From Hereon After II: The Collaborators

By Alli Snow

Chapter 1

There's a spot on my property that is, honest-to-God, the most beautiful place on Earth. Maybe in the galaxy. I certainly never saw anything offworld that could compare.

I know I'm biased. I spent my summers here, sometimes with my whole family and sometimes just my Granddad. I liked it most when it was just the two of us. It was his cabin, his lake, his trees, his bugs, his fish... yes, at one point, there really were fish. My most pleasant memories were made here, with him and sometimes just by myself.

I found The Spot when I was 16. I was up with my parents, who had, as usual, been driving me insane all summer. One night, after they'd all gone to bed, I tiptoed out of the cabin with a backpack full of snacks, magazines, and other things important to 16 year olds. I also managed to remember a blanket and a flashlight. I didn't really have a plan. I just figured I'd find a nice place to spend the night and return in the morning, after they were all sufficiently freaked out about my disappearing. Maybe then, I reasoned, they'd appreciate me a little more and stop asking me to do ludicrous things like take out the trash and clean the dinner table.

All night, I wandered. Not because I was lost - I knew that property like the back of my hand, pardon the cliché - but because... it was fun. The trees and the water looked so different at night; it stirred something primal and exciting within me. I imagined that I was a medieval knight traversing dragon-infested woods, or a caveman skulking around primeval forests, or maybe the last person left alive on the planet after the human race had gone and blown itself up.

By the time the sun rose the next morning, I'd found it. The Spot. Not that I knew what it was at the time. It was just a little incline - calling it a hill would have been stretching it - and when I stood on the very top I could see the lake, and almost see the cabin. It was pretty cool. I set down my stuff; of course the blanket and pillow were immediately wet with dew, but I didn't care. I sat there, eating crackers and watching the sunrise.

I can't explain the transformation. One minute the whole world was just various shades of green-gray, blurred a little around the edges. A few stars were still visible. Then the sun moved into the sky, and the fog coming off the lake started coming a little faster. The sky was suddenly filled with color. Everything brightened. The fog swirled around the base of the hill, around the tree trunks, so thick that I couldn't even see the green grass. The air was so clean-smelling and actually left droplets of water on my skin. Standing there was like standing on the summit of Mount Everest. I couldn't see the ground, just the tops of nearby trees poking up out of the churning mist, so I might as well have been thousands of feet up. Even though I knew it was just a momentary optical illusion, I got the distinct impression that if I leapt off the hill and into the fog, I would fall for hours and hours before finally splattering on the bottom.

The sun rose a little higher, the sky got a little bluer, and I watched, enthralled, as the fog began to burn off. Slowly I returned from fantasyland to the real world, feeling pretty childish but also thinking that what had just happened had been the high point of my summer. A 16-year old boy would never use the word 'magical', but it had been.

Eventually, I returned to the cabin to find that my theory had not exactly panned out. My parents were furious with me. Granddad made a big show of being annoyed while they were around, but slipped me a conspiratorial wink whenever he could. Although I never asked him - he died the next summer of a vicious cancer - I was always convinced that he had somehow known where I'd been, and what I'd seen, and what I'd felt: like I'd been transported to an alien planet, only it was better than that, because it was right here. At my fingertips.

After Granddad's death, the cabin and all the property in Elysia went to his son, my father, and when he died in '90, it went to me. I took a trip up there after the funeral, by myself, to straighten things out; I'd hadn't been there in years and the 'magic' of that summer night seemed vague if not outright ridiculous. I'd actually planned to sell the place. But my last day there, I woke at three in the morning, and I was seized by the memory of being a knight, a caveman, an apocalyptic survivor. And I went wandering. And somehow... as a 30-something military officer with a wife and a child, who had spilled more blood on foreign soil then he cared to think about... it seemed even more beautiful than it had to a naïve, rebellious, hormone-driven teenager. Not only was I suspended on a peak a million miles in the air with the fog churning around me like a strange soup, but I had been transported back in time to a point in my life where my biggest troubles were my daily chores. And now, I could appreciate it.

I couldn't bring myself to sell the property. Sara looked at me quizzically when I told her but never asked why. And I never brought her up there, to experience it with me. Or rather, I kept putting it off. Afraid that she wouldn't understand, that she would think I was crazy. Worried that all she would see was a hill and fog and the rising sun... but it was all so much more than that. I didn't know if I could expect my wife to even accept something that esoteric. How could I when I scarcely grasped it myself?

But the problem with putting things off and putting things off is that you almost always tend to put them off a little too long. The crack of a gun from inside my house... men in uniform finding me in my home and dragging me to Cheyenne Mountain where the strangest journey of my life to begin... a note in the kitchen, sharp words in a dark, angry scrawl.

I did learn from my mistakes. I was determined to share my magic with somebody, somebody who would understand, and who understood me better then my teammates? But Daniel... Daniel always had a translation to... translate, or a rock to blow dust off, or an operation to recuperate from. Teal'c came up with me once, but was as sullen and difficult as a 16 year old on vacation with his family. He'd barely tolerated 'fishing'; I hadn't pushed it. And Carter... Carter always had her reasons too. And don't get me wrong, they were excellent reasons. Better then "the incessant calls of the loon disturb my kel'no'reem, O'Neill" or "come on, Jack, the last time I didn't finish a project for SG-16, Jenkins switched my regular coffee with decaf behind my back. Decaf!".

The difference with Carter's reasons was that she never really said them aloud. Sure, she had her excuses like the rest of them... got work to do, got work to do, and of course the ever popular, "sorry Sir, I'm in the middle of something".

Roughly translated: "I don't think you and me alone miles from civilization is a good idea. Sir."

Maybe she didn't trust me. Maybe she didn't trust herself. In any case, she was right. She was right and I was wrong. Or maybe, I was ready and willing to throw myself into the mist, regardless of where I might land, and take her with me... but she was there pulling me back from the edge with terrific strength.

I wanted to think that it was a matter of will. That if I just wanted her enough, it would make all the problems go away. Hammond would walk up to us with a letter from the President in one hand and a key card to a Holiday Inn in the other. Jacob would be right beside him wishing us the best of luck to us in our new life together. And Carter... Carter would suddenly realize that everything that had been holding her back was silly and inconsequential, 'and they all lived happily ever after'. Instead, it was with a rather rude shock to discover that, even with a key card and a supportive father, she probably still would have said, "sorry Sir, I'm in the middle of something".

Chapter 2

"Oh, for crying out loud! Couldn't you have at least beamed up my beer?"

Thor's large eyes blinked languidly in the dimming light. He looked briefly at a small, oblong contraption in his hands, and then back to me. His face betrayed nothing, but I had spent enough time around him to recognize the reproving tone of voice. "There are more important things afoot then the foolish battle between your mountains and bears."

I blinked in confusion, doing a pretty good impression of an Asgaard, and then frowned even deeper as I understood what he meant. "Ah, no, not mountains and bears, Rockies and Cubs. Colorado Rockies and..." He started walking away from me, and I had no choice but the follow him down the hall, sputtering uselessly. I knew where I was, of course; all these Asgaard ships had the same look to them, even though each succeeding generation had a slightly softer, rounder style. This baby was most certainly a new model. Everything was polished, shiny... it almost had the smell I associated with a new car. "... and, whoa, Thor, what's up? Why'd you beam me out of my living room? What's 'afoot'? And... and when did you start using words like 'afoot'?"

He did not respond to my teasing, which I took as a bad sign. Most of the Asgaard seemed to have little-to-no sense of humor, but Thor... Thor understood me. Liked me, which was not always a good thing, granted, but still... Nevertheless, he remained silent - and I silently followed him - until we reached a little room with a long table, seats, screens on the walls, some controls... I don't know why, but my first thought was 'briefing room'. Maybe some kind of secondary control station.

Finally, settling down in one of the chairs, Thor answered my question... questions. And he did it oh-so-succinctly. "It's the Gou'ald."

I snorted, still peeved at being plucked right out of the sixth inning of a nice televised ballgame. "Uh, yeah, it's always a Gou'ald. If you hadn't noticed, we've had kind of a theme going on the past decade or so." Thor was impervious to my sarcasm, so I continued. "You know, I don't know whether or not Asgaard retire, but on Earth, what it means is that you get drink beer all day while other people worry about the Gou'ald being 'afoot'." Oh, great, now I wasn't going to be able to stop using that word. "So whatever they're up to now... whatever you're up to now... go tell Daniel and Teal'c and Dustan." I paused, then nodded to let Thor know I was done with my tirade. It was weird leaving out Hammond and Carter, but their names weren't applicable anymore. Hammond had moved back to Austin upon retiring; the only times he was even near the base was when he was back visiting his granddaughters. He'd call and tell me when he would be in town, and we'd meet somewhere, and drink, and get all nostalgic. Two old guys reminiscing about the glory days, which frankly hadn't been very glorious.

As for Carter... well, she'd long since moved on to bigger and better things. Not that I was bitter.

"The SGC has been compromised," Thor said flatly.

My reaction was strange; I laughed. "Com... compromised?" I laughed again; nervous laughter. "You're kidding me, right?"

Thor never minced words. "There are an unknown number of Gou'ald who have infiltrated Earth," he said. "Including the government and your military. It is possible that they have made it as far as Stargate Command."

Suddenly weak - and wishing even more fervently for my beer - I reached for another one of the strange Asgaard seats and lowered myself down into it. My knees were up around my ears but I didn't notice. I felt sick. "Who?"

Abruptly, Thor stood, and to my amazement - albeit numbed, stunned amazement - began to pace. I had never seen an Asgaard pace before, and if I hadn't had this wave of stark horror crashing down on me, it might have been amusing. Had he picked it up from one of us? "I believe the Gou'ald who has been orchestrating this operation is the one who calls himself Osiris."

