She knew she couldn't hide in her room forever. It was cowardly, and she had never been accused of that in her career. The other reason was they had to get home, so they needed to work together.

But how were they going to do that, when she felt so raw around him, she didn't know.

"You'll just have to suck it up, Sam," she told herself. And she could do that, had been doing that for the past fifteen years. She would simply go back to treating him the way she had after they'd broken up. She would be pleasant and professional and see and talk to him as little as possible.

It would be hell, but she could do it – and it would be better than trying to continue the relationship they had had for the last few weeks.

With that determination, she decided to take a bath and then go to sleep. She was tired after her long day and all the turmoil and lack of rest since her conversation with Jack.

She prayed she could actually sleep.

The next morning – slightly refreshed (or at least that's what she told herself), she made her way out of her room to Jack's, a couple of doors down. She knocked softly, and waited for him to answer.

"Come," he called. He obviously knew it was her, since the aliens neither knocked, nor would they know if someone had told them to come in,

She plastered a relaxed look on her face and opened the door.

"Good morning, General," she said, trying to sound cheerful. "How are you this morning?"

He looked at her searchingly, clearly trying to gage her mood. "Fine, Carter," he said finally. "How about you? Recovered after your – walk – yesterday?"

If he was throwing some of his sarcasm at her, she refused to rise to the bait. He was going to find that nothing he said or did was going to get to her. She was going to develop skin as tough as trinium.

"Yes, Sir, thank you. I had a great sleep and I'm feeling good. Have you had breakfast?"

He pointed to the tray to the side of the bed, with a plate full of the alien food. She wanted to kick herself – so much for trying to appear as if she had everything together.

"Oops – didn't see that," she laughed. "I'll just let you finish then. I had mine already. I'm going to walk down to the water – don't worry, I'll only go to the beach and then right back. I need to talk to you about what I saw yesterday."

With a smile and a wave she turned and left his room. Once the door closed behind her she leaned back against the wall and closed her eyes. One encounter down – countless others to go before they returned to Earth.

She finally pushed herself up and started towards the path to the beach. Out of the corner of her eye she saw someone approach from her left. She paused and looked over, recognizing it was Marie.

"Hi," she smiled. "I'm just going down to the beach – for a little while," she told the alien woman. Marie approached her, looking serious and regarding her closely. She slowly lifted her arm, and with a tilt of her head, paused until Sam nodded. She then put her hand on Sam's chest, over her heart.

Marie immediately looked sad. Her hand dropped and she gave Sam a look of real sympathy.

"Thanks," Sam said, knowing the woman was trying to help. But there was nothing she could do. "I'm fine," she lied with a smile. "See you later." Again, with a small wave she headed out. She really didn't want to have anyone see how she was feeling. It was hard enough to keep herself strong and in control, without everyone pitying her.

She stayed for a only a short time – just enough to breathe the fresh air and try and calm herself down. She loved the ocean and wished she lived closer to it back home. That got her thinking. If she was going to retire, maybe she'd look at San Diego. That way she could be near her brother and his family. Her nephew was married and had a child on the way. Her niece was in grad school, studying to be an engineer. It would be good to be near family.

She reluctantly turned to head back, knowing that if she stayed out too long, someone – probably Jack – would come looking for her. And anyway, she had to share with him what she'd discovered, and then plan for next steps. She really wanted to be back home on Earth.

As she walked the trail back, she caught sight of Jack – no, of General O'Neill. She had to call him that even in her own mind. She had to think of him that way. He was a superior officer, a colleague and nothing more.

"Hi," she said, giving him a small smile as she stepped up onto the platform. He had a pitcher of juice and two glasses on the small table beside him.

"Help yourself," he gestured to it.

"Thanks!" She took a glass and sat down, and drank deeply. This was one thing she was going to miss.

"I'm going to miss the food and drink here," she gave voice to her thoughts. "I have no idea what this juice is, but it's amazing. I wonder if we could take some with us?"

