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magibrainChapter Summary: The Tok'ra and Free Jaffa seem to have something up their sleeves.
Index post: [Fic] Beneath a Beating Sun - Index
No matter how many times Jack redefined normal, it took half a week before he was re-convinced that he'd never have a normal day again. This particular day would have been strange enough without having Hammond call them back to Earth out of the blue.
Jack came down the ramp with one hand on his rifle, expecting global catastrophe. "What's going on, sir?"
Hammond nodded toward the Stargate. "Jacob called in," he said. "He asked that I recall you. Apparently he has something urgent to discuss with us."
"He wasn't more specific?" Daniel asked.
"No. In fact, he was quite vague," Hammond said. "But he did request SG1's presence, and mention that he was bringing a guest in."
"A guest?"
Hammond shrugged with one hand. "He didn't elaborate."
"Huh," Jack said. "Did you get ahold of Teal'c?"
"No," Hammond said. "According to Bra'tac, he took a contingent of Jaffa warriors and left almost as soon as he arrived."
"No news on his front?" Daniel surmised.
Hammond shook his head.
"Jeez!" Jack looked wounded. "No one talks to us any more. You notice that? Well," he amended, "the Tok'ra never really talk to us."
"And Teal'c does?" Daniel asked.
Jack considered.
Hammond cleared his throat. "Jacob informed us that he would be arriving within the half-hour. That's not enough time for a debriefing, but it may be enough for a shower."
Jack's eyebrows raised. "Is that a suggestion, sir?"
Out of the corner of his eye he could catch Daniel giving him a look three degrees warmer than disparaging. He looked down – his clothing was covered in a fine layer of dust, and if he paid attention even he could smell the ozone coming off the cloth.
"Ah," he said. "Yes. A shower."
Hammond stepped aside, and Jack led his team to the locker room. The usual biohazard bins were standing by the door; it was easier, these days, to collect everything worn offworld than to sort them through the rubric of suspected environmental hazards. He stripped down and stepped into the shower, turning the water on full blast. Then he just stood under the showerhead, letting the dust run off him in dirty rivulets.
It wasn't just the dust that was making his hair grey.
Every once in a while – not often, but sometimes – he got the feeling that he really was getting too old for this, or at least getting too old for the snarls. His patience was wearing out. There was only so much waiting for a resolution he could take – sooner or later he had to be able to write case closed on something, to put it away. It was getting harder to do.
He stepped out, toweled off and was dressed before either of his teammates. Daniel came out second and they stood in the hall without talking.
The Offworld Activation siren sounded before McKay was out, and Jack muttered "Leave him" and headed for the stairs. They made it into the Gateroom as the Iris opened, spilling clean blue light over the floor.
Jacob stepped through, beaming. He made it three steps down the ramp before turning and sweeping one arm back toward the wormhole.
On cue, the second guest arrived, dressed in the same mahogany Tok'ra uniform, but not one of the Tok'ra who usually–
Jack's brain did a fair impression of shorting out.
When it rebooted he was still sure it wasn't working properly, because what he thought he saw was Carter, walking down the ramp and looking neither dead nor ascended. She stopped halfway down, looking around the gateroom with an expression just as confused as Jack felt.
"Sam!"
Daniel's reaction was more immediate than anyone's. About half a second elapsed before he'd crossed the distance between them, enveloping her in a crushing hug.
"Um," she said weakly. Of them all, Daniel seemed to be the only one with an idea of what to do in the situation. She was lost.
"We thought we'd lost you again," he said. His voice said more than his words did, probably because neither of them knew words to fit the sentiment. "God, Sam, we missed you."
"I'm sorry," she said. (I didn't mean to go.)
"Don't apologize."
"All right." That was familiar – instruction, application. (You're still going to have to teach me to fit in,) she thought, and then wondered why she thought it. (You were supposed to give me identity.)
He was still hanging on.
"...are you going to let me go?" Sam asked.
"Hadn't planned on it," Daniel said into her shoulder.
"Okay," she said, turning her head just enough to look at her father. Jacob was trying – and failing – to disguise a smile, and raised both eyebrows expressively. Expressive of what, she couldn't tell. Belatedly, awkwardly, she patted Daniel's shoulder.
"Okay, Daniel, she needs to breathe these days," the Colonel said, unable to chase emotion from his voice. "Let go."
"Yeah," Daniel said, releasing his grip and stepping back. As he did, Sam saw tears in his eyes.
She looked... young, as she saw them. Innocent and awed, surprised, confused. And beautiful. Jacob felt himself fill with pride of a kind he hadn't felt since she was a child. He had her back now.
Jack couldn't stop smiling. He hadn't expected this to hurt – he hadn't expected it, period. But it did, a low ache from a place he couldn't name, like the stretching of bruised muscles or the fatigue of tired limbs; something numb come back to life. "The unsinkable Sam Carter," he pronounced, approaching on the ramp. He took a deep breath before running out of words.
She turned to him, lost as she studied his face. "Colonel," she said – that scrap remained from her time as the entity, as little contact as they'd had.
Jack felt his jaw would split open if he grinned any wider. "Yeah." He couldn't resist. "...c'mere," he said, pulling her into a quick embrace. He clapped her on the back before releasing her, keeping every facet of the act as comradely as possible. "Very well done," he said.
To one side, she could hear Jacob saying something to Daniel – "She lost her memory. Figured it'd come back easier here," – and could hear a quiet noise of assent or understanding. She wished she could share in the sentiment.
She blinked, looking around. Jack glanced back with her – a small crowd had gathered at the blast doors, techs and airmen and scientists. Carter seemed bewildered and more than a little overwhelmed – (Of course. This is totally outside her experience, at least for the moment. We should probably back off for a bit... but god damn, I don't think anyone is going to! This is a miracle like I didn't think happened.)
He cleared his throat. "As you can see, we missed you around here," he deflected. "The new guy they saddled us with isn't nearly as nice when we're idiots, and I don't think Siler's defragged the 'gate since you left..."
He trailed off. Noncomprehension was written across Carter's face. "That was Colonel O'Neill's infamous sense of humor," Jacob said, landing a hand on her shoulder. "We'll brief you on it."
Jack shot him a wounded look, and Jacob smiled back. "Yes," Jack deadpanned. "There will be many briefings. On many things."
"But those can wait," Hammond said from behind them. Jack turned – the General had used the time Jack and Daniel had afforded him to compose himself, and was probably the steadiest of them all. Trust him to provide a semblance of normalcy. "For now, let's get you situated." There was a second's pause as the same thought occurred to everyone. "I assume you will be remaining here."
