Exile

By Alli Snow

The world was all before them, where to chose Their place of rest, and Providence their guide: They, hand in hand, with wand'ring steps and slow, Through Eden took their solitary way. -
- Milton, Paradise Lost (last lines)

A red, bloody darkness clutched at me, and I blinked it away, trying to stay awake and aware.

We'd been running for the Gate, pursued by a good two dozen armed men; too often our missions seemed to end like this. The citizens of P2F-983 were more advanced than many worlds that we had seen, and the Gou'ald had not visited the planet in a long while for reasons unknown. But time and knowledge had not diminished their fear and paranoia of anyone who spoke the names of the System Lords, and as soon as the Council heard that we were battling against Apophis and company, we were literally run out of town by the local militia.

The P2F-983 Gate was located deep in a wood about two miles from the city we had been chased from. The Council of the Ma'at'ans, as the natives liked to call themselves, were afraid of the vulnerability it created and the threat that was posed, but the Gate and the Gou'ald seemed still ingrained in their culture; basically, they were afraid to take the thing down.

Carter, Teal'c, and I laid down cover fire as we ran, shooting blindly into the all-concealing brush. Daniel ran ahead, leaping over boulders and slipping between close-growing trees, shouting out warnings to us of sinkholes, water-carved trenches, and treacherous, rock-strewn clearings that threatened to snap our ankles.

Sparks rained where the energy from Teal'c's staff weapon struck tree trunks. The bullets from my gun and Carter's let out sharp /pings/ as they impacted with unforgiving wood and stone, but that sound was nearly masked by the report of the Ma'at'ans' weapons. They were rifle-sized, gray, tubular, and didn't so much fire individual shots as periodically spray buckshot indiscriminately in our general direction.

Weird, I thought as I sidestepped a narrow ravine. I can understand them wanting to get us off their planet... but what exactly will killing us accomplish?

"Almost there!" I heard Daniel shout, and, against every instinct I slowed my pace, trying to find a defensible position. A small gully would do, or a boulder or thick tree trunk that I could hide in or behind, to hold back the Ma'at'ans and give Danny the time he needed to dial home. Teal'c and Carter shot past me, then hesitated, firing all the while.

"Go!" I yelled, waving them along that they should follow the archaeologist. The Jaffa obeyed unquestioningly, barreling after Daniel, getting a in couple more shots over my head. Carter, though, moved away from me, perpendicular to the direction of our flight. She caught my gaze and I nodded, understanding that she intended to fall back with me and help fend off the Ma'at'ans. I couldn't say I appreciated her ignoring my orders, but I did appreciate the help.

I had continued moving backwards, slowly, branches scratching my face and clutching at my jacket, expecting to be hit at any moment, when my heel finally gave a telltale slip. I looked down. Bingo. I'd found it: a small depression in the ground. It wasn't much, admittedly, but it was enough. I got down on my belly, right at the lip of the sunken spot, my gun peaking up over the edge. Looking to my right, I saw that Carter had taken position about twenty meters away and ten meters up, behind a cliff-like outcropping of mossy stone.

A Ma'at'an raced past the treeline, aiming his tube.

I squeezed the trigger. He fell.

Another, coming at a different angle through the tangled, vine-like limbs. I shot, missed, but didn't panic. Carter had a better vantage-point, and picked him off easily.

It continued like that for about thirty seconds... or an eternity, I'm not sure which. They would come through the trees, and we'd drop them at a safe distance. That wasn't to say that they didn't come close to hitting us... or rather, me. From what I could see, they weren't yet aware of Carter's presence; all fire was directed at my position. Buckshot kicked dirt into my eyes and chattered like steel raindrops on nearby rocks. But it didn't hit me.

Finally, the Ma'at'ans decided they'd be better off if they stayed where they were, shooting from the darkness of the brush. Hearing the strange, warped sounds of an opening gate somewhere behind me, I began to ease out of the depression.

"Colonel O'Neill!" It was Teal'c. I glanced over my shoulder. I couldn't see him, but judging by the sound of his voice he was maybe 60 meters away, hidden by the overgrowth. I could see a vague silver-blue shimmer glistening on waxy leaves and in puddles; the Gate was open.

Relieved, momentarily, I looked back.

Problem.

The Ma'at'ans had lost track of me, it seemed, and had found Sam. They were moving along the shadowy treeline, and the jutting rock that had been her defense was quickly becoming a trap. Moving forward to escape would give them a better shot at her, while moving back would require skirting a tree growing close to the rock, leaving her open and unprotected. But she had to do something. The Ma'at'ans were still moving. Carter would be pinned against the wall; the militia would become a firing squad.

Not under my command...

Not answering Teal'c, I abandoned my slight concealment in the brush and leapt back into the fray. The enemy noticed almost immediately and redirected their tube weapons at me.

Good, good...

Moving away from Carter, hoping to draw even more of their fire, I ran. Cover wasn't always possible but I took it where I could. Tree, tree, boulder, fallen log, watch that ditch, loose stones, don't trip, tree... whoa... another tree, turn and fire, start moving back again, back and right, towards the Stargate...

I saw a flash of blonde hair and allowed myself a quick grin. Carter'd gotten free; she was running for the Gate, full speed ahead. I did the same.

"Daniel, Teal'c... go!" I yelled to my unseen comrades. I was already composing my report to General Hammond: "Well, sir, we're never, ever going there again. /Ever/."

I swung myself around a tree trunk and the Stargate came into view. I saw Danny and Teal'c, silhouetted against it; not until they caught sight of us and saw me wave did they step into the shimmer.

A clearing. A short clearing and then we'd be there. I picked up the pace. Carter was right behind me.

And then...

And then...

I didn't so much see or hear her fall as I sensed it. I suddenly knew she wasn't running behind me, and I turned, and saw her laying there, crumpled on the forest floor. I wasted precious seconds waiting for her to rise, holding my breath, hoping against all hope that she had simply tripped.

She didn't get up.

"Carter!" my mind screamed. My mouth followed suit.

I was closer to the Stargate than I was to her, I realized frantically, as an unmanageable number of Mat'at'ans poured into the clearing. I could go through, bring back SG-3... then we'd be a match for them...

But I'd be damned if I was going to leave her behind.

I continued to hesitate, torn between duty to my general - to return with the minimum number of casualties, including myself - and duty to my team: to protect them, to bring them home.

Sam could be dead.

The Stargate beckoned.

I turned my back on it, and ran pell-mell through the clearing, back to Carter.

The Ma'at'ans ran towards me, trying to steady their tubes as they stumbled over fallen limbs and moss-smooth stones.

I dropped to my hands and knees next to Carter, and saw with an immediate wash of relief that she was breathing. Seeing her left side, however, filled me with new dread. Her fatigues there were so full of holes that they looked like lace... bloody lace. She'd taken a good dose of buckshot in her left arm, side, and outer thigh; my hands hovered over her, uncertain. "Captain," I began warningly, as though threatening her, as though telling her that if she died, she would be in some deep shit. She didn't answer. She didn't even stir. Her head lolled and I worried that she'd hit it when she'd fallen.

However, none of that mattered if the Ma'at'ans were about to pump us full of pellets.

I threw my nearly empty weapon away as three dark-clothed Ma'at'ans approached, wary, tubes aimed at our heads. One man, who sported dark, floppy bangs but was otherwise bald, plucked the gun from the ground and handed it to one of his companions. "Is she dead?" he asked, looking down at Carter expressionlessly.

"No," I growled, blood boiling. "She's unconscious. She -"

The man, seemingly unconvinced, kicked Carter sharply in the ribs... on her left side. I winced in sympathy; I didn't even want to think about what that felt like, and suddenly I was glad that she was unconscious. "Hey!" I shouted, ignoring the rest of the militia, which had started to surround us, looking down with a mixture of uncertainty and anger. "She's unconscious, didn't you hear me?"

The Ma'at'an grinned sadistically. "I had to be certain."

His colleagues, however, had begun to turn away from us. They had noticed the still-open Gate, and were walking toward it, brandishing their tubes.

My saliva suddenly cemented in my throat. *Close it, Hammond. *

One particularly brave - or foolish - man stepped up to the porthole, and tentatively brushed his hand across the surface. The others flinched, then drew closer, murmuring.

*/Close it/...*

The man at the gate looked over his commander, who still stood towering over Carter and me... and then walked through the Stargate, to Earth.

*Shit, shit, shit...*

The woods were silent and tense, and then...

The gate closed.

Carter moaned, but didn't wake.

The commander looked down on us, confused, as though he had forgotten all about us. His eyes quickly darkened with anger. "Where is he? Where did he go?"

The rest of the militia turned back to us, and I glared, resentful. "To my planet, Earth. Where I need to take my friend here." I touched Sam's uninjured shoulder.

The commander looked back up at the quiescent Stargate. He was silent for some time, his eyes darting, his mouth working. Finally, with deceptive calm, he said:

"No, I don't think so."

And he brought his tube weapon down hard against my skull.

And it was a lot heavier than it looked.

***

They told me to run, so I did.

