Convergence (1/1)

by LJ

Stargate, pre-movie, pre-series

(aka the self-indulgent crap that tried to pass itself off as SG fic...)

 

"Wouldja look at that!"

Sean O’Neill turned to where John Davis was pointing and whistled softly. At the end of the boardwalk stood a tall, finely-dressed woman. She was turned so that both men could see her face, framed by tendrils of dark blonde hair, but her attention was on something much grander than two silver miners. The awe on her face was as breathtaking as what had captured her attention: the mighty Cheyenne Mountain, backdrop to the city – Sean corrected himself: village – of Colorado Springs. Sean smiled; he had been just as awestruck when he’d first seen it. "The mountain gets them every time," he said to Davis, who nodded.

"But she ain’t the usual kind of lady we see up here, now is she, O’Neill?" Davis spoke teasingly, having noticed how the woman had affected his friend. "That’s no homesteader’s wife."

"Aye," said Sean softly. After a moment he opened his mouth to speak again, but quickly clamped it shut when a man, similar in age, came up to the woman and took her hand. She said something to him and pointed to the mountain.

"He’s a lucky man," Sean said quickly, but Davis only laughed and slapped him on the back. "Haven’t you got eyes to see, man? I’d sooner say that’s her brother than her husband, Sean O’Neill!"

Sean looked back and nodded. There was more than a passing resemblance between the two. "True," he agreed, "but at her age, she’s either married or a nun, and I’ve never seen a nun so finely dressed."

Davis chuckled and drew his friend into the next building. The postmaster greeted them cordially and announced that a letter had arrived for Sean just that morning. "It’s from Chicago," the postmaster said, "so I figured you’d want it straight-way. Set it aside ‘cause I knew you were due back in town this week." He produced the envelope from the top drawer of his desk. "It’s from your son."

Davis watched the fighting looks in Sean’s eyes. While his friend was always overjoyed to receive news of his son, who lived in Chicago with his young wife, Sean O’Neill had a problem: he could not read.

The remedy to the situation came in the form of a harried young man clutching a sheaf of papers. "Did it come yet?" asked the young man eagerly.

It took Sean a moment to recognize him; he’d never seen him so excited. This was the man known as "Teach" to the few school-age children – and the few adults he considered his friends – of Colorado Springs. Their parents knew him as Mr. Edmund Jackson.

The postmaster shook his head. "Sorry, Edmund. The books haven’t arrived."

Edmund sighed. "How long has it been?" he asked the postmaster.

"A month or there-abouts since your last letter."

"One would think that they’d at least answer my queries," said Edmund dejectedly. "It’s not as if I were asking them to publish my writings. I simply ordered books that they are already printing."

"What books are that, Teach?" asked Sean.

Edmund turned as if he were startled and unaware that anyone else had been in the post office before him. "Goodness, Mr. O’Neill!" he exclaimed. "Oh, I had some thoughts about the arrowheads you brought me last year. There are some patterns that are a bit unusual for this area, and a Mr. Rothman at the University of Indiana recommended a few texts on the Indians of the west that might help explain the irregularities. And there was a German grammar that promised a few more colloquialisms than the usual textbook..."

Edmund continued like this for a few more moments, but Sean quickly tuned it out. He didn’t understand why a smart man like Edmund Jackson was teaching the three R’s in a backwater hole like Colorado Springs; half the time he didn’t know what Jackson was talking about, a clear indication that the man should have stayed back East and gone to one of those universities where the other smart people that he was always corresponding with were. Sean held the letter from his son tightly in his hand; his son was smart like that, but had settled down with a wife and a fine bit of work with his father-in-law in Chicago instead of finishing school. But at least he could read and write and do arithmetic on paper instead of only in his head.

"...a letter from your son, Mr. O’Neill?"

"Hm?" said Sean, pulled from his thoughts.

Edmund smiled. "I was asking if that was a letter from your son?"

"Aye, ‘tis." Then, he added, a bit shyly, "Have ye a moment to read it to me?"

"Certainly, Mr. O’Neill, but you know, I’d be happy to teach you –"

This had been a point of contention between the teacher and the miner since their first meeting a year earlier. "Thank ye very kindly, but no," Sean replied stubbornly. He was too old for school, even if it was a private tutorial, and he was certain that the children and young people of Colorado Springs would better benefit from Edmund’s time than he would. And so long as he brought arrowheads and other little artifacts and rocks for Edmund’s collections with each letter or document, the teacher put up with his stubborn refusals and would read the letter and take dictation of the occasional reply.

"Very well," said Edmund, setting down his papers on the desk and sticking out his hand for the letter, which Sean handed to him promptly. Unfolding it, Edmund cleared his throat, adjusted his spectacles and then began to read. "Dear Father, We are quite well and I am hoping this finds you in equally pleasant health and spirit –"

He was interrupted by John Davis, who had migrated to the window, having found nothing to hold his interest among the people or the objects in the post office. "Sean! She’s a-coming closer!"

Sean held up a hand to Edmund, motioning him to pause, and moved to the window himself. As promised, the finely dressed woman was approaching, her companion at her arm, and they were engaged in rapid conversation.

"Mr. O’Neill!" exclaimed Edmund, following them to the window. "Don’t you want to hear your son’s good news?"

"A moment," said Davis, "a moment." He gestured to Edmund to come closer. "Have you seen this fine lady?"