Sam turned to look at her father. Jacob raised both eyebrows. "That's the assumption, much as we'd love to keep her."
Hammond nodded, and turned to SG-1 as if they had routines in place for just such happenings. "Perhaps the two of you would care to escort Major Carter to the infirmary."
Colonel O'Neill took charge, clapping her on the shoulder and leading her down the ramp. "Right. Right this way, Major."
Jacob nodded, giving her a discreet pat on the back and catching Hammond's eye, inclining his head toward the briefing room. Hammond nodded. They had a lot to discuss.
Sam looked around as she was led down the ramp, too lost to make the action subtle. Behind her, she could hear Jacob saying something to Hammond – "I've debriefed her," or what sounded like it. In front of her, the assembled humans said things she couldn't quite hear, some of which she could – "Welcome back," or "Major," or "Mary and Joseph," which she didn't understand. A few stepped closer. A few stepped sideways out of their path.
(...I'm surrounded,) she thought, attaching a name to one anxiety. With the entities she'd never felt hemmed in. It wasn't that they'd kept their distance – they hadn't – but it wasn't the same, for a being of energy. They could pass through one another at will. She'd never, to her memory, been in a place where her movement was so restricted.
Then there was the hodgepodge of physical reactions she couldn't control, even though most of them she could recognize. These were apprehension and anticipation accelerating her heartbeat, and something similar had made her legs unstable. She could feel it, quantify it, but not understand it.
They came to a room she hadn't seen yet, filled with machines whose purpose she couldn't assume. The people inside were dressed differently from the ones outside, for the most part – white cloth, and several of them wore gloves. They walked inside.
Jack cleared his throat, and pitched his voice to carry. "Dr. Fraiser!"
One of them reacted, handing off a folder to another of the white-clad people. "Colonel," she said, turning. "I wasn't expecting to see you back–"
Then she caught a glimpse of who he and Daniel had escorted in.
She dropped her clipboard.
That, Jack thought, was the first time under any circumstance he'd actually seen that happen.
Daniel detached himself from the group to intercept her. Daniel spoke quickly and quietly, Jack caught words like "Came back" and "the same amnesia", and Fraiser nodded, took a breath, and turned back to them with the smile she usually gave to civilians and refugees.
"Welcome home."
-
Everything was novel.
She was given yet another set of clothing to change into; then she sat, watching with fascination as Frasier extracted blood from her arm, as she timed her heartbeats, tested eyesight and reactions. There was a complex and unconscious set of behaviors her body obeyed, totally unlike even the solid form of the entities. The mechanics of her biology required neither her attention nor understanding. Fraiser explained things, though not in terms which gave her any implicit understanding – blood pressure and heart rate and genetic scans, though what each one signified, she had no idea.
At length, Dr. Fraiser set aside the instruments and said "Well, so far as I can tell, she's in perfect health. There's no reason to keep her here." She turned a brilliant smile on her. "Though, of course, you're welcome in here any time."
Sam nodded, and examined the adhesive over the blood extraction site on her elbow. After a moment, she looked at Dr. Fraiser. "You knew me?"
Fraiser's smile flickered. "Yeah, I did, Sam. Very well."
Sam studied her face, the curves and contours, the balance of features that served as a visual identifier. She logged it away. "Okay."
Fraiser watched the examination, and reached out to put a hand on her arm. Sam looked down at it, similarly logging the gesture. "If there's anything you need," she said, "don't hesitate to come by, all right?"
Sam looked up at her face again. "Okay," she said again, and her head tilted to one side. She didn't quite know what scope "anything" represented, and might even have asked if the Colonel didn't interrupt that line of thought.
"Trust me, odds are, you'll be back here soon enough," he said. Fraiser gave him an amused look, and he gave her an acknowledging smile right back. (Hey, at least I didn't say 'too soon'.)
"Go on," Fraiser said, and then looked to the Colonel. "I'll have the final results on these in a few hours."
Daniel and the Colonel led her out of the infirmary, through halls whose configurations she hadn't paid special attention to, to a door in a line of doors which opened into a room without any notable distinction. "These are your quarters," Colonel O'Neill said. He made an unpleasant noise from his throat. "You're, uh, lucky we hadn't reassigned them yet. We did kinda get rid of your ...stuff."
"You thought I was dead," she said. Dead translated to lost translated to not present, so in a way it made sense that nothing of hers should remain here. She thought.
"Oh, believe me," he said, "we would have been glad to think you weren't. It's just that the evidence tended to point to the contrary."
"I understand," she said, walking toward the bed. She looked over the sheets, across the wall. There was a picture of a machine against a wide blue sky with the word Flight printed under it. Daniel and the Colonel were still standing in the doorway, watching her, and giving her no indication of what she was supposed to do. She looked around again. "It's nice."
"Well, it's better than some places I've been stationed," O'Neill agreed. "It's not what it was. We can get back most of the–"
"I don't remember," she said.
Daniel and the Colonel exchanged a glance. "Sorry?" the Colonel said.
"I can't access my memories before becoming one of the pulsar beings," she said. "I don't remember what you're talking about; I don't remember what you're referring to."
The Colonel's expression shifted. It looked like Daniel's had, sometimes, when she'd made an assumption he didn't enjoy. "We know," he said.
She watched him, but he didn't seem to understand. "I don't know the significance of these things," she said.
"Well, in a way, that's what we're trying to establish," Daniel said. "...more or less."
He looked to the Colonel. The Colonel looked at her, then at Daniel, and then Daniel looked at her, as though they were obeying some sort of rhythm entirely internal to them.
"I mean, you know about this base," he said. "What we do here, what we have here. Don't you?"
A flash of annoyance shot through her. She'd just adopted their understanding of duration; it would be aggravating to learn that their concept of continuity had changed. Or that they didn't recognize the importance of continuity in this context. "I remember being here as Satya. I can access those memories. I can't access anything before."
The Colonel's expression changed again, but didn't get better.
"I'm sorry," she said, because it seemed like the thing to say. (But I don't have control over this.)
"It's all right," Daniel said. "Hopefully, the more you re-learn, the more you'll also begin to remember."
She thought about that, then used her thumb to press out an itch at the inside corner of one eye. "...there's a qualitative difference between re-learning and remembering," she said. "Isn't there?"
