Anamorphosis

Disclaimer: This is a fan production. I have no association with any of the folks or companies involved in producing 'Stargate: Atlantis' and I am making no profit off this bit of scribbling. I do, however, admire their work.

Warning: Some of you, I'm sure, are very devoted fans. Please forgive any errors I may make – I am not as familiar with SGA as I ought to be. This is not set at any particular time (though it is set earlier in the series...as I have actually never seen the later part) and it involves a lot of OC's.

It also involves the issue of rape – though I do not divulge any specific details, and may be discomforting to some readers. Please be aware of this. I am not entirely comfortable with this bit of fiction myself, as it was written unexpectedly in a furious emotional response to something I had read...and I do not wish to offend anyone. The characters may do or think things that seem inappropriate, but this is also a work of fiction and I am trying to contain a wide range of emotional responses.

Be gentle with me.

Anamorphosis

Part one

Lorne woke up. He was laying face down on a dirt floor.

What...?

Lorne woke up. He tried to get to his knees, but someone pressed him flat.

What the...?

Lorne woke up. Someone was panting like a bellows and his limbs were being yanked gracelessly in four directions.

What the fuck is...?

Lorne woke up.

"Oh my God. Oh my God. Oh my God." Someone was chanting hysterically.

Lorne's face was pressed against a warm shoulder that smelled like Atlantis soap. Lorne breathed deeply. His heart slowed and the strange, dull fog began to recede from his mind. He found the ground under his body.

"What... the fuck...is going on?"

Lorne woke up. His feet were dragging through the weeds, stumbling uselessly at the end of his boneless legs. His feet were bare. Why the Hell were his feet bare? Chatterton and Fox were dragging him between them. Lorne tried to get his feet under him.

"What...?"

"Stop helping." Chatterton growled. Fox aimed his gun and fired.

Lorne woke up.

"Awake, are we?"

Lorne rolled his head on his neck and blinked up at a nurse.

"How are you feeling?"

Lorne opened his mouth. The strangled, croaking noise he made shut him right back up. His mouth was as dry as the Gobi desert.

"I'll get you some ice chips," the nurse said, and disappeared from his sight.

There was a strange stain on the ceiling above his bed.

A hand touched his neck.

Lorne's body lurched halfway off the bed and he snapped at the woman like an animal before his conscious mind could form a single thought. She dropped the cup of ice chips and nearly went down on her ass. Her hand splayed protectively across her heart.

They both froze.

"Sorry," Lorne rasped after a moment. "Sorry. I don't...I don't know why I did that."

"Uh," the nurse crouched and swept the scattered ice into her little paper cup. "I'll just go get the doctor, shall I?" And she was on her feet and scurrying away from Lorne's hospital bed before Lorne could call "Wait!" at her retreating form.

Lorne huffed and pulled himself straight against the head board. His body let him know the movement wasn't appreciated. He ached all over. He looked down at his knobby knees sticking out at the hem of his hospital gown and smoothed the blanket self-consciously back into place. He must be on the good drugs. He felt strangely detached, as if his brain was floating above his body and peering out his eyes like binoculars.

"Well, Hell." Lorne told the stain on the ceiling.

"Major Lorne." Doctor Beckett said, and Lorne startled. "How are you feeling, lad?"

"I..." Lorne picked at the blanket. "Fine, I think. I'm not really sure. What happened?"

"What do you remember?" Beckett fussed at the machines next to Lorne's bedside. But his shoulders were tense, and Lorne thought he wasn't seeing a thing on those machines.

"Ah, we were off-world." And wasn't that an ominous start to every report about 'what went wrong'. "We were pretty relaxed – it was just a standard follow-up mission. The folks there were nice and accommodating: food, drink, and make merry and all that."

"You had something to drink, then?" Beckett had a tone. Lorne's nerves ratcheted up a notch. He hadn't heard a tone like that since he was a teenager and his mother had caught him sneaking back into the house through his bedroom window after his fifteenth birthday.

"No..." Lorne drawled, testing the waters. "I don't drink on the job. I had the sparkling fruit juice. Because it was sparkly."

Beckett was standing very still. "And after that?"

"After that..." Lorne paused. "After that...I...things get fuzzy. I must have...got my head rattled. I don't remember. What happened?"

Beckett sighed. His shoulders slumped. He sat down on the edge of Lorne's bed and took a deep breath. "You were drugged."

"Drugged." Lorne said flatly when the doctor didn't continue. "In the sparkly fruit juice."

"Yes." Beckett didn't rise to the bait. "They drugged you and separated you from your team." Beckett sighed again, obviously searching for the right words and just as obviously failing. "It was a form of...roofie."

Lorne blinked. "I'm sorry?"

"Not Rohypnol, of course, because they haven't got that in the Pegasus galaxy, but the idea is the same. I mean, in the generic use of the term..." Beckett's teeth snicked shut and he gulped, hard.

Lorne stared at Beckett. His palms were sweaty. "You're going to have to spell this out in small words, Doc. I'm pretty sure we're working at cross-wires here."

"I..." Beckett grasped Lorne's hand and squeezed. "You were assaulted, lad. Sexually assaulted. I'm sorry."

Lorne snatched his hand back.

"I feel fine." He said, after a painfully long silence. "I mean, I don't feel..." Well. He didn't know what he was feeling.

"That would be a touch of shock. And the drugs they gave you were unfamiliar. We haven't given you anything else, because the drugs aren't clear of your system yet."

Oh. That explained the disconnect.

Lorne shifted his gaze back to his lap. He tried to figure out what he was supposed to do next.

"Ah, is there...things I should know?"

Beckett nodded, tension draining from his shoulders when Lorne didn't freak out and he was able to slip back into the role of physician. "You have some deep bruising and muscle strain. A couple superficial scrapes and cuts. There won't be any permanent damage. We've drawn some blood and we'll have to run some tests." Beckett paused. "And more tests in a few months. I recommend that you refrain from any sexual contact until we are sure there won't be any lingering issues."

Lorne could read between the lines. Beckett meant sexually transmitted diseases.

"Sure." Lorne said.

Beckett patted his leg awkwardly. "Good. Um. Do you need a moment alone?"

Yes. Desperately. "Please." Lorne said.

"Okay, then." Beckett said with false cheer. He leaped to his feet. "Holler if you need anything." He drew the curtain closed around Lorne's hospital bed. It was thin privacy. Lorne could still see the shape of him through the curtain.

Lorne stared at the blanket covering his knees. He felt completely removed.