Title:Honourable Intentions
Verse: Search And Rescue
Prompt: #040 - Birth
Rating: FR15
Authors Note:This is set in the Search And Rescue 'verse. It will probably help if you read Not Today and most definitely the series. It’s angsty, set in the future after the main series, though there are no spoilers.
Willow didn’t think she had ever felt pain so profound before. It burned through her, right down to her soul. It went beyond any torture she had endured. It went beyond everything… and she knew it would never fade.
A lump was permanently lodged in her throat and she didn’t dare say a word for fear that she would crumble.
She wanted to go and she wanted to stay, all for the same reasons: The child that lay sleeping in her arms.
Willow studied her baby, memorizing every feature, every smell, every touch, and every sound she made.
God, she didn’t want to hand her over to Daniel. She wanted to hold her forever, be the parent she had vowed she would be when she was growing up. She didn’t want to be the rarely seen parent her own had been.
Yet, in those first seconds when mother met daughter six months ago, moments after giving birth, she knew she would never be the mother she longed to be. The decision to not be here for her child had been made.
Willow had chosen to fight for her.
She couldn’t stay home, raising her child, all the while knowing the dangers that threatened her from above. There was no one in the world Willow trusted enough to ensure that her daughter grew up free, or at all.
It was something that Daniel knew, and understood, as well. It was why he left the SGC permanently.
“You don’t have to go,” Daniel said his voice choked with emotion. “There are other majors…”
“The other majors don’t know what we’re up against,” she whispered. “I know the enemy. I need to go.”
He nodded, tears sliding down his face.
She swallowed, not moving. “I’m not sure when I’ll be back. In a few months, I think, maybe longer.” In a few months when her baby would be laughing more, smiling, growing, waking… When she wouldn’t even remember what her mother looked like.
Slowly, reluctantly, she handed her to Daniel.
It took less than a second for her heart to shatter into a million pieces…
With one last look, Willow turned and walked away, silently praying that when her baby was old enough, she would understand.