*
*
*
Blinking back tears, Sam tried to force her eyes to adjust quickly, but her reflexes had her eyelids shutting despite her intentions. She started to back up, one hand waving her damn shoe in front of her in case she was attacked, the other hand shielding her eyes.
"I'm sorry, Sam. Did the lights surprise you? We've been having some power problems recently."
Frakes. The voice was definitely his, but the tone was all wrong. It was the amused, smug tone of a Goa'uld who knew that he had won.
Sam peered through her fingers, still blinking the temporary blindness away. No wonder the lights had blinded her so efficiently, the place was decorated like a palace. Mirrors and gold lamp stands, tapestries and exotic knickknacks, crystal chandeliers and billions of lights. It may well have been an underground basement, but the Goa'uld had certainly not let that stop their flair for... ugly decorations.
Slowly, she pulled her hand down, focussed on the only two occupants of the room.
"Why am I here?" she demanded.
Frakes smiled and looked down at the tiled floor. It was with considerable revulsion that she watched his half-hidden eyes flash. "Because we invited you. Please, take a seat."
He moved away from the golden fireplace, gesturing to one of the velvet couches while he took the seat next to Mut on the opposite, matching couch.
Sam really didn't want to sit on the couch. And not just because if she got close to them her skin would start to try and tear itself from her body. "You know, I'm perfectly happy standing..."
"We'd much prefer that you sat," Mut said, smiling that tight, frosty little smile. "Please. Sit." She uttered the last word in a far more forceful tone.
"You know," she waved her shoes around, "my feet have been hurting. Maybe I'll... sit." Gritting her teeth and making damn sure there was no one behind the couch, Sam went to sit down, sitting so her back was to the fireplace and she could get a good look at the rest of the room and keep an eye on her hosts.
Hah. Hosts. She really cracked herself up.
It was a large room, the walls covered with tapestries and lengths of rich material and huge gilt mirrors. Probably to make up for the lack of windows, though she didn't think the Goa'uld really went for nice views. Unless, of course, it was a view of a temple or worshippers bowing to their 'generous' god.
Yeah. That was probably it.
Furnishings, rich, antique-looking, and in vibrant jewel tones were dotted about the room as if there were several sitting areas. There were no bookcases, no signs of technology beyond the various lights dotted about the room.
"Are you cold? We could light the fire," Mut asked, seemingly out of a hostess-like concern for her guest.
Sam looked at the fireplace. "Er, no, I'm - "
The fire turned on, abruptly.
Neither of the Goa'uld had moved.
Now, Sam wasn't some innocent human. She wasn't even really human anymore. She knew neither of the Goa'uld had any 'magical' powers. She knew they couldn't light fires.
She knew that.
Samantha Clorel didn't.
"H... h... how did you do that? It is on a timer?" she whispered, staring at the fire first, then the Goa'uld.
Both Goa'uld smiled. Smugly.
"Sam, it is nice to see you again," Frakes said, smiling that disarming smile that still reminded her of Colonel O'Neill.
She realized she ought to come up with an explanation for her initial reaction to him. "I was pretty surprised to see you myself. I'm.. I'm sorry I ran away from you the other evening. I suddenly got really... ashamed. I didn't know what you'd think when you saw me again. I, ah, didn't know you two knew each other."
Frakes and Mut looked at each other, then their hands reached out, fingers linking. For the first time, Sam noticed a gold ring on Frakes' finger. A counterpart to the ring on Mut's hand.
A roar of fear interrupted any thought processes Sam might have had. She was pretty sure Frakes hadn't been married when they'd slept together - as if she really needed any more guilt for that night - so this had to be a new occurrence. And, presumably, the snakes had been... married before. There had to be two symbiotes lost, then.
Maybourne had lied to her.
She cast that thought aside for the moment, to deal with later. When she'd, you know, kill him.
What had Mut's husband been in the file? Amun, wasn't it? She desperately searched for anything she could remember about Amun that struck her as important but all she could think of was that he had apparently been able to change his physical form at will. Which simply wasn't possible.
