The Roots That Clutch - Part Four
Written for the Apocalypse Kree ficathon
Part Four
The Alkesh settled gently onto the ground and Vala felt the slight bump as they landed on the solid ground. She could hear the footsteps and energised voices of everyone else on board heading towards the exits.
“We’re home,” Daniel said simply and offered a hand to help her up. “Shall we?” he asked and she nodded once, accepted his hand and then followed him through the ship with more than a little trepidation.
The first thing Vala noticed when she stepped off the ship was the sound of children. There were a lot of children running up the hill towards them and followed by a smaller group of adults. Some of the children were attached to specific adults (there was no mistaking Harriman’s daughter for example, she even had the same glasses as her Dad, where the heck did they get glasses from?), but a lot more seemed to just be around in a kind of swarm that ricocheted excitedly between different adults.
Vala was surprised to see a toddler reaching eagerly for Sam from the arms of a young woman who was trying to simultaneously keep hold of the squirming child with one arm and hug Janet with the other. Siler was being greeted by his wife and four children. Teal’c was greeted by someone who could only be his son. Even Jack walked confidently across to a gangly teenage boy to clap him on the shoulder and then crouch down to get swamped by the horde of children. Daniel appeared to be the only one without anyone running to greet him, at least at first. Eventually attention was turned to him and hands were waved and at least one small child wrapped his arms briefly around Daniel’s thigh, but there were no desperately clinging embraces coming his way. Beyond the crowd of people saying hello Vala could see a cluster of wooden houses, surrounded by a scattering of cultivated fields that blended into woodland. Birds sang in the trees, crickets chirped in the long grasses and in general the sight was very green.
The group slowly turned and walked down away from the Alkesh. Daniel amongst them and Vala followed a little way behind him for lack of anything better to do. She received many curious looks from the planet’s residents, but no malicious or even suspicious look came her way. Apparently having the trust of this handful of people was enough for everyone else to accept her without question. It was Daniel that dropped back to keep her company after a little way. There was a track that led the way through walled fields, some with crops growing in them and some with groups of an unfamiliar animal that looked at Vala with the uncomprehending eyes of a creature whose only concern was finding the best patch of grass. There were yet more people in the village, apparently not everyone had run up to the Alkesh to welcome the returning heroes and there were more shouted greetings and waves.
“Home,” Daniel said proudly with a gesture of his arm to encompass the village as they got closer to it.
“This is your base? But Sam said you’d fallen out and were rebels.”
“We are. This is home. The base at the Alpha site is a different place.” Daniel looked at her and weighed something up before he started explaining further. “Our world was going to end. We knew it was coming. We, our team, had been evacuated to the Alpha site along with earth’s best and brightest. Sam and I were still working on finding a way to prevent the end. Jack was supposed to take command of the Alpha site, but he had other ideas. He didn’t know how to fight directly; I don’t think there was a way. He and Teal’c disappeared from the base. We didn’t know where they’d gone, but we were working so hard that it wasn’t important. It was all for nothing because the end came anyway. Then, amidst the despair and grief Jack and Teal’c appeared again. They had an Alkesh. I still don’t know where he’d got it from, but he’d taken it to earth and contacted a bunch of people and told them to get to Colorado and then filled it with even more people. As many as he could.”
“You saved your family and friends?”
Daniel nodded, “And as many other people as we could. We had a chance that no one else on our planet did. There was nothing we could do to prevent the destruction and we couldn’t save everyone. Wouldn’t most people have done the same?”
The question was clearly rhetorical so Vala didn’t answer. He seemed to be attempting to justify their choice and she suspected that she was the first true outsider to see this place. Daniel’s eternal empathy ensured that he would always see things from other peoples perspectives whether he wanted to or not and he feared that they would be judged harshly. The very fact that he cared about Vala’s opinion both amused her and pulled at something deep inside her. Daniel didn’t know her, but he assumed a lot of things, good things. A part of Vala wanted to knock his expectations down from the foundations so that there was never a chance she had to live up to them. She was controlling that urge now and taking the opportunity to dabble in the idea that she was a good person.
