Two Birds, Two Stones
Chapter 22
Emergency Call Button
It's entirely too cold in this room. Stirs up vague memories of her sitting on a box of frozen goods, careful not to dent the top lest the kitchen staff inform Daniel or General Landry that she's been purposefully naughty in wrecking Stargate Command property.
A similar, darker thought races through her mind as she stares vacantly at what she assumes is the ceiling through a pitch-black room.
Is she just property of the Stargate Command?
Was she to perish, what form would they fill out for her? Most likely a damaged property form.
If she were to remain shipwrecked here for the rest of her life, in a galaxy where there is no reality television, where there are no Goa'uld, and therefore, no basis for all those who matter to her to judge her by. Where her likeness already has a reputation much preferable to her own—would they fill out a missing persons report or a lost objects form?
Familiarized herself with all the forms by spending lonesome and sleepless nights breaking into various offices. First financial and accounting, then ancient artifacts, and more then a few offices in the technological wing. After perusing through the offices of the highest profiled military professionals she knew—the general, Cameron, whichever personnel was visiting—her choices became a bit slim.
She started reading up on old mission reports while sitting at a dusty desk in archives with a flashlight and a tea, learning about proper occupational conduct in a sector dedicated to resourcing humans.
Finally found herself in the area of the SGC where they controlled the quality—she assumed it was quality of life and spent her time reading through forms hoping to create a forgery to garner her a better room, or at the very least, an extended wardrobe of black shirts and new boots. But she found that most of the forms had to deal with products going to waste.
Products that shouldn't have even been in the mountain to begin with.
Products that were being transferred out.
She was transferred out against her own freewill.
Therefore, she stumbles upon the same philosophical question of if she's seen as a person or a thing.
The Tau'ri don't exactly respect her. The better term for occupational affairs is what Daniel calls 'putting up' with her. Not one to be disappointing, she lives up to her pestering nature, to her curiosity as she still sneaks around at night and snacks on forbidden chicken nuggets in the early hours of the morning between the shift change because some of the cleaning staff have taken pity on her—she's read their files and asks questions about their spouses, their children, and strikes up the only rapport she has within the mountain that isn't about missions, gates, guns, and death.
If those she works with at the SGC expect her to act a certain way, she's not one to disappoint. Why try to prove everyone else wrong when it's so much easier to give into their ideals. Then in her spare time, share secret moments speaking with a custodian about his nine-year-old's recent recreational activity game.
Before she was transferred here, she assumed all Tau'ri—at least those in positions of power—would treat her in the same respect, as a nuisance who proves herself useful during times of duress. That the kind-hearted custodians who allowed her to tag along from room to room as long as she didn't muck up the freshly polished floors were rare.
This idea has only been further reinforced with Crichton's extended return.
Ceded his room back to him of course, as it is his room, along with his son, who has taken to quite frequently vomiting an hour or so after his meals. With the Peacekeeper pablum becoming very scarce—their current destination is a commerce planet along the lines of a black market to remedy Deke's lack of food—it's concerning to say the least.
Also concerning is the loneliness she feels while inhabiting a living being. The sensation of being afloat in space, abandoned a forethought in her mind as she tosses and turns—or would if her injuries weren't becoming tight again.
Heeding Noranti's words, she limited the application of the salve to her injuries from almost a dozen times a day down to a handful, but the skin isn't as pliable under scars and even worse, the new skin growing beneath is driving her insane with itchiness.
Once on a mission, Daniel was plodding along in the forest beside her outside of some medieval village and stumbled into a thatch of a beautifully vibrant green plant. Unfortunately, his socks weren't tugged to their fullest and he developed a dreadful rash across one of his ankles that he would stop every few steps to scratch at in an animalistic nature.
When the novelty of his injury, and subsequently, his foolishness wore off, she offered to help him, knowing of a salve she could concoct using many of the plant species within their reach.
He scoffed, told her it was something he was willing to leave for Dr. Lam, willing to leave to the professionals, because he didn't know she'd trained in medicine before being corrupted and held hostage by Qetesh for so many years.
Staring directly at her while his nails bit into his skin, the redness glowing in the low sun, and pin pricks of blood developing from his overexertion, he told her that this was something he didn't trust her with. He didn't trust her knowledge, didn't trust her word, didn't trust her past and therefore her present.
She only nodded her head, her teeth biting into her lips to keep the pain from her eyes as her vision blurred with tears she swallowed back down. She absorbed back into herself because this situation wasn't worth it.
