Something Borrowed

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Title: Something Borrowed
Rating: PG
Fandom: Stargate SG-1
Characters: Samantha Carter, Jack O’Neill, Daniel Jackson, Teal’c
Word Count: 9900
Categories: team, adventure, humor, minor URT
Spoilers: none
Warnings: none; set during the second half of S5
Summary: When the colonel is abducted during a diplomatic mission, the team has to figure out why—and how Sam can fix it.


Sam should’ve known something was wrong the second she woke up to find Colonel O’Neill missing.

In her defense, there wasn’t anything that would have made it immediately obvious to her upon waking that he was missing. There were no signs of a struggle in the team’s shared room that would have hinted at something untoward happening during the night. Nor was there any indication the colonel had made a voluntarily quick exit for some reason.

So with nothing to give her pause, Sam had shuffled to the room’s en suite facilities none the wiser. It wasn’t until she finished getting ready for the day and reemerged that she actually noted the colonel’s absence.

Or, more accurately, she noted that his bed was made.

That was the first sign that all was not as it should be. The colonel wasn’t one to abide by military tidiness when he wasn’t being forced to, which meant that he never remade guest beds he was the guest for. More than that, Sam would have bet a month’s pay that this particular bed had never gotten unmade in the first place.

When the team had first been shown to the room, Sam had been intrigued by the unusual way the four beds had been made up. Each of them had a distinctive v-shaped tuck in the blankets at the foot-end of the mattress. She hadn’t been able to intuit how the shape had been made just by eyeballing the beds as they were, which had bugged her. So she’d made a mental note to try to figure out the technique herself when she went to bed that night, planning to methodically unfold the blankets before she got under them in an attempt to trace and reverse-engineer the method.

But Sam highly doubted the colonel would have done the same. In truth, she didn’t believe that he would have noticed the folds at all, much less have tried to replicate them in the event that he had randomly decided to remake his bed for once.

So if his bed was made, especially in the local style, that meant he’d never gotten in it. And if he’d never gotten in it, that meant he’d been MIA for hours—and none of them had known.

The ghostly echoes of DEFCON sirens ringing in her ears, Sam shook Daniel awake and roused Teal’c from his kel’no’reem.

“Have either of you seen the colonel?” she asked, pretending not to hear the nervous quaver in voice.

Daniel, still bleary-eyed, squinted irritably in her direction as he fumbled his glasses onto his face. “What, do you think I dreamed about him?” he drolly replied, the last word lost in a yawn.

Sam ignored the sarcasm. “When was the last time you remember seeing him?” she sharply shot back.

As if in reaction to the tension in her voice, Daniel immediately pulled himself up to sit on the edge of his bed, eyes wide and brow furrowed. “Last night, sometime. Why?”

Wordlessly, Sam gestured to the colonel’s still-made bed and watched Daniel’s eyebrows hop from concern low to surprise high and back again.

“That’s not good,” he muttered.

“The last I recall seeing Colonel O’Neill, we were on our way back here after last night’s festivities.”

Sam turned to Teal’c, who was frowning into the middle distance, his gaze unfocused. She thought he looked ever so slightly disconcerted—which on anyone else probably would have equated with being fully distressed—and she tried herself to recall the previous evening in more detail.

The local leader, a woman named Demela, had hosted a large feast held in the team’s honor. It had been less a party and more a state dinner, Sam had thought at the time, the focus on pomp rather than celebration. The colonel had even joked about how they should have packed their dress blues for the occasion.

But even given the more decorous atmosphere, the event had seen its fair share of sedate merrymaking, with the drink flowing freely and toasts being raised to what had felt like every person who was in attendance and several more besides. While the team had participated in the toasting to keep up appearances with their new friends, they’d all done so with extreme moderation—Lessons Had Been Learned in the past—and Sam was sure all of them had made it back to their room at the end of the night.

Though now that she thought back on what had happened after they’d left the palace, she realized she didn’t actually remember much past getting back to the room. The walk back was a bit fuzzy but seemed mostly intact, but after a clear memory of seeing their door, everything else was a blank. When she focused hard enough, she could just about get some flashes of changing for bed, and a second or two of brushing her teeth, but that was it.

The DEFCON sirens got louder.

“We were drugged,” she flatly declared.

Daniel, who had joined Teal’c in unfocused frowning, snapped a startled gaze in her direction. “What?”

“I can’t remember anything beyond us getting back here,” Sam told him. “Can you?”

Daniel paused, mouth half open in response, his expression turning wary. “No,” he finally admitted, with some unease. “I think there’s a bit of me getting into bed—I can remembering pulling off one shoe—but otherwise?”

Sam was nodding. “I’ve got about a combined five seconds of changing and brushing my teeth, and that’s it.”

“I, too, can only recall brief moments after our return to these quarters,” Teal’c added.

“Well that definitely proves it,” Sam said, throwing a troubled look between Teal’c and Daniel before repeating her earlier assertion. “If Teal’c got taken out, too, there’s no question we were drugged.”

“How, though?” Daniel asked. “And why?”

Sam shrugged, moving over to the colonel’s bed to search for clues as to his whereabouts. “We ate and drank a lot of stuff last night,” she pointed out. “Pick one.” She swallowed against a suddenly dry throat. “I’m more concerned with the why.”

A quick visual survey of the colonel’s things told her that all of his gear was still in the room. If he’d made it back with the rest of them—and her memory wasn’t entirely clear on that part—it looked like he’d left again with nothing more than the clothes on his back. With no note from him and no signs he’d been forcibly removed, she had to figure he’d been drugged, too. Why he alone had been taken and the rest of them left behind was yet another mystery to be solved.

Sam let out a frustrated sigh and rose from where she had crouched beside the colonel’s pack. “There’s nothing here that’s going to be of any help,” she admitted, waving a hand to encompass the small area. “For all intents and purposes, it’s as if the colonel didn’t make it back with us; nothing’s been disturbed and nothing’s missing.”

