Into The Light 14

No Man's Land

by Oliver Twist

URL: http://stargateslash.com/aso/otwist/light14.php
Summary: SG-1 visits a strange world and Sam is taken captive

The unfocused world pitched on its side. Sam was dazed, one moment she was lying face down then the world spun like a carousel around her as she gave rapid and swift kicks to the mid-section of her opponent. The green canopy of the trees whirled around her as she tried to get her bearings. Then she realized she was in the woods - but she wasn't alone.

She was accompanied by a loyal group of female followers, all of them strong, powerful women. Their faces appeared to her through a watery haze: Mori, Caliban, Nista and so many others. Their faces flicked on and off in the back of her mind. Gradually, she remembered each of their names.

Yes, she confirmed to herself, as she plucked a disconnected thought from the colored ball that was her mind, the forest was home. It felt like home. Maybe that was what made each trip through the Stargate to another green world so appealing. It was a confirmation of her inner feelings. Now, she remembered it - her fighting strategy was to hide in the trees and drop onto her enemies from above with a suddenness that led to victory, time and time again.

Seeing her image reflected in a flowing stream seemed to confirm her identity at one moment while her mind tried to sort through other confused images of what and who exactly she was. No, she pondered, she didn't really look so very different than she did at the present time. She'd had brown eyes instead of blue ones and the same tall lean body that had done what she wanted. That had made her a leader among these women. They were the Amazons, and she was Cyane, Queen of all of them.

Time passed. In her dream a new woman arrived in the woods, a warrior woman of infinite destructive power, a woman that she'd initially beaten at their first meeting. This woman had received her power from Aries, the God of War.

Some muzzy thoughts connected together from her real life underneath the fabric of the dream. Aries, just who the hell was he? Some Goa'uld masquerading as a god or was he something else? Just over 2,000 years ago, there were numerous races of interplanetary foes that could disguise themselves as gods. Races of immortal or nearly immortal beings from the far reaches of the universe who would be only too happy to hang out on Earth playing "God for a day" while the baffled Earthlings watched them with their mouths open. No more, she thought in triumph as she thought about the present status of the ex-Olympian Gods. Their time was over. They were no more gods than Apophis or Ra had been.

When she viewed herself as Cyane, she experienced a strange sense of detachment. Her feelings of foreboding about the strange woman with the long dark hair, clothed in warrior's leathers and tall boots, didn't pass. However, she could only observe as events unfolded with calculated certainty. She knew that the past couldn't be changed, but that made the frustration of her old mistakes nip keenly at her heart.

Cyane had hoped that the strange warrior woman would respond to overtures of friendship and an offer of an alliance with the Amazons. A voice called out inside of her, a voice that attempted to warn Cyane about the treachery of the dark-haired snake, how she would bring death and destruction in her wake. She watched helplessly as Cyane walked arm-in-arm with the dark-haired woman under the bright green-yellow boughs of the forest in springtime. Cyane had believed that the woman was considering the possibility of a life among the Amazons. Her present self tried to cry out in warning, but the events inside the dream unfolded like a bomb ticking its way to detonation. Her muffled cries were the product of foreknowledge, a gift she could not give to the part of herself that was once Cyane.

Through the haze of the dream, she witnessed the dark-haired woman turn on Cyane. She felt the last breath of life escape from her body as she was viciously pinioned to a tree by a metal shield. The corpses of the Amazons were left to rot in the branches of their own forest, their broken and bloody skeletons a warning to the enemies of the dark-haired woman.

Now, she realized with a new sense of detachment that the dark-haired woman's hunger was powerful force that could not be assuaged by friendship; too late, Cyane had understood that the dark-haired woman's only sense of honor came from defeating her enemies, no matter what the cost. The evil witch Alti worked through the dark-haired woman, and Alti had promised her infinite power if she killed Cyane and her followers. Heavy enchantments tied her spirit down like ropes, and after her death Alti leached the power from her and her followers.

Helpless in the parched, lifeless, neverworld of the dead, she remained with her followers without the power to move either forward or backward. Time was compressed in the dream, but she knew that she'd been unable to pass through the Gates of Eternity for at least a decade. In her dream state, she saw the powerful dark malevolence of Alti, saw how she'd harnessed the power of the Amazons to her own ends in the world of the living. So the Amazons wandered around in this gray world, neither living nor dead.

Years passed and the dark-haired woman returned to the underworld to meet her and her Amazons there again. Finally, she whispered the name of the treacherous dark-haired woman in her dreams - Xena. When Xena had first ventured into the underworld looking for her companion Gabrielle, Cyane's dark eyes spat fire at her. She told Xena, in no uncertain terms, that there would be no truce between them, as long her followers were held captive in the neverworld of death by Alti's spell. Xena would have to prove her good intentions. Xena assured Cyane that she'd changed. In her nightmare, her damp hands bunched up in angry fists as Xena spoke to her about her quest for her lost friend.

"No," Cyane spoke with stern disbelief, "How can I believe you after what you've done to me and my followers? We're trapped here, unable to pass through the Gates of Eternity because of you. Our power is held in thrall by Alti."

Then she discovered that Xena was telling the truth; she had changed. Xena rounded up the remnants of the Siberian Amazons under their leader, Otere. She helped them transform one of their number Yakut into a Shaman of power in order to defeat Alti and free the souls' of Cyane's Amazons and allow them to go through the Gate of Eternity. There was something strangely familiar about the deep hazel eyes of Yakut, but she could not place it.

After Alti was finally defeated, Queen Cyane passed through the Gate of Eternity with her Amazons. Her heart was weighed on the eternal scale against the weight of a feather, and she was found to lack sin. So Cyane, the mighty Queen died. Just a year later, the little Yakut, Otere's, Shaman died young.

Fortune's wheel turned again, and she was back on Earth in a different role. Inside the carpenter's house, she used the metal tools given to her by Joseph. She saw and felt the surface of the wood she'd made smooth. She ran her hand down its surface, feeling the strangely tactile nature of this dream.

She rubbed her face with the back of her hand, and she felt an immense thirst build up inside her, leaving her throat dry with minute wood shavings. The tools had belonged to someone else before as well, someone they called the Teacher. His father Joseph had also taught him carpentry. Both he and Joseph had taught her the trade when he had decided to go to Qumran to study with the Essenes, leaving his tools and workshop far behind him.

They'd come to this decision although she was a Samaritan, a people who were commonly distrusted among the Jews of Israel because they were neither Galilean nor Judean. Moreover, she was a woman - not a common sight as a carpenter. Still, she was strong, young and tall and the Teacher had not hesitated a second before he'd decided that she would make a good successor to carry on his carpentry practice. That had been almost ten years ago. The Teacher had left the Essenes almost two years later. He'd returned with a friend named Daniel, who stayed in Magdala working as a scribe. At the same time, Daniel had brought his sisters, Miriam and Janet from Bethany in Judea. His younger sister Miriam had only been eleven years old at that time.

In the small room where she worked, wood shavings hung in the air, making the beams of sunlight from the windows look like two spotlights. The voices of the women singing as they did their laundry in the streams at midday had passed away as the sun moved into its afternoon glory of pale orange. In the houses of the small fishing village of Magdala, the smells of food preparations were heavy in the air. The children were no longer shouting at play in the dusty, dry streets outside, having already been brought inside to prepare the table for the evening meal.

Each evening, the meal was an occasion for discussing and arguing about the ancient stories of Abraham or King David or even some of the new parables that the Teacher had related to them when he had stayed in Magdala during his travels between Galilee, Samaria and Judea, the three Roman provinces of what was once the self-governing land of Israel. A fragment of a memory hit her suddenly and she recalled how occasionally too, bolder voices from the ranks of their visitors talked about civil insurrection against their Roman overlords.

Into her mind, a particular memory flashed.

"We must unite against the Roman invaders, must we not Teacher?" A whining, pleading voice rose up and she felt a sensation of overwhelming sickness when she heard it.

A fist crashed suddenly on the table beside her, "No," Jack, the owner of the house snarled with sudden vehemence, "Don't you have any sense Judas? The Romans crucified hundreds of their own slaves, not even a century ago for this kind of talk. They were their property. That poor slave Spartacus and his followers. They fight and kill everything in their path. Do you want that here? Do you want them to burn Jerusalem and the Great Temple to the ground?"

"They'd never dare to do that here," Another confident voice she recognized dimly as belonging to Simon Peter responded.

"I've had many dealings with Romans when I fought in the arena," interrupted Janet's husband Teal'c, "Jack is right. They've only got conquest on their minds."

"Not that long ago, they razed most of Alexandria, including the Great Library, the Pharos." The firm voice of Daniel, the local scribe agreed. "They're ruthless."

"That's different," Judas said confidently, "The Egyptians are pagans, unbelievers. God would never let them destroy the Great Temple of our fathers in Jerusalem. What do you say, Teacher?"

"The Teacher said once if they razed the Great Temple in Jerusalem, he'd rebuild it in three days," came the muffled voice of a woman from the floor at the Teacher's feet. She was Mary of Magdala, a follower of the Teacher's who had once been a prostitute.

Judas disliked her intensely, feeling that her former profession discredited the Teacher as well as his followers. Still, she was beloved by the Teacher for her caustic earthy humor, her loyalty, her goodness of heart and most of all for her unfailing belief in the goodness of people despite her unhappy former life. The Teacher had saved her from the gutters of Jerusalem's slums and a life of brutality. She still had the remnants of a once great beauty about her. She was the one who bargained for their accommodations and food for the night, finding friends in the small villages and towns who would gladly give bed and food to a traveling Rabbi and his followers in exchange for lively discussion at the dinner table. Only his younger brother John was closer to the Teacher.

Silence hung heavily in the air at this pronouncement. Sam looked up at the tall, dark haired man they called the Teacher who was a close friend of the heads of the household, Daniel, the scribe and his brother-in-law Jack, the fisherman. The Teacher dipped his finger into the red table wine and drew patterns on the table in quiet thought.

Sam broke into the pregnant silence, "Well, three days," she said with quiet humor, staring at the goat's meat on her plate, "I guess you'll need a good carpenter. I'll help you." The room evaporated into laughter and the memory evaporated into thin air.

Now, she wiped the sweat from her brow and stood pensively waiting for someone to arrive. She looked around the room, trying hard to remember this place that was once so familiar. She held on tight to the sensations, the dust in the air and feeling of the stone block floor. She didn't want to lose one precious moment of this dream. She had loved this place once, and she would allow herself to love it again.

She stared at her handiwork - the large smooth planed cedar destined to be a table for a paying client. She ran her hands over its surface again when a soft voice reached her from the shadows in the doorway.

"Samara, I've brought you some food. You've been working for hours." She turned and saw a small woman in faded loosely woven cotton garment with a modest head covering entering the room accompanied by a small child of about three years old. "Take the food to your Auntie Sammy," the hazel-eyed woman pushed the child toward her with laughter in her throat. The small child walked toward her, proudly holding the food before him in a well-used linen towel.

"Dinner," he pronounced with tiny giggle. He carefully watched his feet on the cold stone floor as he moved toward her. He dropped the rough linen towel into her dusty hands.

She reached for the food with a smile of appreciation. She licked her lips in anticipation. "Thanks, I was tired." She rubbed her face with the sleeve of her shirt and found it bathed in a fine wet sheen of perspiration.

"I've brought water for you as well." The woman held up the waterskin in her hand and moved over to stand beside her. "I was talking to Jack when he brought the catch into the harbor, I mean what he didn't manage to sell in Capernaum. He's received a letter from a friend of his from Corinth. Daniel read it to us at the docks. He's known her for a long time. He met her in Greece when he was still known as Temecula when he was still a teenager before he was re-baptized by John. He's going to meet her in Caesarea, the day after tomorrow when her ship arrives."

Sam smiled mischievously and balanced the waterskin in her hand. She teased Miriam, who was always so serious, "Who wrote the letter to his friend for him, Miriam? Jack can't write a word of Aramaic, let alone write an entire letter in Greek to a friend in Corinth."

Miriam snorted impatiently, "You know as well as I do that my brother Daniel wrote the letter. He can write in Aramaic, Hebrew, Latin and Greek as well as Phoenician, Arabic and Persian." She spoke with formal pride about her brother's achievements as a scholar. Sometimes, Miriam sounded like she was imitating her brother when she talked about him. "He learned a great many languages when he lived with the Essene Community at Qumran." Her eyes were large and serious, "Jack's friend is called Gabrielle. She writes in many languages and she used to be a bard in Greece. She's written many stories, stories about the adventures of some famous warrior woman."

Samara warmed to her subject. "Oooh, a woman who knew a famous woman warrior, do I need to be jealous? Maybe you'll run off with her to take on the wild hordes that pillage the countryside in Greece. I heard a story about some famous woman warrior from Greece who could spin herself in the air like a plate! I forget her name." She placed her hand gently on top of Miriam's who'd moved closely to stroke the planed surface of the wooden table Samara was making.

