DISCLAIMER: The story, and characters and anything and everything else concerning SG: SG1 belong to MGM, Gekko, Secret Productions etc, they are so not mine and no money is being made from this and no copyright infringement is intended.
LYRICS: are from "I Saved the world today" from the Eurythmics album "Peace".
SPOILERS: Set in and around "Foothold"
ARCHIVING: Only with the permission of the author

Saved the World Today
By Celievamp

The aliens were dead or had fled back through the Gate. Sam carefully collected together all surviving examples of the mimic technology they had used. Their people were recovering, a little dazed, a little nauseated and very confused.

Sam knew that she was operating on fumes that any minute now she was going to crash, adrenaline further souring her already tender stomach. She had a fever, shivers running through her as she directed the clean-up squad. When she did finally crash, she was going to crash hard. The gateroom was a mess but as the colonel said, a few repairs, a lick of paint and they were good to go.

She felt the room waver around her and gripped the back of the chair tightly. Not yet. Not yet! Apart from a few hours snatched on the flights to and from Washington she had not slept in four days. Thankfully, she hadn't encountered Janet's double again. Shooting Jack and Paul Davis had been bad enough and then being attacked by General Hammond. The real Jack O'Neill and Paul Davis helping her and Teal'c complete the clean-up operation. She was fast running on empty

"Sam?"

Janet's voice but was it Janet? Her stomach roiled painfully and she gasped. She could taste blood again at the back of her throat.

"Sam, are you okay?"

"No. Stay away. I won't let you hurt me again." She was on the floor. She didn't remember falling. Then Teal'c was reaching for her. Teal'c was safe. He hadn't been changed.

"Major Carter, it is all right. Our friends have been restored to us." Teal'c was holding her, his arm around her shoulders, Janet on her knees at her other side, her hand touching Sam's face.

"Sam, you're running a high fever. We need to get you to the Infirmary."

She tried to get to her feet but it was too painful. Turning away from them she vomited again bringing up more thick clots of blood the pain in her abdomen reaching a fresh level of agony. She curled into herself, violent shivers running through her body.

"Sam – how long have you been vomiting blood?" Janet asked anxiously, signalling Teal'c to get an emergency medical team.

"Since you… since she… injected me. Poisoned me," Sam gasped. "Experiment…" Janet undid her shirt and lifted Sam's T shirt gasping when she saw the mass of inflamed bruises covering Sam's stomach.

"Let's get her to the infirmary now. I want a full set of bloods, a tox screen and prep her for an ultrasound," Janet said. Teal'c lifted Sam onto the gurney and Janet's hand was on her shoulder. "Stay with us, Sam," she said.

It was too much of an effort. Annak had won. "I'm sorry," Sam whispered as her eyes drifted closed.

Janet sat at her desk, weary beyond comprehension, still trying to process what the hell had happened the last couple of days. She remembered SG6 coming back as a medical emergency rushed straight to the infirmary, impossibly strong hands holding her, injecting her with something.

And then the dream began. Subduing and processing the SGC staff one by one, replacing them with duplicates. Her duplicate looking up at her as she hung, ensnared in some kind of web, unwillingly sharing her thoughts, her knowledge, her feelings with the creature. Her name was Annak and she was strong, ruthless. Janet tried to resist but it was impossible. She had a sense of what the alien who had taken her form was thinking, doing, but no influence over her actions.

She watched as Sam came into the infirmary looking tired and a little dispirited. The planet had not been Qeb. They had not found Share's child.

One by one the members of SG1 were subdued and rendered unconscious. Her counterpart had injected Sam with the strong sedative. She felt her memories being consulted again, not just her medical knowledge of Sam but more private, personal details. Their relationship intrigued the alien, Annak.

Sam was laid on a gurney, wheeled away by Siler and one of the SFs. O'Neill and Daniel Jackson had already been taken for conversion, Sam and Teal'c would be next. There was nothing she could do to prevent it.