Teal’c met her proclamation with stoic acceptance, but Daniel didn’t appear to have heard her at all. His mind was obviously elsewhere as he stared at the far wall of the room, wearing a contemplative expression Sam knew all to well.

“What is it?” she asked him.

“I was just thinking about the culture here,” he began, gaze still distant, “how it behaves like a bunch of mismatched pieces sewn together into a new whole. I’m starting to believe that the Goa’uld who first populated this planet very purposefully chose specific cultures to bring here, like building a menagerie to keep their favorite bits of Earth civilizations.”

And this must be what the colonel felt every time she and Daniel went off on tangents. Sam shook her head, giving Daniel a small smile. “Fascinating, but not exactly relevant at the moment.”

Daniel’s expression cleared and his eyes moved to her face. “Actually, I think it’s wholly relevant given that whatever created this Franken-culture almost certainly led directly to Jack getting abducted, and therefore will also present us with the solution.”

Sam gave him a wary look, bracing for bad news. “Which is?”

“Well, I won’t know that until we find out why he was taken.”

Sam momentarily closed her eyes and took a deep, calming breath, wishing she could just blow something up and fix the problem. “Okay, so what do we know about Keppol society?”

Daniel stretched, then hunched over and began digging around in his pack. “We know that on Emina, the Burrim—which for Keppol is Demela Hartice—is the de facto leader of each continent.”

“The Burrim delegates specific and limited powers to individuals under their direct guidance,” Teal’c added, “but maintains absolute control over the management of the continent’s affairs.”

“So a representative dictatorship?” Sam summarized, and not without a hint of distaste.

“In a manner of speaking,” Daniel lightly agreed.

Sam contemplated the Keppol political structure, grimacing darkly when a thought occurred to her. “So whatever’s happened to Colonel O’Neill, it’s not only likely that Demela knows about it, but it’s almost wholly unlikely that she isn’t directly involved somehow.”

“Yes.”

With that blunt statement, Daniel stood, toiletry bag and a change of clothes in hand, and went into the bathroom. Sam sank down onto her bed as he disappeared from view, her mind whirring as she processed the available information.

One: At some point last night, the entire team had been drugged. Two: Some time after that, the colonel had been taken by unknown parties to an unknown locale for unknown reasons. And three: Their newest ally was directly involved in these events, or at least fully complicit.

At this point, the tentative diplomatic ties the team had begun to build with the Keppol were rapidly unraveling, and Sam was struggling to see any reason to preserve them. She was tempted to just storm Demela’s palace and demand the colonel’s return, but knew better. It wasn’t the best of plans, especially given that he might not even be at the palace, and presenting a show of force at the wrong place and in the wrong time would almost definitely make things worse.

And though Sam believed it to be almost inconceivable that Demela wasn’t involved in the colonel’s abduction, there was always that small chance that she was wholly ignorant of what had transpired. And if that were the case, Sam could imagine exactly how she would react upon discovering that some of her people had endangered trade relations with a new ally. The combined threat of Demela’s wrath and SG-1’s firepower might be enough to cause the perpetrators to literally cut their losses and run. Sam couldn’t and wouldn’t potentially risk the colonel’s safety with hasty, public accusations. She had to figure out another way.

She was pulled from her thoughts by Daniel’s reappearance, and she studied him as he repacked his bag.

“You talked to Demela more than any of us, Daniel; did she do or say anything last night that might provide some insight into what’s going on? Hints of civil unrest? Impending war? Anything?”

Daniel spared her a glance before he sat on his bed and began pulling on his socks and boots. “Nothing that I can think of. We spent most of the time talking about Earth, actually, its cultures and politics. She was very intrigued when I pointed out the multiple Earth culture influences I’d observed in Keppol culture.” He squinted, his eyes going a bit distant again as he went into the memory. “She was also unusually focused on our political structures.”

Without understanding why, Sam found that her interest was piqued by that. “In what way?”

Daniel shrugged. “She seemed surprised that there were so many different variations of ways to govern. Probably because the Burrim-system is the only one that’s ever been in place here.”

Teal’c, who had moved to take his turn in the bathroom, poked his head back into the room and gave Daniel a curious look. “Why do you believe that to be the case, Daniel Jackson?”

“An all-powerful leader who rules without question, delegating tasks—and the powers necessary to complete them—on an ad hoc basis?” Daniel smiled tightly. “There’s no doubt in my mind that the entire Burrim political structure was modeled after the way the Goa’uld reigned.”

Sam wasn’t entirely sold on that theory; in her experience, humans had found plenty of ways to subjugate each other without needing the influence of the Goa’uld to trigger it. Hell, Earth alone probably offered up as many examples as the rest of the galaxy combined. Still, she was inclined to trust Daniel’s anthropological expertise, so she just shrugged.

“That doesn’t give us any answers as to why the colonel went missing, though.”

“Not yet,” Daniel admitted. “But if Demela has to be involved somehow—and I agree that she does—then talking with her, or at least whatever representative she provides, should very quickly get us some answers.”

Sam smiled wryly. “So instead of storming of the castle, we pay it a diplomatic visit instead?”

Daniel gave her a look she’d seen him use on the colonel, part exasperation and part amusement. “I promise that if I can’t solve things diplomatically, I will back you up on the storming option.”

“As will I,” Teal’c added as he rejoined them.

Sam grinned at him, but it quickly faded into a worried smile. “Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that, but I want everybody fully geared up anyway. If things do go sideways, I don’t want us to regret having left any weapons behind.”

They were on their way to the palace ten minutes later, all armed to the proverbial teeth. Well, as armed as they had been when they’d first arrived, which wasn’t as armed as Sam would have preferred in the present situation. But the trip to Emina had been diplomatic in nature, so they’d been lightly outfitted for the mission.

After a very short internal debate, Sam had divvied up the colonel’s weapons between the three of them before they left their room. She was holding on to the hope that they wouldn’t have to fight their way out but, like she’d told Daniel and Teal’c, she wanted to have every available weapon in their arsenal at their disposal should it come to that. Plus, it would allow them to arm the colonel if and when they found him, should arming him be necessary.

