Fiction: Children of Ra (NC-17)
Title: Children of Ra
Rated: NC-17
Pairing: Jack/Sam
Notes: Set in Season 6, unbeta'd.
Jack was bored, not a rare occurrence to be sure but the quiet solitude of P3X-492 ate at him, gave him too much time to think about the time with Ba’al. Made him think of the things he’d seized in his own mind to keep sane during the long hours when he thought he’d rather die (again) than take another second of the torture the Goa’uld was bestowing.
He’d had Daniel there when he woke in his cell but when the pain was eating away at him there had been no one but her to keep him sane.
What shook him was that the image in his head refused to go away, the woman who had helped him when the pain was overwhelming his ability to stay detached, the soft husky lilt of the voice that had whispered to him. He dreamed of her voice telling him to hang on, she was coming for him, that she wouldn’t give up and that he’d better not.
At first it had bothered him that the voice wasn’t Sara’s anymore, Sarah who had kept him alive when he was captured in the Middle East; but it hadn’t surprised him the way it once would have, Sarah had long since been replaced by his 2IC in his dreams.
It made it increasingly difficult to stand watch with her while Jonas and Teal’c nosed around the vast library they had found in the deserted city. She stayed silent except for the occasion radio transmissions as she searched for life anywhere within range and he wondered if it was for his benefit or her own; it hadn’t exactly been a banner year for her either.
“You guys have to see this,” Jonas’s excited shout drew his attention to where the animated man came to a running halt in the doorway and beckoned them into the large room that had once been a library. Jack went without complaint, grateful for once for what he normally would have considered ‘boring history crap’. “Teal’c and I were looking at what we think are journal histories, in one of them we found reference to a war, probably territorial.”
“And? So? Furthermore?” In other words get to the point Jonas.
“It wasn’t some little war between tribes Colonel it was…” He trailed off.
“I believe the word used to describe it in several of the histories was epic.” Teal’c supplied without inflection. “They nearly annihilated each other using weapons with immense power.”
“Makes sense,” Sam said. “They’d obviously had a technological revolution. Everything we’ve seen indicates that this planet was a much higher tech level than most Goa’uld controlled planets.”
“Some of these histories call Kortha one of Ra’s most important cult centers because of their technology.” Jonas told her. “The first few generations, everything they had was given to them by the Goa’uld, technology, education, and quality of life. It was simply generations of religious indoctrination that forestalled anyone questioning the validity of the Goa’uld’s claims after that; even when magic obviously became technology it was still considered a gift from the gods.”
“A whole civilization of willing, highly educated slaves,” Sam shook her head, Jonas handed her one of the journals so she could look at the illustration. “This is elementary wormhole theory.” She flipped the pages obviously warming up to the subject.
“So the natives got restless and destroyed themselves and Ra’s special think tank, why do we care?” Jack interrupted the technobabble before it started, yes it was fascinating, but it meant very little to him.
“That isn’t what caught my attention. What was interesting is that it seems to have been as a result of a struggle between Ra and Ma’at for control of the masses. The planet splintered, along ideological lines. It never should have happened.”
“So another snake head decided to muscle in, this still isn’t news.”
“Actually, the planet had survived other Goa’uld trying to take control.” Teal’c said. “The difference seems to be that Ma’at was born here, and born of Ra but she was not Goa’uld.”
“Harsesis?” Sam asked and Jonas nodded so hard Jack thought he might come apart.
“Earth mythology says that Ma’at was the goddess of truth and justice, the Eye of Ra, the foundation of all civilization; a great favorite of the boy king, a consort of renown in Egypt. Thoth, her husband, was the god of wisdom they called him the moon god; also a favorite of Ra’s. These journals talk about them almost as one being. They were siblings of a sort, not born but created by Ra, from Ra, his children and advisors. We think,” he gestured to both Teal’c and himself. “That they both must have been Harsesis.”
“The later journals are almost completely devoid of references to Thoth himself; the idea of him but not his physical presence.” Teal’c interjected. “But they do mention a new lord, a general of Ra’s army.”
“So Ra took one of his kids made them a snakehead and the other one… objected; which led to epic planet wide war?” Jack asked glancing out one of the windows at the empty city where they’d found evidence of a swift unplanned departure from many of the homes but not really any destruction. It was sickening and shocking to think that they had all died, but he’d seen worse, hell he’d done worse.
“Actually I don’t think so; it seems like it was more of an exodus only the ones who chose to remain and fight ended up dead.”
“But how does it help us?” Jack enunciated.
“It gave us a place to start cross-referencing. We found another set of journals that are dated prior to the exodus that speaks of Ma’at‘s uprising.” Teal’c supplied, recognizing that O’Neill’s patience was coming to an end and Jonas continued.
“It’s in a more ancient dialect so I haven’t got it completely translated yet but it looks like the journal belonged to a scientist working in one of Ra’s labs. What I have managed to translate so far makes veiled references to a weapon.”
Jonas began rifling through the journals again. “But knowing that you and the General will need more to justify our staying here;” Jonas took a deep breath. “I think the scientist who wrote the earlier set of journals was working on a way to kill the symbiote without harming the host. An electromagnetic pulse weapon of some sort.”
“That disrupted the way the symbiote interacted with the hosts brain electrochemically.” Sam said getting it suddenly and Jonas nodded, handed her another journal the sketch only half complete. “You think he succeeded in creating a weapon that basically shuts down the symbiotes control and makes it impossible for the Goa’uld to survive by starving it of electrical stimulus.”
“I don’t know if he succeeded, but he started one. And I think with his journal and a little time we might be able to find his lab and his research.” Jonas smiled, his face somehow managing to be serious and pleased all at once.
“So we stay,” Jack gripped the edge of the table tightly, frustrated because he knew that meant spending more time on this lonely planet with nothing for him to do but sit or do cataloguing.
Sam placed her hand on his arm, a strange gesture, not something she was prone to do even if they had been alone, while Jonas chattered on enthusiastically about staying oblivious to his friend’s irritation. Or he thought she did, he’d stopped being certain of such things like that while in a cell with Daniel all those months ago. Maybe her hand wasn’t really there, but he couldn’t look to find out.
“We just have to be patient, but I know the answer is in here and when we do figure it out it could mean the end of the Goa’uld.” The younger man continued and Jack moved to touch his 2IC’s hand with his for an instant before looking up at Jonas and found Teal’c watching him. He dropped his hand immediately without making contact.
“I’ll go back to the gate, call the General, and get more supplies and anything else you need so make a list.” Jack said before walking from the room without looking at them.
****
They were glorious, his creations clinging together in the ether before he gave them life the woman wrapped around her male counterpart like a vine as if she took sustenance from his flesh itself.
“When will my children be ready?” Ra asked one of the scientists standing nearby watching the creatures with wide eyes; the man, Geb, swallowed hard and stuttered an answer.
“Soon my lord,” The young man dipped his head as his god locked his golden gaze on him. “It will be days, perhaps hours before they are strong enough to wake.” Ra smiled making the man shiver, the cold calculating edge of his smile sharp like an icy breeze on the mans back and walked from the lab leaving Geb to stare at the pair suspended in golden liquid.
“It is unnatural,” Nut said from her table, drawing Geb’s gaze the way his fascination had drawn Ra’s. “To cross breed in this manner makes him unclean.”
“The lord Ra wished it,” Geb gestured to the frozen figures. His children Ra had called them and Geb supposed they were; a genetic cross of body and soul, the host and parasite as Geb as come to see them during his time in the labs. His sister Nut had always been a pragmatist, the epiphany that their god was in fact no more than a man had left Geb reeling but the practical Nut had taken the truth with great stride falling back into the pattern of her life as if nothing had changed. “They are his children.”
“We were supposed to be his children, but when his precious offspring have awoken we will be nothing to him.”
“We will be dead.” Geb said quietly and Nut faltered into silence as her brother turned angrily away from the golden figures behind the glass. “You do not believe he will let us live after all we have seen; that he will let us return to our homes.” Nut’s stricken face fell and she shook her head.
“I would like to trust that it will be otherwise.”
“You’ve never been one to believe in childish tales why begin now?” Turning back to the couple he closed his eyes. “When do you think they will wake?”
“Tomorrow,” his sister replied quietly. “Perhaps the day after; it is hard to tell at this stage. They are content to be as they are. It will happen when they are ready.”
“Then we must find a reason for our god to keep us around once he no longer needs us.” He keyed up a file he’d been working on and turned his screen toward Nut. “I think this may be the key.”
****
Two days in and even Sam was going slightly mad from the solitude, some of the technology she’d found was fascinating and she’d tagged multiple things for further study but there was only so long you could catalog a planet before it got to you.
The silence, the oppressive sense of loneliness in each building, scattered bits if peoples lives and still no bodies.
Geb, Jonas had explained over breakfast that day, had been one of the scientists that had helped create Ma’at and Thoth, not just Harsesis but (if the translation was correct) clones genetically blended from DNA of the host and symbiote that were Ra.
“He was trying to create the perfect host race, with its own genetic memory so that they were Goa’uld without a symbiote.”
“Why would that matter?” Sam had asked, if only to keep Jonas talking, she could not stomach another silent meal it gave her time to think, and her thoughts had been scattered of late. She spent too much time thinking about Fifth, about Nirrti and it was making her restless.
“There was a shortage of symbiotes; too many queens had died or been captured by rival System Lords. Ra’s own queen Tefnut had long since faded from the histories. No queens, no new Goa’uld, no Jaf’fa… his power base was eroding and he was looking for a way to breed strong, intelligent hosts, who he could trust without having to turn them or make them Jaf’fa.”
It was an ingenious plan, and actually assuming it had worked explained why the guards on Ra’s ship hadn’t been full Jaf’fa according to the reports back from when the original team through the gate.
They just had to find the lab which thankfully Jonas had narrowed to within the palace, somewhere, which granted wasn’t really that narrow, but it gave her and the Colonel something to do.
They started in the lower levels and began working their way methodically through rooms and passages looking for hidden panels, ring devices, or traps and of course the lab. They worked in relative silence; he’d never been chatty but had become nearly monosyllabic when they were alone since the Tok’ra and Ba’al, he’d stopped haunting her lab and though it shouldn’t it felt like a loss.
“Carter,” his voice was clipped and brought her back to the present; he gestured at something he’d found embedded in a passage wall. “Door sensor, but I don’t see a door.”
She glanced around the vicinity; he was right there was no door, she nodded and then bent to inspect the sensor.
“It looks like it’s been deactivated with extreme prejudice. There are energy burns across the surface like it overloaded.”
“Or someone shot it with a zat. Can you fix it?”
“Might take a little time, it will depend on how badly damaged the wiring behind the panel is.” She was already pulling things out of her pack, a sticky light, her computer, a tool kit. His radio squawked a burst of static and she flinched.
“I’ll go back a few levels to where we had decent reception and radio in to Jonas and Teal’c that we found something.” He turned on a booted heel without waiting for an answer and Sam watched him a frown pulling her face down for a moment as she watched him go.
Once he was out of sight she focused back on her task, slipping into the technology the way most women slipped into a warm bath, she soon had it opened and her laptop connected, testing the wiring as she tried to access the system.
