Daniel & Adrienne #36 - Limits

**Author's Note**

This is LONG. WAY long. And if this is your first time here, please DO NOT read this story first. Click on the link to the right and start at #1.

Limits

Teal’c was awakened by a light tapping at the door, which startled him, since he was unsure of who could be on the other side at this hour and on this world. His warrior reflexes kicked in instantly and swiftly, he dashed from the bed, securing his zat gun from under his jacket and made his way to the entrance, cautiously to meet their threat. Moving silently as to not to wake Daniel or Cam; although nothing seemed to wake Daniel lately with his late night work on the database, Teal’c tiptoed, moving his bare feet carefully on the stone floor.  Listening again quietly, his weapon drawn and ready to fire at whoever was on the other side, he turned the knob and peering through the small gap into the tiny passageway, whispering sternly, hoping his tone would be warning enough.

“Who is there?”

“It’s me Tealc, open da dah!” The voice wasn’t threatening, but was in haste, a quiet feminine whisper, accented slightly.

“I feel like ah cooyon already, just open da –” 

She didn’t need to finish her request, Teal’c opened the door a small crack to see Dr. Adrienne Rowan standing shivering in the drab gray hallway.  She wasn’t in uniform, in fact she stood wearing a t-shirt and her pajama pants, casual even by her normals standards. By her face he could tell that she was visibly upset, and by the look of her disheveled hair that she had just woken up, possibly not in a pleasant manner.

“Is something the matter AdrienneRowan?” Teal’c asked, concerned by her state. 

“No, Teal’c, I’m fine. Just let me in befo I freeze ta death,” she answered as she stood there, arms crossed across her chest, holding what little heat the drafty passageway had to offer close to her body.

The old Jaffa warrior had to admit that it was much colder here on PX4-592; much colder than the original Stargate command base, which was hard enough to believe since Stargate command had been built right into the side of the mountain.  This world. however, seemed to be an entire planet of mountains, and an entire planet of cold. It reminded him of those movies where the little fellow with the big feet had to tote that ring around but he was too tired to remember the name of the movie right then, just that the poor fellows trudged around in the snow for what seemed to be ages completely barefoot, as he was now. He bowed his head slightly, stepping back from the doorframe and allowed her to pass.

“AdrienneRowan, where are SamanthaO’Neill and ValaMalDoran?” Teal’c asked, concerned as to why only one of the women was standing at their doorway and she laughed at the question, rolling her eyes as she stood there in tie-dyed slippers, gray faded pajama pants and a Thundercats t-shirt, a big kid because in many ways she really was. Inside, Teal’c smiled, thinking that Thundercats was a great cartoon and an excellent choice for a shirt.  

“Dey fine Teal’c,” she said, brushing her brown hair out of her face, “but ‘ave ya eva slept in da same room as Vala? She snores anyway and wit how cold dis place, she all stopped up. It’s sa loud that I was honestly shocked dat I couldn’t hear ‘er coming down the hall. You know it’s got to be bad to wake me up.”

“ValaMalDoran is snoring?”  Tealc was skeptical, but then again, nothing seemed to wake up Adrienne. He had been on enough missions with the woman where he now understood what Daniel meant when he referred to waking Adrienne as ‘waking the dead.’

“Then, where is SamanthaO’Neill?” the man asked, thinking that if anything, ValaMalDoran should be standing at their door, ousted by her comrades. 

“Coooh,  she’s ‘sleep.  I swah, I wish fo sho dat I drank whatever she ‘ad at dinner cuz she ain’t moved fah ‘ours,” Adrienne responded bluntly. The dark handsome man let out a loud laugh, both at the imagine of what might have happened in that room as Adrienne dragged herself from bed, swearing, and at the way she talked in the middle of the night, the words and accent of her people taking over for the speech he was more used to. Quickly silencing himself before his comrades could join he and Adrienne’s middle of the night chat session, he heard stirring coming from the bottom bunk, realizing his caution had come a bit too late.

“Teal’c?” Daniel said groggily.  Apparently the suppression of the laughter hadn’t been effective, “What is going on? Is someone here?”

“Indy it’s me.  I canna sleep wit Vala. She sahnds like a goddam freight train.  An if ya ‘ave a ‘ope an a praya of my being able to translate de’pouille tamarra, I suggest ya scoot o’er an let me in,” Adrienne ordered, making her way slowly, her feet literally dragging, over to his bunk. 

Teal’c was both surprised and relieved at her blunt request.  Upon arriving at the planet they were informed that they would be housed at the main government building’s former barracks as opposed to one of nicer hotels in town.  The two rooms, one for the men and one for the women, were across the hall from one another, but while the room given to the women had three twin beds, the room for the men had only a set of musty bunk beds.  Their hosts were unaware that Teal’c no longer carried a symbiote, unaware that such Jaffa existed and that he now required at least a few hours of daily sleep.  He had searched for hours to find the small cot on which he had been resting and despite both Daniel and Cam’s insistence, Teal’c had taken the smaller bed since he required about half as much sleep.  For a brief moment, he thought he had lost that bed too. 

“What?”  Daniel again questioned, still floating lightly in the world between sleep and wake.  

“Scoot o’er. Imma sleepin’ witcha.  Unless der be some snorin going on o’er ‘ere ya’d like ta make me aware of?” Adrienne was already at his bedside, shoving him over and Daniel moved, making it clear to Teal’c that the two of them had done this before, that what he had heard wasn’t just some rumor started by Vala. 

He again laughed inside at the convenient absurdity of the situation.  While there had always been one alien woman or another who had expressed their interest in Daniel Jackson, never before had Teal’c seen him actually act as if a woman existed other than Adrienne Rowan.  She was strong, but not pushy; intelligent, yet not arrogant and she liked languages as much as he did.  After serving on SG-1 for well over a decade Daniel actually had someone who understood what he was saying, literally.

With only the hesitation caused by his groggy state, Daniel lifted the blanket slowly and scooted over, forward on the bed and not over to the wall. Kicking off her slipper, Adrienne crawled over him, which Teal’c also found strange, watching in amazement as the cajun woman slid under the covers, quickly turning her back to him. Vala was correct; the two of them had done this before. 

“An, whoeva introduced ‘er ta Bat an Bodee Wahks, ya an I’ll need ta ‘aving a SERIOUS vay-yay tamarra mornin! I’va ‘voided takin’ ‘er der at all costs! She’s stinkin up da entire room!!” she was shouting now, apparently not as concerned as Teal’c about waking up the male contingent of the team, and if waking them up were her intent, it worked, because from the top bunk Cam was laughing. 

“I think you can thank Sam for that one.  They came in the other day with armloads of shopping bags from the mall.  God only knows what new and exciting things Sam has introduced her to,” he joked, knowing that anything girly that Adrienne would not supply, Sam would be more than happy to fill in. 

Daniel snickered from his bunk as did Teal’c from his cot. While Adrienne did not have any particular dislike for Vala but she also had a short fuse for her more immature behaviors, in fact, Adrienne would often comment that she had seen frat boys with more self-control than Vala.  They were good friends, but careful friends, and Adrienne wasn’t afraid to set her straight. 

Having a very eventful few minutes in the middle of the night, Tealc decided to try to sleep.  After all, tomorrow was going to be a long day and it was best that he rested. 

*****

As the rays of sun began to creep their way through the single frosted window and into the very small, very crowded room, Daniel reactively shivered, realizing as the warmth touched his skin how cold this planet really was. Reaching down to pull up the blanket he discovered that there was nothing there and he glanced out of the corner of his eye, remembering the 2 a.m. disturbance. Sleeping soundly, Adrienne lay beside him, facing him as he lay on his back, wrapped in the entire blanket, save a small corner she had left on him, a corner blocking from the view of the others, her arm holding lightly to his waist.  Thankful for small miracles, he didn’t need to add Cam to his list of harassers, he carefully lifted her wrist, tucking her arm at her side and inched slowly out of the bunk, trying not to disturb her as he left. Grabbing his glasses from his pack on the floor, he stood, tossing his SG jacket over the rest of the uniform, which he had slept in too tired to change, hoping that this planet had something equivalent to coffee.  

When they sent the MALP through weeks ago, he was pleasantly surprised to see a once undiscovered human settlement with similar technological advances to that of the Langarans.  With both the Go’ould and the Ori out of the picture, all but Anubis, who had been oddly quiet after the attack on the Gamma site, Stargate Command had discovered more and more advanced civilizations of humans seeded by the ancients that were somehow shielded from the madness of the galaxy. Each new civilization had led to more insight into the ancients, their achievements and their mistakes.  First contact with PX4-592, which was known by its inhabitants as Sklarana, had revealed they not only treated the Stargate as an undetermined armament, but that the Sklaranans had discovered an Ancient lab complete with volumes of information on a variety of topics.  These paper volumes were a very intriguing find, since most of the ancient writings that they encountered prior were either in a computer data base or carved on a wall, but actual paper script, in Ancient, that covered a variety of disciplines was a grand find indeed. The Sklaranan military had put their best minds on deciphering the text, hoping it would teach them how to use the Stargate, but it hadn’t, and the large stone circle had remained a mystery until six armed strangers came walking through a ring of dry water.  Now, with the help of SG-1, the Sklaranans would have their answer and Earth would have another piece of the Ancient mystery.  

However, Daniel had discovered very quickly that the sheer number of volumes meant that he was going to need a lot of help, more than just his assistant, who would obviously be needed to help catalogue and translate and if they wanted to finish within a reasonable amount of time. Once the text was deciphered, Sam would be needed in case the information yielded was of a scientific nature. Daniel knew that Sam was hoping to discover more information on dialing the ninth chevron without blowing up a planet to do so, but Daniel was skeptical that a solution to bringing home the Destiny would come to them so easily.  Regardless, she was using it as an excuse to leave her post for a while, keep her skills sharp, and let Jack fill in for her.  Truth be told, she missed going off world as much as her husband.  

Cameron Mitchell and Teal’c were coming along as a general precautionary measure; they didn’t know these people or what ulterior motives they might have.  The planet’s leader, Moreed, had also provided some interesting photographs of what looked like some bodies of Jaffa warriors on a planet that had supposedly had not seen Go’ould activity, nor an active Stargate, in many years. Intrigued by the find, Teal’c had asked permission to tackle this side mission once the threat level, if any, was assessed. 

Then there was Vala, who really didn’t need to be there, there was no intelligence issue, which member of SG-1 or not was her new area of expertise, but had insisted on coming along. Daniel really couldn’t say anything, the Lucians were quiet, probably trying themselves to find a way onto the Destiny, so she had just as much right as everyone else to come along; he just hoped that Cam and Teal’c would keep her busy so that she wouldn’t distract he and Adrienne, or better yet, team up with Adrienne to harass him. 

Daniel laughed to himself imaging her, wearing that silly pink eye mask with black feathers she would stagger into the Stargate command mess wearing from time to time, just snoring it up while Adrienne tossed and turned and covered her ears.  He was actually surprised his assistant hadn’t just slugged her with a pillow or tipped her bed over for that matter.  

Better for him. 

Walking briskly, Daniel turned the corner, entering a drab olive green hallway, a color equally as ugly as the drab gray hallway where they were being housed. He stopped a passerby, stepping in front of them politely, asking for the direction of the cafeteria.  Without comment, the tall thin Skalaraan pointed toward the direction in which he was already headed. The humanoid gave him chills, his ashen gray skin was sunken in, and the jagged teeth sticking out from thin pinks lips were more than he was used to, even more so than the Unas. With the Unas, they looked like scary science fiction monsters and one should treat them as such until relations were established, but these people? He was still unsure what to make of these people. That, and the fact that all of the Skalaraans were dressed in a manner that reminded Daniel of the Ghost of Christmas Past. Great Daniel, you’re thinking like Adrienne now, but he comforted himself in that at least his reference was to Dickens. Adrienne swore they looked like some spaceport guards in Star Wars. Bowing his head slightly in respect, Daniel thanked him and continued on his way.  

What they called a cafeteria was just a small unadorned room with a table set in the middle upon which a variety of native fruits and vegetables had been laid out for their consumption.  The area was not much larger than a closet, but Daniel was thankful that they were being fed at all since he had been on enough missions where a Powerbar was a close as he got to food.  Filling a small silver dish with what looked like an approximate equivalent to strawberries and toast, he set the plate aside to grab a silver cup, pouring himself some hot beverage resembling tea. 

“Dr. Jackson,” a voice behind him spoke.  

Daniel turned swiftly to see that it was Moreed.  The Skalaran was a tall, pale man, his gray skin almost white, with hair so light in color it almost appeared silver.  Daniel had noticed that all of the Skalaraans shared some variation of that light ashen gray skin, and speculated that their paleness was due to the low level of UV light they were exposed to, the suns of the planet not spending much time in the sky. He was wearing long purple robes that clasped down the center with small gold fasteners and his feet were clad in silk black slippers which Daniel could never imagine wearing around this bitter cold world. The cold, it seemed was an accepted part of life here, as Moreed had shown them a variety of maps of the planet when they arrived. It seemed that the only truly habitable part of the place was right in this area surrounding the city, and it too got very little continual sunlight. In addition, most of the fertile land appeared to be in a constant state of fall/winter.  The food seemed to match this theory; even the strawberry like plants were more like the late summer/fall fruits back on earth rather than the lush fruits of June to which he was accustomed. 

“Moreed.  It’s a pleasure to see you.  Would you care to join me for breakfast?” Daniel offered politely. 

“Unfortunately, I have only a limited amount of time this morning.  I just wanted to make sure that you were well rested and the accommodations were acceptable.  I heard there was a disturbance last night,”  the tall man responded, curiosity in his words. 

“No disturbance. Just a problem sleeping.  We’ll take care of it tonight,” Daniel thought it best not to get into detail.  He and Adrienne caught enough guff from their teammates for how close they were and he didn’t need to try to justify their relationship to people of another world. 

“Excellent.  Please let me know if I can be of any assistance at all.  I just wanted to check on your group and then I will be heading out for the day.  My assistant Kyro will be taking you and Drs. Rowan and O’Neill down to the laboratory and the archives.  Our head of security, Jahwna will be leading the remainder of your team down to the site where we have discovered the bodies,” Moreed offered. 

