The Wise Girl
Title: The Wise Girl
Author: Mirabile Dictu
Fandom: SGA
Pairing: Chuck/OFC; Elizabeth/Evan
Rating: PG-13
Length: 8,894
Summary: "I guess scientists and military do get together."
A/N: Written especially for general-jinjur, who loves Chuck as much as I do. Beta by her as well, which seems a bit unfair. Thank you so much for your help and your kindness!
The Wise Girl
"I'm sure this says she was a poor girl," Elizabeth mused, tapping her chin thoughtfully. "See, this is young and this is female, and here is the modifier lacking resources. But why would a poor girl carry the king in a wheelbarrow? Maybe king has more than one meaning?"
Chuck grinned up at her from where he sat cross-legged on the floor, typing her commentary into a laptop. "Wheelbarrow? I wonder if the Ancients used wheelbarrows. That's funnier than putting a king in one, I think."
Elizabeth smiled ruefully. "Hard to imagine the Ancients doing physical labor, isn't it. And yet someone built the stargates and Atlantis and the puddlejumpers."
"Replicators?" Chuck suggested, only half joking.
"As slave labor? Hmm. You sound like Colonel Sheppard."
"He has no love for the Ancients, ma'am." But she didn't answer, just stared at the wall imprinted with Ancient glyphs. Dr. Corrigan had told Chuck that the mud had been wet over ten millennia ago; he was astonished that it still remained standing. All that time but no earthquakes to knock it down or floods to wash it away? Maybe this planet was different from Earth.
"Definitely wheelbarrow," Elizabeth murmured, still lost in the puzzle.
Dr. Corrigan had also said that the oldest known human footprints were about three hundred and fifty thousand years old, sun-baked into clay, and as well preserved as this wall. He stared at it. Someone had carefully prepared this wall, and then pressed the Ancient letters into it; a lot of work in the hope of assuring the story's transmission through time. If Dr. Weir figured out what it said, would it explain why they had gone to all that work?
He shook his head. People, whether human or Ancient or any other species, were inexplicable. Chuck had attended a lecture Daniel Jackson had given at the SGC years ago, about alien sociologies, cultural anthropology, and survival skills, a talk which Chuck appreciated more in hindsight. He remembered Dr. Jackson saying something like all cultures are different and all cultures are the same, and something about singularity not being equal to uniqueness. So maybe the Ancients had had wheelbarrows all those years ago, even if it was hard to imagine an Ancient pushing one through the curving halls of Atlantis.
"Oh, that's enough," she said, slapping the dust off her trousers. "I'm hungry. Let's see what delicacy we're being served tonight."
Chuck powered down the laptop and scrambled to his feet in time to gather up her notebooks and two cameras. He followed her across the empty inner circle of the broken temple or whatever it was, and through the towering arches. Even after days of following the same path, it still gave him the creeps to walk beneath something that tall and that old, but if the arches had stood this long, odds were good that they'd stand another week or so.
On the other side they began to climb the oversized steps carved into the living rock of the hillside. The altitude meant that Chuck immediately began huffing for air, and tried to breathe quietly; he didn't want Dr. Weir to think he was out of shape. She panted a little, too, which comforted him.
They finally reached the top of the hill and paused to watch their camp, set about halfway down and tucked against the skeletons of trees dead for a millennium, or so one of the botanists said. Time, wind, and blowing sand had bored holes through them, so they were more air than dead wood by now, as porous as sponges. At night, Chuck liked to lie beneath them and center a star through the holes. He'd put his tent up well away from them, though.
"Ma'am," Major Lorne greeted Elizabeth, and nodded at Chuck. "I was just going to call you."
"Got hungry," she said, smiling into his face.
Chuck said, "I'll take your things to the main tent, ma'am."
"Thank you, Chuck. Oh, here, please take this camera as well, and my sketchbook."
"Find anything interesting?" he heard Lorne ask her as he walked away. Chuck managed not to roll his eyes.
Chuck blinked at the sudden darkness when he entered the big rectangular tent; he found Dr. Corrigan typing amazingly quickly with two fingers. "Hey," he called.
"Chuck!" Corrigan grinned at him. "You missed all the excitement." Chuck raised an eyebrow in encouragement and continued to put away all the equipment Elizabeth had been using. "Khurri told us that there are other ruins with similar writing on the walls, back where he lives." He typed some more, punched the return key with a flourish, and leaned back, arms behind him, stretching. Chuck heard his vertebrae crack from across the tent. "We're going out in a few days to take a look."
"There enough military here to spare for a trip like that?"
"I hope so. Evan's going to discuss it with Elizabeth tonight. I don't see why not, though. We've been here dozens of times; this is practically a permanent camp."
The dinner discussion was always lively, but more so tonight, Chuck found. He loved the food here: a kind of cracked barley, soaked in broth made from the goat creatures and seasoned with local spices, stewed with chopped vegetables. The flavor was so rich that even though they ate the same thing every night, he still hadn't tired of it. Beer would have been great with it, but regulations prohibited them from bringing alcohol with them on research trips. Instead, he drank the local juice punica, the color of pomegranate juice but with a sharper, citric flavor. Atlantis made a contribution, too, of their homemade bread, sharp cheddar cheese, and bowls of shiny apples that the botanists were growing on the west pier.
"So where is this place exactly?" Lorne kept asking Khurri. "Why haven't we heard of it before?"
"We have already told you," he said. Khurri. A thoughtful man who worked hard with the archaeologists; they had taught him the more delicate duties and he performed them well. "The little sister."
"I know that story," Elizabeth said, frowning. "I didn't realize there was more to it. So we can see where they lived? How far is it from here?"
Khurri spread his hands, palms up, as if offering her the story. "The little sister was our mother's sister, mother of the Henda. We share her story because our mother loved her. She was not always respectful of her elder sister, though, as younger sisters can be."
The others began to argue. "Ne, ne! Her older sister didn't care for her as she should have -- it is a sister's responsibility."
"More punica?" Elizabeth asked, raising the pitcher. Chuck held out his mug, offering the distraction she needed to do what she did best: smooth tempers while guiding the group toward her own goals. She smiled her thanks at him. The group fell silent and they all accepted a bit more juice; almost ritually, Chuck thought. He took an apple and sliced it, then ate a wedge with some of the cheese. Delicious, he thought. He dropped his head back to watch the stars above them.
"Madame Lizabeth," Khurri said after a while, "perhaps you would like to hear music again?"
"Yes, please," she said. Chuck helped Corrigan, Engravido, and Dunne clear the tables, while Brigitte Mathieu folded the long cloths that Khurri's aunt had given them. Their tables were actually two long portable lab benches, but they served their purpose and could easily be moved back to the main tent after the evening meal, the only meal everyone shared.
As the expedition members cleared the space, Khurri and two elder men brought out their instruments, two- and three-stringed fiddles made of wood and animal hide. Chuck actually liked the music; he thought it sounded like the wind rushing through the grass on this largely treeless world. Lorne said it made him sleepy the way it droned on and on, but Chuck liked that, too; he found it soothing. Khurri told him that the two-stringed fiddle, the one he held between his legs and caressed with a carefully angled bow, was once used to tame the wild ancestors of the goats.
The locals sang or chanted in close harmony, their music slow, repetitive, droning. One of them, the man who'd argued with Khurri, tapped what looked like a copper tray, but Chuck couldn't work out the rhythm he tapped to.
He liked it, though. He lay on the ground in his favorite spot and tried to center a star through one of the holes in the ancient trees. The wind picked up in the evening, its soughing through the dead branches adding another layer to the music.
He was nearly asleep when the music stopped. He yawned hugely, stretched, and stood to say goodnight to everyone. The locals slept out under the stars, but Chuck had his own little tent and he crawled gratefully inside, asleep within minutes.
He woke in the night needing to piss. Sergeant Washington and Corporal Tremblay were standing guard, not that there was anything to guard against. He nodded at them as he walked away, finding a spot of privacy. He nearly fell asleep standing, jerking awake, and stumbled back to his tent. There he paused when he caught sight of Lorne talking to the guards
Lorne gestured away from the camp, and Tremblay shook her head. They stood talking for another minute before Washington came back into the camp and nudged the two sleeping bags. Chuck watched as Captain Gunderson and Sergeant Hernandez climbed to their feet. The soldiers surrounded Lorne, listening intently. Chuck hesitated, but Lorne saw him and gestured for him to join them.
"Khurri's daughter is missing," he said quietly to Chuck. "Two kids from his home came to tell him."
"We supposed to help find her?" Gunderson asked skeptically.
"Doctor Weir would like us to," Lorne said. He looked tired in the thin moonlight, Chuck thought, and wondered if he'd had an argument over this with Elizabeth. "Khurri and some of the locals will come with us. The archaeologists are in heaven, but . . ." He stopped abruptly, but Chuck could finish his thought: he didn't like combining missions, and he didn't think it was in their best interest to get involved in a local feud. "But Doctor Weir wishes it," Lorne finally said.
"I'll wake the camp," Gunderson said. "Hernandez, Tremblay, and Washington: pack. Lots of water."
"What should I do?" Chuck asked.
Gunderson looked at Lorne, then started going from tent to tent.
"Stay with Doctor Weir," Lorne said. "She wants to come with us, but of course that's not advisable. I'd like to send her back to Atlantis, but that's not going to happen. The archaeologists staying here will need guarding, so you're now on duty, not just assisting Weir."
"Major, what if Doctor Weir refuses? I mean, I can't order her to stay here."
"I'm aware of that, Sergeant. Just stay with her, okay? Do the best you can."
"Yes, sir."
Behind them, the camp was coming awake, lanterns flickering on, voices grumbling. Chuck lit the fire again, yawning in its sudden warmth. He really wished he'd had more sleep. He helped set up the tables again, and in between errands, found a moment to run back to his tent to pull on more clothes.
Everyone gathered around at the fire. Some sat at the tables, some on the ground, drinking hastily brewed tea and eating impromptu sandwiches of bread and cheese. Khurri and his wife both looked miserable. Dr. Weir stood with them, and Lorne next to her.
"All right," Lorne said in a loud voice. Dr. Corrigan yawned hugely, a big moaning sound, and then waved a hand apologetically. "We all feel that way, Doc," Lorne said. "But our hosts' daughter is missing. We're packing now so we can leave at first light. Khurri's friend here, Yossi, is a good tracker, so he'll help us follow her. Our best guess is they're going home."
"You had a somewhat heated discussion earlier with these people," Elizabeth said. "Could there be a connection?"
Khurri shook his head firmly and said, "Madame Lizabeth, we see them twice each year at the Fna, and have all our lives." He shrugged helplessly and sighed. "They are the children of our mother's sister."
Nati, Khurri's wife, said, "Jlengli is young and pretty. She is also a younger sister." Chuck hadn't puzzled out what the implication of being a younger sister was, but everyone nodded and frowned at her words.
"You said you think they're going home," Elizabeth said to Lorne. "Do you mean the other ruins, where Khurri lives?"
Chuck could see how this was going to turn out and, from the look on Lorne's face, so did he. "Ma'am," he said, and rose to stand almost at attention, "Doctor Weir, your safety and well-being are my responsibility. I understand that, as a scholar of the Ancients, you're interested in, ah, this other place, but ma'am." Lorne stopped abruptly and exhaled. "Elizabeth, I'm sorry, but that's just not going to happen."
