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The nature of her job, and his status as an enemy of the planet, meant that there were times when Sam had to cancel on Ba’al, when something urgent came up, or someone invited her somewhere and she couldn’t find a suitable excuse. She’d always suspected it irritated him, but he never reacted any differently.
It wasn’t until Sam had to cancel three times in a row that she got a reaction.
She expected that he’d cancel on her; direct revenge, an eye for an eye. Instead, Ba’al started ignoring her completely, refusing to answer her calls entirely; System Lords were apparently capable of throwing three year old level tantrums. Sam knew she could turn up at his apartment, but that would seem too much like an apology and her pride wouldn’t allow it.
It wasn’t fair; she hadn’t even done it on purpose.
Sam thought she had an advantage. Last time she’d distanced herself from Ba’al he’d eventually rocked up at her house, bored. Granted it had been while, about a month if Sam was remembering correctly, but then they hadn’t been seeing each other as often. Most weeks, Sam managed to see Ba’al twice, and they were ‘seeing each other’ in every sense of the phrase; she stayed the night nearly every time.
Ba’al would definitely get bored enough to contact her again. Probably by breaking into her house again, which was a definite downside; particularly if he chose to do so by literally breaking in. Still, Sam thought the victory would be worth it, even if the chances of Ba’al recognising it as such were slim to none.
Two weeks in, and Sam reflected it was quiet working at home, by herself. Very quiet, in the absence of having her species mocked loudly and frequently. It wasn’t as if she was bored not having him around. Oh no, it was much worse than that. Sam found that she was actually missing his presence.
Wow. Sam decided she almost certainly needed professional help.
She pictured herself going to the base psych. Oh hi there, I’m here because I miss having a megalomaniacal psychopathic killer hanging around.
Sam snorted then grimaced. Yeah right.
Inevitably, every time she didn’t see Ba’al for an extended period she started worrying about what he was up to. She just had to keep telling herself that he wouldn’t do anything too major; when push came to shove he was still hiding.
The next day, Sam got home to find her door already unlocked. She resisted the urge to do a fist pump.
Victory!
It turned out to be a minor victory, because although Ba’al had definitely been there, he hadn’t hung around. She couldn’t feel his presence in the naquadah in her blood, so Sam was certain he’d left. So why turn up in the first place? He must have known she wouldn’t have been there…
Sam completed a slow circle in her living room, scrutinising it in detail. Things were out of place. Minor changes, as if… as if someone had been looking for something.
‘Oh no.’ Sam hurried over to her safe. ‘Let me be wrong…’
The safe was locked, but when she opened it, it was also empty.
The Sodan cloak was gone.
_______________________
The Number 12 on Ba’al’s apartment door looked like defeat. Sam shook her head as if to physically shake off the thought; it wasn’t defeat, Ba’al had shown up at her house first. And she was pulling the same trick back at him.
Sam was fairly certain Ba’al still went to work, regularly, at the mechanics. By that logic, he wouldn’t be home and she could just let herself in and steal back the Sodan cloak. Whether he’d taken it just to aggravate her, or actually wanted it, Sam didn’t know, but the potential side effects meant he couldn’t keep it.
Except... Sam studied the door thoughtfully. Ba’al knew she could lock pick, and specifically, he knew she could open his apartment door with relative ease, so would he really leave the Sodan cloak there for her to recover? Really, it depended on whether he actually wanted the cloak, or if he’d stolen it to provoke her.
Sam put her eye to the crack between the door and the wall and examined it carefully, until… there! A fine wire ran across the opening; Ba’al had booby-trapped the door.
She pulled out her pocket knife and examined the problem critically. Her knife was sharp enough that it could probably disable the booby trap without setting it off, but she couldn’t be sure. Sam shrugged and inserted the knife; she was fairly certain Ba’al wasn’t trying to kill her.
The wire cut cleanly to no immediate effect.