Miriam never moved her hand, but turned slightly pink, "I'm a respectable Jewish widow, frivolous considerations such as stories by a bard from Corinth can't be judged by me." She lifted her head with ruffled dignity and her dark eyes flashed.

"So it wasn't you who was relating one of the Teacher's parables last night at the dinner table? Something about lilies of the field, wasn't it?" Samara inquired with seeming innocence.

"That's different, as you of all people should know. The Teacher's parables are more than exciting stories." She quoted her brother Daniel again, "They aid us spiritually." Miriam sounded solemn. It was one of the things Samara loved about her, her heady combination of seriousness mixed with her free childish laughter and innocence.

"I see. And this is why the Teacher moves from village to village so frequently. Some of his disciples aren't so respectable - Mary of Magdala, the ex-prostitute who was born here and Matthew, the tax collector. Perhaps, that's why he's no longer welcome in Capernaum. But I heard that his mother still lives there. I don't think your sister Janet quite approves of some of his disciples, " Samara continued to tease her partner.

Miriam appeared unamused, "Janet doesn't approve of you, either. Not completely."

"And what do you say?" The images of the dream began to fade, but Sam tried to hold on tight and focus on Miriam's words.

She laughed as Miriam's repeated her brother Daniel's discussion of the citizens of Capernaum, almost word for word. This was an argument that he'd had with his stubborn sister Janet, many times over. Janet also disapproved of his relationship with the fisherman, Jack, but was powerless to convince Daniel to either get married himself or to remarry his sister Miriam to another man. Janet herself was married to a huge black man called Teal'c who'd once been a gladiator at Tyre. Her husband had bought his own freedom in the arena with his winnings, and had worked as a traveling blacksmith until he'd come to Magdala and met Janet.

"The spiritual condition of the citizens of Capernaum isn't my concern. Anyway, I'm sure they were simply more concerned about pleasing the occupants of the Roman barracks stationed there than their spiritual welfare. Unlike the residents of Capernaum, I have neither riches nor the Roman army to worry about." Then Miriam lapsed into her own speech pattern, "Oh I wish I weren't a grown woman, I'd follow the Teacher. I've never seen the big cities of Bethlehem or Jerusalem or the Great Temple. I've always wondered what they look like. They sound so exciting." She was wistful in her innocence. Culling her memory, Sam knew that neither Jerusalem nor Bethlehem were how her friend's imagination pictured them.

So, she turned her attention to her food. She opened the cloth and found a hot goat cheese pastry which she bit into, releasing its creamy essence into her mouth, "Well, you're only nineteen years old, far from dead yet Miriam. But you aren't missing anything by not seeing the big cities far away. Before I found a home here, I traveled with my family throughout Judea. Jerusalem is overcrowded and dirty. You have to watch every denarius, in case the local merchants cheat you. At least, that's what I remember. Even if you have been a widow for three years, I think we're better off here in Magdala." Sam stroked her hand reassuringly.

"I wasn't quite fourteen when I was married to Luke," Miriam retorted, "It's fortunate for you that my brother-in-law has not seen fit to marry me to someone else. I am," she added with a touch of emphatic vanity, "The best cook in all Magdala."

Smiling broadly, with a flash of her wide white smile, Sam moved closer to her prey, "And the most modest too! None of us will ever live down those words of the Teacher. You may be the best cook in all Magdala, but there isn't a soul in this village that you haven't told."

"That's not true!" Miriam protested, "I've only said so to you and Janet."

"Oh right," Sam snorted slightly, "Like news doesn't travel faster than fire in this village. That's why every starving beggar between here and Damascus makes their way to our door."

"We have lots of food," Miriam protested, "Jack told me to feed the poor who come to the door."

"Of course he did," Sam agreed, "But fortunately for us your brother-in-law Jack is so love with your brother, Daniel, he is far too preoccupied to bother about remarrying you. Or perhaps he just wants to ensure that he lives in the same house as the best cook in all of Magdala." Sam breathed, leaning into the other woman, reaching out to touch Miriam's soft, pink lips. She was so close, so delectable. She smelled like fresh baked bread and good food.

Miriam cooked all the meals for an extended family that included: her brother Daniel, the village scribe and intellectual, Jack her brother-in-law, Janet and Teal'c and their two children as well as Samara. This was an immense job in a small village where there were only a limited number of communitiy baking ovens as well as the wood to fuel them.

Daniel functioned as a resource on the infinite subtleties of Jewish law for the tiny village of Magdala. It was a very small village on the Sea of Galilee. If Daniel didn't know the answer to a question of Jewish law, then the villagers would be forced to find a Rabbi in a town further a field. Her brother-in-law, Jack, was a fisherman with his own boat. His younger brother Luke had been Miriam's husband until he'd been drowned in a freak storm on the Sea of Galilee. Miriam's sister Janet was the village midwife. Janet didn't quite approve of the tall, blonde Samaritan carpenter who lived in their home and who had won her sister's affections.

Sam Carter leaned into the kiss expecting the sweet feel of Miriam's lips under hers. With her dark hair and hazel eyes, she looked and sounded just like Claire. She opened her arms wide, expecting to find her arms full of Miriam and found herself half-smothered by her own feather pillow instead. She gasped for air for the third night in a row.

This dream was becoming extremely annoying, particularly since she'd never managed to finally consummate the relationship with her dream creation. She'd never had dreams like these ones, dreams that were so real she could smell them and run her hands across their surfaces. Each pore of her being was saturated by these visions. Waking up was like rising to the surface from deep underneath cold spring waters.

Sam sat up. She looked at the glowing dial of the clock beside the bed. The clock read 5:30 AM, 0530 hours. She might as well get up and get started with her day. She switched on the light beside the bed and located her long warm blue dressing gown at the foot of the bed. Throwing it across her shoulders casually, she got out of the bed and went into the kitchen to make some coffee, not the exalted brew that Daniel insisted upon drinking, but a good strong cup of ordinary Maxwell House coffee before getting dressed and getting started with her day.

For some reason, the being or entity that had been in Claire Walters's mind had chosen her, Sam Carter, for it's temporary host. Then the dreams had started. They reminded Sam of the time when the Tok'ra, Jolinar of Malkshar, had been in possession of her body and mind.

However, this was completely different from her experience when she was the host for Jolinar. Although Jolinar had been a distinct and hostile being with knowledge of a completely different world and culture, Jolinar's aims and values didn't differ substantially from Sam's. Like Sam, Jolinar had a strict code of ethics that revolved around the Tok'ra's highly evolved sense of honor, justice and bravery. Sam understood those concepts only too well. They were the same values by which she lived her own life and were the reasons that she'd joined the USAF. In addition to this, Jolinar's strong understanding of science meshed with Sam's own worldview. Jolinar's heroism in giving up her life for Sam had affected Sam like the death of a close friend for whom she would always mourn.

The being that was inside Claire seemed content to remind Sam about things she'd rather forget: feelings of passion and fulfillment in other lives; the strength of ancient ties to the people she cared about her in her world as well as feelings of frustration at the emotional limitations of these friendships when she longed for something deeper.

Almost six weeks had elapsed since Claire's mother had died at Daniel and Jack's house, and Claire had become ill. Claire had fainted in her office at work, and seemed unable to hold a glass or mirror without shattering it into a million pieces. For a couple of frightening days, Claire developed cramps. It had looked as though she was going to lose the baby. In spite of her strenuous objections, Janet had confined her partner to a quiet bed in the back room of the infirmary and given her drugs to stop the cramps. With her native stubbornness, Janet had kept looking for the source of Claire's problem. Then Janet found that Claire had developed two completely independent energy signatures after she did an EEG of her partner.

During this time, Sam had been doing experiments on the blue stone on the chain that had once belonged to Claire's mother, and that Daniel had put around his sister's neck when Jacqueline Beaulieu had died. After a number of experiments in her lab, Sam discovered that the unique electromagnetic properties of the blue stone allowed it to hold an energy charge for a period of time before discharging it outward. She realized that it could probably serve as a conduit for an entity as well. In a state of excitement, Sam had brought the blue stone back to the infirmary to show Janet, considering its possible application in dealing with their immediate problem.

In the part of the infirmary where Janet was working, the lights were dimmed. Although you'd never know it from working underground, it was late in the evening - around midnight. Since Claire had developed her problem, nobody had been sleeping well. Jack and Daniel had taken rooms on the base and drifted through the infirmary looking helpless and worried. Teal'c had played endless card games with the patient who was too tired to concentrate on a game of chess. Even Cassandra had visited Claire at the SGC, trying to keep up a friendly teenage patter about her boyfriend and her clothes to distract her mother's partner.

When Sam came into the infirmary, she noticed that Janet was watching her partner silently through a glass window while she worked on more tests. Janet's brown pansy eyes were crinkled with anxious lines of worry. To Sam, it appeared as though the number of those lines had multiplied each day. Janet's shoulders sagged slightly as if she was carrying a heavy weight. The last time that Sam had seen her friend so distressed was when Cassandra had been ill over a year ago.

"Hey," Sam gave Janet a wide grin of friendship, "How's the patient?"

Janet tried to smile bravely at Sam's encouraging tone, "Not so good," her soft brown eyes uncharacteristically evaded Sam's forthright blue ones, "I had to give her a quite a bit of medication to stop the cramping. But I can't keep doing that. But if I don't find a solution to this problem soon Sam, I think it's possible that we might lose more than the baby."

"What do you mean?" Sam brushed Janet's shoulder sympathetically with her hand, puzzling over Janet's words.

Finally, Janet looked up at Sam with tear-reddened, sleep-deprived eyes, "Oh Sam, her body chemistry is tied into the baby's in some bizarre way I don't really understand. I've never seen anything like it. When she was in danger of losing the baby, she just seemed to be fading away. I think its clear that this entity is responsible for her body rejecting the baby. It fades in and out. But her previous brain pattern has altered as well. It seems to be tied in with the mind of the child itself since she passed her first trimester. If she does lose the baby, I'm not sure she'll survive. Apparently, Teal'c told me this was very common on Chulak. Mother and child function as one. I'd never have anticipated this happening. And if something happens, it'll be my fault. I pushed her into this!"

"Whoa there," Sam put her arm around friend's shoulders, "Nothing's going to happen to Claire. We'll figure this out together like we always do, you'll see. You're overworked and overtired and feeling pessimistic."

"Do you really believe that?" Janet sniffed hopefully as a couple of tears tracked down her face. She wiped at it with her white coat sleeve, "Damn, I hate crying. And Claire's going to notice my red eyes."

"This is so not like you. Everything's going to be fine, you'll see," Sam reassured her and hugged Janet's shoulder, "I never thought I'd see the day when tough as old boots, little Doc Napoleon was crying."

Janet sniffled through her tears and laughed, "That damned pet name of Colonel O'Neill's has stuck to me like mud. But it does help to put the fear of God into the enlisted men."

"Listen Janet, I have an idea," Sam began to relay the information she'd gathered from her experiments on the blue stone eagerly, "You know, I've been testing the blue stone we obtained from Claire's mother. I think I understand its purpose. I believe it was created to hold an energy signature from another life form for a brief period of time. You remember when I had the intelligence of that computer life form downloaded into my brain, it sort of works like that, but it's much more sophisticated. I believe this device was actually designed for that purpose."

"So why do you think the device was made, Sam?" Janet pondered. Sam often bounced her ideas off Janet; the two of them built up a kind of kinetic energy when they worked together.

Sam tilted her head considering, "I think it was a way the Ancients had of interacting with another race of beings who were either pure energy or who were too far away to interact with them in any other way. It was an alternative to space travel." she guessed, "It's a theoretical possibility that a race of beings who lived in the far reaches of the known universe would have no other way to interact with the Ancients, and that the Ancients were developed enough to be open to this kind of interaction. Anyway, I believe that the stone could be used to transfer the intelligence of the entity in Claire's mind, at least for a period of time, into another person."

Janet shook her head, "But after looking at the documents on Project Archangel, I'm sure that when Claire isn't pregnant the entity is simply part of her, and that she couldn't survive without it."

Sam nodded, "You told about that yesterday before I went back to the lab to run more tests. Well, the process of exchange could be reverse engineered to replace it back in Claire."

"Well," Janet said thoughtfully, "The only other problem is that it seems to give Claire special telepathic and psycho-kinetic abilities."

"Actually, Janet," Sam added warming to her subject, "I'm not sure that I agree. I think this entity is usually benign. Although it's probably responsible for either the degree of Claire's unusual abilities or the abilities themselves, that doesn't mean that if another person hosted it, they would also have the same abilities as Claire. The pregnancy has clearly heightened Claire's sensitivities considerably. Now she can't hold anything made out of glass. And I noticed when I visited yesterday, that her telepathic abilities were much greater than they had been before. It was like having a one-way conversation because she could read my mind. I could probably McGyver a way to channel the energy signature or entity into the blue stone. From there, I predict that we could find a compatible available donor for it."

