Coming Home
By Dragon's Daughter 1980
Disclaimer: Other than being a fan, I have absolutely nothing to do with Stargate: Atlantis in any way, shape or form.
Author's Note: I would like to send an extra-special 'Thank You' to my triplet-sister who, despite knowing nothing about Stargate: Atlantis, acted as my sounding-board, editor and beta-reader for this story. This story is the sequel to Three Years to Eternity, and I strongly recommend that you read that story first before continuing on with this one. This is the final part of this particular story, but I promise that there are more installments to come.
Spoiler Warning: anything and everything up to Ghost in the Machine.
At the start of the rocky footpath that winds its way down to the Stargate, she finds the entire diplomatic corps assembled by rank and seniority. Most of them, she has worked with before and are good colleagues of hers. She quickly picks out a few faces in the crowd, the people most important to her, and standing beyond them, she sees the Lantean gate team waiting to escort her back to the city, back to her new home. This is where the handover of custody will happen, as it usually does for new brides coming to or leaving from Reiia to attend to their new households, except this time, she has no one waiting for her to come home—at least, no one she knows for certain.
Faith, she reminds herself firmly, and wills her hands steady as she passes her memory box to one of the Guards for safe-keeping. The young man breaks his grave, blank expression to smile reassuringly at her as he accepts the hand-carved treasure from her hands.
Leaving the Town Guards behind her, she walks forward with steady footsteps and comes to stand in front of Sebian, who is clothed in his ceremonial, formal robes. He stares at her solemnly before taking her hands into his and then he leans forward, brushing his lips against her forehead, before he straightens his back.
"We shall always be thankful for your service, and we wish for you every blessing. The Ancestors be with you, Asabeth of Reiia," she hears his voice hitch slightly as he officially names her one last time, "and may Elizabeth of Atlantis be blessed with all the joys of life as such you have enjoyed, and so much more."
"May the Ancestors look kindly upon you and our people," she responds steadily, squeezing his hands. He smiles at her and whispers for her ears alone, "Strength, Asa. Have faith and strength."
She nods as she steps away from him, moving on to the lesser Councilors, repeating the same rituals of thanks and blessings with these members of her second family as she did with her family-sisters. All too soon, she comes to stand in front of Medora, the younger woman's face scrubbed clean of any traces of tears. The two of them go through the formal ceremony without actually hearing the words they say to each other. There are bonds of the heart that transcend the ability of words, no matter how graceful or sincere, to fully express. For them, words will suffice, but never be sufficient to explain who they are to each other. Their hands linger together for a heartbeat longer, and that is all. Duty is, duty done. Medora looks away, and she walks on.
She turns to the Major and his team with a smile on her face, even as her heart pounds in her chest. She is afraid, but she can't show it. She wonders why the feeling is so familiar, caged panic beating just below her breastbone.
"Be brave," she hears someone whisper in her ear, a father's voice on the wind, a ghostly touch pressing a cold stone into her empty palm, her fingers instinctively curling around smooth metal, "Be brave, my beautiful Elizabeth."
Jiaha sat with her in the back gardens of the Sister-House, the two of them peeling tateos for the evening meal. As they worked, the women discussed the small rivalries that existed among their sisters and the challenges that arose in trying to provide a stable family-like environment for a large group of people comprised mainly of orphans and widows. The conversation flowed easily between the two of them, as it did on most afternoons, but she kept finding herself distracted from the stream of words flowing out of the normally taciturn woman's lips, and gazing off into the summertime garden as her hands unconsciously worked on autopilot.
"He will be back soon," said Jiaha, pulling her out of her thoughts. Asabeth blinked, "I'm sorry?"
The young woman smiled, "You have been staring off in the direction of the Stargate since the sun neared the horizon. It is clear your heart is elsewhere."
"Jia," she scolded gently, "Sebian is my mentor, nothing more."
Her companion laughed and shook her head, "I know that. You have told me often enough, but what I meant is that your heart has not been here, not since you visited the city." She added with a toss of her hair, "And before you start, we trade with many cities, not just that one."
"All right," she sighed, dipping her tateo in the bucket of clean water. "You win."
"You do not want to talk about the man who has stolen your heart away?"
"There is nothing to talk about," she responded evasively, picking up an unpeeled tuber. Jiaha giggled and teased lightheartedly, "So there is someone!"
"Please, stop."
"You are really that worried," stated the young woman quietly, sensing her friend's mood, "that the talks will not work out. I don't understand: Sebian is our best negotiator and the Lanteans want to trade."
"It's more than that."
"Of course it is," said Jiaha patiently, "but you haven't said anything about it to me. So what is it?"
She put down her half-peeled tateo, "Do you ever think about before you came here?"
