-- Chapter Nine --
Daniel watched Sam from across the table. Teal’c said something; she laughed. He caught her eye and tilted his head toward the door. Daniel got up and went outside. Sam joined him a moment later. He took her hand, and they started walking through the cool night air of the desert. Sam looked up at the stars and sighed happily.
“One nice thing about ancient Egypt is the lack of light pollution.” She gestured at the sky with her free hand. “Just look at that!”
Daniel followed her gaze and smiled. They had been here for nearly two weeks, and were still becoming accustomed to life in ancient Egypt. Strangely, it was the little things that seemed the hardest to get used to. Like the absolute silence at night – the lack of ambient noise from cars, planes, and other twentieth century machinery was unsettling at first. And then there was the fact that Polaris, the North Star, didn’t point north. It was no longer – or rather, wasn’t yet – a fixed point in the night sky.
When they reached the outskirts of the encampment, they stopped. He turned to face her directly.
“Sam...” Daniel swallowed the lump in his throat. She smiled at him, and he found the courage to continue. “Will you marry me?”
The smile slowly disappeared from her face, and her eyes searched his in deafening silence.
“I–I know this is quick, especially after Pete, but I, uh, I just—” Daniel’s stumbling words stopped as Sam placed a hand on his arm.
“Yes.”
His eyes widened. “Really? I–I mean, you don’t have to say yes. We can just continue allowing people to believe that we are so that they don’t send you to live with—”
“Daniel.” Sam smiled softly at him. “I have to tell you something.”
He nodded. “Okay.”
“When Pete asked me to marry him, I didn’t know what to tell him. Then, two weeks later, when we found you and Teal’c’s neighbour...” Sam sighed. “At first, I thought you were dead, and I was—” She broke off and looked down at her feet, digging her toes deeper into the sand.
Daniel waited quietly for her to continue. After a long moment, she looked up at him again.
“When they said you were going to be okay, I was so relieved. And...and terrified.”
He frowned. “Terrified of what?”
“Of my feelings for you. Pete was there, and–and I said yes. I told myself that I could love him enough to make it work.” Her eyes searched his again. “Then when I— when the Replicators took you, I finally realised I would never really get over loving you. And that wasn’t fair to Pete or to me.” Sam took both of Daniel’s hands in hers and squeezed them tightly. “When he asked me to marry him, there were so many different shouts in my head that I didn’t know what to do. When you asked me, there wasn’t a single part of me saying no.”
Daniel felt an overwhelming sense of joy, and he smiled happily at her. Her face lit up in an answering smile. He wrapped his arms around her and pulled her close for a kiss.
When they parted, Sam was grinning broadly, her face glowing with joy. Daniel tightened his arms around her waist and swung her around in a circle. He stumbled in the sand, and they fell to the ground, laughing, with Sam landing on top of him. Instead of getting up right away, Sam rested her chin on her arms, crossed over his chest.
Although the sand was permeating his robes, Daniel quickly decided there were far worse positions to be in. His arms held her body against his.
“I love you,” she said softly, tracing a finger over his lips.
He kissed her fingertip. “I love you so much, Sam.”
She uttered a happy sigh and rested her head on his shoulder, nuzzling his jaw with her nose. “You know, except for the ancient Egypt bit, I think I could stay like this forever.”
Daniel chuckled. “I can’t think of an argument against that plan right now.”
“Now that I think of it,” Sam said, looking up and smiling seductively at him, her fingers working their way under his robes. “I can.”
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Atop the hill overlooking the construction of the tomb, Sam and Daniel faced each other, hand in hand. Jack and Teal’c stood with them.
“So,” said Jack, looking at Daniel. “Do you?”
Daniel smiled. “I do.”
“And do you?” Jack asked Sam.
She laughed. “I do.”
“Well,” said Jack. “That was easy! So, go on! Kiss already!”
Ancient Egyptians didn’t have much of a ceremony for weddings. A common couple was considered married when they started living together. What Sam and Daniel had decided on was hardly an official ceremony by their standards, but it was enough. And it was meaningful to the four of them. Both Jack and Teal’c had been happy to hear of their friends’ engagement and had organised a celebration following the ceremony.
The next few weeks saw the members of SG-1 adjusting to life in ancient Egypt. Daniel, Katep and Baraka helped Sam, Jack and Teal’c begin to learn the local language. And they had managed to make themselves pillows, which were far more comfortable than the wooden headrests that were common here.
They had to learn everything all over again. Sam was insistent that they do things according to the customs of the people in this time period. Anything they taught them could affect history.
