Title: Roundelay V: Refrain

Author: Jewels

E-mail: jhantor@yahoo.com

Disclaimer: All publicly recognisable characters and places are the property of MGM, World Gekko Corp and Double Secret Productions. They're not mine, never have been mine, even though I wish they were.

Summary: Final part of Roundelay (really this time). Breaking the mould of the previous 1st person stories.

Rating: PG-13

Spoilers: Mild for 'The Tok'ra', I suppose. Nothing you need to worry about. The treaty from D&C happened, but nothing else in that ep did.

Archive: Wherever I say.

Category: Angst, drama. SMR (kinda), AU

Notes: I know, I know. I said the fourth part was the last part. It was meant to be. However, my muse had other ideas. This /really/ is the last part, and contains the answers to foreshadowing I hadn't even realised I'd put in earlier. I suppose I was subconsciously putting them in, knowing, in the end, where this journey would take me. The resulting story is much more plot driven than its predecessors. Hope that doesn't lose me readers. :) I'm thinking that the pacing's maybe a little too rapid in this story. Things are really happening very quickly now, maybe a little too fast. Maybe this is a byproduct of my desire to get the damned story finally finished. I'm very eager to finally move onto new stories and stuff. I've got some interesting stuff lined up that I really can't give my full attention to because I've been working on this.

 

Additional notes: I do bizarre things with pronouns in this story when talking about people who are blended with symbiotes. I keep switching between singular and plural. Strictly speaking, it's all grammatically incorrect, but it's all deliberate for my purposes. Just before you all flame me for not being able to type.

 

Additional additional notes: This fic is rated a PG-13. I don't personally like ratings and don't hold with them - after all, do we rate books? Especially since my stories tend to be a bit fuzzy on how you'd rate them. This story is nowhere near dark/violent/sex-ridden enough to qualify for an R rating, it's not exactly something for the kiddies either. If you're under the age 14-15 range, then this story might be too much for you. It's got nothing /explicit/ but it does give you a bit more than you'd expect in your usual PG-13 fic. This is just before you all flame me for improperly rating my stories.

 

**

 

Part One: Of Sleepless Nights and Moonlit Seas

 

**

 

She was a Goddess, and Her name was Anqet.

 

She ruled her world and her people with the power of the Goa'uld, of technology so powerful is was indistinguishable from magic to these primative people that inhabited the sphere she had claimed for herself. She was not of the System Lords, but she knew all that could change soon. If she proceeded carefully.

 

Her new host, an interloper with flaxen hair, had seemed like a mere fancy at the time of her taking. A whimsy to be tried on for size. But then she discovered who this creature had been, and suddenly her host became a prestigious acquisition. A host that possessed the combined knowledge of the Tok'ra and the Tau'ri. And very suddenly, the System Lords were very interested in what Anqet had to offer.

 

It was rather fortunate for Anqet, in that case, that none of the Lords realised that the rather ephemeral nature of all these memories was making it rather hard for the Goa'uld to access them. The death of the host's previous symbiote had resulted in some subtle, but rather irritating, changes to her central nervous system, and it was difficult to repair.

 

Still, Anqet had no doubt that, given time, she would triumph over the pitiful collection of misfiring neourons that opposed her. And then she fully intended to use every advantage to gain her the rightful rank of System Lord. It would be a small price for their collective to offer her such a position when she knowledge she possessed could bring down two of their greatest enemies in one fell swoop.

 

It meant, however, that the Tok'ra spy she had found in her midst needed not be kept alive when the initial questionning of him proved unsuccessful. Why keep him alive and invite attack from the Tok'ra (or even their allies, the Tau'ri) when soon enough she would gain all the information she needed from her own host?

 

It had been a long time since Anqet had performed a good execution. There just weren't enough traitors in her court anymore to justify a long drawn-out death.

 

As Anqet sat in her chambers, preparing herself for her appearance ahead, she caressed the ribbon device that wrapped itself around her wrist with metallic coolness, mentally visualising the moment when the energy brought forth by her own mind would snatch the Tok'ra's life away, dispersing his energies to the ends of the universe, and, startlingly, felt the phantom memory of fingers not her own trailing across the hand device, settling it properly on her hand and causing a peculiar fluttering in her chest.

 

"You're still trying to force it." A smooth male voice whispered in her ear, and Anqet was chagrined to find herself whirling, looking for the owner of the voice. She was, of course, alone in this place, her inner sanctum. The voice was only a product of her mind, of the disorganised memories that fluttered through them thanks to the damage already done. Anqet closed her eyes and tried to banish the memories, succeeding in only worsening the manner as the blankness of her inner vision was replaced by the liquid blue of the Tok'ra crystalline tunnels.

 

Anqet felt a brief burst of excitement. Was this one of the memories of the Tok'ra? Was this something she could produce and give to the System Lords as proof that the memories were there, accessible, and she deserved her amelioration in rank and status?

 

The same hand slipped over hers again, holding it steady as the hand, clothed in a ribbon device like her own, aimed at a set of damaged crystals. Target practice of some sort?

 

"You seem to believe that when you use this weapon, you must bend it to your will." The voice carried a gentle undertone of amusement as it instructed, Anqet still unable to see his face, and her frustration growing at such a thing.

 

"Isn't that how you make it work?" Anqet's host's voice.

 

A soft chuckle. "When you use your weapon... what did you call it?"

 

"An MP5."

 

"When you use an MP5, must you force it to do your will? Must you make it function with sheer determination?"

 

A slight snicker. "Not really. I usually just press the trigger."

 

"Exactly. This is no different. You are so used to your MP5 and how it works that it is simply second nature. You activate it, and it does what you wish it. With this, you simply activate it, and it does what you wish. Granted, the interface is a little more instinctual than what you are accustomed to but you must simply adjust your mindset." The voice became softer, and Anqet had a feeling that the speaker moved closer to her ear, feeling ghostly breath on her own neck. "The knowledge is contained within you. You know this. Selmak once told you of it. All we are doing here is reawakening your skills." A pause, and the voice sounded like it was indicating something with a jerk of the head. "Now try again."

 

A wave of energy flowed out of the hand device, impacting on the crystals and shattering them into thousands of tiny shards.

 

Anqet's field of vision changed as, in the memory, her head turned to look at her instructor. And all Anqet could see were clear blue eyes.

 

"See." He said. "I told you you could do it."

 

"Your Glory!"

 

The voice of Anqet's First Prime jerked her out of her reverie in such a manner that she felt somewhat shaky, and her heart pounded, until she regained enough of herself to dampen down on her host's andrenaline and reduce her to normalcy. "I thought I instructed that none were to disturb me." She growled, the ribbon device in her hand flaring an angry red in an indication of its wearers state of mind.

 

The First Prime looked distinctly nervous, but, to his credit, pushed on with what he was saying. "Your Worship, forgive me. But the Tok'ra is prepared for death, and the appointed hour has arrived."

 

Startled, Anqet surreptitiously checked the timepiece built into the wall of her chambers, and found that much more time had passed than she had thought had while in that vision of the past. "Of course." Anqet spoke, rising gracefully from her kneeling position amongst the cushions strewn across the floor. It would not behoove a Goddess to be surprised by the lateness of the hour, after all. "Bring the Tok'ra to the courtyard. Gather the people."

 

"Yes, my Lady." Her First Prime said, quickly departing.

 

Anqet unconsciously ran her fingers, in the same manner as those phantom hands had done, over the ribbon device, and smiled in anticipation. By the time she reached the square, she had managed to banish the thoughts that had emerged from that experience to the part of her mind in which she had locked what little of the host survived. Keeping it there for future study, as she would preserve a curious specimen of animal.

 

Her First Prime was already there, decked out in the more ostentatious version of the armour he normally wore. The ceremonial variety that Anqet insisted her Jaffa wear on 'special' occasions, and caused more than a few lascivious thoughts to surface in the Goddess's mind. Yes. There was a definitely a reason why he was kept in his position other than his obvious skills with a staff weapon. As he saw her, he stepped forward, silencing the people of her world with a bellow.

 

"Ten'vret! Kree!" The chattering that had been in rife throughout the square started to die down to a low murmured hush. "Behold! Your Queen!" And gesturing theatrically, he turned to Anqet.

 

Smiling in a condescending manner, a Goddess stepping down from her position in the sky to grace her people with her presence, Anqet stepped out from behind elaborate drapes, throwing her hands open to receive the cheering of her servants, calling, "Kree'nak taz'khac. Toren k'le." The formal blessing bestowed upon the crowd, the chanting grew louder.

 

With a gesture, she quieted them, and spoke clearly, in the common language of the people so that none misunderstood her meaning. "There has been in Our presence a spy." She said, making eye contact with as many of the crowd as possible. "A traitor." An angry whispering sprung up at that. "From the Tok'ra." She gestured imperiously.

 

Her First Prime appeared with his second in command, dragging between them a man decked in what had once been the finery of Anqet's court. However, since his capture and torture within her palace, it had been stained by dirt and bodily fluids of all sorts. He looked tired more than anything, straining to raise his head enough to stare dully at Anqet.

 

"I know you're in there, Samantha..." the host of the Tok'ra was daring to speak. Proof that the Tok'ra needed to be eradicated. Treating their hosts like people. Giving them a voice. No wonder they were so weak. They allowed themselves to be infected by the creatures they should have dominated. "I knew you. Fight her, Samantha." His voice was so quiet that Anqet doubted anyone save herself or the Jaffa holding him had heard him over the angry murmurs of the crowd.

 

Anqet saw her First Prime glance towards her querilously, and her face hardened. How dare he address her host in the presence of her servants? Or at all, for that matter. "This," she said, speaking loudly so the crowd could hear her. "Is what We do to traitors."

 

The Tok'ra barely had the strength to look at her as she held the ribbon device above his head, letting him savour the anticipation of death for several moments before activating it, and feeling all the nerves in her body tingle as she poured her energies into banishing the Tok'ra to the next plane of existence. He was so weak he barely lasted a few moments.

 

'No sport at all,' Anqet thought bitterly as the Tok'ra's head rolled back, eyes wide and unseeing, and the crowd let out a bloodythirsty roar as they witnessed his demise. She signalled for her Jaffa to dispose of the body, and started to turn, intent on heading back inside her palace.

 

But then she froze. For an instant, she thought she had seen shrounded in the robes of her Ten'vret people, two clear blue eyes that she recognised from something other than her own memory. Two clear blue eyes that she had seen in her vision of the Tok'ra.

 

**

 

Anqet sat in her throne room, upon the elegantly cushioned chair that was raised on a dais, and impatiently dismissed the slave girl who had been caring for her mistress's pleasure and sitting back in the throne in dissatisfaction. The incident from that morning was still causing her much distraction. She was almost certain that it was Tok'ra that had arrived on her world. Tok'ra that knew her host before it had been brought to serve her. Perhaps they were even there to attempt a rescue.

 

And for some reason she couldn't fathom, she knew she /had/ to see this Tok'ra.

 

"Jaffa! Kree!" She barked, and the senior of the Jaffa stationed in the throne room stepped forward, bowing his head as he awaited her instructions. "You will half the perimeter guard on this palace." she instructed.

 

"Half, my lady?" The Jaffa's curiosity momentarily overwhelmed his deference.

 

"Are you disobeying my orders?" she snapped, glowering at him, vision momentarily paling into a washed out yellow as her eyes flared.

 

"Of course not, my lady." The Jaffa hurriedly agreed,

 

"And all the throne room guards will be dismissed." She concluded.

 

"But-"

 

"They will be dismissed!" She yelled, causing all in the room to flinch. "Now! Leave me! And you will not disturb me further."

 

And in less than a minute, the room was cleared out.

 

Anqet was left alone. Left alone to contemplate, and anticipte.

 

It wasn't long, however, before the doors to the chamber swung open and Anqet almost growled with disgust. Her Jaffa coming back to gain her instruction on some matter no doubt.

 

'Snivelling children,' Anqet thought unkindly. 'Unable to suckle at their mothers breast without orders to do so.'

 

"Jaffa, kree!" she snapped, putting every menacing thought she possessed into the command. "I gave orders that I not be disturbed."

 

But it was not the Jaffa. It was someone else she recognised. The blue eyes.

 

Tok'ra.

 

"Kal'nek shree Jaffa!" The one with the blue eyes snapped, the voice that of a symbiote. "Kal'nak shree Tok'ra."

 

Anqet felt her eyes flare, raising her hand device. Why had she allowed them to come this far into her palace? What had possessed her? Or was it some remnant influence of her host?

 

How ignominious. To be controlled by an animal.

 

"Don't!" The older one warned, raising his weapon thrateningly. Anqet didn't doubt he would use it.

 

Anqet stood up slowly, jewelry clinking softly as she did so, and stared at the pair of them. Finally, after some aggressive searching through her host's mind, she managed to put names to faces. The older one was her host's father, and the other, younger one, was something... who meant something special to her host.

 

"We know you." Anqet said, a slow smile creeping onto her face "You are of the Tok'ra. Two very important members of the Tok'ra at that." She grinned. "This must be Our lucky day." she said, deliberately using a Tau'ri phrase she had plucked from the host mind, knowing the effect it would have on the two of them. She raised her hand a little higher.

 

And that was when she felt two arms clamp around her neck. She struggled briefly before recognising the hold for what it was, and everything disappeared into darkness.

 

**

 

When everything became light again, she was lying on the floor, the Tok'ra and a female standing over her. "We have to get her to the Chaapa'ai somehow." One was saying.

 

"I know, but she's rather conspicuous in that getup, don't you think?"

 

"She's awake!" The female. And Anqet cursed her, starting to move to make her escape.

 

Then the blue fire of a zat'nik'atel hit her, coursing through her body and sinking her into a world of darkness and pain.

 

**

 

Samantha Carter awoke, clutching at her chest and feeling the aftershocks of a zat'nik'atel blast rippling through her as if she had been shot only yesterday, rather than well over a year earlier. She shuddered, flopping back onto her bed and waiting until her nerves stopped twitching enough to allow her to get to her feet and stumble into her bathroom, splashing her face with cold water in an effort to revive her and bring her back to the here and now.

 

Narva, the capital city of Tollana glistened out of her window, the stars that hung above it reflecting off her bathroom mirror and into her eyes, soothing her with their unchanging sameness from night to night. A gentle reminder that whatever problems plagued her, that in the grand scheme of things, it perhaps didn't really matter.

 

Maybe not in the grand scheme of things. But it certainly mattered to /her/.

 

She hadn't had that dream in a long time. At first she'd managed to get some rather effective drugs from the Tollan doctors that stopped her from remembering her dreams upon awakening, and in time, she'd managed to bury the memories where they couldn't rear up during her sleep and cause her to wish she were dead upon awakening.

 

At least that was one of the less terrifying dreams. Unlike recalling when Anqet had tortured one of her own people for no other reason than boredom. Unlike when she remembered how the self-proclaimed goddess had sent an army down to a planet, and then surveyed the mass of dead and mangled bodies on the battlefield, before retiring with the lament that all the gore ruined her shoes. Or when she'd ordered the children of a village slaughtered after hearing a rumour that a Tok'ra symbiote was residing in one of them. The ones that left her screaming for hours, or sobbing her heart out. Her neighbours didn't appreciate the noise, and she learned to activate her soundproofing before retiring for the night.

 

Why had the nightmares started coming back after all this time? Well, that wasn't hard to work out.

 

When SG1 had appeared through the Tollana Stargate and had been confronted with her presence, unaware that she was still alive, the combined strain had just been too much for her to take. With the painful presence of Martouf and Jacob, and the upwelling of emotions that had accompanied their arrival, being confronted with spectres of her past life was enough to bring all the memories and emotions she had worked so hard to bury to the surface, forcing themselves on her consciousness and demanding she experience them all over again.

 

Wasn't this what she had fled from?

 

Sam didn't know where the Tok'ra or SG1 were at that moment. Upon seeing her, after a stunned silence, Jack and Daniel had started bombarding her with questions. What happened? Where had she been for the last two years? What was wrong and why was she wearing a Tollan outfit?

 

It had been too much for Sam, and she resorted to what had worked for a long time. She fled. But this time the memories refused to be left behind.

 

It was the early morning on Tollana, the darkest hour of the night before the sky started to brighten with the rising sun. Sam knew she couldn't get back to sleep now, and she didn't want to, knowing that her past would only haunt her as she lay attempting to sleep.

 

So she pulled on her clothing, not bothering to make any effort at picking out an outfit, just throwing on an old utility jumpsuit that was lying about in her wardrobe, and a sturdy pair of boots. Finally donning a cloak against the cold of the night, she left her apartment and simply started walking, attempting to clear her mind with the simple act of walking.

 

For a while, it helped. If she just focused on putting one foot in front of the other, getting to the end of the street, around the next corner, across the foot bridge, she could distract herself from the thoughts that were scratching at the door of her mind, baying to be let inside.

 

And then, all of a sudden, she had reached the river, and the ornate bridge that served as a crossing over it. It passed over an estuary, so on one side was a series of trees lining the river, and on the other side, it gradually widened to enter the sea, which spread out to the horizon, the nearby harbour just visible off to the left before it disappeared behind the edge of a cliff. And there was a person already there.

 

Osarena stared at her with hollow eyes as Sam approached. "What are you doing here?" she asked, even her voice sounding dead. Her eyes were swollen, as if with crying.

 

"Walking." Sam answered, slowly coming to a stop aside the technician, leaning on the barrier as she was, gazing out to sea. "Try to forget. You?"

 

Osarena stared at her, as if the mere fact that Sam was being civil to her was something to marvel at. Finally she seemed to mentally dismiss it, and said, "The same as you."

 

"Ah." Sam said, giving her a sidelong glance. "Something to do with Narim."

 

Osarena flinched, as if slapped, and turned her head slowly away from the vista before them and stared at the blonde woman beside her. "Why do you say that?" she asked softly.

 

"Just a wild guess." Sam said in response. "You weren't around this morning. Coupled with the reaction he gave me in response to your name." She paused. "I've seen the way you look at him."

 

Osarena blinked, and Sam could have sworn she saw tears glisten before the woman turned away. "Nothing like the way he looks at you."

 

Sam reared back slightly, brow furrowing. Is this why Osarena hadn't been there when bidding farewell to the Tok'ra? "Did you two have a fight of some sort?" she asked.

 

Osarena whirled this time, mouth slightly agape in shock. "How can you not know? Didn't Narim /tell/ you?" she gasped.

 

"Tell me what?" Sam demanded, eyes narrowing and her voice becoming steely. Osarena didn't respond, just quickly turned away, hands gripping the barrier so hard her knuckles turned white. Comprehension came over the other woman. "You told my dad and Martouf where to find me."

 

It was just her luck wasn't it? Another woman she had counted as a friend had betrayed her.

 

Sam just sighed tiredly, unable to summon the energy to bestow the fury she wished upon Osarena. Besides, the woman was clearly distraught, and Sam couldn't bring herself to add to it, in spite of however much she would have like to. Maybe she felt guilty enough. Maybe that was the reason for the tears.

 

"You bitch." was all she said, in a very tired voice.

 

"I deserved that." Osarena said softly.

 

"And a lot more." Sam agreed. She raised her head from her hands in which she'd buried it momentarily, examining Osarena thoughtfully. "So why'd you do it?"

 

Osarena laughed mirthlessly. A short, sharp bark of noise that had nothing to do with amusement. "Because I'm a petty, jealous idiot." She said, shaking her head and examining her hands. "Who didn't realise what doing it would cost her until she was too late."

 

Sam straightened, waving a hand. "I never wanted Narim," She lied. "Not that way. You could have had him."

 

"No, I couldn't." Osarena said slowly, turning to look at her. "Because you had him. Heart and mind. I wasn't quick enough."

 

The pair of them fell into silence, staring out on the sea. Sam thought she could make out one of the fishing trawlers controlled from the Narva main computer heading back into the protected harbour on schedule, delivering its load of fish for consumption and saving a few specimens for scientific study. In spite of the fact that the planet had been thoroughly surveyed, the Tollan people still had many things to learn about their new home.

 

"I heard about what happened at the Stargate." Osarena finally said, not removing her own gaze from the peacefully rippling water.

 

"The whole city probably knows." Sam groused. "Damned gossiping artisans."

 

"Well, it's not like they have any real work to do." Osarena pointed out, her tone derisive. She was silent for a moment, then asked, "So what are you going to do?"

 

"If I knew that," Sam answered after a long pause. "Then I wouldn't be out here at three am, walking through the pitch dark with a woman who betrayed me as my only company."

 

Sam knew her words stung the technician, but was too emotionally exhausted to care.

 

"You can't run from your problems forever." Osarena finally said, turning her gaze infinitesimally to look at Sam. "Especially not the ones you've got. I wouldn't want to be in your position for anything. I have my problems, but they're not as emotionally damaging as yours."

 

"Nice to know you care." Sam bite out sharply.

 

Osarena sniffed slightly before answering. "I did care about you, Samantha." she said, sounding a little arch, and a little sad at the time time. "Even when I was wracked with jealousy because Narim looked at you the way I prayed to all the gods the Tollan ever believed in that he would look at me. I did care about you." She straightened, moving to make her departure. "I'm just sorry our friendship has ended this way." And with that, she strode off, up the steep hill and towards the row of buildings that contained her own housing.

 

And Samantha was left with nothing save her own gnawing thoughts and the sea for company.

 

**

 

Part Two: Decisions and Discussions

 

**

 

Sam spent a good deal of the rest of the night wandering around the city, up and down the hills and the regimented streets that had been carefully plotted out during the relocation of its people from their doomed homeworld. She eventually returned to her apartment as the day started to lighten, somewhat wetter than when she had left earlier that night. In her musings, she had strayed a little too close to the sea front at high tide, and had been soaked by the arcing waves as they slapped violently against the walls. It had certainly proved an effective distraction.

 

A message light was flashing discretely on her personal console when Sam arrived back at her apartment, a light she didn't recall seeing as she left. But then, she hadn't exactly been in the right state of mind to notice anything at the time.

 

"Play message." was all she said as she walked towards her bathroom, pulling off her soggy cape and wringing it out gently before draping it across the heating element.

 

"Samantha," The voice that drifted across the space between rooms was quite familiar to her as Narim's. But at that moment, all Sam would have welcomed was a nice, normal word from her boss or her coworkers about when was she going to be back at the lab or what was she doing in a few weekends time? Anything other than talking about what was going on at the moment.

 

"Oh... piss off." was Sam's less than articulate response to the image. There was no answer, naturally. The date stamp she had glimpsed at before she had activated the message told her it had been received last night, and she hadn't noticed.

 

"I hate to have to ask you this," Narim's voice hesitated, but Sam didn't pause in towelling her hair dry. "But we need you to come to the Curia building tomorrow. It's a matter of some urgency and I'm afraid..." This time, when he paused, Sam straightened and peered around the door to stare at the visual portion of the message. Narim looked distinctly uncomfortable, glancing to the side as if consulting someone else. "I'm afraid that your friends need your help."

 

Sam closed her eyes and tossed her towel aside in a fit of irritation. What help? They didn't know she was here. What help would they need from a dead woman?

 

Well then. If they hadn't expected to need her, then they still wouldn't need her know they had been corrected as to the state of her existance. She would go to the Curia in the morning, find out what was so important, and then politely tell them to deal with it themselves. Sam stood slightly straighter, feeling a little relieved at having made so definite a decision after days of uncertainty.

 

She glanced at the time. By her count, she had at least two hours to make it look as if she hadn't been awake all night, wandering around and getting soaked to the skin by errant waves.

 

**

 

The Curia building itself was somewhat akin to a rabbit warren in its complexity. Sam would be embarrassed to admit it, but she never entered the facility without a map-holding datapad concealed about her person with which she could use to navigate her way to her destination. She didn't spend all her time there, so her lack of knowledge was understandable, but it still made her rather embarrassed to see grey garbed workers moving around the buildings as if its layout was second nature.

