"Level 28"

----AriadneInLove---

And now…

PART THIRTEEN: Shadow Man

-------------------------------------------------------------------

Teal'c made way to the door that taken his friend's life. It seemed pointless now. He should have let them take them and they might have escaped later. But no. His pompous nature had to prove him strong. He had to beat them. And now Bra'tac was dead, with no soldier's goodbye, his body lost to the enemy.

But he walked through that door nonetheless. He had to see what he had killed for.

And there he was. Jack O'Neill in all his glory…

-------------------------------------------------------------------

Daniel came back into the infirmary after a small goodbye to Janet.

"What's wrong? Where's Janet?" Sam asked, looking at him as if he were literally see-through. And then she felt it, the kiss. She brought a gentle hand to her lips and gave a simple, "Oh."

Hammond looked back and forth from Daniel's forlorn look to Sam's struck, dazed gaze.

"She's gone," Daniel responded.

"What are you doing here, then!" Sam yelled, annoyed even. "Go after her, damn you!"

"I can't."

"Why?"

"Because it's too late. I tried and she-"

Sam interrupted, "No you haven't. You pushed yourself on her and expected it to mean something."

"Hey! Actions speak louder than words."

"Yeah and yours told her you were a horny sonovabitch. Now go find her, you moron!"

Daniel blinked twice, not understanding Sam's outburst. Especially when it came from Ree's body.

"We need her, ok? You need her. Ree's not going to be there for you the way Janet is. Believe me, she can't be."

You can see where she's going to be. Close your eyes and think of her, Ree said.

Sam nodded to thin air and closed her eyes. Daniel looked at her weird. What was she nodding about?

"Major, what's wrong?" Hammond asked, coming to touch her awake. But she moved away quickly. When she opened her eyes, she saw the world in shades of blue endlessly fast. Daniel and Hammond were already gone and nurses moved about like a tape on fast-forward, leaving behind a trail of yellow streams of light like a picture of the highway.

The yellow seemed to overlap and soon her vision was becoming smeared. So she ran, jumping off the bed and running off through the hallways of yellow streams.

It's too fast! she thought to herself in great distress, quickly becoming tired and nauseous.

Concentrate and slow it down. Rewind it all, Ree's voice instructed.

Sam took a slow step back and the yellow streams receded. There was Janet and Daniel in the hallway, his hand clutching her arm roughly atop the white lab coat. She went to them slowly but everything was blurry. She couldn't touch them, move them away from each other, nothing.

So she sped them up and saw Janet go off through hall. She followed her to the parking lot, fearing the worst. Then for a moment, Janet stopped and looked straight at her and saw right through her.

Can she see me?

No, Ree responded. Their eyes aren't like ours.

And then they came. Two cars waited two minutes for her to leave and went after her.

That look suspicious to you? Sam asked her mental companion.

Go back, back to your own time. Tell Daniel to find her. You have to stay behind.

-------------------------------------------------------------------

Teal'c took a deep breath and walked through the threshold into the golden room. Jack lay on a stone slab in the far end of the room. In the middle, there was a ring platform surrounded by chairs with red plush seats. It was a meeting room, fully equipped with a shiny new sarcophagus.

"O'Neill!" he yelled and ran around the chairs to the stone slab, thinking of the sarcophagus. Maybe he could bring him back.

But Jack was already alive, and breathing, he clearly saw. He tired to wake him up but he couldn't shake him out of his deep sleep. That's when he heard the approaching march of metal boots. Super soldiers.

When Teal'c looked back down at his friend, he found himself face to face with a pair of shining golden eyes. He stumbled back and pointed his staff but the Goa'uld already had his hand weapon raised and pointed to the Jaffa's head.

He was cornered. Anubis' soldiers were coming up behind him. Jack had been taken over and was about to kill him right before his eyes. He couldn't turn around or Jack would get him, so he couldn't run away. He merely stepped back slowly and the Goa'uld followed, poised to attack.

"Who are you?" Teal'c asked.

"Don't you recognize me, Teal'c?" it said in its deep hollow voice. "Don't you recognize an old friend?"

Teal'c's eyes opened wide in horror as a dark shadow cast over Jack's body… a shadow that covered him like a hood.

"Anubis…" Teal'c whispered as the figure came upon him, the shadow penetrating him.

He struggled about, blinded. Then a light overwhelmed the shadow and Jack was taken aback. Teal'c looked down to the shadow man's hand. The Goa'uld hand device that controlled the rings had been slammed against the floor and the rings had activated.

When they were brought down again, the shadow had not followed and Jack was back.

"O'Neill!" Teal'c yelled, not bothering to look around at the ominous surroundings.

Jack opened his eyes, removing reluctantly the hands that covered his face from the hurtful light. They were brown again, the loveliest brown Teal'c had ever seen. A thankful sigh came over him. He was sure. There no Goa'uld in him, that he could sense anyways.

"What happened? Where are we? Where's Bra'tac?" Jack asked frantically.

And the thought of Bra'tac came over him. He was about to answer when Jack extended a hand to help him off the grass.

Grass. They were outside? Both looked around puzzled. They were right in front of the Stargate. But Teal'c hadn't remembered grass around the Stargate he'd been taken through from Chulak. In fact, he remembered a red desert that had no end and entering a ship that led them to the slave camp.

They had been ringed to another planet.

"Master Bra'tac is dead," Teal'c said as Jack walked towards the DHD.

Jack froze, his back to Teal'c. His fist clenched by his side. "It's just us then. We can go to the alpha site from here. Find someone with a code to the Iris and get back home," he said, looking forlorn.