Daniel nodded his head respectfully in reply. Moreed seemed to be a cross between a president and a high priest so he made sure to carefully remember his etiquette when dealing with both.  

“Thank you for everything.  We’re hoping that with this visit we may learn much more about our common ancestors and what we can do to mutually benefit both of our worlds,” Daniel added, wanting to make the man understand that despite what the IOA was spouting back home, Sam wanted to establish a relationship with the people of Skalrana, not a hostile takeover.  

“I look forward to much the same,”  The slight man answered through a mass of razor like teeth, bowing his head as well before turning to leave when he paused, facing Daniel again, his finger pointed at the table.

“Before I forget, I understand that your people are accustomed to much warmer weather.  This drink we have created, we call it Oklug, we have found that it raises the body temperature just enough to make one more comfortable here on our world.”

That explains it, Daniel thought.  Adrienne had 4 cups of the potion last night.  Someone must have told her, or she just felt the difference and didn’t think to say anything to anymore.  It would be Adrienne that would suffer the most here, she could barely handle D.C. weather as it was, let alone this.  Last month she tried to convince General O’Neill to open a Stargate research office in Miami and she’d come up with a good argument too, proximity to the equator generating more solar energy and a bunch of other things that Sam, who apparently bought into this Miami scheme, was starting to agree with.  Needless to say, Jack hadn’t been convinced. 

“Thank you Moreed. For you kindness and assistance again,” Daniel replied as Moreed smiled and nodded. 

“You are quite welcome Dr. Jackson.  I look forward to your findings,” his teeth clicking together as he ended his statement, walking out the door, not even acknowledging Cam, who was entering as he made his exit. 

“Sir ,” Cam said as Moreed walked by, the colonel looking confused at being ignored. Shrugging, he looked to Daniel, his stomach rumbling violently. “Hey Jackson, anything good to eat?”

“Some bread and fruit over there, healthy stuff. Adrienne will be thrilled but I haven’t tried it yet. Oh, and the drink is supposed to help regulate body temperature.  Make up for how cold it is,” Daniel pointed in the direction of the tea pot.

“No thanks, that’s what running is for. I just need to toss some grub down my throat, get Teal’c and Vala going and meet this commander,” Cameron responded.  

“Jahwna is his name.  He’s supposed to come and meet you guys in your quarters.  Are Teal’c and Adrienne up yet?” Daniel continued. 

“Yeah.  Teal’c’s getting himself armed right now and I think Adrienne left shortly after you did,” Cameron answered. 

Before Daniel could respond, the girls entered the cafeteria, together and even after last night’s episode, the three of them seemed to be getting along just fine. Sam and Vala appeared well rested and Adrienne seemed alright too, albeit with dark circles under her eyes, most likely from her disturbed slumber. 

“Good morning everyone!” Vala shouted, her typical cheerful self and danced over to Daniel, sitting in his lap and wrapping her arms around his neck. Adrienne and Sam simultaneously rolled their eyes. 

“Vala, ugh, ladies breakfast is over there,” he said as he weaseled his way out of her grasp and pointed again at the table, “And Moreed said that the tea like drink will help maintain body temperature.”

“I figured that out last night shug,”  Adrienne smiled, “Didn’t you see me chugging them down?”

*****

The toast was dry and the fruit was tart, but Cam would just have to make do unless he wanted a Powerbar, those disgusting chewy gobs of garbage that Jackson insisted were food. He had gotten up first thing this morning and slipped out, gauging his 5 mile daily run the best he could through the dreary alternating green and gray halls. He was going to ask Adrienne to join him, but when he crawled down from the bunk she and Daniel were laying there asleep, their arms wrapped around one another.  They couldn’t deny it, even in their sleep, he had thought to himself and had set out alone hoping to head back to the room and hit the showers before this Jahwna was to meet them.  

No one else was in the room when he arrived, so he assumed that they were all still at breakfast.  It paid to be an early riser; if he was the first to shower this morning that would leave more hot water for him, if this planet even had hot water.  It was frigid here, and it just added to the list of amazing conditions under which human beings or humanoids would live, conditions that made him appreciate his life on Earth more and more each day. This was one of the coldest planets that he had visited thus far, but the run had helped warm him up a bit, thankfully, because he really didn’t like the smell of that tea any more than he had liked the taste of that awful fruit.  Crossing the room to where he had laid his pack against the wall, Cam grabbed some fatigues and a black t-shirt and hit the showers.

As he showered, which was warm thankfully, his mind wandered.  He hadn’t been looking forward to this mission at all; it just seemed entirely too boring.  The expected allotment for the mission was one week and then a return to Stargate Command for regrouping and briefing. Cam loved his position on SG-1, but lately he seemed to be running security detail for the nerdier members of the team, namely Daniel and Adrienne. He felt like the captain of the football team in charge of guarding the math club, a creepy little math club that spoke French, finished each other’s sentences and slept in the same bed.  He remembered a time when Adrienne would have punched Daniel in the face as much as she would have looked at him, but now she never left his side and he never left hers, like they were a couple or something except they weren’t. Addy had made it quite clear to nearly everyone on base after her dinner with Ronon Dex that she had no interest in dating, anyone, ever, so if she and Jackson weren’t dating, that could only mean one other thing. With him, Daniel Jackson no less. He guessed stranger things had happened before.  The one saving grace to the entire mission was the discovery of the Jaffa bodies, which, provided that everything was secure here, would allow he and Teal’c to escape the excitement of the three PhD’s.  He didn’t even mind that Vala would be joining them since she was good for at least a laugh or two.  Suddenly, the image of Vala snoring, an escaped feather lifting up and down in front of her mouth like an old cartoon, popped into his head and he stored that into his memory for proper harassment later.  

Shutting of the water with a strange brass button, Cam stepped out of the shower, toweled himself off and dressed quickly while the steam was still warming the room.  He opened the door to the bathing area, which he had noted was little more than a stall and a hole for a commode as Teal’c entered the room, ready to start the day. 

“ColonelMitchell, our guide is here to take us to the site,” his friend informed him as he pulled his shirt over his head. 

“Great. Let me strap my boots on and I’ll be ready to go.  Teal’c can you get that equipment Jackson wanted us to take down?” he requested, catching movement behind the Jaffa as he took a step closer. 

As Teal’c crossed the room, making his way to the rather large pile of items Daniel had stacked in the far corner, Cam got a good look at their guide standing in the doorway.  Jahwna was almost as tall as Moreed and equally as pale.  His hair was long but copper in color and his eerily dark violet eyes clashed with his floor length maroon robe, yet, other than the variations in color, he looked almost identical to Moreed, mouth of huge scary teeth and all. Cam thought to ask if they were related, but decided not to, just slightly intimidated by the humanoids emotionless stare, taking the bag from Teal’c and approaching their guide. 

Without a word, Jahwna swept around, leading them through the maze of poorly lit corridors until they could finally see a glow ahead through a set of double doors at the end of the hall. The frosted windows allowing the light from the outside appeared chilly, maybe glazed over for more than just decoration. The sight itself made Cam shiver again and even more glad that he had run that morning; the better his blood was flowing the more adept he was at dealing with the cold.  Zipping up his parka, Cam put up the hood, drawing the drawstrings tight around his face and prepared to enter the chill.  

“Wait!!! Where are you guys going? You can’t leave me with the nerd squad! As if Daniel is not boring enough female Daniel is just as bad!” Vala was yelling this at full volume as she ran down the hall.  Ah Vala, never a dull moment; he almost couldn’t wait for her running commentary as they set out to the site.  As she approached them she deliberately slowed her advance, sauntering toward them slowly, playing with the ties to her coat and making a cute face at Teal’c.  

“Muscles, promise to carry me if I get tired?”  she asked coyly. 

“ValaMalDoran, our guide has secured transport so that we do not need to walk,” Teal’c replied, looking down at her in annoyance. 

“Oh, excellent.  Then how ‘bout a lift to that transport?” She asked and without further warning leapt up into his arms, forcing Daniel’s bag from his hands and onto the hard concrete floor, a loud cracking sound emanating from the duffle as it came to a final resting place.  

“Damn it Vala!” Cam shouted, “Do you have any idea how much that equipment costs?”

“Sometimes you’re such a drag.  Look, if it’s broken I’m sure Sam can fix it.  What does Daniel want us to do with it? Since when do dead bodies matter to him?” she asked, hopping down from Teal’c’s arms. Rather than try to explain basic archaeology to Vala, most of which Cam had learned from Indiana Jones movies himself, he just shook his head and bent down, picking up the bag and tossing it over his shoulder. Following their guide, who had opened the doors, blasting them with cold air, the three team members made their way quickly to the awaiting transport. 

Some might say that Skalara was a beautiful planet and Cam might have been inclined to agree since it reminded him so much of Kansas winters, however, the mere fact that it stayed this way year round made him reconsider.  Off in the distance he could see acres and acres of fields situated between the tall mountain peaks that looking much like harvest back from his time spent in Colorado when he had first joined the Stargate program.  According to what Mordeen had told Daniel upon their arrival it was harvest time and that was why they had fresh fruit this morning.  If that was the bounty of harvest, Cam decided he would stick to Powerbars. 

Developmentally, Skalara was the equivalent to late 1940’s Earth, just without the clean-up of a world war. Apparently, the people on this planet practiced a strict religion of non-violence, which had resulted in a history of no wars.  When Cam had asked what happened to those who exhibited violent behavior, he was informed that they were exiled to an island where they would no longer be welcomed into the general population and this system had worked for them for over 250 years.  Cam wasn’t quite sure how he felt about an island penal colony, it seemed too much like something from a bad movie, but it wasn’t their place to intrude on such matters. 

The large black jeep like vehicle, which like a jeep had an open top, much to everyone’s dismay, drove them about two hours from the government building out into the vast plains in the distance. The building where they, along with the gate, were being housed was located on the outskirts of the city, so this was the first time Cam had actually gotten to see the bustling metropolis that was called the City of Skalara.  

“So how far away is this place?” Cam asked Jahwna, refocusing his attention on the expanse of nothing that lay ahead of them. 

“Just another few moments sir,” the man, if you could call him that, answered weakly. 

Fair enough, Cam thought, since he had suspected that a ravine with bodies would not be something that was near the general population.  The photos they had been given were aerial shots too, so he was anticipating this would be a bit of a hike.  

“Is that acceptable sir?” the commander added, a lisp in his pronunciation of the word as the air passed by his teeth, as he stared at the colonel curiously. 

“Yeah, and it’s Cam,” he replied, not quite sure if he wanted the young man to call him Cam or he just didn’t want to hear the hiss of the ‘s’ in sir any longer. 

“Excuse me sir?” the alien asked. 

“Call me Cam.  Sir is what you call my father,” Cameron corrected, adjusting his position to shake off the heebie jeebies he was experiencing yet again. 

“As you wish si… Cam,” Jahwna stuttered, stopping too late to halt the hiss.

Teal’c raised his eye-brow at the exchange, adjusting his shoulder as Vala’s cheek bone dug into him painfully. She had barely moved from the position she had taken upon falling asleep over an hour ago after complaining about every bump or sharp turn made as they navigated the Skalaraan “wilderness.”  At least she appeared asleep; she very well might have been faking, which knowing Vala would not have been a surprise. At first, it was funny, she was picking at their guide slyly, making fun of Adrienne and her obsession with heat, but after her last round of whining Cam had, in a not so nice voice, ordered her to be quiet. She hadn’t spoken since, making a face at him before slamming herself over on to Teal’c. 

“Sir Cam (whatever, Cam thought) We have arrived,” Jahwna announced and as promised they were arriving at what appeared to be a large ravine, dipping sharply beside where the vehicle came to a stop. 

Gently, Teal’c lifted Vala’s head and she snapped awake immediately, as if she had never been asleep. Cam knew she was faking, but refrained from starting a fight, shaking his head instead, reaching for the overheard bar and standing up from his seat.  Together, but without the help of Jahwna, who stood in silence beside the door watching them, they unloaded the small vehicle, hoisting the gear onto their backs and made their way down to the crevasse.  

The ravine itself was not as deep as it seemed, and they could see the reflection of the suns off of the Jaffa armor not too far in the distance. It wasn’t, at least from this vista, a particularly bloody scene and there were no signs of shrapnel, bombs or other explosives.  Regardless, Cam lead his team forward carefully, stepping slowly over loose rocks, until a putrid stench filled the air around them. Being caught off guard, Cam quickly covered his face to block the odor and hopefully avoid losing his pathetic breakfast.  

“What the hell is that smell?” Vala exclaimed, pinching her nose and making a face of digust. 

“That ValaMalDoran is the stench of death,” Tealc answered, unaffected by the smell. 

“I know that Teal’c,” Vala answered smartly, “It was a rhetorical question.”

“Enough guys, it’s too cold to stand here and argue,” Cameron intervened. The bitter cold wind was not only beating on their exposed faces but wafting in the strong smell of rotting flesh and decay. Holding his breath, Cam edged himself closer to the bodies, examining them as best he could without having to touch them. 

It was obvious even from a quick glance that these men were not killed in battle as there were no blast wounds from a staff weapon or other projectiles. There didn’t appear to be any distress whatsoever, they just lay there, side by side, face down, lifeless and still.  For a Jaffa a death not in battle was the worst insult to their lives and Cam knew that these four young men had died without their honor. 

Concerned, he glanced back at Teal’c to judge his reaction. The Jaffa was clearly upset by the scene in front of them, frowning and wrinkling his brow as he slowed his approach, unloading Daniel’s equipment gently onto the ground.  

“These Jaffa must have been murdered,” Teal’c stated, the sureness in his voice offering no other options. Kneeling, he crawled toward the first body carefully, seemingly oblivious to the penetrating odor.  With Teal’c’s recent involvement in the movement to free and organize the Jaffa, sights such as this troubled him as they should any good leader of a fledgling government, so Cam gave him a moment to investigate without interference.  

“If you touch those and get that smell on you, you’re not riding back with us,” Vala  warned, clearly disgusted and trying to play off the gagging Cam could see her doing a few steps behind him.  

Not acknowledging Vala’s remark, Teal’c poked the first young warrior with his own staff weapon, pushing the body to it’s side.  The corpse rolled over quickly, as if pushed by a great force, and there it was face up, mouth gaping, his throat slit from ear to ear.  

