Sam looked at the gun, into the trees and back at Malcolm. He was shaking his head as if he wasn't quite sure what had happened to him. He straightened up and caught sight of her.

"Sam?" he glanced down at the bullet wound in her leg and frowned. "Sam, what happened?" Jack's voice was still coming through the radio and she hesitated for a fraction of a second. He looked at it and she saw it, as if a door slammed shut behind his eyes and once again he was gone.

She risked shooting the treeline one more glance and prayed that Jack was still watching. She scooted several inches across the ground ignoring her leg that screamed in protest and kicked the pistol as hard as she could towards the tree.

She knew Malcolm guessed what she was going to do before she even moved, his eyes narrowed and he dived towards her knocking her back down in his mad scramble to get back to his gun.

Jack was on his feet, rifle at his side, ready to screw any plan he might have had in mind in his desperation to get to Sam. He saw her glance at the treeline and even though he wasn't looking through the scope, he knew she was trying to tell him something.

He saw her move and he started running. He had cleared the trees before the gun went spinning across the grass but he was still yards away and Barrett was already crawling towards it. His bad knee was threatening to buckle under him, but he didn't slow, he was almost there.

Time slowed as Sam saw Malcolm's hand close over the grip of the pistol and he turned to point it at her just as Jack came tearing across the field and slammed into the other and the two of them went sprawling to the ground.

The rage that had been building and Jack since he first saw Sam and Malcolm through the scope had boiled over. He flung his control to the wind as he frantically ran across the grass to get to Sam.

They had gone down hard, Jack heard the agent's head impact with the hard ground. The force had knocked the gun from his hand again and sent it sailing several feet away. His hands raked through the grass trying to grab for it, but Jack pinned him to the ground, weighing him down. Jack buried his fist into the agent's face, enjoying the feel of his skin giving way against his knuckles and the satisfaction it gave him. Then again, and again, just as he had envisioned. It was cathartic. He heard Sam yelling but he couldn't make himself stop.

"Jack! Jack stop!" Sam yelled urgently. He was either ignoring her, or was so enraged that he couldn't even hear her. She tried to slide over to him, but her injured leg was making it difficult. "Sir!" she tried desperately one more time. He paused for a second, fist in the air.

"Sir, stop please. That's not him, he's been brainwashed."

"Don't give a damn, he shot you Sam," Jack said, voice laced with fury.

"I know," she said. "I know he did. But that's how I know that wasn't really him. Look, he would never actually do it."

For a moment she thought he was going to continue pummeling the other man, but he finally lowered his fist, and climbed off the NID agent, who groaned faintly as blood ran freely from his nose down his face. "I'm not sorry about that though," he said, waving vaguely down. "Brainwashed or not, bastard deserved it."

"Yes Sir," she said, sounding amused despite everything.

He hurried over to her and knelt down next to her, his gentle hand slid under her back and carefully eased her up, off her aching shoulder. Relief was still washing over him over the fact that she was still sitting here in front of him. That had been close, maybe too close. But he couldn't focus on what he had almost lost right now. He looked her over. What he hadn't been able to see through the scope was the large welt on her cheek and the beginnings of a black eye.

He walked over to her and looked her over.

"Sam," he whispered, running a thumb gently across her face. Regret filled him at what had happened. "I'm so sorry Sam."

"Not your fault," she whispered back.

"I never should have left," he said, sounding frustrated.

"Jack," she said. She tried to put it all in his name. That she understood, that he hadn't done anything wrong and that there was no blame to be cast. He must have felt it, even though she knew he wouldn't completely accept it, because he looked her in the eyes and brushed a loose piece of her hair off her battered and bruised face.

"I love you," he said.

"Love you too."

He was here. Sam just wanted to close her eyes and lean against him. His mere presence seemed to ease some of the aching pain that was threatening to consume her. She took a deep breath and savored his familiar smell and the way it made her feel. Even if they were the furthest thing from it, he was safe. He was home.

Jack had fished a knife out of the unconscious Barrett's pocket and cut the tie off Sam's hands. She tried to rub some feeling back into her wrists that had been rubbed raw.

"Okay," Jack said as he used another tie to secure the other man. "What's going on here? Why is a NID agent and a bunch of thugs invading my cabin?"

"It's the Trust," Sam answered. "They're the ones who brainwashed Malcolm and that's why they want the four of us. Once they can control us, they'll have spies in the highest levels of Stargate Command."

Jack's blood ran cold. "Sam," he said. "Where are Daniel and Teal'c? It wasn't that he had forgotten about them, but in his rush to keep Sam safe, they had slipped from the forefront of his mind.

"Still in the cabin," she said urgently

"Shit," he hissed. "I need to get them out."