Late at Night

by Deepdale

A little late night angst when a member of SG1 can't sleep. This is a total departure from the norm for me. I'd be interested to hear your views on this little piece. Thanks.

Title:                 LATE AT NIGHT

Author:              Deepdale

Rating:              G

Spoilers:           None really, unless you've been living in a bubble and haven't seen 'Meridian'.

Summary:         A Little late night angst when a member of SG1 can't sleep.

Disclaimer:        I don't own the characters from Stargate SG1; I just borrow them from time to time.

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For 'Aligater', my hard working beta.  I know you worry about my current 'Jonas' fixation.  Hang on in there; I'm sure I'll get past it in the end.

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Here I lie.  Can't sleep.  Again.  I know every inch of the ceiling above my head, every brush stroke, every hairline crack, every blemish in the neutral coloured paint.  My mind is racing, filled with a million images all tumbling over and through, fighting for dominance, keeping me from sleep.

Why?

That's an easy one to answer.  Because I'm here.  Because I'm an alien and no matter how long I remain I will always be an alien.  A stranger in a strange world.  Maybe if I could just go outside for a time, sit and look up at the night sky, look at the stars in the heavens, maybe that would help me gain a little perspective in my life.  But because I'm an alien and still very new to this world I'm not allowed to go to the surface, not allowed to walk on dew wet grass at dawn, not allowed to sit and stare up at the stars in the inky black sky, trying to plot my place in the universe.  I could maybe go if I was accompanied, but right now the last thing I want is company.  I just want to look at the stars, I don't want to take over your world, just feel a part of it.  Not spend the rest of my life hundreds of feet underground, never breathing real air, never seeing real light.

Is that so wrong?

I don't know where I belong any more.  Okay, okay so I'm scared, there, said it, I'm scared.  Scared because I no longer know where my future lies.  Sometimes I wish we'd never discovered the Stargate, never met the travellers from this world, never discovered we weren't alone in the universe.  Home.

Is that what I miss, a sense of home?

I thought Teal'c might understand.  How could he?  The circumstances of our arrival on this world are so, so different.  He still has a home, one he hopes some day to return to in triumph.  A Jaffa hero, a warrior for the people of Chulak, freeing them for ever from a millennia of servitude to the Goa'uld.  He can go home.

Me?

Will I ever be able to go home?  Or is it my fate to be eternally cast out from everything, everyone I once knew and loved and be branded traitor to the end of my days? I did what I did for all the right reasons, the moral victory was mine.  So how come it tastes so bitter?  I saw the look in their eyes when I stepped through the gate as a member of SG1, the revulsion, the loathing.  How could you they all seemed to be saying, how could you betray us?

I HAD TO MAKE YOU SEE WHAT YOU WERE DOING WAS WRONG.

Did it work?  Did it make one iota of difference?  Of course not.  They still made their bomb, they still tested their bomb, and then they tried to cover up what the development of their ultimate weapon did to the scientists involved.  They doomed them to a life of make believe, of paranoia, of schizophrenic delusion.  And they dare to call me traitor.

Where will this path I've chosen ultimately take me?  I've seen wonders, no denying that, I've learnt so much in a relatively short span of time, I know I've grown, changed as a result of it all.  But now what?

Where is my path leading me?

I don't want to spend the rest of my life on the outside looking in.  I want to belong.  Oh I know I'm building new friendships here but I also know I'll never be close to any of my new friends, not in the way I was with the friends I left behind.  Can you see Colonel O'Neill suggesting the two of us go out for a beer, or watch a hockey match?  Can you see Sam taking me to visit her brother and his family?  Or General Hammond introducing me to his granddaughters?  No?  Me neither.

No matter what we all say or do, Dr Jackson will always stand between us, between each one of my new friends and me.  And rightly so.  If they'd never met me then Dr Jackson would be here right now and I'd be looking up at the stars in the Kelowna sky.  If our government hadn't been so interested in the destructive power of naquadria he'd still be a member of SG1 and I'd be home.  We all lost a great deal the day of the accident, every one of us.

It's no good; I'm never going to get any sleep at this rate.  What time is it?  3.18am.  Great.  What is it Sam swears by when she can't sleep?  Oh yes, warm milk.  I guess I'll go on down to the commissary and try warm milk and cookies.  Hopefully that'll do the trick.

Until the next time I'm all alone in the dark with my thoughts.