Author: Beth
Disclaimer: Characters herein do not belong to the author. No money is being made from this story.
Rating: Hard R
Recipient: Hope
Pairing: Jadzia Dax (Star Trek: Deep Space 9)/Samantha Carter (Stargate: SG1)
Summary: Carter steps into one wormhole and exits through another.
A/N: Written for the Multiverse2004 ficathon. Apologies to Professor Tolkien, from whom I nicked the title and thanks be to Laura for the partial beta, and to the friends I kicked out of my house repeatedly in an attempt to finish the monstrous thing.
"Just once I'd like to have a mission where nothing goes wrong at all," Jack O'Neill remarked idly, as the chevrons on the gate locked.
Sam's brow creased. "Colonel, we have all kinds of missions where nothing goes wrong at all. Our last mission to PX-1220 went like clockwork, for example."
Jack grinned at her, exasperatingly. "Then I guess I'm a lucky guy. Getting my wishes so often."
Daniel Jackson snorted. "What I don't understand, if you're such a lucky guy, Jack, is "
He was cut off as they all stepped through the gate. She trusted she'd hear the end of whatever inordinately witty sentence he was offering when they got to the other side, on the sunny surface of what Jack had referred to at the mission briefing as "PB-and-J," PB-2004. However, as the seconds stretched, Sam began to wonder if she'd ever reach the other side.
Five seconds.
Eight.
Ten.
Eleven ...?
She was fully prepared for the usual slight nauseated feeling that accompanied the unsettling wormhole passage, as usual, but not for the gut-wrenching, sideways twisting feeling and bright flash of pure white that accompanied the twelfth second.
"It is corporeal," said Daniel Jackson. They were suddenly in his study, surrounded by open books. He was holding a long piece of chalk in his hand.
At least, it looked like Daniel Jackson and it was using his voice; but he watched her with a strange blankness of expression that she didn't recall ever seeing there before.
"A linear entity," said Teal'c.
"It is not the Sisko," said Orlin, watching her with that same peculiar detached expression. She was in her living room.
She spun around. "What's happening? Orlin? I ..." She'd seen him die, but then again, she knew he'd gone back to his noncorporeal beginnings. Was he attempting to communicate with her? But why were Teal'c and Daniel Jackson acting strange? Where was Colonel O'Neill?
"It has much to learn," Jack O'Neill said gravely, looking up at her from his telescope. They were on his roof.
"It will not understand," Daniel said.
"Wait. What's the Sisko? Who ..." She spun around, seeming to shift through different phases in her life. No, she thought. Definitely not Orlin. "Who *are* you?"
"It is an intruder," said McKay, sitting on his bunk in the infirmary.
"It does not belong here," said Orlin.
"End its existence," said Teal'c.
"Wait! You can't do that!" Sam exclaimed, the edge of panic beginning to make itself known.
Teal'c stared at her, suddenly much more ominous. "Aggressive," he rumbled. "Adversarial."
"Give it to the Sisko," said Janet Frasier, sitting cross-legged in a rowboat.
"The Sisko will understand," said McKay.
"What's the Sisko?" Sam asked, feeling more helpless than she ever had in her life.
The white light flashed, and Sam felt herself falling.
Samantha feels as though she has been running forever.
Something is pursuing her, but she does not let it get close enough to see what it is.
She runs through fields of high grass, whipping at her bare calves. (She is wearing shorts. Not naked. It isn't one of those dreams.)
For a moment she's certain it is a dream, that nothing waking could contain the surreality of it. But then it can't be a dream, because she can feel the grass whipping her legs, prickling her, making her bleed.
She can see a figure up ahead, at the threshold where the grass ends the woods begin. A tall figure, the gleam of sunlight reflecting against his bald head. There is a glint of gold in his forehead.
Teal'c.
She tries to cry his name. The words are whipped from her mouth by the wind, by the breathlessness of her flight, but he turns to look at her just the same.
He offers her his hand, a rare smile lighting his face.
She runs but she cannot reach him.
"Teal'c!" she tries to cry out, but she can't make her mouth form the word.
The smile fades, but his hand is still out-stretched.
She can't reach him.
Teal'c frowns. He withdraws his hand.
No! Sam tries to shout at him to wait, but he does not hear her, it is as though she has no voice at all. He turns and walks away from her, vanishing into the trees.
Teal'c is gone.
Sam cannot reach the threshold of the trees. They seem to get no nearer.
Weariness pounds through her, fighting through the draining adrenaline. She falls to her knees, gasping painfully, tears stinging her eyes. The end is coming.
Warm hands, a light touch on her body: she is scooped up, and carried to the safety of the trees. She tries to wriggle in his grasp, to see the face of her rescuer.
"Stay still. You'll be all right."
The voice is soft, gentle. Unfamiliar. She is certain she has never heard it before.
They pass through into the forest. He sets her down against the trunk of a tree and squats beside her, smiling.
He is bald, like Teal'c, and dark-skinned, with a black goatee ... dressed in a neat suit. There is a fountain pen tucked into his front pocket, and sunlight glints off the clear glasses. He smiles at her startling white teeth, warmth in his dark eyes.
"Hi. I'm Benny Russell."
She nods, still breathing too hard to speak. She smiles at him, trying to communicate her gratitude for his saving her life.
He reaches over and grasps her hand tightly in his own.
Benny Russell says, "There is a task for you to do."
Sam Carter opened her eyes. When she'd blinked the blur out of them, she saw a man's face: beaming, hopeful, brown-skinned, not unhandsome, an almost puppyish look in her eyes. Before she was fully coherent, she thought, Oh, no, not another one ...
"Ah, good, you're awake," he said. English accent, hmm. "How do you feel?"
"Um," Sam said, "I'm fine, I think. My brain feels a little ... fuzzy."
"Perfectly normal, you're recovering from a mild concussion," the man said. So he was a doctor?
"Where am I?" Sam asked.
"You're in my infirmary. For the moment, that's all you really need to know," he said.
Sam cracked a smile. "Am I in good hands, Doctor?" she asked.
"I should hope so," he replied. He loped over to some strange screens and tapped them in a few different places. They made a variety of beeping noises. Some kind of alien monitoring equipment, no doubt. At least she'd made it through the Stargate. She craned her neck to glance around the infirmary, but she saw no one occupying any other bunks near her.
Right. So she was either alone here wherever here was or she'd managed to be the only one injured. It had certainly been unlike any gate-crossing she'd ever experienced before.
"Hmmm," said the doctor, frowning up at his equipment.
"Am I going to make it?" she asked wryly.
"What? Oh." He smiled at her. "Yes, of course. Sorry." He looked back up at his instrument. "Have you recently carried a Trill symbiont, by any chance?"
"A what symbiont?" Sam blinked. "No." She couldn't call Jolinar "recent," and she had no idea what a Trill was ... some new player, perhaps?
"Mmm. That answers that question," he said, still frowning. He tapped out a complicated-looking sequence on his machine. He tapped a small, metallic object pinned to the front of his tunic. "Bashir to Dax."
"Dax here," a female voice spoke tinnily from the region of the metal he'd tapped. Some kind of communications device, obviously.
"Your, ah, acquisition is awake," the doctor said.
"Oh, good! How is she?" Dax asked.
"She's in remarkably good health," he answered. "There are still a few more tests I'd like to run before I hand her over to you, though."
"If she's in good health, what tests can you possibly need?"
"Mmm, she has unusual levels of isoboramine in her system, for a human. She says she hasn't recently carried a Trill symbiont, so I can't imagine where they're from. I'd like to see if I can identify the source," he replied.
"Isoboramine," the female voice repeated in a doubtful tone. "Julian, maybe I should have a look?"
"I am fast becoming an expert on Trill physiology," he said in a wry tone. "But you're welcome to, if you'd like."
Sam wondered if she should tell them about Jolinar. She wasn't sure it was a good idea, volunteering too much information at once; although if this Julian was going to keep her locked up in an infirmary while he attempted to identify the source of her genetic Tok'ra marker (because if it was something unusual in her body related to the possession of a symbiont, she figured that was the source), it might be expedient to let him know.
He tapped a few more controls on his instrument, then looked up at her with a sudden smile. "I'm sorry about that," he said. "I just want to make certain I can provide you with a clean bill of health."
