Two Birds, Two Stones

Chapter 24

Red

Sitting in conference, she tries to persuade her mind to keep steady on the discussion, however, everyone keeps interrupting causing the purpose of the gathering, the importance behind the meeting, to be constantly derailed by interjections that end up in a cacophony of voices struggling to gain dominance.

Her husband's body stands at the head of the table, which becomes the foot after the general enters the room, accepting a seat directly across from him. Again, causing a halt in the meeting, in her inclusion, and the possible outside sources they can utilize in order to obtain more information.

But then, as Colonel Mitchell maneuvers back to the large white wall, an implement which they scribble English words to converse about on—all these frelling humans do is talk.

To each other, over each other, with each other, against each other.

If Peacekeepers spoke even a fraction as much as these humans, they would be many solar cycles behind on technology and military strategies.

Although she doesn't wish to change her life as it is now, with a loving husband and son, she misses the organization of military professionals without emotional capabilities frelling things up.

Misses entering a conference and being told exactly what's going on and what is required of her so she may carry out her portion of the implemented plan which was approved by a board of military advisors.

Also misses formulating plans with a patchwork family aboard Moya. Quickly compiling information and hatching a plan that very rarely ever work but at least being able to get something frelling done whereas here she sits again, trying to pay attention and waiting to participate, yet the opportunity never arises.

With a shrill shriek, the writing implement cuts across the while wall, while Colonel Mitchell falls directly to the side, leaving a large red line elongating the end of the 't' he'd written. The only word he managed to scribble for them is 'at', which again, offers no evolution to the knowledge they already know, no ignition to a plan that could be put set in place, and no solace that she will see her son or her husband any time soon.

Despite this knowledge coursing through her mind, she hops from the chair and pillows her husband's, now probable empty head, on her lap as the others panic, their emotions as palpable in the room as the klances of increase in temperature are.

They call for medical, a place she detests.

The others frighten at the sight of blood that is not their awarded Colonel, but her husband's, terrified that he's suffered from some unknown injury, ideas that bring paranoia to a flare ever so briefly, while John's large head backs against her stomach, and the pinch in her becomes more prominent again.

She clears his bangs away from pasting to his face, and then tries to stem the blood pouring out of his nose with the bottom of her sweater, leant to her by the military, as the others poke and prod his body, their hands on his neck, his wrist, telling her to lay him flat, then demanding that she does it.

Her teeth crack as the mounting anger grows against people who tell her what to do with her body, with her unborn child, and now with her husband, yet will not stoop to hear her words.

Although she wasn't born into an environment filled with love, she wasn't coddled and ensconced in the arms of an adoring parent as she grew, she learned through practicing how to care for people, how to nurture the sensation within her telling her to be concerned or proud when those aboard Moya.

She learned how to stop ignoring the nagging within her whenever John was around, how she wanted to be with him, near him, care for him when he needed it—how she allowed him to begin to care for her despite not really needing it.

How she rewrote the basis of her existence by birthing a baby, and while it is not flying on a marauder under the watch of the Peacekeepers, how it can be rewarding in it's own sense. Having her child stare up at her with eyes that are her own, that she gave to them within her, and allow herself to be consumed by the warm feeling of embrace.

The panic around her ceases, voices becoming muted the more she begins to concentrate on John. The other's are still moving, but less frenzied, almost in a decreased motion, mouths still demanding actions from her although she knows better.

Fingers softly stroke over his cheek, creating streaks of blood as they go, but she can sense him reawakening—perhaps even before he regains consciousness himself—feels the energy within him, an essence swirling underwater, contained before breeching the surface and becoming whole again.

The muscles near his temple tickle beneath her fingertips as his eyes flutter open. They're wild and unfocused, the pupils dilated and fixated on the ceiling. Coming back into a room as hectic as this cannot be welcoming.

Much like how it was to awaken in a cold shower, water flooding her eyes as she literally resurfaced and made ripples.

To compensate she arches her body over his, protective, concealing, and lowers her lips nearer to his ear, whispering soft words—not in English—but in Sebacean, as she does with Deke, trying to coax him into settling like their son in her arms.

