STARGATE FANFIC: Lifted, Dreamless 2/4 (rated PG-13/Teen)
Lifted, Dreamless 2/4
artwork by magnavox_23
AUTHOR: campylobacter
BETA-READERS: shakespherical & hummingfly67 (any mistakes are mine, they reviewed only the early drafts)
CHALLENGE THEME: Daniel/Vala 2011 Month of Love
CHARACTERS: Vala Mal Doran, Daniel Jackson
PAIRING: Daniel/Vala
CATEGORY: Missing scene; pre-ship
RATING: PG-13/Teen (dub-con nudity)
SPOILERS/TIMELINE: 10x02 "Morpheus"; 8x12 "Prometheus Unbound"
DISCLAIMER: This is Stargate SG-1 fanfic. (Sue me, Brad! Use the money to make the next Stargate movie!)
WORD COUNT: 2667 (Chapter 1)
AUTHOR'S NOTE: I used the UK spell-check dictionary and punctuation for Vala's point of view instead of my native US defaults.
MISSING SCENE: Video surveillance of Daniel undressing Vala
Prologue: Immediately SusceptibleChapter 1: Intensive Scrutiny
'You're not a member of SG-1,' says Cameron to me, sternly asserting the authority conferred to him by his rank as SG-1's commander. 'You're a probationary member of Stargate Command, who'll be subject to some very intensive scrutiny for the next few months.'
'Probationary member' obviously means that I'm not permitted to leave the base without a chaperone, and celebrating said probationary membership with a lunch I volunteer to pay for (with a loan from Daniel against my future share of loot) seems to have caused a bit of tension between him and Cameron. At the dining establishment Teal'c has chosen, Daniel and Cameron keep exchanging pointed glares every time I ask something, whether it's about why our eating implements are called 'chopsticks' when they clearly have no edge for cleaving, or how a worthless slip of paper inside a dry pastry constitutes a fortune.
Despite the team's recent ordeal over nearly sleeping to death and losing several colleagues that way, Samantha does her best to help me feel welcome. She amuses us with an anecdote about levers and fulcrums, demonstrating with chopsticks. When we return to the base, she accompanies me to Daniel's office and shows me how to access the server that archives the SGC's mission videos.
'I guess for now, you can help index some of the unsorted MALP and UAV footage with meta tags that cross-link them with the entire database,' she says, typing in 'boreal forest', 'Sodan' and 'S&R' next to one of the entries as a demonstration. 'It's a little repetitious, but it could help you get acquainted with the team's history. Most are pre-mission recon, but maybe you'll spot a familiar planet.' She instructs me in aspect ratios, filters and codecs with the utmost patience, but I can tell she's eager to return to her lab to prepare for our upcoming journey to the Pegasus Galaxy.
'Thank you,' I tell her as she takes her leave with a quick wave at Daniel, who had immersed himself in a stack of Ancient texts on his desk.
After fifteen minutes of fast-forwarding through a few hours' worth of trees, DHDs, and inclement weather, I hear Daniel snap down his pen in frustration. 'Vala, would you do me a favour and use the headphones? The high-pitched sound is kind of... distracting.'
'Sorry,' I reply, and place the cumbersome apparatus on my head. Daniel gives me a brief smile of gratitude before resuming his work.
Surely there's a shortcut around this monotony. My attention drifts to the deletion queue subdirectory where I find a series of hashed filenames with timestamps predating my first arrival on Earth. They're protected, but become read-only with Daniel's password (which he hasn't bothered to change yet). Running them through one of Samantha's decryption routines yields uncompressed raw footage―
Hello... what have we here?
After some onscreen static with an audio track of what sounds like a man and woman having rough sex, the video image settles on a scene of two people inside the Odyssey ― or perhaps its predecessor, the Prometheus ― fighting in the engine control room. I adjust the tracking and discern familiar voices and faces.
