Part V
Journeys
Even when he doesn't remember who Daniel is. He'll know him. He'll recognize something in him and know he has to listen to him.
I
Sam checked her pack one last time to make sure she had everything she needed. It was a simple leather backpack. No zips and no handy little extra bags, just two main compartments. But it was roomy enough for all her equipment and comfortable to wear. She had stacked the packages of food Jadah had provided her with in the smaller part of the pack and everything else in the larger main section.
She had considered to refuse the food offerings, thinking she would just hunt and live on herbs. She didn't want any gifts from Jadah. But common sense had forced her to accept the bread and summer sausage, the tea bags, slices of cold, spicy chicken breast and a small cheese. It would be a waste of resources not to take it. So she had accepted it and thanked Jadah politely.
Her mind, occupied with trying to pull more and more memories out of dusty, dark corners, insisted that she needed a weapon. Zats, MP5, P-90, hand guns... images to go with the words were delivered readily now. But another part of her still couldn't quite believe she had ever wielded guns. Had killed people. In the field.
On missions with SG-1 and before, on other missions.
But she had. She knew she had.
And now she was supposed to take this trip to free Teal'c without a weapon? Granted, she had a knife, but it hardly counted as an efficient weapon. It wasn't even as big as her combat knife. Still, it was better than nothing. For now.
Jadah watched her from where she stood in the doorway and when their eyes met Sam thought that, for the first time since she had come here, her mentor looked old. Fragile.
Sam's initial impulse to smile reassuringly at Jadah died quickly. Instead she looked away and pulled at the leather straps to close her pack. She was ready to leave. There was really nothing more to say or do.
Except she felt Jadah's violet, sad eyes on her and she couldn't just walk away. Taking a deep breath, Sam turned to face her again. "So, this is good-bye then. I should thank you for taking me in." It sounded all wrong. Days ago she had loved this woman, had considered her family.
She still did. Which was making this all so much more difficult.
Jadah clasped her hands over her belly, smoothing out the flowing green fabric of her dress. "You don't need to thank me, Samantha. It was my pleasure. And you should know I am sad to see you leave."
"I need to do this. You were the one sending me away," she replied curtly.
"It doesn't change the fact that I am going to miss you, dear."
Sam didn't want to have this conversation. She wanted to take her anger and pain and leave. But instead she took a step towards the other woman.
"Why?" The word was meant to come out sharp and piercing. Instead it came out almost like a plea – laced with sorrow and the need to know. "Why the lies? Why didn't you just tell me everything and help me get back my memories? Why waste all this time with teaching me about herbs and drugs and spinning tales about legends and myths?"
"The memory stamp does not give way easily. In fact, very few are even strong enough to overcome its power. When you came here my orders were clear. I was to keep you safe and make sure the shield was not breached. They hoped it would adjust on its own once you were removed from the city and the academy. In the beginning that was all I intended to do."
"But then you changed your mind. You decided to help me. Why didn't you just tell me then?" Sam insisted.
Jadah sighed. "Had I told you up front, you would not have believed me. And I had to be very careful in opening your mind. Even when I was convinced your shield wasn't firmly in place, there was a great danger of damaging your mind, had I just exposed you to the truth. Also I needed to process everything I learned about you, your other life, before I could work with you."
Sam nodded. She had heard this before during their long talks over the last two days. Still, she could not quite wrap her head around the way Jadah had manipulated her. "You could have tried," she said forcefully.
"It would have been of little use," Jadah replied. "You are angry and I understand. But those who have done this to you and your friends are the real ones to blame. I am merely trying to help. Please, understand."
"I know. It's just that..." She shook her head as if the words would come more easily that way. "I feel like I wasted precious time here, doing nothing, while Teal'c is slowly torturing himself to death in that monastery. And the colonel is god knows where without having a clue about what's going on."
"It was not wasted, dear. You needed that time to prepare for what lies ahead of you. And to rest your soul. And I needed that time to be sure you were the right one to send on this journey. I believed it from the start, but I needed to study you. I would not put this burden upon you if you weren't ready."
As much as she wanted to hold on to her anger, Sam had to yield to the truth in Jadah's words. She had needed that time. Hopefully, some of what she had learned would come in handy once she found Teal'c.
She shouldered her pack and made sure it sat comfortably. "I have to go."
"I know. May the sun and the moon guide you." Jadah came to her and opened her arms. Sam found herself wrapped in cool green silk and the scent of lavender. "Take care of yourself. Bring your friend back here if you can, but if he is too weak..."
"I will stay at Jelica's canyon until he is fit enough to journey." Sam gently freed herself from Jadah's embrace. "Jelica... she was real, right?"
"Her mother was memory stamped, but Jelica wasn't. She was born here," Jadah said patiently. They had talked about this, too, before, but somehow Sam needed the reasurance. Jelica wasn't part of a memory stamp induced lie and neither was the story of her lover – a Jaffa – and their son. But the whole legend of the Sinners was one big mesh of lies, spread by whoever wanted to keep the Jaffa and their symbiotes separated from the rest of the population.
Sam stepped out into the early morning, immediately greeted by the scent of the rose garden. She breathed in their sweet, enchanting fragrance as she walked the familiar path among red, yellow, blue and pink blooms. She would miss it all and the intensity of loss that hit her when she passed through the white wooden gate was almost overwhelming.
She didn't turn around. Jadah would watch her until she was nothing more than a tiny dot at the horizon, but if she looked back now she might not be able to leave without tears.
She straightened up and set one foot before the other, striding away, leaving behind her home with every step she took. Left and right of the road lay wide fields of flowers, a sea of yellow, white and purple blossoms during summer. Now the colors were slowly fading as the plants prepared to retreat into the soil until spring. Sam kept her eyes on the treeline at the horizon.
