Author's Reply to Reviews:

AT Fan - A reward for your faith.

Liery - Or else what? lol

PatriciaS - (pats muse on back) Muse has been contemplating ideas but is still demanding a leave of absense for the time being. She can be such a diva.

LadyMo - What did you have in mind for Jack's 'piece of mind'?

Nessie1701 - And the finale, epilogue, so and and so forth...

Leilina - lol. I love the way you say that there's no way YOU'RE going to allow Jack to stay dead. Will you hold my fingers hostage to the keyboard if I don't comply with your demands? lol.

VinterNatt - 'Right? Right?' love that.

gater62 - Thank ya much!

Entropic Cascade - I thought I was the only one who did that! When I read really fast paced parts of stories I find myself reading really fast to try and hurry and see whats next and then I have to go back and read it a few times to make sure I caught everything. lol. Thanks for the Daniel bit- I have to say I liked the line after that even more where Rodney's jaw drops at the tattle. It cracked me up to write that.

Sam woke up to birds cheerfully chirping away out the window. She cursed the sound, along with the brilliant sunlight beaming in through the windows ...and the familiar weight of an arm around her waist.

Sam's eyes shot open. There sleeping right beside her was Jack O'Neill.

She'd officially lost it. Maybe she was still in Ba'al's clutches and the escape and everything after had been some kind of bizarre new mental torture tactic of his.

Jack's breathing deepened, not quite a snore but close. His arm tightened around her waist, pulling her closer. All signs he was about to wake up. Jack had tell tale clues that Sam had come to know how to read to gage his morning mood. If he wanted to fight waking up, Jack would burrow his face in her neck, blocking out the day. And if he was ready to wake up, he'd start drawing little patterns on her back with his fingers. Sam suddenly decided she didn't care if he wasn't real. He was here, even if it was only in her mind.

Still, Sam was afraid if she touched him the illusion would end and he'd disappear.

"J..J..Jack?," she stuttered quietly.

A grunted 'mmm?' was her only reply from the still sleeping lump to her right. It was so 'Jack' that she smiled a little inanely, touching his face with the palm of her hand. He leaned into her touch, blinking his eyes open and smiling.

"Hey," he greeted her gruffly.

"Hey," she greeted back, tears in her eyes.

"Don't cry, Sam. I'm here. We made it."

"No." She shook her head. "I made it. You died, Jack. I saw it happen. You're not ...you're not real."

"Hey." He grabbed her face with both hands. "Look at me. We made it. I'm really here, Sam. I promise. Had to take a little side trip to the realm of the glowy, but I'm here."

She wanted to believe him so badly.

"Trust me, Sam."

She nodded. "That's never been a problem, Jack."

He smiled and kissed her.

"You're really here," she said, still trying to convince herself.

"I promised you I'd do whatever it took."

At seeing her 'happy tears' as she liked to call them, Jack decided it was time to lighten the mood a little. "And if I had to come back naked, I for damn sure wasn't going to show up in the middle of the SGC like some people."

It had the desired effect. She laughed, her tears spilling over to run freely down her face and she kissed him before he could say anything else.

Suddenly Sam jerked away mid kiss and hovered over him. "You do know I'm going to kick your ass for putting me through that, right?"

He smirked, though he was trying valiently to hold it back. "I was kind of hoping that my whole coming back from the dead thing would be a big enough distraction." He rolled them over so that he was now on top of her. No longer trying to hold back his smirk, Jack continued, "And did I mention the whole convenience of me being naked?"

"Well, I didn't say I was going to do it now but later, you are definitely in for it."

He kissed her. "I think I can live with that."

The End

Author's Note: When I started writing this, I had no idea how many references to other SG1 episodes would be in here. But as I continued writing and tried to think of ways for them to get to the next step in the story, I'd be like 'oh the dakara weapon would be perfect' or 'what if Jack could control the DHD like Adria did on The Quest' and the story became what it was.

I hope you liked and I hope I didn't butcher the SGA characters too much. I've never wrote them before now.

And I know, it's kind of open ended. You don't really see what happens when SGA-1 goes home. Are the Wraith really all gone? And then like Sam said, everyone would have to go through zatarc testing, in both galaxies. Are their more of Ba'al's minions? And I didn't bring Nate back in the picture. I kind of wanted the ending to just be about Jack and Sam though. So in my head, Sam asked Cassie or someone else to watch Nate the first night they got back from the ordeal because she didn't want him to see her so broken and she wasn't quite ready or up to telling him his father was dead just yet. And it's the next morning that this chapter's events take place. So it's a super short open ending, yes, but I still hope it was enjoyable.