3 ficlets - Sam/Daniel; Sam & Teyla; Sha'uri & Jack (and Daniel)
First, written for holdouttrout's Stargate Holiday Fic Festival:
Sam/Daniel (sort of) - Mistletoe (PG) [699 words]
The last planet they'd been on had been snowy and icy and had a nasty wind which made their 2 mile run to the 'gate with some sort of weird dinosaur-things on their heels even more unpleasant and by the time they'd made it through the 'gate Colonel O'Neill's entire foot had been purple from where one had nipped at his toe before Sam had realized they might actually be dangerous after all. So he was back at home with his foot propped up on the coffee table and hopefully a bag of frozen peas keeping the swelling down (though Sam figured he'd kicked it off by now) and only one beer within reach because alcohol shouldn't mix with the drugs Janet had him on and she and Daniel were left trudging through the snow looking for a tree.
"Couldn't we have have just bought one in the parking lot back there?" Daniel asked, pulling his snow-covered hat further down over his ears.
"Nope. That's cheating," Sam told him, eyeing the forest for a tree that looked nice and was small enough to fit on her car. "The colonel always gets a real tree and he's going to have one this year too."
"I still can't believe you dragged me out into this weather to cut down a plant," Daniel moaned, kicking at the snowdrifts with his boots. "Just so you could follow the pagan traditions Christianity stole and keep the corpse in Jack's living room."
Sam shook her head and smiled to herself. For all his complaining, she knew Daniel understood the importance of tradition. He just seemed to get cranky in cold weather. "You know, it could be worse," she commented, letting him get ahead of her before reaching down to grab some of the snow at her feet. "We could be carrying all our gear and running into a nasty headwind with dinosaurs trying to eat us."
"What about this one?" he asked, standing in front of a small fir that barely reached his shoulder, but was nicely shaped. "Jack should be able to...ack!" he screamed, batting wildly behind him as Sam stuffed the handful of snow down the back of his collar.
By the time he turned Sam was already running, but not really trying to get away. He came at her with double handfuls and she managed to dodge him twice before he gave up on going for her collar and just tackled her to the ground. She rolled, taking him with her until they came up sharp against the base of a tree. Sam was on her back, breathing had and laughing, with Daniel splayed out on top of her, hands no longer full of snow, but when he shook his head a large clump fell off his hat onto her forehead.
She craned her neck, trying to see something she'd caught a glimpse of in the tree above him - shiny green leaves and sticky white berries and she couldn't help grinning.
"What?" he asked, looking wary.
"Look up," she told him, angling her head slightly and grimacing as she felt the snow beneath her begin the melt. She tried to wiggle away, but he just lay more heavily on top of her.
His head tilted up and when he looked back down there was a shy smile on his lips and the way he whispered, "oh" made her heart beat so hard she was sure he could feel it too. He bowed his head slowly and Sam closed her eyes, wishing she'd brought lip balm because she knew she must be chapped and she felt his weight shifting, just a little, and then his breath - the Altoids he raided from her car over the bitter aroma of coffee - caressed her check just slightly.
And then his lips ghosted in for the tiniest kiss, just on the tip of her nose and she blinked in surprise to see him smiling and snowflakes melting on his glasses as he sat back up on his heels and stood, reaching out a hand to help her. "C'mon, let's get Jack a tree before he gives up and hobbles out to get one himself."
And 2 more for the 20 characters prompts.
stargazercmc prompted: Sam and Teyla - comfort
There Are No Maps (G) [587 words]
The balconies were definitely one of the perks of being on Atlantis. Back at SGC, if Sam wanted to take a break from work and get some fresh air it took three security check points and at least two elevator trips to get her to a dusty parking lot. But here she never seemed to be far from a balcony which offered the tang of salt-air, the soft slapping of waves, and enough moons in the sky to remind her she wasn't on Earth. They were also good places to think, away from the constant ebb and flow of the city.
Plus if she found herself talking out loud to Daniel or Teal'c or Cameron or Vala or General O'Neill because the decisions felt too big in her own brain, there was nobody there to look at her funny.