 

As such, she always gave herself a five or ten minute headstart whenever she was summoned to the Curia. Today was no different, especially when she realised she had never been to the chamber in question. It was a governmental briefing room, rather smaller than most Tollan rooms, but adequately provisioned for any sort of small meeting. When she arrived, she found that it consisted of a roughly circular room with a small reflecting pool in the centre, a mosaic of a Tollan plant (transplanted to the Tollan agricultural facilities) resembling a lily inset into its base. Two tables in rough semi-circles were arranged around the pool, and around the edge, a few plants were placed here and there for colour against the white drapery.

 

Also present in the room were SG1, who took up a table on their own, her father and Martouf, and Narim.

 

She shouldn't have faltered as she did. She knew they were going to be there. But maybe it was the look they all gave her as she entered the room, stepping quietly and quickly over towards the only seat left available on the far end of one of the tables, next to Narim. She folded her hands in her lap and quietly stared at her fingernails until she realised that the focus of this discussion was, in fact, to be her.

 

"Thank you for coming, Samantha," Narim said, apparently chairing the meeting.

 

"Hey, Sam." Jack said softly.

 

Sam just bobbed her head, trying to avoid meeting the eyes on anyone in the room.

 

"To tell you the truth we... ah..." Daniel was the one to speak, leaning forward earnestly. "We didn't plan on including you in this for... obvious reasons, but once we found out you were alive..."

 

"We came here to speak to them." Jack said, waving a negligent hand towards Jacob and Martouf. "The Tok'ra said they were here."

 

Sam frowned a little, and glanced towards her father and Martouf.

 

"Earth and the Tok'ra have a treaty now, Sam." Jacob said, giving her a gentle smile.

 

"Ah." Sam said, speaking for the first time. "Missed that."

 

"Yeah, well, we kinda need the Tok'ra's help." Jack said, looking vaguely uncomfortable with the whole idea. "We went looking for it on Vorash, but they all clammed up and told us to come here." He stopped, staring intently at Sam. The 'And now I see why' going unspoken.

 

Sam shifted uncomfortably in her seat and tried to mentally wish herself a little smaller.

 

"Truth is," Jack drawled, continuing in his explanation. "We wouldn't have a problem if the Tok'ra had given us the proper information in the first place."

 

Lantash's eyes snapped with irritation. "We gave you the knowledge we possessed at the time, O'Neill. The fault is not ours if the situation changed."

 

Jack just waved his hands in a 'whatever' gesture. Narim leant forward, smoothly interspersing himself into the potential argument. "Perhaps we should explain to Samantha why we asked her here."

 

Jack glanced to the woman sitting to his left, who seemed to be only paying half a mind to the conversation around her. "Harrison. You were more closely involved in the Project than the rest of us. Why don't you start off?"

 

Major B. Harrison, as her uniform labelled her, started at the address, returning her attention from her inspection of the walls and back to the conversation at hand. "Yes sir." She said quickly, and paused a moment to gather her thoughts. She looked over and looked Sam in the eye. The woman found it somewhat unnerving. The Major who was so obviously her replacement in SG1 was the only one who seemed to dare look at her so directly. Perhaps because they'd never known each other. "There's a planet we've designated P4T-269. It's a rather unremarkable moon in orbit of a jovian. Oxygen-nitrogen atmosphere. Lots of trees."

 

Sam frowned. That sounded distinctly familiar; the name plucked at her mind with an insistence of a half-buried memory. In her thoughtfulness, however, she didn't see the nervous looks Lantesh and her father kept casting her.

 

"We've been using it as a base of operations for a scientific research project." Harrison said, fingers flicking over the white surface of the table. She did not, Sam noticed, elaborate on what that project was. "Basically for the purposes of secrecy. There are things you can hide on an alien world you can't hide in the middle of Nevada. A few days ago, one of the SG teams that had been guarding the scientists made it through the Gate with severe casualties. Jaffa came through the gate, and took most of the science team and the other SG team captive. The rest were killed. Turns out the planet wasn't as abandoned as the Tok'ra had told us."

 

"The Tau'ri," Lantash interrupted, obviously feeling compelled to speak in defense of his movement. "Asked us if the planet was inhabited by the Goa'uld. Since the only Goa'uld to stake a claim to the world was dead, we believed there to be no threat in occupying an otherwise empty world." He was suddenly staring at her with such intensity that Sam wondered what she was missing.

 

Then it hit her, causing her to physically sag back in her chair. "Brek'tak." she uttered, the name coming easily to her mind now that her memory had connected the SGC designation and the world name in her mind. Lantash closed his eyes, inclining his head in brief acknowledgement. "Now I see why you wanted to talk to me."

 

"Anqet claimed the planet." Jacob confirmed in a gentle tone. "It seems that since she just vanished one day, her underlings weren't sure whether or not she was dead."

 

"Turns out," Daniel said, taking over the narrative. "One of those underlings has finally decided that she's been absent so long that she must be dead, and has started to stake his claim over her territory."

 

"What do you want from me?" Sam asked weakly, unable to bring herself to open her eyes and look at her teammates. Her former teammates.

 

"Information." Teal'c spoke, succintly as always. "Jacob Carter informed us of your possession by a Goa'uld. We wished to know if you could provide us with information the System Lords possessed as to the size and nature of Anqet's army."

 

Sam did open her eyes then, looking towards Narim and the Tok'ra. "You didn't tell them." She said, a faint wondering in her voice.

 

Narim shook his head softly, and Sam sighed.

 

"Tell them what?" Jack prompted.

 

Sam turned to look at him. "Anqet was the Goa'uld who used me as a host." She said, the words coming out far easier than she expected. She felt somehow disconnected from them as they were uttered, and noticed Harrison's eyebrows arching almost as much as Teal'c's.

 

"Then you can provide us with a lot more information." she said.

 

"Actually," Jacob broke in, looking as if he would rather be back on Naetu rather than proposing this idea. "We think she can do a lot more than just provide information."

 

Sam felt Narim's comforting arm resting on her forearm, although it didn't register in her mind as the world went hazy, and she shook her head, attempting to deny what her own father was suggesting.

 

A return to the Hell from whence she came.

 

"No... you can't make me." she whispered fiercely.

 

"No, we can't." Jacob said, looking at her with deep sympathy. "We're asking."

 

"Wait a minute," Jack leant forward. "What are we asking?"

 

Jacob returned his attention to SG1 as Narim tried to calm Sam with murmured reassurances in her ear. "Sam can pose as Anqet. She knows the Goa'uld, she knows the underlings. And they know her. As far as they know, she's not dead. Her First Prime's been keeping the illusion that she's still alive. Why, we don't know. Until now, it's been enough to keep them in line. If she turns up and orders them to release the prisoners, then they probable will."

 

Harrison looked at Sam, who had turned almost as pale as the room decorations. Then she looked at Jack. "If she can't, we'll have to do this any way we can. We can't allow the information they have to-" And Jack shushed her with an impatient motion as Narim glanced in their direction sharply.

 

"We need to get our people out." He said simply, looking directly at Sam, who stared back at him, feeling as if she were drowning under his scrutinising gaze. "We could use your help. But we're not going to make you do anything."

 

Sam swallowed, her throat deprived of moisture. "Can I think about it?" she asked weakly, glancing from one to the other.

 

In her heart, though, she already knew what her answer was going to be.

 

**

 

It didn't, however, mean that she was unsurprised when she entered the Stargate courtyard, bag slung over her back and heading towards the small group that had gathered in preparation to leave Tollana. And she would be going with them. In a few short hours, she had made the decision to go with them. To return to the life she had fled. To voluntarily expose herself to that nightmare again.

 

What on Earth did she think she had left unfinished that necessitated her returning to that?

 

"Don't go." It was Narim, standing at her shoulder, having intercepted her as she stepped into the courtyard. He had caught her before she had joined the rest of the group, successfully keeping their words out of earshot.

 

"I have to." She responded distantly, unsure of whether she was actually saying her words aloud, so separated from them did she feel. "I don't know why, but I have to."

 

"Why not stay here?" He pleaded, reaching out and grasping her hand, and holding onto her as if fearing she would step out of his life forever if he let go.

 

And perhaps she would.

 

"I thought you were happy here."

 

"I was."

 

"And now?"

 

"Now?" Sam's eyes slid to the side, watching the omnipresent artisans as they daubed in another section of the mural. "I don't know. Nothing makes sense any more."

 

"Then stay here." He said, eyes sliding briefly towards SG1 to make sure none were approaching to interrupt before returning to look at her. "You shouldn't go if you're less than completely sure."

 

"I feel like..." Sam trailed off, trying to pin down the ephemeral sensation that was rippling through her. An echo of her symbiotes? Or something else? "Like this is my last chance." she finally settled on, looking him in the eye, mentally pleading with him to understand her. Even if she didn't understand herself.

 

Narim lowered his eyes, unable to look at her for a moment. "I don't want to lose you." he finally said.

 

Impulsively, she threw her arms around his neck, putting more into the display of sudden affection than anything else she had in a year. "There's someone else for you here. Even if I'm not around." And she pulled back, before turning her head to the person that she'd noticed on her way in.

 

A fair distance away, but not so far away that she couldn't see clearly everything that was going on, Osarena stood partways up a hill, staring at what was going on. At Samantha and Narim.

 

He turned back and looked at Sam, curiosity in his eyes, obviously wondering what she knew.

 

"She loves you." Was all she said. It was all she had to say.

 

Narim stared at her a moment, then leaned forward a little and kissed her chastely on the cheek. "Good luck." He said, warmly, before giving her hand a final squeeze and dropping it. She smiled distantly at him, and turned slightly to walk towards SG1, her father and Martouf.

 

When she turned back just before reaching the group, she saw Narim approaching Osarena and the woman turning to her. A few moments later, he reached out and brushed his fingers against her cheek.

 

Sam turned away.

 

The group were watching her carefully as she approached.

 

"Got everything you need?" Jack asked cautiously, and Sam merely nodded in response, raising her bag slightly to indicate it. It wasn't hard to pick what she wanted to bring with her. She had never had that many posessions to begin with. Jack paused, looking at her intently, then reached out and placed a hand on her shoulder. "Are you sure you want to do this?" he asked, his manner giving every indication that he'd call the whole thing off there and then if she said no.

 

But she couldn't very well do that now, could she? "I'm sure." she said, offering him a slight smile and a confidence of voice that she did not feel.

 

"Okay then." He said, glancing towards Daniel. "Dial us up."

 

Daniel jumped, almost surprised at the mundane order in the midst of the unusual scene, and then stared at the Tollan DHD for a moment, before figuring out its operation and tapping in the code for Earth. Jacob put an arm around his daughters shoulders.

 

"You'll be alright, Sam." He said, squeezing her gently. "I promise."

 

"Cross your heart and hope to die?" Sam said, her vague smile not reaching her eyes.

 

Jacob just gave her another, somewhat sadder, squeeze as the wormhole opened, and he and Sam followed SG1 back to Earth, with Martouf following just behind.

 

**

 

Part Three: UPS Never Worked This Quick...

 

**

 

It was either a very poorly designed projectile, or an extremely squishy box. In fact it was neither. The fairly hefty hide-wrapped package came sailing through the event horizon and hit the ramp's surface with a dull thud. The impact jarred the contents slightly, creating a dully metallic 'chink'. A few moments later, the wormhole disengaged and the SGC's Gateroom was left filled with a puzzled silence, as the guards contemplated the package as if wondering whether to shoot it, or marvel at the fact that it was possible to get a parcel delivered from the other side of the galaxy in less time than it took to get an ambulance.

 

Then Jacob Carter entered the Gateroom, after having seen the parcel's arrival through the control room. "Ah, excellant," was all he said as he jogged up the ramp and picked up the package, extracting a plastic flimsy that had been stuck into the bindings that held the parcel together. It was covered in Goa'uld characters that seemed to meet with Jacob's approval as he read them, nodding his head and returning to the control room.

 

"This is the material I told Erinye to send us when we ordered her back to the Homeworld." he said, in explanation, to General Hammond, who stood watching him warily. Hammond had seem somewhat disconcerted around his old friend since SG1, with three extra people, returned from Tollana, one of whom he had thought dead a long time ago.

 

"What is it?" he asked as Jacob pulled at a corner to glance inside the parcel and make sure it matched up with whatever was on the flimsy. Probably a list of contents or something.

 

"Equipment." was all Jacob said, somewhat evasively, in return. "Is there somewhere I can put this?"

 

Hammond nodded, gesturing a guard forward and instructing him to take the parcel and put it with the rest of SG1's equipment, and then he and Jacob started back to Hammond's office, where they had been before the summons from the incoming wormhole.

 

As they reached his office, Hammond turned slightly towards Jacob as he held the door open for the Tok'ra and said, "You never answered my question."

 

Jacob sighed heavily, running his fingers over his head as he took a seat opposite of George's desk, before folding his hands in his lap. "Would you believe me if I said it just slipped our minds?" he asked, raising his eyebrows.

 

Hammond shut the door firmly and crossed to his chair, feeling sour at such a response to his query. "Not in the slightest." He said, taking his seat and giving Jacob a glower.

 

Jacob, for his part, sighed and dropped his gaze to his lap before looking up again. "At first, we didn't tell you because when we grabbed her, she was still host to Anqet, and we weren't sure she would survive." He took a deep breath, obvious pain on his features as he recounted what had happened to his daughter. "Then, after she was separated..." He seemed to search for words for several moments. "She was a mess, George." He look hard at his old friend, conveying to the General all the desperation he had felt at that time. "She wouldn't communicate with anyone. Wouldn't even react. The Healers couldn't help her. We didn't know what to do. Then one day, she just disappeared. And it was a year before we found out where she was. And a few days later, SG1 showed up."

 

There was a silence as Hammond took that in, and then he sighed. "Not an easy situation, huh, Jacob?"

 

Jacob smiled mirthlessly at that. "You could say that."

 

"To be honest," Hammond continued, "I always wondered what was up. Every time you came here, you always looked twice your age. Even with Selmak taking care of you. I put it down to Major Carter's death. Obviously more was going on."

 

"Yeah," Jacob said softly. "It's one thing to know someone you love is dead. To be able to mourn them and move on. But when they've just disappeared... and you don't know if they're dead or not..." He trailed off, and when he spoke again, his voice bore the telltale distortion of his symbiote.

 

"It was a painful time for Jacob, and to be honest, it still is." Selmak said, looking sad. "It was hard for him even to think about it then. Do not blame him for not speaking of it to you. You would have demanded far too much that he could not give."

 

Hammond nodded slowly. "I understand that, Selmak."

 

"I know you do," Selmak said, raising his head to look at Hammond. "Through my shared memories with Jacob. He and I are one, and as such I consider you a friend, General, even though the time of our acquaintance has been brief. I hope you would not blame myself, or the Tok'ra, for keeping this from you."

 

Hammond blinked, not expecting such a sentiment to come from his friend's symbiote. And, surprisingly, the idea didn't bother him as much as he would have thought. He sighed, leaning back, "Blame you, no. I don't blame you. Disappointed in you, yes. I honestly thought the Tok'ra took us more seriously as allies than that."

 

"The Council's thoughts on the matter are divided." Selmak said, obviously displeased with such a stance by the Tok'ra leadership. "Some are in favour of our alliance, and others believe we should return to our isolated state. That forging relations with other races leave us open to attack. Such opinions run split throughout the Tok'ra. As such, information is often left unconveyed."

 

And then Jacob returned. "It's not that the Tok'ra don't trust you, it's just that experience has taught us to be wary." He said, a humourless smile graced his lips.

 

Hammond left the 'us and them' part of Jacob's words uncommented on.

 

"Where is Sam now?" Jacob finally asked.

 

Hammond blinked at the sudden change in conversation track, but answered without mentioning it. "She should still be in the Infirmary getting checked out. Doctor Frasier will probably want to run her through the full series of tests." And make sure, he didn't add, that she is who she says she is.

 

"It'll be good to know she's healthy." Jacob said, distantly.

 

Hammond suddenly felt moved to reassure his friend. "Jacob. I'm sure she'll be alright. Sam's always been a strong woman."

 

"Strong, yes." Jacob shook his head. "Something happened though. While she was Anqet's host. Apart from the actual possession. She was just so traumatised. The Tok'ra have had contact with former hosts of the Goa'uld that aren't as torn up inside as she is. I don't even think Erinye knew, and she was the only one that Sam confided in."

 

"But unless she tells us," It was Selmak again, switching between himself and Jacob with nary a blink of the eyes, confirming Hammond's long-held suspicion that the head-dip was all for show. "Then we may never know."

 

**

 

"Well, Doc?"

 

Janet Frasier looked up from the myriad results and reports on her desk to look tiredly at Teal'c and Jack O'Neill, who had just been released from the standard post-mission scans and checks, and had, by the looks of things, come to see her immediately. She didn't even need to ask what they were referring to, but she did anyway, feeling the need to gather her thoughts before she was bombarded by questions from Samantha Carter's former teammates.

 

"Well what?"

 

"Is that Sam?" Jack asked.

 

Janet sighed. "Physically, as far as I can tell yes. She has the same scars from where we had to remove all that shrapnel from two and a half years ago. The signs of the same broken bones. Her blood work hasn't come back yet, but I'm guessing that'll show us more. Mentally though..." Janet closed her eyes briefly. "You only have to look at her, and she's different."

 

Janet would never forget the moment when she had entered the infirmary to see the living breathing incarnation of her supposedly dead friend, only to be brought up short when she had looked into those eyes that seemed so dead, and yet filled with so much pain that if it weren't for the medical results in front of her, she would hardly have believed belong to the same Samantha Carter that was like a second mother to Cassandra.

 

"She is not the same woman." Teal'c said, putting into succinct words what Janet had been struggling with since seeing Sam. "Her soul has suffered many battles, and has not come out unscathed. I have seen it in warriors who have fought long, and do not wish to battle any more."

 

"So what's the deal with this Carter chick? I mean, everyone's talking about her, but I don't get half of what they're saying." That came from Brenda Harrison, who entered Janet's office just behind Daniel. Janet saw the faces of SG1 sour slightly. Brenda hadn't been with SG1 for very long, and had never seemed to fit in with any of them. Personally, Janet put it down to the fact that they saw it as an attempt at replacing Sam. They accepted Harrison because it was orders. But it didn't mean they had to like it. And Harrison seemed fine with that. An engineer transferred from Area 51, she spent most of her time around the technical crew of the SGC anyway.

 

"The deal is that she was taken over by a Goa'uld." Jack said, slightly annoyed at Harrison's flippancy.

 

Harrison wrinkled her nose. "No offence, but we've seen ex-hosts before. None of them seem quite so... well... forgive me, but screwed I think is the best word."

 

Daniel sighed sadly, looking towards Harrison. "We don't know either. We barely know what happened to her. What could have been so awful as to turn her like this..." He trailed off, and Harrison didn't seem to be in possession of a come back. She just bit her lip thoughtfully and glanced towards the corridor, down which Sam lay in the infirmary, waiting for the medical verdict on her.

 

"Who's that guy that's with her?" She asked.

 

Janet frowned, wracking her brain for who had been with Sam when she had examined the woman. "Ah. Martouf."

 

"And he's..."

 

"Martouf is Tok'ra." Teal'c said, as if that was all she needed to know.

 

Harrison took the hint, and fell silent.

 

"So she's going to be able to come on this mission?" Jack said, turning back to Janet.

 

The doctor nodded, picking up and fingering the edge of Sam's medical file, which had been buried in records and had taken a while to relocate. It had been sealed after her death, and never expected to reopen. "According to my preliminary findings, there's no physical reason for her not to travel off-world." She gave a short bark of lifeless laughter. "But I get the impression that these are only a formality. She's not 'officially' part of the SGC anymore. Martouf said something about Tollan citizenry. We couldn't keep her here if we wanted."

 

"Why's she here anyway?" Jack asked softly, almost to himself. "She didn't seem very happy to come back."

 

"Who knows what she's been through?" Daniel said, pragmatically. "Who knows what thoughts are going through her head?"

 

"She does." Teal'c said, simply.

 

**

 

Sam absently rubbed at the crook of her elbow, smoothing out the small beige circular plaster that the nurse had just pressed onto her arm after taking enough blood to stock a small blood bank. Martouf stood nearby, Lantash in control, leaning against another bed.

 

"A remarkably barbaric method of extracting fluids," Lantash spoke, moving slowly towards Sam, and giving the medical tools in the tray next to Sam's bed before giving it an expression of distaste and looking down at Sam's arm as he reached her side. "It can only be performed a certain number of times before the vein collapses. And I would imagine it is not without pain." He had reached out to gently trace the edge of the self-adhesive dressing, but Sam pulled her arm away, shivering.

 

"Don't." She said quickly, before seeing the slight look of hurt on his face, rapidly covered. "You're... prickly." she said, somewhat in explanation.

 

Martouf spoke now, giving Sam a sad sympathetic smile. "I am sorry our presence makes you uncomfortable. Not being exposed to symbiotes for a while would doubtless heighten your sensitivity." He paused, probably consulting with Lantash. "We can leave, if you like."

 

Sam hesitated, fighting her instinctive urge to push him away. The alternative was remaining here, in this sterile room of concrete and softly beeping machines that, after a year of Tollan technology, seemed unbearably primative to her mind. Alone and in silence. "No." She said finally, shaking her head and forcing herself to look him in the eye. "It's alright. Stay."

 

Martouf nodded gently, moving to the seat that was placed beside the bed and sitting on it gingerly, as if worried sitting on it the wrong way would cause him to fall off. Sam recalled, with amusement, the first time Martouf had ever tried to sit on the workstation seat that were in her lab. They had a tendency to bounce when sat upon, and unless one knew that and was prepared, it tended to cause the would-be occupant of the chair to wind up falling to the floor. The image of a Tok'ra sprawled on the floor of her lab, looking rather bemused at her laughter, had stayed with her for weeks.

 

Sam felt a smile tugging at her lips, and quickly erased it. But not quickly enough.

 

"What's so funny?" Martouf asked her, tilting his head, hands folded in his lap. He seemed to be consciously restraining himself from reaching out and touching her. He had always been quite a tactile person, tending to touch people when speaking to them, although his diplomatic training had managed to train the instinct out of him. Obviously he was employing that now.

 

"Just... memories." Sam said, then glanced at him. "Good ones. Don't have many of them."

 

"Those memories should be cherished." Martouf told her. "Savoured for when circumstances are not so favourable." He looked down at her. "What else do you remember?"

 

"I remember..." Sam closed her eyes briefly, thinking back. "I can remember a world with three moons, and the sea was an odd purple shade. You were there."

 

Martouf smiled distantly. "Reelas. The Tok'ra used it as a staging world briefly. Jolinar and I were on the initial scouting party."

 

Sam looked disappointed. Perhaps, he thought, she had hoped that the memory was one of her own, and not that of her erstwhile symbiote.

 

"What else?" he prompted, hoping to gain a pleasant memory that came entirely from her. Hoping to gain that faint smile he had seen from her moments earlier. Briefly, it had brought light to her eyes and made her look vaguely like the woman he once knew.

 

Sam looked like she wasn't going to say anything for a moment, then seemed to change her mind, her expression shifting as if something had caught her vision, just in the corner of her eye. "I can remember a forrested world with small purple birds that looked vaguely like eggplants. It was raining and... we were under shelter. You put your arms around me to keep me warm because I'd gotten so cold and wet." She looked up at him. "Another experience with Jolinar?"

 

Martouf smiled, bringing his hand towards her, but arresting the motion before they came into contact, resting his arm against the edge of the bed. "No. That was you and I. When we went on a joint Tau'ri-Tok'ra mission to gather some intelligence. We were separated from your team and forced to wait out a storm before proceeding back to the Chaapa'ai."

 

Sam didn't seem to know whether to be happy that she had found a memory of her own, or dismayed at the fact that she hadn't realised it was her own. "How could I not remember that?" she asked, somewhat wonderingly.

 

"Your mind was undoubtedly damaged when we removed Anqet." Martouf said gently. The Healers had been afraid of that. They hadn't known whether there was any memory disruption, since Sam had hardly been cooperative. And she had left without submitting to a more thorough scan. "It may heal." He said, although privately, Lantash voiced the opinion that without the aid of a symbiote, she would likely never be able to segregate the memories of herself and Jolinar, which were already mixed.