"It's mora juice," he told her. "It's kind of like a cross between mango, guava and peach."

"Mmm – yes, I can sort of taste those things, although there's something different which I can't identify." Suddenly she frowned. "How do you know that's what it's called?"

He shrugged. "I don't know – probably just made it up in my dreams," he told her, his lip curling into a slight smile.

She continued to frown, even as she nodded slowly. She couldn't help but wonder if he could somehow understand the aliens, even though he denied it. It would be handy if he could, she thought.

"So Sir – I wanted to tell you -" she stopped when J – ur the General help up his hand. "What is it?"

"Why "Sir" and "General" all of a sudden," he said, looking disgruntled. "I thought we agreed to continue to be friends."

She didn't answer him right away, instead looking out towards the water. Finally she sighed. "No Sir – that was you. I didn't agree to any such thing. Look – I don't mean to be – unkind – but I think it's better if we keep to a professional relationship, like we had before this happened. I don't want there to be any misunderstandings and – well, I'm more comfortable like this."

The silence was heavy and awkward. When she finally looked towards him she almost flinched. He looked a combination of angry and hurt – with something else which she couldn't identify, didn't think she wanted to identify. She wanted to apologize, to say "of course we can be friends" but she didn't - she couldn't. It would kill her to try and pretend. This was – more formal, and focused on business – would be much safer for both of them.

"Fine," he said finally. "So General Carter – what did you find."

This time his voice was cold – the one he used for people he detested, but had to be polite with because of protocol and diplomacy. Okay, if that's the way he wanted it, she could play it that way too.

"A city, Sir. I walked along the beach – maybe eight or ten kilometers from our beach. It appears as if we are on an island – separated from the mainland by a straight. I'd estimate it to be fifteen to eighteen hundred meters across. I also saw some vessels – most were pretty slow moving, but I did see one that was travelling pretty fast. It looked like some kind of hovercraft."

"So, we were right. This is some kind of retreat center or clinic and it's separate from the general population." He snorted softly. "Maybe it's like one of those old sanitariums."

"Possible," she acknowledged. "Or maybe they want to keep us away from the general population. Who knows – maybe it's like Earth and they haven't told everyone that there are aliens out there."

"Could be. I still wonder how they found us – and how they transported us here. Did you see anything else? Any technology, space ships – anything that would give us a clue?"

"No – nothing in the sky. I will say that the architecture reminds me very much of your healing device. The buildings had the same kind of patterns and swirls. They were quite beautiful."

"Well I'm afraid that beauty isn't going to get us home," he almost snapped.

She didn't respond, although she wanted to snap right back. She had a suspicion that she was in for a less than pleasant time. When Jack O'Neill was angry, he could be a bit of a bastard. He'd just better watch himself because she could give as good as she got.

"So, any ideas?" he asked, his tone more mild.

"Not really. I think we're going to have to try and communicate with the aliens somehow. You seem to have a better time at understanding them than I do. Maybe you can try and ask them some questions."

"How can I do that? They don't understand us."

"I know. Why don't we find a stick and try drawing pictures in the dirt. I really wish I could get some paper and a pen. At the least it would give me something to do!"

"Okay – a stick it is," O'Neill answered. He stood up and strode down the steps and into the woods, not looking at her or checking to see if she was keeping up. So she walked more slowly down the stairs and stood watching him as he looked for some kind of branch.

It didn't take him long, and he returned holding it. "Here," he said, showing her. "Our writing implement. Now all we have to do is get one of the aliens here."

"I'd suggest -"

" – Marie, I know," he nodded. "She seems to be the person in charge. Okay, now what," he asked as he made his way back up to a chair and sat down. She followed slowly, sitting in her own chair and taking a sip of her drink.

"Now what?" she repeated calmly.

"Yeah – you're the one who spent hours yesterday exploring, so what do you think we should do now?"

