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IMPORTANT STORY NOTE:

This is a confusing chapter, especially when Adrienne and Aileia have their little talk. It'll all be revealed shortly after but the 'Order' they're talking about is the Order of the Cy-rhen, a royal line of worshippers who followed the teachings of the prophet Ctae (sounds like: "kah-tey") who foretold the birth of Adrienne (later revealed in the sequel that it was because she goes back in time a little too far and meets Ctae in person). They became corrupted later in history and became isolationists with a grudge. They thought the end of humanity would be born amongst their own royal line and kept them locked up, their children born from 'puppet' husbands of the Order. Strange thing, they only bore daughters. All boys are doomed to die.

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.bad wolf.

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PART TWENTY: Lockdown

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Aileia was still awake that night. She couldn't tell what but something was wrong. Teal'c had come in to say goodnight and that was about it. She hadn't seen the young airman till the next morning. The name Zagreus still rung in her ears like church bells that never ceased.

"You should really get some rest, ma'am," one of the night nurses said. "Would you like a sedative?"

"No. It's best my conscience doesn't rest," she had responded. The nurse had disregarded her.

It was hard to tell night from day underground but the atmosphere spoke novels. The people were tired, their voices low -- what little people roamed the weary halls.

Bright and early the next morning, Teal'c showed up with a jubilant smile, one she had yet to see on him. "Colonel O'Neill has returned. He will be here in a few hours, so say the Tok'ra."

She falsely smiled back. He could tell she was tired. "That's wonderful, Teal'c."

"Are you still not well, Aileia?" he asked, sitting beside her bed. She looked down at her hands folded atop her large stomach.

"The day approaches, Teal'c." It wasn't what she really wanted to say at all. She sensed something else.

"Don't worry. I'll be here," he said, placing his hand atop hers. This time her smile was frank for the knowledge that he'd be there gave her some hope of making it out of this with no regrets.

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"Jacob, you son of a bitch! Thank you," Jack said, giving the old man a large hug and enthusiastic pats on the back.

"I'd like to breath at some point, Jack," he responded. When he backed away, he saw Sam standing half naked in the middle of the ring transport with a look like she didn't recognize her own father. And she didn't. "Sam? What's going on?"

He went to hug her but Jack stopped him. "She's not exactly our Sam right now, Jake. Give her a little time."

"What are you talking about?"

Daniel stepped away from Adrienne and said with great reluctance, "She died, Jacob, a little while ago. An Ancient named Orlin brought her back. She just woke up a little while ago."

"What! How long ago did she die?" Jacob was yelling.

"Just a few weeks," Jack said.

"WEEKS? My daughter dies and I find out weeks later?"

"Calm down, Grandpa. She'll be fine. I promise you," Adrienne pitched in, her tone soothing and reassuring. It calmed Jacob down a bit.

"What did you mean she's not exactly our Sam?" he asked.

"She can't remember much. They sent her down on some weird mission from on high or something. She chose to come back this way. She chose to come back period."

"How did she die in the first place?"

Jack looked away. Daniel was about to answer when Jack cut in. "It was my fault," he said. "She was dying. There was nothing we could do. We still don't know what killed her. So I went to find a symbiote. But we were running low on time and the only one left alive where we went was… well it was… Ba'al."

Jacob looked at him like the man that killed his only daughter. "You implanted her with BA'AL?" he yelled. It was corporal punishment for Jack, who loved Jacob like a father himself.

"I had to -- I had to shoot her," he finished timidly, looking straight into the Tok'ra's frightened eyes.

An awkward silence ensued. "She knows?"

"Yeah, she knows," he said as he looked towards her. He walked over to the rings and grabbed her timid, shivering hand and brought her out towards him. Jacob saw their hands intertwine and the smile he shot her.

"I'm fine sir. I'm right here. Never left," she repeated Jack's words to her before with a comforting smile. Jacob caressed her cheek with his hand.

"It must have hurt," he said and Jack thought he was talking to Sam, but then he turned to him, his hand still on his daughter's cheek.

"An open wound that never heals."

They had set off and Daniel and Adrienne had found themselves a corner of the cargo bay floor and Adrienne had fallen asleep on his shoulder.

Jack kept shooting them evil looks as if saying, "I'm watching you, buddy. Keep those hands where I can see them." He and Sam stood at the helm near Jacob.

