Calla undressed in the dark in her room and slipped into her tattered but comfortable white robe. She grabbed an oversized T-shirt from the drawer and fresh pair of panties. From under the mattress she uncovered her night-time stash of pain killers and put two into her pocket then put the amber bottle back in its hiding spot. When she started the water she noticed Daniel still had her candles in the bathroom and the incense box was still on the vanity so she took a pack of matches from the night stand and put them into the pocket with the pills. From her own little vanity she took a small bottle of essential oil marked as MOONFIRE, one more little trinket for the pocket. From under the bed she produced a fifth of Jack Daniel, uncapped it and took down a very long swallow before putting the cap back on sliding it back under the bed.

Closing the robe up tight she poked her head through the bedroom door and watched and listened. The house was silent. Closing the door behind her, she trotted down the hall back to Daniel’s bedroom and the luxury of the hot tub waiting for her.

It was Daniel’s bedroom and as such she felt he should be able to walk into it if he wanted so she didn’t lock the bedroom door. However, the bath was another story and once inside she locked the door. The tub was half full and the room was steamy, Calla liked her baths very hot. She slowed the hot water and turned on the cold before drawing a cup of cold water from the sink and popping the pain killers down her throat. After that she lit the candles and incense. Daniel hadn’t moved her sea salt from the vanity either, she picked up the red bottle and sprinkled a healthy dose into the hot water. Along with the salt she added seven drops of the MOONFIRE oil and said a little prayer to make the water in the tub into a ritual cleansing bath. One to clean her soul and her mind as well as her body.

Turning off the light as she turned on the power to the jets the room glowed with the small flames of the many scented candles. The aroma mixed with the sandalwood incense and oil in the tub to create an exotic unseen garden. Calla flicked on the radio and turned to her favorite station. Taking a big swig of Listerine to clear the alcohol smell and taste from her mouth she rinsed it around and then spit into the sink. In the background Kansas was belting out “Carryon My Wayward Son” and she hummed along to the tune. Raising the hem of the rob she dipped her barefoot into the water and found it agreeable. Taking one last look around the steam filled room she removed the robe and draped it across the closed toilet before submerging herself in the sultry water.

The heat and bubbles felt heavenly on the soles of her feet and on her back but the tender area between her legs wasn’t so thrilled with the idea. It took a little while but Calla coaxed that part of her into getting accustomed to the warmth and gentle flow of the water around her. The radio played, the incense and candles burned and the room filled with more steam. Slipping down into the water’s embrace she let it wash over her head to toe as she sank below the surface. Somewhere off in the distance the thunder rolled.

In the dim light she was able to look at her naked body as she washed her hair. The marks on her legs were gone and so were those that had once been on her arms and face. Even the dark bruises left by the collar and Kanan’s hands had faded away. If you looked at her from the front you might not think anything was wrong with her. If you didn’t look too closely, didn’t stare at that area between her thighs, you might still think her beautiful. She didn’t need a mirror to tell her that the scars on her back, her feet, and the ones she didn’t like to think about, weren’t going anywhere. Her skin mended and the patches filled in but the ugly welts of flesh would never be flush again. Feeling her bath had been cooled enough, Calla turned off the cold water but left the hot running low as she slid under to rinse her hair. When she surfaced she noticed her head was feeling light. It tingled when she put the conditioned in her hair.

The pills must be kicking in, she thought and the small but potent swig of alcohol was happily speeding them on their way. Calla leaned back against the tub to stretch out in the steaming water and indulge in the euphoric feeling that was coming to her. The candles’ glow was magnified by the heavy water droplets hanging in the air giving the bathroom an ethereal glow. A heavy exhale released from her lungs and she drew in a breath of the leaden air to compensate for its loss. Looking around in an easy daze she noticed she’d forgotten her puff in her room, she didn’t feel like going back to get it, she’d just have to make do without. A groping hand searched for the soap, found it and began rubbing it across her body until she was covered in a thick lather. The radio played and she sang along; “Seasons don’t fear the reaper nor do the wind the sun and the rain. We can be like they are. Come on baby. Don’t fear the reaper.”

