She never wanted to be *his* girl.
The thought had pressed through her mind even when they were lovers – she never wanted to be known as *his*.
She didn’t want to be “the Colonel’s girl”; she didn’t want people to think of her in that way, to see her as someone’s belonging. And as much as Jack felt right, she had *always* questioned her belonging. Where to turn, and for that matter, who to turn to when she desperately needed someone to simply *be* there.
Being stuck in some sort of cyber-stasis when the Entity took her over – sensory deprivation she had described it to Janet earlier – she had cried and cried for help, shouted over and over telling them, anyone, she was there… She was here. But the sleeping computers had ignored her screams for someone to notice she wasn’t dead… They just wouldn’t hear her.
She couldn’t feel. Attempts to reach out and hold onto something – anything – had failed, and she knew it was over. Sam had given up and her last bout of energy was used screaming out that she was there – I AM HERE over and over, until she was so weak she had to repeat the words to herself, to a mind that was now so alone…
Inside the mainframe there was no belonging. A title she couldn’t bring herself to feel comfort with until now, where she ached for somewhere to belong… Someone to belong to.
Every form of torture she had endured before this, she had felt. She could *feel* it when she was hit, she could *feel* it when the cold metal of a knife cut into her and the sharp pain that followed after that. She even felt Jolinar’s memories, she could *feel* pain that was not her own. There was nothing to feel inside the computers, and this was the worst torture there was.
Waking up – oh God, waking up in her own body – and being able to *move* to *feel* it when her arms shifted slightly was enough for her to believe that she was alive.
Her eyes darted to the heavy breathing next to her; and she became aware of the hand leaning on her. Almost as if its owner was afraid of touching her, scared of what the contact might mean. Jack was there.
His eyes might have been shut – he may even have been dreaming – but there was something that told her he knew she was watching him.
But then, so suddenly, that feeling of belonging crept up on her. Shifting onto her side, Sam’s heart raced. She was *his*. Like she was with Jonas… He owned her, he controlled her, he made her do what he wanted. And after that she swore it would never happen again.
No longer did she want to belong, but wanted nothing more than the opposite.
***
The company here is not so good.
The light’s caught the dull colours of wooden beams above my head, making relaxed patterns for me to stare at, but eventually my eyes shift back to the strong flames licking in front of my consciousness. That’s the only solution I have to serve my nerves because of the uncomfortable silence. The crackling of fire and wood – somewhat soothing, don’t you think?
The chair creaks as I stand, groping for the lone book that’s lying on the table in front of me. My hands run over the gold imprinted words, glistening as I open it. A familiar face stares up at me, smiling. I feel like smiling back, but instead the emotions that are welling up inside of me great the empty room as a single tear running down my face.
The small droplet goes unnoticed as it hits the plastic, my thumb stroking the picture underneath it. I’m so, so sorry, Sam. You’ll never know. You’ll *never* know. Closing the photo album like it stung me, I place it back onto the table, resisting the urge to throw it to the flames. No one has to know… No one will know.
***
I couldn’t stay. I wasn’t allowed to stay, but I did, just for a little while. I cleaned the cabin before I left, in case they came looking. Looking for me. Not that they would…
My hands are shaking so hard that I can barely keep them on the steering wheel.
I had tried so hard to ignore what was there.
I lied to myself for so long that finally my feelings were overrun by some cheap diversion of the truth. Watching her I could tell she didn’t love me, I could tell, and I could say inside my head over and over “Sam doesn’t love me” without flinching, like a mantra that I never really wanted to chant.
===
“What do you think you’re doing? Who the hell do you think you’re playing with?” I looked at the man behind the thick, metal bars. I could see his red face, even in the dark shadows that he seemed to lurk in. I watched him pacing up and down the small cell, much as a tiger would stalk its prey. Only he was stalking me. “Jack… I don’t think you understand me. You don’t have a choice. You never get to choose in my world. And guess where you happen to be…”
Then, I saw Sam’s face, her innocent eyes staring not at me, but into me. And her smile, God, her beautiful smile.