"What's the story on them?" Sel'mak asked out of the blue. "Jacob is vying to know."

"I dunno. They disappeared on me last night. Daniel came back with only one boot," Jack answered absentmindedly. Sam still refused to let go of his hand. She was shivering.

Sel'mak gave a laugh that seemed more of a humorous scoff. Tok'ra really didn't laugh.

"He's not really talking to me right now, is he?" Jack asked.

"Nope." It was a strange word to hear from a Tok'ra.

Jack let it go. He knew he hadn't been shot yet because Jacob always approved of him and Sam as a couple. Maybe now they'd have a chance, a fresh start. No matter how much he wanted it, he felt like he was lying to himself.

"So where are we going?" Sam asked. "Isn't Earth too far away?"

"Next solar system. There's a Stargate there. You can Gate to Earth from there. Use my Tok'ra IDC," Jacob said.

Sam didn't think of him as a father. She didn't think him as family. She only saw Jack in her memory. He was her family somehow. But she knew how much it hurt Jacob and said, "Thanks Dad."

He didn't turn around but she saw him take a deep breath and look up. She squeezed Jack's hand a little harder.

He smiled at her and they joined Daniel and Adrienne on the floor in the opposite corner. Sam fell asleep in his arms, her head rested on his shoulder. Nostalgia floated in the air. It hurt his eyes, or so he told himself.

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Jack's dreams consumed him once more. He hadn't dreamt since the SGC and now that they neared it more and more, his consciousness couldn't hide his inner turmoil any longer. And even that was dark. Blank. It consumed the usual light from Sam's smile. But he heard her still, in the distance. Her voice screamed for him, for help, for salvation. Not her own; for him. She was telling him to run, to get as far away as possible. Even at moments when the darkness seemed to shift, her voice still rang through, repeating the same call to escape over and over. And then he saw it: darkness over him, hidden in swirling lights. Something crept his soul. Something was killing them, slowly. And soon, it would seek to break out into the light...

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Sam woke up first, some time later, to the sound of Jacob's voice. "We're here," he whispered.

Jack woke up in a jolt. She could tell he was having a bad dream. He was sweating bullets.

She wasn't sure if it was common for him but it frightened her. She sensed something from him but didn't know what. She felt as if she had to do something to make him better.

Before she knew it, she was walking through the Stargate on a desert planet onto the ramp at the SGC. Jack's arm was still around her when she stepped out.

The next part of the day was like a blur. She was sent straight to the infirmary and cleared as soon as the new doctor heard she was originally dead which was practically immediately.

Jack took her around the base, first to the mess hall. He reintroduced her to Jell-O. She picked the red one, which made him… pensive. What if they got something wrong? But she quickly discarded the red and went for her old favorite. It made him smile, wearily.

"What is it?" she asked.

He looked at her with eyes that saw to her soul, to the very center of her core. She loved when he looked at her so. It nearly made her cry that she couldn't remember him. But she'd always know: she truly loved him.

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Adrienne made her way to the infirmary some twenty minutes after Sam had left with Jack for the mess hall. "We meet again, Aileia."

She sat down beside her with a face that turned to ice before the pregnant lady. It was not pity, for she knew Aileia would kill her where she stood before allowing such a thing.

"Adrienne, is it? How are my people?"

"Dead, but they're not your people, are they? 'For all you're worth, let me die a begging soul; let not an incomplete one, for thus I am without thee to guide me back to livelihood.'"

"You know what I am, then? Well, Daughter, I know what you are too."

"Daughter?"

"You are their daughter are you not? You are the offspring foretold to the prophet Ctae," she said, looking grim. "You are truly a deity my child, do you know? Do they know?"

"No. Are you with the Order?"

"No. The Cyrhens remain oblivious, as usual."

"What of your husband? Is he why you left?"

"Yes, I thought."

"He was a puppet then?" Ree asked seriously. Aileia nodded. "I'm sorry then… Is that why you had to kill him?"

"Yes. And now I'm afraid they've won. I carry his child."

"Hmm. A child."

"What? Yes, a child. Can't you see?"

"Yes, I see. But the future hides him. You do not have a child, darling. Never in history do you bear a boy."

"Then what? It's a girl? The machines were wrong?"

"No. It's a boy. But I do not see its birth, Cy. I'm sorry. Something obscures it."

"No… No don't tell me this. He's all I have left! Don't take it too!"