 

Sam sighed, lowering her gaze to the fingers she had laced over her chest when she had lain down on the bed. "You know, with anyone else, that very accomplished combination of a bedside manner and diplomatic training would fool them." She raised a finger without unlacing her hands. "I know you better."

 

"Yes," He mused. "You do. Probably better than anyone."

 

Sam looked up at him thoughtfully, and opened her mouth to respond-

 

"Sam! I just got your results."

 

Sam broke off whatever she had been about to say and sat up from her lying position. Martouf restrained the urge to support her as she seemed slightly dizzy from such a quick motion, but she quickly recovered and focussed on Janet Frasier, who had just entered the infirmary. SG1 were in tow, hanging back until the Doctor had finished with her.

 

Janet Frasier approached, brandishing Sam's medical file and gesturing with it expanisively. "I've finished with all your bloodwork, physical exams, etc, and as near as I can tell, you're in perfect health."

 

"Physical health." Sam quantified, eliciting a frown from Janet.

 

"Yes." She said, fiddling with the file. There was an awkward silence. "Um... I have other patients to check on." She says, excusing herself quickly and departing.

 

SG1 approached, Jack in the lead, who smiled gently at Sam. "Good to have you back, Major."

 

Daniel came closer, as if to support Jack's words. "Yeah, welcome home, Sam."

 

As Martouf looked at Samantha, he realised that it was hardly possible that she could look less like she had come home.

 

Did she even have a home any more?

 

'Like Jacob said, we're her family, we understand like none of these will,' Lantash said, murmuring into Martouf's ear from inside his own mind.

 

'Do we?' Martouf asked his symbiote silently, as Sam smiled and mouthed platitudes to her former teammates. 'Really?'

 

To that, Lantash had no answer.

 

**

 

Part Four: Reflection

 

**

 

Samantha Carter walked through the corridors of her former workplace like a ghost. People who didn't recognise her, or hadn't been around when she had served with the SGC, looked at each other in puzzlement, wondering why this woman in Tollan clothing was walking around the place unescorted and looking like she was half dead. The ones who remembered her just watched her in silence, before turning and muttering to themselves.

 

And Sam ignored them all.

 

How long had she been walking? She didn't know. Truth to tell, she'd lost track. Underneath the mountain, there was nothing to indicate the changing of the time of day; the light levels didn't shift in the slightest, and Sam no longer had a watch.

 

"Are you lost?"

 

Sam whirled at the unexpected voice. She'd wandered into SG1's equipment room somehow, her feet obviously working on autopilot while her brain was shut down. Jack O'Neill was standing behind her, an armful of clothing in his hands that he was dropping onto a bench. Obviously some harried airman had shoved the pile into his hands. That, or Jack had taken up being SG1's official launderer.

 

"What? No..." She said quickly, shaking her head. "Just..." She struggled for an excuse for her presence that wouldn't sound too trite. "Looking around the place. Looks... the same as ever."

 

"Well, I don't know about that." Jack said, shoving the equipment into a storage locker. "New coat of paint maybe. You should have seen the place last time we got these hostile aliens - are there any other kind? - through the Gate. Carbon scoring /everywhere/. So we went from gunmetal grey," He paused dramatically. "To battleship grey."

 

Sam felt her lips twitching reflexively, and stared at the uniforms as the locker door closed on them. Three extra sets. Ah. So one of those would be hers then. Probably the smaller one. Her fingers absently brushed over the soft synthetic fibres of the Tollan garment she was clad in. She'd have to get rid of this. It was far too impractical.

 

Jack eyed her, as if taking note of her fidgeting with her robes, but made no comment on it, instead folding his arms and leaning back against the locker to look at her. "Enjoying being back?" He asked, cautiously.

 

Sam bit her lip and sat down on the bench delicately, as if wary against breaking it by sitting down too rapidly. "I don't know what I expected." She said, finally. "But this wasn't it. The looks people give me in the corridors." She shuddered, then looked up at her former commanding officer. "The ones that don't know me look at me like I'm an alien in their midst. The ones that do..." She shook her head and turned away. "They just look at me with pity."

 

There was a slight rustling as Jack sat down beside her. "The rat bastards." he said, eliciting a mild smirk from Sam.

 

There was a pause, and then:

 

"What happened to you, Sam?" he asked, resting a hand on her shoulder gently. Unlike her father, or Martouf's touch, it elicited none of the skin-crawling sensation of a naqada reaction. The sign of a symbiote.

 

"Shit happened." She answered, her voice harsh, before standing up and pacing as much as the small space of the room would allow.

 

"Apart from the usual shit." Jack said, leaning back slightly on the bench. "You've changed, Sam."

 

"A Goa'uld'll do that to you." Sam said, hand reaching up to scratch the back of her neck, where there had used to be a scar from where Anqet had entered her body before the Tok'ra had removed it upon her rescue.

 

"No. There's something else."

 

Sam stared at him for a very long moment. "No." She said finally, her body very still. "There isn't."

 

Jack took the hint. There were things in his past /he/ definitely wouldn't want anyone dragging him through again, and he sure as hell wasn't going to put her through it. "So." He said, clapping his hands together. "Looking forward to this mission?"

 

Sam's lips curved into a mirthless smile. "As much as I'd look forward to a root canal. Which, incidentally, I've never had. Tollan dentistry is quite advanced."

 

Jack waved a dismissive hand. "Way smarter than us. Got it. Bet they don't even have lawyers."

 

Sam cleared her throat. "Well, actually..."

 

"Forget I asked." Jack said quickly, but Sam saw the amusement in his face before he turned slightly away from her.

 

There was a silence that after a few seconds, started to stretch into awkwardness. Sam contemplated making her excuses and leaving, but stoically refused to do that, undoubtedly it would make things even more uncomfortable. Although how that could be was beyond her. To these people, she'd just come back from the dead. "Who's this Harrison woman?" she finally asked, after casting about for several moments to find a suitable topic of conversation. This question that had been niggling at her for a while finally surfaced.

 

Jack turned back to her, looking faintly surprised at the change in conversation. "Brenda Harrison?" He clarified, and before Sam could offer a nod of agreement, he shrugged and continued, "She's an engineer. Transferred in from Area 51 to serve as someone who could look at all the Gould technology we kept picking up. Not anywhere /near/ your league by the way."

 

Sam felt a faint smile crease her mouth.

 

"Later got assigned by Hammond to SG1 when your replacement, Captain Saunders, lost a leg after a Goa'uld ambush. He was a good guy, but after that... well, he obviously couldn't continue."

 

Sam pressed her lips together. "What's she like?"

 

Jack hmmed softly. "She's... competant. Bit full of herself. That's what happens when you're posted at Area 51 I suppose. They all think they're so much /smarter/ than us." A slight pause, and then, "Hangs around the tech guys. I think she's sleeping with Siler."

 

Sam blinked, and then uttered a brief bark of laughter. "That's unusually gossipy of you, Colonel."

 

Jack shrugged, looking a little embarrassed. "Yeah, well, Palmer cornered me in the mess hall one day."

 

Francine Palmer. Base gossip. Sam remembered her well. She was a woman to whom you told nothing if you wanted a secret kept.

 

"That explains it." she said dryly.

 

She took a deep breath, and sat down on the bench, cradling her face in her lap; her will to continue on the facade of cheeriness having evaporated. "What am I doing here, Jack?" she asked softly, not looking up.

 

Again that touch with the absence of skin-crawling. "You're gonna help us get our people back." He said simply, giving her shoulder a gentle squeeze.

 

She tried to smile, but simply couldn't summon up the energy.

 

**

 

Major Harrison, it seemed, was the one providing technical information for the briefing, standing in front of the same display that Sam had so many time, which was currently displaying a map of the area around the Stargate to a radius of several days travel that had been gathered through numerous UAV excursions while the Earth Science teams had been stationed on the world. She, Martouf and Jacob were ranged on one side of the table, while the remaining members of SG1 sat on the other side.

 

Us and them, mused Sam. The divide between herself and her former comrades was clearly apparent.

 

"This," Harrison gestured to a point three days foot travel away from the Stargate. It was near the base of a small mountain, and appeared to be situated in the middle of a sandy expanse, the treeline halting a few hundred meters away from the slope. A computer graphic represented the Goa'uld facility. "Is where SG2 informs us that the Goa'uld stronghold is located. In an easily defensible area. They didn't have any concrete numbers of Jaffa for us, but they saw several mid-sized barracks which could mean we're dealing with numbers up to or above three hundred and fifty."

 

"Gotta love those overwhelming odds." Jack said, looking up at Harrison from the printout version of the information she was delivering.

 

"Our objectives," Harrison continued, ignoring Jack's interruption except for a raised eyebrow, "Are to try and extract the scientists and SG team, but also, to retrieve this." She changed the view to a standard SGC packing container. A stock photograph taken from the Science Team's archive. A number was stencilled on the outside. The lid was open to reveal a number of components inside, packed in cut foam. "This was the science team's main project. There aren't any pictures of it assembled, since they'd only managed to complete it just before the Goa'uld arrived."

 

"What is it?" Martouf spoke up. He and Jacob were also at the mission. For obvious reasons, since they had been instructed by the council that they come along and provide requested Tok'ra support.

 

Harrison looked startled by the question as she turned to address Martouf. "A prototype shield generator." She answered.

 

Sam shifted in her seat, glancing over at the Tok'ra. It was Jacob who next spoke. "But I thought Earth was a long way from developing that sort of technology."

 

Harrison nodded her head. "We were. But with a discovery of an unstable naqada variant, we were able to produce a greater output of power than tests with even weapons grade naqada had produced."

 

Sam blinked. Harrison had managed to capture the Goa'uld inflection for the mineral perfectly. "That's quite a technological leap." She said, glancing around the table at the others.

 

"We had some of our best scientists working there." Hammond said, turning slightly to address her.

 

Sam nodded, feeling oddly distant from the Earth personnel there. She was no longer 'in the loop', so to speak.

 

"Sufficed to say," Harrison continued, a wry smile twisting her mouth. "That if the Goa'uld get a hold of our prototype, it would be a very bad thing. According to SG2, they managed to hide it before they were captured. Hopefully it'll still be there."

 

"And if it's not?" Jacob asked, staring intently at Harrison.

 

"Then we have to go in and retrieve it." She said firmly.

 

Jacob turned slightly and said something in Goa'uld to Martouf, who just responded with a short phrase. Sam's mind automatically translated it for her. Something about seeing if they could get a look at this new technology. She didn't know why they bothered. Daniel could translate easily. It was probably a status thing; to emphasise the fact that they weren't under SGC command. Or something.

 

She really didn't care.

 

Sam absently wondered when the idea of a new technology, left as yet undiscovered by her, had started to fail to arouse her interest.

 

"Originally," Hammond continued, taking over the less technical side of the briefing. "We were going to stage an assault with several armed units to try and retake the device and rescue, but with..." He faltered a moment, as if wondering how to address her. "With Major Carter's recovery," was the term he finally settled on. "We're presented with another option: infiltration."

 

Jacob leaned forward, speaking now. "With the General, we've come up with a plan. Sam will act in the role of Anqet," Martouf threw a sympathetic glance towards her, which she ignored. "With the rest of us acting as her entourage. We can get up to the Goa'uld's base, get inside, and hopefully get everything we need and get out again."

 

"We have something that might help." Hammond said, nodding to Harrison, who scrambled to extract something from her pocket.

 

"We've been using these to train new SGC personnel." She said, producing what looked like a small black adhesive disc, attached to a wire, in turn attached to a small battery pack. "I don't exactly know how it works," she said, as she attached the small disc to just below the apple of her throat, and flicked the on switch. "But it's very effective." she finished, her voice metallically burred.

 

Just as if she possessed a symbiote.

 

Martouf and Jacob looked a little surprised at the voice, and Sam tilted her head. "You can't mimic the glowing eyes or the actual presence of a symbiote though." she pointed out.

 

"Hopefully you won't have to wait around long enough for them to realise you don't /actually/ possess a symbiote." Harrison said, arching her eyebrow. She gave off such an unerring likeness of a smug Goa'uld that Sam felt unease creeping up her spine.

 

"Can you turn that thing off now?" Jack said, apparently having the same thought.

 

Harrison smiled slightly and turned off the battery, before reaching up and tugging the disc from her throat, absently smoothing her skin once it was gone. "Be warned," she said, her voice unaltered and human again. "It tickles."

 

Sam shivered as she thought about what she was going to do. She was going to go to this world where they thought she, or rather, the thing that had possessed her, was a Goddess. Where she would have to act cruelly and dispassionately. Where she would speak in a voice devoid of humanity.

 

Where she would have to be something she hated.

 

Sam felt her fingers digging into the upholstered arms of the chair in which she sat, her nails biting into the leather. She just wanted to flee. To go somewhere where no one could find her again, and just stay there.

 

But the memories would find her. She couldn't escape from them, and so she would go.

 

She felt Martouf's fingers reach out and brush over the back of her hand. He had obviously seen her tense and hoped to soothe her. She stiffened slightly, but didn't move away. After a moment, he withdrew his hand.

 

"Major?"

 

Her rank. Someone was addressing her. She looked up into General Hammond's face.

 

"I asked, major," Hammond said patiently. "If you were ready for this?"

 

There was a terse silence in the room as they waited for her response. She knew that if she said yes, she would go do this for them. Maybe even get killed in the process. And if she said no, she'd be alive, but...

 

"Sure." She said, with a casualness she did not feel. "Ready as I'll ever be."

 

Martouf, Jack and Jacob looked less than convinced, but Hammond nodded. "Good. Then you leave at 0800 tomorrow."

 

Sam started counting down the hours.

 

**

 

Sam had been unable to sleep. Without the view of Narva's bay out her window... without even the presence of a window, she had found sleeping difficult. She felt vaguely suffocated by the tonnes upon tonnes of rock above and around her, and so decided to watch the sun rise.

 

She was rather fortunate. The morning sky was dusted with thin wisps of cloud, and the sun was rising, spreading glorious reds and oranges throughout the sky. Making it look like the vista before her was aflame.

 

She hadn't seen a sunrise - a natural sunrise - like that in a long time. And she revelled in it.

 

She had snuck out of the mountain: she still remembered the sneaky ways in and out of the mountain, having been forced to use them so many times. And she'd climbed as high as she was able to while still remaining in easy reach of the entrance back into the SGC. There were security patrols, she knew. But it wasn't as if she was trying to escape, and so she didn't give them much thought.

 

But even so, she hadn't been able to get much peace.

 

"You might as well come out." she said, after she felt she had enjoyed the sunrise long enough. "You're not doing a good job of hiding."

 

"We weren't trying to hide." It was her father, approaching her from behind, before perching on the fallen log next to her. "We've tracked enough hosts to know how far away to stand to avoid being sensed. We just wanted to keep an eye on you."

 

"'We' being you and Selmak, I assume."

 

Her dad nodded his head, but it was Selmak who spoke. "In this we are of one mind. We worry about you." he said gently, reaching up to stroke her hair. The gesture was so... motherly was the only term that Sam could think of. She supposed that was what came of her dad possessing a symbiote who had been a woman nearly all her existence. Did that mean she had two parents in one body?

 

She missed her mother.

 

Still, the gesture was one of such comfort and understanding, in spite of the creeping sensation, that she rested her head against her dad's shoulder and closed her eyes, admitting quietly, "I don't think I can do this."

 

"It's not too late to back out." Selmak pointed out, his hand still stroking her hair soothingly. "No one would blame you."

 

"That's just it," She said softly. "I can't. I know I have to do this. I don't want to though."

 

Selmak was silent for a moment. "All of us do things we do not wish. For the good of others. When we only serve our own wishes, then we become no better than the Goa'uld."

 

"Profound." Sam commented.

 

"Selmak can be a profound lady at times." Jacob commented wryly. "I think it's because she's been hanging around so long."

 

"'Oldest and wisest among us.'" Sam quoted with a faint smile, somewhat amused that her dad had mentally labelled Selmak as 'female'. With the switchover, his hand had stopped moving and Sam felt oddly bereft of the touch. "I need to do this." she finally said, closing her eyes and wrapping an arm around her father's waist. "I feel that if I don't do this... these memories... what I did, what happened... it'll get the better of me." She lifted her head off his shoulder and looked him in the eye. "I can't live like that. I've done that for too long."

 

"You're going on this mission because you believe you're looking for something." Selmak said, eyes flaring brightly in the morning light. "What is that?"

 

Sam took a deep breath. "I don't know."

 

"I wouldn't worry about it." Jacob said, with a chuckle. "Things have a habit of working out for the better."

 

Sam muffled a snicker. "Now who's being profound?"

 

Jacob laughed out loud at that. "Must be hanging around Selmak too long. She's being a bad influence on me."

 

"Nah." Sam said, hugging him tightly. "I like this new you. Much more talkative."

 

"Well, if you're not going to chat, one of us has to."

 

Sam sobered at that. "It's hard." she said, sighing. "Relating to people. It's so awkward. Reminds me of after Mom died. No one at school knew how to react. The teachers walked on eggshells and no one talked to me. Probably thought I'd start bawling on their shoulders or something." She paused, thinking for a moment. "Although I probably would have."

 

"You must have been very lonely." Selmak again. Another might wonder at why the symbiote had asked the question. After all, it resided in her father. But the three of them knew how estranged they had been in that period.

 

"Yeah." Sam agreed softly, and was embarrassed to feel her eyes tear up. She blinked furiously. Determined not to start crying now.

 

She might not stop if she did.

 

It was Jacob who leaned forward and kissed her gently on the forehead. "We're here for you, kid. Always."

 

Father and daughter stayed there until the sun was well in the sky, and it was time to leave the planet, and to face whatever of Sam's past was waiting for her.

 

**

 

Part Five: Abandon all hope, ye who enter here...

 

**

 

Every world had its own individual smell, Jack O'Neill had found. Some smelt musty, some acrid. This was a new world, with a new smell, and for some reason, it smelt of cheese. Limburger cheese at that.

 

There was an association he could have done without. He /really/ didn't like cheese.

 

The Stargate was in the middle of what could have passed for any English country meadow. Wild grasses sprung up all the way to the treeline, which was only a moments walk away, and a stone pathway lead off to somewhere. Obviously, they weren't going to follow that path, and Harrison and Teal'c were already consulting a compass to determine which way to go. On either side of the Gate, however, were two objects that Jack wouldn't have expected to see. They were marbled obelisks reaching up from the ground, and their faces were decorated with etchings in Goa'uld.

 

Sam, Jacob and Martouf were the last through the Stargate, the three of them all looking a little uncomfortable in their SGC general-issue fatigues. Jack never thought he'd see the day when Sam had looked uncomfortable in her uniform.

 

"O'Neill!" It was Teal'c, calling out from where he stood by the DHD, which Daniel was checking in preparation for sending the MALP back. "We have located the direction in which the base is located."

 

"Good." Jack replied, before turning slightly towards Sam. "Any signs of Jaffa?" he asked, as she stood there, sweeping the area with a pair of binoculars slowly and methodically. It seemed so right to be serving with her again, giving instructions as if she were still his 2iC. But when she removed the binoculars, and turned towards him with such hollow eyes, he knew he was deluding himself. This wasn't the Sam Carter he'd known.

 

Jack tried to suppress the queasy feeling that turned his stomach, and waited patiently for her report.

 

"None that we can detect." she finally pronounced, tilting her head slightly to include Jacob and Martouf in her statement.

 

"Good," Jack said, stepping away from the Gate as Daniel finished sending the MALP back to Eath.

 

Sam moved to step away also, but she paused by the obelisks. "These are new." she commented, staring the pillars in curiosity.

 

Daniel just looked at her quizzically. "What?" he asked, sounding a little confused.

 

"These," Sam said, pointing at the gold-etched obelisks. "They weren't in place last time I... last time Anqet was here."

 

Before Jack could wonder at the slip, he heard: "What do they say?" Harrison was speaking from her position near the DHD, being one of the only two there who couldn't read the rather angular characters.

 

Sam looked up at the obelisks, tilting her head slightly and glancing from one to another, before snorting in amusement and starting to head off on the trek towards their destination. The Tok'ra were quick to follow her, staying close. At a gesture from Jack, Harrison hurried to catch up, making sure that the trio didn't leave her sight. Jack stared after her for a moment, then glanced towards Daniel, raising an eyebrow to indicate that he, too, wanted a translation.

 

Daniel glanced at the markers and said, "Well, they're kinda a... warning."

 

"Well?" Jack prompted when Daniel trailed off.

 

"It says 'Brek'tak', the name of this world," Teal'c spoke, having glanced at the obelisks himself. "'Breeding ground of despairing souls'."

 

Jack shook his head. "Gould melodrama." He muttered, and started after Carter and the Tok'ra.

 

**

 

It was easy for Brenda Harrison to tell that the Tok'ra were being very protective of the woman her teammates seemed to know so well. They shot her rather protective glances as she approached, keeping up with them. Not that she believed they were going to make a run for it. Not /seriously/ believed anyway. She knew one of them, Jacob, was Carter's father, but the other one... she really had no idea what he had to do with all of this. And no one had been very forthcoming. Even Francine Palmer, which was something new. All she had been able to get out of the rather gregarious lieutenant was that it was just 'so tragic... really'.

 

Still, it wasn't as if they were flanking her and making it impossible to approach, and so Harrison decided this was the perfect moment to 'expand her knowledge' as one of her college professors had put it, and talk to the woman herself. Stepping slightly quicker for a steps brought her side by side with the blonde haired woman, who was looking distinctly uncomfortable.

 

"What's up?" Harrison finally asked, as Carter hooked her finger in her collar and tugged at her jacket for the second time in as many minutes, grimacing as she did so.

 

"These clothes itch." Carter said shortly, barely glancing her way. "And they don't fit properly."

 

"Oh." Harrison said, then shrugged after a moment. "Yeah, they are kinda generic, aren't they?"

 

She reached up and scratched at her head subconsciously as she said it. She had already managed to wash most of the dye that an ill-timed practical joke on her last leave had caused to turned her hair a rather vivid red. She had managed to turn the hair a sort of vaguely reddish colour before she returned to duty, so as not to be sanctioned for dying her hair such a ridiculous colour, but it hadn't exactly looked very natural. The Tok'ra had been very insistent that she needed to have hair that looked natural ('vivacious red' hair dye apparently not being in use among the Goa'uld), and so she'd had to dye her hair black, to cover up the previous colour. And for some reason, the dye she used was making her scalp itch, and Carter's scratching was setting her off.

 

"After wearing Tollan clothes for so long, these feel very... primative in design. By comparison."

 

'Snob,' thought Harrison, and wrinkled her nose slightly.

 

"Well, it's not like military issue is the height of fashion." She said, feeling moved to defend the Quartermaster's stock of uniforms, in spite of the fact that she had been guilty of a few tirades about their fatigues in the past.

 

Carter finally turned and looked at her, giving her the same patronising look one would a child. "I know that. I did used to work in the SGC you know."

 

Harrison frowned and finally said, "Look, if you don't want to talk to me, just say and I'll piss off."

 

Carter glanced at her again and sighed. "Sorry. I'm just... not very communicative at the moment."

 

"Yeah, I guess not."

 

"What have you heard?" Carter said suspiciously.

 

"How long have you got?" Harrison said, offering the former-Major a wry smile. "You seem to have wracked up an impressive list of accomplishments... good or otherwise."

 

Carter didn't seem eager for her to expand on that list, and so Harrison kept silent on that subject.

 

"I gotta admit," She finally continued, after the silence between them had lasted for a few moments. "I was kinda curious about you. I mean none of the guys," She gestured to the rest of SG1, who were following close by, spread out and eyes watching the foliage. Harrison wasn't with them as they'd already assigned her to keep a watch on the Tok'ra. "Ever really talked about you. Especially the Colonel. Well, that's a lie really. Daniel eventually coughed up information, and Teal'c gave me something about you being a formidable warrior and a great loss, but they never /talked/ you know." She shrugged, realising she was rambling a little. "But I know they missed you." She added finally.

 

Carter seemed to wilt a little. "Yeah, I get that a lot." As she spoke, she shot a glance towards the two Tok'ra that were following nearby.

 

Harrison wrinkled her nose a little. They weren't exactly shouting their conversation, but she was willing to bet that the pair were hanging on every word.

