Disclaimer: 'Stargate SG1', 'The 4400' and all the characters associated with both shows belong to people who aren't me. As I doubt that the owners would be willing to trade their rights for some magic beans that aren't in any way magical, this is not going to change at any point in the foreseeable future.

Chapter Nine

"How are you managing with unpacking?" Daniel asked, looking up from his translation. "Did you get all of your stuff back from storage alright?"

"Most of it is still in boxes, I haven't brought all of them back to the house yet." Sam told him. "But nearly everything was in great condition. I can't believe that you guys kept them packed away for all those years. I would have thought that the house and everything in it would have been sold a long time ago." She had been able to move into her old house the previous week, as soon as the people who had been renting it while she was away had departed and she had been pleasantly surprised to find it almost completely unchanged.

"Jack would never have let us." Daniel told her before snorting. "Wish he'd done the same for me when I was gone. Every time I die, I lose all my stuff and I end up living in quarters on the base for more than a month before I get a chance to find a place."

"That's what you get for dying." Jack said from the doorway, hearing his friend's last statement. "Carter was alive, well and getting a superpower."

Daniel made a face at his friend. "It's not like I plan it." He picked up his coffee cup, frowning when he saw that it, along with the pot at his side, was empty. "I'm going to get a fresh pot. Need anything?" He asked Sam.

"No, thanks."

"I'm fine too, thanks for asking." Jack quipped, but Daniel was already half way out the door and ignored him. He turned to Sam. "What are you doing here? I thought that you were in your own lab."

"I was." She told him quietly. "But everyone kept looking in to make sure that I wasn't going to turn Carrie and blow up the base." She sighed. "I hate this. Janet said that she couldn't figure out how I changed. Which means that she can't reverse it."

"You know, it could end up being a good thing. Hear me out," Jack said hastily, seeing the expression on Sam's face. "I know that it's a little unpredictable now…"

"A little?" She stared at him incredulously.

"But I'd bet that's nothing that practice won't cure."

"I doubt that General Hammond would want me to practice tossing people around."

"We don't keep Siler around because he's pretty." Jack joked. "But if you don't want to practice on him, you can always start small - Hammond said that the gym is at your disposal whenever you want to use it. You can toss basketballs and stuff like that around to your heart's content."

"I'm sure he doesn't want me to…"

"I think he'd rather you learned to control it, don't you?" Jack cut in gently.

"He thinks I'm dangerous." She said quietly. "Everyone must."

"Nobody who knows you thinks you're dangerous, Carter, we know that you would never try to hurt us. And as far as your new power goes, it saved my spectacular ass so I definitely consider it a plus. But if you can't control it, it could become a problem. Besides," he added, "you can't tell me that you're not even a little bit curious about what you can do."

"Maybe a little." She admitted reluctantly.

"So why not experiment with it a bit?" He urged. "It can't hurt."

"I guess…" Sam wasn't fully convinced but that didn't seem to matter, Jack was already tugging her out of Daniel's lab.

"So," Jack said, trying to sound worried and failing. "Do you think I'm going to need to wear a helmet?"

Mitchell had always known that his acting skills were far from Oscar worthy. Even in his elementary school plays, he had always preferred to stick to working backstage instead of acting.

Pretending to be somebody he wasn't had never come easy to him.

Now, as he moved through the corridors of the SGC, exchanging occasional greetings with people passing by, he was very conscious of how much depended on his ability to deceive and he was afraid of what would happen if his performance failed to convince.

There was a lot at stake here.

Afternoon

After just a couple of hours spent trying to levitate objects in the gym, Sam had felt more exhausted than she normally did after working in her lab for forty-eight hours straight.

Making things move seemed to be no problem; when she concentrated, she had been able to lift anything - from basketballs to weights Jack had sworn even Teal'c couldn't bench press - without any trouble. However, exercising a finer control over her newfound ability had proven to be far more of a challenge.

"General Hammond isn't going to be happy, is he?" She asked, looking down at the grooves and scratches that various falling objects had marred the floor with.

