Fic: Lying Down With Dogs, SGA (Complete)
Oct. 7th, 2009 09:40 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
grav_ityMeta and Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter Six
It was quiet. Too quiet.
Stephen Caldwell found it hard to believe that only this morning his biggest concern had been keeping idle school children from trying to skip rocks in the water trough in front of the jail. Now, he stood in the centre of the street, flanked by a man who never showed fear and the town’s somewhat crotchety but still dependable deputy mayor. The town looked completely deserted, but Caldwell’s trained eye easily found the glinting rifle barrels that emerged from the windows of the doctor’s, the mercantile, and the second story of the stable. He had been a bit surprised when Miss Mal Doran and Miss Carter showed up to volunteer to cover the street, but frankly he was grateful for the help. He knew both women to be decent shots, even though he was usually against womenfolk being armed, and today they needed everything they could get.
Jack shifted tensely on Caldwell’s left, while Teal’c remained as still as a stone on his right. The sheriff knew that neither man was showing complacency; they merely had differing ways of remaining sharp. He caught himself shifting weight more than was his custom, and for the first time, missed his cane. He was not, it seemed, so well healed as he had thought, though it galled him to admit to the weakness.
Finally, there was a noise. He could hear three horses on the road, though they were not yet in view. Jack stopped moving and Teal’c became, if possible, even more still. Caldwell slowly unclipped his holster, and flexed his hands. He was not as fast as he once had been but his shots were true.
The horses came into view, rounding the last outbuilding, and they stopped. Three riders dismounted, passing their reins to a fourth. They began to walk slowly forward, keeping their hands in clear view. Stephen took a deep breath and willed himself to look intimidating and immovable.
Two of the men who approached were dark skinned. They had tattoos on their foreheads, the black ink barely showing on their faces, but still marked, and both were shaved bald. They wore a curious piece of metal across their shoulders, almost like something a knight from Mr. Jackson’s book of fairy tales would wear, but it was ill-fitting and clearly only designed to protect them from shots to the upper chest and back. They each carried a pair of pistols in plain sight, but had the look of men who carried any number of knives.
Between them, head held high, walked Anubis. Though it was summer, he wore a dark hood that was drawn so far forward it covered his face. Caldwell thought this even less practical than the poor attempt at armour worn by his sycophants, for it all but eliminated his peripheral vision. Then he realized that Anubis was a man without fear. He did not fear Caldwell and he did not fear death. This was the worst kind of enemy, for he would stop at nothing to get what he wanted.
Anubis came to a halt about thirty feet from where Caldwell stood. Caldwell waited. It was, after all, only polite to let your guests speak first. Jack was fairly radiating with suppressed energy, and Caldwell could well imagine the expression on Teal’c’s face. He had an ill opinion of slavers and in his mind, anyone who forced runaways to cooperate were just as bad.
“You have something of mine.” Anubis finally broke the silence. His voice was as odd as his clothing, deep and rough and strangely musical. Caldwell wondered if he wore the hood to hide some sort of scarring that had also damaged his throat.
“We have nothing of yours.” Caldwell answered, his voice completely even.
“You have a woman,” the strangely hypnotic voice replied.
“Colorado is a free state,” Caldwell said, feeling Teal’c bristle for the first time. “You can’t own people here.”
“The woman in question is bearing my child.” Anubis said, his tone almost reasonable. “She has stolen my son from me.”
“Sarah Gardiner bears no child,” Teal’c rumbled. Caldwell knew his deputy well enough to know that he was almost incandescent with rage by now, and that he kept that rage under iron control. “You have no claim upon her.”
Anubis’ eyes slid from Caldwell to Teal’c, or at least so Stephen guessed from the movement of his head. A low laugh emerged from the hood.
“You must be Teal’c,” he said, pronouncing the name gutturally. “I have heard of you.”
The two men who accompanied Anubis looked at Teal’c as well, their eyes full of fear and awe. Caldwell had heard few details of Teal’c’s escape and journey to freedom, but he knew enough to know that his deputy was something of a legend in certain circles.
“I hope what you have heard has not unsettled you.” Teal’c replied calmly.
“It has only made me curious to see you for myself.” The words were laced with potential violence.
“Indeed.”
“Sheriff,” Anubis said abruptly, turning back to Caldwell, “Let us not play games. You have her. I know it. My men have completely surrounded your town. Even now they wait with lit torches. You have barely recovered from attack by the Wraith. You are no match for me, and you know it.”
