They´d been walking for a good long while. Silence. They hadn´t even stopped for a rest all morning. Silence. The scenery didn´t change much, just trees. Silence. It was all very uncomfortable.
It wasn´t just the fact that all of SG-1 had decided to ignore "the obvious awkward situation arising from that morning", but that it was suddenly dawning on them: they were on their way home. It was quite a shock. It had only been a few days, and, except for the whole "war thing", nothing much had happened. Their clothes were lost, their weapons were gone, they depended entirely on strangers for their survival. Even so, not one of them minded being there, it was the place, the people. Daniel was sorry he hadn´t been able to learn more about them and their culture. He was the only one with a half reasonable reason to want to stay, all the others simply didn´t want to leave. Even Teal´c was sorry: he´d found Jaffa who were free of the false gods. This intrigued him, he wished he´d been able to learn more about them.
----
Pain. Incredible amounts of it. That was the last thought she could remember before plunging into the light. Something pulled, she thought. The came out somewhere else, cold, hurt. She fell down on the hard floor, she looked at a room full of humans, all ready to kill her should she even move. Before she passed into darkness she felt fear. Her master was calling. He was hurt too, and was coming to protect them both.....
---
The strange thing was that it was uncomfortable for everyone else. She sure didn´t feel she´d done anything wrong. Maybe getting drunk and lost in a strange forest on an alien planet wasn´t too good an idea, but she couldn´t say it was more than a stupid mistake. She still dreaded the thought of if though, because no one back home would be so understanding.
-----
No matter how many things had been seen at the SGC, a dragon in the Gate room topped them all. It even growled. It´s eyes glared. It seemed to have come from the girl who lay perfectly still on the ramp. She was bleeding. Another young girl was at her side, looking scared, but not of all the men pointing guns at her. Scared for the life of the other. SG-1 was completely out of control. Teal´c kept screaming to put down all the weapons, Daniel had already fainted, O´Neill was bleeding but seemed more concerned with some noise and Sam covered her ears, also asking not to fire. It was all over within thirty seconds, but it was enough for O´Neill to colapse, for Teal´c to glare at a lot of young soldiers, for Daniel to regain consciousness only to cover his ears, for Sam to try to get O´Neill to stay awake, and for the other two girls to almost be ignored.
-----
Gyffins were some of the most extraordinarily paranoid creatures O´Neill had ever met. They´d been standing at the entrance of a large stone building for nearly three hours before they were allowed inside, and only so far as the end of the hall. There they waited for a few more hours. Kaia spoke in a hushed voice to two old men who had been standing there, waiting for them. Then the men disappeared and Kaia sat down on the floor, in silence. When the door to their right was finally opened, O´Neill had been half asleep. They were made to walk quickly and silently down a series of hallways. All of them looked the same. Finally, they came to a very, very large door. It was swung open with difficulty and beyond it stood a Stargate. The gyffins wasted no time. They simply asked for the address, dialed and waited for SG-1 to walk through. It did not go at all the way they´d planned.
----
Kaia had never seen a Stargate working before. She was impressed. She wondered how it worked and why, but sadly discarded the questions from her mind: those answers were not meant for her. The gyffins had agreed to let them use the Stargate, but it had to be quick. She stood in front of SG-1 and smiled. She wondered how long it would take for them to return to normal. She sensed they were in no hurry for that to happen. She sensed a lot of things. Some of them worried her. They were too reckless, to much like children. They saw the world in a whole new way, but were unwilling to accept the fact that it was not going to last for ever and that it was not the way things were looked at back home. Kaia was about to say something when there was a noise. A smell of smoke. The distinctive prescence of Aurulo and then pain. Kaia realized immediately what had happened. They´d been followed, they´d been caught. She´d been shot. O´Neill pushed her and Koshka into the wall of water. It was an accident, he´d meant to get them down but he was shot too. The rest of SG-1 was unceremoniously pushed inside by Vozem and Stari, while the rest of the room was fighting the humans who´d come to kill them all.
