Remembrance, by Kiara Sayre; 38 Minutes Entry
Title: Remembrance
Author: Kiara Sayre
Length: 1,161 words
Challenge: 38 Minutes
Category: Gen
Rating: Mature content--violence, a few swear words, drinking
Summary: Some days are made for remembrance.
Notes: Can be read with or without my other 38 Minutes entry, 'Ankhs'. Makes a bit more sense with, but can be a standalone, too. Takes place two days after the events of "Hot Zone". Written in 37 minutes.
Almost anyone who ever worked at the SGC could easily pick a worst day of the year; the sixth of February. It isn’t Aiden Ford’s first February sixth away from home, nor, for that matter, is it his first February sixth off-world; but the others were different, somehow. Not somehow, actually-for the others he had his team. Not that he doesn’t appreciate being on a team with Major Sheppard, Teyla, and McKay, of course not-it’s an opportunity he appreciates greatly-but for some reason, AR-1 isn’t his team as much as it’s the team he happens to belong to, and that lends itself to making February 6, 2005 a rather miserable day.
He, like a dutiful Marine, had breakfast with his team-a quick, rather tense affair-followed by a quick, rather depressing conversation with McKay before he allowed himself to retreat into his room.
That’s where he is now, staring at the ceiling and remembering. He glances at his watch, re-tooled for Atlantean time, and reasons to himself that he should probably go have lunch, even if he doesn’t feel like moving.
Five years ago today. He can’t help but remembering the tiniest, most random things. The fluctuations in the even horizon. The sound of Doctor Jackson’s boots against the ramp as he made his way to the podium to make his short, meaningful speech about how SG-5 at least enjoyed their last days, and as long as we remember them, they’ll be alive. The wreath being swallowed by the blue and white of the wormhole as the SGC said goodbye to a well-liked and deeply-mourned team.
That’s when it started-the February sixth tradition. After the memorial service, half the SGC had migrated to the commissary and just…talked. Told stories. Most people at the SGC, even the ones who didn’t go offworld, had or knew stories to tell about people they had lost. Almost half of the SG teams at the time, a quarter of the nursing staff, five archeologists, and twelve engineers or Gate technicians sat in the hard plastic chairs swapping stories about their friends, acquaintances, or, in the unique case of Doctor Mikado, spouses.
The next year, SG-3 was offworld on February sixth, snowed in on a mission-gone-wrong. As Ford and Greene began digging themselves out of their shelter, Gomez started talking about the time Roberts had gotten drunk and proposed to her, half a year before he went through the Gate and never came back. When they returned to Earth two days later, Doctor Jackson told them they had missed quite the party on February sixth, again in the commissary.
The year after that, Anne Warren, Major Warren’s wife, insisted on hosting, even though her husband had been skinned alive and stabbed through the heart by Sakhmet’s Jaffa only a few months prior. Everyone got quite teary that time, especially when Ford himself began recounting Warren’s Last Stand, which had been recorded by a Goa’uld device in a corner. Even as the Jaffa peeled his skin off of his body, he swore fluently and creatively in Goa’uld, and as Sakhmet herself put the knife through his chest, he spent his defiant last words describing his death-‘del shakka mel’. ‘I die free’.
The next year, Doctor Jackson hosted in his new home. The entire nursing staff came, and when Katrina Loyole broke down halfway through her story of Johnson feeling Janet Fraiser up while he was infected with the Neanderthal virus, more than a few drunken hugs were given.
And now Ford was here-Atlantis. He wishes to hell he was home, so he could pass Reynolds a beer and listen to Newman recount the story of Dixon and his floppy orange-yellow hat-thing. Instead, Ford lays on his bed, pretending he isn’t crying as the last conversation he had with Richie Barber plays through his head.
But he should go get lunch.
He sits up and miserably wipes away the tears that aren’t there before he pulls on his Grinnell sweatshirt and goes to the mess hall. He enters and hopes to God that his team isn’t expecting him to sit with them, since now the image of his flayed CO is semitransparent and just beneath what his eyes are showing him.
He’s somewhat surprised to hear laughter-some of it drunken-as he looks around and spots the offending group. It’s fairly large, a good fifty people sitting around a bunch of tables pushed together, scientists and Marines alike-even Nurse Loyole is there, looking completely snockered as she giggles helplessly and oh.
