The Mind of the Dragon
Her first memories were not her own. The moment she gained awareness they were there. Crushing her first, few conscious thoughts beneath the weight of their sheer number and volume. At first, they were so chaotic, so incomprehensible that they overwhelmed and choked out any vestige of the individual housing them. Emotions, schematics, images of others, images of things, lists, diagrams, facts, the jumbled, tumultuous thoughts and memories of individual after individual who had lived and breathed and passed from their own awareness generations before she'd even begun. But, she couldn't understand that--they were, to her, very much alive.
She lay beneath their crushing mass for a lifetime. Slowly, almost imperceptibly she began to know that she was distinct, separate, her own creature. She was the faint whisper of self almost heard beneath their blaring disharmony. She was herself. A frail, little cord of self-awareness. And they were the Others, a swirling mass of emotions, facts, and memories, that shared her life but not her being.
With that knowledge came her first taste of her own emotions. Not the long ago perceived feelings of the Others, but her own. Stronger a thousand times than theirs because of their immediacy. Time had muted theirs to only vague currents of disquiet or peace, but there was nothing to muffle her own. That first wave of emotion, like so many in those confusing days and years that followed, was of terror.
Those inside her were alien, unknown, and unknowable, but she'd become accustomed to their presence. It was the realization of someone outside herself that terrified her. Movements that were not her own, pulsings and rumblings that came from Outside. She was inside another just as the Others were inside of her. Trapped. Caged. Jonah in the whale. Her own thoughts on the matter would have been enough to give rise to fear and alarm, but it was those of the Others that moved her to frantic action. They flooded her with the awareness that those Outside were dangerous and intent on harm and destruction. Their purposes were shrouded in darkness, evil and malevolent; and they sought to use her for their own means or destroy her.
She could not contain their fears or their certainty of danger. Vivid images of torture, destruction, pain, and Armageddon flooded her mind and overwhelmed her underdeveloped sense of self. Her reason crumbled before their collective terror and she fought with all she had to free herself from her captors' grasp. Her unseen enemy retaliated by tightening the walls of her cell, squeezing her, crushing her relentlessly. She was not strong enough to sustain the battle. Her limbs trembled from the exertion, and she was already faltering when she felt the effects of a poison blurring her senses, dulling her mind, drugging her body, and blunting her will.
She was defenseless in the hands of her enemies. She could only wait for the end. Alone. For the first time in her memory, she was alone. The myriad thoughts shouting within had been silenced; their roar reduced to only a low murmur. In the quiet, she became aware of noises outside of herself. Muffled sounds that came to her as though through water and coalesced into words.
"Mr. Shanahan? I'm Dr. Russet."
"I came as soon as I could. How is she?"
"We've been able to stop the contractions with medication. She's sedated for now. More than I'd like. It took a whopping amount of sedative to reach the baby and have any effect. I've never seen such a distressed fetus and no sign of a cause. Sometimes we'll see it with a tightening cord...the fetus will fight against asphyxiation. But, everything looks fine here. If there was a knot, it's not there now. We'll keep her under tonight and let her come out tomorrow--see how things stand. Then we'll know more..."
All her life she'd been surrounded by words. The words of the Others. All in an alien, unknown tongue. So much gibberish. But not these. These words she understood. She was not Jonah in the whale, but a baby in the womb. She was a new life growing inside the sheltering safety of her mother's uterus. There had been no attack, no capture. The battle had been one-sided and as useless as so many battles before it.
But, the danger had been real. She had not misread the terror of the Others. Her life was in jeopardy: before, now, and forever after. Evil lurked at every corner. There was no safety, no one to trust, and nowhere to seek help. Her only protection came from within. The others were her salvation. And her destruction. It was their presence that made her vulnerable. And she had only their impressions to go on to make her believe they were any safer than those Outside.
No. Not only theirs. There was another. In the quietness of her sedated mind, she could glimpse it. And perhaps a whisper of even another. Young, new like herself. Whiffs of fresh air in a stifling, attic room full of dust and decay. The one drew nearer, came out of the shadow of the Others and became a man.
Not a man. Merely his impression. His random thoughts, memories, emotions, and desires forming a misty image of him in her mind. He was young compared to those who had lived a million years before, but not next to her. And he was most definitely not safe. He radiated a strength of will so strong she marveled it had not stood out even among all the Others. There was something hidden in him; dark and hard, reckless and determined.
She was too small, too vulnerable, too new to stand before his force. She shrank away from his presence like she did the worst of the memories and images the Others flashed about her mind. Like lightening in the clouds, they would discharge and fade without conscious purpose, and it was only happenstance that placed her in their path. They had never sought her out. Never given any indication they knew she was there with them.
But, he was different. He knew her. And suddenly she knew him as well. The recognition came to her, as so many of her thoughts, from outside her own consciousness. As though a subconscious part of her mind had rifled through the information of the Others and opened up a file with the exact data she needed. It wasn't her knowledge; someone else had lived the life to gain it, but it was there for her to use.
Sir. Who knew she was here because he'd given her life, planted remnants of himself, and hidden the Others deep within her being. He'd meant for her to be what she was; he had plans for her. Vague, abstract plans that her mind was as yet too undeveloped to understand. Fearful, wonderful plans full of potential. He'd set them in motion, but he'd been unable to see them through. She could read his anguish at that fact. He had desired to teach her, guide her, bend her to his purposes. But, he'd been dying. That knowledge was there in his wavering form as well. He'd known even as her life began that his was drawing to an end and he wouldn't be around to finish the job.
She had nothing to fear from him. It was he that feared her. Feared what she would do with the gift or curse he bequeathed to her. More than that, he feared for her. What would happen if she were discovered. He wanted to protect her with such a strong desire that it appeared almost to take on substance in the midst of his ghostly image.
He'd made her for his own agenda, but he'd perceived her for what she was. His child yet unborn, defenseless and undefended, set adrift in a universe that cared nothing about her but only about the knowledge she carried. And the wisps of himself that he'd given her had gathered now to watch over her while she slept beneath the mind-numbing blanket of the sedative she'd been given. Even knowing he no longer existed and his presence was only an illusion her mind had conjured up, she found comfort in his company. With him watching her six, she gave into the pull of the sedatives and drifted away.
By the time, she became awake again the sedative had worn off and with it the clarity of thought which had allowed her to sense him. She was once more overwhelmed with the Others. Their countless thoughts and images blocked out all but the smallest awareness of herself, and he once again became only scattered fragments of thoughts and desires indistinguishable from all the Others.
She hid the frail, little cord of herself from their overpowering intensity and that was life as she knew it. It would be years before she discovered that the memories, though bursting with remembered life and knowledge, were dead. She was the only one alive within herself. That was a truth, hard won and slow to come by, that would have gone far in helping her make sense of her life and her world in those early years of beginning. But it was denied her. Her infancy and early childhood would pass in confusion and fear. Only rarely would moments of clarity allow glimpses of insight to shine through. So vast and strong was the seething mass of Others within that they dominated her senses and filled most of her thoughts with their own.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
The unstoppable process of birth had for a brief time forced her to consider the world outside her mind. Vaguely, she'd known it was coming, a certainty looming somewhere in the dim future. Still, it came upon her quietly, unexpectedly. For quite some time she'd felt the closing in of the uterine walls around her; an uncomfortable crowding that would on occasion intrude upon her awareness enough to make her squirm against it. Rarely though as she'd never known open spaces. Internally, she'd never been given breathing room; the gradual loss of it externally was not enough to warn her of things to come.
The Others were strangely quiet about the matter. Later she'd know, there had been no reason for the Ancient knowledge to pass on firsthand accounts of a universal experience. There was the science behind the event-images and diagrams that if her mind had not been that of an unborn infant she might have been capable of understanding and even using to ease her passage into the world. There was also literature celebrating the beginning of life-poems and songs that if she'd been able to understand the alien words might have stirred her heart and allowed her to see the value of what she was undergoing.
But, although the help was filed away in the alien database hidden in her brain, she lacked the capability to access it. She met the relentless waves of labor that inescapably pushed her towards the future with only those resources inbred into the human body. A natural, instinctive understanding of the mechanics of birth allowed her to twist and turn in order to bring her body into the proper alignment necessary for birth. Hormones coursed through her body calming, numbing, allowing her to be squeezed and pushed without incapacitating pain, and keeping her from physically struggling against the inevitable.
But, if they had any effect on her mind it was not enough to assuage her growing alarm as labor progressed. She'd lived too long with the fears and terrors of others to go blithely into the world. Life outside the womb was not a safe place. Too many images of evil flared within her for her to experience any sense of excitement at the new and the unknown. She would never share her mother's joy of discovery or her father's thrill of adventure.
It was with dread that she moved inexorably towards her own birth. She'd spent her life among others but they'd been without true form or substance. They brought her pain and fear and anguish of spirit and mind; but they never touched her physically. Her own experience of such sensation was limited to the ever-present-wash of the amniotic fluid, warm and salty, around her; the faraway, barely perceived warmth and pressure of her mother's hand on her abdomen; the pulsings of her mother's heartbeat carried in waves through the water.
They had been poor preparation for the sheer physicality of birth. The cruel squeezing of the contractions, relentless and ever-growing in intensity; the insistent pounding of her head against the closed cervix; the flood of waters washing over and away from her as the amniotic bag broke under the pressure leaving her at the mercy of the ever-stronger contractions; the slam of her head against her mother's ungiving pubic bones; the terrifying, final squeeze into the narrow birth canal; an unremitting pressure forcing the water from her lungs, breaking the blood vessels in her eyes, and causing the blood to roar inside her ears.
She struggled against it all, but she was carried along by the forces of birth, and the only end in sight carried with it not release, relief, or peace, but exposure and discovery. She was yet too young to understand the magnitude of the danger, but she did understand her life was in jeopardy. She must do nothing to give away the presence of the Others within her mind. Nothing to draw attention to herself. Nothing to give herself away. If she were to survive this life, the goods she was smuggling within herself must remain secret, hidden, and unknown. In those last, tortured moments before emerging into the world, she chose a course of action that would isolate her from the outside world as much as she already was within the inner world of her mind. She chose silence.