Annak could access the memories of the woman doctor whose shape she had assumed. The Janet Fraiser felt things for the Samantha Carter, things that went against the laws of this world. Annak let her fingers roam over the bare flesh of the young woman who lay slumped face down on the bed, her trousers around her knees. She needed to be prepared for conversion. Two of her comrades were already on their way down to the conversion chamber. They would be ready for this one soon. Very few of the humans based at this facility remained at large and soon they would be ready to move out into the world. Already they had a contact in the Pentagon, deep in the military hierarchy of this planet.

Curious, Annak pursued the memories she had accessed. Samantha Carter and Janet Fraiser were lovers. They shared a bond that went beyond any kind of comradeship that Annak could understand. Indeed it was barely sanctioned by their own kind. It was secret – something called don't ask, don't tell. Annak's race did not have this `love' or any need for secrecy or subterfuge. There were breeders and there were warriors. Annak was a warrior. Her understanding of science was entirely driven by her breeding as a warrior. Annak compared the smooth pale skin of the human woman who was like her a warrior and a scientist, the cool plasticity of the epidermis compared to the dark red hard shelled and spiked carapaces of her own species. These humans were weak, helpless creatures like grubs. They had been ridiculously easy to subsume so far. She lifted the unconscious woman fully onto the waiting gurney and turned her onto her back before securing the restraints across her slender body. Her disturbed clothing revealed more pale skin, soft curves. Annak could not help touching it again, revolted yet fascinated by the sensations, the memories. The Janet Fraiser had done this many times. They had touched each other with their fingers, their lips, their tongues. It was… pleasurable for them. Annak found the flow and intensity of the alien emotions deeply disturbing. The sooner their invasion was complete and they got past the need for subterfuge and could return to their own forms, their own thought processes the better. These thoughts and memories were a contamination.

Half an hour later, Annak was looking down on Major Samantha Carter's unconscious body once more. There had been an unforeseen difficulty. They had realised that the Jaffa Teal'c was not suitable for conversion due to the symbiotic organism that shared his body. He had been transferred to a holding cell on level 16. What they had not realised that due to her previous blending with the Tokra Jolinar of Melkshur, Major Samantha Carter was also not appropriate for conversion. She resisted the process, her mind closed to them. Annak had been authorised to experiment on the human female and the Jaffa to find out if the contamination could be overcome. The information would be useful when they came across more Goa'uld infested worlds.

She exposed the woman's abdominal area, running her hand over the soft skin. It felt good. It should have disgusted her. The doctor's memories of her interaction with this Samantha Carter both sickened and entranced her. She wished she could hand over responsibility to someone else, someone not so… involved, but this was her duty. She was the head scientific officer. It was why she had been chosen to impersonate the chief doctor. The sedative she had administered was beginning to wear off. The woman was awakening.

Sam opened her eyes. She was in one of the examination rooms off the infirmary, secured to a table with heavy restraints. Her T shirt had been pulled up and her trousers loosened to leave her abdomen bare. Janet was looking down at her, her expression curiously inscrutable, a long-needled hypodermic in her hands, the chamber filled with a greenish blue fluid, a tray beside her holding more instruments, most of them unfamiliar, curiously alien. Her last clear memory replayed in her mind - of someone telling her that the base was in lockdown due to a chemicals leak on level 23. Tetrachloraethylyne. Going to the infirmary. Janet standing behind her, injecting something into her. The world spiralling into darkness. Something was very wrong here. O'Neill and General Hammond were in the observation booth looking down on her. She moistened her dry lips. "Janet? What's going on?" she croaked. "What's wrong with me?"

Janet did not answer her. She looked up at the observation booth. "The human Samantha Carter has proven unusually resilient to the sedative. I believe it is another effect of the contaminant in her system. As our operations come further into Goa'uld space we will come across this more often. The woman and the Jaffa provide an excellent opportunity to research an antidote before it becomes more of an issue."

"Proceed," Hammond said.

As Janet touched her abdomen Sam realised that something was definitely wrong. Whilst Janet's grip was bruisingly strong, her expression remaining completely impassive. There was no warmth, no compassion in the deep brown eyes. This was not her Janet. There was nothing of the unspoken connection that she normally felt with the smaller woman. Without any warning or preparation, the hypodermic was pushed deep into the flesh of her stomach, the contents emptying into her body. A few seconds later the pain began.

