A firm tug on her arm pulled Sam off course just inside the blast doors, rerouting her to a quiet corner. Sure enough, the man on the other end of the arm was Colonel O'Neill. "You wanna tell me what that was all about?" he asked softly, clearly not wanting his words to carry to the guards... or the other two members of SG-1.

"I don't know what you're talking about, sir." That was a lie, but she'd hoped to at least get through the gate before he harangued her about it.

"In the briefing. When I asked if there was anything else I needed to know about SG-9 going missing, Hammond looked straight at you and then told me everything I might need was 'at my disposal.' What the hell does that mean?"

It meant, mostly, that as much loyalty as she felt toward General Hammond, she really, really wanted to punch the old coot for putting her squarely between a rock named Jack O'Neill and a hard place named Jonas Hanson. "I suppose it means, sir," she said slowly as the dialing sequence began, "that he believes my history with Captain Hanson might come in handy."

"You think Hanson is the problem here?"

"I don't know." General Hammond clearly thought so – the way he'd looked at her had said as much. She hoped not.

"I don't like walking through that gate without all the relevant information, Captain," he growled. "So spill it."

But the fact that Hammond hadn't told them himself was proof that he didn't think the rest of SG-1 needed to know – yet – so her orders stood. "I'm sorry, sir, but until I have reason to believe that the past may be relevant here, I can't slander another officer."

He was clearly about to leap down her throat for that, but the gate opened with a whoosh, cutting him off. "The second it becomes relevant," he pressed instead, "intel better come spouting out of you like suds from an overloaded dishwasher. Is that clear?"

"Yes, sir."

~/~ ~/~

Lieutenant Connor looked like hell, and Sam wished she could justify the pang of concern she felt as just one officer for another, but it wasn't that simple. If one member of SG-9 was injured, the others likely were, as well. Where was Jonas? Was he hurt? Dead?

She couldn't deny the bit of relief she felt at that thought, and she loathed herself for it. Turning back to Connor, she helped him gently lean back against her leg.

"All right, Connor, what's going on?" Colonel O'Neill demanded. "Command received your signal six hours ago and no one came through. Why?"

"Hanson," the young man answered simply.

What was that supposed to mean? Unwilling to even suggest that he might be gone forever, Sam started, "Where is he? We need to talk to-"

"No!" His response was vehement. "Don't."

"Why?" the colonel prodded.

The lieutenant seemed to consider that for a moment before his eyes flew wide and he shoved away from her, pushing unsteadily to his feet. "Frakes. He..."

SG-1 was close at his heels as he ran, following a wide path away from the gate. They crowded behind him as he fell to his knees around a small pile of ash. And bone, Sam realized, bile rising in her throat. Human bone.

"Connor," Colonel O'Neill said gently as the young man pulled his teammate's dog tags from the ashes. "Connor, I need to know what happened."

"Permission to speak freely about a superior officer, sir," the lieutenant said, and the roiling of Sam's stomach doubled.

The pause was long enough for her to seriously wonder what her CO was thinking before he said, "Yeah. Go ahead."

"He's lost it. He's out of control."

"Captain Hanson?" Sam asked, willing him to say no with all her might.

"Maybe it was the sun, you know, the radiation," the young man went on.

"Wait," Daniel spoke up, "are you saying the sun did this to Frakes?"

"No, sir. Captain Hanson did that to Frakes."

"What?" Surely he didn't mean that the way it sounded, she thought. Jonas had... had pissed off some warlord who'd taken it out on the team, or... or accidentally set off some dangerous piece of technology, or...

"For trying to get back through the gate."

Well, that sure made it sound intentional. Her chest clenched. "I don't buy that," Colonel O'Neill shot back.

"Sir," the lieutenant insisted, "we were trying to warn command about what's really going on. The people here – they believe he's their god!"

"Because you came through the Stargate," Teal'c spoke up.

"No, no, you don't get it," Connor groaned. "Hanson believes it, too."

Praying that her dread wasn't obvious to the four men around her, she swallowed hard. Though she could feel the colonel's eyes boring into the side of her head, she didn't look up until he said, "Carter?"