"Evan," she said, also standing, and then glanced around. Chuck felt as though he were watching something private. "I believe this is a civilian expedition, is it not?"
"Ma'am, yes, ma'am -- when we're in Atlantis. But we're off-world and I'm in charge."
Uh-oh, Chuck thought. He hastily went back to work and out of earshot, as did the other Atlantians, though Khurri, his wife, and their family stayed to listen. I'm in charge. What a dumb-ass thing to say to Elizabeth.
By the time the silhouettes of the mountains could be distinguished in the earliest light, they were packed and ready to go. Some of the goats had been rounded up and tethered together, with supplies packed on their backs. They bleated in irritation, kicking up dust, making Chuck's nose itch and eyes water. Lorne and Yossi stood together at the head of the assembly, followed by Khurri and his family, Sergeant Washington, and Doctors Engravido and Dunne. The rest, including Elizabeth and Chuck, were staying behind to continue work on the ruins they'd come to investigate.
Weir and Lorne must have hashed it out, because the group left without fanfare or farewell. Chuck watched them a long time as they climbed the sloping hills. Streamers of pale light fell from the jagged peaks as the sun slowly rose above the mountains. When they disappeared behind the first hill, Chuck turned back to Elizabeth. "Ma'am?"
She looked as irritated as the goats. "I'm not your responsibility, Sergeant," she said. "What would you have me do?"
"Um." Chuck bit his lip, not sure how to respond. "I'm kinda hungry."
She smiled suddenly, and ran her hand through her hair. "I'm sorry, Chuck. I understand that Major Lorne was following protocol. And there is important work to do here -- after we have breakfast." She leaned closer to whisper, "I think there might be enough coffee for two cups, too."
He smiled at her gratefully.
They went back to work in the enormous temple, Corrigan and Mathieu coming by occasionally to offer encouragement and take photos. "Well, this is boring," Elizabeth said mid-morning on the second day after the others had gone searching for the girl. "We could be the first humans from the Milky Way seeing those ruins, and instead I'm translating the values of a good father. Provider, householder, educator, disciplinarian."
"Disciplinarian. Sounds kinky," Chuck said, hoping to make her laugh.
"Maybe I'm translating that wrong. The root of the word is clearly rota, wheel, hmm."
Chuck was glad he'd got her interested in the wall again. He liked sitting in the midst of the temple, his back to the sun-warmed wall, watching her peer at the imprints in the mud. He wondered who had done all the work of creating the wall, and why. Not the Ancients, Dr. Corrigan said; they kept their records electronically, but another culture in contact with them, and great in its own way. Just the dimensions of this temple amazed him.
They were breaking for lunch when a ruckus drew their attention. "That sounds like a girl crying," Elizabeth said. She and Chuck hurried through the temple and up the steps, panting at the top. He saw the camp below them like a stage setting: the tents in a semi-circle around the fire pit, and around it, Drs. Corrigan and Mathieu, and Captain Gunderson and Sergeant Hernandez, their camp cook, Nteyi, his two kids, Nev and Nur, and someone else. A young woman weeping and pulling at her hair and clothing in a frenzy of distress, the others standing helplessly around her.
"Hurry, Chuck," Elizabeth gasped, and he took her arm, helping her rush down the steep hillside, their feet sliding on the loose shale. Gunderson looked very glad to see her. "Doctor Weir," he said, practically saluting. "This girl, I --" The girl bellowed wordlessly again, and Gunderson grabbed at her hands. "She's hurting herself," he explained, struggling.
Elizabeth knelt in front of the girl, capturing her attention. "I am Elizabeth. Let me help you."
The girl froze, staring at Elizabeth. Now that she was still, Chuck saw how filthy she was: tears streaked the dirt on her face; her long hair was matted dusty; her clothes were torn and stained. "My father will kill me," she said, and Chuck stifled a laugh. She sounded exactly like his kid sister when she was in trouble. Then he saw she was serious.
"No one will kill you," Elizabeth said. "If Captain Gunderson releases you, will you let us help?"
A tear rolled down her face, washing through the dust on her plump cheek. "Please," she whispered. Gunderson let go, and gently raised the girl to her feet.
"You're Jlengli," Elizabeth said, and the girl's eyes widened. "Your family is very worried about you. They thought you had been kidnapped."
"Not kidnapped," Jlengli said. "Kher came for me. We were going to go through the gate together, to a better world, but, but," she started to cry again, "he lied, he didn't want to marry me, he just wanted, he just wanted," and then she started to wail. Elizabeth put her arms around the filthy girl and let her sob onto her shoulder. "Father will kill me as an example to all girls!" she cried.
Chuck thought Khurri was more likely to kill this Kher guy, but he doubted Jlengli would believe him. He said to Nteyi, "Heat up some water, please. She needs a bath, and her clothes need washing. Doctor Mathieu, do you have anything to help?" Brigitte had trained as a medic as well as a paleontologist; that seemed an odd combination to Chuck, but apparently she'd worked in some pretty isolated places on Earth, and certainly did here in the Pegasus Galaxy.
"I think a Benadryl should do the trick," she said, and patted Chuck's arm. "Good thinking, Sergeant." She hurried off to her tent. Corrigan took that as a cue to head back to his work. Gunderson and Hernandez stood on either side of Elizabeth, both embarrassed and unsure.
Elizabeth took pity on them. "I think we're all right, gentlemen."
Chuck said, "Hernandez, check the perimeter; see if anyone else is here. Captain, maybe you could use your binoculars from there?" He pointed to the hill behind them. "Ma'am, I asked Nteyi to heat some water . . ."
"Good thinking, Chuck. Come on, Jlengli. Let's get washed up. Are you hungry? Nteyi is an excellent cook."
Chuck couldn't believe he'd just told a captain what to do, but Gunderson seemed pretty gob-smacked by the sudden appearance of a weeping girl. Probably didn't have any sisters. Hernandez had six; he'd undoubtedly seen this drama played out before. Well, Chuck's first job was to look after Elizabeth, so he followed them to Elizabeth's tent.
Jlengli was bathed and dressed in Elizabeth's Mystic's women's basketball hoodie and a pair of Brigitte's sweatpants by the time Gunderson and Hernandez returned. "There's no sign of anyone," Gunderson reported to Elizabeth, and Hernandez nodded his head. "No one followed you, miss," he added to Jlengli, who was spooning up Nteyi's soup.
Chuck wasn't surprised when Jlengli began to cry again. Kher's absence only proved her fears, that he had never been serious about her. Without consciously deciding to, Chuck wrapped an arm around Jlengli's shoulders. "It'll be all right," he murmured. She put down the spoon and leaned against him, sniffing.
"We've all had people we love lie to us," Elizabeth said kindly, handing Jlengli a tissue.
"I want to go home," Jlengli said, sounding much younger than she looked. "I want my Mama."
As soon as she said the words, Chuck knew. He looked at Captain Gunderson, who opened his mouth to say something, but catching Chuck's eyes, subsided, just raising his eyebrows. What're you gonna do, he was saying, and Chuck knew the answer was Whatever Elizabeth wants us to do.
Jlengli yawned hugely. After Brigitte and Elizabeth helped her to bed in Elizabeth's tent, they gathered for a meeting. Everyone, including Nteyi and his sons, sat around the fire drinking mugs of steaming punica while Elizabeth spoke.
"Frankly, I want to go," Dr. Engravido said. "If Khurri was telling the truth, the ruins near him sound even more spectacular than these. We'll meet up with the others, get Jlengli back to her family, and investigate the ruins. It's perfect."
"Not perfect," Captain Gunderson said. He looked very uncomfortable. "Our job is to protect Doctor Weir. We can't do that if we don't know the terrain. The major will have my head if anything happens to her, and he'll be right. We can't just march out into the desert with her."
"It's not unknown terrain," Elizabeth said. "Jlengli knows it; Nteyi, Nev, and Nur know it. Major Lorne is there now. If there were a problem he would have contacted us."
"How? The radios don't work over such long distances in these mountains. Anything could have happened to them."
"They would have sent back a runner," Elizabeth said, almost in triumph, "just as they did to let us know that Jlengli was missing. We'll be increasing our security by consolidating."
"Excuse me," Chuck said, setting down his empty mug. "As much as I agree with the captain about keeping Doctor Weir safe, I also agree that we need to return Jlengli to her home. She'll just go by herself if we don't take her, or we'll have to keep her prisoner, and neither option sounds good to me."
"Shit," Gunderson mumbled. He rubbed his head. "All right. All right. But Doctor Weir, ma'am, I'd appreciate it if you'd write your orders out. Just in case."
"Of course, Captain. Now, Nteyi, can we be ready to leave tomorrow? And will you come with us?"
"I would like to see home again, Madame Lizabeth," he said softly. "I have not seen my wife in too long."
"All the more reason to go, then."
Gunderson never had a chance, Chuck thought, turning to pack up his tent. He was sorry to leave this place, but they'd be back, and maybe they'd find something cool out in the desert.
They made a larger caravan than the first group setting out; more people and more goats heading away from the rising sun and up into the hills. They left as soon as the sun outlined the peaks, just as the first group had. When they'd climbed for nearly an hour, Chuck turned around and looked back. No wonder the site had remained for so many thousands of years; he couldn't see a thing. The sunken temple was completely hidden, blending with the environment. No one, no Wraith, would guess that people had congregated there. Hiding was a sound strategy on any world.
He caught up with the others. Gunderson led the way, enormous between the two boys who jogged along on either side of him. The goats picked their way lightly, barely stirring the dust, unlike the heavy boots of the expedition members. Elizabeth walked with Jlengli, striding over the dusty earth. Ahead, there were only more and more hills, climbing steadily into the mountains. As they drew nearer, Chuck could see that many of the peaks were glaciated. Over the tallest hovered a thin elliptical cloud, a punctuation mark noting its importance.
No trees, little sound, just the shuffle their feet and the jingling of the buckles strapping supplies to their and the goats' backs. Chuck felt like Sam in Lord of the Rings, carrying an enormous pack, complete with dangling tea kettle. He wasn't sure how he got stuck with that, but Nteyi had tied it on at the last minute. "To keep nearby," he'd said, and Chuck appreciated that every time they stopped to rest and drink mugs of hot punica.
The landscape grew so barren that they had to carry their fuel, mostly goat shit and bricks of charcoal, stacked into their packs. People must have hiked across this desert just like this for millennia, Chuck thought, and reminded himself to ask Brigitte about it when they camped. She would know.
They hiked for three days, climbing higher and higher. Elizabeth and Gunderson began to have some trouble catching their breath, so Brigitte gave them each a hit of albuterol to open their airways. "Sorry," Elizabeth said, still a little breathless. "Didn't mean to be a bother." Chuck was glad that Gunderson was also having problems or he'd probably start up again about how Elizabeth shouldn't have come. But his relief didn't last long when he realized that was more worried about Gunderson than Elizabeth. He noticed Brigitte keeping a close eye on him, too.
