Title: Dislocated People
Author: livlovesyou
Email: freshklouds@hotmail.com
Rating: R (NC17 maybe)
Summary: "When she thinks hard nothing connects"
Classifications: Angst, SJ (kinda), Violence
Spoilers: None
Archive: SJD, yes
Disclaimer: Don't sue me. I never claimed to own them.
Content Warning: Violence and implications of a sexual nature.
Author's Note: Urm. Weird fic. Happiness and good things to Sue, Puk, Sarae and Josie.
DISLOCATED PEOPLE
They found her running three weeks after he had been taken away. Running too fast and too hard for direction to matter. In the end they just waited for her to fall.
She tried. She tried so hard not to be found, to keep a promise, and honour a vow.
He ordered her not to come for him. Though later she would try and tell herself that it wasn't a plea. That it was necessary and that there really hadn't been hope.
She watched an execution. She watched more then he would have let her.
Occasionally she thinks he shouldn't pretend that she didn't see them hurt him, because she did. But she tries not to. He says it's the little things, like the way the sun looks through a window when you're a kid or pretending you can't feel pain when the bleeding doesn't stop, that give him the strength to live. So mostly, she lets him.
At the end he'd said it had been an honour serving with her and she didn't need to pretend to believe him.
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Daniel and Teal'c are kept separate from her. She's put in a cell with grey walls, grey dust, grey light, grey hope. Her clothes have been taken but that's not really why she's cold. She sits and stares. Maybe they'll let them go home, maybe they won't. She stares more. A guard with a left eye slightly too small enters the cell. Somehow she knows this is wrong before she remembers the guided tour and the no contact policy, back from a time when the world wasn't grey. The lump rising in her throat is justified. He moves towards her and when she goes to stand he pushes her back down. She's on her knees when his trousers fall to the ground and her head is pulled towards him. She bites him hard and in return she's hit with a bar across the back of her neck. The guard kicks her and she's sick before her vision fails. It's not so strange to be be left to the darkness.
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The 'gate closes behind them.
There are people waiting for them. Familiar people, with faces that smile and look concerned all at once. Something isn't right, though. It's obvious to everyone else because there is a gap where a fourth member should be. But to her, she's not so sure. She can see him; she just wonders why everyone else can't. So something is wrong. She wishes she could remember it all. Instead, she just feels it.
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// Apparently, I'm suffering from stress. Apparently, this is standard. Apparently, I'm allowed to feel all of this. Apparently, I've had a tough time and this is all to be expected. Apparently, it's hard to loose someone close.
Apparently, it isn't so normal to see a dead man sitting at the table opposite.
Dead man. Dead woman. I guess that's why we see each other.//
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They've been given clearance to return. Hammond isn't happy about it, but then why should he be. It's all about the naquada, the money, the safety of the planet and then the money some more. No Teal'c or Daniel though, just Carter and a diplomatic team. Carter says that this is stupid. Daniel is the diplomatic team, but the Ansirian authorities have specifically requested that Teal'c and Daniel do not return. It appears that the situation is so delicate and the naquada so needed that such minor indiscretions can be overlooked. Still, Hammond doesn't know it isn't all about the naquada. She is certain that there is something more, that she's going to bring home someone she lost a long time ago, find the person she left behind. She won't tell anyone though; just like she doesn't tell anyone about the way he sits and watches her when she works, when she's nervous. They'd say she's unfit for duty and then she'd never find him again. They would be right. And she'll never find him. He's lost forever.
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The grass is crunchy under their feet. This isn't really surprising. It's been a long summer. They sit on the swings and watch a family play ball together in the sun. It's a Saturday. They remind themselves, as they watch the game that this is why they do what they do. Sometimes, they need reminding, that's all.
Carter walks over to them. She is wearing a dress and black sunglasses; though it's warm it's not really bright. She's holding three cones and she sits next to them, handing over the ice cream, keeping the chocolate one for herself. They stay a while longer, then one of them starts swinging and the others laugh and join in. Carter complains they have an unfair trouser-ed advantage. They laugh at her too. It feels odd. Not to be swinging, but to be laughing.
Carter will go through the gate tomorrow for the Colonel. Then, she tells herself, it won't be just the three of them anymore.
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Gate, ground, emptiness, pathway, crowd, clearing, people, memories, dust, grey cells, an execution, alien smells, little child, tiny flowers, stalls for trading, gate a distance away, home further.
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She's been standing here too long.
She knows this. She doesn't think she can move. It might not be possible any more. Perhaps movement is something that can come and go, just as it pleases. Maybe it's got nothing to with the fact that she just doesn't want to.
//Stop. Don't Stop. Stop. Don't cry.//
Once, when she was quite little, she wondered that maybe, if she stood in the same place for long enough and never moved that maybe, just maybe the world would stop moving too. She's still not sure that it wouldn't.
//MOVE CARTER. DON'T THINK. MOVE.//
She thinks that nothing in this world is going to move her. That if they picked her up and carried her away that even still she'd be standing here; in essence, in spirit, in thought, in mind, in soul. It's just easier to be here in person, that's all.
