annerb

Chapter Five

Day Twelve

When Sam wakes, it takes her a moment to place herself, to reconcile the warmth of someone else’s body next to hers. At some point during the night they’ve shifted, Jack’s back propped up against the corner, his arm tight across her back as she leans into him. She can feel the gentle rise and fall of his chest under her cheek.

For the first time since they’ve been here, the pain is nothing more than a manageable hum. She spends a moment just enjoying the sense of equilibrium, of calm, before cautiously reaching out with her mind, brushing up against his thoughts.

He’s awake. And he knows she is too. Still, he isn’t moving, keeping his breathing as carefully modulated as hers, taking this moment they have no right to.

She tries to feel embarrassment, regret…but all she’s left with is a bizarre sense of relief. It feels like a pressure valve has been released somewhere, the screaming in her mind finally nothing more than a soft hum and she’s not sure what to chalk that up to.

Instinctually, Sam’s face presses slightly closer, the tiny movement echoed by the pressure of his fingers on her shoulder.

Good morning.

Outside, the bells ring, rousing the rest of the compound.

Neither of them moves.

“Another day,” he eventually says, his voice quiet against the cacophony of the waking day.

“Another day,” she echoes.

She gives herself one more moment to linger and then pushes up and out of his arms.

* * *

“You look better,” Tess says, giving Sam a critical once over as she enters the laundry.

Sam raises an eyebrow at her, because despite the comforting, yet alien feeling of a full stomach on top of good solid sleep, there’s still the tug in the skin around her eye to remind her of the bruising there.

Tess shrugs as if getting tag-teamed by three bullies is inconsequential in the larger scope of things. “I like the shiner on you. Makes you look like a right ol’ Bessie.”

“A Bessie?” Sam asks.

“Yeah, a Bessie,” Tess repeats back like this is something Sam should understand. When Sam continues to stare at her with incomprehension, she shakes her head. “You are one queer old lady, Samantha Carter.”

Sam rolls her eyes. Tess will doubtlessly never let a chance to remind everyone just who is older pass ever again.

Tess grins at her, slapping her on the shoulder. Then she nods, her expression sobering. “You look better.”

“Which means you should both be getting on with work,” Hattie snaps from behind them.

Tess gives Hattie a mocking little curtsey and wanders back to her station as slowly as humanly possible, pausing to bully and cajole here and there as she goes.

Sam returns to her station, giving timid Donna a smile in greeting as she pulls up the first batch of fabric to be rung dry. Donna darts her a nervous grin in return, her eyes quickly dropping back to the work in front of her.

Sam works steadily through the morning and almost has herself convinced that maybe she’s finally adjusting to the collar, but the fatigue finds her, the dull throb of pain rekindled by the beginning of second shift, morphing into nauseating spikes by the time the men return. One good meal and a few hours of sleep are not going to cure her.

At dusk, she meets Jack by the stream and the fallen log they have sort of unofficially claimed as their spot. They’d first come out here for meals as a way to strategize in privacy, and then because of the looks they both received, the way they have become outcasts of sorts. Upon reflection, it seems a bit like those misfit kids in school who always ate out behind the basketball courts because they were too cool for the cafeteria.

She smiles to herself at the image.

“What?” Jack asks, catching sight of it as he lowers himself next to her.

His hair is till damp at his collar from his nightly dunking. She can feel his uncertainty as he tries to gauge her mood, her mindset. For a moment she lets herself consider that she’s the lucky one. The one thing she never has to do with him anymore is wonder.

She gives him a small smile. “I was just imagining us as the class rebels refusing to hang out with any of the other kids,” she admits.

He stares back at her like this is the last thing he expects from her. He’s equally surprised by the comment as much as her sudden honesty. She figures it’s the least she owes him.

“Silly, I know,” she says, looking back at her food.

He recovers quickly, nudging her with his elbow, the gesture at once playful and conspiratorial. “Something tells me you ate your lunches in study hall.”

“Oh,” she says, sliding him a look. “I think you’d be surprised.”

Their eyes lock for a moment, sharing a smile before they turn back to their meals.