Okay, okay, so there had been a lot of things in the past few years that had been impossible. But until she saw him change shape she was going to go on the basis that he couldn't and it was some myth.
"You're... married?" she asked, her voice theatrically hoarse.
"As of one week ago. You could say.... it was destiny," Mut said, a slow, warm smile spreading as she looked at her 'husband'.
Sam swallowed and sought for something to say. "Wow. A whirlwind romance, then."
Mut's brow furrowed at the expression but eventually she nodded, reluctantly turning away from her husband to look at Sam. She flicked her eyes up and down Sam's appearance disparagingly. "Ms Clorel, we have summoned you here for a reason."
Sam itched to pull her skirt down across her thighs. It was Mut's damn uniform anyway. Then again, she was still holding her shoes in her hands. There was no way in hell she was going to put them down though. "This isn't a social call?"
The joke was weak and only Sam got it. The two Goa'uld looked at her like she'd started tap-dancing on the coffee table.
Not that it really was a coffee table, Sam thought. More of a decorative piece of furniture. She certainly couldn't imagine...
Okay. Now was so not the time to mentally imagine the Goa'uld sipping coffee and discussing the morning papers.
"We were concerned about you, my dear," Frakes said, his tone suddenly paternal. "You seemed so shocked to see us... me the other evening. I, of course, never expected to see you again and when I explained the situation to my wife, she thought you'd like to talk."
Sam blinked. "No, no, I'm fine. Really. Nothing to talk about."
"How very... modern of you, my dear."
Any moment now, Sam thought, they were going to offer her tea and cake.
"Tell me a little about yourself, Samantha," Mut continued smoothly, but there was an underlying edge to her words that was distinctly metallic. There was no way Sam would be able to get out of it. "Some background, if you please. I enjoy knowing about my staff."
"Um, there's nothing much to tell, really."
"I'm sure that's not true."
She fiddled with the edge of her skirt, trying - very easily - to look nervous. "Okay, well, up until a few months ago I lived with my parents. They... well, they died."
Mut and Daniel Frakes leaned slightly forward.
"Indeed?" Mut murmured. "How tragic. Forgive me for being indelicate, but how did they die?"
"Oh." Sam's eyes flickered beyond them. "They were... murdered. Someone must have got into the house. Several someones, the police said. There was no way one person could have.. have... done what they did by themselves. It was horrible."
"Terrifying," Daniel Frakes said dryly. "The police never found the perpetrators?"
Sam shook her head, allowing herself to study the man. Considering she had a fairly good knowledge of the man's body, she was finding it far easier to detach herself from him than she'd thought she would. All she could see when she looked into his eyes now was the Goa'uld - the arrogance, the all-knowing attitude, and the sense that she was nothing to him. She couldn't see the warmth that had been in his eyes when she had first met him, the humor that had reminded her so much of Colonel O'Neill. All that had been lost now. The host was being repressed by the symbiote and there was nothing here on Earth that she could do to save him.
"The last time my husband met you, you were working in some kind of a bar. That must be interesting work. All the new people."
Sam focussed on the female Goa'uld and tried to drum up some sort of conversational response. "Yes, it was. I mean, it was only a part time job. Just to get me on my feet, so to speak. I never thought an internationally famous film star would walk in." She smiled weakly and watched as identical, frozen smiles spread across the Goa'uld's faces.
God, why didn't they try to kill her already?
Maybe they were.
Sam's eyes widened.
Death by small talk.
Please don't let them use it on the Colonel, she thought inanely.
She lowered her head, sure she was verging on hysterical for her to be actually amused at her own private jokes, and stared at the heels of her shoes. She'd never noticed before, but the heels of her shoes had some sort of metal support running through them. Handy.
Movement had her head jerking up and she watched Mut rise and smooth her dress down. "Do you have brothers, sisters, Ms Clorel?" she asked, walking towards the fireplace and holding out her hands, as if to warm them.
"Ah, no. I don't."
