Masquerade - Ch 8
Title: Masquerade - Chapter 8
Pairing: Sam/Janet
Rating: adult
Summary: SG-1 make the horrifying discovery that Janet Fraiser has been host to a Goa’uld for the past three years.
This chapter: Hank has some difficult news he needs to tell someone and Daniel contemplates the layers of Vala Mal Doran.
Cam deflated in relief seeing Sam and Daniel emerge together into the central chamber. He wasn’t going to question what happened between them. All he needed to know was that he now had a full team ready to tackle the little problem they left back home of an imminent intergalactic attack.
He addressed his team and told them about his conversation with Shu.
“When do we meet these rebels?” Teal’c asked, anticipation bulging in his arms.
“The guy hasn’t got back to me yet.”
Daniel’s eyes twitched anxiously. “Well, whatever happens, we can’t let them kill Nephthys.”
“I know. And I explained all about the Goa’uld...more or less. We might be able to convince them that we need Nephthys alive so we can save Janet.”
Vala stretched and rolled her shoulders, setting her hands on her hips. “You might be able to make a few people understand but you have to remember that she isn’t going to be their priority. They want to rid themselves of Nephthys. Even if she has only ruled over them for a few years, they have known hundreds as free people. Who knows what Nephthys has been up to since she got here. A few mass murders, an all out massacre, slave labour, public executions. She has a whole planet here and only one city full of worshipers. What does that tell you?”
Sam frowned at her, willing impossible hopes into unapologetic eyes. She already knew, deep down, that saving Janet would be next to impossible but she didn’t need Vala to spell it out.
“If you think it was hard,” Teal’c began solemnly, “convincing people that the Goa’uld were false Gods, it will be even harder to convince them to spare Nephthys for the sake of one woman they do not know.”
He met Sam’s hurtful gaze and held it for as long as she needed to realize that his perceptions would have no bearing on his readiness to fight to the end for an ally once thought lost forever.
“Maybe Landry’s been able to come up with something on his end,” said Cam. “I told him to talk to the Asgard and explain our situation.”
Daniel folded his arms tightly across his chest as though overcome by a sudden cold. “I’m not sure how sympathetic the Asgard are likely to be.”
The looks he received demanded an explanation. Daniel tried his best to put it into the simplest terms. “They understand that Nephthys only has the capacity to broker a treaty when she takes a host. They’ve agreed not to interfere with her operations so long as she takes no action against anyone trespassing in this solar system and in turn the Asgard provide the necessary protection. Compromising her host, i.e, forcibly removing her from Janet would fall under interference.”
Cam blinked and looked overwhelmed. “But Janet wasn’t her host when she made this deal.”
“And Nephthys didn’t technically take Janet as a host. Ba’al forced the blending to take place. The details of the treaty are frustratingly specific. Nephthys is pretty much allowed to do whatever she wants outside Sekhem. On Sekhem she’s protected. And any action we take to remove her, bring her beyond those perimeters, will incur penalty from the Asgard against us.”
Sam gripped the back of the sofa to subdue a bout of rage. The white of her knuckles made Daniel tense and swallow.
Cam was shaking his head and squinting incredulously. “How could the Asgard have agreed to such a treaty with a Goa’uld?”
Distracted by Sam’s obvious pain, Daniel took a while to realize he was supposed to answer. He cleared his throat and said, “This deal was made close to a thousand years ago. We know that back then the Asgard had a considerable advantage over the Goa’uld and underestimated the threat they would later prove to be.”
“There has to be a loophole somewhere,” Cam insisted, earning an appreciative look from Sam.
“Believe me, I’m trying to find it,” said Daniel.
“Nephthys is sly,” said Vala, “It’s a fairly safe bet she’s considered every angle, every possible contingency.”
Teal’c puffed out his chest and sneered with conviction. “All Goa’uld have one sure weakness.”
Vala looked up at him doubtfully. “I wouldn’t be so certain of that. With Anubis and almost all the System Lords out of the picture, if Nephthys were half as arrogant as most Goa’uld she would be seizing the opportunity for galactic dominance.”
“Unless she has no idea,” Sam pointed out.
Daniel cocked his head. “She’s been in play for three years and we’ve never heard a single word of her until now. It’s possible she has confined herself to the planet the entire time.”
