90

Okay, first things first. Things are looking pretty grim, and are going to get even grimmer. Before you throw up your hands in disgust and give up, I absolutely guarantee a happy ending. Promise. It's just going to take a while. So hang tight, all will be well. Just not right away.

Breaking the Habit

General Hammond took the report from Dr. Frasier as if he were afraid it would bite him. It was the findings on the flower that Major Carter had brought back. "Can you give me the highlights, Doctor?" he asked.

"Yes, sir," Janet replied. "The flower's scent is a pretty potent mood-altering drug, but I don't believe it's natural. There are certain markers that suggest it was genetically altered."

"Is it addictive?" The question was one that had been on his mind ever since he'd first heard that Evree had been exposed to it.

"Very much so," Frasier answered. "In fact, when I tested it on rats, nine out of the ten went into congestive heart failure during withdrawal and died."

For a minute or two, Hammond just stared at the paper in his hand like it was responsible for the bad news. Then, he got himself together. "As you may know, Doctor, SG-1 is way overdue to report in. I haven't given up hope, but the delicacy of the current situation precludes sending in another team just yet. But in light of the information that you've just given me, Evree is probably going to be in pretty bad shape when they do return. Get whatever you may need set up and ready to go, and have people standing by 24/7. I'm putting SG-8 and SG-3 on alert as well."

"Yes, sir." Janet would have like to say more, but SG-1 could, and hopefully would, be returning at any time. She needed to prepare her facilities for a Goa'uld in acute withdrawal.

&&&&&

O'Neill walked down the corridors with Konaseus at his back, not a place where he was happy to have him, either. He idly wondered if his remark of the previous evening about it 'not working the first time', had bought them some time. That thought didn't take him very far, and there was something he was trying to keep from dwelling on, but nothing much was working. Just as he and Konaseus had started out the door, Evree had cried out, "Wait!" When they had stopped in their tracks (it hadn't occurred to either one of them not to), she had run up to him and pulled his head down to her level (Jack didn't resist, being Goa'uld, she was stronger than she looked). He was half-expecting one last kiss, but instead, she had whispered, "I love you", in his ear. It was a phrase neither of them had used to date. Evree wasn't sure that Goa'uld were truly capable of the emotion as she understood it, and Jack.., well, if he were honest with himself, he'd have to say he'd probably been in denial. He'd felt protective of her, most definitely lusted after her, but there was that one little part of him that said he couldn't be in love with a Goa'uld. Now, it was probably too late, and he really wished he had said it.

"You are not nearly so talkative as you were last night, Colonel O'Neill," Konaseus observed. "What did she say to you just as we were leaving?"

"None of your damn business," Jack growled. He hadn't liked Konaseus from the start, and what Evree had said to him was something he wasn't sure he felt like sharing with anyone at the moment, and most certainly not with Konaseus.

"Need I remind you, Colonel," the big man remarked, with signs of irritation. "That your life, and those of your friends lie in my hands?"

"I'm not stupid," O'Neill snapped. "I know that. I knew it the minute we first set eyes on you. And I'm still not telling you. It was.., personal."

"Do not delude yourself that she may have feelings for you," Konaseus warned condescendingly. "The thought that a superior creature such as a Goa'uld might have any more affection than one gives a favored pet for a lower being such as yourself is absurd."

Keep it cool, Jack, O'Neill told himself. Konaseus doesn't know, but he may suspect. He's trying to piss you off so badly that you blurt it out without thinking. But the less rational part of him wanted to do just that. To wipe that supercilious smirk off his swarthy face and deflate that towering ego.

"As far as your life goes," Konaseus continued with scarcely a pause. "That is safe. For the moment. Until the time arrives when my queen realizes that she had no need of you."

"So you're just going to lock us in that box of a room until Evree forgets about us?" It was actually better than O'Neill had anticipated. At least, it gave them some time.

&&&&&&

Evree sat in a large, open window (the room was high enough that only a death wish would prompt her to try to use it as an exit), carefully working the tangles from her hair and fighting back the pain. She wasn't sure which pain was worse, her body crying out for Konaseus' drug, or the pain in her heart that said she would never see O'Neill again, even in the unlikely even that Konaseus allowed him to live.

Konaseus entered Evree's room, once more, without knocking, expecting to hear that she was ready to deliver his symbiote at any time. He also anticipated that she would have used the vial of distillate that he had given her to chase away the effects of her nightmare and she would once more be serene, pliable and cooperative. It was a complete shock to him to find her sitting in a window, sobbing as though her heart would break. As he made his way towards her, his sandaled foot came down upon something that crunched. He stepped back and looked down, seeing the remnants of the vial that had contained the precious distillate. He frowned, but scooped up the flower he had had placed there for show and carried it, stem dripping water over to the window.

"Why do you weep, my queen?" he asked softly as he came near her. And then made a quick grab that saved a startled Evree from tumbling out the window.

"Because I am in pain," Evree replied breathlessly. She was startled, but not enough to specify the source of the pain that caused her tears. But she belatedly realized that she should not be in pain at all.

"Perhaps this will make things seem better," Konaseus suggested, offering her his flower.

