…For a moment she opened her eyes and saw the light behind him—but quickly closed them again and held on that much tighter as the light raised higher above them.
As they kissed, neither of them noticed that Jack was standing in the outer rim of the light—and as the light exploded into the air—they disappeared…
Jack was doubled over from the nauseating feeling in his gut—what was going on?
He reached out for something to steady himself on and found the cold wall of the SGC hallway on his fingertips. As he leaned against the wall and tried to take a few deep breaths a two airmen walked by and stopped. One of the young airman reached out for Jack's shoulder.
"Colonel O'Neill? Sir, Are you alright?" The young airman motioned for the second man to come over and stand on the other side of the Colonel. "Sir?"
"Yeah, I'll be fine." He said standing up straight and holding on to the airman's shoulder for balance. "Wait—did you just call me Colonel?" He was wide-awake now.
"Yes Sir…" The airman was dumbfounded and looked over to the second man and shrugged his shoulders.
"Wait a minute—" He said as his mind began to turn somersaults in his head. His eyes shot open and he looked around as though he were missing something. "What day is it?"
"Sir?"
"WHAT DAY IS IT AIRMAN!?" He said grabbing the young man's watch. "January 16, 2004? But it was supposed to—oh my god…"
The two airmen stood in the hall looking at one another as though the Colonel had lost his mind. Jack ran down the hall like a bat out of hell-- toward the infirmary.
He maneuvered around the usual traffic in the hall with the grace and agility of a line backer—he was just about to run up the stairs to the infirmary when he rounded the corner and had a head on collision with Daniel-- sending both of them crashing to the floor.
"Jack! What are you doing?" Daniel yelled as the stack of papers and cup of coffee he was holding flew in a million directions.
"Is she back?!" He didn't waste any time jumping to his feet and pulling Daniel to up right.
"Who? Sam?"
"She's back—right?"
"Of course she's back—you were there when we brought her in." Daniel didn't know what to think—not that Jack ever acted normal in his life—but this was weird even for Jack.
"Oh thank god." He gasped, letting go of Daniel's shirt and dropping him back to the floor as he ran even harder to the infirmary.
He came to a dead stop outside the door. He could see her through the opening. There she was as plain as day—just as he remembered.
He watched as the nurse took her vitals—she was still unconscious.
He didn't know how it happened. He wasn't supposed to remember anything. Sam told him that time would reset itself at the beginning—this wasn't the beginning—or was it? She said that they most likely wouldn't know each other when time reset—now that he thought about it, he hadn't really known her at this point in time.
The nurse walked away and into the next room, it was safe for him to go in now.
He walked in slowly. The shadows playing across his features as he neared the end of her bed. He couldn't take his eyes off of her. He remembered this day—and the days leading up to it. He had been out of his mind with worry when she was missing on the Prometheus. He swore to himself that when she came back he would tell her that he loved her—that he would give everything up and be the man she needed. But when she had woken up he was too scared to say what he felt—and he resorted to sarcasm and wit. He remembered how she had called out his name—his first name—all he wanted to do was hold her and tell her that everything was going to be alright—but then his militant persona kicked in and he nipped the would be intimate gesture in the bud.
This time would be different.
He looked over his shoulder and saw that the nurse had left the door ajar—walking over he shut the door leading to the next room and the door leading to the hallway.
Walking back over to her side he sat on the bed next to her and took her hand in his and waited for her to wake up…