Green Wires

Chapter 2

Small White Kettle

"How are you feeling today, Cameron?"

"Oh, you know—" he shrugs, swirling around his black coffee inside the same Styrofoam container as the one he had yesterday, the same one as last week, and the week before. They're on week three of this bullshit, of this talking without revealing anything, of this interrogation hidden under questions about his childhood and parents and why he wanted to be a pilot "—same old, same old."

"You said you'd planned to get up earlier this morning to go for a jog—did you manage to do that?" Asks him like he's three years old and the task of tying his own shows is monumental. It's patronizing in a covert way, like he doesn't know how he's being stupid, but Hu does.

"Yeah, I still jog every morning."

And every night.

And sometimes through the day on breaks.

Or at lunch time.

He's never been confined to the mountain for this long, without being allowed to go home or being sent off world. Two and a half weeks. Eighteen days and the gray scenery is all starting to look the same.

"Dr. Lam informed me that you failed to meet her earlier today for your scheduled checkup—" Hu lets the question hang, cupping his hands together in his lap, the yellow paper pad not even opened yet.

"I didn't realize you were keeping such close tabs on me, Doc." He sets his coffee down on the table beside the couch, directly in the middle of the coaster, and shifts his legs so the cushion button hits him right in the sensitive nerve in his thigh. Can never sleep. Lays awake in bed, tossing and turning for hours before giving up and going for a run.

The only place he wants to sleep is here.

"I'm just curious as to what had you so preoccupied that you'd miss your appointment?"

"I was taking a nap."

He wasn't.

"That is encouraging, I know you'd been having sleeping troubles."

"Yeah, well, I guess the morning run tired me out a bit." Reaches for his coffee, and lets his arm drop, blinking back the sleepless stinging in his eyes. "Can we get started?"

Hu doesn't acknowledge his question, flicking on a switch to a small white electric kettle that starts to purr softly. "I'd like to see if you're able to talk about what happened directly afterwards."

He stays silent, lips bunching, despite whining for the session to start, he hates answering things about that day, about what happened and how he felt. The wound is starting to heal, the absence of one person still blatantly obvious and weighing down on them, but not so much that they can't have a meal a day, or a morning and afternoon marathon, or a shower every few days.

"We got on the cargo ship and headed back to the Odyssey."

Alarms were screeching, the hallways of the base falling into patterned darkness as Teal'c directed him through and to the hanger.

"Why didn't you use the rings to evacuate?" There's barely any pen movement, simple drifting lines that make it seem more like Hu is drawing a police sketch of him then taking notes about his supposed shattered psyche.

"Base went into lockdown mode."

"Then how did you exit the hangar?"

"Vala fiddled with the electronic panel, put it on a delayed opening."

He set her on the ground, one hand placed between her shoulders and the other ripping open the panel. She still had on those cuffs—the ones he made that joke about—the ones made of heavy and jagged metal that domed her hands and tore away at the skin on her arms.

"We have no time to try and get those gloves off of you right now, so—Vala!" Shook her slightly, both his hands consuming her shoulders as her head went slack, and her chin bounced to her chest. "Princess, you gotta focus here. Tell me which crystals to mix."

Which wires to pull, like she didn't just do that five minutes ago, like he didn't just ignore her.

Perked up at the last second, eyebrows raising, but her eyes barely opened, as she gestured with a nod of her chin. "Switch the pink and white crystals," her voice almost used up, hidden somewhere in the back of her throat, "and pull the black wire." Her eyes turned upwards, one of them bruised over and swollen shut, the other red rimmed and rolling, trying to focus on his face. "Where's Daniel?"

He slammed the box shut, before heaving her back into his arms. She asked again and again for Daniel, voice smaller and smaller until it was used up and her head fell slack against his shoulder.

"Who was the first to reach Ms. Mal Doran?" The kettle whistles, steam bellowing beside the Doc, looking like pipes burst from zat blasts, from P-90 return fire.

"I was."

She wasn't conscious at that point. Didn't get to see from her window what he'd done. She lay on her side, arms awkwardly twisted behind her back, blood was dried on her face from a cut under her black eye. He scrambled into the room, half of his brain screaming what he'd just done, a mantra, while the other half told him to get her while he still had a chance.

Slid his hands beneath her and she flinched awake, wrenching her body away from him like a trout caught and tossed onto the pier.

"Easy." He told her, sitting her up slow, watching the stars spin behind her eyes from lightheadedness, from blunt force trauma, as he examined the cuffs, unable to find keyhole in the mess, let alone another way to get them off her.

Was about to ask her if she could walk when her eyes—well her good eye—finally met his, and all her muscles relaxed as she grinned.

Said one word.

A single word.

"Mitchell."

Before she slipped unconscious again.

He carried her out, all army superhero, and he thinks the metal cuffs weighed almost as much as her. Tried not to let the cuffs dangle to much, but by the angle, he's sure her shoulder dislocated.

"What happened once you boarded the cargo ship?" Hu sips his green tea, finger clawing the top of the handleless mug, tipping it back against his lips

"Teal'c took main controls, I sat with Vala, tried to see if there was anything that I could use to get the cuffs off her."

"Were you able to?"

"No."