 

"I'd've thought you'd be happier to see them." she said.

 

Carter paused in her tracks, startling Harrison, who almost carried on walking past her. Fortunately she managed to stop in time to catch the thoughtful look Carter gave her, and hear her comment of, "So would I?" Before the woman carried on.

 

This time, she didn't move to talk to her. But just continued following from a distance. There'd be plenty of time to talk later.

 

**

 

When it came time for them to make camp for a night, and they had located a suitably defensible location, it would only have taken them a little while to set everything up. However, an awful lot of time was spent helping Martouf, who had never seen a tent before, let alone try to put one up, when he managed to connect two pieces of the tent in a way that should have been physically impossible. There was a good deal of sniggering from Selmak that sounded suspiciously like Jacob was making wisecracks in the background as Harrison and Daniel tried to help the rather befuddled Tok'ra sort things out.

 

"Ugh... I'd forgotten what these were like." Jacob was saying as he cooked one of the SGC's MRE's that he had been provided with. "Looks like a science experiment." He poked the viscous liquid with a plastic spoon.

 

"Or canteen food." Daniel added, peering into the container. "What is that stuff anyway?"

 

Jacob seemed embarrassed to respond, so Selmak did it for him. "Hot chocolate and baked beans."

 

There was a resounding "ew" throughout the small group.

 

"I think he just wants to eat it all as quickly as possible." Selmak confided in a conspiratorial whisper.

 

"So, what do the Tok'ra consider 'proper' mission food then?" Jack asked, pulling out his own foil-wrapped package and tearing it open.

 

"Actually, worse than this." Jacob said, taking a small mouthful and surprisingly not grimacing. It seemed that his grumbling was all for show. "They're sort of a small rectangle of highly concentrated nutrients in an solid organic suspension." He shook his head. "Tastes like shit, but they're time released so you eat one and don't have to eat for another three days. And with a symbiote to regulate your metabolism, you could last a long time."

 

"Obviously, we don't eat that on the homeworld." Martouf pointed out, sounding amused at Jacob's melodramatic description of the taste. "Only on extended missions into Goa'uld territory."

 

"That's a question I always wanted to know the answer to," Daniel said, leaning forward, "How do you get all your food? I mean, you're underground and in hiding an all."

 

Martouf shrugged. "A combination of hydroponics, hunting and surreptitious trade on free-commerce planets not under Goa'uld control."

 

"Ah," Daniel nodded. "Sounds... interesting."

 

Martouf grimaced slightly. "Not when you get tapped for food preparation."

 

"I can imagine," murmured Sam as she stood, with the intent of crossing to her tent and depositing her water canteen back with the rest of her gear.

 

She was aware of several pairs of eyes following her as she headed away from the group, and heard Jack mutter, "Is she okay?" to her father. Since she didn't hear an audible response, he must have just gestured his answer.

 

When she returned, she pretended that she didn't hear some of the muttering cease as she approached and fought the urge to sigh, aiming to return to her place by the small fire.

 

"Hey, Carter? C'mere a minute."

 

Sam blinked at the summons from Harrison, and wandered over to the log that the woman was perched upon as she rummaged through her backback. "I just figured you'd want to get a look through this stuff, pick out what you wanted, before we got closer to the base."

 

"What's that then?" Sam asked, rather puzzled.

 

"You know," Harrison commented, as she pulled out the small bag she had stowed just underneath the MRE's in her backpack. It looked plain and black, but when she opened it, there was a rather astonishing assortment of makeup contained within it. "I think this has to be the first time I've ever been on a mission where I've been /ordered/ to bring makeup. I went a little overboard."

 

Sam even looked a little impressed at the quantity she possessed.

 

"How long have you been collecting that stuff? And do you spend /any/ money on food?"

 

Harrison giggled, for a second acting like any other woman gossiping with her friend. Although they were hardly friends, at least makeup was something they seemed to be able to share. "Hell, no. I eat in the mess all the time. How do you think I keep so thin?"

 

Sam laughed softly, picking through the makeup and looking at it all.

 

"I think you'd suit the pinks." Harrison said, rummaging around and digging out one or two pale lipsticks and accompanying eyeshadows. She gaving Sam a scrutinising look and then nodded. "Yes, definitely."

 

"Yes," murmured Sam. "Got to look my best in order to be a tyrannical dictator."

 

Harrison paused in going through the makeup, blinking owlishly at Sam as the other woman plucked out a metallic bronze lip colour that had been bought expressly for the last party Harrison had been to. "Erm..." She didn't exactly know how to respond to that.

 

"Major-" Sam started.

 

"Call me Brenda." Harrison said, waving the lipstick in the air. She figured that if they were discussing makeup, they could at least move away from addressing each other by rank. Although did Carter even have a rank any more?

 

"Brenda," Sam finally said, drawing a deep breath. "You don't have to do this for me. I'll sort it out myself."

 

Harrison smiled slightly, extending the selection of lipsticks towards the woman. "What are you talking about?" She said, deliberately misunderstanding. "All we're doing is chatting about makeup. Just like anyone else. As simple and as uncomplicated as that."

 

Sam looked at her, as if expecting her to make something of it. To return to Sam's bringing up of her impersonation and how she was going to pull it up. But after a moment, her expression softened (artificially, Harrison thought, as if she were hiding it behind a mask), and she accepted the makeup.

 

"Yeah, thanks." she said.

 

Harrison didn't say anything further on the subject, but suddenly heard distinct sniggering from the direction of several of the males of their party, who kept suspiciously glancing towards them as the pair rummaged through Harrison's collection of makeup.

 

Harrison frowned at them. "Something wrong here?" she asked.

 

Jack just looked amused. Probably at all the 'girl talk' revolving around makeup. "No. Nothing at all."

 

Harrison decided at that moment not to divulge the fact that Teal'c had, at one time, pointed her in the direction of a lovely shade of eyeshadow, and just proceeded to ignore him, pulling out another blusher and staring at it. When she finally looked up at Sam, ready to recommend this particular shade, she saw the woman looking rather distant, and gave her a nudge with the end of the mascara tube.

 

"Are you alright?" She asked, drawing back as Sam flinched slightly, as if coming out of a trance suddenly and without warning.

 

"Excuse me a minute." Sam said, her voice oddly disassociated with her body language, picking up her wash bag and heading off towards the sound of water.

 

"Sure," Harrison nodded absently, taking note of her departure even as she picked up another lipstick and turning it on its end to read the name. "Hmm... blushing nude."

 

When Martouf found a way to slip away from the camp and follow Sam a few minutes later, she pretended not to notice.

 

**

 

He found her near the small stream near their campsite, attempting to scrub her face clean with water and a flannel she took out of the bag she had brought with her. She, more than any of the others, needed to at least stay presentable. It would hardly befit a Goa'uld ruler to be dirt-stained and unclean in appearance. He stood a little distance away, watching her. Careful to just stay at the edge of her ability to sense him with clarity. She would still know he was there, but not how far away he was.

 

Suddenly she let out a sigh. She was still crouched on the bank next to the stream, staring at her reflection. He didn't know what she saw there, but when she reached out and slapped the surface of the water with her hand, disrupting the image, he knew it wasn't something she was happy with. Martouf offered a quiet suggestion and they started off in her direction.

 

"What did the water do to you?" Lantash asked as he got within earshot of her.

 

"It was pulling faces at me." Samantha said, after she had gotten over her initial startlement of hearing his voice.

 

Lantash shifted uncomfortably. He really didn't know what had possessed them to follow her. He had been quietly eating the Tau'ri prepared foodstuffs, when Samantha had looked up from her discussion with the Tau'ri woman over whatever it was they had in that bag, he had been unable to look away. He could practically sense her becoming more and more uncomfortable over the passing moments, and when her attention had been pulled away by Harrison, she had fled.

 

So why he had been compelled to follow was a mystery to him.

 

"I am certain it was merely being playful." Lantash said, unable to resist the opportunity to tease her, if only a little.

 

And she responded as he had hoped: with a light laugh that was barely audible, but was such a welcome change from her perpetually despairing attitude.

 

"I needed that." she admitted.

 

Lantash feigned bewilderment. "You needed to attack the water?" he asked.

 

Sam snorted in a most undignified manner. "You know what I mean," she chided with a roll of her eyes. "I can't even carry on a conversation about makeup of all things without getting... all sorts of thoughts." She shook her head a little sadly. "Sometimes I wish I could just forget it all... you know... everything? Just back to being plain old Sam Carter, USAF major, who didn't know anything outside her own little world apart from the stars she could see through her telescope."

 

Lantash smirked at her. "Samantha, I'm rather certain you didn't mean

that."

 

"Not really," Sam admitted. "But it's a nice fantasy sometimes."

 

She leaned back on a fallen log, and, after a moment, Lantash settled beside her. She continued in an absent manner, as if relating the weather, rather than close personal thoughts. "Once, I wondered what would have happened if I'd never joined the SGC. If Jolinar had never jumped into me. If I'd gone and become Selmak's host, instead of Dad." She shook her head, rubbing her arms as if cold.

 

"Ah, but if Jolinar had never taken you as a host, then we would perhaps never have met." Lantash pointed out, a hint of a smile on his features. "Good things can come out of bad circumstances."

 

"Oh, I don't know." Sam said, looking off into the middle-distance somewhere. "Things might have worked out anyway. We might have stumbled across the Tok'ra homeworld and found you anyway."

 

Lantash wagged a finger in the air, chiding gently. "Yes, but we would not have known each other. The Council would have left you there, and our peoples would not enjoy the relationship they have today."

 

Sam rolled her eyes. "'Enjoy'?" She echoed, tilting her head.

 

Lantash grimaced slightly. Obviously she had heard one or two things about the Tau'ri-Tok'ra alliance and its rather rocky recent history. "Well... we have a relationship of /some/ sort, you must admit."

 

"Yes." She said thoughtfully, turning to look at him. "We do, don't we?"

 

Martouf put forward the thought that they had moved on from politics.

 

Rather abruptly, she stood, forest debris crunching underneath her foot as she moved away a little, obviously uncomfortable with the tone the conversation had suddenly taken.

 

"Did you come out here just to find out what was wrong with me?" She asked him, turning back towards Lantash, arms folded across her chest. She jerked her head back in the direction of a camp. "I know they're all talking about me."

 

Lantash stood, stepping towards her. "What makes you think that?"

 

She waved a hand. "Of course they are." she said dismissively.

 

Lantash reached out, grasping her upper arm in his left hand. "Samantha, do not sell yourself short. The Tau'ri and Tok'ra alike care for you deeply."

 

Samantha lowered her eyes a little, but didn't pull away. "No one's cared for me for quite some time."

 

"That's not true," His hand slipped down to her waist, almost of its own volition. "We care."

 

Samantha looked up at him. "Lantash-"

 

"Even when you did not want us to."

 

Samatha closed her eyes, the look of pain that flashed across her features giving lie to the time she was thinking of: when she had been released from Anqet's control before running away from the Tok'ra.

 

He pulled her close, resting his other hand on her face, which still felt slightly cool from the cold water wash she had just given it. She shivered slightly at his touch, and Lantash felt something faintly like the brush of sheer fabric against his fingertips where they touched her skin. Martouf had once put forward that the reason that they didn't have this exact same intensity of sensation when they came into physical contact with anyone else with a symbiote was because the naqada in her system floated throughout her bloodstream. The sympathetic vibrations were spread throughout her body, exacerbating the sensation.

 

Even for him, with his much more limited detection of the naqada in her body, it was a heady feeling.

 

Samantha had closed her eyes, obviously feeling what Lantash felt, through the body of his host, but far more acutely. She was faintly flushed, and he saw her lick her lips quickly.

 

"Samantha..." he murmured, prompting her to look up at him.

 

"I can see how hard this is for you." He said, brushing his fingers across her cheek. "If I could spare you from this I would." She closed her eyes briefly again. "I would do anything to spare you from pain."

 

Her eyes snapped open again, meeting his eyes with her own. "I know." She said, her voice husky, almost in mimicry of Lantash's own.

 

Her breath felt warm against his face, so close were they standing. Lantash simply wanted, if only for a brief second, to show her exactly the depth of his feelings for her. Feelings that ran deep between both himself and his host, that bounced back and forth between their minds as if reflected between two mirrors.

 

He leant forward capturing, gently at first, her lips with his own, and when she didn't pull away when he drew back to draw breathe, he leaned forward again, his ador imbuing the kiss with increasing passion. As she returned the kiss, his arms slid around her gently, pulling him towards her.

 

Host and symbiote revelled in the sensations that danced between them. And neither wanted the moment to end.

 

**

 

Samantha Carter, for one brief moment, forgot about the memories that had preyed on her mind for years. Forgot everything other than the tingling that threatened to sweep her away as her body reacted to Lantash's very presence, other than the wonderful things he was doing to her mouth.

 

She wanted this. She wanted these feelings. The feeling of his lips pressed against hers, his hands roaming her back. Making her feel, for one brief moment, wanted, needed and desired. In a way she hadn't felt in a long time.

 

And then the memory of the last time lips had been pressed against hers passed through her mind, and Sam almost choked, body suddenly going rigid. Lantash seemed to notice the difference and drew back, searching her face for a reason for her sudden change in attitude.

 

Sam warred within herself for a moment, trying to decided what to do. Finally, she forcibly pushed him away, feeling a little twinge of guilty at the slightly hurt expression that crossed his features. "Samantha," It was Martouf back in control, his voice not grating on her ears as Lantash's burr did. "What is it?"

 

Sam tried to control the trembling she could feel in her limbs. "This is... wrong. The... the last man that I..." She broke off, faltering, unable to look at the concerned expression on Martouf's face.

 

"God, this would bring it all back." Sam ran her hands through her hair, as if trying to pull the harmful throughts away from her brain with the motion. "This mission... what I'm doing..." She suddenly straightened and glared at him balefully. "You couldn't have rescued me one day earlier, could you? /One/ day! That's all it would have taken." And she started to stalk away angrily.

 

Martouf, obviously completely befuddled by her sudden rage, started after her, grabbing her arm to stop her. "Samantha-"

 

She shook him off, about to open her mouth to stage another verbal assault, but broke off when images flashed behind her eyes. Taunting her with the past, like a waking dream.

 

Sam closed her eyes, fighting the assault of memories that flooded across her mind's eye, taunting her with remembrances. She didn't realise how much time had passed as she stood there in a reverie until she felt the crawling-prickly sensation of Martouf's hand touching her arm to get her attention.

 

"Sam?"

 

"Teneb." She said, sharply, forstalling anything else he might say. She opened her eyes and met his gaze with her own. He seemed rather puzzled at the non-sequitor. Probably wondering what a long dead Tok'ra operative had to do with anything. "Don't you remember him?" she asked harshly. "You saw me execute him in a town square and about an hour later you essentially clubbed me over the head and hauled me back to the Tok'ra."

 

Comprehension dawned on Martouf's face, although some meekness remained. "We were attacking /Anqet/." he pointed out.

 

"You couldn't have attacked her earlier? Gotten there sooner? Then I wouldn't-" She broke out, her voice catching in her throat. Finally she forced herself to speak, her words coming out in short, clipped sentences. "I tortured him. While Anqet had me."

 

Martouf shook his head. "It wasn't you. You had no control over-"

 

He didn't know. She cut him off with a sharp wave of her hand. "That's just the point. I did."

 

Martouf froze, hand rising slightly off her arm. "What? I don't understand."

 

She swallowed, trying to force out the words. "Teneb was tortured, I was in control. He was my friend, and /I/ tortured him."

 

**

 

In truth, although she didn't admit it to Martouf, Teneb had been far more than that to her. He'd been her lover.

 

Although lover was such an overly romantic designation for what their relationship had been. A better term would have simply been 'partners'. They'd met when Teneb had been sent to help the SGC install several TER's into the Gateroom in the wake of the Reetou incursion onto the base, assisting them in hardwiring them into the SGC's systems. They'd been attracted to each other, working closely day in and day out trying to adapt the alien technology to the Earth based systems. And as the only one capable of translating the SGC technical schematics into something Teneb could understand, she spent a lot of time alone with him in her lab late into the lab, pouring over blueprints.

 

At some point, they'd fallen into bed together. They'd not been looking for anything particularly meaningful or lasting. Teneb, she had known, was very fond of a Tok'ra woman, who seemed to be taking her time to even notice him. And Sam had almost been trying to define herself as separate from the memories of Jolinar in her mind. Trying to prove, almost, to herself that Jolinar's memories didn't colour all her relationships with the Tok'ra.

 

Their affair had continued to last throughout Teneb's stay on Earth, and they had resurrected their relationship once or twice when Sam had spent extended periods with the Tok'ra. But eventually, it had simply died away. The physical side wasn't a problem; Sam had grown to like the tingling sensation of the naqada in her bloodstream reacting to the presence of a symbiote while she was with him, and they'd been quite compatible. They had loved each other, but it hadn't been in that way.

 

Still, each had cared deeply for the other, becoming close friends.

 

So when Sam had seen him again, chained up in Anqet's 'dungeon', she had started crying in the corner of her mind that was still hers while Anqet had slowly approached Teneb, a predatory look crossing her features.

 

"Samantha..." he said, almost before he could stop himself.

 

"You know my host..." Anqet said wonderingly, walking around Teneb as if to examine his souls from all angles. "How interesting... and how do you know her..."

 

Teneb looked at her curiously, wondering how it was that Anqet could /not/ known. But he didn't respond.

 

Anqet closed her eyes briefly, forcibly pulling the memories up to the surface. "Ah yes... you and she were intimate. Repeatedly. How... lovely." she said, smiling at him. As if she wasn't his captor and tormentor. "Hmm."

 

And then she had pulled out an electronic key card, and had released his cuffs that held his arms above his head. He sagged against the wall, his arms unable to lower fully, and stared at her suspiciously. "What do you want?" he demanded.

 

"Information." Anqet responded simply.

 

Teneb set his jaw. "You will get nothing from me."

 

"Well, isn't that a pity." Anqet said, drolly. "Very well. Then you will simply die." She stepped close to him, a rather sadistic smile gracing her features. "Want to talk to your /dear/ friend one last time? Or better yet... how about I have her kill you. Perhaps it will give you some comfort in your final moments."

 

Teneb looked at her, her gaze steely. "I thought 'nothing of the host' survived." he said acerbically.

 

"I am not so foolish as to put that across to a Tok'ra of all people, as many other Goa'uld like to." Anqet said straightening, before almost idly backhanding him across the face, the rings on her fingers cutting gashes in his face. It kept him off balance for a few moments while Anqet continued speaking. "Hardly 'nothing of the host'. But what there is, I keep under /tight/ control."

 

And then Sam almost fell over, and she felt the power of her own limbs return to her for the first time in so long that for a second, she didn't remember how to control them.  She staggered backwards against the wall, body suddenly shaking as she attempted to push herself to her feet proper. "Teneb..." she croaked, staring at him intently, needing to say something to prove she had control of her own voice.

 

"Samantha," Teneb choked out, blinking rapidly, trying to clear his eyes of the blood that trickled down from his forehead into them. Even in his state, he saw her state and tried to reassure her. "It's alright. You're strong, endure this."

 

Sam tried to restrain herself from crying, but the collective pain from the last ten months had built to such a well that she immediately started bursting into tears. "I... I can't stop her." she choked out, her breath hitching in sobs.

 

"I know..." Teneb whispered as he finished standing fully, not too far from her. "It's okay. I forgive you."

 

Sam started to reach out, if only to brush her fingers over his face one last time. But halfway through the motion, her hand suddenly shot out and grabbed Teneb by the throat, raising him a little way off the floor before hurling him into the nearest wall. She heard the sickening crack of several ribs cracking under the assault.

 

"Teneb!" she called out, panic gripping her like a living force as she stalking over to him and kicked him.

 

"This isn't me. I'm not... I can't stop her!" Sam cried, trying to stop her hands from moving, trying to remove the control that Anqet had over her body, if only for a moment.

 

Teneb looked up at her from where he lay, gazing directly into her eyes, and the strength she saw there, coupled with the certainty of what was about to happen to him would have been enough to move her to tears had she not already been in that state. "I know." was all he said simply, and it was enough.

 

"I'm sorry," she whispered, and couldn't stop the tears that fell freely from her eyes while her body, out of her control, proceeded to methodically inflict pain on the man she had called one of her dearest friends. She didn't know who, of the two of them, was in worse pain.

 

**

 

Lantash was the one who heard the soft feminine crying drift through the walls of the tent, and was quick to call his host's attention to it, jerking Martouf out of the reverie he had slipped into. Martouf had been unable to even entertain the thought of sleeping since the 'conversation' (a rather euphemistic term if there ever was one) they had had with Samantha. He was grateful for the distraction, until he realised which direction the sobbing was coming from.

 

As she crept out of the tent, he didn't see anyone (presumably whoever was on watch had gone on patrol) in sight of the small campsite, lit only by the light of the stars of this alien world. It didn't take long, with Lantash's help, for Martouf's eyes to adapt to the dimness and to locate where the sound was coming from, especially considering there were only two women in their number.

 

He crept over stealthily, barely making a sound on the leaf-strewn ground, and hesitated a moment outside Samantha's tent. Was this really such a good idea?

 

In the end, with some judicious prodding from his symbiote, he scratched at the tent flap in an effort to get her attention and avoid as much awkwardness as possible. However, it seem that she couldn't hear him, as he received no response, and the soft sniffling continued unabated. Finally, he pulled open the flap, gingerly stepping inside.

 

Samantha lay on the floor, sleeping bag pushed down to her waist and twisted uncomfortable about her legs as she shifted to and fro in her sleep. Tears stained her cheeks, and she was mumbling to herself, Martouf's ear picking out a garbled mixture of Tau'ri, Goa'uld and Tollana vocabulary.

 

'Even in sleep her speech is confused,' Lantash noted sadly, his mindvoice tinged with regretful and dusky blues. 'Where one's thoughts should become clear to one's self.'

 

Martouf crept forward, sealing the tent flap behind him and kneeling down next to Samantha's body. He reached out to gently brush his fingertips against her temple and stroke the side of her face soothingly.

 

'We did this for Jolinar,' Martouf commented, remembrances swirling just beneath the surface of his mind.

 

Jolinar and Rosha had been plagued by endless nightmares after escaping from Naetu. She would awake in the middle of the night sobbing and shaking, and refusing any entreaties of her mate to share the experiences in the hopes of alleviate. She always held her silence. And both Martouf and Lantash had always been able to see how much it hurt her, even though their mates tried to hide it.

 

Hopefully, for her own sake, Samantha would be more forthcoming. Although she had stilled a little, she was still in the throes of her nightmare. "Teneb-" was the only vaguely coherent term he could discern, choked out through tears.

 

Both of them could only imagine what it was that was going through her mind. And they didn't want to subject her to it any more.

 

"Samantha," Martouf said softly, leaning towards her so that he could wake her up without having to be too loud, which would undoubtedly rouse the rest of the camp. "Samantha." he repeated, a little more forcefully.

 

She practically jumped in response to the sudden sound, brought out of her sleep startlingly quickly. Martouf ruthlessly suppressed the urge to flinch at the motion.

 

"What are you doing?" She asked softly, as if she hadn't been sobbing her heart out only moments earlier.

 

"You were having a nightmare," he said, fingers not cearsing in their gentle stroking, even thought it was doubtlessly what she was referring to. "I could hear you all the way across the camp," he said, "I came to make sure you were alright." Her eyes went to his hands and he added softly, "Do you want me to stop?"

 

There was another silence, punctuated only by Samantha's ragged breathing. "No," she finally allowed, closing her eyes and relaxing a little. "I like it when you do that to me. It's... soothing."

 

Lantash contemplated reminding her they had never touched her in such a way, only ever Jolinar before, but they remained silent, not wanting to confuse her further.

 

"Want to talk about it?" Lantash asked, taking over the host body without breaking the motion of his hand.

 

"Not really," Samantha said tiredly. Lantash said nothing, accepting her decision.

 

"I was remembering Teneb." she said suddenly, startling both of them with the confession. "The day he died. The day I was rescued." She bit her lip. "Remembering what a sadistic, psychotic bitch Anqet was."

