67Disclaimer: I don't own Stargate SG-1 or any of the characters.
Here's chapter 14, enjoy!
Maria's point of view:
Maria finally woke up sometime later. She expected to find herself alone, but when she opened her eyes, she saw that she wasn't. That woman-what was her name?- Grand Councilor Garshaw, was sitting in a chair at the foot of her hospital bed. She was looking around curiously, like she wanted to get a better look at everything. She hadn't noticed that Maria had awakened.
"You act like you've never been in a hospital before, Ma'am," Maria commented, smirking. Garshaw looked startled, then she smiled.
"Truth be told, I have not," she spoke with the strange voice again. "Or, at least, not very often. The Tok'ra have no need of them, remember? And please, just call me Garshaw." She looked like she pitied Maria. "It must be such a nuisance, having those, those..." She motioned to the iv's in Maria's arm, and the wires that connected the heart monitor to her chest and neck.
"Iv's," Maria told her.
"Yes, the iv's. Do the needles not hurt?"
Maria shook her head. "Nah, the needles aren't even in there. It doesn't hurt," she explained.
"That's good," Garshaw replied. "Listen, I want to talk with you about what you did for Selmak. Surely there is something more you want than to just see the Stargate?" She sounded disbelieving.
"Sam told you?" Maria asked, not surprised.
"Yes," Garshaw answered.
"I really don't want anything other than that. I guess to you it's an everyday thing, but for me it's a huge deal. Before all this happened, I had no clue that the Stargate even existed. You're lucky, you know. It must be so amazing to see other planets." She wondered what the Stargate looked like, having been told nothing about the way it looked by Selmak, or anyone else.
Garshaw appeared to be thinking, but her disbelieving look stayed.
"Are you sure that's all you want?" She asked again.
"Well," Maria replied, "That, and a good bill of health." They both grinned.
"That's something we're all wishing for," Garshaw commented.
They both turned their heads to look when they heard the infirmary door open, and Samantha walked in.
"Grand Councilor Garshaw," Samantha greeted her, and Garshaw nodded in response, smiling faintly.
Then Samantha looked at Maria, smiling. "Hey," she said, sitting down in another chair, next to Garshaw. "How are you feeling?"
"Pretty good," Maria replied. "What's up? Did General Hammond say I could see the Stargate?"
Samantha nodded. "Yeah, he said yes. And Dad's planning something. I don't know what. Do you know anything, Grand Councilor?" Samantha looked at her.
Grand councilor smiled, and it was almost slyly. "Yes, I know what he's doing, but I won't tell you. They want it to be a surprise," she explained. By "they" she meant both Jacob and Selmak. "But I will say that it will be shown to you at the end of this week," she added.
Maria saw Sam roll her eyes, and Maria almost did the same. It was sort of typical for their dad to pull stuff like that. If it had been anybody else, Maria would've asked for at least some kind of hint, but she knew from the Councilor's determined look that it'd be no use asking.
"Got any guesses as to what it could be, Sam?" Maria asked, before some kind of awkward silence could fall between them.
"Not really. But we were talking about your bike right before he seemed to come up with... whatever idea he's got. And he seemed really disappointed that your bike was basically history," Samantha answered. Then she looked puzzled.
"You don't think that he's..." Maria said slowly. "Getting me a new bike?"
They instantly looked at each other and laughed out loud. Their Dad... building a bike... they'd pay money to see that. Since when was their Dad an engineer, or whatever someone who builds bikes is called?
"So that's been ruled off the list of possibilities," Maria continued, then stopped when they heard Garshaw snickering, which was a first.
"What's so funny?" Maria asked.
Garshaw managed to stop snickering and answer.
"It is most amusing, knowing something while you do not," she explained, then stood up.
"Excuse me," she said, and left, looking like she was about burst out laughing. They expected to hear her laughing out in the hall, but, strangely enough, they heard nothing.
Maria suddenly wondered why Selmak and her father had been separated. She'd never thought to ask Selmak that.
"Hey, Sam? Do you know why Dad and Selmak were apart?" She asked.
"Yeah," Sam answered. "Selmak didn't tell you?"
When Maria shook her head, Sam explained about Jacob and Selmak faking their deaths so that the gua'uld wouldn't see the Tok'ra as a major threat anymore, or at least for awhile. She also explained that Selmak had been shipped off in a small, escape-pod like craft that had coordinates for earth programmed into it, so that he could be found again.
"Then you found him, and you know the rest," Sam finished.
Maria sat there for a second, looking as impressed with the Tok'ra's plan as Sam had.
"Whoa. Dude, that's, like...," she tried to think of a way to phrase it. "A really sweet plan."
"Yeah, you're right," Sam agreed. "But we've come up with some pretty good plans ourselves, you know," she added.
Maria wondered for a second if Sam was jealous of the Tok'ra's success or something, then shut that thought down. She knew from Sam's voice that it was a statement of fact.
After a minute of silence, Maria suddenly had a thought. What was she going to tell people when she got back to school?
"Hey, Sam?" Maria asked. "What am I going to tell people if they ask what happened to me, and where I've been?"
Sam seemed to be thinking as she answered Maria.
"Truth be told, I haven't given any thought to your cover story. Maybe you could say you were in a car accident," she offered.
"Yeah, but-" Maria was about to point out a loophole in the cover story, but decided against it. People would fill in the blanks on their own.
"Never mind," she said before Sam could ask what she had been about to say. "So... what's Martouf doing?" She wondered what Garshaw and Martouf would be doing throughout the week while her dad was busy doing... whatever it was for her.
"Last time I saw him, he was eating in the mess hall," Sam answered. "He seemed fascinated with all the food here. He told me how our food is so much different from theirs."
"Yeah, Selmak told me that too. He said that they focus more on the nutritional value of food than the taste." Maria agreed. No wonder Martouf was so eager to try the food here, she thought.
They continued to talk like that for awhile. It was really nice to talk to her sister again, like they used to, before Sam had to keep the whole Stargate secret and all.
Sam told her about some of their missions, like how they found out about the Tok'ra, and another race called the Asgard. And some of the battles with the Gua'uld She also explained about finding the Stargate more than eighty years ago. She described what it was like to go through the Stargate, which sounded awesome... and sort of freaky, what with having your body demolecularized or whatever. Basically, she told Maria almost everything. Sam seemed to enjoy talking about it, going into even some of the minor details of certain events without Maria having to ask.
Maria listened to every word intently, not wanting to miss anything. She wondered if Sam was also sort of making up for the times she must've had to lie to her. Not that it mattered anymore, really.
Eventually, Sam changed the subject, though Maria could've listened to her stories about what she'd done all day. To think, all that time her sister had been doing all those things, she'd been stuck in school, completely in the dark. It was kind of scary, almost. If it hadn't been for these people, the human race would have long since been either enslaved or destroyed. Epic battles had gone down in Antarctica while she'd been, like, studying history or something.
Dude, no wonder they kept everything so hush-hush and top secret and all. If people found out about this at the wrong time, it'd cause mass panic and hysteria galore. But still, it was cool to be one of the few people who knew about it.
She also wondered how in the world she was going to be able to keep her mouth shut at school about this. But then she smiled. She'd manage... hopefully.
Only one more chapter to go, people! I'm really, really sorry it took me so long to update! I know that not updating for a year is really ridiculous, but it's like I've just been hitting a brick wall every time I tried to write. But now I'm back. Please remember to review, and thank you to all who have reviewed already. :)
By the way, I know this chapter was kind of boring, since it was mostly just Maria and Sam talking and catching up, so I promise that chapter 15(the final chapter!) will be better.