A/n: about my previous chapters, I'm sorry if anything was confusing. You'll find out why they're still major and colonel. Sorry once again for any confusion, please feel free to comment and suggest things. Enjoy!

Sam woke up in the infirmary hearing the constant beeping of her heart. She struggled to open her eyes and realized she was under restraints. Footsteps approached her cot.

"Colonel Carter, welcome back. We were worried about you for a while, especially General O'Neill." Dr. Miles paused. "Do you remember anything before you blacked out? What's the last thing you recall?"

At the mention of General O'Neill's name, Sam became completely alert and her heart rate showed it.

"Colonel, are you alright?"

"Oh, I'm fine, I just remembered some things. The gate was compromised and people started acting strange and where's Janet, why are you calling me Colonel? Jack's a general? How long was I out for?"

"Calm down, Sam. It's alright. I'm sure it was just all a dream. You were out for a week."

"I don't think it was a dream; it all seemed so real and you know I'm a light sleeper, I couldn't have dreamed this. Are the restraints really necessary?"

"Well, I can't take them off until General O'Neil assesses the situation."

"What situation?"

Dr. Miles was just about to explain when SG-1 walked in. Daniel was the first to speak up, although timidly. "Sam."

"Hey, Daniel." Sam replied weakly.

"Colonel, it's uh nice to have you back. Dr. Miles says you can't remember anything."

"Yes, sir. Well at least what I remember might well have been a false memory that Fifth implanted into my brain on his ship."

"Ah, well that's too bad." Was all Jack could say. Dr. Miles walked over to the other side of Sam's cot where all monitors were turned off one by one and put away. He then proceeded to tighten the restraints.

"Sir, what's going on?" Sam said with obvious confusion and panic in her voice.

Teal'c responded quite bluntly, "We have reason to believe that Fifth replicated you again. Your biorhythms proved that you are not the original Samantha Carter."

A FEW WEEKS AGO…

"No! Please, please stop!" the real Samantha Carter screamed and begged.

Fifth released his grip from her mind. He could tell the pain was unbearable for her, but in order to execute his plan, there must be enough memory extracted and false information implanted; this would require the rearrangement of some brain cells and neural transmitters, which is painful especially when the replicator's fingers are in there messing around. Meanwhile, the Asgard had detected the replicator ship, so Fifth had little time to move forward with his experiment. The cloned Sam would have no idea she was a human replicator; she would act just like the real one.

ONE WEEK AFTER…

Back at the SGC, Dr. Miles noticed excess amounts of nutronium in Sam's blood after post mission check up. He immediately notified General O'Neill, which then ordered Dr. Jackson to interrogate her. After hours of interrogation, there was nothing.

"We've wasted enough time trying to get information from replicator Sam, can't we just go and find Sam now?" Daniel whined obviously worried about the fate of the real Sam.

"Indeed O'Neill. We must find Samantha Carter before Fifth has another opportunity to replicate her." Teal'c said sternly.

"Hold your horses. You know of all people I care for her a lot, but as general I also need to consider the potential information that could come from these interrogations."

Daniel interjected, "This Sam obviously has no idea what happened or what she really is. She can't even remember being promoted. I mean, it must've been fresh in her mind, after all, you two were promoted the same day you unfroze. I should've known that this wasn't her; how she could come back all nonchalant about your 'awakening.'" At that, Jack raised an eyebrow, much like how Teal'c did, "Daniel, this is Carter we're talking about, she's always nonchalant."

"Yeah, well, you should've seen her before you came back; she was not hysterical, but certainly working her ass off trying to get you back. And stop getting off topic…This Sam has all this information cluttered. She knew our gate was compromised at one point or another, but that was a while back. In her 'dreams' Janet was still alive (RIP) and we were all suppose to be infected and tried to kill her. That may well have been true during certain situations, but not now. Fifth must have gotten jumbled memories when probing Sam's mind; Sam was probably smart enough to do this while going through immense pain; we need to find her."

Jack sighed, "I guess you're right. We need to find Carter. This one won't be of any use," pointing through the window at replicator Sam. "Come on people, times a wastin, get moving, debriefing in 5." He then proceeded to walk off mumbling something to himself, "Damn it, Daniel's always right."

"Jack!" Daniel screamed a few seconds later from down the hall. "What do you want me to do about Sam?"

"Tranq her and get her to the infirmary; we'll keep her restrained till we figure this out."

"K."