 

"Most Goa'uld are." Lantash said, unable to keep the disgust in his voice from showing.

 

"No, you don't understand." She said, her voice rising in agitation. "To torture Teneb she..." Samantha swallowed convulsively. "She released me."

 

The full horror of what she said suddenly hit Martouf, and he suddenly became very still.

 

Perhaps thinking that he'd rejected her now that she was talking, Samantha sat up, pulling her knees towards her chest. His hand automatically followed her movements, hovering just above her skin rather than actually touching her again.

 

"I could feel everything," she whispered, as if to speak any louder would reduce her to tears again. Still, her eyes well up with fresh liquid that spilled down her face. A few drops landed on Martouf's fingers. "Every touch, every sensation. I could speak again, I could cry." She shook faintly under the effort of keeping her emotions under control. "And I couldn't stop her from using my body to torture him, beat him and-" She hesitated then gestured slightly towards the lower half of her body.

 

Martouf didn't need an explanation. It seemed that Anqet had drawn no lines in tormenting her victims.

 

"I couldn't stop her. I couldn't stop her, and he must have thought I hated him." Samantha uttered brokenly, voice growing in anguish. "Thought I didn't care."

 

"I'm sure he didn't-" Martouf tried to say, hand drifting down to squeeze her shoulder in a reassuring manner.

 

"Why not?" She asked, looking up at him. Her eyes looked painfully red. "It's so easy for people not to care. Hardly anyone cared about /me/."

 

Martouf opened his mouth to deny that, but Lantash kept him quiet.

 

The sobs were racking Samantha's frame with greater intensity now, and all he could do was wrap his arms around her, and let her cry quietly as she tried to speak. "On Tollana, no one really cared. Narim came close, but it was always this distant sort of caring. Like you would a precious specimen of something you don't want to disturb. I didn't have any friends..." She tried to laugh a little, but it came out sounding twisted. "God, the only woman I thought of as something approaching a friend turned out to hate my guts and betrayed me because she thought I'd stolen her love's attention."

 

"Your father and I never stopped caring about you," Martouf whispered as he held her, her head having slipped to his shoulder, his words almost lost in her hair. "We never stopped looking for you. We wanted to know you were safe."

 

Samantha snorted derisively. "I was safe. Not much else, but I was definitely safe."

 

She suddenly jerked her head off his shoulder, looking intently into his face. "You don't know what I've been through. You can't /understand/."

 

Martouf cupped her face in his hands and stroked the tear-streked cheeks with his thumbs. "No, I can't. But can't I care for you without understanding? Offer you a shoulder to cry on." Samantha's gaze flickered downwards to, he knew, his tear-soaked shirt. "Both proverbial and literal." he added, receiving a ghost of a smile in return for his quip.

 

"Anqet didn't do it to torture me." She finally said, as if trying to downplay what had happened. "She didn't even acknowledge I existed except in the form of half-forgotten memories that came together to form a remnant personality." Her voice was almost inaudible, and it was only through the ability of a symbiote to enhance the senses that Martouf and Lantash caught what she was saying. "She wanted to torment Teneb with the woman he l... that he knew..." she hastily backtracked over what she had been saying.

 

"That doesn't make it any less horrific." Martouf said softly.

 

"You don't know. You weren't there." Samantha said, falling back on the familiar refrain.

 

"No, I wasn't," Martouf had sudden remembrances of Jolinar after returning from Naetu, thanks to Lantash's thinking down that pathway at the back of their mind. How she had fobbed him off, claiming he wouldn't understand. It had always left them thinking something else had gone on. And in the end, how they had to accept that, if they were ever to move on. "And I don't know." He stroked her face gently again, Lantash's sympathy joining with his own to make the feeling grow exponentially. "But I'm here for you /now/. And that's all I can offer."

 

Samantha stared at him for a moment, and he could feel her trembling under his touch. Finally, she started to move her hand towards him, and Lantash absently wondered to Martouf if she intended to prise his touch away from her.

 

Before either of them realised what was going on, however, her fingers, cool from the night air, slipped to the back of his neck and into the back of his shirt, fingertips aligning themselves along his spine. Then, very gently, she pressed down, fingers moving in small rhythmic circles.

 

Martouf's sudden hiss of an indrawn breath seemed incredibly loud in the stillness of the tent. She was applying pressure directly to Lantash, or at least the portions of the symbiote not hidden by bone, in his position of being wrapped around his brainstem. The sensuous ripples the symbiote broadcast fed directly into his own nervous system, producing a form of

recursive pleasure as the sensation passed back and forth between the two of them.

 

He looked down at Samantha when he had managed to regain some semblance of control, and in the parts of their mind that still seemed to be functioning, they noted that she seemed oddly impassive considering what she was doing.

 

'We should stop. This is a bad idea.'

 

But before they could act upon that, Samantha's other hand slipped to the back of his head, pulling him towards her, proceeding to devour his lips with her own.

 

As he pressed her back down to the floor of the tent, it was the last thought they had in quite some time.

 

**

 

As Martouf/Lantash crept towards his own tent some time later, he was grateful for the depth of the night both for being dark enough to hide the shame that crossed his features and for ensuring that their small campsite was abandoned. That shouldn't have happened. He shouldn't have taken advantage of her like that.

 

'Although,' Martouf pointed out as they sidestepped around the still smouldering remnants of the fire to reach his tent. 'She /was/ the one who instigated it.'

 

Lantash's mindvoice was entangled with sour tasting tendrils of shame. 'And did we stop things? We knew we should not.'

 

Martouf shook slightly as he walked. 'We knew she was vulnerable.'

 

It was not an argument. Each was giving voice to the thoughts the other was having. Self-chastisement squared.

 

There was no sound that caused them to suddenly halt, every sense on alert for the other presence they had suddenly become aware of. It was the faint gleam of the starlight streaming through the leaves of the trees reflecting off darkly painted metal that gave the other away. Brenda Harrison stood, just outside the campsite perimeter, where she had obviously been standing watch before noticing Martouf's departure from Sam's tent.

 

Neither Martouf or Lantash had even heard her approach. There were some Tok'ra who couldn't manage that level of stealth.

 

They stood there for a long moment, staring at each other. Martouf/Lantash had no idea what the woman was going to do. Unblended humans tended to react emotionally when comfronted with unexpected circumstances. Would she confront him with what she obviously knew? Would she tell the rest of the group? Would she go and check on Samantha to see what had been going on?

 

Finally Harrison inclined her head slightly towards him, cap momentarily obscuring her eyes, and turned away, continuing her patrol.

 

Martouf let out the breath he hadn't realise he had been holding, and quickly entered his tent, sealing the flap behind him.

 

**

 

Part Six: Who'd've Thought It'd Be Such A Small Galaxy...

 

**

 

"I thought there wasn't meant to be any Goa'uld positions away from the main building." Jacob said in an undertone to Jack O'Neill as he raised a pair of Tok'ra electrobinoculars to his eyes and looked through them, frowning slightly as he looked towards the small encampment of perhaps nearly a hundred or so Jaffa.

 

"There wasn't." Jack ground out, directing a glare in Harrison's direction.

 

The Major contrived to look affronted. "It's not my fault if they changed positions since we sent out the recon UAV." she hissed, fighting the urge to raise her voice for fear of being heard by those who they would rather not have hear them. She shifted uncomfortably in her position, lying on her stomach, peering over the steep mound a fair way from the camp. Only Daniel, Martouf and Sam had held back, sticking closer to the treeline.

 

Jack turned to give her a faint glower. "Next time, check twice." he told her.

 

Harrison made an annoyed noise and slid backwards, pulling herself into a crouch when she was far enough down the mound not to be seen in such a position, before rapidly moving towards the treeline to give the other three members of their team an update on the situation.

 

"What are we to do now, O'Neill?" Teal'c asked, as he lowered his own set of binoculars to look at his commanding officer.

 

Jack seemed to contemplate that for a moment, then elbowed Jacob lightly to get his attention. "They part of Anqet's force?" he asked.

 

There was such a long pause that Jack thought for a moment that he'd have to repeat the question, but Jacob finally answered, "Yes. They bear her symbol."

 

All Jack could think was that they must have /really/ good magnification on those things. "Right. So Sam could do her Gould routine on these guys?" He asked, glancing back towards Sam, who lurked in the shadows, watching everything carefully. She seemed unusually pale, and had ever since she had gotten up that morning. Jack put it down to the food. If you hadn't had it for a while, your body tended to rebel and declare the MRE's a poisonous substance until you got used to them again.

 

Jacob lowered the binoculars from his eyes and turned to give his daughters former commander a searching gaze. "Do you think she's ready?" he asked, staring at the man intently.

 

"I think she can handle it." Jack replied, tilting his chin up slightly.

 

"Right then," Jacob said, abruptly raising the binoculars again. "You go tell her, and get Martouf to get our equipment. Then come get me."

 

**

 

The 'equipment' in question was the package that the Tok'ra had sent through the Gate to Earth a few days earlier, and when Jacob opened it, it revealed that the contents had been:

 

"Clothing?" Harrison looked down at it and crouched down to finger a hemline with the critical expression one would assume when tasting a particular wine. "Now, if I knew the Tok'ra had a mail order catalogue, I would have gotten a dress like Garshaw's a long time ago."

 

Jacob rolled his eyes before they flared, giving rise to Selmak. "They are disguises." He said, bending down to pick up half of the package. Upon closer inspection, the package contained two outfits. One was light blue and gauzy, the other a dark royal blue and made of heavy velvet. "This is yours, Samantha." Selmak said gently, extending the pile of clothes to her.

 

Sam stared at the clothing for a moment, before she reached out and took it with obviously shaking hands. "Martouf, give me a hand?" she asked almost inaudibly, before she started deeper into the trees in order to get changed in semi-privacy.

 

Martouf glanced at Selmak for permission to leave the group, and received a nod in response. He ignored the raised eyebrow from Harrison that was intended from him and him alone, and started after Sam.

 

As Martouf headed away, Selmak picked up the remaining clothing and shoved it into Harrison's arms. She reflexively grabbed onto the garments, clutching them to her chest, shooting Selmak a puzzled glance. "What's this?" she asked.

 

"You will also be attired properly for this mission. You are to accompany Major Carter as her handmaiden." Selmak informed her, frowning at her.

 

Harrison raised a hand. "Ooooh no. Not at all."

 

From the sidelines, Jack sniggered at Harrison's sudden reluctance to assist in the mission. The woman /could/ be rather unintentially comical at times. Daniel just rolled his eyes, well used, as was the rest of the team, with how Harrison reacted to certain situations. This was a woman who despised fancy dress parties and had declared them a Government conspiracy plot, after all (rather an odd declaration, considering she was involved in a top secret government project that involved aliens from other planets and hid the existence of said aliens from the world at large).

 

"I'm not wearing this." Harrison clarified, staring at Selmak.

 

"Yes, you are." Selmak said stubbornly.

 

"No, I'm not."

 

"Yes you - don't be childish!"

 

"I'm not! You can't expect me to wear this, I mean, what the hell is this?" Harrison demanded, holding the offending object, the overcloak of the whole affair, between thumb and forefinger and at arms length, as if its very existence was hazardous. "And why do /I/ have to wear it?"

 

Selmak sighed, looking more than faintly annoyed at Harrison's dramatics. "Because Colonel O'Neill is too tall, Teal'c is a Jaffa, and Doctor Jackson does not possess breasts. Just put it on."

 

"But it's /ugly/." Harrison protested, wrinkling her nose, almost like the robes smelt bad. It had to be admitted: the overcloak and accompanying dress were hardly what would be called the height of fashion on Earth, but they did look quite well made, and the fabric wasn't something that could be found on Earth. Someone else might have found it exotic. Harrison merely saw it as an insult to her sense of taste.

 

"I must inform you, Major Harrison," Teal'c said, looking like he was attempting to maintain a thin veil of stoicism over his amusement. He himself had already changed into his Jaffa armour, although they knew that the symbol of Apophis might give him away. Their only hope was to claim that Anqet had tempted him to her side. A long shot, but better than simply leaving Sam with only Harrison's protection. "It is standard attire for a handmaiden to a Goa'uld."

 

"And you can fit weaponry under the cloak." Harrison mused as she turned the outfit this way and that. She looked up, glancing between Daniel and Teal'c, eyes narrowed with curiosity. "Why is that?"

 

It was Daniel who answered. "Sometimes, from what I understand, female Goa'uld's handmaidens can be a sort of bodyguards. A last line of defense should someone get all the way through the ships, weapon emplacements and Jaffa. More often than not though they're more like..." Daniel fidgeted and then fudged the truth slightly. "Glorified slaves with little to do except do whatever they're told."

 

"And you want me to play one of these handmaidens?" Harrison demanded, looking towards Selmak, frown creasing her face. "You do know the women have the vote now."

 

Selmak looked like he was about to snap something very unpleasant to Harrison, and so Jack decided to intervene with a smooth, "Harrison, you'd better get changed now."

 

Recognising the order for what it was, Harrison grumbled slightly to herself before scooping the clothing under her arm and disappearing into the trees, with a muttered admonishment to them all not to peek.

 

Selmak exhaled sharply. "Does she deliberately attempt to annoy people?" he snapped in Jack's direction.

 

Jack shrugged. "Only people she /really/ likes." He said, trying to suppress his smirk.

 

"It's working." Selmak grunted, grabbing the electrobinoculars and going to do some more spying on their unexpected guests.

 

He gave Daniel a sharp glare when the archaeologist made a sound suspiciously like a strangled laugh, but when Daniel managed to keep a straight face under the Tok'ra's scrutiny, he huffed and stalked back to the treeline without another word.

 

**

 

Sam shifted uncomfortably in the attire of a Goa'uld Overlord, and the mettallic bits and pieces that were attached to the bodice chinked quietly with the motion, accompanying the clacking of the beads around her neck, and the chime of her bracelets. It was a rather musical piece of clothing, when one looked at it that way, but in Sam's mind it was uncomfortable, tight in /all/ the wrong places, and far too revealing and lacking in warmth for a world that seemed in a constantly autumnal state. The bodice was of a rigid bronze-shaded material, the front part of which was covered in pieces of shaped metal that made it appear to be akin to an breastplate. The rest of the outfit was a swirl of gauzy sky-blue material that swirled about her, from the skirt to the shawl-like coverings that did little to keep her shoulders warm.

 

"I think I'm going to catch my death." Sam muttered as Martouf helped fasten herself into it. It was hardly the kind of garment that one could shoehorn themselves into by one's self.

 

"You look very beautiful." he remarked, and Sam bit her lip, declining to comment.

 

"Long time since I wore this." She finally said, somewhat brusquely as she tugged on the bodice. "Not got any particularly pleasant memories associated with it."

 

Martouf was standing behind her, fastening the clasps of the bodice, and he paused in the motion a moment before continuing. "I'm sorry." he said.

 

Sam tried not to shiver. "Well, you were hardly responsible for Anqet's wardrobe choices." she said, attempting to brush off his words.

 

Sam felt his fingers resting gently on his shoulder, felt the warmth from his hand seep into her skin, warming her however briefly. She closed her eyes and took a slow breath, not reacting otherwise, but secretly revelling in the contact. She didn't know what might have happened next, but would never find out, as he snatched his hand away as if the contact burned him, and she turned slowly to face him, to see him abashedly clench his hands into a fist.

 

"Martouf, I-" The words stuck in her throat as he looked at her, guarded curiosity in his eyes. She found she couldn't speak for a moment.

 

"I think I'm ready." she finally said, somewhat awkwardly.

 

"Are you certain?" It was Lantash who spoke, after a brief pause that made Sam think they had switched over after she had spoken. His voice was grave, the effect worsened by the gravelly distortion of the symbiote's voice. Sam wondered, distantly, as she had in the back of her mind so many times before, how /exactly/ such an effect was accomplished by the symbiote. He raised a hand, much more certain in his movements than his host, but his hand hovered above her cheek for a moment before he suddenly changed his mind and rested his hand on her shoulder.

 

'He regrets it,' Sam thought, fighting the urge to swallow convulsively and close her eyes. 'They both do.'

 

And Sam knew she had been the one to instigate it. The fact that they seemed to find it all so difficult now... that their normally comfortable relationship was gone.

 

But then... it's hadn't existed for nearly two years? How had she suddenly expected to have it all return to normal again? How could she have been so naive?

 

"Yeah," she said, attempting a firm smile. "I'm certain."

 

There was a brief pause that Sam had come to recognise as a changeover between host and symbiote. It lasted less than a second, and when it was over, Martouf gave her a tremulous smile and reached out to her. After a brief hesitation, Sam reached out similarly and for a moment they rested in each others arms. The hug being totally platonic, just wanted for a feeling of comfort.

 

The contact was reassuring, but there was an uncomfortable undercurrent to it all, as if Martouf were reluctant about touching her, and the embrace was quickly over. Martouf pulled away, pulling his hand behind his back so as to resist any attempt at touching her, however accidentally.

 

"I'd better go. They'll be waiting." Sam said hurriedly and awkwardly, and turned on her heel, intent on returning to the group.

 

"Samantha..."

 

Martouf's voice halted her and she turned around to look back at him. He approached her slowly and then raised a hand, brushing the backs of his fingers gently over her cheek. She closed her eyes for a moment, focusing on the sensation without commenting.

 

Then he pulled away. "Be careful." he warned.

 

"Always," she whispered, and headed back towards the others.

 

**

 

By the time Sam returned to the campsite, it was to hear the good-natured teasing of her teammates towards her replacement.

 

"Come on, Harrison! Can't be that bad." Jack was saying in the direction of the trees, where presumably Harrison was lurking.

 

"You're a man! You know nothing of women's clothing."

 

"Oh, I don't know," Daniel said, as he fiddled with his radio, shooting Jack a rather amused look. "There was last Christmas party..."

 

"Shut up, Daniel." Jack snapped, frowning a little. "Harrison, suck it up and get out here. That's an order."

 

There was a pause and then a sullen "Fine!" before Harrison reappeared from the foliage.

 

"Don't laugh," Harrison muttered, as she crept out from behind the trees, overcloak slung over her arm. In comparison to Sam's attire, Harrison's was positively conservative. A long sleeved, high necked dress that went all the way to the ground was hardly scandalous. But it was clinging, the deep blue fabric hugging every curve of her body before flowing almost organically around her legs. There was no adornment. But Harrison, even off duty, would rarely be seen in anything so feminine. Mainly her attire consisted of oversized sweatshirts and trousers. Her fatigues were generally as figure hugging as her clothing got. Small wonder then that she looked uncomfortable.

 

"You look great." Daniel said, in an attempt to reassure her. But all it resulted in was a rather embarrassed glare.

 

"Yeah," Jack said, waving a hand to indicate her dress. "You should wear that for Siler."

 

Harrison made an annoyed sound that indicated she'd given the response she was about to give a great number of times. "For the last time, Colonel, I'm not seeing Siler." She started to sling the overcloak around her body, turning her into a small pillar of blue velvet.

 

"Sure, whatever." Jack said dismissively, before turning to Sam.

 

She seemed very small. Standing here, swathed in the elaborate garments of Goa'uld, she looked nothing less than intimidated and daunted by the task ahead, and not a little bit cold. He almost reached out and rested a hand on her shoulder in reassurance, but the way in which she wrapped her arms around herself discouraged him from making physical contact with her. But even in her rather uncertain state, she outshone Harrison in all ways: her clothing, her appearance, a general regality about her. Harrison just seemed to disappear into the shadows behind her. Which, he supposed, was half the point.

 

"You sure you wanna do this?" he asked her, frowning in concern.

 

A little way behind her, Jack could see Jacob fidgeting with his electrobinoculars. He could just imagine that her father was just as uncomfortable with the situation as Jack was, but obviously his Tok'ra sense of duty had convinced him this had to be done.

 

Jack just didn't like it at all.

 

When Sam fidgeted a moment, his mouth flattened into an even thinner line.

 

"Just say the word and we'll call this off." He said. "We'll find another way."

 

Sam's head raised and she met his eyes, edges of her mouth turning upwards in a mirthless smile. "No you won't." she said simply. "Which is why I'm going to do this."

 

**

 

The Jaffa camp was like any others Harrison had observed in her time with the SGC. There were a few flags and pennants, hastily driven into the dirt whenever the Jaffa had pitched their tents. They were designed to be easily picked up and carried by the troops as they marched towards their destinations. There were a few open spaces where Jaffa practiced their combat skills, and the larger tents served as makeshift barracks and mess tents were dotted regularly throughout the camp.

 

Both she and Teal'c were sweeping the area with their eyes as they approached, Teal'c just ahead, and Harrison just behind of Carter, taking note of Jaffa emplacements, the general attitude of their warriors, and any possible escape routes should they need to make a quick exit if the need arose.

 

Carter, for her part, was playing the role of Goa'uld matriarch to the hilt. She walked with her head held high and proud, looking about herself with disdain for the masses that surrounded her. Watching her out from under the voluminous hood of her robe brought more than a little chill to Harrison's spine.

 

She remembered once when SG1 had been captured by a Goa'uld who had gone by the name of Nekhebet. Harrison had been hit over the head with the wrong end of a staff weapon and so hadn't been exactly in a fit state to pay attention to what was going on, what with the concussion and the bright red blood that had been flowing into her eyes, but the attitude of Nekhebet almost perfectly matched the one Carter was displaying.

 

It almost made Harrison grab her sidearm and take her down then and there.

 

But she kept herself shrouded in her robe and followed last in line, and fought the urge to hide behind Teal'c's bulk and let her Jaffa friend protect her from the enemies that were now surrounding them from every side, most of whom were muttering and whispering as they caught sight of the woman who seemed to be their monarch, gone for two years.

 

She couldn't see Teal'c's face, due to the virtue of the concealing helmet he worse, but she could imagine him glowering at those who spoke in hushed tones around them. After they had proceeded a good way into the camp, a man with the golden emblem of Anqet imprinted on his forehead stepped fowards, eyeing the group in suspiciously. He wasn't as tall as some of the Jaffa, but he wore an intense expression that could have been associated with one who thought deeply. He seemed to be perpetually frowning, and he was unarmed, leaving that to those Jaffa who were flanking him, all armed with staff weapons and aggressive expressions.

 

"Who are you?" he demanded, eyeing Teal'c with suspician. He didn't even glance in Harrison's direction. Presumable a Handmaiden was beneath notice.

 

"Surely, you recognise your own Queen." Carter said, her voice strident and firm, tolerating none who would differ from her in opinion. She stepped around Teal'c, who noticeably tightened his grip on his staff weapon, the eyes of the helmet that the Tok'ra had brought along gleaming faintly in the light.

 

The First Prime drew back slightly, staring at her intently. He seemed unsure of how to respond, but Carter kept staring at him intently, daring him to contradict her words. Finally, he dropped to one knee, bowing his head and spoke in low, sonorous tones. "My lady." was all he said simply.

 

Harrison had a momentarily bizarre thought that he sounded like James Earl Jones.

 

All around them, the Jaffa were dropping to their knees, the knowledge of who she was spreading throughout the camp like wildfire, and before too much time had passed all the Jaffa in sight were on bended knee.

 

"Where have you been, my lady?" The First Prime asked, attempting to look at her without raising his head from looking downwards. "We thought you had abandoned us. We were going to retake this traitor's stronghold in your name."

 

Carter hesitated almost a moment too long, as if weighing what Anqet would have said. "Perhaps it would be a good idea to discuss this in private." She said, gesturing imperiously for him, and the Jaffa around them to rise.

 

"Of course, my lady," The First Prime said, as he stood, he gestured to a large and slightly more ornate tent than others. Harrison couldn't read Goa'uld, but she guessed it was the command tent. He started to lead the way towards the tent, the other Jaffa parted before them like the mythical red sea. It wasn't far to the tent, and just before they reached the tent, Carter paused.

 

"Handmaiden," She said, turning towards Harrison. "You will remain outside while my guard scouts the camp."