I groaned, closing my eyes. Osiris. That hadn't exactly been a high point for me... off fishing with Teal'c while Daniel and Carter and Doc Frasier had chased that madwoman - well, madsnake - all the way to Egypt. Egypt! While I had technically been on downtime - we'd all been, but we'd also all been workaholics - I'd still felt worthless returning to Colorado to find my friends recuperating from various Gou'ald-inflicted injuries. Although watching Frasier being poked and prodded and blinded by one of the other doctors had been deliciously ironic. Needless to say, I'd just about glued my pager to my hand every time I went away after that. "Sarah Gardner... Daniel's old girlfriend," I said, opening my eyes.

"That was the host which Osiris used to escape, yes. We believe she initially returned several years ago, and has been since transporting Gou'ald symbiotes to Earth from origins unknown."

Sighing, I felt my fear recede as I invested myself at the problem. "She's been making Jaffa?" Thor shook his head, but before he could answer I jumped back in with the obvious. "Right... you're a Jaffa, you're still basically in charge of yourself. You're a host... wait, did you say 'years'?"

Standing as I sat, Thor's face was nearly at eye-level. "That is correct. We believe she intends to retake the planet through a different strategy then Apophis attempted. Infiltration and eventually complete replacement, as opposed to outright attack."

I could almost see my face reflected in his massive black eyes. "But you guys are still going to help defend us, right?"

Thor hesitated. "Osiris does not fall under the restrictions of the Protected Planets Treaty."

Snorting in disgust, I stood. I'd been expecting that. "She... he's a System Lord," I snapped.

"Osiris is a Gou'ald," Thor corrected me. "And not all Gou'ald are System Lords."

"He's a wanna-be... same difference," I barked. "I can't believe that you guys are just going to turn your backs on us because of a technicality like that."

Looking up at me, Thor inclined his head. His voice was as passionate as I had ever heard it. "We are not, O'Neill," he said seriously. "My crew and I did not come all this way to merely inform you of this disaster. We came to help prevent it."

I was touched, really, but something bothered me about the way he said that. 'My crew and I'. "And how many merry men did you bring along with you?"

Apparently there was no translation needed. "Five," said Thor, bluntly.

I had to sit again. Six Asgaard and one old retired guy against a planet-full of people - including my friends - who might or might not be Gou'ald hosts and a wanna-be System Lord who had vowed terrible, bloody revenge on us all.

We were doomed.

Chapter 3

"I'd rather die then become a host."

Daniel's words were impossibly clear in my mind; he could have been standing right next to me, sullenly muttering to himself with a cross line between his eyes, just like he'd been the day Charlie Kawalsky had died. We had all watched as they'd removed the body from the Gateroom with the solemnity of the funeral service that was still to come. I'd questioned the truth of Daniel's words at the time. After all, his wife had just been made a host. Was he saying that if he had the chance to kill her - not save her so that he could one day remmove the Gou'ald from her head, more successfully then the doctors had done with Charlie, but kill her, release her from the obvious pain and torment - that he would actually do it? Fire the shot that would kill the woman he loved? I doubted it.

In the end it was a choice he didn't have to make; Teal'c made it for him. Also oddly, it was a choice that I would have to make, four years later with an alien computer program staring out at me from Carter's eyes.

It was a defining moment for me, one of the many times were I found myself thinking, really thinking... is this all worth it? Sure it is, the human race is worth a few personal sacrifices, I would think at first. And then the greedy, selfish side of me would wonder when personal sacrifices piled on top of each other started reflecting on the human race as a whole. Was a species that was able to turn on each other so easily worth saving?

"I'd rather die then become a host."

I rubbed a hand over my face, trying to banish the words, praying that I wouldn't be put in that position again. Because I would do it. Just like I did it to Carter. And then I would hate myself. "We have to save the people who've been Gou'alded."

One of Thor's crewmates had joined the discussion; I hadn't caught the name, so I mentally referred to him as mini-Thor. He was slightly shorter then the average Asgaard, but mainly I stuck him with the name just to have something to chuckle over. I needed something. Badly.

"We suspect that many humans have been implanted with symbiotes," said mini-Thor primly, too good to use my slang. "Perhaps one thousand, mainly within the borders of the dominant nation. It would be impossible to 'save' them all, even with Asgaard technology. I believe what you mean is that you wish to rescue your colleagues."

"My friends, yes," I said tamely, looking to Thor. His eyes were narrowed. "Now what is that look for?"

He was hesitant. "At the moment... we do not have the means to 'save' anyone."

I was proud of myself; I caught on pretty quickly. Of course, it should have been obvious much earlier - the new ship, sparse crew... and apparently the de-Gou'alders weren't set to be installed until Tuesday. "Thor... tell me you didn't."

"Didn't?" asked Thor, lamely.

"You know what I mean. I saw this movie. You're not here because your hoity-toity little Council was able to spare the ship." I slapped a hand down on the table. "You guys stole it, didn't you? No... wait... you probably asked the Council first, they said no for whatever obscure Asgaardy reason they pulled out of their... hats... so you rounded up a bunch of impressionable youngsters and then stole this ship."

"'Stole' is such a harsh word," Thor protested.

"We would prefer 'borrowed'," agreed mini-Thor.

Finally, I smiled. "For what it's worth, thanks. So if we can't de-Gou'ald anyone, what are you going to do?"

"Stop the infiltration," decreed mini-Thor, looking determined. "Probe Earth records and databases to find Osiris; we believe he may have migrated to a new body since returning. Locate other top-level Gou'ald and isolate them. Eliminate them if necessary. Ideally without alarming your entire society, for any revelation would draw attention to us. We are cloaked, but we believe Osiris is in the vicinity as well. If he suspected we were here, or even knew what to look for..."

I nodded. "This is our last--only chance. Message received."

"While we have no way to remove a Gou'ald from its host," added Thor, and mini-Thor shot him a quick, 'shut-up look', "we do have the ability to scan a person to see if they are under Gou'ald control."

Perking up, I asked, "That's the thing you were holding when you beamed me up?" He nodded. "Sweet... what's it do, sniff naqueda?"

Thor shook his head. "No. Naqueda-detection is not always reliable. The machine performs a medical scan comparable to your MRIs." And he added, as I knew he would, "Of course, they are much more advanced then your MRIs."

I ignored the barb. "Sweet. So we beam up Daniel, Doc... Teal'c should be safe... Dustan... I think we can leave George alone..."

"And if they are hosts?" asked mini-Thor. "We could not allow them to return, and the security system..."

"Gets installed Tuesday, I know," I said dryly. "Thor, old buddy? If I had been a host when you brought me up... exactly what had you planned on doing with me?"

"I believe you would benefit from not hearing the answer to that question."

In other words, 'you don't want to know'. I could deal with that. I'd have to. "In that case," I said, standing. "Lets get to work." I looked up, admiring the clean, fresh lines of the ship. "We don't know how long it'll be until the Council sends the intergalactic tow truck to bring this baby home."

"The Council would not willingly send another vessel into the quarantine zone," said mini-Thor glibly. "Even to retrieve a ship as costly as The Carter."

I had to put one hand on the table to steady myself. My God, was all this wobbling due to being on a spaceship, or was I just getting old? "Excuse me?"

Mini-Thor looked abashed. "Yes. You see, the quarantine..."

"No. Not that." I turned to Thor. "What's this ship called?"

He positively swelled with pride. "The Carter," he echoed. "It is primarily a science vessel, although its weapons capabilities are among the most advanced of the Asgaard fleet." He paused. "A vote was taken. We felt that the honor was long overdue."

I smiled. "She."

"O'Neill?"

"Ships are always 'she's', Thor," I explained, staring about the room with new fondness. "And you're right. It was long overdue. At least she's safe," I muttered to myself.

"Actually, O'Neill..."

Chapter 4

It's amazing how much you can get done in 24 hours, if you really put your mind to it. You can sit around the house all day, watch a baseball game and maybe do some laundry if the motivation strikes. Or you can travel halfway across the galaxy, battle aliens, preserve the freedom of your world, succeed - or fail - nearly die, die and get resurrected, meet allies, meet enemies, and be back in time for supper. Of course, supper was usually watery broth and strained peaches on an infirmary tray, but... let no one say Jack O'Neill didn't get nostalgic in his old age.

That day, Thor and his merry men took me on an abbreviated tour of The Carter, gloating over the sophisticated software that allowed them to hack into Earth databases with ridiculous ease. 'Sophisticated' being relative, of course, explained mini-Thor, whose name turned out to be Jarl. It was sophisticated compared to human technology, of course. Asgaard babies were probably born knowing how to do this stuff. Assuming that Asgaard had babies, and that they were actually born.

I also learned that all of my friends might be Gou'ald hosts, a somewhat jarring revelation. I had thought that at least Carter, who'd left the SGC years ago, would be safe, but Jarl shattered that delusion with a phrase I would soon come to hate.

"Actually, O'Neill..."

I turned on him. "Don't tell me..."

"We are most concerned about Major Carter."

I looked at Thor, a little desperately.

"We have not been here long," he said calmly. "But we have done some research and observations through your Earth databases. Major Carter left the Stargate program not long after we estimate that Osiris returned. That alone proves nothing. But she is one of only two people on your planet with the ability to sense a Gou'ald symbiote."

Thoughts ricocheted in my head like a super-powered tennis ball. The other person is Cassie, I thought frantically, and then - boing! - Sam. Sam. "She has> been hanging around with a lot of mucky-mucks," I admitted. I would see her on TV every now and then, looking beautiful, tan - although tired and too thin - smiling a thin, practiced smile. She was a kind of Air Force emissary to a population that generally hated anything to do with the military, except when there was some kind of violent uprising somewhere that needed to be put down, and then they were our best friends. She was shuttled all around to make little speeches and look pretty alongside the not-so-pretty generals who made up the military brass. If any one of them were Gou'ald, she would have sensed it. And while she might not have taken the information to the evening news, she certainly wouldn't have stayed quiet for all this time.

I thought about Sam's leaving, remembered Daniel telling me about Dawson's accidental death and Carter's... well, I couldn't rightly call it an 'overreaction', because losing someone under your command, especially right off the bat, was hard. I knew. But hearing about it had bothered me, a lot. Was it because I felt that I had shirked my duty by retiring and sticking Sam with a command she wasn't ready for? Or because it had seemed so out of character? An excuse a Gou'ald would make?