"Well, yes, but we're hoping the one will trigger the other."
She sat down on the bed. The Colonel and Daniel glanced at each other again.
"I have some of your memories," she said, and was sure it wasn't her imagination when the Colonel looked uneasy, at that. "I retained those. And the memories of the entities. Not my own." (Not Sam Carter's.)
"Well, they'll come back," the Colonel said, glancing at Daniel. "I mean, that's... what they do."
Daniel looked at him, looked back to her, and swallowed three responses before saying one. "Yeah."
"In the mean time," the Colonel said, preempting the silence that had been about to fall, "all you really need to know is that my name is Jack, not Jim, and O'Neill is spelled with two L's."
Daniel winced so hard his eyes closed. The Colonel smiled, but the expression faltered and disappeared when a few seconds passed without a response. He shifted. Again.
"Small joke."
(You want her back,) she thought, unprompted. (The person you're talking to. The person you think I am.)
He turned halfway and gestured to the door. "You want to see your lab?"
-
Hammond and Jacob had been discussing strategy for a whole of three minutes before Dr. McKay poked his head into the briefing room, looking as though he was running late for a very important date. "General! I thought SG-1 was required in the Gateroom–?"
Jacob looked him over. "And you are?"
McKay looked him over. "Dr. Rodney McKay, temporarily assigned to SG-1. And you are?"
"General Jacob Carter," Jacob said.
McKay's bearing mutated quickly into something at least marginally resembling respect. "Oh. General." He coughed. "I wanted to say how sorry I was–"
"For what?" Jacob asked, raising both eyebrows innocently.
Hammond cleared his throat and stepped in before Jacob could make things more awkward than they were, a service which Jacob undoubtedly appreciated less than McKay would. "General Carter has been kind enough to escort Major Carter back to us," he said.
McKay looked from General to General, and managed a "Wh–".
"I'm not entirely clear on the details myself," Hammond said, looking to Jacob.
Jacob shrugged. "This is one gift horse I'm not too eager to look in the mouth," he said. "As far as I know she ascended like Daniel did."
"Wh," McKay said again.
"Colonel O'Neill and Dr. Jackson are getting her situated," Hammond said.
"I'm sorry, but that's physically impossible!" McKay burst. "The amount of energy hitting that base would be enough to totally eradicate any trace of recognizable neurological patterns–"
Jacob cleared his throat.
"Not that I'm not glad to hear the news!" McKay backpedalled.
"As far as we know she became one of the energy beings," Hammond said. "Satya, specifically. Something which happened on PV1-542 precipitated her return to human form."
"She attacked Anubis," Jacob said. "She said he – well, descended her, for lack of a better word."
"Oh. So. That's great–" McKay said, still failing to get himself over the That's impossible barrier. "So she'll be returning to duty–?"
"Probably not yet," Jacob said, looking at Hammond. Hammond nodded. "She's suffering from some problems with her memory. I don't think she can remember anything, really."
McKay's face fell.
"Were you friends with her?" Jacob asked.
"We worked together once or twice," McKay answered vaguely. "–wait, did you say she was with Anubis?"
"Anubis descended her," Jacob repeated.
McKay went from unsettled to alarmed in no time flat. "Wait, if she managed to get all the way back here from wherever Anubis is, that means it's only a matter of time before Anubis can, too–"
"Which is what we were just talking about," Jacob said, in a You're really not the first one to realize this tone.
"Oh." McKay nodded. "Well. Go on."
Jacob looked at Hammond. Hammond shrugged with one hand. Jacob looked back at McKay again, and resumed.
"The hok'ha'tak from Anubis' first incursion is still in the Pulsar's kill zone," he said, "but Anubis is in no hurry to get it back. It'd probably be just about as inconvenient for him to scrub it and refit it as it would to make another ship from the ground up. We might be able to deradiate the ship, but that still means we have to get to it."
"And Anubis can enter the system now," McKay pointed out. "If he got off the planet like Major Carter did, then he's going to build more of those ships and he's going to land on the installation and take it over. And that spells galactic badness for us all."
Hammond nodded. "We've been studying the layout of the installation," he said. "Colonel Edwards' team put together a report for me a few hours ago containing a viable option for destroying the base entirely."
McKay gaped. "What, you mean blow it up?"
"If there's no other option," Hammond said. "Four naqahdah-enhanced warheads would wipe all traces of the base from the surface of the planet."
"Oh, typical military thinking," McKay snapped. "If we can't have it–"
"It's that or let its technology fall into the hands of Anubis," Jacob said. "Unless you have a Plan C."
McKay scowled.
Jacob didn't back down. "Do you, Doctor?"
McKay set his jaw and looked up. "How soon do you need one?"
-
SGC life was, despite the surrealism of its mission statement, not uniformly exciting or even interesting. They frequently went for days or weeks without anything more spectacular than routine offworld exploration and the minor political bureaucracies of interaction with their scattered allies. Once, in fact, there had been a solid month and a half once when no teams had come in hot, the base had never had an alert, and the medical staff had time to set up a small bacterial-culture lab and its appropriate biohazard safeguards in one of the disused storerooms for fun. It was possible to say that after serving in the SGC one would never be surprised again, but that was overstating the case at best.
Which was why Hammond was, in fact, very surprised when thirteen minutes after Dr. McKay and Jacob had taken their leave, his red phone rang with an urgent summons to the control room.
He arrived to see Colonel O'Neill standing over the controls, frowning over Walter's shoulder. "Colonel?"
"Left Carter with Daniel," he said. "It was getting a bit weird."
Hammond nodded. "What's going on?"
Jack shrugged. "Don't know."
"CAIRN II is tracking an object coming in," Walter said. "They say its configuration matches–" he paused. "General, we're picking up a transmission."
"Put it through."
The speakers overhead cracked to life. "General Hammond," greeted a cheerful voice.
Hammond couldn't suppress a grin. "Teal'c," he identified. "What's going on?"
"We have obtained one of Anubis' modified al'kesh," Teal'c said. "We have brought it here so that its technology may be studied and a weakness found."
"Is it just me, or is it Christmas day?" Jack wondered aloud.
"Are you able to make an undetected landing?" Hammond asked.
A pause. "I believe so. This vessel has a number of modifications over standard al'kesh."
"We're forwarding coordinates to the secure landing field at Peterson. Bring it in. We have quite a briefing for you."
"Understood." The transmission ended. Hammond turned to Jack.
"I expect you'll want to handle this?"
