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.