Kieran Amamiya jolts awake, lurching forward. She doesn't get very far, because her entire body feels like it's made of lead. And she's . . . tired. Her back is sweaty from lying on—on sheets and pillows. Which means she's on a bed, which is great considering her previous arrangements. But Kieran is so sweaty. She has sweat in places she didn't know she had, which means that within ten more minutes of being awake she's going to be crusty.
That's the least of her concerns, though.
Kieran blinks, bringing blurry lights into focus. Wait. She's not staring at rickety metal rafters anymore. Instead, she's staring at concrete walls peeking behind a privacy curtain. She's hooked up to beeping machines monitoring her vitals. She tries to sit up and feels the tugging of an IV.
In other words, she's been brought to a secondary location.
This fact catches up to her, along with all of the accompanying implications.
Which means that Kieran starts freaking out.
Kieran shrieks. Er, she tries really hard to. It catches in her throat, so dry she's afraid it'll close up if she tries to swallow. She just ends up panting like a dog instead.
"Kieran!"
Someone else's hands are clasping her own, squeezing them in a way Kieran interprets as reassuring. Kieran blinks, zeroing in on a familiar head of short blonde hair. It doesn't even take her a moment to realize it's Sam Carter, an old family friend. Sam, who's really smart and sparked Kieran's interest in science. Who started dragging Kieran and her mom to Wednesday trivia nights. Sam, who's talking her through breathing exercises right now and feeding her ice chips.
The cool water trickling down her throat is a welcome relief. Her rampant heartbeat echoing in her ears slows down, and she feels calm enough to really take everything in. She spies the glint of a chain around Sam's neck (her dog tags, probably), and she's wearing a standard uniform in forest green. Sam's on duty, in uniform. Which means that Kieran is under Cheyenne Mountain and not a sketchy tetanus-ridden death-trap of a warehouse.
"Hi Sam." Kieran's voice still comes out rough and scratchy. Which is fair, given that her throat still feels like sandpaper. "What's up?"
"How are you feeling?" Sam asks. A frown tugs at Kieran's lips. Sam's own smiles seems too tight, her eyes darting just enough that Kieran knew that she was being assessed.
"Sore," Kieran says honestly, but it still feels like the understatement of the century. It's the leftovers of pain—the kind that dulls into a very acute piercing soreness. Like stubbing a toe really hard. Except that toe was her whole body and maybe also all of her internal organs. "I feel—" Kieran works her jaw again. "Like shit."
Sam grins. "If you can complain about it, then you'll be back on your feet in no time."
"Oh nice. I love good news." Kieran tries for a grin. Judging by the pained look on Sam's face, it's probably ended up more like a constipated grimace. "Where's Mom?"
"Let me get Dr. Lam," Sam says instead of giving Kieran more good news. "She'll want to get a look at you now that you're awake." She squeezes Kieran's hand. "I'll be back in a sec."
Sam pushes herself out of the rickety hospital chair. As she disappears behind the teal privacy curtain, Kieran catches a glimpse of a rigid airman standing guard against the far concrete wall, and other doctors in white coats hustling around the infirmary.
Kieran counts roughly twelve seconds before Sam comes back with a woman she assumes is Dr. Lam. She could guess that Dr. Lam is half-Asian like Kieran herself, her hair tied back in tight bun. And wow—maybe Kieran should ask what her hair routine is because it's so shiny it's practically reflective. It's not enough to distract her from Dr. Lam's smile. It's tight and strained—doesn't reach her eyes, shows a bit too many teeth. It's the kind of smile that's followed only by bad news.
Where is my mother?
"Hi," Kieran says. She doesn't have the energy to panic—yet. Right now the only thing she can muster is concern, but honestly that could change at any moment. "I'm assuming you're Dr. Lam."
The woman nods. "How are you feeling? How much pain are you in?"
Like on a scale from one to ten?" Kieran wrinkles her nose, inhaling sharply as she suddenly focuses on being in pain. She's definitely been in pain for extended periods of time before, if the worst pain she's ever been in is a 10 . . . really, she's more tired than anything else. "Like a 4. Maybe a 5 with how persistent it is?" She shrugs. "I can't tell if I hurt because if I'm in pain or tired."
Dr. Lam frowns a bit. "The pain killers should be getting out of your system by now, so we'll see where you're at in a bit." She slips a pen light out of her lab coat and raises it to Kieran's eye level. "Your pupils are responding fine, so you're not concussed."
"That's good. Concussions suck. How long was I out?"
She was out long enough to be hungry. Stupid hungry. Power-hiked 15 miles hungry. Devour an entire rotisserie chicken hungry or maybe—
Dr. Lam cuts off her thoughts. "You were out for about a day."
