General Hammond kept stealing glances at the taciturn man at his side. One of the airmen on sentry duty outside the infirmary had come to his office to report that Jack–Jonah–the body formerly known as Colonel O'Neill wanted to see him. Hammond had gone down to the infirmary not knowing what to expect. Now, after having walked in five minutes of silence with the man, he still didn't know what to expect. There was an intense rigidity to the other man's posture, his facial features, and Hammond kept waiting for the fall-out from this person.

It drove Hammond nuts, but he wasn't sure who was at his side. Jack/Jonah had said nothing when Hammond arrived but instead gave a small nod and they'd fallen into step. Hammond knew Jack would have needed a little space, some distance, time to clear his head, and he would only be able to do that with some form of escort. He just wished he knew if it really was Jack who needed a little time to think away from the others or if it was something Jonah 'adopted' from what used to be Jack O'Neill.

Hammond suspected, from the look on Jack/Jonah's face, that the man had issues and it was partly the reason he'd asked for Hammond. As yet, however, Jack/Jonah had said nothing about why he'd summoned the general.

They had to look quite the sight, walking down the corridors, Hammond in his office clothes and Jack in white hospital scrubs, but the gray-haired man seemed far from occupied with his incongruous attire.

Finally Hammond couldn't stand the utter silence any longer. He couldn't stand not knowing if he was walking beside a friend or total stranger with the same body.

Hammond hunted for a word he could use, something that wasn't a flash grenade, then settled on one he usually reserved for Doctor Jackson. "Son..."

"Sir?" Jack returned lowly, and Hammond turned his head and looked at the colonel.

Hammond came to a stop and Jack followed suit. Brown eyes, tired and worn but full of understanding and recognition, turned to Hammond and the general dared to hope. "Jack?"

Jack didn't look too happy as he answered, "Yes, sir. I'm... me."

"Well, I don't mind saying it's a damn sight good to see you again. Doctor Fraiser couldn't guarantee any of you would ever remember who you really were."

Jack's hands slid over his outer thighs in an absent-minded search for pockets that didn't exist and failing in that he twitched his fingers to an internal rhythm. His dark gaze moved away from Hammond and it set off warning bells in the general. If this was Jack then Hammond knew that look and he knew it meant bad things for the colonel.

"Jack?"

Jack glanced back at him, but only briefly before his eyes turned once again to the empty hallway. That barest contact, however, had been loaded, Hammond knew his Jack O'Neill well enough to see it.

"How much do you remember?"

Jack shrugged. "It's all starting to come back. It's a little foggy in places, but more or less it's all come back. It started to 'click' the moment you said our names."

Hammond remembered the looks on his team's faces and could well believe that was true. The general narrowed his eyes at Jack, troubled by the disquiet he found in his face, and then he started to get an inkling what this concerned.

"What about the others? Do they remember?"

Jack froze, only fractionally, but it was enough and Hammond was sorry for him... and for her.

"I don't know, I didn't ask them. Daniel wasn't around when I left and I saw her but didn't talk to Thera–" Jack flinched and went painfully quiet before he said in a low-pitched, sad voice like a word he loathed to utter aloud. "Carter."

Hammond had never heard Jack's voice break with anguish around his second-in-command's name before as it did then. It was infinitely telling. It made more sense than Hammond wanted it to, and he could only begin to imagine just how hard coming home had been for at least two of SG-1. What had Jack lost in rediscovering himself? What damage had been wrought in the time they were lost to the SGC and to themselves?

The two men, in unspoken consensus, began walking again, at a slower pace than before. There was a heavy tension in the air between them, both overwhelmed with questions no one wanted to ask, questions to which they didn't really want the answers.

Hammond never thought getting his people back would be so hard on everyone. Hardest of all on them, and Hammond was sorry they had been left in a position for it to happen in the first place.

"I'm sorry," Hammond suddenly said, taking himself by surprise with his apology.

"For what?" Jack asked, and his tone was so flat and empty that Hammond wanted to stop and take a good look at the younger man.

Instead, he answered, "We left your team behind on that planet."

Jack didn't say anything and the silence was unsettling to Hammond. Jack, the Jack he'd known before, had always been quick with a dry remark or lame joke, but this speechless drone was unlike Jack O'Neill. Hollow, silent Jack O'Neill was wrong beyond all comprehension.

"We thought you were gone," Hammond added.

"In a way, we were."

"And would you prefer if you still were?"

