"Mind Games" by DHD

TITLE: Mind Games

RATED: PG-13 for language.

ARCHIVE: I'd be glad if it was at Sam and Jack.

USUAL DISCLAIMERS: Characters, universe and coffee mugs aren't mine. No financial gain will be made from this, but psychological damage might occur.

GENRE: Sam and Jack friendship, perhaps more, angst

SPOILERS: In The Line of Duty (and NOT Point of View, as I've been known to think)

SUPPLICATION: Feedback always appreciated and politely phrased. :)

SUMMARY: Sam is trying to fight Jolinar, but she has nowhere to hide and no one to turn to...

FOREWORD: Hello, and thank you for reading me. I've been unable to find the whole conversation between Jack and Jolinar but hopefully that won't matter. Also, I haven't seen anything beyond 'Prisoners' yet, and certainly not 'To'Kra' so I've made certain assumption and I hope I haven't got anything too wrong. If I have, do let me know and I'll seek to correct it. Last but not least, I play around with punctuation when it comes to Sam talking to Jolinar but I've tried to make sure it's not confusing and more or less easy to follow. Instead of putting a period at the end of a sentence, for example, I've left a bit of space. Something to do with trying to give a feel of what it must be like to talk to someone in your head. Because I don't know what that's like. Honest. :)

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"Mind Games" by DHD.

"This is unusual for me," the voice said. Not really a voice , of course, but rather a thought, and as such faceless and without matter. In her but not _of _her. Sam said nothing and tried to think nothing. Her eyes were open and she could see the iron bars and the doors of the holding cell, but she couldn't quite believe she was there. She felt in an entirely different place altogether, in a dream, a truly horrific dream in which she was suffocating in the open air.

"Stop it, Samantha."

She crawled away from the voice, but thought alone didn't help. She could not look away and her body remained firmly laid across the bunk and against the wall, and the grip on her throat that wasn't really there tightened. She screamed, or at least _thought_ she did, because she was both falling and on firm ground, both dying and alive. She could feel the flow of her blood, steady and regular, right beneath her skin where she had been displaced and pushed away, by that monster that was body and mind at the same time.

"You can't hide from me."

I'll find the heart, Sam thought wildly, and squeeze it together myself. Until I'm dead and you die with me. The voice said nothing to that but there was a ripple of amusement. I'm stronger than you, Sam thought again

"No," the voice said simply. Calm, neutral, patient, motherly. "I have your body. So you have nothing."

what do you want?

"Come on out here."

come and get me -

The anger that reached Sam was as invisible, as real, and as disembodied as the voice. It tore deep into her, into her mind, snatching memories and knowledge, stripping her, viciously. Images of her childhood, pains long forgotten or carefully put away, ridiculous joy, family, friends, lovers, slipped past her all at the same time, jumbled but in parts clear and sharp. Somewhere in her soul, Sam began to cry, from rage and fear and wanting to die.

"My name is Jolinar. Look at me."

come and get me you worthless piece of shit -

"So we have bad tempers in common."

my commander is going to kill you

"You mean 'us.'"

i'm already dead

"You have no idea what death is like. I've been there. Believe me, you'll know when it happens. Besides," and Sam was beginning to see something just outside her field of vision, "I'm not sure your... commander will do that."

he was willing enough in the gate room

"To die _with_ you, I believe he will do easily. But to hold a weapon to your heart and to end your life is another matter."

he'll do what he has to

"Perhaps."

he hates your kind we believe it's better to be dead than a host and to him I'm already dead

"On the contrary, to him you've never been so alive. It's the likelihood of your death that makes it feel that way. You are strong but a little too proud, Samantha. Nothing like your mother, it seems."

don't you dare speak of her!

"Why? You want to talk about her."

you don't know anything about me!

"I do, Samantha. You know I do." There was an awful silence in the darkness of her body, and then a feeling of rain and mist in her mind. Her stomach lurched but she couldn't tell anymore whether she just thought it did. What she had seen earlier lost some of its ragged edges but never quite materialised. It looked like her and then not quite; another face (male? female? Both somehow) twirled over her own, like a mask. Sam could see her limbs now and for one moment hoped she was free. "This is your mind alone," Jolinar said. Sam saw her body still on the bunk. "I don't want to fight with you. Here you are free to speak."

"What do you want?" And she jumped at the sound of her own voice, and of Jolinar's hollow, raspy words.

"Out of this place. I am of the To'kra. I am not like Apophis -"

"Really? Because that taking-over-people's-body thing could have fooled me."

"Do not try my patience, Samantha. I can send you back to cower in a little corner very easily."

"I can't be grateful for something that it is my right."

"There are more important things than you. The freedom of millions."

Sam didn't know how, but she was suddenly finding herself on the other side of the room. "Which you can bring alone? The arrogance is the same, Apophis or not."

The figure, almost a ghost, approached her. Sam wanted to move away but couldn't. "What of *your* arrogance, Samantha? There is sorrow I have been carrying for over one hundred years. You know nothing of the System Lords. I do. What you have seen - it is like a dream compared to what I have seen and needed to do."

"Why am I listening to this?!"

"Because if I was only Goa'uld, I would have taken over completely by now. Your immune system would be gone. You would be solely dependent on me. I only want to rejoin my people. Then I will leave your body and take a willing host, as is the custom of my people."

Sam looked at her body for a while, so rigid against the wall, with her eyes hidden in shadow. "I don't believe you. Neither will Colonel O'Neill."

