As promised, here is chapter 11 and this is the penultimate chapter.  I have to thank Naliza for being a great beta and a wonderful friend.

Thanks to everyone who has reviewed, it's very much appreciated and your kind words help to keep me going when things get tough!

Not much else to say at the moment so on with the story…

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"Give me the keys," the owner of the gun pressed against Sam's head shouted into her ear. 

Sam hesitated, her mind racing with the images of the last time she had found herself with a gun to her head.  Her hands trembled as she held on to the keys with an iron grip, the uneven metal cutting into her palm.

Her hesitation caused a reaction from the man nearest to her, her roughly grabbed her upper arm and pulled her away from Jack's reassuring touch.  She spun slightly and got her first look at the guys who were trying to rob them.  They were both in their mid twenties and with short hair.  The one holding the gun to Jack's head had a small tattoo of a spider web visible on his wrist, while the one with the gun on her had a nose stud. 

With a shiver, she noted that they were both wearing wind breakers, one blue and one green, 'Blue' was the one holding the gun on her, 'Green' had his weapon on Jack.

"Give me the keys and your wallets," Blue shouted again.

Jack calmly reached into his back pocket and pulled out his wallet.  He wished that he had a weapon on him or that at the very least he was in a more favourable tactical situation than a deserted parking lot with a gun to both his and Sam's heads. 

He could see that Sam looked shaken; the tremors in her hands were clear, even from a distance.  He remember the scene from the video, with the guy from the planet holding her P90 to her temple, therefore it was not a surprise to him that she was not reacting well to the very unfavourable situation.

He slowly handed over his wallet to the guy with the tattoo.  Jack was still looking for a way to stop the robbery from happening at all but he knew that he would almost definitely need Sam's help.  He managed to meet her eyes.  He saw her visibly relax as he held her gaze, after a few seconds he saw her jaw set and her head nod slightly.

Her moment of composure was lost as Sam noticed that Blue was looking closely at her with his hand still clasped around her upper arm.  His eyes went up and down her body, an action that brought the tremors back to Sam's hands and an intense feeling of anger to Jack.

"Look, just hand over the keys and your purse and I won't have to mess up that pretty face of yours," Blue said in a dangerous quiet tone while flexing his grip on the pistol slightly, it made Jack feel very nervous.

"What's wrong with you lady?" Green shouted angrily from Jack's side.  "Look, if you don't hand over your stuff then your bloke here will end up with a bullet in his head."

As an act of encouragement, Jack received a vicious punch to his face; he recovered quickly and shook his head to Sam to indicate that he was okay.

With a deep breath, Sam gave over her keys and her purse.  As she handed them over Blue took hold of her slightly shaking hand and started to gently trace circles on her skin.  Sam closed her eyes in a bid to block out the flashback from P4Y-543, of the man touching her and the cold realisation of what was going to happen to her.

Trying to calm herself enough she opened her eyes and nodded slightly to Jack before swinging around and planting a solid punch squarely on Blue's face.  Jack reacted a second afterwards with a punch of his own on the other guy's face.

'Tattoo', as Jack had dubbed him, was obviously not expecting the attack from Jack since he almost immediately dropped the pistol and Jack's wallet and ran off into the night.  Jack started to give chase but quickly stopped as he realised that Sam was landing punch after punch on the guy he had christened 'Pierce', due to his nose stud.

He had also dropped the weapon and Sam's purse was laying on the ground, the contents spilling across the asphalt.  Pierce looked shocked, he was trying to fight back but Sam was blocking his every move.  Jack quickly grabbed both the stray weapons from the ground and, after putting the safety on, he tucked one in his belt while keeping the other in his hand.  He realised that Pierce was not going to pose a threat but Sam was still continuing her attack.

Sam was not in the parking lot, in her mind she was still on P4Y-543, it was not a young man in a blue wind breaker and pierced nose she was attacking, instead it was a man with a blue and white painted face.  She did not notice him stop resisting nor did she hear Jack shout her name.

It was only as he tackled her, his strong arms wrapping around her body, pining her flailing arms to her side that she realised where she was and what was really happening.

Blue fell to the floor beside the car, unconscious.  Sam brought up her arms from her side as Jack relaxed his grip slightly, he assumed that she was about to wrap them around him for a reassuring hug but instead she put her palms on his chest and pushed him away with some force.