Jiaha nodded slowly, "When I was younger, yes."
There was a wistful look in her eyes as she continued quietly, "I wondered if maybe my parents had accidentally left me behind, or if one of my older siblings survived the earthquake. I wanted to be a merchant-diplomat when I was little; I thought that maybe that way, I could find them, or that maybe they would come back here one day, and then they would see me and take me back home." She sighed pensively and then shook her head, "But those are the dreams of a lonely little girl." Jiaha looked at her friend, "Those aren't dreams for you?"
"They knew me, in the city," she said quietly. "That's—"
"They are your blood-family?" interrupted Jiaha, amazement spreading over her face. It was the widely known, and yet private dream of many a House Sister for a kin-by-marriage relative or even a generous family to one day come to the gate of the residence and claim a House-Sister as a daughter, niece or cousin. "That's wonderful!"
She shook her head, "It was why I was nearly barred from going."
"What?" exclaimed the younger woman in shocked confusion, "They would not welcome you?"
Asabeth shook her head as she peeled away another slice of the tough skin from the edible part of the plant, "It's very complicated, Jia. It's very…very complicated."
"How can it be so? Are they unkind?" asked Jiaha anxiously. Dropping her peel in their waste container, Asabeth shook her head, "They… it's not the time or place, Jia. I don't understand it completely myself."
"Ladies," said Sebian politely, standing a few feet away from the two women. Jiaha immediately rose from her seat, putting down her knife on their impromptu table, "I'm going to see if we need to peel more of these things. If we do, I'm going to recruit the upper classes into doing this with us; otherwise the sun will have risen on tomorrow before we're done!"
With a polite bow to Sebian, the young woman hastily vanished back into the Sister-House. She looked at him, reading very little in his calm expression (besides bemusement at Jiaha's abrupt departure), and bent her attention back to her task, washing the peeled tateo into the basin of water. Sebian took a seat by her side and wordlessly reached into the basket of unpeeled tateos, taking out one of the larger vegetables. Picking up one of the small knives, he began to peel away the rubbery skin of the tuber plant and dumping the shavings in a tub. When the tateo was fully peeled, he rinsed it in a bucket of water before stacking it with other cleaned tateos in a basket padded with a clean cloth. They worked in silence for a long while, the only sounds in the clearing the soft patter of tateo peels hitting the bottom of their container and the drip of water when they washed the vegetables.
"What did they say?" she asked quietly, rinsing her knife for a moment. He put his blade down in his lap before he said, "They would like you to return to their city, to stay."
She looked at him, half in disbelief, "To stay?"
"Yes," said Sebian quietly. She sensed his worry and asked with an edge of anxiety, "Is this a provision of our trade agreement with them?"
"No, no," he shook his head. "The trade agreement goes ahead whether or not you agree to return."
"Then what bothers you so?" she asked with a small smile. "Don't tell me that it's nothing, because I know you too well."
"There is nothing more than only minor doubts on my part." He patted her arm, "I have been reassured over and over again of your safety, and I am inclined to trust the word of these people. Major Lorne has been nothing but truthful from the beginning of our dealings with his city, and… I believe that Colonel Sheppard has taken it upon himself to protect you."
"What makes you say that?"
"It is…an instinct," he said, picking up his knife again and hefting a tateo in his other hand, "Do you remember what I told you?"
"The day Sergeant Parker saw me," she put down her peeled tuber, glancing briefly at him before she selected another tateo from the pile in front of them, "you told me that you felt the winds were changing—for good or for ill, you weren't sure."
"I think it will be for good, Asa," he said quietly, using her informal nickname. Sebian flicked a particularly stubborn piece of tateo skin off his fingers and into the pile of peelings.
Her hands stilled briefly at his words, the slightest hiccup in her rhythm as she worked. She looked at his stern expression before she asked rhetorically, "You think so?"
He nodded, "I think it is time."
Recalling his prophetic words over half a year ago, she glanced at him, hearing the surety in his voice, "You believe so."
"Yes," he said firmly, "it is clear where you belong, Asabeth, and it is not here. You are content with negotiating for grains and fruits, but we both know it is not meant to be your life's work. I have always wanted the best for you, and I believe that you will thrive in Atlantis. It offers you opportunities that we can only dream of giving you. I think you will be happy there, and I believe you should go." He paused, studying his tateo and finding one unpeeled spot. "As always though, this decision is entirely up to you."
Her hands never stilled as she continued to work, staying silent as she processed her thoughts one last time. To be honest, she had made up her mind several times over since the weeks she had returned from Atlantis, at times saying that she was content to stay on Reiia, and other times wishing she could leave at once. She didn't know if she would have to choose between being Asabeth and being Elizabeth, but she hoped that she could be both. Could she stay here, never quite a part of Reiian society, yet never giving up what was familiar to her and be at peace with that decision? Or could she risk it all for what was beyond her world, plunging recklessly into the unknown for a single chance at regaining who she was?
