AN \\: Sorry for the delay... there was an unexpected trip to Boston involved... Enjoy!

Chapter Fifteen

Several minutes later, Teal'c stepped over the pair clinging hysterically to each other on the floor. "Dr. Fraiser, I must apologize for having made an untruthful statement. Samantha Carter is indeed here and if you do not see her, I believe it is your loss."

Daniel was looking rather guilty himself. "I'm sorry, Janet, but Teal'c's right. There's no way to deny this. And trying to is just going to hurt them even more."

Janet, who was doing a bang-up job of completely ignoring the tear stains which appeared seemingly from nowhere on Jack's shirt, turned to the frightened, pale SFs. "Do you see Major Carter?" She hardly knew what to do when they both nodded. She told herself it was a never before recorded contagious hallucination. Then she sat down on a stool and redoubled her efforts to make sense of what she was, or wasn't as the case appeared to be, seeing by studying the lab reports.

Jack and Sam eventually sat up, but they stayed huddled together on the floor. Neither one was about to let go of the other; it was too early in their newly intimate relationship for them to be quite ready to forsake the reassurance of each other. Jack smiled at Sam like a dope, uncharacteristically mushy with the feel of Sam in his arms. "You said earlier that you didn't come back for me. So why did you come back?"

Sam remembered denying it in the conference room, but she'd been embarrassed and trying to save face at the time. After seeing his breakdown at the thought of her leaving, she didn't really care if it was embarrassing anymore. "I lied. I did come back for you." She shrugged. "And because it was really boring."

He grinned. "So you are a suck-something or other?"

"Don't be crass!" She swatted playfully at him. "I came back because I love you."

Jack stared stupidly for several long, silent minutes, more because he couldn't stop smiling long enough to answer than because he didn't want to reciprocate. After so many years of denying his feelings, and then so many years of pretending he hadn't admitted that he had denied his feelings, it was almost harder to let them out. But he finally managed to force out words, in between the kisses he was raining on her face. "I love you too."

Janet smiled to herself. "That's it!" Two very startled people looked up at her words, having forgotten they weren't alone in their happy little universe. "Colonel O'Neill, your unresolved feelings for Major Carter have obviously resulted in a psychological manifestation."

Jack's goofy smile didn't fade. "Oh, they're resolved now, Janet."

She nodded. "Exactly, sir. You weren't able to resolve them while Sam was alive, so you've unconsciously created this delusion to get resolution."

Sam scowled. "I'm not a delusion."

"All the delusions say that." Jack looked at Janet. "That doesn't explain Teal'c and Daniel." Jack looked back at Sam. "But if it gets me out of having my head shrunk, she can believe whatever she wants to believe." Jack stood up, keeping Sam's hand in his and smiled at Janet. "So we're good, right?"

Janet looked at her watch. "I'm going to keep you all under observation until the general calls back, so you'll just have to sit tight. The delusion itself doesn't seem to be dangerous and if it helps you through your grief, then it could be a good thing." With that, she turned back to her files.

SG-1 stared at each other. They were spread throughout the infirmary, but there was no one else there besides Janet and the SFs who were ignoring them. Although, with the exception of Jack, they could have amused themselves for hours with nothing to do, and even Jack could amuse himself for hours by staring at Sam, being told to amuse themselves instantaneously rendered them bored. As easily as Jack and Sam could have kept each other occupied, they didn't dare with an audience. To reduce the temptation, Sam separated their hands and sat on the bed opposite the one Jack had parked on. The minutes started to tick past.

Sam was the first one to break, jumping off the bed after a fairly short time. "I'm bored. Is it ok if I go poke around in my lab for a while?"

"You're not going anywhere without me." Aware that he looked clingy and lovesick in front of friends and coworkers, Jack cleared his throat. "Besides, there might be other people working in there."

"You didn't! Is nothing sacred?" Sam hadn't expected them to keep her lab the way she'd left it forever, but she'd kind of hoped they'd wait more than three weeks before moving someone else in there. She was in the military, however, and she understood that even if people had been sentimental, no one was going to admit to it.

