Aquae Sulis

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Title: Aquae Sulis
Rating: PG-13
Fandom: Stargate SG-1
Characters: Jack O’Neill, Samantha Carter, Daniel Jackson, Teal’c
Word Count: 14,760
Categories: gen, team, action/adventure, minor UST
Spoilers: Set between “Small Victories” (4.1) and “Crossroads” (4.4); no spoilers.
Warnings: none
Summary: Having believed that they would be exploring Roman-style ruins on an abandoned world, SG-1 instead finds a thriving town. When Sam is mistaken for the Goa’uld who once ruled the planet, Daniel surprises Jack by supporting the misconception. With Sam on board, Daniel crafts a plan to use her portrayal of the missing goddess to free the people from their belief in the Goa’uld. But it’s a dangerous lie to tell, especially when there’s more to the situation than the team realizes.


Jack had prepared himself for a long, boring, and uneventful mission on P31-954.

While Daniel had been enthralled by the telemetry the MALP had sent back from the planet, Jack had been less enthused. It wasn’t that he couldn’t appreciate the significance of discovering an intact temple of Ancient Roman design; it was just that he didn’t much care about finding said temple. But the columns, engravings, frescos, and mosaics the MALP had found in the planet’s Gate room had provided more than enough justification for Hammond to green light an exploratory mission, even if Daniel hadn’t spent the entire briefing gushing about them. Jack had stopped listening to him about a dozen words in, but he’d still gotten the general impression that P31-954 was going to essentially be Daniel Disneyland.

And if the steady stream of chatter currently flowing out of Daniel was anything to go by, actually being inside the room had far exceeded his expectations.

The team had only been on the planet for roughly three minutes, and he’d already touched on at least five separate topics, by Jack’s count. Teal’c watched—with one eyebrow raised in clear amusement—as he bustled about, darting from one point of interest to another each time something new grabbed his attention. And though Carter appeared to be focused on the scanner she held, she was smiling to herself in a way that Jack knew had nothing to do with whatever readouts she was getting.

With the smallest of eye rolls, Jack turned to study the room for himself. As far as temples went, he would probably rate it somewhere in his top five: four complete walls, a roof that didn’t appear to leak, and enough decoration to be interesting without veering into tacky. If the place turned out to have running water and no booby traps, it would easily crack his top three.

As for the decor, he would admit to a particular partiality for the mosaic that covered nearly the entire floor in front of the Gate dais. It appeared to be water themed, or at least water inspired, which was a design choice Jack could fully support. Structurally, it resembled a tile rug, with a dark blue and white border in a swirling wave pattern surrounding a grid of circles created with varying shades of blue on a white background. The circles actually reminded him a bit of an event horizon, and he lifted his gaze from the floor to the Gate.

Behind the Gate was the room’s main fresco, which Daniel was currently just inches away from, muttering something about paint dyes. The fresco depicted a Roman open-air bath, calm waters bordered by a tree-shaded colonnade dotted with bathers in various states of undress. When Daniel began to breathlessly comment on the fact that none of the nudes had been discreetly covered—something about the Pope and fig leaves—Jack decided it was time for him to explore the rest of the temple. Even though the initial MALP survey had led them to believe that the planet had been abandoned, it was better to be safe than sorry.

Signaling for Teal’c to stay and keep an eye on their scientists, Jack slipped out through the room’s only exit. The hallway he stepped into ran perpendicular to the door, and after a moment’s consideration, he choose to go to the right when he spotted light in that direction but not in the other. Only a few meters away from the Gate room, the hallway took a sharp left turn into a longer corridor with rooms on either side. Aside from glancing in their doorways as he passed, Jack ignored them for the moment and headed toward the rectangle of light at the end of the corridor, wanting to get outside and get the lay of the land.

Squinting momentarily against the brightness, he stepped out onto a kind of columned patio or veranda. The temple was on a moderately high hill, and the perspective from the patio provided a clear view of the valley below it. Staring down at the valley, Jack frowned for a second or two at the sight that greeted him. Then he walked a few feet back inside the temple and called down the hallway.

“Daniel? Come here.”

“What?” came Daniel’s distracted and faintly echoed reply. “What is it?”

“There’s something you need to see.”

The temple either had really good or really bad acoustics, depending on your preference, because even with the distance and corners between them, Jack could distinctly hear Daniel’s grumbling, his voice growing louder as he approached. In short order, he appeared at the end of the hallway that led to Jack and the exit, Carter and Teal’c behind him. As he spotted Jack, his mumbled complaints turned into clear sentences.

“Jack, there is enough in the Gate room alone to keep me busy for the entire time we’ve been allotted for this mission,” he advised, not quite stomping Jack’s way, “so unless you’ve found something really interesting, I should get back—”

Daniel cut himself off as Jack stepped out of the way, revealing what had prompted him to call Daniel outside in the first place.

Below them, a town that could have been plucked directly from an illustration of Ancient Rome sprawled across most of the small valley. And it wasn’t in ruins. From the temple’s vantage point, it was easy to spot people moving about in the streets, and the neatly tended fields that encircled the town spoke to active agriculture. It turned out the team hadn’t just found an intact Roman temple; they’d found an intact Roman town.

As Daniel gaped wordlessly at the sight, Jack smirked to himself at the stupefied look he wore. He always enjoyed it when he could stun Daniel into silence, even if he wasn’t personally the cause. Teal’c and Carter wore similar—if less extreme—expressions of surprise once they saw the town as well, Carter letting out a breathy “Wow” as her eyes roamed over the valley and its structures.

Jack gave Daniel a nudge with his elbow. “Not so abandoned after all, eh?”

Daniel looked beside himself, and as his shock wore off, his mouth picked back up. “They have an amphitheater! And a forum!” He excitedly pointed out each feature as he noticed them. “And baths! Look, there in the center of the town; there’s an entire open-air bath complex, just like the one in the fresco in the Gate room!”

His eyes were alight, and Jack looked past him to share a fondly amused look with Carter and Teal’c. Seeing Daniel happy—almost giddy, in fact—was a nice change from how things had been going recently. The past several months had been rough on them all, both individually and as a team. There had been crises, tragedies, and a combination of distance and secrets that had shaken the team’s bond in ways Jack didn’t like to reflect on. They’d managed to make it through intact, if not unscathed, but a mission like this one was exactly what they needed.

Even if the rest of them didn’t care all that much about encountering the living remnants of a long-dead culture, they all knew that this type of immersive experience was what Daniel lived for. And each of them would be able to find enough vicarious enjoyment through him that the mission wouldn’t be completely boring. If nothing else, Jack would take talking with the locals over staring at the walls of an abandoned temple any day. And if those locals could give Daniel and/or Carter info that kept them happy and preoccupied? All the better. Throw in not trying to kill any of the team, and Jack would immediately consider them allies. If they had good enough food, he’d even bump them up to best friends. Given how things had been going, the SGC could use both.

So when Jack spotted a small group of men hurrying up the stairs that had been laid into the hillside leading to the temple, he kept his sigh internal. These people were of Roman descent, after all; maybe they would have something unusual or interesting to share that would have value back home. And if not, at least Daniel would get to explore an ancient culture for a while.

Daniel stepped forward as the five men reached them, the rest of the team reflexively forming a protective rank behind him as he took up his standard meet-and-greet position. The locals were unarmed, as far as Jack could see, but they’d all learned the hard way over the years to always be cautious during first contact. Things could and would go sideways in the blink of an eye over the slightest thing.

“Hello,” Daniel started with a wave and a smile. “My name is Daniel, and—”

He stopped mid-sentence as the men’s expressions went from faint confusion—no doubt at SG-1’s sudden appearance in their temple—to awe tinged with relief. They were looking past Daniel, and he shifted to the side, pivoting to follow their gaze. Jack and Teal’c did the same, all three of them realizing at the same time that the men were staring at Carter. Jack saw her reach the same conclusion, her own expression shifting from politely curious to utterly bewildered and faintly alarmed in the span of a heartbeat.

“Sulis,” one of the men, who looked to be around Jack’s age, breathed in a reverent tone. “You’ve returned.”

With that, he and the other locals dropped to one knee, heads bowed with their hands raised to either side, palms turned inward. Nonplussed, Jack looked from them to Carter, who appeared perturbed, and then to Daniel, whose expression was far too calculating for Jack’s liking.

“Daniel…” he began in warning.

As per usual, Daniel ignored him, walking to the side of the nearest local—the man who had spoken—and gently taking him by his elbow to guide him back to his feet. The others with him haltingly followed, standing up but looking around uncertainly as they did so.

“Yes, Sulis has returned,” Daniel kindly told them. “And she would like you to go and tell the rest of the town so that you may all prepare for when she descends from the temple to walk among you.”

“Uh, Daniel?” Carter asked, tone apprehensive.

Daniel didn’t answer right away, busy waving the local men off. He smiled broadly at their little group as they started back down the hill, all of them throwing adoring looks over their shoulders at Carter as they did so. Once they were out of earshot, Daniel finally spoke.

