Author's Notes: I'm starting to look forward to what comes next for me after this story is complete. With only 9 chapters to go, it's definitely time. I've got another multi-chapter piece started but I want to get it further written before it starts to be posted (it's another Sam-centric piece but the demons she fights in that one are much more internal). I have a collection of one-shots that gets updated fairly regularly (Into the Grey) thanks to prompts at Gateworld. I'd also like to finish a piece in another fandom that has recently reacquired my love (fingers crossed).

However, the Primary Emotion universe is a rich one that mentions things in fleeting moments. To that end, I envision two companion pieces – one that tells the stories of things that came before this story and yet were still mentioned by one or more characters in passing (or possibly that even set up some of the events of this story); another that would be "missing scenes" from this story. So there's a good possibility you'll see some one-shots that take place in this universe at some point in the future.

Also, this is the last chapter of mission backstory. I know there's still going to be a lot you don't know about the mission itself, but the truth was, that was never really the story. The story was the fallout. I thought it was important you know how they got into this mess though, so here we go!

Part VI: Joy

"But I've got tickets. For tonight," Jack wheedles.

"I'm sorry, sir, but we're not going anywhere in this weather. The sheer number of lightning strikes makes gate travel far too unpredictable."

"Tickets, Carter."

"Hockey can't possibly be more important than getting stranded in the wrong timeline, Jack." Daniel tries to reason.

"The season ended a couple of weeks ago," Sam points out helpfully.

Jack shoots her a glare then swings his gaze around to Daniel. "Possibly getting stranded," he tries but his scientists aren't budging. No matter. Hammond hadn't budged either. "Besides," he gestures to the cave around them, "this pretty much reeks of stranded."

"I don't think it's called stranded when you know when and how you can leave," Sam says and draws a circle in the dirt between her feet with a stick.

"Waylaid," Daniel offers.

"Temporarily detained."

"Et tu, Teal'c?" Jack watches his breath cloud in front of his face.

Teal'c just raises an eyebrow and goes back to laying the sleeping bags out in the kind of perfectly straight line that makes Jack itch to tease him about OCD.

"Besides, we've been holed up here for almost two weeks. What's one more night?"

"It's not just one more night, Daniel. It's one more night and then a four day festival we're getting roped into only because we couldn't get the hell off this rock in time."

"It hasn't been that bad, sir."

"I've been sleeping on a rocky cave floor for two weeks, Carter."

"And the rest of us haven't?" she fires back and when she sees his raised eyebrow and unamused mouth she quickly tacks on, "sir."

"More than one morning you and Daniel woke up like kittens," he tries to tease but even he realizes he hardly sounds amused.

Daniel grimaces. "It's been cold. It's not like I meant anything by it."

"Hey!" Sam objects.

"What?" Daniel asks, clueless. Sam punches him in the arm and he rubs his hand over that place to take the sting out. "Why did you hit me?"

"It's not like I meant anything by it," she parrots.

He tries not to notice how Teal'c surveys the rest of them and then moves Sam's sleeping back so that she'll have to sleep between him and Jack. "Okay, kids," Jack soothes. "Nobody meant anything." He sighs. "Yeah, this has been a real picnic."

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

The Fard Kamarnin is a little more solicitous than Jack is comfortable with. It's been his experience that when his team is fawned over by the local leader – especially by a short, balding, overweight local leader – that they were about to be asked to do something that wouldn't quite fly with the regs at home. After all this time he knew to pray for food, alcohol or even the local peyote.

"But you cannot go inside with this one such as she is," the little man frets and pats at Carter's shoulders. Jack smothers a grin as he watches her try to bat his hands away politely.

"Such as she is?" Carter repeats incredulously.

"Well," he flounders, "you are…of an individual mind."

"A what?"

Daniel and Teal'c exchange a glance. Daniel clears his throat and thrusts Jack forward and all of a sudden Jack gets it. "She's not," he says confidently. "This one's mine," he continues with a puff of pride that she lances with one withering glare.

But she concedes, "Yes," after having experienced far too may times of worry on the heels of her immediate disagreement. "I'm…his."

Jack makes a face at her. Could she have made that sound any worse?

"Oh," the Fard Kamarnin titters with embarrassment, "in that case… I'm terribly sorry… It's just that…"

"Don't worry," Jack says and claps him on the shoulder, "we get that a lot."

"Votan will not be pleased."

"Color me shocked," Jack says and gestures his team forward as the large, rolling gates slide open to reveal a party in full swing.

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

As they near the end of the first day, Jack hates to admit it, but it's not a bad party. There's good food, some kind of a weak honey ale, lively music, and pretty young girls doing flouncy dances that manage to keep him from focusing a hundred percent of his attention on his second's smiling face.