***
Anise looked at me, much the way she had when she kissed me not long before… Before now. “Why?” Why did you stay? Why didn’t you leave? Why do you hide? Why… Why do you love her? I move my mouth, but nothing comes out. Nothing can come out, I know that. If only I knew what to say. “Because,” I begin, then pause, searching for any answer other than the one that was there. The truth. I continue, slowly, almost shamefully. I shouldn’t love her, I don’t deserve to… “I care about her.” My eyes find Sam’s, and I see how she’s fighting to not cry. I can hear her thoughts, almost. She’s telling me that she can’t love me, that she doesn’t love me and she never will. “A lot more than I’m suppose to,” I finish, and I can see that there’s something in her eyes… Almost like there’s something in her smile… Anise is saying something; I think she’s telling me I’m not… I’m not a Zaytarc. “Now retest me.” Sam bounces to take my position; she wants to get it over and done with. Placing the black headband over her forehead, Anise begins the test. “You were behind the force field?” “Yes.” “Tell me what Colonel O’Neill was doing.” Sam closes her eyes, reliving the moment. “He was destroying something on the side of the wall… A generator or something. I could hear heavy footsteps coming closer…”
“Colonel! Colonel just go!” I turn to face her, her eyes tearing up. “Don’t.” I needed to hold her, to hold her and never let go, but the shimmering of the force field permitted me not to. I wanted… I needed her then, more than ever. Sam. My eyes tell her. I’m not leaving. You know I can’t ever leave you… Then we fell…
“… To the floor. I reached for the naquadah, but the Colonel told me to leave it.” “Why did you want the Colonel to leave you behind?” It was Anise, or Freya, whichever, asking her. “Because… Because he shouldn’t die for me. He couldn’t… Not for me.” She opened her eyes, which had been shut the whole time. “I was being selfish… It was out of pure selfishness that I didn’t want him to leave me. I was selfish because I wanted to live, and I wanted him to live with me…”
Standing and facing me, Sam looked me in the eyes for the hundredth time today. “Colonel… This never has to leave this room…” She avoids me when she says this. “You’re alright with that?” She nods sadly, and I just feel I have to – “Well, we don’t really have a choice, do we?” My mouth tries to move, but doesn’t. Maybe I was wrong, maybe she does… “We always have choices, Sam.”
===
My hand passes over the cheap plastic bench, running along the dull pink, orange and green specks of colour. They were coming for me, I knew. They were coming for me, I could *feel* it inside of my head, like a drumming at my brain, never ceasing, never ending… “Are ya just gonna sit there, mista, or ya gonna order somfin’?” The rough voice of the woman in front of me broke me out of my reverie, bringing me back into the present. Wiping the red hair from her eyes, I met the young woman’s eyes. “No… I mean, yes. I’ll have a coffee, thankyou.” Mumbling something that I couldn’t make out, ‘Colleen’ as incredibly tacky nametag read, went about making me my drink. I didn’t really want it, but I was afraid I’d get kicked out of the bar, back to my car, back to the road, the never ending driving and the quiet fact that I had no where to drive to nagging at the back of my mind. Paying Colleen the fee, I sipped at the hot coffee, the smell reminding me of the very same strong, black coffees Sam had every morning.
//Selling out,
Is not my thing,
Walk away,
I won’t be broken again,
I’m not,
I’m not what you think…//
Some unfamiliar melody drifts out of the single speaker that hangs off the right corner of the wall I’m staring at. I’m not what you think, yeah, right. I’m everything Sam believes I am. The lying, cheating bastard that left her and everyone I ever cared about behind. No explanations. Nothing.
