Author's Note: I took a few days off. Sorry you had to wait for the continuation of the story, but the break did me good. As you'll likely be able to tell by the length of this chapter alone. It's also a little less angsty. I think Sam and Jack needed a bit of a break.

There's some housekeeping in this chapter rather than just scenes that illustrate the current emotion. It was time to check in with everyone. We'll be back to the regularly scheduled programming on Monday.

She can't help but catch her own eye in the mirror. Oh, she tries not to. But as she holds a towel around her with one hand and wipes steam off the mirror with the other it just…happens. And before she's conscious of any of it, before she even knows she is having a bad day, a sob bursts forth from her chest and tears course down her cheeks.

It isn't until she hears a soft knock at the door that she remembers she isn't alone. It was the colonel again last night. "Carter?" His soft voice is barely any competition for the rap of his knuckles against the cheap particle board door she's been meaning to replace. She tries to focus on details that aren't Jack O'Neill. Like how to sob silently – a skill she never really perfected.

She hears the knob start to turn and then before she's ready she can meet his eyes in the mirror. His eyes flicker over her – both her form and her reflection – so very quickly that he's turned on his heel before she's able to exhale the sudden breath she'd sucked in when he appeared. Moments later he appears with her bathrobe; he holds it for her as she threads her arms into the sleeves. Once she's tied the belt they both watch as the towel falls to the floor. He clears his throat uncomfortably. She toes the terry cloth and they just take a moment to breathe the same air.

"This part stops?" she asks.

"Yeah," he nods sagely.

"Okay."

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

She runs now. She'd never been as thankful to be cleared for a fitness regimen as she had been this time. And she thunders along. Too fast, really, to be sustainable for a person who hasn't exactly been allowed to physically overexert herself lately. And she's looking forward to the collapse after the workout with an almost deranged level of glee. She's breathing far too hard. Her chest is tight. Her lungs burn. Her calves burn and she can feel splints on her shins. The arches of her feet don't seem to fit properly against the supports in her shoes. She's affixed the mp3 player to her arm a little too tightly. But it doesn't matter because, well, the pain's a little good. It's a little bit okay. It feels like something real and is a little welcomed because, more than anything, it isn't tears. It won't be. These minor pains will never again be enough to make her cry. And that makes her feel a little powerful. And maybe a little sad, too.

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

He steps out onto the observation deck and can't help but feel a little guilty. He feels like this is her place. She should get to keep it. Shouldn't have to worry about him taking up her space. But after the days – hell, after the weeks and months – they've been having, sometimes he just needs the crisp Colorado air to reach inside him and pull out the waste that's left behind in the wake of just trying to hold them all together. It's days like this he wishes he still smoked. Something about the cool air, seeing his breath fog in front of him, leaning on a cold metal railing, desperately needing something to do with his hands…

She's either crying or she's too quiet. She eats too little. Drinks just a little too much – coffee or alcohol, doesn't seem to matter to her which. She talks too little. Sleeps too little. And spends too much time staring off into the distance at, what he imagines, must be prettier places than her mind.

The docs both tell him the best thing he could do is just be around. Listen. But the truth is, he can't be around as much as he wants to be. He has a job to do and now that SG-1 is back on rotation, well, he's going to be around even less. Who will stay with her, he wonders, while he and Teal'c and Daniel are off world? Maybe Janet will insist Sam spend the night at her place and bury herself in the distraction that is Cassandra. Maybe she'll be required to stay in her quarters. That'd probably be it. She doesn't really have anywhere else to go or anyone to go there with, does she?

Jack looks down at his hands, wishes again he could will a cigarette into them. Then he pushes off the railing and moves back into the warmth of the SGC feeling like he has failed.

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

"You know they're going off world today?"

Natalie is aware SG-1 will be visiting another planet. She's also aware the three men are struggling with the idea of leaving Sam behind. "Yes. It's supposed to be an…easy one…right?"

Sam smiles and nods. "Standard recon mission. Possible meet and greet. Kid stuff." But her smile falters.

"Your mission to Votan was standard recon. Right?"

"PX6-432 wasn't at all what it was supposed to be."

"But, these things happen sometimes, right? You think a planet will be safe and then it isn't? That's pretty much when you all have been dealing with since the beginning."

