The Smell of Blood Still

I do not know how long I have sat here with Gilleasbachan under this huge, gnarled tree in his mind. But he seems, not only content, but desperate that I should simply sit here, holding his hand. Not speaking. Just being.

"Mairghread?" he whispers my name, jerking me out of my own thoughts. "Are we alone?"

"Hmm?" I turn to look at him. "What?"

He looks away from me, as though now that the question has been asked, he doesn't really want to know the answer. Still, he whispers, "Are we the only ones? Did anyone else from our family…escape?"

I squeeze his hand gently. "No, Gil, we're not alone. Athair survived too."

Gilleasbachan's face lights up. "Is he here?"

"I am so sorry, Gilleasbachan," I shake my head. "No. He's alive, but I don't know where he is right now."

At this news he appears crestfallen and turns away from me. "Oh."

"But we'll find him, Gilleasbachan," I promise him, and myself. "I promise, we'll bring him home."

I hear a voice in the back of my head, suspiciously John-like, tell me that I'm making a lot of promises that I can't keep. I promptly tell him to go away—somehow, I'm going to find my athair.

A sharp, painful jolt, though distant, tries to pull me back to reality.

"Ouch." I mutter darkly, before turning to my confused brother. "Gilleasbachan, Dr. Beckett is telling me to go back to them."

"No!" he clutches my hand, vise-like. I realize in a flash why—he's afraid of being alone. It is the worst fear of any wraith—not the fear of falling or drowning or even death, but isolation. He was alone for so long…it is more painful than any wound, aloneness. "Please, don't leave me!"

I place my free hand on top of his head. "Shh, it's okay. I'll just be a few minutes, I promise. Have I broken my word yet?"

Another electric shock, stronger than the last one, making it more difficult to stay with my brother…

His answer is drawn out, as though still slightly uncertain. "No…"

"And I won't," I inform him. "I swear, I'll see you in just a moment when you wake up."

He gives my hand one last squeeze, but lets go, whispering, "Okay."

Another shock, more painful than the rest…

"Alright, alright! Stop it," I mutter, raising my head and batting Carson's hand away from the machine which I know is responsible for delivering the mini-lightning bolts through the patch on my arm. "I'm here. Leave off."

"Ach, lass, ye had us a mite worried," Carson tells me, peeling the lead from my arm and helping me to stand up. "Usually ye come back when we call."

"I had to go very deep into his mind," I explain tersely, swaying slightly as the blood rushes from my head to my feet and I try to adjust to the physical world. "I was able to convince him it was for his own good."

Carson pulls my eyelids apart and flashes his penlight in my eyes. "Ah'm glad tae hear that."

"Hey!" I bat his hands away, feeling rather short tempered. "I was communicating telepathically, not being knocked about a space station!"

"Sorry," Carson puts the penlight back into his pocket and turns to the nurses who are standing patiently by, waiting for the word to move Gilleasbachan to recovery. "Alright, ye can take him back tae his room. An' please tell Dr. DeVries he can start brin' th' laddie back tae the land o' the livin'."

I grab hold of Carson's arm. "Carson, I promised him it wouldn't hurt when he woke up. Please," I ask quietly, "Don't make me a liar."

"Mairghread, have Ah ever been stingy with the 'happy' drugs?" Carson replies in mock hurt before laying hand comfortingly on my shoulder and leading me out of the operating room. "It'll be alright, Mairghread. It won't be soon, but it'll work itself out in the end."

"He asked if we were the only ones left. When I told him Athair was still alive, he wanted to see him," I tell Dr. Beckett softly as we follow the nurses to the isolation room. "I had to tell him I don't know where Athair is. He looked so…lost," I finish lamely, setting my hair free from the surgical cap and shaking the braids from their twisted positions.

"Aye," Carson sighs and mentally opens the doors to Gilleasbachan's room. "Ah'd be too."

He guides me to Gilleasbachan's bedside. My brother is slightly paler than this morning, its true, and the white bandages wrapped around his torso are spotted with deep indigo blood, but there is also something…easier, more relaxed about his face. I realize, with a start, that he is not on the ventilator anymore, but only an oxygen mask, silently fogging and clearing with each unlabored breath.

"It took a bit of work, but we were able tae get his heart and lungs set tae rights, as well as his stomach," Dr. Beckett tells me smilingly before frowning. "It's a bloody miracle he was alive at all when you found him," he mutters darkly before once again smiling. "It should be fairly smooth sailing from here. Settin' the bones will be a mite tricky, but not horrendous. And Dr. Heightmeyer should help with the rest."

I nod, not bothering to voice the questions which still have to run through my mind. How much experience does she have with helping people who were tortured for thousands of years?

Carson takes me by the shoulders and forces me to look at him. "Mairghread, go back tae yer room. Get changed. Take a nap. Eat lunch. Do some o' that calculus Ah know Rodney assigned you. Read a book. Gilleasbachan won't be awake for a few hours at least. Take care o' yerself."