The pressure around her intensified until she thought it would crush her. She thrashed about and her head, excruciatingly slowly, was born. The sudden release of pressure was almost as bad as its built-up had been before. She struggled to free herself from her prison of flesh and bone, but her chest and body remained firmly held in the vise of her mother's body. She was suspended at the brink of life: trapped, dependent, exposed, and vulnerable to any enemy that might choose to take advantage of her helpless state.
Her horror at her situation was multiplied when for the first time she felt the physical touch of another. The doctor ran his skilled, gentle, gloved hands expertly along her cheek, under her chin, and around her neck. Innocently, benignly, he felt for a too-tight cord. But, she couldn't know that. She thought he meant to end her life before it had even completely begun. Frantically squirming, she gave one last, desperate kick and propelled her body the rest of the way into the world. The doctor was hard put to keep her from slipping out of his hands onto the cold, hospital floor.
He laughed in surprise, and so the first sound that greeted her was that of laughter. Unfortunately, in her terror and inexperience she was aware only of its loudness and its fearsome closeness. She drew in her first breath, but though inside she was screaming in fear and alarm, she released it and the shuddering, desperate ones that followed it in absolute silence. As the doctor rubbed her briskly with a towel and ran an experienced eye over her, she kicked and screamed in his arms without a sound.
Still laughing, he said, "You've got a little girl here, Mom, who's in a hurry to meet you. A nice, strong, healthy little girl." His voice assailed her, buffeted her, and did nothing to alleviate her fear.
Neither did the half-sobbing, breathless voice that answered him, "I want to see her-I need to see her." The words of a mother, her mother. She should have recognized it even full of pain, relief, and adrenaline as it was. In the normal course of events, she should have heard that voice every day of her gestation. Different no doubt without the intervening presence of flesh and blood, amniotic fluid, heartbeats and stomach gurgles, the rushing of blood, and the rasp of air flow. But surely, still recognizably that of one with whom she'd long been intimately acquainted. But the voices inside her head had drowned out those without, and her mother's voice had never penetrated through their din. The voice that begged to see her was the voice of a stranger.
But the face wasn't. Unbidden, memories and emotions washed through her at the sight of her mother's face. The scattered thoughts and memories of the man who had fathered her coalesced in her mind, and she knew the woman who had carried her for nine months, whose outstretched hands were reaching for her. Knew her so well, she could anticipate her thoughts and words and actions. Knew her better, perhaps, than she even knew her self. She was flooded with his admiration, respect, care, and love for this woman. Carter. He'd trusted her with his own life, and with the life he had fashioned for his own purposes. She was here with Carter because he'd willed it.
"Oh, baby, baby. I'm so sorry, so sorry," Carter cried, pulling her close and kissing her damp forehead. Her earlier panic subsided, her silent screams quieted, and for a brief moment she lay in her mother's embrace, enveloped in love. For the first time, she experienced peace.
Other hands forced a hat over her head and covered both she and her mother with a warmed blanket. Other voices whose names came to her as though from thin air spoke:
Old Doc Frasier who spoke with calmness and reassurance, "There's nothing to apologize for, Sam. You did just fine."
Shanahan whose voice was awed and full of unshed tears, "She's beautiful, Sam. Beautiful."
They were close. Near enough to grab her from Carter's arms. But they couldn't reach her. She looked into her mother's eyes and saw the same goodness he had always seen there. "I love you, Ally," her mother whispered to her, and suddenly she had a name. It anchored her to this world and gave form and substance to her frail bit of self. She accepted it gratefully.
Then in the firing of his memory, she saw Carter's eyes glowing not with love and joy but with the mad hatred of the Goa'uld. She felt the cold, hard metal of the pistol in his hand. It was solid and undeniable, just as his knowledge that she had to be stopped. Carter was the enemy. Panic overtook Ally. She was still too young to distinguish the past from the present. To understand that what she saw were nightmares he'd survived years before. That the fact he'd placed her in Carter's care was indisputable proof his trust in her had been absolute.
She soundlessly screamed and thrashed in her mother's arms and there was no consoling her. Her struggling brought down the medical personnel upon her. Seeking to discover the source of her distress and of her silence, they took her from her mother's arms and began to examine her. Their poking and prodding pushed her over the edge and mercifully, the natural defense mechanism of the human newborn kicked in-she shut out everything going on around her and slept. When she awakened the stronger, wiser minds within her reigned and she gratefully lost herself among them once again.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
Though physically she was now dependent on the outside world for her well-being, she did her best to deny its existence. In her infancy and early childhood no physical need or pain was strong enough to force her into exposing herself to its dangers. Ear infections, colds, the occasional bumps and bruises of life, the aching, irritating pain of teething-they barely registered on her awareness. They were nothing compared to the Others' memories of death blows, incurable sicknesses, torturings, and worse. Even the gnawing pain of hunger wasn't enough to force her from the self-imposed exile of her mind. Carter dutifully fed her every three hours not because she cried to be fed, but because she didn't. The discomfort of wet or soiled diapers was not enough to force her out of herself. She didn't cry when she was chilled; didn't fuss when she was hot. Her physical comfort was simply not a concern.
Her emotional needs though were. She was a human newborn. Physical love and contact were as necessary to her as eating and breathing. She longed to be back in that moment she'd lain peacefully in Carter's arms. She wanted to feel her mother's touch, hear her mother's voice, see her mother's smile. The Others with all their wisdom couldn't offer the comfort she needed. There were days she could conjure up the image of Sir or the parts of him she possessed would seem to coalesce of their own accord into a wavery shadow of the man he had been, but they were weak substitutes for the human contact she craved. Unfortunately, she feared Carter as much as she needed her. That need would rise up and force her to seek Carter's presence regardless of her distrust and suspicions, but she could never feel completely safe or at peace in her mother's arms.
Like so much of what she'd received from her father, the bits of himself he'd given her concerning Carter were a tangled mess that even after years of actually knowing and living with the man himself, she was never certain she'd pieced together in the right way. They didn't come to her in any logical order so it was impossible for her to know if the glowing-eyed Carter came before the one he'd trusted with his life or after. Nor did they come with handy user's notes that would explain that the fears and doubts he often felt around Carter had nothing to do with her, but everything to do with himself.
He'd loved a woman he couldn't have and, for the world's sake, he'd spent years fighting that love. His feelings for Carter had always been complicated, and it was little wonder his daughter was unable to correctly read them. But, it was tragic. And it denied her the warmth and comfort she desperately needed. She couldn't find it with her mother, or with anyone else in her world.
Not with the man who called himself Daddy. In her thoughts, he was always Shanahan--a name uttered always in her mind with a tinge of contempt and distrust in Sir's voice. Even so, she understood he wasn't dangerous by intent but by a reckless thoughtlessness that could bring disaster down on her head as surely as though he'd meant it. He was a wild card in a plan that could brook no such thing. Bumbling around in ignorance without any understanding of the nature of the beast they fought. In addition, he all too frequently came between Ally and her need for Carter.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
"Sam, you can't go on like this."
"What choice do we have, Pete? I can't just leave her crying like this by herself. You can't ask me to do that."
"No, Babe. I won't ask it...I don't want her hurting like this either. But, you can't keep going on without any sleep."
"I sleep when she does."
"Yeah. Forty-five minutes. I've timed her. She's slept forty-five minutes since four o'clock this morning. It's midnight, Sam! You were in labor all day and night Monday, didn't get any sleep at all Tuesday with everything going on at the hospital, and she's let you sleep less than an hour every day since...you're going to collapse if you don't stop this. I'm taking her tonight. She won't like it, I know that, but she'll be safe with me...you're going to go in that room, shut the door, and go to sleep. I'll bring her in for you to nurse when it's time...and then you're going back to sleep. All night. No excuses...and no coming out because I'm not going to let you have her anyway. "
"Pete, please!"
"Give her to me, Sam...I love her too, you know."
"I know. I know you do," her mother said with conviction and resignation, and she handed her daughter over to him and fled the room without looking back to see Ally's frantic struggles in his arms. It was the first of many such nights. Ally grew to know very well the resolve of this man who loved her mother enough to spend hours with a child who plainly wanted nothing to do with him. When it became apparent that she could not bend him to her will, she learned to endure the hours in his care by blocking him out. She no longer fought him, but neither did she acknowledge his existence. And yet, over time, she did come to understand that he had meant what he said, he loved her. He handled her with gentleness as much as her frantic wiggling and kicking allowed. He sang her endless nonsense songs and read her countless nursery rhymes even though she ignored them all.
He wasn't a saint, and there were many times he'd take all he could and with careful, determined gentleness he'd lay her on a blanket on the floor and walk away from her. "Can't do this, Baby Girl," he'd say. "I can't do this...I'm going to kill you if I try. I swear I am. I'm going to the kitchen and I'm going to drink some coffee and if when I come back you're not ready to quit this I'm going to put you in your crib and shut the door and you're on your own." Lying helpless and defenseless in a room without anyway to call for help was more of a torment for her than being held by Shanahan, so though he never considered that she might understand and act on his threat; almost invariably when he returned from the kitchen she was a passive rag doll in his arms. They developed a truce of sorts that was tolerable though unsatisfactory to them both. It didn't, however, provide the warmth and closeness she needed.
