*****

The hospital was crowded. There were patients sitting in wheelchairs in the hallways and the chairs in the waiting room were virtually full. The nurses looked harassed and the doctor's looked exhausted. Sam had no doubt in her mind as to why she was unable to get any information earlier. They were simply too busy to answer questions over the telephone.

The two of them went to the tired looking nurse sitting behind a desk in the triage area of the Emergency Room. "May I help you?" It sounded to Sam like she meant, 'May I not help you, PLEASE??'

"I am Major Samantha Carter, and this Dr. Daniel Jackson. We are trying to find out the status of a patient that was brought here by military transport this afternoon. I do not have her last name, but her first name was Shaboni. She was involved in a pedestrian versus motor vehicle accident. She was the pedestrian." Sam produced her Air Force credentials for the nurse.

"I don't have any idea who you're talking about, but I'll see what I can find out." She dropped her pen on the clipboard she was holding and went behind a set of doors leaving Sam and Daniel standing there without another word. They watched the frenzied activity around them for a few minutes.

"This place is a madhouse!" Daniel exclaimed.

"Do you think this is normal or did something particularly nasty happen?"

"It's always like this." A voice from behind them made them both jump and turn. "They closed one of the county hospitals a couple of months ago and we've not been able to catch up with the overflow." A young doctor in scrubs and long white coat offered his hand to Daniel. "Dr. Mattheson. I hear you're interested in Captain Uziel."

"Captain?" Sam had not expected to hear something like that. "I'm sorry we were unaware that she was military personnel or we wouldn't have transported her to a civilian hospital." She took his hand and shook it briefly.

"She isn't American military personnel. Her name is Captain Shaboni Uziel. When she was unable to fill out her paperwork we ran her prints and got a hit with ICE. She is a registered alien and her papers indicated that she was a captain in the Israeli Defense Forces," he explained. "Please come with me." He indicated for them to follow.

They exchanged glances thinking this had become a little more complicated.

They followed the doctor to a small room that was obviously used for conferences with families when things were not going well for patients. The doctor motioned for them to have a seat and when they sat he followed.

"So, what does the Air Force want with an Israeli citizen in my ER?" Did he just call it his ER? Daniel thought, and not a little ironically, that he barely looked old enough to be a doctor. He looked closer at the badge hanging from the lapel of the doctor's coat. 'Attending,' it said. 'When did I get old enough to think someone in their thirties looks like a kid?' he wondered to himself.

"I'm Major Samantha Cater," Sam introduced herself, "and this is Dr. Daniel Jackson. We need to know the condition of Captain Uziel. She was involved in an accident that involved our commanding officer. We were unable to ascertain her condition at the scene and had no further information about her. Without further information a proper report of the incident can not be filed."

"Well, Major, she is in fairly serious condition. But I will not release any more information than that about her condition to anyone who is not authorized."

"I understand that, doctor. Would it be possible for us to see her for a moment at least to make sure we're talking about the same person?" Daniel inquired.

"I will ask if she is willing to speak with you. Considering the nature of her condition I was concerned that you intended to transfer her or interfere with her care in some other fashion," the doctor offered by way of a very suspicious explanation.

"No, no that was certainly not our intention. We just needed to get some more information so that all the paperwork could be filled out. Besides, the colonel is going to want to know of her condition when he wakes up," Sam told him.

"Well, Major, I can't promise anything, but I'll ask. If you and Dr. Jackson will wait here for a moment I will be right back." He stood and left the room.

The looked at each other.

"So let me get this straight, Sam," Daniel started. "Jack ran over a woman on his way home for his first week off in ages. No one got her full name and no police report was filed. It turns out she is a Captain in the Israeli Defense Forces, and they think the Air Force wants to interfere with her care for some reason?" He didn't know if he wanted to laugh or cry. It was so absurd it bordered on insanity. But then, wasn't that pretty much par for the course in his world?

"Yep, that's what I heard, too." Sam clearly understood. She had that same isn't-this-the-impossible-kind-of-mess-that-we-always-get-ourselves-into look.

"Just making sure I was on the right page, here."

They sat there in silence pondering the sense of humor the universe seemed to have where SG1 was concerned until the doctor returned.

"She said she will see you, but I must ask you to be brief. Five minutes. She is quite ill and needs no more stress. Follow me."

