Entropy
Author: Jedi Bleiddyn

Rating: PG-13 (just to be safe, might be R later)
Disclaimer: I don't own either Stargate or Highlander
Spoilers: None really, unless you have not yet seen season 7 or the episode Hero of Stargate.
Season: Season 7 of Stargate and post-Season 6 of Highlander

Summery: Moving on is never easy, but then again neither is living forever.

Author's notes: I felt it was just stupid for Dr. Fraser to be killed off on Stargate, seriously how many times have they all tap danced with death yet get pulled back at the last second either by luck or divine intervention... so I said to myself 'Self, let's give her a proper send off.'

FYI – No Beta and first story ever published online - Comments wanted.

Revised 11/10/04 - just tweeked some wording cause it urked me.

en·tro·py (ntr-p) n. pl. en·tro·pies

Symbol S For a closed thermodynamic system, a quantitative measure of the amount of thermal energy not available to do work.
A measure of the disorder or randomness in a closed system.
A measure of the loss of information in a transmitted message.
The tendency for all matter and energy in the universe to evolve toward a state of inert uniformity.
Inevitable and steady deterioration of a system or society.

U S Air Force Academy Hospital – 1:57am
Basement Level – Morgue

The room was brightly lit. The only noise save the constant humming of the refrigeration units that lined the far wall and the gentle buzzing of the overhead lights is the intermediate sound of writing as the lone occupant of the room finishes off the final page of his paperwork concerning the latest delivery to the morgue.

Yawning quietly the duty Nurse takes a sip and grimaces at the taste of his now tepid coffee. Finishing off the final notation the sharp click of a ballpoint being closed fills the room followed by the squeaking of an office chair then the sound of footsteps as the duty Nurse leaves the morgue to head towards the cafeteria and a fresh cup of coffee.

U S Air Force Academy Hospital – 2:00 am
Basement Level – Morgue Locker #3

A choking gasp as once dormant lungs struggle to draw in the first of many breaths. The covered figure spends the next several minutes regaining their focus; eyes adjust to the darkness as hands slowly push aside the linen shroud and map out the small metal space of the storage locker.

It's hard to put into words what it feels like to die then wake up, the old adage 'walking a mile in another's shoe's' is very appropriate with regards to this aspect of being an Immortal. Depending on the extent and severity of the fatal wound received or even the climate in which death occurred resurrection can take as little as 10 minutes or as long as 24 hours, so it is with little surprise that she found herself in a storage locker in what she could only guess was the U S Air Force Academy Hospital's morgue.

Running her fingers slowly along the cold metal of the door she sighs and hopes that there is no one in the room beyond the small door. It's never a pleasant sending a poor Pathologist or his assistant into cardiac arrest with your grand exit but if she stayed much longer in the locker death would claim her again, this time from hypothermia.

Scrunching up as close to the door as she and closing her eyes to picture how it should open. Then rests both her hands against the right seam and shove outward with all her might, forcing the door open with a click. It swings out to the left and connects with a solid thump against another lockers' door. Grasping the lip of the wall she pulls herself and the tray she rests on outward, allowing her to swing her legs to the side and drop to the cold tile floor.

Shivering as she glances around the painfully bright room, blinking several times to help her eyes adjust to light once again she slowly walks towards the door. As she stands there by the main door ensuring no one was coming she just now notices her lack of clothing, knowing full well that SOP for any off-world death was to strip the body before it left the Mountain, and from the feel of her skin she'd also been disinfected to prevent any unknown microbes from using her body as a means to set up residence on Earth.

It's been too long since she's had to do this with fate and fortune both having allowed her in the past to 'arrange' for simple public suicides or the like in order to end one life when the need to move on presented itself. Gathering the simple white linen cloth that had been her shroud and fashioning it into a functional but not very warm sarong, she silently pads to the big swinging bay doors at the mouth of the room... pushing them open slowly checking both ends of the hall and makes sure no one is coming.

Knowing what was needed and that time was working against her chances of success the next few minutes where spent pushing the tray back into the locker and securing the door closed when she freezes... the reflection staring back at her from the stainless steel surface, the woman she had been was dead to all that mattered... friend... lover... mother... Doctor... Janet Fraser's brown eyes stared back at her.

Shaking out of this trance she moves towards the rooms' lone small alcove that served as the office and searching through the stack of folders in the Pathologists in-box for her file.

Finding it buried towards the bottom she pulls it out, flipping through the folder with a detachment born from hundreds of years of ingrained survival instincts. She ignores the information she knows is there on the line denoting next of kin and cause of death and picks up the duty Nurses discarded pen.

With her left hand instead of her right she adds a new notation to the file, stating that after delivery the body was forwarded on the Peterson Air Base for autopsy and pickup by a local funeral home.

Examining the notation and satisfied that the writing looks nothing like her own she returns the folder to Pathologists in-box. The results of her notation would, though not kind to those she still loved, provide the most convenient excuse for there being no body found for cremation.

Squaring her shoulders and knowing that now was not the time for grief or regret she silently moves to the main doors and after looking and listening once again for the tell tale sounds of movement. Neither hearing nor seeing anything she crosses to the morgue's supply closet, opening the door and disappearing inside only to emerge moments later clad in a set of pale green surgical scrubs.

Sighing as she runs her fingers through her short auburn hair as she realizes she has neither shoes nor a way to leave the Academy grounds. Glancing at the large wall clock and knowing the duty Nurse is likely to return at any moment, she moves towards the main doors and peaks out. Seeing that the hallway and probably the whole basement level given the time was empty, she slips out and moves down the hall towards the rear service elevator and with any luck freedom.

As she moves farther away from the morgue she starts to debate with herself. Shouldn't she just pick up the phone and call General Hammond, given their line of work a plausible story could be crafted.

Sighing she shakes her head and keeps moving. No, it was time to move on.

With the likes of that bastard Senator Kinsey and the NID constantly watching Stargate Command it was too much of a risk. Should the NID learn the fact that she was not healed by the Asgard or some random miracle; that she wasn't just a single anomaly and well the possible results of the truth coming to light... she'd seen first hand from being trapped in Paris during the German blitzkrieg that swept over continent in the 1930's. And she had no desire to be rounded up with other Immortals and kept behind barbed wire.

No General Hammond's clout with the Joint Chief's had its limits and she was reluctant to risk not only hers but the lives of other Immortals on an uncertainty. It wasn't her place or her decision to make, so she did what she'd always done for the past 2500 years. She would move on and begin anew.

Janet Frasier was for all purposes dead, may she rest in peace.

(More to come I hope)