Sam nodded. "Sure," she said. "Um ... what was it you said to her, about isoboramine ...?"
His eyebrows lifted. "Mm, well. Isoboramine is what regulates the connection between host and symbiont in a joined Trill," he said. "But humans can carry symbionts for a short time, in between transferring them from one Trill host to the next, and your levels suggest ..."
"What's a Trill?" she asked.
He stared at her for a moment. "Ah, I expect I'd better let Dax explain that one to you when she gets here."
"Explain what?" inquired the female voice from the communications device. Sam craned her neck to identify the source.
The speaker was a tall, very attractive woman with long brown hair pulled back in a ponytail. There was a glint of mirthful good humor in her bright blue eyes, and a pattern of ... tattoos? ... down either side of her face, disappearing into the fabric of her clothing, which was quite similar to the outfit Julian wore. Hmm. Some kind of uniform?
"What's a Trill?" Sam asked again.
The tall woman's face broke into a grin. "I am," she said. "Hi. I'm Lieutenant Commander Jadzia Dax." She crossed the infirmary to clasp Sam's hand in a handshake. "You're looking much better than when I first saw you."
"Major Samantha Carter," Sam said, pulling herself into a sitting position.
"Major, huh?" Jadzia sat down on the edge of the bed, looking up at Julian. "Interesting. So Julian what's this about elevated isoboramine levels?"
"See for yourself," Julian invited, indicating the screens he'd been poking at.
"And she's never carried a symbiont?" Jadzia asked.
"Not a Trill one," Sam said. "But I was host to a Tok'ra, Jolinar, for awhile until she died."
Julian blinked. "Why didn't you say so before?"
"I didn't realize it was relevant," Sam lied.
"I've never heard of the Tok'ra," Jadzia said, frowning slightly. "I mean, I know we aren't the only joined species in the universe, but I've never run across Tok'ra before. And they were able to join with you, a human?"
"Oh yes, I was a compatible host," Sam said. "So was is my father. He's actually host to a symbiont of his own now."
"Really!" Jadzia said, looking fascinated. "So the Tok'ra are just ... symbionts, not a true joined species but a species of symbionts without hosts, who seek out hosts from amidst other races?"
"Um," Sam said, and decided not to get into the existence of the Go'auld right now. "Yes."
"Fascinating!" Jadzia said. "And the host survives when the symbiont dies?"
" ... sometimes," Sam said. "Usually I think it's the other way around. Symbionts are ... long-lived."
Jadzia nodded. "Of course," she said. "That's the case with Trill, too. Symbionts are much longer-lived than hosts. I've got eight lifetimes' worth of memories to prove it."
"Really?" Sam said, her eyes widening. "Eight lifetimes?"
Jadzia grinned. "Oh, yes," she said.
"Well," Julian interrupted.
They both turned to look at him.
"As fascinating as this comparative host talk is," he said delicately, "I'm going to guess that her experience as a host, however briefly, for this other symbiotic species is the source of her elevated isoboramine levels ... just a moment." Julian looked puzzled. "You'd never heard of Trill?"
"Er," Sam said. "No?" She suddenly felt as though this was the wrong answer.
"What, never?" Jadzia looked startled.
"No I'm pretty sure I haven't heard of Trill," Sam said. "Is that ... what you call this planet?" PB and J, she thought.
Jadzia and Julian exchanged glances.
"Major," Julian said heavily, "I'm ... afraid that you're not on a planet at all."
Sam's brow creased. "How can that be possible? Unless ..." There had been incidents of gates that had been moved to ships, but ... the probe they'd sent through the gate first had indicated clear skies and sunny weather on a definite planetary surface. The images had shown mountains in the distance. Of course, it wasn't the first time the probes had been tricked she thought ruefully of Urgo but if that were the case ... "Are we on a ship?"
"On a space station," Julian said. "Orbiting a planet called Bajor'."
"Although when you first appeared, it was onto a small ship, the Rio Grande," said Jadzia.
"The Rio Grande?" Sam blinked. "That's a river on Earth."
"It ... yes, it is," Julian said. "Deep Space 9's runabouts tend to be named after Earth rivers."
Jadzia nodded. "The Rio Grande, the Orinoco, the Ganges ... are you from Earth?"
"Yes!" Sam exclaimed. She looked at both of them, bewildered. "Are you from ... from Bajor?"
"No," Jadzia said, looking puzzled. "Trill." She tapped the spots on her face. "The spots usually give it away, but I guess if you've never heard of Trill before ..."
"I'm from Earth, too," Julian said, frowning. He looked at Sam, and then at Jadzia. "Never heard of Trill, never heard of Bajor, but she's from Earth ... where do you live on Earth?"
"Montana," Samantha said, "at the moment."
"Montana," Julian repeated. "Montana ... that's in North America."
She nodded.
"Not exactly living under a rock," Jadzia said. "Major. Have you heard of the United Federation of Planets?"
Sam shook her head. "I don't think so," she said.
Julian stared. "You'd know if you had," he assured her.
Jadzia stood up and clasped her hands neatly behind her back, pacing the infirmary. "Julian, I picked her up in the wormhole. But Benjamin says the wormhole aliens exist outside linear time. Do you think ...?"
Julian shook his head. "That was one of the first tests I ran," he said. "There aren't any unusual chroniton readings."
Jadzia pursed her lips. "But if the wormhole exists outside of our space-time reality which would make a certain amount of sense, given its accessibility to alternate dimensions, as you and Kira figured out a few years ago "
"Strictly by accident," Julian murmured.
"Yes, but if it exists outside of linear time the way the aliens that live in it do, why would there be unusual chroniton readings on someone they shunted it our time? It's not like she actually went forward in time," Jadzia said. "She was just ... cut out of one time and pasted into another."
"I don't think I understand why that wouldn't alter her chroniton readings," Julian said.
"It's only a working theory. D'you think we should contact the Bureau of Temporal Investigations on this?" Jadzia asked, raising her eyebrows at him. Something about her expression suggested that she knew his reply would be in the negative.
"Oh, please, no. They're still up in arms about that incident with the Bell Riots from a year and a half ago," Julian said, shuddering. "Jadzia wait a moment."
Jadzia looked at him, her face expectant. "What?"
"If she's from far enough in the past not to know about the Federation, why was she expecting to be on another planet?" Julian asked.
They both looked at her.
Sam suddenly no longer felt as though she were being talked around, and it was not a pleasant sensation. "I, um," she said. She floundered. Was she really in the future as well as a long way from Earth? There hadn't been any solar flares. But if they were on a space station a long way from Earth, they had to know what the Stargates were. There was no way they would still be classified information if Earth had gone interstellar and federated with a lot of other planets. "I went through the Earth's Stargate," she said. "With the rest of my team." The blank looks on their faces made her heart sink. "Did the others not make it through?"
Jadzia shook her head sadly. "No ... you were the only one that materialized on the runabout," she said.
Sam closed her eyes.
"I'm sorry, Major," Julian said softly.
Sam opened her eyes and cleared her throat. "Anyway," she managed. "It's ... nearing the 21st Century ... the Stargate program is highly classified."
"It must still be," Julian said. "I've never heard of it."
Sam blinked. "What?" she said.
"What's a Stargate?" Jadzia asked.
"It's a device, for ... for opening wormholes between two points," Samantha said.
"Opening stable wormholes?" Jadzia said.
"Not so stable," Sam said. "They hold their integrity for a little while, though. And ... we know they can be adversely affected by solar flare activity in their proximity ... we didn't invent the technology, we just discovered it. The Ancients or someone scattered the Stargates throughout the galaxy ..."
"Hmm," Julian said. "I wonder if the wormhole they opened with their ... gate device somehow managed to connect with the wormhole to the Gamma Quadrant rather than with another gate?"
"Or maybe there's a Stargate somewhere in the wormhole," Jadzia countered.
"The images the probe gave us just looked like a planet," Samantha said doubtfully. "Sunny ... it looked nice."
Jadzia got a faraway look in her eyes. "Sunny, warm ... almost like a garden?" she asked.
"That's ... I could see mountains in the distance. Colonel O'Neill said it reminded him of Oregon," Sam said.
"I think," Jadzia said, "that when Julian lets you out of the Infirmary you should talk with Captain Sisko."
