"IMPERIUM"
You've read the rest, now read this!
I'd like to open this chapter today by saying I'M SORRY. I missed Thursday's update! (Gasp!) However, there is a very good reason for this.
And here it is:
My computer got crippled by a virus on Tuesday night, and I didn't get it back until late on Thursday. By this point I was tired and pissed off and just so did not feel like writing.
However, to make up for this, I've added a big fat Sam and Jack scene in the middle to quell any raging, shippery hormones flying around.
Enjoy.
"You have untapped greatness inside you, Sam. But you're limited by your own fears. You play by the rules, you do as you're told and you deny yourself your own desires."
"I have no desire to rule the galaxy, believe me."
"All humans desire power. It's just that most of them are never in a position to attain it."
The Repli-Carter and Carter, "Gemini"
"So let me get this straight... the Goa'uld think this thing is evil?" Jack asked for what seemed like the hundredth time.
He was slouched wearily down in his chair, looking worriedly at Daniel, who had taken on a sickly green shade of pale, and Teal'c, whos lips were tightened in an anxious line.
"Yes, Jack," sighed Daniel. "Apparently, it appears to be something even worse than the sarcophagus, something even the Goa'uld fear to use. I'm starting to think that it was maybe this thing that destroyed the planet we found it on."
Jack nodded thoughtfully.
"So what, then, do we do with Carter? We need a plan of action, people," he said.
"I'm going to contact the Tok'ra, see if they can shed any light on what its doing to Sam, and what we can do to stop it."
"Good idea. You have permission to dial out immediately."
"Thanks, Jack," Daniel said, offering the stressed General a reassuring smile, before exiting the briefing room.
"So... Teal'c..." Jack began, slumping on the desk with his head in his hands.
"I was going to keep guard over Colonel Carter. If her previous behaviour is an indication, the restraints may not be strong enough to hold her. I will ensure she harms no-one, O'Neill."
"Thanks, Teal'c. You might want to get on that right away, she was pretty angry when I saw her last."
"I will, O'Neill," the stately Jaffa said, inclining his head as he rose and exited the room, leaving Jack alone with his very confused thoughts.
Sam looked up as the door to her holding room opened.
"Teal'c," she said simply as her visitor entered the room. "What can I do for you?"
"I am here to guard you, Colonel Carter," he replied monotonously.
"Teal'c..." she said exasperatedly, tugging uselessly at her restraints, "I'm not exactly going anywhere fast."
"We have reason to believe you are more than capable of breaking those restraints," he replied, standing directly in front of the door.
Sam's eyes narrowed. Teal'c noticed with a start that they had lost their usual light cerulean shade, and were now more of a dangerous Prussian blue.
"We? I'm assuming you mean the General, here."
"O'Neill is indeed concerned for your wellbeing, Colonel Carter," Teal'c answered diplomatically.
"I've never felt better, Teal'c," she said softly. "Better even than when we had those armbands that made us strong and fast. I don't just feel fit... I feel powerful..."
She was gazing up at the ceiling, lost in her own world.
"You can't hold me forever," she murmured, very quietly, her lips pursed.
In a single moment, however, she seemed to snap out of it, and looked back at Teal'c with a deadly calm vizard.
"I want to see General O'Neill," she said.
"Why, Colonel Carter?" Teal'c asked, surrupticiously moving away from her lest there was trouble.
"I want to see General O'Neill," she repeated, more fiercely this time.
"I cannot allow..." Teal'c began, eyeing the restraints that had begun to stretch and distort wildly as she angered and began to pull away from the bed.
"GET ME GENERAL O'NEILL!"
Jack was 'entertaining' himself with some mindless (but necessary) paperwork. Daniel had successfully contacted the Tok'ra, and he and SG-13 had gone off world to meet with them. Teal'c was down with Sam, ensuring she was locked up...
Which was why it was rather odd that he had just opened the door and walked inside.
"Teal'c?" Jack asked, his stomach instantly sinking with the fear that something had gone wrong.
"Colonel Carter has insisted on seeing you," Teal'c said stiffly.
"And by insisted..."
"I do in fact mean, insisted," Teal'c said, tilting his head slightly so Jack could clearly see the bruise blossoming across his jawline.
"She got out of the restraints?" Jack asked increduloulsy.