“They must think you’re this goddess, Sulis,” he said by way of explanation, giving a final wave and turning back to face the rest of the team. “No doubt she was the Goa’uld who brought their ancestors here, and most likely who this temple is dedicated to.”

“And you just told them Carter is that Goa’uld,” Jack irritably pointed out, completely at a loss for why Daniel would do such a thing. “What the hell were you thinking?”

“Are we not supposed to be freeing such people from the Goa’uld?” Teal’c asked, frowning perplexedly in Daniel’s direction.

“Yes, we are,” Daniel agreed, “and I think this might be the easiest way to do it. If we play along, we’ll be able to learn more about who Sulis was to these people. Then we can use that information to prove that the Goa’uld aren’t gods, by providing counters to their beliefs.”

“But I’m not a Goa’uld, Daniel,” Carter said. “I won’t be able to do any of the Goa’uld stuff they might expect.”

“Not to mention the fact that we haven’t exactly ever run into a benevolent Goa’uld,” Jack added, still annoyed. “You send Carter out there pretending to be one and she doesn’t start blasting people left and right for minor foibles, they might get a little suspicious.”

“And if they realize I’m pretending to be their god, they might not like it,” Carter concluded with a worried glare.

Jack narrowed his eyes at Daniel, a suspicion of his own forming. “You just want to do this so that you can observe their religious practices, don’t you?”

Daniel’s primly insulted expression was answer enough. All of Jack’s planned latitude for allowing him to play around in the local culture immediately evaporated.

“I am not putting Carter in danger just so that you can get your anthropological jollies, Daniel!”

“She won’t be in danger!” Daniel retorted, growing animated. “As a revered deity, she would be treated as sacrosanct; no one would dare harm her. And we can act as her holy attendants so that we’re always by her side.” He patted his sidearm and curled his lip. “We’re overpowered here, Jack. Nothing bad will happen.”

“Does the phrase ‘famous last words’ mean nothing to you?”

“So, what? We aren’t taking risks anymore? We should just pack it up and go home?”

“This isn’t a risk we need to take, we—”

“Sir?”

Jack paused and turned at Carter’s wary tone. “Yeah?”

She lifted her chin to gesture down the hill. “Someone’s coming.”

They all looked down to spot the lone figure of a dark-haired female working its way up the steps.

“Why would they send someone after you told them to wait?” Jack asked Daniel.

“We don’t know that they did,” Daniel replied. “Maybe this person heard that Sulis had returned and wanted to see it for themselves.”

“Well, we need to tell them this was a misunderstanding.”

“But why? Jack, there isn’t anything to be worried about, I swear.”

Before Jack could respond, Daniel turned and focused his attentions on Carter instead. Jack expected him to start listing out all the reasons why she should side with him, no doubt in the hope that together the two of them could convince Jack to agree to Daniel’s plan. But Daniel could still surprise him, it seemed.

“Sam, are you really against doing this?” he asked her. “Because if so, then I’ll tell whoever’s coming that I was wrong and you aren’t Sulis and we’ll start our first contact again from scratch.”

Carter still looked uncomfortable, but Jack could tell she was softening to the idea. Her gaze flicked to his for a second, and he knew she was remembering how overjoyed Daniel had been when they first discovered that the planet was still inhabited. She shifted uneasily.

“You truly, honestly believe that this is the best way for us to convince them that the Goa’uld aren’t gods?” she asked, studying Daniel with a piercing gaze.

He didn’t waver, giving her a sincere nod. “Yes, I do.”

Her eyes bored into his for a second longer before she sighed resignedly. “What would I have to do?”

“I’m not exactly sure,” Daniel admitted, “but I suspect it’ll mostly be letting yourself be seen so that people can know you’ve truly returned. But whatever happens, we’ll be with you the whole time, so I can step in and handle anything that comes up.”

“Play the diplomat,” Jack commented.

“It’s what they pay me for,” Daniel blandly shot back. “I can do it for Sam while she pretends to be a goddess as easily as I do it for us as explorers.”

“And we will eventually tell them that I’m not a Goa’uld and that the Goa’uld aren’t gods?” Carter pushed, more a demand than a question.

“Yes.” Daniel paused, a flicker of concern crossing his face. “We’ll need to make sure that their Sulis is actually gone, of course. But I’m already ninety percent sure that’s the case, and I can confirm it from talking with the people we encounter. Then I’ll explain everything to them.”

Carter appeared to deliberate for a few heartbeats, before she looked over at Jack. “Sir?”

“Carter?”

“I’m willing to try it if you’re willing to let me,” she told him.

Jack searched her face, wanting to make sure that she was genuinely okay with giving it a go and wasn’t just giving in against her better judgement for Daniel’s sake. She didn’t flinch under his scrutiny, so he accepted her words at face value. Turning, he saw that the local woman was almost to them. He sighed and dragged a hand over his face.

“Okay, fine. But if I give an order—any order, Daniel—all of you follow it. Immediately. Without back-talk.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Of course, O’Neill.”

“Okay.”

Jack squinted at Daniel for a beat, unsure whether his ready agreement and neutral expression were hiding devious plotting or not. He guessed he’d find out soon enough. The local woman was only a few meters away from them now, and Jack could see that she was fairly young, somewhere between late teens and early twenties. With a shake of his head, he gave Daniel a “go on” gesture.

“I guess you’d better greet our guest, then,” he advised, “and see what more you can find out.”

Daniel gave him a curt nod and stepped forward to stand a few feet in front of the rest of them with his hands clasped behind his back. The woman appeared before him, her eyes scanning the team as she made it onto the patio. Upon seeing Carter, she placed a hand over her chest, eyes widening with awe and joy, before she dropped into the same kneeling gesture the other locals had taken.

“Sulis, I am humbled to be in your presence,” the woman said.

Unseen by the woman, Carter shot Daniel a pointed look. Then she closed her eyes and took a deep breath, squaring her shoulders as she exhaled. Her eyes opened again, and Jack watched in astonishment as her demeanor shifted and she took on a slightly haughty, slightly benevolent expression that looked altogether unsettling on her face.

“I am pleased to find that my return is so welcomed,” she told the woman, revealing a deliberate change in her voice as well. It wasn’t distorted like a Goa’uld’s would be, of course, but she was using the same clipped pronunciation, the same formal turn of phrase. She’d even dropped it in pitch slightly, as if to emulate as closely as possible that Goa’uld sound. “Stand so that I may see you.”

Jack saw the woman do so out of the corner of his eye, but his focus was still on Carter. Despite her argument that she wasn’t a Goa’uld, she was doing a disturbingly good impression of one at the moment. Her expression, in combination with her voice, had triggered a niggling at the back of his mind and suddenly it hit him, uncomfortable memories wriggling their way to the forefront: her current behavior reminded him of his encounters with Jolinar. He wondered if she was purposefully channeling her temporary captor to get them through this scenario Daniel had cooked up. It made sense for her to do so—first-hand experience and all—but it also made it difficult for him to look at her. His interactions with that particular snake had been a bit… fraught.

Carter looked the local woman up and down in an assessing sort of way before she turned the same proud gaze on Daniel. Taking the cue, he gave her a shallow bow and addressed the young woman.

“What’s your name?”

The young woman’s gaze shifted, reluctantly, from Carter to Daniel. “I am Lucilla Minervina. I have come to tend to you.” She directed this last bit at Carter, along with a bow.

“You are her acolyte?” Daniel inquired.

Lucilla nodded. “Yes. I am priestess and servant; I tend to the temple and ensure the proper rituals are maintained. Now that Sulis has returned, I will prepare her to go among the people.”

Daniel didn’t miss the sharp looks Carter and Jack threw his way, and he cleared his throat. “What preparations are needed?” he asked Lucilla, who gave him a sideways glance.

“Does Sulis not plan to bless the waters?”

“Of course,” Daniel breathed, realization dawning on his face. “Aquae Sulis.”

“Daniel?” Jack inquired.

Daniel held up a hand to him, and addressed Lucilla. “Yes, of course Sulis will bless the waters. But it has been some time since she last did so, has it not?”

Lucilla nodded. “Many generations now. We thought she had forsaken us entirely.” She paused, averting her gaze from Carter, shame and fear flitting across her face. “Some had even begun to believe that Sulis was a myth and could not return because she did not exist. But they will repent once they see you, Venerable Sulis.” She placed her hand over her heart and bowed again.

Jack saw Carter’s face twitch ever so slightly at the address, and wasn’t surprised when Daniel drew Lucilla’s attention back to himself, as though he were worried Carter might break character.

“What preparations are needed for Sulis to bless the waters?” he asked again.

“She must don her ceremonial robes,” Lucilla advised.

Jack tensed, remembering with despair many of the team’s less-than-pleasant previous encounters with ceremonial garb. Though Carter did an excellent job of keeping her expression steady, Jack saw a muscle jump in her jaw as she clenched her teeth. Daniel didn’t look around at her, but he still seemed to sense her irritation, because he quickly asked a follow-up question.

