The Closest Thing - Part One
Here is Part One of The Closest Thing series. This was written for
celandine (because she rocks) and I've never written anything this long before, go me. I'll put it up on Area 52 eventually, but I am still fiddling with Parts 2 & 3 and Cel is busy beta-ing them for me, (I'm a good friend, 'here have a fic and while you're at it would you mind fixing my grammar for me?') which she is doing an amazing job of.
Rating: PG for Part One at least
Pairings: Janet/Qetesh, Sam/Janet
Word Count: 6, 531
Category: Action, Established Relationship, Fixit, AU
Season: 9 ish, but it is an AU
Spoilers: Heroes Part 1 & 2
Warnings: Slavery, Torture, Violence
Summary: Over a year after Janet’s death and in a universe in which Qetesh was never freed by the Tok’ra and the Goa’uld were not defeated, SG1, featuring Sam, Cam, Daniel and Teal’c, go to P8X-412.
The title of the series is the title of a song by Juliana Theory and the titles of the individual parts are lines from that song.
Beauty that is Deeper than Eyes Can Really See
“Ooh big stone walls,” Cam commented sarcastically as the ‘gate disconnected behind them. Daniel gave him a withering look and bounded down the steps to go look at what appeared to be writing on the high circular wall that surrounded them. Sam, Cam and Teal’c took a more leisurely pace down the steps, looking carefully around them. The wall around the Stargate was tall and there was one relatively small doorway in that was the only entrance or exit, other than climbing out. It appeared to be several feet thick and when Sam looked upwards she could only see the very tops of trees and a few scattered clouds above her.
“Oh lookie here,” Cam went on, bringing Sam’s attention down from the clouds and across to him. She saw what had gotten his attention. There was what looked like a shrine on one side of the ‘gate and when she looked to the other side of the ‘gate there was another one.
“They appear similar to the shrines on Chulak where the prim’tah were cared for before they were ready for implantation,” Teal’c contributed as he walked over to the shrine by Cam for a closer look. Sam walked over to the other one and apprehensively lifted the lid slightly. Daniel abandoned the wall and came over to join her.
“No snakes though,” she said with great relief.
“You guys have seen these before?” Cam asked them, copying Sam’s look into the shrine he was next to and finding that one empty as well.
“On Chulak they were sited at places of religious significance and used to allow young symbiotes to mature before they were ready to be implanted into a Jaffa. They were tended carefully by the priesthood and it was a sign of the great trust Apophis had for us for the shrines to be left unguarded.”
“Oh, so it’s a baby Goa’uld tank? Where are the Goa’uld?”
Sam and Daniel shrugged and continued examining the shrine. “I don’t recognise the symbol on the shrine, it does look familiar though.” He waved his finger thoughtfully towards the symbol, “a lotus flower and a crescent moon, it could be a fertility God. I’ll need to look it up when we get home. However, it’s not a Goa’uld we’ve encountered before, if there is a Goa’uld. Maybe these shrines are looked after as a ritual, a remnant of the religion the Goa’uld left behind.”
Sam gave her best ‘could be’ shrug and peered at the shrine again.
“Footsteps,” Teal’c warned quietly. They all brought their weapons up and began to move quickly towards the ‘gate, but before any of them could reach the DHD the source of at least some of the footsteps entered the doorway and screamed. The short priestess darted back out of sight to be replaced by an honour guard of Jaffa, all armed with staffs that they were rapidly levelling at SG1. Sam and Daniel dashed behind the shrine they were nearest to and ducked as the Jaffa crept cautiously in through the doorway.
“Shel na kree!” One of the Jaffa yelled at them, their attention diverted between the two shrines. They didn’t fire and Sam suspected it was because they were hiding behind them. The Jaffa were also, inconveniently, between SG1 and the DHD.
“Shel-norak,” the Jaffa tried again.
Sam glanced at Daniel as she heard Cam open fire on the Jaffa and then swung her P90 around the edge of the shrine to open fire on the Jaffa herself. Daniel followed suit around the other side of the shrine and gunfire echoed around the ceiling less room.. Dust sprayed off the walls where she missed, kicking up a cloud around the hastily retreating Jaffa. One went down with a spray of blood from his side and the rest yelled to each other in more Goa’uld and finally made it to the relative safety of the doorway. Sam adjusted her angle and continued to attempt to fire on the Jaffa, but they had disappeared from sight. A hand reappeared and before Sam could get a shot off it tossed a Goa’uld stun grenade towards them. She saw another hand throw another grenade towards Cam and Teal’c just before the flash went off, blinding her and knocking her unconscious.
~~~
When Sam woke up she was blind and her head throbbed. She was lying on a cold and smooth floor and a quick inventory revealed all body parts present and correct and no injuries beyond the blindness and the splitting headache. All her gear was missing, which wasn’t surprising, though her boots were too, which was. She began to sit up and groaned quietly as her head throbbed.
“I am relieved you are awake Colonel Carter,” Teal’c said. He sounded like he was somewhere off to her left and she began to move that way. Her hand encountered fabric and she initially jerked it away and then investigated again. It was a leg and a sock covered foot. At least wasn’t the only one without her boots.
“Cam and Daniel in here too?”
“They are”
“Explains the foot,” Sam muttered to herself and manoeuvred herself over Daniel or Cam until she found the wall. Her hands ran over unmistakably Goa’uld symbols and she didn’t need eyesight to know that the wall would be gold too. How typical. It felt good to sit against the wall and let her head rest back. They couldn’t do anything until they could see what was around them.
“They took my boots,” she told Teal’c, sounding slightly petulant about it and feeling it too. She liked those boots because they’d been through a lot with her. Breaking in new boots was always a chore.
“Mine also,” Teal’c confirmed. Sam had to grin at the image of Teal’c sitting next to her in BDU’s and his socks.
“It never changes does it,” she commented to Teal’c, keeping her head very still and her voice low.
“Indeed not”
Cam groaned and Sam heard him shift on the cell floor and then groan again. She assumed he had moved his head too quickly. He’d never felt the effects of a Goa’uld stun grenade before. Sam remembered Jonas and the mental image of him grinning proudly at being blinded for the first time made her smile, she missed him sometimes.
~~~
There was muttering in Goa’uld outside their cell. Sam’s eyesight was fuzzy, but improving all the time. She could tell the difference between the wall, the floor and the bars of the cell now. The Jaffa moving outside were big grey blurs against the gold walls and Teal’c, Cam and Daniel were big green blurs. The big grey muttering blurs opened the cell doors and were pointing staffs at them.
“You will come with us”
“Or?” hazarded Cam. Sometimes Sam wanted to slap him.
“We’ll shoot you somewhere painful and then take you anyway”
“Fair enough”
Sam shook her head and climbed carefully to her feet to lead the way out of the cell, fumbling for the edge of the doorway to steady herself. The Jaffa stepped back as they exited, keeping them covered all the while. Several of the Jaffa stepped forward to grab their upper arms and forcibly direct them to where they needed to go. They led them down a mess of corridors, all lined with the usual excessive gold and burning braziers, and into what was clearly a throne room. Sam knew it was a throne room right away by the presence of a large throne at one end being lounged in by someone, the excessive large hulking guards and the people kneeling. Some of the hulking blobs appeared to be grey and pink, suggesting they were shirtless, but more than a few of the Goa’uld had a penchant for having half naked hunks loitering around.
Whoever was on the throne clapped their hands as they entered the room and the kneeling figures in front of the throne were swept away by some of the Jaffa. Their own guards hurried them up the narrow room, walking more quickly and treating them more roughly now that they had someone to show off to, and deposited them in front of the throne.
“Kneel before your Goddess,” a Jaffa ordered.
Goddess? That was a change at least, Sam thought as she eased herself onto her knees. The others followed suit. She might not be an actual Goddess, but it really wasn’t worth getting kicked and punched to prove a point right now.
“I am the Goddess Qetesh. What are you doing on my world?” The unmistakably Goa’uld voice asked.
“We’re peaceful explorers. We were intrigued by the writing on the stone wall around the Stargate. We didn’t know this was a Goa’uld occupied world until we saw your Jaffa.” Daniel rattled off the explanation half heartedly.
