Gunslinger

Silence.

She couldn't hear the sirens anymore and the ship had stopped moving. Sarah thought for a split second it was over until his voice entered her ears.

"Um...hum?"

The ringing in her ears wouldn't stop and now she felt something drip into her eye.

It took another few seconds before she realized why she couldn't move. Val was heavy...and on top of her.

Vash rolled off of her with a groan he wasn't completely able to silence. "Are we still moving? It doesn't feel like we're moving. Does that mean we survived the crash landing that was supposed to vaporize us and we didn't burst into flames of fiery death?"

She hurt too much for this to be heaven. As for hell...

She pushed herself up off the deck and rolled her eyes at him.

Hell was a distinct possibility.

"Hang on, let me look."

Sarah didn't have far to go. The ship had broken up in the atmosphere and fallen in much smaller pieces along the west coat of Africa.

Deserted, yes.

Nevada, not so much.

She slapped her hand down on the navigation console in frustration which made it flicker and die.

Just what she needed--to be some war-lord's prize. It would fit in with her luck.

Sarah sighed and headed for the now broken view screen. It seemed the easiest way out of the ship.

She slipped and tumbled down to land in a heap in warm sand. The salt instantly burned at her wounds, but when she raised her head she no longer cared.

A few more meters and they would have been shark bait.

Sarah looked out on a vast, empty, beach and the rolling blue beyond.

Laughter bubbled up in her chest and this time she released it.

Vash followed her to the sand, his knees giving out as he hit it. Warm sand. This was something he was used to.

And then he saw all the blue.

All that water? This was a paradise!

He ran to the water's edge and scooped a mouthful of cool, sweet, delicious water to his mouth-

-and promptly spit it out. "What is this? Your planet is trying to kill us! All this water and we can't drink it? This is hell!"

She couldn't breathe from laughing so hard. Sarah bent forward with her arms around her middle shaking her head and trying to speak.

Was he for real?

Finally the giggles subsided and she could get a word out.

"Ocean...freshwater is inland...you're something else."

She took in a deep steadying breath and looked at him flailing all over the beach.

"Our planet is over 70% water."

She walked over to him slowly her head still shaking and a grin spreading all through her features.

Vash stopped flailing abruptly and looked at her. "Seventy percent water? Really? Why would you go anywhere else? This planet has everything you could need!" He sat down in the sand and looked out at the water, the sand warm against his pants. "I'm going back to my first opinion. Your homeworld is a paradise."

Sarah layback on a piece of drift wood.

"I suppose it can be--when the people aren't getting in the way."

She thought of her home, a desert oasis plagued by the people who lived there and couldn't live with each other.

After a long few minutes of resting she pushed herself up again. She needed the rest, but in her condition, sleep could mean slipping into eternity.

"We can't stay here long. People will have seen us crash. The government I work for will probably not be the first to come for us. This continent we're on is constantly at war with itself and the majority of its population wants my people driven into the sea. I think we're in a relatively uninhabited region, but that doesn't rule out unpleasantness. There are very large wild animals here that would love to make us a snack."

She dusted her torn khakis off as best as possible and turned back to the ship.

"We should gather what we can. Unless there's a way of contacting our..."

An idea hit her as hard as a stone falling from the sky.

"Yameson!"

She took off at as much of a run as she could manage and climbed back into the wrecked ship.

Vash chased after her as she scrambled into the wreckage of the ship. "Hey! Where are you going?" He let his shoulders slump. "Why do the beautiful girls always leeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeave me?" He whimpered pitifully, trying to climb across wrecked metal and follow Sarai.

Sarah reached Jameson's corpse and found it mostly intact. The crash had mangled it up a bit, but everything was more or less in one piece. She straddled the body and started searching through its pockets.

She just rolled her eyes and sighed at her companion.

"Maybe because you're a moron?"

Sarah pocketed Jameson's M9 and continued her search until her hand closed on something small and plastic. She shot up cradling the device in her hand and inspecting it for damage.

