Part 3 - Beast of Burden
The next day, Jack returned to Kayla's room to have another session with her. He wasn't sure his initial thoughts about this new approach were far from wrong, but he would give it another try before completely giving up on the idea. Kayla was sitting in the darkened room when Jack arrived. The doctor smiled as the Colonel closed the door behind him. "Good afternoon," Kayla greeted her patient cheerfully. Her spirits had lifted slightly from the previous day, but doubt was still faint in her mind.
Jack was feeling uncertainty all over again as he sat down without returning a greeting of any kind. "Are you happy to be here?" Kayla asked, as a matter of interest.
"Not particularly, no," Jack admitted. "I'd probably rather be anywhere but here, no offence, but it doesn't matter."
"On the contrary, it does matter," Kayla said, "it's no good you being here if you don't feel it's going to be any benefit to you. My job is made a whole lot harder when you are not even willing to think this could help."
"It's not that I don't think it could help," Jack offered, "it's just . well I don't really know. I don't think anything will help."
"I can understand why you might think that. It makes sense, but you need to erase that doubt. Hopefully, this will help to do that first, and then it will start to help generally. You have to believe it will be of some benefit, even if only small." Jack knew Kayla was trying to help, but he was sick and tired of being lectured by everyone around him about what was supposedly going to 'help'. "Can we just start?" he asked.
Kayla nodded. She guessed that he was getting a lot of lectures lately and hers wouldn't be any help. "Of course," she agreed. "Close your eyes once again and imagine that you are waiting. You are inside that small room, waiting for someone to open the door. Just keep that image in your mind for a few minutes and talk when you're ready." Kayla hoped with this choice of situation, Colonel O'Neill would have to use his own memories to lead on to something that happened to him. She wasn't going to ask him questions this time. This time it was up to him to talk about his experiences on P4C 237.
Jack saw the image of the torture chamber before his eyes vividly, once again. It made him shudder just to remember that horrible room, but he kept focus. It was dark and then unexpectedly, he saw himself in the room. Similar to an out of body experience, he watched himself for a moment, lying in his own blood, still on the ground. Like shards of glass, light sporadically poked through the window covers as the soft wind blew them.
"I see myself," Jack said suddenly. "I'm lying on the ground, blood is all around me. It's like I'm watching myself from a surveillance camera."
"What are you doing?" Kayla prompted, even although she'd decided not to ask questions this time. Jack had started speaking about this on his own and Kayla didn't want him to stop. A question here and there would be all right.
"Nothing, I'm just lying there," Jack replied, as though caught up in a dream and reporting back to his conscious thoughts every so often. But just as he'd felt as though he were watching himself, he became himself again. He was no longer watching, he was lying, waiting on the ground. The person he'd seen, he now was again. But it wasn't happening again, it was a memory. This had already happened once - it wasn't happening again now.
//'Through the fogs and mists
You know them as your pain
They'll never leave your side
Or come to haunt you again
Hiding will not shadow you
Your sentence has been cast
Nothing will deceive them
Or hide away your past'//
"Are you awake?" Kayla prodded, noticing Jack had become very distant and quite suddenly.
"Yes," he answered. "I was awake. I was just waiting, silently, for them to come back. I knew they would. They'd just left me there after showing me off to the whole village, like a prize. I remember that I couldn't get up. I tried to, but I couldn't, so I stayed where I was. It felt like I was bleeding from everywhere. I don't really know where I actually was bleeding, but I'm pretty sure it was more than one place. I think I waited an hour for them to come back. I was awake some of the time, but unconscious for a lot of it. It might have been a lot longer than an hour, or a lot less, but it felt like about an hour."
Kayla was pleased. Not about what her patient was recalling, but that he was recalling it of his own free will. He was talking - remembering - and she wasn't asking him questions every two seconds. This was much better than yesterday's session. It would be far more use to him this way, than the alternative. "What happened when the guards came back to you?" Kayla nudged Jack on; he'd stopped for a few minutes.
"I think I was unconscious, or asleep. I remember waking up and feeling pain in my chest and back. They were kicking me, to try and wake me up. I could hear them yelling at me to wake up, but I don't know why they bothered. They had fun anyway."
"What do you mean?"
"It didn't matter if I was conscious or not, they still had fun."
"What did they do this time?" Kayla kept digging. She knew it could be a hazardous thing to do at this stage, but it was important for Jack to continue talking now that he'd started.
"This time was different," Jack said slowly.
