Title: Thyself, Unknown
Author: MissAnnThropic
E-Mail: miss_annthropic@yahoo.com
Spoilers: Beneath the Surface
Summary: And then they were strangers again and their world was brand new with signs of aging.
Disclaimer: I own nothing to do with Stargate but my rabid fan behavior. Alas.

A/N: This here's another fic from the 'crap fanfic file' collection. Since a number of people seemed to enjoy my other CFF piece, 'A Question of Suitability', I decided to put this one up, too, even if I don't think it's all that great. Maybe some of you will disagree with my assessment and actually enjoy it.

****

Jonah rolled in one swift motion from his bed and stole toward Thera's bunk as others in the community sleeping room started to stir. He reached her bed and touched her shoulder in a hurried jostle. She lifted her head, golden hair adorably tousled, her blue eyes turned to him so full of attentiveness, astute curiosity and intelligence directed wholly at him.

"I think I know what's going on," he whispered lowly, like it was the key to the universe tucked in his brain, and Thera's lips parted and she was about to speak.

"Jonah, Thera, report to Brenna's office."

Thera and Jonah looked over at the foreman addressing them and they stole a wary, ominous glance at one another. It was too late.

When they were taken to Brenna's office to find Carlin and a sick Tor already present they were given only the vague apology, "I'm sorry. I don't know what happened, why it stopped working, but we'll make it right. This time. It took a great deal to convince the administrator to even spare your lives. I'm just sorry we can't salvage your Jaffa friend... he was a strong worker. It's a shame I must do this to all of you again."

Brenna's words sent an edge of panic through those summoned and Jonah and Thera looked at one another. Desperation flickered in the depths of their eyes. Too late.

And then they were three and they were strangers again and their world was brand new with signs of aging.



****



Brenna looked up from her worker productivity reports when someone entered her small, unpretentious office within the underground tomes of the ice planet. Her eyes immediately fell upon a slim, tall woman in the androgynous tan/orange worker's tunic. What made this woman stand out was her hair. Short-cropped, spiky, and cream-gold yellow. Brenna had seen so few blondes in her time; they were not common to the people on her planet.

"Thera," Brenna greeted her and beckoned the woman inside. Thera was a stab at Brenna's conscience because before, when she'd been Sam Carter, Brenna had liked her. In different circumstances, she believed she and Major Carter might have been friends. But that was not to be. The off-worlders involved themselves in matters not their concern and now Brenna was their overseer and Sam was Thera, the latter a woman that Brenna could respect and like but could never befriend.

Thera stepped into the office and shut the door behind her. Her hands quickly clasped in front of her body and Thera down-turned her face and averted her eyes. It was a built-in front that crumbled so easily. Some personality traits were never completely stamped out, and the propensity for confrontation was one characteristic that never leeched entirely out of Thera. Even when she was acting dutifully subservient there was a quick-to-light energy and fire in her that Brenna privately admired. Thera was more of a handful than she let on, and slowly, after four months with her in the caverns, other workers were starting to understand that about Thera.

Today Thera's outward appearance seemed more an accurate reflection of her inner emotional state. Thera's uncharacteristically meek, unassuming attitude was a sign that something was bothering her.

"I heard you were ill yesterday and had to go to the infirmary," Brenna decided to speak first. She harbored true concern for Thera, and not merely because she was on the look-out for another lapse back into Sam Carter as had happened two months ago. Brenna felt closer to Thera than many of the workers. Even if she wasn't quite Sam Carter anymore she was enough like her that Brenna felt a kinship with her, like she owed this almost-friend some protection and favor. "I hope it wasn't night sickness."

"Oh, no, I'm not night sick," Thera answered, then her hands started to twist upon themselves nervously. She refused to look Brenna in the eye.

Brenna frowned. "Thera, is there something troubling you?"

Thera frowned, chewed on her bottom lip, then released a strained sigh. "Brenna... I wanted to ask you... what steps does one have to take to get a breeding permit?"

Brenna's eyes widened slightly.

Because of the scarcity of resources, reproduction in the work force was strictly monitored and controlled. To ensure there were always enough workers for basic maintenance (what personnel wasn't provided from Above), select instances of controlled breeding were conducted. It was more husbandry of human life than the raising of children. Partners were evaluated and selected based on their genetics strengths, mental qualities, and work histories. Pairs did not always get along, but they would bow to the will of the overseers and 'provide' the requested offspring because they were 'happy to serve'.

Brenna could hardly remember the last time a child was requisitioned by the work force management commission. It was avoided when at all possible because the 'newness' of a pregnancy and a baby disrupted the monotony and complacency of the workers. It shook things up, and keeping everything under strict control was paramount.

Brenna realized she was still staring up at Thera.

"Well," she began, a little debased by the question and grasping for control of the situation, "it's not really something one can request. If work labor forces are projected to drop below minimum efficiency the management staff evaluates the stock available and 'orders' two individuals to copulate to conceive a child to eventually fill out the work crews."

Thera's lips thinned and she looked ashen.

Brenna's brow furrowed. "Thera, why are you asking about breeding permits?"

"... Jonah..." Thera started, but it was the only word she managed.

It was all Brenna needed. She had observed a natural closeness between former Colonel O'Neill and former Major Carter the moment they were introduced into the work force, fresh from their memory 'procedures', the first and the second. The stamp had naturally erased all explicit knowledge of one another, but almost innately they had gravitated toward each other, more so than any of the other members of the late SG-1. By the end of the first week Thera and Jonah were a pair. If not in an intimate sense, then in the sense that in between shifts and at meal times they were always in one another's company. Brenna noticed it, and more than once she wished she'd had time to learn the previous nature of their previous identities' relationship.

Personal relationships among the workers were not forbidden in and of themselves. They were human beings with physiological needs. If it interfered with an individual's work one partner would be transferred after a single courtesy warning (at Brenna's largess, because the management would just as soon there be no warning before transfer), but it had never been necessary with Thera and Jonah. They were expedient, diligent workers and their 'closeness' never impacted on their efficiency ratings.

Brenna had long suspected that after the first month with SG-1 as part of the labor force Thera and Jonah had become intimate. The second stamping procedure appeared to have little to no impact on the couple. They reunited and bonded all over again with even greater speed than in the aftermath of the first stamping.

"You and Jonah want to have a baby," Brenna mused aloud, and she watched Thera grimace. She had to know what was coming, and Brenna wanted to tell her non-friend she was sorry.

"Thera... you know the needs of the planet and its people supersede the desires of the individual workers. Our resources are limited and population growth has to be very carefully controlled or we'd, as a people, outgrow our food stores."

"I know that, Brenna, but I just thought, just once–"

Brenna resolutely shook her head. "I'm sorry. I appreciate that you and Jonah want to have children, but it's just not practical." Brenna watched Thera stand stone-still, face drawn, and she was struck with a pang of sympathy and compassion. "I tell you what I can do, I'll bring it up with the management board and see if they'd be willing to grant a reproduction order."

Thera did not look especially optimistic. "What are the chances they'll agree?"

"Honestly, small. Labor force increases by means of breeding are just not very practical in our situation. We end up investing years of resources before a viable, productive worker is at our disposal."

Thera looked down sadly.

"I really am sorry, Thera. I know you're disappointed, but I will make your case before the management board. You never know, they might agree."

"Why would they if there's no need for breeding at this time?"

Brenna could not help a small smile. "I don't think you need to be told you're an exceptional worker, Thera. You possess an intelligence and work ethic I imagine my superiors would be eager to preserve through genetics. When and if the need arises for breeding assignments you would probably be on the top of the list of candidates. It helps that you'd pick Jonah; he's a natural leader and has really helped us in keeping the others organized and on task. I'd be surprised, honestly, if he wasn't on the short-list of men considered for stud."

Thera's face twisted but she tried to hide it... with minimal success. There was no room for jealousy or possessiveness in the caves. There was no room for monogamy when the management sent down orders. Jonah would have to impregnate any woman the board chose for him, just as Thera would have to submit to fertilization by any man chosen for her. They could only say they were honored to serve.

Thera, instead of excusing herself, stood in place before Brenna's desk. She looked nervous, uneasy.

"Thera?"

Thera met Brenna's eyes and for the first time she held eye contact for longer than a few seconds. Brenna could see the intensity dancing in Thera's light blue gaze.

Thera glanced around the empty office, stepped closer to the desk, then said lowly, "I... I didn't ask about a breeding permit because I was just overcome with the errant desire to have children."

Brenna could not look away from Thera and Thera gave her time to think about it.

"The visit to the infirmary..."

Thera nodded and swallowed. "I convinced the medics not to say anything, to let me come talk to you." There was bright hope and desperation in Thera's eyes.

Brenna sat back to digest the news.

Pregnancies were not uncommon in the barracks. Contraceptives were too costly and it was cheaper to administer abortive agents to terminate unwanted pregnancies after the fact. Frequently the mother did not even know she'd conceived when the medics 'took care' of the problem. Technically, Thera should be expelling her unplanned occupant at that very moment. But Thera had a way of getting others to listen to her and the medics knew Brenna had an affinity for Thera. They held off on the abortion procedures because they thought there might be a chance Thera could coerce Brenna to make it so that Thera could keep her baby.

And Brenna knew at that moment that she would at least try.

Thera was watching Brenna intently.

Brenna sighed. "I'll have to talk to the board. For now I'll give the infirmary orders not to terminate."

Thera's face brightened in relief, tentative though it was.

"I can't authorize the further allotment of food or water to adjust for additional nutritional needs, not until I can authorize this with the board."

Thera nodded. "Jonah's been giving me parts of his meals and water rations."

Brenna suspected as much. "He'll have to keep at it until this goes through the committee and I can secure requisitions for additional portions for you. Just see to it that he doesn't compromise his energy for work."

Thera nodded vigorously.

"I'll go see the administrator immediately," Brenna promised.

Thera almost smiled but something quickly dampened her mood. "I appreciate you doing this for me, for us, but... how likely is it that they'll let me keep my baby?"

Brenna studied Thera. "If it was anyone but you, Thera, I'd already be asking you to report to the infirmary for the standard termination procedure. But as I've said, you and Jonah would make ideal breeding partners for efficient offspring and I think–I hope the board will see that and the potential even if the timing is not exactly good."

Thera looked like she might almost believe it was possible.

"You better get back to work," Brenna said.

Thera immediately moved. With a rushed 'it's an honor to serve' she hurried out of Brenna's office and left the woman with a daunting task.

****

Jonah was at his work station but constantly looked over his shoulder toward Brenna's elevated office, on the look-out for Thera. He'd checked at least twenty times in the last five minutes but he couldn't stop from looking again. If anyone else noticed his distraction they made no mention and they certainly didn't challenge him on the matter; few in the caves would dare to cross Jonah. He commanded respect, and those few who weren't bright enough to respect him feared him... Jonah proved to have some inexplicably deadly fighting skills. Jonah had no idea where they came from, but when they served him and later when he discovered he could use them to safeguard Thera their origins didn't matter.

Jonah stared at the closed door to Brenna's office and thought to himself, 'what is taking so long?'. The last week had been an exercise in utter tension for both of them. Thera, his companion, his partner, his lover but somehow more than all of that, had confided over evening meal a week ago that she thought she might be pregnant.

Jonah remembered he'd felt odd at the news. He knew it was not a good thing, that it was disallowed in their working and living conditions, but still something deep inside him wanted him to be happy. It was confusing and Thera's expression said she was just as torn.

Without making any outspoken agreement they both took measures to hide the pregnancy. Jonah wasn't sure how long they thought they could keep it a secret. Even if they managed to keep it from the others the natural course of the pregnancy would mean, at some point, Thera would start showing and then they'd be busted and Thera would have to go for termination anyway and it would only be harder because the baby would be bigger and more mature, not to mention the fact he and she would be more attached to it and its loss would be that much more difficult for them both to cope with. There was no logic in even trying to preserve the pregnancy... but they did it anyway.

Then yesterday Thera got sick. It wasn't the first time, and one of them had conjured up the strange phrase 'morning sickness' from their addled brains, but it was the first time a supervisor was there to see it. Worker health was closely monitored and as soon as they'd seen Thera throwing up she was sent to the infirmary. Jonah remembered the dreadful sinking feeling when he'd been kneeling beside the toilet at Thera's side while she vomited and looking up into the face of an unscrupulous foreman. It had almost been enough to make him sick, and the look Thera cast him when she stopped hurling and noticed they'd been seen stuck with Jonah for the rest of the day.

Today Thera, without more than a meaningful, worried look at Jonah in passing, went to Brenna's office. And not a thing since.