"Now that you're back, we'll find you somewhere else to work." Jack didn't want to mention that it would probably be in a corner of Daniel's office or a storage closet until other people started warming up to the fact that Sam was there.

The idea comforted her somewhat, but there was a nagging sensation in her brain - the one that wasn't happy unless there was a calculator in her hand and an equation that took up several sheets of paper in front of her. "I'm still bored."

"Don't whine, Carter. I'm bored too."

Janet glared at Jack, obviously thinking he was just pretending to talk to Sam when his comment was really directed at her. "Colonel, I'm under orders to keep you here. I'm sorry, but there's nothing I can do."

"Why did the general order this anyway?" Because, as far as Jack could tell, Hammond had been the one seeing levitating pitchers.

"Because you all scared him." A smile worked its way across her face despite her best attempts to keep it at bay. "Which must have taken some doing."

"All Carter did was pour him a cup of coffee! Why would he be scared of Carter anyway?" Jack wasn't sure anyone but he was really scared of Carter when she wasn't armed.

Janet shrugged. "Honestly, sir, Sam could be a little intimidating."

Rather than admit that he too was intimidated by Sam when she was mad, he did his best to look surprised. Besides the fact that Sam very rarely tried to scare people, Jack knew tiny little Janet was far more frightening any day. "How on Earth could anyone be afraid of Carter?"

"She wasn't a foot taller than you. Imagine Sam angry." Janet paused dramatically until Jack appeared suitably worried, which Janet had no idea was because Sam was, in fact, getting rather angry, at the conversation topic. "Now imagine angry Sam bigger and stronger than you." Janet smiled as Jack's eyes grew wider. "Although I should probably tell you it was only when you were injured and I was keeping her from getting to you, even though it was for your own good."

"Oh." Jack smiled at Sam, who'd suddenly started to feel guilty for intimidating the only female friend she had. "If it makes you feel any better, Janet, angry Sam scars the crap out of me too."

Janet nodded and turned back to reading. "It does, sir. Thank you."

Bored and embarrassed, Sam scoured the room for something to play with. She didn't want to leave, not when Jack had asked her not to. All she could find was a pile of rubber bands, which she carefully aimed and fired at the file Janet was reading. Janet did her best to ignore it as long as she could.

"Whoever is doing that, will you stop, please? It's not up to me about keeping you here."

Jack grinned. "Hey, doc, who are you talking to?"

Janet turned around, holding up the amassed collection of rubber bands. "I was talking to whichever one of you is shooting these at me." To Janet's dismay, none of the three men were near the pile of unfired rubber bands sitting on the bed with Sam.

Jack motioned around the room. "It wasn't Daniel or Teal'c or me. Who does that leave?" Sam was eagerly anticipating Janet's answer because, scientifically, if she ruled out the three people she could see, Janet would be forced to reach the conclusion that it was the one person she couldn't see. Then, when faced with empirical data, Janet would have to acknowledge that Sam was there.

Janet simply turned to the SFs at the door. "Did you see who was shooting the rubber bands?"

Both of them looked uncomfortable. One of them finally nodded. "Yes, ma'am." He looked at his silent friend who nodded his encouragement. "It was Major Carter, ma'am."

Disappointed, Janet turned back to her work. She ignored the raised eyebrow on Teal'c's face. She ignored the grin on Daniel's face. She ignored the grin on Jack's face. She ignored the grin on Sam's face. She read one line on the page in front of her and then froze, realizing the thought that had occurred to her - the one about pretending not to see Sam's grin. She looked up, not sure exactly what to expect. She saw nothing.

Jack didn't miss the momentary confusion and following disappointment. "You saw her, didn't you?"

Janet couldn't bring herself to lie. "I thought I did for a moment. What you have is definitely contagious."

"I've been called a lot of things in my life, but never contagious." Sam snickered. "Except for when I had chicken pox."

