4 …Is Not For Me and You
The days pass and they age gracefully, their souls expanding as they love. Even Mandras, trapped for centuries as a child has become a teenager and a temperamental one at that.
It is due to his foot stomping antics after his latest English lesson that they have sought the peace of the pomegranate tree and the soothing sounds of the river of forgetfulness. They chose not to forget but remember when they are in this place. The wonders of Abydos, Earth and every world either of them has ever visited cannot compare to the paradise of this place where they are together.
Daniel stands up slowly, careful not to disturb his Shau’ri’s sleep. His hands stretch out high above his head and he smiles into the sunset.
The pomegranate falls and he catches it an inch above his wife’s beautiful dark head. He juggles it for a moment, smiling at himself for his hypersensitive awareness of any dangers that could await her, as if danger could find them here.
She stirs in her sleep and he waits until she is settled again before moving a few steps away. There is a stone tablet he left nearby and he is banned from the library until he returns it.
The enforced four hour break was secretly plotted by Shau’ri and Mandras so that her husband would see the sun for the first time in days. She’d stolen the tablet from Dan’yel’s bag and Mandras had left it out by the river side where Dan’yel loved to rest. It is half agony and half ecstasy for the scholar. He cannot be unhappy when he is with her, but he had almost finished translating the last scroll of a set that suggested that Helen of Troy had in fact been a host of the Goa’uld, Hathor. Paris’s judgement had been to choose a new host for her, and he had sought out the most famous women in the Ancient world, stealing them away from under the disjointed noses of the other Goa’uld.
Hathor-Helen had been so pleased by his gift of the most beautiful Queen of the day that she had made him her Prince and fled her then husband, Menelaus otherwise known as Hephaestus, to Ilium, or Troy as it was now remembered. He wondered what modern scholars would have made of the Trojan War being fought not over a human woman but a Goa’uld Queen, not to mention the Trojan horse being no horse but a rebel Jaffa, his pouch hiding the weapon that brought the walls of Troy down around their ears. Odysseus’s great journey had been through the Stargate. He had lost his home co-ordinates after pissing off a powerful System Lord, Daniel guessed one called something like Poseidon. That had done nothing for his prospects of survival or his chance of returning to his home-world where his beautiful wife Penelope waited for him.
He tells none of this to the others. The power of Hathor’s aphrodisiac has not been so soon forgotten by any of them. They do not need to know that the stories that delight them are based in fact that has been all too real for years past. Most of all, he hides it from gentle Maia, who deserves no such torture as to know the fate of her parasite’s previous host. It was only last week that she had first teased him about his gathering flowers for Shau’ri, only for him to sneak a single white blossom into her red hair when she wasn’t watching. Shau’ri had glowered in pretended jealousy and then kissed him and whispered what she would do to him later when they were alone. His scarlet blushes and the lost in paradise look in his eyes had caused the others to laugh themselves stupid.
It is his secret joy, too, that he believes he has met blind Homer, and he imagines what it would be like to tease Jack about the differences between the practical-joker and his beloved H. Simpson. The old man died the day after Daniel first found him, but it was already a memory to treasure forever. The words they speak over the campfire are his apprentices’ memories of his poetry and day-by-day Daniel writes them down, not in English but in Antique Greek. He may never hear the true bard’s version but this is close enough. The scrolls are innumerable and unfamiliar, so much is lost between the time of this great Homer and the next, and he whispers the words night by night into his wife’s ear, losing himself in them and her.
The stone tablet is the one from P5X-606 but he barely registers the strangeness of its carving now. She waits for him beneath their tree and after so long apart, he finds no peace in paradise without her.
He returns on feet made swift by love to find Shau’ri still resting, her head turned away from him and her hand carelessly holding a pomegranate in her lap.
It’s getting late. They need to return to the Haven to prepare the dinner. He plucks a flower that reminds him of a daisy and traces it across her face to wake her. Even if his gentle touch fails, his inadvertent sneeze ought to rouse her but she sleeps on.
“Shau’ri,” he whispers, leaning in closer, “beloved wife, sleep no longer.”
The coldness of her skin startles him. She is never cold.