Qetesh stood slowly up from her throne and stepped down towards them. She was slender, with long dark hair and she looked beautiful although Sam’s vision was still fuzzy. “You are Tau’ri,” she said simply. Sam watched her reach out and examine the patches on each of Daniel’s sleeve, “and the infamous SG1 no less.” She turned from them and stepped slowly back up to her throne to drape herself into it. “What an honour, Teal’c, Daniel Jackson, Major Samantha Carter and you…I don’t know your name yet,” she said to Cam, tilting her head.
“Lieutenant Colonel Cameron Mitchell, and it’s Lieutenant Colonel Samantha Carter now. You’re out of date.”
Sam winced as she anticipated a blow from one of the Jaffa in Cam’s near future, but instead Qetesh gave a throaty chuckle, which was always eerie from a Goa’uld.
“I pay little attention to the wider affairs of the galaxy, especially some trivial little backwards planet such as your own. My allegiance is with Anubis now and we provide for each other well; he trusts me and leaves me in peace.” Qetesh turned her hand slowly and almost contemplatively in front of her face as she spoke and Sam saw the light bounce off the hand device on her right hand. She really hoped she wasn’t about to use it on them.
“Hmm, SG1. Anubis will be pleased.”
A short woman stepped into the throne room. She hesitated at the sight of prisoners kneeling in front of the throne, but then proceeded across the room. Her sandaled feet clicked on the floor and Sam turned her head carefully to watch the newcomer. Her sight wasn’t fully back, but she didn’t need 20:20 vision to recognise the brown haired figure dressed in a flimsy, but expensive looking gown. Despite the fact that her hair had grown much longer and there was a Jaffa tattoo on her forehead she was unmistakable.
“Janet!” Sam couldn’t help exclaiming, but neither the woman nor Qetesh responded to the name. Qetesh did respond to the shout however, looking across at them for an explanation.
“That woman,” Daniel said, nodding towards Janet as she approached Qetesh’s throne, “we know her.” There was a desperate tone in his voice and Sam was amazed that he had managed to speak so coherently. It was taking all her will power not to jump up and run over to Janet.
At this both Qetesh and Janet looked up more attentively, though Janet looked towards Qetesh for what to do.
“You mean Miu? My personal slave and priestess?” Qetesh gestured to Janet, who stepped across to the gaudy throne and draped herself languorously over the arm. Qetesh smiled at her and settled a hand possessively onto Janet/Miu’s thigh.
“Yes, she’s one of us,” Daniel went on. “We….we thought she had died, but that is definitely her.”
Qetesh looked up at Janet/Miu for a moment before making a small gesture with one finger. Janet/Miu smiled and bent her head slightly to kiss Qetesh. The smirking goa’uld tightened her grip on Janet/Miu’s thigh and looked back at her captives.
“No, Miu is most definitely mine.”
Sam thought her jaw was going to hit the floor when she saw Janet, her Janet, lean in so blithely to kiss a Goa’uld.
Qetesh looked at her slave again, but spoke to her prisoners. “She was a gift from Anubis for loyal service. When she came to me she was an empty vessel, but she learned quickly, she has many skills and, as you can see, she is beautiful.” Janet/Miu smiled proudly at the compliments and Sam felt a sickness in her stomach that was nothing to do with the headache and the fuzzy vision.
“She has healer’s hands. She has just spent the last few hours patching up my Jaffa that you wounded.”
None of them could speak, Sam knew they were all staring at Janet/Miu. Qetesh seemed irked by this as she gestured to her Jaffa.
“Remove them from my sight while I decide their fate.”
Rough hands gripped her forearms and forced her to stand, but Sam couldn’t tear her eyes away from the sight of the woman she thought she had lost. The Jaffa turned them all roughly and marched them out of the throne room.
“Janet’s alive,” Sam muttered to herself as they walked. She hardly saw the ground beneath her feet and she didn’t care that she was mostly being held up by the Jaffa dragging her through the corridors.
~~~
“It was definitely Janet,” Daniel said. Sam was sitting against the wall of their cell, as far from the others as she could. Her knees were up and her head and arms were resting on them. She thought that maybe if she curled up small enough she might disappear.
“Our eyesight still aint one hundred percent,” Cam pointed out. “Maybe it wasn’t her.”
“It was indeed Doctor Fraiser,” Teal’c said, ending all discussion of that possibility.
There was silence for a minute until Sam spoke. “We left her. We left her behind,” she said into her knees.
“We had no choice Sam,” Daniel reassured her and himself.
“We never leave anyone behind,” Sam said quietly. The cell fell silent again for several minutes
“Qetesh was a Goddess of sex, love and beauty. She predated Hathor and eventually the two were considered the same Goddess,” Daniel commented quietly into the silence of the cell.
“And?” Cam asked.
Daniel shrugged, “it might be useful to know.”
“Qetesh has been around for a very long time. She has ensured her survival by never truly being a power to threaten the system lords and by always providing them with something they needed. Her allegiance is always fickle,” Teal’c contributed. “She controls only a handful of worlds, most of them rich in Naquada and there have been rumours of mass executions of slaves. She is not a benevolent ruler.”
Sam didn’t want to listen, she couldn’t believe that Janet was alive after all this time.
~~~
They were dragged in front of Qetesh again a few hours later and deposited in front of her throne once again. She was draped over her throne rather than sitting on it and now that her eye sight was back Sam could see that she truly was a beautiful woman. Her long black hair was rich and the kohl around her eyes made them seem even darker. Janet/Miu was sitting demurely on a small stool at the foot of Qetesh’s throne. Her head was resting on the Goa’uld’s knee with Qetesh’s hand resting gently on her head and she was watching SG1 intently. Sam caught her gaze and held it for several moments before Janet/Miu looked away.
“So, do you even know anything useful? Or are you just being a galactic pain in the mik’tah, as usual?” Qetesh asked from her throne.
“We’re not going to tell you anything,” Sam said firmly.
Qetesh chuckled, “Oh I don’t want you to. I am going to give you to Anubis, well, sell you to him. I just need to know how much you’re worth to him and thus to me.” Qetesh explained this to them slowly, like a teacher to a small child. “I need to think carefully about what I want to ask for in exchange.”
Sam shrugged gently. This would give them more time to get out, which she certainly didn’t mind. She looked around the throne room, seeing more now that her eyesight was fully back. She noted each of the exits, the number of guards and that there was a pitcher of water on a table just behind Qetesh’s throne.
“Can I have some water?” she tried as she figured that there was no harm in asking and knowing that they had all been without water for all the time they’d been held captive..
Qetesh gave her an appraising look and then nodded to Janet/Miu, who poured a cup of water from the pitcher and brought it across to Sam. As she leant forward to hand the cup down to her Sam felt the unmistakable tingle in her veins. It was the tingle of the naquadah in her body responding to the naquadah of a symbiote. She gripped the cup, but didn’t take it as she looked at Janet/Miu. She really was a Jaffa, it wasn’t just a tattoo.
Janet/Miu looked at her and pressed the cup into her hand. Sam snapped out of her dazed surprise and finally took the cup. She definitely needed the water and buried her face into the container, gulping some of it down before passing it along to her team mates, knowing full well they would need it as much as she did. Qetesh was talking again, but Sam was watching Janet/Miu and hardly hearing the Goa’uld ramble on. A Jaffa?
“I’m bored again,” Qetesh declared with a wave of her hand. “Remove them, they’re not proving to be useful.”
~~~
“You, come with us,” the Jaffa demanded, pointing at Sam. They were back in their cell of course and it was a situation that was oddly comforting in its familiarity. At least they weren’t being tortured or beaten, though that state of affairs looked as if it might be coming to an end.
“Come and get her,” Cam suggested.
“It’s okay Cam,” Sam said, beginning to get up just as the Jaffa shot him with a zat’. Cam slumped back into the cell wall like a sack of potatoes. The Jaffa looked at Sam again, “I’m assuming you know what a second shot does?”
