A/N: Sorry for the nearly-late update. But the good news is that my class is done and so I'm already working on the next few chapters here. It feels awesome to get back to it. As some of you might have noticed, I've caught up on responding to reviews, which feels even more awesome.

Thanks for being patient and sticking with me! I'll be posting more often, hopefully. Enjoy!

Catherine heard Samantha long before she saw her. Startled gasps of "excuse me!" and "hey!" echoed down the corridor, and Catherine could only imagine the younger woman barreling along the hall with that single-minded focus of hers. Only this time her fervor was no doubt fueled by a volatile combination of panic and fury, as by now Sam was fully aware of the fact that the very man she'd left to find had ventured through the Stargate in her absence.

"Catherine!" Sam came into view in a flurry of blonde hair and flashing blue eyes. Catherine stepped up to meet her, closing the distance to clasp her by the arms. Sam trembled under her hands, eyes flooding with restrained tears. "Catherine, I got your message—"

"Sam…"

"Did you see him?" Sam's voice quivered with emotion. "Was he all right? Did he—?"

"Samantha!"

Catherine caught Sam's gaze, holding her steady. Sam chest hitched. "Catherine, please…"

Carefully Catherine maneuvered the both of them into the nearest room. There was evidence of a recent presence—stacks of paper, a pen laid out on the black surface of the work counter, a cold cup of coffee next to the computer—but it was empty now.

Sam came without fuss, letting Catherine close the door behind them before asking again. "Did you see Jack?"

"Brown hair, brown eyes, this tall?" Catherine lifted her hand above her head to indicate, and Sam's head bobbed in a nod.

"That's him," she stated, almost deflating with the realization. Blue eyes darkened, but refused to lose their shine, still on the verge of tears. "How did he…?"

"How did he look?" Catherine finished. When Sam looked up at her, she sighed. "He seemed… haunted."

Sam's head bowed, tension bleeding from her in a quiet sigh. Left behind was a frame slumped with fatigue and harried by worry. Taking a good look at her, Catherine saw she was paler than when she'd left, and her limbs shook minutely, her hands particularly, where they lay in her lap. "Sam…"

"Did he say anything?" the younger woman asked, her voice no longer so urgent.

Catherine swallowed, and she took a moment to center herself by sitting on a nearby stool. It was a smart choice. Being on the same eyeline with Sam made it easier to face that piercing gaze of hers. "I didn't get the opportunity to speak with him."

Sam blinked. "What? But you said—your message…"

"I wanted you to know that there was an O'Neill here. I couldn't be sure, I've never seen a picture, but… when I tried to speak with him, General West interrupted. He cited the nondisclosure agreement, maintained that the soldiers and the civilian contractors couldn't interact on the grounds that one party may have more information than they other." Catherine leaned forward, taking Sam's hands in hers. "Sam, I'm so sorry."

A blonde head shook her guilt away. "It's not your fault, Catherine. It's his."

"Jack's?"

"No. Well, yes, it is. He accepted the mission, but… they should never have tapped him in the first place."

Catherine straightened, sensing a heavy secret. "What do you mean?"

And with that the story poured out of Sam like a flood bursting from a dam. She revealed everything, from the phone call that had pulled her so abruptly to Washington, to the revelation that her own father, the President of the United States of America, had abused his authority in order to send Jack through the Stargate, presumably to his death.

It explained the sense of unease that had plagued Catherine throughout the mobilization of the base, when she should have been euphoric at the sudden progress of her project. She'd been realizing her father's dreams, and her own, but all she'd truly been focused on was the fact that something wasn't right. She'd thought it was just the fact that Sam was out of touch, but it wasn't until now that she knew the truth of how right she'd been.

It all made sense. It shocked her that Sam knew Captain Charles Kawalsky so closely as well; it would seem that the President was going out of his way to eliminate those who bound his daughter to the region. Was it his goal to isolate her completely?

"Who else went through?" Sam asked tearfully, wiping her eyes.

Catherine nodded, and turned to gather the list she'd prepared for just this question. She handed it to Sam, who perused the list briefly. She cursed a moment later. "What is it?"