But why would a Gou'ald want to leave the SGC? It didn't make sense.

Still, it's really amazing how much you can do in 24 hours when you have an Asgaard taskmaster. Jarl, the strategic mind of the crew, started making plans immediately. I was beamed back down to pack some clothes and leave some 'confusing' evidence behind. There wasn't much I could do about my truck in the garage, so I put the keys on the counter, in plain sight. I'd simply vanish. Whatever confused young police officer they put in charge of my missing person's case would have an interesting time of it.

I was relocated to the cabin in Minnesota, after I helped Thor hack into the property records and destroy any evidence that I owned the place. If Hammond, Daniel, Teal'c or Sam were hosts, they would know to look for me there, but maybe that was just one more way for me to will it not to be true. By assuming that they were safe, they would be. If only it were that easy.

I didn't have anyone to leave behind. I hadn't talked to Daniel, Frasier or Teal'c in weeks... maybe months, and if all went well I'd be seeing them soon anyway. Carter... years. Hammond might be concerned, if he found out, but he would trust me to take care of myself. Sara and her family wouldn't think this disappearance different from any of the others, even if they were questioned about it. Hopefully Cassie would understand. And Ilonka... no, why would Ilonka care?

That night, when chances were that no one would witness the abduction, we beamed up Daniel and Teal'c. Dressed in pajama bottoms and a T-shirt, obviously roused from sleep, it took Daniel a full 30 seconds just to remember my name. Teal'c had been deeply engrossed in kel'no'reem and hadn't even noticed the trip up. I tapped him on the shoulder and he opened his eyes. Thor, holding the Gou'ald detector, shook his head at me minutely and I deflated in relief. Other then Junior, they were clean.

While Jarl took Daniel and Teal'c aside to explain the situation - and don't think that I wasn't thrilled to have someone else telling Daniel that his ex-girlfriend had returned, because I was - Thor gave me a quick lesson with the Gou'ald-detector and beamed me down to Janet Frasier's house.

Surprisingly, Frasier was home, not on the base saving a life or rescuing the Earth from some kind of viral peril. She was in bed, asleep, which wasn't that surprising seeing as how it was the middle of the night. Cassie was there as well, because although she was a college student now, she was still living at home and commuting to class. When I arrived in the customary flash of white light, the first thing I saw was Cass, standing in the kitchen, making a snack. This reassured me immediately. Even after all I'd witnessed dealing with the Gou'ald, I just couldn't picture one of them wearing Winnie the Pooh pajamas and standing over quite possibly the largest PB&J sandwich I had ever seen. Which was good. It meant she was still Cassie.

As soon as I fully materialized, I cast a glowering look at my watch... and then the detector. Clean. "What are you still doing up? Shouldn't you be in bed?"

She stood frozen with the jar of strawberry jam in her hand. "Jack?"

"Yeah?" Not waiting for an answer, I raised my finger to my lips for the universal signal for 'be quiet' and moved down the hall, into the doorway of Frasier's bedroom. Feeling vaguely criminal, I slipped in only as far as the detector needed, and set it searching. 'Nope', said the blessed little machine. 'Clear'.

Somewhat cheerful - maybe Jarl had overstated the problem - I turned to leave the doorway and found myself looking down at Cassie, who'd sneaked up behind me. She was carrying a peanut-butter-covered kitchen knife now, and looking utterly perplexed. "Jack, what's going on?"

She didn't say it loudly, but apparently Frasier was a light sleeper. Even before I could shush Cass, there was the distinctive rustle of sheets being thrown back, and Frasier's worried voice from within the darkened room. "Cass... Colonel O'Neill?"

"Oy," I muttered, reaching into my pocket and taking out the Asgaard communication device I'd brought down. "Scotty, this is Kirk. Three to beam up."

The white light enveloped us almost immediately. At the last second, I turned to Frasier - still half-asleep and somewhat panicked - and asked, "Hey, I don't suppose you have any beer--"

Chapter 5

The reunion-slash-slumber party was short lived. Daniel, Teal'c, Cassie, Frasier and I sat around the big table with Thor and Jarl, and they went over the whole thing once more with all the salient points included.

Point one: the Asgaard had, a few years ago, tracked a small Gou'ald vessel heading in Earth's general direction. They hadn't done anything. It had been a cargo vessel, unprepared for an actual fight, and optimistic little buggers that they were, the Asgaard had actually thought that no Gou'ald would try anything... not with the Protected Planets treaty and all. When a couple of weeks went by and Earth hadn't been blasted into an asteroid belt, they figured it had been a false alarm and forgot all about it. Now, they thought they knew better. After hacking into the records of various surveillance cameras on Earth - the kind on stoplights, or stores at the mall - they had, with that wacky technology, actually come up with several pictures of Sarah Gardner, also known as Osiris, trawling the streets. She - he - it - was back on Earth, and not for the Labor Day sales, either. Somehow, this fact had never been passed on to the SGC... or to Thor, for that matter.

Point two: eventually, Thor had found out about this little discovery, but the Council had prohibited him from taking the information to General Dustan, who had recently taken Hammond's position. Dustan was a good guy - a little uptight sometimes, but good - however, the Council didn't want to worry the primitive humans. After all, they said, what trouble could one little Gou'ald wandering around Washington, DC really get into? Maybe Sarah Gardner wasn't even a host anymore, they said, which was just too damned optimistic even for me. Thor had fought them on the issue for some time, until he finally got tired of the strange wrangling goings on in the Council. He'd called on a few friends from Asgaard University - or whatever they called it - one of whom was on the testing crew of thhe new ship, The Carter. This provided an opportunity just too good to pass up.

Point three: on the trip to Earth, the six-man (six-alien?) crew had discovered some rather interesting things in the databases pertaining to Earth. One was a recipe for Crustless Bacon and Cheddar Quiche, which in itself posed questions. But the other thing was much more chilling: up until a few Earth weeks ago, an Asgaard ship had actually been keeping tabs on Earth, and Osiris's activities thereon. They'd actually been watching her not only stroll around town, but make sporadic trips to P4D-773, one of the closest planets with a Stargate. And they'd been watching her come back with big containers of Gou'ald symbiotes.

Officially, it wasn't happening. Unofficially, the Asgaard couldn't do anything about it because they had made no treaty concerning Osiris. And even more unofficially, they saw this as a way to get a whole bunch of Gou'ald in one place and then blast them into tiny pieces. If they happened to blast six million sentient beings into tiny pieces in the process, well, every mission had its collateral damage. Besides, they already knew how to make Crustless Bacon and Cheddar Quiche, and that was obviously the best thing Earth had going for it. The Asgaard Council declared that Earth was a quarantined planet.

Point four: Thor and his merry men had arrived on Earth, used their wacky technology to locate the cloaked Gou'ald ship, and had been intercepting coded messages from them ever since. And they had decided, just that day, that maybe it was time to start worrying the primitive humans. However, since many of the coded messages had mentioned the Stargate and the SGC, they thought it prudent to avoid those who were most likely to have been made hosts by Osiris: those who were connected with the SGC in specific, and the government in general, and those who had recently been in remote locations. Apparently, Osiris liked focusing on small towns far from real civilization, where she could infest the entire population quickly and without anyone being the wiser.

Point five: there was a lot they didn't know. Namely, who were already hosts? Frasier said that if there were hosts at the SGC, they weren't on offworld teams, because she would have run a routine MRI at some point and seen the little stowaway. The other question was - where was Osiris getting the snakes to begin with? There were reports of Jaffa being attacked and their symbiotes being taken, en masse, on Gou'ald-occupied worlds. A few temples had also been raided. But the numbers that were being implied by the transmissions were far larger. There had to be some other way Osiris was getting her hands on them.

Who was next? Jarl was able to answer that question halfway through the meeting, when another intercepted transmission came in from one of the techies.

A schedule of the next round of infestations.

Everyone held their breath as Thor read.

"This list," he says finally, "spans the next fourteen Earth days. Daniel Jackson, Teal'c, Doctor Frasier... you are not on it. Surely Osiris knows that when she takes the SGC, she must do it quickly, for unlike the rest of the world, you know about the Gou'ald, and watch closely for them. It is encouraging that she is not yet ready to make such a strike."

"What about me?" asked Cassie, sounding much younger than nineteen years old.

"Your name is here," said Thor gravely, and Frasier bit her lip. "You are to be implanted with a symbiote ten days from now."

Cassie nodded. "That's probably when they'll start bringing Gou'ald into Colorado, and then Cheyenne Mountain. And they want to make sure that when I sense them, I won't be able to tell anyone."

"We can't let it happen," said Frasier, and I didn't doubt that she would jump across the table and wring Thor's tiny neck if he disagreed with her.

"We have a Stargate on board," said Jarl affably. "We could send her somewhere safe... maybe to the Tok'ra, or Nox?"

Frasier nodded in immediate agreement, and Cass favored her with a wan, yet very wicked smile. "Gee, Mom, are you sure I should miss all that class? I don't know..."

Relieved for Cassie and Frasier, but still afraid for myself, I looked at Thor, "And where am I on the list?"

He blinked at the computer terminal, and then at me. "Tomorrow. Specifically, at 6:30pm, Central Time."

I rubbed my hands together and said, with the utmost sarcasm, "Guess who's coming to dinner?"

I could have sworn Jarl rolled his eyes.

"So... Carter's not on that list, huh?" I asked Thor, after the others had been sent back home, with two Gou'ald detectors and a communication device to share. Jarl would get in touch with the Nox some time this week, and Cassie would be sent off to spend some time with the tree-folk for a while.

Thor turned around and regarded me pensively. "I am sorry, O'Neill."

"Sorry?" I asked, more sharply then I had intended. "Why are you sorry, Thor? Because we don't know one way or the other? Because she may be a host already?"

Thor took a seat, but I continued to stand. "I did not wish to bring it up in front of the others, because I have no real proof, and I did not want to further worry you. But it seems to me that Osiris could not have begun this operation without outside help. From humans," he explained slowly, "who are sympathetic to, and wish to collaborate with, the Gou'ald."