"An only child, then," Frakes murmured, drawing her attention back from Mut. "Like me. I always wished for a brother or sister."
Unable to look away from Mut, but knowing it would seem odd if she kept staring, Sam forced her head back to Frakes. "Yeah, me too. You know," she said, making sure her voice was just tentative enough, "I'm on shift tonight. I don't suppose you know what time it is?" She flicked her eyes towards Mut, who was now reaching for a ceramic urn sitting in the center of the mantelpiece, and then back to Frakes.
"You know, I don't seem to have my watch on me, but I'm sure it's not late," he said smoothly, taking an inordinately long time to check his wrist.
She was starting to feel... weird. Her instincts were telling her that Mut was up to something but it was hard to subtly turn halfway around and watch the woman while Frakes was talking to her.
Shifting on the couch, Sam moved a little more around, fixing a smile on her face. "This is a nice room. Did you get an interior designer?" she asked, aiming the question at Mut.
Mut had now taken the urn from the mantelpiece and was looking inside it. Casually, she turned around and regarded Sam with supposed innocence. "Interior decorators? No, no." She smiled slightly and Sam felt a shiver run down her spine. She reached inside the urn.
"Is that a cookie jar?" Sam asked, hopefully.
The Goa'uld pulled her hand out and flexed her hand, admiring the hand device serenely.
Sam couldn't help the sigh. "Oh.... I should have seen that coming."
*
"How's the head?"
She squinted at him, wishing she could somehow pull her cap down over her eyes and still walk competently. "You know... when you get knocked unconscious?"
He smiled slightly and helped her over a log. "Yes."
"And then you have to get up and do something. Like... run ten miles."
The Colonel nodded, his smile spreading. "Yup."
"And after that ten mile run you have to sit through a three hour exam on brain surgery that you haven't studied for and wouldn't know where to start."
He snorted. "We'll just say I know the feeling, okay?"
"And after *that*, you have to explain why the SGC is a worthwhile military organization to Senator Kinsey."
"Oh *yeah*."
"This is worse."
The Colonel patted her on the back, grinning. "Never mind, Carter. Only three more klicks to the 'gate and the Doc can drug you up as soon as we get home."
"Oooh," she said, with the utmost pleasure. "Best thought you've had all day, sir."
"I aim to please, Carter, I aim to please."
*
"Now, Ms Clorel, don't panic," Frakes said, standing up smoothly.
Sam rolled her eyes. "Don't panic?"
"I take it from your expression you have seen a hand device before." She glared at him as he came to loom over her. "Well, then you'll know there is little you can do about it. You have a choice. You can tell us everything you know or we can force the information out of you."
"What information?"
Mut raised her hand. "My dear, do cooperate."
Sam shifted some more on the sofa but Frakes put a restraining hand on her shoulder. And pressed. Her bones creaked. "I really don't know what you're talking about," she said, eyeing the hand device. "And... what exactly do you want to know?"
"What do you know of the Goa'uld?"
"The... uh!" The hand device activated and Sam automatically flinched back. Shit! What was she supposed to do now? God, she hated those things.
"Ms Clorel, you know what will happen should my wife chose to use that device in force. I'd advise you to relinquish any ideas you have about resisting and answer our questions." His eyes flashed and Sam felt her heart jump towards her throat in revulsion.
"What do you know of the Goa'uld?" Mut demanded. And gone was the human voice, the light European accent. This was the voice of the Goa'uld.
"I know they have terrible taste in decorations."
Frakes reacted instantly, pulling his hand away from her shoulder to give her a blow across the head and though her head rung with pain and her skull reverberated with the impact, he had made a mistake in releasing her. She flipped the shoe in her right hand around, the heel facing upwards, and stood swiftly, swinging her arm upwards towards Mut.
Panic, adrenaline and sheer will considerably strengthened Sam's reaction. The heel of the shoe hit Mut's temple with a solidity that made Sam's teeth clench and sent the woman reeling back towards the mantelpiece where her head cracked loudly on the marble ledge. She slumped down to the ground.