The place was strange, right down to the architecture. Anthropology was definitely Daniel's specialty and not hers, but she could tell that there was something off about the way everything was designed. This place had not been designed for humans, at least, not any humans that she had ever run across. She glanced across the lift at Jadzia, who stood in a pose of easy relaxation.
"Eight lifetimes," Sam said. "That must give you a unique perspective."
Jadzia tilted her head to one side, an impish look glinting in her bright blue eyes. "Hmm, you could say that," she said. "Of course, I've only been Jadzia Dax for so long. My previous hosts are the source of a variety of perspectives."
"And ... are you usually female?" asked Sam.
Jadzia shook her head. "My previous three hosts were male, actually," she said.
"Doesn't that get confusing?"
"Oh, no, not really," Jadzia said, shrugging. "This is our stop."
They got curious looks from just about everyone in the room, which was on several levels, but no shocked stares or anything. There were plenty of humans here, for all that it hadn't been designed for them; she suspected that the people with strange crinkles at the bridge of their nose were, if not aliens, at least a genetic mutation of humanity. She was certain about the large dark man with the ridged forehead the only one who barely glanced up at them as they crossed the room.
"Right here," Jadzia said.
They entered the elevated room at the center.
Sam's eyes widened when she saw the man sitting behind the desk with fingers interlaced before him. Bald head, dark skin, goatee: he wore the same type of uniform as Jadzia and Julian, although his was highlighted in dark red rather than blue-green. The glasses were missing. But the resemblance was otherwise shocking.
"Benny," she said.
Jadzia looked sharply at her, surprise reflecting on her face.
The man behind the desk blinked his confusion. "I ... yes," he said. "I'm Captain Benjamin Sisko." He stood up, presenting an imposing figure in his bewilderment. "Have we met?"
"No," Sam said quickly. "At least ... I don't think so." This man is what they whoever they are called "the Sisko". "I'm Major Samantha Carter, sir. United States Air Force."
Sisko's brows shot up. "Dax?"
Jadzia shrugged. "I don't know either, sir. She seems to be from the twentieth or early twenty-first century, on Earth. But she did materialize in the Rio Grande while we were crossing the wormhole, so possibly she's actually a visitor from the Celestial Temple." A tiny smirk curved her lips.
Sisko's expression went flat. "Possibly," he said. His dark eyes turned expectantly to Sam. "What were you doing in the wormhole?"
Sam shook her head. "I'm not sure, Captain. The only hypothesis I have is that there's a Stargate somewhere in your ... stable wormhole." So where are Colonel O'Neill and the others? Her brain insisted on finding out. She had to swallow before she could continue. "Otherwise, this goes against everything I've studied about wormhole physics. Stability is an issue, yes, but they stay connected to the destination that they were designed to connect to. Solar flares can cause temporal dislocation, but never ... physical dislocation. And we would have known about solar flares." She fought back an upsurge of frustration.
"If they stay connected to the correct destination," Jadzia said, "you must consider the possibility that this is the correct destination."
Sam nodded. "Exactly. Especially since I don't have any other working theories right now. Except ..." She hesitated.
"Except?" Jadzia prompted.
Sam shook her head. "I had this ... I guess it must have been a dream. It felt more real than any dream I've ever had," she said. It felt as though she were confiding something deeply personal. "But there were people in it. People I know, but ... they weren't the people they were supposed to be."
"The Prophets spoke to you," Sisko informed her in a soft voice.
"They told me your name," Sam said. "They said they were going to give me to the Sisko."
Sisko looked puzzled and rubbed at his temples. "Give you to me?" he said.
"Benjamin," Jadzia said. "I think we should take her back through the wormhole. If she knows what she's looking for, we might be able to find the Stargate she says she came through and get her home."
He looked at her. "Home," he repeated. "In time as well as space." He ran his fingers lightly over his beard. He nodded. "I can spare you a runabout first thing in the morning, Old Man."
Jadzia pouted. "What? Why not now?"
His mouth quirked. "I'm afraid you aren't the only officer with duties to attend to that involve leaving the Station," he said. "We'll assign Major Carter to some guest quarters in the habitat ring."
Jadzia nodded. "All right."
"We should probably try to keep timeline contamination to a minimum," Sisko added.
Jadzia grimaced. "I think it's too late for that, Captain," she said. "Why don't the Prophets warn you when they're going to drop twentieth-century people into our hands?"
"Would you like me to write them a note?" Sisko asked blandly.
"Only if you think it would help," Jadzia said. "What do you want me to do, lock her up? She's already seen plenty."
"I suppose," Sisko said, sighing, "you're right. She'll just have to ... be discreet, upon her return."
"I can do that," Sam said. "One more piece of classified information, Captain ... it's not going to make that much of a difference."
He smiled. There was something intimidating about the expression. "See that it doesn't," he said.
"The bed's probably not exactly what you're used to," Jadzia said as they entered the guest quarters.
She was right; it was not. Sam ran her hands over the mattress uncertainly.
"I'm sure it will be fine," Sam lied politely.
Jadzia nodded, something wry quirking her lips. She sat down at one of the chairs. "Are you a scientist?"
Sam blinked, startled. "Yes, actually I've got my P.H.D in astrophysics, and I'm ... pretty much the working expert on wormhole physics in the Stargate project ..." She looked rueful. "Just kind of by default. It's highly classified work, so there's not that many experts that can be assigned to it."
Jadzia nodded understanding. "I know all about being a military scientist working on classified information," she said. "Half of Tobin's work was classified ... and as Jadzia I've had to do some work along those lines, too." She made a face. "It's hard to keep your mouth shut about a breakthrough you can't share with a colleague who could really use it, just because the experiment you used to find the information that could help is classified too top secret for them to hear about."
Sam nodded. "You just have to try to drop little hints, you know, steer the conversation towards the assumption they'd make if they had your information ..."
Jadzia grinned. "Which doesn't take into account the possibility that you might be wrong," she said.
They both laughed, acknowledging the possibility.
"So ... Jadzia's a scientist," Sam said.
"I am," Jadzia said, in a tone of gentle correction. "I was a scientist before I was joined with Dax. On my own merits, before I got entangled with the Symbiosis Commission." She smiled. "Premier Distinctions in exobiology, zoology, astrophysics and exoarchaeology. Starfleet doesn't like its Chief Science Officers to be under-prepared, academically speaking ..."
Sam, for a bare instant, felt as though she were out of her league; but no, it was just that her own scientific knowledge was more specialized than Jadzia's. "That's one hell of a diversified scientific background," she said, not without envy.
Jadzia grinned again. "It sure is," she said. "Anything I ever did was by plunging in head-first, science as much as martial arts or fine dining. Too bad you have to go back to your own time and place, Benjamin cooks a mean jambalaya." She looked speculatively at Sam. "Are you hungry?"
"Bashir to Dax," came Julian's voice out of her little metal communications device.
She rolled her eyes. "Dax here, what is it, Julian?"
"I just thought I'd let you know that I finished my analysis of the isoboramine sample that I took from Major Carter," he said. "You might want to come down here."
Jadzia looked puzzled. "I'm on my way." She glanced at Sam. "Looks like something's come up, Major ... make yourself comfortable. The replicator has an extensive menu, I'm sure you'll find something to eat."
Jadzia hurried off, leaving Sam alone in the room.
Sam was getting hungry. She wondered at that, alone and displaced across centuries and light years and yet the bodily functions were still as insistent as ever. She walked over to the machine that Jadzia had vaguely indicated was a replicator. She suspected that this was a machine designed to replicate food from something, she didn't know what rather than your actual mechanical bug creature. There didn't seem to be a screen, or a recognizable input, and although there was text in several languages, she spoke none of them. She poked one of the bars of text. It highlighted. She poked it again.
"Unable to comply," said a not-unpleasant female voice.
Sam frowned. She poked the bar of text beneath it.
"Unable to comply."
She poked the third.
Nothing happened.
She poked it again.
"Operations," said a grumpy-sounding, Irish-accented voice. "Chief O'Brien here. What do you need?"
"Oh," Sam said. "I wasn't ... I'm sorry to bother you, Chief. I can't get my replicator to work."
"What's wrong with it?" asked the Chief, in a tone that sounded almost suspicious.