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One night, in their tent, Daniel lay down next to Sam. His arms wrapped around her body, gently pulling her closer. With a soft sigh, she turned around in his arms. He smiled at her, trailing his hand down her side to rest on her hip.
Sam laughed softly. “Easy, tiger.”
He pulled away, pretending to pout. “What?”
“I’m having my period.”
“Ah.” He dropped a line of kisses across her collar bone before propping himself up on his elbow to gaze down at her. He smiled. “Okay.”
“What that means,” Sam said slowly as she ran her fingers through his hair, “is that we’re going to have to start being careful.”
Absently, he traced hieroglyphs on her stomach with his finger. “Careful about what?” he murmured.
“I’m overdue for my birth control shot.”
Daniel’s hand froze mid-symbol. “Oh.” He was surprised that he hadn’t thought of that earlier.
“I don’t even want to think about the changes in the timeline that a child could produce.”
He nodded. She was right. It was too dangerous.
“It takes about 6 months on average to become fertile again once the shot wears off. That will give us time to track my cycle. We’ll have to use the rhythm method.”
“I didn’t think that was very reliable.”
“It isn’t. It has about a twenty percent failure rate. But I’m also getting to the age where it’ll be harder to conceive anyway. Combined, that makes the risk of getting pregnant fairly small.”
Daniel brushed a lock of hair off her forehead. “Are you sure?”
“I think we’ll be fine.” She smiled. “Besides, the alternative is abstinence. And I’m not ready to give up making love with you just yet.”
“Oh, good.” He lowered his lips to hers for a kiss. “I’m rather fond of that activity myself.”
Sam chuckled and pushed on his shoulder until he was lying on his back. Pulling his arm around her body, she curled up next to him, resting her head on his shoulder.
Daniel kissed the top of her head, completely content to hold her in his arms. He closed his eyes and smiled. The desert air was devoid of pollen, so he hadn’t been sneezing. Otherwise, Daniel might have remembered sooner that he was overdue for his allergy shot. For the sake of convenience and safety, Janet had started him on the injections years ago, and he’d never looked back.
Suddenly, a thought hit him, and he sat up.
“Hey! Where’d my pillow go?” Sam grinned, but her expression quickly became serious as she looked at him. “What’s wrong?”
“Birth control shots last three months.”
She nodded, frowning. “Right. I had my last one just before we found the time ship on Maybourne’s planet. About two months before we came here.”
“So, how long does a vial of Tretonin last?”
Her eyes widened, and she sat up. “Oh God.”
“That’s what I was afraid of.”
Standing outside Teal’c’s tent just a few minutes later, Daniel took a calming breath. His frustration with himself for not thinking about this problem when they had first discovered they’d be stranded in ancient Egypt wasn’t going to help. “Teal’c?” he called through the fabric of the tent.
“You may enter, Daniel Jackson.”
Sam and Daniel stepped inside, finding Teal’c sitting cross-legged on his bed mat and Jack seated on the ground nearby.
“Hey guys,” said Jack. “You’re up late.”
“Teal’c,” said Sam, getting straight to business. “How much Tretonin do you have left?”
“With continued rationing, I have an adequate supply to last approximately six weeks.”
She sighed and sat down in front of him, running a hand through her hair. “I can’t believe we didn’t think about this before. Why didn’t you tell us?”
Daniel sat next to Sam and looked over at Jack, who had picked up a handful of sand and was intently watching it flow through his fingers. Daniel narrowed his eyes at his friend. “Jack?”
He looked up; the too-innocent expression on his face confirmed Daniel’s suspicions. “Daniel?”
“How long have you known?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Jack dropped his gaze and picked up another handful of sand.
“Sir?”
Daniel glanced at Sam, then Teal’c, and turned back to Jack, suddenly angry. “What were you going to do? Go off alone to get him a symbiote and get yourself killed?”
Jack glared fiercely at Daniel. “I take care of my team, Daniel. And no, I wasn’t going to tell any of you my plan because you’d just scold me for going alone, Carter’d yell at me for messing with the timeline, and Teal’c wouldn’t be happy that I’d killed a Jaffa to save his life.” He looked at each of them steadily as he spoke. “But I’d do it. You three are my family. And I’ll be damned if any of us are going to die here. I’m sure as hell not going to sit idly by and watch that happen. Not when there was something I could do about it. I take care of my team,” he said again firmly.
Daniel gaped at him. “You honestly think I wouldn’t help you? Do you think that little of me? If you had told me, I wouldn’t have been angry because I wouldn’t have let you do it alone.”
