A/N: Thanks to everyone who read/favorited/alerted. I'm glad you hopefully found some aspect of the story entertaining.
Two Birds, Two Stones
Chapter 2
Behind You
She's immediately aware something is different. First the air, not as clear and constant as on Moya. Thicker, stewish, and heavy with humidity lapping her face. The temperature is a few klances higher, not dangerously so, tolerable, but not ideal. Her vision clears away to offer up an incandescent room contradictory to Moya's dark and welcoming interior. The intensity dries her eyes and adds a ring of blindness to her peripherals.
One hand fixes to a table, not as weighty as the command table but sturdier, cooler to the touch. Employs her auxiliary senses to create an area map in her brain. Table to the left and a table in front with that frelling device on it—a beacon? From who? A lot like shifting bodies, she has her hands though, still wears Calvin's, white reflecting the light. White like a Peacekeeper medical unit, but she was in command and that glowing blue crystal, John and Deke—
"John." Uprights herself, eyelids gradual in opening, adapting to an overflow of white. Steps forward and something clatters to the ground, startling her to a stop. The second call is throatier, more desperate, "John."
Objects stabilize in her sight, a metallic table, some papers on the ground. That thing blinking blueness slowly to the tune of a high-pitched hum before faltering out. A dark blur constructs itself beside her, grows until he's on his feet, hand rubbing at the back of his head. "I'm okay, Honey."
Vision healing, she traces his hand to his neck blanketing it with hers, allows him leech some of her remaining coolness. He retrieves her hand and brings the palm to his mouth. "Are you okay."
Plays her free fingertips over the hair behind his ear. "Yes, I'm adjusting to the light." Doesn't mention the temperature which is not presently an issue.
"Why is it so bright in here?" Squints as he examines the room in a weak circle, his nose pulls as he inhales in deep snorts of the air, she doesn't know what he's doing, but it certainly isn't analyzing the humidity. "Why does it smell like a hospital?"
"Deke." Grabs the table and pushes it away from the wall, but there aren't even dust motes behind it. Pushes John out of the way into the space she just created and rocks the device on the table in search.
"Aeryn, we had him inoculated. Remember how much the damn Diagnosian cost?"
"You fekkik." Shoves him so he stumbles back against the wall. Not as hard as she could, they both know it.
"Hey."
"Where is my frelling son?"
"Our son is—" anger floods from his face and it relaxes, then immediately tenses. "Oh shit."
"Where is he?" Scrambles around the small chamber, reinforced walls around three quadrants and a panel for viewing behind them. No sign of her son. She leaned against the table beside John, and he pulled away his hand, they spoke briefly but the baby quieted, enthralled by the glow.
John lands beside her on his hands and knees, cheek planted to the ground to better scan with his deficient eyes among many other deficient factions of his body. "Maybe he didn't get transported with us."
Bursts to her feet, allowing another spin to take in the chamber again. The pulse of the device continues in pace and in pitch still matched by the blinking crystals. "Pilot? Chiana? Can anyone hear—"
"Hey." Again reassembles beside her, more composed, more still. How can he be so frelling lax? His hands find her shoulders and rub, the friction only serving to increase her core temperature. "Calm down."
"Do not tell me to calm down like I'm some frelling hysteric."
"It's okay."
Flips her entire body so their faces almost touch, he smells of adrenaline and the odor of sweat. He doesn't blink, instead holds her nonverbal spar. "Do. Not. Placate. Me."
"Okay." His lips purse to hold in words he wants to discharge but concedes to her. Presses his back to the wall, wrinkling his black shirt and keeps his arms raised in surrender. "You do your thing, Baby."
Can't be still. Can't stand—legs pump and she tucks her face into fidgeting fingers. Her son is helpless, undeveloped body and brain incapable of defending himself. Created from love—perhaps lust or the need to lower fluid levels before the incarnation of love, but eventual love, and he does not deserve to be abandoned by both parents as she was.
