Early morning in 239/240 [NFB]

[notcalledlizzie]

Elizabeth is muttering in her sleep, obviously distressed.


i ni ce. Ne tε se bamanankan na kosεbε

"Vous ne pouvez pas voir qu'ils meurent? Vous les tuez"

Visions of starving children, being worked to death flash before her eyes. Their eyes are empty and lifeless as they look up at her, begging for her to do something. The children have been beaten, and the repatriation of just one child makes her tear up.

A man kene. Elle est malade. Elle a le paludisme

She's watching a little girl sleep fitfully in the throes of fever, whilst the foreman of the plantation stands there.

Suddenly his eyes glow, and she backs against the wall.

"Stay away from me."

He smiles, and she realizes that they're no longer in a hut in West Africa; instead, she's back on Atlantis.

"I have no need for you, Doctor Weir. Doctor Fraiser, however, will make an excellent queen," the Goa'uld says, his voice booming. "I am most confident she will be able to keep my slaves in line."

"No..."

She tries to move, but can't. She feels another presence behind her, and turns to see Charlie. A Charlie mutated by the Wraith bug. He picks her up by the throat, and she's choking.

"It's better for Atlantis this way," he says, almost sneering.


Elizabeth wakes up screaming.


[ooc: Mali's official language is French. The other language used is Bambara.

Comments

[notcalledlizzie.livejournal.com]

"I try not to think about her," she confesses. "Does that make me a bad person? The fact that I can't deal with seeing something that people over there have to live with?"

[carter-i-am.livejournal.com]

"You're not a bad person, Liz." Sam pulls her closer. "If you thought about every bad thing you've seen all the time, you couldn't function to tie your shoes, let alone to do the things that the world needs you to be doing."

[notcalledlizzie.livejournal.com]

"She was only eight years old."

[carter-i-am.livejournal.com]

Sam closes her eyes in grief for a little girl she's never met. "I'm so sorry."

[notcalledlizzie.livejournal.com]

"That's the way of life out there. They can't stop and grieve for a child they lose. They die because they don't have clean water... don't have access to medicines."

[carter-i-am.livejournal.com]

"You're grieving for her. She's not forgotten."

[notcalledlizzie.livejournal.com]

"She's one child in thousands. The other girls her age who lived will be mothers themselves now, and statistically, will have lost at least one child."

[carter-i-am.livejournal.com]

"Whether a child lives or dies...it's more than just medicines and water that does that, Liz, although I won't deny that they're a big factor." Sam looks away, involved in her own grief for a minute, but still not letting go of Liz.

She never even told Janet what her gynecologist told "her", but maybe there'd be time and technology to fix things now.

[notcalledlizzie.livejournal.com]

"I know," Elizabeth sighs. "But when you see them dying of something we protect ourselves from with one lousy vaccination..."

[janet_fraiser]

Janet gives Sam a look, not sure what else she's thinking of.

[janet_fraiser]

"She died too young. But I know you, Liz. You did everything you could to help. You made her life better."

[carter-i-am.livejournal.com]

"You can't save everyone," Sam says, looking to Janet, who maybe knew this lesson better than anyone else.

[janet_fraiser]

Janet nods a little. "You can't," she confirms. "Though believing that is sometimes a little hard." And once again, Janet's gift for understatement shone through.

[carter-i-am.livejournal.com]

Sam squeezed Janet's arm in support.

[janet_fraiser]

Janet gave Sam a grateful look.

[notcalledlizzie.livejournal.com]

She laughs harshly. "It would have been harder for her life to have been worse."

[janet_fraiser]

"I know." She knows malaria, what it does to the body, and how it would affect a child. "But you made it better. You did what you could. I get the feeling it's hard to accept that you couldn't do any more, though."

[notcalledlizzie.livejournal.com]

"He wouldn't let us do anything. He hated the idea of foreigners - especially me, as this young girl, coming in and interfering with the way he ran his business."

[janet_fraiser]

"Who was he?"

[janet_fraiser]

"No," says Janet. "It doesn't make you a bad person. Having someone die in your arms--" She pauses. "It hurts. It hurts like hell when you can't save someone, but you had to move on. And it's okay to be emotional. No one can lock everything under a tough exerior all the time." They should have all learned that one by now. "You got blindsided pretty strongly in Ethics yesterday. Why should you be able to deal with that?"

[notcalledlizzie.livejournal.com]

"I'm not going back to that class. I can't go back to that class."

[janet_fraiser]

"No." Janet's voice is steely. "Neither of us is going back to that class. I'm not of the opinion that any of our ethics need challenging."

[notcalledlizzie.livejournal.com]

Elizabeth nods, and feels around to clasp Janet's hand firmly.

[janet_fraiser]

Janet holds onto Liz's hand. "It's okay," she murmurs.

[notcalledlizzie.livejournal.com]

She nods, not trusting herself to speak, reassured by the contact.