Jonah glanced again toward the door just as it opened and finally Thera stepped out. Jonah fought to keep himself from dropping his work and hurrying to her to find out what Brenna said. It would be improper for him to leave his station and considering his and Thera's 'predicament' he didn't think it would be wise to do anything that might try the patience of the supervisors.

Thera reached the bottom of the stairs, looked toward Jonah, then with a promising nod turned and headed toward her own duty station. It would have to wait until later.

Jonah wasn't sure he could stand it, but he had a job to do and he was willing to serve.

****

The midday meal took forever to arrive but the moment the work shifts were relieved for lunch Jonah was on the hunt. Since his quarry was seeking him, too, it didn't take long to find her. Thera was waiting for him a distance away from the food lines.

Jonah strode up to her, stopping close enough to drop his voice to a private whisper. "So? What did Brenna say?"

"That you can't apply for breeding rights and the management board doesn't need natural replacement of workers..."

Jonah's stomach tightened and his appetite fled.

"... but she's going to talk to them."

Jonah blinked at her. Thera looked cautiously hopeful, her blue eyes upturned to study his face.

"You think that'll help?" Jonah asked carefully.

"I don't know. Brenna seemed to think we're both prime breeding stock so they might consent to offspring between us even if the timing's lousy."

"Really?" Jonah couldn't believe there could be wiggle-room with the rules.

Thera nodded, nervous and scared but a glitter of hope and glee in her eyes that made Jonah's hard edges melt. He even managed a small smile. His eyes, almost of their own volition, traveled down her body, down the rough and tattered orange jacket, to rest on her still-flat abdomen and he whispered, "So there's still a baby in there."

Thera restrained herself from protectively placing a hand on her stomach but she did look down at her own body. "Yeah... it's still there." A tone of wonder and stifled excitement strained at the highest octave of her voice.

Jonah found himself grinning. It was strange and silly but he grinned all the same. Thera looked up at him, a barely-contained grin on her face as well, and Jonah would let himself hope it could happen for the moment.

"We better get in line before all the good stuff is gone." He guided her to the mass of gathered workers with a hand on her shoulder and a disgruntled path opened for them. Kaegan, at the serving bench, glowered at the duo but knew better, from experience, than to start trouble with Jonah (or, by extension, Thera... not in Jonah's presence, anyway).

Jonah and Thera collected their bowls and bread and moved away to a tucked-aside corner where they sat shoulder to shoulder against the wall. Jonah immediately spooned a fourth of his food and deposited half of his bread into her bowl.

"You have to be careful," Thera warned, "if you get weak from hunger on the job they'll end this on principle."

Jonah grunted. "I'll be fine."

Thera looked down at the grisly food, sighed, and instead of immediately digging into her meal she leaned into Jonah and rested her head on his shoulder. Jonah allowed it and somehow it seemed to make him more 'dominant male' to have Thera pressed against him in plain view. He proceeded to eat, secure in his status as an alpha male, while Thera took a moment next to him to defuse.

The other workers were getting their portions and moving off into clusters and groups to eat. There were patterns and groups that were pretty static day to day. She could predict where some people would go, with whom they would sit. Thera watched them from her safe place at Jonah's side, significantly more at ease than that morning.

Jonah suddenly looked over at her. "Are you feeling sick again?"

Thera realized she'd been zoning out and avoiding her food for a good ten minutes. "No," she answered, and reluctantly sat up and started to eat. It was lukewarm but no temperature made the food particularly palatable so cold was just as good as fresh from the kettle.

"Mind if I join you?" Carlin, suddenly standing before them, asked.

Jonah looked up at the younger man. "Go ahead," he said in invitation.

Carlin sat down crossed-legged before the two and arranged his bowl on the floor in front of him. Thera continued to eat and as she did so she considered their relatively new companion.

Carlin had been like a ghost at the periphery of Thera's thoughts for what had seemed weeks. She could never remember talking to him or knowing him personally but still there had been something about him she couldn't shake. His face haunted her and at strange moments in the day she would inexplicably find herself looking for him. It made no sense and she couldn't begin to explain it. It was like she knew him and yet she knew she didn't.

Then one day Jonah and Carlin got into a fight. Jonah, too, had apparently noticed the skulking shadow he and Thera had gained and he was more challenged than curious regarding the younger man's constant presence. It eventually turned into a confrontation. Carlin, while younger and physically stronger, was no match for the things Jonah seemed to innately know how to do. Carlin was doomed... or he should have been. Just when things between the two men were getting ugly and right before Jonah inflicted any serious damage he just stopped. He'd pulled his punch and stared at Carlin like he was a perplexing mythical beast incarnate and freed him unharmed and from that day on Carlin had been their third. It had bled into a natural state of comradeship, and so very little was spoken on the matter.

Thera, more than once, had tried to get Jonah to tell her what had inexplicably changed his attitude about Carlin and what had gone through his head that day when he let Carlin go. Jonah had never given a more satisfactory answer than a scowl and the confusing reply 'I just couldn't hit him'.

Strange occurrences were par for the course in the caves and Thera had given up trying to understand the laws of the underground.

Thera could not deny a certain amount of peace to have Carlin around. She got the feeling she could trust him, in much the same way she trusted Jonah. Somehow it felt right.

Carlin was eating his lunch at a steady pace, not the rushed scarfing of many of the other workers nearby. Being aligned with Jonah allowed Carlin the luxury of eating at his own speed. What at first had started as something akin to Carlin being 'brought into Jonah's good graces' became something far more similar to a male coalition. Carlin earned Jonah's respect and trust and it made Carlin Jonah's 'right-hand man'.

Thera felt the strangest sense of 'correctness' in that arrangement, even if there still seemed to be something missing.

Thera suddenly realized that Carlin was casting repeated strange, speculative glances at her during his meal. He cut his blue eyes in her direction again and again and that pensive, concerned scowl would mar his otherwise handsome features.

"What?" she asked.

Carlin frowned at her but she knew he'd say what was on his mind because Carlin was just forthcoming like that. "Are you okay, Thera?"

Thera had to evoke very strict control over her actions not to look at Jonah. While they trusted Carlin to a fault they had not told him about the baby.

"I'm fine, why?"

Carlin made that face again. "Just... a rumor was going around that you were night sick."

"If she was night sick would she be out here with the rest of us?" Jonah asked curtly.

Carlin shook his head slowly as he mulled over the evidence. He was utterly unruffled by Jonah's tone of voice. Jonah had a way of rattling most people with his tone and forceful speech, but it did not phase Carlin. Half the time he almost seemed utterly oblivious to Jonah's ire.

"No..." Carlin answered Jonah, then directed his next words at Thera, "but you were absent from your shift yesterday and part of today."

Thera shrugged it off as though it was unworthy of mention. "I'm okay, Carlin. Jonah's right, they wouldn't let me come back to work if I wasn't fine." She watched an array of emotions transform Carlin's expressive face and she wanted to tell him, to bring him into the secret... but not yet. Not when Brenna could fail to win the administration over and it would all lead to nothing anyway. If she had to lose the baby she didn't want to live with sympathetic, sad looks from anyone more than Jonah, and with Jonah it would be shared pain instead of plain pity.

Carlin looked less than completely convinced but he didn't press the subject any further.

The trio continued to eat in silence until Thera lowered her bowl to the ground.

Jonah eyed it surreptitiously. "You didn't finish."

"I'm not that hungry; you should finish it."

Jonah cast a pointed look at her and frowned. "You should."

Carlin glanced up at them from his food at the exchange. "Don't you two find it a little ironic that we're down here on slave rations and you're trying to pawn food off on each other?"

Thera, ignoring Carlin's quip, spoke to Jonah. "I spent a lot of yesterday in the infirmary and this morning in Brenna's office; I didn't use as much energy as you did. You take it," Thera picked up the bowl and extended it to him. She tacitly ignored the displeased scowl on his face.

Jonah accepted her bowl, unhappily, and peered inside.

"You know," Jonah said dryly, "we're really fighting over close to nothing here."

Thera chuckled. "Because I ate the rest, so don't get up in arms."

Jonah glanced at her, face subtly gentle and mood mollified, and scraped the bottom of her bowl for the remnants of her meal. It amounted to two spoons-worth.

The horn sounded that marked the end of the lunch break and everyone began to rise and shuffle toward the crate where they were to deposit their dishes before returning to the machines that kept back the ice age that had engulfed the rest of their planet. Thera marched behind Jonah, Carlin following her, and it afforded her an odd sense of security and peace in such an inhospitable environment.

But strange was normal for the caves, if nothing else Thera was certain of that fact.

****

Administrator Caulder looked over the report only briefly before his eyes came up. He spoke shortly thereafter, sharp and to the point. "Terminate."

Brenna winced internally.

Caulder glared down unhappily at the report on his desk. "Honestly, Brenna, I don't know why you even bothered to bring this up. What question was there that this pregnancy should be terminated?"

That Thera wanted the baby was irrelevant, so Brenna had to think of another argument to present to Caulder.

"Administrator, I know that right now there is no need to supplement the work force with bred workers, but I think in this instance we might be looking at an accident that works in our favor."

Caulder looked dubious but he was at least listening.

"Just think what the offspring of Thera and Jonah might be able to contribute."

Caulder frowned. "Colonel O'Neill and Major Carter were a threat to our people and our way of life and already they've overcome the memory stamp once."

"I don't know why that happened but after we stamped them again there have been no signs of relapse. Now that To–Teal'c, with his resistance to the process, is no longer there to reintroduce them to their old vocations and identities there have been no signs of rejection of the stamp. Without reminders of who they used to be the stamps might hold this time. And I suspect we didn't give them a strong enough treatment the first time they were stamped. Apparently people from their world are stronger willed than those of our planet."

"An indication they might still prove a threat to us, and you want to propagate that insolence?"

"I don't look to breed the bad but the good."

Caulder stopped and considered the report before him again. Brenna let him think. While clinically detached to a fault when it came to his human workers Caulder was not an idiot... he was smart and that could work for Brenna.

Slowly, Caulder began to think aloud. "Our current worker population is genetically limited to a relatively small group of individuals. Colonel O'Neill, Major Carter, and Doctor Jackson offer new genes to introduce into the group." He tapped the desktop idly with his fingers and Brenna could see the calculating wrinkle form on his brow. "That is a tempting promise to improve our stock."

"And Ther–Major Carter and Colonel O'Neill are both exceptional specimens, the trouble with the memory stamps aside."

"That's true."

"And," Brenna pressed cautiously, "we have to consider the fact that the work done in the caves is difficult and sometimes dangerous. Something could happen that caused Jonah's death or Thera's and we would have lost that source of new genes. By allowing this child to be born we would have access to those genes even if one of them should be killed. Technically, we could lose Colonel O'Neill today and still have access to his genetic material. We've been presented the opportunity to take advantage of all that they have to offer our city."

"Our biggest problem with SG-1," Caulder noted aloud, "has been the memory stamp. Other than that, they've been good workers."

"Extremely good."

Caulder nodded. "So an infant born and reared in the system would never need a memory stamp. It could be taught to obey and accept its place and do the work required of it through much more traditional means, means much more permanent. The one troublesome issue we face with SG-1 would be inconsequential when it came to this child."

Brenna only nodded.

Caulder was quiet for a long time and Brenna stood there, nervous. She imagined it was what Thera must have felt like that morning standing at her desk.

Finally Caulder looked up and met Brenna's gaze. "Authorize the breeding privilege and make all the necessary adjustments to maintain the pregnancy."

Brenna nodded. "Yes, of course," and tried not to smile. Thera would be so happy, and Brenna, secretly, was happy for her.

****

"Do you think they'll let you keep it?"

Jonah's voice was a low rumble against her back as she reclined back against him, body bracketed between his bent legs. It was half an hour past the end of their shift, and they occupied themselves with their customary distraction... each other. They were sitting on the floor near the south passage generator because it emitted a good deal of warmth and it was a low-traffic area. It was the closest they could really get to being alone together.

Jonah's arms were wrapped loosely around her middle, his left hand clasping his right wrist atop her stomach. When he spoke, he fanned his right hand fingers gently against her clothed lower abdomen.

A senseless, thrilling flutter sparked inside her at his touch even as uncertainty gnawed at her. "I hope so," she whispered softly. She dreaded to think of the alternative. She couldn't fathom reporting to the infirmary to have it aborted if Brenna couldn't come through for them with the work force committee. Thera had almost been shocked to discover just how much she wanted this baby, hers and Jonah's. She couldn't imagine being ordered to walk into the infirmary and let it be taken from her.

Distressed at the course of her thoughts, Thera snuggled more tightly against Jonah and he wordlessly obliged by gently hugging her closer. In his arms she felt safe, even if she knew there was only so much even Jonah could do. His stubble scratched at her temple and caught on her hair as he rested his head against hers.