"Elizabeth did not find it easy either." The words startled her and Sam turned to find Teyla standing in the doorway. "May I join you?"
Teyla waited for Sam's nod before coming over to the rail. "This city is beautiful," Sam told her. "Before I never had time to really see it."
"It is," Teyla agreed. "But that is not why you standing here in the middle of the night."
"No," Sam admitted, looking down at her hands, fingers entwined together. "It's more different than I thought it would be. I've made big decisions before - had the lives of everyone on my planet depend on me being right. But, well, most of them didn't know it and I always had my team there to back me up."
"Making decisions on which many lives rest is a heavy burden. Trust yourself and trust the people in this city and they will learn to trust you," Teyla told her. "You would not be here if you were not up to the challenge."
Sam laughed. "That's what people keep telling me."
"A leader's job is never easy. Elizabeth also spent many sleepless nights watching the ocean, but answers don't come from out there," Teyla said, waving her hand toward the horizon. "They come from inside. We just have to find them."
"Got any good maps?"
"No. But I do have tea and I miss sharing a late drink with Elizabeth. Come, share a mug with me and don't think for a while. Let the answers come to you."
"General O'Neill would tell you it's a lost cause trying to make me stop thinking," Sam sighed, turning around and pressing her back into the railing. "I can't be Elizabeth."
"No, you cannot," Teyla agreed. "But she would not want us to let that stop us from our lives. If we are to honor her we must do our best by this city and the people who live in it."
"The first time I met Elizabeth she was replacing the commanding officer of the Stargate program. I'd served under General Hammond for years and in two days I was losing my team and had a new person making decisions on a program she knew nothing about," Sam told her. "We were not easy on her. Now I think I might understand how she must have felt."
"She has only spoken highly of you," Teyla said. "And of your kind heart and dedication to the people you serve with. I do not believe you will prove her wrong."
Sam sighed and looked up at the stars, twinkling between the spires of the city. "Tea you say?"
"Yes."
"That sounds lovely. Thank you, Teyla."
katie_m prompted: Jack O'Neill, Sha're, Asleep on the River of Birds
Substance Clad in Shadow (Sha'uri and Jack and Daniel - sorry, Daniel couldn't stay out) (PG) [1782 words]
The city hums around her as Sha'uri makes her way among the fires. Everyone wants to hear how Ra was destroyed. Everyone who hasn't seen the strangers brought to them by the gods wants to hear about them - their strange coloring and clothing and language, and more than a few want to congratulate her on her marriage to one of the deliverers.
When she finally returns to her father's fire, laden with gifts and well wishes, Danyel and Oneer are still fighting. She sits across from them and listens to the strange rhythms of their words battling back and forth. Danyel looks frustrated and stubborn, Oneer angry, and Sha'uri sighs before setting herself to assembling a small meal for them both. There will be little sleep tonight and they have not yet visited the many feast tables placed throughout the city.
Danyel takes the bread and meat from her with a smile and a "thank you" in her own language and a lingering touch on her fingers that she feels deep in her stomach. Oneer only gives her a curt nod before going back to his argument and she settles back down to watch them. They are loud with their words and gesture wildly with their hands and Sha'uri cannot figure out if they are equals or one is in charge of the other because she sees none of the respect owed to a leader and yet Oneer seems to believe Danyel must do what he wants.
She does not yet know what to make of her new husband nor what he expects from her. A week ago she would have laughed at the prospect of marrying again. After her first husband had died, killed in an accident at the mines barely a year after they were wed, she'd refused to allow her father to find her another. Instead she began studying with the nef'rit - the unattached, wise women who knew of the healing arts and could see beyond.
The visitors - from the gods and yet not - had changed everything. When they had approached the mines and the one with glass before his eyes had refused the honors bestowed him and then knelt to make marks in the sand, she'd seen something shimmer for just a second, above his head. Later that night when her father was determining a suitable gift with which to honor the gods, Sha'uri had insisted it be her, though he had worried a girl past marrying age, one who had already been with a man, would only offend the emissaries. But she had been determined and now her entire world was changed, teetering on a precipice from which she knew not what direction she would take.
