Eleanor

Another month had passed, winter slowly blooming into spring and I felt the promise of warmer weather every morning when I pulled into work and what looked like the permanent ice crusted berms in the parking lot were slowly melting away. Each day I was fitting into place, my program was being utilized and appreciated for quick access to files, and I felt useful. My life felt settled, I had been here for two and half months and I had a routine in place. Every Monday morning I brought Daniel and I a coffee from the shop around the corner. We would chat about projects and upcoming off-world jumps. I had two Saturday evenings where I had joined the Science Department in a rousing group game session of dungeon raids. Everyone around started treating me like I had always been here, everyone except Colonel O'Neill, but I knew like winter in Colorado it would take longer for him to thaw to me.

Daniel was leaving for an off-world mission this afternoon. It made me nervous after their last mission when SG1 came back all with burns on their arms from a sub-particle manipulator they had been strapped to for genetic experimentation. Things like this seemed to always happen to at least one SG team weekly. It made for an exciting conversation, but I was glad I stayed in my humble little office.

He had left his office door cracked open and I snuck in with a purple post it note and a butterscotch cookie from the coffee shop that morning.

Be safe, and come home in one piece this time.

- Eleanor

It was silly, and maybe overstepping, but I wanted him to know I was here waiting for a safe return. I wanted him to know that he had friends here too. The more I learned about Daniel my heart ached, he had to feel so alone outside of work. Everything had been taken from him, his parents, his childhood, his wife and all he felt like he had were here in these walls. I'm surprised he didn't feel more reckless in the field, with nothing at this point to lose. But, I wanted him to know that he did have something here waiting as well. Even if it was just silly morning coffee chats and a butterscotch cookie.

As I closed his door behind me I turned and smacked into a strong body standing there in the hallway.

"Oh! I'm so sorry."

"No," a handsome face with a buzz cut cropping his black hair and olive eyes bit down on his lip and chuckled, "my pleasure."

I felt the reflexive cringe spread across my features before I reeled them back in. "Uh-huh. Well, thanks I guess." I turned to slip back into my office as he followed me and leaned against the door frame.

"How wild, I'm on my way here to see you."

"Really?" My head cocked to the right doubtfully. "How can I help you?"

"You can help me not be so lonely this evening, dinner?" He pursed his lips and winked. I had to admit, he was classically handsome. He had a sharp jawline and the way his uniform was rolled up on his tanned arms he could clearly best most here in physical combat.

But I just looked back at him blankly. "Cute, can't. Thank you though."

"I'm Sgt Carlson, but you can call me Lonnie."

"Hello," I went to grab a pair of rubber gloves on my desk and my cleaning brushes before cracking at a new case of artifacts the science department had finished with.

"What can I call you?" He flashed a wide toothy grin.

"You said you were coming to see me, you should know them right?" I flashed an inquisitive smile in his direction and he walked in presumptively taking a seat in a spare chair. "Eleanor Owens."

"How long have you been here Eleanor?"

"A little over two months," I picked up a golden gauntlet in the box and lightly started to touch the stones embedded in it to see if any were loose.

"Wild, and I haven't seen your angelic face walking around?"

I looked blankly back at him, "unless you're personally coming down here to drop off paperwork or ask for paperwork, we probably haven't seen each other."

"That's a shame," he leaned forward and rested his head in his hands. "I'll be honest, I was heading to Dr. Felger's office to bother him about some plant I found on our last off world mission."

"Lovely, well I'm busy," I started, "so unless you're here for something, anything, I'm going to ask you kindly to please leave."

He stood up chuckling, "you seem on edge, does it have to do with you sneaking out of Dr. Jackson's office?"

"No," I sighed, "I wasn't sneaking, and I am just cranky today, I'm sorry, it was nice meeting you Lonnie, feel free to come down here to the catacombs anytime." He gave me another cheeky wink and walked out.

Jack

"What are you munching on?" I shouted across to Teal'c as he strolled in with Daniel to the gate room.