Cam breathed in in shock and quickly regretted it.  The stench was overpowering now and he ran back behind the transport, retching up his bland breakfast, his mind racing.  Jaffa were not so easily killed; he had killed quite a few Go’ould warriors in his time, as had the others, but usually with a blaster, staff weapon, or a Zat gun.  Since many Jaffa were also very large men and women, it would take not only a foe talented enough to get that close to them but strong enough to wrestle him to the ground and then to slit his throat.  Composing himself, Cam wiped his mouth and turned, headed back to the deep ditch to see if Teal’c had found anything else. When he arrived back at the site, Teal’c was examining the other body while Vala was reading Daniel’s handwritten directions for taking the samples for carbon dating.  Cam chuckled behind his hand; she might complain about the nerds, but she chipped right in to fulfill their requests.  

“Sir Cam?”  the Sklarna captain asked, Cam noticing that he had been standing back at the transport, not daring to go near the bodies, “Is there a problem?”

“No problem Jahwna. We just usually see Jaffa bodies after a fight.  Their throat wounds indicate something different,” Cameron explained.  

“Interesting……. “ his voice trailed off and Cam hesitated in answering back, sensing something wrong in his voice.  Chocking it up to nerves, since the Skalaraan were such peaceful people, or at least that was what he was trying to tell himself, Cam started to wonder if their good buddy Anubis was responsible for this gruesome scene. He patted the commander on his back, hoping that they hadn’t just walked into yet another trap, and headed down to help his teammates.  

*****

Sam was used to working alone in a variety of conditions, in fact, she was the kind of person that thrived on the silence of being alone when she worked. This place, however, was a little too eerie for her liking.  Moreed’s assistant Kyro had led her first to this lab before he had escorted Adrienne and Daniel down to the ancient site, down a few floors further. It was a simple room, in the style that reminded her of a high school chemistry classroom minus the rambunctious teenagers, large white cabinets lining the walls, hung over long black counters with cupboards underneath of them as well.  It lacked many of the Asgard and other advanced technologies of her own lab but she had learned with beakers and Bunsen burners and wasn’t afraid to use them again. Still, regardless of the cold, she was happy to be off world once more. 

It was not the temperature nor the quaintness of the room that bothered her, the Tok’ra tunnels where she had worked side by side with her father had been both cold and small, but not like this, those tunnels had never made her nervous. Silently she wished she could go down and join her comrades, but afraid to make her self look silly and unprofessional, she rubbed her arms, took a deep breath and kept working. 

Yesterday when they had arrived, Daniel had stumbled upon a series of formulas in the archives adjacent to the laboratory.  Many of these formulas so far seemed to be basic chemical compositions exactly as they would have been found on earth, household and commercial chemicals like ethyl alcohol, nitric acid, and sodium chloride.  The names were different, but the Skalaraans had about the same level of knowledge as had been on Earth in the middle twentieth century, so the conversions were fairly simple to make. Whether or not they realized it, this ancient research had been a precursor to their civilization’s scientific advances and Sam was intrigued by the information enough to begin converting their names and information into a format to best match it to the Earth periodic table.  With such a conversion chart elements could be easily identified and scientific theories and whatnot could better be shared, giving the Stargate program yet another reason to continue with it’s research. 

Sam had hit a point of confusion right around fourth period metals when she noticed a foul taste in her mouth and looked down to see that she had literally chewed her pencil down to the lead. Disgusted, she spit some wood chips onto the floor, glancing back at the mess that had been her pencil to discover that the hand holding it was trembling violently.  She stopped it with her other hand and leapt from the seat, shaken, catching the glow of her digital watch out of the corner of her eye.  It was already 2 p.m. Earth time and she wasn’t quite sure where the day had gone. Maybe that was was she was shaking, sore muscles from being hunched over for so long without a break.  She needed a stretch and she needed some more hot tea so she headed down the long drab hallway to the archives, hoping to goad one of her friends into joining her. 

“Hey Sam!” she heard Adrienne calling from the small room before she hit the door. 

Rounding the corner, Sam peered into the doorway and there sat Adrienne cheery as ever with a large pile of scrolls stacked in front of her and Daniel with a similar pile sitting at the next table. They looked to be akin to the ones Sam had back at the lab and she was hoping they were the next in the series of metals, hopefully fourth period metals since what she had was getting her nowhere. It would be great to have most of the periodic table converted by bedtime, even better if that could happen sooner, the thought itself making her giddy as she had been yesterday, the nerves floating away. She had to admit, freezing her ass off or not, the records were terrific so far, written in clear Ancient, so this process was much easier than she had expected.  

“Holy Hannah Addy, how did you do that? How did you know it was me?” Sam asked her puzzled. 

“You walk loud and other than Kyro this morning we haven’t seen a single soul, so I figured it had to be you. Strange huh?” Adrienne replied, moving on to a question of her own, “Discovering anything ground breaking?”

“Nothing new, just some elemental connections, I’m working on a periodic table.  I think that the IOA will be pleased to know how they note their basic elements.  The next step would be to see what resources they have in abundance and maybe we can discuss trade.  How ‘bout you guys?” Sam asked.

“Just pages and pages of lineage today,” Daniel responded, “It’s like reading the “Begats.””

“The “Begats?”,” Sam inquired, totally lost. Her world was equations and formulas, not historical terminology.  

“Pages and pages of crazy boring lineage in the Old Testament, so the Jews could justify their connection to King David and Abraham. A nice stick it to the Babylonians,” Adrienne answered.

“How amazingly P.C. Dr. Rowan,”  Daniel joked. 

“I try,” she smiled and then stopped quickly, “Sam you look weird, is everything alright?”

“Yeah, I think I was just in a zone.  Got a little cold, a little anxious and figured it was time for a stretch break,” the general replied. 

“Amen!” Sam saw Adrienne look at Daniel to see if he picked up on her continuation of religious mockery and he smiled without looking up, “Let’s go get some hot tea.”

“Oklug,” Daniel corrected, again without looking up, “It is called Oklug.” 

“Whatever shug,” Adrienne responded, “There’s no coffee on this planet and I drank through my supply of Diet Coke yesterday. “

“Your supply, in one day?” Sam inquired, knowing that the cajun woman’s addiction to caffeine had no bounds, kinda like her boss.

“Yeah, but considering that we were only allowed one personal backpack each, my supply was two twenty ounce bottles,” Adrienne replied, heading for the door.  

“Bring me one,” Daniel yelled to them, Adrienne pausing to look back at him smiling.

“What do I look like?” Adrienne asked, putting her hands on her hips but smiling the entire time. 

“Like the greatest assistant in the world,” he replied and Sam chuckled to herself.  They were just so perfect for one another, even if they both insisted on acting like nothing was there, which considering their position, she completely understood. In fact, if they were in a relationship, it would violate about five different rules concerning fraternization, and she wasn’t quite sure what she could do to help them. Still, the entire situation reminded her of Jack which made her nerves flutter, even though he was just on the other side of the gate probably whining about having to cook his own dinner.  Noting Adrienne had left her behind, Sam grabbed her now shaking arm and followed her out into the corridor.  

Despite the drab settings, the Skalaraans had gone out of their way to make sure the team had everything they needed. On the small central table were more fresh fruit and bread and a large pot of Oklug.  Sam was grateful to see that they kept the tea around much like her own people kept coffee and made a mental note that she needed to take some back to have it analyzed by the doctors at Stargate Command.   It would be great to figure out how to use it on future missions where weather was questionable and even to convert it to a pill form for emergency rations, even though Daniel and Adrienne swore that their chocolate covered coffee beans were close. Yummy they were, but the last time she checked, chocolate didn’t keep you warn like this stiff did and she was pretty sure that the coffee beans were something Daniel and Adrienne liked to enjoy together anyway. 

Taking at seat as the same table as they had a breakfast, the women sat in relative silence as they sipped their tea.  Neither felt the need to talk; they had both been drowning in their work for hours, but just to sit in silence and relax was fantastic. After a few minutes enjoying the fruit, this sampling slightly better than breakfast, and a second cup of tea it was Adrienne that broke the silence.  

“Sam, I didn’t notice before but you smell great! What are you wearing?” she inquired. Sam was baffled by her question and tried to remember back to this morning after she showered if she had put on any perfume.  Did she even bring perfume? 

“Uh, deodorant?” she finally answered.  

“Well, you got your monies worth,” Adrienne answered unfazed, “Remind me to get the name of that when we get back home.” 

Ok, that was weird.  Maybe Adrienne had been trapped in the room so long with those musty old books that anything smelled better than moldy paper.  Sam smiled politely, thinking her friend needed a break about as much as she did, and continued to eat.  

“Sam, are you ok? Do you need to take a walk or something?  You’ve got some crazy nervous energy going on,” Adrienne asked a few moments later, peering at her with a look on concern. Sam looked up again from her plate and then down at her own leg which was shaking violently, so much so it was rattling the table along with the small metal cups and plates. Her heart racing in her chest, a sensation that she was just now noticing, and she found that it was a little hard to breathe, like the air was thick.  

“Uh, yeah.  You’re right.  I’ve been sitting way too long. I think I’ll get a shower or maybe go for a run. Cam might have had the right idea this morning,” the general replied, standing quickly to leave. Shrugging, Adrienne went over to pour Daniel a cup of tea and bring him back a small plate of fruits as requested, Sam noting the care in performance of even that simple task. Saddened by the knowledge her two friends would probably never be able to have the happiness that she shared with Jack, Sam turned and headed down to their quarters, trying to remember if she had packed her running shoes. A run and a hot shower was just what she needed, she had been working way too hard and besides, there was no curfew, so she could rest for a bit and head to the lab after dinner.  Maybe then someone could come down with her just so she could bounce ideas off of them, Adrienne would probably be game, she slept about as much as Daniel. Pleased with her decision, she entered the room and headed over to her pack, digging inside for proper footwear. 

*****

It wasn’t that Vala necessarily minded the grunt work, or the smell for that matter, she had simply become accustomed to life on Earth and forgotten the cruelty that is death.  With the threat of the Ori behind them, Vala had been moved from a more active role in SG-1 to SGC intelligence due to her wealth of information on the Lucian Alliance and other less reputable groups of humans wandering the galaxy. So, at first, she had been excited about a long term mission such as this, but now, elbow deep in dead body and dirt, she wasn’t so sure. Glancing down at the legal pad in her hand, she read Daniel’s instructions carefully:  

1. Take digital photo of entire area.
2. Map out area into a 1 x 1 grid using included red thread.  It should look like a checkerboard. 

“I know what a 1 x 1 grid is Daniel,”  Vala rolled her eyes and dug through the bag. It was packed tightly, filled to the top with crap and she was sure she would be unable to shut it again, not quite sure how Daniel had shut it the first time. Pulling back the flap and peering inside, she saw that it contained some Asgard dating device, a level (she had no clue what that was for), multiple containers of test tubes, a tape measure, a variety of colored Sharpies, medical tape (Daniel preferred labeling his samples with medical tape, he said it was easier to write on), a small digital camera, a bag containing quite an assortment of small wooden stakes, and at the very bottom, red string.  Of course, she thought to herself, as she unloaded the entire bag to get the thread.  

Securing the string, Vala started marking off her one foot by one foot squares, just as he had requested.  It was mind-numbingly boring, but fairly simple, and much easier than looking at star charts and gate addresses trying to find spies.  She supposed she could consider this a sort of vacation, especially since that bastard Anubis had turned up there hadn’t been one group trip, one weekend off, nothing.  As she knelt to make her fourth square, she shivered, feeling the presence of someone standing behind her.  

“Ma’am, might I ask what you are doing?” the voice said, startling her and Vala jerked upright, taking a defensive stance. It was Jawa, Jakna, whatever, the commander who had led them there and he stood looking at her quizzically, those dark maroon robes waving around him, trying to figure out what she was doing and whether or not she was going to hit him. 

“Oh, sorry.  It’s nothing. It’s for our scientists.  Since they are too busy to do this themselves,” she continued, in her usual Vala tone, lowering her fist to her side, “I get to make them a pretty picture so they can look all smart when they identify what I’VE found.”

“I see…… “ he didn’t get her sarcasm, “and what are you looking for?” 

“Nothing really.  Danie – er – Dr. Jackson just suggested that we find out how long these Jaffa have been here and take some core samples of the soil while we’re here. I’ve got nothing else to do,” Vala explained. 

“And why would one want to know how long they have been there?” the man continued his inquiry. Vala thought that was a strange question, given that they Skalaraans had suggested they take a look at these bodies. Isn’t that what they wanted to SG-1, to investigate these unexplained deaths on their peaceful planet? 

“They will give us an idea of when they died and maybe we can trace where they came from. It might even lead us to who is responsible,” she answered him.    

“I see……”  he muttered and the thin copper-haired man walked away with out another word.  Freak, Vala thought, continuing with her task.  Out of the corner of her eye she saw Teal’c, leaning over the bodies with one of the worst expressions she had seen the Jaffa make and Cameron was walking back over the ridge, wiping his mouth.  He must have run back to the transport to throw up, again; she would have to make fun of him later.  Shaking her head to refocus, she continued gridding and preparing samples.  

As the day progressed on, she could feel it getting colder instead of warmer.  This makes no good sense, she thought, who in the hell could live in a place like this?  Just as she was starting to shiver, she felt that creepy presence behind her once again, and whipped her head around, glaring at her visitor crossly.

“Jahwna, listen, where I come from, people don’t just come slinking up behind someone and watch. It’s creepy and it can get you shot,” Vala spat.  

“Pardon me ma’am.  We Skalaraans rarely speak first unless it is needed. I noticed your shiver and I have brought you some Oklug,” the man leaned toward her, offering her a small cup. Well, he might be creepy, but that was a nice gesture, she thought, standing to take the offering. 

“Thank you.  I was just thinking how cold I was,” she said politely and took a long drink, feeling the warm fluid coast past her tongue, down her throat, the tea warming her body.  This planet was just too cold for normal people but she was  grateful that they at least had this to get them through.  With a thankful nod, she handed the Thermos-like container back to the commander, kneeling down once more to continue her work. 

A short time later, she felt the approach of yet another person.  Infuriated, she looked up and shouted before looking to see who it was. 