He’s surprised by the ease, and she thinks maybe she should be too. It’s easier to acknowledge just how far they’d let things slip now that he’s here, solid next to her as he teases her. Now that the cold distance between them finally seems to be thawing.

All it had taken was an all access pass to the mind of Jack O’Neill. The entire heinous truth. She fights the shudder working its way down her spine.

It hasn’t all been Baal though. She knows that now. Some of this tension between them is even older, maybe since Daniel. Maybe she blamed Jack a little, for letting Daniel go, for giving up. For refusing to mourn. Distance was Jack’s only coping mechanism long before Kanan.

She rubs at the pain echoing in her chest, and he doesn’t miss it, his jaw tightening.

“I’m sorry,” she says, knowing it needs to be said. The thought of letting things fester just isn’t as appealing as it once was.

“For what?” he asks, back to sounding wary.

“For last night,” she says.

He looks at her sharply, and Sam shakes her head when his thoughts automatically jump to the kiss. She feels the impact of that memory all over again, her body flushing warm and liquid.

“No. Not…that.” She’s not sorry for that. She should probably find that more alarming than she does. It’s easier to just let the blame fall on the collar.

She takes a deep breath and it’s a little embarrassing, just how much the mere flash of that memory can affect her. She clears her throat. “I meant the eavesdropping.”

He looks away, his mind deliberately turning to the guards and tracking their movements, and she’s thankful for the subterfuge. “It doesn’t matter,” he says, but she remembers those words that were horribly bitter upon reflection. It’s not like I can deny it, can I?

“It matters,” she says, digging the toe of her shoe into the dirt in frustration, hard little divots giving off puffs of dust. “I didn’t have the right. It makes me no different than…them.”

He tenses next to her, and she feels like she’s betrayed him yet again, just referencing his experience with Kanan no matter how oblique. His thoughts get a little louder as he refocuses on the guards. “You don’t have a choice, Carter. I know that.”

It doesn’t seem like enough of an excuse. “Maybe not,” she says. “But I could have pretended not to hear. I didn’t have to-.”

His internal monologue stumbles as he turns to look at her, his eyes piercing. “Could you really?”

“What?” she asks, a little taken aback by his sudden intensity.

“Pretend.”

She barely resists the urge to laugh. He’s kidding her, right? She jabs at her stew with her spoon. “I’ve had years of practice, haven’t I?”

That is probably a little more baldly stated than it needs to be, but she’s getting really tired of this game they’ve been playing, no matter how thin the walls get. If she closes her eyes, she’ll be able to feel it all again—his hand in her hair, body tight against hers.

She slowly releases a breath, forcing her attention back on her bowl. Jack, for his part, has chosen to redouble his efforts to shut her out, his conscious mental recitation of strategy rumbling through her mind.

It’s getting a little loud. Her stomach protests with a lurch, and Sam sets her food aside unfinished. Leaning forward, she rubs at her neck, the tension building there again.

His thoughts stumble, and she lets out a breath of relief.

“How bad is it?” he asks.

She peers up at him, ready to give him her standard answer, but something just won’t let her today. Maybe she’s not so good at pretending as she thinks. At least not anymore. “What do you want to hear?”

It all depends on who she’s talking to, after all. She’s ready to give Colonel O’Neill solid assurances that she’s holding on. She’s fine. Capable. She won’t break. No way, no how. Sir.

But if this is Jack asking, that man who held her so carefully in the dark, she may just have to admit the truth.

She’s more relieved than she should be when he doesn’t choose either, turning back to his food and finishing the meal in contemplative silence. Relieved, maybe, because even she still doesn’t know which man she wants to answer.

Leaning back against the log, she watches the sky fade toward darkness.

* * *

Sam rolls over on the thin pallet, trying to find a comfortable position, but it’s eluding her as much as sleep.

Things have a way of getting harder this time of day, the fatigue from a day’s labor combining with her poor sleeping habits to catch up with her. She should be handling all of this better, and it’s just another sign that something isn’t right.

She barely catches the rustle of sound behind her over the jagged hum in her mind.

“Shove over, blanket hog,” Jack says, sitting down next to her.

She rolls onto her back, looking over at him.

“I don’t think we really need to keep watch anymore,” he says, stretching out next to her, hands folded over his stomach.

