Yeah, I wrote Carly, Sam, and Freddie into a ST:TOS episode. Who hasn't wanted to?
iFound an Empath
by Helen W. (with apologies to Joyce Muskat)
It wasn't the being in Carly's room one minute, in some sort of dungeon the next, that really freaked Sam out. It was the freaky dancey lady.
And the big-headed alien dudes, they were pretty freaky too; but they came a little later.
Of course the lady didn't dance around at first; she just sat on a heap of pillows and batted her eyes at them. Perfectly-made-up eyes on a perfectly-made-up face beneath an odd-but-probably-perfect-in-someone's-book head of hair. Radiating silence. (Sam would have preferred to have used a shorter word than 'radiating' - even in her brain, she hated to waste syllables - but nothing else seemed to fit.)
"Do you think she brought us here?" Carly asked.
"Maybe," said Freddie, rubbing at a nasty scratch to his forehead. Typical Freddie, couldn't even get magically transported to a dungeon without banging himself up.
(At least it seemed like a dungeon. It felt DEEP and silent. On the other hand, there was plenty of light, though Sam couldn't figure out where it was coming from. Very odd; but, really, Sam knew zilch about dungeons, so maybe that was normal.)
Freddie took a step or two toward the lady and asked, "Hi there... uh can you tell us what's going on?"
The lady kind of recoiled (another word Sam would have preferred not to have used, but there it was), which, this being Freddie speaking, wasn't TOTALLY inexplicable (guh, another vocabulary word!). But then Carly said, "It's okay, we won't hurt you - well, me and Freddie won't hurt you," and the lady was even more recoily and NOBODY was scared of Carly, so something was definitely off.
(Well, the whole thing was off, but being scared of Carly was OFF-off.)
"That's a pretty dress," Carly said in her best calming-mad-cats voice, and Sam had to agree - if you liked sequins, it was a decent set of threads. "I like the way it's, like, got gems sewn in. Isn't it nice, Freddie?"
"Yes," said Freddie, shooting a does-she-have-to-be-Carly-HERE glance at Sam. "It's a very nice dress and very nice gem stones. Why don't we call her Gem?"
"Yes, that's very nice," said Carly, still all sing-songy. "Gem's a very nice name."
The lady didn't look so scared now; more curious. She got up and kind of glide-danced around them (which is when she became the freaky dancey lady in Sam's mind).
"This is odd " said Freddie the Obvious.
And then two big-headed aliens in glisteny-silver robes popped into their dungeon. Carly squealed; Freddie said, "Hey!"; and Gem danced down into a ball on the floor.
Since running away probably wouldn't work, Sam approached the big-heads, albeit a little slowly. "Dudes!" she said, "I'm thinking you saw our web show out in space! And you thought we were good examples of humans, and you wanted to check us out, and here we are! Great! Ex-cel-lan-te! Now let us go before I brain you!"
In retrospect, ending with the threat probably hadn't been the way to go, because the next thing Sam new she was encased in a blue force field. Immobilized, really. Just friggin' great.
"Do not struggle," said one of the aliens in perfect English. "The field draws energy from your body."
"Yeah, why am I not surprised," said Sam, giving the force field one more totally ineffectual micro-shove.
Then the force field, and the aliens, vanished.
"Well, that seemed totally pointless," said Freddie.
"They seemed nice " said Carly
But Gem clearly didn't seem to think so. She cowered and shook.
"Hey, it's okay," said Freddie. "There are four of us here now, not just you."
He knelt down and covered her hands with his, then slowly stood up, pulling Gem with him. She smiled shyly, lifted a hand to where Freddie's scratch was trying to bubble out blood, and the weirdest thing happened. The same scratch, complete with bodily fluid leakage, appeared on her forehead, then both of their foreheads healed simultaneously. More than healed; it was like the scratches had never been there.
"Uhhh... what did she just do?" asked Freddie. "My head doesn't hurt anymore."
"Uhhh... I don't know," said almost-straight-A Carly. "But your wound's gone."
"Thank you," said Freddie to Gem. "That's pretty amazing, that you can do that."
"There's a word for that," said Sam. "What's it called when you can feel what someone else is feeling. It's not sympathy "
"Empathy," said Carly.
"Gem's a freaky dancey mute empath," decided Sam.
"Sums her up nicely, yes," said Freddie.
So they took a hike, all four of them, and managed to walk in a big circle. Then they did it again. Then they got it into their heads to climb up a side passage that sloped, like, sixty degrees upward and landed them back where they'd started.
"How long are we going to keep this up?" Sam asked.
"Well, we have to do something," said Carly.
"Gem's getting tired," Freddie said, and Sam realized he was right.
"Empathy for an empath," said Carly. "That's kind of cute."
"It's not cu..." said Freddie, and then he and Gem disappeared.
Which was really frightening, because up until then, yeah, they'd been in serious something-or-the-other, but at least they'd been together.
Carly looked like she felt the same way. "It's okay," said Sam, "I'm sure they're not going to be, you know, tortured."
Famous last words.
Twenty minutes later, Freddie and Gem were beamed back to them, Gem still looking fresh as a daisy. But Freddie - Sam was going to kill the sons of bitches who'd hurt him, oh yeah.
Carly squealed "Freddie!" and joined Gem kneeling at his side on the ground, but Sam started walking a wide circle around the other three, peering into the shadows. They were being watched, she knew it.
"Why did they do this!" Carly asked. "What did they want?"
"I don't know," said Freddie. "They said they wanted Gem to see my strength of will. But I would have told them whatever they'd asked, if they'd asked it. They never did."