Jack was right behind me; I could hear him crashing through the woods, as discreet as a bulldozer. Sam was right behind /him/, at least, that's what it looked like the few times I dared to peek over my shoulder. I knew Teal'c was still with us, too, but only because of the deadly flash-sizzle of his staff weapon that, along with the deafening roar of gunfire, shattered the forest's peace.

The ground was treacherous and I shouted back warnings where I could; the last thing we needed was for someone to get tripped up by an errant rock or shallow trench.

I stumbled down a small gully and my almost fainted with relief at the familiar landmark. The Stargate, our salvation, couldn't be much further. "Almost there!" I shouted jubilantly, and out of the corner of my eye I saw Jack slow. He knew I'd need time to dial home, which meant one thing: he needed to hold off the Ma'at'an militia for a while longer.

Even as I ran for my life, I had the time to wonder what had gone wrong. No, I /knew/ what had gone wrong. I just didn't know why. Why had the Council been so fearful of our goal to put down Apophis? Why had they been sufficiently rattled to run us out of their city? Why were they trying to kill us?

"Go!" I heard Jack shout; the comment was undoubtedly directed at Sam and Teal'c, but I wasn't surprised when the Jaffa was the only one to return to my side. No way Captain Carter would let the Colonel stay and have all the fun, I thought wryly.

The sounds of the fight receded somewhat as Teal'c and I reached the edge of the clearing that marked the final approach to the Gate. And there it was, only meters away, in all its glory, the two-story tall monument to everything good and alien in the universe. I sprinted the last distance, Teal'c having no problem keeping up, and all but threw myself at the DHD, punching in the memorized symbols, casting worried glances over my shoulder between glyphs.

Teal'c dashed back into the trees for a few short seconds, and I heard his shout: "Colonel O'Neill!" Turning back to the task at hand, I whipped out our GDO and sent the iris code through, just as the Stargate opened with a whir and a great gush of plasma.

There was no answer from Jack... still no answer... still no...

"Daniel, Teal'c... go!"

Teal'c reemerged with a nod; the others were coming. I allowed myself a brief smile - calamity had been averted once again - as he joined me in front of the shimmering Gate.

Suddenly, unannounced, Jack broke into the clearing. A glint of blonde that could only be Sam was right behind him; he waved us on.

Teal'c tried to tell me later that the Colonel would not have wanted us to stay behind, to wait for him and Sam to reach the Gate, for "it might have imperiled us all". But I couldn't forget /or/ forgive myself, because Jack and Sam, my friends, /had/ been imperiled. I had left them behind, too cocky in my self-made assurances that they would be all right, that they would always be all right. And now...

And now...

"Where are they?"

I don't know who exactly I expected to answer. If anything, Hammond and the others were looking at /me/ as if they were prepared to ask the same thing.

"They were right behind us," I sputtered, looking to Teal'c for confirmation, then back up at the Stargate, glaring at it, demanding answers. It revealed none. It didn't even reveal my teammates.

I backed down the ramp, hardly hearing Teal'c hasty report to Hammond about the situation we'd just escaped back on Ma'at'a. My gaze never left the portal; my eyes scanned every inch of the flickering surface, searching for some twitch in the iridescent event horizon that would signify incoming travelers.

Nothing.

"Is it possible they could have been killed?" I heard Hammond ask, voice pitched low as he held council with Teal'c several meters away.

I whirled and glared. "No! They were right behind us. There was no way the army could have caught them..."

Teal'c face was even more gravely set then usual. "I believe it is a possibility, General Hammond."

"Teal'c!" I exclaimed. He simply looked at me.

"Doctor Jackson?" queried Hammond, and I swear he was squirming where he stood. "Do you have the GDO?"

"Yes..." I answered cautiously

He nodded authoritatively and turned to the technicians behind the large window high up on the wall. "Close the iris!" he called, making a slicing motion across his neck.

"No!" I cried, and the men above us must have heard me, for they faltered, and looked back at the General for confirmation. "Sir, we have to wait!"

Before he could answer, something - someone - hurtled through the Stargate.

It wasn't Sam and it wasn't Jack. It was a kid - not more than 17 or 18 - dressed all in black and toting a long, tubular weapon in his trembling hands. He was colorless, eyes wide as saucers and dark as black holes. He rose from his knees, raising his weapon with sweaty hands, and I snapped from my reverie. "Watch out!"

My warning was entirely unnecessary. Teal'c already had his staff weapon split and crackling with potential energy; the security that populated the room when the gate was active already had their weapon trained on the militia member, who looked about three seconds away from passing out. Which was just fine with me.

I glanced sideways at Hammond, and he nodded tersely. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Airman Anderson trying to sneak around the perimeter of the room, where he could get a better shot at the intruder. It was important to keep the new arrival's attention off of him, and so I took a few admittedly foolish steps in front of the line of armed officers. "Please, lower your weapon," I said, holding my hands high to show that I was unthreatening... even though the contingent behind me said otherwise. "We don't want to have to resort to violence, right?"

Shaking, the Ma'at'an regarded me warily. "Who /are/ you people that you use the Sungate? Where am I? How do I get back?" His words became more agitated. "Send me back!"

"Please, calm down."

The young man's face contorted into an ugly, frightened snarl, and he redirected his gun's target, pointing it at me instead of at Teal'c and the General. "Now. Send me back."

"We-"

The man's arm tensed, and I realized that I would soon be finding out whether or not the colonel and captain were dead after all.

A single shot rang through the cavernous room... from Anderson's direction. The militia member sank back to his knees, and the surprise and sadness in his eyes was heartbreaking.

The metal tube slipped from his fingers and clattered on the ramp.

Choas ensued. I heard Hammond shout for Medical and for the "damn wormhole" to be deactivated, but I wasn't really listening. I was rushing towards the young man with single-minded purpose. Anderson's shot had been well-placed. There might not be much time...

Blood trickled down the ramp, but I ignored it, ignored Hammond's shouts, ignored Teal'c as he handed the tube weapon off to someone. "What happened to my friends?" I demanded, coming across as angry when I was really just scared out of my mind. "The two back on your planet? What happened?"

The young man smiled sickly. There was blood on his teeth. Frasier would arrive too late.

"Dead," he said. "We... killed them."

And then he too was gone.

***

"Sir..."

Sam Carter's voice was strained, pathetically weak, but nevertheless it was one of the most beautiful sounds I had ever heard.

I leapt up from my awkward position on the floor, startling the guard at the door. I ignored the threat of his tube weapon in favor of grimacing at the headache brought on by sudden movement. I had a nasty knot on my head where the militia commander had whacked me with his gun.

My painful and eventually successful struggle to remain conscious had amused the entire group of militia members... who seemed to forget their Gate-traveling comrade mere moments after he vanished en route to Earth. Then the commander announced that we -all of us - were returning to the city, and stalked off imperiously. He was followed by his subordinates, who watched me carefully, but ignored poor Sam, still laying in a heap, bleeding onto the forest floor. Glaring, I finally stooped down, scooped her up, and carried her back to the city.

She wasn't very heavy; my greatest fear was that I would succumb to the incessant dizziness, the constant darkness invading the corners of my vision, and fall with her in my arms.

The entire way back I kept looking over my shoulder, expecting to see a silver-blue glow on the late-afternoon horizon, and SG-5 or 3 crashing through the brush to us. I planned my moves, always keeping an eye out for a shelter of any sort that I could dive into once the shooting started. But the shooting never started. No one ever came.

We were taken to Ankh'ij, one of the major cities on the major continent of P2F-983, the same city that Daniel, Teal'c, Carter and I had been run out of perhaps an hour or two ago.

Like a parade we were lead down the main street, which I hadn't seen before; our first time into Ankh'ij, we had been a little more discreet, picking our way carefully through the townspeople until someone finally noticed that we were strangers and directed us to the Council building. Unlike most planets we'd visited, the main thoroughfare did not appear to be a marketplace or a high-traffic area. It was empty and peaceable - perhaps the natives were enjoying the evening meal - but now and then someone would peek out a window at us, their bronze faces filled with curiosity and alarm.

Ankh'ij didn't so much sprawl over the terrain as it towered, five and six stories over our heads in some places, lording over us on every side of the gravel road. Buildings, I noticed for the second time around, seemed to be made of equal parts stone and metal. The Ma'at'ans had their own versions of lightbulbs - and therefore electricity - but no automobiles; the only transportation seen was horseback. Even Danny had had trouble placing these people's technological level. "If you want an Earth equivalent," he'd said as we'd made our way through Ankh'ij the first time, knowing how much I appreciated equivalents, "then I would probably have to say American colonial period, around the time of the Revolutionary War. Or just about any European city in the same era. Their weapons /look/ fairly sophisticated," he'd remarked, spying two black-garbed, armed militia members chatting in a doorway. "but I bet if you got a good look at one, you'd find that it's not... maybe on par with George Washington's musket."

Unfortunately, we'd gotten a little /too/ close of a look. And while their weapons might not have been as advanced as a machine gun or Teal'c's staff, they were plenty advanced enough to wound Carter.

Carrying her back from the Ma'at'an Stargate was hell. The trip seemed to take twice as long. Every few minutes the scenery proved insufficient to distract me and I would wonder what I would do if Sam awoke before we had a chance to pump the Ma'at'an version of painkillers into her. Her spine was as limp as overcooked spaghetti; her head, resting over my right arm, bounced with every step I took. The blood from her injuries had soaked through both her fatigues and mine before we got to the Ankh'ij version of an infirmary.