The doctor took them through the crowded ER to a room with door. He gestured towards the door and Daniel opened it. There, sitting on a hospital gurney in an unflattering hospital gown was an exotic-looking, if somewhat battered and bruised woman. Daniel thought she was quite pretty. She was clearly Middle-Eastern with deeply brown hair that cascaded past her shoulders in soft curls. Her skin was pale, but had a creamy olive tone to it. Her nose had a very distinctive shape belying her heritage. Her eyes blazed from beneath dark lashes like two gray fires. There was a spectacular intensity about the way she observed them that charged the air in the room.

"Please come in," she spoke softly but directly with a clipping of consonants that revealed her accent.

"Um, hi." Daniel began his well-practiced 'we're peaceful travelers from Earth' speech and then realized this wasn't a distant world and this was not a foreign life form. "I'm Dr. Daniel Jackson and this is Major Samantha Carter. We came to see how you are feeling and to ask you a couple of questions."

She turned her attention to Sam, "You were at the place of the accident today." Not exactly a question.

"Yes, I saw you briefly before you were transported here."

"The man who hit me, Jack, he was injured." Again, a statement that seemed designed to elicit a response despite the fact that it wasn't a question.

"He was," Sam confirmed.

"He was not brought to this hospital. I was brought here in a military transport. Air Force, I was told. He is an officer."

"He is a colonel. If fact, he is our CO." Sam was starting to feel a little nervous around this woman.

"You are not military." She directed her attention to Daniel.

Daniel glanced at Sam briefly. He got the feeling they were being interrogated. "No, I am a consultant."

"Why are you here?" Finally an actual question!

"Like I said, we wanted to see how you are doing and to ask you a couple of questions," Daniel shifted from one foot to the other, distinctly uncomfortable.

"Ask me your questions."

"Well your name was one thing. A report needs to be filed about what happened out there. We need your name at the very least." Daniel sounded a little testy to Sam.

"My name is Shaboni Uziel." She laid her head back against the pillow behind her. It made her hair splay out in all directions. It looked to Daniel like a cloud of warmth around the coolness of her eyes. In a very vague sense she reminded him of Sha're.

"The doctor informed us that you are a captain in the Israeli Defense Forces. Is that correct?" Sam inquired.

The woman stiffened almost imperceptibly and then relaxed a bit. "No." And when neither Sam nor Daniel made an attempt to inquire further she was visibly relieved.

"Ms. Uziel can you tell us what happened out there today?" Daniel decided to get to the point, but he controlled his tone.

"I was walking along the pass and I saw the truck coming around the curve of the road. It did not take the curve...," she paused looking for the right word, "correct. The truck was coming to me and the man inside turned to try to miss me. The tires lost their traction and the truck spun. The end of the truck stuck me. After that I do not remember anything until I was on the road where you came to us," she looked to Sam.

"Can you tell us what your injuries are?" Daniel asked gently.

"I have no major injuries. A concussion to my head. On the right I have bruised ribs. Some scrapes. I am mostly unharmed."

Sam and Daniel looked at each other then. Fairly serious condition? Quite ill?

"Dr. Mattheson seemed to indicate you were somewhat more seriously injured than that," Daniel told her.

"Dr. Mattheson exaggerates. I am fine. I will be leaving shortly." She dismissed the question in their eyes.

"May we have some information about how to contact you?" Daniel, again, being softly persuasive.

"I will give you my phone number and address if you will get something on which for me to be writing." There was something about the way she mis-spoke English that Daniel found very endearing. Daniel reached into one of the large cargo pockets on his fatigue pants and brought out a small notebook with a pencil in the top. He handed it to her. She wrote it down for them.

"Thank you Ms. Uziel," Daniel said as she handed the notebook back to him.

"I am Shaboni." She smiled softly at him and Sam couldn't help but smile herself. 'Leave it to Daniel. Women can't resist him.'

"Shaboni," he said smiling back at her.

"Please tell your Colonel Jack that I am okay. I am not angry with him. He tried very hard to miss hitting me. I am sorry that he was injured. I would very much like to know that he recovers."

"We'll tell him." Sam smiled politely at her and indicated to Daniel that they should go. They left her room and started for the parking lot.

"She was interesting," Daniel said conversationally. Sam could not contain the laugh that his comment brought from her. She giggled outright. "What?"

"Yes, Daniel. She was interesting." She was grinning from ear to ear.

"But a little scary, too," he added quietly. That comment froze her grin and as it faded she had to agree.

"Yeah, a little."

*****

They walked into the infirmary to find Teal'c in exactly the same place he'd been when they left.

