Valley of the Shadow
Author's note: Hi everyone! Thanks for choosing this story to read. It takes place shortly after the Season Two finale and is the first in the Reflections Series. Enjoy and please review!
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Daniel was forced to watch as the Goa'uld burrowed into the back of Jack's neck, taking over his body and destroying the core of his humanity. Jack turned to Daniel, his eyes glowing. He lifted his hand, and the sickly orange light brought pain and fire and betrayal.
"Die, human," rasped the voice of his friend, who was no more.
Daniel jerked up onto his elbow, panting heavily. Faint moonlight seeped through the curtains. A cool breeze wafted in from the partially open window, drying the sweat on his skin. His heart realized it was just a dream and stopped racing, allowing him to lie back against the pillow.
He rolled over and squinted to bring the numbers of his clock into focus. Three o'clock in the morning. If this continued, he was going to have to ask Janet for sedatives. He grimaced at the thought. He really didn't like medications.
Janet had suggested a psychologist, but he didn't really like Dr. McKenzie, either. And Daniel couldn't very well go to a civilian one and say, "oh, yes, I'm having nightmares of when my best friend was possessed by an evil alien parasite."
He winced. Three years ago, if he had heard someone say that, he would have called them insane in a heartbeat. Yet here he was, using artificial wormholes to instantaneously transport his disassembled molecules across light-years of empty space to other planets. Talk about crazy.
Throwing back the blankets, Daniel crawled out of bed and headed for the kitchen. He watched the water flow from the tap into his cup. On Abydos, water was a precious commodity. He had forgotten that water wasn't supposed to taste flat and tepid. Taking a few sips, he set the cup aside. His body was used to making the most of a little moisture.
On his way back to his bedroom, he caught sight of the new book he had brought back from the Mountain. He hesitated, debating whether to pick it up and take it with him. He sighed and left it on the coffee table. He needed sleep; after their second run-in with Hathor, they all did. He crawled back under the covers, consigning himself to more dreams.
*****
Keep running. Don't stop. Breathe. One foot in front of the other. Can't stop; must keep moving. Breathe. Her world shrank to the very primal instincts: fight or flight. She knew she couldn't fight, so she fled with all her strength.
The city was dead and quiet around her. Stumbling with exhaustion, she paused for a moment to lean against a wall. Her hand trembled violently as she brought it up to her right shoulder and felt warm wetness slide through her fingers. She couldn't remember how long she had been bleeding or how much blood she had lost.
She pushed herself away from the brick, her steps unsteady as she began to run again.
*****
The day began with coffee. For Dr. Daniel Jackson, it couldn't begin any other way. He savored the aroma of Sumatra with just the right amount of cream and sugar as he listened to the news on the television. Checking the clock, he decided to forgo breakfast despite the lecture Jack would give him if he found out.
He checked the clock again and muttered an Abydonian expletive under his breath. Grabbing his jacket and his travel mug, he searched frantically for his car keys until he realized they were still in his jacket pocket. Scooping up the book, he barely managed not to drop anything on his way to the elevator.
At six o'clock in the morning the lobby of the apartment building was empty, so no one witnessed the book dropping, another muttered expletive, and the angry motions of donning the jacket. Retrieving the book, Daniel made it out the door and into the parking lot.
He had parked his car in the far corner, reluctant to risk damaging the Air Force's gift. It wasn't a Rolls Royce or anything, but it was new and it was his. He fumbled in his pocket for the keys…
…Which hit the ground with a jangle when he saw the blood streaked across the side of his car. "What the hell?" he wondered, staring at the red stain. He carefully brushed it with a fingertip. It was fresh, very fresh. Concerned now, he cast around.
"Hello? Anyone there?" he called.
A quiet scrape and a muffled sob led him around his car and to the mouth of the dead-end alley just beyond. "Are you all right?" He stepped forward hesitantly, trying to pierce the pre-dawn gloom.
"Not going back; won't go back," a cracked voice muttered. There was another sob. "Can't, won't."
"It's all right, I'm not going to make you go back," Daniel murmured gently, saying what he hoped the person wanted to hear.