Sam looks at Natalie with distrust. "Yeah, I suppose so."

"Are you worried something bad is going to happen to them while they're gone?"

"There's always some degree of worry when a team is off world."

"And what degree of worry do you have for your team?"

"A normal amount."

"You're sure?"

"Yes," Sam says stubbornly.

"So why are you here today?"

Sam meets Natalie's eyes sharply. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"I mean you don't have a regular session scheduled, you sat here for five minutes drinking coffee before you said a single word, and when you did speak you mentioned your team going off world. But you're not overly worried about. So, I'll ask again, why are you here?"

Sam sits back into the couch with a heavy sigh. "I thought you said I could come any time."

Natalie nods. "I did. I meant it."

"So, do I really need a reason?"

"I don't think you'll be surprised to find that we do everything for a reason, Sam. I'm just curious to know what brought you here today."

Sam fiddles with a button on the cuff of her jacket. Kills a little time. Visibly collects her thoughts. "I've been crying. A lot. And I was wondering if there's anything you can do about that."

"You don't want to cry?"

"Not all the time! And maybe not in front of the guys?"

"You just crying, Sam? Or is it more than that?"

"Usually I just cry."

"And during the unusual times?"

"Yes. I break down."

"What seems to be different about those unusual times?"

Sam thinks it over and Natalie can tell it's the first time she's done so. She watches as a light catches behind Sam's eyes. "It's…well, it seems like…"

"Go ahead. Say it out loud." Natalie's not sure what the revelation will be but she'd put money on it that it's going to be good.

"It seems like it's only when just the colonel is around."

"Oh?"

Sam shrugs a little. "Yeah."

"And why do you think that might be?"

"Here lately he's just about the only place I feel safe."

It takes everything Natalie has not to scream with joy that her most reticent patient so quickly and easily voiced such a monumental observation. But it's also indicative of a problem she knew they'd be coming to. So she collects herself and starts talking to Sam about SSRIs.

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

While her team is away she adjusts to two-more-pills-a-day and her on-base quarters. Natalie says it'll take a couple of weeks for the meds to help, but when they do she shouldn't be as inclined to burst into tears. That's good. She's soaked more than her fair share of the colonel's shirts lately. She didn't really mind crying in front of him because he never really said anything to her about it. Teal'c would raise an eyebrow and pat her shoulders uncomfortably even though he would wrap her into a hug. Daniel was more than useless with crying women as he seemed to be under the impression he was supposed to be fixing something.

But the colonel... he'd just let her cry. He wouldn't say anything. He wouldn't hold her too close or trap her against his body. He'd just curl an arm around her shoulders and let her lay her cheek against his collar bone. Sometimes he'd tuck his head into her neck so she could feel the soft cadence of his breath against her skin just to give her something to focus on that wasn't counting how many breakdowns this made.

By the third night she's pissed about crawling into the hard, single bed and she finally says screw it and leaves base without one of her trusty chaperones.

It's strange to be in her house alone at night. They've never left her alone more than an hour or so and never when it wasn't daylight. She takes the opportunity to hand wash her more delicate underwear and chuckles about the look on Daniel's face when he'd wandered into her bathroom and been confronted by silk and lace. After that she'd vowed to not wash those items when he could encounter them. Even if the blush and stutter made her laugh harder than anything had in over six months.

And when that chore is done she thinks she might putter around the kitchen. There she is confronted by the pile of paid bills from her time away. She sits down and runs her fingers along the crisp edges of the envelopes. She reaches over for a pencil and the calculator she keeps handy just for working on her bills. She thinks about the colonel sitting right where she's sitting, she thinks about his nimble fingers pulling open the flaps of the envelopes, thinks about him using the eraser of a pencil to mash calculator buttons, thinks about him writing check after check to make sure she had a home to come back to even when none of them were even sure she was still alive.

She totals up the amount she owes him. She writes him a check for an ungodly amount of money she feels guilty she hadn't paid back sooner and when she's done she realizes she's crying. She curses but the tears remind her to take her evening pill.