 

Harrison bobbed a little courtesy and offered a murmured acknowledgement in rather uncertain Goa'uld that Selmak had tried to drill into her over the last few days so she wouldn't stick out like a sore thumb in her role as servant. She kept her voice low so that any mistakes in the words she made would be hard to hear. A lowly handmaiden wasn't supposed to speak any other language than Low Goa'uld to their superiors, apparently. A sort of harsher version of that spoken by higher ranking Jaffa and their Goa'uld masters.

 

Harrison inclined her head in acknowledgement, and, as Sam ducked into the tent, Teal'c looked to her.

 

"Be vigilant." he instructed. Or rather, he utter the Goa'uld words: "Kat'vaar", of which Harrison had no knowledge. Still, she wasn't going to let on that she didn't speak the language.

 

And so, like a good little Handmaiden, Harrison bobbed her head and took up a position just outside the tent flap as Teal'c moved away. After a moment, one of the camp's Jaffa came up beside her, also taking a guard position outside the main tent. Harrison was forced to crane her neck to look at him, up and up and up...

 

'Damn, he's tall.' she thought.

 

He was built like a rugby player, with the height of a basketball player. The combination of the two did nothing to calm Harrison's nerves. The Jaffa looked down at her, frowning at her sudden curiousity. Harrison swallowed convulsively and smiled tremulously. "Greetings." she said awkwardly.

 

'Really tall,' she clarified to herself.

 

**

 

The inside of the tent had apparently been rapidly cleared once word had reached the Jaffa who had been inside the command tent realised their Queen was heading towards the tent with the intention of having a 'private' discussion inside. There were no chairs inside save a long low slung couch, but a middle sized table was placed directly in the centre of the tent with several maps spread over it, with what looked like empty mugs serving as paperweights. At a glance, Sam could see that they were maps of the surface of the world they stood on, with weapon and troop emplacements marked on in bright red.

 

Sam tried to hurriedly collect her thoughts, to frame her words as Anqet would have. To say that it was difficult would have been an understatement. She had spent nearly all her time since she had been released from her living nightmare trying to repress the memory of what she had gone through. And now she had to live it all over again.

 

"It pleases us that you are willing to attack this traitor in our name." Sam said in the formal version of Goa'uld, the one used only by the Goa'uld themselves. Personal pronouns weren't the same in that dialect as in others. She walked around the tent, eyeing the objects within it appraisingly.

 

The First Prime, whose name was Maktan, she recalled, was staring at her thoughtfully. "You come poorly protected, my lady." he said.

 

Sam glanced at him, before turning her attention to a jar of powdered ink. 'Just add water', she read on the label. "There is a small entourage of my followers not far from here." she said, not exactly lying. "I decided to come ahead alone. To see who had formed a camp under my banner."

 

Maktan moved around the table, stepping closer towards her. "My lady, you disappeared from your palace two years ago, leaving no signs of where you went, and now you suddenly return. Why?"

 

Sam glared at him, her manner full of affronted pride. This would have been an excellant moment, she thought, for her eyes to have flared. If she had had a symbiote. "You dare question your Queen?" she demanded, her voice full of wrath. For a second, she remembered in a flash how Anqet had spoken to her underlings in this way. And in that moment, a warm rush of pleasure at the sudden assertion of her authority flooded through her, quickly followed by horror that she could be so pleased by the thought of so totally dominating others.

 

"Of course I would not, my lady." Maktan said softly. "If you were my Queen."

 

"What are you talking about?" Sam demanded, struggling to retain the regal note in her voice without it succumbing to the gnawing fear she felt.

 

Before she could stop him, Maktan had stepped close and had moved aside the piece of opaque cloth that hid the wires of the voice-distortion device that the SGC had provided her with. He gave her a knowing look before he pulled the tab away from her throat and stood back, raising an eyebrow speculatively at her. "I know that you are not exactly who you claim to be, Samantha."

 

**

 

Jack and Martouf were the ones currently watching out, binoculars trained on the encampment, watching carefully to see if something was amiss. If something went wrong, then it'd be a good bet that they'd see hoards of raging Jaffa running towards them, staff weapons raised. And if that happened, there probably wouldn't be much they could do about it. After a few minutes of watching, Jack lowered his binoculars, hunkering down a bit further behind the slope. Martouf didn't move, continuing to scan the camp.

 

"See anything?" Jack asked, squinting at Martouf in the sun before he replaced his sunglasses over his eyes.

 

There was a pause, then Martouf shook his head. "No activity out of the ordinary. Samantha has not left the command tent since she entered, and Teal'c appears to be scouting around the camp."

 

Jack nodded slowly as he disgested the information. There were a few moments of silence between them, broken only by the warbling of alien birds in alien trees, and the rustle of breeze through leaves. And under it all, the sounds of the camp nearby drifted across the intervening space. Jack could hear a few scattered phrases of Goa'uld being uttered, and the grunting of warriors as they sparred in training.

 

"So what's going on between you and Carter?" he asked suddenly.

 

Martouf jerked slightly in response to the question, before slowly turning to look at Jack. "What are you talking about?" he asked.

 

Jack had to admit, Martouf was good. If it hadn't been for the slight flinch, and the fact that Jack knew that he knew /exactly/ what Jack was talking about, he might have been fooled into thinking that Martouf was totally innocent of knowledge.

 

"You know damn well what I'm talking about," he responded in a low voice, glancing in the direction of where Jacob and Daniel stood nearer the treeline, apparently going over a map of the area. "You and Carter."

 

"What about us?" Martouf asked slowly, returning to his scrutiny of the nearby camp.

 

Jack eyed him shrewedly. "I did hear you, you know."

 

Martouf froze, unease creeping over his features.

 

Jack waved a hand dismissively. "Don't look so shocked." he said. "For one, Carter isn't under my command anymore, plus she's a free woman, she can do whatever you like. Secondly, when you're in the military you... get used to things. You'd be surprised what'd happen in the barracks after lights out. No one got any privacy."

 

"I didn't realise the Tau'ri were so... at ease about it all." Martouf muttered, raising his binoculars again in order to avoid meeting Jack's eyes.

 

"Not all are." Jack said, shrugging. "But she is my friend." he added, staring at his companion intently. "And she's been through a lot. A lot I don't know about. And if I find out you've been adding to the pain she's been going through-"

 

Martouf brought the binoculars down sharply, glancing in Jack's direction with surprise on his face. "I would never do any such thing." He said, with such a burr in his voice that Jack momentarily wondered which one was speaking: Martouf or Lantash. Maybe both.

 

"Good." Jack said firmly. "Don't make me regret trusting you."

 

He raised his own binoculars again, but not before he saw Martouf looking at him thoughtfully.

 

"In response to your question," It was Lantash who spoke, and his voice seemed sad. Not an emotion Jack normally would have associated with the fiesty symbiote. "I do not know what is happening between ourselves and Samantha."

 

Jack heard him shift uncomfortably, and turned to regard the Tok'ra, who looked more than a little uncomfortable about speaking of this to a man who had never exactly been the staunchest of friends. Or even a particularly close acquaintance. Although they had fashioned a sort of mutual respect following their experiences on Naetu, both of them were perfectly aware of Jack's distrust of anyone who possessed a symbiote.

 

"But know that she initiated it." Lantash continued, looking at Jack gravely. "I would not have done anything if she had not wanted it."

 

"Right," Jack said. "Keep telling yourself that."

 

From Lantash's stung expression, Jack guessed that the Tok'ra had had exactly the same thoughts.

 

"It was a mistake." he finally whispered, before his voice suddenly switched to Martouf's. "On both our parts. It shouldn't have happened."

 

There was a look of such sadness on the Tok'ra's face that Jack didn't say anything further, and the two of them returned their attentions to their task of watching, and waiting.

 

**

 

Sam Carter offered a faintly tired smile to the Jaffa who stood across from her, still waiting for her response. "I suppose I should have realised I couldn't have fooled you of all people."

 

"No," Maktan said, dropping into the low couch. "You should not."

 

Sam sighed and sat down next to him, the motion causing all the metallic jewelry attached to her gown to clink together madly, forming a discordant melody. "I didn't know how you'd react."

 

"Any differently from the last time?" he asked, a faint and sad smile on his face.

 

"That /was/ a long time ago." she pointed out. "I didn't know if you'd had a change of heart." She kept her voice low and gave him a fond look. "You /are/ the First Prime of a Goa'uld who is taking back a stronghold in her name."

 

"I knew you were still alive." he said honestly, staring at her intently. "I didn't realise you'd been freed from Anqet's rule."

 

Sam shook her head slowly, sadly, staring at him. "You could have taken your chance to leave. To escape. When Anqet was gone, there was nothing to stop you from leaving and making your own way."

 

Maktan gave her another thoughtful look. "As I said. I knew you were still alive."

 

There was an uncomfortable silence as Sam digested what that meant.

 

Finally, Maktan spoke again. "So why /are/ you here, Samantha?"

 

Sam sighed, leaning back against the couch further. "Several Tau'ri scientists were captured by the Goa'uld who decided to take over this planet... which one was it?"

 

"Yiddae." Maktan answered her.

 

"Yiddae." Sam repeatedly thoughtfully, her mind taking a moment to place the name. "Anqet never did like him. I think she was planning to have him killed before I... was rescued." she finished, with a sidelong look at Maktan.

 

If he responded to her phrasing, he gave no sign, so she continued. "Well, they were captured, and they had developed a technology Earth apparently doesn't want the Goa'uld to get their hands on. We... myself and some... friends, are here to rescue them and recover the technology."

 

Maktan was silent a moment, thinking that over. "Then this army will help you."

 

Sam shook her head slowly. "You don't have to." She said, even though this had been her assigned aim in coming there. "This isn't your fight."

 

He reached out to touch her hand gently. "This is your army, my lady," And his voice was full of more honest respect than he had ever used in all his dealings with Anqet. "We pledge our lives to you."

 

Sam felt her eyes misting up. "I've missed you, you know." she said, her voice cracking.

 

He squeezed her hand. "I've missed you too."

 

"Thank you." she said, before bowing her head, trying to regain her ability to speak.

 

When she raised it again, Maktan had stood, looking every bit the military leader she knew him to be.

 

"What about your friends?" he asked, raising an eyebrow.

 

"I can send Harrison out to tell them what's going on." she said, glancing towards the tent flap.

 

"Harrison?" Maktan said questioningly.

 

"Yeah, the ah... handmaiden that came with me."

 

As Maktan nodded in comprehension, Carter raised her voice, clearing her throat briefly before yelling, "Handmaiden!"

 

**

 

Harrison blinked up at the Jaffa who stood beside her, gaping in amazement. "You /are/ joking!" she said, eyes wide. "Seventeen children?" she repeated, somewhat in shock.

 

The Jaffa nodded gravely in response to her astonished question, confirming the information.

 

"Wow," Harrison said, shaking her head. Built like a Greek god and apparently quite adept in the lovemaking department. How come they never came that good back in good ol' Colorado? "How does your wife find time to sleep?" How did they find time to get more kids?

 

The Jaffa opened his mouth to respond-

 

"Handmaiden!!"

 

"Oops. My cue." Harrison said, raising a hand to gesture in the direction of the tent. Starting in the direction of the entrance, she paused, "Oh, and don't worry, I'm sure that... little rash will go away in no time." And she smiled brightly at him before ducking into the tent, remembering at the last moment to tug down her hood so that it properly obscured her eyes. Unfortunately, it ensured that she could barely see which way she was stepping.

 

"Yes, your worship?" she said softly, deferentially (while heartily trying to keep all trace of sarcasm out of her voice).

 

Carter's gestured sharply as she stood, or that's what Harrison guessed she did from the clanking that the movement caused her jewellery to emit. "He's on our side, Major."

 

Harrison blinked, tilting her head upwards to risk peeking out from under her hood. Carter's voice was unaltered, and Harrison could see the voice-altering equipment - it had been pulled out of its hiding place and was disconnected. Her hand drifted to the handgun hidden underneath the voluminous folds of her robes. "Ma'am?" she asked, questionningly. Suspicion warred within her as to what was going on, and she briefly wished that Teal'c hadn't gone walking around the camp. She had no doubt that he had remained close by, but suddenly in her mind, it wasn't close enough.

 

"It's alright, Harrison." Carter said, a faint smile on her features. "He's an old friend."

 

Harrison's hand tightened on her sidearm. "How old?" she asked, attempting to keep her voice light.

 

"I am aware that Samantha Carter is not Anqet," The First Prime said, looking at her intently. "That she was taken as a host by the Goa'uld."

 

"Really." Harrison ground out. "And what do you intend to do about this?" She felt her muscles tense up, in preparation for a confrontation.

 

"Nothing," The First Prime responded. "In this, we are on the same side. This force is going to the stronghold to retake the facility in Anqet's name." He gave Carter a sideways glance, "And there are other matters of importance that ensure we are on the same side."

 

Harrison felt some of her muscles relax, but she didn't relinquish her grip on her gun. The implications of having a small army of Jaffa to assist them...

 

"I see." She said shortly. "Shall I inform the others?" she asked.

 

"Yes. And quickly. It's safe for them to come here." Carter said, looking to the First Prime.

 

"Right." Harrison said, and without another word of acknowledgement, spun on her heel and exited the tent. There, the guard was still standing there, looking definitely curious about what had just transpired. Harrison doubted he had heard anything through the heavy tarpulin of the tent, but she didn't like the look nonetheless.

 

"Do me a favour," she asked of him. "Find the Jaffa who accompanied my lady and myself into the encampment. Her Worship wishes his presence." That way, Teal'c would be around if anything was going on. Harrison trusted her teammate to remain impartial where she doubted the soundness of Carter's judgement. The guard nodded and picked up his staff to go and search out Teal'c.

 

With a queasy feeling in her stomach, she started the trek back towards the others. She didn't release her deathgrip on her sidearm until she came into sight of them, and the camp was far behind.

 

**

 

"I don't like it." was Jacob's verdict.

 

Jack saw Harrison's fingers twitch over the barrel of her sidearm. She had shed the heavy cloak for the moment, dropping it to the forest floor in a puddle of deep blue velvet, and held the weapon in her hands rather than discard it to the ground. He figured it was safe to assume that Harrison was in agreement with Jacob on this issue.

 

"We have to trust in Samantha's judgement," Martouf pointed out. "We have no alternative."

 

"You would say that." Harrison muttered, and Jack saw Martouf give her a sharp glance. Before he could give himself time to wonder about that statement, however, Jack waved a hand at the pair of them, cutting short any returning comment the Tok'ra might have given.

 

"Harrison," he said, looking sternly at his second in command. While she had never integrated with the team very well socially, he had learned to count on her in the field, and to trust her judgement. He knew this was going to have to be one of those occasions. "Did it seem to you like Carter was in danger?"

 

Harrison glanced back towards the slopes just beyond the treeline, in the direction of the camp, her fingers twitching again. "Nothing overt, sir. And Carter certainly seemed convinced. I didn't get Teal'c's perspective on things before I came back here."

 

"I find it hard to believe that a Jaffa would serve a Goa'uld so loyally, even going to the degree of taking back a stronghold in their name," Daniel said, looking thoughtful. "And then be perfectly willing to accept and assist the former host and a group of Tau'ri." He looked around at the group. "It just doesn't make sense."

 

"Something else is going on here." Jacob said, voicing the thought that they were all having.

 

"And how much do you want to bet that Carter knows exactly what it is?" Harrison said, giving Martouf a sidelong look.

 

Martouf said nothing.

 

Jack sighed heavily. "I don't see we have a choice. We need to get our people out, and since Carter seems to have blown our cover," He inclined his head towards Harrison, acknowledging her contribution of that information. "We don't have any other choice, I think."

 

There was unhappy, but unanimous agreement with that sentiment. They had no choices but to go to the camp, and see what was going to happen next.

 

**

 

Part Seven: Best Laid Plans

 

**

 

Harrison lurked by the entryway of the tent, almost invisible in the shadows as befitted a Goa'uld Handmaiden. They hadn't wanted to chance someone walking in and seeing her out of her place. No point in attracting needless attention. The rest of the team were standing around the main table in the command tent, various expressions of displeasure on their faces. Except on Sam's face, who just looked tired, and Maktan, who watched everything with silence and thoughtfulness. Teal'c had returned from his scouting of the camp, and was frowning distinctly.

 

"I don't suppose you'd care to explain why exactly you trust this... individual?" Selmak asked, his voice suspicious as he threw a sidelong glance in Maktan's direction. The First Prime didn't respond to the mild taunt.

 

Sam shook her head in the direction of her father. "I don't suppose it would be enough to ask you to respect my privacy in this?"

 

"Under normal circumstances," Selmak said, returning his attention to Sam. "That would be sufficient. However too much is at stake here to resort to such whimsies."

 

Sam stiffened at the implied insult, and she narrowed her eyes at her father's symbiote

 

"But I think we can leave it for now." Jack interjected suddenly, hoping to diffuse a possible row as he saw Sam take a deep breath with the probable intention of starting an argument on the subject. "Maktan... is it? What exactly are you proposing here?"

 

Maktan spoke up for the first time since the team had arrived, stepping a little closer to the table. "You need to infiltrate the facility. Unfortunately, as you can see," There was a map of the compound they were going towards on the table that the team was ranged around, "It is too heavily guarded for even a small team to infiltrate. Even with Samantha posing as Anqet, you would have only managed to garner yourself a little extra time." He straightened faintly. "What I /propose/ is that this army will attack, as planned. We will provide a distraction to draw the main force to here," He tapped the map at a point that Harrison couldn't see from her vantage. "And if you enter here, there should minimal defences left to deal with. And what resistance there is will not be able to call for help."

 

"A workable plan," Selmak admitted, stiffly. "If it succeeds."

 

"What about your troops?" Lantash said, staring hard at Maktan. "Surely you do not believe that they will follow those of the Tau'ri into battle."

 

Maktan straightened, glowering at the Tok'ra. "They are loyal to me." He said, as if that were all the explanation required.

 

"And I am loyal to Samantha. We will follow you into battle."

 

Jacob looked like he was about to continue to question Maktan, but a harsh look from Sam silenced him on that issue.

 

"What option do we have?" She said, her voice brittle. "As it stands, this is an impossible mission. This way, at least, we have a chance."

 

Jack looked at her, then beckoned Jacob to join him in the corner of the tent with a crooking of his index finger. As the two withdrew from the table, Harrison turned her head slightly to peek out of the crack in the tent flap that she stood next to.

 

She could just make out the sounds of Jaffa talking to each other, about their Goddess returning, about how she must be here to bless their holy battle against the blasphemous Goa'uld who had taken her place, how the priests would pass this day into legend. She could see them keeping a small distance between themselves and the Command tent, watching it reverently.

 

She felt sick, and couldn't watch it anymore.

 

Jack and Jacob had returned to the table, both looking uneasy. She could tell they knew they had no alternative than to trust this man, and neither of them liked it one bit. "Fine." Jack was saying, shortly. "We'll do it. But understand that if it goes sour, I am holding you personally responsible."

 

Maktan inclined his head. "I will endeavour to do my best to help you, and Samantha, Colonel."

 

It seemed to be the end of the meeting. Sam seemed to think that her presence was no longer required, and headed towards the exit.

 

Maktan laid a hand on her arms, stopping her. Harrison took clinical note of the way that Martouf stiffened in response to the motion, and it did not go unobserved by Tealc or Daniel either, who exchanged curious glances.  "The Jaffa have heard of your return," he reminded her gently. "They'll want to see you for themselves."

 

Sam hesitated for a long moment, then nodded regally. "Very well," she said.

 

Maktan turned to the others. "A Goddess must have her entourage," he said, a faintly amused tone in her voice.

 

Harrison muttered something unrepeatable that sounded faintly like Gaelic, and tugged on her cloak, stepping forward. The others exchanged glances, and after looking at Sam's pleading expression, grudgingly stepped forward in tacit agreement to accompany her on her 'walkabout'.

 

All of them were left with faintly sour feelings in their stomachs. Except Maktan. He looked at Sam like he saw the Goddess that she wasn't.

 

**

 

"You know what I feel like?"

 

Daniel's attention was pulled away from the Jaffa's preparations to break camp to Harrison, who was walking towards him slowly. He had been watching Sam walking among the Jaffa like the goddess she was playing, bestowing her blessing upon those who served her. She played the superior, smug Goa'uld far too well for Daniel's liking, and he gained a sour feeling in his stomach as he continued watching her. So, in a way, he was somewhat grateful for Harrison's distraction.

 

He raised a quizzical eyebrow at her as she picked her way carefully across the muddy ground. "Chicken tonight?" he asked glibly.

 

Harrison might have rolled her eyes, but Daniel couldn't exactly tell with the cowl pulled over her head. "No. A Jedi. One of those ones from the new movie. I swear there was a woman wearing /exactly/ this outfit. Except she had these tattoos."

 

Daniel gave her a sidelong look. "/You've/ seen the new movie?"

 

Harrison straightened, not looking in his direction. "Teal'c dragged me there. Absolutely insisted."

 

Daniel snorted, remembering walking into the ready room to find Teal'c and Harrison playing with a couple of Teal'c's training staffs as if they had been swords (lightsabers, even?), and then suddenly realised, as Harrison spoke to him in low tones, that she had used the brief spate of conversation to move closer to him so they could speak more privately.

 

"Look, don't kill me, ok? I wouldn't ask the Colonel this but... I really need to ask." Harrison glanced towards Sam and then dropped her voice to a near whisper. "Do you trust Sam? I mean really trust her. Even knowing everything that's /happened/ to her?" She gave him a speculative look from under the lip of her hood.

 

"Yes." Daniel responded instantly, but there was a note of doubt underneath his voice that Harrison obviously picked up on.

 

"Really?" She said, glancing briefly at Sam, and the fabric of her travelling robe that swirled about her with her movements.

 

"Getting taken over by a Goa'uld /changes/ people, Daniel. We both know that. Let's not forget what happened to poor Lieutenant Davison. And it's happened to Carter /twice/."

 

"One was a Tok'ra." Daniel said, feeling moved, for some reason, to defend his former team-mate on that level, although the recollection of the young SGC officer who had taken his life after being taken over by, and then freed from, a Goa'uld caused his stomach to clench and churn uncomfortably.

 

The young man had been captured and taken as a host on one of the SGteam missions, before being recaptured by the SGC a few months later. He hadn't been able to live with the atrocities he had committed while possessed by the alien after the Tok'ra had managed to extract it, and shortly after he was released from the infirmary he had broken into the SGC and held the Tok'ra representative hostage, screaming at her and calling her a creature of evil. After a standoff, he had seemed to suddenly break down, shooting himself without warning. Daniel could still remember the horrified scream of the Tok'ra as she ran away from the body as he collapsed to the floor, her clothing soaked with blood.

 

Her colleague had wrapped a cloak around her shivering shoulders as the woman had sobbed her heart out, and gravely informed the SGC that it wasn't unknown of for past hosts to be unable to cope with what they had done. The majority managed to cope, convincing themselves that it /hadn't/ been their faults, as they weren't responsible for their actions at the time. But occasionally, people couldn't handle it. It was just human nature.

 

Jack had been forced to leave the room before he threatened to kill them himself.

 

Now, it was Harrison's turn to snort. "Same difference." She was fiddling with her sleeve, and when Daniel looked down, he could see the hilt of her knife just poking out of her sleeve, where she had secreted it. Harrison always had a habit of fiddling with her weapons when nervous. It usually happened just before she pulled them out and used them.

 

'How does an engineer get quite so trigger happy?' Daniel wondered absently.

 

"I know you knew her, but what I see doesn't exactly endear trust." Harrison hissed, shooting nervous glances to see if they were being overheard. Special glances were given to the Tok'ra, who had far more acute hearing than anyone else. "Look, if you tell me, seriously, Daniel, that you really do trust her with your life, I won't say another word."

 

She gave him an intent look, her eyes only dimly visible.

 

Daniel said nothing, simply looking away and increasing his stride to take him away from the pseudo-Handmaiden, avoiding the question.

 

He thought he heard her say, "That's what I thought," before she returned to her previous position just behind Sam, but he wasn't quite sure.

 

He just stared at Sam, at the expression she wore, and wondered how much she had changed. And whether that change was for the worse.