It was a whitewashed, featureless building, seemingly identical to all the others that created the man-made canyon on the main road. No windows, one door, tall and thin and squished between two other structures in such a fashion that it brought San Francisco, California to mind. The homes there were arranged in a similar fashion, built with space in mind rather then style, exterior walls so close that fitting a single sheet of paper in between the two was nothing short of a miracle.

The majority of the militia halted outside the building, but the commander - the one with the ridiculous bangs - motioned brusquely for me to follow him inside. I did, maneuvering Sam carefully so that she wouldn't bang her head on a corner, through several empty rooms that were as unmemorable as the building's exterior... until we reached a larger room I instinctively knew had to be a surgical bay.

Thankfully, Ma'at'an medicine seemed more advanced than that of the late 1700s, if only slightly. From what I could see, there were bright lights, clean beds, drawers and cabinets and small black bottles on uncluttered counters. The head doctor - the only soul there, it seemed - was a skinny, copper-skinned man about a decade or two younger than me, dressed in gray pants and a long gray shirt, with dark eyes and a full head of blue-black hair... who promptly refused to treat Sam.

The commander nodded his agreement. "You don't have any papers," he pointed out loftily, as though it was a crime... which it just might have been. Daniel hadn't exactly had a lot of time for cultural analysis.

Over the doctor's half-hearted protests, I carefully set Sam on one of the beds. She didn't move, stir, anything. I was no medical professional, but I knew it had to be a concussion. "Yeah, well, you know, we're kinda new around here," I spat. The commander's hands tightened on his tube, but he did no more than scowl at me. I was betting on the fact that he wouldn't try to beat on me here, not with the doctor a potentially sympathetic witness. We /were/ prisoners, this was true, but the commander's own restraint proved that he planned on maintaining at least a modicum of civility towards us.

Daniel, I was sure, would have something to say about how that reflected on the Ma'at'an culture. Me... I was just relieved to know I wouldn't be ducking blows for our entire stay.

"You need to go to the Accounting Office," said the doctor. He kept glancing down at Carter, nervous, and I knew that his instincts where screaming at him to help her. So were mine. "You'll have to fill out papers, and sign as her guardian. Otherwise, any debt incurred might be lost or misplaced, and then you'll have proceedings and /those/ can get ugly."

"Fine," I snapped. I didn't really care what I had to sign, or what he meant by 'debt' and 'proceedings'. I'd do just about anything if he'd just shut up and start patching Carter up. All of a sudden, she looked very small, pale and defenseless lying on that bed. "And you'd better bring your Accountant - or whatever - /here/, because I'm not leaving." I clamped a hand onto a nearby counter, just in case they tried to drag me outside.

The commander's face grew tight and angry once more; I rather assumed he wasn't used to complete strangers - and off-worlders at that - ordering him around. But he looked at the doctor, and the doctor nodded, and the commander left.

That had been hours ago; exactly how long, I'm not sure. There were no windows in the surgical bay and I hadn't ventured outside; hadn't been willing to leave Carter's side. I'd stayed with the doctor - who revealed his name to be Krivin - the entire time he'd worked on the Captain: cutting off her fatigues, cleaning the blood and dirt out of her wounds, and then painstakingly removing every piece of buckshot. He had me hold a cloth drenched in something akin to chloroform under her nose and mouth, but when I saw the damage that single shot had done to Sam's entire side, I had to resist a strong urge to take a whiff of it myself.

Her shoulder, outer arm, hip and leg were pockmarked with uncountable, miniscule bullet holes, all with tiny bullets that had to be extracted with nothing more advanced than a pain of skinny tweezers. And while I would have liked to be critical of his technique, I couldn't ignore the fact that, back home, Doc Fraiser would have been performing very much the same procedure. In fact, the methodical, repetitive process - clean the wound, probe it, pull out the buckshot, clean, and bandage - was calming, and kept me from noticing all of Carter's exposed skin, flesh I'd never seen before... and /that/ would have been nothing short of sick.

Krivin also talked as he worked, which kept my attention occupied. I...I inherited this facility from my father about 800 Réys ago. He passed away last winter, but I know it made him proud to see how well I'm doing. I'm paying off my mother's debt and my own...

"...Well, I told Emiko that we just wouldn't work out. Can't say that she believed it and I know that I didn't, but there are just times when it seems that breaking things off quickly will be easier for everybody in the long run...

"...It rained for five Réys straight! I didn't imagine that it could rain so much, so hard. Some expected a flood, and down the street, in the fishing district, there was about a foot of standing water. I think my little brother was actually /hoping/ for a flood, one that would drown every tutor in the city..."

It was nothing more than pointless, easy banter, but I was thankful for it. It helped me forget that I was virtually abandoned and almost alone on a planet halfway across the galaxy from the one that I called home. Krivin's leisurely drivel was comforting in its own mundane way. Career, women, the weather... all favorite and natural ice-breaking topics back on Earth. And Krivin seemed to require no replies to keep the conversation alive; he answered his own rhetorical questions, and maintained a ceaseless dialogue with himself.

I found myself drifting back to our madcap dash through the woods, towards the Stargate. Was there something I could have done differently? Was there anything that I, as the commanding officer, should have seen, should have noticed? Should Carter and I have found a better position to hold off the Ma'at'ans? Should we have skirted the clearing and come at the gate from the side, rather than dead on, or would that have simply given the militia more time to pick us off at their leisure?

"Well, that just about does it."

My head snapped up, my mind jerked back into the present situation and the reality that no amount of wishing things had been different would change the past to any degree. "Done?" I asked dumbly.

Sam's side didn't look much improved. In fact, the skin that showed through the overlapping bandages was even more red and inflamed than it had been before, as a result of Krivin's probing.

"I'm afraid there's nothing much more that I can do," the younger man said, perhaps sensing my disappointment. "The discharge of a Slade /does/ inflict many injuries, but they are small, and they usually heal quickly. I do think that your friend's arm might be fractured, but not badly, and I'd like to wait until she wakes up to try to do anything about that."

"Slade? You mean those tubes?"

Krivin nodded vigorously, then continued with his diagnosis. "She's got a bump on the back of her head; she probably hit something when she fell, which is why she hasn't awakened yet. I'm confident that will happen in her own time. The only thing that I'm truly worried about is a Second Sickness." I raised my eyebrows, and he hurried to explain. "Um, hot skin, shaking, hallucinations..."

Ah, I thought. Fever. Infection. That was a problem that could be all but solved on Earth with a healthy dose of antibiotics, but judging by the worry in the doctor's voice, I judged that Ma'at'an medicine wasn't quite /that/ advanced.

It could have been worse, though, I admitted to myself, reluctant to find anything positive about this place, out of nothing more than my own stubbornness. At least these people had rudimentary understandings of cleanliness and infection and comas. Most of the worlds we'd visited had been /much/ less advanced. In a way, we'd been lucky.

On the other hand, if the Ma'at'ans hadn't been so advanced, they would never have been able to take down Carter.

Krivin had left then, explaining that he had other patients that he needed to check on, and if I needed anything, his assistant would be happy to help. His assistant also looked suspiciously like a militia member, half-shaved head, black garb, Slade and all. Krivin gave an apologetic shrug as he left. He was just as unhappy about this as I was. More importantly, he wasn't stupid, and he didn't consider /me/ stupid.

I settled down to wait for Carter to wake.

Initially, I took a seat on the foot of her bed, every few minutes leaning over and placing the back of my hand against her cheek or forehead, wincing each time in anticipation of a temperature that would indicate an infection... one that the Ma'at'ans possibly had no cure for. I tried a couple times to start up a conversation with the 'assistant', but gave up quickly; he was more stoic than Teal'c, and besides, I was wary of provoking his anger.

Approximately two hours after Krivin had left, I was sitting on the floor, leaning against Carter's bed to give my poor back some relief. dozing on and off and opening an eye every now and then to glare at the guard. After the first hour, I stopped listening for sounds of approaching rescue; even if a team was coming for us, we'd never hear them in the surgical bay, insolated as it was from the street. That didn't keep my half-asleep mind from toying with me, though. I could swear that every time I began to drift off, I could hear Danny calling me.

*Jack!*

The air was as heavy and lifeless as a corpse.

And then came that faint, pitiable "Sir?"

"Carter?" I jumped up, startling the guard and giving myself a headache. I honestly don't know what I was happier about: that Sam was awake or that I finally had someone to talk to.

She was pale. Her eyes kept drifting between focused and not, but I had seen her in worse ways than this. She was lucid, which was always a good sign, and didn't appear to be in intense pain (although I wasn't a doctor and couldn't make an accurate diagnosis if my life, or anyone else's, depended on it). /And/ she seemed to realize that, under a thin brown blanket, she was, well, naked.

Not that I found that distracting or anything.

Sam looked up at me, blinking several times as though needing to assure herself of my reality. "Sir?" she repeated tentatively. "We're still on P2F-983?"