“We have plenty of match,” growled Jack who, Caldwell noted, had shown remarkable restraint so far.
Caldwell was barely blinking now. All six men were wound as tight as lute strings, waiting for the one tell-tale flinch that would herald the end of this, once and for all. Anubis’ covered face was frustrating him, because he could not tell where the man was looking, nor guess what he was thinking.
Just as the tension became intolerable, the setting sun sent one errant ray through the trees to glint off the rifle held by Samantha Carter in the upper window of the mercantile. The man across from Jack made the fatal mistake of moving his head to look at it, and in that instant, all hell broke loose.
Caldwell had his pistol in his hand before he even thought about it, moving with a speed he hadn’t matched in years. He shot twice, into the heart of the man who had moved, before turning his gun back on Anubis. The gang leader had already fallen back, his gun held limply in a useless hand. Jack had winged him in the arm, and he was bleeding profusely. On Caldwell’s left, Teal’c was down, having marked his man in the thigh before taking a bullet from Anubis himself, but the sheriff couldn’t pay him more than a quick look. Rifle shots rang out from the street above, and Anubis and his remaining foot soldier fled back to their horses. They came under fire from Vala, then, as she crouched in the hayloft above the stable, and their horses reared so violently that they could scarcely keep their seats once they gained them.
“Get him out of here!” Caldwell yelled at Jack, who did his best to drag Teal’c towards the nearest shelter until the big man stopped him to take to his feet. Even then, Jack bore most of Teal’c’s weight, and their progress was slow. Fortunately Anubis and his men were so occupied with their horses that they barely had time to harry anyone on the street.
Caldwell heard the war cries of their Indian allies singing out from all around him, and knew that Anubis’ gang members in the forest had been outflanked. John and Daniel came riding hard down the street, following Anubis’ retreat. They met Jonas and Lorne at the other end of town and set off in thundering pursuit.
Caldwell stood in the centre of town, feeling the hurt of his old wounds, but he was not afraid. He saw no smoke, and the only cries he heard were those of the warriors who battled their way through the underbrush, clearing out the vermin.
Atlantis was safe again.
xxx
Teal’c’s recovery progressed nicely. Dr. Beckett said that his wound was clean, and that he would regain use of his arm in time. With the sheriff in recovery again, Mayor Hammond was debating whether or not to appoint another deputy. His first two choices, Cameron Mitchell and Ronon Dex, were likewise out of commission. Jack was too busy already, and both Jonas and Daniel were temperamentally unsuited to the task. Jack was heard to murmur something about how it was a pity they couldn’t ask Teyla to fill in for a time, and Kinsey turned such an alarming shade of purple that Hammond thought they would be looking for a new council member as well as a temporary sheriff. In the end, Elizabeth suggested her husband, and the council had backed her immediately, deciding to approach him about it when he returned to town.
John finally rode into town two days later. He had sent the other men back while he tracked Anubis’ retreat. Elizabeth was most displeased with her husband’s decision, and though she understood the necessity for it, that did not make her wait any more pleasant. She knew when she married him that he would always have a restless spirit, but tracking a gang of thugs, even wounded ones, without any help was not exactly what she’d had in mind.
Ronon was with him, having met him on the road, and that alone was enough to make Elizabeth feel marginally better. The two men came straight to the mercantile, where Caldwell had stopped to replenish his tobacco, and John agreed to his appointment with no prodding at all, exacting only repeated promises that the position be short-lived.
After that was settled, and Jack had been sent for, John gave his report. Anubis had still been moving south at a good pace when John had left off following him. Though they had never been able to get an accurate number of the men who had attacked them, John had seen less than a dozen men fleeing with the group. He did add, somewhat regretfully, that Anubis was riding under his own power and did not seem to be suffering very much, but his hood made it difficult to determine his state of mind.
Jack and Caldwell quit the store together to talk to Mayor Hammond and some of the more vocal townspeople, leaving John Sheppard alone with his wife. She stood behind the counter, fiddling with jars, until he reached across and stilled her hands with his.
“I will never, ever do that again” he said.
“Don’t make promises you can’t keep, John” she replied, meeting his eyes.
“I will keep this one.” he said. “I might ride off again, but I will never leave without saying good-bye.”