Jack pulled to an abrupt halt and Hammond turned to look at the colonel. He'd taken the bull by the horns with his presumptuous question and he'd stick it out to see what it got him. At the moment it was an intense look from Jack. There was something in those dark eyes that told Hammond he was, at least in part, right.

And that made Hammond heartsick.

"It's... complicated," Jack finally said cagily.

Hammond sighed wearily. No one was going to explicitly say what everyone already knew, they were back to strict military procedure. "We'll worry about that later," Hammond said after a moment, then asked, "what happened to your team, Colonel?"

Jack seemed to scrounge in his brain for the memory. "We were meeting with the city officials and exploring the area when Th... when Carter noticed some ventilation grates in the ground and we investigated. Turns out the people of P3R-118 enslaved their own people to tend the machines that provide energy to the entire city.

"I went to confront Administrator Caulder about their practices and told them Earth wouldn't ally themselves with people who endorse slavery and... that's the last thing I remember before I start remembering things as 'Jonah'." Jack didn't say a word beyond that, nothing to detail what might have happened to SG-1, between the members of SG-1, while they were those alternate personas. Hammond would let that stand for now and instead focused on the recount of their 'capture'.

Hammond mulled over Jack's words and mused aloud, "They probably used some type of synaptic manipulation technology to make you forget who you were. When we entered into trade negotiations with the government one of the technological items they offered was a medical technique that Doctor Fraiser thinks could one day help Alzheimer's and amnesia patients, something about stimulating atrophied or dormant synapses... I imagine if they could recover memories they could suppress them, too."

Jack gave a shrug and started walking again, Hammond left with no choice but to take up beside him. Jack had returned to weighty silence.

"Am I to assume that you and the rest of SG-1 were inducted into this slave labor?"

"That's right. We... we never, well, we barely questioned it. They did a number on us and we made everything... almost everything, about serving 'our people'."

"What happened to Teal'c?"

Jack jaw clamped tightly. "I'm not sure, that part's fuzzy, but I know he's dead."

Hammond frowned but didn't ask Jack for more... not right then, anyway. There was a tight instability to him, like Jack was on a hair-trigger, ready to slip at any small shift in his footing. Hammond wasn't sure what he'd fall into if he did lose his balance. Jack O'Neill was usually a solid, unambiguous entity. At that moment, however, Jack looked on the verge of lost in both directions. If he regressed to Jonah he'd be lost, but if he became wholly Jack he'd be lost, too.

Hammond didn't know what to do to help him.

Hammond cast a side-long glance at Jack and studied the man. He was thinner than Hammond remembered him, his skin pale. Hammond had never before seen Jack without at least a light tan; the man spent too much of his free time and his time at work out in the elements, under the sun (be that Earth's or another planet's). Jack was also dirty. The wash-basin and cloth scrubs the infirmary could provide had not done the job and there were still patches of grimy skin. Jack needed to shave as well, his jaw and chin were grizzled with thick stubble. All in all, he looked on the shady side of terrible.

"Why don't you head to the showers and get cleaned up?" Hammond offered.

Jack did little more in reaction than blink, squint, and compress his lips.

Hammond would have to handle this hybrid human as he would have normally handled Jack O'Neill. Since he didn't know Jonah it was the best he could do. He knew that Jack would want to be alone. As long as his team was secure and he knew they didn't need him for protection he'd want to hole up and pick at the problem at his own pace. True Jack would prefer to head up to his cabin and sequester himself away from everyone, but Hammond couldn't go that far.

He could, however, give Jack a little space and solitude.

"When you're finished you can bunk in temps for the night if you like. I imagine you don't relish the thought of spending the night on one of those infirmary gurneys."

Jack gave a grunt and Hammond took it as an assent when Jack changed direction and headed toward the locker room. Hammond let him go and was at a loss. He had no idea how to handle the remaining former members of SG-1 in their current state. He didn't know how to deal with an SG-1 barely SG-1.


Janet Fraiser heard the baby start crying and had at first not reacted to the wails. She knew Thera/Sam was with the child so she trusted her to tend her daughter. Janet had returned her attention to her paperwork and expected the baby to be quieted shortly.

Except two minutes later and the baby was still crying. Janet looked up from her desk and toward her shut office door and frowned in thought. It was possible Thera/Sam had left to go to the bathroom but she should have been well back by now, especially since everyone in the infirmary and then some would be able to hear the baby.

