Part 3: Deception

The ride home was mostly silent as Sam worked up the nerve to tell Jacob about her extended leave from the SGC. He dozed lightly in the seat next to her and she rather easily convinced herself not to disturb him. He looked like he needed the rest anyway.

Rationalization seemed to have become Sam Carter's new best friend.

Twenty minutes later she pulled up into her driveway and shook her father gently awake.

"We're here, Dad."

Jacob stared at her for a moment as if trying to place himself before smiling. "Great. Guess I was more tired than I thought."

Sam led him into the house. "Well, it turns out that I have a couple weeks off work, if you want to go somewhere, take a vacation from all this for a while." She braced herself for the barrage of questions that was sure to come her way. Why was she taking time off? Didn't she know there was a war going on?

But Jacob just smiled. "Really? That sounds nice. Where do you want to go?"

Sam looked quizzically at her father as she settled down on the couch next to him, wondering if maybe there was something he wasn't telling her. Like all about the lobotomy he seemed to have undergone. But Sam wasn't one to look a gift horse in the mouth; if her father wanted to be accommodating, she could handle that. "We could head down to San Diego for a few days," she suggested.

Jacob nodded. "Sure, sounds good. It would be nice to spend some time with Mark and Jessica."

His words slammed into Sam and she was impressed that she didn't so much as blink, her smile remaining frozen to her face. "Maybe we could take the kids to Sea World," Sam said lightly, pushing up from her seat. "I'll just call Mark to see what his schedule is like."

Sam barely registered Jacob's wave of dismissal as she grabbed for the handset in her kitchen. Her heart was pounding fiercely in her chest as his words echoed loudly in her ears. It would be nice to spend some time with Mark and Jessica. Mark and Jessica. The only problem was that Sam's sister-in-law's name was Jenny, not Jessica. And Jacob Carter knew that as well as he knew his own name.

So only one real question remained: who the hell was that sitting in her living room?

Sam picked up her phone and automatically began dialing Jack's secure line. Midway through, though, Jacob's hand reached out and grabbed the phone.

"Nice try, Major," he said in an unfamiliar voice, calmly hanging the phone back up. "Jacob is a wily one. But I guess I should have known that considering he was Selmak's host. Tricked me into saying Jessica instead of Jenny." He shook his head. "But it doesn't matter. I've got what I came for."

Sam barely registered his words; she was too busy subtly shifting her weight. Without hesitation, she swung her elbow crushingly into her father's face. He yelled, clutching his nose. Sam pushed past him, ignoring the blood that was now dripping all over her kitchen floor and rushed towards her bedroom where she kept her firearm.

She didn't make it very far, though, because as she passed the dining room table she was hit from behind by some kind of beam. Her body went limp and crashed into the table, sending objects flying in every direction. She hit the floor with a heavy thud.

As her eyelids became heavier and heavier, the last thing she saw was the man who was most definitely not her father talking into a small communication device. And then there was just blackness.

Jack's fingers were drumming relentlessly on the dashboard and if the situation hadn't been so serious Daniel might have been tempted to slam on the breaks just to interrupt the irritating rhythm. But he didn't, because various calls to every one of Sam's phones had turned up nothing but endless ringing and impersonal voicemail messages.

He wanted to believe that everything was going to be okay, that they would knock on Sam's door and find her standing there staring at them quizzically for pulling up to her house like total maniacs. But something in the fierce expression on Jack's face told him that she wouldn't.

"Dammit. I should have known," Jack was muttering. "He was acting so strange."

"Not even Major Carter noticed anything untoward about his behavior, O'Neill. You are not to blame," Teal'c said from the backseat.

Daniel gave him points for trying, but Jack was beyond placating.

"Drive faster," was Jack's only response.

Sam's house was swarming with local police when they pulled into her driveway.

Jack swore impressively and then immediately jumped out of the car. Daniel followed a few steps behind the wake of disgruntled policemen that had been roughly shoved out of the way. When they entered the house, Jack stalked off to talk to the man in charge while Daniel paused in Sam's entryway, taking in the chilling scene in front of him. The living room was in shambles, chairs overturned, a broken vase on the floor. But the most terrifying thing was the spray of blood that covered the linoleum on Sam's kitchen floor.

Daniel couldn't move. He just stared at the horrific sight.

Then Jack was at his side staring at the grisly stain, too. "She's not here, Daniel."