Daniel had had a good idea, the bath was very nice. It was peaceful and relaxing. Calla eased the soap between her legs to clean the tender area there, feeling she wasn’t doing a good job since the offending part was under water she rose to her knees, bent her head to keep her eyes on her business and promptly passed out. The side of her head smashed against the tile as she fell forward into the water.

********************

Voices. Voices everywhere yelling in the dark.

She could find no faces to match the voices though she knew who their owners were. She could feel no presence other than herself as they continued to berate her from the safety of their invisible haven. Spinning round and round trying to find anything other than herself in this dark and dank place she searched the direction of the voices but found they only droned on and on from a place unknown.

“It’s not true, my mother loved me.”

“You were my brother you had no right.” She called to the darkness. It was so hot in this small room she was sweating and panicking as she tried to find a way out. The more she searched the hotter it became and the more difficult to breathe. Her lungs felt as though they were trying to suck down water. Her legs grew heavy and so did her head.

Calla collapsed to the ground below her and began to crawl around on her hands and knees.

“Stop it!” She cried out in a little girls’ frightened whisper.

Finding her way to a corner of the room, Calla huddled in it with her knees drawn up to her chest and her arms wrapped firmly around them. She rocked back and forth in the corner while the voices continued to taunt her.

*********************

Daniel hadn’t noticed when she went back into the bedroom.

Drip.

“What the?” He looked around in front of him for a moment.

Drip.

Daniel looked up, the ceiling above him was leaking. Wasn’t that nice, he’d had the plumbing inspected and they said………. The sound of running water came to him. She hadn’t turned off the bath. Daniel looked down at his watch, she’d gone up around 7:30 and it was now quarter past 8. “Calla?” He called out and made his way up the stairs. The bedroom door was unlocked and turned easily in his hand. Trying the bathroom door he found it locked tight and he could hear the water running on the other side. “I know I said I wouldn’t bother you,” he said as he knocked on the door, “but we’ve got some kind of leak, I need to get inside.” She didn’t answer him. There were no shuffling sounds from within the bathroom just the radio and the running water. “Calla?” Daniel knocked harder and turned the knob in his hand. The door was hot. “Calla?” He demanded. “All right, I’m coming in.” Daniel warned and tossed his shoulder against the door to pop it open. He was met with a burst of steam so thick and the room was so hot that at first he thought it was on first. The haze was so heavy he couldn’t breathe and he couldn’t see. His glasses fogged over and he took them off. Waving a hand in front of his face he called out her name again and still she didn’t answer him. The floor beneath his feet was wet and slippery. Soon the steam cleared to a degree where he could see his hand in front of his face and the mass of red hair floating in the tub. “Shit!” Daniel reached in and pulled her out. “Calla!” He shook her while he laid her out on the cold wet bathroom floor. “Come on, Kitty, wake up!” Don’t panic. Take a breath. Leaving her on the floor for a moment, Daniel shut off the running water, grabbed and towel and then grabbed his wife up in his arms. He ran her out to the bedroom.

In the bedroom the light was much brighter and Daniel could clearly see that from top to bottom her skin was roughly the color of a fresh cooked lobster. “What the hell were you trying to do?” He laid her down on the bed and called out her name again. Her chest was rising and falling in a slow but normal pattern and when he put his head between her breasts he could hear her heart beating. “Kitty!” As she lay motionless on the bed tendrils of steam wafted from her burned body and a trickle of blood oozed from the new wound at her temple. Finally her eyelids lolled open. She didn’t say anything she just looked at him for a brief moment before they grew so heavy that they closed again. “Come on, Calla, stay with me, wake up.” Daniel snapped his fingers and shook her lightly. Her eyes rolled open with a more life. “Are you ok? What happened?”