They would joke that the desert was in her blood that Abydonian heat burned within her still. In bed, she would complain of his feet being like the water from the deepest pool and he would tell her ice was colder. Then she would remind him that she was a mere desert rose and had never seen ice. It was stupid Earth stuff and in his anxiety to soothe her non-existent fears that she was not enough to hold him to Abydos or wherever the Haven was, the coldness of his feet would be forgotten.
She is cold now, though, and unmoving. He rests his hand against her cheek but already knows the truth. He sweeps her up into his arms and gazes into her beloved brown eyes, their brilliance dulled by more than sleep. He does not see the wound on her ankle. She had stood to pluck a fruit and not seen the danger before it claimed her. When she did see it, it was far, far too late.
Cradling her against his chest as Jack once cradled Charlie, Daniel sits beneath the pomegranate tree and wishes to go where his wife is.
The not-a-snake-but-a-god slithers away into the underbrush.
This time it does not grant his wish.
Hours pass.
Tears do not fall.
He has shed enough for three lifetimes and there are none to mark this final passing.
Night comes on tar feathers, marring their faces with shadows.
It is the darkest night Daniel has ever known.
***
“Dr. Fraiser!” SG-1 is screaming for her and it is on feet of lead that she races to Daniel’s side.
“What?” She is out of breath, more from concealed anxiety than the sprint.
“He’s crying.”
The tears that do not fall in the twilight world where Shau’ri is only newly dead cascade here where she passed years before.
“How is that possible?”
O’Neill gives Carter a look that says ‘I thought I was supposed to be the stupid one’.
“I mean, Daniel isn’t there to cry, is he?” Sam was staring at the monitors, waiting for the brain patterns to do something other than flat-line, to change into waves and tell her that yes, Daniel was still in there somewhere. They failed to even flicker.
Dr Fraiser shook her head. “According to all my tests, Daniel’s brain dead, and sometimes physiological reactions occur even after death has occurred.”
“No.”
“Teal’c?” Dr Fraiser spun with the rest of SG-1 to face the Jaffa.
For the first time since they’d come through the Stargate and seen Daniel fall, the warrior wasn’t nearly frowning. “Daniel Jackson is not brain dead. The dead do not weep.”
“Do not stand at my grave and weep, I am not there, I do not sleep.” Sam quoted softly without really knowing why.
Jack ignored her. “Daniel isn’t in his body so why is he crying?”
Then, abruptly as they began the tears stopped.
Jack groaned deeply and pushed his hands through his hair. He could swear he had ten new grey hairs since the morning. He’d given up on the idea of being a brunette for any more years, but he’d really been hoping he wouldn’t be as bald as Homer Simpson before the next year. Daniel’s latest trip to the infirmary was grinding that hope to grey dust. “Just wake up, Danny, please.”
The prayer was as soft as the touch of a butterfly’s wing and for a moment, the brain monitors bleep. Daniel was coming back to them.
The pattern is gone as soon as it appears, only the slight fluctuation above the base line on the sheet showing it was ever there.
The sleeper dreams on.
It is the watchers turn to cry.
***
This is not Greece, Daniel knows that now, because if it was, the entrance to the Underworld would be a mythological place and the River of Lethe would not be real.
He stands at the mouth of the cave and stares into the black depths, almost as dark and vast as his grief, but only almost. Shau’ri has been dead for three weeks. Nothing is as all-consuming as his pain.
The soft slap of waves on sand reminds him that there is a river to be crossed.
The deep growl of a dog reminds him that there is a guardian to be passed.
The clink of coin on coin reminds him that there is a ferryman to be paid.
The hiss of a snake reminds him that there is a god to be supplicated.
There is nothing and no need to remind him that there is a woman to be brought back to life and light and hope.
***
Teal’c waits, in Jack’s phrase “as patient as a brick”, by the side of Daniel’s bed. Jack can be made to leave with physical force, but not even the bravest marine is willing to laid a hand on the sentinel Jaffa.
Teal’c knows that Daniel Jackson is strong, that he has been through much and come through whole. He is not a trained warrior but he has the bravest spirit of anyone he has ever known. He has forgiven Teal’c the unforgivable crimes of the abduction and murder of his wife. He has a soul that is pure. He has survived dying at least six times at the last count and has faced down more System-Lord-False-Gods than Teal’c has had staff weapon burns. He will survive to laugh again at his friend’s untranslatable Jaffa jokes.
