So I just found out that Season Ten of Stargate SG-1 is going to involve a new villain who is the possible daughter of Vala and Daniel… named Adria… and she's a genetically engineered Ori. Sound familiar? I swear I had no idea, and now twelve chapters into "Level 28," I honestly apologize for any seriously ironic coincidences. But, in my defense, I've been writing this for quite a while. So screw the SG-1 writers! It was my idea first! Lol. I'll try to make it crazier and more improbable, no matter how crazy I thought it was in the first place. Maybe even go a little 'shippier. You're all still my fans, no?

----AriadneInLove---

And now…

PART TWELVE: Fate's Charade

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"Sam?" Daniel asked, moving away so quickly that he stumbled back to the floor.

Sam sat up slowly on the edge of the bed where Daniel had once been. She looked down at her hands. They seemed so familiar, felt so much like her own, but they could never be. The pain from the cut so many months ago still lingered, the pain of so many other wounds. Some had scars. Some had scars so far below the surface that it would take years to forget.

But Sam felt them all.

She tried to get up but she couldn't move her legs quite right and fell back to the bed. Daniel still stared, scared and bewildered.

"Daniel, where am I?" she asked as if in a slight daze, unable to see him in one focus. As soon as he started to get up again, she could see dozens of blurry versions of him moving in different directions. Only the real one was clear, and he knelt down at her feet, looking up at her with tired eyes. Eyes that could take no more of these charades of Fate.

She shrieked when he spoke. His voice overlapped upon itself, over a dozen in sequence, in volumes. Though they spoke the same thing. "Sam, what happened? What are you doing in there?"

"I don't know," she whispered back.

Then a voice came into her head. It's ok, Mom. I'm still here, it said. Calm down.

"I don't know," she said again, still lost in her daze.

"Sam, I need you to focus ok? Is Ree still in there with you?" he asked.

She nodded. "Daniel… everything's… so strong, so strange."

"Yeah you must be seeing what she does. She told me it was weird… What's it like?"

Sam heard Ree scoff in her head. Don't even try. There are no words.

"Sorry, I can't say."

"That's fine. Listen to me, ok? Ask Ree if this affects your body's status in any way," he said.

Tell him it doesn't affect your body as long as we got you back in time, Ree's hollow voice sounded in her head.

Sam was slightly confused, aside from dazed. "My body's status?" And then she remembered the pain and the blindness and the darkness that drew her into that fantasy world. "Oh God, Daniel. I just- I remember… She says it doesn't affect me as long as we get me back in time. In time for what, though?"

And then Ree's voice answered reluctantly.

Before you die.

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Teal'c had trouble waking up from his soil bed the morning of his 30th day in captivity. He knew it would be today that he escaped, either from this enslavement or from life itself. Either way, he would die free where it truly mattered. If Bra'tac had taught him anything, it was that.

He thought of Bra'tac and of what he would do to say goodbye. His simple words would not cut it. So he thought of Jack's. "We have to save the family," he'd said as they met up at the Gate so many weeks ago before embarking on this horrid mistake.

Bra'tac didn't understand his words but he got the source. But still, all he thought about was saving himself.

By now, they had rallied the troops even though they would enter the fortress alone.

I am always alone, from now on, he thought.

Bra'tac sent the signal to the other workers and they began a small riot on the southern end of the castle. The workers flocked around the warring slaves like bees to honey but the guards seemed unaffected. They didn't care if they killed each other.

But the workers were gathering near the gates to the fortress and they could hide in the crowd. None of the guards saw them kill the two standing at the southern gate.

They were inside.

The halls were the color of silver, the luster of metal, and the texture of stone. There were no guards, anywhere. They walked calmly through, always on the lookout for unexpected surprises. Those were the ones that got them.

And just as they turned the corner, it got them. Teal'c and Bra'tac stood face to face with six unmarked Jaffa, guarding what seemed like a large black wall.

The Jaffa immediately pointed their staff weapons to the intruders' hearts but for Teal'c, he had little heart left. So he swung the staff he'd taken from the front guards and knocked out two of the six staffs upon them. Bra'tac quickly followed his heed and attacked the staffs with all he could.

Fire and blood flew through the air as if life stood for everyone else. And one Jaffa too many lost his life.

Teal'c was joyous in his conquest. He had taken down all the guards stealthily and cleanly. He would not be expecting more surprises. But then he turned to Bra'tac, and there was no one behind him.

He looked around at the bodies and saw his limp one up against the strange walls of the fortress.

"Master! Master Bra'tac, are you injured?" he asked foolishly, clearly seeing the enormous stain of blood on the old man chest and hoping it came from the other soldiers. But he was not that lucky.