Calla managed to move her neck up and down on her shoulders indicating she thought she was all right. “Heavy.” She whispered. “Tired.”

“You want me to call a doctor?” The answer to his question was slight but there was movement from side to side indicating ‘no’. Without taking his eyes off of her he picked up the towel from the floor and began to dry her. “What happened?” Daniel asked again. She didn’t pull away from him when his skin touched hers in fact she hardly seemed to notice it at all. The towel swabbed her neck, shoulders, arms. It slid down her torso and over her hips and thighs down to her legs and toes. He tried to stay away from any areas that she might normally consider to be off limits. Gazing down at her she actually looked heavy. She looked like her body might so dense as to weigh five or six hundred pounds. Either gravity had pulled a nasty little trick or the weight of the world was pushing down on her. He wanted to ask his question again but realized it was possible she didn’t have the capacity to answer him right now.

Pulling her up from the pillow he wrapped the damp towel around her head and squeezed the water from her hair. Rising from her side Daniel crossed the room to the bureau and took out her favorite flannel shirt. It was a blue and gold plaid and it was old and frayed but it was still soft and warm and she used to love to sleep in it. With much caring he lifted her from the bed again and dressed her in the work shirt. When he was done buttoning the shirt he tucked her in under the warm comforter. “OK, we’ll talk about this later.” Daniel brushed the wet hair away from her forehead. “Right now you sleep. I’m going to go check on the kids and then I’ll be back in to see you.”

A light went on in those distant eyes and she moved as though she were about to try and get up. “Just sleep here.” He encouraged and patted the mattress. “It’s warm, isn’t it? You look comfortable. Stay here and I’ll be back in a while…..to check on you.” He tried to say his last words in a very reassuring tone. Speaking in Calla-Speak was one of the toughest languages he ever had to learn and he hoped he was conveying the message that he wasn’t going to come back and take advantage of her while she was out of it. Her eyes closed and he sat there with her for a while watching her dose. It was nice to have her in his bed again even if the circumstances were suspicious. If he was lucky, later on, maybe, he could slip in beside her and hold her through the night. Kissing her cheek and sure she was sleeping, Daniel rose from the bed.

There were a few chores to be done. Daniel was soaked through to his skin from hauling her out of the tub and carrying her to the bed. He stripped off the wet shirt and blue jeans and slipped into a pair of sweat pants before turning his attentions to the bathroom. He mopped up the bathroom floor, turned off the radio and blew out the candles. On the double sink he noticed he sea salts and essential oil and half full glass of water. Calla didn’t drink water, she hated it. In fact Calla so avoided water that he often wondered why. He sometimes he thought he should buy stock in Coca-Cola, at least that way he’d make his money back for all she put in Coke’s pocket. Calla drank coffee, tea, she liked iced green tea and lemonade but never just plain old water unless she were taking her pills.

If she’d taken one of her pain killers before getting into the overly hot tub and breathing in the hot heavy air, she might have had a sudden drop in blood pressure which caused her to pass out in the tub. He didn’t see a bottle of pills anywhere. However, he did see the blood smear on the tile where head hit as she fell. Good God she could have killed herself.

She could have been trying to kill herself. A nasty little voice rose inside to say.

No, Calla wouldn’t do that. It was selfish and one thing she was not was selfish. Such an act would harm the children beyond all possible belief and he was certain she would never be responsible for such. It was an accident. Whatever happened it was an accident. Daniel picked up her tattered robe and the T-shirt and panties and brought them out into the bedroom. He thought about the underwear and the fact that she wasn’t wearing any right now. If she woke that way she would think he had taken advantage of her in her sleep. He peeled back the covered and looped the panties around her ankles, quietly sliding them up her legs and thighs. Daniel didn’t mean to invade her privacy and to look where she did not want him to but he had to get the damn things around her waist and in order to do that he had to get them between her thighs. Gently he pushed them apart just a little bit.