Daniel thought it was strange that he sounded sort of relieved as he said it, when it finally registered. Jack was telling him there was no body. Sam wasn't here somewhere in another pile of blood. He sounded relieved because 'disappeared' was better than 'dead'.

They could deal with getting her back. They had done it before. But they could not deal with losing her.

Daniel tore his eyes away from the kitchen and nodded at Jack, letting him know he understood.

Jack briefly squeezed his shoulder. "The cops say there was a witness, a neighbor or something. Can you go find out what exactly they saw?"

"Yeah, sure," Daniel said, glad to have something else to focus his mind on.

Twenty minutes later Daniel returned from the neighbor's house to find Sam's place completely cleared of non-military personnel. He tried not to notice the forensics team taking samples from the blood in the kitchen.

He found Jack and Teal'c sitting at Sam's dining room table with maps and reports open in front of them.

"He couldn't have gotten far," Jack was saying.

"Actually, Jack," Daniel interrupted, "he could."

"What have you got, Daniel?" Jack asked pushing aside an untouched cup of coffee.

"Well, I just had an interesting conversation with Mrs. Finkelmann next store. She's the one who called the police. She claims she heard shouting and then some sort of 'ruckus.' And when she looked out her window…" Daniel trailed off and shifted foot to foot uncomfortably.

"What?" Jack barked impatiently.

Daniel cleared his throat. "Um, well, she says she saw a 'big golden spaceship' land in the backyard before 'little green men' grabbed Sam, shoved her inside and then took off again, seemingly disappearing into thin air."

Jack and Teal'c stared at Daniel for a moment.

"Is she nuts?" Jack asked.

Daniel thought about the little old lady with her nose permanently pressed to the window pane spying on her neighbors with a tumbler of scotch in one hand. The policeman with Daniel had just rolled his eyes dismissively while she told her tale.

"Definitely," Daniel replied, knowing they wouldn't have to worry about anyone believing her, "but she also drew this." He put down a small sketch on the table.

It wasn't the finest drawing ever made, but clearly laid out on an old piece of binder paper was a Goa'uld cargo ship.

"Dammit," Jack swore.

Finding Sam just got a lot more difficult.

The first thing Sam became aware of was the cold, hard floor under her shoulder. It was only when she tried to shift out of the uncomfortable position that she realized her hands were bound. Not exactly the most pleasant way to regain consciousness.

She flopped onto her back and managed to wiggle into a sitting position only to find her father sitting calmly across from her in what definitely looked like the cargo hold of a Goa'uld Tel'tak.

He smiled at her and moved across the room to her, reaching out to help her. Sam shrugged her shoulders away from his hands, making it clear she didn't want him anywhere near her.

He sighed regretfully. "I am very sorry that I had to stun you, Major. I would have sincerely rather had you come with me willingly, but I ran out of time to explain my position."

Sam arched an unbelieving eyebrow at him. "And what makes you think I would willingly go anywhere with you?"

The smile was back on his face, gentle and understanding. "We are not so much different, you and I, Major. We both want the same things."

Sam really doubted that. "And who exactly are you?"

"Ah, of course, how rude of me. My name is Keren." He bowed his head slightly as if this was a formal diplomatic introduction.

"You're a Goa'uld," Sam accused.

Anger flashed across Keren's face for a moment, before it was once again schooled behind a bland façade. "I am Tok'ra," he said calmly.

"Really," Sam said disbelievingly. "Then why don't you let me talk to my father?"

Keren shook his head. "I'm sorry, but I can't. This is necessary. You will see that in the end."

Sam was beginning to wonder if he wasn't just a little bit insane. "Forcing yourself on a host…how does that not make you a Goa'uld?" Sam spat, not caring if she was getting a rise out of him.

Keren stepped menacingly towards her before taking a determined breath as if trying to calm himself. "I will forgive you that because I know you do not yet understand. The others don't believe that you will help us, but I know better. I have watched you for a long time; I know you feel for the Tok'ra cause and the injustices done against us. You feel the agony of our Queens' imprisonments."

"Watched me?" Sam parroted disbelievingly. Keren didn't respond, but she didn't need him to, because as he settled down next to her on the floor, watching her with what could only be affection, a slow crawling sensation tickled down her spine. Something familiar that she had been too freaked out to even register last time she'd felt it.

Sam closed her eyes and let her head fall back against the hull. "You were on Pangar, watching me." She remembered the nagging feeling that something just wasn't right. The feeling of eyes watching her in the dark amid the rising panic of her flashback.

