A/N: Yes, the angst is back… but at least I didn't kill anyone in this story. (At least, not yet… EVIL AUTHOR'S LAUGH!)

Oh, who am I kidding? I'm a total sap and you all know it. So now, the moment you've all been waiting patiently for...

Chapter 27

Unwilling to face the tense despair inside Sha're's room, but unable to make himself leave the immediate area, Jack paced the hallway outside the infirmary, mentally berating himself for perhaps the zillionth time in the last six days. Unfortunately, Dr. Brightman's "wait and see" philosophy hadn't panned out this time. Instead, Sha're's EEG showed continuing deterioration in brain function, and her vitals were starting to slowly decline into dangerous territory. They'd put calls into Thor and the Tok'ra, but so far, neither of their allies had been able to offer assistance – the Tok'ra had nothing useful to add, and the Asgard were not in the neighborhood.

Nothing in their own medical repertoire had even touched Sha're's condition. At this point, Dr. Brightman was merely hoping to slow down her patient's deterioration in the hopes that Thor might miraculously appear and save the day. But, as every hour passed, the situation became more and more grim. It now seemed only a matter of time before the inevitable occurred.

And, try as he might, Jack just couldn't step foot into that room and watch as Daniel lost his wife.

Sam, of course, hadn't left their friend's side in days. She'd offered what comfort she could, but it felt a little like trying to put a band-aid on an amputation. After everything Daniel had been through, it seemed beyond cruel that he should have to lose his beloved wife a second time. Once had been more than enough.

Heaving an enormous sigh of helpless discouragement, Jack leaned up against the wall and closed his eyes.

As he did so, the world suddenly seemed to shift sideways on its axis. A veritable tidal wave shook the core of his being as an unruly flood of images, thoughts, and emotions plunged into his conscious mind with ground-shaking force. Feeling as though he'd been literally kicked in the head, Jack found himself falling to his knees with an inarticulate shriek of pain.

…Jack watched the expression on Sam's face change slowly from amused affection to worried sadness. Though his brain was too muddled to fully wrap itself around the implications of that change, he knew he didn't like seeing her upset. Reaching over to her, he grasped one of her hands in his. "Relax, Sam. We're gonna be fine…"

"…Sam." He continued to just look at her, spellbound by the ethereal quality of her beauty. "You're incredible," he said softly…

…She blinked up at him in a haze. Though his hand was still snugly nestled beneath her bra, he was looking at her with an unreadable expression. "What?" she whispered anxiously. Without a word, Jack's hand shifted, and in a moment, he pulled it out from beneath her stretchy tank top and held it up. In his grasp was a small tube of zinc oxide ointment. Jack just grinned. "If I'd known you'd been carrying it there all these years, I might have asked to borrow it more often…"

…Jack shook his head. "That's our Danny Boy for ya. So focused on his projects that he forgets the simple things." Then, reaching down behind the boulder, Jack picked up the object in question and held it in the air so Sam could see it. She stared in amazement.

It was Daniel's pack…

…Sam closed her notebook and glanced at his irritated expression. "There's one more problem," she said gingerly.

"Of course there is," he grumbled. "And that would be…?"

"The cliff." Sam watched his expression carefully, but could see that her words hadn't quite registered yet. Deciding to refresh his memory, she continued quietly. "The gate was perched near the edge of a cliff. It's pretty likely that by approaching from the far edge of the blast zone, we'll have to climb the cliff to reach the gate…"

…With a tidal wave of terror and adrenaline, Jack stood and scrambled for the rope connected to his waist. Frantically searching for the long, trailing end, he finally managed to tug a length of it over the cliff. "Carter!" he yelled, "Grab this! I'll pull you up! …"

…Time slowed to the barest of trickles. With gruesome clarity, Jack realized that the creature would be upon her before his hand even reached the Beretta at his side. Frantically, he reached for the pistol, watching with sickening horror as the rabid canine descended upon his second-in-command. He heard himself yelling wordlessly in terror and fury as Carter's arms came up to shield herself from the beast's enormous teeth, but he knew his efforts were completely futile. By the time the weapon in his hand fired the shot that dropped the creature, Jack knew he'd been too late…

…She gazed at him with a serene, gentle smile. Unable to form any words in her tattered throat, she mouthed, "I love you." Without taking her eyes from his, she seemed to be reassuring him that this was okay.

"I love you too, Sam," he choked out between inconsolable sobs. "Just please don't leave me! Please!"

And then, in an instant, the last spark of life slipped away from her. With bright sunshine dancing on a warm, summer breeze, Sam's spirit flew into a sky the exact color of her crystal blue eyes…

"…There is no need for your weapon. I will not harm you." With a voice that resonated in a strange, breezy harmony, the slight figure didn't even flinch at Jack's violent movements.

