Sam walked into Colonel O'Neill's temporary quarters on base and had to spare a moment to smile. Since leaving the infirmary he'd showered and changed into a set of blue fatigues, missing only his name written on the right breast from looking like the month he'd been listed KIA hadn't happened. The bed was impeccably made, omnipresent whispers of the sharp military mind-set of the man that stood in sharp contrast to the cavalier and laid-back presence Jack exuded from his seat at the small table, titled back on two legs and his feet crossed with heavy boots planted on the table-top. Jack was reading something propped in his lap, hidden from Sam's view by his legs, the two beers she had brought him earlier (to his barely contained glee) sitting side-by-side on the table before him.

Jack didn't look up and yet said, "Hey, Carter."

Smiling, Sam took a further step into the room, "Sorry... the door was open."

Jack finally looked up from whatever he was concentrating on to rest his eyes on her. They stayed on her only a second before his gaze flickered to the open door and view of the hallway beyond, "Yeah... it's just easier than answering the knocks every ten seconds, people dropping in... mostly Daniel," Jack's lips twitched in a smirk, affectionate and appreciative, even while his tone implied wearied exasperation. "Besides, a week hanging out with the Tok'ra... got used to the no-doors thing... well, let me rephrase that, figured out how to put up with it, and for the moment it works better for the walking Jack O'Neill carnie show I've got going out in the hall," and to make his point lifted a hand to give a lazy wave to an airman who moved slowly by while looking inside the room to see for himself if the rumor was true. The airman gave a heart-felt wave back when he saw the colonel's gesture before disappearing from sight again.

Jack cant his head toward Sam, clearly beckoning her further inside, so damn alive and vibrant that Sam wanted to beam like a kid at Christmas. She was only just managing to keep herself from running up and giving him a hug, the proper hug she'd never had a chance to give him because she was taken off-guard by his symbiote in the briefing room. Instead she took unhurried steps closer to the table where he sat, hands clasped easily behind her back.

"How'd you know it was me, sir?" she asked to his correctly identifying her upon her arrival since apparently his first guess should have been Daniel.

Jack's playful expression fell just a little and he grew more serious, a little confused, as he stumbled, "Well, you know, the whole symbiote in the head thing, you're hard for me to miss, harder for me to miss... I can tell it's you from ten feet away.

"I knew it had to be either you or Teal'c; he was my next guess."

Sam tried not to let her smile slip at the reference to the uninvited guest in Jack's head, the ability it gave him to sense the remnants of Jolinar's legacy in her blood that reciprocally allowed her to feel an alien stirring in her deepest thoughts when she got close to him. "Right... pretty weird, huh?"

Jack quickly picked up on her thread and ran with it, "Oh yeah, so weird. Pull up a seat, Carter." Jack nodded toward the chair opposite the table to him.

Sam did, settling her weight down on the plastic seat and letting her eyes fall to the two bottles on the table. Now that she was closer she could see that one bottle still cast the back of the label wrapped around its girth in the warped dimensions of refraction through liquid.

"Why did you only drink one?" she pointed curiously at the beers. He'd had plenty of time to drink both... Sam knew her commanding officer well enough to gauge about how long it would take him to drink two beers.

Jack looked down at the two bottles, one empty and the other full, and his expression soured faintly, "Oh... well, I had every intention of drinking both, but Aetom doesn't like alcohol. We compromised on one." Jack moved to reach for the full bottle, "Want it?"

Sam waved away his gesture, "I'm on duty, sir."

Jack shrugged then dragged his feet off the table. His boot soles thudded on the ground a split second before the font legs of the chair clattered against the cement. The colonel moved the item he'd been studying on his lap to lay it on the table instead, and Sam's eyes widened when she saw a Goa'uld reading tablet and page-turning device.

"Were you reading that?" she asked incredulously before she could think to censure her words.

Jack looked down at the tablet, "Not so much reading as being read to; found out this morning that on one of their missions SG-4 sacked a Goa'uld who'd been a surviving advisor of Montu's little club and had this on his snakey little person. Aetom thought... he was looking for evidence of anything he might have missed, any mention of the Jaffa tucked away on P78-294."