I suppressed a grin I knew wouldn't exactly be appreciated. The woman had been shot at, knocked out, poked and bandaged... and she still managed to call the planet's exact designation without even missing a beat. "Yeah," I conceded softly, glancing over my shoulder to find the guard missing from his post. Hopefully to get Krivin, I thought, and looked back at Carter. Her blue eyes were wide.

"What happened to Daniel? And Teal'c?"

"They're fine," I said, doing my best to be soothing, although it wasn't exactly my strong suit. "They went through the Stargate."

More awake and aware with every second, she started to sit up, and then winced, letting out a little gasp of pain and sending a glare down her left side. It was all I could do not to grimace in sympathy, but I'm sure it showed on my face. "They shot me," she said, with a venomous edge in her voice.

"Yeah, they did." I rolled my eyes at my own lame response and wished that I could speak somewhat more intelligently. "How are you feeling?"

Carter didn't answer immediately, in favor of using her good right arm to push herself into a sitting position. Her teeth were clenched and her brow knit, and I found myself holding my breath, not just against her pain, but against the slightly sagging blanket.

*You are a sick man, O'Neill. Sick, sick, sick.*

Sam held the sheet against her chest, seemingly not even noticing my conflicting emotions of excitement and embarrassment. "My arm hurts," she said grudgingly, as though simply admitting that one injury was conceding a great weakness.

Forcing my eyes to stay on her face, I nodded. "The doctor said it might be broken."

"Doctor?" She glanced furtively around the room, as though expecting someone to jump out from underneath the counter or perhaps spring from one of the cabinets. "Sir, you have to get back to the Stargate," she said decisively, and I realized she had been scanning the room for anyone who might prevent my escape.

"If I leave, you're coming with me, Captain," I said with a little shrug. I wasn't going to bring up that I'd /had/ a chance to go through, but had stayed behind for her, instead. I knew she would instinctively accuse that I was being a male chauvinist, a muscle-flexing machismo maniac, and think that I didn't consider her capable to taking care of herself. Untrue... still, there was something about Carter that, from our first meeting and despite her brash attitude, had engendered an immediate sense of protectiveness.

Carter narrowed her eyes, giving a tense, exasperated sigh. "Sir, I /can't/..."

"Exactly," I said vehemently. "We stay here until you're well enough to leave."

She pressed her lips together in a tight line, and stared at me so long I wondered if she was trying to bore a hole into my skull with her eyes. She was unhappy with my decision, I could tell, but I think that deep inside she was relieved that I had stayed. We both knew what it was like to be left behind, to be abandoned, to be given up on.

Finally, she nodded tersely, and I nodded back, trying to convey strength and assurance with the simple gesture, though comforting was something I'd always been uneasy doing. I'd always counted - depended - on my subordinates being strong and morally sound. This was usually no problem with an all-male team because even if one of them /did/ need a shoulder to lean on, they would refuse to seek one out. They would hide their feelings, bury them deep at least until the end of the mission, if not longer. I was a man, after all. I knew all about that.

But Carter was a woman, and, in many ways, largely enigmatic. She'd always seemed strong, right from that first acerbic conversation, and that was what I adored about her: her willpower, her stubbornness, her tenacity, and her amazing ability to suffer in silence.

If there was one thing I couldn't tolerate, it was clinginess. Neediness. It made me nervous.

"Well, Colonel? What now?" Sam's voice was soft, her expression hesitant. I wondered if she was simply curious about the reverie I had drifted into, or if she was actually, visibly worried about our present condition.

I thought about her questions, considered our situation. We were trapped on this planet until Carter was well enough to escape back to the Stargate with me, or until Hammond sent a rescue team through. It was the two of us against a somewhat hostile native population that was more advanced than we were accustomed to and already had a grudge against us. They were also more than mildly trigger happy, and we were unarmed.

No witty reply seemed appropriate -

- "Just play nice, I guess."

- "Ask if they know a good motel in the area."

- "We wait. And wait and wait. And hope we're actually waiting for something."

I sighed, opting for honesty. "I don't know, Captain."

I'm not sure if that particularly concerned her, but personally, I was worried.

***

When I came back to myself I was sitting on one of the beds in the infirmary. I don't think I'd actually been unconscious, but my senses had most definitely left me for a time. And now they were returning to me. So, that wasn't a cliché after all.

*No, not again...*

"Daniel?"

Janet Frasier was standing in the doorway, and I nodded shakily to tell her I was alright and it was okay to come in... not that she really cared to have my permission one way or another. I blinked. The world was blurry. Where were my glasses?

The doc pushed the frames into my hands, and when I slipped them onto my nose, I could see her round face was more sober than I had ever witnessed. "The boy from P2F-983 died," she said flatly, not wasting any time getting to the point. "And your blood pressure dropped pretty drastically. I-"

"That 'boy' was the only link we had to Jack and Sam," I reminded her tersely, feeling a blush creeping onto my cheeks. Why did I always have to be so sensitive? "General Hammond has to send another team through," I said determinedly, and hopped off the bed, staggering slightly as dizziness overtook me.

"Daniel." Janet grabbed my arm and I looked back at her, irritated.

"You came back from P2F-983 almost three hours ago."

"No..."

"Yes, Daniel." She bit her lower lip. "The General sent a probe through just a little while ago, or he tried to..."

Her eyes suddenly filled with tears, and that frightened me more than anything that had happened so far did. Janet Frasier, M.D. ... crying, or nearly so? "What?" I asked, not sure I wanted to know the answer.

At the trepidation in my voice she seemed to pull herself together; the moisture drained from her eyes and she was left looking as fresh and professional as always. "The Stargate on P2F-983 is obstructed by a pile of stones. The natives must have put them there before-"

"They wouldn't do that," I blurted out. "The people on that planet... I don't think they really remember the System Lords but they're afraid of them. That's why we had the firefight all the way back to the Stargate... they were paranoid that because we had used it, the 'demons' would return. They wouldn't /dare/ touch the gate."

"Would you like to see what probe data we got?" she asked quietly.

I flinched. "No, I trust you."

Frasier crossed her arms uncomfortably, and I wondered if she was going to start crying again. I sincerely hoped not. "I'm giving you a clean bill of health. Just make sure you tell me if you start feeling dizzy or nauseous."

I slid off the bed, unworried about my own physical condition. "What now?" I asked.

Ill at ease, Janet looked down at her feet. "Maybe you'd better see General Hammond about that."

***

The silence seemed to last forever, and I don't know how long we would have sat there, caught up in our disparity, if we hadn't been interrupted by a young, bronze-skinned man dressed in loose gray garb. As he opened the door, his dark eyes darted from Jack to me, and he smiled. "Captain Carter. You're awake!"

I held the sheet more tightly to my chest as he approached. "Have we been introduced?" I asked, addressing the Ma'at'an but looking at the Colonel, hoping my trepidation didn't show through.

To my relief, my CO seemed at ease with the young man. "Sam, this is Krivin. The doctor. He, um, patched you up."

"We're back in Ankh'ij?"

O'Neill nodded.

Tentatively, as though feeling a bit of apprehension himself, Krivin stepped closer, across the bed from Jack. He pulled out a penlight and flashed it into my eyes, then held his fingers against my neck to gauge my pulse. I marveled at that- electricity but no such thing as a stethoscope?

He quickly checked on the bandages down my side and then, with a mockingly authoritative air, announced, "Well, for someone who came in, in your condition, just a couple of hours ago, you look good. Much improved. Shale weapons usually take a month or so to heal fully, but in my professional opinion, you won't have any scarring. Or if you will, it'll be minimal. As for your arm," he continued before I could bring it up, "It might be broken, or the joint may only be strained. I think you might feel better with it in a sling, or even splinted, but..." His eyes flitted nervously to the ground and he turned towards his cabinets again, rummaging through a drawer.

"But what?" asked O'Neill, a hard edge creeping into his voice.

Krivin sighed and closed the drawer, then turned back to us. "You just... might want to talk to the Accountant first."

O'Neill crossed his arms and advanced on Krivin, slowly but not without a somewhat menacing aura. I glanced nervously at the door, relieved to see that the guard hadn't resumed his post. "Explain something to me, Doctor. What the hell does an accountant have to do with the Captain's medical treatment?"

"That's..." Krivin gestured futilely with his hands, then let them drop back to his sides. "You'll have to forgive me. I've... I've never had to /explain/ this to anyone before. But... that's how you pay for things. Through the Accountant. Labor. You incur debt through your life and you work it for over the years."

"Years?" asked the Colonel, his brow creasing.

"Yes, cycles... around the sun," the doctor elaborated, misunderstanding the question. "I only have 22 years to work off. Well, I'm trying to work off my mother's as well, but that's only 12 years more."

"I don't understand," I spoke up, although I was beginning to; that was the hell of it. "How did you get this debt?"

"Everything," said Krivin, seeming perplexed that I couldn't grasp the concept. "Um, good, services, penalties..."

"They don't have money," said the Colonel suddenly. His voice was flat. "Their currency... they barter in..."

"In labor," I supplied. Krivin nodded emphatically, pleased that we had finally caught on.

O'Neill quirked an eyebrow. "So how much... or should I say, how /long/ has this little operation cost?"

Krivin squirmed. "Well, you haven't signed any papers yet, so of course none of it is official, but..."