She couldn't decide if she was relieved to find that she had been right or angry that she hadn't trusted herself enough to say anything.

Sam's head jerked up from the wall as she realized something. "Wait a minute. If you were on Pangar… Oh my god. The Goa'uld didn't attack Pangar did they? It was you!" Sam's stomach rolled with nausea, thinking of the faces of the missing, the desolated city. "Why? Why would you ever do that?" she asked desperately.

Keren looked away from Sam, but not before she clearly saw regret and sadness in his eyes. "We had many reasons, all of which were vital to the Tok'ra cause. Believe me, Sam," he said, turning back to her with earnestness, "we would never cavalierly take a life if it wasn't absolutely necessary."

Sam was caught by his gaze for a moment. She realized with cold dread that he absolutely believed what he was saying. It wasn't insanity, it was unconditional faith. Underneath his contrition was a burning certainty that his cause was just.

Keren pressed closer to Sam, nearly whispering into her ear. "The Goa'uld must be stopped, Sam, no matter the cost."

Sam closed her eyes. "You killed those people…stole their family members to be forced hosts…left the entire planet ravaged." She thought of Anise stumbling through the gate. "You even killed your own kind in a ruthless power struggle. How can anything possibly justify that?" She opened her eyes again and looked a Keren. "How can you not see that you are becoming no better than the Goa'uld?"

Sam must have finally crossed some invisible line, because Keren's hand came out of nowhere, striking Sam brutally across the face. Sam's head snapped back from the impact and before she could even recover Keren had her head in his hands, his fingers biting into her jaw and his face pressed close to hers with burning conviction in his eyes. "That is the last time you call me Goa'uld."

Sam nodded numbly, feeling fear trickle down her spine.

Keren abruptly pushed to his feet and stalked a few paces away, running his hands over his face. "There's no need for this, Sam," he said softly. "You will help me recover what is lost and together we can end the Goa'uld, once and for all. Then none of this will matter," he said earnestly with a vague gesture that seemed to encompass her bound hands, bleeding face and the murders all at once.

Sam racked her brain, trying to think what she could possibly have access to that he would want. Why bother kidnapping her? Then she remembered. Anise had stolen the Tok'ra research on the symbiote poison, the Tok'ra's best weapon against the Goa'uld. They obviously wanted it back.

"I won't tell you the formula," Sam said with what steely determination she could find in her still ringing head. She couldn't help but notice that her voice trembled. So much for steely determination.

"The formula?" Keren repeated with confusion. "What makes you think I want or care about some formula?"

"But Anise…," Sam said weakly, feeling her small store of confidence suddenly drain away.

Keren laughed softly. "Assumptions, Major, always lead to bad situations. You should know better."

Sam felt her shoulders sag, knowing he was right. "What do you want?" She could barely recognize the pathetic voice as her own.

Keren kneeled down by her once more, placing one hand on her hair. "There is something much more spectacular and wondrous out there, something that will defeat the Goa'uld, once and for all. And you're going to help me find it."

Sam closed her eyes and leaned back against the inner hull, letting the cold penetrate her skin. She tried to summon any last threads of strength or resolve, but found her deepest reservoirs bone dry.

Hurry up, guys, she thought desperately, knowing there was no way she would be able to get herself out of this.

Some tiny part of her registered surprise at the thought, knowing it was uncharacteristic. But Sam was just so tired of fighting. She slowly melted into the floor with nothing but a nagging ache in her leg as company and one thought plaguing her mind.

Where had Major Sam Carter gone?

A folder slapped down on the desk in front of Jack. "It's not Sam's," Daniel said with relief.

Jack glanced at the report that clearly documented that the blood covering Sam's kitchen had, in fact, been Jacob Carter's.

"She fought him," Jack said, fingers absently tracing the words.

"Yeah," Daniel replied softly.

Both men stared at the folder for long moments. The fact that Sam had managed to get a pretty good hit in on her attacker filled Jack with some small relief. All he had been able to think of since she disappeared was a vision of her standing in his office, her shoulders bowed, confessing that maybe she just didn't have it in her to do any of this anymore.

She was vulnerable, weak. And she was completely alone.

Jack swept the folder off his desk in a surprising lapse of self control.

Daniel barely blinked at the movement, instead meeting Jack's eyes. "We'll find her."