Evree had to fight several impulses at once. The urge to merely cringe away from the flower, or what almost certainly have been worse, to slap it out of Konaseus' hand. But the last one was the very worst. The desire to snatch the blossom away and bury her face in it, inhaling deeply. Then. she knew, her pain would seem trivial and far away.

Evree took the proffered bloom, trying to control the shaking of her hands, but she carefully took a deep breath before bringing the flower to her face and hoping the act, and the one to follow would fool Konaseus. She raised her face and smiled at him, trying to quell the rising nausea.

"Better?" Konaseus inquired gently.

"Very much, thank you." Evree wished he would leave her. Working on the deliberately defective offspring would take a great deal of concentration. She could not do that and keep playing games with Konaseus at the same time.

"What happened to the distillate that I gave you?" he asked bluntly. Seeing her like this raised his suspicions. Had O'Neill told her about the drug? If so, well, he hadn't thought to forbid him to do so. But how else would she know?

"I dropped it." Evree blinked innocently. "It was terribly clumsy of me. Can you forgive me for destroying your thoughtful gift?"

"It was an accident, my queen." At this point in time, Konaseus was beginning to believe that it was no accident at all, but a very deliberate act. "At any rate, I have another gift for you."

"So very generous of you," Evree murmured, wondering what the gift could be. She was starting to become very distrustful of Konaseus' gifts. They all seemed to have some very expensive strings attached.

"Here." Konaseus held out the bauble briefly for Evree's inspection, then deftly fastened the chain around her neck. Like any good computer programmer, he believed in having a backup. And backups for the backups.

"It's lovely," she responded. A single, gold orb with intricate tracery depended from the chain, and somehow she began to feel better. Everything would work out. It had to.

Konaseus smiled back. Plans for every possible contingency, he thought with satisfaction. The decoration she now wore would give her nearly undetectable doses of the drug. But those miniscule amounts would be administered almost continuously. No more weeping, just his queen getting down to the business of breeding his symbiote.

&&&&&

Everyone had been up and awake when O'Neill returned to the cell. He saw faces full of questions, but he didn't feel like answering any of them at the moment. He went over to a corner, squatted down, balanced his elbows on his knees, steepled his fingers and started thinking. He had a lot of it to do.

The others watched O'Neill, but stayed at a respectful distance and gave him some space. For a little while, at least. Then, they were going to need a few answers to work out just what sort of plans as they could make in their current circumstances.

&&&&&&

Evree had listened to Konaseus drone on for over an hour before she managed to persuade him to leave. Her pleasant, drug-induced good humor had convinced him that she could not be up to something, and Evree had been very genuinely sincere in explaining that she really needed to be left alone to concentrate to make the necessary preparations to produce his symbiote. After receiving her promises that she would inform him via one of the robots when she was ready to deliver, he finally did leave.

She was now seated on the floor in a lotus, doing precisely that genetic tailoring of the lives her body was creating. A tear trickled down her cheek as she thought of what she was doing, deliberately birthing children with just enough brain function to exist, no more. She was able to weep, because she had slipped her new necklace into her pocket as soon as Konaseus' back was turned. If she didn't accept his latest deception, he would find still another way, one that she couldn't fight, or possibly even detect. He must be allowed to believe that he had won all, right up until the very last minute.

But Evree was making contingency plans of her own. She had assumed that the others had been disarmed when Konaseus had rendered them all unconscious. But he had no doubt either discounted the possibility that she was armed, or considered her too influenced by his drug to be dangerous. And indeed, that had been the case at the time. It was not until she had gone to put the necklace away that she realized that she still carried the Goa'uld bracelet. Much as she loathed Konaseus, she did not want to kill him. She was coming to the realization that he had plans within plans within plans, and to kill him might set something in motion that would be even more difficult to deal with than the man himself. But if it became absolutely necessary, and most certainly if he threatened O'Neill, or any of her friends, she amended hastily, then fogged in by the drug or not, she would kill him.

&&&&&&

Jack got up out of his corner. He'd gotten to the point where his thoughts were no longer making much sense, but were chasing each other around in circles, like a dog chasing its tail.

"How's Evree doing, sir?" Carter asked cautiously, as O'Neill joined the group.

"It depends on how you look at it," O'Neill replied. "On one hand, she looks like hell, pale, sweating, has the shakes. One the other hand, it's a good sign because..,"

"She's going into withdrawal," Daniel said softly. "I thought you weren't going to tell her."

"I didn't," O'Neill shot back. "She heard it from a source she had to believe, which I doubt would have been me when she was drugged up."

"Konaseus did not inform her of the fact, surely?" Teal'c inquired, surprised. He'd credited their captor with more intelligence than that.

"Draylea," Jack corrected him. "She's addicted too, obviously. But somehow, she was able to recognize it and tell Evree."

"And the symbiotes," Daniel pressed. "Is she going to be able to do what Egeria did?"

"She's not sure," O'Neill admitted. "But she's going to try."

"Do you have any idea what Konaseus plans for us?" Sam queried.

"He said he's going to keep us around until Evree realizes she doesn't need us," Jack reported grimly. "It wouldn't surprise me if he's keeping us for leverage, in case his drug can't get him everything he wants."