As much as Sam wanted to sprint directly to the palace, she forced herself to maintain a natural striding pace as she led Daniel and Teal’c through the winding streets of the town. If they were being watched, she didn’t want to give away any signs of how she was actually feeling. The team’s emotional state—and hers in particular, as the default leader in the colonel’s absence—was intel that could be used against them. So she kept her gait steady and her expression calm, directing her excess emotional energy toward mental activity by planning out contingencies for whatever they might encounter once they got to the palace.

Or even before it—as they walked, Sam kept a surreptitious eye out for any suspicious activity. Colonel O’Neill might have just been the initial target of a larger scheme, after all, and the rest of the team could be up next on the abduction list. Or there might be other plots involving them that were separate from his disappearance. Until Sam managed to get some details about what had happened, she wasn’t going to rule anything out. In their line of work, suspicion saved lives.

No one got dragged into any alleyways, though, nor did any of the people the team passed act abnormally. Sam had considered that the general populace would probably show signs of knowing about the colonel’s abduction, if they knew about it at all, and anything from averted eyes to sinister stares could have been dead giveaways. But no one looked at the team askance—in fact, they received more than a few genuine smiles from a number of the locals—and they reached the palace gates unscathed.

Once inside, they were quickly escorted to a small but comfortably appointed room not far from the great hall where the previous night’s feast had been held. Sam let Daniel take lead on making arrangements with the palace staff, choosing instead to focus on observing their behavior.

None of the staff treated the team any differently than they had the day before, acting with the same gracious deference in all of their interactions, and Sam’s suspicions grew. If a dictator ordered something as brazen as drugging visiting dignitaries and then abducting one of their number, wouldn’t the people who worked in what was essentially her home know about it? And if they did, would they really be able to behave as if nothing had happened? She had her doubts.

As Daniel had anticipated, they weren’t given an audience with Demela directly. Instead, a man they had been introduced to the previous day was sent to talk to them in her stead. His name was Aggerum, and he was the Keppol Head of Culture, which told Sam that whatever was going on with the colonel was cultural in nature. She wanted to take comfort from that—at least Demela hadn’t sent the Head of Military or the Head of Science—but there was still too much they didn’t know about Keppol society for her to feel any sort of relief. For all they knew, the colonel could have committed some grave offense and been carted off for summary execution. She didn’t think that was the case—refused to believe it was even a possibility, actually—but it could be.

Daniel and Aggerum had retreated to one side of the room, speaking together in low voices while Sam and Teal’c waited near the opposite wall. Sam had agreed with Daniel’s assertion that letting him handle the initial conversation one-on-one would be the best tactic. Having a smaller audience always worked better when the topic of discussion might be sensitive or inflammatory, and this particular situation might be both. Plus, letting Daniel take point left Sam and Teal’c free to keep an eye out for any potential physical threats.

Sam wasn’t getting the impression that those would be forthcoming, though. While Aggerum’s expression never shifted from the polite solemnity he had walked in wearing, there wasn’t any tension in his body language. He listened attentively as Daniel spoke, then replied without hesitation or uncertainty. Sam couldn’t see Daniel’s face, though, and wished he’d sat to where she could; his expressions would have given her the best indication of how the discussion was going. In lieu of them, she kept an eye on his body language, knowing that she could read it well enough to pick up on the emergence of any major issues.

After more minutes than Sam cared to admit having counted, Daniel gave Aggerum a final nod and walked over to where she and Teal’c were standing. Now that she could see his face, Sam felt her heart rate tick up slightly. He was frowning thoughtfully, but there were glimmers of both amusement and embarrassment behind the frown that she didn’t think were going to bode well, for her in particular. And she was right.

“So, Jack is fine, first of all,” Daniel reassured them. “He’s in the palace under guard, but he hasn’t been hurt and he won’t be.”

“And you trust that to be true?” Teal’c asked, a hint of doubt in his voice.

“Yes, I do. Based on the reason why he was taken, hurting him would be the last thing the Keppol—and Demela in particular—would want.”

“And why is that?” Sam asked, her uneasiness growing as she realized that Daniel was avoiding looking at her.

Daniel sighed. “Because Demela took him in order to marry him.”

Sam blinked bemusedly at him for a moment. “Excuse me?”

Daniel gaze flicked her way before it moved to their Keppol guest. “Based on what Aggerum told me, it sounds like it’s a political move, and a routine one at that. In their culture, leaders can only marry other leaders. There are strict rules around it.”

Sam mulled that over. “So, kind of like how on Earth most monarchies used to require that nobility only marry other nobility?”

Daniel nodded. “Same basic principle, yeah. But due to various circumstances—civil wars, natural disasters, and the like—they’ve gotten low on leaders to be had. When we came to visit and presented Jack as our leader, Demela saw it as an opportunity to finally secure a partner. Everything that happened—the feast last night, the drugging, the abduction—it’s all part of the marriage ritual. Of course, we didn’t know that’s what it was, but apparently everyone else involved did.” Daniel rubbed a hand over the back of his neck, his expression shifting fully toward intrigued amusement. “I suspect it’s actually the remnants of a much older and less amicable practice of literal abduction and forced marriage. I mean, I can’t imagine one country’s dictator stealing another country’s dictator used to go down at that well, so it probably started out as a more violent affair and over time morphed into bloodless ceremony.”

“This is a literal abduction with a forced marriage to come, Daniel,” Sam tersely reminded him, before adding more bitingly, “And I can’t promise it’ll wind up being bloodless.”

Teal’c ever so slightly raised his eyebrow at her—an expression of approval—before he turned a blander look on Daniel. “So Colonel O’Neill has been captured to become Demela’s husband.”

Daniel made a non-committal gesture. “Partner.”

“Now is not the time for semantics, Daniel,” Sam irritably ground out. “How do we stop this? Preferably without having to resort to gunfire.” She stole a glance at Aggerum, who had moved to look out the window at the far end of the room and was giving the impression of very purposefully staying out of earshot of their conversation.

“You have to do it.”