"Come on, Janet, work with me here."

"There are no such things as ghosts, Colonel." Her face fell, as though she'd been hoping different words would come out. "As much as I wish I could believe otherwise."

Jack stood up, nodded at Sam to do the same, and then led Sam over in front of Janet. "She's not a ghost, Janet. She's just here." He lifted Janet's hand and put it on Sam's shoulder, seeing the shock when Janet's hand met something solid where her eyes told her there should only have been air.

She still saw nothing. And yet, she felt it. "Sam?"

Sam leaned forward and hugged her friend. "Yeah, it's me."

When Janet pulled back, her shock and confusion disappeared behind a wide smile. "Sam!" Janet hugged Sam again. "How- what- I don't understand!"

Sam shrugged. "I can come back from the dead, but I can't explain it."

"What's it like?" The scientist in Janet had a million questions.

"More frustrating than you'd expect." Sam smiled as she looked among her friends' faces. "But it's pretty nice to make everyone so happy just by being here."

Janet looked at Daniel. "Daniel, she's really here!" He nodded. Janet looked at Jack. "No wonder you're back to being yourself."

Jack beamed happily. "She came back for me. Sort of."

Janet looked at the rubber bands. "Sam, were you really shooting rubber bands at me?"

"Sorry." Sam winced, feeling rather stupid. "Did I mention the frustration level inherent in being dead?"

"But you can move things?" Janet poked Sam's shoulder, trying to convince herself. "I don't get it. You're solid, but you weren't here a minute ago."

"I am here. I was here. Apparently, my visibility has a lot to do with other people's perception. Existence is in the eye of the beholder, I guess?" She shrugged again. "It also seems to have something to do with my belief. When I was first back, I had trouble moving things because I didn't know if I could. But once I knew people could see and hear me, I didn't have any trouble."

Janet was completely stumped. "So there's really something to that mind over matter stuff after all." She was pensive for a moment, staring at her friend in a sort of awed appreciation. "Did it hurt? Dying, I mean." She tried not to notice the way Jack tensed at her question.

"I don't remember feeling anything. That's not to say I didn't feel it and it was so bad I blocked it out. I just remember falling." Sam gulped, feeling the hint of inconsolable anxiety deep inside at the memory. "It was horrible. I was terrified."

Jack's hands appeared on her shoulders. "It's ok. It's over. You're here. You're fine."

She looked up at him and smiled her thanks, part of her wishing he'd been there to soothe her on the plane while the rest of her was so very glad that he hadn't been anywhere near that horrible event. "Sort of, at least."

Respective of the subject matter, Janet fought back a grin as she pointedly stared at the affectionate way Jack's hands remained on Sam's shoulders. "So, besides being dead, things are good?"

Sam knew exactly what Janet was alluding to and she couldn't wait to spill all the details as soon as they were alone. She smiled. "Yeah, things are good."

"Lucky girl."

Sam beamed. "Except for the dying thing."

Jack leaned down, resting his chin on Sam's shoulder. "You guys are smart and always figuring everything out, so I'm hoping you can answer a question for me."

Sam's eyes sparkled at the idea. Lately, all anyone seemed to ask her about where the hows and whys and whats of being a ghost. She itched for the chance to answer something definitive, something she actually knew the answer to, even if Jack's eyes glazed over while she was doing it.

Jack straightened up, poking her shoulder the same way Janet had. "What are you made of?"

"What?"

"You can't be flesh and blood. We buried your flesh and blood in the cemetery."

Janet looked alarmed once again. "You didn't have to claw your way out, did you?" Jack started to look sick at her words.

"No! You've watched too many horror movies. I was just there." Sam had spent a lot of time deliberately not thinking about the time between the falling and the standing in line.

"Just where?"

Sam wasn't sure, but Jack and Janet speaking in unison seemed terribly unnatural and filled her with a sense of dread about her answer, especially in light of what her answer was. "The DMV."