Colonel O'Neill, Daniel Jackson and Teal'c were on the prowl for Pete Shanahan, the Cop, but as of yet, found no sign of him.

They all decided that that best place to look was Carter's place, just in case he was there sitting outside her house. But there was no unmarked van anywhere in sight. So Jack decided it would be a good idea to let himself and everyone else inside.

He got the Key from under Carter's door mat. "you know where she keeps her extra key?" Daniel asked.

"Emergencies only" Jack said.

Daniel only rolled his eyes. "whatever."

Jack wanted to retaliate but thought better of it. They all took a moment to look around, to see if there was anything out of the ordinary. Carter's bookcase looked like it should. Everything was in alphabetical order and organized by genre. A winkle in time, The Harry Potter series, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz and the Hitchhikers guide to the Galaxy sat on her fantasy and sci-fi shelf. He smiled to himself.

Daniel picked up A Wrinkle in time. A large smile, a remnant of his boyhood spread across his face. "My mom read this to me when I was a little kid. I wonder if a tesseract is real." He carefully placed the book back on the shelf.

An unfinished game of chess stood on her coffee table. The TV was small and was propped up against the wall. Jack fingered through her DVD collection. It was all about physics and algebra and all things that he was confident that his mind would never be able to understand.

Then they heard a knock at the door. Trying to decide if any of them should open it, he rolled his eyes and made his way to the entrance of Carter's house. He looked through the peep hole and saw someone at the door.

"Hey, Sam! You in there? It's me, Pete."

"Daniel, Teal'c, I want you all to hide."

"Jack?"

"Just do it Daniel!" He whispered.

Jack smiled. Seeing Jack at Sam's house would be the last thing Pete would expect. He was going to enjoy this.

Jack opened the door. Despite his smug feeling on the inside, his exterior remained neutral, Pete however, was in shock. "Something I can do for you?"

Pete shook his head furiously. "Who are you and what are you doing at my girlfriends house?"

"Colonel Jack O'Neill, United States Air Force. Major Samantha Carter is under my command. And you are Pete as for what I am doing here well," Jack racked his brain for something plausible that he could say. "She was held up at the base. I'm house-guarding. Standard Procedure." He said.

"house-guarding?" Daniel asked Teal'c quietly.

Pete shook his head, "Whatever. Can I go inside and get something?" He demanded.

O'Neill was having too much fun playing with Pete's head. "Ah, no actually, part of protocol is that we don't allow anyone inside unless they're SGC personnel. Sorry." In reality, Jack was not sorry. He liked the fact that Pete was almost up in arms that another man was at Sam's house.

"Fine, just let me know when she gets back."

'No way in hell.' "Alright."

Without saying goodbye, Pete walked away and Jack slammed the door behind him. Jack looked out the window to keep an eye on Pete when he was a safe distance away so that Jack couldn't be heard he called his friends over.

"Jack why didn't you just ask him what he was doing while he was standing there?" Daniel asked.

"I didn't have to ask. He already told us he was looking for something. So is there any place we haven't checked yet?"

"Major Carter's bedroom." Teal'c supplied.

The men of SG1 felt slightly awkward at encroaching on their female's teammates private quarters. But it was still a room that had to be searched. Jack meandered his way into her bedroom. He was dismayed at the mess. Her bed wasn't made and there were things lying all over the floor.

"This doesn't look like it would be Sam's bedroom." Daniel said, stating the obvious.

Jack ignored him as he continued to look around. He searched in places like in her closet, inside her shoe's and under her bed. It didn't make sense to him. Everything about her living room screamed neat-freak but her bedroom hid a muffled sounding of the word slob.

Her clothes were spread out everywhere. They were all scattered carelessly around the room. "Hang on a minute," he said aloud more himself then two his other teammates. He took another look around the room, it looked like someone had been there before, searching for something.

"Someone's been here already." He lifted the vent off the floor of the corner of Carters room and found something that resembled a glasses case. He opened it and what was inside astonished him.

He found a liquid substance inside a syringe with goa'uld writing on it. He handed it to Daniel and Teal'c. "Why would Carter have this?"