"Pilot? Pip? Grandma? Anyone?" Back flush against the wall, he coms for those who might answer, irises tracing her marching movements. Tries for a full micron or two for contact before sighing, then catches her hand mid stride and she spins to him with a set jaw and a clenched fist. He only holds her hand, thumb ringing over the back, and drops his head.
"Are you two okay?" A woman enters the room before either of them notice, she's dressed what looks like military fatigues with flipping blonde hair and sparkling eyes. She also has a board like the one toppled to the floor. She waits at inattention for them to answer her question, and when neither of them speaks, she shifts her head with elaborations. "Monitoring room recorded a flash from the device and—why are you guys dressed like that?"
She bends her knees, fingers filtering over the fallen board on the ground and without hesitation fires it through the air to hit the woman in the face. Distracted, the woman teeters back, allowing full access to her pulse pistol easily snatched from a holster on her upper thigh. It's not a pulse pistol, but a gun of some sort, the schematics of most are easy enough to follow. Behind her, John constricts in surprise or perhaps disagreement. His hands still halfway in the air.
"Where is my child?"
"Aeryn maybe we should—"
The woman touches the small incision on her temple and lets out a hiss, which is ridiculous as it's hardly bleeding. "Vala, what—"
"Where is my frelling son."
"Our son, Honey," John slips by her, heat waves following his course to mediate between her and the woman. "Our son."
"I will ask you once more, and then I will shoot."
"Vala." The woman's hand falls from her eye as she straightens her stance. "you don't have a son."
"Look we just showed up here. Her name's not—" John's body sparks forward, hand clamping down on the woman's bicep terrifying her. "Are you speaking English?"
"Umm, yes?" she clarifies with a nervous smile pulling the ends of her lips wide.
"Aeryn lower your weapon."
"John—"
"She's speaking English. We're on Earth."
Exhaustion complete in her being. The wakeful arns spent at night fixing her body rigid as to not fall off the shared bed only to be constantly disturbed by the wails of her son whom she cannot satiate. Who is never content. Chasing after John, somnambulant down lightless and abandoned Moya corridors, so he will hold and care for the baby who slips like liquid between his fingers. "Deke."
"Aeryn." Sounds like a chide, however she will not include it as a chide as then she would have to shoot him, should over his shoulder, a warning shot because someone has to put Deke's needs first, the emotional turmoil of missing parents, of a missing child and she bites the inside of her mouth to keep from evacuating in tears and a rant which will turn physical.
"I don't think we want to shoot her if she can help." He shifts back to her, chin on her shoulder, nose pressing her cheek, his voice a teetering whisper, words smoking into her ear. Hands singe on her biceps, coercing her into lowering the gun, and she hesitates because her son sometimes stares up at her with her eyes and she doesn't know what to do because they're so despondent. More pressure exerts on her arm and she shakes to keep stationary, but breaks under his control, directing the gun away from the woman's head. They all heave in at a rate increasing the humidity, a sliver increase in temperature and she cocks an eyebrow at this realization and slows her breathes.
"You're not Colonel Mitchell then?"
"No."
"Then why did you take over his body?"
"Hey, I didn't hijack anything." Floats his hands over his sweatpants, and his t-shirt stained with baby vomit down the back. Burped wrong and immediately returned to her, the disapproving mewls of an infant still wrapped in a war stained blanket. "This is my body. If you don't believe me, ask her."
"You're not Vala?" The attention falls to her and it shouldn't. An improperly sized bed to fit a family. Sometimes when he flees, she retrieves her son and holds to her chest allowing him to cry until his throat dries. Pats his stiff back and speaks to him in Sebacean.
"Lady, she isn't even human."
The viewing portal behind her flashes open allowing a rotund man, dressed in an Earth military uniform, entrance to their stand off. He is accompanied by two soldiers, both of whom are armed with rifles, not pistols. His face is weary because it must be the middle of their sleep cycle, glassy eyes loop the room. Squints when analyzing John and herself. Perhaps as the woman mentioned earlier, their attire is inappropriate for their environment. Halts at the woman, and her hand shifts from her body to warn him not to cross into their territory. He addresses her curtly, "Colonel Carter, what is going on."