"How long?"

The Doctor sighed. "200 Réys." He arced his arm over his head, one hundred and eighty degrees. "From rise to set is a Réy."

Réy. Ré, if I remembered correctly, was another name for Ra, the Sun God. 200 rises and sets of the sun. 200 days. I did some quick math.

"Seven months," I whispered, and Jack's eyes grew wide.

But before I could even begin to process the information myself, there was a sharp rap on the door, so loud and crisp that all of us, even the doctor, jumped.

The door opened.

The Accountant had arrived.

I half expected him to look frightening or in some way threatening, as menacing as Krivin had pronounced his title. Instead, he was a short, mousy little man with scraggly black hair pulled back in a stubby braid, wearing a flowing gray robe and carrying a black embroidered tote. He looked like someone who, had he been Terran-born and raised, would have grown up to be a lawyer or an IRS agent... or an accountant.

Noting the color of the Accountant's robe, remembering the Ma'at'an members' black uniforms and the Council's white garb, and seeing Krivin's dark gray matching set, I wondered if they colors symbolized anything special in their society, or if it was just coincidence.

Daniel would wonder the same thing, I thought. It was exactly the wrong thing to think. The throat constricted to hold in a little sob. Daniel... Teal'c...

The Ma'at'an gate was only two miles away. In effect, Earth and my friends were only two miles away. But with my left side - which was in so much discomfort as to be nearly useless - it might as well have been over a mountain range, beyond an ocean, across a burning bridge. I /couldn't/ do it, and that was hard to admit, even in my own head.

Jack could do it, I thought, irked. He could escape, but instead, he's here. The Colonel didn't even seem to be injured, except for the welt on his temple.

"You can use my office to talk," said a flustered Krivin, hurrying to the doorway where the Accountant lingered and pointing down the hall, glancing back at O'Neill and pointing again. Uncertain, looking back at me as though asking permission, the Colonel moved in that direction. I admit that I was worried, too; I didn't like the idea of them separating us.

"And I'll go get you some clothes, Captain," the doctor continued, looking a trifle embarrassed. "And if you think you can walk satisfactorily, please, feel free to join them."

I nodded, watching as the Accountant and my CO - still looking at me fretfully - exited the room, followed by Krivin.

I wasn't sure I /could/ make the walk. Just thinking about putting weight on my left leg made me cringe. Krivin surely wouldn't care if I told him I was still in too much pain to move normally, to go traipsing through the halls...

But what would O'Neill think?

I'd spent years in the military doing everything I could to prove to the 'boys' that I was no pushover. As a woman in the Air Force, the attitude was a necessity- either you were a bitch or you were a sweet little thing that had inadvertently wandered into the wrong occupation.

In an occupation full of potential bastards, however, it was usually better to be a bitch.

I knew women in the military who used their gender to throw men off. Fellow officers initially considered her no more a threat then a water pistol... and when she proved otherwise, she proved in a dramatic way that left her CO's mouth wide open. It was a nice bit of theatrical flair but I'd never been one for theater. I'd worked damn hard to get where I was, and I didn't want to be underestimated, not for one second.

Hence, many people found me disagreeable upon introduction, when all I really was... was defensive.

No act in the world, however, theatrical or not, could mask pain. No matter my attitude, I couldn't change the fact that I was injured, badly enough that I was preventing our safe return home. Inside, that hurt.

Krivin returned shortly with an armful of light blue fabric. "There's a breeze out tonight," he said, stuttering slightly. "The- the gowns we usually give patients are so thin... so I got this... it was Emiko's... um, my old girlfriend's."

I was touched by the gesture. Simply judging by the look on his face, this Emiko was still a special person to him. "Krivin, I can't-"

"No, no, I want you to have it." He dumped the pile into my arms and then turned towards the counter, to give me some privacy while I changed. I dropped the blanket and slipped into what proved to be a loose, knee-length dress that came with a narrow belt and soft white shoes. I stepped into the slippers and had just tied the belt around my waist when the doctor turned around. "No."

"No?" I echoed.

Rather than explain, he stepped closer - not without a pause, I noticed - and untied the sash, then moved it higher up, just beneath my breasts, and tied it in the back. I looked down. The dress looked better this way. It actually looked somewhat like a nightgown; like the pajamas Wendy had worn in "Peter Pan", only the neckline was higher.

Krivin stepped back and smiled at me. "You are... beautiful," he breathed. I tried to smile back, but I was plagued by less than pleasant memories. The last time I had been called beautiful, I'd ended up tied to a horse and traded like property.

Looking embarrassed by his declaration, Krivin crossed his arms over his chest. "Would you like to see your Colonel?"

Just the mention of O'Neill made me anxious. I slid gingerly onto the bed. "Actually, if you didn't mind, I wanted to ask you some questions."

The doctor's entire face seemed to brighten, and he nodded eagerly. "I had a couple for you as well. What's your world like? And what are you doing here? Why Ma'at'a of all the places in the sky?"

"We're..." I wavered, remembering the reaction we had received from the Council after stating our intentions. "Krivin, have you ever heard of the name Apophis?" I flinched, awaiting some intense backlash.

But Krivin simply frowned, thought, and shook his head. "No... I don't believe so."

"What about 'Ra'?"

"There is the word Réy," he said helpfully. "The sun in the sky, how it travels from the land to the land. And... and the darkness of the sun... when it vanishes in midday, when it is covered, that is called Apept. Is that the word you're looking for?"

As clearly as though he was standing right beside me, I suddenly heard Daniel's voice. I wasn't in the Ma'at'an clinic any longer; I was in the Gate room, and he was running through a quick mythology lecture while we waited for Hammond to give us a final "ok" to go.

"Ra and Apophis's names /did/ change over the years, and they differed slightly from sect to sect. For example, Ra was often called Ré, and Apophis is more commonly known as Apep. However, no matter the /name/, the god's role pretty much stayed the same. Ra or Ré was the sun god that traveled across the sky each day in his royal barque, and Apophis or Apep was the serpent who tried to swallow the barque as it moved across the sky. When there was a storm, or an eclipse, it was considered a temporary victory for Apep. He never triumphed, however, because of the prayers of those loyal to Ra."

So that made sense, that Ma'at'an words, every-day words, had developed from the names of ancient gods. But why didn't Krivin, obviously an intelligent, learned man, know the /names/ of these gods?

Why had the Council known... and reacted so violently?

Krivin was still waiting for me to speak.

"Ra and Apophis are the names of dangerous men," I said, choosing my words carefully. "Ra is dead, but we've been fighting Apophis for some time now."

"Fighting? Fighting one man?"

"And his army. They're more advanced than we are, but," I shrugged. "So far we've held our own."

The doctor smiled appreciatively. "Then you're also brave, as well as beautiful."

I held in a laugh. "Really, you've never heard those names?"

"No. How could I have?" He began to busy himself again, stripping the sheets off the bed and tossing them into a pile by the door, and then pulling out a new set from a cabinet. "According to the Scrolls, we haven't had any visitors through the Sungate for thousands of years."

Sungate, I thought. The sun... Ra... Ra's gate. I began to understand why Daniel found this sort of interaction absorbing. I began to wonder exactly what the Scrolls were, and what they contained.

"Your Council knew the names," I said softly.

Krivin paused in the process of tucking in a sheet.

"When we told them of our fight against Apophis, they called out your militia and chased us back to the St- the Sungate. That's when I was shot."

The doctor rubbed the back of his neck, his expression full of wariness. "We're not all like that," he promised. There was suspicion in his eyes, and I just hoped it was not directed at me, but rather, at his Council.

"I know," I said, "Thank you."

*

"Welcome to our world," said the Accountant.

I regarded the man doubtfully. He was curiously laid back, calm and collected, maybe even just a little bit jaded, bored with his job, which was not a reaction I was accustomed to seeing. I'd been shot at, screamed at, and bowed to. It was nice to finally meet someone a little more subdued. I might even be able to start liking this culture... except for one small fact.

"We're not free to just get up and walk out, are we?"

"No, you're not."

We stepped into Krivin's office. It was a small, neat space with beige walls adorned with plaques, written in an alien language that looked curiously like simplified hieroglyphs. The Accountant took his seat behind the doctor's desk, which was small and covered with stacks of paper and thick-spined books. There was a small chair with a padded cushion by the door, but I opted to stand. "You're... not really that impressed by the fact we come from another planet, are you?"

The Accountant leaned back in his chair. "Truthfully? No."

"And why is that?"

He shrugged. "So you came through the Sungate. So what?"

Sungate, huh? I thought. "Do a lot of people come through the Sungate?"

"No." He stood. "Frankly, O'Nell..."

"O'Neill," I corrected sharply. "With two Ls."

"You may be from another world, but you look like us. And therefore, you work like us."

"Work..." And then it began to fit together as perfectly as two halves of a royal sarcophagus, and I felt like an idiot for not realizing it sooner. These people bartered in labor. The '200 Réys' that Krivin had charged for the procedure on Sam... that was what we owed him, or perhaps what we owed the government. That was the debt that had been mentioned constantly since our arrival. "We... we have to work for 200 Réys?"

