author note: clean whumping refer to non-gory violence and a minimum of male dignity ... but it does'nt take the fun away... :)
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Like diving in Death itself, crashing in the covered mirror of ice that was naturally hold to stop his fall, but that didn't succeed to keep the man from touching the freezing water. The impact has been hard to the base of his ribs, where they attach to the vertebras; his head knocked enough to blind him on the moment and it felt like pain was shot in his body instead of blood. But it was not over; right on the moment, the thin layer of solid water broke and opened the abyss… It was cold, so cold it felt like thousands of needles and knifes and blades were trying to tear him apart, to annihilate what was left of his being, a punch straight to the midsection along with an uppercut under his jaw, a hook to his ears, one to his throat and so long … And then it burned, quickly because of that killing temperature, his lungs were on fire by the inside, tearing, except the flames would never drill trough his chest to let air coming in somehow. The world was twirling, the man was suffocating and paralysed by the so sudden cold, eyes wide opened but burning as well. His mind screamed for air, for heat, for life… he had to fight his way up to the surface before going too far and pitifully drowning in that hella lake. To die so far still so near people he cared about and wanted to save, lost in a mischievous land of snow, trapped in a visceral fear… He managed to get free from his torturers only to keep sapping his own life away as painfully. Panic overtook the man as he tried to swim in vain; one of his muscular arms wouldn't move, like a bird with a broken wing, one of his leg was weakened by his injured knee. He nearly cried out from the pain; trying to move and to fight the water so stabbing, but he was as helpless as a double-jointed doll, muted by this water that threatened to flood his lungs to death. Drowning in pain, fear and cold itself, everything went creepily black… Cameron rolled and closed his azure eyes and locked up the anguish it held…
3 days ago…
Daniel's office was lighten up by only a plain desk-lamp, the kind that do not draws the attention, even with the amber color it adds to it surroundings. One could tells it was empty since his owner left to get diner, but something in the feeble light was gesturing near the metal file container, opening it up, digging frenetically into the folders, looking for a very specific item hidden somewhere in that typical Jackson's mess. To him, it would never be a muddle, of course, but it still looked chaotic to Vala, the woman now standing up to glance around once more as she let out an exasperate sigh. She placed her fists on her hips, still holding her flashlight, and muttered to herself, irritated:
"Come on Daniel! Why can't you choose an easier place to hide your booties?"
She noticed a cardboard box, shy and alone under the desk, something she hasn't seen before. Frowning, she pointed her lamp on the mysterious box, talking to herself again, slightly disbelieving:
"Could it be that simple?!"
Vala quickly bended down to reach the cardboard, grabbed it and brought it to her, before getting up with a victorious smile on her face. As quickly, the woman opened up the box, unpacked a few Styrofoam chips to carelessly let them fall beside her and finally found what she was looking for.
"Alright, snap out of this tacky box you precious article, I'm taking you with me…"
She said teasingly to the round stone she was now holding; it was a perfectly round and smooth one, of a blue that looked a lot like a high purity lapis-lazuli, intensely turquoise and shiny, with golden stylised strips. Only to have this mysterious work in her hand, she felt nearly dazzled, a subtle warm and comforting feeling reaching her entire being as she could not take her eyes away from the pebble. However, the heart-warming did not last long: the door suddenly opened up and the ceiling lamp went on, jolting her. Vala quickly turned around with a horrified gaze, now seeing Daniel standing in the doorway, the man blinking with surprise and disbelieve. Threw into a panic, Vala let out unexpectedly a surprised shriek then cried out:
"How ill-mannered!! Can't a woman get a little bit of a private life here?!"
"Oh! …oh I… I'm so sorry Vala… I... I didn't... mean to…"
Mumbled Daniel with confusion, blushing, turning slightly away and raising one hand to cover his eyes. But then the man realize that something was wrong and immediately uncovered his eyes to stare at Vala, shocked but most of all really offended. She was shyly smiling at him, obviously guilty of intruding his office to rummage, certainly going to steal whatever she was looking for.
"What on earth are you doing here, Vala?!" He asked, scandalized.
