First thing she had had to do was to convince Weir that the world needed Jack O'Neill back. She even used her integrity as a bargaining chip. So she talked Weir into letting her go and Daniel into staying behind. If she failed Daniel would be Jack's only recourse. And so she flew off on a course she charted, not truly knowing if she would come out of hyperspace in the middle of a star or a black hole or right on target. She only knew that to live with herself she had to try.
All this ruminating was getting her nowhere so Sam thought she would take a break, a little food, a little conversation, a little distraction. But Teal'c was his non-communicative self. Maybe that wasn't altogether true; maybe he hit the nail right on the proverbial head. Going to their food stores to get him the sandwich he didn't ask for and didn't want, Sam thought about what he simply asked.
"How is Pete Shanahan?"
Actually Pete was pissed as hell. Her job had kept this budding relationship on ice. She could never say where she was going; she didn't answer phone messages sometimes for over a week at a time (not her fault) and then when Pete saw her after the horror of the Alpha Site, she was bruised and battered. Then within a short period of time she was upset and withdrawn over Janet's death and the near loss of the Colonel. He seemed almost afraid to ask, and if and when he did, she couldn't tell him. He had even asked if there was another man. How could she tell him what O'Neill meant to her when she refused to come to terms with that herself. Maybe they could do the military 'Don't ask, don't tell". Oh yes this was such a great basis for a relationship.
Their parting, before the final search for the Lost City and battle with the forces of Anubis, was awkward. She couldn't tell Pete she was trailing off across the galaxy with her team and most especially with a man, whom she trusted with her life, whose brain was being over written, searching for a Lost City in order to conquer Earths direst enemy, whose forces were amassing at that very moment. It sounded nuts to her and she knew it was true. This present trip was also one whose objective she could not share. And so here she was, thousands of light years from Pete, risking her life to save another man, that man who had loomed large in the past eight years of her life; the one man she would risk all for, Jack O'Neill.
Again her mind went back to the conversation she just had with Teal'c
"It's just -- as you well know -- it's not easy saying goodbye to someone you care about when you think there's a chance you may never see them again"
Now she wasn't even sure if she were talking about O'Neill or Pete, maybe both. She wished she could do a Scarlet O'Hara and worry about it tomorrow. If she could only immerge herself in the Ancient modified technology in the small ship, every inch of which reminded her of Colonel Jack O'Neill.