"Lieutenant Ferretti."

Catherine didn't make the connection. "You know him?"

Sam swallowed, pushing the list away from her before running her hands across her haggard features. "Lieutenant Louis Ferretti was in the same Iraqi prison as Jack. They were rescued together."

Catherine's eyes widened. "And you think…"

"That they gave Jack every reason to go on this mission? Yes. I do. He never had a chance. They made it impossible for him to say no, even if he wanted to." Sam's tone was dark, roiling with anger. "But he didn't, did he? He didn't want to."

Sam's eyes filled with tears, and they spilled over onto her cheeks before Catherine could do a thing to soothe her. A sob escaped her, wracking her thinned frame. In the stark light of the subterranean office, Sam's injuries were pronounced. The laceration to her chin was inflamed and damp, as though it had recently been split afresh. The bruise at her temple stood out vividly against her skin, digging deep beneath her eye to emphasize her exhaustion.

With her shoulders bowed as they were, her head low, Sam looked very much alone.

"Sam…"

"He didn't want to stay here, Catherine. He couldn't just come home and talk to me. He went across the universe to get away from me."

"No, Sam…"

"He left! He went through the Doorway without even trying to talk to me! He didn't—" she caught herself, lowering her raised voice. "He didn't say goodbye. He's going to die out there, thinking I hate him."

Catherine could only wrap the girl in her arms as she sobbed. The shoulder of her shirt grew damp from Sam's tears, and for a long moment the younger woman allowed herself to be held. When she recovered, it was sudden and alarming.

Sam straightened, standing with a violent scrape of her stool. Catherine let her hands fall to her side, recognizing the moment as over. Samantha Carter had fire in her eyes once again, and it could only bode ill for whomever she now had in her sights.

"Sam, what are you going to do?" Catherine asked, causing the girl to pause in her powerful stride towards the door.

A blonde head turned, features dark. "I'm going to speak to the General."

"What—"

"He kept you from Jack deliberately. The General didn't want you speaking to Jack because any mention of me might have weakened Jack's resolve to go through with the mission. He was following orders."

Catherine swallowed a gasp. "Your fath—"

"Those orders were unlawful, and they both knew it. I'm going to make damn sure that both of them are held accountable."

There was nothing to do but follow as Sam vacated the room, the force of her departure nearly sucking all the air out with her. Catherine hesitated only a moment before following; she had never before seen this side of Samantha Carter. If asked, she'd say only a select few ever had. The media had never caught a glimpse of the bristling fury that surrounded her, accentuating every single movement until a bystander could only stop and stare, and wonder what would happen next.

Then, when that moment passed, Catherine hurried along behind her, unwilling to let the promised confrontation play out without being there with a front row seat. She may be getting on in years, but the hellion in Catherine's heart was giddy in anticipation. General West had long belittled her work, even going so far as to rip control of the program from her hands in the critical hours of the mission. But now there was someone in this mountain who was unafraid of challenging the might of his shiny four stars, undaunted by the imperious gaze with which he observed all that lay before him.

Sam would give him what-for, and Catherine would be a happy spectator to it. She trailed Sam's steps as the woman made her way up three sets of metal stairs, blowing through the control room in order to climb directly to the main briefing room. When Sam stormed into the office that West had claimed as his own, it was without pretense or fanfare.

The General's cheeks instantly flushed with rage, and the bellow that boomed through the enclosed space startled the already spooked guards that Sam had ignored. "What is the meaning of this?!" West demanded, bluster betraying his surprise and unpreparedness. Catherine wondered silently if the General had expected Sam to be away longer than she had. Perhaps that accounted for the uncharacteristic bluster.

But to her credit, Sam didn't back down, or waver even an inch. She closed the distance between herself and the General's desk, leveling a hard stare on him and him alone.

"You know why I'm here."

The statement was abrupt and unadorned, chilling in its delivery. Sam's usually bright tone had dropped away, leaving nothing but hard anger behind. It was tempered from what might have been a rage down in the empty office, honed into a lethal blade.