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

Sam wakes up to the predawn hours and driving rain. Thunder crashes off in the distance and is almost immediately followed by a flash of lightning. She counts to four and hears another crash. She thinks it strange that thunder would wake her it really hadn't ever before. And then she hears a slight shuffling, a thump and a muffled curse from the direction of her kitchen. She tenses. Another curse. Then she takes a deep breath and settles back into her pillows. She knows that voice. She listens to the soft sounds of someone else puttering around her house. The television comes on and then voices narrow away until all she can hear is a very faint drone.

She lays there and listens for a few minutes more and then gets up and draws her robe around her tightly. Quietly she makes her way to the kitchen doorway. She leans against the jam and watches as the colonel makes coffee. Then he rifles through the fridge and comes out with an apple clutched between his teeth and his hands filled with a loaf of bread and a jar of the all-natural peanut butter nobody likes but her. With his back still to her, he crunches into the apple. She watches as he grabs the dishtowel off the counter and wipes juice from his chin. Then he sets about toasting two pieces of bread. She continues to watch as he grabs a banana from the fruit bowl and starts slicing it into thin discs. And when the toast is done he assembles a peanut butter and banana sandwich, pours a cup of coffee and then collects his breakfast and turns to head towards the living room and CNN.

"You're home," she murmurs when it's clear he's not noticed her presence.

He jerks and spins in her direction. Coffee sloshes onto the floor, his apple rolls off his plate and onto the counter coming to a wobbly stop on the bite he'd taken out of it already. And his eyes meet her with a shocked look. "Yeah. We got back a couple hours ago." He sets his plate down next to his apple and retrieves the dishtowel he'd used earlier to mop the coffee off the floor. "I didn't mean to wake you up."

"You didn't," she shrugs. "Or, I don't think you did. I think it was the storm."

"Since when do storms wake you up?"

"Since when do you know what does or doesn't wake me up?"

"Carter," he says with a small grin as he tosses the towel into the corner where, she now knows, he will collect it and any others later in the day after the dishes are done and take them to the laundry, "I've been sleeping next to you in a tent for years. Birds, gunfire, Daniel blowing his nose – those things wake you up. Thunder? Never."

She shrugs. "I like thunder."

His grin blooms. "I know."

She tilts her head and she knows she must look like a cat trying to figure him out. "Why did you come here?"

"Huh?" He takes another bite of now slightly bruised apple and she thinks it's probably because it'll give him a moment to come up with an appropriate answer.

"You could have gone home. Why did you come here?"

"Turns out a Major Carter illegally sprung herself from base. There was some concern as to her safety and state of mind."

"So you know Natalie put me on—"

"Happy pills?" He grins crookedly. "Yep."

"They're not working yet."

"Well, these things take time," he says irreverently.

"I didn't mean to worry anyone. I just couldn't stay there one more night."

"Well, you made it two nights longer than I thought you would. I lost ten bucks, by the way."

"Add it to my tab," she says and then remembers the check she wrote him the previous evening. She wanders past him to fix herself a cup of coffee. When she's done he's already gone on to the living room and has turned the television up to a better level he won't have to strain to hear. On her way to join him she grabs the check. She drops it in his lap as she passes by him to sit on the other end of the couch.

"What's this?" he asks as he picks it up and looks at it. His eyes widen at the total. "Carter, look—"

"No, sir. Take it."

He sighs heavily, "I don't want it."

"Well, neither do I." She sips her coffee and collects her thoughts. "I appreciate what you did. I really do. I'd have lost everything if you hadn't paid at least the mortgage."

"I didn't do it for you," he says around a mouthful of toast crumbs, slick banana and tongue-thickening peanut butter.

She arches an eyebrow at him.

"I did it because as long as I did you were coming home. And you would need a place to come home to. Sam, I did it for me."

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

"So that's it then, she'll be temporarily reassigned to the science department until she can meet the physical and psychological milestones we set for her." Janet closes the file in front of her and slides it across the table to General Hammond.

"You know, now that she's doing so much better it seems sort of wrong to be having these meetings about Sam."

"What makes you think she's doing 'so much better', Daniel?"

"What? She's not? It's been over four months."

"She's moving through the full range of emotions, Colonel O'Neill. Psychologically we'd classify that as, well, better."

"Well, tactically we'd say that better isn't quite good."

Natalie sighs. "Doctor Jackson, we meet to discuss Sam's progress, not to gossip about her. Colonel O'Neill, please try not to discount progress because we haven't yet reached the end stage."