For Teal’c, this knowledge is absolute but it does not stop Teal’c from wanting to punch and crush and hurt the thing that has done this to his archaeologist. There is nothing he can do but wait, however, and Teal’c has long since learned the value of patience when waiting. O’Neill wastes his energy on fretful motion and nagging questions. Teal’c understands that to truly wait is to sit silently, eyes open and seeing, entire being concentrated on the bright spot of hope that comes at the end of waiting, and to be very, very, very angry. This absolute fury can be sublimated into patience. Revenge is a dish best served cold and a favourite proverb on Chulak is ‘a watched corpse never cools’.
The Jaffa can only hope that it will not be Daniel Jackson’s corpse that is cooling when the time comes to unleash his rage.
***
Shau’ri is dead.
He has gained and lost the world again.
There is no sun if it cannot shine on her face.
There is no breeze if it cannot stir her hair.
There is no music if it cannot move her feet.
There is no fire if it cannot warm her bones.
There is no food if it cannot nourish her body.
There is no life if it cannot be shared with her.
There is nothing without her.
He breathes deeply and lets the darkness take him.
As if it hadn’t already.
***
“Sir.” Sam is standing by the bedside as Jack stirs himself from a sleep that has lasted hours and feels like seconds. The bed in the VIP room has become a home for SG-1 in recent days. Janet orders one of them to it every few hours and sends the largest, toughest, most whine-resistant orderlies to check that they remember to sleep. One hovers now, cowed by Carter’s glare but more afraid of the petite Doctor’s wrath than either the Colonel or the Major. “Sir!”
“What, Carter?” Special ops do not allow for slow waking. Jack is fully conscious from archaeologist-haunted REM dreams in seconds.
“It’s Dad, sir.” Jack’s boots are back on and his jacket halfway over his shoulders before the next words are out of her mouth. “He says he can help Daniel.”
Bullets are over-rated as comparatives of speed. Jacks with Daniels to save are far better measurements of velocity. Bullets move in miles per second. Jacks move in electron vibrations per parsec.
Jacob is unsurprised by his speedy entry but Selmac raises an eyebrow at his sliding stop before them.
“You can help Daniel?” Jack isn’t panting because panting would leave no breath to bark out the question. He only allows his chest to heave when the words are fired out.
“I believe so,” it’s Selmac that answers, Jacob feeling too aware of what Jack’s response will be if they can’t help the archaeologist.
“Dad!” Sam was running behind Jack only to be left in his wake. Now she casts her glance between the men, her breath catching in her throat as she sees the hope on the Colonel’s face.
“Sam,” Jacob takes control. Selmac means well but doesn’t always understand the emotions of the Tau’ri when it comes to friendship. The Tok’ra are less keenly attached to each other, except for their great loves, and the depth of the bond between SG-1 can be hard for them to fathom. The last thing he wants is for a well-meant but misguided phrase to cause Jack to attack them, verbally or otherwise. “Jack, we think we can help Daniel.”
“You think?” The scorn poured into the words is enough to give Jacob a cold-burn. “The almighty-Tok’ra only think they can help Daniel? Last I heard you guys could do just about anything you God-damn-wanted.”
“Colonel,” Jacob is aware of how strong his daughter is as she puts a hand on Jack’s arm and forces him to calm down. He couldn’t have done the same thing in her place if his life had depended on it. An angry Jack was a force to be reckoned with but a worried Jack was a force to be avoided at all costs.
“SG-1 to the Gate-Room! SG-1 to the Gate-Room!” The intercom system was never more cursed by Jack than at that moment. Jacob grinned internally as Selmac voiced deep gratitude for the reprieve.
“Whatever it is, do it.” Jack was off running again, slow enough for Sam to keep up this time, and Jacob was left alone with Selmac in the briefing room.
“God help whoever’s come calling,” he muttered to his Tok’ra other half, and started the walk down to the Infirmary with a worried heart.
***
There is nothing in the cave but the darkness of absolute night. His small lamp doesn’t do much to light the way even before the oil runs out after the thirtieth hour. He stumbles through blindly, hands stretched in front of him.
There is nothing in his mind but the darkness of absolute grief. He is not the best friend of Jack O’Neill, leading light of the SGC, for nothing though. The air is warm, soothing even, and the pack of food he has brought with him is lasting well.
