7
Disclaimer: I do not own any of the characters for SG-1, nor do I expect to ever in the near or far future. All that's mine is Evree, a few bad guys and a bunch of squirmy little symbiotes.
Big thanks to Ernie and Kate for their help with the research.
Delusions of Godhood
Departure
O'Neill helped Evree into his vehicle. Not, it must be said, out of a sense of chivalry, but because she was so short that he got impatient waiting for her to climb in. But he did so in silence.
She was staring at him as he climbed behind the wheel. He kind of thought she would be, but that didn't mean he had to like it. He turned his head away, looking ahead at the street as he pulled out into the traffic.
Inevitably, it seemed, Evree just had to break the silence. "I only thought to please you."
"I realize that," Jack grated out.
"I know what I said," she remarked quietly. "But I do not know why it has angered you."
"I'm not angry," Jack replied tersely, not taking his eyes from the road. She was still looking at him, he could feel it.
"But you are not speaking to me." Her voice, so often so confident sounded meek and unsure now. Which made him feel guilty and added to his discomfort.
"I am speaking to you," he shot back. "See? Lips moving, sound coming out. Speaking."
"You are speaking at me, not to me," Evree replied pointedly. "I am merely trying to ascertain how I gave offense, O'Neill. I do not like having you put this distance between us."
"I just need a little space right now, Evree," O'Neill said. "I'm still adjusting to a very unusual relationship." Before Evree could continue to belabor the topic, he added, "Could we please drop the subject for now?"
In answer, the Goa'uld queen shifted in her seat and stared out the window.
Even though he had pretty much asked for it, Jack found that he still didn't like it.
&&&&&
Daniel decided to put in a workout first thing in the morning and was mildly surprised to see Evree in the gym already, almost a blur as she seemed to have the treadmill set to the maximum speed.
"I didn't realize that you were such a fitness buff, Evree," he greeted her.
Sam entered the room and joined them. "Hi, guys. What's going on?"
Evree declined to answer. In point of fact, she couldn't. She needed her breath for her exertions.
Daniel nodded at Evree who was having to slow down because she was running out of breath. "I'm betting she and Jack have been arguing."
"Again?" Sam shook her head in disbelief. Most of the couples she had known that argued that much had long since split up. And they didn't have Jack and Evree's cultural differences to overcome either.
Evree, realizing that they weren't going to let it go, not to mention that she wanted to know the whys and wherefores herself and didn't see herself getting them from O'Neill in the foreseeable future, stopped and paused a moment to catch her breath. "We were not arguing," she stated. "But I have managed to give offense, and O'Neill will not enlighten me as to why my remark offended him." She sighed. "I thought it would please him."
"What exactly did you say?" Daniel knew it was none of his business, but the whole relationship fascinated him. And was a topic of gossip for the entire base. Not that he contributed to it.
"I told him that Draylea enjoys it when we engage in sexual relations," Evree explained. "And I fail to understand..," She broke off as she saw the looks on her companion's faces.
Carter was torn between understanding and a sudden attack of the giggles. It wasn't funny to Evree, and it obviously wasn't to Jack, but it was.
Daniel muttered, "Oh, god," and covered his face with one hand.
Evree was as mystified by their reactions as she had been by O'Neill's. "But what did I say that was so wrong?" she queried plaintively.
&&&&&&
O'Neill and Teal'c were on the firing range. Jack had kept up a running monologue that filled the gaps while they reloaded.
"She said that she thought it would please me," O'Neill griped. "Like I like being reminded that there's two of them in there."
"You knew that before you initiated physical intimacy," Teal'c pointed out. "So I fail to understand why it should cause you such consternation now."
Jack belatedly realized that he had well and truly picked the wrong audience this time. Having grown up with and among Goa'uld, it just didn't seem all that bizarre or even a little kinky to the Jaffa. But it bothered him when he thought about it. Most of the time, he could just about manage not to think about it. Then, Evree had gone and had to rub his nose in it. "Forget I mentioned it," he grumbled. Daniel, he thought, Daniel would have understood.
"I shall endeavor to," Teal'c assured him, and calmly went back to his target practice.
&&&&&&
"But what did I do wrong?" Evree practically wailed in frustration. "Just because I went to great lengths to spare Draylea from pain, does O'Neill think I would shut her out from that which is pleasurable?" Despite the fact that she had yet to be enlightened, a small, almost smug smile curved the corners of her lips upwards.
"It probably didn't occur to him to think of it," Sam explained gently, while swiping at a laughter induced tear. "I think that, most of the time anyway, he sees you as a single person, and when you reminded him otherwise, it probably threw him for a loop."
"I can practically guarantee it," Daniel added dryly.
"Should I then pretend to be something other than what I am?" Evree demanded. Her eyes were starting to glow, and her voice began to display the typical Goa'uld resonance. "Draylea is very dear to me. Without her I could not exist. Does O'Neill expect me to ignore her, whose body I inhabit?"
