Contrary from the message some of you might guess from this chapter, this story will not be a Sam/Daniel story. It's just a team fic that's more Sam-centric.
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Sam gripped Zeus's hand tightly. Tears slid down her face as she felt his temperature drop.
The floor swayed like a ship in a hurricane and the walls blurred when someone pulled her up. "Whoa, it's okay. We have you now." Sam barely recognized the speaker as Daniel; he sounded extremely distant. "It's okay. Jack, I think the poison's having a small side effect on her!"
"Let's get 'em out."
Daniel looped her arm around his neck and grabbed her waist, pulling her along. She stumbled; the floor wasn't easy for her to focus on. Daniel pulled her hand device off, but she hardly noticed.
After an eternity, she could breathe fresh air. Her head cleared and everything steadied. Coughing, she fought Daniel's hold. "Let me go!" she yelled fiercely. She noticed O'Neill had been dragging Zeus's body along.
"Carter, you'll bring every Jaffa on the planet here if you keep screeching!" the colonel snarled. "Shut up, and that's an order."
"I don't want to go back," she gasped as she tried to struggle free. Daniel was either stronger than she remembered or the poison had an effect on her even without a symbiote.
"Daniel, let her go." Her captor released her. Facing them, she found herself face to face with a zat. "Come quietly," O'Neill threatened, "or I'll make you."
"You want me to come back after abandoning me to Zeus?" Sam demanded, "What happened to 'never leave a man behind'? Or is it because I'm a woman that you thought it was okay?"
The colonel had the decency wince. "Carter..."
"What? What could you possibly have to say to me? You made it pretty clear when you left me behind," Sam snarled.
"What did I say about shutting up?" was his answer.
"I don't take orders from you anymore," she retorted.
He zatted her and her world went black.
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"Sammy."
Sam recognized her dad's voice and, for a second, her anger faded. For a second.
Her eyes snapped open and she found herself tied up.
"Why are you doing this?" she asked.
"Sam, we're taking you home. Back to Earth."
"I don't want to go back to that planet," she grunted.
Jacob caressed her cheek in a fatherly way. "You had to have missed it."
"The only things I missed were the people who didn't leave me. Didn't lie or betray me."
"Only five, seven months and she already sounds like one of them," O'Neill commented from the doorway.
"Four years and you left 'one of your own' behind. I thought the team's friendship was stronger than that."
He turned away in disgust and left the entryway.
"Would you prefer it if Daniel stayed with you?" asked Jacob.
Sam shrugged. As he walked away, she asked, "Where's Zeus's...body?"
"It's in another part of the ship. I'll get Daniel."
Out of nowhere, fresh grief assaulted Sam. She gasped and managed not to choke out a sob.
"Hey, Sam." Daniel entered and let the door close. Then he knelt down beside her and left her hands and feet loose. "I'm sorry. We just think that you need time away from the Goa'uld." He acted like he wanted to add something else but thought better of it.
"I don't want to get away," Sam said tearfully.
"What happened? Before you were brought to Zeus."
"We went to the planet. There was a firefight when we left. I was killed, apparently you weren't. The colonel and Teal'c left me behind and a Goa'uld came back for me."
"How do you know it was for you?"
"He as good as told me so, and he never pushed me for information and I never gave it to him. He respected that I still felt loyalty to Earth and didn't question it. I never would tell him anything to harm Earth or the Tok'ra and he wouldn't have asked unless his life depended on it."
"How do you know this?"
Sam didn't answer. She couldn't, even if she did have a response. Her throat constricted and there was a painful feeling behind her eyes.
"Sam?"
She shook her head and accidently let a sob loose. Daniel sat down next to her and pulled her into a tight hug. Despite her best efforts, she ended up crying into his shoulder. He remained silent, letting her grieve in peace.
When she was done, she pulled away and leaned against the wall, hugging her knees and staring off into space. Crying hadn't made her feel any better. Now her emotions were a tangled and complex web of confusion and chaos. Too many different sides were pressing in, trying to suffocate her no matter how hard she fought.
"Are you going to be alright?"
She wiped her eyes and nodded.
"Did you want me or Jacob to stay here for the remainder of the trip?"
"It doesn't matter. Either way, I'm going to be scorned by most of the SGC for turning traitor against them."
"From what you've told me, you never said a word to Zeus. I don't see how you've become a traitor."
"You're not the rest of the SGC," she argued.
"True, but you only need to worry about how Jack, Teal'c, and I see you. We are your teammates."
"The colonel thinks I'm a traitor, too. Teal'c...I don't know what Teal'c thinks and..." she drifted off. Irrational, sudden anger flared in her eyes. Daniel blinked in surprise and backed off.
It was Daniel's fault she was here in the first place. He, along with her other "friends", had come up with a way to kill Zeus--someone she happened to really care about--and take her back to the SGC. They knew she didn't want to go back; she was sure she had been adamant when she spoke to Daniel at the summit. Why were they doing this to her? Were they trying to make her suffer for not coming back?
"Leave," she growled.
"Sam, what--"
She abruptly stood up. "Daniel, please. Just go."
Jacob walked in and saw Daniel sitting on the floor, looking somewhat surprised and Sam standing up and looking furious. "Daniel?" he asked casually.
