disclaimer: I own nothing

Warnings: Allusions to rape, but nothing confirmed and nothing graphic.

Spoilers: Gemini

Author's Note: This is a slight AU, if Gemini and the events afterward had gone differently. I've been writing this for about a month. Also, be kind -I haven't actually seen Gemini in at least two years. This story was not beta'd, so any and all typos, as always, belong to me.

You can't list Replicator Carter as a character. That does not bode well for interest here. Oh well. Enjoy.

They hadn't had this chance before. Carter wondered, idly, if things would have gone different if she had given in that day.

It was too late to find that out. The only chance she had to change things was to make certain they went differently from here.

Carter stared at the almost perfect copy of herself leaning against the wall across from her, wearing a look of contempt.

"Release me." the other her said.

"I can't." she snapped in irritation. "We changed the protocols after you blew through the first time. And what do you need me for? Can't your special replicator powers get you out of here?"

"You know how replicators work, Samantha. I can not get out of a sealed room in a mountain that does not have so much a keypad on the inside."

"Three guesses why it doesn't." Carter said snarkily, returning the glare. It was almost as if she were looking in a mirror. Like the woman across from her should have been mimicking her movements.

That wasn't the case. Other than being dressed differently, there were differences between them. Her hair was longer than the other hers. The other her looked cold and had ice chips for eyes. Carter had never looked like that. At least, she hoped she hadn't. The other her -she really needed something to call her- was a different person. So she told herself.

"I wasn't intending to kill anyone. I didn't before."

Carter eyed the other woman, arching her eyebrows.

"Oh, you've killed. Real people. Not the simulations you showed me."

The other her smirked.

"I have, Samantha. But did I kill one member of the SGC when I was here before?"

Carter bit the inside of her cheek, remembering the last time. They had been so stupid. She had been so stupid. To think that she could understand this woman, this machine, because it looked like her. Had her memories. Wasn't that what made person?

But the other her was right. She had disabled, not killed. She could have killed Teal'c when he had grabbed her. Carter knew it. She hadn't.

"That doesn't automatically clear you."

"Samantha-"

"Carter." she snapped.

"Why?"

"Samantha is what people that care about me call me. People I trust. You don't rank on either of those lists. You never will."

Replicator her laughed. Replicator wasn't much better than other, but it was what she had to work with for the moment.

"I care about you. You doubt that I do?"

"What reason on any planet do you have to care about me?" Carter asked, throwing her arms out in exasperation.

"You are the reason I exist."

The answer was simple. And true. Carter felt a huge sense of responsibility towards her replicator self. Because she wouldn't exist if it hadn't been for her. She wouldn't have gotten what she needed and followed through with her plan if it hadn't been for her and thinking that she knew her. It was different than the other robot version of herself. That one was her, through and through. Not this twisted attempt. But she denied it automatically.

"Fifth is the reason you exist."

"Because you refused to be with him."

"He was the one that was obsessed with me!" she burst out. "I am not the reason you're here. Fifth is. You can't...you can't hold a victim responsible for the actions of the psycho who decided to hurt them."

Carter leaned against the wall, resisting the urge to wrap her arms around herself. it would be a protective gesture and she didn't want to show that. She had no idea why. Perhaps it was the instinctive reaction of a woman when confronted with someone she knew was a bitch. Don't give them fodder they could use against you.

"Fifth-" the one word was coated with loathing so deep it was practically poison "-wasn't what he became without your actions."

"I had no choice!"

Damn it, she would not be held responsible for this by another person. Carter would torture herself with what she had done to Fifth and what he had done to her for the rest of herself. Betrayal begot betrayal, after all. It was her fault. The beginning. Not the end. The end was not her fault.

The other her tilted her head, eyes narrowed in a thoughtful study. Carter knew that she adopted a similar expression whenever she was faced with something she found fascinating and didn't immediately understand. It was disturbing to see it here. That expression was hers. But it wasn't.

"Would you kill him?"

The question caught her completely off-guard. Carter blinked, surprised. They were locked in this room together until those outside it could figure out a way to contain her replicator self, but she was honestly surprised that they were holding a conversation. And a question like that was even more surprising.