"Then despite what he said," Teal'c remarked. "That may be all that he is waiting for. For Evree to give him what he wants."

&&&&&

Evree glided silently into the room where Konaseus was reassembling the servitor that Sam had dissected. She seemed to be idly toying with the necklace he had given her, though in fact, she had spent some time in front of a mirror trying to make it seem like normal fidgeting, when in fact, she was attempting to shield herself from the worst of the drug's effects. She had no way of knowing whether or not it could be absorbed through the skin, but she did know for a fact that it was meant to be inhaled. Since that was the only fact she had to work with, she did what little she could with it.

She looked around the room, taking the opportunity, since Konaseus had not yet registered her presence. There was where she had stood, taking notes for Samantha, and there was where the big cat had attacked Teal'c.

Her mental wanderings were halted as Konaseus became aware of her presence. "You need not have come to me," he commented, although inwardly he was delighted that she'd made the effort. "Is it time yet?"

"It will take a few hours," Evree replied demurely. "In the meantime, I was growing weary of my own company. I am not used to being alone for extended periods of time." And that was no more than the truth. As sovereign of a planet with slaves to cater to her every whim, then to seek asylum on Earth and be under nearly constant surveillance for her own safety, Evree really almost never was alone.

"And I am being remiss in my duties as a host," Konaseus murmured apologetically. "I would beg your forgiveness."

"You have been a most kind and generous host," Evree responded warmly. A dose of the drug had gotten through at the right time to enable her to react so. "I realize that there are things you must do to maintain your dwelling. I would like to see the rest of my friends, if I may." She had carefully rehearsed the speech and had forced herself to put a little emphasis on the phrase, 'rest of my friends'. Let him believe that she trusted him.

"You do not desire my company?" Konaseus sounded genuinely hurt.

"I desire company," Evree answered simply. "But you seem to be occupied." Her stomach roiled as she implied that she would accept Konaseus' company. Would her seeming lack of preference between him and her friends convince him that he had nothing to lose by letting her see the others? Or would she be caught in her own trap and have to while away the time with Konaseus? Right now, the minute doses of the drug she was getting was all that made his presence even remotely tolerable.

"I would rather you didn't," Konaseus said slowly. To his eyes, the queen's behavior was most erratic. Part of the time she behaved as she would be expected to under the influence of his drug. But there were other times when he could detect traces of something else, probably her own personality. And what was she up to, constantly fiddling with the necklace he had placed around her neck? In the few short days he had known her, he had never seen her behave thus, even in the beginning, when she had obviously mistrusted and feared him. Before he definitely said either yea or nay to her request, he decided, a small test was called for. "But I do understand that it may take some time for you to let go of your unsuitable attachments," he went on. If the drug was doing the work it was supposed to, she should balk or take offense at that remark. Of course, if she were completely under the influence, as she should be, his original suggestion should have been enough. She should be happily obeying his slightest whim. Perhaps the drug itself was flawed, since he had not had a Goa'uld to use to tailor it to them on a genetic level. "I might, however reconsider, my queen. If you but grant me one small favor."

"You have but to name it," Evree agreed. She wasn't sure it was a good idea, to make an open promise, nor whether Konaseus would take it as a good sign or a bad one. But she needed to see that her friends were well. She deliberately allowed a dose of the drug to hit her and gave him a vapid, adoring and eagerly compliant smile.

"You may see them," Konaseus conceded. "If you kiss me first."

&&&&&&

The little pow-wow had broken up for the moment. All of them together had gotten no further than O'Neill had on his own. And since there was nothing going on, Jack was at the door, staring out the grate and thinking his own thoughts again.

Until Teal'c approached him.

"You have been quite withdrawn since your return," the Jaffa observed. "I surmise that something took place last night that disturbed you."

"I wouldn't necessarily say disturbed," Jack said defensively. "Let's just say it gave me food for thought."

"A great deal of thought, apparently," Teal'c pressed on.

"Well, it's.., complicated," O'Neill hedged.

"Then it must be about Evree," Teal'c went on calmly. "Complicated is a very appropriate word for your relationship."

"She told me she loves me," O'Neill broke down and confessed. He hadn't meant to tell anyone, and yet, he felt better for having said it.

Teal'c arched an eyebrow. "Is there some reason that would not be a good thing?"

"Did I say it wasn't?" Jack was still very much on the defensive, and realized that he was probably being more than a little silly. And that he certainly wasn't fooling anyone. Not even himself, and certainly not Teal'c. "I'm not sure how I feel about it. Except maybe a little guilty, because I never told her how I felt about her."

"So you will tell her the next time you meet," Teal'c replied evenly. Then, he caught O'Neill's look. "I see. You are not sure that you will see her again."

"Maybe," Jack answered evasively. "But never privately. At least, not enough for that."

"Are you ashamed of caring for her that you cannot speak of it in front of others?" Teal'c was relentless. "As you pointed out, your opportunities may be limited."

"I know," O'Neill muttered miserably. He was about to go on when a motion outside caught his eye. "Hey, there's one of those robots."