Sam was bent over the table in her lab, peering closely at the alien power generator as though it were an opponent in a chess match. She circled it, speculative, sizing up the enemy as she struggled to make sense of the unfamiliar science.

A gentle knock on her door broke her concentration and before she could call out to her visitor Jack cracked opened the door and moved wordlessly into her lab.

"Hello, Colonel," Sam said, offering him a smile as he walked up to the table, hands in his pockets and eyes looking with utter disinterest at the unearthly hunk of alien gadgetry.

"Hey, Carter... whatcha doing?"

Sam sighed, "Well, trying to figure out this power generator from SG-15's last mission. They claim the indigenous people were using it to replace fossil fuel power sources but I just don't..." she stopped, realizing she had to be boring the colonel out of his mind. "Sorry, sir. So, how are you feeling?"

Jack shrugged and stepped around the table. One hand left the sanctuary of his pocket to skirt the edge of Sam's lab table, fingers tapping against the flat surface. Sam held her breath, waiting for something within grabbing distance to catch his attention as she tried to make a quick assessment of what loose item on her desk she could most afford for the colonel to fiddle with, a kind of 'Jack O'Neill gizmo triage'.

Instead of idly playing with one of her tools his hand sank back into his pocket and he turned to face her, "How does it work?"

"Sorry?"

Jack nodded toward the device taking up the lion's share of the table, "How does it work?"

Sam blinked, taken off-guard. "It's really uninteresting science-geek stuff, sir, you'd be bored to tears."

Jack sighed, looked downright pained for a second, then he whispered, "It doesn't matter, Carter, just tell me. Just... talk."

Sam looked closely at him, searching.

Jack looked back at her, emotions in his eyes raw. "It's too quiet," he said with heavy meaning.

Sam understood at once and didn't make him ask for her to fill the gaping silence in his thoughts again.

"Okay... well, my suspicion is that this is some kind of nuclear fusion or fission technology, utilizing atomic processes to derive its source of energy. On the surface it looks like something that might have been produced here on Earth, granted in an advanced research laboratory, but these were common appliances in every residential home on the planet where SG-15 found it, so despite the impression that these people might be on par with us technologically the wide-spread use of power sources such as this tell us they're a lot farther along than we thought, and maybe that's what they wanted us to think.."

Jack was edging closer, hanging to her voice.

Sam stopped when she felt him right at her side, close enough to feel his body heat. She looked up at him and saw the first dancing of humor and energy in his brown eyes that made Colonel O'Neill the incredible person he was, but still it was shrouded by a sadness he vehemently denied. Except to Sam. He didn't deny the sense of loss to Sam, but that was because she didn't ask. She didn't need to; she knew exactly what it felt like to be constantly with someone inside your mind then suddenly alone.

He looked over at her when she stopped talking, met her understanding gaze. He offered a thin, weary smile, voice so low it was hard for even Sam standing less than a foot away to hear, "Does it ever go away?"

"Not entirely, no. It's kind of like the stargate I guess, once you know what's out there you can't go back to being ignorant of the things you've seen and done and learned, but it does get easier." Sam frowned, "I can't imagine what you must be going through, sir. Jolinar was only a part of me for a few hours; you had Aetom for over a month. I didn't even really know Jolinar, only the impressions I picked up when she was blended with me."

Jack sighed, both thankful she'd told him the truth but regretful that what she'd said wasn't more comforting. And in typical Jack O'Neill style, he didn't even address the indirect mention of his personal feelings on the matter. He ventured out a hand to curl the corner of a piece of paper sitting on her desk as he said, "Fraiser's letting me go home today..." he left his sentence hanging, obviously troubled but not about to say why.

Sam guessed it anyway, which was probably the reason he was in her lab in the first place, "You're worried about being alone."

Jack flinched and jerked his hand away from the paper, looking almost angry at himself a moment. "This is god-damn ridiculous," he ground out.

Sam shook her head, "No, it's not, sir, at least it isn't to me. Do you want me... do you want one of us to stay with you for a few days?"

Jack shook his head, "No. I need to get over this, deal with it."

Sam had to let him have his pride, his dogged personal determination to best the thing plaguing him.

Sam offered, "For the first few nights I slept with the television on... it helped a little. I didn't need it for very long. After a few days I got used to it being just me in my head again. Took a little longer to like it that way, but you do get back there eventually. If someone wanted to do that to me again now I wouldn't agree to it without a very good reason. I don't want to stop being completely me for anyone, even if the memory of being blended with Jolinar wasn't bad."

Jack nodded, "I... needed to hear that."

Sam gave him an empathetic smile. Taking a chance Sam reached out and touched his arm, drawing his immediate attention for the nearly illicit contact. Sam gave him a grim look, "Colonel... I know you need to do this yourself, and I respect that but... look, the first night home can be hard. The first time you're REALLY alone and you realize just how quiet the world is can be... at least I found it very... disconcerting. Please promise that if you need to hear someone you'll call me? I don't care what time it is."

"Carter..."

"I didn't say 'talk', I know you won't even if I tried to force it out of you... I mean if you need to hear someone's voice. I can read to you if that's what it takes, but let me do that."

Jack smirked, "Bedtime stories, Major?"

Sam returned his teasing expression, "Whatever it takes, Colonel."

Jack smiled then sobered. He looked briefly away. "If it gets bad... I'll call."

Sam sighed and nodded, "Thank you."

Jack's soft expression in reply was all the return thanks she needed to receive.

Silence settled between them, what might have been considered comfortable not so long ago but which Sam knew right now was the enemy.

"Did I tell you about my first mission commanding SG-1?"

Jack's eyes sparkled because she knew, she understood all the things he couldn't bring himself to say, and was more thankful right then for Carter than he could ever tell her. "No," he said and proceeded to pull up a stool as Sam smiled and started to recount the tale of SG-1's adventures in his absence. The content, for once, was not as important as the telling.

That night, at two in the morning, Sam's home telephone rang.