The crying continued and finally Janet got up to see what was wrong.

The infirmary was practically vacant at that time. Yesterday Hammond had informed Janet that he'd granted Jack permission to sleep in temporary quarters instead of the infirmary. Janet had given her consent as well as there was medically nothing wrong with Jack and he couldn't get into any trouble on such a heavy guarded base as Cheyenne Mountain. She thought the time alone might do him some good, help him get his head on straight and his memories in order. She'd been encouraged when Hammond told her that when he talked to Jack it seemed, from all indications, that he had more or less completely regained his memories. It was the same as it was with Daniel. Like watching an avalanche Janet had witnessed the 'rebirth' of Daniel Jackson right there in her office. He recovered more and more details about his real self and by the time he left the room she was confident he, at least, would be all right. Daniel could safely be called 'Daniel' again and Janet was elated and hopeful.

Thera/Sam was a little more difficult to assess. The few times Janet had approached her old friend the woman would clam up and shut down and Janet backed off and gave her some room. Without a treatment option it was the best she could offer. She had considered trying to apply the memory technology they had gained in trade from the late inhabitants of P3R-118, but she was not nearly confident enough in its function to use it on human subjects. Janet had to place faith that what had happened with Jack and Daniel would happen with Thera/Sam, too, and left Thera/Sam alone. She could hardly blame Thera/Sam for reacting unusually. She couldn't imagine how confusing it would be to discover all you thought you knew was a lie, so she let Thera/Sam have her time.

As Janet listened to the baby wail, unattended, she began to question her own decision.

The infirmary, at that moment, was otherwise empty. Daniel had gone with Kaegan first to get something to eat in the commissary then to hit the showers (something they had all desperately needed from the moment they were brought in). Janet had seen not hide nor hair of Jack since yesterday and while that mildly concerned her she wasn't ready yet to make an issue of it.

Janet stepped toward the curtained area wherein resided Thera/Sam and the baby. Thera/Sam, after Hammond's revelation about their true identities, had staunchly refused to let the baby out of her sight. The few times Janet had braved asking to take the baby so Thera/Sam could rest Thera/Sam had held the child tighter and pulled away from Janet. Janet backed off at once, a little cautious of the mood to which Thera/Sam had succumbed. She hadn't spoken a word to anyone, as far as Janet knew, not even to her teammates.

Janet reached the curtained area and pulled the cloth barrier aside to look in at her patients. The plastic bin that had become an impromptu bassinet was on an instrument tray next to Thera/Sam's bed. The tiny girl was inside, lying on her back, red-faced screaming.

Janet's eyes moved to the figure in the bed and she felt her medical instincts flare. Thera/Sam was on her side facing the bassinet, body curled up and her eyes tightly shut to the crying child. Tear marks laid wet paths over her cheeks and her complexion was ashen. The baby gulped air for another cry and Thera/Sam clenched eyes tighter and tucked her arms over her chest.

Janet moved toward the two and first addressed the more immediate concern. She went to the bassinet and reached inside to try and soothe the baby. At once the child eased off crying and turned her head into Janet's hand, searching hungrily for a breast amid the flesh in contact with her face.

Janet turned to look at Thera/Sam, still rigidly curled, and said tentatively, "Thera..."

Thera/Sam flinched faintly.

"Thera... the baby needs to be nursed."

Thera/Sam didn't respond immediately then gave a small but quick shake of her head. She still refused to open her eyes.

Janet looked down at the infant then said, "I can give her formula if you want."

Thera/Sam nodded and buried her face in the pillow.

Janet desperately wanted to talk to Thera/Sam, to help her, but the baby needed her first. Gathering up the infant, Janet went to the supply cabinet and withdrew one of only two remaining mixtures of baby formula they had (the second Janet had seen a newborn brought through the gate she'd had to send one of her nurses rushing to the nearest store off-base for infant supplies and, if Thera/Sam didn't get better from whatever had suddenly overtaken her, Janet would have to send another nurse for more).

Janet prepared the formula and was finally able to offer the milk to the baby.

The baby eagerly latched on to the rubber nipple and drank greedily. Janet kept throwing looks toward Thera/Sam, but the woman was practically unmoved from when Janet had found her.

Finally the baby seemed sated and began to refuse the bottle.

Janet set the remainder of formula aside and placed the baby over her shoulder. Once it had been burped Janet almost uncertainly carried it back to Thera/Sam's bedside. Thera/Sam's body was no longer taut and her eyes were open. Thera/Sam lay motionless on her side and watched with an unreadable expression as Janet returned the baby to the bassinet.

