SG-4

The Space Between

Chapter Five

The sun's heat was beginning to burn into Colonel Bedard's neck as he and Connelly crossed the footbridge leading to an open field behind the castles they had seen from the hillside. Now Connelly could see that they were walking up behind whatever settlement there was. Bisecting the valley was a wide river that reminded Colonel Bedard of his fishing days with his Grandfather back in West Virginia. A sturdy wooden bridge led their way across and both men headed for it without a word, until Lieutenant Connelly stopped. The ladies had seen them and were smiling cautiously, waiting to see if they would cross the bridge.

"Sir?" Connelly asked.

"What?"

"Aren't you going to say something?"

"Of course I am," Bedard said, taking the first step in crossing the bridge as he waved at the ladies. They eased a bit and moved to the end of the bridge to greet them. "Hello there," Colonel Bedard said, trying to put on his best nice guy impression.

The first woman, slightly older than the second, took a few steps onto the bridge and smiled warmly. Her features were soft and elegant, and yet her clothes were that of a peasant from King Arthur's court. Bedard stopped a few feet from her and was drawn to her eyes instantly. It wasn't until Connelly joined him that he began to speak again.

"Hello, My name is Frank Bedard, we came through the Stargate—"

As he spoke, the woman stepped forward and gently placed her hand on Colonel Bedard's chest. Bedard's voice trailed off and he was lost in her eyes again. "I know who you are Franklin," she said, letting her hand slip from his chest as she turned to motion for the second woman to join her. "I trust your journey was pleasant."

Both men stood in silence. Too shocked to speak up first. Bedard felt carried away by the woman before him and didn't notice the young girl as she approached.

Smiling into Bedard's eyes, the woman spoke again. "I expected you before this. Did you have difficulty finding the bridge?"

Connelly was taken a back by how quickly the Colonel had fallen silent. He decided to regain control of the situation. He began to speak and nudged the colonel's arm with his elbow. "You were expecting us?" Connelly asked as the colonel snapped his eyes to Connelly. Had he missed something?

The first woman smiled at the accusation in Connelly's voice and stepped toward him. Taking his hand in her own she held it softly until Connelly met her eyes with his. "It is alright Charles. We have been anticipating your arrival all day." Again she smiled and straightened her hand to hold Connelly's between them, to shake hands. "My name is Seraphine. Now come, the afternoon meal will be served soon. You must be famished."

Without a word between them, Bedard and Connelly fell into step with the women and headed for the settlement ahead. Bedard's attention was once again on the women who now stood at his side. Her arm entwined with his as they walked. He had to smile. He couldn't remember the last time he had such pleasant company…and with a welcome committee this friendly, what could possibly go wrong?

Chapter Six

It didn't feel right. All he wanted to do was pull her into his arms and kiss her until the end of time—but he knew this wasn't the time or the place, and in a valiant maneuver that his mother would be have proud of, Tiller pulled away and let her rest on the ground as he gained a respectable distance.

"I'm sorry," she said, bracing her arm on the ground as she watched him pull his self together.

"Can you walk?" He pushed the braches away and tried to stand out of the bush.

"You'll have to help." She held out her hand and he pulled her to her feet.

"We need to get back to the gate. We only had five hours to meet back at the gate—Colonel Bedard should be waiting for us by now." As he stood from the bush he saw that night had fallen and shadows consumed the woods. He freed himself from the bush first and picked up Martin to pull her free of the vines and underbrush.

As soon as he set her to the ground, her ankle gave out. She fell into his arms with a painful cry. Tiller was in action within seconds and wasted no time in pulling her up. "Want me to carry you?" he asked, gripping her back so she could find her balance.

"No—I think I can walk…just need a little help balancing." Tiller pulled her into his side and braced his arm around her back. Gripping her side he let her hold tight to his back as they began to walk through the woods.

A few feet into the dense trees and Tiller stopped. The woods had changed—or were it that Tiller hadn't paid attention when he was running through the woods before as he chased after her voice. One thing was for certain; it was definitely easier to walk through the woods at a steady pace than it was chasing after an echo.

"Come on Travis—talk to me…" she said, as she nudged him to continue.

"Travis?" he asked, rather surprised that she used his first name. "I didn't know I told you my first name," he said, as he began to walk again.

"You told me…" she said steadying her self beside him.

"I did?" he asked, absentmindedly as though it really didn't matter, he was just trying to think of something to talk about.

"How else would I know it?"

"We'll head North for now. Try to reach the tree line before we stop again."

"North? We're on an alien planet, what if they don't have a North?"

