A/N: Thanks for the reviews. Glad to see you guys are still interested.
It had been three weeks and the O'Neill's were no closer to pinning down the sleeper cell than when they had started. Jason was growing anxious and Erin was growing tired of it all. She was more tired that usual, sleeping deeper (if not longer) than she normally did; her work at the garage was becoming slower (not that Lewis noticed that much).
They had come close to detection too many times to make either one of them comfortable in their newest setting. Of course, no one besides the two and their contacts at the Pentagon and the NID knew that they were nervous about this one. Lewis just thought that Erin had a peculiar habit of staying back when new customers entered the garage. He didn't know that she had sensed the presence of a symbiote in one of those 'customers' and she knew that sooner or later they were going to come back to kill her. The Goa'uld wouldn't be stupid enough not to notice the protien marker in her blood.
But, when she had brought up her concerns to Davis, he had waved her off. He told her she needed to get more sleep and she was probably just imagining things. When she told Jason, however, he started reminding her to make sure she was armed whenever she left the house - just in case.
The couple had been on the prowl for sleeper cells for the past two years with only short, sporadic breaks in between their jobs. They weren't getting sloppy – both of them knew how much was riding on them finding and disbanding the cells – but they were getting tired. Too tired. Maybe Davis had been right.
Erin felt the approach of the man long before she ever saw or heard him. She looked around for something in the garage that could act as a weapon in the fight that was about to come. Her hand came to rest on the buckle on her belt: it was a trinium alloy, sharp as a knife, with a few darts hidden inside.
With one dart in her hand, Erin turned around, facing the man she could sense had a Goa'uld inside of him. His eyes flashed as the Goa'uld symbiote made appearances of taking control over the host body, "Tauri, kree. By decree of the Trust, you are sentenced to death." He raised one of his arms, pointing a Goa'uld hand device at her.
Erin felt her blood run cold at the sight of the weapon. She shook her head slightly. "Pathetic worm," she said, her voice low and dangerous. "You're under the control of the Tauri? How delightfully weak and submissive of you."
The Goa'uld faltered long enough for Erin to say, "You kill me with that and you prove your own weakness." His arm dropped and she scoffed again, "And you call yourself a god."
Her words were more than enough to throw the unnamed Goa'uld over the edge of his anger. But he only used the hand device to knock Erin off her feet. Soon he was pounding her with one of the pipes in the garage. Even though the pain was so searing and blinding, Erin refused to cry out. She refused to give the damn bastard Goa'uld the pleasure of hearing her cry out in pain, pleading for him to stop. Don't misunderstand, though, she got in a few good slices with her trinium darts and her own fists and feet. All her strength, though, still wasn't enough to get the Goa'uld off her.
Out of the corner of her eye, Erin saw Lewis walk into the garage with a much larger man, unaware of what was taking place. Before she knew what was going on, the Goa'uld was dead on top of her, and someone was on the phone, calling for an ambulance to take her to the hospital. The clone, stubborn as she was, pushed the dead corpse off her and sat up, slowly gathering her wits about her enough to pick up the fallen trinium dart before it hurt someone (or was found by a civilian).
Even though she could hardly walk through the pain coursing through her body, somehow Erin made her way over to where he cell phone lay next to her leather jacket. She felt someone come up to her, trying to get her to stop, but she shrugged them off. "I'm fine," she insisted as she pressed one on speed dial. "Jason? … I don't know … They found us. … No, no, you need to call Davis and the General and let them know what happened first. … Dead. … Gee, thanks for your confidence, sweetie. … Okay, I'll see you then. Bye." Erin hung up the phone before turning again to find the big man who had walked in with Lewis standing by her side looking at her like she was crazy. "What?" she finally asked, the irritation clear.
"You shouldn't be moving," he stated authoritatively. "And who's Jason?"
She glared at him, the pain causing her blotches in her vision that she knew meant she was moments away from passing out. "Jason's my husband," she whispered before she let the inviting darkness take over.