“Then she won’t know Anubis has been eliminated and that the only System Lord left is Ba’al,” said Cam.
Sam reached for this small sliver of hope and grabbed hold. “Surely we can find some way to use that to our advantage.”
Vala only snatched it from her grasp. “Say we tell her. Say we let her know the galaxy is ripe for the taking, we’re still unsure as to the extent of her power. She claimed to have a whole planet full of alien technology gathered from all kinds of alien races and civilizations. So far we’ve seen only a single city in the middle of a lot of sand. Besides, she has no interest in galactic domination.”
Sam tightly clenched her jaw. She didn’t understand why Vala was being so pessimistic. Typically she was the one propositioning them for all kinds of dangerous if not suicidal missions, hunting for long lost legendary treasures and other things she thought were valuable and might look good on a shelf in her new room at the SGC.
This was the one time she needed the retired con artist to be that reckless and infallible. She needed Vala to tell her it was possible to save Janet. Vala had been a Goa’uld once. And Sam didn’t want to think of her as being the kind of woman who was grateful it was someone else trapped in her own body and not herself.
Still, it wasn’t like Vala was telling them they were better off leaving while they had the chance. And Vala had been the one to tell Sam that she had hope. There had to be something else going on.
“Perhaps these rebels will have a better idea of what Nephthys has at her disposal,” Teal’c’s voice severed her train of thought.
“In the mean time,” Cam said, “Daniel, you can keep looking through that treaty. Sam can help you. But I don’t want the two of you exhausting yourselves to the point you become a liability out here. Remember our mission objective is to find ZPMs or any other means to power our defences against the Ombosian attack on Earth. We have to stay focussed.”
It was the nicest way he could put it, and he hoped that Sam and Daniel appreciated that he wasn’t telling them not to try. Janet was a soldier they had left behind. Without even knowing her, Cam felt as if there was a piece of himself trapped somewhere.
No one would call him presumptuous. In the military, every soldier was a part of one. Every loss was felt as deeply as blood gushing through veins. The deaths of men and women Cam never knew could haunt his nightmares. The simple idea that their paths might have once crossed, even for a second, only served to remind him of the cruelty of happenstance.
“We know,” Daniel said, tapping the back of the sofa and leaning in the direction of his room. He looked up at Sam who met his gaze only briefly before watching her own nails pick at the sofa cushion. “We know Janet wouldn’t want us putting Earth at risk for her.”
When Daniel left Sam went after him, passing beneath Teal’c’s troubled stare. When she was gone he turned to Cam.
“I am sorry that we have not been properly focussed on our mission, Colonel Mitchell,” he said, in a self rebuking bow.
Cam rolled his head. “Aw hell, Teal’c.” He grimaced at the floor. “You know, personally, rescuing Janet Fraiser doesn’t need to be our mission for me to do everything I can to get that damn snake out of her.”
Their leader took a step forward, turned and sank onto the sofa with his head in his hands. Rubbing his brow he shrugged hopelessly. “I am...hoping like hell that Sam and Daniel can find,” and he held out his hands tensely, as if the solution would appear between them by his sheer will, “...something in that treaty.”
Teal’c smiled, and to himself said, “I have the utmost confidence in their ability.”
The SGC was noticeably quiet and that one shade greyer, that one degree colder without a member of SG-1 around. It was generally accepted that they were the heart and soul of the Cheyenne Mountain complex, and the entire base waited like a pet dog at the front window, for their return.
Maybe Hank noticed the silence more now because he was trying to find the right words. He noticed the grey of the walls, the dull tones of his wilted surroundings because no one at the SGC had been able to find a way out of this.
He set down the mug of coffee from which he had been sipping for the past hour and it too had gone cold. They were stuck. There was nothing any of them could do. And he knew, as hard as they might be trying, that Dr Jackson and Colonel Carter and the other members of SG-1 would fail.
He knew it as surely as a man could know something. The Asgard were their most trusted allies. More than the Tok’ra, and more than the free Jaffa. And not one of them had come forward with a compromise to their problem.
The worst part of it was, that there was still one more person Hank had to tell. Walter appeared at the open office door.
“General Jack O’Neill is here, Sir.” The technician stood in the doorway with sombre, hanging shoulders.
