Doctor Samantha Carter was dreaming.  She was standing at the base of a metal grated ramp.  Facing the ramp it looked to go on forever fading into a horizon of black velvet and stars, yet the room she was in was bright.  She could feel the brushes of people's shoulders as they walked past her.  She could not see their faces as they continued on up the ramp into the vast distance.  She reached out and yelled to them to wait, wait for her but they continued to walk away with out looking back.  She tried to follow them, struggling to move her legs forward.  Finally an arm on her shoulder ceased her futile struggle. 

A deep, rumbling voice whispered in her ear, "Wha-cha ya doing Samantha?" 

She tried to turn to the voice but her body remained facing the ramp.  "I want to go with them." she cried.  "Why won't you let me go?"

She felt another brush on her other shoulder.  Distracted from the voice in her ear she could make out the profile of a phantom.

"Daddy?"  The phantom turned to her.

"You're not suppose to be here Sammie."  It was her dead father.  His face cold and gaunt.  He was in dress uniform.  It did not bare the insignia of General but Colonel, as he was when she was younger.

"Let me go!" she screamed.  She wasn't sure if her cry was directed at her father who was now walking away from her up the ramp or at the firm hand that held her shoulder.

"Let me go!"

"Hey, Carter.  Doc, wake up. Samantha!"

Sitting up she was suddenly aware that she was awake.  Jack O'Neill's hand gripping her left shoulder. 

__________________________

She could see through the truck's window the front office door to a motel.  Jack had gone in to check her in.  As she waited, leaning her head on the window, she sorted through what she could remember of her dream.

Her father. When was the last time she dreamed about her father?  Maybe when she was little?  Dreams of him coming through the door on Christmas morning, his arms laden with gifts. A surprise to the family.  Of course there never was such a happy scene.  Holidays were typically spent waiting for his phone call.  If, rather then when he did call, it was no more than five minutes.

She knew his face from her dream.  It was how he looked that last time she saw him, at the VA cancer hospice.  He had kept his illness from her and her brother Mark for months.  It wasn't until a few days before she was heading to Boston that she received his call. 

During her one and only visit to Jacob's bedside she had done most of the talking, telling him about her new position at MIT.  The grant she had been awarded based on her Master's thesis on wormholes. 

Jacob had simply sat there, listening.  She told him she would call the next day.  Her flight to Boston was in the morning.  She didn't get the chance to call until three days later.  It was then the Army doctor told her that her father had passed two days previous.  They tried calling, but the number on file was for her old apartment. 

His remains went to Arlington.  No one in the family attended the interment.