Bobby sat back on his heels after lowering Erin softly to the ground and checking her pulse. It was still strong and she was breathing on her own. That was good. But what the hell had she been talking about with her husband? Call the General and Davis about what? Who the hell had been attacking her? And what the hell was that thing on his hand that looked like gold?
He started walking toward the dead man but suddenly stopped when he heard a frantic voice call out, "Don't go near him!"
Bobby stopped and turned to find a terrified looking twenty-year-old man running toward him, in his hand some sort of weapon Bobby couldn't identify. "Who are you?" Lewis asked curiously.
"Jason O'Neill – Erin's husband," the young man replied, taking out his ID for the other two men to look at. "Don't touch that man and don't go within three feet of his body, got that?" he ordered.
"Why? He's dead," Bobby argued.
Jason shook his head, "Give it ten minutes." He put the weapon in his hand away and walked over to his wife's bruised and bloodied body. He growled in frustration that they had been found before checking to make sure the damned symbiote hadn't jumped into her before the host had died.
He sighed with relief when he realized Erin was still Erin and there was no symbiote inside her. Jason leaned over her to whisper in her ear, "They'll be here in a few minutes, Carter. Just … hold on."
"I'm telling you that you can't do that! Her medical history is classified!"
Erin felt the darkness retreat at the sound of Jason's voice. She moaned as she tried to sit up, only to be pushed down again by the very strong hands of her husband. "You know the drill, Erin. No moving."
She opened her eyes to glare at him, "Hypocrite."
To the surprise of the other three men in the room, Jason chuckled in response. "Only you, Erin. Only you can use words larger than two syllables after getting beaten with a metal pipe."
She smiled softly, trying to ease his worrying mind, "And five syllables after getting tortured by a maniac with a god complex."
Jason smiled, one of his hands reaching out to stroke back his wife's beautiful blond hair, "Davis was already in McGuire when I called. He should be here soon."
Erin groaned softly again, "Lewis?" When her boss appeared she said, "I'm sorry. So sorry you got mixed up in this. You know the meaning of the word classified?" she asked a bit curtly. He nodded slowly as she continued, "Good. Because that's about all the answer you're going to get about this little … incident." She smiled softly at him, "You're a good guy. I'm really sorry I got you mixed up in this."
"Mixed up in what?" Bobby asked, frustrated at his lack of knowledge and information. "What the hell is going on here, why the hell won't your husband let the doctors get your medical history and why the hell can't I check out that body!?"
"You really don't want to open all those cans of worms, Mr. …"
"Detective Robert Goren."
Now it was Jason's turn to groan and turn to his wife, "Lucky us."
Erin smirked slightly before saying, "At least it's not as bad as what happened last April. Remember, the Russians weren't too happy with that one."
"And General O'Neill is going to have my ass for letting you walk into this one!"
Erin groaned at the new arrival, "Not so loud, Davis. I think I have a concussion."
"A pretty bad one from what I can tell without running the proper tests, too," the doctor said with a scowl.
Erin just waved it off with a motion of her hand, "I've had worse."
Davis smirked before he said, "I brought Dr. Brightman with me. She's waiting outside."
Erin grimaced, "Does that mean I get to leave the nice hospital with sharp pointy needles always on the prowl?"
He glared at her slightly, unused to the humor Colonel Carter's young clone had developed since marrying General O'Neill's clone, "No. That means Dr. Brightman is with me and she'll look you over before telling us more." He turned to the other three men and said, "You all can leave now."
The doctor rolled his eyes – he hated dealing with the military, before leaving. Lewis soon followed him, but when Davis's eyes fell on Bobby, the detective shook his head indicating that he refused to budge.
Jason rolled his eyes, "Detective, you have to leave. Now."
"Why? I need to know why the hell some guy beat the crap out of my friend's employee!" Bobby was fervent in his 'need to know'.