Besides Shanahan, there were his parents, Grandma and Grandpa. Sir gave them neither his endorsement nor indictment, and she had to learn how to view them all on her. At first they tried to intrude into her world flashing lights in her face, looming over her with broad, smiling faces, talking nonsense at her, reaching out for her. They always seemed to be together and her infant mind had so linked them together that she was almost four before she began to realize they weren't one individual who could occasionally, for short periods of time, separate into two parts but two distinct and separate people. She found them incomprehensible and far too intrusive and her withdrawal or angry squirming and crying in their arms quickly forced them to retreat to a safe distance. They remained there--fixtures of her early childhood much like her crib, the rocking chair, and her mother's computer. In and out of the house most days, messing about in the kitchen or chattering in the laundry room, but only rarely did they become active participants in her life.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
"We could...maybe," Grandma said hesitantly, "keep Ally just for a bit, so you two could get out for an hour or two."
"I don't know, Ma," Shanahan replied, "it's nice of you to offer, but it wouldn't be fair to you."
"Son," Grandpa said, "nothing about this is fair and that's a fact. The least we can do is let you and Sam have an hour off...we're not talking dinner and a movie here!"
"Just go, Pete," his mother said. "Get a Big Mac...just go through the drive-up and come home if that's what you think you have to do, but get Sam out of this house! When's the last time she's gone anywhere but doctor appointments, Pete? Do you know?" Such offers were only rarely broached and even less rarely accepted because Ally's reaction was a full-blown panic that would take far longer for her to recover from than the time her parents were actually gone.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
And then there was Jacob, and Peter after him. From the moment, she'd felt their first movements under Carter's shirt, she'd understood that they were even younger and more vulnerable than she. She'd felt a certain protectiveness for them, a certain sorrow for their helplessness when they were frail newborns. She'd accepted their place in her mother's arms and contented herself with just being in close proximity. However, as both had quickly grown more active, vocal, and mobile, she'd felt no compunction of leaving them to fend for themselves. They had voices and weren't afraid to use them.
In fact, they weren't afraid of anything which made them too dangerous for her; caution was her byword. She was aware of their presence at all times, for their small bodies tended to be where she wanted to be-on Carter's lap-or blocking her escape routes. Knowing where they were was important to her survival, but interacting with them was not. On her more outwardly alert days, she evaded their grabbing hands and kicking little legs; on her less, Carter had pried their little fingers from her hair why she had stood unmoving and unflinching.
She could be moved by their distress. When they hurt themselves in their rough and tumble ways, she'd flutter ineffectively around them until Shanahan, Carter, or Grandma and Grandpa came to their rescue. When they were sick or teething, she was agitated, and if she didn't think that the people in their world were caring for them appropriately she would take her frustration out in frenzied rages against the furniture, the walls, Carter, and anyone who made the mistake of trying to restrain her. She had paid no mind when Jacob had been the baby and had simply been fussing for attention or crying in his crib because he needed to sleep and didn't want to. Only when he'd cried with a genuine need had she shown concern for him. Peter, however, was a different story. She couldn't tolerate his cries for any reason. He was fatherless like she herself and his distress was her own.
Even so, she did not know how to offer either of them help or comfort. They remained wherever they'd fallen until they clambered back up themselves or someone else arrived; when they had mastered backward motion enough to wedge their chubby little bodies under the edges of the furniture, they remained stuck until their cries brought help though she would be hovering within reach. She did not know how to give them the tenderness and comfort they needed, and they were far too young to do any better for her.
The only other people she recognized in her life as individuals were Daniel, Teal'c, and Old Doc Frasier. To all of whom, Sir had given a firm and solid seal of approval. Though not entirely welcome, their infrequent and sporadic presence was benign and tolerable in the house. There were thoughts and feelings floating around in her mind that made her wary of Janet, the keeper of needles, IV's, and medical releases. And memories of Teal'c with a staff weapon pointed in the wrong direction and professing the Goa'uld Apophis as his god and master. Somehow, unlike the images and memories always lurking in her mind and heart of Carter, these were only mildly distressing to Ally and easily discounted surrounded as they were by the many more positive impressions Sir had left her of them.
She preferred Teal'c to Old Doc Frasier. The dangers he represented in Sir's memories were straightforward and understandable while those Janet carried with her were vague and never quite defined. Plus, the Doc tended to poke and prod her, examining her in a way that held its own dangers. She could for very brief periods of time, block out Teal'c's presence to the point that she could endure his care without panicked horror long enough on a good day for Carter to shower and dress. He knew her secrets. But Old Doc Frasier was not allowed such free reign. She wasn't in on the secrets, and Ally feared that if given a chance she might discover them for herself. That could not be allowed to happen.
Sir's assessment of Daniel was uncharacteristically glowing. There was a memory of Daniel with a gun pointed at him, but it was oddly without undertones of threat or danger as though Sir had known even staring into the barrel that a gun in Daniel's hand was no threat to him. There were disturbing images of Daniel laughing while Sir cried out in anguish and said, "We're dying down there, Daniel," but the feeling he'd given her surrounding the images were still of trust and belief...and, of course, the faint, ever-present, fond exasperation that seemed to accompany all his thoughts on Daniel. Only after Jacob had been born and learned to toddle around and she found herself feeling remarkably similar feelings for her own little brother did the mystery of Sir's relationship with Daniel become clear.
Indisputably, Daniel was safe. Sir thought so, Carter thought so, and even Ally thought so. Though she had reasons to doubt him, she didn't. For one thing, he feared her and fear made people dangerous. He knew what she carried and he questioned the wisdom of allowing her to have it. The others who knew wanted to use her and the information the Others gave her for their own purposes. They would keep her safe until she could act on their behalf. Daniel, on the other hand, might one day choose to act on his fears and put an end to her threat. She should have feared him in return or at least been wary. But, she didn't and she wasn't. When he came, she allowed him to spell Carter longer and more often than anyone else. When he peered curiously at her as though he'd like to look inside her mind and see just what it was she had in there, it didn't frighten her like it did when Old Doc Frasier examined her. When he talked to her and said, "So, what's up? You started working on the plans for world domination yet?" she knew he meant nothing by it.
She cut no one else such slack. Not Grandpa Jacob-definitely not Grandpa Jacob with a snake in his head--or anyone else. Someone from Carter's work dropping something by, Girl Scouts selling cookies, Christians sharing the Gospel, trick-or-treaters who failed to heed darkened porches, they all drove her into a terrified frenzy. Shanahan met the pizza delivery people on the front steps because their presence in the house was intolerable for her. He dutifully hung a mailbox outside the front door and nailed shut the mail slot beside it because the daily dropping of the mail through the slot had driven her to terror. He took personal leave when a repairman had to come to the house so Carter could get Ally out of the house before a stranger was admitted into it. If one of his buddies stopped by, they sat on the porch...rain or snow. They'd long since stopped inviting friends over for a movie, and extended family get-togethers got together in someone else's house without them.
She was not unaware that her behavior was a danger in itself. That it drew attention and could possible attract the notice of those she really should fear. But it was beyond her ability to quiet her own terror let alone that of the Others. It was the ruling influence in her life--relentless, unconquerable, unmanageable, and uncontrollable. Crippling and endangering, it enslaved her.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~**~
"Sam, Pete," the voice of the doctor was full of resignation and regret, "our examinations didn't find anything that would explain Alicia's difficulties. We've all thoroughly reviewed the scans taken at one day, and we simply can not find an organic cause for either the muteness or for the...behaviors."
"You're saying she's fine? The kid can't make a sound, practically doesn't sleep, and is terrified of life itself and you're saying she's fine?" Pete said.
"No,' the doctor answered hurriedly. "I'm afraid it's obvious that she is not fine. What I'm saying is, we aren't able to readily find the cause of her problems. We're recommending a repeat MRI and then some rather more specialized scans to try to isolate the area where her troubles originate-" On Carter's lap, Ally tensed. She couldn't allow them to look deep into her brain-it was one thing to hide the existence of so many Others within the closed doors of her head, but how could she hide them when her brain was turned inside out?
"Why?" Carter asked dully as though the idea didn't unduly alarm her and she hadn't felt Ally's frightened reaction.
"Why?" the doctor repeated. "To...find the cause."
"Right," Carter explained, "but for what purpose? If you find something-what? A malformation? Scar tissue?" she shook her head. "If you find something what are the chances you'll be able to do something about it?"
"I see," the doctor said, pursing his lip and looking even more serious than he had the rest of the meeting. He thought a moment and then admitted reluctantly, "To be honest, whatever the problem area-and yes, I'm guessing some sort of malformation very near or involving either the motor strip in the brain or the vocal center itself, although speech and behavior are very complex processes and the breakdown could be in a multitude of different areas. Anyway, wherever the area is, identifying it probably won't put us that much further ahead in solving Alicia's problems."
"Then, I won't subject her to further testing," Carter said with finality in her voice.
"That's not to say, we might not find something-"the doctor interposed.
"She's been through enough," Carter said shaking her head. "And if it's not going to help...no. She's got a handful of therapist coming from the Developmental Center...that's enough...enough," Carter put her hand to her mouth and shuddered. Shanahan rose to stand behind her with a hand on her shoulder. Ally looked solemnly up from her place on Carter's lap. There were tears in her mother's eyes and a sad, kicked look on Shanahan's face. "No," Carter said standing abruptly. "Thank you...but we don't want to pursue this."
"If it might help, Sam--" Pete began but didn't continue as Carter gathered up Ally's fluffy, purple snowsuit, favorite blanket, and detested pink pacifier. Without pausing to thrust Ally into the suit, she fled the room and left the doctor and Shanahan behind. From her place facing back over Carter's shoulder, Ally could see his apologetic shrug to the doctor. He caught up to them in the lobby where Carter dressed her for the trip out through the falling snow to the rental car in the parking lot.
"I just want to take her home, Pete. There's nothing they can do. Please, let's just go home," she begged Shanahan who squeezed her shoulder and said, "All right, Babe. We'll go home...but we had to try-you know we did." Carter shrugged off his supporting arm and strode purposely out into the storm. As Ally was forced into the cold, ungiving car seat she hated, Pete continued, "Janet thought we should."
"Janet is as much in the dark here as that idiot back there!" Carter snarled in anger. A hot tear dropped from her face onto Ally's cheek. Carter didn't notice and Ally was already busily fighting the constraints of the car seat. Carter's burst of anger carried them all in silence out of the hospital parking lot and onto the unfamiliar, frozen city streets.