Despite the other's rushing around the room, shouting something at her, that the medical team needs to check him, she doesn't move her body or her hands, stroking at the side of his head as he takes his first deep breathe, his eyes adjusting, focusing closer, onto her face.

As he raises one of his hands to graze her cheek, he grunts, "hey, Baby."

"Are you hurt?"

When he shakes his head to answer, he winces, his eyes briefly fluttering shut again before attempting to sit up. She moves her hands to his shoulders, mindful of the healing tear, and supports him.

With a hand on his head, he keeps his eyes downtrodden. She pets a hand through his hair, searching for any secondary injuries while under the mask of comforting him.

"I fell on my face. This guy couldn't even land so I wasn't on my face?"

"Commander Crichton?"

The overlapping sounds of the conference room have truly died away when her ears tune back into those in the room, all standing solitary from each other in a semicircle around the table with a few medical staff crowding the doorway.

Waiting for someone to yell another command proves useless as they seem to be stuck in awe, experiencing the sudden return of her husband for the first time.

Providing the usual scaffolding to evolve the conversation, move the dialogue beyond the moot point, John's groans when he touches his nose. "I think my nose is broken."

"Well, I suppose it's safe to say that Commander Crichton has graced us with his presence once again." The tone of the general's voice insinuates that either she or John had a say in how long his sojourn would be, had a choice in who would go back and visit Moya who is more and more in shambles as her population dwindles while being pursued by some of the deadliest hunters in the galaxy.

Helping John, he manages to get on his hands and knees, the blood once running down his face now dripping freely from his nose to the floor. Staggeringly, he removes one of his hands acting as support, and immediately she compensates by wrapping an arm around his back, and one under his chest to help keep him in place.

Again his hand goes to his nose, touching lightly but allowing more blood to flow.

"He broke my nose."

"I don't think Mitchell intended to have you land on your face," Dr. Jackson's voice sounds nearer than before, and when she glances over, she finds him just over her shoulder witnessing them, examining them.

There's a flash of white before her eyes, and suddenly she's being held captive on the Scarran base again, each of her moves being observed, each of her words questioned.

"That bastard broke my damn nose."

"I'm sure it wasn't his intention." The doctor's words are more curtailed when they leave the general's mouth. He stands from his chair, pushing away from the table as it's obvious no exchange of information can happen now. "Why don't you have medical take a look at you, Son?"

"I told you—" John huffs through the pain before he wipes the mixture of blood and sweat from his face onto the short sleeves of his fatigues "—you're not my dad."

The general doesn't acknowledge John's insolence with any form of reply, instead speaking in a hushed tone first with Colonel Carter, and then with the medical staff before exiting the room.

"I though this guy was a pilot?" The question is rhetorical as he maneuvers his body into a sitting position with her guidance, waiting only a micron before attempting to stand with her aid. "Shouldn't he be graceful or something?"

But she stops, her hands on him, how she's envisioned growing with Deke, keeping her hands on either side of him as he takes precarious steps forward, ready to catch her child if he falls, ready to protect him from whatever harm may befall him, ready to give up a portion of her freedom in order to ensure his safety, that his childhood rivals John's in memories, and not her own.

John's bemoaning does something to her—something she's missed in the three days since the switch occurred, since she woke and trailed down serpentine corridors by herself, a solitary alien on a world away from her family—it's something familiar, how he acts in hysterics over each miniscule injury that happens, each inconvenience becomes a mountain to climb.

She can't help but hug his stumbling form against her, right him when he loses his footing momentarily, taking the time to curl a lazy arm around her body, warm as he normally is, though nominally more sticky than usual.

He smells of Peacekeeper formula, the refresher on Moya, and spit up—several types of spit up—and she chuckles to herself because she does not expect more from him.

They start to walk as a unit over to a chair that the medical staff are directing him to sit in, repeating mantras of "easy" and "take it slow" as she feels her core body temperature raise from his proximity, from the heavy arm slung around her hips like the holster for a pulse pistol, his hand not so professionally landing on her posterior.