How long it took her she didn’t know, she was aware that O’Neill had returned but if he wasn’t in a talking mood, neither was she.
“I think I’ve got it.” She connected two wires, clipped on, hit a few keys and was enveloped by the familiar flash of transport rings coming out of the wall. She vaguely made out Jack’s, ‘Carter!’ before she was deposited on the other side of the wall.
She blinked, the light had been blinding, disorienting and she felt light headed and stumbled slightly only to be caught by strong arms instinctively going around her waist.
“That was not your average transport.”
“Agreed sir,” she looked up at him, her vision clearing and realized how close they were standing, stepped back and looked around.
“The lab?” He asked his hands going into his pockets.
“Certainly a lab.” She qualified. “I don’t know if it’s the lab.” She turned taking in the room, and found herself facing a bank of computers all connected to a large amber tank.
“The lab?” He asked again, she nodded.
“Oh yeah.”
“Right,” he shifted, brought his radio up. “Teal’c?” Static. “Jonas.” More static. “Okay Carter, how do we get out of here?”
“Working on it,” and she was though her tools hadn’t come with her. At least on this side of the wall the machines were powered up. Granted they were in Goa’uld, but computers were fairly universal things or so she’d learned and she’d had a couple days playing with other bits of tech they’d found. Fifteen minutes later she’d gotten past the first screen and managed to get into an interface screen, Goa’uld yes, but computers were computers. They were like physics that way, immutable.
“Carter?” Jack was pacing, having shed his equipment, and moving around the lab like a caged animal touching things at random, she could feel his restless energy like the tingle of a skin on skin static shock.
“I’m doing my best sir,” her voice was terse, almost uncharacteristic but she was suddenly not in the mood to deal with his mood as well. He touched another console and something beeped. “Please don’t touch anything.”
“Then turn on some ventilation, it’s hot in here.” He said in an almost growl shucking his vest.
“I’ll be sure to make air conditioning my first priority.” Her tone implied that she wasn’t taking him seriously, though he was right it was hot in the room, she pulled off her own vest as if compelled.
“Sir.” She turned to look at him, he’d come closer and was standing a pace away.
“First priority, sir…” she’d barely gotten it out of her mouth before he’d hauled her to her feet and kissed her, his mouth hungry and warm. He drew her closer until she couldn’t breath, didn’t want to breathe. Everywhere he touched was like hot liquid pouring over her skin, but there was no pain only marvelous heat that was contrasted with the chill of the computer bank behind her.
Her hands slipped over the sinews of his back tugged at the hem of his t-shirt so her fingers grazed bare skin. She loved this, touching him, kissing him; in the back of her mind she knew it was wrong, she should be pushing him away but her protests were swamped by the overwhelming rightness of it. She pressed full length against him trying to get as close as she could as his lips went from hers to her neck; the rasp of his stubble rubbed her throat and she shivered, arched against him making him groan.
His hands stroked over her hips, to her ass as he lifted her against the console and suddenly kissing wasn’t nearly enough, she wanted all of him, her skin buzzed with it and she could almost hear his thoughts agreeing.
A burst of static broke the spell, left them breathing heavily staring wide eyed at each other as Teal’c voice broke through the fuzz.
“O’Neill, Major Carter?” Jack stepped away his fingers dragging over her skin reluctantly, as if it was an extreme effort of will and she slipped off the console so her feet were on the floor.
“What the hell was that?” he asked righting his clothes.
“Don’t know sir.” She didn’t look at him, the sense of loss making her hands itch to drag him against her again despite her minds protests. “It was almost as if we were…”
“O’Neill.” Tealc’s voice interrupted her, his tone insistent.
“Yeah T, we hear you.” Jack answered picking up his gear.
“We have located Major Carter’s equipment, are you nearby?”
“You could say that Teal’c,” he glanced at Sam who was back at the console, tucking in her t-shirt while she scanned the screen. “We found the lab, Carter is working on getting us out of...” something beeped and one of the walls disappeared leaving a wide opening between the lab and the hallway where Teal’c and Jonas were now standing. Hey good thing he’d gotten pulled back together. “Here. Good work Major.”
“Thank you sir,” she went to retrieve her things from the hall without looking at him she was worried about what she might do. It had been almost as if they’d been possessed, but themselves at the same time.
****
She looked like innocence personified, wide open and defenseless and soft, like whipped cream, like butter, like silk. But there was something about her that promised ecstasy an earthiness, something that was inherent, but dormant.
On the other hand he looked like sin, passion and sharp edges with an underlying sense of calm that bled from his icy eyes. He had an oneness with himself that echoed the openness of her, a sense of singularity that still managed to embrace the fertile bounty of the woman and match its excess with nothing larger than a whisper.
They moved together with a shared voice that frightened Ra, a silent communication that tied them to each other and left no room for him to rule.
That would have to change and he knew just who to awaken.
****
There was something positively obscene about the way Jonas ate a banana, that or Jack’s brain was stuck on sex.
Considering the dreams he’d had the night before that was a possibility; hazy golden things the memory of which made his body tight. It had been like watching, or living, a Daniel Steele miniseries and an erotic film all at once.
Jonas was rattling on about some book or other over breakfast, Teal’c listening with interested attention and Jack idly wished Carter were here to distract the younger man or at least so he could steal a vanilla ration bar from her stash. Jack stifled a yawn; he should have considered sleeping in.
“Good morning Jonas, Teal’c, sir.” She said from behind him and he blinked, turned to look at her even as she dropped the ration bar he’d been thinking about in his lap. He unwrapped it and took a bite trying hard not to question how she’d known he wanted one. She was Carter, she knew things.
“Sleep well?” Jonas asked and she shook her head.
“Kept waking up,” he probably imagined the liquid heat in that sentence, but not the way it warmed her eyes. It made him cough as he swallowed wrong. Teal’c slapped him hard on the back and he could feel Carter’s focus on him, feel it as though he were experiencing it as a touch.
Oh hell.
It would have bothered him less if she hadn’t nodded her agreement to his unspoken thought.
****
He will be coming for one of us,” Thoth stroked her back languidly.
“For you.” They both knew Ra had little use for her except as the mother of his host race and she could not bear them if she was taken as a host. He was their father, their creator as close to being their god as either of them knew and it was his will to do as he pleased. “I am scared. I know the soul of the host; he is a frightened boy, a prisoner within himself. You will not be yourself once Ra is done. He will destroy us.”
The young man who was locked within Ra had a strong mind, she’d felt it, but he’d not been strong enough to overcome and neither would Thoth.
“He created us, it is his will. We must obey.” She clung him in the dark, it was his will, and Thoth was as devoted to Ra as he was to her. She would have to save them both, save their children’s children from his possession. Ra would have to be stopped. “Do not blaspheme my love.” Thoth whispered.
“No,” she agreed silently locking the thought away, the first time that she’d hidden anything from her brother-husband. “It is his will, we must obey.”
****
“What do you mean you don’t know?” His voice had raised and only a quiet ‘sir’ from Carter calmed him down. Jonas sighed, the last few hours had not been pleasant as Sam and Jack had haltingly explained what had happened, what was happening.
“Ghosts,” Teal’c said and both men looked at him, Sam walking a few steps away. “There are some people that think humans are capable of extra sensory thought are there not? We know Ma’at and Thoth were, maybe they left behind their ghosts.”
“Like psychic echoes,” Jonas took up the thought. “That might explain why their memories but not why Jack and Sam.”
“Nirriti,” Sam said turning suddenly, grasping at any reason that wasn’t ‘well you see Jonas, Jack and I are just as starcrossed as they were’. “Whatever she did to me changed my brain chemistry, short circuited a few pathways and opened up some new ones. Janet didn’t think it meant anything in the long run but it’s possible it’s made me more suggestible psychically.”
“My brain’s not working with its original schematic either. Mission in the Middle East, doctors weren’t sure I was going to wake up but my brain retrained itself.”
“It probably doesn’t help that we’re both running around with Goa’uld protein markers in our systems setting us apart from you and Teal’c.” Sam added with a nod.
“I thought your markers were because Jolinar’s body was absorbed into your system how did Jack get them?” Jonas said and Jack shrugged.
“Kanan was dying already, just not fast enough to escape Ba’al unless he left me,” he waved his hand and looked away, thinking of Kanan always made him tense and he could see Sam’s shoulders tighten in response. “It’s not very strong, trace amounts of the protein that the doc thinks were released while he was leaving me. Just another side effect to having your body inhabited by a Tok’ra,” Sam laughed a sad bitter sound that made Jonas’s chest hurt because it matched the bleakness on Jack’s face.
Teal’c simply raised an eyebrow.
“We’re close, I can feel it. The answer's here somewhere. In Ma’at’s journals. I’ll find it.” Jonas promised before disappearing into the library again followed by Teal’c who gave Jack a silent nod before leaving.
"This thing is a crock of shit,” Jack said once they were gone, his voice edged with anger. “Ghost don’t explain anything, even if I believed in them; and even if we’re capable of ESP all of a sudden why now?”
“I don’t know,” she put a hand on his arm again. “You have to relax sir.”
“Don’t, don’t call me that; I know you can feel how much it bothers me and I know why you’re doing it.”
“I’m sorry,” there was a pause that was heavy with meaning. “Jack. You have to relax. We’ll figure this out.” He rubbed a hand over his face.
“I feel like I’m losing my mind.” He told her. “Half the time I don’t know if what I’m feeling or thinking is me, or you or one of them.” But he was fairly sure the tense anger, the demanding part was a little of him and a little of Thoth.
“Something awful happened to them,” she said softly. “I don’t know what it is but I know she was scared.”
“So was he.” He pulled her into his arms, it felt right in a way that he was familiar with, made him feel grounded. “We’ll be fine Carter.” He said against her hair.
“They weren’t,” he tightened his grip on her and didn’t respond.
****
She closed her eyes briefly as the change began, knowing how he looked: lean, sharp-faced, billowing robes, tumbled hair; he looked like a frayed angel, falling, always falling but never, quite, completely fallen. There were whispers in her mind that grew increasingly urgent as time ran out but they'd said everything important already, and in the end there was only silence between them.
He shook screaming out in pain as his mind shattered within him, fire blazing from his eyes with a heat that brought her to her knees. Ra watched fascinated as she found her way to Thoth as his struggles lessened and pressed her lips to his one last time, tears held in with iron-willed control.
He kissed her with intense, abiding passion as though he could drink his salvation from her lips and bury his sins with her. Startled she pulled away wide eyed staring at the stranger who was her love. She wondered how long the imprint of his kiss would last, if she would ever be free of him and the new voice that moved through her mind as though committing her to memory.
Ra signaled that the other man be released; Thoth stood proud and let the attendant help him into a robe of burnt orange. Ma'at dropped her eyes and fell into a graceful bow before him, tears wet on her cheeks. He stooped lifting her face with his palm and locking eyes with her. Ra stood as he realized something strange had happened.
"Haroeris," Ra said circling the pair, and crossing to stand in front of the newly created Goa'uld Ma'at sobbing silently between them huddled at their feet.