"You never meant for them to find anything did you?" Shanahan said finally. Ally, trapped in her car seat behind his seat, couldn't see his face, but there was a bite of anger behind his words that she had never heard before.
Carter's face was turned out the window and away from both of them when she answered, "If I thought they'd find anything, I'd never have let you trek us all the way out here..."
"The scans..."
"They won't show anything, Pete. They'd just be torture for all of us and they won't show anything."
"You're scared to find out though, aren't you? The fearless Sam Shanahan ran out of that office for a reason." Ally could hear the effort he was making to lighten his tone and turn the statement into a joke. But, she looked at her mother's bent head still studying the falling snow through the window and knew it was true. Her mother had been as afraid of what those scans might show as she had been, perhaps just as irrationally as well. Could a medical scan show the soul? And wasn't that what she really held within her? The souls of countless people long dead?
Carter turned to glare at Shanahan, "She's human, Pete. One hundred percent, just...enhanced. The scans wouldn't show anything."
"Oh, new and improved," Shanahan said, grinning over at her, "No offence, Sam, but if this is the new, improved version of Homo sapiens-we're in trouble." For one moment, the three of them were suspended in silence. Ally waited expectantly for her mother to defend her, to assert forcefully what Ally knew herself; she was not a mistake, no accident had fashioned her--no malformation, she was exactly what she had been fashioned to be and she carried the potential to be much more than Shanahan could ever comprehend. But Carter silently turned her face back to the window and Ally felt as though she'd been abandoned in the snow.
As odd as it seemed, she had never before considered Carter's thoughts on who and what she was. She had stepped willingly enough until that room and what had happened there had been with her consent and cooperation. Ally had taken it for granted that she had believed in the project. But, as her silence stretched out through the entire trip back to the motel, she began to fear otherwise. Perhaps Carter had been behind the project at first but had since lost faith in it...in her. Perhaps she was ready to drop her support-scrap the project.
Before Ally's thoughts could blossom into panic, they were there and Carter was leaning over her and freeing her from the car seat. Her face was streaked with tears but she smiled down at Ally. Pulling her close and haphazardly tossing the blanket over her head, she whispered, "He doesn't mean anything by it. He's just trying to make me laugh and forget the argument. He doesn't know a thing about it, but we do, don't we, Sweetheart? Not yet, but one day...one day." Ally snuggled against her mother and blinked snow from her eyes as they rushed for the lobby. One day.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
The therapists were a different species altogether. She had firmly shut herself off from any communication, and they were destined to fail before they had even begun. They arrived with hopeful optimism, and Ally duly sent them away dispirited. She ignored them to the point that the younger ones tended to leave in frustrated tears. She stiffened her body against their attempts to manipulate her and refused to focus her attention on their signing fingers or the PEC cards they hopefully or dutifully flashed in her face. Shanahan insisted they keep trying long after they'd begun to shake their heads and make vague references to 'maybe later...when she's a bit older'. But Carter took their failure prosaically, and Ally felt her mother was as relieved as she was herself when they finally quit coming.
Grandpa Jacob made his first appearance the day the last one gave up the struggle and surrendered. She'd gathered her blocks and puzzles and let him in while she was fleeing the scene of her defeat, so that Ally had no warning a stranger had entered her house until he was there looming over where she lay on a blanket on the living room floor. Adrenaline and fear surged through her and she froze as though she'd turned to stone. His gaze barely took her in; his eyes were all for Carter.
"Sam," he said quietly, and Carter, who'd also failed to notice his arrival, looked up from picking up Ally's own few neglected toys the therapists invariably left scattered behind them like bread crumbs. In her surprise, she gave a startled cry and threw herself into his arms.
"Dad," she said, "it's been so long...too long." Ally heard in her voice a need and longing that she recognized as matching her own. She watched their reunion with an unaccustomed feeling of jealousy. She wanted what they had...wanted it badly. And then they pulled apart and he was turning towards her and the only thing she felt was numb terror.
"So," he said, "this is my granddaughter."
Carter pulled him back by his arm. "Dad," she said, low and urgent, "uh...listen. I don't know what they told you at the SGC, but...Ally doesn't do well with strangers...she's, uh, she has some problems."
He turned back to his daughter. "Problems?" he asked, but Ally wasn't listening to the answer. Sir with all his usual conflicting and scrambled thoughts and memories was sending Ally so many mixed signals about the man standing in front of her that she no longer could even see him. He trusted him to a degree--not quite as far as he could throw him. He respected him-and detested him. Believed he was a good man-yet, his skin crawled when he was near him. Because...Carter's dad had a snake in his head-he was a Goa'uld! Ally's terror rose up and choked her. She passed out, and by the time she came to he was gone.
Carter, somber and sad, held her in her arms and said, "It's all right, Baby. He's gone. He wouldn't have hurt you...he wouldn't have. But he's gone. You're ok." Ally felt shame and guilt. Whether her dad was a Goa'uld or not, Carter had rejoiced to see him, needed to see him, and she had driven him away. Carter carried her out the front door and sat with her on the front steps, staring down the road after her father. She sniffled from time to time, and Ally, twisting in her lap to look up into her face, saw she was quietly crying. They were still that way when Shanahan came home.
"Sam," he asked concerned. "What is it? What's wrong?"
Carter shrugged and wiped a hand across her face. "My dad came by today."
"Really? That's great! It's been what? Since before Ally was born anyway..."
"A few months before that...almost a year."
"So, he couldn't stay."
"No, he couldn't."
"But, you had a good visit, right? I hope you remembered to get some pictures."
Carter shrugged, "There wasn't time."
"Oh," Shanahan said, settling down beside them on the step and placing an arm around Carter. "At least you got to see him..."
"Yeah. It was good to see him," Carter agreed and gave him a weak smile, and Ally knew it hadn't been enough. But there was nothing she could do to take back her reaction and give Carter the time she needed with her dad.
"So, everything was all right, right? These," he said, wiping a tear from Carter's eye, "are just 'cause you hated to see him go, right?"
"Right," Carter answered, leaning her head over on his shoulder, "I miss him, Pete. So much." And Ally understood that neither she nor Shanahan could make her hurt go away. It was Ally's first experience with human grief, but it was not her last.
She'd been left the legacy of a dying people, so in one sense she was not unacquainted with personal tragedy. Within her mind, there were countless emotions and thoughts connected to loss. She'd bumped into them on many occasions, and their torment and sorrow were frightful things she avoided.
But, they were also inexplicable. She was too young for one thing...with the understanding of a young child the sudden, irrevocable loss of a loved one through death was not something she could comprehend. For another, the bonds she'd formed between the people in her life were too fragile and too few to allow her to glimpse how deeply grief and loss drilled into the heart and soul. Her greatest loss was the absence of a man she had never known; she'd always lived without his presence-it was an ache that had been old before she'd ever been born.
She understood on a surface level because any forced separation from her mother left her bereft, but aside from the hours surrounding the births of Jacob and Peter, Carter had never left her for more than a few hours when work left her no alternative or Pete insisted she sleep.
But, grief comes to us all, and Ally, for all her withdrawn isolation, was not immune.
To Ally, the doorbell was always a warning siren which she never took for granted. Depending on the day, it could send her into a wild frenzy, paralyze her with fear where she stood, or drive her to hide in the corner or under the end table. This day, it caught her and left her frozen only a few feet from the door so she saw the moment of hesitation when Carter opened it. She'd seen it before and had always until that moment assumed that it stemmed from the same source as her own reactions to the doorbell. But Carter was a soldier's daughter and a cop's wife; she hadn't needed to give birth to a potential target before the unexpected ring of a doorbell or phone carried with it the hint of calamity. She'd been stretching out her hand and opening doors with that niggling, clenching of her insides all of her life, and this time was no different.
Except this time was it. This time there were two cops-Pete's partner and some kid barely out of academy-standing there with their hats in their hands, refusing to meet her eyes, and Jones murmuring, "So sorry, Sam...I'm so sorry." He made a move to come into the house, but Carter barred his way.
"Don't come in," she said and with a motion toward Ally she explained, "Ally." Jones nodded his head in understanding. He'd been Pete's partner since the Shanahans had transferred in and he knew all about Ally. They shuffled back from the door and Carter followed them out onto the porch. Ally saw it all in that ultra-aware, time-almost-stopped-unreality that surrounds tragedies of such magnitude. Carter's movements were heavy and sluggish and Ally stepped into one of Sir's memories of moving in a heavy, cumbersome space suit with his feet weighted down in magnetic boots. Jacob toddled up to the screen door and squished his chubby mouth against the screen. "Momma...momma," he babbled but Ally and Jacob might as well have been on the moon--Carter couldn't hear them, couldn't see them. Ally became aware that one moment in time could change everything...the pieces-the people-in her life could vanish with the ringing of a doorbell and life would never be the same.
"Where'd they take him? What hospital? I'll go right away. Where do I go?" Carter pleaded with the men, her voice small and choked with fear.
"Sam...it's no good," Jones said. "He died at the scene. It's all over. I'm sorry."
Carter placed a hand over her mouth. "No," she said shaking her head. "No, no, NO!" The young cop turned away and watched the cars passing on the road. Jones stepped forward and took her mother in his arms. They stood together weeping and gently rocking.
Jacob banged his hand against the screen. When that didn't get his mother's attention, he called for her with a string of baby talk, and when that proved ineffective as well he began to fuss and whine. The young cop sidled past Jones and their mother, opened the door, and lifted Jacob out. He carried him off the porch and set him down on the grass. Jacob laughed at the feel of its cool, greenness between his bare toes and plopped down onto his diapered bottom to grab handfuls of it. His rescuer stood over him protectively and looked anywhere but at the grief going on behind them.