Hernandez and Nteyi now led the way, the goats following obediently, urged on by Nev and Nur. Jlengli had begun to talk to Elizabeth, shy and quiet at first, but soon she held Elizabeth's hand as they hiked chattered, lively and much happier than when she'd stumbled into their camp weeping over her boyfriend's treachery.
The morning of the fourth day, after they'd struck camp, they stood for a moment staring up the narrow chalk-colored path ahead of them, too narrow for anything but single file up the very steep trail and so steep they could almost use their hands to help climb. Chuck wondered what their elevation was, and how Gunderson would manage, and how much farther they had to go. They'd seen no signs of the other group passing this way, but when he turned to look back, he could see no sign that they'd just been here either. The ground beneath its sheer covering of pale dust was hard, the bones of the earth right beneath their feet. No wonder so little grew: drought, altitude, and lack of topsoil made this a hard place to live. Maybe that was another reason the Wraith rarely bothered these people.
Hernandez started up the trail, leaning forward as if into a stiff wind. The goats trotted behind him, their little heels almost dancing, followed by Nteyi's two boys just as nimbly. All of them -- sergeant, goats, and boys -- were covered in brown dust within moments. Chuck's nose was full of it, and he'd had to learn what Hernandez called a "Texas handkerchief" to get rid of it: blowing one nostril at a time directly onto the ground.
Chuck thought about Atlantis while they climbed. How clean it was, how cool, and surrounded by water. He wasn't a strong swimmer, but he'd started swimming with a group of friends at lunch-time three days a week, in a grey-tiled inner pool warmed by the sun. He missed long showers; he missed glasses of water whenever he wanted; he missed brushing his teeth and washing his face and flushing toilets. Especially flushing toilets.
"Soon," Nteyi announced the next morning. They'd reached a small plateau, and it felt like heaven to lie down on flat ground again, Chuck thought. He stretched luxuriously in his sleeping bag. Stars were still out, but at the distant edges of the world, the sky was tinged with the pink and palest yellow of approaching dawn. Nteyi was already hard at work and the smell of the cracked barley stew made Chuck's mouth water. He raised his head and saw Elizabeth and Jlengli laughing together, looking into a small mirror. A compact, he realized. Elizabeth had brought a compact with her. He smiled to himself, watching them comb each other's hair. Jlengli twisted Elizabeth's hair into complicated braids, like neater versions of Ronon's dreadlocks, and tied them all together with a dusty ribbon.
Chuck woke Brigitte and Gunderson with bowls of the stew topped with goat yogurt. Gunderson coughed a lot when he first got up, but seemed better to Chuck. He and Brigitte exchanged looks, but she didn't offer Gunderson a hit of the albuterol and he didn't ask for one, so maybe he was acclimating.
Chuck climbed near Elizabeth and Jlengli that day, helping herd the goats up the winding path. They soon left the plateau far behind, and it quickly disappeared behind the twists and turns of their path. Chuck felt he was literally at the top of the world: the air was cold and clean and dry. There was less dust up here, too, and he could see for miles.
"Look!" Elizabeth called back to him, pointing up. When they'd rounded the last fold of the mountain, the high peak revealed itself. It was snow-covered, and a banner of white blew from the summit, like a prayer flag, he thought.
"We're not climbing that," he said in alarm, looking at Nteyi.
"No, no. Around. The other side we go." He beamed at them all. "Home!"
"Mama!" the boys shouted, and chased each other up the trail.
"How you doing, Captain?" Chuck asked Gunderson.
"Fine. Well, shitty, actually. Anything happens to me, watch over Weir, right?"
"Nothing's going to happen to you, Captain," Chuck said hurriedly, and waved at Brigitte.
"Probably not. Still."
"Hey, Brigitte. Gunny's not feeling well. Can you --"
"Hey, Captain. How'd you sleep last night?"
"Not much. Kept dreaming I was going to roll off the world." He looked at Chuck. "Don't mention this to anyone, okay, Sergeant?"
"None of my business. I'll check on the others."
He hiked up the trail, catching up to Elizabeth, Jlengli, and Nteyi. "Can we hold a minute? Brigitte wants to take a look at Gunderson."
"He doesn't look at all well," Elizabeth said, turning back towards them.
"How far is it?" Chuck asked Nteyi.
"Another night. Midday tomorrow, if we hurry."
"I don't think it's a good idea to hurry," Chuck said to Elizabeth.
"Is it altitude sickness?" Elizabeth asked him.
"I don't know, ma'am. You should ask Brigitte."
She nodded firmly, but didn't move, no doubt wanting to give Gunderson his privacy. He was staring away from them all, answering Brigitte's questions sullenly.
Gunderson was worse that night, and maybe it was altitude sickness after all. He complained of headache, and vomited twice. "We need to get him to a lower altitude," Brigitte explained to them. "Even a little bit lower could help." They all watched Nev sit with Gunderson, trying to get him to drink punica.
"Nteyi, you said we go around," Elizabeth asked him. "How much higher? What are our options?"
"Madame Lizabeth, we must go up to go down. We must carry your Gunderson. We can walk all night." Chuck felt his eyes widen, but he guessed he could walk all night if it meant Gunderson's life.
"Brigitte?"
She shook her head. "It's a risk, but just sitting here is a risk. We don't have any Acetazolamide, but if he keeps hydrated, and I can show him some breathing exercises . . ." She shook her head again. "It's a crap shoot, ma'am."
"So much of life is a crap shoot," Elizabeth murmured. "Chuck? Sergeant Hernandez? Can the two of you carry Gunderson?"
Nteyi was a little wiry guy, but Hernandez was stocky, and Chuck was Chuck. None of them was as big as Gunderson. "Yeah. Yeah, I think we can do it," Chuck said after a moment.
Hernandez nodded his head. "I've hauled bigger guys by myself, in an emergency."
Chuck knew that was true. "Then I don't see that we have a choice. Can you walk all night, Jlengli?"
"I am sorry to make Ser Gunderson sick," she said regretfully, and Chuck thought she finally understood some of the consequences of running away with Kher.
"Not your fault," he told her kindly. "We'll take care of him. You just need to keep walking. Help Elizabeth," he added.
Jlengli said, "I would do anything for Madame Lizabeth." Elizabeth laughed, and they smiled at each other. Chuck thought Jlengli would, too.
"Then it's settled," he said. "Let's rig up a stretcher. We'd better make shoulder straps, too."
"I have something you can use," Brigitte said, and they bent to their task. Evening deepened, so Nteyi and Nur lit torches. Gunderson put up some argument when he realized what was happening, but Elizabeth spoke to him firmly and he quieted. Chuck glanced up once and thought Gunderson was crying, but he looked away before he could be sure.
Carrying a man in a stretcher, especially one the size of Gunderson, up a steep, winding trail at night, trying to coordinate the twists and turns with Hernandez, lit only by flickering torchlight while listening for Brigitte calling out directions, was one of the hardest tasks Chuck had ever attempted. Their burden made them gasp for air, so they stopped every twenty minutes or so, resting standing up rather than expending their energy by setting down and picking up the stretcher. He and Hernandez switched from head to foot position regularly, but each time they did, Gunderson tried to get up, which made things more difficult. Elizabeth had to order him to remain lying down. Nev left the goats to his brother and walked beside the stretcher when the trail allowed, holding Gunderson's hand, encouraging him.
Chuck watched his feet as best he could, struggling not to trip. Sweat immediately evaporated, so he drank every time Brigitte forced Gunderson to drink, hoping not to end up sick himself. While they rested, he dropped his head back and stared up at the infinite sky. McKay would know, but Chuck would be willing to bet they were in a densely populated part of the galaxy. This high, with the air this clear, the night sky was almost white with stars.
He wished he had the stamina of the goats. They'd frisked up the mountain all day, and now they frisked up it all night. Sure-footed, too. Occasionally one would make a laughing sound, ha-ha!, and that's what Chuck called them in his head, ha-has. Whenever they stopped to rest, they nibbled at invisible pasture, huffing at the dust.
The night went on forever. Chuck's shoulders ached from Gunderson's weight, and the stretcher's handles rubbed strips of blisters into the palms of his hands. He let Brigitte take care of him, as if he were a boxer and she his trainer, standing exhausted and obedient while she made him drink and eat. Chuck was vaguely aware of Elizabeth taking similar care of Hernandez, but mostly he stared at the stars, so quiet and peaceful above them.
He stumbled once, but Brigitte caught him before he went to his knees. Gunderson cried out, but Chuck just said, "Okay, I'm okay, we're okay," and insisted they go on. His heart pounded from the exertion and a little from fear; he didn't know anymore if they walked on the edge of a cliff or in the middle of a meadow.
They were resting, Chuck standing like a horse in harness, when he heard shouting. "Mama!" Jlengli cried, and ran.
"Hoy! Hoy, Etta!" Nteyi called, and behind Chuck, Nur waved the torch wildly.
"Thank god," Chuck said.
Abruptly they were surrounded by people, everyone talking at once. More torches were lit, and enormous flashlights that Chuck recognized as Atlantian. Someone tried to take the handles of the stretcher from him, but he couldn't release them. "It's all right," he heard Lorne repeat patiently. "It's all right now, Sergeant. Stand down."
"Jesus, sir," he said, and let Brigitte pry open his hands and pass the stretcher to Sergeant Washington.
"You did a fine job," Lorne said.
"They're exhausted," Brigitte said, almost angrily. "He and Cruz were amazing."
"I can see that, Doctor Mathieu. You need to rest, too. All of you." He led them further down the trail, and with a tripping lurch of vertigo, Chuck suddenly realized that they were finally going downhill. The long climb was over. Gunderson could get better now.
He let Lorne push him onto a sleeping bag near a fire, and remove his pack, including the tea kettle, the sight of which surprised him. He stared in amazement at it; it seemed like such a long time since Nteyi had hooked it to his pack. Brigitte sat next to him, her head resting easily on his shoulder. Except for the two of them, everyone was talking, including Elizabeth. Jlengli and another girl were hugging each other, her parents hugging Elizabeth and Nteyi. Gunderson was sitting up, looking better already. Well, he should, Chuck thought uncharitably. He just had a seven hour break.
Adjusting Brigitte's dozing weight, he lay back on top of the sleeping bag. She curled under his arm. The last thing he remembered was seeing the stars fading in the brightening sky.
Lorne woke Chuck saying, "Hey, Sergeant. Breakfast? Or lunch, I guess."
"Anything," Chuck croaked, gingerly accepting the mug of hot punica from Hernandez. His hands ached and felt stiff and clumsy, but the warm mug soothed them.
"Your girlfriend's getting herself prettied up," Hernandez said grinning at him. Chuck kicked at him, but without heat. He wondered if Brigitte might be his girlfriend. She was a scientist, but scientists and solders got together all the time in Atlantis, and besides, he had his own talents.
"Look at that dopey grin on his face," Lorne said, grinning back at Chuck.
"Fuck you," he said, and they all laughed.
"Ser Chuck!" Khurri's wife Nati said, hurrying toward him with a bowl in her hands. "Thank you so much for bringing back our Jlengli. If there is anything we can do for you, you need only ask."
"Is that for me?"
"Yes, yes. For brave man who carried his comrade over the mountains. My husband will make a song of this!"
"Hear that, Cruz? They're gonna write a song about us."
