A/N: This is my least fav episode. I still have two chapters to write, but I just really hate this episode, so it's super hard.

Family Revised

Chapter 1

Spree

The Tau'ri have entirely too many clothes.

She's been a Goa'uld with access to riches among riches while her slaves barely had enough fabric to cover their bodies, she's had fine silks woven by blind grandmothers and inlayed with gold and rubies in clusters to match Qetesh's favorite constellations, she's had battle armor reinforced with many types of metal, heavy and serrating against her chest, but impenetrable by blades, she's witness fairer maidens be slaughtered for Qetesh's want of their dresses.

But it is all incomparable to the Tau'ri and their need to line store after store with dozens of racks of shirts and slacks and shoes that all begin to look similar after the third boutique.

When she was a child, her planet impoverished by a Goa'uld, her always grumbling stomach was hidden beneath little more than a cloth bag that had been cinched at the waist by a bit of rope. By the time she was a teenager, her mother had passed on, and in her wake, she was able to wear her dresses of a more ornate fashion, but still peasant's dress, not unlike the garbs she wore when she was married to Tomin. Definitely of inferior standards, indicative of lower class, and utilitarian in use.

Those were some of her favorite dresses though. Her mother's scent remained on them for almost a year after.

"Are you getting bored?" Samantha pops her head up from a rack. It's nice to see her friend unburdened and able to grin and enjoy herself away from the mountain.

It's also good to be away from the mountain which has passed it's period of endearment to her, upon returning she found the familiar hallways and rooms comforting, but now they're claustrophobic. So, she lies. Only a little. "No, Darling, I'm just perusing the other shops lining the atrium."

But Sam smiles tightly, perhaps becoming savvy as to when she's stitching fibs into their conversation. That dress looks lovely on her, and she has a few hangers of clothes she's interested on trying on, something else so basically Tau'ri that it's almost humorous.

All of these people, the men on their cell phones, the women scaling through rack after rack trying to find a good deal, the children attached to electronics that are loud and jarring, know nothing about what lies beyond their atmosphere. Are so self-absorbed that they haven't given a second to care about who or what waits for them. They don't know how many times Stargate Command has saved their planet, just continue to be mollified with objects and materials like an infant stretching for a rattle.

"It's probably very overwhelming being here." They both stare out the shop's front window through the arms of pale statues of faceless and hairless people that model the available styles. Another thing so indicatively Tau'ri and simultaneously, terrifying.

"You know, I've been to marketplaces all over this galaxy." Has traipsed through commerce planets where the whole population, all the cities, make up a planetwide shopping mall, and it was never as overwhelming as this. Just the sheer amount of people, of materials, the flashing signs for foods and drinks, the music of different genres, different volumes, blaring in each store. The lack of fresh air, even an open window, or the interactive bartering with a merchant. "But none have ever been quite like this."

"Well, we've been shopping for almost three hours. You got the clothes you wanted in case we need to go civilian, and I picked up those boots that were on sale." She sets the group of hangers from her purse back onto the nearest rack and hikes up a large, white plastic bag holding her previous purchases. "Why don't we go to Starbucks?"

"What a Starbucks?"

"It's a chain of coffee stores." Samantha nods her head to the entrance of the store guarded by those metal rods that seem to be everywhere in order to deter theft. Doesn't know how or why anyone would ever need to steal anything on this planet as all it seems to offer is opulence.

"I don't like coffee."

They reabsorb into the masses of people littering the atrium, moving stairs slinging some up, others down, and the crowd makes her feel unwell, reminds her of the holidays Qetesh would enforce, the masses of people who needed to bow and give thanks for their mere pittance while she loomed above them, golden-eyed with diamonds woven into an outfit that was little more than a mesh.

Sam nudges her, bringing her attention back to the mall, to the people filing around them as they trudge against the current of unpleasant faces. Her two previous trips into the city were more well received, the people she met were, for the most part, compassionate and kind, she felt safe and accepted.

Here though—

"Are you okay?" Sam tugs her to the side standing behind a potted fern that upon a second glance is fake.

She inhales and swings her arms full of bags. "Of course, Darling. Why?"

"Because I just told you twice that Daniel's coffee is toxic sludge, and you have to try a mochaccino."

"Then let's off to this Starduck and see what the little fellow has to offer."

"It's Starbucks—" Sam, perhaps knowing her too well after ninety minutes spent somewhere called Victoria's Secret, re-narrows her eyes still sensing something is off. "Are you sure you're okay?"

"Yes, if anything my feet are sore from trekking around this mall in these shoes."

"I thought you wore shoes like this all the time."

"Yes, when I was Qetesh, but then she would just let me experience the pain center of the brain, so I suppose—" trails off as her friend's face falls, because that's what she is, a friend. She hasn't had one of those since she was wearing cloth bags. "Sorry."

Sam remains concerned for a moment more before a grin flickers on her face. "How about after Starbucks we get a pedicure? I bet you'll love it."

She has no idea what either of those things are, and she's not used to depending on someone as much as she depends on the team to lead her through important Tau'ri customs, to protect her both on and off missions.

But for some odd reason, she does.

"Lead the way."