Well, I had this finished Friday like I planned, but as you all noticed, the site was having technical difficulties and I couldn't post it. As people have asked, there are both a good Daniel/Vala moment in this chapter and a few good Marla/Vala moments. Hope you enjoy them.
Next update will take a while... I have a couple of oneshots to finish... Next update is planned for 5/18.
Oh, yes, I almost forgot... The Ancient at the end of the chapter is based only partially on actual Ancient learned from a site called "Children of Atlantis," and since I couldn't find everything I needed there, the rest is rough Latin.
Electrified
For some reason, Vala had a bad feeling about this, and after years in her line of work she'd learned to trust those gut feelings. Often they kept her out of trouble… Well, out of deep trouble. She was always in some sort of trouble, regardless of her hunches and preventive measures.
And somewhere in her, a voice was protesting this, and warning her something was going to go wrong.
She tried to tell herself it was because SG-1, just like the other SG teams, hadn't been on any mission in the past two weeks, as everyone was a little afraid of the Ori's reaction to Jameson and Vala's escape. It was feared that the Priors of the Ori would somehow strike out at them on any world they visited, as opposed to their previous indifference to the presence of the Tau'ri. Vala really did try to convince herself she was worried about SG-1's ability to defend themselves against a determined Prior, but she wasn't able to deny that that wasn't all that was on her mind.
On some level, she knew and admitted that she was afraid of being left alone.
And that gut feeling that something was going to go wrong made it that much worse.
Still, she sat completely still and said nothing aloud as Sergeant Harriman dialed the Gate. Nor did she protest as he finally said, "Chevron Seven, locked!"
Instead, she watched silently from the control room as SG-1 appeared in the Gateroom below, geared up and ready to go. Mitchell, Sam, Teal'c and Daniel stood, right to left in that order, ready to embark on their first mission in two weeks.
Vala almost felt like they were somehow abandoning her…
"Don't worry," a voice said from behind her.
Craning her neck, Vala saw Colonel Jameson standing not far behind her wheelchair, watching the team moving around in the Gateroom as well. Vala noticed her casted arm was no longer held in a sling as Jameson's focus remained on SG-1 for a few beats. After a moment, she turned and locked gazes with Vala, the tiniest quirk pulling at the corner of her mouth.
"They'll be back within two hours."
Vala turned to stare back down at the team, who were slowly headed up the ramp towards the Gate. "Supposedly," she muttered.
"Almost nothing here ever goes as planned," Jameson admitted slowly. "But this is just a routine, boring, everyday mission, Vala. It's not like they're going all the way to Pegasus or anything."
Sighing, she nodded. "At least it's not that. But I still can't shake the feeling something's going to go wrong."
"It'll be fine," Jameson assured again.
SG-1 had reached the even horizon by then, and began to pass through. Before he stepped through the Gate, Daniel stopped and turned around. Looking right at Vala—and perhaps Jameson behind her—he offered a light smile and a short wave of his hand before he took the step through the shimmering blue event horizon backwards.
Vala was pleasantly surprised by that. "Did he just—?" she started.
"He did," Jameson quickly answered before Vala could even finish the question. "He smiled and waved."
Unable to stop it, a smile spread across Vala's face. "I thought he did."
With a sigh, Jameson rolled her eyes. "Don't let it go to your head. If it hasn't already…"
Too late, Vala thought. Aloud, she said, "I won't, and it hasn't."
Raising an eyebrow, Jameson gave a low chuckle. "Yeah, right," she said sarcastically. "That was a lie."
Yes, it was. "It most certainly was not!" Vala protested out loud, hiding the untruth behind a well-crafted mask. After all the years she'd spent being a fantastic liar, she wasn't about to let Marla Jameson be the one who saw through her with such a small, simple lie.
"It most certainly was," Jameson retorted. "However, I'm not going to argue that point with you." With her good arm, she began to slowly turn and push Vala's wheelchair. "It's past lunch time, and while I've already eaten—" There was the tiniest tremor in her voice here that she quickly—though not quickly enough—covered. "—I'm fairly certain you haven't."
Before she could say anything, Vala's stomach growled in acknowledgement.
"Uh-huh. You were so worried about SG-1, you forgot to eat."
And let's just hope all of that worrying was in vain, Vala thought as Jameson wheeled her off towards the commissary.
-----
The world seemed average enough. P32-1161 sat a little ways out of the normal range of planets visited by the SG teams, but from appearances, it was about the same as several they'd seen before.
Now the climate seemed mild, somewhere around a mid-spring feel as the sun sat directly overhead, indicating it was around noon. Lush green grass somewhere around shin-height sprang up all around with small weeds growing wildly in its midst. About half a mile ahead, the trees began what appeared to be a large forest. Somewhere within that forest, a lake or pond was barely visible. No civilization was thus far visible.
And here, around the Stargate, there were crumbling stones that seemed to be part of some ancient ruins.
Yep, typical world.
"Doesn't look like a Prior's gonna pop out anytime soon here," Mitchell observed. "Doesn't even look like there's any locals in the immediate area."
"Indeed," Teal'c agreed.
Daniel's fingertips trailed along the top of a particularly flat-topped rock of the ruins as he walked past it. "Well, there had to be someone here at some point. The ruins are here for a reason."
"Well, let's see if we can find any living civilization before we start examining the dead ones, Jackson," Mitchell said.
"Fine," Daniel said a bit reluctantly.