There is no way of calculating the passage of time. His watch stopped working months ago, so he talks to the ghosts that surround him instead. He is in Greece, this is the Underworld and he is a scholar. He does what Jack would have done under the circumstances and reviews what he knows.
In the darkness, the Latin is comforting. Homer’s passages too few, he walks with Aeneas and the Sybil into the abyss.
Later it is others who keep him company, Frost, Blake and most of all, Dante. Others do not love the end of his Divine Comedy, but Daniel finds comfort in the Paradiso. The book is of love and in the endless dark it is a candle. The light it gives does not spread far, but Jack would be muttering about “better to light a candle than curse the darkness” and Daniel has been foulmouthed enough for the day.
Cerberus is huge. Daniel imagined him no smaller but did not think of the rank stench of three-headed dog and Stygian slime. The dog’s breath is magnified, tripled, by its mouths and if there were air to breathe down here, Daniel would be choking.
He has spent hours thinking of all the means to trick his way past the dog. Heracles who dragged him out of the gloom into the King’s palace was stronger than Teal’c. Orpheus was a greater musician than Elvis. He realised his own weakness and took strength from it.
The Guardian of the Underworld is tricked into letting him in by the simplest method Daniel knows, learned from Jack on that first Abydos mission: bribery with Fifth Avenue bars.
***
“His brain patterns are improving.” Ellen, Janet’s most trusted staff nurse, has flown on rainbow coloured wings to deliver the joyous news to her boss.
They both know whom she means.
Lightning bolts are slower than Janet as she runs into Daniel’s room and finds Jacob Carter standing above him.
He looks over at her wearily. “I’ve done all I can for now.”
“It’s more than we’ve been able to do.” Daniel’s colour has increased and yes, Ellen was right, those EKG patterns are definitely improved.
“Doctor,” Jacob looks weary now and Janet knows that however he looks, he must feel worse. It was the Tok’ra that recommended SG-1’s investigation of P5X-606. No-one is responsible for what happened to Daniel, but he blames himself as much as she knows Jack does. “What happened to him?”
It’s all she can do not to shrug. Exhaustion grips her shoulders into place. “We don’t know. He was fine until he exited the Stargate and then he was dying. As it is, only Anise’s pacemaker device is keeping his heart rate steady and as for the rest of his organs, I don’t know how much longer they can withstand the stress of whatever this is.”
“Anise’s what?” Jacob has barely spoken before Selmac takes control. “We know of no such device.”
“But…” Janet’s fingers fall from toying nervously with her stethoscope. “The device, it came with your message, she said it was of no use to the Tok’ra but that we might have need of it.”
Selmac-Jacob’s face contorts in confusion. When they speak, it is in Jacob’s voice. “Message?”
***
“You dare come before me without a gift and beg of me this boon?” The God – for who else could thunder so? – raved at the archaeologist.
“I bring gifts,” Daniel replied as un-cowed by Hades as he had been by Osiris, Apophis, Ra and Anubis. “The Prized Cup of Ra’ne’kel.” Abydonian for false-gods-with-chips-on-their-shoulders, but Hades didn’t know that. It was laid before the Lord of the Underworld and seemed diminished in the darkness. “Time.” Daniel’s digital watch joined the cup, glowing faintly. “And the food of the Gods.” His very last Fifth Avenue bar, parted with most regretfully of all.
“Paltry thing,” Hades scorned the food but Persephone’s hand reached out as soon as his attention left it.
The slight moan that escaped the back of her throat as she bit down and the wash of bright colour that flooded her cheeks made the God spin to face her, dark robes whirling about him.
“Wife?” His voice comes out as a softened snarl and she faltered. Daniel realised that even when speaking to his bride, Hades could not stop being the Ruler of the Dead.
Persephone ran; her beautiful face pale again and contorted in fear.
Hades smashed his fist against his throne’s arm. “Women!”
The last time Daniel had heard that tone it had been when Jack had been yelling “Archaeologists!”
At the thought of Jack, his fearful homesickness tripled instantly. He already missed each and every one of SG-1, but the pain for Jack was worst. He shook it off as he had once shaken away the desperate need for his parents. The act left his soul quivering softly inside. Not a trace was displayed on his face.