“Robes like yours?” he asked, gesturing to Lucilla.

“Yes, but much nicer,” she answered, lowering her gaze and blushing faintly. “And violet, which none else are allowed to wear.”

Daniel took the opportunity of Lucilla’s averted gaze to check with Carter. Her eyes moved over Lucilla’s attire, and while she did indulge in a small eye roll, she also gave Daniel a discrete nod of acceptance. He returned the nod before turning back to Lucilla.

“Will the preparations take place in the temple?”

“Yes, in Sulis’s private chambers.”

Jack saw Daniel’s eyes light up again at the knowledge that the intact personal quarters of a supposed god were only a few walls away from him. But he restrained himself, only dipping his head in acknowledgment.

“Lead the way,” he told Lucilla, gesturing for her to enter the temple ahead of them.

She hesitated for a moment, looking between Daniel, Teal’c, and Jack. “Will you be accompanying Sulis?”

“They are my attendants,” Carter quickly replied, the faint waver of nervousness in her voice only noticeable to those who knew her well. “They are either with me or near me at all times.”

“Of course, Sulis,” Lucilla said with another bow. “Please follow me.”

She led them into the temple, following the path back to the entrance to the Gate room, which she bypassed, and continuing down the left-hand passage Jack hadn’t yet explored. The passage only continued a short distance past the Gate room before it turned left, revealing large double doors at the end of a longer hallway. Lucilla continued toward those doors without pause, but Daniel—walking directly behind her—came to a sudden halt halfway down the hallway with a double-take at something to his left.

“Daniel?” Jack quietly called in an inquiring tone.

Daniel pointed at whatever it was that had caught his attention. “Look.”

The unusually succinct response got Jack’s attention, and he hurried to Daniel’s side, Carter and Teal’c right with him. Reaching Daniel, Jack peered into the little alcove he had stopped in front of. For a second, he just blinked at what was there, not able to accept what he was seeing.

“What the hell?”

There, sitting unassumingly in the alcove, was a bust of Carter. The hair was different—lots of elaborate braids wrapped around the bust’s head as opposed to Carter’s short cut—but otherwise the resemblance was uncanny.

“Is there something you forgot to tell us, Carter?” Jack quietly asked, only half joking.

“I—” Carter was staring at the bust with wide eyes. “This is so weird.”

“The figure does bear a striking resemblance to you, Major Carter.”

“It also explains why the locals immediately believed that you were Sulis,” Daniel pointed out. “You look like her.”

Lucilla, having realizing that the team was no longer following her, rejoined them and peered between Teal’c and Daniel at the statuette. “I see you are admiring your bust,” she said, giving Carter a smile. “It is an excellent likeness, sculpted by one of my ancestors,” she added with obvious pride.

“Yes,” Carter agreed, nodding dumbly, “a very good likeness.”

Lucilla’s smile grew wider, and she motioned them on. “All of your things have been kept exactly as you left them, awaiting your return,” she advised as she pushed open the doors. “Though, of course, I will alter anything that you now wish to be different.”

The room was sumptuous, and exactly what Jack would have expected of a Goa’uld. There was a large bed draped with hangings and covered in luxurious-looking sheets and blankets, flanked by tall windows that led out onto another patio and were framed by layers of wispy curtains. Thick, cushy rugs had been laid over an elaborate mosaic that appeared to be geometric in design, and every piece of linen, drapery, and floor covering was in some shade of purple. It should’ve had the visual effect of walking into the inside of a grape, but against all odds and measures of good taste, it actually worked.

“Really loved a theme, huh?” Jack muttered under his breath, eyeing a throw pillow the color of an eggplant as he walked further into the room.

Due to the bulk of curtains beside the windows nearest the bed and the mass of fabric hanging around it, he hadn’t been able to see the fresco covering the wall behind the headboard until he’d made it halfway to the bed. He paused instinctively as he caught sight of the painting, lifting his head to look at it full on. But in the moment it took him to do so, he registered the subject matter and froze.

He knew it wasn’t Carter, same as the bust out in the hallway wasn’t actually her, couldn’t be her. But it looked like Carter and it was Carter depicted in a way that Jack was definitely never meant to see her.

Whoever had painted this particular portrait of Sulis had done so with an expert’s attention to detail. In fact, despite the bust essentially being a three dimensional model of Sulis’s face, the fresco’s image somehow came across as a more lifelike depiction, its eyes bright with life where the bust’s had felt empty. The portrait was also full-body, and therein lay the issue. Because while this Sulis person with Carter’s face had ostensibly been painted fully clothed, it was “fully clothed” in a way that gave the barest hint of a nod to leaving things to the imagination while actually doing absolutely nothing of the sort.

Jack took all of this in—the stranger’s eyes in Carter’s face, the flimsy fabric of the dress that hid nothing, even the detail of Sulis standing ankle deep in water—within the span of about five seconds. Then he ripped his gaze away, only for it to land directly on Carter.

She had apparently been staring in shock at the fresco, too, and whether Jack’s movement had drawn her gaze or she had just coincidentally chosen to look away from it at the same moment he had, their gazes wound up locking. He watched, pulse racing, as her eyes widened even more and a blush rose in her cheeks. They stared at each other for a heartbeat longer before simultaneously looking away, Jack deliberately moving to stand where he could no longer see the fresco.

In the time it had taken for that minor crisis to play out, Lucilla had moved to an enormous wardrobe in one corner of the room and begun pulling out various pieces. All of them were in keeping with the purple theme, and she laid about half a dozen options out on the bed.

“We have your ceremonial robes in all of your favorite shades,” she told Carter, “so you may choose which you would like to wear for your return appearance.”

“That’s nice,” Carter replied in a distracted, noncommittal tone, eyeing the dresses Lucilla had chosen with the same sort of distrust Jack had seen her throw at enemy weapons. Tearing her eyes away from them, she gave Lucilla a cool smile. “I would like a few minutes alone with my attendants. Perhaps you could bring us some refreshments?”

Lucilla bobbed in a kind of curtsy. “Of course, Sulis. I will fetch waters from your spring.”

She turned on her heel and swept back into the hallway, pulling the doors shut behind her. As soon as they were closed, Carter dropped her act and rounded on Daniel.

“Okay, spill. I know you realized something when Lucilla mentioned ‘Aquae Sulis’; what am I up against here?”

“Sulis, also known as Sulis Minerva, was a Celtic-Roman deity associated with the thermal springs at Bath.”

“Bath as in Bath, England?” Jack asked.

“Yes, exactly. The waters at Bath were called ‘Aquae Sulis’—or ‘the waters of Sulis’—as they originated from her springs.”

Carter shifted impatiently. “And?”

“Sulis was known as a healer and a punisher,” Daniel continued. “The waters of Bath were said to be able to heal any ailment, if Sulis accepted the bather’s prayer. There were also dozens of tablets found in the baths, inscribed with prayers to Sulis calling for mental and bodily harm to befall those who had wronged the writers of the tablets. Those included an especially large numbers of inscriptions against thieves.”

Jack raised his eyebrows. “So Sulis healed the lame and punished the wicked?”

“Something like that.”

“And they want me to bless the waters here,” Carter said. “Which will require me to do what, exactly?”

“I don’t know,” Daniel admitted. “Roman mythology doesn’t have humans interacting with the gods in the way that these people would have interacted with the Goa’uld who pretended to be Sulis. It could be any number of things.”

“Well how about we find out, hmm?” Jack directed him. Then he turned to Carter and studied her with an assessing gaze. “Are you still okay with this?”

“So far, sir,” she said with a nod and a sigh. When he just continued to stare at her, she shrugged. “It’s weird, pretending to be a Goa’uld, but I’m okay.”

“You’re doing a damn good job of it,” Jack advised her. “Almost too good?”

“Am I?” she responded with surprise.

“You are indeed presenting the aspect of a Goa’uld admirably well,” Teal’c said. “If you were capable of modulating your voice as they do, I do not believe that anyone would be able to tell that you are not, in fact, a Goa’uld.”

Carter looked a bit disturbed by the praise. “That’s… good, I guess,” she haltingly replied.

“For this? Yeah, it is,” Jack assured her.

There was a thud against the doors, likely meant as a knock, and Carter schooled her expression once again before calling out, “Enter.”

Lucilla backed her way into the room, balancing a tray that held four cups on one hand, and holding a large pitcher in the other. She set the items down on a nearby table and poured water into each cup before bringing the tray around to them, starting with Carter. They all waited until Teal’c had given it a try first and, at his subtle nod, they each took a sip. The water was clear and surprisingly cool, refreshing and without any kind of aftertaste.

“Lucilla,” Daniel started, “Sulis is interested to know how the practice of blessing the waters is remembered by your people, given how long it has been since it last occurred. How exactly does Sulis bless the waters?”

