Chapter Five: Insanity Is All in the Mind
She wakes up in a padded cell.
"Well, this is new." The sarcasm echoes around the walls. "What next, the white jacket, the anti-depressants, and major counseling sessions with Dr. 'I Put Daniel Jackson in a Mental Institution' MacKenzie?"
No one answers her.
Her middle is still bandaged; carefully, she touches it, feeling the ridges and the stitching beneath. There's still something fuzzy about her mind. Drugs, probably. Janet, this new Janet, wouldn't know quite how to keep her sedated. Dr. Brightman might, though.
Brain. She has a brain, she is supposed to be using it. Supposedly, she's the greatest asset to Earth there is. The thought makes her want to curl into a ball. Her stomach might protest, though. Or her back. She vaguely remembers hitting concrete before. Janet is a goa'uld. It occurs to her to wonder how she missed this. But then, not all goa'uld have naquadah in their blood.
Oh.
For every decision, there is a branching universe. For every possibility... "Robert Rothman is still alive there, I bet. Where there is."
Her voice distracts her. She hadn't meant to speak aloud. They had found goa'uld without naquadah in them on P3X-888 -- postulated as the goa'uld world of origin. Neither she nor Teal'c had been able to detect the symbiotes. She doesn't know how long Janet's had hers. A shiver wracks her as she considers whether she has one as well.
No. No, she would know.
Of course, even in Steveston, she'd known.
But it must have been waiting. Biding its time. She wonders if it plans to use the quantum mirror to over-throw reality.
"I hope they at least scanned her." This Jack -- if he hasn't been changed irrevocably -- would have been paranoid enough to order it after her outburst.
But then, he thinks she's lying about belonging here.
Maybe he's right.
--
Her hands are dry. She turns them over and looks at them, traces the patches of skin that itch ever so slightly. She wonders if Daniel had dry hands when he was locked in a padded cell.
Maybe she'll ask him.
The door swings inwards, impinging on her thoughts and she looks up. She doesn't want to be distracted, but then, she also doesn't want to be locked in here.
He stands on the balls of his feet, wary and uncertain. He could run, she thinks. Run as fast as he can.
No one would catch the gingerbread Jack. The ridiculousness of the thought makes her want to laugh and she wonders just how much of the sedative is still running through her veins.
"I didn't think it would be this easy, Carter."
"Nothing in life is easy, Jack." The words are cheap, but she's not going to apologize. Not when she is this close to being where she belongs.
"Your double had an entrophic cascade fit thingie." There's more, she decides. But he still doesn't trust her.
Ah. That's why it was easy. Her eyes close and she leans into the wall, "You need to run every security program you can. Anything she's ever touched has to be checked." A grimace, "Felger might be able to crack any codes. And have Teal'c--" He makes a sound. She isn't sure what it is, but he makes a sound, and her eyes fly open. "Teal'c's dead, isn't he."
"She--they.... It was a mission. Daniel didn't see what happened, but you--she. Damnit, Carter," a hand scrubs over his face. "That's when we first began suspecting you--her."
Suspecting. "Teal'c is one of the few people I can see her having trouble fooling."
"I'm a fool, then?" There's harshness in his words, a bitterness that flavors the air between them.
"She's me. She's obviously very very good at it." Teal'c is dead. The words pound into her skull, and she wants to cry. This is too much at once. Too many bad things and heartaches and double-crosses and too much pain. "I can't do this anymore, Jack." She doesn't even want to know what he means by suspecting.
"We checked your Doc Fraiser. She had a goa'uld. Daniel thinks it's from the planet where the Unas come from."
"Symbiotes without naquadah. Yeah." Stick to the facts, she thinks. "We must have crossed through a reality where they had taken everyone over -- you know the SGC and its tests. We were separated a lot of the time, I would never have noticed. I guess they weren't sure what to do with me, so they left me without one." She knows she's shaking again. Or maybe they tried and she still has symbiote-killing venom in her blood. It's a vaguely comforting thought.
"You're gonna be all right, Carter."
"No I'm not. I'm dying. Didn't you hear Janet?" Now it's her bitterness coloring the room. "Traveling through a shattered quantum mirror breaks down cellular membranes. My--"
"Ah!" His hand is out, stopping her.
The gesture is so familiar, something she hasn't seen in over nine months. It's the last straw, nearly. Grabbing onto her control with the most tenuous of grips, she stiffens. "Please go away, Jack."
"Shouldn't you be calling me sir?"
"I'm dying, Jack, I really don't give a fuck about protocol anymore." A tear slips out.
"My knees can't take this," he announces, his tone cranky.
"Huh?"
Before she can understand, he's kneeling in front of her, one hand stretching out to touch her cheek. "C'mere."
It takes longer than she wants for her to fully comprehend what he's saying. And she doesn't want to lean against his strength, but it's been so long, and she is so tired. She moves a moment before he's about to pull away, leans into his chest and finds his arms slipping around her. This is home. This is right. A sob escapes, and his hands knot behind her back. She soaks his shoulder with her tears.
"You're home," he finally says, his voice muffled because his mouth and chin and nose are buried in her hair.
She decides he has his eyes closed. "Don't let me go."
