Moonlight and Steel - finally in chronological order. Thanks everyone who has been reading and everyone who took time to review. It is much appreciated.
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The pain was sudden and immediate, more shocking than he had imagined it would be. Jack O'Neill had suffered torture at the hands of people who relished their work and took delight in their skill.
He was very very glad that no one had ever introduced the fire worms of PK2-7234 to earth, or to the Goa'uld.
It was flames racing from the bite to his shoulder and into his chest. It was hot knives across flayed skin. It crackled like dark energy along every nerve ending and threatened to bring him to his knees.
Air Force indoctrination kept him from screaming, but not from yelling.
"Daniel!"
At least he hoped it sounded more like a yell than screaming. It brought Daniel skidding through the door, barely ducking before hitting his head on the top of the archway.
Finding Jack bent over nearly double, clutching his hand, Daniel gasped.
"What the hell? Jesus, Jack, did one of those things bite you?"
"I let it," Jack ground the words out from between clenched teeth.
"You…what?" Daniel stammered.
He was close to Jack now, trying to reach for his wrist to see the damage. Jack shoved him away.
"Go…find…Carter…tell her I said…absolutely…not!"
"Jack…" Daniel started to protest.
O'Neill grabbed a fistful of Daniel's desert tan t-shirt.
"GO!"
Wow, that was the voice that must not be disobeyed.
Daniel turned, ducked back out the archway and hollered, "Teal'c!" as he ran across the common area of the village, heading for the ritual temple. The Jaffa came around the corner of one of the adobe houses at a dead run.
"What is wrong?"
"Jack let one of the fire worms bite him! He needs first aid…." Daniel paused and looked conflicted, "He also wants me to stop Sam."
"It is too late to stop Captain Carter," Teal'c said grimly, "The ritual has already begun."
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Several hours earlier…
PK2-7234 reminded Daniel uncomfortably of Abydos on a much smaller scale. The written language was the same. The squat, desert-born houses made of adobe were the same. The tents – ready to be dismantled at a moment's notice if a sandstorm appeared on the horizon, the people all tough and hardy and dark-skinned and dark-eyed….
The main village was about 10 kilometers from the Star Gate. They might not have even visited 7234 except for the groupings of fresh offerings and obvious signs of life the MALP had revealed.
From the moment the UAV had sent back the images of the village Daniel had been unable to breathe much less speak. It had hit him hard.
But nothing has been as shocking as finding the small shrine in the center of the village – the shrine to their goddess, Amaunet.
He had stayed on his feet mostly with the help of Jack's hand under his elbow, until the surge of adrenaline had gone through him and he had found not only breath but voice and within the space of about fifteen minutes, Daniel had won over the hearts and minds of the locals and they were being treated to a welcoming feast.
Jack had seen Daniel do the same thing on countless worlds, but he had never seen him do it with his eyes so bright and the color in his face so high.
Things had been going very well. Daniel had convinced them that they had come to find Amaunet - which was certainly true in his case – and then he had discovered there was a temple to her, a huge place of worship, and then he got really excited….
Except the locals refused to take them to it.
Unlike Abydos, the people of PK2-7234 worshipped a goddess and had developed a matriarchal society. It hadn't taken long to pick up on the fact that the men deferred to and served the women. Even questions to Daniel were first directed to Sam and Daniel hadn't been able to do anything to convince them Teal'c, with the gold insignia that identified him as the First Prime of Amaunet's consort, wasn't under Carter's command but O'Neill's.
The village Headwoman, Setapep, had patiently explained to Daniel that he and his team were not the honored of Amaunet and only those led by someone who had gone through the rite of 'Soul Cleansing' could enter the Temple. Since Sam had never gone through the ritual, and no one could convince them Jack was their leader – which wouldn't have helped anyway since he hadn't done the rite and besides the rite was only for women, Setamun had been polite but firm. Their sacred Temple was off limits.
Sam had insisted on speaking privately to Setapep about the ritual.
Sir, I don't think it can hurt to find out what the ritual is…..
Forced to agree, O'Neill had let her go. He was driven as much by their mission objectives as by his personal desire to find Skaara and Sha're.
She had joined up with the men afterwards.
Daniel watched her carefully as she sat down in the empty spot around the campfire they had saved for her, in the makeshift camp they had created. Daniel had coffee going already and he poured some into the mug she preferred and handed it to her. He suspected that Sam felt out of her league. Dealing with and making sense of local culture was his job.
She sat there, holding her coffee mug between both hands as if they were cold, and staring into the fire.
"Carter?" Jack said, drawing her eyes to him.
"Sir?"
"The secret to coffee is, you know, to drink it."
Sam's eyes flickered away, as if she was afraid of revealing too much.
"Yes, sir," she said.