She followed him a bit away from the others. It was difficult to meet his gaze, but luckily, he didn't seem to want that any more than she did. His eyes bobbled between her and the leaves beneath their feet. "I want you to take Connor back through the Stargate and report to General Hammond what's happened here," he said softly.

He was giving her an out, a chance to avoid something they both knew could only turn out badly, and as much as she appreciated that... "No, sir."

"No, sir?" he parroted, his gaze finally locking on her.

"If you're going after Captain Hanson, I should go with you. I can get to him." It was why the general, out of eleven other teams, had sent SG-1. She was certain of it.

"Look, Captain," the colonel snapped, obviously unhappy about having his kind gesture (and his orders) refused. "Either we're bringing him back to face a court martial or not. And I think we both know what the 'not' means."

"I know him, Colonel," she pressed.

"Yeah, that would be the problem, wouldn't it?" he shot back.

"I gave back the ring because I know him. I know how he thinks, how he operates-"

"How he likes to play God?"

She winced a little at the implication. "Look, I don't understand how that could happen any more than you do, but if SG-1 is going after him, then I am going with you."

Sam Carter had to be the world's foremost expert on Jonas Hanson – had to be. And, in large part, it was her mess to clean up. She opened her mouth to explain, but Lieutenant Connor leaped to his feet. "Wait a minute, you – no, you can't do that!" he stuttered. "There are hundreds, probably thousands of them. He – he's their god. They'll die for him. They'll kill for him in a heartbeat."

"That's not your problem," Colonel O'Neill growled at the young man. "Now, I need someone to report back to the general, and that is you."

"No, sir."

"No, sir?" The colonel shot Sam an annoyed glance, and she couldn't blame him – she'd started it. "Does it say 'colonel' anywhere on my uniform?"

"I know the planet, the situation," the lieutenant went on. "I think it's suicide, but if you're going, I'm going, sir."

"But you are not physically able," Teal'c spoke up.

The lieutenant shrugged. "Frakes was my friend."

"This isn't about revenge," Sam insisted.

"Maybe not for you." Brushing past her, Connor headed a bit further from the gate. "We've got to move now, in the daylight."

She stared at him for a long moment. Cleaning up this mess meant getting Jonas home, not killing him, and she wasn't at all convinced Connor would accept that. She glanced at her CO, hoping he'd see the other man as the vulnerability he was and send him back through the Stargate, but he just said, "Well... We're off to see the wizard."

~/~ ~/~

If Colonel O'Neill thought she'd forgotten their conversation in the Gate Room, he was wrong. And so Sam wasn't entirely surprised when he took her arm and held her back from the group, letting Connor and Teal'c take a long lead, Daniel just behind them. "Suds from a dishwasher, Captain," Colonel O'Neill reminded her, his soft voice making it clear that this conversation was only for them. "Go."

She sucked in a breath. "He's a textbook narcissist, sir. His entire sense of self is derived from the people around him. It's like his world is a giant mirror. If people think he's a good person, then he is. If they think he's... charming, or intelligent, or romantic, then he is."

"Is this my excuse for never buying flowers again? Romance makes me a narcissist now?"

"No, you don't understand. What he actually is – his motives, his ethics – have no relevance. The only thing that matters is what people see. And so he'll do anything. He'll lie, cheat, manipulate. Whatever it takes to ensure the feedback he gets is what he wants to hear."

"If they think he's a good person, then he is," O'Neill echoed. "And if they think he's a god? Does he actually believe that, Captain?"

"No," she answered immediately. "No. He's not insane."

His eyes were hidden, but he turned to stare at her, and she got the point.

She sighed. "Clinically," she edited. "At least, unless something's changed. He knows he isn't a god, sir. But I have no doubt he'd play one. The high that gives him must be..."

"Yeah." Her CO adjusted his hat. "We can out him, Captain. We can prove to these people that he's not what he says he is. That makes us a threat to this little kingdom he's got here. You get that, right?"

"Yes, sir."

Jack glanced sideways at her, fairly certain she didn't. Not really. And he wondered whether her past with their little megalomaniac made her more or less likely to end up in a pile of ashes like Frakes.