"Sha'uri?" she looked up to see Danyel looking at her and listened patiently as he spoke haltingly in her tongue. "In your...here. Husband and wife stay her family? Or go his? What you wish?"
This is not her choice to make, and how strange must his world be (he still insists he is not from the gods, but another place far away) that he must ask. She explains that a couple must set up life near her father's house for a year before choosing a place of their own and he nods and turns back, once again arguing with Oneer, turning when she continues to speak. "But I would see your world," she says. "If you would show me."
It makes him freeze for a second before he shakes his head. "Not safe," he says. "Not...equal judging to you. And there...nothing...there" he looks down, then up, and holds his arms out as though in defeat. "Right I stay?" he asks and it almost scares her how hopeful he looks, and yet a blackness surrounds as though he expects her to push him away.
She laughs and rises, coming over to pull him to his feet and then bring his head down to kiss him - a message he can't misunderstand. His hands reach behind her, as though afraid to use too much strength and she feels him hold the air in his chest as she presses her mouth to his. When she pulls away he blinks and exhales and seems unsteady for the briefest of instants before turning and saying something fast and sharp to Oneer. She keeps her hand in his and watches the other man.
Oneer sits with his back straight and weapon swung over his shoulder and his voice is fierce and angry, all his muscles tense. Across the way she can see Malia - oldest among the nef'rit - considering them carefully and she beckons when she catches Sha'uri's eyes. Sha'rui slips her fingers from Danyel's hand and leaves the two men to their debate.
"He is in danger," Malia tells Sha'uri after cupping her face in her hands - rough skin and fingers twisted with age. "The blackness that clung to him when they arrived has been released during the battle with Ra, but it still circles."
Malia turns Sha'uri's head so she is facing, not Danyel, but Oneer and Sha'uri squints at the air around the man and the smoke rising from the fire, watching it twist and dance as his hands fly in frustration. "Do you see them? They lie and wait and he does not know."
For a second Sha'uri thinks she sees them in the smoke as sparks fly - dark, menacing figures that twist and turn above Oneer's head, diving and surfacing yet never touching and seeming to shy away from the space near Danyel, but they fade again into smoke wavering across the night sky. "They cannot touch him now but they will wait until the chance returns. Your Danyel will stay safe here but Oneer must be protected."
"They are not from this place," Sha'uri insists. "They do not know our ways. Will our protection keep them safe?"
Malia looks at her, nearly-blind eyes blinking in the firelight, and nods her head before shuffling off to a fire surrounded by children who will no doubt listen raptly to one of her stories.
When Sha'uri returns Danyel and Oneer sit in uncomfortable silence, staring into the fire. "I stay," Danyel tells her quietly, offering a tentative smile. "To learn about...this place. And you. But," he waves his hands as though it will make the halting words come. "In my place husband and wife learn first, then wed. We must, um," he says something in his own tongue and then shakes his head at his mistake.
Sha'uri's father comes to take Danyel's hand and drag him away to people who wish to meet his new son and she is left across the fire from Oneer, who stares into the flames with stony silence and for just a second Sha'uri sees the blackness skim closer. In a flash she knows what is needed and springs to her feet, holding her hands out to Oneer and bidding him wait. He waves her off.
She races back to her room, digging in the sack beside her blankets until she comes out with the stone - carried by traders from a place where they say water stretches as far as the eye can see - wrapped carefully in wire, each knot placed to channel the spirit to safekeeping. She brings it out and places it in his hand. He looks down, shakes his head, and tries to hand it back to her but she puts it in his palm, bending his fingers down to close around it.
When he opens his mouth to speak she reaches out a finger to still his lips then lets her hands trail over the weak points where his spirit might leak - across his forehead, before the ears, down the parts of his neck which throb with life, settling over his heart and then down to enclose his hands in her own, amulet trapped inside. She bows her head and whispers a prayer, calling upon the true gods to watch over this man and keep him safe - to drive away the evil that will not release him and the evil he cannot release.
When she steps back he looks up and says something in his tongue before slipping the gift into his pocket. She hopes he understands to always keep it with him.