He smiled. She did have a point, but he wasn't about to get into an argument about the Rosetta Stone's practicality off world. "I'm calling it North…for now."

"Alright. I don't suppose there's a way you could call ahead to the gate and ask them to have a bubble bath waiting for me at the base?"

He wanted to laugh, if only to break the tension of being lost on an alien planet for a moment. But all he could do was shake his head. "I don't think so Doc."

"You remind me of someone," Martin said, looking over to the old woman as she continued to knit in the light of the fireplace. "I can't think of who—but you're familiar."

"Do you want another sandwich, Honey?"

"No thank you." She stared at her knees for a moment and then up at the old women. She was getting impatient and it was time for some answers. "What's going on here?" she asked abruptly.

"What do you mean?" the old woman asked, not skipping a stitch in her kitting.

"Well, first off—I trip out of the woods and wind up here, then this house appears out of no where, somehow you know me and know everything outside of this house has disappeared." She was trying not to let her impatience be taken for rudeness and she waited for a reply.

"I already told you—you shouldn't be walking around here alone. Your friends will be along soon. Just rest and wait for them."

"Am I a prisoner here?"

"No—of course not."

"Am I allowed to leave?"

"If you want to."

"So I can just leave?" She was exasperated with the simple words of the woman. "I can't leave! There's nothing out there!"

She set down her kitting now and glared at Martin. "You're yelling at me?"

"I'm sorry—you've been very nice and I don't mean to be rude—but WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON HERE?"

The old woman took a long breath and narrowed her eyes before sighing. Silently she set aside her kitting and reached for her teacup. She took a slow sip from the cup and held it in her hands as she spoke. "You are acting like them, did you know that? Barking out orders to everyone around you, always assuming the worst of a situation. Listen to your heart Frances, what does it tell you?"

The insult made Martin stop and think for a moment. The old woman was right. "It's telling me to sit down, be quiet and wait. That I will get the answers I want when I need them."

Smiling softly, the old woman spoke. "Ah, that heart of yours is wise. Hearts usually are…they always know what to do. You should listen to yours more often."

Chapter Seven

Walter Harriman stared down at the glowing console before him and sighed. The gate had been silent for days now. At last count, SG-4 had been missing for five days. No radio contact and the rescue teams hadn't found anything in their searches. Not even the ruins that were originally found with the MALP had been located.

Walter leaned back and reached for his coffee just as the console lit up and the gate began to groan to life as the inner circle began to spin. Pulling himself back to the console he reached for the microphone and gave the warning that always made his heart beat a little faster. "UNSCHEDULED OFF WORLD ACTIVATION." That was all he had to say. Moments later, the command room filled with the senior ranking members of the SGC.

"Who is it Walter?" O'Neill yelled before he was even in the room.

Before answering, Walter squinted at the screen before him. "It's an SG-4 IDC code, Sir, Lieutenant Connelly."

O'Neill ran up behind Walter and gave a quick glance at Carter before giving the order to open the iris.

Walter slid his hand into the iris deactivation device and seconds after the trinnium alloy shield retracted; a disheveled Lieutenant Connelly stumbled onto the ramp.

Reaching around Walter, O'Neill pulled on the microphone. "Connelly, what the hell is going on? Where is the rest of your team?" But there was no answer. Lieutenant Connelly had already passed out onto the ramp.

Three hours later, a groggy Lieutenant twitched his fingers and tried to open his eyes. First he heard sounds. Muffled at best. The first clear voice he heard was the Doctor's.

"Go tell the General that he's waking up. He wanted to be here." The voice was soft and yet, he knew that something must be terribly wrong if he were in the infirmary…and General—he paused. Thought hard for a moment and realized that he couldn't remember his commanding officer's name. He couldn't remember his own name.

"Lieutenant? Can you open your eyes? It's Doctor Smith. Everything is all right; you're in the infirmary. If you can, open your eyes to look at me…" The voice pulled him from the darkness and his eyes slowly drifted open.

As the colors and faces around him sharpened, so did his memory. He recognized the two people standing on either side of him. Doctor Smith, she was nice, although she did have a certain rough exterior and General O'Neill. There was a scowl on his face, he looked upset but he remembered that the look was normal…Connelly…Charles Connelly. His name drifted back into his thoughts and soon words came to his lips.

"That hurt." he said, regaining full use of extremities as he felt the back of his neck.

"Well, you aren't supposed to pass out on the ramp—it's hard," O'Neill said.

"No Sir, I meant the injection…" he had said it before he had even realized that the two people beside him had no idea what has was talking about. If he wasn't careful, and explain what had happened off world—they'd throw him into the nearest sanitarium.

