A/N: Oy, this took a while to get up. I made the mistake of having two other ongoing long fics at the same time. Should have known better. Still, ta-dah, here it is. Not sure if there's going to be another one. Okay, I'm half sure there is but I don't have an idea when it'll be up or where it'll be going. Any ideas? Maybe I oughta end it just here.
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Morning dawned bitterly cold and while Sam crept off to a clump of convenient shrubbery to tend to her needs, Colonel O'Neill brewed some coffee and Daniel unpacked their breakfast, providing a running commentary over everything: '' Oh, yes, it looks like sawdust surprise today. Scrummy. Followed by dubious-berry mush, with a side helping of... of... Jack, I'm not kidding, this says gravy on it.''
By the time Sam got back, the Colonel had outlined the plan of action for that day to Teal'c, who was most intrigued by the talents of the local population. Sam was rather thankful she'd missed the explanation of how they'd found out the ritual had worked but Teal'c didn't look at her in any abnormal way so she supposed she was being oversensitive.
Okay, she knew she was being oversensitive.
'' Coffee, Mrs. O'Neill?'' the Colonel asked, holding out a tin to her and grinned.
'' Mmm, thanks.'' She cupped her hands around it, grinning over the rim at him. The steam rose into the icy-crisp morning air and she sipped the liquid thankfully, glad for her several warming layers of clothing and the distant, pale sun in the sky.
'' It looks like the villagers are up and about,'' he commented, crouching down next to her. '' You up for a wander down after breakfast?''
'' Course.'' She accepted one of the ration bars that got thrown at her, and then handed her coffee back to the Colonel, who raised his eyes but sipped the drink anyway. '' What flavour's this?''
'' Sawdust surprise. I know you can't take the berry thing,'' Daniel said, wincing as he carefully re-packed the gravy. '' I think someone put that in there as a joke.''
'' SG-3,'' the Colonel muttered.
Sam glanced at him; he tended to blame everything on the marines when he got the chance. Professional competition and all. She reached over and took back the coffee for another couple of sips. '' Daniel, how are we going to get the natives to discuss what they did if we don't understand them?''
'' Ah, I've been thinking about that.'' Daniel jumped up, promptly tripped over a collection of rocks, but righted himself almost immediately. He scrabbled in his pack and came out with a couple of books, then pulled his own notepad from his jacket pocket. '' I got up early this morning and I think I've come with some basic phrases that I can teach you. The language is terribly obscure, but these books should help some.''
He came to stand in front of Sam and Colonel O'Neill, looking pointedly at the gap between them. They looked up at him, refusing to get what he was hinting at.
Daniel rolled his eyes. '' Guys, it'll be easier if I sit in the middle. If you could just unglue yourselves for a few minutes....?''
Grudgingly, Sam and her temporary husband separated. Daniel sighed as if they were two particularly wearisome children, and dropped down between them. '' Teal'c and I came up with some standard phrases - to describe Sam's situation, firstly. Then a question about the auras.'' He flipped open his notebook, balancing the other books on his knees. '' I've written them out phonetically. Sam, try this phrase out for size.''
Sam leaned over a little and enunciated the sentence carefully.
'' Fine. Not great, but it'll do. You just told them you were purging.''
The Colonel snorted.
'' Oh great.''
Daniel grinned, pointed to another phrase. '' Jack, now you.''
Colonel O'Neill made a face and spat the phrase out quickly.
'' Jack, that was really very good.'' Daniel sounded surprised, and he gave his leader an assessing look. '' Try this one.''
Eyebrows raised, the Colonel did so.
'' Brilliant. You've got a very good grasp of the vowels. Been to Turkey, by any chance?''
He cleared his throat. '' Uh, Daniel, I'm not at liberty to...''
'' Oh, right, right, of course.'' He shook his head, watched as Sam handed the tin of coffee back to the Colonel. '' Okay. I've written the translations underneath in a very blunt pencil.'' He tilted the notebook to the light and winced. '' Which is why my handwriting is more illegible than usual.''
'' Looks no different to me.''
'' I take back everything I said about your vowel enunciation. Sam is clearly better than you. Again.''
Sam promptly giggled, then hurriedly turned it into a cough when the Colonel looked at her dangerously. '' Sorry. Swallowed some... sawdust.'' She shoved another lump of her ration bar into her mouth and tried not to look amused.
'' I thought, we thought, if you got stuck, you could just take a pen along and draw what you mean. I've written the words similar to auras down. Teal'c did a couple of sketches....''