Thera inhaled and a small waver laced her sigh. Even to her own ears she sounded distraught.

"Shhh," Jonah shushed as he pressed his lips to the side of her face, and it was inanely comforting. When he told her he'd make everything okay she believed him. She knew it was stupid but she couldn't help but trust in him no matter the situation.

Thera settled against his body, surrendered herself into his arms, and she let herself believe. She slid her hands over Jonah's where they casually perched atop her stomach and he tugged her gently closer in response.

"Whatever happens...," Thera began to say, but the words caught stubbornly in her throat. What could she say? She might be duty-bound to let them take away their baby, he knew it as well as she did.

"Yeah," Jonah said roughly, and it was all that needed to be said. There was nothing more they could do; it was out of their hands.

****

"You wanted to see me, Brenna?"

Brenna looked up to find Thera standing timidly in her office doorway. It was bed-down hour for Thera and those on the same shift rotation with her.

"Yes, come in, Thera... I sent someone to find you two hours ago."

Thera moved into the office, closed the door behind her, then cleared her throat. "I'm sorry, I didn't know anyone was looking for me, I was, um, with Jonah." Thera almost blushed and did avert her gaze.

"Well, no matter. I talked to Administrator Caulder this afternoon." Brenna could practically see Thera fidget and hold her breath in nervous anticipation. "I know you're anxious to hear what the administrator said about your pregnancy, so I won't keep you waiting any longer. You've been granted breeding privileges."

Thera's eyes shot up and they immediately widened at Brenna's words. She stared at the woman overseer and then her mouth formed the shape of a circle as Brenna's statement started to sink in.

"You mean..."

Brenna couldn't help a small smile. "Yes, they've given you permission to carry your baby to term."

Thera, for a second, was absolutely beaming as a brilliant grin split her face, but she brought herself under control quickly. "Wow... that's... I don't know what to say, Brenna... thank you."

A wash of guilt assailed Brenna and she wasn't sure why. "You and Jonah are excellent workers, this was the least I could do to reward you your excellent service.

"I'll speak with the kitchen and foremen before morning to make sure you are given supplementary rations to maintain your health and your baby's. It's been quite a while since we've had an active breeding pair among the workers, so I imagine a lot of people will have to make adjustments."

Thera nodded enthusiastically and barely held herself still. Brenna could tell she was itching to tell Jonah the news.

"You can go back to barracks."

"Thank you." Thera said and turned immediately to leave.

"Thera?"

Thera paused and looked back at Brenna.

"Congratulations."

****

For the second time in a single day Jonah found himself anxiously awaiting Thera's return. He went through the motions of preparing for sleep but he was on high-alert for Thera's swatch of unkempt blonde hair in the milling crowd. This patience thing was turning out to not be his forte.

"Jonah?"

Jonah turned at Carlin's voice to find the younger man watching him curiously. The skin at the corners of his eyes was tight from squinting a lot of the time; Carlin had said once he didn't see as well as everyone else. Jonah had a nagging feeling there was something that could help Carlin with his eyesight, though he didn't know what. Still, the vision problem didn't stop the observant man from noticing the anxiety and edginess in his companion.

"Carlin," Jonah grunted and hoped the other man would catch the hint and leave him alone.

He did catch the hint, but Carlin didn't leave.

"What's going on?" Carlin asked in that insanely calm, unassuming voice he could invoke at the drop of a hat.

"What do you mean?"

"You and Thera... you've been acting odd these last few days."

"Maybe we're just odd people."

Carlin frowned, not in disapproval but concern. His voice was heavy, worried, and sincere as he asked, "Is Thera night sick?"

Jonah winced and closed his eyes for his recent attitude toward the guy as realization slammed into him. Carlin was just worried about Thera. He couldn't fault him or blame him for that.

"No, Carlin," Jonah turned to Carlin to meet the other squarely and in doing so reinforce the veracity of his words. "Thera's not night sick."

Carlin frowned and there was something anciently familiar about the crinkles it etched in his face and the purse of his lips, matched with the look of a thousand questions in his quick blue eyes. Jonah had noticed some time ago that his two closest companions were blue-eyed; he thought it was a strange coincidence. He wondered why he would unintentionally choose blue-eyed friends.

Odd.

Carlin's eyes shifted off of Jonah to a point beyond him and the scowl didn't relent as he said, "Hey, Thera."

Jonah turned at once and there she was, standing right in front of him. Looking up at him. Smiling.

Smiling. That had to be good.

His eyebrows rose is silent question and Thera's eyes glittered like sunlight reflecting off a glacier. The look on her face was her answer.

"Really?" Jonah asked. He couldn't believe it even if everything he saw in Thera said it was true.

Thera nodded and if her smile got any bigger they'd have to make extra room in the barracks.

Jonah was suddenly grinning, he just barely refrained from scooping her up in a hug, and everyone and everything else other than him and Thera disappeared.

"Um... what's going on?" Carlin's befuddled voice broke the moment.

Jonah stopped smiling like an idiot and looked over at Carlin. The younger man looked lost, dazed and confused, and that was more familiar than it should have been, too.

Thera's hand on Jonah's arm drew his gaze down to her and she looked up at him. Silent question shined in her eyes and Jonah merely nodded. It seemed safe now.

"I'm pregnant, Carlin," Thera said and she and Jonah both watched their friend for his reaction.

He blinked at her a second, then looked between Jonah and Thera, then his eyes narrowed and squinted and his lips tightened. "That's what this has been about?" His face cycled through a strange array of emotions then. First relief that Thera was in fact not night sick, then a building smile of happiness, but quickly (before his smile had due chance to form) a deep concern that dampened his good spirits. He looked worried, wary, and he glanced cautiously between them once again.

"Thera..." Carlin began softly, "you know they're going to make you..."

Thera shook her head. "I've been granted a breeding permit."

Carlin's eyebrows arched toward his hairline. "Really?" He sounded like he could barely believe it. Thera could empathize.

"Yeah, I just came back from talking with Brenna."

Carlin looked stunned, thrown, and Jonah found it strangely amusing to watch the younger man struggle to wrap his brain around something.

"So, you're... you're going to have a baby." Carlin stared at Thera with barely-disguised amazement.

Thera looked down demurely then up at Jonah at her side. Jonah was almost buzzing with energy and poorly-masked happiness.

"Wow," was all Carlin could utter.

"Wow is right," Thera returned playfully.

Carlin finally, belatedly, grinned.

"All right, all right," Jonah said as a hand conveniently snaked around Thera's waist, "enough of this, if we don't bed down the foreman will dock our rations."

It spurred Carlin to head back to his cot, quirky smile in place, and Jonah used his fortuitously placed hand to guide Thera to her own bed.

"Are you going to be able to sleep?" she asked him dubiously as they neared her bunk. She could literally feel Jonah bubbling with energy at the news.

Jonah smirked at her. "Not a chance in Netu," he quipped, then paused and frowned as though he'd bitten into something bitter. Thera, too, felt her brain snag at his comment. She couldn't imagine why.

Jonah shook his head, gave a shrug, and when he saw her looking up at him pensively he offered, "It's an expression."

Thera nodded, still distracted and 'tripped up', as Jonah bid her good night and went back to his own sleeping area. Slowly the mood brought on by Jonah's flippant comment dissipated and she was left with the joy of that day's discovery. She would get to keep her baby, her and Jonah's baby.

She was more than happy to serve if her hard work and effort was the reason she'd been granted something almost no one else in the caves was given. She'd work so hard and Brenna would never have to doubt her decision.

****

Brenna reviewed the latest work reports. At times it seemed it was all she did, so much so that frequently she felt the numbers and figures never changed and she was condemned to peruse the same information again and again until the end of time. This, however, was not one of those times. The production quotient numbers were different, just slightly, and not in a good way.

Brenna sighed and frowned. They were running dangerously low on the mineral ore that their machines relied on to fuel their cores and the mining shafts were reaching the limits of their yield. Something was going to have to be done, because bit by perilous bit they were falling behind. The machines were already showing strain and signs of stress. Thera had been working on them for three weeks but there was only so much even a brilliant mind like Thera's could do.

Brenna sat back in her chair, though no amount of physical distance would simply make the problem go away. Either problem. Thera had been running herself into the ground trying to come up with an answer. She'd set herself the goal of coming through with a solution to coax the engines to double their workload, an impossible feat but Thera seemed determined to do it. She was coming close to the point of endangering her fetus, and Brenna was determined to step in before that happened.

The answer was simple, really. They needed more ore to fuel the engines. If the mines were running dry then they had to start new ones. Caulder, so far, had not acceded to that recommendation and Brenna understood why. Opening a new mine entailed a long list of hazards and it tied up the manpower of a lot of workers... hours of work that were needed to tend to the machines that kept the metropolis above from succumbing to the ice and snow.

A knock on her door gratefully distracted her from her introspections. "Come in."

Thera popped her head in and Brenna's face fell. Normally she was pleased to see Thera, but lately they had only one topic of conversation.

"Can I talk to you, Brenna? I've run some more numbers on machines seventeen and thirty and I wanted to go over them with you."

"Of course... have a seat."

Thera slipped into the room and made her way toward the single, utilitarian chair free in Brenna's office. Since the clearance of her pregnancy Thera had been placed in a more cerebral work position. Instead of grueling physical and manual labor she was tasked with thinking up improvements to the engines (those Caulder could permit) and overseeing the maintenance of the machines under her care. Thera had a real talent for mechanics. Brenna could name a few pieces of equipment that would be broken by now were it not for Thera's aptitude with machines and patching them together when all they seemed to want to do was fly apart.

As Thera sat down across from Brenna the overseer took a moment to study her. Truth be told, she didn't really look pregnant. The conditions of the caves and the work involved on a daily basis tended to ward off the plumpness of pregnancy that filled out the face and hips of surface women. Brenna couldn't see any indication that Thera's midsection had swollen to accommodate the child within her, either, but then the orange jacket was thick and masking. Brenna thought fleetingly that Jonah would know if she was showing yet.

"I've been going over these projections for two days, and they don't look good," Thera said somberly.

Brenna, reluctant but bound to return to business, nodded. "I know. I've been seeing the same thing in the productivity reports."

Thera frowned bitterly at the floor. "I'm sorry," she said lowly.

"It's not your fault, Thera... these machines are old. Unfortunately, they're vital to our survival."

"I don't know what else to suggest. If the administrator–"

"I know." It was an old argument with Thera. "But as I've explained to you before, we simply cannot turn off the engines for any length of time, even to upgrade them. It's too dangerous."

"I know," Thera said, her expression fixed in a frustrated scowl.

Brenna couldn't think of an answer... not one that Administrator Caulder would like, anyway.

"The infirmary told me your pregnancy illness has abated." A change of topic was more appealing than sunlight at that moment. Thera's medical condition was reported to Brenna with meticulous frequency and as far as clinical details went she probably knew more about Thera's pregnancy and physical state than Thera herself did. Still, it couldn't hurt to ask the source.

Thera, thrown by the jump, looked a little discombobulated before she said, "Yeah, it's better."

"Good." Brenna stared at Thera and found herself caught by that same 'almost' that seemed to surround Thera and made Brenna falter. To Brenna she was 'almost' a comrade, 'almost' an equal, 'almost' a friend, and the sad fact was, thanks to the stamp, Thera believed she wasn't. Brenna had never really noticed the lack of another woman to talk to until Thera showed up. Brenna constantly found herself wanting to bring Thera into her inner circle, to talk with her like she was a colleague and possibly a confidante and friend. She wanted to ask personal questions, to get to know Thera since she was denied getting to really know Major Carter.

But Thera was off-limits. She was a worker and by memory overwrite procedure knew her place. She wouldn't open up to Brenna. She'd reserve that for her own, fellow workers like Jonah and Carlin.

Brenna gave a dejected sigh and Thera seemed to read it as a judgment on her inability to create a miracle for her overseer.

"I'll have to talk this over with the administrator," Brenna finally said. "For now just return to your regular duty."

"It is an honor to serve," Thera muttered dispassionately and stood up and left at a slow, unhappy walk.

****

Jonah awoke with a gasp and blinked rapidly up into the darkness of the crowded barracks. For not the first time he had to wait for disorientation to dissipate. It was the oddest sensation, because he would recognize his surroundings upon first waking but it would take time for it to make sense to him. He tried once to explain it to Thera but it seemed to defy explanation. Just the same, Thera seemed to understand.

Jonah waited and his eyes skittered over the rock ceiling but he was relentlessly haunted by images... the images he kept seeing in his sleep. He'd started having them weeks ago. They'd been vague at first, disjointed, but the more they coalesced into a coherent scene the more terrifying they became. His and Thera's child kept dying in an accident. It woke him in a panic of sheer, unadulterated fear that he could feel wrap around him in a suffocating shawl. As if that wasn't bad enough, the dreams were evolving with time, and in the latest dreams the child would die and it would somehow be his fault.