The next day she stands by Danyel's side as they bring the doorway of the gods into light and Oneer's men step through. At the last step he turns back to look at Danyel. Her husband holds her close as he bids farewell and she watches Oneer's hand stray to his pocket as he steps through and knows he will be safe.
*******
Jack stands next to Daniel, who is barely strong enough to stand and yet refuses to sit, as the women prepare Sha're's body, washing it carefully and anointing it before beginning to wrap her in long lengths of silk. Daniel has barely spoken aside from the occasional word and one sentence to let Jack know that the women singing outside the tent are meant to keep Sha're safe from any evil spirits who might lure her soul away from her body before it can find its way to the afterlife. And to let Jack know that by accompanying him here he is fulfilling the role of the brother Daniel doesn't have.
As the wrappers draw further up Sha're's body Jack feels a weight in his pocket and reaches in to find the stone he has carried for years. As silly as he feels, he's never been able to get himself to leave it behind and now he considers the traces of color in the rock and the winding, curving, spiraling metal cage that surrounds it. Abydos changed him in ways he will never be able to explain. On impulse he reaches forward to place it inside Sha're's right hand.
The old woman standing at Sha're's head - bent nearly double over her cane with eyes so cloudy with cataracts Jack suspects she can't see much of anything - reaches her hand out to stop him so fast he jumps. It's the first movement she's made since they entered the tent. He watches her arthritic knuckles as she has him turn his hand and open the fingers so Sha're's gift rests on his palm and she bends close to examine it. Her breath tickles his skin but she does not touch and for one long minute Jack forgets to breathe until she stands back up and nods.
Jack reaches forward and slides the stone inside Sha're's clenched fist, watching as silk is wound around her hand to hide it from view.
Previous ficlets for this meme:
For I Have Seen The Storm (SG1, G) (Sha're, Jacob Carter/Selmak) (for rydra_wong)
The Promises We Keep (SG1, G) (Sha're, Teal'c) (for sg_fignweton)
Tartan (SG1, PG) (Teal'c, Jonas Quinn) (for beanpot)
Weep Not For The Past (SG1, PG) (Bra'tac, Daniel) (for _minxy_)
Sam/Daniel (sort of) - Mistletoe (PG) [699 words]
The last planet they'd been on had been snowy and icy and had a nasty wind which made their 2 mile run to the 'gate with some sort of weird dinosaur-things on their heels even more unpleasant and by the time they'd made it through the 'gate Colonel O'Neill's entire foot had been purple from where one had nipped at his toe before Sam had realized they might actually be dangerous after all. So he was back at home with his foot propped up on the coffee table and hopefully a bag of frozen peas keeping the swelling down (though Sam figured he'd kicked it off by now) and only one beer within reach because alcohol shouldn't mix with the drugs Janet had him on and she and Daniel were left trudging through the snow looking for a tree.
"Couldn't we have have just bought one in the parking lot back there?" Daniel asked, pulling his snow-covered hat further down over his ears.
"Nope. That's cheating," Sam told him, eyeing the forest for a tree that looked nice and was small enough to fit on her car. "The colonel always gets a real tree and he's going to have one this year too."
"I still can't believe you dragged me out into this weather to cut down a plant," Daniel moaned, kicking at the snowdrifts with his boots. "Just so you could follow the pagan traditions Christianity stole and keep the corpse in Jack's living room."
Sam shook her head and smiled to herself. For all his complaining, she knew Daniel understood the importance of tradition. He just seemed to get cranky in cold weather. "You know, it could be worse," she commented, letting him get ahead of her before reaching down to grab some of the snow at her feet. "We could be carrying all our gear and running into a nasty headwind with dinosaurs trying to eat us."
"What about this one?" he asked, standing in front of a small fir that barely reached his shoulder, but was nicely shaped. "Jack should be able to...ack!" he screamed, batting wildly behind him as Sam stuffed the handful of snow down the back of his collar.
By the time he turned Sam was already running, but not really trying to get away. He came at her with double handfuls and she managed to dodge him twice before he gave up on going for her collar and just tackled her to the ground. She rolled, taking him with her until they came up sharp against the base of a tree. Sam was on her back, breathing had and laughing, with Daniel splayed out on top of her, hands no longer full of snow, but when he shook his head a large clump fell off his hat onto her forehead.