Hernandez beamed at Nati. "My mom will really like that, ma'am."
After he ate, Chuck lay back down on the sleeping bag. It was cold here, but the fire was warm, and while he'd slept someone had piled a rug on top of him. Probably goatskin, he thought, stroking it, but it felt good. He dozed until evening, when he ate another enormous bowl of the cracked barley. He and Brigitte shared an apple and some goat cheese.
"Evan and Elizabeth are a cute couple," she said, nodding at them. They sat together by the fire, Lorne playing with the elaborate braids still in Elizabeth's hair.
"I guess scientists and military do get together," Chuck said shyly.
Brigitte grinned at him. "Course they do. McKay and Sheppard? Like bunnies." Chuck laughed so hard he choked and Brigitte had to pound his back. When he could breathe again, he leaned toward her, tilting his head. She looked at his lips and then quickly kissed him. They laughed, and then he kissed her back, more slowly. Glancing around, she pulled him down to the sleeping bag, where he discovered that scientists and military did get together. Maybe not like bunnies, but the kissing was fun, and it had been too long since he had that much fun.
Such luxury, just to lie around camp and be waited on. His shoulders were bruised and chafed where the straps had rubbed, and his blisters had popped, so Brigitte re-bandaged both hands. Hernandez was in similar shape, so they were relegated to goat duty, which took no effort at all. "Ha-ha!" Chuck shouted at them when they strayed too far, and they obediently trotted back, expecting an apple or cheese from him, or a handful of barley from Hernandez. "Think Elizabeth would let us bring some of these guys back to Atlantis?" Chuck asked him.
"She would, but I'm trying to imagine Sheppard when he saw them."
"Or McKay."
"So maybe not."
Still, Chuck liked them, the little ha-has, and they seemed to like him. They followed him when he finally found Elizabeth working on yet another translation. "Look, Chuck!" she greeted him happily. "Doctors Engravido and Dunne have just started work here. They say it's an enormous site, and probably even more ancient than the one nearer the stargate."
"So it was here when the Ancients were? But not an Ancient culture?"
"No, and isn't that remarkable? And look at this."
He peered over her shoulder. "That isn't Ancient," he said.
"No. No, it isn't, and no one here knows what it is." She smiled at him. "I'll take photos and send this back to the SGC. Doctor Jackson will be very interested."
He held lights for her while she carefully used a paintbrush to sweep the writing clean, and then snapped photos and filmed it to show the surrounding site. Chuck wondered what Brigitte was working on; were there fossils here? What did "fossils" even mean when civilizations in the Pegasus Galaxy were thousands of years old?
One of the ha-has butted at his leg. "Hey," he said to it, but then the others started ha-ha-ing and scurrying frantically in a way he hadn't seen before. "Elizabeth?" he said. Before she could answer, he heard screaming and shouting and weapons fire. "Stay down!" he shouted, pushing her into a crouch. He crept around the edge of the overhang they were working in to see the camp exploding into frantic action. "Shit. Looks like company, and not the kind we want."
Elizabeth peered over his shoulder. "What can we do?"
Chuck tapped his mic. "Captain Gunderson? Cruz? What's going on?"
"Tell me you're with Elizabeth!" Lorne shouted over the radio.
"She's right here," Chuck said; his heart was pounding. He drew his Beretta.
"Get her away! Now!"
Chuck heard more shots fired, a terrible bellow, and a girl's scream. Elizabeth stood and tried to push past him; he held her back. "What are you thinking? Stay here! Stay!" he shouted as if she were one of the ha-has.
"Don't you speak to me like that!" she said furiously, but she stayed behind him, her back pressed to the wall. He pushed at her and they began to work their way out of the ruins and away from the camp. "We should go back and help," she whispered. "Evan's there, and Brigitte, and Jlengli and Rishi and Nati."
"I know, I know, and we will help, but first we get away and figure out what's going on. Then we figure out how we can help."
They climbed up a notch in the hillside, crouching to stay out of sight. When the reached the top, they looked back at the settlement. Chuck shook his head; it didn't look good. They'd obviously been surprised by a group of people -- bandits? Were they robbing them? Where was Brigitte?
"We have to do something," Elizabeth said urgently.
"Shit," Chuck said. What could two people do against a mob like that? What would Sheppard do? No, that way lay madness; Sheppard had the luck of the devil. "I'm a communications and navigation specialist," he finally said. "So let's try that." He turned, but she'd gone. "Doctor Weir! Elizabeth!" he whispered as loudly as he could. Goddammit. Lorne was gonna hand him his ass. She was creeping down the couloir again, obviously trying to get closer to the action. He slid on his ass down to her, grabbing her arm. "Are you trying to get killed? Or raped? Or whatever those assholes are doing?"
"I am trying to save our colleagues," she said, jerking away from him.
"Then think," he said. "We need to find out what's going on. Who's doing this? Why? Then maybe we can help. You can't just walk into camp and order them to go away."
"I know that," she said. "It's just --"
"I know, Elizabeth. I know. We're always the ones left waiting. I get that." He encouraged her to continue to level ground, where the ha-has pushed forward to nuzzle his bootlaces. "Okay. I have an idea," he said. He herded up the ha-has, using the ribbon in Elizabeth's hair to loop their collars together until they formed a loose circle. "Sorry, babes," he whispered to them, rubbing their ears and noses, letting them laugh into his face and blow dust on him. "Need your help."
He led them and Elizabeth as close as he dared to the settlement. "I'm going to climb back up there, where we were, so give me about ten minutes. Then push the ha-has into camp. Here," he pulled out a powerbar. "Let them snuffle this and then throw it; they'll follow after it. I hope."
"Then what?"
"Then stay here. I'll do my best." He patted his Beretta strapped to his thigh.
He climbed quickly and quietly; the time spent in the mountain passes trying to reach this nameless place had been useful for that. When he reached the top, he drew his weapon again and checked it. Lorne and Sheppard made sure that everyone in Atlantis knew how to use their weapons, so he was confident in his abilities. He just wished he had a P-90 as well.
Then the ha-has burst into the settlement, a dust-devil of irritation as they spun in a circle, tied to each other, trying to free themselves and reach the powerbar. People began shouting again, distracted, so Chuck jumped to his feet and fired his Beretta once. "Lorne! Gunderson!" he bellowed.
Instantly, as if waiting for the distraction, the Atlantians burst into action. Even Corrigan and Engravido were throwing punches, while Dunne and Brigitte tied up the intruders as they were subdued.
When Chuck saw Brigitte in the middle of the fight, he ran down the couloir like one of the ha-has, in bounding leaps. Elizabeth was already with Lorne, helping him tie up an angry young man that Jlengli and Nati were keeping Khurri from. He swept up to Brigitte and grabbed her, spinning her around. She yelped and jumped on him, legs around his waist, and they kissed. She tasted of dirt and sweat and fear. "Oh, Chuck," she said, her eyes swimming.
He carried her to Yossi and stopped him from kicking a bound man. "What's going on?"
"This hibootz who tricks Jlengli! He and his friends thought we would all be out looking for her, so they attack the settlement!" He kicked Kher again. "Never!"
"Wait, what? Why?" Then he asked Kher, "Why?"
"They trade with you," he said sullenly.
"They think Khurri's people are rich because they work with us," Brigitte guessed. She slid out of Chuck's arms. "So this was all a ruse? You never wanted Jlengli at all?" For a minute, Chuck thought she was going to kick Kher, too, but she just look disgusted.
Chuck hurried over to Lorne. "Is everybody okay?"
"Good work, Sergeant. Really. I'm putting you in for a commendation." Lorne clapped his hands. "All right! Get all the bad guys over here. Chuck, untie those damn goats. Khurri, knock it off. Yossi, quit kicking that guy! Jesus." Chuck watched as Lorne sorted everyone out, shoving the intruders against a low stone fence. He freed the goats, rubbing their heads apologetically and sharing another powerbar among them. Brigitte stayed by his side and despite her dirty face and tangled hair, he thought she'd never looked prettier.
He returned Jlengli's ribbon to her. "You all right?"
She burst into tears. "He lied! He lied, he lied!"
"I know," he said, awkwardly hugging her, hoping Khurri wouldn't kick him. "Men do that sometimes. You have to find somebody good like your dad, not exciting like Kher." She just wept harder.
"What do we do now?" he asked Cruz Hernandez. "It's not like Marshall Dillon's gonna ride by."
That night, his question was answered. Kher and his compatriots were from another encampment, one even higher in the mountains; there was a lot of to-ing and fro-ing all afternoon. Eventually, Chuck thought everyone from there arrived, and he wondered if there'd be more fighting, or a trial.
Instead, there was a feast. More cracked barley stew, seasoned with extra goat for the occasion. Chuck felt a little guilty for enjoying it as much as he did; he felt as though he were eating a friend. The five would-be thieves were tied together at the ankles and then to big stakes in the ground, but they were fed and watered as much as anyone. The other settlement brought small barrels of a thick, frothy beer, which Lorne warned against drinking.
After the meal, when the embers were glowing red, everyone from both settlements gathered together. To Chuck's relief, they intermingled, and it became clear that no fighting would break out. Instead, Khurri pulled out his square fiddle and fit it between his knees, and others followed, till there was an orchestra of two- and three-stringed fiddles and a copper tray drum. They began to play the wild music; Chuck could hear the wind over the high peaks and through the narrow passes in it.
Then Khurri shouted, "For our friends!" He began to play a solo, the two strings on his fiddle making a harmony odd to Chuck's ears, but pleasing nonetheless. It almost sounded like an accordion to Chuck, wheezing and blowing like the ha-has, with the same happy sound to it.
He dragged out his sleeping bag, so he and Brigitte could lounge comfortably and listen. When Khurri finished, he said, "To loyal friends." He glared at the leader of the other settlement, a man called Mau, and Chuck wondered if it was finally time for the fight, but instead they talked. And talked. And talked. The stars grew thick in the sky and still they talked. They spent a long time listing grievances: somebody's goats got into somebody else's vegetables; somebody's child stole a toy; somebody never returned a loaned scythe. God, it was worse than listening to his parents argue, he thought. He yawned.
Brigitte nudged his shoulder. "So," she asked him quietly, but he saw mischief in her eyes. "Are you good like Jlengli's dad? Or exciting like Kher?"
"Um, both?" She raised her eyebrows. "Not exciting. Not usually."
"That was pretty exciting today." She kissed him. "They don't need us for this. Maybe you could collect your reward now."
He burst out laughing; she covered his mouth. "I do deserve a reward, don't I?" he said, and they gathered up the sleeping bag and goatskins. Chuck knew the others were watching them, but he avoided meeting their eyes, except for Elizabeth, who winked at him. He noticed she and Lorne were holding hands, so he boldly winked back.
"Come on," Brigitte whispered, tugging his jacket.
As they walked away from the noise of the settlement and into the starry night, he said, "I think I know why the girl carried the king away in a wheelbarrow."
"What? Why?"
He smiled at her. "Because he was valuable to her. Not his stuff."
"Because the king wasn't Kher."
"Exactly," he said with satisfaction.
She took his hand. "Neither are you," she said, and kissed his cheek.
