Thera lived for moments like this. True, the floor was hard against her right side and doubly uncomfortable now that she had a heavier body to press down against it. The air was tinged with the thick taste and smell of burning ore and engine grease and she could feel the grim of the day's work, and some from the two days before that since showers were so strictly rationed, gritty and slick on her sweat-sheened skin. It also didn't escape her notice that she was, for all intents and purposes, naked in what could easily be a public area. Those were the negatives aspects, however, and Thera had learned to look for the good side of every situation. Without that ability one quickly went night sick in the caves.
The positives were myriad and they were all bundled into one package. Jonah. He laid behind her with an arm around her middle to encompass mother and unborn child in a loose hold. She could still feel the places on her body where he'd kissed her, his bare front warm against her back. The manual labor in the mines had done wonders for his physique and he was solid muscle, harder and bigger than he used to be, all of that plastered firmly against Thera. His fingers were brushing idly over the tightness of her rounded stomach as though without thought and it captivated Thera... as well as tickled a little bit. His face was dipped into the crook of her neck, his mouth just barely touching her throat and his breath even and comforting against her carotid pulse point.
They had so few moments like this. Intimacy was a tricky business in the caves and to have any form of physical relationship with another person each worker had to make certain concessions and sacrifices. Shyness was the first to go. There were no designated areas for carnal encounters, no privacy as such. To be sexually active meant accepting others might happen to see.
It was why Jonah lay where he did, propped forward against her as he was. When they lay together and held each other after making love he always placed himself between Thera and the open end of their personal alcove. He used his own naked body to shield Thera from wandering eyes as best he could. She loved him for that, though she had reconciled the fact long ago that to be with Jonah she would have to chance her other work mates seeing more of her than she would have liked. It was an acceptable surrender of her modesty for his touch. Still, Jonah tried to keep her 'honor' intact at the expense of his own and Thera thought it was sweet.
There was also an unspoken code among the workers, and an understanding on the matter of couples, working in their favor. Yes, accidental 'sighting' of a pair engaged in certain 'activities' might be inadvertently witnessed, but it was policy, like a social contract agreed upon by all, to not watch. Thera had once 'stumbled upon' two of her coworkers together and discretely looked away, backed off, and tended to work elsewhere until enough time had elapsed for them to finish. It was a communal courtesy everyone upheld without needing to be asked so each might be extended the same courtesy in return.
Even if it wasn't, she seriously doubted there were many workers who would risk angering Jonah just for a peek of her now distorted body.
Jonah, propped on one elbow to lean against her, pulled his head up from her neck and Thera glanced over her shoulder to see him looking at her belly. Jonah was enchanted by the child in her womb and at such unguarded moment she saw the raw tenderness and awe in his brown eyes. He put up a good front at all other times, but when they were alone he relaxed his defenses and Thera saw just how much Jonah cared for her and their baby. It always managed to turn her insides one-eighty and make her love him all the more.
She glanced down at her own body and watched Jonah tracing his fingers over the brown stripes on her stomach, unsightly stretch marks in Thera's eyes but Jonah had responded only by kissing each one and she didn't mind them so much anymore.
The baby kicked and Thera, taken by surprise at the suddenness and strength of the action, flinched faintly.
Jonah smiled. "Did it hurt?"
"No, just startled me."
Jonah, a soft smirk still fixed on his lips, dropped his chin to Thera's shoulder and continued to rub her abdomen. Thera felt like she'd gained an unseemly amount of weight in just the past two and half weeks. Her belly suddenly expanded almost daily to the naked eye and everything became ungainly and horribly awkward for her to do. Before, Jonah had just been chivalrous helping her up and down from the floor but now she couldn't do either without his help, not without relying heavily on walls, available supports like crates and boxes, and the adoption of strange hands-and-knees starting points.
Jonah was getting a kick out of the advancement of her pregnancy. But then, he didn't have to carry the baby. Thera was just getting annoyed and, she was sad to confess, increasingly peevish. It was small wonder pregnancies were discouraged in the caves. It was a terrible place to go through pregnancy, as Thera was learning in vivid detail.
As though in illustration of her point a spot on Thera's hip began to ache sharply from lying on the unforgiving rock ground. Thera shifted, failed to relieve the pain, and Jonah observantly asked, "What?"
Thera sighed roughly. Jonah was getting good at uncovering her ever-increasing list of discomforts and complaints and she hated that.
"My hip, the floor's starting to hurt."
Jonah, without a word, reached over their heads to where their clothes were piled. He snagged his jacket first and folded it a couple of times then said, "Up."
Thera, irritated, awkwardly lifted her hips off the ground and Jonah slipped the jacket under her. When she settled again, Jonah's hand on her waist to guide her down, she came to rest on the padding of the heavy coat.