"No," the other man said looking down at Ma’at instead of at Ra. “I was Haroeris. I was, Thoth. But we are more now.”
****
"Were you able to translate the text?" Jack asked when Jonas joined him on the balcony.
"That’s why I radioed you; I wanted to talk to you about what I found in Ma’at's diary." He said with a heavy voice.
"I don't like that tone, what did you find?”
"Thoth was implanted with a Goa’uld less than a year after he and Ma’at were created; Ra was in a hurry to solidify his position. Ma’at could hear Thoth’s thoughts and literally lived through the melding of the two minds with her own intact, barely, because she couldn’t shut him out. She thought, and I agree, that her link to Thoth was what gave his psyche the strength to withstand the Goa’uld and that in connection with his unique physiology is why Haroeris and Thoth became one being instead of two in one body.”
Jack looked at Jonas who was frowning for a second and nodded, the dream coming back to him, remembering the way Ma’at had held him together the way Sam had done for him more than once.
“She kept him sane and strong while the minds merged. He repaid her by brutalizing her.” The crease in Jonas’s forehead deepened as he listened to Jack’s description of Ma’at and Thoth’s relationship.
“She loved him, she wasn’t afraid of him even after. He didn’t hurt her, at least not that she’s mentioned in her diary’s.” Jonas protested.
“Of course he did.” Jack said quietly. “He was a devoted follower of Ra.” A devoted officer and a gentleman, his mind mocked him.
“She ran.” Jonas said sadly rather than contradict the vehement assertion of his friend. “When she realized she couldn’t get through to Thoth,” he smiled thinking of the young woman who had escaped the control of two powerful Goa’uld.
“Smart woman,” Jack finished the thought.
"Ra eventually found her hiding in the city," Jonas continued, unaware of Jack’s lapse in concentration as Sam walked out on the balcony to join them, she’d been listening from the doorway. "He was too late though, the people loved her, she’d been a kind goddess, accessible and embracing. The revolt had already begun, Ra didn’t have a chance.”
“She got them off the planet,” Sam said from behind him something from her dream coming to the surface. “The Tok’ra; she called the Tok’ra for help.”
“She started the Tok’ra.” Jonas said with a grin. “That’s why you and Jack are...” he waved a hand. “The Tok’ra protein marker has you coded as members of the system; it was set up as a repository of what happened here so that future generations of Tok’ra would know the story. Something is transmitting it via gamma waves and the two of you are picking it up like a radio picking up a signal. I think the unusual transport you describe must have been it activating that’s why you reacted so violently at first. A normal Tok’ra would have a symbiote to help counteract the uh… physical response.”
“Except the Tok’ra don’t know the story,” said Sam shaking her head. “Jolinar had no idea about this, I’d have remembered.”
“Some of the older members might know, but they aren’t reproducing, so it isn’t being passed down through genetic memory and they’ve got bigger things to worry about than their origins. They’re fighting for survival.” It was the same way much of Native American history had been lost, th focus on survival blanking out the oral history and the older members passing too quickly to pass the stories along.
"Is that all?" Jack said, deceptively calm but Sam’s proximity made his skin buzz and he itched to get some distance between them.
"Mostly, Osiris tried to overthrow Ra shortly after that. Many of the system lords joined Ra in his fight and Osiris was defeated. Ma’at seems to have disappeared with the last of her followers. Everyone who was left were taken by Ra as slaves.”
"But she’s still telling her story,” Sam said quietly and both men looked at her. Jack’s gaze locked with hers and Jonas felt an odd sense of intruding on a private moment. “What if we just left the planet? Wouldn’t it stop?”
“That might be dangerous. I’ve been looking at some of the brain wave scans we did,” He shook his head sadly. “We have to turn off whatever is broadcasting the gamma waves and give it time for your brains to return to normal or who knows what could happen,”
“Great.” Jack said gruffly. “Find Teal’c have him start looking for the doohickey that’s doing this. If transporting into that lab started it then it has to be there.” Jonas nodded, hurried from the room with a backward glance at his CO and friend and caught a glimpse of as Jack crossed to his 2IC wrapping his arms around her, her head tucked beneath his.
It was eerily reminiscent of a sketch of Ma’at and Thoth before they’d woken that he’d come across in one of Geb’s journals.
****
She braced herself against the wall reveling in the feeling of his arms wrapped around her, his body pressed to hers. His hands roamed her flesh, her nudity a startling counterpoint to his clothed state; but she was a slave and he was a god and the proper distance had to be maintained even as his fingers slipped over her wet, quaking flesh.
She let her head drop back against his shoulder and swallowed a moan, the gasped release of breath echoed in the room and spurred him forward. His legs held hers apart as he thrust into her slowly shuddering as her heat surrounded him.
He groaned as he came burying his face against the sweat sweetened skin of her throat and wrapping her more securely to him.
“Never let me go,” she breathed into his hair silently aware that she would be leaving him herself, something else she’d learned to hide from him in the deep recesses of her mind.
****
Jack sat bolt upright in bed, and groaned. The dreams and memories were getting stronger, he was going to go mad if they didn’t get he and Sam disconnected from whatever it was sending the signal and soon. Hammond had suggested sending a second team but they didn’t need more bodies cluttering the lab. It wasn’t that big and with Sam and Teal’c going through the computer system and Jonas still reading journals the whole place was getting claustrophobic.
He got out of bed and padded over to his gear in his shorts and undershirt and unearthed a canteen for a drink. His throat was dry, and the water was welcome and cooling though it got no where near the heat that had pooled in his gut.
He knew she was at the door before she knocked that sense of where she was that they’d always had in the field enhanced by the Tok’ra machine. He thought about ignoring her, and heard her moving away from the door in response to the thought when he pulled it open.
“Come in Carter.” He stepped back and could feel her embarrassed relief as he opened the door.
“Thanks. I was having trouble sleeping and I thought… I don’t know what I thought. I’m sorry this is happening I know that we decided not to talk about it but…” But the Zatarc incident was a long time ago and a lot had happened recently that needed talking about.
He closed the door behind her and then turned to look at her across the dimly lit room, uncertain of where to start, uncomfortable with the way her presence made his body tighten; he didn’t know what to say but was saved the effort when she kissed him.
Thank you Sam.
She kissed him like he was the last bit of oxygen in the room, like there was no tomorrow which seemed like a fine idea to Jack. He wasn’t ready to think about tomorrow so he poured himself into the kiss, into her, his fingers dragging through her hair to angle her head back allowing him better access to her mouth.
His hands found her hips beneath the long t-shirt she wore, lifting her and she locked her legs around his waist making him groan as it brought her flush against him. She smelled like soap, and paper and something that was uniquely Sam.
Days, it had only been days since he’d kissed her in the lab but it had felt like years, longer than the years they’d spent denying what they felt for each other.
“Jack,” she gasped against his neck, and he couldn’t breathe, could only feel her wrapped around him as he pulled her shirt over her head and laved the length of her throat with his tongue as he deposited them both on the bed with a thump.
She braced herself, and their hips moved together making her moan. Or was that him? She wasn’t sure which one of them shuddered but it brought bare skin against cloth with a tight friction. It was cold. It was hot. Her heart was going to explode.
She felt rather than heard him agree, and she clawed his shirt up his back over his head as he tugged her panties over her hips his mouth finding the slope of her breast then trailing lower as he stripped her bare then himself. When he came back it was to press his lips to the gentle swell of one hip and she cried out.
He moved his mouth lower and Sam jerked up, her hips restrained by his hand. Her head fell back against the pillow shuddering when he stroked her with his tongue her hand fisting in the sheets as the pleasure crested too fast and not fast enough for people who’d been waiting years. He moaned against her flesh as though he’d climaxed as well and she tugged him up the length of her body to press her mouth to his.
She could taste her self, feel him hard against her thigh, feel the tension in him and was ready to come again with nothing more than a kiss. For a second he froze, and she stopped too their eyes meeting, his dark almost black in the half light saying more than any words could and then he was inside her and they both made choked primal noises in their throats.
He began to move, his chest heaving with effort, moved in closer so there was nothing between them. Not air, not skin, and he buried his face against her hair muttering, whispering, groaning in counterpoint to the crisp sounds of sex as they moved together.
She wanted more, and he knew without words his thrusts became harder, deeper and she wrapped her legs around his waist, brought her hips up changing the angle of penetration and making them both cry out as they flew apart together.
Breathing heavily they slowly came back to earth and when she would have pulled away he tightened his grip, “Don’t.”
“What if Jonas or Teal’c come looking. I should...” he shook his head and wrapped her closer. “They won’t.”
She hesitated and then curved her body against his, her ear pressed against his chest over his heart, she was drifting to sleep, his hand stroking her back and he barely heard her murmured.
“Never let me go.” His embrace tightened instinctively but he knew that he’d have to let her go eventually. They’d both have to let go.
****
Jonas had determined that there was no weapon, but the research was nearly complete and had been packed off to Area 51 while he and Sam tried to crack the programming on the doohickey (hey no one else had given it a better name). Once they’d known what to look for it had been easy to locate.
Turning it off however was more difficult.
SG-3 and SG-5 were finishing the search of the city camping out in deserted homes as they got farther from the palace. Doctor Frasier came through the gate every morning to check their vitals; Jack would go escort her for lack of anything better to do which today was proving to be a bad decision.
“Do you want to talk about it Colonel?” It sounded more like an order than anything else even though technically she couldn’t give him non medical orders.
“Nothing to talk about, I’ve got the psychic echo of a part Goa’uld part clone slowly taking over my body. My second in command is channeling the ‘Eye of Ra’,” he made air quotes. “But everything is hunky dory thank for asking.”
“Colonel.” She didn’t believe him and wasn’t letting him pawn her off.
“What do you want me to say doc?!” He swung on her, voice raised and she flinched moved away slightly. Her expression hardened his; he swore and drove his fist into the wall, wrestled the roiling emotions back under control. “I’m doing the best I can here doc, Sam got the ghost who was all inner peace and balance. I got bipolar action spook and wasn’t real stable to start out with you know? To make things a little more complicated the only thing that shuts him the hell up is something I’m not allowed to touch.”
He wasn’t sure what he’d expected, distance maybe as their dreams got harsher, showed them a war that was waged between Ra’s forces and Ma’at’s people.
But every night she came to his door a little earlier, clung to him a little tighter as the images wracked her body with tears Ma’at hadn’t had the time to shed, soothed the angry tension of his jaw with her lips when the writhing darkness in Thoth clawed through him, cried out with less control as she shattered under him.
The distance that they needed refused to come, going back would be hell but not touching her while he had the chance was worse.
“Let me see your hand.” He offered it to her wordlessly and she poked at it, pressed the knuckles. “Nothing broken, but try to avoid punching walls in the future.”
“Yes ma’am.” They started walking again, this time in silence.
“I could give you a sedative. You need to get some sleep, so does Sam. Increased brain function, higher hormone levels all things I assume would be evened out by the symbiote if you were Tok’ra they need to be monitored but they aren’t life threatening yet. Exhaustion on the other hand worries me.”