To say the chastity belt had been unkind would be doing a disservice. The rough and raw edges of metal sliced through the milky smooth flesh there leaving behind long jagged scars. Other marks looked as though they were made with the blade of knife, perhaps she had not been cooperating as Kanan wanted her to. Daniel saw the belt and he knew about the jagged pricks which surrounded the two holes. Having been forced to sit on her knees most of the time the pricks constantly bit into her and made the soft inner flesh of that sweet area look like hamburger that had healed over. The silky material of the white panties slid home and Daniel didn’t have to look at her scars anymore tonight.

“My poor Kitty.” Daniel whispered and brushed his hand across her cheek and held his open palm to the wound at the side of her head that lovely blue light appeared and took the mark away. “I wish you’d let me do that for you months ago. I love you, baby.” Daniel left the door ajar before going down to the basement.

Nicholas and Colleen insisted on stopping in Daddy’s Room to kiss their mother good night and promised they wouldn’t wake her. To him it seemed he wasn’t the only who was happy about where Calla was sleeping tonight. As promised they hugged and kissed their sleeping mother in gentle embraces before scampering off to their rooms for bed. Daniel read them one bedtime story in Nicholas’ room before tucking them in for the night.

Making his way down to the basement of the quiet house he began shutting off lights and DVD players and making sure the doors were locked. He topped to inspect his office; the damage didn’t seem too bad. It was just a bit of water which had seeped through the tiles and then through the ceiling below. Thank God it had or he might not have found her. Daniel didn’t know if he should go up to her right away it was early and if he waited until she were deeply asleep maybe she wouldn’t notice when he tried to sleep next to her. Not wanting to wait and risk letting his chance slip through his hands he gave the house one last go-over and made his way to his bedroom where his wife was still soundly sleeping.

Lightning flashed outside the glass doors as Daniel peered into the bedroom door way to see Calla lying just where he’d left her. He thought about that more active role and made his way down the hall to the room she’d been staying in. It didn’t take long to find what she’d hidden there under the mattress and under the bed. A bottle of booze and a bottle of pills. With a sinking heart he took the pills down stairs to the kitchen and opened the spice cabinet where he knew she kept a bottle of pain killers. There it sat looking back at him. One amber bottle on the shelf and one in his hand. The one he was holding was half empty just like the one on the shelf.

One last trip up the stairs for the night but not to the second floor this time to the third. Calla had set up an artist studio in the attic and she spent a lot of time up there both with and without the kids. Sometimes at night while he was awake with one book or another for company he would hear her walking around up there. In the big wide space he saw his grandmother’s dining room set. The big pieces of furniture sat under assorted dust cloths off the far left. Paintings done by the children hung from the rafters, sunflowers, gardens, people, houses, cars and more stared back at him. The twins weren’t Rembrandt, not yet anyway. They did show promise and a good eye for color one day they could be come very accomplished painters.

The attic had a strange and stale smell to it. Under the stronger scents of paint thinner and oils lingered something familiar. If he were her where he would hide something up here? He turned back to the covered furniture and lifted the dust cover from the hutch. Opening the cabinet he found two more bottles of Jack & Danny, one as yet unopened and the other with less than a full shot left in it. Next to that bottle was a bottle of 100 proof Southern Comfort. Behind that another little amber bottle of pain killers, this one a quarter full. The strange but familiar scent of skunk mixed with pine grew stronger. Daniel pushed the bottles aside and a found the remainder of a quarter ounce of weed hidden there next to was a small glass pipe, Bic lighter and a pack of sandalwood incense.

Sometimes at night when he thought he heard her moving around he also thought he smelled the faint aroma or marijuana and once he even got up and stuck his head out the bedroom door only be met with the stronger scent of burning sandalwood. Calla had been burning the incense to cover the pot smoke. She’d been getting drunk and strung out up here in her little quite space. He looked through the hutch and then the silent butler but didn’t find anything more. Where did she get all this stuff? Calla didn’t drive anymore, he took her everywhere she wanted to go and he certainly hadn’t taken her on a drug buy recently nor to the liquor store.

