A/N: This chapter answers some questions, but poses more - many more. Be warned.

Dedicated to Chibi Horsewoman.

By the time Jack went back to school two weeks after the shooting, the whole town was buzzing with Carrie's suicide and the attempted murder. The police had released the names of the victims a few days before at the request of Jacob Carter and the O'Neill's.

When he walked into his first period class with the sling on his arm, heads turned and looked at him. Mr. O'Hern glared at his students, "Welcome back, Mr. O'Neill."

Jack nodded once, it was all that was needed.

Second period was a bit harder for him. So many of his friends and Sam's friends were in the class – not to mention Carrie's friends.

"I heard that Sam woke up," one of Carrie's friends said a little loudly to another. They were sitting close by Jack and apparently wanted him to hear. "Pity, isn't it?"

"Yeah," the other girl said, "Carrie was almost finished with the whole business, too. Shame she had to shoot Jack."

Jack turned to face them, "What did you say? Tell me what you know, Mare."

Mare looked at him coldly, "You should know by now, Jack."

Jack thought for a minute and his blood ran cold. He closed his eyes as the knowledge came to him of what initiation they were talking about.

Mrs. Sahlberg looked at Jack, "Are you all right, Mr. O'Neill?"

"No."

"Why don't you go home, Jack? No one expected you to be here anyway."

"Yeah," he said, getting his stuff and leaving the classroom again.

But Jack didn't call his mom to get her to pick him up; no, that would have caused too much stuff. He called Joel and a few minutes later his older brother showed up in Jack's car. Since Jack couldn't drive it himself, he thought it would be better if Joel did.

"Hey, bro. I need to go to the police department."

"Did you remember something about the shooting, Jack?"

"I know why Carrie tried to kill Sam," Jack said, leaving his brother to put his foot on the gas to get them to the police as quickly as possible.

Sam ate her blue Jell-O in silence as Mark and Dee sat with her. Dee was prattling on and on about nothing at all, while Mark was studying how his sister was coping with everything that had happened.

When she put down her empty cup, Dee stopped talking. "Why are you guys here?"

"Dad called."

"But why are you here now? Why not two years ago when Belle had pneumonia and almost died? I called you then, and you didn't even answer the phone. Why not three years ago when we first went to Russia? Why not then? Belle is five years old, and knows nothing about her parents other than what I tell her. Is that what you guys wanted when you gave her to Dad?"

"Sam, I didn't want any of this," Mark said softly.

She looked at him harshly, "Yeah? Well it's a little too late for that, Mark. You're my big brother – and when you gave Annabelle to Dad five years ago, you cut my childhood in half. Suddenly I wasn't just responsible for myself, but for a baby girl, too. I was eleven, Mark, eleven!"

"I'm sorry, Sam, really I am."

"Yeah, well I don't care." Sam looked at both of them and realized she couldn't look at either of them, "Get out."

A few minutes after they had left, Dr. Freeman stopped by to check on Sam's vitals. "Well, you're doing really good, Sam."

"When can I get out of here?" Sam asked, depression starting to take root.

The doctor checked her stats and said, "In a couple days, if all goes well."

"Sweet."

"Oh, Sam, you have some visitors."

"Who?"

"A Mr. and Mrs. Smith. They're Carrie's parents."

Sam felt her heart go numb. Could she face them? "Tell them I'm sleeping. I don't want to see them."

Dr. Freeman patted her hand, "Okay, Sam. You don't have to see them yet if you don't want to."

Sam was once again left to her own thoughts. Why the hell did Carrie want to kill her? What had she done to make the other girl hate her so much? Her mind came up empty each time she asked the questions, but one thing kept on ringing again and again.

"I don't want you getting involved with a guy like him." That's what her father had told her when he'd first met Jack. What had he known then? Helen had said Jack had hung out with the wrong type of people…was this the result of that? Had one of Jack's old friends gone on a vindictive shooting spree vicariously through Carrie?

Her door opened and in walked the police officer in charge of the investigation. "Ms. Carter? Can I have a moment of your time?"

"Sure, Officer Wilkes, it seems I've got nothing but time."

Wilkes sat down in a chair by Sam's bed, "There's been a break in the case."

"What? Are you serious?"

"Yes, miss, I am. An…anonymous reporter provided us with some further information and it now appears that we know why Ms. Smith tried to kill you."

Sam felt her heart nearly stop, but the machine monitoring its beats detected little change to that affect. "What information?" she asked hoarsely.

Wilkes sighed, not wanting to be the one to tell her what he came to tell her, "Apparently Ms. Smith was a member of a gang…and in the hierarchy of the gang, to advance to a position of leadership you have to…kill someone. And apparently if you fail in a 'job' for advancement you have to kill yourself."

Sam shut her eyes tight, hoping it was all just a dream. He'd hung out with the wrong crowd. He went through a stage right before she showed up. That's what his mother had told her. Was that why she'd been shot?

"I was her ticket for power?" Sam asked in disbelief. Her heart monitor started going haywire and soon a nurse was in the room trying to get Sam to calm down and yelling at Wilkes for making Sam upset and telling him to get out.

Sam couldn't breathe. All she could think was that her father had been right. If she hadn't met Jack…hadn't liked him, none of this would have happened. Carrie was Jack's ex-girlfriend, and as Jack's new girlfriend, Sam had presented the perfect target for Carrie's required hit.

A/N: So? Wanna find out more? Well, at the moment that all depends on how happy I feel tomorrow morning when I wake up.

OOOHHHH! I'm sending a shout out to Chibi Horsewoman! She's in my favorites, and all of you should read her SG-1 stuff - it's HILARIOUS! Share the love people!