He leaned across the counter, and pulled her into a kiss that seared his promise into both their memories, never to be forgotten.
xxx
“Are you ready?” Jonas asked
“I think so.” Sarah replied.
She set her teeth and lowered herself off of the examination table. She winced as her damaged feet came in contact with the clapboard floor, but she stayed steady. Jonas held out his arm, and she took it gratefully, leaning on him for support. Slowly, one foot at a time, they walked around the room.
“Make sure you don’t overdo it,” said Carson. “But you can go out on to the street, if you mind not to step on anything harder than dirt.”
Sarah nodded, and she and Jonas set out for the door. He opened it for her, and reached out to pull his hat down off the hook where it hung. She smiled up at him, and they went out into the street together again, albeit this time in a more traditional manner.
They crossed to Miss Mal Doran’s café, and took seats there. Miss Mal Doran brought them coffee and smiled in her friendly way, before moving off to yell at the boy she’d hired to wash dishes. Sarah laughed, and Jonas smiled to hear her.
“Thank you for all of your help, Mr. Quinn” she said.
“Not a problem, ma’am” he said, teasingly tipping his hat to her, before taking it off and setting it on the table.
She laughed again, and reached for her coffee.
“Is the town always like this?” Sarah asked. “So welcoming to strangers?”
“As long as those strangers have good intentions, yes, it mostly is.” he replied.
“I like that,” she said.
“What will you do now?” Jonas asked.
“I think I’ll stay,” Sarah replied. “Daniel said the school is big enough now that we can split the children by age. He’ll teach the older ones and I’ll teach the younger ones. I’ll rent the rooms Mrs. Lorne used to live in.”
“That sounds like a good plan to me.”
++++++
fin
Gravity_Not_Included, September 30, 2009
Notes: Thank you SO MUCH to miera_c, who caught most of my initial timeline discrepancies, and convinced me to remove an entire character as well as several buildings. I never, ever want to do that again!
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter Six
It was quiet. Too quiet.
Stephen Caldwell found it hard to believe that only this morning his biggest concern had been keeping idle school children from trying to skip rocks in the water trough in front of the jail. Now, he stood in the centre of the street, flanked by a man who never showed fear and the town’s somewhat crotchety but still dependable deputy mayor. The town looked completely deserted, but Caldwell’s trained eye easily found the glinting rifle barrels that emerged from the windows of the doctor’s, the mercantile, and the second story of the stable. He had been a bit surprised when Miss Mal Doran and Miss Carter showed up to volunteer to cover the street, but frankly he was grateful for the help. He knew both women to be decent shots, even though he was usually against womenfolk being armed, and today they needed everything they could get.
Jack shifted tensely on Caldwell’s left, while Teal’c remained as still as a stone on his right. The sheriff knew that neither man was showing complacency; they merely had differing ways of remaining sharp. He caught himself shifting weight more than was his custom, and for the first time, missed his cane. He was not, it seemed, so well healed as he had thought, though it galled him to admit to the weakness.
Finally, there was a noise. He could hear three horses on the road, though they were not yet in view. Jack stopped moving and Teal’c became, if possible, even more still. Caldwell slowly unclipped his holster, and flexed his hands. He was not as fast as he once had been but his shots were true.
The horses came into view, rounding the last outbuilding, and they stopped. Three riders dismounted, passing their reins to a fourth. They began to walk slowly forward, keeping their hands in clear view. Stephen took a deep breath and willed himself to look intimidating and immovable.
Two of the men who approached were dark skinned. They had tattoos on their foreheads, the black ink barely showing on their faces, but still marked, and both were shaved bald. They wore a curious piece of metal across their shoulders, almost like something a knight from Mr. Jackson’s book of fairy tales would wear, but it was ill-fitting and clearly only designed to protect them from shots to the upper chest and back. They each carried a pair of pistols in plain sight, but had the look of men who carried any number of knives.
Between them, head held high, walked Anubis. Though it was summer, he wore a dark hood that was drawn so far forward it covered his face. Caldwell thought this even less practical than the poor attempt at armour worn by his sycophants, for it all but eliminated his peripheral vision. Then he realized that Anubis was a man without fear. He did not fear Caldwell and he did not fear death. This was the worst kind of enemy, for he would stop at nothing to get what he wanted.
