AN: Sorry for the two week hiatus, guys! I was moving. I'm now at seminary in Pennsylvania. I'll try to keep the updates coming on the regular schedule from here on out. And I see the horizontal line still hasn't been fixed. Aaargh.

aaa

Sam took a bite of yogurt, eyes closed, trying to visualize the power flow between the Gate and the dialing computer. She had some things she wanted to tweak, just little things that would help maximize efficiency—the Gate was a real power hog. It was no use; a hundred different disaster scenarios ran through her head. Teal'c recognized; Jaffa patrols; death gliders on strafing runs; capture; torture; implantation …. She sighed and opened her eyes. Today was not the day for abstract visualizations. She needed something concrete to keep her imagination from wandering.

"Hey, Sam."

"Janet," she said with a smile, turning. "What brings you to my lab?"

"Coffee," the brunette said, raising the mug she had in her hand. "I forgot to bring more for my stash, and I wasn't in the mood for cafeteria sludge. Mind if I steal some?"

"Sure, go right ahead," Sam said, gesturing to her coffee pot. "How's things going down in the infirmary?"

Janet shrugged. "Nothing interesting. Mostly, we're all sitting around waiting for SG-1 to bring us back some nice samples to work with, though I won't have much to do with that; they'll be sending the symbiotes on to Area 52 for study and dissection."

"Will you be disappointed?" Sam asked, curious.

Janet smiled. "No. I'm a medical doctor, not a xenobiologist. I've got my hands full just keeping this base healthy, and I don't have the lab space to devote to such a project on a long-term basis. The only reason I was doing the work on Teal'c myself was because General Hammond was worried that if he let an off-base surgeon work on him, particularly one who wanted to take him off base, Teal'c would disappear into the hands of Samuels's people and we'd never see him again."

"Ah," Sam said. She leafed through a stack of papers, trying to find the data she'd been working on before the thing with Teal'c's family had come up.

"Sam, are you okay?"

Sam looked up. "Yeah, I'm fine. Why?"

Janet shrugged. "You seem more nervous than normal. I mean, than when SG-1 is on a mission. Is it just that they're going into known hostile territory, or is this something else?"

"Mostly just that they're going behind enemy lines," Sam said. "I'm finding it a lot harder to concentrate on my work than it usually is. I was planning on staying late tonight—I mean, it's not like I'd be getting much rest at home, waiting to hear any news about them—but it isn't looking like I'd accomplish much by staying here, either."

"And you do need to rest, Sam," Janet said. "I know I'm beginning to sound like a broken record, but it's true. You've had a few cordial dinners with your father in the last two weeks, and without Jack to set him off maybe—" she broke off at Sam's look. "Or not. How about you come on over to my place for a girls' night in? Maybe we can get a couple of the other women on base to come over, too—some of my nurses would probably be interested. This place can be a bit stressful, and we could all do with some relief. I bet we could keep you distracted that way."

Sam blinked. She couldn't remember the last time she'd had a girls' night in. "What were you thinking of doing?"

"Nothing fancy," Janet said with a shrug. "Ice cream, a good chick flick, maybe some facials. We could get some of the other women in your condition over, too, and you could all compare notes. Doctors MacKenzie and Hiroshi have been complaining that people aren't letting them help deal with the situation the virus left, and they're not dealing with it on their own—there's been some talk of medical leave. Maybe a little spontaneous group therapy might help." She smiled. "It certainly can't hurt."

Sam winced. Medical leave ordered by a psychologist would further jeopardize the careers of those involved—the last thing the Air Force wanted was unstable people, especially in a front-line position as the SGC was turning out to be. "I don't know. I'm not really in the mood for therapy of any kind."

Janet snorted. "Honey, the only kind of therapy I'm proposing is chocolate therapy, with a bit of Richard Gere therapy thrown in."

"Well, when you put it that way," Sam said with a smile, "it doesn't sound so bad. Although, I generally prefer Harrison Ford." She scraped the last of the yogurt out of the container, considering the offer. "All right. I'll be there."

"Great!" Janet said. "I'll see who else wants to come."

aaa

"I don't know," Jennifer said, flipping her blond hair over her shoulder. "I really don't think about it that much. It just all seems too much like a dream, y'know? From the incident to the abortion. MacKenzie is such a pain in the ass. He just assumes I'm repressing and not dealing with it. He's making such a big deal out of it, way more than it deserves." She shrugged and dug into her bowl of ice cream.

"That's easy for you to say," Gabby said with a snort. "My husband won't look me in the eye any more. I've suggested counseling, but he doesn't want to go, and it's not like I need any myself, really. And it's not like counseling would fix the problem, really—he's a good guy, he'd understand if I could only tell him what really happened."

Jennifer snorted. "Well, it's your own fault for telling him any of it to begin with. If you didn't want to get rid of it, you could have at least let him think it was his. Too much grief for both of you as it stands now. I mean, there's no way my boyfriend would've thought it was his, but you don't have that problem."

Gabby stared at her for a second. "I can't believe you think I would seriously lie to him about something that big."

"Why not?" one of the others asked. Sam hadn't caught her name. "I bet you've told him you work in some nice safe base infirmary, for some nice safe research base, nothing to worry about. That's a bigger lie."

"Work's one thing, though," someone else put in. "This is personal. It's not the same."

"Yeah, which is why you get to be a single mother."

Sam followed the conversation without joining in. For all her problems, she hadn't realized how good she had it compared to the others. Of the ten women who'd gotten pregnant as a result of the Touched virus, she was the only one now in a relationship with the father of the baby. She was also the only one who was in a stable relationship, period—everyone was having problems of one sort or another. Well, at least it was keeping her mind off what was happening to Jack and the team—mostly.

She stood up and picked her way around chairs and women, making her way to the kitchen for a glass of water. She stared blankly at the window, drinking her water and wishing she were back at the SGC, and her boys were back from their mission.

"Sam, I'm sorry."

She turned around to see Janet in the doorway. "For what?"

"I was mostly joking about the group therapy," Janet replied. "I just wanted a fun night for all of you, to let off a little steam."

Sam shrugged. "We all agreed to keep things light at the start of the evening, and it lasted through the movie. Not your fault this is the biggest thing in our lives right now." She took another swallow of water, tossing out the rest. "I think it was good for me to hear how well-off I am compared to them. And believe it or not, the evening as a whole has been better for me than sitting at home watching the clock would have been. If nothing else, I know how fortunate I've been, relatives from Hell notwithstanding."

"But you're leaving now?"

"Yeah." Sam gave a strained smile. "I'm really tired. And … I can't share my experiences without feeling guilty for complaining about how good I have it."

Janet nodded. "I understand, Sam. See you tomorrow?"

"Yeah."