After a few quiet seconds Daniel went on with the story, “Those in charge of our base were livid with him for bringing more people to the base. Then they were angry with us when we stood by him. They wanted us to give up and stagnate on that base. So we left and came here.”
He stopped talking and frowned at the village thoughtfully.
“Why do you even leave?” She asked him.
He smiled wryly and glanced at her, “We have to fight on.” He said it in a joking tone of voice, but there was a level of seriousness there as well.
“You guys are all crazy,” Vala informed him in a stage whisper and got a genuine smile for her efforts.
“Aah, Vala,” Janet was calling and doubling back in the crowd, “how about we give your burn a new dressing before the celebrations start?”
“Celebrations?”
“Oh yeah,” Daniel said, “Welcome home party, we don’t need much of an excuse.”
Janet gestured to a small building a little way up the hill and Vala followed her. There was a bench along the wall of the building and Vala took a seat while Janet disappeared inside for a minute and then reappeared with gloves and supplies.
“There are a lot of people,” Vala commented as she pulled her shirt up. There seemed to be even more now that they were all gathered in the village’s centre and bearing large quantities of food and drink. Janet nodded to her and peeled the existing bandage off. Vala winced as the odd bit of scab snagged on the gauze.
“Some of them came with us from earth, a lot of them in fact and others we just picked up along the way.”
“The best and brightest,” Vala said, remembering the phrase that Daniel had used earlier.
Janet shook her head, “These weren’t. Well the Colonel, Sam, Daniel, Teal’c, Harriman, Siler and I were lucky enough to be evacuated, but the rest of those who came with us from earth weren’t. Jack rescued them.” She tied the new bandage snugly and stepped back from Vala a little to admire her handiwork. Vala rolled her shirt back down, but remained sitting on the bench for the moment.
“Jack got into trouble for that, a lot of trouble. The Alpha site had limited resources and a strict limit on who could be evacuated there, which sort of made sense when it was a theory.” She sat down next to Vala on the bench and looked down across the gathering that was looking like graduating into a party sooner rather than later.
“In practice we couldn’t live with the thought that we’d done anything other than save as many lives as possible. Better for a hundred to survive and struggle than for fifty to live in relative comfort.”
“And all the children?”
“Some of them are from earth, but a lot of them we’ve just collected along the way. Like Lise,” Janet said with a nod towards the toddler who was currently standing in Sam’s lap and conversing intently with her about whatever it was that was vitally important when you were three years old. “They stopped off at a planet they’d visited before in the hope of reaching an agreement whereby they could trade for use of their naquadah refining facilities only to find that the planet had changed hands and the new ruling Goa’uld had slaughtered the inhabitants as an example. Sam found Lise in the ruins of what had once been a busy town. They only found a handful of survivors on the entire planet and they couldn’t exactly leave them.” Janet pointed next to the gangly teenage boy that Vala recognised from earlier, who was demonstrating his skills with a Bashaak to Jack. “Kirlnor’s parents were murdered and he was on the verge of pledging his allegiance to the Goa’uld responsible and receiving his first prim’ta when Jack and Teal’c interrupted. Not intentionally. They were looking for something entirely different, but they freed him from a life of slavery. R’yac is visiting for a short while and when he leaves Kirlnor will go with him to work with the rebel Jaffa.”
Vala looked at her newly bandaged ribs, “Where do you get antiseptic from?”
Janet paused before she answered, “We have some friends. They were supposed to protect us, but they couldn’t. When we explained our intentions of settling down here they gave us some gifts. We can make what medical supplies we need, including tretonin for Teal’c. You must have heard of that. They also helped us set up home here and made sure we weren’t going to starve in our first winter. Then they respected us enough to leave us alone,” Janet answered carefully.
“It doesn’t exactly make up for not protecting you and letting your world get destroyed.”
Janet pressed her lips together into a thin, pale line and shook her head, “No, it doesn’t.”
~~~
The party wasn’t that bad. There was food, drink and music of a fashion (Siler started singing). Vala ate a great deal and avoided the alcohol. She lingered by the fire as slowly people began to turn in and wondered if there was a spare bed handy.