Jack grinned. "Wouldn't miss it, sir."
-
The secure landing field at Peterson was a recent addition, initially created to service F-302s which might need to make a landing near Cheyenne Mountain.
The al'kesh wasn't exactly cloaked, but it had some kind of stealth technology. It looked like a reflection moving on its own power through the sky – it rippled and wavered, cool blue showing through its cold black. It made unnervingly little noise as it settled on the landing strip, and its hatch yawned open.
Jack didn't draw up. Teal'c had sent along his IDC to confirm his identity, and he trusted Teal'c implicitly, but instinct said not to get too close to Goa'uld ships of any sort unless necessary. He stood at what he judged to be a minimum safe distance, and waited for Teal'c to step out.
Which he did, flanked by two Jaffa warriors – each of whom looked as self-satisfied as Jack suspected it was possible for Jaffa to look. "One day you're going to tell me how you manage this," Jack called, indicating the ship.
"Luck and intelligence," Teal'c said back, voice carrying without him having to raise it. He drew up, reaching to clasp Jack's hand warmly. "Moye'd is to be honored, not I. It was he who coaxed it to fly."
"It was not so difficult as my friend would have you believe," one of Teal'c's companions said. Jack guessed it was Moye'd, and consigned the name to the corner of his brain reserved for things he should remember but never did. "I expect to speak with your engineers, that we may study the bird at length."
Jack made an Ah expression. "I expect they'll expect to speak with you too," he said, glancing back at the miniature entourage coming to verify landing details. He singled out one – the name was probably Pemberton – and waved him over. "Captain!"
The Captain jogged up, naturally not wearing anything resembling a nametag. (I should complain to someone,) Jack thought. (It's impossible to keep all these kids straight.) "Sir!"
"The Captain will take care of you boys," he said, motioning to Teal'c's escorts. "Teal'c and I have some catching up to do."
Teal'c inclined his head in such a way that it functioned as a farewell, agreement, and a friendly inquisition all at once. (That has to take talent.)
"We've got a car waiting," Jack said, waving a hand vaguely back at the humvee. "Come on."
Teal'c fell into step beside him, tucking his hands behind his back, under his cloak.
"How fares the Tau'ri?"
"Ups and downs. Mostly downs. We lost Prometheus," Jack said, tone sobering. "All hands."
Teal'c nodded, and his eyes darkened. Jack looked over the airfield.
"We went back to the base – PV1-542. Followed Satya there, but that's a long, weird story. Anubis showed up and we actually managed to take out his ha'tak. Barely." His mouth twisted into a dark smile. "Bit of luck, there."
"Indeed," Teal'c said, without any indication that he thought the battle was over. Anubis wouldn't be vanquished that easily. His next question was pointed. "And what of SG-1?"
"Well, among other things..." Jack paused. This was a conversation he'd like to have in a more controlled spot, but time was tight and it was either going to be the tarmac or the car. "It might interest you to know that Daniel and I reached an agreement on the Is-Satya-Sam issue."
"Really," Teal'c said. "What have you decided?"
Jack took a deep breath. This would take a bit of explaining.
"A few... interesting things happened when we went back to '542," he said, and started on the tale.
-
Sam's lab had been half- moved-into.
No one had officially taken up residence, but a small contingent of scientists had co-opted most of the free space on the level in order to set up simulations of various sorts. This particular room had been assigned to doctors Lee, Garrett and Carlsen, who were trying – with minimal success – to recreate a self-sustaining field of energy, formally similar to Anubis or the PV1-542 entities, to experiment on.
Sam didn't seem to mind the new configuration, if only because she couldn't remember the old one. After six or seven queries she'd established that Daniel had only the most rudimentary knowledge of the experiments, and had begun to feel her way through the machinery on her own.
Which left Daniel in the uneasy position of chaperone, without much to do aside from watching and making sure nothing blew up. He was almost relieved when the phone rang.
He picked it up before it could provide too much of a distraction, and answered. "Jackson."
"Daniel," Jack's voice said. "Teal'c and I just got in. Can I assume you're both down there?"
Teal'c was back. Teal'c, Jack, himself and Sam. SG-1. He could take a few seconds to marvel at that, stolen in the moments of transit from the Cheyenne Mountain entrance to Sublevel 19. "Yeah, we're in Sam's lab," he said.
"Right. See you in a few, then." Jack hung up.
Daniel turned, setting the receiver back and walking to the lab table. He cleared his throat.
"Period is determined by duration," Sam said. "I understood that there were differences in period, but I never comprehended them."
"Do you now?" Daniel asked.
She looked at him, then back to the screen. "Sort of."
He cleared his throat again, a kind of aural clue that he was switching tracks. "So, Jack and Teal'c are back. They're coming down here."
"Okay." She continued her investigation of the screen.
Daniel exhaled. "So, I'll just," he motioned to the door. "Let you know when they arrive."
She nodded.
He stepped back, heading to the hall and peering out. More than her memory loss, it was the communication barrier that unnerved him. He was talking to Sam, and Satya was talking back.
It didn't take long for Jack and Teal'c to arrive. Teal'c led the way, bowing slightly in greeting as he drew up. "Daniel Jackson," he said. "It is good to see you."
"You too," Daniel said. "Good trip?"
"Very," Teal'c said, and it wasn't hard to read the satisfaction in his voice. "We have obtained one of Anubis' al'kesh. It is being examined as we speak."
"That's good," Daniel said. "Great! And–"
"Colonel O'Neill informed me," Teal'c said, voice full of... something. Emotion kept just beneath the surface of realization. "Samantha Carter–?"
Daniel felt himself swell with.. something. Pride. Camaraderie. Family. But beneath that was a subtle weight, a shadow of doubt.
"She came back," he said. "But she's not all here." He motioned to the door. "You're welcome to see her." Not that there was any question of leaving him out, but something needed to be said.
Teal'c nodded, and then, uncharacteristically, hesitated. It was only a moment's pause, nearly unquantifiable, but for anyone familiar with the rhythms of Teal'c's life and movements it was as clear as a pronouncement of uncertainty. Then he stepped through the door.
Sam had been examining a spectrometer with single-minded interest, but she looked up when he entered. Teal'c stopped a scant pace into the lab, and bowed. "Major Carter," he said.
She watched. She didn't get this gesture – it had emotional resonance but was connected to no meaning. "That's what they call me."
He straightened back up. "It is good to see you once again."
