Oh! It's making sense! (at least in my head)
Enjoy,
M.
Sixteen
November 16th, 2007
She looked at the clock which now only showed thirty seconds left.
"Hyperspace, hyperspace..." she whispered to herself while trying desperately to take the ships as far away as she could.
Thirty
She sighed, when the number changed, and clenched and unclenched her jaw when the next number changed.
Twenty-nine.
"If you were a hyperspace console, which one you would be?" she asked to no one after having punched the console with a mix of anger and panic.
Twenty-eight.
She closed her eyes, and childishly, she moved her hand from one button to the next and then picked one and pressed it.
Twenty-seven.
Bile rose to her mouth when the image of the child she would never meet burned her mind's eye, and she whimpered, swallowing the bitter taste of regret.
Twenty-six.
"Oh God, please, I need to get back home." She bit her lower lip while trying to understand what appeared on the screen.
And for the first time since she had entered the Stargate Program, she felt alone. Tears escaped her eyes, as she thought of Jack and how much she was missing his confidence in her, his supportive words, his love... plainly, him.
Twenty-five.
"Hyperspace!" she shouted when she read the word; considering that after all, Jack was SG-1's and her amulet of good luck.
Twenty-four.
She pressed the screen, and then a part of the console lighted up, she touched it; and the map of the universe appeared, she placed her finger on the milky way and, miraculously, she entered hyperspace falling inelegantly on her back due to the change of speed.
Twenty-three.
Despite the fact that the number kept going down, she laughed. At least, her actions wouldn't kill ten people to save four. She hated when that kind of things happened.
Twenty-two.
From her position on the floor, her eyes connected with the no so hidden door of an escape pod. Maybe it was usable. Perhaps, the outcome of using it on hyperspace was better than the result of staying at the bridge waiting for the countdown to finish.
Twenty-one
She rose to her feet and doubted. Then she blinked and turned around, turning her head to see it changing again.
Twenty
That was the last number she saw. She ran to the escape pod her eyes had locked on before, she closed the door and checked around to see how it worked. Then she saw the lever and pulled it with all her might, but it didn't bulge.
She huffed and hoped that however far the thing could go, was far away enough. Then, she took her time to look at the space she entered, it sure looked like removable, it had four seats, but by her size, she occupied half of the space. It wasn't like anyone else would join her anyways.
She tried to fit as comfortable as she could, but she soon found out it wouldn't work. She stood up, and as she did so, her body was sent backward with violence. Some part of her brain recognized it and without even noticing she pulled the release lever and the pod was sent flying out.
She hoped she was far away enough from the explosion, as she saw how the ship became smaller through the small window it had. And then, she was blinded by the blast, the force of it knocked her out making her head hit hard against one of the walls.
When she was able to see again, she figured she was screwed.
She was drenched in sweat, and the whole thing was hotter than a day in the desert, and sure she had experienced a day in it. She only remembered that much heat from that planet they once had visited and she ended with blisters and third-degree burnings from the sun alone.
She grimaced at the thought, and the movement made her understand she was close to that temperature for a while. The skin of her face felt tight, and she could barely open her hands. And she was in desperate need of water.
She tried to move, but the pain was too much, so she remained where she was. Slumped on two seats with her head thumping loudly, she knew by the way she saw Jack sitting on the other side, that she had managed to get a concussion again. Her eyes were too heavy, and everything went dark again.
When she opened her eyes again, Sam was sure she was going to die on one of the worst kind of deaths ever imagined. Alone, in space, without air, without food, and without water. She cried silently; her tears made her face burn. She cried thinking of Jack, and the plans they had before they had offered her the post. And for a while, she thought of them, of the what if, on the many time's destiny had played with them and ruined their plans as if they weren't worthy of happiness. And then, she remembered she needed to control herself because oxygen was spent faster when breathing was anything but controlled.
She thanked Teal'c and his patience to teach her how to Kel'no'reem. She did what he had taught her, even if her skins pulled in awkward places and burned a lot. And trying to forget the thirst she had, she concentrated on that technique. She never knew if she managed to Kel'no'reem, or if she felt asleep, or if she just lost her conscience again.
