Time to go back to the retirement scenario to confirm the way she thought Growth worked and the thought that she couldn't change anything in a subsequent session once she set it in motion in the first session. Finding herself back outside the infirmary again after pushing Growth and ?Now? she continued on to Jack's office and sat impatiently through the business discussion. When they finished, Jack said, "There's something else we need to discuss. I've decided to retire. I was never meant to fly a desk and they've decided I'm too old to be back in the field."

"Please reconsider sir," she begged him and she trotted out every argument she could think of. He remained completely unmoved. She went to Daniel who told her that he already knew and actually thought it was a good idea. No support there. Teal'c, at least, seemed to be an ally but he didn't have any more success than Sam. She tried everything she could think of including a petition drive.

Finally Kate took her aside. "Sam, this is just kind of over the top. Is it," she hesitated and then plowed ahead, "is it that you can't stand for him not to be around. Most people think you have a thing for him big time."

"Hardly," Sam said indignantly. "Look, Kate, I have a really bad headache. This lemon smell…"

"Sam, maybe you are getting a migraine. An odor can be a precursor although this seems like a long lead time. But, we can deal with that in a moment." Sam had turned away from her and Kate walked around to get in her line of sight again. "Sam, if you really love Jack, his retiring is the best thing. You won't be in his chain of command any more and you can go after him."

That was definitely enough. She ended the session. The lemon smell went away but the headache was enormous and she felt exhausted.

There was a knock on her door. She took off the mesh, dumped it and the control in her drawer, and walked gingerly to the door to keep her head from falling off her shoulders.

It was Daniel. "Sam, I've been thinking ever since you stopped in my lab an hour ago about the Ancient symbols." He took her face in for the first time. "You don't look too good. Anything wrong? "

She made a feeble gesture. "Maybe you had better sit down," and he led her gently back to her chair.

"What do you mean an hour ago?" she asked querulously. She could barely remember the conversation. It seemed like a week ago. Experientially it was.

"An hour ago as in around 2:00." He stuck his watch in her face and tapped the face.

"Like you ever know what time it is," she said spoiling for a fight. Failing to support her with Jack on retirement. Marrying Kate which shouldn't irritate her but did. He was not at the top of her list.

Daniel looked surprised by her hostility. "I may not be the most time conscious person in the world but it so happens that I had a 2:00 meeting with Captain Wang who showed up literally as soon as you were out the door."

Suddenly she realized what was going on. She had a week's activity without real rest. "Danny, I'm really sorry. I think I need to go home early. Maybe I'm getting a migraine."

He looked very concerned. "I swear I didn't know you had that problem."

"I didn't think I did but maybe I'm starting to."

Daniel insisted on driving her home, promising to pick her up the next day since her car was back at Cheyenne Mountain. He settled her on her couch, tucked an afghan in around her, put a DVD on, and made her a cup of tea before he left. She laid back, letting him be so good to her and feeling like a heel. She had been rude to him for things he didn't even do. Things SHE had dreamed up for him to do. She had to quit the cowboy research with the device and bring other scientists to join her in the work.

The next morning, Daniel, as good as his word, picked her up and took her to work. After a good night's sleep the headache was almost completely gone but not totally. They went through the gate to P6J9803 at 900 hours and she didn't get back to her office for 10 days. She began to wonder if the whole thing was really a dream.

Sam didn't take the device out of her drawer for another week. She was afraid of her lack of control but could not force herself to say anything about it to anyone. The morning came, however, when she was really ready to use it. She and Pete had gone bowling the night before with some of his buddies and their wives and significant others. Pete was such a sweetie. If only they could go live on a desert island somewhere. Somewhere that his fellow cops and their significant others didn't live or even visit. They were nice enough with the same mix of intelligent and interesting people as in any other cross section of the population and there were no more grating personalities than average. But it was like being in a play. She had to watch every word she said. She couldn't talk about anything that was on her mind. On the other hand, she did have to listen to people at a different place in their lives from her talk about a lot of things that bored her to distraction. She turned down invitations to home parties for Pampered Chef, Creative Memories, Stampin' Up, and Longaberger. Except for Pampered Chef, which had a sort of self-defining name, she couldn't even figure out what the other parties were for. Was this the future? Did she want it to be?

Using the Birth button, she programmed this scenario with the idea that she and Pete did go through with the wedding. She noticed that time she smelled lilies. As soon as she finished the programming thought, she stopped the session. Then she started it again, using the ?Future? button to get to some action and not have to live through days of build up that might trigger a headache.