Hands woven together before his face, Hank extended a finger. “Send him in.”
“Yes, Sir.” Walter turned, and then stepped aside in the corridor as Jack edged past him.
The man was aging defiantly, fully embracing the changes to his hair and skin and posture and weight with unflinching arrogance, as though he were telling the universe to try harder.
“Well I’m here.” Jack rolled back on his heels and up onto his toes. “In person. If you tell me I might wanna sit down, I will hit you.”
Hank stood up from his desk.
“Oh and if you tell me Daniel’s dead, I’m walking out that door,” Jack said, tossing a thumb over his shoulder.
Hank fixed his features, trying at once to show confidence and sensitivity. This had to come out right. This wasn’t like telling family or a loved one that their son or daughter or wife or husband had been killed or lost.
What Hank told Jack would have the steadfast General questioning every decision he made over the past three years. It would have him doubting his honour, his character, his integrity. What was worse, was that there wouldn’t be any way Jack would be able to redeem himself.
He would try. And if anyone would be able to get through to the Asgard it would be their beloved O’Neill. Hank still had his doubts, but he would keep them to himself.
“You read the brief I sent you?”
Jack grimaced. “There were just...so many words. A picture or two couldn't hurt.”
The only thing left to do was explain the situation. Taking a moment to collect his nerve, Hank set his hands on the desk.
“SG-1 are currently on mission on a planet called Sekhem hoping to acquire ZPMs or other technology to help Earth’s defences when Seth’s forces launch their attack.”
Jack cocked head. “Yeah, didn’t we kill Seth?”
“He had planets populated with people still loyal to him. They still believe he is their god and that he will one day return to them. Problem is they held a little ceremony while SG-1 were exploring their planet. SG-1 stopped a ritual sacrifice and escaped. The people are demanding we hand over our team or they will attack Earth.”
Jack thinned his lips. “Mm...hm.”
“While on Seth’s planet Daniel Jackson discovered a gate address the Goa’uld had told his followers was forbidden, sacrilege. A kind of...hell. P3X-666.”
Hank closely watched the light drain from Jack’s eyes. “I’m sure you recognize the address. Naturally, Dr Jackson had to follow it up. Turns out that was where Setesh was keeping a rather reluctant lover of his, a Goa’uld called Nephthys, trapped in stasis in a canopic jar. Ba’al was there the day you and SG-13 were attacked on that planet. He was searching for Nephthys.”
“I assume he found her then.” The usual bravado was absent from Jack’s voice.
Hank gave an affirmative nod. “He did. And he brought her back, gave her a new host.”
Jack took one hand out of his pocket to idly finger the edge of the coffee mug on Hank’s desk. Hank could see it in the darkened crescents of his fellow General’s eyes that he would be telling him what he had already come to conclude. But the man still needed to hear it.
“Jack...I so deeply regret to tell you...Her host is Dr Janet Fraiser.”
Hank didn’t move an inch or say another word. The bottom lids of Jack’s eyes lifted a little as he stared down at the mug, running one finger around the rim, tapping the top of the handle with a nail. The soft chink, chink, chink was the only noise in the room until Jack froze altogether and there was no sound at all.
Suddenly Jack was a force of motion, scooping the mug into his fist, and swinging his entire body in a ferocious arc, smashing the mug and its contents against the back wall of the office. The cup exploded into a thousand shards and a spray of brown liquid stained the wall, dribbling in long, wet lines.
Two Airmen hurried into the room, guns raised.
“Stand down! Stand down,” Hank ordered quickly, holding out his hand. He looked back at Jack, concerned.
“Hope that wasn’t one of those sentimental father’s day gifts or anything,” Jack said squinting one eye and scrunching his nose.
Hank shook his head. “I think it was Walter’s.”
“Ah.” Jack shoved his hands in his pockets again and nodded at the ground. “I guess I’ll buy him a new one.”
Hank smiled sadly. He hadn’t even told Jack the worst part.
“Jack,” he said, to gently get his attention.
Jack was frowning, but looked up brightly. “Yep.”
“There’s more...”
Daniel rubbed his eyes behind his glasses. He had been reading and rereading the Asgard treaty so many times that he was fairly sure he had just spent the last ten minutes looking at the reflection of the tablet light in his lenses.
