disclaimer: not mine, never will be. which might be a good thing, all things considered.
trigger warnings: rape/non-con (semi-explicit), torture, violence, language
The Red String of Fate: the fabled red string that binds two lovers together
From low to high doth dissolution climb,
And sink from high to low, along a scale
Of awful notes, whose concord shall not fail.
-William Wordsworth
the red string of fate (will be your noose)
They drag her in, boneless and bloody, and drop her at my feet. My wrists burn and my shoulders groan as I thrash against the shackles holding me upright, and I feel a strangled mewl pull free of my throat as I try, and fail, to kneel down beside her.
If she hears my cry, she does not respond.
"Tell me, Captain," Gul Amut says, stepping forward, "was it worth it?"
I look up at him, dragging my face away from my ensign's ravaged back to glare at the Cardassian standing now before me. He smiles, and crosses his arms over his broad chest, deep set eyes gleaming in the harsh lights of the cell.
"Go to hell," I growl. The sound is low and as battered as my body—as her body—and I force every lingering trace of bile and pain and hate that I feel curdling in my belly into my voice. The words are bitter and nauseating in my mouth, in my throat, and I brace myself for the blow I know is sure to come.
It does not.
"Oh, Captain," the Gul says, thick and slow, with a long smile. "The pain has made you dull."
He makes a motion with his right hand, and from behind him two guards appear, hulking and brutish. The Gul steps aside, and before I can even cry out, the two guards have knelt and dragged her upright. Her head lolls forward, her hair falling over her shoulders and around her face in damp clumps, her knees buckling to drag the tops of her feet across the hard floor.
I smell blood—and then I taste it, and taste bile and the shrillness of my scream, as I truly see her for the first time.
When they had dragged her in, it had been by her wrists, and they had dropped her on her stomach. I had seen the bruises, seen the long, coiling burns and the weeping lash marks cut deep into her back. But lying there, on her stomach, with her hair hiding her face and her arms trapped beneath her, I had not seen the extent of the damage they had done to her.
But now—now, I do. And I scream.
Her breasts are mutilated. Her left cheek bears the distinct mark of Cardassian teeth, and her jaw purples with a dozen and more fingerprints. There is blood smeared on her lips, on her neck, and beneath and above it the sticky white paste of Cardassian seed. Her stomach, too, bears the marks of Cardassian hands, and her thighs are streaked with red, with white, over blue and black skin.
"You bastards!" I shriek, only realize I am speaking as the words leave my mouth. "You fucking bastards!"
Gul Amut steps forward, blocking my sight of her, and grabs my chin to force my eyes to his. "Tell me," he says again, that long smile still pulling the corners of his lips into a scythe, "was your reticence worth it?"
His words strike me like a lodestone in the stomach. I retch, only for nothing to come up; my mouth is bitter and empty, my breath sour and ripped from my lungs.
I've done this to her, I think. This was my doing.
I wish, for the first time since the first blow fell, that I could cry, but no tears will come.
The Gul's smile yawns. "At last you understand," he says. His voice is soft, almost a croon. "Now tell me, Captain," and he releases my chin and steps back, revealing my ensign once more, "is there anything you would like to confess?"
They have moved her, in the moment it took for the Gul to speak with me. They have pushed her to her knees now, turned to the side so that her body faces toward the wall to my right, her arms held behind her by a guard. The same guard holds her head up with a fist in her hair.
I look at my ensign, look at the guards, then look once more at the Gul. "Go to hell," I say.
The words are damnation on my tongue.
The Gul nods once. A second guard steps forward, his grin matching the jangle of his belt as he unbuckles it, then his pants. He unsheathes himself, taking a moment to cup the length of his shaft with one hand, and then presses the tip of it against my ensign's closed lips. She jerks, and I can see her shudder in the guard's hold, neck straining as she tries to pull away.
The Cardassian guards laugh. The Gul, standing just at the edge of my sight, grins.
I jerk at my restraints. I feel a snarl bubble from my throat, drip from my bared teeth. I see her flinch, her head for just an instant twisting toward me. Her eyes are closed, her face pale, her jaw locked.