That's where the road would take her.
For the first time since the memories had returned she wished she had some sort of transportation. A jeep. A car of any kind. Not because she didn't like to walk, but because a vehicle would take her away faster and she didn't have to try so hard not to notice all the familiar things on her way, like the large stone well in the middle of the field where they drew water from during dry periods.
It had been Sam who thought up a simple irrigation system leading from the well and spreading out all over the field. They still had to pump water by hand, but it was guided by wooden chutes from there and transported to where it was needed. No more dragging the heavy buckets across the fields, which had taken hours out of a day. Not to mention the pain it had caused in arms and back.
The things they could do around here with electricity... Now that she could actually recall having electric power like central heating, air condition, showers and microwaves and, oh my gosh, computers, she was surprised about the fact that she had lived without all those comforts she used to take for granted before – and never missed them.
You can't miss what you don't know, she thought. The human mind was a terrifying enigma. She was way more comfortable dealing with concepts she could understand and analyze or at least determine on a mathematical level.
The road was lined with old apple trees now; the orchard was the border of Jadah's property. Half of it was hers, half of it belonged to the closest neighbor, a wealthy farmer named Ollie Madder. The branches bowed under their load of ripe, red apples and Sam couldn't resist picking one.
My parting gift, she thought as she polished the fruit on the sleeve of her jacket before she took a bite and savored the sour-sweet, juicy taste.
She allowed her thoughts to wander. Jadah had said it was the best way to retain any missing memories.
Just let your mind take you on a journey to wherever it wants to go.
She had already drawn parallels from her 'real' life to what the memory stamp had made of it. Her mom was dead. Only she had been killed in a car accident when Sam was thirteen. The memory stamp wanted her to believe she lost her mother when she had still been a small child.
The find of that particular memory was among the most painful ones, so far, and she was glad Jadah had been with her when it surfaced. Her dad, however, was alive. And that had been one of the most important discoveries yet. With remembering her father she had recovered her knowledge of the Tok'ra and that led to more details about the way they had lost Daniel.
Her dad had been there. He had tried to heal Daniel.
Until the colonel had told him to stop. Had said Daniel wanted them to let him go.
But what if dad could have healed him? Even if the chances were so slim. What if he could have been successful? And what if the Tok'ra could have offered a symbiote – just temporarily – to complete Daniel's healing?
She realized, as she looked up at the sky, painted pink and orange by the morning sun, that she had never gotten satisfactory answers to those questions. Shortly after Daniel had ascended her dad left quickly because he'd been needed for some undercover Tok'ra operation.
The colonel had given them the report about Oma taking Daniel to another plane of existence and that he had wanted to go with her. Her CO had presented them with the facts in a briefing. Then he had requested the rest of the day off and when Hammond had nodded gravely and told all of them to take the weekend; the colonel had left without another word.
Sam remembered being in Daniel's office a week later, randomly picking up things from his desk. Notebooks, scrolls, pens... his office had been so alive with his presence. Everything was scattered over his desk. Even a mug with dried up coffee on the bottom. Probably his last one before they'd gone to Kelowna.
She had expected him to round the corner and come in any moment.
There had been no memorial service, no body, no closure. And the colonel had pushed them back into action ASAP, slapping down any of her attempts to talk about what had happened to Daniel. She had tried...
..."Colonel. We need to talk."
"I don't want to hear it, Carter."
"You can't just pretend this didn't happen."
"I'm not pretending anything. This is the job. We lose people all the time."
"We're talking about Daniel."
"What do you want me to do? He's gone. We've got work to do."
Sam knew very well that Colonel O'Neill wasn't an open book regarding his true feelings about... almost anything personal. And that was okay. She had lived and worked with the military mindset all her life. She had absorbed some of the same training as her dad and her CO. She knew about distancing yourself from emotions that would otherwise go too deep to deal with on a day-to-day basis.
Everyone had their own way of coping. The colonel swallowed things down and probably tortured the punching bag in the gym to death from time to time. Her dad used to go on long runs or process things during excessive yard work. Sam used the gym to work off stress. And she liked to talk to her plants, occasionally.
But this was Daniel.
Daniel, who had been her best friend, the brother she never had in Mark. And she never even had the small comfort of saying good-bye to him. Not the way Colonel O'Neill had been able to. And he wouldn't even share with them what had been said. Only that Daniel had been ready to leave with Oma.
Daniel had been part of their team, their family. And they had all lost him, they all had to come to terms with what happened there in the infirmary. And in Sam's mind they should come to terms with it together. As a team. Not each on their own, struggling in their attempts to cope with, or even understand, the loss.
She tried to reach out to Teal'c as well, but while he didn't close up and shut her out like the colonel, he'd apparently made his peace with Daniel's decision and was ready to move on. She sometimes wished she could borrow a bit of Teal'c's stoic acceptance.
He told her that, "Daniel Jackson has ascended to a higher plane of existence. Many Jaffa have dedicated their lives to achieving such a goal."
"So I'm supposed to celebrate?"
"It is a great accomplishment."
"We were a team, Teal'c. No one can even begin to understand what we went through together, what we mean to each other. So maybe Daniel has achieved something of great cosmic significance, I don't know. And to be honest with you, right now, I don't really care. I'd rather have him back."
"As would I."
At least Teal'c was willing to listen. They were thrown back into full duty without enough time to grieve or process. Their first mission was yet another close call – but in the end they managed to rescue Thor from the clutches of Anubis.
Once they returned home the colonel took them out to dinner; his way of acknowledging they needed a team night. Maybe his way of giving them an opportunity to have their own farewell party for Daniel.
They still didn't talk much. The colonel continued to keep himself detached on the outside – but he had lost the harsh bite and with every passing hour Sam could see more and more of her own pain reflected in his haunted, dark eyes. It wasn't enough, but sitting together and drinking – with Teal'c somberly toasting each drink to Daniel and a successful journey to wherever he was headed – helped them to re-bond a little...