Sam nodded and got up from the floor of the cell, doing her best to give reassuring glances to the remaining conscious members of her team and feeling sorry for Cam. She appreciated the hero attempt, but it really hadn’t been worth it. The Jaffa grabbed her upper arms yet again and marched her through the corridors. However, they didn’t take her along the known path to the throne room, but a different way. They stopped in front of an ornate door and knocked loudly.
“Enter,” the voice commanded and the Jaffa pushed Sam roughly into the room. She stumbled to a stop inside it, rubbing her upper arms, which were a little sore from the rough treatment and looked around. The room was ornate and luxurious. Janet/Miu was the only one in the room and she was dressed somewhat more practically than last time in a matching outfit of dark coloured trousers and a tunic that, while plain, were made of clearly expensive fabric.
“Please, sit,” Janet/Miu ordered/requested and Sam did as she was told. She took a hesitant seat on one of the plush couches in the room, watching Janet/Miu all the time.
She turned and looked at Sam eventually, “are you okay?”
Sam nodded, “Your Jaffa were a little rough.”
Janet/Miu smiled fondly, “They can be a little overzealous.”
Sam looked at her disbelievingly. She’d used the same kind of tone as might be used to say ‘that little scamp,’ to a small boy with a sticky smile and it was incongruous with any of Sam’s experience with Jaffa. Janet/Miu had gone back to tending something at an ornate counter to the side of the door.
“Why am I here?” Sam asked.
“Because you came through the Chapp’ai to this planet,” Janet/Miu told her.
Sam couldn’t help smiling slightly. She at least recognised that pedantic playful mood of Janet’s, despite all the other unsettling changes.
“I meant, why am I in your chambers?”
“Ahh, because I have some questions.”
“Oh, am I being interrogated?”
Janet/Miu frowned while she was working. “No,” was her simple reply. There was steam coming from the counter now and after a few more moments she turned round with a cup in each hand.
“Tea,” she told Sam, handing her the cup. Sam took it hesitantly and cradled it in her hands, but didn’t drink it. Janet/Miu sipped from her own cup and the placed it on the small table next to the couch.
“You say you knew me. From before I was captured by Anubis?”
Sam nodded uncertainly.
“I have no memory of that time, nothing.” Janet frowned. “I would have you tell me,” she commanded Sam.
“What do you want to know?”
“I was a healer wasn’t I?”
Sam nodded again, “Yes, you were a Doctor. A remarkable one at that, you looked after us.”
Janet’s eyes had a new sparkle in them at this titbit from her past. “I knew it. What else did I do?”
Sam took a moment to gather her thoughts before she answered. “You did a lot of things. You were a friend and confidante to all of us, well loved and liked, even when you were forcing us into bed rest and light duties. You saved my life and the lives of countless others through your job. You’d been in war, you were in the Air Force like me and Cam and before we’d even met you you’d been all around the world and specialised in exotic diseases. You adopted an orphaned girl the first year that I knew you and became a great mom to her. You…,” here Sam stumbled to find the words. She closed her eyes for a moment and exhaled. “I loved you. For seven years. We had to keep it a secret, but we made it work.”
Sam finally looked up at Janet/Miu, who was staring at her intently. The sparkle had gone from her eyes and there was a coldness there that chilled Sam.
“Then why did you allow me to be captured by Anubis?” she asked stonily.
“We thought you were dead,” Sam confessed. “You took a staff blast to the chest.”
“So you left me behind?”
“We couldn’t get you out, we tried, but we didn’t want to lose more people.”
Janet/Miu’s hands shook as she picked up her tea cup again and sipped it. Sam still hadn’t touched hers and she didn’t intend to. Janet/Miu returned her cup to the small table and stood up abruptly from the couch and glared at Sam.
“You have no idea what Anubis did to me. No idea what I have been through since you left me behind.”
Sam had no response, Janet/Miu was right.
“He must have brought me back to life, but I don’t remember that. Most of the time I spent with Anubis is a blur. He had me tortured. Long after he had stopped trying to get useful information out of me I was tortured. I don’t remember if I ever told him anything, but by the end I would have told him that the sky was green if he had asked me.”
Janet/Miu continued to glare at Sam. Her breath was ragged and her eyes passionate.
“I know what that’s like Janet and I am sorry you went through that.” Tears were gathering at the corners of Sam’s eyes and when she blinked they tumbled slowly down her cheeks. She let them.
“My name is Miu,” Janet/Miu said forcefully. “It is the name my Goddess gave me when I was gifted to her. When I didn’t know any name that wasn’t an insult she named me ‘gentleness’. She gave me my life back in her own sarcophagus, she gave me a position of great honour in her court.”
“She isn’t a Goddess. She is a parasitic being inhabiting the body of an innocent woman. You carry her young.”
Janet/Miu’s hand went to her stomach, resting over the belly pouch that Sam didn’t need to see to know was there.
“My Goddess gifted me with long life and a strong constitution. She is generous.”
“She has brain washed you. Without her Jaffa and slaves she would be nothing.”
“She is a Goddess,” Janet/Miu said angrily through gritted teeth. Sam slowly shook her head. She opened her mouth to argue further, but the door to the room opened and Qetesh stepped in. She looked at Sam.
“I wondered why my Miu had her Jaffa guards stationed outside her chambers.” She walked towards Janet/Miu. “Though I would prefer them inside the same room as the dangerous and valuable captive.”
“I’m sorry my Goddess,” Janet/Miu said, dropping her head obediently and clasping her hands demurely in front of her. Qetesh stepped up to her and ran her fingers gently down Janet/Miu’s cheeks. She continued to trail her fingertips down Janet’s neck and across her chest.
“I only worry for your safety.”
“Thank you Goddess.”
“So, did you find anything useful out?” Qetesh asked, abandoning her caress and turning sharply to look at Sam. Janet/Miu looked at Sam.
“No Goddess.”
“Pity. Come Miu, I require service.”
Qetesh clapped her hands sharply three times and the Jaffa outside the door opened it and stepped smartly inside.
“Return the prisoner to the cell. We’re done with her.”
The Jaffa nodded and Sam placed her cup on the table and stood up as they approached. They grabbed her arms roughly once again and marched her out of the room. Janet/Miu watched Sam intently as they took her from the room, but her expression was unreadable.
Sam looked back as the Jaffa took her down the corridor. She saw Qetesh and Janet/Miu leave the chambers. Qetesh lead the way and Janet/Miu remained a respectful step behind. Janet/Miu looked over her shoulder at Sam and kept her gaze until the Jaffa rounded a corner and took Sam out of sight.
The Jaffa returned Sam to the cell. Cam had come round by now and he, Daniel and Teal’c all scrambled to their feet at the sight of Sam.
“You okay?” Daniel asked as the Jaffa pushed her roughly in and shut the cell door securely behind her.
Sam nodded, “Janet wanted to ask some questions, that was all.”
The guys all relaxed and they all sat down on the cell floor.
“What kind of questions?” Cam asked quietly.
Sam shook her head slightly, “It wasn’t an interrogation. She was just curious about her past.”
“That’s a good sign,” Daniel said hopefully. “Maybe she’ll help us escape.”
Sam shook her head again. “She insists she is called Miu and that Qetesh is her Goddess. She won’t be helping us.”
“You can work on her though,” Daniel insisted. “You two have your, um, ‘special connection’.”
The inverted commas slammed into place as Daniel spoke and Cam pricked his ears up. He looked at Sam, “Special connection?”
“We were close,” Sam told him, giving Daniel a glare.
“Close,” Cam repeated, relaxing to lean against the wall with a slightly sleazy grin.
~~~
Sam was pretending to sleep in the corner with her head resting on her folded up jacket when there was a disturbance somewhere nearby. It was loud enough to wake Cam and Daniel up, who she had definitely been sleeping because she’d been listening to them snore. Sam pushed herself up and they all crowded against the bars of their cell to try and see what was happening. Their guards snarled at them and waved their staffs threateningly, but were clearly unsettled by whatever was going off. There was shouting and screaming, a lot of screaming, but nothing could be seen from their cell.