And then the guard standing in front of her reaches out, caresses her cheek, then forces his fingers into her mouth, bracing her jaw open with thumbs at the back of her teeth. She does not try to bite him, and I try not to wonder why. The Cardassian groans, once, the tip of his penis pushing once more against her lips, then rises onto the balls of his feet and slides his cock into her open mouth.
I do not know if I scream. I can feel it well within my chest, and can feel the hatred thrashing behind and around my heart in thick, black cords. My vision swims with red, then with shadow, and I know that if I were free I would tear off the Cardassian bastard's cock with my bare hands. I want to kill him, and the Cardassian holding her, and the guards standing in the doorway and along the walls watching, and the Gul observing with his cool amusement.
I want to kill them all—including myself, I realize, as one of the small bones in my wrist gives way with a shuddering snap, because without me they would have no cause to hurt her.
The Cardassian is finished almost before I can finish envisioning what I would wish do to him. He steps back, cock limp and dripping, and fastens himself back into his pants.
I find my voice at last. "Fuck you," I scream. My broken wrist breaks again as I throw myself forward, teeth snapping at thin air. "Fuck you, you fucking cowards."
Gul Amut looks at me. I do not look at him.
"Tell me, Captain," he says, voice soft and lilting in the tone I hate the most. "Is there anything you would like to confess?"
Her lips are moving. I can see them, and can see the cum seeping from the corner of her mouth and running down her chin, but I cannot make out what it is she says. I strain, in body and in sight, struggling to reach her in any way I can.
"Tell me, Captain," the Gul says again. "Is there anything—anything at all—you would like to confess?"
The Cardassian who had just fucked her kneels down in front of her. He lifts a hand, cupping her chin, and forces her face up. "Speak up, little bird," he says. "We all want to hear what you have to say."
For a long second there is still only silence, her lips still moving, her eyes still closed. And then, faintly, I hear her.
"Please." Her voice is cracked. Shattered. "Please," she says again, barely louder. "Don't." She shudders, and her lips move silently again, her closed eyes pressing tighter together as she tries to turn away—away from the hand holding her face, away from me.
"What was that?" the guard asks, following her turn only to force her back towards me. "Speak up, little bird, or we'll have to give you another lesson."
My heart is a thousand splinters beating against my ribs. My throat is swollen, my lungs filled with dust. I cannot breathe, and cannot speak, and terror and pride war within me, splitting my head with a nail.
"Please," she whispers, and my heart thunders. "Not again."
I break.
"Well, Captain?" Gul Amut asks.
I am crying. I taste the tears as they drip past my lips and onto my tongue. I think, distantly, through the veil of pain and terror as well as the tears, that I am surprised I still can cry.
"Captain?"
"Don't hurt her." My voice is weak and wet. "Please, whatever you do, don't hurt her again."
"Confess," the Gul says, "and we will have no cause to touch her again."
"I confess." The words are out before I can rationalize the wisdom behind them. Anything—anything—to keep another Cardassian cock from touching her. "Please," I beg, "just don't touch her again."
"And what," the Gul asks, "do you confess to?"
I choke. Swallow. Force the words out of my mouth, feeling them cut my throat and my tongue to bleeding ribbons as I do. "I confess," I gasp, "that I and this ensign under my command were in Cardassian territory to spy for the Federation, on Starfleet orders, with the intent to plot and carry out a plan of attack." I have heard the words so many times now, spoken and screamed and whispered by Cardassian lips, that it is easy to remember them—both the parts that are true, and the parts that are Cardassian additions tailored to give them full right to imprison and question, even under Federation law.
The Gul's smile, somehow, widens even further. "Now," he all but purrs, "was that so hard, Captain?"
I sag in my bonds, my legs no longer strong enough to keep me upright. I can look nowhere but her. She is silent and still, limp in the Cardassian's hold, her eyes closed and her expression barren.
I wonder, through the tears still dripping down my face, if she is already lost.
The Gul is nearly out of the door before I realize that he is moving. He pauses, and I glance up at him, a quick flick of my eyes from Kathryn's face. He has turned, and is looking at the guards standing in the room.