He didn’t want to say yes, it meant sleeping alone and that thought left him cold in a way that should probably worry him. Jonas and Teal’c had to know that they’d been sharing a room, but Janet probably only had supposition unless Sam had been sharing with her.
Realism warred with desire and he nodded.
“Yeah, that would be good.” Get some distance. Get some sleep.
****
Her nerve endings burned, screaming pain that blossomed outward in widening circles, but she refused to look away. Golden fire lit her face, but she could still see his eyes and forced her gaze to lock with his.
The chill of his presence in her mind was like a soothing balm even though it shouldn’t be; he shuddered and the waves of energy faltered as her anguish transmitted back. He dropped his hand and stepped back shaking.
“More.” Ra was behind her but Thoth didn’t look at him, she wouldn’t let him look away.
“She won’t break; we’ll have to get the information from one of the others.” He couldn’t get to it, to the secrets she’d learned to lock away. To the location where they’d smuggled as many people as possible, to the names of those who had helped her. He couldn’t find the particulars of her plan to overthrow their god and the more torture they inflicted the weaker he became in turn.
“Then she dies.” Her back snapped into a fierce curve as Ra’s hand device flared to life and she screamed.
****
He woke from a dead sleep, muscles jelly either from the sleeping pill that that Frasier had given him or the lingering effect of the dream. He ached physically in a way that was familiar, the raw nerve feeling of the hand device like a sub-dermal sunburn, the wrenching in his chest that came with hurting the woman he loved.
Loved?
He rubbed a had over his face and into his hair, looked where Sam should be beside him before remembering that she was in her own room once more. He felt briefly as though someone had removed a vital part of him.
Frasier had stayed, to monitor them more closely, she wasn’t saying it but he could tell she was worried their vitals had been gradually increasing, blood pressure, pulse, and hormone levels were all edging into the red zone. Exhaustion had dampened their immune systems, white blood cell counts lowered; she’d assured them both that they looked like death on a cracker and taken the room between theirs.
Yeah, it was their physical health she was concerned about.
He flopped back on the bed, kicking off the covers and was just starting to relax again when Sam screamed. He was on his feet heading to her room at a dead run in an instant, Frasier, Jonas and Teal’c ended up a few paces behind him because they’d been asleep, because he’d known she was in trouble an instant before she’s screamed, whatever it was he was the first person into her room.
Sweat had dampened her hair, her tank top sticking to glistening skin, eyes staring sightlessly as she screamed in obvious agony.
“My god.” He heard Janet murmur behind him but didn’t respond, grabbed Sam by the arms and shook her, hard.
“Carter!” He snapped, the scream faltered but her eyes remained unfocused so he shook her again. “Sam.” He said her name in an undertone, gentle compared to before and barely audible to the three people in the doorway. She came fully awake with a start, wrenching away from him before she realized who it was.
“J... Jack?” She blinked, pained. “My head…” He stepped back immediately knowing what she’d dreamed; knowing that in a perverse way he’d been the one hurting her.
Janet was there by then, checking her vitals, sending Jonas for her med kit and another sedative, something for the headache. Teal’c had slipped from the room and returned with a glass of water from somewhere and Sam took it with shaking hands, drained it her eyes on Jack the entire time.
Ten minutes later she was back to sleep, Janet’s drugs doing their job, the remaining four huddled by the wall where Jack had stood through out.
“I want both of you hooked up to monitors,” Janet said in her no nonsense voice. “If you can’t leave here than I’ll have to get them from the base.” Jack didn’t argue.
“T take the doc back to the SGC, get what she needs and tell the General we need another scientist.” He glanced at Frasier. “Carter’s not in much condition to do this on her own and I want someone in there working round the clock. Jonas, find out what happened here so we aren’t working in the dark on these flashbacks.”
They went, without comment, though Janet had tried to give him another sedative when he’d admitted to having a headache as well; he’d taken a couple Tylenol, shut the door behind them, and climbed into bed beside her before he let himself relax.
She muttered in her sleep and curled against him.
****
A finger traced her lips, moistening them a gentle hand brushed hair off her forehead and she knew it was him without opening her eyes.
Intellectually she knew she should pull away, the tenderness was just another kind of torture but her body wanted the touch. Hungered for it as if it knew this would be the last.
Thoth’s touch had been gentle, like a breeze on her skin but this was firm, warm as it stroked over her skin. She’d known when he kissed her that the blended Thoth would burn his passion into her and make her his a much if not more than she had been before.
Wicked fingers woke nerve endings that were still aching from Ra’s treatment, and she moaned half pleasured, half pained and his mouth covered hers, swallowed the sound.
She was trembling when he entered her, and the pleasure crested quickly leaving them both breathless.
“You will be destroyed with him.” She murmured against his neck, his arms around her tightened.
“And you will be destroyed without him.”
“So long as he is destroyed,” blasphemy, his hand tightened on her hip but he wasn’t as used to hiding things as she was she knew before he did that he’d silently agreed.
****
She woke with a groan, the familiar presence of Jack in bed beside her, sunlight filtering in to the room.
“Morning.” She shifted to look up at his face.
“You get the license of the bus that hit me?” He chuckled.
“Doc says you’ll be fine, flashback got a little…”
“Intense.” She nodded started to sit up, the second dream had left her warm and liquid and if she didn’t move away she was afraid they might not get out of bed. “I should get to the lab.”
“Lee and Felger are down there.” He circled her wrist with his fingers and pulled her back toward him. “Doc wants us to get some rest.” No mention of the look she’d given him when she and Teal’c had returned and he’d been in Sam’s bed. She’d hooked leads to them both, and connected the monitors.
“Jay and Bill won’t be able to figure it out.” Her struggle was token, her heart monitor beeped and she looked at it as if she’d just noticed it. “Janet?” He nodded and she sighed.
“She had to got check on one of SG-3, minor accident resulting in a broken arm. Promised her we wouldn’t move till she came back, she promised not to mention the sleeping arrangements.”
“That woman always was good with the blackmail.” Sam let herself be pulled back against his chest and they were silent for long moments, she thought he’d dosed off.
“It’s going to end soon.” She nodded.
“I know.” His arm slid around her tightened it against her chest and she tipped her head, cheek against his shoulder, closed her eyes.
“We’ll get to go home, get back to normal.” He sounded about as enthusiastic as she felt, she twisted so she faced him and they locked eyes. He traced the curve of her jaw down her throat with one finger, hand mapping the curve of her breast, her hip to curve over bare skin.
Her stomach contracted and he stroked the elastic edge of her panties, need moved from and ache to a raging inferno and he wondered how he’d ever keep it in check. He dipped his head to her breasts, mouthed the tight tips through her tank top until the fabric clung to her skin in damp patches.
“I love this tank top,” he breathed against her breast, fingers worming their way into her panties, stroking her flesh. Her answer was a sharp cry, an arch of the hips and the tempo of her pulse on the monitor increased.
She tunneled her fingers into his hair and a ragged moan escaped her lips as he stroked her, his lips covering hers as she climaxed against his hand. She could feel him against her hip, and she writhed against him making him groan and tug her panties down, then his boxers.
She helped kicking her panties away as he shifted so her knees bracketed his hips and then he was inside her.
Janet was going to love trying to figure out their EKGs.
****
“What do you want?” He was looking over his shoulder, the guards would notice she was gone soon and they had to get out of the palace before that or Ra would stop them. All he knew and he still thought of the other man as a god, as his creator.
“I want you safe. Come with me.” Geb had been released as well; his sister dead now he’d had nothing to lose and should already be in the lab setting the final pieces in place, layer on top of layer of programming hiding the message.
“I’m not safe I’ve never been safe. Not for you, not for anyone. He saw to that.” The sound of footsteps, and they both stiffened, shrunk into the shadows as a pair of guards came past.
“We make our own safety.” She murmured in his ear, her lips brushing his skin.
“We do.” He kissed her, hard, and she knew it was a goodbye. He pressed the zatnikatel into her hand and stepped into the corridor, under the light and yelled after the guards that had passed them. She waited until the sound of their footsteps faded and fairly flew to the lab, Geb was already in the corridor, the opening hidden and she fried the sensor before taking his hand and running.
Never leave me.
She wasn’t sure who thought it but it wasn’t possible, all it did was break her heart.
****
“You’re going to piss off the doc Carter,” Jack was leaning against a consol across the lab; Sam was working on her computer, connected to the system in three places now.
“She gave me four hours.” The keys clacked, “I almost have it.”
“You do?” He straightened and came toward her, he should be pleased but there was nothing but a sense of loss. She looked up at him, her eyes wide open full of things they hadn’t said because that would make what was going on real. If they didn’t say it, it could still be forgotten could be filed away as part of all this.
It remained unspoken but she knew he could feel it, felt the answering emotion, the pain that left her breathless. He kissed her, her fingers threading through his hair as their mouths met, a demanding kiss that didn’t allow either of them to shy away from it, that didn’t leave any question about who was involved that said everything that neither of them had been able to say including goodbye.
“Do it.” There was a long silence; he turned away from her, “Before I change my mind.” She nodded even though he couldn’t see her and went back to typing, the last layers of code stripping away as the system shut down.
Then everything went white.
****
“Welcome back Colonel.” The room had that familiar antiseptic smell of the infirmary, and he’d recognize that light that was shining in his eye anywhere.
“What happened?” He felt muzzy, like he had a hangover and a concussion all at once.
“We aren’t positive, it looked like Sam managed to turn off the transmission. But both of you were in it so deep that it shut you down.”
“Someone with a symbiote would have been able to withstand the shock.” Teal’c said and Jack turned his head to look at the Jaf’fa, next to him was Jonas.
“S… Carter?” He struggled to sit up, correcting himself before saying her name and Janet reached to help him.
“Here sir.” Her voice was soft, and for the first time since this whole ordeal started he hadn’t known exactly where she was hadn’t felt her there. He jerked to look at her, she smiled.
“You hit the ground pretty hard when you fell.” Janet told him and Sam had been sitting, that explained the familiar concussion headache. “She’s been awake for a little while now.”
Their eyes met and Sam smiled without it reaching them, he was starting to hate that expression. She leaned back looking suddenly very fragile and tired.
“We check out okay?”
“As far I can tell, your brain patterns have leveled off, your vitals are back in normal range. You just need some rest.” He started to speak and she stopped him.
“You can go home tomorrow Colonel, after a little more observation. Rest,” she gave Sam’s hand a pat, gave Jonas and Teal’c pointed looks that would only have meant something if they were women and left. Jonas started to say something and Teal’c wisely grabbed him by the scruff of his neck and dragged him off after Janet like a puppy.
“You okay Carter?” He asked after the others had left, the question holding more meaning that the words implied.
“Yes sir.” A pause. “You?”
“Dandy.” He deadpanned, looked back over at her. Every cell of his body wanted to move over and climb into her bed with her, and he was pretty sure she knew that. That she felt the same way. He was perversely pleased even though it ached every bit as much as he’d thought it would.
He reached out, his hand finding hers extended toward him as if she’d known his would be there, their fingers tangled briefly and almost as one they both relaxed, a nurse came around the curtain and their hands dropped but he could still feel her touch.