Jonah tried to tell himself it was probably a normal soon-to-be-parent response, even though Thera never seemed to have them as far as he could tell. They were just so real to him. No one should ever be that terrified by a dream.

Jonah finally remembered the barracks and his breathing slowly started to even out from its nightmare gasp. He had an impulse to look to the side to find out the time but there was no means of telling time in the caves besides the series of horns and whistles sounded throughout the day to signal work shifts and meals. He never could figure out why he always wanted to look to the side of his cot when he first awoke and some days it was more annoying that others. At that moment it was secondary to the lingering nightmare.

He laid still and listened. There was a din of snoring in surround-sound all around him from the various workers. Usually Jonah slept fine with the ruckus; he was good at tuning out and tuning back in when necessary. Tonight, however, he knew that sleep would not return that simply.

Knowing he'd be in trouble if he got caught but at the moment so shaken and disturbed he didn't care, he silently slipped out of his cot and carefully snuck out of the barracks. Once he was out of the room it was easier to blend in and disappear. The night shift workers were manning the machines and everyone wore the same clothes so Jonah could easily be one of them. Jonah rated only a few glances as he made his way through the thin rotation of workers.

He unerringly found his way to his and Thera's spot. It was a pathetic corner behind a generator, a flimsy, thread-bare blanket on the ground as laughable padding in a dirty, uncomfortable world. Still, it sent a rush of tenderness and calm to Jonah's nerves. He thought of Thera here and that helped.

Jonah sat down, back to the wall, and closed his eyes. He tried to will the dreams away. He doubted they'd listen, but he'd give it a go anyway.

Jonah must have drifted off, because when he felt something brush his arm he jumped and jerked his eyes open.

"Shhhh," Thera whispered as she settled down next to him. She looked sleep-rumpled and mussed.

"You should be sleeping," he said even as he put his arms around her and drew her to him. He wanted to feel her, to touch her, and maybe that would chase away the nightmare.

Thera rested her head on his chest and seemed to luxuriate in him a moment before answering. "So should you. What's wrong?"

Jonah frowned. He didn't want to talk about this with Thera. He didn't want to scare her, and he had a feeling telling her he kept dreaming their baby died would frighten her. It frightened him.

"Jonah?"

"It's nothing."

Thera's arm snaked around his waist as she pulled her head up enough to look up at him. "It's not nothing. Tell me."

Jonah took one hand and traced the outline of her face. Even with the grime and soot of machine-work smudged on her skin her face was still beautiful. He drew strength from it. "Just dreams."

"Of what?"

Jonah involuntarily shuddered and he was surprised that his body had reacted so strongly. Apparently Thera was too, because the alertness in her blue eyes jumped to a new level of heightened awareness and she was riveted on him, concern in her gaze.

"I keep having nightmares. Do you have nightmares?"

"Doesn't everyone?"

"Nightmares about the baby?"

Thera paused and looked closely at him. "Sometimes."

"What are they about?"

Thera pulled her feet up close to her body and sat back slightly out of Jonah's encompassing embrace. "A couple where the baby was born and something was wrong with it, or the administrator comes to take it away. The last one I had was a dream that I couldn't have it... physically, something was wrong with my body and I couldn't deliver and I was in labor forever."

Jonah's eyes turned away from her.

"What are your dreams about?" she asked after a pause.

For only a few seconds did he consider not telling her. "I keep dreaming that it dies."

Thera swallowed, leaned over with her head finding a resting place on his chest, and hugged him. "It's probably normal."

"This isn't normal. I always dream the same thing. There's always an accident of some kind and he dies."

"He?"

Jonah nodded. "It's a son in my dreams."

Thera had gone still in his arms and he wondered what she was thinking and why he was alternately rigid and shaking.

"How long have you been having these dreams?"

Jonah's arms involuntarily tightened around her as he conceded, "A while."

"Always the same?"

Jonah nodded against the top of her head. "Yeah." He felt his body taut and wrung and he clung to Thera, hoping she could keep the world from tilting him right off the edge.

"I'm sorry," she whispered, and Jonah thought it was a weird thing to say and yet right all at once. Something in Jonah's chest contracted and his throat closed and his only recourse was to hold Thera tighter. She had to ground him, she had to.

"It's okay," she whispered, and it caused a fracture in the center of his control. He tucked his head down into her hair and he freed one hand from its death-grip on Thera to work its way into her jacket and shirt until his palm and fingers were splayed against her stomach. With the heavy clothing Thera wore the pregnancy didn't show but there was change in her body underneath, her abdomen reflected the life growing inside her. Where once there had been a flat plain of muscle and soft skin there was now a gentle, solid swell.

Thera sat still and let him feel the baby in the only way he could. She just wished it was to the point of kicking; she thought that interaction with the unborn child would help Jonah, ease his mind.

Her heart ached at the thought of Jonah losing a child. Somehow it screamed at her, even more than her own worrisome dreams concerning the baby had bothered her. With Jonah it was sharper, worse, SO much worse, and she didn't know why. She had the horrible feeling it meant she was already a bad mother that it didn't affect her as strongly.

"We should get back," she said softly in an attempt to take her mind off her inadequacies as a parent.

"Not yet..." he croaked, and the emotion in his voice cut through her. "Not... not yet."

Thera settled in more comfortably at his side and dropped her hand to her stomach, keeping his hand in place against her stomach with her own. Even if she wasn't sure why or how, she knew Jonah needed a little time with the baby, and she'd give it to him. As much as she could give him she would.

****

Brenna stood before a very unhappy Administrator Caulder in his surface office. She would never tire of the view outside his windows... the domed sky and space and color, all so different from the view outside her own office. "Our only option is to open up a new mine shaft to extract the ore. Our stores are almost depleted and if we don't get more soon our machines will start to break down."

Caulder had listened to her full report of the engines and the productivity results and he knew the inevitable as much as she. He knew as well as she the reallocation of work and supplies that setting up a new mining shaft would entail and it was not a pleasant prospect.

"All right," Caulder finally relented with no small amount of reluctance. "I'll order a group put together to decide the best place to start digging a new mine shaft. I'll expect you to have teams of workers suitably selected and prepared for the task when it's been set."

"Yes, Administrator."

Caulder nodded, still scowling, then turned his eyes back to her. "Any other problems I should know about?"

By that he meant any problems with SG-1. It was his veiled way of asking if it had gone wrong again, if the former Earth team was becoming a hazard to their very way of life. He didn't trust Thera, Jonah, or Carlin any farther than one could survive walking in a straight line outside of the dome. Brenna knew he wasn't completely off-base to be concerned, but he didn't work as closely with them as Brenna did. She took offense on their behalf, but she was not foolish enough to let it show.

"No problems."

Caulder's eyes narrowed and he seemed to ruminate on that a moment before he dismissed her with a wave of his hand. He was in a particularly foul mood after being backed into a corner and forced to order a new mine shaft opened up, but that was hardly to be helped. Not if they wanted their beautiful city above-ground to survive the ice age that had claimed the rest of their planet.

****

Things were in a state of flux among the workers; Thera could feel it like static electricity sparking through the underground inhabitants. Four days ago Brenna had called her into her office and told Thera that the administrator had finally given in and ordered a new mining operation to hunt for the all-important fuel source that the engines desperately needed. Thera had heaved a sigh of relief. She had known for a long time that the only real solution to the problem of the failing machines, given the resources at their disposal, was the procurement of new mineral ore. Until that moment in Brenna's office, however, it had been suggested that excavating new ore was not an option and some other solution had to be found. It had been an unrelenting concern for Thera.

Finally, though, Caulder and his kind had seen reason and realized the only option to save the engines and the people was more ore. Thera was able to relax for the first time in weeks because she would no longer be expected to make a miracle happen.

Thera had been told first about the mining operation because she'd been so involved with trying to solve the fuel shortage problem; the rest of the workers weren't informed until the next day when Brenna announced she would begin making selections on the mining crew. Everyone wanted the job, if only for the break from their monotonous work day in and day out.

The energy and muted excitement brought a sense of vitality that was usually dormant in the caves and Thera was oddly made to think of a holiday. She thought there should be green. It was peculiar as hell, but with the mood in the air and the prominent red hues already present in the caves Thera just thought 'green'.

Sadly, an underground encampment on a planet overtaken by glaciers was not likely to see much green.

Lunch was a much merrier affair as everyone speculated on who would be chosen for mining duty. There hadn't been any fights among the workers since the new project was announced. Everyone was on good terms and it was a relief.

The relief would have been total were it not for Thera's concern for Jonah. At the thought of him she looked over at him against her right side. He was still having the nightmares, about his son dying. 'Our son,' Thera corrected herself and a twist of shame coiled sharply in her stomach. Only when it came to Jonah's dreams did she find herself mentally distancing and detaching herself from the baby, but even that much made her feel immensely guilty.

Jonah seemed oblivious to the spirits in the caves. His face bore a scowl, part disquiet and the rest plain exhaustion.

Thera glanced over at Carlin across from them and she caught him studying Jonah with a deeply concerned set to his features. She was fairly certain Carlin didn't know what was bothering Jonah. Though he'd asked her what was wrong with Jonah, Thera had neglected to tell Carlin about Jonah's nightmares, and Thera would be willing to bet her rations that Jonah hadn't taken it upon himself to tell Carlin. He'd barely told her.

"Thera?"

Thera was pulled from her private thoughts and she, along with her two companions, looked up at the day shift foreman standing before the trio. "When you're done, Brenna wants to see you."

"Okay."

The foreman left and Carlin, his eyebrows raised, turned to her. "What do you think she wants?"

Thera shrugged and discretely sidled closer to Jonah. He stirred from his dark preoccupations to smirk knowingly and look at her. He was far from fooled by her 'oh so casual' shuffle closer to him. Thera only gave a small smile and counted it well worth the effort when Jonah freed his closest hand to drop it on to her right leg. At least he looked like he was in a better mood. She didn't know how else to reassure him as his dreams seemed to be a now-constant nuisance.

****

"You wanted to see me, Brenna?"

Brenna looked up at Thera's voice in her office doorway. "Yes, I do. I've compiled my selection of workers for the mining crew and I wanted to get your opinion."

Thera nodded and went over to Brenna's desk. Her assistance was almost second-nature by now, discrepancies in their social standing aside, and Brenna wondered when exactly it had happened. Thera was very intelligent and it had stemmed primarily from that. Thera had good ideas, she had a quick mind, and Brenna had used it to her advantage with the engines. Then, somehow, it had become more generalized. Brenna started doing dry runs of her ideas on Thera, seeing what the blonde woman thought of proposed policy changes or crew shift alterations. Her reasoning was that Thera was in the thick of the workers and knew them personally, but Brenna suspected it was more than that. She didn't discount it might be her only way of trying to have some semblance of a friendship with Thera. In the end it meant Thera had become her unofficial second-in-command, her consultant of sorts. Thera didn't seem to notice her newly elevated position, she merely served as she thought best.

Thera looked over the list of workers Brenna had provided, nodding to herself. Finally she looked up at Brenna. "Have you chosen foremen for the crews?"

"I wanted to ask you what you thought about making Jonah the day shift foreman and Carlin the night shift."

It had been unspoken consensus from the beginning that Jonah would be one of those selected for the mining crew. He had the memory-experience of doing it before. To have excluded him from the crew would have been questionable and there was a slim chance it could spark suspicion in the former SG-1. Carlin was added to the list because of his physical strength... that and, when Jonah was selected, Carlin came almost as an aside. It was difficult not to think of the entire ex-SG-1 when made to think of one of them. Especially when the trio, as their worker selves, banded together. Brenna still constantly thought of them as a triple set.

Thera frowned. "Well, Jonah would make a great foreman, he has that natural leader quality about him, and those who don't already respect him wouldn't think to disobey him..." Thera trailed.

"You don't think Carlin has the same ability to lead?"

"The same? No. Not to say he couldn't do it–"

"But?"

Thera sighed. "But... I just think Carlin should be kept on Jonah's team. I can't really tell you why, it's just my gut feeling."

Brenna tried not to smile. Not so much gut as suppressed knowledge about the two men in question. "You know these two best, Thera, your 'gut' is good enough for me. Whom, then, would you suggest I place in command of the night crew?"

Thera thought a moment. "Actually, I'd suggest Kaegan."

"Kaegan?"

"Yeah. I know she's not as physically imposing as a man, but she makes up for that in attitude. Most of the workers avoid angering her and she's quite competent. I think she'd be good at heading a team."