“Daniel!”
He turned to Sam, knowing the reason for her outburst. “I’m sorry, Sam. I know how important the timeline is. But I can’t sit around waiting for Teal’c to die either. Can you?”
She glanced from him to Teal’c and back again before looking at the ground. “No,” she said softly.
“Damn it, Daniel!” Jack tossed his handful of sand away. He stood, smoothing his hands down his legs to clean them, and began to pace the length of the tent. “That’s exactly why I couldn’t tell you. I’m not going to have you risking yourself. You’re the only one that can reliably talk to these people, the only one that has a chance of blending in with them for more than the three seconds it takes us to open our mouths.” He stopped his pacing and picked at a microscopic mote on his robe. “Besides, you’ve got something good going with Carter. I didn’t want to risk that.”
Daniel got up and glared at his friend. “What right do you have to decide who is worth risking and who isn’t? My life is no more important than yours. And it’s certainly not more important than both your life and Teal’c’s. You were risking his too, by going alone, you know. You stubborn, over-protective, short-sighted fool!”
“I’m stubborn? Look who’s talking!”
“Oh, please! You weren’t even going to tell us what you were planning! Did you think you’d just waltz back into camp one day with a larval Goa’uld and present it to Teal’c? That’s the dumbest plan I’ve ever heard!”
“Really? What about the let’s-go-to-ancient-Egypt-and-get-a-ZPM plan? That one’s proven to be quite brilliant, hasn’t it?”
Daniel just stared at him. Surely Jack knew that Daniel dealt with the guilt of that failure every single day. Beside him, Sam stood up, and her hand flattened against his back with a calming pressure. Yes, Sam knew. How the hell did Jack not know? But his guilt over his own stupid plan didn’t make Jack’s any smarter.
“At least I talked that plan out with everyone,” Daniel said. “I didn’t just steal the time ship and take off alone!”
“Enough!” Teal’c shouted, eyes flaring in rarely seen anger.
Daniel flushed, realizing he’d been ignoring the subject of the conversation the entire time. He saw Jack’s mouth close on what would have undoubtedly been a rude and entirely unproductive retort, and they both sheepishly turned to their Jaffa friend.
Teal’c got up from the floor and glared at them. “It is my reliance on Tretonin that is at issue, and the decision of what should or should not be done is mine to make.”
Daniel shifted on his feet, not entirely sure he was going to like Teal’c’s decision. “What do you want to do, Teal’c?”
“Ensuring the safety of our timeline is too valuable,” he said.
“Teal’c.”
The Jaffa held up a hand, silencing Jack’s argument.
“For eight years, I have worked to release my people from slavery by the Goa’uld. Tretonin has not only freed me from reliance on them, but it will ultimately free all of my people. I have no desire to once again be enslaved by any Goa’uld, larval or otherwise.”
Daniel winced in sympathy. He hadn’t considered that aspect of Teal’c’s problem. Still, the alternative... “You’ll die.”
“My son has become a strong leader among the newly-formed Free Jaffa Nation. If my death ensures the continuation of that timeline, then I gladly accept it. Even if the timeline were not at stake, I will not murder a brother Jaffa so that I might live.”
“What if we found a Jaffa that was already dying?” asked Sam.
He raised his eyebrow at her. “Would that not affect our history?”
“Teal’c,” she said. “None of us want to watch you die. We’ll find a way to get you a symbiote without causing too great an impact on the timeline. And in this case, it would be you enslaving the larval Goa’uld, not the other way around. It would continue to live only to serve you.”
Daniel watched Teal’c tensely as he studied Sam. Finally, the Jaffa bowed his head in agreement.
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It had been more than a month into Teal’c’s remaining six weeks of Tretonin. During that time, the members of SG-1 had been searching for a way to save Teal’c. Injured Jaffa were never seen, nor did Ra appear to have a seplica full of Goa’uld larvae like the one that Sam and Daniel had found on Chulak years ago. Daniel was really starting to worry, and Jack was becoming increasingly agitated.
Jack and Daniel returned to the encampment from another failed recon mission. Daniel hoped that Sam and Teal’c had found something of use. Teal’c didn’t have much more time.
One of the women who lived nearby came running between the tents. “ Jaffa!” she cried as she drew nearer.
Daniel tensed. Ra’s forces had been making intermittent sweeps of the area, always in groups of two or more. The members of SG-1 had typically stayed hidden as the Jaffa searched the camp. The last thing they needed was to have them find a Jaffa bearing the mark of Apophis on Earth. Not to mention the suspicions that might be aroused if Ra’s forces found three humans who were clearly not of Egyptian descent.