"We hope the serum will deactivate the substance in the blood that negates the effect of our conversion process," Annak said. "Symptoms are immediate." She watched as a sheen of sweat appeared across the human's body, her breathing becoming erratic. Her instruments told her that the serum was not working as expected; the naquada was absorbing it, altering its molecular structure. It was this that was causing the symptoms in the specimen rather than the serum itself. "It is not working as we had hoped. We must try again."

Sam was in agony. It felt as if every bloodvessel in her body was on fire. Her eyes were burning and she could feel her heart beginning to labour, the pain in her head worsening by the moment. She realised that she was in real danger of stroking out. Janet or whatever had taken her form passed some sort of scanner over her body and she felt the symptoms begin to alleviate. Gradually the pain subsided but she could still feel the aftershocks in her overstressed nervous system. The alien was watching her with Janet's eyes, but she had never seen such an expression of cold disdain on Janet's face. Janet dealt with everyone with such care and compassion, even Apophis. She touched Sam's throat as if feeling for her pulse. "Her condition has stabilised. We can try the next sample." Janet picked up another injector, pressed it to Sam's abdomen again. Sam was unable to hold back the scream of agony that was torn from her. And she had thought the first injection was bad. She could feel her muscles spasm helplessly, her back arching against the restraints. Sam willed herself to lose consciousness to go where the pain could not find her. Janet was not looking at her but at the monitor screens, a frown of displeasure on her face.

"It appears that while this formula would rid the subject of the contamination it would also kill the subject," Janet said. "We will have to wait several hours before we can try again." She passed the scanner over Sam's body again and watched as Sam went limp, breathing heavily.

"Further testing must wait," the one resembling Hammond said. "We have other matters that need our attention."

Annak nodded. Another injection into the soft flesh of the woman's shoulder ensured that she would remain sedated until she could resume the testing. Almost as an afterthought she covered Sam with a blanket. Her hand rested in an almost caressing gesture on Sam's breast for a moment and then abruptly she turned and left the room. The lights above her faded and went out. Sam was left in the darkness.

Janet dreamt – or at least she hoped she was dreaming. Something bad had happened – was happening. She had been attacked, drugged. Someone else's thoughts in her mind, probing, asking questions. Now she was floating, no hanging. She tried to wake up but she could not. She tried to scream for help but she could not.

Sam. Sam was in danger. They were hurting her, experimenting on her. Whatever they had done to her, to the others had not worked on Sam and Teal'c. The one wearing her face was angry, vicious, callous. Sam was a problem to be solved. And if she died during the process, well, that was also a solution of a kind.

"Major Carter?"

She was lying on a gurney. Everything was grey.

"Major Carter?"

It was Teal'c. She was no longer in the examination room. She didn't know where she was. She could feel the grogginess recede with every breath that she took. Unfortunately the nausea showed no sign of receding. "Teal'c?"

"Major Carter. There is little time," he helped her to sit up. "Are you capable of standing?"

Sam tried to get to her feet but her legs would not support her, her stomach griping painfully. "Ohh. Oh, I feel sick."

"You are suffering from the effects of a sedative." He helped her sit on the gurney again. Sam leant her head back against the wall and breathed deeply, praying that she would not throw up all over her friend. She remembered walking into the infirmary, Janet injecting her with something. Then what had to have been a nightmare. Strapped down, pain, the emptiness in Janet's eyes, the sense that that beloved face was just a mask for something inimical and alien.

She opened her eyes again and realised that she was in the lift. Two bodies were sprawled in the corner. "What happened to them?"

"They are not who they appear to be." He handed her a zat. "There has been an alien incursion within the SGC."

Sam nodded slowly careful not to aggravate her aching head. "Dr Fraiser is definitely not herself. I heard her talking to General Hammond."

"I too overheard them. They spoke of a procedure which has failed to work on both of us. They spoke of invasion."

"Are we sure they're aliens?"

"I saw two of them in their natural form," Teal'c said quietly. "Truly, they are alien."

"What about the Colonel and Daniel? We have to know what's happened to them." He nodded. "Did they hurt you?" she asked quietly.

