Long Live the Queen

Chapter 4

"Sir, can I speak with you?"

George Hammond looked up at the knock on his door.

"Come," he called, looking for any excuse to not tackle that pile of paperwork on his desk.

"Good morning, captain Carter," he greeted captain Samantha Carter warmly. "Come in, have a seat."

"Thank you, Sir."

"Something I can help you with, Sam?" the older man asked.

"Well, yes, Sir," Sam began. "You told me there was a volunteer taking care of my dad while he was in the hospital? Do you remember her name?"

"Not likely to forget it," Hammond smiled. "Her name is Mary Stewart. I've actually been expecting a call from her asking about Jacob, surprised she hasn't checked in yet. Why?"

"Well, I thought I'd like to meet her and, you know, just thank her for staying with my Dad," the captain told him. "It's the least I can do for the woman … I know how Dad can be," she added with a grin.

Hammond returned her grin.

"That's a wonderful idea," the General agreed. "And I know she'd love to meet you to, Sam. She was very emphatic that I get you back to Jacob's side while … well, you know. Upset her a lot when it looked like you couldn't come. I was hoping you'd meet her when we went and collected your Father."

"tell you what," Hammond offered, reaching for his phone. "I'll call the hospital and see if I can't track her down. We can all do lunch …. Oh, unless you ladies don't want an old man tagging along?" he added.

"I can grin and bear it if she can, Sir," Samantha replied completely straight faced.

"Especially if you're buying?"

Hammond chuckled.

"I walked right in to that one, didn't I?" Hammond sighed.

"With your eyes wide open, Sir," Samantha agreed.

"Yes, thank you, I am trying to contact General Hammond … Yes, that's right, General George Hammond … Fine, fine, please will you just tell him that Mary needs to speak to him about a mutual friend? … Mary Stewart, from the VA hospital? No, can't honestly say it's an emergency, but … Oh, thank you so very much! You've been no help whatsoever!"

Mary dropped the phone back in to its cradle and scowled at the ceiling of her tiny office. It was becoming clearer and clearer to her that Hammond asked for her to be given that number, not so she could contact him, but so she would be forever tied up playing phone tag, and he would never have to speak to or see her ever again.

Getting up from her desk, she shoved her chair angrily in to a corner, and left her office, using all the restraint Isis could give her not to slam her door, and went to where she could actually do some good. She did not notice her phone start to ring as she walked away down the corridor.

"Damn, she still doesn't answer," Hammond swore softly. "I guess she's with a patient."

It occurred to Hamond to check the switchboard, and after a talk with its operator, he hung up the phone with a deep scowl

"Sir?" Captain Carter asked.

"It looks like she has been trying to call for days, but I haven't been getting her messages … twenty-five of them at last count."

"What does she say?"

"She Just keeps asking to speak with me about a mutual friend."

"Dad?"

"She doesn't mention your Father's name, but I have to assume she means him, yes." Hammond replied, clearly irritated about missing so many of Mary's messages. "He is the only mutual friend she and I have that I know of, anyway"

Hammond picked up his phone again and made one more phone call.

"Yes, this is General George Hammond. Please just ask Miss Stewart if she'd like to meet myself and Captain Samantha Carter at the Bluebird café around noon … Thank you."

"What if their switchboard is as bad as ours, and she doesn't get the message?" Sam asked.

"Well, if we miss her again, I'll just go to the damn hospital this evening myself," Hammond decided.

"If you'll forgive me for saying so, Sir, you usually don't get this upset over missed messages," Sam remarked.

"Well, Sam, I know it must just be killing her, not knowing about your father," Hammond replied. "I heard she almost never left his side. She seems very devoted to her patients, totally devoted to them."

"And she's certainly made an impression on you, but it's not like we can tell her everything, Sir," Sam gently reminded her Commander.

"I just admire someone who is so dedicated to their work, especially when it's volunteer work, they don't have to be doing. We can't tell her everything, but we can at least tell her Jacob's still alive. She told me her Father was in the military, died in its service in fact, and she understood classified."

"Doesn't mean she'll like it," the captain murmured.

"Probably not, "Hammond agreed. "But it's the very least I can do too, after just whisking Jacob out of her care like that."

"General Hammond, I don't know why, but you are peeking my curiosity about this woman," The captain admitted. "I'll have to find out if she made as big an impression on my Dad as she's done with you."

"You're exaggerating. She has not made an impression, Captain, and that will be all!" Hammond ordered. "I will see you at Noon! Dismissed!"

"Yes Sir," Sam replied, saluting smartly then left the General's office, grinning.