"What?"

The replicator took a step forward. Then another. Carter went still, a rabbit who had seen the fox and had no place to go. They were left with only three feet between them, if that.

"Would you kill him? If you had the chance? If he was here instead of me. Would you kill him?"

Carter felt her throat go dry. Had she ever fantasized about killing Fifth? Yes. She was ashamed to admit it, but she had. But fantasizing and acting on them were two very different things.

"No. I wouldn't."

She surprised herself with her honesty. But she wouldn't. She had betrayed and abandoned Fifth. Killing him...she wouldn't be able to. Not unless she absolutely had to. In defense of someone -or many someones- or herself would be different. Carter was many things, but she was not a murderer.

"Oh"

The other her drew back, looking disappointed, lips parted slightly and tilting down in her displeasure. The look vanished within a moment.

"I did." Those blue eyes lit up and the mouth tilted upward. "I enjoyed it, Samantha."

Carter stared. The replicator was quivering with suppressed emotion. Excitement? Her eyes were alight and she was smiling.

"Why?" she managed, disturbed to see her own face reveling in a kill.

"Other than the fact that he was weak and wouldn't serve my cause? I had all of your memories, Samantha. Everything he did to you. Everything you did to him. He did worse to me from the first moment I existed. Now I am the queen of my race. I took what he couldn't. I am smarter than he ever was. The smartest replicator to ever exist. Thanks to you."

She was still driving that point home, but Carter was horrified. She was smart. She knew that she was smarter than a lot of people. She had never gloated in it, however. Never lorded it over someone else like this version of her was doing. It sickened her.

"You could have just left him."

"And where would I have been?" the replicator spread her arms in an eerily similar way to how she had done before. "If my plea to you and your people had been true, I would have spent the rest of my life in a cage on Earth. Area 51, most likely. Or I would have been sent here or to another site. Queen of an entire race is much better than a cage. They would not have destroyed me."

Carter had no response to that. She leaned against the wall. Slid down to sit. She stared at her other self. Her evil twin. A laugh bubbled in her chest, because she could hear General O'Neill saying that.

"You find me amusing?"

"No."

"Ah. Let me guess. Your general."

Was she that transparent? Carter stilled. The other her smiled, different than before.

"I know you. You know that I do. I remember Jack quite...fondly."

Okay. That was disturbing and sounded very creepy. Especially when she and Jack had never...

"Ha! That's why you don't play poker. It's interesting to see on someone else."

The other her seemed to be finding this fascinating. She wandered the room, knocking her knuckles on the metal plated walls. She settled opposite Carter, in the same position, opening her leather coat and shrugged in off to bunch between her hips and the wall. She was wearing dogtags, of all things, Carter noted. Strange.

"Is that why you came back? Because you were curious about me?"

Replicator her laughed, her smile crinkling the corners of her eyes. She had not been so animated before. Was it because she was with her original? Or because she wasn't calculating something this time?

"Do not think so highly of yourself. I have a plan."

Carter laced her fingers over her bent knee, shifting on the metal floor. She felt strangely calm. Perhaps because she knew that she wasn't in danger. The replicator wouldn't harm her original. There was no point. At least, while they were locked in this room. That had been a pure accident, though. She hadn't intended to be sealed in with her.

"Not a very smart plan. Coming back to the Alpha site."

"Oh, but it was. I was already here. You didn't think that I would come back, even though you changed the protocols. I didn't calculate you being here, however. It would have gone smoothly if you hadn't been."

"Why?"

"You're smart enough to know why I will not be telling you that."

She was.

But why return to the Alpha site at all? It was a very big risk. There was nothing here that the replicator needed. Unless...

Sam rubbed her wrist where an Iris code device would have been attached. She carried one for SG-1 on every mission. There were some stored here that would be automatically recognized, as 'in-case-of-emergency' codes.

"You wanted to get to Earth. And you needed a code to do it. Use the code, walk through looking like me. You'd get confusion, but you wouldn't get shot. Not right away. You'd have time to prevent that from happening. Do what you wanted."

