NOTE: Things are still moving a little slow but in a chapter or two things are about to start moving.
Chapter 16 – Trip
A few minutes later Cam and two airmen came into the room. Pental had left and Giya had had time to clean herself up.
"Stand up and put you hands behind your back." said Cam coldly.
Giya sighed and complied. "Do you have a name that I can call you?" she asked as Cam hand-cuffed her.
"Colonel Cameron Mitchell." He said, clicking the cuffs on just a bit tighter than they need to be.
Giya winched slightly as she felt her wrists start to bruise. "I thought we were over the whole retraining thing."
"We're going for a little trip." He roughly turned her to face the door. "Move." He gave her a bit of a shove forward.
As Giya walked out of the room she saw her first sights of the SGC apart from her room. It wasn't very pleasant. It was all grey and artificial light with no air that wasn't stale with confinement. For the thousandth time she longed to be in the open streets of Ionara again. There wouldn't be much to see now though. "What kind of world is this? Don't you ever get sun and sky?"
"Keep moving." said Cam as he gave her another shove in the back.
Giya stumbled, "Alright." She walked down the corridor with an airman on either side and Cam gripping her arm, steering her around the twists and turns. She was wondering where they were going but thought better than to ask.
As they marched through the base they passed the elevator. As they went by the doors slid open revealing Daniel and Vala.
"Wait!" Giya stopped walking, resisting Cam's tug on her arm. "I just want to talk to them."
Cam glared icily at her for a moment and then looked to Daniel and Vala. "You okay with this?" his voice was clipped but full of concern for his two friends.
Daniel nodded, "Yeah." he turned to Vala, "What about you?"
Vala had turned white as a sheet. It was the first time that she'd seen this woman face to face and conscious. She would have much rather there were some thick steal bars between the two of them when this happened. She swallowed and felt the bruise on her neck throb. She could say no and they would just walk on but she couldn't. She had made up her mind that she wasn't going to keep running. Very slowly she managed to nod.
"Keep this quick." Cam said sharply to Giya.
"Your name is Vala isn't it?" Giya said, "I recognise you."
Vala swallowed again. "Is that so?" she said hoarsely.
Giya couldn't really think of what she could say and stumbled over her own words for a moment before she actually said anything. "I was scared. I don't remember how I got into that sarcophagus. I didn't know who you were or what you wanted with me."
Vala didn't say anything, she just stared on through.
Giya wished she could just open up her mind and show them exactly what she wanted them to know. Most of her life had been spent in her ascended body where you didn't have to worry about silly things like talking. "I've been living in a world…well…lived in a world where the best way out of a situation like that is to show that you are stronger than everyone else, to show that they are meant to fear you."
Vala nodded again.
"Vala," she took a step forward earning her a warning clanking from the two guns aimed on her but she ignored it. "I'm sorry that I hurt you. I've been looking for Daniel, for you all for so long, it's important that you learn to trust me," she then looked right into Daniel's eyes, "because I didn't just search you out to get me out of that crypt. I have a warning and you are not going to be able to hear it until you know that I would never lie to you."
Daniel stared right back into her eyes. He couldn't look away. There was something wrong about those grey-green eyes. Nothing about the way they looked, about the way the moved. It was as if there was something wrong with who was looking through them. As if Giya wasn't entirely there. It almost hurt him to look at her and as hard as he tried not to, he couldn't help but feel pity welling up inside him towards her.
Thankfully after a moment she looked back to Vala. "There is a way that I can show you that I'm sorry," she looked to Cam nervously, "but I need my hands free."
"Aw, hell no!" scoffed Cam, "I can't believe that you thought we'd fall for that."
"Daniel," Giya said with a hint of desperation, "you remember me. Somewhere in the back of your mind you remember me from the time that you were ascended. You felt sorry for me, for what I was. You know that I can be trusted. You know that right now you have to get the others to trust me so they will actually hear what I have to say. Please tell me that you can find that place where those thoughts are."
Daniel paused for a moment and Giya could almost see the conflicting thoughts running through his mind.
"Mitchell," he said slowly, not shifting his gaze, "I think she's telling the truth. I think we can trust her."
Cam gritted his teeth. "You sure about this Jackson?" He saw Daniel nod firmly. "It's up to Vala then." He was sure that she wouldn't want Giya loose around her.
But Cam had underestimated how much Daniel's trust in Giya mattered to her. She didn't want to run anymore and Daniel was the one that had shown her that she didn't have to. If he knew that Giya was safe then she trusted her too. "Okay…Okay Colonel, let her go."
For a moment Cam considered not doing it but he did trust Daniel and the airmen where there. He wasn't totally beyond reason. He took out the keys and unlocked the cuffs.
"Ouch." Giya said quietly as she rubbed her wrists.
"Do whatever it is you're going to do." said Vala, putting out her chin to show she wasn't scared.
Giya took a deep breath and stepped in front of Vala. "I'm sorry that I hurt you. I hope that this will make it up to you." Slowly, so she didn't spook anyone, she reached across with one hand and touched the bruise on Vala's throat. Vala flinched but Giya didn't break the contact. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath, searching inside of herself for those bright lights.
The others didn't have a clue what was happening. The airmen shifted their weight nervously.
The first thing they noticed was the red mark around Giya's wrist from the handcuffs gradually faded away to her normal skin tone. Then, suddenly, Vala's eyes widened as she felt Giya's finger tips grow warm and then pass that warmth onto her. The bruise on her neck then slowly turned from its darkest black, to purple, to yellow before it faded completely. Vala's injured arm then twitched once, twice. "What the…" Vala was shocked beyond belief. Her throat and arm felt as good as new.
And that was when Giya dropped. Daniel swooped forward and caught her.
"I'm fine." she murmured as she tried to shake him off and get up under her own power. "Just a little out of practice."
Daniel insisted on helping her up to her feet and she smoothed down the front of her cloths.
"You spend some time in a sarcophagus where everything is regulated for you and then you nearly collapse at fixing a bruise and a sprain." she laughed nervously, flexing her fingers.
Daniel shifted uneasily. "Giya," he said, "do you actually know how long you were in there?"
She shook her head. "No." She noticed that Daniel wasn't meeting her gaze. "Daniel? Do you know?"
"Well…" he had no idea how to tell her. Something told him that this was going to be far from good news for her. "We found a document that related to one of the events in your life to a known event in history. Now we don't have an exact date, it's all based on pretty…"
"Daniel," she interrupted, "how long?"
Daniel looked up at her and saw the anguish. Not in her face, just her eyes. He doubted she would ever let anything show on her face. "We think it's been about a thousand years. I'm sorry."
So many emotions flicked over her eyes so quickly before she managed to shield them completely. Locking out any way Daniel would be able to reach her. She turned back to Cam, "Where were we going?"
"The infirmary." he replied gently. Even he couldn't help but worry about her and what was going on behind her still face. "I don't think that we'll need the handcuffs anymore."
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