#ficamnesty

There isn’t a point in wishing things different, so Kiras just walks with whatever dignity he has and tries to pretend the message in his hand is anything other than what it is—a death sentence.

As he nears the upper chambers, the hallways rapidly depopulate until there are only two guards at the entrance doors. They don’t look at Kiras or the message in his hand, but merely open the door, their eyes carefully riveted to the ceiling.

Kiras summons whatever small cache of courage he has and enters the room.

Netan is not alone, twelve of his most powerful lieutenants sitting with an arrogant sort of ease around a heavily laden table as Kiras enters. They are smug in their conviction that Kiras will pay for their sins. Which he surely will.

Kiras doesn’t bother hating them. What was the point?

“Read it,” Netan commands.

It takes Kiras a few tries to start, to get the words out, the numbers of casualties, ships lost, the mere pittance that returned from the doomed run against Anubis.

Netan’s face darkens as Kiras reads, the lines of his face impossibly hard, but he does not bellow or rage. Like maybe he already knew the numbers. Perhaps the point is not the numbers, but what Netan will do to Kiras because of them. An example.

There are worse things to be.

“An explanation?” Netan asks.

The lieutenants rumble self-importantly about the Tau’ri and the Valedin, playing lip service to Netan’s prejudices until he lifts his hand for them to stop.

Netan holds out his cup to Kiras. “Would you hold this for me?” he asks, voice almost…gentle.

Kiras feels a shudder of revulsion travel down his spine, even as he reaches for the cup. “Yes, sir.”

There will probably be a little money. No large sum, but some form of payment to his family back on Yartan for his loss. It is the way of children traded to the Lucian. (He has long since learned not to use the word ‘stolen’, even in the privacy of his mind. Mind-words too easily become tongue-words, and death comes readily enough without thoughtless speech.)

With his hands now free, Netan reaches for his weapon.

Kiras squeezes his eyes shut.

There is a rapid succession of blasts, and Kiras only has enough thought to be thankful that death doesn’t hurt as much as he imagined it would. It’s only when he cracks one eye open in the succeeding silence that he realizes there were twelve shots.

Netan stands nearby, rubbing casually at his hands with a cloth, dabbing away the oil his blaster left on his skin, the burn of ozone still heavy in the air. After nearly a minute of careful, methodical grooming, he turns to Kiras and holds out a hand.

It takes Kiras a moment to realize what he wants, nearly stumbling with haste to hand back the cup.

“You may go,” Netan says.

Kiras nods, bowing almost to the waist like they did to the ancient kings centuries past, not letting his eyes stray towards the table and its damning bloody silence. “Yes, sir.”

Kiras is not the quickest or the smartest, but it occurs to him as he unashamedly flees the room of death that the only reason Netan let him live was for the story to be spread, growing larger and larger with each retelling.

Kiras dutifully complies, stopping to whisper the horrors into every ear he passes, but does not bother to exaggerate.

The original story is horrifying enough as it is.

*     *     *

Cam stares down at the dubiously smudged glass slammed down on the bar in front of him. The scent emanating from the slosh of liquid that follows makes his eyes water, but at least comforts him that whatever might have been living in that glass before certainly wouldn’t be anymore.

He can only hope the man who served him makes a better informant than he does a barkeep.

"Bottom's up," the scruffy guy says.

Cam glances down at the bar, noticing a distinct lack of a second glass. "None for you?"

The barkeep laughs. "Are you kidding? That crap'll rot you from the inside."

Cam frowns, but doesn't answer as another patron sidles up to the bar and is cheerfully poured a generous serving of the rotgut in question.

Can this really be the guy Reynolds sent him to collect intelligence from? He has the air of a burned out hippy to be completely honest. The only thing that makes Cam think this guy could have anything legitimate to offer are his eyes. They are dark and beady and make Cam think of cockroaches and that old saying about the end of the world. This guy seems like he would land on his feet every damn time.

Deep in his thoughts, Cam accidentally takes a sip of the drink in front of him. He sputters, nearly spitting it out before he remembers he's not supposed to be drawing attention to himself, especially here of all places. With great effort, he swallows it down, his eyes stinging. Hell, he supposes he should just be thankful he hasn't gone instantly blind.

Down at the other end of the bar, cockroach man throws back his head and laughs.

It's nearly dawn by the time the crowd empties out, making it safe for them to talk.

The bartender doesn’t even bother waiting for Cam to ask, just a slides a slim data device towards him. "Rumor has it that Netan finally lost his shit."

Cam raises an eyebrow, trying not to imagine just what the normally self-possessed-to-the-point-of-ice Netan would look like in a temper. The stuff of nightmares really.

The barkeep nods, leaning in as if to share salacious details. “Personally killed all twelve of his lieutenants if the stories can be believed. With a sword.”

Jesus. “Doesn’t like having his ships blown up much, does he,” Cam surmises. Like they hadn’t all equally strolled into a trap. Netan had lost ships, yes, but they were the ones to lose lives.

A lot of lives.

The informant shrugs. “Personally, I would have at least taken the time to interrogate them first,” he says, sounding as if torture is just the logical first step.

“Yeah?” Cam says.

The guy’s eyes narrow. “You understand that you were betrayed, right? How else could Anubis possibly have known?”

How indeed. But that is a worry that is far above Cam’s pay scale. If he were actually still getting paid. He’s got other things to worry about.