...She had felt Daniel's presence that night. Earlier at the SGC when they'd been about to leave. Like a soft gust of wind caressing her hair. And later, much later, at the colonel's house when they had enough beer and wine (and cranberry juice in Teal'c's case) to know they'd be hungover tomorrow (except for Teal'c of course) – she sensed Daniel was with them.
Sam opened her jacket. She hadn't worked up a sweat yet, but she was making good time and it was going to be a warm day. The treeline was closer now. She roughly estimated it would take her three days to reach the area where Jelica had found the final ingredient for her drug. The monastery wasn't far from the canyon the healer described in Jadah's book.
Once she started working on that drug and was ready to get Teal'c she would need guidance from Daniel.
She hated being dependent on unknown factors, but in her years as part of SG-1 she had learned to go with the flow sometimes. Daniel would be there. He had come to see her last night to let her know he was going to help. It had only been a very brief meeting, but it reassured her more than any information Jadah had given her.
Daniel was real. He wasn't a cherry-drug delusion.
So, three days – if she kept up the pace. She needed to be careful not to hike too fast. She was a bit out of shape. She had to take breaks, without slowing down too much, to avoid blisters or overall exhaustion.
She could do it. No problem.
Grimacing, she muttered. "Never been great at pep-talking myself." Well, it was going to be a lonely journey so she only had herself to talk to. A memory surfaced in the well of memories and she grinned at the thought of Urgo. He HAD reminded her of her uncle Erwin, dad's older brother.
Sam walked on, humming 'Row row row your boat' in a very out-of-tune way.
The forest was old.
She had been here occasionally with Jadah, in the search for herbs they didn't grow in their garden. Silver sage or painted fern were nocturnal bloomers and felt most comfortable in the deep dark greens of the forest. At night the sage beckoned with its rich fragrance and silvery glow and the fern's veins pulsed as though purple blood was pumped through them.
"Some plants are best left where they thrive on their own," Jadah used to say.
Like the people who were trapped here should have been left alone to go home and live their own life, Sam thought bitterly. Each of them probably had left someone behind; families and friends who wondered where their loved ones had gone, why they never returned. Forced to live with painful uncertainty. And the stamped people had been robbed of their identities, their roots.
She still had no recollection of when exactly they had arrived on Ba'th or why Jonas wasn't with them. From what Jadah shared with her it had only been the colonel, Teal'c and her. They had arrived on a cold and rainy day – winter still. Everyone was surprised because it had been years since travelers stepped out of the ring portal.
"The guardians of the ring portal have very little work to do these days, but they are still on duty to make sure no one arrives undetected. You and your friends were taken to the facilities immediately," Jadah had said.
"What facilities?"
"The facilities where the memory stamp is put in. Usually the stamp works very well in suppressing anything that is of no importance to your new life. It filters your experiences and your memories in a way that you can recall certain events, or emotions, but in a different context. Sometimes, if they find it necessary or beneficial, they use your past life knowledge to their advantage when they place you in our society. That's what we have been taught anyway."
'We' had turned out to be two groups of insiders, called the 'Shadows' and the 'Mentors'. The Shadows were to make sure the new arrivals settled down and eased into the society without a hitch, adapted to their new life as if it had always been theirs. They could be the doorman to your apartment house – if you lived in the cities – a co-worker, the mail man or someone you never knew at all, someone who stayed in the shadows all the time.
They observed, reported back to the authorities about any deviation from predicted behavior patterns and made notes about the newbies' progress like their working career and living circumstances. Usually the Shadows watched the newcomers for a year. That was the time it took for the memory stamp to completely override any unwanted leftover traces of the former life. After that time the stamped citizens were considered 'slotted in' and left alone.
Apparently from time to time the stamp didn't grasp properly or people's brain patterns were not compatible with the stamps. Usually any issues were sorted out quickly. However, very rarely, stamped men and women were released into their new life, tagged as 'altered', but the memory stamp kept malfunctioning within the first few months, even after re-adjustment.
That's where the Mentors came in.
Jadah was Sam's Mentor. Sam's Shadow, who had observed her at the academy where she worked, filed a report about her being unhappy in the line of work she'd been placed in. That she had very few friends and almost no social life. That she didn't adapt as she should even though there had been no appearance of unwanted memories.
Her memory stamp had tagged her as an outgoing woman who liked to make new friends. She was supposed to take great pleasure in teaching engineering. But she didn't enjoy teaching. She was interested in her field of expertise, but she'd rather built engines herself, or work on developing the technology further. She'd thought she could do so much MORE than teach what was already in the books. But when she had voiced her plans to the principal - in order to be allowed to move on from teaching to the science labs or getting her own office at the Council of Technology – the man had laughed into her face.
She was a woman. She should feel very privileged to be allowed to work in the academic world at all. Only the best and brightest made it this far up the career ladder. A woman working at the Council of Technology or even at the science labs of the academy was unthinkable. It was man's work. Women, so she had been told, ended up being married and pregnant at some point and were lost to the academic world because their place was at home with the children then. Working in the field of science or technology development or even engineering required full devotion to the work without being side tracked by the biological clock ticking when the time came.
Sam had fumed with anger and humiliation. She had told this principal where he could stick his views and stomped out of his office. The unfair disadvantage had only registered with her then. That she was branded for being the wrong gender. She had never really thought about the place and status of women in society before.
Now she wondered if the memory stamp had already malfunctioned there. Because surely she should have been aware of how 'privileged' she was for even being allowed to teach at the academy? And it was only then that she had realized that nearly all her colleagues, even in the teaching area, were men. Almost all the women working on campus were secretaries or librarians.
