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More String Theory: An AU Series
Dr. Samantha Carter joins the SGC and discovers a life she never expected.
Action/Adventure, Drama, Angst, Romance, S/J
Teen: language and violence
Ficlet 32- Psychosomatic Fugue
“Her.”
The finger lifts reluctantly, attached to a quivering arm adorned with a fine sheen of terror. The others shift in front of Sam as if to protect her from the damnation that one gesture represents.
She never knew, before, that fear has a scent. The crowded cell is filled with it, a pungent musk like a slap to the face.
She tries to stand, but her legs refuse to comply.
* * *
The first thing Sam registers is the pain that seems to have taken up permanent residence in her body. She can remember the exact location of each application of the vicious weapon the Jaffa had used on her. It will fade, she’s been reassured. And here, how about some morphine? Neither do much to temper the pain, real or remembered.
The second thing Sam registers is that Jack is sitting in a chair by the side of her bed. His head rests on his fist and from his slow even breaths she thinks he must be asleep. She tries to feel embarrassment for the way she had clung to him, but the only emotion she can muster is almost dizzying gratitude.
You’re safe now, Sam. You’re safe.
Part of her still doesn’t believe it.
Jack’s other hand rests on the edge of her bed and she is overwhelmed by the need to feel the solidity of his skin, the surety of his flesh. Her hand lifts to hover over his, but at the last second she rethinks, reminding herself that she gave up the comforts of this man. Before she can pull away, his fingers leap up and grab hers, his eyes sliding open smoothly enough to make her suspect that he’d never really been asleep to begin with.
She lets her hand sink into his, feeling warmth slide up her arm at the contact and tries not to think about how they’ve suddenly switched roles. She wonders if she should smile and make lame jokes, but she doesn’t want to pretend.
“I told them things,” she confesses.
“It’s okay,” he automatically answers.
“Is it?”
“Everyone breaks. That’s the point.”
“Did you?” she asks, her eyes sliding across the phantom streaks that have long since faded from his skin. She figures he’s not hers to lose anymore so she doesn’t have to play by the old convoluted rules.
Jack leans back in his chair, straining the connection between their hands. She digs her fingers in, but he doesn’t seem inclined to leave the room any more than he is to answer her question.
“Reynolds didn’t,” she observes.
“He’s trained to resist,” Jack says and she assumes he is answering for himself as well.
“Yeah. I guess so,” she says with a humorless laugh. “It’s funny that the one thing I can’t forget is that Reynolds let them do that to me. He was trained not to break, and so they broke me instead. And he just hung there and watched, keeping his secrets by letting me spill mine. Do they train you to do that as well?”
She knows she sounds a little hysterical, but she just can’t shake the image of Reynolds placidly watching her scream. Jack’s jaw is now set, his throat tightening in his effort to hide whatever emotions he might be feeling. Anger? Pity? Annoyance? She has no way of knowing.
“Is it strange that I can forgive Dr. Stevens for betraying me? It’s a weakness I understand, but Reynolds... He let them do that to me and I still told them everything just to save his life. I suppose if I was trained I would have just let him die.”
Jack is still sitting motionless as if her words aren’t reaching him.
“Could you have done that?” she asks, her fingers clenching around his.
She waits for Jack to answer, needs the answer. She’s never asked anything of him before, not really, but she pleads with him to give her this one small thing. Some form of understanding that might let her live with it.
“Sam,” he says heavily, running one hand through his hair in obvious agitation, the first visible crack in his façade.
She’s almost convinced he’ll say something else when he abruptly pushes to his feet, squeezing her hand in his before setting it carefully back down on the sheets.
He doesn’t say anything else and she doesn’t push him to.
After everything, he still can’t talk to her.
* * *
She screams, sounds tearing out of her throat that she never knew could be produced by a human being. The Jaffa’s face is serene at the other end of her pain, unmoved by her agony, content in his faith. There’s a strange comfort to be found in that terrible tranquility.
* * *
Julia comes to visit once, sitting silently.
There are a lot of things they should be talking about. The world they started building together that is now little more than ashes. The people they have lost. A miracle in the form of a tiny syringe. The fact that everything that happened to Sam could have just as easily happened to Julia if their last conversation had gone a little differently.