“Any final word on just how many ships made it back to the Lucian Alliance?” Cam tries to sound as casual as he can, like it doesn’t really matter. If Netan is losing his shit as much as this guy says, they’d be fools not to assume he will turn on them next. Knowing exactly how many ships he managed to snatch back from the fight with his hidden recall technology is vital.

“Enough that you should worry.”

“Yeah?” Cam asks.

The guy shoves the data device towards him again. “It’s all there.”

Cam palms the device, knowing it’s time to get up and walk away. He picks up the glass again. “Hypothetically, what would happen to someone taken prisoner by the Lucian?”

A bushy eyebrow lifts above a flinty eye. “You mean other than being tortured and killed for information?”

Cam fights back a wince. “Yes. Other than that.”

He shrugs. “Well, you know where most of the wealth driving the Alliance comes from.”

“Naquadah,” Cam says.

He nods. “Someone has to work the mines.”

Cam spins the glass between his palms. “You happen to know any of the locations of those mine?”

He laughs. “Now that is information worth more than both of our lives.”

Cam gets up to leave, the drive disappearing into his pocket.

“Hey.”

Cam turns back. The bartender seems to be struggling with something. “I hear Jack O’Neill is alive. Is that true?”

“You know O’Neill?”

“A couple of lifetimes ago,” he says with a wry grin that almost looks nostalgic.  “So…it’s true?”

“It is,” Cam says. “Or it was.” Is being frozen in ice with a brain overloaded by Ancient knowledge more dead or more alive? Cam doesn’t know. “It’s complicated.”

The guy nods. “Things always were with him.”

Somehow, Cam thinks that’s the understatement of the century.

*     *     *

Jason Reynolds paces his office, the small victory they managed to wrest already fading in the face of the odds shifting against their favor yet again.

The Lucian Alliance aren’t quite the allies dreams are made of. They still need to neutralize Anubis once and for all, if the written ramblings of Jack O’Neill are to be believed, and now they get to look back over their shoulders, always wondering when the Lucian Alliance will make their move.

Earth is vulnerable. Prime for the picking. They need whatever intel they can get their hands on. A job he would dearly love to give to Jack O’Neill, if he weren’t locked away in a block of ice. Instead he sent Cam, whose restless energy since the battle has been only growing. Something about the battle rattled Cam in a way the loss of Earth had not. Or maybe, Reynolds thinks more likely, something was finally the straw that broke the camel’s back.

“Netan believes we were betrayed,” Mitchell announces upon his return, sliding a slim data device across the table towards him.

Jason shakes his head. “There are a million ways Anubis could have discovered our plans.” Not to mention that he’s beginning to suspect that Anubis was moving the pieces towards that showdown for a lot longer than any of them realize. Netan can take his paranoia out on whomever he wishes. The past is past. Jason is more concerned with their rather shaky future.

“We need to focus on what Netan is planning next.”

Mitchell’s jaw clenches. “I think you were right. I think we have to assume that Netan knows.”

Jason wishes he could say he was surprised. “You’ll take care of it?”

Mitchell nods. “I can be on Earth in two days.” Jackson isn’t going to like it, but Jason has bigger concerns than the scientist’s pangs of conscience. He’s trying to save an entire race.

“There’s one more thing, sir,” Mitchell says, lingering in front of the desk.

Jason sighs internally, knowing what is coming and really not looking forward to it. He’s indulged Mitchell so far, but it’s time for that to end.

“If there were survivors, your contact seemed to think—”

“If there were survivors, Colonel,” Jason interrupts, voice hard. “That’s a giant if. And we have more pressing certainties ready to bite us in the ass.” None of them can afford to have Mitchell continue to be so distracted, to have his focus split. It’s going to get people killed. “You need to let this go.”

Mitchell stiffens, mouth open and face outraged, ready to push on forever if Jason gives him so much as an inch. So he doesn’t.

“Is this going to be a problem?” Jason barks.

Mitchell looks like he might fight for a moment, his face eventually smoothing to a sort of emotionless mask that may have disturbed Jason under any other circumstances. “No, sir,” he says, voice clipped.

Jason nods. “Then get gone.”

Mitchell turns on his heel and stalks out.

*     *     *

Daniel shivers, burrowing his face deeper into the furry lapel of his coat. Despite the obscene amount of gas generators they have down here, it is still an ice cave. He warily glances up at the ceiling, his mind calculating the sheer weight of ice and rock above their heads. He’s far too aware of what can happen when the slightest foundation shifts.

Shoving his hands deeper in his pockets, he shifts from foot to foot as the rings in front of him whine into life. Cam materializes out of the light, cursing roundly as he does.

“Goddamn, it’s colder than a—“

“Welcome to Antarctica,” Daniel interrupts what would no doubt be a colorful colloquialism. “You were expecting bikinis and tiny little umbrella drinks?”

“No,” Cam says, “but I also didn’t think I’d have to worry about my balls turning to ice.”

Daniel rolls his eyes. “It’s a bit warmer back in the lab,” he says, canting his head.

“Wait,” Cam says, and Daniel feels his stomach clench, having some idea of the sort of thing that would bring Cam all this way.

Cam glances around, canting his head off to the side away from listening ears. “The Lucian are coming.”

Daniel grimaces. He wishes he could say that was a surprise, Netan turning on them. Vala always warned them that this was a terrible idea. But he also knows that Cam would never come all this way just to tell him that. “And?”

“We need Sam.”