An hour ago NORAD had reported a small craft appearing briefly on the edge of Earth's space before jumping to hyperspace and disappearing. By now, she could be anywhere.

"I hope you're right, Daniel," Jack replied, wanting to believe him.

The only problem was they didn't even know where to start looking.

It took them more than two days to reach their final destination. Keren had tried a couple more times to convince Sam of the importance of his mission, but when Sam would do nothing more that feign sleep each time he entered, he eventually left her alone. She rested as much as she could, bracing herself for whatever Keren might have planned.

The planet they eventually alighted to was heavily forested and the air was heavy and humid, reminding Sam of the tropics. They left the ship in a clearing and hiked into the jungle.

Keren and his pilot kept close tabs on Sam, one of them always behind her with the stunning weapon that looked constructed of a completely foreign design. Sam briefly wondered what race they had stolen it from; just like their Goa'uld counterparts (not that Sam was stupid enough to make that observation out loud again) they seemed to be taking things and using them without necessarily understanding them.

This planet turned out to be no exception to that rule. After about an hour of hiking the path suddenly widened revealing a large structure half-swallowed by the jungle. It was made of what looked like blue stone and was unlike anything Sam had seen before. Certainly not Tok'ra.

Off to the left, a Stargate was being lifted into place by a large group of technicians. It contrasted strangely with the alien architecture. It was obviously a new acquisition, stolen no doubt. Sam filed the location away in her brain; it was always good to know the location of the nearest Stargate.

Sam must have paused too long taking in the sight, though, because Keren poked her in the back, prompting her to continue moving.

The interior of the structure was like an endless labyrinth of hallways that were obviously built for shorter people. They were barely seven feet tall and Sam had the absurd feeling that they would press down on her at any moment. She gave up trying to memorize the route after the fifteenth turn in as many minutes. The place was obviously a new major Tok'ra base, though, because she saw at least a dozen Tok'ra bustle by in various directions.

They eventually ended up in a large circular room with scientific looking stations all around the walls. At the center of the room was a large metal chair with a spherical contraption hovering over it. It almost looked like an alien version of those hair setters Sam always saw the little old ladies sitting under when she got her hair cut, only much more menacing.

None of the equipment was of Tok'ra design and Sam began to tug at her restraints again, knowing nothing could budge them, but at the same time sincerely not wanting to know what that chair was used for.

As if reading her mind, Keren gestured at two bulky Tok'ra that had followed them in. "Secure her in the machine."

Sam backed away, glaring at the beefcakes approaching her. "No way," she said.

"Don't make a scene, Major," Keren said tiredly.

Sam ignored him and put up the best fight she could with her hands restrained. The bigger of the brawn twins got a black eye for his troubles, but it offered Sam little consolation because she was soon strapped securely to the menacing contraption.

"What the hell are you going to do to me?" Sam demanded as the lowered the large sphere over her head. "I thought you wanted my help!"

"And so you shall, Major. With the facilitation of this machine," he replied steadily, sparing her a slightly sympathetic glance that made Sam's stomach drop unpleasantly.

She began to struggle in earnest again, the heavy straps cutting into her skin.

Keren pressed a few buttons on a nearby consol and Sam could hear the slight whine of a machine warming up somewhere. Then he crossed the room and placed a hand on Sam's arm, speaking softly into her ear. "I can do this with or without your cooperation, Sam. But I promise that it will be less painful if you just relax and stop fighting us."

He sounded grieved and determined all at the same time and it pissed Sam off.

"Don't act like someone is forcing you to do this, Keren. This is your choice," Sam reminded him in one last ditch effort to get him to rethink.

But Keren just smiled sadly and ran a tender hand over her face. "If there were any other way… But we both know that the reign of Goa'uld must be ended. The sacrifice of one in the face of saving millions of innocent people is something that can't be escaped."

"Sacrifice?" Sam breathed in surprise, but before she could demand an explanation, Keren switched the contraption on.

At first, Sam thought that it wasn't going to be so bad. There was a faint tingling sensation on her scalp and slight pressure. Blackness engulfed Sam, even though she was sure that her eyes were still open. Bright colors filled the empty space, whirling by at an incredible pace.

Then the pain began.

Ripping, tearing. Pulling her apart from the inside.

It was unlike anything she had ever experienced before, like every cell in her body was being torn apart.

Vaguely above the constant agony she registered fleeting images, some familiar, others not, the people's faces warping and twisting, rushing past at alarming speeds. And in the distance, someone constantly screamed.