Kayla could hear the consideration in his voice. Something about this was more prominent in his mind, to make his mood change, she thought. This was clearly a big change to his usual torture routine, if he needed to contemplate what he was saying. "What was different?"
"The leader came," Jack replied simply. The visions flashing blindingly before his closed eyes were giving him a headache. The pain seemed to shock itself through his mind, another flash of lightning. The blinding pain was slowly worsening as he recalled the moments he had tried to forget.
"The leader? Who was this leader?" Kayla delved deeper into her questioning, only this time it was going to prove to be a bad idea. Jack was gritting his teeth so hard, it hurt. He couldn't do this. He couldn't talk about it; it was too hard.
There was a long period of silence in which Kayla was uncertain if she should prod for further information or just leave the silence to reign. After a few more minutes, Kayla had to bite the bullet and speak. It was too hard not saying anything. "Colonel?" she murmured. "Who was the - "
"No," Jack said suddenly, flinging his eyes open quickly. "No, I can't."
"Can't what? What is it, Colonel?" Kayla asked, noticeably taken by surprise.
"I can't," Jack repeated, swiftly standing up and leaving.
Kayla stood up as Jack left, but didn't follow him. "Damn," she cursed herself and sighed emphatically. I shouldn't have pushed, she thought angrily. I should have left it alone.
@
Kayla sat silently on the bed in her adopted living quarters, listening to Bach's Unaccompanied Cello Suites in her mind. The cello had always been a favourite instrument of hers and hearing the exquisite, intricate detail of the unaccompanied cello, seemed to soothe her knotted mind. And to add to that, Yo-Yo Ma was one of the most talented musicians alive, in her opinion. While at the beginning of Suite No. 1.4, Sarabande, Kayla heard knocking that was clearly not a part of Bach's beautiful concerto.
"It's open," she called and watched as the door opened, to reveal Sam.
"I'm sorry to interrupt you," Sam apologised instantly.
"You're not interrupting anything at all," Kayla smiled, "I was just listening to music in my mind. I can always start again. Come in, come in. What can I do for you, Major?"
Sam smiled gratefully and closed the door behind her, then walked further into the doctors' quarters. "Call me Sam, please. No formality is necessary."
"All right," Kayla agreed, "but only if you agree to call me Kayla?"
"Ok, deal," Sam smiled.
Kayla offered Carter a seat and she took it. "What can I do for you, Sam?" Kayla asked, smiling at the use of the Major's first name. She always liked using peoples' names for the first time.
"Well, this is something that's a little hard to talk about," Sam replied cryptically. What am I doing here? I can't say what I came here to say. I just can't, there's no way I can. I shouldn't even feel it, let alone want to talk about it.
"Ok, you've definitely got me interested," Kayla said. "What is it?" Sam thought for a moment. She couldn't say what she wanted to. What she needed to. No, she couldn't. She had to think of something else, and quick! But there already was something else. She didn't need to think long.
"I know you can't say what you talk about with Colonel O'Neill, but I need to ask something."
"You're right, I can't talk about what Colonel O'Neill and I have discussed, but ask your question anyway."
"I just wondered if he'd mentioned anything about a particular memory that - well I'm not sure what, exactly, but I went to see him the other day to.to talk about something else, and he seemed distressed. He was so distant, and he seemed really troubled about something. I thought maybe it was a particular memory, or a nightmare, but when I asked what was wrong, he asked me to leave. I haven't seen him since, but I thought maybe he might have mentioned something about that, or the thing that was bothering him?"
"I can't really answer that, and you know I can't, but if he had in fact mentioned something like that."
Sam knew exactly what Kayla was very subtly doing, and smiled. "Thank you," she said and left.
Kayla smiled. You're welcome, she thought.
***
Azyalae watched her friends bring in the lifeless body of her latest patient. He'd been to see her many times already, and he'd only been on the planet for a few weeks. Each time she saw him, Azyalae swore he looked worse. His face was drenched in a cold sweat, his whole body shaking endlessly from the cold. His face, neck, chest, arms were all covered in blood. The scarlet substance was smeared over his skin like paint on a wall. His dark brown eyes stared up at her as he was placed on the barns' straw bed. Azyalae frowned sadly. It was horrible to see such horrific injuries on this same man, each and every time he was brought to her. She was willing to admit she wished she didn't have to see him again, just in the hope that it meant he wasn't being tortured anymore. But each time he came back, she knew, her wish wasn't going to come true.
