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REDEEMING EVE…
by Bethany
Teal’c sat on a bed in the Infirmary, being put through a rigorous Medical Check Up by Dr. Janet Frasier. She’d taken a respectable quantity of his blood in the name of science and discovery, and keeping him in good health, of course…
“The nano-technology is behaving, Teal’c…” She said. “The slow release Super-Antibiotic and the substance derivative of Arris Bok’s blood is mixing well. The nano-bots borne forth from the pellets are distributing the formula created at the correct rate, and they themselves are replicating not a moment before on schedule!”
“That is reassuring…” He said, speaking of the early-days-yet nano-technology to which he was now a guinea pig in the name of progress and true freedom for all Jaffa.
“We have a way to go yet, but in the five short years since meeting the people of Argos, Earth’s scientists have come a remarkably respectable distance in mastering nano-technology.” Dr. Frasier said, hopefully.
“I have much to thank the people of Tauri for…” Teal’c stated.
Daniel Jackson was re-reading some of his Ancient History text books… He wasn’t exactly sure why. He knew it all off by heart. He read of gods he now realised the Legends of which were most likely created by Goa’uld throughout time… A little of this, a little of that, he considered, as he sat at his office desk. It’s probably 50-50. There must have been something there for them to draw on, apart from the people, he thought bitterly, in the first place… Daniel continued his reading about Horus and Isis, and how Osiris had slaughtered the first king of Egypt to take possession of his Queen… It seems the Snakes love stealing things from one another! Daniel thought, … And poor old Horus got the worst of it! He laughed to himself. Ra took The Eye from him as well..! He flicked the page of another book, finding some notes he had made about the Chinese Emperor, U… You’re another funny one… He mused. Sometimes, you play god, sometimes you aid your subjects… I wonder if you could truly be a Tok’ra? He thought. Wouldn’t that be useful… Or maybe not! He couldn’t help but think how stubbornly unhelpful the Tok’ra were prone to being…
Suddenly, sirens called to Jack O’Neill. He looked at Samantha Carter. Neither of them should have been startled after all these years, not on this Base…
Jonas Quinn jumped. He was still getting used to the interruption of these klaxons. He put down the fish food, with which he had just been administering a meal to his pets, and ran for the door…
“INCOMING TRAVELLER, SIR!!! INCOMING!!! I CAN’T BLOCK THEIR PATH… IT’S TOO LATE!!!” Davis’ alarmed voice was the first to reach Jack O’Neill’s ears as he tore into Gatreroom Control and Command Central. The Iris should have protected us! Jack mused, as he skidded to a halt beside his Commanding Officer, Major General George Hammond.
“What’s going on, Sir?” Sam Carter asked General Hammond as she already moved toward a computer console next to Davis.
“We were just preparing to send SG5 through the Gate, when an incoming signal overrode theirs…” Hammond said, above the noise and commotion.
“Why the hell haven’t we slammed on the breaks, and brought the Iris right down on top of ‘em???” O’Neill asked hotly, as Quinn, Jackson, and Teal’c all ran into the room in quick succession.
“Something’s getting in the way of our efforts, Colonel…” Davis answered him.
“What???” Jack stood, his best agitated look displayed on his face.
“A signal!” Sam Carter replied this time.
“A good signal, or a bad signal..?” Daniel mused worriedly.
“Hold on tight, kids, I think we’re about to find out...!” O’Neill told them all, as he looked at the rippling Event Horizon. Twenty airmen with guns stood below him.
A woman stepped through the Gate. She was followed by another, who had a young boy by her side.
“Kynthia..!” Jack couldn’t believe his eyes. He made his way down to the Gateroom. His team-mates followed him, as did General Hammond, who hadn’t yet decided whether or not to tell the gunmen to disarm.
"What are you doing here, Kynthia..?” Jack asked the Grecian beauty.
“Thetys and Daniel and I came through using one of the signal boxes your colleagues gave us after you first journeyed to Argos…” She explained genuinely. “We need your help…” She touched his arm, as if to emphasis her words.
“The gods have come down from the sky…” Daniel Jackson’s namesake told the adults before him.
Jack O’Neill, his team, and the seekers of their help stepped back onto Argosian sands, and immediately had to run back into the magnificent building that housed the Gateway.
“We can’t stay in here, Jack…” Daniel said. “That’s how Apophis got hold of Sha’re…”
“I think the false gods are up there, Daniel Jackson…” Teal’c pointed to the sky beyond the ceiling of this glorious construction.
“Come with me…” Thetys said. “Alecos is in our home.”
“My father has been injured…” The younger Daniel turned to the stranger who birthed him, and let the fact be known. “Friends are taking care of him…”
“Colonel O’Neill, please, allow my son to go back through the gate to your world…” Thetys pleaded. “I do not want him among the gods!”
O’Neill turned to Jonas. “Mom’s right, Jonas. Take the kid back to the SGC, and keep him safe… Get Frasier to check him over!”
Jonas turned, and led the reluctant young boy back to the DHD, and toward eventual safety.
“Tell General Hammond we’re gonna need back up!” O’Neill said, as he was about to dive out of the Grecian Palace toward the humble home of Thetys. “I’ll be damned if I’m gonna let the Snakeheads get their fangs into Paradise..!”
