"Be careful with that thing, Holly!" Dr. Lee ordered his newest assistant as she removed one of the three remaining jars from its case. Unfortunately for the jar, and Holly, Dr. Lee's sudden remark caused her to jump – dropping the jar in the process.
Dust again filled the air as the jar broke into a million little pieces. Holly (making the same mistake Sam had made) breathed in the unforgiving dust particles, causing her to slump into a fit of coughing not unlike the one Sam had partaken of on the planet.
Dr. Lee immediately paged a medical team to his lab as he helped Holly sit down so the young woman wouldn't just end up collapsing on the floor. He handed her a glass of water as the Med Team rushed in. Dr. Brightman saw the woman's state and immediately thought of the way Jack described Sam's state on the planet.
As the coughing subsided, Anne approached Holly with her stethoscope, checking Holly's breathing and heart rate. "What happened, Dr. Lee?" she asked as she put her stethoscope back around her neck.
"She was picking one of the jars up from the transport containers and right after I told her to be careful it slipped, fell, and broke. Then this dust came out and she started coughing like that." Holly was the first competent assistant Dr. Lee had had since he began working at the SGC, there was no way he'd let anything happen to her.
Anne was almost positive it was the same thing Sam had, all she needed was an MRI scan to prove her point. "Let's get her up to the infirmary where we can do an MRI. Dr. Lee, if you'll excuse me."
"Is she going to be okay, Doctor?"
"I don't know, Dr. Lee. Holly, if you have what I think you have, there's really nothing we can do. Oh, and Dr. Lee? Don't let anyone else touch those last two jars. We don't have a clue what we're dealing with here, if Holly has what I think she has, then I don't want anyone else getting infected. Understood?"
Dr. Lee nodded, mutely, praying that Holly would be all right.
When the MRI came back, Anne looked at it and swore. Deep in her heart she'd been hoping that Holly's scans would come back clean, but they were the same as Sam's. There was a dark smudge at the area where Holly's brain connected to her spine. The only thought that Dr. Brightman had at the moment was that the area the smudge – for lack of a better word – covered was the same area a Goa'uld symbiote attached itself to.
She turned to the SF at her side and told him, "I want a 24 hour guard on both Major Carter and Dr. Newman."
"Yes, ma'am," he said before immediately leaving to post the guard.
Dr. Brightman rubbed her face with her hand, desperately trying to figure out what she was going to say to General Hammond and Colonel O'Neill. Dr. Jackson and Teal'c had filled her in early on in her assignment to the SGC, after finding out that she was going to be the permanent replacement for the recently deceased Dr. Fraiser, about the close relationship between the CO and 2IC of SG-1.
"So, Doc?" Jack said from the doorway to her office. "What's wrong with Holly?"
Dr. Brightman shrugged, "I don't know, sir. It's the same thing as Major Carter, but right now I have no idea what that is."
Jack nodded, not liking that answer at all. He was fond of Dr. Lee's newest 'assistant' and didn't want her to be hurt any more than he wanted Sam hurt… okay so not that much. He did, after all, know that Sam was pregnant.
"Anything I can do to help?"
"Tell General Hammond?"
He looked around her office as if searching for something.
"What?" Anne asked curiously.
"Have you been drinking while on duty recently? I'm not that crazy!"
Sam was groggy when she woke up. She could feel the presence of that thing in her but she had no idea why it was there or what it even was. It reminded her of when she was the host of Jolinar… but her symbiote had had a calming presence about her that put Sam at ease. Whatever this was felt more like the entity that she had been subject to.
She tried to open her eyes, but the lids refused to obey. Don't even try to move, a menacing voice said in her mind. I'm in control now. There's nothing you can do about it – slave.
'Who are you?' Sam asked desperately to the voice in her head.
Malady.
It was getting late, and as Holly tried to sleep, her mind was filled with relaxing images of her when she was a child, a double sunset on a planet she'd visited the year before… there was even one of the dinner her fiancé had made her for their third anniversary. By the time she drifted into a restful slumber in the early hours of the morning, she was relaxed and didn't feel one bit like she had when she'd broken the vase.
'Who are you?' Holly asked the being in her mind.
I am Hope, one of four sisters trapped in four jars. Am I the only one out?
Holly mentally shook her head, 'No, I was not the first to break a jar. Major Carter broke one on the planet you were found at.'
Do you remember the symbols on that jar? When Holly brought up a mental image of the jar Daniel had broken on the planet, Hope cringed. I must move quickly. She has Malady inside of her! I must take over your body to relay the method of stopping her to your doctors. Will you let me do that?
'Do I really have a choice?'
Not if you want the woman you call Carter to survive.
'I thought as much.'
A/N: So? What think you? Please review! I'm really stressed out about my play - performing at the end of this week! And I need something to cheer me up!