His voice is light, cavalier like this isn’t a big deal. She isn’t fooled. They haven’t really needed to keep watch for a while now, so that isn’t what this is really about. “Sir,” she says, a question rolled up in that simple word.

She feels him shrug, his arm brushing hers. “You slept easier last night.”

She can’t deny that. It was the first night they hadn’t slept in shifts, hadn’t spend hours scheming and plotting, desperately looking for some way out. And the simple fact is that she feels more focused, together here with him than she has at any other time, like the fact they’ve stopped struggling against each other somehow eases the pain. It makes everything quieter. For a while at least. Enough to actually sleep.

But maybe that’s just an excuse.

“We will get out of here,” he says.

She doesn’t know if that is supposed to be reassurance or just a warning. Because when they do get out of here, all of this will have to be forgotten and locked up in yet another compartment.

“I know,” she says.

She can see the delicate, dangerous line he’s drawn, wanting to comfort her if he can, be here, but at the same time not wanting her to do anything she’ll have to regret later.

What she's beginning to realize is that it’s never the things you do that you regret, but the things you don’t. The things you do…you deal with them, get past them, accept the facts. It’s the things you don’t that nag and fester and build up. And you just can’t ever get past them. She finally sees that.

Next to her, Jack shifts. “I want the truth,” he says, sounding like he’s come to a decision. “How bad is it?”

She closes her eyes. “It’s getting worse,” she confesses. “The pain.”

He blows out a careful breath and she knows this is the last thing he wanted to hear. “We’re going to get out of here,” he repeats.

It’s not quite a bald-faced lie. She just knows he doesn’t quite believe it himself, no matter how hard he’s trying.

She rolls towards him, her forehead touching his shoulder. “We will,” she agrees.

He doesn’t call her a liar.

* * *

“Will it always be like this?” she asks, her slender, delicate fingers dancing across his thigh.

“Yes,” he breathes, a surge of heat building in his body, lodging in his chest as he looks at her—looks at her and lets the lies flow and build around her like a veil. Necessary.

He touches her skin just to see if he still can.

“Always,” he promises.

She smiles.

When she sleeps, he slips out of her bed and disappears.

Their parts have played out.

* * *

Day Thirteen

Jack is dreaming.

His hand is lazily moving up and down her back, exploring each angle and plane, lingering in hollows and curves. His thoughts are wandering aimlessly, dangerously, drifting in the drowsy dawn, sweeping her along with them.

She feels the impulse to slide her hand across his stomach, to burrow into his side. He’s wondered what it would feel like, her palm flush against his flesh, fingers digging in. His mind imagines it, recreating it in what should be the safety of his own mind. The images accelerate, jump ahead, morph into breathless flashes of sensation, and she can’t stop herself pressing closer to him, her breath hitching. It’s enough to break the spell, Jack’s mind snapping fully awake.

His body stiffens, a curse rising on his tongue. She can feel the apology he’s cobbling together under his embarrassment and anger.

She lifts her hand, fingers hovering just above his lips to stop the words she doesn’t want to hear. “Don’t,” she whispers. None of this is his fault.

He bites back the words, but none of the blame, his hand falling away from her back. This was a really bad idea, he thinks.

She’s not really in a position to argue that point, so lifts her head, shifting her weight off of him to enable his escape. He slides carefully away from her, disappearing outside.

Another day, she thinks, gingerly sitting up. Her body protests the movement, her head swimming. It takes a moment to regain her equilibrium. It’s only when she does that she notices her hand. It’s lying against her thigh and for a second she thinks she’s slept on it, cut off the circulation, but she doesn’t feel pins and needles. It isn’t numb. It’s shaking.

She can’t make it stop.

She tucks it in against her stomach, covering with her other hand, her mind reeling with the possibilities. No.

Behind her, Jack reappears. He’s carefully gathered everything back together, and she only wishes she could say the same. She pushes herself into motion. Just another morning, she tells herself, reaching for her shoes with her good hand.

“Carter?” Jack asks, having taken no time at all to register that something is off.

“Yeah?” she asks, trying to keep her voice casual.

She can feel his eyes boring into her back. “What’s going on?”