He flipped her on her side, the one she hadn't slumped to in her cell, and stared at the bulkhead of the ship, all the metal panels drilled into place. The top of her head touching his bad thigh and he found solace in her even breathing.

"Did you talk about anything?"

"No." He smiles wistfully and doesn't know why, remembering the warmth of her near him. She slept, Teal'c piloted the ship, and he stared at the wall, sobbing.

Hu's pen is scrolling now, a mile a minute like the needle on a polygraph machine. "What happened when you reached the Odyssey?"

"Medical was waiting for us. They took Vala away on a stretcher."

Swarmed around him like ants, relieved his arms of her. She hadn't been awake in a while, not since before leaving the base—he didn't know how long that was, because the wall didn't change in the cargo ship, the panels didn't shift, but sometimes in bouts—when he got stuck in what he'd done—he'd shift and the hand supporting him against the seat would drift before her face so he could feel the short, hot breaths escaping her mouth.

"And Teal'c?"

"Teal'c went to a different room because Big Guy took a near miss on our way out—I didn't notice." Must have been when they were readying the ship, when he was puppetting her, being the hands and arms and legs she didn't have access too, crossing crystals, pulling wires, tucking a loose strand of hair from her clammy skin. "I felt—feel—bad because I didn't notice."

"Have you seen either of them since?" Hu's tea is empty as he stashes it on the side of the desk, just before the little white kettle.

"I see Teal'c sometimes." His coffee is cold when he brings the cup to his mouth, the taste absorbing the odd flavor of Styrofoam, the top layered with a white skin. Doesn't stop him from sipping in order to have a reason not to talk too much. "Run into him in the workout room, sparred a bit. The staff wound is healing up nicely, probably won't even leave a scar"

"Do you talk about what happened?"

Chuckles, leaning into the back of the sofa, his thigh stiffer than ever, and he can't really remember the last time he took his pain meds for it. "Well that would be a breach of contract, wouldn't it, Doc?"

"And Vala?"

"She breaching contract?"

"Have you seen her since disembarking from the Odyssey?"

"Once in the med bay when she was still under. I heard she got clearance to go back to her room, but I haven't seen her yet."

That's just a big fucking lie, and Hu probably knows by the way he's wagging the end of his pen between his fingers because he tipped off the polygraph.

Saw her a few hours ago sitting in the shadows of Daniel's lab because the environmentally friendly lighting had left her in the dark because she's not as nimble as she used to be. The swelling in her eye has gone down substantially, more discolored than forced shut. The stitches from her cut removed leaving behind a strike of white skin curving under her eye. The only real indication of her time in Lucian Alliance captivity are her arms, one still torn up in red slits, and the other nestled against her chest in a sling because he did dislocate her shoulder.

Approached her, sat beside her without any sign of her discomfort, of her emotion, and for more than a minute they just sat, didn't say a single word, didn't make any eye contact, just stared directly across the room at the chart Jackson created on his dry erase board before they left for what was supposed to be a diplomatic mission on a small, peaceful planet. Her breathes weren't as short as they were on the cargo ship, cracked ribs healed on strict bed rest allowed for heavier breathing.

They just breathed together and for the millionth time since he cut that wire, he wondered what the fuck was happening.

Finally, their breathes synched up, sounded like a ticking clock, one he thought Jackson would have in his lab since he was always a stickler for schedules, for dates, for meeting him on time in the briefing room and getting upset when he showed up late because he stopped for a Styrofoam cup of coffee.

"Vala—"

Glanced at her then, her bottom lip stuck between her teeth, her hair done up with clips, but sloppy because her dominant arm is tied up. She was the epitome of trying, of stitching something broken together and trying to pass it off as repaired. Fighting to keep her exterior flawless, while he remembered how she went off the deep end after Daniel disappeared with the Ori.

She shook her head at him, lip turning white under the pressure of her own teeth, tear caught dangling in her splayed bottom lashes, and she shuddered in a breath—one that hurt from her wince, from her shift to the side—and shook her head once, lopsided pig tails wagging lowly. "I don't know, Mitchell."

The light turned off and they stayed in the dark, breathing, feeling, not speaking, staring at the backlit board where Daniel wrote a reminder to set his alarm for the morning mission.

She left first.

Wobbled off the stool as the light blinked back on, toppled from the seat and onto her feet with the least amount of grace he's ever seen from her. Wanted to reach for her, help her steady her, but his body—his arms were so heavy and his thigh aching from the placement of the seat edge. So he just listened as she walked out of the room, her gait slow and confused, the lights glowing after her.

"I see." Hu scratches his pen over the pad and circles something several times before flipping the cover back closed. "Unfortunately, our time is up for today."

Wants to say how unfortunate it is, that he has to come here everyday—even weekends—and try to tell a complete stranger the way he massacred one of his teammates—one of his friends—without getting emotional, without letting his guard down, without giving away too much.

It was an accident—unintentional—but the more he talks about it, the more he questions little details, things he missed—what happened to Vala's cuffs, Teal'c's injury—the more he starts to lose faith in himself, starts to doubt his own memories, his own actions.

But he has to be patient.

"All right." Tosses his half full cup of coffee into the trash by the door, massaging his leg muscle under the guise of wiping off his hands. "I'll see you tomorrow, Doc."

He told himself to cut the green for a reason.