"It ... seems to be stuck," Sam said. How to explain to the station's resident tech support that she didn't even know how to begin to operate basic technology that they all seemed to take for granted?
"All right, I'll be down there in fifteen minutes," said Chief O'Brien. "O'Brien out."
Sam sat down at the provided table and thought. What she really wanted to do, apart from going home and finding her friends, if they weren't dead, as she didn't want them to be, was to find out as much as she could, even though she knew she probably shouldn't. Knowing as little as possible about the future, that was how you were supposed to go about getting stuck in it. But judging from what Jadzia and the doctor had said when she awoke in the Infirmary ... this wasn't necessarily the future of Earth as she knew it. She knew quantum theory well enough to know that there were a lot of alternate consequences to actions that went on in different realities, depending on as little as the beat of a butterfly's wing or the lifespan of a common ant.
Not that she'd know how to access their information libraries around here even if she were to succumb to the temptation. She wondered if Jadzia would be coming back.
The door made an odd pinging noise that Sam suspected was a chime. "Come in," she said.
"Hello. Your replicator's not working properly?" Chief O'Brien said. He looked tired, but like he would be friendly under other circumstances. His hair was curly.
She smiled at him, sheepishly. "I'm afraid I don't actually know how to operate it. Lieutenant Dax got called away before she could instruct me ..."
He frowned, puzzled. "You ... don't know how to operate a food replicator?" he said. "Well hang on. Let me check it." He walked to the replicator and said, "Coffee, Jamaican blend ... double-strong, double-sweet." A dark green mug materialized in the replicator's slot, and he picked it up to take a long swig. "Seems okay," he said. "Just let it know what you want and it should do the rest." He gave her a rueful smile. "Sometimes kicking it helps."
Sam felt suddenly at a loss. "Is there a menu?" she said.
He chuckled. "Major Carter, isn't it?"
She looked at him, startled. "How did you guess?"
"Julian said something," he said vaguely. "Jabbering on about how there was nothing wrong with your chroniton readings, so unusual for a temporal dislocation victim. Something paranoid about the universe ganging up on him." He rolled his eyes.
"I don't mean to cause trouble," Sam said, feeling awkward. "It just seems to happen that way."
"Don't worry about it," Chief O'Brien advised sagely. "Julian's nattering because he's worried about Temporal Investigations breathing down his neck. But they'd probably go after Dax, not him, for bringing you aboard in the first place ... and she's calm as can be." He glanced at the replicator and shook his head. "Tell you what, Major," he said. "Why don't you come over for dinner?"
Sam blinked at him. "Really?"
"Oh, sure. Keiko won't mind an extra mouth, and there's no need for you to eat alone in your quarters just because Julian can't fasten his shoes without Dax looking over his shoulder," Chief O'Brien said amicably.
Sam smiled her delight. "Thank you, Chief."
"Call me Miles," said Chief O'Brien.
Dinner was excellent. Mrs. O'Brien seemed to like to keep her home traditional, so although the food was replicated there was still some preparatory work for her. Molly was one of the more adorable children Sam could remember seeing.
When the supper dishes had been cleared away, Mrs. O'Brien replicated some chocolate silk pie with whipped cream and the conversation turned away from small talk and politeness about the excellence of the food and company and what Miles had done at work that day.
"So, Samantha," Keiko said. "What's it like for you on Earth?"
Sam shrugged her shoulders. "Busy," she said. "My career is very important to me. I don't actually spend that much time at home, on Earth ... generally I'm out on a mission or I'm in my office at the compound."
Miles nodded. "I know how that can be. The job's important."
Keiko looked studiously at her pie.
Sam wondered if she'd stumbled into a wasps' nest by accident. She cleared her throat. "Miles," she said. "How long has Earth had faster-than-light flight?" She almost said, in this timeline?
"Since twen ... after the ... I don't think I can actually answer that question," Miles said.
Sam grinned a little. "Protecting the timeline?" she said.
"There's some things you can't avoid finding out about," Miles said, "such as the existence of replicators and the fact that we do have faster-than-light travel, and that there's a wormhole and a Federation and so on, but I think giving you specific historical details would result in Temporal Investigations serving me my own head on a platter."
"I keep hearing about Temporal Investigations," Sam said. "Sounds like a souped-up CIA."
Miles tilted his head. "CIA?"
"Central Intelligence Agency," Sam said. "You don't have a CIA?"
"Not as such," Miles said. "Although ... hmm. Sounds familiar. I'll bet I've run across it in one of Julian's holosuite programs."
Keiko made a reasonably tolerant moue. "Probably," she said.
"Basically the Bureau of Temporal Investigations exists to make miserable the lives of those who would futz around with the linear nature of time. We've run afoul of them once or twice. Time travel can happen by accident when you're working with warp-fields ... and apparently with the wormhole aliens." Miles looked wry.
Sam nodded. "We've had the occasional temporal dislocation affect in dealing with the Stargate," she said. "Wormholes don't necessarily confine themselves to the physical component of space. Sometimes they cut through time as well, and there's no real reason for them not to, depending on what school of physics you belong to."
"Wormholes can be tricky. As far as we know the Gamma Quadrant wormhole out there," and he jerked his thumb vaguely at the wall nearest the wormhole, "is the only stable wormhole we've ever found."
"Well, temporary stable wormholes are what the Stargates create. They don't need to last long, though, that's not their function," said Sam.
"Temporary stable wormholes," Miles breathed. "My God, that would be useful. How does the Stargate work?"
"Well ..." Sam shook her head. "They were designed by the Ancients and scattered throughout the galaxy as a communications and transportation network, they're naqudah-powered ... I'm afraid I couldn't give you any design schematics or anything."
"Naquidah?" Miles frowned. "What's that?"
Sam nodded and sketched a diagram of it in its atomic form on a napkin with one of Molly's crayons.
"Oh!" Miles stared at it. "Dilithium. Sure, our warp technology is based on a similar principal."
Sam stared at him. "You have naquidah?" she said. "You power your ships with it?"
"Well, we don't keep it in its liquid form," Miles said, frowning down at the napkin. "Crystalline."
"You've developed a way to tap it in its crystal form?" Sam asked, growing excited. The possibilities seemed to be opening up in her brain. It would probably be even easier to transport, and much less volatile ...
"Dilithium was one of the most lucrative discoveries of the twenty-first century," said Miles. "I mean, before we got rid of the cash economy and all that."
The conversation was forestalled by a chime at the door.
"Come in," Keiko said.
Jadzia Dax sauntered into the room, still in her uniform. She clasped her hands neatly behind her back. "There you are," she said to Sam. "I've been looking all over for you."
"Hey, Dax," Miles said, holding up the napkin. "Weren't you planning on going gate-hunting in the wormhole with her tomorrow?"
"Yes?" Jadzia frowned and took the napkin out of his hands. She glanced it. "Dilithium. So?"
"Were there any even traces of dilithium, in any form, in the wormhole the last time you were there?" asked Miles.
"No, of course not. No Hecht radiation at all. We could detect that kilometers away," Jadzia said impatiently. She stared at him after a moment. "Are you saying that her Stargate is ... made of dilithium?"
"Powered by it, anyway. Liquid dilithium," said Miles.
"I didn't think liquid dilithium was used for anything," Jadzia said. "Except bad poetry."
"Bad poetry?" Sam interjected, raising her eyebrows.
"Your eyes, like liquid dilithium/Pour their power into my soul/Your spun gold hair more precious/Than latinum ... et cetera, et cetera," Jadzia said.
"Was that extemporaneous?" Miles asked suspiciously.
"No. Quark," said Jadzia. "And no, I don't want to talk about it. We were both kind of drunk at the time."
"So I don't think you're going to find her Stargate in there," Miles said.
"Well ... at least we'll know what we're looking for," Jadzia said.
Miles made a face at her. "But we already know we're not picking up any Hecht radiation in there," he said. "You don't even have to go into the wormhole to find that out."
Jadzia scowled. "We can't just not do anything," she said.
Sam cleared her throat. "Well," she said, "we can look in the wormhole tomorrow morning as planned, and if we don't find anything, then we can decide what to do next."
Jadzia smiled. "Sensible," she said.
Miles shrugged his shoulders. "It's your time," he said. "I'll be back to work on the upper pilons."