“Sulis enters the waters where they pool in the public baths, and as they touch her, they are imbued with her powers,” Lucilla explained.

“So she only has to go into the water for it to be blessed?” Daniel asked.

“Yes. Her body is sacred; the touch of it blesses the waters.”

“So at most your sacred body will have to get a little wet,” Jack mumbled so that only Carter, standing next to him, would hear.

He saw her fingers twitch slightly around the cup she was holding and wondered if she’d had to restrain herself from throwing its contents in his face. Truthfully, her throwing water at him could have just played into her portrayal of a Goa’uld, however tame such an action might be in comparison to what the real Sulis would have done. But instead of giving in to the instinct to douse him, she simply turned and looked at him with a forward gaze. Jack felt a flicker of trepidation as he took in her placid expression; whenever Annoyed Carter made the shift into Serene Carter, it was always because she had some kind of plan for retribution.

After a second of watching him, her lips curled ever so slightly into a smile. Very pointedly, she looked in the direction of the fresco, then turned back to him and cocked one eyebrow. His own raised in surprise at the audacity of the reference. She held his surprised gaze with a bland one of her own until he nodded and looked away, accepting the dig as an appropriate—and clever—retaliation for what had, frankly, been an untoward comment on his part.

Despite winning that mini stand off, it appeared Carter felt that she might give in to the desire to chuck her water at him anyway—or, at least, that he might say something else that would make her want to—because when he next glanced in her direction, she was carefully setting her cup down on a nearby table. His lips twitched at the sight and he had to look away again in case she caught his amusement and changed her mind. Whether it would have played well for the audience or not, he didn’t actually want to get wet.

Speaking of their audience—Lucilla had spotted Carter putting down her cup, and now approached her with a sweet, if slightly bashful smile. “Are you ready to disrobe?” she asked, holding out her hands as if in offer. “I might need your assistance with some of these fasteners; I have never seen their like before.”

It was clear to Jack that Lucilla was planning to help Carter undress—no doubt it was one of her duties as priestess of Sulis—but Carter didn’t immediately pick up on that. She looked down at Lucilla’s waiting hands in confusion for a moment, before flushing faintly as she realized what Lucilla meant.

“Um,” she hesitated, eyes darting in Jack’s direction.

“We’ll keep watch outside,” Daniel told her, already heading toward the door.

Jack swiftly followed behind him, fresco image still fresh in his mind, with Teal’c coming along at the rear. But once Jack and Daniel were out in the hall, Teal’c didn’t join them. Instead, he pushed one of the doors closed as he stated loudly enough for Carter and Lucilla to also hear him, “I will keep guard inside.”

Jack looked past him to Carter, who gave a small nod, which he returned. It was common practice for Teal’c to take on any duties involving Carter having to get dressed or undressed for off-world activities, whether that was guarding her while she took care of things herself, or assisting her when it was necessary. The custom had started because it was the least awkward of the options they had, and over the years Carter had grown accustomed to both Teal’c’s presence and his help.

Even with Lucilla there to handle any assistance Carter might require on this occasion, it wasn’t bad procedure for them to keep one other team member in the room, just in case. Especially since there were multiple entry points to Sulis’ quarters, what with it opening out onto its own patio. So Jack gave Teal’c a nod of approval, and Teal’c inclined his head in turn as he closed the second door, shutting Jack and Daniel out in the hall.

Daniel had returned to the bust, and Jack strolled over to find him studying it.

“It’s not Sam, you know,” Daniel told him.

“I know.” The bust had probably been sculpted long before even Carter’s great-great-great-grandparents had been a twinkle in their own parents’ eyes. It definitely wasn’t her.

“I mean, it looks a lot like her, but it isn’t a perfect likeness.”

“So Lucilla’s ancestor wasn’t that great at sculpting.”

“No, I mean it doesn’t actually match Sam.” Daniel pointed to the bust’s eyes. “The shape of the eyes isn’t quite right; see how they turn up at the outside edges? Sam’s don’t do that. And the nose is narrower than Sam’s, with less variance between the width of the bridge and the nostrils. The mouth is different, too. It’s more subtle, but the image on the bust has a fuller top lip than Sam’s.”

Now that Daniel had pointed them out, Jack could clearly spot the differences between Carter and the bust. They weren’t immediately obvious at first glance, but once noticed it made it difficult to still see Carter in the figure. It definitely looked less like her and more like a close cousin, maybe.

“You picked out those differences pretty damn fast,” Jack casually commented, impressed and a little disconcerted by the display of observational skills.

Daniel gave him a dry look. “Once you have to identify specific emperors on worn-down, two thousand year old coins, or specific hieroglyphs on cracked and peeling four thousand year old murals, you get really good at noticing details.”

“Clearly.” Jack glanced back at the closed doors, trying not to think about what Carter was doing behind them. “So how do you think the waters actually work? I mean, we’re talking about a Goa’uld thing, here, right? So would these waters actually heal?”

“Possibly,” Daniel said with a shrug, turning from the bust to frown in Jack’s direction. His gaze was distant, though. “Maybe the baths were constructed with a sarcophagus-like device that imbued the waters with healing powers when it was turned on. Or maybe Sulis could charge the waters using the healing device somehow? Either periodically to keep it working, or continuously while people were bathing?”

“You do remember that Carter can’t do any of that, right? So even if she goes in the water, nothing will happen?”

“Of course I know,” Daniel said, gazing focusing in on Jack’s face. “I’m not actually expecting her to heal anybody.”

“But I bet those people are,” Jack reminded him, jerking his thumb toward the valley. “And what do you think is going to happen when it doesn’t work?”

“We’ve been given no indication that these people are in any way aggressive, Jack,” Daniel patiently replied, picking up on his concerns. “In fact, Lucilla told us that some of them don’t even believe in Sulis anymore, which should make it easier for us to convince them that the Goa’uld aren’t real.”

“You still haven’t explained just how Carter’s masquerade is going to achieve that.”

“When Sam’s dip doesn’t imbue the waters with anything, she can tell them—possibly still as Sulis, if we think it’s necessary—that she isn’t a god. I can then explain about the Goa’uld and we can have Teal’c, as a Jaffa, add his weight to the claims.”

“And you think finding out that they’ve been lied to won’t make them turn on us?” Jack couldn’t help but be wary, despite the fact that he also hadn’t gotten any aggressive vibes from the few locals they’d encountered thus far. The bottom line was that Carter was going to be in the direct line of fire, as it were, and he didn’t like the fact that there were so many unknowns still unaccounted for.

“I don’t think so,” Daniel replied. “I mean, if Sulis has been gone for so long that some people don’t even believe in her anymore, it sounds to me like they’re going to be open to the idea. It isn’t like we’re showing up a week after the last time Sulis appeared and healed a bunch of people and claiming she’s a fake. We’re showing up and telling them that someone who is only remembered as a myth and legend is exactly that.”

Jack had to admit that Daniel had a point; if the Goa’uld were only a distant memory to these people, then they had a better chance of convincing them they weren’t gods. And if they needed to play along with Daniel’s plan for a little while to prove a point, he could do that. Or at least he could let Carter do it.

The doors to Sulis’ chambers creaked open, and Teal’c appeared in the doorway.

“Sulis is ready,” he told them, stepping to the side so that Jack and Daniel could again enter the room.

Carter was standing in the middle of it, managing to not look as miserable as she had the last time they’d all had to wear ceremonial clothing. Since that time had involved much more in the way of body paint than it had cloth, though, comparing the two didn’t tell Jack all that much about her state of mind.

For this round of off-world dress-up, Carter was in a long dress that did look a lot like the one Lucilla had on. Carter’s was clearly made of a finer material, though, with thin, gauzy layers the color of lavender as opposed to the pale green Lucilla wore. And while Lucilla’s only adornments were a pair earrings and a few gold bracelets, Carter’s dress itself looked to have gold thread woven into it, along with beading and jewels forming a band at her waist. Carter had also put on earrings and bracelets, and Jack wondered how much convincing she had required before agreeing to wear them. They were of obviously higher quality than those Lucilla wore, even to Jack’s less discerning eye, making them the perfect accessories to mark Carter’s station above the commoners. He figured she’d probably realized that, too, and therefore willingly put them on to help sell the lie of her role as goddess.

Lucilla had been working on the final polishes to Carter’s look as Jack and Daniel entered the room and, after a final fluff of the hem of Carter’s dress, she finally rose and stood back to admire either her goddess or her own handiwork. Jack wasn’t sure which; he had been distracted by the movement of Carter’s dress as Lucilla had adjusted it. The way the light had filtered through the material had reminded Jack of the fresco, and he involuntarily glanced its way, only to see that it had, fortunately, been covered by the bed hangings. No doubt Teal’c’s doing, since Carter had been busy with wardrobe.

Jack gave Carter a quick up and down, then raised his eyebrows at her in question. She silently sighed, the faint rise and fall of her shoulders serving as a shrug. She was still okay with what was going on, but not thrilled about it. It was Carter, though, who was never all that thrilled about having to play dress-up, so all was as it should be so far.

