Fic: Through an Acre of Fire I Would Travel
This was posted over at DW for the SGA reverse big bang challenge a little while ago, but I thought I'd post it here as well. Mine was in response to a fabulous pic promt byin_the_bottle .
Rating: R. Gen.
Words: 11,700 (posted in two parts)
Huge thanks to kriadydragon , beta extraordinaire! Also, huge thanks to
in_the_bottle for the beautiful image that ired this fic! Takes place in some vague period after the end of the series, so spoilers for all seasons. Warnings for bad language and mentions of painful things done by bad people. Fic title borrowed from the image title which was borrowed from the song Kellswater by Loreena McKennitt.
Summary: It started with a flash of white light and pain. Then nothing.
It started with a flash of white light and pain.
Then nothing.
--
Tarm frowned at the scribbles on the wall. They were wrong. Wrong, wrong, wrong. With a frustrated huff he swiped at the fifteenth line with the underside of his arm, sending it into oblivion. His sleeve was already dusty with that day’s failures and it wasn’t even time for morning meal yet.
Tarm’s frown deepened into a scowl and he resisted the urge to swipe his arm across the entire wall, all three walls, and erase everything. Sometimes the numbers and symbols felt right, like their meaning was there, right in front of him, and all he had to do was keep scribbling. Other times they felt wrong, incomplete, incomprehensible. Taunting.
Tarm filled in a symbol, erased it, put in another. The familiar dull pain throbbed behind his eyes, and he squinted against the weak morning light as he erased again, replaced the symbol with a number, then erased that too.
It wasn’t working. How long had it been since the scribbles felt right? Days. Weeks. Longer, if he was being honest with himself. But he woke every day before full light to work on the wall, pausing to eat only when someone in the village delivered food and stopping for rest only when the night’s shadows covered his work. If even then. He had been eating and sleeping less and less, trying to get more time on the walls, trying to make everything make sense. Last night he hadn’t slept at all. He sat on his sleeping pad and stared at the jumbled writing by the light of his last candle.
Tarm pushed the heels of his hands against his eyes, trying to rub away the dry, gritty feeling there. He was so tired. So very fucking tired.
He couldn’t keep doing this. He was torturing himself, looking for answers where there were none, in numbers and symbols, scrawls and squiggly lines. It was stupid. Stupid. He dropped his hands to his sides. The writing blurred in front of him. He was Tarm and no scribbles on his wall were going to change that.
He was Tarm.
He was Tarm.
“I am - ”
An echoing whoosh from the valley cut him off. For an instant Tarm froze. He didn’t need to cross to his watch tower window to know what that sound meant.
Someone was coming through the ring of the Ancestors.
--
John adjusted his grip on his P-90. M1X-124 was supposedly friendly, a longtime trading partner of the Athosians, but he wasn’t taking any chances.
“Three leaves,” Parrish was saying behind him. “Brownish red with white streaks along the veins.”
“Does the plant provide berries or flowers?” Teyla asked.
“White flowers. Uh, little ones. Tiny,” Parrish said.
When Teyla didn’t respond, John turned. “Problem?”
Teyla shook her head, but she was frowning slightly. “The berry plant is easier to find. The flowered version grows here as well, though the patches can be well hidden. We will save time if we ask the Etharns for its location rather than seek it on our own.”
John cursed. That’s what he had been afraid of. “There’s no way we can -”
“I am sorry, John. If time is important -” And it was. They all knew it was. Biro said Lt. Kelly Alvarez had just six hours left before her poisoning became irreversible. They needed that plant for the antidote and they needed it now. “- then we must meet with the villagers.”
John nodded grimly and strode forward, taking point, trusting Ronon to cover their six. In the middle Teyla would keep an eye on Parrish. The dirt path out of the valley was clear and wide, an obvious road to the village. John’s grip on the P-90 tightened.
They were quiet as they walked. Once or twice Parrish said something to Teyla, but even those words were murmured, easily carried away by the light summer breeze. There were no complaints about the sun, no loud predictions about a fatal allergic reaction to the insects that flew around them, no grousing about how they should have taken a jumper to save time, save energy, save someone’s life because those bugs really looked a lot like bees. Just quiet. It set John’s teeth on edge.