"That doesn't make any sense whatsoever," I said quickly. "No one would do that."

"Are you so sure? What about the individuals who still worship the religious systems that the Gou'ald created, long ago? What about the humans who believe that they could use the Gou'ald's ambition to their own advantage, such as some members of your own NID? Or the medical practitioners who wish to study the recuperative powers of the symbiote?"

"You're talking about naïve people," I retorted. "People who don't understand what the Gou'ald are or the threat they pose. Carter's a lot things, but she's not naïve."

Thor was silent. I stared him down for a few seconds, and then my shoulders sagged and I sat down next to him.

"I know... I've been thinking the same thing myself. Which one's worse? That Carter's going along with this, working with them for some reason... or that she's one of them? Because it has to be one or the other, right?" I asked hollowly, not expecting an answer. "She has to know."

Thor actually reached over and put a tiny gray hand on my arm. I supposed I ought to have been comforted by the gesture, but it was so strange, especially coming from an alien, that I was even more freaked out. "We will stop this, O'Neill. We can not risk contacting her now, but we will one day, soon, when this has been stopped."

His words were so, so empty. I pulled my arm away. "We've been fighting this damned war for ten years now, Thor, and we kept saying that. 'It'll be over soon. One day, everything'll be back to normal'." And when it's over, I had told myself, when our planet was safe, when the Gou'ald were put down, then I would retire, and Carter - Sam - and I could finally... be together. Or at least have a chance at it. "But you know what? It didn't stop. It kept going, until Hammond just had to walk away, and then I had to... and it's still going. Nothing's changed for the better. Our enemies keep getting stronger, smarter. Our allies keep getting their asses kicked. This... this is just one more step in the wrong direction. Now that they're here again, I can't see how we'll ever get them off. It's never going to be over. The day it's over is the day some damned Gou'ald announces to the world that he's our God, and nobody does anything because they're either too afraid to or because they think he's right. And when that day comes... that's a world I don't want to be a part of. Carter or no Carter."

For a while, the only sound was that of electronic beeping and whirring and the bizarre sound of Asgaard feet pattering around in the next room. I was wondering if I'd said too much, enough to make Thor reconsider even bringing me on. Finally, he said, "I would feel better with someone else here, or at your wooden structure, helping you. Helping us. Someone you trust. Someone you do not think the Gou'ald would be interested in."

I sighed, running through a roster of people in my mind. It was limited. People I could trust, who weren't involved with the Stargate program, who wouldn't look appealing as a host. What did the Gou'ald look for in a host, anyway? Dashing good looks? Maybe an accent? It did make their voices sound cooler. They could cure diseases, of course, so a sick person would still be viable. Now, injured...

"Paul," I said suddenly. "Paul Davis. He was the Pentagon liaison to the SGC a while back, but he was in an accident, broke his back and was - is - paralyzed from the waist down. They, um, had someone replace him." I didn't feel the need to mention whom that person was, or what she was to me; either Thor already knew, somehow, or it wasn't relevant. "He lives by himself someplace out on the east coast now, near DC probably."

Thor actually looked amazed, which was a remarkable sight. It wasn't often that I got to impress him. "How does he manage?"

"You mean being paralyzed?" I shrugged. Honestly, I'd never really thought about it before. Maybe because the accident had horrified me so much - not just the plain and simple fact of it, but the way Davis' life had been completely destroyed, so quickly, so... easily. Of course, if the accident had never happened, I would never have met Ilonka. Maybe that just added to the guilt. "I think he has a housekeeper who comes once a week, but from what I've heard, he's pretty mobile. Wheelchair," I said slowly, when Thor still looked confused. "But it's still a limitation. Figure the Gou'ald wouldn't be too keen on limitations."

Looking thoughtful, Thor asked, "And you trust this Davis?"

I smiled faintly, remembering waking up, suspended from the ceiling in some kind of alien harness. Davis had proved himself to be a capable, if uninspiring, comrade in arms. He was the stable, dependable type... just a little TOO stable sometimes, if that was possible. I hadn't spent an excessive amount of time around him, but Hammond had, and had said good things. "Yeah," I said noncommittally. "I really, really can't see him paling around with Osiris, if that's what you mean."

Thor didn't say if that's what he meant or not, but continued, asking, "Do you think he would be opposed to having his back injury repaired? I am not certain if the lifts between decks would be big enough accommodate a human chair with wheels..."

Chapter 6

And that was how we ended up with Paul Davis as a part of our little team. In the next madcap 24 hours, we brought him up, scanned him, found him to be clean, and used a weird little machine - which Frasier would have given her right arm for a mere look at it - to fix his back in only a few hours. Between learning how to walk again, accepting that he could walk, and digesting all of the bizarre history and backstory that had been tossed at him during a time when he could barely comprehend his own name, we came to an agreement. Of course, it wasn't so much an agreement as it was Paul, his voice shaking, swearing his gratitude and thanks over and over, face glowing, legs in constant motion, promising that whatever he could do for us, he would.

I can't say he was particularly happy with our number-one request: that for the time being he stay at his own home most of the time, and that he still act the part of the paralyzed retiree. Since he wasn't on the list, Jarl explained, there was no reason to worry that the Gou'ald would come to make him a host. However, there was still the vague possibility that if he went missing all of a sudden, this fairly immobile guy who lived all alone, it would raise certain flags. He was our undercover man.

Osiris had hosts, we had a healthy man in a wheelchair. Of course, we couldn't have known at the time how important his presence back home would become.

When they came to my house to make me a host, I was hundreds of miles away, stalking around my cabin like a caged animal. My mind raced with dozens of rather imaginative scenarios about what must be happening back home in Colorado.

How had they planned to do it? Covertly, just a few men, enough to restrain me so that the Gou'ald would have a clear shot at my neck? Jarl's theory was that they would send a team of "law enforcers" to do the dirty work, so if anyone else in the neighborhood heard sounds of a scuffle they wouldn't be as likely to call the authorities. I brushed off that hypothesis, not because I couldn't believe it but because believing it scared me. Gou'ald symbiotes inside the local cops? That seemed almost more scary then Gou'alds inside military officers and common civilians.

I'd been up on Thor's ship all morning; I didn't think it was any accident that Jarl had suggested I return to Earth and stretch my "absurdly long legs for a few hours... or perhaps overnight". I paced here; I had paced there too. In fact, I hadn't even known that I was such a pacer. Maybe it was something I had picked up from Ilonka. In any case, I had been distracting the rest of the crew and probably making them nervous on top of that. Besides, the cabin floors gave a much more satisfying clunking sound as I stomped across them.

Finally I went outside, propping the front door open with a chair, letting in the marginally cooler air. I walked out to the edge of the water and was finally able to stop my constant movement. My frenzied thoughts made up the distance.

They must have realized by now that I wasn't at home and that I wasn't coming back any time soon. What would they do then? Cut their losses, or come looking? Thor had promised to give me some proximity detectors for the front road and the surrounding woods, and some "subcutaneous" tracers for Paul and me so that we wouldn't set off the alarms ourselves. I was safe here, but I didn't feel any safer - on this desolate piece of Earth, without a soul around for miles and with the power of an Asgaard spaceship looking down over my shoulder - then I would have if I had been sitting on my couch, undefended, back home in Colorado. The sound of the lake was pervasive, rhythmic; the air was humid, gently moving, and the night sky was its usual clear pallet of stars. All familiar, all beautiful... but there was something else there. Something evil and ugly, balled up inside me, weighing me down.

It was the not knowing. It was Carter.

If I could locate Carter... if I could beam down and sneak up on her and let the Gou'ald detector do its thing and it said that she was a host... then I could deal with that. Anger would keep me afloat. Anger at the Gou'ald in general and Osiris in particular. Anger for what had been done to Carter, and to me by extension, would get me through it, like it had before, until I was able to help her.

If I was able to track Carter down and see, for myself, some conclusive and incontrovertible proof that she was working with Osiris, for whichever of the misguided reasons Thor had mentioned, then I could deal with that too. Anger would suffice, anger at Carter for betraying me, and anger at myself for being betrayed. Anger towards the feelings I had almost always harbored for her would blast away the condolences and sympathy from others and keep me safe until I could come to grips with it.

Anger, then. Anger was my shield, my defense. It had to be. Anger at myself for carrying the candle so long and for letting it be snuffed out. Anger at Sam for just letting me go, for letting it all go. Anger at Daniel, Teal'c, Frasier and Cassie for being okay, so I couldn't worry about them too and justify my concern. Anger at the Asgaard for not understanding and for kicking me out here and for not wearing clothes and for naming their ship The Carter. Anger at the whole goddamned universe would harden around me like a shell and protect me. It had to.

Suddenly, I blinked. My feet were cold. Wet. What the... I looked down to my sodden shoes and realized that without conscious thought I had been moving towards the water. I was IN the water. The lake tugged at my ankles.

Experimentally, I took another step into the friendly surf, and a second, and a third. The water, water that I had known since my childhood, obligingly raised itself to my knees. My pants were soaked through but I didn't notice. The water was chilly but I didn't care. Oddly, the anger was subsiding, fizzling on the heels of my shoes. If I kept walking, just walked straight out as far as I could, and then swam as far as I could, would it disappear altogether? I assumed it would, along with all of my earthly problems. The Gou'ald, the Asgaard, Carter...

I sensed movement behind me, and for a second I was a teenager again and Granddad was coming out to make sure I wasn't getting into trouble. "What kinda trouble could I get into out here?" I remembered asking him, scornfully, petulantly as only a twelve-year old can. Granddad hadn't said anything, so I asked, "What, do you think I'm gonna drown? Only babies drown."

Now, almost tasting the cool water as it rushed into my lungs, I spun around with the guilty expression of a cowardly criminal. Granddad wasn't there, but I could see a small, dark shape skulking around the base of the porch. A squirrel, or maybe a rabbit or cat. It was too small to be a dog. Whatever it was, it had broken the spell of the moment, and I could no longer imagine myself walking out into the lake. I backpedaled out of it, one step, then another and another, and when I reached the bank I sat down on it and looked out across the water.