The Accountant sat and dug into his tote. "Is that the debt incurred?" He rifled through his papers. "Yes, yes, I believe it is." He produced a pen, seemingly from thin air, and held it over a pad. "Now, your full name, age..."

"Wait a minute," I snapped. "We wouldn't /have/ any kind of debt if your army hadn't fired on us, or if your Council had allowed us to return peaceably back through the... the Sungate."

The Accountant shrugged. "I understand, but that's really not my problem. You incurred a debt, and it needs to be worked off. /When/ it is, then you can return through the Sungate."

"200 Réys," I repeated dumbly. Seven months?

"For starters," agreed the Accountant, his pen scratching across the paper. "Add the housing you'll require, food, supplies..."

My shoulders slumped. I couldn't imagine this getting any worse. Why couldn't they have just stuck us in a nice jail cell or something? "That adds to our debt?"

"Of course."

"So how long are we going to /be/ here?"

He continued to scribble on his paper, mouth moving silently as he talked - or perhaps counted - to himself. Obviously, Ma'at'a didn't have calculators.

"651 Réys. Well, that's only the estimation, of course, but..."

I didn't hear the rest of it. All I could think was: 651 days. Almost two years.

Two years.

My prior strategy of playing it silent, safe, and subservient went right out the window. I started wondering exactly how Carter and I could get back to the Stargate, when we would make our escape, how many people we would potentially have to kill. There was no way in hell I was going to live here for two years, paying off a debt I never would have had if not for these people's actions.

Carter...

"This is my debt, right?" I asked, noting the desperate edge in my voice. "Carter's free to leave, isn't she?"

"Carter?" asked the Accountant, shielding a yawn with the back of his hand, then continuing to write, his eyes riveted on the paper.

"Yes, Samantha Carter," I snapped, angered by the man's nonchalance, wishing for once the ability to put the fear of God into these people. Any god; I wasn't particular. "My friend. The one injured by /your/ militia."

If the man had any remorse at all over what his people had done, it didn't show in his face or his voice. "No. She stays. It is her debt as well. In addition, we learned something today about the other's culture," he said, finally looking up, eyes cold. "You learned that here, ignorance of the ways of our people mean nothing. We learned that you are a warlike race. If we let your Carter go back, it increases the chance of a rescue party coming here to 'save' you. We can't allow that."

/We/ were warlike? I could practically /hear/ my blood pressure rising as I remembered the indiscriminate, graceless Slade weapons carried by the militia. "But I'm prepared to /sign/ as her /guardian/."

The Accountant's mouth suddenly curved into a hard, unconvincing smile that immediately made me nervous.

I decided then and there that I wished Daniel had also been stuck on Ma'at'a. It was a horrible, selfish wish, and I felt awful just thinking it, but I had the distinct feeling that Danny would have had better luck dealing with these people. I was a military man, not a negotiator, and here, now, a negotiator was what we needed. We needed to understand how these people thought, what they wanted. After all, we could offer them virtually anything. Anything except two years of our lives.

And if Teal'c was here, we probably wouldn't be on this planet, I realized. He was a better fighter than Carter; more than likely, we would have made it through the Stargate. No offense to Sam, of course, but Teal'c had been raised a warrior, /and/ he had that nifty little Gou'ald larva in his stomach. If only he'd stayed back with me during the firefight.

If only Daniel had.

Anyone but Carter...

"Guardian," murmured the Accountant. "That /would/ make things easier for the two of you. It would reduce your debt... it'd be a lie, but I'm willing to work with you."

I finally realized who the little weasel reminded me of: Samuels. Snide, reveling in his power, but underneath it all just a little, petty man. "What the hell are you talking about?"

He crossed his arms over the desk and smiled smugly. "You and your 'Samantha Carter' are not committed, are you?"

The first image that sprang into my head was Carter and me in straitjackets. "Committed?"

"Bonded. Pledged." He scowled, and I congratulated myself for forcing him to show some emotion. "Has she promised to carry your children?"

I didn't think it was possible to choke on the air you breathed, but somehow, I accomplished it. "Uhh! You mean married?" I asked incredulously, once I was able to suck in a lungful of oxygen.

"If that is your word for it."

"No!"

When he smiled, he reminded me of a sick cat. "Say that you are."

"Excuse me?"

He frowned. "In Ma'at'an housing sections, there are three major zones. Areas for single men, for single women, and for committed couples. 'Married' people. If you tell the truth and say you are... friends... compatriots... than They will split you up, place you in separate homes. This will add to your collective debt. I should also mention," he said with a simpering grin, "that the women's zone is not the /safest/ place in the world." He nodded meaningfully.

My guts did a triple-axle. "Fine," I growled. When Carter was well, and we were ready to make our escape, I didn't want to have to go searching all over the planet for her. I didn't want to get split up. And I didn't want to think about what this asshole meant by 'unsafe'.

The Accountant nodded, and I resisted the urge to just reach across the table and grab him by his pathetic little braid. "Your full name then?" he queried again, raising the pen, ready to write.

Why did I feel like I was making a deal with the devil?

***

"You can't be serious."

"I'm afraid I am."

I simply stared at the General. "Well, you have to do something."

Hammond just sighed and plopped down behind his desk, resolute. "Colonel O'Neill and Captain Carter are officially Missing In Action... but I'm afraid we might be updating their status fairly soon."

I cocked my head. Had I heard right? "They aren't dead."

"The evidence seems to suggest otherwise, Daniel."

Daniel? So now, now that he was sentencing my friends to death, /now/ I was Daniel? "What evidence is that, exactly? The probe footage? It was very short, very fuzzy... and it showed nothing. No bodies... nothing. The militiaman? He could have been lying."

"And what would he have gained from that?"

"Some last satisfaction, maybe. We... killed quite a few of his comrades, sir."

Hammond's face remained imperturbable.

"You don't even have to be afraid of these people, General," I pressed, my voice raising in pitch pathetically. "The Gou'ald haven't been to that planet in a good long time... developmentally they're a century behind us, give or take a decade."

"With the Stargate blocked on that side," Hammond repeated, slow and loud. "I cannot do anything more than periodically send probes through and see if you're right about this... cultural taboo."

"Don't report them as KIA," I pleaded.

His eyes narrowed.

"There's no proof," I persisted.

A long moment... and then he nodded. "This isn't any easier for me than it is for anyone else on this base," he reminded me. "But we've been through this before, Doctor Jackson."

I left the General's office and leaned on the wall for a moment, catching my breath. The soldier at the door gave a sympathetic nod. Everyone on the mountain probably knew by now that SG-1 had returned short two members. If nothing else, Anderson was probably bragging his ass off. After all, in the eyes of anyone who hadn't been there, he had done a wonderful thing. Eliminated an alien threat. Saved lives.

Only by his lie and subsequent death, he had condemned by friends.

We were cut off from Sam and Jack, but I was convinced they were still alive. I had convinced the General of the same thing, for the time being, anyway, and we would keep trying.

It was a start, at least.

***

"Well, it turned out that the Touched were really just infected with a very contagious virus."

"A virus," breathed Krivin, entranced. "I never would have guessed."

"It fed off histamines... chemicals in the blood. Janet and Daniel weren't affected because they took medicines called /anti/-histamines, for their allergies."

"And your Jaffa friend?"

"Oh, Teal'c was fine. Not much can beat that little infant Gou'ald."

"But you and Jack were..."

I felt a blush emerging, and wished I had recounted a different mission. "Well, we were affected... /and/ General Hammond, and a /lot/ of the people at the base. We took a look at the blood of the Untouched, and we found out about how the virus fed of histamines. Janet knew that somehow or other, we would have to starve the virus."

"Let me guess: strong doses of these anti-histamines?"

I grinned at Krivin. I really had found a kindred spirit in the young doctor. His culture was perhaps not as advanced as mine, but he was clever and caught on quickly; was curious and intuitive. I had done no more than mention my role on SG-1 - and the fact that I was a doctor - than he began to enthusiastically pump me for information. I told him about some of our more unusual missions, and I have to admit that it was nice to brag a bit to someone who wasn't part of the project. On Earth, it was all classified and all potentially damaging, not to mention the fact it wasn't exactly a dinner-table discussion topic. But remembering only made me long for Daniel and Teal'c - and home - even more.

"There was one time when-" I began, but then there was a quiet 'click' and I broke off, looking over at he opening door.

The Accountant strode into the room, followed by Colonel O'Neill, whose shoulders were rounded. He didn't just look tired - he looked defeated, and my somewhat-good mood evaporated.

Lingering in the doorway, the Accountant beckoned to Krivin, and they left the room, closing the door firmly behind them. Apprehensive, I turned to the Colonel, wondering what could be so awful, and agonizing over the possibilities.

"Two years," he said simply.

I gaped at him, as my mind reeled, unable to imagine spending two years on this world, cursing myself for being so careless as to get shot, cursing O'Neill for staying behind with me when he could have escaped. "Whatever happened to seven months?"

"When you add up the supplies - food, housing - that we'd need over the seven months, that's the new total. 612 Réys." His voice was cold, his gaze distant.

I closed my own eyes and shook my head. "That ridiculous."

"That's how this society works."

