though my soul may set in darkness

Fifth tortures her and he breaks her and she wonders when she became a Carter who cried.


She doesn't cry when her mother dies. Carters don't cry.


She is twelve when the neighborhood boys she runs with decide they no longer want to hang out with "the girl." She goes to her father only to be told, "I never wanted you wasting time with those damn slackers anyways."

With the death of her mother she is realizing that her father can't—or won't—do everything. She sobs in her room before finding the toughest guy on the block and punching him in the face.

They let her hang out with them after that.


The day the Challenger explodes she goes to her room and carefully and methodically proceeds to take down the Apollo posters, the Buzz Aldrin doll, the replica of the Gemini spacecraft. She shoves it all in a box and tries to throw it out. She can't. So she dumps it in the attic.

It isn't until she goes back to her room and sees the empty walls that the tears start to fall.


She hasn't left the base in 16 days. General Hammond pulls her aside and quietly but firmly reminds her that she has other responsibilities. They aren't even entirely sure that this is possible and Doctor Frasier has mentioned how tired she seems and—

Sam yes sir's and says the right things while in her head she is cursing Janet and cursing General Hammond and cursing—

She pretends to leave, then goes back to her lab and sits in the dark and starts crying and doesn't stop.


Daniel.


Janet releases her, says that everything is fine.

Fine.

She doesn't even know what that word means anymore.

On the way home she fingers her neck, and then turns left instead of right, ending up at a seedy-looking bar on the west side of town. She's on her seventh beer when she realizes she has subconsciously been waiting for Him to walk through the door and make this better with an easy quip and a reassuring grin.

She's on her twelfth before she finally starts to forget what made her come here in the first place.

She makes it home and watches tv for a little while, but before long finds herself outside in the cool night breeze.

She looks up at the stars and finds herself shaking in the darkness because she is stuck on a planet that no longer feels safe.

And the person she needs the most isn't here.


Janet.


And now she is kneeling on the floor in front of a face that is utterly merciless. And it is her fault.

But what scares her most is how much he reminds her of herself.

You can't change what happened.

She lowers her head and flinches away and waits for the hurt to come.

And Sam Carter cries.


A/N: This was the result of a flash fiction challenge. I've never written in this fandom before, but I thought I would give it a shot. What did you think?