The answer was pretty simple, the Internet. Daniel left the house two days a week for a few hours each time. And she used that time to her advantage. She re-contacted the liquor store that delivered—probably paid a good service fee for coming out so far in the boonies and made a drug contact online. The bottles were not from the local pharmacy the writing was in Spanish. She’d used her prescription to order more pills from one of those Fly-By-Night Open Pharmacies online. Probably got pointed in the right direction for the quarter ounce as well.

Daniel walked across the room to the easel where one of Calla’s paintings was sitting and noticed a stack of them on the floor all neatly lined up by the window. The painting on the easel was a depiction of Kanan’s Courtyard at night. Not just any night, from the looks of it the painting depicted the Yehwe celebration he’d and the rest of SG-1 stumbled upon when they first went to Tiberia. A crowd was gathered under a night sky, several torches and bonfires burned. Kanan stood on a raised platform, his hand high in the air and the braids at his back waving out behind him. Though Daniel looked for it, he couldn’t find an image of Calla in the picture.

Quietly he rummaged through the stack of quarter and half-size canvases. First up was a rather peaceful image, or someone else might have thought it so, of two cascading water fountains in a beautiful flower garden. One fountain white and the other black, two small hands reached and clung to the side of the black fountain from inside. In another painting an aged hand holding a silver ball there were lightning bolts surrounding the ball. On another canvas were the chains Kanan used to hold her…all of them. Hephaestus’ Chains, the leather strap he’d used to bind her, the chains he’d hung her from and the silken ropes that had been tied to his bed on the ship. Daniel was only able to immediately recognize two of them, the full set of arm and leg shackles and silk ties he didn’t pick up on right away. Calla had yet to tell him much of what happened during her last stay with Naganti Kanan. The pictures were speaking loud and clear on her behalf.

He flipped past the image of the chains and stumbled upon Calla’s portrait gallery as he was met with a portrait of the man himself. While Naganti Kanan looked menacing with the knotted smile on his face, he also looked very handsome in her rendition of the man who held her captive, abused and tortured her.

Daniel flipped past that and found what he thought was another portrait of Kanan but upon closer inspection it turned out to be the young man with him, Naveen was his name. He had lighter skin than Kanan and green eyes. He was the one who’d been able to free her of the collar around her neck. Daniel never asked her why that was but figured somewhere along the line, Kanan had hidden a son from her. The portrait of the younger man was bright and glowed with an inner light. Daniel assumed he must have been kind to her at some point, but he was wrong. The only outright kindness Naveen had ever shown his mother was his dying effort to give her freedom. That was enough for her to immortalize him in the oils with a regal shine in his eyes.

Next in the gallery was a painting of Omar’s eyes, nothing more, just his eyes and the bridge of his nose. Rowan/Psyche came after him, her face was open and bleeding from the blow to the head and behind her was a lake of clear blue water just waiting to envelope her.

So this is what she did at night. She sat up here getting smashed out of her mind and trying to paint the images out of her head. Yeah, well, from what he’d seen of her body tonight, the gnarled and knotted scars at her back and those between her legs, if he were her he’d want to spend as much as time as possible absolutely blotto. Completely and totally numb and out of his mind. He flipped past the portrait of The Bitch—which was how he’d come to refer to her. The Portrait Gallery ended and for a moment Daniel thought it odd that he had not seen a depiction of himself or Ares or Eros in any of the paintings.

Two white hands in a dual set of chains met his eyes. One set was made of gold each with a sapphire in the middle and the other were the same silken ropes he’d seen in an earlier painting, Daniel pulled that one out and put it next to this one to be sure. Those were Calla’s hands in the chains. They were gnarled up tight and pulling against the silken ropes which were tied to a headboard. There was nothing else in the painting just the hands and the ties that bound them. The picture sent a chill down his spine.