The screaming went on for a long time. Interspersed with shouting from Qetesh in Goa’uld that Teal’c at first translated quietly for Cam and Sam’s benefit, but then stopped when there were words that even he wouldn’t say. After several minutes there was the sound of foot steps from the other direction and Janet/Miu appeared from around the corner. Her hair was down and un-brushed, her face free of make up and whilst she was wearing the same trousers and tunic as earlier she was barefoot. She stopped in front of the cell and Sam could see that she had a small cut along her hairline that was still oozing a little blood. There were tracks of tears down her cheeks and the beginnings of a nasty looking bruise across the right side of her face. Most worryingly of all were the burn marks on the skin of her forehead that looked like they were from a hand device.
“Leave us,” she ordered the Jaffa guards, who hesitated, then nodded and turned and left.
Sam pulled against the bars of the cell to look at her. “What’s going on Miu?” She asked gently and used ‘Miu’ because this really didn’t look like a time to make a point.
“She…,” Janet gasped and got control. “She sent a Jaffa patrol to collect the harvest tithe from a village. The weather has been harsh there and they could not meet their tithe without starving over the winter. The patrol only collected half the tithe.” Janet sobbed again, putting her hand up to her face. “When they returned she launched into a rage. She sent out another patrol to collect the remaining tithe and to slaughter anyone in the village who protested. She’s torturing the first patrol now. When she started I ran to her and begged for her to spare them, but she hit me and turned her hand device on me. Her face was so twisted with anger and rage, I hardly recognised her. She hurt me and I passed out. When I came too it was still going on.” Janet had stepped closer to the bars as she spoke. When she finished she lifted her fingers to her forehead. Her hand was shaking, all of her was shaking. Sam reached her hand through the bars and took hold of Janet’s in hers.
“That village will starve this winter, even more now so because of the patrol’s attempt at benevolence. I didn’t treat their injuries just so that she could kill them.” Janet was still shaking, but it was mostly due to anger now.
“Get us out of here,” Sam whispered. Janet looked at her for a long minute and then nodded.
“Molo’tak, kree!” she called down the corridor. One of their Jaffa guards reappeared from down the corridor and walked up to Janet with a sharp bow.
“Open the cell,” Janet ordered him. Molo’tak looked uncertain and looked around him warily. Janet looked at him and raised one eyebrow. Molo’tak turned and punched in the code to unlock the cell.
“When she asks I attacked you with a zat and you had no idea what happened.” Molo’tak nodded and handed Janet his zat. She shot him with a slight wince and then pulled their cell door open.
“He won’t turn us in?” Cam asked as he stepped over the unconscious Jaffa.
Janet shook her head, “I saved him and his son.”
“Great,” Cam muttered.
“I remembered something,” Janet said and reached under her tunic. “We need this right?” She said uncertainly as she pulled out a GDO and held it out to Sam, who took it with a smile. “Perfect,” she told her and got a gentle and nervous smile for her trouble.
“This way,” Janet directed them, breaking the moment and running off barefoot down the corridor away from the continuing shouting and screaming. Sam started off after her, but Cam grabbed her upper arm to stop her.
“Wait, you trust her?”
“Yes,” answered Sam, Daniel and Teal’c in unison.
“You never knew Janet. This is definitely her,” Daniel told him.
Cam shrugged, “good enough.” He released Sam’s arm and they all ran after Janet. It was a maze to get out of the palace and a straightforward run downhill once they were clear of the palace walls before Janet plunged them into a maze of a forest. The sun had gone down and only the dark grey of dusk lingered to show them which way to go. It didn’t seem to matter, Janet knew the way and all they had to do was follow her. Sam’s socks were soon soaking wet from the ground, but she valued what little protection they offered against the sharps stones underfoot. As much as she wished for her boots back she reminded herself that Janet was running barefoot and after being tortured with a hand device no less.
That she had been tortured became more apparent as they got further through the woodland. Janet began to stumble and when she got closer Sam heard her breath coming in gasps.
“Janet?”
“I’m okay,” she told her desperately. Teal’c appeared at Janet’s side and grabbed hold of Janet’s upper arm to catch her as she collapsed.
“She needs medical attention,” he said as he picked her up.
“And we have got to get to the ‘gate,” Cam added.
“Keep going,” Janet said from Teal’c’s arms. Sam pressed a hand to her cheek and felt worrying cool skin. It looked like she was going into shock. She gently removed the zat from Janet’s hand.
“Hang in there,” she told her and Janet nodded gently and shifted to grip tightly onto Teal’c’s jacket.
“Alright, navigating through a strange forest in the dark, we can do this,” Cam said, setting off down the dark path in front of them. Sam glanced behind them nervously and then followed. She didn’t know how much time they would have, but she doubted it was long.
“This way,” Janet muttered, pointing down a path as they passed a junction. Cam gave the rest of them a wary look, but followed when Teal’c led the way and Daniel and Sam followed. Janet looked so small being held by Teal’c and so fragile.
Janet continued to direct them through the trees until they burst free of the trees and into a patch of scrubland. The start of the stone structure that surrounded the ‘gate was in front of them and the entrance facing them. They were nearly home free.
Sam’s relief was cut short by the unmistakable sound of a glider somewhere overhead. They all instinctively shrank back into the tree line and looked up, trying to see the glider before it saw them. It swept low over head and off into the distance to swing around and come back again over the trees, but it didn’t stop and gave no sign of having seen them. Even if the pilot had spotted them, chances were they would still have time to get to the ‘gate before any patrols caught up with them, if they could just avoid being shot by the glider itself. The stood up and resumed their path towards the stone entrance in front of them. It was night by now and the only light came from the stars above them. It was enough, nonetheless, to reveal the two Jaffa guards standing sentry at the entrance. Sam shifted the zat in her hand. They could take down the guards if they could only surprise them.
“Wait,” Janet muttered, pushing on Teal’c to get him to put her down onto the cold ground. “I’ll get us past them.” She stumbled slightly and Teal’c grabbed her elbow again, looking worried, but she pushed him away again and stalked determinedly towards the guards. Sam looked watched her uncertainly as she left and then hurried after her. The Jaffa saw them coming and levelled their staffs at them, but they didn’t open fire. Sam’s only guess was that they must have recognised Janet.
“Jaffa Kree!” Janet called angrily when she was close enough for the Jaffa to hear her. “Stand aside”
They looked uncertainly at each other and at the group in front of them. “Stand aside,” Janet repeated. “Am I not the Goddesses beloved? Her priestess?”
The Jaffa lowered their staffs and stood to attention obediently on each side of the entrance. Janet gave them a satisfied look and stepped between them into the doorway. As Sam passed between the two guards she saw the one closest to her reach for his zat. She reacted more quickly and shot him with the zat she was still holding from Molo’tak. The other Jaffa swung his staff around to bear on them. Thankfully Teal’c and Cam were on it, disarming him and bringing him to the ground quickly. Sam then shot him for good measure. They all looked at each other and turned towards the Stargate once more.
“Crap,” Sam called, running through the doorway. Janet had collapsed not far from the entrance. She pressed her fingers to Janet’s pulse and felt her forehead. There was a strong pulse thankfully although Janet’s skin was clammy to the touch. She threw the GDO to Daniel and scooped Janet up in her arms, feeling the heat from her skin against her own. Daniel was already hurrying towards the DHD when they heard the glider coming back around again.
“Daniel?” Cam called, hurrying up to his side.
“One second,” Daniel reported as the Stargate connected and he began punching in the code. Daniel stared at the GDO for a very long few seconds while they all stood still, listening to the glider coming closer. Sam could feel Janet’s breath against her neck, but otherwise there was no movement and she was a dead weight in her arms.
“Let’s go,” Daniel finally said. There was a collective sigh of relief and activity as they all ran into the Stargate. Their feet thundered through onto the ramp on their own side only a few seconds later.
Daniel was already shouting almost as soon as they had reintegrated. “We need a medic!”
Sam remembered those words coming over the radio over a year ago and froze on the ramp with Janet still in her arms.
“I’ll take her Sam,” Daniel offered, snapping Sam out of her thoughts. The medical team was just appearing in the doorway to the gateroom so Sam let him take her and carry her gently to the gurney that had been rolled into the room.
