Chapter Five: Mind the Gap
The SGC

"What's the last thing you remember?"

Carter raised an eyebrow at Doctor Weir, and Jack couldn't blame her – that was about the most vague question he'd ever heard. "After... what?" she asked finally. "I mean, you usually ask someone that after they've fainted or something, right? And I don't... There's nothing like that. Nothing's happened."

Doctor Brightman stepped inside the curtain but didn't interrupt, watching her patient carefully.

"Where were you before you, uh... caught Daniel and I in the corridor?" Jack asked, intentionally choosing the most innocent verb he could come up with.

"In my lab."

"Well, that could be something, Major," Weir suggested. "What were you working on?"

"Doctor," she corrected curtly. "And I've been working on the phase enhancements for the naquadah generator for weeks."

"And that's what you were doing this morning?" Both superiors knew she wasn't – the generators were either off-world or in secure storage.

"Well, no," Carter said softly. "I wasn't really working on anything this morning. I, ah..." Only once all of the other three in the room had adopted their best intrigued stares did she confess, "I woke up there. I was... asleep at my lab table."

Doctor Brightman spoke first, though Jack knew the other doctor was thinking the same thing. "And that didn't strike you as odd?"

Well, they were new.

"Frankly, no," her patient answered. "Look, sometimes I wake up with an idea, and I can't get back to sleep, so I go work on it. It's not all that strange."

"Colonel?" Weir asked, begging confirmation.

Jack couldn't give it – not for sure – but he shrugged. He might not know for sure that she did exactly that, but it was right up her alley. "I'd buy that. So what's the last thing you remember before waking up? Do you actually recall going to your lab in the middle of the night?"

"I... No," she admitted, troubled. "I guess I don't."

"What do you remember?" he pressed gently.

It quickly became clear that what was bothering her was not what she didn't remember, but what she did. "I was in my quarters. We were getting ready for bed."

We. Carter and Daniel. That thought was so incredibly... wrong. Jack could only hope that he didn't look as disturbed as he felt.

Her next words were little more than a whisper. "He's avoiding me, isn't he?"

Yeah, he was, and the colonel didn't quite know how he felt about that. On the one hand, seeing them together – the whole idea of it – was not something he wanted to deal with. On the other... Carter was hurting, and a part of him wanted to tell the younger man to buck the hell up.

"I'm sure you can understand that Doctor Jackson is a bit confused by all this," Doctor Weir told her. "He's going to need some time."

Staring down at her hands, she nodded.

"Now, I don't mean to offend you, Major – uh, Doctor – Carter," the woman went on, "but the SGC has seen any number of things that could explain this. Cloning, shape-shifting, retroviruses that can affect DNA. So I have to ask... Doctor Brightman, are we sure she is who she says she is?"

"I haven't had a chance to do a full exam yet," the physician shrugged, "but as soon as I can get some blood, we'll run the DNA. I'll let you know if I find anything out of the ordinary."

Jack and Weir got to their feet, but Carter held up a warning hand as the doctor approached. "I'm sorry. I don't mean to offend you, either – I'm sure you're very good at your job. But if I have to be poked and prodded, I'd really prefer to have Janet do it."

Brightman's eyes flew wide, and it took only a few unfortunate seconds before Jack found both her gaze and Weir's firmly on him. After a moment, Carter looked up at him, too. "What?" she asked softly.

Oh, he'd been so grateful to get out of telling her the first time – being unconscious and in surgery and all. He took a breath and let it out very, very slowly. "About that..."