"Oh, I'm sure he would go as far as that," Daniel half-mumbled. "But maybe if you could refrain from mentioning it when..," He trailed off, blushing.
"When you're having sex," Sam filled in the gap bluntly. "No one is going to ask you to ignore Draylea. Just practice a little diplomacy."
"Explain to me about diplomacy," Evree ordered.
Sam and Daniel exchanged looks and realized that diplomacy was probably not a word in the Goa'uld vocabulary.
This could take a little while.
&&&&&&
Evree watched, half-hidden, as SG-1 equipped themselves for a new mission. She would like to be there, helping them, seeing them off. But she was not yet sure that O'Neill would wish to see her, and she didn't want to add further stress to the high maintenance relationship.
Point in fact, Evree had once asked O'Neill if she could accompany them. And had received a flat no. She had then gone over his head to General Hammond. Hammond had been equally adamant, but had at least deigned to give her an explanation.
"I'm sorry, Evree," he had said with a shake of his head. "But your status is that of someone under protective custody now. You're too valuable to too many people for us to take unnecessary chances with your safety. As a matter of fact, I had to do some fast talking to get them allow you to remain here at Stargate command."
"Please explain," Evree requested politely. She still felt somewhat in awe of Hammond. Perhaps because he was O'Neill's commanding officer.
"If the bureaucrats had had their way," Hammond had replied. "Then you would be far away from here. Quite possibly locked up in some experimental laboratory. It took the direct intervention of the president himself to prevent that from happening."
Evree had mulled that over in her mind for a while. It was sinking in to her in a way that she had previously and quite deliberately ignored that she was nearly as much a prisoner here as she had been when Ahriman had held her. That she had somewhat more freedom of movement, and was treated courteously did not detract from that unpalatable fact.
Some of what she was thinking must have shown on her features, and Hammond noticed. "Evree," he said gently. "It won't be forever. But we can't risk letting Anubis getting his hands on you again. We got lucky the last time. It's highly unlikely that we'd get that lucky a second time."
"I understand," Evree rejoined quietly. "Have I your leave to go now, General?"
Hammond had been about to tell her that she was exempt from military protocol, then decided that it would only prolong what had been a more than somewhat uncomfortable exchange. "You can go now, Evree."
&&&&&&
Jack looked up from his last minute once over, making sure he had everything he was supposed to have. As he did so, out of the outermost reaches of his peripheral vision, he saw a movement in the doorway.
He turned his head to look at the doorway full on and saw nothing, but something that had been nagging at the back of his mind that some part of the ritual was missing, clicked into place.
"Evree? Aren't you going to come and say good-bye?" She hadn't missed a mission since they'd brought her back from Anubis' ship.
Evree slowly emerged. "I was not sure that you wished to see me," she muttered, avoiding his eyes. The rest of SG-1, having finished their tasks, melted away.
Neither O'Neill nor Evree noticed their departure. Their attention was solely fixed on each other. While trying to pretend that it was not. Evree caught up in a torrent of confusion as to just what her Tau'ri lover wanted from her, and O'Neill being torn between feeling like a jerk for making Evree feel that way and being irritated that, once again, he seemed to be the one at fault. But he couldn't very well leave without saying good-bye. Not that he was planning on dying anytime soon, but if he did, he didn't want it to be with Evree thinking he didn't want her around.
"It wouldn't have felt right," he remarked, closing the distance between them. "You're my good luck charm."
Evree managed to summon up a feeble smile. "Who was your 'good luck charm' before you met me?" She took the last step into his arms and luxuriated in the safe, comforting feeling she always got when he held her.
"It was always you," Jack murmured into her hair. "I just didn't know it then." He gave her a squeeze and a kiss, and reluctantly released her. "I have to go now."
"Come back safely to me, O'Neill," Evree ordered softly.
"I always do." Jack tipped his hat to her and strolled away, whistling.
&&&&&&
"So, where're we off to now?" Jack asked jauntily as he joined the rest of the team, pointedly ignoring the knowing looks that were exchanged.
"PR-862," Sam replied. "The M.A.L.P. has just gone through."
"Let's take a look then, shall we?" O'Neill suggested.
They all dutifully gathered around the view screen, seeing what the mechanized scout was observing electronically.
At first glance, it could have been almost anywhere. Trees, lots of trees. No apparent signs of intelligent life, though.
"Just once I'd like to see a gate that was in the middle of the town square," Daniel grumbled half-heartedly. "It would save a lot of leg work."
"It would also be extremely conspicuous," Teal'c pointed out.
"I was just thinking that it might be nice to be able to walk in through the front door sometimes, figuratively speaking," the linguist remarked a little wistfully. "Sometimes I think the whole universe is out to get us."
"Oh, I don't think it's much more than half the universe." Sam kept such a perfectly straight face that Daniel wasn't entirely sure whether or not she was joking. "What do you think, sir?"