"I-I think I should leave," Daniel murmured, heaving himself up and walking out. "I'll be back later," he called over his shoulder.
Sam wanted to snarl "Don't bother" but decided against it. He was only trying to be a friend even if he had forced her into her present situation. "What do you want?" she snapped at her father instead.
"Selmak has told me something very...interesting about Zeus," he began uneasily.
Sam's fists clenched. "If you don't mind, now is not a good time," she hissed through gritted teeth.
"I understand that, Sammy, but this is something we find rather important," he argued.
She snorted. "Save it for when I'm not--" Suddenly her head swam and her father's featured blurred. "Whoa," she said, leaning against the wall and clutching her head. It felt like Teal'c had placed his hands on the side of her head and was sqeezing it very hard.
Jacob rushed to her side. "Sam..." he said.
"Get away," she growled, feebly swatting at him before she fell to her knees and lost conciousness.
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Sam moaned quietly as she slowly came around. She was on something soft. A steady and annoying bleeping sound came from somewhere on her right. Others in the room must have not noticed her revival because the continuous hum of lowered voices did not waver. Blearily, she sould only catch snatches of conversation.
"You sure?" Sam thought it sounded like the colonel.
She couldn't hear the long response but recognized Janet's voice. Janet? Opening her eyes, she found herself assaulted by a blinding white light. The last thing she remembered was the cargo ship. How was it possible that her friend got on the ship? A better question was: how did they get infirmary equipment onto the ship? As she moved her head to get a better view of her surroundings and her brain started functioning again, she realized that she was, in fact, actually in the infirmary at the SGC.
"...I can't believe she..." Daniel's voice drifted over before fading once more.
She wondered how long she had been out. It was a few hours at least, since Earth had been light-years away when she...fainted. Gathering her bearings, she found that she had no restraints or IVs. It seemed that Janet's nurses had stuck her in the white infirmary gown and put her in bed. She hit the button for the bed to rise. No nurses came to her aid. The others were to absorbed in their conversation; even Teal'c was distracted, a worried crease furrowing his eyebrows. To her right next to the heart moniter--it appeared that she wasn't the only visitor in the infirmary--was a table with water on it. Sluggishly, she reached for it and managed not to spill anything. It was heavier than she remembered them being. She sipped the water slowly, its coolness refreshing her heavy limbs and still-slow mind.
"It's okay though?" asked Jack. He sounded both angry and concerned. "She's alright?"
"Yes, Colonel. I--hey!"
Sam sighed. The doctor just had to look over as she was replacing the water. Janet strode over.
She checked all of Sam's vital signs. "How do you feel?" she asked.
"I'm fine," Sam snapped.
Startled, Janet paused for a heartbeat and continued checking her friend. The others--well, Daniel--had been right. It was still Sam but she was different...almost crueler. She was definitely harder. And crankier. But that was to be expected after all the emotional trauma she must have suffered, and especially now...
Janet figured that Sam was best left ingorant in the meantime.
"Can you tell me your name. And your rank." Sam's eyes narrowed; she knew Janet wasn't giving a request.
"Major Doctor Samantha Carter, Ph.D. in theoretical astrophysics. Happy?"
"As a matter of fact," Janet retorted, "not especially." Sam rolled her eyes. "Look," she said, her tone gentler, "we're only trying to show you we care."
"You showed it back on Thebes." Janet raised an eyebrow and gave her a questioning look. "The planet I was 'found' on," she clarified. She shot the others, who had followed Janet over, a death-glare.
"Hey, I'm sorry we saved your ass," Jack growled.
"You didn't save anything," Sam shot back. "I was perfectly fine and, believe it or not, happy. In fact, you made things worse."
"I'm sure," Jack drawled. "Carter, it's not like the Goa'uld are our enemiesor anything..."
"Dammit, sir...Zeus was different. He is-wasn't like the others."
"Shh," Janet cautioned them warning them with a glance before going to her other patient.
"Oh really."
"Colonel--"
"Don't worry, Carter. I believe you."
"Stop it! Your making a bigger ass of yourself now that I can ever remember you being, sir," Sam hissed, close to tears. She refused to let them fall; Jack would not have the satisfation of seeing her cry.
"I told you this was a mistake," he said to Daniel sharply and walked out.
"The one thing we agree on," laughed Sam mirthlessly.
"Sam, are you really that miserable?" Daniel asked gently, his voice a sharp and welcome contrast from the colonel's.
"Yes," she spat, still fighting her emotions.
"Well, do you realize that we did it because we thought you needed to get away from the Goa'uld?" he said. "And I will admit that we did make a mistake." He exchanged an uneasy glance with Teal'c, who raised an eyebrow. "Anyway," he continued, "can you accept that we did it out of the goodness of our hearts and take an apology?"
Sam shrugged. "But I won't accept anything from the colonel until he decides he wants to stop acting like an ass."
"Fair enough." Daniel gave her hand a quick squeeze. "We'll leave and let you rest."
"Yeah," Sam replied absent-mindedly. Perhaps the water worked a little too well; a plan to escape was already forming.
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Sorry this took way too long. I have two excuses: sheer laziness and an now non-existent muse (darn her).
R&R
