3…Don't you ever give up?

Sam Carter walked down the hall. She was in a good mood. She almost had to restrain herself from skipping. Skipping not being very professional, she wasn't even sure why. She just felt happy and these days who was she to question moments of joy.

An airman walking past looked at her oddly and she realized she probably wasn't restraining herself as well as she thought.

She reached the elevator and pressed the button. When the doors opened, she lightly stepped inside and pressed the button for level 21.

On level 21 Daniel stood at the elevator waiting for it to arrive. He had burned his hand on the coffee maker while reaching for the pot with his nose in a book. Unfortunately, there had been no pot and his hand made contact with the very hot burner. He hadn't done that in a while. It was not a severe burn, but he wanted to make sure it healed before the next mission or he might not be cleared. And, seeing as they were exploring ancient ruins and not fighting priors, he certainly did not want to miss this mission.

The doors opened and he stepped in, and almost stepped on…Sam. "I need help here," Daniel screamed down the hall, trying to hold the door open with his foot while trying to reach Sam to find out what was wrong with her. "Someone, help," he yelled louder.

An SF ran to the nearby infirmary and retrieved the doctor.

"She's stable, let's get her to the infirmary," the doctor proclaimed. They lifted her on to the gurney. Daniel listened as the doctor ran the code and called for her stats as she worked to determine what was wrong with the Colonel.

"Colonel?...Colonel Carter, can you hear me?" she asked as she shined the light into Sam's unresponsive eyes. Quickly Sam was attached to many monitors and samples of her blood were already being rushed off to the lab. The doctors and nurses continued to evaluate her.

Daniel stood fixed to the scene before him, his right palm cupped in his left elbow and his left hand covered the lower portion of his face. He listened to the doctor explain to General Landry that they had no reason to believe this was contagious. It was not the Prior plague, no one else had complained of anything in the last 12 hours. Landry checked with Daniel and returned to his office. Daniel left to make the phone call he dreaded.

When Daniel returned he took a seat next to her bed. Sam was stable and was resting quietly. Or so it seemed; she looked peaceful. Not struggling with anything, just lying there peacefully sleeping. The monitors beeped in a steady rhythm and if it wasn't for the fact that she was unconscious, she would seem to be in pretty good shape.

Cam came into the room loudly. The man seemed to enter every situation at the same volume, "I was at lunch and some airman comes in talking about one minute he sees Colonel Carter nearly skipping down the hall, next thing he hears she's collapsed in the elevator. What's going on Daniel, they figure it out yet?"

"No."

"She's gonna be alright though; it's Carter after all."

"I'm sure she'll be fine, Cam." But he didn't sound convincing.

"Come on, Daniel," he punched him in the arm. "We've been worse off, she's probably just exhausted or something silly like that."

"Sure."

"I'm just saying, in a couple of days will all be laughing about this over meatloaf. You gonna stay?"

"Yeah." It felt like someone should. Jack was always here for them. He always made sure they made it out. It didn't seem right that she should be alone. Daniel opened his book. The nurses came into check on her occasionally, wrote down their findings on their clipboards and left. The few hours he sat there seemed like days.

When Dr. Lam entered the room he put down his book, "Dr. Lam, how is she?"

"She's unconscious, but I don't know why. So far, everything is coming back normal. I can call you if I have any news."

He smiled shyly, he knew what she meant. "It may seem silly, but it's kinda tradition."

"SG-1 takes the leave no man behind policy seriously. I get it."

"…or woman, and we all do here."

She nodded, not all did. She had plenty of SG team members in and out of here, plenty with an empty chair by the bed.

Teal'c came in and Daniel went to get something to eat. No words were exchanged. No reassurances that he would stay, or that she would be alright. Just an unspoken understanding.

It seemed like a long way up to level 21. Sam pushed the button again and then turned and that's when she saw her. She looked back at the buttons and pushed the alarm button, nothing happened.

"Sorry?" Sam, well the other Sam from her perspective said. Looking truly sorry, and she could tell because she knew that look very well.

"What's going on?" She figured she probably knew, because she, the other her did not seem bothered at all. Apologetic, but not bothered.

"Did you miss me?" Sam looked at her puzzled. "Just get back from Caledonia?"

"P6G-452."

"Oh yeah, corn, close enough."

"What do you want?" Sam asked warily. She didn't think this was the Replicator. Had no reason to believe she had a concussion. But she had been in enough deceptive situations to know better than trusting this one.

"Come on, Sam. You remember."

"Memories can be tricky things."

"Yes, they can. Fourth times the charm, though." She smiled.

"So I am to believe that it was all real and that you finally hit your mark, General."

"How can I prove that this is real?"

"What kind of proof would you require?"

"Ahhh…there's the rub. Can't think of a single thing. Everything I can tell you to prove this is real, already exists in your subconscious, so anything I say is subject to speculation. I thought this through, I had hoped some great revelation would come to me and I would have an answer for you, but here we are…"

"Okay…here we are. Why are we here?"

"I need information."

"You need information from yourself?"

"Yep."

"If you are me, why do you need it from me?"

"It was along time ago, something I thought it was better to forget I had ever seen, only I was wrong and now I need it and so…"

"Yeah, you see now that sounds like a reason to deceive me."

