AO3 | DW

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Fandom: Stargate SG-1
AU: Born a Queen
Series: The Travel Collection
Word Count: 682

Characters: Baal, Daniel Jackson, Jack O’Neill, Lilith (OC), Sam Carter, Teal’c

She never stops longing for home. For her father, for his stories, for the palace she lived in, for the j’affa who guarded her.

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She never stops longing for home, even when she (barely) accepts she’ll never be allowed to see it again. Never stops wanting to see her father’s smirking face again, telling her stories of vanquishing his enemies. To see the rich gardens of the palace, the gleaming armor of the j’affa who guarded her.

The isolated cabin, the lake, the silver-haired warrior who’s been named her new guardian – none of this makes up for everything she’s lost. Some days she misses it with such a fierce ache, she can’t do anything but run as far as she can, kicking and screaming when the warrior catches up to her. Crying herself to sleep, curled around the stuffed toy that is all she has left of her old life.

One day, she’s taken back to the place she’d first arrived on this wretched planet, where others wait. The shol’va Teal’c, the blond woman who she’s been told is biologically her mother – stolen genetics, combined with her father’s, and she doesn’t believe a word of it – and the scholar-warrior who speaks goa’uld with her when he visits. Dan’yel is the only one who’s tried to understand her, but even he can’t take her home.

“Lilith.” Dan’yel smiles, and she skips over to him, ignoring the exasperated sigh from the silver-haired warrior. “I hear you ran away from Jack’s cabin again.”

She shrugs. “I want to go home.” It’s her answer every time someone asks her why she runs away, or why she spends weeks refusing to talk to anyone, or ends up in the hospital because she’s refused to eat. Looking over at the chappa’ai, she smiles hopefully. “Are you taking me home today?”

“Not exactly.” Dan’yel crouches down, the same way the silver-haired warrior does when he’s trying to talk to her. “We’ve been asked to bring you with us for a ceremony. I need you to promise me something, though, before we go.”

“What?” She watches him suspiciously, her smile fading into a frown. The demand of a promise is not a good sign – has never been a good thing.

Dan’yel smiles again, a strange sadness in his eyes, and reaches out to tuck a stray strand of hair back behind her ear. “Promise me you’ll stay near me or Jack at all times while we’re on the other planet.”

And waste a chance to escape, and return home? She scowls, crossing her arms as she glares at Dan’yel. How can he ask her to do such a thing?

“Why?”

“If you don’t, the general isn’t going to let you go.” Dan’yel holds her gaze, and she wants to scream with rage. So close to a chance to go home, and if she doesn’t make a promise she knows she will regret, she’ll be trapped here forever.

Turning her glare to the bald man in the window, she waits a long moment before she nods once, sharply. “I will stay where you can see me, Dan’yel ibn Jak.” It’s not the concession that any of them really want, but she refuses to stay so close to silver-haired warrior, and if she can explore without them thinking she’s running away, she will take what she can.

It is, though, enough, because the chappa’ai begins to spin, chevrons lighting one by one until the blue that had spelled the end of her idyll shimmers in a circle. The blue that might mean a chance to return home.

“SG-1, you have a go.” The voice is that of the bald general, and she has to restrain herself from bolting for the blue, instead walking docile beside Dan’yel through to another world. It is a hall familiar and welcome, though not home, and there are others waiting for them there.

Among them, a very familiar and welcome face. She ignores the shout of the silver-haired warrior as he comes through, ducking away from the grabbing hands of the woman and the shol’va. Ignoring the men and women in drab who try to stop her, ducking around and through them until she can throw herself into her father’s arms.