Disclaimer: I don't own most of the characters here, just the Captain in the beginning and the people on P7X-617. Everything else and the show belongs to those who created it, MGM etc. etc.

A/N #1: Sorry that the last chapter was so short, but I wanted to spread out the action and the climax of the story, not have it all in one or two chapters. This one's a little short too, but after this one they get much longer.

A/N #2: Thanks so much for the reviews RepliCarter1993 (Thanks for the review, here's your answer about what happens next to Sam and Daniel, hope you enjoy!), GimmieABeat (I'm glad you're looking forward to a happily ever after, stick around :D Thanks for the review, I greatly appreciate it!), HAZMOT (I liked your reference to The Last Crusade- my fave Indy movie, hehe. Yeah, Daniel had to break the cycle of Seth, it had to be done. And now that things will move on I wonder if you'll read after this chapter... I guess I'll have to wait and see. Thanks again for review, I really love seeing yours, they're great to read) and Ashleod (First off I hope you're feeling totally better by now. And your questions will all be answered soon just stick around for more! Can't wait to read what you think about this chapter! Thanks again for reviewing!). I greatly, greatly appreciate you taking the time to let me know what you think.

A/N #3: Please keep reviewing so I know if anyone's interested enough for me to continue posting this up! It's all written out, I'm just waiting for some lovely reviews for the readers out there!

Chapter Fourteen
Escape

Grabbing Sam's hand, Daniel pulled her towards the door, just as a small piece of the ceiling fell to the floor. He was surprised they could run, but it meant that it wasn't an earthquake. The palace itself was coming down.

As he passed the staff weapon he'd brought, Daniel snatched it up before they came out into the hall. He saw some movement at the other end, and pushed Sam to the floor, just as the two guards he had knocked unconscious fired on them. He immediately raised his arm and shot at the two men, hitting one in the chest and the other in the face. He didn't stop to think about them, instead he and Sam got up hurriedly. He started to run down the other end of the hallway, where the only way out of the building was, when she ran over to the fallen guards. "Sam!" he yelled.

Picking up one the staff weapons, and trying not to look at the guard that had been shot in the face, Sam ran back to Daniel and they continued down the hall. Around the corner was the staircase and they took off down the first flight. Turning around the first landing, they came upon a figure being held by their arm. Sam instantly raised her weapon and shot at the guard, killing him and setting the person free. "Athena!" she cried, running down to the pregnant woman.

"My lady!" Athena cried, her faced covered in dust. "He is gone!"

"We killed him, you have to come with us," Sam said, taking her hand.

"We need to move!" Daniel said, seeing more guards coming up the stairs and the ceiling cracking above.

Turning, Sam pushed Athena behind her and fired at the first man who neared. He went down, and she shot at the next, ducking a shot that came towards her. She heard the sound of another weapon being fired, and glanced to see Daniel had just shot the third and fourth guards. She shot the last man and turned to Athena, taking her hand again and ran with Daniel down the stairs once more.

Daniel had to shoot at five more men, taking out three, while Sam ran up next to him to help and she took out the other two. They reached the bottom floor then and he ran with Sam and the young woman into a huge throne room. He stopped, looking around in surprise as he tried to remember the layout of where they were. He looked across the room at two doorways, three feet apart. He quickly saw the layout in his mind, and he reached over to Sam next to him to start running for the right doorway. The sound of a staff weapon preparing to fire stopped him as he grabbed Sam's hand, and he turned at the same time that she and the young woman did to see a guard standing in the doorway they'd run in from, a few feet in front of them.

The next few seconds seemed to pass in slow motion. The guard's finger moved to fire, his weapon aimed at Sam. Daniel was able to shoot his staff before the shot was all the way to them; eventually killing the guard. Athena screamed as soon as the guard fired, she moved to block Sam, the shot hitting her square in the chest.

"Athena!" Same cried, righting herself from her dive to the floor. She knelt next to the young woman, studying her wound. "Oh god," she whispered, hearing her gasp for air, breath rattling. "Why…?" she asked, tears burning the backs of her eyes.

