It was a real challenge keeping Janet entertained in the small space. If she napped, they all had to tiptoe around to keep from waking her. Daniel was still morbidly preoccupied with what might happen to them and would frequently just sit and watch her sleep but Sam chaffed under the inactivity and would leave their rooms and walk around the fortress.
Sam began to watch the soldiers drill and train. Colonel Samantha Carter, long shoved to the back of her brain, began to signal for attention. Her family's survival was now an issue and that pushed any concerns about sharing information out of her mind. She got Daniel to come with her and watch. As an archeologist, he was familiar with low technology weapons like those being used. As she hoped, he saw applicable improvements from other cultures he had studied. They went to Chako with the weaponry suggestions and ideas for hand to hand fighting techniques. Chako was enthusiastic about what they had to offer but initially didn't want anyone to know the ideas had come from them. Sam thought that without the ability to train the men directly it would be impossible to transmit the martial arts skills. Chako signed and leaned back wearily for a moment. Command had aged their carefree friend. Finally he looked at them and said, "Remember everyone believes that Daniel is my cousin from Compre to the south. That this is where he married you with your delightfully, shall we say unique, accent. No one associates you with these demonic figures that the Ghei describe as loose among us."
"Surely your people don't believe in what the Ghei say?" Sam asked.
"Normally no but if there are any Ghei sympathizers, any agents of theirs planted among us, this would tip them off to your presence." He reached out and took one of each of their hands in his. "My dear friends do you want to exposure yourself, your little daughter, in that way?"
"Isn't it just a matter of time before they locate us anyway?" Sam asked.
Chako nodded. "Probably."
"Well then, I say we do it." Daniel looked at her with narrowed eyes but said nothing.
Chako then brought up a new problem. "Daniel will have to do the training. The men will not accept this from a woman."
Despite the fact that Daniel was clearly irritated with her, he came through for her now. "You told me about Kyla, the heroine of the Battle of Chudrun. She was a woman and yet she led men to perhaps the greatest victory your legends celebrate. Her origins and her fate are both unknown and she is described as looking very much like my wife. If Sam immediately demonstrates her ability to best the biggest of your men and we use the Kyla association…" He trailed off to let Chako chew on the idea while Sam worried at his use of Sam. How long had it been since he had referred to her by that name?
Chako finally laughed. "Why not. We haven't had a single success in this war on terror. Maybe we need something quasi-supernatural to hearten the men."
Daniel left Chako's office and stalked off ahead of her. Abruptly he turned, grabbed her arm and dragged as much led her down passageways and out onto a parapet walk where the wind would snatch their words and give them some privacy. When he turned toward her it was clear that he had been getting angrier with each step since they left Chako. "Shouldn't you at least talk to me before you commit us to something so huge, so dangerous?" He looked her in the eyes. "Isn't that what husbands and wives do? Discuss big decisions?"
"Why didn't you say anything?"
"It wouldn't help me in Chako's eyes to fight with you over this. They haven't had Kloterian woman's liberation yet."
"I think you are starting to think like a Kloterian. "
"Come off it Sama." He still looked angry but at least he hadn't reverted to Sam again. "When have I ever asked you to be submissive to me? The only decision I ever made for you was our marriage and you've conceded I didn't have any choice."
"Look. Our mission never ended, right? I am still the commanding office and this wasn't a marital decision but a military one. "
"It doesn't matter to you that our daughter could be killed. You could be killed!"
"Danny, we could all die if the Ghei get any stronger. I have to do something. I can't just sit here and not take steps to defend us when they are available." She put her arms around his neck while he stood rigid not giving anything back. "Please Danny don't stop believing in me now." She kissed him with all the love she felt and kept on kissing until at last his arms crept around her and he began kissing her back.
They began to work with the Kloterian military. As Chako predicted, the men did resist her at first but as Daniel had suggested they came around. Sam did the majority of the training so that Daniel could work with their armorers and other artisans. Two of the scientific scholars they had worked with at the villa were brought to the fortress and Daniel began to collaborate with them. Sam made sure that she was publicly as deferential as she could manage to Daniel to avoid undermining him. In fact, his capital rose because the other men admired him for his ability to win such an unusual woman and keep her happy. Chako told Daniel who then told Sam that there were rumors that her fighting prowess must indicate a voracious sexual appetite. Sam had a feeling the rumors were even more specific but Daniel wouldn't tell her anything more.
Ironically, their love life started to suffer for the first time in their marriage since the trip across the plateau. Daniel was still consumed with concern about her safety and Janet's. For Sam it was hard to turn off the mental switch that had been flipped and when really tired, she had a tendency to treat him less like her husband and more like someone under her command. This led to several arguments held in hissed tones so as not to wake Janet or to share the discord with Marti. When they had an argument, it could take days to resolve given how busy they were and how little privacy they had to resolve it. At least, they began to make a real difference to the military preparedness of the garrison. After three months, the most talented of their trainees went to other commands to begin training them. Armorers and other technicians came and worked with their collaborators and went away to make better weapons.
