Author Notes: Beta'd by Dee (Devilish Me), who practically begged me to make this an epilogue and write the whole backstory to this. I have since tried but, honestly, the muse isn't playing ball with this one. So I've decided to get some closure and put it out there as it stands, rather than sulking on my hard drive. Thank you Dee.
The bits in italic indicate a flashback from Sam's POV (I know that flipping POVs like this will make sticklers for technical writing aghast - um, myself included - but, well go read and hopefully you'll understand why I did it.
Content warning for some mature themes, and naughty words.
It had been weighing on his mind since they'd got back from seven two seven. He'd carefully avoided the issue, but the lack of any mention of it in her official report had made him look twice, given how much of a stickler she usually was for detail. Teal'c and Daniel hadn't mentioned it either and he really wasn't sure if it was because they'd not realised what had gone on (which he felt hard to believe given her, uh, attire and feather spitting when they found her), or because they were just being tactful. He suspected the latter because he figured it out and they were both too smart not to have known. Then again Jack had the advantage of having seen the mess she'd made of that son of a bitch, and what she was wearing under his borrowed jacket; they hadn't, and it was one significant detail of that in particular, and that she'd omitted from the report, that was causing him concern.
She'd been quiet when they returned and damn right elusive since they'd been back. Two days ago he'd read her official mission report and swallowed the foreboding prickle of fear that her omission left. It had taken him this long just to convince himself that his interest was purely professional; The next day they would be gating out on another, probably insanely dangerous mission from which there'd probably be a whole new set of mental and physical traumas to deal with. He needed to get this off his chest; he couldn't pretend it just hadn't happened, especially when he didn't really know what had happened.
It was late but it didn't take him long to establish she'd stayed on base tonight and was in her quarters. He sought her out, knocked gently and she admitted him with a slight frown of a question. After all, it wasn't common for him to turn up for midnight chats in her quarters. In fact, of late, it was pretty rare for him to allow himself to be alone in any room with her at any time.
"Sir?" She asked tentatively. He strolled over to the bed, sat and patted the space to his right indicating she should join him. She tilted her head in curiosity, but lowered herself down next to him.
"So." He sighed.
"So." She sighed right back at him.
Finally, he found his voice, "I was wondering whatcha been doing? I mean it's not like we picked up any new gadgets on seven two seven to keep you holed up in your lab for days on end." He picked at her bed sheets with one hand, finding a loose thread to occupy his busy fingers.
"No." She replied with a slight crack in her voice and pointedly not looking at him.
"And yet, you've been elusive." Jack replied.
"I had a few…projects I wanted to get back to." She still wasn't looking directly at him.
"Ah." O'Neill responded. "And there was I thinking you were just avoiding me...us, I mean." He offered her a slight smirk.
Sam closed her eyes...
"What's this?" Sam asked and Aeyr handed her a small stoppered bottle containing a dark greenish liquid.
"It'll help." Aeyr responded with compassion.
"Help? How?" A lump forming in her throat at the implication of what she was being told.
"When he comes for you. It'll make it easier." Aeyr stroked a hand softly against Sam's face, her eyes conveying understanding and yet more of that damned compassion. Sam didn't need compassion, she needed way out.
Aeyr continued. "Drink it as soon as he comes. By the time…it begins... you will start to feel the effects."
"It's a drug?" Sam asked and Aeyr nodded. "It's supposed to make me forget?"
"No, " Aeyr aadded sadly, " but it will make you not mind remembering."
Sam closed her eyes. Oh boy. "No. I'm not doing that!"
"You will have no choice! When he comes you'll…"
"I'll kick his ass!" Sam responded indignantly. She wasn't about to become anyone's...
"He'll kill you!"
"I'd rather die than let him…touch me."
"You cannot!" Aeyr cried.
Sam turned her head, raising her eyebrows in questioning surprise.
"I…"
"You what?" Sam questioned with a sudden suspicion in her mind.
"I was hoping you were the one."
"The one?" She almost had to giggle at how absurd it all felt. Since she'd got here these women saw her as their great saviour. Well she wasn't about to disappoint, she thought.
"We have a plan. We have waited for so long for our freedom. We've waited for one like you."
"Me? I'm not your leader." She tested Aeyr's convictions.
"But you are strong. You are confident. We have never had one here like this before. They will follow you."
"Yeah to their deaths."
"As you say. We would rather die than continue to live as slaves."
Sam sighed. She understood. "Then we move tonight."
Aeyr shook her head. "We cannot. We must do it when the guards are changing. At the fall of the cycle they return home and they leave only a handful remaining for one whole sun."
"When does the cycle end?" Sam asked, realising that their plan held the makings of tactical sense. Aeyr would be a good military leader once they were free.
