A/N: Well, it's mid-week and, at least for now, I'm not crying. That's a step in the right direction, anyway. Have I mentioned that my life pretty much sucks these days? I so want to exchange this life for the upgraded model... or, if nothing else, I'd really like to get my money back on this crappy one. It bites.

On the bright side, I'm glad to see so many of my readers making connections between the other stories in this trilogy. I'm having a lot of fun bringing this full circle.

And, as always, I'm very sorry for the delay in posting this. Life, at the moment, is obscenely hectic on my end. I'd love to write more and work less… if only I could afford to do so! My nutty schedule has made this update short by necessity. I'm hoping the next one will be both longer and less overdue.

By the way, many thanks to everyone who voted in this year's Stargate Fan Awards. My first fiction, Reap What Is Sown, won an honorable mention! Woo-hoo! How cool is that? Thanks for the recognition!

Chapter 9

Lying close to her husband in the tiny, two-person tent, Sam couldn't quite find a comfortable position. It wasn't the hard ground beneath her bedroll that was making her shift restlessly, but something less easily defined.

"Sam." Jack's tired voice held a clear note of amusement.

Growing suddenly still, she answered him apologetically. "I'm trying to settle in. Really, I am. I guess I'm just not used to-"

"There's nothing wrong with me, so quit worrying about it." In typical Jack fashion, he'd managed to bypass all extraneous excuses and cut directly to the heart of the matter.

Sighing quietly, Sam wished she could be as confident. "But you don't really know that, Jack. We truly have no idea what the long-term impact of having an Ancient database stored in your brain might be. For all we know, you could be starting to suffer from-"

"I'm not," he interrupted quickly. "The only thing I'm starting to suffer from is sleep-deprivation."

She was not placated in the slightest. "But you really don't know-"

"Yes, I do." Jack spoke in a tone of certainty that left no room for argument. "Don't ask me how I know, but I do. I'm not sick, dying, or otherwise brain damaged." He paused. "Or at least not any more brain damaged than I ever was. I never did feel quite the same after that whole Black Ops skull fracture incident …" Trailing off, he seemed to shrug mentally. "Anyway, I'm really going to be fine."

Sam propped herself up on one elbow and looked at her husband with equal parts exasperation and amazement. "How can you be so calm about this? You're turning into a one-man Psychic Friends Network and it doesn't seem to bother you in the least!"

Jack couldn't suppress a smile at his wife's description. "Guess I'm just well-adjusted," he replied, earning himself a look of dry disbelief. "Yeah, maybe not." Then, without warning, Jack reached over and, with remarkable agility, yanked her unceremoniously on top of him. "All I'm saying is that there's no need to borrow trouble, Sam. We have plenty of real things to worry about without making up possible new ones."

Sam felt her lips creep up in amusement. "You're just trying to distract me," she murmured, indicating their relative positions.

He grinned wickedly. "Is it working?"

She chuckled, trying to resist his carefree charm, but failing. "Maybe."

Looking into her sparkling blue eyes, Jack felt warm emotions creep into his heart. "Remember the last time you had me pinned down in a two-man tent?"

Sam couldn't help the chuckle that escaped her lips. "On the volcanic planet," she remembered softly. "I tackled you coming in from that rainstorm." Laughing brightly, she met her husband's warm brown eyes. "I'm not sure if I was more embarrassed or turned on."

Jack's impish expression didn't change in the least. "I was definitely more turned on," he said forcefully. His smile then became somewhat bemused. "I have no idea where we found the willpower to not rip each other's clothes off on that trip."

Sam chuckled again. "No kidding. All those weeks holed up together with Daniel's stupid box of condoms!"

Jack groaned as he remembered his friend's gag gift. "That stupid box of condoms almost landed me in a shallow grave on thatgodforsaken planet thanks to your dad." Rolling his eyes, he shook his head. "And that time I didn't even deserve the punch!"

Sam winced as she pondered her father's overprotective tendencies – tendencies that usually involved physical violence toward Jack. Still, it was hard to ignore the humor in the situation. "Look on the bright side," she said sweetly, "he could have used a zat."

Jack shuddered at the possibility. Then, returning his attention back to the warm, familiar body laying on top of him, he smiled lazily. "I think we deserve medals for not giving in to temptation on that trip."

