Janet waited until he was gone before she turned to Sam. "You can put that down now," she said, hoping that she hadn't made a massive mistake by shooing Colonel O'Neill out of the room.

She could see the frantic desperation on the other woman's face and she knew that a lot of things had happened during the last week, things she just hadn't had time – or the patience - to go into.

Sam shook her head. "Hathor…"

"Is not coming in here," Janet said. She turned to the two SF's lingering by the door. "You two, hand your weapons over to these women and then you can go."

"Ma'am?"

"Sergeant, we've spent the past two weeks watching anything with a penis screw us over to cater to a goa'uld. Our trust level is a bit low at the moment. Hand over your weapons, you can go and get more, and we're going to turn this into a male free zone for a bit."

"Yes, ma'am," he said, handing his weapon over as his partner did the same. They both retreated, cautiously backing out of the room.

"Lock the door," Janet ordered before she turned back to Sam. "See, she's not getting in here," she said. "Now, give me that scalpel before you hurt yourself."

Sam stared for a second before she slumped a bit, laying the scalped down on the bed. With Sam disarmed, Janet relaxed. She hadn't seen Sam in days and was honestly relieved to see her alive, and at least mostly well.

"So," Janet said, motioning for Sam to sit down. "Talk to me."

Sam shook her head and stepped back until she was against the wall. "I…"

"Honey, I know that she was pissed at you. And I know you got the gate locked down and locked down the base. You kept her here. And I also know that she's been trying to get that information out of you for the past two weeks. And I sincerely doubt she stopped at asking politely."

"Did she use the ribbon weapon?" Teal'c asked.

"What?"

"Hathor possessed one. It is a device that wraps around the goa'uld's wrist and has a stone in the palm of their hand," he explained.

"Yes." Sam frowned. Her gaze shifted and her eyes went out of focus and Janet knew that she was remembering.

"Doctor Jackson spoke of his experiences with that. You have a headache."

"Yeah."

"And it has probably been days since you had a good meal." Janet looked at Teal'c. "I don't know about you but my guards seemed to think that food was optional."

"Through meditation, I can reduce my body's need for sustenance," he said. "But not eliminate it."

"Why don't you take Karen and see what you can find," she said. "Even if it's MRE's, I think we can all use a meal."

Teal'c nodded and Janet turned back to Sam. "I stink," she said baldly. "And you do too. I think some fresh clothes and food will do wonders to clear your head. And once you have some food in your stomach, I can get you something for that headache."

"Drugs would be good," Sam said. "Almost as good as a shower."

"I shall return as expeditiously as possible," Teal'c said.

"Come on," Janet said as he left. "Let's go make a dent in the base's hot water supply."

:::::::::::::::::::::::::::

Jack led his team down the hall, his and their tension at a new high now that they knew there was a goa'uld on the base.

"How do you think it got here?" one of the men asked. "I mean, the gate is locked down, so is the base."

"Did you stop to think that the goa'uld is WHY the base is locked down?" another man said.

"You can ask her when we find her," Jack said, glaring at them.

A crash echoed down the corridor and the men hurried forward. They rounded a corner to see Daniel stepping backwards out of a room. Jack held up his fist and in his peripheral vision he saw the men stop, moving towards the meager cover of the walls. "Daniel?" Jack whispered. "Daniel?" he repeated when he was ignored. Finally, Daniel looked over, his eyes wide with shock. Wordlessly he pointed into the room and Jack stepped forward, hoping and trusting that Daniel wasn't directing him towards danger.

Jack peered cautiously around the door jamb and stepped into the room. It was one of the VIP suites. The room was dark, lit only by a lamp. Lying on the rumpled bed was a woman's body. She was wearing what Jack could only describe as a bikini top and short skirt. Her red hair was tangled and her open eyes stared vacantly at the ceiling. A dark smear of blood marred her pale skin and dribbled down her neck, thick and congealed.

"I think she's dead," Daniel said, standing at Jack's shoulder.