"Do what you like with her," he says. "Just make sure she doesn't leave this room alive."
There is noise—shrieking, and wailing, and red and white and black—in my ears and in my head. I am screaming, and there are words but I cannot tell what I say. I am cursing—Amut, and the Cardassians, and the galaxy in whole—and I cannot stop for fear that I will dissolve into ash and hate.
The door closes on my screams, locking them, and me, in with her and the guards.
The guard holding her pushes her forward, sending her sprawling. She lands on the floor with the slick slap of skin against stone, and through the echoes of my dying screams, I think I hear her whimper.
I say her name. I say it once, and again. I beg for her forgiveness. I look at the guards, circling slowly, and beg for them to take me instead.
"Is that what you want?" one of the guards—the faceless, leering guards—asks her. "Would you rather we fuck your captain instead?"
They lift her up, hands beneath her arms and in her hair, and drag her to stand in front of me. "Look at him," they order, and they slap her face and squeeze one of her mangled breasts until she does. Her eyes are dry and wild, and she will not look at my face.
"Is that what you want?" a guard—not the same guard as the first, I think—asks. "Would you rather we fuck your captain than you?"
She does not meet my eyes.
"Well?" another asks. He reaches around and presses two fingers into the oozing hollow that was her left nipple.
"Yes," she gasps. She closes her eyes and turns her head, and even when one guard slaps her, she will not look at me again. "Please," she begs, her face turned to the stained ground. "Please…"
They laugh, and release their hold. She lands on the floor, and a guard kicks her. She flops weakly, rolling onto her back, leaving a smear of red in her wake.
"Hear that?" The voice is familiar; the speaker has spoken already. "Poor little captain—willing to sacrifice everything for her, and what do you get in return? Your little bitch begging for us to fuck you instead."
More laughter. I burn, and saliva cools on my chin as I snarl yet again. "Fucking bastards," I say, as if that will cost them anything.
Another guard kicks her. She whimpers again, and tries to curl onto one side. She does not get far.
Two guards pin her down with the ease of long practice. She cries out, and thrashes beneath their hold, but they grind her wrists and back into the floor with their knees hard against her bones. They speak in their own language, and there is more crude laughter as a third guard steps forward, unbuttoning his pants even before he kneels to force her knees apart.
They fuck her, one by one and two by two, until they are spent. I can do nothing but watch, and scream at them until my voice dies the death I wish I could. She, however, does not cry; she takes it with the silence of death already died, and with each moment that passes, I pray to a God I have never believed in for her deliverance.
When they are done, they drag her to the center of the floor and drop her. She lands, her fall unbroken, on her back, and with one booted foot, a guard forces her head toward me. Her eyes are open, but I know she cannot see me.
She is not yet dead, but I wish that she was.
They stand around her, conversing for a moment longer in their harsh voices with their harsher words. They look at her, then at me, and then they smile in grotesque mockery at one another.
"One more gift for you," the guard at the fore of the group says. He turns to his companions, and from the back a long-handled knife is passed to him. The blade is long and smooth, edged on one side with a razor sheen and tipped with a wicked point.
"Hold her down," the guard orders. It is more for my benefit, I suspect, than for anyone's.
I can do nothing but watch, in sickness and horror, as three guards pool around Kathryn, kneel, and force her legs up and apart. The knife bearer kneels between her thighs, a hand creeping beneath her to hold her in place—and then, with a single deft move, he drives the blade in up to the hilt.
It is the first time since this nightmare has begun that I hear her scream.
And then there is blood—so much blood. It pools around her, thick and red, as the Cardassian pulls the knife free of her. The blade drips, and the four of them stand, dropping her carelessly once more to the floor.
"It's been fun," the knife-bearer says with a smile, wiping the blade on the corner of his shirt, "but we have our orders. Enjoy your last hour with her."
And then they are gone, the door opening and closing and locking behind them, leaving me alone with nothing but my hatred and my dying ensign for company.
"Kathryn." Her name is a shard of glass on my tongue. "Kathryn, you have to stay with me."