She craned her neck, trying to see something she'd caught a glimpse of in the tree above him - shiny green leaves and sticky white berries and she couldn't help grinning.
"What?" he asked, looking wary.
"Look up," she told him, angling her head slightly and grimacing as she felt the snow beneath her begin the melt. She tried to wiggle away, but he just lay more heavily on top of her.
His head tilted up and when he looked back down there was a shy smile on his lips and the way he whispered, "oh" made her heart beat so hard she was sure he could feel it too. He bowed his head slowly and Sam closed her eyes, wishing she'd brought lip balm because she knew she must be chapped and she felt his weight shifting, just a little, and then his breath - the Altoids he raided from her car over the bitter aroma of coffee - caressed her check just slightly.
And then his lips ghosted in for the tiniest kiss, just on the tip of her nose and she blinked in surprise to see him smiling and snowflakes melting on his glasses as he sat back up on his heels and stood, reaching out a hand to help her. "C'mon, let's get Jack a tree before he gives up and hobbles out to get one himself."
And 2 more for the 20 characters prompts.
stargazercmc prompted: Sam and Teyla - comfort
There Are No Maps (G) [587 words]
The balconies were definitely one of the perks of being on Atlantis. Back at SGC, if Sam wanted to take a break from work and get some fresh air it took three security check points and at least two elevator trips to get her to a dusty parking lot. But here she never seemed to be far from a balcony which offered the tang of salt-air, the soft slapping of waves, and enough moons in the sky to remind her she wasn't on Earth. They were also good places to think, away from the constant ebb and flow of the city.
Plus if she found herself talking out loud to Daniel or Teal'c or Cameron or Vala or General O'Neill because the decisions felt too big in her own brain, there was nobody there to look at her funny.
"Elizabeth did not find it easy either." The words startled her and Sam turned to find Teyla standing in the doorway. "May I join you?"
Teyla waited for Sam's nod before coming over to the rail. "This city is beautiful," Sam told her. "Before I never had time to really see it."
"It is," Teyla agreed. "But that is not why you standing here in the middle of the night."
"No," Sam admitted, looking down at her hands, fingers entwined together. "It's more different than I thought it would be. I've made big decisions before - had the lives of everyone on my planet depend on me being right. But, well, most of them didn't know it and I always had my team there to back me up."
"Making decisions on which many lives rest is a heavy burden. Trust yourself and trust the people in this city and they will learn to trust you," Teyla told her. "You would not be here if you were not up to the challenge."
Sam laughed. "That's what people keep telling me."
"A leader's job is never easy. Elizabeth also spent many sleepless nights watching the ocean, but answers don't come from out there," Teyla said, waving her hand toward the horizon. "They come from inside. We just have to find them."
"Got any good maps?"
"No. But I do have tea and I miss sharing a late drink with Elizabeth. Come, share a mug with me and don't think for a while. Let the answers come to you."
"General O'Neill would tell you it's a lost cause trying to make me stop thinking," Sam sighed, turning around and pressing her back into the railing. "I can't be Elizabeth."
"No, you cannot," Teyla agreed. "But she would not want us to let that stop us from our lives. If we are to honor her we must do our best by this city and the people who live in it."
"The first time I met Elizabeth she was replacing the commanding officer of the Stargate program. I'd served under General Hammond for years and in two days I was losing my team and had a new person making decisions on a program she knew nothing about," Sam told her. "We were not easy on her. Now I think I might understand how she must have felt."
"She has only spoken highly of you," Teyla said. "And of your kind heart and dedication to the people you serve with. I do not believe you will prove her wrong."
Sam sighed and looked up at the stars, twinkling between the spires of the city. "Tea you say?"
"Yes."