"Sir, this is not Vala or Cam."
"What do you mean." His voice is the gravelly equivalent of dragging a hand over his face.
"The device briefly flashed which set off radiation peaks in the lab. I came to—"
"Whoa, radiation? I don't have a good record with radiation. Tell 'em, Baby." John withdraws from the new humans, back turned, pistol swinging in his hand with his momentum, the military man takes notice, his eyebrow twitching into an almost full arch and the woman nods her head.
Wants to remind him over his childlike glee from returning to Earth that the baby is still missing, lay her forehead against the square of his shoulder in lethargy and repeat that he has a child they should be caring for and not grind her teeth when he responds with a guttural groan. Then the hollow sound of impact as the side of her forearm slams into the side of his head. The swirls of emotions, of worry and rage, boiling within her and her failure to ward sentiment from her speech and expression. Her turmoil palpable and manipulating in her words, "Where is my child."
"Aeryn he's our son." Frustration in his constant reminder to share their offspring. Frustration in her constant reminder that it is his offspring despite earlier doubts. Earth television programs from their last landing, Chiana and herself graduating from children's entertainment to soap operas or as John dubbed them 'a lonely housewife's daily entertainment'. Sitting on pliable pieces of furniture while eating foods full of sugar, fat, and salt, and becoming completely absorbed into someone else's life. It's her life now. Her life.
At her stoic expression, one he can now translate, his voice softens as to alleviate the blame, "and he's not here."
"How do you know this, Crichton?" John is a pet name akin to all the hypocoristics he tosses into their dialogue to appease her but only work to soothe him with familiar Earth idiosyncrasies. "You woke after I did, and I could not see."
"I can only imagine what it must feel like to lose a child." The woman, Colonel Carter, stretches her hand forward across the one table strewn aside in her earlier panic. Her voice continues steady giving her words underlying sincerity, "We can try to help you find him, if you'll work with us."
"We didn't misplace him, we were transported here."
"I was holding him." Head down in admittance. The weapon hangs at his side and she's not confused or surprised by his breeching loyalty. Their love so concrete then quickly buried in a recovery period. Supine on that bed for an entire week and for an entire week she tried to rouse him. Spoke with him equally in his comatose state, held entire two-sided conversations until the pressure of being a mother, the pressure of being a good partner ground her down. "Is there anyway to see if he came through with us?"
"We do have recordings of the room and we'll gladly show you."
"But?"
"But afterward we'd like your help in figuring out why you came here and where our people are."
"Great, see, Honey, they're—" Captured with his arm over her shoulders, heavy and warm, heavy and warm and difficult to maneuver. Muscles harden against his lax arm. Lax until it hovers away. "Not placating. I'm not."
The unanimous motion to disperse is halted by the military man who remains locked in place as a hurdle before the exit. "You also need to return that gun to Colonel Carter."
"I don't see that happening anytime soon."
An argument breaks out as suspected. Safety versus customs. Impolite to be walking around a military base carrying a Lieutenant Colonel's holster pistol. Unsure and unwelcoming, with half slotted eyes all directed at her because she's stopped talking because standing is exercise, this chamber is infuriating, her partner vacillates between giddiness of Earth and parental duties. She grows wistful for an arn ago when she sensed him fumbling away, Deke's cries amplified, and she cradled him, her hand over his back feeling the tick of each heartbeat.
They no longer acquire the gun, in the halos of blur still present after mass blinks, John hands the gun, barrel down, back to Colonel Carter. They are now unarmed on a military base, and the remembrance of memories not her own but acted by her; their sedation, Rygel's evisceration, D'Argo's transfer, and the sound of rain against glass as blankets became too heavy with sweat. She is starting to sweat.
"Good, follow me and I'll take you to the security room."
The doors open with a gust of synthetic air, dry and heavy on her face and Colonel Carter leads them into the adjacent room with large tables covered in items like a bizarre or trading post. They weave through aisles, and John's fingers twitch with the need to disrupt.