“Hades, God of the Underworld, Lord of the Third Kingdom, Ruler of the Dead, hail.” The invocation rolled easily off his tongue. The mythology might be Greek rather than Egyptian, but it was as familiar as the names of the Gospels. “I beg of you this boon, I wish my wife to be returned to life.”
“You want your wife back?” Hades pressed his chin against his fingers. “Do you have any idea how many requests for returns to life I’ve heard?”
Daniel shakes his head.
“Not one for more than three thousand years.” The God grinned at him savagely. “You are the first since Orpheus.”
Jackson waits in silence. Like all Gods, Hades loves the sound of his own voice and it’s been a long time since he’s had such an attentive listener.
Hades speaks for minutes, rambling about his power and the lack of initiative of modern heroes, who simultaneously ignore the history of their illustrious forebears and fail to come up with really interesting deaths of their own. At last, he recalls why the archaeologist stands before him. “So, who is your wife?”
“Shau’ri, daughter of Kasuf of Abydos.” The words are beloved and leave Daniel’s mouth sweetly.
“Ah, the former host of the Goa’uld Amaunet.” Daniel refuses to react. Hades is impressed. His God-voice usually cows mortals into submission with only the “ah”.
“Shau’ri, daughter of Kasuf of Abydos,” Daniel repeats, “Sister of Skaa’ra of Abydos, mother of the Harcesis child Shi-fu, wife of Daniel Jackson of the Tau’ri. She was once the host of the Goa’uld Amaunet but she was freed from that burden. Amaunet is dead.”
“And so is Shau’ri.” Hades tilts his head thoughtfully. “If I offered you back Shau’ri of Abydos but only as the host of Amaunet, giving you two lives in one body, would you accept?”
Daniel should have known the question was coming. This was Hades, cruellest of the gods. Others are more capricious he is even-handedly horrible. His confusion lasts only a moment. “She is Shau’ri. To bring her back as the host of Amaunet would be to condemn her to a living death.”
“So you would leave her here?” Hades steepled his fingers and looked over their tips to the man standing so proudly before him.
“I would take her as the host of Amaunet and save her from that living death as I take her from this one.” Fire isn’t blue, but if it were, the brightest shade would match the flash of Daniel’s eyes. “I would carry her to Cimmeria to Thor’s Hammer, if she cursed me every step of the way, I would free her from the Goa’uld again if it took my life to do it.”
“You love her so much?” Hades voice is not ice cold, it’s at absolute zero, yet a spark of interest dances in his eyes. “You would die for her?”
“Yes.” The defiance in Daniel’s voice stokes that spark into a forest fire.
That fire burns hotter than Daniel can imagine. The Devil himself would be singed by it. Hades leans forwards, his entire being focused on the man before him. “Would you live for her as well?”
At which point Daniel should have been very, very afraid but wasn’t. There was nothing he wouldn’t do to regain Shau’ri. Heroes are people willing to sacrifice everything they have and are and can be for something or someone outside their own selves. No one ever bothers to wonder why there aren’t any old heroes.
***
“What the hell?” Jack watches as the Goa’uld sinuously saunters across the Gateroom past the shocked marines. Her smell is a pungent aroma of ambrosia and attar of roses.
“I am Demeter.” She is beautiful, a sunlit field of ripe wheat, a rose in full bloom, the delicate blossom of a water-lily, fresh and gorgeous.
General Hammond’s rich voice echoes through the room. “Why is this woman not under restraint?”
Her head tilts on its lovely long neck and she casts Jack an innocent look. “You would restrain me? I mean no harm, I come to help.”
“Yeah, well we’ve heard that before,” Jack snorts. “Marines!”
She blinks and the marines find themselves asleep. “I am not a Goa’uld.” She pronounces the word the Tok’ra way. “You may not understand me and who I am for he who would is mostly-dead, is he not?”
“Colonel O’Neill, would you like to explain to me what the hell is going on?”
“I would if I could sir, but I don’t know myself.” Jack shifts into his questioning a crazy-Danny-lover position. “Miss Demeter, and I mean this in the most respectful way possible, but who in the whole pantheon of false gods are you?”
“Not a god.”
Jack waves his hands. “Well thank someone for that.”
“Sir!” Carter complains briefly before Teal’c’s dignified look cuts her off.
