloody jealous! You know how I feel about you!"

He looked as shocked as she did at the sudden revelation. He held her arms painfully tightly for a few more seconds and then-

"Screw this!" His traditional response to situations that tried his temper hissed between his teeth. He let go of her arms and stormed out of the house, leaving a thunderstruck Sam Carter standing in the corridor.

1. Not that the Colonel would ever act on such a violent impulse towards his team-mate