She was never sure how long she sat in that chair. Time seemed to have no meaning.

But every other day for more than a week, she was dragged back to that damn lab with nothing but Keren's sympathetic smile for company. He never even told her what he was looking for or what the machine was supposed to do. And her hours alone in her cell offered no bursts of inspiration.

By the fifth treatment, she realized that Keren had lied. It didn't matter what Sam did, the invasive, clawing penetration was inescapable, filling her every cell with agony. It didn't change if she relaxed or fought or tried to pretend it wasn't happening. There was no escape.

Sam didn't know the purpose of this torture, but she did know one thing.

The machine was tearing her mind apart.

She screamed and screamed, begging for relief, for rescue.

But no one ever came.

A week after Sam's disappearance, Anise finally woke up. She was quickly briefed on everything that had happened while she was unconscious. She took the kidnapping of Jacob rather hard, more so than the fact that someone had tried to kill her.

"Even with everything I have seen, I still hoped…" Anise trailed off, running tired hands over her face. "I cannot believe they would go so far."

Jack had sympathy for Anise, really, but he just had more pressing issues at the moment. "Do you have any idea why they would want Carter? Or where they would take her?"

Anise shook her head slowly. "I can't imagine why they would go to all this trouble just to kidnap Major Carter. Though, she does have an incredible technical mind, they could need her expertise for something."

"You have no idea where they may be holding her? Any Tok'ra safe houses or planets that served as alternative sites for bases?"

"I am sorry, but I was never privy to such information. I am a scientist, not an agent. I did not go on missions or sit in on the council meetings. I'm afraid I'm quite useless," she said, looking down at her hands.

Daniel placed one hand on her shoulder in sympathy. "None of this is your fault, Anise."

"Perhaps," she said softly, "but what am I supposed to do now?"

She looked so lost that Jack had to turn away. He slipped quietly out of the infirmary, the last of his hope draining away.

Teams still went out, poking around for any information they could find, but day after day they came back with nothing but sympathy.

Jack never left the base anymore, still waiting for some kind of miracle. So it was that Jack was sitting in the commissary picking imaginary fuzz out of his cold cup of coffee late one night.

He barely registered when someone sat down across from him. When he glanced up, however, he was surprised to see Anise sitting across from him, wearing standard issue BDUs. It was a bizarre image to say the least.

"Should you be out of the infirmary?" Jack asked.

"I am recovered," Anise said with a shrug.

They fell into a rather uncomfortable silence and Jack began to wonder if he was going to have to put up with another inappropriate proposition. He was just about to make some excuse to flee when she finally spoke again.

"You are a warrior, Colonel."

It wasn't really a question, but Jack nodded nonetheless.

"I wanted to ask…if you found yourself in my position, what would a warrior do?"

Jack stared at her for moment, realizing that she was quite sincere. "I'm not sure what you mean."

"If your people had been betrayed by their own, if your ways had been tarnished…and your friends killed…what would you do?"

Jack remembered how Hammond had once been blackmailed to step down from his position by the NID and the time he had gone undercover to reclaim the trust of Earth's powerful allies. He imagined one of his teammates betrayed or killed.

"Anything it took," Jack replied honestly.

Anise looked thoughtful for a long moment, before nodding her head. "You would go to any lengths to get her back, wouldn't you?"

Jack shifted uncomfortably for a moment, before meeting her eyes across the table. "Yes."

Something seemed to shift in Anise's expression and she suddenly looked calmer and more sure of herself than she had in days. "That's what I thought," she said, pushing up from her seat. "Thank you."

Jack watched her walk out of the commissary, still not quite sure what had just happened.

The next morning he entered the control room to find Hammond and Daniel talking to Anise who was once again wearing her Tok'ra clothes and was armed with a zat and a pack. She was showing Walter an address on the computer.

"Uhh…," Jack started rather inarticulately. "What's going on?"

Hammond turned to Jack. "Anise has decided not to take our offer of refuge."

"What?" Jack asked incredulously.

"She's going to try and track down her people," Hammond explained heavily. "She says she needs to know how many of Egeria's children have survived. I'm in no position to stop her."

Across the room, Daniel was handing Anise a GDO. "You'll need one of these when you're ready to come back." He seemed to be emphasizing the fact that she was welcome back whenever she wanted.

Anise must have picked up on that because she gave Daniel a small smile and said, "Thank you, Dr. Jackson," before walking down to the gate room to stand before the spinning ring.

