"Janet? Can you hear me? Dr. Carmichael, I think she's waking up."

"Wha? Daniel? What's going on? Where are my children?" murmured Janet as she fought the cotton that seemed to be surrounding her brain. She forced her eyes open to see a blonde woman, whom she recognized somehow but could not place, leaning over her. Behind her was the familiar concrete hospital ward. "Oh God, no! What's going on? Daniel?" she cried with distress as she tried to sit up.

"Whoa, hang on there, Janet!" said the blonde woman as she gripped Janet's shoulders. A man in a white lab coat rushed up to the other side of the bed. "She's definitely awake, but I'm not sure how lucid she is," the woman said to him.

"Hey, Janet, can you lie still for a few minutes?" asked the man as he shone a penlight in her eyes. "You've been unconscious for more than 36 hours; I just need to find out if you're okay."

"No, I'm not okay," replied Janet as she tried to look around her. "I need somebody to tell me what the hell is going on. Where's Daniel? Where are my children?"

The man and woman exchanged concerned glances before the woman spoke. "Uh, Daniel is just over there, in the next bed. He's still unconscious. And, um, Cassie is staying at General Hammond's house until you're feeling better."

"And Katherine and Nick?"

The woman raised her eyebrows and again shared a glance with the man. "Who?"

Janet's heart fell, and she could feel the tears well up behind her eyes. "Oh God, this is real, isn't it, Sam?" She hadn't remembered the woman's name until she said it, but suddenly it was there, along with the full memory of her...Major Samantha Carter, USAF, her best friend. Memory and recognition flooded Janet's mind as the disparate pieces of her dream joined together to form an incontrovertible reality.

Janet stared at the grain pattern in the well-varnished wood of the briefing room table. There was a slight dent where, sometime or other, something heavy had been dropped on it. The pattern was familiar, and she remembered the dent.

Daniel had awakened not long after she did, similarly distressed and calling out for her and for their apparently non-existent children. It had taken a while to calm both of them down and then a while longer for Dr. Carmichael to determine that as far as he could tell, there was nothing physically wrong with them. As soon as they were released from the infirmary, General Hammond ordered them to a briefing along with SG-1, SG-7, and Dr. Carmichael.

Janet remembered what happened, though it still wasn't exactly a fixed point in her mind. Daniel had accompanied SG-7 on a mission, and when what appeared to be an electrical storm came upon them, they tried to gate home. Lieutenant Baker was struck by a blast of lighting, or energy, or whatever it was, rendering him unconscious. Daniel helped carry him through the gate, and Janet and her team were waiting on the other side. Janet remembered kneeling with Daniel next to Baker on the ramp. Apparently just before the gate disengaged, another blast of energy came through and struck her and Daniel.

Baker didn't make it. Dr. Carmichael hypothesized that the full force of the blast was too much for him, whereas Janet and Daniel shared the force of the blast that hit them, rendering it less harmful to each of them individually. Scientifically, it made sense. No one, however, could begin to explain Janet and Daniel's story. Sam tentatively suggested that it might have been caused by an entity in the energy blast that somehow manipulated their memories, but there was no physical evidence. Plus, the theory could not begin to explain how Janet and Daniel had managed to inhabit the same illusory reality.

Janet heard, but tried not to hear, Daniel explaining what he remembered. It was exactly what she, too, remembered: they had never heard of the Stargate, and neither of them had any connection to the military. Daniel taught archeology, and Janet was the head of infectious diseases at the university hospital. They had married seven years previously, and Daniel had adopted Cassandra, Janet's daughter from her first marriage. Together, they had Katherine, age five, and Nicholas, age three. And despite their vivid memories, none of it had actually happened.

General Hammond was asking SG-7 again if they had noticed anything unusual about the planet or the storm, and they were replying in the negative. The three of them, however, looked terrible, and Janet suspected that they hadn't slept since losing their team member. Janet couldn't wrap her brain around anything, so she methodically ran her finger back and forth over the dent in the table.

General Hammond finally sighed heavily. "I don't think we're getting anywhere with this right now. I want all of you to get some rest, especially SG-7 and Drs. Jackson and Fraiser." He turned to look at Janet and Daniel. "As Dr. Carmichael recommended, I want both of you to stay on base for the next 24 hours, but since he can't find anything physically wrong with you, you don't have to stay in the infirmary. But if either of you experience any return of the, uh, symptoms, you'll report back there immediately."