Both Sam and her CO leaned over to get a look at those.
The Colonel whistled. '' Hey, Teal'c, that's a good one.''
Teal'c smiled slightly, and nodded his acceptance of this compliment. '' I have been practising with Cassandra Fraiser. She is most adept at drawing.''
'' Doesn't take after her aunt.''
'' I can't be good at everything,'' Sam complained pointedly.
'' Don't worry, darling, I love you anyway.''
Continuing with the theme, Sam gave him a caustic look, '' Oh, you're so sleeping on the sofa tonight.''
They giggled, Daniel looked disgusted, and Teal'c decided it would be wise to ignore the lot of them and go back to his guarding.
'' Is that all, Daniel?'' her CO said impatiently, taking the notebook and flicking through. '' Man, you weren't kidding about your scrawl, were you?''
Daniel ground his teeth and climbed up. '' I hope your children take after Sam.''
'' All five of them?'' Sam said, raising her eyebrows. '' The house will be in pieces by the time we get back home, in that case.''
'' Don't worry - we left them with Jacob. Selmak will keep them in line,'' Jack murmured, squinting as he tried to read Daniel's words. '' I don't think this sentence construction exists.''
Sam scooted over, nudged him with her shoulder so his arm dipped down behind her in an almost embrace. She finished off her ration bar. '' Ready to go?''
'' A little eager aren't we?''
'' From an entirely scientific point of view.''
He drained their coffee and stood up, brushing his trousers down, then offering her a hand to help her up. Normally, she would have given him a scathing look, but this morning things were different. He pulled her up easily - with none of the theatrical groaning her father or brother would have done in an effort to embarrass her - and even ran a hand over her hair affectionately. She grinned up at him, then headed back to their tent to pack up her things.
Earlier, when he'd told her the villagers were up and about, she'd kind of assumed that only a few would be around. Perhaps the farmers. What she hadn't realised was the whole town seemed to be running around - predominantly male children in the street, following the two strangers, adults standing in the doorways and chattering. A small number of young women clustered together under the watchful eye of male guardians.
The Colonel had managed to get the location of Edin's house from a stammering young man who'd looked at both of them with intense nervousness. The entire conversation had been held with hand gestures. The Colonel conveyed Edin's big hair to the young man, who nodded fervently and gestured down the main street, plucking at his own clothes for some reason. Deciding to take their chances, they walked off down the street, looking out for the leader they'd spoken to the day before.
'' Oh, I get it,'' Sam said, as they walked down the road. She grabbed the Colonel's arm and pointed to a particular house that was at least twice the size of everyone else's. It was the exact same shade of yellow as the young man's clothes.
'' Bright kid. Do we knock or what?'' he asked, looking around the door, his eyes lingering on the strange words that were once again inscribed above the door.
'' I don't see a bell. Go for it.''
'' Is that an order?''
She rolled her eyes and swiftly knocked herself. Colonel O'Neill made a face at her. '' Don't be so immature,'' she muttered.
'' Okay, but next time you get a new doohickey I get to take it apart.''
'' Over my dead body.''
'' Have I mentioned my previous career?''
Sam gave him her best innocent look. '' Fishing?''
Their conversation was cut short by the sound of feet approaching the door, but in the end it wasn't Edin who came to the door, but the old woman that had performed the dreaded ritual the day before. Sam had difficulty in not giving the woman her patented death look but when she glanced up at the Colonel she decided she oughtn't have bothered. He was doing very well for the both of them.
'' Edin,'' the Colonel barked at her.
The woman narrowed her yellow-brown eyes and ignored the Colonel, looking instead at Sam. She stepped down onto the sidewalk and swiftly reached out and patted Sam on the abdomen.
'' Hey!'' Sam exclaimed, stepping back. '' Personal space mean anything to you?''
She didn't understand the words, exactly, but clearly the sentiment was not lost on her. For the first time, the elderly woman smiled, crinkling up her eyes. She tweaked Sam's cheek and waved her arm towards the door, gesturing for Sam and the Colonel to go inside.
'' We should have brought Daniel,'' the Colonel murmured, going first and looking around the entrance room.
'' He's the only one who can transcribe the ruins. And, besides, I want to get as much done as possible so we can go home and Janet can put me on whatever drugs she feels necessary.''
'' That's the attitude, Carter.''