Brenna nodded. "I'll take that into consideration." And then the stutter again where Brenna felt like she wanted to ask personal questions; how was Thera feeling, how were things with her and Jonah, how did she feel about the baby on its way. When she was requisitely restrained from inquiring after Thera in a personal capacity it ruffled Brenna. She never really disliked the stamping procedure as much as she did when it came to Thera.

Thera was sitting obediently on the other side of the desk, waiting.

"That will be all, Thera, thank you."

"It is an honor to serve," Thera replied and stood and left. Brenna retrieved her list of workers and wrote in Kaegan's name.

****

Jonah had to confess, he felt like he'd found his niche. He was supervising his team of miners opening up a new shaft in the west wall of the caves. He'd been told three days ago of his new assignment and yesterday they'd started the actual work on digging a new tunnel into the solid rock. His crew, all men he knew, were finding their pace and their slots as a separate team with a singular task. It felt natural giving them orders; so natural that without any posturing or bluster he just expected them to do as he said. And they did.

He knew Thera had been integral in bringing about the final decision that led to the mining of a new shaft for the much-needed ore. There was a correctness to her doing the brain stuff and him taking over for the grunt work. He supposed some people were just suited to certain things.

They were making decent progress. It looked paltry at first glance, but one had to remember they were trying to dig into solid rock.

Jonah was with the group of miners shifting chunks of freed stone into crates to be removed. He wasn't sure where the debris went, maybe to be dumped on the surface in the ice and snow.

The reverberating sound of the pick-axes and sledgehammers pounding mercilessly at the cratered depression in the wall was beginning to stagger, lose its rhythm, and Jonah straightened stiffly to survey his team. Everyone was dirty and sweaty. His men were starting to look fatigued and Jonah decided they had to stop to rest.

"Hold!" he called, and everyone paused and looked over at him.

"Take five."

Everyone looked at him strangely then looked around for what they might possibly take 'five' of. Only Carlin dropped his hammer to the ground before noticing everyone around him perplexed.

Jonah resisted the urge to roll his eyes. "Take a break, get some water, and be back in five minutes."

Finally understanding, and relieved, the workers lowered their tools to the floor and made for the large basin of water.

Jonah would wait until his men had drunk before making for the water bowl so instead he found a sizable rock and sat down. He pulled his hat from his head and wiped at the sweat on his face. Doing something different was a relief and even the grueling nature of the work was a welcome change. The only down-side to his new assignment was that he didn't get to see Thera on occasion; she was back in the caves proper tending to her regular duties and they no longer happened to 'bump into each other' during the course of the workday.

Someone sat down next to him and Jonah knew whom it was without even having to open his eyes. "Carlin."

Carlin rolled his neck and shoulders to try and work out the kinks. The younger man had, as many of the workers had, removed his jacket and shirt. Normally one had to be very careful where they left their precious clothing, certainly never left unattended, but there had been a somewhat unspoken agreement reached among the miners that no one's clothing would be stolen. It allowed them all the liberty of shedding their stifling attire, and Jonah would be apt to uphold the nonverbal pact and few would want to incur Jonah's wrath by appropriating a jacket not their own.

Jonah looked over at his friend a moment. Carlin was resting with his elbows on his knees and head drooping with his chin nearly touching his chest. He would go for water when Jonah did. Carlin was well-muscled if pale. Then again, they were all sun-starved pale. And yet, Jonah would glance down at his forearm and find it odd how pallid it was. He'd never seen the sun so he shouldn't really know what his skin under its influence looked like, and yet he really thought there should have been a 'tan line' on his upper arms.

Carlin had smooth, largely unmarred skin. Jonah had scars. Not that Carlin didn't, but his scars were fewer than those that stitched Jonah's body. He didn't remember how he got them but they were his, he knew them enough to unhesitatingly claim them, and he felt strange familiarity spark at some of the signs of tear on Carlin.

Carlin was suddenly speaking, and even if Jonah hadn't registered the words the careful, diplomatic tone of his voice would have been enough. "Are you sleeping all right?"

Jonah grunted. "In this swanky place? Who wouldn't sleep like a b–" then his jaw clamped closed as he found he'd walked into a minefield of his own making. Damnit... Carlin would pick up on that.

Carlin turned his observant blue eyes on Jonah and the intellect in them was damnable. Jonah bit back a sigh and refused to let himself get up and walk off.

"Is everything okay with the baby?"

Jonah's lips were a tight line, his eyes unflinching. "Far as I know."

"Thera?"

"Far as I know."

Carlin nodded deliberately. "Then what's going on with you?"

Jonah's left eyelid twitched. "Just drop it." He knew it would be as good as an admission there was something up, but he could think of no lie good enough to fool Carlin. The man was too damn good at ferreting out the truth... at least from Jonah.

Carlin was watching him, friendly concern and compassion on his face, and Jonah could have hit him... except that he couldn't. Carlin was too damn innocent for his own good.

"Thera's worried about you," Carlin ventured carefully.

Jonah sighed wearily and dropped his gaze. "Yeah... I know she is."

"So what's wrong? Maybe if you talked about it..."

Jonah was already shaking his head with a derisive curl to his lip. Carlin seemed to think talking would solve a lot of problems. As far as Jonah was concerned, it caused them more than remedied them.

"Jonah?"

Jonah, in a fit of frustration, gave up. He looked over at his companion and said, "I'm just having dreams."

"Dreams?"

"Yeah, no big deal."

"What are they about?"

Jonah shrugged.

Carlin, no more appeased than he'd been a minute ago, shifted closer. "What are the dreams about?"

"What are your dreams about?" Jonah countered testily.

Carlin, to Jonah's surprise, stopped at that. He looked away uneasily and said, "A woman, mostly. I almost know who she is, like she's someone important to me. Dark eyes, dark hair... she dies."

Jonah was stilled by Carlin's confession, more than he suspected he would have been.

Carlin, now troubled, started to withdraw without physically moving an inch.

"I do something wrong and my kid dies," Jonah said lowly in conciliation.

Carlin's eyes jumped to Jonah and the older man looked away.

"That won't happen again," Carlin blurted.

Jonah's eyes jerked back to Carlin. "Again?"

"I mean... it won't happen. You and Thera won't let it."

"Accidents happen, Carlin."

"What exactly happens in the dream?"

"I don't want to talk about it."

"I think you need to."

"Damnit, Carlin..."

"Jonah." How one word could have so much impact and connotation behind it baffled Jonah. He suspected it was a verbal talent only Carlin and Thera possessed.

"Break time's almost up," Jonah said, rising to his feet as he did so. "We better get our drinks then get back to work."

Carlin, displeased at the evasion, knew when Jonah was immovable on a subject and unhappily got up and walked after Jonah to the water basin amid the opposite flow of returning miners.

****

Without any explicit intention, Thera managed to turn her and Jonah's corner into a figurative office. She was sitting on the floor with a 'clipboard' on her lap and pen in hand. She chewed unknowingly on her bottom lip, brow crinkled, as she stared at the figures before her.

That was how Jonah found her when he finally got off his work shift, sparing time only for a rushed dinner and pathetic shower before searching her out.

"Hey."

Thera looked up at his voice and the consternated expression remained stubbornly in place. "Hey."

Jonah went to her side, slipped partially behind her, and looped one arm around her body, hand at rest on her stomach, as he perched his chin on her shoulder and asked, "What's got you stumped?"

Thera huffed and set her pen down. "It doesn't make any sense."

Jonah chuckled deeply. "You can't figure it out? Are you sure that it's even possible?"

Thera snorted but privately his mood was a relief. The mining crew had been hard at work for more than two weeks and Jonah had been sleeping better since. She suspected the work literally tired him out so completely that he could do nothing but sleep through the night, but as long as he was sleeping she didn't really care. He was in a better mood during the day when he wasn't jerked awake at night by the same nightmare over and over.

Thera, content for the moment to dismiss the puzzle in her lap, leaned back into him and Jonah responded by wrapping his second arm around her in a gentle hug.

"What doesn't make sense?" he asked, his mouth so close to her ear it was a whisper that made Thera's mind spin.

"Um... energy output figures on the engines."

Jonah kissed her neck, once, as though for the sole purpose of derailing her train of thought. "I thought you knew those inside and out by now."

"I do, but I never really looked at them before."

Thera could almost hear his frown. "You lost me."

Thera smiled to herself. Her smile grew more lascivious as Jonah's hands started to go into action, unbuttoning her jacket and slipping into the warmth between the inner lining and her clothes.

"I'd studied the efficiency of each individual machine before, in great detail, but I never looked at the big picture."

Jonah, not so subtly, tugged her jacket off her shoulders and Thera sat up so he could take her orange coat off. He laid it aside, positioned himself directly behind her with a leg on either side of her, then pulled her back against him. Thera reclined against him readily and his hands unerringly found their way to her stomach. Free of her jacket her pregnancy was quite apparent. With her head resting on Jonah's shoulder she down-turned her eyes and watched him trace tender circles over the bulge in her body. She could linger in such moments forever if given the choice.

"Engines," he reminded her, a playful taunt in his tone, and Thera knew he was entirely too pleased with how easily he could turn her brain to jelly.

"Yes, the engines... there's too much output."

Jonah's hand slowed. "Too much? I thought we were mining because there's too little?"

Thera nodded. "Each machine has a required amount of energy output and they are all falling behind, but I only just stepped back to look at the big picture and there's too much energy overall. There is more than enough power to sustain the caves, more than twice as much needed to keep us alive. It doesn't make sense. Where is all the extra power going?"

"Have you asked Brenna?"

Thera, strangely, stiffened.

"Thera?" Jonah asked with a hint of concern for her reaction.

"No, I haven't mentioned it to Brenna... and I'm not going to."

"Why?"

"I... I don't know, but I get this bad feeling when I think about bringing it up with her. I just don't think it's a good idea."

Jonah sighed and his breath was a hot puff on her neck. "Okay, then we don't mention it to her."

Thera felt a senseless wash of relief. It also touched her how much Jonah explicitly trusted her judgment, even on only the strength of a 'feeling'.

They sat in silence a moment, enjoying the stolen moment alone, when Thera felt the baby inside her move. It kicked. Thera smiled stupidly. It had only recently begun kicking, truly, noticeably kicking, and they were spared so little time together that Jonah had yet to feel it.

She reached down and slid one of his resting hands to the place where she'd felt the baby take offense to her abdominal wall. Jonah, oblivious to her intent, merely repositioned his hand as she bade and snuggled against her.

Then the baby kicked again.

Jonah jolted and Thera felt his entire body start against her back.

"Whoa! Did you feel that?"

Thera giggled and nodded.

"Wow."

Thera turned her head toward him, his jaw at her forehead, and quipped, "Less amazing in the middle of the night when he doesn't want to sleep." Perhaps as a byproduct of Jonah's nightmares, Thera had come to think of the baby as male.

Jonah, enthralled, asked, "Can you see it?"

"When the baby kicks?"

Jonah nodded against her shoulder.

"I don't know, I never tried."

Jonah silently pulled Thera's shirt up to expose the protruding swell of her abdomen. Even Thera didn't see her pregnant belly much. Their showers were sparse and short, they didn't encourage idling, and as their living and work arrangements were so communal she was always well-clothed. Staring down at her own body, though, she marveled at the thought that her and Jonah's baby was inside that stretch of skin.

Jonah trailed his fingertips over her pale stomach, sending a shudder of goose bumps through Thera and, as though in response to its mother's reaction, the baby kicked. A spot on Thera's stomach poked ever-so-faintly outward and Thera blinked down at it in surprise, despite herself.

Jonah's hand moved and his fingers concentrated on the now indistinguishable place where the baby had kicked.

"Do you still have the nightmare?" Thera asked gently.

Jonah's fingers stilled and he flattened his hand against her stomach, a protective cover. "Yeah."

Thera felt that familiar surge of sorrow for Jonah. She wished there was a way she could make his dreams stop. Instead she did the only thing she could; she burrowed further into his warmth and his arms closed tighter around her, hand still in place over her womb.

****

The tunnel was already a good hundred feet into the rock wall when they hit the first pocket of the ore they needed and true excavation work began. The crews, long past the 'new' of their job, were merely quiet and dedicated as they removed the dark gray rock from the reddish brown stone and began to turn it over for refinement. Jonah and his team were well-established in their routines and patterns and they were able to work constantly, in staggered shifts, until the night crew came to relieve them.

The clang and ping of rock and iron struck together was a now-familiar sound and it faded into the background as the workers ceased to attend to it. Jonah was working with a group shuffling unusable red stone away from the workers removing the ore from the depths of the mine. After the work duties were sorted Jonah had actually very little supervisory tasks to perform. Everyone by now knew their jobs and did them without having to be told. These were, after all, men who were used to working together. Jonah became just another miner with occasional decision-making power.

