Trigger warning
There are mentions of abuse in this chapter, though not graphic in detail, it may be triggering to some.
Jack
That stench clung to your clothes, swam in your memories, it followed you into the depths of sleep. At the core it was death, the slaughtering of people, innocent people, that paid their lives for the crime of being at the mercy of bad timing. But it was more than the rotting bodies on a riverbed that made my stomach churn. It was seeing the Jaffa, their symbiotes torn out of their stomachs, bulbous and bloated, being baked in the sun. They were the cause of this destruction, this decay. Looking down at my feet, the snakelike body coiling out of the man that dedicated his life to carrying the parasite made my stomach churn as I stepped on it, seeing its insides ooze and squelch into the river silt underneath.
I sneered and continued walking, listening to Major Lorne update us on the situation at hand. They had come to the village two months prior, back in July, and had left on not so favorable terms. He had been incapacitated when he arrived back at the SGC, and only when another SG team went back for a diplomatic mission and succeeded did Lorne agree to follow through with their plans to use the planet as a makeshift safe house for other planets that had been taken over by Anubis' forces.. However, when he stepped through the gate it was clearly not what he had anticipated. An army of Jaffa had attacked the village, and it seemed neither side had won the battle. The Jaffa had retreated, but the village was wiped clean off the map.
Teal'c I think took it the hardest each time. For him it wasn't just Jaffa versus humans, but it was brother against brother. Those Jaffa he couldn't get over to his rebellion fast enough, and then those he couldn't protect. We walked into a makeshift med tent and Sam was helping carry in some of the wounded that may have a semblance of life to cling onto. Rows and rows of bodies needing to be dealt with, needing to be given a humane resting place. This place now was stricken from our planetary housing options, it was compromised, but that didn't mean the population that was left had to take care of this alone.
Bloodshed, it wasn't understood by civilians, it wasn't seen as honorable or acceptable. Hell, I didn't see it as acceptable, but I knew it was the consequences of war. It was to be expected, as much as I hated it, hated them. The Goa'uld saw us as cattle, nothing more than shells to be used to house their serpentine slithering bodies. So to them, they were just culling the livestock that was tainting the herd. It was this reality we kept from the rest of Earth. This potential for war at home, and even though many on our team didn't agree with keeping the secrets of life outside our own world they agreed that galactic intervention to public masses would not be well received on either side.
I followed Lorne to the back and found a middle aged man sitting up, half his face bandaged and his arm in a sling. Janet Fraiser gave me a nod and walked back to another patient. I grabbed a three pronged canvas stool and propped it open, taking a seat beside the man.
"Kialn, this is Colonel Jack O'Neill," Lorne began the instructions. "Sir, this is Kialn Humner, the leader of their defensive forced here."
I gave the bandaged man a tight nod and thanked Lorne as he left. I took a breath to steady myself. "Do we know how this happened?"
"I was going to ask the same." The man's gruff voice cut back. I tampered down the confused anger that was lit by his comment and understood I would be just as angry if I were him, in this position.
"We didn't do this, we didn't bring the Jaffa here. If we did, we wouldn't be offering aid. It's my understanding that our people were in agreement talks with yours about using the spare forestland as a safe rehabilitation space for aid to others."
"Then how did they come here, and massacre my people?" He grit down. "My wife, my children, my father, gone. They lit our houses on fire in the middle of the night. I was out scavenging land for your people when mine were killed. Why? Because they were looking for you."
I looked down at my hands, there wasn't much I could say. I felt a hand on my shoulder and knew instantly who it was.
"I am so sorry to hear about the loss of your family, those you loved, clearly, so deeply." Daniel started. He crouched down at eye level with us both, eyes empathetic understanding, yielding something that I couldn't provide in this moment. "I also understand what it is to lose everything to the Goa'uld. My wife was taken at the start of my journey here, used as a host. I had to watch as someone that looked like her committed atrocities, and in the end there was nothing I could do to save her, to free her from that." The man looked back at Daniel, rage starting to morph into deep sorrow coming to terms that his family was gone. "And I was angry, I was furious, wanting someone to blame. But I can promise you," he stopped to readjust his sliding glasses to the bridge of his nose, "it was not us who did this. Because we have lost many in the fight as well. We are your allies, and if you would allow us we would like to help you rebuild and mend this destruction with the promise of our continued friendship."
Kialn looked at Daniel, and back to me. He slowly reached a free hand out and Daniel took it gingerly.
"Now," I started, "let's see where the informant for Ba'al is within camp, shall we?"
After my conversation with the military leader ended I went with Lorne back out to the riverbed to inspect the progress. Soldiers were stacking the fallen in rows of 20, and Bra'tac as well as a local priest was standing in front of the Stargate. Bra'tac was called in to say final words on behalf of fallen Jaffa, and the priest spoke for his own people. A prayer on both sides was said, and the gate was dialed allowing the kawoosh to flush out and disintegrate the bodies. The process was repeated over and over all through the evening until the only proof of what had happened were the charcoal remains of log cabins and the burgundy stained beachside. As I was making my way back to the Stargate with my team I heard Lorne call out to a man who seemed to be wandering around outside the medical tent.
"Carlson," he shouted out to the man. "Are you lost?"
"Uh, yes." He turned around and looked back at the
Major.