That night she had gone out to dinner with a friend and she remembered how she had vented about how every woman should be allowed to have the same choices and opportunities as men.
"It's not fair," she had huffed and sippedfrom her drink. "What am I? A breeding machine? And even if I ever wanted children, which at this point in my life I wouldn't consider an option, who says I can't still work then? Who says I need to stay home full time to tend to my kids? Fathers have to take responsibilities, too. Raising children is not a woman's sole purpose or obligation."...
...Björk didn't laugh. Instead he raised his glass and said, "This world needs more women like you, Sam. Maybe one day there will be equality of women and men, but it needs a lot of work to get there."
She sighed. "I know. And I'm not going to change anything. But it makes me so mad. I mean, what am I supposed to do? Be a teacher all my life? Or find a job that's suitable for women? What does that even mean – suitable for women? Who makes up rules like this?"
"A government and authorities ruled by men alone."
"Well, you're a guy and you understand. There's hope, I guess," she said with a bitter snort.
Björk smiled. "Sadly I'm not your average male specimen."
She grimaced. "There shouldn't even be such a thing as an 'average male or female'. We're all unique. Everyone should have the same chances despite their gender. You may have to face prejudice for liking guys at some places, but they still allow you to choose your own profession. Because you don't have a biological clock ticking."
"I agree. But you have to be careful to whom you express your views on this." A shadow fell on his handsome face. "I'd hate to see you expelled from the academy. You can still do much around here. Ask them if you could use one of the science labs part time for student projects. You could work on that battery project."
"It's a fuel cell," Sam corrected him. "And I need more than a lab to work on it. I need resource money. And someone who's listening. Someone in the right place. If I can make this happen, a fuel cell could provide us with unlimited electricity, heat or water."
"So can a steam generator," Björk said.
"Yes, but steam generators are huge and clunky and need too much space. Even the smaller steam turbines are way too big for everyday use. I'm talking about empowering homes and small companies with affordable electricity without steam turbines. A fuel powered generator that could serve everyone in daily life, even outside the cities."
"Wow." Björk toasted his glass to her. "To Samantha Carter. A brilliant mind in the wrong body."
"Har har." She tossed her napkin at him, but couldn't suppress a smile.
Sobering, her friend said, "You need to find someone you can show your plans and blueprints to."
"I'd have to be a guy!"
"Just don't jeopardize your job by making too much noise. Once they expelled you from the academy you won't ever be able to set foot in the door." He frowned. "There has to be a way to make people listen."
"Well, if you find someone, let me know," she muttered and they sat in silence for several minutes.
Finally Björk sighed. "Mothers and fathers need to start teaching their children new and different values. That's where changes start. If you ever have kids, you could do that."
She looked at him and felt – if not happy – better. "I will."
She decided there and then that if she ever had kids, it had to be with a guy who was as open minded and ready to value different and new views as Björk. It was too bad he wasn't interested in women. He was one of the very few friends she made at the academy.
He was a student of historical architecture and they had met in a pub one night. She had commented on his hair – a very exotic style and the color of strawberries at the time – and he had shrugged and said, "I like to be seen. Ask anyone you like and they'll tell you I look like a punk but I'm really a nice guy."...
...They had shared a couple of drinks and talked for long hours. She had felt comfortable with Björk, almost like they'd known each other their entire life. From there on they had met once every week at the pub.
Thinking of Björk now she realized he had a certain resemblance to Daniel. He'd been open to new ideas, had a great sense of humor and wasn't afraid of coloring outside the lines. And he didn't care what others thought of him.
In hindsight, however, she wondered if Björk had been her Shadow? Jadah said the Shadow could be anyone. What if it was Björk who had taken note of her rebellious nature and reported it to the authorities? Then again, Björk had encouraged her. But he'd also told her to be careful.
What about that principal? Sam thought. He could have been my Shadow as well.
Whoever it had been; he'd eventually informed the authorities of her malfunction.
According to Jadah, Sam had been taken back to the facilities to get 'fixed' – she guessed they'd tried to re-program the stamp somehow – but apparently without success. She had still not flourished in her work venue. Instead she had continued to look for someone who would listen to her ideas of fuel cells. She had written an essay for the academy's monthly science paper and sent it in. It was never published and she never heard back from the editor.
Finally they had recruited Jadah to be her Mentor.
One night – and she didn't remember any of it to this day - Sam had been abducted once more for another stamp adjusting. The next day she had a very urgent need to take a hike and leave everything behind.
She'd been right then. Jadah had waited for her.
The sharp sting of betrayal was back and she walked faster, the soles of her boots hitting the well-worn loamy ground hard.
"I was supposed to keep you in line and make sure you were under supervision until the year was over. And I was advised to give you certain drugs to make you more at ease and to mellow your mind," Jadah had said, her voice laced with regret. "You didn't fit in. They deemed you dangerous for the stability of society. Your ideas were too bold. And they feared you would bring bad values to the people.
"But when you arrived I sensed something so strong in you. And I loved you the moment you showed interest in my work. I watched you, Samantha, and looked into the information I could access from your former life. Everything fell together perfectly and I decided not to diminish your natural curiosity and thirst for knowledge by feeding you drugs. I've had many pupils in my life time, but you were the smartest and brightest of them all. No one has ever mastered the science of plants so easily, no one has ever understood the physics and chemical connections of ingredients so fast."
If Sam could believe Jadah – and to her own surprise she did – the old woman had done nothing but nurture her willingness to learn and her need of a place to rest and to put her head down...
..."You carried a great exhaustion within you. A great grief, a deep sadness," Jadah said. "But you recovered. And when I realized what was hidden in your mind and what an excellent student you were, I decided to help you to uncover your real memories. I – and my ancestors before me - have waited for an opportunity such as this for years and years. I had given up on ever finding someone with the capability of finishing Jelica's work. And then along came you."