The boys looked at it one moment and went wide eyed. "It says suppressor. It's the drug that Keana used on Kelowna to suppress the Naquada in her blood so she couldn't be detected by anyone else with a symbiote." Daniel explained.

"Why would Major Carter want to use such a substance?" Teal'c enquired.

Teal'c, Daniel and Jack all came to the same conclusion. "It's not Carter's, it's Shanahan's." The three of them ran outside to try and catch Shanahan before he left, but by the time they got outside, they were already too late. Pete was on his way to the base to kill Carter. "Daniel, you drive! I'm going to give Sam a heads up." No one argued.

He dialed the number that would take him to her lab where he knew she'd be working on something. "Carter?" He asked.

"Sir? Something wrong?"

"Yeah, look, I went searching through your house to see if there was something there that could give us clues as to why Pete is after you."

"Okay," she thought it was highly irregular, but then they were friends and that meant he could get away with doing things that others could not.

"I found something. Teal'c and Daniel identified it as the drug that Keana on Kelowna used to hide the fact that she was a goa'uld. I may be jumping to conclusions, but it looks like your new beau is a goa'uld and he's been using this drug to hide it. We think he may be after you."

"Sir?" She questioned.

"I don't have much time but I have to ask when he was briefed on the Stargate did you tell him that you had a snake in your head?"

"No."

"Can that stuff in your blood still detect a symbiote?"

"Yes, Sir."

"Good," after all that's happened, the Colonel felt the need to defend him somehow, "I know this may be farfetched,"

"No, Sir. It's not as farfetched as what you might think. Earlier this night, Jonas Quinn came through the Gate. Everyone on Kelowna was destroyed by gaseous symbiote poison."

"That can't be a coincidence."

Carter breathed. "Jonas and I have been thinking it through, and we're pretty sure Pete had something to do with it. He may be after me for Jolinar, Sir."

Jack thought. "Understood. Carter?"

"Yes, Sir"

"I want you to call him. Tell him that you have permission from your superiors to bring him on base. But if he gets there before we do, do not go anywhere near him." Jack couldn't believe he was suggesting this to his fellow teammate. "I want you to take this drug so that he can't detect you. I am ordering you to stay away from him! Under no circumstances are you to go anywhere near him."

"Yes, Sir."

"I will be there soon. I promise."

He hung up.

****
She dialed Pete's number. "Pete Shanahan." He answered.

"Hey Pete, it's me. Sam?"

"Sam?!" He exclaimed, "What's up?"

"I just need you to come into work right now. My superiors have given you permission to come."

"Sam is everything alright?" He asked mimicking concern.

"Just come, please." She begged.

"I'm on my way." He said, then hung up.

Jonas was standing beside Sam the whole time while she was on the phone. Not noticed that she hadn't even shed a tear since hearing about Pete.

"Sam, I don't know much about women of any species," she laughed, "but usually when something bad happens to people they care about, they cry."

"Usually they do." She said, a little weary at what Jonas was insinuating. "I don't know why I am not."

Just then, Pete Shanahan entered Sam's lab. It was very quick for someone who lived at least 30 minutes away. Sam ran over to Pete and gave him a big squeeze, completely forgetting that the Colonel ordered her not to go near him until he got there.

Sam smelled him in, and then detected something. A presence inside of him. Her stance around him visibly changed and he took notice.

Before Sam knew what was happening, he got an Ashrak torture device out and shot her with enough force to knock her out. Jonas tried to get to him for hurting his friend, but he was still very weak. "I am here to destroy the memories of Jolinar. Do not try to stop me human or you will meet the same fate." Came his deep voice. He held the device up to Jonas's head and the pain came in waves of electrocution. He felt the electricity surge through his veins. The torture didn't last long before Jonas slumped on the floor. He got a glimpse of where Pete was taking her, just before he lost consciousness.

Pete took the limp Carter in his arms and went into the nearest storage room. He sat her on a chair, tied up her hands and gagged her mouth. He unhitched his gun and patiently waited for Sam to open her eyes.