//Dream away your life,
Someone else’s dream,
Nothing equals nothing…//
When I found out Sam loved me, I was the happiest man in the whole world. *She* loved *me*. Then they came… I don’t even know how, or why, or when, I just had to leave. Now I’m doing the shit for someone else, and I have nothing… I’m not *allowed* to have anything. I can’t even control what I do, what decisions I make are the choices of the Men Behind the Wall. In my head, I mean, I have no idea where that one came from…
//Letting go,
Is not my thing,
Walk away,
Won’t let it happen again,
I’m not,
I’m not very smart…//
When they came to me, at night, mostly, they would tell me everything. Sometimes, they’d bring her with them, but I knew it couldn’t really be her, Sam would never… I wasn’t smart enough to ignore the voices in my head, even though I knew I was slowly going crazy.
I’d burst out in bouts of angry cries, and once I almost hit her… There was no way I could let that happen again, no way. I’d walk off, and they’d try to help me, but I’d promise it wouldn’t happen again, it couldn’t happen again…
//Why should I feel sad,
For what I never had,
Nothing equals nothing…//
Sam wanted kids. I wanted kids; I wanted whatever would make her happy. We were going to get married. Before they told me to leave, I was going to propose to her.
Sometimes, I feel as though everything’s gone, the nothing I started with has vanished and the future I suppose to have stolen. God, what shit. I had everything, I had Sam. We were going to have children… We were going to be happy, and have the white picket fences and painted sunsets to light up the sky. We *were* going to. But we aren’t, not now, not anymore.
//Turn to stone,
Lose my faith,
I’ll be gone,
Before it happens…//
I had to go. Before I went completely crazy, like I did when I refused to do what they told me to do. Leave, and break every one of my beliefs. Break every piece of china into billions of lies. I can’t even glue them back together, even though I tried to, lying on the ground screaming for the little china pony to come back… I’m sorry, baby, I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m…
//Selling out,
Is not my thing,
Walk away,
I won’t be broken again,
I won’t,
I won’t fall apart…//
But I couldn’t help it. I did. I fell apart like the china pony, each time one of Sam’s tears hit the floor… It killed me. I scared her… She was afraid of me, even though she loved me and wanted to help me more than anything…
//Dream away your life,
Dream away your dream,
Nothing equals nothing…//
I fooled myself into thinking I had everything, that I wasn’t sick… They told me I wasn’t… I fooled myself into thinking the nothing I had was everything… And it wasn’t. I don’t, I don’t have anything. But I did. I had Sam. I *had*.
//Turn to stone [turn to stone],
Lose my faith [loose my faith],
I’ll be gone,
Before it happens,
Turn to stone [turn to stone],
Lose my faith [lose my faith],
I’ll be gone…//
I was gone. I am gone. See! Happy!? I did what you told me to do… I gave it up! The voice… It’s back… Oh God, it won’t stop… Make it stop! Make it stop!
I need… I need to protect myself; it’s telling me to save myself… Grab the chair, grab the chair… My hands find the cold metal of the seat, and I pick it up…
“Sir?” What? Sam? She called me sir… She always calls me sir, silly, my name’s Jack. Not John. Don’t call me Jonathon; only Mum called me Jonathon, when I was being bad… “Mista?” It’s not Sam; it’s the woman who works here… Colleen, her name is. “What are you doing?”
What? What am I doing? Why am I lifting this chair? Bloody heavy thing, it is. “I’m… I’m sorry…” I want to back out of the door, and leave, but I don’t. I sit back down again, facing the ugly plastic counter. “Is there… Is there something wrong, sir?” The woman, Colleen I think, looks at me with concern, instead of fear. “No, I’m sorry. I don’t know what came over me.” She gives me a sympathetic smile. Not a Sam smile, though. “That’s okay. I used to… I’ve done things before, and I have no idea why I did them.” “Thanks… Colleen.” Her brow furrows, then, and she seems confused. Looking down at the nametag, she picks it up. “Oh… My name’s not Colleen. That was the chick that used ta work here. The great people who own this place didn’t have another name badge.” I look at her, and she sighs. “My name’s Connie. Connie Matthews.” “Jack.” I manage to say, but the door swings open and two men step inside, spotting me immediately. “Colonel O’Neill,” one says, and places a hand on my shoulder. “We’ve been looking for you.”