Next image in the stack was that of a free standing mirror. Daniel stared at it for a few minutes because it looked familiar and then it finally came to him. There had been a mirror just like this one in their room in the Finest Hotel in Uray. However the reflection in this mirror showed him and Jack and Sam. They were standing in front of the Stargate and the wormhole was open. Omar was standing there seeing them off. In the painting Daniel had the most pained expression on his face. This was the moment he’d left her behind. She’d seen it through the mirror.

Next up a depiction of the corner she sat in. It was dark and narrow and on the wall were three photographs. In each he could clearly see himself and in two he was kissing Rowan. The dark green carpet on the floor had worn marks in it, two deep divots where her knees wore down the rug and two narrowed ones behind where her toes had done the same.

The stack was getting smaller and the paintings larger, they’d gone from quarter sized to half sized canvases. The first half size was an image of their bedroom but the lovers on the bed were not Daniel and Calla but he and Rowan. Her thick wavy brunette hair covered the pillows behind her head and her firm full breasts pushed up against his bare chest while she embraced him. “It never happened.” Daniel muttered and put the image aside. As he did he noticed the richness in the details of this painting. The way the curtain billowed inward with an unseen light breeze and the purple/red haze to the sun setting behind the mountain tops beyond the glass doors. The deep but soft contours to the two entwined bodies on the very soft bed. She’d thought about this one a lot before she put it to canvas. Thought out every last shadow and detail of how the room would have been when he was making love to her mortal enemy.

Finally taking his eyes away from it he turned to the last painting in the stack. At first he didn’t know what he was looking at and thought maybe it was some type of Abstract she was working on. It certainly didn’t look finished. On the canvas was a room lit by torches in the far off corners. On the dark and damp looking floor were a small but very sharp knife and a bullwhip. In the foreground was a pair of shackles. Two pair actually. One heavy iron pair hung from some place above and another equally heavy pair was anchored to the ground. Two small pools of crimson lay below the ankle cuffs.

The chains on the floor pulled upward as though there were feet in them and the ones suspended from above pulled inward as though there were arms in their grasp but no one was hanging there. More crimson, this time in slashes across what probably should have been someone’s back but, again, there was no one hanging, no one depicted in the chains. Very neatly drawn crimson lines trickled down from an area which should have been the soft flesh of someone’s inner thighs.

Outside the thunder boomed and inside the light overhead flickered. The skies opened and the storm which had been so long in its approach poured rain down on the roof.

Pushing the small stack of painting aside he came back to the one with the chains and matched these up to the last unknown pair. The last painting in the stack was nothing more than a blank canvas. Daniel went through them once more before putting them back exactly the way he’d found them. Leaving the illicit contents of the hutch where they were he shut out the light and made his way back to the second floor.

Quietly easing the bedroom door open he saw her still sleeping where he left her and walked inside. He wasn’t tired, he had too much on his mind for sleep, but he wanted to be with her and he wanted to be able to look at her. Daniel took some of the candles from the bathroom, placed them on the night stand and lit them. The soft glow illuminating her sleeping tranquil face and he smiled as he pulled back the blanket and slipped in beside her. What if she really did try to kill herself? What then? The paintings were disturbing but at least it was a way for her to get some of it out. The pot. The pills. The booze. She never once looked strung out to him, never acted particularly out of it. That was probably because she wasn’t using them for recreation purposes, wasn’t particularly going with the flow on that one. To her it was self-medication and she used them to get day to day or hour to hour rather than to get high.

If he hadn’t found them he wouldn’t know and then how much longer would she have gotten away this and how much worse would things have gotten before she hit bottom? Or was this it?

End of Chapter Two
Daughter of the Gods: Time Out Of Mind
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Chapter Three