Daniels sighs. “Reynolds sent you to get her?” He would wonder why Reynolds sent Cam to collect her, when her own father is already on the planet, except Jacob doesn’t want her going back to Omega. He won’t stop her, but he isn’t going to talk her into it either.

Cam shakes his head. “I need you to take her. I have a few other things to take care of.”

Daniel’s eyes narrow. “Other things?”

Cam’s face isn’t giving anything away, and that is disturbing enough in and of itself. “Don’t worry about it.”

Yeah. Like that is going to happen.

Cam slaps his hands against his thighs, probably trying to knock feeling back into them. “You’ll get her there?”

Daniel frowns, thinking of Sam back in the lab behind him, the way she’s been since they discovered her down here with nothing but a frozen body for company.

“Idun, Daniel,” she snaps, pacing around the small space, her breath bursting out in white puffs. “Where did he go?”

Daniel’s long since given up trying to get her to sit still long enough to get medical to look her over. He steps aside as another tech swarms through the space, taking readings. “Sam, he died. His body failed and he didn’t have the resources to make a new one.”

She looks like he may have well taken a sledgehammer to her, her face paling. “And the other Asgard?”

He shakes his head, refusing to look at the frozen visage of Jack O’Neill behind him. “There are no more Asgard, Sam.”

No more miracles.

Sam turns abruptly away from him, but not before he sees the stark bleakness of her expression.

He finds her later, her hand pressed over the ice covering Jack’s face, her voice low as she speaks. “Is this why? Because you knew I’d never be able to find a way?”

Jack has no answers to share.

“Jackson,” Cam says, his hard voice snapping Daniel back to the present. “Just get her there.”

He turns and walks back to the rings.

Daniel walks back into the main lab, the hastily installed set of heavy duty doors sliding back in place behind him. He lets out a sigh at the relative warmth of the space. Shrugging out of his thick parka, he drapes it over the back of his chair, glancing at the crumpled collection of papers strewn across his desk.

The papers are covered with writing, some much more legible than others, all written in a evolving dialect of Ancient that has kept Daniel struggling for weeks to decipher. Jack’s last words, scribbled on the back of anything he could get his hands on.

The longest piece of writing is a letter. About Anubis. To be honest either Daniel’s Ancient is rusty or Jack was more than a little gone when he wrote it. It’s full of strange phrases like ‘death is not the end’, ‘not human’, and some word Daniel can’t define at all that might have something to do with non-corporeal. Ascension?

He’ll build himself a new body. He always does. Unless you stop him.

Daniel can’t make sense of it.

The only thing that convinces him that they aren’t just the rantings of a delusional man is the careful note in the margin. “Tell Carter, tell her I, just thank her for me. Thank her for saving me in every way that a person can be saved. Take care of her.”

Daniel glances up at Sam on the other side of the lab, currently lying on her back with her head stuck in an Ancient console. He’s doing his best to do what Jack asked him, but Sam has always been like a force of nature.

They limit her to ten-hour shifts, forcing her back up to the orbiting Prometheus for rest and warmth. That still hasn’t stopped her from hacking her way back down here from time to time. Daniel still hasn’t decided what is worse, the listless hopelessness she was mired in at first, or this manic, focusless rush to solve a solution to an unsolvable problem that has obsessed her since. Endless lifelessness or a bright thing threatening to burn out far too fast?

Daniel takes a deep breath and crosses the space. “Sam.”

She’s muttering to herself, what sounds like the basic conjugation of simple Ancient verbs. She’s insisted on Daniel teaching her to read and speak the Ancient language, no matter how slow it is going or how much Sam clearly doesn’t have an aptitude for it.

“Sam,” he tries again. “I need to—”

She pops out, wagging a finger at him. “Ancient.”

Daniel sighs. She only wants him to speak to her in Ancient, even if it makes all of their conversations take ten times as long. They don’t have time for games. “They need you back at Omega.”

Sam seems to consider that for a moment before sticking her head back in the console. “Too bad.”

“Sam,” Daniel says, dragging a hand over his face.

“No, Daniel,” she says. “Do you honestly think anything would make me leave--?” She abruptly swallows the end of the sentence, just enough for Daniel to know there is a lot she isn’t saying.

“Dammit, Sam,” Daniel says. “Don’t you get it? If Netan obliterates us, then none of it meant anything. Not you coming back, not Jack sticking his head in that thing again. It’s all meaningless if we let this happen.”

Maybe it’s a low blow, but she needs to understand what is at stake.

She slides out of the computer, giving him a hard look. Pushing to her feet, she walks away from him.

He paces after her. “You don’t think they’ll take this place from us as well? That he won’t want to get his hands on the weapon that destroyed Anubis?”

She stops in front of her desk, leaning her palms against the surface. He knows she’s processing something, so lets her take the time, trying not to feel a beat of hope that he is finally reaching her.

Eventually she paws through one of the drawers, pulling out a small slip of paper. She holds it out to him. “Can you tell me what this means?”

Daniel sighs. He thought he could get her to understand just how high the stakes are, but she’s too damned wired into this. “Sam,” he says.

She thrusts the paper towards him again.

He takes it. “Unam sumis,” he reads out loud. At this point, he’s used to Sam asking him questions about translating Ancient, but there’s something odd about the phrase. Like maybe it’s a dialect?

Sam’s jaw tightens. “What does that mean?”

Daniel shakes his head. “I’m not sure. I’d really need to see it in context.”

Sam shakes her head, flapping her hand as if telling him to get on with it.

