Goodbyes

Dr Jackson was in his office, alone. His friends had tried to comfort him, but he had pushed them away before they could even begin to speak. He wanted to be alone, alone with his pain and his anger. The tears had stopped, he knew the sense of loss would come later, but at the moment mostly what he felt was anger. Anger at himself for not preventing Trance from coming with them, anger at the Lancer unit for not protecting her better, and anger, no hatred, of the Goa'uld. He wanted to lash out, strike someone, make them feel the pain that he was feeling now. There was no one to hit, so he hit the wall. The pain felt good, it replaced some of the emotional pain, so he hit the wall again, and again. He felt his knuckles crack and wetness spreading over his hand, so he knew he was bleeding. He didn't really care and continued his assault on the wall.

"You must be very angry at that wall, Daniel. What did it do to offend you?"

He knew who owned that voice, but it was impossible that she be here. He had last seen her in the base hospital, lying on a gurney, just before Dr Fraiser covered her with a sheet. Half afraid of what he might see when he turned, Daniel turned towards the doorway. There she was a sad smile on her face, but otherwise she was looking as fresh as if she had just taken a little nap, instead of a bolt from a Jaffa staff weapon.

Before he could even start to ask questions, she crossed the distance between them and put her index finger over his lips.

"Don't ask, Daniel. Don't ask, and I won't have to lie."

She took his injured hand in both of her hands and gazed down on it. It was swollen and the knuckle bones were visible through tears in the skin. From the pain in his wrist ,Dr. Jackson suspected that it was fractured as well. Trance blew gently on the wound, and the pain stopped. The skin was whole and the swelling gone. Once again he started to question her, and once again she stopped him; this time with a kiss.

"What the…? How the Hell?" The incredulous noises were coming from Colonel O'Neill, who was standing in the doorway to Dr Jackson's office in slack jawed amazement. He had come intending to insure that his friend was not alone during his time of loss, but instead of finding a grief stricken man mourning the death of his lover, he found that same man in a lovers clinch with a women who just hours before had been very dead.

"Oh hello, Colonel O'Neill." Trance flashed him a smile "Being dead is boring. So I come back." She then turned back to Dr Jackson, and using her foot, closed the door in the face of the even more slack jawed Colonel.

Colonel O'Neill stood in front of the closed door spluttering, too dumbfounded to even make a retort. It wasn't until he had caught his breath that the meaning of Trance's words penetrated. 'Being dead is boring. So I come back' This wasn't the first time she had returned from the dead. No wonder Captain Hunt had seemed so unconcerned when he received the report of Trance's death. Apparently. for at least some of his crew members death was simply 'boring'. The Colonel set off in search of Sam hoping she could explain it. If he couldn't find Sam he was going to find a drink, preferably several of them.

The couch in Dr. Jackson's office unfolded into a bed. The mattress was thin and uncomfortable but it was enough. Later that night as she felt him curled around her, Trance changed her mind. She would tell Daniel the truth about herself and the battle the Andromeda was engaged in. Not all of the truth, she didn't know all the answers herself, but enough so that he would understand why she had to leave him and that the parting wouldn't be permanent.

"Daniel, wake up I have to tell you something"

"Hmmph?"

"Daniel, look at me. There's something you need to know, about me"

Dr Jackson looked at her, and when his eyes met hers she showed him what he needed to know. A smile and a look of understanding came over his face, and then he went back to sleep. Sleeping more peacefully than he had in years.

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While Dr Jackson may have been at peace, Dr Fraiser was not. At the moment she was in the infirmary with Major Carter, venting her frustrations.

"I tell you, Sam, it's impossible. The girl was dead. There was no pulse or brain wave activity, and she had cooled down to room temperature. Then, she just sat up like nothing had happened. But, it's even weirder than that. Harper was in the room with me when it happened, and he didn't even act surprised. When she sat up all he did was say, 'Hi Trance. You'd better check in on Dr Jackson.' I mean one of his shipmates rises from the dead, and he doesn't even blink. What sort of people are we dealing with?"

Sam thought she had an idea of who, or what, they were, but she kept it to herself; she didn't want anyone to think she was crazy. She had never considered herself a religious person, but she had read the Bible, including the Book of Revelations. She suspected that the battle she, and her friends and allies, had just participated in, had been a skirmish in a much larger war, a war that had been raging since the beginning of time. She thought about asking Daniel what it was like to make love to an angel, but then decided it was none of her business.

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The SG-1 team was aboard the Andromeda waiting for news about Rommie. It had been over six hours since she had been wheeled into Harper's workshop but no one said anything about leaving. One of their own had been injured and they were going to stay until they found out if she would recover. The Andromeda's bridge crew was there too. Dylan was pacing like a caged lion and O'Neill made a mental note to himself to ask the ships captain just what his relationship to the avatar really was. Beka had one of her horror novels and was apparently trying to read, but O'Neill had noticed she hadn't turned a page in over 30 minutes. Only Tyr and Trance seemed relaxed. The Nietzschean was leaning against the bulkhead seemingly asleep, but O'Neill had been watching his eyes. Every few minutes they opened and turned to look at the door Rommie had gone through.

