Chapter 3

The Stargate was located in a small clearing in a deep, seemingly primeval virgin forest. The early morning air was warm and fresh with the scent of pine and balsam. It was a beautiful fall morning about nine or so, although they left Cheyenne Mountain at 0530 on a summer's day that was forecast to be in the nineties.

As they strolled O'Neill was having an incredible case of deja vu. It reminded him of a trip he and Sara had taken while he was stationed in Germany. They took a week in the British Isles, supposedly looking for Sara's ancestors. They tramped up and down the Rhymney Valley and then up to the Brecon Beacons in Wales. It looked for all the world like the coal mining region of Pennsylvania where that branch of her family had settled. He now understood that when they arrived just outside of Scranton and took a good look around, they felt at home. This place looked and felt and smelt the same. Here on Stord or PX1-934, it was wilder, not tamed by roads or, it seemed, in anyway by the hand of man. Maybe it was better that way, a pristine world - but it had what they, the Tau'ri, wanted, what they needed and they would tear the precious metal from the hillsides without a second thought of the beauty they were destroying.

Sam had been musing on the beautiful weather and lovely scenery, glad that the general could get out on this 'piece of cake' mission, even though the pull of the planet was sucking much of their energy, so that there wasn't much left for idle chatter on their route. This brought about way too much introspection when admiring the scenery reached its limit. Sam thought about O'Neill, how grouchy and overtired, how withdrawn and overworked he seemed. Maybe taking this job to protect them from another Bauer was just not the right fit for Jack. He was the one that always tried to protect them even when they thought it was treating them like children or, worse yet, like fools. And what did they do, they used him like a shield against the possibility of a bureaucratic boob of a commanding officer, not thinking of what it would do to him. Maybe he held their hands too often but they let his go and he was the one left alone, alone at the top of the SGC heap, but none the less alone.

And what of he and she – he had to distance himself from any one team, especially the one he had formed a familial bond with. He was the commander of the entire base. And she had to protect herself from the endless corrosive gossip that placed her as the favored child or the lover, given rank and entitlements she didn't deserve. Sam curried favor from no one and it enraged her that anyone would see her that way, so much so, she pushed him away not giving adequate thought to the pain she left in her wake and his reaction to let her go. They buried themselves in work. Hers was satisfying; research in her lab, rubbing shoulders with business men and the press, exploration and fighting the enemies of the Earth. She had endless opportunities and a lover to keep her bed warm. That and when she wanted anything, from a new gizmo for her lab or to go and play with the most destructive of Earth foes she need only ask and O'Neill usually acquiesced. O'Neill drowned in paperwork, was mired down by politics, and conflicted by sending his people off on missions to their possible death. All this, while running on little sleep, irregular meals and pain in both body and spirit that he had no choice but to try to ignore. It was just occurring to her that she was using him just as surely as if she were currying favor through sex. Only this way she had everything, command of SG-1, choice assignments and a life. And he had boring, endless work, distance from everyone at the base and her abandonment and betrayal.

While O'Neill was daydreaming about vacations of 20 years ago and the beauty of this planet, and Carter was reflecting on her abandonment of O'Neill, the Alkesh and Death Gliders began their decent, some to ring down warriors, others to do battle from the skies.