PART FIVE
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Nuclear Facility
"Is this it?" O'Neill questioned from his vantage point at the head of the table, quickly surveying the small group of people gathered in the room.
Janet cast her eyes around the room: Walter, Samuels, Maybourne, Harlowe, Cassandra, Bek and Sam. A small, unlikely group, she mused.
"No," Samuels shook his head. "Paul Davis will arrive sometime tonight or early tomorrow with a few more men; he's been stuck in DC dealing with the crisis."
"The real crisis?" O'Neill asked demurely, "or your cover story?"
Samuels blushed, and Janet knew she'd been wrong to trust him. Samuels was always in it for himself, the weak, lying bastard that he was.
"Colonel O'Neill," Harlowe interrupted, "the bugs are a very real threat. Unless I get that sample of your blood soon, I don't know whether it will even be worth trying to create a vaccine."
"I wouldn't say the bugs aren't a threat," Sam agreed, "but they're not the only threat, are they?"
"No." Samuels said shortly.
"Would you mind explaining the rest of the situation to me?" Janet asked politely, stepping firmly on her temper.
"Need to know," Samuels said coldly, his eyes flicking pointedly towards Cass and Bek.
"Where are they supposed to go, Samuels?" the Colonel demanded. "They know about the bugs already, and Cass is well acquainted with the rest. Probably more acquainted than you," he added scathingly.
Oh, shit. Janet's eyes widened as she realised where O'Neill was going.
"This is a mil-" Samuels started defending.
"A what?" O'Neill interrupted. "A military operation?" he mocked. "Take a look around, Samuels. You have two convicted criminals, a dishonourably discharged medical doctor, a geneticist, a geek and a dead man. We're not a military operation; I doubt the military has any idea that this meeting is even taking place!"
Samuels' silence was damning. "Now, Samuels, the truth," O'Neill said calmly. "All of it this time."
Janet watched Samuels as he neatened the papers on the table in front of him before looking around the crowded room. "I'm sure most of you are aware of the existence of a second Stargate," he said easily. "We believe that during the time it was under NID control, shortly after the discovery of it in Antarctica, an NID team was somehow infected with a Goa'uld, and from there they set themselves up. The arrival of the retro virus in the flying parasite that had stung Teal'c would have been fantastic timing as far as the Goa'uld were concerned."
"How long, exactly, have you been aware of this Goa'uld presence?" Janet demanded.
"A few months ago, we got our proof," Samuels admitted. "We had a reasonable amount of information on them, and started this operation. We hadn't counted on them being aware of our plans and measures against them," he said darkly.
"What exactly are you saying, Samuels?" Janet was impatient, and Samuel's ability to avoid the issue was really beginning to grate on her nerves.
"Major Carter had to be removed from the SGC three years ago," Samuels said, "because she alone was able to detect their presence. Colonel O'Neill and General Hammond were also problems, because they made it clear how they felt about NID operations. At that stage, the Goa'uld were already well up our chain of command, only we didn't realise it."
"So they set me up?" Sam said quietly. "They planted the bomb that killed Hammond and Daniel, made it look like it killed Colonel O'Neill, and framed me for it."
"Yes," Samuels said. "You were supposed to be executed for that, but my colleagues and I thought it prudent to keep you alive because we were beginning to suspect."
"The only reason you got Carter out was because you didn't know I'd been a host too, correct?" O'Neill demanded.
"Her abilities aside, Colonel, Major Carter has experience and a technical knowledge we are hard pressed to equal," Samuels ground out, "so there is more than one reason we went to all the trouble of making it appear as though she were dead."
"So what do you want from me, Samuels?" Sam asked tiredly, resting her head in her hands. For the first time since Janet had seen Sam, Sam looked tired. Worn. As though she had reached the end. "You need me to be a Goa'uld detector?"
"Like I said, Major Carter, we have a big problem on our hands and we need all the help we can get. The Goa'uld got hold of the specimen, as Colonel O'Neill is well aware, and manipulated it so that the virus now works to suit them."
"How so?" Janet asked curiously.
"Alone, a Goa'uld symbiote was unable to withstand the affects of the virus, Doctor Fraiser," Harlowe inserted. "The new virus acts slower, and gives the symbiote more time to defeat it."
"And it works?" Janet asked doubtfully.
"O'Neill's alive, isn't he?" Samuels snapped.
"You knew what they were doing to me, and you didn't get me out?" O'Neill demanded.
"We didn't know," Samuels said curtly. "Not until a few months ago."
"Relax, Jack," Maybourne cut in, "even if we had known they had you, there's no way we could have gotten you out before."
"What did they do to him?" Sam demanded.