The distant building was at first unassuming. Tall, stone. Probably a turret or steeple attached to a smaller building. They’d seen similar on a half dozen words.
No, not a turret, John corrected himself as they got closer. Freestanding. A room at the top with a large window on one side, facing the direction of the stargate. It looked almost like -
Behind him Parrish whistled low and soft. “Wow.”
A lighthouse?
“It is a watch tower,” Teyla explained. “Unique to the Etharns.”
“Watch tower,” John repeated. “To watch for . . .” But then he filled in the blank on his own. “Wraith.”
Up close the tower was even more impressive - as tall as a five story building, smooth stone bleached white from the elements. John craned his neck to peer at the top. Three stone walls, one wall of solid glass.
“The tower bell is supposed to signal the arrival of traders,” Teyla said with a faint note of confusion. “But I have heard no bell.”
“Could they have stopped manning it?” John asked. He didn’t like inconsistencies.
“Perhaps,” Teyla agreed. But to John’s ears her tone clearly said “No.”
Dammit.
They needed that plant. They needed the villagers to find that plant. But he didn’t know what they were walking into.
John was tempted to send Parrish back. Hell, he wanted to send all three of them back and go on ahead by himself. But he knew Ronon and Teyla wouldn’t leave him. And Parrish was the only one who could identify the parts of the plant they needed and calculate the amount they had to take.
“Fine, we go on,” he said to Teyla and Ronon. “But if this thing starts going sideways, you two take Parrish and get your asses back to the gate. No matter what. I’m not -” going to lose someone else “- playing around here.”
They did go on, more cautiously, as John shifted his P-90 minutely, almost-but-not-quite into position. They were a good hundred yards away before he cast a glance back at the watch tower.
A shadow moved away from the glass.
--
Tarm signaled the village as soon as the strangers emerged from the ring. They obviously weren’t Wraith. Three men and one woman. Dark clothes. Weapons. Sacks. They were most likely traders.
Though.
He stood back from his window and watched them walk up the rise. He’d seen traders before but these people were. . .different. He took a step closer to the window. Then another. The hair at the back of Tarm’s neck prickled.
The four people (team, his brain supplied in a whisper) stopped at the path’s edge. The man in front drew his head back to gaze at the top of the watch tower and Tarm backpedaled from the window in a moment of panic. He didn’t like people. Didn’t like talking to them, interacting with them. People were messy and stupid and they hurt you and -
Tarm’s breath was coming in quick gasps. He stumbled back even farther, tripped and sat on the floor, hard. He plunged his upper body forward so his head was between his drawn up knees. His head hammered to the time of his heart, quick and sharp. It took a long moment to get enough air to chase away the sense of suffocation, then long moments more to get his breathing under control. His heart continued to race as if he were running for his life.
He heard voices outside, muffled by the stone walls, indistinct. He raised his head. The voices were moving away.
Legs shaky, Tarm braced himself against the wall and got himself up. He made his way to the window, pulled by a gravity that was stronger than he was. The team was heading toward the village. He didn’t like people, but there was something about these people, something that gnawed at him like his daily work on the wall.
Tarm rubbed at the spot between his eyes where the headache was worst. He had to erase those damn scribbles. He had to eat something. He had to sleep. He -
He had to know more about those people.
For a moment Tarm was caught in indecision, torn between staying where he was safe and going to the village where he could discern more about these people. His head screamed at him to stay, but his hand twitched toward the doorknob.
He had to know.
Tarm set the automated alert system he’d created for those days when he was too exhausted to watch the ring, then he turned from the window and, for the first time in weeks, descended the tower stairs.
--
The village was peaceful when they got there. Men and women slowly emerged from the squat stone dwellings that dotted the village, starting their day with quiet greetings and easy conversations. Light smoke rose from the central cooking building, and John caught the scent of something salty as it wafted by. The cheers of playing children drifted over from a nearby field.
No weapons. No danger.
And no one looked at all surprised to see them.
“Riah,” Telya said warmly to an approaching woman. “It is good to see you again.”
The woman, short and thin, with graying hair and a soft smile, reached out to clasp Teyla’s shoulder. They briefly touched foreheads. “You as well.”
“We heard no arrival bell,” Teyla said. “We were concerned.”
“All is well. Very well,” Riah said, her smile widening. “Tarm has created a less. . . obvious way to alert the village to comers.”