All bluster faded away from the General's demeanor, and soon he was returning Sam's stare with an unyielding eye of his own. When he spoke, though, his words were for the guards who had failed to run interference. "Get out."

The General's eyes flicked towards Catherine, who immediately realized he expected her to obey the same orders. But she didn't move until Sam regarded her smoothly. She nodded. "It's all right."

Catherine tamped down the surge of disappointment that rose within her at being denied the chance to watch the General's undoing; she nodded in return, then turned to leave. Sam was more than capable of taking care of herself. Catherine could be of no help to her in there anyway. Catherine let the door slam shut behind her, but remained close.

Just in case.

Sam stared long and hard at the man in front of her. She disregarded the stars on his soldiers, and the supercilious expression laid over his features. Beneath it she saw nothing but a man, innately flawed and tainted by a lust for power.

She wondered if he'd enjoyed groveling to her father the President, just to maybe one day become something more than a candidate.

In the end, she didn't care.

The man was already talking, blowing smoke about respect and Chain of Command.

"Shut up," she delivered bluntly. The General's round chin bobbed as he swallowed. His eyes hardened dangerously, but he remained silent. "I know what you did."

"Captain O'Neill was needed for this mission—"

"I said shut up." Her voice dropped another octave. "You didn't need Jack O'Neill for anything. He might have been the best once, and once upon a time your needing him might have been true. But he has just spent four months in a POW camp. You and I both know that he'd been tortured for information. You have no idea if he's still any good in a field. A psychological evaluation might have told you, but Jack was never evaluated."

"There wasn't time—"

"My father tried to unload the same pile of crap on me, and I'll tell you the same thing I told him: you can make excuses all you like, but the truth of the matter is that you sent a mentally unsound man into combat."

The General leaned forward in his chair, folding his hands atop his desk. His features remained smooth, devoid of any kind of remorse or chagrin. "You would do well to mind yourself, Doctor Carter, or I will have you removed from this base."

"Try it," Sam retorted. "I dare you."

West blinked. He'd expected her to roll over instantly, no doubt. He certainly hadn't expected her to have a backbone. Idiot.

"Because the only thing that will save your career," she continued, "is if I personally see Captain Jack O'Neill come back through that Stargate alive." The General's features hardened, but paled minutely. She had his attention now. "I have already informed my father that if Jack O'Neill fails to return, I will charge the both of you with murder."

"That's ridic—"

"Is it really? You exercised deliberate intent when you refused to let Dr. Langford speak to Jack before he left. And no doubt the documents, whatever documents there may be, have been doctored to hide the conspiracy between you and my father, but even then I still have you on negligent homicide. Any shrink who looked at Jack's file would tell you that he was not fit for duty."

The General paled, visibly blanching for the first time. "You'll never prove anything. This entire operation is classified. None of this will ever see the light of day, let alone go to court."

Sam's lips curled into a mirthless smile. "Then I will tear apart your life until I find something to hang you with. Every decision you've made, every order you ever gave in the last twenty years will be scrutinized. Your spotless career you're just itching to retire from will be dissected, exposed for the world to see." She paused briefly, relishing in the man's sudden unsettled features. "Scum like you are creatures of habit. I seriously doubt your exemplary career is as clean as you'd like everyone to think."

The General had nothing to say to that. His glare turned dangerously chill, but Sam wasn't fazed. "Are you threatening me?"

"I wouldn't dream of threatening you, General. It's a promise."

A long moment of silence passed, and neither of them said anything. Finally, Sam decided she'd wasted enough time. Her insides were starting to resume their quaking, and the nausea had returned at the thought that Jack might not make it back.

No. He would. He had to.

Leveling one last hard stare at the General, Sam considered what last parting shot she might throw at him. But no barb came to mind, and in the end, she simply turned on her heel and left, letting the door slam shut behind her.

Catherine stood waiting in the briefing room, staring through the windows at the Stargate. Sam crossed the room to join her, and when her eyes rested on the device's dormant shape, a deep sense of loss washed over her at having missed its few moments of life. The chance to see her work realized had been stolen from her, she realized, just as Jack had been. It hurt, more than she ever thought it would.

"Tell me everything."