Jack followed her down and stood by her side at the base of the ramp. "This wasn't what I meant."

Anise didn't turn to look at him. "We all do what we must, Colonel. I can't sit here safely tucked away while my people are fighting for their very way of life."

"Do you even know where to look?" Jack asked in exasperation.

"I have a few ideas," Anise replied.

In all honesty, Jack couldn't begrudge her decision, knowing he would do the same. But he still felt some guilt that maybe be had forced her into this. "At least let us send a team with you. You don't have to go alone," Jack said.

He thought she might have smiled for a moment, but then in a cool voice she replied, "Yes, we do, Colonel. It will be difficult enough to track down the Tok'ra by ourselves. You would only slow us down and…complicate the situation."

Jack wasn't offended by her bluntness; he could understand her position. "You're not a soldier," he reminded her softly.

She stiffened for a second before dropping her head. Then it was Freya speaking.

She looked at him with eyes that were now wide and uncertain were moments before they had been chillingly cool. "As much as Anise is putting on a brave face, it would be foolish to deny that I am frightened. I know we have never been anything other than scientists." Her voice wavered slightly for a moment. "But this must be done."

"You don't have to do this," Jack said, surprised by the confession, "we can find another way."

Freya smiled weakly at Jack. "There is no other way and you know it." She straightened her shoulders and determinedly faced the waiting wormhole. "There is a saying among my people that one does not truly know one's self until you have been tested beyond the boundaries of your fear."

She glanced back at Jack. "It's time to see 'what we are made of,' as Jacob would say."

Jack couldn't find any words to answer her, but Freya didn't seem to mind. She walked up the ramp and paused at the edge of the event horizon.

"I will find her for you," she said. "I promise."

Then she stepped through the wormhole and disappeared.

Sam had lost count of days and sessions in the machine. The only reason today was any different than any others that proceeded it was because something felt distinctly wrong. The last treatment must have caused some kind of permanent damage to Sam's brain. When she next woke, she had great difficulty moving the left side of her body. Her eyelid felt heavy and she could feel the downward turn of her lip. Her pain receptors still functioned quite well, however, as evidenced by the constant searing agony behind her eyes.

She began to wonder how much more of this her body could handle.

She knew from experience that they would leave her to rest for at least a day before trying again. She was mildly surprised, however, when at least three days went by with no contact. Food and water were brought routinely, though Sam made no effort to rise from her bed. Her left hand lay immobilized and she doubted she could move it, even if she could work up the will to try.

Sam let the days pass in a sort of coma-like state of lethargy with the headaches as her only companions. She began to think that death would be a relief. Maybe she could just fall asleep and never bother to wake again.

But an indeterminable amount of time later, Sam was roused from her restless slumber by an unfamiliar sound.

Voices.

Somewhere in the distance she blearily registered a voice and for a moment she couldn't quite place herself. But then her eyes pried open and she saw the cool blue walls surrounding her and it all rushed back. Prison. Torture.

"Want my professional opinion?" came a voice from next to Sam.

With a great deal of effort, Sam managed to lift her head slightly.

Janet was sitting on the edge of her bed. Sam blinked slowly a couple of times and Janet wiggled her fingers at her.

Sam's head fell back to her pillow. "Sure," she said, "why not?"

"Well," Janet replied, crossing her legs primly, "you're dying."

"Came all this way just to tell me that, huh?" Sam mumbled.

"Yeah, well, I just thought you'd want to know, considering how much you've been looking forward to it."

Sam did not like the sound of that. "I'm not…," she started, just to trail off. What an interesting discussion to be having with a figment of your own imagination. "It hurts," Sam finally said simply, having no other explanation.

Janet snorted rather inelegantly. "You think you're the only one who's ever suffered?"

"She's in pain," defended Daniel, who was leaning casually against the door.

"Yeah, well, having an alien spike shoved through your shoulder is no picnic either," Jack offered helpfully from next to him.

"True," Daniel said with an indifferent shrug. "I wouldn't recommend radiation sickness as a way to go either."

"Ha!" Cassie said, flopping down on the narrow bed next to her mother. "I watched my entire planet die. But I trusted her when she said she wouldn't leave me." She spared Sam a rather dismissive glance. "So much for that, though."

Sam wanted to point out that if this was supposed to be a pep-talk, they were doing it wrong. But frankly she lacked the energy or will to bother interrupting them.