Sam’s gaze snapped back to Daniel, who was watching her with an almost sympathetic expression. “What?”

“While Demela—and the Burrim from other countries on Emina—happily abduct their partners, they only take other Burrim who are single; they never take someone who is already married.”

Sam was positive she knew where this was going, but she was going to make Daniel come out and say it, at least partially so that she wouldn’t have to put in her mission report that she’d intuited his meaning. “And I come into play here how?”

Daniel gave her a narrow look that said he knew she already understood, but he spelled it out for her anyway. “A leader for a leader. You’re going to have to object to the marriage on the grounds that Jack’s already taken,” he said. “By you,” he tacked on, as though that part needed clarifying.

Sam closed her eyes on a sigh. Having to pretend to be married to her CO to keep him from being forced into matrimony with a benevolent dictator was a new one. She was pretty sure there wouldn’t even be a base betting pool about it yet.

“You have married O’Neill during previous missions,” Teal’c helpfully pointed out. “So it would not technically be a lie.”

“The technicality of those marriages not actually being binding would probably be an issue, so let’s keep that part to ourselves,” Daniel added in a low, urgent tone.

If Sam need to produce a (non-binding) nuptial as proof of her claim to the colonel, she would have plenty to choose from. Since the beginning, SG-1 had held the SGC record for off-world marriages. It had turned out to be one of the hazards of being a first contact team, and not one specifically reserved for SG-1.

There were numerous examples of SG team members having to marry one another under local customs, whether to build cultural ties, or to avoid offending the locals and breaking their laws, or to protect team members (namely the female ones) from the locals themselves. A not-insignificant number of the second contact teams had had to walk down the proverbial aisle, too, since marital status was frequently a culture’s determining factor in whether adults could be allowed to freely interact with each other.

It hadn’t taken long for an off-world marriage betting pool to spring up on base, but Sam wasn’t sure the current situation would fall under its umbrella, since no actual marriage was going to take place. Kind of the opposite, actually. Regardless, SG-1 wasn’t allowed to participate in that particular pool anymore, anyway, given how frequently they’d featured as its subjects. Something about how their experiences kept skewing the numbers and how that gave them an unfair advantage as bettors.

Sam might have actually made use of that advantage once during the early days of the program in order to win the pool. But it wasn’t her fault that she was good with numbers. Or that the galaxy was filled with backwards cultures who thought the only acceptable woman was a married one. And she’d needed new riding gear for her bike, and she figured the universe owed her one for putting up with all the misogyny, so in her mind it wasn’t cheating so much as getting even.

While she would never say that she was happy about the sheer volume of marriages she’d had to endure over the years, she also couldn’t deny that having some to use now as a “Get Out of Marriage Free” card for the colonel was handy. Unless the Keppol had devices that could suss out the lie—doubtful—she’d have him back with the team in no time, no muss, no fuss, no harm.

Resigned and ready to get things over with, Sam met Daniel’s gaze. She thought he looked ever so slightly concerned that she wouldn’t play along with the marriage sham, which struck her as odd. There really wasn’t any reason for her not to—unless there was more to her role than he was letting on. Suddenly wary again, she gave him a suspicious scowl.

“What aren’t you telling me?”

“Nothing.”

And, wow, did Sam not trust that single word answer. “So all I have to do is say that the colonel and I are already married, and they’ll just take my word for it and let him go?”

“Well, no…”

“Daniel!”

“You do only have to claim him as your own, but it has to be done formally,” he hastily clarified. “So my telling Aggerum that Jack and you were already married wasn’t enough. You have to be presented to Demela and officially claim him before her, and some kind of apology will be made for his having been taken from you—Agerrum wasn’t clear on the details of what that would be—and then Jack’ll be free to go.”

“Okay, so I just need to—wait.” Sam’s brain did a double-take as what Daniel had said fully registered. “You already told Aggerum that the colonel and I are married?”

Daniel didn’t flinch at her sharp tone, but he did shrug apologetically. “He said an existing marriage was the only thing that would prevent Jack from being married to Demela, so I intimated that that was the situation. He understandably suspected you were the partner—our first in command and our second in command together, leader and leader—and I confirmed that to be the case. I figured it was easier than trying to spin a line about it being somebody back on Earth, then having to get them here to take care of things. Especially since I got the impression that there’s a time limit on this demand.”

“How short a time limit?” Sam wearily asked.

“I wasn’t given specifics, but I’m thinking sooner rather that later would be a great idea.”

“Of course.”

Sam allowed herself the luxury of one final sigh, then turned and called Aggerum over. Once she confirmed what Daniel had already told him—that she and the colonel were married—Aggerum extended a sincere apology on Demela’s behalf for the colonel’s abduction. Then he offered to immediately escort her to see Demela and secure the colonel’s return. Sam readily agreed, and shortly thereafter the team found themselves in an antechamber just off of the palace’s throne room.

Demela and the colonel were both already there, and Sam absently wondered if they’d been waiting for the team’s arrival. She didn’t think that Demela could have anticipated that Sam would come to claim marriage to the colonel, otherwise she would never have had grounds to abduct him in the first place. But she probably had suspected that the team would come looking for him sooner rather than later, and maybe she’d planned to meet with them in the antechamber, perhaps to invite them to the ceremony. Or to use the wedding itself as a bargaining chip in their diplomatic discussions.

Whatever the reason for Demela and the colonel already being in the room, it seemed they’d been there for at least as long as Sam and the others had been meeting with Aggerum. Sam could see a couple of large trays on a table off the left, which bore the remains of a finished breakfast. When they entered, Demela was sitting on perhaps the most comfortable-looking throne Sam had ever seen, with the colonel standing just a couple of meters to her right.

Sam was surprised to see that he wasn’t wearing his uniform, but was instead in the same heavy robes that all of Demela’s closest advisors and servants wore. They reminded Sam a lot of graduation robes, actually, and were even made of a thick material that resembled velvet. The colonel’s were a rich, deep blue with panels of elaborate gold and silver brocade, and—just for a moment—Sam had a flash of the blue dress that still sometimes popped up in her nightmares. The memory came and went in the space of a breath, and she concentrated on assessing the colonel’s demeanor.