Glancing back up, I found him leaning against the opposite wall, arms crossed, jaw set, eyes focused on an imaginary point a million light years away. I recognized the signs of his rage, and caught my breath, instinctively shrinking away. Oh God, what if I was the one he was angry at?

"You can escape, sir," I began, my voice firm, but he cut me off.

"I'm not abandoning a member of my team," he said in that calm, numb voice that didn't quite fit with his expression. "You'll have healed in a couple months, right?"

I studied the floor in earnest. "Right, sir. I mean, that's what the doctor said."

A deep, aggravated sigh. "And no more of that 'sir' stuff either, ok?"

I kept my head down, unwilling to look him in the eye, but my curiosity was piqued. "What do you mean, Colonel?"

"And no more 'Colonel'," he said, more sharply this time. When I looked at him, his scowl had grown even deeper. "From now on, it's 'Jack'. We're... married."

I nearly fell off the bed.

I would have laughed if the mood hadn't been so somber. The Colonel and I, married? Proposals, rings, 'I do's'? Inconceivable. "What?"

He actually seemed to flinch . "If we don't say we're married, they'll split us up."

"Oh."

The Colonel looked less than thrilled with the entire scenario.

We lapsed into silence.

*

The Accountant had places to go, people to see, lives to screw up, but he'd brought along an assistant to lead us down the street to the temporary housing zone. It was evening, he said, and offices would be closed, but he could arrange for shelter for a night or two... free of charge. Lucky us.

The assistant's name was Mari'ga. She was pretty in an aloof, silent way, with silky black hair, small, dark eyes, and smooth, coppery skin. She was so tiny and delicate that she seemed to float into the surgical bay, beckon us, waif-like, and drift along the empty road like a ghost or apparition.

The walk to the housing zone was nothing short of embarrassing. We'd hardly left the building - Krivin looking on rather sadly - when the pain had simply become too much to bear. With every step I took, it felt increasingly as though a school of ravenous piranhas was feasting on my side. The second time I stumbled, too proud to ask for help, O'Neill had wordlessly scooped me into his arms. I gave a little shout, not so much out of surprise as fear that my skirt would fly up. "Colonel, you don't-"

"It's not a problem, /Samantha/," he drawled, and I realized that out of habit I had called him by rank. "If I keep this up, I'll never have to weight-lift again."

I couldn't help but smile, if only for the way he had pronounced my name, rolling it around his mouth.

I felt ridiculous, being carried like a child, exposed to that dark, vacant street, surrounded by towering buildings full of blank windows. Mari'ga would sometimes look back at us, smiling slightly. I wondered if the Accountant had told her we were married. I hoped not. The Colonel's cavalier, almost annoyed attitude about /that/ was upsetting enough.

But Krivin had been right: it /was/ chilly out. And Jack O'Neill was firm and warm and reassuring. I shifted slightly, hooking my right arm around his neck, to try to take some of my weight off his arms. He said nothing and so, expecting a reprimand or at least a caustic comment, I rested my head against his shoulder and closed my eyes. My skull seemed to throb in concert with my side. God, it hurt, and I was so tired...

So tired and warm...

So tired...

*

I knew the moment Carter fell asleep; it was the moment she became dead weight in my arms, and her breath against my neck slowed and steadied. Good. She needed the rest. We both did.

"Not much further," said Mari'ga softly, and I nodded, looking up around me. The windows of these imperious buildings were like empty eyes, staring down at us arrogantly. The street was utterly deserted, silent except for the rustling of paper and wind around corners. It /was/ nighttime, but still, it was damn weird.

I hefted Carter into a more secure position. This was becoming all too familiar. "Hey, uh, Mari'ga?" I called, knowing I was probably mispronouncing her name. My voice seemed to float forever on the dead air.

"Yes?" She didn't turn her head or even slow her pace.

"How long is your debt for?"

/That/ made her falter. She lifted her chin. "57 years... cycles."

"57 years? Why so long?"

"My mother... died... giving birth to me," she tossed over her shoulder. Her tone was light but I could hear the tremors in her voice. "And my father left us before I was born, when she became ill. So... the Council had to find a family to take care of me. I had a very high debt before I could even work."

"They charged you for all that?" What kind of screwed up planet was this that they made orphans pay for their own foster care?

"Of course," she answered, sounding surprised I should even question her world's methods. "Oh, here we are."

She pointed to a gate set into a wall that ran against the road, a tall, tan, concrete-looking wall that I'd hardly noticed. The gate was even taller than the wall, and from what it looked like, a meter thick. And, it appeared locked.

"What is this?" I asked, looking up, and up, and up. "A prison?"

Mari'ga pulled what looked like a key ring from the pocket of her skirt, and laughed. "It's the housing zone, actually."

"Ah."

She unlocked the gate and, with a great deal of grunting, managed to pull it open. It was hollow, then, I realized, ever vigilant. If it had been solid concrete or, God forbid, stone, she would have never been able to move it. I stepped through, and she pushed the gate closed.

A street ran against the inside of the wall, and branching off from it were other roads, all lined with... well, they reminded me of condos, actually, or maybe apartments. It was hard to see in the near dark, but there were lamps lining the streets that shed some illumination.

"This way, please," said Mari'ga, and without waiting for an answer she started down the nearest column.

These 'houses' were arranged in much the same fashion as the structures on the main road: squished together in the interests of space, three stories high, tall and narrow. I didn't want to think about how small they had to seem inside... not like I wasn't used to cramped quarters, not with all the time I spent at the SGC. They were tan, and seemed to be made of the same material as the wall, and the gate. Stairs led up to the second and third floors, which were laced with rickety balconies.

We passed dozens of homes, and realized that there were rows as well as columns; that the entire 'housing zone' was split into blocks. Not exactly an Earth-shattering revelation - or a Ma'at'a-shattering one, for that matter - but it was always good to know your environment. I peeked surreptitiously into open doors and windows, and more than once I saw a pair of eyes, bright in the darkness, staring back at me.

"Here," said Mari'ga, going to a set of second-story stairs. I grimaced as I followed her up them, carefully balancing Carter as she unlocked the door and stepped aside, allowing us in and then following. "Watch your eyes," she warned. There was a 'click' and light flooded the darkened space.

Yep. Reminded me of my quarters back on good old Earth. A couple end tables, some lamps, a bed, a door that probably led to the bathroom, a closet... nothing much more than was needed for sleeping. Of course, there was no time to lounge around the house when you were out all day, working off your damn /debt/. There wasn't even anything passable as a kitchen so meals were probably already /prepared/... we'd ended up in a fucking planet-sized commune.

Wait a minute.

Yep. Bed. Singular. And not all that roomy.

Oh, this was going to be /fun/...

"I have to go," said Mari'ga, already half out the door. "The Accountant will send your representative by tomorrow morning."

"Um, alright."

And then she was gone, her feet tapping down the stairs, not even bothering to close the door on her way out.

I made a face at the woman's back as she retreated down the street, and then turned, setting Carter carefully on the bed, hoping not to wake her up. Then I pulled down her skirt a little.

As I straightened, I couldn't help but notice Sam's face. It was totally... relaxed. I'd never seen her like this. It wasn't as though she was in a constant state of stress, but...

She was always thinking. /That/ was it.

With Carter, the gears were always turning, and you could always /tell/ they were turning. Whether the issue was how to get the Stargate working, or if she wanted a beer or a Coke with lunch, she was always thinking. Her nose crinkled and the intelligence just about shot out of her blue eyes. Now, though, her nose was still and her eyes were closed. The tension was gone from her face... from her whole body.

And once I started thinking about her body...

She did look nice in that dress, though. In fact, right now, just lying there, indefensible, unmilitary, soft and feminine... she looked... beautiful.

"Oh for crying out loud," I groused, and moved towards the doorway. Just because she was out of her fatigues was no reason to start having these kinds of treacherous, traitorous thoughts, I told myself sternly. No matter what she wore, she was still Captain Samantha Carter.

Samantha Carter.

Samantha O'Neill.

"Oh for Pete's sake," I muttered, lacing my fingers behind my head and stretching my back. But the thought was like quicksand and it sucked me in. Marriage. A ring offered from my knees. White dress and black tux. Mr. and Mrs. Jack O'Neill. All the memories I had made with Sara, but with Sam there instead. Oh God...

"Colonel?"

I jumped. She was right behind me. "Yeah, uh, Captain?"

"What are you doing, sir?"

The 'sir', the 'Colonel's ... they made me wince. She didn't feel that way about me. She never would. "Looking at the stars," I said, trying to sound offhand and casual.

She moved up beside me, limping a bit. I put an arm around her... just to support her, of course.

"When we were on Abydos," I continued. "I looked up at the sky... more than once." I shrugged. "There were basically sandstorms 24-7, but that didn't really matter; it was my first alien planet."

"We've come so far," she told me softly.

I smiled, despite myself. "I kept wondering, if it had been dark and clear... if I would have been able to see the sun... our sun."

"Depending on the season, you probably could have," said Carter, always thinking.

"Yeah, well, after we got back, I... really got into stargazing. I spent so much time up there... and not all of it was peeking into neighbor's windows, either. I kept wondering if maybe Skarra and... and Sha're and Daniel were looking back at me. You know that whole mantra of the sci-fi wiz. When we look up at the night sky, wondering if someone's looking back..."