“Fine,” Daniel says, straightening his glasses. “I think it literally translates as ‘we are united’ or ‘we are one’, but it probably really means something more like, ‘We’re in this together’.”

Sam turns and takes a few steps away from him, the only sign that any of that meant anything to her the slight clenching of her fists by her sides.

“Sam?”

She turns back to him with a nod, looking more determined and focused than he’s ever seen her, not since…before. “If I help…when it’s done I get my own lab and complete access to Idun’s research for as long as I want it. No matter what else comes up.”

She’s bargaining with him. That should hurt except he never thought to see her like this again, eyes sharp and bright, her teeth dug deep into a project that is impossible by any standard of measurement.

“I’ll arrange it with Reynolds.”

“Your word,” she presses.

“I promise.”

Her shoulders lower and he supposes that should make him feel better, that his word still means something to her.

“Okay,” she says. “Then I know what to do.”

*     *     *

Jacob sighs, dragging a hand over his face. There was a riot in Alpha section today. One Jaffa and one human died, four more seriously wounded. All over an incident involving farm equipment if the reports can at all be believed.

He and Cassie have been trying to run things on Earth the last month. There are surveys to be done, populations to count, resources to be pooled. It will take lifetimes, but Cassie had only lifted her chin and said, “Then I guess we’d better start.”

A month in, it still feels an awful lot like nowhere.

Teal’c looks displeased, arms crossed over his chest. “I do not understand why this is happening.” The Earth survivors have been less than welcoming to the Jaffa, no matter how much they are trying to help, to throw in and create a future together.

Jacob sighs. “They’re afraid, Teal’c. Afraid and angry and looking for anything to blame.”

Teal’c nods. “Perhaps it would be better if we returned to Haktyl.”

“No.”

They turn to look at Cassie.

She looks up at them. “This is what their universe looks like now. Let the Jaffa teach the humans to defend themselves. Let the Tok’ra teach them to salvage their crops. Let every human know one Jaffa or one Tok’ra personally. Let them learn to be grateful for the help. It’s the kindest thing we can do for them.” She walks away, leaning down over the maps. “It’s time to go forward or just…let it all die.”

Jacob looks to Teal’c. He merely inclines his head. “I shall speak to the Jaffa.” He leaves the house.

Jacob comes to stand next to Cassie.

Cassie laughs under her breath, shaking her head.

“What?” Jacob asks.

“Nothing,” she says, waving a hand. “Just thinking about Earth’s future being decided by three aliens.”

Jacob gives her a wry smile. “We’ll let the history books have the last say on that one.”

If there’s anyone left to write it.

After a brisk knock, the two of them look up to see Cam enter.

“Hey, kid,” he says, ruffling Cassie’s hair.

She scowls, shoving him off. “You’re like, what? Two years older than me?”

“More like fifteen,” he says, “but nice try.”

“What’s up?” Jacob asks, surprised to see him back on Earth so soon.

“Vala,” he says.

Jacob’s jaw clenches. It was really only a matter of time. “Yeah. Okay.”

“Have someone watch her ship and the Stargate.”

Cassie sighs. “It’s a mistake.”

Maybe it all is.

*     *     *

Vala sees him coming, looking up from a few Haktyl women she is trading with.

Cam watches her take in the situation in an instant, her eyes tracking what he assumes are her escape routes, now so carefully cut off thanks to Jacob and a few Jaffa.

“I have to say, I expected you sooner,” she says, eyes defiant under a theatrical pout.

Cam takes her arm. “I’m sure you did.”

He locks her in the back of his ship, not speaking to her again until they are under way.

He tries to resist, but eventually he gets up, walking back into the hold.

“Yes?” she asks.

“The Lucian naquadriah planets,” he says.

Her posture shifts, Vala pulling herself up further. “Yes?” she asks, nearly a purr.

“Do you know any of their locations? The ones any prisoners of war are most likely to be sent to?”

“Are you offering to let me go in exchange for the location? My, my. How you’ve changed.”

Cam gets up to leave.

“I much prefer you this way!”

Cam slams his fist on the controls, the door sliding shut behind him.

*     *     *

Rodney looks up as the door to his lab opens. Sam strides in, Daniel right on her heels looking a little unsettled.

“Sam?” Rodney says, stepping towards her.

She ignores him, walking straight up to her quilt still hanging on the wall. She reaches out, hand tracing faintly over the stitches before she turns for the boards. She picks up a pen.

“Sam?” Rodney tries again, but she ignores him, Daniel reaching out to stop him from pulling her aware from the board.

“Just let her try,” Daniel says.

For a while it looks like she’s just tugging threads, the whole thing threatening to pull apart. But then it happens.

“Oh my God,” Rodney breathes.

Daniel glances at him. “Genius or gibberish?” he asks.

Rodney rubs at the back of his head. “Genius,” he says, head nodding like it’s on a spring. “Definitely genius.”

Sam builds them a sliver of hope out of nowhere.

“It’ll still take a miracle,” Rodney feels the need to point out.

Daniel smiles. “That’s Sam’s specialty.”

*     *     *

Now that Sam is on Omega and working, everything has cleared enough in his head that Daniel can finally make sense of Cam and his additional task on Earth.

“Son of a bitch,” he says.

He barges into Reynolds’ office.

“Where is she?”

“I’m sorry, Daniel,” Reynolds says. “This is the way it has to be.”

If he’d accepted that, Earth never would have been freed.

Vala lies in the cell, one hand pressed to her ear as if listening intently to the crystal walls.