"What was your first clue?" Jack quipped, waiting for one of the men to come into the room to cover him before he approached the woman. He felt for a pulse, knowing the instant his fingers touched her chilled skin that it was useless.

"I think we found our snakehead," Jack said, looking back at the men. "Call Frasier, get her down here," he ordered. "Then keep with the sweep. Let's just make sure there are no more surprises."

"Sir."

They left and Jack moved to Daniel's side. "You okay?" He looked his friend up and down, searching for some sign that he had been injured.

Daniel nodded. "What….Jack, how'd I get down here?"

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

"General Hammond has called for a briefing at 1400 hours," Teal'c said, moving to stand a short distance away. Samantha Carter looked at him, setting down her bottle of juice.

He could see uncertainty in her eyes. "I have seen Hathor's corpse with my own eyes," he said. "She is indeed dead."

She nodded and took a breath. "They don't remember do they?" she asked softly.

"It does not appear so," he said. "It does seem that her influence upon them perished when she did," he said.

"Makes sense," she said, avoiding his gaze as she rearranged the remnants of her meal on the tray.

"You do not wish to speak to them," he said.

She looked up. "How do I tell them what happened when…sometimes I'm not even sure I remember it all." She rubbed her forehead as if in pain. "There's whole days that I don't remember, I think. And some days that seemed to last forever. And I don't know if I dreamed it or if it happened and…"

Teal'c stepped forward and laid his hand on her shoulder. "Doctor Frasier and I bore witness to many events. And we shall relay them."

"I just don't even want to be in the same room with them, you know," she said, looking up at him.

Teal'c nodded. "There have been many regrettable actions taken thee past two weeks. O'Neill and General Hammond will be most distressed to learn what has transpired."

She shook her head. "I don't want them distressed," she said. "I ..." She sighed. "I don't want pity, I don't want 'distress', I just want to pretend it never even happened."

:::::::::::

"Frasier's examining the body right now," Jack said, glancing up as Carter and Teal'c joined the briefing. His chiding about being late died on his lips when his eyes met Teal'c's steady glare. "We've finished searching the rest of the base, but we haven't found anything," he reported to General Hammond. "The place just has the general air of the morning after one hell of a party."

Carter and Teal'c sat down and Jack noticed that they chose seats on the far side of the table, consciously or not, placing themselves as far away from the others as they could.

Walter, Siler and Major Castleman, along with Daniel and General Hammond comprised the rest of the attendees.

Hammond nodded. "What about the Stargate?" he asked Walter.

"I'm sorry, sir. I still can't get it to work," the man said. "I've tried every hacker's trick I know. I can't get through."

"We have three teams off world," the general said. "We need to get that iris open."

"We can't, sir. Short of manually removing it and dialing by hand, I don't know of any other way."

"Siler?"

The man shrugged. "I supposed I could do it, sir," he said. "But it took a full crew of my men over a week to install the iris."

"Cut it off," Jack suggested.

Siler shook his head. "No, sir. The titanium would take days to cut through. And I'm not even sure if we have anything on the base that can do it. I'd need access to outside material."

"Which we don't have," Castleman said. He turned to Hammond. "I've got men trying to sneak out every duct and tunnel. No joy so far."

"Without the iris, Earth would be vulnerable," Teal'c said.

"Yeah, well without a base to come back to, those teams out there are pretty damn vulnerable right now," Jack said.

"I did it," Carter said, her voice barely audible.

"Carter?"

"I locked down the gate and the base," she said, looking up at him for the first time.

"Why would you do that, Captain?" Hammond asked.

"Captain Carter sought to prevent Hathor from escaping this base and further endangering Earth," Teal'c interjected.

"Then the captain can fix what she did quite easily, I would presume," Hammond said.

"Are you not curious, General Hammond, as to what has transpired these past two weeks?" Teal'c asked.

"There will be time for that after we're back up and running," he dismissed, getting to his feet. "Captain, you and Sergeant Harriman are to unlock this base and that gate, ASAP."