Sam feels guilty that she wishes it had been Julia instead. Julia probably suspects that but isn’t enough of a hypocrite to tell her it’s okay. She doesn’t offer empty encouragements for a quick recovery or words of understanding from someone who can’t possibly understand. She just sits, letting the heavy weight of silence speak for them.
Too many things to say and no words skilled enough to express them.
After fifteen minutes, Julia stands up. Just before she disappears around the curtain, she pauses. “The problem with running,” she says, “is knowing when to stop.”
She’s gone before Sam can respond.
* * *
It’s the weight of the other gaze that rips against her skin. If only he would look away, even for a moment. But just as he wouldn’t speak in her stead, neither will he comply in this one thing.
She’s drowning in his silence.
* * *
Her fingernail is broken.
Daniel, mysteriously back from the dead thanks to a sarcophagus and a well timed trip through Klorel’s Stargate, sits on the foot of Sam’s bed. He’d returned before she even knew she was supposed to be mourning him.
“You should have seen everyone’s faces when they realized we now have a working mother ship in our possession,” Daniel says. “I don’t know who was more excited, Dr. Lee or Colonel Maybourne.”
Sam feels her face curve into the expected smile at the image of Pentagon officials fighting with scientists over tearing the ship to bits just to see how it works. But her attention is still riveted on the frayed edge of her fingernail. She wonders when she had done that. Why are the other nine still perfect little crescents? It seems that with everything that happened, they should look more ragged.
“Janet said she’s ready to let you out of here tomorrow,” Daniel says.
Sam nods. What had she broken that nail on? And how? When she was pulling things out of the safe on the Beta Site? Or had Sek and his Jaffa done it? Maybe she’d torn it pulling the syringe from where it sat hidden under layers of fabric.
Maybe when two intertwined beings lay in front of her, dead by her own hand.
“Have you made an appointment with Dr. MacKenzie yet?” Daniel asks, watching her with eyes that see far too much.
Sam is shaking her head before he finishes the question. She’ll take the pills, do the physical therapy, but she has no intention of talking with a complete stranger about...anything.
“You can’t start working again until he clears you,” Daniel reminds her.
Sam runs her jagged nail down the sheet, feeling it snag and pull against the thin fabric. “It doesn’t matter.”
Maybe it never had.
* * *
She becomes convinced over the next relentless series of moments that his gaze is the thing that breaks her.
* * *
Daniel pushes her wheelchair slowly down the hallway and Sam watches the grey walls slide by, wondering if this is the last time she will ever see them. She thinks of the first day she came here, cautiously optimistic with the hum of naquadah under her fingers. She knows now what it feels like to be tossed into the tempestuous belly of a wormhole. The cold metal of guns and the tang of blood are far too recognizable. She’s done the impossible over and over again, but she spends the length of the hall trying to remember the scent of rising bread.
She killed a god.
Everything is just too ridiculous for words and she has to fight back hysterical laughter. Daniel is asking her something but all she can see are the approaching elevator doors. Faster, faster, she thinks, not sure if she is racing towards something or away.
Daniel swings the chair around to pull her into the elevator and there, standing calmly at the end of the hall, is Jack. Arms crossed, face implacable, but he’s there. Staring. She feels tears rising, threatening her resolve at the thought of his steady fingers tightly wrapped around her own.
So much she would like to say, to ask. But all she can do is hold his gaze as the doors slowly slide shut, severing the connection.
“Daniel?” she asks.
“Yeah?”
“Do you think you could take me to the airport?”
He pauses, his hand coming down to rest on her shoulder. “Of course.”
* * *
I’ll tell you anything.
* * *
Sam shows up on her parents’ doorstep unannounced, unstable on a walking cast and face livid with bruises.
Elizabeth pulls Sam down into a warm hug, exclaiming over her injuries. The arm of her mother’s wheelchair cuts into Sam’s ribs but she doesn’t pull away from the embrace. She inhales deeply, breathing in the familiar mix of her mother’s perfume and the salty Atlantic air, wishing she was ten years old again and absolutely certain that her parents could keep her safe from anything.
From behind Elizabeth, Jacob takes one look at Sam and says, “What the hell have you gotten yourself into now?”
Sam doesn’t bother to reply. There’s no more fight left in her.
