She stood staring down at the small plaque before her imbedded in the ground, head tilted to one side, eyes glazed over and refusing to read the words she already knew by heart. She had spent more time than was probably healthy at this spot during the past few weeks. It had been over a month and she still felt empty inside. Numb, if she could ever claim to feel such a thing that by definition cannot be felt.

She couldn't piece it all together. She had, at the very beginning, been convinced that everything was simply a bad dream. That she was stressed and perhaps she was losing her mind just a little bit. She waited and waited to be released and to wake up, but the moment never came. Sometimes she wonders if its still coming, but she has already decided she cannot live the rest of her life hoping and praying that it is all a dream and she will wake up with everything as it was one day.

Rei found her eyes focused by accident and the name of her mother stared back at her in gold print.

Her brothers and sisters were still distraught. They couldn't comprehend how their mother was alive and just doing a desk job one minute and dead the next. Deep space radar telemetry didn't kill people. They moved and their mother died. The cover story was that a blood clot in her brain killed her. Her siblings didn't, and don't, want to question that, and the twins were too young to need to know graphic detail anyway.

She and her father are now strangely united in a secret they have to keep between them. He wasn't aware she knew anything at all until she uttered early one morning, when her siblings were gone from the room, that it wasn't a blood clot that killed her, was it? She spoke it as fact, telling him she knew everything she was never supposed to know without actually speaking the words. At that moment he had shaken his head and stated that no, it wasn't a clot that killed her. He wrote the letters 'S' 'G' and 'C' down on the back of one of their many condolence cards and she had nodded silently.

Her father refused the military funeral. Rei suspects he did it for her, to save her sanity that day. It would have been an ordinary military affair on the outside, but she, and he, would have known who the people in the uniforms really were and what they really did. What Samantha Carter had really done.

She had spent most of the last days with her mother arguing with her and questioning her about things she had no right to be involved in. Her words haunted her – how could she have been so horrible? How could she have doubted the woman who had always taken care of her and loved her without question?

Rei let her eyes fall closed in an attempt to hide her tears. She had slipped away from the house when she thought she wouldn't be missed, whilst her father was comforting her siblings once again. She wasn't sure how long she had been standing by what was supposed to be her mother's grave. There…there had been no body to bury. Her mother had died on an alien world, trying, from what she had been told, to help her old friends and comrades.

The breeze made the tags on the short chain dangling from her hand brush against each other and bounce silently away, almost distracting her for a moment.

"I'm not supposed to be here."

Rei didn't look round. She let the figure approach and didn't so much as twitch as they stood beside her.

"…I'm not actually supposed to know where…this is…"

She nodded, only to acknowledge that she had heard.

"…Belle told me where."

Rei nodded again. She supposed she should be kind and answer and not selfishly wallow in her grief. After all, she wasn't the only one grieving.

"…I…I visited your father's grave a few days ago," she admitted quietly, "…Belle had to tell me where it was too…"

Jason bowed his head, "…I think he would have preferred to go in the line of duty…he hated that he was getting old…" he said softly.

"Belle says her parents will never forgive themselves…"

"They tried to save them. The…the sarcophagus just wouldn't work…no power…malfunction…burn marks, they said…"

"I know…" Rei whispered.

"They barely escaped with their own lives. …They say Rya'c may never get the use of his arm back," he said, eyes fixed on the ground.

"…That's…Teal'c's son, Sa'rac's father, right?"

Jason nodded, "Yeah."

She looked up, unshed tears in her eyes, "They loved us, you know. My Mama, your father. They loved us. We weren't second best, they could never have lived with a life like that."

"…I'm sorry for the things I said about your mom…"

"I'm sorry for the things I thought about your father."

"…Mom's not coping well," he admitted, "…she's very…bitter…it was just bad timing…if Dad had gone through the 'Gate on any other mission it…it could just as well have happened then…"

"About as bitter as my Dad?" Rei glanced at him.

"I'd say so," he sighed.

"They'll let it go…they have to…they understand, really…they just…hurt right now…like we all do."

Jason took a deep breath and pulled the chain round his neck over his head, "You ready?"

Rei nodded, "I guess…"

She held up her shorter length of chain and undid the clasp as he paused and gazed at the tags on the chain he held. Rei met his gaze and linked the chains together so one set of dog tags hung from the chain on which the others were threaded.

Jason raised the linked sets of tags above the plaque bearing Sam's name. Both teens' gazes rested on them as they watched them swing slowly to a stop.

'O'Neill, Jack', 'Carter, Samantha'

"Do you think they've found peace?" Rei murmured.

"…I hope so," Jason replied quietly, "…I hope so."

Twelve Years Later

A tall young woman in her late twenties, clad smartly in USAF dress blues, confidently strode the corridors of the unit where the individual she was searching for resided. The person being not quite a prisoner and not quite a free being, the officer had to use her security codes to gain access to several areas of the facility, and even though her unease grew with each step, she wasn't going to turn back. She had come this far.

She had heard great things of whom she was intending to visit. Of her reform and of her true nature and of how helpful the girl, no, well, the woman now, had been in providing much needed information.

Still, she was headed to face someone she should have considered an enemy, who had played a part in the destruction of not only her mother, but the father of her fiancé. Though, truthfully, the girl had done nothing wrong, and had been through more torture in her life than she ever expected to. Apparently the girl was quite sweet tempered now.

She had known what she getting herself into when she finally formed a relationship with Jason. History could have repeated itself all over again. But then, she had been armed with the knowledge and the devotion of her mother's closest friends. They worked tirelessly to ensure they would not be put through the same ordeal, that their relationship would not be forbidden by the workplace. Whether it was guilt or pain that urged them to do so, she never knew, but she knew that Daniel Jackson, Janet Frasier, and Teal'c had not been the same for many years after their ill-fated mission.

She sat herself down opposite the woman she hoped would soon be her charge. She studied her for a moment – she looked perfectly normal and human. Auburn hair loose to her waist, wearing an orange sundress and white sandals.

She self consciously reached to touch the plait of her dark hair before she began to speak, softly, "I'm Captain Rei Shanahan. I'm here to speak with you about joining a military unit to fight against the enemies of this planet and explore the known galaxies. So far, this unit is made up of Lieutenants Jackson and O'Neill, - I believe you've been given their profiles to read - and one of our Jaffa allies, the grandson of a legendary warrior – his name is Sa'rac…"

Rei smiled, "Hello, Mery."

Fin