After checking the door thoroughly for any more traps – it would be just like Ba’al to leave more than one – Sam let herself in.
The wire had been attached to what looked suspiciously like a small gas chamber, which Sam had the urge to steal, but instead left where it was. God only knew how volatile the contents were and she had no decent method of disposal.
Sam sneaked further into the apartment, keeping an eye out for anything that was likely to blow up in her face. The Sodan cloak wasn’t hidden. In fact, it was in plain sight on the dining room table.
Reaching forward, Sam tapped the table around it lightly, checking for hidden security measures. She couldn’t find anything.
‘Okay…’ she muttered, carefully picking the thing up.
It looked like the Sodan cloak, it felt like the Sodan cloak, but it had just been lying there so Sam wasn’t prepared to jump to the obvious conclusion that it was the Sodan cloak. On closer inspection it didn’t look any less like a Sodan cloak so Sam gave up and stowed it away in her bag.
From all appearances, Ba’al had just left the real cloak lying where she could easily find it. The one and only obstacle had been the ominous gas canister and that made Sam eye it with a new level of trepidation. She had no way of telling what it would have done to her; Sam could only hope that it wasn’t deadly. Surely she hadn’t annoyed him that badly.
No, she decided, more likely was that Ba’al’s booby trap was… not harmless exactly, but not something that would have caused her permanent damage. Just prevented her from getting to the Sodan cloak.
It was the sort of trick that Sam felt needed to be repaid in kind.
She was confident she could reset Ba’al trap so it didn’t look like it had been tampered with, but when he tried to disable it, it could set off her own trick.
Sam was no chemist, but she didn’t think it would take a genius to come up with a nice, harmless gas that had an uncanny resemblance to symbiote poison.
_________________________
Safely back in her own house, Sam sat with her laptop open, watching a live feed. Conveniently, Ba’al’s apartment block had a security camera case in the stairwell, presumably it had once had a camera in it, but Sam had found it empty. It had been a little tricky putting her own camera in the case and angling at Ba’al’s door without it being visible from the outside of the case.
Briefly, Sam felt a little guilty, pulling this kind of trick on him, then she shook off the feeling. He was asking for some kind of retaliation and this was at least harmless. Hopefully convincing enough to fool him, though.
He was late home.
Sam sighed and started mentally composing her last mission report. She wasn’t particularly active in the field anymore – not with the wealth of scientific information they had to go through. Area 51 had been trying very hard to get her transferred, but no way was that happening. She had plenty of research at Stargate Command and she certainly wasn’t ready to give up going through the gate.
As an astrophysicist, actually travelling among the stars would never cease to amaze her, even if it had brought more than its fair share of trouble.
Sam straightened in her chair; speaking of trouble…
Ba’al stepped into view on her camera, wearing an immaculately tailored navy blue suit that confirmed he had not come straight back from work. Sam had to remind herself that she didn’t have to know his every move, even if there was still a voice at the back of her mind that said it was an oversight she would come to regret.
As she’d known he would, he stopped and ran a sharp knife down the between the door and the frame, thinking he was disabling his own trap. Sam grinned to herself; her own trap was now primed and waiting. He turned the door handle and Sam leaned forward. This was going to be a sight to see and he would learn to leave the Sodan cloak the hell alone.
He opened the door and she couldn’t hear the hiss of the gas being released, but she could see it billow out from within the doorway and fill the air.
Ba’al leapt back out of the door way, throwing up one arm to cover his nose and mouth while the other reached behind his neck in alarm. Sam giggled.
It seemed to dawn on him that had it been symbiote poison, he would already be dead, and Ba’al’s eyes narrowed. He rolled his shoulders and straightened his jacket, as if reassembling his dignity. Sam smiled to herself as he knelt down just inside the door to examine the set up.
He picked up the gas canister and turned in over in his hands, presumably determining that it was, in fact, harmless. As he stood up, Sam caught a brief flash of his expression; Ba’al’s eyebrows were raised and his mouth was curved into a slight smile.
