The Woolsey Cometh

Dedicated once again to all those who have to suffer through finals. Thanks for all your lovely reviews!

The Daedelus arrived all too soon in Team Sheppard's mind. Not that they could have hoped for it to stay away any longer. Landry had somehow managed to delay its departure by a week and a half, so when it arrived, Mairghread was a cute 5 or 6 year old. It was becoming increasingly difficult to judge her simply by her physical development. Her adult "half" was becoming more prominent in her personality and thought processes.

No one was sure if this would be calculated for or against her by the irritating bureaucrat.

Fate/Luck/Karma had decided to throw them a bone, however. On the Daedelus, with Woolsey, was General O'Neill.

"General, what a pleasant surprise," exclaimed Weir, ignoring Woolsey, when they beamed down. "We weren't expecting you."

"Exactly," he replied as they walked to her office, leaving Woolsey in the care of a few marines. "What good is inspection if you're prepared?"

"Why are you really here?" she asked when they were alone in her closed office.

"Well, Hank told me you, the collective you, had adopted a wraith baby named, uh, M…"

"Mairghread."

"That's it!" he pointed at her. "Said Woolsey would probably come and order her execution. Asked me if I could come and maybe give you a hand."

"I wonder why he would do that?" wondered Weir aloud. O'Neill shrugged.

"Probably had something to do with her calling him 'General Grandpa Laundry' I should think," replied the general with a smile.

Sheppard bounced over-enthusiastically into the Dex-Emmagan apartment on the Southwest pier and announced loudly, "The Woolsey cometh!"

"Uncle John!"

Apparently unconcerned about the possibility of immanent doom, Mairghread ran and leaped into Sheppard's arms, covering him with kisses.

"Lookit!" she said excitedly and pointed to her dress. "Mommy gived me a new dress!"

"Wow, let me see," Sheppard set her down and held her at arm's length as though apprising the little girl.

Woolsey would have to have a heart of stone not to melt for her, he thought. Admittedly, her facial slits were slightly more prominent now, but her skin had faded so it wasn't so blue—more like the color of someone who's stayed in a cold pool too long. Her eyes were still large, innocent, and pretty golden-green orbs. If the light wasn't too bright, you'd never know her pupils were slitted like a cat's. Her teeth were normal, her nails short. Her hair hung past her shoulders, and today Teyla had given her school-girl braids, one falling over each shoulder. In a sunshine yellow dress, white tights and patent-leather mary-janes, well, it was hard to imagine her cuter, even if her skin were pink.

"John," sighed Teyla as she came into the living room from her bedroom. She was dressed simply in a pale red flowing, slightly tailored sleeveless dress (it is rather ironic that it takes longer to explain a simple dress than a complicated one). Her hair hung loose and tucked behind one ear. "It is good to see you."

"Came by to let you know Woolsey wants to see you guys asap," he told her, and then more quietly, "How's Ronon holding up?"

Teyla dipped her head. "He is…quiet," she murmured, and Sheppard winced. When Ronon was quiet bad things happened. Like marines ending up in the infirmary with broken arms and concussions.

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"Well Miss…Emmagan, I am told you and Mr. Dex have claimed responsibility for the wraith…child," Woolsey spat the last word out as though it were a horrible contradiction in terms—worse than 'jumbo shrimp' to the power of 'military intelligence'.

"Oh, for Pete's sake," cried an exasperated O'Neill. He had already sat/suffered through (in near silence) Woolsey's interrogation, um, interview with Dr. Weir and Col. Sheppard, and he was fed up. "How many times are you going to ask the same questions?"

"General O'Neill," Woolsey replied, clearly insulted. "I am merely trying to grasp the facts of the matter."

O'Neill opened his mouth to give a stinging rejoinder when the doors to the conference room burst open and a small, blue and yellow whirlwind swept in, followed by two mortified marines, and planted herself next to a stunned Woolsey.

"Stop it," she ordered the flabbergasted bureaucrat. "You're giving Daddy and Mommy and Uncle John and Auntie 'Liz'beth headaches."

The grownups around the table pursed their lips and tried to keep from laughing at the scene in front of them.

"Mairghread," whispered Dr. Weir, struggling to keep a straight face. "Be nice."

Mairghread looked at her aunt, and seemed to remember that ordering someone to stop what they are doing is not the best way to introduce yourself when the aforementioned holds your fate in his sweaty little palms.

Accordingly, she straightened her posture and held out her right hand to the nervous Woolsey.

"Hello, my name is Mairghread. It's very nice to meet you Mr. Woolsey," she said carefully.

Woolsey looked at her small hand as though it were some grotesque, contaminated thing and reached out to take it in a similar manner to a person about to pick up a dead and half-decomposed sewer rat. As soon as his fingers touched hers, she grasped his hand firmly and shook it with childish vigor.

When Woolsey had taken his hand back and was surreptitiously wiping it, Mairghread stepped back and studied him with her head tilted to one side. Woolsey squirmed like a little boy caught at trying to put a frog in his sister's bed.

