NON REALIZED DRIVE
CH13 ~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
An hour later, Mitchell, Teal'c and Carter's guides, Clifford and Pikard had led them back to my room. They gave me a respectful gesture, their eyes sparking with responsibility before they left. I sighed, my shoulders slumped. I suddenly felt really tired. I slumped to the ground onto the bed of pillows that I had first awoken on two months before.
"So, should we call you King?" Mitchell drawled, looking down at me from where he stood leaning against the bureau.
I squinted up at him in bewilderment, running a hand through my light brown hair. "What?"
"Everyone around here calls you sire and Lord, so I was wonderin' if we should be callin' you the same." He said, his hands folded on the P90's butt that was strapped to his vest.
"Of course not!" I protested jumping to my feet. "I'm still Lieutenant Nick Summers, Colonel Mitchell."
Mitchell shared a glance with Carter. "You coulda' fooled us."
I couldn't help my hurt expression as I looked between them. Teal'c was as stoic as ever, his face and eyes unreadable and his brows giving nothing away. Carter looked troubled and couldn't hold my eyes, but Mitchell could- and his whole body seemed to radiate challenge.
I looked back at him, more wounded than I thought that I would be. But the truth was, I owed Colonel Mitchell quite a bit. He was the one that got SG-1 back together when they were splitting up. He had been the only one who could have understood what I went through on PX7-898, because he had gone through much the same thing. And he was the one the brought me out top-side on team outings even when I wasn't really a member of SG-1. If it wasn't for Mitchell, I would have gone crazy much earlier.
I thought that they would understand, just like Daniel had, and I thought that Teal'c would more than the other, going through the same thing as myself. And it cut me deep.
I wanted to be stubborn back, and mad as hell, but as I continued to look at Mitchell it slowly dawned on me that I wasn't the only one who had been hurting and scared.
"I'm sorry," I whispered. "I really am. I didn't mean for it to happen this way. But it did; it was out of my control. But you guys need to realize that this was something that I needed." I said with conviction, giving my head a shake.
It was quiet for a moment, as I looked a Mitchell, but it wasn't him who finally spoke.
"We understand," Carter said after looking at the other men. "And we're sorry too, our meeting seems to have been a little tense."
"Indeed." Teal'c agreed, finally breaking his silence.
And when Mitchell gave a nod, I felt that same relief as I had with Daniel but times three.
"So, what's the plan, Jackson?" Mitchell turned to Daniel who had been silent through the whole thing.
"Huh. What?" Daniel shook his head, clearing it before he pushed his glasses up his nose. "Ah, well... Nick's gonna come back with us so that we can sort this whole mess out."
Mitchell nodded. "Good. Like my Grandma always said: Go while the getting's still good."
The others murmured in agreed and we headed to transporter tower once again. Lissa was outside of my room, sticking close. And the same when with the trip to the tower. It took myself and Erin both to convince her that in the twenty-feet to the 'gate I wasn't going to get my throat slit. But in her stubbornness, came to the 'gate with us- where she looked rather on edge as I stepped through with the rest of SG-1. As much as she wanted to follow, it was a bad idea with how delicate this was and would be no help in trying to convince Jack. Erin was left in charge, returning to the position that she had after I killed Joshua and Sebastian took me to the planet.
When I materialized back on the metal ramp on the other side of the stargate and in the SGC's 'gateroom, the drab greyness of everything in sight almost made me twist my lips in disgust. I don't know what I was expecting when I came back, a welcome party was out of the question. But I didn't even get a glimpse of Jack, I was ushered from the 'gateroom by a med team and to the infirmary.
I sighed as I was dragged away from the others.
I was poked and prodded, stabbed with needles and blinded by flashlight beams. It was an hour before I was released from Fraiser's clutches. I was given a dark green jumpsuit to put on afterward. I looked for a very long moment before I looked at the Quatonian clothing that had become so comfortable to me over the past two months.
When I had my meeting with Jack, I didn't want to give him the impression that I was staying. So I didn't put on the solid green one-piece, and instead slipped back into my Quatonian clothing. My clothing, unlike Lissa camouflage, and the boys' solid black, was much like Erin's in the elegant factor. I had learned not that far into my stay that each person had different clothing for each stage or position in their life.
Children like Clifford and his brother Pikard who had yet to age in maturity and go through their Ighrt qof Assagpe, wore pure black clothing that was not tear-away. People in soldiery, like Lissa or Bouren, wore tear-away uniforms equipped with armour and blended into any background. Doctors or Scientists, like Kaster, wore pure white. And someone like the Piritsalistu- or Spiritualist- wore every colour in the Quatonian culture. Pregnant women or men wore white as well, but there was a pink spiral over their bellies. And it went on and on, so many that it was hard to keep track of. Erin of course, wore those elegant dresses, each one never seeming to be the same colour as the next, in her high position as my adviser or second. All of them with my family's crest.
So my outfits were as elegant if not more. They were a deep, royal red, the seams and trim were gold, and so was my crest. That was the colour of this pair. So different from the green.
Almost right after I had put my clothes back on, to SFs came in and escorted me to a holding room and left me there. There was a table, and two chairs, one on either side.
I sighed as I glanced around the small room. This was definitely was not the warmest welcome I had ever come by, but I've had worst. I took the seat that had a view of the door, cause that was where people who were usually in my situation sat, right? And then I waited. What, did I expect someone to see to me instantly? I wasn't that important, at least here I wasn't. But... there- there I was important.
My hands clenched into fists in my lap, my teeth clenched. I felt that temping tug deep inside of, the one that I had forgotten what it felt like, the one that got my blood pumping. Was it really that bad here? That my happiest time was the two months that I'd spent on an alien planet with strangers, instead of the years that I had spent at the SGC with friends? For some reason that didn't surprise me, and instead I felt a stab of sadness when my mind didn't dwell on that, and instead instantly went on to try and come up with a plan to make sure that Jack let me come back.
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