Mary Stewart? Wasn't Mary Queen of Scots name Stewart, Sam wondered. Shrugging off that rather odd thought, she headed back to her lab.

Seeing no one really needed her attention today, Mary was on her way when a breathless young secretary caught up with her.

"Do you ever slow down?" the young woman complained.

"No," Mary said shortly.

Then she did slow down and gave a sigh.

"I'm sorry, Sally," Mary apologized to the girl. "What is it?"

"well, first, I wish you'd turn on your answering machine, just once in a while. And last, you have a message, from a General George Hammond."

That got Mary's immediate attention.

Well, it's about damn time, Mary thought.

"He wants you to meet him around noon at the Bluebird," the girl went on. "He's bringing a Samantha Carter with him?"

How convenient, Mary thought. Nice public place, and even more of an excuse to divulge even less. But, in spite of the fact that she knew she was gonna get the run around, at least a little bit, Mary was excited, if cautiously so. The name Samantha Carter had done that much.

"Thanks, Sally, could you call him back please and tell him, try to anyway, that I'll be there?" Mary asked the girl.

The secretary nodded and ran off, presumably, back to her station, though with Sally, no one could ever really tell.

And, since she had little else to occupy her that day, and she was already hungry, Mary decided to go early and wait for the General and Jacob's daughter to arrive. And maybe indulge in a lot of good chocolate in the meantime.

"We're a little early, so she probably isn't here … "

When he spotted the pretty dark-haired woman he was speaking of, General Hammond grinned, and pointed her out to his companion, Captain Carter.

"Or I'm wrong and, she'll be here waiting for us," he interrupted himself, pointing out a corner table, and moving quickly towards it.

"Miss Mary, it's good to see you again," she heard the General greet the woman waiting there warmly.

But Samantha Carter stood well back for a bit, however, her blood almost literally running cold, and wished with all her heart that she could be as oblivious as her general right now. She blinked, took several deep breaths, and tried to will what she was feeling away, tried to convince herself that she was wrong. She even wished for a brief moment that she had never met the Tok'Ra because if she had not, she might not be able to interpret what she was feeling.

"Captain Carter, over here," General Hammond called to her, and she was torn between anting to run away and wanting to run out of the building.

Before she met the Tok'Ra, Sam would have gotten Hammond and herself out of there ASAP, but now she was no longer sure what to do.

Maybe she's Tok'Ra, Sam prayed. Oh Lord, please let her be Tok'Ra! There aren't supposed to be any on Earth, but, maybe …

"Sam?" the general called again.

Gathering herself, Samantha Carter forced one foot in front of the other and walked to the table where her commander and friend waited, and where the Goa'uld hiding as Mary Stewart also waited.

She looked just like Mary had imagined she would look.

Jacob had talked about her so much and described her so well that it was not hard for Mary to spot Jacob's daughter, Samantha, as she walked in to the café with General Hammond. It was the one thing she had not expected that almost brought her up out of her chair and running through the crowded restaurant as if her very life depended on it. It was the one thing she had not sensed except from her and Isis's own children, not ever before!

She is blended, and not one of ours! was Isis's first shocked warning. Then much more contemplatively, No, she was blended, but no longer. Still she isn't one of ours.

Jacob Carter's own daughter, formerly under the influence of a Goa'uld! The dying Jacob suddenly being taken from his death bed in the hospital with no questions allowed and no information given! Mary was putting the facts together, and she did not at all like the obvious conclusions. In fact, they made her feel quite ill, and furious!

She gave her helpless dying Father to a Goa'uld! Oh, Jacob, where are you? What are you going through right now?

Mary was curious why Isis was not reacting with more sheer panic to all of this. Being dragged back in to the Goa'uld's way of life was her second greatest fear.

On her part, Isis gently but firmly reminded her that, first, they were more than a match for one formerly blended woman and General Hammond, if it came to that, and second, if Samantha Carter had been under the influence of the Symbiot at the time that it was in no way her fault what had happened to Jacob. This did little to dampen Mary's growing anger, however.

Fully determined now that she would find out the whole truth about Jacob Carter, one way or another, Mary greeted General Hammond as if nothing in the world was wrong.

"Got tired of playing phone tag, eh, General Hammond," Mary said lightly. "I must have left over twenty messages. I thought you were deliberately sandbagging me."

She smiled and stood up and shook his hand, listened to and graciously accepted his apologies, then looked past him to lock eyes with Samantha Carter, and waited with bated breath for Jacob's daughter to join them.

"Miss Stewart, this is Captain Samantha Carter. Sam, this is Mary," the General made the polite introductions.

