The Roots That Clutch 1

Prologue

by Tittamiire

URL: http://www.area52hkh.net/ast/tittamiire/rootst01.php
Summary: When the world ended SG1 and earth's best and brightest were evacuated though to the Alpha site and carried on living and fighting the Goa'uld.
Info: Written for the Apocalypse Kree ficathon originally.

"What are the roots that clutch, what branches grow 
Out of this stony rubbish? Son of man,
You cannot say, or guess, for you know only 
A heap of broken images, where the sun beats, 
And the dead tree gives no shelter, the cricket no relief, 
And the dry stone no sound of water." T.S Eliot – The Wasteland

Sam towelled Lise's fine brown hair gently. She knew the little girl would be pulling a face as she did it and she couldn't help glancing up at Janet to see if she was right. Janet was watching Lise out of the corner of her eye with a very clear look of amusement on her face as she folded their clothing. It had been washing day, clothes and people alike, and they were still tidying up. Cassie was nearby, sitting in a far corner of the cottage in a rocking chair. She was busy darning socks and gently stirred the chair with one toe. Darning socks was a skill that her birth mother had started to teach her when she was young and she'd remembered and then perfected as an adult. It was also one that she had never thought she would use.

"Arms up," Sam instructed, putting the towel aside and reaching for Lise's night shirt to tug it over her head. She knelt down to rearrange the collar so the night shirt hung correctly and then pulled the girl into a hug and kissed her ear.

"Moooom," she whined, giggled and wriggled all at the same time and Sam laughed gently.

"It's someone's bedtime," Janet said gently from the pile of laundry.

"Five more minutes? Pleeeease," she looked pleadingly from Janet to Sam and holding up one hand with all her fingers extended to demonstrate how long. It was a bad habit she'd picked up from Sam because if you asked her how long five minutes actually was she wouldn't have a clue.

Janet raised one eyebrow in answer, her face all stern parent. She tended to end up playing 'bad mom' to Sam's indulgent 'good mom' routine, but she never complained.

"How about a story in bed," Sam suggested by way of a compromise, looking directly at Janet, who nodded. Lise saw the nod and clapped, running over to her bed without needing to be asked further. Sam pushed herself to her feet and followed her, pausing to kiss Janet quickly on the way across the room. Lise had already jumped into bed and was rearranging her pillow and the essential teddy. She was virtually disappearing under the blanket that Cassie and Janet had knitted between them (knitting, another one of those skills Sam had never thought she'd need to learn, but one that she had been recently attempting to). Sam pulled up the low wooden stool that Teal'c had made for Lise and sat down.

"Ready?"

Lise nodded, curling up on her side and rubbing teddy's ear against her nose.

"Which story would you like?"

"A new one"

"A new one, hmm..."

Lise looked expectantly up at her and slid the tip of her thumb between her lips. Sam gently redirected it. As much as she wanted to indulge the little girl she was knew that there weren't any orthodontists around to fix her front teeth.

"Once upon a time," Sam began slowly, "there was a planet a long way away from here. It was a beautiful planet. It was a lot like this one in many ways. It had oceans, mountains, trees, rivers and everything. It had so many types of animals and plants that people were still discovering more kinds every day and there were still places that no one had ever been to. As well as all the plants and animals there were a lot of people. They lived in villages, towns and cities all over the planet."

"What're towns and cities?" Lise asked quietly. She was looking far from asleep and Sam wondered if she should have chosen a more familiar and soothing story. She considered her answer to the question, trying to shape it into a short explanation that the three year old would understand.

"A town is a very big village and a city is a very big town," was the answer she settled on.

Lise nodded at the explanation.

"Anyway, a lot of people lived like we do, but a lot of people also lived in cities where there was so much of everything. There were huge buildings where anyone could walk in and get more food than they could eat, more clothes than they could wear and more toys than they could play with. People had so much food that they threw lots away every week. There were sweets and cakes. Every child had lots of toys to play with whenever they wanted. There were devices that could do all sorts of fantastical things like show images, play music and games and tell stories."