"My symbiote suffered slight damage in their initial experiments but it is healing itself," Teal'c said. "Are you injured, Major Carter?"

"I won't lie and say I feel exactly 100%," Sam grinned weakly. "They kept me drugged. They were testing something on me. Either the naquada in my blood or the protein marker stopped some process working on me. She - the one that looks like Janet – called it a conversion. Whatever it was didn't work like it was supposed to. I'm still me. Junior must protect you. Teal'c, this is what we call a Foothold situation. An alien force has taken over the SGC and it is using our own people against. We have to let someone on the outside know."

Her accelerated metabolism was efficiently flushing the alien sedative out of her system, her mind clearing rapidly, going into command mode. She had to find a way out of the mountain and call the Pentagon, get them to call in the troops. "Have you any idea who they are?"

"I have not, Major Carter. Their technology and weaponry are also unfamiliar to me. They appear to be using some type of mimic technology to masquerade as SGC Personnel." His hold on her lessened as he sensed her returning strength. Seeing her so helpless and vulnerable had concerned him greatly. They were not qualities he associated with Major Samantha Carter.

"We have to find out where they are holding our people," Sam said. "Make sure that they are in no immediate danger."

"The security around level 23, the location of the supposed chemical leak is very intense. I believe that area is their base of operations and where our people are being held."

"Then we'll begin our recon there. We need as much information as we can before we raise the alarm." Teal'c handed her a handgun to go with her zat. He was similarly armed.

They got to the security station, knocking out the technician on duty. The screens showed them that all the cameras on level 23 were inactive. From the other screens they saw enough evidence to convince them that both Hammond and O'Neill were indeed under alien control.

Teal'c stood watch at the door of the otherwise deserted locker room as Sam quickly changed into her civilian jeans and jumper and her leather jacket. She put her combat boots back on, wincing as she bent over to fasten them up. The injection sites on her abdomen were deeply bruised, there were more bruises coming out on her wrists and forearms and on her shins where she had fought against the restraints. Her stomach was beginning to hurt badly – she did not know whether it was lack of food, stress or the residue of whatever the alien doctor had done to her. The one with Janet's face. But she could not think about that now. She had to be strong.

She shoved her wallet, ID, and her PDA into her pockets. They would need to travel light. What she really could have done with was her laptop but there was no way she risking going to her lab to get it. That area was swarming with the aliens who were very interested in all the Goa'uld technology housed there. Not to mention their homegrown stuff.

It could only be a matter of time, perhaps minutes, before the aliens realised that she and Teal'c had escaped. Sam steadied herself for a minute or so, mapping out in her head what they needed to do to get out of the mountain covertly.

"I'll need to bypass the emergency bulkhead so we can climb out of here, go out the South Gate," she said. "The base was designed to keep people out, not in. I…"

The alarm klaxon sounded. They had officially run out of time.

Teal'c drew his weapon. "Go. I will purchase time for you to depart this mountain."

"Keep them busy for as long as you can. I'll come back for you."

"Of that I am certain."

Teal'c closed the hatch behind her. Sam began the long climb to the surface.

Sam reached up to undo the hatch and push it open, with the last of her strength pulling herself up out of the shaft to sit on the ledge. The cool night air was pleasant on her fevered skin. Her body trembled with tension and the overexertion of climbing up the shaft without a break. Rolling over onto her side she vomited onto the grass. She could taste blood and the thought of that made her vomit again.

But she hadn't time to worry about that now. She had to get help before the alien incursion spread any further. Gritting her teeth she levered herself to her feet and stumbled off through the undergrowth towards the main road.

The alien was angry. Sam had escaped. It was talking to Teal'c, playing nice, trying to get him to tell her where she had gone. But Teal'c was not fooled. Janet felt her own thoughts and memories being probed again. Where was Sam likely to go? Who did she know? Who did she trust? Janet tried to close her mind to the insistent questioning but it was difficult, so difficult.

Sam had escaped. They could not hurt her anymore. Sam had escaped.

