Quench The Fire
Chapter 3
Transgressions Bowed
The walk isn't as refreshing or exhilarating as those she takes in winter—she wants to experience a winter in freedom so badly, but Cameron—and many television programs—have educated her to the horrors of it from the Tau'ri perspective.
Shopping, and overcrowding of people, the busyness, the overstimulation from loud noises and carols, from shining tinsel and constant adverts, from the juxtaposition of the cold outdoors with the overheated indoors—Cameron says that in order to shop, one must dedicate a day for it.
She's more concerned with chopping down a tree and lugging it all the way home which hardly seems a mean to relax.
Apparently the Tau'ri also shovel away the snow. Are only excited about it for a fleeting moment before they become enraged by it's presence and try to control it—destroy it.
She loves him.
But she does not love the Tau'ri.
This conflict strives to tear her mind in two, the bifurcation of loving one man being worth being at the feet of seven billion others.
Was ready to sacrifice her life for them, to save them from the possible enslavement encroaching on their newly self-aware planet, when she really didn't know them at all. Didn't know the malicious intentions they always have, how the root of all their actions is monetarily based—and she cannot be upset with them for that, because she shared those values not so long ago.
Those without always value what they need.
Her stroll takes her to the park two streets over. It's empty being so late at night but is dotted with streetlights. They're not as bright as the ones in Ver Isca, and she negates the want to walk through the only portion of wilderness she's been able to find.
During the day, she brings a book and sits on the bench, listening to the children shout in play, crying for their parents to help when they get an abrasion on their knee, or fall from the rope ladder. She watches and seethes with jealous, with the knowledge that her body is ruined and she is barren by no means of her own.
When her ambling ends back at their house, she knows this is where she's supposed to be, but doesn't know why.
Is she meant to be the Orici?
To destroy the entire planet that treated her so poorly?
Felt these inclinations as Qetesh, but never simply as herself.
Was the child supposed to be born the Orici, and since she was removed prematurely from her womb, never amounted to anything but a weight in her arms, in her mind, and in her heart?
Can the love of a single man, the only person alive who has shared what she's been through, who has traumas amounting to hers and listens benevolently, and without judgement, as he cares for her in the lapse of her sanity, can that love be enough to fight against the deep seeded anger she feels towards an entire race?
She doesn't have a key for the front door, and for a moment she enjoys the warm glow of the living room light mottled through the curtains. Finds beauty in the way large moths flops about around the porch lamp, still not as strongly illuminated as the torch lamps in Ver Isca, but if she concentrates enough she can send herself back to the time, the feeling, where only they mattered, where their main goal was trying to find a way back to warn the Tau'ri about a potential invasion.
Where their true main goal was staying together and protecting their daughter.
She wonders if he's aware of how badly they've failed.
When she cranks the door, it still sticks in what's left of the summer humidity, but then as she pushes, it shudders open loud enough that no matter where he is situated in the house, he'll be able to hear her return.
Expects him to be sitting on the couch, continuing to type up notes on his laptop, or have fallen asleep by this hour, since his body is so calibrated to waking predawn, but when the door opens, he scrambles up from where he was perched on the arm of the couch, his arms ramrod at the side of his body, and he awkwardly tries to act nonchalant, his eyes drifting around the room, his feet fidgeting against the laminate flooring.
In an instant, she remembers this man. The one who's helped her out of so many seemingly bottomless pits of despair. The one who knows what she gave up and gave up an equal amount to be with her.
Whenever she has doubts about him, about remaining on Earth, about not being able to control the vengeance she feels swelling and pricked on each of her fingertips, she remembers how he still acts with the innocence of a schoolboy in love around her, how even though his words may not always be the truth, or always be flattering, that whenever he looks at her, she can tell how in love with her he is.
"I—" He starts to apologize, his arms twitching, fumbling fingers against each other, his eyes directed at the floor, until he starts to speak words of regret, of gratitude, words she doesn't hear because she closes the space between then, embracing him as if she hasn't seen him for years, as if she may not see him again after this very moment.
His words start to dribble once his mouth catches up with the rest of his body, sill stuck on the shock of her being so easily wooed, of the misdeed of him speaking his mind sincerely being so easily forgivable to her. Finally, he brings his warm arms up around her body, looping them around her back, and bowing his head to her shoulder.
She lapses on her tiptoes, slipping back to the flats of her feet, and leaning her forehead against his chest.
"I'm sorry."
Hears the words as they swirl around within them.
Hears them before he even chooses to speak them.
"There's no need for you to apologize."
"I didn't mean what I said."
"If you did or if you didn't, it doesn't matter." When she shifts, his arms drop from around her, and she catches his hand like one of the puffs from those weeds the Tau'ri detest so much littered throughout their backyard.
Taken for granted, because of the commonality of it, trod upon because its beauty isn't rare.
"What matters is that we still have each other."
A/N: Chapter title borrowed from Shakespeare's Sonnet 120