[Stargate SG-1] (PG)
Author's Note: Written for < lj user="fic_promptly"> SG-1, Vala (no ship), what triggers her breakdown during Unending. I'd just seen that episode and that moment frankly broke my heart.
Here she was, trapped on a ship with a killing blast slowly creeping toward it, and in the meantime, she was dying bit by bit.
Here she was, light years across the galaxy from every planet that she found familiar, dare she say, everything that felt like home, though her definition of home was not about to grace a painting by that silly Tau'ri artist Norman Rockwell or those similarly twee wood carvings by the artists on Procyon-5. Sure, their fancy Asgard gadgets could slow down time to a crawl and provide them with whatever physical needs could supply, but that meant everything else was Out There, while she sat stuck In Here. The crew from SG-1 might have taken her in and made her one of their own, and Daniel -- dear, dense, fusty, lovable Daniel -- had stuck up for her time and again, but she was still far away from where she had come from, what roots she had in the worlds beyond. She had friends she might not have seen much of, former lovers and former contacts, since she had started helping the Tau'ri, but now the chances of seeing them had dropped to zero. She would have welcomed the sight of even the ones who couldn't handle her cleverness: at least it would be someone beyond the handle of humans stuck with her.
She was accustomed to going where the mood took her, or where she could find some little job she enjoyed, some trinket she could relieve from its unappreciative owners. But now she could go no further than the inside of this one ship, as large as it was. She used to traverse galaxies, now she could only traverse the same hallways and cabins over and over again, day after day, week after week, month after month.
That left her feeling more trapped than knowing she could not leave this ship for a very long time, if ever. She could roar and pound the walls, but that would do no good. All she could do was curl up on her bed and howl to the darkness, the restlessness and the boredom too big to fit inside her any more.
Here she was, trapped on a ship with a killing blast slowly creeping toward it, and in the meantime, she was dying bit by bit.
Here she was, light years across the galaxy from every planet that she found familiar, dare she say, everything that felt like home, though her definition of home was not about to grace a painting by that silly Tau'ri artist Norman Rockwell or those similarly twee wood carvings by the artists on Procyon-5. Sure, their fancy Asgard gadgets could slow down time to a crawl and provide them with whatever physical needs could supply, but that meant everything else was Out There, while she sat stuck In Here. The crew from SG-1 might have taken her in and made her one of their own, and Daniel -- dear, dense, fusty, lovable Daniel -- had stuck up for her time and again, but she was still far away from where she had come from, what roots she had in the worlds beyond. She had friends she might not have seen much of, former lovers and former contacts, since she had started helping the Tau'ri, but now the chances of seeing them had dropped to zero. She would have welcomed the sight of even the ones who couldn't handle her cleverness: at least it would be someone beyond the handle of humans stuck with her.
She was accustomed to going where the mood took her, or where she could find some little job she enjoyed, some trinket she could relieve from its unappreciative owners. But now she could go no further than the inside of this one ship, as large as it was. She used to traverse galaxies, now she could only traverse the same hallways and cabins over and over again, day after day, week after week, month after month.
That left her feeling more trapped than knowing she could not leave this ship for a very long time, if ever. She could roar and pound the walls, but that would do no good. All she could do was curl up on her bed and howl to the darkness, the restlessness and the boredom too big to fit inside her any more.