Sam barely heard him though, and looking in to Mary's eyes, she felt that the other woman did the same.

"Miss Stewart, it's a pleasure," Sam murmured. "My Dad mentioned you before we left the hospital. He was very sorry he didn't get to say Goodbye. and general Hammond also speaks very highly of you, Ma'am."

The Goa'uld visibly winced.

"Oh, please Miss Carter … I'm sorry, should I call you Captain? Just call me Mary. Ma'am makes me feel so old," Mary laughed.

"Sam will do," the Captain told the Goa'uld in front of her, proud of herself at her light and even tone.

If this Goa'uld` wanted to play, for now, Sam would show her that she could play along, too.

The woman politely inclined her head and held out one hand. When Sam took it, her senses reeled. It had only been a short time since her experience with Jolinar, and an even shorter time since she had met Martouf and Selmak and the rest of the Tok'Ra, but the sensation was almost overwhelmingly strong. Did that mean that this Goa'uld held more power than others, was older than most or did it mean something else entirely.

Not for the first time, Sam wished she had not fought Jolinar so much and so hard, wished she understood more about Goa'uld in general.

For some reason, the terrible memories of Hathor kept coming in to Her mind. Sam surreptitiously studied General Hammond. She was relieved to see that this Goa'uld had not intoxicated General Hammond the way Hathor had done to him and all the men on the base. So, Sam was betting the General's admiration of the woman was a genuine one, and not a chemical one.

"Jacob spoke so highly of you, Sam," the Goa'uld, still determinedly using its human voice, was saying now.

The General finally got them seated. And as they ordered, it was clear to Sam that the Goa'uld was no more interested in the food now than she herself was. Part of her wished that General Hammond was not with them, and part of her was grateful that he was, even if he remained mostly oblivious to the truth. He was noticing some tension and discomfort between the two women, but Sam guessed he was writing it off as first meeting jitters.

OH boy, when I break this to him, what will he do? Sam wondered. But she had a good idea what the

General would do. The odd thing was that she was not sure they should do it, not yet.

"Will you ladies excuse me for a moment," general Hammond excused himself after some time, and headed towards the men's room.

He's giving us time alone, Sam thought, much affection welling up for her Commander.

But once he was gone, the Goa'uld leaned purposely across the table towards her, and Sam instinctively held her breath, waiting, and refusing to flinch away or give any ground.

"I know what you are, rather what you were," the Goa'uld said softly, almost sympathetically.

"But you gave him to them!" the Goa'uld said accusingly, her eyes briefly flashing in anger and disgust. "He was helpless and dying and You gave your own Father's body to the Goa'uld, and for what, in exchange for your own freedom, perhaps? Your Master preferred a male host, not a female one? Not the Samantha Jacob led me to expect, not at all!"

She had not raised her voice or changed her expression, but the Goa'uld's words hit Sam like a slap int he face, nevertheless. Sam blinked in utter surprise. She felt like she'd just fallen through some dimensional hole in to an alternate reality. But the Goa'uld went on, not giving her a chance to respond.

"I do understand that perhaps this was not entirely your doing, Sam.

Your Symbiot's decision perhaps. At least, I pray this is the case," the Goa'uld went on, speaking more gently now, but with just as much fervor. "But whichever is true, you may inform Ra, though I suggest you do it from a great distance if you value your life Miss Carter, that I still refuse to submit," the Goa'uld stated flatly, still using Mary's voice and speaking in a low tone that only Sam could hear. "Neither my position nor my feelings have changed. You may thank him for the long imprisonment which only serves to strengthen my resolve to protect the people of this planet from his evil vile influences. If the Tok'Ra have since fallen, others shall rise to take their place! I will ensure it!"

For some reason, Jolinar's last words spoken out loud to the Ashrak rang in Sam's mind. Hear this! The days of the Goa'uld system Lords are numbered! Tell them I died with hope! My death only feeds the fire that burns strong in the Tok'Ra!

It was a long moment before Sam could find words.

"Who are you?" she whispered.

It was not what she had meant to say, but it is what came out.

The Goa'uld smiled.

"The good General was not lying to you. We are Mary Hannah Jane Stewart, Sam," the Goa'uld said quietly. "but we are also Isis. And I beg you, as a now freed being with will of your own, help me, Samantha Carter. It is not too late. We can still save Jacob from his Goa'uld master!"

Mary was almost disappointed when general Hammond returned to them. She was not sure if she had convinced Samantha Carter that her Father could still be saved or not, and she knew she could not speak openly of it in front of the General.

She will tell him, the minute they are alone, Isis was certain of this as she spoke in to Mary's mind.