The silence in the room was thick and rich with something nobody wanted to vocalise. Eventually, Maybourne cleared his throat. "They infested him with a Goa'uld, and used him as a guinea pig to try out their new virus. Several times."
Janet's eyes immediately flew to O'Neill, but he avoided everyone's gaze and stared at the floor, refusing to acknowledge what Maybourne said. Janet felt cold and hard inside.
"So we have Goa'uld wiping out the planet with a race of super bugs that turns our DNA into their DNA," Janet summarised bluntly. "What exactly is our plan to stop this?"
"We have to wait for Paul to arrive from the Pentagon; he's got more information on the levels of infiltration at the SGC. He might also have a means for us to contact the Asgard," Samuels explained. "What we need to do now is get blood samples from O'Neill so you and doctor Harlowe can start working on a cure for this virus."
O'Neill laughed bitterly, pushing his chair back roughly as he rose to his feet. "You don't get it, do you Samuels?"
"Get what?" Samuels demanded.
"You can't stop them. You have no fucking idea of how far they've spread. You can't just stop them."
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Nuclear Facility
She'd had nightmares of this happening. Ever since Sam had been taken by Jolinar, Cassandra had been terrified of one of them getting infested off-world. She'd also been terrified of that infestation happening on Earth, and of no-one noticing it.
Sitting here, in this dimly lit, cramped room was a culmination of her worst fears. She remembered this place from years before, the dark warren of concrete and deterioration where Sam had almost abandoned her to a dark and empty death. For years she had been unable to go into small spaces, and she feared the dark in a way she had feared nothing before. Once again she was within it's stone bowels being handed her nightmares on a cracked clay platter where she could sit and watch her world slowly get torn apart.
Cassie swallowed roughly, trying to ignore the darkness of her thoughts, and turned her attention to the other occupants in the room.
Jack was talking to Samuels, the two of them poring over the table where several documents had been spread. Their differences and disagreements had been forgotten in the last ten minutes, with everyone around the table focusing completely on the current problems.
"No," Samuels shook his head. "We tracked down Walter and Fraiser and set this place up here. We also got in contact with Harlowe."
"Why?" Jack interrupted sharply.
"We knew they were experimenting," Samuels said simply. "I didn't realise it was you at the time, O'Neill, I swear. We just knew they were working on a vaccine that they could take so they wouldn't destroy their networks they'd set up."
"Why not just destroy us with their ships?" Sam asked.
"Against the Asgard Peace Treaty," Samuels pointed out. "Despite the fact that Bauer managed to piss the Asgard off to the point where they have nothing to do with us, we are still under the Protected Planets Treaty, which is why they've resorted to using these bugs. Under the treaty, there is nothing to stop them from being on Earth, they just can't wipe us out. And we can't prove that it was a Goa'uld who let the bugs escape because the NID was involved with experimentation as well, through Doctor Harlowe."
Cassandra blinked, rubbing at her face with her hands.
"Cass?" Bek whispered, nudging her arm hesitantly.
She'd forgotten about Bek, sitting silently beside her. "Yeah?"
"This… this is real?"
"Unfortunately," she confirmed.
"And you knew about it?"
A bitter smile touched Cass' lips. "Yeah."
"These… these Goa'uld…" Bek stumbled over the word, her pronunciation slightly skewed, but Cass let it pass. Far be it for her to care about someone pronouncing the snakes' name incorrectly.
"They're bad. Very bad," Cass whispered.
"And they want to kill us?"
"More like enslave," Cass corrected. "But yeah, they're bad."
"Are you insane!" Janet shrieked, interrupting their whispered conversation. "You can't do that!"
"Why not?" O'Neill returned calmly.
"You don't have the manpower, Colonel, or the resources. I doubt you'd even be able to access the SGC!" she pointed out sharply. "Besides, we need you here for the vaccine."
"I'll donate some more blood," Jack returned evenly. "And then I'll go."
"At least wait until Paul arrives, Jack," Maybourne suggested. "He might bring some more intel."
"You can't go, sir," Sam added quietly.
Cassie watched with interest as Jack spared Sam a soft glance. "I have to, Carter."
"Yes, you do," she agreed simply, "but not now. You couldn't even run a mile, judging from what I've heard today and the way you look now."
"You're not exactly fighting fit yourself, Carter," he snapped.
Sam's eyes glinted, and Cassie remembered from long experience that it was a bad idea to get Sam annoyed at you. "No, I'm not, but I'm not the one who was infested with a Goa'uld to keep him alive after getting caught in a bomb explosion, and who was then experimented on for various reasons."