"Ah. So like an extra long nap, huh?" Kieran wrinkles her nose. That's not ideal. She doesn't quite remember getting out of the warehouse—just the feeling that if she goes down, she will take people down with her. "I need to go to a buffet. I think I needed a meal four hours ago."
"We can bring you some broth," Dr. Lam says. "Getting sick to your stomach on an empty stomach isn't fun."
Kieran can't really argue with that. She scans her surroundings, not that there's much. There's Sam and Dr. Lam. She can see an airman standing at attention beyond the privacy curtain. All the walls are concrete.
Not a warehouse, Kieran reminds herself. Not a death trap. Not full of people trying to kill me and mom—
"So—not that I'm not enjoying this stimulating conversation—but where's my mom?"
Sam's smile vanishes and doesn't recover.
"Kieran." Sam says her name so carefully, and Kieran hates it. Sam and Dr. Lam are walking on eggshells, but she knows she's the eggshells. Like if they say or do the wrong thing she might crack and burst into a thousand tiny pieces.
Mom got shot. She got impaled. She's in a coma. She's in surgery right now. She had to get an amputation. She lost an eye—
"Kieran," Sam says again. "What do you remember from the warehouse?"
The air goes out of Kieran's lungs. Someone had broken into their house. She took down one, but then . . . but then—there's a flash of blue, pain like her nervous system was set on fire and stamped out, and nothing. When she wakes, she's in a warehouse. She's strapped to a cot. There's a bright light burning her eyes.
"I—" Kieran's voice breaks. "I remember Mom freeing me. We tried to sneak back out. We got caught. We uh, we took a people down but they had weapons that I've never seen before in my life and then we—" Kieran takes a shaky breath. "We got separated."
Dr. Lam steps out of the space enclosed by the privacy curtain, pulls it shut, and Sam steps closer to take Kieran's hands in her own. "An organization called the Trust kidnapped you and your mom," Sam starts. Your mom worked for us and they wanted her research. They took you as a hostage."
"Right." Kieran swallows again as dread pools in her stomach. "I remember that."
"There was a rescue op," Sam continues softly. "And your mom didn't make it."
"No," Kieran croaks. She yanks her hands out of Sam's, pushing herself into a sitting position. The pain is an afterthought. It's not even there. "No! You're lying!"
Tears erupt—but she doesn't sob. Kieran's entire face burns white-hot with an ugly melting pot—fury, grief, helplessness—but none of it bubbles to the surface. Instead, it simmers at her core, spreading to every part of her body. She can't bring herself to speak—only because she's afraid if she opens her mouth, she'll spit fire.
"I'm sorry Kieran," Sam says softly, and it's what jars Kieran back to the moment.
"She's not dead," Kieran says stubbornly. "She can't be dead."
"Kieran—"
"No one's dead if there isn't a body!" She sounds so desperate, even to herself. She's clinging to something that's one part hope and four parts insanity. "So let me see her body!"
If her mother really is dead, then there should be a body. There should be a body that Kieran can find. She'll find it. Even if it's still in that warehouse or somewhere in the base she'll find it. Even if she has to go through people—she'll find it.
Sam grimaces and peeks her head beyond the privacy curtain. Kieran can barely catch Dr. Lam's face before she's gone again.
Dr. Lam takes one last look at Kieran and clears her for release without hassle. Kieran gets a bundle of neatly folded clothes Kieran recognizes as the outfit she was wearing during what's now the worst night of her life. They have that indistinct hotel laundry smell. At least she won't smell like a hospital. Or blood.
Kieran is even weaker than she thought. Pulling her jeans on is a complete struggle, and she can barely raise her arms to shrug on her hoodie. Total muscles soreness on top of . . . everything else, and it feels like there's a vice squeezing around her heart.
Sam has the foresight to come back with a wheelchair. Kieran's legs haven't completely given out while she was getting dressed, but she doesn't think she has the energy to deal with the indignity of eating concrete. Wheelchair it is.
As Kieran settles in, Sam clips a guest badge to Kieran's hoodie. "It's so you don't get beat up by a bunch of airmen."
"I'm a minor and in a wheelchair," Kieran says. "If they do, they should get tried in the Hague."
Of course, there's an equal chance that she could beat up a couple of airmen. Not that anyone else needs to know about that.
The letters SGC on the badge are the biggest and obvious the most important. Not that Kieran knows what it stands for. She knows her mom and Sam met through work, and that work happens to require security clearance out the ass.
Sam attempts to make small talk, but it doesn't feel like Wednesday trivia nights. It probably has something to do with the fact that Kieran knows wherever they're going, good news isn't waiting for her. Only closure. Kieran pays enough attention to hum half-hearted responses, but she's not interested enough to contribute. Eventually, Sam stops trying just as they come across a door and a couple of armed guards. Sam nods to them, and one of them swipes their access card.