The first flight she had been able to get out of Colorado Springs involved a switch and one hour wait at Chicago. She tried to act as normally as possible to not draw attention to herself but her state of nervous agitation made that impossible. It was taking too long. The though of what Teal'c might be going through made her so angry. And when she tried to think of something else all that came to mind was her beloved's face, twisted into an expression of cold, compassionless hate.

She sat down and almost immediately sprang to her feet again. A couple of her fellow passengers looked nervously across at her obviously trying to decide if she was high on something or just crazy. Clenching her hands in her pockets to stop them shaking she walked across to the floor to ceiling windows looking out over the tarmac. She closed her eyes and rested her forehead against the cool glass, trying to centre herself. She had to calm down, people were looking at her. At least she hoped that they were people.

Could be aliens just waiting to see what she would do – a rat in a maze, a cat in a box. She stifled back a giggle. No giggling, Major, she told herself fiercely. They're depending on you to get them out of this. Teal'c Janet Daniel O'Neill – the general. All depending on you. You've got to hold it together. You're a Carter, remember. Carter's don't cry. Carter's don't crack. She took a couple of deep breaths.

A plan. She needed a plan. Her first plan – to contact Major Davis at the Pentagon – was already a bust. His secretary told her that he had been called to Cheyenne Mountain the evening before. So in all probability he was already a guest of level 23.

Which left her only one option that she could think of. She would have to talk to Maybourne.

But not yet. Her tired mind focussed on the muzak playing over the speakers. She recognised it. Janet had this cd in her somewhat eclectic collection:

"There's a million mouths to feed
And I've got everything i need
I'm breathing
And there's a hurting thing inside
But I've got everything to hide
I'm grieving

Hey hey I saved the world today
Everybody's happy now
The bad things gone away
And everybody's happy now
The good thing's here to stay
Please let it stay"

Save the world today. That was all she had to do. Nothing simpler. She realised that she was smiling. Her face hurt. Save the world, step by step. Unfortunately the first step in doing that involved contacting Harry Maybourne.

"Miss, you need to wake up!"

Sam's eyes flew open. The flight attendant managed to smile down at her. "I'm sorry, but you were having a nightmare, I think. Some of the other passengers were becoming concerned."

"I'm sorry, I…" Sam shuddered as she remembered the dream. The alien who had taken Janet's face. In her hands this time not a hypodermic but a large dildo. The head of it was shaped, not to represent any human organ, but like the head of a Goa'uld symbiote. The room was in darkness but light came from the observation booth which was crowded. The rest of her team, Hammond, the gate crew, Simmons, Jonas Hanson, Narim, Martouf, her father… Sam was now naked, still restrained but her legs were now parted, her feet held in the stirrups used for performing a gynaecological exam. They were all watching as...

Nausea welled up in her. She got up, pushed past the startled attendant and headed towards the toilet. Luckily it was empty. She threw up what little she had managed to eat since escaping from Cheyenne Mountain and stared in horror at the thick clots of blood in her vomit. That could not be a good thing. Unfortunately she did not have time to take care of it at the moment. She flushed it away and rinsed out her mouth, washing her pale face, noting the beads of sweat standing out on her forehead, the dark shadows under her eyes. She looked like shit. Carefully she undid her trousers and examined her abdomen. The bruising had spread, a deep purplish green, the skin around the injection sites was hot and red, painfully firm to the touch. Something was going on that was for certain. Sam stared at her reflection for a moment as the thought ran through her head that this could somehow be infectious, that she could be spreading some sort of alien plague. She had escaped from the mountain far easier than she had expected to… perhaps they had let her go on purpose so that she could spread this thing through the general population. Perhaps…

Perhaps she was just tired and scared and paranoid about aliens wearing the faces of her friends and loved ones.

The attendant was hovering nearby as she exited the toilet. "Are you sure you're all right, Miss. I can get the pilot to radio ahead for medical assistance when we land? You do look very…"

"Touch of stomach flu, I think," Sam lied. "I'll be okay, I'm sure."

"Look, there are some empty seats in First. You can stretch out there, try to rest up. I'll check on you again before we land, see if you're feeling better. Okay?"