As the evening wore on the group around the fire shrunk. Siler and Harriman wandered off with their respective wives. Jacob and George both claimed an old man’s right to an early night, though they stood together a little way from the fire talking quietly together before going their separate ways to bed. Cassie collected the soundly sleeping Lise from Janet’s lap and carried her to their cottage. The Colonel’s ex-wife (now that was complicated) was one of the earlier ones to bid them goodnight. Sam’s brother waved good night to them and others, many that Vala couldn’t remember the names of, departed too until there was only the Colonel, Teal’c, Daniel, Sam, Janet and herself sitting around the fire. It was dark and quiet and Vala’s side hurt. Perhaps she should have turned in a long time ago, but there was something mesmerising about the energy of this group. Daniel had a stick and he occasionally poked the fire as he gazed thoughtfully, almost moodily, into the flames, Vala watched him the most. The Colonel was slouched deep in a chair and gazing intently up at the stars above them, looking for something. Sam was sitting on the cool ground with her head on Janet’s knee, she was a tangled collection of gathered limbs and her eyes were closed, but she wasn’t asleep. Janet sat up on one of the benches around the fire with her fingers in Sam’s hair and her attention focussed on the woman at her knee. Teal’c watched the others and shared a knowing glance with Vala at the scene. This wasn’t boredom and this wasn’t waiting, rather it was relishing and savouring a short period of time.
It was the Colonel who broke the moment, moving suddenly and sitting upright. He rubbed his face and glanced at the fire and then the sky again.
“It’s late,” He declared and pushed himself up out of the chair with unconsciously exaggerated difficulty and stiffness.
“We can make up a bed on a bench,” Janet offered Vala from across the circle, “or we’ll kick Cassie out, one of the two.” The last suggestion sounded like a joke, but at least the problem of where to sleep had been solved.
Vala got up from her seat and followed the two women away from the fire. Sam had tight hold of Janet’s hand and they were walking almost as if they were joined together. It had been obvious they were a couple on the ship, but here on the planet it was at a whole different level. There was much more physical contact. Vala stopped and looked back at the abandoned fire. Teal’c had walked one way, following R’yac’s earlier path and Jack and Daniel were walking companionably towards a small cottage together. Jack was the one who appeared to have rescued all the others who made up the village and Daniel was one of the most caring people Vala had yet to meet. Yet, he and Daniel seemed to be the ones who were alone.
“They’ve lost a lot over the years,” Sam said at Vala’s elbow, nearly making her jump. She stepped up to her side and watched with her.
“They don’t have anyone?”
“It works though, they’re okay.”
In the end it was Lise who was put out by Vala’s visit. Not that the little girl so much as stirred when Janet scooped her up from the bed and carried her into Sam and hers bedroom to settle her down in there instead. Cassie tugged an extra blanket from a cupboard and chucked it across to Sam, who caught it and then hovered over Vala as she eased herself gingerly onto the bed.
“It isn’t the Ritz,” she said apologetically.
“What’s the Ritz?”
“Uh, never mind. You got everything you need?”
Vala nodded, “Night.”
“Night,” Sam told her and disappeared into the bedroom.
~~~
A three year old in the two roomed house made sleeping in impossible, but Vala tried. She squeezed her eyes shut and pushed her face down into the pillow. Around her she heard the normal sounds of a morning, those processes common to humans all over the galaxy; the early morning toilet dash followed by a quest for food. Only when she heard the sound of frying and smelled cooking did she stir and feign waking up. Janet smiled at her knowingly and indicated the bathroom outside. Vala wandered in the direction indicated and paused to look out across the still and somnolent settlement after she had used facilities. The view was still predominantly night, but dawn was beginning to creep in enough that Vala could see the outlines of the buildings and the trees. She stood in a small garden, complete with a knee high wooden fence around it and neat rows of unknown plants. She wandered to the back of the garden and looked into the trees beyond the fence. Birds were singing loudly and animals were stirring out of sight. Vala hated rural areas.