I wasn't going to find Carter out there.

Chapter 7

In the end, I found her in a rather strange place... coming to find me.

I don't know how to describe what I felt when I saw her. Bolt of lightening... nah. World crashing down around my shoulders... hmm, not quite. Shocked, curious, thrilled and scared to death... all understatements.

She looked so good. She looked so... Sam. A little too thin maybe, a little more suntanned than I remembered, dressed in jeans and a green shirt, her hair neatly framing the stunned expression on her face. I felt surprise, certainly. Maybe a little relief. I wanted to throw down my weapon, help her down off the shoulder, and... do some things I could never have done when I was her commanding officer. But wariness... suspicion... they were as loud and controlling and ever-present as any Gou'ald symbiote, and they wouldn't let me.

Until it was proved otherwise, she was my enemy. So said the anger that had served me well these past weeks.

Still, I felt a certain amount of pleasure radiate through me, even as I aimed a weapon at her and barked orders like a rabid drill sergeant. It had taken me more than five years, but I had finally gotten Sam Carter up to my cabin.

The next few hours were something out of a dream, and a familiar dream it was, one I'd had most nights since I'd been transplanted up here. Finding Carter, finding that she was whole, in one piece, not a host... safe. But even if Thor's miraculous little machine could give me a peek into Carter's skull, it wouldn't tell me what was in her mind. There was the nagging, persistent possibility - and hadn't Jarl admitted that it was a probability? - that she hadn't come all this way just to make sure that I was okay. In fact, that didn't sound like Carter at all. She should have tried to get in touch with Daniel or Frasier or Cassie, someone she still spoke with, someone she had trusted. The idea that she had come all this way for me and me alone was improbable, to use one of her words.

She demanded we talk, which was also strange and out of character, but it was nothing compared to what she called me. Jack. She called me Jack. She actually used my name, and it stopped me and made me blink in surprise because the only time I had heard my name from her voice had been in very unusual circumstances. Once it had been Jolinar using her voice, and once it had been another Sam, one who had looked at me in a completely different way. In the same way that the proximity detectors had set off the alarm clipped to my jeans, the sound of my name set off a warning in my mind. She was up to something. She was trying to get close to me again, to get inside my head so her little friends could get inside my head and...

Sometime between when Paul arrived and when I took Carter up to the Carter, it occurred to me that paranoia was too kind a word for what I was feeling right now. Even delusion was tame. Damn it, this was Carter, Sam Carter. I had entrusted her with my life and to a degree my heart, and if the latter had been bruised I had no one to blame but myself. I had betrayed her, not the other way around, if what we'd had going had been substantial enough to constitute betrayal. I had given her plenty of reasons to distrust me, while all Sam had against her were these screwed up circumstances that pointed lots of thin little gray fingers in her direction.

Thor wasn't pleased that I had brought Carter up, even after I explained that she was clean. Maybe he had submitted to the delusional-uber-paranoia too, or maybe finding out that his leaders had lied outright to him had just generally made him more suspicious of everyone. But while Daniel showed Sam to a room where she could rest up for a few hours, Thor gave me a very calm, measured, Asgaardy dressing-down, saying time and time again that we could never be completely sure about where her loyalties lay, etceteras. He didn't know her like we did, I told myself. Then again, how well did we know her? How well did I?

Daniel was adamant, Teal'c was steadfast; even Paul, when he came up later that evening with Duke, was insistent. Ultimately, however, the Asgaard were in charge and they made it clear: Carter was not to be trusted, and I was too confused myself to provide the others backup. In what Daniel explained was a sign of protest, he and Teal'c took off for the night. Paul abruptly decided to spend the night at the cabin and left immediately after, abandoning Duke to curious Asgaard hands and my sour mood.

Duke, however, was cheerful; strutting independently up and down the halls of the ship like a sentry on patrol. I sat down on the floor, leaning against the wall across the corridor from Carter's room, and watched him. I fully intended to move after a short time, but I must have drifted off to sleep, because abruptly I was shaken awake by her voice. "What's that?"

I opened my eyes and found her standing in the open doorway across the hall, her hair and clothes slightly rumpled, looking strangely at Duke as he batted a MRE wrapper across the floor. Embarrassed to be caught practically sleeping on her doorstep, I said grumpily, "Come on, Carter, I know you know what a cat looks like."

Without answering, still watching Duke, she stepped forward and the doors slid shut behind her. "I... I guess I just never pegged you as a cat person."

'Why?' I wanted to ask. 'Because you are?' Instead, making no move to rise, I told her, "Actually, he kind of adopted me. He was hanging out around the cabin. A stray, as far as I can tell." She was right. I was a dog person, no two ways about it, but in this case I hadn't had much choice: take him in or let him starve. Duke was skinny even now, after I'd had him for almost two weeks, but his black and brown mottled coat had a shine to it, and his yellow eyes were bright. I felt some small measure of pride from that.

"What's his name?" Carter asked, smiling as the cat preformed some amusing midair feline acrobatics in pursuit of the wrapper.

"Duke. Well... I was going to call him Bastet, but then Jarl was kind enough to inform me that Bastet..."

"... was female."

"Yeah." Plus, I didn't imagine it would do anyone's nerves any good to have me running around the ship shouting the name of a goddess... and a Gou'ald.

Sam smiled and went down on her haunches, holding a hand out, palm down. Duke regarded her with catty suspicion. "Bastet, though... good name," she said lightly.

"Yeah," I said again. Duke looked at me quizzically, as though asking permission to approach this new - and very tall - person. "It turns out I retained a ffew of Daniel's history lessons after all."

The cat hadn't moved. Sam withdrew her hand. "So why 'Duke'?"

"I don't know." That wasn't true. I'd always thought that Duke was a good dog name, and in the absence of a real pet, the cat would do. Would be my... familiar -- wasn't that the term? Plus, Duke had a pretty regal way of walking around anyway. I could imagine that he was at least associated with kitty royalty and had been banished by the other Minnesota felines for putting on airs around them.

He could put on a few for humans, too, I thought as he suddenly turned, tail pointed straight up, and took off down the hallway in search of more playthings.

I didn't rise and neither did Carter, but we didn't look at each other either.

"I guess you want to know..." started Carter, but her voice was soft and faded quickly.

"Everything. From the beginning," I answered, echoing her demand from earlier.

"You don't trust me."

"No."

She flinched, and tried to mask it with a scowl. "Why not?"

I tried to read the inflections in her voice, tried to decipher if the annoyance I heard there was because she was being unjustly accused or because us suspecting her would slow down the completion of any 'mission' she had been entrusted with. I was pretty sure it was the former... but then again, I wanted it to be the former, very badly, so I couldn't exactly trust my judgement there, could I?

"Ask Thor," I said shortly.

So she did.

We assembled in the meeting room - Thor, Jarl and me on one side of the table, Carter on the other, and Duke on the far end, curled up, asleep. An inquisition led by two four-foot aliens and a snoozing pile of fluff. Directed at one seriously ticked off Sam Carter.

"I don't know why my name's not on that list," she said firmly, reining in her anger, focusing it. "Maybe they had some other plan for me, something that didn't involve making me a host. I'm not exactly into Gou'ald psychology."

Jarl sniffed. "We have documented evidence that you have been in close proximity with those known to be made hosts. Why did you not detect their presence?"

"How am I supposed to know?" she snapped, sending a hard look in my direction. "I could sense a symbiote before because of what Jolinar left behind in me, right? The protein marker, the naqueda... well, maybe it's just worn off? Maybe it's not the kind of thing that stays in your system forever."

Jarl looked at Thor with an incomprehensible look on his pale little face. "We do not have any information on this. It could be true."

"It could also be fabrication," said Thor.

Again Carter looked at me, a hint of desperation showing through her annoyance this time. She wanted me to back her up, but I couldn't. I couldn't shake the feeling that there was something wrong, something that was off about her. She had called me Jack.

She turned back to the Asgaard. "You said that Cassie should sense them too, and she hasn't. But you don't suspect her."

Jarl answered, although with every word he sounded less and less certain of the accusations he was making. "Cassandra Frasier does not regularly travel in the company of high-ranking members of your government and military. You do. And there is no proof that Osiris has even begun to infest the citizens of Colorado Springs, thereby giving Cassandra the opportunity to--"

Carter slapped her hand down on the table, cutting off Jarl and startling Duke. The cat hissed and I jumped in my seat, not so much alarmed by the abruptness of the gesture as I was by its similarity to a motion I had made not long ago, sitting in that very chair. "Opportunity is one thing," she said hoarsely. "And if I were anyone else... and you were anyone else... then maybe I could understand this. But we're not strangers, Thor," she addressed him directly, snubbing the interrogator, Jarl, but also rebuking me. "I saved your asses from the Replicators how many times? I put my life on the line against the Gou'ald over and over again, Osiris included. And I know that time has passed, but... but not that much time." Finally, she spared another glance for me, this one neither hard nor desperate but filled with derision. "I can understand why he might not trust me--"

"Hey!" I interrupted, but she had been expecting me to jump in and was waiting for me, the derision imploding with the force of a nuclear weapon.

"What is this, Jack?" she asked furiously, leaning forward against the table, her hands braced on the edges. I remembered Frasier, who had looked ready to jump across said table and strangle Thor if he didn't give her the answer she wanted. There had been so much urgency and insistence in her voice then that I wouldn't have been surprised if she had actually taken flight. Sam was like that, but she was different, too. Frasier had been motivated by fear; Sam was driven by passion. Passionate rage, passionate need... they both looked the same to me in that moment, and though I was nearly certain that Sam would jump across the table at me, I wasn't sure what she would do when she landed.

"What is this?" she asked again. "Is this payback? Payback for what? What the hell did I do to you that you didn't do to me?"

The answer was on the tip of my tongue, but oddly I didn't know what the question was. So instead I gave another answer, the one I thought Thor and Jarl would want to hear. "It doesn't matter. 'You and me' doesn't matter any more."