She thought back to his visit a fortnight before, the way the two of them slipped away from the others to walk along the forest paths, and how they spoke of many things underneath the trees' shade. He laughed at her tales of trickier negotiations she had survived and he made her smile with lighthearted stories about his home and people. It was an afternoon where the hours melted into nothing, running past like the spring streams, and she was sorry when it came to an end.
It was just before they rejoined the others in the town that he had turned to her and fumbled his way through delivering Mr. Woolsey's message to her, a proposal that was being presented in the formal treaty proceedings as well. She had stared wide-eyed at his words, taken aback by the generosity of what he was saying to her. Even now, she knew she would never forget his solemn, fervent words to her.
She believed it when he had sworn to her that he would protect her with his life; she believed his vow with a certainty that rivaled anything else she knew about herself these days.
But even if he hadn't said anything along those lines, she knew she wanted to end the limbo she found herself in, caught between two pasts and having to choose between them. She had never shirked from gaining knowledge, especially if it could help someone. This time, she could help herself by taking an incredible leap of faith.
In the end, did she truly have a choice in all this?
"If I go," she said slowly, "I could come back, if I…if I wanted to?"
"Yes," said Sebian, "I believe so, and there will always be a place for you here. Never doubt that."
She placed the last peeled tateo on the stack and washed her hands in water before she spoke again, drying her hands on her apron.
"I want to go."
"Ma'am," says Major Lorne politely, holding out a hand for her to take. She accepts his offer of escort with a small smile. The rest of his team greets her with friendly grins and turn down her attempts to take her own belongings away from them. She glances over her shoulder at her now former colleagues and meets Sebian's eyes. He smiles and half-raises his hand in benediction. She turns away to leave her past behind and to find her past again.
Calling the barely visible dirt path that winds its way through sharp turns and narrow openings in the stone ravines a footpath is a generous description. It would be all too easy for unscrupulous invaders or unwary visitors to stumble on the uneven path with its jutting rocks and gnarled tree roots that snake randomly across the trail. It takes someone who is familiar with the terrain to navigate the path from the town to the Stargate without getting lost. Because of this, the journey down into the ravine is made mostly in concentrated silence. The Marines are very careful of her safety, insisting that she travel in the middle of the group, rather than guiding the way. They lift her over obstacles, insisting on steadying her balance when she needs no aid, and generally hover close around her, their presence comforting rather than stifling. Despite their unfamiliarity with the area, the men move very swiftly over the rocks as if they've been on Reiia for nearly all of their lives.
It doesn't take long before they're standing in front of the Stargate. One of the Marines goes forward and presses in the right combination of symbols for Atlantis. She stands with the rest of them, her belongings finally gathered in her hands, as she watches the shimmering pool of water form in a swirl-burst of energy. Like always, it has a mesmerizing beauty, and she almost misses the exchange between the Major and the city she will call her new home in a matter of minutes. She wonders if the fluttering of excited nervousness she feels beating in her throat has been felt by every young bride and groom who has passed this way on their journey to a new future.
Speaking into the radio clipped to his vest, the soldier says, "Lorne to Atlantis."
"Good to hear from you, Major," says a slightly accented voice on the other end of the conservation, "Everything all right over there?"
"Yep, we're ready to come home."
"Shield's lowered, Sir."
Surrounded by her escorts, she approaches the shimmering pool of the Stargate. While she has traveled this way many times in the past, in the back of her mind, she knows that this will be different in so many ways. Perhaps she carries with her the weight of too many expectations and dreams, but what else does she have but the faintest hope that she will know who she is? She hesitates slightly just as two of the Marines step through. The Major waits patiently as she gathers her nerves, his expression sympathetic to her unease. She smiles a little at him in thanks and he inclines his head in response.
Taking a soundless deep breath, she walks through the Gate of the Ancients with her head held high. When she emerges on the other side, she stops short at the sight before her. The enclosed room is filled with people, patiently waiting for her arrival, with more inhabitants of the city lounging against the balcony railings that ring the spacious and lofted hall. The sapphire light behind her disappears as Major Lorne steps to stand behind her and there is a moment of deep silence. Unseen in the mass of people, someone begins to clap and soon the welcome applause spreads until the salutation is echoing from the walls. With an amused glint in his eyes, Mr. Woolsey steps forward from the crowd. She sees him standing only a few feet away, surrounded by his team and those she knows are closest to them both.
"Welcome back to Atlantis."