~ ~ ~
The instrument Khurri plays is based on the morin khuur, a Mongolian fiddle, and looks something like this:
Author: Mirabile Dictu
Fandom: SGA
Pairing: Chuck/OFC; Elizabeth/Evan
Rating: PG-13
Length: 8,894
Summary: "I guess scientists and military do get together."
A/N: Written especially for general-jinjur, who loves Chuck as much as I do. Beta by her as well, which seems a bit unfair. Thank you so much for your help and your kindness!
The Wise Girl
"I'm sure this says she was a poor girl," Elizabeth mused, tapping her chin thoughtfully. "See, this is young and this is female, and here is the modifier lacking resources. But why would a poor girl carry the king in a wheelbarrow? Maybe king has more than one meaning?"
Chuck grinned up at her from where he sat cross-legged on the floor, typing her commentary into a laptop. "Wheelbarrow? I wonder if the Ancients used wheelbarrows. That's funnier than putting a king in one, I think."
Elizabeth smiled ruefully. "Hard to imagine the Ancients doing physical labor, isn't it. And yet someone built the stargates and Atlantis and the puddlejumpers."
"Replicators?" Chuck suggested, only half joking.
"As slave labor? Hmm. You sound like Colonel Sheppard."
"He has no love for the Ancients, ma'am." But she didn't answer, just stared at the wall imprinted with Ancient glyphs. Dr. Corrigan had told Chuck that the mud had been wet over ten millennia ago; he was astonished that it still remained standing. All that time but no earthquakes to knock it down or floods to wash it away? Maybe this planet was different from Earth.
"Definitely wheelbarrow," Elizabeth murmured, still lost in the puzzle.
Dr. Corrigan had also said that the oldest known human footprints were about three hundred and fifty thousand years old, sun-baked into clay, and as well preserved as this wall. He stared at it. Someone had carefully prepared this wall, and then pressed the Ancient letters into it; a lot of work in the hope of assuring the story's transmission through time. If Dr. Weir figured out what it said, would it explain why they had gone to all that work?
He shook his head. People, whether human or Ancient or any other species, were inexplicable. Chuck had attended a lecture Daniel Jackson had given at the SGC years ago, about alien sociologies, cultural anthropology, and survival skills, a talk which Chuck appreciated more in hindsight. He remembered Dr. Jackson saying something like all cultures are different and all cultures are the same, and something about singularity not being equal to uniqueness. So maybe the Ancients had had wheelbarrows all those years ago, even if it was hard to imagine an Ancient pushing one through the curving halls of Atlantis.
"Oh, that's enough," she said, slapping the dust off her trousers. "I'm hungry. Let's see what delicacy we're being served tonight."
Chuck powered down the laptop and scrambled to his feet in time to gather up her notebooks and two cameras. He followed her across the empty inner circle of the broken temple or whatever it was, and through the towering arches. Even after days of following the same path, it still gave him the creeps to walk beneath something that tall and that old, but if the arches had stood this long, odds were good that they'd stand another week or so.
On the other side they began to climb the oversized steps carved into the living rock of the hillside. The altitude meant that Chuck immediately began huffing for air, and tried to breathe quietly; he didn't want Dr. Weir to think he was out of shape. She panted a little, too, which comforted him.
They finally reached the top of the hill and paused to watch their camp, set about halfway down and tucked against the skeletons of trees dead for a millennium, or so one of the botanists said. Time, wind, and blowing sand had bored holes through them, so they were more air than dead wood by now, as porous as sponges. At night, Chuck liked to lie beneath them and center a star through the holes. He'd put his tent up well away from them, though.
"Ma'am," Major Lorne greeted Elizabeth, and nodded at Chuck. "I was just going to call you."
"Got hungry," she said, smiling into his face.
Chuck said, "I'll take your things to the main tent, ma'am."
"Thank you, Chuck. Oh, here, please take this camera as well, and my sketchbook."
"Find anything interesting?" he heard Lorne ask her as he walked away. Chuck managed not to roll his eyes.
Chuck blinked at the sudden darkness when he entered the big rectangular tent; he found Dr. Corrigan typing amazingly quickly with two fingers. "Hey," he called.
"Chuck!" Corrigan grinned at him. "You missed all the excitement." Chuck raised an eyebrow in encouragement and continued to put away all the equipment Elizabeth had been using. "Khurri told us that there are other ruins with similar writing on the walls, back where he lives." He typed some more, punched the return key with a flourish, and leaned back, arms behind him, stretching. Chuck heard his vertebrae crack from across the tent. "We're going out in a few days to take a look."
"There enough military here to spare for a trip like that?"
"I hope so. Evan's going to discuss it with Elizabeth tonight. I don't see why not, though. We've been here dozens of times; this is practically a permanent camp."
The dinner discussion was always lively, but more so tonight, Chuck found. He loved the food here: a kind of cracked barley, soaked in broth made from the goat creatures and seasoned with local spices, stewed with chopped vegetables. The flavor was so rich that even though they ate the same thing every night, he still hadn't tired of it. Beer would have been great with it, but regulations prohibited them from bringing alcohol with them on research trips. Instead, he drank the local juice punica, the color of pomegranate juice but with a sharper, citric flavor. Atlantis made a contribution, too, of their homemade bread, sharp cheddar cheese, and bowls of shiny apples that the botanists were growing on the west pier.
"So where is this place exactly?" Lorne kept asking Khurri. "Why haven't we heard of it before?"
"We have already told you," he said. Khurri. A thoughtful man who worked hard with the archaeologists; they had taught him the more delicate duties and he performed them well. "The little sister."
"I know that story," Elizabeth said, frowning. "I didn't realize there was more to it. So we can see where they lived? How far is it from here?"
Khurri spread his hands, palms up, as if offering her the story. "The little sister was our mother's sister, mother of the Henda. We share her story because our mother loved her. She was not always respectful of her elder sister, though, as younger sisters can be."
The others began to argue. "Ne, ne! Her older sister didn't care for her as she should have -- it is a sister's responsibility."
"More punica?" Elizabeth asked, raising the pitcher. Chuck held out his mug, offering the distraction she needed to do what she did best: smooth tempers while guiding the group toward her own goals. She smiled her thanks at him. The group fell silent and they all accepted a bit more juice; almost ritually, Chuck thought. He took an apple and sliced it, then ate a wedge with some of the cheese. Delicious, he thought. He dropped his head back to watch the stars above them.
"Madame Lizabeth," Khurri said after a while, "perhaps you would like to hear music again?"
"Yes, please," she said. Chuck helped Corrigan, Engravido, and Dunne clear the tables, while Brigitte Mathieu folded the long cloths that Khurri's aunt had given them. Their tables were actually two long portable lab benches, but they served their purpose and could easily be moved back to the main tent after the evening meal, the only meal everyone shared.
As the expedition members cleared the space, Khurri and two elder men brought out their instruments, two- and three-stringed fiddles made of wood and animal hide. Chuck actually liked the music; he thought it sounded like the wind rushing through the grass on this largely treeless world. Lorne said it made him sleepy the way it droned on and on, but Chuck liked that, too; he found it soothing. Khurri told him that the two-stringed fiddle, the one he held between his legs and caressed with a carefully angled bow, was once used to tame the wild ancestors of the goats.
The locals sang or chanted in close harmony, their music slow, repetitive, droning. One of them, the man who'd argued with Khurri, tapped what looked like a copper tray, but Chuck couldn't work out the rhythm he tapped to.
He liked it, though. He lay on the ground in his favorite spot and tried to center a star through one of the holes in the ancient trees. The wind picked up in the evening, its soughing through the dead branches adding another layer to the music.
He was nearly asleep when the music stopped. He yawned hugely, stretched, and stood to say goodnight to everyone. The locals slept out under the stars, but Chuck had his own little tent and he crawled gratefully inside, asleep within minutes.
He woke in the night needing to piss. Sergeant Washington and Corporal Tremblay were standing guard, not that there was anything to guard against. He nodded at them as he walked away, finding a spot of privacy. He nearly fell asleep standing, jerking awake, and stumbled back to his tent. There he paused when he caught sight of Lorne talking to the guards
Lorne gestured away from the camp, and Tremblay shook her head. They stood talking for another minute before Washington came back into the camp and nudged the two sleeping bags. Chuck watched as Captain Gunderson and Sergeant Hernandez climbed to their feet. The soldiers surrounded Lorne, listening intently. Chuck hesitated, but Lorne saw him and gestured for him to join them.
"Khurri's daughter is missing," he said quietly to Chuck. "Two kids from his home came to tell him."
"We supposed to help find her?" Gunderson asked skeptically.
"Doctor Weir would like us to," Lorne said. He looked tired in the thin moonlight, Chuck thought, and wondered if he'd had an argument over this with Elizabeth. "Khurri and some of the locals will come with us. The archaeologists are in heaven, but . . ." He stopped abruptly, but Chuck could finish his thought: he didn't like combining missions, and he didn't think it was in their best interest to get involved in a local feud. "But Doctor Weir wishes it," Lorne finally said.
"I'll wake the camp," Gunderson said. "Hernandez, Tremblay, and Washington: pack. Lots of water."
"What should I do?" Chuck asked.
Gunderson looked at Lorne, then started going from tent to tent.
"Stay with Doctor Weir," Lorne said. "She wants to come with us, but of course that's not advisable. I'd like to send her back to Atlantis, but that's not going to happen. The archaeologists staying here will need guarding, so you're now on duty, not just assisting Weir."
"Major, what if Doctor Weir refuses? I mean, I can't order her to stay here."
"I'm aware of that, Sergeant. Just stay with her, okay? Do the best you can."
"Yes, sir."
Behind them, the camp was coming awake, lanterns flickering on, voices grumbling. Chuck lit the fire again, yawning in its sudden warmth. He really wished he'd had more sleep. He helped set up the tables again, and in between errands, found a moment to run back to his tent to pull on more clothes.
Everyone gathered around at the fire. Some sat at the tables, some on the ground, drinking hastily brewed tea and eating impromptu sandwiches of bread and cheese. Khurri and his wife both looked miserable. Dr. Weir stood with them, and Lorne next to her.
"All right," Lorne said in a loud voice. Dr. Corrigan yawned hugely, a big moaning sound, and then waved a hand apologetically. "We all feel that way, Doc," Lorne said. "But our hosts' daughter is missing. We're packing now so we can leave at first light. Khurri's friend here, Yossi, is a good tracker, so he'll help us follow her. Our best guess is they're going home."
"You had a somewhat heated discussion earlier with these people," Elizabeth said. "Could there be a connection?"
Khurri shook his head firmly and said, "Madame Lizabeth, we see them twice each year at the Fna, and have all our lives." He shrugged helplessly and sighed. "They are the children of our mother's sister."
Nati, Khurri's wife, said, "Jlengli is young and pretty. She is also a younger sister." Chuck hadn't puzzled out what the implication of being a younger sister was, but everyone nodded and frowned at her words.
"You said you think they're going home," Elizabeth said to Lorne. "Do you mean the other ruins, where Khurri lives?"
Chuck could see how this was going to turn out and, from the look on Lorne's face, so did he. "Ma'am," he said, and rose to stand almost at attention, "Doctor Weir, your safety and well-being are my responsibility. I understand that, as a scholar of the Ancients, you're interested in, ah, this other place, but ma'am." Lorne stopped abruptly and exhaled. "Elizabeth, I'm sorry, but that's just not going to happen."
