Mo'monion

Chapter 4

Star Signs

"I am sorry that I was required to restrain you yesterday, but I did not want you to become injured or lost due to your false memories." Muscles sits across from her, the brightness of the white commissary contrasting with the dulled and muted tones of the last seventy-two hours. His back a pristine construction of muscles piled on muscles, and when he bows his head to her, somehow he's still sitting with perfect posture. "Please accept my apology."

"Think nothing of it." Waves him off with a flick of her wrist, pretending to be more interested in the myriad of delectable desserts piled high on her plate, cakes, custards, and randomly selected fruit pies. The sugar she had no access too practically making her body thrum.

But it's a supplement, not for her low energy, or the way she burns through the sugar to garner what Daniel calls a 'sugar high', which is why he thinks she eats so many sweets, constantly nibbles and munching on something, an addiction to the composition that is chocolate cake. Not so much a dependency because she doesn't do it for comfort, even though these are exactly the foods Mitchell would call 'comfort foods', rather, she does it for the distraction, the idea of sitting at a table with a teammate, a man who tackled her yesterday so harshly that for a few seconds she forgot how to breathe.

The trust—It's so odd trying to justify it to herself, to keep herself from sounding crazy, but trust, at least to her, isn't something to simply be constructed, destroyed, and reconstructed in the increment of days. Trust is not something she simply doles out without forethought because when she was naïve, when she was young and starting out as a free agent, there were men she trusted and shouldn't have.

Muscles grins at her and starts in on his own plate of several of the main courses, and although it looks like an overabundance, she sure she could eat that plate without resulting in an upset tummy.

He grins and it would normally relax her, comfort her, but it no longer does because the feeling of his full weight restraining her is still too fresh in her mind. They false memory they implanted and refused to weed out is still too fresh. Samantha promised her that it would begin to fade over the next several days with the real memories leaking back in, and all she can think of is how sleep is never easy to come by, and how she will now have to deal with the ramifications of two sets of memories.

"It's awfully quiet over here." Mitchell's tray clacks to the table, his jelly jittering and his meatloaf crumbling a bit. He sits down with a groan, his blue fatigues crumpling with wrinkles and no longer military fresh. They haven't had but a few hours of downtime and it's very likely he worked through his.

She doesn't answer and it's quiet because she doesn't answer.

Usually she's the one pelting questions around, asking to go on a sojourn to a particular planet, or begging to go off base and visit a movie theater, or a zoo, or waterpark. Suggests again that she might learn to drive. There are so many wonderful things the Tau'ri have that are indicative of the planet and she gets to experience none of them.

It's not even the idea of breaking free from the base for meager hours, but intelligence gathering. Learning the months, what year it is, the idea of time zones, geography of the planet, wars and histories and what country is at odds with which.

Even trivial fun things that no one chooses to indulge her with, how a deck of cards works, the idea behind the internet and internet shopping and what a firewall is and why it was so easy for her to overcome, what star signs they are so she can read their daily horoscope from said blocked sites and asks for a translation of her birthday into a Tau'ri one so they can celebrate it.

They never answer her, and perhaps it's because she's trying, straining what little pleasure they have left from their evolved lives of constantly being on the go—she understands, that was the way her life was too, pickpocketing, scheming, breaking and entering into museums, ruins, the houses of elite citizens to steal what was requires of her. It was that way until she was sucked through the supergate and made a Trojan horse—that reference she knows from an encyclopedia Daniel gave her.

Trust is earned, and she hasn't earned theirs yet, she is, after all, on the fourth of Daniel's credit cards.

They may give her a gun, and rush into battle with her, know her well enough to allow her to watch their backs and offer her the same, only she's never forcefully restrained anyone, but Daniel and he was already restrained in that chair when she sat on him.

"Hey." Cameron pulls his fork from his mouth, eyebrows drooping in what should be concern, but is more likely confusion. "Everything okay?"

"Yes," she almost interrupts him with her answer. "Just—adjusting still."

"Take all the time you need, Princess." He shovels another forkful into his mouth and he's the only one bothering to eat his lunch now. "We don't have another mission until we track Ba'al down, but you're not cleared for that yet."

"I'll be there."

"Vala—"

"Colonel Mitchell, I will be there."

She catches the glance he gives to Muscles, one of concern, shifty-eyed, and a bit frightened at what she could do in a situation involving herself, or rather the shell of Qetesh, Ba'al, and the Orici.

Where do her allegiances lay?

Because blood is thicker than water and she's tired of bleeding for people who won't do the same.

"Sure." He nods, his full fork parked on his plate. "You can tag along."