Earth
Doctor Lam's eyebrows looked like they were about ready to fly off of her forehead in surprise. "Excuse me, Colonel?" she said, frowning. "Did you just ask what I think you asked?"
"Yes, Doctor, I did," Marla retorted. "What's so wrong with me asking if Vala around in a wheelchair is a good idea? She's getting restless around here and some time off-base might do her some good."
"The first part about that question that boggles my mind is the fact that you're the one asking it, Colonel," the doctor replied, deepening her frown. "And not just that, have you okayed this with the General?"
"Yes, I have. I think he's a tad eager to get her away from the base for even a few moments. Those passes she's been making at the officers seem to annoy him, as do the complaints a few of the officers have filed." She paused, eyes narrowing as she felt the tiniest flash of annoyance at being considered emotionless—a new sensation to her entirely. "And I have as much right to ask this as any person."
Apparently realizing that she'd been caught labeling Marla Jameson as something that she really shouldn't be as a professional physician, Doctor Lam tried to defensively offer a different explanation as to her terminology. "That's not what I meant, Colonel Jameson. What I meant was that you shouldn't be trying to handle a wheelchair, given your current physical condition." Giving a scrutinizing look up and down Marla's odd stance which was adjusting slowly to the lack of a crutch, the Doctor raised an eyebrow. "You really shouldn't be walking a ton yourself, much less pushing someone else along."
"I wouldn't be doing it myself, Lam," Marla replied. "Lieutenant Colonel Carter was actually the one to suggest this, and will be going along wherever we may wind up. She'd be the one pushing Vala's wheelchair, not me."
The look of skepticism on the Doctor's face wasn't all that hard to recognize, as much as she tried to hide it. "Well, I guess it'd be fine, Colonel. She'll probably need to take a dose of painkillers during the time you're off-base if it's more than an hour. That's when her next scheduled meds are."
"It's been almost a week since we returned and got all patched up… shouldn't she be off of the pills by now?" Marla asked.
"Not everyone has as high a pain threshold as you, Colonel." Folding her arms across her chest, Lam absently tapped the pen she was holding against one bicep. "While you may be getting over the pains in your broken arm, the majority of people shouldn't be over it yet. And while you only have the arm to worry with, Vala has her broken arm and two broken legs. Actually, the one mending bone where she shouldn't be having pain is in her almost-fixed collarbone."
Nodding slowly, Marla mentally slapped herself. Right, she should have known that. "Speaking of 'almost fixed,' Lam, I have a question." She gestured at the new, smaller and less protective bandage wrapped around her healing ankle. "How much should I be walking on this? Should it hurt when I walk on it? Do I still need to carry the crutch around?"
Marla could practically see the wheels turning in the physician's head as she gently bit her lower lip. "Alright, I'm going to suggest only light walking on the leg for now. Try and stay off your feet as much as possible for now and you should have only minor pains when you walk. And just for your own comfort, I would suggest carrying the crutch with you. That way when you do have to get up and move around, you'll have it with you to lean back on. Especially if you're going somewhere to entertain Vala today." Both of her eyebrows were raised slightly, and she gave the impression she knew what the Colonel was planning. "I'd assume that means walking."
As she slid from her seat on a thin, uncomfortable infirmary bed, Marla couldn't help the light, mischievous smirk that found its way to her face. "I'm afraid that's classified information, and you are not allowed to know."
Lam's only outward reaction was a slight stiffening in her folded arms and the miniscule tightening of her smile. "Fine, your business, Colonel. Just don't push it too far."
Sliding to her feet, Marla nodded as she took the crutch that had been her third leg for the past week in her hand and lifted it over her shoulder. "Got it; I swear, Doc."
Turning towards the door, she lightly tested taking a step on her newly-healed ankle. The first step proved unbelievably easy, but when she swung her other foot forward, thereby putting the balance on her "bad" one, she felt the slightest jolt of pain travel up her leg and through her foot. And determinedly, she ignored it and walked with a straight back and legs that were just as limber as they should be if they weren't in pain.
In short, she walked normally in spite of every impulse to do otherwise.
With each step, the pain grew a little more tolerable and shrank a little further back I her mind. It was like the coaches told you in Little League baseball: just get up and walk it off. Apparently, Marla subscribed to their theory of medicine: walking made every injury better, and in this case, quantity was better than quality. The more you walked, the better you felt. And by the time Marla was out the door, she'd gone from feeling a jolt of pain to a slight tremor.