"Help me?" The plea sounded more like a question. Daniel responded instinctively.
"Of course I will," he said, stepping into the shadows. After a moment, his eyesight adjusted, and what he saw horrified him.
She was curled into a ball, huddled against the wall. Her bowed head was shaved, covered only by short stubble. The sleeveless shirt and baggy trousers had once been white, but were now covered in grime and blood.
"My God," Daniel breathed. He took off his coat and edged forward carefully. She cringed away, whimpering. "Shh, sh sh. I'm not going to hurt you; it's okay now." He got close enough to see she was so malnourished that her bones jutted out at sharp angles. He draped the coat over her shoulders and she immediately pulled it tighter.
"What's your name?" he asked.
"40315," she whimpered, ducking her head down and away from him.
"That's not your name, that's a number," Daniel's voice trailed off when he saw the tattoo on the back of her head, stark black numbers against her pale skin. "Who did this to you?"
She began to tremble convulsively, tears streaming down her cheeks. Daniel touched her uninjured shoulder, encouraged when she didn't pull away. "Come with me. I'll get you cleaned up."
She almost made it across the parking lot before collapsing again. Daniel caught her and hoisted her in his arms. She barely weighed anything. They reached his apartment without anyone noticing, thankfully. Daniel didn't even want to speculate what his neighbors would think. He washed the blood from her arm with warm, soapy water. The wound in her shoulder was ragged and swollen, already in the first stages of infection.
"What happened to you?" he asked when she seemed more or less lucid. For the first time, she looked him in the face. She had pale green eyes like a cat, framed in dark lashes. Tears spilled down her cheeks in an unending fall.
"They hurt me," she whispered. She hissed in pain when he dabbed hydrogen peroxide on the wound. Then she went unnaturally still, allowing him to tend the injury. "Please don't take me back."
"I won't. No one will hurt you anymore," he promised fiercely. He began to fill the bathtub. "Can you take a bath on your own?" She frowned, glancing from the tub to his face. "Never mind," Daniel said quickly. "Just wait here, I have to make a phone call."
"No!" she cried, grabbing his arm with surprising strength. "You said you wouldn't take me back."
"I won't. I just have to call my boss and tell him I won't be coming to work."
She shook her head stubbornly. "No. You promised."
He looked down at her, so vulnerable and frightened. "All right. No phone calls. Let's get you cleaned up."
An hour later, she was clean and dressed in some of Daniel's sweats. She stayed awake long enough to get to the bedroom and into bed. He checked her breathing, turned out the light, and made a beeline for the phone.
"O'Neill."
"Jack, it's Daniel."
"Daniel! Where the hell are you? You were supposed to be here an hour and a half ago."
"I'm at home. Listen, Jack, when I went out to my car, I found a woman hiding in the parking lot. She looks like she escaped from a hospital or something."
"Well, start calling around."
Daniel hesitated. "I don't think that's such a good idea, Jack. She's severely underweight and exhausted. She's covered in bruises and there's a nasty gash on her shoulder."
There was a moment of silence. "Why do I get the feeling I'm not going to like what you're about to say?" Jack asked. Daniel sighed, running his fingers through his newly shortened hair.
"Her head is shaved and somebody tattooed what looks like a serial number on the back of her skull. 40315. Like a concentration camp or something."
"I'll be over in twenty minutes."
"Thanks, Jack," Daniel said, feeling infinitely relieved. "Bring Sam, too."
"Will do. See ya, Daniel."
*****
Her eyes flew open and she saw a dull, gray ceiling. Fear surged through her veins, and she was out of the cot before she realized it, knocking over a rolling stand and blundering into a privacy curtain.
"Whoa, there," a soft, feminine voice said. "It's okay, calm down."
She slowly lowered her arms away from her face. A petite woman crouched out of arm's reach, watching her with a gentle expression. She had brown eyes and reddish hair piled up on her head.
"You probably don't remember coming here last night, do you?" the woman asked. "I can understand why you'd be afraid. My name is Dr. Janet Frasier. I'm going to help you."
"He said he wouldn't take me back," she whispered. Dr. Frasier smiled.