That’s what this is.
Ford feels like an idiot for a moment, before he grabs a sandwich and some water and walks towards them.
Kavanaugh looks up, and even though Ford thinks Kavanaugh’s a pretentious bastard with a stick up his ass the size of Rhode Island and Kavanaugh assumes Ford is nothing but a jarhead built to take orders, Kavanaugh scoots his chair aside and makes rapid flapping motions at Miyagi to do the same. She does, smiles feebly at the Lieutenant, and Ford grabs a chair from another table and joins them. He knows the story that’s being told; LeBeau is recounting the time SG-1 had a shared hallucination-working surveillance at the SGC has its perks, she adds after describing the image of a large, black, muscular former First Prime of Apophis chugging boiling-hot chickory coffee as though he was a freshman frat boy. Ford looks around and can’t help but note that it’s only the nonmilitary personnel who are drinking, since these days nobody is ever truly on stand-down, not when the Wraith can come at any minute. But those beakers are well and truly smashed.
The story winds to a close with SG-1 coming back through the Stargate with no memory of what happened on the other side, and Doctor Webster, linguist for two years at the SGC, damn her, looks at Ford with a glint of pure evil in her eye.
“So, Lieutenant,” she drawls, swirling her Athosian moonshine. “I seem to remember a tradition of you telling the story of P6X-929.”
As he blushes, Ford, in some numb part of his mind, notes how the snickers echo well in the mess hall. He downs the rest of his water and leans forward conspiratorially.
“Well,” he says. He can almost see Monroe giggling into her fist every time he starts this story, and Greene rolling his eyes and starting loudly on about how it’s overrated. “It started with SG-5 out on a regular recon. The UAV was normal and all, but when they got to the planet, there was this huge temple it had missed…”
He continues with the story, and as he watches the faces before him pale, distort with suppressed laughter, and start with surprise at the appropriate places, he wonders if maybe, just maybe, he’ll be okay here after all.
And he doesn’t even have to deal with Monroe calling him ‘Lazarus’, either.
Author: Kiara Sayre
Length: 1,161 words
Challenge: 38 Minutes
Category: Gen
Rating: Mature content--violence, a few swear words, drinking
Summary: Some days are made for remembrance.
Notes: Can be read with or without my other 38 Minutes entry, 'Ankhs'. Makes a bit more sense with, but can be a standalone, too. Takes place two days after the events of "Hot Zone". Written in 37 minutes.
Almost anyone who ever worked at the SGC could easily pick a worst day of the year; the sixth of February. It isn’t Aiden Ford’s first February sixth away from home, nor, for that matter, is it his first February sixth off-world; but the others were different, somehow. Not somehow, actually-for the others he had his team. Not that he doesn’t appreciate being on a team with Major Sheppard, Teyla, and McKay, of course not-it’s an opportunity he appreciates greatly-but for some reason, AR-1 isn’t his team as much as it’s the team he happens to belong to, and that lends itself to making February 6, 2005 a rather miserable day.
He, like a dutiful Marine, had breakfast with his team-a quick, rather tense affair-followed by a quick, rather depressing conversation with McKay before he allowed himself to retreat into his room.
That’s where he is now, staring at the ceiling and remembering. He glances at his watch, re-tooled for Atlantean time, and reasons to himself that he should probably go have lunch, even if he doesn’t feel like moving.
Five years ago today. He can’t help but remembering the tiniest, most random things. The fluctuations in the even horizon. The sound of Doctor Jackson’s boots against the ramp as he made his way to the podium to make his short, meaningful speech about how SG-5 at least enjoyed their last days, and as long as we remember them, they’ll be alive. The wreath being swallowed by the blue and white of the wormhole as the SGC said goodbye to a well-liked and deeply-mourned team.
That’s when it started-the February sixth tradition. After the memorial service, half the SGC had migrated to the commissary and just…talked. Told stories. Most people at the SGC, even the ones who didn’t go offworld, had or knew stories to tell about people they had lost. Almost half of the SG teams at the time, a quarter of the nursing staff, five archeologists, and twelve engineers or Gate technicians sat in the hard plastic chairs swapping stories about their friends, acquaintances, or, in the unique case of Doctor Mikado, spouses.