She turns to see him, her eyes widened with innocence she can’t hope he’ll buy. She tries anyway. “Nothing.”

His eyes narrow, posture shifting. There’s no softness left, she thinks. His eyes sweep down her body, lingering on her arm tucked carefully across her stomach. “Carter, show me your hand.”

They stare across the room at each other and for a moment she considers refusing, but he just takes another step closer to her and she lets go of the stubborn impulse with a sigh. This is not a battle she is going to win. She dutifully lifts it, the trembling hand with fingers unnaturally twisted in towards her palm.

“When did that start?” he asks, his voice strangely detached as he crouches down next to her.

“It’s new,” she says, deciding not to mention the slight tingling in her foot.

He absorbs this, his mind clinging to the process of simple intelligence gathering. “What is it?” He takes her hand in both of his as if he may be able to still the damning movement through sheer will alone.

She stares down at her hand in his. “If I had to guess? Some form of decreased neurological function.” She says it calmly, almost clinically, perfectly matching his tone.

But underneath, his panic squeezes at her chest, the need to do something building painfully, layering upon her own. He considers ditching the useless daily stint at the mines to search for options. There has to be something they haven’t considered yet. Some avenue of escape. He flips through the possibilities with almost frantic urgency.

“You can’t,” she says. Any action on his part will only earn him punishment. Earn her punishment.

She looks up at him and she knows she hasn’t hidden her fear well enough because his jaw clenches. It’s twisting and building in him—impotent rage and frustration. It’s too familiar, too soon to be feeling something like this again. Trapped. No one coming. Watching her suffer when there is absolutely nothing he can do about it. Knowing that the only things he can do will only make things worse.

He shifts, trying to push back to his feet. “I need to--,” he starts to say and she knows he’s scrambling to get away from this. She also knows he can’t.

She reaches for his arm, stalling his escape. “Jack,” she says, her voice unsteady.

He meets her eyes and like a wall crumbling somewhere, the underlying soft hush of his thoughts clamors forward unexpectedly, clear and loud and complete. She doesn’t even realize until this moment just how much he’s been holding back from her, just how hard he works to shield her. Even more surprising than this sudden willing revelation, is the ferocity of them, the depth.

She falters under it, swaying forward toward the ground, his hand steadying at her elbow. “I’m sorry,” he mumbles as he helps her regain her equilibrium. With ruthless efficiency, he pushes her back out of his mind.

She can still feel the echoes under her skin, reverberating in her bones.

You left her behind.

She lifts a hand to her pounding head.

No one is coming for them. They have to get out of here together, or not at all.

“I think… I think I may have an idea,” she admits. An idea he is sure to hate as much as she does, but it’s the only option they have left.

“What?”

She swallows against the spike of nausea in her stomach. “I need you to give me one day.”

“Carter,” he objects.

“Just…trust me,” she says. “Please.”

His hand squeezes her arm. “Okay,” he says. “One day.”

* * *

Sam is late for first shift.

She keeps her hand tucked into her pocket, not wanting to see the looks of pity, the way eyes fall away from her as if already forgetting she ever existed.

“Tess,” Sam asks, stepping up behind the woman at her station. “May we speak?”

Tess’s eyes dart over Sam, her face creasing with what Sam might call concern in any other woman. In Tess, it translates more as opportunism. “Sure,” she says with a careless shrug. “Don’t got anything better to do at the moment.” She shoots Hattie a beatific smile laced with challenge.

Hattie predictably ignores both of them, Sam having proven to be way more trouble than she’s worth these last few days.

Stepping outside, Sam holds up a tube of lip balm, making her terms clear from the onset.

“And what exactly you want in exchange?” Tess asks, her eyes following the prize as Sam demonstrates it.

“For now? Information.”

Tess’s lips curl. “Talk is cheap, but not free.”

Sam doesn’t hand over the tube. Words first, payment second. “The woman who cleans the warden’s house. How did she get that job?”

For all Tess is a pain in the ass and a bully, she is not stupid. “You’re digging in the wrong place, sweetheart,” she says, understanding in her eyes. “She’s simple.”

“Simple?” Sam repeats.

“Mute,” Tess clarifies. “The most priceless characteristic to be found in a woman. She can’t spill any secrets.”

