Okay...well, this is pretty much the end, but if you'd like me to go ahead and write the epilogue I'm thinking about...involving Trinan...then please review this chapter, and let me know that too. ;) Can't wait to hear from ya'll, and thanks for being here through this story:D

Chapter 17

For months, Janet had dreamed of coming home, and getting back to normal as quickly as possible. She now knew that it had been too long--it wouldn't be that easy. She tried, but it was hard readjusting.

She had to remember that she could take a shower anytime she wanted, every day, instead of once or twice a week. Food or anything else was just downstairs in the kitchen; she didn't have to get water from the stream, or grow vegetables or search the woods for berries to pick to eat or wait until mealtime, help Hadda prepare food, or walk to the storehouse at the other end of the village for meat left there for the families that had no men to hunt for them. Technology was everywhere--technology she had taken for granted before.

And her family was there every day; that was something else she had taken for granted before. Not anymore.

To keep from experiencing complete culture shock, she helped Vala make dinner every night, kept her dress, moccasins, and bags from the Leska village on a low shelf in her room where she could always see them, and wore skirts every day for a while after she'd come back. Not that she had much choice--except for a few pairs of shorts, none of her pants fit anymore.

Vala wanted to take her shopping, but after bagging up everything that didn't fit her and going with her to drop it all off at a Goodwill donation center, Janet wanted nothing more to do with clothes for a while. She asked her mother to wait--to give her some time to get used to just being home. She seemed to understand.

Daniel and Vala both took time off work once she was home, but she only let them do it for a week or so before making them go back. She would never feel normal again if they kept fussing over her. After all, the boys still had to go to school every day, for a few more weeks until summer, anyway. Both Charlie and Adrian weren't very happy that they couldn't stay home with her 24/7. They'd missed her just as much as she'd missed them.

After a little while Travis started to come over again after work, just to hang out, to see her, anything, like in the old days. Over weeks, the discomfort of the lapsed time was gone, and they fell back into being best friends. But there was also something new there--something she couldn't quite put her finger on.

But it didn't matter. She was home, and things were slowly returning to normal.

If only she could stop thinking about Trinan.

Vala was more than happy when, a couple of months after Janet's return and a week or so into the summer, she announced that she would very much like to go shopping. The two of them went alone that very weekend, while Daniel took the boys out to see a movie or two. They stayed out most of the day. They had fun, but it would have been perfect if Janet hadn't kept wavering back and forth between the happy teenage girl she was learning to be again, and the more quiet young woman she'd become while away who seemed preoccupied with something.

She didn't say anything until they got home. Janet was quiet again. Vala followed her upstairs, helping to carry the several bags they'd brought home, but she didn't say anything one she'd set them all down. She didn't seem to notice Vala at all. She just started to pull the new clothes out and put them away silently.

"Uhm…I guess I'll go start dinner," she began uncertainly.

"Uh huh," Janet said absently.

"Do you want to help?"

"Sure."

Vala frowned, and the next time her daughter came back to take something else from the bags, she grabbed her arm and stopped her. "Janet, what is it?"

"Huh? What?"

Vala sighed and steered Janet toward the bed. She pushed down on her shoulders to make her sit on the edge of it, and then sat down slowly herself. "Something's bothering you, Janet. What is it?"

"Nothing…"

"Don't pull that with me, young lady. I've been around both you and your father long enough to see through it. Now talk to me."

The girl swallowed and looked away, a sudden distant expression on her face. "It's…hard to explain."

Vala pulled her legs up on the bed and faced her daughter. "Try me."

There was a long moment of silence where neither of them moved, until finally Janet grimaced and started talking quietly. "By the Leska's customs, I was one of them while I was there."

"The Leska…the second tribe you were with?"

She nodded. "Right. And they expected me to live like them--follow their traditions."

"That doesn't sound so far-fetched when it comes to people of their development level."

"No…I guess not. But that's what I was getting at."

Vala leaned back a little. "All right, I'm sorry. What were you saying?"

She sighed. "I was saying…that I was expected to do things the way they did, and, well…Leska women…they always marry their seventeenth summer…"

Vala blinked rapidly, suddenly unable to think beyond the question she asked next. "They--they forced you to--"

"No. Or…well, I don't know how they would have forced the issue. They planned on letting me choose who…that's the way it's done. But it was clear I didn't really, uhm, have a choice of whether to marry…" She pulled in a deep breath and winced. "So, I just…I went along with it. There wasn't really much else I could do."

Relief. Vala sighed. "So they didn't do anything to you…"

She shook her head. "No. No, mom, I've told you--these people treated me well. There was never any threat. It was just…understood. And I didn't want to put any more stress on the situation. I couldn't refuse. I could have still refused to choose someone…but well…I figured if something happened and I didn't get out, that I might as well be at least a little happy with who I was stuck with."

She squinted a little. "So…what happened?"