"It's good to see you," she said, and looked at Daniel. He was watching for any fleck of recognition. She was watching for hints.
Teal'c's expression barely changed, and she couldn't read how. It was maddening. "You do not recognize me."
"I know who you are," she told him. (As for everything else, no.)
"We are your friends," Teal'c said. "We will do everything we can to help you remember."
At that Daniel looked surprised, but he hid it quickly. That prompted another flash of annoyance – no one would lay it out for her. She was fumbling through, and they were watching it happen.
The annoyance faded quickly. "Thank you," she said, because whatever they thought they were doing, they were trying to help. She didn't know what she needed, so it'd be unreasonable to expect that they did.
Teal'c looked at Daniel and the Colonel, a very small smile gracing his features. "If I might have time to discuss matters privately with Major Carter?"
Daniel's expression did a neat turn from surprised to shocked. Then he snapped himself out of it. "Um, yeah, sure. Of course. Sam, I'll be–" he made a hasty gesture in the direction of the halls. "Well. My quarters have my name on them, so–"
"We'll be in touch," Colonel O'Neill said, and steered Daniel away.
Teal'c turned to Carter again. "How have you found your return?"
"I don't know," she said. "I guess I'm still adjusting."
"Do you find it an uncomfortable adjustment?"
"I think it's more uncomfortable for them than for me," she said. "I know one way of interacting with them, and I don't think that's what they expect of me."
"You do not remember being Samantha Carter, but you do remember being the entity, Satya," Teal'c filled in.
She nodded. This was good – a familiar frankness. "That describes it."
"Do you still consider yourself one of the entities?"
She stopped to stare at him. She hadn't considered something from that angle. "...I'm not sure. To identify myself as one of them, I'd have to know what they are. But we – they – didn't. That's what they – we were most invested in finding out."
Teal'c nodded. He seemed satisfied by the answer, even if she wasn't. "Perhaps, then, you were defined by your very lack of definition."
"But that results in a paradox." Sam frowned. "By accepting that as a definition, they lose the ability to identify as that."
"Indeed. Perhaps I should rephrase." He clasped both hands behind his back, straightening up. "Perhaps their definition rests in the fact that they pursue their own identities."
"Maybe it does." She nodded. That felt better, at least, than the paradox. Easier to handle.
"If that is the case, do you consider yourself one of them still?"
"By that definition, I am," she said. "But I want to reclaim my identity as a human."
"I do not believe they should be mutually exclusive," Teal'c said.
"Is it important, then?"
Teal'c raised one eyebrow. "We have previously experienced difficulties in communicating with the entities in the pulsar because we did not fully understand them. You have the fullest understanding I believe it possible to obtain."
"I can communicate with them," she said. "You're right."
"Do you desire to?"
"It can help," she said. "Both of us. They should know what's happened to me." (I was sent here to gather information about us. This state is information.)
Teal'c smiled and bowed again. "We should therefore inform General Hammond."
"Is that procedure?"
Teal'c continued to smile. "It serves as such."
"We should do that, then," Sam said.
-
Teal'c led her to Hammond's office door, and knocked just below the nameplate. Hammond called "Come in" and Teal'c opened the door, ushering Sam in before him.
Hammond stood from behind his desk, quickly putting aside a folder. "Evening, Teal'c. Major Carter," he said. "How are you settling in?"
(I don't have a frame of reference!) "Well," she said, and found herself amused. (Selective misrepresentation of facts.)
"I'm glad to hear it," he said.
A moment passed, and she realized that she was the object of his undivided attention. That happened more frequently now that she was human.
She hesitated. Teal'c stood just behind her and to one side, allowing her to proceed on her own without abandoning her. (What do I say? What's expected?)
Hammond glanced to Teal'c. Sam shifted. (Just say something. Now that you understand time you shouldn't waste it.) "I've been told that you don't fully understand Anubis," she said.
Hammond nodded. "There's a lot we don't fully understand about him–"
"He's noncorporeal," she said. "Like the entities in the pulsar. They want to be studied, and if they understood how bad Anubis was, I think they'd help us fight him."
Realization dawned in Hammond's eyes, which was odd, because she didn't think she'd said anything that required a complex understanding. Maybe she was misreading him. "I appreciate the offer," he said, "and I agree that it's a good idea. But perhaps you should take some time to acclimate yourself, first."
(I want to go home,) can the irrational thought. She'd said as much to Jacob – to her father. He'd brought her here.
Of course, there was nothing to say that the base or with the entities would be "home," either.
Come to think of it, she was as unsure of "home"'s identity as she was of her own.
"There isn't much time, if Anubis knows how to leave the planet. Would acclimating myself have any effect on the performance of this mission?" she asked.
Hammond blinked, and his mental gears spun up from zero. He hadn't expected a cross-examination. "I think it would be better for you," he said.
"I don't understand how," she said.
His expression darkened. "Major," he said, "I understand you're eager to resume your duties, but–"
(Eager? Duties?) She didn't quite hear what he said after that. (That's not right. You've ascribed the wrong motivation. I didn't understand.) "General–"
"That's final."
Teal'c's hand landed on her shoulder, and he bowed from the waist. "Thank you, General."
He pulled her out of the office before she had time to bow as well.
They stopped in the hallway, in a small recess created by a stand of pipes. Teal'c was no longer smiling.
"I did something wrong," she surmised.
Teal'c inhaled. "You did not react to General Hammond's decision in the way which was expected."
(Of course.) This was becoming a constant. "What was expected?"
"General Hammond controls this facility," Teal'c said. "Though he is not a dictator, it is wisest to assume that in most situations his word is law."
She slowed, and stopped. "...I didn't understand."
"I believe he realizes this."
She looked up at him. "I'll take some time to acclimate myself," she said. "Understand what I need to."
He nodded. "That would be for the best."
-
Daniel stopped by her room later. Her door was ajar, and he pushed it open. She was sitting cross-legged on her bed, in the midst of a mess of folders, papers and small bound materials. "Sam?"
She didn't respond. He cleared his throat.
"Sam?"
She wasn't ignoring him – there was nothing pointed about her silence. She just didn't seem to register him at all.
(...oh.) His stomach dropped, and he shifted uneasily. "Satya?"
She jumped, head snapping up. "Daniel!"
"I was wondering how you were doing," he said. (I think I just got my answer.)
She looked down at the papers. "I'm reading manuals," she said.
He stepped inside, closing the door halfway behind him. He couldn't decide whether her response had been an answer or an evasion, and it seemed like a terribly important distinction. "On what?"