The dark-haired woman onscreen hangs from a ceiling beam and squeezes the man's head between her thighs. Yes, this is security footage from my first fateful encounter with Daniel. I look over my shoulder at him (if I angle myself just so, he can't see what's on the monitor) and at the Daniel onscreen. They hardly seem the same person. My Daniel's quiet and studious, deep in concentration over academic matter. The Daniel in the video is active, defensive and physical. On second thought, I suppose they do share the same intensity and commitment to the moment.
Why would this video have been slated for deletion? I run a file synchronization, per Samantha's instructions; it's not a duplicate. And why had it been encrypted? I glance over at Daniel again. Oh, why even ask? Look at him poring over papers with an adorably studious frown ― he's so keen to learn about the external that he lacks the habit or inclination for revealing anything internal. I wonder if anyone besides him has seen this footage.
Actually, I don't wonder: here's the part where I hauled him up and tried to kiss his injuries better, to which he responded quite satisfyingly with a second peck on the lips, and then a third, which I do remember enjoying immensely before he pried me off and compared me to a Tau'ri dessert. The footage ends after I knocked his skull with mine; he must have deemed what follows but isn't in this file ― video of him zatting me in the rump ― less incriminating for the mission archives than kissing me.
'Vala? Vala!' His voice interrupts my voyeurism, which I hope isn't betrayed on my face as I turn around. 'Hand me that voice recorder, would ya?'
I quickly minimise the video window and take off the headphones to prevent him from rising from his seat, then locate the device on my table after a bit of fumbling.
'Were you falling asleep? I know MALP footage is kinda boring,' he remarks sympathetically as I pass him the recorder. 'I might need some help re-filing―'
'Oh no,' I answer hastily; the stack of folders he's referring to is formidable. 'I'm sure I'm not infected by that sleeping bug,' I explain with a smile, replacing my headset. 'This task's a piece of fruitcake.'
He seems a bit baffled for a moment, but nods and puts in earpieces. 'Piece of cake,' he murmurs, bending over his work again.
I return to my surreptitious video 'recovery' project and sort the decrypted files into chronological order. As a decoy, I open a second viewing window to play UAV footage of rocks and trees and trees and rocks. And water.
The next video file in the sequence is quite long, and begins with him unbuckling the Kull boots on my feet as I lay unconscious on the floor of the brig. Looks as though I'll finally find out if he enjoyed taking off my clothes.
Ouch! I hear in the headset. The Daniel onscreen pulls his hand away and shakes it in pain. I'd hidden a razor in the left boot. He sucks his finger and continues more carefully, muttering imprecations the microphone doesn't pick up clearly.
It's strangely unsettling to see myself unconscious, but my hair looks surprisingly fetching for having been through hand-to-hand combat. Prometheus-Daniel sits back after removing the last boot and spends 63 seconds (according to the control bar) looking - without eyeglasses - over my unmoving body, chewing his lower lip, and wiping the blood from his nose. After a heavy sigh, he tentatively moves aside some of my hair to caress my neck. Actually, on second glance, he's checking my pulse. He then cups his hand above my nose and mouth to check my breathing.
I'm not sure exactly what that suit does, but it sure doesn't absorb zat blasts, he says aloud. No telling how many more knives you've got hidden in that thing. He then rolls me onto my side and brings his face close to the back of my neck, brushing away strands of my hair as though he's looking for a hidden weapon ― or for a scar from a Goa'uld taking me as host.
I find my own hand involuntarily rubbing the back of my neck, and risk a backwards glance. He's tapping the end of his pencil on his lips and staring at a book. I try to remember what his lips tasted like, and can only recall a vague mixture of sweat and blood; the strongest impression I'd taken with me after my escape had been the texture of him: the pliancy of his mouth, the heat of his skin on my fingertips, the firmness of his hands squeezing me before pushing me away, the intensity of his response to each move I made. And now the book in front of him is receiving his full attention.