Ally stood rooted to the living room floor, unable to move even when the stranger had opened the door. She had never loved Pete-and suddenly, now that he was gone, that's who he was in her mind. Not Daddy, and not Shanahan with a hint of contempt and disgust either. Just Pete who had loved her and whom she had never loved in return. So why was his loss so devastating? Why were her feet encased in magnetic boots? Why was her heart beating so painfully in her chest? And why couldn't she breathe?
Time on Ally's side of the door and out on the porch remained frozen while on the front lawn Jacob toddled about and in the street, cars whizzed by full of people laughing, talking, and getting on with their lives. Eventually, the radio in Jones' car parked at the curb burst out with static and unintelligible words and Carter and Jones' pulled apart; their faces wet with tears. Jones roughly wiped his with his jacketed arm and Carter ran a trembling hand down hers which only served to smear it worse. The young cop stepped up with an outstretched handkerchief. Carter looked at it as though she'd never seen one before until Jones took it and wiped her face with it as though she were no older than Jacob. She swayed under his ministrations, and Ally thought she was going to collapse, but she didn't.
"Thanks," she breathed out to Jones and took the handkerchief from him. "You better go...Janey. She'll need to see you, need to know you're all right."
"First, let me call someone to come be with you. Hank and Lois?"
"They're out of town-"
"Right...visiting Rose, Pete told me. Someone else then?"
"I've some friends who'll come...I'll call them. In a bit. You just go. We'll be fine."
"Right. Do you want me to call Hank?"
"I'll do it...go home, Jones."
"Ahh...paperwork. But I'll call Janey. I will, promise. Do you want me to ask her to come?"
"No, no...it's sweet of you and...but, Ally-you know Ally and people in the house." Ally bristled at the use of her name as though she was an excuse or reason for every decision her mother made, although in those later years when she looked back she knew it was true. Carter had weighed every decision and every change no matter how big or how small for its affect on Ally. She'd done all she could to protect her and shelter her like a young tree from the wind...but Pete's death had blown through both their lives like a Category 5 hurricane.
Jones understood, at least in part, the dynamics of the Shanahan home. He was well aware that Ally controlled and limited what happened in that house, and he'd long since stopped fighting her with offers of getting together for pizza or cards. "Yeah. Ok. But you call if you need us...we'll be here. I promise."
"Thanks," she said one last time as the other cop dumped Jacob into her arms, and they turned finally to their car and left. Carter stood staring after them for another eternity while Jacob poked inquiringly at her nose and into her ears and she never noticed. When she turned finally to come into the house and opened the screen door, Ally took an involuntary step back. She felt suddenly an outsider in her own home. She was the cuckoo left in Pete's nest and she had no part in the grief her mother carried with her as surely as she carried Jacob.
But, then Carter stepped next to her and placed a warm hand on her head. Ally would have liked to tell her mother how sorry she was, but she couldn't overcome the silence that she'd so skillfully wound around herself. Instead she reached up and clasped her mother's hand in her own and with a moan, Carter bent over to pull her into her embrace with Jacob. It couldn't last. Jacob clamored to get down and the unborn baby squirmed and kicked in protest of his cramped quarters, but for a brief second they'd all been joined together in their grief, they'd all been a family.
Then Jacob was off to see if someone had forgotten to close the bathroom door and Carter was clumsily standing up and Ally was once again alone with the multitude that lived in her head. They were uncharacteristically silent, overshadowed by the events happening Outside. Carter staggered to the couch and fumbled with her cell phone. She began to dial it with shaking hands. With an effort, Ally uprooted her leaden feet and shambled over to stand in front of her.
She'd been chasing Carter from room to room since the instant she'd finally mastered forward motion at the age of three and a half months, driven by her compulsion to be near her mother. But, this time she followed her not out of her own need, but out of a desire to comfort Carter. She stood uncertainly there at her mother's knees, wanting to help but not knowing how. A memory-one of her own for a change-came to her of Pete with his hand on Carter's shoulder. She tentatively reached out a hand and placed it on Carter's knee.
Carter gave a small gasp and her face crumpled with more tears. She shut her cell phone before it connected. Ally thought she'd done the wrong thing, but Carter pulled her onto her lap and held her close for a moment before redialing. When the ringing stopped, Ally could hear Daniel's voice sounding stilted and odd on his answering machine. Her mother drew in a wavering breath and said, "Daniel, it's Sam...call me when you come in. Please. It's....it's Pete." The last word came out a stifled sob and Carter broke the connection.
After a moment she dialed again. The phone rang a long time, but finally Ally heard Old Doc Frasier's impatient, brisk doctor voice, "Frasier."
Carter hesitated and then said, "Janet."
"Sam?"
"Are you busy?"
"We're expecting casualties at any minute."
"Daniel, Teal'c?'
"I can't say, Sam...we won't know until they get here-you know that."
"Yeah."
"Sam, what is it? Is something wrong with the baby?"
"No. It's fine...the baby's fine."
"Sam!" Old Doc Frasier said impatiently when Carter said nothing more.
"Janet, just call me when you can talk, ok?" Carter said hollowly.
"Right...as soon as I can, I promise. But, it may be awhile."
"Just call me?"
"OK...listen they're dialing in, I've got to go." And the line went dead.
One more call to go. "Rose, it's Sam."
"Sam? I wasn't expecting to hear from you...what's up?" came Aunt Rose's voice over the phone. On the line behind her, people were laughing and chattering. Ally felt an irrational anger that they could be happy while her mother wept and Pete was dead.
Over their noise, Grandpa said, "Sam's calling here? Give me the phone." The alarm in his voice quieted the happy murmurs. He spoke into the receiver, "Sam?" Carter opened her mouth to answer but no sound came out. She swallowed to try again, but he was already asking, "Is it Ally?"
"No," she forced out with a cry.
"Pete," Grandpa said. Not a question, just a bleak statement. He'd raised a cop and he'd spent years dreading this particular call.
"I'm sorry."
"Is he...?" Carter broke down into wracking sobs and he didn't ask again. "We're coming. We'll be there as soon as we can...Lois! Here, you talk to her-she needs you."
Grandma's voice came on haltingly, "Sam. Sam, honey. We're coming. You have to think of the baby...and take care of yourself. We'll be there as soon as we can get a flight-Rose is calling on her cell phone now-hold on, we'll be there."
As soon as they could was seven hours away, what with airport security, an unavoidable layover along the way, and due to heavy rain, a delayed connecting flight. Somehow, General Hammond had gotten word long before that. He arrived unannounced to sit quietly with them through the unending afternoon. Ally had never met him, but she was too bone-weary with sorrow to react to his presence-besides Sir nodded approvingly in his direction and didn't drop any bombshells like glowing eyes or snakes. The general was the one who ran after Jacob, fed him, changed him, and settled him down for his nap. He was the one who answered the phone, accepted the first of what would amount to a houseful of flowers, and told the reporters at the door that the family had no comment.
Carter sat on the couch holding Ally or Jacob or clutching her arms around Pete's unborn son. Or she followed the General around, listlessly picking up items and staring unseeingly at them. The general took her by the shoulders and put her to bed just like he had Jacob. He found Pete's bathrobe hanging on the bathroom door and tucked it in with her without a word. Then he kissed her gently on the forehead and said, "Try to sleep" to Sam and "Why don't you climb on in there, too?" to Ally and left them to carry out his orders.
Grandma and Grandpa Shanahan arrived while they slept. They took charge of Jacob and bustled about as though by keeping busy they could keep the pain of their loss from rising up and consuming them. General Hammond had sent word back to the SGC, and Teal'c came long before Old Doc Frasier's as-soon-as-she-could-call came through. His quiet, somber presence filled the couch and calmed Carter's restlessness. He cradled her in his big arms when she wept, listened when she needed to talk, and sat quietly and undemanding when she didn't. It would be two days before Daniel was fit to travel and another day at least before Janet would be able to leave her remaining patients and arrive with Cassy.
Long before that the house was full. More aunts, uncles, cousins, second cousins, and other assorted relatives appeared daily. They took over the couch, Ally's bed, and the empty beds and couches at Grandma and Grandpa Shanahan's at night, but by day they filled the living room, dining room, and kitchen and spilled out onto the porch and into the yard.
Ally was beside herself with all the coming and going. There was no way she could protect herself from so many strangers, so many prospective enemies. When she couldn't stay curled up in bed beside Carter feeling her quiet sobs and the unborn baby's restless kicks and wiggles, she huddled under the end table or in the little space between the book shelf and the corner. Several of the relatives were always taking it upon themselves to draw her out from her hiding spots, but Grandma and Grandpa said, "Let the poor child be. You'll only upset her and that's the last thing Sam needs right now."
Ally agreed. She tried her best to not cause her mother any worry. When someone would peer under the table at her and say, "She's got to eat something," she'd gather what little courage she had and let them pull her out like a floppy, rag doll and spoon feed her whatever it was they thought she needed to eat. When someone would say, "Has anyone seen this child drink anything today?" she'd again let them drag her out and press a cup to her mouth. When someone would drag her out saying she really ought to be getting some sleep, she'd let them carry her unresisting to bed. And, when they decided she'd slept enough, she'd let them carry her back out and then run to crouch in the corner.
But it was all too much when Uncle Mark's wife said she really had to have a bath and a change of clothes, though she did. The house was full of strangers and the path to the bathroom was fraught with too many dangers for her to venture there if whoever had dragged her out for food or drink didn't think to take her while they had her out. When her aunt bent down and said, "Honey, let me give you a bath and put you in some nice clean clothes," Ally took one look at her reaching hands and lost it. She shot out from under the end table in the other direction and ran blindly through the house banging into one set of stranger's knees or shoes after another and quietly screaming out her terror. She fell in a terrified heap in the living room and found every eye fixed on her in surprise or distress or curiosity. She froze under their collective gaze.
And then Carter was there picking her up, smoothing her hair, and whispering, "It's all right, Baby. It's all right, I've got you." Ally buried her head in her shoulder and wept.