“Just dandy.”
Rated: NC-17
Pairing: Jack/Sam
Notes: Set in Season 6, unbeta'd.
Jack was bored, not a rare occurrence to be sure but the quiet solitude of P3X-492 ate at him, gave him too much time to think about the time with Ba’al. Made him think of the things he’d seized in his own mind to keep sane during the long hours when he thought he’d rather die (again) than take another second of the torture the Goa’uld was bestowing.
He’d had Daniel there when he woke in his cell but when the pain was eating away at him there had been no one but her to keep him sane.
What shook him was that the image in his head refused to go away, the woman who had helped him when the pain was overwhelming his ability to stay detached, the soft husky lilt of the voice that had whispered to him. He dreamed of her voice telling him to hang on, she was coming for him, that she wouldn’t give up and that he’d better not.
At first it had bothered him that the voice wasn’t Sara’s anymore, Sarah who had kept him alive when he was captured in the Middle East; but it hadn’t surprised him the way it once would have, Sarah had long since been replaced by his 2IC in his dreams.
It made it increasingly difficult to stand watch with her while Jonas and Teal’c nosed around the vast library they had found in the deserted city. She stayed silent except for the occasion radio transmissions as she searched for life anywhere within range and he wondered if it was for his benefit or her own; it hadn’t exactly been a banner year for her either.
“You guys have to see this,” Jonas’s excited shout drew his attention to where the animated man came to a running halt in the doorway and beckoned them into the large room that had once been a library. Jack went without complaint, grateful for once for what he normally would have considered ‘boring history crap’. “Teal’c and I were looking at what we think are journal histories, in one of them we found reference to a war, probably territorial.”
“And? So? Furthermore?” In other words get to the point Jonas.
“It wasn’t some little war between tribes Colonel it was…” He trailed off.
“I believe the word used to describe it in several of the histories was epic.” Teal’c supplied without inflection. “They nearly annihilated each other using weapons with immense power.”
“Makes sense,” Sam said. “They’d obviously had a technological revolution. Everything we’ve seen indicates that this planet was a much higher tech level than most Goa’uld controlled planets.”
“Some of these histories call Kortha one of Ra’s most important cult centers because of their technology.” Jonas told her. “The first few generations, everything they had was given to them by the Goa’uld, technology, education, and quality of life. It was simply generations of religious indoctrination that forestalled anyone questioning the validity of the Goa’uld’s claims after that; even when magic obviously became technology it was still considered a gift from the gods.”
“A whole civilization of willing, highly educated slaves,” Sam shook her head, Jonas handed her one of the journals so she could look at the illustration. “This is elementary wormhole theory.” She flipped the pages obviously warming up to the subject.
“So the natives got restless and destroyed themselves and Ra’s special think tank, why do we care?” Jack interrupted the technobabble before it started, yes it was fascinating, but it meant very little to him.
“That isn’t what caught my attention. What was interesting is that it seems to have been as a result of a struggle between Ra and Ma’at for control of the masses. The planet splintered, along ideological lines. It never should have happened.”
“So another snake head decided to muscle in, this still isn’t news.”
“Actually, the planet had survived other Goa’uld trying to take control.” Teal’c said. “The difference seems to be that Ma’at was born here, and born of Ra but she was not Goa’uld.”
“Harsesis?” Sam asked and Jonas nodded so hard Jack thought he might come apart.
“Earth mythology says that Ma’at was the goddess of truth and justice, the Eye of Ra, the foundation of all civilization; a great favorite of the boy king, a consort of renown in Egypt. Thoth, her husband, was the god of wisdom they called him the moon god; also a favorite of Ra’s. These journals talk about them almost as one being. They were siblings of a sort, not born but created by Ra, from Ra, his children and advisors. We think,” he gestured to both Teal’c and himself. “That they both must have been Harsesis.”
“The later journals are almost completely devoid of references to Thoth himself; the idea of him but not his physical presence.” Teal’c interjected. “But they do mention a new lord, a general of Ra’s army.”
“So Ra took one of his kids made them a snakehead and the other one… objected; which led to epic planet wide war?” Jack asked glancing out one of the windows at the empty city where they’d found evidence of a swift unplanned departure from many of the homes but not really any destruction. It was sickening and shocking to think that they had all died, but he’d seen worse, hell he’d done worse.
“Actually I don’t think so; it seems like it was more of an exodus only the ones who chose to remain and fight ended up dead.”
“But how does it help us?” Jack enunciated.
“It gave us a place to start cross-referencing. We found another set of journals that are dated prior to the exodus that speaks of Ma’at‘s uprising.” Teal’c supplied, recognizing that O’Neill’s patience was coming to an end and Jonas continued.
“It’s in a more ancient dialect so I haven’t got it completely translated yet but it looks like the journal belonged to a scientist working in one of Ra’s labs. What I have managed to translate so far makes veiled references to a weapon.”
Jonas began rifling through the journals again. “But knowing that you and the General will need more to justify our staying here;” Jonas took a deep breath. “I think the scientist who wrote the earlier set of journals was working on a way to kill the symbiote without harming the host. An electromagnetic pulse weapon of some sort.”
“That disrupted the way the symbiote interacted with the hosts brain electrochemically.” Sam said getting it suddenly and Jonas nodded, handed her another journal the sketch only half complete. “You think he succeeded in creating a weapon that basically shuts down the symbiotes control and makes it impossible for the Goa’uld to survive by starving it of electrical stimulus.”
“I don’t know if he succeeded, but he started one. And I think with his journal and a little time we might be able to find his lab and his research.” Jonas smiled, his face somehow managing to be serious and pleased all at once.
“So we stay,” Jack gripped the edge of the table tightly, frustrated because he knew that meant spending more time on this lonely planet with nothing for him to do but sit or do cataloguing.
Sam placed her hand on his arm, a strange gesture, not something she was prone to do even if they had been alone, while Jonas chattered on enthusiastically about staying oblivious to his friend’s irritation. Or he thought she did, he’d stopped being certain of such things like that while in a cell with Daniel all those months ago. Maybe her hand wasn’t really there, but he couldn’t look to find out.
“We just have to be patient, but I know the answer is in here and when we do figure it out it could mean the end of the Goa’uld.” The younger man continued and Jack moved to touch his 2IC’s hand with his for an instant before looking up at Jonas and found Teal’c watching him. He dropped his hand immediately without making contact.
“I’ll go back to the gate, call the General, and get more supplies and anything else you need so make a list.” Jack said before walking from the room without looking at them.
****
They were glorious, his creations clinging together in the ether before he gave them life the woman wrapped around her male counterpart like a vine as if she took sustenance from his flesh itself.
“When will my children be ready?” Ra asked one of the scientists standing nearby watching the creatures with wide eyes; the man, Geb, swallowed hard and stuttered an answer.
“Soon my lord,” The young man dipped his head as his god locked his golden gaze on him. “It will be days, perhaps hours before they are strong enough to wake.” Ra smiled making the man shiver, the cold calculating edge of his smile sharp like an icy breeze on the mans back and walked from the lab leaving Geb to stare at the pair suspended in golden liquid.
“It is unnatural,” Nut said from her table, drawing Geb’s gaze the way his fascination had drawn Ra’s. “To cross breed in this manner makes him unclean.”
“The lord Ra wished it,” Geb gestured to the frozen figures. His children Ra had called them and Geb supposed they were; a genetic cross of body and soul, the host and parasite as Geb as come to see them during his time in the labs. His sister Nut had always been a pragmatist, the epiphany that their god was in fact no more than a man had left Geb reeling but the practical Nut had taken the truth with great stride falling back into the pattern of her life as if nothing had changed. “They are his children.”
“We were supposed to be his children, but when his precious offspring have awoken we will be nothing to him.”
“We will be dead.” Geb said quietly and Nut faltered into silence as her brother turned angrily away from the golden figures behind the glass. “You do not believe he will let us live after all we have seen; that he will let us return to our homes.” Nut’s stricken face fell and she shook her head.
“I would like to trust that it will be otherwise.”
“You’ve never been one to believe in childish tales why begin now?” Turning back to the couple he closed his eyes. “When do you think they will wake?”
“Tomorrow,” his sister replied quietly. “Perhaps the day after; it is hard to tell at this stage. They are content to be as they are. It will happen when they are ready.”
“Then we must find a reason for our god to keep us around once he no longer needs us.” He keyed up a file he’d been working on and turned his screen toward Nut. “I think this may be the key.”
****
Two days in and even Sam was going slightly mad from the solitude, some of the technology she’d found was fascinating and she’d tagged multiple things for further study but there was only so long you could catalog a planet before it got to you.
The silence, the oppressive sense of loneliness in each building, scattered bits if peoples lives and still no bodies.
Geb, Jonas had explained over breakfast that day, had been one of the scientists that had helped create Ma’at and Thoth, not just Harsesis but (if the translation was correct) clones genetically blended from DNA of the host and symbiote that were Ra.
“He was trying to create the perfect host race, with its own genetic memory so that they were Goa’uld without a symbiote.”
“Why would that matter?” Sam had asked, if only to keep Jonas talking, she could not stomach another silent meal it gave her time to think, and her thoughts had been scattered of late. She spent too much time thinking about Fifth, about Nirrti and it was making her restless.
“There was a shortage of symbiotes; too many queens had died or been captured by rival System Lords. Ra’s own queen Tefnut had long since faded from the histories. No queens, no new Goa’uld, no Jaf’fa… his power base was eroding and he was looking for a way to breed strong, intelligent hosts, who he could trust without having to turn them or make them Jaf’fa.”
It was an ingenious plan, and actually assuming it had worked explained why the guards on Ra’s ship hadn’t been full Jaf’fa according to the reports back from when the original team through the gate.
They just had to find the lab which thankfully Jonas had narrowed to within the palace, somewhere, which granted wasn’t really that narrow, but it gave her and the Colonel something to do.
They started in the lower levels and began working their way methodically through rooms and passages looking for hidden panels, ring devices, or traps and of course the lab. They worked in relative silence; he’d never been chatty but had become nearly monosyllabic when they were alone since the Tok’ra and Ba’al, he’d stopped haunting her lab and though it shouldn’t it felt like a loss.
“Carter,” his voice was clipped and brought her back to the present; he gestured at something he’d found embedded in a passage wall. “Door sensor, but I don’t see a door.”
She glanced around the vicinity; he was right there was no door, she nodded and then bent to inspect the sensor.
“It looks like it’s been deactivated with extreme prejudice. There are energy burns across the surface like it overloaded.”
“Or someone shot it with a zat. Can you fix it?”
“Might take a little time, it will depend on how badly damaged the wiring behind the panel is.” She was already pulling things out of her pack, a sticky light, her computer, a tool kit. His radio squawked a burst of static and she flinched.
“I’ll go back a few levels to where we had decent reception and radio in to Jonas and Teal’c that we found something.” He turned on a booted heel without waiting for an answer and Sam watched him a frown pulling her face down for a moment as she watched him go.
Once he was out of sight she focused back on her task, slipping into the technology the way most women slipped into a warm bath, she soon had it opened and her laptop connected, testing the wiring as she tried to access the system.