An urgent shout echoed through the stone tunnel, quickly followed by a deafening roar of falling rock as the sound folded in on itself and amplified in the small confines.

Jonah was instantly on the move toward the commotion as the other workers began to react to the sound.

Jonah made his way through a cloud of dust and dirt as he neared the site of the incident. Cave-ins were not unheard of in the mine, and while so far none had been serious that could easily change.

"Carlin!" Jonah called out as the dust got too thick for him to see. Carlin had been in the general vicinity of where Jonah estimated the collapse occurred.

Workers were backing away from the source of the accident as Jonah fought their retreat. His hands made contact with bodies as he passed and he strained to recognize each face with which he crossed paths, doing a mental inventory.

"Carlin!"

"Jonah!"

Jonah jerked to a stop and looked into the dust to his left. Carlin, coughing and wiping at his eyes, emerged and was suddenly right beside Jonah. The older man reached out and grabbed his friend's arm. "What happened?"

Carlin coughed to try and clear his lungs. "We hit... hollow."

"You what? Is everyone all right?"

Carlin looked around. "I think so."

"Good... and what do you mean you 'hit hollow'?"

Carlin gestured over his shoulder. "There's a chamber of some kind and we broke into it, it brought part of the ceiling down."

Jonah, confused, nodded into the settling cloud. "Show me."

Carlin nodded and headed back into the fray. Everyone else had cleared out so Jonah and Carlin were alone as they neared what was, undeniably, a gaping black hole in the wall at the termination of the second offshoot of the main tunnel. Thera had been the one to suggest branching out to cover more area in which to hunt for the ore.

The hole was little more than three feet wide and surrounded on the ground by chunks of stone, some, Jonah noticed, with the ore embedded inside.

Carlin grabbed a lantern and was ducking into the hole before Jonah could process what he was doing.

"Carlin! Damnit, Carlin, get out of there, it might not be stable."

Carlin didn't listen, instead stood up on the other side and after a moment said in an echoing voice, "Wow. Jonah, you have to see this."

Jonah, grumbling, slipped through the hole and reached the other side. He had to agree. "Wow."

The room was just that, a room. Instead of rough, ragged stone-chiseled barriers there were actual walls, smooth and straight, sloping inward as they rose upward. At opposite ends were what looked like bracing beams and to the right a pentagonal block inset in the wall. The dimensions of the entire space were a little larger than Brenna's office although the ceiling was beyond the range of the light cast by the lantern.

Carlin started to wander toward one of the walls and Jonah stood, dumbstruck, at the sight. "What the hell is it?"

Carlin mumbled, "I don't know, but I think I've seen something like it before." The younger man was standing next to one of the light brown walls, which proved to actually be golden when the light was closer to them. And they were not unmarred gold. There were unrecognizable symbols and marks standing in relief upon the wall's surface. Carlin was squinting at the marks.

Jonah made his way to Carlin's side and frowned at the senseless designs. They were pointless to him, but the look on Carlin's face gave Jonah pause.

"Carlin?"

"It's a language."

"What? These squiggles and drawings?"

"Yeah."

Jonah scoffed, stopped and considered Carlin more seriously, then asked, "How do you know that?"

Carlin shook his head. "I don't know, but I... I know it is."

"Jonah?" another worker's voice called from outside.

Jonah turned. "We're all right but we need to clear the rocks that fell, there's some ore we can use."

"All right," the disembodied voice returned and Jonah turned back to Carlin. The young man was still riveted on the wall marks so Jonah ambled over to the five-sided shape on the side wall. He was inclined to call it a door, it was taller than a man, but a search failed to turn up any sign of a handle or knob.

"Carlin, you have any idea what this is?"

Carlin didn't answer and Jonah sighed. "Carlin?"

Carlin looked over his shoulder at Jonah. "Huh? Oh, sorry."

"What is this?"

Carlin let one hand reach out and trail over the runes with infinite care. "Does this seem familiar to you?"

Jonah scowled but had to admit, "A little bit. Why?"

Carlin shook his head, equally bewildered.

"We better report this."

"No!" Carlin yelped.

Jonah, taken by surprise, turned sharply to Carlin. "Excuse me?"

Carlin looked around at the strange cavern almost desperately. "Just, give me some time to look at it."

"Why?"

"I don't know, but it seems important. Please, just give me some time."

Jonah, against his better judgment, nodded, "You can have until the end of the shift but after that we have to report this."

Carlin nodded and set upon the walls like a man possessed while Jonah, for lack of anything else to do, began to wander the confines of the strange room and rummage through a number of crates he discovered in the back corners.

****

Brenna stared at the two men standing before her desk. She hardly knew where to begin. Mostly, she was watching closely for signs of regression. She was searching for Colonel O'Neill and Doctor Jackson in Jonah and Carlin. They seemed perfectly normal but Brenna was scrutinizing them all the same.

"You should have reported this immediately," she finally reprimanded. "Why did you wait until now to tell me about this?"

Carlin glanced surreptitiously at Jonah, the latter of which who said, "I didn't think it was a good enough reason to stop mining. We'd found a pocket of ore that needed our attention and for all intents and purposes it looked like it was just a room. I made the decision it could wait."

Brenna frowned and looked closely at him but there was no hint in his expression or his manner that Jonah was trying to deceive her. Sadly, she didn't know how good Jonah/Colonel O'Neill might be at lying. Thera and Carlin probably knew, but neither was likely to side with her against Jonah.

Brenna looked down at her desk and wondered how she could present this to the administrator. If he found out that it was Jonah and Carlin who'd discovered the chamber he would probably order another memory stamp just to err on the side of caution. He was particularly paranoid when it came to SG-1. Of course, as the three were so closely entwined, that would mean Thera would have to be treated again, as well, and Brenna didn't want to see that happen. In a matter of a few months Thera would give birth and if she and Jonah were stamped it would be to a child that meant next to nothing. Even if Jonah and Thera went to one another after the stamping, as they had both times before, it would mean all the memories of the early pregnancy and the relationship that spawned the baby would be lost.

"I want that tunnel sealed; no one is to go in there on my order, understood?"

Jonah and Carlin nodded.

"And you two were the only ones that went inside?"

Carlin nodded while Jonah silently seemed to pierce Brenna with a look. She could understand how the other workers, even the ones that didn't like Jonah, could cow to his will. He was a dominating presence and, in truth, he could unsettle even Brenna. The memory stamp erased memories well enough, but personalities were harder to alter and sooner or later the true nature 'bled back' into the individual.

"Very well, then. I don't want you two discussing this with the others. Not even Thera," she looked pointedly at Jonah. Jonah, for his part, was unreadable, and it stirred a bud of concern in Brenna.

"You two can go."

Carlin, before completely turning to leave, stopped and asked, "Do you have any idea what it is?"

Jonah looked like he wanted to cuff Carlin but instead he remained otherwise impassive and the only sign he was displeased was the dance of his jaw muscles as he clenched his teeth.

"No, I don't, but even if I did it's not your concern. I'll let the administrator know about it and he'll deal with it accordingly."

Carlin seemed to question her a moment before he turned and preceded Jonah out of the office. Neither had remembered to spout off the catch-phrase branded into every worker, whether by training or stamping.

Brenna sat down heavily in her chair and worried the edge of a sheet of paper on her desk with anxious fingers. She would have to handle this carefully or the three of them would lose so much. She had to make sure she presented this discovery to Caulder with enough vagueness that the identity of the discoverers was never mentioned.

****

Thera paced anxiously in the small space, her and Jonah's spot, waiting for her two friends to show up. Jonah had pulled her aside five days ago and told her they needed to show her something, but it was too risky to do it right away. Thera had been consumed with curiosity but the dark sincerity in Jonah's eyes left no doubt in her mind this was a sensitive subject and they dare not jump into it without caution. She had dutifully said not a word more on the matter, taking her lead from Jonah and Carlin who obviously were hiding something.

Then, finally, last night Jonah had told her to meet them after bed-down. Thera, owing to her advancing pregnancy, was now known to frequent the lavatories in the night so she was able to slip out and steal away to the nook behind the south passage generator with some ease without arousing any suspicion. Getting out of the barracks was not as tricky as getting through the engine room, because now Thera was a unique sight to everyone in the caves with her condition visible even under the thick clothing.

Thera knew it might take Jonah and Carlin a while to make their escape but still she was getting a little nervous. And if they didn't show up soon she really would have to go pee. She absently rubbed her stomach, adopting a rhythm she reasoned would calm the baby but was in fact to settle her own nerves. In truth, with her constant pacing the baby was quite calm and possibly even asleep, perhaps lulled by her movement.

Thera heard a noise and startled, looking at once into the shadows. She let out a sigh of relief when Jonah emerged from the red-tinted darkness, slinking into the small recess that had become their private place. He set eyes upon her and offered a smile, small but relaxing all the same.

"I was starting to wonder," she whispered.

"Sorry," Jonah said and he strode over to her and kissed her briefly. "I was hanging back to make sure Carlin got clear."

As though on cue Carlin slipped into the secluded area and looked a little abashed to have 'walked in' on them with Jonah standing intimately close to Thera, one hand almost mindlessly on her stomach.

They pulled into a tight circle and Carlin beckoned for them to sit. Jonah helped Thera to the floor then sat down next to her.

"So what's this big secret you guys are keeping?" she asked, itching to know what had made Jonah and Carlin go tight-lipped.

Carlin glanced at Jonah, got a nod, then said, "When we were mining we came across a room."

"A room? In the middle of the rock?"

"Yeah. We didn't know what it was but Jonah and I searched it and we found these," Carlin reached into his shirt and pulled out two slate-gray tablets and what appeared to be a stone of matching composition.

"What are they?" Thera asked as she was handed one. It had markings on it, ones that tickled the back of Thera's mind, but it was otherwise utterly foreign to her.

"A diary of sorts."

Thera looked up at Carlin then at Jonah. His expression told her this was the first time he was hearing this, too.

Carlin took the tablet back. "When Jonah and I first found the room I thought the markings on the wall looked familiar but I couldn't place it."

"Now you can?"

Carlin frowned. "No... but I 'remembered' how to read this, anyway."

Jonah and Thera exchanged a look but listened to Carlin.

"According to these texts there was a great battle before the ice age claimed the planet. The people, our ancestors, I guess, were visited by a god of great power but they refused to bow to the divinity of the god and they were punished. The god, in these named as His Greatness Babi, Lord of the night sky, railed at the temerity of our forefathers to defy his power and as punishment made the sun to vanish and the waters to freeze."

"You got all of that from those two little things?" Jonah asked dubiously.

Carlin picked one up and, angling it so Thera and Jonah could watch, waved the stone over the top. The marks, like magic, shifted and became new scripts.

"Holy hannah," Thera remarked as she snatched the tablet back and stared at the new marks.

Carlin continued. "From what I can tell the room Jonah and I explored was actually the cargo hold of a small scout vessel that was caught in a storm caused by Babi's actions and it crashed into the ground."

"Just wait a second," Thera interjected. "You do realize you're talking about gods, right?"

"Yes, so? What's your point?"

"Carlin... gods are well and good for religion but they don't show up and visit people."

"Well... maybe they're not really gods."

"So they're... what?" Jonah asked.

Carlin shrugged. "I don't know, impostors, aliens, my point is–"

"Aliens? Carlin, I think you're night sick if you believe that aliens came from some galaxy far, far away and–"

"Besides," Thera interrupted, "this could be some religious text with no more truth to it than... well, it could just be spiritual fiction."

"If it's merely religion then why don't we still have some semblance of faith? Times of great struggle are ripe fields for the growth of religion but we have none. Don't you find that odd? If this text was truly just a relic from a religious movement why has none of it survived into us, even this story of Babi eating the sun?"

"Eating, oh now he's eating it."

Carlin frowned at Jonah. "It's the literal translation of the text, but why couldn't it be an exaggeration of true events?"

"Oh, because it's nuts?"

Thera held up her hand. "What else does it say?"

Carlin relented. "It says that Lord Babi caused an eruption of great power in the land and the people would suffer for all time for their blasphemy. The interesting thing, this is told from the point of view of the two followers trapped in the ship that crashed."

"We didn't see any corpses," Jonah pointed out.

Carlin frowned. "Um... the more I think about it the more I think that that door led to the control room... I'll bet if we'd been able to get inside we'd have found the bodies.

"Anyway, this tells the account of the two acolytes, something called 'Jaffa' who served Babi when the planet was attacked. They knew they were entombed in a dying world but they continued to chronicle their devotion and unwavering belief in their all-powerful god."

"Carlin, this is the most ridiculous, out-there..."

