celievamp (![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} celievamp) wrote,@ 2006-10-08 12:04:00 |
|
| Current location: | Hartlepool, UK |
| Current mood: |  happy |
| Current music: | Beth Orton - Carmella (Four Tet Remix) |
| Entry tags: | fiction: stargate |
FIC: The Springtime of her Voodoo (SG1) Written for the Terylicious.net contest
THE SPRINGTIME OF HER VOODOO
By Celievamp (jo.raine@ntlworld.com)
The story, and characters and anything and everything else concerning StarGate: SG1 belong to MGM, Gekko, Secret Productions etc, they are so not mine and no money is being made from this and no copyright infringement is intended.
Written for the terylicious.net Contest 2006
THE SPRINGTIME OF HER VOODOO
Janet Fraiser was a doctor. Even in this enlightened age she had had to fight every step of the way to be one. To be the best she could be. Against prejudice of her sex, her stature, her physical charms, her chosen career route. She was not a woman doctor. She was a doctor. Who happened to be a woman. And was one of the very best in her chosen field.
And if being a doctor wasn’t enough, she also chose to do it in her nation’s military. Which meant even more prejudice against her sex, her stature, her physical charms and the fact that she was a scientist that she had to deal with on a day to day basis. And overcome all of it and still be recognised as a soldier as well as a scientist. And again be one of the very best in her chosen field.
And some days it was still not enough.
The reports she had never had to write scared her as much as the ones she had written. The people they had lost due to accident, act of war, disease or the side effect of some alien technology they had really had no excuse meddling with in the first place. There were two stones engraved in her heart. One with the names of all those she had saved. One with the names of those she had not. They were both very long lists and the engraving of them showed no sign of coming to an end any time soon.
Janet had read up on the history of her profession enough to know that a scant hundred years before it would have been very difficult if not impossible for her to have truly followed her calling. Only the very privileged and the most exceptional members of her sex got to train and graduate and call themselves Doctor. Oh, there had been female healers throughout history, essential to the life and welfare of their community. But always always at some point a man had come along with letters after his name and a fancy piece of paper from the city or some foreign land and all their knowledge hard won and hard earned had been denigrated to folklore and whimsy. Janet knew that she stood on the shoulders of giants, sung and unsung. And she had done enough in the fields of virology and trauma medicine to ensure (so she thought in her rare prideful moments) her own place as more than just a footnote in medical history. If the Stargate project ever got declassified, of course. And yet every day she did her duty at the SGC humbled her and made her more aware of just what she had to aspire to.
The healing devices, the Sarcophagus, the nanotechnology even the healing abilities of a Goa’uld symbiote. Janet was working every moment she could to retro-engineer aspects of alien healing technology with Sam Carter and the rest of the burgeoning science and technical departments at the SGC but despite their progress they were still years away from any kind of human trials. But the hope remained in their hearts that one day they would make a difference.
And so she persevered as did they all. And her staff loved and respected her. They knew that however long and arduous their shift had been hers had been longer and harder. If there was something that needed to be done and there was no one else free to do it then Janet Fraiser would buckle down and do it herself no matter how menial the task. And if there was a patient in the infirmary who needed her care and attention then Janet Fraiser would be there for them for as long as she was needed. The three weeks she had watched over Teal’c in his coma after he was attacked by Hathor’s Jaffa and the rest of SG1 captured had gone down in SGC legend. As had the time she had put a gun to Nirrti’s head to force the Goa’uld scientist to save a young girl’s life. And then there was the offensive against Hathor when the Goa’uld Queen had taken control of the men of the SGC. Few forgot after that that Janet Fraiser was a soldier as well as a scientist.
And yet this was the same woman who had fought to save the life of Apophis when he had sought sanctuary at the SGC and who had contemplated resigning from her post more than once at what she saw as unnecessary military interference in her medical duties and ethical standpoint. To which she held firm whatever the consequences.
To the amazement of all (including her own self) she also found it within herself to be a mother to a teenage girl. A foundling from another planet, bruised but not broken, who had seen more death and pain in her short life than seasoned soldiers three times her age. Janet gave Cassie the space and the structure to be a child again, to grow up in safety and in the love of her extended family of misfit soldiers and scientists.
She had found friendship here, a camaraderie. She had her nicknames of course – Napoleonic Power Monger, Stalin in a Skirt – but she knew that their progenitor was a good and staunch friend, one who would protect her and those she loved to the ends of the earth and beyond. She had found a meeting of minds, people who could match her, people whom she could only watch with awe as they went beyond anything she dreamt possible. People whose tears had wet her shoulder more than once, whose nightmares she had soothed, whose whispered secrets she was most sacred guardian and keeper.
How she held it all together she did not know. Sometimes she suspected a higher power at work, one whom she battled daily to keep those she loved and held dear safe and well. It was just the way things were. On a good day – and there were many – she wouldn’t have it any other way.