Sam can’t say she’s surprised, just disappointed. Another avenue cut off. “And…the other women?”

Tess smiles, baring her uneven teeth. “Now that is a different set of skills all together.”

Sam looks away, her jaw working as she runs through all the permutations, all of them leading her back to the same unwelcome answer. She holds out the tube of lip balm. “I’m going to need a change of clothes.”

Tess looks her over critically. “You’ll need a hell of a lot more than that. Have you looked at yourself lately?”

“I don’t have any choice,” she hisses and Tess’s façade cracks slightly, just enough for Sam to see the truth in her eyes. She’s seen this before, what Sam is suffering, this crawling disintegration. “I need to get in there to look around.”

“You can’t do this,” Tess repeats. “No way, no how.” She considers the tube in Sam’s hand, snatching it and slipping it into the safety of her blouse. “But I can.”

“What?”

Tess holds Sam’s eye, speaking bluntly. “The warden, he likes to drink quite a bit, and after, he usually falls asleep. He’s a pretty light sleeper, but I could probably poke around some. For a price.” She pats her blouse. “A price a hell of a lot higher than soft lips.”

The knowledge of exactly what Tess is offering to do burns in Sam’s stomach. “I couldn’t ask you to do that.”

Zeroing in on Sam’s weakness with cruel efficiency, Tess grabs Sam’s arm, pulling her shaking hand into view. “Couldn’t you?” she challenges, her gaze sharp as her fingers dig into Sam’s wrist.

Sam tugs her arm, trying to break her grip, but Tess is relentless, holding her in place. Sam is running out of time, and they both know it.

When Sam stops fighting, her arm falling limp, Tess nods. “Now, what exactly am I looking for?”

* * *

She fills Jack in on the plan, looking for any flicker of distaste, the slightest sign of disapproval, but all he says is, “Necessary measures, Major,” a sentiment perfectly reflected by this thoughts.

It doesn’t feel like enough of an excuse.

She’s not asking Tess to do anything she hasn’t done before, but it still feels like the worst kind of exploitation. She hates this place with more passion each passing day, but not quite as much as she’s learning to hate herself.

“When?” he asks.

She sighs, rolling her neck. “Tomorrow night.”

His hand touches her back, palm flat and warm against her spine. “We don’t have a choice, Carter. You know that.”

She turns to look at him. “Don’t we?” Isn’t there always a choice?

He glances at her hand. Not one that I’ll accept.

“Let me guess,” she says, her voice thick with bitterness. “Earth needs me?” Special rules for special people.

He stares back at her, and she knows he’ll tell her whatever she needs to hear. He nods. “Earth needs you.”

I need you.

She closes her eyes.

* * *

He catches her in the small servants corridor, the narrow space closing in around them.

He smiles gently at her. “You serve your master well.”

She blushes, a faint spill of pink under the freckles on her cheeks. “I do my best.”

His fingers trail down her arm and she shivers, an untouched maiden. “Yes,” he says, his lips near her temple. “Yes, you do.”

She doesn’t pull away.

* * *

Day Fourteen

Sam is less than useful at the laundry anymore. Her right hand is useless, her left awkward and losing ground. She still gets up, pretends to eat breakfast, and walks to the laundry. She isn’t sure who the pretense is for anymore.

Tess meets her gaze only once the entire day, just before end of shift, as if gauging Sam’s nerve.

Sam doesn’t look away.

* * *

The compound is quiet, the other prisoners long asleep.

Jack and Sam don’t talk, sitting side by side against the wall of their cell, tracking the passage of time. They’ve long since talked the particulars to death, carefully dancing around topics better left unspoken.

“It’s time,” he eventually says.

Sam breathes out.

He hands her the last of their disposable supplies—Tess’s payment. “You’re sure you don’t want me to come with you?” he asks.

Sam shakes her head. Tess isn’t one for trusting, or changing plans last minute. She’s never met Jack, and this isn’t the time for introductions. “It’ll be fine.”

“Two hours,” he says. It’s how long his latitude will hold against his caution.

“Two hours,” she agrees, pushing to her feet.

She takes the long way to the laundry to avoid guards.