“You should get some sleep.” Sam leaned in the doorway to his room, head resting tiredly on her arm.
Daniel removed his glasses and rubbed his whole face to refresh his focus. “What about you?”
Sam let her other arm swing at her side. She lifted her hand and picked her thumbnail with the nail of her forefinger. “...I can’t sleep.”
“You haven’t tried.” He smiled at her. When she stepped into the room, Sam hugged herself.
“...I close my eyes, even a second and...”
“Yeah,” said Daniel. In that kind of darkness he saw horrible things. He saw Ba’al come across Janet’s lifeless body. Saw the order he gave to a loyal Jaffa who picked her up and swung her over his shoulder like she was never a person with a smile and a laugh and a kind and gentle heart.
She was just an empty piece of flesh waiting to be filled. The horror didn’t end with the blending of the Goa’uld symbiote. Daniel could not stop imagining what she might have endured under Nephthys’s control during her time on Ba’al’s ship. He could not stop himself constructing every nightmare she could have suffered at the hands of Anubis.
Nephthys may have once had control over him, the power to manipulate him, but Daniel was sure that even she never expected him to actually Ascend. That being, although trapped between states of existence, still had access to vast, incomprehensible knowledge and power, and in a mind already fractured and twisted beyond what was natural, Daniel feared Anubis may have in some way returned the favour.
Nephthys clearly used Anubis as her own pet dog, sending him out across the galaxy collecting Ancient technology, appealing to his ego to test any unfamiliar device on himself. His suffering and determination would have been earnest only in the sense that Nephthys drove him, constantly baiting him, and Daniel had to believe it was the only reason Oma could have taken such pity on him.
And once Anubis learned the truth, the extent to which he had been used, and by a lowly Goa’uld without rank, his rage would have known no bounds.
It was a wonder to Daniel that Nephthys managed to escape his fleet at all. He could only guess that Ba’al may have proven himself to be as easy to manipulate as Anubis had once been, and Nephthys used him to orchestrate her retreat to Sekhem.
It was all too much to think about what Janet had been through, the things she had seen, the acts she was powerless to prevent. It had been scary enough when his own body had provided a vessel through which several unfortunate souls could interact with the world.
He remembered a feeling of being something very, very small inside something so large and dark, shouting and shouting and receiving no answer.
When he described it to Sam she told him that her experience with Jolinar was nothing like that. She could still feel her body moving, she could still see through her own eyes. It were as if some layer of living tissue had been painted over her skin that constricted tightly over every inch of her body, and moved it for her. She couldn’t even decide when to breathe.
He had never asked Vala what her experience with Qetesh had been like. All she talked about was the torture she endured after the symbiote had been removed from her head. He knew she would always feel bitterness and resentment towards other people because of it.
Her anger that they could not tell the difference between the desperate cries of a human woman and the frightening soullessness of a murderous, sadistic parasite had been left to permeate her already ravaged sense of identity.
It was hard to know who Vala really was. Daniel had to admit he had not exactly shown her patience in that regard, and her tendency to adopt various facades was a direct response to his continued indifference.
This Vala, the Vala he knew now, the reckless and juvenile narcissist, was hard enough to handle. It was daunting to think there were sides to her that waited beneath that turbulent surface.
“Well, we’re no good like this,” said Sam. “We need to be completely focussed or we’ll miss important things.”
Daniel heaved a heavy sigh. “You’re probably right. I just...If I stopped now I’d feel like I was...”
“Yeah. Me too.”
He hesitated to ask, but he didn’t expect much of an answer. “...How was she?”
Sam smiled sadly and Daniel felt a stab in his heart at the tear that she tried to catch before he saw, so he looked down as if he hadn’t noticed.
“Good. She was...she was okay. I, um...I should...get back to my room.”
Daniel nodded, eyes on the tablet screen. He heard her leaving the room. “Sam.” He looked up to see her turning at the doorway. She held the frame, waiting anxiously. “I’ve missed you.”
She faltered, and he mercifully turned away gesturing to the room, and their work, wordlessly telling her that they hadn’t worked together as friends in a long time.
Sam just sniffed, and had to hold her lips together for a moment. “I’ve missed you, too.”
