As far as their prime directive went the mission was a bust. They'd come upon no new allies, found no new technologies, and made no new discoveries. But, in Colonel Jack O'Neill's book, it was an unqualified success: they were within sight of the Gate and all was well. They hadn't been shot, imprisoned, or tortured. No one had come down with some alien bug or even sprained an ankle. He was a happy camper.
He dawdled behind his team and enjoyed the scenery of p234x8. The planet looked and even smelled like Minnesota in early summer. He could hardly remember the last time he'd taken leave AND actually got to spend it at home. The time here had been just what he needed, and he was in no hurry to get back to the Mountain to start the rounds of debriefings, medical exams, and paperwork. Ahead of him, he saw the Gate activate, but, even then, he wasn't in any hurry. He raised his hand in a go-ahead motion to the others. Teal'c and Daniel followed his order. Carter, like the good, little soldier she was, hung back and waited for him. The planet might be idyllic, and the mission might be finished, but no one wandered alone on an alien world without backup.
Those few minutes he delayed thinking of home was their undoing. Seconds after entering the Gate, Teal'c and Daniel passed through it into the GateRoom under Cheyenne Mountain in Colorado like they had hundreds of times before. But, though the Gate registered incoming travelers and though it stayed open until the 38-minute automatic shutdown, the colonel and major never arrived. Hurried Gate diagnostics and a redial to p234x8 yielded no answers. There was no clue to what had happened in the Gate computers or on the planet surface. They had disappeared without a trace.
His stomach finally stopped threatening to heave up everything he'd eaten or even thought of eating in the past several hours once the room stopped spinning. After that, the aches and pains screaming for attention throughout his body gave up and settled for just occasionally whimpering, and he was finally able to take in his surroundings. Not the SGC, but some type of Goa'uld or Tok'ra vessel...the gold walls and doors were unmistakable. With a groan, he pulled himself up to a stand and found he was not alone.
Carter was dry heaving in the corner. He stumbled to her and patted her back sympathetically. If she wasn't feeling any better than he had been just seconds before, she deserved all the sympathy she could get. Even so, he waited impatiently for her to pull herself together and then demanded, "What just happened?"
Too late, he saw her mind had been busy at work while her body had been otherwise occupied. He could see from the look in her eyes she had an answer for him that was going to involve way more physics and theory than his high school science courses had prepared him to take in or his present physical state could handle.
She cleared her throat and jumped right in before he could stop her. "I can't say for sure, but it appears someone actually intercepted us while we were dematerialized in the wormhole and redirected our particles here for reintegration. It's not supposed to be possible...the Tok'ra have theorized-"
He managed to cut her off with a groan and then threw up his hands to ward off any further technobabble, "Let me get this straight-someone snatched us right out of the wormhole and brought us here?" he asked.
"It seems so, Sir," she answered, for his sake, stifling whatever else she might have added.
"Someone snaky," he said with a pointed look around.
"At a guess," she agreed.
"Well, I don't like it," the spoiled child inside him said as though he expected her to do something about it.
"No, Sir," she readily agreed with him, ignoring his whining tone, "I don't either. You know what this means?"
He threw her a calculating look. Was that a trick question designed to get him to allow her to go off speaking in dynamic equations and theoretical laws of quantum mechanics? Or did she really have something to say he might want, or in the circumstances need, to hear?
Whether he wanted to hear or not, he did anyway because she went right ahead without waiting for his answer. He wished she wouldn't have. "No one is safe if the Goa'uld have access to the technology to do this, Colonel. It will bring Gate exploration to a standstill. We've got to find it and destroy it."
"Of course, we do, Major," he said with an aggrieved sigh. "Just as soon as we get out of this room."
He was confident they would get out of the room. Just a matter of time. Whoever their host was, they'd know soon enough. There wasn't a Goa'uld alive who could resist gloating over his victims.
O'Neill passed the time waiting for their captor or his goons to show up by thinking of ways to not set Carter off on long, complicated discourses of the science behind their capture. He really didn't want to know. Too bad Daniel hadn't gotten caught up with them. Not that Daniel actually listened either-he was just better at catching the little signals that meant it was time to nod and mumble appreciative noises to make her think he actually was interested in theoretical physics.
Their host did eventually make himself known. That's when things went bad. Bile rose in O'Neill's throat as soon as he heard the Goa'uld's voice, his palms turned instantly damp, and his heart skipped a beat before taking off racing. Baal.
She'd read the report. And knowing the colonel's tendency to give a downplayed version of events, she'd known it had been even worse than the report indicated. Because Janet had refused to allow his teammates to sit with him, she hadn't heard him reliving the horror of his treatment at Baal's hand as he had went through the withdrawal symptoms from the sarcophagus, but by the very fact they'd been denied access, she'd known it had been bad. She hadn't been privy to his psych evals but because of the time it had taken for him to be released to active duty, she'd understood he'd suffered badly during his time in Baal's fortress in more ways than one. But, she'd been content not to pry, not to dig deeper when he turned away their concern with a flippant remark and a quick change of topic.
She hadn't wanted to know the price he'd paid because she hadn't been willing to let him die. Hadn't wanted to know what he had suffered because she begged him to take a symbiote and wouldn't take 'over my dead body' for an answer. But, now she did know, at least in part. The first knife had struck her right shoulder, the second her gut, and the third was rushing toward her even now...and she still didn't know what Baal wanted from her. Perhaps nothing more than to watch her die and be able to torture the colonel with the details.
Days later and several trips too many into Baal's torture chamber she said, "There is no going home from here, Sir." Her voice was harsh with the reality of her words. She'd still been holding onto the hope they'd get out and destroy Baal's new toy when she had been pulled out from the cell just a couple hours earlier, but that hope was gone now. He didn't want to know what that monster had done to her in order to wipe away her optimism and hope so brutally. Not that it mattered. It would be his turn next: he'd know what had happened to her soon enough.
He shook his head at her statement. He hadn't given into Daniel's words of doom and gloom when he'd been a guest of Baal before, and he wasn't going to listen to hers now. "Of course, there is," he countered. "There's always a way home...every time we've thought there hasn't been-every time," he emphasized waving a finger in her face, "one's shown up...our buddy Thor will be along in his chariot, or your dad and his pet snakes will pull up in an al'kesh...or Teal'c and Daniel will come through-just you wait."
She shook her head and said dully, "I don't think so, Sir."
"That's the trouble with you. You never look at the bright side."
"Is there a bright side, Colonel?"
"Well, for starters, you could have been stuck here all alone instead of with a charming, handsome man like myself."
"Right," she snorted and with an effort forced a small smile. He was gratified and relieved to see it. He couldn't let her give up. She'd been right: they had to stop Baal from holding every matter-stream in the StarGate system captive. And he couldn't do it alone. He wouldn't know the technology that had nabbed them unless Baal had labeled it with a Post-It note-not even then unless he'd labeled it in English. He needed her, and he needed her full of ideas not despair.
"I'll tell you something, Carter," he said, recklessly, "IF I ever decide to believe there really isn't a way home...you and I-well, we'll have a lot to talk about." He grinned into her face until he saw the meaning of his words sink in. Then he winked and turned back to kicking the door and wondering if she was right and there really wasn't a way out this time.