Janet looked down at Thera/Sam. "Thera..." she began carefully.

Thera/Sam winced and her eyes shut again but her lips parted and her voice, strained and fragile, whispered, "Janet."

"Sam?"

Sam nodded weakly and Janet felt a rush of relief... quickly chased by overwhelming concern.

"Sam... what's wrong?" Janet moved to the bed and sat down next to Sam. She didn't recoil as Thera had but she did momentarily stiffen. Sam stared at the baby's bin and didn't answer.

Janet felt more worried now than she had when Sam was Thera. At least Thera had been attentive to her baby; a neglectful mother was a label she could never imagine fitting Samantha Carter. That Sam had let her child cry hungrily and done nothing sent a race of fear through Janet.

"Sam, honey... why wouldn't you feed your baby?"

Sam pulled away but as the bed was so narrow she could only manage rolling on to her back and turning her head to the other side, away from Janet. Sam's face twisted, as though she was about to cry again, and she wiped at her cheeks angrily and said, "It's not my baby."

Janet frowned. "What are you talking about? Of course she's yours."

Sam shook her head and a tear did fall then, against her best efforts. "She's Thera and Jonah's baby, not mine."

Janet looked over at the baby, now full and content, and then back at Sam. Sam was holding her arms across her body, underneath her engorged breasts, and Janet didn't understand. "Sam... you gave birth to her, didn't you?"

"Thera gave birth to her!"

"How are you and Thera not the same?"

Sam's face set angrily but it melted into despair and she held back a sob.

Janet's heart broke for her friend, and it really was her friend.

"Please, Sam, let me try to help you," Janet coaxed, and the blonde gave in like Sam Carter used to give in to Janet Fraiser, and she turned her head back to look at Janet. The pain and sadness in her blue gaze staggered Janet.

"I'm so confused, Janet."

"That's understandable. You've had something done to you that would upset anybody. It might take time to acclimate to being back, to being yourself again."

Sam trembled and her brow furrowed. "It's so hard."

"What is?"

Sam turned her gaze toward the bassinet then she closed her eyes and ducked her chin toward her chest. "I miss Jonah," she croaked thinly.

Janet felt a light bulb go on and she suddenly 'got it'. She resisted making a drawn-out 'oh' sound and instead waited a beat and asked, "Do you miss him or does Thera?"

Sam coughed on a pathetic, sarcastic laugh and she answered, "I miss being Thera because she could miss Jonah."

Janet reached out and touched her friend tenderly, aware it might still be more mistake than comfort to the distraught woman. "Colonel O'Neill is here."

Sam grimaced and hugged her arms tighter around herself. "It's not the same."

Janet glanced at the sleeping baby and finally had to address it, the topic they had all avoided pointedly since the team's return because of the minefield it would be. "Sam... is Col–is Jonah the father?"

Sam only gave a weak nod.

Janet felt her heart go out to her friend. It all made a newfound sense and Janet felt pity for Sam and what she must be going through. It had to make things so much more difficult and Sam's tears were far from condemnable.

"I'm so sorry, Sam."

Sam turned on her side again and curled around her stomach like she was nursing a deep ache. Her hand closed in a fist on the bed sheet and she fought to control her breathing. Sam Carter rarely cried.

"God, I miss him," she whimpered and Janet rubbed her friend's back. She didn't know what other comfort to offer.

"Jonah," Janet began, and Sam squeaked at the name but Janet had to try. Sam needed to let go, to release, and Janet had always been good at giving Sam a shoulder to cry on. "Jonah," she tried again, "he wanted the baby?"

Sam smiled sadly. "He was so happy.

"We weren't supposed to procreate in the caves but Brenna got us special dispensation; when I got pregnant I was issued a breeding permit and given permission to carry to term."

"And Jonah was happy," Janet reiterated. The issue was Colonel O'Neill and Janet was determined Sam address that topic no matter how much redirection she wanted to try. She would even forgo, for the moment, pointing out that Sam had been discussing Thera in the first person.

Sam's hand on the bed linen fisted tighter but she nodded. "Yeah, he was. He... he was always touching me every chance he got, rubbing my stomach, making me feel so..." Sam broke into a watery smile. "I couldn't remember ever being so happy." Sam's face fell and she took in a breath. "I still can't." Sam was quiet a minute before she continued. "Jonah... Jonah made me feel safe, he made everything okay."

