Chapter 28 – A Party Of Need
"Have fun!" Hoffman called from the Dialing Room as GC-1 along with Dude and Kate walked up the ramp, heading into the shield.
"We will!" John assured him before he walked through, letting the connection with P97-080 cease.
Stepping onto the planet on the other side of the Spacegate, John, as well as the rest of GC-1, was met with a huge applause as the entire city of people had come to welcome their liberators.
Amidst the cheering and loud crowd, Daniel and Alex recognized Flahari walking towards them, a smile on his face.
"I bid thee all welcome!" he said with a huge smile. "As you can see the damage that both Zeus and Pollux has done to our fair city has been rebuilt, and we have installed a new government. Come! You shall all come and get dressed in ceremonial clothes, for you all are our guests of honor."
Looking at one another, GC-1 followed Flahari without a word and did just as he told them to.
Alex was a bit wary of the dress she was supposed to wear. It was much more simple and conservative than what Zeus had had her put on, but it was still a dress she wasn't sure she wanted, as just the thought of putting one on brought back the memories.
Holding it up, she determined that it wasn't that bad and that it was a whole lot better than what she had previously had worn on her last visit to the planet. It was silver and iridescent, showing all the colors of the rainbow in them. It had a light blue corset over the gown and huge sleeves, with a heart-shaped neckline that hung off of her shoulders, showing her sapphire jewel. It was simple and easy to move around in, though it was elegant at the same time.
Walking out of the tent she had changed in, she met Daniel, John, and Dagón, who were standing around and talking, trying not to laugh at the others' ceremonial robes.
"Hey guys," she said while walking up to them. "You look very strange…"
"Thanks, and so do you," John said dryly. They all looked at her as she studied them.
They were all wearing identical robes, though of different color. They each had puffy, flowy pants and long-sleeved shirts with a tunic-like garment with a high neck and lots of gold embroidery over them. Alex inhaled a sharp breath. They were almost exactly what Zeus' ceremonial robes were like, though the men's robes were different in color.
Looking from one to the other, the Major strangely found comfort in the difference of their robes. Dagón was dressed in black pants and shirt with an orange and gold embroidered tunic over—the colors matching his skin so that he looked like a walking firestorm. Daniel wore silvery pants and shirt with a dark and light blue tunic—the blue making his eyes seem like deep pools of water beneath his glasses. And the Colonel was wearing tan colored pants and shirt with a green and brown embroidered tunic—making his complexion look more rugged, his eyes a bit more earthy. They looked like the three branches of the world: earth, fire, and water.
Trying to catch Daniel's eye, she failed and so glanced down at herself, concluding that she must be wind. Just when she wondered when the others were going to come, Dude and Kate came from different directions to join the group once more. Kate's gown was very similar to Alex's though it was a very dark purple color that turned slightly navy and black when she moved and seemed to swirl around her. Her corset was a black and her billowy sleeves were cut short. Darkness had arrived.
Dude came wearing pants and a shirt of bright gold with a very yellow and white tunic. The clothes he was wearing matched his bleach-blonde hair, making his entire person shine bright. Light had joined them, and their whole group was ready for the ceremonies. Earth, fire, wind, water, darkness, and light were together, and with each other, no one could stand in their way.
Flahari led them in a procession down the main road of the kingdom, the people cheering them all on. They finally came to an open space where a great bonfire was set. The six GC-1 personnel took a seat where Flahari had told them to go and they watched as a leader and a government was voted into office. After it was done, the party started and aimed to last for well into the morning.
As the party ran on into the night, a man suddenly walked up to John and began talking to him, seemingly trying to convince the Colonel to let him do something. O'Brien kept politely refusing, and the man—obviously drunk—got angry. As the guy stormed off, John turned towards his team, obviously annoyed at what he had been talking about.
"He just told me that he was the greatest warrior this planet has seen in ages," the Colonel told them.
"And?" Dude asked. "What was his problem?"
"He informed me that he wanted Alex to have the honor to mate with him so that her child would be strong."
"And what did you tell him?" Alex demanded, enraged that that man would even think of something like that.
"I politely refused him. He seemed kinda pissed, though. I think he just wanted to get it on, if you catch my drift."
"Yes, sir," Alex said dryly. "We all catch it quite clearly."
