Head Trip - Chapter 3
The pain was gone now, and he could breathe freely. However, O'Neill delayed opening his eyes – not quite ready to face his nemesis.
The moment that "Sam" had gotten uncomfortably close to him and then, suddenly, entered his mind was one of the most shocking moments of his life. To have become a victim, again, to the humanoid replicators was totally unacceptable. His failure to realize that the "Carter" who returned through the Gate was not Sam sickened him. It also fueled his anger.
He tried to process what had just happened. When Fifth had released Sam from her brief captivity, she seemed, for the most part, unharmed. What he (and even Thor) had failed to consider was the ingenuity of the replicators to evolve to ever higher levels of existence. It seemed that their ability to replicate in human form had now resulted in a copy of Carter – somehow created during Sam's imprisonment.
As he realized this insidious consequence, Jack groaned and slowly opened his eyes. What he saw shocked him even more: "Sam" was lying next to him, her lifeless eyes staring into his. It looked as if she were trying to reach out to him in her last moments.
Unnerving as it was to see "Carter" lying dead, it jolted Jack into action. He sprang to his feet and picked up the phone. Not wanting to cause a general panic, he knew his best move would be to get Daniel and Teal'c into his office immediately. He had to clear his head and come to grips with the fact that he and the President, Thor and the Tok'ra (damn Tok'ra – another botched piece of intel) had all been duped, and his former 2IC was now probably in the hands of the replicators once again.
He also had to decide what to do with the "deceased" replicator now lying at his feet. He slowly bent forward to confirm what he knew to be true. There was no sign of life – no heart beat nor pulse ….
Yet, as a sign of respect for the image of the woman he cared about, much more than he should, Jack O'Neill gently placed his fingers on "Carter's" face, and reverently closed her eyes.