She found herself sitting in a Chevy Suburban in the base's parking lot. She spotted a postcard on the passenger seat next to her purse. It was an invitation to a Longaberger party. Her cell phone rang. "Hi honey," Pete said. "You've got that Longaberger thing tonight, right?"

"Yes, I do. What are you doing?"

"I've been working evenings Sam for what, 6 months now?"

"I know that," she said. And she was amazed to realize that she did. Just as she knew that Longaberger produced handmade baskets from their headquarters in Ohio that featured a building shaped like a basket. "I meant, what are you doing right now?"

"Sitting in a car on a stakeout."

"Did you get anything to eat?"

"Sort of. It was at least pretending to be food. Look honey, I called to ask if you could please sew the button back on that came off my suit coat when you get home tonight after the party. I have to have a suit tomorrow."

"You want me to sew your button on your suit?" She was incredulous.

"Okay, just skip it. My mother always," he stopped there. "Look I'll talk to you later."

It seemed like a daily occurrence when the idea of marriage that he had based on his parents' marriage collided head on with what she had grown up expecting marriage to be. He wasn't unreasonable and was usually willing to adjust his expectations but it made her feel like she was letting him down every time it happened. It also, perversely, made her mad at herself that she felt that way.

She realized then that she just couldn't face the Longaberger thing. She remembered Poppy Schneider, the hostess, with sudden clarity. The woman did not believe that there was anything you couldn't use a basket for. Longaberger made handsome baskets and she and Pete actually had several that she enjoyed. But even the Longaberger distributor had told her privately that she thought Poppy's use of the paper tray basket and plastic liner, priced at over $75, for kitty litter, was just a tad too much. Pete wasn't going to be home. She'd just bail on the party and go back in to the Mountain and clear out some paperwork.

Sam dropped by the cafeteria first to get something to eat since she wasn't going to get the finger food she would have had at Poppy's. The first thing she saw was Daniel, sitting alone, making designs in a mound of mashed potatoes. She went over to join him. "You trying to recreate some landmark where aliens will be landing?" she asked.

He looked at her blankly, "You know, like in "Close Encounters of the Third Kind?"

Instead of answering her question, he leaned over and almost hissed, "I thought we agreed we were going to restrict our contacts to the strictly work related."

And when she thought about, she remembered that agreement and why they had made it. "I know but what harm can there be in a cafeteria?"

"That's not the point is it? We said NO contacts at all, period."

"Daniel, you never used to be so tediously legalistic."

"That's lovely. You mess with my head, tell me I have to forget it, set up rules that are way stricter than necessary, and then tell me I'm tediously legalistic for sticking to YOUR rules."

He got up, snatched up his tray, and dropped more than set the tray down on the bus station, making a racket that swiveled more than one head in his direction, and stalked out. Sam sat, confused and unsure for a moment. The device-manufactured memories of events were not quite as clear as real memories but more like something she had read in a story rather than lived. Still, they were strong enough that after a moment, she abandoned her food and hurried after him.

Daniel managed to reach his office before she got to him. "You just can't leave it alone can you?" he asked. Suddenly he slammed the door behind her, grabbed her by her upper arms and kissed her really hard.

"Now do you remember why we made the rules? The kiss that surprised both of us? Neither one of us want to hurt Pete or disregard the vows you took." He opened the door again and said, "Please leave. You married the other guy. I don't like cheating and I don't like you for making me want to."

Sam stumbled from his office and ended the session.

SSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS

"Wow." She started to write up her notes on the trial but got stuck on the words to describe what had happened. "Wow," she thought again. "Is there really any chance at all if I marry Pete that I would be tempted to cheat on him with Daniel? How would the device know something like that?" She decided it was time for another Peep.

This scenario really had her puzzled. If she was going to cheat on Pete, why would her subconscious, for surely that was where the device was drawing information, pick Daniel as the person she cheated with? She adored Daniel. He was her best friend but if she had fantasized about anyone sexually it had been Jack, hadn't it?

Sam looked at the clock. She had only been in the office for 10 minutes. She didn't have to be anywhere for another 50 minutes. The scenarios only took enough real world time to record the outcomes in any case. She could do a hundred or more before her meeting. Of course there was her regular work waiting but surely this research was just as important. At some level she raised a hand and said, "You are rationalizing, RATIONALIZING do you hear? Stop. Stop right now!". Too bad whatever part of her mind was running the show, it wasn't listening to the voice of reason.