"You okay?" His voice is a low grumble, one they've used to communicate on several occasions in situations when they were gunned down, trapped, and couldn't alert whoever was hunting them to their whereabouts. One implemented in the early morning a few weekens ago when he woke and the adjacency of her body, of her cool skin, roused something primal in him that he growled at her, which, unfortunately, also woke Deke.

Must be confused by her near jovial nature, for the first time feeling emotional relief since arriving in this galaxy because she is no longer alone, she is with a partner who respects her input, who allows her to voice her own opinions of the mess devolving, who respects her right to her own body and the secrets housed within.

Holds onto his bicep as he sits, the medical staff immediately prodding around his nose, the rest of his face, enticing different levels of hisses and threats from him until he finally swats away the last hand pinching down his nose, attempting to find the lapse in its construction.

His hand then grabs her own, trying to draw out a response to his question, the area around his eyes growing darker with trauma and there is nothing more like him than breaking his nose by falling on the floor. Suffering blunt force trauma, created machines of mass destruction, birthed a malignant wormhole, but injures himself on the stability of a floor constructed of cheap plastic tiles.

"I'm fine." Squeezes his hand, in response his shoulders lose their rigidness, his jaw unclenches, and he continues to let the medical workers assess him, poking, prodding, pinching, all while never dropping his eye contact with her.

"I don't think it's a break—" the doctor, the one with her dark hair pulled back into a ponytail, declares as her bright blue gloves grow dark brown with the addition of John's blood.

The doctor's hand recoils as John lets out another yip of pain and resumes swatting her hand away.

"I still need a scan to see how bad the damage is."

"I can tell you without one, that it hurts like hell."

The doctor retreats, standing next to Colonel Carter, her fingers deftly ridding her hands of the gloves, balling them as to not spread any of John's blood further. "I need a scan in order to determine if there's any damage to the—"

When she speaks, it's odd, almost like she's addressing John and herself, but she's angled towards Colonel Carter, having a dialogue with her about the methods and reasoning behind the medical stay.

"Just give me an aspirin, and I'll be fine—" John tries to shoo them away again, standing from the chair, more solid on his feet, but favoring his right leg for an odd reason, lurching in his first few steps towards the white all with 'at' scrawled across it. "Anyone know what this means?"

In the middle of his reprimand his eyes rolled back into his head, his finger flaccid in pointing at her, before toppling over like a chopped down tree. She sidestepped him, managed to miss his heavy form landing on hers, possibly taking her down with him, or trapping her beneath.

Initially, she doesn't know the reasoning behind his dramatic action—possibly his fainting—as she can't wake him up with a kick from the side of her foot, then a harsh nudge to his shoulder with the tips of her toes, then a violent shake of his body.

Then she clues in on what's happened.

"Cameron?" Her question is frantic as she struggles to flip his body over from being slammed straight down into Mayo's hard floors.

Kneeling beside him, she's able to preform the same style of flip she did when they initially arrived in this galaxy, careful of his old thigh injury, and the scarring at his shoulder that should feel more like a bad sunburn now, than anything else, as she tips his uninjured shoulder to get him onto his back.

That's when she views the blood coursing down his face.

"Cameron?" Even more frantically, she calls his name, her hands cupping both his cheeks, becoming tacky and wet with his blood. She can't feel his body move beneath her, cannot feel any intake of breath and she's at a loss of what to do.

Her whole persona developed upon the absence of people to care for, and by the need to constantly think on her feet—to be mentally one step ahead of anyone else, lest they try to turn the tables on her. Throughout her lifetime, she's been on the bad end of a few chewy deals, but she's always managed to slip out by a hair because she's become aware of the inherent danger before the predator enacted them.

But the downside of never having anyone around, is just that.

Until she came to the SGC, she didn't know she missed joking with someone. She didn't remember that there was a reason for completing a mission for an entirely different reason than just the payment. She didn't want to abandon these people in the midst of a heist in order to obtain the full amount of treasure—she wanted to help them, learn with them, grow with them if they would let her.

In the years she spent at the SGC, she's had to think on her feet for various reasons—Cameron's favorite method of brainstorming ideas at that stupid conference table comes to mind—but it's depleted her ability to avoid the shock.