"Thank you, I'd appreciate that," Sam managed a grateful smile. She had about two hours before they landed in Washington. Any sleep she could get would be a bonus. Though hopefully free of nightmares. Her stomach griped again and she felt a cold shiver pass through her. What had that alien bitch done to her?

Sam managed to sleep the rest of the way to Washington and staved off the nausea until after she reached a payphone. Maybourne was less than enthusiastic about `breaking the chain of command' to speak to her but did eventually agree to a meet.

The pain in her abdomen got steadily worse and eating or drinking anything just made her throw up. The taste of blood in the back of her throat was now permanent. The hours until she was due to meet with Maybourne crawled by. She walked the streets until fatigue burned in her muscles and behind her eyes. All she could think about was the monster that had worn Janet's face. She hoped that somewhere in the mountain her lover was still alive.

Maybourne was a couple of minutes early. He seemed to be alone and was obviously nervous. She could understand why. There was little love lost between the NID officer and the SGC. She sat down, ordered coffee, started to brief him on the foothold situation. And then he sprang it on her. "When I talked to General Hammond earlier…"

"What?"

"He called me, Major. Calm down. He's concerned for you, that's all."

"I told you we have a foothold situation."

"Major, a chemical spill causing paranoid delusions is infinitely more plausible to me than aliens taking over the SGC."

"My god, you don't think I can tell the difference between the two? What was I thinking!" She got up to walk away, wondering when she had got herself into a remake of `Invasion of the Body Snatchers' when she saw the Colonel and Daniel Jackson standing behind her.

That was when she lost it. "Maybourne, you are an idiot every day of the week! Why couldn't you have just taken one day off!"

As off her game as she was, Sam could not believe that she had said that. Maybourne might well be an idiot but he was also a superior officer. And to do so in a public place. It was starting to give credence to O'Neill and Daniel's story that she had been affected by the `ethelmermelene'. And she was so tired.

Maybourne was not a happy camper. "That's insubordination, Major."

"Oh for crying out loud. Cut her some slack. She's not exactly herself."

But was that Jack O'Neill? That was the six million dollar question. She glanced across at him as he pulled the chair closer. Daniel was on her other side.

"And neither were we. Sam, believe me, we know what you're feeling. It's the chemical."

They were good, she gave them that. They sounded like Jack and Daniel. But she knew better, didn't she. Didn't she?

If only she wasn't so tired.

Jack was asking her what the side effects of TCE were. She buried her face in her hands, knowing how this would sound. She had a tough crowd to play to. "Hallucination, delusion…"

"Paranoid delusion, I think it was, but… go on." Pod person or not, the bastard was enjoying this, Sam thought.

"Look, I know what I saw!"

"We were affected by the fumes the moment we got in the elevator," Daniel said. He sounded so reasonable. It all sounded so reasonable. She sighed deeply, desperately trying to clear her head.

"Dr Fraiser injected me with something." Explain that. Explain why someone else was looking at her through her lover's eyes. Please explain. Please.

"She was trying to sedate you. She didn't give enough to Teal'c, he sprung you and off you went. He's fine by the way. Beat the crap out of a couple of SFs but he's fine."

No. That was not how it happened. She tried to hold to her own sense of belief in what she had experienced in the past 24 hours. "You should have followed procedure." She glared at Maybourne.

"I fully intend to return with you just to make sure everything's all right."

The real Jack O'Neill would never agree voluntarily to Colonel Harry Maybourne setting foot anywhere on Cheyenne Mountain. She focussed her glare on him instead. "And you agreed to that? Shouldn't that tell you something?"

Maybourne shrugged. "I wouldn't tell them where we were meeting until they agreed to my inspection of the SGC."

"You have no idea what you're walking into." She was pretty certain Maybourne had never even been offworld before.

"I can take care of myself, Major. If I don't report back in a few hours you can rest assured that action will be taken."

Sam wondered how many ranks she would get busted if she called him a smug git to his face.

"We just want you to come back so Fraiser can check you out." Jack sounded almost reasonable.

It was all so plausible. She had already been bone tired when they had come back from the mission to find Qeb. And life since then had been one long adrenaline rush.

