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Chapter 4
To Go
She won't talk to him.
Flat out, won't talk to him.
As that computer boulder thing floats around giving a brief history of the ruins, how they were set in place to copy Ancients, in order to do twice as much work at once. Apparently the Goa'uld adopted the technology when the Ancients ascended but there were defenses put in place to—is she really going to give him the silent treatment.
He ambles a little too close to her, and without even blinking an eye at him, she ducks behind a Jackson to be on the outside of the group, something he doesn't like because what if one of these defenses is an Indiana Jones style boobytrap that she sets off because she's too busy holding a vendetta against him.
It's not her fault.
She's exhausted from nausea, from the extra weight of the baby, he drops back to cover the rear because she obviously isn't going to be talking to him anytime soon—he's really trying to think of what he did wrong here—which is nothing. Why would they go back to Earth? They were on such good terms before and look what happened. They worked for the actual government in planetary defense, but somehow the government still tried to screw them, and every time he thinks maybe he overreacted and that they should discuss the possibility of going back, he remembers when they arrested her—kidnapped her—from their house in the middle of the night.
A smile graces his face though because underneath the brown leather jacket that will no longer zip up, her hips sway in the most pronounced waddle he's ever seen.
They stop at a fork in the ruins. Both hallways look equally dangerous with low light and tight walls. One, who leads the troop, uses one hand to position his flashlight and the other to check his data pad. "We need to split up."
"We're not splitting up" serves back almost immediately, and although he can't see her face, he knows she just rolled her eyes.
Two turns over his shoulder, his teeth tight and his eyes narrowing a bit. "Well someone only gave us a day for three days of work."
He chuckles at the attempt to dump the blame on him, because the Jacksons are wily, they know she's pissed and if they can turn her against him they'll have a majority vote in this crap shack democracy. "We're not staying."
"Then we need to split up."
"Am I the only one here who's ever seen a scary movie?" The flashlight swings around, dancing across the walls and even from inside the wind whistles through the rock. "Rule number one: don't split up. I don't want to be alone whenever the evil one of you two cracks."
:) —#If I might make a suggestion? Perhaps splitting into pairs would help you complete your task faster#
"Makes sense." One nods, his chin resting in the cup of his hand.
She still hasn't said a word, and it's been almost two hours of walking through ruins that all look the same, with the same stone and pretty much the same writing scrawled on the wall. This might be the longest streak of her not talking to him while conscious.
"All right." One turns the flashlight on her, and she isn't as carefree as she was before, as happy and bubbling with a skipping step and sweet smile. Instead she looks tired—he knows she is, she's been going nonstop for the last few days, taking up contracts as a free agent, and barely getting any sleep—sunken eyes and dry lips—and if he knew she wouldn't disagree with him as a form of protest, he would use his thigh as an excuse and demand they leave and go home. "You two head into that room, and Vala and I will take the—"
"No. No. No—"
The rest of the group—including her—groan around him and his constant need to remind them that under no circumstance is he leaving her.
"Mitchell—"
"No. Nope. Deal breaker we're—"
But she's already walking down the opposite hallway—well, waddling down it—with the computer rock puttering behind her, saying something she nods to.
"Vala—"
Goes to tear after her, but One stops him with a hand to his shoulder. "The Goa'uld addendums are down that hallway, so she needs to—"
"Then I'm—"
"—There's also important information, what we think are instructions to using the key for the clava thessara ininitas, but—"
"Then let's—"
"—But it's in Ancient, so one of us has to go with her—"
"Then all of us can—"
"Look." Two's hand clasps down on his shoulder and he already doesn't like where this is going. "If everything goes according to plan, we can all be out of here in just under three hours, and you can go back to lying to Vala without our interruption."
"When was the last time anything ever went according to plan?" Has to ignore the last jab because he's very close to desecrating ancient ruins by kicking some Jackson ass. Ignores it for her, because fist fighting her best friends after leading her on a bit isn't going to make him look any better.
"Not now because you're driving us off topic and wasting time." One's feet crunch over the gravelly floors, as he pivots and follows the same hallway she did.
"Let me ask you this—" Hikes both the bag straps back up his shoulders and—both bags, he still has her pack of sugary snacks. Should probably go take it to her but doesn't like the idea of her being more bogged down. Maybe if she gets hungry, she'll actually seek him out. "How do you expect me to be useful? I don't read Ancient, or Goa'uld, I've got a bum thigh that's already acting up—"
Flipping his flashlight to the relatively cobweb free hall, Two begins the trek to the second room. He follows, eyes scanning the walls for anything out of place for what he knows of the ruins so far.