"A cookie." His monotone lilt carried through the room as he shoved the last bit in his mouth and grabbed his expedition pack.

"Cookies?"

"A protein bar for lunch isn't anything to be excited about, a cookie before the trip makes it better." Daniel grinned, placing something in his breast pocket before slipping his pack on.

"You seem chipper," I grumbled and Carter placed a hand on my shoulder.

"Come on sir, if you want a cookie I'm sure we could muster one up from the mess hall before we head out." I gave her a sarcastic look and motioned up to the gate control center through the glass.

"Dial her up, we're here." I shouted out and we stood there waiting for the Stargate to kawoosh its furies of cosmic blues and grays. I gestured for Teal'c and Daniel to be in front of me, and followed behind Carter. This was the second time that we had been onto the planet they called Elieum.

As we stepped onto the red clay earth under us I noticed the blaring sun scorching our eyes. In one swift move we all placed our sun protectant on and started walking towards the village that had welcomed us with open arms our last visit.

The bulbous trees reminded me of a jade plant my aunt used to keep on her windowsill. I remembered taking the rubbery leaves and plucking them off each branch so that I could roll them around my fingertips until they snapped. I also remembered the stern beating my father would give me for ruining her prized windowsill garden after.

The thicker we walked into the planet's forest we came across workers taking carving knives slicing into the thick trunks and holding buckets for the oozing purple sap to leak out into them. The men would take their hands, dip it into the bucket, collect a small sample, and smear the gash in the opposite direction it was oozing from.

"It must form some kind of a barrier, " Carter replied when she saw my gaze on them. "Like a scab on your knee after you cut yourself. I imagine with the sap hitting the oxygenated air it starts to harden. With that final swipe in the opposing direction of the natural flow it acts as a bandage."

"We used to tap trees in March when I was younger. I hated the work, but we would sneak a few jars and ferment it. My cousin Bary used to make the best maple beer in his dad's root cellar." We continued walking for another hour before stopping to wipe the sweat from our brows and refueling our stomachs. "You notice that the gate is never within meters of the village? It's always miles away?"

"Funny how people never assume the gate will be used, after hundreds of inactive years." Carter sassed back. I loved when she did that, I pretended like it got under my skin in the office but she knew better than anyone what it roused in me.

"Or they distance themselves from the gate because they don't want their former captors to find them." Daniel took another bite of his powerbar.

"That is an excellent point Daniel Jackson." Teal'c nodded in response. After some time we finally made it to the village. There were domed buildings made of the caked red earth and intricately carved in patterns, each line and dot painted in colors that Daniel had described may be a way to signify a caste system within the people's governing ranks. Smoke billowed from the large domes out of a tubed chimney, clouding the clean air above in a variety of spiced aromas. There was a group of elders there waiting for us, waiting for Daniel to greet them. Their tunics in variations of blues with embroidery around their collars in their caste colors. He walked up to the woman in charge, Tumaini, and placed his forehead in her palm as they had instructed us to greet them on their last visit. She nodded and her son, a man the same stature and age as Daniel, took his forehead and placed it into Jackson's hand. Once all of our pleasantries were exchanged, the group guided us into a largest molded structure in the center of town.

The doorway was a 12 foot tall arch with vines etched into perfectly symmetrical patterns on both sides. Birds and insects that I could not recognize were intricately carved intermingling with the vines, each of them painted in their own identifying color that matched those of the homes around the village. Continuing inside was a mosaic on the ground, starting from a central place and expanding outward. There was a low lying table set at about two feet from the ground, long and curving in a semi circle on the far right side of the room. Various textured and colored sitting pillows were strewn around the table and the floor. Tumaini sat down at her place in the center of the curved table, the glittering amber woven into her hair caught the sun rays from the door making her a beacon for her people. I was offered the spot in front of her, Daniel to my right. Carter sat next to her son, and Teal'c spoke with their military leader at the other side of the room. Various adolescents came out with platters in hand, perfumed in fragrant spices and drizzled in sauces. If I hadn't gone through this rigmarole time and time again I'd be excited to try something new, but the last planet we had ventured left us all with a rousing case of diarrhea for three days. The time before that we were all so constipated that poor Dr. Fraiser had to issue us all enemas.

