AN: I kinda know how Sam feels in this one, didn't quite go as badly wrong was her's but if you've been there you'll get it too...

Summary: It has been three days since Sam suddenly became totally miserable and right now, with everything else she as dealing with Jack was determined to fix the problem, or at least cheer her up. Can he find a way? Set after death's of both Janet and Jacob. Jack/Sam Hurt/Comfort; Friendship. Rated K.

WHAT'S THE MATTER?

It had been three days since he had found her sitting on the floor of her lab totally forlorn and wanting to cry. Obviously she did not but he could see it in her, she was heartbroken. "Carter?" he voiced, instantly worried about her. Was she once again upset over her father's death, or Janet's?

"Oh hey, Sir. Sorry, I didn't see you there." she heaved a sigh and contemplated rising.

"What's the matter?" he asked, genuinely wanting to know.

It was a moment or two before she spoke. "Oh nothing really...it's just I..." she sighed again.

It was only then that Jack noticed she had something on the ground in front of her, between her knees. He stepped closer.

"I dropped it." she told him plaintively without looking up. "It's broken."

Jack did not ask her what she had dropped instead he crouched down beside her, without touching her and peered at the black object with the fractured side. He kind of recognised it, it was something to do with her geeky science stuff, something computery. "Totally broken?" he asked.

"Yeah I think so." she looked at him, his brown eyes seemed suddenly sad. "I mean if it had landed on the ground it might have been okay but it landed in that bucket of water that I am using to do my experiments in."

For the first time Jack noticed the bucket sitting not far from where they both were and the short trail of wet culminating in the puddle that Sam now effectively sat in. He grimaced, sure he knew nothing about technology but he knew enough to know that water was bad and usually meant death for electronic lifeforms. He sat down properly on the floor beside her and waited for her to speak, he needed to know more before he could figure out how to make this better for her.

"Look." she said and showed it to him. "The side got split on the metal rim of the bucket. I dropped it from up the ladder, I stupidly put it on the top shelf for safe keeping." Carefully she fingered the split. "I really should have known better. Back-up external hard-drives should not be left in places where they can fall down or be knocked down so easily."

"But it's only your back-up right?" he offered optimistically, hoping this would help.

Sam raised her tear bright eyes to his. "No Sir, it's not only my back up, it is my only back up and I wiped my computers this morning to put the new systems on them. This was all I had left."

Jack was beginning to understand. To Sam all of her computer information was more valuable than anything else in the universe and if all of her data had just been lost, well...that would hurt her like taking a staff blast in the side. "Ooh, Carter, that sucks." he empathised.

"It does more than suck Colonel, this had everything on it...all of my personal research, the first draft of my book, my...the...the photos that Mark sent me of the last time Dad ever got to see his grand-kids...everything." Her voice had dropped off so much that Jack had to strain hard to hear it. "It even had stuff that should not really be there." she looked him straight in the eye. "Like my diary and such." her eyes drifted guiltily away from him and he too looked down.

Jack cleared his throat. "Maybe if you let it dry out a bit you might be able to salvage some of it." He really did not know if that was possible.

"Maybe." she responded "But I doubt it. It short circuited in the water, I already had it turned on you see." Sam bolstered herself up against the wall of tears that were threatening to burst. Rationally speaking it was not the end of the world. "I guess I'll just have to cut my losses." she rose to her feet before her true thoughts invaded again.

Jack scrambled up after her. He knew she was putting on a brave front and it really was quite effective, especially when she callously set it on the floor beside the trash can without any hesitation.

"Are you sure you want to-" Her look cut him off and so he did not finish his sentence. "Come on." he told her. "I'll buy you some blue Jell-o." He beckoned her towards the exit.

Initially hesitant Sam followed. "You can't buy me Jell-o, everything is already paid for in the commissary."

"Who said anything about the commissary? We are going to O'Malley's, the Jell-o is better there anyway, right?"

She had to smile at that, at least Jack O'Neill would cheer her up for a bit if nothing else. She would come back and check out the possibility of salvaging her hard-drive later.

OOo

But later was not possible, they got scrambled to a mission and by the time they got back the cleaners had already dumped Sam's precious piece of equipment and ever since then she had been utterly, utterly miserable.

That was why Jack was standing behind her now, grinning from ear to ear. "Carter?" he enquired. "You got a moment?"

"Not really, Sir." Sam responded, she was way behind on everything now.

"Make a moment." Jack ordered softly.