Instinctively knowing Frakes would retaliate violently once again, Sam was already ducking and moving when she saw the blur of his arm move towards her for the second time. His fist glanced the back of her head, but she was already in motion, getting the hell away as fast as she could.
Running blindly, Sam headed straight for the doors, knowing that her measly human strength was no match for an enraged Goa'uld. The hallway was nowhere near as dark as it had been before but now she could see that where the elevator had been, there was now a dark, empty space. She ran to the doorway and looked down, noted the wires and the very abrupt end down below. She turned her head up and saw the bottom of the elevator.
Turning around, she could see no one had followed her - but that wasn't exactly comforting.
The wires started moving and she jerked back. The elevator was coming down.
Well and truly panicking now, Sam began to try the doors that were on either side, twirling the handles and pushing. No luck. Typical.
Swallowing hard, she backed further away from the descending elevator, just as the floor of the elevator came into view. There was nowhere to go. If she went back, it would be either to face one irate Goa'uld or two. And there was no way they were going to let her go now.
Taking the most advantageous position she could find, on the right hand side of the elevator, Sam pressed herself up against the wall, trying to keep an eye on the hallway she'd just run through and on the elevator opening itself, waiting for someone to step through. She turned the left shoe in her hand, looking down at the heel. They hadn't covered shoe combat in basic training but it was proving a pretty effective weapon.
The elevator came to a halt, the wires grinding to a stop. She waited, listening intently for any sound at all.
A tingling began on the back of her neck. She clenched her teeth together and rolled her shoulders. There was another Goa'uld here.
Reckoning she'd have to just go for the surprise attack, Sam counted slowly to three.
One.
Two.
Three.
Spinning around into the opening, her heart all but beating in her mouth, Sam raised her arm, ready to strike. Moments before she felled her hand, her brain kicked in and reigned in all impulses to attack. Her arm froze.
Teal'c blinked at her impassively, every inch the unmoving warrior. Looking at the shoe held high above his head, he reached up and calmly put a hand on her frozen wrist. "That will not be necessary, MajorCarter."
Sam felt her knees begin to shake. "Teal'c," she said, proud that her voice was steady. "It's really good to see you."
"As it is to see you, MajorCarter. Where are the Goa'uld?"
"Mut is... well, unconscious but she might have recovered."
"And her husband?"
She leaned her forehead against his solidly reassuring chest, for the moment accepting simply that he was here and that she wasn't alone. "I don't know. I thought he'd chase after me but he didn't."
"We must find them."
For the first time, she noticed that he was carrying his staff weapon and had a zat strapped to his waist. She smiled and dropped her shoe on the floor as he pulled the zat from his waist and handed it to her. "That's more like it," she said, happily.
Squeezing the trigger, the zat stretched out. "Much better," she said confidently, turning around and looking into the dark hallway. "Okay, now I can kick ass."
"Indeed," he said dryly.
"This way."
She retraced her footsteps, heading straight back into the gaudy room. The urn was lying on the floor by the mantelpiece, along with her other shoe. She picked it up and showed him the blood on the end of the heel. "I whacked her with this."
He raised an eyebrow. "Most ingenious." He reached out and tapped the wall on the side of the fireplace. "These walls are hollow," he announced, his eyes scouring the rest of the room. "In some very ancient Goa'uld palaces, there were corridors running parallel to all main hallways and corridors. For observation," he added.
Sam wondered if that had anything to do with her sensing a Goa'uld presence when there was none.
"Do you think that's true here?" She went to tap on the walls herself, walking along the length of the one to the right of the fireplace, finding where the wall sounded more hollow in certain places than others.
"Yes. There must be some kind of a entrance." He ran his hands over the wall, fingernails scratching.
Sam followed his lead, studying the walls intently. She pulled back a tapestry - a monstrous thing in red and gold - and laughed. "How about a door, Teal'c?" she asked. She reached for the handle and noticed that there was a perfect fingerprint of blood etched on the gold finish.
He, too, seemed to see the humor of the situation, which was good. Hysterical inappropriate humor was definitely a bad thing, after all.