Sam rubbed her hands over her face, slouching a little but was brought up short by the pain in her abdomen. The injection sites – they weren't hallucination. They were real. It was all real. Which meant…

"You're asking? I have a choice? I can walk away right now." Her ersatz colleagues nodded their assent. If she didn't know what she knew she might almost have been convinced that they were real. Maybourne certainly was.

"No. Major Carter, you will accompany us back to the base. If you resist, you will be handcuffed." O'Neill scoffed openly. Maybourne just looked even more peeved. "Well, this is all very touching but I think this very conversation in this very public place is evidence that Major Carter, in her current state, is something of a security risk."

She was starting to drift again. Daniel pounced.

"It's starting to wear off isn't it? You're starting to think straight. That's exactly what happened to me."

"I'm so tired." And that's all she would admit to.

"We're going to go now. I'd like you to come with… but it's up to you." Jack O'Neill could certainly put on the charm when he wanted to. And to be honest she couldn't think of a way out of this one. She had done her best, honestly. Perhaps she was delusional. Perhaps they would find a way to make it work on her as well and then she wouldn't care anymore.

"All right."

"Plane's waiting," O'Neill stood, waited for her to gain her feet. She followed them out of the café, Maybourne bringing up the rear.

Janet's dreaming grew darker again. The creature that had stolen her face her life was pleased. Somehow Sam was within their control again. She was contemplating what she would do to the troublesome prisoner, the pleasure she would get from eviscerating her slowly.

Janet wanted to scream. But she didn't have a body any more.

And then there was a new sensation. For a moment Janet felt as if someone was touching her. "Doc?" She could feel his fingers touching her neck, her cheek. It was O'Neill, she was certain of it but she could not respond to him. His voice seemed to come from very far away. The dream held her fast, her mind clouding again. And he was gone.

But part of her knew she was no longer alone.

Something was happening. Something good. She saw the Colonel through her counterpart's eyes just before he knocked her unconscious. Now there was only a sweet soft darkness and the knowledge that Sam was no longer fighting alone.

Maybourne gave her a half hour head start before the troops came in through the front door shooting everything that moved. She used the `Daniel' mimic device to disguise her appearance. She just hoped that the death of O'Neill's and Major Davis's counterparts hadn't set any alarms ringing back here otherwise she was looking at walking into a nest of very pissed off aliens.

Of course this meant that she now had to climb down the 28 level ladder back into the SGC. She was definitely not at her best once she reached the bottom.

"It must have been when I killed you."

O'Neill just stared at her. She looked around at the web in which her friends and colleagues hung. She saw Daniel, Hammond, Siler, Davis, Harriman - and her heart seeming to physically miss a beat as she saw Janet's apparently deeply unconscious body hanging there. Please, god, whoever's listening let her be all right. She glanced from it to the recumbent alien in the corner.

"Her evil twin, Skippy. Came running when we took that headpiece thing off the doc." He handed her another mimic device. She wanted nothing more than to destroy it but she didn't dare. Not until she knew that doing so would not harm Janet in any way.

Someone was holding her firmly. She was hanging in space. She remembered seeing herself through alien eyes hanging from the web. The thoughts the darkness were gone. She was herself again.

Janet opened her eyes. Major Davis who obviously hadn't been expecting her to regain consciousness so quickly almost dropped her. She realised that he was standing on one of the mobile gantry platforms and that she was half in and half out of the harness cum cocoon that had held her for an unknown time.

"It's okay, Dr Fraiser. It's over. Everyone's safe," Davis said, setting her on her feet but keeping a secure hold on her for which she was very grateful. Her legs had gone to sleep, pins and needles just beginning in her feet. Someone she did not know wrapped a blanket around her and when her legs did finally deign to support her helped her slowly down the stairs to solid ground. She saw General Hammond standing with O'Neill, the General looking as shellshocked as she felt. Daniel was sitting nearby, his head resting on his knees, Teal'c crouched over him, one hand on his back talking softly to the obviously disorientated man.

Where was Sam? She had to find Sam, to know that she was all right. Carefully she walked over to Teal'c.

"Dr Fraiser, it is good to see that you are… you again."

"It's good to be me, believe me Teal'c. Have you seen Major Carter? Is she all right?"