The two women she met in the hallway never knew the difference.
"Ready to go, Jameson?" asked Vala from her wheelchair. "Did the Doctor patch you up all nice and neat?"
"I'm walking, ain't I?" Marla retorted through straight lips.
Lieutenant Colonel Carter's lips twitched as though she were trying not to smile as she asked, "Ma'am, does Doctor Lam know where you're going?"
"More or less," Marla replied tightly. "But it doesn't really matter. Let's just get off this base."
As Carter swung Vala's wheelchair around and started pushing it up the corridor, the sitting alien woman tossed a mock salute at Marla with her good arm. "Yes, ma'am!"
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News and rumors expanded quicker than wildfire at the SGC and pretty much always had. And given the infamous fraternization regulations—callously shortened down to the term "the regs" hereabouts—soldiers and doctors (even though it generally didn't apply to them) on base seemed to adore the subject of romances. Thus the personnel often tried to play matchmakers, putting people together, probably to purposely break the regs and test the degree of the wrath of the higher-ups.
And even apart from all of that, people seemed to be overly perceptive to emotions in this place.
And so someone had apparently realized that Daniel Jackson's overt interest in the Ori had dwindled if not disappeared since Vala's return to the SGC. Not one more extra report had landed on his desk since a bloody Jameson came running through the Stargate, carrying a bundled Vala in her arms. The tall stack of manila folders bearing the SGC logo on the front that'd been teetering on the corner of his wide desk had even been cleared away by an unknown perpetrator sometime recently, swept off to God knew where.
Daniel hadn't even noticed that fact at all.
Now though, the single folder sitting in the middle of his desk definitely caught his attention as he walked in this morning and set his coffee mug down on the desk's corner. Reflexively, he took the report in hand to set it on a pile of similar ones.
It was then he realized the stack wasn't there.
Frowning, he restudied that corner of his desk and wondered why he hadn't noticed the lack of reports swaying there before. Somehow he knew that this wasn't something that had just happened overnight while he was at home… Whoever had taken the liberty to do this had done it at least a few days before…
Deciding that it didn't really matter and there was no time like the present as they said, Daniel sighed and brought the folder back to himself. With it lying in front of him on the desk, he still hesitated for a short moment before opening it, figuring what interest did he still have in the Ori?
His eyes skimmed uninterested over the first lines of printed words that listed the time the report was filed and the location. That much wasn't interesting: it was filed at the SGC around noon a day previous. But what was written below those two lines changed his mind about his interest in this report.
It was a record of Vala's debriefing about her time in the Ori fortress.
Apparently, some things about the Ori still held interest to him: their torture methods.
Bracing himself for what he knew he was probably about to read, Daniel subconsciously felt his jaw tighten a bit. He knew Vala had endured torturous things, but had never had the courage to ask Vala herself and had preferred until now to remain in the dark about the details to her torment. The nightmare he'd had scared him enough about the various sufferings she might have endured, but it also made him curious as to what she'd really gone through.
Finally, he worked up the courage and flipped past the first page and began reading.
Immediately, the words captivated him.
"After being sucked into the black hole and into the Ori galaxy, I was in a small village on a primitive planet. Especially awful fashion-sense with those people. I couldn't stay near them too long. They weren't the most friendly of people I've met either, and when they started spouting off religious crap like Priors, I told them I didn't think the Ori were gods in spite of all of their power. And I told them that I had seen far too many false gods to ever believe in one again. I even told them I'd been a false goddess myself before.
"Mistake. Big mistake.
"First, they tried to burn me at the stake for being a heretic and insane, according to their claims. The fire was lit and I was tied, ready to be scorched alive—not an experience I was eager to repeat, mind you—but as before, a Prior showed up and put a stop to it.
"Though glad for his help, I tried to resist the Prior. He dragged me through the 'Gate completely against my will. And so I found myself in the fortress.
"First, I was questioned by those boring Priors—not even half-interesting Ori followers to interrogate me!—with stupid questions about Earth and your people. Really pathetic questions, too. As in what the population was, how big the planet was, where large cities were… I told them I didn't know anything. It's close enough to the truth—I don't know much about you Tau'ri that would interest anyone.
"Anyway, they didn't buy it. I tried my best to convince them I didn't even know what 'Earth' and 'Tau'ri' were and meant, but they didn't believe me.
"So they chained me to a wall in a small, gray room with no food or light and let me sit in the dark for several hours. I don't know just how long it was that I sat there, but however long it was, I almost wish it would have lasted longer.