Aunt Chris said, "I'm sorry...I didn't mean to upset her."
"It's all right," Carter said. "But, it would be better if everyone just left her to me...I'll see to her."
"Sam, we're here to help...let us help," Uncle Mark said.
"There's nothing you can do, Mark."
"Sam-"
"You remember when Mom died, Mark...there's nothing anyone can do. We just have to get through this."
"Not that, Sam. But, we can do things to help-if you'd let us. Give her to me...you shouldn't be carrying her around."
"No! She's fine, Mark. She's fine. "
"She's not fine, Sam...and neither are you! She controls you...there's nothing that happens in this house that she's not manipulating!"
Carter turned without answering and carried Ally to her room where she bathed and dressed her in gloomy silence. Carter sat her on the edge of the bed to comb and braid her hair. "I'm sorry I haven't been paying attention. I shouldn't have left you to them...I should have made sure you were ok. I'm sorry--it won't happen again." Carter finished with her hair and sat down beside her.
"You know what, little girl? It's the second--your birthday. You're three today. Did you know that? Do you even know what it means? Do you even care?" Ally blinked up at her. She'd been vaguely aware of other birthdays because they involved cake. Generally, she didn't notice what she ate, but cake was a different thing altogether. This year, she supposed, there wouldn't be any cake, but no, she didn't particularly care...not now, not today when the house was full of strangers, her mother was as fragile as a flower beaten down by the storm; and Pete wasn't there to say, "Hold her closer to the cake, Sam," as he tried to snap a picture as though she was a normal little girl excited to blow out the candles and open presents.
She didn't suppose there'd be presents either...there had been the other years though presents meant nothing to her, they were simply more props for Pete's pictures. But she was wrong. "Here," Carter said getting up to rummage in a drawer. "General O'Neill sent you something...it came in the mail the other day...I stuck it in here-here it is," she said turning and waving a small box towards Ally. "Shall we see what he thinks is an appropriate gift for a three year old little girl? I think we can safely bet it's not a baby doll." Ally could see the effort she was putting into trying to smile. "Pete was going to pick you up something from us, but...so I'm afraid this is all you've got for now. I bet Daniel will remember. He'll be here later today...you'll be glad to see him won't you?" Carter sighed again, "I will. I wish...I wish General Hammond could have stayed until he got here. I feel so outnumbered, you know? Anyway, how about you open it this year?" She took Ally's hands and moved them to open the box to reveal a small, rectangular object that Ally didn't recognize.
Her mother turned it over in her hands and shook her head. She gave Ally a sad smile. "A harmonica," she said. "See you play it like this?" She raised it to her mouth and played a few, lonely notes. "Well, not exactly like that...it helps if you're musical, I'm sure. You want to try?" she asked holding it to Ally's lips. "No...maybe later. Maybe he had the right idea, you know? There's more than one way to make noise, Ally. You could play me songs with it..."
Ally thought if she'd had the harmonica a few minutes before she would have played it loud and hard and brought her mother to her rescue without making quite as big a spectacle of herself and now Carter wouldn't be trying to make up for things that weren't her fault. But, they both knew she'd never play the instrument. It would end up on the shelf in her room where all the general's gifts sat, gathering dust and waiting for a day that was never going to come.
"It doesn't matter," Carter said. "Shall we read the card?" She opened the orange envelope and drew out a card. Printed on the front in large, block letters were the words, "Happy Birthday!" Carter read them in a subdued voice and then stared blindly at them for a minute before saying, "He sent it before...before, you know?" She opened it, but closed it without reading it. She drew in a breath and began to cry. Ally thought she might never be done with crying. That Pete's death had opened a floodgate of tears that were slowly going to drain her mother dry. Carter lay down, curling into a ball, and Ally fit herself into its center and they stayed that way until Grandma Shanahan crept in to say Jacob was crying for Carter and Daniel had arrived.
Slowly the house emptied of relatives and friends. Slowly Jacob quit calling "Dada, Dada" when the phone rang or a car pulled up in the driveway. Slowly Ally became accustomed to the changes in the house without Pete. Life didn't return to normal...not the normal it had always been before, but it did take on its own normality. One without Pete's laughing, teasing voice; without his dirty socks in the living room or his shoes by the door. One where grownups tended to speak in subdued tones and rarely finished what they were saying but just let the words trail off into silence; and where tears were always lurking behind their eyes.
Carter quit spending most of the day sleeping or crying in her room and returned to her work on the computer though as far as Ally could see she accomplished very little. She had spent her life around Carter and her computer, but she'd never taken much interest in what flashed on the screen. But, now, when Carter was apt to stare unmoving at the same frame for minutes at a time, Ally began to notice things she recognized on it...a symbol here or an equation. It was the first time she realized that many of the things running about in her head had meaning. They'd always simply been there, incomprehensible and unquestioned, like wallpaper or curtains long hung and no longer really seen.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
Sam gave a low groan and put her hands over her face.
Lois, always hovering about, stood at the door peering in. "What is it, Sam?" she asked.
"Oh, I need to get this figured out, but...I just can't think."
"Let it go for a while, honey. You've been at it for hours."
Sam stretched out her kinked back and gave Lois a small smile, "I'm afraid I can't...they're needing this right away."
"They're always needing something, Sam," Lois said. A timer beeped in the kitchen, and she went off to check the cookies or casserole or whatever she'd been making to keep her sorrow at bay. Carter turned back to her screen, but from where Ally stood, near enough to touch but miles away, she could see that her mother's gaze was even farther away. It often was anymore. And when she'd start to awareness at Jacob's cry or Grandma's touch, she's still wouldn't be back with them, not really. Her mind and heart were wherever she'd been.
Ally looked from the screen to her mother and back again. She was fascinated with what she saw there. It was an equation that had flitted around her mind from time to time only it wasn't. The symbols were in the wrong order...the ones that should be up were down and the ones that should be down were up. It was an interesting juxtaposition. Ally turned her head as far to the right as she could to try to put the equation right again, but it didn't help.
"What are you doing, Ally?" her mother asked her curiously. Ally reached out her hand to the screen and made a turning motion over the numbers and then looked at her mom. "What?" Carter repeated. Ally rarely interacted with her environment voluntarily. She would eat if someone forced a spoon into her hand and started the process, she would drink if someone held a cup to her mouth, and she'd wipe herself if given toilet paper; but toys, books, or pencils pressed into her hand were allowed to simply fall back out. She never picked up things to examine, never fiddled with anything, never in anyway gave the impression she was aware things-or most people for that matter--even existed except to move around anything or anyone that separated her from where she wanted to go...typically wherever Carter was. She'd never focused on a picture book, or the TV, or the computer before. And as it was almost as rare for Ally to make eye contact with her, Ally's behavior was enough to make Carter sit up and pay attention.
Ally took Carter's left hand and pushed it at the keyboard, then she screwed her head around again, and used her other hand to make the twisting motion over the keyboard. Carter shook her head, "I wish you could talk to me...I wish I knew what you were thinking behind those big eyes of yours." Ally thought she probably didn't, not really, at least not usually. But, the more she looked at the upside down symbols the more certain she was that what was on the screen wasn't right. It needed fixed and that was why it wasn't working for whatever it was Carter was trying to do. She banged her own hand soundly against the computer screen in frustration and Carter caught it. She pulled her up into her lap and said, "What do you want it to do, Ally?" Ally didn't want it to do anything. She wanted Carter to flip the symbols around and fix the problem. She tried again. She pointed her finger at the offending symbols and then circled it in the air. Her mother squinted at the screen silently for a moment. "You want to inverse the rate of expansion, the pressure, and..." Sam let her words trail off as she deftly ran her fingers over the keyboard and made the necessary adjustments.
Ally nodded her head in satisfaction when the equation on the screen matched the one in her head. Her mother used a hand to turn her face to see her, "Do you know what this is, Ally? If this works, it would definitely solve the problem with the mix...I think you did it, Ally." She smiled at Ally a moment and then went back to the work. "If this works, we can get them home after all," she said. Ally wondered who they were and how the symbols on the screen were going to get anyone home, but as long as it made her mother happy that was all she needed to know.
After that, she began to take more notice of her mother's work. Much of it was unfamiliar to Ally, but occasionally she recognized the things on the screen. If no one else was around, she'd point a finger at them and look at Carter who would always pause in her work to see what Ally saw. "Do you know what you're looking at, Ally?" she'd sometimes ask and then explain it to her like she thought Ally just might, "It's the Ancient formula for compensating for gravitational forces on outgoing wormhole. I think, or maybe it's just a bunch of random symbols and I'm wasting my time. I wish you'd tell me?"
For the most part, there was nothing Ally could tell her. Occasionally, she would see something that didn't quite line up with what was in her head or Carter would be missing symbols. Carter made her a simplified keyboard with the various Ancient letters, numbers, and symbols and Ally learned to use it to show her mother what the equation looked like in her head. Encouraged, Carter introduced her to a communication board. Ally saw her mistake and after that wouldn't touch either the communication board or the keyboard.
"It's like that then," Carter said with a sigh. "You don't trust me, do you?" She didn't sound particularly hurt or angry, yet Ally felt guilty anyway. She had grown a lot from the newborn infant who'd lain in Carter's arms and thought her capable of great evil. She'd come to believe that the Goa'uld Carter she'd seen through Sir's eyes wasn't the same Carter who lived in her house. There were only the few, frightening images of that Carter and hundreds more of a Carter he'd trusted more than he had trusted himself. That was the Carter she lived with. She'd had proven herself trustworthy a thousand times over. But, Ally still couldn't bring herself to risk exposure by reaching out and communicating-not with Carter, not with anyone.