Sam turned round, there was something in her CO's voice that was intriguing. He was standing at parade rest in front of her. "Sir?" she asked, noting his formal stance.

"Ta-da!" Jack voiced with an air of flourish as he pulled an object out from behind his back.

Sam blinked at the familiar box that now had the best part of a roll of shiny silver tape wrapped around it. "Um..." She really did not know what to say, was she seeing things?

"You're welcome, Carter." Jack sang and shoved it into her hands. "And the best bit is it still works...well I mean it's fixed."

Sam's eyes shot up level with his. "It does...it is?" she breathed, no way, no how!

"Yep." Jack bounced back onto his heels, clearly pleased with himself. "I went and dug it out of the incinerator pile myself. I kind of felt bad because it was me who took you away from the mountain, it never would have gotten thrown out if I had not done that." She stared at him in utter disbelief. "It really wasn't all that hard to find." He rubbed the back of his neck, hoping she would buy the barefaced lie. It had taken him the best part of a day to dig it out. "And then I called in a favour from my friend at MIT."

Sam was still rooted to the spot. Had he really done all that just for her? She could not take it in. "And it works?" She knew she was effectively repeating herself. "My stuff is still on here?"

Jack shrugged. "That's what Frank said. What was it...'was able to salvage all of the data' were his exact words. Then he wanted to put it all on a new one but I said no, that you've had that one for years and would probably appreciate it back if at all possible."

Carter felt anticipation buzz through her, he was telling her the truth.

Jack watched as she began to positively bounce around inside. "Go try it out." he told her before she exploded or something.

She was gone in an instant and slowly he wandered over to join her as she plugged it in. It made a loud, not exactly healthy whirring sound and they both grimaced, but then a box popped up on the screen and Sam was clicking away opening and closing various files and destinations. Finally she opened a photograph of the four members of SG-1 and stared at it for a moment. "I can't believe it!"

"Yeah I know, look at Daniel's hair, when was this taken?"

Sam snorted and answered his question. "It was right after we saved the Earth for the first time. Remember you called him 'Space-monkey' and we all went to Hammond's place to celebrate?"

"Oh yeah. And you have more stuff like that on here?"

"Tonnes of it Sir...to be completely honest that was the real reason why I was upset, my research and work is mostly all on paper too, so I could have redone it easily enough but the photographs...I kinda enjoy browsing through them sometimes. She flicked through a few more and stopped at one of the two of them sitting together, his arm casually draped around her shoulder. "Janet's birthday." she whispered with a quiet ache bleeding through.

"Oh yeah, that was a good night." Jack leaned in closer.

"Sure was." He squeezed her shoulder and she knew it was time to change tack. She turned a little in her chair. "So you really dug about in the trash?"

"Yep." Jack proclaimed proudly. "The SGC throws out some seriously weird stuff sometimes."

"Oh don't I know it!"

Jack stuffed his hands back in his pockets and looked away a little. "And...you don't have to worry about your private stuff. I trust Frank and know he would not have snooped or anything. And I definitely didn't. I wasn't even sure it would fully work until you turned it on just now..."

Again Sam smiled. "I know that Sir, I trust you and I trust you're judgement." She stood up and turned to face him. "Thank you so much...I really mean it." She wrapped her arms around him and gave him a tender kiss on the cheek.

Jack flustered a little.

Sam tightened her grip on her CO "And I know this was more difficult to do than you are letting on and one day maybe I'll be able to return the favour somehow." Gosh how she wished she would be able to do that.

Jack hugged his friend back. "Don't worry about it Sam, just seeing you happy is reward enough for me...but maybe sometime we could sit down and look at some more of those photos together?"

"I would like that." She grinned widely. "I would like that a lot actually...but first I'd better make a back up, back-up."

"You mean a back up back-up, back-up?"

"What?" Sam was confused.

"Here, I took the liberty of having it all copied already. There's a lot of data on here Carter, keep it safe and don't put it on the top shelf, or near buckets of water." he reminded her.

"I definitely won't." Sam assured him as she grabbed the copied disks. "You are just..." She shook her head, lost for words and turned back to look at her screen. In all honesty she really, really just could not believe that he had done this for her, it was like a miracle or something. Jack O'Neill really was her hero and she would never forget this, not in a million years...

END

AN: Hope you enjoyed that. And yes I know it is unrealistic to expect Sam not to have everything triple back-up up on various systems, but hey, just roll with it okay ;) Thoughts please...

and just so you know, my story does not have a happy ending, my hard-drive is still awol with 4 years of work on it :(