"When they came for me, the torture started."
Unconsciously, Daniel started at the words.
Half of him was completely appalled at the idea of Vala being shut away alone in a dark room, while another part of him argued that he'd often shunned her and wished to send her away. But, he returned, his treatment and wishes for her to be anywhere but by him had definitely changed since her return from the Ori galaxy.
Aloud, he wasn't about to admit to anything to her—or anyone else—but he knew that he'd been feeling differently about Vala since Jameson extradited her.
One particular phrase of the report stuck to Daniel's mind as if glued.
However long it was, I almost wish it would have lasted longer.
It didn't even sound like Vala. She wasn't afraid of things like that. He almost doubted the words had come out of her mouth at all. Almost.
Re-bracing himself because he knew that the worst part of this report was yet to come, Daniel again turned the page of the report and hoped Vala hadn't gotten too graphic describing her torment. He'd rather not be sitting here gagging at the mental pictures.
"The first that they did wasn't so bad. It was the Priors who did the things to me, pointing their staffs and wagging them around.
"The very first thing they did was point their staffs at me and I got this hot feeling throughout my body. And the heat spread and slowly intensified, and that wasn't all. Tingles all over, especially in the fingertips and toes. I told the Prior that he was making me feel all warm and tingly deep down, he told me there was no time for games.
"And so they continued with more intense torture.
"They scraped the tip of their staffs across my face and tore it apart. I could barely even see for the blood in my eyes and couldn't have talked even if I wanted for the blood in my mouth. But I still told them nothing.
"Then they took the staffs and stabbed me repeatedly in the chest, though not very deep. Deep enough for it to induce severe pain, but not enough to kill me right away, I suspect was their intention. And the staff tips were also hot as they touched me that they burnt the sides of the wounds and kept them from bleeding. As small a relief that was.
"Punches, hits, stabs, cuts… They did all of that the first round.
"Two hours, I'd say they stood there and tormented me. And I gave them nothing that entire time.
"And the next time—"
Images both conjured out of his imagination and those remembered from his nightmare flashed through Daniel's head as he continued to skim onward. Just the thoughts made something inside of him yearn to hold her in his arms and protect her from any similar thing ever happening again. And oh how he wished he could've been there to stop it or at least to whisper encouraging and comforting words in her ear, to touch her and let her know she'd make it through.
At least she had. According to her descriptions and Doctor Lam's upon Vala's return to the SGC, it was a miracle she'd survived all of this.
The next page detailed further torture sessions that Vala admitted not being able to tell one from the other, nor how long they lasted. She also confessed she wasn't entirely sure how much of what she remembered had actually happened, knowing that she'd been in a deep delirious state for a long while before Jameson rescued her.
Closing the report, Daniel wondered if it'd been a good idea for him to even read that. Images attacked his brain and he couldn't stop the horrors he saw in his mind's eye. Some were real memories, some of his nightmare and others he had involuntarily pictured just now, reading the report.
Vala's burnt, lifeless corpse in his arms…
A Prior's staff stabbing into her flesh…
Her head thrown back as an agonized scream came from her mouth…
Jameson laying her bloodied, unconscious body on a med stretcher…
Standing from his desk, he resolved to go and see her, knowing it would likely be the only thing to put a dampener on his tumultuous thoughts. Seeing her alive and whole…
But when he got to her infirmary room, he found it surprisingly empty with no Vala around anywhere. Closing his eyes, Daniel leaned against the door frame, contemplating where she might've gone on base. There wasn't really anything of interest to Vala around here, after all, and she was in a wheelchair…
"Doctor Jackson?" a voice broke into his thoughts.
When Daniel opened his eyes, he found Doctor Lam standing there, arms wrapped around a large stack of papers and clipboards, staring at him a little oddly.
"Can you tell me where Vala went?" he asked calmly though right now he still felt anything but.
"Colonel Jameson and Colonel Carter took her off-base for a little while," the physician replied. "She was going a tad stir-crazy sitting around here all day." An inquisitive look passed over the doctor's face. "Wait, you didn't know?"
He shook his head, wondering why no one had told him this—especially Sam.
"Is something wrong?" Lam asked.
"No, no, nothing wrong," he answered tightly. "Thank you." Setting off back down the hall, he resolved to put Vala out of his mind for now and just get his work done for the day. He'd get over this crazy nagging in his mind alone.