"Of course it doesn't," she spat, oblivious to the fact that we were being openly observed. "It never did."

"This is bigger then us," I went on, trying to continue like I hadn't heard, trying to pretend like a sharp knife hadn't just been thrust into my stomach. The nuclear explosion was followed by a cold, dry nuclear winter. "This is the existence of the human race, on Earth, as we know it. The rest doesn't matter."

I had in my head a laundry list of replies she might make - some that I thought I would make if I was in her place - but she surprised me by saying nothing. She probably surprised the Asgaard too. I'm sure she alarmed them when she violently stood, toppling over her chair, and hurried from the room without another word.

Chapter 8

Thor slid out of his seat and stared towards the open door. "Follow her," he compelled me, but it was hardly necessary; I was halfway across the room before his tiny gray feet even touched the floor.

But Carter hadn't gone far; in fact, in my haste to catch up with her and stop whatever mischief she had planned, I almost knocked her over. She stood only a few yards away from the door, bent over, one hand placed against the wall and another balled up into a fist and held to her chest. She didn't look at me but nonetheless I knew she saw me. Her mouth twisted in a grimace and she turned her head away. Again my thoughts went to Cassie, only this time I remembered what had happened when we'd first brought her back to Earth, and why: the Gou'ald wanted to use her as a naqueda bomb. My heart stuttered. "Are you al-alright?" I asked, my voice stuttering in the same way, even though I told myself I was concerned for the ship, not just Carter.

She let out a sound somewhere between a swallow and a moan, but she didn't look at me. "I have to get off this ship," she told the wall.

I took a half-step closer, willing my suspicions to be wrong. "Why?"

She swung her head around and glared at me, and in the dim hallway light I could see that a sheen of sweat had appeared on her brow. "Because... I think I'm going to be sick."

Vertigo, I thought, remembering the expression on her face when we'd been brought up. A twinge of suspicion echoed through me - Carter had been on a lot of space ships over the years, most really hauling ass, not just orbiting around a planet. But like Thor and I kept telling each other, it had been a while since then. I took another half step and took her arm, trying to be supportive while seeming commanding. "Come on," I urged her; she left the wall and together we took an unsteady step in the direction of the beam site I had access to.

"O'Neill."

I couldn't turn around while holding up Carter, so I looked over my shoulder and saw Thor standing in the doorway. "We're going downstairs for a little bit," I explained. "She's not feeling well."

Again there was something in Thor's eyes that told me how hopelessly naïve I was, such a foolish human. I nodded slightly, to show I knew what he was thinking. What if this had been Osiris's 'mission' for Carter: "find O'Neill, find out if he's up to something, then get back to Coordinates X and report in"? "I'll be careful," I said quickly. I sensed Carter tense up and had the good sense to feel ashamed.

I brought us back down to the middle of my now-darkened living room. Before even waiting for me to turn on a lamp, Carter was out the door, stumbling over the threshold and swaying across the porch. I watched her go, decided she couldn't get far on foot, and took a quick detour into the kitchen. The rifle and handgun were both stashed on top of the freezer; I opted for the smaller gun and stuck it into my back pocket.

I hadn't switched on a single light so far - working by feel, familiarity, and moonlight - mainly because Paul was probably asleep in the back room and I didn't want to freak him out needlessly. It worked to my advantage, because when I stepped out onto the porch it didn't take long for my eyes to adjust to the low light. I saw Carter almost immediately.

She was sitting on the end of the dock, her legs hanging over the side. I could only see her back, her shoulders illuminated in the vague starlight, her head bowed down so low she looked decapitated, her arms folded in her lap. I paused on the last step - that didn't seem like the right posture for an escaping spy - and then headed out to her. My booted feet crunched against the loosely compacted dirt and then clumped over the boards of the pier. Those sounds seemed like the only ones left in the world.

Carter must have heard me coming, but she didn't move so much as an inch.

It felt strange to sit down next to her, but it would have felt stranger to keep standing, so I chose the lesser evil. I must have surprised her; she actually raised her head and made eye contact with me. For a short moment, the night didn't seem as dark. Her eyes were luminous, not like a Gou'ald, but like the old Captain and then Major Carter I had served with, who had watched my every move and smiled at the stupid things I said. Then her gaze drifted away - taking with it the light and leaving me bereft of the memory - and she smiled the hard, uncomfortable smile again. She'd seen the gun jammed in my back pocket.

She looked back out at the water.

"You still think I'm dangerous?" she asked after a few minutes of near-silence. The last word was accompanied by a sarcastic chuckle; apparently she considered herself anything but.

She was, of course, just not in the way she thought... or the way the Asgaard thought, for that matter. She was dangerous because when I had found her crouching by the shoulder of the road, I had felt happiness and relief when I should have felt alarm and suspicion. I was like Thor in that regard. He didn't feel he could trust many people because too many people - his leaders, at that - had let him down by lying to him. I was in the same boat, but oddly enough I was hell-bent on trusting the very person who had let me down.

No, that wasn't fair. I had been the one - at least the first one - to close the door on that room we'd left our feelings in so long ago. I'd closed it and locked it and I'd given Ilonka the key. And now she was gone, long gone, leaving me only one option if I wanted to get back into that room: force. Violence. And I wasn't sure the risk of hurting myself in the process would be worth it.

Had Sam lied to me, back when? It didn't seem so. I couldn't remember any instance of her telling me - before or after Ilonka, before or after I retired - "Don't worry sir... Colonel... Jack... I'm not going to let you go without a fight. I don't care how happy you look, or how happy you are... I love you too much to let you go."

She'd never used the L-word. And I hadn't expected her to.

She hadn't really used the J-word, either, until today. Miraculously, out of the blue, she showed up and started calling me by my given name, like rank had never even been an issue between us. I had dreamed of the day, actually, when that would be the case, which was what made this all so terrible, so questionable. I'd wanted it so bad it seemed impossible that it would actually happen without outside intervention.

Sam looked at me again, a line between her eyes. I had never answered her question, I realized. So she asked me another one. "You want to know how I ended up here?" She wasn't even asking me as an interrogator, I realized, but as a friend whom she wanted to relay an interesting story to. I was wary of this familiarity, but I ignored my doubts and nodded.

"I got the call that told me to come to D.C. right away, that something was going on, but that she couldn't tell me over the phone." 'She', Carter had explained earlier, was General Gena Dirae, not Sam's CO but a kind of mentor, the person who had found her that cushy PR assignment after leaving the SGC. I didn't recognize the name, but Daniel had sworn that it sounded familiar to him. "When I arrived, she explained that the assignment was you. You'd gone missing."

"I did that," I confirmed, remembering sitting out here under these same stars not too long ago and wondering what would happen when I vanished. I'd never even imagined that they would call in Carter. "What, did they figure you'd know all my secret hidey-holes?"

"Something like that," Carter shrugged. "I kept bringing up foul play... I mean, it seemed like the most likely thing. That's probably what you wanted everyone to think, right?"

Her tone wasn't accusatory, but it might as well have been. My face felt hot. "I didn't really think about what people would think," I muttered. I'd considered the Gou'ald, the police, but I hadn't felt that my former teammates would care much, if they even found out about it. I imagined them getting together a couple months down the road for a completely unrelated-to-me reason, rolling their eyes at each other and saying things like, 'You know Jack... no roots, no obligations, just packed up and left whenever he felt like it...'

But now, the expression on Sam's face - even veiled with her usual reserve, and enshrouded by the night - told me I'd been very wrong. That even after so long apart she had still worried. Maybe even suffered.

"They didn't want to hear it," Sam continued. "Gena was pretty damn sure that you'd gone off of your own accord, that if we found you you'd be perfectly okay, that we just needed to find you."

"Who's 'we'?" I asked. The 'got a mouse in your pocket' routine was starting to remind me of Hathor. "You and Dirae?

She shook her head reproachfully. "I think you know... I think Paul mentioned it to you."

Ilonka. "Yeah. Paul told me."

"He didn't believe me."

"He didn't think you were lying, either," I protested, swinging my legs like a child whose feet couldn't reach the floor. "Just... exaggerating a little."

"I don't exaggerate," she said fiercely. "And even if I did, I wouldn't about this. She went nuts, Jack. Told me what a cold, heartless bitch I was for even considering the possibility that something bad had happened to you. And then she went into the bathroom under the pretense of taking a shower... she took her weapon and her cell phone and she called someone."

I shrugged. "Maybe she was calling Dirae?"

"That's exactly what I'm worried about," Carter scowled.

I blinked at her. Stared. Blinked again.

"Whoa," was the only thing I could say, holding up a hand to stop her from saying any more crazy things. "Whoa." I leaned slightly away from her, but if I leaned too much I would fall off the pier. "You don't mean that."

"That I think Dirae could be a collaborator? That Ilonka could be a Gou'ald? Sure I do."

In a wild attempt by my brain to illustrate how messed up it currently was, the first thing that jumped out at me wasn't that she was saying my former... girlfriend? lover? significant other? ... could be a host. No, the thing that prompted another round of staring and blinking was the sound of that former significant other's name on my former second in command's lips. I'd never actually heard her say Ilonka's first name before. It had always been "Colonel Waters... Ms. Waters... ma'am..."

Just like it had always been "Colonel O'Neill... sir...", never Jack. Until now.

Sam was still talking. "The mood swings, the arrogance... I know you don't want to admit it, but I think it could be true. I think--"

"You would have sensed it," I snapped, feeling less contrite and more defensive for the first time since leaving the ship. She stopped in the middle of her thought. "You would have been able to tell if she was a Gou'ald, right?"

"I..."

"You were in the same room or the same vehicle for hours, Sam. Doesn't it seem a little convenient that suddenly after you find out about the invasion, it makes sense that she must have been a host?"

She pursed her lips together, withholding her anger and saying coolly, instead, "Fine then. Maybe she's one of the collaborators."

I closed my eyes, shook my head; quite nearly put my hands over my ears. "No... Ilonka wouldn't do that."