----
Medical assistance on Earth was definately primitive. Everything had to be applied through the veins, which meant needles and complex apparatus and the rist of infections. There were about three or four people working on a single person, not at all efficient in a combat situation. The medications were flawed, they would put you to sleep when they were meant to stop the pain, made you sick when you were supposed to sleep and it hurt. The worse part was the noise. So much noise in so little a room. There were beeps and ringing and scratching and breathing and scraping and tinkling...medical assitance on Earth was very primitive.
Koshka lay awake and annoyed on the little and uncomfortable bed. Her thoughts were not very pleasant. Everything was quiet compared to earlier on, although there was still too much noise for her liking. She closed her eyes and concentrated on finding the noise. It came from a lot of places but over all, there was a buzzing and it was from a series of pipies that went all over the base. She wished she had the telepathic powers of any Padeos at that moment, she didn´t know what it was but she wanted to, so that she could block it out of her mind. She had figured that one of the beeping noises came from a machine on her right, which was, for the Light´s side´s no obvious reason, attached to her. She had managed to ignore that nosie already. There was some sort of machine which sounded like it was breathing, but she didn´t know what it was yet. Someone came in the room. Koshka lay still, pretended to be asleep. That was the third time someone had done that and Koshka figured she had another while before anyone came into the room again. This was the moment. After the person left, she sat up and quietly and quickly, she got rid of all the needles sticking into her (which in truth was only one BUT it seemed like more), yanked off whatever it was that was stuck to her chest and concentrated. She felt warm again, her perspective change, she took comfort in her claws and in her sharp triangular ears, her coat was all black and that made her feel safe. She shook her entire body before stretching her back. She needed to find Kaia, she´d been badly wounded, and the medicine they´d given her had probably done nothing for her. It didn´t take long.
----
Eventually, even Sam had passed out. It had happened on their way to the infirmary. She had been unable to do much of anything except cover her ears, she was eventually put in a strecher and when she insisted on not being still she´d been restrained. That´s when she´d passed out. She was still out, several hours later. Her breathing was deep, slow, and her her heart and pulse were completely normal. There had been blood work done and there had been nothing unusual there. But something was wrong. All the machines and equipment seemed to have static interference. They had been checked, but nothing was wrong, in fact, as soon as they were taken out of the room, they were fine. Janet concluded that it was SG-1 and the two girls who were generating the interference, but she couldn´t say why. She´d been trying to figure it out for about three hours when suddenly she was paged. She ran out of her office to the infirmary. No one. She heard a commotion down the hall, without thinking, she ran towards it.
One of the young girls was holding Sam up by the shoulders. She was talking to her. Sam had her eyes closed and kept trying to cover her ears. The girl kept pushing her against the wall. Daniel was sitting down on the floor, apparently passed out, although he was sitting a little too straight for someone who´s unconscious. That was not the worst part. Janet noticed something else: there were five armed soldiers, obviously after the girl, but they were getting the hell beat out of them by...something. It stopped for a second, it looked like a big cat. Black and with strangely long ears and tail. After all the soldiers lay on the floor, it turned on Dr. Fraser who did not move. She didn´t know what was going on but she knew enough to understand that if she moved or did anything that might seem a threat she would end up no better than the men on the floor. She took a deep breath and looked down at the beaten bodies. She made a choice.
"These men are hurt." Her voice shook a little bit more than what she would´ve liked but it seemed to work. At the same moment that Sam was put down on the floor, considerably calmer, the girl turned and spoke.
"Koshka...ea tam na ij nibla."
The cat-like creature sat back and took a deep breath....and turned into the second girl. Janet would have passed out from the mere shock if she wasn´t so worried about the others. The recently transformed girl got up and looked down at the men and at Janet. Without a word she simply went back to Daniel, and helped him up.
----
A voice inside their heads had called to them. It promised them silence. They had not hesitated to go to it. To the outside world they seemed passed out, but they were very much awake inside their minds. It was a strange way of being and soon both Daniel and Sam understood it was some sort of defence mechanism. They were being protected from all the noise which was, quite literally, killing them. It had been strange, all the noise piercing and tearing appart their brains. Daniel had passed out the same instant he´d been back, Sam had fought it for a bit, but she understood it would kill her. She didn´t know how, she just did.
