Sorry it's been so long between updates! I worked 32 hours last week which is alot for me! 5:30am starts so I've been knackered. I'll try and hurry up! Please read and review as always ;) And iamdragonrider! Stop guessing my plotlines!
Daniel shivered in the chill evening there. A day. They'd wasted a whole day stuck down here. He was bruised, cold, and fed up. Jack was asleep, demonstrating that enviable ability most Air-Force Personnel share of being able to catch a nap anywhere. And of course that other annoying habit of being able to stay awake for days no matter how exhausted. Sam was a prime example there.
Sam…a painful pang in his mind as he remembered last time he'd seen her. She'd been so pale. Yet only the night before she was fine. As for Teal'c…he'd looked the same as ever but that was no reassurance. Teal'c could be hit with three staff blasts and still carry on as normal. His friends desperately needed help and here he was, stuck in a hole. It was so idiotic it was almost funny. Almost.
A rustling above caught his attention, someone was up there. "Hello?" He called, frowning when he received no reply but more rustling, and a weird metallic sound. "Hel-"
"Daniel!" Jack hissed in his ear, suddenly behind him with a hand planted over his mouth, "Are you mad? Be quiet!"
"I heard something."
"Yes, something. At night, in the middle of a big dark forest. Shouting really sound like a good survival tactic to you?"
"It could be one of the villagers-"
"You really think they'd be out here at this time? Any sensible person is home in bed, not going for nocturnal strolls through nature." Daniel smiled suddenly,
"Someone is." Jack followed his eyes.
It was the kid they met yesterday. Her hand cupped over the bracelet on her wrist in an effort to quiet the bells that had given her away to them before. She crouched at the edge of the pit, still as a cat, her dark eyes staring curiously at them.
"Well hello there." He heard Jack greet her curiously, keeping his eyes on the watchful ones of the child. It was hard to make her out in the dark, but she seemed okay. A little more bedraggled perhaps, pale, but not ill. Not like Sam had been anyway. The girl flinched at Jack's voice but didn't run away this time.
"Why are you down there?" Her voice echoed loudly in the dark. Jack and Daniel exchanged glances.
"We fell." The older man replied, his voice deadpan as always. Daniel could hear her frowning.
"But the pits are marked by the Samifu." She leaned back, picked something and held it over the edge. A curious red flower that sure enough, had covered the area they'd fallen in. "Only fools fall in."
"Yeah well…want to help us out here?" She shook her head. Daniel raised his eyebrows in disbelief.
"Why not?"
"You'll take me back there."
"The village? No, we won't. We're leaving there ourselves."
"They sent you to look for me."
"Look!" This from Jack who was clearly getting frustrated. "Remember our friends? Carter, blonde, 'bout this high, Teal'c, scary, huge, etc?" The girl nodded, slightly bemused. "Well they got sick. Same thing as you've got I imagine." A frown passed over her face, she began to back away. For heaven's sake Jack don't blow it!
"Now we might be able to help them," as she was shaking her head, "we might! But to help them we need to get home. And we can't go home if we're stuck in here." She was standing now at the edge, a dark shadow against the night sky, but she was hesitating, thinking.
"We spoke to your father." Daniel offered cautiously, her head snapped round to look at him, she froze. "You're Orio's daughter, right?" She nodded slowly, "Well he told us that he had banished you, that you couldn't go home."
"No! I ran! They were going to lock me away, like my mother and Becali. And now Ella." Her voice was wistful, saddened, a strange tone in a child. Ignoring the unfamiliar names, Daniel continued,
"So you have nowhere to go right?" She nodded, "Then you could come with us!"
"Daniel." Ignoring Jack's warning tone, he pressed on,
"We live in another world, through the Great Circle. There is no soul stealer there! You'd be safe, we all would."
"But I'm going to die." The words were spoken matter of factly, curiously, not with the fear you'd expect from a kid so young. Daniel couldn't imagine how she'd been brought up to behave like this.
Not if we can help it. The words were on his tongue, he was so close to speaking them, passing that invisible line between cautious hope and false promises. It would be so easy to cross it, too easy.
And that's why Jack was here, to make sure he didn't.
His CO threw him a understanding, but warning glance. Don't promise miracles Daniel. As though that wasn't what they needed for Sam and Teal'c. The older man looked up, moonlight and a weary sorrow reflected in his eyes, kids would always be a sad reminder for him of what he'd lost. "Help us, and we'll take you with us." He said simply. "At the very least, you'll have shelter, food, water again." She stared down considering.
"And you won't be alone." Her eyes flickered towards him, then back to Jack. Fear, fatigue, longing, and maybe a tiny spark of hope fought on her face before she again crouched down. "What do you wish me to do?"