***
I have no concept of time anymore.
I’m lucky, at the moment. Instead of being in the Abyss I’m sitting chained this wall, writing another mental letter to you.
I love you, Sam. I know I’ve said that many time before – whether or not it was to myself or to you in person – but I just feel the need to have to tell you or otherwise you’ll forget… I’ll forget, and I can’t. Not now.
Remember that time the Entity took you over and you told me it was like a Sensory Deprivation Tank? You can’t feel or see or hear or touch… That’s the Abyss. They take my mind away from me, Sammy, and they put it into this program. Into a computer. Then their games begin.
Sometimes I wake up in the Infirmary, and the Doc’s running test on me. Then you come in, occasionally with Danny or Teal’c or the General or even Dad. And you look at me. And tell me the truth, and each time there’s a different truth compared with the last one…
Each time I believe you, because they know I’ll believe you, you see, in this shitty little corner of my mind, I’ll always believe you. I don’t… I told you I wasn’t going crazy. And *you* didn’t believe *me*. I wasn’t going crazy when I left, but now, now I’m not so sure.
They like playing with my mind here, Sammy, as I’m sure I’ve told you many times before. They don’t have to tell me that, they don’t tell me anything, I just know.
There’s a place, better than here, that’s in one of the programs. The Greylands. I can hear the people screaming there, but in they’re screams they tell me it’s better than here, better than this place… And now, if I’m a good little boy, they’ll take me there.
Before, before is always just plain old before, because I don’t *know* how fucking long they’ve kept me here, but before in the bar, my last few precious seconds of freedom, I knew they were coming. I could *feel* them coming for me, and only when I was thinking of you could I escape the sensations and warning blurring at me from the back of my mind, telling me what to do and what to say and what to *think*.
THEY’RE COMING, JACK-Y BOY. THEY’RE COMING, WE’RE COMING, TO GET YOU AND BRING YOU HOME… TO YOU’RE NEW HOME… WITH US…
They told me to pick up the chair I was sitting on, protect myself, save myself from the evil that is the world I’m living in… And then they stopped, but only for a moment, the never-ceasing warnings on pause as They came to take me away…
And here I am, alone, as ever, walking backwards, with the voices ceased and silenced into a deafening quiet Abyss…
***
Today they came.
They should have knocked, they didn’t, though, and when they did come into my shitty little room, two men in white coats held a needle ready to sedate me if I did something… Maybe they thought I bite.
The first one, he told me his name was Fischer. Just Fischer. Unlike the other two, he’s wearing a suit instead of a lab coat. “Colonel Jack O’Neill… We need to talk…” He had them bring me a chair and a table, with a glass of water sitting on it. I asked him at what cost I gained these luxuries, and he told me he wanted to talk with me. I looked at him, and suddenly we were the only people in the room. Glancing at the clipboard in his hand, Fish Face spoke softly. “Experiment number 2301, subject A-13, room 76…” Reading the rest of the list in a contorted silence, he stared at me. “You’re resistant.” He came closer to me. “We can change all this, Colonel, we can change this so you don’t have to be their experiment…” “Don’t give me that shit. I’ve been you’re guinea pig since that day on P3X276 when you place that God damned fucking thing in my head.” Not taken back by my rather colourful language, Fish Man went on. “Oh. You know about that… Well, I’ve been hearing about this pretty blue-eyed blonde you like…” That’s all it took. “What do you want?” I asked, almost spitting in his face. “You know what I want Colonel.” There was silence. “I know you know, Jack. It’s in you’re head, all the time, that voice in you’re head… It won’t stop telling you words you don’t want to hear. But you know what, buddy, you may not wanna hear it, but it’s the truth. And for that, I’m sorry.” He came closer to me. “I know you know, 2301, because I know *you*.” I just nodded my head. He was right. “We need you, Colonel. And if you agree to co-operate, I can leave you’re past