"What of Major Carter?" Teal'c asked, slightly fearful of the answer. He walked beside his friend carefully and looked to his expression. All the sadness in his life was hitting him at that moment.

"We can at least say goodbye," Jack whispered, his head bowed so longer strands of graying hair fell forward and hid his eyes. Teal'c nodded and Jack began to dial the Stargate.

-------------------------------------------------------------------

"Daniel, run!" Sam screamed at the top of her lungs. "They're going to kill her!"

A second had gone by for him and Hammond but Sam's frantic screaming definitely got their attention.

"Sam, calm down!" Daniel pleaded but Sam was to the point of tears.

"No! She's in the parking lot up top. There are two white cars chasing after her. A Cadillac and a Mercedes. I didn't get the license plates. I don't think they had any. But they're going to corner her, Daniel. They're gonna take her away!"

Daniel ran all the way to the top floor, not bothering with many elevators. But she was already gone. Surveillance videos proved it. Two cars were chasing after her.

Hammond had a covert team of black vans together by the time Daniel got back upstairs. Police were already on the way to her house. Daniel was running to join them. But before he left, he stopped by the infirmary for a quick second and said goodbye to Sam and Ree, just in case it was the last time.

…Janet never made it home.

-------------------------------------------------------------------

"Ree! Tell me what's going on!" Sam pleaded. They were back in their shared fantasy world. But this one was darker. It was the base one dreary night. But inside Cheyenne, it was always night without Jack.

Ree sat huddled in the corner of the mess hall hugging her knees and staring off into space. "Lower your voice. They'll hear you."

"General Adrienne O'Neill! As your mother, I command you to tell me what that was all about. What's going to happen to Janet?"

"Do you really want to know?"

"Yes," Sam said firmly, sitting on the floor in front of her and regretting her answer.

"They're not going to kill her."

Sam sighed with relief then rethought her reaction, as she did with everything nowadays.

"It's going to be much worse than that. It's the rogues, Sam. They've taken her to implant her with a Goa'uld symbiote they've cloned and fully aged. We won't see her again for 3 years. They'll think they've controlled it but they won't and they'll spend all that time trying to get it to work. She'll get free, don't worry. But by then, all you've ever known to be Janet will have dried up with the blood they found in her jail cell. The symbiote will come in search of the Gate and take over the Stargate in the process. But that won't happen for a decade and a half…"

Sam had begun to cry. She knew Ree wasn't done but that was all she could stand of her emotionless tone.

"You know where they've hidden her, right?"

"Yeah, too bad I can't tell you."

Sam was going to get angry. She could feel it want to escape her. Why couldn't Ree just tell her? But she let it go. She wasn't sure why.

"Adrienne… What can I do to make you-"

"Bring him back!" Ree yelled tearfully.

"Bring who back?" Sam was truly puzzled.

"Dad. Please, bring him back." Their whispers continued to echo the fantasy that had become their lives.

"I can't do anything about that, Adrienne. He left of his own accord."

"No! You sent him away! You got sick and you were dying and he gave himself up for you! And still you sent him away!"

"Ree, what are you talking about? Is that what happened the first time around?"

Adrienne nodded and wiped away lying tears, looking off into a button on Sam's shirt. "He didn't come back because you sent him away. You told him this was more important," she said, extending her arms to the room, to the base, to this life they'd chosen.

"Adrienne, it is more important. We're saving lives here."

"No, none of it matters. They all die anyways. What's important is you and him. When he asks, tell him yes. Please, Mom. I'm begging you. Forget about Janet and Teal'c… Forget about Daniel, Gods know I've tried. Forget about them all. They mean nothing to you now."

Sam closed her eyes and let a final desperate tear escape before getting up and walking straight out of Adrienne's sanctuary, leaving her daughter to the remaining shreds of her humanity.

When Sam woke up, she was still in Ree's body. She thought maybe going back into their heads could split them up but it hadn't. They were truly stuck for the time being, but she was sure they wouldn't stay like this for long. After all, she had things to do. Hearts to break. More people to kill.

Daniel returned and Adrienne had been right. There was no sign of Janet anywhere. And when Daniel heard there might not be for a long, long time, he began to mourn her. He no longer visited Adrienne every moment of the day, even if one of his best friends controlled her body.

Sam's own body continued to die inexplicably. Blame started getting thrown around the room holding all the geneticists, doctors, and scientists trying to figure out what the hell was going on and who Adrienne could possibly be. They knew she wasn't human. That was for certain from her first check-up but what she was exactly was an enigma many were drooling to get their hands on.

Bluntly, they wanted a scalpel sharp enough to see how she worked inside. But Sam would not allow it. Now that Daniel had abandoned her and Teal'c and Jack were off getting killed, she was the only one holding everyone back.

Adrienne knew that, Sam figured. She began to wonder if they were in one body for Ree to protect herself. They could kill Adrienne. They couldn't kill Sam.

And then the day came when Jack would return.

-------------------------------------------------------------------

To be continued in PART FOURTEEN:

--When's Jack finally getting back to the SGC?

--What was that whole possession thing with Jack and Anubis about?

--How will they save Sam?

--Will they ever return to the slave camp?

--What happened with Jack and Sam in Ree's future?

--Will Adrienne ever reveal where Janet really is?

--And finally… Who will save the world when SG-1 is scattered in the mist?

-------------------------------------------------------------------

Coming soon…

"Lost Time" - What can Sam do when all she 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.)

-------------------------------------------------------------------

And to be alerted when a new chapter is posted, add "Level 28" to your Story Alert list below. (It's right in the scroll box under "Submit Reviews" -- HINT HINT! -- in case you want to do both. ) REVIEW!