"Hey," Jack O'Neill entered the infirmary and went over to stand between the two women. He looked through the one-way glass window at Claire. He nodded absent-mindedly as though he'd seen something that troubled him, "How's the patient doing Doc?"

Janet explained Sam's idea to Jack O'Neill. He gave Sam a look of bewildered admiration, then cleared his throat, "Well, it certainly sounds like a Carter plan. Okay, I volunteer to provide a home for Claire's wandering spirit thing. Unless we could just put the genie or whatever it is into a bottle or something?" Jack added hopefully.

"Well sir," Sam explained using her hands to illustrate her theory about Claire, "In theory putting the genie into the bottle as you suggested sounds like a good idea, but the entity or whatever you want to call it, is actually a part of Claire. So, when she's well and healthy she needs it to survive. That means we need to keep whatever it is alive. And since it seems to require a human being for its survival, somebody has to volunteer for the job," She warmed to her subject, "It's a symbiotic relationship, like many relationships in nature."

She continued, "In the original experiment with Project Archangel, they used a combination of genetic manipulation and exposure to high energy particles to try and create a new human hybrid. And in a sense it worked. There is a part of Claire that has abilities most humans don't possess. Then the people who ran the project became frightened and tried to find a way to separate the entities from some of the children - and four children died. But whatever is inside Claire is now displaying its own unique energy signature. And this is distinct from her usual brain wave pattern. Therefore, it can be temporarily separated from her. It may or may not lend its special abilities to the person who plays the role of its temporary host."

"Under the circumstances," Jack said testily, "I think we should use another expression other than host, don't you?"

"Sure, you betcha'," Sam grinned at her commander, "But like I said, it's a symbiotic relationship. It's quite unlike the relationship of a Goa'uld to its host. Or any other powerful entities we've encountered before for that matter. Or like the intelligence from the orb that pinned you down a couple of years ago for that matter."

"An experience I know I'd prefer to forget," Jack added hastily.

Sam confirmed his view by nodding her head, "This entity is generally benign and seems actually friendly to humans. Of course, I would know more if I could meet the other children who survived that experiment. Maybe they could tell me what happened to them."

At this statement, Janet and Jack exchanged a meaningful glance. Janet's face expressed her vigorous disagreement with Sam's request. "Claire will never agree to tell you where those children are, Sam!" Her voice was soft, but firm.

"Maybe Daniel could help persuade her?" Sam pressed Janet.

Beside her, Sam heard O'Neill sigh impatiently. There was very little doubt in Sam's mind that in some way Jack understood Claire better than anyone else. Maybe, it was the way the government had used them both, playing with their minds and twisting them into something nature had never intended.

Jack stared fixedly through the glass at the patient in the next room, "Nah, she's not gonna' tell you squat about those other kids Carter. The NID pumped her for over a month several years ago, about this. They have drugs and all kinds of other great psycho stuff at their disposal to help them, and she still gave them nothing. It's their own fault. They engineered those kids to be the perfect little agents - able to withstand any amount of interrogation. Now, they're pissed off because she won't tell them anything. What did they expect anyway?"

Sam tossed her head impatiently. Jack O'Neill just didn't get it, but what was worse it didn't seem likely that Janet or Claire would get it either. Sam Carter emphasized her words trying to get her point across to the one man who might actually persuade Claire to help them in the way she suggested, "But Sir, if they've lived through this experience, maybe they could help us. She does actually know where they are, doesn't she?"

O'Neill snorted, "She knows Carter, but Claire's life is full of all kinds of strange people - CSI's, cops, other shrinks, doctors who work overseas with places like Medecins Sans Frontieres. She even spent one summer with a traveling circus." Jack shook his head.

"I don't understand why you're telling me this Sir." Sam said to him with a mystified air.

Jack's brown eyes were impenetrable, "She's a secretive person Carter. You should understand that. You'd be wasting your breath. They kept those kids virtually prisoners for two years when they were what - between three and seven years old. They killed four of her best friends. She'd no more help you bring one of them here than she'd help you saw off Daniel's right arm. Anyway, the oldest kid who was code named Gabriel is the only one who might actually be able to help. He or she could heal people."

Janet rubbed her forehead in frustration, "According to the files that you sent down, Colonel, the child called Uriel could make a mirage of himself or herself appear in one place while simultaneously being somewhere else - a bit reminiscent of the Nox. The ability to create and sustain an illusion - but what a name to give a child!"

"Yeah, Daniel told me," Jack shuddered.

"What does it mean?" Sam queried.

"Guardian of the underworld." Jack rubbed the back of his head in impatience, "I know you're a scientist Carter, but not all scientists are likeable or ethical."

Just then Claire sat up and called out, "Jan, Jan where are you?"

"I'm here Claire," Janet went to her partner and spent some time talking to her about Sam's idea.

Claire shook her head, "I don't know Jan, I wouldn't wish my problems on anyone else."

Sam had been standing behind Janet, listening to the conversation. She chimed in, "The entity, or whatever you want to call it, just seems to blend with the mind of the person who is in effect its guardian. It isn't even clear that the person who is the guardian for it will have any of your abilities. But what is clear is that if you don't carry the baby to term, you might die. By Janet's reckoning, you're around 27 weeks pregnant right now. Jack and I have both volunteered to act as a conduit to hold the entity for the rest of the duration of your pregnancy."

"It might help if we had a large pool of people to choose from," Sam suggested, "We don't know what type of person will be the most compatible with it."

"For crying out loud, that device on PX-whatever was unloaded all the knowledge of the Ancients into my mind," Jack said impatiently, "I don't think we need any other volunteers."

"I would disagree," came Daniel's voice from the doorway. He'd arrived with Teal'c to check on the patient in the infirmary. "From what I just heard Sam say, we have no reason to believe that this entity and the knowledge of the Ancients have anything in common. In fact, we can be fairly sure they don't because Claire has been functioning fairly well for thirty-two odd years and the database of Ancients robbed you of the power of speech within days as I recall."

"So, therefore, well?" Jack tossed his head impatiently.

"Therefore, O'Neill," Teal'c's soothing tones cut across the conversation, "You should have a large group of possible recipients for the entity to ensure the successful completion of this scientific endeavor."

"I would agree," Sam Carter stated firmly.

"Just a moment, don't I have any say in this?" Claire asked incredulously.

"No!" confirmed five voices at the same time.

"Can I at least request that Janet not be involved, at least not unless the first attempt doesn't work?" She made a second suggestion.

"That seems more than reasonable," Teal'c said fixing her with his dark eyes, "But as I understand it, it would facilitate matters greatly if you might be willing to ask the child once called Gabriel to come here to help us."

Claire looked down at the floor and shook head stubbornly.

Daniel went over to Claire's side and took his sister's hand, "No, she doesn't have to do that, Teal'c. We'll cross that bridge if we have to later on." He turned and whispered into his lover's ear in an undertone, "Gabriel would be picked up by the NID in five minutes Jack. Power over life, that's a pretty big gift to hand over to Kinsey. Besides, Claire told me Gabriel was far away. Not in North America. Which means that Uriel, the friendly guardian of the underworld, is probably closer."

Jack nodded at his lover's words and put a hand on Claire's shoulder, "It doesn't matter Munchkin, we'll manage somehow."

~~~

Two days later, true to her word, Sam Carter had McGyvered a collection of wires and cables feeding into the blue stone. Sam and Janet believed that an appropriate electrostatic charge would unbalance the entity inside Claire, causing its energy signature to feed back into the blue stone where it could reside temporarily. From there, it would travel back through a similar connection into another human host.

First, they attached Daniel to the cabling which fed directly into his mind from the blue stone. Dislodging the energy signature from Claire proved the least of their problems, after a jolt it traveled along the cabling into the blue stone, which glowed with a strange inner light. They immediately disconnected Claire from the device, making it impossible for the entity to go back into her. From there, theoretically, it should have transferred into Daniel's mind. However, the glow from the blue stone remained constant. Daniel was obviously unsuitable as a host. Next, they tried Teal'c with the same results.

Then they attempted to move the entity into Jack. By this time, the glow inside the blue stone was dimming and blinking on and off. It traveled along the path that Sam had set up for it into Jack's mind.

"Do you feel anything Sir?" Sam inquired of O'Neill a little nervously.

"No I don't..." Jack began to speak, but the being started to assert itself from inside Jack, "This is a strange sensation." Jack said in a detached unemotional voice, "I am getting weaker. Therefore, I am forced to take up residence in this male body. If I might suggest to you, the female would prove far more conducive to me. If I die, when the female delivers her child, I will not be able to return to her. She cannot survive without me at present, in her altered state."

"Who are you?" Daniel inquired.

"I am the guardian, the one who has come at your request, the one who you will turn to in your time of need. However, I am not happy in this being. He has certain incompatibilities that I find distressing. He has been in contact with the Ancients, our allies. I earnestly wish that no harm should come to him, and it is possible that I might unwittingly damage him. I suggest that the woman would serve me better. Women have always served me better."

"What about using me or Teal'c?" Daniel inquired.

"You are already carrying a heavy weight on your shoulders, young Daniel. We will not give you a heavier burden. And the one known as Teal'c is host to an alien hostile to us." The entity confirmed.

"Do you have a name?" Daniel continued.

"You may call me the one who travels or Michael as you have always called me." Jack's voice rang hollow.

"Where are you from?" Daniel pressed for more information.

"From the edges of the universe where thought and material reality are one and the same," Jack continued, "But please, the woman is required." Jack faced Sam, and grasped her hand. She gasped as an energy wave leapt from his hand into her body. For one moment, she had an awareness of another being in her body and then it faded. She felt quite ordinary.

That feeling hadn't lasted. It had been a rough couple of weeks, Sam reflected. She took another sip of the hot fresh coffee without thinking and burned the roof of her mouth. Damn, she was going to have to pull herself together. SG-1 was going off world to P5T-876 at 1000 hours. What a crappy way to start her day!

Dazed and confused from her overly active night dreams, she slapped her cheeks and wondered if she'd ever get used to the annoying presence in her mind. Then she rose up and went searching in her drawers for her long-sleeved dark navy blue cotton shirt to wear underneath her BDU's for the missions.

After all, the Colonel had decided that Thursday missions were navy blue days. Sam smiled ruefully and shook her head as pulled the navy shirt on. How could she have not known that the Colonel was gay - navy blue Thursdays, black T-shirt Fridays, gray tank top Tuesdays, pale blue T-shirt Wednesdays and pristine white on Mondays. She should have known.

~~~

It was 0730 at the SGC. Sam searched the commissary for a familiar face to keep her company. There were a couple of marines talking in the far right corner. As far as Sam could tell from their gestures, they were discussing football. Daniel, alone in the far left corner of the room, would make far more congenial company for her. The marines usually avoided spending time in the company of Dr. Jackson unless, for some reason, he'd been assigned to their team.

The general opinion of Daniel Jackson among the other SG teams was that he was a pain in the butt intellectual who didn't follow orders, even when the orders were for his own good. How or why Colonel Jack O'Neill put up with Daniel was a mystery to most of the macho servicemen on the base, but it was known that O'Neill took the civilian archaeologist's safety quite seriously. O'Neill would probably kill anyone responsible for damaging Daniel - and Jack was ex-Special Ops, so that damage could be quite extensive. Jack and Daniel might bicker like an old married couple and fight occasionally like cats and dogs on missions, but the rest of the time they snorted and laughed together like two men who were the best of friends. Get one in your face and the other wasn't far behind.

Sometimes Sam was afraid for them both. Working at the SGC could be hazardous; she didn't know how either one would survive the loss of the other one. The job was all consuming. She felt that Claire and Janet were really the lucky ones; they were starting a family. SG-8, the Medical Team rarely had casualties.

Daniel was engrossed in reading an article in a folded back magazine he held with his left hand while he tried to pick up pieces of his waffles in syrup with his right hand; he wasn't making much progress with his breakfast.

Here was another clue that Jack was occupied elsewhere. Daniel must, at least, be temporarily free from the ministrations his lover. She'd heard Jack's lecture to Daniel on the subject of pre-missions breakfasts so many times that she could close her eyes and hear him say it in his Colonel-in-charge voice. "Breakfast Daniel - it's the most important meal of the day. Eat up." Jack's warm impenetrable molasses brown dark eyes would stare in the depths of the archaeologist's blue ones in that special way that he dealt with Daniel. Then Daniel would scowl faintly before finally giving in and eating his food.

Daniel's blue eyes never left the article, then he turned the page and knocked his coffee over and it just missed his pants. He jumped to his feet and swore loudly in Abydonian. Debby Harcus, the commissary's supervisor, hurried over to Daniel's table with a clean tablecloth and a fresh cup of coffee. She was used to Dr. Jackson's clumsiness; he upset his coffee in her commissary on average at least once a week, although when he was really preoccupied he'd done so more often.

Sam approached Daniel's table as he reseated himself with his new cup. Her tone was slightly scolding, a product of several nights of dreams and poor sleep, "I see you're still busy reading professional journals while you drink your coffee. This always happens when you fold your journal back like that. Your attention wanders."