I slowly turn back to the computer to watch his earlier self trying to unfasten my bodysuit. Tau'ri clothing lacks any closure more sophisticated than buttons, buckles, snaps, ties, fuzzy tape, and 'zippers'; he was stymied by the hidden magnetic coil in the back. His fingers probe the seam along my spine, feeling for a clasp or slider, and I feel a shiver dart down my own back in response. The last man to undress me was Tomin, but somehow, the memory of his touch doesn't have the same effect on me as watching Daniel attempting the act. It's all so strange and new again, revisiting the primal attraction I had for him before I knew anything about him. With marriage, pregnancy, childbirth, and intergalactic doom to change the course of my life, the Vala on my screen seems as remote from me as the MALP footage from unfamiliar planets.
I casually stretch and yawn so that I can steal another glance behind me, in case he's staring, but he's concentrating on fast-forwarding through the recorded audio on his device and listening for a specific cue.
Back on my screen, Daniel tries to pull apart the halves of the bodysuit, but can't find enough slack to grasp; he looks instead to be massaging me.
I try to disguise my snickers by clearing my throat, but the earpieces he's wearing make it unnecessary.
Prometheus-Daniel tries pulling apart the suit from the top again, but succeeds only in jerking around the upper half of my body as though I'm slaughtered game. Sitting back with an exasperated huff, he casts about for the razor from my boot. Gingerly holding its narrow handle, he tries slicing the fabric, but has a predictably rough go at it; Kull suits were designed to be impervious to such assaults.
Maybe I should've made you take it off while you were conscious, he says, scrubbing his hands over his face and through his hair. After a long-suffering sigh, he begins to frisk me, patting everywhere for any lumps or hard places that would indicate a concealed weapon ― scowling in distaste throughout. Perhaps he's not attracted to me after all. He checks my ankles, inserting his fingers under the material, probing slowly, then next my wrists, and then, squeezing his eyes shut, my neckline from shoulders to cleavage, where he finds the demagnetising tool between my breasts. After a minute examination of the tiny disc-shaped instrument, he sets it down and inserts his hand into my back neckline, feeling for more hidden objects.
Dammit. How do you get this thing off? he complains.
Sudden revelation lights up his features as he picks up the demagnetiser and touches it to the upper edge of the back seam. The suit immediately splits open as the polarity reverses on one half of the coil, and the abrupt exposure of skin causes his jaw to drop. A look of sheer fright freezes his face as he stares at my bared back. He seems undecided about what to do next, until with a swift, fluid motion, he yanks the suit off my shoulders and down my arms.
Sitting with my back to his chest, he holds me upright with his left arm and as quickly as possible peels off with his right hand what must have been a damp suit. I suppose he deliberately avoids looking at my front after having ascertained that my breasts aren't of a sufficient size to hold much interest. My body flops heavily against him after he frees my arms from the sleeves and starts pushing the suit off my hips. Resigned to the operation being a two-handed affair, he carefully ― dare I say tenderly? ― eases me to a face-down position on the floor and pulls the suit off my legs. With a tug at each leg of the suit, he frees my feet and tosses the inside-out garment towards the open door of the brig. Then he stands and paces a few steps with his back to my naked body, clearly distressed at his success in stripping me.
A strange gurgling sound jolts him from his embarrassment; he whips around to look down at me, and with a panicked gasp, kneels and cups my face in his hands to straighten my neck. The choking sounds must have resulted from my chin being tucked awkwardly into my chest and my nose being pressed against the floor.
Oh crap, breathe! he blurts as he cradles my head in his lap and strokes the hair from my face. Come on, breathe. Before he can completely position my body for artificial resuscitation, I see my ribs expand with a deep inhalation. He lets a out an audible sigh of relief, and gently arranges me on my side, touching me only enough to ensure that my nose and throat are unobstructed.
As he tucks one of my hands beneath my cheek to elevate my head, he says, You're not faking it, are you? He opens one of my eyelids and squints at the eyeball. Because that would be enough to make anyone conscious again.
Ha! I hadn't eaten in 52 hours when he zatted me, which might explain why nearly suffocating and being manhandled failed to revive me from the maximum stun setting. He snaps his fingers and suddenly proclaims, Dr. Novak! Before leaping up, gathering everything he'd stripped off me, and bounding out of the cell.