"Why have you never tried to create Jelica's drug yourself," Sam asked. "Why have you never traveled to that canyon and found the ivy to experiment with it? Why me?"
"Being a Shadow or a Mentor means you are monitored by the authorities. They don't know what I am doing, but they can determine where I am." Jadah parted her hair at the back of her neck and Sam saw a tiny half-moon shaped scar. "We are implanted with a device that will show our movements. If I leave the area and travel anywhere close to the monastery they would come and question me eventually."
"Why are the Shadows and the Mentors implanted with a tracking device, but the memory stamped people aren't?" Sam asked.
And, almost as important, why was this planet still partly in an early industrial state if there was known technology like GPS implants? As this thought blossomed in her mind she suddenly realized she had never questioned the existence of the Armed Forces gliders either, who had sometimes patrolled the skies above the city. Those gliders were Goa'uld technology, no doubt about that.
"Who knows? Maybe there would be too many people to watch. There are very little issues with the stamped ones. But the Shadows and the Mentors are insiders who know about the stamps, which makes them more dangerous. If there was a traitor in their midst, who told people the truth, everything could end up in chaos. Even though it has been a long time since the stamps were used – until you came through – the authorities will try everything to keep the system going and to protect their knowledge."
Which made sense, all things considered. But... "Why the need to memory stamp? What is the purpose of it in the first place? Why not just stop doing it?"
Jadah sighed. "I don't know. It has always been this way. When the evil gods left – no one can really recall that time, it has been so long ago – the memory stamps were re-programmed to work in the favor of the new government and that's how it stayed to this day."...
...All that circled in Sam's mind while she journeyed on through the forest with its giant, gnarly trees, a foliage of green just occasionally sprinkled with the first signs of gold and red of fall colors.
She decided to take a break and sat on a dead tree trunk. As she sipped from her water pouch Sam wondered if the colonel's Shadow had noticed 'malfunctions' in him as well and if they had sent a Mentor for him, too.
She sure hoped her CO was okay, wherever he was. And she wished he'd started to remember. She could use his help in this mess at some point. Daniel had said, last night, he might have found a way to reach Jack after all, but that he couldn't make any promises. He hadn't said anymore than that, but Sam was relieved to know he was trying.
Oh, Daniel, I hope you get through to him. She had believed it when she said that Daniel would be the only one able to make Jack O'Neill listen. She still believed it now. Even with the stamp the colonel would instinctively turn to Daniel if he only knew Daniel was there.
Even when he doesn't remember who Daniel is. He'll know him. He'll recognize something in him and know he has to listen to him. She gazed at the high painted fern on the other side of the path, a little wistful smile on her lips. Once upon a time she'd wondered if she and the colonel could be more than CO and subordinate or team mates. More than friends.
Jack O'Neill had featured wildly and vividly in her fantasies for a while – back in their first year or so. She'd realized pretty soon that there might be some UST but no roaring fire. She had moved on without regrets. And whatever spark had been between them for a while was nothing compared to the torch the colonel and Daniel carried for each other. They'd gone from honeymoon to old married couple over the years, finishing each others sentences, having one-word and non-verbal conversations by just sharing looks. They were bickering or egging each other on and crawling up the walls with worry whenever the other one was injured or MIA... and she had always wondered if they even KNEW.
Apparently Daniel had.
Now she hoped for all their sakes that the colonel's torch for Daniel was burning bright enough to lead him back to where he belonged.
ooo
Daniel had been on the look-out for The Others ever since he talked to the boy, but if they were close by, watching, they weren't making themselves known. He briefly wondered if Oma kept them distracted somehow or if they had suddenly lost interest in him. Maybe they had bigger fish to fry – who knew? He wasn't going to hunt them down and ask.
When he'd given Jack's dog tags to Danny he hadn't been sure it was a wise decision. Even though he felt scorned by Jack's fling with – to use the boy's name for him – 'funny-hair-guy', he had to admit he'd never seen Jack more relaxed, more in sync with himself than on this world. Had never seen him more happy. Part of him still believed Jack had found more peace here than anywhere else and it felt wrong to take that away from him.
But he was just parroting Oma's sermon, wasn't he? She had fed him all that wisdom about acceptance and no-interfering. About letting things take their own turn. It was Oma's wish that he leave it all behind and not concern himself anymore with the lower planes.
She thought she had been so clever to take that part away from him that still clung to his former life, his friends and – even though it had never been fulfilling and happy - his love. But she hadn't been thorough enough when she split him. Seeing Sam had rekindled hope. And reconnecting with Danny had pulled him out this funk enough to make a decision. The right one. Or so he hoped.
And the boy had said Jack already started to remember on his own, so it was only a matter of time before Jack's past – his real past – would catch up with him.
He watched over Sam on her lonely hike through the forest. She found her way easily as if the old woman had put a map into her head. She took breaks to eat and rest and from time to time she pulled out a compass and checked if she was still going into the right direction. Daniel trailed after her, looking out for predators or other dangers lurking between the dense trees. But the most 'dangerous' being he sensed was a white deer who chose to wander on a path parallel to Sam's for a while.
There was a determined spring in her steps even as the day moved on and she pulled off her jacket and tied it around her waist. He blond hair, grown over shoulder length in her time on the planet, was tied back with a leather strip not unlike Jack's. In the late afternoon she sat at a creek and dangled her bare feet in the cool water as she ate wild strawberries. When she had tied her boots again and filled her water pouch she hiked on and Daniel kept following her.
He tried to remember what solid ground had felt like under his feet or holding them in the cold water. What it had been like to have aching limbs and being sweat-drenched from hiking or running. Or to be thirsty. It hadn't been that long ago, really. Why was it so difficult to recall these things?