"I… s-saw one… of us w-would leave this place… alive," Athena gasped as Daniel appeared in her field of vision. "It must b-be you."

"You can't die," Sam said, fighting her tears. In the short time she'd known Athena she had grown attached to her, feeling like the young woman was her sister. "We'll take you back to Earth, you'll be fine. You and your child."

Athena shook her head, feeling blood well up into her mouth. "Go," she said as commandingly as she could. "I have helped you… as much as I c-could my lady… You must go… go and live free as I never will… You, you must tell him…" she struggled, glancing at Daniel.

"Sam, we have to go," Daniel said, having been watching the ceiling in case it started to fall. When he got no answer he glanced at her and said more urgently, "Sam!" though he didn't want to leave the young woman behind; he knew there was no hope of saving her with the wound she had received.

"Go Samantha,' Athena said, smiling gently. "If you should e-ever tell… your children of me… I hope you will tell them, I-I was loyal until th-the end." A small smile appeared on her face as she lay back on the ground, and with a whistling breath, died.

"No… Athena…" Sam whispered, knowing that it was futile, but she didn't want to let go of the young woman. A loud crash shook her and she looked through the doorway to see the staircase past it crumbling.

With a quick look at each other, Sam and Daniel got up and ran to the doorway on the right side at the opposite end of the throne room. As they ran, the ceiling began to fall, and they both looked back before speeding up as fast as they could go. They burst out outside and down the staircase that led to the desert surrounding the palace, dust shooting out from behind them. They didn't stop though and kept on going until they had reached the forest fifty yards from the palace, going in several feet before a loud rumbling made them stop and turn. Panting heavily they watched as the last walls of Seth's palace fell to the desert floor, sending up a high cloud of dust above and all around where the building had been. Looking at each other in the sudden silence, Sam and Daniel knew they were both thinking the same thing.

This time it was over.

At the moment that Sam and Daniel were concentrating on the sapphire's power to kill Seth, Jack and Teal'c were still on the battlefield. They had no idea how many soldiers they'd killed, since it seemed like their numbers were endless. Amazingly, they hadn't been hurt, and Jack started to think that the 'zombies' were being directed to shoot or kill only the natives. But as far as he knew, none of them had died. All he encountered lifeless on the sand were the soldiers of The Ruler. It was confusing, but he had little time to really think about it as he shot and felled another solider, Teal'c doing the same next to him.

Jack looked over at Teal'c, who was aiming for another soldier and commented wryly, "They do die at least."

"You doubted the word of Thorcamb?" Teal'c asked, firing his staff weapon and felling another enemy.

Not answering, Jack instead yelled to the Jaffa, "Too bad this isn't one of those zombie video games." He raised his P-90 at a soldier coming towards him, and when he was about six feet away, he was about to fire. But the soldier suddenly collapsed to the sand, and he lowered his weapon, surprised.

Teal'c straightened his staff weapon next to Jack as the soldier he'd been about to fire on fell as well. He looked with the colonel all over the battlefield; all of Seth's army was strewn across the sand.

"Are they… dead, dead?" Jack asked as Teal'c knelt next to a soldier they'd walked over to. He had his rifle aimed at the man's forehead, but he didn't move as Teal'c touched his neck.

"There is no sign of any kind of life," Teal'c said.

The sound of cheering caught Jack's attention, and he turned his head to see the warriors were raising their swords or staff weapons in the air, their cries of joy obvious as Thorcamb on top of the dune raised his arms.

"They have done it!" the leader yelled so loud that it echoed through the field. But he was looking at Jack and Teal'c specifically. "Da'niel and Samantha have vanquished The Ruler. We are free!"

The men in the field cheered again, and they quickly got to work, bringing out stretchers for the wounded. As they did so, Jack and Teal'c made their way to Thorcamb, stepping around the bodies of soldiers who already seemed to be decaying.

"Anyone dead?" Jack asked when they reached the leader.

