Katie's Pain

The door shut in front of my face and I bit down on her tongue to keep from screaming. The coppery warm flood of blood ran back in my throat and I swallowed hard. I took a ragged breath and headed for the washroom. That's how I got here. Right after he said that to me. A mother. Not my mother, obviously, but I could have had one of some kind…

I hear the water running and realize that my fingers have sought out the ancient faucet knob and turned it so that the water is rushing in so fast that little droplets are splattering up and spraying my shirt in a light mist. I lean forward and stick my tongue under the flow and spy a trail of pink running around the white porcelain before disappearing into the pipes and down into the deep abyss that is this place. If only all wounds bled. Well, if that were true I'd have died a long time ago.

When the icy water has finally beaten my bitten tongue into a dull throbbing ache I pull it back behind my teeth and clench them down once more. I splash a bit more water onto my face and then shut it off. The room sounds strange without the echo of the water's rush, empty. I'm empty, and this is becoming a feeling I think I may actually be able to live with. This is a bad sign.

Reluctantly I look up into the mirror; she's there of course. Staring back at me. Judging me. Would she? My mother. Would she judge me? Would she be angry that I was wishing for that woman in the hall, the woman I've known all of two seconds and perhaps all of my life in a way that I can't recall; would she be angry that I wanted her to be my mother? Or just someone to call Mom? Someone to go to when Dad was in one of his ways.

"Don't look at me like that." I say to her. I see her looking at me, disappointed. No, that's not her. That's me. I'm disappointed in myself. I haven't figured out anything. I don't think I ever will. For all I discover I become deeper entrenched in questions.

But I have found out something. My mother's name was Carter. Something Carter. She looked just like me. She had blond hair and brown eyes. She was a scientist. That's the only explanation the missing book offers. And more than that, she worked here. Vala Mal Doran knew her. Teal'c knew her. And my father, my father refuses to remember her. My mother. The mother of his child.

I look so pale in this light. I miss the sun. I miss the earth beneath my feet, and the wind, and the night's sky. I miss the world. My world. The world where I had nothing to go on at all. The world where none of this existed and I didn't have to live with the sneaking suspicion that my father has been lying to me for my entire life about something so…so beyond words that I'm shaking as I grip the basin.

I walk out of the restroom as fast as I can. The bed is close and I'm dizzy for the umpteenth time. My things are scattered across the bedding and I shove them off quickly and throw myself down.

And then for the first time that I can remember, I'm crying.

I'm beyond crying.

I'm sobbing.

My throat hurts; it's squeezing tighter and tighter. My eyes are running out of tears soon. How long have I been crying to run out of tears? My lungs are burning because I can't get enough air in. I start to cough between small whimpers that are only small because the world is closing in around me, and it's so dark and so near that I can't hear that I'm actually screaming. The air is harder to get and I choke. I can't breath and things are getting darker. I think I'm about to pass out when my stomach remembers itself and heaves its contents onto the floor by the bed. Now I can breath but my ribs hurt.

The bitter tang of bile is strong and my nose is burning too. I look at what I've done, the mess on the floor, and unconsciously I hustle to the bathroom and wet a towel. I start to clean the mess, it wasn't much. I hadn't had much to eat recently. I'm still crying. And my tongue burns where the acid in my stomach has now begun to creep into the teeth marks made so short a time ago.

I'm hyperventilating again, but this time it's my body trying to calm itself down. I must sound like a three year old. For every breath I struggle at I'm making some odd whimpering cry…and I can't stop. I want to stop so badly. I want it all to stop. I want this to all be a dream. I don't want the world to end. I don't want to be the reason it ends because I'm causing trouble looking for the dead when my Dad is trying to save the living. But I want to know so damn badly that I'm sitting, rocking on the floor with a towel filled with nerves pushed to the side and whimpering like I don't think I've ever done in my entire life.

Rocking.

Breathing.

Crying out.

And then the door, someone is knocking on the door. I want to tell them to go away. I want to tell them I'm fine, but all I get out is this odd little hee-hefff sound from my jagged breaths. The door opens and I look away before I can see who is there. It's probably Dad, the last person I actually want to see right now, and that makes me start crying all over again because I've never felt that way about him in my entire life. I lean my head forward and pull my arms over it, wishing I could be invisible.

And then I feel arms. Around me. Holding me. They're thin and frail, but somehow strong and nurturing and I've felt them before. In the hallway. I peer up and see those two pale eyes looking at me with a sad sort of sparkle.

"I…I…ca…can…t…stooo…stoo…oop…" And that's all I can get out before I let out a strange animal like wail and try desperately to hold it back so that it comes out like a fan belt dying in a car.

"Don't stop." I hear her say with her heavy accent. "It only hurts worse if you stop." She pulls me closer against her and somehow I find I'm holding her back. She's got her arms over my shoulders and she's rubbing circles between them with one hand and starting to rock me with the other.

"Vala Mal Doran…" I hear Teal'c, he sounds far away.

"I've got her Muscles." Such an apt nickname that I would probably giggle given another circumstance. "You just watch out for Grumpy will you?"

There is no reply, only a closed door, and I don't care why. I want all the doors to close. I want her to keep holding me. Holding me like she's my mother. I need her to, otherwise I think I may implode. She's rocking me still, saying things I can't really hear but they are calming me down. She stops making circles, now she's gently stroking my hair. How long has she been here? I can't remember. But my breathing has calmed down. I think I could speak if I wanted to. But I don't. Speaking is overrated. I don't want to speak right now. I just want to listen to the sound of her heart beating so close, so strangely calm.

Why did my father take this from me?

A/N: I'm not on a Daniel bashing, I swear. Hope you're enjoying, and thank you for reading!!!

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