So there I lay, inert and naked, for 5:31 minutes before he returns with that horrid, dull blue, baggy one-piece and a pair of boots that had fit surprisingly well. I fast-forward through the unchanging scene. Looking at this dull green one-piece I'm wearing now puts in me in the mind to practice the sewing skills I'd learnt while expecting Adria. Surely, stitching aprons, baby gowns, and sleeping frocks is practice enough for tailoring "battle dress uniforms"?
I check on my real-time Daniel, oblivious to everything but scribbling notes across three sheets of paper. Onscreen-Daniel wastes no time working my legs into the flight suit. His unhurried movements are deliberate yet efficient; his hands aren't lingering on my naked limbs. But he's not wincing in repulsion either, treating my limp body with the same reverence a healer would use to care for a patient, or a mourner to prepare a corpse. I'm suddenly humbled that he'd encrypted and deleted this footage not out of a sense of shame, but from an instinct to protect my dignity. Towards the end of the file, where he cradles my back against his chest again to slide the sleeves onto my arms, he treats me not as a prisoner, but as someone worthy of respect. Even pushing my feet into the boots and taking the time to tighten the laces speaks of his admirable sense of responsibility. When he at last gently eases me onto the floor, brushes the hair from my eyes, and arranges my body in plain view of the surveillance camera, I reconsider my intent to salvage this footage for future extortion. Perhaps it's enough that I've seen it, as though some cosmic force meant it as a challenge.
As vivid as the images onscreen are, the memory of Daniel at my bedside - after discussing with the rest of the team why he'd saved me instead of abducting Adria - play more sharply in my mind.
What're you gonna do with me? I'd asked after the rest of the team had exited the infirmary. What can I do here to help you fight 'the bad guys'?
Well, I'll need some help researching three planets where a weapon powerful enough to defeat the Ori might be located. Maybe later I'll see if I can convince General Landry that you'll be an invaluable asset to us, given your connection to the Orici.
He'd been true to his word.
I delete the decrypted files.
Chapter 2 & Epilogue coming later tonight 8 February evening PST!
artwork by magnavox_23
AUTHOR: campylobacter
BETA-READERS: shakespherical & hummingfly67 (any mistakes are mine, they reviewed only the early drafts)
CHALLENGE THEME: Daniel/Vala 2011 Month of Love
CHARACTERS: Vala Mal Doran, Daniel Jackson
PAIRING: Daniel/Vala
CATEGORY: Missing scene; pre-ship
RATING: PG-13/Teen (dub-con nudity)
SPOILERS/TIMELINE: 10x02 "Morpheus"; 8x12 "Prometheus Unbound"
DISCLAIMER: This is Stargate SG-1 fanfic. (Sue me, Brad! Use the money to make the next Stargate movie!)
WORD COUNT: 2667 (Chapter 1)
AUTHOR'S NOTE: I used the UK spell-check dictionary and punctuation for Vala's point of view instead of my native US defaults.
MISSING SCENE: Video surveillance of Daniel undressing Vala
Prologue: Immediately SusceptibleChapter 1: Intensive Scrutiny
'You're not a member of SG-1,' says Cameron to me, sternly asserting the authority conferred to him by his rank as SG-1's commander. 'You're a probationary member of Stargate Command, who'll be subject to some very intensive scrutiny for the next few months.'
'Probationary member' obviously means that I'm not permitted to leave the base without a chaperone, and celebrating said probationary membership with a lunch I volunteer to pay for (with a loan from Daniel against my future share of loot) seems to have caused a bit of tension between him and Cameron. At the dining establishment Teal'c has chosen, Daniel and Cameron keep exchanging pointed glares every time I ask something, whether it's about why our eating implements are called 'chopsticks' when they clearly have no edge for cleaving, or how a worthless slip of paper inside a dry pastry constitutes a fortune.
Despite the team's recent ordeal over nearly sleeping to death and losing several colleagues that way, Samantha does her best to help me feel welcome. She amuses us with an anecdote about levers and fulcrums, demonstrating with chopsticks. When we return to the base, she accompanies me to Daniel's office and shows me how to access the server that archives the SGC's mission videos.