Sam returned his wicked smile with one of her own. "Well, we could petition the Air Force for a review of the mission… but I have a better idea." Focusing all her attention on his mouth, she left little doubt as to what her "better idea" was.

Jack, agreeing wholeheartedly, reached behind her head and gently pulled his lovely wife in for a kiss.

The next morning, Daniel moved around the camp slowly, trying to work the painful stiffness out of his muscles. Though the physical symptoms of his experience with the Ring were starting to fade, his exertion the day before had clearly not made his aching body very happy.

Sheer exhaustion had made his sleep deep and dreamless, which was a much-needed blessing for Daniel. Since discovering that his wife had been transported across dimensional boundaries, sleep had not come easily. The little rest he'd managed to get in the last few weeks was mostly acquired while hunched over Sha're's hospital bed. Any time he'd tried sleeping in his own quarters, horror-filled dreams of her abduction and death had interrupted his slumber. He knew that the situation was having an impact on his emotional well-being, but he was too concerned with more immediate concerns to seek help for it yet.

Thoughts of his wife continued to plague him through the four-hour walk to the Ancient site. His mood was both pensive and quiet. In fact, the entire party was fairly subdued this morning. Very little conversation had punctuated their morning routine, as each of them seemed lost in their own concerns. He could literally sense the anxiety rolling off of Sam as they walked. He tried to push the guilt he was feeling over her discomfort from his mind. He hated the need to be here, on this planet full of such awful memories for his best friends, but he knew of no other way to help his wife. And he simply couldn't walk away from her.

The few waking moments he'd spent with Sha're were somewhat dream-like in his memories. He had no idea how she'd managed to materialize in his life once again, nor how she seemed to know his name, but he did know that –

Wait.

Daniel literally stopped dead in his tracks as a thought struck him.

Sam, who had been walking behind him absorbed in thoughts of her own, nearly ran into him when he stopped. "Daniel?" she asked with a note of concern in her voice. "What's wrong?"

He blinked, shaking off his reverie. "I just had an idea," he said quietly.

Jack and Teal'c, realizing that the two scientists had stopped moving, came over to see what was going on. "An idea?" Jack repeated. "Okay, Danny Boy, let's hear it."

Daniel turned his attention to Sam as he spoke. "It just occurred to me that Sha're seems to know things that she shouldn't know."

Sam nodded, though she clearly didn't seem to understand the direction of his thoughts yet. "You said she knew your name."

"Yes," Daniel agreed, excitement creeping into his voice. "At first, I thought maybe she'd picked it up while comatose, but now I have a hunch that it's actually something else."

Jack exchanged looks with Teal'c. They'd all seen Daniel rally behind ideas before. Usually, this sort of excitement preceded something important. "Go on," he prompted.

Looking at Jack, Daniel seemed to come alive as he spoke. "Sha're isn't the only one around here who seems to know the impossible."

Sam suddenly jerked to attention. "You think Jack's flashes of intuition and Sha're's unexplained knowledge are linked?"

Daniel nodded, though he was still staring directly at Jack. "There's one thing they both have in common," he said simply.

Sam's eyes widened. "The Ring," she breathed softly.

Jack blinked. "Wait a minute. You think that the Ring has something to do with this?"

Daniel shrugged. "It's just a guess, but it sure makes sense."

Looking intrigued, Teal'c inclined his head. "If that is so, Daniel Jackson, then why have you not developed these intuitive abilities?"

At that, Daniel looked a bit stumped. "Maybe it has something to do with the distance that the Ring moves a person. After all, I didn't travel through space at all, and only a few microseconds through time. Jack moved millions of light years when he was transported, and who knows how far through the continuum Sha're was moved."

Sam considered the theory. "It is possible. We have no idea how the device works, but we do think it was used by the Ancients. It's a fair guess that as the Ancients drew closer to the ability to ascend, they probably developed higher cerebral functions. It's possible that they incorporated those abilities into the Ring when they built it."

Jack held up a hand. "Wait. So you're telling me that the Ring really did give me latent psychic abilities?"

Daniel seemed a little alarmed at the prospect. "Well… Yeah, I guess that's what I'm saying."

At that pronouncement, all four of them grew silent.

Psychic Jack?

The only team member who didn't look particularly disturbed by that possibility was Jack. "Sweet!" he said cheerfully.

Sam, on the other hand, merely rubbed her forehead. "For once, Daniel," she said dryly, "I sincerely hope you're wrong."