"Hey, are we you're first aliens?" Questions over his shoulder, his voice muffled by his shirt.
The General clears his throat behind her and Colonel Carter sends a brief glance over her shoulder. "I was under the impression that you were human."
"I am, but I don't think this is the same—" The tirade on multiple dimensions continues and he asks basic questions about his Earth to rule out similarities.
She, however, remains wary. People—Human, Sebacean—of any species are hardly altruistic without personal gain. The soldiers remain at the entrance to the monitoring room, a gallery overlooking the various areas for experimentation. Their chamber holds the device they placed the rocks in, another holds what looks like an ancient chest made of stone, and the third is empty and being cleaned by two men in white suits, the same who abducted her in not her memories.
Colonel Carter leans over a chair and drags a piece of hardware attached to a small screen. Icons and pictures blink through until a film of the device chamber begins. There is no color, and no sound and this system is more outdated than the television she learned the alphabet from. White symbols scroll by in the corner, but the picture remains stagnant. Then the screen flashes white, and she and John fall from the ceiling. She lands on one knee with the other bent, her hand shading her eyes. John lands face down into solid flooring.
"No baby makes three," John mutters as Colonel Carter drags the hardware around once more and restarts the film. Only they fall from the ceiling.
"No baby." The words are empty and mimicked only so she can gain meaning from them. Her son is on Moya, which is not as reassuring to her as John. His hand reaches back from where he leans over the console, his face close to the small screen, and she allows him to grip hers and pull her closer. In silence her head falls to his shoulder for comfort, for the miniscule amount of safety he provides.
The symbols at the bottom of the screen scroll and reroll as the movie plays again and John places a finger to them. "Wait, is it 2009?"
"Yes."
"We're in the future, Babe. Do we have flying cars—"
The sound alerts her too late, and a current of electricity flows through her, dragging into her unconsciousness.
One of those horrid devices sits beeping on an immense table that is doing nothing to work with the design of the room. A spacious window lays just beyond showcasing a vast expanse of, well, space. No planets she can distinguish but plenty of stars, white shiny bobbles floating around in liquid black nothingness, enticing because she's never been this close. Is it dangerous to be this close?
"Do not touch that." Cameron's up. He slaps a hand to the ground and then another until he pulls himself onto his hands and knees like some barnyard animal, probably a well associated one that he grew up with. Upon their transport here, he was knocked immediately unconscious, she never lost consciousness, simply picked up where she left off.
After swiping some interdimensional dust from her slacks, she tried to stir him, shook his broad shoulders and may have given him a quick slap. When his eyes didn't flutter she checked his pulse and turned him—rather, kicked him—into a more comfortable position from where he was face down on the floor. He was entirely unconscious making his thick body difficult to manipulate.
She then took in the room, several consoles with letters in a dialect she has never seen, at least not in any of Daniel's books. A camera would come in handy now, not just to feed Daniel's linguistic addiction but also to snap shots of Cameron in funny poses as he slept. It would need a flash because the room is terribly dark and identifying that the unknown symbols were unknown was a great victory. Other than consoles that prove useless, a table with the device and a large window she's found nothing of interest. No weapons, and nothing to divulge details of where they are.
"I didn't do anything," clarifies to him and proffers a hand, however, his head still faces the floor, so she pokes her pinkie in his ear once and then twice before he slaps her hand from the air like an unwanted insect.
"Where are we?" Spoken to the gritty tile, his head hanging like he's doing a yogurt position. Head hanging hog or some other nonsense. Samantha invited her to a class under the ruse that the stances increased flexibility which is a good trait to have in and out of the bedroom, but it turned out to just be exercise.
"I warned that the device was dangerous."
"I know."
"I warned you it was dangerous while it was transporting us."
"Are you going to keep saying 'I told you so' or are you going to do something to actually help." He slobbers down his chin and onto the ground with his sentence. Not surprising or detesting, they've all had bad reactions to stimuli or atmospheric variances. One jump raised Muscles' voice by at least seven octaves, another caused Daniel to urinate so frequently they had to cancel and reschedule, she still thinks it was a sexually transmitted disease.