“Now, when I don’t get this finished, who do you think Daniel is going to blame?!?!”  When she finished shouting she saw Cam looking right at her, his mouth open in surprise.  

“Jeez, Vala, chill out. We’ve been over here for five hours.  Apparently the days here are much shorter, the sun’s going down and Teal’c is looking pretty messed up,” the colonel defended.  Confused, Vala put her hand to her forehead and shook her head.  Five hours!? Had it been that long? Why didn’t someone tell her? She had only gotten a few samples completed; why had she worked so slowly?  Getting more and more frustrated, she internally chastised herself for acting just as unreliable as everyone expected.

“Well, that’s just great,” she said, annoyed and exasperated, “Now, I get to go back, get yelled at, called stupid, whatever else he wants to say to me.  You couldn’t have budged from your vomiting sessions to tell me I was zoning off?! Too busy for that?!”

“Look Vala, I don’t know who pissed in your Cheerios this morning, but I’m gonna start packing up.  We can come back out here tomorrow; just leave the grid and give Jackson what you’ve taken already.  I’m sure he is too bogged down himself to worry about it and Sam will probably be the one to run the tests anyway,” Cam explained, reaching to put his hand on her arm to temper her rage, “Calm down.”  Vala took a deep breath, still annoyed, but, Cam was right, so she bent down to pick up the gear and packed up everything but the mostly complete red-thread grid.  At least she had one good box of samples to be tested, she hoped Daniel wouldn’t be too mad at how little she had accomplished. Fighting a nervous stomach, she hoisted the pack to her shoulder, miraculously managing to get everything back into the duffle and headed up the steep incline to the transport, intending on taking her finding straight to Adrienne and let her deal with Daniel.

***** 

When Adrienne got back to the lab, she took Daniel his tea and fruit, pausing when he didn’t even so much as thank her or look up. That wasn’t like him, or at least hadn’t been like him in a long time and he seemed a bit upset, like he was stuck on something. She had placed the cup and plate beside him, laid her hand gently on his back, leaning over to his face.

“You ok shug?” she asked, worried, watching his perfect blue eyes scanning the page. 

“Yeah, I’m fine,” he answered, not looking up from the paper, furrowing his brow further. He didn’t look particularly fine though, but he was giving her his ‘leave me alone’ face. Having learned not only how to read him but how to deal with his moods, Adrienne squeezed his shoulder quickly, returning to her own workspace.

On her table, right where she had left them, were pages and pages of lineage she had sat in the cafeteria area trying to hard to avoid.  She shuffled through them again, some of them in scroll form and others pages of text crammed into twine wrapped bundles of yellowing paper, looking for a change in wording that might give some indication as to the end to the list.  There was none.  Sighing, she thumbed her way back to where she had left off, grabbing her iPad and continuing her notes. After their successes yesterday with the chemistry notes she had hoped today to find more exciting information, but such is the life of an archeologist, she thought, excitement one day to make up for the stretches of boredom in between.

It wasn’t too long after she had begun to translate once more when she heard a slight tapping, not very loud, but consistent, almost rhythmic. It seemed to be coming from above her head and sounded like someone had left on a bathroom faucet, so she glanced up, examining the ceiling curiously. She knew there were government offices above them, Kyro had said they were in the basement level, but she thought it was bizarre that she would hear a restroom from a whole floor above.  Shaking her head and pinching the bridge of her nose, she tried to ignore it, but the sound continued:  Tap, wait, tap, wait, tap, wait.  

“Do you hear that?”  she asked Daniel, unable to contain herself, the noise simply overpowering her every thought. 

“Huh?” he answered, as usual, not looking up. 

“Daniel, do you hear that tapping?” she asked, clarifying for him.  

“What tapping?”  he asked, finally looking up at her, taking off his glasses and rubbing his eyes and staring at her lost, still partially back in translation land. 

“That tapping,” she repeated, standing and looking around the gray chamber, moving her scan from the ceiling to the walls and the floor.  The room itself was painted gray, not unlike US military installations, with four metal tables scattered about. At Daniel’s request, the contents of the ancient lab had been carefully placed into large wooden crates and were lined neatly on the wall for their use.  The ancient lab itself had been damp and dusty, as had the old archives, sending Daniel into allergic convulsions like Adrienne had never seen. Since the laboratory itself had not been of value, the two of them had began to work right here where the items were being stored, Adrienne forcing Daniel to take an extra dose of allergy medication despite his protest. Up until this point, they had been working along just fine, but Adrienne could not concentrate on those items with that infernal tapping sound.

“Don’t you hear it?” she continued, “it sounds like it’s coming from above us.” It was getting louder and her concern was growing,  “What if it’s a broken water main? If it were to burst through, we could lose all of this research?!?!” Frowning, yet again, Daniel peered over at her, confused. 

“Ad, I’m not sure what you’re hearing.  There’s no sound, no broken water main.  Just piles and piles of useless information that is telling me nothing and getting us no where.  Might as well be a monsoon so we can just go home,” he complained, rubbing his eyes again under his glasses before taking them off and resting his face in his hands. Aggravated, Adrienne shook her head and squeezed her temples not knowing what he was talking about; the sound was still there, but fainter if she tried to focus elsewhere.  

“You’re right. I think my frustration is just making me imagine things.  I’ll get back to work.  Sorry to bug you Indy,” she apologized because even though he hadn’t said anything, he did look upset and she didn’t need to bother him with such silliness.

Daniel shrugged, offering no comment, putting his glasses back on and continued to work and Adrienne could hear him fidgeting with the papers, with his pencil and chewing his lip.  He tended to do that a lot and she was forever running tissues over to him in their lab when he would bite his lip clear through, in fact, she needed to have some on hand, just in case. Trying to refocus herself, Adrienne paced around the room a few more times before returning to her own workstation.  

I’m just bored, she thought to herself. The planet was indeed very dull and drab, even the colors seemed to scowl at her, contrasting with her personal tastes.  Why not a dash of pink, or god forbid some yellow, she thought, just drab, drab, drab. Their shared office in Stargate Command at least was accented with various ancient artifacts or reproductions and made for a museum like look that was aesthetically pleasing, but this was just bleh.  That, however, was not something she could fix so she forced herself to continue to translate what appeared to be the third dynasty of ancient colonial leaders.  

The longer she sat, the harder she found it to focus at the task at hand.  That tapping sound was back and Daniel was mumbling to himself in some ancient language she did not know.  Not only that, but the pages in front of her had begun to smell something awful, a combination of old paper, mold and some other sweeter smell, something that must have been trapped deep inside the volume. Plus, the cold in the room was unbearable.  

“Indy?” she asked meekly.

“Yes Adrienne… “ he was coldly polite and not calling her Ad; he must really not be happy.

“I’m really not feeling very well, I think I’m gonna go lay down,” she said as her stomach flipped a little bit. 

“Ok fine,” he said but he didn’t look up.  Odd, she thought, it wasn’t like him to as least tell her to feel better, the man was in love with her for crying out loud even if he hadn’t really told her. Love aside though, he was still usually very caring when it came to her well being and his lack of attention now kind of broke her heart.

Standing, Adrienne adjusted her uniform, pushing the stiff stool under the table.  She carefully arranged the smelly papers into a pile and placed them back into the small crate on the wall nearest to her table.  Subtly, or at least her best attempt at subtle, Adrienne peeked back over her shoulder to see if Daniel had even noticed her, but he hadn’t, so she tried not to take it personally as she quietly slipped out of the lab, heading down the hall to their rooms.  When she got there she paused, looking from the girl’s room to the guy’s room, back and forth a few times, trying to decide where to go.  In the end, she entered the guy’s room, sliding into Daniel’s bunk.  Even without him, the bed still smelled like him, that ocean scented body wash he always kept in his shower, that she knew he now kept for when she crashed at his place because it didn’t smell like men’s cologne. In the comfort of that thought, Adrienne hugged his pillow to her chest, and trying to relax and go to sleep. 

*****

Normally death would not affect him so, but to see those warriors had died in a manner in which they had was too much for him.  Teal’c knew in his heart that these men had not been attacked or killed, the cuts were too clean; these Jaffa had committed mass suicide. But why? These warriors were of Atum, who had long since been defeated by Arkad and was of no consequence to SG-1 and too minor to be considered a target of Anubis. These Jaffa by now should have heard of their freedom, of the new Jaffa council and of their chance at a new life.  This was old news, Teal’c himself had been involved in dispatching ambassadors across the galaxy, and these bodies could not have been more than six months old, by his best guess, but with this cold, he couldn’t be certain.  

He had been reluctant to leave the bodies of his brothers, but Cam assured them that they would return at first light tomorrow.  During his short time with the fallen warriors, he not been able to ascertain very much, just their tattoo markings, the suicide and their approximate ages. They were young Jaffa, even less likely to commit such an act, and more likely to join his cause. He would need to dial the Stargate when he returned and consult with Bra’tac who may have more insight into what might have happened.  Shaking his head in disbelief, he glanced back just once more, climbed into the vehicle behind the colonel.  

What would cause such despair? He couldn’t get the question off of his mind as the transport jolted and bounced them back to their temporary residence. Sipping some hot tea from a Thermos Vala had handed over, he pondered what he was doing in the Jaffa leadership.  What if these young warriors had indeed come to a desolate planet to kill themselves? Were they in such despair over the plight of the newly formed Jaffa nation that they could see no other solution than to end their own lives? Were there factions in the fledgling government that were mistreating their citizenry? Was his failure at leadership on the council and his rejoining of SG-1 part of the problem? Was he not fighting hard enough for his people? 

He was so lost in his thoughts that he barely realized they had arrived back to the headquarters.  Out of the corner of his eye he saw Vala leap from the Jeep and heard her shout something nasty to him about not helping her with the archaeological supplies, but he paid her little mind.  

“Hey big guy, you feeling any better?” Cam sincerely asked his friend. 

“Colonel Mitchell, I believe I need some time to think,” Teal’c responded instantly, his gaze off into the horizon.

“Sure T. That’s gotta be rough, especially if they did it to themselves.  Head on back to the room and I’ll bring some chow down to you,” Cameron offered. 

“Thank you ColonelMitchell”  he replied and with that walked silently through the double doors and down the long hallway. 

Teal’c silently passed by the cafeteria area, Sam’s lab and the room where Daniel and Adrienne had been working without taking much notice.  Soon, he was at the door to their room and he turned the knob, stepping into the room. Making his way over to his cot, digging around in his pack where he had brought his supplies for meditation just in case he needed them.  He was shuffling through the bag when a sleepy voice spoke to him from across the room.

“Teal’c? Is that you over there? What time is it?” It appeared that Adrienne was yet again sleeping in their room, but he was not certain as to why.  

“It is 1700 hours Earth time AdrienneRowan. Sorry to have disturbed you.  I’m needing to meditate,” he answered her. 

“No, Teal’c. I’m sorry.  I shouldn’t have come here. I wasn’t feeling very well and for some reason I’m just not comfortable in our room. I’ll leave,” Adrienne answered and started to sit from the bed.  

“No that is not necessary.  I must meditate in a place where I will not disturb anyone or be disturbed for many hours.  I will seek out quarters elsewhere.” 

Without giving her a chance to respond, he left her in the lower bunk and re-entered the hallway.  He knew that straight ahead were the labs, the cafeteria, and the exit, but there were also corridors to the left and to the right.  Debating as he gazed slowly from side to side, he finally turned left, heading into a part of the building he had to yet to visit, hoping to find a place to search out his answers. 

*****

This is useless, Daniel thought to himself as he finished the last page of his translation.  It was so useless that even Adrienne had given up and she never gave up on anything, especially when they worked together.  If that wasn’t a clear indicator of failure he wasn’t sure what was.  Despondent and depressed, he decided to see what everyone else was doing because someone had to be having some success or this would be yet another planet Earth would be essentially supplying with everything and getting nothing in return. 

He stopped at Sam’s door and saw her rushing back and forth between her stacks of papers, a chalkboard and some machine she seemed to be constructing.  Well, at least she seemed to be having some success.  Not wanting to bother her, he moved on, heading toward the end of the hall, thinking Adrienne might be having a snack in the cafeteria. He really needed her right now, just her mere presence was so soothing to him, but as he turned the corner, he heard the doors open and saw Cam and Vala enter along with their guide.  Noting how dark it was already, and fearing that he lost track of time, he peeked at his watch which indicated it was only a little past five p.m. 

“Daniel! Wait up man, have we got some things to tell you!” Cam shouted down the corridor. He looked very excited and seemed to have a lot on his mind.  Great, someone else had managed to discover something while he was stuck with a worthless pile of papers. Vala, however, did not seem as happy and as the two approached him quickly,Vala marched right up to his face, slamming the bag of research supplies into his chest.  

“Look! I gridded the damn place and took some samples but the sun doesn’t tsay up on this blasted planet long enough to get anything done so don’t even start lecturing me on my time management,” she shouted at him.   

“Jeez Vala,” Cam spoke up, “Lighten up. We’re going back out there tomorrow and you’re not even giving the man a chance to speak.”  Daniel took a deep breath and tried to be positive, not really angry with Vala at all, just somewhat disappointed that she hadn’t made any headway either, but he just didn’t seem to have it in him to be positive right now. Maybe if Cam had brought him back some news of use it would improve his mood, so he just glanced over Vala, trying to keep the peace so Cameron could speak. 

“Thank you Vala.  Anything you can find will be better than what I’ve found.  I feel like I’ve spent an eternity in this cold cell to discover nothing.  I’ll go over tonight what you found so far,” Daniel assured her.  

“Fine, great. So far. I hear your tone Daniel and I don’t like it,” she spat, storming off away down the hall.  

“Just ignore her,” Cam responded immediately, “she’s had a bug up her ass all day long and I’m not sure how to chill her out.  And Teal’c, wow, today hit him pretty hard.”  It was then that Daniel noticed their fearless Jaffa was missing, but before he could ask, Cam continued.  

“Got down to that site and there are bodies all right.  Four of them. Atum’s men, young and each one slit from,” he paused his story to give a visual with his thumb, “ear to ear.  Teal’c says the cuts have to be self-induced.  That kinda messed him up a bit.  Apparently Jaffa don’t commit suicide.”

“No, not usually, at least not in that fashion,” Daniel was intrigued, “How long do you guys judge they’ve been down there?”