Edmund frowned and peeked out the window. "Oh," he said, relaxing and turning his attention back to Sean’s letter, which was still in his hand. "The Cartiers."

Sean and Davis turned to him as one and looked at their friend.

It took a moment for Edmund to realize that he was being stared at. "What?"

"Ye know the lady?" asked Sean.

"I spoke to her briefly this morning, that’s all."

The miners continued staring at him. After a moment, the teacher threw up his hands, careful not to drop the letter. "All right, all right. They’re just passing through on their way to California. They’re brother and sister – Marcel and Sophie Cartier. Well, Sophie St. Jean, if I’m recalling it correctly."

"What kind of name is Cartier?" asked Davis, stumbling over the unfamiliar sounds.

"French," Edmund replied simply.

French. Sean pursed his lips. Well, that explained the fanciness. "She’s married?" he asked as nonchalantly as possible.

"Her husband died not long ago," Edmund explained. "That’s why she left France. Her brother, Marcel, has been living here in America for some number of years, as has their father, who’s in California somewhere. They’re moving out there to be with him. Mr. Cartier’s wife and children are already there; he stayed back East to wait for Mrs. St. Jean. They’re only here in the Springs for the day, to change trains."

"They told you all this?" asked Davis in surprise.

Edmund nodded, blushing a little. "They were surprised to meet someone who spoke even just a few words of French and, well, we got to talking..."

Just a few words of French. Sean held in the impulse to snort. The day Edmund Jackson could only speak a few words of anything would be the day he found himself with a second wife as beautiful as Sophie Cartier St. Jean.

"Is there a reason why you three are still in my post office?" asked the postmaster commandingly.

"Eh, no?" said Davis.

"Then kindly take your gawking elsewhere, gentlemen."

Sean turned back to the window. The Cartiers had moved on. He sighed. "Come on, Davis, we’ve places to be, lad."

"Mr. O’Neill?" said Edmund. "Your letter?"

Sean looked at the teacher. "Oh. Um –"

Edmund smiled. "Tomorrow? Over breakfast? You’re staying at Mrs. Fraiser’s as usual, aren’t you?" Mrs. Fraiser ran a boarding house that often catered to the miners when they were in town.

"Aye."

"Excellent. I have a craving for her pancakes." He handed the letter to Sean, who tucked it into a pocket and made to leave with John Davis. "By the way, Mr. O’Neill, you’re about to become a grandfather," Edmund added with a grin. "That’s your son’s big news."

Sean smiled and left wordlessly, Davis at his heals.

Edmund turned to the postmaster. "Now, about my queries –"

Charles Hammond chuckled. "Another telegram, or a letter this time, Edmund Jackson? At this rate, I’ll be able to retire to Texas on your patronage alone."

 

Sophie St. Jean, nee Cartier, boarded the train with some trepidation. For all her brother’s ranting that this Colorado Springs was a bit of civilization in the great Western Wilderness in name only, she had liked the little town. The people were friendly, if a bit star-struck – she should never have taken Cassandrine’s advice on her attire for the impossibly long journey from coast to coast; she hated such elegant costumes under normal circumstances – and she had never seen a place more beautiful, with the ancient forest and towering mountain. It had produced a feeling in her not unlike the calm she had when stargazing at night.

Stargazing. She wondered if her new husband in California would find her odd or even eccentric for her love of the night sky. Her father had written to her, some months after Jeannot St. Jean’s untimely death, of a colleague in his business venture, a Russian named Martoff who had also recently lost his wife. They had corresponded for some time and it had not surprised her greatly when Martoff had – gently – suggested marriage. At least, according to her father, Martoff was more open-minded than Jeannot had been. Jeannot had refused her the stars, and had even burnt her notes from tracking them.

As they walked down the corridor, she turned the new name over and over in her mouth. Carter. Carter. She didn’t quite like it, but it was what her father and brother had decided: they were to live in America now, and an American-sounding name would serve them well. It didn’t much affect her, as Cartier had not been her proper name for several years, but something about it did not sit well with her. It was the r’s, she thought; the r’s were all wrong.

Perhaps she should have stayed in France? Money had not been the problem, but rather loneliness and the sinking feeling that she had no purpose there. Perhaps she should have stayed; she had heard rumors of other women beginning to be accepted in scientific circles, and at the university in Paris. Perhaps she could have learned more about the night sky, as she had always hoped to. What was the name of the woman she had heard about? A Madame Curie, if she wasn’t mistaken...

But even the sky did not cure loneliness. She was cursed: cursed to find no joy in the company of her peers, who prattled on day after day about fashion and children, and cursed not to be a man so she could become a proper scientist and track the stars unashamedly. And cursed to be without the love of a man. She thought back on the two men they had encountered on the boardwalk and how the eyes of the elder of the two had followed her. It had been some time since she had been able to see that sort of appreciation in a man’s eyes, and longer still since she had felt anything in return. He had been handsome, albeit older than any of the men she had ever found interesting before her marriage to Jeannot. The silver hair had not made him ancient, but instead...distinguished, she decided, even for a miner in his Sunday best for a stay in town. Would Martoff look at her like that? Or was he still mourning his wife? Would she ever be in that woman’s shadow? And would she ever learn to love him?

She settled into her seat in the private room that Marcel had arranged for them, sighing just loudly enough that her brother commented on it. "Something troubling you, sister?"

Sophie turned to Marcel and gave him a faint smile. "Just thinking of the future," she said. "Just thinking of the future."

[end]