"You know, maybe it would've been worth it," Daniel said to John, not thinking. "We could use more strong people to help fight the Androidians. It's an even trade, right? Her virginity for a strong warrior in The System…"
"Yeah," John replied, seeing the logic. Both looked over to where the Major was. Alex gave them a dirty look and got up, storming back to her tent. John looked sideways back at Daniel, and the linguist only shrugged.
Outwardly, Daniel pretended that he didn't really care about his words hurting Alex, but on the inside, he was punishing himself and was in a lot of pain. Turning back to the entertainment, Daniel hoped it would take away the guilty feeling he had inside. Immersing himself in the music, he lost track of time.
"Well, kids," Colonel O'Brien said two and a half hours later, right when everyone was getting up from the show, "I think it's time to go to bed. We're heading back home tomorrow, so we'd better get rested. It's been really fun here, but it must end."
"Yes, sir," GC-1 said, and they all made their way to their tents.
The four tents provided by Flahari were huge. Made out of different colored, heavy, canvas-like cloth, they seemed to be almost gypsy-like in nature and were at least five feet by eight, while being five feet high. They seemed to be made for people of great importance, and GC-1 crewmembers were honored and grateful that they provided them with accommodations. And, assured that they would have the best night sleep inside the tents with all the pillows and blankets they would want—Flahari left them to go to his tent.
"Daniel!" John called, catching up to the linguist, his earth tone tunic flapping as he ran.
"Yeah?"
"Well, um, I was wondering if you'd mind sleeping in Dagón's tent instead of ours," the Colonel said, gesturing first towards the royal blue tent they were supposed to use, and then to the dark green one Dagón was occupying. John had a weird glint in his eye as he said that, and Daniel knew what was going to happen in there.
"Oh, I suppose so. Don't stay up too late and wear yourself out, okay? We have work to do tomorrow." Daniel walked away before a shocked John could reply back.
The linguist veered towards Dagón's tent and knocked on it. After a moment's pause, Dagón unzipped the door, revealing the orange light of many lit candles inside. "DanielMatthewson," the Machiá said in greeting, as was his new custom, and gestured for the linguist to enter. "For what purpose have you come to visit me?"
"Well, Dagón," Daniel said with a slight smile, "I was kicked out of my tent by John and Kate."
"O'Brien kicked you out of your tent?"
"Yep."
"But for what purpose has he done that?" Dagón clearly wasn't getting what Daniel was hinting at.
"They want to be alone, Dagón." Daniel tried to think of a way he could explain this to the alien without really getting into detail.
"But if they wished to be alone, why did not they leave so you could sleep?"
"Well, uh, you see Dagón, they want to be alone all night."
"For what purpose?" Dagón asked again.
"Well, they probably want to make out."
"'Make out?' I am unfamiliar with this term."
Daniel sighed. "Um, well, it means, uh, kissing and caressing very intimately."
"And what is the reason for that?"
"Well, sometimes, um, two people make out because they want it to build up their feelings for the other so that they partake in a more physical union," Daniel said, very uncomfortable to explain things to Dagón. Nevertheless, the Machiá gave him a quizzical look, and the linguist had no choice but to explain. "A more physical union…you know…um, a mating?"
"O'Brien wishes to mate with Dr. Fields!" Dagón seemed both alarmed and surprised at this. Daniel then reminded himself that probably no one else, besides Alex and him, knew about the relationship between the doctor and Colonel.
"Well, from the way they were acting, I'd say yes, but without the hope to create offspring."
"You humans are a very complicated race. However, it is time for my Monileek. Goodnight, DanielMatthewson."
"Goodnight, Dagón," Daniel replied and turned to lie down to sleep.
Sleep did not claim him, however.
Daniel tossed and turned, but sleep stayed away like a wild animal from fire. The guiltiness he felt at dismissing Alex like he had gnawed in his stomach until he couldn't stand it anymore.
Getting up, he looked over at the Machiá, motionless and deep in Monileek meditation. The alien would not miss him. The linguist left the tent, heading towards Alex's.
The woman was not asleep when he knocked on her deep purple tent.
"Who's there?" Alex called, and Daniel took a deep, shaky breath.
"Daniel," he said, and could hear her begin to unzip the front of her tent so that she could look out at him.
"What do you want from me? To humiliate me further?" she snapped, nevertheless unzipping the door to her tent.