When she came back inside Cassie was placing plates of food onto the table and nodded towards the empty chair to indicate that Vala should sit there. She did, shaking her hair and rubbing her eyes to wake up properly. Sam and Janet had changed outfits. The combat clothes that Vala was so familiar with were gone and had been replaced by equally practical, but more relaxed and comfortable looking garments based around the simple effectiveness of the tube at preserving human modesty. They smiled at her from their side of the table and all enquired politely about each other’s quality of sleep. Lise watched Vala suspiciously from Sam’s lap and only the tricky process of successfully coordinating knife, fork, mouth and pancake could distract her from her scrutiny (Sam’s offer to cut up the pancake received an unequivocal ‘no’ and a scowl). The atmosphere was relaxed like it had never been on the Alkesh. Walls had come down and Sam and Janet could have been different women. It wasn’t as if they were making out, but the level of unconscious physical contact had gone up, as well as the smiles and the intimacy. Yet again Vala wondered why the hell they ever left in the first place. However, there was still a lingering sadness somehow. All through the party the night before she wasn’t sure if she’d heard any of those who’d been on the Alkesh really laugh. They’d smiled, chatted and looked amused, but none of them had let go.
In the daylight Vala could see the telltale signs of a higher technology present in the construction of the cottage. The materials appeared to be from the planet, but all joints were perfectly dovetailed, the floor and furniture all perfectly level and no winter winds would find any cracks to whistle through.
“So what’s the plan for today?” Vala enquired once they were all close to finishing eating.
“Well there’re goats to be milked,” Cassie suggested.
“Fire wood to be gathered,” Janet supplied.
“Irrigation ditches to be irrigated,” Sam added with an evil grin.
“Cloth to be woven”
“Patients to be visited”
“Alkesh weapon systems to be repaired”
“Stop,” Vala told them before they got too carried away at this perverse game, “Haven’t you heard of taking a day off?”
Janet smiled at her knowingly and caught Lise’s fork on reflex before it hit the floor.
“I’ll just, take a look around,” Vala declared, not wanting to get caught up in anything even remotely resembling work if she could possibly avoid it.
“Don’t get lost,” Sam advised.
Vala shook her head dismissively and retrieved her shoes from beside the bed. She corralled her bed hair, washed up and then stood in the dew damp morning air and watched the village wake up.
There wasn’t a huge amount to explore and it didn’t take her too long to establish the limit of the buildings and then the cultivated land. She admired the well thought out layout of the village (despite that fact that it made it look artificial) and the ingenious irrigation system that diverted part of the river into a manufactured channel that ran through the farmland.
She found Daniel standing knee deep in soft mud and rhythmically transferring water from the main channel onto some of the crops. It appeared that his thoughts were a galaxy away and it took him a while to notice Vala once she’d stopped to watch him. It was a kind of relaxed disregard that she’d never seen on him before yet simultaneously appeared exceedingly natural on Daniel here and now.
“Hi,” he said eventually when he realised that she was stood watching him.
“Nice irrigating you’re doing there,” she told him and sort of meant it.
He didn’t break his rhythm and looked questioningly at her, “How’s the burn?”
“It’s getting there”
“Good”
“How long have you been fighting the Goa’uld?”
“Nine years, give or take.”
“Why don’t you just stop?” The question hung in the air innocently and waited.
“We can’t,” Daniel finally stopped what he was doing. He climbed noisily out of the mud and stood beside Vala. The water and mud ran down from his bare calves and outlined his feet on the dry grass.
“Teal’c would leave for starters. Jack would go slowly crazy without anything to do. Sam and I would too for that matter. With no new discoveries to make, no new sights to see we’d get cabin fever under the open sky.” He shrugged slowly, “And we can never forgive Anubis, the System Lords or any Goa’uld for the six and a half billion lives and everything else they have taken from us.”
He took her elbow in an unprecedented level of physical contact and led her away from the ditch to somewhere drier where they could both sit on the grass.
Daniel looked out to the clouds and thought for a moment before he spoke. “Apophis took my wife nine years ago. She died while still a host. I’ve been killed, tortured and tormented at the hands of the Goa’ld and Anubis has damn near wiped us out. We might be little more than annoying mosquitoes now, but mosquitoes carry malaria.”
“What’s malaria and what’s a mosquito?”