“Netan’s turned on us,” Daniel announces.

He tries to see any reaction, but he just can’t read her. Instead she shifts, swinging her feet to the ground.

“I told Jack this was a terrible, terrible idea.” Her hand lifts to the wall, nails dragging down across the crystal.

She doesn’t press for any information, and if she was really playing them, wouldn’t she?

She leans back against the wall, arms folded up behind her head. “Well. If Netan becomes your new overlord, at least your bosses won’t have to decide what to do with me.”

“You’re right,” Daniel says. “They won’t have to make that decision.”

Stepping to the side of the cell, Daniel swipes his card, punching in his code.

Vala pushes to her feet at the sound of the cell unlocking. She looks like she’s waiting for him to assassinate her.

He pulls the door open and steps out of her way.

“What are you doing?”

“I thought that might be obvious. I’m letting you go.”

“How do you know you can trust me?”

He notices that even as she’s clearly wary of his motives, she still steadily heads for the open door. “I don’t,” he says. “But I gave you my word.”

She’s staring back at him as if he’s the most mystifying creature she’s ever met.

Daniel glances at his watch. “You’ve got a fifteen minute window. It was the best I could do.”

That seems to decide her. “It’s all I need.”

“Vala?” he asks as she glances up and down the hall.

She turns back.

“Even if we can protect ourselves, deflect Netan this time…that won’t stop him, will it?” Daniel says.

“No,” Vala says. “It won’t.”

She slips out the door.

*     *     *

Netan turns as the guards escort his visitor inside his chamber. “Vala. Welcome back.”

He looks for any sign that she resents being here, once again so carefully wrapped up in the world she spent a great deal of energy escaping once upon a time. She would have known the cost though, that day she walked back into his world with two Tau’ri in tow.

Her fingers trail along the edge of the desk. “They tried to lock me away.”

Netan smiles. It was inevitable that the Tau’ri would finally see Vala for what she really is. “And yet, here you are.”

Her lips curve. “Locks can be delicate things.”

Just like people.

“The Tau’ri?”

Her disdain for them is clear in the careless flick of her fingers. “Obsessed with rebuilding Earth.”

He’s long since stopped wondering where her information comes from. It always seems to bleed into her skin, breathing it in like most beings do with oxygen.

“The Ancient weapon they used to defeat Anubis?”

She picks at her nails as if bored. “Depleted.”

“And the rest? Do they know?”

She smiles, a sinuous gesture that sends a thrill of sensation up his spine. She’s truly magnificent. And once again all his.

She settles herself in his lap, looping her arms around his neck. “The poor darlings have no idea what’s coming.”

*     *     *

Netan’s fleet approaches Omega, their secret little base no longer secret.

“There’s a shield, sir.”

Netan glances at Vala.

She is still lounging sideways on her chair, hands languid and bored. “A pathetic last gasp.”

“She’s right, sir. The energy read out is very weak.”

“Full volley,” Netan orders. It is time the Tau’ri learn their place in the grand order of things. This new galaxy they have birthed together. The secrets of the Asgard will be his.

“Are they returning fire?”

“No. Nor have they launched any ships.”

They are no doubt still protecting fragile little Earth. Strange. But Netan did not come so far by being timid. “Increase power to forward weapons.”

There’s a pulse of light, the moon seeming to shrug, the shield flying outward. At first he thinks this is their feeble protection at last fizzling out, but then the three closest ships crumble in a shatter of light, the shock wave rolling through his own ship, consoles sparking and going dark.

He turns, but Vala is gone. He feels the knife slide into his back the same moment he catches the trace of her scent—spice and mystery, seduction and betrayal.

He should have killed her the first time he ever laid eyes on her.

Her lips are cool against his skin, one last poisoned kiss. “It’s a great, wild, beautiful galaxy out there, Netan,” she whispers like a caress against his cheek. “There’s no more room for tyrants.”

She twists the knife.

*     *     *

Cam and Daniel board the disabled ship. There is no one there but bodies, the knife still sticking out of Netan’s back.

Cam picks up a small piece of paper left stuck to the main view screen. There is a series of numbers.

Coordinates, he realizes.

Good luck, it says. I hope you find what you’re looking for.

The Lucian prison camp is in disarray, Netan’s death reverberating through the galaxy, and it only takes a small force to overrun the last remaining feeble overlords.

They free the slaves, help them set up a mining operation owned and operated by the slaves, not the Tau’ri.

After a month, Cam finally has to face the truth.

Kate is not here.

“She’d kick my ass if she were here.”

“Who?”

“Kate,” he says. “She’d kick my ass and she’d be right.”

She’s dead. She died doing what she believed in, what they all believed in. And he’s not going to dishonor that by getting himself killed for a ghost.

It’s time to start to rebuild.

*     *     *

Daniel looks up as the door to the lab opens. He has no idea how she made it in here, how Omega seems to be as porous to her, but he’s long since stopped bothering trying to figure it out. It’s just part of who she is.

“Netan’s dead,” Daniel says like this isn’t something she’s already certainly aware of.

“Is he?” Vala asks, eyes on her fingernails like they are the most fascinating things in the universe. “Did he finally turn his back on the wrong lieutenant?”

Netan was notorious for not allowing any lieutenant with the strength to challenge him to survive. He never would have been so foolish.

“Not likely,” Daniel says. “After all, no one has stepped in to fill the hole. No one strong enough to hold it all together. The Alliance is in chaos.”