He was distracted here and there by fox cubs playing on a glade between the high grass and a woodpecker working on his tree hole. He wondered if the boy would chase the dancing sun rays and climb trees or splash in the creeks.
Don't you miss all these things, too?
Maybe. But he didn't have to suffer all those pains and aches, at least physically, that came with having to run for your life, dodging bullets and staffs, throwing yourself head-first to the ground and being ribboned or prodded with pain-sticks. He could go wherever he wanted, mostly undetected, watch the universe and study its beauties and tragedies. If he managed to learn how to reach that state of calm and stoic detachment the other ascended beings seemed to be in – he'd truly be free.
As the day came to an end Sam reached a small settlement of crooked houses, not more than four or five, on a wide glade. A man chopped wood and two woman stood by a well deeply in conversation as they pulled up buckets of water.
She stopped, still in the shades of trees, and considered what to do. She waited for a while, probably hoping the people were going home soon. When that didn't happen she began looking for a way to circumvent the houses, but the scrubs were dense and thorny around here. Lots of wild blackberries and bushes.
Knowing his friend as well as he did Daniel could follow her train of thoughts. There was no reason for anyone to suspect her of being more than just a tired wanderer. These people would probably even offer to let her stay the night in a shed or a stable. But what if someone had figured out Jadah crossed the line – what if someone came after her?
There was only one road leading into the forest by Jadah's house and very few walkable paths between the trees. What if someone asked these people about strangers who'd passed through? They would remember a wanderer, especially a woman, traveling alone by foot.
Sam retreated deeper between the trees and carefully stepped off the path, toeing her way through the blackberries until she was sure she couldn't be seen from the path or the glade. Dusk began to settle between trees like cobwebs and Sam found a stump to settle on and wait for the night. She unpacked her chicken breast and started to eat it slowly, savoring every bite by the looks of it.
Daniel tried to recall what chicken tasted like as he watched her lick the fat off her fingertips.
Don't you miss all these things, too?
He wished he wouldn't come back to that pointless question time and again.
Once it was dark and the moon was hidden by clouds, Sam shouldered her pack and, as silent as a cat on the prowl, crossed the small village and merged with the forest on the glade's other side.
An hour's walk away, she found a ditch enclosed by dead trees. It didn't look particularly comfortable, but dry and sheltered. Sam pulled off her pack, slipped into her jacket and, using the pack as a pillow, curled up in her ditch.
Moments later she bolted up again and sat motionless, her head tilted, trying to pick up any sound that didn't belong to the forest. She relaxed, lay down again and then kept staring at the dark tree tops with wide eyes.
Daniel made himself seen, glittering silver like the sage, and slipped in beside her, ruffling her hair gently. 'Go to sleep, Sam, I'll keep watch.'
"Daniel," she whispered, exhausted. "Have you seen the colonel again? Have you talked to him?"
'Not yet. But... I think he'll be there when the time comes.' At least he hoped so.
Sam nodded, closed her eyes and was asleep.
ooo
Despite the blueprints and descriptions in the journal, Jelica's 'canyon' was hard to find. Vegetation had changed, trees had grown big. When Sam finally got there she almost fell into it. She had been hiking for almost three days and exhaustion was catching up with her.
The forest had turned more and more into something out of a gloomy fantasy movie. There seemed to be very few young trees now and the old ones were huge, almost as big as Redwood trees in California she'd seen as a child. Daylight broke only sparsely through their branches and thick foliage so the woods were always dunked in a crepuscular bottle-green. The ground was covered with silver sage, more purple painted fern or other plant life that didn't require much sun.
The 'canyon' as Jelica had described it in her book was more like a crater in the ground with no visible way leading down. Its craggy rims were covered with moss and crawling plants such as yellow Berberis (good for treating arthritis) and white Quinces. None of them were in bloom now, though, and the crater melted perfectly into the dense coppices, which was why she almost tumbled into it head first.
She walked the perimeter and estimated it to be about 4 kilometers in length and approximately 5 to 6 km wide. She guessed it to be 0.5 to 1 km deep, give or take a couple meters. Probably an extinct volcano, she assumed. Without taking soil samples she couldn't be one hundred percent positive, but it was the next best explanation.
Tightening the straps of her backpack so it wouldn't slide off, she gazed down at the green covered bottom. She could hear the faint gargling of water. That was good.
She found her footing between rocks and strong plant roots clinging to the ground as she tread with care on her way to the bottom. There was no path, but she managed to stay upright and didn't have to actually climb down. The most difficult part of reaching the ground was not to trip over the roots that covered every inch of the ground. Once or twice she had a close call with flat boulders hidden under the thick layers of plants and she had to hike around a dead tree trunk that was embedded into a mess of ivy.
Once she had reached the bottom she found the creek, embedded in a bank of rocks and high ferns, and filled her pouch with the crystal clear water. When she dipped her hand in she found the water was tepid. The creek had to come from a thermal spring somewhere deep in the soil. It meant the volcano wasn't dead after all. It was only asleep and had magma within the planet's crust. But she had no reason to worry. Per evidence this volcano hadn't erupted in several hundred years and she was confident it wouldn't start spitting pieces of rocks and lava right now.
The plant she was looking for only blossomed during full moon and it was only at that time she could use its blooms for the drug. She had a detailed drawing and description in her pack and hoped to find it tomorrow. The next steps were going to be tricky. She had a week from here to start manufacturing the drug. She needed to have the basics by the time full moon came around, then add this plant and pray she had followed every step precisely the way Jelica had written it down. Then she would pray that it helped sustain Teal'c until they had found a way to leave this planet and find a new symbiote. She also hoped that she wasn't too late. That junior hadn't already matured.
If that happened there was no hope for Teal'c because he would either be a host by now or he had killed junior and himself.