How long it took her she didn’t know, she was aware that O’Neill had returned but if he wasn’t in a talking mood, neither was she.
“I think I’ve got it.” She connected two wires, clipped on, hit a few keys and was enveloped by the familiar flash of transport rings coming out of the wall. She vaguely made out Jack’s, ‘Carter!’ before she was deposited on the other side of the wall.
She blinked, the light had been blinding, disorienting and she felt light headed and stumbled slightly only to be caught by strong arms instinctively going around her waist.
“That was not your average transport.”
“Agreed sir,” she looked up at him, her vision clearing and realized how close they were standing, stepped back and looked around.
“The lab?” He asked his hands going into his pockets.
“Certainly a lab.” She qualified. “I don’t know if it’s the lab.” She turned taking in the room, and found herself facing a bank of computers all connected to a large amber tank.
“The lab?” He asked again, she nodded.
“Oh yeah.”
“Right,” he shifted, brought his radio up. “Teal’c?” Static. “Jonas.” More static. “Okay Carter, how do we get out of here?”
“Working on it,” and she was though her tools hadn’t come with her. At least on this side of the wall the machines were powered up. Granted they were in Goa’uld, but computers were fairly universal things or so she’d learned and she’d had a couple days playing with other bits of tech they’d found. Fifteen minutes later she’d gotten past the first screen and managed to get into an interface screen, Goa’uld yes, but computers were computers. They were like physics that way, immutable.
“Carter?” Jack was pacing, having shed his equipment, and moving around the lab like a caged animal touching things at random, she could feel his restless energy like the tingle of a skin on skin static shock.
“I’m doing my best sir,” her voice was terse, almost uncharacteristic but she was suddenly not in the mood to deal with his mood as well. He touched another console and something beeped. “Please don’t touch anything.”
“Then turn on some ventilation, it’s hot in here.” He said in an almost growl shucking his vest.
“I’ll be sure to make air conditioning my first priority.” Her tone implied that she wasn’t taking him seriously, though he was right it was hot in the room, she pulled off her own vest as if compelled.
“Sir.” She turned to look at him, he’d come closer and was standing a pace away.
“First priority, sir…” she’d barely gotten it out of her mouth before he’d hauled her to her feet and kissed her, his mouth hungry and warm. He drew her closer until she couldn’t breath, didn’t want to breathe. Everywhere he touched was like hot liquid pouring over her skin, but there was no pain only marvelous heat that was contrasted with the chill of the computer bank behind her.
Her hands slipped over the sinews of his back tugged at the hem of his t-shirt so her fingers grazed bare skin. She loved this, touching him, kissing him; in the back of her mind she knew it was wrong, she should be pushing him away but her protests were swamped by the overwhelming rightness of it. She pressed full length against him trying to get as close as she could as his lips went from hers to her neck; the rasp of his stubble rubbed her throat and she shivered, arched against him making him groan.
His hands stroked over her hips, to her ass as he lifted her against the console and suddenly kissing wasn’t nearly enough, she wanted all of him, her skin buzzed with it and she could almost hear his thoughts agreeing.
A burst of static broke the spell, left them breathing heavily staring wide eyed at each other as Teal’c voice broke through the fuzz.
“O’Neill, Major Carter?” Jack stepped away his fingers dragging over her skin reluctantly, as if it was an extreme effort of will and she slipped off the console so her feet were on the floor.
“What the hell was that?” he asked righting his clothes.
“Don’t know sir.” She didn’t look at him, the sense of loss making her hands itch to drag him against her again despite her minds protests. “It was almost as if we were…”
“O’Neill.” Tealc’s voice interrupted her, his tone insistent.
“Yeah T, we hear you.” Jack answered picking up his gear.
“We have located Major Carter’s equipment, are you nearby?”
“You could say that Teal’c,” he glanced at Sam who was back at the console, tucking in her t-shirt while she scanned the screen. “We found the lab, Carter is working on getting us out of...” something beeped and one of the walls disappeared leaving a wide opening between the lab and the hallway where Teal’c and Jonas were now standing. Hey good thing he’d gotten pulled back together. “Here. Good work Major.”
“Thank you sir,” she went to retrieve her things from the hall without looking at him she was worried about what she might do. It had been almost as if they’d been possessed, but themselves at the same time.
****
She looked like innocence personified, wide open and defenseless and soft, like whipped cream, like butter, like silk. But there was something about her that promised ecstasy an earthiness, something that was inherent, but dormant.
On the other hand he looked like sin, passion and sharp edges with an underlying sense of calm that bled from his icy eyes. He had an oneness with himself that echoed the openness of her, a sense of singularity that still managed to embrace the fertile bounty of the woman and match its excess with nothing larger than a whisper.
They moved together with a shared voice that frightened Ra, a silent communication that tied them to each other and left no room for him to rule.
That would have to change and he knew just who to awaken.
****
There was something positively obscene about the way Jonas ate a banana, that or Jack’s brain was stuck on sex.
Considering the dreams he’d had the night before that was a possibility; hazy golden things the memory of which made his body tight. It had been like watching, or living, a Daniel Steele miniseries and an erotic film all at once.
Jonas was rattling on about some book or other over breakfast, Teal’c listening with interested attention and Jack idly wished Carter were here to distract the younger man or at least so he could steal a vanilla ration bar from her stash. Jack stifled a yawn; he should have considered sleeping in.
“Good morning Jonas, Teal’c, sir.” She said from behind him and he blinked, turned to look at her even as she dropped the ration bar he’d been thinking about in his lap. He unwrapped it and took a bite trying hard not to question how she’d known he wanted one. She was Carter, she knew things.
“Sleep well?” Jonas asked and she shook her head.
“Kept waking up,” he probably imagined the liquid heat in that sentence, but not the way it warmed her eyes. It made him cough as he swallowed wrong. Teal’c slapped him hard on the back and he could feel Carter’s focus on him, feel it as though he were experiencing it as a touch.
Oh hell.
It would have bothered him less if she hadn’t nodded her agreement to his unspoken thought.
****
He will be coming for one of us,” Thoth stroked her back languidly.
“For you.” They both knew Ra had little use for her except as the mother of his host race and she could not bear them if she was taken as a host. He was their father, their creator as close to being their god as either of them knew and it was his will to do as he pleased. “I am scared. I know the soul of the host; he is a frightened boy, a prisoner within himself. You will not be yourself once Ra is done. He will destroy us.”
The young man who was locked within Ra had a strong mind, she’d felt it, but he’d not been strong enough to overcome and neither would Thoth.
“He created us, it is his will. We must obey.” She clung him in the dark, it was his will, and Thoth was as devoted to Ra as he was to her. She would have to save them both, save their children’s children from his possession. Ra would have to be stopped. “Do not blaspheme my love.” Thoth whispered.
“No,” she agreed silently locking the thought away, the first time that she’d hidden anything from her brother-husband. “It is his will, we must obey.”
****
“What do you mean you don’t know?” His voice had raised and only a quiet ‘sir’ from Carter calmed him down. Jonas sighed, the last few hours had not been pleasant as Sam and Jack had haltingly explained what had happened, what was happening.
“Ghosts,” Teal’c said and both men looked at him, Sam walking a few steps away. “There are some people that think humans are capable of extra sensory thought are there not? We know Ma’at and Thoth were, maybe they left behind their ghosts.”
“Like psychic echoes,” Jonas took up the thought. “That might explain why their memories but not why Jack and Sam.”
“Nirriti,” Sam said turning suddenly, grasping at any reason that wasn’t ‘well you see Jonas, Jack and I are just as starcrossed as they were’. “Whatever she did to me changed my brain chemistry, short circuited a few pathways and opened up some new ones. Janet didn’t think it meant anything in the long run but it’s possible it’s made me more suggestible psychically.”
“My brain’s not working with its original schematic either. Mission in the Middle East, doctors weren’t sure I was going to wake up but my brain retrained itself.”
“It probably doesn’t help that we’re both running around with Goa’uld protein markers in our systems setting us apart from you and Teal’c.” Sam added with a nod.
“I thought your markers were because Jolinar’s body was absorbed into your system how did Jack get them?” Jonas said and Jack shrugged.
“Kanan was dying already, just not fast enough to escape Ba’al unless he left me,” he waved his hand and looked away, thinking of Kanan always made him tense and he could see Sam’s shoulders tighten in response. “It’s not very strong, trace amounts of the protein that the doc thinks were released while he was leaving me. Just another side effect to having your body inhabited by a Tok’ra,” Sam laughed a sad bitter sound that made Jonas’s chest hurt because it matched the bleakness on Jack’s face.
Teal’c simply raised an eyebrow.
“We’re close, I can feel it. The answer's here somewhere. In Ma’at’s journals. I’ll find it.” Jonas promised before disappearing into the library again followed by Teal’c who gave Jack a silent nod before leaving.
"This thing is a crock of shit,” Jack said once they were gone, his voice edged with anger. “Ghost don’t explain anything, even if I believed in them; and even if we’re capable of ESP all of a sudden why now?”
“I don’t know,” she put a hand on his arm again. “You have to relax sir.”
“Don’t, don’t call me that; I know you can feel how much it bothers me and I know why you’re doing it.”
“I’m sorry,” there was a pause that was heavy with meaning. “Jack. You have to relax. We’ll figure this out.” He rubbed a hand over his face.
“I feel like I’m losing my mind.” He told her. “Half the time I don’t know if what I’m feeling or thinking is me, or you or one of them.” But he was fairly sure the tense anger, the demanding part was a little of him and a little of Thoth.
“Something awful happened to them,” she said softly. “I don’t know what it is but I know she was scared.”
“So was he.” He pulled her into his arms, it felt right in a way that he was familiar with, made him feel grounded. “We’ll be fine Carter.” He said against her hair.
“They weren’t,” he tightened his grip on her and didn’t respond.
****
She closed her eyes briefly as the change began, knowing how he looked: lean, sharp-faced, billowing robes, tumbled hair; he looked like a frayed angel, falling, always falling but never, quite, completely fallen. There were whispers in her mind that grew increasingly urgent as time ran out but they'd said everything important already, and in the end there was only silence between them.
He shook screaming out in pain as his mind shattered within him, fire blazing from his eyes with a heat that brought her to her knees. Ra watched fascinated as she found her way to Thoth as his struggles lessened and pressed her lips to his one last time, tears held in with iron-willed control.
He kissed her with intense, abiding passion as though he could drink his salvation from her lips and bury his sins with her. Startled she pulled away wide eyed staring at the stranger who was her love. She wondered how long the imprint of his kiss would last, if she would ever be free of him and the new voice that moved through her mind as though committing her to memory.
Ra signaled that the other man be released; Thoth stood proud and let the attendant help him into a robe of burnt orange. Ma'at dropped her eyes and fell into a graceful bow before him, tears wet on her cheeks. He stooped lifting her face with his palm and locking eyes with her. Ra stood as he realized something strange had happened.
"Haroeris," Ra said circling the pair, and crossing to stand in front of the newly created Goa'uld Ma'at sobbing silently between them huddled at their feet.