Daniel, for his part, was apparently enraptured by Carter’s outfit. He was circling her, eyeing various parts of it while muttering to himself—about what, Jack couldn’t hear—but he stopped when Carter sharply said his name and gave him an imperious stare. To his credit, he immediately snapped back into his “holy attendant” role and turned to ask Lucilla if they would be proceeding to the waters now.

“Yes, the town should be gathered and waiting there by now,” she advised. “Shall I lead the way?”

“Please do,” Daniel agreed with a wave of the hand.

After another brief curtsy-like motion in Carter’s direction, Lucilla headed out into the hall. Teal’c took his place directly behind her to act as guard, and Carter followed behind him. Jack walked with Daniel at the back, giving him a curious look as they fell into step together.

“What was that?” he quietly asked.

“What was what?”

“You acting all weird about Carter’s outfit.”

“Oh! It’s a kind of chiton.”

“Excuse you.”

“A chiton is a type of tunic that was worn in Ancient Rome,” Daniel explained. “There’s plenty of historical documentation about them, but very little archaeological evidence; fabrics tend not to survive for very long in the ground. And even when we do luck into finding some, they start to disintegrate as soon as they’re exposed to the air. Lucilla’s chiton was fascinating enough—seeing the way it’s draped and pinned—but Sam’s is quite possibly a wholly unique derivation, found only here and used only by Sulis.”

“You are such a nerd,” Jack affectionately grumbled.

Daniel smiled contentedly back at him. “Yes, yes I am.”

Jack dropped into the rear position as the group started down the hill. He could see that the town below them was teeming with people, the route they would be taking to the baths obvious from above by the way those people lined very specific streets. The area around the baths themselves was already dark with crowds, and Jack grew uneasy. The team would be a not-insignificant distance from the temple—and therefore the Gate—when they were down there in the center of the town. If something went wrong, he wanted to have at least three escape routes planned. So while they descended into the town, he built a mental map of the streets around the baths, and the different paths the team could take to get back to the temple.

He’d half expected cheering and applause to kick up once they entered the town, but the people merely watched them pass by in reverent silence, smiling and bowing at Carter as she came into view. Jack wondered how she was holding up under the attention; she hated being in the spotlight, and being treated as a goddess was about as bright a one as you could wind up in. He trusted that if it got to be too much for her the team would be able to tell, and he knew they would close ranks. Teal’c would go into high-menace mode, Daniel would start deflecting, and Jack could whisk Carter away, if it was needed.

They followed a somewhat circuitous route to the baths, no doubt to let as many people as possible glimpse ‘Sulis’ before she performed her miracle. Once they reached the baths themselves, Lucilla led them to a spot at one end, where a large space had been left clear. Wide, shallow steps led from it down into the clear waters, which were deeper than Jack had expected. In truth, it looked more like a swimming pool than a bath, and he wrinkled his nose slightly at the idea of it being full of bathing people.

The floor where they had stopped was covered by another large mosaic, and Jack realized it was actually of Sulis, her rising from the waters of the bath like Aphrodite from the sea. He didn’t say so out loud, though, not wanting to distress Carter by pointing it out or distract Daniel by admitting he knew the reference. Lucilla had brought Carter to stand directly over the tile figure of Sulis, and Jack suspected Carter—or Sulis—standing there was part of the blessing ritual.

Across the pool at the far end from them there was another fresco, this one on a curved wall that formed a large, columned alcove that reached from floor to roof. The fresco itself wasn’t what had drawn Jack’s attention, though. That honor went to the giant statue that stood in front of it in the alcove.

It was—no surprise—of Sulis, and roughly twice as large as real life. The statue’s pose mirrored that of the mosaic Jack was currently standing on, with water trickling from a shallow basin that ran around its feet and into the bath pool. But while the mosaic Sulis was clothed, the statue one was not. Ostensibly, that should have meant that Jack was as affected by it as he had been by the fresco back in the temple, if not more. But he couldn’t get past the gaudy paint job.

All of the Roman statues he’d ever seen—mostly in pictures, one time in person—had been bare stone. He’d never seen any that were painted, and somehow he was sure that even if they had been, once upon a time, they wouldn’t have resembled this statue. It looked more like a caricature than a reverent representation of a goddess. In fact, it put Jack in the mind of what a horny adolescent boy might create in his first attempt at portraying a naked woman: a little bit exaggeration, a little bit guesswork, and a whole lot of awkward results.

That also meant that it didn’t come across as looking anything like Carter, leaving Jack to find it funny instead of unsettling. Lips twitching, he turned to find her staring at the statue with the same baffled amusement he felt. She looked his way, eyes dancing, but they barely had time to do more than exchange that brief glance before Lucilla stepped forward and raised her arms.

“Venerable Sulis has returned once more,” she called to the gathered masses. “Whatever transgressions we committed that drove her away, all has been forgiven.”

Jack noticed that Carter looked a tad uncomfortable at the mention of transgressions and forgiveness, and he wasn’t too fond of it himself. His worry that the people might turn on them when the waters didn’t do anything after Carter’s blessing seemed a bit more likely, and he gave Daniel a hard look. Daniel just shook his head, almost imperceptibly, and Jack softened the glare he felt building on his face.

“Sulis will bless the waters, so that we can wash and be returned to her good graces,” Lucilla continued. She turned back toward Carter and waved her hand, and three men emerged from the crowd behind them. The first carried a crown of flowers, while the two others held a bronze chest plate between them.

Jack had been standing a bit apart from Daniel, Carter, and Lucilla—Teal’c doing the same on their other side, his crowd control counterpart—but he strode over to them as the three men stopped in front of Carter.

“Daniel, what’s this?” he asked under his breath, one eye still on the people around them. Carter, who was on Daniel’s other side, could hear him as well; he could see her cut her eyes toward him as she listened in.

“I’m not sure,” Daniel quietly replied. “They must be part of the ritual. The chest plate might even have some kind of device built into that Sulis used to trigger the healing effects; there’s no way for me to know for sure.”

“If Carter goes in with that chest plate on, she’ll sink.”

“She doesn’t have to swim the length of the bath or anything,” Daniel reminded him. “It isn’t a feat of endurance. She just has to go in the water, stand on the steps and let it touch her, that sort of thing.”

“It probably won’t be graceful,” Carter muttered, “but I should be able to get up and down the steps with it on; they’re shallow enough.”

“You sure, Carter?”

“I’m a pretty strong swimmer, sir. And we’ve already come this far. Might as well at least give it a try.”

Jack turned to look at her fully. She still looked a bit worried, and definitely uncomfortable, but she didn’t seem afraid. “Your choice, Carter. You can pull the plug on this at any time.”

“I know, sir. I’m okay.”

He took a breath. “Alright, but Teal’c and I are going to be the ones to put this on you.”

Teal’c, having kept one eye on the proceedings and hearing his name, walked over to join them. He and Jack took the chest plate from the two men holding it, while Daniel relieved the other of the crown. They all surreptitiously checked the plate over for any signs of it being more than just a chest plate, but found nothing, meaning it most likely was just decorative.

Decorative or not, it was definitely heavy, and Jack wasn’t thrilled about the idea of putting it on Carter, even if she hadn’t been going in the water with it. But she just watched him steadily as he weighed the plate in his hands.

“It’s okay, sir. Let’s try it.”

Together, Jack and Teal’c carefully lifted the plate over Carter’s head and settled it down onto her shoulders, Teal’c moving behind her to tighten the straps at the back while Jack stepped in front to hold it in place. Jack felt Carter shift under the weight, widening her stance and relocating her center of balance as she took it on. She left out a huff of air, clearly feeling the effects of the added pounds, but remained secure on her feet.

“You okay?” he asked her again.

“I ran with about this much weight across my shoulders back at the Academy, sir; I’ll live.”

“Yeah, but that was how many years ago, Carter?”

She shot him look. “More recently than you, sir.”

“Touché.”

Daniel gently placed the flower crown on Carter’s head, and they all stepped back a few paces. With the dress and the crown and the chest plate, she looked the part of an Ancient Roman deity, some nature goddess with a warrior streak. Jack smiled to himself at the thought.

“It’s a good look, Sam,” Daniel told her. “All you need is a sword.”

“Don’t give her any ideas,” Jack warned him.

Carter gave them both an indulgent smile before she took a deep breath and turned to face the bath. The two men who had brought out the chest plate had assumed places at the top of the steps, and as she approached they each held out a hand on either side of her to assist her down into the water. Jack would have preferred the team perform that function, too, but he felt that keeping an eye on the crowd and being out of the water in case they needed to react quickly was more important. They all hovered near the edge of the bath, though, ready to go in if they needed to.

Once Carter got in up to her hips, she stopped and turned back to face them. She stood there for a minute or so, looking a little lost as to what to do next. Her two assistants had gone with her in the water, and they exchanged looks of confusion when she came to a halt between them. Jack looked Lucilla’s way to find her wearing a similar expression.