So the device was working on sexual fantasies, was it? Time to do something just for fun then. She put the mesh on, inserted a line in her spreadsheet, above the methodically planned next trial to put in "Imagine Brad Pitt and Antonio Banderas arrive to take me to lunch sans Angelina Jolie, Jennifer Aniston, and Melanie Griffith." When she executed the scenario, she had a real shock. She couldn't get out of her office. There wasn't even a door anymore. The phone didn't work. She ended the scenario and puzzled that one out. "I don't believe that Pitt and Banderas would ever come to take me to lunch. My subconscious had nothing to give the device. It let's you know it can't go anywhere with a scenario because of lack of information in this manner."

She tried one more to confirm that. When she got into the new scenario, she said to herself, "Okay. Suppose that all male military personnel have been directed to start wearing skirts, straight black ones with a kick pleat." Her hypothesis was confirmed. Once again she didn't have a door and couldn't leave her office.

Sam reviewed the trials to date and listed the questions remaining about the device. She hadn't figured out the button yet next to the display area. She wasn't sure whether if you did a Growth?Future? sequence on a scenario but next time did a Growth?Now? sequence you would start up from where you left off in the future scenario or start from the last chronologically continuous point from the scenario's beginning. Then there was the question, what happens in real life if I die in a scenario? The only things she would have likely to die of so far were a broken heart but she hadn't tried anything dangerous. This was something she didn't want to actually test but definitely something that needed thinking about.

She had a headache by now. Nothing serious or incapacitating. In fact she thought it might honestly be only indirectly related to the device. There was a good chance it was a direct result of the tension she was now feeling with respect to Pete. If she was honest with herself, she had had problems with her decision since she accepted the proposal. Shouldn't she be marrying someone whose marriage proposal caused her to immediately leap into his arms, cover his face with kisses, and cry, "Yes, yes, yes." It was profoundly unromantic the way she had taken herself off and talked herself into believing that they could get past the difficulties their careers presented and their different expectations for marriage. She had told herself that love would make it all right. What the scenario had told her was that the passion she felt for Pete wasn't strong enough to keep her from feeling sexually attracted to another man.

She admitted reluctantly to herself that it wasn't going to work with Pete but she'd gone so far down this path it was going to be hard to end it without causing a lot of hurt. Did she dare try the device one more time to try to test out the answer? Could she stop then?

Sam went home and begged off her evening with Pete on grounds of a sick headache. She took refuge in a long hot bath and a Negra Modelo. She said to the cat who was pacing around the edge of the tub, "In the words of Scarlet O'Hara, tomorrow is another day." She almost thought she heard the cat say "Fiddlededee."

A mission intervened and it was actually four tomorrows later before she could lock herself in her office and get out the device. Should she continue with the preexisting scenario #3 with the lily smell and the bitter Daniel or should she start again from the present? Starting from the present would be better practice and/or fact finding for the break up that needed to happen very soon with Pete. On the other hand, she really wanted to understand better why things had happened with Daniel. No reason why she couldn't do both, right? She would start with scenario 3 and get that off her mind so that it wouldn't keep nagging at her.

That raised an interesting question. The 2 was showing in the display but she needed 3. She could Kill 2, deleting it and leaving only 3. Before taking that step she decided to experiment with the little button next to the display and sure enough it apparently cycled through the available scenarios. That solved, she pressed Growth, then ?Now?

SSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS

She was outside Daniel's office again, the taste of his kiss still in her mouth. Reaction set in and she started trembling. She leaned up against the wall waiting for it to pass. She was so instantly back in the moment that it amazed her. It wasn't as if it had happened days ago. It had happened moments before. She had to get it together and get back to her office. She could collapse there.

Sam pushed off against the wall with one hand just as the door to the office opened again. Daniel was obviously surprised to find her there. Surprise was followed quickly by concern. He took in her pallor and her shakiness.

"God Sam, I'm sorry. I don't know what I'm doing any more." They both heard footsteps coming down the corridor that connected to this one. "Sam, come into my office for a minute until you feel a bit better." He gently put his arm around her and walked her into his office and once more closed the door, this time quietly.

"Doing the right thing sure isn't much fun is it?" he asked ruefully.