"Gee, thanks Mom," the flushed archaeologist was sarcastic.

Sam touched Daniel's shoulder gently, "Aw come on, Daniel," Sam reiterated, "I'm just kidding you. Don't be so touchy. I'm just dying to know what article's got you all stirred up."

Daniel folded back the covers of Archaeological Review Today and exposed a black and white cover photograph of a bearded man with a cigar clenched between his teeth on the cover. The headline read 'Dr. Harry 'Graverobber' Covington, His Legacy'.

Her interest piqued, Sam gestured at the journal, "Um, wasn't Dr. Janice Covington, his daughter? And wasn't she Catherine Langford's..."

Daniel interrupted pointing to the article, "Yeah, she was Catherine Langford's thesis supervisor during her Ph.D. You remember - Janice Covington's partner was Melinda Papas, the linguist. They made quite the team. Look at them Sam. They were lovers almost sixty years ago." His blue eyes glowed and smile lighted his face as he touched an old black and white photo of the two women in the top corner of the article.

"Of course I remembered!" Sam bristled slightly with hostility. Sometimes, she thought that Daniel forgot that she used to work with Catherine Langford, and had in fact known her before he did. But Daniel had cracked the code that allowed them to open the Stargate the first time, and that had bought him a free ticket to Abydos while Sam Carter sweated it out in Washington D.C. "I DID work with Catherine for quite some time before they hijacked you to find the missing cartouche. Catherine used to talk about Dr. Janice Covington all the time, how she carried a bullwhip and chomped on cigars," she tilted her head inquiringly, "You admire them."

The lines between Daniel's eyes creased in reflection. Of all the so-called straight people in the military at the SGC, Sam came the closest to understanding how difficult it was for him being gay in the military environment of the SGC. While it was true, he and Jack been given an enormous degree of latitude about their relationship not permitted in any other military organization, because of their work, it still chafed at him frequently. Often Jack would remark in frustration that he just wanted to retire to his cabin in Minnesota and spend 24 hours a day Daniel-watching instead of worrying about his partner's personal safety. However, Daniel wanted to keep working on SGC; he felt in his heart of hearts that he'd know when it was time to retire.

"Well, yeah of course I do." He pitched his voice low, "It still isn't easy, being gay in the air force, "don't ask, don't tell". You know. We still have to be pretty careful. Although so many people know, I don't know why we can't just be more open about it. But Jack says that the NID would get involved. I guess sometimes, it's a bit frustrating."

"But the heart doesn't choose, Daniel," Sam's blue eyes blurred slightly with emotional tears and Daniel looked momentarily startled.

He gave her a piercing glance, "Yeah, well that's what Claire always says."

"Sometimes she can be right," Sam commented smoothly.

Daniel gave Sam another penetrating stare, "Are you okay, Sam? You look really exhausted."

"I've been having a lot of weird dreams," Sam confessed.

"What kind of dreams?" Daniel asked sharply, a little too sharply.

Sam blushed to the roots of her hair, "Oh you know the kind of thing, Daniel. I'm sure you've had them before."

Daniel gave her a slightly hostile stare and wondered if she'd been dreaming about Jack. He didn't like that idea at all. He threw up a trial balloon, "I used to dream about Sha're sometimes," he said slowly, "And I always dreamed about Jack. But that was before Sha're, well you know."

Sam knew exactly what change he was alluding to in his life, but there was no way that she was going to tell Daniel about the content of her dreams. Claire was her best friend's partner. It would be better if he thought that she was dreaming about her CO, but she shook her head, "No, this is quite different, it's like I'm visiting some place that I've already been. We're all there - you, me, Jack, Teal'c, Janet. and its hot and dusty."

"And Claire, how does she fit in?" He'd picked up quickly on the person who'd been left out of her statement, Sam thought. How did Claire fit in? Did she feel differently than she had before about the woman she dreamed about kissing every night? No, she pushed that thought away loyally, what mattered was the friendship between the three of them. This friendship was what sustained her during the bad times, and she wouldn't dwell on any thoughts that could endanger it at any time.

"Well yeah, she's there." Sam said carefully, trying to ensure that Daniel didn't catch onto the real content of her dreams, "I'm making a table. Do you ever dream about a place long ago, a hot dusty place?"

She glanced up helplessly at Daniel who stared at her fixedly, his eyes large behind his black metal frames. He remembered parts of this dream. He knew that Claire had had even more vivid parts of this dream. He cleared his throat nervously, "Cheese pastries. I'm eating cheese pastries and cleaning my hands. I'm writing in Phoenician on a scroll. A man appears in the doorway. The sun is behind him. I feel that I know him, but I can't remember who he is. I don't know. It's that meaning of life kind of stuff we're always talking about - kind of like Oma de Sala and Kheb. So, you can't just ignore it."

"I didn't have dreams like this before," Sam said in a small tight voice, "it scares me. The dreams aren't completely new to me, but they're just so vivid."

"Maybe you should talk to Claire about these dreams," Daniel suggested gently.

Shaking her head vigorously, Sam stated, "I'm not going to do that Daniel," Sam with a slight panic in her voice.

Daniel looked at her with some concern. This wasn't the usually unflappable Major Sam Carter he'd come to expect. She'd been through a lot of personal issues since joining the SGC. First, had come the death of her ex-fiance, Jonas Hanson. The shooting of Martouf followed. He knew that she'd had an intense affair with the Tok'ra, and he'd liked and respected him. Interspersed with these tragedies, was her intense friendship with Narim, the Tollan who died a short time ago, and her very brief relationship with the ascended Ancient, Orlin. Then two weeks ago, young Lieutenant Eliott had died after being host for a very short time to the symbiote Lantash.
It had definitely been a bad year for Sam Carter.

Daniel examined the spectacle of the worn and slightly red-eyed Sam Carter in front of him. Perhaps, the entity that was inside Claire was giving his Sam some trouble. He abandoned his petty jealous thoughts and leaned forward. It was a good thing that Jack had somebody like Sam with him on Ravenna. Sam was an amazingly good soldier who always kept her head, who was strong and loyal, but she had no one to cry to at night right now.

Daniel considered. Since Claire had become pregnant, when she turned up at Janet and Claire's house, Sam had had to be strong and positive, not show the cracks of pain under the facade of the perfect soldier. Sam would always put the needs of her friend Janet before her own. And Janet had been frantic with worry about the pregnant Claire. Now that Claire was almost six months along and the entity was no longer inside her, she'd stabilized and was working a couple of days a week under Janet's watchful eye.

Daniel decided to change the subject, "It won't be long now, Sam. I swear Claire is so big, it looks like she's going to drop twins on the sixth floor."

Sam laughed, happy not to talk about herself, "She does at that. She told me that the Colonel's mother wrote her a long letter. Apparently, all the O'Neill babies were huge and healthy. And you'd hardly believe it, but Claire was a nine pounder when she was born."

"Claire was a terror," Daniel informed Sam. "And I can't imagine that Jack was anything other than a terror. Did Jack tell you about the Nanny issue, Miss Fitzgerald?"

"More than once," Sam confessed, "But I think the Nanny's a great idea. Apparently, she's the daughter of your old Nanny."

"Yeah, Mrs. Fitzgerald was a widow from England - Yorkshire in fact. She was our Nanny for only four years and then she returned to England."

"So," Sam summarized casually looking at the cover of the magazine, "Covington and Papas discovered the Xena scrolls in the 1940's [The Xena Scrolls] and the dubious blue scroll a little later. I guess that made their reputations.

"Yeah well, those manuscripts were quite the find!" Daniel looked down the ground, "They worked on the Xena scrolls. Before Janice found the scrolls, she and her father - old Graverobber Covington - were quite the persona non-gratis in the scholarly archaeological community. Harry Covington sold all kinds of artifacts in order to continue his search for the Xena scrolls."

"It gives you hope. Maybe, someday there'll be a TV show with Dr. Daniel Jackson, intrepid archaeologist in it," Sam teased him.

Daniel blushed scarlet, "Oh, I don't know. I think that 'Wormhole Extreme' gave us more than enough coverage."

"Come on Daniel," Sam went on mercilessly, "You already have a website about your archaeological theories. The famous Dr. Daniel Jackson."

He snorted, "More like the crazy, Dr. Daniel Jackson. The quotations from my speeches to the Archaeological Society at that website make me sound like a total nut bar."

Giving him an immense white grin of camaraderie, she shook her immaculate blonde head with the hair tucked neatly behind her ears, "Well, as a scientist would you rather be right or admired?"

Daniel winced, a line appearing between his eyebrows as if he were deep in thought, "Both if possible. But I'd rather not be quoted at a website with a guy dressed in a large wicker basket outfit with a caption underneath reading 'Are these the original spacemen?'" They giggled companionably.

Sam decided to move on to a discussion of their present mission, "Okay, what do you think we're going to find at P5T-876? Something interesting, I mean for you, other than the trinium? The trinium's only interesting for me. If I even say trinium to the Colonel, his eyes start to glaze over."

"Well, yeah, Jack does do that!" Daniel put his hand on the top of the blue mission report folder, "But anyway, SG-9 under Major Benton made the initial contact after we sent in a MALP and a UAV to find out about the general atmosphere and the conditions. Apparently, the locals weren't too pleased about either device. They're a pre-industrialized society, living in small villages close to their sea. They seem to be a tribal society, very similar to early Great Britain and Ireland. They even have stone circles. Look at that Sam." He passed a photograph over to her of a large group of stones in a circle similar to Stonehenge, "Obviously still in use. You can see the offerings on the stones under magnification. And look at this." He passed another picture to her with the picture of a large wooden gate, "See the circular object in the middle of one side of the Gate to the nearest village. And on the other side, the double sickle of the moon."

"The sun and the moon?" Sam tilted her head in a questioning manner.

Pointing to the photo, Daniel outlined its major points. "Well, no actually. The circular design is almost identical to the similar objects found in the Celtic cultures of France, England and Ireland. This would strongly suggest that they came through the Stargate from our world, approximately a thousand years ago. Bronze circular objects such as these were commonly put into the graves of Celtic peoples. The same objects in silver were put into the graves of tribal leaders. We think it represents the Sky God. However, our records of Celtic culture usually come to us from Roman observers such as Julius Caesar, so we're not sure if the Romans really understood their religious beliefs. Before it was shot down, the UAV confirmed that they also have horses and chariots. The MALP gave us this picture before the locals pushed it into a bog."

He passed her another photograph decked in garland of flowers. It was a stone carving of three women seated together. A stiffness in their posture of the women suggested that the artist understood only the rudiments of three-dimensional sculpture, but a sweetness in the smiles on the faces of the statues and the fresh flowers at their feet and necks clearly illustrated that the shrine was in use.

"What is it? Are they a matriarchal culture?" Sam asked.

Daniel drew his brows together thoughtfully, "All good questions Sam. In Celtic culture, they were called 'The Triple Mothers', but I have no idea what role they play in this culture."

"Why haven't they developed beyond a late Bronze Age culture, Daniel? Are there Goa'uld there?" Sam puzzled.

Daniel sipped his coffee and grimaced. "More good questions forwhich we only have some vague answers. We do know from SG-9 that they've had no off-world guests for many years. They told us that Goa'uld used to go there to harvest people who were suitable hosts. The people are strong and healthy - just the kind of hosts that the Goa'uld tend to prefer. I think it 's quite possible that the last host for the late Cronus was from this world. Analysis of the DHD near the Gate, which I'm pleased to say is intact keeping in mind our bad experience with a broken DHD on Ernest's planet, shows that they haven't had any Gate travelers for at least twenty years. Their suspicious demeanor also suggests that it's been long enough that they've organized themselves to deal with possible problematic visitors in their own way. They wouldn't let SG-9 past the Gate. In fact, they told Benton that he would need to - and I quote - move the stones in order to get into the village. Benton described this process as some kind of guessing game involving the correct placement and choice of colored stones on a pattern on the ground."

"And Major Benton..." Sam lifted her left eyebrow in an unconscious imitation of O'Neill's questioning gesture.

Daniel snickered, "Yeah, he - ah - flunked the test. So, no village and no trinium and no negotiations."

The penetrating blue eyes behind the glasses revealed nothing of Daniel's intentions, but Sam knew immediately what he wanted. It was so clear. "You want me to put the stones in the correct pattern on the ground to get access to the village."

"Claire could do it, Sam," Daniel stated unequivocally.

Sam shook her head vehemently, "I'm not her, Daniel."

Daniel nudged his white coffee mug slightly with his index finger and gave her another meaningful glance, "FBI investigators are trained in looking at the smallest clues in behavior to help interrogators understand what's going through people's minds. I know that Claire can to do this, just like she's trained as a profiler. But her telepathetic abilities go far beyond any training that she's ever received. In general, I'm good at dealing with people because I was trained as an anthropologist to study their habits, their cultures. But this is different. I think you could do this, Sam. The entity in Claire chose you for some reason. I believe it was because in some way it understood you better than either Jack or me. Remember part of Claire's abilities come from it. I believe if open your mind to it, it will work for you the same way."