"How is he?" Sam asked quietly as she came into the room.

"He is hungry," came a distinctly disgruntled voice from the bed.

"Sir!" she beamed.

"Shhhh!" he chided her. "Noisy."

"Sorry, Sir." She lowered her voice considerably. "But how are you besides being hungry?"

"I am fine, Major. Did you bring me something to eat?"

"Sorry, Sir, no. I'll go get you something from the commissary." She turned to go.

"Try to make sure it's actually food, Major," he called after her. He lay back gingerly on the pillow and closed his eyes.

Seeing that his friend was obviously in better shape than he'd been before, Daniel started for the door. He needed to get the information they'd gotten from Shaboni to the general, and it appeared that Jack wanted to sleep.

Without missing a beat and without opening his eyes Jack interrupted his departure again, "Where ya' goin' Daniel?"

Daniel stopped and turned around. "I wanted to report to General Hammond."

"You wanted to report to him?" Jack opened one eye.

"Well, Sam and I went to the hospital to talk to the woman who..." how to put it?

"The woman I plowed into with my truck," the colonel supplied for the diplomatic Dr. Jackson.

"The woman you hit, yes. She seems to be fine, by the way."

"I was gonna ask," Jack said crankily.

"Right, anyway, Shaboni - "

"Shaboni?" The colonel looked up at him with a lopsided grin. 'Way to go Daniel.' He thought amusingly. 'Probably took him all of twenty seconds to get her eating out of the palm of his hand.'

Somewhat clueless, and ignoring his implication, Daniel continued, "- said that she is going to go home tonight some time. The doctor who was treating her seemed to indicate that her condition was more serious that she appeared to Sam and me. But she assured us that she is not seriously injured and she doesn't blame you for what happened."

"Well that's comforting." Daniel was unsure if he was being sarcastic or not.

"Actually, O'Neill, there was clearly some concern that your accident involving this woman could have negative legal repercussions. General Hammond and Major Carter seemed to feel it wise to ensure that all bases were attended to."

"That's 'all bases were covered', Teal'c" The colonel tried pushing himself into a sitting position. He took note that absolutely every inch of his body was in pain.

"She wanted us to tell you that, anyway." He stopped and took a breath, wrapping his arms around his chest. "Jack, did you talk to her at all?"

"Yeah, I think she's Israeli. I found out one thing before we even got to know one another. She has Krav Maga training. I think she's IDF."

"Yeah...the doctor said something about her being a captain in the IDF, but when Sam and I asked her about it she denied it. The whole conversation with her was a little off."

"Her questions....weren't....questions." He was struggling to sit, clearly in pain. Daniel and Teal'c both leapt forward and each put a hand under one arm to help him up. He winced at the pain it caused. He didn't remember injuring his ribs. He didn't remember injuring anything but his head and his knee. Why was every muscle on fire?

"Right. They weren't." Daniel stepped back, folding his arms back over his chest.

"It's an interrogation technique. I'm telling you she's trained. She may even be special-forces."

"What is Krav Maga?" Teal'c asked.

"Oh it's your kind of stuff, Teal'c. It is the Israeli military martial arts technique. It dispenses with the philosophy of more traditional martial arts practices and adopts all the really nasty stuff from all the different traditions. Really aggressive kick-ass stuff." He rubbed his nose absently.

Teal'c nodded approvingly implying that he would, indeed, like this Krav Maga.

"A woman in special-forces?" Daniel looked at him quizzically.

"The Israelis allow women in their elite forces combat units."

"How progressive of them," Daniel remarked.

"It has nothing to do with being progressive," the colonel answered.

"Anyway, she gave us some contact information. When you're feeling a little better you're going to have to fill out a report."

"I knew this day couldn't get any better," Jack grumped.

Daniel stood there appraising Jack's condition.

"You, uh, seem to be feeling much better." Daniel commented. "I need to go see if the general is still here."

Daniel was obviously tense. "I'm fine, Daniel. Head hurts, but fine," Jack said softly.

"That remains to be seen." Dr. Fraiser stepped into the room at that moment. "You should eat something and get some rest."

"Ah, come on, Doc." He'd really been hoping to get out of the infirmary.

"Don't start with me, Colonel. You have a severe concussion. I had to give you a very large dose of Ativan when you had a seizure a couple of hours ago. You are not going anywhere except to sleep." She punctuated her last statement by putting her hands on her hips. No one could order the colonel around like Janet Fraiser, except perhaps General Hammond. He was a miserable patient, but she felt reasonably certain that she could force compliance with the important stuff.