“I think those samples that Vala took will give us our best estimate, but Teal’c and I reckon at least six months but no longer than a year. Strange too.  If the Jaffa are free then why would they still be in Go’ould uniform and come here to kill themselves,” Cameron answered. 

“That’s odd.  Well, I can run simple carbon dating myself, so I’ll take these back to the lab, that will at least give us a better idea of what we are dealing with.  After all, this is the warm season, those Jaffa could have been frozen for a lot longer,” Daniel added and Cameron nodded in agreement.  

“I agree. Well, I am going to get some grub and then try to work out some. I promised T I’d bring him some dinner,”  he concluded, slapping Daniel on the back, turning toward the make-shift mess. Still in pursuit of his assistant, Daniel followed, the two men headed through the double doors, reaching an assortment of food laid out for them.  It wasn’t the feast they had been offered their first night on the planet, but there was a decent enough variety of bread, meat and cheeses.  

As they ate, Cam gave him more details of the site, the placement of the bodies, the approximate ages and different things Teal’c had noticed about the armor.  For one, Cam noted, the armor had been pristinely clean as if these young men had never seen battle.  They were also dumped into the ravine as if they had either stood on the edge of the ravine, slit their throats and fell into the pit or they were transported there.  Again, it was he suicide aspect was the most disturbing part of Cam’s story, not a typical you have been dishonored suicide that Daniel might have expected to come from a Jaffa, but just mass useless self mutilation. When the colonel had finished, Daniel just shook his head and sipped some hot tea.  This was probably the worst news of all; it made Daniel’s own problems with the translation seem insignificant.  

“I can see why Teal’c might be upset.  The Jaffa are free and have been for a while now.  Why would they still be wearing uniforms, of a long dead overlord and then commit mass suicide.  Teal’c has been concerned about corruption within the Jaffa council and this may just prove his suspicions.  I can take him his dinner; try to help him through this.  He’s helped me through rough times before,” Daniel said, twisting and turning the now empty cup in his hands. 

“Sure, and tell him I’ll be going for another run if he needs me.  It’s too damn cold to sit still here and I just don’t feel like looking through pictures of those bodies just yet,” Cameron wiped off his hands and started to stretch his legs. 

They stood and Cam waved back behind him, heading out in the direction of their room. Running through in his head a second time the events of today, Daniel walked over, picked up a small, clean metal plate and began to fill it with food for Teal’c, all the while hoping the brave man wasn’t blaming himself for this. They were very alike in that regard, so Daniel hurried, wanting to find his friend and talk as soon as possible. He looked up as a heard a rustle and saw Moreed entering the room, this time wearing bright aquamarine robes, which only made his face that much paler. 

“Dr. Jackson, how has your day fared?” the ambassador inquired, curious.  

“Alright, thank you for asking,” considering the information that he just learned, Daniel felt it best to reman cryptic.   

“I heard that your team is not doing as well.  Apparently the bodies we discovered in the ravine are a great source for discomfort for your Jaffa and your Lucian woman,” Moreed pried. Odd, Daniel thought.  Of all of the things for that commander to report to Moreed, the mental state of his teammates seemed trivial compared to the fact that a group suicide had occurred within hours of the capital.  And he called Vala that Lucian woman…..

“I think we’re just tired after a day’s work. Research does take a lot of effort and our team is very meticulous in our methodology,” Daniel defended.  

“Of course,” the man answered, “And I hope that accommodations are again to your liking.”  

“Yes sir,” Daniel responded, “I was actually taking Teal’c some supper down right now to compare notes with him.”

“Excellent.  Then, I will check with you in the morning,” and with that he glided out of the room.  That man certainly gave Daniel the creeps, it wasn’t just those teeth Adrienne had been yammering on about either, and he seemed to doubt the team’s ability.  Had they lost their edge? True, many of them had been working on their own projects throughout Stargate command, some of them involving the Destiny, but they were still the elite team for analysis of Ancient knowledge.  However, since their group had become more focused on scientific study rather than military operations, Daniel had been promoted to the status of co-team leader in the recent months as Cameron was spending a lot more time at the academy.  Some job he was doing, he thought to himself, his first large scale mission as a team leader and it seemed to be an utter disaster.  Once again, drifting into a slight depression, Daniel made for their quarters. 

When he arrived in the room he found he had just missed Cam, his boots now placed neatly where his sneakers had been, and Adrienne reading a novel in his bunk.  

“Where’s Teal’c? “ he asked her, not bothering to ask why she had essentially moved in with him. They crashed at one another’s places a lot on Earth, but off world they tried not to start too much gossip; some places had a tendency more than others to assume she was his wife and while he didn’t mind in the least, in fact a large part of him enjoyed when that happened, it also terrified him, made her in his opinion more of a target. He loved her too much to let anything happen to her, even if he could never tell her.

“He came by a while ago.  Said something about not wanting to disturb anyone.  That was about it….” she started and began to gag, “ what is that smell?!?!” 

“What smell?”  First Vala, then Teal’c and now Adrienne was acting like a crazed pregnant woman, picking up on every little sound or smell. What was going on today?

“That disgusting spoiled smell.  What is on that plate?” Adrienne pointed to the dish in his hands. 

“Dinner,” Daniel responded, “Ad, are you alright?”

“Yeah. I think so.  I was just getting a little out of it down there.  Felt like we were getting nowhere, especially after finding those element tables yesterday, I feel like the rest of the information so far is a big waste.  I think the stress was getting to me,” she answered but all Daniel heard was big waste and he turned without answering her, continuing his search for Teal’c.  Their rooms were at the top of a T shaped hall, so he paused for a moment at the juncture, gazing back from left to right and back again. Through the drab darkness and poor florescent lighting of the hall ways Daniel could see a soft glow coming from the left hand side of the hall.  Guessing that his friend was using his standard candle setting, he turned left, trying not to obsess further on his assistant’s words. 

It was maybe 100 feet down the hall when Daniel located the soft glow through a crack in the door.  In a small room, although every room on this planet seemed to be a small one, Teal’c had positioned himself in the center of a circle of small white pillar candles.  He was deep into meditation and Daniel hesitated to disturb him. There was a small wooden table to the side of the door so Daniel set the plate there and sat down crossed legged in front of the Jaffa, joining him in his relaxation.  Breathing slowly in and out, Daniel began to meditate as Teal’c had taught him, releasing the flood of emotion that had been building up inside of him all day.  Why was his life like this? It seems that everything Daniel touched just turned into a disaster.  Everything, right down to the discovery of the Stargate, which while wonderful in some aspects, had brought death and destruction to many worlds and many brave men and women of Earth.  Even this simple assignment was quickly blowing up in his face and rather than the relief that the practice normally brought him, he felt a sinking in the pit of his stomach.  

Daniel meditated for a while, without a sound from Teal’c.  Eventually, realizing that Teal’c was not going to move and Daniel feeling no better, he got up, left the plate on the table and headed back to his lab.  He’d let Adrienne have his bunk for the night, he decided, not even thinking of trying to slip in with her later. 

******

The run made him feel better and warmer as he expected but he was going to have to be careful to walk the fine line between keeping warm and feeling good and overdoing it.  He was thirsty, but since they Skalaraans only seemed to drink that disgusting smelling tea, he was going to have to get some water from the bathroom. It wasn’t his first choice, but it would have to do.  

He started back down the hall, toweling sweat off of his head, deciding he would shower yet again before turning in for the night.  As he neared the rooms he could hear strange noises coming from the girls’ room, crashing, crying, general chaos so he cautiously approached the door, knocking lightly.  There was no answer, so he knocked again. Still no answer.  Curiosity turning quickly to worry, he tried the doorknob and the door swung easily open this and there, inside, there was Vala, raging against a wall with anything she could put her fists on.

“Vala, what the hell is going on? What are you doing?” Cameron shouted, frozen in disbelief. 

“Leave me alone Cam, I’m not in the mood,” Vala hissed at him.  

“Listen, you were pretty upset out there today and I just wanted to check in on you.  Did I do something? Did anyone do anything?” Cameron asked, trying to ascertain what was going on with her but Vala just threw the chair she had in her hands down on the ground, marching right up to his face, standing nose to nose with him. 

“You know what I’m tired of? I’m tired of being treated like an idiot.  I was treated like an idiot the entire time I was trying to help you people save the damn universe and now that I’m on the team and back on an active mission, what happens, but we’re back to where we started.  Vala, take this equipment with you because you are too stupid to work with us. Don’t break it! Vala, make a 1 x 1 grid, you know, like a checkerboard since you are too blasted stupid to understand dimensions!!”  she screamed.  Cam did notice that Daniel did have a tendency to treat Vala like a child, maybe a bit more than he should, but she was generally a good natured person and he had never seemed to make her quite so angry before.

“Ok, girl.  Let’s take a deep breath.  I think we all just need to grab some dinner, calm down and turn in early.  Last night’s craziness, today’s excitement and the cold temperatures are really wigging out our systems. Come on,” he took her arm, “let’s go for a walk.” He could tell she was still angry, but she let him lead her from the room and toward the mess. 

When they arrived they found Sam and Adrienne already sitting and eating, but alone. It seemed that Daniel had taken the promised food down to Teal’c and but had chosen not to return himself.  Considering this to be a stroke of luck, better Addy here to deal with Vala than Daniel anyway, Cam led his friend over to the table to sit down and chat with everyone, hoping that her friends would be able to calm her down and ascertain what was really wrong with her. 

“Hey Cam, Hey Vala,” Sam shouted, much more cheerful than usual, maybe not cheerful per se, but loud.  Her legs were tapping a mile a minute and she looked like she needed to relax, big time.  Adrienne, on the other hand, just looked up and waved. She seemed the opposite of herself too, quiet and sullen, like she had a terrible migraine headache that she couldn’t control.  

“Listen ladies, Vala’s not really feeling that terrific today and I need to check on Teal’c.  Can ya’ll keep any eye on her?” Cameron asked. 

“Sure!! – Sam answered enthusiastically, again, for the general it was way too chipper, “and afterwards she can come back to the lab and help with the chemical analysis of those compounds I’ve discovered……”  Sam trailed off babbling some kind of physics mumbo jumbo while Adrienne just nodded, listlessly.  Something’s going on, Cam thought, and decided he needed to get the group together, in one place, fast, so he left the cafeteria in a jog, in search of Teal’c and Daniel.

As he has half expected, Teal’c wasn’t in the room, so he set out exploring the hallways. Turned right out of the room, hoping that the complex itself made a big circle, Cam began his room by room search. 

*****

Sam was genuinely annoyed that neither Vala nor Adrienne had taken an interest in her near breakthrough, granted, they didn’t understand the basics of organic or even elemental chemistry enough to fully appreciate what she was trying to do, but they could at the very least feign interest.  After only about a half an hour at dinner, however,  Adrienne had complained of nausea and excused herself back to bed while Vala, still steaming about something had left shortly after.  Sam, on the other hand, couldn’t see the sense in wasting perfectly good time on something as trivial as sleep especially since they only had 7, well 6 days taking packing, night and travel into consideration, here on this glorious planet and she only had 4 days left at this point as it was. Who knew what the Skalaraans would actually allow her to take home?

It seemed that while she had found great success transcribing the periodic tables, she had also stumbled upon a few compounds that while similar to the ones known on earth, were just different enough to be viable.  In particular, the extra electrons present in the lithium on this world might allow her to use existing nuclear theory to create a stronger yet better contained power device, possibly alleviating the need to take Daniel and Adrienne away from important database research sending them on wild ZPM chases. That, if not anything else, was definitely much more important than sleep.  

Thankfully, she really didn’t need to worry about sleep, it was as if the Skalarans had read her mind. That tea was great; not only did it keep her warm but it managed to keep her alert and awake.  She had passed on it the first night, but after it managed to keep Adrienne warm and happy, and poor Adrienne never seemed warm, Sam thought it was worth a try.  Since, she had experienced a jolt of energy, in fact much more energy than from her normal vitamin B supplements.  

She glanced at her watch curious as to the time and was surprised to discover that it was roughly three in the morning here.  Plenty of time till Skalaraan sunrise, when Cam and Teal’c would most likely come to interrupt her to discuss the dead Jaffa. It wasn’t that she didn’t want to discuss what they had discovered, but based on what Vala had told her at dinner alone it was nothing to worry about, no signs of Anubis, no signs of foul play, even Teal’c thought it was suicide. Honestly, that made it a problem for the Jaffa council and not Stargate Command. 

Maybe it was the stress of everything, but while Sam’s body was wide awake, it was starting to take a mental toll, yet she wasn’t just ready to call it quits.  She could take a nap for a few hours after she got through this stack of documents.  In the mean time, she decided to do some jumping jacks to get her brain flowing again and to take out some nervous energy.  She felt like she was in college again pulling an all-nighter and it was a rush she had missed sitting in her command office all day.  She needed to go off-world more often.  

*****

Vala awoke the next morning to an empty room.  Sam must have never left the lab and Adrienne had most likely crawled her way into Daniel’s bed again. It would figure; the two of them just needed to sleep together and get it over with. Vala was sick of having to play the good friend, sick of having to listen to Adrienne whine day in and day out about how much she loved Daniel and sick of watching him pine after her with the same intensity. Did anyone care how she felt? Was she just supposed to throw away all of the feelings she had had for Daniel for so long? Of course she was, just move over Vala and make way for the cute cajun model. Why pay any mind to Vala when everyone and everything else is much more interesting?  As she showered and dressed, she wondered why she was bothering to head back out to the site again.  No matter what, the smell would be bad, the time would be too short, or her samples wouldn’t be good enough for Daniel, nothing about her was good enough for Daniel. Regardless, she threw on her uniform jacket, stormed out of the room, her sense of duty to her team and family outweighing her personal feelings.

When she entered the mess she saw only Cam and Adrienne, no Sam, no Teal’c and no Daniel.  Adrienne looked like she could throw up at any second, her face was pale, much more than her normal complexion,  and she was moving very slowly, carefully, as if she was afraid that to move quickly would result in her falling completely to pieces. Smiling and chatting away, Cam sat across from her with a Powerbar in one hand and his canteen in the other, desperately trying to lift her spirits. 

“So are we the only ones bothering to work today?”  Vala interrupted, attitude in her voice.  