"So far? SGC operations. Military etiquette and protocol." She indicated the pile. "I knew all this once."
"Are you remembering it?"
"No. Just remembering I knew it."
He nodded. "So, you can read," he said, trying to lighten the mood.
She didn't get the joke.
"I mean, of all the things you have to remember," he explained, "no one would fault you if an arbitrary system of graphemes wasn't one of them–"
"I know how to read," she said. "Colonel O'Neill knew how to read when I possessed him. I was looking for ways to communicate at that time."
Daniel shifted. "Of all the strange things I've heard in this job," he said, "I have to admit I never expected that one."
She looked up at him, and after a second she smiled. "This situation is unusual, isn't it?"
"Most of the ones we find ourselves in are," he said. "How are you doing with it?"
"I don't know," she said.
"If it helps," he offered, "I went through something similar. I lost my memory."
She nodded, and that information was filed neatly away with everything else she was taking in. "How did you regain it?"
"Honestly, it's still not all back," he said. "I don't know if that's because of what happened or because of our natural propensity to forget. It took time, and I had help."
She nodded. "How long?"
He swallowed. It was a simple question, but it indicated so much. How long. Something he'd never been able to explain to Satya, and something Sam needed implicitly. (Not long, for me. But I was meant to remember.) "I'm not sure, exactly."
"Was it hard?"
"Sometimes."
She put the manual aside, looking at her hand. A token, he decided – it was something physical, something which represented manipulations and therefore actions, something to remind herself where and what she was.
"Trust your intuition," he said, and it was the same advice he'd given to Satya and maybe Sam and Satya were the same and maybe they weren't. For the moment it really didn't matter.
She put the manual aside and looked back up at him, waiting for something he couldn't guess.
"You want to go back to the pulsar, don't you?"
"I want to speak with the entities," she said.
(It makes sense. They've been as much a touchstone of her reality as we have. More, probably.) "I'll talk to General Hammond."
She smiled. It looked good on her. "Thanks."
"No problem." He opened the door again, pausing on the threshold. "If you need anything, ask me."
"I will."
He let the silence hang for a few seconds more, and then he left.
-
They went back the next day.
Colonel O'Neill came back to her door while she was sleeping – sleep was enough of an adjustment without teaching her about schedules just yet – and rousted her out. "General Hammond approved a mission back to the base," he said. "We leave in two hours."
She had a general idea of what that meant, and nodded. "Two hours."
"Plenty of time for me to refresh you on offworld kit and conduct," he said. "And to grab some breakfast. Come on."
They were stopped four times on the way to the commissary by various personnel – two scientists, an airman and a medical lab technician – with variations on "Major Carter, good to have you back." There was a noticeable ripple in the breakfast crowd when they walked in, punctuated by spots of applause.
"Is this normal?" she asked.
"Trust me, nothing about this is normal," the Colonel said, leading her up to the buffet. "The Commissary is open all day and usually has something out to eat, but full meals are only served at mealtimes," he said. "This would be breakfast, with the usual breakfast foods." He handed her a plate. "Try the waffles."
She lifted one onto her plate, taking cues from the other people in line as to how to arrange and dress it. The Colonel led her to the drinks cart, pouring her a mug.
"Coffee," he said, placing it on her tray. "Daniel practically lives on this stuff."
"And you?" she asked.
"Some days." He waved his own mug. "There's something in here called caffeine. It keeps you awake, which is useful when you don't want to sleep."
She had to smile. (He's inputting data.) "Important to know."
"Very." He selected a table near the back wall, placing his tray and motioning her to take a seat. "So, I hear Jacob debriefed you, but I have to ask. What happened?"
"What?"
"Between the pulsar planet and now," he said. "You blasted Anubis. Then what?"
"He made me like this again," she said, indicating herself. "I woke up on his ship. All his Jaffa were dead, but we weren't." She stabbed her waffle, tearing a chunk off with the tines of her fork. The Colonel passed her a knife over the table, and she looked it over. (Ah.) "He kept me alive so that I could help him off the planet. We'd crashed on the dark half, so we were safe from most of the radiation, but his ship was broken."
"And you managed to leave him behind," the Colonel said.
"I tricked him. I fixed a tel'tak and jettisoned him from the cargo bay, then I went into hyperspace."
Colonel O'Neill smiled, showing teeth. "Bet he wasn't happy about that."
"I wouldn't expect him to be."
"Most of what we do is dangerous," he said, "and most of it takes quick thinking to get out of."
"It's about taking a chance," she quoted back at him.
He nodded. "Blowing up Anubis' ship was taking a chance, and dumping him on the planet was taking a chance. Those worked out well."
"They didn't turn out wrong," she agreed.
"Keep that in mind," he said. "Because in ten minutes we have an appointment with Sergeants Siler and Reiglen to go over everything you need to know about offworld conduct, and that's going to involve a lot of do's and don't's."
She blinked. (So the point of that instruction was–?)
"Take it with a grain of salt," the Colonel said.
"Salt?" She knew enough to know it was an idiomatic expression, but couldn't place what it meant.
"They're guidelines. They bend." He looked at her plate. "Enjoying the waffle?"
"It's interesting," she said. "It's food."
"Trust me, if you think that's good, wait until you've had something that wasn't made on base," he said. "Of the many good points of the SGC, its food is not the best."
She smiled in acknowledgment. (Humor. I think.)
"Anyway," he said, jabbing at her plate with a fork. "Eat."
She did, and realized that anticipation was sneaking up on her again. (We're moving. We're doing.) This would be her first mission, or at least the first since she became human again – as an entity she'd remembered events, but as a human she recognized milestones. "It's important, isn't it?"
"What?" Colonel O'Neill asked.
"Going on the mission. Distinct from the mission itself."
He considered. "Yeah," he said at length. "You could say that."
She nodded.
"Eat," he said again. "Big day today."
She finished the meal in silence.
-
The PV1-542 base was, as usual, unsettling. This time it was the battle damage: piles of dust had accumulated in corners, hairline cracks had spread through the walls. The air smelled different – a faint whiff of smoke underneath the dust, as if the oxygen-recycling systems were no longer up to par.
Sam looked around the 'gate closet, taking her bearings. She knew implicitly where to go, but as Satya she had dealt with straight lines. It took her a few moments to remember the floorplan. "This way," she said.