Janet moved behind Sam and she could hear her quietly tidying the wooden clothes pegs into the bag on the wall. Lise's gaze was still fixed firmly on Sam.

"Now, this planet had a device that they could use to go to other planets."

"Like you do?"

"Yes, except they didn't need a space ship like we do. They didn't even have any space ships at first. The Stargate - that was what they called the device - meant that they could travel to all sorts of other planets whenever they wanted. Some of them explored the galaxy through this Stargate and met all sorts of exciting and interesting people. They looked for wonderful and exciting new things that they could share with the people of their planet.

Unfortunately they also met some not very nice people. There were those who didn't like the adventurers and wanted to hurt them. When they began exploring they wanted to find allies and friends and they did find them, but they found a lot of enemies as well. The new enemies started a war against the adventurers. Now, the adventurers kept fighting and exploring and they kept looking for friends who could help them. They found some friends who were nothing like them in some ways. They didn't look like them at all, they didn't sound like them and they came from another galaxy. Except, they thought a bit like they did and they had big space ships and more importantly, powerful devices that could help protect the adventurers. The new friends agreed to help the adventurers, to protect them from their enemies.

The new friends had their own enemies to fight though and one day the adventurers enemies turned up at their planet and their friends couldn't help them. They fought, but they couldn't win and in the end the adventurers had to abandon their planet with all its great devices and run away. But they could live without their planet and their devices because they had each other."

Sam glanced and saw that Lise's eyes were closed and she was breathing deeply. She stopped her tale and made sure the blanket was tucked up around the girl's shoulders and smoothed a stray and still damp section of hair off her cheek.

"Interestingly sugar coated story," Janet commented in a low voice from the other side of the room.

Sam smiled to herself, stood up from the stool and pushed her hair out of her face.

"You could have just told her Cinderella," Cassie commented, quietly amused, from the corner.

Sam frowned, "I dislike stories that suggest that all girls should go to dramatic lengths to get their handsome prince."

Cassie smiled and shook her head as she bent to her darning again.

"It's time Sam," Janet reminded her, now putting the folded clothes into the dresser and reaching for her jacket on the wall.

Sam looked at her watch to check and nodded, "We'd better get moving." She grabbed her jacket from the table where she had placed it and threw it on. It was a long leather thing she'd acquired in a market town a while ago and she'd taken to wearing it after the sleeve had ripped on her regular SG1 jacket. It was a long way from falling apart, but Sam had attached a certain amount of sentimentality to the lingering remains of earth and she'd put her old jacket away to preserve it. She wasn't superstitious enough to believe in luck, but she often felt as if everything of earth was slipping and fading away too quickly.

"We should be back in a few days," she was repeating herself, but she wanted to reassure herself as much as Cassie, who knew this and merely put down her darning to stand up and hug them both.

"Stay safe"

"We'll do our best," Janet told her, putting a hand to her cheek and looking earnestly into her eyes.

"And hurry home"

"Always," Sam promised, stepping forward to hug her as well.

Sam stepped back and watched Janet kiss Cassie on the forehead. They left and both lingered for another precious few moments in the dusk outside the door before leaving their cottage. Sam resisted the urge to look back and pulled the door firmly shut behind her with a sigh. It was always hard to leave home. The night outside was cooling rapidly, but still held the lingering heat of day and there was enough of the remaining sunset to see by. Sam laced her fingers through Janet's.

"C'mon," she told her with a gentle tug.

Colonel O'Neill, Daniel and Teal'c were waiting for them where they had parked their Alkesh up a hill a little way from the village. They were all geared up, of a fashion, though over the last few years their gear had taken a battering and had been repaired so many times it only resembled their original gear loosely. No one had made tactical vests, bullets, or olive drab uniforms for years.

"Ready to go?" The Colonel asked casually.

"Yes Sir," they both answered almost together, but the words were said easily and more out of habit than procedural formality.

He smiled, "Good. Siler's got the old lady primed. We were just taking the night air."

Sam glanced back down towards the village. She could see people moving around still, and several of them looking up towards them. Everything seemed to glow in the dusk. This time it was Janet who tugged at her hand and reminded her that it was time to go.

Next: Opportunities