Stepping down into the water, she descended a step or two to get closer to Carter before asking her in a slightly distressed tone, “Will you not go in all the way?”

Carter looked from her to Jack then back again. “This should be far enough,” she replied, with a decent attempt at the imperious tone she’d used previously. Jack could hear the tendrils of anxiety sneaking in, though.

Lucilla shook her head. “You must submerge yourself in the waters while the infirm bathe,” she advised, her pained tone indicating that she didn’t believe Carter would do it, that “Sulis” was still upset with them and had no intention of forgiving their transgressions. “Only while you are within the water will it heal.”

When Carter looked at Jack this time, her eyes had widened, the anxiety he’d heard in her voice beginning to blossom on her face. He stalked over to Daniel, and saw Teal’c doing the same from the other side.

“That’s it, Daniel; plug pulled. Carter can’t breathe underwater.”

Daniel was already nodding his agreement. “I know, I know.” He made a motion in Carter’s direction, waving her back in. “The Goa’uld must have used a personal shield to give themselves an air bubble or something.”

“The Goa’uld are capable of slowing their physical processes so that they do not need to draw breath for extended periods of time,” Teal’c advised.

“Well, Carter can’t do that and she doesn’t have a shield, so we’re getting her out of there,” Jack bit out.

Carter, seeing Daniel’s wave, started to wade back up the steps. But the two men who had helped her into the water clearly didn’t want her leaving it and took hold of her arms as soon as she attempted to move away from them. Carter looked around at them in shock, which rapidly morphed into fear as they began pulling her backwards across the stair they were on and toward deeper water.

As Jack made a move—intending to raise his gun, ready to take the men out if he had to—he was suddenly surrounded by people who pressed up against him, pinning his arms in place. The crowd, which had maintained a respectful distance up to that point, had swarmed to the edge of the bath, jostling for position alongside it and crushing Jack up against Daniel in the process. Everyone was still quiet, though, the silence now feeling eerie rather than reverent.

Lucilla, standing alone out on the second step in the bath, was wringing her hands, looking torn as she watched Carter being dragged away.

“Too many have been lost,” she was saying. “Too many have died without you, Sulis. We cannot lose any more.”

“Carter!” Jack yelled.

“Sir!”

Jack could see that Carter was fighting for all she was worth, the flower crown having been knocked askew on her head by her exertions. But between the weight of the chest plate and the tight grip the two men had on her arms, it wasn’t a fight she could win. The terror that flared in her eyes, as her captors made it down to the next step and the water rose up to her rib cage, almost sent Jack over the edge. He struggled frantically against the bodies pinning him in, desperate to free his P90 or his sidearm, anything, so that he could shoot the men dragging Carter to her death.

While it didn’t feel like he was purposefully being held in place, he still wasn’t able to get free. He could feel himself starting to panic, both from the sight of Carter being hauled into the depths and from the way his body was being crushed by the crowd. Underneath the fear, though, he was furious. He was furious at Daniel for even suggesting that they should parade Carter around as a Goa’uld, furious at Carter for going along with it when it was clear she didn’t really want to do it, and furious at himself for agreeing with the insane idea in the first place.

The fury was calmer than the fear, and he latched onto it, trying to get himself under control and find a way out of the crowd. Writhing futilely against the bodies around him, he watched as Carter was pulled down another step, the water up to her chest now. Her petrified gaze was locked on his face, and his own chest ached as a scream he could barely breathe around built up inside him.

The men holding Carter finally stopped their downward progress and shared a solemn, determined look over the top of her head. Then they each placed their free hand on one of her shoulders. It struck Jack that they were planning to forcefully submerge her, and he bleakly realized that he was about to watch Carter die.

But as the men began to push down on Carter’s shoulders, as Jack felt his soul leaving his body, the sound of staff weapon fire ripped through the silence. At the far end of the bath, the statue of Sulis lost its head, the rubble from its destruction raining down into the pool below.

Everyone and everything froze, and Jack was finally able to extricate himself from the crush. Breathing heavily, he splashed down onto the top step in the bath, Daniel following behind him. Further along, Teal’c was already standing on the step, fire in his eyes as he aimed his primed staff weapon at the man on Carter’s left.

“Remove your hands from Major Carter immediately.”

Jack, in turn, pointed his P90 at the man on Carter’s right. “Let her go,” he ordered in a cold tone that was laced with barely controlled rage.

The man hesitated, and Jack tightened his finger around the trigger, feeling it give slightly with the pressure. But just as he was about to fire, the man obeyed him, releasing Carter’s arm as his partner did the same on Carter’s other side. Carter immediately began to push though the water back toward them, Daniel rushing out to help her make her way up the steps. Once she was back on the top step with them, Teal’c and Daniel quickly pulled the chest plate off of her, dropping it unceremoniously into the water at their feet. Jack didn’t lower his weapon until he heard the muted thunk of it hitting the underwater step.

Lucilla was weeping, and given the part that she’d played in Carter’s attempted murder, Jack almost sneered at the emotional display. But then he registered the expression she wore behind the tears, and the bleak hopelessness in her eyes swept away his derision.

“Why will you not heal us?” she tearily begged Carter. “What else must we do?”

Carter grimaced and shook her head. “I—”

Jack saw her gaze move toward the crowd just before she froze and cut herself off. Her eyes darted around, and Jack wondered what she was seeing. When her eyes shifted to his and he saw the astonishment and sorrow in them, he turned to study the crowd more closely.

Before, when he’d been keeping an eye on the gathered masses, he hadn’t seen anything out of the ordinary. He’d really only been focused on the people who had directly surrounded their little staging area, figuring those congregated at the sides of the bath would give away any ill intentions they might have with the literal splash they would make as they attempted to reach the team. As such, he hadn’t paid much attention to those areas beyond a cursory scan for weapons. But now that he was really paying attention, he began to notice the large number of visibly ill or wounded people surrounding the bath.

For every five people who seemed fine, a sixth would be sick or injured. He spotted what looked like freshly broken limbs—as well as poorly healed ones—terrible scars, and open sores. Many of the faces he saw were watching the team with either fierce longing or hollow determination. It was clear now why they had been so desperate for the waters to be blessed: they needed healing. Why there were so many who had not been treated for even the most minor of issues baffled him, though.

“Oh my god,” Daniel breathed.

Jack turned to him and saw a look of horrified understanding dawning on his face. “Daniel?”

“They don’t know about medicine,” he replied. He gestured around them. “That’s why the waters are so important. That’s why Lucilla said so many had been lost. Sulis kept medicine from them and used the healing waters as a means of control.”

“What? Why would anyone do that?” Carter asked in a disgusted voice.

“You heard what Lucilla said about transgressions and forgiveness,” Daniel reminded them. “Sulis no doubt used healing as reward and withheld it as punishment. In order for that to work, the people couldn’t be allowed to have the means to heal themselves, not even in little ways. Sulis had to have kept all knowledge of medicine from these people to keep them under control.”

He sounded enraged by the end of his explanation, and Jack could understand why. He was pretty pissed himself; it was abhorrent to hang healthcare over people’s heads as a reward for good behavior. Especially when you could then fob off to who knows where and die, leaving them wholly incapable of caring for themselves.

“So what do we do?” he asked. “We can’t heal them; we aren’t Gou’ald.”

“Yes we can.”

Jack turned to Sam, whose expression was ferocious. He could feel the rage radiating off of her, and he was impressed by the rapid transition she’d made from being terrified to being a terror. She pulled the tattered flower crown off of her head and flung it into the water before going to a still crying Lucilla and gently taking her by the arms.

“Lucilla, I am not Sulis,” she said, directing her words at Lucilla, but saying them loudly enough that the crowd could hear her. “My name is Samantha Carter. I don’t know what happened to your Sulis, but I know that she wasn’t a god, and neither am I.”

“What?” Lucilla drew back from Carter, seemingly torn between belief and doubt.

“She was a Goa’uld,” Daniel advised, “a parasite that takes over people like you and me and uses them to hurt others. She hurt all of you by keeping medicine from you, by using the healing powers of the waters to control you.”

“Medicine?” Lucilla asked in confusion. “What is medicine?”

“It’s a way for you to heal yourself,” Carter kindly told her. “It doesn’t always work,” she added, throwing a very pointed glance at someone in the crowd Jack couldn’t see, “but it can heal many things, and it can even save people from death.”

A murmur ran through the crowd and Lucilla gasped.

“It is not possible for us to heal ourselves,” she said. “That is the power of a god, of Sulis alone.”

“No, it isn’t,” Carter firmly told her. “And I can prove it to you.” She turned to Jack. “Sir, I need you to show them your leg.”

Jack stared at her, utterly lost. “Carter?”

She sloshed over to him and pointed down at his right leg. “Your leg, sir. Where it was broken in Antarctica. Show them the scar.” She lowered her voice and added, “It’s evidence of a properly healed fracture. They’ve probably never seen that before.”