At least he had a sense of humour.
It occurred to her that at that point Ba’al might be thinking her death would be funny.
Certainly he wouldn’t leave it at that. Even was not good enough for Ba’al and as his apartment door closed behind him, Sam went to get the retrieved Sodan cloak.
It was the obvious target, but Sam couldn’t let the pattern of stealing and recovery to continue; the Sodan cloaks had proven side effects. Of course, it wasn’t just that. If Ba’al was stealing the cloak for a reason other than to annoy her (which was more than likely), then Sam really couldn’t let him have it. Short of handing it in to the SGC, and facing questions she wouldn’t be able to answer, there was only one sure fire way to prevent him from using it.
She’d have to disable it. Permanently.
It was a shame – Sam would rather study it – and yet it had to be done. Ba’al was both stubborn and persistent and, whatever the reason, he wanted the cloak.
Sam wedged a knife underneath the crystal. Since the cloak wasn’t active, she knew it was a pretty safe way of doing it, and the most effective. Remove the power source and there was no way the cloak would be useful to Ba’al, or anyone else for that matter. Putting some more force on it, Sam tried to ease the crystal out, gently, slowly… pop. Crack.
The crystal was separated from the armband. It was also cracked in half.
‘Damn.’
Sam studied her handiwork regretfully, but at least her main objective had been met; Ba’al wasn’t going to be using the Sodan cloak again.
__________________________
Really, Sam meant to go and remove the camera from outside Ba’al’s apartment. It was just a matter of doing it when she knew he wasn’t home, to make sure she didn’t lose the little game they were playing. It had nothing to do with spying on him. Even if it might be smarter to spy on him, just to make sure he wasn’t getting too bored and living up to his reputation for explosives.
Sam shook her head. While trust was not something she could ever conceive of building between herself and Ba’al, the truce was nice and she doubted he’d be happy if she continued to spy on him.
To that end, she decided she would definitely remove the camera. As soon as she got a chance.
‘Not today,’ Sam mumbled, looking through the feed. ‘He won’t be at work on a Saturday.’
It might, she thought idly, be interesting to know who else visited Ba’al’s apartment. So far, no-one, but she doubted that would last. Sam wondered what she’d do if another woman turned up. The thought made her stop and rub a hand over her face.
‘Get a grip,’ she told herself.
If she wanted to know the bounds of their relationship then she could damn well just ask him. Watching him was only sensible if she was doing it in the interest of Earth’s security; personal reasons couldn’t come in to it, which, she had to admit, they clearly were.
It was official; the camera had to go.
As she had the thought, Ba’al sauntered up the stairs in his leather jacket. No scratch that, another leather jacket; Ba’al had clearly found himself a good quality leather worker.
Sam watched as he inserted the key into the lock and strode confidently into his apartment. She was just turning away from the screen, when someone else approached Ba’al’s door. Except it wasn’t someone else. It was Ba’al.
Briefly closing her eyes did not change the situation.
After all she’d done for him!
Either there had already been more clones on Earth, or Ba’al was cloning himself again. Sam glared resentfully at her camera feed.
‘You’re supposed to be blending in,’ she muttered. ‘What the hell are you doing?’
Movement in the corner of the screen signalled the arrival of yet another Ba’al, who joined the second one at the door, wearing an identical tailored suit.
Sam wished she was there, not just viewing it through a screen. They were close enough that she thought she could slap both of them in one movement. It left her with a nightmare of a dilemma.
Unless… Sam narrowed her eyes. Was it too much of a coincidence that this had happened just after she’d booby-trapped his apartment with fake symbiote poison? Probably. There was definitely the chance that he’d found her camera and messed with it. Sam quickly started analysing the signal and her hopes were dashed as quickly as they’d been raised.
The signal wasn’t fake, or altered in any way that she could trace.
Chances were, Ba’al didn’t even know she’d put the camera there, hadn’t realised she would see the clones. Sam sighed.
