Title: Solitary
Author: petite_stars
Rating: R
Warnings: mention of non-con, adult themes
Summary: On her own, Sam has nothing to do but count.
Category: Gen, Sam-fic
Season: Seven
Disclaimer: Don't own SG1 or associated franchises, and I made no money from writing this.
Notes: Had a bit of a break from writing and SG1 and then this came into my head. Different to my usual style and I'm not sure I entirely love it but here it is!
Many thanks to ziparumpazoo who kindly stepped in to beta this for me, without her, my inability to write in one tense and to correctly punctuate would have stopped me from posting this.
***
The bright blue rippling light of the wormhole is a comforting sight amidst the chaos that has erupted around Sam. She pushes herself to move faster as the threat behind her presses ever closer.
"Carter!"
The urgency in the Colonel's voice tells her that she is cutting it too close and she needs to move faster. Her lungs burn as she breathes in gasps of air that taste like gunpowder. Her thighs ache and her vision blurs into shades of blue as she concentrates on the wormhole; the only way home. She is almost within reach of safety, of her team, when a sharp pain rips through her head. She catches one last glimpse of the rippling blue surface before she hits the ground and blackness engulfs her.
***
Sam doesn't know the name of the people who have captured her. She doesn't even remember being captured, only waking up in this filthy cell, blood crusted to the left side of her head, and only the horrible sharpness of pain that spreads from her cheekbone to the back of her skull to keep her company.
Concussion, she thinks dully, as the room spins around her and she tastes vomit in the back of her mouth. She tries to sit up but bright spots appear in her vision and she slumps back down onto her back. She passes out, her last thought being of her team.
When she wakes again, the pain has dulled to an aching throb. She manages to sit up and makes it to her hands and knees before bile creeps up her throat and she vomits onto the already dirty ground.
Afterwards she pulls herself to the iron bars which line one wall of the cell. They are solid and the lock unpickable in her current state. Through her slightly blurry vision she cannot see any other people in the cells opposite her. Just a dimly lit emptiness which makes her breathing quicken.
She calls out for her team.
"Colonel? Daniel? Tealc?"
At first no one responds.
Then she hears a creaking, a heavy thud, and unfamiliar footsteps.
***
For the first three days they let her keep her watch.
It's the only way she can tell the time in this filthy and desolate prison. The meals come sporadically, there are no routine patrols past the heavy iron bars, and no window through which to watch the movement of the sun.
When they take her watch away she begins to count the seconds that pass. It's not like she has anything better to do aside from stare at the solid walls around her, and it's almost comforting to retreat into numbers. Numbers have always been her refuge, usually in the form of complex mathematical equations, but the counting is all she has at the moment and she finds it soothing.
She falls asleep just as she reaches 17 328 seconds. When she awakes she is disconcerted that she has no idea how long she's slept, how many more hours she has been in this hole. For a moment panic overtakes her, her hands press against her face as if she can tell by the contours of her skin how much time has passed.
The lines on her face are familiar, even though her skin is covered in a layer of grime. Her fingers brush the tangles of her hair and the panic begins to recede when she realises that the length of her hair is a finger-width below her earlobe. The same length it had been the day before.
She takes a deep breath and begins to count again.
***
The language they yell at her in between beatings sounds vaguely like a mix of Spanish and Indonesian; she doesn't know how she knows that, but puts it down to spending too much time with Daniel watching his beloved foreign language films.
Sam speaks to her captors in English. It frustrates them. She can see it in their eyes and can feel it in the way the fists hit harder after she speaks.
"Su'ira maya viiald cer'asta?" She assumes they are asking her questions and she tries to placate them by guessing what their demands are.
"Samantha Carter," she gasps out her name as a closed fist hits her ribcage. "United States Air Force, from a planet called-"
The fists come again, this time hitting her so hard that the chair she is shackled to tumbles to the ground. Her shoulder takes the brunt of the fall and she groans as the ache radiates down her arm. The chair is lifted roughly back into place and nausea threatens to overwhelm her when the main interrogator puts his face so close to hers that she tastes the acrid smell of his breath.