“A nasty disease and a horrible insect that carries it respectively.”
“Have I mentioned that you lot are crazy?” Vala said and leant to rest her head on Daniel’s shoulder. He didn’t pull away so Vala slid her arm through his and placed her hand on his forearm.
“We play at this,” he gestured to the field in front of them with his other hand. “I think Janet and maybe
Walter could maybe settle down and truly live here, but the rest of us don’t belong. There is little use for soldiers, scientists and academics in a farming community so we visit and we pretend for a little while that we can fit in.”
“It is a nice play though,” Vala reassured him.
Daniel pressed his cheek against the top of her head and sighed quietly. She waited for him to say something, but he didn’t.
~~~
The Colonel was slumped comfortably on the bench outside the cottage he called home. He held a tool of some kind in his hand and was cleaning rust from the blade casually. He waved when he caught sight of Vala and waited for her to walk close enough to make conversation possible. His dwelling was on a slight rise in the undulating land and he could effectively look down across almost the entire village from this spot outside. He gestured to the other end of the bench with the metal blade and invited Vala to take a seat. She shared his view and wondered what his eyes saw.
“How’re the ribs?” He asked when she didn’t initiate conversation.
“Fine, its one more scar for the collection.”
“It’ll fade”
“They always do.” She swung her legs and let her heels scuff parallel tracks in the dirt before she spoke again. “I want to get out of here soon”
The Colonel gave her an appraisingly look, “Let us know when and we’ll give you a lift to a nearby planet with a Stargate.”
“Thanks,” Vala nodded.
The Colonel flicked a hand at a harmless, but annoying insect attracted to his body heat and scowled at the disturbance.
“Where are you going to go?” He wiped the blade and reached for a container of oil.
Vala shrugged, “I dunno. I’ll see what comes up. There’s always something.”
He seemed to consider something, “I doubt you’ll take us up on this, but you’d be welcome back here. We have a message box on a planet and we check it once a week if you need to get in touch.”
Vala was honestly surprised. She looked at the Colonel to check whether he was joking, but couldn’t read anything in his expression. He caught her looking and shrugged.
“Maybe you’ll want to settle down some day. I’ve been thinking of retiring myself.”
“Thanks,” Vala repeated and surprised herself by filing the knowledge away for future consideration. She was pretty sure she wouldn’t ever actually come back here, but it would be nice to think that she had the option. It was her turn to feel herself under scrutiny. It was hard to hide things from the Colonel and she knew that he had inferred a lot of who she was from the last couple of weeks. She felt unusually vulnerable and looked at the view to avoid looking at him. The people here knew what she had been, knew what she was now and they were okay with it and trusted her regardless. It helped that there was little on this planet worth stealing and the few valuable possessions they had referred to vaguely she hadn’t had access to. Plus even she wouldn’t stoop to steal a village’s access to medicine. What they treasured couldn’t be bundled into a bag and sold on a street corner, but it could be destroyed if any of the Goa’uld found out where they were and the fact that they trusted her not to tell was weird.
~~~
“Take care Vala,” Daniel said with genuine warmth in his voice and embraced her tightly, safe in the knowledge that there wasn’t anything worth pinching about his person. Except there always was and Vala took the chance to cop one last feel. He stepped back sharply and glared at her and she smiled innocently.
“Ditto,” said Colonel O’Neill and nodded towards her. Sam and Janet both stepped forward to hug her tightly and Vala finally picked her bag up and slung it over her shoulder. They’d flown a short way to a world with a Stargate to allow Vala to leave and the Alkesh was hovering a little way away until they were ready to ring back up.
“It was a fun ride guys, we should do it again sometime,” Vala declared, ignoring the sadness in the smiles and opting for flippancy. She waved at them jovially.
“You know where to find us,” Colonel O’Neill commented gently, although she didn’t actually. She merely knew it was somewhere near this address. Vala grinned to them and turned to step through the gate. There was a whole galaxy out there, a multitude of peoples who had money waiting for Vala to relieve them of it and a plethora of planets where her fortune was potentially going to be made, but it was nice to think that she had a place she could come back to one day, maybe.
Prologue
Part One
Part Two
Part Three