Pairing: Sam/Janet
Rating: adult
Summary: SG-1 make the horrifying discovery that Janet Fraiser has been host to a Goa’uld for the past three years.
This chapter: Hank has some difficult news he needs to tell someone and Daniel contemplates the layers of Vala Mal Doran.
Cam deflated in relief seeing Sam and Daniel emerge together into the central chamber. He wasn’t going to question what happened between them. All he needed to know was that he now had a full team ready to tackle the little problem they left back home of an imminent intergalactic attack.
He addressed his team and told them about his conversation with Shu.
“When do we meet these rebels?” Teal’c asked, anticipation bulging in his arms.
“The guy hasn’t got back to me yet.”
Daniel’s eyes twitched anxiously. “Well, whatever happens, we can’t let them kill Nephthys.”
“I know. And I explained all about the Goa’uld...more or less. We might be able to convince them that we need Nephthys alive so we can save Janet.”
Vala stretched and rolled her shoulders, setting her hands on her hips. “You might be able to make a few people understand but you have to remember that she isn’t going to be their priority. They want to rid themselves of Nephthys. Even if she has only ruled over them for a few years, they have known hundreds as free people. Who knows what Nephthys has been up to since she got here. A few mass murders, an all out massacre, slave labour, public executions. She has a whole planet here and only one city full of worshipers. What does that tell you?”
Sam frowned at her, willing impossible hopes into unapologetic eyes. She already knew, deep down, that saving Janet would be next to impossible but she didn’t need Vala to spell it out.
“If you think it was hard,” Teal’c began solemnly, “convincing people that the Goa’uld were false Gods, it will be even harder to convince them to spare Nephthys for the sake of one woman they do not know.”
He met Sam’s hurtful gaze and held it for as long as she needed to realize that his perceptions would have no bearing on his readiness to fight to the end for an ally once thought lost forever.
“Maybe Landry’s been able to come up with something on his end,” said Cam. “I told him to talk to the Asgard and explain our situation.”
Daniel folded his arms tightly across his chest as though overcome by a sudden cold. “I’m not sure how sympathetic the Asgard are likely to be.”
The looks he received demanded an explanation. Daniel tried his best to put it into the simplest terms. “They understand that Nephthys only has the capacity to broker a treaty when she takes a host. They’ve agreed not to interfere with her operations so long as she takes no action against anyone trespassing in this solar system and in turn the Asgard provide the necessary protection. Compromising her host, i.e, forcibly removing her from Janet would fall under interference.”
Cam blinked and looked overwhelmed. “But Janet wasn’t her host when she made this deal.”
“And Nephthys didn’t technically take Janet as a host. Ba’al forced the blending to take place. The details of the treaty are frustratingly specific. Nephthys is pretty much allowed to do whatever she wants outside Sekhem. On Sekhem she’s protected. And any action we take to remove her, bring her beyond those perimeters, will incur penalty from the Asgard against us.”
Sam gripped the back of the sofa to subdue a bout of rage. The white of her knuckles made Daniel tense and swallow.
Cam was shaking his head and squinting incredulously. “How could the Asgard have agreed to such a treaty with a Goa’uld?”
Distracted by Sam’s obvious pain, Daniel took a while to realize he was supposed to answer. He cleared his throat and said, “This deal was made close to a thousand years ago. We know that back then the Asgard had a considerable advantage over the Goa’uld and underestimated the threat they would later prove to be.”
“There has to be a loophole somewhere,” Cam insisted, earning an appreciative look from Sam.
“Believe me, I’m trying to find it,” said Daniel.
“Nephthys is sly,” said Vala, “It’s a fairly safe bet she’s considered every angle, every possible contingency.”
Teal’c puffed out his chest and sneered with conviction. “All Goa’uld have one sure weakness.”
Vala looked up at him doubtfully. “I wouldn’t be so certain of that. With Anubis and almost all the System Lords out of the picture, if Nephthys were half as arrogant as most Goa’uld she would be seizing the opportunity for galactic dominance.”
“Unless she has no idea,” Sam pointed out.
Daniel cocked his head. “She’s been in play for three years and we’ve never heard a single word of her until now. It’s possible she has confined herself to the planet the entire time.”
