trans_9 | Pray this can't be the way

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Pray this can't be the way

He appreciated having a room to himself, even if it was clearly designed for a second party as well. For now, it was his alone. He appreciated that.

The room was about all he really appreciated since the attack of the crew-zombies. The idea was far more cool on paper than it was actually sitting on the roof of the Vatican, mowing down potential crewmates. Still, it was better than mowing down familiar ones. He appreciated that, too.

He appreciated the cute, glowy new look for Stacy, too.

He didn't appreciate the idea of his universe destroyed by something they'd never even gotten the chance to see--let alone fight. He didn't like the idea of being one of the last survivors of his own universe. Whether or not Ronon and Jackson counted as his own universe or another. He appreciated the cute voice. He didn't believe it. He wouldn't believe it, even if she showed him the destruction. None of this was necessarily real. He functioned within it as he needed to, but he wasn't about to fall for something SG-1 already fell for before. The zombies didn't exactly make the place more credible, either.

He frowned, studying the food goop in front of him.

His home-his family. Everyone and every thing he cared about was not gone. He wouldn't leave it to chance and hope that some of the people he cared about might have been alive--he wouldn't accept that their survival meant the deaths of an entire universe were acceptable losses. He wasn't about to accept a 'might' for saving all of them, if they did someone else's dirty work for them. That wasn't how he did things. He wouldn't be manipulated, and...he refused to believe that SG-1 failed. That Stargate Command, and all of their allies failed to protect not just their galaxy, but their universe.

He refused to believe he'd failed to do the one thing that mattered. He couldn't. Not now...not ever.

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She doesn't like to think about being in an alien... But thanks for bringing it up Cam!

"How are we even sure that this," she starts and motions around them with a wave of her hand, "is even real?" she asked. "So maybe I'm actually still in my bed at home having some... delusional dream about being stuck inside a living space ship. I like to think that. This is all to irrational to be real."

She crossed her arms."I choose not be excited over fake space ships," she states stubbornly.

"Well...I'm sure I'm real." Actually, he wasn't. But he chose not to think about the idea of androids. It could be cool on the other side of the glass, but not so much finding out you were the android.

He offered a slim smile. "And I'm hoping right now that you are, too. Otherwise, I'l be wasting perfectly good pie on a delusion." He gestured around the ship. "And maybe this place is real anyway. Maybe its something you knew about before you went to sleep?"

"If anyone's the delusion, it would be you." Tempe pointed out. "I'm too smart to be a delusion." Yes, she's very arrogant about her intelligence.

Her nose wrinkled and she looked around. "I wouldn't have any idea about there being anything like this in my world. It has to be a dream," she insisted again. "It's the only thing that truly makes sense to me."

He arched an eyebrow. "I know some very...very smart people. I could be mixing up memories."

He shrugged, and smiled. He wasn't so far gone as to question his own existence. "At least its a colorful dream."

"Mmmmmhmmmm," she murmured almost doubtfully. "So you know a lot of forensic anthropologists?" she asked.

She shrugs and sits back down on one of the squishy chairs. She shrugged her shoulders a little. "I suppose you're right though. This is a colorful one. Though I really could have lived without dreaming about zombies."

"One or two." Although, not personally. He only encountered them briefly on base, when their missions warrented their expertise. Undoubtedly, they were some of the best in their field, though.

"Y'know, I'd expect dream zombies to be more fun, and less..." He waved a hand. Nightmarish worked.

"Decomposing zombie?" Tempe offered, but her eyebrows furrowed. "How exactly would a zombie have been more fun?"

He shrugged. "If they'd been less Dawn of, and more Night of?"

You get the look again. "What?"

"Dawn of the Dead, and Night of the Living Dead?"

"I have no idea what you're talking about." It's really sad, but she actually doesn't.

He blinked at the woman for a moment. "You've never seen a zombie movie?" He might have said 'you're a forensic anthropologist, and you're not into zombies?', but he didn't feel like repeating the title, and...he actually didn't know many forensic anthropologists all that well.

"No, I don't watch a lot of movies or TV," Tempe confessed with a slight shrug. "I have more important things to be doing with my time."

Like he hadn't heard that one before. Cam quirked an amused smile. "Here?"

It's sad, yet still true. She doesn't even own a TV. "What about here? Do you mean, do I watch TV here? The answer would be no."

He suspected scientists had to sacrifice their pop-culture knowledge to make room for all of the technical stuff they stored in their heads instead. Although, Sam did a decent job of maintaining both.

He shrugged. "You have better things to do?"

"Here?" She frowned. "Actually I've been reading up on different planets' take on forensic anthropology, so I've been busy with that. Besides, they wouldn't let me have one of the zombie bodies to study. I found that highly unsatisfactory."

"Weren't they all..." He waggled his fingers in an appropriately fiery mimic.

"Are you forgetting how to speak?" Tempe asked quite seriously. Without a word, she moved around the table to his side and reached out and began to run her fingers over the side of his head and then over the top.

"Hmmm doesn't feel as if there's any fractures. Did you happen to hit your head at any time in the last day or so?"

Cam was not unfamiliar with impulsive touching. Vala thrived on impulsive, generally inappropriate touching. He suspected it was somewhere between a deliberate attempt to get a reaction, and an uncontrollable impulse on her part.

That said, she generally didn't go around checking his skull for fractures (although he supposed she probably had once or twice, but he'd been unconscious at the time.). Obviously that was a doctorly impulse.

"...Roasted?" He blinked up at the woman in askance. "I'm pretty sure I don't have a concussion."

"Well that really didn't answer my question," Tempe pointed out, still concentrating as her fingers still gently feeling over his skull.

"Regardless, your skull has a nice shape," Tempe nodded. Yes Cam, that is a weird sort of Tempe compliment.

Have a blank stare.

Alone, the impromptu scalp inspection was manageable. Likewise, the strange compliment would have been par for the course of the conversation. Combined...it was just a really bizarre experience.

"...I try not to dent it." That's the best he could do just then.

"Well I should hope not," Tempe said before stopping her examination. "People forget how fragile a skull can be," she stated seriously. Really Cam, what are you expecting here? She is a bone lady.

Notice how he didn't mention how often he got smashed into walls despite this effort.

"So Doctor Lam often reminds me." He offered a slim smile, and immediately regretted reminding himself of home.

"Well you should be sure to take this Doctor Lam's advice," Tempe said with another nod of her head. She looked over at her discarded soup and sighed. "Well you can finish off the soup if you'd like," she offered, motioning toward it.

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