"Daniel keeps his promises. You're in the infirmary of the Cheyenne Mountain Complex, an Air Force base. No one is going to take you back. We'll protect you." Dr. Frasier held out her hand invitingly.
She looked from the hand to the doctor and back. Then she cautiously put her hand into Janet's and let her pull her to her feet.
"See? That wasn't so hard." Janet patted the cot. "Come on back up here, and we'll talk."
"About what?" she asked warily, climbing back onto the hospital bed. That was when she realized she was dressed in a clean set of white scrubs. She wrapped her arms around her shins and stared at the pretty doctor over her knees.
"You, of course," Janet had a smile as pretty as face. "Starting with your name."
She frowned, stopping the first response that jumped to her lips. That's not your name, that's a number, Daniel's words sprang to her mind. She snapped her mouth closed. "No one's asked me that in a long time," she whispered.
Janet's smile faltered slightly. "Well, I'm asking you now."
She put her forehead against her knees. Why was it so hard to remember? Everything before opening her eyes to see Daniel standing over her was blurry.
"Miranda," she forced past her reluctant tongue. "Miranda Connelly."
"Very Irish. Goes with your accent and your eyes." Janet nodded and wrote the name down. "What else can you tell me about yourself?"
Miranda stared wide-eyed at her. "You won't take me back? You'll protect me?"
"Yes, we will," Janet said firmly. "I promise."
She unfolded slowly. "What's the date?"
Janet blinked bemusedly. "March 14th, 1999," she replied after a minute. Miranda closed her eyes, two tears slipping through her lashes.
"Then the nightmare started three years ago…"
*****
Miranda tilted her head back and watched a bird dart by, its dark wings flashing against the clouds. The air tasted crisp and fresh as she slowly drew in a full breath.
"I remember asking Carter once why, no matter how many planets we visited, the sky was always blue."
She smiled briefly and lowered her head to look at her companion. Jack returned her smile. He stood with his hands in his pockets, shoulders hunched slightly against the wind. She snuggled a little deeper into her wool coat; he had forgotten to put a jacket on over his gray turtleneck.
"And what did she say?" Miranda asked.
"You really want to know?" He raised his eyebrows. She nodded. "It went something like this: 'Well, sir, the sky on any planet capable of sustaining human life will be blue due to the length of light waves in the visible spectrum—'"
"Ack!" Miranda cried, throwing up her hands. "Enough!"
"That's what I said."
They exchanged another grin and resumed walking. Unconsciously, Miranda drifted just close enough to him so that their shoulders brushed. Once she noticed, she pulled away again. Janet said that it was an instinctive gesture, a reaching out for comfort to the people she trusted the most.
"Glad to be out?" Jack asked after a moment. Miranda savored another taste of cold air.
"Yes," she replied whole-heartedly. It had been a year since she had been taken to the SGC, and it had finally been decided that she was no longer a risk to others or herself. That didn't mean, however, that they would let her seek residence off base.
Yet.
"You can stand only so much concrete," she admitted. "I think I was going stir-crazy there at the end."
"Sooo, you want to do coffee?" Jack tilted his head, giving her a hopeful look. She laughed delightedly.
"Sure. Lead on, Colonel O'Neill."
Once safely ensconced in the couches of their favorite coffee shop, they resumed their previous conversation.
"What do you plan to do now that Janet's given you a clean bill of health?"
Miranda took a careful sip of her white mocha. "She still wants me under observation," she said flatly.
"For your own safety," Jack corrected. "You know what would happen if they found you again."
A shudder of pure fear ran down her spine, causing sweat to break out on her forehead. Chiding herself fiercely, she forced the instinctive reaction aside. "Yes, so until I'm able to live on my own out here, I'm not going to contest my current status."
"Missing, presumed dead?" Jack asked, arching an eyebrow.
"I could be putting my family in danger by trying to contact them," she said, shaking her head. "Especially now with what I've gotten involved in."
Miranda had become restless, wanting to earn her keep and use her hard-earned Doctorate of Sociology, so the SGC had hired her as a researcher and assigned her to Daniel Jackson's department.
He shrugged. "That's your choice, of course."