After the first course Daniel and I spoke with Tumaini and her counselors about the distribution of vaccines for their people in the fields combating what seemed very similar to Earth's Measles. In exchange they would allow us access to old mining shafts of naquadah. I kept glancing over at Carter, who was politely speaking to Baidru, the chieftain's son. The way he was looking at Carter made my fingers twitch. It was primitive and brutal, this jealousy that crept over me. I noticed every little hand placement, every whisper in her ear, and the laugh she made when he landed a pointed joke knocked the wind out of me. The devil sat there with me, inside me, raging to destroy everything we had worked for, the decades of accomplishments and awards she had earned, the name I had built for myself just to let her know, let everyone know, that none of it mattered to me if I couldn't have her to myself. This egotistical rage at seeing the possibility she could have with anyone other than me.

"What do you think Colonel O'Neill?" A man's voice cut through the white noise of my thoughts and I looked over him with masked boredom.

"Sounds illuminating." I shoved what resembled a spoonful of sweet potato into my mouth and focused on the taste of that rather than the taste of how sweet the words would be leaving my mouth the moment I could tell Carter in front of the world that I loved her.

Teal'c sat on the pile of woven cushions, his legs folded into themselves citing his reasons for not joining our meal this time as indigestion. There was a small collection of children gawking at his impressive size, giggling from around the corner, and his eyes softened as he pretended not to glance at them. I knew that he missed and at times yearned for his son's childhood. The times that he was supposed to be carving his child into the soldier that his culture expected him to be, the man that Teal'c knew he would be, and no doubt the general that was in his bloodline. Rya'c was a fine young man now, but that was just it, he was a man. Teal'c left when he was just a child to fight for their freedom, to align his views with us, and in return the time he would have spent watching his son grow was taken from him as repayment. He often said that just knowing Rya'c did not fall prey to the customs set before him of being a host of a symbiote made it all worthwhile.

Teal'c eye'd the children's parents sitting at the table, conversing over politics with Daniel, and looked back at the whispering youths. He made a head nod in their direction and his face warmed into a welcome. One little girl broke the pack, she looked no older than six. Her tunic was dyed in a cranberry color, a sateen pink sash tied around her and matching silk bound her feet like slippers. Her thick ebony coils were formed in knots along her head resembling a crown for the princess she no doubt was. She bounced over to him, uninhibited like a fawn in a meadow.

"Hello little one," his voice was calm and gentle with her and she took his hand. "What is your name?"

"Nuru," she beamed back at him and pressed her forehead to the inner palm of his hand just as her elders had to mine.

"Nuru, I am Teal'c." He opened her palm and pressed his forehead into her hand and she gasped, fingers hesitating around his golden emblem embedded there. Understandingly he took her tiny hand and guided her to it, allowing her to trace the ridges and valleys of the scar tissue. The other children came slowly, each with a sash of a different color matching that of what I assumed was their parents sitting at the table in their equally adorned colors. A young boy with eyes large like a barn owl and a small rounded mouth looked at me, watching Teal'c spend a moment with every single one of them. I gave a gentle smile and turned back to the table. He reminded me of my Charlie, the curious inquisition in his eyes, and my heart twisted in the agony of a father who never gets over the loss of their child. That's where Teal'c and I differed, he lost his son's youth, but I lost my son's future.

Once the meal had ended, we thanked our hosts and made our way back to the gate. I was thankful that this was a swift and easy excursion this time around. Daniel seemed in very good spirits, Carter had a long list of possible naquadah sites for the other SG teams to check out when medical was administering the vaccines, and I could go home and just decompress from my own personal turmoils.