"Su'ira. Maya. Viiald. Cer'asta?" Each word is enunciated slowly. A harsh curiosity and coldness burns from the man's eyes as he waits for her answer.
"Samantha Carter-"
The fists again interrupt her reply. This time aiming for her face. For a moment her right eye feels numb, then the pain shrieks down her nerves and she can feel the crack in her cheekbone. A sob catches in her chest before the blackness of unconsciousness descends.
***
Mostly she sleeps between counting the seconds and trying to summon the energy to pace her tiny cell to keep her body in some semblance of fitness.
Her captors (she has only seen the same three men since has arrived) are obviously familiar to interrogation and torture. Each one plays a role in her beatings. The eldest is the man who asks the questions. He radiates authority and she can sense his anger and frustration with her lack of compliance, but he never lays a finger on her. She nicknames him 'Bond', as something about his face reminds her of Sean Connery.
She nicknames the shortest man 'Ice', as she has seen neither anger nor pity reflect on his face. His eyes and expression are emotionless, almost robotic, and his acts of torture are precise. It feels as if he doesn't do anything unnecessary in causing pain; he knows the right places to bruise, to cut, to break without killing her. His posture screams that this is just business to him and she imagines that he likely goes home to a family of some sort and his facade of cold cruelty is just that, a facade.
The thug of the bunch, she calls Brutus. It's his fists she is most familiar with but it's not the heaviness of his hits that scare her. It's the lecherous look in his eyes, and the way that he manages to run his hand over the curves of her body every chance that he gets. Her skin crawls when he gets close and she can see the barely held restraint in his eyes. She is thankful she is never alone with him.
They ask her questions in a language she doesn't understand. She responds in English, giving them nothing of value just in case, and receives more bruises in return. Sam receives more sessions with the three interrogators than she does meals. It wears her down, but she can do nothing else but wait.
And count.
***
On the seventh time with the three men, she discovers a way for science to give her some protection from the heavy fists.
She stops answering the questions she can only assume they are asking and instead begins naming elements in the periodic table at random.
"Meitnerium," she groans out the element's name. "Atomic number 109."
Ice's hand pauses where he is holding her index finger at an angle, ready to snap the digit, and Brutus' impatient pacing and cracking of his knuckles behind her stops.
It is Bond's face that gives her the most pause. She doesn't know what the word means to them, and logically she knows it can't have the same meaning as it does to her, but all she cares is that it gets them to stop.
A hushed discussion takes place between the three and she waits, spitting blood out of her mouth and flexing her ankles against the metal shackles. When they return to face her with a united front, the leader, Bond, nods to her as if to say continue.
Sam thinks for a moment, "Nioium, atomic number 41."
Their faces look excited and Bond pulls out what Sam recognises as a sort of notebook and pen and begins scribbling the words down.
"Osmium, atomic number 76." Sam closes her eyes and pictures the periodic table she has tacked to her desk in the SGC. She knows it by heart of course, but the familiarity and basic science that the table represents is why she keeps it somewhere she can view it daily. It takes her back to her high school chemistry class, to the smell of Bunsen burners and peroxide.
Sam lists 23 elements before she is dragged back to her cell. She passes out with the hint of a smile on her face.
***
She runs out of elements in the next session. Bond shakes his head, taps his notebook, and yells at her in his unfamiliar tongue.
Sam tries to think of the numerous other scientific words that can placate them. She assumes it's the foreignness and complicated sound of the words that means something to them. She calls out every multisyllabic word she can summon from her hazy mind, but the fists keep coming. By the time she is dragged back to her cell Bond is angrier than ever, her body is more bruised, and three of her fingers are broken.
She passes out this time with tears on her cheeks.