They pulled open the door, weapons raised, and gazed at the dark, seemingly endless corridor in front of them. Sam moved slightly, and suddenly a shaft of light from the room reflected clearly on the two bodies lying slumped at the base of the steps.
Teal'c charged his staff weapon and aimed it down at the Goa'uld, taking the initiative and stepping cautiously down towards them.
"Teal'c," Sam whispered. "I can't feel... I can't sense the Goa'uld."
He crouched down and pushed Mut onto her front. He touched the back of her neck. "She is dead and the symbiote is gone."
She climbed down after him. "Frakes?"
Teal'c repeated the procedure with Frakes, then checked his pulse. He turned back to look at Sam. "He is alive. There is blood in his mouth; I believe the symbiote exited via the throat."
"Can they do that?"
"It usually means suicide. And no Goa'uld would do that."
Frakes moaned suddenly and Teal'c rose to standing. "We must think of a cover story, Major Carter."
Behind, in the distance, Sam heard the sound of running feet. She turned and heard the Colonel's voice, calling her name.
*
Ms Buckingham's black eye was pretty impressive. She was also chain smoking, replacing each hurriedly finished cigarette with another, and pacing. Daniel was doing a good job calming her down, though, because she'd finally stopped swearing.
"Maybourne," Sam stated.
The Colonel shrugged slightly. "Looks like it." He didn't look surprised. "I imagine, knowing Mut was fully involved with you, he decided now would be the best time to raid Luxor. Particularly since Mut had taken the precaution of closing the club for the night. Using the diagram we gave him, he and his men found the entrance in the basement and ran straight into the escaping Goa'uld. If it wasn't Maybourne, I would have said it was really well planned."
"Doesn't explain how the Goa'uld got out of Frakes without killing him," she whispered, uncomfortably hopping from foot to foot.
"It is possible Maybourne reasoned with the symbiotes," Teal'c said slowly, the word 'reasoned' obviously not something he was used to using in a sentence with 'symbiotes'.
Colonel O'Neill and Sam looked at him sharply.
"I imagine Colonel Maybourne had some kind of containment vessel prepared for the safe transportation of the symbiotes," Teal'c said, his eyes on the pacing Ms Buckingham and a patiently explaining Daniel. "The female host was dying, the blows to her head could have been easily healed by the symbiote had she been able to rest and recover, but she was not able to do so."
"So Maybourne, what, told them to jump out?" the Colonel hissed, sounding disbelieving.
"They had no choice. They were surrounded," Teal'c pointed out calmly. "He may have had plans for them."
Sam's blood ran cold. "You mean, other hosts?"
"It is Maybourne. Dammit." The Colonel paced away, leaving Sam to close her eyes and hope to God Maybourne had no such plans.
Teal'c put a hand on her shoulder. "You could do little else to stop them, Major Carter."
"I could have tried to fight them."
"You would have failed."
She snorted. "Thanks for the vote of confidence, Teal'c."
"I have great confidence in you, Major Carter," he said, inclining his head. "In all things."
She stared at him, wondering how much he knew, why he was here, how he had known where she was. It had been clear the moment the Colonel had raced into the passageway that he hadn't known Teal'c was around, which led Sam to wonder just how Teal'c had known where to find her.
"Teal'c, how did you get here?"
He tilted his chin up proudly. "I drove."
She laughed. "No, really, Teal'c. How did you get here?"
"I returned from Chulak early and received the message from Colonel O'Neill. I thought it best that I operated as your back-up should a time arise when you needed me."
"Oh. How.. how long have you been here?"
"A few days," he said evasively.
Colonel O'Neill paced back to them, hands on his hips and a scowl on his face. "We'd better get back to the SGC and report. I have five missed calls from Hammond on my cell." The Colonel eyed Teal'c suspiciously. "Did he send you?"
"General Hammond did not. He did, however, recently introduce me to the practice of car rental."
The Colonel smiled slightly and shook his head. "Yeah. That's what I thought."