"You came here to see me," she told him. "So stop bothering my family."

Woolsey sat there, his mouth opening and closing silently, like a fish, or a very drunk person trying to say something without slurring.

Mairghread studied him for another moment. His fear was acrid in her mouth; it pulsed against her like a burning tide. "You're afraid of me," she announced, slightly surprised. "Stand up."

Utterly at a loss and in complete shock, Woolsey did as he was bid. Mairghread stepped up to him, and putting her hand on top of her head, carried it across to measure herself against the man. Her hand barely came to his waist. Her manner may be mature, but her stature was small.

She stepped back and looked up sternly at the bureaucrat, who sat down under her fierce stare. "You're twice as big as me. Why are you afraid?" she watched as his eyes flitted over her face and to her hand; his thoughts oozed like radioactive sludge through the cracks of the walls she had begun to erect between her mind and others. "Because I am wraith? Because my skin is blue, not pink like yours?" she pointed to Ronon. "His skin is brown. Are you afraid of him?" she pointed to the General. "He has hair. Are you afraid of him?"

Woolsey had no reply for her questions. Those sitting around the table realized the stark irony in the scene before them. Woolsey had come to interrogate and judge the little girl, only to find himself placed under the microscope by her and found inadequate.

Mairghread tilted her head to the other side, and seemed to consider the deflated man for another minute before deciding him to be non-threatening to her family and turning her attention to General O'Neill.

She felt no fear from him. Amusement, at how she had handled Woolsey. Annoyance at Woolsey, for being an idiot. And something else. Something deep, pervasive, burning, like acid swallowed in a pill that slowly leaks out and burns from the inside, eating away unseen but felt.

"You're hurt," she announced as she walked around the entire table to stand in front of him. Perhaps she realized that Woolsey would have jumped twelve feet in the air if she had walked behind him.

All eyes turned to stare at Jack, who was putting on his best I-have-no-clue-what-you-are-talking-about act. Dr. Weir was debating whether or not to page Dr. Beckett—it would be just like the general to hide something if he knew it would prevent him from doing something he wanted.

"I swear I'm not!" he insisted as the little wraith stood next to his chair, waiting patiently for him to turn and face her.

"Yes you are," she told him, and pointed to his chest where the heart is said to reside. Not the major organ of the pulmonary and circulatory systems, but the 'organ' that was the center for emotion and non-physical/mental hurt.

Images flitted through her mind like so many dark butterflies. Images of a young boy, laughing with a younger O'Neill, playing with balls, fishing, listening to stories. Then memories of a sharp crack, with the word "gunshot" connected to the sound as algae covers a river rock. A tiny moving room, the boy crying and bleeding, O'Neill crying and trying to comfort the boy, calling his name, "Charlie!" over and over as the boy's eyes close, as the others in the room push O'Neill out of the way. A heavy guilt weighing upon his heart, as a cannon ball attached to his leg; sorrow like a stormy, cold ocean, and he is pulled down, down…

She studied his face for a long moment, and then clambered up onto his lap. "Charlie," she said softly.

A sorrowful silence filled the room. Nearly everyone in the room knew about the general's late child, and knew not to mention him in public.

Jack stared at the little blue child on his lap.

"How do you know about Charlie?" he asked huskily, his voice betraying his hurt.

Mairghread rested her head on his chest and closed her eyes. A moment later, so did Jack. The conference room was absolutely silent. Slowly, O'Neill's arms, which until now had been gripping the arms of his chair came up to wrap themselves around the little girl in a hug.

Mairghread shoved aside those ramshackle walls between her mind and O'Neill's, letting his thoughts and griefs flow out of him, like poison from a wound. She did not have to pry, no questions needed to asked, no comfort sufficient, except for the silent communion of souls both burned by death.

O'Neill didn't fight as the little child reached out to touch his mind. Somehow, he was reassured by the calm frankness of her manner, her childish openness. As thoughts flowed between them, he felt the love, compassion, and understanding she offered, without saying any of the words which had meant to help but had hurt so much in the past, like "I know what you went through" or "you have to move on".

She was drawing the poisons of guilt and sorrow out of him and to herself. He tried to stop her as soon as he realized what she was doing. No one, especially not this child, should have to bear the pain he had.

But she stopped him, as though pushing his hands out of the way, telling him it was all right—the poison could not hurt her.

Innocence of childhood and compassion of womanhood, melded in that moment in perfect harmony.

O'Neill opened his eyes, and stood up, holding Mairghread in his arms.

"Okay, meetin's over," he said with a mischievous grin. "Time for lunch. Hope they have jello," he told Mairghread as he walked out, ignoring Woolsey's protests. "Those so-called cooks on the Daedelus couldn't make jello to save their lives."

"We have the green kind and the blue kind and the red cherry kind today, Grandpa!" she told him happily and incidentally incorporating him into her ever-growing family.

"Goodie! My favorite!" replied the dully dubbed "Grandpa" O'Neill.

"Which one, silly? Green or red or blue?"

"Yes!"

TBC

Next: Woolsey's Worries