"It was sufficient." A big-headed alien had appeared on the other side of the chamber. Good, he was scared of her! (Maybe.) Sam turned and charged, and was suddenly caught in the force field. Again.
"She has observed your friendship, your strength, your ability to work together toward a common goal," said the alien.
Gem reached toward Freddie and touched the side of his head, his neck, his shoulder. "Do it," coaxed Carly as Gem hesitated between touches. "Heal him."
But apparently it wasn't that simple. Gem gave a small cry and keeled over.
The force field, along with the aliens, vanished, and Sam darted to them.
"This is so stupid! And mean!" said Carly as she stroked the side of Freddie's head and stared at Gem the no-longer-dancing heap. "Why did the aliens have to be stupid and mean?"
Freddie, who seemed to be soaking in the Carly love, coughed, with maybe a bit more feeling than the moment required. "Don't let her do that again," he said. "Don't let Gem hurt herself more."
"Aren't you brave," Sam said.
"Shut up," he said. "It's clearly what they want. Don't give them the satisfaction."
Gem stirred and sat again, just as the big-headed aliens re-re-reappeared. Sam decided to sit tight, avoid the force field for a change.
"Choose one of you for our purposes," said one of the aliens, "and the others may go."
"Including Gem?" asked Carly.
"She will be returned to her people," said the alien.
"To her weird dancey empath people? Okay then," said Carly, reminding Sam why she loved her.
"So I guess I'll go," said Carly. "They won't hurt me."
"No," said Freddie as he sat swaying kinda-sorta, "I'm the guy, it should be me. Besides, I know I can take it."
"Like hell," said Sam, and she took off down the corridor, calling "Here I am, you freakazoids!"
The next thing she knew, Sam was swinging by her arms while the big-headed people shot some sort of invisible beam at her that hurt like hell. She screamed, then lost time completely.
And then, Carly and Freddie were there, Freddie lifting her up so that her arms wouldn't hurt so much, while Carly figured out how to lower her.
There wasn't much pain once she was lying on the floor - not more than after a good fist-fight - but there was a wrongness, a fuzziness to things.
"Oh, Sam!" said Carly, lifting her up; Sam could breath well enough to cough now, and she did, but it didn't help. "Freddie, what are we going to do?"
"I don't know," said Freddie, "she really doesn't look very good. I don't think there's anything we can do."
"No, but SHE can," said Carly, and Sam knew she meant Gem.
"No, we can't ask her " said Freddie.
"Not heal Sam all-the-way," said Carly, "just strengthen her a little. Just a little."
Sam coughed again and rolled away from Carly, trying to find a position she could breath in. This time it was Freddie who caught her and held her on her side; she could get air into her lungs now! Damn, but Freddie actually knew what he was doing. "Easy, Sam," he said. "We're here with you. We're in this together."
"Damn right," Sam said; that got her coughing again, and still Freddie braced her, now rubbing her back.
"You'll take care of Carly?" she asked, and Freddie, showing great sense by not saying anything stupid about how she was going to be all right, squeezed her hand.
"You're good at this, Fredward," she had to say, and the back-rubbing paused for long enough for him to bat the back of her head. She was going to miss him and Carly so much!
"How about it, Gem?" she heard Carly saying; then, "Freddie, I'm going to drag her over here, see what happens."
"No. You must not interfere. It must be her decision, or all this is for naught." It was one of the big-headed aliens now, though Sam couldn't see him; couldn't see much of anything, truth be told.
"All this!" said Carly, getting screechy again. "What purpose can there possibly be to this? To killing a-a-a little girl!"
"The only purpose we have," said the alien. "The preservation of Gem's people."
Heh, they were using Freddie's name for the freaky dancey lady! Score one for humanity!
"The sun in her system is approaching the state you call nova," said the alien. "There are five sentient species on planets in her system, and we have the ability to save only one. If we are to save Gem's people, we must be absolutely certain they are worthy."
"How will letting Sam die prove anything?" asked Carly.
"It will not; but Gem's willingness to give her life for your friend will. You have been her teachers. You have shown her what it means to want to live, to sacrifice for each other."
This really made no sense. The empath people didn't have empathy? How was that for ironic.
And then Gem touched her, and the darkness lifted a little.
Wow.
"She's placing herself at risk!" said one of the aliens. "She is developing compassion! A tremendous advance for her people!"
Though if the dead-weight thump was anything to go buy, Sam mused, it wasn't such a great advance for Gem herself. "Keep her away from me," Sam said as loudly as she could. "She's proven she'd heal me!"
Again Sam felt The Touch; this time, she rolled away, though it took all her strength.
"See! Gem would save Sam if Sam let her!" said Freddie. "You can't demand more than that."
"If you only understand death," said Carly, "well, fine. Kill me too, and Freddie while you're at it. All of us for Gem's planet. Would that make you happy?"
Then something happened, and Sam felt, well, fine and dandy. And then they were back in Carly's room.
As were Spencer and Gibby; it looked like they'd been tossing the place, looking for clues to their disappearance probably.
"What! Carly! Sam! Freddie!" It was nice to see Spencer was as articulate as ever.
"Wait, before we get all huggie " said Carly, "What if one of the species that's going to NOT get saved because of what we just did is made up of cute bunny people? Did we just doom cute bunny people to a firey death?"
"Less freaky cute bunny people?" asked Freddie. "You have a point. But I'm not asking for a do-over."
No, indeedy, no, thought Sam.
* * * THE END * * *