DISCLAIMER: I only borrowed them for a while. MGM and whoever can
have them back whenever they want.
SERIES: The nineteenth in a series of vignettes from those close to Sam/Janet.
SPOILERS: Spoilers up to and including Ripple Effect.
ARCHIVING: Only with the permission of the author
Outside Looking In:
Martouf/Lantash
By Celievamp
Our feelings for her were always complicated. How could they not be? She was not who she appeared to be. And yet she was like enough in form and feature to our lost Rosha for our heart to ache. Yet though we feel we are somehow being disloyal to Rosha in saying it, we think that Samantha Carter is even more beautiful than our lost love.
Jolinar's memories confused her, we know, made her uncertain of her feelings. For us and for those around her. She was and is well liked, even loved, her friends are loyal and true. They will stand beside her, support her through any trial, any decision she might make. At first they did not trust the Tok'ra (and for some that trust is still but grudgingly held) but they recognise the value of an alliance between us. They did not recognise our love.
It bothers both of us how like Rosha Samantha is. Lantash tries to tell us that Jolinar was desperate to survive when she took Samantha as a host. She was the first opportunity that presented itself in a dire situation. Her former host was dead. The resemblance was a coincidence pure and simple. It was not like the Goa'uld. It had to be just chance… We have to believe that or… we did not want to think that Jolinar had deliberately selected Samantha as a host.
Those early days of the Alliance were difficult. Even dealing with SG1. The Jaffa Teal'c did not trust us yet seemed in awe of us all. He saw us as figures out of legend. For Daniel Jackson we were an enigma to be solved and a hope for his future. To Jack O'Neill we were and always will be snakes. And to Samantha…
We did not seek to have rivals in our love for her but we were not blind. And Lantash as always saw even more clearly than I. One of the reasons that Jack O'Neill disliked us even above all others of our kind was the love that he himself bears for Samantha. And then there was the doctor, the woman who was and is Samantha's closest friend. She sought to be more. Samantha would not speak of what lay between them but I saw the looks and smiles. There was always an ease between them that went beyond words. One day, as Lantash told me many times, they would look up and see each other truly and they would know.
We had our time together. We worked alongside SG1, Lantash and I, serving both the interests of the Tok'ra and… our own. We believed that we loved Samantha as completely as we had loved Rosha and Jolinar. We were happy. But it was not enough. Always always there was the uncertainty at the heart of our relationship. The uncertainty in Samantha's heart. Did we love her for herself or love her for the memory of Jolinar and Rosha. Was her feelings for us nothing more than the remnant of Jolinar within her? Truthfully we could not answer her.
We parted friends. That is a warmth in our hearts. A few months later Janet Fraiser nearly lost her life in an ambush on P3X-666 and scant weeks after that Samantha herself was almost killed escaping from a Kull warrior that had hunted her three days and three nights. They recuperated from their injuries together. And one day, as Lantash said they would, they looked up and they saw each other. And they knew.
The best thing we can do is stand back and let these things happen. To be the best friend and ally we can be. Not just to the Tau'ri, but to Samantha and to Janet. Who are joined as fully as any Tok'ra. And now as my Samantha awaits the birth of her child I am confronted with so many images of her, some who were never blended with Jolinar, others who have her still, some consumed with guilt over things that have happened others still afraid of what we represent. But as Samantha is not our Rosha, these others are not our Samantha.
She is waiting for us, waiting for her Janet to come home.
The End