untouched, and you can stop being their guinea pig.” “I do what you want me to do, and you don’t nobody gets hurt?” He smiled a shit-eating grin. “As long as you don’t do anything to aggravate the situation, yes…” “But.” He gave me a strange look. “There’s always a but,” I added, half sarcastically. “But…” He began. There was a pause. “If you want to do this, Colonel, you have to forget.” “What if I don’t want to do this?” Fischer gave me a look of self-amusement “You don’t have a choice. You have to decide. You have to forget.” “You mean everything? How the Hell could I – ” Lifting a small, black bag and opening it, Fischer picked up two gel capsules. “Take the red pill, and you forget. Everything.” He placed the object next to a glass of water. “However, take the blue pill, you remember. Everything. And go back to the Abyss… Then, maybe, we take you to the Greylands. Maybe.” He placed this one on the other side of the glass. Remember everything and go back to the sensory deprivation tank – where they could use Sam and everyone I’ve ever loved against me. Back their computer games, and being stuck inside the program with no way out… Fischer was wrong, though. I had choices, as shitty as they may seem, but choices none the less. Although, I suppose, in a way he was right. I had to make a decision, and I really had no choice which decision I made. It was live forgetting or live remembering, and I he knew which one I’d choose.
Slowly picking up the glass of water, Fischer gave me another shit-eating grin as I swallowed the red capsule. “You’re a good boy, Johnny.” Before I had a chance to correct him, the room went a cliché of black colours, and Dorothy wasn’t in Kansas any more.
~FINI~
Again, awards of chocolate Colonel and sunshine smiles and a friendly reminder to pretty please send me feedback ;p
Copyright © Aenea67 2001
Story Notes: Summer Breeze 01: EMAIL: aenea67@hotmail.com
SPOILERS: Entity, Divide and Conquer, The First Commandment
SEASON: Around the end of season four.
CONTENT WARNING: There’s a few bad words here and there, but nothing graphic, a little itsy-bitsy mention of Jack whumping, but nothing else.
ARCHIVE: SJA yes, Heliopolis yes, anyone who wants it can have it, just email me first. And I’ll quite happily email you the Prologue if you want.
FEEDBACK: Yes, yes, yes, yes please! This is only my second fic, and I’d love to know what you think of it.
AUTHOR’S NOTES: Okay, before you read this you should really read the prologue, Fallen Embers, before you read this, (not that the prologue made much sense, but it hopefully will eventually). I’d like to dedicate this story to the Amanda Tapping – hail the Goddess of Sunshine Smiles – for being such an inspiration: without even knowing it you gave me this story, and for that I am truly thankful.
Apologies and much grovelling for this taking so long to come out – High school’s taken up a large portion of my time ;p By the way, // = song and ~~ === means flashbacks
SPOILERS: Entity, Divide and Conquer, The First Commandment
SEASON: Around the end of season four.
CONTENT WARNING: There’s a few bad words here and there, but nothing graphic, a little itsy-bitsy mention of Jack whumping, but nothing else.
ARCHIVE: SJA yes, Heliopolis yes, anyone who wants it can have it, just email me first. And I’ll quite happily email you the Prologue if you want.
FEEDBACK: Yes, yes, yes, yes please! This is only my second fic, and I’d love to know what you think of it.
AUTHOR’S NOTES: Okay, before you read this you should really read the prologue, Fallen Embers, before you read this, (not that the prologue made much sense, but it hopefully will eventually). I’d like to dedicate this story to the Amanda Tapping – hail the Goddess of Sunshine Smiles – for being such an inspiration: without even knowing it you gave me this story, and for that I am truly thankful.
Apologies and much grovelling for this taking so long to come out – High school’s taken up a large portion of my time ;p By the way, // = song and ~~ === means flashbacks
DISCLAIMER: All publicly recognisable characters, settings, etc, are the property of their respective owners. Any original characters and plots are the property of the author. No money is being made from this work. No copyright infringement is intended. ... [ read more ]