***
Sam limits the thoughts of her team in order to protect herself.
Thinking of them creates an ache in her chest that surpasses the pain of her physical injuries. She doesn't know if they are locked in a similar hell or are out searching the galaxy for her or dead. When she does think of them she tries not to think of where they could be, instead she concentrates on other things.
Like the smell of coffee that always surrounds Daniel, even after he has freshly showered. The way he chews on his pencils, and hers, and the excited look on his face whenever he makes a breakthrough in something, no matter how small.
Teal'c exudes strength and fortitude in her memory. She holds the image of him in her mind, the muscles, height and sheer massiveness of his frame, as if she can steal some of his strength from the memory. She doesn't let herself forget his gentleness either, the way his eyes would meet hers in shared humour over the colonel and Daniel's bickering, or the way he would always keep watch in the infirmary overnight when one of them was injured.
She tries to capture the colonel's unique sense of humour when she remembers him. But the jokes she imagines coming out of his mouth don't sound right and humour isn't what she needs right now, as depressed and lonely as she is. Instead she focuses on one thought only when it comes to thinking of the colonel.
He never leaves a man behind.
***
Clearly they are unsatisfied with her responses; the beatings resume their usual pointlessness. Bond becomes more and more frustrated and he stops yelling suddenly to shake her shoulders roughly and look into her eyes as he whispers,"Undaya mal jevai ceira."
Sam can read the hint of a threat in his words. And she watches as Bond gestures to her and then points at Brutus who smirks back at her in return.
Sam's stomach rolls and she retches, but she hasn't been fed in who knows how long. Nothing leaves her stomach.
She is dumped back into her cell. Bond taps at his chest in a way that she thinks means something, and then disappears.
***
Sam is well aware of the risks that women in combat face. She's attended all the lectures, the self defence courses, and read everything provided to her by the military on the topic. Since working at the SGC she has known the risk to herself increased ten fold. Yet the threat of rape didn't scare her in the same way it had before she had known of the Stargate. Things worse than rape could happen at the SGC, namely being snaked by a parasitical being and trapped within your own body.
Been there, done that.
Rape seemed just another form of torture to Sam. Another way to degrade someone into telling them what they wanted to know.
She holds onto that thought until the sound of footsteps thump down the corridor. When she turns to face the three men through the bars, a cold feeling rushes through her.
Instead of three men, there is only one.
***
The weekend before her last mission, the colonel had convinced (irritated, annoyed, needled) them all into a night off-base bowling. Sam had giggled when Teal'c's fingers wouldn't fit into the bowling ball holes, smiled at the colonel's arrogance of his game skills and numerous excuses whenever things didn't go his way, and laughed when Daniel beat them all with his preferred bright pink bowling ball.
Daniel had dropped her home, kissed her cheek and wished her goodnight. She'd gone to sleep with a smile on her face and a warmth in her belly that only spending time with loved ones could create.
In the darkness of the cell, Sam presses herself back into the hard wall, trying desperately to recall that warm feeling. She replays every moment of that wonderful night through her memory but instead of vivid colour, all she sees is gray.
***
Bond paces in front of her. Tied to the familiar chair, Sam focuses on a rough point in the wall beyond his shoulder. She can smell Brutus's skin from across the room and can feel the piercing gaze of Ice from where he stands expressionless in the corner.
"Unae wayai ne retrera?" Bond's eyes flick to Brutus and then to Sam's but she just keeps hers pinned to the wall.
Bond huffs and claps his hands together, making her jump. Ice steps forward with a knife and Sam feels a cool numbness spread through her body.
She couldn't do anything else. She is trained to resist torture, to not spill secrets, to hold out for as long as possible in the hope of rescue. A conversation over a campfire with the colonel back in the early days of the SGC still is fresh in her mind.
"Give them small pieces when you can't stand it anymore." The colonel's gaze was distant as he spoke. "Never give them the complete picture. Fracture what you know down into tiny pieces and feed it to them one by one."
