Without further ado…

PART SEVEN: Escape from Paradise

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As they walked through the trees, Jack lagged behind a bit. Sam took it as a sign of regret and tried desperately not to say anything. For a moment he stopped and listened then continued. She thought he was acting weird, even paranoid.

Then her little sensors started beeping even faster. "We're getting closer," she said calmly, no emotion in her tone. He sensed it and was about to say something to make her feel better, tell her anything at all to make it seem like it was before Adrienne but he never got his chance.

"Do you hear that?" Jack said, creeping up behind her as stealthily as always.

"Hear what?" Sam whispered back. "What is it?"

He shushed her and pulled her into the trees, pushing her up against the thick trunk of a tree. He was nose to nose to her but she didn't move away. His eyes scanned her all over and he smiled. She thought he was coming in for the kiss, no matter how appropriate the situation but she didn't move away now either. She decided she was waiting for him to make the first move. But instead of kissing her, his chin fell upon her shoulder and his body slid down her front. She stood frozen in shock then she saw the super soldier standing in his wet, black armor, a weapon raised.

Jack was dying at her feet, an impermeable, nearly un-killable soldier stood with a gun in her direction, but she couldn't think of anything. If she reached for her gun, it would shoot her. She couldn't reach for Jack's. He was unconscious and wasn't coming to her rescue any time soon.

So much for Prince Charming, she thought. But when was he ever?

She slowly raised her hands in a sign of surrender and gave a long exhale. He walked towards her, weapon still raised confidently. She knew it probably had no lips but felt his smile upon her from under his mask.

She loathed it, and she loathed him. And that's when she realized just what he was. He was how she could make an Adrienne. He was the key.

If she survived long enough to reach the others, she just might have a chance to change the future.

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"How much farther is the second Gate?" Daniel asked after what seemed like a few hours of walking through the same lavish palace.

He hadn't seen a single person, a single room. It was just a large hallway with an elaborate roof that changed as they walked. Not a door in sight, he feared an immortal end. They could go on forever but he had an end coming and he feared it.

He knew it. Had Oma left it in him, he didn't know… that sense of foreboding, foretelling. What scared him most was that Adrienne might know, with all her great mysterious abilities.

He had no idea but she was why Oma had left him the warning.

"It's only a few ways there. We're getting closer, Danny. I promise."

He did not like her tone. It seemed patronizing to him. Suspicion had begun to grow within his mind and Dionysus was at the base.

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The soldier was not alone. He seemed to wait for others to come. In the meantime, he sat on a log across from her. Jack's head rested on her lap and she absentmindedly stroked his hair off his forehead as she looked off into nothing.

"I know you can understand me. What are you waiting for?" she asked, looking him over as he stared at her through his black helmet. "What do you want from me?"

There was a moment of silence and Sam had given up.

"Instructions," came a hoarse voice from his direction. "Waiting for instructions."

"Let me guess. Ba'al or Anubis? Anubis, right? That son of a bitch. How'd he know we were here?"

The soldier tilted its head, still studying her. He got up and walked over to her, knocking her across the face with the back of his hand. She straightened up and looked at him with scorn. He went back to sit on the log and wait, and she took it as a sign that she should be quiet, even if it does her no comfort.

Jack lay dying still, disconnected to the real world. Had he known what of Sam, she knew he would have not hesitated to shoot the soldier where he stood. And that did bring her some comfort, and the forewarning that he might never be a crappy Prince Charming again.

She had decided that while she could never give up on Jack, she had to leave him behind and the thought alone made her stomach twist in knots.

So she made her plan. She began talking again, of everything and anything… whatever she had to say to bother him. But he did not move, only stared. Her plan was slowly coming to be a bust.

And then she began, "Have you ever loved anyone?"

The soldier did not respond. She knew it had not. But she felt him flinch no matter how much he hid it.

"You haven't, I figure, but you know what it is. As a being you desire it don't you?"

This time, it paused and responded, "I do."

"This is Jack," she said, stroking the dying colonel's hair and looking down to him as sweetly as she truly felt. "I love him… very much. But I never told him. I still think he knew. He always knew everything; the things humans can tell from knowing someone for years he knew from looking into your eyes. I'm sorry you could never experience this. But you are not a person. You are an object. Objects cannot love."

"I love my God," it hoarsely answered.

She smirked. She was getting to him. "Does he love you? Why would he send you to die if he loved you? He made you, but you are not his child. He gave you memories, but they are not yours… You are incomplete. And for that, he has made it so that you will never be loved."

His breathing was erratic, she could tell from his rising and lowering chest armor. He got up again and pointed the gun to her head. "Do it," she taunted. "Then let's see how much your God loves you after you've killed his only hostage."