"It is not for another four suns. You must endure as best you can until then. He will call for you tonight, but if you are lucky there will be another new one to amuse him tomorrow. You must endure!"
Sam shook her head. Wasn't going to happen. "Change of plan. We move tonight."
Aeyr looked petulant. "It would be risky."
"Trust me." Sam responded. "It'll be harder tonight, sure, but we can still do it. Now what's your plan?"
"Not avoiding sir."
"Ah." He nodded.
"Can we not do this?" She responded with irritation.
"What I'm supposed to just ignore the fact that you came outta there with that kind of failed Princess Leia look…"
She shot him a dirty glare. "Failed?"
He shrugged. "Not that it wasn't kinda flattering." He cleared his throat and she continued to glare.
"Ok so it was a lot flattering actually. But, well, not the look I normally see on you, Carter."
She continued to stare at him some more.
"Ahem, not that I wouldn't mind seeing…OK, I'll just…shut up now." He smiled his best sheepish-yet-enigmatic smile and she rolled her eyes at it.
"Hey, you seemed unfazed by it?" He added.
She paused before quietly continuing. "Uh, yeah, thanks for not saying anything about that at the time."
"Yeah, I figured you wouldn't appreciate…" He gestured towards her. "…Being the butt of the jokes because of your, um, unusual state of attire, shall we say."
She said nothing but telegraphed her gratitude anyway.
"So." He said eventually.
"So." She responded again.
He frowned and turned towards her. "I'm still not entirely clear on the details here?" He gestured towards her with a frown creasing his features.
She sighed...
"Aeyr come on." Sam whispered to nobody there through clenched teeth, as she paced the luxurious rooms to which she had been left in to await her fate.
One signal. That's all it was. one flash of a lamp from Aeyr to show that they had broken into the armoury, and all she had to do was pull out that tiny little dagger and…
She paced more, hating every step as the fine chains and jewels on what passed as her clothing jangled reminding her of her supposed new role; she was no man's concubine, and she certainly wasn't a doll to be dressed up like this. Oh he was so gonna regret the day he decided Major Samantha Carter was his property.
"Come on." Her patience was wearing thin. Her eagerness to surprise the hell out of that bastard was overpowering. She knew exactly which part of him she'd go for first, and that would ensure his days of treating every woman as his property would be over for good.
The door opened. Thast manoeuvred his tall bulky frame into the room; his gold woven robes gleaming in the dancing tongues of the candles.
He wasn't an unattractive man, she thought. And he had an indefinable charisma that she would have found fascinating in other circumstances. In fact when they'd first arrived on this world and that first night when they'd attended the banquet, she found him quite charming...No! She stopped that train of thought. He was a murdering despot who used women as he saw fit, and right now she appeared to be the focus of his attention. Come on Aeyr, she thought again. Now or never.
Hang on.
Two of Thast's guards entered behind him and flanked her. A cold fear crept over her. She looked into his steely blue gaze. He knew! Dammit he knew.
As if reading her thoughts he tipped his head slightly to one side "If you are waiting for your friend to come to your aide you might be in for a rather long wait." He drawled.
Sam hid the surprise in her eyes. "Oh I have no idea what you mean." Her hand surreptitiously slid under the waistband of the sheaf of diaphanous material that formed her skirt and grasped the small, but lethal, dagger.
"I found her and some my other brides earlier; poking around the armoury. I'm afraid I had to turn them all over to my men for, ah, suitable punishment. No doubt they will learn to appreciate the affections of my men as well as you will learn to appreciate mine."
A flash of anger entered Sam's face and the moment was upon her. "Not gonna happen!" She pulled the dagger and lunged at him. She was too quick for his guards and for a moment she thought she might just do it. But it was Thast himself that blocked her, and with little effort; she made a fundamental mistake of not allowing that he might actually be skilled in hand to hand combat. Apparently he was. He was also far bigger and stronger than her; his hand grasped her wrist painfully and, with a quick twist that left a sickening pain shooting up her arm, the dagger clattered to the ground.
His guards pulled her back forcing her to her knees as the horror flushed her features. She'd failed. Oh God!
"What you don't think I haven't learnt to rely of defending myself over the years." He laughed and motioned for the guards to leave them and remove the offending dagger.
"Now do you have any more surprises for me I wonder?" He grinned.
"Just the one" She responded and lunged at him, intending a low blow to his middle, but he easily blocked her, grasping her previously injured arm in another cruel twist, and sending her sprawling onto the tiled floor with a casual sideswipe.
"Ah ah!" He smiled. "It would be a shame for you to have to join Aeyr and the other traitors without me first having…experienced you." His gaze roved her exposed flesh and she felt revulsion and anger. Damn him!
Then it hit her. She'd blown it; her one chance of escape;her damned overconfidence and pride; her insistence that they act tonight. They had not been ready and now…She closed her eyes and swallowed at the thought of what might happen to them; to all of them. It was her fault; they had followed her and her arrogance had let them down. They would have no drug to make their memories pleasant.
But she still had the drug.
She turned from him and fingered the vial of the green liquid that sat next to a decanter of wine on the table. If she gave it to him instead; what would happen?
The anger in her died quickly. That emotion wasn't going to get her out of this now. Her wits and her womanhood might, and if she were lucky, she might be able to save Aeyr as well as the other women here. She smiled grimly and then put upon an air of demure acquiescence. She lifted the goblet of wine and he nodded his assent as she poured it into the two glasses. Hearing him sigh contentedly as he thought she had given in, she tipped the drug into one of the glasses. She lifted the glasses and turned back to him smiling a completely different type of smile now. Anyone who knew Sam would know this wasn't a look you wanted to mess with.
Thast, who did not know Sam, grinned widely at her change of demeanour and took the proffered glass…
"That's more or less where you came in." She shrugged, but Jack wasn't buying it.
"Oh?" his eyebrows rose in questioning and he captured her gaze for the briefest moment before she turned her eyes to the floor. "That's it?"
"Well mostly..." She left the sentence unfinished with a shrug.
"I see." It was his turn to gaze at the floor now, as he swallowed his sudden flash of irritation.
Silence. Again. They ignored it, pretending it wasn't between them,
"I am your commanding officer you know?" He wasn't prepared to let this go tonight; something told him it was important, "I could order you?"
She sighed and gave him an odd look that he didn't want to interpret too closely. "Yes. I know."
"I won't though, but for the sake of team integrity, I'd like to know is exactly what happened next, not the watered down version in your report, but everything. " He frowned.
Sam swallowed and frowned back at him...
He drank the wine in one gulp. She sipped hers more cautiously but took his outstretched glass for a top up; a little alcohol ought to make the medicine go down nicely, she thought.
He drank the second glass, and she wondered for a moment if she could not just keep him drinking wine until the drug started to work; whatever the hell the drug was supposed to do anyway. She reasoned that is was likely a mild narcotic or possibly muscle relaxant so, she hoped, would screw with his co-ordination and give her a chance to get a few good hard kicks into his groin; she was definitely going for his groin, no doubt about that; it made not just tactical sense but would be extremely satisfying on a personal level.
But it was not going to be that easy; he reached for her glass and placed them both on the table; her eyes wide she inched back slightly, subconsciously putting the table between her and him.
He inched toward her.
She circled and backed away, putting the table between them.
He followed her.
This is ridiculous, she thought. He's chasing me round a table. Feeling like she wanted to change the situation, but knowing no other way but to give over to him, she glanced to her left and right.
In the instant her attention was diverted he lunged. He navigated the table and was beside her, one arm around her middle and the other grasping her injured right arm, in a flash.
She gasped at the suddenness of his move, at the sharp pain in her arm contrasting with the warmth of his body pressed against her, causing an involuntary rush of heat in her belly at the contact. She almost pulled back in revulsion of herself. Ah God! She did not want to feel that; she could not feel that. But yet she had to make this believable. Yeah, she was making it believable, she told herself; play along nicely until the drugs kick in; then you can kick shit out of him.
He bent and his mouth mashed down onto hers; unconscious heat flared up her spine; her hand rose of their own volition to his shoulders; her mouth parted. Ah God...
She shook her head "Let's just leave it at, I used my only available weapon against him, shall we?"
A sudden flash of anger shot through him and, not for the first time, he wished he'd actually killed the son of a bitch when he had the chance. Not that he really needed to; the damage was done by the time he got in on the act. He tried not to be angry, though; she didn't need him acting the jealous…jealous what?
"I see." He almost spat out through gritted teeth, unable to completely hide his anger.
She flashed her own annoyance at him. "No I don't think you do actually. I mean you've never had to…"
"Had to?" He gestured for her to continue.
She frowned. "Y'know it's not like I had a whole heap of options. I did what I had to do."
"You did?" He hissed sharply.
She sighed. "Well. Let's just say it's far from my finest hour." She bit her lip and looked about as miserable as he'd ever seen her.
His sudden anger dissolved in an instant at her expression, and he was filled with an overwhelming desire to just hold her. That wasn't an option though; not for them. "No. Probably not." he added quietly, lifting his left hand and tentatively pressing it over hers, which lay on her thigh; this was about the only contact he could indulge in safely and he was reassured when she didn't recoil from the touch, "although you did considerable damage given the limited, uh, weaponry at your disposal."
She smiled in appreciation at his attempt at levity and glanced at where her, and now his, hand lay. He knew even this tiny gesture was dangerous for them but he needed it, and he suspected, so did she.
"Hmm. Who'd have thought a wine glass would leave such a mess, huh?" He said, lightly jostling her shoulders.
"I really wasn't aiming for anywhere specific. I just…" She made a downwards slashing motion with her free right hand.
He chuckled. "Oh yeah. Sure you weren't. I would have wept except he deserved that right where you got him." She grinned at that and the tension eased a little more. Maybe it was ok to say it now. Maybe they were comfortable enough. "Hey" He blew out a breath, "if it helps, I understand." He added, squeezing her hand slightly.
She allowed a small smile then; he couldn't pretend we wasn't concerned by her reluctance to talk about it, but getting annoyed with her was hardly helping.
"I'd just as soon as put this behind me... Sir." She formalised it with emphasis. Sooner or later that whole rank thing always showed up to spoil the party.
He tried to ignore his growing irritation of that title. "Is that why you left it out your official mission report, Carter?"
She shrugged and found a spot on the floor suddenly fascinating. "It wasn't directly relevant to the outcome of the mission, Sir. I didn't see much point in…" She removed her hand so suddenly from under his that his hand slipped onto her thigh with a gentle slap before he had chance to remove it.
"The fact that you practically castrated the guy isn't relevant, how?" He turned incredulous.
She ignored the question "…besides. You know they'd have had me before Mackenzie in a cold minute." She added with a smile.
He tilted his head towards her, yet not looking at her yet. "Y'know, that might not be a bad idea."
She shook her head and chuckled. "I never thought I'd hear the day when Colonel O'Neill would think seeing Mackenzie would be a good thing."
He turned to her now, the intensity and seriousness on his face was enough to drive the humour from hers. "Sam." His eyes pleaded. "You were effectively…"
"Don't!" She interrupted hold up her hand to his chest. "Don't. It wasn't like that. Really it wasn't." She pleaded right back at him, her eyes begging him to drop it. She quickly looked away but not before he saw the flash of humiliation and shame in them that made his heart thump just a little too hard.
Eventually she sighed. "Look... I ... I don't," she was struggling with the words. "Just drop it. Please, Sir."
Ah the plea. Her secret weapon and, dammit they both knew it. He sighed, knowing he was beat.
He patted her hand again, and sighed, feeling a bout of honesty bubbling to the surface. "Look. I came here because I was worried. I found you there half naked, cover in blood...OK not your own blood as it turned out but, you can imagine my, ah, concern there for a minute."
She didn't respond, just studied his hand covering hers, parting her fingers a little to let his entwine with hers. It was a gesture so startlingly intimate that he almost jerked away. He continued. "Y'know I like to imagine that you and I are actually friends outside of all this military protocol commanding officer, second in command thing we have going on. And I feel it's my duty to tell you that, no matter how rarely we get a chance to actually do the whole friendship thing…well, friends are there for you. Just for, when you need a shoulder to cry on, someone to talk to or…just…" He frowned wondering if she was following his rambling. "…So...can we do that?" He asked in mock worried seriousness.
She heaved her shoulders and suddenly stood; leaving his now empty hand feeling bereft of the comfort it sought. "Yeah. I guess so." She added with a hit of sadness. She faked a yawn and he took the hint. Conversation over; time to leave. It was ironic she was the one ending it when he was usually the one strenuously avoiding starting one in the first place.
He stood. "Good. OK then." He pretended not to notice the sadness in her voice or the wistfulness in her eyes. They could never be just friends; they were so much more than that while regulations dictated the ought to be so much less. He moved toward the door and grasped the handle but turned at the last minute. "Well..."
She was looking everywhere but at his face.
He patted his own left shoulder. "If you change your mind…?"
"I'm fine."
He pulled a wry smile and tilted his head slightly to the side. "Yes, you probably are. Night Carter."
He opened the door turning for a last glimpse. She really wasn't all right and he knew the whole experience - whatever had actually happened - had shaken her more than she cared to admit. But he also knew that she would be, and he knew that because she was Carter; if she wasn't going to be OK then the whole universe was probably in big trouble.
"Night Sir." She whispered as he closed the door.
He stood outside her door for a moment in quiet contemplation before turning away.
~End~
I've seen a part of people that I never really want to share ~ Shelter: Sarah Mclachlan
More Author's Notes: this was originally written circa 2002. I was watching Flash Gordon (the 1980's cheesy Queen soundtracked version) and there was these lines: "Will it make me forget?" "No but it'll make you not mind remembering." They took a long, hard kick at my muse and this was born as a result. I deliberately never make it completely clear what happened between Sam and Thast. You need to interpret and expand on that yourself.
Thanks for reading! Reviews and constructive criticism are always welcome.