Just as had been promised, he looked unharmed, though he was obviously surly about the situation. Despite the fact that none of this was Daniel’s fault, the colonel had still aimed a scathing glare his way as the team entered the room. The tired look he focused on Sam even had some of that heat behind it, but she figured it was more due to embarrassment than true anger. She gave him a small smile before she put on her best leader face and turned her attentions to Demela.

“I believe you have something of mine,” Sam said, silently congratulating herself for not stumbling over the final word. And for not reacting when the colonel’s eyebrows shot up in astonishment.

“So I have been informed,” Demela replied with a calm smile.

“I’m sure you meant nothing by it, but I would like him back.”

With her eyes on Demela, Sam could just make out the colonel’s expression, and she barely managed to keep her face from twitching with amusement as it rapidly shifted from surprise to confusion to resignation. Then he silently sighed, his shoulders slumping slightly as he put two and two together. Sam wanted to give him a look—I’ve got this, sir or Keep it together, sir—but chose to stay focused on Demela instead. She didn’t have a solid read on the other woman, and with all the unknowns still surrounding the current cultural snafu, she didn’t want to do anything that might be interpreted as a sign of a weakness. Until her lie had been completely accepted with no repercussions, she wasn’t taking any risks.

“I meant neither of you disrespect,” Demela said, directing herself first to the colonel and then to Sam. “I didn’t know that Colonel O’Neill was already taken, or I would not have taken him myself.”

Or had lackeys do it for her, Sam thought, only slightly uncharitably. Eyes locked on Sam, Demela rose from her seat. Her gaze was penetrating, but not challenging, and Sam returned the stare steadily. After a few seconds, Demela appeared to nod almost imperceptibly before she waved the colonel toward Sam.

“Please confer with him,” Demela told her. “Ensure that no harm has been done and no offense committed. I will return shortly and, if you are satisfied, will provide my apology.”

With that, she swept through a door behind the throne, Aggerum—who had been standing silently in a corner during the exchange—following at her heels. Meanwhile, the colonel stalked over to stand beside Sam, somehow looking even grumpier than he’d been when she’d entered the room.

“Are you okay, sir?” she asked him.

“Absolutely thrilled, Carter,” he sarcastically drawled. “And mazel tov. I had no idea we were married; I feel like that’s something you should’ve told me.”

“Just because none of these off-world situations actually stick doesn’t mean we can’t use them to our benefit, sir,” she dryly replied, before looking him up and down with a quirked eyebrow. “How’d they convince you to make the wardrobe change?”

The colonel gave her a highly affronted look. “I woke up like this,” he informed her, sweeping an indignant hand over his outfit. Then he added in a poutier tone, “They took my clothes.”

And Sam was sure that the lack of alternatives was the only reason he was still in the robes. Still, she couldn’t help but get a dig in. He would do the same if their positions were reversed, as she knew from far too much experience. Smiling innocently, she gave him another quick once-over. “I don’t know, sir. It kind of works for me.”

She almost laughed at the double-take that elicited from the colonel, feeling a bit smug at how quickly his scowl returned. She chose to ignore the other emotions that had briefly flickered in his eyes, though she hadn’t missed them.

“Hilarious, Carter.”

Sam’s smile just edged toward mocking. “It’s a little different when the veil’s on the other foot, isn’t it, sir?”

The colonel shot her another glare, but it had lost its edge, the sharpness replaced by understanding. “Really, Carter?”

Sam smiled back serenely at him for a moment, before turning more serious. “Are you okay, though?” she quietly asked again, knowing he had a habit of using jokes and a bad attitude to deflect attention, especially if something was wrong.

He sighed and rubbed a hand over his face. “Yes, Carter, I’m fine. Ego a little bruised, but otherwise fine.”

Sam was bewildered. “How could this situation have possibly bruised your ego, sir?”

“It’s not exactly empowering to find out that you’re only wanted for your rank,” he replied with wounded dignity.

Sam stared incredulously at him. “So you aren’t bothered about being drugged, abducted, and set up for a forced marriage, you’re just mad that it only happened because you’re a leader?”

“I’m just saying.”

Sam shook her head in disbelief, before letting out an exasperated huff. “Don’t worry, sir,” she said snidely, continuing on before she could stop herself. “According to Daniel, the whole planet’s running low on leaders for marriages, so I’m sure Demela wanted you for making more little leaders, too. She just needed your rank to justify it.”

The colonel’s gaze snapped to Sam’s, surprise and something else she didn’t think it would be smart to try to identify in his eyes. Refusing to blush—either because of what she’d said or how she’d said it—Sam stared him down. He seemed to be struggling with how he wanted to respond, micro expressions flitting across his face as he tried to decide.

But before he could make a decision, the door behind Demela’s throne opened again and she reappeared. Aggerum followed behind her as before, but didn’t move to his corner. Instead, he shut the door behind him and stood in front of it with an anticipatory air that had Sam’s nerves jangling.

Demela paused in front of her chair and looked down at Sam. “Have you completed your inspection?”

Sam nodded. “Yes, I have.”

“And are you satisfied?”

Sam cut a quick glance at the colonel from the corner of her eye, noting that his expression had gone blank. “Yes, I am.”

It might have been Sam’s imagination, but she would have sworn that Demela look relieved. She came down the few steps from her throne platform to stand on level ground in front of Sam, before bowing her head slightly.

“Then please accept my humble apology for what has occurred.”

Sam was about to offer that acceptance, more than ready to move on, when Demela swept a hand back toward the door where Aggerum was waiting. At the signal, he reopened it and five men filed through it. They each carried a chest, which they set out in a line between Sam and the colonel on one side, and Demela on the other. As the men exited the room, Sam stared down at the chests, torn between intrigue and trepidation.

“As I am unaware of your world’s specific forms of currency, I’ve provided samples of each of Emina’s most common types,” Demela told her. “I pray that they will suffice as recompense.”