"Evan," she said, also standing, and then glanced around. Chuck felt as though he were watching something private. "I believe this is a civilian expedition, is it not?"
"Ma'am, yes, ma'am -- when we're in Atlantis. But we're off-world and I'm in charge."
Uh-oh, Chuck thought. He hastily went back to work and out of earshot, as did the other Atlantians, though Khurri, his wife, and their family stayed to listen. I'm in charge. What a dumb-ass thing to say to Elizabeth.
By the time the silhouettes of the mountains could be distinguished in the earliest light, they were packed and ready to go. Some of the goats had been rounded up and tethered together, with supplies packed on their backs. They bleated in irritation, kicking up dust, making Chuck's nose itch and eyes water. Lorne and Yossi stood together at the head of the assembly, followed by Khurri and his family, Sergeant Washington, and Doctors Engravido and Dunne. The rest, including Elizabeth and Chuck, were staying behind to continue work on the ruins they'd come to investigate.
Weir and Lorne must have hashed it out, because the group left without fanfare or farewell. Chuck watched them a long time as they climbed the sloping hills. Streamers of pale light fell from the jagged peaks as the sun slowly rose above the mountains. When they disappeared behind the first hill, Chuck turned back to Elizabeth. "Ma'am?"
She looked as irritated as the goats. "I'm not your responsibility, Sergeant," she said. "What would you have me do?"
"Um." Chuck bit his lip, not sure how to respond. "I'm kinda hungry."
She smiled suddenly, and ran her hand through her hair. "I'm sorry, Chuck. I understand that Major Lorne was following protocol. And there is important work to do here -- after we have breakfast." She leaned closer to whisper, "I think there might be enough coffee for two cups, too."
He smiled at her gratefully.
They went back to work in the enormous temple, Corrigan and Mathieu coming by occasionally to offer encouragement and take photos. "Well, this is boring," Elizabeth said mid-morning on the second day after the others had gone searching for the girl. "We could be the first humans from the Milky Way seeing those ruins, and instead I'm translating the values of a good father. Provider, householder, educator, disciplinarian."
"Disciplinarian. Sounds kinky," Chuck said, hoping to make her laugh.
"Maybe I'm translating that wrong. The root of the word is clearly rota, wheel, hmm."
Chuck was glad he'd got her interested in the wall again. He liked sitting in the midst of the temple, his back to the sun-warmed wall, watching her peer at the imprints in the mud. He wondered who had done all the work of creating the wall, and why. Not the Ancients, Dr. Corrigan said; they kept their records electronically, but another culture in contact with them, and great in its own way. Just the dimensions of this temple amazed him.
They were breaking for lunch when a ruckus drew their attention. "That sounds like a girl crying," Elizabeth said. She and Chuck hurried through the temple and up the steps, panting at the top. He saw the camp below them like a stage setting: the tents in a semi-circle around the fire pit, and around it, Drs. Corrigan and Mathieu, and Captain Gunderson and Sergeant Hernandez, their camp cook, Nteyi, his two kids, Nev and Nur, and someone else. A young woman weeping and pulling at her hair and clothing in a frenzy of distress, the others standing helplessly around her.
"Hurry, Chuck," Elizabeth gasped, and he took her arm, helping her rush down the steep hillside, their feet sliding on the loose shale. Gunderson looked very glad to see her. "Doctor Weir," he said, practically saluting. "This girl, I --" The girl bellowed wordlessly again, and Gunderson grabbed at her hands. "She's hurting herself," he explained, struggling.
Elizabeth knelt in front of the girl, capturing her attention. "I am Elizabeth. Let me help you."
The girl froze, staring at Elizabeth. Now that she was still, Chuck saw how filthy she was: tears streaked the dirt on her face; her long hair was matted dusty; her clothes were torn and stained. "My father will kill me," she said, and Chuck stifled a laugh. She sounded exactly like his kid sister when she was in trouble. Then he saw she was serious.
"No one will kill you," Elizabeth said. "If Captain Gunderson releases you, will you let us help?"
A tear rolled down her face, washing through the dust on her plump cheek. "Please," she whispered. Gunderson let go, and gently raised the girl to her feet.
"You're Jlengli," Elizabeth said, and the girl's eyes widened. "Your family is very worried about you. They thought you had been kidnapped."
"Not kidnapped," Jlengli said. "Kher came for me. We were going to go through the gate together, to a better world, but, but," she started to cry again, "he lied, he didn't want to marry me, he just wanted, he just wanted," and then she started to wail. Elizabeth put her arms around the filthy girl and let her sob onto her shoulder. "Father will kill me as an example to all girls!" she cried.
Chuck thought Khurri was more likely to kill this Kher guy, but he doubted Jlengli would believe him. He said to Nteyi, "Heat up some water, please. She needs a bath, and her clothes need washing. Doctor Mathieu, do you have anything to help?" Brigitte had trained as a medic as well as a paleontologist; that seemed an odd combination to Chuck, but apparently she'd worked in some pretty isolated places on Earth, and certainly did here in the Pegasus Galaxy.
"I think a Benadryl should do the trick," she said, and patted Chuck's arm. "Good thinking, Sergeant." She hurried off to her tent. Corrigan took that as a cue to head back to his work. Gunderson and Hernandez stood on either side of Elizabeth, both embarrassed and unsure.
Elizabeth took pity on them. "I think we're all right, gentlemen."
Chuck said, "Hernandez, check the perimeter; see if anyone else is here. Captain, maybe you could use your binoculars from there?" He pointed to the hill behind them. "Ma'am, I asked Nteyi to heat some water . . ."
"Good thinking, Chuck. Come on, Jlengli. Let's get washed up. Are you hungry? Nteyi is an excellent cook."
Chuck couldn't believe he'd just told a captain what to do, but Gunderson seemed pretty gob-smacked by the sudden appearance of a weeping girl. Probably didn't have any sisters. Hernandez had six; he'd undoubtedly seen this drama played out before. Well, Chuck's first job was to look after Elizabeth, so he followed them to Elizabeth's tent.
Jlengli was bathed and dressed in Elizabeth's Mystic's women's basketball hoodie and a pair of Brigitte's sweatpants by the time Gunderson and Hernandez returned. "There's no sign of anyone," Gunderson reported to Elizabeth, and Hernandez nodded his head. "No one followed you, miss," he added to Jlengli, who was spooning up Nteyi's soup.
Chuck wasn't surprised when Jlengli began to cry again. Kher's absence only proved her fears, that he had never been serious about her. Without consciously deciding to, Chuck wrapped an arm around Jlengli's shoulders. "It'll be all right," he murmured. She put down the spoon and leaned against him, sniffing.
"We've all had people we love lie to us," Elizabeth said kindly, handing Jlengli a tissue.
"I want to go home," Jlengli said, sounding much younger than she looked. "I want my Mama."
As soon as she said the words, Chuck knew. He looked at Captain Gunderson, who opened his mouth to say something, but catching Chuck's eyes, subsided, just raising his eyebrows. What're you gonna do, he was saying, and Chuck knew the answer was Whatever Elizabeth wants us to do.
Jlengli yawned hugely. After Brigitte and Elizabeth helped her to bed in Elizabeth's tent, they gathered for a meeting. Everyone, including Nteyi and his sons, sat around the fire drinking mugs of steaming punica while Elizabeth spoke.
"Frankly, I want to go," Dr. Engravido said. "If Khurri was telling the truth, the ruins near him sound even more spectacular than these. We'll meet up with the others, get Jlengli back to her family, and investigate the ruins. It's perfect."
"Not perfect," Captain Gunderson said. He looked very uncomfortable. "Our job is to protect Doctor Weir. We can't do that if we don't know the terrain. The major will have my head if anything happens to her, and he'll be right. We can't just march out into the desert with her."
"It's not unknown terrain," Elizabeth said. "Jlengli knows it; Nteyi, Nev, and Nur know it. Major Lorne is there now. If there were a problem he would have contacted us."
"How? The radios don't work over such long distances in these mountains. Anything could have happened to them."
"They would have sent back a runner," Elizabeth said, almost in triumph, "just as they did to let us know that Jlengli was missing. We'll be increasing our security by consolidating."
"Excuse me," Chuck said, setting down his empty mug. "As much as I agree with the captain about keeping Doctor Weir safe, I also agree that we need to return Jlengli to her home. She'll just go by herself if we don't take her, or we'll have to keep her prisoner, and neither option sounds good to me."
"Shit," Gunderson mumbled. He rubbed his head. "All right. All right. But Doctor Weir, ma'am, I'd appreciate it if you'd write your orders out. Just in case."
"Of course, Captain. Now, Nteyi, can we be ready to leave tomorrow? And will you come with us?"
"I would like to see home again, Madame Lizabeth," he said softly. "I have not seen my wife in too long."
"All the more reason to go, then."
Gunderson never had a chance, Chuck thought, turning to pack up his tent. He was sorry to leave this place, but they'd be back, and maybe they'd find something cool out in the desert.
They made a larger caravan than the first group setting out; more people and more goats heading away from the rising sun and up into the hills. They left as soon as the sun outlined the peaks, just as the first group had. When they'd climbed for nearly an hour, Chuck turned around and looked back. No wonder the site had remained for so many thousands of years; he couldn't see a thing. The sunken temple was completely hidden, blending with the environment. No one, no Wraith, would guess that people had congregated there. Hiding was a sound strategy on any world.
He caught up with the others. Gunderson led the way, enormous between the two boys who jogged along on either side of him. The goats picked their way lightly, barely stirring the dust, unlike the heavy boots of the expedition members. Elizabeth walked with Jlengli, striding over the dusty earth. Ahead, there were only more and more hills, climbing steadily into the mountains. As they drew nearer, Chuck could see that many of the peaks were glaciated. Over the tallest hovered a thin elliptical cloud, a punctuation mark noting its importance.
No trees, little sound, just the shuffle their feet and the jingling of the buckles strapping supplies to their and the goats' backs. Chuck felt like Sam in Lord of the Rings, carrying an enormous pack, complete with dangling tea kettle. He wasn't sure how he got stuck with that, but Nteyi had tied it on at the last minute. "To keep nearby," he'd said, and Chuck appreciated that every time they stopped to rest and drink mugs of hot punica.
The landscape grew so barren that they had to carry their fuel, mostly goat shit and bricks of charcoal, stacked into their packs. People must have hiked across this desert just like this for millennia, Chuck thought, and reminded himself to ask Brigitte about it when they camped. She would know.
They hiked for three days, climbing higher and higher. Elizabeth and Gunderson began to have some trouble catching their breath, so Brigitte gave them each a hit of albuterol to open their airways. "Sorry," Elizabeth said, still a little breathless. "Didn't mean to be a bother." Chuck was glad that Gunderson was also having problems or he'd probably start up again about how Elizabeth shouldn't have come. But his relief didn't last long when he realized that was more worried about Gunderson than Elizabeth. He noticed Brigitte keeping a close eye on him, too.