 

**

 

SG1 and the Tok'ra that accompanied them had set out from the Jaffa camp a few hours ahead of the army's estimated time of departure. The plan was that they would arrive at the compound with plenty of time to spare getting themselves into the best position to infiltrate the compound, to allow them to observe the numbers and movements of the guards, and to get ready for the battle.

 

As soon as they had reached the small woodland that was the last barrier between them and the compound, Harrison had started complaining about how awful her outfit was. After all, it really wasn't her colour, the material tore so easily, and it was /so/ uncomfortable, and wouldn't it be so nice to get back into her own outfit...

 

"Daniel," Jack said, breaking through Harrison's litany of complaints against her costume. "Do you think that Harrison likes her outfit?"

 

"Actually yes, why else would she talk about it so much?" He answered Jack, watching Harrison for her response.

 

"Ha ha, very funny, guys. Come on, can we stop? I really want to change."

 

"Please, anything to make her stop." That was Jacob, looking like he wanted to strangle Harrison if she continued talking.

 

"Oh alright, since you asked so /nicely/." Jack said, waving the group to a halt and pulling off his backpack to rummage around in it.

 

"What about you, Sam?" Jacob said, turning towards his daughter, who was slightly ahead of the main group.

 

Sam grimaced as she pulled her heel out of the mud. "Exotic looking as this outfit might be," she groused, "It is /massively/ impractical. You can tell Goa'uld never actually /do/ anything." She looked as if she'd give anything to get back into the fatigues that had itched her so previously.

 

Daniel obliged, tossing towards her a canvas pack similar to the one that Jack was handing to Harrison.

 

Harrison was already halfway out of her clothing, and there was much coughing and sudden shuffling as the male members of her team sought to give her some measure of privacy by turning away. Daniel thought he heard her murmur something about men and their ability to be embarrassed that he was certain wasn't complementary. Sam got dressed as quickly as Harrison; quicker even, as there was less of her clothing to remove.

 

Harrison uttered a completely satisfied sigh as she finished getting changed back into her fatigues, planting her feet firmly into sturdy boots, and lacing them, before mussing her hair with glee and putting her cap on. "Much, much, better." she said.

 

Sam looked similarly relieved, although she was not as vocal about it. She simply smoothed down the hair displaced from the action of getting changed, and set about lacing her boots. Daniel found he was waiting for her to offer more comments on the discomfort of Goa'uld clothing, or something along those lines, but she remained stoically silent.

 

He missed those comments.

 

"I can see how you'd not like that outfit anymore," Harrison said, slinging her rifle over her shoulder as the group started moving towards their destination again. "Of course, I hear that the Goa'uld has a great influence of its host. Maybe its dress sense would have rubbed off on you."

 

Sam glanced at Harrison in faint surprise at the statement. "Anqet was removed from me. Anything she held over me is gone now."

 

"Really," Harrison said in a slow, sceptical drawl. "Sure you're not still being influenced? You do a very convincing Goa'uld impression, Major."

 

"So do you," Sam said, her arms folded across her chest.

 

"You're the one getting very friendly with First Primes who should really only know you as a Goa'uld." Harrison said. Their 'discussion' was starting to attract attention, the others slowing, trying to draw close enough to be able to intervene if things turned nasty. Their voices were still low enough to be classed as a 'private' conversation.

 

"Whatever is between Maktan and me is none of your business," Sam said in a low voice, coming to a stop and glowering belligerently at Harrison.

 

"It's all our business if it affects our mission," Harrison said.

 

No one was making any pretence of not listening now. Jacob and Martouf were exchanging worried glances, while the rest of SG1 just watched the two women with faint expressions of alarm.

 

"Our mission would fail without assistance," Sam said.

 

"You don't know that," Harrison flicked her fingers vaguely in the air. "I think you're dangerously compromised, /Major/,"

 

She spoke the other woman's former title almost as an epithet. Her voice at such a low volume that the only people other than Sam, who the comment was aimed for, to hear were Daniel and Jack, who stood close enough to hear her.

 

Sam glared at her, "Are you sure that you're not letting your imagination run away with you?"

 

"Ah, so I was /imagining/ that you were the one fucking a snake in a tent in the dead of night." Harrison hissed venomously.

 

Sam went white.

 

"Harrison! You're outta line!" Jack snapped at the woman, who sullenly fell silent, clutching her rifle tightly and giving Sam once last final glare as she stalked off to move to the point position that Jack indicated she should take. Quizzical glances came from those who had stood too far away to hear the statement, but Jack wearily waved them down. Martouf couldn't understand the absolutely furious glower that Harrison threw in his direction before she passed him, and all he could see of her was her back.

 

"We should be able to see this building by now, right?" Daniel asked, changing the subject in an effort to dispel the suddenly tense atmosphere.

 

There was a moments tense silence as the party looked about them for sign of the compound their were aiming for.

 

"There!" Martouf said, pointing.

 

Dimly, through the trees they could see the harsh, aggressive lines and sharp corners that was the hallmark of Goa'uld architecture, along with the ever-present gold paint that they covered everything with. It was ostentatious by anyone's standards, but for the Goa'uld, it was the absolute norm.

 

They hid in the treeline, silently scoping out the area, planning for the battle that would be upon them in a few short hours.

 

**

 

They could hear the footsteps of the approaching army, and in an unspoken signal, they had assembled in the positions they needed to be in before they made their move on the compound. The guards on the walls looked distinctly unnerved; although they couldn't make out the words, the guards were gesturing to each other nervously, apparently commenting on the army. They were gripping their staffs tighter, and their eyes strayed to the direction the footsteps were coming from.

 

Then there was silence.

 

There was the sound of distant shouting. It must have been Maktan, Daniel decided. Offering a 'surrender-or-die' ultimatum to whoever it was guarding the front entrance.

 

"Everyone ready?" Jack whispered, glancing to either side of him, receiving nods from everyone except one person.

 

Sam didn't acknowledge him, she just stared towards the voices. "I remember wielding that army," she said softly.

 

Harrison's fingers twitched where they rested almost on Daniel's arm, and he looked at her. She was biting her lip and looking at him with an 'I told you so' look in her eyes. Daniel refused to think on it.

 

From the far side of the building came the sounds of staff weapon fire, abruptly rending the air with their screams. After a few moments, the breeze brought a faint smell of ozone drifting towards them, giving testament to the sheer among of weapons fire that must have been going on just out of their sight. The guard level facing them abruptly thinned as the majority of the sentries were abruptly redirected to fight the battle that had begun by the front gates. But there were still guards remaining. Apparently they were wary of an attack from behind while they were otherwise occupied. But while there were still Jaffa there, there were distinctly fewer than there had been a few moments earlier.

 

"Much better," muttered Jack in satisfaction.

 

**

 

Part Eight: Once More Unto The Breach...

 

**

 

They had taken out the guards around the entryway quickly and efficiently. They had made it inside the compound proper to find the corridors virtually deserted. What few Jaffa there were seemed to be hurriedly heading towards the front entrance to confront the army attempting to beat their way inside.

 

Martouf and Jacob managed to locate a computer terminal not long after they breached the building, and had picked out the most likely places that a Goa'uld would hold a group of captives, and the group had taken off to try and follow a route that would take them past these holding cells.

 

They had planned what would happen. They would locate the team of scientists, Sam, Daniel and Martouf would then take them out of the compound and try and get a headstart on heading towards the 'Gate. The remainder of the team would try and retrieve the shield generator or, if necessary, destroy it, before similarly high-tailing it back to Earth. It wasn't a particularly complex plan, but hopefully one that would work.

 

As they moved down the hallways, there was a curious tension to the air. There was the need to move slowly, to be cautious and able to avoid detection. But there was always the knowledge hanging over their heads that the army attacking the compound was probably the equal, or even lesser, to the army /within/ the Goa'uld facility, and their victory wasn't certain. They all wanted to run, but settled for a rapid near-jog in an attempt to merge stealth and speed.

 

Harrison was holding a small scanner, which clicked every so often. From what she had said as she was pulling it out of her pack, it was supposed to pick up on the radiation emitted by the power source of the generator that the Earth scientists had been working on. "We seem to be going in the right direction," she said, as they headed down the hallways. "The power signature's getting stronger."

 

"Here!" Teal'c sudden speech startled the rest of the team. They had overshot where Teal'c was standing by a few meters, and he was reading the Goa'uld panel next to what looked like a heavily fortified doorway. "It is a prison cell."

 

Daniel stepped close and read the inscription. "It gives the location they were captured from and their number. Looks like it's our lot."

 

Martouf was attempting to work the door controls. "I cannot override the locking mechanism."

 

"Teal'c?" Jack said nothing else, simply gesturing the Jaffa to the door.

 

"Stand back!" Teal'c's order sent Daniel and Martouf ducking out of the way as he levelled his staff weapon at the lock, frying the mechanism totally with a single shot. The backup systems took over, unlocking the door and causing it to jump open a fraction. Teal'c and Jacob both wedged their fingers into the small gap between the doors, and pulled with all their might.

 

The smell that came out of the chamber was enough to turn even the hardiest of stomachs. Harrison clapped a hand over her mouth and looked like she was trying hard not to retch. Jack cautiously preceeded the rest of the group into the dimly lit room, rifle held tensely in his grip.

 

Inside were nearly a dozen bodies, lying unmoving on the oddly stained stone floor. The postions they had fallen in looked uncomfortable, they could only be dead, but still, Daniel, who had immediately followed Jack, knelt tentatively down next to the body of a young man next to him, feeling for a pulse in his neck. The man couldn't have been more than thirty years old, and he was wearing a white labcoat covered in hardened brown stains.

 

"Dead," he finally pronounced, standing up.

 

A little distance away, Teal'c was carefully rolling over one of the other bodies. A female. Her eyes stared hollowly at the ceiling, and blood was encrusted around her neck.

 

"Their throats have been cut," Teal'c said, gravely.

 

"Oh God." That came from Sam, who felt compelled to leave the chamber. The smell made sense suddenly; the heavy metallic taste in the air overlaying the distinctive smell of death. The stains on the floor abruptly became obviously dried blood. Outside, she was confronted with a pallid Harrison, but the woman had an odd expression on her face. It was one of utter determination, and faint relief.

 

It was the latter that Sam couldn't understand.

 

The rest of the team quickly left the chamber, glancing back inside, Sam could no longer see the bodies. They had probably vapourised them with a zat'nik'atel. They couldn't take them back to Earth, and it would stop a Goa'uld resurrecting the scientists only to torture them to death again.

 

What surprised Sam was how easily she accepted that thought.

 

'Narim would have been horrified,' she thought, almost absently. 'Poor man had no stomach for such things.'

 

Then Sam forced herself to stop thinking along those lines, and tried to focus her mind on the mission. Her father's symbiote was speaking.

 

"We need to find this shield generator, Harrison, is that scanner still doing its job?"

 

"Yes..." Harrison cleared her throat and answered in a firmer voice, "Yes, it is. We seem to be heading the right way. We're in a central corridor. If we carry on eventually we should find where it's being held."

 

"Let's move, then," Jack said, allowing the rest of the team to preceed him down the hallway. He came up to Sam and rested a hand on her shoulder. "You okay?" he asked quietly.

 

Sam swallowed, managing to swallow past the sickly sweet taste in the back of her throat. "Yeah," she said, pointedly looking away from the now empty chamber, and moving off down the hallway. "Fine."

 

She didn't hear Jack's infinitesimal sigh before he followed her.

 

**

 

They had been walking for nearly five minutes, and Jack was about to impatiently remind Harrison that they were rather short on time, when the engineer finally came through.

 

"Wait!" Harrison held up her hand, moving the scanner about in a slow arc, before turning to her left and walking to the oddly shaped doorway in one of the larger recesses in the corridor walls (this was something at which Jack had always wondered; why did the Goa'uld put in so much cover for enemies in their corridors, not that he didn't appreciate the bad design, of course).

 

"It's through there." She declared, pointing at the doorway and closing down her scanner before slipping it back into a pocket.

 

They could clearly see that there was a walkway that crossed over to a new part of the building, and lead to a laboratory that seemed to be deliberately isolated from the rest of the structure. For safety's sake perhaps? The doors were transparent, and Harrison was already working on the locking mechanism. Just as she managed to get the door open and it started to slide open, there was a distinctive 'whomp' noise, a flash of light, and Martouf was thrown to the floor, hit by a staff weapon blast. Jacob ducked into the archyway with Harrison, while Sam, Teal'c and Daniel scattered, finding cover for themselves and started to return fire at the group of over a dozen Jaffa that seemed to have found them.

 

Jack grabbed the material of the shoulder of Martouf's jacket, and hauled him into a small recess in the corridor wall, getting him out of the immediate line of fire. There was a nasty looking burn on the left side of his torso, and the distinct smell of charred flesh. Fortunately, it seemed, the wound had cauterised with the heat of the energy weapon, so there was not bleeding.

 

"Marty? You okay?"

 

Martouf was obviously in pain, clutching at his side, but even as Jack watched, the pain drained from his face, and the Tok'ra nodded sharply. He guessed that Lantash had done something to Martouf that he didn't feel the pain. Maybe given him an adrenaline rush. Jack didn't care; they still had a reasonable able-bodied fighter, and right at that moment, that was what they needed.

 

Jack ducked as the flash from a staff weapon energy bolt seared the air mere inches over his head, yelling across the hallway. "Jacob, Harrison, you two get to that lab. The rest of us'll cover you. Retrieve the generator or destroy it. Either way, get it done quickly."

 

Neither of the addressed said anything in acknowledgement, simply nodding tersely in response and ducking through the archyway and running towards the laboratory at the end of the walkway. Sam took advantage of cover fire provided by Teal'c to move up to the entryway, continuing to fire from her new position. They were taking down a large number of Jaffa with their actions, but they must have been able to call for help before they started to engage the SG team, as more seemed to turn up to replace their fallen comrades.

 

Jack sent a fervant mental plea to Harrison and Jacob to hurry up, and joined his teammates in attempting to hold off the Jaffa as long as possible.

 

**

 

The laboratory that Jacob and Harrison hurried into was sound proofed, which meant that the weapons fire was oddly muffled, almost unrealistic in sound.

 

"It's that one!" Harrison declared, pointing at one particular box, with black stencilled numbers on the top. She turned around and glanced back towards the walkway, checking to see if there was anyone unfriendly following her.

 

"Let's make sure." Jacob said, moving to open the container.

 

Harrison glanced back at him, tension written all over her face. "It doesn't matter, Jacob! Just grab it and come on!"

 

Jacob was already kneeling by the container. "I'll just check it's the right one!"

 

"It must be, it's the only one large enough. Come on!! We don't have a lot of time."

 

But Jacob had managed to unfasten the catches and was flipping back the lid. He froze mid-motion.

 

'That,' Selmak said, anxiety rising, 'Is not a shield generator.'

 

Jacob stared at the device; at its configuration, at its design. And he could only come to one conclusion.

 

"It's a bomb," he breathed. "A massive bomb. That's what the Tau'ri scientists were working on."

 

The distinctive sound of a safety being clicked off a gun brought Jacob whirling around, and he looked up to see Brenda Harrison staring down at him, gun held firmly in her hands and unerringly aimed at his head. Her expression was calm, collected.

 

She knew.

 

"A question for you, Jacob," She said, her voice oddly light. "Would you believe me if I said it's nothing personal?"

 

**

 

Later, Sam would wonder how it was she managed to hear the single shot from a gun in the heat of the pitched battle between the Jaffa and her teammates. But at the time she heard the sound, she instantly realised which direction the noise had come from, and her heart had leapt into her throat.

 

"Dad..." she whispered, and scrambled to her feet.

 

"Carter, get down!" Jack's tone was nothing less than authoritarian, and yet Sam didn't even hear the order. She leapt in the direction of the lab entryway, ducking reflexively to avoid getting her head blown off, while her teammates were forced to suddenly provide cover fire for their comrade, who had apparently taken leave of her senses.

 

She didn't realise any of this. She entered the relatively safe shelter of the walkway and started pelting towards the lab as if all the demons of hell were chasing after her. Or she was chasing after them.

 

She burst through the doorway noisily, her weapon raised and ready.

 

Harrison abruptly got to her feet, whirling around with her gun aimed directly towards Sam's heart. Sam blinked, looking down at the device the other woman had been crouching next to. Placed on its side was a rather hefty amount of C4 explosive, and an unarmed detonator. It seemed that Sam had interrupted her placing of it.

 

But that wasn't kept her attention. It was the body not far from Harrison's feet: her father, bleeding profusely from a gunshot wound in his chest.

 

"Oh!" Harrison said, her voice the epitome of breathy and scared. "Thank God you're here, Samantha!" She gestured with her gun towards Jacob. "He tried to attack me! I don't know what happened!"

 

Sam simply raised her own gun, aiming it towards Harrison as the other woman snapped her arm around to re-aim at her. Her affected fright was suddenly gone, replaced by utter calmness.

 

"Do you really think I'm that stupid?" Sam asked harshly, forcing herself not to look at her father's body. If she did, she didn't know that she'd be able to do anything. Think. Breathe. Anything.

 

Harrison shrugged lightly. "Can you blame me for at least trying?" she asked, her expression neutral.

 

"Put the gun down." Sam said, trying to force as much authority into her voice as she could while deep down in the pit of her stomach, blind panic started to gnaw away at her.

 

"I don't think so," said Harrison, before waving a free hand in the direction of device. "You see there are some people back on Earth who were /very/ insistent on getting this back to Earth. Of course, now I'm going to have to destroy it, and a good portion of this moon along with it." A shade of something that might have been sadness drifted across her face. "It's a pity that your father recognised it for what it was."

 

"Who wanted it?" Sam demanded, eyes narrowed.

 

Harrison tilted her head, mouth flattening into an unimpressed line. "Who do you /think/?" she asked.

 

"And the others?" Sam said, finding this question more important than any others. Found herself needing to know the answer. "Did they know?"

 

Harrison smirked. "What? You really think Hammond would have authorised a mission to retrieve a weapon capable of decimating a continent? I thought you knew him better." She sighed heavily. "Now, if you really don't mind. I'm afraid I'm going to have to kill you."

 

It all happened in an instant. As she raised her weapon, and before Harrison could get off a second, and doubtlessly just as lethal shot, Sam felt herself squeeze the trigger of her own weapon, and saw Harrison stumble backwards, a bloom of red suddenly appearing on the other woman's chest. She lay there on the hard stone floor for a moment, groaning. One hand tried vaguely to reach up to her injury, before her body suddenly and abruptly went slack. Without the aid of a symbiote, Brenda Harrison expired quietly, and quickly.

 

The world seemed to have shifted into black and white for Sam as she dropped to her knees next to her father, clutching at him and tears starting to well in her eyes. Tears that, for the first time in a long while, were shed not for herself and what had happened to her in the past. They were shed for another, for a loved one who was starting to pass.

 

"Sam..." she heard her father whisper, barely able to hear him over the sound of her own harsh breathing.

 

"No," she whispered, pressing her forehead to his. "Please don't leave die. You can't. I've only just come back."

 

**

 

There were no more Jaffa coming at them, and even the distant sound of battle had faded. One side had won. Whether it was their allies or their enemies, SG1 didn't know, but it was fairly certain that whoever it was, they should really try and make their move to depart and quickly. Teal'c and Jack led the way into the laboratory, with Daniel supporting Martouf just behind them. Lantash had managed to suppress most of the pain, but from the look on Martouf's face, there was only so much the Tok'ra symbiote could do for him.

 

Daniel was so intent on aiding the other man, that he almost walked them both into the backs of Teal'c and Jack, who had frozen in the doorway of the lab.

 

"Oh God." Jack was murmuring.

 

Brenda Harrison lay dead on the floor. Sam was cradling her father's head in her lap, the gaping wound in his chest showing there was no way he could be alive, she was bent over him, and they could hear her soft crying.

 

"Help me," Martouf said quietly to Daniel, who followed the other man's instructions and set him down by Jacob's body. The Tok'ra proceeded to lay his hand on his superior's forehead, closing his eyes and obviously trying to get past his own pain and focus.

 

"Harrison killed him," Sam said, her voice almost inaudible. "And I killed her."

 

Martouf was staring in stunned silence at Jacob's body, his hand now raised a little bit above his friend's forehead. He slowly raised his head to stare at the woman who kneeled at the other side of the body. "Samantha?" he asked quietly, his voice shaking.

 

"There was no other way." Sam's voice sounded distant, separated from her body.

 

Jack stared at the scene before him, not understanding, and snapped, "Carter!" trying to get her to focus and speak more coherently.

 

Sam raised her head, looking directly at him. There was one thing that drew his attention. From her lips trickled a small line of bright red blood.

 

Her own blood.

 

"I couldn't let him die. And Selmak with him." Sam said, her voice miraculously calm and even. Like she hadn't even realised what it was she'd done just yet. "He was beyond saving. Selmak... is all that I have left." She raised a hand to her lips, wiping away the blood, and staring at her red-smeared fingertips.

 

Martouf had moved a hand to Samantha's forehead, and he closed his eyes, concentrating. "Selmak is weak. But alive." He finally pronounced, and when he opened his eyes, it was to find Samantha staring at him with a startlingly peaceful expression on her face. That, most certainly, was not what he had expected.

 

**

 

Part Nine: Epilogue

 

**

 

Some days, Hammond wished he had retired when he had originally planned to. Before the Stargate program had been restarted, and before he had managed to get himself placed at the head of one of the most strategically important facilities on Earth. If not /the/ most important.

 

But then he would think about what he'd be missing, and, in some small way, it helped him cope with that feeling.

 

Unfortunately, this was one of those days where he contemplated packing up and walking out, going straight to his daughter's house and playing with his grandchildren. If only to remind himself that not everyone in this world was a backstabbing, politically motivated saboteur who was out to get him.

 

Like apparently one of his most trusted officers had been.

 

Jack tossed the file on Hammond's desk he had been reading from. "Major Brenda Harrison. NID special operations officer."

 

Hammond looked briefly stunned for a moment, before he pulled the file closer and started flipping through it. The image pinned to the first page was awfully close to Harrison's SGC file, except in this she had short cropped blonde hair. "How did you get this?" He asked.

 

"I have my sources." Jack said obscurely, before quickly changing the subject. "Apparently she was assigned to the SGC to keep an eye on all the Goa'uld technology that was coming through. Her assignment to SG1 was a lucky happenstance."

 

Hammond shook his head as he carried on reading through the file. "Fluent in Goa'uld, expert on Goa'uld technology. Assigned to the SGC for long term observation." He looked back up at Jack. "How much damage did she do?"

 

Jack looked uncomfortable. "You mean apart from reporting back everything we've been doing to the NID for the past year?" He sighed, dropping into the chair on the opposite side of the desk from Hammond. "The scientists that were researching on our off-world base? They were on the payroll of the NID. According to what Siler's determined from looking over the device, and from what little we've managed to get out of the recovered scientists, it wasn't a shield generator at all. It was a naqada enhanced weapon. The sort of thing that, if let off in the right place, could probably send most of the eastern seaboard crashing into the Atlantic. Seems that's why they were building it off-world. Just in case the scientists got careless."

 

"And since Harrison," Hammond said, realising what it was that Jack was telling him. "Would have been the one to check over whatever was shipped back from the site and send it on, no one would be any the wiser as to what was going on." He leaned back heavily in his chair. "This is a major breach of security." he said, understating the issue vastly.

 

"Her assignment was to make sure neither the SGC, Goa'uld or Tok'ra got their hands on the weapon." Jack continued, "That included destroying it if need be. Or killing anyone who got in the way." Jack's voice became abruptly roughened, and he cleared it sharply.

 

Hammond looked at him shrewdly. "One of these days, Jack, you're going to tell me exactly where you get that information."

 

Jack's mouth twisted. "You don't want to know, General. Trust me."

 

Hammond sighed, looking down at the file. "There's nothing much we can do about this. Nothing we can prove."

 

Jack paused, before reaching into his jacket and pulling out a somewhat rumpled manila envelope, looking at the address on the front contemplatively before handing it over to Hammond. "She probably figured she wasn't going to come back alive from this mission. Security went through her lab this morning. And found a letter to her family."

