Trust
"Can I trust you?"
I'm taken aback by the question. "What?"
"Can I trust you?" he asks more slowly. "All the other heads of staff say absolutely, even Woolsey says yes, but Dr. Weir warned me away from you. So, can I trust you?"
His words hang heavily in the air between us, an iron curtain threatening to descend.
"Yes," I answer simply. "This is the only home I've known—I can barely remember my hive and in any event it is long gone." Lying at the bottom of the Lantean ocean with the corpses of many. "It is as much mine to defend as it is yours." And that question is for me to ask you, Daniel Jackson—can I trust you?
He studies me for what feels like an eternity, watching me, before nodding decisively. "I believe you. I don't know exactly why, but I believe you." He clambers to his feet and I follow suit. "Now, I understand that you're brother Gilleasbachan is in the infirmary. I'd like meet him—I mean, no offense, but he is another wraith in the city, even if he is your brother."
"I understand," that he's an enemy until proven otherwise, "But Dr. Beckett was forced to place him in a medically induced coma. I'll take you to him," I extend my arm, indicating the direction we need to go to get there and we both begin walking, "But you won't be able to do much more than see him."
Dr. Jackson says nothing and we walk along in silence until we reach the infirmary. Dr. Keller accosts me as I walk in, ignoring Daniel completely.
"Mairghread, I just got on shift," she draws me into a hug. "I just heard about what happened. I'm so sorry."
"Thanks, Jennifer," I didn't realize how much I wanted, needed, Jennifer Keller till she invited me to friendship with her. I rarely initiate friendships—I know I am frightening, and the few attempts at forwardness I've made have almost completely fallen flat. John says I'm like an exclusive golf club—a person needs to be invited by another member to get in (I still do not understand golf, or golf clubs).
She seems to notice Daniel, and breaks the embrace. "If you want to talk later, just give a holler," she tells me and, with a dip of her head to Daniel, continues on her way. I don't think anyone's told her yet that this man is the new leader of Atlantis.
I continue through the infirmary to the isolation room, and Daniel follows behind me.
'So, Dr. Keller's a friend of yours?" he asks conversationally as we draw close and I nod curtly to the marines stationed outside, who kindly open the door for me after saluting Dr. Jackson, who gets somewhat flustered.
"Yes," I answer in a low voice, though I know that I could scream at the top of my lungs and Gilleasbachan wouldn't wake up. "One of the few who didn't know me as a child."
"Oh?" his interest seems piqued. "Why's that?"
I glance over my shoulder and give him a withering look, before turning completely and spreading my arms wide. "Look at me. Why do you think I have few friends who didn't know me as an infant?"
Daniel gets a look of horrified shame, as though it just dawned on him what he had asked. "Oh, oh, god, I'm so sorry, I didn't mean—"
"I know what you meant." I turn on my heel and walk over to Gilleasbachan's bed. I know I'm being rude and nasty, but I just don't care. I killed someone today. Yes, she was a murderer. Yes, she tortured my brother, probably past his breaking point. But she was a person—not a 'good' person; in fact, it's probably accurate to say that she sacrificed her right to be a person when she began her climb to power. But at some point, she was a child, with a mother and father who loved her, a hive in which she played. That child deserved a better end than death in a dank Lantean cell miles below the ocean surface.
Gilleasbachan looks…better, but still so fragile, so small. There is more color in his cheeks—the intravenous feeding must be allowing his body to replace the blood he lost. But still his eyes are dark and his cheeks sunken, every bone clearly visible beneath a thin layer of skin. The ventilator tube protruding from his mouth terrifies me. There is something about a machine breathing for my already corpse-like brother that makes me feel as though I had already lost him again.
I feel a hand on my shoulder, and I turn my head to see who it belongs to. Daniel has his hand on my shoulder and his head is bowed. On his face I can see—shared pain?
"Mairghread, I am so sorry." The words sound, heartfelt. Not empty platitudes, but sympathy, real sympathy, feeling the pain, sharing the suffering of another. Sym—conformed, like, together. Pathos—suffering, passion.
"He wasn't always like this, you know," I whisper, whether to myself to Daniel, I don't even know anymore. "I can remember him from before—my own memories, not my father's. My own" I emphasize unnecessarily. "He was so strong—I remember, I always felt safe when he was holding me." I take his too-cold hand in mind, slowly rubbing life back into his still fingers. "A protector. He was so angry when mathair died. He, he wanted to know why athair let the queen kill her. After I was safely hid, he went beserk," I relate the story, even though I know it by heart and why would Dr. Daniel Jackson care what happened to wraith millennia ago? "We all thought he was dead. Why would a queen keep a rebel alive?"
I round on Dr. Jackson, my eyes blazing with the pain and sadness and anger I can contain no longer. "Now look at him! Look at him! What kind of person does this to another?! Tell me! TELL ME!" I scream, balling my hands into fists on my chest.
Large, calloused hands envelope my fists and draw the rest of me away from my brother, towards the other end of the room where there are armchairs, shoved to one side for now, usually in the middle of the room. I am guided down, till I am sitting, tense and hunched. One hand lets go and moves to tilt my face upward so I meet the eyes. The face in front of me is blurred—tears, watery drops of sorrow cloud my vision, spill over my eyes and stream down my race in miniature torrents of the grief inside. A rough thumb diverts their course, turning the rapids into broad salt-water rivers.
I blink furiously, trying to clear my vision so I can see the person who offers me this silent comfort. I expect it's Carson or Dad or maybe Dr. Santiago, bright blue eyes or soft brown eyes staring back at me, calmly and comfortingly, waiting for my outburst to pass.
But, no, instead, it is quiet, blue-grey eyes looking back at me—Dr. Jackson, Daniel, his thumb still shimmering with my tears, his hands still enveloping my shaking fists.
"I, I don't know, Mairghread," he says softly, his eyes sad. "I've spent the last 10, 12 years of my life asking that question, trying to find the answer. How, how can a person see suffering and choose, choose, not to help, or, or at the very least, leave them alone? H-How to you look at someone in writhing pain and think it would be fun to make them scream louder? I, I just don't know," the anguished admission. His pain, the heart-wrenching brokenness thunders off him like heat from an explosion and in his eyes alone, I can see, he understands. Not like my family understands, having lost people to the wraith. He understands watching someone die slowly, being helpless, having power but being powerless.
For just a moment, I let down my guard, just a little, a tiny crack in my defenses, and images flood my mind—a woman, taken, controlled, someone he loved greatly, a prisoner and slave in her own body, death the only escape. A boy, also taken, and returned, but with so many scars, so much pain, then killed, but not…I do not understand this image. And…Grandpa, at the bottom of a well-lit pit, clothes torn, pain slowly being etched as lines in his face, slowly dying from within, death and life without, over and over and over and Daniel able to end it, but not…
"Thank you," I whisper.
He looks flustered, confused. "F-for what?"
"For understanding." I pause. I look at the floor, then over my shoulder at Gilleasbachan. "Everyone here, they all have lost someone to the wraith. Some…more terribly than others. But…," I glance back at Daniel, and I know that no more needs to be said. "So, thank you."
TBC
A/N: Yeah! 103 reviews! Huzzah! Thank you so much! I'm sorry this didn't get up earlier, things got really crazy. Hopefully, will update again soon. Let me know what you think!