Tess is already waiting for her. Her hair is falling down her back and it makes her look disturbingly young.

“Let’s see it,” she demands, hands greedy, and all illusions of vulnerability disappear.

Sam holds out the bundle of supplies.

Tess paws through them, eventually nodding. “Okay. I couldn’t see nothing like the collars. There was a locked safe I couldn’t get into. But I found these sitting out on the desk.” She holds up long rolls of paper tied with leather thongs. “I’ll get Madge to sneak ‘em back in.”

Sam takes the papers, smoothing them open on a worktable. “Madge?”

“The one that does all the dustin’ and such.” Tess grins. “Maybe she ain’t quite so simple as I said.”

Sam smiles absently, staring down at the papers in front of her. They’re maps, schematics of the compound buildings. Not quite what she was hoping for, but they’re a start. She tries to copy the maps into her notebook, but her hand is just shaking too much. Tess reaches over and takes the pen from her without a word.

Sam watches her work. “Don’t you want out of here too?”

Tess doesn’t look up from the paper, the pen tracing the long undulating line that is the stream. “Some of us belong here,” she says.

Sam knows most of the women here haven’t committed a crime. Rather they are here to share in the price of their husband’s offenses. Apparently this culture takes the whole ‘in sickness and health’ thing serious to an extreme degree. But others, they earned their place as much as the men.

“Plus,” Tess says with a shrug. “I don’t have anywhere else to go.” There’s no self-pity in the words, nothing but the casual facts of her life.

Three square meals and a clean place to sleep. Sam supposes there are much worse things out there. But it’s still slavery. Helplessness.

Having finished with a copy of the prison compound, Tess flips to the next—a map of the surrounding terrain. A path winds to the north and the mines, another to the south, trailing off towards something called Parth.

“What’s Parth?” Sam asks, gesturing at the word.

Tess gives her a strange look. “The capital seat. The courthouse where we were sentenced?”

“Right,” Sam says. “Fourteen days by wagon train.”

“Seemed even longer in the doing,” Tess mutters, biting down on her lower lip in concentration as she pens in the location of the mine.

Sam’s eye is caught by a small symbol to the distant east of the prison grounds, over the next ridge. “What about this?” Sam asks.

Tess frowns at the symbol, her fingers brushing across them without comprehension. “Just more letters, right?”

But it isn’t a letter or a word. It’s a symbol. A symbol Sam knows. Taking the notebook back from Tess, she flips to the front. On the third page, she finds her sketch of the symbol she’d seen on Methos moments before they’d been captured.

We need to make them disappear.

“Naquadah,” she says, remembering the tingle of her fingers.

“What’s that?” Tess asks, frowning at the foreign word.

“The special ore the men mine,” Sam says. “We call it naquadah.”

Tess peers down at the symbol on the map. “That ain’t where the mine is.”

“No,” Sam says, the answers finally slipping into place. “It’s where they store the ore. And where they transport it off world.”

“Off what?”

Sam looks at Tess, giving her a grin. “You didn’t really think I was from around here, did you?”

“Oh, you’re from somewhere, sure enough,” Tess says. “Somewhere loony.”

Sam laughs, giddiness building in her chest at what this all means. “You have no idea.”

She stares down at the simple glyph, having a hard time believing it. Here it finally is, their way home, their best bet. Only it’s meaningless if she can’t leave this damn prison. She spreads the compound schematics in front of her again, her eyes taking in the details. There’s an answer here, she knows it.

“What’re you looking for?” Tess asks.

Sam shakes her head. She’ll know it when she sees is.

Or when she doesn’t.

There’s something missing. Something not right. She stares down at the maps, tries to make sense of them. She rolls her neck, rubbing at the aching flesh just before the collar, trying to ease the tension.

The boundary.

Every detail of the camp is carefully recreated, the stream, the buildings, the graveyard, the individual stalls in the barns. But what isn’t there is a boundary. What isn’t there is a power generator, a central control.

Could it possibly be that simple?

“Did you see anything like this?” Sam asks Tess, pointing at her collar. “Anything made of this metal, or with writing like this? Anything at all. It would probably be humming, or giving off light of some kind.”

Tess shakes her head.