"Again?" Jadzia asked in tones of mock horror.
"Damn things are always going haywire," Miles grumped.
"You'd be bored if they didn't," Jadzia pointed out.
"How I long for boredom," Miles said.
"Liar," Keiko said affectionately, retrieving his cleaned dessert plate and heading for the replicator slot.
Jadzia laughed. "Come on, Major," she said. "I'll walk you back to your quarters."
Sam nodded. "Sure." She deposited her own half-finished dessert in the replicator slot, following Keiko's lead, and followed Jadzia out the door.
"Did you enjoy dinner with the O'Briens?" Jadzia asked lightly as they walked through the habitat ring.
Sam nodded. "They're both very nice people," she said.
"Keiko enjoys the chance to play hostess every now and again. How did you encounter them?" asked Jadzia.
"I, er ... didn't know how to operate the replicator," Sam replied hesitantly.
Jadzia looked startled, and then sheepish. "Oh, I'm sorry. I should've ... well, Julian did make it seem important."
"What was that about, anyway?" Sam didn't want to press for information she wasn't supposed to have, but it had sounded like it was supposed to be about her.
Jadzia grimaced. "I'm not sure. Basically, we've confirmed that you have a clean bill of health, that you have elevated isoboramine levels, and most peculiarly that you're not registering any chroniton disturbances in your system. Generally time travel especially as broad a temporal dislocation as you're experiencing results in chroniton displacement, heightened activity, something, but you're reacting as though you're completely normal. But Julian and I aren't experts. He's sent a message to a couple of people he knows at Starfleet Academy, and he says he's expecting to hear from a Dr. Crusher on Worf's old ship, who's apparently written a paper or two on chroniton disturbances resultant from time distortion. Until then, we'll muddle through. A good quarter of my science department is Bajoran and thinks your coming here is the work of their gods, though, which makes it somewhat difficult to get actual work done. I hate dealing with wormhole hijinx."
Sam frowned. "I've never heard of chroniton displacement." Or chronitons, for that matter.
"I'd be tempted to say it's a load of hooey, except that there's a huge faction at Starfleet Academy publishing papers on it biweekly," Jadzia said. "And there are plenty of starships that can report firsthand experience with its effects."
Sam chuckled. "Oh, for a large academic community," she murmured.
"You miss it, do you?" Jadzia shook her head. "I envy you your autonomy."
"Well ... this is me," Sam said as they reached the visitor's quarters she'd claimed for her own.
Jadzia nodded. "I'll see you in the morning."
They both stood there for a moment, not saying anything.
"I wanted to hoard you all to myself," Jadzia admitted. "But I'm glad you enjoyed the O'Briens," Jadzia said. "They're good people."
Sam reddened. "They are good people," she said.
"I'll see you first thing in the morning, just in time for breakfast before our mission," Jadzia said. She flashed a somehow impetuous grin, and then turned and strolled off down the corridor.
If Sam Carter dreamt that night, she didn't remember it.
When morning came an arbitrary measurement of time, determined by a mix of chronology and the Bajoran clock, as far as she understood she got up and got dressed in the same fatigues she'd worn the day before. It wasn't as though she hadn't gone longer without a clean change of underwear.
There was a chime at her door.
"Come in," she said.
"Hi," Jadzia said. "Did you shower? I can program the sonic shower for you."
"Can you get me a change of clothes?" Sam asked wryly.
"Probably. Let me muck with your replicator while you're in the shower. What do you want for breakfast?" Jadzia asked cheerfully.
"I don't know," Sam said. "Nothing too heavy."
"Of course not," Jadzia said. She ducked into the provided lavatory. "Just a second."
The sonic shower was an unusual sensation. Pleasant, but unusual. She couldn't imagine it replacing the fresh, drained feeling stepping out of a steaming hot shower gave her; but at least she was clean when she got out. The accoutrements for teeth-cleaning were almost a mystery. She fiddled with them for awhile until she found something that resembled a tooth-brush enough to be used as such. Without toothpaste she might as well be scrubbing them dry, but it still gave her a refreshing sense of return to routine, even in this strange place.
"I had to guess at your measurements," Jadzia said, poking her head around the bathroom door. Sam ducked self-consciously back into the shower stall. "But I think I'm close enough to right."
"That's fine," Sam called from within the shower stall.
"Right. Sorry about that," Jadzia said, ducking back out of the bathroom.
Sam stood in the shower for a few seconds, her heart beating unnaturally fast. "It's fine," she said. She snaked her hand out of the sonic shower and found a towel out there, strangely apocryphal, which she wrapped tightly around herself. Making certain it was secure, she scurried out of the bathroom, scooped up the freshly replicated clothes without making eye-contact with the tall woman draped languorously on the couch, and struggled into them. The measurements weren't exactly right, but they were close enough.
"I wasn't entirely certain what you'd want to eat, either," Jadzia said. She'd spread the table generously. In front of herself was a bowl of something that looked creamy. The rest of the table was scattered with an assortment of fruits, bread, and some cold cereals.
Sam sampled a few of the more unusual fruits before resorting to the more familiar bananas and strawberries.
"We don't have that much time before we have to get to the runabout," Jadzia remarked casually, licking the last of the contents of her bowl off of her spoon. "As soon as you're done eating, we should go."
Sam nodded. She finished her banana and popped a few slices of strawberry into her mouth. "Let's get out of here," she said.
Jadzia nodded.
They spent almost all day out in the runabout, scanning the wormhole for traces of what Jadzia called Hecht radiation; the characteristic radiation that accompanied naquidah. They found nothing. Apparently the runabout's sensors were specifically designed to be sensitive to the radiation due to the importance of it in its crystalline form to the galactic economy. While the computer conducted its scans, that left them plenty of time to kill.
Jadzia spent a lot of time completely focused on the scans, occasionally muttering imprecations at the computer under her breath. But when she wasn't focused on the job at hand, she was full of stories. She could talk up a storm, and she did; she told all manner of stories, largely of trouble she'd gotten into at one time or another throughout her lives. Curzon especially had been a mischief-monger, but Jadzia was no shrinking violet, especially not where practical jokes were concerned.
"I like a good joke as much as the next person, it's just that I don't find it funny when the jokes start impinging on other people's personal ... space," Sam was saying.
Jadzia had turned the runabout around; they were heading back to Deep Space Nine after a fruitless search.
"It's all in fun," Jadzia said. "You've got to teach people not to take themselves so seriously." She grinned. "Besides, it can be hilarious. Benjamin gone cross-eyed in shock is something I don't think I'll ever be able to recreate."
"But ... breaking into someone's room and moving their furniture around?" Sam said. She shook her head. "I don't get it."
"You would if you saw his reaction to it," Jadzia said. "Fuming and storming around, demanding my head on a platter ..." She laughed. "And looking up at him with such an innocuous expression as to make a baby look criminal ... it was great."
"But ... why?" Sam shook her head.
"No one was hurt, and I got to exasperate the constable," Jadzia said. "I'm no counselor, but ... what motivation do I need beyond why not?'"
Sam rubbed her temples. "You people with that attitude confuse me."
Jadzia's mouth quirked. "Do I need to teach you to take yourself less seriously?" she asked in a low, playful tone.
"No!" Sam laughed. "I hesitate to think what that would entail."
Jadzia grinned. "I think you'd enjoy it," she said.
Sam blinked. "Really?"
"Oh, yes. Even if I do say so myself," Jadzia replied cheerfully, then forestalled further conversation with a brisk, "Rio Grande to Deep Space 9."
"O'Brien here. Welcome back, Dax. Any luck?"
"No," Jadzia said, a scowl momentarily creasing her brow.
Miles chuckled. "I won't say I told you so," he said.
"Good!" said Jadzia.
The docking went without incident. As they exited the runabout, Jadzia stretched like a cat too long trapped in an enclosed space. "I think I'm about done with work for the day. How would you like some Idanian spice pudding? Or maybe ..." Jadzia raised her eyebrows, her blue eyes bright. "I can interest you in a Samarian sunset?"
"I don't even know what that is," Sam said.
"You won't regret finding out," Jadzia promised, taking Sam's hand in hers as though it were the most natural thing in the world as she led her towards the Promenade.
