Mark'd to Die

Chapter 3

Coin to Die

"You have to understand, Colonel Mitchell," Dr. Lam stands on the opposite side of the debriefing table from where he's sitting cuffed to his chair.

After Vala told him, in the barest, most chilling sentence he's ever heard, he stayed with her the brig, holding her until she fell into a sleep against him, cradled her to his body, the way that he would never get to hold their daughter.

It didn't take long for her body to collapse into him, her head laying on his shoulder, and her breathing evening out and he sat there and just held her until someone realized where he was and came to get him.

Then he let all hell loose.

It culminated in him fist fighting anyone who came within a foot of him in that bright, glaring hallway in the brig. First it was just a few privates that told him General Hammond wanted to speak with him, then more, then his fists were flying, hitting anyone he could because the rage in him was so high, so much, that it was solid, that it wasn't moving or coursing, but weighing him down and he couldn't get away from it.

He punched Jackson's glasses clear off his face.

They had to taze him in order to get him to comply, to get him to drop his fists and fall to his knees on the ground.

They have both his arms cuffed to an office chair as they try to explain to him their part in what happened. General Hammond stands to the side near the door beside Jackson. The doctor's glasses sit on the table—cracked lenses and all—and he holds an ice pack to his still bleeding broken nose.

"You killed her." His voice is hoarse and empty, his eyes have cried until they can't. It hurts to open them, to look at whatever genetic garbage they've put on display for him to observe. His knuckles are cracked and bleeding from everyone he's hit.

"You told us the baby was the Orici," Jackson's voice is a nasally grunt, as he slaps down the icepack dyed in his own blood. "You know the Ori would never stop looking for her. It would give them a reason to continue their attack on us."

"Seems like you handled them just fine after the jump through the Supergate."

Hammond chimes in, his voice soft, carrying the pretense of understanding his pain, "Colonel, with what the Orici would have meant to the Ori forces, it was imperative that we get rid of any threat—"

Tries to stand, tries to burst from his chair, but the seat hits the back of his thighs making him sit back down again. Dr. Lam and Jackson flinch.

"Colonel Mitchell, I suggest you get your emotions under—"

"You killed her."

Apparently his words are hanging heavy around Lam's neck because she removes her hand from her face, and snaps at him, "Yes, and when we terminated the fetus, we thought she was the Orici."

A deadly hush falls over the room. Not even Jackson's sniffling, or the clack of his cuffs rubbing down the cushioned armrests of his chair makes a sound. He can't even hear the sound of his own heart beating.

General Hammond shoots Lam daggers, his jaw square and set, and his eyes flashing dangerously.

Finally, in a low, threatening voice, he questions, "are you telling me that my little girl wasn't the Orici?"

"It's not that easy to—"

"You're telling me that you killed my daughter, and she wasn't even a threat?"

"Mitchell, it's not as black and white as you think," Jackson's nasally voice is muffled by the ice pack again.

"You killed my baby, for no reason."

"We needed to be sure and—"

"You killed her."

There's a brief pause with Hammond and Jackson both staring at Lam, willing to throw her under the bus instead of owning up to their part in his daughter's death. A death he hasn't even begun to process because he knows he's in shock—he thought he'd be holding her in his arms and counting fingers and toes, not having to argue why killing her was wrong.

Lam exhales loudly, accepting her role, "Genetically, yes, her post-mortem blood samples came back as one hundred percent human."

"You killed her," his voice is softer this time, as the words start to ring in his ears like church bells and each time he understands them a little more. Understands what they took from him.

"Colonel, it's not that simple—"

"She could have posed the greatest threat to humanity since—"

Hammond holds up his hand to halt the others, he walks rigidly to the table, standing straight and strong. "The president has been informed of the situation—" which is code for Landry okayed it "—he's willing to work with you in order to rectify the situation to the best of—"

"He wants to pay me off for killing my unborn daughter?"

Understands what they did to her. What they did to Vala.

Hammond doesn't react to his outburst, only adds, "his offer isn't entirely monetary."

"Oh yeah? What do I get instead? Real estate? Gold doubloons?"

"You'll get full custody of Ms. Mal Doran."


A/N: Chapter title borrowed from Shakespeare's Julius Caesar