 

Hammond took the letter. It was unsealed; Harrison would have known that the military would want to read it before even thinking about passing it onto her family. "Wonder why she didn't leave it with the NID." he mused.

 

"Probably didn't trust them to give it to the family." Jack said, sighing slightly.

 

There was a faint rumbling audible through the walls and floor as the Stargate activated. Hammond was expecting it, so he didn't even turn to glance towards the window of his office that looked out onto the briefing room. But still, his stomach did a brief flip as he realised what it meant.

 

Jack must have realised what it meant as well, for he fell abruptly silent, waiting.

 

There was a tentative knock at the door, and at Hammond's answering, "Enter", Sergeant Davis poked his head into the office, a faintly disturbed look on his face.

 

"Sirs," he said, nodding to both Hammond and Jack when he saw the Colonel also seated in the office. "The Tok'ra are here for the... ah..." Here he faltered.

 

'For the funeral.'

 

No one said it. No one needed to.

 

"Thank you, Sergeant." Hammond said, dismissing the man, who nodded and averted his eyes from the suddenly tired look on the General's face and withdrew back to the Control room.

 

"Right on schedule," Jack said dully, obviously straining to inject some levity into the situation, but failing miserably. "Let no one say the Tok'ra are not punctual."

 

"They'll keep for a minute." Hammond said, running a hand over his head.

 

Jack gave him a thoughtful look. "What did you do with the device?"

 

Hammond stared hard at him. "Unfortunately, the device was damaged during the firefight, and upon examination back at the SGC it was found to be non functional and was disposed of appropriately, and by order of the President." He paused, then lowered his voice slightly. The unspoken method of speaking 'off the record'. "He doesn't want NID to get their hands on that thing any more than anyone else. Not to mention that if the Russians or European powers found we had a weapon of mass destruction, they would not be happy."

 

That went without saying really. Of course, they probably already knew. They always seemed to find these things out somehow.

 

Jack would have said something else, but a knock on the door by an airman, who opened in response to Hammond's call, had him getting to his feet, as the Tok'ra leader Garshaw swept into the office, followed closely by two more Tok'ra.

 

Martouf/Lantash, and Samantha/Selmak.

 

Jack couldn't look away from her. Sam was wearing the clothing she had come from Tollana wearing; apparently she had no others. It had only been a scan few days since Selmak and Sam had joined, but already the former Major seemed to be possessed of a lightness of spirit that had not been there before.

 

"General Hammond," Garshaw said courteously, inclining her head and shaking her hands out of the encompassing sleeves of her travelling robe. "I am honoured to stand before you once more, but the cirucmstances are not those in which I would desire our reacquaintance."

 

Hammond merely shook her hand and said, "Likewise, Councillor," rather than attempt to match her for flowery prose. "I must admit, I was expecting to see more of your people."

 

Garshaw smiled faintly, but it was a sad smile, with no humour behind it. "Per'sus wished to attend, as did a great number of our movement. Jacob was much loved among us. We convinced him, however, that only those closest to Jacob should to to the Tau'ri. The rest would have to suffice with our own traditions. We would not wish for the SGC to be inundated with mourners, after all."

 

Hammond nodded to the Councillor with a similarly small smile. "That's much appreciated, Madame."

 

"We've arranged for transport to take you to the service," he told her, gesturing to his office door. "If you'll follow me?"

 

"Thank you, General," The Tok'ra leader said.

 

As Garshaw moved to follow Hammond out of the office, Jack turned to Sam, whose eyes had been faintly unfocussed during the conversation. She seemed to snap out of it, however, as he turned his attention to her. She tilted her head upwards and met his eyes. He found himself relieved by the life he saw there. He had been expecting that cold, brittle look he had been glimpsing since he had met up with her again. But it wasn't there.

 

Maybe this Selmak thing wasn't so bad.

 

"How are you feeling, Sam?" Jack asked her quietly.

 

She tilted her head upwards slightly, the corners of her mouth turning upwards. "Better."

 

Jack's eyes went to Martouf, who was standing impassively just behind her. "How're the Tok'ra treating you?"

 

Sam's smile managed to reach her eyes now. "They're treating me just fine, sir." She told him. "Although those crystal tunnels are extremely cold. Crystal doesn't heat well."

 

Jack said, "I can imagine," feeling a smile creep onto his face simply at seeing her own.

 

"Samantha," Garshaw gave her a meaningful look and tilted her head to the exit.

 

Sam smiled gently. "Got to go," she said breezily, and moved past him to follow the Council woman. Martouf followed her, giving Jack an unreadable look.

 

Jack sighed heavily. Stilted interaction with a formerly close friend aside, the worst was still to come.

 

**

 

The funeral for General Jacob Carter had been a typically military affair, although Mark, Jacob's only son and Samantha Carter's brother, had not liked that particular part. His father's military friends were all there in full uniform, although Mark had received a tiny shock when Sam hadn't turned up in her uniform, instead a sort of gauzy grey, black and silver affair that looked vastly impractical, but Sam had worn comfortably. He had asked a Colonel O'Neill (which was what the name on his uniform said, at least) whether he knew what that was about, and the man had just stared at him for a very long, uncomfortable moment, before he told Mark that Sam wasn't in the military any longer and had no uniforms.

 

Mark had a feeling there was more to the story than that, but had decided not to push.

 

After the ceremony, they had returned to Mark's house for a small reception. His wife, Laura, had disappeared for the moment, probably taking their children to bed. His daughter had been rather besotted with a grandfather she had only met a few times, whenever he was around on brief leave from whatever it was he had been doing. So all through the service, she had been crying, and upon reaching their home, had fairly cried herself to sleep.

 

He had been moving quietly around the subdued group, mostly military people, oddly enough, who claimed they used to work with Sam. He had to wonder why his father, who had said he was on detatched duty, would form attachments with the people at Cheyenne, who supposedly worked on radio telemetry. Or something.

 

He greeted George Hammond, the Texan general he knew had been a friend of his father's, accepting the words of sympathy demurely before moving on to greet a petite brunette Doctor, and the large, oddly silent fellow who she had been talking to her. He was wearing a stetson. Indoors. Mark decided not to point this out to the odd man, who wouldn't give him his name for some reason. The man looked large enough to drop kick Mark through a window, and in Mark's mind, that made him a person you did not want to offend.

 

He had been doing this mingling for some time when he realised there was one person he had barely spoken two words to since she had arrived at the funeral. She had swept past him, two companions with her, and they had sat either side of her while they were in the chapel. Her head had been bowed, and a few times he had caught her lips moving as if she were talking to someone. He had thought that she was perhaps praying, although Sam had never been a religious woman.

 

His eyes were drawn towards the back of the room, where those three people were standing slightly apart from everyone else. His sister, an older woman, and a man; the latter two Mark did not recognise. He had noticed others going up to them, speaking briefly, probably offering condolences, and making a small effort at conversation. But no one stayed longer than a few minutes. The trio seemed slightly separate from everyone else, and Mark decided to go up to them.

 

As he drew closer, he realised that one of them had noticed his approach, and whatever the three were talking about, they had abruptly stopped. But what suprised Mark is that he was almost sure that they hadn't been speaking English. It was strange, what little he had heard of it. It sounded guttural and made up, like Klingon on Star Trek. But Sam smiled gently at his approach, and the other two turned around to see what was coming towards them.

 

"Mark," Sam said warmly as he came up to her, holding her arms out in welcome.

 

The embrace he received from his sister was somewhat awkward, as if she was having trouble remembering how to hug someone properly. It was odd; Sam had always been quite demonstrative when it came to her feelings for other people. "How're you doing?" he asked her.

 

"Been better, but then I've been worse," was Sam's soft, and oddly spoken answer. As if there was more she wasn't saying. Mark and Sam had spent years estranged from each other after their mother died and Sam had joined the military, but they were still brother and sister. There were just some things that siblings couldn't hide from each other.

 

"Ah... Mark, I haven't introduced you," Sam said hurriedly. "This is Mark, my brother."

 

The dark haired woman inclined her head and smiled. "Greetings."

 

The man next to her offered his hand courteously. "I am honoured."

 

"This is... Yosef, and this is Martouf." Sam said, pausing awkwardly before the names for some reason that Mark couldn't discern.

 

"Interesting names," he said, smiling faintly as he shook their hands.

 

The pair glanced at each other. "Um... quite," was all Yosef said, sounding somewhat nervous. Odd. She hadn't looked nervous when he walked up. But now her whole countenance had changed. Knowing Sam, she was probably associating with someone not all there in the head.

 

"They worked with Dad just before he died." Sam continued.

 

Or maybe not. Mark nodded his head slowly. "You're both in the military then?"

 

"You could say that." Martouf said, sounding deeply amused. Mark had the distinct impression that this Martouf was laughing at him.

 

Mark, now closer to his sister than he'd been during the funeral, glanced at her and asked, out of curiosity, "Where'd you get that outfit? Looks expensive."

 

"Tollana," Sam said, smoothing out an invisible wrinkle in the fabric.

 

"Oh," Mark hesitated. "That the new place in the high street?"

 

"Not exactly," Sam said, blinking at him with a faintly teasing smile skittering across her face. "I could tell you how to get there, but then I'd have to kill you."

 

Yosef coughed.

 

"Mark, while you're here..." Sam paused, and her eyes skittered off to the side. "Uh... a friend of dad's, Selmak, she uh... wanted me to pass on a message."

 

Mark didn't see Yosef and Martouf exchange smiles. He watched his sister pause, as if listening to something, before she refixed her eyes on him.

 

"She says... said..." There was another odd pause, and Sam closed her eyes. Mark felt a brief pang. She must have been so torn up. He knew that dad and she had been close. After a moment, she opened her eyes, and her voice seemed different somehow. Stronger. "Your willingness to make up with your father was a great comfort to him. He missed you dearly when the two of you were alienated, and in his final moments, he was glad that he had had the opportunity to make his peace with you."

 

Mark tried to swallow past the lump in his throat, his mouth suddenly dry. "She was there when he died?"

 

Sam inclined her head infinitesimally. "She was."

 

"Was it...?"

 

"There was no pain." It was Yosef, and bizarrely, she was speaking with excactly the same gentle strength that Sam was. She placed a hand on his shoulder. "Selmak made sure of that."

 

"We grieve with you." added Martouf quietly.

 

Mark felt choked up for a moment, and drew a little strength from Yosef's hand on his shoulder. At some unspoken signal, she removed her hand, and he looked up, back at his sister.

 

"Tell Selmak thank you." Mark said, not trusting himself to speak above a whisper.

 

"I will," Sam said, turning away slightly from him.

 

The conversation it seemed, was over, and Mark found himself walking away before he even realised he had been dismissed. Laura, his wife, saw him wandering through the crowd and came up towards him, spare drink in hand.

 

"What's wrong?" she said as she saw the peculiar expression on his face.

 

"Sam's associated with some really weird people these days," he said to his wife.

 

She just looked at him, turning her nose up slightly. "Well, of course dear, she's in the military."

 

"I mean really weird." He qualified, looking back towards the group he had just walked away from.

 

Laura laughed. "Well, it's not like they're aliens or anything, so stop fussing."

 

Then her attention was called away as Daniel Jackson appeared to start choking on his tea.

 

**

 

Standing alone in the small back sitting room of Mark Carter's household hours later, when most of the guests had left the Carter residence, Jack held a letter in his hands, the words written on it dimly visible in the light from the street lamps that spilled through the windows.

 

An intelligence officer had handed it to him, after checking that it contained no information that could be of use to them, and telling him they had found it in Harrison's lab, addressed to him and him alone. Jack had dimly noted the rather sympathetic expression on the man's face. Obviously he had read it, and knew what it contained. Jack had been more than a little surprised to have received a last letter from his late and traitorous second in command, but surprise had quickly turned to a faintly crushing sensation as he read it. He had never told Hammond that he had received this private communication.

 

Jack held the neatly typed letter in his hands, creases having appeared in the formerly pristine piece of paper after repeated handing of it on his part. No matter how many times he read the contents, they didn't seem to be sinking in.

 

          Dear Colonel O'Neill,

 

          Horribly formal, isn't it? We've known each other

          for nearly two years now, and we're still on ranks.

          Or presumably we were. If you're reading this, I'm

          dead. As a doornail. I won't bore you by writing a

          bitter missive, after all I'm not dead right now,

          and by the time you read this, I'll probably be

          beyond caring.

 

          I thought long and hard about what to put in this

          letter. Obviously a different one from the letter

          to my family, which you will have doubtless have

          discovered by now after going through my lab. You'll

          probably know what it says, because if I'm dead

          enough to warrant my lab being searched, it's because

          you know.

 

          I also won't bore you by pleading to you for some

          sort of posthumous forgiveness for my actions. I

          offer no apology for what I did, as everything I did,

          I did for Earth, whether or not you agree with the

          methods of my superiors. You probably know everything

          you need to know by now, so I won't reiterate.

 

          The only thing I'm sorry about is deceiving you,

          Daniel and Teal'c. I know you resented my assignment at

          first, and I know that I never quite mixed with the

          group. I know you were all hurting over what happened

          to Major Carter. You especially. I like to think that

          eventually you saw I could be trusted and started to

          treat me as more than an outsider. The only thing I'm

          sorry about is betraying that trust. I wish I hadn't

          been assigned to SG1, I could have carried on merely

          funnelling information, but, alas, that is not the

          way of things.

 

          One last request of you, sir. And if everything we went

          through as SG1 means anything to you, please honour it.

          Make sure my daughter is alright, please? She had a

          hard enough time when her father was killed, and if anyone

          should tell her of my demise, I humbly request that it be

          you. She always liked you, after all. Especially after

          you gave her that damned dog.

 

          I understand, though, if you feel you cannot do this.

 

          Yours sincerely,

          Brenda Harrison

 

          p.s. I was never screwing Siler.

 

Jack smiled faintly upon reading the last line, remember how often he had teased her on the subject after she and Siler had wound up kissing under the mistletoe one rather raucous Christmas party down in one of the bars in Colorado Springs proper.

 

For all he had mistrusted her in the beginning, Harrison had eventually seemed to be a suitable replacement for the Major that they had all thought killed on some alien world. She had eventually been able to make Daniel laugh, and had enjoyed sparring with Teal'c, and had seemed like a good person, albeit with dubious taste in hair dyes. He had been surprised, along with Daniel and Teal'c, that six months into her service with SG1, they found out she had a daughter (that she was raising alone after her husband had been killed during a botched mugging) when she was hurriedly called out of a briefing to her daughter's school, where her eight year old child had just broken her arm after falling from the school's climbing frame. Her teammates had gone with her to the hospital for moral support, Jack accompanying her a second time, and giving her and Meghan, the child, a lift back to their home while Harrison's own car was in the shop for repairs. The next time he saw Meghan, when Harrison had invited her teammates to her home, he had given her a stuffed toy dog that had a bandage over its foreleg (surreptitiously lifted from Dr. Frasier's infirmary).

 

And now he would have to go to Meghan and tell her that her mother was never coming back to her.

 

There was a stinging in his eyes, and a dryness in his throat, but Jack gave no outward signs on this, merely folding up the letter and replacing it in his trouser pocket. Just in time, it seemed. Behind him, he heard the distinctive sound of the door being opened, and he was thankful that he would not have explain the paper's importance.

 

He looked up at the figure that had entered the empty room. "Carter?"

 

"Colonel O'Neill."

 

Jack cleared his throat and corrected himself as the oddly accented words came back to him. "Selmak?"

 

Selmak inclined her head in acknowledgement of the question of whether she or her host were in charge. "Samantha is sleeping."

 

Jack gestured to his throat. "You're not using the... ah..."

 

"The vocal distortion?" Selmak smiled faintly. "No, I believed that it would be best not to 'frighten the natives' by using a voice so obviously alien."

 

Jack looked at at the woman before him. She wore Sam's face, spoke with her voice, but to look at her, see her posture, hear her accent and feel the steely, alien glint in her eyes, and he knew it was not his friend. It was so profoundly /wrong/. "How's Sam doing?" he asked, trying not to let his discomfort show.

 

"She is... damaged." Selmak closed her eyes sadly, shaking her head. "On such a fundamental level. There is a self-hatred there. And a desperate need to be loved. A feeling of being unworthy. It distresses me that my host feels thus, and I can only hope that through our partnership I can help her in some small way."

 

Jack folded his arms, leaning back against a side table that was pushed against a wall. "And she couldn't have done that without getting a snake in the head?"

 

If Selmak took offence at his words, she gave no indication. "With respect to the doctors of the Tau'ri, no. This sort of damage is beyond anything your people will have seen. And I confess, it is beyond anything I have ever seen. I have taken hosts near death, whose bodies have required painstaking attention to rebuild on the cellular level, but a host's mind is another matter. Even if I could repair the physical damage, which is, unfortunately, beyond even my ability, the kalesh of a person, their soul, is something that no amount of medical aide can cure." She sighed. "Most hosts do not react in such a negative fashion to being taken over by a Goa'uld for a relatively short period of time."

 

Jack frowned, clearly not understanding.

 

"Let me try to explain," Selmak said, speaking slowly as if trying to find the right words to use. "Anqet never fully integrated herself with her host. She was trying to extract memories from Samantha, and thought that the best way to do that was not to subsume the host personality. Ironically, if she /had/, she would have been much more successful. Samantha, in that way, had a certain amount of leeway. That leeway led her to experience the full horror of what was happening to her.

 

"When Anqet slept, Sam found herself with free reign in her mind. That was how she found a friend in Maktan. The first night that happened, she tried to escape, but he caught her, and quickly found out what was happening. He came to her every night while Anqet slumbered, and they forged a friendship of the sort only found in shared enslavement. He by his position as First Prime, she as the host of a Goa'uld."

 

Jack stared at Selmak, not wanting to know, but feeling he would kill himself if he didn't ask. "Was she... was she in control the whole time then?"

 

Selmak hesitated. "I am not saying that. But..." The Tok'ra paused, trying to think how to phrase it. "While she not in total control, she could have stopped what was happening at any time. She did not. In some way, experiencing this torment daily convinced her that there was nothing she could do about it. She was terrified of her own thoughts, fearing they would betray her and her freedom. So she did nothing. I cannot say I blame her for that. But now I know she let her lover die when she could have saved him. And I fear for Samantha's sanity if she ever discovers that."

 

Jack swallowed, his throat dry. "You'll be hiding that from her, I assume?"

 

Selmak bowed her head, not meeting his eyes. "I will. It is for the best. The Human mind often suppresses Human memories that would threaten their mental stability. The damage to her ensures this is not the case. So I will do that for her. I will suppress those memories, and as long as she is with me, I will devote myself to healing her, body and soul. For that is the least I can do to one who gave herself freely to me."

 

Jack thought this was perhaps the most he had ever heard Selmak say. "I hope you can help her," he said sincerely.

 

Selmak gave him a faintly sympathetic smile, seeing the pale look upon him. "I hope so too."

 

She withdrew silently, and Jack shivered, feeling a chill in the air that had nothing to do with how warm it was there.

 

**

 

Martouf had been rather fascinated by the Tau'ri funeral service. The Tok'ra had a simple ceremony for commemorating those who had passed. It was merely a gathering of whoever could attend, upon which whoever had been close to the deceased would say a few words. They couldn't really arrange anything elaborate with the bodies. Most of the Tok'ra that passed on were enshrouded in cloth, and laid to rest in specially grown rooms that were then collapsed, merging the Tok'ra body with the rock itself, and ensuring there was no way that the Goa'uld could find and resurrect the bodies should the base be compromised.

 

He had found the Tau'ri ceremony gloomy, and rather depressing.

 

On Martouf's homeworld, there was a ritualistic three days of mourning after someone died. For three days, there were feasts every night, during which the life of the deceased would be talked about and celebrated. On the first night, they would take about their childhood, on the second, their adulthood, and on the third night, they would talk about their death, and how they would be celebrated in the Halls of Varin, in the afterlife.

 

Martouf had kept it rather well hidden from his symbiote, who was scornful of religion of any sort, as were most of the Tok'ra symbiotes, that he still kept those stories he had been told to him in childhood by his mother close to his heart, and he thought of his family, long dead, and imagined them celebrating their reunions with their ancestors in the Halls, watched over by the Great Lord Varin, and the Lords and Ladies who had risen up and defeated the Foul Gods of long ago.

 

And now he imagined Jacob there as well. And he imagined that his friend was with his wife, who Martouf knew he had missed so dearly.

 

Of course he knew that Varin and the UnderLords had been the original slaves brought to his homeworld from the Tau'ri, and the Foul Gods were the Goa'uld, who had been driven off the planet by the uprising, deciding that they really weren't worth their time. That was what Lantash had told him, in laborious, pedantic detail when Martouf had first shared these treasured stories with his symbiote, and since then, Martouf had kept any such ideas hidden away in the private corner of his mind that Lantash kept away from out of respect.

 

The Tau'ri tradition was so different to what he had been expecting from them. There were so many people crying and sobbing. For one to grieve was naturally, Martouf understood, but he didn't understand the wallowing in grief that seemed to be the cultural norm for them. But Sam seemed to feel better for having undergone the ritual, so Martouf would not say a word against it.

 

Her eyes were redrimmed, he saw, as she entered the Gateroom, where he was already standing on the ramp, and had been waiting for her. On the rather long trip back from the house of her brother (in a bizarre contraption that as far as Lantash had been concerned, was entirely too cumbersome, and should be entirely replaced by transport rings if at all possible), they had been sitting in the back seat, and silently she had been crying, leaning on his shoulder and soaking his shirt front. He had said nothing, simply stroking her hair and letting the tears come.

 

She seemed better for it, and that was all he could ask for. Selmak was good for her, he decided.

 

He took a few steps down the ramp, smiling at her, as Garshaw entered the Gateroom with Hammond, and the remaining three of SG1. They had been in the conference room that overlooked the Chaapa'ai, discussing something to do with the Tok'ra. Martouf had not been let in on the details, but he hadn't come to the Tau'ri on the matter of business. He had been there to pay his respects to Jacob, and to be there for Samantha.

 

"I understand, General Hammond," Garshaw was saying, "You will have full support from us in this matter."

 

"That's all we ask, Ma'am," Hammond said, nodding and accepting the hand she offered. Garshaw seemed to be becoming quite adept at the Tau'ri gesture.

 

"Chevron seven, locked."

 

The Chaapa'ai had been dialling noisily behind Martouf and now it activated in a burst of energy that he didn't see, but his hair was ruffled faintly by the air displacement from the vortex forming and then dissipating over the event horizon.

 

"Samantha, Martouf," Garshaw said, beckoning her two subordinates with her as she made her way up the ramp.

 

Samantha took one last look at her former teammates, where she had been standing nearby, and started away, offering a softly spoken farewell to them. Jack O'Neill was the one to call her attention back to them as she started away, following Garshaw.

 

"Don't be a stranger," he called to her.

 

She turned back to him, and gave him a dazzling smile Martouf chose not to see. He still remembered vividly what had happened to them in the forest, in that campsite, and in a quiet discussion with Selmak when Samantha had not been listening, he had learned how disturbed Samantha had been at the time. Lantash and he had subsequently agreed that they would make no issue of the matter with Samantha. They would not mention it or act in response to it unless she did.

 

It was rather painful to do so, and know that even after that, she might not feel for them as they did for her.

 

She paused before the Stargate, eyes closed as she faced the event horizon, breathing deeply as if steadying herself. A tear faintly glimmered in her eye. He stopped, on the verge of stepping into that energy himself, looking at her in concern. She had seemed to be becoming so happy. She had spoken to him of the peace of mind she felt now that she was blended with Selmak, the ability to express her emotions once more. But... if the thought of returning to the Tok'ra was causing her tears...

 

"Are you going to be alright?" He asked her as she stood there, the gently rippling light illuminating her face and giving her a faintly ethereal look.

 

She was quiet for a long moment, and he was about to repeat his question when she took a deep breath, and looked towards him with a peaceful expression. "I think I am." she said, sounding happier than she had in years. She reached out, brushing the back of his hand with her fingertips in a casual gesture that somehow sent shivers up his arm. "I know I am." she whispered, and without looking back, stepped through the Stargate.

 

Martouf just smiled and followed.

 

- The End