Samantha watched the colors ripple enticingly through the drink, a swarm of orange and red, hinted in purple, which faded back into cool translucency, leaving only a trace of the orangey-gold hue to the liquid. Judiciously, she sampled it. It tasted sharp and sweet and tangy, but not too much, moderated by a citric mildness that brought to mind really good orange juice ... and not too brain-bendingly alcoholic.
Jadzia was watching her, a bright smile glinting in her blue eyes. "Like it?"
"It's wonderful," Sam said truthfully.
"It's one of the more romantic alcoholic beverages I know," Jadzia admitted. "I always feel a little silly ordering them for myself."
Sam felt herself flushing at the implication. "Jadzia ..."
"Yes, Samantha?" Jadzia inquired, her expression remarkably innocuous.
"Are you trying to seduce me?" Sam asked. The words suddenly felt all too The Graduate. Jadzia was certainly an older woman; not physically, but mentally, more experienced than Sam could ever be. And certainly an aggressive and attractive one ...
Jadzia watched her with an impish glint in her eyes, but her mouth was serious as she answered, "Maybe a little bit."
Sam tried to come up with a witty response, but only managed a small-voiced, "Oh."
Jadzia laughed and gave her a languid smile. "If I were really trying, I think you'd know," she said, her tone laced with mirth as well as sensuality.
Sam couldn't help but grin back at her. "Worried about getting rejected?"
Jadzia made a dismissive gesture, a flick of her wrist. "No," she said.
"So confident?"
"Not only that," Jadzia said. "Although knowing you won't be refused is a long step towards not being refused, did you know that?"
"I think I read it somewhere," Sam replied wryly, nursing her drink.
Jadzia chuckled. "No ... I've learned to be prepared for a universe not as ready to kick back and enjoy life the way I do," she said.
Sam smiled. "So when someone rejects your advances, it reflects on them rather than on you?"
Jadzia's eyes sparkled. "Of course," she said. Her glance fell to Sam's nearly-finished drink. "Would you like another?"
"Thank you," Sam said, starting to refuse. But then she changed her mind. "Why not?"
Jadzia grinned and informed one of the short little waiters with large ears that another round of drinks would be most appreciated. Shortly after, he returned with another Samarian sunset for Sam and another glass of tranya for Jadzia.
"So," Jadzia said in a casual tone, "why wouldn't you want me to seduce you?"
Sam almost choked on her drink. Carefully, she swallowed the mouthful she'd taken and set it back on the table. Jadzia was smirking at her, ever-so-slightly.
"Why ..." She blinked, shook her head. "Does it seem appropriate to you? I mean, I am on a mission that you're helping me with, trying to find the Stargate and back to my own time ..."
"Oh, appropriateness," Jadzia said, as though the word were foreign to her experience. She leaned back in her chair. "I think you need to relax, Samantha."
"Maybe so," Sam said, taking another sip of her drink and wishing that she were small enough to hide in the glass. She could feel her cheeks going pink. Well ... pinker.
"And I may just be the girl to help you with that," Jadzia added slyly, watching the blush go darker on Sam's cheeks.
"I-I ... don't know if ..." Sam started to say, but she was losing the ability to marshal argument.
"What's this pressure you're quailing from?" Jadzia asked solicitously, taking Sam's hand and squeezing it. Her hand was remarkably cool; Sam was jolted, inwardly, by both the unexpected temperature of the pressure and the significance of it, but she didn't pull her hand away. "I just want to show you a good time."
It suddenly occurred to Sam that this was a new approach. She was used to attempting to balance the career she was married to with romantic attentions (usually male) on a kind of tightrope, fighting back emotions attached to two or three impossible mad crushes (which sometimes seemed like more than that no matter how much she fought herself) or dealing with the flattering but confusing attentions of men from halfway across the galaxy, all of whom charming ... but none of these issues of work versus pleasure, duty versus love, applied to the kind of liaison that Jadzia was suggesting. She felt something stirring in her loins. God, she thought. Hassle-free, compunctionless sex. Why can't the future be now?
But the future is now, at least for the moment.
She smiled hesitatingly, suddenly shy in the face of her own decision. But she looked up at her table partner, tall, startlingly beautiful, mischief alive in the sparkling blue eyes, sensuality in the quirk of the full mouth, and realized that if she turned this offer down, she would regret her timidity for the rest of her natural life. She leaned across the table, over their half-finished drinks and their joined hands, and brushed the Trill's lips with her own. "All right," she murmured into the kiss.
The kiss opened into something more intimate. Jadzia's mouth tasted of her drink; something fiery, yet cool, like cream and cinnamon, almost the exact opposite of what Sam would have expected the drink to taste of considering its color.
"Mmm," Jadzia said, "I think -," more kissing, and then, " ... that this table will likely," and still more, but then Jadzia broke it off to pull back, licking her lips and finish her sentence, "prove far too inconvenient for what I have in mind ... shall we adjourn to my quarters?"
Sam grinned. "More private there, too," she said.
Jadzia glanced nonchalantly around the bar. They had drawn some attention; the bartender, in particular, was eyeing them with an expression halfway between a leer and a smirk. Jadzia blew him a kiss, which he pretended to catch, and slid out of her seat.
They left the bar, Jadzia's arm having insinuated itself around Sam's waist.
Getting back to Jadzia's quarters proved somewhat difficult, because Jadzia kept kissing Sam's neck, or nibbling at her ear as they walked. At one point she stopped them walking, shoved Sam against the wall of the habitat ring with an audible thump hopefully no one occupied the quarters they were walking by and kissed her soundly, until Sam half-shoved, half-tickled her way out from the Trill's grasp.
"Hey, no fair tickling," Jadzia lilted as Sam scurried away and she gave chase.
The tickling-fight, which also involved giggling like a maniac in behaving in a way more undignified than Sam could remember being since possibly being in high school, lasted them all the way to Jadzia's quarters, which Sam identified because Jadzia opened the door and pulled her unceremoniously inside.
"There," Jadzia said, breathing hard from laughing so much. "Fun. You see?"
"Ah so you've shown me a good time, and now you want me to go home?" Sam asked mischievously.
"Perish the thought," Jadzia said.
She stripped herself first, slowly not quite a strip-tease. But when Sam made a move to remove her fatigues as well, Jadzia caught her hand and kissed her palm.
"I'd like to undress you," Jadzia murmured. "If you don't mind."
Sam stopped and sat down on Jadzia's bed. "All right," she said.
Jadzia naked was a glorious sight. The spots somehow accented everything about her without detracting from anything ... and the confidence with which she displayed that gorgeous body seemed to infuse her presence. Clothed, Jadzia deserved attention; naked, she commanded it. The last touch was to reach up to the thick ponytail and remove the glittering clip that held it in place; she fluffed out her dark hair and let it cascade around her shoulders.
Then she slid into a seated position next to Sam on the bed and started to undress her. It was a long, leisurely process; as more flesh became visible, Jadzia lingered over it, kissing it or licking it or breathing on it or stroking it; there was nothing she didn't do something to, as she brought Sam down to her underwear. She unfastened the clip of Sam's underwire bra with some difficulty, laughing as she did so. Sam chuckled, too.
Then she pulled Sam's panties off, but instead of immediately diving for the genitalia, she paid homage to her breasts for awhile, licking and nibbling. Then she pulled back, leaving Sam panting slightly, her whole body feeling electric with Jadzia's measured sexual attention.
"You are wound tighter than a spring," Jadzia informed her tartly. "Lie down. No, on your stomach."
Sam obeyed without question, and Jadzia started to give her a back massage.
"It's amazing you can even bend your body at all, considering," Jadzia said.
"Sorry," Sam murmured into the pillow.
"Don't apologize," Jadzia said, her warm breath inches from Sam's ear as her hands worked the tight muscles of her shoulders and neck. "Just relax."
They continued in this vein for some while. Jadzia kept encouraging her to relax, although after awhile Sam felt as though her body had melted into the bed and that there wasn't much more relaxing that she could do. Finally Jadzia finished unwinding her and lay down on top of her, chuckling. The warm pressure of Jadzia's glorious body against her own made Sam tingle with arousal.
"Okay, I'm done now," Jadzia said. "Good night."
"What, that's it?" Sam said.