The room is an empty one, save for a metal table. It's covered by a thick white sheet. There's a lumpy human shape underneath.
A lumpy human shape.
Sam wheels Kieran over to the table. Vaguely, Kieran registers Sam speaking before she steps out to give her some privacy.
She's not sure how long she sits there. It's funny—she wanted answers so badly she could burst, and now she can't move when the evidence is staring her in the face. Because that's what this is. Closure. Evidence. Does it matter what she calls this? It's all the same. Kieran has her answer, and there is no room for doubt.
It takes a monumental amount of strength for her to get to her feet, but it's not from any muscle weakness or exhaustion. It's so funny. She was off her game once—not focused, not vigilant enough—and her mom pays the prices. And now her focus is razor sharp. She can't forget this moment. Not even if she tries.
She pulls the sheet back. It feels heavy, like lead.
Kieran's heard the old cliché that the dead look like they could be sleeping. She's heard it too many times to count. If a corpse looks like it's sleeping, then it means that it either died peacefully or that it will remain peaceful forever. Kieran's family respects peace in death, but she knows that there are people that . . . don't.
Kieran doesn't doubt that her mom's death was a violent one, but there isn't a trace of that on her expressionless, blank face. It could be described as peaceful, but ultimately dead. Lifeless. She'd never hear her mom laugh at a stupid joke, or beam with pride whenever Kieran mastered some new skill, or—
Kieran takes a deep breath. She supposes none of it matters now.
Her mom never talked much about Kieran's early early childhood. She knows she was born in Japan. She lived in a small little town called Inaba with her grandparents and her . . . her cousin. She knows that her family didn't approve of her mom's actions but still stuck their necks out for her. They were together. A big happy family—until they couldn't be.
Something happened when Kieran and her cousin were four. Kieran doesn't remember what happened, and no one talks about it, but the end result was Kieran and her mom abruptly moving to the United States. Aside from sporadic visits, the longest Kieran's been in the country since was her year-long stint as a foreign exchange student in Tokyo. And really, that was due to some pretty extenuating circumstances.
Her mom threw a lot away to keep them safe. And in the end—
Half an hour passes, and Kieran still hasn't said anything yet. There's so much to say, and she can't. Or she won't. She's not sure what the difference is. There's so much to say, and Kieran can't find the words.
For all the effort it too to get her to stand up, Kieran practically collapses into the wheelchair. She carefully rearranges the sheet back over her mom's face.
It's time to go.
Sam's been waiting for Kieran this whole time.
"I'm starving," Kieran lies.
Sam smiles a shallow smile as she starts steering the wheelchair. "Lunch?"
"Sure." Her mouth tastes like ash. "Lunch sounds great."
Sam had mentioned "some friends" might be joining them for lunch if Kieran was up for the company. Kieran had shrugged. She knows she's not going to be a great conversationalist regardless of how many people are sitting at the table.
Sam absolutely did not mention that "some friends" included a brigadier general. Holy shit. That alone is enough to stutter Kieran out of her tired stupor.
"Uhhhh," Kieran says eloquently. "Should I be flattered or concerned?"
The general grins through a mouthful of food. "A healthy amount of either never hurt anybody. I'm Jack by the way."
The other two guys take that as their cue to introduce themselves. The guy in glasses is Daniel Jackson (everything about him screams colossal nerd, which Kieran can respect) and the guy with the weird symbol carved into his forehead is Teal'c of Chulak.
"Chulak?" Kieran repeats. "I've never heard of it."
Teal'c dips his head in something between a bow and a nod. "It is a planet far from Earth."
Kieran blinks. "Come again?"
Jack turns to Sam. "You didn't tell her about the Stargate yet?"
"Clearly," Kieran says. "Because I just woke up to my head stitched like a patchwork quilt and devastating news. I think Sam only got to the devastating news part." Even being that blasé about the devastating news makes Kieran want to burst into tears, but later instead of right now into her soup.
Daniel winces. "There's . . . more."
It's Daniel that gently, tentatively brings up the funeral arrangements that need to be made as well as Kieran's living situation.
"I don't have any other living relatives in the States," Kieran says. "So—custody is going to have to go to my grandparents, isn't it? I still have dual citizenship, so maybe the paperwork wouldn't be as big of a pain in the ass . . ."
All the adults at the table exchange a look, the kind that screams "we know more about this situation than you and you're not going to like it."
"That's not exactly the plan," Sam says. "The group that took you and your mom—we think they're still out there." Yeah, no kidding. If they're who Kieran thinks they are, then yeah they're still out there. Until people start throwing around "Hand" and "Chaste" there's still plausible deniability. And if this group isn't affiliated with either of them then that means her mom has—had—a real talent for making people mad. "We destroyed what we could find on-site at the warehouse, but we think there's a real chance that these people could come after you specifically."