Sam frowned. Even taking Jack's miraculous return into consideration the SGC had still lost a number of good people on that botched operation. Since that day Sam had developed an even greater remorse for the fallen comrades of P78-294 other than Colonel O'Neill. Sam had listened to Captain Rawlins tell Daniel about the two teammates she'd lost, because people just opened up to Daniel like the young man was the key to every floodgate in the human psyche, and after time it felt like she'd known those people that much better. It made their deaths cut that much deeper.

Interested in changing the subject, Sam said, "I just came back from a meeting with General Hammond."

Jack seemed just as eager to leave behind things that couldn't be changed. His dark eyes tracked up to her as he replied, "Oh?"

"Well... he had a few matters he wanted to address with me about SG-1."

Jack mused, "That's right, you're the head honcho now, aren't you?"

Sam gave a somewhat self-conscious smile. "He thought I might have a few... issues, about relinquishing command. You were planning to resume your old position as SG-1's commanding officer, right?"

Jack smirked, "Well, I didn't come back from the dead for the commissary's food." Sam chuckled. "That was my intention, yes. So, Major, are we going to have to arm-wrestle for the team?"

Sam smiled and merely shook her head, "No, sir, the team is yours. General Hammond asked me what my stance was on possibly being permanently reassigned off of SG-1 into a command post of my own on another team."

Jack's teasing expression dimmed just a little, tension leapt to lines and shadows where they'd not been before, but he held himself carefully neutral as he intoned, "I see... and? What did you tell Hammond?"

Sam saw Jack trying hard not to look affected by the idea of losing Carter from his team. She returned her own controlled facade, giving as good as she got, as she replied evenly, "In five word or less? 'No way in hell, sir'."

Relief eased the disquiet on Jack's face and he looked critically at her, trying to assess the sincerity of her words. Sam had only an earnest expression to offer him as she let a smile play at the corners of her mouth.

Jack let an easy, gentle smile flit over his face, "You know, Carter, you're fit and ready for command. It might be the smart career move for you to take Hammond up on his offer."

Sam shrugged, "There's time for ladder-climbing later, sir, right now I'm having too much fun with the team I'm on," and for the barest moments her eyes were dancing as she looked back at him. For an ever barer moment, he met her gaze full-on, eyes locked.

Jack sighed barely and glanced fractionally away from staring at her, "Well, for what it's worth, I'm glad you're staying. I'd hate to lose you."

"I know the feeling, sir... and on that topic, the minute you and I are both off-duty you can expect some disrespectful comments about letting us believe for a month you were dead."

Jack laughed, "Well, you're one up on Daniel; he didn't bother waiting for off-duty."

"Waiting for off-duty what?" the archaeologist in question asked as he breezed into Jack's room like he owned the place, cutting a bee-line through the quarters to the table where his friends were sitting. "Hi, Sam," he greeted as he pulled a third chair up to the table, taking up a position beside Sam, directly across from Jack.

"Hey, Daniel," Sam's somewhat belated return.

"So, what were you saying about me?"

Jack exchanged knowing looks with Sam, "That you already chewed me out for 'giving you all a scare' as you so delicately put it."

Daniel retorted quickly, "That's a lie, I didn't put it delicately at all."

Sam damn near giggled, "I kind of figured the colonel was giving you more credit than you deserved. And for the record I'm with you, I was just giving the colonel fair warning he could expect the same from me when it won't be considered gross insubordination."

Jack grumbled good-naturedly, "I come back just to get griped out? And here I'd been telling Aetom how great my old team was."

"What's it like being blended with him?" Daniel chimed in at once, like a bright-eyed, curious child.

Jack skirted the subject with his usual finesse, "Well, there's a lot more thinking going on up here now, so maybe it's like being one of you."

Sam, undeterred by the colonel's self-deprecating humor, offered up a little hesitantly, "When Jolinar was in me... I know it was different in a lot of ways, but there was this... I don't know, raw emotional bond for the time she was in my body. I could see her life, her thoughts, her feelings, she let me see everything that made her who she was and I couldn't stop her from seeing all of me, even when I was terrified and wanted to protect myself from her... it was like I wasn't alone, even when it was just me."