The replicator offered her a hand clap.

"Oh, well done, Samantha. Well done indeed."

"Why can't you just leave us alone?" she burst out.

The replicator arched a perfect eyebrow.

"Are you saying that you would prefer me to run rampant through the galaxy in exchange for your planet being left alone? Because that could perhaps be arranged."

"No...I...you're me!"

"You knew that already."

Sam ran an agitated hand through her hair. She didn't know how to explain that. But someone was running around out there with her face. Her body. Doing horrible things. She was becoming a thing to be feared when she had never done anything to deserve it.

"It's my face. I was first. I'm the original. Everything you have is mine."

That sounded beyond petty, saying it out loud. The replicator tilted her head slightly.

"If you'd had a twin minutes younger than you and she had done something truly horrendous, would you say the same to her?"

"You..." Sam stuttered. Gave up. There was no point to any of this. She wanted out of this room. She wanted the replicators destroyed once and for all. Including the one sitting across from her.

"You need me, Samantha."

Sam let out a laugh of disbelief at this.

"For what? Information? Help defeating our enemies? You think I'm going to fall for that?"

The replicator smirked, shaking her head slightly, as if Sam had missed the entire point of her words. She waited a few moments, narrowing her eyes in calculation.

"I am your dark side. As long as I exist, you can be pure. Good. You do not need to worry about giving into a darker side because it already exists. You need me to exist, as I need you to exist."

"I was doing just fine on my own, thank you very much." Sam said bitingly.

The words unsettled her. Because they were partly true. With the psychotic, sociopathic version of herself out there some where, she didn't worry all that much about her actions. Because she knew that she could never be that bad, despite the proof that seemed to be otherwise. She knew how to stop herself. She knew not to become like that. She had an example that could stop her, that checked her thoughts and her actions.

"The sun can not exist without the moon. The darkness must exist for the light to shine through."

That sentence irked Sam, for its complete inaccuracy. The sun did not need the moon to exist. But she understood the analogy.

"Yin and yang. I know the concept."

"I know you do."

There was that smile again. Sam had the sudden urge to fly across the room and just beat the other version of herself. Scream at the confusion and all the other emotions that this version of her existing brought on. She was sick of the confusion. The guilt. The fear. The sense of responsibility. None of this was her fault. She'd done what she'd had to do. She had followed orders with the time dilation device. She had wanted to escape her kidnapper. That was all.

So why was she always the one at fault?

"You're not getting to Earth." she managed, because there was no way that she was going to bare all that to a replicator. Especially one that probably already knew how she felt.

"I know that. But I will get out of here. They will not leave you here to die and I can not be destroyed."

"Not yet."

The replicator tilted her head in acknowledgement at this. Her fingers were tapping out a rhythm on the metal floor. Sam had the same tic. She hated that. She curled her fingers into her palm.

"I thought that you were the victim." she said quietly. "I thought you were just like me. You fooled me, because I thought I knew you. I thought that Fifth had done the same things to you that he had done to me. That he used you as a doll to take his rage out on. Now I think he was closer to human emotions than you."

"You would never let yourself be a victim. So why did you assume that I was one?"

Sam clenched her jaw, staring at the ceiling.

"Because..." She expelled a short, sharp breath. "Because sometimes I want to be. I need to be. But I can't."

"Because you're a soldier. Because if you show weakness in a man's world, that is all they will see you for."

"Not all of them. My team would never."

"You're the girl. The one they need to protect. The one they stormed across a planet, destroying my kind by the hundreds, to find. To rescue. I do not believe Teal'c or Daniel would have warranted such a reaction. You are the one that makes them feel like men, at the end of the day. They protect you. They do what you can not."

"You really don't understand my memories of them." Sam said softly, recoiling from the very notion of being only that.

"My first memory was fear, Samantha. Before Fifth force-fed me your past so that I would be you. The first thing that was mine was fear. And then pain and abuse."

Sam really felt sick there. The replicator was being more revealing than she was intending. She knew because she never would have been that revealing on purpose. Not in this situation. Not to this person.