“Good morning to you too Vala,”  Cam answered, “It seems Sam pulled an all-nighter and Daniel’s trying to get Teal’c back in the game and even Addy here is pushing through on a sour stomach, so no worries girl, you’re not alone.”

“Great,” she spat, her voice louder, almost shouting, “so are we heading down to the site on Teal’c’s time or what?”  Once again, everyone else’s problems and issues came before hers and she had work to do.  This was crazy, this was why nothing managed to get done, everyone else and their god damn issues.

“Vala, please stop shouting,” Adrienne answered her, holding her hand painfully to her temple as she winced “I can come down with you if you need.  Daniel and I have hit a big zero and he seems to just think we are wasting our time at this point.”

She hadn’t expected anyone to actually volunteer, but she should have figured Adrienne would, helping out was what she did; she was very much like Daniel in that respect. This calmed her down for a bit, so she went over to the center table and grabbed a plate, filling it with that disgusting fruit and stale bread.  She reached out for a cup, the feel of it in her hand making her feel better already, until she remembered that there was no coffee on this planet, no french vanilla creamer, just that crap tea that everyone kept drinking. Sighing and holding back a tantrum, she poured herself a mug of Oklug and returned to the table where everyone had dropped to silence. Popping a dull red strawberry like fruit into her mouth, she glanced down at her watch, seeing that it was roughly half past eight in the morning. At this rate they were never going to get back to the site but fortunately, Cam was on the same page.   

“Ok, guys, I think I’m going to find Jahwna and we’re gonna steal Addy for the day.  We can get the rest of the information we need if we work fast and work together,” he declared.  Oddly, as if the commander had read their minds, Jahwna, accompanied by Moreed, entered the room.  Today, they were wearing matching amber robes and more than ever looked to be akin. 

“Sir Cam,” Jahwna spoke as Cam nodded in acknowledgement, “I have told Moreed of our finding yesterday and he is quite interested in the results of Dr. Jackson’s analysis.” 

“Um, sir,”  Cam started, “I’m not sure how far he was able to get on those samples.  Last I saw of him he was nose deep in translations and might not have gotten as far as he wanted to….”

“What findings? ,” Vala interjected, “You mean MY samples and MY findings!?!” She stood. “Basically what we know is this:  For some unknown reason those young Jaffa, who are free to settle on a nice NORMAL planet like Chulak instead of this godforsaken cold rock, came here to off themselves in a ditch.  And since Daniel has been to damn busy comforting our big baby to run any of the tests and our REAL scientist is onto some amazing breakthrough or something, no one has had time to analyze anything. On our planet we do have to sleep once in a while.” Shocked, Cam stood and put his hand on her shoulder as she flew off the handle for no reason at all, but she lashed out, shoving him away.  

“Furthermore,” Vala continued, “ I’m not sure what you people EAT on this planet, but no one can survive on this shit.  It’s cold, I am hungry and this tea DOES NOT warm you up.”

His mouth open, looking like some ridiculous small headed shark, Jahwna breathed out, the air hissing through his hideous teeth, approaching her, reaching out his hand to calm her as well. All she could think was, how dare he? How dare he touch me? Instinctively, she recoiled, pulling back her fist and punching him square in the face, her knuckles scratching some teeth but breaking a few as well. The slight man toppled over, falling in slow motion to the ground, and in mere moments she could feel herself being forced to the floor 

“Colonel Mitchell, please inform Dr. Jackson that we are taking Miss MalDoran into custody.  To strike another soul is one of the highest offenses in our culture and until he and I can meet to settle this she will be taken to a holding cell,” Moreed addressed Cameron, any friendliness from his voice gone.    

Vala fought and kicked with all of her might, unable to believe how strong these slight humanoids really were. She turned her head to get a better look at her subduer, a guard, same amber robes as the other two, with very long golden hair that might have been beautiful had he not been hauling her to a cell.  Seeing an opportunity, she grabbed at it the best she could, but her fighting and pulling was futile, he was too strong and he wouldn't let go. Redirecting her attention to her team, why wasn’t Addy helping? Addy could beat this man’s ass?, she thought she could hear Cam trying to reason with Moreed when she felt a pin prick on the side of her neck and the world went black.  

*****

“Sir, look, something is really wrong with our team, please, let me go and find Daniel because I’m sure that he can straighten it all out,” Cameron pleaded with their host, hoping that he could find his missing comrade, the one who was really supposed to be leading this expedition.

“Colonel Mitchelll, I certainly hope so.  We have brought you into our home as honored guests in the hopes that our worlds will have many things to share.  That, however, is no longer looking as likely.”  With that, Moreed swept up his robes, motioned to Jahwna and left the room, following behind the suprisingly strong guard who had carried out Vala, kicking and screaming moments before. Blown back only for a second, Cam shook his head, rubbing his eyes, glancing over at Adrienne who was sitting there clearly stunned, silent, passive, so unlike her.

“Ok, look,” his training in command was once again kicking in, “you need to go to the lab.  I know Sam pulled an all nighter, so I need you two egg heads to act like everything is alright and keep working.  I’m going to go get Daniel, try to reason with Teal’c and clean up this situation.  Understood?” 

Adrienne simply nodded, weakly, but it was an affirmation so accepting that as he answer, Cam turned on his heels and dashing through the doors, racing down the hall.  Jogging at near full speed he traced his way back through the corridors that he had explored last night, passageway after passageway of olive and grays walls. He had found both Teal’c and Daniel in a small room meditating last night, which while it was somewhat strange that they were doing so off world, it something he had seen them do a million times before on base, so he had left them to it and hit the sack.  It did, however, bother him that neither of them made it back to bed last night, but he had chalked that up to them sleeping there as well. 

When he arrived at that same room, Teal’c was still sitting in the center of small white wax piles that had once been candles, their flames long since burned out but there was no sign of Daniel in the room.  

“Teal’c, buddy, hey man, can you wake up? We’ve got a bit of a situation here.  Teal’c? Where’s Daniel? I need to find Daniel.  Damn it Teal’c, I need you to wake up!” he shouted as he knelt in front of his friend, but the Jaffa didn’t respond. 

“Teal’c! Vala has been ARRESTED!!! They are LOCKING HER UP!!!” Cam was screaming in his face, a face that did not break, did not move.  This was bad; this was so bad.  What was going on? It was as if the entire team was falling apart:  Vala had been arrested, Teal’c had completely shut down, Sam was on some manic research binge and Adrienne looked so ill he was sure she needed a hospital.  Where in the HELL was Daniel?! Why was everyone acting like this? And then he remembered……

There was only one thing Cam could do. He took out his zat gun and made his way to the Stargate.  

*****

Teal’c was vaguely aware of Cam entering the room and he knew that his friend had been trying to tell him something about Vala, but that wasn’t important. The only thing important was his failure.  He understood now, he understood it all; those young Jaffa had made a wise and honorable decision and he would need to follow their lead.  Silently, he rose and began to search for the proper tools.  

Daniel had arrived back to an empty room.  His watch was gone and he had no idea as to what time it was but he had hoped it was early enough to find them, to find his friends, to find someone to talk to, but they were all gone.  He had checked the girl’s room first, looking for preferably Adrienne, but he would even have taken Sam or Vala to bounce some thoughts off of, to see if there was something that he was missing. Here he was fighting with desperation and despair and this proved it all to him, the team didn’t need him any longer, that they had risen that morning, continuing with their work and research without him, without even noticing that he was gone. Some leader he was; even Teal’c wouldn’t snap out of it for his old friend.  He had at least hoped that Adrienne would have come looking for him, Adrienne who he cared so much about, who he loved more than anything or anyone else in his life. Not even Adrienne, however, could be bothered, which was the most heartbreaking of all because he thought he had seen it, he thought that she loved him too. He guessed he was wrong about that too. Despondent and alone, Daniel walked into the guy’s room, closing the door behind him.  

*****

Adrienne had done as Cam asked and went to Sam’s lab and there, Sam was calmly transcribing more elements on the periodic table, so Adrienne decided that Cam was right; they should just return to work and let Daniel deal with the Vala situation.  So what else was new, Vala throwing a tantrum while Daniel had to deal with her and everything else; she really didn’t understand why Cam was so concerned anyway. Despite her continued nausea and headache, and annoyance at the entire situation, Adrienne headed back to their work room and resumed where she has left off yesterday. 

She had been bent over the desk for hours, translating what were just more pages and pages of family lineage, not one more stitch of interesting information. She might as well had been working on the Asgard database since it was the same damn stuff she did at home, just different names, a frigid room and no coffee and she wanted some coffee. Out of habit she looked up and over to where Daniel had been working to tell him just that when she remembered that he was gone, that Cam was looking for him and she was alone. No longer desiring to work, she closed the last of the small stack of books, and stood, stretching, taking a swig of the closet thing she could get to actual coffee and checked the time.  Earth time, it was well past noon and there had been no sign of Cam or Daniel for that matter. Not having Daniel come to work was the strangest of all, and that concerned her more than anything. Maybe he had stopped by the lab to see what Sam was working on so she dragged herself to the door, stopping to vomit into a refusing bin, deciding to find her best friend and figure out what was going on. 

The lab where the Skalarans had stationed Sam was just two doors down, thankfully, because each step was more painful than the last. The door was slightly ajar when she arrived, so she pushed it open the rest of the way to find Sam frantically working with a small electronic machine, her eyes wide, her long brown hair a mess, out of it’s braid and she was muttering to herself incoherently.  

“Huh,” she said aloud to herself, “Daniel’s not here either.”

Sam completely ignored her, “If I place this wire here it should act as a counterbalance to the Lithium 6…….”

“Sam? Have you seen Daniel? Has Cam come by?” Adrienne asked but Sam continued to run back and forth across the room ignoring Adrienne’s arrival.  Growing frustrated, Adrienne raised her voice, causing further pounding in her head, “Sam, what are you doing?”

“Adrienne!!!”  Sam looked up at her, finally, and the cajun got a good long look at her face dead on. It was unnaturally frenzied, sunken in, worn, not from a lack of make-up but a lack of sleep, evident by the large dark circles under her eyes. She looked pale and sickly and Adrienne instantly caught her breath; something was wrong with the general, something very very wrong. 

 “Adrienne!!! I think I may have found a way to write the basic component ideas for a Teller-Uman Hydrogen Bomb to create a non-explosive submodel which might generate enough power for use to dial the 9^th chevron…”

She kept talking, frantically, glancing back to her work, acting as if Adrienne had any idea as to what she was saying. As Sam continued to move the parts and mumbled to herself, Adrienne could see a soft red glaze trickling down the wires and onto the main portion of the machine.  It took her a moment to realize that it was blood, that Sam was bleeding onto the machine. Scanning the scene with her eyes, Adrienne saw that it was not a small cut either;  her friend’s fingers were raw and torn and there was blood everywhere, the table, the documents, rubbed away on her black uniform pants, giving them a wet appearance. 

“If I could get a team here, maybe 5 or 6 scientists, we could use an Asgard conduit here and poof! Welcome home Colonel Young!” Sam exclaimed, glancing back up at Adrienne again as she pointed to the end of the machine, blood flying from her fingers to splatter against the wall.  It oozed down the wall like paint on canvas and the brilliant scientist paid it no mind, her bloody fingers continuing to work frantically at her task and mumbling about power sources, conduits and ZPM alternatives.  

Terrified, Adrienne back away slowly, the smell of the blood overtaking her, making her heave up what little bile lay at the bottom of her empty stomach. Cam must have found Daniel already and they would be working to get the situation under control, maybe even be able to figure our what was wrong with everyone.  After Vala’s violent outburst at breakfast and now this Adrienne had gone from worry to panic, swallowing the foul liquid creeping up her throat, forcing herself to run for help, her only thought to be that she had to find Daniel, now. 

Daniel wasn’t in the cafeteria either, so Adrienne composed herself, willing herself onward to their quarters. Slowly, Adrienne approached the door to the guys’ room and it was closed, no light coming from the crack in the door.  She knocked tentatively but there was no answer. He had to be here, where else would he be? Growing more and more concerned by the moment, she tried the doorknob and it was unlocked, so she opened the door slowly, peering carefully inside. 

Hesitantly, Adrienne entered the dark room, one cautious step at a time. She felt around for the switch remembering it was on the left hand side of the door, finding it with ease and flipping it upward but nothing happened.  

“I cut the lights.” The voice startled her for a moment, a voice clearly coming from the bottom bunk.  Breathing in deeply, she realized it was Daniel, relief washing over her. “I needed to think. I wanted it dark. It is just not dark enough.” 

“Indy, are you ok?” Adrienne asked as she cautiously approached the bunk, stepping carefully through the pitch blackness.  She could hear his breathing, intense and deep.  It was so loud, much louder than normal and she wondered instantly if he was sick as well. 

“Daniel, shug, something really crazy’s going on. Did Cam find ya?” she inquired, weakly, her accent slipping out ever so slightly, but he didn’t answer, not to tease her, not to inquire about her well being, he just continued to breathe in and out loudly and slowly. It terrified her. 

“Daniel, what is going on?” she asked as she stepped, pausing to lean over onto her knees, breathing and out slowly, trying to keep the liquid in her stomach from making another visit. 

“I’m finished.  There’s no need for me, you all don’t need me.  I’m just tired of it all,” he whispered in the dark. 

“What are you talking about Daniel? Of course we need you. Why are you acting so strange?,” she asked him as she approached cautiously, reaching her hands in front of here to find the bunk, knowing she must be close as she heard shuffling, the motion of his body in front of her. 

Suddenly, he reached out, clamping his hand around her wrist, pulling her into the bed slamming her left shoulder into the concrete wall.  She didn’t have time to scream or to even gasp as her side began to throb in pain and she felt him crawling over her, pushing himself on top of her, and pinning her shoulders down with each of his hands. She could feel his breath, hot and moist, in her face as she struggled to free herself of his tight grasp. 