"I'm just kidding. Roll over," Jadzia said, a hint of exasperation in her voice. She squeezed one of Sam's buttocks, earning a surprised squeak, and then pushed herself up on her hands and knees to give Sam room to maneuver. Sam rolled over, as ordered.
"How did you end up on top?" Sam asked, as Jadzia buried her face in her breasts.
"Clever maneuvering," Jadzia said against her flesh.
Jadzia started there and worked her way down. Sam managed to get in a few gropes here and there, a few kisses, a few things she initiated but for the most part, Jadzia kept the balance of power pretty firmly shifted away from Sam.
"I feel guilty," Sam said. "You're doing all the work."
Jadzia laughed. "A Starfleet officer's work is never done," she said lightly as she rubbed Sam's clitoris with two cool fingers.
After she'd orgasmed, moaning and gasping, Jadzia sat back, smirking at her.
"Jadzia," Sam said, when she had her breath back, "you've been pampering me like crazy, but I want a turn. Can I please go down on you?"
Jadzia laughed again. It was a delightful sound. "Can you, please?" she repeated. "Be my guest."
Sam was somewhat inexpert at this, but she'd had it done to her several times ... and she wanted to return the favor. Jadzia was a generous lover; Sam wanted to be, too. She wasn't sure if everything she did was right; Jadzia tasted hot and salty and good in her mouth, and moaned and thrashed around ... and the sight of her, face flushed, thick hair wild, her long, voluptuous, magnificent body slick with sweat, as she came burned itself indelibly into Sam's memory, and she suspected that sex and masturbating, come to think of it were never going to be the same again, not with these images and sensations to call on in her memory.
When they curled up together in the bed in a pleasant fog of exhausted post-coital smugness, Sam could not remember having more fun in bed with another person.
"You know," Sam remarked, "I noticed something last night."
Jadzia had showered and was wearing a robe that apparently served no function whatsoever, since she hadn't fastened it shut. Sam was still lazing about in bed, feeling remarkably indolent.
Jadzia looked up and smiled. "Yes?"
"You've got a ..." Sam gestured vaguely in the region of her own bare stomach.
"Oh! My pouch," Jadzia said. "Dax is in there."
Sam stared at her. "You have a ... like a marsupial pouch?"
"All Trills have pouches," Jadzia said. "We practically evolved for the convenience of the symbionts." She grinned and turned to addressed the replicator. "Katarian eggs, Terran bacon, and a raktajino, hot," she told it. When her breakfast arrived, she chomped on it, while Sam's brain spun.
"And ... how many Trill actually have symbionts?" Sam asked.
"There's not exactly a lot to go around," Jadzia said. She chased a mouthful of bacon with a slug from her tall mug. "Would you like some raktajino? Klingon coffee. It's good, although most people won't drink it unsweetened."
Sam nodded without thinking about it and soon had in her hand a mug full of something hot that smelled excellent. She tasted it; it was possibly the strongest coffee she had ever experienced, mildly sweetened with something fruity.
"My God," she said, distracted from the whirling in her brain. "This is ... I wish Daniel were here, he'd be in heaven."
"Caffeine-addicted friend?" Jadzia asked lightly.
Sam nodded. "I'll say. Anyway ... you have a planet full of Trill, all designed by nature to be hosts ... and only a handful of symbionts ..."
"That's right," Jadzia said. "Of course, not everyone on the planet is suited to being a symbiont's ... but as Joran found out, more can be than the Symbiosis Commission lets anyone know about. And mum's the word on that, thank you."
"A whole planet full of hosts, willing hosts," Sam breathed, sitting up in bed and taking a long swig of her raktajino.
"That's right," Jadzia said, watching her with an odd expression on her face.
"That's practically an unlimited supply. The Tok'ra could ..." Sam shook her head. "It might not turn the tide of the war, but I cannot imagine a scenario in which it couldn't help. Maybe you could give me the coordinates, and I could ..." She trailed off, chewing on her lip. "They'd be indebted to us. To Earth. More than they already are. So much so that they couldn't possibly pretend they aren't ..."
"Thinking of breaking a few rules?" Jadzia asked lightly.
Sam froze. "Oh the timeline ..."
Jadzia nodded. "I didn't realize I'd relaxed you that much," she said playfully. "That could change the entire history of the Trill, if alien contact was made with a symbiotic species in need of hosts."
Sam chewed on her lower lip. Of course Jadzia wasn't willing to change the history of her entire planet. Not that it was likely to be the same if their earlier supposition was correct and they were from different pasts ... "What if ... what if we found some way to bring some Trills back with me?"
Jadzia frowned. "How does this not contaminate the timeline?"
"Well ... it doesn't hurt Trill. If I could bring say ten, fifteen willing hosts to the Tok'ra ... it wouldn't be as good as being able to provide them with the street address of several thousand, but it would ... it would be something," Sam said. She remembered a shred of dream: You have a task to complete ...
"Samantha ... we don't even know how to get you home," Jadzia said.
"Through the wormhole. I'm sure of it. That's how I got here and that's how I'll get home," Sam said.
"We were in the wormhole all of yesterday, remember?" Jadzia said, raising her eyebrows.
"That's true, but I think ... I think the wormhole aliens might talk to me again if I do this," Sam said.
Jadzia blinked. "You think ... why would they do that?"
"I don't know," Sam said. "It's just a feeling."
Jadzia tilted her head, thinking for a moment. "I'll tell Benjamin we need the runabout for one more survey of the wormhole. He'll think I'm just being stubborn."
Sam stopped, brought up short by this new thought. "I don't want to get you into trouble."
Jadzia laughed. "Let me handle Benjamin, Samantha I'm good at it. This is important to you, right?"
"It could change the course of a war I mean, best option, but there's no way it could be bad," Samantha said. "If we can find some volunteers ... people who don't have anything at home, I guess, I don't think we could possibly ..."
"I'm sure we'll find some people. Come on, have some breakfast," Jadzia said.
Jadzia waited until the last possible moment to turn the runabout aside from its course into the wormhole. "I don't want to deal with more panicked queries from the Station than I have to," she said. "They'll think I've gone berserk."
Sam nodded.
Sure enough, right after they veered off their original course, there was a beeping noise. Jadzia answered it. "Rio Grande, Dax here."
"Dax!" growled an annoyed female voice the same one as from yesterday evening, come to think of it.
"Can I help you?"
"What the hell are you doing, Dax?"
"Just taking a little detour, Nerys. I thought you of all people would understand the impulse," Jadzia said lightly. "Don't bother stopping me ... and don't worry, I'll be back in time for dinner tomorrow night. Dax out."
Shortly after, it beeped again. Jadzia rolled her eyes. "Dax here. What?"
"Old Man ... are you sure you want to do this?" said Benjamin Sisko.
Jadzia sighed. "I've got to do it, Benjamin," she said.
"I could issue a direct order that you return to the Station," he said.
"You could. I'd disobey it. Neither of us wants that," she replied. "Don't worry, Benjamin. I'll be fine. And I'll explain everything to you when I get back."
There was silence on the other end of the line for awhile. Finally Captain Sisko said, " ... all right. I hope you know what you're doing."
"So do I," Jadzia said. "Dax out."
Sam looked at her, worried. "Are you sure you're going to be all right?" she said.
Jadzia smiled. "Putty in my hands," she said. "I could get away with murder, I'll bet."
She tapped a few controls. "There. Course plotted and laid in ... runabout'll get us there on automatic. How about we see how hard it is to make love in a runabout?"
Sam laughed, startled. "What really?"
"Why not?" Jadzia asked.
It was not particularly comfortable, but they managed anyway.
"I never like coming back here," Jadzia remarked as the runabout pulled into orbit around Trill. "Especially not to the Symbiosis Commission." She shuddered theatrically, although Sam got the feeling there was more truth to the complaint than Jadzia would've liked her to guess.
"It's a pretty planet," Sam said. She'd been to thousands of worlds by now, but not many from orbit.
Jadzia nodded. "That it is."
"So ... where do we go?" Sam said. "How do we find volunteers?"
"I have some calls to make," Jadzia said, taking off her Starfleet badge and setting it on one of the control panels. "Unofficially. This may take awhile, why don't you get in a nap or something?"
"I'll watch," Sam said. "If that's okay."