"Better?"
Thera nodded. Her shoulder still hurt and her back was plagued by the constant low-grade ache now her unending cross and her legs were starting to complain about the floor too, but her hip was no longer a flash-point of pain. What she really needed was to get up off the floor but she wasn't ready to give up Jonah's bare embrace yet. She'd have to get just a little bit more uncomfortable, and cranky, before that happened.
The baby shifted inside her and Thera's bad mood tempered just a little.
Jonah was stroking her arm, from shoulder to fingers, in slow, lazy passes. She closed her eyes and felt drowsy under the caress.
"I like your new jacket," he said in a playful voice.
Thera snorted. Her regular jacket had ceased to close around her girth and the materials' attendant had traded her too-small coat for one much larger. It was made for a man easily twice Carlin's size and while the sides covered her stomach well enough the article of clothing in its entirety hung almost to her knees and she had to fold the sleeves back several times just to expose her hands. She looked ridiculous in it but no one had had the audacity to tease her about it... until just now with Jonah's low voice still roughened from sex.
It was hard to be mad at him, however, when his remark was immediately followed by a kiss on her shoulder. She decided he'd broke even and didn't say anything scathing.
"You've been quiet lately," he noted after a little while.
Thera's lips pursed. "Something's up with Carlin."
Jonah's hand stopped, maybe unconsciously, and he murmured, "I noticed that too. He sure is acting flaky."
'Flaky' was a good enough word for it. Nearly three weeks after his 'confession' of opening up the ship cockpit against Brenna's express orders he'd become elusive. He wasn't around much, an almost darting figure during meals and often strangely absent at bed-down. He was almost what Thera would call furtive, certainly distracted, and undeniably distant to his two closest friends.
"Maybe we should talk to him," she suggested.
Jonah grunted but it was a noncommittal sound and Thera knew just from knowing Jonah what it really meant. Jonah was still unhappy that Carlin had ventured back into the ship after Brenna had forbade it and in doing so put them all in danger. And though it had only been Carlin's transgression it felt like his actions would inflict consequences on Jonah and Thera as well. Somehow they three were indelibly united, they shared a common fate. Jonah had chosen his side and, if necessary, he would cut ties to Carlin if it would help protect Thera and the baby. Already Jonah was pulling back, fortifying his walls, setting up a perimeter to keep Carlin at bay. He was establishing 'not caring' about Carlin and whatever he might do. Thera was disquieted by the development in the men's friendship but, for the sake of her child, she couldn't condemn it.
Thera's shoulder was escalating from uncomfortable to painful and the weight of the baby suddenly seemed to settle strangely with her lying on her side. "I need to get up, Jonah," she said regretfully, and without complaint he pulled away and helped her sit up. He handed her her clothes, the first of which she donned was her shirt and jacket. The jacket covered so much of her body that she could, without being horribly exposed, wait to struggle into her pants until she was on her feet and Jonah could help her.
Not hindered by the same handicap as a bowling ball for a stomach, Jonah slipped into his clothes (sans jacket, which Thera was using as a seat cushion) and asked, "You ready to head back?"
Thera's immediate impulse was to say no, but that was a purely emotional answer. She never felt like she got to spend enough time alone with him. "Yes," she replied and she sourly held out her hands to him for assistance.
Jonah, gently amused, stood and then hauled Thera to her feet. She had to swallow her pride and let him help her into her pants and shoes then he retrieved his jacket from the ground and tended to the rest of his dressing.
They were finally ready to head back to barracks with only a handful of minutes to spare before bed-down.
"What do you want to do about Carlin?" Thera asked.
Jonah, close at Thera's side as they emerged from their hiding place, scowled and finally had something to say on the matter. "I'm not going to do anything about Carlin. He can take care of himself."
Thera's eyes dropped and her mouth down-turned. So that was it. She understood it, and she in many ways agreed with it, but she still felt the potential loss of Carlin's companionship like a steam burn in her chest. Carlin had been the only other person in the caves she had trusted, almost as much as she trusted Jonah, and those one could truly trust in the caves were precious few.
It was a meeting Brenna had long dreaded and secretly hoped to never face again. It had been unpleasant the first time to report the 'lapse' in the former SG-1 but now... now it was so much harder. They had all been doing so well, working so diligently with no signs of rejecting the stamps. She was silently cursing Carlin for his disobedience. If he had just done as he was told she wouldn't be standing in front of Caulder waiting for judgment to be passed on three of the most unique workers Brenna had ever supervised.
Caulder's face said it all, even before he said an actual word. He was mightily disgruntled to find out that Carlin had been engaging in suspiciously questionable activities. He looked unhappy but far from surprised. Brenna understood then that the entire time, since the trouble with the initial stamp, Caulder had been waiting for them to step out of line. He'd always expected their eventual relapse. He'd been waiting for their fall. For him it was vindication that his original decree, to banish the team to the surface and to certain death, had been correct and Brenna's overly sentimental appeal on their behalf had been misguided.