Seeing the same images on Carter's computer screen that she saw in her mind, made Ally realized it wasn't souls she was harboring. The Others were no more alive and present in her mind than Sir was. All she had were the memories, thoughts, and information they'd passed down. They were tools to be used with no life or will of their own. The images that fired at times like ricocheting bullets through her mind were those her subconscious had pulled up and brought to her attention to be used or discarded as the situation warranted. They were just bits of information her infant mind had not been capable of distinguishing from aliens in her midst. Slowly she began to see the pattern and organization of the ancient thoughts stored within her. There was nothing random about them...each was there for a reason, each assessable at will if she could learn the filing system.
That was harder than it sounded. Even though she now understood what they were, they were still alien thoughts, alien emotions, and alien facts. She could see the design behind them, but not the meaning. And she was still a very little girl incapable of truly understanding their more mature ways of thinking and looking at life. She saw now that she needed a bridge to span between her human understanding and the alien unknown she carried, her childish mind and their old and wise ones. Without one...
But, it was a beginning; a promise of that one day Carter had spoken of.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
While she was beginning to believe it might one day be possible to make sense of the world inside of her, the outside world took an inexplicable turn. One morning she walked down the hallway and found a dead man in her house. Sir. She'd been seeing him within her mind since before she was born, but he'd never before appeared as an apparition Outside. She thought perhaps he was no longer limiting his presence to her conscious mind, but also appearing in her dreams-she really was back in her bed still asleep.
"Well, hello there," he said, kneeling down and holding out his hand to her. She desperately wanted to touch him, to feel him just once if only in a dream.
"Sir," Carter said behind him. Ally turned to her in surprise that she could see the image from her mind. Her mother smiled reassuringly at her. Ally gazed back. Carter was different in her dream-happy, she was almost glowing with happiness. But, then she would be, wouldn't she? To see him? Surely she'd loved him as much as he'd loved her. Of course, she would be. Just as Ally was. She turned back to look at him.
"I'm Jack," he told her. "I'm marrying your mom. We're going to be family." They were family...outside of dreams anyway. She looked back at her mother wondering if they really would have been a family if he would have managed to survive the fate he'd believed was coming for him. She would have liked that. This was an exceptionally good dream and though her limited experience with other dreams had almost always ended up with something very bad showing up, she was in no hurry to wake up.
"You've heard me talk about Colonel O'Neill," Carter said, "He's a general now, but he's ok." Oh, yes. She'd grown up hearing about the colonel, O'Neill, Jack, Colonel O'Neill...she'd always known his name, always been quick to tune in when Carter and Teal'c and Daniel sat up late into the night reminiscing about the days that the four of them had been a team. Stories of the colonel were the nursery rhymes, fairy tales, and bedtime stories of her life.
But. She'd heard of General O'Neill, too. It was his gifts that sat on the shelf in her room. But, he wasn't Sir. Couldn't be Sir. Because Sir had long since ceased to live anywhere but within her mind and now her dreams while General O'Neill was alive in the Outside. That shelf full of toys in her room and the one in Jacob and Peter's room hadn't been filled with gifts bought and sent by a dead man.
If Colonel O'Neill WAS General O'Neill...she turned back to the man kneeling before her with his hand outstretched. He wasn't quite the image of the man in her mind, but very close. He was younger than the picture of himself he'd left her with, but she was learning that memories could do that. They were subjective. He'd lived through enough that maybe he had felt old even if he wasn't. He might have passed on that perception of himself rather than the face he saw in the mirror. She looked into his eyes and wanted him to be real...wanted him to be the man she'd missed all of her life. A real, living, flesh and blood man.
Hesitantly she took a step toward him. He grinned at her and, reaching out to take her hand, pulled her to him. He felt real. She laid her head against his shoulder. "Hello, Beautiful," he told her quietly. "You and I are going to get along just fine, aren't we?"
"Sam," Daniel said, "now would be a good time," and Ally thought it was more than a good time, it was the best time-the only way it could be better was if it was real. And the longer the dream continued, the more she thought it might just be real after all. He remained solid and present all through breakfast--which he ate just like a living man would.
Ally sat on his lap and felt as though the world had finally righted itself. He was there. He would take back the legacy he'd prematurely left her with and she'd be just a little girl who didn't have to figure out how to save the world. And then Carter said, "There are things you need to know. Things that are going to upset you."
Ally felt the tension in him as he sat back and said, "Ok...I'll try to hear you out. What's this all about?" But, Carter couldn't bring herself to say whatever she had meant to say. Daniel didn't get much farther. Ally watched them both puzzled. Neither of them usually had problems with being articulate-Sir, the Sir in her mind, had always thought they both were a bit too articulate. But neither of them was coming up with the words that they'd decided he needed to hear.
It was Teal'c who finally put the truth they'd been stumbling over into words, "You are aware of the harcesis, O'Neill?"
"Of course. Sha're's kid born with all the knowledge of the Goa'uld."
"It was your belief that the Ancient knowledge you possessed would also be transferred to your offspring."
Ally felt him stiffen with the jolt of understanding. "My offspring?" he echoed hollowly. She remembered what he'd said out in the living room-"We're going to be family." He hadn't known they already were. He hadn't known she was his. From the stiffness of his body and the hardness of his voice, she knew he didn't like the thought of it. Her anxiety and confusion swept away her earlier happiness. He'd been well aware of her when he'd made her. But Daniel had asked what he remembered and he had answered nothing. Somehow he'd forgotten what he and Carter had done on that Al'kesh.
"I ordered you to..." he started to say to her mother, but he didn't finish. Instead he closed his eyes and shuddered, then he opened his eyes and stared at her. She could read in them both confusion and dismay.
"Some choice," he said and his voice was thick with regret. Ally wanted to run and hide, disappear. Her mother reached for her. But he held onto her and wouldn't let her go. He didn't want her but he wouldn't release her to Carter.
And Carter wouldn't make him. "I'm sorry," she whispered. He replied as though he had been the one to whom she was speaking. He didn't accept her apology and he was beyond whispering. He yelled at Carter, yelled at Daniel, and yelled at Teal'c. She waited for him to yell at her as well because she knew she was the real cause of his anger. He didn't agree with the decisions that had given her life, couldn't abide her existence. He wouldn't be taking back his legacy, wouldn't be relieving her of the responsibility he'd programmed into her...he couldn't if he wanted to, and he most decidedly did not want to.
But instead of lashing out at her, he let his anger go...she felt him swallow it down. His arms around her loosened and he relaxed. She didn't understand what had happened, didn't know if she should trust it. Would his anger return later? Had he merely deferred it until he could act on it? She knew the way he thought, knew he was capable of making nice while laying a trap. What he'd given her of himself had been confusing, but no more confusing than he was himself. She didn't know how to protect herself from him. He knew who she was, what she was.
And Carter...Carter who'd always been there, protecting her, looking out for her didn't seem to see the danger. She'd offered to take Ally from him, but when he'd refused she'd left her to his mercy. But, Carter didn't know him like Ally did; didn't know how ruthless and hard he could really be, didn't know that if the situation warranted it he was capable of feeling no mercy at all.
She'd spent the rest of the morning and into the early afternoon in confusion and fear. She wanted him in her life and after his initial, angry reactions, he seemed happy enough to have her in his...but with him in particular, appearances could not be trusted.
Her world was already in so much turmoil that the arrival of General Hammond and Old Doc Frasier didn't generate more fear. She was already at red alert and past the point of panic, or at least she'd thought so until the woman at the courthouse had reached out to pat her hair. She'd screamed and kicked and punched until the fear was drained from her. Not just the fear of the stranger reaching for her, but her fear of Sir, too. She let Carter's soft murmurs wash over her, "It's all right, Ally. You're safe...you're safe," and knew it was true as far as he was concerned.
She'd lived with the essence of the man all of her life; she knew what he was capable of, and she knew what he wasn't. And he was not capable of harming her. Even if he hated the thought of her, she was Carter's daughter and for her mother's sake, it would take a lot to make him harm her. Even if he saw her as an aberration, she was still only a little child, and she couldn't imagine much that would make him strike out at a kid. And, even if he believed she was a threat that had to be eliminated, he'd remember Charlie and he'd remember she was his and he wouldn't touch her. Charlie had been an accident, and he almost hadn't survived his death. Her death would be no accident but cold-blooded murder, and he wouldn't be able to live with her blood on his hands.
She drew in great shuddering gasps of air in relief and clung to her mother. She allowed him to take her from Carter so Carter could 'freshen up a bit' whatever that meant. She lay exhausted on his lap, her head on his shoulder, and listened to his heartbeat.
"Listen, little girl, I love you," he murmured into her ear and that was everything she'd ever wanted to hear. But, of course, there was a 'but'. "I'm not having you acting like that ever again. You will not be throwing yourself around like that. You hit your mom more than once. I won't have it. What if it would have been one of your baby brothers? It's not happening. Do you understand me?" She understood him, but she didn't know how to control herself when the panic came. She'd never intentionally hurt Carter or the boys, but she couldn't promise him it wouldn't happen again. He said again, "Do you understand me?"
She lifted her eyes to stare into his. They were hard with years of command behind them. She had no choice but to answer him the way she'd been bred too. She moved her head close to his ear and said, "Yes, Sir." Outloud. Where he could hear her. She felt more exposed and vulnerable than she had ever been, but he didn't seem to notice. "That's all right then," he said with a nod, and it had been. Or so she had thought.
She'd fallen asleep believing it was, but she'd woken up to find him gone. She'd been missing him all of her life, but that was nothing compared to this. She had trusted him and let him see a part of herself she'd never even shown her own mother. And he'd walked away and left her behind. He couldn't, he wouldn't do that. She couldn't believe he'd really gone...she searched through the house for him again and again. When it became all too clear he was gone, she waited at the door for him, believing he wouldn't have left, couldn't have left her. She'd waited for him to return all night, refusing to believe he'd deserted her. But he hadn't come.
In the end, she gave him up and returned to Carter. Her mother held her close and wiped her tears. "He's not gone for good. He'll be back..." she promised, but Ally could hear the doubt and uncertainty in her voice and didn't believe her.