"That sounds lovely. Thank you, Teyla."
katie_m prompted: Jack O'Neill, Sha're, Asleep on the River of Birds
Substance Clad in Shadow (Sha'uri and Jack and Daniel - sorry, Daniel couldn't stay out) (PG) [1782 words]
The city hums around her as Sha'uri makes her way among the fires. Everyone wants to hear how Ra was destroyed. Everyone who hasn't seen the strangers brought to them by the gods wants to hear about them - their strange coloring and clothing and language, and more than a few want to congratulate her on her marriage to one of the deliverers.
When she finally returns to her father's fire, laden with gifts and well wishes, Danyel and Oneer are still fighting. She sits across from them and listens to the strange rhythms of their words battling back and forth. Danyel looks frustrated and stubborn, Oneer angry, and Sha'uri sighs before setting herself to assembling a small meal for them both. There will be little sleep tonight and they have not yet visited the many feast tables placed throughout the city.
Danyel takes the bread and meat from her with a smile and a "thank you" in her own language and a lingering touch on her fingers that she feels deep in her stomach. Oneer only gives her a curt nod before going back to his argument and she settles back down to watch them. They are loud with their words and gesture wildly with their hands and Sha'uri cannot figure out if they are equals or one is in charge of the other because she sees none of the respect owed to a leader and yet Oneer seems to believe Danyel must do what he wants.
She does not yet know what to make of her new husband nor what he expects from her. A week ago she would have laughed at the prospect of marrying again. After her first husband had died, killed in an accident at the mines barely a year after they were wed, she'd refused to allow her father to find her another. Instead she began studying with the nef'rit - the unattached, wise women who knew of the healing arts and could see beyond.
The visitors - from the gods and yet not - had changed everything. When they had approached the mines and the one with glass before his eyes had refused the honors bestowed him and then knelt to make marks in the sand, she'd seen something shimmer for just a second, above his head. Later that night when her father was determining a suitable gift with which to honor the gods, Sha'uri had insisted it be her, though he had worried a girl past marrying age, one who had already been with a man, would only offend the emissaries. But she had been determined and now her entire world was changed, teetering on a precipice from which she knew not what direction she would take.
"Sha'uri?" she looked up to see Danyel looking at her and listened patiently as he spoke haltingly in her tongue. "In your...here. Husband and wife stay her family? Or go his? What you wish?"
This is not her choice to make, and how strange must his world be (he still insists he is not from the gods, but another place far away) that he must ask. She explains that a couple must set up life near her father's house for a year before choosing a place of their own and he nods and turns back, once again arguing with Oneer, turning when she continues to speak. "But I would see your world," she says. "If you would show me."
It makes him freeze for a second before he shakes his head. "Not safe," he says. "Not...equal judging to you. And there...nothing...there" he looks down, then up, and holds his arms out as though in defeat. "Right I stay?" he asks and it almost scares her how hopeful he looks, and yet a blackness surrounds as though he expects her to push him away.
She laughs and rises, coming over to pull him to his feet and then bring his head down to kiss him - a message he can't misunderstand. His hands reach behind her, as though afraid to use too much strength and she feels him hold the air in his chest as she presses her mouth to his. When she pulls away he blinks and exhales and seems unsteady for the briefest of instants before turning and saying something fast and sharp to Oneer. She keeps her hand in his and watches the other man.
Oneer sits with his back straight and weapon swung over his shoulder and his voice is fierce and angry, all his muscles tense. Across the way she can see Malia - oldest among the nef'rit - considering them carefully and she beckons when she catches Sha'uri's eyes. Sha'rui slips her fingers from Danyel's hand and leaves the two men to their debate.
"He is in danger," Malia tells Sha'uri after cupping her face in her hands - rough skin and fingers twisted with age. "The blackness that clung to him when they arrived has been released during the battle with Ra, but it still circles."
Malia turns Sha'uri's head so she is facing, not Danyel, but Oneer and Sha'uri squints at the air around the man and the smoke rising from the fire, watching it twist and dance as his hands fly in frustration. "Do you see them? They lie and wait and he does not know."
For a second Sha'uri thinks she sees them in the smoke as sparks fly - dark, menacing figures that twist and turn above Oneer's head, diving and surfacing yet never touching and seeming to shy away from the space near Danyel, but they fade again into smoke wavering across the night sky. "They cannot touch him now but they will wait until the chance returns. Your Danyel will stay safe here but Oneer must be protected."