"And now?" Janet asked gently.

Sam winced. "Now... I've lost Jonah, I've lost Thera... and I've lost the baby."

"You haven't, Sam, she's right here, your daughter is right here."

"My daughter?" Sam parroted bitterly. "Colonel O'Neill's daughter?"

Janet went quiet as she understood the problem.

Sam bit her lip before she said, "She deserves better, Janet. She had two loving parents and now... now what does she have? Major Carter and Colonel O'Neill? Who are they to her? They're not her mother and father, Thera and Jonah are and they're gone, they don't exist. She's been orphaned!"

"Sam," Janet said firmly and Sam went still and quiet.

"Listen to me, Sam, you remember everything Thera did, right?"

"Yes."

"So in some way you still are Thera, you always will be."

"No."

"Yes, Sam."

"No!" Sam snapped and Janet sat back. Sam glared at Janet hotly then said, "No, I'm not, because if I'm still in some way Thera that would mean Colonel O'Neill is Jonah. I can't let myself believe that."

"Why not?"

Sam snorted. "How can you ask me that? For crying out loud, Janet, do you have any idea what it's like remembering Sam Carter and remembering Thera? Thera did things and felt things Sam could never do or feel, and she's not sorry about it! I'm not sorry about it, so I can't be Thera and Jack can't be Jonah! Don't you understand?"

Janet took stock of Sam's livid, desperate expression, then glanced once more at the sleeping infant. Time to try something a little less volatile.

"Sam... just answer me one question. Do you love that baby?"

Sam's fury shattered and grief overtook her features. "I want to... I want to so badly, but she's not mine to love."

"She has to be yours," Janet pressed, "because if you won't love her then she's lost more than just Thera. You have to be her mother because she needs one, if you don't someone else, someone who doesn't know what a special child she is, will. Would Thera want that for her daughter?"

Sam almost cried again. "No."

"You can love her as much as Thera would, can't you?"

"Yeah."

"Then you owe it to Thera to be that girl's mother. She doesn't know Sam from Thera, as far as that baby is concerned you are her mother, Sam. Could you take her mother from her?"

Sam's face flashed pain, contorted with the sagacious agony of a daughter deprived a mother, and she shivered again. "No..."

"Then believe that she's your daughter. She is. You remember everything, does it really matter if you weren't entirely yourself at the time as long as you still love her in the end?"

Sam was quiet for a long while and Janet merely sat with her to keep her company. The crying was a distant foe and Sam's body no longer shook, instead a resolve had come over her face. She looked shaken but braced and willing to face the challenges ahead of her. That was pure Sam Carter and Janet felt a little less terror for the woman on the bed.

Sam finally looked up at Janet, eyes sincere, and asked softly, "What am I supposed to do when I look at her and I love her more than anything and I see Jack in her?"

Janet didn't have an answer but to say, "You'll handle it."

Sam looked grim but turned her eyes back to the bassinet and they held there. Sam looked introspective, immersed in her own world, and then she moved. Slowly she sat up, hung her legs off the edge of the gurney, then slid to the floor. She had only to take a step to bring her right up to the bassinet and she wordlessly reached down and picked up the baby. Janet watched in relief as Sam cradled the infant to her, brushing her fingers over fine baby hair and letting her eyes memorize the tiny face with adoration.

Janet said nothing for a while, gave mother and daughter a little time together, then she critically looked at Sam. She looked awful and she was obviously emotionally distraught. She needed perspective, a little breathing room to think.

"Sam, why don't you go take a shower and get a bite to eat?"

Sam's eyes widened and she looked quickly between Janet and the baby. The meaning was clear; Sam didn't want to leave the baby.

"I'm okay," she insisted, unconvincingly.

Janet frowned. "It's all right, Sam, I'll stay with her."

Sam hugged the baby closer and took an unconscious half-step away. It was not like Sam to distrust Janet, so just enough of Thera must remain to make her leery of Janet alone and out of sight with her child.

Taking that into consideration, Janet ventured carefully, "How about if I get Colonel O'Neill to watch her?"

Sam froze and her eyes locked on the child but eventually she gave a stilted nod. Him she would trust with the baby... apparently only him.

Janet stood and went to call an airman to send for Colonel O'Neill. She wouldn't mind the chance to get a read on his emotional state, as well, after seeing the condition Sam was in.