"What should we do? Nothing" she answered. "Until we find out more from the aliens, there's not a lot we can do. If we don't find out anything, then I guess we'll have to plan to make it across to the city. I'm assuming there must be a dock here somewhere."

"Any idea how big the island is?"

"No, sorry. I suppose it's possible it's not even an island. It could be a peninsula, with a land bridge to the opposite shore."

"Okay – when Marie or one of the others come we can try and ask them. In the meantime, any suggestions about things to do around here? I don't know about you, but I'm getting a bit bored."

She shrugged. "I may go and try and explore some more around here. They don't seem to be too worried about us wandering around, and I haven't seen the insides of all the buildings."

"I'm surprised, Carter," he told her, his eyes on his hands, which didn't seem to be able to stay still. "You were always the curious one. What have you been doing all this time?"

She wanted to slap him. Instead she stood up and put her glass down. "I guess I wasn't really doing anything important," she told him. "But you're right – it is rather boring here. So I'm going to go explore. I'll see you later, General." Not looking at him again, she trounced down the stairs and back towards the buildings. If things continued this way, there were going to end up killing one another.

Why did he have to be such a bastard?

Because he was hurt and is lashing out, her conscience told her. She'd thrown his offer of friendship back in his face. She sighed, wanting to cry again – although she wasn't going to. She'd done her crying, now she had to focus on living, without him.

O'Neill watched her return to the building, his eyes never leaving her – his expression bleak.

She spent the rest of the day doing what she'd said. She wandered around the property – peeking into more rooms and generally making a nuisance of herself. She ran into a number of the aliens, offering them smiles and nods, but she didn't stop nor did she try and communicate with them.

She received a lot of strange and worried looks, but she decided she didn't care. She didn't think they were worried at her exploring – but rather at something much deeper. She wondered what it was.

She didn't see Marie, although she did find Danny. He was sitting in a small room – a bank of what she thought must be computers, in front of him. For the first time in days, her interest was piqued, and she quietly moved behind him, trying to see if she could figure out what they were.

He must have sensed her, because he turned around and gave her one of his sweet smiles. She smiled in return. Danny was one of her favorites. There had been a few times when she thought he could have been her son – hers and – no, don't go there.

"Hi," she said. Of course she received no answer, but he did seem to regard her curiously. So she pointed at the technology in front of him, and tried to look curious.

His head tilted, and the his smile grew. He swiveled round and started pressing buttons and making the shapes on the screen in front of him swirl and change. He would glance at her every few seconds, almost as if to check whether or not she was enjoying herself.

And she would, if she had any idea what it was she was looking at. She could see no patterns, nothing to tell her if she was looking at a language, schematics, or simply lovely pictures. She really wished her Daniel was here.

After a while alien-Danny stopped pushing buttons and simply looked at her, a question in his eyes.

"I don't know what I want either," she told him. "I just wish I knew what you were doing. Maybe it's a video game?" she asked him. He seemed about the right age to enjoy that kind of thing.

She was curious how old he really was – in fact, she was curious about all the aliens. Except for Danny, they all looked about the same age. If they'd been on Earth, she would have pegged their ages at around thirty – but there was no way to tell if that was the case here. So far she'd pretty much discovered nothing about the people other than the fact that they seemed nice, they smiled a lot and they were attractive looking. She admitted that Jack had some valid reasons to be frustrated with her. It definitely wasn't like her not to have been more curious about things or to have checked things out more closely.

Except she'd spent all her time with the General. She'd thought he was going to die, or at the least be severely disabled. For some time it had felt like she had to stay by him, to keep him safe, even though realistically she knew there was nothing she could have done for him.

But now – now she wished she'd spent some time exploring and trying to find out something about the aliens and the world on which they lived.

She regarded Danny closely and then took a step closer to the machine. She kept an eye on him, but he didn't seem to be worried. When she reached out her hand, to press a button, he still didn't seem upset. The only thing he did was move her hand slightly, and point to a different button.

With a shrug she pressed it.

And an entire new world opened up before her.