Then word came of a real Ghei atrocity. An entire village had been wiped out. The evidence indicated that the deaths had been slow and the bodies were mutilated, including those of the children. War could no longer be avoided. The garrison was tense but exhilarated. As is often the case with recruits who have never seen real fighting, they longed for the glory, the chance to prove themselves. The few veterans among this peaceful people were the only ones with sad faces. And now, if they could win the gate, it made political and military sense to Lord Choko for Sam and Daniel to return to their world, to sue for help to keep the gate in friendly hands. Ironically it was pharmacological accomplishments that had initially come from the Ghei that probably gave them something to trade and to argue made it worth ensuring an open gate. They were reluctant to leave Janet behind or to take her into a combat area. They decided that Daniel would stay at the fortress with Janet and Sam would go to the gate when the time came.
The non-military personnel in the fort didn't eat with the soldiers but took food from the garrison kitchens to their rooms. Marti had brought up their meal and put it on the small table in the common room. They had long treated her more as a friend than a servant and she joined them at the table holding Janet on her lap. Daniel and Sam had been fighting again and it affected their appetite. Plump little Marti never let anything affect her love affair with food and Janet clapped her hands at the sight of her favorite dessert. Both Sam and Daniel were lost in their thoughts, picking at their food. It was Daniel who absent mindedly gave his permission when Marti asked if Janet could have some of the dessert even though she really hadn't eaten her meal.
Moments later Marti screamed "The baby, the baby," and the horrified parents looked up to see Janet gagging and gasping for breadth.
Daniel snatched her out of Marti's arms and tried to determine what was wrong. Then Marti began to gag and gasp and Sam said, "The dessert, it must be poisoned." Within second the baby was still and had stopped breathing. Daniel tried to do CPR on Janet while Sam tried to help the thrashing Marti. Marti died before Sam could get help and all Daniel's efforts and both of their prayers could not save their daughter.
They could not pry the body from her father's arms for hours. Sam knelt beside them holding on to her little hand and crying huge gulping sobs. As was Kloterian custom, Janet and Marti were buried immediately, a matter of hours after their deaths. There were no other deaths and it was clear that the poisoning had been an assassination attempt.
After the burial, Sam did not cry again. She sat with her arms wrapped around her legs, holding Janet's stuffed toy and rocking back and forth. She was completely unresponsive to Daniel, not talking to him, not looking at him, merely suffering his presence. When they went to bed, he tried to take her in his arms, to find some comfort for them both. She pushed him away and said, "There won't be any more children. I am never going through this again." And she rose and went to sleep in Marti's cold bed.
Daniel tried to talk to her in the days that followed but it was a conversation she wouldn't have. Only one time did she respond at all. He asked, "Do you blame me because I said she could eat it?"
Sam just looked at him, into his anguished eyes just that once, and said, "You did say it, didn't you?" And walked away. Deep inside she knew that what she really feared was that he would blame her as she deserved to be blamed. She was the one who had decided to let their identity be known. She had lost the baby. She didn't deserve to be with Daniel or anyone else. And she could never, never, never be responsible for the life of another small, trusting child.
Chako tried to talk to Sam for Daniel, to plead his case. She was cold and remote with him as well. Chako went back to Daniel and begged for his forgiveness for not just the loss of his child but maybe his wife as well because he had not been able to prevent a Ghei agent from infiltrating the garrison. Daniel embraced his friend and held tight for a long time. "I've saved all my hate for the Ghei."
Chako said, "Something came from Kafven for each of you." He presented Daniel with a small round silver medallion. Chako surprised Daniel by showing him a small cleverly hidden latch. The medallion opened it into a locket. Inside were perfectly rendered miniatures of Sam and of Janet. Daniel blinked away a tear and he took it gratefully from Chako.
"She made one of these for both of us you said?"
Chako nodded, "Your wife's has a miniature of you and Janet." He paused, searching for words.
Daniel guessed, "She refused to take it?"
Chako nodded sadly. Daniel held out his hand. "I'll take it. Someday she'll want it. Someday she has to."
It took four months of fighting for the Ghei to be beaten back from the gate. Sam and Daniel somehow avoided being wounded but Chako was so gravely injured that Lord Choko came to the front, to his son. Chako's recovery was viewed as a sign. Perhaps it was because a week later, Daniel was able to stand at the dial home device and set in the coordinates for Earth.
General Jack O'Neill ran into the gate room to see the rest of SG-1 come home. Military protocol didn't much matter as he joyfully embraced each of them but when he looked at their faces, into their eyes, he didn't really see Daniel Jackson or Samantha Carter. Their gaze was dull and distant and they were both still somewhere very far away inside. Jack wondered if they really had come home after all.