As the guards left the barn, Azyalae sat down on the rickety old chair beside the bed of straw. Jack looked up to her, his whole body trembling. He felt his lips, smeared with dried blood, quivering as he opened his mouth to speak. "I - I'm g- going to - to d-die?" his voice quavered out the small sentence with difficulty.
Azyalae shook her head quickly, taking one of Jack's cold, trembling and blood smeared hands in her own. "No, no," she said. "No, you won't die. I won't allow you to die."
But through the freezing cold, the pain and the weakness, Jack nodded his head. "I - I'm d-dying," he said surely, his words barely a whisper.
"No," Azyalae repeated. "Do not say that. I will not let you die. You will not die." Leaving no further argument, Azyalae got straight to treating the new injuries Jack had acquired from his last routine of torture with Maldo's first prime, Lopbell. It seemed, to Azyalae, the guards were becoming more and more ruthless with their torture. Jack had barely survived last time, and now this. The doctor ignored the shock of the thought that Jack might actually be right in thinking he was going to die. She wouldn't allow him to die, and yet, she felt awful, knowing she was helping him to recover from torture, only to be sent back to the same people for more torture. It seemed wrong either way. A lose, lose situation.
"Azyalae."
Jack's faint voice just caught the doctor's ears as she began cleaning blood away from his arms. She raised her head to look at him fully. The damage was overwhelming. It really was a sight the doctor preferred not to see.
"Yes?" she asked gently, sitting down on the old chair again.
Jack managed to find strength enough to reach for Azyalae's hand and hold it in his own. It was so much warmer than his. He felt as though his bones were brittle from the cold alone. His skin - or what little that seemed to be left of it - so cold, it was like Antarctica all over again, only less protection from the elements.
"Azyalae," Jack said the doctor's name once more, to enforce his seriousness. "P-please, j-just let m-me.l-let me d-die."
Azyalae let her mouth hang slightly open as she looked at the man lying, injured, before her. Her brow slowly creased in distress and anguish as she tried to comprehend what this man was asking her to do. Could she possibly do what he asked? Was it fair for her to grant his wish, while he was in this state? Did he know what he was saying?
But was it fair to send him back to the horror and pain in that little room? That little room with those men who were there solely to inflict pain upon innocent victims as their daily pastime. Could she really sit down and watch guards take this man back to the very place he collected these horrific injuries from? Could she sit back and say it was ok for Jack to suffer through endless, brutal torture for the amusement of Maldo's first- prime?
"No," Azyalae spoke finally. "No, I won't allow you to die. I will not stand by and see you die. I do not wish torture upon you, but I also cannot be the enforcer of death upon you. I do not have that right. I would much rather be the witness to your departure from this place, but as I cannot be that witness yet, I will refuse to see you die. I have seen you are a strong man, Jack. You will not die now, and not for long years to come. This torture will come to an end, and you shall live on, happily, back at your home. I shall not witness your death."
@
"Colonel? Colonel, are you in there?" Sam called to her Colonel's door. She could hear some sounds inside, but couldn't make out what the noise was, specifically. "Colonel? It's Major Carter, Sir. Is everything ok?"
Jack could hear Carter outside his quarters, and prayed she would go away, but knew she wouldn't. It was 03:22, and Jack had been dreaming again. Whether it was a dream, or a nightmare, he hadn't decided yet, but he was sure it wasn't a happy memory. Jack couldn't understand why Carter was outside his door at this hour of the morning, but her voice had somehow entered his nightmare and woken him up. For that much, he was grateful. Getting out of bed, and slowly making his way to the door, Jack shook his head fervently to clear the memories from his mind. It didn't work, but the idea had seemed like a reasonable one.
"Carter?" he said as he opened his door to see Sam standing at his doorway.
"I'm sorry, Colonel, did I wake you?" Sam asked.
"No," Jack lied. He was glad to be awake.
"I'm sorry. It's just, I was walking by and I heard your voice. I thought something might be wrong. Sorry, Sir," Sam explained.
"You were walking past here at three in the morning?"
"I know that might sound odd, Sir, but I couldn't sleep. I was just going for a walk, hoping to clear my head."
"I know how you feel," Jack admitted dejectedly.
"Is there anything I can do, Colonel?"
"Not unless you know a way to erase the past."
Sam thought a moment. That was the most her CO had said to her that indicated he was having difficulty getting away from the memories of the four months he spent on P4C 237. She still wanted desperately to help him, and had offered before, but she just didn't know how.