"No," the other man said looking down at Ma’at instead of at Ra. “I was Haroeris. I was, Thoth. But we are more now.”
****
"Were you able to translate the text?" Jack asked when Jonas joined him on the balcony.
"That’s why I radioed you; I wanted to talk to you about what I found in Ma’at's diary." He said with a heavy voice.
"I don't like that tone, what did you find?”
"Thoth was implanted with a Goa’uld less than a year after he and Ma’at were created; Ra was in a hurry to solidify his position. Ma’at could hear Thoth’s thoughts and literally lived through the melding of the two minds with her own intact, barely, because she couldn’t shut him out. She thought, and I agree, that her link to Thoth was what gave his psyche the strength to withstand the Goa’uld and that in connection with his unique physiology is why Haroeris and Thoth became one being instead of two in one body.”
Jack looked at Jonas who was frowning for a second and nodded, the dream coming back to him, remembering the way Ma’at had held him together the way Sam had done for him more than once.
“She kept him sane and strong while the minds merged. He repaid her by brutalizing her.” The crease in Jonas’s forehead deepened as he listened to Jack’s description of Ma’at and Thoth’s relationship.
“She loved him, she wasn’t afraid of him even after. He didn’t hurt her, at least not that she’s mentioned in her diary’s.” Jonas protested.
“Of course he did.” Jack said quietly. “He was a devoted follower of Ra.” A devoted officer and a gentleman, his mind mocked him.
“She ran.” Jonas said sadly rather than contradict the vehement assertion of his friend. “When she realized she couldn’t get through to Thoth,” he smiled thinking of the young woman who had escaped the control of two powerful Goa’uld.
“Smart woman,” Jack finished the thought.
"Ra eventually found her hiding in the city," Jonas continued, unaware of Jack’s lapse in concentration as Sam walked out on the balcony to join them, she’d been listening from the doorway. "He was too late though, the people loved her, she’d been a kind goddess, accessible and embracing. The revolt had already begun, Ra didn’t have a chance.”
“She got them off the planet,” Sam said from behind him something from her dream coming to the surface. “The Tok’ra; she called the Tok’ra for help.”
“She started the Tok’ra.” Jonas said with a grin. “That’s why you and Jack are...” he waved a hand. “The Tok’ra protein marker has you coded as members of the system; it was set up as a repository of what happened here so that future generations of Tok’ra would know the story. Something is transmitting it via gamma waves and the two of you are picking it up like a radio picking up a signal. I think the unusual transport you describe must have been it activating that’s why you reacted so violently at first. A normal Tok’ra would have a symbiote to help counteract the uh… physical response.”
“Except the Tok’ra don’t know the story,” said Sam shaking her head. “Jolinar had no idea about this, I’d have remembered.”
“Some of the older members might know, but they aren’t reproducing, so it isn’t being passed down through genetic memory and they’ve got bigger things to worry about than their origins. They’re fighting for survival.” It was the same way much of Native American history had been lost, th focus on survival blanking out the oral history and the older members passing too quickly to pass the stories along.
"Is that all?" Jack said, deceptively calm but Sam’s proximity made his skin buzz and he itched to get some distance between them.
"Mostly, Osiris tried to overthrow Ra shortly after that. Many of the system lords joined Ra in his fight and Osiris was defeated. Ma’at seems to have disappeared with the last of her followers. Everyone who was left were taken by Ra as slaves.”
"But she’s still telling her story,” Sam said quietly and both men looked at her. Jack’s gaze locked with hers and Jonas felt an odd sense of intruding on a private moment. “What if we just left the planet? Wouldn’t it stop?”
“That might be dangerous. I’ve been looking at some of the brain wave scans we did,” He shook his head sadly. “We have to turn off whatever is broadcasting the gamma waves and give it time for your brains to return to normal or who knows what could happen,”
“Great.” Jack said gruffly. “Find Teal’c have him start looking for the doohickey that’s doing this. If transporting into that lab started it then it has to be there.” Jonas nodded, hurried from the room with a backward glance at his CO and friend and caught a glimpse of as Jack crossed to his 2IC wrapping his arms around her, her head tucked beneath his.
It was eerily reminiscent of a sketch of Ma’at and Thoth before they’d woken that he’d come across in one of Geb’s journals.
****
She braced herself against the wall reveling in the feeling of his arms wrapped around her, his body pressed to hers. His hands roamed her flesh, her nudity a startling counterpoint to his clothed state; but she was a slave and he was a god and the proper distance had to be maintained even as his fingers slipped over her wet, quaking flesh.
She let her head drop back against his shoulder and swallowed a moan, the gasped release of breath echoed in the room and spurred him forward. His legs held hers apart as he thrust into her slowly shuddering as her heat surrounded him.
He groaned as he came burying his face against the sweat sweetened skin of her throat and wrapping her more securely to him.
“Never let me go,” she breathed into his hair silently aware that she would be leaving him herself, something else she’d learned to hide from him in the deep recesses of her mind.
****
Jack sat bolt upright in bed, and groaned. The dreams and memories were getting stronger, he was going to go mad if they didn’t get he and Sam disconnected from whatever it was sending the signal and soon. Hammond had suggested sending a second team but they didn’t need more bodies cluttering the lab. It wasn’t that big and with Sam and Teal’c going through the computer system and Jonas still reading journals the whole place was getting claustrophobic.
He got out of bed and padded over to his gear in his shorts and undershirt and unearthed a canteen for a drink. His throat was dry, and the water was welcome and cooling though it got no where near the heat that had pooled in his gut.
He knew she was at the door before she knocked that sense of where she was that they’d always had in the field enhanced by the Tok’ra machine. He thought about ignoring her, and heard her moving away from the door in response to the thought when he pulled it open.
“Come in Carter.” He stepped back and could feel her embarrassed relief as he opened the door.
“Thanks. I was having trouble sleeping and I thought… I don’t know what I thought. I’m sorry this is happening I know that we decided not to talk about it but…” But the Zatarc incident was a long time ago and a lot had happened recently that needed talking about.
He closed the door behind her and then turned to look at her across the dimly lit room, uncertain of where to start, uncomfortable with the way her presence made his body tighten; he didn’t know what to say but was saved the effort when she kissed him.
Thank you Sam.
She kissed him like he was the last bit of oxygen in the room, like there was no tomorrow which seemed like a fine idea to Jack. He wasn’t ready to think about tomorrow so he poured himself into the kiss, into her, his fingers dragging through her hair to angle her head back allowing him better access to her mouth.
His hands found her hips beneath the long t-shirt she wore, lifting her and she locked her legs around his waist making him groan as it brought her flush against him. She smelled like soap, and paper and something that was uniquely Sam.
Days, it had only been days since he’d kissed her in the lab but it had felt like years, longer than the years they’d spent denying what they felt for each other.
“Jack,” she gasped against his neck, and he couldn’t breathe, could only feel her wrapped around him as he pulled her shirt over her head and laved the length of her throat with his tongue as he deposited them both on the bed with a thump.
She braced herself, and their hips moved together making her moan. Or was that him? She wasn’t sure which one of them shuddered but it brought bare skin against cloth with a tight friction. It was cold. It was hot. Her heart was going to explode.
She felt rather than heard him agree, and she clawed his shirt up his back over his head as he tugged her panties over her hips his mouth finding the slope of her breast then trailing lower as he stripped her bare then himself. When he came back it was to press his lips to the gentle swell of one hip and she cried out.
He moved his mouth lower and Sam jerked up, her hips restrained by his hand. Her head fell back against the pillow shuddering when he stroked her with his tongue her hand fisting in the sheets as the pleasure crested too fast and not fast enough for people who’d been waiting years. He moaned against her flesh as though he’d climaxed as well and she tugged him up the length of her body to press her mouth to his.
She could taste her self, feel him hard against her thigh, feel the tension in him and was ready to come again with nothing more than a kiss. For a second he froze, and she stopped too their eyes meeting, his dark almost black in the half light saying more than any words could and then he was inside her and they both made choked primal noises in their throats.
He began to move, his chest heaving with effort, moved in closer so there was nothing between them. Not air, not skin, and he buried his face against her hair muttering, whispering, groaning in counterpoint to the crisp sounds of sex as they moved together.
She wanted more, and he knew without words his thrusts became harder, deeper and she wrapped her legs around his waist, brought her hips up changing the angle of penetration and making them both cry out as they flew apart together.
Breathing heavily they slowly came back to earth and when she would have pulled away he tightened his grip, “Don’t.”
“What if Jonas or Teal’c come looking. I should...” he shook his head and wrapped her closer. “They won’t.”
She hesitated and then curved her body against his, her ear pressed against his chest over his heart, she was drifting to sleep, his hand stroking her back and he barely heard her murmured.
“Never let me go.” His embrace tightened instinctively but he knew that he’d have to let her go eventually. They’d both have to let go.
****
Jonas had determined that there was no weapon, but the research was nearly complete and had been packed off to Area 51 while he and Sam tried to crack the programming on the doohickey (hey no one else had given it a better name). Once they’d known what to look for it had been easy to locate.
Turning it off however was more difficult.
SG-3 and SG-5 were finishing the search of the city camping out in deserted homes as they got farther from the palace. Doctor Frasier came through the gate every morning to check their vitals; Jack would go escort her for lack of anything better to do which today was proving to be a bad decision.
“Do you want to talk about it Colonel?” It sounded more like an order than anything else even though technically she couldn’t give him non medical orders.
“Nothing to talk about, I’ve got the psychic echo of a part Goa’uld part clone slowly taking over my body. My second in command is channeling the ‘Eye of Ra’,” he made air quotes. “But everything is hunky dory thank for asking.”
“Colonel.” She didn’t believe him and wasn’t letting him pawn her off.
“What do you want me to say doc?!” He swung on her, voice raised and she flinched moved away slightly. Her expression hardened his; he swore and drove his fist into the wall, wrestled the roiling emotions back under control. “I’m doing the best I can here doc, Sam got the ghost who was all inner peace and balance. I got bipolar action spook and wasn’t real stable to start out with you know? To make things a little more complicated the only thing that shuts him the hell up is something I’m not allowed to touch.”
He wasn’t sure what he’d expected, distance maybe as their dreams got harsher, showed them a war that was waged between Ra’s forces and Ma’at’s people.
But every night she came to his door a little earlier, clung to him a little tighter as the images wracked her body with tears Ma’at hadn’t had the time to shed, soothed the angry tension of his jaw with her lips when the writhing darkness in Thoth clawed through him, cried out with less control as she shattered under him.
The distance that they needed refused to come, going back would be hell but not touching her while he had the chance was worse.
“Let me see your hand.” He offered it to her wordlessly and she poked at it, pressed the knuckles. “Nothing broken, but try to avoid punching walls in the future.”
“Yes ma’am.” They started walking again, this time in silence.
“I could give you a sedative. You need to get some sleep, so does Sam. Increased brain function, higher hormone levels all things I assume would be evened out by the symbiote if you were Tok’ra they need to be monitored but they aren’t life threatening yet. Exhaustion on the other hand worries me.”