I hear her groan, soft and weak—and then I hear her breath hitch, like a hammer against porcelain. Her eyes close, and she curls slowly into a ball, fingers tearing white trails through the blood and fluids on her stomach. The blood runs down her thighs, over her knees and hips, washing away every trace of violence but the last.
"Kathryn," I say again. My voice breaks. "Please."
"I'm sorry."
I almost do not hear her over the rasp of my own breath and the pained panting of her own.
"I'm sorry," she says again, a little louder. The words are buoyed by a hitching sob. "Please," and now, so suddenly I feel as if she has stabbed me with a blunt awl, she is begging. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry."
"Shhh," I croon, as gently and as soothingly as I can. "It's alright, Ensign."
She shakes her head, tearing the skin around the bite mark on her cheek against the rough floor. "No," she whimpers. "No."
I am surprised she has the strength to speak so much. It makes me wonder—and it makes me fear. I have seen enough dying men gather their last strength to speak their final words to fear what this last desperation of hers portends.
"Hush, Ensign," I say, sharper. "That's an order. I want you to save your strength."
"Please, sir," she says, and I do not know if she did not hear or if she is simply ignoring me. "Forgive me."
She blinks, and for the first time, she looks at me. Her eyes meet mine, and in that instant all I want to do is fold her into my arms and hold her tightly. She deserves that much comfort, here, at the end.
"Please, sir."
Her voice, now, is little more than a whimper. Her left hand spasms against her side, and her entire body shudders. Her hair, I realize, when wet is only a few shades away from blood.
I shake my head. "Not now, Ensign," I tell her. "Not until we make it back to Earth. I won't hear it 'til then."
She looks at me, then looks away. She shudders again. I can only imagine the pain she is in.
"I just need you to hold on, Ensign," I tell her. "Please." And now it is me who is begging.
"I can't." It is a sob. There is a second, then a third, and then choked silence once more. "I'm sorry," she says. Her blood coats her hands, coats the floor beneath her, creeps towards my bare feet. It is such a garish red that I think surely it could stain the whole world with its touch.
"No." It is a shout as much as an order. "No, Kathryn. Don't you fucking dare give up on me. Not now. That's a fucking order."
"I can't," she says again, weaker. She is getting weaker by the minute—by the second. "I can't…"
I scream for what must be the hundredth time today. My broken wrist cracks against its shackle, and the other groans. My feet skid against the floor, and the air stings against fresh blood as I tear open the fragile scabs that have grown over my own wounds.
I have to reach her, I think. I have to. I will not let her die alone.
"Kathryn!" Her name is a scream. "Kathryn, don't you fucking dare die on me."
She shudders, and does not reply.
"KATHRYN!"
And then the world explodes.
There is fire, and smoke, and then the wavering shape of men pouring through the door and into the blood-soaked cell. They are faceless mannequins above the familiar black and yellow uniforms of Starfleet troops, no eyes, no mouths, no hair. I stare, confused and alarmed, heart breaking through my ribs and climbing into my throat. Has help come? I wonder. Or have the dead come to claim one of their own?
A hand presses against my shoulder. A voice, filtered and hollow, distant but growing closer. Movement—and then, at last, beneath the mask as it is pulled away, a face. A human face.
"Sir? Sir!"
I blink, and struggle through the sudden watering of my eyes, to focus on the man speaking to me. I see a smile—of relief, or of encouragement—and bright blue eyes.
"We're here to get you out." The bright eyes flash, and the smile grows. The hand on my shoulder squeezes. "Just hold on."
There is a hiss of electronics, and I gasp in sharp pain as my arms fall, suddenly unpinioned by the shackles holding them aloft. I stumble, only for strong arms to catch me before I can fall.
"Come on, sir." The voice speaking is close beside my ear. It is Bright Eyes holding me up. "We have to get out of here."
I am looking at the floor. The floor is red and wet. It is red and wet with her blood.
Kathryn.
"Kathryn," I gasp, and struggle to straighten in the man's grip. "Kathryn, what about—"
"We've got her, sir," Bright Eyes says. "Dickenson and Tighe have her. Now come on, sir. It's time for us to leave."