Curiosity outmaneuvered Sam’s knee-jerk instinct to refuse the offer, and she gestured to the chest furthest to her right, by far the smallest of the five. “May I?”

“Of course,” Demela answered with another smile. “It is yours.”

Crouching down, Sam popped open the lid, freezing when she saw what was inside. “Is this—?”

“It is cherrib, which I believe Dr. Jackson called ‘naquadah’ in your language.”

Sam glanced over at Daniel, whose eyebrows had almost disappeared into his hairline. Looking up at the colonel, she saw that while he was still wearing his blank expression, there was clear surprise in his eyes.

As Sam moved to open the other chests, Demela indicated what was in each.

“The second contains gold coins, the third a jewel we call ‘okram,’ and the fourth is filled with an assortment of glass beads. Those are most commonly used as barter these days, but they are also the oldest form of currency still in existence on Emina, both in terms of how long they have been used and how old some of the individual beads still in use are. Given your interest in our culture, I believed you would find their historical relevance an elevated value.”

In the back of Sam’s mind, it registered that Demela’s description of the glass beads as having elevated value for their historical significance probably meant that they had been offered in place of something that would have been worth more. Either Demela was genuinely trying to appeal to the team’s cultural interests—she had spent more time talking with Daniel than the rest of them, after all—or she was stiffing Sam on the colonel’s perceived value.

Sam truly didn’t care which. As far as she was concerned, whatever conceptions—and misconceptions—Demela had about them were something for the second contact diplomatic contingent to deal with.

She was still staring, openly bemused, at the four open chests when Demela gracefully stooped to open the fifth and final one.

“Your gear is here in the final chest, Colonel,” she told him. “I apologize that your clothing could not be returned. As is tradition, it was burned. But you may of course keep the robe in its place.”

“How gracious of you,” he mumbled in return.

Taking a deep breath through her nose, Sam slowly rose back to her feet. Internally, she was debating whether to refuse Demela’s offer or not. She’d spent enough time around Daniel to know that some cultures expected a refusal—or even several—before an offer could be accepted, no matter what that offer might be.

Trying to look like she was just weighing offense against compensation, she casually looked Daniel’s way. She could all but see the wheels turning in his head, but he did give her a very subtle nod of approval. Deciding to add a little more, just to sell things, Sam looked back at the colonel first. She tilted her head and studied him for a few seconds before running her gaze along the chests in front of them again. Then she raised her eyes to Demela’s.

“I accept your apology.”

“I do, too, if it matters,” the colonel added.

Demela turned to him with a gracious smile, but there was clear amusement in her eyes. “Of course it does. I apologize for taking you from your partner and placing you in such an undesirable situation.”

It was only because Sam knew the colonel so well that she noticed the way he momentarily tensed at the word ‘partner.’ Then, almost as if he was covering for it, he affected a slightly exaggerated put-upon expression and gave Demela a nod. “Apology accepted.”

All at once, Demela’s smile became wistful and a bit sad as she looked at him. “I had so hoped my time had come,” she said in a quiet voice, almost as if to herself.

Shaking her head as if to clear it, she then turned back to her throne. But Sam had seen the regret that had flashed through Demela’s eyes, and sympathy washed over her like a tidal wave. She was all too familiar with loneliness, and even though this particular case was—however unintentionally—self-inflicted, it was no less heartbreaking. Before she could stop herself, Sam spoke.

“You don’t have to be alone, you know.”

Demela turned back to Sam. “I do for now, at least,” she replied in a resigned tone. “There are no unmarried leaders on Emina at this time.”

Sam wondered whether murder had ever come into play in Emina’s past, when marriages were less amicable and Burrim had fewer qualms about using violent means to obtain partners. Pushing that thought aside, she gave Demela a measuring stare.

“There are many different kinds of leaders; you don’t have to marry another Burrim. I mean, if there can only be one Burrim per continent, that isn’t a sustainable marriage market.”

“There can only be one Burrim,” Demela said in a tone that brooked no argument.

“Okay, but there can still be many leaders. The Burrim of the past may have only considered each other to be leaders, viewing absolute power as the sole mark of leadership. But over time, other types of leaders have appeared.”

There was cautious curiosity in Demela’s eyes. “Like whom?”

“Anyone you delegate power to is a leader in their specific area, aren’t they? And what about your advisors? They would each be considered the leader in their particular field, right?” Inspiration struck, and Sam gestured in Agerrum’s direction. “Wouldn’t you consider Aggerum to be a leader in culture?”

Aggerum appeared both shocked and embarrassed to have been referenced in the discussion. He was staring resolutely at the far wall, but when Demela turned to look his way, his eyes shifted to her face. Sam was surprised when he blushed and quickly looked away again, and even more so when Demela reacted similarly. She got the impression that they felt more for each other than they were allowed to—at least in terms of official relationships; she wasn’t about to ask about casual ones.

And wasn’t that coincidental, she bitterly thought, all persons in the room considered.

Deciding she might as well push things a little bit more, Sam steeled herself and gestured to the colonel. “While Colonel O’Neill outranks me, we’re both still considered leaders in our own rights. He is our team’s overall leader, but I’m actually a higher leader than he is when it comes to science, since that’s my specialty.”

That wasn’t entirely accurate, at least in terms of how the military chain of command worked. But as far as deferring to expertise went, it was applicable. And it seemed to have gotten Sam’s point across: Demela looked intrigued by the idea. Even better, she looked hopeful.

“And no one considers your marriage to be less valid due to the disparity in your titles?” Demela asked.

Sam faltered at that, her Air Force brain short-circuiting momentarily over what it considered to be too many invalid inputs. She resolutely kept her gaze away from the colonel as she tried to relocate her train of thought.

Thankfully, Daniel stepped in right on time.

“No, we don’t,” he responded, giving Demela an emphatic nod. “That makes no difference to us.”

“They are perfectly suited,” Teal’c solemnly agreed. “The difference in their ranks is irrelevant.”

