The seconds ticked by slowly. They had both finished eating, though neither moved from their positions. Sam sat, gazing at the wondrous beauty before her with eyes that seemed to gloss over at it. It was obvious to Jack that she wasn't even noticing the rich sunset or the wooded tree line, she was lost in her own little world, and it worried him a little, after all, he knew what went through a former POW's mind as they tried not only to process what had occurred but also to transition back into real life. And, although he had managed to survive with relatively few scars, physical or psychological, he knew that a great many of his fellow service men and women were never able to return to 'normal' life.

"What happened?" He finally asked, gently.

She didn't physically react, which made Jack think that she hadn't heard his question, but in reality, images of Jaffa Jack, Husband Jack, and Commanding officer Jack flashed before her in quick succession. Her grip on the arms of the chair she sat on increased until her knuckles turned white as she bit back a scream as she saw Jaffa Jack fall with that fatal plunge of the knife into his symbiote's pouch for the hundredth time in the last day.

He debated asking the question again, but before he decided to go ahead and do so, he heard a small voice, almost ethereal in quality, begin the horrific narrative.

"He killed me." There was a pause during which she allowed the words to sink into the depths of his mind. "Over and over again."

Jack didn't react. He'd been though that hell before, and he'd been expecting that answer.

"But that wasn't the worst part."

The torture, he thought, the acid, the knives, the fiery death, the knowledge that it would all happen again…that was the worst part.

"He confused me. I didn't know who I was and…" Her voice caught. "I didn't know how you were."

Curiosity took over. "As in SG-1?"

She looked over at him for the first time since the end of dinner, an untold sadness lined on her face. "No. You, Jack."

His eyebrows shot up in surprise. "Me?"

She nodded, returning her gaze to the images available only to her as she looked forward. "In one version of reality, Hathor made you a Jaffa."

"Really?" He asked, surprised. She had filled him in on the happenings from their first encounter with the goa'uld queen, but he hadn't realized how heavily it had weighed on her mind.

She nodded, looking at the hardwood of the deck, blinking back the tears. "You had disappeared from the base when Hathor left. After we killed her, you went on to be first prime of Heru'ur, Apophis, and finally Anubis. He sent you back to the SGC on a mission."

He didn't like the sound of this. "Mission?"

"Kill me, sir."

"Kill you?" He asked, after recovering from her expressionless 'sir.' "Carter, I could never…"

"I know." She interrupted. "And you didn't."

"I didn't?"

"No."

"Then what…?"

"You killed yourself in front of me."

He gulped, feeling her pain. Losing a team member was one of the most painful experiences he had ever gone through, and one he wouldn't wish even on his worst enemy. And after all, the deeper the bond, the stronger the pain.

"I see."

"No, Jack, you don't see." She said, angry and depressed tears running down her cheeks. "There was another reality…"

"Another reality?"

She nodded, barely moving her head. It was almost as if this reality was more painful for her than the one in which he died. What could possibly be worse than that? He asked himself, ignorantly.

"We were…married."

"We were?" He asked, wondering why she was in tears. Had he misinterpreted her?

"Yes. We had just found out that we were expecting our first child too."

"Okay…wow."

"I miscarried as Ba'al plunged a knife into my abdomen."

"In this…reality?"

"Actually, it was in real life that I got the knife in my abdomen. I assume the sarcophagus healed anything that had gone wrong, but…"

She stopped, unable to continue with her tears.

"C'mere." He said, placing one arm around her shoulders.

She cried on his shoulder for a few moments before she dried her tears. "It wasn't the miscarriage that upset me…it was knowing that no matter how hard we try to be there for each other, we're just going to hurt each other because of the damn regulations!"

"Sam…"

"I can't do it…I can't lose you again…" She said, looking up at him with teary eyes. "So, I'm going to resign my commission."

"Whoa…Carter…"

"Don't."

"Don't what?"

"Don't 'Carter' me…"

"Okay, Sam…think long and hard about this…you love your job…"

"I'm tired of thinking, Jack. I want to feel. I don't want to overanalyze this and feel justified about not having a life because I haven't gotten the bottom of what 'we' have."

"And what do we have?" He asked, standing in frustration.

"Well, if you have to ask that, I guess we don't have anything at all." She said, standing and going to the guest room.