"They are not from this place," Sha'uri insists. "They do not know our ways. Will our protection keep them safe?"
Malia looks at her, nearly-blind eyes blinking in the firelight, and nods her head before shuffling off to a fire surrounded by children who will no doubt listen raptly to one of her stories.
When Sha'uri returns Danyel and Oneer sit in uncomfortable silence, staring into the fire. "I stay," Danyel tells her quietly, offering a tentative smile. "To learn about...this place. And you. But," he waves his hands as though it will make the halting words come. "In my place husband and wife learn first, then wed. We must, um," he says something in his own tongue and then shakes his head at his mistake.
Sha'uri's father comes to take Danyel's hand and drag him away to people who wish to meet his new son and she is left across the fire from Oneer, who stares into the flames with stony silence and for just a second Sha'uri sees the blackness skim closer. In a flash she knows what is needed and springs to her feet, holding her hands out to Oneer and bidding him wait. He waves her off.
She races back to her room, digging in the sack beside her blankets until she comes out with the stone - carried by traders from a place where they say water stretches as far as the eye can see - wrapped carefully in wire, each knot placed to channel the spirit to safekeeping. She brings it out and places it in his hand. He looks down, shakes his head, and tries to hand it back to her but she puts it in his palm, bending his fingers down to close around it.
When he opens his mouth to speak she reaches out a finger to still his lips then lets her hands trail over the weak points where his spirit might leak - across his forehead, before the ears, down the parts of his neck which throb with life, settling over his heart and then down to enclose his hands in her own, amulet trapped inside. She bows her head and whispers a prayer, calling upon the true gods to watch over this man and keep him safe - to drive away the evil that will not release him and the evil he cannot release.
When she steps back he looks up and says something in his tongue before slipping the gift into his pocket. She hopes he understands to always keep it with him.
The next day she stands by Danyel's side as they bring the doorway of the gods into light and Oneer's men step through. At the last step he turns back to look at Danyel. Her husband holds her close as he bids farewell and she watches Oneer's hand stray to his pocket as he steps through and knows he will be safe.
*******
Jack stands next to Daniel, who is barely strong enough to stand and yet refuses to sit, as the women prepare Sha're's body, washing it carefully and anointing it before beginning to wrap her in long lengths of silk. Daniel has barely spoken aside from the occasional word and one sentence to let Jack know that the women singing outside the tent are meant to keep Sha're safe from any evil spirits who might lure her soul away from her body before it can find its way to the afterlife. And to let Jack know that by accompanying him here he is fulfilling the role of the brother Daniel doesn't have.
As the wrappers draw further up Sha're's body Jack feels a weight in his pocket and reaches in to find the stone he has carried for years. As silly as he feels, he's never been able to get himself to leave it behind and now he considers the traces of color in the rock and the winding, curving, spiraling metal cage that surrounds it. Abydos changed him in ways he will never be able to explain. On impulse he reaches forward to place it inside Sha're's right hand.
The old woman standing at Sha're's head - bent nearly double over her cane with eyes so cloudy with cataracts Jack suspects she can't see much of anything - reaches her hand out to stop him so fast he jumps. It's the first movement she's made since they entered the tent. He watches her arthritic knuckles as she has him turn his hand and open the fingers so Sha're's gift rests on his palm and she bends close to examine it. Her breath tickles his skin but she does not touch and for one long minute Jack forgets to breathe until she stands back up and nods.
Jack reaches forward and slides the stone inside Sha're's clenched fist, watching as silk is wound around her hand to hide it from view.
Previous ficlets for this meme:
For I Have Seen The Storm (SG1, G) (Sha're, Jacob Carter/Selmak) (for rydra_wong)
The Promises We Keep (SG1, G) (Sha're, Teal'c) (for sg_fignweton)
Tartan (SG1, PG) (Teal'c, Jonas Quinn) (for beanpot)
Weep Not For The Past (SG1, PG) (Bra'tac, Daniel) (for _minxy_)