Sam would have been the one to double-take this time—and she definitely sensed the colonel twitch beside her—but Demela’s gaze had shifted from Teal’c back to her, and there was something in it that hadn’t been there before. Demela’s eyes moved to the colonel’s face for a moment before shifting back to Sam’s. Then a slow, warm smile spread across her face.

“Had I not been following the strictures of Emina law, you would have been the one abducted,” she confessed. “But we have no concept of ‘second in command,’ so the first was the only by our ways.”

Sam felt her face get warm and looked at the colonel from the corner of her eye to gauge his reaction to the revelation. Perhaps unsurprisingly, he looked even more annoyed than before, and she wondered how his ego was doing now.

“Maybe she did only want you for your rank, sir,” she muttered in an undertone, so that only he could hear, and was rewarded with a swift glare that had more than a hint of reprimand in it.

Meanwhile, Demela had turned to study Aggerum with what Sam thought was an assessing expression. Was she gauging her feelings for him now that she would allow herself to fully feel them? Debating how her people would react if she took him as her partner? Deciding whether the risk was worth not being alone?

By the hard smile that spread across Demena’s face and the determined glint that lit her eyes, Sam thought she knew the answer. Aggerum, for his part, had returned Demela’s stare with his own placid one, with no signs of discomfort this time. By the time Demela turned back to Sam and the colonel, he was smiling faintly, too.

“I would apologize again for what has happened,” Demela told them, her smile turning sly, “but it would no longer be the truth.”

Sam grinned at her. “No, I don’t think it would be.”

Shortly thereafter, Demela recalled the men who had brought in the chests and offered their services for carting them back to the Gate. Sam, still in spokesperson mode, had graciously accepted the help. At least for the first four chests; the colonel simply rescued his gear from the final one and left it behind.

After goodbyes were made, along with arrangements for a return to Emina in the near future—perhaps for a wedding—the team headed out, servants in tow. Once they left the palace, the colonel and Daniel veered off to collect the remaining gear from the team’s room, while Sam and Teal’c continued on to the Gate.

They had just finished getting the chests arranged on the MALP—it had to go back with them anyway, and Sam figured it could do the heaving lifting—when Daniel and the colonel rejoined them. The colonel had changed, and Sam was sure the gifted robe had not been shoved into his pack to take home with him, but was instead somewhere back in their vacated room. Probably unceremoniously thrown in a corner.

She shot him a knowing look that she knew was probably toying with being insubordinate, but she was going to get every last bit of enjoyment out of this mission that she could. With their track record, they’d probably all get tortured on the next one. Or stranded in space. Or infected with some alien version of smallpox or something. Amusing missions—especially ones where she wasn’t the source of entertainment—weren’t all that common, so she was going to savor the moment.

The colonel, however, clearly didn’t feel the same way. “Carter—” he began in a warning tone.

“You’re welcome, sir.”

He frowned at her in confusion. “What?”

“For saving you from a shotgun wedding, sir?” Sam reminded him. A surprising thought hit her, and she narrowed her eyes at him in suspicion. “Unless you were a willing participant, sir? I mean, I just assumed you needed rescuing, but I’m pretty sure you could have gotten away from the palace on your own if you wanted to. Why didn’t you?”

The colonel sighed. “I was trying to avoid a diplomatic incident, Carter,” he wearily replied. “We want these people as allies, and it wasn’t like they were threatening me with physical violence, was it? And I knew you’d come after me eventually. I figured I’d at least give you an opportunity for a rescue before I moved on to drastic measures.” He gave her a tense look out of the corner of his eye before adding in a grumble, “Thanks for that, by the way.”

“Any time, sir.”

Due to circumstances, the team was gating back a few hours earlier than their scheduled time, so Sam wasn’t surprised to find General Hammond waiting for them in the Gate room. They hadn’t sent through any indication of injuries or other concerns, but she still saw the shift in his eyes when he saw for himself that they were all okay.

“SG-1, welcome back. We weren’t expecting you until 1830.” It wasn’t phrased as a question, but the inquiry into their early return was inherent.

“Ah, there was a little hitch in proceedings, General,” the colonel airily replied. “Or, rather, an aborted hitching.”

“Meaning?”

“I had to crash the colonel’s wedding, sir,” Sam supplied. “And object.” That wasn’t 100% accurate; there hadn’t been an actual wedding in progress for Sam to interrupt, but it was the more colorful way to describe events, so she went with it.

“Oh?” The general’s eyebrows rose, but only fractionally. In the grand scheme of stories SG-1 had come home with, this one didn’t rank very high on the shock value scale. In fact, it didn’t even make it on the scale.

“Yes, sir, we—” Sam cut herself off as something occurred to her, and she turned to her left. “Daniel, does my objection count as a marriage on Emina?”

Daniel looked a bit surprised by the question, but after a moment’s consideration he nodded. “Uh, yes. I would say so.”

Sam closed her eyes for a second as she sighed, and could swear she heard the colonel do the same on her right. She ignored him, though, focusing back to the general, who she gave an apologetic half smile. “We’re going to need the form again, sir.”

Movement in the control room above them drew her attention, and she frowned as she noted that there were far more people crowed in it than was necessary for general operations. In fact, she was positive at least half of them had no business being in the control room at all. Various clusters of them had their heads bowed together, and she would swear that she saw money changing hands.

The general, for his part, looked nonplussed by the news. “I’ll see to it,” he blandly replied. “Can I assume from the state of your return that the situation was at least resolved amicably?”

“Yes, sir,” the colonel assured him, almost too enthusiastically, Sam thought. He clapped Sam on the shoulder. “Carter claimed me back, got a bunch of valuables for her troubles, and even did a bit of matchmaking.”

“Valuables?”

“Kind of a reverse dowry,” Daniel offered, smirking when the colonel glared in his direction. “We now know exactly how much Jack would be worth on the Emina black market.”

“It included some naquadah, sir,” Sam advised the general.

“I would say that alone indicates I’m worth quite a lot,” the colonel said, giving Daniel a haughty look.

“Considering Sam was Demela’s preference, we could’ve gotten more for her,” Daniel casually shot back.