He didn’t want to say yes, it meant sleeping alone and that thought left him cold in a way that should probably worry him. Jonas and Teal’c had to know that they’d been sharing a room, but Janet probably only had supposition unless Sam had been sharing with her.
Realism warred with desire and he nodded.
“Yeah, that would be good.” Get some distance. Get some sleep.
****
Her nerve endings burned, screaming pain that blossomed outward in widening circles, but she refused to look away. Golden fire lit her face, but she could still see his eyes and forced her gaze to lock with his.
The chill of his presence in her mind was like a soothing balm even though it shouldn’t be; he shuddered and the waves of energy faltered as her anguish transmitted back. He dropped his hand and stepped back shaking.
“More.” Ra was behind her but Thoth didn’t look at him, she wouldn’t let him look away.
“She won’t break; we’ll have to get the information from one of the others.” He couldn’t get to it, to the secrets she’d learned to lock away. To the location where they’d smuggled as many people as possible, to the names of those who had helped her. He couldn’t find the particulars of her plan to overthrow their god and the more torture they inflicted the weaker he became in turn.
“Then she dies.” Her back snapped into a fierce curve as Ra’s hand device flared to life and she screamed.
****
He woke from a dead sleep, muscles jelly either from the sleeping pill that that Frasier had given him or the lingering effect of the dream. He ached physically in a way that was familiar, the raw nerve feeling of the hand device like a sub-dermal sunburn, the wrenching in his chest that came with hurting the woman he loved.
Loved?
He rubbed a had over his face and into his hair, looked where Sam should be beside him before remembering that she was in her own room once more. He felt briefly as though someone had removed a vital part of him.
Frasier had stayed, to monitor them more closely, she wasn’t saying it but he could tell she was worried their vitals had been gradually increasing, blood pressure, pulse, and hormone levels were all edging into the red zone. Exhaustion had dampened their immune systems, white blood cell counts lowered; she’d assured them both that they looked like death on a cracker and taken the room between theirs.
Yeah, it was their physical health she was concerned about.
He flopped back on the bed, kicking off the covers and was just starting to relax again when Sam screamed. He was on his feet heading to her room at a dead run in an instant, Frasier, Jonas and Teal’c ended up a few paces behind him because they’d been asleep, because he’d known she was in trouble an instant before she’s screamed, whatever it was he was the first person into her room.
Sweat had dampened her hair, her tank top sticking to glistening skin, eyes staring sightlessly as she screamed in obvious agony.
“My god.” He heard Janet murmur behind him but didn’t respond, grabbed Sam by the arms and shook her, hard.
“Carter!” He snapped, the scream faltered but her eyes remained unfocused so he shook her again. “Sam.” He said her name in an undertone, gentle compared to before and barely audible to the three people in the doorway. She came fully awake with a start, wrenching away from him before she realized who it was.
“J... Jack?” She blinked, pained. “My head…” He stepped back immediately knowing what she’d dreamed; knowing that in a perverse way he’d been the one hurting her.
Janet was there by then, checking her vitals, sending Jonas for her med kit and another sedative, something for the headache. Teal’c had slipped from the room and returned with a glass of water from somewhere and Sam took it with shaking hands, drained it her eyes on Jack the entire time.
Ten minutes later she was back to sleep, Janet’s drugs doing their job, the remaining four huddled by the wall where Jack had stood through out.
“I want both of you hooked up to monitors,” Janet said in her no nonsense voice. “If you can’t leave here than I’ll have to get them from the base.” Jack didn’t argue.
“T take the doc back to the SGC, get what she needs and tell the General we need another scientist.” He glanced at Frasier. “Carter’s not in much condition to do this on her own and I want someone in there working round the clock. Jonas, find out what happened here so we aren’t working in the dark on these flashbacks.”
They went, without comment, though Janet had tried to give him another sedative when he’d admitted to having a headache as well; he’d taken a couple Tylenol, shut the door behind them, and climbed into bed beside her before he let himself relax.
She muttered in her sleep and curled against him.
****
A finger traced her lips, moistening them a gentle hand brushed hair off her forehead and she knew it was him without opening her eyes.
Intellectually she knew she should pull away, the tenderness was just another kind of torture but her body wanted the touch. Hungered for it as if it knew this would be the last.
Thoth’s touch had been gentle, like a breeze on her skin but this was firm, warm as it stroked over her skin. She’d known when he kissed her that the blended Thoth would burn his passion into her and make her his a much if not more than she had been before.
Wicked fingers woke nerve endings that were still aching from Ra’s treatment, and she moaned half pleasured, half pained and his mouth covered hers, swallowed the sound.
She was trembling when he entered her, and the pleasure crested quickly leaving them both breathless.
“You will be destroyed with him.” She murmured against his neck, his arms around her tightened.
“And you will be destroyed without him.”
“So long as he is destroyed,” blasphemy, his hand tightened on her hip but he wasn’t as used to hiding things as she was she knew before he did that he’d silently agreed.
****
She woke with a groan, the familiar presence of Jack in bed beside her, sunlight filtering in to the room.
“Morning.” She shifted to look up at his face.
“You get the license of the bus that hit me?” He chuckled.
“Doc says you’ll be fine, flashback got a little…”
“Intense.” She nodded started to sit up, the second dream had left her warm and liquid and if she didn’t move away she was afraid they might not get out of bed. “I should get to the lab.”
“Lee and Felger are down there.” He circled her wrist with his fingers and pulled her back toward him. “Doc wants us to get some rest.” No mention of the look she’d given him when she and Teal’c had returned and he’d been in Sam’s bed. She’d hooked leads to them both, and connected the monitors.
“Jay and Bill won’t be able to figure it out.” Her struggle was token, her heart monitor beeped and she looked at it as if she’d just noticed it. “Janet?” He nodded and she sighed.
“She had to got check on one of SG-3, minor accident resulting in a broken arm. Promised her we wouldn’t move till she came back, she promised not to mention the sleeping arrangements.”
“That woman always was good with the blackmail.” Sam let herself be pulled back against his chest and they were silent for long moments, she thought he’d dosed off.
“It’s going to end soon.” She nodded.
“I know.” His arm slid around her tightened it against her chest and she tipped her head, cheek against his shoulder, closed her eyes.
“We’ll get to go home, get back to normal.” He sounded about as enthusiastic as she felt, she twisted so she faced him and they locked eyes. He traced the curve of her jaw down her throat with one finger, hand mapping the curve of her breast, her hip to curve over bare skin.
Her stomach contracted and he stroked the elastic edge of her panties, need moved from and ache to a raging inferno and he wondered how he’d ever keep it in check. He dipped his head to her breasts, mouthed the tight tips through her tank top until the fabric clung to her skin in damp patches.
“I love this tank top,” he breathed against her breast, fingers worming their way into her panties, stroking her flesh. Her answer was a sharp cry, an arch of the hips and the tempo of her pulse on the monitor increased.
She tunneled her fingers into his hair and a ragged moan escaped her lips as he stroked her, his lips covering hers as she climaxed against his hand. She could feel him against her hip, and she writhed against him making him groan and tug her panties down, then his boxers.
She helped kicking her panties away as he shifted so her knees bracketed his hips and then he was inside her.
Janet was going to love trying to figure out their EKGs.
****
“What do you want?” He was looking over his shoulder, the guards would notice she was gone soon and they had to get out of the palace before that or Ra would stop them. All he knew and he still thought of the other man as a god, as his creator.
“I want you safe. Come with me.” Geb had been released as well; his sister dead now he’d had nothing to lose and should already be in the lab setting the final pieces in place, layer on top of layer of programming hiding the message.
“I’m not safe I’ve never been safe. Not for you, not for anyone. He saw to that.” The sound of footsteps, and they both stiffened, shrunk into the shadows as a pair of guards came past.
“We make our own safety.” She murmured in his ear, her lips brushing his skin.
“We do.” He kissed her, hard, and she knew it was a goodbye. He pressed the zatnikatel into her hand and stepped into the corridor, under the light and yelled after the guards that had passed them. She waited until the sound of their footsteps faded and fairly flew to the lab, Geb was already in the corridor, the opening hidden and she fried the sensor before taking his hand and running.
Never leave me.
She wasn’t sure who thought it but it wasn’t possible, all it did was break her heart.
****
“You’re going to piss off the doc Carter,” Jack was leaning against a consol across the lab; Sam was working on her computer, connected to the system in three places now.
“She gave me four hours.” The keys clacked, “I almost have it.”
“You do?” He straightened and came toward her, he should be pleased but there was nothing but a sense of loss. She looked up at him, her eyes wide open full of things they hadn’t said because that would make what was going on real. If they didn’t say it, it could still be forgotten could be filed away as part of all this.
It remained unspoken but she knew he could feel it, felt the answering emotion, the pain that left her breathless. He kissed her, her fingers threading through his hair as their mouths met, a demanding kiss that didn’t allow either of them to shy away from it, that didn’t leave any question about who was involved that said everything that neither of them had been able to say including goodbye.
“Do it.” There was a long silence; he turned away from her, “Before I change my mind.” She nodded even though he couldn’t see her and went back to typing, the last layers of code stripping away as the system shut down.
Then everything went white.
****
“Welcome back Colonel.” The room had that familiar antiseptic smell of the infirmary, and he’d recognize that light that was shining in his eye anywhere.
“What happened?” He felt muzzy, like he had a hangover and a concussion all at once.
“We aren’t positive, it looked like Sam managed to turn off the transmission. But both of you were in it so deep that it shut you down.”
“Someone with a symbiote would have been able to withstand the shock.” Teal’c said and Jack turned his head to look at the Jaf’fa, next to him was Jonas.
“S… Carter?” He struggled to sit up, correcting himself before saying her name and Janet reached to help him.
“Here sir.” Her voice was soft, and for the first time since this whole ordeal started he hadn’t known exactly where she was hadn’t felt her there. He jerked to look at her, she smiled.
“You hit the ground pretty hard when you fell.” Janet told him and Sam had been sitting, that explained the familiar concussion headache. “She’s been awake for a little while now.”
Their eyes met and Sam smiled without it reaching them, he was starting to hate that expression. She leaned back looking suddenly very fragile and tired.
“We check out okay?”
“As far I can tell, your brain patterns have leveled off, your vitals are back in normal range. You just need some rest.” He started to speak and she stopped him.
“You can go home tomorrow Colonel, after a little more observation. Rest,” she gave Sam’s hand a pat, gave Jonas and Teal’c pointed looks that would only have meant something if they were women and left. Jonas started to say something and Teal’c wisely grabbed him by the scruff of his neck and dragged him off after Janet like a puppy.
“You okay Carter?” He asked after the others had left, the question holding more meaning that the words implied.
“Yes sir.” A pause. “You?”
“Dandy.” He deadpanned, looked back over at her. Every cell of his body wanted to move over and climb into her bed with her, and he was pretty sure she knew that. That she felt the same way. He was perversely pleased even though it ached every bit as much as he’d thought it would.
He reached out, his hand finding hers extended toward him as if she’d known his would be there, their fingers tangled briefly and almost as one they both relaxed, a nurse came around the curtain and their hands dropped but he could still feel her touch.
“Just dandy.”