I sat by Charlie's grave for a very long time, until the cold wind ate through my sorrow. Never good at emotions, I reverted back to my habitual silence. I didn't answer the phone when Daniel called. I sat up late, drowning the emotions in alcohol. I fell asleep on my couch.

I awoke with a hangover, a neck ache, and no idea what to do. I spent that weekend on my roof, drinking beer, and stronger, and staring blankly at the betraying stars. Sunday night, I was sober. I knew that I had to go back. Maybe I could avoid her, let her go on with her life. Maybe we could find her people… My heart clenched, and I was surprised. I knew it would be hard to have my children leave; I had already bonded with them, but worse still was the thought of May leaving.

I drove up the mountain, my brain on autopilot as I made my way through the layers of the base, silent in the dead of night. I approached the isolation room. I got as far as the doorway before stopping. She was asleep. I took a few steps in, and stopped. They had her in restraints. I resisted the urge to free her. In the morning, I would order Janet to remove them. She was not a threat, except to me. And I would stay out of her way. My hand twitched to touch her, but I turned and left. It was better for her this way.

-ooo-

I visited her every night. She wouldn't eat, and Janet wouldn't let the kids see her until she ate. It seemed to be a never-ending cycle. I tried to explain to Janet that I was the reason she had attacked, that she wasn't crazy. Janet believed me enough to release the restraints, but apparently not enough to risk the children. Daniel promised he told May that the children were fine every day, but she never ate, never moved from her fetal position on the bed.

Except at night. At night she squirmed and moaned, tears escaping her closed and frantically moving eyes. It had been almost two weeks, and she was on the verge of starving. Janet was pumping fluids and liquid something or other, but without eating, only so much could be done. May was as pale as the bed sheets, her skeletal arms flailing in the grips of another nightmare. I came to her side, hoping, somehow, my presence would comfort her. She moaned loudly, and my hand moved on its own, stroking across her forehead.

"Shh. It's okay," I whispered illogically, hoping the tone, if not the words, would be a comfort to her. She stilled and her eyes fluttered. I backed away, hoping I could leave before she awoke, hoping not to worsen her condition. It was selfish of me to come. I paused in the doorway, needing to look at her one more time. Her blue eyes stared at me, for a second seemingly needy. She closed her eyes and turned over, curling up once again. I left.

-ooo-

Doctor Frasier thought it was time to bring in a psychiatrist. I hated to agree, but it was obvious that May needed some help. I went along with it, digging up a female doctor with the right clearance. I only threw on the brakes when Janet told me it was a package deal.

"What do you mean I have to come too? Weren't you there the last time she saw me? You really think my presence is going to be helpful?"

"Colonel, she's barely strong enough to sit up, I doubt if she will attack you again. And, yes, it is important that you be there. Like it or not, you're probably the best support she's got."

My jaw dropped in shock at Janet's words. "Support? Are you crazy?! If anyone can help, it'd be Daniel, not me!"

"Daniel's coming too. But I need you there, Colonel. For both your sakes." Doctor Frasier took off on that note, leaving me gaping in the hallway as her short figure disappeared down the corridor.

-ooo-

I took a seat in the corner, back to the wall. I squirmed uncomfortably in the hard plastic chair, eyes on the door. The new headshrinker entered first, looking exactly like her photo. Medium height, medium weight, brown hair, hazel eyes.

Then May was pushed in by Daniel. She seemed thinner sitting up. She looked listlessly around the room, her eyes skipping anxiously over me as she was pushed in front of the shrink. Daniel took the seat next to May, holding her hand as he sat. A flare of jealousy shot through me, quickly suppressed as the shrink's sharp eyes darted in my direction.

We jumped right into it, the shrink explaining that she was going to hypnotize May so that she would be calm and obliging to our questions. Daniel tried to translate for May, but she wasn't listening.

After the shrink had done her flashy light thing, she started to ask questions in English. I opened my mouth to remind her that this woman was an alien and therefore did not speak English, when May surprised us all by answering.