Sam remained frozen on the ramp as she watched them wheel Janet away.
celandine (because she rocks) and I've never written anything this long before, go me. I'll put it up on Area 52 eventually, but I am still fiddling with Parts 2 & 3 and Cel is busy beta-ing them for me, (I'm a good friend, 'here have a fic and while you're at it would you mind fixing my grammar for me?') which she is doing an amazing job of.
Rating: PG for Part One at least
Pairings: Janet/Qetesh, Sam/Janet
Word Count: 6, 531
Category: Action, Established Relationship, Fixit, AU
Season: 9 ish, but it is an AU
Spoilers: Heroes Part 1 & 2
Warnings: Slavery, Torture, Violence
Summary: Over a year after Janet’s death and in a universe in which Qetesh was never freed by the Tok’ra and the Goa’uld were not defeated, SG1, featuring Sam, Cam, Daniel and Teal’c, go to P8X-412.
The title of the series is the title of a song by Juliana Theory and the titles of the individual parts are lines from that song.
Beauty that is Deeper than Eyes Can Really See
“Ooh big stone walls,” Cam commented sarcastically as the ‘gate disconnected behind them. Daniel gave him a withering look and bounded down the steps to go look at what appeared to be writing on the high circular wall that surrounded them. Sam, Cam and Teal’c took a more leisurely pace down the steps, looking carefully around them. The wall around the Stargate was tall and there was one relatively small doorway in that was the only entrance or exit, other than climbing out. It appeared to be several feet thick and when Sam looked upwards she could only see the very tops of trees and a few scattered clouds above her.
“Oh lookie here,” Cam went on, bringing Sam’s attention down from the clouds and across to him. She saw what had gotten his attention. There was what looked like a shrine on one side of the ‘gate and when she looked to the other side of the ‘gate there was another one.
“They appear similar to the shrines on Chulak where the prim’tah were cared for before they were ready for implantation,” Teal’c contributed as he walked over to the shrine by Cam for a closer look. Sam walked over to the other one and apprehensively lifted the lid slightly. Daniel abandoned the wall and came over to join her.
“No snakes though,” she said with great relief.
“You guys have seen these before?” Cam asked them, copying Sam’s look into the shrine he was next to and finding that one empty as well.
“On Chulak they were sited at places of religious significance and used to allow young symbiotes to mature before they were ready to be implanted into a Jaffa. They were tended carefully by the priesthood and it was a sign of the great trust Apophis had for us for the shrines to be left unguarded.”
“Oh, so it’s a baby Goa’uld tank? Where are the Goa’uld?”
Sam and Daniel shrugged and continued examining the shrine. “I don’t recognise the symbol on the shrine, it does look familiar though.” He waved his finger thoughtfully towards the symbol, “a lotus flower and a crescent moon, it could be a fertility God. I’ll need to look it up when we get home. However, it’s not a Goa’uld we’ve encountered before, if there is a Goa’uld. Maybe these shrines are looked after as a ritual, a remnant of the religion the Goa’uld left behind.”
Sam gave her best ‘could be’ shrug and peered at the shrine again.
“Footsteps,” Teal’c warned quietly. They all brought their weapons up and began to move quickly towards the ‘gate, but before any of them could reach the DHD the source of at least some of the footsteps entered the doorway and screamed. The short priestess darted back out of sight to be replaced by an honour guard of Jaffa, all armed with staffs that they were rapidly levelling at SG1. Sam and Daniel dashed behind the shrine they were nearest to and ducked as the Jaffa crept cautiously in through the doorway.
“Shel na kree!” One of the Jaffa yelled at them, their attention diverted between the two shrines. They didn’t fire and Sam suspected it was because they were hiding behind them. The Jaffa were also, inconveniently, between SG1 and the DHD.
“Shel-norak,” the Jaffa tried again.
Sam glanced at Daniel as she heard Cam open fire on the Jaffa and then swung her P90 around the edge of the shrine to open fire on the Jaffa herself. Daniel followed suit around the other side of the shrine and gunfire echoed around the ceiling less room.. Dust sprayed off the walls where she missed, kicking up a cloud around the hastily retreating Jaffa. One went down with a spray of blood from his side and the rest yelled to each other in more Goa’uld and finally made it to the relative safety of the doorway. Sam adjusted her angle and continued to attempt to fire on the Jaffa, but they had disappeared from sight. A hand reappeared and before Sam could get a shot off it tossed a Goa’uld stun grenade towards them. She saw another hand throw another grenade towards Cam and Teal’c just before the flash went off, blinding her and knocking her unconscious.
~~~
When Sam woke up she was blind and her head throbbed. She was lying on a cold and smooth floor and a quick inventory revealed all body parts present and correct and no injuries beyond the blindness and the splitting headache. All her gear was missing, which wasn’t surprising, though her boots were too, which was. She began to sit up and groaned quietly as her head throbbed.
“I am relieved you are awake Colonel Carter,” Teal’c said. He sounded like he was somewhere off to her left and she began to move that way. Her hand encountered fabric and she initially jerked it away and then investigated again. It was a leg and a sock covered foot. At least wasn’t the only one without her boots.
“Cam and Daniel in here too?”
“They are”
“Explains the foot,” Sam muttered to herself and manoeuvred herself over Daniel or Cam until she found the wall. Her hands ran over unmistakably Goa’uld symbols and she didn’t need eyesight to know that the wall would be gold too. How typical. It felt good to sit against the wall and let her head rest back. They couldn’t do anything until they could see what was around them.
“They took my boots,” she told Teal’c, sounding slightly petulant about it and feeling it too. She liked those boots because they’d been through a lot with her. Breaking in new boots was always a chore.
“Mine also,” Teal’c confirmed. Sam had to grin at the image of Teal’c sitting next to her in BDU’s and his socks.
“It never changes does it,” she commented to Teal’c, keeping her head very still and her voice low.
“Indeed not”
Cam groaned and Sam heard him shift on the cell floor and then groan again. She assumed he had moved his head too quickly. He’d never felt the effects of a Goa’uld stun grenade before. Sam remembered Jonas and the mental image of him grinning proudly at being blinded for the first time made her smile, she missed him sometimes.
~~~
There was muttering in Goa’uld outside their cell. Sam’s eyesight was fuzzy, but improving all the time. She could tell the difference between the wall, the floor and the bars of the cell now. The Jaffa moving outside were big grey blurs against the gold walls and Teal’c, Cam and Daniel were big green blurs. The big grey muttering blurs opened the cell doors and were pointing staffs at them.
“You will come with us”
“Or?” hazarded Cam. Sometimes Sam wanted to slap him.
“We’ll shoot you somewhere painful and then take you anyway”
“Fair enough”
Sam shook her head and climbed carefully to her feet to lead the way out of the cell, fumbling for the edge of the doorway to steady herself. The Jaffa stepped back as they exited, keeping them covered all the while. Several of the Jaffa stepped forward to grab their upper arms and forcibly direct them to where they needed to go. They led them down a mess of corridors, all lined with the usual excessive gold and burning braziers, and into what was clearly a throne room. Sam knew it was a throne room right away by the presence of a large throne at one end being lounged in by someone, the excessive large hulking guards and the people kneeling. Some of the hulking blobs appeared to be grey and pink, suggesting they were shirtless, but more than a few of the Goa’uld had a penchant for having half naked hunks loitering around.
Whoever was on the throne clapped their hands as they entered the room and the kneeling figures in front of the throne were swept away by some of the Jaffa. Their own guards hurried them up the narrow room, walking more quickly and treating them more roughly now that they had someone to show off to, and deposited them in front of the throne.
“Kneel before your Goddess,” a Jaffa ordered.
Goddess? That was a change at least, Sam thought as she eased herself onto her knees. The others followed suit. She might not be an actual Goddess, but it really wasn’t worth getting kicked and punched to prove a point right now.
“I am the Goddess Qetesh. What are you doing on my world?” The unmistakably Goa’uld voice asked.
“We’re peaceful explorers. We were intrigued by the writing on the stone wall around the Stargate. We didn’t know this was a Goa’uld occupied world until we saw your Jaffa.” Daniel rattled off the explanation half heartedly.