“I believe Demeter is one of those referred to by the Goa’uld as the Ter’fin’aki, O’Neill.”
“And who are they when they’re at home?”
“Those who are to be avoided at all costs.”
“I like her already.”
“You have lost your Daniel Jackson. I have lost my daughter.”
“Danny can’t be picking up girls, he’s mostly dead, for Christ’s sake.”
“The daughter of Demeter, in traditional Roman mythology, was Proserpina or Persephone, sir. She was abducted by Hades to the Underworld where having eaten 6 pomegranate seeds she was forced to spend 6 months of the year with him and the other 6 with her mother on Earth.”
“I knew that.”
Carter and Teal’c exchange longsuffering looks.
“The snake thing said he nibbled Daniel. Now he’s hanging out with some chick in the Underworld?”
***
Daniel sleeps against his will. The days have been long since he last slept and Morpheus cannot be denied longer without caffeine and there is none here.
Shau’ri’s face haunts his dreams. That is nothing new. Every night since they first met he’s dreamed of her. On Abydos, bodies curled around each other like nestling kittens, he slept only to dream of her. Even unconscious in sleep, they were never apart. Together, they’d dreamed of all that was and is and would be in an ecstasy of hope. Now his dreams of her are different. The same one recurs every night. He dreams not of what is or will be but of what was so many times before. It’s becoming as much a part of him as his own name.
Her body moves familiarly with his in the universe’s oldest dance. He remembers this bliss from four hundred and twenty-three hot Abydonian nights. This is how he always thinks of her; her dark curls cascading heavenly over his chest; her mouth alternating between caressing his skin and caressing his name. He draws her so close that it is physically impossible to be nearer and she clings to him with equal intensity in the coolness of the night. The firelight flickers over their bodies with a heat that pales in comparison with that which they create.
She never looks more beautiful to him than now, yet as her shining eyes meet his, he sees only ugliness. Her eyes, her pillow, her bed, everything is golden. It is Shau’ri’s face and Amaunet’s mind. This is not Abydos but Apophis’s home world. The memory is not Daniel’s but his. Daniel’s stomach turns and if he had control of this dream, this body, he would pull away with a cry.
As it is, he is trapped into the motions that follow and even in his revulsion there is enforced ecstasy. Whoever did this first, it’s Daniel’s experience now. He is the one with the scratched back, the neck bruised by fierce kisses, the hair clenched between repulsive loving fingers. The woman beneath him writhes in pleasure, in two-toned sultriness she calls “Dan’yel” in her satisfaction and he murmurs back “Beloved, beloved”, not in Abydonian or English but Goa’uld. He is Daniel but he is Apophis too, he must feel the enjoyment equally as both. She is Amaunet though, not Shau’ri, and whatever gratification she feels is denied her host.
Shi-fu was conceived this night. Along with the memories of technology and torture that Oma wisely buried deep within him, there is this. When he showed Daniel what would be if the absolute power of that knowledge were given to him, he gave him this as well. When he had all the knowledge of the Goa’uld, wielding the greatest power on Earth, saving the world and damning himself, Daniel slept alone and no one ever asked him why. They thought they knew but they didn’t. If asked they would have said that he was loyal to Shau’ri, and he is, but not as they think it.
In the briefing room when Shi-fu had first come to them and given him the vision of the future, he had been so diplomatic. He had said only “Fathered the child” as Jack struggled for words that they seemed almost innocuous, but the truth is so much simpler and harder to say. This action may be fathering a child but it isn’t love making, having sex or even fucking. It’s rape of the mind as well as the body and Daniel will never forget it, can never be allowed to forget it. He never did in the vision. Every night for a year he sleeps, endlessly alone, and in his dreams he rapes his wife, for whom he would sooner die than risk hurting, and every night he knows that what he suffers is a grain of sand to the Gobi desert of her pain. The memory of that year lingers always.
She is always on his mind. People think they understand that sentence but they don’t. Shau’ri is with him in every breath he breathes, every thought he thinks, every sip of coffee he gulps so hastily down and if he winces at the hot burn of his drink, no one notices that his hand trembles at the memory of her pain. Daniel would rather be trapped forever insane and at the mercy of Machello’s device, would rather die, would rather be a host than ever remember this again. He fervently believes that he has seen it enough, been through enough, to lay this pain to one side forever.