Daniel and I looked like bookends, mouths hanging open in shock as May conversed with no trouble. In fact, she barely had an accent!

I heard Lobo and started listening. Daniel whispered a quick explanation to the shrink that I was Lobo, at least to May. I was a bit perturbed to find out that I had changed May's name from "Mother" to "Bitter". I certainly hadn't intended to. I opened my mouth to explain, but the shrink cut me off, shaking her head.

Then May shocked us all. Why did she think the kids were dead? Daniel told her…

"Lobo killed them."

Oh, God. I swallowed back bile. She thinks I could… I did… Why? When did I tell her I would? When did I even act like…

"That night."

I paled. Oh, God! After all the confusion, I had almost forgotten the details of the nightmare. Why had she come that night?! Why did she come at all?!

"For Owen."

Owen? Useful? What the heck?! I thought she'd be happy that I'd love Owen like my own son, not think that he was some kind of trade for "services". But, then, why wouldn't she. I'd certainly treated her like…

There was that word… name? ... again. Hawk? She called me that when… Oh, God. It was what she named that Jaffa. No wonder she said it with such distain. The Hawk and the Wolf. Great. Both of us were carnivores, relentlessly stalking our prey. So much for a friendly nickname.

"A long time."

I shifted uncomfortably in my seat as I heard her words. She had been a prisoner for a while, then. And we… we were not the first to receive her services. I half-hoped she had already been a slave, already been used, that her capture was just a trade of masters… not the complete destruction of a free soul.

Her quest for power interested me. She thought I was the most powerful one here. I nearly snickered at the shrink's pregnant pause, but any faint humor was slammed aside by May's next words.

"I was cleaning the blackboard."

Oh, God, she's younger than I thought. If she was a student… Then she was a child herself. My stomach churned, suddenly ill. The shrink asked the question I was dreading.

"Were you a student?"

"No. I was almost a teacher, like my mother. I was about to get my first class."

I almost sighed in relief. At least she was old enough to be a teacher. I frowned. But that meant she was free. No slave, no servant, but an educated human being. Somehow, her education made it worse. She knew freedom, right and wrong… respect.

"You were captured then?" the shrink asked.

"No." May stated simply.

"No? What happened?"

"I ran. I escaped through the coal vent."

"What did Halcon do?"

"They chased me. I hid in a tree. They found me."

And in that short, summary statement, I knew she was a fighter. God! Running from the Jaffa! Most people would have given in, been meekly led away. It couldn't have helped her situation to have tried to escape.

As she continued describing her capture, torture, and rape at the hands of the Gou'uld, my face grew steadily harder. She had been through so much, and, although I wanted to blame it all on the Gou'uld, I knew that I, myself, had hurt her just as badly.

When May started to describe the rapes, someone called Dr. Frasier in. I knew she had to listen, had to know what to watch out for in treatment, but as I watched the steady trail of tears roll down her face, I wished that at least one of us did not have to live with the memories. My eyes drifted to Daniel, his face green and supremely ill, his innocent mind now clouded with a few of the vulgarities of life.

A lot of things were explained as she spoke: her fear of showering, her eating habits, her need to be useful, sexually. That 'Hawk' had done a number on her. I looked away as she described her first violation, my stony gaze firmly on the wall, her silhouette floating ethereally across the ceiling.

I forced my eyes to May, her serene repetition of atrocity after atrocity, all summarized and bland in her bare, unadorned tale. Her face the picture of pale indifference- having lived through the reality, the playback was merely a cold comparison. Her increasingly scratchy voice trailed off as I watched, concluding her monologue with…

"And then I followed Daniel through the ring of water."

The shrink turned on the lights, brought May out of her spell, and gestured to Dr. Frasier to wheel her back.

I felt May's eyes skitter across my face, but I couldn't look. If she saw the hate in my eyes, I knew she'd think it was toward her. She wouldn't understand that it was turned inward… turned towards me.