I flash him a smile. "Dr. Beckett, I just found my brother. Do you really expect me to leave him alone?"

He scrubs his hair with one hand and shakes his head. "Nae. But do get changed and eat lunch. Bring yer homework here."

"Thank you, Uncle Carson," I kiss him lightly on the cheek and make my escape before he can think of anything else within his authority as CMO of the base to order me to do.

"A real lunch, lass. With protein!" he calls after my retreating back.

Our apartment looks…disused, at this point. I'm not entirely sure where Mum and Dad have been exactly, but I'm fairly certain they were hovering somewhere in the background, ready to jump in if they thought I needed it. As a result the apartment is…tidy. Dishes in the cabinets instead of the sinks, the sofa cushions in their designated spots instead of strewn all over the floor. Even my room is neat, despite my whirlwind activities yesterday. Clothes in the hamper, books neatly stacked, the computer 'sleeping' contentedly (while I understand how a wraithian computer could sleep, being organic, I do not understand how their inorganic concoctions of silicon and plastic can 'sleep').

I walk over to my small stereo system and press play, not really caring what is in there, so long as it is music…hopefully something that Carson or Lorne gave me. John's rock music is nice, but I really want something…harmonious. I have enough dissonance in my life right now.

As it whirs to life, I walk over to my closet, peeling off the scrubs and throwing them discourteously on the floor.

Requiem aeternam dona eis, Domine,et lux perpetua luceat eis.

Mozart's Requiem Mass—how bitterly appropriate… "Grant them eternal rest, Lord,and let perpetual light shine on them."

Black—I somehow grabbed my one black dress from my closet…loose, simple, nothing like the queen's dress, but still…black. I wear it for the memorial services for the fallen, or on a bad day, when clothing needs to match mood.

I throw it violently from me, letting it crumple in the corner. I swore Gilleasbachan would never see me in black…

Te decet hymnus, Deus, in Sion,et tibi reddetur votum in Jerusalem.Exaudi orationem meam,ad te omnis care veniet.Requiem aeternam dona eis, Domine,et lux perpetua luceat eis.

This is a prayer I could sing for my family—grant them eternal rest and let perpetual light shine on them—but can I sing it for the one I killed?

Kyrie eleison

Christe eleison

Kyrie eleison…

"Lord have mercy"—at this moment, I envy everyone on this base who can say those words with faith. For me, they are something…foreign. The music resonates, the text resonates in its plea for the dead, but it is not my faith. I wait for judgement after death—nothing I can do with assuage the Spirits anger. There is no way for me to expiate my guilt, no prayers, no sacrifices, nothing I can do to evict the queen's voice from my head.

Quid sum miser tunc dicturus?quem patronum rogaturus,cum vix justus sit securus?

"What shall a wretch like me say? Who shall intercede for me, when the just ones need mercy?"

If I had died in the stasis pod, I could have gone to the Land beyond the stars clean, innocent of blood. Even if I had died by that Lantean bio-weapon as a child, I could have been happy. But now? It does not matter if her death was just or that she was deserving of a death more violent and prolonged. It does not matter that I gave her the last mercy of a vision of beauty. Her blood stains my hands, and her death is written onto my soul, a mark to be examined, a guilty stain…

I sink down onto my bed, listening to the darkly resonant voices which flow out of the speakers to fill the whole room, to fill my head, mirroring my grief and guilt, my desperate wish that it is all a dream, that my brother will have been returned to me and I still guiltless…

Juste judex ultionis,donum fac remissionisante diem rationis.

Ingemisco, tamquam reus:culpa rubet vultus meus;

If only.

Tears trickle down my face, falling to the floor with a soft plap…plap…plap…

Will all great Neptune's ocean wash this blood
Clean from my hand? No, this my hand will rather
The multitudinous seas incarnadine,
Making the green one red.

What, will these hands ne'er be clean?
Here's the smell of the blood still. All the perfumes
of Arabia will not sweeten this little hand.

Tears, idle tears—they will not wash away the blood, for the blood has been absorbed—it is not on my hands, but in them. I could cut off my hands, but the blood would cling to me still. Idle tears.

I slap myself, hard. What right have I to wallow in guilt and self-pity? My brother will awaken soon, and I must be with him as I promised.

Sleek o'er your rugged looks.
Be bright and jovial among your guests tonight

TBC

A/N: Thank you for all the reviews! It makes me so happy and makes me write faster!

Also, I have decided that this part of the story (the rescue) is almost over, and that a new stage is beginning(the healing). A new stage requires a different title. I think that this will go on maybe one, two more chapters and then we will move to part two. The continuation of this tale will be "Learning to Live". Thanks for traveling the road so far, and I hope you continue with me.

Credits: for the text to Mozart's Requiem Mass is from www . stmatthews . com / choir / mozartsrequiem . htm (remove spaces)

text of "MacBeth" by Shakespeare, which are the other quotations. www . gutenberg . org / dirs / etext99 / 1ws3411 . txt (remove spaces)