"Hello?" Sam asked through her peephole, half-awake. Who could it be at... she glanced at the clock next to her bed...0200?

"Sam, it's me, it's Jack," answered a voice so rough and needy Sam barely recognized it. She immediately swung the door open and pulled him inside with a gentle tug. Instinctively, she leaned into him and wrapped her arms around his shoulders, only to be met with a crushing embrace.

"I had that dream again. I swear, it was so real. It was like I was right there with him."

Daniel stuck his head inside Jack's open office door when there was no response to his knock on the doorjamb.

"Uh, Jack?"

The General looked up from his paperwork, registering Daniel's presence for the first time. Daniel tried not to show the sharp concern he felt at the sight of the dark bags under Jack's eyes and the grey pallor to his face.

"Something you need, Daniel?"

Daniel's eyebrows raised. "Did you mean, 'good morning, Daniel, thanks for showing up to our regular 0900 planning meeting?'"

Jack smiled ruefully at that. "Yes, I guess that's what I meant. Have a seat."

"So, how're things?" Daniel asked after a minute spent studying the General's tired features.

Daniel wasn't as clueless as he was letting on. Sam had already been by his office earlier that morning, asking for Daniel's opinion on how to help the General, voicing her concern about Jack's increasingly serious lack of sleep.

"Sorry, Daniel. I'm having trouble sleeping lately, that's all. What'cha got for me?"

Daniel sat down and handed him two folders. He could see he wasn't getting anything else out of Jack in the way of personal information. Actually, Jack had already admitted to more than Daniel had expected him to admit. Clearing his throat, Daniel launched into an explanation of the missions he was bringing to Jack's attention. When he was through, the pause that hung between them indicated to Daniel that he'd lost Jack's attention.

"So?"

"So? Oh! Leave them here, I'll read them over later."

"Okay, Jack, what's really going on? You're a million miles away. You have been ever since you got back from Minnesota. What gives?"

"Sorry, Daniel."

"No, I really want to know, Jack. What's got you so distracted?"

"It's nothing, just a dream I keep having over and over. Ever since I went to North Inlet."

"That's why you're not getting enough sleep?"

"Yup."

Daniel watched and waited, but as usual, Jack had clammed up again.

"It's a recurring dream?" Daniel prodded, on the edge of his patience.

"Yeah, pretty much every night. But it doesn't make any sense, it's just images and pieces of conversations from a long time ago. It's always in the same place, the same things happen."

"Maybe there's more to it than just a dream. Maybe it's a memory you're trying to find."

"And? Dream, memory, whatever it is, it's driving me bonkers."

"So, I was just thinking, maybe Teal'C could help."

"How?"

"Maybe he could help you remember more. He's got meditation techniques."

"Like Kelnorim? Hmmm. Hey, at this point anything's worth a try."

"Tell him Daniel sent you." Daniel smiled like a salesman and was on his way.

"You must concentrate, O'Neill," Teal'C instructed patiently.

The two were seated cross-legged on Teal'C's floor, surrounded by burning candles. The sweet, aromatic smell of the burning wax filled the room. Teal'C's face reflected serenity; O'Neill's was lined with impatience and a touch of embarrassment.

"I am, I am," Jack protested.

"Concentrate. Delve inside your unconscious thoughts," Teal'C droned on as if Jack hadn't said anything.

Jack's brow furrowed into deep ruts. Sweat began to bead on his forehead.

"You are on the hillside." Teal'C intoned.

Jack was dizzy. He felt as if his body was slowly becoming weightless.

"You are standing face to face with the figure you see in your dream. He is speaking to you. Repeat what he says."

The smell of the sweet wax combined with the semi-darkness of the room around them was overpowering Jack's senses.

"What is he saying?" Teal'C commanded.

"You know him. You know who he is." Jack murmured in reply.

"Concentrate. Follow the figure and listen closely," Teal'C urged.

"There is a picture of him. You will know who it is when you find the picture. She betrayed me." Jack was too far into the meditation to be confused by the sudden change of gender.

"She wanted it for herself. But it is safely hidden. Uhh, there's more. Find the key. Floor. The floor. What the..." Jack's eyes popped open and he jumped up, flushed and frightened.

"O'Neill-"

"Oh yeah. This solved everything." Jack flipped the light on and tried to slow his tortured breathing.

"O'Neill."

"I gotta go, Teal'C. Uh...thanks."

Jack was out the door and had disappeared down the hallway before Teal'C had a chance to respond. The big Jaffa watched Jack go. His expressive face was filled with deep concern and pain for his friend.

"Sam?"

Jack pounded impatiently on her front door. He had raised his fist to beat on the door again when it opened and Sam stood there before him. She was getting used to these visits. Barging past her, he pushed inside the house and Sam could only helplessly tag along behind as he rampaged his way to the kitchen.

"Tell me I'm not going crazy!" Jack barked as he paced the floor.

"Are you?" Sam asked uneasily. "What happened?"

"Teal'C thought he could help me get over these...dreams I've been having. He tried to teach me to Kelnorim. It just made it all worse."

"Did you hear something else? What has you so upset?"

"I'm not upset, okay? I'm just..."

"Upset?"

Jack rolled his eyes in defeat and sat on a kitchen stool.

"What's this?" Jack asked curiously, picking up a picture from the table. Realizing it was from the house in Minnesota, he raised accusing eyes to Sam's red face.

