Chapter 2

Major Samantha Carter came to visit her good friend, Daniel Jackson – the friend she had thought she had lost a year ago. The friend that, up until recently, she had convinced herself she would probably never see again, and, just as General Hammond had advised her, she had almost finally forced herself to live with it.

Then her expectations were suddenly turned upside-down.

Where did you come by this intel, Colonel?

. . . Daniel told me.

Now, just a couple of weeks after his miraculous return, Daniel sat at his desk just the way she had seen him sit there so many times before. It was as if he'd never left. As if all of the last year had only been a bad dream where he was strangely absent.

I don't know why we wait to tell people how we really feel. I guess I always thought you knew.

But it hadn't been a dream, or even a nightmare. It had been real, and she needed to remember that, for Daniel's sake.

It hadn't been easy for him, she new. He tried to hide it, just like how he always hid his own suffering from the rest of the team. He would always say, "I'm fine".

You're the kind of person who would lay down his life for someone he doesn't even know.

Sam watched Daniel in silence as she leaned on the door frame of his office. He hadn't noticed her. Typical, Sam thought, smiling gently to herself. He always seems to be staring at something light-years away when he's daydreaming like this.

Sam was in no hurry to break Daniel out of his musings. Instead she remained a silent observer in the doorway, savoring the very fact that things were back to how they should be. Daniel was back where he belonged. Even just seeing him there and noting the expression on his face seemed to bring her an immense amount of comfort. His eyebrows were gently furrowed as he concentrated on whatever images were glazing his clear blue eyes. His hands raised the coffee mug that lay wrapped in them without conscious thought. The taste seemed to go unnoticed. It was as if the body sought to occupy itself while the mind roamed free. And to think, not so long ago there had been consciousness without body, being without form. Eating and breathing had been old habits rather than necessities.

I wonder if he missed his coffee . . .

In some ways Sam burned to ask what it had been like, to satisfy her scientific curiosity. Then again, a part of her preferred to remain as ignorant of what it was like as she knew Daniel was now. It was an unknown, but it was one that Daniel didn't seem to miss. There are things that are better left unknown, and Daniel's lack of interest in his previous state of being told her that this was probably one of those things.

As she continued to watch him, Sam recognized that there was something different about Daniel. Actually, that's not quite true. She had noticed it for the first time on the day they had found him again. Try as she might, she couldn't put her figure on what had changed. Sure, he looked a year older, but the distinction between who he was then and who is now was much more than skin deep. His personality was the same and his interests hadn't changed . . .

You were – are – brilliant!

Sam shook her head, dislodging the thought and letting it drift away, forgotten. None of that matters. He's back now. That's all that matters.

Sam could have willingly pulled up a chair and kept vigil over her friend's contemplations for hours, but unfortunately she did have some work to do. Although she had now assured herself that Daniel was in fact still here and he would no doubt tell her he was doing "fine", she still wasn't willing to walk away from him without talking with him, even for just a few minutes.

She reached in and rapped gently on the side of one of the many wooden bookshelves.

Daniel gave a slight start as clarity returned to his eyes and he loosened his almost desperate grip on his half full coffee mug. "Oh, hi Sam."

"Hey . . . how're you doing?" The words were out of Sam's mouth before she thought about it. She cringed. Daniel forgave her with a wry smile and a dry little chuckle.

"I'm fine."

Sam wandered over to the workbench that Daniel was perched at and leaned her elbows on it, gently folding her arms. "Didn't General Hammond order you to take some time off?"

"Correct me if I'm wrong, since I can't really trust my own memory," Daniel said with his eyes brightening innocently under mockingly furrowed brows, "but didn't he tell you the same thing?"

Sam's smile grew as Daniel's attempted to match it. "I won't tell if you don't."

"Deal."

They fell into a comfortable silence while Daniel checked on an e-mail his computer had just alerted him to – yet another "welcome back" message from another member of the base personnel – while Sam waited patiently, letting her eyes roam over the familiar clutter on the desk.

Then she noticed the mug of coffee that Daniel had momentarily abandoned, the surprise tricking her lungs into believing they needed more air. The sound of a sharp intake of breath prompted Daniel to leave the e-mail until later.

"Sam? What's the matter?"

"Nothing," she said a little too quickly, giving him a small forced smile. She tried to relax her posture again by moving to half-sit on a nearby stool.

Daniel wasn't having any of it. "No, I know that look. Spill."

While it was great that Daniel remembered enough to recognize when she had a problem, Sam was willing to bet this was one of the worst times for him to do it. As she continued to avoid meeting his gaze, Sam said as casually as she could manage, "I was just surprised to see that mug again. I gave that to you for Christmas about seven years ago."

"Oh, you did? I found it in a box of stuff you guys had rescued from my apartment after I . . . well, you know."

Sam nodded silently, pushing back the painful memories. It doesn't matter. He's back now.