"Indeed. But she made no attempt to leave the room, she simply demanded to see you, and hit me when I did not reply. I felt it was best to seek your counsel."
"Alright, alright," Jack said wearily. "You go down to the infirmary and have that jaw checked out. I'm going to go talk to Carter."
"Carter," Jack said as he entered the room. Alone.
No-one had bothered to try to re-restrain her, and she was anxiously pacing the room, but stopped when he said her name.
"You'd think we'd be over that by now, wouldn't you?"
"What?" he asked, confused.
"'Carter' and 'Sir'," she said. "I'd like to think we were a little closer than that."
Not right now, we aren't, Jack thought ruefully.
"Regulations, Carter, you know that," he said quietly. "Would you like to tell me what's going on?"
She turned away so her back was facing him and let out a soft, bitter laugh.
"Aren't you sick of fighting the good fight, Jack?" she said finally.
"For crying out loud, Carter, what's that supposed to mean?"
"We've ruined so many planets and so many lives just by showing up. If we're going to go around screwing up people's worlds anyway, we may as well take something from it."
Jack gaped at her, the words ill fitting in her mouth.
"You mean by taking power," he said angrily.
"Amongst other things. Like territory. Like manpower. And even if the 'saving the universe' thing we do atones for that, what do we have to show for it? Nothing. It's ridiculous. We risk our lives, day in and day out, and for what?"
"Uh… just the small matter of the known universe?"
"Oh, please Jack," she smirked at him. "Don't tell me you don't think we should have been rewarded far before now."
"Not… not with entire worlds! Not with the opportunity to participate in an intergalactic ego trip!"
Sam laughed bitterly.
"So what, then? What do you think should be our reward?"
It was then that Jack noticed exactly how close Sam had moved to him over the course of the conversation. She had turned to face him, and had moved so surreptitiously, he had only just noticed she was now only a few inches away from his face.
"I…" Jack stammered, unnerved by her unusual closeness.
"Oh, come on, Jack," she said, her demeanour abruptly changing again from egomanical to something... softer and... as much as it was disturbing him right now, sensual. "You can't honestly tell me theres something you've been denied that you want."
Jack lost control of all coherant thought, and the same idea was playing on a loop through his mind:
She's touching my chest. She's touching my chest. She's touching my chest. She's touching my chest.
"Nothing you... desire?" she let the last word linger in the air, and before Jack had even registered the thought, she had leant in and slid her lips across his.
It was at once the most passionate, crazy, disturbing and utterly unexpected kiss he had ever recieved. All though he had kissed Sam several times in the past, this was... different. A part of his brain switched off, and he relished the feel of her tounge playfully dancing around his mouth. For who knows how long, he let her kiss him, forgetting for an instant the regulations and Sam's odd new attitude, and just enjoying something he'd ached after for so long. She had been right: he did desire this. He ceased to think and did nothing but feel.
Soft... warm... oh God, she smells so damn good... and...wait.
His brain suddenly snapped him back to an unpleasant reality, and he pushed her away.
Instead of looking angry at his rejection, however, there was a gleam of triumph in her eyes, and a sick smile played her lips.
"Are you telling me, then, Jack, that you haven't craved that?"
She looked so animal now, in front of him, her eyes blackened with desire, her lips wet, her chest rising and falling with ragged breaths.
Jack found he simply coulndn't speak, he couldn't deny her that truth.
"Carter..." he said hoarsely, but was saved from having to answer her question as the offworld activation alarm roared over the base.
"I..." he began, but still astounded by her forwardness, could make no reply. He shook his head at her, and bade a hasty retreat from the room.
Jack arrived in the control room, where the technician had already taken the liberty of confirming Daniel's IDC and had opened the iris. Teal'c, too, had rushed to the control room, and was now looking down at the open Stargate.
"Are you not alright, O'Neill?" the Jaffa asked. "Is Colonel Carter well? You seem to be shaken up. Did she attack you, also?"
"N... no, Teal'c," Jack said, shaking his head, as if to clear the image and feeling of Sam kissing him from his head. "Hey, look! Daniel's back."
As he spoke, a troubled looking Daniel emerged from the wormhole, flanked by two Tok'ra operatives, and followed, unexpectedly by a pale and desperate-looking Jacob Carter.
"Jack!" he called up into the control room, fear written in every line of his face.
"Where is she?" he demanded. "Where is my daughter?"