I nod. The smoke is thick, and she is not on the floor where I last saw her.
Another man—or is it a woman?—slides in on my other side, and before I can protest, they pull a mask down over my face. I drag in a breath, and the air tastes stale, but blessedly, blessedly free of the iron taste of blood, or the sour taste of Cardassian cum, or the sweet taste of pain, both mine and hers.
Hands under my arms. They are dragging me forward, and I am stumbling between them. The smoke billows around us, thick and black. There are bodies, slumped still and broken on the floor, and there are scorch marks on the walls and yellow-burning fires in the corners. I stumble, and the hands of the man and woman on either side hold me up, hold me strong.
"We're almost there," a voice in my ear says. It is cool, and firm, and feminine.
We climb over rubble, then out through a hole in the wall into the phaser-shredded dark of night, leaving the smoke behind us. The man and woman haul me down the jagged hill beyond, guiding me around corpses clad in Cardassian armor and black-and-yellow, forcing me down and covering my head with their arms as golden beams of energy flash back and forth above us.
More voices. Screams, and shouts, and above it all the hiss-spit of phaser and rifle fire. The ground is broken beneath my feet, hard rock and shattered stone, and if it were not for the arms beneath mine I would fall. Instead they drag me forward, urging me on with strained voices.
For a second I think I hear a scream I know. Then a flurry of movement, and Bright Eyes tears the now-unneeded mask from my head and throws it to the ground. It lands with a thud, and then is lost to the night and the prison behind us.
"Go!" It is Bright Eyes. "I've got him," he says, as I trip on a rock and he hauls me upright yet again.
The warmth of the woman's arm leaves mine, and I feel as much as see her turn back. "Where—?" I gasp, panting, barely able to drag air into my petrified lungs—it is cold and dry, tasting of desert and metal and night.
"Not now," Bright Eyes snaps. "We're almost there."
I do not say that I have been told that already, and that that time it was a lie. I do not have the breath to speak.
Light. More shouting. A hulking shadow rising from the dark earth that I know—or, at least, recognize. Men and women kneel on the ground to either side of the metal ramp leading into the shuttle, the weapons they hold flashing yellow in the darkness.
"We're almost there," Bright Eyes says again, and this time I know he speaks the truth.
We reach the foot of the ramp. Another man runs down, grabs my other arm and helps Bright Eyes guide me up and into the shuttle. I blink in the red light, knowing that I should feel more than I do. All I feel is empty, and dazed.
They push me down into a seat, and the new-come aide drapes a blanket around me. He says words I can barely understand, like "shock," and "trauma," but I can do nothing but stare at the wall across from me. It is bathed in sweet red light, throwing each rivet and bolt into dark relief. It reminds me of the blood that crept across the floor toward my toes, the blood that painted her skin red…
Her.
Where is she?
I look up, look around. "Where?" I croak. My throat is dry, my voice parched. It seems difficult to remember why.
"Easy, sir." It is the man who draped the blanket around me. I do not see Bright Eyes anywhere. "Just rest. We'll be taking off soon."
I shake my head. "Where is she?" I ask. "I—Where is she?" It is important that I find her. I must find her.
"Ensign Janeway?" the man asks. He is crouched down next to me, his hair as dark as the shadows around us.
I nod. Obviously that is who I meant. Who else could she be?
Shadow Hair glances quickly at the shuttle door, then back at me. He seems uneasy. "She's on her way, sir," he tells me. "She'll be here soon. Now please, sit back."
I do not sit back. Something is wrong—I can feel it.
"Sir!" Shadow Hair pushes me down when I try to stand. "Please, sir, you won't help anyone. Please, just sit. We'll be ready to leave in just a minute."
Yelling. Footsteps on the ramp.
Shadow Hair grabs my arm and shoves me back down into the seat with a hand on my shoulder. I feel the straps of a safety belt tighten over my chest before I can try to push him away again.
"Fall back!"
It is Bright Eyes. His voice is stamped into my mind and memory. I turn, and there he is, standing at the edge of the shuttle door, facing out with a phaser in hand.