She isn’t giving anything away. “I suppose people will have to start making decisions for themselves then. Unless the Tau’ri plan on…” Her eyes lift to his face.

“No,” Daniel says. “We learned this lesson long ago.”

“And yet…your good intentions will always lead you into another catastrophe. It’s your race’s curse.”

Some days he thinks he would do anything to get a straight answer out of her. But the rest of the time he’s smart enough to get that he’s better off not knowing.

“You should know that we aren’t looking for you. That we won’t.”

She smiles, and Daniel realizes it doesn’t actually matter to her, one way or the other. They can come after her or not. It doesn’t mean they would ever catch her. He tries to imagine her as ever defenseless, maybe as a small child, but he thinks even then she must have taken care of herself.

She steps forward up to the glass, looking down to where Sam is working below, the archive of Asgard knowledge she bargained for finally completely open to her.

“It all makes a lot more sense now,” Vala says.

“What does?”

She slides him a look, her head canting towards Sam. “Jack.”

Daniel’s brow furrows. “What do you mean?”

She considers him for a moment, as if trying to decide if he’s being deliberately obtuse or not. “As long as I’ve known Jack, he’s been searching for something,” she says. “A fix it, a cure, a magic remedy.”

That doesn’t sound like Jack, but then again, the way he used to be is hazier and hazier in Daniel’s mind. His skepticism must show because she tilts her head to one side and gives him a half-smile that makes her look bizarrely vulnerable. That’s not a word he ever thought to associate with her.

“When you’re desperate enough, you’ll take hope anywhere you can.” Her eyes harden. “It’s the reason conmen exist in the first place.”

He knows for a fact that Vala is every type of chameleon, that she isn’t above using every weapon in her arsenal to get what she needs. But he also understands in that moment that the one thing she never does is play people for their hope.

It makes sense now, why she didn’t betray them, not when it mattered most. No one breathes pure, unfounded, struggling hope quite like a Tau’ri. What hadn’t they been prepared to do, just on the merest whisper of hope?

What hadn’t Jack been prepared to do?

“The tattoo,” Daniel says, something clicking into place.

Vala nods, looking back over at Sam, leaning on the railing.

“It looked Maori,” he says, trying to think back and remember the details.

Vala shrugs. “If you say so.”

Something is whispering at the back of his mind that he’s on the right track. “The Maori believe that the human body is sacred, having come from the place of the gods,” Daniel explains. “So sacred, in fact, that a pure body is dangerous to other people, can cause physical and spiritual harm.”

Vala gives no sign that she’s listening.

“The tattoos are about rendering the body less pure, diluting the sacredness, making it benign.”

Vala turns then, looking up at him. “A way of rendering oneself impotent,” she says, and Daniel gets the feeling she knows way more about this than she’s letting on.

“To keep himself from harming anyone around him,” he surmises. The placement on the back of his neck is doubtlessly anything but accidental.

Vala nods, that fragile half-smile on her face again. She looks back over at Sam, watching her for a while. “Has he always loved her?”

It actually takes a moment for Daniel to work out the pronouns, to figure out what Vala is asking him, but then it’s like a ton of bricks dropping on him. “God,” he breathes. He’s never let himself notice it before, but looking back, it’s so damn clear. “I think he has.”

Vala nods. “She won’t give up, will she?”

“No,” he says, and the faith is so damn easy to find for once. Or maybe he never really let himself give up on her. “She’ll figure it out. She always does.”

“You know, Daniel,” Vala says, fingers trailing down his arm. “You’re not half bad.”

Daniel raises an eyebrow at the sincerity in her voice, but her expression shifts so fast he thinks he must have imagined it, her eyes sparkling with that wicked gleam once more. “For a worn-out, cranky Tau’ri that is,” she amends.

He crosses his arms over his chest, giving her a wry glance. “That means a lot coming from a heartless thief.”

Her smile stretches even wider. “It’s almost enough to make me feel bad about the twenty credits I lifted off you the first time we met,” she says, flicking her hair over her shoulder and turning to leave the room. She pauses by the door, throwing a look back at him. “Almost.”

And then she’s gone.

She cracks open an eye, peering blearily at her alarm clock. In proud, red numbers it declares that it is exactly 8:01. 

She groans. It has to be a trick.

Jack has a thing for early Saturday mornings, likes to drag her out into the garden with him. She tried distracting him with early morning sex for a while, anything to earn a few more hours in the bliss that is bed, but he finally wised up to the fact that she actually is devious enough to use sex against him when it benefits her.

A cup of coffee waves in front of her nose.

“You’re completely forgiven,” she mumbles, hands wrapping gratefully around the mug.

After a quick  breakfast, she follows him out into the yard. She’s actually learning quite a bit and rarely massacres plants anymore. Though Jack still refuses to let her near the pole pruner, apparently being more attached to his trees than his shrubs.

Truthfully, she doesn’t really mind the garden time. It’s nice to work on something that doesn’t carry galactic importance, to slow down and enjoy the sun. Plus, sometimes Jack humors her when she suggests that he’d be more comfortable with his shirt off.

She’s working on the front hedges, trying to get the damn things to conform to a regular geometric shape, when voices and the slam of a car door brings her attention to the front walk. If she hadn’t only been out in the sun for less than an hour she would have worried she was hallucinating, but she’s pretty sure she’s not.

Which means that her parents actually are coming up the driveway toward her.

“Oh, shit.”