"The truth be told," Daniel said, his face and voice showing total sincerity, "I wanted to apologize to you."
Alex studied him with a hard expression.
"All right," she said after a minute's deliberation, and allowed him in.
"Thank you. Alex, I'm sorry for putting you down earlier. I wasn't thinking…I haven't had a full night's sleep in a week and my thinking has taken a toll because of it. It was very inappropriate of me to say what I did, and I'd like you to forgive me."
"Why is that?"
He looked at her, guiltily. "I felt terrible. I couldn't sleep."
"Oh." She looked at her wringing hands. "Well, that just somewhat disproves a theory I had," she muttered quietly, obviously not wanting him to hear. Daniel couldn't stop his curiousness, however.
"Which is?" he asked.
Alex looked at him, wavering a bit and shocked that he heard her before she said, "That you don't like me. You don't come to talk to me scientist-to-scientist any longer, let alone friend to friend…man to woman—or at least that's how it feels, to me—since after we debriefed the General about the Sage. I think we make a great team, Daniel; I really do. You're the only one who can really understand me when I talk without thinking, unlike the Colonel and General. That's why I want to know the reason you're evading me…"
Daniel looked at her, an expression on his face Alex couldn't read. As so many times before, the linguist's heart began to beat weirdly and his pulse quickened—his heart literally ached. He didn't know what was happening to him. Then, without thinking, he reached out and lightly touched her cheek, bringing her head to his. Once she was close, he looked into her eyes, then closed his, kissing her softly. Both of their jewels glowed faintly in the flickering darkness of the tent as the fire died outside.
"I've never tried to avoid you…" he said once they parted, "but it's just that when I'm around you, I feel way different than I've ever felt before…I'm not really sure what it is," he finished while shaking his head, his heart almost beating out of his chest, his mind reeling. "I was a bit nervous…I'm sorry! I shouldn't have done that. Once again I acted without thinking… I—"
Alex stopped his talking with a gentle hand to his lips and stared into his eyes, a very surprised, yet pleased, look in them. Taking her hand away from his surprised face, she clutched them tight together and put them in her lap. "You needn't have apologized for that, but now it's my turn to talk without thinking…Would you kiss me again?" she shyly, sweetly, asked a minute later, a look of uncertainty in her eyes.
Slowly taking his glasses off, Daniel leaned forward and kissed her again, this time more confidently as Alex leaned into it, taking the kiss he had first given her to a new level. Sitting there in the middle of the tent, Daniel and Alex began to do precisely what Daniel had been uncomfortable explaining to Dagón.
The linguist pulled the Major closer to him and their kisses continued in a frenzy of sudden need. Abruptly, Daniel pulled away.
"What's the matter?" Alex asked, alarmed that something had disturbed him from continuing.
"Isn't this against the rules?"
"Yeah—the rule that members of a team cannot have personal relationships with others on their team so they wouldn't get emotionally attached."
"Yeah; that's the one. I mean…can they actually have that law?"
Alex looked at him from where she was sitting and cocked her head to one side. "The General says that GC-1 can't get emotionally connected, but it happens anyway. We're together all the time and depend on the others to get everyone out of danger. He even told me that people who depend on the other for safety develop very strong bonds."
"So then why have the rule that you can't have a personal relationship with another person on the team? I mean, John and Kate are definitely having one, since they both kicked me out of the tent the Colonel and I were occupying so they could be alone, but they don't really care about the rules."
"Well," Alex said, "I think that if the General doesn't know it, then it can happen…he's really blind, too, in those matters as you can see with him not seeing the relationship between Colonel O'Brien and Kate."
Daniel smiled. "Yeah. And he's not off world as much as we are…he doesn't really see what's going on out here."
Nodding, Alex yawned and smiled. "Excuse me. It's getting really late and we should get to sleep if we want to feel rested on our journey home tomorrow."
"Yeah. I'd better get back to Dagón's and my tent. He'll wonder where I went."
As Daniel made a move to get up, he felt a hand on his arm. Turning back, Alex looked into his eyes.
"Please stay," she whispered. "I don't want to be here alone…especially after what that man offered you guys."
Smiling slightly, Daniel turned and closed the door to the tent securely with the zipper. "Don't you worry about him. I'd never let them do that to you," he said softly to Alex as he lay next to her, asleep the moment his head touched his pillow, a protective arm around her waist.