At the campfire that night, as Cameron slung jokes at Daniel, and Sam chided him for constantly itching and spreading the rash, and Teal'c lips grew into an amused grin as he said nothing, but sipped his tea, she acted the character they expected, and never brought up her spurned knowledge again.
Knows better than to pull at her skin now. To razor it with her nails as she wants to.
Knows better than to do anything but stare up where she thinks the ceiling is and try to not let her thoughts run to dark places, tries not to let her ears overexaggerate every single sound she hears echoing down the hallway. Tries not to think about how nice it would be to not be solitary in this awfully cold room despite wrapping her favorite fur blanket around herself like a cocoon.
Even if the baby were here, it would be someone to distract her, the crying, the cooing, the dirty diapers, and the green colored vomit all served to occupy her time quite well. Doesn't know if Crichton's gotten up to do the feeding that was scheduled at the start of this hour, but she did the last feeding after supper, while Crichton was checking in with Pilot and being caught up in how they may be being pursued by a less than friendly ship called a marauder—at least that's what she's gleaned from positioning herself briefly to eavesdrop while Deke gobbled down his dinner. Crichton was blissfully unaware, but Pilot must have been knowledgeable. If he saw her snooping as a problem, he didn't speak of it.
Handed Deke back to his father to care for during their sleeping cycle, and around the time that she did, Deke's face soured with the aftereffects of his dinner. Crichton got to the end of the hallway before the baby started wailing and vomited all down his shirt again. Around the same time, she started getting a stomach ache but it's probably correlated to being utterly alone, or perhaps she's just emphasizing with the baby too much.
An infant, that has her eyes, and the grin that Cameron sometimes gives to her. Ten days ago, it wouldn't have had this much of an effect on her.
Every time she tries to admit to herself how much she truly misses Cameron, she strays away from completing the equation in her head as to what it could truly mean. Being stranded on the ship by herself is infinitely worse than having any sort of partner, be it a baby, a gray girl, or Cameron. Although now she lacks the safety she felt with him, the kind she assumes she would feel with any other member of the team, because if something happens, they could work together to overcome it.
He has protected her before, chased after her by motorcycle and foiled The Trust's plan to kidnap and torture her again over things she didn't know, things she didn't want to know, things she'd buried so deep inside of her in order to forget. She handcuffed him, still not trusting completely, never completely, but here—here on Mayo, it's different. She doesn't have a choice, and perhaps this is the first time in her life, that not being offered a choice is preferable.
Does she occupy his thoughts as he does hers? Does he worry about her here practically on her lonesome? Is he trying to get back to her, or is he happy to bask in the glory of being returned to his country's military a hero again, having survived a whole ten days in another galaxy? When she returned after ten months, there was no fanfare. There was no hero's welcome. There was abdominal pain from where Tomin had shot her, and something Dr. Lam called postpartum depression, that she received pills for which made her tired and noncombative for a few weeks until lightening the dose and weaning her off.
There were stretchmarks and physical changes in her body, and rampant exhaustion as she adjusted to Tau'ri life again. Not being waited on by five or so Ori maidens meant having to procure her own meals, having to justify her needs of a smaller pair of pants after just asking for a bigger set.
Entertain the worry of being ferried away, jettisoned through the gate because she didn't fit into their standards that were tighter than her newly acquired smaller pair of pants.
After the debacle with the psychology test, as the fear gripped her from within, she tempered her already satiated appetite—satiated after ten months of nurturing another being—and they mocked her want to study, to not be denied a chance at feeling safe from old enemies, from new enemies, from the numerous groups of people who wanted and still want her dead in the security in what her mind labelled as a family.
Supposes she's in the general's favor now, as he allows her to have private conversations with him. To sit in his office and try to figure out the black and white patterned game he has in the corner. Allows her to speak for the team when it suits him, when no one else will volunteer the whole group, she will.
There's a knock at her door. Not the light rapping that Cameron has adopted in order not to scare her further. She blinks to the side, to where she thinks the door is, and slides her irritated arms beneath her, pushing herself up and off the slim, metallic bed.
She will never complain about the accommodations in her cell masquerading as her room at the mountain again.
Shuffling her feet over the floor, sounds adjust away from the white noise of the ship, from the tricks her ears play on her in the agonizing silence of voices and music that she can no longer hear, and over her own thoughts comes the familiar noise of Deke's crying.
Engaging the door, she steps back, flinching at the light that spills over her face and into her room as Crichton bounces the baby before her, facing towards her, most likely so if he vomits, it's on her.
"He just threw up on my last clean shirt." Speaks the words like they're indicative of something other than their logical meaning.
"All right?"