"I picked up a few pictures before we left... I just thought- uh, is that your Mom and Dad?" She gestured to the picture, her curiosity outstripping her need to explain herself. A man and a woman stood arm in arm on the shore of a lake.

"That's not my Dad. It's Miriam Bennett's father. I wonder when this picture was taken?"

Curiousity and suspicion lit Jack's face. He turned the picture over to see if it had a date.

"This was taken the same year that my father died. Find the picture..." Jack muttered under his breath. "Did you say you picked up more pictures?"

"Yes, here." Sam shoved the pile of photographs over to him, watching him anxiously.

"Where'd you find these?" Jack demanded, incredulous.

Sam gulped and her cheeks lit up with a pink tinge. It was confession time.

"I kind of took a tour around the house on my own. There was a trunk, in the attic, and these were inside."

"My mother's trunk. She tried to give it to me when I left home, but we weren't on the best of terms. I put a padlock on it and hid it in the attic so she wouldn't know I'd left it. I didn't want any of her stuff then."

"The trunk wasn't locked when I found it. The pictures were loose, thrown in on top of the the other stuff in the trunk."

Sam looked up, suddenly aware that Jack wasn't listening. He was holding up another of the pictures from the pile and was currently staring at it with a look of horror. His face had gone sickly white.

"What?" Sam breathed, automatically encircling his shoulders supportively. She looked over his shoulder at the picture. There were two men in it. One she recognized now as Miriam's father. The other she had not seen before.

"Is that your Dad?" Sam asked, pointing at the stranger.

Jack stirred from his trancelike state. "No. My father told me 'you will know who it is when you find the picture.' He was right. I do know him. That's him. That's the hunter."

"You mean the man who-"

"That's the man who shot my father."

Sam's mouth fell open. "Miriam's father knew him," she observed in a strangled tone.

Jack was thinking fast and furiously now, and saying his thoughts out loud.

"After Dad died, Miriam and her father were around our place a lot. My mother and him grew close. I think he helped her through the grief of losing her husband. But he moved away from North Inlet just before I left home for good. Mom and he had a falling out, I seem to remember. A few years after that, Miriam moved in with my Mother to serve as a companion of sorts, a nurse I guess. Mom's health was frail for the rest of her life."

"What was he like?"

"Cold. Hard. Calculating. I couldn't stand him. And he didn't much care for me either. But my Mom seemed to need him. So I tolerated him and his daughter. For my Mother's sake. What did he do? What did he have that man do?"

Jack's face crumpled and he turned from Sam, but she didn't allow him to hide himself completely away from her strength. She wrapped both of her arms around him from behind and comfortingly soothed her hands across his shoulders and chest.

They were both realizing that they had dug down to an ugly, dark vein in Jack's past that was only now beginning to be revealed. Sam knew he needed her now more than he ever had in his life. And she intended to walk this thing through with him, every step of the way.

After a few moments, Sam felt the tightness in Jack's muscles ease off and he turned around to face her, his hands slipping gently onto her shoulders, leaning on her both physically and emotionally. His expression was grief stricken.

"That picture we found, that first day you showed up in North Inlet, the one with my mother's shadow in it? It must have been Miriam's father. That's who the other shadow was. He came to the funeral with us. I remember now. I was angry that he sat with my mother and I at the funeral... I remember that all I wanted to do right then was punch him. I remember feeling so angry."

"You remember that?" Sam asked.

Jack went on, unable to stop the floodgates of memories and feelings now opened.

"In Kelnorim, with Teal'C today, I saw my father just like in the dreams. He appeared to me. In my mind. He said, 'she betrayed me.' And then he said, 'she wanted it for herself.' And something about a floor, and a key that's hidden. What does it mean?"

Sam couldn't help reaching out to wipe away a stray tear from Jack's anguished face.

"My mother, he must have meant my mother. He thought she betrayed him somehow."

"Wait. Jack, I'm having a hard time believing your father really appeared to you, in a dream or in meditation. I'm a scientist. We've seen a lot of incredible things out there in the universe, but I still don't believe in ghosts. These things must be coming from your memories. They must be things you already know somehow, but you've just forgotten them."

"I don't think so, Sam. How could I have forgotten stuff like this?"

"Maybe you only know pieces of what really happened. Look, you've just now remembered about Miriam's Dad being with you and your Mom at the funeral that day. Your memories don't make sense because they are the fractured memories of a young boy. I'm guessing you forgot them for that very reason, because they didn't make sense to you. Now. If your mother...really did... betray your father..."

Sam hated saying that out loud.

"...then I think you need to go back to Teal'C. Let him help you search your mind. Maybe he can help you put the pieces of memories back together. You need to get to the bottom of all this."

"Okay. I'll go to the SGC right now."

"Uhh. You look wiped, Jack. How about some food first? And do you think you can sleep some?"

He nodded uncertainly, letting Sam call the shots for now.

"Sure. I'll try."

The lost look on his face said otherwise, and it came close to breaking Sam's heart.

A/N: Thanks for following along! This fic is taking on a life of its own I fear. My husband, out of his very vivid imagination, has given me some ideas for the plot with some really cool twists and turns so get ready. The dream with his Dad's ghost and the Kelnorim were his ideas to give credit where due. Evvie