"I don't know about this Daniel," Sam lifted her hands in a gesture of defeat and helplessness, "I think the entity should've been inside you or the Colonel."

"Well," Daniel gave her his most winning half-smile, "You could just try." He put his hand on her shoulder, "I'm sorry if this is hard on you," he added softly, "It hasn't been a good year."

"Try a good last few years," Sam said bluntly, "I can't even go over and talk about my problems at Janet and Claire's house with this pregnancy thing. They are already so worried about their own issues. I don't want to cause them anymore distress."

Laying a hand on her shoulder, he patted it awkwardly, "This is a happy time for them. I don't think they'd think you were bothering them. Just think about it."

"Okay," Sam got up, "I'm going to my lab until its time to go. See you at 0900 at the Gate, suited up and ready to go."

She left him at the table and went directly to her lab on level 19. Sam was working with different grades of trinium to improve the resistance of the Stargate shield to heat. Turning to the problem at hand, a half an hour passed quickly. Suddenly, she felt as though she wasn't alone. She wheeled around rapidly.

Claire's hazel eyes widened in surprise and she stepped backward. "Hey, whoa Sam. I was just coming up to ask how you were doing." She looked much better than she had the last time that Sam had seen her. She was very heavily pregnant, her dark brown hair was swept back into a tight French braid with no wisps or curls at the side, but wisps and curls weren't really Claire's style.

She was wearing a cream colored suit with a plain pink silk shirt. Clearly, Janet had selected most of Claire's pregnancy wardrobe since the psychiatrist rarely bought brightly colored clothing. Sam noted that her swollen feet were in Birkenstock sandals. Her only concession to her status as a Doctor was a white lab coat. But that was par for the course. Even Dr. MacKenzie, the psychiatrist at the army hospital in The Springs, didn't wear army fatigues under his white coat. Janet obviously hadn't been able to prevail on her recalcitrant partner to stay at home instead of coming into work.

"Don't sneak up on me like that," Sam gasped, holding her thumping heart.

"Sorry habit," Claire responded.

"You're worse than the Colonel." Sam scolded. "He just comes in and plunks himself in your room. But you sneak in without even a sound. Shouldn't you, you know. sit down or something your feet look swollen. And where did you get those dreadful shoes? They're hideous and that black patent leather just makes them look even worse."

Claire smiled and wiggled her toes in the sandals, "Lesbian pumps," she pronounced firmly.

"Come again?" Sam asked in tone of disbelief. Sometimes, she just couldn't believe what came out of Claire's mouth. She'd probably told half the base the joke. If she hadn't been a civilian and a psychiatrist, it might been a problem. As it was she had a magical touch with young enlisted men to whom she always seemed totally non-threatening until they were confessing their numerous problems to her on her couch. Sam supposed it was a necessary qualification for a good psychiatrist.

"They're lesbian pumps." Claire wiggled her toes in the unattractive sandals, "General Hammond nearly wigged when he saw my feet. He made me sit down and kept plying me with decaff tea and social tea biscuits. I think he thought I was going to drop it right there in his office."

"Oh I thought that's what you said," Sam looked startled, "You can hardly blame the General. You sure look like that kid's about to drop any minute."

Claire smiled an evil smile, frighteningly reminiscent of O'Neill, "Nah, got a couple of months to go yet. Danny says you're having bad dreams. Want to talk about it?"

"Nope," Sam said promptly.

"Go-o-o-od," Claire drew the word out in a facetious tone, registering the opposite of its meaning on the listener. "Yeah, I'm still dealing with the fallout after the problems on Ravenna. Some of the men who survived are still having nightmares after the cave-ins in the Tok'ra encampment. I'm so glad you're doing well. Not having bad dreams are you?"

"Not really," Sam said brightly.

"Ah ha," Claire folded her arms and came further into the room, "As one of my colleagues in England would say, brilliant."

Sam met Claire's hazel eyes, and she felt guilt lay its painful finger across her heart. "I'm doing great," she lied.

"Super." The hazel eyes flicked around the room and rested on a pile of papers, the evidence of Sam's late night labors in her lab. "Right you are. And you've been here since what 0630 this morning? And as I recall the night before, you slept on that," Claire gestured with her head at Sam's chair."

Aw crap, Sam thought, the woman was truly a witch, "I'm doing great." Sam repeated again, thinking it sounded like an even bigger lie the second time she said it.

Claire gave her friend an incredulous look, "Ah ha, so you say. Of course, Janet's been somewhat preoccupied of late with me. And you haven't been by the house to spend time with either Janet or Cassie or even me. I know you and I haven't always been the best of friends Sam, but Janet's starting to really miss you. I thought when you came back from this mission you might come over and spend some time with Janet and Cassie. You don't have to spend any time with me, if you don't want to."

"No!" Sam said definitely, "It's nothing like that at all."

"Okay. What is it like, then?" Claire asked her, "I thought maybe it was about Jack. You know, residual feelings and all that. I was worried you were hurt."

"This has nothing to do with the Colonel," Sam said hastily, folding her arms in front of her. She licked her lips, finding that her mouth had gone uncomfortably dry, "I'm just not feeling very well. I didn't think the transference would make me feel so, so unwell." She concluded the sentence briefly, feeling a sheen of sweat break out on her upper lip.

"Bad dreams?" asked Claire sympathetically, coming so uncomfortably close to Sam that Sam wasn't sure whether to hug her or punch her in the face.

"Ah, yeah," Sam said backing away slightly.

"Repeating dreams?" Claire inquired further without moving closer.

"Um hmm," Sam acknowledged.

"What to talk to me?"

"Nope," Sam shook her head firmly.

"Mackenzie?" Claire eyed her suspiciously.

"No, I don't think so," Sam shuddered, "That will be when..."

"Hell freezes over," Claire guessed.

"Something like that," Sam agreed.

"Okey dokey then. Of course," Claire said conversationally, "after all you've been through this year with Narim and Orlin and Lieutenant Eliott, it would hardly be surprising if you were feeling lousy. Naturally, Janet's a little off her game or you'd have been off busy visiting Mackenzie or Greenblatt faster than you can say 'honey, he shrunk my head'. But that's really none of my business. But if you sleep on your desk much longer, Janet's going to jump all over you sooner rather than later. And of course, I'm the only one who knows about your little affair with the cute young Lieutenant Eliott, now deceased. Who incidentally, seemed very nice to me, although I wish you'd pick people who stayed alive longer."

Sam snuffled. Tom Eliott may not have been the love of her life, but he'd been good company at three o'clock in the morning and an enthusiastic lover, "Well, I'd appreciate it if you didn't tell anyone about that."

Claire mimed turning a key on her mouth, "Forgotten already. I just sensed that you were hurt about something and I knew that you and Eliott were an item, so I figured that that was it. Although I was just worried you were annoyed because this is half Jack's." Claire patted her prominent stomach. Then she left her hand there for a second and an intent look passed over her face.

Sam shook her head, "Nope, no problem with that. Although how you and Janet are going to keep the Colonel from arriving with armfuls of toys and putting his two cents in every two seconds, I don't know," Sam moved closer, "Is it kicking?"

"Well, it's half O'Neill, so it's pretty lively," Claire grabbed Sam's hand and put it on her stomach, "See." The two women smiled at the calisthenics of the baby, "It's probably going to be a lot of trouble too."

Sam smiled, "Probably. Okay, I promise to stop sleeping in my lab. It's only three more months and I can put this stupid thing back in you again, anyway."

"That's true," Claire tilted her head, "I brought you a gift for your mission. I think it might come in handy."

"What is it?" Sam asked her.

"Never leave home without it," Claire pressed a silver flask into her hand and started to leave the room, "And just say the first thing that come to your mind."

"What are you telling me?" Sam asked her.

Claire met her blue eyes straight on, "It's what I'd advise you to do."

Sam looked into the clear eyes of the woman, she didn't understand with puzzlement.

Just then Colonel O'Neill entered Sam Carter's lab, "Carter!" He bellowed out, "Are you almost ready?" Then he stared at the flask in Sam's hand, "Aw no fair Mom, Sis got a going away present."

"It's not for you." Claire told him firmly.

"Oh for crying out loud," he grumbled loudly, "I'll trade you all the chocolate in my pack for the flask." Sam tilted her head considering.

Claire quickly spoke up, "If you needed the flask, I'd give it to you Jack."

A broad smile broke out on Jack's carven features, "Naughty, naughty," he waved an admonishing finger at the small dark-haired woman, "Yeah you sure you betcha!" He continued, "Now I know there's something good in that flask." With two strides, he was at Major Sam Carter's side and his hands were on the silver flash. "Engraved," he said tossing it up with one hand, "Very nice. And now to sample the merchandise." He unscrewed the top and dipped one experimental finger inside and stuck it in his mouth. The expression on his face went from one of curiosity to wonderment, "Oh Jesus, Mary and Joseph," he immediately exclaimed loudly, "Cask strength. That'll melt your socks off, put hair on your chest and remind you who your mother is. What the heck is that stuff anyway?"

"Port Ellen, thirty year old," Claire gave him an appraising eye.

"Yeah, that's what I would've thought," he coughed slightly, "Remember me when you break out the cigars. And Carter," he said handing the silver flask back to her, "That stuff's as good as a weapon. Either that or we can trade it later for a small country. After all the good citizens of PX-whatever are probably whiskey deprived and several drinks under par."

"P5T-876," Sam prompted him.

"Yup and that too," O'Neill waved his hand dismissively at his 2IC.

"And the chocolate trade sir?" Sam asked hopefully.

He gave both the women a penetrating stare. "If the shrink gives you whiskey, Carter. You take the whiskey. You'll probably need it more than I will."