Hernandez and Nteyi now led the way, the goats following obediently, urged on by Nev and Nur. Jlengli had begun to talk to Elizabeth, shy and quiet at first, but soon she held Elizabeth's hand as they hiked chattered, lively and much happier than when she'd stumbled into their camp weeping over her boyfriend's treachery.
The morning of the fourth day, after they'd struck camp, they stood for a moment staring up the narrow chalk-colored path ahead of them, too narrow for anything but single file up the very steep trail and so steep they could almost use their hands to help climb. Chuck wondered what their elevation was, and how Gunderson would manage, and how much farther they had to go. They'd seen no signs of the other group passing this way, but when he turned to look back, he could see no sign that they'd just been here either. The ground beneath its sheer covering of pale dust was hard, the bones of the earth right beneath their feet. No wonder so little grew: drought, altitude, and lack of topsoil made this a hard place to live. Maybe that was another reason the Wraith rarely bothered these people.
Hernandez started up the trail, leaning forward as if into a stiff wind. The goats trotted behind him, their little heels almost dancing, followed by Nteyi's two boys just as nimbly. All of them -- sergeant, goats, and boys -- were covered in brown dust within moments. Chuck's nose was full of it, and he'd had to learn what Hernandez called a "Texas handkerchief" to get rid of it: blowing one nostril at a time directly onto the ground.
Chuck thought about Atlantis while they climbed. How clean it was, how cool, and surrounded by water. He wasn't a strong swimmer, but he'd started swimming with a group of friends at lunch-time three days a week, in a grey-tiled inner pool warmed by the sun. He missed long showers; he missed glasses of water whenever he wanted; he missed brushing his teeth and washing his face and flushing toilets. Especially flushing toilets.
"Soon," Nteyi announced the next morning. They'd reached a small plateau, and it felt like heaven to lie down on flat ground again, Chuck thought. He stretched luxuriously in his sleeping bag. Stars were still out, but at the distant edges of the world, the sky was tinged with the pink and palest yellow of approaching dawn. Nteyi was already hard at work and the smell of the cracked barley stew made Chuck's mouth water. He raised his head and saw Elizabeth and Jlengli laughing together, looking into a small mirror. A compact, he realized. Elizabeth had brought a compact with her. He smiled to himself, watching them comb each other's hair. Jlengli twisted Elizabeth's hair into complicated braids, like neater versions of Ronon's dreadlocks, and tied them all together with a dusty ribbon.
Chuck woke Brigitte and Gunderson with bowls of the stew topped with goat yogurt. Gunderson coughed a lot when he first got up, but seemed better to Chuck. He and Brigitte exchanged looks, but she didn't offer Gunderson a hit of the albuterol and he didn't ask for one, so maybe he was acclimating.
Chuck climbed near Elizabeth and Jlengli that day, helping herd the goats up the winding path. They soon left the plateau far behind, and it quickly disappeared behind the twists and turns of their path. Chuck felt he was literally at the top of the world: the air was cold and clean and dry. There was less dust up here, too, and he could see for miles.
"Look!" Elizabeth called back to him, pointing up. When they'd rounded the last fold of the mountain, the high peak revealed itself. It was snow-covered, and a banner of white blew from the summit, like a prayer flag, he thought.
"We're not climbing that," he said in alarm, looking at Nteyi.
"No, no. Around. The other side we go." He beamed at them all. "Home!"
"Mama!" the boys shouted, and chased each other up the trail.
"How you doing, Captain?" Chuck asked Gunderson.
"Fine. Well, shitty, actually. Anything happens to me, watch over Weir, right?"
"Nothing's going to happen to you, Captain," Chuck said hurriedly, and waved at Brigitte.
"Probably not. Still."
"Hey, Brigitte. Gunny's not feeling well. Can you --"
"Hey, Captain. How'd you sleep last night?"
"Not much. Kept dreaming I was going to roll off the world." He looked at Chuck. "Don't mention this to anyone, okay, Sergeant?"
"None of my business. I'll check on the others."
He hiked up the trail, catching up to Elizabeth, Jlengli, and Nteyi. "Can we hold a minute? Brigitte wants to take a look at Gunderson."
"He doesn't look at all well," Elizabeth said, turning back towards them.
"How far is it?" Chuck asked Nteyi.
"Another night. Midday tomorrow, if we hurry."
"I don't think it's a good idea to hurry," Chuck said to Elizabeth.
"Is it altitude sickness?" Elizabeth asked him.
"I don't know, ma'am. You should ask Brigitte."
She nodded firmly, but didn't move, no doubt wanting to give Gunderson his privacy. He was staring away from them all, answering Brigitte's questions sullenly.
Gunderson was worse that night, and maybe it was altitude sickness after all. He complained of headache, and vomited twice. "We need to get him to a lower altitude," Brigitte explained to them. "Even a little bit lower could help." They all watched Nev sit with Gunderson, trying to get him to drink punica.
"Nteyi, you said we go around," Elizabeth asked him. "How much higher? What are our options?"
"Madame Lizabeth, we must go up to go down. We must carry your Gunderson. We can walk all night." Chuck felt his eyes widen, but he guessed he could walk all night if it meant Gunderson's life.
"Brigitte?"
She shook her head. "It's a risk, but just sitting here is a risk. We don't have any Acetazolamide, but if he keeps hydrated, and I can show him some breathing exercises . . ." She shook her head again. "It's a crap shoot, ma'am."
"So much of life is a crap shoot," Elizabeth murmured. "Chuck? Sergeant Hernandez? Can the two of you carry Gunderson?"
Nteyi was a little wiry guy, but Hernandez was stocky, and Chuck was Chuck. None of them was as big as Gunderson. "Yeah. Yeah, I think we can do it," Chuck said after a moment.
Hernandez nodded his head. "I've hauled bigger guys by myself, in an emergency."
Chuck knew that was true. "Then I don't see that we have a choice. Can you walk all night, Jlengli?"
"I am sorry to make Ser Gunderson sick," she said regretfully, and Chuck thought she finally understood some of the consequences of running away with Kher.
"Not your fault," he told her kindly. "We'll take care of him. You just need to keep walking. Help Elizabeth," he added.
Jlengli said, "I would do anything for Madame Lizabeth." Elizabeth laughed, and they smiled at each other. Chuck thought Jlengli would, too.
"Then it's settled," he said. "Let's rig up a stretcher. We'd better make shoulder straps, too."
"I have something you can use," Brigitte said, and they bent to their task. Evening deepened, so Nteyi and Nur lit torches. Gunderson put up some argument when he realized what was happening, but Elizabeth spoke to him firmly and he quieted. Chuck glanced up once and thought Gunderson was crying, but he looked away before he could be sure.
Carrying a man in a stretcher, especially one the size of Gunderson, up a steep, winding trail at night, trying to coordinate the twists and turns with Hernandez, lit only by flickering torchlight while listening for Brigitte calling out directions, was one of the hardest tasks Chuck had ever attempted. Their burden made them gasp for air, so they stopped every twenty minutes or so, resting standing up rather than expending their energy by setting down and picking up the stretcher. He and Hernandez switched from head to foot position regularly, but each time they did, Gunderson tried to get up, which made things more difficult. Elizabeth had to order him to remain lying down. Nev left the goats to his brother and walked beside the stretcher when the trail allowed, holding Gunderson's hand, encouraging him.
Chuck watched his feet as best he could, struggling not to trip. Sweat immediately evaporated, so he drank every time Brigitte forced Gunderson to drink, hoping not to end up sick himself. While they rested, he dropped his head back and stared up at the infinite sky. McKay would know, but Chuck would be willing to bet they were in a densely populated part of the galaxy. This high, with the air this clear, the night sky was almost white with stars.
He wished he had the stamina of the goats. They'd frisked up the mountain all day, and now they frisked up it all night. Sure-footed, too. Occasionally one would make a laughing sound, ha-ha!, and that's what Chuck called them in his head, ha-has. Whenever they stopped to rest, they nibbled at invisible pasture, huffing at the dust.
The night went on forever. Chuck's shoulders ached from Gunderson's weight, and the stretcher's handles rubbed strips of blisters into the palms of his hands. He let Brigitte take care of him, as if he were a boxer and she his trainer, standing exhausted and obedient while she made him drink and eat. Chuck was vaguely aware of Elizabeth taking similar care of Hernandez, but mostly he stared at the stars, so quiet and peaceful above them.
He stumbled once, but Brigitte caught him before he went to his knees. Gunderson cried out, but Chuck just said, "Okay, I'm okay, we're okay," and insisted they go on. His heart pounded from the exertion and a little from fear; he didn't know anymore if they walked on the edge of a cliff or in the middle of a meadow.
They were resting, Chuck standing like a horse in harness, when he heard shouting. "Mama!" Jlengli cried, and ran.
"Hoy! Hoy, Etta!" Nteyi called, and behind Chuck, Nur waved the torch wildly.
"Thank god," Chuck said.
Abruptly they were surrounded by people, everyone talking at once. More torches were lit, and enormous flashlights that Chuck recognized as Atlantian. Someone tried to take the handles of the stretcher from him, but he couldn't release them. "It's all right," he heard Lorne repeat patiently. "It's all right now, Sergeant. Stand down."
"Jesus, sir," he said, and let Brigitte pry open his hands and pass the stretcher to Sergeant Washington.
"You did a fine job," Lorne said.
"They're exhausted," Brigitte said, almost angrily. "He and Cruz were amazing."
"I can see that, Doctor Mathieu. You need to rest, too. All of you." He led them further down the trail, and with a tripping lurch of vertigo, Chuck suddenly realized that they were finally going downhill. The long climb was over. Gunderson could get better now.
He let Lorne push him onto a sleeping bag near a fire, and remove his pack, including the tea kettle, the sight of which surprised him. He stared in amazement at it; it seemed like such a long time since Nteyi had hooked it to his pack. Brigitte sat next to him, her head resting easily on his shoulder. Except for the two of them, everyone was talking, including Elizabeth. Jlengli and another girl were hugging each other, her parents hugging Elizabeth and Nteyi. Gunderson was sitting up, looking better already. Well, he should, Chuck thought uncharitably. He just had a seven hour break.
Adjusting Brigitte's dozing weight, he lay back on top of the sleeping bag. She curled under his arm. The last thing he remembered was seeing the stars fading in the brightening sky.
Lorne woke Chuck saying, "Hey, Sergeant. Breakfast? Or lunch, I guess."
"Anything," Chuck croaked, gingerly accepting the mug of hot punica from Hernandez. His hands ached and felt stiff and clumsy, but the warm mug soothed them.
"Your girlfriend's getting herself prettied up," Hernandez said grinning at him. Chuck kicked at him, but without heat. He wondered if Brigitte might be his girlfriend. She was a scientist, but scientists and solders got together all the time in Atlantis, and besides, he had his own talents.
"Look at that dopey grin on his face," Lorne said, grinning back at Chuck.
"Fuck you," he said, and they all laughed.
"Ser Chuck!" Khurri's wife Nati said, hurrying toward him with a bowl in her hands. "Thank you so much for bringing back our Jlengli. If there is anything we can do for you, you need only ask."
"Is that for me?"
"Yes, yes. For brave man who carried his comrade over the mountains. My husband will make a song of this!"
"Hear that, Cruz? They're gonna write a song about us."
Hernandez beamed at Nati. "My mom will really like that, ma'am."