Jack understood why he hurt so badly. A seizure. That must have been how he pulled everything from his big toe to his ear. He hoped Daniel hadn't been around for that. He knew how frightening it could be to witness a seizure.

Just then Sam reappeared with a tray. "The commissary was closed down for the night so I grabbed some sandwiches and some fruit." She sat the tray on a swing table and pushed it in front of the Colonel.

"Yes!" He tried to convince himself that sandwiches would be delicious, but the truth was he'd been hoping to get off the base and get himself some steak and beer. No chance of that now. "Thank you, Major."

"Well good, that saves me from having to get a tray for you. Now, the three of you: out. Colonel, you will eat and then sleep, am I clear?" Dr. Fraiser seemed a little testier than usual to Sam.

"Rest comfortably, O'Neill. I shall be in my quarters should you require anything," Teal'c said.

"Goodnight, Sir. I'll be by to see you in the morning." Sam smiled at him and motioned to Daniel for him to follow her.

"Uh, feel better, Jack." Daniel made a hasty retreat followed by Teal'c who walked behind them with his hands clasped behind his back.

"Well, I guess he feels better." Sam mused as they headed down the corridor.

From behind them came a protesting, "Not wheat bread! And where's the mustard?" Yep, he was going to be just fine.

Teal'c went to his quarters to Kel-No-Reem and Sam and Daniel went to find the general.

He was still in his office. Daniel looked at his watch...12:30 AM. He rapped his knuckles against the doorframe to get the man's attention. He looked half asleep but at the sound in the entryway he sat up straight.

"Come in." He motioned to the chairs in front of his desk. "How is Colonel O'Neill?" They sat.

"He seems to be doing much better, Sir." Sam smiled at him. The general could tell from that smile that he truly was in much better condition than the last time he'd gone to the infirmary to check on him.

"Good. Were you able to find any information about what exactly happened?"

"Well, General," Daniel started, "It would seem that he did hit this woman with his truck." Daniel started feeling around his various pockets for the notebook. "It's here somewhere..."

"Sir, if I may?" Sam interrupted.

"Please, Major." The general looked more bemused than impatient.

"Her name is Shaboni Uziel. She is an Israeli citizen." At that bit of news the general's eyes opened wider. "There's more, Sir. The treating physician, a Dr. Mattheson, told us that her ICE file indicated that she is actually a Captain in the IDF. When Daniel and I asked her about that she denied it."

Daniel cut in, "But when I spoke briefly with Jack after we got back he told me, without having any of this information beforehand, that he thought she had been trained by Israeli special-forces. He said she knew some kind of Israeli martial arts."

"Krav Maga." The general supplied for him nodding his head. "All Israeli Defense Forces are trained in it, not just special forces. There has been a proposal to the Joint Chiefs that we begin training our own forces in the technique. Apparently it is extremely useful." The general sat back in his chair and folded his arms over his rotund belly. "So what is her condition?"

"Again, Sir, there were inconsistencies between her story and that of the physician."

"The doctor told us she was in fairly serious condition and quite ill...I believe those were his words." Daniel had found his notebook and was looking for the page she'd written on. "But then when we spoke with her she claimed to be barely injured and that she would be leaving the hospital tonight." He found the page he was looking for. "There...her address." He tore it out and set it on the desk.

"When we saw her, General, she appeared banged up, but not in serious condition. And she told us to tell Jack that she wasn't angry with him. That she knew he tried to avoid hitting her."

"Well, Dr. Jackson, I'm glad to hear that she is not planning on pursuing legal action. As for the rest of it, well, I guess we'll have to chalk it up to a mystery. I must admit I'm as intrigued as you as to what an IDF captain is doing here and even more so as to why she would be denying her rank." The general smiled, "But it has been a long night. Let's leave the paperwork for the morning and get some rest, shall we?"

"Yes, Sir." Sam and Daniel stood together and strode out of the office. General Hammond was definitely intrigued. He would have to see if he could find out more about this woman. He looked down at the piece of paper Dr. Jackson had left on his desk.

1826 North Oakleigh Avenue Room 109

He scrutinized the address thinking it was suspicious. Hammond pulled a phone book from his desk and looked at a map of the city. Yes, North Oakleigh was exactly where he thought it was. He turned to the yellow pages and looked up local hotels.

The address on the paper was for a local hotel.