AN~ Yes, this is an old chapter, but I was rereading it, and found a few mistakes to fix, and added and changed a few details, so if you like you can read again. See AN at the end of the chap. for more info.

2 years, 2 months, 10 days

SGC

Jack O'Neill was being way too obedient and untroublesome. He and his slightly small team were still being sent off world on missions. He, Teal'c, and Daniel had rescued the fourth member of their team over two months ago, and had gotten a week to stay on world in case Samantha Carter, second-in-command and team scientist, woke up from her coma. She hadn't, however, and General Hammond had decided that the group needed to be kept occupied and in trouble (an inevitable part of any SG-1 mission) off world, or else trouble would come knocking on the gate. And so they were shipped out, with shorter breaks in between longer lasting missions. Still, no one was majorly hurt, and they only had to receive help via a rescue mission twice.

Their national treasure of a teammate was and had been in a coma for nearly two and a half months, ever since she had been rescued from the place she'd been held captive and tortured for almost two years. Major Samantha Carter had been taken prisoner during a mission by the planets natives, and obviously been shipped off world shortly after that, since no rescue party could find her, and no one, particularly one colonel, would allow her to be presumed dead.

When the three men were on base, you could always find at least one of them in the infirmary, talking to Sam, holding her hand, or just sitting nearby working quietly, hoping she would wake up soon. Occasionally, when one of them got hurt on a mission, they would have a bed next to hers, and sleep at least a night in the small section of the infirmary that had been blocked off for the young woman. When it was Jack's turn at her bedside, when no one else was around, typically during the last hours of the night, and earliest hours of the morning, Jack would talk to Sam, telling her what she had missed in the past two years, talking about the team's missions, the things the scientists had done, and on occasion, if he could think of nothing else to say, he would tell her stories, some based on missions, some that he had told his son, Charlie. Mostly though, Jack told his favorite blonde, blue eyed scientist how much he had missed her, and how much he wanted to hear her techno-babble, see her figure their way out of a tight spot, and when all else failed, blow everything around them to smithereens, getting her team out by the skin of their teeth.

At all times, Jack had two sets of dog tags on. One set was his own, and the other was the chain and tags that Sam had given him, just before slipping into the coma she was still in. According to Janet, there was no medical reason for the continued unconsciousness, but the doctor suspected that her mind was trying to make sense of and recover from what had been done to her in the nearly two years away from the SGC. She had done exceedingly well staying conscious for as long as she had, but much longer in the prison and the lovely blonde would probably have reached her breaking point and most likely never would have woken up from the coma.

In fact, Janet was right. The way Sam saw it, as soon as she passed out in her prison cell, she appeared to be in a giant room, with never ending rows of filing cabinets. It was a bright white area, with white walls, high ceilings, and plain white tiled floors. The lighting was bright and fluorescent, much brighter than she remembered at the SGC. Was this what everyone's minds looked like subconsciously, or was she just that much of a neat freak? Sam wondered. Each cabinet was about Sam's height, and labeled with what appeared to be a period of time in her life, but all Sam could see were the ones that had SGC included in them. *Hmmm… I wonder what my life looks like in files…* Sam wondered, as she opened one of the drawers and grabbed a random folder.

Inside was about one of her earliest missions as part of SG-1. This particular one was of the Dark and Light planet, P3X-797, which had made everyone act like cave men. The file included her own mission report, bits and pieces of her teammates' reports, some tidbits about her own thoughts during and after the incident, including Colonel O'Neill's comment on their walk back to the Gate about that "sweet little tank top number."

Filing that away with a light blush, she moved to a different aisle, a different drawer. The folder she picked from this one was from the adventure with Argo. Sam got a good laugh remembering that one, and made a mental note, which suddenly appeared on a little blue sticky note that seemed to follow her around, floating at eye level a few feet away, to have a good piece of cake and a big bowl of blue Jell-O when she woke up. She wandered the seemingly never ending hall for what appeared to be hours, but could have easily been minutes or days or months.