"Major Carter is in the Control Room. When the aliens were prevented from returning through the Stargate they self destructed causing considerable damage. She is checking the systems."

"Is she all right?"

"I believe she is uninjured, Dr Fraiser. However she has had little rest since this incident began. It is through her efforts that you have all been restored."

"I need to find her," Janet said. "I need to see that she is okay."

Sam opened her eyes. Home, at least the side ward in the infirmary. She spent more time here than in her own home anyway. The soft beep of machines told her that whatever had happened it was serious enough to involve a cardiac monitor. She felt pleasantly numb, not so pleasantly hazy. Her throat was sore and she could taste blood. Something had happened, something bad. She was too tired to contemplate it for the moment.

"Sam?"

"Janet?" she struggled to open her eyes again. A half memory of someone wearing Janet's face staring down at her was swiftly and mercifully replaced by the sight of Janet herself, her face pale and drawn with weariness but with every ounce of her natural compassion and spirit shining in her eyes. "Really you?"

"Really me," she confirmed reaching out to touch Sam's cheek, making sure for herself what the monitors had already told her, that Sam's temperature was back to normal. "You're going to be fine, Sam. Whatever my counterpart injected into you was highly corrosive. It had inflamed and ulcerated your stomach lining but I think we caught it before it did any permanent damage. We had to do an endoscopic examination which is why your throat is probably a little sore. We have you on medication that should put things back to normal in a week or so but you're going to have to be on a special diet for a while longer than that and you're off coffee and alcohol until further notice." Janet paused, smiling at the face Sam pulled at that statement. "You were also suffering from shock, exhaustion, dehydration and a minor concussion. The injection sites on your abdomen are badly infected but responding to standard antibiotics. You've been unconscious for nearly two days by the way."

"Is everyone else okay?" Sam asked, her hand closing on Janet's. "You?"

"I'm fine. So is everyone else who was in that web-thing. That's all been carted off to Area 51." She shuddered. "I don't remember much. Don't think I want to."

"How many of the mimic devices did we retrieve in the end?"

"Twelve, I think. Including the one that looks like me," Janet was unable to suppress another shudder. Colonel O'Neill had demonstrated to her how they worked. At least the physical side. They hadn't been able to get the head pieces to work again. So no one was going to be reading minds any time soon. "General Hammond is waiting to brief you once you're fit enough for visitors – which won't be for at least 24 hours. You need to rest and you don't need any stress for a while."

"No stress, huh." Sam thought about that for a moment. Stress had become a way of life recently.

"Are you okay… with me being here?" Janet asked softly. Sam saw the hurt in her lover's eyes, the result of the unreasoning feeling that she was just the tiniest bit responsible for Sam's injuries.

"It wasn't you," Sam said. "Janet, let it go. It wasn't you. I know that. I knew that when it was happening. As soon as she touched me, I knew it wasn't you. The same way as I know that it really is you this time. I can feel you here." She touched her chest, over her heart. Janet's smile was like the sun coming out.

The medication was beginning to kick in again. She could feel her eyes begin to close despite all her efforts. Janet's fingers were soothing through her hair. "You saved the world again, Sam. You're starting to make something of a habit of it."

She yawned hugely, then smiled sleepily up at her lover. "Everyone should have a hobby."

The End

EURYTHMICS I Saved The World Today (From: Peace)

Monday finds you like a bomb
That's been left ticking there too long
You're bleeding
Some days there's nothing left to learn
From the point of no return
You're leaving

Hey hey I saved the world today
Everybody's happy now
The bad things gone away
And everybody's happy now
The good thing's here to stay
Please let it stay

There's a million mouths to feed
And I've got everything i need
I'm breathing
And there's a hurting thing inside
But I've got everything to hide
I'm grieving

Hey hey I saved the world today
Everybody's happy now
The bad things gone away
And everybody's happy now
The good thing's here to stay
Please let it stay

Doo doo doo doo doo the good thing

Hey hey I saved the world today
Everybody's happy now
The bad things gone away
And everybody's happy now
The good thing's here to stay
Please let it stay

Everybody's happy now

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