What little daylight there was left dwindled quickly, so she decided to look for a good place to sleep. Sam followed the creek upstream, her eyes scanning the area for possible shelters. She found large bushes of Evening Stock, patches of white flowered Night Phlox and pink Catchfly. But still the sage and ferns were the most dominant species.
However, she also spotted younger trees down here. Most of them were crippled and suffering from the lack of sun, but they stubbornly withstood the odds of nature and, with plenty of water and what little light they could get, thrived as best as possible.
She was probably two or three klicks north of where she had come down when she saw something structural in the coppices. As she got closer she could make out a small hut, put together with rocks and loam. The roof was gone, but all four walls were still intact and there was an entrance and two window holes facing the creek.
The hut had the somberness and slight out-of-time feeling of deserted places. It didn't take long to determine that no one had been here in a very long time. Sam had her – in a real fight-or-flight situation totally useless – knife out as she entered the building, but aside from lots of dust and the alarmed squeaks of mice or some other small mammal, she was alone.
Wishing for a flashlight she went back outside and opened her pack. A candle and matches was all the light she had, but it would do. Jadah's comfortable home with the brightly lit fireplace, the cozy couch and rocker seemed to be light years away.
Going by what the light of her candle showed her she determined that the square single-room cabin was mostly empty. There was an old wooden table in the middle, probably rotten and full of wormholes. She found a fireplace at the back with a soot-blackened kettle hanging from a rusty iron chain. On the left wall she could see shelves with cobweb covered jars and bottles. Some where broken and some weren't, but it wasn't possible to figure out the contents as night was falling fast.
She found no traces of the missing roof inside the house. She suspected that it hadn't caved in from age, but that a storm had ripped it away.
She had to take a closer look around tomorrow, do some recon.
"I think I found Jelica's lab," she said. Glancing at the ceiling, or rather where the ceiling was supposed to be, she saw outlines of trees and patches of cloudy night sky far up. "Okay, time to get comfy then."
She had a lot of work to do tomorrow. She needed to clean this place, set up her own temporary lab and start preparing Teal'c's drug. She also had to make sure she wasn't going to starve out here and she needed to built some kind of makeshift roof in case the weather changed for the worse.
She left her pack by the fireplace and carried her candle outside where she placed it on one of the window sills. Armed with her knife she started cutting branches off the nearest tree and stripped them of leaves until she had her arms full of firewood.
Later, when she sat by the fire and poked a stick at the burning embers to keep the flames alive, she tried to ignore her growling stomach. She still had half a loaf of bread and a chunk of summer sausage, but she needed to ration her food. Hopefully she'd be able to trap a hare or a squirrel tomorrow and find some wild berries or mushrooms to go with it.
She remembered MRE and how often they had sat around a fire, moaning about the awful food. Still, the MRE were more digestible than some of the alien meals they had been exposed to over the years. Not to mention the weird side effects some off world cuisine had triggered. Once the colonel had gotten himself married just by eating a pizza-like cake. Cultural misunderstandings were always a high possibility when dealing with alien natives.
One time Daniel had urged them all to drink some ceremonial tea in order to not upset the natives. They had experienced very strange delusional dreams. They'd been told those dreams were guideposts to their futures. Sam remembered running through a field with huge mutated pink watermelons, trying to escape some ant-like creature – the size of a pony – that wanted to eat her. The colonel had not shared his own dream with them, but had pointed out the resemblance of hers to a movie about someone shrinking their kids.
And then there had been weed-planet – christened so by Colonel O'Neill - where smoking was a huge part of any ritual. Daniel had suggested going with the flow. Sam could only recall fragments of what had happened later - which was probably a good thing. She had been told by the tribe's Chieftain that her singing voice was quite beautiful.
Apparently Teal'c had engaged in a wrestling match with someone and woken up with several bruises and a black eye. They never found out what had happened to his poor wrestling partner.
Daniel and the colonel had been found mostly undressed, slumped over an altar in a very interesting position. Colonel O'Neill had worn several flower chains around his neck and Daniel's face had been covered in blue paint – someone had drawn squiggles all over his forehead and cheeks.
Sam and Teal'c had suspected that the colonel painted Daniel's face and Teal'c had thought the flower chains and blue squiggles might have been part of some sort of mating ritual. However, Sam had advised him not to ask and so they'd never gotten the juicy details.
The official report had been vague, the briefing awkward and Daniel had holed himself up in his office for almost a week after that particular mission. The colonel had been very tight-lipped and rigid whenever they'd ended up in the same room. Sam didn't know if they'd talked eventually. Things, as it usually happened, returned to normal between them, but it had taken a bit longer than usual.
And now that she thought about this she suddenly wondered if the edge that had started to creep into the friendly bickering between Daniel and the colonel over the last year or so, before Kelowna, had something to do with that particular mission. If, whatever had chipped away at their friendship, started there. Or if it was something that had grown gradually over time because of their different ways in handling things in the field.
It had been very subtle at first. Glares that wouldn't soften, jokes that fell flat or were made and returned with an icy edge to the words. Bantering had turned into flat-out rudeness and curt exchanges of snide comments. They had still stood strong together, shoulder to shoulder, when push had come to shove, but the daily work routine had always seemed to be strained when the two of them had to interact in any way.
Sam and Teal'c had noticed it at some point because the colonel and Daniel being out of sync affected the whole team dynamic. Sam, who used to spent time with Daniel outside of work, sensed a subtle change in her friend even when the colonel wasn't around. It was like something heavy had settled on Daniel's shoulders. Something that added to the weight of emotional baggage he had carried around – and tended to ignore most of the time – anyway...