Eventually she came across something that was a jarring note in the otherwise clean and organized room. Right in front of her were the two filing cabinets that, assuming her vague sense of how the cabinets were arranged was correct, should have neatly contained everything about her time in that hell of a prison. Instead, all of the files, clips, and other things were sticking out at odd angles, and piled up on each other, falling out of the drawers. Sam knew what was going on. The rest of the neatly organized drawers and cabinets represented her nicely organized and compartmentalized life. *Is it bad that I compartmentalize so much that my mind files things away this neatly? Shouldn't there be a bit more mess elsewhere?* The disorder of the captivity drawers clearly showed her that she needed to organize her thoughts and figure through the issues she had, so that's what Major Samantha Carter, lover of lists, bullet points, and color coding, did.

One at a time, Sam emptied out the drawers, organized, evaluated, reevaluated, and just generally organized her thoughts and feelings towards and about her captivity, torture, and torturers. It took longer than Sam thought it would, but eventually, she could step back, and the two cabinets blended in quite nicely with the rest of the room. There were a few things that didn't quite fit well, and would need to be worked through in the real world, if she ever found a way out of this mental maze, but it was certainly easier than counseling! Though that was sure to come in time as well.

Making a slow turn, Samantha gazed around the seemingly endless room. She'd never realized that she had accomplished so much in her lifetime, and most of it seemed to be somehow related to the Stargate! As she was about to go and find a way out of the room, something seemed to sparkle. Within moments, Sam had found the source of the glimmer; it was an old fashioned skeleton key, hanging on a ribbon attached to a drawer. It looked to be about two or three years into her time at the SGC. She wasn't sure about the specific time though, since some years seemed to have more files than others. With a slight hesitation, Sam reached out and took the key off the cabinet, and looked closer at the label on the drawer. Third year, earlier on, but why would there be a key? The ribbon was a color that exactly matched the color of the event horizon in the Stargate, the same color as the sticky note that was always nearby. Slowly, Carter pulled the drawer open, and inside was a file that was the same color as the ribbon. Sam paused. Should she open it? Would she ever find a way out if she didn't look? *Ah, what the heck, what's the worst that could happen, right?* she thought. *Although, with my luck…*

Sam opened the file. Inside were memories of the zat'arc test. Highlighted in bright yellow was Sam and Jack's discussion afterwards that agreed to leave the things they'd said in the room. That explained the key. The two had figuratively locked the door to the room, and the key was to open that door. Could she? More importantly, should she? She had spent most of the time in that cell thinking of Jack, but if she tried to open that door, in all likely hood it would ruin both of their careers permanently. Maybe the colonel didn't feel the same way for her as she felt for him. The admission and zat'arc test had happened at more than five years before. Maybe… Maybe Sam would try, and see where things went. First she would deal with her long absence, and then she would sit down and have a long overdue talk with her CO. With a firm decision in mind, and the key clutched firmly in her hand, Sam shut the drawer, and turned away from the cabinets. Immediately, she spotted a large, antique wooden door. "I feel like Alice!" Sam thought with a grin, heading towards it, and thinking of her favorite Disney movie. With only the slightest of hesitations, Sam reached out, and turned the knob.

Jack was sitting in the plastic chair; hand in Carters, with his head on the mattress by her side. He was fast asleep, and had been for nearly three hours. It was actually quite a cute, and alarmingly familiar, picture. Someone on base (*cough* Siler *cough*) even had a photo album from all the times these kinds of things had happened. It was somewhat frightening how regular the pictures were taken. Below each picture in the album was a brief description of what had happened, who did it, and what planet they were on when it happened. Obviously it was kept on base, in one of the head nurses areas, along with a camera, and another album full of pictures of Siler himself, and all of his various injuries. Janet knew about it, but it was harmless fun, and she monitored the pictures, making sure that there was nothing too bad or incorrect added.