After he ate, Chuck lay back down on the sleeping bag. It was cold here, but the fire was warm, and while he'd slept someone had piled a rug on top of him. Probably goatskin, he thought, stroking it, but it felt good. He dozed until evening, when he ate another enormous bowl of the cracked barley. He and Brigitte shared an apple and some goat cheese.
"Evan and Elizabeth are a cute couple," she said, nodding at them. They sat together by the fire, Lorne playing with the elaborate braids still in Elizabeth's hair.
"I guess scientists and military do get together," Chuck said shyly.
Brigitte grinned at him. "Course they do. McKay and Sheppard? Like bunnies." Chuck laughed so hard he choked and Brigitte had to pound his back. When he could breathe again, he leaned toward her, tilting his head. She looked at his lips and then quickly kissed him. They laughed, and then he kissed her back, more slowly. Glancing around, she pulled him down to the sleeping bag, where he discovered that scientists and military did get together. Maybe not like bunnies, but the kissing was fun, and it had been too long since he had that much fun.
Such luxury, just to lie around camp and be waited on. His shoulders were bruised and chafed where the straps had rubbed, and his blisters had popped, so Brigitte re-bandaged both hands. Hernandez was in similar shape, so they were relegated to goat duty, which took no effort at all. "Ha-ha!" Chuck shouted at them when they strayed too far, and they obediently trotted back, expecting an apple or cheese from him, or a handful of barley from Hernandez. "Think Elizabeth would let us bring some of these guys back to Atlantis?" Chuck asked him.
"She would, but I'm trying to imagine Sheppard when he saw them."
"Or McKay."
"So maybe not."
Still, Chuck liked them, the little ha-has, and they seemed to like him. They followed him when he finally found Elizabeth working on yet another translation. "Look, Chuck!" she greeted him happily. "Doctors Engravido and Dunne have just started work here. They say it's an enormous site, and probably even more ancient than the one nearer the stargate."
"So it was here when the Ancients were? But not an Ancient culture?"
"No, and isn't that remarkable? And look at this."
He peered over her shoulder. "That isn't Ancient," he said.
"No. No, it isn't, and no one here knows what it is." She smiled at him. "I'll take photos and send this back to the SGC. Doctor Jackson will be very interested."
He held lights for her while she carefully used a paintbrush to sweep the writing clean, and then snapped photos and filmed it to show the surrounding site. Chuck wondered what Brigitte was working on; were there fossils here? What did "fossils" even mean when civilizations in the Pegasus Galaxy were thousands of years old?
One of the ha-has butted at his leg. "Hey," he said to it, but then the others started ha-ha-ing and scurrying frantically in a way he hadn't seen before. "Elizabeth?" he said. Before she could answer, he heard screaming and shouting and weapons fire. "Stay down!" he shouted, pushing her into a crouch. He crept around the edge of the overhang they were working in to see the camp exploding into frantic action. "Shit. Looks like company, and not the kind we want."
Elizabeth peered over his shoulder. "What can we do?"
Chuck tapped his mic. "Captain Gunderson? Cruz? What's going on?"
"Tell me you're with Elizabeth!" Lorne shouted over the radio.
"She's right here," Chuck said; his heart was pounding. He drew his Beretta.
"Get her away! Now!"
Chuck heard more shots fired, a terrible bellow, and a girl's scream. Elizabeth stood and tried to push past him; he held her back. "What are you thinking? Stay here! Stay!" he shouted as if she were one of the ha-has.
"Don't you speak to me like that!" she said furiously, but she stayed behind him, her back pressed to the wall. He pushed at her and they began to work their way out of the ruins and away from the camp. "We should go back and help," she whispered. "Evan's there, and Brigitte, and Jlengli and Rishi and Nati."
"I know, I know, and we will help, but first we get away and figure out what's going on. Then we figure out how we can help."
They climbed up a notch in the hillside, crouching to stay out of sight. When the reached the top, they looked back at the settlement. Chuck shook his head; it didn't look good. They'd obviously been surprised by a group of people -- bandits? Were they robbing them? Where was Brigitte?
"We have to do something," Elizabeth said urgently.
"Shit," Chuck said. What could two people do against a mob like that? What would Sheppard do? No, that way lay madness; Sheppard had the luck of the devil. "I'm a communications and navigation specialist," he finally said. "So let's try that." He turned, but she'd gone. "Doctor Weir! Elizabeth!" he whispered as loudly as he could. Goddammit. Lorne was gonna hand him his ass. She was creeping down the couloir again, obviously trying to get closer to the action. He slid on his ass down to her, grabbing her arm. "Are you trying to get killed? Or raped? Or whatever those assholes are doing?"
"I am trying to save our colleagues," she said, jerking away from him.
"Then think," he said. "We need to find out what's going on. Who's doing this? Why? Then maybe we can help. You can't just walk into camp and order them to go away."
"I know that," she said. "It's just --"
"I know, Elizabeth. I know. We're always the ones left waiting. I get that." He encouraged her to continue to level ground, where the ha-has pushed forward to nuzzle his bootlaces. "Okay. I have an idea," he said. He herded up the ha-has, using the ribbon in Elizabeth's hair to loop their collars together until they formed a loose circle. "Sorry, babes," he whispered to them, rubbing their ears and noses, letting them laugh into his face and blow dust on him. "Need your help."
He led them and Elizabeth as close as he dared to the settlement. "I'm going to climb back up there, where we were, so give me about ten minutes. Then push the ha-has into camp. Here," he pulled out a powerbar. "Let them snuffle this and then throw it; they'll follow after it. I hope."
"Then what?"
"Then stay here. I'll do my best." He patted his Beretta strapped to his thigh.
He climbed quickly and quietly; the time spent in the mountain passes trying to reach this nameless place had been useful for that. When he reached the top, he drew his weapon again and checked it. Lorne and Sheppard made sure that everyone in Atlantis knew how to use their weapons, so he was confident in his abilities. He just wished he had a P-90 as well.
Then the ha-has burst into the settlement, a dust-devil of irritation as they spun in a circle, tied to each other, trying to free themselves and reach the powerbar. People began shouting again, distracted, so Chuck jumped to his feet and fired his Beretta once. "Lorne! Gunderson!" he bellowed.
Instantly, as if waiting for the distraction, the Atlantians burst into action. Even Corrigan and Engravido were throwing punches, while Dunne and Brigitte tied up the intruders as they were subdued.
When Chuck saw Brigitte in the middle of the fight, he ran down the couloir like one of the ha-has, in bounding leaps. Elizabeth was already with Lorne, helping him tie up an angry young man that Jlengli and Nati were keeping Khurri from. He swept up to Brigitte and grabbed her, spinning her around. She yelped and jumped on him, legs around his waist, and they kissed. She tasted of dirt and sweat and fear. "Oh, Chuck," she said, her eyes swimming.
He carried her to Yossi and stopped him from kicking a bound man. "What's going on?"
"This hibootz who tricks Jlengli! He and his friends thought we would all be out looking for her, so they attack the settlement!" He kicked Kher again. "Never!"
"Wait, what? Why?" Then he asked Kher, "Why?"
"They trade with you," he said sullenly.
"They think Khurri's people are rich because they work with us," Brigitte guessed. She slid out of Chuck's arms. "So this was all a ruse? You never wanted Jlengli at all?" For a minute, Chuck thought she was going to kick Kher, too, but she just look disgusted.
Chuck hurried over to Lorne. "Is everybody okay?"
"Good work, Sergeant. Really. I'm putting you in for a commendation." Lorne clapped his hands. "All right! Get all the bad guys over here. Chuck, untie those damn goats. Khurri, knock it off. Yossi, quit kicking that guy! Jesus." Chuck watched as Lorne sorted everyone out, shoving the intruders against a low stone fence. He freed the goats, rubbing their heads apologetically and sharing another powerbar among them. Brigitte stayed by his side and despite her dirty face and tangled hair, he thought she'd never looked prettier.
He returned Jlengli's ribbon to her. "You all right?"
She burst into tears. "He lied! He lied, he lied!"
"I know," he said, awkwardly hugging her, hoping Khurri wouldn't kick him. "Men do that sometimes. You have to find somebody good like your dad, not exciting like Kher." She just wept harder.
"What do we do now?" he asked Cruz Hernandez. "It's not like Marshall Dillon's gonna ride by."
That night, his question was answered. Kher and his compatriots were from another encampment, one even higher in the mountains; there was a lot of to-ing and fro-ing all afternoon. Eventually, Chuck thought everyone from there arrived, and he wondered if there'd be more fighting, or a trial.
Instead, there was a feast. More cracked barley stew, seasoned with extra goat for the occasion. Chuck felt a little guilty for enjoying it as much as he did; he felt as though he were eating a friend. The five would-be thieves were tied together at the ankles and then to big stakes in the ground, but they were fed and watered as much as anyone. The other settlement brought small barrels of a thick, frothy beer, which Lorne warned against drinking.
After the meal, when the embers were glowing red, everyone from both settlements gathered together. To Chuck's relief, they intermingled, and it became clear that no fighting would break out. Instead, Khurri pulled out his square fiddle and fit it between his knees, and others followed, till there was an orchestra of two- and three-stringed fiddles and a copper tray drum. They began to play the wild music; Chuck could hear the wind over the high peaks and through the narrow passes in it.
Then Khurri shouted, "For our friends!" He began to play a solo, the two strings on his fiddle making a harmony odd to Chuck's ears, but pleasing nonetheless. It almost sounded like an accordion to Chuck, wheezing and blowing like the ha-has, with the same happy sound to it.
He dragged out his sleeping bag, so he and Brigitte could lounge comfortably and listen. When Khurri finished, he said, "To loyal friends." He glared at the leader of the other settlement, a man called Mau, and Chuck wondered if it was finally time for the fight, but instead they talked. And talked. And talked. The stars grew thick in the sky and still they talked. They spent a long time listing grievances: somebody's goats got into somebody else's vegetables; somebody's child stole a toy; somebody never returned a loaned scythe. God, it was worse than listening to his parents argue, he thought. He yawned.
Brigitte nudged his shoulder. "So," she asked him quietly, but he saw mischief in her eyes. "Are you good like Jlengli's dad? Or exciting like Kher?"
"Um, both?" She raised her eyebrows. "Not exciting. Not usually."
"That was pretty exciting today." She kissed him. "They don't need us for this. Maybe you could collect your reward now."
He burst out laughing; she covered his mouth. "I do deserve a reward, don't I?" he said, and they gathered up the sleeping bag and goatskins. Chuck knew the others were watching them, but he avoided meeting their eyes, except for Elizabeth, who winked at him. He noticed she and Lorne were holding hands, so he boldly winked back.
"Come on," Brigitte whispered, tugging his jacket.
As they walked away from the noise of the settlement and into the starry night, he said, "I think I know why the girl carried the king away in a wheelbarrow."
"What? Why?"
He smiled at her. "Because he was valuable to her. Not his stuff."
"Because the king wasn't Kher."
"Exactly," he said with satisfaction.
She took his hand. "Neither are you," she said, and kissed his cheek.
~ ~ ~
The instrument Khurri plays is based on the morin khuur, a Mongolian fiddle, and looks something like this: