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Chapter Text

The day she was born hundreds of thousands were killed by her gods. On the day her mother died, hundreds of millions were enslaved. On the day of her prim’ta, the day she became a woman, untold billions were subjugated, across the empire, the gods she was born and bred to serve. This was her birthright. Her heritage. The heritage of all Jaffa, from time immemorial, unto the unforeseeable future.

She was taken young, showing promise, top marks, her tutors told her. They told her, even, that her Queen, Nirrti, had interest in her. The tutors put her in more advanced laboratories, serving lesser gods under her Queen, who would be System Lord. She learns to bow, and grovel. She learns to attribute her research to the lesser gods. She learns how to hide, how to keep a secret, growing doubt, deep in her chest.

This too is her heritage. Of subservience. Of slavery. Of being under yoke of her gods, from birth, until death. In another universe this was all she ever knew.

***

In a room in a site the United States Air Force officially denies all knowledge of, a woman sits, and keeps a secret. The room is barren, devoid of all decoration. It is made of concrete, and, other than the woman herself, short, red headed, dressed in military fatigues, it contains exactly three things. Two chairs. One table between them. There is one way in or out, the woman knows, through the metal door, opposite where she sits.

The year is 1997. The Cold War is over. Clinton is his second term, and a year prior, signed a bill that currently is on this woman’s mind.

Through the single, solitary door, in the solitary room, a man enters. He could be anyone. She reads his name and rank on instinct, but does not internalize it. She does, however, internalize the slight stiffening of his leg, and arm, signs of injuries that healed around six years ago, probably during Gulf War, if she had to guess. She is very good at what she does.

“Dr. Janet Fraiser,” he says, pulling a file from his brief case, and placing it on the table between them, as he sits, “we have records on you.”

He opens the file, and she glances down to see herself staring back up. Younger, just out of pre-med, the picture they used. She wonders, for a second, why they chose that photo. Psychological manipulation, some how? Reminding her of a time before the Gulf, back when she had first enlisted, near the end of the Cold War? When she had been young, and idealistic? A patriot, even, before the world disillusioned her? Or had she just been running, back then? Trying to prove to herself, to everyone, that she could do something that brave, and that stupid.

She does not bother to read the rest of the file. She knows what it contains, of course. The degree. The military rank a mere formality now that she is a doctor. A formality after what she has seen and done. The marriage too, most likely, to that horrid man, and how it had ended just as miserably as it had begun. She looks up, and locks eyes with this man who could do so much to determine her fate from now on.

“I know what you’re going to say, and I do not want to hear it,” she says, raising a hand. “I won’t deny the witness.”

“With all do respect, doctor,” the man says, with a smile that reeks of politics and secrecy as he sets his briefcase by his chair, “I highly doubt you do actually know what I am about to say.”

“Yes,” she continues, resolutely, as she has practiced, while waiting, “I do. Major Reynolds saw what he saw at that bar, and that is on me. The only reason you’re having this talk with me, right now, is because of what I saw in Kuwait. Believe me, I won’t tell anyone about the weapons tests, I’ve already had six years to not say anything. Military intelligence, secret biochemical weapons, none of it will leave my lips. Just discharge me with honors and we’ll both be happy.”

He looks at her, crosses his leg, and smiles a smile she likes even less. A smile that is almost pitying. She is missing something.

“With all due respect,” he repeats, a phrase she thinks he says a lot, “you hardly know much about our current military intelligence. What the United States Air Force is doing in secret is in another galaxy from what you are thinking of, metaphorically speaking. Seeing one failed weapons deployment six years ago has nothing to do with why we are having this conversation.”

“And what happened last week at that bar? With that, with the other woman? Does that have any bearing on this conversation?”

“I admit,” he says, leaning forward, like a snake about to strike, “that is a consideration. What my superiors want to tell you, what we want your help with, requires very high security clearance. The highest in this country, perhaps. Perhaps on this or any planet. And we will have oaths and non-disclosure agreements, yes, but, well, it does help that we have certain knowledge about you, certain evidence, that if leaked to friends, family, could damage your person career aspirations.”

There it is. Blackmail. Plain and simple, and yet, something he says catches her attention. Not a discharge. They know what she did, know what she is, and they still want her. In another reality she says no, and walks out of the room. In another reality she leaves the Air Force, and lives her life. In another reality she lives to the age of eighty-nine, and dies alone in a nursing home in Oklahoma, and her will gives her assets to a charity for homeless youths. But not this reality. In this reality something she thought long dead, a spark of curiosity, keeps her here.

“So you know about that, all that,” she says, speaking slowly, deliberately, “and you still want me on some top-secret military operation?”

“Yes,” he replies, and there are lights in his eyes.

“Why?”

“Frankly,” he says, pulling out another file from his briefcase on the floor, which he opens and appears to peruse, as he speaks, “my superiors selected you from a very short list of candidates. You are one of the best MDs in the Air Force. Every commanding officer has reviewed you highly. You have your experience in Kuwait, for which you have received your medal, of course, displaying noticeable courage in treating the wounded at considerable personal risk. Hell, we have your tests scores back to high school, with you at the top of each and every class every single time.”

“I was busy trying to get out of that town,” she answers, simply. “So what? Is this some other weapons program you’re bringing me onto? Something else you’re afraid might get out and hurt a lot of people?”

“Not quite,” he says, snapping the file shut, “not a weapons test, although my superiors are quite afraid something might get out and hurt people. Obviously I can’t tell you more without you signing the appropriate forms, but I do have one more question for you, if you’re interested in what you hear so far.”

“I’m listening.”

“How would you like to move to Colorado?”

In another universe, she says no, and the Earth dies in the last days of the twentieth century, subjugated by dark forces. Or in the early days of the twenty-first, destroyed entirely. Or it lives, by the skin of its metaphorical teeth. She does not know yet what her ‘yes’ will mean. She does not know that this will be her death.

***

She showed promise. Her Queen, Nirrti, gives her a planet, and tells her of secret experiments, and hate grows inside her. The humans of this world call it Hanka, and fear whenever the gods return, by ship or by gate. And hate and loathing grow inside her at what she does to them. In another universe this is all that happens.

But in her universe, in 1996 by the reckoning of a planet she had never heard of, a door is opened that was closed long ago. Humans from the planet Earth came through the stargate, into a galaxy they do not understand. Their own galaxy, that they do not understand. And, against reason, against sense, against all odds ever, they kill a god. Ra is struck down by humanity itself, in a blaze of nuclear fire.

And she hears this. The gods tried to keep it silent, of course. But they cannot be anything but themselves. Within days of it happening they are fighting each other for what remains of Ra’s fleet, his worlds, his gates. Apophis, always powerful, strikes out from Chulak, led by a fearsome tactician, the troops under her whisper. Heru’ur is defending his father’s territory by birthright, reports confirm. Yu, Ba’al, Cronos, they all make moves, following the death. There are whispers too of darker things at foot. Seth, or some say Sokar, or even Anubis, have returned. Some worry about that rival dynasty of gods, the Asgard, would violate their treaties, and invade the galaxy. The gods war, and when they do, the Jaffa fight, and you cannot hide armies and fleets in motion from the souls leading those forces into battle.

She puts this out of her mind, and only her Queen seems to realize the magnitude of what has happened in the struggle to snap up the pieces. Humans have killed a god. This has not happened in living history. This has not happened ever, and the balance of power is shifting. Something is coming that no one foresees.

And in this time, this time of all times, her Goddess, her Queen, gives her a mission, in secret. There is a world, a planet, somewhere in Apophis’ territory, that will kill all the gods, she says, words that give M’jue strength, and hope, for the first time in her life. You will make me a weapon to destroy them before they ever can raise a hand to us hurt us.

In another universe she obeys. In another universe she complies, and, in 1997, a team of humans barely stop the weapon she makes in time. But this is her reality. And this is the only one she cares about. In this universe, this reality, she begins to put a plan into motion that will change the future.

She does not yet know it will mean her death.

Chapter Text

She tried not to think about what she had been doing the other night, the lips that she had kissed out of loneliness.

“Why fly me out rush job like this, in the middle of the night?” She shouted, into the headset.

The wind nearly drowned her out.

“We told you, the base’ frontline doctor was killed in the line of duty,” the Major sitting across from her, someone from the pentagon, said.

“I saw the files,” she shouted back, “but I don’t think Colorado Springs traffic is this bad at two in the morning. Why do you need me there ASAP?”

Beneath them the city was whipping past, under the helicopter that had been waiting for her, for her specifically, when the plane had landed. Street lights down there, in a golden glow. She had been to that city before, and during her training. And as she watched this quiet American city, what she had read in those files, of a place called Chulak, a planet called Chulak, she corrected, and another called Abydos, another called Hanka, played through her head. The files said the U.S. Air Force had a way to those planets, under the mountain. It should have been impossible, right?

And aliens too. An alien species hostile to humanity. A new frontline. Impossibilities still.

“One of our airmen contracted some sort of behavioral illness on mission to P3X-797,” the Major, something Davis, shouted. “We received word while you were in the air.”

They were moving down now, the lights of the base, a road leading to a sheer rock wall, that had been cleared for landing, getting closer. She knew military bases. Military bases, and illnesses, even one idiotically described as behavioral, she could deal with. She could not deal with everything else she had heard of, though, of this species meddling with Earth’s history, culture, evolution. Of whatever had been found in Giza.

“P3X-797,” she said, as they neared the asphalt, “is that a location on Chulak? The other one, where we have a base?

“It’s different planet, doctor, a new planet we just contacted a few hours ago.”

“But I thought this, this Stargate only went three places.”

“It goes a lot more, doctor. How closely did you read those files?”

“In my defense,” she shouted, as the chopper bumped against the road, bounced up, and landed for good, “medical school doesn’t really prepare you to learn that aliens are real and some of them are here on Earth. Or that we have a base on a different planet. Plus, between words like ‘unknown superheavy, superconductive element,’ and ‘provisionally designated species-wide as Goa’uld’ I might miss a few details.”

He did not respond, as the doors opened, and he hopped out. She followed him, away from the rotor wash of the chopper which, as soon as they were clear, took off again into the night sky a deafening roar of machinery. Of all the pigheaded idiocy, she thought, at his refusal to respond. If only she were less used to this. Twenty-four hours ago she had been in military detention. Forty-eight hours ago she had been in that woman’s bed, what was her name? And then the Air Force had thrown some hastily prepared and poorly edited mission reports from some Colonel O’Niell at her and expected her to know everything there was to know about an alien species and their genetically engineered servants.

“Welcome to Cheyenne Mountain,” Major Davis said, gesturing to some airmen that were waiting. “Airmen, please take Doctor Frasier down to report to General Hammond. Doctor, I think this is as far as I go. Precautions, you understand.”

She looked up at him. Him who knew about her files. Knew what exactly she was in trouble for with their mutual superiors. He knew that she was expendable. Someone to throw at whatever exotic illness those men and women down there had, that the Air Force had let them had, because they were idiots yet again. Someone who could be discarded easily. Who would they even need to send a letter to? Her mom would throw it away, and there was no one else. She was nothing.

“Yes,” Janet said, “I understand.”

The resentment lasted until she came in contact with the contagion, the situation, the crisis, just as it always did. In theory she was full of resentment, ideological disagreement, her own opinions. In practice when she arrived on site, down past floors and floors of security, and deep into the mountain, there were already at least three afflicted with whatever it was that was afflicting them. The affliction, she thought, drily, given how little anyone seemed to know. At least she could rectify that. At least she knew how to respond to illness, deep-seated habits kicking in automatically.

She got a small amount of samples, containing wildly elevated cortisol, adrenaline, and testosterone levels. And then took the step that should have been taken hours ago, and got the patients out of the infirmary, in both triage and containment interests. There were old living compartments from the cold war, those could work as isolation rooms. She was moving, and moving fast, and in her element, all the other memories were washing away for the moment. She could save lives.

The first patient they brought in was also the first that she believed really had been to an alien planet, the first time she believed this was not some sort of dick-swinging gone awry. A woman, one of only a few she had seen down here. A captain, she got from her personnel file, and a part of one of the, what was it that that General Hammond had called it? A part of one of the off-world teams. But this time she believed for the first time that the General had not been lying, because she had, apparently, sexually assaulted her commanding officer, and that was not something military women did. Ever. Not on this planet.

She sedated her, of course, because what else was there to do? Took samples, and kept going. She could deal with the dynamics of this base, this alien device they claimed to have somewhere, who anyone was who was giving her orders, all of that later. Now was life or death, and she needed to move. Needed to find more information.

“Yes,” she said, as more patients were reported across the base, talking to a colleague in Virginia, “the virus on the slides I am sending to you now.”

And then someone listening in shut down the call. Need to know, they said, wherever they were listening from, and she shot them a solitary one-fingered salute, not even caring who saw.

“From what I can tell,” she told the bald man who she had been told was this General Hammond, a few hours into the lab work, and on her fifth cup of coffee, “it feeds on amines and cholines, chemical transmitters, neurotransmitters too, triggering mass lowering of activity in the pre-frontal cortex on the fMRI I got from that, what was her name?”

“Captain Carter,” the floppy haired civilian said.

“Right,” she continued, drinking the stale coffee in her hand, wishing she had a cigarette right around now, “and simultaneously the parts of her brain associated with aggression and sex seem to be hyperactive.”

The other people in the infirmary, the general, this floppy-haired man, and the big guy with the weird forehead scarification, possibly contaminated with gold, seemed momentarily uncomfortable. The sort of uncomfortable people could afford when they had not been awake for twenty-hours straight. Or was it more? She could deal with that later, when she was not doing the impossible. She drank coffee.

“Explaining why they’re acting like animals?” Hammond asked, imprecisely, in a way that would irritate her to no end.

“I” she prevaricated, hesitated on finishing the thought, “I have never seen anything like this on Earth.”

“Exactly,” floppy-hair said, “on Earth. That would explain the Touched.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“That’s what the primitives were called on P3X-797,” forehead-scar said, talking stiffly, using archaic language, like he was the alien they supposedly had on the base, right next to the hyper-advanced wormhole generator they all talked about, she thought, with an internal chuckle “the Touched.”

She should have gotten a prize of some kind for not reacting to any of that. If only her mom could see her now.

“Well then,” she said, looking at the medical chart on the bed, reading from it “the question is why haven’t you and, uh, Mr. Teal’c got the symptoms?”

“Uh,” floppy-hair said, and she was not quite so wired as to ignore the obvious social cue she had to have missed, “Mr. Teal’c? Teal’c symbiote probably protects him.”

Symbiote. She remembered the flight here. Had she slept on that one? Missed it? Or just not paid enough attention. One alien species, designated Goa’uld, presumed hostile. But also a genetically modified human-subspecies, since that was a thing that they could do, apparently. One on base, cooperating, tentatively assigned to a team designated SG-1. Her brain was racing, and yet it was only now that she realized her mistake. This Teal’c was not just like an alien, he was one. Damn, she would have to look at his samples later, if they all survived this. Big ‘if’ right there.

“What about you,” she said, bending her head to look at floppy-hair’s chart, covering the social misstep, “Doctor Jackson? Why don’t you have symptoms?”

The question lasted, even as more people came in, and she started to worry about supplies of sedatives. It got worse when she looked through their blood samples, and found nothing. Mountain in lockdown. Another hour ticking by in waste before General Hammond ordered her two helpers, this Dr. Jackson, and Mr. Teal’c, just Teal’c, on an away mission. An away mission to another planet.

“Okay,” she said, running to keep up with them, thinking, in the back of her head, of how to triage the growing population, knowing she was likely exposed, and contracting the illness too, “and that’s how to get a blood draw. Got it?”

“Yeah, yeah,” floppy, Jackson said, “I do.”

She ran through a blast door after them, shouting instructors, and, somehow, despite herself, despite the caffeine jitters, and the obviously reduced personnel guarding this place, took a moment to herself there. Teal’c was an alien, of a sort, a fact that she had not know about, fuck, how long ago? And then, in that converted missile silo, underneath this mountain, there was a circle. And a light, shimmering, transparent.

She dragged herself away. Did not even process it. That could wait until people’s lives were not under risk.

It did not hit her until Teal’c returned with a blood sample, returned alone, what that glowing circle of light truly represented. A front line that could open on multiple other planets. A front line like none other. A way to other worlds. It almost would have made her shaky in her knees if that captain, Carter, had not been stabbed by her new roommate, and if she were not running out of rooms and still functioning medical staff to help her.

The sample was good though. Lab results she ran herself, and the files. Acute rhinitis. Antihistamines, starving the virus. A huge dose of chlorpheniramine malleate drawn from supplies that also probably dated back to the cold war. That and a prayer to gods she did not believe in, and time. Time, and prayer, and coffee, until the first trial, Colonel O’Neill, started to show improvements.

And then General Hammond.

And at some point, as more doses were administered, and the people who could administer more, were returned to behavioral baseline, she slept fitfully, on a gurney, where Captain Carter had slept. She would need to sleep more later, but this was good. It had been, what, three days?

And she dreamt. Dreamt about that woman. Fuck, she didn’t even know her name, how pathetic was that? Dreaming about impossibilities. That which could not and would not ever be. She was angry, and sad, and could not imagine anything in her life that would make any of this okay. And above all else she was very, very, tired.

“I just want you to know, sir,” a voice said, waking her up. “That I am sorry for my, for being unprofessional, is all.”

She blinked, took in her surroundings. She was in the infirmary, hidden behind curtains. Her infirmary, if she chose to stay here. No one had woken her up, which had to mean that things were under control, right? She hoped so, as she heard the two people talking, and placed their voices.

“It’s fine, Carter,” Colonel O’Neill was saying, “I mean, I think I nearly brained that new Doc Frasier.”

“I’m just saying, sir,” Carter continued, as Frasier stood, not wanting to hear about straight people, and their BS, “that I am sorry I–”

“Ah! Ah! I said forget about it! Less talking the better,” O’Neill said, just as Janet pulled the curtain open. “Doc! How long have you been there? Been, uh?”

Crashing on a gurney? She probably looked like a wreck, and for a moment was self-conscious, before she focused on the two people in front of her. Both armed. Both equipped for a mission. What was it that the documents had told her, now that she knew they had been true? Off-world.

“Tired, yes,” she said, instead, “they flew me here directly. I don’t even know where I am staying, yet.”

“Oh, actually,” Carter said, jumping in, “I heard General Hammond making plans for you. Apparently the Air Force owns some properties in the city and–”

“SG-1 to the gate room,” a voice said, over the PA, and Carter shot Janet a look that spoke of a shared history of getting talked over, over and over and over again.

“Alright, Carter,” O’Neill said, as he headed out the door, “we’ve got our medical supplies. Let’s go get Daniel back.”

They were already moving out of the infirmary, as he spoke, and Frasier followed. Down a long hallway that the doctor had not truly had the chance to explore while treating all of the airmen, not so long ago. A blast door that she had seen down there, early, was open, and a strange light came through it. The same light she had seen earlier, and not processed, no allowed herself to process it.

“You’re going after Doctor Jackson?” She shouted after them. “Are you both physically feeling up to this?”

“We’ve been cleared, doc,” O’Neill shouted back.

“Don’t worry, Doctor Frasier,” Carter said, turning around as she watched, and flashing Janet an enviably pretty grin, “the pentagon is still waiting to lift the lockdown on the mountain, we’re limited on personnel, and we desperately need to contact our away team on PX8-987, but we’ll be okay.

And then they rounded the door, and anything Janet had meant to say utterly vanished from her mind.

There was a…there was that light, there, again. Her mind struggled to understand what she was seeing, so it settled on a light first. A light, and a barrier of some kind. Blindly bright, although O’Neill and Carter walked towards it unafraid. It shimmered, a pool, leading down into something else. A ring around it nearly hidden in the the glare. She watched, and then reached out, as O’Neill, and then Captain Carter disappeared into it.

And there was the sound of some generator powering down, and the light vanished, along with the Colonel and the Captain. And Janet just stood there, awestruck, staring at a metal ring, carved with arcane symbols, with a blanket concrete wall beyond. This, she remembered, from the files, was the Stargate. A way to other worlds. A remnant of a civilization that had been Earth’s gods. A wormhole you could walk through.

She had seen nothing like this on Earth.

“Doctor Frasier,” General Hammond’s voice said, “please see me in my office. I think we need to talk.”

She waited a moment more, looking at the ring, and trying to incorporate what it meant, and then she turned, and walked away.

***

“M’jeu,” her lover said, “come back to bed.”

M’jeu ignored her. It was weakness that held her back. Weakness, and sympathy for the humans she was about to butcher, if to save more.

“There’s a weapon,” she said, because she knew that this grunt, this rank and file Jaffa warrior of no renown would likely die soon in the coming conflict, “a weapon in a child. I put that weapon there.”

“A human child,” her lover said, “who cares.”

Who indeed, she thought. Soon, according to her Queen, the bioweapon would be released. The Tau’ri on the planet below, Hanka, PX8-987 as the intercepted transmissions called it, would never know what hit them. Except it would not be so, for any day now she would put her plan into motion. And people would die. But perhaps less than before. The lesser of two evils. She could only hope it would be enough. She needed the Tau’ri. Needed them to be able to cure what she was going to do.

Needed them to destroy the very gods themselves.

There were rumors. Whispers of a traitor, a shol’va from Apophis’ ranks. She wished them well, whoever they were. She would not live to meet them, likely, she knew. But still, perhaps together, there would be a chance at revolt. She closed her eyes, and hoped that she would be able to die free.

Chapter Text

Janet Fraiser lay in a room under a mountain of rock and thought about the Cold War and the universe outside of it.

It was impossible to not think about. One of her first memories, nearly thirty years ago now, had been watching the moon landings, sitting on her dad’s piss and beer-stained carpet, before her mom had left him. She had been how old? Six? Five? Something like that. One of her other ones had been the nuclear drills, her head under the desk, as if that would keep her safe from a Russian nuke, one that could strike without warning, at any time. Mercilessly. She had been conceived during the Cuban Missile Crisis, after all, her mom had said, when she too started to find alcohol, and was prone to oversharing.

Perhaps that was part of the idiocy of joining the Air Force out of high school, along with getting out of that town, and paying for college, and everything else. Part of why she had done that. If only she had listened a bit more to those men who came back from those first orbital launches around the planet. It’s beautiful, they said, it’s small, they said, it’s fragile. All that fighting and dying over a fraction of a fraction of a speck of dust.

And now she knew even that perspective was wrong. Here, in this mountain, under Colorado, there was something that once again changed the view of Earth, just as much if not more than those shots back from the moon. And, bitterly ironically, out there were new enemies too. Worse enemies. Enemies she was now a part of a war against.

And all of this, all of this, from that first mission with the nuke she had read about, to this new front of the past two months or so, without the American people knowing. Something in her felt sick. Something in her felt like pushing back. Something in her felt like screaming. She kept all of it inside, and reviewed her thoughts once again. Cataloged them as rationally as she could. Made sure she had all the evidence locked down.

She was now the Chief Medical Officer of Stargate Command, home of around a dozen Stargate teams, all named for the Stargate, a piece of hyper-advanced alien technology found nearly a century priory in an archaeological dig under Egypt. Only activated once a few years ago, with the help of Dr. Jackson to kill the being known as Ra, and now reactivate on a regular basis with tech built by Dr. Captain Samantha Carter. Evidence: she was here now. She had seen the personnel files. She had seen the gate.

This Stargate, a ring of some unknown metal, was used, and presumable constructed by an alien species called the Goa’uld, or, in their language, gods. So named because they either originated many human deity myths or appropriated and used already existing ones. These Goa’uld, presumably having evolved on another planet, had developed the ability to parasitize humans and control them via unknown means, and had taken humans to the myriad of planets across the galaxy connected by the Stargate network, and performed genetic experiments on some to produce the incubator and warrior sub-species called the Jaffa. Evidence: Teal’c. The case files related to a Major Kawalsky, now deceased.

Everything she had thought she had known about the planet and her place in it had been wrong. She faced threats beyond her comprehension, and beyond the scope of all medical science. She had to do the impossible for an organization she despised, without a home. Keeping alive teams as they ventured through the gate to better understand the structure of the Goa’uld Empire, acquire technology, and, in short, fight a new war they were vastly outgunned in, and under-prepared for, in search for some way to keep Earth safe, all in secret. Keeping people alive who, once again, despite knowing better, she cared for. Evidence: here she was, in old guest quarters from the Cold War, from when everyone was afraid of missiles and nuclear annihilation, catching catnaps between emergency triage, research, and all her other many, many duties.

“Doctor Fraiser to the Gate Room,” a voice, she needed to learn the name of the bald man it belonged to, some major, she reminded herself, shouted, as alarms blared. “Doctor Fraiser to the Gate Room.”

This was already becoming a rhythm. She had been at war before. Multiple times. Cold War. Gulf War. The War with herself, with the world, with her mother, with everything. Sleep when you can, get woken up. Eat when you can, get interrupted. The food blurs into the days blurs into the treatment. This is a war zone, she tells herself. And that gate is the front and the front is the entire galaxy. A team came back and tells of a new Goa’uld, a new planet, a new threat, a new alien species every day it seems. There is a place where the sun kills you. A forest full of invisible hyperpredators. A planet with crystals that are intelligent and can mimic specific humans. (That one was fun to explain to the higher ups.)

She did not make friends. Friends are a luxury for other people. She kept track of names, and figures. Airman Ford, who develops an allergy to a food that no one on the planet had ever eaten before. Captain Douglas, who took a staff weapon blast to the foot, and will not serve again. Teal’c, who is so unfailingly polite it breaks her heart as he allows her to do test after test on him and the immature Goa’uld symbiote in the pouch in his stomach, building up more data about what exactly this war will entail.

“I would like to know more about your planet,” Teal’c said, one day.

“It’s cruel, arbitrary, and divided,” she had returned, drawing yet another sample from him, to send off to yet another lab the government chose. “Haven’t Doctor Jackson, Colonel O’Neill, the rest of them shown you off base, told you about our wars, our culture?”

“Somewhat,” he said, impassively, “but I know their perspectives as fellow warriors. I wish to also learn of your healers. Of your women. Your scientists. Everyone, in short. A society cannot simply be warriors.”

“Then ask Captain Carter.”

“Captain Carter is,” he began, seemingly pausing, and searching the space over his head for words, understandable given that he had insanely quickly internalized English, which was another property she was testing, “she is what you call a woman, I know. But I believe our labels in such a regard might differ. She is a warrior, and, as such, among the Jaffa of Chulak, would never be considered a woman.”

She looked at him a little more closely, trying to recall gender theory, the lectures she had caught in college, the results of all the psych tests he had gone through.

“You’ve been learning our language since you’ve been here, and our culture, you might not get it.”

“Doctor Janet Fraiser,” he said, calmly, “do not mistake my ignorance for malice. But in my culture one such as her, who was born such as she was, and chose nonetheless to become a warrior, would be accounted all the honors and regarded as a man. I have fought with many men such as that, as my brothers in arms.”

She looked at him, ablaze with questions. Some sort of transsexual category among the Jaffa? A third gender, women who were culturally seen as men? Something more? She knew she was missing nuance, and could only hope that someone smarter than her, Dr. Jackson, someone, was doing this research. So much more she did not know. But, perhaps, Teal’c at least she could treat with something a hair more than just professional distance.

“You’ve been here a month, Doctor,” General Hammond said, apparently about a month in. “What’s your report?”

“Gate travel is extremely stressful, and highly dangerous,” she said, “because being a soldier is extremely stressful, and highly dangerous.”

“Coming from anyone other than you, Doctor, I would take that as patriotism.”

“I am aware, sir.”

He looked down at his desk, from where he sat across from her, and had the gall to smile placatingly, putting on the fatherly act.

“I took the liberty of reviewing your entrance and exit records. You’ve been underground this entire time, doctor. Why don’t you take the day off?”

“Am I getting a house of my own in town?” Janet returned, fully cognizant of why that promise that had never materialized was so important to her.

“You have to understand, Doctor, the Air Force doesn’t just have money to throw around,” he began.

“But you do have the money to run an interplanetary asymmetrical war against a society you barely understand.”

“Dr. Fraiser,” he said, again, smiling, “I’ve been briefed on your, let’s say, political leanings, and I would just like to say again, as I said before, you’re here for your substantial medical knowledge. We won’t discriminate in any other way, I assure you. I just can’t get you that house. But perhaps a weekend, or more?”

“Are you going to stop sending teams out?”

“You already know…”

“Then I am staying,” she said, as she stood, “if they are still putting their lives in danger then I am staying for them. If I have passed your review, or your standards, that is. Sir.”

He looked up at her, and sighed, as he too stood, so dismissively. Looming over her. God what she would have done to wipe that smile off his face.

“For someone so politically opposed to the United States Air Force you are quite determined to stay, aren’t you.”

“For the same reason as always, General,” she sniffed. “Wars aren’t fought for countries, or ideologies. They aren’t even fought because we hate the enemy. They’re fought for the people in the foxhole next to you. Now, do I have your permission to go?”

It was not long after that that the Hathor incident began.

In the haze of those days Janet did not pay much attention to specific comings and goings, let alone security breaches. But, since her first introduction to the base, she was highly aware of behavioral disturbances. The incident where Dr. Jackson was presumed dead. The time when Dr. Fiennes refused to return through the gate with SG-7 because paranoid delusions. But it was that morning, after a much needed shower, that she first noticed the change in baseline behavior. Slackened security protocols, like people were drugged, distracted. And people in the mess and the infirmary kept on talking about this intruder into the base, calling herself Hathor, a sarcophagus, a Goa’uld healing device, that she had brought with her. The sort of broad, almost virulent behavioral disturbance that she had been looking out for since the contagion that first day.

It was Captain Carter who let her put words to her fears. They had not spoken much since the first contagion incident, the kiss she had shared under the influence with Colonel O’Neill. There was simply no reason to talk. But, taking a blood sample to be analyzed, she found her in one of the computer labs, having also noticed the behavior, and doing research on the collective behavioral disturbances to the men. To the cissexual males, she reminded, remembering her friends in San Francisco, and trying to be better. To be more accurate in matters regarding gender and sex, she told herself.

“In almost every case I can find it describes the men under the historical Hathor’s control as drunk with her presence,” the Captain said, looking up at her from where she sat with her deep blue eyes. “Now, I figure, if this is her, here on the base, she’s using some form of Goa’uld technology. Any ideas?”

She looked at her. Just professional distance, she reminded herself, looking at the blonde a few years younger than herself.

“My guess,” she said, stumbling in the dark yet again, “would be some sort of chemical we’ve never seen. Some sort of pheromone combined with something like sodium pentothal. Probably airborne delivery.”

Captain Carter looked at her, the ghost of a grin, a warrior, as Teal’c had said, all business and gut.

“Great. How do we reverse it in the men?”

“Oh,” she said, automatically, already thinking, “it may not be reversible, and if it is it may take years. What do you suggest, Captain?”

“I suggest,” Carter said, grinning, “that we neutralize her. We need to get to the armory. And get Hester, and Shaw.”

“What about Dr. Shen?” Janet said, as Carter stood, suddenly looming over her from her considerable height, what, six feet tall. “Nagata? Fuck, they’re both off world. Is that all the women we have on base?”

“I know,” Carter said, as she lead the way out of the lab, and down the hall, “I know.”

“Fuck. I was the last woman assigned here, wasn’t I?”

They got Hester and Shaw on the way. Captain Sarif too, surprisingly. For what good it was, the men on the base did not seem inclined to stop them. Security posts were unmanned, doors left propped open as they traveled up a sub-level. How long would it be until the Air Force outside the mountain new about this? How long until it spiral out of control, and the revelation of this secret war, this secret alien presence, became public knowledge in a desperate last stand.

“Okay, here’s what we know,” Captain Carter said, as she handed out rifles to the two airmen. “This creature who calls herself Hathor is some form of Goa’uld, so she has who knows what kind of weapons or defenses. You know how to use one of these, don’t you?”

As she spoke she handed a gun to Dr. Fraiser, and Janet looked up at her. Cool under pressure, which made sense given her service history. Given the fact that she was going offworld an average of twice a week for the past nearly two or three months now. Focus, Janet told herself, focus on the gun, and remember basic.

“Well, yeah,” she said, taking it, their hands briefly touching, “I had some training, but I haven’t touched one of these in years.”

“Well, don’t worry,” she said, with a joking, disarming smile that officers used when they were destined for leadership, for calming jumpy subordinates down under pressure, “all you do is point and pull the trigger. And be careful not to hurt any of our own men, they’re all pretty loopy right now so it shouldn’t be a problem.”

“Captain Carter,” a voice said, and instantly four guns were pointed at the speaker, Teal’c, “we must speak of Hathor.”

“Keep your hands where I can see them, Teal’c,” the Captain told her squad-mate, as he put his hands out, palms empty.

“Do you not trust me, Captain Carter?”

“All of the men on this base are under Hathor’s control,” the Captain said, drawing closer, as Janet watched. “And I hate to break it to you, but you are male.”

“I am a Jaffa,” he said, by way of explanation, and answer, making Janet once again wish she had time for sociological notes, time to know Teal’c better, learn about these other worlds, their genders, their societies. “It is only together that we may stop here.”

Carter looked at him for a moment, and in that moment Janet wanted to talk. Wished she knew Carter, knew anyone here well enough to talk. To say that she had seen what Teal’c’s symbiote did. Had seen his labs. That of course he was not simply male, as Carter might understand it. But whatever she was thinking, she seemed to come to some conclusion. The Captain stepped forward, and handed the Jaffa a gun.

“Glad you’re with us, Teal’c.”

It felt wrong to be holding a gun again. She was no longer running away. It no longer made her feel powerful, wearing fatigues, following behind. Not after what she had seen done in her country’s name. It almost felt like a relief when this attempt failed, when they reached the locker room, and the Goa’uld, and the men rallied around her. She was a doctor, and she wanted to heal. Not to do whatever this was she was doing.

But, there was a moment. A moment before they lay down their weapons at the superior numbers. A moment when she and Teal’c and Carter and the others had their guns raised. And there was General Hammond, thralled by Hathor, standing in the way. That smug smile on his face. She almost liked that feeling of power.

“I could have done it,” you know, she said, in the lock up, as they were preparing for the second escape attempt, using the stuporous state the men outside the door were likely in. “I could have pulled the trigger. God, maybe my husband was right. This really is a man’s world, and we’re just stuck living in it.”

“You’re married?” Carter said, in that way she had, all small talk, like future leaders, future Generals.

“Was,” she said, ‘cause she could not stop herself, wryly remembering how abortive and disastrous that had been. “I should be given a medal for lasting five months with him. Both needed something else. You?”

Teal’c watched them, raising an eyebrow, and Janet cursed herself for asking. Professional distance, that was what she needed. Don’t get lulled into any feeling of familiarity, even now. Not by the officer routine. Not by the blonde hair, or the eyes, or the height, or the military confidence, and bravado.

“A couple of ex boyfriends,” Carter said, smiling. “One of whom literally thought he was a god. But for what it is worth, Janet, you did the right thing surrendering. As for this plan? I am less sure. You know, using seduction wasn’t in any of the AF training manuals I’ve ever read.”

“What,” Janet said, looking up at her, also smiling, making her more comfortable with something she was clearly completely uncomfortable with, “you think the Pentagon anticipated a four thousand year old alien walking onto a base and drugging all the men?”

And Carter, effortless beautiful, before this stupid seduction attempt, smiled back at her, a moment where she was just herself.

“Well, I suppose they did train us to take advantage of an enemy’s weakness. Alright, let’s do it.”

It was stupidly easy to get them to open the door, incapacitate them. She knew that they were on heavy psychoactive agents, but still, it was a little insulting. Did straight women really have it this easy? Had high-school been like this for everyone else? Or, actually, no, that idea was terrifying. She pushed it out of her head as quickly as she could.

“Are all mating rituals on your world like this?” Teal’c whispered, as they incapacitate the next guards, even less aware of their surroundings.

“Not even close,” she laughed, quietly, making a mental note to try to spend more time with the alien. “I’ll tell you about it later.”

She was shot in the arm during this second attempt. But Teal’c and Carter could keep going, pushing forward, to the gate room, using the slowed reaction time of the airmen under the alien influence. And Hathor, seemingly having found whatever she wanted, activated the gate, and simply left.

“It seems to easy,” she said, applying her own first aid, in the infirmary, as Teal’c helped. “She just left? Just like that, and already people are returning to their senses?”

“It must be based on proximity,” he said, wrapping her arm in gauze, “like much attraction, at least, in my own people.”

“Ours too, Teal’c. Ours too,” she said, leaning back into the gurney, and smiling up at him. “Glad to have your help.”

“And I am glad to be of assistance, Doctor Fraiser,” he said, smiling just a hair, and bowing his head. “I hope we will have many more good days together.”

“You call this a good day?”

“All are alive, and your wound will heal, so, yes. I do.”

And her wound did heal. He was right about that. The bullet had gone clean through, without hitting bone. It finally took her out of commission, though. Finally meant that there was some other doctor giving people first aid, helping confused airmen reorient. It was as she lay in the armory recovering that Hammond found her, as she had been expecting and dreading in equal measure, for a few hours now.

“I suppose you’ve come to lecture the trouble-making doctor who had you at gun point, haven’t you, sir?”

He looked at her, and smiled, and, for a moment she pitied him, so trapped by the power structures around him, fighting over dust.

“You meant what you said about staying for the men and women you are keeping safe?” He said instead.

Men and women, she thought, and nearly laughed, before she mastered herself She thought instead of the moments during the struggle where she had less than professional distance with the people around her. Revealing just a bit of herself with Captain Carter. Of wanting to know more about Teal’c.

“Yes, I did.” She said.

“Well, then,” he replied, “I would like to offer you a full-time position here, Doctor Fraiser. And would like to ask if you had any place in particular in the city you would prefer as far as houses went. I am glad you are here with us, and I would like that to stay the case.”

Chapter Text

Drunk, somewhere in Colorado Springs, Janet Fraiser spun a tall tale for no one in particular.

“Yep,” she said, “I’m pretty much suddenly one of the most important people on the planet. Without me all of you might be dead. Would be dead, actually. Twice now. Yep, really, really dead.”

“Little bit short for the regular kind of military bravado,” someone replied, as she pushed the cue forward, sloppily scattering the pool balls.

“Hey, who said that?” She shouted, to the rest of the bar, no one in particular, as she turned around to face them. “I’ll fight you. I can do it. Did it recently. Don’t let the height fucking fool you.”

“Relax,” the tall blonde with the long hair said, reminding Janet of someone, she couldn’t place who. “Seriously, no hard feelings, just normally when I see people talking about saving the world in bars in this town they’re military boots with too much cash and not enough sense. That you too?”

“Me?” She laughed, with too much spit. “Nah. Nah. Not that. Nearly got out, but not that. I’m a doctor. Doctor Janet Fraiser. Professional world savior. What, are you here with your boyfriend?”

“Nah,” she said, mimicking Janet’s mannerisms. “Here alone, where anything might happen. Wanna play pool?”

***

Something was wrong. A sample had gone missing from her laboratory on the mothership, and M’jeu needed to find it. She needed to find it because if it got loose then all those people, and the Tau’ri too would die. And all that research, the research to make a better human. She needed to find it because if it got out it would be their blood on her hands and she had so much, so much blood on her hands already, rivers and oceans of blood from ages of serving her gods and…

Nirrti was there, around the corner. The one she had been born to serve, and call a god, and who her studies had shown was not one. Who her studies had shown had taken her ancestors from some backwater, rumored to be the home of the Tau’ri, and enslaved them for untold eons. Who her studies had shown was a parasite.

“Shol’va,” Nirrti was saying.

And M’jeu, as the blow fell, as she realized that her bioweapon would be released onto all those people, as she realized what she had done, retreated into herself. As always. Because inside herself was calm, and calming, and no one could touch her. She was at home inside herself, and she was calm.

She had been monitoring this world and the experiments there when the strange humans came. Humans that had born a symbol on their shoulders. A pyramid and a circle, same as the rumors from Abydos, and Chulak. And she had known that they were from the original world from her studies. From Earth. They were the Tau’ri, and with their appearance she had hoped. Prayed that her long lost ancestors were coming. That would join them, for freedom. They would find a way to defeat the weapon that Nirrti had taken from her, unleashed on Hanka. They would. They had to.

***

She woke up hungover, and the blonde with the long hair, god, what was her name? Jackie? Jeanne? Something with a J? She had the decency to get her clothes and go with a minimal amount of fuss, leaving the sheets cold, and empty, and Janet feeling like shit. Feeling like shit in a house the Air Force let her have.

It was around noon by the time she finally crawled out of bed, and managed to slurp down some coffee, still feeling miserable and self-pitying. She had her own space, and the last week, had it already been a week? The last week of random hookups in town had done nothing to improve her mood. Had done nothing at all, really. Nothing aside from probably burning bridges with every lady in town who would stoop low enough to sleep with the small, self-destructive, angry lesbian working up at Cheyenne Mountain. Christ, what had her life become?

At least she had today off.

And of course, not long after thinking that, while she ate leftover Chinese delivery directly out of the fridge, her phone rang.

“What is it this time?” She said, irritably. “A really bright light that gets you addicted to it, or makes you act nuts when you see it? Beer that when you drink it turns you into a caveman?”

“It’s dead people,” the voice on the other end of the line said, “Dr. Fraiser.”

“On the base?”

“No. Off world. The base we made on Hanka. PX8-987. A lot of people died, Dr. Fraiser.”

She sighed. It was not because she cared, because she did. But it was always dead people, and she was tired.

“I’m on my way now,” she said, already pulling off her pajamas.

As part of their continued efforts to set up a presence in the Galaxy they had established a few off-world bases, the briefing said, as she prepped. The Land of Light. Cimmeria. And the planet their computer had designated PX8-987, and which the locals referred to as Hanka. Just a shed, really, a little metal base, one SG team, and a telescope to look at the local black hole. And, according to what SG-1 was saying, everyone there was dead. SG-7, and the local village. The conservative estimate was one-thousand casualties, with unknown more across the rest of the planet’s surface.

“I need you to go off world,” Hammond told her, in the briefing room, with the shimmering light of the event horizon flickering up at them.

“Off world,” she said, and then, feeling the need, reiterated. “Through the Stargate. Through the Stargate where it seems some highly virulent contagion wiped out one of our teams and the indigenous population?”

He did that little laughing thing he did, when he was trying to appear reasonable, and defuse a tense situation.

“We’re sending people with you. Our best people and equipment. SG-1 isn’t showing any symptoms, and you know just as well as I that I can’t let them back onto the base without a clean bill of health. So go through, do whatever tests you need, take your time, and then bring my people home, doctor.”

“Send nurses, send aides,” she protested, hoping it was all professional, and not just her fear talking. “But why me? They can do tests just as much as me.”

“Doctor!” He said, sharply, and she was suddenly aware of just how much the Air Force had on her, about how she had probably been giving them more blackmail material earlier in the day. “SG-1 is the premier team on this base. Teal’c betrayed his god to serve with us. Daniel Jackson and Colonel O’Neill killed Ra, and got the gate open. Captain Carter’s father is a personal friend of mine and a general.”

“And she also got the computer working,” Janet said, automatically.

“I beg your pardon?”

“And she made the dial computer, designed it from the ground up, allowed this base to be operational, viable,” Janet said, seeing that she had no way out, and at least wanting to defend Carter, who had led the attempt to retake the base from Hathor. “Sir. Not to mention, the, the other thing. About sex. And pheromones.”

“Indeed,” he said, still smiling, “but I am ordering you to go offworld, all the same, Doctor.”

“It’s a quick trip,” one of the men who was supplying security, a Colonel something or another from SG-3, said, some time later.

They were in the embarkation room, donning hazmat suits, the event horizon right there, and shining. She tried not to look at it too much, as she got ready. Tried not to look at the entrance to an active wormhole, even though she knew that it would soon have to walk through it in a minute.

“I know,” she said, not liking the way that he was looking down at her, both figuratively and literally, the grin on his face.

“Just saying, you know, informing you,” he said, as he pulled on his rebreather. “Heard this is your first time.”

“If you make a virginity joke I am going to shoot you,” she said, as she too pulled the hazmat suit over her head.

“Not at all, ma’am, I don’t have that sort of sense of humor, as far as I am aware of,” he said, and the military dick-wagging, and the fact that she couldn’t see his face, made it impossible to tell if it was sarcasm. “I’d just advise you to exhale before you step inside, you’ll want to inhale first thing on rematerializing. Easy.”

“Easy,” she said, talking to herself, “right. Easy stepping into a wormhole, letting my particles be pulled apart by alien technology that is older than the human species, that we barely understand the first thing about, and then hoping that they’ll be reintegrated on the other end of this wormhole, across the Galaxy, on an alien planet.”

“Yes ma’am,” he said, as he walked away from her, up the metal ramp, towards the light, “just another day at Stargate Command.”

And then he was gone, swallowed by the shine, and she too was walking up the ramp, and standing before the gate.

“Just another day,” she said, exhaled, and stepped forward.

She had read the files, read the debriefs, the mission reports. She knew, from multiple medical evaluations that she herself had done, that there was nothing, no awareness between leaving and destination. Should have been no awareness. She did not exist, and there was nothing to be aware of the universe. And yet still she had an impression. An impression of speed, and velocity, lights in the darkness, stars, universes, worlds, something, rushing by, rushing past her. Transcendence, ascension and, in the dark, something shrieking.

She inhaled, and then, in a shivering shudder convulsed, a shock of something like re-entry, ice-cold.

“Doc?”

“Yeah, yeah,” she said, taking deep, slow breaths, “I’m okay. I’m okay.”

And she raised her eyes to an alien horizon.

It was a lot more like Earth than she would have expected, green. Kansas, maybe, save for the strange buildings that had been the village, here, domed, bulbous, perhaps made of something organic. And the metal prefabs that designated an impromptu army base. A few billion in taxes to fund this, and then nothing. All the locals, supposedly as far afield on the planet as surveyors had looked, at least a few thousand, if not more, if not millions, dead. She pushed it out of her mind, pushed the part of her brain thinking of Columbus, and smallpox, out of her mind. For later.

“With the darkness would come the apocalypse,” Dr. Jackson told her later, inside the sterile base she had set up, as best she could. “That was what the locals told me, when we first came through the gate. Referencing the eclipse they’ll have here. I told them it was just superstition, and gave them gifts to placate them.”

“You think that they knew there would be a plague?” She said, as she examined him, no signs of illness aside from mild seasonal allergies. “Something that would happen so fast SG-7 couldn’t send word back? Because it would have to be really, really fast for them to not get word out.”

“I don’t know,” he said, sitting on her table, his health in her hands. “This planet. They revered Nirrti, but distantly. No sign that the Goa’uld had openly been here in centuries, but a cultural lingering after-trauma. And like so many anthropologists before me, maybe I put my own ideas of civilization onto them, rather than just listening.”

“And what would that be, Daniel Jackson?” Teal’c said, standing nearby.

“We’ve met advanced aliens, or seen signs of them,” he said, looking off into the distance, as she checked his respiration one last time. “The Nox. Whatever species inspired the Asgard myths on Cimmeria. The Goa’uld, whatever species built the gate, because I don’t think it was those parasites. But no other spacefaring, gate-using human civilizations. And I think I’ve been approaching it all, these past three months, as if the cultural shock of being forcibly taken from Earth, to settle the rest of the galaxy, inevitably made these civilizations primitive. But what if they knew something we do not? What if their myths and rituals about how to keep the attention of the gods elsewhere were something more?”

The gnawing guilt ate her up, as she pulled her stethoscope out. But she had to say it sooner or later, right?

“You have a clean bill of health,” she said, “as far as I can tell. Although we all are going to stay on this planet until I have a better idea of what might have happened here. And, Dr. Jackson, all respect to your fields of linguistics, archaeology, anthropology, but I don’t think the coming eclipse brought the apocalypse. I think we may have.”

“Like smallpox,” he said, perhaps more in sync than she had given him credit for, “yes, I had thought of that. A pathogen from Earth that we didn’t know about, that they did not have here. But then why would it wait three months, and kill everyone almost overnight? And why SG-7 as well?”

“It could have mutated,” she said, spreading her hands defensively, “although I will remind you, despite my record, I learned medicine on Earth, and have no idea what does or does not apply out here. And it does not fully make sense, I will admit. Now, Teal’c, let me examine you.”

“My symbiote will protect me from illness,” he said, proudly.

“Maybe,” she said, changing her gloves, “but I still need to be sure. Now come on, I promise, the needles aren’t too big, and I’ll only have to cut a little. Nothing to be afraid of at all.”

“A warrior is never afraid, Doctor Fraiser.”

She looked up at him, her companion in better understanding Jaffa biology, for the past few months, and, with it, better understanding the biology of the Goa’uld symbiotically living inside him. One of the few non-military people on the base, and, strangely, probably the closest thing she had to a friend. Not that that was saying much.

“One of these days,” she said, “you’ll have to tell me about Jaffa jokes.”

The first survivor was found a few hours later, near the end of the planet’s thirty-one hour rotational period. Janet was jet-lagged. Gate-lagged? Did the teams have a word for what it was like to immediately go from one day-night cycle to another that could be out of sync and wildly different from one’s own? She would need to look. But whatever the word, her attention was clearly wandering, and she needed more caffeine.

The survivor was a young girl. Maybe ten? Eleven? Janet wasn’t good with kids. She thought she had a few cousins, out there, somewhere in the universe, and her half-sister had, what was it, a niece? But no one wanted to talk to the aunt who had run off to go be a dyke and then join the military. There wasn’t any reason to be good with kids, although, fortunately, during the exam, Captain Carter seemed to be taken with the mute survivor. That had to be some straight woman skill. She’d seen the personnel file, and knew Carter was unmarried but still, nephew, nieces, had to be.

She was still awake, an hour, was it two? Some time later when sample analysis started to come back. Tissue from the deceased. Water, air, dirt, plants from around the village, and the base. Blood and skin from SG-1, herself, and the survivor designated as Jane Doe on all the files. A bacterium present in all the deceased, not one she had ever seen before. Also present in the water, the ground, and the plants. Not in the air. And not in herself, or SG-1, or the girl. But, in the girl. Something far, far more strange.

Naquadah, Carter had explained to her, and a room full of SGC personnel on one of the briefings she put together about gate travel, the Asgard, anything that changed what they knew about the galaxy, history or the fundamental workings of physics, was named after the Naquadah culture. Pre-dynastic Egypt. But, aside from the Stargate, the super-heavy element did not occur naturally anywhere on Earth. It was of key strategic interest to General Hammond and the Pentagon, Janet thought, although, of course, no one told her, because intel from staff-weapons recovered from dead Jaffa indicated it also powered a significant amount of Goa’uld technology, such as their ships. And it was also in the bloodstream of the girl for no reason that Janet could understand.

“You’re sure it’s safe for you and the girl to return back to the base?” Hammond asked, when she contacted him on the radio through the Stargate. “I don’t think I need to remind you about the dangers of another wildfire scenario.”

“We’ll need proper decontamination procedures on our hazmat suits once we’re through the gate,” she said back, “and I can instruct you on how to construct them. But other than that I give all of us, and the girl, a clean bill of health. The bacterium seems to have a fatality rate far, far too rapid to ever become epidemic, sir, and it burned itself out before SG-1 even arrived. But the only way I’ll be able to say more, or say why the girl survived, is with my equipment back on base.”

“Doctor,” his voice said, and she could picture his face, as he said it, “this isn’t anything personal about me having to order you off-world, is it? Something that I pulled you away from, when you weren’t expecting it?”

She tried to picture the blond from the night, two nights now? From the last time she had slept. Nothing came to mind.

“No, sir,” she said, coldly, “nothing personal about the safety of people under my care.”

The transit screamed at her. Gone, and then back again. A hole where her perception of speed should have been.

“Are you absolutely positive you haven’t brought any of this disease back here with you?” He reiterated, once she was back on Earth, under tons of rock, and decontaminated in the debriefing room.

“Yes, sir,” she said, hoping Jackon, also with her, did not pick up on the venom. “In fact I think we may have brought back the cure. Somehow this little girl survived against all odds on an almost completely contaminated planet. I’m hoping that she has some sort of natural immunity that we might use to fight other serious infections already here on Earth.”

And that, in turn, was what made Dr. Jackson try to talk to her, in the hallways, on her way back to an empty bunk room to catch a cat-nap.

“Dr. Fraiser!” He called after her. “Dr. Fraiser. Is it okay if I call you Janet?”

“The only one who does that is Teal’c,” she replied, with a heavy sigh.

He paused, seemingly uncomprehending.

“No, he doesn’t?”

“It was a joke, Dr. Jackson,” she sighed. “What can I do for you?”

“Well,” he said, like it was a chore to say this, “I can’t help but notice you seem to be treating that girl, her name is Cassandra, by the way, found that in SG-7’s notes, and apparently they were teaching her some English, quite a quick learner. I can’t help but notice you seem to be viewing her quite in a utilitarian manner. A bit like those military types, you know, always wanting to find technology for the home planet.”

She stared up at him. How dare he assume he knew her like this, was the first thought. And the second thought was that she was too tired for this.

“I’m not like them,” she said, more growl, than anything else. “I just also know if I find a cure for, I don’t know, cancer, I have an ethical obligation to make sure it doesn’t end up sequestered in Area 51 or some black-site locker.”

“Just,” he continued, still following her, as she started walking again, “I got the distinct impression that Sam likes her, Cassandra. Cares about her. And wanted you to keep that in mind when you talk to Sam? You know, because it seems like you might care?”

Because I might care? For a moment she had a spike of panic that Daniel knew, but then quieted herself. Since moving here she had been nothing if not professional, on the base, at least. Only Hammond knew. Jackson was just guessing that she would care because he assumed her politics ran contrary to the Pentagon’s.

“I’ll keep that in mind when I next talk to Captain Carter, or analyze the samples, or whatever,” she sighed, and went off to sleep.

God, she thought to herself. Straight women and kids and the military. What else would you get yourself mixed up in, Janet? Why could things never be simple, like alcohol, and caffeine, and fights, and the occasional riotous anonymous hookup? And why, as she fell away into the cat-nap, was she so miserable, even on alien worlds, even when viewing things no one had ever seen before.

She was awoken what felt like seconds later, but was, in reality, probably at least forty or fifty minutes, by a hand on her shoulder, and blue eyes in the dark, surrounded by blonde hair.

“It’s Cassie,” Captain Carter was saying, as Janet tried to pull herself together, “I need your help. She needs your help.”

Chapter Text

“I have no idea what to do or say,” Janet said, a general statement regarding her interactions with children, “but her latest blood work shows a marked potassium deficiency. I have no idea what is causing it, or how it could have gotten so low so quickly, but one of the effects can be arrhythmia.”

Captain Carter looked from the girl, Cassandra, sitting on the examination table, to Janet, and back again. And the girl looked back at Captain Carter. Looked like there was something there that Janet did not understand. Something that she would never understand. Something that hurt her. And it was, yes. It was there.

“Okay,” Carter said, a moment later, tapping her on the shoulder in that way of hers, one of the boys, brothers-in-arms, sort of way, “thank you.”

And then the girl was fainting, in arrest. And, rapidly, she again became something that Janet could care about. A girl was outside of her area of expertise. A child was something she could never, would never be good around. But a casualty she knew, and she knew how to keep on alive.

***

The torture was not so bad, in the right mindset. One in which M’jeu recalled her ancestors, and went to that other place. The place her past lovers would never stop talking about, ribbing her for. A place beyond her senses, inside her own head, where she could think about research, and the past. A place where she could, for instance, idly wonder what markers of life the Goa’uld had manipulated to split her ancestors from the humans. Wonder if those Goa’uld were still alive, now that Ra was dead.

“You know I don’t need to do this, dear one,” Nirrti whispered in her ear, deliciously, between sessions. “I have seen the way you look at my body. A woman of science, you style yourself, but the flesh still calls to you. You and I should do something for more delicious than testing new acids on your flesh.”

“You took my plague,” she said, ignoring the crusting blood, and the aching of her own limbs chained over her head, “but unleashing it on Hanka will destroy the research you have been doing on the hok’tar. I do not understand.”

“I am the mistress of many worlds,” the one who would style herself a god hissed, enraged at her still having the power of speech. “I see farther than Chronos, Baal, Sokar, Apophis, and all the other petty squabblers after Ra’s throne. I see the Tau’ri for what they are. And I shall destroy the threat before it destroys us all. One bomb, playing on their guilt. It is already too late.”

The torture began again, of course, it always did, and in her own head M’jeu solved naquadah power-curve equations as a distraction.

***

“Whatever this object is,” Janet said, walking with Hammond and some other higher-ups, as she discussed the object that had not been there, she knew, on Hanka, when she had first examined the girl, the sole survivor of her people, “it at least has the ability to stop her heart in an instant.”

“Can you remove it?” He replied.

“Not without killing her. Now, Dr. Warner managed to get us some samples. I’m hoping the results of the analysis will tell us more about what this object is.”

She had more to say. More about the obvious bond between Captain Carter, and the girl. About how worried she was that this thing had appeared, and how she had already checked for implants, sabotage, anything like this, on the other planet. About how it was embedded in this girl, Cassandra, in her chest, next to her heart. And how in the past few hours Cassandra had gone from a possible panacea to a possible panacea that was also Janet’s patient, and also in increasing chance of death. But Hammond turned, and walked away from her, and there was nothing else to say.

***

“Other worlds?” She asked, when the torture was done, because she was, if nothing else, still curious about the science.

“Yes,” Nirrti bragged, her voice hot in M’jeu’s ear. “Other worlds where the sons and daughters of your precious Earth have naquadah in their bloods. Other worlds where I breed my next host. I will make a hok’tar, and whatever System Lord rises up to replace Ra, I will destroy him.”

“My lady,” said a voice, M’jeu’s eyes were too swollen by now to see who had just entered the chamber, “I beg your pardon, but the matter is urgent.”