He really would like to examine these ruins a bit. After all, he was an archeologist, and dead civilizations were his specialty. As they were passing out of the ring of ruins, a particular pillar-like statue caught his eye.
Unlike most of the other parts of what was probably a series of small temples that had crumbled all to pieces, this particular pillar had remained mostly unscathed. It stood about ten feet tall, and about three feet wide and deep.
As Daniel squinted curiously at it, he noticed there seemed to be writing etched onto the tall, rectangular stone.
A special form of Ancient writing.
"Hold on a minute, guys," he said, changing course towards the pillar. "This looks interesting."
The rest of the team stopped, glancing at him.
"Jackson…" Mitchell started.
"Just a minute," he answered. "This might be able to tell us if there's anyone left on the planet, and where."
As soon as he was close enough to really see the inscription, Daniel began reading aloud in its natural tongue. "Qua es augustum eh ambrosium… cicatrix duh Anquietas. Toa absum abesse afuir," he read slowly. He paused for a moment, and contemplated the words. "Huh."
After a few beats, Mitchell coughed loudly and suggestively.
Daniel was paying him and the rest of the team—really, the rest of the planet besides the pillar—no attention and completely missed the cue, brow furrowed in thought. What in the world was that inscription supposed to mean?
"Jackson, could we have that in English, please?" Mitchell said after another few moments. "My Ancient's a tad on the rusty side."
"Oh, right," Daniel said, suddenly remembering his comrades. "Loosely translated, it means, 'This is holy and eternal: the scar of the Ancients. You must be away.' And I have no idea what that's supposed to mean."
"'You must be away'?" Sam asked. "Not 'you must stay away'?"
Daniel re-read the phrase again in its Latin-like Ancient, and again ran the translation through his head. "No, 'absum abesse afuir' translates to be away, or be absent. 'You must be absent' or 'you must be away'."
"Well, then, maybe we should do as the nice stone pillar says, and leave," Mitchell suggested. "It just might be what got rid of the civilization that was here."
"I don't think so," Daniel said slowly. "It says it's the scar of the Ancients. The Ancients put it here. Why would they kill off the people of this planet?"
"Well, we've seen places where the Ancients have messed up and killed people before," Sam pointed out. "Maybe it was some malfunction of a technology they were developing, and it had some bad effect on the population. We've seen it before. Whatever it was that they did, they probably didn't do it on purpose."
"I'm not so sure they did anything," Daniel responded. Bending down, he checked along the lower half of the pillar for any more writing. After a moment, he spotted a very tiny inscription that ran along one corner all the way to the ground. Again, he read it aloud in Ancient first as he translated the words. "Si praedico devino, adligo laratus eh conecto nexilis. 'As prophecy foretells, to bind the bound and tie the tied.'"
"What is that supposed to mean?" Mitchell asked.
Frowning at the phrase as he reviewed it, Daniel shrugged. "I really don't know."
"Perhaps it is some sort of riddle," Teal'c suggested.
"Maybe…" Daniel replied. He reached out a hand to brush his fingertips along the thin strand of Ancient letters.
The very moment he touched the pillar, a large zap of electricity passed into him. The shock of it knocked him off of his feet, making him tumble back into the grass as the prickling sting of it coursed throughout his body. It caused his body to jerk and convulse for a moment before it subsided.
The other three members of SG-1 were at his side immediately.
"Daniel!" Sam cried, taking a hold of his arm. "Are you alright?"
He could still feel residue of the shock in his extremities, as they were all tingling, but other than that and a spot on his back he knew would bruise from the fall, he felt just fine.
And he said as much. "Yeah, I'm fine."
Mitchell and Sam pulled him to his feet, and surprisingly, he didn't even feel the least bit dizzy. The minute he stood, he had his balance despite that constant tingle in his feet and toes.
"Are you sure, Jackson?" Mitchell asked. "That was quite a jolt you took there."
Flexing a bit, Daniel confirmed that nothing really hurt. "Yeah, I'm perfectly fine."
As soon as the words were out of his mouth, he regretted them. The nausea and dizziness came out of nowhere, and before he could contradict his own words, the world went black.
-----
It came out of absolutely nowhere.
One minute, she was laughing at something Marla had said, the next her body was wracked by convulsions. Her back arched against her wheelchair back, as she cried out in what sounded more like shock than pain to Marla's ears. Her eyes were wide as her body went through its wild and unexplained spasms…
Almost as if she were being electrocuted.
Immediately, Marla flew out of her chair and to her side. "Vala? Vala, what's wrong?"
She didn't answer, but instead continued to arch her spine and jerk with the convulsions. Her teeth gritted and she let out a low groan.
Heads turned immediately from everywhere else around the commissary as all attention focused on Vala's mysterious behavior.
"Medical team, stat!" Marla called. "We need some help here!"
Her attention turned back to Vala, who was still convulsing as her good arm gripped the side of the wheelchair. Not knowing what else to do, Marla seized a hold of her shoulders and tried to stop the shaking. After one particularly rough spasm, Vala's breath caught and she sputtered before sucking in a deep breath.
And then her shoulders slumped and her eyes closed.
Unconscious.
Letting go of her shoulders, Marla's fingers went to Vala's neck to check for a pulse. She could feel it strongly, but it was erratic and had no discernable beat.
It was then that the medical team decided to show up and transfer Vala to a stretcher.
Oh, yes, I know... Cliffie that I'm gonna make you all endure for weeks... I am so evil.