They both nodded.

"Okay, dismissed."

Daniel practically bolted from the door. Janet bit her bottom lip as she watched Sam give an imploring glare to Jack and Teal'c, who proceeded to follow him. Janet looked back down at the dent in the wood. After the room emptied, Sam came over and sat next to her.

"Come on, hon," Sam said quietly, looping her arm in Janet's. "You know that freezer in my lab? I've got Ben and Jerry's."

Though it had taken a bit of persuading on Sam's part, Janet had to admit that she felt slightly better as she dug into a pint of Chubby Hubby. "Does Cassie know that we're okay?" she asked once she swallowed.

"I called her to let her know you were awake. I didn't tell her anything else, but I'm sure she'll be begging to see you tomorrow."

Janet nodded distractedly. "Yeah, I think that would be good. To see her, I mean. To remember that she's real and that I still have her." She inhaled and squeezed her eyes shut against the tears that threatened to fall again. "God!" she breathed with frustration.

"Janet..."

"I know, I know. It wasn't real. Somehow I dreamed up a husband and two children I don't have and a whole other life."

"That wasn't what I was going to say," returned Sam. "I was going to say that it's okay to grieve."

"Grieve for a dream?" scoffed Janet, even as a tear escaped down her cheek. She swiped it away angrily and took another bite of ice cream. "I should be happy that I'm back in the real world again. I should be excited about seeing my daughter, about seeing my friends. I have one of the most remarkable jobs in the world, where I get to make an enormous difference every day...I should be thrilled about that. But I'm not, Sam! I mean, I am, but I... I wanted that life, too." She put the ice cream on the table and pinched the bridge of her nose. She stood up suddenly. "I'm sorry, Sam. I just want to be alone right now." She left her friend sitting open-mouthed as she fled the lab.

Janet had lost track of the hours that had passed and the tears that had fallen when she heard a knock on the door of her quarters. She got up to answer it, knowing instinctively who it would be.

He stood there in a t-shirt and sweats, is hair mussed and his eyes red behind his glasses. She knew she must look similarly bedraggled.

"Come in," she offered, stepping back and motioning for him to enter.

"I didn't wake you, did I?"

"No," she answered, knowing he knew that. "I can't sleep."

"Me neither," Daniel answered softly. "Not without you."

Janet couldn't look at him, so she turned to switch on a lamp and close the door. She continued to stand facing the door and gripping the handle, hoping that its solid metal would ground her. "That doesn't make any sense, Daniel. You've never slept *with* me."

"The rational part of my brain knows that," he conceded, "but my memory doesn't believe it. My memory knows you intimately. My memory is in love with a little girl and a little boy who don't really exist." His voice broke. "God, Jan, I don't know what to do."

Janet turned around slowly, tears flowing yet again. "Me neither," she whispered.

Daniel reached for her, and she went willingly, collapsing into his achingly familiar arms. She held on tight, gripping handfuls of his t-shirt in each fist as he pulled her as close as he could. They didn't speak, nor did they even cry; they just held each other desperately. Janet heard his heart beating against her cheek and felt for the first time all day that she might be okay.

After a long time, they pulled apart to look at one another. Janet smiled shyly as Daniel studied her face, tracing her tear-stained cheeks with his fingertips. He laced the fingers of one hand in her hair and leaned in slowly, kissing her gently and hesitantly.

"I remember how you taste," he whispered breathlessly as they pulled apart.

The kiss that followed was neither hesitant nor gentle but contained instead both the wild intensity of new-found passion and the intimate depth of long and familiar love. Janet ran her hands up under his shirt, the heat of his skin almost burning her as he rained kisses down her neck to her collarbone. In two steps, they were across the room, collapsing on the bed in a tangle of arms and legs.

The action made them suddenly aware of their surroundings. Janet looked up at Daniel, who was hovering over her with desire-filled eyes and one hand up her shirt. "Are you sure you want to do this?" he asked, infusing the question with an incredible amount of love and understanding. "They aren't real memories."

Janet reached up to stroke the side of his face before pulling off his glasses and placing them on the bedside table. "I'm sure," she answered. "That life may not have been real, but maybe it can be."