"You can just hold the flashlight or something."
It used to be so simple.
So, so simple.
It was just her and him, and their happy little accident, and a whack of back porch cats. They didn't have much, but they had fake ketchup and awful sugar puffed cereal which was enough to satiate her current cravings, but then the Jacksons—those wily bastards—had to creep their way back, find them twenty gate jumps away because she left a forwarding address for them and he loves her—God, he has to, to put up with this shit—but her nonchalance with her safety is going to give him a heart attack, and if he has to look at the same stupid Ancient block letters for another hour, he's going to have an aneurysm.
"Hold it straighter." Two pushes at the bulb of the flashlight with his palm, doesn't drag his eyes away from the same slab of rock he's been translating before he got all worked up again—she went one way and he went another and right now she could be with the evil Jackson clone and he wouldn't know.
Just snorts and pops his wrist when he holds his arm up straight again, going back to daydreaming nightmares of her fighting off evil clones, and ruin cave-ins, and that weird computer guy blasting around and—
"She's being weird because you're restraining her."
Again, Two doesn't looking away from the glyphs, instead tracing one onto his data pad and then lifting it to snap a picture. Then feels around on the floor for his little mat of set up archeology tools, retrieving a little brush that he swipes over the letter.
"Excuse me?" Loses his balance, crouching on the balls of his feet. The light waivers.
"Vala is wild—" stops midsentence pointing to another area of the wall, shuffling over on his feet, his body—without the aching thigh—never leaving the crouch as he demands, "light."
"Oh, I know." Might shoot the flashlight closer to Two's face then he originally intended, but what he doesn't need now, or ever really, is a lesson in Vala. She's his wife, although they haven't really taken to using the moniker that much aloud, it's how he thinks of her in his head. His wife, his love, the mother of his kid if they make it that far because right now she's probably contracting space rabies from all the bats lining the roof. "And I'm not restraining her, I'm protecting them."
"Them?" Two snaps another picture, leaning close to the wall, and sliding his index finger along the indented glyph.
"Her and the baby."
"That's another problem."
"You're telling me."
"No, Mitchell," Two huffs, then sets down his data pad beside all his other little tools, turning to him. "Vala, she's never stagnant, she doesn't settle."
Whatever this conversation is, he doesn't want to have it, sure as hell doesn't want to be having it while crouched in some dusty, smelly ruins. "People change. She's—"
"She may act content but—"
"She was with the SGC for almost 8 years before—"
"Yeah, and at the SGC she got to leave the planet about two or three times a week."
"Yeah, and she always came back to me." Not going to debate the validity of their relationship, of his untainted adoration for her, and how she makes him feel like no one else could ever. "She always came back."
"You're telling me there wasn't one time, just once, where she didn't come back unwillingly?"
Remembers lying on a bed in an inn on that planet where he took a zat for her, where she loped across a field like a wild jackrabbit from two snarling dogs and two angry guards, and how she tried to leave him, tried to back burner their relationship and how he refused.
When he doesn't answer, Two drops his brush and shakes his head, huffing, "Mitchell, she's pregnant."
"Again, well aware of that, Sunshine."
Two points back to the wall, shifting again, dragging his little cloth pack of tools with him. "That literally anchors her into place. It's a lifelong connection to you. For someone who doesn't like to be tied down—"
He drops the light again. "She's my wife."
"Fine," Two sighs, and taps his hand, nodding to the wall where to aim the light.
He aims it and tries to distract himself by thinking of all the reasons he shouldn't smash the flashlight into the back of Two's head.
"Let's say she's changed. She's completely content spending the rest of her life with you out in that shack without basic human amenities—"
"Jackson, you'd better have a point because I'm not in the mood to—"
"You're too overprotective."
"Well, she does a lot of stupid shit." Drops the light again, and this time let's his feet roll back until he's sits in the weak layer of sand still remaining after Two cleared most away.
"You weren't this overprotective before—"
"Yeah. I was. I just couldn't show it because of work."
"Fine, you weren't outwardly this overprotective before." Two grabs the flashlight now and clamps it beneath his chin so he can dust and touch and also see.
"So?"
"So?" The flashlight falls from the bob of his chin and rolls a little in the scattered sand. "So, she thinks you only care about the baby."
"Yeah, okay," he groans as he tries to construct himself on his feet, but the muscle in his thigh pulls tight and he ends up smashing his ass off the solid rock floor.
"Think about it. When was the last time you asked her something without the baby in mind?"
"I ask her stuff all the—"
But he doesn't.
Not really.