Had she even been talking to the same one each time?
She couldn’t let three Ba’als run around on Earth, it just wasn’t safe. One was a risk she’d chosen to take, and she knew that even that could have been the worst slip of judgement she’d ever had. Three… it was just impossible. The level of damage three of him could cause was more than a little worrying, and what if three wasn’t the final number?
What was she supposed to do about it? Report him, obviously, thus destroying her entire career and effectively sending all three to their deaths.
She had to do it. Sam knew she had to do it. If Ba’al was cloning himself again, or meeting up with other clones hiding out on Earth, then he was there for a reason. He had to be planning something, and whatever it was, it wasn’t going to be good news.
This was different to his gravity experiment, which was contained within the apartment and therefore attracting no attention. It could also be undone. It wasn’t like she could go and demand he un-clone himself.
Sam dropped her head into her hands. Losing her career, her life as she knew it, was bad enough, but to knowingly condemn him to death… but he – they – were Ba’al, and she had to.
Forcing herself to commit to the action - it was not a betrayal- Sam wondered how the hell she was supposed to break the news to the SGC. She couldn’t just waltz in there and announce it, she didn’t even know where she’d begin.
Sam opened a new document on her laptop.
The reaction would be extreme and immediate and she wasn’t sure she’d be able to explain with her friends looking at her in horror. But they needed to be told. Sam worked on keeping her mind blank as she entered all the information she had on Ba’al and his movements, refusing to let herself think about what she was doing. It was the right thing to do.
The file, when she’d finally created it, was fairly short and succinct. Sam shut her computer with a sharp snap.
It was Saturday. She could rush in to hand it in but…
She’d wait until Monday. Why ruin everyone’s weekend?
______________________________
Her plan lasted all of twenty-four hours, when Ba’al (Which one? Sam asked herself bitterly) let himself into her house grinning like a Cheshire cat.
Such a blatant appearance absolutely left Sam the winner of their cat and mouse game, but she was long past caring about that. She wanted him to leave; she didn’t need to try and make small talk with him when she was planning to end his life.
‘Ah.’ Ba’al leaned on the back of one of her dining room chairs, propping his chin on one fist, his amusement glittering in his eyes. ‘Your face, you must have been watching this.’
Withdrawing his other hand from his pocket, Ba’al dropped her camera on to the table.
Sam froze. He knew she knew. Where did that leave her? What would he do? The obvious answer made Sam wish she had a weapon; Ba’al would want to silence her. Whether that was something to smile about was entirely another issue, although Ba’al tended to smirk regardless of the occasion. Sam folded her arms.
‘You’ve been cloning yourself,’ she said bluntly. ‘Again.’
She didn’t add; you lied to me. That was patently obvious, and she should have known it. Last of the Goa’uld System Lords for a reason, Ba’al was always lying and plotting.
Ba’al chuckled. ‘There I was thinking you would like the idea of more of me. Can you imagine, Samantha-‘
‘Get. Out,’ Sam interrupted. He didn’t get it, didn’t realise how much of a problem his actions were. At least that meant she might yet survive his visit.
Sighing he reached into his jacket and pulled out another object, a round object, which resembled something Sam had seen before…
Tacs! She realised and vaulted out of her chair; it looked like the automatic Goa’uld weapons Teal’c had referred to as Tacs. She scrambled for the door even as common sense told her Ba’al was hardly going to let off an explosive while he was still in the house.
‘Hmm. There’s trust for you.’ Ba’al raised his eyebrows at her, and placed the bomb next to the camera.
Sam couldn’t help the flinch when light erupted from it…. light that resolved into a full sized hologram of Ba’al wearing a neatly tailored suit. Not a bomb, Sam realised, as she watched a second image of Ba’al pause next to the first, and then reach out as if opening, and stepping through, a door.