Anubis came to a halt about thirty feet from where Caldwell stood. Caldwell waited. It was, after all, only polite to let your guests speak first. Jack was fairly radiating with suppressed energy, and Caldwell could well imagine the expression on Teal’c’s face. He had an ill opinion of slavers and in his mind, anyone who forced runaways to cooperate were just as bad.
“You have something of mine.” Anubis finally broke the silence. His voice was as odd as his clothing, deep and rough and strangely musical. Caldwell wondered if he wore the hood to hide some sort of scarring that had also damaged his throat.
“We have nothing of yours.” Caldwell answered, his voice completely even.
“You have a woman,” the strangely hypnotic voice replied.
“Colorado is a free state,” Caldwell said, feeling Teal’c bristle for the first time. “You can’t own people here.”
“The woman in question is bearing my child.” Anubis said, his tone almost reasonable. “She has stolen my son from me.”
“Sarah Gardiner bears no child,” Teal’c rumbled. Caldwell knew his deputy well enough to know that he was almost incandescent with rage by now, and that he kept that rage under iron control. “You have no claim upon her.”
Anubis’ eyes slid from Caldwell to Teal’c, or at least so Stephen guessed from the movement of his head. A low laugh emerged from the hood.
“You must be Teal’c,” he said, pronouncing the name gutturally. “I have heard of you.”
The two men who accompanied Anubis looked at Teal’c as well, their eyes full of fear and awe. Caldwell had heard few details of Teal’c’s escape and journey to freedom, but he knew enough to know that his deputy was something of a legend in certain circles.
“I hope what you have heard has not unsettled you.” Teal’c replied calmly.
“It has only made me curious to see you for myself.” The words were laced with potential violence.
“Indeed.”
“Sheriff,” Anubis said abruptly, turning back to Caldwell, “Let us not play games. You have her. I know it. My men have completely surrounded your town. Even now they wait with lit torches. You have barely recovered from attack by the Wraith. You are no match for me, and you know it.”
“We have plenty of match,” growled Jack who, Caldwell noted, had shown remarkable restraint so far.
Caldwell was barely blinking now. All six men were wound as tight as lute strings, waiting for the one tell-tale flinch that would herald the end of this, once and for all. Anubis’ covered face was frustrating him, because he could not tell where the man was looking, nor guess what he was thinking.
Just as the tension became intolerable, the setting sun sent one errant ray through the trees to glint off the rifle held by Samantha Carter in the upper window of the mercantile. The man across from Jack made the fatal mistake of moving his head to look at it, and in that instant, all hell broke loose.
Caldwell had his pistol in his hand before he even thought about it, moving with a speed he hadn’t matched in years. He shot twice, into the heart of the man who had moved, before turning his gun back on Anubis. The gang leader had already fallen back, his gun held limply in a useless hand. Jack had winged him in the arm, and he was bleeding profusely. On Caldwell’s left, Teal’c was down, having marked his man in the thigh before taking a bullet from Anubis himself, but the sheriff couldn’t pay him more than a quick look. Rifle shots rang out from the street above, and Anubis and his remaining foot soldier fled back to their horses. They came under fire from Vala, then, as she crouched in the hayloft above the stable, and their horses reared so violently that they could scarcely keep their seats once they gained them.
“Get him out of here!” Caldwell yelled at Jack, who did his best to drag Teal’c towards the nearest shelter until the big man stopped him to take to his feet. Even then, Jack bore most of Teal’c’s weight, and their progress was slow. Fortunately Anubis and his men were so occupied with their horses that they barely had time to harry anyone on the street.
Caldwell heard the war cries of their Indian allies singing out from all around him, and knew that Anubis’ gang members in the forest had been outflanked. John and Daniel came riding hard down the street, following Anubis’ retreat. They met Jonas and Lorne at the other end of town and set off in thundering pursuit.
Caldwell stood in the centre of town, feeling the hurt of his old wounds, but he was not afraid. He saw no smoke, and the only cries he heard were those of the warriors who battled their way through the underbrush, clearing out the vermin.