'I guess for now, you can help index some of the unsorted MALP and UAV footage with meta tags that cross-link them with the entire database,' she says, typing in 'boreal forest', 'Sodan' and 'S&R' next to one of the entries as a demonstration. 'It's a little repetitious, but it could help you get acquainted with the team's history. Most are pre-mission recon, but maybe you'll spot a familiar planet.' She instructs me in aspect ratios, filters and codecs with the utmost patience, but I can tell she's eager to return to her lab to prepare for our upcoming journey to the Pegasus Galaxy.
'Thank you,' I tell her as she takes her leave with a quick wave at Daniel, who had immersed himself in a stack of Ancient texts on his desk.
After fifteen minutes of fast-forwarding through a few hours' worth of trees, DHDs, and inclement weather, I hear Daniel snap down his pen in frustration. 'Vala, would you do me a favour and use the headphones? The high-pitched sound is kind of... distracting.'
'Sorry,' I reply, and place the cumbersome apparatus on my head. Daniel gives me a brief smile of gratitude before resuming his work.
Surely there's a shortcut around this monotony. My attention drifts to the deletion queue subdirectory where I find a series of hashed filenames with timestamps predating my first arrival on Earth. They're protected, but become read-only with Daniel's password (which he hasn't bothered to change yet). Running them through one of Samantha's decryption routines yields uncompressed raw footage―
Hello... what have we here?
After some onscreen static with an audio track of what sounds like a man and woman having rough sex, the video image settles on a scene of two people inside the Odyssey ― or perhaps its predecessor, the Prometheus ― fighting in the engine control room. I adjust the tracking and discern familiar voices and faces.
The dark-haired woman onscreen hangs from a ceiling beam and squeezes the man's head between her thighs. Yes, this is security footage from my first fateful encounter with Daniel. I look over my shoulder at him (if I angle myself just so, he can't see what's on the monitor) and at the Daniel onscreen. They hardly seem the same person. My Daniel's quiet and studious, deep in concentration over academic matter. The Daniel in the video is active, defensive and physical. On second thought, I suppose they do share the same intensity and commitment to the moment.
Why would this video have been slated for deletion? I run a file synchronization, per Samantha's instructions; it's not a duplicate. And why had it been encrypted? I glance over at Daniel again. Oh, why even ask? Look at him poring over papers with an adorably studious frown ― he's so keen to learn about the external that he lacks the habit or inclination for revealing anything internal. I wonder if anyone besides him has seen this footage.
Actually, I don't wonder: here's the part where I hauled him up and tried to kiss his injuries better, to which he responded quite satisfyingly with a second peck on the lips, and then a third, which I do remember enjoying immensely before he pried me off and compared me to a Tau'ri dessert. The footage ends after I knocked his skull with mine; he must have deemed what follows but isn't in this file ― video of him zatting me in the rump ― less incriminating for the mission archives than kissing me.
'Vala? Vala!' His voice interrupts my voyeurism, which I hope isn't betrayed on my face as I turn around. 'Hand me that voice recorder, would ya?'
I quickly minimise the video window and take off the headphones to prevent him from rising from his seat, then locate the device on my table after a bit of fumbling.
'Were you falling asleep? I know MALP footage is kinda boring,' he remarks sympathetically as I pass him the recorder. 'I might need some help re-filing―'
'Oh no,' I answer hastily; the stack of folders he's referring to is formidable. 'I'm sure I'm not infected by that sleeping bug,' I explain with a smile, replacing my headset. 'This task's a piece of fruitcake.'
He seems a bit baffled for a moment, but nods and puts in earpieces. 'Piece of cake,' he murmurs, bending over his work again.
I return to my surreptitious video 'recovery' project and sort the decrypted files into chronological order. As a decoy, I open a second viewing window to play UAV footage of rocks and trees and trees and rocks. And water.