Brenna had never particularly liked Caulder, but at that moment it came closer to something resembling loathing.
"It's quite clear that the stamp is once again losing its hold on SG-1."
Still, Brenna had to try. "All respect intended, Administrator, but I don't think that's necessarily the case."
"Oh, you don't?"
"No. It may be a case of Car–Doctor Jackson's innate curiosity asserting itself. We've seen that the stamping process has minimal effect on personality traits; this might simply be an expression of an inherent characteristic of his nature."
"Why, then, Brenna, did he see fit to be so secretive? Why not request permission to study the room?"
Brenna winced at the excellent question. "He may have known he wouldn't be granted access if he asked."
"A flagrant disregard for rules and premeditated disobedience that would not be found in a genuinely dutiful worker."
Brenna had no rejoinder to that.
"Unfortunately," Caulder said, "termination is no longer a suitable course of action. At least, not in the case of Major Carter."
Brenna looked up at Caulder and waited for him to explain.
"How long until she delivers?"
Brenna shook her head. Since workers were expendable the medical facilities available to tend to them were far from technologically savvy; to say the least it made pinning down a due date difficult. "I can't be certain but not long."
Caulder nodded. "We've invested considerable resources to maintain this pregnancy and I won't sacrifice the mother before we can reap the benefits of the child." He thought to himself a moment then observed aloud, "The stamp's effects on the Earth team lasted longer this time than it did the first."
"Yes."
Caulder looked pensive. "Stamp Major Carter again. It should hold long enough for her to give birth, and once we have the baby then we can deal with her."
Brenna swallowed past a dry throat. "What of Jonah and Car–uh, Colonel O'Neill and Doctor Jackson?"
Caulder looked at her pointedly. "Exile to the surface, of course."
Brenna' stomach hardened. "Administrator... if I may."
Caulder sighed in irritation.
"We're in the middle of a massive excavation for mineral ore we desperately need to maintain our machines and keep them going. Jonah is leader of the premiere crew of miners and the men work well for him. Carlin is a very strong, capable worker in his own right. We cannot afford to discard men that capable right now."
Caulder was peering hotly at her. "Why was I not informed that you'd given Colonel O'Neill command of a group of workers?"
Brenna blinked, thrown by the administrator's fixation on that one detail. "I..."
"Brenna, Colonel O'Neill was a leader among his people, a people notoriously meddlesome and noncomplacent to our culture. Did it never occur to you that giving him power over any contingent of our population, giving him any opportunity to lead them against us, might not be wise?"
"I didn't think of that."
Caulder shook his head at her, like she was little more than a dangerously inattentive child. "You allow yourself only to see Jonah, Brenna, but beneath that mask we have given him is Colonel O'Neill, a dangerous man to our people's very way of life. That was very foolish."
"I'm sorry, Administrator."
"But I interrupted you. I believe you were about to tell me why we mustn't exterminate this threat to our very existence?" His tone dripped with condescension.
"I'm merely saying that with our new mining operation the loss of two good workers would be sorely felt."
Caulder was silent a long time, long enough for Brenna to feel the seconds slow, then he said, "You make a good point, though I detest the truth to your logic. You are the authority on productivity and the activity of the workers; no one knows the state of affairs beneath the surface better than you. Of course, we cannot spare the manpower... a greater cause demands it.
"Stamp them all again. We'll get our due work out of Colonel O'Neill and Doctor Jackson and we'll have the child borne of Major Carter and Colonel O'Neill's union, then they will be purged from our underground and with them any lingering threat to our society."
Brenna could do nothing more. To have literally saved their lives twice was more than she could have realistically expected. Even if, it seemed, she would only postpone certain death for Jonah, Carlin, and Thera this second time.
"See to it."
Brenna nodded faintly. "It is an honor," she said then quickly left the room. She couldn't get away from the administrator's office fast enough.
She was tormented by what she must do. She had to, in effect, take them away from each other. She had to order the procedure that would make Thera forget Jonah all over again, make Jonah forget Thera, each to forget Carlin, Carlin to forget them both. The baby would lose its parents before ever truly meeting them. It would soon have an incubator more than a mother. It would have practically no ties to its father.
On a more personal level, Brenna herself would lose the small camaraderie she had established with Thera.
But there was nothing she could do. She'd fought for them as much as her limited powers would allow but the former SG-1 had proven, in the administrator's eyes, too dangerous to be chanced.
So Brenna would have to kill them twice, once the people they had become and then their bodies with whatever remained of who they were after their memory stamp.
Sometimes she really hated her job, honor to serve or not.