"Jonah... it makes some sense."

"What?!"

Thera winced and ventured tentatively. "I mean, the explanation given by these texts for our planet's condition tracks."

Jonah blinked. "Whatever Carlin's got, it's contagious."

"Think about it. Gods aside, if something with enough destructive force impacted the planet it could have created a cloud of dust and debris so massive that it would block out the sun, what could plausibly look like 'eating it'. In a matter of days all plant life would die, not long afterward animal life, and without the heat of the sun the planet's temperature would drop and you'd get–"

"An ice age," Carlin finished the thought.

Thera nodded as she handed the tablet back to Carlin.

Jonah sighed and rubbed his face. "Okay, suspending reality and soundness of mind for a second, what does that have to do with us now?"

Carlin frowned at that and returned, "It's fascinating."

Jonah groaned and threw up his hands. "Great, we risk getting busted because he thinks this fairy tale crap is fascinating."

Carlin looked offended and narrowed his eyes petulantly at Jonah.

"You have to admit, Carlin," Thera said gently, "the idea that there is something out there that could do that much damage on a planetary scale is really far-fetched.

"What if this is metaphorical for an asteroid collision?"

"If that's true why would there be written record of it? If what you said about the series of events after an asteroid hit of that size is true then wouldn't any intelligent life be a little too worried about impending death to write it down? Why bother if they were smart enough to know all life would be wiped out on their planet? And what about these tablets or the ship? There's nothing nearly that advanced down here, even Jonah has to admit that."

Thera looked at Jonah and he nodded reluctantly.

"The question we should really ask," Thera said after a pause as she looked directly at Carlin, "is how can you read this?" she gestured toward the tablets.

Carlin looked down at the stone tablets. "I don't have an answer for that. I just looked at them and it came to me. I could understand the writing, but I don't know how and that kind of scares me. Either way you look at it, if you believe this is from a god-like race or if it's from our ancient history, I shouldn't know it."

All three fell silent until finally Jonah said, "We've been away too long; we better go back before we're caught."

Carlin assented and tucked the tablets back under his clothing then stood. Jonah got to his feet then helped Thera up. Carlin stole away first and for a brief time Thera and Jonah were alone. His arm came around her waist and she looked up at him.

They didn't say anything but their eyes spoke the same message. They were both more affected by the tablets and the discovery of the ship than anyone would be to average archaeological debris or baseless mythology. **** Administrator Caulder sat at his grand place facing the magnificent windows that sang to Brenna's soul as she stood waiting for his reaction to the latest numbers from the mining endeavor. She was sorely tempted to turn around and stare out at the cityscape instead of watch Caulder's dour face as he read. It was night on the surface and the dimmed lights reflected like ghosts on the glass of the dome. The closest Brenna got to the dance of shadows was the flicker of fires to heat food and warm bodies. It wasn't the same.

"These look promising," Caulder said and snapped Brenna back to the man before her.

"Yes, I think so."

"The work seems to be progressing well. Is there any estimation when the first of the recently excavated mineral ore will be suitably prepared for use in the machines?"

Brenna nodded as she answered, "We're expecting the first batch to be ready for use in two days."

"Good. You're doing well, Brenna."

"It is an honor to serve, Administrator."

"Yes. Now, one matter I must broach with you... the Earthers have contacted the government head and asked permission to return within two days, which has been granted."

Brenna nodded and took due note of the news. The Earth world had remained in contact with their world even after the disappearance of SG-1 and the eventual conclusion that all had been lost outside the dome. Brenna usually got a fair warning when possible that more soldiers from the planet Earth were coming if only to keep a closer eye on Jonah, Carlin, and Thera. So far it had never escalated into a problem, but Caulder was very careful with his newly acquired workers. It had a lot to do with the fact that the government wanted to maintain diplomatic relations with the planet Earth. Their meddlesome tendencies aside, the Earthers were resource-rich and technologically on close to equal ground with the natives of Brenna's world. There was much to offer and much to be gained as long as the Earthers' curiosity was curtailed. Caulder and his kind had learned their lesson with SG-1.

"I'll take the necessary precautions," Brenna assured. Necessary precautions which simply meant keeping the team occupied. She'd order a thorough medical examination of Thera and she'd have Carlin and Jonah working over-time in the mines until their Earth-kin were gone.

Caulder nodded then asked, "Has there been any further 'discoveries' in the mines?"

"No, Administrator. I begin to think that will be an isolated incident."

"We can only hope so, Brenna. Even still, I expect to be informed immediately of any further discoveries and the nature of them."

"Of course."

"Return to your duties."

Brenna dipped her head. "It is an honor to serve," she recited and left the room of the sprawling vista to return to her station underground.

****

Carlin turned circles in the tel'tac scout vessel. He was himself and apart at once. He could see through his own eyes and see himself. He was wearing an outfit at once unknown and fitting to him. Green pants and jacket with a black vest and a boonie hat stuffed in his pant leg pocket. He was wearing glasses and the world was brought into sharp focus.

Carlin looked once more around the tel'tac. It was brightly lit, the walls almost glowing golden. The cargo hold was empty and Carlin was drawn to the pentagonal door. He stood before the smooth dark panel and at first he was stymied. Then he knew where to look and turned his head to locate the control panel of six rectangles in three rows of two. Suddenly it made sense and he knew what to do.

Carlin reached out and pressed one square. It glowed green under his touch, maintaining its luminous hue until Carlin stopped exerting pressure. Carlin's hand moved as though by muscle memory and it input a pattern. On the final contact and green glow the door hissed and pulled up and Carlin jumped back when he found himself face to face with a large man. Taller than him by a head, dark-skinned, bald, with a golden symbol branded on his forehead.

Carlin blinked at the man who must surely be an enemy but there was no reaction of fear from him and the tall stranger was looking at Carlin like he knew him. Carlin felt the man's name crawl up his throat, on the tip of his tongue.

Carlin flinched and opened his eyes. The barracks were alive with the sounds of sleeping bodies wall to wall. The red-tones and shadows of the room quickly reoriented Carlin and distanced him from the world of his dreams. Determined to go back to sleep, Carlin turned on his side, pulled his thin blanket up tighter around him, and closed his eyes.

Enough remained of his dream, however, for him to recall he'd been on a ship like the one in the mines. It had been well-lit instead of cloaked in shadow. There had also been a means to open the door...

Carlin's eyes shot open once again as the sequence on the panel burned into his memory. He desperately tried to remember the layout of the ship in the mines, trying to remember if such a panel had been present on that ship. The task was not exceedingly difficult.

Despite Brenna's order that the room be forbidden to all the workers, Carlin had been captivated by it. There was something in its walls that spoke to him, waited for him to figure it out. He'd taken to sneaking into the room to study the walls and the details of the cargo hold whenever possible. It was more frequently than Jonah or Thera would ever suspect and Brenna would be furious if she knew just how much time Carlin had spent in the off-limits room.

For two weeks he'd been returning to the small room, and slowly things started to coalesce in his mind. The language on the walls came loose in his brain like a rusty hinge finally oiled and he found he actually read the language well. He was able to skim over the raised markings almost as easily and swiftly as he did writing in his own language. The walls of the room, however, told him very little. It was mostly passages hailing praise to Lord Babi.

Even if the script on the walls had been less than elucidating Carlin could not stay away. There was something there he had to find, to uncover, and he went back again and again searching for that elusive truth which continued to stubbornly evade him.

Because he knew the room from one corner to the other from so many clandestine visits was the reason that when Carlin tried to recall a detail, such as the wall panel near the door, he remembered quickly that there was indeed a panel that matched the one in his dream.

He only had to wonder if the code that unlocked the one in his dream would do the same for the door on the ship in the mines.

Carlin, deciding his actions in the moment, sat up in bed as quietly as possible and looked around for signs of anyone else awake. There were only the still forms of his barrack-mates and the snores of more than a few individuals.

Carlin carefully slipped out of bed and began to pad toward the entrance/exit to the barracks. No one noticed him abscond and Carlin's luck similarly held all the way to the west wall of the caves. The night shift mining crew was there and Carlin's efforts at stealth grew tenfold. The night shift foreman, Kaegan, knew Carlin well and knew very well that he wasn't on her crew. More than once he'd come close to being caught by her in his nighttime excursions to the ship but so far she'd never actually seen him steal away into the mining tunnel. Hopefully his good fortune need only hold out one more time before he discovered the secret to the ship.

Carlin crept and wove his way between equipment, carts, rocks, and other workers until he'd reached the mouth of the tunnel and slipped into the shadows, broken only by the regularly placed lanterns. Carlin snatched up a lantern on his way inside and went directly toward his target. As soon as he reached the first branch leading to the ship he knew he was safe because Brenna had closed down that entire offshoot in the interest of deterring anyone from looking into the mystery at the end.

Carlin's feet almost knew the walk without him and he quickly reached the hole in the stone and the ship's side and ducked inside. The walls of the ship tantalized him as it had from the start. He felt the most comfortable here as opposed to any other place in the caves. It seemed to call to him, his for only he knew the language on the walls and the tale in the glyphs.

The marks, however, were not why he had come tonight.

Carlin went to the door and his lantern's light barely touched the panel next to the sealed entrance. Carlin allowed one small smile then tried to recall the sequence from his dream. It was remarkably intact and vivid for a dream but he wasn't about to question his lucidity.

Carlin reached up and depressed the first rectangle and was rewarded by a green glow and a rush in his veins.

Carlin input the rest of the series then held his breath, waiting.

For a second nothing, then a groan and creak as the door (obviously damaged) ground upward and in doing so exposed an entirely new dimension of the mystery to Carlin.

He was almost giddy with anticipation and excitement.

Carlin inched into the dark room beyond and waved his lantern about to get a lay of his surroundings. The control room, and he knew that's what it was, looked exactly as part of him had expected it to look. A dead console in the center and beyond that two seats, a pilot and copilot of sorts. The windows were a wall of red rock.

Carlin moved around the room and soon noticed the two shapes slumped in the seats at the front of the ship. Carlin suppressed a sense of dread as he crept forward until finally he was at the side of the pilot's chair.

The figure was an armored body, long since dead. The skull and agape jaw of white teeth were proof enough that the ship had crashed long ago. Carlin looked to the floor where, among the metacarpal bones of the Jaffa's hands, he saw a staff of unusually balanced and contrived design. He knew it was a weapon and more than simply a method of hitting someone, but how he knew that he could not say.

Carlin stepped back and surveyed the room for anything else. He couldn't wait to tell Jonah and Thera about this. First, however, he wanted to know if there was any more information about the fate of the ship and of the planet before he pried himself from the vessel.

Carlin moved to the console at the pilot's location, wincing at the petrified corpse he had to stand beside, and surveyed the controls. They were in the language he could read with frightening ease and when he found a promising toggle he pressed down on it.

The ship sputtered to life, at least partially, and literally 'sputtered'. The lights flickered sickly and a coughing wheeze of overtaxed, long-dead engines spat at him.

Then a broken voice that nearly sent Carlin into a dead run before he realized it had to be a recording. By the time he calmed himself the glitch in the system had jarred loose enough for him to make out the words uttered by the disembodied voice. It was deep-pitched and speaking a tongue that, until that moment, Carlin had only heard in his head.

Carlin listened, fascinated and elated by his find, until the words being conveyed over the speakers actually began to sink in. Then he frowned and began to back away from the bodies.

"Oops."
****

Thera picked at her breakfast with a grimace on her face. Jonah at her side noticed and asked, "Not hungry?"

"Starving," she answered grumpily and let her spoon splat against the gray gruel. She and Jonah were sitting together before their separate duty shifts began, the last time until right before bed-down that they'd be able to spend any time together (the miners had their lunch brought to them instead of having the entire crew return to the food service area). Usually they made the most of their limited time together but that morning Thera was in a rather disagreeable mood and Jonah, unoffended, let her be. Instead of perched against a wall shoulder to shoulder they were almost facing one another, Thera's legs crossed while Jonah's were more widely sprawled and bent. He tended to have trouble with his knees, meaning his range of motion was not as free and easy as Thera's.

Jonah quirked an eyebrow at her curiously as Thera scowled at her food.

Thera huffed in annoyance and dropped her spoon into her bowl. She looked up at Jonah and noticed the careful but gentle smile tugging at his lips. It was enough for her to realize she'd been acting quite childish. "Sorry," she said sheepishly, though still pissed at her bowl.

"What's wrong?"

"I'd kill for something other than this slop, that's all."

"Who wouldn't," Jonah quipped and lifted his spoon to let a glob of gray sludge fall back to his bowl for emphasis.

Thera scowled again. "You don't have cravings," she rubbed her belly errantly. "Before I was pregnant I wasn't happy with our rations but I never had a real problem with them... your baby's a picky eater, Jonah."