The base had changed. Several of the hallways had closed themselves off, sealing breaks and breaches. Seeing it like this – with human senses and human sensibilities – was an odd experience; she noticed the windows that as Satya had been relatively useless; she could hear the hum of energy in the walls but couldn't sense where it went or why.
She stopped in one of the long halls, staring upward. It was odd how the current cocktail of safeguards were so invisible to human senses – it felt as though there was nothing between her and the sun. Facing it felt like looking on the face of something ancient and fundamental, superseding and encompassing her, something powerful and austere–
O'Neill laid a hand on her shoulder. "Carter?"
She blinked, then shook her head. "Sorry. Memory." She wasn't sure why she'd classed it as such, but it felt right. (Deja vu.)
Jack glanced up, grimacing at the pulsar. He didn't have to ask what the memory was. To him, the pulsar had become if not an enemy, a weapon – a dangerous one, like a nuke, that could just as easily turn on whoever supposedly controlled it. He didn't trust the star, and if it had been his choice, he wouldn't have brought her back here.
But, while it was obvious she wasn't comfortable here, it was equally obvious that she wanted to be here. And as Teal'c had pointed out, she was the most qualified person to act as ambassador. It drove him mad that there was nothing he could do to protect her – that all the dangers here were so big and so technical that if they were going to kill her, trying to stop them would just get him killed too. And he did not trust this place not to kill her, just like he didn't trust Antarctica not to kill him. "Where are we going?"
She blinked again, jarring herself out of it. "This way."
She led them down a hall, up a spiral ramp, through three sets of doors marked with inscrutable decoration, and into a large circular chamber. This place was large, with a domed ceiling; there were no windows at head-height, but high above a clear ring showed the starscape and flashing sky. The middle of the room was taken up by a tall, clear standing tube with a door in it and panels inside. The center of the floor inside was a raised dais, cords leading into it.
Carter approached it, looking over the panels from outside the clear walls. "We – they – used this to communicate," she explained. "Like I used the Stargate. Secure yourself in something and you can reach out to matter beings."
"Matter beings," the Colonel repeated.
Sam looked over, trying to place the confusion. It took her a moment. (Of course. They don't think of themselves – ourselves like that. It's a default state.) "We're mutually alien," she said. "We don't understand each other."
"But you'd understand more than anyone," Daniel said. "You've seen it from both sides."
(States. Both states.) "They watch this planet," she said. "They listen. It's not inconvenient for them to send someone down. We can call them any time."
She looked at Colonel O'Neill. Daniel did too.
The Colonel inhaled. "You're sure," he said. "Absolutely, positively."
It felt like something was draining inside her, like she was getting smaller and angrier. (Annoyance. This is what annoyance feels like.) "Do we change our minds this much?"
He looked uncomfortable. "Not usually. Go ahead."
She stepped inside.
Most of the panels were readouts or diagnostic screens or preference panels, controlling what kind of a signal to send out and when and for how long. The defaults were good enough. She pressed the button to activate the signal, and stepped back.
The response was almost instantaneous. A speck detached itself from the star above, growing as it approached the planet. It hit the dome and shot down into the tube, turning the walls luminous and opaque.
Sam closed her eyes.
Everything dropped into limbo – a place where nothing was solid, nothing was certain. The entity suffused her, bringing with it the feel of the pulsar, of noncorporeality, of timelessness without identity – things that skirted the edge of her consciousness now, things she couldn't quite forget and couldn't quite remember. It made itself at home, shuffling through her memories, finding the resonance of her thoughts.
(You were one of us,) it realized. (One of them, then one of us. You were one of us, and you know who you are.)
(Know?) she asked it. (I will. I know how to know, I think.)
(How?) Desire and urgency poured through the word. This was what trillions had waited and wished for.
(How?) She thought back. (I was this first. I changed when I was here. Involuntary. Not irreversible.)
The entity rushed into her, sweeping through memories and thoughts and emotions, sending them dancing across her consciousness. She went back and felt herself die – felt herself begin. Even the entity couldn't call everything up, but it pushed the boundaries – it pulled flecks of nuance up from the fog, sharpened them, refined them. (Process,) it said. (Like gravity. Involuntary. You fell into our well and became us. Did all of us do the same? Were we the same?)
(I came to tell you,) she said.
(Thank you.) It considered, suffusing her. It was holding on like Daniel had, in its own way. At length, it spoke again. (Sad for you. You are no longer luminous. Happy for you. Reclamation of identity. Angry for you. Your identity stolen. Curious. Angry. Contemplative. Anubis precedes us. We did not call him here. We watched as he watched us. Watched as he came. We had no access to his mind.)
Her memories flashed back, converging on the instant of her descension. She felt Anubis close down around her, energy manipulating energy, mind against mind.
(You did,) the entity said.
(I couldn't read him,) she thought back. (I didn't understand.)
She felt and didn't feel the seconds pass. The entity moved around her.
(Let us see.)
The entity took her memories, flashing through experiences she could no longer comprehend. She saw – felt – herself on Anubis' ship, felt the instant in which Anubis reached out to crush her to material form. She felt him pass through her, as she'd passed through the Colonel in possessing him, as she'd communicated with Daniel from her perch in the Stargate. And memory passed through with his will – memories she had no access to, locked within that impossible understanding, encoded beyond physical reach.
The entity grew angry.
It formed a white-hot rage, stellar fusion, a slow nova around her. This was anger to tear the world apart. A pulsar's jet. The world shook.
She heard herself make sound. Loud. Wordless. She felt the wall rush at her, followed by the floor – the light coming in through her eyes cycled through every color into colorlessness, taking with it sound and sensation and time. She fell into a state that wasn't dark silence but rather an all-encompassing numbness, like being trapped in the moment between death and Ascension.
Someone was at her side, hand on her shoulder, saying – something. Something to catch her attention. She didn't know where her attention was.
"Carter. Carter! Sam!" Someone was shaking her. She clenched into a tighter ball before pulling her head up, looking at and through.
They'd opened the room, she noticed. They'd moved. When had they moved? How long had she blacked out, pulled in – whatever? She couldn't come back to herself. Unnamable sounds rushed so loud in her ears that she couldn't hear what they were saying. She couldn't speak. She couldn't think.
"Let's get her out of here," O'Neill called back to Teal'c. Suddenly there were hands supporting her, uncurling her limbs, pulling her upward and guiding her to a chair. Someone told her to take deep breaths. Someone else pressed fingers to the side of her neck, cold against the pulsing blood. Her body pulled in without her volition.