"Hello Daniel! Err… Well I think I might have lost something and…oh do not worry I was just checking around to see if somebody found it, I wasn't doing anything wrong actually…" She answered with a broad fake smile, clearly making it up.
"Val, I won't be fooled again there! …Wait… Is that my Letelk stone you're holding?!"
"That? This thing has a name…" The woman said, quite unconvinced.
Daniel walked with precipitated strides toward her and tore the blue stone from her hands, inspected it with concern and set it back in its box, still scandalized.
"This thing is a big "No No"; not to touch carelessly, not to play with it as a plain rock, not to even go around it and so on! It may be centuries old and we haven't found out everything it could means! … But first of all: you have no right to sneak in my office to grab whatever you feel like taking… I thought you went trough all this!" Daniel let out, nearly hysterical.
"Kind of awkward now…" She first said out unwillingly loud enough to herself so Daniel could overhear, before trying to get away with it: "Hey… am-I missing the lunch? I am missing the lunch! Damn scatterbrained me; I nearly omitted the wonderful meal they use to serve on Tuesday!"
Hurriedly and nearly running, she passed by Daniel, letting out a single cheery "I gotta go! See you later!" before exiting the office and disappearing in the corridor. First stunned by disbelieving, then exasperated, Jackson dropped his head and sighed; there was nothing he could do with her… After a long silence, Daniel putted back his sight on the box where the Letelk stone was, pondering on the matter: he discovered, in his new book he brought from the latest explored planet system, something about stones made of polished bones from a long gone specie, a kind of creature that was known immortal in legends due to a great regenerative power it use to hold. It has been told that this power came in fact from their bones. Indeed, Daniel Jackson really wanted to study one of those so called magic pebbles but he preferred to make sure no one will suffer in any way from this choice, in this case: what would happen if Mal Doran, the so famous goofball, had her hand on it?... And this thing, even the smallest piece of blue mineral could mean a lot to humanity if the curative effect really existed; they could heal everyone in need, live a longer and better life and much more. He thought about all the member of the SG teams that kept on fighting and getting injured, or even killed… But his attention went on the disheartening mess Vala let in the room and, once more, he let out a long sigh. There was always something tedious to work on in this place.
Cameron Mitchell was quietly eating his lunch at the base cafeteria, at his usual table, with his usual filled platter. And as usual, Vala came on as hypocrite as she was and sat on the other side of the table, right in front of the colonel, her merry look still on.
"Hello Mitchell!" She said cheerfully, starring at the bright coloured fruit jelly on the platter between the two SG1 members, craving to steal it for herself.
"Hi Val…" Simply let out the colonel, not so heartily as she was; he wasn't quite feeling like getting annoyed by the woman right now.
"You know what? Daniel just tried to kill me once more, just because I wanted to check on one of his old boxes to take a closer look to the stone he talked about all week long… I sure am fortunate to get away like that this time, but it's clear he'll try to make me pay for that someday… by the way; you won't need this dessert after all, am-I right?" She insinuate in a childlike way without even catching her breath between two sentences.
"… Damn…I knew it was getting to that part! …" Cam sighed before pulling his jelly closer.
"And that means yes?"
"Like Hell…" He mumbled, frowning to himself while chewing on a big piece of meat.
"Please Mitchell! You can have Daniel's pebble!" She begged and offered.
"Daniel's pebble." He repeated, incredulously raising an eyebrow.
"Of course! It's such a wonderful and useful thing!"
"When I first came here few minutes ago, I only had in mind to get a lunch, nothing more… Now you want me to trade for a piece of stone?! Come on! What d'you want me to do with a rock?!" He complained, exasperated.
"A nice necklace!" She replied merrily, proud of her answer.
"For God's sake…" Cameron sighed, rolling his eyes.
However, while Mitchell was quite busy being exasperated, Vala jolted up on her feet, nearly splating herself entirely on the table and swiftly reached for the fruity dessert. She waited for that all this conversation long after all… Eyes opened wide in disbelieve, Cameron jumped on his feet and tried to tear his jelly out of her hands. But wouldn't let go that easily! ... So they were both fighting for the plate, Mal Doran stretched and lying on the table, the colonel's platter was now splashing the mess hall floor since the woman pushed it as his chair dropped back in a loud noise. Everybody around -well the canteen was a little bit empty this day but still…- couldn't believe what was happening right on place. What the Hell was that!? They sure thought.