Jack shrugged and pretended to consider. "Well, however much it is, let's see if there's something on this planet that can help us level the playing field."
Without further comment, he strode through the gate with the others obediently following after.
&&&&&
"Hello, Janet, do you have anything I can help you with today?" The physician occasionally gave Evree a fairly easy and non-sensitive chore to do, just to make her feel useful, although the Goa'uld queen would probably never have realized a need to feel useful. Now, she was beginning to feel her nerves being wound tight as a spring, the way they always did when O'Neill was off-planet.
"Sorry, Evree," Dr. Frasier replied. "We're pretty slow here at the moment."
"I need something to occupy my time," Evree muttered, more to herself than her companion.
"Colonel O'Neill has gone away on another mission?" Janet guessed.
Evree nodded miserably. "I do not know what is wrong with me," she complained. "But whenever O'Neill goes away like this, I find myself fearing that he will not return."
"There's nothing wrong with you," Janet soothed. "It happens to most people who have someone they care about in a high-risk profession. There is absolutely nothing abnormal about it."
"There is not?" Evree seemed to be stunned at the revelation. "How do they bear it? I have been with O'Neill but a short time, and each time, I feel as if each hour were a hundred years. Do Tau'ri exist thus for years? How?"
"I think it actually may get a little easier to deal with after you've had a some more time to adjust to things," Frasier suggested cautiously. There was still a body of opinion that Evree would sooner or later show true Goa'uld colors and double-cross them all. But that she was devoted to Jack O'Neill, Janet had no doubts. The waves of tension radiating from the little queen were practically palpable.
"Experience lends stability?" Evree guessed. At this point in time, she didn't see it happening, but not so very long ago, she would not have foreseen herself in a relationship with a human. Especially the one human whose name had practically become a curse word among her kind.
"Something like that," the doctor agreed. "Of course, some people don't learn to deal with it. They just let it eat them up inside until they break. And a lot of the time, all they would have had to do is just to find someone to talk to." She gave Evree a compassionate look. "Be sure and come talk to me whenever you feel the need."
Evree summoned up a sad, half-smile. "Thank you, Janet, I will."
&&&&&&
"Looks impressive," Jack admitted grudgingly. The edifice to which he referred managed to convey a sense of grandeur without being overwhelmingly large. And either it was a fairly recent addition to the landscape, or else the stone it was built out of wasn't actually, or entirely stone, because there was absolutely no sign of weathering. Or dirt, he realized, looking closer. Not so much as a single bird dropping marred the pristine surface.
"Do we go in?" Teal'c felt the question to be rhetorical, but he asked it anyway, to break the stillness that was becoming in some inexplicable way, uncomfortable.
Daniel, whose curiosity had led him to the forefront of the group was about to lay his hand on the door when Sam cried out, "Stop!" so abruptly and urgently that he froze where he was.
"Is there a problem, Carter?" Jack inquired.
"Wait a second," Sam muttered, almost as if to herself, fishing for something in her pack. "I just thought I saw something out of the corner of my eye, and I want to make sure before anyone does anything."
"Can I move now?" Daniel asked a bit plaintively. He half expected to be told that he'd tripped some sort of dead man switch and if he as much as breathed, they'd all be blown to kingdom come.
"Only backwards," Sam instructed. "Whatever you do, don't touch the door."
Daniel pulled himself back slowly, as if expecting the door to pounce on him if he made any sudden moves.
Sam was looking through night vision goggles that she'd unearthed from her backpack. "That's what I was afraid of," she remarked grimly.
"Booby trapped?" O'Neill queried, borrowing the goggles to see for himself. What he saw was a series of light beams in an array more delicate and intricate than any spider web Jack had ever seen. Make that several hundred spiders, he amended in his head. The tracery was finer than that on a dollar bill. "Just lovely."
"If the door is trapped, then we must seek another means of entry," Teal'c said sensibly.
"Or a way around the security," Daniel added. He'd moved on down the wall (and, not so coincidentally, away from the door), to look at some etchings that he'd spotted. Closer inspection had proved it to be writing.
"Please tell me that says we can get in without scaling the walls, tunneling under the foundation of slaying a dragon," Jack remarked hopefully. The joke, if indeed there was one, lacked the proper delivery to raise so much as a smile from any of his companions.
"No," Daniel answered slowly, as he got to the end of the inscription He was getting a queasy feeling in the pit of his stomach at what he had read. "Actually, for right person, it isn't a trap at all. They could open the door and walk right in without so much as a scratch. And, presumably, let anyone else in that they brought along with them."
O'Neill had noticed that Daniel had managed to omit a vital piece of information. "So, who's the right person?" he asked, wondering why Daniel was being so cagey all of a sudden.
"It says the door can be opened safely only by a Goa'uld queen," the linguist blurted out.