*********
Jonas was slowly regaining consciousness. He shook his head and rubbed his neck then remembered where Sam was. He opened his eyes to see three very tall strong men hoisting him up.

"Jonas? Where's Sam?" Daniel asked.

"That guy took her."

"Did you see where they went?" Jack asked.

"She's in a storage room."

"Teal'c take Jonas back to the infirmary. Daniel, your with me."

Jack hastily left the lab and didn't even bother to shut the door. They walked closely to the wall to listen for any sounds that were out of the ordinary. Then they heard a loud scream, shouting "Sir!"

"You cry for your commanding officer like a child cries for its mother!" It was the eerily deep voice of a goa'uld. Jack cringed.

The he heard another scream. "My friends will come for me, and when they do, you won't see the light of day."

Jack couldn't help but smile and feel very proud. 'That's my girl,' he thought.

He planted C4 on the door and motioned for Daniel to step aside. He got a fair distance away and blew it to kingdom come. The Ashrak didn't see it coming.

"Drop the gun." He had the Ashrak in his sights. The Ashrak laughed at him. Pete dropped it, but held the torture device over his face instead.

"Why not? You are not even worth the bullet." Pain spread throughout his body, luckily for Jack, it did not last long.

Daniel popped out of his hiding place and shot the Ashrak in the head and the heart, leaving no time for the symbiote to heal its host. Daniel stood guard over him while Jack recovered and untied Carter.

"I knew you'd come."

"What the hey! I was in the neighborhood." Jack said cheerily. Now that his friend was back he had no reason to despair. "Look Carter," he started.

"No, sir." She shook her head. "It had to happen."

"Yeah." He looked down at the floor one last time at Pete's lifeless body. "I got him, Jack. You should take her to the infirmary."

Jack took her by the forearm and lifted her up "Hey, I give the orders around here." Daniel and Sam smirked.

****
Sam was lying awake in a hospital bed, near Jonas Quinn. "The truth is Sir, he could have been a goa'uld this whole time, and I wouldn't have known it."

"Nor I, O'Neill, if he was using the suppressor drug." Came Teal'c's deep staccato.

"Why was he after you anyway?"

"He said that he was here to kill any memory of Jolinar." Jonas yawned.

"Yeah, but on a side note," Jack declared, "I owe you an apology. You were right and I was wrong." He turned to Daniel.

"Be that as it may, this is not the kind of thing that I like to be right about."

"Nor I." Teal'c said.

Suddenly they all heard snoring coming from Jonas's direction and they all let out an exhausted laugh.

"I think Jonas has the right idea." Daniel smiled, "staying awake all night without caffeine is tiresome. I am going to bed."

Daniel hopped up from the end of Sam's bed and said goodnight to everyone.

"I too am tired." Teal'c turned his gaze towards Sam. "I hope to see you well again, Samantha Carter." Bowing his head.

He left, leaving Sam with Jack and a snoring Jonas Quinn.

"How are you holding up, Carter?" Jack asked concerned.

"Actually, Sir. I feel like a very horrible person right now."

Jack sat on the edge of her bed with furrowed eye brows. "Oh yeah, why's that?"

"Because I don't feel anything. No remorse, no tears, no sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach. It wasn't like when you were put in that stasis pod before we killed Hathor." She gave him a small smile. "I'm not happy when someone dies, Sir. But right now it just feels like we killed an ordinary Ashrak that I had no emotional connection to at all." She paused. "I felt like I was going to die when Daniel died."

"Which time?" He smiled.

Sam was fiddling with the ends the bandages on her hands. She smiled back. "Carter, you're not a horrible person."

"thank you for saying so sir." she said softly. The colonel got up to leave in order to give her some peace but she called his name. "Sir, Thank-you. For the warning."

Jack sat himself at the end of her bed. "We're a family Carter. We've got each others backs. No matter what."

"Yeah, Teal'c and Daniel are like the brothers I never had." She fumbled nervously.

"If Teal'c and Daniel are like your brothers, than where does that leave me?"

Sam felt her stomach sink like it was made of lead.