Daniel gently lifted the half-full mug up to his well trained archeologist's eyes, careful not to spill the precious contents as he tilted it. It was a black porcelain mug like any you would find in a tourist trap's gift shop. This one had a standard image from the Egyptian Book of the Dead on it, printed in passable detail. As Osiris stared up at Daniel out of his left eye as he sat on this throne with two women, one of which might be Isis, ministering over him, Sam held her breath.

Daniel examined the design on the mug as he would look at any ancient artifact, his studious eyes willing the mug to tell him its story. His forehead creased under the strain of his concentration.

"It's The Judgment of Ani, isn't it?"

"Yeah," Sam replied cautiously but struggling to sound casual, barely daring to hope that Daniel would not remember the significance of the enthroned figure.

When Daniel had come home and started to ask questions about his past, Sam, Teal'c, and the Colonel had done everything they could to encourage him to remember on his own. Yet Daniel's loss of memory hadn't effected his determination in the least. Once he realized that there were reports on each of his missions – reports that he himself had written – there was no keeping them from him . . . at least not the ones he knew existed. Thinking only of Daniel's best interests, his teammates had held back a select few that they didn't want him to have to tackle alone. Included were those times when SG-1 – or particular members thereof – got themselves into mortal danger in the past year, and as usual there had been a fair few. Most notably had been the Colonel's play date in Baal's funhouse. Since Daniel had a nasty habit of taking on all the blame there was to be had and then some, that one had to go. Knowing that if he hadn't ascended he would have been around to help, Daniel would torture himself to no end. Never mind the fact that Colonel O'Neill didn't want it to come up . . . ever. The stories of Daniel's encounters with Osiris had also been excluded from the boxes Daniel was given.

Please God, all this change has been hard enough on him! Don't let him remember, not right now! . . . But if he is going to remember now at least I'm here for him.

She watched Daniel carefully for signs of recognition, barely listening to him has he described the significance of the symbols found in the image, weaving the story and bringing it to life with his enthusiasm as only he could. Sam wanted to listen, but her concern made it impossible. All she could do was watch and try to silence the voice inside that was begging for Teal'c or Colonel O'Neill to show up and give her a reason to steer Daniel clear of that damn mug.

Oh no . . . too late.

Daniel's lecture on the cultural significance of the prevalence of wheat bundles and other harvested goods in the piece was suddenly silenced in midsentence, his eyes glued to the green face and black almond-shaped eye of Osiris. He inhaled slowly, the sound grating against Sam's eardrums, and then he seemed to hold it, unable to let go. Sam had enough time to wonder if something weird had happened and time had stopped before Daniel showed any sign of being conscious of her presence again.

"Sarah", he said quietly. Mournfully. Guiltily.

Dammit.

"How? . . . she was taken as a host by Osiris. . . . She escaped. I saw her again," Daniel's eyes raced around the room as his mind struggled to put the hidden memories back where they belonged. His voice was listless, all enthusiasm drained by the realization. "I saw her at that Goa'uld summit. I tried to trap her, to get her back to the Tok'ra so they could get Osiris out . . . but I had to leave without her."

Sam could already feel the weight of the guilt that Daniel was piling on himself from across the table.

Dammit, where's the Colonel when you need him? None of us could ever snap Daniel out of one of these moods better than him!

As Sam finished inwardly praying that the Colonel's ears were burning, she found Daniel gazing at her, trying to find a way to escape.

"What's happened to her, Sam? Has anyone seen her?"

She had to look away. His gaze was just too painful to meet. She shifted on the hard wooden stool, sitting all the way on it and bracing her feet against the top most rung as she tried to wrap her arms protectively around her knees. She wished there was one more rung above it. Then she could really sit in the fetal position she felt she needed to hide in. But then she realized that there was someone else in the room who probably was feeling the instinct to curl up in a ball way worse than she was. And he was waiting for her answer.

"I saw her," Sam choked out, hardly believing she was able to speak at all. Her voice didn't sound like her own, the lump of sympathy in her throat making it thick and husky.

"When?" Daniel's voice was quiet, yet demanding, his eyes wide and his hands gripping the edge of the counter as if he thought his lab was going to crash like a crippled cargo ship. The coffee cup sat alone in front of him, steaming with a false promise of comfort. "What happened? Was she alright?"

"It was our first mission after . . ." Sam stopped. She couldn't say it. She skipped it and when on, struggling to sound more casual, but her eyes refused to look at Daniel. She didn't want to see the expression on his face. "The Asgard needed us to rescue one of their scientists from research lab. Unfortunately, Osiris happened to be in the mothership hovering over the lab. It was only a matter of time before she located it and came in without knocking. She was fine. Osiris seems to be moving up in Anubis's ranks. She had a small army of his Jaffa with her."

She forced herself to look up at him, and though she tried to fight it, her gaze locked with his. The pain, the sadness she saw in his eyes was indescribable. His voice, though not hard or accusatory, hurt her heart. "Why am I just hearing about his now? Where was the report?"

Her eyes dropped for cover, her mouth locked, her voice no longer at her command.

"You took it out. You were worried about how I'd take it." It wasn't a question.

"We all were," Sam said in a small voice. All that she could manage.

The resigned sigh that followed surprised her.