Nearly out-of-his mind with pain and shock, Jack barked a sarcastic laugh, tears still streaming down his rugged face. "Of course not," he ground out, "at the one moment when I'd actually like to meet an angry, ass-kicking bad guy, I get Tinkerbell instead…"

…The alien's grey eyes never wavered. "Sit, friend. The sooner we speak, the sooner your Samantha will be returned to you."

Jack sat. …

…Gently, Sam took his chin in her hand and forced him to meet her understanding gaze. "We both know," she whispered, "that life doesn't always give us the choices we want. That's especially true in our line of work. Even if we didn't face the end of the world every other minute, life doesn't come with any guarantees…"

…Swallowing thickly, he glanced away for a moment, trying to collect himself. "I never thought I'd want to be a father again." His whispered confession was issued so softly that she could hardly hear him. "But I'm finding that with you, anything is possible." When he looked back into her eyes, there were tears glimmering in his own. "I think the only thing I could love as much as you would be our child," he said hoarsely…

…Sam felt the tension in his body and leaned forward to kiss him on the forehead. "We knew there would be tough decisions to be made at the end of this…"

…He looked at Sam's grim features and suppressed a sigh. "Fact is, we have two choices. We can try to forget any of this ever happened and muddle through that particular brand of hell, or we can come clean and ruin both of our careers… not to mention the credibility of SG-1…"

… Drawing a deep breath, Sam seemed to be gathering her courage. "You said that we could go home and try to forget any of this ever happened." Meeting his stare head-on, she got to the point. "What if we didn't try to forget – what if we actually did?..."

… Slowly meeting both of their gazes in turn, Bett emphasized her next words with a meaningful stare. "It is possible, when removing memories, to build in a failsafe of sorts, ensuring their return if certain conditions are met." The blue alien smiled. "You are allied with the Asgard. Their ability to manipulate consciousness rivals ours. I would program the failsafe to make you believe it was they, and not us, who helped you temporarily erase your memories…"

"…That is the amazing feature of the Ring. It does not take a person from one dimension to another, but rather, it transports their consciousness into their extra-dimensional self…"

…Bett stepped away from the panel and into the Ring itself. "The Ring is completely useless without the Key that operates it." Pausing, she knelt down and lifted up the circular paving stone that marked the perfect center of the device. Beneath it, a small circle of metal could be seen. In seconds, Bett had depressed a small latch in an adjacent paving stone and a large, silver cylinder gradually rose up from the Ring's center. "This is the Key for our Ring…"

"…The builders of the Ring must have worried what would happen if someone accidentally triggered it. For example, if someone just stumbled upon a Key and managed to insert it into a Ring, they could potentially wreak great havoc. So, if the Key is in a zero-state, the Ring will survey the operator's consciousness and transport them to another Ring, nearest to whatever planet they consider home…"

…With a trained consciousness, the Ring can do almost anything in a zero-state. It is hypothesized that the builders of the Ring very likely operated it by only using the symbols on the stones and their thoughts, never manipulating the Key at all. We have had a few brilliant scholars who were able to perform simple tasks by using their minds to control the Ring, but these experiments are rarely performed anymore." She shuddered slightly. "Mistakes made during these experiments were sometimes very undesirable. The builders of the Ring must have had amazingly disciplined minds. Even small shifts in conscious thought during mentally-guided operation can have profound effects…"

"…You say you've witnessed entropic cascade failure?" When he nodded, she continued. "Imagine that instead of having two separate beings from different dimensions located in the same reality, pretend for a moment that the second consciousness had become inserted into the mind of the first…"

"…pretend for a moment that the second consciousness had become inserted into the mind of the first…"

"…inserted into the mind of the first…"

Vaguely, as if awakening from a dream, Jack became aware of voices around him – not voices in his head, but actual people talking nearby. Blinking, he finally found himself able to clear his head of the torrent of images which had just pummeled him to the ground.

"Jack? Jack!" Finally, Sam's concerned tone seemed to register in his consciousness.

Looking up at her blearily, he fought to draw breath. "S'okay," he mumbled. "I'm okay," he reassured her.

Not feeling especially comforted, Sam placed a hand on his clammy forehead. "What happened?" she asked somewhat frantically.

"Not sure where to begin," he muttered. Then, starting to regain his bearings, he realized a small crowd of concerned medical staff had gathered around him in the well-lit corridor. "How long was I out?"