Qetesh stood slowly up from her throne and stepped down towards them. She was slender, with long dark hair and she looked beautiful although Sam’s vision was still fuzzy. “You are Tau’ri,” she said simply. Sam watched her reach out and examine the patches on each of Daniel’s sleeve, “and the infamous SG1 no less.” She turned from them and stepped slowly back up to her throne to drape herself into it. “What an honour, Teal’c, Daniel Jackson, Major Samantha Carter and you…I don’t know your name yet,” she said to Cam, tilting her head.
“Lieutenant Colonel Cameron Mitchell, and it’s Lieutenant Colonel Samantha Carter now. You’re out of date.”
Sam winced as she anticipated a blow from one of the Jaffa in Cam’s near future, but instead Qetesh gave a throaty chuckle, which was always eerie from a Goa’uld.
“I pay little attention to the wider affairs of the galaxy, especially some trivial little backwards planet such as your own. My allegiance is with Anubis now and we provide for each other well; he trusts me and leaves me in peace.” Qetesh turned her hand slowly and almost contemplatively in front of her face as she spoke and Sam saw the light bounce off the hand device on her right hand. She really hoped she wasn’t about to use it on them.
“Hmm, SG1. Anubis will be pleased.”
A short woman stepped into the throne room. She hesitated at the sight of prisoners kneeling in front of the throne, but then proceeded across the room. Her sandaled feet clicked on the floor and Sam turned her head carefully to watch the newcomer. Her sight wasn’t fully back, but she didn’t need 20:20 vision to recognise the brown haired figure dressed in a flimsy, but expensive looking gown. Despite the fact that her hair had grown much longer and there was a Jaffa tattoo on her forehead she was unmistakable.
“Janet!” Sam couldn’t help exclaiming, but neither the woman nor Qetesh responded to the name. Qetesh did respond to the shout however, looking across at them for an explanation.
“That woman,” Daniel said, nodding towards Janet as she approached Qetesh’s throne, “we know her.” There was a desperate tone in his voice and Sam was amazed that he had managed to speak so coherently. It was taking all her will power not to jump up and run over to Janet.
At this both Qetesh and Janet looked up more attentively, though Janet looked towards Qetesh for what to do.
“You mean Miu? My personal slave and priestess?” Qetesh gestured to Janet, who stepped across to the gaudy throne and draped herself languorously over the arm. Qetesh smiled at her and settled a hand possessively onto Janet/Miu’s thigh.
“Yes, she’s one of us,” Daniel went on. “We….we thought she had died, but that is definitely her.”
Qetesh looked up at Janet/Miu for a moment before making a small gesture with one finger. Janet/Miu smiled and bent her head slightly to kiss Qetesh. The smirking goa’uld tightened her grip on Janet/Miu’s thigh and looked back at her captives.
“No, Miu is most definitely mine.”
Sam thought her jaw was going to hit the floor when she saw Janet, her Janet, lean in so blithely to kiss a Goa’uld.
Qetesh looked at her slave again, but spoke to her prisoners. “She was a gift from Anubis for loyal service. When she came to me she was an empty vessel, but she learned quickly, she has many skills and, as you can see, she is beautiful.” Janet/Miu smiled proudly at the compliments and Sam felt a sickness in her stomach that was nothing to do with the headache and the fuzzy vision.
“She has healer’s hands. She has just spent the last few hours patching up my Jaffa that you wounded.”
None of them could speak, Sam knew they were all staring at Janet/Miu. Qetesh seemed irked by this as she gestured to her Jaffa.
“Remove them from my sight while I decide their fate.”
Rough hands gripped her forearms and forced her to stand, but Sam couldn’t tear her eyes away from the sight of the woman she thought she had lost. The Jaffa turned them all roughly and marched them out of the throne room.
“Janet’s alive,” Sam muttered to herself as they walked. She hardly saw the ground beneath her feet and she didn’t care that she was mostly being held up by the Jaffa dragging her through the corridors.
~~~
“It was definitely Janet,” Daniel said. Sam was sitting against the wall of their cell, as far from the others as she could. Her knees were up and her head and arms were resting on them. She thought that maybe if she curled up small enough she might disappear.
“Our eyesight still aint one hundred percent,” Cam pointed out. “Maybe it wasn’t her.”
“It was indeed Doctor Fraiser,” Teal’c said, ending all discussion of that possibility.
There was silence for a minute until Sam spoke. “We left her. We left her behind,” she said into her knees.
“We had no choice Sam,” Daniel reassured her and himself.
“We never leave anyone behind,” Sam said quietly. The cell fell silent again for several minutes
“Qetesh was a Goddess of sex, love and beauty. She predated Hathor and eventually the two were considered the same Goddess,” Daniel commented quietly into the silence of the cell.
“And?” Cam asked.
Daniel shrugged, “it might be useful to know.”
“Qetesh has been around for a very long time. She has ensured her survival by never truly being a power to threaten the system lords and by always providing them with something they needed. Her allegiance is always fickle,” Teal’c contributed. “She controls only a handful of worlds, most of them rich in Naquada and there have been rumours of mass executions of slaves. She is not a benevolent ruler.”
Sam didn’t want to listen, she couldn’t believe that Janet was alive after all this time.
~~~
They were dragged in front of Qetesh again a few hours later and deposited in front of her throne once again. She was draped over her throne rather than sitting on it and now that her eye sight was back Sam could see that she truly was a beautiful woman. Her long black hair was rich and the kohl around her eyes made them seem even darker. Janet/Miu was sitting demurely on a small stool at the foot of Qetesh’s throne. Her head was resting on the Goa’uld’s knee with Qetesh’s hand resting gently on her head and she was watching SG1 intently. Sam caught her gaze and held it for several moments before Janet/Miu looked away.
“So, do you even know anything useful? Or are you just being a galactic pain in the mik’tah, as usual?” Qetesh asked from her throne.
“We’re not going to tell you anything,” Sam said firmly.
Qetesh chuckled, “Oh I don’t want you to. I am going to give you to Anubis, well, sell you to him. I just need to know how much you’re worth to him and thus to me.” Qetesh explained this to them slowly, like a teacher to a small child. “I need to think carefully about what I want to ask for in exchange.”
Sam shrugged gently. This would give them more time to get out, which she certainly didn’t mind. She looked around the throne room, seeing more now that her eyesight was fully back. She noted each of the exits, the number of guards and that there was a pitcher of water on a table just behind Qetesh’s throne.
“Can I have some water?” she tried as she figured that there was no harm in asking and knowing that they had all been without water for all the time they’d been held captive..
Qetesh gave her an appraising look and then nodded to Janet/Miu, who poured a cup of water from the pitcher and brought it across to Sam. As she leant forward to hand the cup down to her Sam felt the unmistakable tingle in her veins. It was the tingle of the naquadah in her body responding to the naquadah of a symbiote. She gripped the cup, but didn’t take it as she looked at Janet/Miu. She really was a Jaffa, it wasn’t just a tattoo.
Janet/Miu looked at her and pressed the cup into her hand. Sam snapped out of her dazed surprise and finally took the cup. She definitely needed the water and buried her face into the container, gulping some of it down before passing it along to her team mates, knowing full well they would need it as much as she did. Qetesh was talking again, but Sam was watching Janet/Miu and hardly hearing the Goa’uld ramble on. A Jaffa?
“I’m bored again,” Qetesh declared with a wave of her hand. “Remove them, they’re not proving to be useful.”
~~~
“You, come with us,” the Jaffa demanded, pointing at Sam. They were back in their cell of course and it was a situation that was oddly comforting in its familiarity. At least they weren’t being tortured or beaten, though that state of affairs looked as if it might be coming to an end.
“Come and get her,” Cam suggested.
“It’s okay Cam,” Sam said, beginning to get up just as the Jaffa shot him with a zat’. Cam slumped back into the cell wall like a sack of potatoes. The Jaffa looked at Sam again, “I’m assuming you know what a second shot does?”