All his questions, if she ate, what she ate, if she slept, for how long, if she's tired, if she feels sick, all relate back to the baby, and his concern stemming for them. Hasn't asked her what contracts she's pulled recently, or what he should grow in the fields, or if she enjoys living where they are, or why she wants to go back to Earth so bad.
Two seems to understand the definition of his silence and nods, snapping the flashlight back to his belt and then crunching his boots over the ground as he stands. "You don't have to worry so much, Mitchell—"
He's not going to bother to argue with him on how Vala feels or why she reacts the way that she does—only she can give a truthful answer—although, his points are valid—but there's no way he can't worry about her. How many times has he almost seen her die? From torture, from lack of oxygen, from a gun pressed to her temple, from pollen, and arrows, and the garburator. How many times was he forced to watch her die in that looping day? It keeps him up at night, her leg heaped across his chest and his palm kneading into the small of her back while she's sound asleep, he holds her, bunches her hair, feels the softness of her skin against his, the steadiness of her breathing and listens to her snore until he can relax.
"After everything that's happened to her, yes I do."
"She's still self-sufficient."
"What's that supposed to mean?" Hears something echoing down the hallway, not so much like boots clomping, or her boots clomping, but almost hissing, like steam.
"It means that she can take care of herself."
"Yeah, well, maybe for the next few months she should let me help a bit."
Places the sound only a few seconds before the robot rock thing zips, wobbling in the air from speed, into the room, interrupting their debate about his wife by saying nothing but his name on repeat.
:O —#Lieutenant Colonel Cameron Mitchell! Lieutenant Colonel Cameron Mitchell#
"Yeah, I'm here." Dusts off the shins of his pants after the exhaust port from the robot thing stirs up the dirt on the ground.
:O —#You must follow me quickly. There has been a disaster#
"Disaster?" Two says the word like he doesn't know the full meaning of it, and he probably hasn't since he's never been on the receiving end of a call that begins 'we have a problem'.
"Is Vala okay?"
The ruin guardian doesn't answer him, instead zips off back into the hallway at such a speed that he only grabs the packets before leaving Two in his literal dust, bounding down the hallway, ignoring the pain burning in his lungs. "Hey Rockbot."
:\ —#Vala Mal Doran is in distress. She requested your immediate—#
"What happened?" Almost out of breath but boosts up his feet, thankful that he still does his early morning jogs. Doesn't stop until he almost rams into the robot's back face as it blocks the doorway. When he squirms around it, he finds a room similar to the one he and Two were in, but empty. "Where is she?"
:—#In the lower catacombs#
"Where is that?" His hands clasp down on the side of solid rock and he glares at a low-resolution screen of a face, his huffing breaths causing fog over the domed exterior. "Is she okay?"
:( —#For now yes#
"For now?" Pants as Two falls into place behind him halting himself with several slapping steps.
:( —#Her blood pressure and temperature are up, and she is leaking saline from her eyes#
"She's crying?"
"What happened?" Two shuffles into he room exploring the writing quickly, his finger still dragging over the indented glyphs.
He doesn't want to tell them that he didn't need a crystal ball to predict this disaster, and before his hands turn to knuckles and he starts beating an archeologist with a rockbot, he focuses on Vala, somewhere below them—all questions but how to get to her can wait.
:( —#I did not want to leave her Lieutenant Colonel Cameron Mitchell, but she pleaded with me to find you and bring you to her#
"Then let's go." Releases the floating bolder and steps into the room.
:( —#It is not that easy. In order to reach the lower catacombs, you need to be cloned#
That garners Two's attention and he stands from crouching, almost halfway through reading the room. "Come again?"
:( —#The lower catacombs are where all those cloned are stored in stasis#
"So Vala's in stasis?"
:( —#No. Dr. Daniel Jackson set off the cloning reaction within the temple walls. I was able to redirect her down a different chute during the process. However, Dr. Daniel Jackson was cloned again, and being a clone, his cells immediately started breaking down—#
"Wait, so that Daniel was the fake." Two stands straighter, a look of shock wiping itself clean from his face and quickly being replaced with a tight, smug grin. "I knew—"
"Focus, Sunshine."
"Right. Right. We should—"
:\ —#Actually Dr. Daniel Jackson, you cannot travel to the lower catacombs as you are also a clone, you'll decompose as well#
"What?"
"What?"
"Neither of us were the original?"
:| —#As aforementioned, the originals are stored in the lower catacombs. I was able to redirect Vala Mal Doran from being processed, saving her life in the interim, however in order to be reunited with her, Lieutenant Colonel Cameron Mitchell, you will need to be—"
"Do it."