Sam grabs her arm. “Are you sure?”

Tess shrugs off her hand. “I said I didn’t, didn’t I?”

Sam thinks of what possible use these collars could have had for the Goa’uld. Thinks about their mindset, the games she’s seen them play before. Thinks of the ways their superior technology gives them so much room to rule by fear and lies. Why rule by force when you can let the slaves be their own best jail keeper?

But there’s really only one way to find out. If she stays here much longer she doesn’t think it will matter one way or another.

Sam turns to look at the fence.

“It’ll kill you,” Tess observes, following her line of sight.

“It’s already killing me,” Sam says, daring to be blunt with Tess in a way she can’t be with Jack.

Tess’s eyes drop to Sam’s trembling hand. “Yeah,” she says. “Yeah, I suppose it is.”

“How long do I have?” Sam asks, because it’s suddenly clear in that moment that whatever is happening to her, Tess has seen it before.

Tess’s lips press together. “From when the shakes start? Four days. Maybe five.”

Sam has two choices. She can stay here and die, or she can run. It’s not much of a decision. If she can get back to Earth, Janet can help her. Or maybe the Tok’ra. It’s way more of a chance than what she has here.

“You really gonna run?” Tess asks.

“Yeah. I think so.”

Tess looks impressed, if not slightly unsure of Sam’s sanity. “Good luck.”

Sam raises an eyebrow at her. “You just want all my stuff if I die.”

“Nah,” Tess says, hefting her booty. “I figure I already siphoned off all your good stuff.”

Sam is startled enough to laugh. “Thank you, Tess,” she says, holding out her good hand.

Tess stares at it with suspicion. “I didn’t do nothing I didn’t get paid for.”

Sam smiles. “I would never say otherwise.”

Tess reluctantly takes her hand.

* * *

By the time Tess rolls up the maps and leaves with her payment, Sam figures she has about twenty minutes left of the time Jack allotted her.

She can try to convince Jack to make a run for the symbol on the map, to come back with help, but beside the point that she doesn’t think she could convince him to leave her here, she’s compared the map to the marks Jack laid out from the grazer supply trip. The mystery location on the map is way too far away. She wouldn’t stand a chance.

So she’s back to her original assessment. They will have to get out of here together, or not at all.

It’ll have to be at night. She has no doubt that if she somehow makes it, the guards wouldn’t hesitate to shoot her, do anything to keep the illusion in place.

The only nagging alternative is to take the warden’s house by force, to crack the safe somehow. But one more injury like the ones Jack sustained from the guards will be the end of her. She remembers the warden slapping at the device like a trained monkey. She has her doubts that he would even know how to take them off even if they could make it inside.

Finally pushing to her feet, Sam follows the stream back towards the bunkhouse. She hovers out there much longer than she should, running the variables over and over in her mind. It’s the same answer every time. It’s so clear, the next step, no matter how much it scares the hell out of her.

Jack is usually the one of action, the one to make the final decision, put it all into motion. It’s what she’s used to. In this situation though, he’s hesitating, playing overly cautious. She knows why.

But the simple truth is she’s dying.

Caution isn’t going to change that. Fast or slow, the net effect is the same.

She stands there for a long time and it isn’t until there’s movement at the bunkhouse door that she realizes what she’s really doing out here is waiting for him.

He turns slightly, his eyes finding her and in that moment she knows she’s made the right decision. He will never let her test this hypothesis, will never admit the necessity of this risk.

Even at this distance, he must see something in her face because he takes a step towards her. He’s too far away to do anything, too far to stop her.

“I’m sorry,” she whispers, knowing the words can’t cross the space. She backs up one step and then another, forcing herself to turn her back on him. They don’t have the luxury of a goodbye just in case.

“Carter!” she hears him call out, but she doesn’t pause, doesn’t slow down her clumsy, loping pace as she finally hits the boundary, pulling the flimsy rope out of her way.

Don’t you dare--!

She steps across.

* * *

Her name is Shayla.

She is lithe, smooth in her step. Grace born of ease and youth and naiveté and not arrogant assurance. She does not know the galaxy, and it does not know her. She bends, body bowing gracefully as she removes emptied plates from before the lounging, hard-eyed Baal. She slips away, unnoticed by her god, valued for her invisibility.