Trance was sitting beside Daniel, her tail wrapped possessively around his waist, her head was lying on his shoulder, she was snoring softly. Apparently when you make a habit of dying and resurrecting yourself major surgical operations were nothing to be concerned about. He still wasn't sure what to make of the purple girl's apparent ability to routinely return from the dead, but the rest of his team seemed to be willing to accept the situation, so he decided to go with the flow. Come to think of it Daniel had returned from the dead once himself. Maybe that was why he and the little alien had hit it off so well. The subject was starting to make his head hurt so he decide to concentrate on the situation at hand, Andromeda.

As Harper had explained it, the plasma bolt from the Jaffa's staff weapon had burned its way through her primary electrical ganglion. In human terms her spine had been severed and she was paralyzed from the waist down.

"Why can't you just use some wire and jump the gap?" asked O'Neill. He had done that sort of thing more than once in the field.

"Well, if she was purely a mechanical construct, I would do something to that effect," replied Harper. O'Neill had never seen Harper this serious before. Most of the time he was either obnoxiously cheerful or an arrogant know it all, but this was a different Harper. It was almost as if it was his child who was injured, which, O'Neill supposed, in a way Rommie was.

"But Rommie is a bio-mechanical construct. Many of her components resemble living tissue more than they resemble mechanical or electrical components. I can't just jump the gap, I'm going to have to graft the gap closed using neurological tissue from other parts of her body and hope the graft takes."

It sounded the same to O'Neill but apparently it wasn't.

It was another hour of so before Rommie was wheeled out of the workshop on a gurney. Her eyes were closed and she seemed to be unconscious. Harper emerged from his surgery right behind the gurney. The speed with which Dylan rounded on Harper convinced O'Neill that Dylan's concern for the avatar was more than just that of a commanding officer for an injured crewman. Harper put up his hands to forestall the barrage of questions.

"I grafted the neurological tissue and repaired the other damage. Now all we can do is wait and see if the graft takes. If it does, she'll be up on her feet in two or three days. If it doesn't take..." He left the sentence hanging. Then seeing the look on his captain's face he added. "Relax,. Boss, you're talking to the great Harper here. Rommie will be back standing command deck watches in a week. She's in her quarters. I'll revive her and you can all visit her." Harper was back to his old obnoxious self, the operation must have gone as well as he was bragging about.

O'Neill was the last to visit Rommie. There was something he needed to say and it was going to be awkward. She was propped up in the stateroom's bed, apparently staring at the opposite wall, but by now O'Neill knew enough about her job to know that she was busy running the ship. One of the advantages of being the ships avatar he thought, you can work lying down.

"How you feeling?"

"Much better now. Thank you again for saving me."

"I would have done the same for any of my team." That was the easy part admitting she was part of the team. "Andromeda..."

"Rommie, my friends call me Rommie."

"When I first met you, I know I was a bit of a prick."

"More than a bit"

"OK then, I was a flaming jackass. I mean I just want to say that.." Damn it why was it so hard to say 'I'm sorry'?

"Apology accepted ,Colonel O'Neill. Or can I call you Jack?"

"Jack"

"Thank you. Oh could you do me a favor, and hand me that audio book." She indicated to one of the audiobooks that Major Carter had purchased for Beka. "Beka says they are quite entertaining."

When Jack moved to hand her the book she suddenly reached out and pulled him towards her and kissed him full on the mouth.

When she released him O'Neill flushed scarlet and muttered something about' "Got to check on that last Magog ship", and scrambled out of the room. She even smelled like a woman he thought. He wondered if maybe she and he, no Captain Dylan had his eye on her and O'Neill wasn't going to poach.

Rommie gave a satisfied smile and settled down to enjoy the book. She wondered how long it would take for the Colonel to stop running. She and Jack would probably never be close friends, but he had accepted her as a teammate and a person, and that was enough, more than enough

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It was time for Andromeda and her crew to leave. The last Magog ship had had the misfortune to come out of hyperdrive directly over a Tokr'a controlled planet and had been promptly vaporized. Harper had fine-tuned his time space transposition device so that it was no longer a threat to the universe. A shuttle was waiting to take the crew back to the Andromeda. Trance was the last one to step into the shuttle. As she was entering the shuttle she turned and said to Dr Jackson, "Remember the doorway Daniel. I'll be there when you step through it." Then the shuttle took off leaving the SG-1 team to watch it until it faded from sight.

"Doorway Daniel?" asked O'Neill. "Some sort of risen for the dead stuff?"

"Yeah, Jack, something like that." He fell silent reflecting on what Trance had shown him that night when she had revealed her true nature to him. When the time came he would again pass through that doorway that all mortal creatures must pass through, and through which he had passed once before. This time though, when he passed through she would be waiting for him, and together hand and hand they would walk to the Light.

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The command deck watch was set and ready to enter Slipstream. Once again Trance was at the pilot station. Beka was somewhat nervous about this but Dylan had insisted.

"Is that device of yours ready, Harper?" he queried?

"Just give me the word boss."

"OK take her in, Trance. Start her up, Harper"

There was a shifting sensation as forward became future and future became forward then they were back in normal space.

"When are we, Boss?" asked Harper.

Before Dylan could reply Andromeda appeared in the viewscreen. "Captain, we appear to have emerged within Drago-Kazov space. I have detected numerous slipfighters on an intercept course."

"Thank you Andromeda. Sound battle stations, Rommie. It's good to be home."