"Only I'm not."

"So, I can just come along and pluck me out of time and pick my own brain?" Sam slid down to the floor and crossed her left foot under her bent right leg.

The General slid down to the floor to sit across from her, appreciative that her 57 year old knees would not be able to complain on this plane of existence. "You already know it's trickier than that. As I explained before: you're not really here and I'm not really there."

"Okay, well that's the only thing that makes sense so far. So I'm not really in an elevator?"

"And, neither am I. I'm telling you the truth. I think you know that."

"So what do you want to know?"

"Caledonia."

"Yes, you mentioned that. What about it?"

"You were recently there and I need something from the plans of the Ori weapon."

"A weapon? You want to know how to make a weapon? Well that just proves you are not who you say you are."

"What the great Sam Carter doesn't create weapons? We were the first to create a naquadah enhanced nuclear weapon and let's not forget the Mark 9 and…."

"I did that within my own reality."

"Sure you'll follow orders. Okay, I out rank you. I order-"

"You can't order yourself-"

"So you concede that this is possible."

"Of course, I can concede that this is possible. It's a moot point, if you were there you would know that the plans I saw were incomplete and that I never saw completed schematics." Sam shook her head. "I'm afraid I can't help you."

"Yes, you did." The General smiled.

"If I did we would have made them to protect earth."

"We didn't have the capability to ensure we would have control. With the Ori out there it was more likely that we would have destroyed ourselves. That was my reasoning, after all. Look what Caledonia did to itself."

"They were engulfed in a civil war. We aren't."

"Sam, I don't have a lot of time."

"Well, I've got plenty of time."

"No you don't. You're scheduled for a mission tomorrow. This could derail that mission."

"Oh, if I'm unconscious? I am sure you are already well aware that the mission has been scrubbed. They won't let me through the gate the day after being unconscious. So how did we defeat the Ori?"

"You know I can't tell you that. Our very own rules; that whole messing up the timeline thing."

"And, this doesn't?"

"What have I told you that you don't already know?"

"Exactly. So you have nothing to offer to prove this is real."

"Sam, I will just have to come back again. I am trying to be as careful as possible to not disturb your life."

"Thank you I appreciate that, but sorry there is nothing you can say."

"On the next mission, the way out is through the research station."

Sam woke with a start as if coming up from deep under water. The monitors were beeping with a frenzied pace as Sam heartbeat was racing and she was gasping for air, looking around frantically."

"It's alright Sam. Dr. Lam." Daniel, tried to calm her and call for the Doctor with a sense of urgency at the same time. "It's alright Sam." Daniel kept trying to reassure both her and himself.

"What happen?" Sam asked.

"Good question," Dr. Lam responded.

As a result, Landry ordered her to take a few days off. Perhaps the stress of the plague and everything they had been going through had been getting to her. She hated when they accused her of not handling stress well. Who was it again who consistently pulled their butts out of the fire? She worked great under pressure. She did some of her best work under pressure.

The final verdict was that low blood sugar caused her to pass out and hit her head on the floor, thus the loss of consciousness. She had never once mentioned her experiences to anyone. They had always been explained away – stress, low blood sugar…and she let it rest at that. She didn't need to have them calling her crazy as well as irresponsible for not eating regularly. After all, maybe it was that simple. But, at the same time she began to question the experiences. Was it possible? Would she? Could she ever be that desperate?

Her time off was not any easier. Standing in the department store she looked at the towels trying to determine what color to get, but it seemed too trivial. With all that was taking place out there it was hard to care what color towels hung in the bathroom.

When she returned to duty they resumed their planned mission to visit the ancient ruins that Daniel thought might be helpful in providing a clue to defeating the Ori. Only that mission was scrubbed to baby-sit. Baby-sit bureaucrats. She didn't like to baby-sit, not even when she was younger. This was not a good idea. But she went along to show she was back to normal, and to get SG-1 back on track.

Later that day as she stood in the cave listening to Woolsey drone on about being more positive, she suddenly felt that maybe the stress was getting to her. Either that or impatience with bureaucrats was contagious; something you could perhaps catch from close contact with a certain short-tempered General.

"Mr. Woolsey, if I could go back in time -- which, admittedly is an opportunity I am occasionally presented with-" the statement echoed through her head as she walked back to the entrance of the cave. Later when Daniel brought up the research station she shook with a chill and agreed. The way out is the research station.

Safely returned to the SGC Sam buried herself in working on one of the devices from Glastonbury. When the phone rang at 0330, she knew exactly who it was, he would be getting up to get ready for work, "Carter, you're still there?"

"Yes."

"Not going home?"

"No."

"I could order you."

"But, you won't."

"You sound tired." She knows logically she should go to her room and sleep. Sleep being the natural thing to do when one is tired, but strangely the exhaustion that blurs reality and hallucinations is almost comforting. As if she can write it all off as a hallucination and… "Please, go and sleep?"

She wanted to fight, but admittedly she was reaching the point where she would fall asleep on the table in front of her. And, he did ask nicely, "Alright, I'll go lay down for a little while."

"Thanks. Oh by the way, I like the blue towels." She snorted; she loved the fact that he could find joy in something as simple as new towels. But then again he always had a knack for compartmentalizing.