Feeling awkward, but understanding her reasoning, Jack reached down and rolled up his pant leg. The scar from that particular injury wasn’t all that large, but the fact that the leg was straight and not bent at an unusual angle or inches shorter than his other one was probably evidence enough on its own. Carter pointed to his leg and addressed the crowd.

“The colonel badly broke his leg a few years ago. We set the bone back where it should be and kept it in place until it healed. He has no ill effects from the injury and can do all of the things he could do before it.”

Some in the crowd seemed impressed, but many others still looked skeptical. Carter was looking around, undoubtedly searching her mind for other injuries she could use to demonstrate the power of medicine when Daniel spoke up.

“I had an organ removed,” he admitted with obvious reluctance. He pulled his tee out of the waistband of his pants and lifted it just enough to reveal the scar from his appendix removal.

Jack raised his eyebrows in surprise. It was the first time any of the team had seen the scar—Daniel having refused to show them before—and Jack couldn’t help but exchange a look with Carter and Teal’c at the revelation. Daniel caught it, and gave them all a disapproving frown as he hastily lowered the shirt again.

“Why would you have part of yourself removed?” Lucilla asked, clearly perplexed and—if her look of disgust was anything to go by—a bit horrified.

“Sometimes organs need to be removed,” Daniel told her. “This one was a very small one, only about that big.” He held his thumb and forefinger about an inch and a half apart. “But it became sick, and if it hadn’t been removed, it would have killed me.”

Lucilla’s eyes grew wide, and Jack felt the tenor of the crowd shifting their way.

“You were saved from death?” Lucilla asked.

Daniel nodded, giving Lucilla his best solemn expression. “Yes, I was.”

“We all have been,” Carter told her. “Many times.”

Jack almost quipped that they’d actually died a few times and been brought back to life, too, but he didn’t think these people were ready for the revelation of that medical miracle just yet.

Lucilla looked around her, meeting the astonished expressions in the crowd before turning back to Carter. “But how?”

Carter, who had been studying the crowd again, gave her a smile. “I can show you.”

“Carter?”

“We can give them an example, sir,” she told him in an undertone as she turned to Daniel. “Daniel do you still have that mini field kit in your vest?”

“Uh, yeah, hang on.” He dug in one of his vest pockets and pulled out a small package that he handed over to her.

“What are you planning, Carter?”

“I’m going to play doctor, sir,” she told him with a sigh. She turned and walked to the edge of the bath and motioned for the people standing there to move back. “Can you clear a space, please? I need to do this where it’s dry.”

Obligingly, the crowd shuffled backwards, and a few minutes later, there was a roughly six foot square area cleared directly in front of her. Since she was still wet, Carter stayed in the bath, but she gestured to someone in the crowd.

“Come here, please. Let me see your arm.”

It took a few seconds, but a little girl—no older than seven or eight—slowly walked out of the crowd and toward Carter. She was holding her left arm with her right hand; there was a painful looking cut across the top of the left forearm. Even though it probably hurt, the stare she gave Carter held only skepticism.

“You don’t need to be scared,” Carter reassured her. “What’s your name?”

The little girl still looked doubtful, but she crossed the remaining distance without any further hesitation. “Aurelia,” she answered as she came to a stop in front of Carter.

“Hi, Aurelia. I’m Sam.” Carter gave her a smile and held her hands out, hovering just by the girl’s arm. “I’m just going to look at your cut first, alright?” Carter said, gently taking the arm in her hands when Aurelia nodded.

From where he was, Jack could see that it was a recent cut—maybe even from that same day—and it luckily didn’t show any signs of infection. It was narrow, but it did look like it was deeper than just a scratch. Inspection complete, Carter unwrapped Daniel’s kit, laying its contents on the dry mosaic by Aurelia’s feet. Jack spotted some alcohol wipes, pads, gauze, and a few packets of painkillers. He thought there might also be a roll of tape in the pile, but he couldn’t be sure. Carter picked up one of the wipes and ripped it open, smiling as Aurelia wrinkled her nose at the unfamiliar smell.

“I’m going to clean your cut with this first,” Carter told the girl, holding up the wipe. “It’s going to sting a bit, but that’s just because it’s making sure there’s nothing inside the cut that can make you sick. I’ll put it on, and then you can blow on it; that’ll help it feel better.” She took hold of the Aurelia’s arm again, and then met her eyes. “Ready?”

“Ready,” Aurelia bravely replied.

Carter quickly and efficiently dabbed the wipe along the cut. Jack could see tears welling up in the Aurelia’s eyes, but they didn’t spill over as she followed Carter’s instructions and blew on the cut. Next Carter opened one of the small pads and placed it over the wound, directing Aurelia to hold it in place while she wrapped gauze around the arm to secure it. When she was done, she handed Aurelia another wipe and pad, along with the remaining gauze.

“You’ll need to keep this dry, so no going in the water, okay? Tomorrow, you should take it off,” Carter advised her, shifting her gaze momentarily to someone in the crowd, as though addressing them as well. “You should gently wash the cut with clean water, then dab it with the wipe, just like I did.”

“And blow on it?”

Carter smiled. “And blow on it. Then have someone help you put the new pad on it and wrap it back up, just like this. The day after that, you should be able to take it off again and leave it off. You’ll still have a mark on your arm, but it will close up, and it might even go away completely.”

Aurelia nodded resolutely. “I’ll do it.”

She turned on her heel and went back to the crowd, and this time Jack could see that she stopped between a woman and a man. They looked down at her with proud, if slightly bemused expressions, and Jack figured they were her parents. They were probably who Carter looked at when she was giving Aurelia her care instructions.

Carter stepped back from the edge of the bath and returned the few remaining items from the kit to Daniel, who replaced them in his vest pocket. Lucilla was watching her intently.

“That was ‘medicine’?” Lucilla asked, pointing toward Aurelia.

“Yes,” Carter confirmed. “Very simple medicine. We can teach you that and more. There are people on our world who know many things about the human body, and they can show you.”

“We would like that very much,” Lucilla enthusiastically replied. Her face fell slightly, and she looked around the bath a little forlornly. “Sulis will not return?”

“No, I don’t think so,” Daniel told her. “I think Sulis is probably dead.”

Lucilla balked. “Gods cannot die.”

“That remains to be seen,” Teal’c said, “but Sulis was no god. She was a Goa’uld, and Goa’uld can and do die.”

Lucilla searched Teal’c’s stoic and resolute face for a few seconds. Jack could see her processing what she had been told, trying to make sense of it all.

“Sulis is dead,” she firmly stated, as if testing the truth of the words.

“Her absence from this world proves it,” Teal’c calmly replied.

Lucilla looked bereft. “Then we are truly alone.”

“No, not alone,” Daniel told her. “You have friends.” He gestured to the rest of the team.

Lucilla searched his face the way she had Teal’c’s before giving him a small, if worried, smile. “When can you begin teaching us about medicine? We have many ill and injured who need healing.”

“We should be able to get a team to you by tomorrow at the latest,” Jack advised. He’d do his best to get someone here faster—he’d spotted some pretty severe conditions in the crowd—but he had no idea what the other teams’ schedules were like or who would be available. “We’ll need to head home, though, and get them together.”

“And you will return?” Lucilla asked, a hint of fear in her voice.

Jack thought about how long she had been serving a god she believed had abandoned her people—a god she now knew would never return—and understood the fear. “We might not be able to,” he told her, waving a finger between himself and the rest of his team, “but others will come, I promise.”

“We won’t abandon you like Sulis did,” Daniel firmly told her, following up the words with a kind smile. “We’re going to help you.”

Jack could tell that Lucilla wanted to believe them, but the doubt was still obvious in her eyes as she glanced between him and Daniel. Then she focused her attention on Carter. Jack saw Carter stand a bit straighter as Lucilla’s eyes met hers, no doubt grasping the significance of the moment. Despite the fact that Lucilla now knew that Carter wasn’t Sulis, there was still some kind of connection there that made her look to Carter for confirmation. Maybe it was Carter’s uncanny resemblance to the Sulis she knew only from artwork, but Lucilla clearly needed her reassurance.

Carter accepted Lucilla’s scrutiny with a steady gaze, studying her in turn. After a moment, she lifted her chin and gave Lucilla shrew look.

“When our medical team arrives, they’ll need someone to be their guide,” Carter told her. “Since we aren’t sure exactly when we’ll be able to send someone back through the Gate, that person should stay in the temple so they can be available once the team gets here. They can stay in Sulis’ rooms; since you’re the one who has tended to the temple and helped us, that person should be you.”

Lucilla’s eyes widened. “I could not stay in Sulis’ rooms—”

“Why not?” Carter interrupted.

Lucilla gaped at her wordlessly for a moment. But then her mouth snapped shut and the look of faint fear she wore shifted to a frown. “There is no reason,” she slowly replied, as though coming to that conclusion even as she spoke the words. She met Carter’s eyes again, her expression more resolute. “I will stay in the temple and await your team’s arrival. It would be my honor to assist them with their work.”