Sam nodded and got up from the floor of the cell, doing her best to give reassuring glances to the remaining conscious members of her team and feeling sorry for Cam. She appreciated the hero attempt, but it really hadn’t been worth it. The Jaffa grabbed her upper arms yet again and marched her through the corridors. However, they didn’t take her along the known path to the throne room, but a different way. They stopped in front of an ornate door and knocked loudly.
“Enter,” the voice commanded and the Jaffa pushed Sam roughly into the room. She stumbled to a stop inside it, rubbing her upper arms, which were a little sore from the rough treatment and looked around. The room was ornate and luxurious. Janet/Miu was the only one in the room and she was dressed somewhat more practically than last time in a matching outfit of dark coloured trousers and a tunic that, while plain, were made of clearly expensive fabric.
“Please, sit,” Janet/Miu ordered/requested and Sam did as she was told. She took a hesitant seat on one of the plush couches in the room, watching Janet/Miu all the time.
She turned and looked at Sam eventually, “are you okay?”
Sam nodded, “Your Jaffa were a little rough.”
Janet/Miu smiled fondly, “They can be a little overzealous.”
Sam looked at her disbelievingly. She’d used the same kind of tone as might be used to say ‘that little scamp,’ to a small boy with a sticky smile and it was incongruous with any of Sam’s experience with Jaffa. Janet/Miu had gone back to tending something at an ornate counter to the side of the door.
“Why am I here?” Sam asked.
“Because you came through the Chapp’ai to this planet,” Janet/Miu told her.
Sam couldn’t help smiling slightly. She at least recognised that pedantic playful mood of Janet’s, despite all the other unsettling changes.
“I meant, why am I in your chambers?”
“Ahh, because I have some questions.”
“Oh, am I being interrogated?”
Janet/Miu frowned while she was working. “No,” was her simple reply. There was steam coming from the counter now and after a few more moments she turned round with a cup in each hand.
“Tea,” she told Sam, handing her the cup. Sam took it hesitantly and cradled it in her hands, but didn’t drink it. Janet/Miu sipped from her own cup and the placed it on the small table next to the couch.
“You say you knew me. From before I was captured by Anubis?”
Sam nodded uncertainly.
“I have no memory of that time, nothing.” Janet frowned. “I would have you tell me,” she commanded Sam.
“What do you want to know?”
“I was a healer wasn’t I?”
Sam nodded again, “Yes, you were a Doctor. A remarkable one at that, you looked after us.”
Janet’s eyes had a new sparkle in them at this titbit from her past. “I knew it. What else did I do?”
Sam took a moment to gather her thoughts before she answered. “You did a lot of things. You were a friend and confidante to all of us, well loved and liked, even when you were forcing us into bed rest and light duties. You saved my life and the lives of countless others through your job. You’d been in war, you were in the Air Force like me and Cam and before we’d even met you you’d been all around the world and specialised in exotic diseases. You adopted an orphaned girl the first year that I knew you and became a great mom to her. You…,” here Sam stumbled to find the words. She closed her eyes for a moment and exhaled. “I loved you. For seven years. We had to keep it a secret, but we made it work.”
Sam finally looked up at Janet/Miu, who was staring at her intently. The sparkle had gone from her eyes and there was a coldness there that chilled Sam.
“Then why did you allow me to be captured by Anubis?” she asked stonily.
“We thought you were dead,” Sam confessed. “You took a staff blast to the chest.”
“So you left me behind?”
“We couldn’t get you out, we tried, but we didn’t want to lose more people.”
Janet/Miu’s hands shook as she picked up her tea cup again and sipped it. Sam still hadn’t touched hers and she didn’t intend to. Janet/Miu returned her cup to the small table and stood up abruptly from the couch and glared at Sam.
“You have no idea what Anubis did to me. No idea what I have been through since you left me behind.”
Sam had no response, Janet/Miu was right.
“He must have brought me back to life, but I don’t remember that. Most of the time I spent with Anubis is a blur. He had me tortured. Long after he had stopped trying to get useful information out of me I was tortured. I don’t remember if I ever told him anything, but by the end I would have told him that the sky was green if he had asked me.”
Janet/Miu continued to glare at Sam. Her breath was ragged and her eyes passionate.
“I know what that’s like Janet and I am sorry you went through that.” Tears were gathering at the corners of Sam’s eyes and when she blinked they tumbled slowly down her cheeks. She let them.
“My name is Miu,” Janet/Miu said forcefully. “It is the name my Goddess gave me when I was gifted to her. When I didn’t know any name that wasn’t an insult she named me ‘gentleness’. She gave me my life back in her own sarcophagus, she gave me a position of great honour in her court.”
“She isn’t a Goddess. She is a parasitic being inhabiting the body of an innocent woman. You carry her young.”
Janet/Miu’s hand went to her stomach, resting over the belly pouch that Sam didn’t need to see to know was there.
“My Goddess gifted me with long life and a strong constitution. She is generous.”
“She has brain washed you. Without her Jaffa and slaves she would be nothing.”
“She is a Goddess,” Janet/Miu said angrily through gritted teeth. Sam slowly shook her head. She opened her mouth to argue further, but the door to the room opened and Qetesh stepped in. She looked at Sam.
“I wondered why my Miu had her Jaffa guards stationed outside her chambers.” She walked towards Janet/Miu. “Though I would prefer them inside the same room as the dangerous and valuable captive.”
“I’m sorry my Goddess,” Janet/Miu said, dropping her head obediently and clasping her hands demurely in front of her. Qetesh stepped up to her and ran her fingers gently down Janet/Miu’s cheeks. She continued to trail her fingertips down Janet’s neck and across her chest.
“I only worry for your safety.”
“Thank you Goddess.”
“So, did you find anything useful out?” Qetesh asked, abandoning her caress and turning sharply to look at Sam. Janet/Miu looked at Sam.
“No Goddess.”
“Pity. Come Miu, I require service.”
Qetesh clapped her hands sharply three times and the Jaffa outside the door opened it and stepped smartly inside.
“Return the prisoner to the cell. We’re done with her.”
The Jaffa nodded and Sam placed her cup on the table and stood up as they approached. They grabbed her arms roughly once again and marched her out of the room. Janet/Miu watched Sam intently as they took her from the room, but her expression was unreadable.
Sam looked back as the Jaffa took her down the corridor. She saw Qetesh and Janet/Miu leave the chambers. Qetesh lead the way and Janet/Miu remained a respectful step behind. Janet/Miu looked over her shoulder at Sam and kept her gaze until the Jaffa rounded a corner and took Sam out of sight.
The Jaffa returned Sam to the cell. Cam had come round by now and he, Daniel and Teal’c all scrambled to their feet at the sight of Sam.
“You okay?” Daniel asked as the Jaffa pushed her roughly in and shut the cell door securely behind her.
Sam nodded, “Janet wanted to ask some questions, that was all.”
The guys all relaxed and they all sat down on the cell floor.
“What kind of questions?” Cam asked quietly.
Sam shook her head slightly, “It wasn’t an interrogation. She was just curious about her past.”
“That’s a good sign,” Daniel said hopefully. “Maybe she’ll help us escape.”
Sam shook her head again. “She insists she is called Miu and that Qetesh is her Goddess. She won’t be helping us.”
“You can work on her though,” Daniel insisted. “You two have your, um, ‘special connection’.”
The inverted commas slammed into place as Daniel spoke and Cam pricked his ears up. He looked at Sam, “Special connection?”
“We were close,” Sam told him, giving Daniel a glare.
“Close,” Cam repeated, relaxing to lean against the wall with a slightly sleazy grin.
~~~
Sam was pretending to sleep in the corner with her head resting on her folded up jacket when there was a disturbance somewhere nearby. It was loud enough to wake Cam and Daniel up, who she had definitely been sleeping because she’d been listening to them snore. Sam pushed herself up and they all crowded against the bars of their cell to try and see what was happening. Their guards snarled at them and waved their staffs threateningly, but were clearly unsettled by whatever was going off. There was shouting and screaming, a lot of screaming, but nothing could be seen from their cell.