"Yes sir," Sam sighed dutifully.

~~~

Colonel Jack O'Neill didn't bother to stifle his yawn, although he hid it politely behind his hand. Daniel had been talking to the representative of the community on P5T-876 for the better part of two hours, but they hadn't any been able to persuade the citizens of Fergus to allow them any closer to the community than SG-9 had gone. As usual, Daniel's linguistic abilities had quickly helped them to establish communications with the community.

The residents of the planet clearly possessed highly developed telepathic capabilities that allowed them to communicate with the SG-1 in halting, if elaborate English. Jack O'Neill's eyes were unreadable behind his dark glasses when the representatives from the planet talked to them. Teal'c was standing stock still behind O'Neill with his usual air of faint menace. Daniel was the only one moving. He was speaking rapidly as the residents grasped the context of his words. He moved his hand to emphasize his points.

Sam Carter watched the proceedings with interest. She knew that her commanding officer hated to be pinned down in one place, feeling that it made his team vulnerable. Moreover, Jack was peripatetic by nature and didn't like being forced to stay still for extended periods of time. Daniel, on the other hand, could be so still and contemplative that even a summer's breeze didn't seem to ruffle his cheek. Two men more different, she couldn't imagine. But she supposed that this was the glue that held them together. Who could, Sam asked herself, fill the gap in her empty heart, match their step with hers, grasp the thirst for knowledge that burned in her belly or tell her about signs and wonders that were beyond her ken?

A narrow winding path ascended from the settlement to the Stargate that stood in an elevated clearing. The trees, which appeared to Sam's eyes to be some relative of silver birch, bent and hung over the track obscuring the actual settlement from sight. She was reminded of Robert Frost's poem "The Road Not Taken." She had always gone down the right road, done the right thing and this had led her finally to the Stargate. The choices had always seemed simple, but perhaps there was another way to go. She put it out of her mind and looked with sympathy at her suffering commander who was restlessly moving his P90 to his other side. She met the mocking, tired dark eyes behind the dark glasses, and she knew that the time for her to take action had almost come.

A group of about fifteen representatives from the settlement had come out to greet them. They were wearing long finely woven woolen robes in a variety of plaid designs with sleeves. These designs, Sam sensed, had something to do with clan allegiances. To back up this assertion, she'd noticed that the main speaker Pelagius, wore robes with red and black designs as did another man who'd been identified as Belanus. Both men had the red hair and freckled skin common to the Celtic peoples of Britain on Earth. Finn, the eldest of the men on the other hand, had a yellow and brown patterned robe. He was talking now, and she listened with care to his words.

"It has been many hundred moons since we last permitted visitors to come to our village from the ring. I barely remember them from the distant memories of my childhood." Finn shook his long white hair and beard in a gesture of denial. He planted his staff boldly on the ground, "We repelled our last invaders with strong magic. And the Sky God and Unnamed God helped us to become strong to protect our people. I do not believe that even the one with the snake in his belly here could actually defeat me in a battle with staffs."

"Okay," Daniel inclined his head in a questioning manner, "I take it that you want to fight with Teal'c. Of course," he with halting to politeness to the old man, "Teal'c is, um, very strong and may not want to fight with you."

"I would not fight you Sir," Teal'c added in response to Daniel's words, "I'm not sure you understand how my symbiote gives me great resilience in battle as well as additional strength." He bowed his head.

"Pahh!" The old man responded dismissively, his pale blue eyes meeting Teal'c's without wavering, "I have a few tricks that you may not be prepared to deal with. I've been taught to fight by the best. I would call our leader Epona, the Breaker of Horses, to come to bear witness to your defeat in the staff challenge."

"Daniel," Jack whispered quietly in his partner's ear, "They seem to want Teal'c to fight the old guy. Maybe we should let them fight."

Daniel gave Finn a nervous smile, "Well, um, if Teal'c fights Finn, will you admit us to the village?"

Pelagius stepped closer to Daniel and addressed Daniel firmly. He seized young man's chin and stared directly into his bright blue eyes. This assertive action made O'Neill stand up straighter and watch the irritating resident of Fergus with care. But Pelagius quickly let go of Daniel's chin. He snorted dismissively, "You cannot move the stones. You have forgotten about the wheel of life. You no longer sacrifice to the gods in the woods." He pulled a gold medallion with six rounded spokes out from a chain around his neck to show Daniel.

"Just as I thought," Daniel muttered to himself, "it's the Celtic symbol for the sky god."

"Just what kind of sacrifices are they talking about Daniel?" Sam asked her friend.

"Well Sam, I think they mean the literal kind," Daniel said to her, squinting his eyes with thought.

"We don't make sacrifices to the gods in the woods," Daniel told Pelagius firmly, "Is that what you want us to do before you'll let us come into the village?"

"You must face two challenges," Pelagius told him, "The challenge of the staff weapons against Finn and the placement of the stones."

"So, Teal'c must beat Finn in the combat of the staff weapons?" Daniel asked.

Pelagius gave him a savage grin, "No, he must face the challenge," he stated firmly, "Or sacrifice one of your number to the Sky God or the Unnamed God."

"Who is the Unnamed God?" Daniel questioned him.

"The one who brought us the one who fights with the staff weapon," Pelagius continued as though the answer should be apparent to even the simplest child.

"Well, that's certainly enlightening!" Daniel responded in frustration.

Just then Claire's words when she handed Sam the flask, flashed into Sam's mind. She stepped forward and grinned at Pelagius. "Just a second, Daniel. I wonder if this might help." She released the straps holding her backpack in place. It fell to the ground and she fished in a side pocket for the flash. She uncorked it and smiled. She took one sip of the strong peaty beverage and it hit her senses like liquid fire from the gods. She coughed and spluttered slightly and handed it to Pelagius who did the same. His eyes watered and closed in a moment of deep understanding.

"Aqua vita," he smiled knowingly, "The ambrosia of the Gods. And it's very good. Our ancestors brought the recipe for this beverage through the Ring many hundreds of years ago. If you have Aqua Vita, you must be family."

"You'll let me see the stones?" Sam inquired.

He nodded and another man stepped forward with a large linen towel. Out of the towel rolled stones in all colors of the spectrum: orange, yellow, red, indigo, violet, green and blue. There were three in each color, twenty-one all together. She looked up at the man's narrowed eyes as he watched her.

"Sam, do you know what you're doing?" Daniel asked her nervously.

Sam nodded, "You said I could do it. I'm going with my first instinct," she said to him.

She arranged the stones in the order of the spectrum in a circular repeating pattern: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo and violet. Then she glanced up from her place on the ground at Pelagius' feet. Something was missing. She leaned forward and drew a clockwise directional arrow in the middle of the circle. As she completed the picture, discussion broke out among the group of men from the settlement.

"What are they saying Daniel?" Sam asked him.

"Apparently, you've drawn the likeness which is representative of the Unnamed One," he told her, "I guess that's good. I don't know how you did it, but it's good."

Just then a chariot drawn by a large horse appeared in the road, a woman with long wild pale red-gold hair driving it. Dressed in finely woven robes in a natural off-white colored linen-like fabric with a gold border of chevrons at the botton, her arms were bare except for a large gold band on her upper arm with the wheel design on it.

"My sister, Epona, our leader," Pelagius acknowledged her presence by touching his arm to his breast.

"You aren't the leader then?" Daniel questioned him.

Pelagius laughed, "A man cannot be the leader of our people. A man cannot bear the children, to renew the tribe. That honor is reserved for a woman, a strong woman, a Breaker of Horses. The horse is sacred to our people."

"Greetings strangers, from beyond the circle," Epona sprang down from the chariot with the lithe grace of large cat, "Have the challenges been met?" She looked toward the men from her settlement.

"They've drawn the symbol of the Unnamed One, but have not met the challenge of the staffs against Finn. I think they're afraid to match him," Pelagius stated baldly.

Epona met Teal'c's dark eye taking two great strides in his direction, "You fear to be broken by Finn?" she asked with amusement.

Teal'c beamed serenely, "No indeed. I am larger and heavier than Finn by many pounds. It was Finn I was afraid of injuring."

Epona then turned her blue eyes toward Sam, and raked them over Sam's body with an appraising stare of brazen calculation. Then she moved over to Jack all the while watching Sam who blushed and looked away.

Quite suddenly, Epona turned her appraising glance to Jack. Her blue eyes stared unblinkingly into his dark brown ones, "You're a wise leader to bring this group to Fergus," she observed with seeming casualness. "There's a worthy female warrior with you this time. The last group was comprised of ignorant, arrogant males. They were much preoccupied with our weaponry, and failed in the appointed tasks. But in you, I sense a difference." She tilted her head back slightly, "Your mind is much preoccupied with the safety of the younger male here, the one with the glass circles on his face. I sense you're a bonded pair."

Jack's mouth gaped in surprise. O'Neill then cleared his throat, and viewed her with cautious detachment, "Nice trick, Princess. He's my best friend."

Daniel stared at the ground, knowing how reluctant Jack would be to say any words of affection in front of their team members, particularly with off-world strangers present. In Special Ops, Jack had been trained to hide his feelings, giving nothing away lest it be turned to his disadvantage. At this point, Daniel felt that this was not the best way to deal with the residents of Fergus.

The tall woman stood beside Jack, her bare-footed height barely an inch less than his six foot two. She appeared mystified by his words, "Why do you deny this? Such unions as yours are special in the eyes of the Gods. He's your soul mate. Your heart hungers for nothing more than him. Except for the hidden pain you carry for another - the dead child. I wouldn't speak of it, but you force my hand."

For a minute, Jack made neither sound nor movement. Only Daniel, experienced in reading his partner's posture, noticed that his Jack's head had hitched a trifle higher than usual. The reference to Charlie would have hit Jack unexpectedly. On a moment's inspiration, Daniel went over and stood by Jack and took his hand and squeezed it gently, "Your telepathic abilities have taken my friend by surprise. We normally don't speak of our pain in front of others. Similarly, we don't speak of our relationship when we visit strangers," he explained.

"But he's your soul mate," Epona stated unequivocally still watching Jack's eyes.

"Yes, yes he is," Daniel confirmed in a soft voice, holding his partner's hot hand firmly in his cool, smooth one.

Epona moved closer and touched Jack's jaw tentatively with her index finger, "The pain of great loss isn't easily overcome. But great joy will be yours again one day."

Having disarmed Daniel and Jack with her psychological forays into their private lives, Epona then turned her attention to Sam Carter, "I sense great conflict inside of you. Your heart hungers for something it can't have."

At this pronouncement, Jack spoke up quickly and protectively, "It isn't customary for us to share our private thoughts. Carter here is an experienced warrior among my people and the best second in command I've ever had. We respect her personal feelings by not discussing them in public."

Sam blushed again. Epona gave Sam a heated look, "My people are telepathic and can't afford the luxury of this thing you call personal. But we can speak of these matters at another time, privately." she purred seductively, "We are pleased to have a warrior of your caliber among us." She clapped her hands dismissively to the men, "We will forego the challenge of the staffs today in honor of the great feast day of Midsummer. We'll allow the strangers to come to the settlement." She whipped around to face Teal'c, "Perhaps, in place of the challenge of the staff, you'd play the role of the horned one in our festivities."

"Indeed, I'd be honored," Teal'c bowed his head gravely before Daniel could make any response.

"I don't think that's ..." Daniel began to say before the leader from the settlement interrupted him. She shrugged her shoulders expressively.

"It's customary for a visitor to play the part of the horned one at the Midsummer festival. Your friend will be undamaged."

"It wasn't him I was worried about," Daniel commented quickly, but Epona ignored him.

Taking Sam's hand in her own firmly, she gave Sam a predatory smile, "You will come with me in the chariot," she said quickly, propelling Sam into the vehicle, "The rest of you will follow." And with a lash at the horses, she was gone as quickly as she'd come.

Jack O'Neill considered he'd been remarkably slow off the mark, but maybe that had been the intention of the comments about his dead son, "Um Daniel," he whispered to his partner, "This horned one they want Teal'c to play, will that be a problem?"

Daniel turned his head with his knotted scarf of dark camouflaged material toward his partner. His eyes lighted up mischievously and his wide pink mouth stretched in a grin, "Well, it's not really a problem unless Teal'c can't perform."

"Perform?" Jack looked at Daniel quizzically, "Perform what?"

"Well, ah," Daniel shoulders shook with silent laughter, "A significant part in what I'd guess is an ancient fertility ritual." He batted his lashes at Jack, leaving his partner momentarily speechless.

"What fertility ritual?" Jack demanded annoyed.

Blue eyes met brown ones without blinking, "Oh, you know Beltane, Jack! Celts, open fires, midsummer madness that sort of thing. Teal'c charging around with horns, getting it on with the local girls. You know, good clean Celtic ritual fun."

"I assure you O'Neill," Teal'c intoned solemnly, "I have no intention of attacking the local female population with curved musical instruments."

"Well, I feel better already," Jack commented sarcastically.

"And then there's that woman with Sam," Daniel threw in, adding to his partner's already growing number of worries.

"Thanks for reminding me," Jack inclined his head.

"Major Samantha Carter is well able to care for herself," Teal'c said in an undertone to Jack.

"Do the names Orlin, Narim, Martouf and Jonas Hanson mean anything to you?" Jack said in a friendly tone.

Furrowing his brow, Teal'c pondered the list of names given to him, "Quite, they were all previous romantic partners of Samantha Carter. And now, they are all deceased. But you have left out Lieutenant Tom Eliott."

Jack wheeled around the face Teal'c who was so annoyingly perceptive about people. Teal'c always knew everything that was going on around the SGC, picking up on details and information that had by-passed Jack completely. That was so very wrong. For crying out loud, Teal'c wasn't a psychiatrist or something. It wasn't as though he'd been over at Janet and Claire's for those 'girly' woman-to-woman talks, he knew that the lesbians had been in on. Carter had probably spilled her guts to the two lesbians in Technicolor detail. This was just plain unfair. Claire was pregnant; at least, she could've become overly emotional one day and told him everything.

The only thing he'd seen his pregnant lesbian friend get emotional about was the day that the commissary ran out of sweet pickles to put on her vanilla ice cream. That had been just plain ugly. She'd snarled at the cook angrily before stalking out of the commissary in huff.

"Big mistake," he'd said cheerfully to the alarmed kitchen worker, "She's probably gone to the weapons locker to find a claymore to take you out." Sweet pickles had miraculously turned up the next day, and Jack had had at least one story to hold over Janet Napoleon Fraiser's head for the next month.

But this Carter thing had taken him completely by surprise. The CO was always the last to know, he reflected.

"Exactly." Jack slapped his knee with feeling and stopped suddenly, "This is so wrong on so many levels. Hell, I didn't know about Eliott, Teal'c. How did you know?"

Lifting one eyebrow, Teal'c inclined his head to the side, "I am privy to many secrets, living on the base" he stated with annoying blandness, "In any case, Major Carter's love interests are always exceptionally obvious. Her boyfriends, as you would say, hang about her laboratory making bovine glances at her."

"I think he means cow eyes," Daniel told Jack unnecessarily.

"I could've guessed that Daniel!" Jack said with some exasperation, "But Lieutenant Eliott? And Narim? I thought she was just friends with Narim."

"The affair with Narim was quite short-lived," Teal'c consoled O'Neill, "But as for the love interest in Lieutenant Eliott. It was..."

"It was really, really obvious Jack," Daniel concluded mercilessly.

They'd turned a corner in the narrow tree-lined path and found themselves face-to-face with a large wooden stockade gate. They walked through the open gates following Pelagius, Finn and the other men. On one side of the open gate, a large wrought iron device that was a precise duplicate of the wheel with six spokes that Pelagius wore around his neck. On the other side of the gate was the symbol of the double crescent moon.

Daniel gestured to the gate of the stockade and spoke to Finn, "I see you keep the symbol of the Sky God on the Gate."

"He has been our guide since ancient times," Finn stated impatiently.

"Yes," Daniel responded, "But the other symbol, the moon. I assume you use the symbol for the moon."

"We have two moons in our sky," Pelagius pointed out, "The Unnamed God protects us from harm."

"But this Unnamed God," Daniel persisted, "Does it live here? Does it have a name? Does it take prisoners among you through the Stargate? I thought it had been some time since you'd seen the Goa'uld?"

"She protects us," said Epona coming up on them suddenly, "She is everywhere, in everything. No one has come through the Ring for many many years. You are the first. The Unnamed God protects us. She asks only that we allow her to reign free in the woods at night. We do not go into the woods by night. They are sacred. Oh look, we've brought you water from our wells." A young girl arrived carrying water across her shoulders in two wooden buckets with a dipper.

"We have water," Jack commented cautiously.

"You, you make sacrifices in the woods?" Daniel asked the two women. He sniffed cautiously at the water in the bucket with the proffered dipper. "It smells like ordinary water Jack." And with that he took a long sip from the dipper and bowed in acknowledgement to the young girl.

Jack gave his partner a long look and shook his head, "If you're going to die or poison yourself, you're not going alone Danny," he muttered under his breath. He smiled at the young girl holding the dipper and drank the water. She then turned to Teal'c with the dipper, and Teal'c drank from it like Jack and Daniel. At this point Sam Carter arrived. She was also offered the water from the dipper, but she refused.

"Rhiannon thanks you," Epona told him indicating the young girl with the water bucket, "As for the Unnamed One, she doesn't permit the shedding of human blood any more. All of life is sacred to us. The Unnamed One teaches us that."

"So what do you do with your criminals?" Daniel asked her. When Epona looked confused, he tried to give her an explanation, "You know, those who hurt others."

Epona nodded, "That happens so rarely. We are a small group. On these rare occasions, they are banished to the woods outside the settlement. Sometimes they return. Sometimes they don't. The Unnamed One decides for us what their fate shall be."

"And you've met the Unnamed One?" Daniel pressed her.

Epona shook her head, "It's forbidden. For the last six hundred moon cycles, the Unnamed One had kept us safe from the outsiders. She asks only that we respect her, her privacy as you would call it."

Sam felt a sudden concern that their interest in the trinium might be forgotten. She interrupted Daniel's conversation with Epona. "It's quite remarkable Sir," she told O'Neill, "The images on the gate are made of pure trinium."

O'Neill nodded, "So, it's useful stuff for us? Carter, Daniel is concerned by the image of some god called the Unnamed One."

Sam grinned, "I don't know Sir, they seem quite harmless. Tonight is some kind of feast night. And tomorrow Epona has told me we can go to the open pit diggings of the trinium mine. I'd like to stay and see that. It's the purest form of trinium, we've found so far."

"So," Jack pulled off his glasses as the sun was going down on the horizon, "No honking big space guns, but the materials for something good. Daniel doesn't seem happy about their religious belief system."

Sam laughed dismissively, "Well, I'd like to stay overnight Sir. We've been invited to the feasting. They're going to light a bunch of fires."

"Beltane fires," Daniel interrupted her.

"So!" Sam challenged him, "What does it matter? The trinium could be useful for the naquadah reactor I'm trying to build. And that's what we were sent here to find after all."

"Look Sam," Daniel used his hands to emphasize his points when he was excited, "Beltane on Earth was a kind of fertility festival in midsummer. You know, lots and lots of sex with complete strangers."

Jack's eyebrows shot up to his hairline, "You know Daniel, that's just not happening here as far as I'm concerned."

Daniel immediately huffed at his overprotective lover, "Does the name Kynthia ring any bells for you Jack?"

"No more than the names Ke'ra or Shy'la, do to you Daniel!" Jack rapped out quickly.

"Well, I didn't actually do anything," Daniel responded quickly, "Unlike the person who ate the wedding cake on Mycenae."

"Right, you just got engaged to a princess while we sweated it out in the mines," Jack reminded him.

"TMI time guys," Sam attempted to stop the argument between the two men.

"What is a TMI?" Teal'c tilted his head quizzically, but no one was paying any attention to him.

"And of course, there's Laira, the woman who wanted your baby!" Daniel glared at Jack.

"Oh for crying out loud Daniel, that was never going to happen and you know it," Jack made a dismissive gesture with his right hand.

"Right, that's what you say, now" Daniel rolled his eyes, "But whose sister is pregnant with your child?"

"I thought this wasn't a problem for you," Jack responded, "We discussed this. It's not like I actually slept with her or ever would."

"Guys what the heck are you arguing about?" Sam questioned the two men in a bewildered manner.

"I'm just pointing out that there's no basis for your irrational jealousy," Daniel sniped back.

"Great Daniel," Jack yelled at his partner, "You just go out and do the Beltane fire thing, then. Fertility rituals and all."

"I'm going to fuck the first cute tight-assed young man I find," Daniel snarled getting right into Jack's face. For a second Sam wondered if O'Neill was going to hit his partner, but he simply pushed Daniel out of his way.

"I'm going to see about this Beltane feast thing," Jack said through tight lips striding away.

"You do that Jack!" Daniel yelled after him watching his partner's six disappear around a large wooden structure to the right of their path. "Of all the stubborn, pig-headed men in the universe to choose from, I had to fall in love with this one!" he said to himself, seemingly unaware of his Sam's puzzled eyes looking at him. "How many women do you think are going throw themselves at him before the night's over?"

"I don't think you'd have to worry about that Daniel," Sam reassured him. This was odd, Daniel and the Colonel didn't argue in public about their relationship. Furthermore, neither Daniel nor the Colonel expressed any feelings of uncertainty about it. "Epona told me that they have great respect for committed relationships. Are you guys feeling all right Daniel?" She added in a concerned tone.

"I'm fine," Daniel seemed agitated, "I just wanted to point out that this feast thing was more complicated than Jack seemed to realize. Oh, what the hell, I don't what I wanted to point out. He never listens, but it doesn't really matter now does it? He rips the heart right out of my chest sometimes."

"The Colonel loves you Daniel," Sam said with certainty, "But neither of you is behaving normally." But Daniel's limpid blue eyes had a glazed far away look in them.

"This is true Daniel Jackson. And I do not believe you were sincere in your desire to find an attractive young man in this settlement to sequester yourself with and mate?" Teal'c also seemed worried over Daniel's words.

"No of course not!" Daniel looked away, "Jack just makes me so angry sometimes. And there was something about being here, I wanted to say, but I just can't remember what it was."

"That is comforting," Teal'c said soothingly as his eyes searched through the small gathering of nubile, young women who were eying him with more than a passing interest, "I am going to find O'Neill and look over the residents of the settlement before the feast." Sam and Daniel were left alone.

"Maybe we should go back through the Stargate," Sam tried suggesting to Daniel, but he looked vaguely off into the distance. In spite of her forebodings, Sam couldn't get him to consider finding the Colonel and heading back to the SGC. It was, she reflected, going to be a long night.

