A Father's Devotion
by
Denise
The colonel walked across the manicured grass, uncaring of the sparkling dew that glistened on his shoes and dampened the legs of his unfamiliar civilian clothes. He shifted the small bouquet of lilies to his left hand, using his right to pull back the cuff of his jacket to check his watch. He didn't have much time. His plane would leave in a couple hours.
Technically he shouldn't even be here, but he had to come. He had to tell her where he was going, promise her that he'd be back.
He knelt beside the tombstone, carefully clearing away a few fallen leaves from a near-by oak tree.
"Hi kid," he said softly, laying the lilies at the base of the white marble marker. "I aah...I gotta go away for a bit. I can't tell you where, but you're used to that huh?" He reached out and lovingly traced the etched letters, the marble polished smooth beneath his fingertips.
A whole life summed up in a smattering of letters and numbers. Death was an equalizer that way. Presidents or paupers could all be summed up in a series of dates.
Date of birth.
The day she came into his life. An accident in the opinion of some. A beautiful blond haired, blue eyed by-product of too much alcohol, a willing date and the knowledge that he was being sent off to fight the next day. Sent to a place where more and more weren't coming back from.
He'd never really been a part of her life. Her mother had seen to that. All she'd wanted from him was support...financial support. Support he'd been willing to give in exchange for pictures and an occasional letter. He'd accepted the imposed distance. At the time he thought it for the best. He'd seen too many of his friends suffer, forced to be away from their families for months on end, ultimately going through the agony of divorce. Anyway, he told himself, in his line of work, she was safer if no one knew she belonged to him.
Instead he'd been content to watch her from afar. Anonymously. He was the solitary figure in the back of the auditorium during school plays that no one knew. He was the real Santa who used the postal service in lieu of reindeer. He was the mysterious foundation that gave her a 'scholarship' to college. He was the person who secretly called in a favor or two to sponsor her enlistment into the Air Force.
He'd been both proud and scared that she'd inadvertently followed her father's footsteps.
The dash in between.
Such a tiny symbol that stood for so much. Her first steps. Leaving her baby teeth under a pillow for the tooth fairy. That first terrifying day of school. Slumber parties, birthday cakes and barbie dolls. Her procession down the aisle to get her diploma. Pizza parties, new hair-dos and her favorite sweater.
Date of Death.
Just a tiny series of numerals, not even enough for a phone number. The day she'd been taken away from him. He remembered it so clearly.
Since there were no official records, he'd not received the news from a chaplain or gently from his CO.
Instead he'd been sitting in his office, reading reports on the Goa'uld attack on the nearly decommissioned stargate. There at the bottom, almost as if it were an afterthought or a footnote, were the names of the dead. Four men, total strangers, murdered by Jaffa. And one woman, Sgt. C. Ketering, kidnapped, as he found out later, by that bastard Teal'c.
Taken as a host.
A tiny part of him wished she had been implanted. Then at least there would have been chance. If the now Major Carter had survived an implantation, surely his beloved Cindy could have.
But no. She was dead. The only favor Teal'c had done had been confirming her death.
Her murder.
By Apophis.
She'd been judged, not found worthy and discarded without a thought, like one would a paper napkin or empty ball point pen.
Through out her too short life she'd been denied so much.
She never knew his name, never got to know him. Never had a father to pick her up and swing her giggling over his head. Never had a daddy to kiss her skinned knees or threaten her boyfriends.
She didn't even get a proper burial. There had been no body, though her mother didn't know that. But he knew. A cadaver had been put in the coffin and buried in her place. All under the guise of national security.
There was only one thing he could do for her now. Stop those that killed his baby from ever killing another innocent.
From the moment he'd read the cold, dispassionate words of Teal'c on how Cindy perished he swore an oath. That he would do EVERYTHING in his power to avenge her.
For months he worked, he plotted, he planned. He cursed those that lacked his dedication. Couldn't they see the enormity of the threat?
When he found others that shared in his belief, he took it as an indication of the rightness of his cause. Every time something worked to his advantage he saw it as fate's blessing.
Soon however, he realized the answers wouldn't be found in the SGC's castoffs, dissecting the tech they had already discarded.
So, after losing his patience with Hammond and his 'let's all be friends' attitude, he took it upon himself to find his own way.
Only to be stopped time and time again by George and his troop of goody-two-shoes.
Damn Jack O'Neill. Couldn't the man see he was harboring a fugitive? Best friends with a murdering Jaffa. Maybe more than friends with an ex-host, whose tender feelings toward the Tok'ra would probably be the downfall of Earth. Friend and mentor to the husband of a host, the wife of the bastard that killed his baby.
Sanctimonious O'Neill and his band of merry misfits. Who, despite their ignorance, still managed to fumble around the galaxy, bending the rules, flaunting the regs and still coming up smelling like a rose.
They played around, having fun and making friends while totally ignoring their primary protocol. Obtain tech. Find ways to defeat the Goa'uld.
What they couldn't do, he set out to do. But while they'd gotten medals, awards and promotions, he'd been ridiculed, criticized and treated like a child.
Oh sure, they called him names but who was the first person they came to when they got in over their heads? So he's good enough to call for help but not good enough to be treated fairly. Not too good however to be arrested, tried and convicted in a day and tossed in an 8x8 cell. Left to rot.
And now...now they'd managed to take everything from him. His rank, his pension, his good name and finally his country. But instead of breaking him, they'd just made him stronger, more resolute.
Finding himself totally stymied, he'd sought the only option left to him.
No matter the obstacles, no matter the blockades put in his path, he swore he would fight the Goa'uld with his dying breath. Just like Cindy had, fighting to the end.
Dashing a tear from his cheek, ex-colonel Harry Maybourne kissed his fingers and pressed them to his daughter's headstone.
"Daddy's got to go now Cindy. But I'll be back, I promise," he whispered as he got to his feet and made his way back to the car. His flight to Moscow may be chartered, but they wouldn't wait forever.
fin