The woman passed, and Katep hurried along behind her. When he saw Daniel, he approached quickly.
“How many?” Daniel asked him in the local language.
“I saw three. There could be more.” Katep gestured in the direction he had come. “Daniel, they have captured your wife and friend.”
Daniel felt a chill of dread run through his entire body.
“I didn’t get that,” Jack said. “What’d he say?”
“They have Sam and Teal’c. At least three of them.”
“Let’s go.”
They ran to Jack’s tent and dug up the weapons they had wrapped in fabric and buried under the end of his bed mat. Jack thrust a P-90 into Daniel’s chest and grabbed a second for himself. Then, hiding the weapons under their robes, they rushed outside and across the desert in the direction Katep had indicated.
Daniel knelt in the sand next to Jack. Peeking around the dune they were using as cover, they could see three armed Jaffa facing away from their position. Sam and Teal’c were on their knees, facing them. Three staff weapons were pointed at them. Although neither of their friends gave any obvious reaction, Daniel knew that they were both aware of their presence.
“Son of a...” Jack muttered.
One of the Jaffa probed Sam’s shoulder with his staff weapon. “Onak sha kree! Shal Goa’uld!”
Sam didn’t answer.
“Obi tan!” said Teal’c.
“Ha’re kree!” The second Jaffa gestured angrily at him.
Jack leaned closer to Daniel, although neither of them looked away from their friends. “Daniel?”
“He’s asking what god she worships,” Daniel whispered.
Sam’s eyes met Daniel’s for the briefest of moments before she looked at the ground before her and shook her head. Daniel knew the gesture was intended for him. She didn’t want them to act. His stomach churned.
“There are only three. Let’s go.”
“Jack, wait.” Daniel grabbed Jack’s arm before he stood up and exposed them.
“Onak sha kree! Shal Goa’uld!” the Jaffa said to Sam again.
She remained silent. The Jaffa shouted angrily and struck her in the face with the end of his staff. She fell to the ground and lay very still.
“Daniel!” Jack hissed.
Daniel had never felt so conflicted. Despite Sam’s very clear message, he couldn’t just watch her and Teal’c be killed. And he refused to consider that she was anything but unconscious right now. “Just— Let’s just see if Teal’c can get them out of this peacefully.”
The Jaffa that had attacked Sam turned his weapon on Teal’c. “Kel shek!”
Teal’c stared defiantly back at the Jaffa. “Onak arik kree.”
“Ya wan Ra, ya daru.”
“Shal rin nok.”
Out of the corner of his eye, Daniel saw Jack glance at him. “They want him to pledge allegiance to Ra.”
“Well, that’s not gonna happen.”
“Shel norak!” shouted the Jaffa. “Lazla.”
“Kree shak shel nok,” answered Teal’c.
“Lo mel nok.” The Jaffa’s weapon crackled to life. Daniel tensed. This was not going to work.
“Shal kek nem ron.”
“Shol’va!”
“Well, I definitely understood those last two.” Jack readied his weapon. “We’re going in.”
This time, Daniel didn’t argue. The Jaffa were taken by surprise and the firefight was brief. The moment they were all lying on the ground, Daniel dropped his weapon, knelt by Sam’s side and checked her pulse. He breathed a sigh of relief to find it strong and steady beneath his fingers.
“Sam?” He brushed her hair off her forehead and took her hand in his, squeezing it tightly. “Come on, Sam. Wake up.”
“Teal’c!”
Daniel looked up to see Jack standing over one of the fallen Jaffa, his P-90 dangling from one hand.
“This one,” he said, nudging the Jaffa with his foot. “Head shot. No body injuries.”
Teal’c knelt in the sand next to the dead Jaffa. “This was not how I wished to acquire a symbiote, O’Neill.”
“Yeah, I know it’s not ideal, but we’ve only got a week left, and this is our best chance. Do it. And I’ll make it so this never happened.” Jack took the zat from the arm of one of the other dead Jaffa and fired at the body three times, disintegrating it.
Daniel turned his attention back to his wife. She wasn’t going to be happy when she woke up, but she was alive. And Teal’c was getting a symbiote. He stroked the side of her face, the red beginnings of a bruise already forming on her cheek.
Sam’s eyelids fluttered and opened. She blinked a few times before looking around. “Oh God,” she said softly. “What did you do?”
To be continued...