Relaxing slightly, now that her husband seemed to be alert and aware of his surroundings, Sam shrugged. "A few minutes. I was sitting with Daniel, when I heard someone yelling for help in the hallway." She suppressed a shudder at the memory. "You were crumpled against the wall, clutching your head. Dr. Brightman said you were awake, but nobody could get through to you."

Suddenly, Jack straightened. "What day is it?" he asked.

Sam blinked at him in confusion. "Saturday," she said, sounding concerned at his apparent non-sequitur.

Jack waved his hand. "No, I mean, what's the date?"

Thinking for a moment, Sam's mouth curved into a small smile. "Hey, it's our–" She broke off mid-sentence. Suddenly, her husband's episode made perfect sense to her. "It's our anniversary," she whispered.

Jack nodded. "I thought so." Then, looking at her oddly, he seemed confused. "So why aren't you lying in a heap somewhere, too?"

Looking somewhat guilty, Sam shrugged. "I remembered on the anniversary of your death," she admitted softly. Then, a frown creased her forehead. "Though I don't think my experience was as violent as yours."

Jack gaped at her. "You've known about this since September?"

She smiled. "I didn't know how to tell you," she said apologetically. "So I decided to let you remember on your own."

His face was a picture of utter shock. "But… September?" As he continued, his words took on an accusing tone. "I know you're afraid of the device, but how could you not say anything about Sha're's condition?"

Sam's face clouded with confusion. "Sha're's condition?" She shook her head. "What are you talking about? All I remembered was our–" Breaking off abruptly, Sam realized they were still surrounded by a crowd of – now very curious-looking – medical personnel. Glaring at them, she cleared her throat.

Sensing that the General wasn't in any immediate danger, Dr. Brightman started shooing people out of the corridor. Within moments, the pair was alone.

Looking into her husband's eyes, Sam's face was a mix of confusion and tenderness. "All I remembered was our affair on 918. Absolutely nothing in my memories has anything to do with Sha're or her illness," she said earnestly.

Slowly, understanding dawned. "Hell, it worked on you," he said quietly.

Sam looked baffled. "What worked on me?"

Jack inhaled slowly. "I'm betting you think Thor was the one who tampered with our brains back on that volcanic planet."

Eyeing her husband nervously, Sam rocked back on her heels. "Are you saying it wasn't Thor?"

Jack nodded. "I have no idea why I remember and you don't – I wasn't supposed to remember, either. But somehow, I know what really happened down there." He took a deep breath. "While we were waiting to be rescued, you–" Breaking off, he suppressed a wince of raw pain before he could continue. "You died, Sam. You were mauled by that giant dog we met at the top of the cliff and you bled to death in front of me."

Sam's blue eyes grew wide as saucers. "How is that possible? I remember the dog – but you were able to shoot it before it did any serious damage."

Exhaling shakily, Jack shook his head. "That's what I thought, too. But the first time he attacked, that's not what happened."

Sam blinked. "The first time?"

Slowly, Jack was able to explain the appearance of Bett and her mastery of the Ring technology. He described the events leading up to Sam's "resurrection" and their eventual decision to relinquish their memories in order to preserve their sanity upon returning to earth.

By the time he was finished, Sam's jaw hung slackly in an expression of mute disbelief. "You're saying it wasn't Asgard technology, but that Ring which erased our memories?"

Jack nodded. "And I now know how Sha're was brought here. Bett said that the Ring had once been operated by her people using sheer power of thought. Apparently, an appropriately well-conditioned mind can alter time, space and consciousness with that thing."

Sam exhaled audibly. "Having been ascended, I'd be willing to bet Daniel's mind would qualify as 'appropriately well-conditioned.'"

Meeting Sam's shaken gaze, Jack swallowed. "There's more," he said grimly. "Bett warned that abusing that thing could be devastating. Apparently, it is possible for two people's memories to exist in the same brain." He winced. "She implied that the results would be worse than that… endo… ergo…" Impatiently, he waved his hand as he tried to find the right word. Sighing, he looked at his wife imploringly. "You know, the thing that happened when there were two of you here at the same time."

Sam's brow furrowed. "Entropic cascade failure?"

Jack nodded.

As her husband's words sank in, Sam sagged in despair. "Then Sha're's condition is hopeless," she whispered.

Steeling his nerve, Jack put his hand under his wife's chin and waited for her to meet his gaze. "Not quite," he said softly.

Not liking the look in his eye at all, Sam's heart plunged even deeper into her belly. "What are you saying?"

With quiet determination, Jack spoke the words they'd all been dreading for months.

"I have to use the Ring."

A/N: Hope you didn't hate the "Learned By Heart" montage. Sorta cheap, I know, but it was the easiest way to present the regurgitated memories.