"What injection?" Doctor Smith asked, immediately concerned as she moved the Lieutenants hands and felt the back of his neck.

"The Haldians. They injected me with a sedative before I left. They said it would help with the transition into our dimension." The Doctor's hand froze on his neck and he forgot his plan about carefully explaining what had happened. His eyes drifted to the General's. "I'm not insane, I swear." He reassured. "This is just going to take some time to explain. But first things first, you have to know that the rest of the team isn't in any danger. They are safe…they just haven't made it through the test yet."

General O'Neill was nodding his head as though this were all perfectly normal as he reached behind himself and pulled up a chair. Sitting down, he took a long breath, then crossed his arms over his chest and tried to remain calm as he smiled awkwardly at the younger man before him. "Alright, I want to start at the very beginning. But, before you start I just have one question," he asked.

"Yes, Sir?" Connelly said, attempting to sit up in bed as he spoke but slid back into his pillow as he was greeted with a wave of dizziness.

"Am I going to need Colonel Carter to translate anything you are about to say?"

Connelly tried not to smile at the question. It was a known fact that the general, although highly trained in military proficiency and was an upstanding commanding officer—he was lacking in the scientific areas of the SGC.

A hard swallow and Connelly answered, "It might help things move a little faster, Sir."

O'Neill nodded and looked over to Doctor Smith. But she was already at the phone dialing up Colonel Carter's office.

Chapter Eight

Somewhere between meeting their newest off world friends and walking towards the settlement, the sun had begin to set along the horizon. But Colonel Bedard hadn't even noticed the growing shadows from the trees. He was still captivated by the woman who had walked at his side and held his arm until they had introduced them to the town leader. An older man than Bedard by a few years, grey hair springing out from the sides of his head leaving the top almost shiny. Two beady eyes smiled happily at him and he couldn't help but think of a character from an old movie that had always made him laugh—even if he couldn't remember his name at the moment…he tried not to laugh as he shook the man's hand.

"My name is Norman," he said, pulling Bedard's arm as she reached out with his second to pull in Lieutenant Connelly by the shoulder. "Welcome to our humble city. We have been expecting you for some time. Did you get lost?" he asked, looking to Seraphine. "Did they get lost?" he asked quickly.

She smiled and touched the two men's hands as she separated them. Standing once again at Bedard's side. "No Norman, they are simply on a different time schedule than we are. There's no harm done." Silently, she let her fingers run down into Bedard's hand where she gently pulled him away from Norman. "I'll show you to your rooms. You're no doubt tired from your journey," she said. Again with the grace of a swan, she ushered the two men into directions they should be questioning. But for some reason they weren't. And that thought lingered in the back of Connelly's mind as he followed Seraphine and the Colonel to a small house with a thatched roof.

"You'll have to forgive Norman. He's quite…"

"Exuberant?" Bedard finished for her.

"Yes, that word would suit him perfectly." Letting Connelly catch up to her side, Seraphine opened the door of the small house and let the two men walk in first. "It's not much, but it will help you rest comfortably. Take your ease and I'll return for you shortly. I need to see to a few last minute preparations before evening meal is served." With another soft smile, she was out the door and Connelly and Bedard looked at each other.

Bedard spoke first. "Did I just call another man 'exuberant'?" He asked, as though the word tasted foul in his mouth.

"Yes, Sir. But don't worry—I won't tell anyone."

Martin shifted off the couch and tried to wonder just how long she had been sitting there staring at the floor. It had seemed an eternity already, and the old woman had picked up her knitting again. What ever she was making, it looked much larger now and draped down into her lap.

Tea still sat before her and she reached for a cup. The liquid was sweet in her mouth and she smiled. It tasted just like the tea her Mother use to make her when she was sick. The memory rocked her a moment. It had been such a long time since she had let her self remember her mother, let alone think of a memory like this one. But she could see it as clear as day. She was lying in bed, no doubt a fever and chills had grounded her from playing. Her Mother sat on the edge of her bed, such a soft face and loving smile as she held out the small teacup to her. "Now be careful Frannie, it's a little warm." As she drank, he mother's fingers still balanced the cup from the bottom.

The feel of her mother's hands on her own shook Martin from the dream state she had fallen into and she jumped back on the couch. Looking around her, she almost thought she might see her mother near by. But the warmth of her mother was fleeting and as she glanced over at the old woman, who was already looking back at her, the last shred of warmth and comfort from her dream faded away into the dark corners in the room.

"Are you all right honey?" the old woman asked, setting down her knitting, as she truly seemed concerned.

Martin thought a moment and tried to understand what had just happened. "Uh, yeah. I'm fine, just uhm…need some more tea."