Erin shook her head, "The less you know, Detective, the safer you and Lewis are. That … man who beat me up? He had a lot of friends who wouldn't hesitate to send any of you or your associates to the morgue."
When the detective still refused to leave, Jason got up from his spot at his wife's bedside and whispered something in Goren's ear. His words had the desired effect and soon Bobby was leaving the hospital with Lewis by his side.
"What'd you tell him, Jason?" Erin asked as Dr. Brightman walked in.
The clone shrugged, "Just reminded him what might happen to his partner if he got too involved in this."
Erin rolled her eyes, "Yes, yes, he did remind me quite a bit of you, dearest." She smirked at him as Dr. Anne Brightman approached Erin's bedside, "Such a strong need to shelter and protect the perfectly capable female you work with."
Jason's look was enough to shut Erin's mouth for a moment, but when Dr. Brightman was done with her preliminary examination of the Major in the USAF and Erin was finally allowed to sit up with the aid of a whole bunch of pillows, she started talking again. "He was going to use the hand device on me," she told Davis and Jason, her eyes full of something neither man liked to see. Her fervent eyes sought out her husband's, "We can't stay here. There's too much that could go wrong. Especially now. Goren will probably tell Eames what happened and who knows who'll overhear that conversation."
"Not to mention you're going to need hospitalization for the rest of the week, at least," Dr. Brightman said, her tone firm and allowing no room for protest. "The SGC would be the safest place for you to recuperate."
Erin moaned softly as she leaned back in the bed, "Yes, ma'am."
Jason's eyes held something akin to desire in them. Desire for the place that had been his home for the first seven years of SG-1: tucked away under the mountain known as Cheyenne, beneath NORAD, the facility known as Stargate Command. "We're going …?"
Davis shook his head once, his face regretful, "No, Colonel. Erin's going, but we need you to stay here and make sure this thing doesn't –"
"Blow up in your faces?" Jason finished the sentence, his mind reeling at the thought of being away from Erin even for a time as short as two weeks. Much too long a time to be away from her. He'd have to make sure the mission in New York was under wraps quickly so he could get back to his wife.
"Our faces, yes," Davis said, his eyes glaring at the seemingly younger man.
"In other words, you want me to make sure Detective Goren really stays put and doesn't go snooping where he shouldn't belong and the mole in the NYPD doesn't find out about us being here?" Jason said, irritated and letting it show.
"Jason," Erin said, her voice conveying the clear warning that he needed to keep his anger in check. "I don't like it either … but would you rather they put someone else on the job and Goren or the mole gets around them? You know their reputations just as well as I do."
With a sigh her husband nodded, "Fine. I'll stay. But I want Erin out of here today."
"There's transport arriving for us within the hour," Dr. Brightman announced as she watched the interactions with awe that the pair was so similar and yet so different from their originals.
Erin nodded, "Okay. Can I have some time alone with my husband, please?"
When Erin and Jason were alone, he sat down beside his wife, gathering her carefully in his arms, "Oh, God. I thought I lost you, Erin."
Erin gingerly wrapped her own arms around her husband in a comforting embrace. She kissed his forehead lightly, "I'm okay, Jason. Everything's going to be okay. All we have to do is get through the next couple weeks apart."
He snorted, pulling back slightly, "We haven't been apart that long since …"
She nodded, "I know. Since I was created. I love you, so much." She leaned closer to him, her mouth a hair's breath away from his own before she added, "So, so much."
Their lips met, Jason pulling his wife closer to deepen the kiss when – someone cleared their throat. The couple pulled apart to find Davis standing there, "I'm sorry, but we have to go."
Erin sighed and nodded, giving Jason one last peck on the lips before getting up out of the bed and (with the help of Dr. Brightman) walking out of the hospital and to the waiting transport that would carry them from New York to Colorado Springs.
A/N: Dun dun dun! You know what to do if you want more! There's a little button on the bottom left hand side of the screen that says 'submit review'. Do so, now, or I will wish you all away to the goblins for being so mean.