"No, Sir, I'm afraid I don't," Sam replied honestly and almost forlornly. "Yeah," Jack agreed, in a similar tone, "me either."
The Colonel and Major stood in a semi-uncomfortable silence for a few moments. It seemed like a hundred times longer than it was. "I still want to help you, Sir," Sam said finally. She spoke quietly, her voice giving away her uncertainty with saying what she had. She wasn't sure if it was appropriate for her to persist with something like that, but at the same time, she wasn't willing to just give up. Her CO was going through something and she couldn't hide the fact that she wanted to help.
"You can't, Carter," Jack reiterated from a previous occasion. His situation hadn't changed, and as long as it remained the same way, no one could help. He wished they could, but no one could.
"I want to try," Sam persevered. "Can I try?"
"You can't. You just can't. Don't keep asking, Carter. There's nothing you can do. It's not your fault, you just can't help."
Sam bowed her head and nodded. Ok, she thought, got the message yet, Sam? He made it pretty clear. Give it a rest. Let it go. "Ok," she murmured and left.
Jack sighed and closed his door, going back to his bed. Let someone help, Jack, he thought. Let her try, you know she wants to. Give her the chance to try; it won't hurt. But that was just the point. The problem. It would hurt. Everything still hurt, even now. No one could get close to him now. Not now. Maybe not ever. This was going to haunt him forever. It was his problem, his burden. It wasn't fair to lump anyone else with this heavy burden.
Jack wanted it all to disappear. Wanted it all to leave him alone and never come back, but he knew that was never going to happen. The sooner he came to terms with everything that happened, the better. That was easier said than done.
***
The leader dragged a girl into the room. She couldn't have been more than eighteen. Her skin was dirty, smudged in dirt and bruises, lined in blood. Her long brown hair hung in tatters around her face, the remnants of a brown ribbon still clinging to a few strands of hair. The girl's name was Myra. She had met Carter, working in the fields one day. I had also met her once, while recovering in the barn. She too had been recovering at the time. Apparently, the leader had a fancy for young girls. The thought made me sick.
"Treat yourself to a break in your chores, Lopbell," the leader told his second in command, who nodded in reply.
"Very well, Maldo," Lopbell said.
Maldo. I'd hated that name the moment I heard it, and tried my best not to use it. It sickened me, just hearing it. Bell Boy wasn't treating himself to a break. He liked torturing people. It would probably be torture for him to stop. Specifically, it would be torture for him to stop hurting me. I didn't realise by a break, the leader meant for him to stay and watch someone else suffer through torture. But that's what he'd meant.
"Fetch me a whip," the leader commanded.
Bell Boy complied and fetched his master a whip. The very same whip I had come to know and hate. Soon I would hate it even more. I was lying at the back of the torture chamber, opposite the door. I'd just suffered through days of burning torture, and although I hated to find out what they were going to do to Myra, I was glad for the break. The pain seemed endless to me, though. The fire was still burning within me. All around me. I wasn't sure if I had any skin left, but it felt like I was lying on fire. Breathing in fire. Myra lifted her head and looked at me. Her face was so many different colours, but she still looked better than I felt. I felt sorry for her, knowing that she would look much worse by the time they were finished, but partially grateful that it wasn't me. Then I felt awful for thinking that, and consequently made the pain in my body flare up in my resentment.
For a half hour, I listened to the tortured screams of Myra. Her voice slowly began to etch itself into my brain and started to echo through my head. I couldn't stand hearing her screaming, but I had no strength of my own to do anything about it. Under normal circumstances, I would have done anything to help her, but these weren't normal circumstances and I couldn't do anything. It was hard enough to lift my head, let alone get up. I could barely open my eyes. I wanted to die, there and then. It was a completely different kind of torture to listen to a young girl scream in endless, horrifying pain.
"Stop," I tried to yell, but my voice crackled so quietly from my throat that I could barely hear it. "Stop!" No one heard me. No one blinked. I began to feel angry again. I could feel the bile rising in my throat. I had to do something. I collected all the small bits of strength I had left and channelled them to my throat. "STOP!" I shouted, and actually managed to sound relatively loud. The leader, his first prime and the two guards turned to me all at once. It was like they were all connected to the same circuit.
I could still feel my whole body tremble, in weakness and from the cold, but I raised my head to look at them. They had heard me all right. And now, their question was why? I could see it in their eyes.