The next video file in the sequence is quite long, and begins with him unbuckling the Kull boots on my feet as I lay unconscious on the floor of the brig. Looks as though I'll finally find out if he enjoyed taking off my clothes.
Ouch! I hear in the headset. The Daniel onscreen pulls his hand away and shakes it in pain. I'd hidden a razor in the left boot. He sucks his finger and continues more carefully, muttering imprecations the microphone doesn't pick up clearly.
It's strangely unsettling to see myself unconscious, but my hair looks surprisingly fetching for having been through hand-to-hand combat. Prometheus-Daniel sits back after removing the last boot and spends 63 seconds (according to the control bar) looking - without eyeglasses - over my unmoving body, chewing his lower lip, and wiping the blood from his nose. After a heavy sigh, he tentatively moves aside some of my hair to caress my neck. Actually, on second glance, he's checking my pulse. He then cups his hand above my nose and mouth to check my breathing.
I'm not sure exactly what that suit does, but it sure doesn't absorb zat blasts, he says aloud. No telling how many more knives you've got hidden in that thing. He then rolls me onto my side and brings his face close to the back of my neck, brushing away strands of my hair as though he's looking for a hidden weapon ― or for a scar from a Goa'uld taking me as host.
I find my own hand involuntarily rubbing the back of my neck, and risk a backwards glance. He's tapping the end of his pencil on his lips and staring at a book. I try to remember what his lips tasted like, and can only recall a vague mixture of sweat and blood; the strongest impression I'd taken with me after my escape had been the texture of him: the pliancy of his mouth, the heat of his skin on my fingertips, the firmness of his hands squeezing me before pushing me away, the intensity of his response to each move I made. And now the book in front of him is receiving his full attention.
I slowly turn back to the computer to watch his earlier self trying to unfasten my bodysuit. Tau'ri clothing lacks any closure more sophisticated than buttons, buckles, snaps, ties, fuzzy tape, and 'zippers'; he was stymied by the hidden magnetic coil in the back. His fingers probe the seam along my spine, feeling for a clasp or slider, and I feel a shiver dart down my own back in response. The last man to undress me was Tomin, but somehow, the memory of his touch doesn't have the same effect on me as watching Daniel attempting the act. It's all so strange and new again, revisiting the primal attraction I had for him before I knew anything about him. With marriage, pregnancy, childbirth, and intergalactic doom to change the course of my life, the Vala on my screen seems as remote from me as the MALP footage from unfamiliar planets.
I casually stretch and yawn so that I can steal another glance behind me, in case he's staring, but he's concentrating on fast-forwarding through the recorded audio on his device and listening for a specific cue.
Back on my screen, Daniel tries to pull apart the halves of the bodysuit, but can't find enough slack to grasp; he looks instead to be massaging me.
I try to disguise my snickers by clearing my throat, but the earpieces he's wearing make it unnecessary.
Prometheus-Daniel tries pulling apart the suit from the top again, but succeeds only in jerking around the upper half of my body as though I'm slaughtered game. Sitting back with an exasperated huff, he casts about for the razor from my boot. Gingerly holding its narrow handle, he tries slicing the fabric, but has a predictably rough go at it; Kull suits were designed to be impervious to such assaults.
Maybe I should've made you take it off while you were conscious, he says, scrubbing his hands over his face and through his hair. After a long-suffering sigh, he begins to frisk me, patting everywhere for any lumps or hard places that would indicate a concealed weapon ― scowling in distaste throughout. Perhaps he's not attracted to me after all. He checks my ankles, inserting his fingers under the material, probing slowly, then next my wrists, and then, squeezing his eyes shut, my neckline from shoulders to cleavage, where he finds the demagnetising tool between my breasts. After a minute examination of the tiny disc-shaped instrument, he sets it down and inserts his hand into my back neckline, feeling for more hidden objects.
Dammit. How do you get this thing off? he complains.