She held her breath as the device powered on and then let out a string of Hebrew to celebrate their good fortune.

Her cellphone still worked and it had reception because of the satellite chip Elijah had installed after her last misadventure.

Vash fell off the hunk of metal he was clambering over when she let out the string of words he didn't understand. "Your words. They wound me, Flower. They wound me to the core. The very core." He sighed sorrowfully, wiping away a fake tear.

He made his way over to where she was, managing to not fall again. "Was that a good exclamation of exultation, or was that cursing, much much cursing, of badness?"

She ignored him and dialed the first number that came to mind.

Elijah picked up the phone sounding groggy.

"Shalom, achoti. I thought you were off world on some super top secret mission no one will tell me about?"

They spoke exclusively in Hebrew.

"I was, but I just sorta crash landed on the Ivory Coast."

"You were the meteor?!"

"I was the meteor."

"Why am I not surprised. Have you gotten a hold of the General yet?"

"No, I was just lucky my phone survived."

"I'll be there in a few hours then. Stay close to the site. Are you alone?"

She looked over to Val with a sigh.

"Not exactly. And bring a med kit. I've been shot and my companion is suffering from much torture."

"Shot...again?!"

"Well, when people stop shooting at me I'll stop catching bullets with my body."

"Sure. If all the guns on Earth were melted down you'd find some way to get shot."

"Shut up and get here already."

Is that anyway to speak to your rescuer?"

"Eli!"

"Fine, fine. Sit tight. There should be a carrier in the area. Lehitraot."

"Shalom, and achi--it is good to hear your voice."

Sarah tucked the phone in her pocket and smiled at Val.

"In a few hours they will be here."

Vash occupied himself by tossing rocks past Sarai's head. Not trying to hit her, because he wasn't that kind of guy. Just tossing the rocks past her. Because that was fun, rather than being mean.

Once she was off the handheld contraption she was talking into, he waved cheerfully at her. "Good news? Please tell me it's good news. I really want to hear some good news. Is it good news?"

Sarah winced.

"Yes, it is good news. There is a carrier in the area and they're coming to get us."

He'd never seen an ocean before so she decided to explain.

"A carrier is a big ship that planes launch off. It's a warship."

She turned her attention to gathering anything they might need for the next several hours before help came. When she was done the sun was starting to drop to the watery horizon.

Sarah sat back against that piece of drift wood again and rested. She should make a fire, but that was too much work and she hurt too bad.

Vash sat down next to her, on sand rather than driftwood. "What's this world like? Will you tell me more about it, Flower?" He liked making her smile, but even more, he liked irritating her. She was fun when she was annoyed.

And he'd realized that calling her "Flower" really seemed to irritate her. Which was why he kept calling her it.

Sarah shivered in the pre-dusk breeze.

"It is, complicated. For the most part there is peace with the larger nations. It's the smaller ones that cause the most problem--mine being the worst. We've fought a few world-wars in the last century and compared to that, things are pretty sedate now."

She let her head rest on the wood, but couldn't find a comfortable position.

"I should try and make a fire..."

She couldn't just sit and watch the sunset when there were things that needed done.

Vash offered his arm as a pillow to her. "I think you need rest more than we need a fire."

He was right. She did need the rest. But they also needed a fire.

There were other ways to keep warm.

Sarah curled up to his side and rested her head on his shoulder. The cold instantly left her body.

She blamed the blood loss.

The sun touched the water turning the sky to shades of brilliant red and the ocean to liquid gold.

It was comfortable here.

It had been a long time since he'd been that close to someone without the expectation of pain. Though, of course, having seen what Sarai was capable of (and having felt her nerve pinch), he knew that he couldn't count on pain not entering the equation. But laying there was nice.

As the sky and water turned to crimson and gold, he breathed in slowly. "My name's Vash."

It was more than a name he was giving her. He didn't give his name out willy-nilly. It was trust that he was handing over to her.