The night is lit with the flashes of a dozen phasers. Yellow-gold wars with red and shadow, and I squint against the shock of the change. Through the halos left behind my eyes as the last volley of phaser-fire fades, I see three last shapes limping up the ramp.
One of them is Kathryn.
She is pale—paler now, even, than she was on the floor—but she is upright, if only just. The blood has painted her skin black, and if I did not know she was human, I would think her a demon. She supports a man clad in Starfleet colors, one arm wrapped around his waist and her other hand gripping the front of his uniform as if that is the only thing keeping her on her feet. I suspect it is.
The last figure is, I think, the woman who had left me and Bright Eyes. She still wears a mask, but I think I recognize the broad shoulders and waist, and the shock of pale hair that creeps around the collar of her uniform. She is shadowing the two of them, phaser in one hand, the other outstretched as if to push them both along.
"That's it," Bright Eyes shouts. He slaps a hand against his commbadge as the trio staggers up and over the lip of the ramp. "O'Neill to the pilot: Let's go."
The last of the black-and-yellow men and women leap up onto the ramp as it begins to close, taking one or two last shots before their phasers fall dead. The ramp latches with a hiss—and then there comes the hum of thrusters, and the shuttle rocks as it lifts off.
There are voices—so many voices, male and female, hard and soft, angry and concerned. Names, and questions, and demands fly back and forth over and around me, loud and louder until all I want is to cover my hands with my ears and close my eyes.
I do not.
I find her still holding onto the man she dragged up the ramp. There are others around her now, speaking to her, reaching for her. She flinches, and I see her eyes flash wild. Her fingers dig into the man by her side, who flinches in turn. He looks down at her, mouth opening to speak words I cannot hear.
The shuttle shakes, the concussive thump of weapons fire slashing through the air. The safety straps dig into my skin where the blanket does not cover me. I remember, for the first time in days, that I am naked.
When I look up to find her again, she is on the floor. The man she had been holding onto is down as well, though he picks himself up with a grunt and a groan, favoring his right leg. Then he shouts, and the movement that had settled into the seats against the walls ignites again.
"Medic," someone cries, and Shadow Hair beside me leaps to his feet and stumbles across the shuttle, barely keeping his balance as the deck bucks.
He kneels beside Kathryn. His hands fly over her body, brushing her skin and touching her blood. His hands come away daubed with her life. "Hail the Dawnbreaker," he snaps. "Alert Doctor Fraiser that we have an inbound medical emergency."
I strain against the straps holding me down, fumbling for a release. "Please," I say, to no one and to everyone. "Save her. You have to save her."
Shadow Hair looks up at me. I am surprised; I did not think I had spoken loud enough to be heard over the voices and the still-echoing weapons fire. "We're going to try," he says. Then he looks at Bright Eyes, and gestures something I do not understand.
Bright Eyes nods. He moves, and kneels when he draws near. His voice is soft, soothing, as if speaking to a feral dog. "I'm going to sedate you now," he tells me. "It's for the best," he adds, when he sees me recoil and bare my teeth. "For everyone."
I shake my head. "No," I say. "No, I don't want to leave her. I can't—"
There is a gentle prick at the side of my neck, and then the cool flush of sedative in my blood.
"No," I say again. "No…"
I collapse against my restraints, head falling forward against my will. I fight as my eyelids grow heavy, as shadows coalesce at the edges of my mind. No, I try to say again, but my lips will not move. My tongue is thick and heavy, and my throat is as slow as a slug.
For an instant I am once again in the cell—see again the harsh lights and the stone floor and the garish red of her blood, smell her life and her death, hear the Cardassians' laughter.
My last thought, as darkness finally overtakes me, is that I hope I will not find myself waking to her corpse.
Please, I pray to the God I may believe in, let her live.
And then I sleep.
a/n: this fic was initially titled 'Knife-Work.' I ultimately vetoed that idea.
this is the first in a two part mini-series. many thanks to absynthe-minded for her support as I wrote it, and to cheile and ewokshootsfirst for reading over it and not only assuring me it was good, but giving some good feedback as well.