Sudden revelation lights up his features as he picks up the demagnetiser and touches it to the upper edge of the back seam. The suit immediately splits open as the polarity reverses on one half of the coil, and the abrupt exposure of skin causes his jaw to drop. A look of sheer fright freezes his face as he stares at my bared back. He seems undecided about what to do next, until with a swift, fluid motion, he yanks the suit off my shoulders and down my arms.
Sitting with my back to his chest, he holds me upright with his left arm and as quickly as possible peels off with his right hand what must have been a damp suit. I suppose he deliberately avoids looking at my front after having ascertained that my breasts aren't of a sufficient size to hold much interest. My body flops heavily against him after he frees my arms from the sleeves and starts pushing the suit off my hips. Resigned to the operation being a two-handed affair, he carefully ― dare I say tenderly? ― eases me to a face-down position on the floor and pulls the suit off my legs. With a tug at each leg of the suit, he frees my feet and tosses the inside-out garment towards the open door of the brig. Then he stands and paces a few steps with his back to my naked body, clearly distressed at his success in stripping me.
A strange gurgling sound jolts him from his embarrassment; he whips around to look down at me, and with a panicked gasp, kneels and cups my face in his hands to straighten my neck. The choking sounds must have resulted from my chin being tucked awkwardly into my chest and my nose being pressed against the floor.
Oh crap, breathe! he blurts as he cradles my head in his lap and strokes the hair from my face. Come on, breathe. Before he can completely position my body for artificial resuscitation, I see my ribs expand with a deep inhalation. He lets a out an audible sigh of relief, and gently arranges me on my side, touching me only enough to ensure that my nose and throat are unobstructed.
As he tucks one of my hands beneath my cheek to elevate my head, he says, You're not faking it, are you? He opens one of my eyelids and squints at the eyeball. Because that would be enough to make anyone conscious again.
Ha! I hadn't eaten in 52 hours when he zatted me, which might explain why nearly suffocating and being manhandled failed to revive me from the maximum stun setting. He snaps his fingers and suddenly proclaims, Dr. Novak! Before leaping up, gathering everything he'd stripped off me, and bounding out of the cell.
So there I lay, inert and naked, for 5:31 minutes before he returns with that horrid, dull blue, baggy one-piece and a pair of boots that had fit surprisingly well. I fast-forward through the unchanging scene. Looking at this dull green one-piece I'm wearing now puts in me in the mind to practice the sewing skills I'd learnt while expecting Adria. Surely, stitching aprons, baby gowns, and sleeping frocks is practice enough for tailoring "battle dress uniforms"?
I check on my real-time Daniel, oblivious to everything but scribbling notes across three sheets of paper. Onscreen-Daniel wastes no time working my legs into the flight suit. His unhurried movements are deliberate yet efficient; his hands aren't lingering on my naked limbs. But he's not wincing in repulsion either, treating my limp body with the same reverence a healer would use to care for a patient, or a mourner to prepare a corpse. I'm suddenly humbled that he'd encrypted and deleted this footage not out of a sense of shame, but from an instinct to protect my dignity. Towards the end of the file, where he cradles my back against his chest again to slide the sleeves onto my arms, he treats me not as a prisoner, but as someone worthy of respect. Even pushing my feet into the boots and taking the time to tighten the laces speaks of his admirable sense of responsibility. When he at last gently eases me onto the floor, brushes the hair from my eyes, and arranges my body in plain view of the surveillance camera, I reconsider my intent to salvage this footage for future extortion. Perhaps it's enough that I've seen it, as though some cosmic force meant it as a challenge.
As vivid as the images onscreen are, the memory of Daniel at my bedside - after discussing with the rest of the team why he'd saved me instead of abducting Adria - play more sharply in my mind.
What're you gonna do with me? I'd asked after the rest of the team had exited the infirmary. What can I do here to help you fight 'the bad guys'?
Well, I'll need some help researching three planets where a weapon powerful enough to defeat the Ori might be located. Maybe later I'll see if I can convince General Landry that you'll be an invaluable asset to us, given your connection to the Orici.
He'd been true to his word.
I delete the decrypted files.
Chapter 2 & Epilogue coming later tonight 8 February evening PST!