They pass by another of the wooden ale stalls and Jack grabs another couple of tankards he passes back and forth with Sam and Daniel. Teal'c had merely turned his nose up at the light alcoholic scent.

Carter's eyes keep straying to the groups of young women. Most appear to be in their twenties, but some are obviously close to thirty. "I wonder what the big deal is about me being single. It would appear that all these dancing girls are 'of an individual mind'," she makes air quotes with one hand since she's holding a tankard with the other.

Daniel shrugs. "Maybe those girls are single but not single minded. Do you think the Fard Kamarnin can tell when women prefer to focus on their professions rather than marriage?"

"I don't think these girls have a lot of professional options," Jack observes just as Sam mutters, "Who says prefer?" He shoots a glance at her and she shrugs.

"That was an interesting choice of words, though, don't you think?" Daniel asks.

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

"I do not dance," Teal'c reiterates and shakes off a pretty young woman in a green dress.

"They might find that insulting," Daniel tries to warn.

"I do not care, Daniel Jackson. I do not—"

"Dance," Jack jumps in. "Yes, Teal'c, we know. Danny, leave 'im alone. I'll dance with her," he says and his voice almost conveys how little he really wants to dance around a fire on his bad knees in the arms of a girl young enough to be his daughter.

"Uh, I don't think that's a good idea," Daniel interjects.

"No, sir," Sam says quietly and her ducked head tells him exactly why.

"I suppose I should be dancing with you," he says and doesn't like the hurt look in her eyes at the dejected tone in his voice. It's not that he doesn't want to dance with her. It's that he does.

"We can. If you like."

"No, I don't like," he says petulantly, "but apparently it's the thing to do." He gestures at the frivolity that's overtaken nearly all the able-bodied festival participants.

A couple minutes later he finds himself with his second in his arms and the fire between them and their teammates. She won't meet his eyes, instead her gaze is affixed to some point over his shoulder. "Carter," he says and jostles her a little so she'll look at him, "I'm sorry."

"Sometimes you work so hard to make everything look good that you make it feel bad," she says.

He crushes her closer to him. "I know."

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

"Whoa!" Jack exclaims and gives a low whistle. "What the hell is happening?"

Daniels eyes go wide as saucers. "I don't know."

"Those women appear to be naked."

"Not…naked…Teal'c," Carter helpfully supplies. "More like strategically undressed."

And she's right, Jack observes. The women do, in fact, have gauzy lengths of fabric wound around their waists and ribcages and coordinating ribbons crisscrossing their calves.

"Major Carter," the Fard Kamarnin appears at her side, "we must get you appropriately attired for the ceremony."

"Oh, like hell," Jack says menacingly.

"Fard," Sam reasons, "my…husband, won't allow me to be so…exposed…in mixed company."

"Damn straight," Jack mutters.

The Fard Kamarnin gestures to the women behind him, "No, Major Carter, you do not understand, your navel will always be appropriately covered."

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

"Why, exactly did I let Carter go with him?"

"She's fine, Jack. The Fard Kamarnin agreed she didn't have to put on the ceremonial garb. She's just being made comfortable while we go over these documents. Women aren't allowed in Scholar's Hall."

"Please tell me there's something in there that explains what the hell he wants with her," he gestures at one of the fifteen open volumes spread on the table between Daniel and Teal'c.

"All the women are to be observed by Votan," Teal'c supplies.

"And what, exactly, does that mean?"

"Some of the women have been prepared for him," Daniel summarizes the pages in front of him. "Apparently he only finds unclaimed women suitable for his purposes. All the women will be presented but he'll only choose fro the ones prepared for him – and those are the ones who are unclaimed."

"Unclaimed?" Jack asks. "What are we talking here, unmarried or virgins?"

"Does it matter? As far as they know she's married. And as far as we know, she's not a virgin."

"We should ask Major Carter," Teal'c says.

Jack pulls a face. "She's not a virgin and like you said, she's married. For today anyway. So what else do we have to worry about?"

"I don't know, Jack. But it looks like we've got it covered."

"Are you sure?"

"As sure as I can be."

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

When the Goa'uld steps off the Al'kesh vessel, Jack leans over and murmurs into Carter's ear, "This might seem like a strange question, but you're not a virgin, right?"

Her eyes go wide as the rows of women in front of them genuflect.

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

"You just…you'll just have to kiss her, Jack."

"I don't think that's appropriate," Sam tries to object.

"You don't have a choice, Sam. Votan will consider you unclean if you've been possessed by someone else."

"We're calling kissing 'possession' now, are we?"

"Sir, now's not really the time," Carter scolds.

"Sorry." He turns toward the Fard Kamarnin and Votan's First Prime. "Okay, let's do this."