“Daniel, get off of me! What are you doing?” she tried to fight back, moving her hips back and forth, but Daniel was larger, which normally wouldn’t have mattered,  and Adrienne felt so sick, so weak, she just didn’t have much fight in her.  Flashbacks entered her head, a motel room, a door kicked in, being helpless once more, cold metal shoved into her face and filthily words whispered into her ear. Under his body she trembled and shook as he moved his hands from her shoulders and down her arms, pinning them down with his knees, no longer allowing her to beat them onto his chest. His hands were again at her shoulders, at her throat, squeezing, the sweat from his palms running across her skin yet not loosening his grip. She felt his pelvis push closer to her own, she felt him pushing against her, ready, but not in the way she would have ever wanted. 

By the time his lips reached hers he was not only kissing her fiercely but mumbling “never again”, “I’m in control now”, “I won’t lose you,” and other things she didn’t understand in broken Ancient and Egyptian. Tears began streaming down her cheeks as she could feel his teeth, cold, smooth, pressing so hard against her and cutting into her bottom lip, splitting it at the scar.  A strong metallic taste hit her tongue as the blood trickled into her mouth, a taste wiped away by his own tongue as he forced it into her mouth. What was happening, this wasn’t Daniel, her gentle, kind Daniel, the man of her dreams, the man she was in love with. Her chest was getting tighter and she realized that she couldn’t breathe, he was pushing down on her too hard and her chest ached, her heart racing as she gasped for air around his forced kiss. Smothering her mouth harder with his own, Daniel came to his knees, ripping at her BDU pants, yanking her velcro belt loose and ripping the buttons from their threads to get them open. Resigning herself that this was going to happen, that she couldn’t fight him, she hurt too badly, she let the tears fall freely, mentally preparing herself for what was about to come. With what little voice and strength she had she whispered.

“I love you Daniel.” 

“Adrienne?”  His voice was quiet, confused, and as suddenly as it had begun, Daniel was off of her, shaking violently.  She could hear his heart beating, so loud, so very loud and could hear tears running down his face.  She could hear all of this, magnified like speakers were inside of her head. It was all so loud, and so unnatural.  Trying to pull together what she could of her pants, she sat forward, beside him, still trembling, internally debating whether she should stay or flee.  Where would she go? If she tried to escape, he would easily catch her considering the state she was in right now, so she stayed where she was.  

“Daniel, what’s wrong,” she was sobbing uncontrollably, “please, don’t hurt me, please...” As if on cue, he cried out and fell onto her again, but this time his head in her lap, sobbing fiercely, apologizing to Gods she could only assume were Abydonian. 

“I don’t know what’s wrong with me,” he cried, “I can’t take it anymore. The books, the work, I’m hollow, and I’m alone. I’m so alone. I have nothing, I’ve lost everything I ever cared about, again and again and I can’t even have you,” He leapt from the bunk before she could reply and fell to his knees on the floor screaming. 

“I HATE THIS!!! I HATE MYSELF!!! I WANT THIS PAIN TO END!!!!”

Adrienne had never seen him act like this, or anyone act like this for that matter; his screams were penetrating her skull, she could hear him panting, she could feel his self-hate and anger coming off of his body in waves.  It was as if she was in an energy cyclone, the center of this horrible storm of emotions, the winds of his fear beating her body violently.  

Despite her better judgement, she got down onto the floor with him and wrapped her arms around him holding him close to her. She herself was still shaking but he wouldn’t have hurt her, she told herself, it would have never gotten that far. Something was very wrong with him, something had happened to him, Daniel would have never....

“Daniel, I’m right here, everything is gonna be alright, please calm down,”  She wiped a drop of blood from her lip and fought to contain her own tears, telling herself to calm down as much as she was telling him. Still babbling in and out of various languages, Daniel was completely falling apart in her lap, much worse than when the Ascended had invaded his dreams, much worse than anything she had ever seen. Where was Cam? If he hadn’t found Daniel then where did he go?  Sam needed a doctor soon, Adrienne just hoped that she hadn’t injured herself further, she had heard nothing of where they had taken Vala and she felt so sick and so contaminated, all the while holding her best friend in her arms as he completely fell apart. It was then she smelled something else on Daniel, a strange and familiar smell, a smell she had been close to for almost three days now. 

The tea. 

“Daniel, look at me,” She pulled his face to hers, trying to find his eyes in the darkness, crying as she spoke, “Daniel, shug, listen to me.  Please don’t do anything. Stay here.  You’re sick, ok, sick, I am too. We all are, except for Cam. I think he’s trying to get help so I’m gonna go find him.  Please stay here and be safe, don’t do anything. Indy, look at me, let me know that you understand what I am saying to you.”  He lifted his tear stained face and nodded slowly.  

“I love you and you’re not gonna lose me,” she promised without thinking, kissing his head before leading him to the bunk to rest. 

Moments later, after throwing up in the corner, Adrienne was running through the hallways looking for the Colonel.

*****

Cam was running down the hall toward the Stargate as fast as he could so it was virtually impossible for him to stop when he saw Adrienne running straight for him, her hair in every direction, holding up her pants that looked as if they had been ripped from her body.  They slammed into each other and he caught her, pushing her back and as he moved her away he could see her lip was busted, bleeding down her face and that she was crying, her face flushed and streaked with tears.  

“Addy, oh my god, what happened? Are you alright?” he asked. 

“Daniel, he, there….” she choked through tears, her chest heaving with rapid breath. Cam stood back in shock and disbelief as he suddenly understood what had occurred. 

“Adrienne, did he ….?” uttering the question he was afraid to ask.  

“No, no. But something’s wrong.  It’s the tea.  We’ve all been drinking it.  Everyone but you.  And we’re all so messed up,” she continuing, her body convulsing, tears cascading down her face. Without asking her anything else, Cam reached out his arms, pulling her into an embrace, holding his friend tightly. 

“I know Addy, I know.  I’m the only one who seems to be all right and I’m the only one that didn’t drink the crap.  Ok, Adrienne listen to me,” he paused, not wanting to send her back to Daniel, god Daniel, he thought to himself, why did it have to be Daniel, “Where’s Sam? Can you go to her?” Adrienne was still sobbing, holding onto him tightly tearing Cameron up to see his friend so scared.

“She’s all messed up.  Babbling on about this machine, bleeding, she smells like metal. It’s awful, Cam, I don’t....” Adrienne was stammering again, shaking and he took a moment to consider his options.  Better a crazed Sam than a violent Daniel any day, especially now that he could smell a trace a vomit on Adrienne, a clear indicator of how sick she really was.  She wouldn’t hurt him either, if he tried something else, even to defend herself, she would never do anything to bring him harm. 

“Go to her.  I’m heading for the gate.  Here,”  he gave her his zat gun, “Stay with her.  Shoot anything that comes into that room including Jackson if you have to.  I’m gonna get us some help.” 

Faster than he had run in a long time, Cam made a mad dash to the gate, through the long corridors, wondering if he should have left Adrienne alone or not. Going with his gut instinct, he pushed onward, he needed to get back, get a hold of Jack and get them some help and fast. Turning the last corner, the colonel came to an abrupt halt, surprised to see Moreed standing right in front of him.   

“Colonel Mitchell. Why are we in such a hurry?” the man asked.  

“Look Moreed; I’m not sure what’s going on here, but my team is seriously ill and I need to contact our commander and get our doctor over here,” Cameron explained.  

“I am afraid that will not be possible,” he replied and as if on cue, a group of identical Skalaraan guards came out from behind the gate to surround him.  Cam looked left and right pointing his zat gun in both directions trying to determine where to open fire first but as he had decided left, he saw the soldiers to the right crumble to the floor out of the corner of his eye.  Not one to question good fortune, Cam opened fire to the left, turning to point his zat lastly at Moreed and fired. 

“Colonel Mitchell,” Teal’c called out from behind him,  “I believe that we have been poisoned.  I was coming to the Stargate to contact O’Neill and request reinforcements.” 

“That is the best thing you could say to me right now old buddy,” Cam replied, reaching his hand to the DHD. He dialed the sequence home and saw the crystalline waters materialize in front of him and quickly activating his call sign, tore through the wormhole for home.  

*****

Once Cam had called for reinforcements Sam’s very concerned and very angry husband, who also just happened to be the Head of Homeworld Command, sent three Stargate teams to rescue them and secure the Skalaraan facility. Once he awakened from being zatted, Moreed was tended to and then interrogated as to their intentions concerning Earth and what they had done to SG-1.  Apparently, the Skalaraans were not as isolated as originally thought, but used Oklug has a way to drive their uninvited guests to madness and eventually suicide.  The young Jaffa team had been sent about eight months earlier by the Jaffa council to make “first contact” and set up trade.  Jahwna had reluctantly revealed that they were driven to madness after five days of drinking the tea and had committed suicide in their rooms.  The Skalaraans dressed them in some old Jaffa armor, polished it up and tossed them into the ravine.  When it seemed that Stargate command was coming through, like it or not in their view, they used the Jaffa bodies to separate the team so they would not be able to tell that they were being poisoned. Meditating, Teal’c had finally realized that there was a lack of blood at the site and that the bodies must have been moved.  Coupled with his own despair, he knew something had driven these Jaffa to kill themselves as it was driving him to desire the same.  He knew that he needed to call for a rescue team and had arrived just in time to assist Cam. After reviewing the facts, Sam decided not to deem them hostile, it was apparent they simply wanted to be left alone, instead choosing to have their gate de-activated and the planet marked uninhabited with a star by the note. That should keep most unwanted visitors out.  

It had been three days since they arrived back at Stargate command and still none of them had made much contact, even eye contact with one another.  They knew it was the tea, but they were all still embarrassed by their actions. Vala felt awful for almost causing an interplanetary incident and about some of the very nasty things she had said and thought about her friends, the most important people in her life. Teal’c felt as if he had abandoned his team when they needed him the most, more concerned about people who were gone than the people who were right there and needed him. Adrienne felt stupid, not only for taking so long to figure out the problem but for causing it in her mind, having been the one to start complaining about the cold the moment they arrived. No one was really getting any work done, she’d had to put SG-1 on a mission hiatus, and even telling them they needed to take the mandatary week off, which really hadn’t been enforced since Anubis reared his ugly head, hadn’t worked. Finally, seeing no other option than to reason with them, Sam had called a meeting in the briefing room, right after dinner, to discuss what she had found from the sample of Oklug that Moreed have generously given them, in exchange for his freedom and for immunity for his planet.   They all couldn’t just continue to avoid each other like this and she was going to put a stop to it now. 

None of them arrived together and they each filed in the room solemnly, taking their customary seats.  Daniel, who seemed to have been affected by the mission the most, trickled in last.  Cam told Sam what Adrienne had said, or rather, what she hadn’t said, since neither archaeologist would talk about it. Of all of their friends, it was Daniel that was worrying Sam the most; he seemed a shell of his former self, cold, distant and had pushed himself away from Adrienne, his dearest friend. 

“If I can have everyone’s attention to the whiteboard, I would like to share with you what Carolyn and Carson have discovered over the past few days,” she announced, and four indifferent heads turned to face her. At least they’re looking at me, she thought, pointing the remove to the board carefully at the projector, fumbling, her hands still bandaged tightly. Fight through it, she willed her unwilling limbs, be the example.

“It seems that the main ingredient in the Oklug is very similar to a class of stimulants that we know on Earth as Nootropics.  In particular, they are very closely related to Isoflavones, which have been found to act as sort of a hormone in mammals.  Rather than change our behavior, per se, it simply increases the greatest feeling that we were having at the time of consumption and these feelings increase exponentially based on the amount of chemical consumed.  Adrienne was the first to feel the symptoms, she started drinking it first, and we know that was the case when she claimed that Vala was snoring so loudly that she awoke,” Sam began her presentation.  

“I do not snore,” Vala glared over at Adrienne. 

“No, Vala, you don’t and that was key to Cam figuring out what was going on.  Cam has been on dozens of missions with you and he remembered that you don’t snore, and most certainly not loud enough to wake Adrienne. Addy, you’ve slept at my place, I don’t think the Armageddon would wake you,” Sam peered over at the woman, trying to joke, and Adrienne shrugged sheepishly. Pleased at the reaction, the general continued. 

“What Adrienne perceived as snoring was your breathing, enhanced due to the Oklug.  Adrienne is the kind of person that picks up on small details, so the tea sent her senses into detail overload,” Sam started to explain. 

“That’s true.  I just notice things and pick up on sights and sounds that are out of place.  I noticed how cold our room was and everything else was right away and then just started to pick the rest of the room apart bit by bit.  And I had at least three cups of tea the first night,” she conceded, remembering how Daniel had joked with her about going into her ‘zone’ the moment they arrived. Oh Daniel, she thought, cutting her eyes quickly over in his direction, seeing that he was focused on Sam, not even looking in her direction. It broke her heart.  

“Exactly! Then, when you went to room with the guys, you were not as hyper vigilant.  You work with Daniel every day, so there was nothing new to notice about him, it is just the same old Daniel,” Sam paused, trying to see if that statement had the intended effect. Adrienne seemed a lot better and was even looking over at Daniel, as was the rest of the group, but he just continued to stare blankly at the slideshow. Breathing in, she decided to continue, and take the focus off of her friend. 

“Teal’c was next.  Again, Teal’c’s episodes began after seeing the Jaffa bodies and how they had been mutilated.  This lead him to an extreme desire to atone for their suffering or at least try to figure what could be done.  His rational mind, telling him that there were no Go’ould to punish was completely overtaken by an urge to train and mediate on a solution.  That explains why he shut himself into the room for hours on end. Teal’c you didn’t forget or forsake anyone, your body was trying to fight off the poison in it’s own way,” Sam redirected her attention to her the tall warrior.  After what had happened to Vala, and almost happened to Adrienne, he was blaming himself for his inability to protect his team, but there was no reason to beat himself up. He was looking at her, so satisfied with that response, she continued to explain. 

“Teal’c, without your symbiote, you are much more susceptible to the same things as we are.  Tretonin keeps you alive, gives you strength, but this was essentially poison and no amount of strength or fortitude can fix that.  But, you were strong enough to fight back and that led you and Cam to the gate,” she added, finally getting a nod in reply. She heard movement, a chair slid across the tile floor and without warning, Daniel got up and left the room.  

Looking down at her broken hands, a wound that could so easily be healed, Sam sighed, continuing with her explanation to the rest of the group. She just hoped that if most of them could heal from this nightmare, they could help the ones who would take longer.  