Anyways, back to our subjects. Jack was, as previously stated, quite asleep, and would remain so for some time. Sam, on the other hand, was waking up. First it was shown by a light fluttering of her eyelashes, as if she was trying to open her eyes, then a slight twitch in her fingers, until finally Samantha Carter's beautiful, ice blue eyes opened, and saw the artificial light of the SGC infirmary for the first time in nearly two years. Then she felt the pressure on her hand, and the dip in her mattress by her side that signaled someone was both holding her hand, and taking a nap on her bed. Very carefully, so as not to jostle whoever it was, Sam looked over, and saw the top of a salt-and-pepper colored head, large frame, and an SG-1 patch on the shoulder closest to her. "Jack…" she whispered.

Across the room, Doctor Frasier was stuck with the night shift, and was working on charts while keeping an eye on the several patients in the quiet ward at the moment. When she heard a whisper, at first she thought it was someone passing by in the hall, or talking in their sleep, but taking a look at the non-comatose patients in the room, she knew that they didn't talk in their sleep, and she would have heard footsteps if someone was out in the halls. This only left one bed to explain the sound. Barely daring to hope, Janet looked to the bed where Jack was napping beside the supposedly unconscious form of Samantha Carter, one of Janet's best friends. Instead of finding a completely still, quiet form, she saw bright blue eyes taking in the room around her, which was somewhat unfamiliar after staring at the same stone walls for so long, though these were only slightly more interesting stone walls and far less hostile than the ones she had been surrounded by for several years. Again, Janet heard a faint whisper, and now that she was listening for it, she understood. It was Sam speaking the name of her commanding officer and friend.

"Sam?" Janet whispered, not wanting to wake anyone in the room.

The blonde started, being unused to hearing her name, then looked across the room to see her friend. "Ja… Janet? I'm home?" Sam seemed a little confused, which made sense, but slightly worried the doctor.

"Yeah Sam, you're finally home. How are you feeling?" Janet asked, still quietly, but walking over to the major to check her vitals and IV tube, which tended to be knocked out when people first woke up. Everything was fine, besides a very slightly elevated blood pressure. Carter thought about it for a minute.

"Could I get some water?" she rasped, unused vocal cords dry from disuse. Janet quickly helped her take a few sips from a bottle of water that was kept at her bedside for when her teammates came by, but had yet to be opened.

Sam smiled her thanks, and then continued. "I'm feeling good. I'm not in any pain. I know I'm safe and back home. I feel like I've been asleep for forever though!"

"Forever is about right. Sam, you'd been missing for almost two years, and have been in a coma for about two and a half months."

Sam was silent for a moment, taking that in. She knew that her count was off, but in prison she had just wanted to keep track of how long she had been there. Still, knowing that it had been so long, and hearing it said out loud were two different things. While thinking about it, Sam unconsciously reached out and started fiddling with whatever was closest to her hand, which happened to be Colonel O'Neill's hair. He sighed in his sleep and turned his head slightly into her fingers.

Janet smiled at the sight, and wished she could take a picture of her own to add to the album. Maybe one day, when the pair finally got married, as everyone knew they would, she would show them the album, but for now, everyone would have to settle for adding pictures. What Janet had taken to doing was adding the name of the person that had added and/or taken the picture. Surprisingly, there were several with the name of a certain General, and one even had the president's name on it. How the president had found out about the tradition no one really knew, but it was defiantly a good picture, taken at some point or another during one of his visits when one of SG-1 had been in the infirmary after one of the ridiculous number of missions gone wrong. Needless to say, that had been an interesting presidential visit.

"Sir?" Sam called softly to her commanding officer. "Nap time's over sleepyhead." Janet laughed. Only Sam would recover from two years in captivity and a two and a half month coma, and go straight to teasing her superiors. Ah the quirks of being a member of SG-1.

A/N~ Okay, so for anyone that has been following this story, or messaged me asking for an update, I know it has been awhile, and I am really sorry for that. I just sort of lost inspiration. I was looking through my computer and found this though, and decided to change a few things and hopefully finish this story up… Finally. I'm thinking it will only be one or two chapters more at most. Thanks for reading, and look for the next chapter within the next two weeks or so, depending on my homework load.