Unfortunately for Daniel, Hades has other ideas.
***
Demeter tilted her head at Teal’c in hope of understanding. “Chick? I am afraid my grasp of your language does not include the vernacular, Colonel Jack O’Neill.”
“He means girl.” Sam put in before Teal’c can think of a dignified but unfortunately insulting response and Jack can dig himself deeper.
“Look, Demeter, we’d love to stand here all day and chat about American slang, but right now we’ve got a butt ugly Goa’uld headed our way with a fleet of motherships and about ten minutes to get out that gate and kick her ass before we forfeit our world. I sympathise, I really do, with your problems with your daughter but unless you know where Danny is and how to get him back, this conversation is over.”
“Minthe approaches.” She said it so calmly that Jack nearly strangled her on the spot.
He sighed long-sufferingly. “Yes, Mint-toothpaste does. That’s why we have to go and at the moment you’re standing in the middle of our means out of here.”
“This stops you from rescuing your friend?”
“Yes, it does.” Carter cut in before Jack can answer.
“Then she must be dealt with first.” Demeter blinked slowly. “It is done.”
“What?”
“General Hammond,” Teal’c intoned, turning his face to the bullet proofed window. “Does Minthe’s fleet still approach?”
“Sir,” They can only just hear Walter through the General’s microphone. “She’s gone.”
“Gone?”
“Her ships, they just… well sir, they… they…”
“Spit it out son!”
“Fer cryin’ out loud!”
“They turned into blue whales and fell into the ocean, sir. Those that didn’t turn into pots of begonias and hit Minneapolis.”
Every member of the SGC but one mouthed wordless syllables of shock and stared at Demeter. Teal’c alone raised an eyebrow and said, “I too have read Douglas Adams. Surely the impact of the crash would kill the whales?”
“What?”
“The power required for that kind of huge mass-transmutation must be incredible!”
“What?”
“They were still three days away! How is that speed of travel even possible?”
“Huh?”
“The whales live. The begonias also.” She smiled. “I am Ter’fin’aki. Anything that can be done will be done.”
“And the entire fleet being turned into blue whales and begonias?”
“Could be done.”
“Right.” Jack considered it all for a minute. “So could you make the Bears win the Superbowl?”
“It is done.”
“Alright!”
“Sir!”
“Oh fer cryin’ out loud, what? Mint-toothpaste is whale-meat and the threat’s gone. Can’t a guy have a little fun with his sports team results?”
“Daniel?”
“Oops?”
***
“Your wife loves you more than life itself.”
Daniel waits in silence. The Underworld-God, like so many of the gods he has met, loves the sound of his own voice.
“Mine does not. I took her from the world of sunlight into this land of the shade and she will not forgive me for it. Do you know what it is to live with an angry woman for 5,000 years?”
Daniel shakes his head. He can have no comprehension. Shau’ri’s anger was always fierce as the midday sun and as short lived. She would scream and throw something at his head and then he would apologise and they would fall into bed and forget the world for the rest of the day.
“Make my wife love me and I will return you to the world of light and life.”
“I came for my wife. I won’t leave without her.”
“She is dead. I cannot return her. Her soul must remain here.”
“You let Eurydice go until Orpheus looked back and broke the bargain.”
“Ah, I had forgotten you were a scholar.”
“I would walk from here with your word that she was behind me and never look back if you let me.”
He means it. The agony of doubt would be nothing to the agony of regret.
“I know. I do not ask it of you.”
“Name your price.”
“My wife’s love. Your heart’s tears.”
“I haven’t wept since Shau’ri died.”
“Then I will make you weep.”
“I don’t know if I can.”
“You would walk out of the Underworld with your wife and never look back but you cannot shed a tear? Then I will have to help you. But first, Persephone!”
The girl approaches in her white robes and Daniel realises she is impossibly beautiful. She is a spring dawn, a rosebud bursting into bloom, a dewdrop on a perfect bluebell.
She is nothing compared to Shau’ri but when he looks back at Hades, he realises the depth of love that the God holds for her.
“Make her love me,” he whispers as Persephone darts away again, a ghost of life in a world of the dead, “And your wife is free.”
Daniel knew then that he was going to be in the Underworld for a very long time.
***
“But begonias?”
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