Sam had nodded. The bristling female officer inside her stiffened and defiantly screamed that she would never betray her country, her planet.
The colonel seemed to sense her thoughts. "Everyone breaks," he said quietly, knowingly.
Sam had broken long ago. She didn't know how long it had been, she could only count by beatings – the ones she remembered. She had thought she would hold out for longer and it wasn't just the pain, but the loneliness, hunger, and the awfulness of not knowing what had happened to her team that had done it.
It didn't matter.
She was broken, but it wasn't Earth's secrets that her captors wanted. She doesn't know what they want. She would give it to them if she knew that they would just let her go.
***
Brutus visits her in her cell at irregular intervals.
At first she fights. But it just makes it worse. The end is inevitable anyway. In order to protect herself from more pain, submissiveness seemed the best option in a hopeless situation.
After he leaves, Sam curls herself into a tight ball, imagining she is somewhere else, anywhere else. Not for the first time she contemplates ways to end it all. Anger Brutus so he hits her one too many times, find something to make it stop.
She can't do it. No matter how hard it gets, Sam Carter is not a quitter. And at that moment, she hates herself for it.
***
She counts; the rhythm is soothing and she concentrates on keeping her mind blank and her body still and rested. She turns her head to rest against the cold wall and her hair, matted with dirt, blood and tears falls onto her face. She lifts a hand and runs her fingers through the tangles, measuring the length as best she can.
The tips of her hair just touches her shoulders. Sam shudders and lets go of the strands, letting them fall away from her face. How long had she been stuck in this cell for her hair to reach her shoulders? Was no one ever going to come? The colonel's mantra repeats in her mind.
Never leave a man behind.
The words are fast fading, growing softer. The hope that those words evoked is getting harder and harder to feel as time passes. In the quiet moments she wonders why the colonel and her team have left her here for so long to suffer; in her more doubtful moments she imagines they had just given up. Images of them attending a sombre memorial service, an appropriate grieving period where the colonel would push them to work, then, eventually her replacement, a faceless, nameless officer, would slide in and take her place.
In some ways she wants that theory to be true as much as it hurts to imagine. Because the alternative is worse, that they aren't coming because they are dead.
***
Pain becomes a constant for Sam.
Even in sleep her body hurts. A dull ache from a healing fracture, the sharp sting of an open wound, or the heat of infection, she feels it constantly. She doesn't mind the pain anymore. If she concentrates on the physical pain, she doesn't feel the crushing loneliness or the terror that causes her pulse to pound and her muscles to clench.
Sam doesn't dream anymore. In the beginning, her dreams were nightmares of grabbing hands and the torture relived. When real life became worse than her subconscious, her dreams seemed to revert to happier times. Of Cassie, the boys, the SGC and her lab. In her dreams she was welcomed with open arms and laughter and warmth.
When she woke from her dreams of home, the stark cell was too much, and if she had any moisture in her body to spare, Sam would cry. Now, her dreams are nothing but dull colour; she dreams in shades of gray and black and brown. When she wakes she feels neither despair nor hope, just the flatness of nothing. She prefers it this way.
***
She's dreaming of deep inky blackness streaked with stone gray when the sharp sound of gunfire tears her from slumber.
At first it takes her a long moment to realise that the staccato shooting is the familiar sound of home. Men are yelling, lights flash, and Sam, far from cowering in the corner of her cell, presses herself against the bars. She tries to call out, but her throat is dry and all she can manage is a hoarse shout before coughing overwhelms her.
The silence that falls is as devastating as anything Sam has ever felt. She stumbles backwards and lands with her back pressed against the rough wall. No one has come. She waits as her mind spins over possibilities of being left behind, again, or of the redness of blood spilling from the cooling bodies of her would-be rescuers as her captors rejoice.