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He spots her in the crowd, a face he'd never forget. She's standing so still for a moment she doesn't quite seem real. There's a group of them but she's stopped to buy flowers from a dirty kid. He watches her walk over to a wall the far end of the square and dart down quickly to leave them against the hard metal. The rest of her group have moved away, too far away and if they had known about the danger then they would have kept her close, but they didn't and they move on. He realises now that there's something odd about the way she is smiling and he thinks he can see a shadow move just to the side of her. She turns around and he's caught in her view. His stomach tightens as her eyes reach his face and then his one good eye. The smile is gone.
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//Ever so quiet. Ever so quiet. Shhh. Softly, softly Sam. Sleep cold. Sleep cold. Pain. Ever so hot. Ever so quiet. Sleep now, Sam. Ever so sweet. Pain. Ever so quiet.//
Hot fingers forced into her cheek, eyes blazing white fear, bitter fluid streaming from her hair as a hand presses her against the wall. Brilliant fever soars, screaming through her writhing, gasping body. His breath in her ear, his hip slammed against hers, keeping her pinned. Red hatred creeping, creeping, choking her as his liquid slick hand stifles her screams and crushes a fleeting glimpse of hope.
//Ever so quiet Sam, ever so quiet.//
The knife was there, silver, cold and cruel. She watches the spittle form at the corner of his lips as he draws the blade across her wrist.
//Slowly Sam, ever so slowly.//
He's going to hurt her. He's going to make her cry. He's going to make her wish she'd never let a smile slip across her lips or let words tumble from her mouth. He's going to show her how it was wrong of her to ever draw breath. She's going to hurt now. She's going to want to be saved. She's going to wish for an angel. She's going to want to die.
Now it's a game. Make her cry, make her scream. Methodical, take your time, make her cry, make her scream white pain.
//Pain. Ever so hot. Ever so quiet//
Bile rises in her throat as she watches a smile spread across his face as her back arches against the wall. His right eye glints as the knife drags slowly across her lower back, sweat gathers across his brow. Taking no heed she feels his breath grow shallower, his pulse race. Repulsed she kicks him hard but her neck receives the full burden of his newly acquired anger. Peachy clear skin is now flicked with tears, mucus and her free flowing blood. Closing her eyes, she dreams of an angel to take her away from the wall, from him, from the white, white pain.
//Softly, softly Sam. Shh. Ever so, ever so quiet.//
There's a light dancing and the pain is dim. Behind a glaze of honey and heat she can still see a man with a long knife pushing a blade into her. Keeping her quiet, making her scream. Then he's moving away and she watches her body fall limp against his leg. Head at a strange dislocated angle, stomach exposed, breasts bare, thighs apart and a deep red liquid seeping from her. She sees all this as she walks away.
//Softly, softly. Sleep now. Sleep.//
As she leaves the body, left for dead.
Ever so quiet, they'd said.
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This time she isn't running when they find her.
She thinks she's dead but maybe she's not. They have to check her tags to make sure it's her. It was the child that told them there was a body in the alley. He is crying. There is a lot of blood. If she could still talk she'd tell the boy that it's ok. That the part of her that mattered was put to death 5 months ago in the market square less than a minute walk around the corner. Then she realises that the boy doesn't want to know that. What he wants is for this mess, this person he has found to go back to being the woman he saw just an hour earlier. The one who smiled at him and gave him a bar of sickly sweet food substance for a tiny bunch of flowers. Men in black coats lift her and slowly she falls asleep again.
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// I dreamt that I followed you home that night in May, while a silent moon threw the world into half-light. Lengthening shadows pulling at dreams, casting hollows under your eyes that weren't there last time I saw you, bringing out my monsters, tugging heavy eyelids of light limbed children to sleep, drowning my world and your home in a twilight so deep even the fairies were scared to venture out, as the sun slid away.
Sometimes I wonder if you knew why I didn't know what else to do, why it seemed so important for me to know that you were there. I didn't mean to ever be seen, to be caught or to see more than I was allowed. I didn't mean to watch you cry or to stand there and explain. I didn't want to be entranced by the silver tears tracing wet paths down your flushed cheeks or to be reduced to tears myself as you let me walk away.
That night, I'd only meant to check that you were real, not a heart breaking revelation, mind concocted, soul-induced angel to ease the pain. Apparently, you weren't. You're dead. //
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When she thinks hard nothing connects. Memories fall and glide but never break the surface. She sees a silent movie, a collection of stills that look pretty and hurt somewhere but she's not sure exactly. When she dreams it's all too alive. Colour hurts and sound makes her cry.
Sometimes they let her near a window and she gazes for ages looking for people she might recognise. Eventually they know it will just upset her. Ever since she's been back on Earth it's been easier to keep her sleeping. So she sleeps a lot. And the dreams make her cry but the nurses convince themselves that crying asleep is probably less painful than being conscience and aware. But they don't really know Sam Carter. None of them did. That's probably the only reason she'll forgive them.
-fini-
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