"I never said those words." Steps in front of him and offers up the same hand careful not to douse it in the waterfall at his mouth. Tilts his chin to check his eyes, unsure of search parameters, but finds them still a bit wonko, floaty and bobbled like the stars out their front window.
"Vala—" grunts as he retrieves her hand from his face and borrows some of her keen balance to stand. "Wait a minute, you're you."
"Good perception, at least your eyes work." Glances down at the clothes they enforced on her after the first few days. Pilfered her leather outfits while she recovered in a hospital bed. When she was cleared to exit the medical bay, Daniel approached her with a pile of clothes that turned out to be four black shirts in various cuts, two pairs of army slacks that are still too big for her, and a curious white plastic bag tied shut tightly.
"While I always appreciate a good love token, I came with my own clothes, Darling."
"You might be more comfortable in these."
"Aesthetic is not about comfort."
"We'd be more comfortable if you wore these." He then pushed the clothing into her arms with a final huff.
"What's this?" Opened the bag, while he stammered not to open it in his presence, to find it full of undergarments. Nude colored and plain white cotton. "Oh Daniel, your tastes are so pedestrian."
"Sam picked those up for you," he yelled on his way out the door, the back of his neck growing red.
"No Vala," he grunts. He and Daniel do a lot of grunting and groaning and excreting heavy blows of hot air from their nostrils and mouths. They are the loudest breathers she's ever known. "That means we didn't take over anyone else's bodies."
"No, of course not, we merely switched environments." Twirls around him a bit, feet in combat boots, which were also issued to her, clip clopping over the uneven flooring. He pauses movement, standing with a bit of an open mouth taking in the room. A device and a window and some new gibberish. After it becomes quite clear his rebuttal doesn't exist she continues, "which means that there's likely someone back at Cheyenne Mountain in our place."
Crosses his arms over his chest either guarding himself, or from being short with her. However, he's wearing that magnetic grin, the one that she knows bring an adventure. "How are you so calm with all of this?"
"This is my third ride, Darling."
"So you've mentioned."
"I've been investigating the whole time you've been taking a lovely cat nap."
"Alright Dick Tracy, what'd you learn?" Leans against he table which immediately wobbles underneath his weight.
"Well for one, I wouldn't lean against that table, it's made from something organic and is terribly unsturdy."
Arms crossed again but he removes his smile and accompanies it with a step forward. "Where are we, Vala?"
"We're obviously on a ship." She flashes a grin hoping to appease his sudden bad attitude. Surely, he cannot blame her for this situation. She verbally alerted him several times to the dangers the device accrues. When the smile doesn't work, when he still advances, she takes a step in retreat.
He steps. "Okay, in what galaxy?
"I don't know." She retreats.
"What make of ship?" He steps.
She retreats. "I don't know." Her back now pressed to the wall next to the bowed window with an opposite view of the room, and she notices it. Laying unmoving on the other side of that dreadful table, hidden from view behind the device.
She's so distracted that she doesn't realize how close he's gotten to her, pinned her a bit against the wall. No bad memories with Cameron—alright a few—what she aptly named the Merlin speech still frightens her, the intensity and he refusal to allow her escape, shook her until she fell into place and she felt alone. Not just then, but in her dorm that night while everyone returned off base to their homes. And every night since. Wakes from memories, nightmares, and tries to stick onto whomever she can find.
He growls, "Do you know anything that can actually help?"
Before she can answer, the infant answers for her, clicking on like a clock radio and screaming murder. Swathed tightly in a stained brown blanket that exposes only a tiny red face. She raises her eyebrow at Cameron's complete lack of expression, he's too shocked to look shocked. "I know what that is"
He smacks his lips at her, and she grins widely before he turns towards the infant. "Hey little guy, what are you doing here?"