She counts, emptying her mind and focusing on the numbers that scroll through her mind. She reaches 5392 when a heavy scraping noise from the end of the corridor and hushed whispers cause her to halt. Sam, unsure if she is really hearing the sounds of rescue or a cruel hallucination stays pressed against the wall. Sound fades and all she can hear is the rapid beating of her own heart as she waits.
The colonel's face appears between the bars and all Sam can do is stare, her body frozen in its seated position. She drinks in the sight of the familiar lines of his face, his bright eyes and tanned skin. His mouth moves, but Sam can't hear the words. The cell opens and he stumbles in, landing on his knees in front of her, hands grasping her face. Familiar figures appear behind him, standing guard over them, but Sam only has eyes for the man kneeling in front of her.
"Carter?" Anguish and happiness are intertwined in his tone as sound finally trickles into her mind. "God, Carter." His touch both burns and soothes her skin, and she brings up a hesitant hand to press against his cheek, wincing slightly as her dirty broken fingers touch his unblemished skin.
"Sir." Sam gives him a smile as she whispers to him. Relief rushes through her; she presses her forehead against his shoulder and breathes in his familiar smell.
Then she passes out.
***
Sam wakes up half expecting to still be in the cell, alone and cold. But instead she's encased in strong arms, the sound of heavy breathing, and the familiar scent of candles and incense. She isn't moving, and she blinks her eyes open to stare up into a midnight blue sky, lit with stars. While the stars aren't familiar, the realisation that she is outside brings tears to her eyes. The arms holding her realise she is awake and Teal'c's dark but warm face peers into view.
"Major Carter, we are at the Stargate." She can feel the steady rumble of Teal'c's voice through her cheek that rests against his chest. "Daniel Jackson is dialling home."
"Home." Sam thinks of her lab, the team, and cool, clean sheets on a soft welcoming mattress. "Home," She repeats the word softly.
Around her she can sense soldiers, friendlies, dressed in the familiar battle uniform all SGC combat soldiers wear. She eyes the guns and weapons with envy and her right hand clenches slightly as she remembers the cold steel of a gun, its weight reassuring in her hand. But she feels safe with Teal'c. The moment passes and she relaxes into the comfortable arms holding her, content to stare at the stars and feel the gentle breeze against her skin after being confined inside for so long.
The sudden noise of the gate engaging startles Sam and she jerks in Teal'c's strong arms. "It is okay Major Carter," Teal'c soothes her softly.
Sam stares at the rippling blue surface of the wormhole and knows she is mere steps away from home. Her heart is pounding and she can not describe the heavy feeling in her chest that is making it hard to breath. Home, Earth, the SGC. She longs to feel the metal ramp under her feet, see General Hammond's strong face welcoming them home, and she struggles in Teal'c's arms just as he moves forward.
"No," she whispers and suddenly the colonel is beside them; he understands exactly what she wants without her having to explain. Gentle hands guide her to stand on shaking legs, arms are wrapped around her too slender shoulders, and she walks on towards the gate. She sees Daniel out the corner of her eye as he matches his steps so he can walk beside the slowly moving trio, so they become complete, a team of four once again.
Sam doesn't pause as she steps into the coolness of the wormhole, trusting that she will step through to familiar sights when she emerges on the other side.
***
Sam must black out momentarily and she vaguely recalls her feet touching the coolness of the metal grate before the floor rushes towards her and gentle arms guide her downwards and to the side, away from the incoming soldiers.
Janet's face, pinched anxiously, floats into view, klaxons blare, and she can hear General Hammond calling for the iris to be closed, for the colonel to report, and to give the medics some space all in one breathe.
Everything is happening so quickly, but Sam barely catches anything. Her head flops to the side and right beside her are the three men she had feared were lost to her forever. They stand, close enough so she can smell their familiar scents, but far enough away that when she stretches out her arm she can't reach them.
It doesn't matter.
Sam is home.
***
End
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