"General Hammond, we have a problem," Doctor Frasier said, hurrying into the room.

"What now, Doctor?"

"Hathor's not dead," she said, holding up a sheet of paper in her hand.

"Doc, I checked myself," Jack said. "I know dead."

"The host was," she confirmed, glancing at him before turning back to the general. "As per my standing orders about deceased goa'uld, I was attempting to remove the symbiote, to preserve it for further study. Sir, there wasn't one."

"Of course there was," Jack said. "Right, Daniel. You saw it."

Daniel frowned and nodded slowly. "The things she knew, the way she talked, she was a goa'uld," he said.

"Maybe you were mistaken, Doctor Jackson," Hammond said.

"No, General, I don't think-"

"Daniel Jackson was not mistaken," Teal'c said. "I witnessed Hathor using the powers of the gods, the weapons of the gods. She was indeed, goa'uld."

"Well, she's not now," Frasier said. "I have a full body MRI that shows no symbiote anywhere in that woman's body."

"Teal'c?" Jack asked.

"It is possible that the symbiote has taken a new host," Teal'c said.

"And it is equally possible that there are elements of a goa'uld's biology that we know nothing about," Hammond said.

"General?" Jack asked.

"The base stays locked down," he ordered. "But those three teams out there need to be able to come home. Carter, you and Harriman-"

"No, sir," she said, her fingers digging into the arms of the chair.

"Excuse me, Captain?"

She looked at him. "No, sir. I am not opening that iris," she said.

"Carter," Jack said, surprised at her refusal.

"No, Colonel," she interrupted. "All she's wanted for the past two weeks has been to get off this planet and I am not going to give it to her."

"Captain Carter!" Hammond said, his raised voice echoing off the walls. "I am ordering you to undo the damage you did to this facility!"

She shook her head and got to her feet. "No."

"This is insubordination, Captain!" He motioned for the two SF's to move forward. Much to Jack's surprise, Teal'c moved to intercept them, placing himself between Carter and the guards.

"I will not allow you to harm Captain Carter further," Teal'c said.

"Further? Teal'c, they haven't even touched her," Jack said. "Carter-"

"No," she said. "Colonel, I won't do it. She is here, she is on this base and if she leaves it will be over my dead body."

"Sirs." Frasier hurried forward. "With respect, I think there's a lot that's happened that you don't know about."

"I don't care what's happened," Hammond said. "What I care about is that one of my officers has not only commandeered this facility, she's willfully and maliciously keeping other members of this command from returning home."

"General," Jack protested. "Don't you think-"

"Silence Colonel!"

"ENOUGH!" Teal'c roared.

"Lock me up," Carter said her voice scarily calm. "Court Martial me. I don't care. I am not going to unlock that gate and she is not getting off this base."

Jack saw Hammond's eyes narrow as his face flushed red. "Doc, I don't know what the hell kinda drugs you've been giving my people, but I do not appreciate you letting them be on duty when they're obviously not fit," he said quickly, moving so that he could look her in the eyes. He saw a protest bubble up and then she stopped it, frowning slightly.

"My apologies, sir," she said slowly.

"Colonel?"

"General, a couple of hours ago, Carter went and passed out on me. Something must be wrong, and it must be something Frasier didn't catch, or she wouldn't be here because obviously, Carter shouldn't be." He interjected as much anger as he dared into his voice, hoping that it would allow Hammond to back down. It was sloppy, but it was the only way Jack could think of to defuse the situation.

"General, sir," Castleman stepped forward. "There's a quick way to settle this. The doc can just give everyone an MRI. We'll confine everyone to one part of the base, once they're clear they don't have contact with anyone else until that person is cleared. If we screen everyone we'll either find the goa'uld, or we'll prove to Captain Carter that Hathor is gone and she can fix the computers."

"Makes sense to me," Daniel said.

Hammond looked at them in turn, staring each one down until he sighed. "Do it," he ordered. "Captain Carter. Once this matter is settled, you WILL relinquish your control of this facility or you WILL face grievous consequences."