The air was rarer each time she came to her senses, each time she seemed even more incapable of remaining awake. Maybe, she thought, it wouldn't be an awful death after all; perhaps, she would be lucky and sleep until she didn't wake up anymore.
She opened her eyes, once last time; when her body was rocked. She grinned and muttered: 'Stop it, Jack.' She voice was a mere whisper, and she thought she never said it out loud. Bright light entered trough the small window; yet, she didn't want to open her eyes, she only wanted to sleep.
She heard noises, plenty of them. She considered that heaven, or hell, wouldn't be that noisy. Or at least, heaven wouldn't. Hell, maybe, but not that kind of noise. She heard laughs, children laughing, and the typical sounds of people having their regular days on a field. She remembered they had an aunt who lived on a farm, and she loved the noises of it.
She smelled something achingly similar to food, and her stomach growled. And she licked her lips. And she tried to see from where the smell of food came, but she saw only a dark ceiling. She didn't know there would be ceilings in Heaven or Hell.
And then, a pan or something metallic hit the floor, and she heard the shuffling of a tent flap opening and people rushing out and in. Someone came to her side, and she thought they called her: Malachi.
"Malachi," the voice repeated, and she wondered if this was what Daniel had felt when he became a light-being. She giggled internally; she was far from getting a chance to ascend. At least, if the prerequisites were somewhere on the lines they depicted on the books she had read about it. She had too many sins, too many misdeeds and too many kills on her books. Therefore, she was too far away.
"Malachi ardyok' duk' lav."
That was something she didn't understand. And hadn't ascension meant she would be able to understand all languages and know all things? She tried to focus, her eyes weren't cooperating, and everything was a blur for a while. Opening them didn't hurt, but they felt heavier than ever, and she had woken up from different sedatives a lot of times to know it wasn't one of those medical induced heavy lids.
She wanted to rub her face and tried to raise her hand to do so, but something stopped her from doing it. There was something odder if that was possible, but the arm that her mind told her was logically hers because it mostly weighted like it was hers, was green; and she didn't remember ever being green.
She tried to move it just to verify it was hers, and the olive-green arm moved a couple of millimeters closer to her face before it was stopped by a three-fingered hand. Her mind provided her with images of the Asgards, and she grinned groggily; was she lucky enough that an Asgardian ship was passing by while she floated away from doom into the worse-case of isolation?
"Malachi ardyok' duk' lav." The voice told her again, or at least she thought it was talking with her. And that, she was sure, wasn't Asgardian.
Since moving her arm wasn't a choice, she turned her head towards the voice. Yes, the hand was of the same gray the Asgards where, but it didn't look shiny as theirs. Also, the person who was in front of her was most likely female. At least if breast where a female asset on them.
The woman crooked her head and blinked, and Sam found more differences; when she blinked, her black eyes were covered by a thin layer, first horizontally and then by her actual lids vertically. And the Colonel wondered if it was as uncomfortable as it looked.
Sam tried to speak, to tell the woman she didn't understand what she was saying. The Colonel figured then she was extremely thirsty and her first word was short, painful and straightforward.
"Water," she croaked. The woman frowned but helped Sam to sit. But when the Colonel tried to pick her skin again, the woman's hands grabbed Sam's and glared at her.
"Yelemi," she warned. Or at least Sam thought she did, and nodded.
"Yelemi," she repeated, and the woman grinned. It was a nice amicable smile of black teeth. Sam coughed from the effort that word alone had made on her dry throat. "Water?" she tried again.
The woman frowned once more, this time when Sam moved her hands, her hands were, once again, quickly placed over hers.
"Yelemi," Sam told her, she figured it meant 'no.' "Yelemi?" she frowned and made as if she was scratching over her skin and shook her head no.
"Kehone," the woman nodded yes, "yelemi dipch'yel," she added doing the same movements Sam was making and moved her head no. She didn't need to be a genius to figure out that meant: don't touch.
"Yelemi dipch'yel," Sam whispered, and the woman laughed. Her accent in whatever language that was, definitively, sucked. But then, she still wanted water and didn't know what the word for it was. So, she raised one hand to stop her and with the other one she made the universal gesture for a drink.
"Weyo! Jur!" the woman facepalmed herself and walked towards the back of the tent, returning with a smile and a jug of water, which she gave to Sam eagerly shoving it to her.