"Me?" Kieran gulps. Shit. "Why? Who are they?"
"We've made enemies," Sam admits. "These people call themselves the Trust."
Kieran isn't sure whether to be relieved that she's never heard of these people or not. On one hand, the US military doesn't seem to be encroaching on some family secrets. On the other hand, if there's a completely unknown group also targeting her . . .
"I need to disappear then," Kieran said. "Witness protection on steroids. Make it look like I disappeared off the face of the Earth."
"Exactly," Sam says. "Literally."
"Are you guys sending me to live on the moon?"
Kieran says it like a joke, so she's not at all prepared for Sam to say, "Another galaxy, actually." Of course, Kieran doesn't know how to react other than try to choke back a spit take. Jack seems like the kind of guy who wouldn't take it too personally, but she really doesn't want to spray a general in the face with chicken noodle soup. Sam takes the opportunity to surge ahead when Kieran is too busy trying to hack liquid out of her lungs.
Frankly, there should be a limit to how much bonkers batshit information someone can absorb at once, but Kieran's able to parse it together. The US Air Force has been sending people to other planets in the Milky Way using an alien device called a Stargate. But they don't want to send Kieran to just another planet. They're sending her to an expedition in the Pegasus Galaxy, where her father is.
Space travel?
Expedition?
"Father?" Kieran splutters.
Sam grimaces. "Yeah. Mayumi mentioned something like that when we . . . found her."
"We took the liberty of running a DNA test and—" Jack's jazz hands look jarring with a star on his collar. "Congrats! It's a match."
"What—"
Daniel looks mostly apologetic as he passes her a binder that looks like it's ready to burst. Kieran flips it open, and she can already feel her brain matter want to leak through her eyeballs at the legal jargon. She closes it. A smaller file takes its place. Kieran opens it gingerly like she's handling a bomb. What's the difference? The file contains high classified info about a man that she's related to, one that she's never known or even heard of her whole life. Or maybe the reason she's so hesitant is because she can still convince herself she'll wake up from this nightmare.
The others grace her with a few silent moments, and Kieran takes a deep breath before she thumbs through the pages. Looking at the picture, she can tell right away she looks more like her mother. Kieran has brown eyes, and the man has gray.
This must be Mom's old Stanford boyfriend.
"John Sheppard," Kieran reads weakly. "Is the Chief Military Officer of a base in another galaxy."
"The lost city of Atlantis to be exact," Daniel adds.
"And he's my father. The one that hasn't been in my life since . . . ever." She doesn't say it accusingly or angrily. There's no reason to be. She already came to terms with his absence when she her mother made it clear that she was the one that made the decision to split and that it was on good terms. And honestly, given everything about Amamiya family secrets Mom probably ended things for John's safety. But still. This is a lot. She hopes her voice sounds a normal amount of tired and not a teetering-on-the-knife's-edge-of-hysteria level of tired. If she gets any more earth-shattering news dropped into her lap, she just might pass out. Or just start crying. "It's probably safe to say that he has no idea I exist, right?"
Daniel nods. "It takes too much energy to use the gate from here to Atlantis directly. We have a spaceship called the Daedalus."
Kieran nods. Sure. She'll accept that into her current understanding of life and the universe.
"The trip takes three weeks in one direction," Daniel continues. "They're already on the way back from the Pegasus Galaxy. Once they're halfway between Pegasus and the Milky Way, we can relay them the situation. Then it'll be another ten days before they actually reach Earth."
Kieran has to remind herself to breathe.
Kieran's grandparents take care of the funeral. There's Air Force guys packing away most of the furniture for storage. Everything happens so fast. Her grandparents want their daughter's body buried at home—their home, and it's family tradition to get cremated.
She's not even allowed to attend the funeral. Whoever or whatever that killed her mom sees Kieran has a loose thread. If the Air Force is concerned enough to want Kieran to get the hell out of dodge, there's not much she can do to weasel out of it. Caught between a rock and a hard place, if the hard place was actively gunning for her.
She doesn't have a choice, does she? Does she?
All she can do is send a stack of letters of shaky kanji and promises that no, she did not violate any NDAs or leak any classified information, and I'm sorry, but I can't come back for summer vacation and I promise I'll be fine.
If Kieran knows anything about her friends, they won't be satisfied with a lack of an answer. She's only been back in the States for . . . a month maybe? Not even that? They'd demand answers, and there's no doubt the Air Force would stonewall them at every turn.
Kieran breaths. It's time to leave. She thinks about the stacks of journals and photos and knickknacks she's bringing with her. She knows in her heart that the friends she made last year would last forever—or at least until the day she dies. She's not ready for it all to end, to be ripped away, it's unfair—
Kieran breaths.
Time to leave.