"What, exactly, is the end stage?" the colonel asks caustically.

"To put it simply, Colonel O'Neill, love."

"Love," he repeats, nonplussed.

"Yes. When she's able to love again – love herself, allow herself to love someone else – that's how we'll be able to tell she's processed through all of this."

"Right," he scoffs. "Okay, so where is she now?"

"Well, acutely, I'd say she's suffering from depression. That's a part of sadness."

"Says who?"

"Says who?" Daniel parrots. "Sounds reasonable to me."

"No," Colonel O'Neill says with a rolling gesture, "I meant, what school of thought is the good doctor here following."

"Ah," Natalie continues, "Plutchik."

"And who the hell is Plutchik?"

"He was a psychologist," Janet volunteers.

"Right. Great."

"I know you're not a fan of our wheelhouse, Colonel, but what we do…it works. If you'll let it."

"And Sam's letting it?"

Natalie decides honesty will yield more than pride at the moment. "Sometimes. Right now I think she's still mostly concerned with just getting through the day."

"She does seem to be breaking down more than she was before," Daniel observes.

"She's finally dealing with some things. She's got enough distance from the situation to really look at it with, if not objectivity, at least with cautious subjectivity. She's processing, Doctor Jackson. That's good. It also means we've moved passed the fear phase."

Colonel O'Neill opens his mouth to speak and Natalie notes the wry look in his eyes. "I'm not saying she's not going to get scared anymore. She will. Of course. But it means now we're dealing with new emotions and, therefore, new ways to move past the event."

"Okay, so this is good stuff then. The depression?"

"Not good, necessarily," Natalie's quick to point out. "But progress. In the right direction."

"Okay, well what comes next?"

"After sadness?" She waits for the men to nod and then a smile blooms across her face. "Anger."

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

"You know," Sam points out when she's sitting across her dining room table from the colonel for the fourth night in a row, "I think I've proven that I can stay alone now. You guys really don't need to be taking turns staying here."

"We're not exactly taking turns anymore," he says with a bluntness that surprises her. He continues after she's raised her eyebrow in question. "Well, Daniel's got a piece of rock that he's really interested in studying and Teal'c has a new batch of airmen to teach about using energy weapons. So you're stuck with me."

"I had noticed," she says with some humor, "that you've been here more than your fair share. But you can go home. I managed to keep myself alive when you guys were off world."

"You Carter-napped yourself after two days."

"Sir, I came home. I wasn't exactly hard to find. Hell, you found me."

"Hey, what's that supposed to mean?"

"I'm just saying, I could use some…space."

"I'll give you all the space you need. But I'm not leaving."

Well, she hadn't expected that. "I'm sorry, sir?"

"I'm not leaving. You're just going to have to learn how to get some space with me still around."

"But, sir," she starts, but he cuts her off.

"But, nothing. You're taking drugs for depression. Pretty hefty drugs with names I can't pronounce. You're taking drugs for anxiety. You're taking drugs for pain even though you keep telling the doc you don't have any pain. You don't eat regularly. You don't sleep regularly. You're only working two days a week. And I'm not going to let you hole up in your house and let life pass you by."

"Sir," she tries again.

"No, Carter. You know, Doc Jordan said you're were going to need friends – way back when you first came home. I'm not sure I understood why. I thought it was so you'd have someone to talk to. But you're not really talking. So I think it's about making sure you don't die due to sheer negligence. I'm here to make sure you don't die."

She sucks in a deep breath. "Sir, I'm not going to die. I'm fine now. Physically, anyway," she qualifies when she sees his eyebrows climb towards his hairline. "You're right, about all those other things, though. I am on several meds. And yes, I still have some pain. No, I don't really eat and yes, I still have trouble sleeping. No, I'm not working enough to keep my mind engaged; but sir, I'm not going to die. I made it through the most brutal thing I could never have imagined. This part? The recovery? This isn't what kills me. It just can't be."

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

He has, Jack realizes, been lulled into a false sense of security. It's one thing to know, intellectually, that someone is depressed. But when they interact with you mostly normally for a few days – even after a couple of weeks' worth of them staining your shirt shoulders with tears – you start to believe that things are okay. You forget that there are such things as good days and bad days. And you forget that you're not with someone 24 hours a day no matter what you might think.