Sarah angled her head up to look at him. She was strangely attracted to the iridescent green of his eyes in the sunset.

"Vash."

The name rolled off her tongue easily and seemed to fit him better than Valentino ever had.

"Welcome to Earth. Nai'm me'od." She smiled. "It means nice to meet you in my native language, Hebrew."

His breath was warm on her cheek and it felt...it felt good. She couldn't remember being this close to anyone feeling good.

She nuzzled closer under his chin.

Maybe...maybe it wasn't just the blood loss.

Vash tucked her in a little tighter against him, breathing the moment in. 'I'd respond in my native language, but we're already speaking it."

Merryl had been the last woman he'd gotten close to. It had been a long time since she'd died, and the years since had been rather lonely.

So, yes. He was blaming the loneliness and the blood loos. Definitely blaming the blood loss.

...Mostly...

"Where do you call home now, Flower?"

Sarah sighed into his coat breathing in a mixture of what smelled like cardamon and powdered sugar--spicy and sweet. She'd never felt so relaxed in her life even the pain had dissipated since she wasn't moving.

"My family and my house are in Yisrael, that little strip of oasis you saw from space. But ever since..." she swallowed and shuddered with a sudden chill. His arm closed tighter, not restricting her in any way, but warming her--comforting her.

"Since my...rescue...I have lived in a country called America, high in the mountains in an underground facility where they keep their Stargate."

She closed her eyes.

"I guess my uncle thinks I am safer there. I don't really fit into Mossad anymore."

Living underground restricted her view of sunsets to rare occasions. This was the first one in forever that she'd actually just sat and enjoyed.

Vash was able to hear some of the words she left unsaid. No matter. He wouldn't remark on them. Everyone had their scars, a fact he knew better than most. Some were physical, some were emotional.

"Tell me about America. Which do you think of as home? What are the differences? What do you miss about Yisrael?" If "enyineering" had been "engineering", then would "Yisrael" be "Gisrael"? ...Not something he was going to test by asking with the wrong pronunciation.

She laughed softly into his coat.

"You sure ask a lot of questions...but I guess this is all new to you."

Sarah thought for a long moment.

"I still feel my home is Israel. I am a Jew, it is my blood, and I will protect it with my dying breath. I may work for another government at the moment, but my loyalty is to my people. Truth is, I don't really fit in well anywhere anymore. I miss my long runs on the beach outside my house, and my dog--Ardon."

Pause.

"This is a beach, by the way--the narrow stretch of sand bordering the ocean." She wasn't sure if he knew or not.

"America is...honestly, I don't leave the underground base often. I mean, I don't go up to the surface. I travel through the Gate sometimes on a weekly basis."

Vash shifted into a slightly more comfortable position. (Complete comfort wasn't going to happen, or even close. Not with the injuries he had. But he could get more comfortable, at least for a short while.) "What kind of dog is Ardon? Do you get to see him?"

He thought for a long moment before deciding to ask the other question he wanted to. "What kind of worlds have you seen?" He swallowed against a dry mouth. "What's out there that would cause the... people we escaped from to want a weapon so badly they'd torture to get it?"

"He's a Yerman Shephered--a guard dog, and my most loyal friend. I haven't seen him in many months because I have no place for him at SGC. I suppose I could get a place off base, but I don't have the time to look. He lives with my mother now. Keeps her...safe."

Sarah winced as he adjusted. She knew he was hurt worse than she was so she didn't complain. That she was now so close to him he could do anything to her actually didn't cross her normally paranoid mind.

"That is a long story that happened before I came to SGC. There's this race of parasites that can take over a human host. They pretend to be deities to enslave entire planets to their will. We are desperate because they know we are here now, we've angered them by trying to free their slaves, and their technology is so far beyond our own. We are little more than children in their eyes. They could burn this planet to ash with a single ship--and they have thousands."

She tucked in close enough to hear his heart beat.

"Fear drives men to desperation."