So he struck her across the face again, so hard that she nearly fell back off the log had Jack not been on her lap. But as she went to snap back up to scowl at him, she reached for Jack's sidearm.

She fell off the log and shot the soldier in the right side as she and Jack fell to the ground.

It did not die but fell over the log. She shot it so many times, until she was sure it was dead twelve times over. It had hurt Jack, and revenge was all too sweet for her. She quickly recomposed herself and tended to Jack who had fallen on his injury and the pain had woken him.

"Colonel, are you alright!" she shouted, lifting him slowly off the ground.

He slowly groaned, "I've been shot, Carter. Of course I'm not alright."

"How are you still alive, sir?" she asked, sitting him on the log and kneeling down on the ground in front of him. She was never so happy to see those brown eyes.

"I have no idea. I think I was just stunned."

"I don't think he wanted to kill us, sir. He was waiting for someone to come and take us somewhere. I think they know Adrienne's here."

"Yeah… I heard."

Sam looked up rather quickly. His expression was blank, examining his pained, numb hand upon his lap.

She refused to breathe, refused to look him straight in the eye. Their glances never seemed to meet.

That's when he lifted her chin with his numb hand and leaned down to her, resting with her, forehead to forehead.

"You heard everything, didn't you?" she asked.

"Yup," he said with a silly grin. "And you're right. I always knew."

She narrowed her eyes, looking straight into his tired, pained ones, and then smacked him on the back of the head with an open hand. He smiled and winced. His back was killing him, slowly.

"Why didn't you say anything?" she groaned. "It could have saved us so much trouble."

"No, it wouldn't have. And you knew too! You're a feminist all the way up till it comes to admitting your feelings. Then it's the man's job."

She smiled wearily. She was so tired. And that's when she decided to tell him.

"Sir… Jack…" she said, sitting beside him on the log and looking down at her lap. "There's something you need to know."

A tear fell on her quivering hands upon her lap, which he noticed and wiped off when he held her hand in his. It refused to stop shaking.

"Sam, what's going on? You know you can't lie to me."

"There's something… there's something wrong with me. I'm not well."

"Does it hurt where he hit you?" he asked, caressing her reddening cheek so sweetly it was killing her. She nodded no.

"I'm dying," she whispered into the listening wind just as the footsteps of soldier made way through the beach shore, coming their way.

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Adrienne stopped dead in her tracks and turned on her heel, facing a stricken Daniel. "What's going on?" he asked.

"They're here," she whispered, running over to Dionysus and picking him up. "We have to run, ok? Can you take us to the Gate? I know it hurts but we have to get there. Can you do that for me?"

Dionysus closed his eyes and concentrated, and soon enough, they were in front of a pile of rocks that blocked the hallway from floor to roof.

"Where are we? Where's the Gate?" Daniel asked.

Dionysus opened his eyes slowly and painfully. "It's been blocked off. I can't pass through those stones. They're too thick."

"Who could have done this?" he asked.

"It doesn't matter. We have to go back," Adrienne said, still holding the boy in her arms, his arms wrapped behind her neck. "I'll have to take us. Everyone hold onto me."

Daniel reached for her hand and for a moment they smiled at each other. "We'll have to reach Sam and Jack first."

"They're here?" Daniel asked. "She must have followed us."

"No, she found the address through the hole in the program I used to erase the address. She's tracking us with that radioactive isotope in your pocket."

Daniel reached into his pocket and took out the small rock Sam had given him and was amazed it hadn't floated away when he came through the Gate.

Adrienne squinted her eyes and looked off into the hallway. "They're injured. Soldiers are coming through the Gate and they already got attacked by one. Jack got hit in the back and Sam's freaking out about something. We've got to hurry."

"How do you know this?" Daniel asked, amazed at her toneless telling.

"Sam told me. I can hear her thoughts."

Daniel raised an eyebrow. "I thought you could only feel… feelings."

"We have a special connection. She doesn't know I'm hacking in."

"Can she do the same?"

"Yeah but she'll never know, right?"

Daniel lowered his eyebrow and nodded reluctantly. She then took in a deep breath and their surroundings began to shift so quickly that as if in a blurry blink, they were standing right in front of Sam and Jack in the middle of the woods.

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Sam had just told Jack the whole truth of her slow death but he hardly had time to digest it before Adrienne, Daniel, and a little boy that reminded him of Charlie showed up a few yards away near a thick-trunk tree.

Sam quickly jumped up from the ground startled, expecting more soldiers. "Ree?"