~~~

The feast had been going on for several hours. There was a fire in the centre of the building, and a smoke hole had been left in its large domed wood and mud ceiling. Guttering torches were placed in bronze brackets around the perimeter of the main ceremonial building. Additionally, small oil lamps sat on the tables where people were eating. A large elevated platform with a low table ran across the back wall where the honored guests from the SGC were seated. It afforded a perfect view of the activities on the main floor.

The evening had begun with a harpist and some rhythmic poetry that was pleasant, Sam thought, although Daniel was not behaving like his usual self and asking numerous questions about the cultural activities that they were watching as they unfolded. Instead, he seemed submerged in his own inner dream world and watched the activities with a small tight smile on his face.

As the dinner progressed, the activities on the floor changed from juggling to swordplay, then to fighting with staffs. This latter activity was one at which the citizens of Fergus seemed remarkably proficient. Sam watched fascinated as the apparently elderly Finn, fought off a much younger incumbent named Decimus. The elderly man ran at the walls, making agile flips and turns while the younger man tried to block his moves. Finally, Finn disarmed him with a flick of his wrist.

At this time, Teal'c leaned forward to speak to their hostess with interest, "Can all your men fight like this?"

Shaking her head, Epona smiled, "Finn has been blessed by the Unnamed One herself with special abilities."

"I see," the J'affa became reflective, and as the wine cup passed to him he drank deeply, immersed in his thoughts. Even Bra'tac at the height of his powers, Teal'c reflected, had not been a warrior of such grace and dexterity.

As the double crescent moon rose high in the sky, the dances began. At first single dancers, male and female vied with other, the dances seemingly testing the limits of flexibility and sensuousness of the human body. The shadows of the torches added a cedar-like smell to the air and mysterious paganism to the dances. Soon, couples in combinations - male and female, female and female, male and male wound their lithe bodies around each other and added to the feeling of unbridled hedonism of the proceedings.

For the first hour, neither the Colonel nor Daniel had spoke to one another. If it hadn't been for certain stiffness in their demeanor, Sam might have thought they were totally unconscious of each other. On the other hand, both men seemed reluctant to allow the other one out of their line of sight. She'd seen a certain hunger in the corners of Jack's eyes that he was reluctant to show to Daniel, and the heat of them scorched her to the bone. The secret want behind the Colonel's dark chocolate eyes seemed to melt through the clothes of his lover, creating the image of two hardened, hot and musky bodies clinging to each other in desire. By the second hour of the feast, Daniel's hand had crept toward the Colonel's lap where it had been captured by Jack's long fingers. She turned away, embarrassed to see the pain and need etched on her leader's face.

Then she remembered dreams hidden deep in her own heart, dark soft eyes that she could drown inside, the slow rolling of thigh onto thigh, the sweetness warmth of another woman's breast under her hand. What was she thinking? If her dinner companions hadn't been so far gone, she would have dragged them out of this place. Her own feelings about women were locked in a mass of conflicting thoughts and emotions. In her recent dreams, she was finally about to release the burden of her loneliness, a burden that had only found some remote satisfaction in her friendships with women. She watched Jack and Daniel and she ached, but she had no idea how to assuage her pain. She longed to put her burden down, but she had no idea how to do so.

The SG-1 team was seated on either side of Epona at the long wooden table. Behind them were numerous woven cushions to lie back on while they were eating. Sam was seated beside Epona with Teal'c on her other side and Jack and Daniel on Epona's other side. Sam had brought her own water flask to the table with her because she was suspicious that the water had something to do with Jack and Daniel's strange behavior. A cup of red wine had been passed at the table. It was heavily spiced with cumin; Sam was allergic to cumin and had refused the cup at the first, second and third passes.

The girl with the water bucket, Rhiannon, was serving them food with her older sister Sylvia. Both women had giggled and stared boldly at Teal'c who returned their glances with interest. Around the sides of the room, Sam noticed that people were loosening up as the spiced wine cup was passed again and again. More than a few deep-mouthed kisses had been exchanged by some of the couples at the other tables at the feast. Although many of allies including the Tok'ra had same sex relationships, she'd never encountered a society where the sexual mores seemed quite this open. She wasn't sure how she felt about it.

The foods selected for the feast were designed to provide a sensual experience connected intimately to the night itself, a night of sexual fulfillment. They were heavily spiced, but light in texture and infinite in variety. No one used any implement other than a knife at the table. Water bowls were brought in and out to wash sticky fingers.

Sam turned to Epona who was examining her like a hungry lioness. Epona leaned forward, and her red-gold hair tickled Sam's jaw as she whispered sensuously in Sam's ear. "You're not drinking from the wine cup. Your heart is so lonely. I could make tonight pass more pleasantly for you." The sensation from her hot breath sent a jolt of electricity down Sam's neck. She shivered. She could do it. She could just lean back and let the other woman trace a line of hot kisses down her neck, but she felt no passion for this strange pale skinned woman.

"I'm allergic to the spice in the wine," Sam prevaricated. Part of her hungered to give into Epona's solicitations, but Epona was not the one she wanted. She turned to the other woman, "I wouldn't know what to do," she stated baldly, hoping this would discourage her tormentor.

"If I was the one you really wanted, would that stop you?" The other woman murmured tracing the arch of Sam's upper lip with a delicate finger. "No one here will remember tonight. Your friends are enjoying themselves." Epona nodded toward Jack and Daniel. Sam stared at them in fascination. Whatever they had drunk, it had totally undone any of their remaining inhibitions causing them to make an uncharacteristic public spectacle of their feelings for each other.

She stared as Jack pressed Daniel's palm to his mouth; Daniel inched closer to him, seemingly hypnotized by his touch. They faced each other. Daniel's head lolled forward onto the older man's shoulder for a moment. Daniel raised his head and carefully and placed his hands flat against either side of the other man's face. He stroked the right side with a slow delicate sensuous touch of his index finger.

Sam couldn't hear the words that passed between them. The Colonel's lips curved in a dazzling smile. He murmured some words, and Daniel responded briefly, never taking his eyes off the other man. Daniel laughed and straddled the Colonel's lap. Their bodies pressed together tightly, the two seeming to move as one. Jack's head was thrown backward and Daniel invaded his mouth with a searing kiss that excluded each and every one else in the room. Sam could hear her heart thump in her ears, the blood roared so loudly that her every breath seemed as if it were the roar and his of the sea itself. The two men fell backwards in a slow laughing embrace. For a few moments they disappeared from sight, then Jack smiled and took Daniel by the hand and led him out of the room.