"Don't worry about the floor, Carter," Jack said, "this is just practice. Just think," he added, grinning, "if you can learn to control this, you might be able to juggle Jaffa with your mind some day." She didn't seem to find this prospect anywhere near as appealing as he did. Scrutinizing her features carefully, Jack noticed her pale face and exhaustion. "This takes a lot out of you, doesn't it?" He observed sympathetically.

"I could do with a break."

Knowing that she would never admit that unless she was really wiped, Jack nodded, "I'll let Hammond know that you're leaving early - no arguments," He warned, "I don't want Doc Fraiser using me as her personal pin cushion for the next month."

"Yes, sir." She agreed quietly, leaving the gym and heading towards the locker room to change.

She ran into Mitchell on her way to the elevator. "Major," she acknowledged him politely.

"Captain. Headed home early?"

"Yes, sir. Colonel O'Neill ordered me out so they could make repairs in the gym."

" I wondered what that was. I could hear it from the commissary," he remarked good-naturedly before adding. "You know, you don't have to call me 'sir'. It makes me feel old."

"Umm… okay." She hadn't quite made up her mind about SG-1's most recent 2IC, and, while she had been relieved to be allowed back on SG-1, she had been worried that Mitchell might have felt that he was being replaced. She knew enough about that feeling not to wish it on anybody else.

"You'd better head then," Mitchell said after a moment of uncomfortable quiet. "See you tomorrow."

"You too."

The Airmen Jack had stuck with the cleaning job in the gym had been curious about the cause of the considerable damage to the floor but they had wisely refrained from asking questions or commenting on it, which was fortunate for them as Jack was becoming extremely impatient with the level of curiousity and even suspicion that was still directed at Sam, even more so since General Hammond's warning and the appearance of Sam's new ability.

Dropping by his office, he took one look at the stack of paper work awaiting his attention and decided that that was something that could wait until after he'd fortified himself for the task with a large slice of cake.

Passing by one of the small offices along the way to the commissary, he could hear furtive whispering. Hearing the name 'Carter', closely followed by the word 'freaks', he marched into the office, almost giving the two SFs sitting in front of a computer, their eyes glued to the screen, full-fledged heart attacks.

"Either of you want to tell me what's going on in here?" He asked, motioning for them to move aside and allow him to see the webpage they were visiting. "'The - somehow I don't think that the Air Force is paying you boys to spend your time looking up this crap. Is it?" He demanded.

"No, sir."

"No, sir."

Though their responses were suitably contrite, the slight defiance in their eyes did not go unnoticed.

Although Jack's first instinct was to beat the crap out of them both, he restrained himself - albeit with some difficulty.

"Get your asses to General Hammond's office and report yourselves – now!" He snapped, the ferocity of his tone sending both men fleeing. Neither would dare do anything other than report their actions to the general as ordered; if they hadn't when Jack checked with him, it would go a lot worse for them.

Mentally resolving to have someone check out both men's computer and phone history to see if either of them were MNCN's secret informant, Jack reached for the mouse to shut down the computer. was, like pretty much every website about the returnees, an electronic tabloid, complete with garish illustrations and flashing headlines. He was about to close out of the page when he spotted a heading that made his blood run cold.

Under a crudely animated head labelled 'The 4400 Menace', was a caption in a bright yellow font; 'Where Are The 4400?' Clicking on it, he scrolled through the list. He had hit #1 on his speed dial even before he saw her name.

Sam had just fished her keys out of her bag when her cellphone started ringing and, balancing her purse awkwardly, she dug through it with her right hand while turning the key with her left.

She unearthed her phone, and flipped it open, only to drop it when she felt a sharp pricking at the side of her neck. She touched it gingerly, her fingers coming away wet with blood and swiftly becoming numb. A pair of strong arms caught her as her legs gave way beneath her, a large hand covering over her mouth and stifling any noise she might have made. A second person caught her legs and between them they hauled her across the street and into a van.

The sound of an explosion tore through her head, and then she knew no more.

TBC.

Author's Note: Next chapter should be posted soon. In the meantime, please review.