"It's – angry," she managed, but she couldn't hear her voice. "So – so – angry."
"She's in shock," the Colonel said from somewhere far away. She had no idea who he was talking about – everything around her took place in a distant world, one she was barely aware of. "Get her on the ground."
With half a thought she tried to resist, tried to sit up on her own. "I'm all right," she said, or thought she said. Her voice fell into that other world too.
A BDU jacket was laid over her, followed by another. She heard distant echoes of comforting words. Someone rubbed her shoulder, rubbed her back, kept contact. Someone else loosened her boots. (How many of you are there?) she wondered, trying to make the shapes before her eyes make sense again. (There can't be so many of you. Why is it so crowded? Where's all the air?)
She realized she was hyperventilating.
She swallowed as a deliberate act of will, screwed her eyes shut. (Hang on. Have to hang on. Make it stop I can't see can't hear can't feel can't breathe–)
Splotches coalesced in her vision, resolving into lights and forms. Around her, the world faded into being. She heard her own breath, her own heartbeat – rapid and magnified out of proportion to the world around her. Details intruded on her awareness in random order – the texture of the ground beneath her cheek, tingling in the fingers of her left hand, a wrinkle in her jacket under her torso that pressed up against her rib. She saw Daniel crouched above her, wearing his black T-shirt. It struck her as terribly odd.
She focused on steadying her breathing. "I'm all right," she said, reasserting control over her muscles. "I'm all right," she repeated. She tried to sit up, and Daniel caught her arm as her head spun.
"Sam, maybe you should lie down," he said. "Fraiser's coming. Teal'c went to get her–"
"I'm all right," she said, her free hand moving against the wall until it found the bench. She tried to shake him off, tried to pull herself up. O'Neill appeared at her elbow, helping Daniel position her with her back to the wall.
"What happened?" he asked.
"It didn't mean to. It didn't know–" she said. "It was angry. So angry. I can't–" she felt herself breathing faster, tamped that down. "It didn't attack me. It was just – just anger."
She realized that her hand was twisting in a jacket. It had fallen into her lap; odd, since her own jacket still rested on her shoulders. (Oh,) she realized belatedly. That's where Daniel's jacket had gone.
She forced herself to take stock of the situation, starting from herself and moving outward. She felt cold, still light-headed, still confused – but the fact that she could recognize her own confusion was promising. She had two extra jackets – the Colonel's and Daniel's. She sat across the room from the podium chute, back to a wall, with her teammates crouched next to her. She could hear footsteps in the hall. Fraiser and Teal'c, most likely.
She felt suddenly, intensely nauseous, but nothing came up. She'd never experienced anything like the entity's anger, and never wanted to again. It had been literally worse than dying.
She lost seconds – the next thing she noticed was Fraiser crouched beside her, examining her. "How are you feeling?" she asked.
Sam shook her head, but couldn't find words. (I have muscles and bones and organs and all of them feel. I don't know what they feel, but every one of them is feeling.)
"Okay." Fraiser checked her pupils, and for a moment Sam thought the light was pulsing in her eyes. "Can you tell me where you are?"
"PV1-542," she said shakily. "Room 3F-13G."
"That's very good," Fraiser said. "Can you tell me what happened?"
"It looked–" Sam began. "It – Anubis. His memories–"
"All right," Fraiser said. "Take it easy. Just breathe for me, okay?"
Sam's head kept shaking. It wasn't all right – nothing was all right. The nausea returned in a wash, sweeping over her. She closed her eyes and gulped in air, unable to prevent her arms from pulling in around her torso. They had to know.
"Anubis," she said again, wrestling her thoughts into order. "He went through me when he attacked me. He left something – memories. I couldn't read them. It – it could," she said. "It's just – it's–"
"What is it?" Daniel asked.
She swallowed, fingers tightening over her arms. (Say it. You know it. Just say it.) "They were like us once," she said. "All of them. An entire society. Here, and the rest of the planets. Human, or Ancient, or something – and something happened, something terrible. They couldn't prevent it. They changed, and they couldn't stop changing. Not all at once. Over a long long time. Intermittent, across – across centuries. No one knew what. But he–
"Anubis came. He was... I don't know. Looking for something. They didn't know, they invited him in, and then... then everything changed. Everything and everyone. Like that. And they couldn't go back.
"Thousands of years with their identities stolen, but they don't see time, not like that. For them it was just... a change in state, and from their perspective it couldn't be undone. Generations went through it. People – entities – living their entire lives without any clue of who or what they were. Oh, God," she whispered. "Anubis was here. He was here when it started. He was here."
"...he did this to them," Daniel surmised.
"I don't know," Sam said. "They don't know. But they could see him across space. They could sense him. They watched him come here and they didn't know why." Her voice hardened. "And he watched them. I touched his mind – he touched mine, when he descended me. That entity pulled his memories through me. Anubis watched them for centuries from a distance. When they noticed us come, he took interest again. And he came."
She felt herself shaking. She could feel every facet of the instants from all perspectives: Anubis, watching the tel'taks course toward the planets, sly and smug without regard for the lives he cast away. The entities, watching matter hurl toward matter, uncomprehending. Herself caught below, watching as the shield fell, as the entities above saw the faint glimmer of her presence suddenly disperse. And after that, a span of time they didn't measure, a new mind coalesced beside them. One more in an endless series of victims, an eternal cycle of existence and rebirth. From no perspective could she comprehend the travesty. Of course the entity should be angry – even if Anubis hadn't caused their state, he knew what it meant. He acted to preserve it. Her own anger was slower, more complex, not so all-consuming, but she felt it as deeply.
She pulled the extra jacket tighter around her, trying to stifle the quakes. She'd met the entity's anger with shock and fear. Now those were fading, replaced with a deep sympathetic hatred. "He kept them like this," she said. "All this time. All these years."
"How?" Daniel asked.
She looked up at him, and he pulled back. She could feel the abyss in her eyes – she couldn't guess what she looked like. "By killing anyone who came to undo it."
Now the Colonel understood. Daniel, too. She could see it in their eyes. They had suffered, they had died because they'd been caught in some mindless vendetta whose purpose had run out long ago. This had been before Anubis' exile – it had taken him two weeks to notice, to remember this time, and he might as well have come here out of spite.
They each hated him. The humans for what he'd done recently, the entities for his transgressions long ago. She felt both hatreds. "You have allies, Colonel," she said – she growled the words. "As long as you're after Anubis. You have your allies."