* * *
Please, God. Just make it stop.
next
Dr. Samantha Carter joins the SGC and discovers a life she never expected.
Action/Adventure, Drama, Angst, Romance, S/J
Teen: language and violence
Ficlet 32- Psychosomatic Fugue
“Her.”
The finger lifts reluctantly, attached to a quivering arm adorned with a fine sheen of terror. The others shift in front of Sam as if to protect her from the damnation that one gesture represents.
She never knew, before, that fear has a scent. The crowded cell is filled with it, a pungent musk like a slap to the face.
She tries to stand, but her legs refuse to comply.
* * *
The first thing Sam registers is the pain that seems to have taken up permanent residence in her body. She can remember the exact location of each application of the vicious weapon the Jaffa had used on her. It will fade, she’s been reassured. And here, how about some morphine? Neither do much to temper the pain, real or remembered.
The second thing Sam registers is that Jack is sitting in a chair by the side of her bed. His head rests on his fist and from his slow even breaths she thinks he must be asleep. She tries to feel embarrassment for the way she had clung to him, but the only emotion she can muster is almost dizzying gratitude.
You’re safe now, Sam. You’re safe.
Part of her still doesn’t believe it.
Jack’s other hand rests on the edge of her bed and she is overwhelmed by the need to feel the solidity of his skin, the surety of his flesh. Her hand lifts to hover over his, but at the last second she rethinks, reminding herself that she gave up the comforts of this man. Before she can pull away, his fingers leap up and grab hers, his eyes sliding open smoothly enough to make her suspect that he’d never really been asleep to begin with.
She lets her hand sink into his, feeling warmth slide up her arm at the contact and tries not to think about how they’ve suddenly switched roles. She wonders if she should smile and make lame jokes, but she doesn’t want to pretend.
“I told them things,” she confesses.
“It’s okay,” he automatically answers.
“Is it?”
“Everyone breaks. That’s the point.”
“Did you?” she asks, her eyes sliding across the phantom streaks that have long since faded from his skin. She figures he’s not hers to lose anymore so she doesn’t have to play by the old convoluted rules.
Jack leans back in his chair, straining the connection between their hands. She digs her fingers in, but he doesn’t seem inclined to leave the room any more than he is to answer her question.
“Reynolds didn’t,” she observes.
“He’s trained to resist,” Jack says and she assumes he is answering for himself as well.
“Yeah. I guess so,” she says with a humorless laugh. “It’s funny that the one thing I can’t forget is that Reynolds let them do that to me. He was trained not to break, and so they broke me instead. And he just hung there and watched, keeping his secrets by letting me spill mine. Do they train you to do that as well?”
She knows she sounds a little hysterical, but she just can’t shake the image of Reynolds placidly watching her scream. Jack’s jaw is now set, his throat tightening in his effort to hide whatever emotions he might be feeling. Anger? Pity? Annoyance? She has no way of knowing.
“Is it strange that I can forgive Dr. Stevens for betraying me? It’s a weakness I understand, but Reynolds... He let them do that to me and I still told them everything just to save his life. I suppose if I was trained I would have just let him die.”
Jack is still sitting motionless as if her words aren’t reaching him.
“Could you have done that?” she asks, her fingers clenching around his.
She waits for Jack to answer, needs the answer. She’s never asked anything of him before, not really, but she pleads with him to give her this one small thing. Some form of understanding that might let her live with it.
“Sam,” he says heavily, running one hand through his hair in obvious agitation, the first visible crack in his façade.
She’s almost convinced he’ll say something else when he abruptly pushes to his feet, squeezing her hand in his before setting it carefully back down on the sheets.
He doesn’t say anything else and she doesn’t push him to.
After everything, he still can’t talk to her.
* * *
She screams, sounds tearing out of her throat that she never knew could be produced by a human being. The Jaffa’s face is serene at the other end of her pain, unmoved by her agony, content in his faith. There’s a strange comfort to be found in that terrible tranquility.
* * *
Julia comes to visit once, sitting silently.
There are a lot of things they should be talking about. The world they started building together that is now little more than ashes. The people they have lost. A miracle in the form of a tiny syringe. The fact that everything that happened to Sam could have just as easily happened to Julia if their last conversation had gone a little differently.