He released her and watched as she ran quickly across the parking lot.  The sound of her retching reached across the quiet expanse to Jack.  He switched his vision between Sam and the still unconscious man on the floor.  He crossed to him and reached a hand inside his collar, felt for a pulse and checked his breathing, thankfully both seemed regular.

He grabbed Sam's cell phone which had fallen out of her purse when it had been dropped and called 911, requesting the police and an ambulance.  He glanced in Sam's direction as he spoke.  She was still bent double and coughing heavily.  She quite obviously wanted to be alone and until the police arrived Jack felt there was no need to crowd her.

He opened the car and searched for a bottle of water, finding one behind the driver's seat.  For a while he just sat quietly in the driver's seat, his feet scuffing on the asphalt.  Eventually he pulled the gun from his belt and put it on the dashboard, the other he kept in his hand, turning it over.  The adrenaline that had come with the situation was beginning to go and his cheekbone, where the punch that he had almost forgotten about had landed, was beginning to sting.

Sam walked over slowly as she saw the flashing lights of a police car pulling into the parking lot; she had managed to reign in her nausea but seeing the guy lying still on the ground brought more unpleasant memories back.

Jack did not say anything to her, he just sat her down in the car and handed her the now open bottle of water.  She appreciated his decision to remain silent; his tense face that was at that moment observing her told her that he was disappointed and more than slightly shocked at her reaction to the situation.

The police car was quickly followed by an ambulance, the medics expertly started to work on the guy who had tried to rob them.  Another police car followed the ambulance.  One of the police officers stood and watched over the medics, while another came over to talk to Jack.

"Excuse me Sir?" the police officer said.  Jack quickly brought his attention to the officer and away from Sam who was staring at the bottle of water clasped in her hands.  She successfully ignored another cop, a woman, who was trying to ask her questions.  The officer had obviously mistaken the cause of Sam's state of shock, assuming that the trauma of being held at gunpoint had caused her almost catatonic state.

"Sorry," Jack apologised.

"What's your name, Sir?"

"Jack O'Neill and Samantha Carter," he supplied.

"So what happened here?" the officer asked.

Jack explained what had happened; he glossed over the majority of details pertaining to Sam's attack on the guy who had threatened her, which did not go unmissed by the officer.

"So what happened to this guy?" he said, indicating the guy who was currently being loaded into the back of the ambulance.

"I did it," Sam said quietly, finding her voice.  She managed to tear herself away from the repeating visions from P4Y-543, the feeling of Blue's hands on her body, the fear she felt at a level that she had never felt before.  The visions of Harris' lifeless, with the knife embedded in his chest, the crimson blood seeping over Daniel's BDUs after the bullet had torn through his shoulder.

"You, Ma'am?" the officer asked slightly incredulously.  He looked critically at her; he had seen the not insignificant damage done to the man who had tried to rob them.

Jack laughed slightly at the disbelieving look that had appeared on the face of the young officer, who himself look like a stiff breeze would knock him over.  People often underestimated just what Sam was capable of, whether it was on or off world.

"Yeah.  Officer, I'm a Lieutenant Colonel in the Air Force, I know how to look after myself," Sam replied forcefully.

"Is that what you call looking after yourself?  The guy looked pretty badly hurt," he asked with raised eyebrows.

"Look, he had a gun to my head, his 'friend' had already hit Jack and had gun to his head too.  He was fighting back, I did what I had to do."

"Okay," he replied, still slightly suspiciously.

"He's gonna be okay, right?" Jack asked.  He noticed Sam tensing up as he spoke.

"The EMT's seemed to think so.  You should get a doctor to look at that eye, Sir."

"It's nothing, I've had much worse," Jack replied flippantly.

"Sir?" the officer asked.

"I recently retired from the Air Force," he offered.

"Sir, Ma'am, we need to take formal statements and get you to look at some mug shots."

"Do we have to do this tonight, it's been a really long day," Sam pleaded.

"I'm sorry Ma'am, it really should be tonight, best to get everything down when it's fresh in your mind."

"Okay, let's just get it over and done with then."

*~*

Sam sat in a small, harshly lit office.  A lukewarm cup of thick institutional coffee nested in the chipped mug on the cold metal table in front of her.  She thumbed through the large book of mug shots, absently marvelling at just how the photographer managed to make every one of the faces staring back at her look like a serial killer.  Towards the back of the book she saw Green's face and pointed him out to the officer sitting across from her, who simply nodded in response.