Nearly two days later
Teal'c walked quietly into the ward designated for the more seriously afflicted. It was nearly dawn and Major Carter had not yet rested. Most of the ill had fallen into an uneasy slumber, save for the young woman at whose bedside Major Carter sat, sound asleep. The girl smiled as he approached them.
"Are you Teal'c?" She whispered, staring openly at the golden tattoo on his forehead. Teal'c returned her smile and bowed his head in affirmative. She nodded in satisfaction. "I'm Ella. I thought you must be him, Sam described you exactly."
Though tempted to enquire as to Major Carter's 'exact' description, Teal'c had other tasks. He knelt down besides his sleeping comrade, "How long has she been in this way?"
The young woman frowned, "Asleep? I'm not sure. I was too, only I…woke up." He nodded,
"Are you in pain?" Ella smiled, the wistful, tired smile of the world weary. He had never seen it before in one so young. She shook her head,
"I can feel very little now, the pain is over. Yet it held me here a while longer, and for that I do not regret it. It was good to have a friend for a while." Teal'c frowned,
"Perhaps you are recovering." Another shake of her head, very slight. All her movements were subdued, her voice muted, a shadow over her eyes. She was very ill.
"I won't get better Teal'c. You know that."
"Did Major Carter not advise you to resist the virus?" Ella smiled gently.
"So she did, and so I did, at least for a while. But I knew what would happen when the sickness first came upon me. And now, I no longer fight it, nor fear it."
"Then you have mastered a discipline far beyond your age. I know of few who could accept their fate in such a manner." The girl laughed, a sweet music that flittered about the room.
"But I have seen…oh I have seen such beautiful things Teal'c." He was perplexed,
"I was not aware the walls of this room were considered aesthetically pleasing. Or do you refer to an experience beyond this building." Ella chuckled,
"You speak so strangely, I'm not sure how to explain…will you take a quasia for me?" At seeing his puzzlement, "If I tell you something, will you not reveal it to others." A secret, he was adept in their art, he nodded. She struggled to sit up, he leaned closer. She whispered,
"I saw the angel tonight." He stood, observing her,
"Indeed?"
"The others must have told you? Some call her the Dreaded one, they saw her presence means death. But they're so wrong Teal'c!" A coughing fit overtook her. Though it lasted several minutes, Major Carter did not stir. When she was recovered, Ella continued,
"She is an angel of mercy. She came to me in my suffering and took it away. She showed me beautiful things, people, places, things I have never seen, she put them in my head. The pain was suddenly unimportant. They were memories she said, what she had seen and felt and heard, it was so wonderful." Her eyes looked into some distant point beyond the walls, her thoughts focused faraway. "I asked her if she could heal me, she could not. But she offered to take me with her." Ella closed her eyes as though in some pleasant dream. "And I said yes. But I cannot follow an angel's footsteps with mortal feet. So I will see this through Teal'c, and I will die. But I will be reborn in such glory." A tear slipped unnoticed from her eye, Teal'c did not comment, "and then there will be no pain. No death and no soul stealer. Just peace and beauty everlasting." She finally turned to him, joy and tears shining from her face, "But you are sad, not for me I hope?"
"You have great faith. Yet it is grievous to see an end to a life barely started."
"My life will continue, but in a different form. I leave here to go somewhere far greater, to do more than I ever could now. Will you not be happy for me Teal'c? Sam told me you longed for freedom more than anything. What will this be if not freedom?" Teal'c was silent for a moment, considering. It was possible the child was hallucinating. But telling her this would bring her no joy, and he had seen many things stranger than angels.
"Have you informed Major Carter?" Ella smiled,
"I have told no one but you. I doubt I ever will. If you wish to tell Sam, I won't hold you to your quasia. But I think she'll believe it only when the Angel visits her."
"It is my hope that may be unnecessary."
"Then hope. For my part, I wish you both as sweet and joyful days as I have had. Sam has been a good friend to me here." She looked affectionately to the sleeping woman, "My life has been happy and it's end is not painful. I can wish for no more."
"Perhaps more of it?" She laughed.
"Goodnight Teal'c. I have enjoyed talking to you, thank you for sharing my quasia. It would have been wrong to leave without telling someone. I'll say farewell now, as I don't think we will talk like this again." Teal'c rose, opting to leave Major Carter to rest where she was.
"I wish you well Ella, you have a brave heart, and are wiser than those with many times your years." As he left the room, he turned back. Ella lay quietly, her paleness softened by the dim starlight. Her eyes closed in a tranquillity that seemed unbreakable. He took peace from the sight, and prayed he would end his own life so serenely.