The screaming went on for a long time. Interspersed with shouting from Qetesh in Goa’uld that Teal’c at first translated quietly for Cam and Sam’s benefit, but then stopped when there were words that even he wouldn’t say. After several minutes there was the sound of foot steps from the other direction and Janet/Miu appeared from around the corner. Her hair was down and un-brushed, her face free of make up and whilst she was wearing the same trousers and tunic as earlier she was barefoot. She stopped in front of the cell and Sam could see that she had a small cut along her hairline that was still oozing a little blood. There were tracks of tears down her cheeks and the beginnings of a nasty looking bruise across the right side of her face. Most worryingly of all were the burn marks on the skin of her forehead that looked like they were from a hand device.
“Leave us,” she ordered the Jaffa guards, who hesitated, then nodded and turned and left.
Sam pulled against the bars of the cell to look at her. “What’s going on Miu?” She asked gently and used ‘Miu’ because this really didn’t look like a time to make a point.
“She…,” Janet gasped and got control. “She sent a Jaffa patrol to collect the harvest tithe from a village. The weather has been harsh there and they could not meet their tithe without starving over the winter. The patrol only collected half the tithe.” Janet sobbed again, putting her hand up to her face. “When they returned she launched into a rage. She sent out another patrol to collect the remaining tithe and to slaughter anyone in the village who protested. She’s torturing the first patrol now. When she started I ran to her and begged for her to spare them, but she hit me and turned her hand device on me. Her face was so twisted with anger and rage, I hardly recognised her. She hurt me and I passed out. When I came too it was still going on.” Janet had stepped closer to the bars as she spoke. When she finished she lifted her fingers to her forehead. Her hand was shaking, all of her was shaking. Sam reached her hand through the bars and took hold of Janet’s in hers.
“That village will starve this winter, even more now so because of the patrol’s attempt at benevolence. I didn’t treat their injuries just so that she could kill them.” Janet was still shaking, but it was mostly due to anger now.
“Get us out of here,” Sam whispered. Janet looked at her for a long minute and then nodded.
“Molo’tak, kree!” she called down the corridor. One of their Jaffa guards reappeared from down the corridor and walked up to Janet with a sharp bow.
“Open the cell,” Janet ordered him. Molo’tak looked uncertain and looked around him warily. Janet looked at him and raised one eyebrow. Molo’tak turned and punched in the code to unlock the cell.
“When she asks I attacked you with a zat and you had no idea what happened.” Molo’tak nodded and handed Janet his zat. She shot him with a slight wince and then pulled their cell door open.
“He won’t turn us in?” Cam asked as he stepped over the unconscious Jaffa.
Janet shook her head, “I saved him and his son.”
“Great,” Cam muttered.
“I remembered something,” Janet said and reached under her tunic. “We need this right?” She said uncertainly as she pulled out a GDO and held it out to Sam, who took it with a smile. “Perfect,” she told her and got a gentle and nervous smile for her trouble.
“This way,” Janet directed them, breaking the moment and running off barefoot down the corridor away from the continuing shouting and screaming. Sam started off after her, but Cam grabbed her upper arm to stop her.
“Wait, you trust her?”
“Yes,” answered Sam, Daniel and Teal’c in unison.
“You never knew Janet. This is definitely her,” Daniel told him.
Cam shrugged, “good enough.” He released Sam’s arm and they all ran after Janet. It was a maze to get out of the palace and a straightforward run downhill once they were clear of the palace walls before Janet plunged them into a maze of a forest. The sun had gone down and only the dark grey of dusk lingered to show them which way to go. It didn’t seem to matter, Janet knew the way and all they had to do was follow her. Sam’s socks were soon soaking wet from the ground, but she valued what little protection they offered against the sharps stones underfoot. As much as she wished for her boots back she reminded herself that Janet was running barefoot and after being tortured with a hand device no less.
That she had been tortured became more apparent as they got further through the woodland. Janet began to stumble and when she got closer Sam heard her breath coming in gasps.
“Janet?”
“I’m okay,” she told her desperately. Teal’c appeared at Janet’s side and grabbed hold of Janet’s upper arm to catch her as she collapsed.
“She needs medical attention,” he said as he picked her up.
“And we have got to get to the ‘gate,” Cam added.
“Keep going,” Janet said from Teal’c’s arms. Sam pressed a hand to her cheek and felt worrying cool skin. It looked like she was going into shock. She gently removed the zat from Janet’s hand.
“Hang in there,” she told her and Janet nodded gently and shifted to grip tightly onto Teal’c’s jacket.
“Alright, navigating through a strange forest in the dark, we can do this,” Cam said, setting off down the dark path in front of them. Sam glanced behind them nervously and then followed. She didn’t know how much time they would have, but she doubted it was long.
“This way,” Janet muttered, pointing down a path as they passed a junction. Cam gave the rest of them a wary look, but followed when Teal’c led the way and Daniel and Sam followed. Janet looked so small being held by Teal’c and so fragile.
Janet continued to direct them through the trees until they burst free of the trees and into a patch of scrubland. The start of the stone structure that surrounded the ‘gate was in front of them and the entrance facing them. They were nearly home free.
Sam’s relief was cut short by the unmistakable sound of a glider somewhere overhead. They all instinctively shrank back into the tree line and looked up, trying to see the glider before it saw them. It swept low over head and off into the distance to swing around and come back again over the trees, but it didn’t stop and gave no sign of having seen them. Even if the pilot had spotted them, chances were they would still have time to get to the ‘gate before any patrols caught up with them, if they could just avoid being shot by the glider itself. The stood up and resumed their path towards the stone entrance in front of them. It was night by now and the only light came from the stars above them. It was enough, nonetheless, to reveal the two Jaffa guards standing sentry at the entrance. Sam shifted the zat in her hand. They could take down the guards if they could only surprise them.
“Wait,” Janet muttered, pushing on Teal’c to get him to put her down onto the cold ground. “I’ll get us past them.” She stumbled slightly and Teal’c grabbed her elbow again, looking worried, but she pushed him away again and stalked determinedly towards the guards. Sam looked watched her uncertainly as she left and then hurried after her. The Jaffa saw them coming and levelled their staffs at them, but they didn’t open fire. Sam’s only guess was that they must have recognised Janet.
“Jaffa Kree!” Janet called angrily when she was close enough for the Jaffa to hear her. “Stand aside”
They looked uncertainly at each other and at the group in front of them. “Stand aside,” Janet repeated. “Am I not the Goddesses beloved? Her priestess?”
The Jaffa lowered their staffs and stood to attention obediently on each side of the entrance. Janet gave them a satisfied look and stepped between them into the doorway. As Sam passed between the two guards she saw the one closest to her reach for his zat. She reacted more quickly and shot him with the zat she was still holding from Molo’tak. The other Jaffa swung his staff around to bear on them. Thankfully Teal’c and Cam were on it, disarming him and bringing him to the ground quickly. Sam then shot him for good measure. They all looked at each other and turned towards the Stargate once more.
“Crap,” Sam called, running through the doorway. Janet had collapsed not far from the entrance. She pressed her fingers to Janet’s pulse and felt her forehead. There was a strong pulse thankfully although Janet’s skin was clammy to the touch. She threw the GDO to Daniel and scooped Janet up in her arms, feeling the heat from her skin against her own. Daniel was already hurrying towards the DHD when they heard the glider coming back around again.
“Daniel?” Cam called, hurrying up to his side.
“One second,” Daniel reported as the Stargate connected and he began punching in the code. Daniel stared at the GDO for a very long few seconds while they all stood still, listening to the glider coming closer. Sam could feel Janet’s breath against her neck, but otherwise there was no movement and she was a dead weight in her arms.
“Let’s go,” Daniel finally said. There was a collective sigh of relief and activity as they all ran into the Stargate. Their feet thundered through onto the ramp on their own side only a few seconds later.
Daniel was already shouting almost as soon as they had reintegrated. “We need a medic!”
Sam remembered those words coming over the radio over a year ago and froze on the ramp with Janet still in her arms.
“I’ll take her Sam,” Daniel offered, snapping Sam out of her thoughts. The medical team was just appearing in the doorway to the gateroom so Sam let him take her and carry her gently to the gurney that had been rolled into the room.
Sam remained frozen on the ramp as she watched them wheel Janet away.