"Thank you Ma'am.  I'll go and see if my colleagues have finished with your friend," the detective said as he stood and took the book off the table and left Sam alone in the room.

She knew that she would have to face Jack, look into his eyes and see the disapproval that she had seen before.  In her eyes, he had every right to be disgusted with her, she felt sick when she thought of what she had done, Blue was far from innocent but he had not been the one who had tried to rape her.

Picking up the cup she took a tentative sip, shuddering as she swallowed the thick, bitter liquid.  This coffee was much worse than anything the SGC had to offer in the past.  She was pretty sure that Daniel had used his influence to get some semi-descent coffee brought in to the base a few years ago and everyone had been grateful for that ever since.

"You're pretty lucky, you know that?" the detective said as he came back into the room, shaking Sam from her thoughts.

"Lucky?"

"You and your friend both picked out the same guy, he's wanted for murder, along with his friend who you put in the hospital.  They killed a young couple during a car jacking not so long ago," the detective told Sam. 

The news brought a shiver to Sam; the idea that she and Jack could have been killed was shocking and something that she had not anticipated.  At first she thought that she was going to be charged with assault following her attack on Green but the police seemed satisfied that she was acting in self-defence.

"We're done for now Ma'am, we might need to speak with you again and we've got your details so we can contact you."

"Thanks," Sam replied quietly.

"Ma'am, are you sure that you're okay.  You've been through a lot, you might want to get checked out by a doctor," the detective said, he was looking Sam over with concern.

"I'm fine, just tired, I arrived at work early this morning," Sam tried to introduce flippancy into her voice.  The initial shock of the attack had worn off; facing Jack was worrying her now.  His opinion of her meant a lot; it always had, even when they had both been bound by military ranks and regulations.

She slowly stood and followed the detective out into the corridor.  Jack was sitting on a metal bench.  He looked up from his shoes, which he had been studying closely, as she neared him and smiled slightly.  Sam sighed deeply as she saw him, she was sure that she saw disappointment radiating from him as he stood and went to wrap his arms around her.

She accepted his gesture for a few seconds before she broke away from him.

"Thanks Detective," Jack said, reaching out and shaking the middle-aged man's hand.

He followed Sam out the concrete building and to where the car that was parked.   Feeling more than sober enough to drive, Jack started the quiet ride home, neither of them spoke.  Sam sat with her arms wrapped around herself, a posture that screamed 'stay away'

Jack was eager to talk to her about what had happened, they had not shared a word since the attack.  He chose to wait until they were in familiar surroundings before confronting her.

Anger had been slowly building up inside Sam during the ride home.  What had started out as a gently simmering feeling in the pit of her stomach that she was easily able to ignore had quickly become a violently boiling, all consuming sensation.

She rushed into the house as soon as Jack stopped the engine.  Locking the car as quickly as he could he followed her in.

"Look Sam, we need to talk about what happened tonigh-," Jack said calmly as he caught up with her as she flung the door open.

"I knew it," she shouted at him, before he even had a chance to finish his sentence.

"You knew what?"

"Don't play dumb, you're disappointed in me, you hate me for what I did."

"How can you say that Sam?  I am not disappointed in you, I've told you before, I could never be disappointed in you," he said shocked that she could think that.

"Don't lie to me; don't treat me like a child.  I can see it in your face," she yelled.  Tears were stinging her eyes but she refused to let them fall.

"Sam, just listen to me, you've got this all wrong.  I was shocked okay but I understand why you did it, you weren't thinking straight."

"Oh yeah, that's right, poor Sam, some guy tries to rape her and all of a sudden she's fragile, she needs to be looked after, she's not in her right mind."

"You know I don't think that and neither do Daniel and Teal'c.  Will you just calm down for a second so we can discuss this."

"Will you just stop telling me what to do, I can't do this, I just can't," she shouted, blinking back the tears as hard as she could.

She turned and ran outside, throwing the door shut as hard as she could.  The resonating thud putting a definitive end to the argument.

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So, let me know what you think, please! :)

I'm hoping to get chapter 12, the finale (sob!) posted soon.  More finishing touches to be done!!