She looked around. The walls and ceiling appeared to be covered almost entirely with flowers - vines and blooms trailing from the ceiling. There was a wooden staircase circling up in the corner, leading up to the second floor, while to the left and right other, larger rooms opened up. Sam was particularly interested in the room directly to her left - it appeared to be some kind of lab, with work benches, bottles and other apparatus that, while not exactly familiar, certainly struck her as scientific.
'' Carter, your guy's here.''
Edin was creeping down the stairs, smiling at them cheerfully. He even waved.
Both Sam and Colonel O'Neill tensed. They just weren't used to such ebullient natives, particularly when the guy had been so grumpy the day before.
Edin surveyed Sam and her CO with a pleased expression. He said something to the old woman, who was also looking at them like they'd done something really clever, and then reached forward to Sam. Thankfully, before Sam could get yet another pat on the stomach, Colonel O'Neill's hand swooped out of nowhere and grabbed Edin's wrist. Smiling rather forcefully, he pushed Edin's arm away from his second in command. '' We'll have no more of that,'' the Colonel said though his teeth.
He pulled Daniel's notebook from his pocket and cleared his throat, opened his mouth. Paused. '' Oh, wait, sweetheart, that's your line,'' he said, handing it back to Sam.
Sam sighed and dully read off the sentence, though she rather thought it was redundant since it was pretty obvious Edin and the old woman knew exactly what was happening to her body.
Just as she thought, the moment she finished her sentence, the two of them were nodding, grinning like Cheshire cats. Pleased with themselves.
The Colonel sighed this time. '' Man, what's the next one?''
She passed back the notebook. '' The part where you ask them how they did it.''
'' Okay, now listen and learn, honey.'' He reeled off the next line in the list and raised his eyebrows expectantly at Edin and his partner in crime.
They both started talking at once.
'' Woah! Woah! Okay, this isn't going to work.'' The Colonel leaned back and looked into the lab room, made a quick decision. He waved around the room, encompassing the four of them, and then pointed into the room.
Edin babbled something and walked into the room, with the old woman and the two 'aliens' following them behind closely.
The Colonel picked a table, slapped the notebook down and then fished the other two books out of his pack. He ran his hands through his hair. '' Right. Gather around people.''
It took a frustrating two hours of leaning over a wooden bench and getting a crick in her back, but Sam and her Colonel managed to convey their questions to Edin and 'Oolah' - ('what can of a name is that? Almost as bad as Martouf and Narim and... okay, I'll shut up now'). And, eventually, they managed to translate through an astonishing method of drawing, picking out some of Daniel's words, and absurd gestures exactly what Edin and Oolah were trying to say.
'' Holy shit,'' the Colonel said, when the entire truth eventually dawned.
'' That's really amazing. I'd really like to take a sample of their blood back to the SGC,'' Sam said immediately switching into scientist mode.
'' Hell, I'd like to take a sample of their blood back to the SGC.'' He sat back on one of the strange, five legged stools that Edin had finally suggested they all sit on and looked at her. '' I guess... the way they looked... I thought they'd be entirely human.''
So had Sam, which, frankly, went against everything she knew of as a scientist. She should have known better than to assume without evidence. These people were, for want of a better word, completely alien.
Oolah rotated the notebook and looked at the picture Sam had drawn (much to the Colonel's amusement) of herself - her usual stick figure. She picked up the pencil Sam had used and carefully drew something else beside Sam's picture. Then something else. She turned the notebook around and both Sam and Colonel O'Neill leaned forward.
'' Takes after you,'' he murmured in her ear.
She tilted her head towards him, felt his mouth brush her cheek. They were dancing on a line, she knew, but didn't seem to be able to stop herself. '' I don't know. He's got your hair.''
He chuckled, turned his head away, briefly touched his forehead to her shoulder before sitting upright, Colonel O'Neill once more.
Sam picked the notebook up and grinned at the image. Oolah had drawn a second stick figure, taller, with the stupid wide-brimmed hat the Colonel had been wearing the day before. She loved that hat - just because it was so damn silly looking on him. At their feet was a smaller stick figure, obviously supposed to be a child, with short, spiky hair.
Enjoying herself thoroughly, Sam leaned over and grabbed the pencil, swiftly drew another stick figure, this time with longer hair in bunches and showed Oolah and Edin.
Oolah looked deeply approving, her smile a mile wide and eyes glinted, while Edin nodded sagely.
'' When we get back, Daniel's gonna freak.''
'' I guess we'll be sending a research party back through when we go home.''
'' We certainly will.'' He smiled, mock-saluted the couple and slid off his stool. '' Mrs. O'Neill, I think it's time to return to Danny and Teal'c with our findings.''