"It appears only one man has been struck down so far," Thorcamb replied. He saw the surprise on Jack's face and the raised eyebrow on Teal'c's and quickly explained. "We have an herb, taken before a battle; it will lessen the severity of a wound, just once. Those wounded here… they were stuck more than once." He shook his head and looked away to the men on the field putting the hurt onto stretchers and carrying them to where wagon-like vehicles were. He then looked back at the colonel and Teal'c and said, "We owe you a great debt Colonel O'Neill, Teal'c. You have protected my son and you, Colonel, you saved my daughter's betrothed from death."

"Well, all in a day's work," Jack said, nodding his head to the man. "So now that this Ruler guy's gone, can we go check on Daniel and Carter?"

"It-" Thorcamb began to say when a man ran over to them.

"Forgive me my lord," the man said, bowing. "But we do not have enough men to help transport the wounded. There are more than was expected."

"I guess we're helping," Jack said as Thorcamb frowned and glanced at him and Teal'c. "What're we going to be doing?"

"We need extra hands to lift the stretchers, and to drive the carts back to Philae," the man answered.

"Let's go to work, I'm sure those guys are feeling pretty lousy and could use the attention of your doctors," Jack replied and he and Teal'c followed the man to the stretchers on the sand.

"O'Neill," Teal'c said as they started to pick up a stretcher a moment later. He was turned to the north, where there was a cloud of dust rising high in the air.

"Damn it," Jack swore, running over to where Thorcamb was standing, looking at the dust with a few of the council members. "Is that the palace?" he asked.

"Yes, it has collapsed," Thorcamb said solemnly. "Da'niel and Samantha have destroyed everything of the Ruler."

"They might have been in the palace," Jack said.

"It is unlikely." Thorcamb said. "They were never meant to die."

Jack wanted to comment on that, when a council member called the leader over to him. Left alone, the colonel looked at Teal'c and said, "They got out of there."

"I believe Daniel Jackson and Major Carter are starting to make their way to the city even now," Teal'c replied.

Nodding, Jack walked with the Jaffa back to the stretchers and as they began to gather the wounded, both he and Teal'c wondering about their two friends and if they were even still alive.

As the dust started to slowly dissipate a few minutes after the palace had fully collapsed, Sam leaned against a tree behind her, breathing a little roughly after their run. She felt relief that it was over and she was free, but sadness at Athena's death. "What now?" she asked Daniel who was watching the reddish-brown dust.

"I have a mondary, it's tied up in the forest behind the palace… what's left of it," Daniel said, looking a little shocked. Everything that had happened had caught of with him finally and he felt dazed. "We'd better go," he said, shaking himself as the dust finally settled in the desert. He waited for Sam to stand and together they walked out to it.

Skirting around the ruins of the palace, nothing more than a tall pile of rubble, Sam and Daniel went to the forest where the back of the building had been, Daniel leading the way to where the mondary was. It had lain on the ground during the day and looked up as the two neared it, shaking its head before starting to stand when Daniel grabbed its reins.

"I could only get one," Daniel said apologetically as he helped Sam up onto the back of the saddle and released the reins from the tree branch. "They needed all the mondaries they could get for the battle."

"It's okay, I can ride sidesaddle," Sam replied as Daniel got up in front of her then. "The colonel and Teal'c… do you think they're okay?"

"They are, they swore they wouldn't fight," Daniel said. "Hold on, we need to head out." He felt Sam wrap her arms around him and a swallowed a little harder than normal before he nudged the mondary and it set off at a trot down the path to the south west out to the desert.

When they reached the sand, Sam felt the animal speed up and she tightened her grip on Daniel, thinking of something as she saw the positions of the suns. "Are we riding into the night?" she asked him.

"No, there won't be any light from the moons," Daniel replied. "We'll go as far as we can until it gets dark and stop for the night. We'll contact Jack then, I brought my radio."

"So these packs-" Sam began, looking down at the roll of blankets that her legs were draped over.

"For when we stop," Daniel replied. He felt Sam nod, and he sped up a little faster. He felt relief that she was alright, despite the fact that she had new bruises from their tangle with Seth, but there was something that bothered him. Something that he knew he shouldn't have been feeling when they had won but couldn't help. Where he and Sam going to go from there…