Metamorphosis
Summary: We are all born warriors, wandering the Earth, searching for a war. Find out how a teenage Samantha Carter found her inner soldier
A/N: This story was written is response to the forums, in which several SG-1 fans desired a story about about Samantha Carter before she joined SG-1. Metamorphosis aims to explore the reason behind some of Carter's personality traits; her desire to prove herself, her inability to be close to people, her insecurities, her humility, her passion and her appreciation of Cadet Hailey, to name but a few. You may find the teenage Sam to be vastly different from her adult counterpart, however, this story is only one experience that has influenced her personality. Many other experiences must follow the completely shape the woman we know in SG-1. In this story, Sam merely scratches the surface of what is is to be a soldier.
Please review!
She unpacked the skates from their somewhat battered cardboard box and gave them a look over before putting them on the carpet floor. They were quite a few sizes too small for her now. Not that she wanted to skate all that much anymore, anyhow.
Her mother had taught her to skate when she was young. She had always been quite terrible at it, but had loved the feeling of weightlessness it gave her. It was almost like she could fly.
She didn't fly any more. Not since her mum died.
She picked up the white skates and put them in her new cupboard, closing the door as gently as she could. She was always very wary with new things, afraid that she would break them. As Sam Carter's entire surroundings were different at least once a year, this made living arrangements very difficult. Every time her father transferred, they would have to move house, a task that had become very mundane for the teenager and her brother, Mark.
Sam looked around her. This room wasn't too bad. It was smaller than her last but had a much better view. From her window she could see her new school, looming beyond the trees down the street.
Her stomach twisted in apprehension. Of all the things she hated about her father's job, she hated having to move schools the most. Every time she had gotten settled, they would have to leave again. She had left so many best friends behind that she started to back off, knowing that she would never see them again after a year or so. She always tried to keep people away, even though she craved their company more than anything else in the world. And then there was always that period at the start of the term, when she didn't know anyone. That was the worst part of all. She was very self conscious, like any teenage girl, and found it difficult to make new friends. She couldn't help trying too hard to prove herself to the kids and teachers around her, which usually landed her in with the geeks and the nerds.
She hated the word 'nerd'. What did it mean, anyway? Almost all the friends she had ever had were nerds, but they were some of the nicest, most fun people she had ever known. She hated stereotypes. She hated high school.
Sam was woken from her thoughts by her alarm clock. She ran over to it and turned it off, hoping she hadn't woken Mark. She didn't know why she had set it the night before. She knew she would be too nervous to sleep properly and that she would have been awake long before the alarm sounded. She shrugged. At least she knew it was time to start getting ready.
She dragged another cardboard box out of the corner and carefully edged the tape off. She could never rip the boxes like her brother did. It never really made any sense. She knew that they would have to use them again in a year anyway, and it was always much easier to use the same ones, instead of having to buy new ones every time they moved. Her brother really had no common sense.
She pulled out each carefully folded item of clothing and set them out on her bed. Finally finding a passable outfit, Sam got changed, pleased with herself for buying clothes that didn't really need to be ironed. She was efficient that way.
Mark always told her that her need to be perfect was actually OCD, but she knew he was just jealous. Jealous that their father didn't ignore her the way he ignored Mark. Sam didn't quite understand why that bothered him. It was clear to her that Mark didn't seek his father's attention in the slightest, and really didn't care all that much for him at all. And yet, he still resented her. That had always made her angry. It wasn't her fault that she sought her father's attention and approval. She wasn't like Mark. She couldn't live her life blaming Jacob for her mother's death, even though a very large part of her wanted to. She needed the approval he gave her. She needed to know that he still cared for her. He wasn't very good at showing that in any other way. She had begun to think that her father only cared for her because of her brains. Those thoughts just made her more angry.
Taking a deep breath to calm herself down, Sam took a look at herself in the mirror. She wasn't too sure that she liked what she saw. There she was, a gangly, awkward stick of a girl, decked out in a flowery skirt and top. She brushed her long hair out of her eyes and tucked it behind her ears. She put on her Mary Jane shoes and smoothed down her skirt. That was better. She was the picture of innocence. Not a hair was out of place, not a crease to be seen anywhere on her clothes. She looked pretty.
She took a glance at her watch and raced down the stairs. She couldn't be late today. It was her first day and she knew that any tardiness would give the wrong impression. She had never been tardy in her life and she wasn't about to start. She grabbed an apple of the kitchen bench and threw her bag over her shoulder. She approached the door, her stomach getting more and more twisted, her fingers starting to shake. She closed her eyes and counted to ten. She could do this. She was smart, smarter than most of the kids she would meet today. She looked nice, she wouldn't be late, she would think of intelligent, interesting conversation, she wouldn't turn up to school with Mark; what could go wrong?
She opened the door, reassuring herself that she would be fine and walked to the school, which was only a few blocks away. She chuckled to herself as she checked her watch, knowing that she was almost an hour early. Punctuality was a concept she was very serious about, which often meant she was ridiculously early for things. It didn't bother her though. She sat down on the grass and pulled out a book. It was one of her favourites. She never read it at home because she knew her brother would get angry at her for reading it. It was a military book, with many different stories from war time. She loved reading about the brave men who had fought for their country. It made her think of her father as a proud soldier, who would die to save her and the rest of the world. She liked to think of her father like that. It was much more preferable than the alternatives, which included him as the neglecting work-a-holic who never came home and had no interest in his daughter's life. No, she much rathered the picture of the strong warrior, whose only thoughts were of saving the universe so that it could be safe for his children.
The military had always interested her. She didn't quite know why. A large part of her hated it, for stealing her parents from her and for causing all the hate in the world. But another part of her had always envied the characters in the stories she read. The soldiers always did their jobs, they were hard-working and selfless and they always had amazing adventures and life-long friends in their comrades. She wondered if she would ever find companions that would die for her, like all those she had read about. She doubted it.
She had almost finished a particularly riveting story about a Private who was caught behind enemy lines when she saw the bus pull into the car park, noises and shouts erupting around her. She stuffed the book back into her bag, hoping that no-one had seen it. If there was one thing she had learned from changing schools, it was that first impressions were everything. If her classmates had noticed her with an army book they might think she was a geek or a tomboy. She unconsciously smoothed down her skirt. If there was one thing that Samantha Carter wasn't, it was a tomboy.
Sam began to feel her stomach twisting again. She held her bag close to her and got up. She was surrounded by shrieks of girls who had been apart for too long. She watched them enviously and hoped that she would fit in.
After a short trip to the office to find out where to go, she made her way to her form class which was to be held in room 4C. She found the room and looked around. She wasn't late. In fact, she as the first person there. She smiled. Punctuality was definitely one of her strengths.
As the rest of her new class began to arrive, she tried to mingle. She spent the first few minutes looking around her shyly before plucking up the courage to introduce herself. She approached a group of girls and gingerly stuck out her hand.
"Hi. I'm Samantha Carter," she said, firmly, waiting for someone to shake her hand. The girls looked at her for a few seconds then smiled back, awkwardly.
"Hi," they said nonchalantly, and Sam felt her hand begin to quiver a little. Realising that they were not about to shake it, she withdrew it behind her back and looked at the girls uncomfortably, wishing she had thought of something to say before she got there. She as thankfully pulled away from the awkward encounter by the teacher who was shuffling the teenagers inside.
Their teacher's name was Miss Gravolin, a short, old lady who smelled strangely of maple syrup. Sam greeted her politely as she entered the room, choosing a desk near the front, but far enough away that she wouldn't be seen as a teacher's pet. Yes, moving schools had definitely taught her the importance of first impressions.
Sam looked around her quietly as Miss Gravolin passed around the timetables. She chose to watch her classmates rather than interact with them this time, hoping that she could gain some insight before she made a fool of herself again. She barely noticed when the tiny woman made it to her desk with a timetable.
"Ah, but of course," she said to Sam. "You are our new class member." She smiled kindly at Sam, who smiled back, hoping that she wasn't going to ask her to…
"Tell us something about yourself, young lady," the teacher said loudly, ushering her to the front of the room. Sam sighed as all eyes in the room met hers and she stood up and began to tell the class about her life.
"My name is Samantha Carter, but my friends call me Sam," she said nervously, looking around hopefully. Her voice quivered and was barely above a whisper. "I moved here a few days ago from Washington with my brother and my dad."
Sam stopped, wishing she hadn't been so specific. Now half the class would know that her mother was dead, or at least would think that she and her father were divorced. Sam hated being new. She always found herself trying to lie here and there to make herself seem better than she was. She hated talking about herself, knowing that she had never done anything of any significance and that her interests and hobbies would only maker her seem odd to the other children.
She decided to say no more, standing silently in front oh her class, feeling embarrassed and ashamed. She had no life to talk about, nothing that would make the children like her. She could already see that some of them were beginning to stereotype her. She took a few deep breaths and looked down at her hands, wishing that she was more confident.
She could feel it happening already. Every year she went through the same cycle. She was always confident of herself till she walked through the gates. Then she began to talk herself down till she was too nervous and insecure to meet anyone or do anything. Then her classmates would deliver the final blow by placing judgement on her, sealing her fate and branding her a geek, a nerd or some other lower life form than themselves. But she never stood up for herself. She never wanted to. There was no point. She would just live out the remainder of the year with one or two close friends, complying to everyone else's selfish wishes till she would be free to start again. To start the cycle again.
As though her self-esteem needed another plummet, Miss Gravolin pulled out her timetable, while she was standing there.
"Oh," she said excitedly. "It seems we have somewhat of a genius in our midst." Sam's eyes darted fearfully to the piece of paper in her teacher's hand. Not again.
"Accelerated mathematics? And physics too? My, you are a smart girl! Your previous school must have forwarded recommendations!"
Sam clenched her teeth. It was more likely that her father had forwarded those recommendations. She took the slip of paper off her teacher and sat back down, this time knowing that her classmates would be judging her. She may as well find the other nerds while she still could.
Finally, the form class was over and Sam could escape. Her brain was working overtime, scanning her classmates for traces of hatred towards her, beating herself for already screwing up, trying to find ways to make things better, trying to find a place to hide, wondering if she could redeem herself through her class work, trying to decide whether or not she could go back down to normal physics and mathematics, wondering if there were any other schools close to her home that she could go to. She found herself near to tears and her destructive thoughts doubled. Nothing was wrong. She was fine. No one was dead, she hadn't hurt herself. It was one embarrassing lesson, for goodness sake. She should be able to cope.
But, like her father, she hadn't realised the emotional and psychological damage that was being done to her every time she moved to a new city. The Carter family had never properly dealt with the loss of Mrs Carter and the whole family were worse off for it. There was never any time to talk, nor any father-figure to talk to. The three remaining Carters had all locked themselves away from each other and everyone else, blaming each other, and blaming themselves for their unhappiness. Sam had such little self-esteem left now that almost anything could make her cry, if she thought about it too much.
But Sam didn't know that. She just thought she was weak. She felt tears begin to fall down her face and she raced out of the room, knowing how melodramatic she must have seemed. Why was she so damn weak?
In her haste, she ran into another girl, causing her to drop all her books. The girl shrieked and Sam knew in an instant that the girl she had run into would proceed to make her life a living hell. She had known enough of those girls throughout her life to know that this one would be no different.
"Watch where you're going, cry-baby," she said. Sam looked up at her, recognising her as one of the girls from her form class. "You'd think someone like you would have enough brains not to knock someone clean off their feet!"
Sam's fear and distress began to turn into anger. Why was it that almost every girl she had ever met picked on her because of her brains? It was just so clichéd. She couldn't stand jealous people, let alone popular jealous people who publicly made other people miserable in order to mask their own insecurities. She knew she hated this girl already, only after a few seconds of contact. 'Some like you?' Sam knew she had meant a geek, a nerd, a socially inept brain stuck in a case.
The girl stood there, waiting for Sam to pick her books up for her. Sam was too caught in her own world though, to upset and angry to do anything.
"God, didn't your mother teach you any manners?"
That was it. In one foul swoop, Sam felt all insecurity leave her. Her tears stopped welling in her eyes and she glared at the girl in anger. How dare she? She had been in that room, she had listened to Sam talk about herself. She had known that Sam had no mother and she had the audacity to insult her? Without even knowing what she was doing, Sam dropped her books on the floor and punched the girl hard in the face.
Reality swam back to her with the dull pain that sprang into her hand. Wide-eyed, she watched as blood began to trickle from her opponent's nose. Expecting herself to cower back in fear, Sam was surprised to find herself grinning in satisfaction. But her grin was laced with anger still and she picked up her books and stormed out of the building, her head held high.
Once she was clear of the squeals of pain that were emanating from the building, Sam ran home, her books held to her tightly. What on earth had she just done? She had hit another girl, which was sure to land her in detention, she had left the school without permission and right now she was wagging an English class. She grinned again with exhilaration. She had never done any of those things before. Fear of the repercussions loomed over head and she began to doubt herself. She went upstairs to her room and took a long, hard look at herself. Who was she? The Samantha Carter she knew would never have done that. She would never had broken the rules, never have spoken her own mind like that and certainly never used violence. She didn't know the girl looking back at her through the mirror.
And yet, the closer she looked, the more she liked what she saw. Her clothes weren't neat anymore, she had run too far for them to be nice. They were creased, dirty and damp from sweat. Her hair was knotted and messy. It looked completely ridiculous and was hot upon her neck. On pure impulse she picked up her scissors from her bedside table and chopped a large section off her hair. She looked at it, excitedly and threw it in the bin. She cut again and again until her hair was cropped close to her head. She ran her hand threw it and smiled. Every one would think she was a tomboy now. She was surprised to find that she didn't care in the slightest. She was too caught up in what she wanted for herself, for once. She pulled out a cardboard box from the corner of the room, ripping the top off it and throwing clothes everywhere. She finally found what she was looking for. An old shirt and a battered pair of jeans. She threw them on and went back to her mirror. Her reflection was almost unrecognisable. The face that looked back at her was full of passion, anger and enthusiasm. She smiled and looked around her. The cycle was broken.
She wasn't Samantha Carter, the perfect, pretty little genius. She was a soldier, like the ones in her book. She was Samantha Carter, the warrior.
And she promised herself, at that moment, that she would never turn back.