Daniel rolled his eyes at Jack but noticed Sam smiling slightly as she brought the coffee cup to her lips. Had she always done that? Smile at Jack's completely offbeat humor? Daniel didn't know what it meant, but he wasn't that unaware of subtle communication clues, body language, fleeting changes in facial expression that often said more than the words and spoken languages that he loved. He had just really never noticed before, if Sam was amused by Jack enough to let it show.
Daniel had noticed that sometimes Jack looked at Sam a lot more often than he probably realized he did. There were a whole lot of men who looked at Sam, so maybe that wasn't the point.
Jack let her take a few long swallows and then said, "So?"
"Sir?"
"What did you find out about this ritual?"
"Oh!"
Sam looked at Jack, held his eyes in silence and suddenly, for one brief voyeuristic moment…. Daniel thought he was looking at something he shouldn't be. He looked away deliberately and caught Teal'c's eye. The single raised eyebrow was eloquent.
But maybe it was nothing.
It was probably nothing…..
"The ritual involves being brought to the ceremony room by a group of women who have already experienced it and then putting your hand in a basket of sand with something they call mek kot…."
She paused and looked at Daniel but Teal'c answered.
"Fire worms."
Jack's eyebrows lifted to his hair line. "And you stick your hand in this basket with them?"
"Yes," Sam said.
"And?"
"And they bite you and it hurts for a while and then it stops and you're considered one of the 'Cleansed'. Then they'll take me to the Temple and I can lead all of you. "
Jack stared at her for a while, waiting and when she didn't say anything he demanded,
"That's it?"
"Yes, sir."
"How big are these worms?"
"Couple of inches. They keep some in baskets of sand that they showed me. It's just a worm."
"How many are used in the ritual?"
"Three or four I think."
"How much does it hurt?"
Sam shrugged. "It's supposed to prepare women for childbirth."
Jack didn't say anything, for a long time. Daniel rushed in to fill the silence.
"As a 'rite of passage' ritual it's actually pretty simple. In Western Australia, the Warlpiri initiation rituals take place over weeks and even months. There's one dance that goes for days and the rituals themselves often involve great pain and circumcision…'
Jack held up a hand. "Uht!"
Daniel broke off instantly.
"TMI?" he asked.
"Ya think?" Jack shot back.
There was a moment of uncomfortable stillness. Sam looked at Jack and Jack looked back at her and for once Daniel had no idea what the conversation was about.
"Sam," Daniel said, finally, "You don't have to do this."
It wasn't his call, but he had a feeling Jack would go along with him on this.
Sam lifted her head and turned towards his voice. She looked straight across the fire at Daniel. Her wide, expressive eyes said, yes I do.
Out loud she said, "I know. But I want to."
Something caught Daniel's ear, something wrong in her voice - a flat tone he'd never heard before, an indefinable absence of her usual warmth and willingness to be part of the team. She shifted uncomfortably and her eyes begged him to understand.
He did.
"And I know you want to, and why. But I don't want it to cause you pain, no matter how fleeting or how simple the ritual sounds."
"Daniel…"
"Sam…."
"For cryin' out loud," Jack interrupted. "Is this about Jolinar?"
Daniel glanced at him sharply. For all that Jack often appeared half asleep and more interested in the ice hockey score or the last episode of Simpsons, Daniel knew there wasn't anything about his team that he missed.
There probably wasn't anything about…. Well, anything that Jack missed.
Jack knew, even if he had not been in the same room with them the one time she and Daniel had discussed it, that Sam had never been able to access the one memory of Jolinar's that would have meant so much. Jolinar had claimed to know where Amaunet was, had died before telling them – and Sam had never been able to remember it – not in dreams, not under hypnosis, not using any method they knew.
They had tried. God, how they had tried.
Daniel had forgiven her, but it didn't seem to make any difference. Sam didn't forgive herself.
"I mean it, Sam," Daniel said, and he did. It wasn't a statement he was making by rote, filling some need for them to exchange platitudes before getting on with their mission. SG1 didn't do that, had never done that.
Jack was watching them carefully; and Daniel knew what Jack knew – that Sam did not process her failures the way the rest of her team did. He and Jack and Teal'c had all learned to internalize their pain. The things they couldn't change became part of the strength. Their losses were the reinforcing strands that made them impossible to snap.
Sam carried her failures, refusing to put them down, letting even the minor ones take on major significance. She was harder on herself than any of them had ever been. She ran a rod of steel down her emotional backbone and stood up under the weight, determined to bear it; needing action to keep wearing it down so that it was bearable.
At some point Daniel stopped looking at Sam and turned just his eyes to Jack so they could have that conversation. Sam needed to do something, but Daniel didn't want to be her penance. Jack gave an almost imperceptible nod of his head that said, Let her do it, along with a kick-ass narrowing of his eyes that said But we don't have to like it.
"Do I have a go, sir?" Sam asked.
"You have a go," Jack said.