The Lord is my Shepherd
by Noelle - naushika@periapsis.net

RATING: G

CATEGORGY: Angst, Pre-series

AUTHOR'S NOTES: A little bit of suspension of disbelief is called for in one small part. If you notice and know what I'm talking about, then there you go. If you don't notice, then don't worry about it. :) This is unbeta'd, and totally spur of the moment, for nandamai's Backstory Challenge: "I hereby issue a Stargate backstory challenge. Yes, yes, I do. I don't care if it's ship, slash, gen, drama, parody, action-adventure, long, short, whatever. Just write something that explores the pre-series/pre-movie lives of the characters."

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The lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. He makes me lie down in green pastures…

Sam listened to the droning words of the prayer. She heard the words, but didn’t even know who was saying them. She couldn’t tear her eyes away from the box only twenty feet in front of her. The sun shined down on it from between the branches of trees, and whenever the wind blew, it caused the branches to sway and made the sunlight wink at her. Sam wondered briefly what the sun was so happy about, anyway.

It seemed like she had just gotten there when she felt a hand on her shoulder and a voice in her ear. Sam let the arm pull her up, and she took a look around. Most of the chairs were empty. She didn’t take the time to think where the people who were in those chairs had gone. Looking back towards the box, she could see some men lowering it into a hole in the ground.

Slowly she approached. It was there, at the bottom. Her father dropped a lily down the hole. It landed on the box without a sound. Sam had a vision of a worm making the flower its mulch. Unbidden, visions of worms making something else their mulch entered her mind. Shuddering, Sam closed her eyes.

“Sammie,” a voice made her open her eyes. Looking down again, she noticed another lily beside her father’s; Mark’s. Holding out her own hand, she was surprised to notice a lily of her own in her hand. But she didn’t question its presence. Letting her hand open, the flower fell into the hole.

The image of the three lilies on the shining box stayed in her mind for so long, that when Sam finally turned her attention to something else, she noticed they were pulling up in front of her house. Walking inside, everyone turned to stare at her, it seemed. She walked through the living room, two dozen pairs of eyes on her. Suddenly Sam felt like she was being suffocated. She made some comment about the bathroom before escaping up the stairs.

At the end of the hall, she stood, deciding between two doors. Her own, or her parents’. Behind her own door was a bed covered in stuffed animals. Posters of unicorns. Wallpaper in a shade of pink. Sam picked the latter. Inside, she went to the bookcase. Her mother would never have been content with being a military wife. She had gone to college. She was an engineer.

“Engineer.” Sam said the word out loud, with reverence. She wasn’t quite sure what it meant, but she was going to find out. Picking a book, something from the top shelf, Sam settled in a chair, and began to read.

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