Janet shrugged and stared at the floor, picking at the bedspread. "Like I said, I went along with what they wanted me to do. I had a friend there…a girl my age. She pointed out someone to be, the brother of the boy she liked, and I got to know him. His name was Trinan. It turned out that he had a crush on me," she smiled, laughing a little.

Vala smiled a little at that. "Then what?"

"Well…we were betrothed to each other at the beginning of the summer. These courting and marriage things have a very specific timetable for these people. You got there toward the end of the summer on that planet." And now that distant, almost hurt look came back, even as she finally looked at her mother again. "The village was attacked the night before we were supposed to get married. He's the one who helped me get out of there in the confusion the next morning."

Vala felt an acute sense of déjà vu as she looked at the emotion in her daughter's eyes. It was something she'd seen in the mirror a long, long time ago.

"You loved him, didn't you?" she asked softly.

Janet's head ducked again. "I don't know. Maybe that's the problem. I was sure it was only that I cared about him, because he was so kind to me. He was a great guy. If he'd been born on Earth, if I'd met him here, maybe…" She trailed off. "But while I was there, I kept thinking about Travis. I realized that maybe I'd been falling in love with him before I got lost over there, but…" She shook her head. "I just don't know anymore." She pulled her legs off the bed. "But don't worry about me. I just need to figure this out for myself."

"Is there anything I can do?"

"Not unless you've been in a situation where you were trapped away from home for a year and couldn't decide between guys you cared about both places," she said sarcastically, rolling her eyes and standing. It was meant to sound like even the idea was ridiculous; it wasn't her fault she didn't know much about the early years of her parents' relationship. She didn't know she was exactly right.

Vala had to smile a little in reflection. "In that case, I think there's plenty I can do to help you."

Janet froze and turned to looked at. "What?"

She nodded back to the bed. "Sit down. There's a story you need to hear."

Slowly, her daughter sat down again, still looking at her quizzically. "What do you mean?"

"Just listen."

Vala started from the second time she'd seen Daniel, briefly skipped over what had happened with the bracelets and the Ori discovering life in the Milky Way because of her and Daniel, and started into more detail again from when she'd been sucked through the black hole into the Ori galaxy. She kept going through everything that had happened with Tomin. But what she highlighted the whole time was the fact that she had had to choose--between Tomin, and Daniel.

That she understood what Janet was going through right now.

The girl was almost speechless by the time she was through. It took her a little while to say anything. "M-Mom, I…wow…I didn't know any of that…I had no idea…"

"I know you didn't. It wasn't important for you to know. Now, you need to know it. You need to know that I'm going to be here for you, okay?" she said, as she brushed the long stray hairs out of her daughter's eyes. She still hadn't cut it; Vala was starting to get used to it.

Suddenly there were tears in Janet's eyes, and she hugged her silently--and tightly. Vala was surprised for a split second, and then returned the embrace. "It'll be all right," she whispered.

Janet pulled back after a while and looked at her with pink eyes. "How did you do it, mom? How did you choose? What am I supposed to do?"

"I can't tell you that," she answered gently. "You know your heart."

"No I don't," she swallowed.

"You will."

"But…even if I wanted to…it wouldn't work with Trinan. You heard how I explained the Leska's customs at the debriefing…I can't go back there. At least not until I'm twenty-five. If I go before, the others will try to re-capture me. They still see me as theirs until then. Trinan wouldn't be able to change that…"

Vala looked at her. "Then what are you going to do?"

She swallowed. "I guess…I guess that's better. It'll help me move on…just get used to being here again. And…I still care about Travis…You never know what'll happen, I guess…"

There was a moment of silence, and then Vala took a deep breath. "I'm sorry it has to be that way…that you can't even go there to any of your friends. That would upset me too. But…you're probably right. It probably is best," she told her quietly. Janet stared at the ground again. "But…if when you're twenty-five, if you want to go back there, I'll do everything in my power to make sure you can, even if you're not working anywhere near the SGC then. All right?"

Janet dried her eyes with her sleeve and smiled tentatively. "Sounds a like a deal."

Vala smiled back in an effort to cheer her up, and patted her knee. "Good girl. Now…" She looked around at the bags on the floor. "Want some help putting these clothes away?"

It took a while to get used to the idea that she really was just going to have to move on. It wasn't such a bad thing, really--but she wouldn't break her promise.

She would never forget them.

And then questions of what to do with the rest of her life came back. She realized that she would have to get on track again to go to college. What she wanted to do hadn't changed. She wanted to go to the University of Chicago like her father, and she wanted degrees in at least Egyptology and Linguistics. She voiced this to her parents, but they must have also heard the sighed part about wishing that it weren't way too late to be able to start that fall, which was just a couple of months away.

Within two weeks, Daniel came home with news that Sam, Jack, and Hank had pulled every string they had from their previous or current positions, every relevant contact they had, and she was back in. She even had her scholarships back. She could start in the fall if she wanted--or she could take another year off, to stay with her family longer.