“Then she won’t know Anubis has been eliminated and that the only System Lord left is Ba’al,” said Cam.
Sam reached for this small sliver of hope and grabbed hold. “Surely we can find some way to use that to our advantage.”
Vala only snatched it from her grasp. “Say we tell her. Say we let her know the galaxy is ripe for the taking, we’re still unsure as to the extent of her power. She claimed to have a whole planet full of alien technology gathered from all kinds of alien races and civilizations. So far we’ve seen only a single city in the middle of a lot of sand. Besides, she has no interest in galactic domination.”
Sam tightly clenched her jaw. She didn’t understand why Vala was being so pessimistic. Typically she was the one propositioning them for all kinds of dangerous if not suicidal missions, hunting for long lost legendary treasures and other things she thought were valuable and might look good on a shelf in her new room at the SGC.
This was the one time she needed the retired con artist to be that reckless and infallible. She needed Vala to tell her it was possible to save Janet. Vala had been a Goa’uld once. And Sam didn’t want to think of her as being the kind of woman who was grateful it was someone else trapped in her own body and not herself.
Still, it wasn’t like Vala was telling them they were better off leaving while they had the chance. And Vala had been the one to tell Sam that she had hope. There had to be something else going on.
“Perhaps these rebels will have a better idea of what Nephthys has at her disposal,” Teal’c’s voice severed her train of thought.
“In the mean time,” Cam said, “Daniel, you can keep looking through that treaty. Sam can help you. But I don’t want the two of you exhausting yourselves to the point you become a liability out here. Remember our mission objective is to find ZPMs or any other means to power our defences against the Ombosian attack on Earth. We have to stay focussed.”
It was the nicest way he could put it, and he hoped that Sam and Daniel appreciated that he wasn’t telling them not to try. Janet was a soldier they had left behind. Without even knowing her, Cam felt as if there was a piece of himself trapped somewhere.
No one would call him presumptuous. In the military, every soldier was a part of one. Every loss was felt as deeply as blood gushing through veins. The deaths of men and women Cam never knew could haunt his nightmares. The simple idea that their paths might have once crossed, even for a second, only served to remind him of the cruelty of happenstance.
“We know,” Daniel said, tapping the back of the sofa and leaning in the direction of his room. He looked up at Sam who met his gaze only briefly before watching her own nails pick at the sofa cushion. “We know Janet wouldn’t want us putting Earth at risk for her.”
When Daniel left Sam went after him, passing beneath Teal’c’s troubled stare. When she was gone he turned to Cam.
“I am sorry that we have not been properly focussed on our mission, Colonel Mitchell,” he said, in a self rebuking bow.
Cam rolled his head. “Aw hell, Teal’c.” He grimaced at the floor. “You know, personally, rescuing Janet Fraiser doesn’t need to be our mission for me to do everything I can to get that damn snake out of her.”
Their leader took a step forward, turned and sank onto the sofa with his head in his hands. Rubbing his brow he shrugged hopelessly. “I am...hoping like hell that Sam and Daniel can find,” and he held out his hands tensely, as if the solution would appear between them by his sheer will, “...something in that treaty.”
Teal’c smiled, and to himself said, “I have the utmost confidence in their ability.”
The SGC was noticeably quiet and that one shade greyer, that one degree colder without a member of SG-1 around. It was generally accepted that they were the heart and soul of the Cheyenne Mountain complex, and the entire base waited like a pet dog at the front window, for their return.
Maybe Hank noticed the silence more now because he was trying to find the right words. He noticed the grey of the walls, the dull tones of his wilted surroundings because no one at the SGC had been able to find a way out of this.
He set down the mug of coffee from which he had been sipping for the past hour and it too had gone cold. They were stuck. There was nothing any of them could do. And he knew, as hard as they might be trying, that Dr Jackson and Colonel Carter and the other members of SG-1 would fail.
He knew it as surely as a man could know something. The Asgard were their most trusted allies. More than the Tok’ra, and more than the free Jaffa. And not one of them had come forward with a compromise to their problem.
The worst part of it was, that there was still one more person Hank had to tell. Walter appeared at the open office door.
“General Jack O’Neill is here, Sir.” The technician stood in the doorway with sombre, hanging shoulders.