"I can show you."

"Why should I believe anything you tell me?"

"I will share my memories with you." She recoiled from a new touch on her thoughts, gentle this time but still sickly. "I need you to let me in."

"You didn't need my permission last time."

"Please, Samantha."

The probing became more insistent but remained tentative, like a knock on a door. She didn't need to say or think anything to let it happen, something that told her how deep Jolinar could see. She felt a brief wave of despair at the realisation, before her perceptions shifted and she was no longer in the holding cell but somewhere else, some*when* else. She saw everything really quickly, like she had with her own memories, but still understood it - the fighting, the treachery, faces of friends and enemies, death over and over, a sense of will so strong that it made Sam reel backwards somehow. She reached out to something to hold on to and found it, a constant, a certainty, even a peace, but Jolinar suddenly yanked away and she fell through the light that had carried all the thoughts, to find herself stranded again and without a ground, real or not, to stand on.

"Now you know," Jolinar said. "Do you understand?"

why don't you want me to know -

"It is not relevant."

who is martouf?

"That is not important."

WHO IS MARTOUF?

"My lover. Now you will ask no more. Is that clear?"

lover -

"No more," Jolinar repeated. Tendrils of anger clamped themselves on Sam and they silenced her. Then she heard footsteps and felt herself get up. "You must help me. Otherwise you will surely die, and there is nothing I will be able to do to protect you."

i don't think you care what happens to me

"I have told you. There are more important things than you."

like martouf

"What would you do for O'Neill, Samantha?"

i don't understand -

When she saw Jack walk in, her first reaction was to cry out to him, but Jolinar's wall was high and thick. His name washed back over her like a dull echo and the shapeless sound that it was. His face was unreadable, his stand relaxed. That was the O'Neill she knew, always in control and never afraid. He would know what to do.

"So," he began, "It looks like we're going to have a little chat."

"You must let me go through the Stargate," Jolinar said, and Sam wanted to laugh.

it's not going to work that way

"We can't do that," Jack said.

"You have now idea what this is about," Jolinar continued. And took Sam back to the bunk.

"And I don't suppose you want to tell me." Sam watched him take a couple of steps forward, his hands still in his pocket, his eyes searching and cautious.

he's looking for you, Jolinar told her

this isn't going to work, Sam said. he's not stupid

but sentimental, perhaps

you have to tell him what you told me

you said he wouldn't believe me

do you want to get OUT OF HERE OR NOT?

Jolinar said nothing. All this time Sam was looking at Jack because Jolinar was, and she began to see things she hadn't seen before, or hadn't looked long enough to find. There was that tuft of hair that nothing could keep down and a little grey at the temple, the straight lines of his eyebrows and a very, very faint scar there. There was a hundred smiles he'd given her, and the way he didn't mind not understanding a word she said, and all the worlds they had seen together, the crazy stunts they'd had to pull, with none as crazy as boarding Goa'uld motherships and saving the Earth. She remembered something she had forgotten soon after they had been rescued from Antarctica: that they were just people after all, that ranks and positions meant very little when it came down to it, that they were there for a purpose and that too often the means became confused with the end. It was a difficult thing for her to think about and she had no real idea why. This had never happened before and she had served with and under many other officers. Maybe the Stargate was too blame, for taking them to places of magic that demanded so much more than being an officer, and tested everything that was in you.

yes, Jolinar spoke suddenly. you see now you understand what it takes what you need to do this

Sam wondered if she was talking about the To'kra blending, about Martouf, or about her and Jack. But it wasn't just her and Jack. It was her and Jack and Daniel and Teal'c.

i understand, she said.

And she was standing up and Jolinar speaking again, explaining, but refusing to listen when Sam told her that it wasn't enough. She started to ask the To'kra to let her speak to Jack, that he might listen to her but that it would be too late soon. When it didn't work she begged, shouting and fighting against the Goa'uld's hold on her.

Tell him what you told me -

"Carter's mind would be intact," Jolinar said. "She would return to you as you knew her before."

let me speak to him!

He was at the door. "You know I can't trust you."

Sam lunged with fury at Jolinar; when the decision was made, she had no idea, but she felt a rush of fire and cold, and the weight of air on her shoulders. "Oh God..." she said, just as she realised that she was breathing and sliding free from Jolinar. Jack looked at her at the sound of her voice and then away, quickly. "He's telling you the truth! Please, Jack."

He banged on the door.

She started to shout. She had planned to reason with him but she couldn't think of anything that made sense.

"No, Jack, please! Don't leave me, please!"

The door opened. He wouldn't even look at her.

"Please, give me a chance!"

He walked out.

"Don't leave me like this. Please!"

She listened, horrified as if witness to her own death, to the sound of keys turning the locks. She didn't resist when she was pushed back, impatiently and spitefully.

"What will it take?" Jolinar said.

it was a trick, wasn't it?

"What do you mean?"

you were trying to make it harder... by reminding him i'm still here you have no idea who you're dealing with -

"No. I was trying to make it easier for him to let me go and return you."

it won't work and i'm glad

"You may be right."

he's not going to give up he'll have you dead, Jolinar

What Sam first believed was another assault on her mind gently nudged her in a small but warm place, and told her to stay there, and that it would speak to the Jaffa. Sam guessed that Jolinar knew what it would take and didn't want her to know. So she stilled herself in that place, thinking only that she was strong and that her colonel would save her, one way or another, whatever it would take. And these mind games would be over.

The End.