‘Holograms,’ she whispered and made her way back to the couch. She sat down heavily, her head in her hands. God. She’d almost… over holograms. Trust Ba’al to have a holographic projector squirreled away on Earth; she should have known.
Ba’al laughed again. ‘Did you honestly believe I had not spotted your little camera up there? I did consider placing my own in your house to take in your reaction, I’m sure it would have been suitably amusing.’
‘You idiot,’ Sam managed to get out.
‘Such a sore loser, my sweet.’ Ba’al tutted. ‘I thought it was quite clever.’
Of course he did. Ba’al always thought he was clever.
‘Do you have any idea…’ Sam started, but could find no good way to tell him what he’d done, what she’d almost done. In front of her, the projected repeated the loop. She opened the offending file on the computer and stared at it, hardly able to believe it. ‘I was going to hand you in.’
The confession slipped out before she could stop it and Ba’al’s smirk morphed into a frown.
‘You what?’ His expression cleared. ‘Very funny, Samantha, but I will not fall for-‘
In one sharp movement, Sam swivelled the computer around to face him. Ba’al took in the open document and there was a pregnant pause.
‘Well.’
Ba’al’s tone was… Sam wasn’t sure what; she couldn’t place it and that worried her.
He crossed the room in two quick steps and examined the documents Sam had so carefully and painstakingly compiled. She kept her eyes on what he was doing, somehow unable to look him in the face. Even though it was his fault… wasn’t it?
‘Do what you will with this, Samantha.’ Ba’al flicked a hand towards the laptop, his eyes dark and inscrutable. ‘But I assure you; there is only one of me left.’
He turned and strode towards the door.
Sam closed her eyes and said; ‘Ba’al.’
Something in her tone must have conveyed the message, because he did stop, swinging back around to face her with his arms folded. Shifting so that Ba’al could clearly see the laptop Sam methodologically deleted each and every file and document from the folder, ensuring she had purged all trace of it. He was angry enough that she didn’t know whether he would stay, but Sam had to hope that much was enough to keep him from going back into hiding; someplace where she would never find him.
Ba’al waited, an eyebrow lifting in a silent question.
‘Our arrangement’s still open,’ Sam said, her voice softer than she’d intended, but at least steady. ‘If you wanted to continue it.’
‘Our arrangement,’ Ba’al repeated, the emphasis not quite mocking, but close enough that Sam could tell his annoyance hadn’t faded. The end of word had lifted in a question, and one that Sam did know how to answer.
Sam got up and walked towards him.
‘Our arrangement,’ she confirmed, and kissed him.
He kissed her back and Sam relaxed as his arms went around her; she wasn’t ready to give him up, in either sense of the phrase. She pulled back and stared into his eyes.
‘I think you should take some of the blame for this,’ she told him, her tone light as she indicated the laptop. ‘I mean, the hologram, really? You knew I wouldn’t like that.’
Ba’al scowled. ‘I will take none of the blame for your foolish actions. Besides, might I remind you of the gas you planted at my home?’
There was just enough humour in his eyes for Sam to realise she wasn’t in deep trouble, even if he had taken offense. Anyway, she had a bone to pick with him.
‘How about the gas you left for me?’
‘It was harmless.’ Ba’al shrugged, and his eyes sparkled as he added; ‘Mostly.’
Forgiven, Sam thought, grinning at him as she watched the last of the hostility melt away.
‘So was the gas I left for you,’ Sam said, and then, just because she could; ‘The only danger I could see was you nearly falling down the stairs to get away from it.’
Ba’al’s eyes widened in clear indignation.
‘I did nothing of the sort! I-‘ He stopped as Sam dissolved into giggles. ‘Tau’ri insolence.’
Sam looked into his eyes and smiled. ‘What are you going to do about it?’
He lifted a hand and stroked her face, then turned them both and walked forward against her until her back hit the wall. ‘I think I should, ah, make you pay, for such insolence, wouldn’t you agree?’
It really didn’t take much persuasion for Sam to decide that, for once, she did agree.