"I'm sorry, Princess."

"Don't tell them, please don't tell them. Teal'c can't know."

"He'll become your guardian, you know?"

"Is he, now? He would have made a great father for Zagreus--"

Ree stopped and looked up in a snap. It was as if watching an old movie and having the serial killer jump into the shot carrying a chainsaw. "What did you call it?" she asked in fear.

"Zagreus. A soldier here suggested it. It sounded nice."

Ree gulped. She slowly got up and moved back in great unrest, towards the phone on the wall, tripping over medical gear on the way. "This is Adrienne! Get me General Hammond, RIGHT NOW!" she yelled into the phone. The entire medical staff stopped to look at her. Aileia was awaiting a response with wide-open eyes.

"General! Call a lockdown, immediately. Dionysus is in the base. He never left. He's after Aileia's baby. Lock it up NOW!"

Adrienne hung up roughly and went to Aileia's bedside. "Can you move?"

"Yea, 'course."

"Good. Get up. We have to get you somewhere safe, away from the Gate."

"What does he want?"

"Reincarnation, Princess. I'm sorry but your baby was never alive. It was killed the moment it was conceived by the very father."

Aileia wept a bit but she was strong. She sucked it up and got out of bed. "Get me to Teal'c. He needs to know what's going on."

Adrienne nodded and they began to move out of the infirmary as the sirens began to sound and the blast doors to close behind them.

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Sam and Jack were on the way to her lab when the sirens began to sound. It had been a good moment. It had been peaceful. And then it went to Hell with the rest of Jack's sanity.

"What the hell's going on?" he yelled as he and Sam hurried inside the lab. The blast doors closed behind them.

"Jack, what's wrong? What is it?"

Hammond came on from the control room and demanded total concealment under Adrienne's orders. So Jack and Sam saw no other option. The sat on the floor of the lab and waited for it to end.

Jack would usually jump at the chance to help but it was pointless. They were locked in, no weapons of any kind.

He hugged her on the cold floor. But she got tired of it. The urge to do something overwhelmed her too: her mission. It was coming to light. It was minutes away.

So she took Jack, lifted him up off the floor, and roughly threw him on the cold metal table in the center of the lab with almost superhuman strength.

"Sam, what are you doing?" he asked, slightly scared.

That's when she climbed onto the table, straddled him, and bent down to kiss him. She broke away and whispered, "My mission," and she went back to tear off his uniform…

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Two hours later, Sam was asleep on the metal island in the center of the room beside Jack. Her feet dangled off the edge. But when she awoke, it was all clear.

"Jack?" she said. "Is that you?"

"Sam, what's wrong? Is the lockdown over?" he asked sleepily.

"I know who I am… I remember."

He sat up and looked at her with surprise. "What? Like bits and pieces, or everything?"

"Everything. Most of it. I dunno! How do you know this stuff?"

"Do you remember your father?" he asked. She nodded.

"Do you remember me?" he asked again, a little more sheepishly as he waited her response.

She smiled and tilted her head, caressing his face with her hand. "I could never forget you, Jack. I never did," she whispered. "Just like I never left you. I knew you'd find me."

He sighed and hugged her, the cold of their dog tags hitting their chests. That's when Sam realized she was naked. So was Jack. "Uh… Jack? Why are we naked?"

"Well, figure it out, genius."

Her eyes opened wide and she jumped off the island, desperately looking for her clothes. "Oh boy. Oh boy. Oh boy. Oh boy…"

"Sam, calm down!"

"You figure it out! I miraculously regain my memory after we sleep together? This was another one of Adrienne's plots! My entire death was her doing!" she yelled. He jumped off the island too and went to calm her down but she was mad. She was tired of being played.

She went to the blast doors and started to pound at it. Her hands started to bleed but she didn't stop. Jack had to tear her away but by now she was hysterically crying.

He held her tightly and she began to calm down, but he was still half naked and she was still only half there.

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To be continued in PART TWENTY-ONE:

--Are Sam and Adrienne pregnant now?

--Is erasing Sam's memory a ploy to strip away her inhibitions towards sex?

--Did Adrienne really mean for it to happen like this?

--Where's she taking Aileia? …if that's her real name.

--When's the "darkness" going to leave Jack?

--How are they going to get out?

--What's Daniel doing?

--What of Janet? And Dionysus?

--Is he still on base?

--Will "Zagreus" be born?

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