Jadzia shrugged. "Suit yourself."
Jadzia wasn't lying when she said it might take awhile. She called everyone she knew, apparently; old boyfriends, old girlfriends, even offspring of her previous hosts who didn't know her from Adam, although they warmed to her considerably when they found out her identity, and that she was asking for favors in secret that could be paid back in kind. Dax apparently had developed a hugely vast social network on Trill over the years.
By the end of the day, they managed to get three Trill to agree to an interview at various points the next day. Sam felt tired just from watching all the dealing Jadzia had had to do. Jadzia stretched in her seat.
"Let's head to the planet and get accommodations somewhere. There's a nice little bed and breakfast not too far from the capital city that Curzon used to stay in," she said.
Sam nodded. "All right," she said.
They were loud enough in the bed-and-breakfast's small, cozy bedroom that night to draw complaints from the rest of the guests; Jadzia apparently had a very energetic reaction to being cooped up all day.
The calls that Jadzia had made the day before began to pay off. Calls came in to the runabout all day long, most of them along the lines of "no, sorry, I don't think we can help you." Jadzia glowered in increasing frustration as more and more people came back saying they couldn't find anyone who matched the description she'd given rejected by the symbiosis commission, unmarried, no children. It seemed that unjoined Trill, when opportunity passed them by, found ways of moving on.
"It's all right, Jadzia," Sam said, stroking her hair. "We tried. I guess it wasn't meant to be."
Jadzia nodded. "We should meet with this Tigan character, and then head back when he turns us down."
Norvo Tigan was a quiet but amiable sort with apparently a much-frustrated creative bent. He was crushed under the heel of a domineering mother and two boisterous brothers. He listened to the proposal with an air of quiet contemplation, and tilted his head to one side.
"It's an interesting idea," he said. "You've been a host to one of these ... Tok'ra, they call themselves?"
Sam nodded. "Her name was Jolinar."
"Her," repeated Norvo. He frowned. "I was under the impression that symbionts were genderless."
"They are," Jadzia said. "But some of them begin to identify with one gender or another when they've only been joined with that gender. The Commission tries to keep any one symbionts from too many of the same type of host to keep that from happening. Apparently the Tok'ra don't have the luxury of similar caution."
"I'd never see Ezri again." His voice was flat, factual. There was a tremor in his eyes as he spoke the words.
"Probably not, no," Sam said. She sighed. There was always something.
"But I'd probably never see her again anyway," he remarked thoughtfully. "I don't think she planned to come home."
"So ... you'll do it?" Jadzia asked crisply.
Norvo Tigan nodded. "I'll do it."
"Great!" Jadzia said. "Do you need to pack your things?"
Norvo nodded again. "Just ... my charcoals and ... I suppose I should leave a note." He stopped, and looked up at them. A smile broke out on his face, lighting his features. He suddenly looked much more handsome, far less tired, and very young. "What in the world could a note say? I'll just get my charcoals and paints and some clothes."
They beamed him back down to the planet's surface, a block or so from his home so that his return would not be all that conspicuous.
"I'm sorry we couldn't find more hosts for you," Jadzia said quietly, reaching across to squeeze Sam's hand as she sat in what Sam had come to think of as the co-pilot's seat.
Sam smiled at her, ruefully. "We did what we could," she said. "I'm grateful just for the one."
"I don't know how useful an artist is going to be in a war," Jadzia said, frowning.
"I expect the necessary expertise can be provided by the symbiont," said Sam.
Jadzia's mouth quirked. "Hopefully," she said.
"I'm going to miss you, Jadzia," Sam said, as the signal from Norvo beeped on Jadzia's console.
"Don't," Jadzia said, initiating the beam-in sequence. She smiled. "Just remember me."
Sam thought about that. She nodded. "I'll try," she said.
Jadzia glanced at Norvo, who was settling himself in the third seat. "Think he'd wake up if we had sex?" she asked, barely above a whisper.
"We could go in back," Sam suggested.
"Good idea," Jadzia said. "Let's do it. One for the road." She gave Norvo a cheery salute as she pulled Sam with her to the back.
"You know," Jadzia said reflectively, looking up at the ceiling, "that wasn't bad ... I wish we'd just let last night be the last one, though."
"I know what you mean," Sam said, pillowing her arms behind her head.
"We should probably get dressed," Jadzia added. They actually weren't all the way undressed, but enough so that their dishabille would be noticeable.
"Hmm? Oh, I suppose," Sam said. She sat up. "How far are we from the wormhole?"
"Do I look like a navigations computer to you?" asked Jadzia, running a hand through her hair.
"I ... never knew navigations computers looked like that," Sam said, grinning.
"Where's my hair thing?"
"Can't I keep it?" Sam asked, withdrawing it from a pocket and handing it to her.
"Your hair's a bit short for it," Jadzia said, fastening her hair. "Best just to keep the memories."
Sam nodded.
Once they were fully dressed and presentable again, they ducked back out into the main compartment. Norvo was sitting by himself on the floor, his crossed beneath him Indian style, playing solitaire.
"That's a good idea," Jadzia said thoughtfully, watching as he played himself into a hole and picked up the cards to shuffle them. "I should start bringing cards to fiddle with on these long commutes."
"Do you play Fizbin?" Norvo asked, holding up the deck.
"Do I ever," Jadzia said, smirking. "Let's teach Sam."
The rules of the game turned out to be overwhelmingly complicated, so Sam opted just to watch Jadzia wipe the floor with Norvo. They were playing their fifth consecutive hand, all of which he'd lost without losing that quiet amicability and patience, when the navigations computer (which did not in fact resemble Jadzia in the least) informed them that they were approaching their destination.
"Oh, good," Jadzia said. She took the pilot's seat again and tapped out a sequence on the control panel. "I'll just slide us into the wormhole, then."
The wormhole opened and swallowed them up. The by-now familiar blue backdrop of it filled the viewscreen. Jadzia frowned at it. "Still no Hecht radiation, by the way."
"I'm not surprised," Sam said. "I didn't think naquidah would just appear overnight."
"Pity," Jadzia said. "Well ... now we're here. Now what do we do?"
Sam shrugged. "Now we wait."
Jadzia sighed. "Samantha ..."
"I know. What else can we do?" Sam looked at the viewscreen. Come on, Prophets. Why aren't you speaking to me? Wasn't this the task Benny Russell wanted me to do?
"Well ... just in case something goes wrong," Jadzia said slowly, "here. This is for you."
Sam turned to see that she was offering a small, folded piece of paper. She opened it, looked at it.
"These are interplanetary coordinates," Sam said. She looked up at her, questioning.
Jadzia nodded. "I used the old Earth-based locator system. Any astronavigations expert should be able to find us from that."
"I ... but won't that change the whole of Trill history?" Sam asked worriedly.
"Sure. Not my Trill, though. Their history's already got to be vastly different from mine," Jadzia said. "Temporal Investigations shouldn't even find out about it, it's an alternate reality. And ..." She smiled. "Why not? For all I know, your Tok'ra were meant to find your Trill."
"Jadzia, I ... don't know what to say," Sam breathed.
"Try thanks'," Jadzia suggested lightly. She leaned over and kissed Sam.
"Thank you," Sam whispered. She reached out to run her fingers through the smooth thickness of Jadzia's ponytail ...
There was a flash of white light. Her hand was still outstretched, grasping at nothing.
She reached up to wipe away the tear that flowed down her cheek. As she flicked it away, she was suddenly standing next to Colonel O'Neill on the sunny surface of PB-2004.
" why you offer us this stream of self-indulgent whining," Daniel finished.
Jack grinned. "Colonel's prerogative, Danny boy," he said. He glanced at her with an attitude of quizzical concern. "Sam, are you all right? You look like you just saw a ghost."
"It's nothing, sir," Sam said, looking around for Jadzia or Norvo or the runabout or something, but it was all gone. She looked down at her left hand. Jadzia's folded paper was still there. She tucked it away in a pocket and took a deep breath. "I'm fine."
She looked up at Teal'c. He was frowning at her.
"You seem unsettled, Major Carter," he said.
"I'm all right, Teal'c," she said again. "I'll be fine."
He looked at her for a moment longer, and then nodded.
"So Daniel," she heard herself say. "What's the strongest coffee you've ever had?"