"Don't… touch…this!" Growled Mitchel, his jaw clenched with frustration.
"You don't even want it!" Vala took up arms, still pulling.
Led by desperation, knowing that the man would soon win over her, she clenched her fist and instinctively punched the SG1 leader straight in the face. That wasn't a great blow, but the surprise and where it ended were enough to make sure the man would back off, holding the right side of his face, almost knocked out and losing balance. Astonished, rubbing his punched eyebrow and cheek, staring at Vala that now had her hand on the desired plate and was shocked of it as well. That hurt! He would surely have a big bruise and a black eye. But Mitchell quickly become frustrated and sullen: that wasn't fun anymore and being marked up by a woman, by Vala, was humiliating. He turned his back on her and walked emphatically toward the exit, simply letting out in a slashing tone as he passed by her:
"Fine. You'll tell me when you'll be up to a normal chat… I'm out of here."
"Wait, Mitchell! I'll give you an half!" She cried bleakly, getting off the table. "No; you can have it all if you want!" She kept on with a nervous laughter, more stricken as she saw him disappear out of the mess hall without even looking at her.
Vala knew she went too far on that, standing in the middle of the way, stared by the soldiers and the employees all around her table. Sorry for herself and Cam as well, she dropped to her seat with a long sigh.
"It's not my fault!" She forlornly and timidly tried, but it was kind of too late for now.
"Mitchell! What happened to you?" Said the surprised voice of Carter, as the team was about to get in the gate room, all weapon readied and dressed up in their green battle uniform. She sure had noticed Cameron's black eye and grumpy look now that he was standing beside her, not talking much for once.
"Don't wanna talk about this …" The colonel replied with a half smirk he wanted companionable to keep from being pointlessly rude with her, but that still showed how irritated he was.
"You haven't seen it at the briefing, Sam?" Asked Daniel, hard to tell if he was teasing Mitchell or not.
"Well, not really…Oh, now that I think about it, I know why: I was sitting on his left all this time…" Carter guessed.
"It is indeed a good reasoning." Stated Teal'c, standing behind them with a slight amused smile. The Jaffa was sitting right in front of the human in that meeting, so he enjoyed the look of it all this time.
"One mystery solved, and then we just have to find the cause of that commotion." Added Daniel.
"The general signify he was also wondering." Teal'c said.
"Please, guys; I've already planned to discuss about that with th'people concerned, so can we move on?" Mitchell sighed, giving a subtle but severe glance at Vala.
"All right, we were just trying to help you remembering; that must have been all a blow." Daniel said, still in a dry wit way.
"Thanks a lot, really." Cam let out with sarcasm.
"You do not need to worry, Colonel Mitchell; it's only a bruise, it will disappear soon enough." Teal'c said.
"Unless we should report that to Dr. Lam…" Carter added with a slight smile on her face.
"We better not: think about the mission; she would keep him for a while." Jackson replied.
Cameron didn't answer as they were now walking toward the gate that had just been activated. Mal Doran was there with the rest of the team, but she was, something not often seen, quite quiet and feeling guilty: and what if she just messed up too much this time, after all, that wasn't her first big mistake that week and it was getting worst… Maybe they'll put her aside; they'll stop sending her on mission to not jeopardize it all… That would be logical isn't it? ... For now, she could only follow sheepishly, faking a smile by moments.
They were, once more, going to that bunch of new planet they just discovered, some solar systems they could not remember hearing about before. In fact, Dr. Jackson helped to organise many other exploration out there since he knew it was in that part of the universe that the Letelk stone was found. Again, he had much hope in that piece of blue stone, this bone shard… The planet where they headed was a mildly warm one, nothing special about the atmosphere and the weathers, nothing to complain about; it was a safe trip. The SG1 member were now walking on the metal ramp, and then passing through the gate as they always do, vanishing in that luminous water-like wall. However, only the technicians in the command room could see the petite flutter of that blue light, for less than a second, then it closed like it used to. They could not tell if it was only their imagination, but somehow they felt like something was going wrong, how? Who knows...yet?
To be continued!!