"Awfully macho of you to assume it's a boy." She stalks the other way as Cameron, unheeding of her warning, leans back against the loose table, taking the child in his arms. The face has the distinct quality of being human, creases for eyes, and a nose, and lips. Just a face full of grouchy creases. It gurgles, its throat caught on air from incessant wailing. "He looks human."
"He does, doesn't he." Cameron folds back the top of the blanket, and little fingers find their way into a gummy mouth as she tiptoes up beside to garner a closer look. His eyes dart to meet hers and then back to the baby. Then he laughs, heartily laughs and it may be more surprising than finding a human infant onboard the darkest ship in the galaxy.
She laughs back, more of a mocking snicker and then pats his shoulder as she retreats again. "Well put it back."
"What?"
"Put it back where you found it."
"Why"
"Because that is not your child," truly laughs now at the twist of the situation and the knowledge that SG-1's fearless leader melts at the sight of a squalling infant. "Cameron, you found it on the table, it's just some random baby."
Jumps to his feet as the table teeters but doesn't topple over yet, still holding the child, his arm raised a few inches higher as if to protect it from her harsh words. He glances left, then right. "Where do you want me to put the kid? There's no crib or bassinet."
Calmly, she approaches again. The cat and mouse game, the tag they play. Him running away from her down the snaking corridors of the complex, her scrambling up and over partitions and jumping half level stairs to beat him to his destination. "It was on the table; its parents will retrieve it from the table."
"We could go find his parents."
"That's not our job, our job is to get home."
"I'm not leaving this kid on a random table."
"Why not? It is a random baby."
"This table isn't steady, something else you've also said a thousand times." He quakes the table and the device dances, her breath gets caught somewhere between her lungs and nose. "He could roll off."
The baby fusses, hands and feet now broken free from the confines of a very stained blanket, which doesn't make sense and usually she's in favor of the nonsensical as it brightens up a slow work week, but there is no way she's slogging along some random baby on their quest to get home. "Its immobile, Cameron. Its not just going to be rolling about. It can barely support its own head."
"Why don't you care? You had one of these didn't you?" The inflection in his voice hurts more than his actual candor, the insinuation that she ever got to be a mother instead of an incubator, instead of a trojan horse for troops to simply spill out of.
Pulls a strong face because her eyes feel very dry, then very wet. Doesn't want to think of when the Ori yanked Adria out of her and stole her away. The baby that kept her up each night with tortuous heartburn and violent nightmares. Burning ceilings and walls and skin. Her skin. "Yes. Briefly. And when they took her from me I became awfully upset, so let's not upset the parents because they might not be as nice as I am."
"Okay. Okay." Calms her with a halting hand, the end of her rant the end to his judgements. The baby stirs more frequently now, and Cameron bounces on his knees as if a song is playing that she can't hear. "Let's just try to figure out where we are and why we're here."
"We're on a ship and we're here because of the device." Remove the baby and place it on the table and it is no longer their problem. It isn't their problem. They have no biological ties to this child and if her own daughter is fine to be whisked away, then certainly this infant is fine to spend the next little while clumped on the table. "Did you hit your head when you fell? Gravity was not your friend."
"Just—let's think." Paces as he speaks, adding in a jaunty little bounce every now and then, keeps the baby quiet briefly, but even its patience is growing thin. "There has to be a reason we were specifically transported here. Last time you and Jackson went to the Ori galaxy and we learned about their motives before they became a threat to our galaxy. So maybe here—"
His shadow drifts across the device, highlighting certain aspects in the lowlight. This is their device, the one from the complex. Has the same dirty crystals, the same tarnished metal and still smells like trash. "Perhaps the others, the ones who took our place, were just playing with the stones."
"What."
"Unaware of what could happen." The device is devoid of stones, of tokens back to their reality where she doesn't have much but a little more than four shirts, two pairs of pants, and a notorious white plastic bag.
"Maybe we're here to learn about something that's going to attack us." As usual he ignores her explanation, his mind still caught in the gears of the idea that this is an educational not accidental excursion when it may be nothing more than two people who noticed two stones fit two holes.