Teal'c appeared, sitting cross-legged against the nearest wall, his eyes closed. "Sharing a symbiote with another for days on end is also not a pleasant experience. But I did it so that we could both live, always retaining hope for rescue by my friends."

Sam could only stare at him in shock. "You don't understand," she managed to whisper softly.

Jack moved closer and kneeled by her bed. She swore she could almost feel his hand brushing against hers. "Sure we do," he said gently. "You're quitting."

The words, imagined or not, seemed to physically impact her body. She closed her eyes against the crowd of delusions. "Please," she said weakly, "just leave me alone."

"Sure, Sam, no problem," Daniel said cheerfully. "Have a nice death."

Sam did her best to ignore them and dimly registered the sound of them all shuffling out of the cell. In the distance, she could hear Jack say, "I always knew she didn't have what it took."

And then there was just hollow silence.

When next she woke some unknown time later, Sam open her eyes only to find her cell filled with two new figures. And they both looked exactly like Sam.

"What do you say we bust ourselves out of here?" asked the first Sam dressed in BDUs with an inconceivable amount of munitions strapped to her chest.

"Well," answered the other Sam dressed in a long white lab coat, with, of all things, a slide rule poking out of her pocket, "I could reconfigure the power generators. If they are set in the standard configuration of crystal technology, I could create a sizeable burst of kinetic energy."

Soldier Sam looked dubiously at her counterpart.

"It would explode," clarified Scientist Sam.

"Now that's what I'm talking about!" Soldier Sam exclaimed, giving her companion a high-five.

The real Sam rolled her eyes, thinking that maybe the other delusions had been better. She rolled onto her side, though, and caught sight of a third Sam, this one sitting quietly in the corner dressed in a flowing skirt and a soft sweater. She was watching Sam closely, completely ignoring the antics of her fellow delusions.

"No one's coming for us," she said softly, leaning her chin on her crossed arms.

Sam nodded, knowing that the rescue she had been waiting for was never coming.

"But you'll always have us," the other Sam continued.

Sam glanced over at the two Sam's who were now debating whether or not a nail file could somehow aid them in their escape. Neither seemed to care that they didn't actually have a nail file to begin with.

Sam looked back at the Sam in the corner. "It's not enough," she said softly.

"Yes, it is," the other replied with soft earnestness. "You just have to remember again."

"Remember what?"

"How to trust us. Even me."

"And who, exactly, are you?"

The imaginary Sam smiled mysteriously. "It doesn't matter. Just rest now. Soon the time will come when you have to decide and we need to be ready."

"Decide?"

"Whether or not it's really time for us to give up," she said, reaching out a hand and tenderly raking her fingers through Sam's hair. "Shh…it'll be okay. Just rest."

Sam could not resist the hypnotic pull of the hand playing in her hair and her eyes slid slowly shut. In the distance she heard soft humming of a song that she couldn't quite place, but somehow it made her feel a little bit better.

Three weeks.

Jack's fist slammed into the punching bag.

It had been three weeks since Sam was abducted from her own home by someone masquerading as her father. And they weren't any closer to finding her today than they had been the moment she disappeared. There was only so much one could do by simply keeping their eyes open for any clues every time they stepped through the gate. And outside help was even harder to come by these days.

The Tau'ri's allies were wearing thin.

The Asgard were incognito. Even if they had been around, though, what could they have really done? He didn't think they had some miraculous missing Major finder. Although he promised he wouldn't even be pissed if they showed up and confessed that they had put a Cosmic LoJack in all the members of SG-1 if it would just lead them to Sam.

But Jack wasn't holding his breath.

As for the Tok'ra, they were, for all intents and purposes, extinct. Egeria's children, those that had survived, were scattered to the winds, skulking around the Galaxy hiding from their own brethren. Not only could they offer no help in the search, but this mess was their fault to being with.

Jack hated that he had been right about them in the end. They couldn't be trusted.

And now they had taken one more thing from him. The thing he could least afford to lose.

Absently brushing the sweat out his eyes, Jack continued to pound his frustrations into the bag.

Anise had been gone for two weeks with no communication. They couldn't even be sure she was still alive, let alone that she might somehow find Sam.

By now, Sam could be dead, too.

It was only a matter of time until Hammond was forced to declare Sam MIA. The search would be called off and SG-1 would be put back to work. Maybe with some starry-eyed young soldier as a replacement.