“I think we’ll do just fine with the normal trade methods, sir,” Sam said, aiming the reprimand in her tone at her teammates and the closing honorific at the general.

The general leveled his own unamused look at the colonel and Daniel before giving Sam a nod. “I look forward to hearing about what will be on offer,” he said, before turning his gaze on the colonel again. “As well as exactly what happened during your mission.”

Sam pressed her lips together at the hint of disapproval in the general’s voice. Nothing that had happened on Emina was the colonel’s fault, really. But it wasn’t uncommon for his flippancy about events to lead the general to treat him like it was. She supposed that was another burden of leadership, or at least the colonel’s style of it.

“SG-7 has a briefing at 1330, so we’ll debrief at 1400. Dismissed.”

As the general turned to exit the Gate room, Sam saw the colonel glance up at the control room. He went still as he caught sight of the spectators there, his eyes narrowing dangerously. Sam bit back a smile as those who had no reason to be in the room began scattering. Some had started with the general’s departure, while others—having been targeted by the colonel’s glare—immediately turned tail and fled.

Sam sighed and headed for the Gate room door herself. “We might have just blown up the betting pool,” she muttered to no one in particular.

“Which one?” Daniel asked from behind her.

Sam glanced over her shoulder. “The off-world marriage one? Though I wouldn’t be surprised if a new one got started I don’t know about.”

“Nope,” the colonel said from beside her. “Marriage one’s still going strong. And we are definitely winning this month’s round.”

“What are you talking about?” Daniel asked. “We aren’t allowed to play. Not since that quadruple wedding on P53-Y29.”

“I’ve got a proxy,” the colonel advised, lowering his voice conspiratorially.

“That is cheating, O’Neill,” Teal’c intoned.

“It’s Siler, and he owes me,” the colonel retorted with some feeling.

“For what?” Sam asked, wondering what on Earth the colonel could have on Siler to make him risk being banned from any and all base gambling.

“He knows what he did,” the colonel muttered with what Sam thought was melodramatic darkness. Then he gave a bit of a shrug, his expression turning playful. “At any rate, dinner’s on me tonight. What are we feeling? Chinese? Italian? Steaks?” He nudged Sam with his elbow as they rounded the corner that led to the armory. “We should have a wedding dinner, after all, Carter.”

“We didn’t actually get married, sir.”

He gave her a disappointed frown. “You spread that around, Carter, and all bets are off. I mean literally: I won’t win the pool. Don’t you want me to pay for dinner?”

“We could do both Italian and steaks,” Teal’c suggested.

Daniel looked intrigued. “Fiorentina’s?”

“Indeed.”

“Works for me.” Sam met the colonel’s eyes again. “Sir?”

“Steaks and Italian it is. I expect all of you to be by the Level 20 elevator at 1845 on the dot.”

Daniel and Teal’c finished returning their weapons before Sam and the colonel, and headed off together for the post-mission physicals. As Sam finished divesting herself of her gear, she pondered an idea that had floated into her mind on the way to the armory. The last of her weapons checked back in, she followed the colonel back into the hallway.

Giving him a sideways glance, she asked, as neutrally as she could, “You didn’t let yourself get taken by Demela just to win the pool, did you, sir?”

The colonel cut her a look, but kept his focus on the hallway in front of them. “No, I didn’t, Carter. I was drugged, remember?”

“Yeah, but—”

“And how could I have known that would happen?”

And there was the kink in what she’d been thinking. “You couldn’t have, of course. Sorry, sir.”

There were a few seconds of silence, before he added, “But you were right. I could have left the palace.”

Sam was nodding before she even registered his words. But once she did, her stride faltered as she looked over at him in surprise. He looked ever so slightly smug, and she wondered just exactly what he had known about the whole situation before the rest of the team had shown up in Demela’s chamber. Sam hadn’t imagined the surprise he’d shown when she’d “claimed” him, so he couldn’t have known that particular marriage was on the table. Unless he’d expected to actually have to marry Demela? For some reason she doubted that was the case, but she supposed a marriage either way still counted for the pool.

“But you didn’t,” she said, a question in her tone.

“I wanted a nice dinner I didn’t have to pay for, and I found a way to get it.” The faintest of smirks drifted across his face as he turned to her. “I’m sure you know all about that, don’t you, Carter?”

For a second, Sam didn’t understand what he was talking about. Then she remembered when she’d been the one rigging the pool for her own gains. Despite the fact that she had no qualms about what she’d done—and still believed she’d earned it, anyway—she couldn’t help but look away from him guiltily.

“Yes, sir.”

“We’ll keep it between us,” the colonel said with clear amusement.

“Of course, sir.” They were approaching the infirmary now, and Sam gave him a look from the corner of her eye. “But I want a really nice bottle of wine at dinner.”

In anything, he looked even more amused by the thinly veiled demand, and perhaps a bit proud, too. “I think I can manage that.”

“And if Daniel gets drunk off of it, you’re dealing with him.”

“Now that might be a demand too far, Carter.”

“Fresher sins, sir,” Sam nonchalantly reminded him.

He eyed her for a second before sighing deeply. “I guess I should just be glad you aren’t claiming alimony.”

That reference completely took her by surprise, and Sam gaped at him for a second before she burst into giggles. “Maybe after General Hammond signs off on the form, sir.”

The colonel nodded resignedly, before cutting her a mock-worried frown. “Just don’t take my telescope, Carter.”

Sam schooled her features into matching mock-solemnity. “I would never, sir.”

The colonel paused just outside the infirmary doors, and Sam reflexively stopped, too, facing him. He studied her with a momentarily serious expression, eyes dark and filled with that same something that had been in them in Demela’s chamber, the something Sam had chosen not to try to identify. She felt her stomach flip over once, slowly. Then the corner of the colonel’s mouth quirked up in a teasing smile and he gestured her ahead of him through the door.

“See? That’s why I’d marry you again, Carter.”

She rolled her eyes, but she was smiling as she entered the infirmary. “You probably will, sir.”