It wasn't as though Sam needed to guess where they were going. As honored guests, they'd each been assigned quarters in a different wooden structure for the night. Daniel and Jack together. She was supposed to be bunked with Teal'c. Morning's cold light would bring embarrassment and concern, but this part of the evening's activities would never make into her written report.

"They will notice nothing else until morning," Epona's hot wine breath tempted her again with the possibility of trying untested waters, but Sam found that there was a resistant core inside of her that refused to yield to the other woman's overtures.

"There's something in the wine," Sam said her blue eyes opening in comprehension, "And in the water. How could you do that to us?"

Epona smiled, a feral smile, "No one will be harmed. You, least of all, Samantha."

"That's not the point!" Sam's voice rose loudly in protest. She rose to her feet.

"You cannot go out there alone, Sam," Epona grasped at her hand. Suddenly, Daniel's words regarding Beltane came back to Sam.

"I'll go where I please," Sam told Epona hotly.

"Indeed, Samantha Carter I feel that I must escort you to our night quarters." Teal'c insisted. She turned to look at her friend and saw something she didn't like inside those eyes as well.

"It's all right, Teal'c." Sam swallowed, "I'll take care of myself. Can you trust yourself with me this evening?" She asked him, "I like you. And under some circumstances, I might, you know, be interested in you. But not like this. Not here. Can you really say that I can trust you tonight?" Her honest gaze seemed to momentarily sober her friend.

"No Samantha Carter," he said earnestly, "In truth, I cannot trust myself tonight. You go on alone. I will leave you undisturbed."

"It isn't safe out there for you," Epona insisted again.

"And I can trust you? Why would I spend the night with you?" Sam spat the question at her.

"You can trust no one tonight. Except the woods," Epona said to her, "And they're full of danger."

"I'll take my chances with the danger," Sam held up her head, "I'm experienced in survival techniques."

Sam got to her feet and made her way outside of the large wooden ceremonial hut. She turned back to look behind her and noticed that Epona pulled Teal'c to his feet. His clothes were discarded and he was naked. Sam had always thought Teal'c's body was beautiful, but it was never more beautiful than it was this evening with the blazing fire behind him and his perfect velvety black skin. It was true she liked Teal'c enough to be intimate sexually with him, but it would need to mean more to him than just a meeting of their bodies.

However, she knew that in his right mind, Teal'c would never try and seduce her. They were companions-in-arms; she wanted nothing to spoil that between them.

If she ever decided at some time to make love to another woman, she wanted it to be a woman she truly cared about. Love and the heart might not choose, Sam thought, but she was strong enough not to attempt to destroy the knots of friendship and trust. She would settle for nothing less.

She watched as the dancers painted intricately knotted patterns on Teal'c skin in white liquid and affixed a mask with a pair of what appeared to be antelope horns to his head. She gulped. There was no one on whom she could depend upon except herself. She knew that Jack and Daniel would come looking for her in the morning. But she didn't begrudge her leader the love that was finally his. Jack and Daniel were soul mates; they belonged together.

She held her head straight; she was not afraid of the night or the trees. She'd make a lonely campfire out a couple of miles into the trees, and sit beside it until morning and the madness passed. She headed for her hut and her weighty backpack. A couple of men and women tried to stop her, but she easily evaded them. Putting her backpack on, she tightened the straps, slung her P90 over her shoulders and put on her helmet. You never knew about what was out there.

With a determined stride, she made for the gates of the barricade. A long sigh escaped her lips and she looked behind her. From the pre-mission briefing, she knew that the sun would probably rise around 0600. That gave her approximately nine hours alone. It shouldn't be a problem. The wooden gate stood open a crack. She slipped through it easily. The path to the Stargate was well lighted with torches and some revelers were outside the Gate. Sam wanted to avoid them at all costs. She turned her face to the left and toward the dark woods.

Only the distant tops of the thick deciduous forest were touched by the dim silver light of the double crescent moons that night. Sam passed through them slowly and quietly, feeling rather than hearing the crackling of smaller twigs under her boots, the crumpling bracken and the thick mat of needles under her feet. She walked for over a half an hour through the trees, making careful note of her direction so that she could make her way back to the settlement in the morning. Maybe, she thought as she permitted herself a grim smile, she could drive a hard bargain for the trinium with hung over settlement dwellers.

Ahead of her in a clearing, she could see a campfire. That was strange; according to Epona, there were no people from the settlement living in the dense forest. She moved toward the campfire cautiously and as silently as possible. She blinked. She could see a small blonde woman with long hair sitting with her back toward her facing a fire. She had two other women with her. One had light brown hair, and the other one had reddish hair. Both of them seemed to be taller than the blonde. She was relating something to them both to which they were listening attentively. It sounded like a story about a large boat that had capsized during tsunami at sea. There was no doubt about it, the blonde told a good tale. As Sam listened, she could hear her describing her characters - the merchant's young and loving wife, the cynical prisoner who believed in no one except himself and a tall heroic woman with long black hair who was apparently imbued with amazing fighting abilities. It was a tale with a moral too.

Sam settled in to listen more attentively. Suddenly, she heard a noise behind her.

"It's not nice to eavesdrop on conversations," said an assertive voice behind her.

Just before she was hit, she had a brief glimpse of tall dark-haired woman dressed in brown leather and armor. The woman lunged at her and she felt a sickening crunch somewhere in the vicinity of her collarbone. Pools of darkness swam before her eyes and she collapsed.

When she awoke, she felt a cool towel pass over her face. "Just hold the towel like that Cerna," a light voice instructed, "Leave it like that until she wakes up. Was it really necessary to put the nerve pinch on her Xena? She doesn't look so good."

"The effect won't last long Gabrielle," a directive woman's voice informed her, "Just long enough for us to find out who she is."

"You know, you'd think after fifty years of being host to Sil'ana, you'd have finally learned some of the Tok'ra ways. Talk first, nerve pinch later," the exasperated voice of Gabrielle continued on, "But no you always have to hit first and ask questions later."

"Right," Xena drawled, "You'd think after being frozen for 2,000 years by that strange little gray guy, Loki, you'd be a little more patient with my methods."

"Xena, she was just listening to the story. There was no real reason to hit her," Gabrielle sighed, "And you were just ashes Xena when the Asgard kidnapped me. It was me that was actually frozen for 2,000 years."

"What's the difference? Frozen, dead, ashes, it all feels the same to me. If someone with a big weapon comes creeping up to your campfire at night, you hit first and ask questions later," Xena pointed out, "Besides I feel a Tok'ra aura from this one."

Sam opened her eyes to watch the two women arguing. She tried to speak, but found that her mouth felt as dry as dust. "I'm, I'm...," she began.

"She's coming around Xena," the red-haired Cerna said to her.

The blonde, who appeared to be Gabrielle, brought a flask of water over to Sam's side, "It's okay," she soothed, "Don't speak. Just drink."

Sam closed her eyes momentarily and shook her head, "Can't, can't," she began.

"It's okay," Gabrielle reassured her, "It's okay, there's nothing in the water. It's not Beltane water."

"Yeah, you won't be dancing the hokey pokey by moonlight," Xena snickered.

"Really Xena, I think you could be a bit more sensitive," Gabrielle reprimanded.

Sam drank deeply from the flask, then tried to speak again, "I'm Sam Carter. I'm from Earth. You are Tok'ra?"

"Nice gun, Sam Carter," Xena addressed her standing over her in a threatening manner. She played with the weapon and disarmed it quickly and efficiently. "But we don't allow guns here. So tell me, why do I feel a Tok'ra presence in you?"

"I was the host to Jolinar of Malkshar. She died saving my life," Sam with quiet dignity.

Xena's eyebrows lifted slightly at this pronouncement, "I knew Jolinar in another life as Sil'ana. We were friends. That would make you much more interesting than I originally thought. So, what are people from Earth doing here?"

"We've come to trade for trinium." Sam managed to get out with some difficulty, "We need it to protect the shield around the Stargate on Earth.

"Stop badgering her Xena," Gabrielle ordered her lover, protectively hovering around Sam, "She's still disoriented."

"Oh, I think she's way more than she appears to be," Xena stooped down beside Sam and pushed the other woman's disordered blonde hair away from her face. "I think, she's an old soul. Aren't you Sam Carter? Or are you just discovering what being an old soul means for you."

Sam shook her head, "I think some of my more recent discoveries in that department haven't all been that pleasant, shall we say?"

"Yeah, let's say that," Xena chimed in her intense blue eyes burning into Sam's, "So Jolinar's just the tip of the iceberg. What's submerged under the surface is even more interesting. Cyane, wasn't it?"

Sam sat up confused. "What's going on here? How could you possibly know that?"

"It's the water from the springs." Gabrielle said gently, "It stimulates telepathic abilities in humans. We've been drinking it for over fifty years."

"Wait a minute." Sam held her head, "I must be dreaming all of this; the Xena scrolls are over 2,000 years old. They were the archaeological find of the 1940's. The real Gabrielle and Xena would be dead long, long ago. Xena died in Japan. Daniel told me so. The scrolls also talk about them living other lives."

"Surprise!" Xena's eyes got a slightly unbalanced look in them, suggesting that she'd could be counted on to try anything at least once. "Unfortunately, we've just had the one life. But it's been a doozie. That would be true if we hadn't been kidnapped by this nutty little gray guy named Lokki and his crazy spaceship. He kept us frozen for almost 2,000 years until he discovered a way to reconstitute my ashes. And it worked, sort of."

"Cloning problems?" Sam asked interested.

"Not exactly! But it's a pretty good guess." Gabrielle told her, "His efforts to reconstitute Xena from her ashes didn't exactly work the way he intended. So, she wasn't very well after Lokki finished with her. Then his buddy, this little guy Thor caught up with him and found us. Thor sent us to visit the Tok'ra because Xena was dying. He said the Tok'ra could fix us. In exchange for Xena's life, we agreed to allow the Tok'ra to implant us with hosts. That was about fifty years ago. Then we were sent here on a mission."

"My father's the Tok'ra Sel'mac and he never told me about you," Sam commented.

"Oops!" Xena smiled, "We're a small army of two, and not always in line with official Tok'ra policy. Well Sel'mac does knows all about us, but I guess we're not going to make into the Tok'ra Hall of Heroes."

"And the Unnamed One?" Sam inquired.

"Well, the Goa'uld that used to rule this world fifty years ago called herself Artemis. She would let the Goa'uld come here and claim human hosts." Gabrielle explained, "We fought and killed her. Then we took over as the rulers of this world. As long as we remain here, no other Goa'uld will try and claim this world for their own. We also taught the people to fight. Like Cerna and Alweg here, we teach them how to fight, the old fashioned way with swords and staffs. We don't want these people to be easy victims ever again."

"But none of this explains why you were wandering in the woods so far from the settlement on Beltane night. Most people enjoy Beltane, the freedom to do what you want the most, to feel love freely just for a night." Xena observed.

Tears sprang to Sam's eyes, "Let's just say, I, I just don't feel like being with anyone in that way. So I left."

"Do you remember me?" Xena asked softly.

Sam shook her head, "Vaguely. I've dreamed about you. But you," she addressed Gabrielle, "Seem familiar too. I think I'm just dreaming strange things."

Xena stared at Sam and went over to a pack beside the campfire. She drew a flask out. She went over to a tree and deftly stripped off piece of birch bark and fashioned a cup. She filled this with water and few drops. She returned to crouch beside Sam, "Do you want to forget Sam Carter?"

"Yes," Sam whispered, "Just to let go, for a little. To stop wanting what I can't have, and to stop the terrible pain inside me."

"Then drink this." For a moment, Sam thought that Gabrielle was going to intercede, but she said nothing. Xena's passionate voice whispered to her in the darkness, "Forget everything, forget who you are, forget about love and loss. For the sake of the friendship that I once betrayed, drink this and sleep. Wake up and be Cyane again."

Sam took the cup and drank and a profound wave of lethargy rolled over her. Her eyes closed. She slept.

"Take off her clothes and burn them," Xena ordered the two women, "Bury the gun and the boots. Leave nothing for her to remember."

"Why are you doing this Xena?" Gabrielle asked in her clear voice.

"Because I owe it to her. To give her some peace in this world because she was once Cyane and I betrayed and killed her." Xena's face held hidden secrets.

"It's funny," Gabrielle watched the fire play over the face of Sam Carter, "I was quite sure she was somebody else and that person had a soul mate."

"I know," Xena nodded. They understood each other perfectly without words, just as it had always been almost since they'd first met. "Yeah, I know we can't keep her here forever. But it'll give her peace, if only for a little while. She's alone now, lost like I was before you came into my life. It'll be a long road for Sam Carter to find her soul mate, Gabrielle, with many revelations along the way. I just thought we could help her out for a little while."

Next: Go Get Carter