It was a hard decision, but she chose to start in the fall. She feared if she spent any more time away from school that she wouldn't be able to start at all. And she needed to get her life started again. She was almost eighteen. She couldn't stay in this limbo forever.

Daniel held onto her tightly when she told them her decision. "We'll miss you," he told her softly. "But we are so proud of you. If it had been any other teenage girl that had gone through what you did…we wouldn't even be having this conversation. I love you so much…"

But that wasn't all he told her that day. Later that same afternoon, he appeared in the doorway of her room, where she was looking over the textbooks from her senior year to brush up.

"I'm going to take you to Egypt," he said suddenly.

Janet looked up with a jerk and frowned. "What?"

"Egypt," he said, wandering into the room, hands in his pockets nonchalantly. "You've never seen it. I know you've wanted to for a long time, and with the job your mom and I have its not like we couldn't afford it. I just never had the time to take you. I'll make the time. I'll take it off later this summer, and we'll go--just me and you, before school starts. We can go other places too. It doesn't matter. And we can end in Chicago before your classes start."

She sat up, laughing a little in disbelief. "Dad…what are you talking about?" She looked at him for a moment; he was smiling. "You're serious, aren't you?"

"Completely serious. Two or three weeks, just the two of us, whatever you want to see. You're going to be an Egyptology student; you should go there. You deserve it, Janet. I'm not kidding." He paused, raising his eyebrows at her. "So? What do you say?"

Janet started to answer, but choked on saliva in her throat that had slipped down while her mouth had been hanging open, and coughed. "W-what do you mean, what do I say? Of course! I…you really are serious?"

He sat down on the foot of the bed and smirked at her a little. "Have I done something recently to keep you from trusting me?"

She blinked. "What? No! I…" She laughed and crawled forward to wrap her arms around him. "I love you dad."

"And be careful of what you eat while you're overseas, and call often, and the same goes for when you're in Chicago." The airport bustled around the Jackson family. "And don't forget to tell us the moment you know exactly when you'll be able to leave for Christmas vacation, so we can buy a plane ticket and send it to you, and--"

"Mom!" Janet stopped her. "I'm going to be in Egypt and Chicago, not the Pegasus Galaxy. I'll be fine." The others had already said their goodbyes back at home. They wouldn't see her until the end of the semester. Travis had been one of the ones who seemed the most chagrined at that.

Vala sighed and gave her a tentative smile back. "Of course you will…I know that…" She sighed and hugged her tightly. "Do you have to keep growing up?" she teased as she pulled back. "Can't you take a break for a little while?"

Janet laughed and kissed her cheek. "That would be fun, but you know why I have to do this now."

"Right. Of course." She put a hand on either side of her daughter's face and looked at her. "You'll be fine. I'm just going to miss you--" That was when her voice broke, and a few tears fell. "Shoot…I wasn't going to do that," she grimaced, letting go and scrubbing at her cheeks.

"It's okay…and hey, this time you know when I'll be back. At Christmas. It'll be okay. I'll call a lot, I promise. I'll e-mail you plenty of pictures."

"Well, you'd better," Vala told her.

"I will." Charlie was pulling at her pants leg, and she crouched down to the boys' level, hugged them one at a time and then together. "You guys take care of Mom and Dad for me while I'm at school, okay?"

Adrian looked at her sadly. "You said you wouldn't go again."

"I'm not," she told him, choking up a little. "This time you know where I'm going, and I won't be gone as long; you'll know when to expect me back, right? And you can talk to me any time. You'll be okay."

Charlie nodded. "We'll be okay. I'll take care of Adrian for you."

Janet chuckled and ruffled his hair. "Atta boy." She hugged both of them again. "Bye guys." As she stood, the final call for their flight echoed over the P.A. system, and Daniel glanced toward the ceiling for a second.

"That's our cue." He hugged the boys, then Vala.

"And you take care of her over there," she told him again.

"Don't worry," he assured her, kissing her goodbye. "See you in a few weeks." He took a few steps away, waving, while Vala stole another hug from her daughter.

"Bye, mom; love you."

She smiled to keep from crying anymore. She would be fine. "I love you too. Now go on before you miss your plane." Janet scurried over to where Daniel waited, and Vala raised an eyebrow at her husband. "You had to fly commercial?"

He shrugged and grinned. "It completes the whole traveling-around-the-world-like-a-normal-person feeling."

Janet laughed again and waved. "Later guys!"

Charlie and Adrian jumped up and down and waved as Daniel and Janet disappeared into the gate.

"Bye! Have fun!"

"Bye Janet!"

Vala sighed heavily, and watched the 'gate for a long time. Eventually she wandered to the windows with the boys, and they watched the planes take off. Charlie and Adrian pressed against the glass, fascinated, and she didn't have to worry about them for a while.

She couldn't be sure which one was theirs, but she pinpointed one that was likely and decided to watch it. Vala followed it as it lifted off the ground, climbed, and finally vanished behind the white clouds and bright sun rays.

"Good luck, Janet," she whispered. "Now it's your turn to fly."

And she smiled.