Well, you are the one who gave away our full identity, not me, Mary shot back silently. Not my fault this time, is it! I thought I was the only one who cared about Jacob Carter.

Isis did not answer that, not that Mary had expected one.

"I hope I didn't interrupt something," the General was saying as he glanced between herself and Samantha.

"OH no, Sir," Samantha piped up. "Mary and I were just talking about—"

"Jacob," Mary interjected. "I was telling Sam that I heard a lot about her from her Father."

To her relief, Sam nodded, seeming to play along.

" And I was about to apologize to her," Sam added. "I know my Dad can be, difficult, sometimes. I wanted to meet you and thank you for taking such good care of him."

Can be, not could be. Mary prayed Sam's use of the present tense meant what she wanted it to mean, that Jacob was still alive.

The General must have picked up on sam's words too.

"You spent so much time with him, and I am sorry we can't divulge everything to you, Mary, I truly am," he apologized. "But I can tell you that Jacob is alive."

"But it's classified," Mary finished his statement for him with an understanding but resigned expression. "It's alright, General. I know that tone. I only hope Jacob will be given his freedom soon.""

She caught the look that passed between Samantha and the General.

"Is our good general treating us, Sam?" Mary asked, earning her a grin from Jacob's daughter.

"Well, as tempted as I am to have a huge lunch now," Mary began with a smile. "I really ought to get back to the hospital. Sam, I hope we can talk more soon," she added, scrolling something on the back of a business card and handing it to Samantha.

"And I apologize to you, General Hammond. I really thought you were deliberately ignoring me. Thank you both for telling me what little you could about Jacob. I'll sleep a bit better now."

"I'm sorry we can't be more forthcoming, Miss Mary," the General said as they all got to their feet.

"even in the short time we have known one another, I feel like Sam and I understand each other very well now, woman's intuitions and all," Mary replied, shooting a very hopeful look at Samantha. "It was so nice meeting you at last, Sam."

"Yeah, yeah you two," Jacob's daughter replied. "Maybe we can meet soon and talk some more, you know, about my Dad."

"That would be my great pleasure," Mary agreed warmly.

She shook both their hands one more time, then turned and strode from the café. She did not look back.

"What the hell's going on, Sam?" the General inquired as soon as Mary was gone, and Sam felt a little foolish, thinking that he noticed nothing was wrong.
"We need to get back to the base, now sir," she told her Commanding officer. "And, I'd like your permission to contact some friends."

A little while later, General Hammond led her in to his office, and locked the door.

"Sam?" was all he asked.

"Sir, I'd like your permission to contact the Tok'Ra, immediately," Sam replied.

Leaning across his desk, the General gave her a hard-penetrating look.

"Why is that?" he asked softly.

"Because, Sir … Mary Stewart is a Goa'uld," Sam informed him.

Blood draining from his face, the General got immediately to his feet and came around his desk to gently take Sam by the shoulders.

"Captain Carter, are you alright? She didn't—"

"She didn't hurt me. I'm fine, sir and yes, I will report to Janet right after we're done here so she can run tests and you can be sure I'm medically sound. But she did not hurt me, sir. She … she begged me to help her save my dad, from the Goa'uld."

Hammond gaped at her for the space of several heartbeats.

"And just to remind me, she even wrote it down, Sir," Sam added, handing him the business card Mary had given her. On the front was a simple telephone number, but on the back, she had scrolled, "I can save him if we act soon."

"Well, I'll be damned," the General almost whispered. 'And, you think she is Tok'Ra?"

"I don't know, Sir, and that's why I'd like to contact them, sir."

Np," the General stated firmly.

Sam raised one eyebrow at him, but he went on quickly.

"You're gonna get down to Janet right now for a complete physical. And don't worry, Sam, I will contact the Tok'Ra to see if they can give us some answers. And right after that, I'll be seeing you in the Infirmary because I'm going to go get myself checked out, just to be safe. I've been alone with Mary Stewart, too."

"And, Sir," Sam added as she was leaving. "Will you ask Daniel to get me everything he knows about Isis."

"She … uh, the Goa'uld told you her name?" Hammond marveled.

Sam nodded.

Hammond sighed, but he was already reaching for his phone, and Sam headed straight to Dr. Janet Frazier and the Infirmary.

A/N:

Hi folks. I'm getting better at updating, now keep fingers cross I can keep it up. LOL!

Huge hugs and thanks to all my readers, Huge hugs and thanks to all my long time readers, and a big welcome aboard to any new ones. And special thanks to anyone who sent me PMs, comments, reviews, Cudos, etc. Please keep it all coming. You guys are terrific! 😀