“Tarm?” Teyla asked.
“Our watcher.”
Teyla raised an eyebrow. “Only one?”
“The duty is no longer shared.” Riah spread her arms in a gesture that conveyed both regret and powerlessness. “He wishes to remain in the tower at all times.”
Teyla still looked puzzled, but John didn’t have the luxury of a longer explanation. The village was safe, his team wasn’t in danger by being there. They had to start searching for that plant. He opened his mouth, but Teyla either sensed his intention or, more likely, came to the same decision.
“Riah,” she said, “we have a need.”
--
Tarm lingered behind a particularly large tree just outside the village center. He was not hiding. Was not. It was a strategic choice, a spot that allowed him to see and hear the newcomers without being seen himself. And anyone who said otherwise was incomparably stupid and shouldn’t be allowed to -
Tarm ducked back into the shadows as the biggest of the strangers swept his gaze across the tree line.
Despite his strategic location, Tarm was missing some of the conversation. Riah was always soft spoken and the strangers didn’t seem inclined to make her speak up. He shifted, pressing his side against the rough bark of the tree while he twisted his head so his ear was just clear of the trunk.
He just barely caught it when the woman said, “Tarm?”
His body jerked, instinctively ready to run, but he clutched the tree and forced himself to stay. The stranger said his name, yes, but her tone was puzzled and the word sounded foreign on her lips. She was tasting the name, testing it. Likely repeating after Riah. She didn’t know him.
The woman went on - something about an ill friend and the help they required finding a plant. Riah’s words were still indistinct but her tone was dismayed, then hopeful. The woman spoke again, then one of the men, then there were sounds of the villagers gathering in the center.
They weren’t traders then, but they might as well have been. They didn’t know him. He didn’t know them. He had equated them with his scribbles before and he did so again now: His sense about both were wrong.
He took a deep, shuddering breath, stepped from the shadow of the tree and turned to go.
“Tarm!” Riah’s voice rang out, so bright with surprise and delight that Tarm winced reflexively.
He turned, an excuse ready - The food delivery was late again - but the words died before they left his lips. The strangers were staring at him.
Tarm took a step back.
One of the strangers, a man in black, took a step forward.
“Rodney?” the man called, his voice filled with astonishment, disbelief.
“I - I-” Tarm swallowed back the rising sense of panic. “I am Tarm!” he shouted back.
Then he bolted.
--
John distantly heard Riah explain in a rush that Tarm had come though the gate during the last harvest, injured and ill with no memory of his past and he -
John took off after him.
“Rodney!” he yelled, following the other man as he crashed through the forest. John tripped over an exposed root, went down hard on one knee. He struggled to his feet cursing the bulkiness of the P-90 and wishing he’d thought to drop it at the village center. He started running again. “Rodney!”
Rodney looked back over his shoulder, eyes wide. John didn’t think it was possible, but he picked up speed.
“Rodney!” John tried again. Then, dammit, “Tarm!”
The other man tripped, going down harder than John had, momentum sending him in a somersault across the forest floor. John pulled out a burst of speed and was on him before he could get up.
“Rodney. . . Rodney. . . Rodney!” John shouted as he fought him, all flailing arms and kicking feet. It took a moment of struggle, but John finally managed to sit on his legs and pin down his hands. He had the weight advantage - Rodney was thin to the point of near frailty. John eased up on the pressure he put on Rodney’s wrists, concerned about snapping the bones in two. But when Rodney immediately began to pull out of his grip, John pressed down again.
Rodney continued to struggle, looking for weakness in John’s hold. “Let me go!” he growled.
“No!” John said with equal ferocity. Under him Rodney fought, throwing his body from side to side in an attempt to dislodge John. “I’m not going to lose you again. I’m not going to let you disappear like -”
And that’s when it hit him.
They’d found Rodney
“Jesus,” John said. And then, because once didn’t seem like enough, “Jesus.”
Something bubbled up and broke through, and for a second John wasn’t completely sure whether he was laughing or sobbing. Under him Rodney went still.
That’s how Ronon and Teyla found them: John laughing so hard he was crying, and Rodney, frozen and wide-eyed, looking at John as if he were insane.
Part two: linziday.livejournal.com/3644.html#cutid1