Hands woven together before his face, Hank extended a finger. “Send him in.”
“Yes, Sir.” Walter turned, and then stepped aside in the corridor as Jack edged past him.
The man was aging defiantly, fully embracing the changes to his hair and skin and posture and weight with unflinching arrogance, as though he were telling the universe to try harder.
“Well I’m here.” Jack rolled back on his heels and up onto his toes. “In person. If you tell me I might wanna sit down, I will hit you.”
Hank stood up from his desk.
“Oh and if you tell me Daniel’s dead, I’m walking out that door,” Jack said, tossing a thumb over his shoulder.
Hank fixed his features, trying at once to show confidence and sensitivity. This had to come out right. This wasn’t like telling family or a loved one that their son or daughter or wife or husband had been killed or lost.
What Hank told Jack would have the steadfast General questioning every decision he made over the past three years. It would have him doubting his honour, his character, his integrity. What was worse, was that there wouldn’t be any way Jack would be able to redeem himself.
He would try. And if anyone would be able to get through to the Asgard it would be their beloved O’Neill. Hank still had his doubts, but he would keep them to himself.
“You read the brief I sent you?”
Jack grimaced. “There were just...so many words. A picture or two couldn't hurt.”
The only thing left to do was explain the situation. Taking a moment to collect his nerve, Hank set his hands on the desk.
“SG-1 are currently on mission on a planet called Sekhem hoping to acquire ZPMs or other technology to help Earth’s defences when Seth’s forces launch their attack.”
Jack cocked head. “Yeah, didn’t we kill Seth?”
“He had planets populated with people still loyal to him. They still believe he is their god and that he will one day return to them. Problem is they held a little ceremony while SG-1 were exploring their planet. SG-1 stopped a ritual sacrifice and escaped. The people are demanding we hand over our team or they will attack Earth.”
Jack thinned his lips. “Mm...hm.”
“While on Seth’s planet Daniel Jackson discovered a gate address the Goa’uld had told his followers was forbidden, sacrilege. A kind of...hell. P3X-666.”
Hank closely watched the light drain from Jack’s eyes. “I’m sure you recognize the address. Naturally, Dr Jackson had to follow it up. Turns out that was where Setesh was keeping a rather reluctant lover of his, a Goa’uld called Nephthys, trapped in stasis in a canopic jar. Ba’al was there the day you and SG-13 were attacked on that planet. He was searching for Nephthys.”
“I assume he found her then.” The usual bravado was absent from Jack’s voice.
Hank gave an affirmative nod. “He did. And he brought her back, gave her a new host.”
Jack took one hand out of his pocket to idly finger the edge of the coffee mug on Hank’s desk. Hank could see it in the darkened crescents of his fellow General’s eyes that he would be telling him what he had already come to conclude. But the man still needed to hear it.
“Jack...I so deeply regret to tell you...Her host is Dr Janet Fraiser.”
Hank didn’t move an inch or say another word. The bottom lids of Jack’s eyes lifted a little as he stared down at the mug, running one finger around the rim, tapping the top of the handle with a nail. The soft chink, chink, chink was the only noise in the room until Jack froze altogether and there was no sound at all.
Suddenly Jack was a force of motion, scooping the mug into his fist, and swinging his entire body in a ferocious arc, smashing the mug and its contents against the back wall of the office. The cup exploded into a thousand shards and a spray of brown liquid stained the wall, dribbling in long, wet lines.
Two Airmen hurried into the room, guns raised.
“Stand down! Stand down,” Hank ordered quickly, holding out his hand. He looked back at Jack, concerned.
“Hope that wasn’t one of those sentimental father’s day gifts or anything,” Jack said squinting one eye and scrunching his nose.
Hank shook his head. “I think it was Walter’s.”
“Ah.” Jack shoved his hands in his pockets again and nodded at the ground. “I guess I’ll buy him a new one.”
Hank smiled sadly. He hadn’t even told Jack the worst part.
“Jack,” he said, to gently get his attention.
Jack was frowning, but looked up brightly. “Yep.”
“There’s more...”
Daniel rubbed his eyes behind his glasses. He had been reading and rereading the Asgard treaty so many times that he was fairly sure he had just spent the last ten minutes looking at the reflection of the tablet light in his lenses.
