Stolen Childhood

Vala was sitting in the hospital bed at the SGC when she noticed that a strange man had walked in. "Hi Vala, I don't think that we ever met, but my name is General Jack O'Neill. I was here visiting Sam and Daniel, and Teal'c, and they told me about what happened. If you want to talk?"

"Like talking is going to help. They stole my child and brought her up to cause a Holocaust of our Galaxy. How is talking ever going to make it better? Granted, until I was well into my preganancy I never thought about having children, but I thought that I would have time. Play with them, raise them in a place where no one would be shooting at them."

Jack nodded, "I can't make it better, but I do understand what it's like to loose a child. My son..." His words choked in his mouth, finding it hard to say, "He killed himself with my handgun when he was ten. I've never really forgiven myself."

"You at least had those ten years. I gave birth, only to have them take my baby girl away from me before I could even hold her. I think about it, and all the things that my child will miss out on. Going to school, having friends, learning who you are, falling in love. She's just one of them. She has too much knowledge, more than any person should have. Why couldn't they just let her be my little girl?"

Jack just sat there with tears in his eyes. "I don't know. They just gave us all another reason to defeat them. Do you know that something like this happened on earth?"

"Alien ships..."

"No, nothing like that. There are a number of religions on our planet. The two most prominent is Christianity and Islam. The Christians got it into their scull to 'civilize and convert' the Muslims, to save their soul, that it was the only thing to believe. Tolerance between different religions developed out of a necessity more that a belief in it. But the wars went on for hundreds of years before it stopped."

"I don't think that we'll be able to last hundreds of years."

"Nether do I. I believe that the end of this will be the result of not just weapons, but intellectual understanding, and hopefully, we might be able to convince her to see more than one point of view."

"My daughter is two days old. She should be nursing and keeping me up all night, not trying to rule the Galaxy!"

"Puts a whole new spin on growing up too fast, doesn't it."

Fin.