Can't help but arch another eyebrow at the drastic change in form when an infant, a screaming little potato who may possibly need a diaper change, is part of the equation. Tau'ri men take pride in their lineage, at least that's what she's garnered from books and programs she's been exposed to. The majority of Tau'ri men take interest in and protect their offspring, which is quite unusual for the other planets she's visited. "Maybe they'll make us rear their children."
"Well that would be your specialty."
There is the missing rebuke from before. Biting wit with a snicker as he fixes the child's blanket while saying such malicious words. She can't say anything because it's unsurprising, but it doesn't hurt any less. Friends—family, a team she's bonded with and has inclinations she's become an asset to, all too loose with their tongues. She shakes her head at him, disappointed, and marches towards the only exit from the room.
Hears his footsteps clonk after her but she doesn't stop her stride. Desperately misses her empty bed and falling asleep to celebrity reality shows around this time. "Oh don't act like you don't—"
The door opens awkwardly, not from the top or sides, but spins like a gold coin between two fingers. The air is a bit stale, smelling vaguely of rust, metal and a little like raw meat. The connecting corridor is not any brighter than the room, but she can not even wager a stumble down unknown pathways because someone stands in her way. A young woman, with shining gray skin and cat eyes.
"Oh-kay." With his free hand he grabs the collar of her shirt and drags her back while tucking the child closer to him. They hit the device table again, and her collar is stretched behind repair, lolling off her left shoulder. "Hey we—uh—we—really don't know what's happening here, but we don't mean any harm."
"We know exactly what's happening." Fingers preen at the collar, trying to situate it back into the proper place because she only has four shirts, and this is one of them. She must fill out forms to get new shirts which is absurd, because if she had clearance she could go buy her own shirts. There's paperwork for everything and always a clause why she cannot leave the complex without explicit verbal or written permission.
"Vala, you maybe want to do something to help?"
"Gray Girl," she addresses the alien, vaguely aware of Cameron trying to reel her back in by the collar. She dodges his swipe at the last second. "We cannot understand you. Is it possible that you enunciate just a squish?"
The girl speaks to them in a language she's never encountered. Even when skimming through the files on Daniel's computer after she hacked it to prove she wasn't the only one who visited non-work friendly websites. Her words fluctuate between nips of soft sounds and explosive growls of certain syllables. Her body sways with each sound, harmonizing hips for emphasis. She both moves and speaks like a lavatory lamp.
The infant begins to wail again. Face forever wet with tears. Cameron pivots on his foot, stepping forward to whisper, "Why isn't she tearing our limbs off?"
"Perhaps she doesn't do that." Mimics the girl's actions, tilting her head to the side to view her as she is being viewed. "Or simply doesn't want to. Maybe not in front of the baby. Pass it to me."
Before he can protest she plucks the infant up and holds it at arm's length away. The girl rears, feet toppling backwards, and it becomes very clear a diaper change is needed. "See the child is evil, the silver monster doesn't want a thing to do with it."
The gray girl furrows her eyebrows as if in sudden pain and exhausts a whimper from her lips, her rotations slow until she is barely moving at all.
Cameron leans forward again, his breath hot and his voice a low rumble. "I think she can understand you."
"What? No." But as she answers the gray girl nods her head in agreement, her mouth slightly pouting but still opened, corners not frowning or smiling, simply just observing the unfolding drama.
"Oh yes she can, you'd better apologize to her quick."
"Look Gray Girl." The infant squirms in the air as an offering, legs kicking, and grunting much like Cameron. She folds it into the corner of her arm. Limbs become more ambulatory and circle through the air much like the gray girl's do. The movement is strong and shocking probably because she's never had the opportunity to hold a baby before. Would like to close her eyes and pretend, but it's much to late for that. "I'm sorry if we upset you, we can't understand you. But your skin is a brilliant color. Well done."