Sam feels guilty that she wishes it had been Julia instead. Julia probably suspects that but isn’t enough of a hypocrite to tell her it’s okay. She doesn’t offer empty encouragements for a quick recovery or words of understanding from someone who can’t possibly understand. She just sits, letting the heavy weight of silence speak for them.
Too many things to say and no words skilled enough to express them.
After fifteen minutes, Julia stands up. Just before she disappears around the curtain, she pauses. “The problem with running,” she says, “is knowing when to stop.”
She’s gone before Sam can respond.
* * *
It’s the weight of the other gaze that rips against her skin. If only he would look away, even for a moment. But just as he wouldn’t speak in her stead, neither will he comply in this one thing.
She’s drowning in his silence.
* * *
Her fingernail is broken.
Daniel, mysteriously back from the dead thanks to a sarcophagus and a well timed trip through Klorel’s Stargate, sits on the foot of Sam’s bed. He’d returned before she even knew she was supposed to be mourning him.
“You should have seen everyone’s faces when they realized we now have a working mother ship in our possession,” Daniel says. “I don’t know who was more excited, Dr. Lee or Colonel Maybourne.”
Sam feels her face curve into the expected smile at the image of Pentagon officials fighting with scientists over tearing the ship to bits just to see how it works. But her attention is still riveted on the frayed edge of her fingernail. She wonders when she had done that. Why are the other nine still perfect little crescents? It seems that with everything that happened, they should look more ragged.
“Janet said she’s ready to let you out of here tomorrow,” Daniel says.
Sam nods. What had she broken that nail on? And how? When she was pulling things out of the safe on the Beta Site? Or had Sek and his Jaffa done it? Maybe she’d torn it pulling the syringe from where it sat hidden under layers of fabric.
Maybe when two intertwined beings lay in front of her, dead by her own hand.
“Have you made an appointment with Dr. MacKenzie yet?” Daniel asks, watching her with eyes that see far too much.
Sam is shaking her head before he finishes the question. She’ll take the pills, do the physical therapy, but she has no intention of talking with a complete stranger about...anything.
“You can’t start working again until he clears you,” Daniel reminds her.
Sam runs her jagged nail down the sheet, feeling it snag and pull against the thin fabric. “It doesn’t matter.”
Maybe it never had.
* * *
She becomes convinced over the next relentless series of moments that his gaze is the thing that breaks her.
* * *
Daniel pushes her wheelchair slowly down the hallway and Sam watches the grey walls slide by, wondering if this is the last time she will ever see them. She thinks of the first day she came here, cautiously optimistic with the hum of naquadah under her fingers. She knows now what it feels like to be tossed into the tempestuous belly of a wormhole. The cold metal of guns and the tang of blood are far too recognizable. She’s done the impossible over and over again, but she spends the length of the hall trying to remember the scent of rising bread.
She killed a god.
Everything is just too ridiculous for words and she has to fight back hysterical laughter. Daniel is asking her something but all she can see are the approaching elevator doors. Faster, faster, she thinks, not sure if she is racing towards something or away.
Daniel swings the chair around to pull her into the elevator and there, standing calmly at the end of the hall, is Jack. Arms crossed, face implacable, but he’s there. Staring. She feels tears rising, threatening her resolve at the thought of his steady fingers tightly wrapped around her own.
So much she would like to say, to ask. But all she can do is hold his gaze as the doors slowly slide shut, severing the connection.
“Daniel?” she asks.
“Yeah?”
“Do you think you could take me to the airport?”
He pauses, his hand coming down to rest on her shoulder. “Of course.”
* * *
I’ll tell you anything.
* * *
Sam shows up on her parents’ doorstep unannounced, unstable on a walking cast and face livid with bruises.
Elizabeth pulls Sam down into a warm hug, exclaiming over her injuries. The arm of her mother’s wheelchair cuts into Sam’s ribs but she doesn’t pull away from the embrace. She inhales deeply, breathing in the familiar mix of her mother’s perfume and the salty Atlantic air, wishing she was ten years old again and absolutely certain that her parents could keep her safe from anything.
From behind Elizabeth, Jacob takes one look at Sam and says, “What the hell have you gotten yourself into now?”
Sam doesn’t bother to reply. There’s no more fight left in her.
* * *
Please, God. Just make it stop.
next