Atlantis was safe again.
xxx
Teal’c’s recovery progressed nicely. Dr. Beckett said that his wound was clean, and that he would regain use of his arm in time. With the sheriff in recovery again, Mayor Hammond was debating whether or not to appoint another deputy. His first two choices, Cameron Mitchell and Ronon Dex, were likewise out of commission. Jack was too busy already, and both Jonas and Daniel were temperamentally unsuited to the task. Jack was heard to murmur something about how it was a pity they couldn’t ask Teyla to fill in for a time, and Kinsey turned such an alarming shade of purple that Hammond thought they would be looking for a new council member as well as a temporary sheriff. In the end, Elizabeth suggested her husband, and the council had backed her immediately, deciding to approach him about it when he returned to town.
John finally rode into town two days later. He had sent the other men back while he tracked Anubis’ retreat. Elizabeth was most displeased with her husband’s decision, and though she understood the necessity for it, that did not make her wait any more pleasant. She knew when she married him that he would always have a restless spirit, but tracking a gang of thugs, even wounded ones, without any help was not exactly what she’d had in mind.
Ronon was with him, having met him on the road, and that alone was enough to make Elizabeth feel marginally better. The two men came straight to the mercantile, where Caldwell had stopped to replenish his tobacco, and John agreed to his appointment with no prodding at all, exacting only repeated promises that the position be short-lived.
After that was settled, and Jack had been sent for, John gave his report. Anubis had still been moving south at a good pace when John had left off following him. Though they had never been able to get an accurate number of the men who had attacked them, John had seen less than a dozen men fleeing with the group. He did add, somewhat regretfully, that Anubis was riding under his own power and did not seem to be suffering very much, but his hood made it difficult to determine his state of mind.
Jack and Caldwell quit the store together to talk to Mayor Hammond and some of the more vocal townspeople, leaving John Sheppard alone with his wife. She stood behind the counter, fiddling with jars, until he reached across and stilled her hands with his.
“I will never, ever do that again” he said.
“Don’t make promises you can’t keep, John” she replied, meeting his eyes.
“I will keep this one.” he said. “I might ride off again, but I will never leave without saying good-bye.”
He leaned across the counter, and pulled her into a kiss that seared his promise into both their memories, never to be forgotten.
xxx
“Are you ready?” Jonas asked
“I think so.” Sarah replied.
She set her teeth and lowered herself off of the examination table. She winced as her damaged feet came in contact with the clapboard floor, but she stayed steady. Jonas held out his arm, and she took it gratefully, leaning on him for support. Slowly, one foot at a time, they walked around the room.
“Make sure you don’t overdo it,” said Carson. “But you can go out on to the street, if you mind not to step on anything harder than dirt.”
Sarah nodded, and she and Jonas set out for the door. He opened it for her, and reached out to pull his hat down off the hook where it hung. She smiled up at him, and they went out into the street together again, albeit this time in a more traditional manner.
They crossed to Miss Mal Doran’s café, and took seats there. Miss Mal Doran brought them coffee and smiled in her friendly way, before moving off to yell at the boy she’d hired to wash dishes. Sarah laughed, and Jonas smiled to hear her.
“Thank you for all of your help, Mr. Quinn” she said.
“Not a problem, ma’am” he said, teasingly tipping his hat to her, before taking it off and setting it on the table.
She laughed again, and reached for her coffee.
“Is the town always like this?” Sarah asked. “So welcoming to strangers?”
“As long as those strangers have good intentions, yes, it mostly is.” he replied.
“I like that,” she said.
“What will you do now?” Jonas asked.
“I think I’ll stay,” Sarah replied. “Daniel said the school is big enough now that we can split the children by age. He’ll teach the older ones and I’ll teach the younger ones. I’ll rent the rooms Mrs. Lorne used to live in.”
“That sounds like a good plan to me.”
++++++
fin
Gravity_Not_Included, September 30, 2009
Notes: Thank you SO MUCH to miera_c, who caught most of my initial timeline discrepancies, and convinced me to remove an entire character as well as several buildings. I never, ever want to do that again!
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2009-10-07 06:50 pm (UTC)Wonderful fic! Enjoyed reading it, and yay for new WW fic! ;)
no subject
Date: 2009-10-08 01:52 am (UTC)Thanks for following along!
no subject
Date: 2009-10-08 02:32 am (UTC)I like the flow of this. But better yet, I think the writing is good. Probably the best you've done in character/plot concerns. I think you should play in this universe more often.
Next time? J/E
no subject
Date: 2009-10-08 12:11 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-10-12 04:25 pm (UTC)The image of Jonas tipping his hat and smiling is enough to sustain me for several more Mondays, I think. ;-)