"Is there anyone out there doing the exact same thing?" finished Sam.

"Yeah." I craned my neck. The sky was positively alive. I would have given anything for a telescope... and probably all it would have cost me was a couple more years of my life. "No one's looking back, are they?" I asked. "No one from Earth, I mean."

Carter froze beside me, and pulled away. "We're pretty far away from Earth, sir."

I nodded, and closed the door. "Yeah. We are."

*

The bed looked ominous.

Never had an approximately-queen-sized mattress seemed so very small.

I glanced up at the Colonel. He wore the same 'oh Jeez, get me home' expression that I was sure I did. At the very least, he looked a little wary. "What side?"

"Excuse me?"

"What side do you want?"

"Doesn't matter," I answered quickly.

Shrugging, Jack moved around to the other side of the bed and sat on the edge, pulling off his boots. I sat also, my back to the Colonel, ever mindful of my injuries, tense and unwilling to slide between the sheets with my commanding officer just yet, thinking how annoying it was that he didn't seem in the least affected by this development.

The mattress shifted as he stood and walked into the bathroom. I heard water running. "No toothbrush... or towels... but hey! We got soap."

It wasn't like O'Neill and I had never slept together before. Well, technically, we had. We slept in the same vicinity on overnight missions, after all, sometimes even side by side on our rolls. But this was different. No Daniel, no Teal'c... just the two of us in a cozy little cubicle with sheets and pillows and running water.

O'Neill came out of the bathroom, water droplets running down his face, and paused at the closet, which looked like wood but, when he opened it, sounded like plastic. "Empty." He shut the doors. "We really need to talk to the manager."

I stood and pulled back the sheets, then sat back down, kicking off the slippers. Carefully, as though expecting to have my toes bitten off, I slid my feet under the sheet and blanket, and turned onto my right side, facing the center of the bed. "So this is it, huh?" I asked, looking up at the ceiling.

"Yeah." I didn't allow myself to look at the Colonel but I knew with absolute certainty that he was watching me. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw him take off his jacket, revealing the black undershirt. "Hey, I know it's not much to look at, but I DID carry you over the threshold."

I rolled my eyes.

The Colonel got into bed. As if by habit, he turned onto his left side. Facing me.

We stared at each other for an indeterminable length of time, indeterminable because I completely lost myself in his eyes. It was embarrassing, humiliating, actually, but it was so /easy/, just to stare at him and wonder what it would be like to fall asleep with and wake up to those eyes, every night, every morning.

Then I tore my gaze away, focusing on the bed between us instead. I couldn't turn away; I would have if I could lie on my other side, but I couldn't. The ball, as they said, was in his court.

O'Neill turned onto his right side.

I reached back and turned off the lamp.

Some wedding night.

I didn't really expect to get any sleep that night, not with the pain, not with everything that had just happened to us, and not with Jack O'Neill sleeping mere inches away. But the bed was surprisingly comfortable and I was totally drained. I dozed off almost immediately.

***

The base seemed quieter without Jack and Sam. Without his jokes, her ramblings, their banter. Then there was the fact that their absence subdued everyone else.

I refused to leave the base; no matter how late it got, I refused to go home until my friends returned, safe and sound.

SG-5 was due back from their mission to P6C-854 - a routine trip - and so I waited with Janet in the infirmary for them to return. All too soon, they did, with only minimal scrapes and bruises, injuries she was able to quickly treat, which unfortunately left the rest of the night for us to kill... no macabre pun intended.

Teal'c finally emerged from his meditation and we went to the cafeteria to get a bite to eat... though I felt horribly guilty wolfing down my sandwich and Coke. For all I knew, my friends were being starved to death in some Ma'at'an jail.

My brain was woefully disobedient; I would have thought I had more control over the damned thing. I'd be munching away, perhaps engaging in some stupid small talk with Janet or explaining something to Teal'c - all of us carefully avoiding the important topic - when something... a scene, a sound... would pop into my head. Shackles. Oozing blood. Indignant shouts, desperate pleas, mournful sobs. Two broken, bloody bodies...

I jumped up from the table so quickly that my chair tipped over and ran for the bathroom.

After emptying my stomach, I found Janet waiting for me by the door of my room. I fidgeted, wishing for Teal'c instead. Teal'c was the best guy in the world to have around during tough times. He didn't joke around to try and lighten the situation. He didn't tell you everything would be all right. He just sat, and listened, and dispensed his most logical advice, surprising you now and then with insight into human character that you hadn't known he possessed.

When I saw Janet, I put a hand up to my stomach. "I'm fine, Doc," I began, wondering if she was after me for a checkup after my little bout of nausea, but she shook her head.

"I didn't come here to..." she sighed shakily, trailing off, seemingly unable to finish, and crossed her arms across her chest restlessly. "Do you really believe that they're alive?"

"I know it," I said, with more confidence than I actually felt.

"But what Teal'c told the General... if the natives really were firing that indiscriminately..."

"If they were dead, I would know it," I said emphatically. She regarded me warily. Wary of my strange words, I wondered, or wary of letting herself believe in what I said? I easiest thing to do right now, I realized, would be to admit that chances were they were dead, or dying, and give up hope, count our losses, hold our services. To find out later that we were wrong would be a boon; to never find out anything again would not be unexpected.

Letting blind faith lead you, setting yourself up for what seemed like inevitable disappointment, was infinitely harder.

"Do... do you want to talk some more?" I offered, and Frasier looked surprised. Sure, we didn't spend a lot of downtime together, at least not without respective best friends Jack and Sam to bridge whatever gaps were there, but this was an instance when none of that mattered.

She seemed to realize the same thing.

"I'd love that," she said.

***

"Hey Carter, wake up."

I yawned and rolled over on my back, raising a hand and shielding my eyes with it. The world beyond my closed lids suddenly seemed unbearably bright and loud; much too /awake/ for my liking. Hadn't it been just moments ago that I'd drifted off to sleep? And what in the world was Jack O'Neill doing in my -

Oh, damn.

My eyes flew open wide as I remembered everything my unconscious had preferred that I forget: the chase back to the Stargate... getting shot... getting left behind... Krivin... the apartment... I pushed myself into a sitting position.

Jack, standing at the foot of the bed, raised an eyebrow at my abrupt reaction, and smiled nervously.

I hardly noticed him. My side spasmed and twitched with my sudden, surprised lurch, and I groaned, both in pain and frustration. Why couldn't it just have been a dream? Why couldn't I simply have made it up in my mind? Why did it have to be real? And why did it have to hurt so much?

I fell back on the bed in the fetal position, clutching at my side. I was being skinned alive. I was being burned. I was being torn apart, piece by piece.

The mattress shook and I felt O'Neill's hands clutching at my shoulders and back, as though trying to steady me. "Carter? Carter, I have the pain killers the doctor gave me, but I need you to sit up."

I couldn't sit up. I couldn't stop imagining the tiny holes drilled into my flesh. I couldn't even take a breath without sending my entire nervous system into a frenzy. I heard myself cry out, but I felt disconnected from the sound, as though someone else, someone far away, had made it.

"Captain! Come on... Sit up, right now, and take these pills."

Unfortunately, the Colonel's commands worked no magic. I knew what he had expected: that the order would shock me and snap me back into military training and out of the pain, at least long enough to swallow the medicine. Instead, I was trying to work up the strength to tell him to go to hell. The command hadn't shocked me. It was exactly what I had expected of him.

O'Neill took me by the shoulders and pushed me onto my back. I bit my lip to keep from crying out again, too much in agony to feel the embarrassment I knew would hit later... if there ever was a later, if this torment didn't just go on forever.

"Sam? Come on, Samantha, work with me here."

That /did/ shock me, and I opened one eye. The Colonel was kneeling on the bed, leaning over me. It wasn't simply his use of my first name that had surprised me; it was the tone of his voice, and the expression on his face. Was that tight, desperate look simply the cast of a man concerned and sympathetic for his friend?

Well of course it was. What else would it be?

"Sam," he said again, and the word wavered like the air over the desert.

I grabbed his wrist and he pushed the small white pill - a bottle of which Krivin had slipped to us, free of charge, before we'd left the clinic - into my hand. I stuffed it into my mouth.

"Swallow," Jack said, as much of a plea as an order, and he produced a cup of water seemingly from nowhere ... though it must have come from the bathroom. He put it to my lips, and I drank, long and deep, feeling the medicine slide and scratch its way down my throat. Then I let my head fall back on the pillow, trying to keep my moans trapped in my throat.

"Lie still," I heard O'Neill say, finally slipping more into a commanding position, his voice was still soft, although he expected me to slip into hysterics again. "Just don't move. Don't move."

I swallowed what little moisture remained in my mouth, and licked my lips. "I felt fine... yesterday," I panted, letting my eyes close. "Well, not fine... but better... than this."

"Drugs must have worn off some time during the night," the Colonel said. His voice was more soothing than I thought it had the capacity to be. It was also very close, and I was tempted to open my eyes and see exactly where he /was/. But that temptation was no match for my sudden fatigue.

Time passed, as it had a habit of doing.

"I'm going to fall asleep," I muttered, and even in my own ears my voice sounded terribly slurred.