"Daniel, I have to understand what happened with us." He wasn't looking at her now. "All those years when neither one of us was involved with anyone else and nothing happened. Why now?"

"I can answer that for myself but I can't it answer it for you." He looked over at her then, "Don't you know?" And suddenly she did. She ran for her life.

SSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS

Back in the chair. Back in reality. But not back to the way things were before. All those years mooning around over Jack looked different now. She was confused about Daniel. She was confused about Jack. The only thing she was sure of was that she shouldn't be marrying Pete. Practicing the break up suddenly didn't seem to make sense. There was no kind way to tell someone that it was over. She would just have to do it and honestly, right now, she was more interested in figuring out what should come next. She would tell Pete it was over the next time she saw him, no matter how hard it was. It had to end.

She couldn't handle any more information about Daniel right now. She decided to go back to scenario 2, Jack retiring, and work on understanding her feelings for him. It was tough deciding between ?Now? and ?Future? but in the end the fact that she had left things at a rather embarrassing place made her decide to put that behind her and she hit ?Future?

She found herself lying in bed in an unfamiliar room. The lights were off but the door was wide open and light flooded in from the hall, more than enough to show the details of the room. The walls were logs and she decided she must be at the cabin Jack had been trying to get her to for years. The lemony smell hung faintly in the air.

The quilt on the bed was hers, the one her cousin had given her when her aunt, an accomplished quilter, had died. Through the half opened closet door she saw what looked like her clothes hanging next to what must Jack's clothes. There was a framed photo resting on the dresser in the direct path of the light from the door of Jack and her, in a tuxedo and a white dress, respectively. So they had, indeed, taken advantage of his retirement and she found she did recall a lovely wedding held outdoors here at this cabin on a splendid sunny afternoon in early autumn. Jack had been so handsome in that tuxedo, worn under protest but nevertheless with great flare. She had laughed a lot. It had been the perfect wedding and the perfect night.

In fact as she thought about the past couple of years with Jack, there had been a lot of laughter. He threw off one liners absolutely effortlessly. She found herself thinking about how that was beginning to get old socially. People got such a kick out of him that she had started feeling like the definitely dull half of the partnership. Unless they were conversing with someone tuned to the intellectual side who wanted to talk physics or something equally weighty, she found herself rather ignored when they socialized as a couple. If the conversation did hit deep waters, Jack had a tendency to excuse himself to go find the hors d'oeuvres.

Jack was a truly smart man but not into the life of the mind in a big way. Although he sometimes played a little dumb when she talked about her work, she knew that he was keeping up. No one could be that fast on their feet verbally and not be extremely clever. Still, although he was crazy about her, he just wasn't that interested in her science. Her husband was very proud of her intellect and bragged about her accomplishments but he was more of a spectator than a participant in the scientific puzzles that preoccupied her so much of the time.

Sam noticed she was wearing a t-shirt. She was a little surprised that she wasn't wearing something sexier but they had been married for quite awhile. Things had calmed down a little.

Jack came into the room then in boxers and a t-shirt that said, "Angler's Challenge 2007," carrying a beer and a copy of "Sports Illustrated." He set the beer down on the bedside table on his side of the bed, switched on his lamp, and went back and closed the door. He hadn't said a word to her and he still hadn't by the time he had climbed into bed, pulled a pillow up behind his back, and started to read. With a spurt of anger, she noticed he was reading the swimsuit edition, although,given the high photo content and the lack of significant text, she didn't know how much real reading there would be. The swimsuit edition of Sports Illustrated had always been a real sore point with her. It was such obvious pandering on the part of the magazine and as her dear late friend, Janet, had once remarked to her, the pictured women were often a tribute to the medical profession. She consciously went with the anger since it was a lot better than feeling extremely awkward.

She sat up, ripped the magazine out of his hands, and threw it on the floor. "Do you really need that?" she asked.

"That was a collector's item you just threw on the floor," Jack said but he wasn't at all upset. He was now smiling at her wolfishly and said, "If you're feeling frisky, you just have to ask babe."

She was thinking, "Frisky? Babe?" There was something about "babe" that had always grated. There wasn't time to delve into that thought though because he had turned towards her, thrown a leg across hers and slipped a hand under her t-shirt. As it was traveling up her stomach he kissed her, very intimately. It felt extremely nice but suddenly she panicked. She imagined herself in the briefing room with Jack at 0900 with a mental image fresh in her mind of what was inevitably about to come next. She immediately ended the session.