Dr. Rookwood and the Kiss, part 5

part one
part two
part three
part four

Ercinee pulled up on the cord and Josiah's body grudgingly went with it. Juust a tad stronger than the average female human. "Sure. You can shoot me at any time, provided you can overpower me and get to your weapons. This is important to me, Josiah, and in time you'll come to understand it." she leaned forward and nuzzled his chin affectionately. "Just leave it all to me."

"Oof," he grunted. What the Heck... Ok, he wasn't exactly a heavyweight champion, but she shouldn't have been able to get him to his feet with just a rope around his wrists, especially when he was mostly dead weight. He swayed a little and winked up an eye in distaste when she nuzzled against his chin. Now or never.

He grabbed the rope near his wrists and pushed her away with all the muzzy strength he could eek out of his lazy muscles, immediately jerking on the rope to get it out of her hands so that when he dove for the gun behind him, he wouldn't be caught up short.

Ercinee had clearly been caught off guard by his resistance to her sedative. She knelt on the ground where she had toppled and glanced up in dismay as Josiah came up with his handgun clenched tightly.

"Put me back," he said through his teeth. His aim wavered, but she was close enough that even his sedative-slagged aim would probably hit her. "Or I'll just shoot you and go back anyway."

A tense moment passed as the lovely dark-haired woman remained stock still, staring at Josiah's weapon and considering her options. Finally her black eyes fell on him pleadingly. "Don't go," she begged quietly, "Please... you don't know what it's like out there. You don't know what it will do to you! Please... I like you, Josiah. If you could see it from my eyes... how much I can help you... don't go. I promise, I swear to you on my life, I'm telling you the truth."

"Out there?" he replied quietly. "Out there I have people to watch my back. To /protect/ me from harm, just as I'd do for them. We do just fine without your kind of training." He lowered the gun, just a little, his muscles already rebelling at being forced to do more than they felt they had strength for. "Your kind of training isn't wholly unheard of," he offered. "But it's not my way."

"It's always about 'your way,'" Ercinee said miserably, "and you think I am arrogant. You won't always have others to look after you. Divide and conquer, that is how the intelligent overlords do it. Divide... and conquer. Isolate your enemy and destroy her. Isolate and destroy. You won't always have your people, Josiah, and 'your way' isn't necessarily a good way. Shoot me, or stay and try me. I'd rather you stay, but if you are going, it will only be after I am unconscious or dead enough to stand the loneliness..." She put her head in her hands and began what really sounded like actual weeping.

He was getting a better picture of her situation the more she talked. She was Goa'uld, he posited. And she'd gotten irritated with their ways, the loss of life she'd mentioned. To silence her, they'd separated her from them and from her followers, if she had any. Locked her up. Damn. If he could get her to the SGC... She wasn't exactly Tok'ra, but she could know things. Still, it meant he couldn't trust anything she said. Could his gun even really kill her? He hadn't had any actual experience with Goa'uld before, but he'd been fully briefed on the crap they could pull. Still, crying? Good grief.

He retrained the gun on her obviously, but aimed low. "If you're lonely, let's just talk, then."

Ercinee looked up and managed to reclaim a bit of dignity though her eyes were red. "Don't you understand what I am telling you?" she began calmly. "It's too late for talking. Talking accomplishes nothing because your mind cannot comprehend what I am trying to explain. I have to teach it to your body, teach it directly to your mind otherwise... otherwise there is no purpose in my life anymore. I MUST save others. This is the way that I know actually works. Some have been willing, but it's always the ones who really need the conditioning who resist the most..."

Josiah took a shuddering breath. He really, really didn't want to shoot her. But he really, really didn't like the sound of "conditioning," which he knew from movies before he ever /thought/ of the military, was BAD. And he was losing feeling in his fingers. Craphole.

"Well we've gotten ourselves into a little cycle then," he murmured, watching her. "I'm not going to go along with this, which makes you think I need it all the more. But I don't. You can't help me, I'm sorry. Just break the connection. Cut your losses. Let me go."

"Let yourself go," Ercinee said with grave calmness. "Make your point, Josiah, if you can. I've cut too many losses already; you have no idea. If you hate this so much then shoot. I won't even stop you. You think you have something to lose..." she shook her head, "You think that I am some kind of villain. You think you are right because it's all about 'your way,' but the next time you are in fear for your life, and it will happen, I promise you, you may remember what I've said. The next time you innocently get caught in a trap, separated from your people, you will wish it was my hand..."

He shook his head back at her, flexing his fingers a little to keep the blood flowing past the cord around his wrists. "This is unnecessary," he whispered. "I don't want to shoot you. Don't make me."

"You're right it IS unnecessary. Unnecessary for you to leave when you have so much potential." She crawled forward towards him slowly. "Just give me a chance..."

With a jolt, he retrained his wavering aim. "Stop," he murmured, new dread blossoming in his stomach as he realised that she knew too. He couldn't shoot her. Craaaaap. "Don't come any closer."

"Or you will shoot me?" Ercinee asked gently. "Don't you see, this is what I love about you, Josiah. This is why I want to help you. Please," she put her own hand around his shaking ones, purposefully steadying the gun instead of taking the cord. "Please...don't be afraid..." she cooed as if placating a startled kitten.

Josiah knitted his brows and blinked quickly. She was serious. For her, it was him or death. And he didn't want to kill her. But. He couldn't allow himself to be at the mercy of a Goa'uld, especially one bent on "conditioning." He couldn't run the risk of being turned into some kind of Manchurian Candidate wannabe, and he couldn't risk divulging secrets that could let her run amuck on Base. He couldn't. And he'd known this job was going to bloody his hands eventually.

So just keep chanting to yourself, "The wench drugged me!" and get real good and mad, Sho-sye. Then nail her somewhere distracting but not fatal.

He took a measured breath, then wrenched his aim to the side and out of her steadying hands, firing his sidearm at point blank range.

part six
part seven
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Ercinee (c) Mary
Post written co-operatively