...Teal'c, who rarely engaged in talks about interpersonal relationships, assumed O'Neill had issues with Daniel becoming more independent and being in less need of protection out in the field – which resulted in more arguments and clashing of minds when it came to command decisions.
More often than not Daniel forced his way past Colonel O'Neill's orders – and turned out to be right. But Sam didn't think that was it. They always worked out and around their different ways to reach the same goal and they always had each other's back. And while Daniel was second guessing the colonel a lot, they had always relied on each other when it came down to it. They trusted each other with their lives. All four of them.
They still did, even when things started to change between Daniel and their CO. But they became more distant somehow. Daniel was the closest thing to a best friend the colonel ever had as long as Sam knew him. But little by little that friendship dwindled down to a more or less work-related relationship.
When Daniel started to make excuses to stay away from team nights, Sam really started to worry.
Something was driving them apart. And neither one of them was willing to open up and clue them in. She didn't expect Colonel O'Neill to pour his heart out to her, not even to Teal'c. He just didn't do that, period. But Sam and Daniel were like siblings. They went out to dinner sometimes, watched movies or played pool. They hit the gym together at the SGC, had lunch together and stole from each other's cookie stash.
She tried to coax it out of him one evening over pizza. She got a glimpse of what the problem was, but she also sensed that Daniel was only giving her part of a much deeper truth.
He smiled lugubriously and shook his head. "You know what it's like between Jack and me. We bark, but we don't bite." He shrugged it off, but he couldn't look her in the eye and fiddled with the bottle opener instead. His behavior reminded her of the colonel who never seemed to be able to keep his hands still, especially if he was stressed or bored.
"I don't know, Daniel. The two of you seem... bitter. Almost..." She swirled the red wine in her glass. It looked like a tiny storm was making waves, "estranged."
"We've had some rough times." Daniel put the opener down and took a sip of his Chardonnay. "Things aren't... easy between us. Among other things he's still pissed at me for joining the Goa'uld Summit in the Hasara system."
Sam frowned. "He is? But he didn't utter a word during the mission prep or the briefing when Ren Au made the request to recruit you. We were all worried, of course, but you volunteered and if he had issues..."
"He knew the Tok'ra's plan was a one time opportunity to get them all. He also knew I was the logical choice for going in there. That doesn't mean he had to like it."
"So... he tried to talk you out of it?"
"No. He, uh..." Daniel stared at the black TV screen for a moment, then looked at her and smirked, but it was more an annoyed grimace. "He was trying to find a way to tag along. Said he was going in as well, pretending to be mute or something since he doesn't speak Goa'uld. I told him the last thing I needed was him trying to babysit me. It'd make things a hell of a lot more complicated if I had to keep an eye on him as well so he wouldn't screw things up and then blame it on me. He didn't, uh, take it very well."
Sam blinked. "Whoa, Daniel – has it ever occurred to you that he was just trying to..."
Daniel held up a hand. "Don't, Sam. If it had been Teal'c or you going in there he wouldn't have come up with a stupid idea like that. I'm not saying he wouldn't worry. It's what he does. But he'd trust you both to get through this and not blow it."
"Are you saying the colonel doesn't trust you? Because that's not true." She was dumbfounded. She hadn't anticipated how bad this really was. How deep it ran. "He's not happy to let any of us go into a situation like that without backup. You know that."
Daniel sighed and shook his head. "Honestly? I don't know anymore. He didn't show much of that trust in me during the whole Reese mess either, did he?"
"Daniel, Reese was about to take over the SGC. The base was crawling with replicators. She was too dangerous to be kept... alive. If you want to call it that, since she was a robot in the first place."
"She was going to shut them down. BUT," he raised his voice slightly when she opened her mouth to tell him he couldn't have been 100 percent sure of that, "I admit there's always the possibility that I was wrong. And she had to be shut down one way or the other at least for the time being. I just would have preferred it to go down differently. And that's not the crucial point here, Sam."
"Then what is the point? The two of you need to straighten this out somehow. The colonel has always respected and trusted you more than you probably know and I don't see why that would have changed."
Daniel shook his head. "Let's just say he has his reasons and yes, we need to get past this, somehow. Because if we can't..."
She felt like someone was pouring ice water down her back. He didn't have to spell it out for her to know what he was saying. If we can't get past this, I'll have to... join another team? Resign? Take some leave? Something like that.
"If there's anything... If there's any way Teal'c and I can help to solve this..."
"Thanks, Sam. I'm pretty sure we'll sort it out. We always do, sooner or later."...
...The smile of false confidence Daniel flashed at her had stung more than she'd wanted to admit. She had wanted him to trust her and allow her to help him carry this pain – whatever it had been. And she'd been worried about both of them.
She had wondered what had happened to undermine that strong foundation they'd always had. But in the end she never got to the bottom of this. Their mission schedule had been tight and they had enough work related stress to deal with on a daily basis. So whatever was wrong between the colonel and Daniel had stayed between the two of them.
And yet – when Daniel ascended he had reached out to the colonel alone. And she had never seen her CO this broken before. And while the abyss she'd sensed under the smooth, detached surface of 'let's get back to active duty ASAP' during their first team dinner after Daniel's ascension, had proved to her the colonel was still human, it had also scared her.
Sam pulled her jacket more tightly around herself as she watched the flames licking at the wood. She felt edgy and restless. Probably the fact that she was so completely on her own out here was getting to her.
She missed them. Teal'c's quiet strength, the colonel's and Daniel's bickering. She could imagine them so easily, sitting next to her, sipping coffee and sharing power bars. She could almost feel the warmth of their shared comradeship. The teasing and the easiness between them. She'd never been on a unit like SG-1. Had never experienced this kind of closeness on a team before.
She was grateful for remembering them again.
Hold on for a little while longer, Teal'c. I'm coming, she thought drowsily. Finally exhaustion took over and she fell asleep.