"My baby? Why is it mine when it's being a pain in the ass?" Jonah stopped at Thera's look and amended, "All right, don't answer that."

Thera's dark expression finally transformed to lift with a smile. She set about eating her unappetizing breakfast without the slightest enthusiasm or gusto as she mused, "I wonder where Carlin is."

Jonah shrugged. He had to confess that Carlin's absence all morning was strange, but Jonah was placated by the fact that there wasn't much chance in the limited caves that Carlin could find trouble.

"Excuse me, sorry, 'scuse me, Jonah, Thera!"

Jonah and Thera both looked up as Carlin came rushing up to them through the throng of morning diners. He was dancing his way between other workers until he was finally at his destination and dropped down on to his knees before his friends.

"Probably not much left, Spacemonkey," Jonah quipped to Carlin's tardiness to breakfast.

Carlin, who had been in a rush to say something, suddenly stopped and looked quickly at Jonah. Thera, too, turned her eyes to Jonah with a quizzical expression.

Jonah seemed to only then comprehend what he'd said and with an unconvincing shrug said defensively to the looks he was receiving, "It's an expression."

Carlin looked askance at Jonah a moment then seemed to shake it off in favor of more important matters. "I need to talk to you two."

Jonah looked around and noticed almost everyone was close to finished eating. The duty shift horn would be sounding soon. "Can it wait until tonight?"

"No! No, I don't think it can."

"Carlin, what are you talking about?" Thera asked.

Carlin looked nervous. "I think I did something bad. Very, very bad. We all might be in trouble."

Thera and Jonah stilled and looked apprehensively at one another. Unintentionally, Thera's hand went to her stomach and Jonah saw her do it, and he saw the spark of intense worry that flashed in her blue eyes.

Jonah turned flinty, dark eyes on Carlin. "What did you do?" His voice was ominous and deliberate and would have made anyone else recoil.

Carlin swallowed and dropped his voice lower. "I dreamed about the tel'tac–"

"The what?" Thera asked suddenly, her posture straightening abruptly.

"The, uh, the ship we found in the mines," Carlin corrected softly.

"No, what did you call it before?"

"Tel'tac?"

"What is it, Thera?" Jonah asked to her ashen expression.

"I know that word... I think," she answered, tone distracted.

Jonah seemed a little debased, as though he too had reacted to the word, but he looked sharply at Carlin. "Let's get to the part where Carlin gets us in trouble."

Carlin shrank back an inch and grimaced. "I... uh... I had a dream that I knew how to open the door."

"So...?" Jonah prodded angrily.

"So... I went back to the ship to try it."

Thera's eyes widened but Jonah only looked furious. Were they not in the middle of all the other workers Carlin would probably be getting the full brunt of Jonah's wrath.

"Damnit, Carlin, what the hell were you thinking? If Brenna found out we'd all get..."

Carlin looked briefly at Thera then back at Jonah. "Get what?"

Jonah frowned and quickly supplied, "Punished. We'd be punished."

"Did it work? Did you get the door open?" Thera asked.

"Yes."

Jonah and Thera went quiet but Carlin had more to say. "Look, long story short, I found the cockpit and I think I may have, inadvertently, activated a homing beacon."

"What?"

"Well, I think the controls were booby-trapped, probably programmed in by the Jaffa before they died. When I touched one of the controls the ship powered up and a voice over the speaker system said Lord Babi would know disbelievers had survived his purge of the planet and we should prepare to meet our doom."

"For crying out loud, Carlin," Jonah hissed.

Thera said carefully, "Let's just think about this a minute. We're talking about supposed gods, right?"

"Yeah."

"So. Maybe there's nothing to worry about. They probably don't exist, Carlin."

"But–"

"And even if there were some life forms impersonating deities, it was probably hundreds of years ago so there's little chance that this being that was posing as this Lord Babi is still alive."

Carlin frowned. "Yeah, I guess."

"So we should stop talking about this before we get caught," Jonah growled, "and you," he pointed at Carlin, "stay the hell out of that ship before you get us all in deep shit."

"Yeah, well, I may have already done that."

"Carlin!"

Carlin held up his hands. "Okay, okay!" He looked around at the others nearby, almost furtive, but before Carlin could even consider getting his own breakfast the horn bellowed and everyone (Thera with Jonah's help) got up and started to head to their duty stations.

****

Brenna was in her office, the room that seemed so often to define her entire universe, when there was a rap on her door.

"Yes?"

Brenna was surprised to see Kaegan stick her head into the office. The dark-complexioned woman was the sort who did her job but didn't do a lot of extraneous socializing, certainly not with her superiors. Brenna tried to remember if she'd ever actually spoken with Kaegan outside of arranged circumstances.

"A moment, Brenna?"

"Of course, Kaegan. There's not a problem, is there?"'

Kaegan stepped into Brenna's office and frowned dourly. "There might be."

Brenna came to attention and gestured for Kaegan to continue.

"It's about Carlin."

Brenna was instantly queasy with ill portent. Before the second stamping, what Kaegan and the others had been told was a severe case of night sickness, Kaegan and Carlin had been comrades. They may have even become friends but when Carlin came back from his second stamp procedure with no memory of Kaegan and shortly thereafter took up with Jonah and Thera the fledging friendship died on the vine. Kaegan's feelings about Thera were well-known and she had not been willing to lower to befriending someone who also ran in Thera's circle. Brenna never understood the animosity between the two women, but luckily the second stamping procedure seemed to end the overt bad blood. Thera didn't remember Kaegan didn't like her and Kaegan seemed perfectly content to be forgotten by the blonde woman. Whatever had precipitated the original ill-will between the two had not recurred and when Thera became occupied with her pregnancy not long after the second stamping Kaegan had never entered into Thera's concerns.

It did not mean the original opinion of Thera was not still there. Kaegan, while no longer openly butting heads with Thera, still didn't like her. Jonah, either. Similarly, she also maintained some manner of fondness for Carlin. If Kaegan was here reporting a problem with Carlin it was not some idle quibble. She wouldn't want to get Carlin in trouble, which was what worried Brenna. If Kaegan had come to report Thera or Jonah Brenna would have been less on-edge, but this was about Carlin. That was a different matter entirely.

"What seems to be the problem?" Brenna asked reluctantly.

Kaegan looked down at the floor uneasily. "A number of the workers on my mining crew have noticed him during our shift sneaking into the caves."

"Why?" Brenna asked, afraid she already knew the answer.

Kaegan frowned, genuinely stumped, and shrugged. "I don't know. I'd never actually seen him myself until last night, but apparently it's been going on for some time now."

"Have you talked to him about his activities?"

"Yes, because I thought maybe he couldn't sleep and thought he'd come to help out my team. You know, Carlin could just do random generous things like that, even if I thought it was strange he never cleared it with me first.

"He said he didn't know what I was talking about, completely denied being out of barracks on his off-shift."

Brenna frowned. "I see."

"He hasn't done anything to hamper out progress in the mines; I wasn't even sure I should report him, because he wasn't doing any harm..."

"You did the right thing, Kaegan," Brenna said. 'Though I wish you hadn't,' she thought sadly. She'd have to tell the administrator. There was only one thing Carlin could be doing, without permission, in the mining tunnels.

Brenna sighed. "I'll take care of it, Kaegan. Thank you."

Kaegan nodded. "It is an honor to serve," she recited, then she paused before leaving and studied Brenna with intent dark eyes. "Is he night sick?"

Brenna sat back slowly in her chair. "Yes, Kaegan, he might be, but don't worry... we'll take care of him."

****

Thera lived for moments like this. True, the floor was hard against her right side and doubly uncomfortable now that she had a heavier body to press down against it. The air was tinged with the thick taste and smell of burning ore and engine grease and she could feel the grim of the day's work, and some from the two days before that since showers were so strictly rationed, gritty and slick on her sweat-sheened skin. It also didn't escape her notice that she was, for all intents and purposes, naked in what could easily be a public area. Those were the negatives aspects, however, and Thera had learned to look for the good side of every situation. Without that ability one quickly went night sick in the caves.

The positives were myriad and they were all bundled into one package. Jonah. He laid behind her with an arm around her middle to encompass mother and unborn child in a loose hold. She could still feel the places on her body where he'd kissed her, his bare front warm against her back. The manual labor in the mines had done wonders for his physique and he was solid muscle, harder and bigger than he used to be, all of that plastered firmly against Thera. His fingers were brushing idly over the tightness of her rounded stomach as though without thought and it captivated Thera... as well as tickled a little bit. His face was dipped into the crook of her neck, his mouth just barely touching her throat and his breath even and comforting against her carotid pulse point.

They had so few moments like this. Intimacy was a tricky business in the caves and to have any form of physical relationship with another person each worker had to make certain concessions and sacrifices. Shyness was the first to go. There were no designated areas for carnal encounters, no privacy as such. To be sexually active meant accepting others might happen to see.

It was why Jonah lay where he did, propped forward against her as he was. When they lay together and held each other after making love he always placed himself between Thera and the open end of their personal alcove. He used his own naked body to shield Thera from wandering eyes as best he could. She loved him for that, though she had reconciled the fact long ago that to be with Jonah she would have to chance her other work mates seeing more of her than she would have liked. It was an acceptable surrender of her modesty for his touch. Still, Jonah tried to keep her 'honor' intact at the expense of his own and Thera thought it was sweet.

There was also an unspoken code among the workers, and an understanding on the matter of couples, working in their favor. Yes, accidental 'sighting' of a pair engaged in certain 'activities' might be inadvertently witnessed, but it was policy, like a social contract agreed upon by all, to not watch. Thera had once 'stumbled upon' two of her coworkers together and discretely looked away, backed off, and tended to work elsewhere until enough time had elapsed for them to finish. It was a communal courtesy everyone upheld without needing to be asked so each might be extended the same courtesy in return.

Even if it wasn't, she seriously doubted there were many workers who would risk angering Jonah just for a peek of her now distorted body.

Jonah, propped on one elbow to lean against her, pulled his head up from her neck and Thera glanced over her shoulder to see him looking at her belly. Jonah was enchanted by the child in her womb and at such unguarded moment she saw the raw tenderness and awe in his brown eyes. He put up a good front at all other times, but when they were alone he relaxed his defenses and Thera saw just how much Jonah cared for her and their baby. It always managed to turn her insides one-eighty and make her love him all the more.

She glanced down at her own body and watched Jonah tracing his fingers over the brown stripes on her stomach, unsightly stretch marks in Thera's eyes but Jonah had responded only by kissing each one and she didn't mind them so much anymore.

The baby kicked and Thera, taken by surprise at the suddenness and strength of the action, flinched faintly.

Jonah smiled. "Did it hurt?"

"No, just startled me."

Jonah, a soft smirk still fixed on his lips, dropped his chin to Thera's shoulder and continued to rub her abdomen. Thera felt like she'd gained an unseemly amount of weight in just the past two and half weeks. Her belly suddenly expanded almost daily to the naked eye and everything became ungainly and horribly awkward for her to do. Before, Jonah had just been chivalrous helping her up and down from the floor but now she couldn't do either without his help, not without relying heavily on walls, available supports like crates and boxes, and the adoption of strange hands-and-knees starting points.

Jonah was getting a kick out of the advancement of her pregnancy. But then, he didn't have to carry the baby. Thera was just getting annoyed and, she was sad to confess, increasingly peevish. It was small wonder pregnancies were discouraged in the caves. It was a terrible place to go through pregnancy, as Thera was learning in vivid detail.

As though in illustration of her point a spot on Thera's hip began to ache sharply from lying on the unforgiving rock ground. Thera shifted, failed to relieve the pain, and Jonah observantly asked, "What?"

Thera sighed roughly. Jonah was getting good at uncovering her ever-increasing list of discomforts and complaints and she hated that.

"My hip, the floor's starting to hurt."

Jonah, without a word, reached over their heads to where their clothes were piled. He snagged his jacket first and folded it a couple of times then said, "Up."

Thera, irritated, awkwardly lifted her hips off the ground and Jonah slipped the jacket under her. When she settled again, Jonah's hand on her waist to guide her down, she came to rest on the padding of the heavy coat.

"Better?"

Thera nodded. Her shoulder still hurt and her back was plagued by the constant low-grade ache now her unending cross and her legs were starting to complain about the floor too, but her hip was no longer a flash-point of pain. What she really needed was to get up off the floor but she wasn't ready to give up Jonah's bare embrace yet. She'd have to get just a little bit more uncomfortable, and cranky, before that happened.

The baby shifted inside her and Thera's bad mood tempered just a little.

Jonah was stroking her arm, from shoulder to fingers, in slow, lazy pas