Adrienne didn't look at her. Her skin showed the signs of utter and undeniable exhaustion. "Danny, take Dionysus," she said in-between gasps. "Right now, please."

Daniel quickly took him from her arms as she slid down the side of the thick-trunk tree. Sam ran to her but she was already on the ground, her eyes slowly closing under the harsh daylight above.

"Ree! Ree! Wake up!" Sam yelled, slapping Adrienne sharply to wake her up, but she didn't even flinch.

"We have to get her back to the SGC," Jack said as he tried desperately to get off that godforsaken log. Parts of him were still numb and his whole body ached. He was bleeding, he knew all too well, but didn't care. "The Gate's underwater. We have to call for backup."

Daniel stepped in and helped Jack straighten up with his free hand. "We can't. Anubis' soldiers are coming up the water right now and the other Stargate is buried under a mile of rubble. We're not getting off this planet by Stargate."

"How quickly can the Prometheus get here, you think?" Sam asked the tired colonel.

"They don't even know we need help," Jack said.

"Oh yes they do," said a voice coming from behind Sam. Adrienne had opened her eyes ever so slightly. Her hands laid limp beside her and her chest rose so slowly that it seemed like she was not breathing at all. And she felt like it too.

Sam looked over her product of science, her daughter lying in humid green fatigues against the dark bark of the tree. Everything around them seemed so natural, so real. But Adrienne did not. She didn't belong to them anymore. She was greater than all of them. And so was that little boy.

"How?" she asked.

"Teal'c's on his way. I told him to fly here if I didn't contact them in 2 hours. It's been over 4. They'll be here in a few minutes, if Hammond took his warning," Adrienne explained.

A heavy but relieved sigh left Sam. They had to wait it out, live long enough for them to find them.

"I'm sure he did," Sam tried to assure them as well as herself.

"For all our sakes, let's hope he did."

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It was an hour later and no one had come for the begotten wanderers. They had made way back to the palace where they held some maneuverability over the situation. Jack leaned on Daniel and Adrienne on Sam and Dionysus led the way with the sprig of lavender still in his small clutches.

"So what's the story on him?" Jack asked as the palace got into their view. "He a native?"

"No," Adrienne responded wryly. That was all she gave. Jack looked over at Sam whose eyes seemed to say, "Don't pursue it further."

But he couldn't stand looking at her and returned to the grand vista of the palace that crept up on them through the trees.

"How are they going to find us? It's a big planet," Daniel wondered aloud.

Adrienne tried to answer. "No it isn't, actually. It's a moon. But yes they can find us with sensors or they can track Sam's radioactive isotope…"

"Or they can check the only structure on the entire moon. Or they can track the Stargate… whatever!" Jack exclaimed. "Let's worry about getting to the goddamned palace, ok!"

Sam smiled to herself but Adrienne noticed and held it in her memory till she could use it for blackmail like any good O'Neill would. "Do us a favor, Jack, and shut the hell up," Adrienne commented and Sam smiled even brighter. But when she saw the look on Ree's face, her smile went away.

"What is it?" she asked her daughter. "What do you hear?"

"They're out of the water. Now there's nothing stopping them. They have us beat here. The palace will block his abilities and I'm too weak to stop them," Adrienne said. "We're going to have to find some advantage. I say we get up on the trees and form a sniper line."

"Jack's not up for walking right now, let alone climbing a tree," Daniel said.

"I can do it," Jack groaned in pain.

Adrienne shook her head. "No he's right. You go in the palace with Dionysus. Protect him ok? He's more important than all of us," she said.

They all agreed and Daniel and Sam began to climb up the large trunks while Adrienne told Dionysus to hide behind the entryway to the palace.

Jack stood below and helped Sam get up to the lowest trunk. She squatted down on the branch and smiled down at him. He smiled back and whispered, "Be careful, Sam. If we get through this, I promise I'll take you fishing."

She felt like crying but held it back and responded with a smile. Adrienne saw this and walked over to Jack. Sam was already out of ear length.

He leaned into his daughter and whispered in her ear, "Whatever happens here… I'm proud of you."

Sam looked down in time to see Adrienne shed a tear and nod then go off to a tree across from hers and climb as effortlessly as she breathed.

But Jack refused to hide in the palace. After they'd all taken their place in the trees, he stood in the entrance, plain to see as the thunderous footsteps of impenetrable soldiers became ever louder and the enemy came ever closer.

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To be continued in PART EIGHT:

--What's going to happen to Jack?

--Does Adrienne know Sam is dying?

--If so, is Sam really "Mother"?

--What's taking Teal'c so long?

--Is hiding in the trees really going to help them any?

--And finally… Are Sam and Jack finally going to go on that fishing trip?

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