"Yes, it is," she said, giving him a sharp look. "Jack—"
He held up a hand. "You're right, of course. I'm sorry I asked." He nursed his coffee in silence for a moment. "How are language lessons going?"
"Bloody slowly," Miranda said with a grimace. "Not that Dr. Rothman is a bad teacher, but Daniel's notes are so confusing! Does he have any organizational system at all?"
He laughed. "Not really. Carter keeps getting on him about that. I'll make him give you some tutoring sessions, how about that?"
"Deal," Miranda favored him with her shy smile.
*****
Jack gallantly offered Miranda his arm as they made their way back through the park. He noted her brief hesitation before placing her hand lightly on his elbow.
He studied her out of the corner of his eye as they walked. Her hair had grown out red-gold and framed her face in soft curls. Her Irish accent added a pleasant lilt to her voice. She was an attractive woman and Jack knew it. He didn't miss the appreciative glances she got from the Marines.
But he didn't think that she had recovered from her ordeal enough to be in a serious relationship.
Yet.
In the meantime, he wasn't letting anyone else near her. Everyone knew the colonel had put his mark on her.
"When do you think General Hammond will let me go on an off-world mission?" Miranda asked a little wistfully. Jack dragged his thoughts forcibly to the present.
"Soon," he replied. "It's obvious that your control is improving, and you'd be useful. I mean, you already are, of course."
A dimple appeared and disappeared so quickly Jack wasn't sure he had actually seen it. "That depends on whether you ask Sergeant Siler or the coffeepot."
Jack chuckled, tucking his arm close to his side so that her hand was pressed against his ribs. His eyebrows shot up. "Your hands are cold! Don't you have gloves?"
"Not really," she muttered. At his look, she continued plaintively, "Okay, so I do, but I keep forgetting them."
He took her hands in his, chafing them to encourage blood flow. They were tense at first, slim and white with cold. Then they relaxed, growing slowly warmer.
"Keep them in your pockets," he told her. She dimpled again and obeyed, tucking her chin into her fuzzy, green scarf.
"Better yet, let's head back," she suggested. "It's going to get dark here soon."
"Right," Jack agreed, and they turned toward his car.
*****
Miranda took the stairs two at a time, narrowly dodging a couple of airmen descending. She still wasn't completely used to the combat boots; they made her feet feel heavy and clumsy.
She reached the control room just as Sergeant Harriman announced, "Chevron one encoded!" She moved to stand beside him, staring out through the windows.
The chamber beyond was dominated by a two-storey tall metal ring, which was currently steaming slightly as the inner circle spun ponderously.
"Chevron two encoded!"
The second chevron lit up, locking the symbol into place. Then it continued dialing. Miranda craned her neck a little to see the small group of people clustered at the base of the ramp leading up to the Stargate.
Jack, feeling the weight of her stare, looked up and waved. She lifted her hand in reply.
"Chevron five encoded!"
General Hammond appeared from the direction of the briefing room. "Dr. Connelly," he greeted.
"General," she nodded in reply. "Where are they going today?"
"M7X-098. Routine reconnaissance mission."
Miranda smiled faintly. "Sir, by now you should know that nothing about SG-1 is routine."
He shook his balding head resignedly. "Oh, I do, Dr. Connelly. I do."
"Chevron seven is locked!"
Miranda turned quickly back to the window in time to see blue plasma boil out from the Stargate and extend almost to the end of the ramp. It retracted into a serenely rippling surface, throwing watery reflections onto the dull, gray walls.
General Hammond reached over and keyed the PA. "SG-1, you have a go!" Colonel O'Neill grinned and made a "go on" gesture. Hammond rolled his eyes. "Godspeed," he added.
Jack flashed them a thumbs-up and strode onto the ramp, Major Carter on his heels. Daniel and Teal'c followed a few steps behind. Jack turned to wave one last time before the event horizon swallowed them.
The Stargate disengaged with a sputter, the reflections winking out. Miranda sighed, wishing she could have gone with them. General Hammond patted her shoulder.
"Soon, Dr. Connelly," he said, answering her unspoken question. She sighed heavily and left the control room with reluctant steps. She had another session with Dr. Frasier.