"Wait until Paul Davis arrives," Samuels interjected, and Cass felt herself nodding in agreement. "That will give you time to rest, for us to formulate a better plan of attack, and for the doctors to start working on a vaccine."
Jack knew when he was beaten, it seemed. "Okay. Fine."
"Right then." Samuels rose to his feet, gathering the loose documents. "I suggest that we all meet again as soon as Paul arrives. Until then, make yourselves at home," he added cordially.
"What about us?" Cass questioned. "What do Bek and I do?" The looks Cassie received were patronising at best, and she bristled under the implications. "I have as much right to help as you all do!" she said firmly. "I want to help."
Jack nodded thoughtfully. "Okay," he said, "we'll think of something."
"Me too!" Bek chimed in.
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3:40pm
"You've been released?" Sam asked, spying the Colonel sprawled on his back and staring up at the sky through the trees.
"Temporarily," he returned, turning his head to gaze up her as she came to a standstill next to him. He was chewing on a grass-stalk, and as her eyes rested on it he pulled it out of his mouth with his fingers. "Carter, can I ask you something?"
She frowned. "Okay?"
"Do you have anything else to wear? I mean, that orange is really… bright."
She glanced down at herself, still clad in the bright orange prison-issued suit. "Sorry, Sir, I left my suitcase at home when they arrested me. And prison really doesn't have much opportunity for shopping," she added scathingly.
He had the good grace to look slightly apologetic, so she dropped to the ground beside him, resting her chin on her knees and catching her wrists around her legs.
"Sorry," he said uncomfortably.
"It's okay," she shrugged, and then glanced at him. "It's not like your wardrobe is much better."
The jeans were far too short for him, and the plaid shirt didn't look very comfortable.
"You've lost weight," she announced.
He raised his eyebrows, slightly surprised by her statement. "I guess I have," he agreed. And then, as if he took her comment as permission, he returned the favour. "You have too. And you haven't been getting enough sun, Carter."
"Same goes for you," she returned, a smile beginning to creep over her lips.
"Also, I have to confess something," he added, taking a deep breath. "The new hair cut? It really doesn't work for me."
"Yeah?" she asked, running a hand over the soft cap of curls starting to grow back. "Feels kinda cool though," she told him.
"May I?" he asked.
She shrugged, and lowered her head so that he could lift a hand and touch her hair. This was quite possibly the most ridiculous situation she'd ever been in with him, she decided as his fingers tentatively glided over her 'bristle'.
"What do you think?" she asked him curiously.
"Well," he drawled thoughtfully. "It's soft… and it tickles."
"Easy to keep neat," she added.
"Yeah, very easy. Not much fun though," he commented. And then he ruffled her hair. Not roughly, just quickly jiggling his fingers over it and raising the static within the short strands.
"Sir!" she said sharply. "Don't mess with the 'do!"
"Sorry, Carter," he said contritely, removing his hand from her hair and letting it rest on her back. It was warm where it lay against the rough material, a comforting weight. She sighed deeply and smiled, leaning back and letting his arm support her.
"I missed you," she said, surprising both herself and him with the words.
His fingers contracted on her back, the movement a brief acknowledgement of understanding. "Yeah, me too," he agreed. "How are you, Carter?"
"I'm fine, sir," she said evenly.
Again, the slight movement of his fingers on her back. She felt warm inside, warm and content suddenly. The sun was shining, dappling down on them as they sat with each other.
God she'd missed him. Really missed him.
"How are you?" she asked, swallowing past the sudden thickness in her throat.
He chuckled. "That's not fair."
"Yes it is," she smiled. "You were hurt. You almost died."
"So did you," he pointed out, his voice a lot more serious than she had been.
Yes, but she didn't want to think about that. Not now. Not while she could sit here for a few hours and pretend that everything was okay and fine and that none of the last four years had happened.
"Carter?"
"It's over, sir," she said softly.
"No," he said softly, "it's not over. Not yet."
His fingers were moving steadily across her back, their movements firm. "I wish it was," she admitted.
"Me too. When it's over, Carter, I'll take you fishing."
"That would be assuming your cabin is still there," she pointed out cynically. "God knows what they did with it after they announced you dead."
"I left it to you," he admitted.
"And I left all my stuff to Cass," she admitted.
"Then I guess we should ask Cass," he told her lazily.
"Yeah."
His hand moved from her back to her arm, down past her elbow and coming to a rest on her wrist. "I'm tired, Carter," he said simply.
She regarded him silently. He tugged on her wrist, and smiled slightly. She went willingly, curling up against him, her head cradled on his shoulder and his arm curling around her waist.
His breath ruffled her short hair, and his heart echoed beneath her ear.
"Go to sleep," she whispered.
And they both did.
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