"He won't stop crying and throwing up. I don't—" he tries to adjust Deke, who squirms, shifting his little body away from his father "I can't—"
"You can, you just don't know how." She crosses her arms before her, but still guards access to Officer Sun's premarital room, now masquerading as her own. She doesn't allow the analogy to go further than that.
"Aeryn would—I mean—" he huffs, still trying to adjust a baby that doesn't prefer him, trying to find the words to explain a situation she already understands. "For tonight, can you—"
"No, I cannot." Shakes her head, because as much as she wants to scoop that baby from his arms and change his diaper that is rotten with stench, it's no good for either of them. This child is not going to be a permanent fixture in her life, and while at least one of his parents are present aboard Mayo, she is respectfully declining to take part in his care.
"Vala, my leg is killing me."
"How do you think your wife felt after giving birth?" Checks and eyebrow at him, and something about the tone of her voice, the deepness, alerts the baby, settles him just minimally. "I guarantee you that hurt more than whatever Cameron's old injury feels like."
He sighs in resignation, the dejection upon his face rivalling that of his son, and they've never looked more similar than now. "What am I supposed to do?"
"He needs to be changed."
"That I can kind of do."
"Have you fed him yet?"
"No, I didn't know it was time."
She mimics his sigh, leaning her head against the frame of Mayo's exceptionally crafted door. "I will show you how to do this once, but while you are on this ship, I will not be taking care of your child."
"Deal."
They sit up on the observation deck, the DRDs still cleansing the area where he vomited approximately twenty-four hours ago, and she shows him how to change his own son. Didn't have to show Cameron, and when she posed interest in it, he told her he had two nephews.
"Did you bring the food pouch?" Glances up from where she's fastening a new diaper, dropping the dirty on the ground, immediately the horseshoe crabs start to haul it away.
"Yeah." Nods and retrieves the pouch from his pocket. Two different splatters of vomit at different levels of dryness on his shirt, indicative that he's not a bad father, but just an absent one.
She shows him how to insert the feeding apparatus and squeezes the pouch until a little pablum drip from the opening. Swiping it with her finger she then tastes it, watching him crunch his face in disgust. "Always taste it. You never know if it has rotted, or if someone has malicious intentions."
Crichton copies her actions, tasting the pablum and keeping the crunched face as it doesn't taste like anything really, and has the texture of woodchips.
She adjusts his arms to hold Deke properly, so that the baby doesn't aspirate the formula, so that he can digest it well and hopefully keep some in his stomach. "Do you miss your wife?"
His eyes meet her, Cameron's clear eyes but with something different behind them. Not darker, just—different. "Every second."
She nods, slipping the tip of the food pouch into Deke's mouth and then replacing her own hand with Crichton's.
He chuckles, deep in his chest, full of mirth, at the silenced baby suckling on the food, and for a moment the tenseness leaves his body.
As she leans back on her heels, he stares down at his son, but asks, "do you miss Colonel Mitchell?"
So intent on his son, that he doesn't see her face fall, or what the question means to her, the physical answer on her face.
"When he's done eating, burp him and place him in the bassinet. If he still has a rash on his behind, you can unfasten the diaper to let the air circulate."
Doesn't wait for an answer, or response, or gesture, or his gratitude.
Just leaves the room before she says something she may regret.
She sits in the commissary alone at one of the large tables ready to accommodate groups of a dozen or more, but it's either too late or too early for many soldiers to be eating. Doesn't recognize the food on her plate—when they stayed on John's Earth, he introduced her to many foods which she enjoyed, like popcorn and pizza, and many she hated, like any relating to poultry products which are apparently a cheap source of protein because it is rampant on this military base—observes her food carefully, some form of fluffy carbohydrates, round and flat, and three wavy sticks of what looks to be animal fat.
Unsure of if it's from a bird of any kind, she leans into her hand and pokes at it absentmindedly with the pronged eating utensil.
Senses him from her periphery before he sits down across from her.
When she and John have odd meals here, when they don't take the food back to their room to eat in the solace of each other's company without having to be the subject of others' conversations, he always mentions how this room reminds him of his high school cafeteria. Regales her with tales of him as a young adult, the classes he took, the people he knew, the trouble he repeatedly got into, and how him and his father never saw eye-to-eye.
When the conversation turns to her, and he asks what she was like at that age, she doesn't know how to answer because their ages are as comparable as their lives. She was reared on a command carrier, she didn't set foot on a planet until she was well into adulthood, but she had killed so many before that point.
He never responds to her, just slips his hand within hers and squeezes while using the other hand to shove the pronged utensil loaded with food into his mouth.