Osiris felt the blood coursing through the veins of his fair host. It gave him power! It gave him a rush of something he’d come to love since acquainting himself with the Tauri form… Adrenaline! “Nirrti will be most grateful for this!” He told his man-servant. “I shall have her eating from my palm..! To think that I have procured the Great Nirrti another world of beings to be experimented upon for their nano-technology and evolutionary progress..! No one but I know what that fool Pelops left in the wake of his bloody trail..!” Osiris revelled in the memory of Pelops the not-so Great slithering away to die agonisingly…
Thetys wiped a cool cloth over her dear husband’s feverish forehead.
“Here…” Jack O’Neill opened up a medicinal package. “Some of this should help…” He said, pouring it into a goblet of water by Alecos’ bedside, and handing it to the man’s wife, Thetys.
“So, what’s the plan, Colonel???” Sam said, restless in the chair that she’d been given.
“SG3 should be here soon…” Daniel commented.
“Yeah, any moment now, for all the good I hope they’ll be..!” Jack said dryly, but somewhere deep inside by the far-off light in his eyes, his ex-wife, Kynthia could tell he was speaking the truth…
O’Neill’s radio blipped. The signal they’d all been waiting for. SG3 were on their way to this Operation’s Base, the house of Thetys and Alecos.
On the battlefield, Daniel froze, as he saw Sarah walk toward him.
“Shake it off, Danny boy… That’s not really her! Jack warned him.
“Osiris, how may we help you???” Jack asked the approaching Goa’uld.
“You may cease your pointless war against me…”Osiris was almost breathing down his neck, the host stood so intimately with O’Neill.
“A little bit of a problem there…” Daniel said, from beside them, and he shot Osiris.
“DANIEL!!!” Jack whirled around. “Why the HELL did you do that???”
“I’m going to rescue Sarah..!” Daniel already knelt beside her.
“This is not wise, Daniel Jackson!” Teal’c told him plainly. “Osiris’ second wave will be here shortly… They will avenge their god!”
“We better get going then, hadn’t we? SG3 won’t hold them back forever..!” Daniel said, then he leapt back.
The Snakehead that was truly Osiris dived from the body of Dr. Sarah Gardiner. Sam Carter shot it in mid-air, obliterating its writhing body.
Some of the debris fell on Dr. Jackson. He wiped it away in disgust, and took further aim with his gun at the pieces of false god left on the sandy shore. “The Serpent has been expelled!” He said, and turned his attention to Sarah.
“Stupid Snake!” O’Neill beamed. “He really thought the Argosians were still his for the taking! …Guess he hasn’t been getting all his reports!!!”
“She’s still breathing…” Daniel stated, breathless himself. “We have to get her back to Doctors Frasier and Warner!”
“What are they gonna be able to do???” Jack said, following Jackson’s lead back toward the gate.
“It’s not all about the Immune System where a host is concerned, Daniel…” Dr. Frasier sat before him, in the Briefing Room. “We have been forced to try out our experimental treatment on Sarah now as well, but the Goa’uld within her had control over so much more than her antibodies..! Only time will tell whether Sarah Gardiner is going to recover…”
“As long as slavery is not her fate…” Daniel said, resolutely.
Teal’c nodded his agreement silently.
“And with the defeat now confirmed of Osiris’ Army, Colonel O’Neill, Major Carter, and SG3 are free, yet again, to return from Argos…” Hammond stated, referring to the other members of SG1, who had gone straight back into the fray after delivering Doctors Jackson and Gardiner back home, where Teal’c had also been ordered to remain, in case his assistance in Medical Matters regarding the symbiote replacing pellets, should need to be rendered…
Jack O’Neill looked out to the Mediterranean Seas of Argos, which had already washed the blood from the shores of Paradise… “It’s great that Alecos will recover, isn’t it?” He looked to Kynthia.
“We are all very happy about this matter..!” Kynthia beamed, never taking her eyes from his own, taking up his hands in hers.
“Yeah, especially Thetys and Danny junior..!” Jack looked out to sea once again.
“But now you must return once again…” Kynthia stated, sadly.
“This’d make a great fishin’ spot..!” O’Neill looked at her deeply.
“Does this mean that you will one day return, and take your place among the great fishermen of Argos???” Kynthia beamed mischievously.
“I will be the greatest fisherman your planet has ever known..!” He laughed gently, and he held her chin, bringing his face down to hers, and making their eyes level. He smiled the kind of smile a man dreams he would, if he were on the shores of Paradise beside its most beautiful lady.
Kynthia and Colonel Jack O’Neill kissed…
Daniel stood beside her bed. He held her hand with infinite care and irrepressible sorrow, hope eating away at the lining of his stomach. I’ve brought this one home… Was going through his mind… I will NOT lose her, not now, not EVER, not this time!!!”
Sam Carter came and stood beside him, as did Jonas Quinn. O’Neill entered the Infirmary and flanked Jackson on the other side, while Teal’c, in turn, stood beside him. O’Neill momentarily put a hand on Daniel’s shoulder.
They all watched, as for the thousandth time, Dr. Frasier went meticulously over Sarah Gardiner’s vital read-outs. They looked at the still form of Daniel’s fellow Arcaelogist, intently fixed upon her state, even through the haze of their late evening tiredness and the Infirmary’s artificial lighting…
She looked up at him. She could oddly sense his soft hand in hers. It seemed oh-so-frail.
Daniel watched her open her eyes to their world. His knees gave from under him, and her hand fell back to the sheets of the bed, as he knelt beside it, hands clasped together, and silent tears squeezed past all the walls he had erected. “Thank you…” He barely whispered.
THE END…