But Jack wasn't giving up. He still had one last thread of hope, no matter how much of a long shot it was.

As far as he was concerned, Anise and Freya were out there still, trolling for information.

So in the end, he was back to putting all his trust in a Tok'ra.

Jack swore softly and leaned his body into the bag. Fate sure had a sick sense of humor.

A shuddering impact knocked Sam out of her bed. Sprawled on the floor, she shook her head, trying to clear the fluffy cotton that seemed to have taken up residence in her brain. She tried to push up to her knees, but her left hand collapsed under the pressure, sending vicious needles of pain lancing through her arm.

Oh yeah, she remembered with a groan, brain damage, deranged Tok'ra, torture. The stabbing pain came back with the memories. Sam lay motionlessly on her stomach, feeling reverberations flowing through the floor beneath her cheek. Something bizarre was certainly going on and Sam tried to work up the energy to care.

Some tiny part of her brain hoped that this was a rescue, but the majority knew that was unlikely. Fleetingly she thought that maybe the whole place would go up in one big bang. Well, at least the pain would end, she though unconcernedly.

A few Tok'ra raced by her cell door, not even sparing her a glance. She picked up a few words here and there. Attack. Evacuation. Self-destruct. Bastet.

Interesting.

The Goa'uld had obviously tracked down their base and were coming for a little revenge for all the blatant attacks lately, Sam thought nonchalantly. Maybe she could just take a nap until someone decided to come get her or the place went boom.

But as her eyes began to slide shut, there was another jarring impact, this time much closer. The force shield covering the door to Sam's cell flashed for a moment before falling silent.

Sam stared at the open space for a long time.

"Time to decide," she mumbled to herself without thinking. All the faces of her delusions flashed across her mind. Was she quitting?

It only took a minute for an answering voice to fill her mind.

"Hell no," she grunted, using her good arm to lever herself off the floor. It took a good ten minutes just to get to her knees. She was breathing heavily already, but she leaned into the bed and with a Herculean effort managed to get her right leg underneath her. A wave of dizziness caught her off guard, but somehow she managed to keep upright, suddenly wishing she hadn't been too lazy to eat for the last four days. Her left foot twisted strangely, but her first tentative step proved that it could handle a bit of weight. So with her useless arm tucked close to her torso and a heavy limp, Samantha Carter slowly made her way out of her cell.

More than once as she made her way down the twisting halls she had to press herself into the dark recesses that conveniently lined the walls as frantic Tok'ra ran here and there. After about twenty more minutes of rather aimless wandering, Sam walked into a room that looked like a lab. There were blinking consoles lining the walls and in the center stood a large tank with a single symbiote in it.

Sam began to back out, not wanting to be anywhere near another lab, let alone a symbiote, when she heard voices behind her. She was forced to step further into the room and she quickly ducked behind the nearest cabinet-like structure.

"We have to download this information and then destroy the equipment. Hurry!"

Sam peered cautiously out of her hiding spot to see two Tok'ra working anxiously at various machines.

"What about Selmak?" asked the other Tok'ra.

"There's no time, she'll have to be left behind." He didn't sound particularly concerned about it.

Another blast rocked the room. "Okay, that's it. There'll be Jaffa in here any moment."

Sam heard the familiar whine of zat guns followed by small bursts and the acrid smell of burning circuits and metal. They had obviously destroyed the devices.

The two Tok'ra left the room moments later.

Sam cautiously left her hiding spot and slowly limped towards the tank at the center of the room.

The building shuddered again and Sam leaned her head against the cool glass surface of the container, staring hard at the sinuous form inside. Was the symbiote aware of any of the chaos around her? Would she feel pain when the building went up in flames? Or would she just sleep through her own death?

Sam's breath began to fog up the glass and still she stared sightlessly, wasting precious moments.

Was she really going to let her die like that?

Horror at the choice she was being forced to make brought roiling nausea and for a moment, Sam was sure she was going to throw up.

In the distance, she could hear the impact of staff blasts. The Jaffa were in the base. There couldn't be much time left until the self-destruct went off.

Suddenly Sam was moving.

Now allowing herself to think about the 'what ifs' and pushing aside the curling tendrils of Jolinar that still occasionally made Sam wake shaking in the middle of the night, she pulled the lid off the stasis unit, letting it crash carelessly to the floor. There was the rumble of approaching footsteps and voices in the distance.

Then all thinking stopped and Sam plunged her arm into the fluid, making her decision.