The old man gave him one final look, almost that of a fearful soul grasping for life, dangling for the coveted immortality Teal'c had grown accustomed to from him. He was invulnerable, like Jack. And now both were dead. Just like that. Bra'tac's dead hand thudded to the smooth and cold surface that was his grave.

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"Major Carter?" Hammond asked with an eyebrow raised.

"Yeah sir, I'm here," she responded.

"But how can that--"

"Don't even ask sir. Ree always said we had a connection. I guess she was serious."

"Is she still in there?"

"Oh yah. I just don't think she can come out. I think this is due to the Goa'uld part of her DNA. It could be causing this, for all we know."

Then the voice came back suddenly in Sam's head. No, it's not the Goa'uld. It's the Ancient in me.

What? Sam's mind asked back.

Ask Daniel if he saw Oma Desala before he died, she said.

Sam looked up at Daniel who was keen on looking over Frasier's clipboard. "Uh, she wants to know if you saw Oma before you died."

He raised an eyebrow too. "Yeah, I did. She was the one that helped me Ascend."

"Then it's her Ancient genes that are doing it. It can't be the Goa'uld in her."

Suddenly, Janet threw the clipboard on the bed beside where Sam was sitting as she stormed out of the infirmary. Everyone knew it was because of this. No one thought it was because of Daniel. Not even him, with his sharpened senses when it came to his friends' feelings. He couldn't sense this.

So he went after her, excusing himself and patting Sam's shoulder slightly.

"Janet!" he yelled out a few steps from the infirmary door. "Hold on!"

"No Daniel. I'm tired of this. All of this," she said surprisingly calmly, still quickly storming away from her usual sanctuary. "I quit!"

Daniel stopped in mid-step and caught her arm so she'd stop too. She pulled away from him with a teary face. "Talk to me."

"There's nothing to say Daniel. I'm gone."

"No, damn it! I already lost Sam, Jack, and Teal'c. I'm not losing you! Tell me what's going on with you. You don't talk to me anymore unless you're yelling. What happened to the light in your eyes, Janet?" he gave up trying to stop her and began to focus on what he'd missed all this time

"What about Adrienne? You lose her too? 'Cause Sam's not dead yet and Jack and Teal'c are only missing. Adrienne's the only one you've lost. And to a teenager of all things."

There was resentment in her tone. Jealousy really but he was too dense to realize that.

"What does this have to do with Adrienne?"

"Everything, Daniel. Absolutely everything and everyone."

Daniel didn't respond right away. He just looked down at her, his hand still holding her from leaving. That's when he got it. It hit him like a hammer over the head.

"Janet… I--"

"Don't bother."

"No!" he yelled, tightening his grip as she went to pull away.

And he put his other hand on her waist and pulled her into his lips.

And they kissed.

When he parted, she stood frozen, eyes still closed and lips puckered in midair. She blinked twice and stared through his glasses to his blue eyes. What did they say, she thought.

"Uh… Daniel… what was that?"

"A pleading for forgiveness."

"Forgive me… for ignoring you, for not noticing, for being an idiot… for everything."

She looked away slowly and he tried to follow her gaze but it was now to the wall beside her. He let her go and she turned away, no longer storming out but walking out nonetheless.

He walked back to the infirmary a beaten man. Adrienne was a far away memory. For that moment when he kissed her, all he could think of was the feel of her lips against his and the calmness that overwhelmed him, making him drop his grip.

But she was gone now, this presence. Janet.

She must have not felt the same, he thought in the darker corners of her mind. But he knew she had.

She had gone because as long as Adrienne still walked these halls, she knew she would always be second. Not because Daniel loved her more, because he didn't, and not because he was obsessed, because he wasn't, but because he had to save her. Who else would with her parents gone? No one else cared about her. She was alone too. Just like him.

And then there was the pulse, the thing that beat through his blood and told him to care for her. It was chemistry, not love. He could never go there again. But he knew Janet was right. If he had the chance, if he could be with Adrienne how he felt his body yearn he was, he would in an instance.

But he would always be thinking of Janet.

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To be continued in PART THIRTEEN:

--Is Bra'tac really dead?

--Where's Jack, if he really is alive?

--What is this connection with Daniel and Adrienne, this physical desire?

--Where will it lead? o.O

--What does Ree want Sam to do while she's in her body?

--When's Teal'c getting back?

--How long does Sam have before her Awakening?

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REVIEW!

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Coming soon…

"Lost Time" - What can she do when all Sam has left in the world is the unborn reminder of a lost love? (Sequel to "Level 28." Write me a review to get a classified summary.)