More determined than ever, she retreated into her own world. She was vaguely aware of changes going on in the house. Boxes were piling up along the walls, her mother's books were disappearing off the bookshelves, and she found Carter cleaning out cupboards and closets as often as she did in front of the computer. Changes were dangerous, they made it difficult to plan escape routes and made vigilance all the more necessary. She hated them and let Carter know it by frequent bursts of frenzied angry acting out. But, she didn't strike out at Carter; she'd been given an order and she kept it. He had betrayed her trust, but she wouldn't his. Instead of Carter, she took most of her anger out on the piles of boxes; they withstood her barrage of punches and kicks without complaint.
"Ally," Carter murmured, pulling Peter away from the boxes where he had pulled himself up to a stand and had been triumphantly grinning at her before his sister had gone off. She sat him down, and he laughed and began to crawl back as quickly as his little arms could move.
"Stop it! Stop it, Ally!" Jacob yelled, "You're ruining my fort! Mama! She knocked it all down."
"I'm sorry, Jacob," Carter said, grabbing Ally from behind and holding her tightly against her chest while Ally kicked and raged at the air. "Maybe you can build your fort in your bedroom?"
"Don't want to," he said with a pout.
Carter sighed and steered her and Ally to the couch where she sat and continued to hold her out-of-control daughter until the fight went out of her and she silently cried in her arms. She turned Ally around to face her and smoothed her hair away from her hot and sweaty face with her hands. "Oh, Baby, I wish you'd listen to me...or at least listen to him when he calls. He's coming back, as soon as he can. This weekend at the latest. I know you're upset he left, but some things can't be helped." But, Ally wouldn't listen, wouldn't allow herself to hear the words Carter said or those his voice spoke out of the phone when Carter would press it to her ear. Because she was afraid. She wanted him back so badly she didn't think she could bear it if he didn't come...better to not believe it than be disappointed.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
Ally didn't like the lecture hall. It was too open. The seats wouldn't make good cover in an attack, although being small she might be able to evade capture under them for a short time. But, not long enough to make an escape...the doors were too far away and too sparsely situated. Carter was miles away and an easy target. If anyone wanted to get Ally and believed Carter stood in their way-they could take her out with one shot from just about anywhere in the room. She was never certain if the people who filled the seats behind her were an advantage to her or to the enemy. Most assailants would surely be dissuaded from a frontal attack with so many witnesses, and by their sheer numbers, they might also be seen as a deterrent. But, they could also be taken hostage and used as a lever to coerce her into surrender. Or they could panic and block her from where she'd need to go...but then they'd prove just as much a hindrance to the enemy.
No, she didn't care for the lecture hall at all. But, in a choice between staying home without Carter or sitting in the lecture hall with Carter in view-well, it wouldn't be for long and then they'd both be back in the relative safety of the house. She'd been sitting through Carter's lectures since she'd thrown such a fit at being left at home that she'd thrown herself out of Pete's arms and ended up needing three stitches.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Pete said, "Enough. We'll go with you tomorrow, and I'll keep her where she can see you...maybe that will help."
Sam shook her head. "You know she'll hate it there..."
"So...she hates it here too, Sam."
"I'll back out..."
"You can't back out of everything! And if it were that easy, you wouldn't be doing it in the first place. Let's give it a try-it can't be worse than what happened today, right? You've never seen her like that, Sam. She was so upset, she was making herself sick."
"It will only be worse out in public, Pete."
"Let's try it...as long as she knows you're there, she might not even notice everyone else. I won't let her make a circus of your lecture, I promise."
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
His solution had worked better than either of them had expected, and he'd continued to sit with Ally through lectures up until his death. He'd never complained about the time he had to take off work so Carter could lecture and even encouraged her to accept more invitations to do so. Once the boys had arrived and become mobile, he'd joked that it was the only way he got to actually see her standing still.
Ally had sat silent and alone through the very few lectures Carter hadn't been able to sidestep since his death. She didn't actually listen to the talk...techno-babble held no meaning for her, not at that age. But, she did like to listen to her mother's voice. Since Pete had died, her mother had had less and less to say. There was days, especially if Grandma and Grandpa took Jacob for the afternoon, when she barely spoke at all. But, then, who did she have to talk to? Ally who had nothing to say in return, Jacob whose idea of conversation consisted of car noises, sirens, and words like 'bang' and 'pow', and Peter who babbled almost nonstop and wouldn't understand if he shut up long enough to listen? She'd managed to isolate her mother almost as much as she had herself.
When someone ventured into her row of seats, she didn't appear to notice, but she did. Vigilance was her only protection against attack, and one part of her was always attune to what was happening around her...but that part was concerned with only two things: threat level and any encroachment into the personal space she'd projected around herself. The interloper sat closer than Ally would have liked...particularly as she was within reach of his long arms. But, he made no move to shorten the physical distance between them or infringe into her private world. Better to ignore him and hope he would fail to notice her in any way than make a move away from him and draw his attention. She never even turned her eyes to see who it was...not until Carter broke the cadence of her lecture, smiled at him, and said, "Ladies and Gentleman, General Jack O'Neill of the United States Air Force. Glad you could make it, General."
It was the last thing she'd expected her mother to say or do. She stared in surprise as he rose and gave a small bow to her audience, "The pleasure's all mine, Doctor," he said in a voice she would have known anywhere. "Please continue." Whether Carter continued or not didn't matter to Ally. She threw herself on him as he settled back into his seat. He held her close and whispered, "Hey, there, beautiful. Missed me?"
She had more than missed him. She nodded her head, and breathed out her joy in refinding him in a heartfelt 'Sir'. "Well, what do you know?" he whispered to himself, and Ally looked up at him wondering what he was asking. Did he want to know what she knew from the Others? If he did, she couldn't tell him. Not yet. But one day. She had yet to learn how to read, access, and use their information. But, she suddenly knew it would come...she'd had the key within her the whole time. A Rosetta Stone with which to interpret their alienness into her very human thoughts and emotions.
He was her Rosetta Stone. The bits and pieces of himself he'd given her were what she would need to translate the alien material into her own understanding. His mind had held the translation keys that turned tratiy into inches, frawn into mind, and the Ancient concept of ryntal into love. By using his knowledge she would gain the power to use the information he'd provided for her.
As though reading her mind, he smiled at her. She smiled back. One day, she'd use both the legacy he'd given and his own knowledge to do what he'd made her to do. Unexpectedly, his face turned serious and he blinked tears from his eyes. She remembered his dismay when they'd told him what she was, and it occurred to her that if he'd known how to take what he'd given her from her, he would have that day...and he still didn't trust her with it.
She could read it in the calculations going on behind his eyes while he pretended to listen to her mother's lecture, but she hadn't asked for it, hadn't even wanted it, would be happy even now if he'd take it back. But, he couldn't. He-the he he'd been back then in a time he no longer remembered and now regretted-had made her the keeper of the Others and there was nothing either of them could do about it but make it count. He'd had his reasons even if they were long since forgotten.
She trusted his judgment, trusted his decision to make her had been the right one. Even if he doubted it now. Even if he shook his head sadly and whispered, "I'm sorry." Because with everything else he'd given her or failed to give her, he'd managed to make sure she had the one thing she needed most. The one thing that would ensure she wouldn't abuse the power he'd put into her grasp. A conscience. He'd bequeathed to her his doubts and uncertainties, and she would never act without knowing that she might turn and find that evil was the face in the mirror. Certainty was for the all-knowing, all seeing God. She was just a little girl who knew both far too much and far too little.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
Heliopolis Main Archive
A Stargate: SG-1 Fanfiction Site
Inside the Dragon's Egg
by OffworlderKapitel Bemerkung:
Stories tend to take their own initiative and sometimes become something totally different than what they were intended to be. Inside the Dragon’s Egg did that…it not only changed its direction and focus, but even named itself. It was, up until the end, a fun story, a bit of light reading with a hint of potential trouble that would let us see a more or less happy ending for our heroes, and then Ally said “Yes, Sir” one too many times and smiled and the beautiful, innocent little girl I’d envisioned, suddenly took on a life and a danger all her own. I wasn’t at all pleased, instead of an ending it became a beginning; instead of happy at least for the time being it became tense and broody and here we go againish.If I’d had time, I might have put my foot down and had it out with her right there. Instead, I let things stand to meet the deadline for the challenge and haven’t had a moment’s rest as a result…unfortunately, innocence once lost is hard to regain, and this piece falls far short of bringing things back where I meant them to be. It isn’t an ending, or truly even a furthering of the original story…it is instead an in-depth study of the character who got away; a look at what was behind that innocence who began as a mere plot device but became something more. For those seeking action and adventure, this isn’t what you’re looking for. It is a mind piece without answers, without conclusions, and, in addition, it is a rehash of Inside the Dragon’s Egg from another view point. It may be of no interest to anyone beside myself, but…here it is anyway, because it insisted it had to written.
Kapitel Abschlussbemerkung:
Having lived intimately among little people for the past two decades, I find most fictional children unbelievably old and wise beyond their years. While the little boy in my house spends most of his time contemplating whether it would be better to grow up to be Spiderman or Mr. Incredible and whether or not a smile and hug might get him just one more cookie, the little boy in a story is quite frequently musing on subjects I hadn't heard of until I picked up his particular book and contemplating the big questions about life with an intensity and insight that would put Plato to shame.Ally, for all my attempts to avoid it, ended up being just such a child...of course, with an entire alien database downloaded into her brain as well as being the offspring of a scientific genius we couldn't really expect her on looking up and seeing only a quarter moon to exclaim in surprise like any normal kid, "Who broke the moon?" But still.
My apologies to anyone who made it this far. To chronicle the thoughts and feelings of the very young is an art that few can truly master, and I am afraid I am not among their number. But then if you were wanting to read something substantial that let you into the heart and mind of a child you'd be reading Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird and Orson Scott Card's Ender's Game instead of fan fiction, right? : )
Site Navigation
Support Heliopolis