Daniel had been the first one up. He smelled something. Strong and interesting. He wanted to go to the smell. The voice warned him of the dangers of the noise, but the scent was too much. He opened his eyes, and was back in hell again. This time there was company, though: Kaia. She pressed her hands against his ears and spoke to him in his head. It was all he could do to keep his eyes open. Kaia told him to go to the noises, to find them, to separate them. He did. There was the buzzing from the electricity, there was the beeping of the machines and a high pitch ring from...the security cameras. One by one Daniel heard them all, completely, from the first pitch to the last buz. They were all units of noise in his mind. He pictured himself putting them in a sack and throwing them to the back of his mind. One sack for every noise and one by one they began to fade. He knew they were still there but, somehow, he´d managed to mask them. When he opened his eyes he was sweating. He was tired. Kaia smiled at him and let go of his head. The noises were gone.
Sam was a lot more difficult. Her mind kept identifying the noised but she could do nothing more than simply listen to them. There were to many, Kaia said. She took them out to the hall. There were about five noises less, but it would have to do. Sam kept slipping back into her mind, Kaia kept shaking and pushing her awake. Sam could concentrate on nothing more than the noise. When the soldiers came she wanted to give up. Kaia would not have it. They needed to learn to control their minds and their senses. For a second Kaia knew it was not so bad that she was thrown into this world by mistake. If she had not been there, they would be dead already. Koshka kept the soldiers away but there was one person they did not expect: the doctor. Koshka thought little of her and Kaia didn´t know what to think. Kaia noticed the doctor wasn´t moving a muscle. At least she understood the situation, that made her smart. Possibly and ally. Sam cared a great deal about her. They were good friends. Finally, Sam got a hold of herself. She was sweating heavily. Kaia let her down on the floor. Daniel was sitting very still and very calm throughout all this. It was good. They barely had enough energy or will left to open their eyes. Kaia was not much better off. She turned to Koshka and told her to leave the doctor alone, she was no threat. Koshka turned back to her human shape. The doctor was shocked, but there were hurt people so she put it aside and got to them. Another comendable thing, thought Kaia. Koshka helped Daniel up and Kaia, Sam. They needed food. They headed straight towards it.
----
Teal´c was sitting silently in his room. He wasn´t doing much of anything, simply sitting. Part of his mind found this curious, but most of it found it calming. He suddenly heard a scream. It was Kaia. She was looking for him. He saw her. A hallway. There were several armed officers in front of them. She was holding Sam up, who did not look good. Koshka was ready to attack, so was Kaia. Teal´c got up and ran to them. He was allowed to get to them. He turned around and asked that they put their weapons down. The young soldiers seemed confused and would not obey. Kaia and Koshka, carrying Sam and Daniel, got behind him. Teal´c walked straight ahead. As he thought, no one took a shot. They walked slowly and relatively unhindered towards the mess hall. A few people were there, but they all stood up and stood still as soon as Teal´c and the others came in. Kaia put Sam down on a bench, Daniel was in front of her. Kaia looked at one or two people and knew what she had to do. She went and got all the food she needed. She was impressed how poorly fed they all were. She needed three times as much food as usual simply to get Daniel to respond. She managed to get her hands on two glasses of water and reached into her bag (which had graciously been recovered by Koshka) and put a bluish-pink powder in. At this precise moment, the doctor came in. She went past all the armed soldiers and sat down next to Sam. She touched her shoulder. It was cold and she didn´t really respond. Koshka seemed ready to leap at her, but one word from Kaia and she sat back down. Kaia reached across the table and touched the doctors arm, she turned to her.
"Janet...I am only trying to help them. They were dying. You cannot understand this."
Janet wondered how it was this girl new her name but soon realized it didn´t matter. The girl put the galss with the strange colored water in Sam´s hand and said something to her. Something in a language Janet didn´t understand. Sam looked down at the glass. Kaia smiled and said something else. Sam managed a weak smile and drank the liquid in the glass. Across the table, Daniel was doing the same thing. They finished the entire glass and they immediately started looking better. They lost all the palor, they were no longer cold to the touch, and Sam even managed to look over at Janet and seem confused. Kaia pushed them to eat all that was before them. They obeyed.
Janet was more than a bit shocked and confused. Daniel and Sam obeyed the girl without question. She looked over at her and she smiled. It was a smile she could trust.