Meanwhile, the real Samantha Carter had woken up to the smell of bacon. She observed that the room was beautifully decorated, and very homely. There was a hint of blue and white everywhere. There was a rocking chair in the corner next to the bed. Sam walked out of the bedroom and into the kitchen where Jack stood over the stove cooking breakfast. "Oh good, you're up." Jack beamed.

"Um, sir, what are you doing here?"

"Come on Sam, you haven't called me that in years. What's wrong? Something's wrong." Jack walked over and placed both hands on her waist. Taken by surprise, Sam backed away a little. Although she must admit that the sight of Jack wearing an apron was quite amusing.

"Um, well sir, I've always called you 'sir,' no matter what…. what's my favorite movie?"

"The Wizard of Oz."

"Ok, what's going on here? You know what, why bother. Fifth! Fifth! I need to speak with you!" Sam screamed knowing full well this was another one of Fifth's fabrications.

"Samantha, you are a very hard person to please. I thought since you wouldn't love me, maybe you could love Jack; I just want you to be happy, with me or without me."

"Fifth, you know I care for you as a friend, and Jack a whole hell of a lot more than I'm suppose to," Sam looked down when saying this, "but you can't keep me here. This is not how it works. If you want me to be happy, take me back to Earth."

Fifth stepped forward, put a hand on Sam's cheek and sighed. "As you wish, Samantha." And with that, he pushed her through a wormhole that appeared out of nowhere. Suddenly, the illusion disappeared from Sam's view and the familiar sensation of going through a stargate enveloped her. In a matter of seconds, she was in the SGC. "Whoa." She stumbled on reentry to stable atmosphere. The klaxons were still blaring when she stepped through the wormhole. She could see Sergeant Walter sitting at the control panels waiting for General O'Neill's order. "Carter, is that you? Wait, what's my favorite movie?"

"Wizard of Oz." Sam replied with an inward smile and sigh. She thought back on the same question she asked in the illusion. Man, he was rubbing off on her too much.

Sergeant Walter gave General a weird look at the mention of Wizard of Oz.

"What?" Jack retorted. "It's a classic." He spoke into the microphone, "Alright people, let her in. Carter, you better get checked out. We've had many bad experiences with copied yous."

"Yes, sir." Sam walked off into the infirmary, which she was grateful for. "Hello, Dr. Miles, how's it going?" She said cheerily.

"Well, now that you're back, quite relieved. Your clone was quite the troublemaker. She's in an iso-room at the moment. We though we'd get some info from her, but her memories were all cluttered."

"Ah, I'm afraid that's my fault. I didn't want her to get too far before you guys realized it wasn't me."

"You're a smart one, Colonel Carter."

"Thank you."

"Well, you're good to go. All vitals are good and definitely original."

"Excellent. Thanks Doctor."

"No problem, just doing my job." With that, Sam walked out to report to General O'Neill.

"General O'Neill?" inquired Sam while knocking on his door.

"Carter. How's it going? Did Doc clear you?"

"Yep, that's why I'm here, sir. I'd like to speak with my clone. Now, hear me out. Even though Fifth is a maniac, he's smart and stubborn enough that he wouldn't have given up on his plans so easily, whatever they were. While he was extracting information from my mind, I could read a part of his, and I think if I talked to the other Sam, Sir, we could figure something out."

"Right, but bring Daniel with you. He's good at negotiating and the 'we come in peace' stuff. Plus he's already talked to her half a dozen times."

"Well, sir maybe she can confirm my theory, which is…"

"I don't want to hear it Carter." Jack interrupted; obviously not interested in the scientific mumbo jumbo Sam was about to spew on.

"No sir, this one you have to hear. Fifth's planning on sending an unknown pathogen through the stargate from P3X-561. Sir, people changed, you changed, you tranqed me."

"Carter, like I said, take Daniel with you. Report after you're done. Dismissed."

"Thank you, sir."

"And Sam?"

"Yes, sir?"

"Be careful."

"Don't worry, sir. I'm always on guard."

Yeah, both were on guard. Neither wanted to admit their comfort of each other's presence. They've been through life and death situations hundreds of times only to build thicker walls around their hearts. The protective barrier could only be broken by each other, but it took imminent death to bring out their buried emotions. And they had a feeling this would be one of those situations.

A/n: Thanks for the reviews, and by the way, I've actually never seen all of the episodes up to season eight, so please correct me if I'm wrong; everything I write is based on a little research and my spin on things, I don't mean to infringe on any copyrighted material. Have a nice day!