“What?” Nirrti snapped, and M’jeu knew the wrath of her goddess when interrupted in her playful mixture of torment and seduction, her prime forms of enjoyment and entertainment. “Out with it.”

“It’s just,” the voice said, between gulps, “we have reason to believe that the Tau’ri left two people behind, one of them the shol’va Teal’c of Chulak, former First Prime of Lord Apophis. And our scans show that they likely have an instrument, a telescope, capable of seeing us in orbit.”

The shriek of anger was like music to M’jeu’s ears.

***

“The layer of fatty tissue between the two sides of the object is decaying,” Carter said, catching Dr. Jackson up to speed, as they both walked over to the desk Janet was working at. “Very slowly, mind you, but still. One side of the object is made up of iron and potassium, and the other side of the object is made up of naquadah.”

“I’m assuming that it's the naquadah that was in her blood, although I have no idea how it got there in the first place,” Janet said, her head throbbing. “Somehow the object was collecting it. And it’s likely that it got the iron from the supplements that I gave her.”

“Now,” Carter said, looking at the screen, displaying a view from some deep missile silo, even further below them, “let’s see what happens when we put two microsamples of both sides together.”

A held breath. A flash. And then the feed was lost, and Janet let out a huge, heavy sigh at the realization. They were dealing with an explosive. An explosive of unimaginable power, that had constructed itself from in situ resources, inside the chest cavity of a little girl. A little girl they had willingly brought back through the gate, after a plague that was starting to look less, and less like a coincidence. A set up. A set up by the Goa’uld. And it had worked every step of the way.

“Sam,” Jackson was saying, after some back and forth that Janet had missed, in her own personal haze, as he touched her shoulder. “I’m so, so sorry.”

“Yeah,” she said, and, to her shock, Janet realized the Captain was fighting back tears, “I know.”

She felt, for a moment, like she wanted to reach out. To reach out and touch Carter, like Dr. Jackson was doing so easily. Wanted to do that because she wanted a friend wanted Carter to be her friend, like these two were so clearly friends, companions, for each other. A bond forged under fire, like so many Janet had seen before. She folded her hands in her lap. And thought better.

God she needed more coffee.

Of course after that Hammond gave the order to send Cassandra back through the Stargate. That was what Carter had been anticipating. And that was why Jackson had been comforting her. In her office, alone, Janet told herself it was just another casualty. Just like all those people, on that planet. Just like the people killed in the Gulf. Just like the countless deaths all around her, all throughout the Galaxy, every moment, of every day. She told herself that utilitarianism demanded he do that.

But still. Carter would be sad. Carter still had a heart, and Janet did not. God what she would do for an actual drink

***

M’jeu hummed. Her mother had taught her this. Her mother, who was no Goa’uld, whose love still meant something in a galaxy turned by hate. She hummed, and let herself drift, lost in her own imagination. Nirrti would likely return, and kill her. But for now she let herself drift away.

She would likely never know what had happened, on Hanka, the planet below. Maybe the Tau’ri and their telescope had seen the mothership, and put things together. Maybe they were smarter than her. Maybe they would do what she would do, take the device far from the gate, somewhere where signal could not reach it, and let it be absorbed back into the hok’tar’s body. Or maybe not. Maybe the glider’s dispatched had killed whatever human remained, and the shol’va Teal’c. Maybe her hope was stillborn.

But either way, she still drifted. She hoped, however, that wherever they were, they still lived free.

***

She had managed to clean herself up enough to be present, in the debriefing room, looking down at the gate. She even managed to be alert, and oriented as they prepared to send a little girl through the gate to her death, for the good of all Earth, she told herself. So she was there to see Cassandra slip into a coma, even as they were dialing Hanka. And she was there to see, instead, an incoming wormhole form, and Colonel O’Neill and Teal’c, who had remained behind to watch the eclipse of the local black-hole, step out, and yell at them.

“Get the girl away from the gate!”

“Teal’c,” Hammond said, once the initial confusion was sorted out, “Dr. Fraiser says this device inside the girl is on a timer. You’re sure it will go off if we send the girl through the Stargate?”

She really wished Hammond would not use her like that, as an authority to cudgel people with. She liked even less the falling aura of doom and despair on Carter’s face, as Teal’c replied to the General.

“We should not attempt it,” the alien said, “the Earth gate is what the Goa’uld want to destroy.”

“Well, I can’t risk the security of this mountain,” Hammond snapped, and, of course, practical, military minds, like herself, had a solution.

“What about the abandoned nuclear facility,” O’Neill started to supply, and Hammond finished the thought.

“Right, it’s just twenty minutes away.”

“Carter,” Janet said, stepping forward, past Hammond, who was rushing to make a phone call, and past O’Neill, and Teal’c, and Dr. Jackson, who were all watching, as Carter cut her off, and walked away.

“Not now, Janet,” she said, and there were tears in her eyes.

She did not go with the convoy, to whatever unknown deep-bore nuclear test-site from the Cold War Hammond was referring to. She was a medical doctor. And she had been awake for what, three, four days now? Near continuously. And all for nothing. She had not saved anyone on Hanka. And she had not saved Captain Carter from the death of Cassandra. She was of no use to them, any more.
The only small mercy was that Cassandra was in a coma, since getting near the gate. She would not be conscious for this.

She considered leaving without permission, driving to the nearest bar, and not stopping until it was tomorrow, or the day after, or the day after that. She considered finding the nearest bed of any kind, and passing out. She considered asking that they dial Chulak itself, stronghold of Apophis, and let her walk through with a gun, and a few grenades. She did none of these things. She, respectfully, asked Hammond to notify her when they had confirmation of detonation, and then went to the infirmary to wait.

It felt pointless being in an infirmary. A place of healing. But it was the place for her. In there, in the quiet, as the clocks ticked away the remaining hour, the remaining half-hour, even less, she could think. And she could, at last, understand how someone could hate the enemy. She had never hated Saddam. Never hated the Russians. Never hated the Goa’uld, even. Not until now.

And now she despised them. All of them, and Nirrti in specific, when Teal’c had told her how they had seen the ship in orbit, how she had likely planned all this. Now she understood what Teal’c felt, fighting for his people. Dr. Jackson, whose wife had been taken as a host. She would never forgive them. Never again. This was what it meant to buy in. From this moment, she knew, her life would be about understanding the galaxy, its history, its people, its physics, its science. Anything to bring down the Goa’uld Empire. Whatever the cost. Even if that cost was her own life.

Ten minutes.

Five minutes.

There was hate in her heart. Hate that they had done this to a little girl, yes, to Cassandra. But, more selfishly, less professionally, hate that they had done this indirectly to Captain Carter. Hate that they had made her cry. Her, who was smart, and had solved the gate, defeated Hathor, and actually treated Janet with respect. Treated Janet like one of the boys, on this base without friends.

Fuck them.

Two.

One.

The breakdown of tissue was precise. Mathematical. Scientific. Inescapable. Churned forward by hate.

Zero.

And, any minute now, after the observers on site confirmed detonation, after they called General Hammond, and after he called whoever it was that he needed to call, he would call her. She hoped. She deserved at least that much respect, despite the blackmail, after what she had done for the base and the planet these last months.

Already, now, she thought, as the clocks ticked on, and on, forward, relentlessly, Captain Carter would be in mourning. Maybe she would never be the same again. Not really. Not after this. Not after leaving an unconscious child at the bottom of a pit, deep underground, to die, alone.

Negative one.

Then two.

And then three.

Damnit, she might have been an anti-authoritarian mess of a problem for the Air Force, but didn’t she at least merit some respect?

She managed to make it to her feet, and to the phone, before it rang, and she, breathlessly, answered.

“Listen, I know that I am a dyke and a huge pain in your ass,” she began, because she was utterly, entirely exhausted, and at the end of her patience, before, huge, sobbing, but, somehow she knew, happy gasps, cut her off, on the other end of the line, clearly barely hearing what she had said, if at all.

“Janet,” Samantha Carter said, “Janet, I just knew. I just knew, if we got her far enough from the gate, if the naquadah couldn’t, I don’t know, resonate. Signal. I knew she would be okay. And I had to go back for her.”

“Wait, wait,” she said, barely able to believe what she was hearing. “Sam, are you alright?”

“Yes,” Sam said, “and so is she. She’s alive, Janet. Cassandra is alive, and she is fine. Oh god, she’s going to live.”

She managed to cheer, and to calm Carter down, and to hear an elevator beeping up. She managed to stay awake long enough to hear Cassandra on the other end of the line, and then, as elevator doors slid open, Colonel O’Neill, Teal’c, and Dr. Jackson too. She even managed to tell herself, as she carefully hung the phone up, and made her way to an empty gurney, that it would all be okay. There would be messes, but she could deal with all of them, no matter what, tomorrow.

And then Janet Fraiser fell asleep.

Chapter Text

“We really should really put in some nicer rooms than this,” Janet said, looking at the concrete, windowless, oppressive, despite the coloring that Cassandra, Carter, and even Colonel O’Neill had covered the walls with, in artful Crayola fresco.

It had been, what, a week, two, since the incident on Hanka? And in that time the girl, Cassandra, had gotten outside two, maybe three times. It was desolate, and timeless in the mountain, and no place for a girl, Janet had decided. She might not be good with kids, but even she knew that. But still, what could they do?

The girl was learning English fast. Freakishly fast, really, Janet thought, if she remembered that childhood development class she took in undergrad accurately. But then again, that class’ curriculum had been designed with children on Earth in mind. Perhaps in the four thousand plus years Cassandra’s ancestry had to have been entirely removed from Janet’s, the near horizon established by the burial of the gate at Giza, perhaps in those millenia on an alien world, development had taken a different turn.