Four years ago, if she was pulling a con with someone and they double-crossed her, she half already expected it—entered into the partnership expecting it—if they attacked her, she was one step ahead of the perpetrator, having already studied their weaknesses while in conversation, while they were at rest.

What she isn't prepared for is not being able to do anything for someone she trusts, for one of the people who would do something for her.

All the medical knowledge she's acquired over the years drains from her mind along with her equilibrium as she's no longer able to keep crouching beside him and has to sit. She's panting, terrified because the environment is unknown to her, the equipment is unknown, and the extent of his injuries are unknown.

Decides to start probing, see where the blood is coming from on his face, decides this after more than a few breathes, but doesn't move either of her arms to do so, instead just staring at him, embracing the swirling storm of feelings in the pit of her stomach that make her want to vomit, the gnawing, the indigestion from whatever alien food she's consumed, the whole situation making her frantic.

But before she lifts a finger to his face, before she can even compile a list of duties to complete, before she can mentally scan through the checklist in her brain that she learned during SGC training, and get him into a recovery pose, his eyes flicker, blinking in fast succession, until they remain open.

"Cameron?" Plants her hands on the ground, creeping forward to observe him better.

At the sound of his name he exhales, bringing a hand to his head. "Man, what happened?"

She doesn't even offer him an explanation—he's a rather intelligent man, he should be able to place the puzzle pieces together to discern where he is once he gets more stabilized.

Instead she throws herself over him, unable to contain the relief, the shock still shaking her extremities, laughing against his chest. "I thought you were—"

"I'm fine, Princess," he groans, dropping a heavy hand to her back, rubbing somewhat awkwardly through the weakness and confusion that accompanies switching galaxies.

She wrenches away from him, jabbing a finger into his chest with each word for emphasis. "Do not ever do that again."

"I'll try not to." His hand strokes up and down her back, through the thin black t-shirt she's wearing. Despite his half-lidded eyes, and the vast amount of blood still rivering from his nostrils, he's wearing that familiar lopsided grin.

She shimmies further up his body, tucking her head beneath his chin, dropping an arm around his chest and nuzzling. "I didn't know if you were going to come back."

Expects him to feed her some drivel about the mission, about the work he did while temporarily stationed back at the SGC, about the plan set in motion to possibly return everyone to where they belong, and with it the frightening notion that everything they've been through together on this vessel will unfortunately be swept under the rug and labelled as nothing more than an other galaxy fling.

But his hand curls around her hip, possibly tugged her closer as he leans his head slanted against hers. She can feel the cold stickiness of his blood mussing her hair, but it doesn't matter right now, she can wash it later.

"I was waiting to come back."

She presses her hand into his chest, pulling back so she can gauge his reaction—despite all her follies, her ability to judge others and the verity of their actions remains concrete. "Weren't you otherwise preoccupied at the SGC?"

"It's hectic there—loud." His other hand comes to rest on her arm, and despite just jumping galaxies, he's far warmer than her. He starts to rub her skin to create friction—to create heat. "We were trying to figure something out, but in all honesty, I was just waiting to come back here."

"Yes, it is quieter, offers more solitude." Her voice is incredibly quiet as he shuffles his body into a sitting position, using the bottom of the black t-shirt covered in baby vomit to wipe the blood from his face. "Being out of your body that long must have been uncomfortable."

"That's not why I wanted to come back, and you know it."

He speaks with conviction, like he can traverse the deep recesses of her mind and know that she's trying to translate if he felt as uneasy without her as she did without him. He must have felt relaxed being in the familiar environment with all his Tau'ri friends, but—

"I was worried about you." Words with such weight spoken as if they were nothing, as he tries to find a clear area on the shirt to wipe his face on. "I was worried about what could be happening while—What the hell happened to this guy's shirt?"

"Far too much to explain."

Tugging on his hand, she helps him sit up, trying to swipe away the blood that's no longer gushing from his nose, but is moving slower, thicker, more like a syrup. "I think you're going to need a shower."

His large hand comes to her hairline, his thumb swiping away the drying blood there, obviously trying not to smoosh it into her hair further, but the action does just that. "I think you're going to, too."

