As crazy as it sounds but I really wanted to write something for any of my open projects... but this came to me while rewatching the aptly titled "The Powers That Be". This short piece is set after the episode and kind of can be read as a companion piece to an older one shot of mine "My Daniel". All mistakes are mine and I used google to educate myself on egyptian gods... so beware.

Man does not control his own fate.

The women in his life do that for him.

Groucho Marx

Sometimes fate really is like a child just playing with marbles.

And maybe I am losing mine!

Daniel spat out the last part angrily.

He was alone in his lab and a couple of books about all known Egyptian gods strewn across his table. The time and the craziness on P8X-412 had thrown him back to what he had thought gone, again.

What did I expect? It's the Goa'uld or at least Vala pretending to be one.

Now he was pouring over his books and reading up on everything he could find on Qetesh.

What he hadn't expected were the papers coming out with his books.

He hadn't touched these in approximately 6 years (or more). Last, he had looked at them had been when he wanted to find a way to reason with Amunet or to destroy her without harming Sha're.

His short notes on both goddesses' side by side made him snort and shake his head disbelievingly.

This really must be a joke!

Amunet: "The hidden One"

Goddess of the air and invisibility, her powers are connected to the words silence, stillness, mystery and obscurity

In hieroglyphs, she is represented as a woman with the sign of the West (a semi-circle on top of one long and one short pole), thus she has been given the title "She of the West". In Ancient Egypt, the West is the where the dead enter the underworld and Amunet is believed to be as the goddess who welcomes their entrance into the Kingdom of Osiris.

Predominantly worshiped around Thebes

Qetesh: "Mistress of All Gods" and "Lady of the Stars and Heaven"

Semitic goddess of Syrian or Sumerian origin who has been assimilated into the Egyptian pantheon during 18th dynasty She is the goddess of nature, beauty, sacred ecstasy and sexual pleasure. originally depicted as a naked woman standing on the back of a lion (outside Egypt it is sometimes a horse) with a crescent moon on her head. After her adoption into the Egyptian pantheon she was more commonly depicted wearing the headdress of Hathor or a pair of cows' horns and a sun disc (also linked with Hathor and the "Eye of Ra") and a tight-fitting sheath dress.

If her name is derived from the Hebrew word "qedesh" (sanctuary) is subject for debate. Her name is often linked with prostitution referring to a class of sacred prostitutes of the cult of Asherah mostly known as Quedeshot.

Predominantly worshipped around Memphis.

Two women (well counting Sarah, three) had been taken by Goa'uld and the descriptions of the Egyptian deities fit almost perfectly to what he associated with these women.

And Sarah?

No, I am not going there!

Once more he spoke to the empty room.

These last few days had been crazy, and he felt he was being unfair to Vala. Hadn't she proven to be a caring person? Even after the folk wanted to kill her for Qetesh's crimes she came to their aid after the prior had sicked the plague on them. She didn't care for her own safety just gave her all.

That was so much like Sha're.

And probably the reason why he was now sitting in his lab researching Egyptian gods, again.