The next year, SG-3 was offworld on February sixth, snowed in on a mission-gone-wrong. As Ford and Greene began digging themselves out of their shelter, Gomez started talking about the time Roberts had gotten drunk and proposed to her, half a year before he went through the Gate and never came back. When they returned to Earth two days later, Doctor Jackson told them they had missed quite the party on February sixth, again in the commissary.
The year after that, Anne Warren, Major Warren’s wife, insisted on hosting, even though her husband had been skinned alive and stabbed through the heart by Sakhmet’s Jaffa only a few months prior. Everyone got quite teary that time, especially when Ford himself began recounting Warren’s Last Stand, which had been recorded by a Goa’uld device in a corner. Even as the Jaffa peeled his skin off of his body, he swore fluently and creatively in Goa’uld, and as Sakhmet herself put the knife through his chest, he spent his defiant last words describing his death-‘del shakka mel’. ‘I die free’.
The next year, Doctor Jackson hosted in his new home. The entire nursing staff came, and when Katrina Loyole broke down halfway through her story of Johnson feeling Janet Fraiser up while he was infected with the Neanderthal virus, more than a few drunken hugs were given.
And now Ford was here-Atlantis. He wishes to hell he was home, so he could pass Reynolds a beer and listen to Newman recount the story of Dixon and his floppy orange-yellow hat-thing. Instead, Ford lays on his bed, pretending he isn’t crying as the last conversation he had with Richie Barber plays through his head.
But he should go get lunch.
He sits up and miserably wipes away the tears that aren’t there before he pulls on his Grinnell sweatshirt and goes to the mess hall. He enters and hopes to God that his team isn’t expecting him to sit with them, since now the image of his flayed CO is semitransparent and just beneath what his eyes are showing him.
He’s somewhat surprised to hear laughter-some of it drunken-as he looks around and spots the offending group. It’s fairly large, a good fifty people sitting around a bunch of tables pushed together, scientists and Marines alike-even Nurse Loyole is there, looking completely snockered as she giggles helplessly and oh.
That’s what this is.
Ford feels like an idiot for a moment, before he grabs a sandwich and some water and walks towards them.
Kavanaugh looks up, and even though Ford thinks Kavanaugh’s a pretentious bastard with a stick up his ass the size of Rhode Island and Kavanaugh assumes Ford is nothing but a jarhead built to take orders, Kavanaugh scoots his chair aside and makes rapid flapping motions at Miyagi to do the same. She does, smiles feebly at the Lieutenant, and Ford grabs a chair from another table and joins them. He knows the story that’s being told; LeBeau is recounting the time SG-1 had a shared hallucination-working surveillance at the SGC has its perks, she adds after describing the image of a large, black, muscular former First Prime of Apophis chugging boiling-hot chickory coffee as though he was a freshman frat boy. Ford looks around and can’t help but note that it’s only the nonmilitary personnel who are drinking, since these days nobody is ever truly on stand-down, not when the Wraith can come at any minute. But those beakers are well and truly smashed.
The story winds to a close with SG-1 coming back through the Stargate with no memory of what happened on the other side, and Doctor Webster, linguist for two years at the SGC, damn her, looks at Ford with a glint of pure evil in her eye.
“So, Lieutenant,” she drawls, swirling her Athosian moonshine. “I seem to remember a tradition of you telling the story of P6X-929.”
As he blushes, Ford, in some numb part of his mind, notes how the snickers echo well in the mess hall. He downs the rest of his water and leans forward conspiratorially.
“Well,” he says. He can almost see Monroe giggling into her fist every time he starts this story, and Greene rolling his eyes and starting loudly on about how it’s overrated. “It started with SG-5 out on a regular recon. The UAV was normal and all, but when they got to the planet, there was this huge temple it had missed…”
He continues with the story, and as he watches the faces before him pale, distort with suppressed laughter, and start with surprise at the appropriate places, he wonders if maybe, just maybe, he’ll be okay here after all.
And he doesn’t even have to deal with Monroe calling him ‘Lazarus’, either.