Disclaimer: I don't own Stargate SG -1 or any of the characters.
Huge thank yous to all who reviewed! But I was just kidding about holding the chapter back. And so chapter nine begins! (The reason it took so long to update was that I was at the National LCMS Youth Gathering in Orlando. Anybody else go:) )
Maria Carter's point of view:
Maria watched as Selmak slithered out of her backpack and onto the ground. With the way he moved his body, she could tell that he was grateful for a break, too. They'd been on the road for almost an hour, and the hills she'd had to go over were just killing her legs. She had hidden them from the view of other people on the road behind some large bushes and shrubs a little ways into the forest. There was no possible way that she would be able to get to Stargate Command before nightfall. They'd have to spend the night out here, in the middle of nowhere. Maria really wished that she had packed more than one sandwich, and a flashlight. She sat down and leaned her back against a tree.
Selmak began to write something in the dirt once he had stretched out for a minute.
"Maria," he began. "I've been meaning to ask you something, but I haven't had a chance until now. What is your last name?" He waited patiently for her answer, not daring to hope. What were the chances of Maria being Jacob's youngest daughter?
"Uh, Carter. Why?" Maria answered, clueless as to how her simple answer was rocking Selmak's world.
No... It couldn't be... The odds against this were huge... He had to be sure before he believed it. He tried to keep calm as he started writing again.
"Was your father's name Jacob?" This time he waited not so patiently for her answer. The suspense was killing him. He had to know.
"Yeah," Maria told him. "How'd you know who my father is?"
Selmak was silent for so long that Maria began to wonder if something was wrong.
"I know your father well, very well. He is my host." Selmak answered simply, wondering if he was going to go into a state of shock. There was no denying it now. But still, in a word he learned from Jacob: whoa.
Maria stared at him for a second, then burst out laughing.
"Ha! Great joke dude!" So she didn't believe him, Selmak thought. He was having a hard time believing it himself.
"I assure you that I am not joking. Your father, Jacob Carter, is my host."
It took Maria a minute before it sank in that he was being serious.
"Say what?-!'" She exclaimed, almost jumping up. Her father was- what was that word- a Tok'ra? No freakin' way. That's where her father was, on an alien planet somewhere? He'd left them for that? She was almost angry with Selmak. Almost.
"I almost don't believe this," she said a little sadly to Selmak. "He left without so much as a goodbye to me. I was so worried about him, because he had cancer, and he just left me like that." The pain she'd buried for the past several months came back, and Maria looked away from Selmak so he wouldn't see her so upset. Upset and relieved, because her father was alive.
Selmak slithered over so that he was in front of her and wrote in the dirt again.
"He didn't mean to hurt you. Even though he never really had much time to tell me about you, I could tell he was worried for you, as well. Everytime he comes back to Stargate Command through the Stargate, he asks Samantha how your doing, wishing that he could talk to you. He-" Maria cut him off.
"My sister is involved in this?-! Am I the only one in this family that wasn't told anything? The only one not involved? The one that was lied too?" She cried angrily, realizing that all this time her sister had been lying to her about being in the air force and working on satellites. It was just a cover story. Even though she knew now that her sister had a reason for keeping the truth from her, and probably didn't even have a choice anyway, she was still upset. Though she was trying to calm down.
Selmak wrote nothing for awhile, probably wondering if she was done.
"I'm sorry, Selmak," Maria apologized. "This is just hard for me to believe, you know? What does my sister do there anyway?" Curiosity was overpowering her earlier anger. Did she go through the Stargate, too? Like Selmak said her father did? Another set of a million questions popped into her head.
"Your sister travels to other planets with a team called SG-1, which consists of three other people. Jack O'Neill, Daniel Jackson, and Teal'c. Teal'c is a Jaffa, and he used to be the first prime of Apophis until he turned to the side of good. And, before you ask, a Jaffa is a person used to carry infant Goa'uld until they are ready to mature." He paused for a minute.
"Your sister, combined with the others in SG-1, have saved the world, and helped us, the Tok'ra, many times before. SG-1's mission is to travel to other worlds to find some kind of technology to defeat the Goa'uld. We, your father and I, have even joined them on several of there missions. One time-" he was about to go into the story about the retu's when Maria cut him off.
"My sister saved the world? Whoa! This so totally rocks, Selmak! Dude, before I met you, I so never would have believed a word of that. My father-" she suddenly remembered that he had had terminal cancer. How had he been cured?
'Selmak," she began again. "What happened to my father's cancer? I know that this is kind of random." She waited to see what his answer would be.
Selmak answered immediately. "I cured him. Symbiotes can cure most human ailments. We cure cancer all the time. Any more questions?"
Maria shook her head. Now that was cool.
"No, not really," she answered. It was getting dark, and Maria took her sandwich out of the backpack and started eating it while she waited for Selmak's reply. She finished her sandwich in three bites, wishing for more.
"Good. So you understand everything. I just feel like I should warn you about one more thing," he answered. He suddenly remembered the NID. From what O'Neill had told him, it was only fair that Maria be warned of them as well.
"What is it? Can we make this brief, please? I'm getting tired." She suddenly felt ready to crash. Biking all day can do that to a person.
"Yes, I will be brief. I, too, am tired. Moving one's tail through the dirt continually is not easy. I must warn you about the NID."
"What are the NID?" Maria wondered if this was yet another alien species or something.
"They are, from what I've been told, a group of people from your government that want the Stargate shut down. They care only for their own goals, and are known for doing things that borderline the immoral to get what they want. I believe that they want to do experimentation on symbiotes, and people like Teal'c." Selmak tried his best to explain.
"Why are you telling me this? Do you think they could be after me or something?" Great, Maria thought, another thing to worry about on top of everything else.
"Perhaps. It is a possibility." Selmak saw the worried look on Maria's face and tried to calm her.
"What would they want from me, anyway?" Maria tossed the empty plastic bag into the backpack.
"At this point in time, I'm pretty sure that they'd want me." He answered.
"Why?" Maria stifled a yawn.
"Why do you think?"
"Oh, yeah." They wanted to do experiments. That would suck.
She yawned again, and this time Selmak saw.
"It is getting late. You are tired, and I am tired. We should get some rest while we can," he told her, ending the conversation about the NID completely. Maria couldn't disagree with him on that.
"Yeah, and tomorrow I have, like, fifteen more miles to go. And my legs are sore as it is. And I need to find a rest stop with vending machines or a convenience store or something. I don't think there's any way that I could make it without more food. By the way, you can sleep in the backpack if you want."
She laid down on the ground, using her arms for a pillow.To her surprise, Selmak actually nudged the backpack toward her.
"Use this for a pillow. I know that you expect me to sleep in it, but, truth be told, I really don't like it in there. I much prefer sleeping outside. Goodnight, Maria." At that, Selmak curled up next to her. Again, Maria noticed how he was kind of cute when he did that. She pulled the backpack over to her and rested her head on it.
"Goodnight to you too, Selmak. Sleep well." As she turned over and tried to get comfortable on the hard ground, she heard Selmak pure in answer.
She smiled at that as she felt herself drift off to sleep, praying that it wouldn't rain. Tomorrow was going to be a long, long day for her and her legs. She just hoped that she wouldn't have to spend another night like this.
That's the end of chapter nine. Please, tell me what ya'll think. Sorry it took so long to update. I promise that the next chapter will be more interesting. But I probably won't be able to update for awhile, since school starts tomorrow for me. I'm going to be really busy, but I promise to update as soon as I can.