"We could use your help." Colonel Mitchell's voice is softer than John's which is unusual for a man in a high-ranking military position.
The affluent in the military get results by demoting all emotions except for rage and anger. Deflect any misdeeds or punishment on them by forcing their underlings to live a more exhausting and horrible life. It's a partial reason why she decided to become a prowler pilot, because she could do so alone, only had to follow one set of instructions and was only reliable to herself.
It's also why being part of a marauder was so appealing, a small crew, only one person in charge, no set of declining authority.
"I think it's common knowledge that I'm unwanted during meetings and decisions affecting me and my husband."
Will not offer him the consideration of eye contact, because in outward appearances, he is John whom she misses to an effect where it is causing her indigestion, and also whom she hates with a growing irritation.
Apparently, according to Colonel Carter, his current absence is not his fault. There was a miscalculation with the stones—stones which there are none of currently at this facility, but that Colonel Mitchell and Vala managed to procure one of off of Valdun.
The lack of stones, or rather, their disappearance, is offset by the stone Colonel Carter fabricated negating the ability of finding any stone off-world. This much she's learned from sitting at the table speechless, staring at a man who is her husband, but is not, for the second time in her life.
If she squints her eyes enough to skew her vision she can almost imagine she's back on Talyn.
That she has a crew to talk to if she felt compelled to. That she had a ship who would listen and trill at her words—an unstable vessel, but a companion nonetheless. That she had a former Peacekeeper much like herself who had a violent past of following strict orders and taking lives without blinking. That she had a loving partner, who curled up next to her at night and spoke words he didn't think she would hear when she feigned sleep, words she speaks in Sebacean to her son because one of his parents should say them.
Colonel Mitchell sighs, cupping his hands against the table, that smile quirking it's way onto his face. "You know we value your opinion."
"Every time I offer my opinion, I'm turned down with nonsensical military talk meant to spin me in a circle and placate me into complacency." She pushes away the dish, done with the circular piece of starch soaking something very thin and sticky into it, and the pieces of flesh that she hasn't touched out of fear that it's poultry and will upset her stomach.
He raises his eyebrows at her, because at first it looks like she's offering him her meal, but then he clues in, aware she won't be partaking. "Not hungry?"
With her arms crossed, she directs her gaze away from him, towards the doors. Should return to their room, as she knows nothing she says will be taken seriously. Doesn't know why she feels calm divulging personal details to him just because he wears her husband's face.
"My stomach is a bit upset."
"Oh." He nods, seemingly understanding her predicament, until he questions, "because of the morning sickness?"
Stares at her, his face oddly not blank, a little bit of eagerness showing up in that grin.
She doesn't grin back. Holding on to her callous exterior but allowing for a dench of an eyebrow raise. "I don't know what that is."
"Oh. Uh—It's when—" he adjusts in his seat, almost squirming under her gaze, and leans in a bit, lowering his voice as if what he's telling her is clandestine knowledge. "It's when you're nauseous because you're pregnant."
Darts her eyes away from him again, because for as long as she remains here, she will always be divided down to the commonality of her being female and her being with child and therefore utterly useless.
"I'm sorry." Shifts away as he apologizes, his voice of a normal cadence again. "It must be difficult for you to be here and be—well—" he scratches behind his ear, a nervous tell she's learning "—and him, not."
"What's difficult is constantly being defined by a status of my body, being labeled as deficient, and excluded from military schemas when I was born and raised as a soldier. For you, for your people to prohibit me from participating because you believe me to be unsound of mind—"
"Hey, hey—" he raises his hands, palms flat and facing out, an action indicative that he means no harm. "We're not excluding you because we think you're being driven by hormones. We're excluding you to protect you and by extension, the baby. Isn't that something you want?"
"You have no idea what I want." She stands, dusting the grease and sticky substance from her meal plate onto the thighs of her cotton pants.
"I know what you want." Trails her, growing brave, not exactly beside her though as she moves and dumps the food into a receptacle labeled to receive it.
"How could you possibly know when you haven't taken the time to ask?"
"Because you want the same thing I do." Leans beside her against the bins as she slams her tray down atop. "You just want to go home."
"Then I'm sorry Colonel, but we don't want the same things." Pivots on her feet, striding with a routine march towards the door.
He scoffs, and she hears the soles of his boots skid against the floor as he chases after her. "You're really going to try to argue that you don't want to go home."
Continues marching ahead of him down the corridor. Doesn't move out of the way for soldiers who overcompensate their position to her. They've no doubt heard of the many guards she incapacitated and are making sure there is ample room between them.