Carter said nothing, but what followed was more than just a hesitant pause as she gathered her arguments. It was a vacuum of words, and it was as cold as space. I opened my eyes and found that she was now staring at me, not blinking, just staring. Her face itself was as flat and expressionless as the surface of the lake just then, and her luminous eyes were every bit as dark and deep. And full of pain.

I realized too late what I'd said.

Slowly, Carter's lips twisted into a smile again, the smile I had come to hate. "She wouldn't... but I would?" Her voice was barely more than a whisper, but it nearly knocked me into the water.

She stood up and walked back towards the cabin without another word.

I didn't stop to worry for a second that she would figure out where the rifle was, or would try to get back up to the ship, or harm Paul. I couldn't move anyway; like a gargoyle on a ledge I was frozen to the wooden dock. I couldn't think, either, save for the same terrible notion that kept cycling through my mind like a hamster on its wheel.

It had been one thing for us - for me - to insult her by not trusting her, by even considering the possibility that she could be working for the other side, that she could have willingly shifted her allegiance to a Gou'ald. That had been bad enough. But it was quite another thing for me to say that even though I didn't trust her - the woman who had found me, who had put it all together and come here looking for me - I trusted a woman I hadn't seen in years, who apparently had it out for Carter, who had... who had been Carter's replacement.

The not trusting was bad. Comparing her to Ilonka hurt infinitely worse.

Chapter 9

It was the not knowing.

It was the knowledge that we were stuck in limbo and, even worse, the near-certainty that we wouldn't get unstuck any time soon. We could look inside Carter's skull and see that she wasn't a host to a Gou'ald, but that was it. There was no experiment, no test, no trial, no way to prove that she wasn't a host to dark and destructive thoughts.

When I finally caught up with Carter she was sitting out on the porch in one of my Granddad's chairs. Still staring blankly at the water, albeit from a further distance, she said something very weird: "I guess absence makes the heart grow forgetful after all."

I couldn't bring myself to join her on the porch. Not only did I know that if I sat down next to her she would just run away from me again, but I felt that by following her I was betraying my cause. Mine, Paul's, Daniel's, Teal'c's, Thor's. Breaking my promise to be careful. So instead I sat down on the bottom step, not looking at Carter, and thought about how wrong she was. This wasn't about the heart at all. My heart, right now, was beating its fists against my ribcage, screaming into my lungs to trust her, to trust only her and to hold her, love her. It was my mind that kept shushing it. My brain, haughty because it could analyze her every word and action and proclaim them as either true or suspect. It thought it was just so clever.

"I went into Washington in my dress blues," she said quietly, and I wondered if she was talking to herself or me. "I resigned myself to working with Ilonka. I escaped from her, figured out Paul's 'secret message', held up some kid at purse-point and stole his stolen car, evaded the FBI... drove halfway across the country, walked three miles up that road... why? So I could send a communiqué to Osiris from your satellite phone? I'm sorry I didn't call, by the way," she added more harshly. "But keep in mind I had no idea what I was going to find up here, if anything. I didn't even know if you were working with Dirae and Ilonka in some conspiracy to screw up my life."

So she had had her doubts too. That should have made me feel better, but it didn't. She'd had doubts, but she'd come anyway. Because she was worried about me? Believed I'd gotten caught up in something dangerous? So she could be my Princess Charming? It was either very dumb or very brave, but in retrospect I wished she hadn't come charging up on her white steed. I'd thought that finding her would put an end to my not knowing, one way or the other, but it hadn't. It had only made it that much more painful.

For these last two weeks she had been with me in my mind; a constant, haunting presence of doubt and indecision. But now she was here, with me in reality, and the doubt had only been magnified a thousand-fold by her proximity. My deep-seated longing to show her my feelings through my trust in her. The nostalgia I had for the past and the hope I'd had for the future. That was shattered now, a cracked mirror, seven years bad luck if we happened to live that long.

"I risked my life to get up here. And I can't go back," continued Carter, reverting to the absentminded tone. "Not without you, at least. They'd pick me up as soon as I got back into civilization and they'd bring me up on charges of desertion, auto theft... mutiny if they felt like it. Of course, that's if they don't just say to hell with it and stick a Gou'ald in my head after all."

Every word was increasingly bitter. I understood what she was trying to say: she couldn't go home, so she had to stay here. But how could she stay here? We wouldn't be able to look at her without suspicion. We wouldn't be able to trust things she told us one-hundred-percent. And for the former members of SG-1, that would be unbearable. SG-1 - the entire SGC, in fact - had been built on respect, honor, but most important, trust. For the four of us to be here and the trust gone... one of us might as well not have been present at all.

If Sam had never come up here, it would have felt wrong. Wrong that we were fighting the Gou'ald while she was out posing for pictures. Wrong that she had to be excluded, without us even knowing if she was safe or not. But was 'wrong' better or worse than 'risky'? Jarl and Thor had already made it clear that the ship's internal security measures were not yet up to par; the price of stealing a spacecraft. If we were encountered with solid, incontrovertible proof that Sam was in league with Osiris, what would we do? What could we do? Try to confine her on the ship, or here? And if the Asgaard weren't convinced that that would be enough? What if they weren't willing to risk their lives, and Earth's future, on the hope that she wouldn't find some way to get in touch with the Gou'ald?

Would they kill her?

Could they kill her?

Of course they could. They were brilliant aliens, not saints.

So it was up to me to save her. Save her by trusting her. Thor would believe me if I said without a doubt that Carter was on our side, would believe me when he'd merely filed away Daniel and Teal'c and Paul's opinions. He liked me for some reason. He trusted me. He would listen.

But I couldn't lie to get him off our backs. I couldn't take that risk any more then they could. So I had to be sure, very sure, before I went around making proclamations. Come on, stupid, I berated myself. This is Carter, Sam Carter. You spent the better part of six, seven years working with her; you should be able to tell if she's being genuine. You don't need to be her friend to do that much.

I had to do it carefully, that was all. Slowly. Small steps. And I had to anticipate her betraying me. If I did that, maybe it wouldn't hurt so much if it happened.

"I wouldn't let them do that," I finally answered, in response to her comment about being made a Gou'ald.

There was a long moment as she considered that, and then she chuckled dryly. "Of course you wouldn't. That would give away all kinds of important tactical information, wouldn't it, Colonel? Where you are, the fact that the Asgaard are here... you couldn't let that happen. You'd probably kill me first."

My jaw ached duly, and I realized that I was clenching my teeth together hard enough to crack the enamel. She had this in her favor: she certainly wasn't trying to look trustworthy. I scooted back on my step just enough to glance over my shoulder at her. While the porch roof cast nearly everything in shadows, I could clearly make out her face thanks to the reflection of moonlight in one of the window panes. Her lips were pursed tightly together and her eyes were focused on the lake with weird concentration, like she was trying to read something from the opposite shore. It might have been another trick of light, but I thought I saw tears in those eyes. Her fingers curled around the armrests in a death grip.

"You know that's not what I meant," I said evenly. "I don't want anybody to die."

Her lips parted and she sucked air in through them, as though she'd been holding her breath. Although maybe she wished it wasn't oxygen. Maybe she was craving the lake water, like I had been a couple weeks and a lifetime ago.

Small steps, I thought again. Offer her small bits of trust. Vulnerability.

I looked back at the water.

"When Thor first brought me up here," I said slowly, wondering what I was getting into, "I thought about killing myself."

Another intake of air from Carter, this one much quicker and sharper. A gasp? "Why?" she demanded, and then, more uncertainly, "What happened?"

"I'd just found out that the Earth wasn't as Gou'ald free as I'd thought, that's what happened. I'd..." Small steps, Jack. "I'd..." Screw it. "I'd just been told that you were either a Gou'ald host or working for them." I turned back to her. She stared back at me with unmitigated horror darkening her eyes. "I just didn't want to have to deal with it again. This is why I retired, the last time. So other people would have to deal with knowing about this stuff, not me. I'm tired of knowing."

God, I was such a hypocrite, and I said as much. Her eyes didn't soften, but they narrowed thoughtfully, and that had the same effect. Carter was never more Carter then when she was thinking. Maybe that's what made this whole scenario so impossible for me to believe... her taking orders from some Gou'ald mob. She would never just blindly go along with anyone. Even in the Air Force she had argued when she thought she had to... and you didn't argue with a Gou'ald and live. Not even if you were a valuable operative.

"You're the one Thor trusts," she said.

"Oh," I laughed bitterly, closing my eyes, "well, in that case, it's fine. He can swoop down into my life whenever the hell he pleases, interrupt my baseball games, interrupt my life..."

The porch creaked, and then I felt a warmth, a presence beside me. I swallowed. She was sitting next to me on the step. "I don't think you had a life, anymore then I did," she said, frankly yet somehow still fondly. Appreciatively. Did she actually appreciate the vulnerability I was trying to share, the gap I was trying to bridge? Did she know what this was doing to me, what she was doing to me? "In a way... it's stupid but... I guess I'm glad this happened. I've spent way too long wasting my life, Jack, and... I know it's not like old days, but at least I'm involved in something important again."

I kept my eyes closed. If I opened them, I would have to know -- exactly where she was sitting, how she wwas looking at me, why she had called me Jack -- and I was tired of knowing.

We sat in silence and ignorance until another flash of transporter light came from inside the cabin, followed by a resounding yowl. I grinned and opened my eyes despite myself, and Carter broke into quickly-smothered giggles. The moment of levity was brief and awkward, but it made a lot of difference.

"I guess the Asgaard don't care much for Duke, hmm?"

"They don't know him like I do," I answered.

Chapter 10

Teal'c suggested that we contact Hammond, but I nixed that before Thor could get any bright ideas. I'd already had my illusions of safety and security shattered. I didn't want to ruin anyone else's life... or in Hammond's case, return it to ruin. The man deserved a chance at happiness.

Didn't we all.

So it was just our small, motley crew at the helm of this little mission. Thor, Jarl, four other Asgaard, Sam, Daniel, Teal'c, Paul, occasionally Frasier, and me. And Duke, of course, our furry, four-legged mascot.