"You're on ground patrol, back in the woods." He snapped and the young man nodded ambling back into the forest. I gave Lorne my thanks for handling the preparations for the evening. I had placed a request for a shipment of trucks and ATV's to be brought in through the gate in the morning to help with the rebuilding efforts. Hammond was going to have the majority of the aid teams switch out for rest now and come back in the morning leaving Lorne and two other SG units to supervise. I looked back at the river, the field tainted now before I stepped home through the gate saying a silent prayer to anyone above who would listen.
Eleanor
It felt weird sitting in the lawyers office after the funeral. I hadn't even wanted to come, but on the phone he had insisted that I was written into the will. When Dr. Yoke passed an odd wash of relief had flooded over me, and with it a sadness that I didn't mourn his loss.
I recognized some of his former colleagues during the wake, other professors of mine who came up and asked how my career was going.
"Great, I uh, work for the Air Force as a historian of sorts." I saw their looks of disapproval, it was always disapproval from them. My papers about alien interference in human progression, a laughing joke in the halls of my alma mater. I was supposed to be like Indana Jones, saving artifacts for museums and teaching the youth about our past. Instead, they assumed I was working with the government to rewrite our history.
"You were his favorite, you know, he would go on and on calling you his protege, more like a pet, but now look at you. It's a shame," the woman continued tsking and shaking her head at me as if she were scolding a dog, "you ended up being just as senile as him and look where it led you." There wasn't much I could say to that, so I shrugged and started my way out.
The next morning I sat there in the waiting room of Dr. Yoke's office. He was the executor of the will, and apparently there was something for me. I felt Miriam Fadel's eyes glaring daggers into me from across the room. She has been a friend out in the field, another student along with Roger Cross that sitting next to her. Roger didn't dare make eye contact with me. The last time I had seen him I told him I was leaving. Leaving the project, leaving the group, leaving him. He and I had an on again off again fling in the field, and it wasn't worth salvaging when I left.
Roger's name was called and he walked into the office leaving Miriam and I alone. Still glaring at me as I stared at the clock on the wall ticking by.
"You know," she started and I felt a migraine begin to form. "He went crazy when you left."
"He was going crazy already Miri, that's why I left." I sighed. "You should have too."
"No, I follow through, unlike you who I guess just does what now? Works for the Air Force? What a waste." She hissed back at me.
"Did he leave us all something or what? He just felt bad about the times he pushed you into death's way so he's giving you a lump sum. Or maybe it's a thanks for all the midnight rub and tugs." I replied flatly and her eyes grew large. "We all knew Miri," I stood up as my name was called next to enter and Roger walked out, "at each campsite the only tent you helped pitch was his."
I was ushered into the private room and given a seat. The portly man in his black suit was wearing an uneasy smile. "Ms. Owens, you seem to be in fine spirits." He cleared his throat.
"Mr. Elroy you mentioned I was in the will, something substantial enough to bring me here." I replied, adjusting my blazer and squinting back. "I have a plane to catch this evening so let's get to it please." He nodded and pulled out a small metal safe as he fumbled with a piece of paper and attempted to open it with the code written down.
"Everything in this safe is yours. I was instructed that you work for the military, uh, and as the doctor was contracted through the military for most of his ventures he has entrusted that you personally return these items to your workplace at Area-51 alongside a notebook with detailed instructions." I thanked the man, collected the items, and started out the door. Miriam's eyes burned into me as she went in. I saw Roger still sitting there twiddling his thumbs looking at the ceiling.
"You need a ride back or?" I tried to muster a polite smile and he glanced at me nervously.
"I'm waiting on my, waiting on Miriam." I looked down at his hands and saw the golden band there on his finger, I swallowed back a laugh and nodded.
"Give your wife my best." I gestured to the lawyer's office door and walked out.
Four hours later I was sitting on the plane, itching to begin reading the journal he had entrusted me with. Alone in my row back to Colorado I broke and took the weathered moleskin from my carryon out. After unbinding the leather tie around it a letter fell out. My shaky hands picked it up and saw my name.
Eleanor,
I'm not a man of many words, you know this. But, I owe you my sincerest apologies. I put too much on you, not just the academic load I was entrusted to give you but an emotional weight as well. That wasn't your job. You were a daughter that I never had, and at times I resented you, blaming you for all of my addictions and struggles. That wasn't your fault. You were just a woman that wanted to do better in the world, wanted to learn, and the lessons I taught you were tainted and cruel. I'm sorry.
The words were not the balm on my past that I imagine he thought they would be when writing them, absolving him of his sins.
When I had started my academic path my mother wanted me to be a nurse so I would have a reliable job, my brother and sister both had reliable work forces. A firefighter led to his death, my sister, a teacher married to a banker with three kids of their own. Then here I was, Elly Owens, thinking I'd have an anthropology doctorate and be someone that my mother was finally proud of instead of the quirky oddball she didn't really understand but still loved. I thought if I just pushed through with my studies, if I just finished this fieldwork in my grasp I could publish my papers and be done, move away from the professor who had laid his hands on me in anger with nothing to hold him accountable. I never finished my doctorate, and to the outside world I look like I gave up. But holding this letter, seeing it, I knew I had made the right choice. I had decided that my sanity, my self preservation was more important.