"We're losing her!" The nurse cried, as Janet did everything she could think of to help her patient.
"Clear!" Janet cried, activating the paddles to try and shock her patient's heart back into its normal flutter.
No luck, and with her daughter watching all the time. Suddenly though, an angel was brought in... only she was on a gurney.
"Frasier, what's going' on!?" General O'Neill asked, looking from Janet to her patient, then back again.
"She's dying sir. It's a case of scarlet fever, but it was too far by the time we got her here. I was hoping Sam would be able to help with her... device, but I guess I now see why she never answered my page."
"Sorry Janet..." Sam said, looking the at Janet the way she always looked at her since she ‘returned from the dead'
Janet hated that look, it was like she didn't believe her eyes, like she was looking at a video of the past, but in actuality, when Janet died, she had ascended, and returned about six months later, once she got her ‘return' sorted out.
"Janet?" Sam said questioningly, as Janet realized that someone had rolled Sam over to the bed of Princess Abi's mother along with a healing device, and was asking Janet a question.
"I'm sorry, what did you say Sam?"
"I said, how long has she been in cardiac arrest?" Sam said, looking doubtfully at the device in her hands.
"About four minutes... can you help her?"
"I don't know... last time I used this thing, I nearly killed Daniel." Sam looked worried, and Janet understood completely, what if she couldn't save her? Sam would forever feel guilty, so Janet gave her an encouraging pat on her shoulder, and at the questioning look, Abi gave the go ahead.
<><><><><><>
Abi nodded hopefully, and Janet, Sam's friend and Confidant smiled re-assuringly, they believed in her, and she hoped she didn't let them down, lifting the device over the queen, sad felt the problem through the device, and tried to feel how to fix it.
It was a weird feeling, using one of these things; it was like she could look into the very depths of the patient's anatomy, to see the problem, and what was killing them, what needed to be fixed. It was like disassembling a remote control to figure out why the power button sticks, and you find all the grimy dirt and gook caked all over it, then you can clean it up and put it back together, once you're done, it's works just like new.
Only with a person it was different, sometimes you just take it apart, looking deeper and deeper until you break something, like with Daniel...
And there were no distractions, everything just got blocked out, she heard and saw nothing but what she was looking for, and doing.
And she found it. The disease was attacking the woman's heart, it looked just like when Sam was on the planet, watching Ba'al destroying the village. But not this time; Sam wouldn't let him.
Finding herself victorious, Sam heard the normal beep, beep stating that she had succeeded, a soft silent gasp, then nothing.
<><><><><><>
Waking in the infirmary again not being a part of Sam's plans, she swore violently.
"'scuse me?" General O'Neill questioned form his usual perch, and looking over, prepared to apologize, Sam stopped short seeing him grinning from ear to ear.
"Sir?" She said, confused.
"Just glad to see you've got your usual spark back Sam. But watch your language, you've got a visitor, and though she's sleeping right now, ya never know, she could be pretending."
Sitting up in her bed, Sam saw Tsukiomi laying in the bed across from her, sound asleep and clinging to a teddy bear.
"What's she doing here?"
"She thinks you're her mom."
"What!?"
"That was my reaction too, but she has a theory, you should hear it, it's very.... Daniel."
"Samantha?" Tsukiomi mumbled, sitting up and rubbing her eyes with a tired look on her face.
"Hey kiddo, how are you feeling?" Sam asked looking from the teddy bear, to the man she was sure retrieved it for the young girl.
"I am well Samantha... how did you heal queen Meleanie?"
"Now Tsukiomi, a magician never reveals her tricks!" O'Neill said jokingly as Sam gave him a sharp look.
"It's a little hard to explain... I used a device that only I can use, I don't know how to explain it..."
"How did you make your arrow glow like that?"
"curious little ten year old aren't you?" O'Neill said, looking somewhat shocked that she was asking that. "What do you say we let Sam rest huh?"
"B-yes, you are right Jack, she must get rest to heal properly. Get well Samantha." Tsukiomi said as O'Neill picked her up and carried her out the door, still clutching the hand of the teddy bear as she fell back asleep on O'Neill's shoulder, and Sam felt her own eyelids drifting closed.
<><><><><><>
"When you enter a room with three people, there will always be the good, the evil, and the undecided." Sam listened intently to hear the lesson her mother was about to teach her, she loved these riddles, they always had such an outcome... sometimes it was so obvious, and sometimes it took you forever to decipher.
"The good," her mother continued, "can never be swayed, for they know what is right, they know their boundaries, and they are very aware of the thin line between good and evil, the line they swore to themselves that they would never cross.
The evil, can also, never be swayed, for they know what is right for them, they know what they desire, and they will do whatever they wish to achieve it, because they are selfish, and care about nobody, and nothing other than themselves.
The undecided, can also, never be swayed."
Sam woke with a start, a memory long since forgotten, of a lesson her mother had tried to teach her. Sam had never answered that riddle, she never understood it, but now, she thought about it, about Tsukiomi, and the battle that must be raging inside her right now, and about her own decisions, and Sam finally knew the answer to her mother's strangest riddle.
"Carter? You goin' catatonic on me or something?" O'Neill asked suddenly, obviously having seen her eyes open, but she was so lost in her own thoughts...
"Sorry sir, I was... thinking about something... something my mother said to me when I was about ten, I long since forgot it, but I understand it now."
"Oh... kay? You gonna elaborate, or do I have to poke your stitches?" Sam slowly relayed the riddle, and couldn't help but giggle at the perplexed look on the Generals face.
"What!? It's a confusing riddle!" he exclaimed defensively.
"No it's not sir, you just have to stop trying to think of an illogically logical answer, it's right in front of you, your looking too hard."
"Okay Carter, shoot."
"Sir, could you call yourself undecided about something like... say General Hammond calls you tomorrow, and says he wants his post back, that he's asking you to re join SG-1 so that he can take command of the base again, what would you do?"
"How the hell am I supposed to know that Carter!?"
"Because of the person you are, you've already made your mind up on the matter, you just don't realize it yet. You couldn't be swayed, on the surface, you remain undecided, but deep down, the battle has already been won."
"Meaning?"
"No one is undecided. If I were to relive the same moment over and over again, not knowing that I had done it before, but with someone telling me to do it s=in some different way each time, I would still do it the same, because deep down, I already know what I'm going to do."
"Okay, what's the point of this conversation?"
"I think Tsukiomi decided that I was a reincarnation of her mother the first time she saw me, the little things I've done, that remind her of her mother, are just stepping stones to push her into admitting her belief, but in reality, she believed it all along, and nothing could have changed her mind."
"So you think she's nuts?"
"I-I don't know what to think, sir. On the one hand, it's completely ludicris to think that something like this is even remotely possible."
"And on the other?"
"Have you been in her room sir? She has a painting of her parents that I swear to you is us, granted our hair styles are somewhat... morphed... but they're uncannily similar. Not to mention the necklace the girl is wearing... it's the same necklace I have always had."
"Necklace?"
"Yeah, it's just a small purple sphere on a gold chain, but it's depicted perfectly."
"Tsukiomi was describing that exact thing to me, said that it disappeared after the accident, they had assumed that it was buried in the cave, but could understand why no ‘demons' went after it."
"I remember her saying something about her father being a ‘half demon,' I wonder what she means by that."
"Probably a different race or creed of the locals, there must have been more villages on the planet..."
"Maybe..."