Carter seemed determined to prove herself invaluable, and she didn't have to put on any kind of show to get us to see that. The Asgaard were more familiar with their own computer systems then we were, of course, but it was Earth systems that we were actually hacking into. We were using an interface that the CIA had created, although we'd never heard of it before Jarl had 'stumbled' across the secure server. "Secure?" he'd asked incredulously, when Carter had notified him that the codes ought to have been impossible to crack. "If that is your idea of secure, I cannot believe your planet has not yet been invaded by a technically superior force!" he said indignantly. Carter just smiled.

The CIA interface was called I-SPI, which must have been a novelty acronym because the actual title - Information Stability Procedure Intelligence - was either complete nonsense or intentionally vague. From a single webpage, the Asgaard had been able to get into the files of the CIA, FBI, NID, NSA, Centers for Disease Control, and a dozen other federal institutions, not to mention every local police station and dispatch center in the country run on computers. Which, of course, they all were these days, even the most far-flung, two-horse, end of the road hamlets.

Jarl and another one of his techies had been scanning the most recent bulletins for any anomalies, any sign that Osiris's incursion was becoming widespread enough to be noticeable to regular folks. Acts of violence, yes, but also reports of strange mood swings or people acting unnaturally. They'd come up with nothing concrete, though, because this was America, and strangeness was a way of life. It was no accident that even the few number of 'hits' they scored were mainly concentrated in Los Angeles.

Carter happily took over that part of the operation, freeing the Asgaard up to focus on aspects of the problem more worthy of their attention, which made them happy as well. Thor, however, overseeing the entire production, was less than thrilled.

"I'm watching her," I protested one day, two days after Sam had arrived, when Thor pulled me aside to mention his 'concerns'. "Teal'c's watching her too," I added, in case Thor had caught on to my eagerness to trust Carter and considered me contaminated. "Listen, I've been thinking about it, and the best way... probably the only way to tell where her loyalties lie is to put her in situations where she could do us real damage."

"I believe this is another stupid human idea," groused Thor.

"No! No, it's... okay, maybe it is," I decided. "But you can't argue the fact that we need to know, one way or the other. And we need Carter. You guys are smart and everything, but this is a human system and she knows her way around those better than any of the rest of us."

"Hmm," Thor said, not looking convinced.

I sighed, looking down at him with my hands on my hips. "Listen... I know this is your ship, and your butts on the line, but this is my planet we're talking about. My whole life, my whole... world, quite literally. You know I wouldn't take the risk if I didn't think it was worth it."

"And do you feel that you have the right to make that decision for your entire planet?" asked Thor, somewhat impudently. I'd gotten the impression that he didn't like being looked down on.

I could have knelt down but I didn't. I was too busy thinking about that fact that in the space of two days I had gone from risking my heart for Carter to risking the safety of the planet for her. Was that really the right thing for me to be doing? Did I have some subconscious ulterior motive, or did I actually think that Carter's help would give us an advantage we hadn't had before? "You gave me that right when you brought me up here," I reminded him.. "If you'd wanted this to be handled by committee, you would have told Dustan, not me."

Thor acknowledged this with a slight bob of his bulbous head. "O'Neill... understand that I have no desire to persecute Major Carter in this fashion. I do not wish to turn you against her in any way, or make her feel unwanted. However... the situation being what it is, I feel it is only prudent..."

"To be suspicious of everything and everyone, right? So you don't get another rude awakening like the one you got when you found out that your bigwigs had lied to you about Earth? Yeah, believe me, I know the feeling. But... Thor, there comes a point it goes past prudence to being... downright counterproductive." I lowered myself down to his eye level. "There's vigilance, and there's paranoia."

I left Thor there to think about that and went back out into the computer room, almost tripping over Duke in the process. Yeah, I still thought of him as good luck, but I never forgot for a second why I was a dog person. At least you could hear a dog coming.

Carter was still pouring over one of the modified computer terminals. She looked so familiar and so ridiculous sitting there that I had no choice but to smile. Teal'c and Daniel went shopping every week in Colorado, bringing it back to the mountain under the pretense of it being all Teal'c's groceries. That was where we picked the two of them, and sometimes Frasier. It was the only way we were able to survive the Asgaard's idea of 'food', cheese quiche notwithstanding.

On their last outing, they had picked up some clothes for Carter as well, since she'd arrived with only two outfits and Asgaard ships were conspicuously sans Laundromat; what clothes did they have to wash? But since we knew they were being watched and they didn't want to raise any suspicions by shopping in the Misses section, Carter was currently sporting Daniel-sized pants and sweatshirt over her tank top, the sleeves pushed up past her elbows, her blonde hair pulled into a stubby ponytail with a bare elastic band. Her makeup had long since been scrubbed away, and she hadn't been eating well, or sleeping well from the looks of the dark circles under her eyes. But I still found her attractive. That had to be a sign that there was something wrong with me.

Ilonka had been different, more like Sara in that she wasn't anal about her looks, but she considered it a woman's prerogative/right/duty to spend as much of her life as possible either shopping or in the bathroom. She was a Colonel in the Air Force, but she was very obviously someone of the female persuasion during her off-duty hours; it was her way of counter-balancing the uniform masculinity of the military.

Sam and Ilonka. Ilonka and Sam. They weren't interchangeable, but they were interconnected and always had been, thanks to the catalyst: the SGC. In fact, my clearest memory of Ilonka had everything to do with Sam.

My relationship with Ilonka had been quasi-long distance. After all, she worked for the Pentagon, and the Pentagon was halfway across the country in Washington D.C. Her trips out to Colorado Springs were at best infrequent and often brief. In a way, I sort of enjoyed the lightness this kind of arrangement brought. It kept things fresh; we didn't have to worry about getting tired of each other in the short term. But it also made our Official Couple Status very vague. Were we actually 'together'? Or did we just occasionally 'hook up', leaving us both free to explore other options? It wasn't a subject I'd felt very comfortable discussing with her. That should have been a sign.

But I was sick and tired of interpreting signs. I just wanted to have fun for once in my life. And especially after I retired, it was fun. I would sometimes have no prior knowledge that she was even in the area before she showed up on my doorstep. Now that kind of surprise I could handle.

Then came the day when Daniel called me from the SGC, which was unusual; usually he waited until he was off-base. "Ilonka's here," he'd told me in a subdued tone. "She said to tell you she'd be over this evening."

"Okay..." I'd said slowly. I wasn't going to coax Daniel to tell me what was obviously bothering him - that wasn't how our friendship worked - because I knew if it was really catastrophic he'd just come out and say it.

But instead he muttered, "'kay, bye," and hung up. I shook my head and replaced the phone in its cradle, wondering why he'd called just to rob me of the surprise. On the other hand, I decided, forewarning was not such a bad thing. I had time before Ilonka was likely to show up to shower, dress respectably, and maybe stop by the store for a bottle of white Chardonnay and Oreo cookies. She was a connoisseur of both.

By the time the doorbell rang that night the wine was cooling in ice bucket and the Oreos in the freezer. I'd found a mostly-unwrinkled pair of gray chinos and a green twill long-sleeved shirt in the back of my closet. I'd even shaved. But I knew the second I opened the door that she was not in the mood to party.

"What's the matter?"

She stepped inside, pulled off her sunglasses, and turned around to face me as I closed the door again. She was dressed in her dress uniform, colonel's eagles glittering on her shoulders; they were a glaring but not unwelcome reminder of the past we shared. "I don't know how to tell you this," she said with her usual forthrightness, her brown eyes wide and focused. The most alarming thing about her expression, though, was that she wasn't smiling. She always smiled; it was kind of a nervous habit with her. It wasn't always a happy smile, but it was always there. Now it wasn't. "You remember Sam Carter?"

I almost laughed. Did I remember Carter? She had to be kidding. "Yeah."

And then it occurred to me that Carter and this apparently bad news were somehow connected. It felt like someone had poured anti-freeze down my throat.

"She left the SGC," Ilonka said warily, and I'd never felt such a powerful combination of relief, shock, and crushing sadness. "Nobody knew. This was her last day."

Still feeling cold, I shook my head, trying to clear out the globs of muddled thoughts. "What-- why?"

Ilonka gave an elegant shrug of her shoulders. "If you ask me, I think it has a lot to do with Dawson's death. Of course, the official answer to that question is 'politics'. Funding isn't what it used to be and some areas are being shut down. Including a lot of the labs. They'll be having independent companies do a lot of the work."

Daniel had mentioned something like that a couple weeks ago, but I'd dismissed it from my mind; I hadn't considered that it would actually affect any of their lives, Carter least of all. "So she's going to go work at one of those companies," I assumed.

Ilonka shrugged again. "I really don't know, Jack. But she did mention something about wanting to move out of the area."

"That's not like Carter," I muttered. "She wouldn't just pull up stakes and leave like that." And she sure as hell wouldn't not tell me, I added vehemently. "All of her friends, her work, her whole life is in Colorado."

Ilonka took a careful step toward me. "Not her work anymore. And maybe not her friends, either."

I was too confused, too suddenly tired, to make any sense of that. As though from a far distance I heard myself politely tell Ilonka that I just wasn't in the mood for company tonight and would she have any problem staying the night in the Springs apartment the Air Force had rented for her. She looked me up and down, obviously noticing my attire, but said nothing. She just smiled a sympathetic little smile, and acquiesced. That's what I liked about her. She didn't feel threatened by Carter. Of course, there was absolutely no reason to feel threatened by Carter, but all the same...

She left, and I spent most of that night by the phone, waiting for it to ring and to hear Carter on the other end, telling me what had happened, maybe even tearfully, and asking for my advice.

But the phone never rang. The next time I saw her was in the breakfast aisle of a grocery store, where she left me standing with the Froot Loops.

Chapter 11

A few months after that, Ilonka had convinced her Washington superiors that thanks to the wonders of modern-day communications technology, her role could be better served if she took up permanent residence in Colorado. I helped her furnis