"What do you speak?" the leader asked me, his tone the same as always, arrogant.
"Stop," I repeated.
"You shall have to specify your instructions, for you should not be giving them in the first place."
"Stop torturing her," I spat the words out like dirt. I shouldn't have had to say them.
The leader smiled at me, as if he was waiting for me to say it. I wanted to hurt him so badly in that moment.
//'And neither shall you try
Deceit is just another sin
Your life will never leave you
And there is no prize to win
Stay close to your values
They were never lost
Although for their cause
You paid a heavy cost'//
If only I'd had the strength to. "Why is it I should take your orders? You are the one lying helplessly on the ground, are you not?" the leader told me, rather than asked. He knew what I wanted him to do, but he had to hear me say it. I hated him.
"Stop torturing her and take me instead."
"Release her to tend to her regular duties," the leader ordered immediately. I felt relieved in knowing that Myra didn't have to suffer anymore, but even weaker knowing I was about to take her place. I wanted to stay strong and forget the pain, but it just wasn't that easy anymore. Now I'd reached a point where there was no forgetting. Everything was so real that it hurt - literally. I wanted to forget everything. I wanted my memory to somehow be altered - erased. But as I was dragged back to be whipped, I lost my thoughts to the escalating pain burning inside of me.
***
Kayla sat on her bed, the cello in her mind once again. Today it didn't seem to soothe. Yo-Yo Ma's extraordinary playing, Bach's exquisite composition and the general beauty of sound within the strings of the cello was very little ease on Kayla's preoccupied mind. Perhaps preoccupied wasn't the right word, but neither was any other.
Kayla's last session with Colonel O'Neill had been eye opening for her. It was nothing worse than what she had heard before, but it made things a lot clearer in her mind. Perhaps it wasn't even a lot clearer, but something was better than nothing in this instance.
Kayla found her heart really going out to Colonel O'Neill. After extensive talks with Janet, fishing for information, Kayla discovered that Colonel O'Neill reacted extremely to situations such as the one he depicted to have happened on P4C 237. It was then that the psychologist in her partly realised what she hadn't been able to see before. O'Neill had hidden it well and that was his problem. One of them, at least.
He'd remembered that so vividly. Remembered that poor young girl go through the same torture he'd suffered, and he couldn't stand it. He couldn't stand what she had gone through. He could better cope with being tortured, than hearing her go through it.
It had struck him hard, and he remembered it forever now. Forever was a long time.
@
Briefly releasing the tension in her muscles and letting her head fall back against her chair, Sam sighed emphatically. Days seemed to be so long lately and Sam couldn't help feeling a sense of loneliness. She wasn't sure who or what she was lonely from, but something felt missing to her. Why did she feel so empty? Why was work so hard? Why did everything seem difficult when it usually wasn't? Where had her sense gone?
The answers weren't there when she looked for them.
Why do I automatically associate my loneliness with my Colonel's terrible situation? Sam asked her brain. Her brain should have those answers, shouldn't it? No, the answers aren't there. My heart knows those answers. My heart knows more than my brain, but it shouldn't.
I don't feel sorry for him. He wouldn't want anyone's pity, and I don't feel pity. Not predominantly anyway. I feel.sorrow and I feel sadness, but not pity. I feel horrible, knowing that he had to go through what he did without anyone. Without anyone he knew. He went through it all alone, and I feel regretful for that. I think mostly, I feel helpless. There's just nothing I can do to help, in any way. Nothing I say and nothing I do can, or will, help.
That's the worst part - simply knowing there's nothing I can do.
The next day, Jack returned to Kayla's room to have another session with her. He wasn't sure his initial thoughts about this new approach were far from wrong, but he would give it another try before completely giving up on the idea. Kayla was sitting in the darkened room when Jack arrived. The doctor smiled as the Colonel closed the door behind him. "Good afternoon," Kayla greeted her patient cheerfully. Her spirits had lifted slightly from the previous day, but doubt was still faint in her mind.
Jack was feeling uncertainty all over again as he sat down without returning a greeting of any kind. "Are you happy to be here?" Kayla asked, as a matter of interest.
"Not particularly, no," Jack admitted. "I'd probably rather be anywhere but here, no offence, but it doesn't matter."
"On the contrary, it does matter," Kayla said, "it's no good you being here if you don't feel it's going to be any benefit to you. My job is made a whole lot harder when you are not even willing to think this could help."