“You should get some sleep.” Sam leaned in the doorway to his room, head resting tiredly on her arm.
Daniel removed his glasses and rubbed his whole face to refresh his focus. “What about you?”
Sam let her other arm swing at her side. She lifted her hand and picked her thumbnail with the nail of her forefinger. “...I can’t sleep.”
“You haven’t tried.” He smiled at her. When she stepped into the room, Sam hugged herself.
“...I close my eyes, even a second and...”
“Yeah,” said Daniel. In that kind of darkness he saw horrible things. He saw Ba’al come across Janet’s lifeless body. Saw the order he gave to a loyal Jaffa who picked her up and swung her over his shoulder like she was never a person with a smile and a laugh and a kind and gentle heart.
She was just an empty piece of flesh waiting to be filled. The horror didn’t end with the blending of the Goa’uld symbiote. Daniel could not stop imagining what she might have endured under Nephthys’s control during her time on Ba’al’s ship. He could not stop himself constructing every nightmare she could have suffered at the hands of Anubis.
Nephthys may have once had control over him, the power to manipulate him, but Daniel was sure that even she never expected him to actually Ascend. That being, although trapped between states of existence, still had access to vast, incomprehensible knowledge and power, and in a mind already fractured and twisted beyond what was natural, Daniel feared Anubis may have in some way returned the favour.
Nephthys clearly used Anubis as her own pet dog, sending him out across the galaxy collecting Ancient technology, appealing to his ego to test any unfamiliar device on himself. His suffering and determination would have been earnest only in the sense that Nephthys drove him, constantly baiting him, and Daniel had to believe it was the only reason Oma could have taken such pity on him.
And once Anubis learned the truth, the extent to which he had been used, and by a lowly Goa’uld without rank, his rage would have known no bounds.
It was a wonder to Daniel that Nephthys managed to escape his fleet at all. He could only guess that Ba’al may have proven himself to be as easy to manipulate as Anubis had once been, and Nephthys used him to orchestrate her retreat to Sekhem.
It was all too much to think about what Janet had been through, the things she had seen, the acts she was powerless to prevent. It had been scary enough when his own body had provided a vessel through which several unfortunate souls could interact with the world.
He remembered a feeling of being something very, very small inside something so large and dark, shouting and shouting and receiving no answer.
When he described it to Sam she told him that her experience with Jolinar was nothing like that. She could still feel her body moving, she could still see through her own eyes. It were as if some layer of living tissue had been painted over her skin that constricted tightly over every inch of her body, and moved it for her. She couldn’t even decide when to breathe.
He had never asked Vala what her experience with Qetesh had been like. All she talked about was the torture she endured after the symbiote had been removed from her head. He knew she would always feel bitterness and resentment towards other people because of it.
Her anger that they could not tell the difference between the desperate cries of a human woman and the frightening soullessness of a murderous, sadistic parasite had been left to permeate her already ravaged sense of identity.
It was hard to know who Vala really was. Daniel had to admit he had not exactly shown her patience in that regard, and her tendency to adopt various facades was a direct response to his continued indifference.
This Vala, the Vala he knew now, the reckless and juvenile narcissist, was hard enough to handle. It was daunting to think there were sides to her that waited beneath that turbulent surface.
“Well, we’re no good like this,” said Sam. “We need to be completely focussed or we’ll miss important things.”
Daniel heaved a heavy sigh. “You’re probably right. I just...If I stopped now I’d feel like I was...”
“Yeah. Me too.”
He hesitated to ask, but he didn’t expect much of an answer. “...How was she?”
Sam smiled sadly and Daniel felt a stab in his heart at the tear that she tried to catch before he saw, so he looked down as if he hadn’t noticed.
“Good. She was...she was okay. I, um...I should...get back to my room.”
Daniel nodded, eyes on the tablet screen. He heard her leaving the room. “Sam.” He looked up to see her turning at the doorway. She held the frame, waiting anxiously. “I’ve missed you.”
She faltered, and he mercifully turned away gesturing to the room, and their work, wordlessly telling her that they hadn’t worked together as friends in a long time.
Sam just sniffed, and had to hold her lips together for a moment. “I’ve missed you, too.”