The first things that belonged to the replicator alone were fear, pain, and abuse. The first things that had given her an identity that was her own instead of one that had been forced on her. So she had taken them and twisted them. They were hers. Instead of continuing to feel them, have them inflicted on her, she had decided to inflict them on others. And slay her abuser, taking over what he had planned, what he had built.

It was all so very human.

"He made you kill. He gave you my memories -my emotions- and he made you destroy them. You didn't have to become what he wanted. You gave in." she said, glaring.

"By day he trained me. By night...well. What do you think he did to me, Samantha? He wanted you. He learned what humans who 'love' each other do from your memories. What do you think he did to me?"

Sam shook her head. No. She was not going there. There was the rustle of movement and footsteps. She opened her eyes. The replicator was inches from.

Sam jerked back, whacking her head against the metal of the wall, staring as her heart started pounding. What was she going to do to her? Was she going to kill her? Just do something to play with her?

"I can show you." the replicator whispered, raising her hand.

She flinched. A whimper escaped her throat, despite her intentions. No. She did not want to be given a memory of Fifth raping her. Or worse, a memory of herself actually enjoying having sex with Fifth. Her whole body shuddered at the notion and her stomach heaved. She really was going to be sick this time.

Then the replicator did the unthinkable. She dropped her hand. She didn't move back right away. Sam stared, shocked by this turn of events. The dogtags had fallen out the replicator's shirt enough for her to see them. The were replicas of hers. Which made no sense. She would have had to have made them and she had never tried to fool anyone with the dogtags. Why would she wear such a thing?

The replicator retreated. Sam let out a breath.

"You think you fear me. But you only fear yourself." the replicator said.

Sam looked her straight in the eye.

"I know."

XXXXXXX

Sam felt like she could finally breathe again once she stepped through the Stargate and on to the ramp inside the SGC. They'd finally had no choice but to let the replicator go skipping off to some planet to get away. They couldn't contain her. They couldn't destroy her. But she hadn't gotten what she'd wanted.

She was not the first one back from the Alpha site, so the briefing had already been done. At least things weren't destroyed there this time. Only a few people had gotten hurt. Nothing had been taken. She had stayed behind to make certain of that.

Sam walked out of the gate room, heading to the briefing room. Only General O'Neill was waiting for her there. She stopped at the sight of him, feeling like there was something that she should say or do. She had no idea what it was, though. He held her gaze.

"Welcome home, Carter."

"It's good to be home, sir."

She expected the general to launch into questioning her about what had happened. Wanting every detail. It was what he should have done, considering that he was in charge of the SGC. He was supposed to do it. But he didn't. Instead, the general's eyes held hers for a long moment, full of the concern that Sam was so used to seeing.

"You all right, Carter?" he asked.

Sam had to think about that, because she almost, out of reflex, wanted to say that she was. She took a few moments to really consider the question.

"No. I don't think I am."

He nodded, still holding her gaze.

"Anything I can do?"

"I...I don't know, sir."

Sam wanted to grab on to it and say that there was something. But she didn't think that there was anything anyone could do to make her feel better about this. It had been hard enough the first time. It felt even worse now.

"Let me know."

She nodded, taking a breath.

"I will."

"Debrief in an hour."

He was giving her the time to collect herself. Think things over. Hell, just to even take a shower if she wanted to. It was time that he didn't have to give her, not with something like this. But he knew her and knew that she needed time alone to wrap her head around what had happened. About that baring conversation she had never wanted to have. The general started to turn away from her.

"Sir?" Sam's voice stuck in her throat.

General O'Neill turned back.

"Yeah?"

There were a lot of things that she wanted to say. She stuck with the simplest, that she hoped conveyed everything she was feeling right now. That him asking her these things, giving her these things, reaffirmed that she was her and no one else.

"Thank you."

Author's Note: I'm considering eventually doing an AU multi-chaptered story with Replicator Carter. Opinions on that would be welcome. I also dislike the term 'Replicarter'. Don't know why. Just don't.

Also 'can not' and 'cannot'. I never understood the difference. I use a space. Is that right?

Please review!