Sam stood by the counter in her lab staring at the device Jack had used to enter their reality. She'd spent the night on the couch and woke up at 5 o'clock in the morning. She'd left a note on the kitchen table telling Daniel that she was coming into work today and saying that if he and Janet would be so kind as to not some to work today she'd cover for them.

When she'd arrived at the briefing room that morning General Hammond had told her Janet had called in sick with the flu. Sam had told him Daniel had the same thing, which hadn't struck Hammond as odd. If there was anything he'd learned as commander of the
SGC it was how quickly a virus could spread.

Sam sighed deeply and rested her head in her hands. She was no good at this soul searching stuff. She preferred action. If something was broken, fix it. If you needed something, make it. She wasn't good at fixing personal problems.

The phone rang and Sam picked it up.

"Don't hang up" Daniel pleaded.

Sam ran a hand through her hair. "Daniel I'm not ready to do this, I need time to think."

"Sam…" Daniel started.

"We can talk tomorrow okay? I just, I need you to give me today all right?"

"All right" Daniel agreed. "And I'm staying with Teal'c tonight so, you can use the house if you want." Daniel carefully avoided calling it 'home'

"Okay" Sam said, and hung up, impulsively swiping the phone off her desk onto the floor with her arm.

It gave a satisfying crunch as a piece of plastic skidded across the floor.Sam inhaled deeply and let the breath out slowly. She felt her tense muscles begin to relax a little. She couldn't remember the last time she'd stopped to breathe. And destruction of Air Force property was oddly comforting.

Sam opened a drawer and took out a picture of Jack and Teal'c together on a day off. Teal'c was wearing one of his usually outrageous outfits, and Jack had on jeans and a collared shirt. A blue shirt. Sam traced the picture with her finger. She'd always loved that shirt.

Sam wondered when exactly she'd lost sight of what was really important. She must have known at one time. There had to be some point at which she'd made a conscious decision to screw up her life, to leave Jack behind in a last ditch attempt to find contentment.

Looking back she couldn't remember what she'd been thinking at the time. Why she'd made the choices she had, it wasn't really worth thinking about anymore. Sampaced circles around her lab, telling herself she was working, that she just needed to concentrate. But she couldn't concentrate, and she couldn't think. She just ended up thinking herself in circles.

The truth was there were so many little reasons for the choices all of them had made. Who could say why any of them had done the things they'd done, made the decisions they'd made. Sam sat down and leaned the picture beside a framed copy of Sam and Daniels engagement picture. Then turned them both over, took a snapshot of the team out of her drawer and put in on her desk instead.

Shestudied the picture like she'd never seen it before. They had been so perfect. The four of them had been an almost invincible force, capable of handling anything, anytime, anywhere. They always gone back for each other, they'd fought for each other and they'd won every time. Sam closed her eyes and breathed. It had been so long since she let herself remember how it used to be. But now she immersed herself in memories, letting the past consume her, because it was the only thing that made sense anymore.