*****

He had known.  He had known from the moment Adrienne had told him he was sick that it had been the tea, that he was essentially drugged but that didn’t matter. What was bothering Daniel was that there was so much evil in him; evil that made him forget his work, evil that made him want to harm himself, evil that made him almost harm another, someone that he loved so much.  Knowing it was a mood enhancer confirmed his fear; those feelings were not artificially implanted; he was broken and a danger to himself and others.  He knew they were released to go to their off base homes, those who had them anyway, but he went to his on base quarters to figure out what he needed to do.  It had taken Dr. Lam flushing his system for 24 hours just to get him what the doctor had deemed “normal” enough to be discharged from the infirmary and Daniel had spent most of that time alone, in his quarters, thinking.  

Entering the room, Daniel walked over to the bed, sitting down robotically, placing his head in his hands.  I almost raped her, he thought, I almost violated everything, her, our trust. How could I do that to someone I love so much? It wasn’t just the act itself that bothered him, it was that he knew of her past and of his own past. He sat on his bunk, his heart racing, an image in his head, her face, her hair, her words and how it would haunt him for the rest of his life like the night from the motel would haunt Adrienne. Like he would now haunt Adrienne. The heartache was just too much, but he had no where to go, didn’t know what to do, so he just sat there, tormented by this thoughts. He wasn’t sure how long he had been sitting there when there was a tap at the door. 

“Indy? Are you in there?” It was Adrienne, the last person he wanted to talk to and the last person he wanted to see. How could she even talk to him after what had happened? 

“Daniel, listen.  We need to talk.  Let me in.  You changed your code, ok, I get that. But if you don’t, Vala has already taught me how to pick a lock, so I’m just going to come in anyway,” she threatened gently.  Picking his head up from his hands, Daniel glanced at the door, knowing that she wouldn’t leave; she’d pick the lock if she really knew how to, or she’s just bust the code panel to get in.  Daniel arose, walking over to the door, and opened it slightly and peering around the door jam. 

“Can I come in? Please?” she asked, her face pressed into the small space he had created. She didn’t appear to be angry, or upset, just stood there staring at him with those captivating eyes of hers, full of love that he knew was meant for him that he didn’t deserve. Reluctantly, he stepped back and allowed her to pass, holding his place at the door, hand still on the aperture, as if he were planning an escape. Turning, she gently placed her hand over his, shutting the door behind her, pushing it tight enough to engage the lock. 

“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” he said, moving his gaze to the floor. 

“Now you’re just being ridiculous,” was her response. “Sit down and we need to talk.” Cocking her head over to his bed, she indicated that him seating and speaking to her was going to be how this was going to go. Without argument,he made his way over to the bed, and sat down, keeping his gaze toward the ground as he heard Adrienne pulling a chair from his desk. She positioned it facing him, he knew as he felt her presence and her knees touch his, and pulled his chin up so his eyes met hers. 

“I’m leaving,” he told her before she could get in a word, “what happened back there was part me. You heard Sam, it was enhancing our moods not creating them.”  Adrienne was already scowling at him, serious look in her eyes. 

“Exactly Daniel! It was our current mood.  Me, Miss Picky just got even more picky, and you of all people know how I get in new situations.  That morphed into some kind of super senses and energy sensitivity.  It’s not like I walk around looking for problems…..” Adrienne tried and failed to distract him with her own diagnosis, somewhat hoping that he would take the opportunity to pick on her, but he didn’t.

He knew she was trailing off to gauge his reaction, to get him to joke with her, but he wasn’t, he couldn’t. The first thing he needed, first thing tomorrow morning, was her to be transferred to a different department or even to the Atlantis base, in fact, Dr. Rodney McKay had been whining relentlessly since Daniel had gotten an assistant and he had not.  Rodney had used her before, seemed to like her even, in his own Rodney way, so he could send her there. That would keep her safe until he was able to secure a transfer of his own. Lost in his thoughts he was brought back to the reality of the situation as Adrienne popped her face in front of him.

“Daniel, that very morning and the night before, you were just as frustrated as I was if not more.  Hours and hours of work and nothing to show for it but supply lists and family lineage.  Nothing to answer any questions, any of you questions.  You had to feel out of control. And, I haven’t experienced a fraction of what you have on this team.  You had to feel alone.  Enhance that, times what two, three, four, Christ how much did we drink, and all in less than a 24 hour period,” Adrienne started to lay out what she remembered from Sam, knowing that for every cup she herself drank, Daniel, in his coffee denied state had consumed twice as many. None of that mattered, he couldn’t even look her in the eye; he hadn’t known that kind of savagery ever existed in him. 

“Daniel Anthony,” she said his name again, throwing in his middle name that he hated in for effect, “Are you hearing me? That was not you.  You were desperate. Desperate for control in your life.  I mean, think back, think about it.  Of all of the things that you have to be frustrated about, you have got to feel a lack on control, a loss of power.  Everything you said,” she paused, “everything you did, was a reaction to this feeling that you’re not in control of your life.”  Adrienne took a deep breath. “But you stopped.  Even in that state, you snapped out of it and stopped. I think that says something about your character.”

He had stopped.  But why? He searched his cloudy memory of that night, trying to remember the exact moment that he stopped.  He had been angry, so angry, needed to own something, control something, have power.  He was ripping and pulling at the one person he loved the most, wanting to control her, to have her and then he remembered her words. He remembered what she had said. Had she said that or was it just a dream? Had he imagined that?  A tear streaked down his cheek.  In all of that, in everything, as he was about to make her worst nightmare become a reality, she told him that she loved him. How could she? After all of that how could she possibly love him? Tears flooding his eyes, memories of his own rushing through his head, he looked down at the floor again, unable to speak. 

“Daniel, look at me, what’s wrong?” she questioned, lost, upset and scared. Reaching out for his chin, she brought it up meeting her gaze and it was then she saw something in him that she had never seen before: tears, real tears.  His blue eyes glistened behind them, but he was clearly on the verge of crying and this wasn’t like she had seen him before, doped and drugged into an emotional breakdown, he was just sitting here, with nothing chemical to force this reaction. 

“Daniel, talk to me, I told you, that wasn’t you. You would never hurt me, I know you would never hurt me,” she pleaded, reaching out for his shoulders. 

“Ad, I, I can’t let you, how can you, how could you, how can you be alright again, after, like you are, like you are now,” he rambled incoherently as Adrienne watched a tear free itself from the corner of his eye and fall onto the floor.  Terrified, she reached out again for him but unable to reach him. She stood quickly, sitting beside him on the bed, pulling him tenderly into her arms, and he came, curling into her embrace. She could feel more tears escape, damping her shoulder, but she didn’t move him, just let him stay there, hanging on to her. 

“After what Daniel, that you can be alright after what?” Adrienne asked softly, bringing her hand behind his neck to comfort him. After the tea? Didn’t he just hear Sam; they had all been poisoned, of course everything was going to be alright after. They were alright; that wasn’t him, he wasn’t a monster. 

“Ad, I was raped,” he admitted slowly, sitting up from her shoulder. The statement hit Adrienne like a train.  Raped? By who? When? How? She wanted to ask but just sat there staring at him.  That explained so much, so very much about the way he acted. Why he was so jumpy when it came to the topic of sex, not that they talked about it, but she had noticed when Vala or one of the boys made jokes. It explained why he was so concerned about Adrienne’s own assault and helping her get over the trauma and fear. It explained why he wouldn’t watch certain shows or movies when they hung out. It explained why he would never forgive himself after this. Daniel had been violated, violated just like her, but rather than harness some irrational fear of guns and doorways, he had been able to overcome everything and carry on until now, until this very moment as he was falling apart right here in front of her, until he had almost become the very monster he hated the most. 

“It was Hathor,” he continued finally feeling that he could talk about it, “she used her power on me and put me in this state where I did as she asked, almost in a robotic like trance, but I was trapped inside, watching everything happen and unable to stop it, screaming to get out but couldn’t,” Her mouth gaping and eyes wide, Adrienne just sat back and let him talk, watching him struggle for breath as he wiped his face.

“She used me to impregnate her, to make more Go’ould, and it worked. Jack and Teal’c had to kill the offspring, but it wasn’t just that, she used me, she took her time, she enjoyed me, and I was just....” he started to tear up again and this time Adrienne reached out for him, pulling him into her arms once more, hugging him tightly, holding him as he had held her, pulling his head to her chest, and wrapping her arms the best she could around his broad shoulders.   She held him like this for a moment, in silence, until her side hurt, unable to twist sideways and hold him any longer. 

“I’m gonna sit on this bed and so are you. And you’re gonna to sit here and cry if you need to and tell me whatever you feel that you can tell me or have to tell me and I am gonna listen. I’m not gonna judge or think differently of you; I’m just going to be here if you need me, ok?” she said. She felt him reach to squeeze her hand and pull away, taking off his glasses and setting them on the nightstand before scooting over to the wall and resting his back against it, sitting crossed legged like she always did.  Still silent, Adrienne crawled beside him, reaching her arms out and pulling him close. Daniel sat there for a long time, leaning against her shoulder and it felt to her as if he was doing as she had asked, sobbing lightly waiting to be able to speak.  There was movement and Adrienne expected him to pull back and start talking again, but instead he laid down into her arms, like he had when he was sick, like he had when the night visitors came, letting it all come out emotionally for the first time ever. Adrienne backed up, not really expecting that reaction but she moved to let him lay down on the bed, where he went, curled slightly.  He dropped to total silence, but Adrienne still didn’t speak, she just laid down beside him and wrapped her arm around him, holding him close to her.   

“When did this happen?” Adrienne finally asked, hoping she didn’t cross the line, but wanting him to keep talking, if for no other reason than to make sure he was ok.  

“A long time ago, a long long time ago. My first year with the program. I had forgotten it for a while, we were busy with other things, but lately, it’s crept up again slowly,” he explained.  A realization flashed in her head and Adrienne felt herself start to tear up, guilt washing over her.

“It’s because of me,” Adrienne stated, remembering how Vala and Carolyn talked about his nightmares stopping.  The only difference between then and now was Adrienne.  Adrienne, who just a few short months ago had told him of her own violation, Adrienne who had gotten so intimately close to him. Adrienne who had fallen in love with him. Sniffing in, Daniel paused and rolled over to face her, this time reaching his fingers to her cheek, running them lightly down her jaw. 

“No, no it’s not. You just told me about what happened.  This has been happening for a while, like the other nightmares. It comes and goes,” he explained and took a deep breath.  He wanted to add that it was all so much better with Adrienne around, that since they had become so close and he spent so much time at her apartment and her at his that he slept better. He knew now it was because he loved her, that his love for her was, at times it seemed, the only thing keeping him together.

“I’m broken. I’m so broken, I don’t even know what I’m still doing here,” he said, his voice cracking slightly. Adrienne wanted to reach out for his face, kiss him, tell him that he was not broken, that he was the most perfect person that she had ever met in her life, that she loved him and she needed him here, but she didn’t speak.  She didn’t say a word, primarily because she wasn’t sure if he had heard her. She’d half expected him to come racing to her room once his system had been flushed, take her into his arms and tell her that he loved her too, but he hadn’t. He’d done nothing but avoid her for days and now she understood why, but was still unable to say the words again.

“You’re not broken. You’re the furthest thing from broken a person can be Daniel, but you do keep too much inside. You need to talk to someone, confide in someone. I mean, I’m here if you need me. You can always talk to me,” she whispered.  

“I know,” Daniel replied a part of him was still dying inside, not because of Adrienne, this time, but because of the memories. He saw Hathor’s face, close to his own, kissing down his neck and he felt his stomach churn.  He tried to block out the memory, her words to him in Egyptian telling him what she planned on doing to him, what she had done to him, and he trembled.  In his head he saw her reaching for his clothes when he felt an arm around his waist, almost making him jump, and he realized it was just Adrienne, trying to comfort him. 

“I’m glad she’s dead.  I’d have to go ape on that bitch for fucking with my best friend,” he heard her whisper in the dark, trying to joke, leaning over to stick her face into his. He actually laughed lightly at her remark, wiping some more wetness from his face. Smiling at their eye contact, she mussed his hair, let her hand glide slowly down his cheek. 

“She’s gone Indy. It’s just you and me and the team. We’ve all learned a lot since, and that will never happen again. I promise. What happened on Skalara, none of it and I’m here to help you through this, whatever you need,” she added, hoping he understood. Her heart was racing, what was going on with him, he just seemed to be falling completely apart.

“Ad,” he choked out, bringing his gaze to hers, trying to clear his throat of tears and sorrow. 

“What shug?” she asked, pulling herself impossibly closer but he didn’t answer with a reply at first, just lay there looking into her eyes, his own visible and sparkling in the dim glow of his side lamp. 

“I love you too Adrienne,” he whispered, to her, awake, a feeling of release washing over his body, magnified as he saw her smile in return, tears swelling in her perfect brown eyes.

He heard, her heart screamed out, the tears no longer swells, escaping in long streaks down her cheek. He couldn’t resist, he didn’t care, reaching his palm to her cheek and drawing their lips together, pulling her into a tender kiss. She was sweet, like the soda she’d been drinking during the briefing and she moved her mouth so slowly, so deliberately, so full of love. Lying there, in his bed, in his room, they kissed softly, before Adrienne pulled away, nuzzling him with her nose, pecking it lightly and gazing back into his eyes. 

“I don’t want you to do something stupid. I came down here because I wanted you to know that no one blames you, that I don’t blame you. Regardless of what you’re thinking of yourself, in a complete state of despair, drugged with levels of poison beyond what any of the rest of us had in our systems, you were still able to do the right thing.  That shows me who Daniel really is, who the man I fell in love with really is,”  she whispered, saying it again, wiping a tear from his face. 

“I never meant to hurt you. Ever. Adrienne I love you more than I have ever loved someone before....if I’d hurt you...the way I’d been...” Daniel started to ramble once more, but Adrienne leaned forward, shutting him up with another kiss, before reaching across him, clicking off the light.

“Go to sleep Indy. You’ll never be that monster Hathor, you’d never be.....” she breathed in strongly before she continued, “You’ll never be anything but you and I’ll be right here, always” she whispered in the dark, reaching around to take him into her arms. Sniffing in, he laid back into her embrace, letting himself start to slip into sleep. 

She told him. He told her. 

What in the hell was he going to do now?