Carter gave her an approving smile. “Before we head home and arrange for the medical team to return, I need to get back into my gear,” she said, waving a hand at the dress she still wore. “Will you walk us back to the temple?”

Lucilla nodded. “Of course.”

The crowds had already started to disperse, returning to their homes once Carter had been revealed to not be Sulis and the waters not made to heal. Jack worried that there might be at least a few disgruntled parties waiting to lash out at them, but while many stopped to watch the team as they made their way through the streets to the hill, no one said anything or made any moves toward them. Jack still kept his hand tight on his gun until they were back in the temple, with no indication that anyone planned to follow them.

While Carter and Lucilla disappeared back into Sulis’ chambers, Jack, Daniel, and Teal’c waited in the hall. Jack was drawn to the bust again, a thought tumbling around in his mind. Daniel, seeing him standing in front of the alcove, joined him.

“What is it?”

“I know we established that this doesn’t look exactly like Carter, but it’s still pretty damn close,” Jack said, lifting his chin at the bust. “What are the odds that there would’ve been a Goa’uld that could pass for Carter’s twin, and that we would wind up on that Goa’uld’s planet?”

“All things considered? Pretty slim.”

Jack turned to him. “And what would have been your master plan had Carter not been mistaken for a Goa’uld? Because the one we went with almost got her killed.”

Daniel flinched, much to Jack’s satisfaction. He might be angry with himself, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t also still angry with Daniel.

“There was no way we could have anticipated how desperate these people would be,” Daniel said in a subdued voice. “Who would ever expect that a culture would be completely devoid of even the most basic medical knowledge? They don’t even know to bandage a cut!”

“They were going to drown her, Daniel.”

“You think I don’t know that?” Daniel snapped, fury and guilt warring in his eyes. “I was there, too, Jack. I watched it happening, same as you.”

It wasn’t all Daniel’s fault, not really, but Jack wondered just how much his desire to experience a culture in real time had influenced his decision to propose Carter’s charade. Jack was well aware that his own self-loathing only made his anger at Daniel flare more strongly but, dammit, Carter had almost died. He kept seeing her terrified face as she was dragged into the water while he could do nothing about it, and the burn of anger, however misplaced, felt better than that memory of helplessness. He stayed stock still as the rage and bitterness roiled inside him, knowing he risked physically lashing out if he moved, and that he’d regret it if he did.

He watched Daniel with a stony gaze, Daniel returning it with an expression caught somewhere between a frown and a glare. Though to the outside observer Jack might have appeared relaxed, Daniel’s distress was clearly evident, his hands fisted at his sides and his jaw clenched. They stared each other down for a few heartbeats, both opening their mouths to speak at the same time.

“Daniel—”

“Jack—”

“If there is blame to be had for today’s events, it is equally shared,” Teal’c advised in a clipped tone, cutting them off.

Jack and Daniel both turned to see him watching them with an air of obvious disapproval.

“While Daniel Jackson was the one who proposed our attempt at subterfuge, it was Major Carter’s agreement to participate that made it possible. And while they were both willing to engage in the pretense, you—as their commanding officer—could have overruled them at any time and brought it to an end, O’Neill.”

Leave it to Teal’c to cut to the chase. Jack sighed, his anger swept away by Teal’c’s simple words, only weariness and self-recrimination left in its wake. “Yeah, I know.”

“And what about you, Teal’c?” Daniel asked, giving him a curious look. “Did you have any fault?”

“I should have more strongly expressed my own misgivings,” Teal’c admitted. “While I was never comfortable with what you had proposed, I was willing to allow the scenario to play out as I believed your reasoning for it was valid. And though I had suspicions about Major Carter’s safety once we were at the bath, I did not speak up about them.”

“So we all screwed up,” Jack summed up.

“At least we did it as a team?” Daniel said.

“We did manage to pretty easily convince the people that the Goa’uld aren’t gods,” came Carter’s voice.

They all turned to see her exiting Sulis’ chambers, this time back in her uniform, gear strapped on and ready to go. She gave them a small, knowing smile as they walked down the hall to meet her.

“Sam—”

“It’s okay, Daniel. It wasn’t your fault.” She looked at Jack and Teal’c with an insistent expression. “It wasn’t anyone’s fault.”

“I mean, I think I’m going to stick with blaming the guys who tried to drown you,” Jack said, remembering the bruises he’d spotted already coming up on Carter’s arms before she’d gone to change.

“Fair enough, sir.”

Jack sighed. “Alright, let’s go get these people some medical care.”

Daniel and Teal’c led the way back toward the Gate room, Jack and Carter following a few paces behind them. He studied her as they walked. She seemed fully recovered from her ordeal, but she could be crafty when it came to hiding her trauma, and the day’s events definitely qualified.

“You okay?” he quietly asked.

“Yes, sir.”

He gave her a look out of the corner of his eye, taking a breath as he tried to get his words in order so he could talk around what he needed to say.

“Carter—”

“I know, sir.”

“You almost died.” It hurt to even say the words, but he managed to make them come out as a blunt statement instead of a pained confession.

“But I didn’t,” she softly replied. “And I’m fine.”

Jack sighed wearily as they turned the corner. “You’ve gotta stop doing that.”

“Not dying, sir?” Carter asked, with a raised eyebrow.

“Almost dying,” he clarified. “Takes years off my life every time, and I don’t have that many to spare.” They entered the Gate room, and he waved a hand toward Daniel, who was packing up the gear he’d left by the DHD. “Between you and Daniel, I have to have lost at least a few decades at this point.”

“Do you not worry for my life as well, O’Neill?”

Jack gave Teal’c a bland look. “Where you’re involved, I worry for other people’s lives, T.”

Teal’c appeared mollified by that, regally inclining his head with the faintest hint of a smirk.

As they made the final preparations for their departure, Lucilla reappeared. She hadn’t follow Carter back out of Sulis’ rooms, and Jack had figured she would be busy making her own preparations for the arrival of the medical team they would be sending. But she hurried into the room, relief crossing her face when she saw that they hadn’t left yet.

“Oh, good, you are still here.” She was carrying something that appeared to have been wrapped with great care, and she offered it to Carter. “I wished you to have this.”

Carter, somewhat warily, took the proffered bundle. “What is it?”

“It is the ceremonial robe that you wore,” Lucilla advised. “I wanted you to keep it, as a reminder of what you did for my people. You have freed us from ignorance, and you have done so in the guise of a goddess. That image belongs to you now, and you should keep it.”

Carter looked stunned, perhaps even a little touched. But Daniel—somewhat surprisingly, given recent events—appeared to be feeling somewhat smug. He gave Carter a crooked grin.

“Sulis was a Celtic deity native to Bath,” he began, “and like many native deities, she became associated with an equivalent from Rome when the Romans moved in. In Sulis’s case, that association was with Minerva. Hence the name Sulis Minerva: goddess of healing, retribution, decisions… and wisdom.”

“How incredibly fitting,” Jack dryly replied. And maybe they could have banked on Carter’s genius in her guise as Sulis instead of going the healing waters route, but he’d berate Daniel about that later.

Lucilla was smiling warmly at Carter. “Sulis’ waters may have given healing, but yours have given knowledge. I feel that they will be much the better.”

“Aquae Samantha,” Daniel mumbled, still grinning crookedly at Carter, who was starting to look uncomfortable.

Hearing him, Lucilla titled her head at Carter, her smile turning contemplative. “The waters of wisdom.”

Carter was definitely uncomfortable now; Jack noticed her shifting restlessly under Daniel’s and Lucilla’s gazes. Taking pity on her, he stepped in.

“I think it’s time we get home so we can send some more wisdom these people’s way.”

After some final reassurances to Lucilla that someone would be coming back to provide medical aid, the team lined up to depart. Daniel dialed them up, with Lucilla watching curiously from a spot by the side wall. Jack nudged Carter with his elbow, lifting his chin at the bundle she still held when she looked around at him.

“Y’know, you could always break that out for special occasions,” he casually suggested. “Not a lot of people have their own goddess attire, after all.”

“I don’t think so, sir,” she tightly replied.

Daniel finished dialing and they all watched the wormhole establish, Jack smiling to himself as Lucilla studied the shimmering event horizon from a safe distance, eyes wide with awe. Odds were she’d never seen the Gate active before, might not have even know anything about it, but she was handling the new experience with admirable grace. He figured her people would be okay, if she was anything to go by.

“I could probably convince Hammond to let you wear it in place of your dress blues for our next to-do,” he told Carter as they walked toward the Gate. “I mean, you are kind of our resident goddess, now. You should look the part.”

Carter shot him an irritated glance as she gave Lucilla a last wave goodbye. “Sir, with all due respect?”

“Yeah?”

“Shut up.”

Jack accepted the insubordination as his due, and chuckled as they stepped through the Gate.