It's weak and it's pathetic, but damnit, she is sick of this.
"I kind of need to stand again."
"Sorry." She pulls back before he can, leans against the wall of the cell and closes her eyes.
"Carter?"
"Yes?"
A hand touches her cheek again. "I could leave you to sleep, but we might need your help. She is you, after all."
"She's better than me, I think." Her voice is thready with something like guilt. "What did you mean, about being suspicious?" She needs distraction, because she is not this weak, damnit. She is never this weak, and thinking and working and planning are going to make her stronger.
"Later. Right now we need to get you back to the infirmary."
"I'm fine."
"Like hell you are."
"Why am I here, anyway?"
He shifts, looking away, then back again. "We still weren't sure."
Of course. "I think I'd rather stay here." Now she's whining again. But she's so very tired.
She doesn't, of course. The doctors and nurses bustle in and take her away. She lays on a bed in the infirmary and tries not to think too much. She can hear them, though. The soft whispers, the furtive looks. The General left to go back to running his base, and so it's only her.
"Degenerating at a quicker rate... exponentially..." The words drift over her.
Sam Carter knows what they mean. But for the moment she hasn't the energy to care. Later, she can curse and rant and scream. But for now she's just trying not to fall asleep again. She's so fucking tired of being asleep.
In sleep, she dreams. And the dreams are nightmares that she has worried will become her reality. Right now, she's almost certain that her nightmares are worse than reality. But she doesn't want to test that. Doesn't want to find out that in her dreams she wakes up laughing.
Perhaps in dreams, she will live.
Sound reaches her a little while later. Some emergency, the infirmary staff bustle and holler at each other. They pack and then disappear, leaving one lone nurse to watch over their patient.
Barely five minutes pass before the young woman appears, tilting her head as she regards Sam.
"I'm fine." A lie, but it should send her away.
Of course, Janet hired most of the infirmary staff, made sure they could deal with everyone up to and including then-Colonel O'Neill. One lowly Lieutenant Colonel Carter wouldn't scare the dust off a tray. The nurse chuckles.
Sam is moving before she understands, rolling off the bed and falling falling falling to land in a heap on the floor.
"Hey!"
Crawling hurts, moving hurts, but she makes do, dragging herself up and away. Fight or flight and she isn't sure why until the nurse's eyes flash golden. "Shit." There's a red panic button on the wall to her right. At least three yards away. Which means she has to stand and then lunge and then pray she hits it before the goa'uld has a chance to take her down.
"Insolent Tau'ri." The nurse paces calmly around the bed. "You--"
A kick sends the IV stand into the nurse's side and she stumbles slightly, but continues forward. Sam doesn't wait, scrambling under the bed and out the other side, ignoring the way her muscles protest. Someone may yell at her for ripping her stitches again.
Two yards, and she's against the wall and pulling herself upright, ignoring the sound of the goa'ulded nurse's rantings and ravings.
Pathetically, all goa'uld fall to type.
One yard, and she knows there's very little chance she can close the gap with a lunge and so continues walking even as a hand grabs the back of her head, fingers tangling in her hair. A kick to the back of one of her knees causes her to collapse again to the floor and the goa'uld follows her, dragging her head back.
"Your death will not be swift." Breath hot on her neck, disgust and anger filling the words.
"It never is." She manages.
Her head is shoved forward, then released and hands grip her tightly by the shoulders. "In a moment, you will serve your god."
This has happened before, she thinks, in broken images. Jolinar in the mouth and then the symbiote in Steveston. And there's no venom coursing through her veins to kill this one. No way to escape it.
One chance, and she takes it.
The head butt smashes the emerging symbiote against the nurse's jaw. It lets out a shriek, but the sudden loss of control releases Sam's shoulders. She pushes up, ignoring her throbbing knee.
Her fist slams onto the panic button as something slimy wraps around her ankle.
"No." The symbiote snarls up at her, then rushes up her leg.
She barely catches it in time, fingers closing around its slippery form as it springs up towards her chest. It's a good thing, Sam decides as it wriggles to free itself, that the infirmary walls are concrete.
"Never." Thud. "Ever." Thud." "Again." Screech. "I will." Thud. "Never." Thud." "Be--"
"Sam!" Hands are catching at her arms, pulling her away from the wall, stopping her. "Sam, it's all right! It's dead! It's dead."
Tremors course through her, and she suddenly notices that she's kneeling again. "Jonas?" Her voice sounds oddly high-pitched.
"I missed hair gel."
The non sequitur shatters her tenuous control, and she collapses completely. "I can't do this anymore, Jonas." Her tone is matter of fact. He's rocking her, arms wrapped around her almost too tightly. "Life and death and being taken over and turned inside-out."
He's crying, she realizes, his lips pressed against her throat. "You're alive. And you're safe."
A laugh escapes her and it sounds ugly. "That's what they keep telling me."
"Really." He sniffles and pulls back, "And Dr. Brightman's gonna be pissed about the way you painted her wall."
"Good." The world is beginning to look indistinct again. "I think I'm going to sleep now. I may be some time."
"You'll have all the time in the world."
It's the last thing she hears before unconsciousness claims her again.
--