Her mom waves cheerily at her as her dad pushing her chair up the driveway.

“Mom. Dad,” Sam says, holding the clippers out in front of her like a shield. “You’re here.”

“Can’t sneak anything past you, can we?” Jacob answers, and Sam rolls her eyes.

“It was my idea,” Elizabeth says. “I got your new forwarding address and I decided I really wanted to see you, see your life here.”

Sam sighs. God knows not even the United States Postal Service is a match for Elizabeth Carter when she sets her mind to something. “You mean you wanted to check up on me.”

“Hey, the last time we let you have some space, we didn’t see you for four years,” Jacob reminds her.

And they’re off to a stellar start.

Elizabeth puts out a hand to Jacob’s arm, doing her part to pause the fireworks. “It’s a beautiful house, Sam.”

“Uh, thanks, Mom,” she says, glancing back over her shoulder and trying to calculate the odds of getting them out of here before Jack appears.

Right on cue, of course, Sam hears the sound of the gate opening.  “Hey, Sam, is there any more of the--.”

Jack O’Neill, wearing a worn pair of jeans and a faded grey Air Force t-shirt, comes to an abrupt stop as he spots their guests, his sentence hanging unfinished. Suddenly Sam is very happy he ignored her not so subtle hint that he didn’t really need a shirt on such a warm day.

“Jack,” Sam says. “You remember my parents.”

“Of course,” he says, seeming to recover, wiping his hands on his jeans before reaching out to shake Jacob’s hand. “What a pleasant surprise.” His grin is authentic enough, but Sam winces at his emphasis on the word ‘surprise’.

“We just wanted to see how Sam is getting on,” Elizabeth says, “thought it would be fun to pop out for a visit.”

“Without even calling first, apparently,” Sam adds in an undertone.

“Yeah, well, we’ve seen what happens when we leave this sort of thing up to you,” Jacob says, and Sam closes her eyes briefly to pray for strength. “So, are you going to invite us in, or are we going to stand out here all day?”

“Of course,” Sam blurts before Jack can say anything, leading the way up to the front door.

They all stand at the base of the stoop for a moment, regarding the small flight of stairs. Jacob scoops Elizabeth up into his arms, leaving Sam to follow with the chair. Once in the foyer, Jacob sighs loudly as he looks around at the split-level house. “Gee, Sam, think you could have possibly found a house with more stairs?”

Sam dares to glance at Jack, his eyes wide as he realizes she hasn’t told her parents about them. She tries to look apologetic, but she’s pretty sure it comes off as sheer panic.

“Hush, Jacob,” Elizabeth says. “Just put me down on the couch. I’m tired of feeling like a sack of potatoes.”

Jack gives Sam a look she can’t quite interpret before following her parents down.

Jacob carefully lowers Elizabeth to the couch before glancing around with a critical eye. “Nice deck.”

“Thank you,” Jack says, jumping in before Sam can stop him. “I built it myself a few years back.”

She can almost see her parents realizing that Jack isn’t just here helping her with her garden work. Shit.

Her mother has a self-satisfied smirk on her face that is a sure sign of trouble, but frankly at the moment Sam is more worried about the red flush slowly working its way up her father’s neck.

The shrill ring of a cell phone breaks the weighty silence, and Sam watches Jack retreat back into the house.

Sam looks back and forth between her parents and decides there is nothing cowardly about full out retreat. “Um,” she says. “I’ll be right back.”

Jack is on the landing now, phone still in hand. “I’ve got to go in,” he says.

Oh, hell no. There is no way he is leaving her alone with them. “Do I need to go in too?” she asks, probably a smidge too eagerly.

His lips twitch, amusement at her predicament shining through. “No, we can handle it. You can catch up with your parents.”

He really is completely evil.

She follows him to the door, aware that her parents are still watching their every move.

“I’ll give you a call if we have to…take a trip,” he says.

She grabs his arm. “Please don’t leave me here with them,” she whispers.

Before she can properly interpret the ominous look on his face, he leans in and kisses her, really kisses her right there in the foyer, in full view of her parents.

Evil.

“Have fun,” he says, waving to her parents and disappearing out the front door.

There just isn’t a prank in the whole universe elaborate enough to punish him for this. Though, for a moment she entertains a fleeting thought involving her particularly tiny red dress and some lip-gloss.

Sam shoves the thought aside for a later day, slowly closing the door with a sigh before turning to face her parents.

“This is actually Jack’s house,” Sam says needlessly.

“And you’re living here,” Elizabeth says.

Why is it that no matter how old you get, your parents still have the power to make you feel like you’ve broken curfew?  Sam straightens her spine. “Yes, I am.”

“Until you find your own place?” Jacob says, something hopeful in his voice.

Sam rolls her eyes. “No, Dad.”

*     *     *

Elizabeth sits in a chair out on the deck, enjoying the sun on her face. She likes the feel of this place. Nothing fussy or ornamental, but rather well-cared for and slightly rustic.

It’s a beautiful house, all dark wood and clean lines.

Sam steps out onto the deck. She looks good, her skin a nice golden tone that seems to exude contentment underneath the shock still marring her face.

She glances around. “Where’s Dad?”

“I sent him to the market for some things for supper.”

“Mom,” she complains. “We do have food.”

“Let’s just say your father needs something to do right about now.”

Sam sighs, dropping down in the chair next to her. “Okay, yeah,” she concedes. “But he couldn’t have, say, finished mowing the lawn instead?”