Is about to suggest—in the name of water conservation, of course—that it's a task that they could undertake together, but there's a hesitancy—one concerning the sexual cues, the idea of being nude with him, when two weeks ago she would have had no qualms.

After all, she has handcuffed him to a bedpost and walked in on him in the locker room before, although she was inhabiting Daniel at the time.

But now, there's a lingering weight nagging, telling her that it's not a good idea right now, that something doesn't feel right about the situation—not Cameron himself, but that being intimate with him would be detrimental to both of them right now.

Perhaps it's her newfound fertility, if the old woman really managed to kickstart it, and the fact that they're in another galaxy with unknown safe sex practices—although that's never stopped her before.

She doesn't exactly know how she's going to explain to him that she'd rather, well, 'take it slow' is the term she's heard frequently stated on television, or how he will receive the information, especially knowing how free she is with sex and a very rough estimate of how many air men she's had the pleasure of having trysts with.

But before that becomes an issue one of the sensors in the corner of the hallway blinks to life showcasing Pilot's stoic face.

"Ms. Mal Doran—" the alien pauses, squinting his eyes at Cameron, and nodding his head once as if assuring himself that his assessment is correct "—Colonel Mitchell, Moya and I have been observing a ship for some time we believe may be the marauder that followed us before."

Cameron stands, stable on his legs although he's favoring his right again. She won't tell him how close Crichton came to using narcotics to temper his pain, but she'll keep aware that he may have physical limitations offset by being in space or another galaxy all together.

"Marauder?" Despite what she assumes is the return to his aching thigh, he reaches down a hand to help her up off the ground.

"The ship that Officer Sun told us to be wary of."

He only answers in a nod. Stern faced, but holding something back, perhaps another question more private in nature. Whatever it is, he doesn't voice it, but tugs on her hand, to lead her to the control room so they can have visuals.

"How long have they been tagging us, Pilot?"

"They haven't been, Colonel—" Pilot's voice is stoic in their ears, very rarely does he have overt emotions, but she's witnessed his voice take on a higher cadence when stressed, since he doesn't sound like he's speaking emphatically, she supposes they have time in their favor.

When they skid to a stop entering the command room, by the table they both regained consciousness at, how he thought it was her fault for not looking for weapons, how she thought it was his fault that he just immediately adopted ownership of an abandoned baby.

It was only ten days ago, but feels like another lifetime, she's had enough to know.

She can still feel the fresh fleece of an SGC hoodie being zipped up around her body while parading as Officer Sun—can close her eyes and still be present, a linger visage, back within that mountain.

A graphic pops up showing the visual of a planet, one viewable through the windows, but still distant enough that the whole circumference of it is visible. However, when she glances back to the graphic, Pilot has enhanced it to show the satellites and other ships orbiting the planet, focusing on just one.

It's looks to be about the size of a cargo ship, something she has procured many times, however the design is innovated, the angles sleek, obviously used to travel through the soupiness of space with very little force pushing back. There appears to be a deep maroon coloring on the outside, and it would be more imposing but the size leaves something to be desired.

"What's the problem with it?"

"Moya and I have reason to believe that this is the marauder whose crew attacked you on Valdun."

At the mention of the planet's name, she relives the situation. It happens in a fast motion, like she could simultaneously be located back during that time as well. The acid round exploding at her side, eating through the fabric of her borrowed shirt and through her skin, down her ribs and up around her shoulder.

The people who've incapacitated Chiana for so long, leaving the spunky girl immobile underneath a reflective blanket, lost in her own mind as her body struggles to recover.

Her breath hitches, and Cameron must take note of her discomfort, because his fingers linger against her hand before intermingling with her own, and he doesn't start when she immediately clasps to him, relaxing, knowing at least she doesn't have to figure this out alone.

He purses his lips, his brows sloping as he stares at the at the planet, the various ships moving freely through the atmosphere, the satellites acting as billboards written in a foreign language that she can see in symbols when she shakes her head or blinks fast enough before the translator microbes stitch it back into English.

"I'm sorry, Pilot, but can you fill me in on why we can't just jet away from them?"

"Because Colonel Mitchell, that is the planet you must travel to in order to procure young D'argo's food."