Jack seemed a little uneasy with the topic, "I guess it's like that. We were both pretty... uh... guarded in the beginning, but eventually we just gave up and... well, the thing Carter said."

"Can we talk to him?" Daniel asked.

Jack flickered a slightly disapproving look at Daniel, "I thought you were glad I'm home, not my hitchhiker."

"Of course it's great to have you back, Jack, but come on... a Tok'ra symbiote that you're not plotting to strangle the minute he's out of you? This Aetom sounds fascinating."

Jack's jaw clenched only a moment as he looked down at his empty beer, then he sagged in relent, "Fine, why not," and took a steadying breath, closing his eyes. When he looked up it was no longer Jack O'Neill. Alien eyes in a friend's clothing looked toward Daniel and the Tok'ra smiled kindly, "Daniel Jackson, it is good to talk to you again; I admit an eagerness of my own to speak to you."

"Really?" Daniel was alive with scientific wonder, cultural excitement.

Aetom nodded, "Colonel O'Neill has shown me things about you that I have marveled at, displays of Tau'ri virtue the Tok'ra rarely get to see, and the same goes for you, Major Carter. He regards each of you very highly... despite his contrary behavior on occasion."

"So how's Jack treating you, as a host?"

Aetom took on a very peculiar expression somewhere between amused, wearied, and affectionate, "I have had many new hosts who, upon first blending, instinctively rejected my presence, unfamiliar bodies that railed at my intrusion at first. However, I have never before had a host that tried to throw me up."

Daniel and Sam both smiled at that, despite the oddness of talking to a stranger in their friend's skin. "I can imagine the colonel's reaction was rather... volatile."

Aetom agreed, "I have come to know him and consequently for his reaction to initially discovering my presence I cannot lay blame. His is a very strong, willful mind and his value of privacy unprecedented to the mind of a Tok'ra."

Daniel subdued somewhat, dark remark defensive and protective of Jack, "Well, even among humans Jack's not the world's biggest fan of sharing when it comes to feelings."

Aetom met Daniel's quieter tone with one of his own, eyes casting down sadly, "Since the true blending of our minds, memories and emotions, I have seen many things within Colonel O'Neill that disturbed even me. There are dark places in a life never meant for others to see; Jack knows this, and he has shown me that it is true."

Sam and Daniel froze uncomfortably at the remark, locked in a second of silence before Sam jumped in, "I know the colonel had to have his qualms, but having him back alive is... we can't tell you how much all of us at the SGC appreciate that, Aetom. Thank you."

"Knowing him as I do now, I could not bare to think of him dead. I too rejoice that he lives."

"So are you two... friends?" Daniel asked, seeming unsure how to grapple the sentence.

Aetom smirked, "No... not friends; we are comrades. Yourself and Major Carter hold exalted places in the mind of this Tau'ri, for those he chooses to name as 'friend' are very few."

"It's something you have to earn," Sam said pointedly, not even trying to hide the small glimmer of pride in her voice.

Aetom nodded, "Yes... and I will not be with him long enough to gain that title. It is regrettable but a sacrifice I embrace because ours is a separation Colonel O'Neill wishes ardently." Aetom became momentarily introverted, lost in internal conversation, then he gave a congenial look to both Daniel and Sam, "I must take my leave of you; Colonel O'Neill already grows restless for control." With that Aetom's chin dropped toward his chest and his eyes drifted shut, only to snap back open under the command of the body's original owner.

Jack was less than happy for the personal remarks the Tok'ra had said to his friends while the symbiote was in control, but not furious as one might have expected. "Loud-mouth Tok'ra," he merely muttered, disgruntled at best, as he slid the Goa'uld tablet away from him atop the table then looked up at his companions, "What say we get out of here and hit the mess?"

Sam was back in step with him at once, not even missing a beat, "I thought you didn't come back for the food?" she taunted.

Jack groaned, "I didn't, believe me, but after a week on the Tok'ra idea of food even the commissary sounds good."

Without a word of protest, and without another comment made about Aetom or the things he'd said, the two teammates joined their wayward leader and left the temporary quarters, trolling the halls until they found Teal'c and traipsing to the mess hall together, the four of them, just like old times.