"No, I'm going to argue, that what you and I want is definable through one grave difference."
Stopping at the elevator, he leans forward from behind her, depressing the button to travel downwards, knowing she's returning to her room as she's not setting foot in the medical area unless dragged there, and cannot help research in Dr. Jackson's lab which is currently under rubble and investigation.
"You want to return home. I want things to be as they were before I left." She has lost too much time with her son. Spent too much time on recline with injuries caused by alternate Earth buffoonery. Has been away from those she cares for and an environment she feels comfortable in for far too long.
They board the elevator together, which is unusually empty, but it is still early in the morning for too many of their soldiers to be scurrying about. It amazes her how their militaries differentiate, there was never a slow arn on the command carrier. There was never a time when she wasn't meant to be doing exactly as she was. Suspects this is why their base is so easily infiltrated, from what she overheard, this is why their people are so frequently injured.
As the elevator begins to descend, he stands beside her quietly, his hands captured behind his back, but his fingers fidgeting. John used to act the same way before they entered into a relationship. Start civil and stupid conversations when she left her room to eat, trail her in the corridors, just happen to be washing his clothes at the same time as her.
It makes the concern, her missing him, overshadow the ire of him disappearing again.
While lost in her thought, a quick movement happens at her side that she only registers while it's occurring. Colonel Mitchell snaps forward, his arms coming from behind him, and his thumb slams into the panel hitting a button with a symbol she has yet to translate and forgot to ask John about.
The elevator shudders and falls into a quick halt. The lights dimming and blinking off before a red emergency light, much like the one in the doctor's laboratory after the ceiling collapsed.
As if he can sense her thoughts, knows she thinks he's trying to be aggressive, and knows that she will disable him quicker than he can tell her not to, he compensates with a large step away, placing his back against the far side of the elevator. His hands again raised before his body in surrender.
"Please don't get upset—"
"You have exactly one micron before I—"
"I just wanted a place where we could talk without other people overhearing us." In the red light she can determine the sheen of sweat spreading across his forehead. "I wanted a place where we could catch each other up."
"I have nothing to—"
"I wanted a place—" he speaks louder than her, his voice monopolizing the conversation, his eyebrows falling stern. "Look—I can't make it so this never happened, but maybe if you share some important information with me, we can help each other get home."
It's a fool's play really. Is certain all she has to do is depress the correct button on the panel before her to jolt the elevator back to life and allow herself to return to her room to mull on the situation alone.
Is also sure all she has to do to determine which button will release her will be answered if she depressed a certain area of his throat.
It's an idea based purely on emotion, and lacking logic entirely, and perhaps this is why she respects him because John pulls dren like this all the time and seems to walk away mildly unscathed.
"What do you want to know?"
He reclines against the panel, crossing his arms, a bemused expression on his face. "You okay?"
She narrows her eyes, trying to appraise his intentions. "Yes."
"Baby okay?"
Less enthusiastic about this query. "Yes."
"You need anything from us for it?"
"No."
He pauses, ruminating on his thoughts for a moment. "You wanna ask me anything?"
"Why is your species obsessed with the safety of an alien fetus?"
"I don't know." His face falls serious again, the jovial nature of the questions enacting a game now gone. "Why are you so unconcerned with the health of your own baby?"
"Because I have a pre-existing son, and worrying about him preoccupies most of my time, the remaining of which goes to my buffoon of a husband—and perhaps because this child—" her hand drops to where the pinch is predominant "—is currently in stasis."
"Stasis."
"A second-level cell division that is viable for up to seven cycles and must be medically released. Now you answer my question."
"I don't remember what it was."
"Why your people would continue to ignore me, knowing my knowledge and history is specifically useful to this situation, simply because I'm pregnant."
"I honestly can't say." He shrugs but his eyes betray him. She knows those eyes, knows how to translate the feelings floating behind them well. Under her gaze he glances away, then back to find her still staring. "I guess—maybe to protect the sanctity of life?"
"That's a load of dren," she huffs, stepping back, away from the panel, but gesturing for him to engage the elevator again.
"Why do you say that?" He reaches forward, depressing the same button again, and the red light flicks off, before the elevator is illuminated brightly by white again.
"Because when my life was in danger from the tumultuously high temperature, no one cared."
"They cared, they were probably just preoccupied with what happened."
"It took an explosion to get them to address it."
"Sometimes there's so much going on it's hard to get them to notice the important things." Again, he jabs his thumb into a button marking the floor where all the conferences and conversations are held without her. "So, let's go get you noticed."