The gray girl nods and smiles and continues to dance for them. Her voice fluctuates again, almost visual in the air, vocal highs and lows partnered with jovial movements. Almost like ballet, but a little more sensual. She knows what it looks like but doesn't say a word less Cameron get short with her again.
One reflective gray finger sways through the air and stops just before contact with her arm or the baby. The gray girl bounces back on the pads of her feet, then stretches for the baby again.
"I think she wants the child."
The gray girl nods and purrs from her throat floating her hands towards her chest to signal relinquishing the baby.
"Do not give him to her." Cameron, swift in his clonks, presses in beside her, standing before the device which still smells of trash, or perhaps it's the child's diaper.
"This is not our child," reminds and holds the infant, now wailing like a security alarm, out at arm's length again for the gray girl to scoop up.
"Vala—" Sounds both hurt and shocked, just as he was when he dropped straight onto his face from the ceiling. However, his exclamation and probable recrimination halt when the gray girl coddles the child, nuzzling it to her nose.
"See."
"Oh." His body relaxes beside her, throwing off heat everywhere, a lot of heat lately, solar panels at the complex malfunctioning and generating heat on the lower levels, her dorm level, instead of air conditioning. Falling asleep with a comforter to be awoken by her pajamas sticking to her skin. She's complained but the malfunction is tenacious and returns every other day.
"Good job." She doesn't want it to mean as much as it does. Praise, not really praise, just acknowledgement. Her old attitude, her persona of thievery, sly movements in the shadows and grand escapes lurk far in the back of her mind. She changed. She changes and they're hesitant to accept it as they feel she's always double crossing them. She supposes it's warranted, but she's learned how to trust them more than any others she ever has, that the trust isn't equal is painful.
But he's actually looks at her, directly at her, and she tries to not fidget, not to pick at something in her teeth, because he doesn't like to have face-to-face conversations with her unless they're for reprimanding. He smiles thoughtfully, and she darts her gaze away from him. "Thank Y—"
The gray girl whistles with two fingers in her mouth, and the baby doesn't even think to stop screaming.
"What was that?"
"Oh, probably a call alerting others." Truly fidgets because as with all her intuitive plans, they tend to backfire and make the situation much more difficult and much more dangerous, then Cameron or Daniel or whomever she's accompanying from SG-1 becomes irate in disappointment.
Keeps the smile on his face as a mask for the gray girl, even though she appears fluent in English. He bumps her shoulder with his, "Do you have any weapons?"
"No." Shakes her head and her pigtails helicopter near his face.
"You were awake, and you didn't think to find a weapon."
"It's not that I wasn't looking for one. I did things in the proper order." A tiny little yellow robot, the size of a meal tray appears at the toe of her boot. It has flashlights for eyes and lets out pulsating beeps as it scans them. She steps over it. "I evaluated the injured and moved you into a position where you wouldn't suffocate on your face."
"Vala."
Spins around accentuating with her hands the work she's done. Followed protocol to the syntax of each sentence in the procedural outlines "When it became apparent you weren't in critical condition, I accessed the room for safety issues."
"Vala."
The weeks she spent in an interrogation room combing through the processes, the several theoretical quizzes and three field tests for following the rules. Their rules. The psychological exams that frightened her because they would see her faults, her fears and her worth. "Upon my examination of the room for immediate threats of death or injury, I found no weapons."
"Vala," he shouts.
"What?" So she shouts.
The baby stops crying, and the gray girl's slanted syllables drop from the air. Even the little robots pump the breaks and halt in their mechanical chittering.
"What are these?" Crouches to touch one but it reverses away from his fingers. Another curiously parks beside his shoes. "They look like horseshoe crabs."
"What on Earth is a horseshoe crab?" Cautiously eyes the two at her feet, and the one crawling around the circumference of the unsteady table. It pauses and trains its lights on her. She blocks them with her palm, then gently pats it on the head. It accepts and chirps.
"Ahh," Cameron cries out in pain behind her, his face red and his body crumpling to the floor.
"Cam—" She gets one step before something pierces through her left combat boot, cold and crippling and she falls forward unable to catch a breath.