But Kanan sees her.

Her eyes lift to his, a quick flash of amber before they drop away, her chin brushing her shoulder in self-conscious modesty.

Kanan feels a quickening, a settling sense of rightness in his chest that he catalogs as the feeling of a mark identified, a path found.

She will be their way in.

A means to an end.

* * *

Sam is staring at stars.

There’s a rock under her shoulder and a throbbing ache in her toe, but above her, the stars are bright and steady in their unfamiliar patterns and she’s surprised she’s never noticed them before. Never taken that moment the whole time she’s been on this planet.

“Carter!” His voice is hoarse and raw as he stumbles down next to her in a rush, his hands on her face. She feels his worry roll through her flesh, heavy waves that make her nauseous.

“I tripped,” she says.

He doesn’t seem to hear her, his hands still searching for injury.

“I’m okay,” she says, louder this time.

Lifting her head slightly, she can see that she’s made it past the trees and the tiny cemetery, well beyond the meager fence. She made it. It was a bluff.

The laughter bubbling up in her throat is unexpected, jangling discordantly against his panic. “I just tripped on a rock.” Maybe she should be worrying that her reflexes are compromised, but she’s too busy laughing to bother with that thought.

He thinks, She’s lost her mind, and maybe he’s right. “Jesus, Carter.”

Sitting up, a dozen dull points of pain make themselves known. She leans into him, her hands on his arms. “Clumsy maybe, but alive,” she says.

His expression speaks for him, because maybe he’s accepted there’s no point in trying to hide. He’s sitting there staring at her like a precious thing, something he’s terrified to lose. “Why the hell would you do that?”

“There isn’t a third device,” she says, words tumbling together now in her need to explain, to put it all into words, this puzzle that’s been slipping into place in her mind. “It’s just the two collars, nothing else, nothing tying the women to the camp. They were lying. I can leave.”

He’s staring back at her like she’s talking gibberish.

Her hands tighten on his arms. “I knew it wouldn’t hurt me.”

He shakes his head. “Carter, that was stupid. I never would have--.”

“I know,” she says. He would have ordered her to stay the hell away from the fence if he’d thought there’d been a need. Just one more thing between them she would have had to break. “I’m sorry. It was the only way.”

He seems to struggle with something for a moment, but the next thing she knows, he’s pulling her tight into his arms. “I swear to God, Carter,” he says. “You’re going to be the death of me.”

She knows exactly what he means.

He pulls back, one hand lifting to her cheek. “Feel like letting me in on the rest of your plan now?”

“The naquadah,” she says, pushing the notebook into his hands. “I know where it’s going.”

Taking the book from her, he studies the maps while she fills him in on the connections she’s made.

“We can make it,” she says. They have to.

Jack glances at the sky. “It’s already getting late. We should wait until tomorrow night, get a good head start.”

Sam touches his arm. “No,” she says, trying to keep her voice even. “We can’t wait. I’m not…” She trails off, clearing her throat. “I’m not going to get better, Jack.” It’s the closest she’s gotten to admitting the truth to him.

He looks down at her hand, and then up to her face, searching for something there. “Yeah, okay.”

She waits while he runs back for their things, for their carefully hoarded supplies. She doesn’t allow herself to think of the days wasted, the time abandoned to fear and lies. She only has eyes for the desert.

Jack reappears, gives her a small pack. He shoulders most of the water himself, shooting her a look that burns against her skin when she doesn’t protest the coddling. There’s no time for playing down her weaknesses.

“Let’s go,” she says, holding out a hand for him to help her to her feet.

She looks back once and catches sight of a single dark form standing by the stream. For a moment panic rises in her chest, alarm that they’ve been seen, but then the figure shifts, one hand lifting in the sky, moonlight catching the figure’s face. It’s Tess.

Maybe knowing she isn’t really trapped will be enough for her, Sam thinks. Maybe that will be enough for the illusion to start unraveling.

They stare at each other across the moonlit space until Sam lifts her hand in response.

Turning back to Jack, she takes his arm, watching the ground in front of her carefully.

They are getting out of here.

It isn’t a lie.

Chapter Six