And so, after a few days of things mostly being okay, and after a few assurances he took more to heart than he apparently should have, he's surprised when she refuses to get out of bed the morning after she assured him she wasn't going to die.

"Sam, c'mon. You've got to eat something," he cajoles through her bedroom door.

He hears tears in her voice when she says, "Please, just not right now."

"I'm coming in."

"No!"

"You've got twenty minutes to pull yourself together. Take a shower. Put on some clothes. Because I'm coming in and I'm bringing breakfast."

"Fine," he hears her mutter and now petulance is mixed with the tears.

"Twenty minutes!" he says with a definitive knock on the door.

True to his word he goes back to her room twenty minutes later with a plate of breakfast and a cup of coffee in his hands. He taps the door with the side of his foot. "Carter? Chow time."

When she doesn't answer right away he's not worried. He had, after all, advised her to get a shower. So he pushes the bedroom door open and sees no lights have been turned on in either the room or the attached bathroom – where the door stands wide open. "Carter?"

Then he notices her window. It's open, as usual. But the screen's been removed. And she's gone.

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

"Colonel O'Neill's going to be pretty worried. So, I'm going to call him."

Janet startles when Sam's hand flies across the table and snatches the phone out of her hand. "No."

"Sam, he just needs to know you're okay. What were you thinking sneaking out of your bedroom window like a teenager? And how did you get here so quickly?"

"I can run now, remember?"

"You ran here?"

"Please don't call him."

Just then the phone rings in Sam's hand and startles her. She drops the phone onto the table and Janet strikes out for it. She glances at the caller ID. "It's the Colonel."

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

She's not accustomed to doing childish things. And she's certainly not accustomed to having to face her commanding officer as if he were her father. So she refuses to even blush when Janet drops her off at home and the colonel opens her front door with a scowl. He starts to speak but she cuts him off. "I told you I wasn't hungry."

She's halfway down the hall when she hears him mutter, "I thought we weren't supposed to be at anger yet."

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

She spends the better part of two days so pissed at him that she doesn't speak a single phrase to him that isn't laced with epithets. But apparently she took him to heart when he told her he wasn't leaving because she doesn't order him out of her house while she's spitting nasty words at him. And after two days of being treated like he'd bought her a vacuum for their wedding anniversary he's shocked as hell when she appears in the living room doorway with tears streaming down her face.

"You don't deserve any of what I've said to you these last few days."

He can't help but grin and he pats the couch cushion next to him so she'll sit. "I figure you've got a handful of free passes. And besides," he says with a self-deprecating half-shrug, "I probably do deserve at least some of it for past actions if nothing else."

"But you're my commanding officer. You should have been reprimanding me for my behavior."

"I think we can agree that what happens in your house isn't related to the jobs we do for the Air Force."

"We're always officers, sir."

"Yeah," he says noncommittally. "But, you know, technically I'm not your commanding officer right now."

She looks up at him sharply. "What do you mean?"

"I mean you're on medical leave from my command. You're working outside my capacity in very limited form. I'm not your CO. At least not until you're cleared for active duty."

"So I've spent all day worried I was going to be court martialed for nothing?"

"Sam, did you really think I charge you for…what? Being a pain in the ass?"

She chuckles. "I'm having a little trouble controlling my emotions."

"I've noticed," he says dryly.

"When was I removed from your command?" she asks after a few quiet moments. "And why wasn't I told."

"It just happened. And you pretty much haven't been talking to me for a couple of days."

"So what now?"

"Now you continue to work on your science projects a couple days a week and spend some time concentrating on getting better. You've got all the time you need."

"I need to get back to work full time."

"Okay," he agrees. He'd anticipated this. He'd also anticipated a little more reaction to the revelation that he wasn't her CO anymore, but he'd take what he could get. "So you'll talk to the docs and find out exactly what you need to do to get that done. I'm not sure about field work, but I'd imagine the requirements for full time work on base would be a little less stringent."

"Okay then," she says with finality. "So now I have a plan."

"Actually you have a plan to make a plan."

She smiles at him but it doesn't quite reach her eyes. Not quite out of the woods yet, he supposes. But, as Natalie said, it's progress. In the right direction. And for now he'll take it.