It was somewhat early in the morning when Alex woke up. Daniel was already up, his knees drawn up, his head in his arms, thinking.
"What's the matter?" she asked softly.
"I'm just thinking of what the Sage told me." Daniel looked up from where his head had rested on his arms, his face looking different without his glasses on.
"Would it ease your mind if you told me?"
Daniel sighed. "It would, but unfortunately I can't. It needs to happen without me alerting anyone. It's vital to Tierra's survival."
"I understand," she said while pulling him to get up. "All right, come on. A walk will help you feel better."
"A walk?"
"Yes," she said. "Walking always helped me, and when the others wake up, they'd never know you didn't sleep next to Dagón all night." Daniel smiled a slow smile. "They'd just think that you and I woke up early for some reason and decided to go for a walk, finding the other along the way."
Still smiling, Daniel put his glasses on and said, "Ma'am I think that just might work. I'll escort you on that walk, if you'll have me."
"But of course, good sir. Come! Let us go!"
The two of them exited the tent and walked past Dagón's deathly silent tent and Kate and John's rustling one on their way to walk in the woods.
"I don't know what the hell's happening to me," Daniel sighed half an hour later as he and Alex walked around. "I mean, I'm supposed to be the Preserver, but I don't know what to do. The Sage has prophesized many very terrible things for me to go through, and now what I know about it, I'm not sure I want to be the Preserver."
"I know. I was like that my first time with the Sage." The Major laughed bitterly. "It's still that way now. She has experience, however. She divulges enough of your future to affect the decisions you make. You need to go through the experiences she has told you, but you will gain knowledge and wisdom from them and you'll be a better person because of it."
"Yes, but I don't know what to do about it now!" Daniel sat down heavily on a giant stone on the edge of a large pond. The sun was beginning to rise and the water began to turn golden in the light. Picking up a stone, he skipped it across the water, then looked over at Alex, who was sitting on another big rock next to him. "Have you ever felt like this? Like you don't know what you're supposed to do, but have the feeling that you should?"
Alex nodded. "Lately, yes, I have."
The linguist shook his head, putting it in his hands. "I don't know what to do anymore. I feel like the General is relying too heavily on me, and I don't know what I'm supposed to do!"
Alex got up from the rock she had been sitting on and crouched next to Daniel, wrapping her arms around him. "I'm here for you," she said.
"I know," he whispered and hugged her back. Being in the comfort of her arms, Daniel felt better, like he didn't really need an idea of what he needed to do as long as Alex was with him. It never occurred to him to stop showing what others would call weakness before this woman, and he felt like he could confess anything to her, like he could just be himself and not the prophesized Preserver when she was with him.
With his eyes closed, he rested his head on the Major's shoulder as he pulled her to him. Concentrating for a minute, he located where everyone was, making sure that the secrets he and the Major had stay hidden until the right time. No one was around them, Dagón still in Monileek, and Kate and John—well…still in their tent.
"What are you seeing?" Alex asked, sensing he was having a vision.
"Well, no one's out and about at all, yet," he said with a hint of a smile. "And John and Kate are still in their tent…"
Alex snorted. "You didn't—!"
"No," he said with a devilish smile. "I didn't go into much detail, just where their body signatures were… They're both in their tent…together."
Alex broke into huge fit of giggling, Daniel laughing next to her. Falling further into his arms, she hung on him, laughing until she cried.
"Oh! That's the funniest thing I've heard in a very long time!" she crowed. "Thanks, I needed that!"
"So did I," he said, sighing, his stomach hurting from laughing so hard. Smiling, both turned to see the sun rise fully over the horizon, bathing everything golden and orange in its morning light.
"It's beautiful," Alex breathed. "It's as good as the last one we saw on the other planet."
"Yeah. Too bad no one else's here to enjoy it…"
"Yeah," she agreed and they both became silent, just content to watch the sun begin to rise with no interruptions.
A few minutes later, Alex got up, grabbing his hands and pulling him with her. "Come on. Let's go wake up those lovebirds and our alien. We need to get back home, but we also need to come up with a treaty to become allies with the Olympians. You'll be good for that, you know."
"Oh, yeah. Thanks. It'll be interesting, though…" Daniel then offered Alex his arm and they walked back to the camp together, trying to think of what Kate and John would do when they knocked on their tent's door.