Elizabeth just smiles. “It really is a lovely house, Sam.”

“Yeah,” she says, looking it over. “It’s very Jack.”

Elizabeth raises an eyebrow at that, but doesn’t push. “You look good.”

Sam gives her smile laced with embarrassment. Elizabeth thinks she should stop feeling embarrassed over her injuries and start being proud of her recovery.

Sam’s cell rings. She pulls it out of a pocket, her lips pressing together when she sees who is calling.

“Hey,” she says, her voice softening just enough to let Elizabeth know who it is. “Yes, Jack. We are all having a lovely time, thanks.”

She listens for a moment before leaning forward in the chair, her expression sobering. “Any idea how long you’ll be gone?”

Elizabeth doesn’t have to hear the other side of the conversation to know where this is going.

“Yeah, okay,” Sam says. “You know, if you’re really that scared to hang out with my dad you could have just said so.”

She smiles at something Jack says. “Just…be careful, okay?”

Jack says something that clearly doesn’t mollify Sam, her eyes staring unseeing at the trees in the yard. She jumps slightly then, like Jack’s said something else.

“Yes, of course,” she says, her voice not quite convincing.

Sam’s eyes dart to Elizabeth for a moment. “Yeah, me too,” she says, slightly turned away.

After Sam hangs up the phone, they sit for a while, watching the clouds passing above.

“Jack’s job is dangerous. Isn’t it,” Elizabeth observes. She has no idea what could be going on under that mountain, but she was an Air Force wife far too long not to know there was a lot going on that the majority of the public have no idea about.

“Yeah, Mom. It is.”

Elizabeth watches her daughter’s face. “I wish I could say that gets easier.”

Sam shakes her head. “He’s very good at his job. And when he’s not, I’m very good at mine. It makes a difference, knowing what’s really going on.”

Elizabeth supposes that would. “Doesn’t mean you don’t worry.”

Sam frowns. “No.”

Elizabeth reaches out for Sam’s hand, her fingers squeezing. After a moment, Sam relaxes, squeezing her fingers back.

She leans back in her chair. “Did you ask Dad to get ice cream, by chance?”

“Of course,” Elizabeth says.

“My hero.”

*     *     * 

Jacob is dozing on the deck when Jack finally gets back from his mysterious two-day disappearance. Jacob isn’t really eavesdropping, but Jack and Sam are standing in the kitchen talking with the windows wide open and Jacob still isn’t all that sure about this guy so he just doesn’t make his presence known. He’s just collecting intelligence, he tells himself, because he’s intensely curious what Sammie sees in this guy.

Jack is looking pretty rough around the edges, like he hasn’t slept much since he left so abruptly two days ago. Freshly showered and shaved or not, he’s radiating that ‘just got off a mission’ vibe, a mix of tightly coiled and exhausted that Jacob is far too familiar with. Somehow he thinks this mission didn’t go particularly well either, to judge from Jack’s body language.

Jack is scrounging a beer, Sam leaning back against a counter watching him, looking a little tense herself.

“Jack,” she says as be passes by on his way to the sink, one hand reaching out to touch his shoulder. “Is everything okay?”

Jacob winces at the soft, earnest words, not particularly surprised to see Jack sidestep the touch and the question with a tight, “Yeah.” Maybe just disappointed. This might as well have been his kitchen thirty years ago, after all. Only instead of looking slightly hurt by the withdrawal, Elizabeth would have raised an eyebrow at him and said, “Let me know when you’re ready to be a part of this family again.”

Elizabeth had always been understanding, but only to a point. She never let him slip too far into his own private hells.

Seeing Sam in that same position now, Jacob hates how uncertain she looks. She has enough of her own private hells. She shouldn’t have to carry Jack’s too.

Her voice is steady though, when she points to a large tube lying on the counter. “Tony came by while you were gone, dropped that off,” she says.

“Ah,” Jack says, setting his beer down on the table and picking up the parcel. He pops the end off and pulls out large rolled sheets of paper.

“What is it?” Sam asks, still standing at a cautious distance.

Jack holds out a hand to her, beckoning her closer, his hand sliding down her back when she’s near. Together they lean over the papers. “They’re plans to make the house wheelchair accessible,” he says. “I asked him to come up with some preliminary ideas.”

“Jack,” Sam says, sounding surprised. “You don’t have to--.”

“This is supposed to be your house too, remember?”

“That sort of renovation isn’t cheap,” she points out.

“We can afford it,” he says with a shrug. “It would make it a lot easier for your parents to visit.”

“If I recall, you were here with them three minutes before you fled,” she teases.

“Hey, I like your mom.”

She smiles at him. “And Dad?”

“Hell, I’d be happy to have him stop wanting to break my legs.”

It isn’t his legs Jacob particularly wants to break.

Sam laughs. “Don’t worry,” she says, turning to him and wrapping her arms around his neck. “I’ll protect you.”

“My hero.”

Jacob closes his eyes then, because there are some things he really doesn’t need to see, but before he can announce his presence with a big fake yawn or something, he hears Sam’s voice again.

“Are you really okay?”

This time Jacob doesn’t hear a rough rebuff, and opens his eyes to see that Jack hasn’t pulled away from her. “Yeah,” he says, his fingers touching her cheek. “I’ll be okay.” He takes a breath. “I’m just really tired of losing good people. Especially in a war we’ve supposedly already won.”

“Yeah,” Sam says.

*     *     *

“You like him,” Elizabeth observes.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Jacob grumbles.