And, thinking of Hanka, of course, made her sad. Because they had sent MALPS, and, when they were sure the Goa’uld, this Nirrti, had left, UAVs. There had probably only ever been a few small settlements clustered around the Stargate, left there when Nirrti had abandoned them generations before, maybe ten thousand people. But all of them were dead from the bioweapon. And General Hammond had pointed out that even if they could scout further, send up a satellite, or anything, if any other culture was found, they would likely have little in common with Cassandra. And, as she had expressed herself, Cassandra wanted to stay.

“Janet!” Carter said, from the floor. “Come on, get down here and help us decide what color Colonel O’Neill’s frown should be!”

“No, no!” She said, “I’m no good at that!”

But her protests fell on deaf ears.

“So if we can’t send her back, General,” Carter had said, in one of the daily planning meetings, after they had gotten Teal’c back from that planet where he was put on trial for his actions as First Prime of Apophis, “what are we going to do with her?”

“Well,” he had said, nodding in her direction, as, outside the window, SG-7 went through the gate on the way to the Land of Light to help set up a radio for them to use to communicate with Earth, “Dr. Fraiser has gotten her on an aggressive dose of immunizations in order for her to better resist microbes she may be exposed to on Earth, and, per your request and hers, Captain, we’ve begun looking for foster homes. Although, as you could imagine, it is quite hard to find anyone able and willing to take in a girl who has been through as much as she has, and has the appropriate security clearances.”

“But General,” Fraiser had protested, but he had cut her off.

“I know. I know keeping her on this base is far from ideal. But until I have other options, my hands are tied. Dismissed.”

“You know,” Carter said, a few hours before she was scheduled for a mission, in the holding room, on the floor with Janet, and Cassandra, “me and Cassie went to my place, the other day.”

“Really?” She said, looking at the girl. “And General Hammond allowed that?”

“General Hammond’s a grump,” Cassandra opined, and Carter shot Janet that look that meant she was amused, but wouldn’t say anything.

“Should we give him a frown too, like Colonel O’Neill?”

“No, Jack is nice, under the grumpiness. He pretends to be meaner than he is, but he’s really soft.”

“Huh, I did not know that,” Janet said, and noticed the way Carter was blushing, and made an assumption.

“But General Hammond is nice too!” Carter added, seemingly defending the man who was blackmailing Janet, and the man who was a personal friend of her father. “He has two granddaughters, just a little younger than you, actually, Cassie. Maybe you could visit them someday?”

“Can’t, classified,” Cassie supplied, without looking up, and something in Janet melted a little more, empathizing with a kid, in the way secrets felt, but taken off-guard by what she said next. “Besides, I don’t want to hang out with them. I’d like to go to Janet’s house.”

A moment of shocked silence.

“Why, Cassie?”

“You’re cool, and helped me with all the sickness, and Samantha likes you.”

“Likes as in is friends,” Carter had said, hurriedly, in that way that all straight women used, yes, really, all of them, it seemed, to Janet.

They had talked about it, of course. After the incident. The slip of the tongue brought about by the insane stress of this place, combined with off-world travel, and several nights of sleep missed. Well, not talked about it. Not in open, honest terms. After she had slept, in Carter’s lab, Janet had asked if they were okay, and Carter had said she would keep it secret, which was the important part.

“Believe me,” Carter had said, over-eager, over-defensive, “loved the Puppy Episode, full props to Ellen.”

“To who?” Janet had asked.

“You know,” Carter had said, avoiding eye-contact, “the lesbian?”

“Is she a singer?”

“How did you miss this?”

“Busy, don’t watch much television,” Janet had said, eager to end the conversation, and end it as quickly as possible.

And now Carter was straight panicking all over her. Yes, she thought to herself, on the floor of a secret military base where she was because of blackmail, coloring with an alien girl who she was, somehow, starting to care about. I know you are straight. I know and Cassie knows you mean as a friend. Nothing more. Don’t worry, Carter.

“Well,” Janet said, on that floor, knowing it was an impossibility, “if General Hammond allows you to go off base like you did with Captain Carter, then I don’t see why you couldn’t visit, Cassie. But still, for now, probably best if you keep going to Samantha’s house, she can show you around.”

And then, after that, the next mission had happened, with the Tollans, and Carter’s interest had dropped.

It was not her fault, Janet told herself as she, out of some sense of duty, went to Cassie’s alone, one day, and then the next. Carter was a once in a generation genius, and here, at last, they had found an advanced culture of non-hostile humans. Non-hostile humans who, for inscrutable moral reasons, refused to share, to give them anything that could help in the fight against the Goa’uld, could help prevent catastrophes like Hanka from ever happening again.

“Where’s Samantha?” Cassie had asked, on the third day, after Colonel O’Neill, of a people, had dropped in.

“She is a very busy woman,” Janet had said, ignoring the voice that told her that she, too, was a busy woman, and currently putting off a lot of her duties to be around this orphan, forgotten deep, deep underground. “But she’ll be back. She cares about you a whole lot, you know?”

“You do too,” Cassie said, pushing aside her hair, and Janet felt something tug at her heart.

And then, without warning, Samantha Carter went missing.

It was a regular mission. Well, none of them were regular. They were waging a clandestine war with the trenches buried under a mountain in Colorado, and the front line everywhere across the Galaxy. And, on top of that, during the mission they had come under Jaffa fire. Teal’c had said some of it had struck the gate, the staff weapon blasts, ionic plasma wound causing devices that Janet was practicing on treating more and more, as this war heated up. But he and Dr. Jackson swore, up and down, that Carter and O’Neill had both been right behind them, in the mad retreat.

And yet they were nowhere to be found.

After the initial treatment, a late night, making sure both of the recovered members of SG-1 were alright, during which Hammond tried and failed to find any sign of Carter of O’Neill on the planet, Janet found herself putting Cassie to sleep. And the next day, when they were trying to figure out what had gone wrong, where else the wormhole might have sent them, if anywhere, all without the foremost gate expert, she was there again. And, that night, after listening to the girl cry, and ask where she was, ask where Carter was, and when she was going to be back, she found herself in Hammond’s office.

“Dr.” He said, putting down the phone, looking genuinely tired. “This had better be important, I’m trying to coordinate search teams for a dozen likely planets we think Jack and Sam might have been sent to.”

“No sir,” she said, drawing on all of her military training, “it just concerns a little girl with nightmares, and given your own granddaughters, I thought you might be sympathetic to that.”

“Dr.” He said, rubbing slamming some files down on his desk with unnecessary force, “I am aware of your opinions on child welfare, but the situation hasn’t changed, we have to worry about the disclosure risk Cassandra represents.”

“Not to someone who already has clearance, who has been working with her, and already has permission to be in contact with her. Someone with a house in the area, even, thanks to the largesse of the United States Air Force.”

He looked at her, a moment too long, and then laughed, had the gall to laugh, at a time like this.

“Doctor,” he said, leaning forward, “I appreciate your concern, a concern which I share, but given you, shall we say, proclivities, is it really appropriate for you to have a girl at your home unsupervised?”

She bit down her anger. Her rage, at the Air Force, the United States, Hammond, the President, all of them. In this, at least, she needed to be calm. Cassandra deserved someone who could do that.

“General,” she said, looking at a space a few inches above his head, “if you look at the files from Hanka, or what Teal’c has told us about Jaffa society, and society within the Goa’uld empires, you may find that our views of sexuality may be limited. You’ve allowed me to interact with her before, alone, to treat her, even knowing what you know. All I am asking is you let her stay at my place, see outside. She hasn’t been outside except for one night with Captain Carter in almost a month.”

He didn’t allow it that night, something that, in the future, she would never fully forgive him for doing. But, after that, as team after team checked other gates that should have been along the path the wormhole had taken, and found nothing, she presented security footage. Security footage of Cassie, in the room, on the bed, surrounded by her drawings, babbling, half in English, half in her own language, and Janet holding her. That night, Cassie went home, and Janet tucked her into a spare room, on the second floor of the house she did not own, having frantically cleaned it only hours before.

“Are Samantha and Jack going to be alright?” Cassie asked, looking up from her, so small, so scared, in the huge bed.

“A lot of really smart people are still looking for them,” she said, kissing her forehead. “Now remember, if you have any bad dreams tonight, I’ll be right down the hallway, kiddo. Shout if you need anything.”

She was tired the next day, Janet. Had been up too late. Had been up too late sitting in the hallway outside Cassie’s door, listening for a call.

She had brought her back into the base, because of course she had to. You couldn’t leave a child unsupervised, and it was hard to find a babysitter with the security clearance to know what she was talking about if she mentioned other planets. And she repeated the process, the next night, in the hallway, and then the next day, too, when Dr. Jackson had his breakthrough.

“We ruled out a world we shouldn’t have,” he said, when he saw her, rushing towards the elevator, Teal’c leading the way. “There’s a second gate.”

She tried to get on the flight out of Peterson, down to Antarctica. Down to the second Earth Stargate, one far older, buried under ice for who knew how many millions of years. A piece of technology proving that the Goa’uld, visitors of Earth in the last few tens of thousands, could not have built the gate network. She tried, but failed. Who knew how her life might have been different if she had, shunted, and shuffled off, down a different pathway. One avoiding her death, six years later, on a planet so, so far from Earth, far from her home.

But instead she stayed, and the path remained true. And she held Cassie, and they had both cried, and something inside Janet shifted. The next day, with O’Neill and Carter both in intensive medical care in a military base somewhere in the southern hemisphere, she brought in paperwork. She went into work, under the mountain, and then, uninvited, found her way to Hammond’s office.

“Dr.,” he said, tired, clearly, trying to run a military operation across multiple worlds, coordinating the embassies they were setting up, the exploration, the looming, vague, amorphous threat of any Goa’uld noticing them, sending ships to Earth. “This had better not be about the girl, because I still don’t have anything to offer you, no solution to her housing, or anything like that.”

“Actually, General,” she said, putting the folder on his desk, “that’s why I’m here. I think I may have a solution.”
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