"It's not that I don't think it could help," Jack offered, "it's just . well I don't really know. I don't think anything will help."
"I can understand why you might think that. It makes sense, but you need to erase that doubt. Hopefully, this will help to do that first, and then it will start to help generally. You have to believe it will be of some benefit, even if only small." Jack knew Kayla was trying to help, but he was sick and tired of being lectured by everyone around him about what was supposedly going to 'help'. "Can we just start?" he asked.
Kayla nodded. She guessed that he was getting a lot of lectures lately and hers wouldn't be any help. "Of course," she agreed. "Close your eyes once again and imagine that you are waiting. You are inside that small room, waiting for someone to open the door. Just keep that image in your mind for a few minutes and talk when you're ready." Kayla hoped with this choice of situation, Colonel O'Neill would have to use his own memories to lead on to something that happened to him. She wasn't going to ask him questions this time. This time it was up to him to talk about his experiences on P4C 237.
Jack saw the image of the torture chamber before his eyes vividly, once again. It made him shudder just to remember that horrible room, but he kept focus. It was dark and then unexpectedly, he saw himself in the room. Similar to an out of body experience, he watched himself for a moment, lying in his own blood, still on the ground. Like shards of glass, light sporadically poked through the window covers as the soft wind blew them.
"I see myself," Jack said suddenly. "I'm lying on the ground, blood is all around me. It's like I'm watching myself from a surveillance camera."
"What are you doing?" Kayla prompted, even although she'd decided not to ask questions this time. Jack had started speaking about this on his own and Kayla didn't want him to stop. A question here and there would be all right.
"Nothing, I'm just lying there," Jack replied, as though caught up in a dream and reporting back to his conscious thoughts every so often. But just as he'd felt as though he were watching himself, he became himself again. He was no longer watching, he was lying, waiting on the ground. The person he'd seen, he now was again. But it wasn't happening again, it was a memory. This had already happened once - it wasn't happening again now.
//'Through the fogs and mists
You know them as your pain
They'll never leave your side
Or come to haunt you again
Hiding will not shadow you
Your sentence has been cast
Nothing will deceive them
Or hide away your past'//
"Are you awake?" Kayla prodded, noticing Jack had become very distant and quite suddenly.
"Yes," he answered. "I was awake. I was just waiting, silently, for them to come back. I knew they would. They'd just left me there after showing me off to the whole village, like a prize. I remember that I couldn't get up. I tried to, but I couldn't, so I stayed where I was. It felt like I was bleeding from everywhere. I don't really know where I actually was bleeding, but I'm pretty sure it was more than one place. I think I waited an hour for them to come back. I was awake some of the time, but unconscious for a lot of it. It might have been a lot longer than an hour, or a lot less, but it felt like about an hour."
Kayla was pleased. Not about what her patient was recalling, but that he was recalling it of his own free will. He was talking - remembering - and she wasn't asking him questions every two seconds. This was much better than yesterday's session. It would be far more use to him this way, than the alternative. "What happened when the guards came back to you?" Kayla nudged Jack on; he'd stopped for a few minutes.
"I think I was unconscious, or asleep. I remember waking up and feeling pain in my chest and back. They were kicking me, to try and wake me up. I could hear them yelling at me to wake up, but I don't know why they bothered. They had fun anyway."
"What do you mean?"
"It didn't matter if I was conscious or not, they still had fun."
"What did they do this time?" Kayla kept digging. She knew it could be a hazardous thing to do at this stage, but it was important for Jack to continue talking now that he'd started.
"This time was different," Jack said slowly.
Kayla could hear the consideration in his voice. Something about this was more prominent in his mind, to make his mood change, she thought. This was clearly a big change to his usual torture routine, if he needed to contemplate what he was saying. "What was different?"
"The leader came," Jack replied simply. The visions flashing blindingly before his closed eyes were giving him a headache. The pain seemed to shock itself through his mind, another flash of lightning. The blinding pain was slowly worsening as he recalled the moments he had tried to forget.
"The leader? Who was this leader?" Kayla delved deeper into her questioning, only this time it was going to prove to be a bad idea. Jack was gritting his teeth so hard, it hurt. He couldn't do this. He couldn't talk about it; it was too hard.
There was a long period of silence in which Kayla was uncertain if she should prod for further information or just leave the silence to reign. After a few more minutes, Kayla had to bite the bullet and speak. It was too hard not saying anything. "Colonel?" she murmured. "Who was the - "
"No," Jack said suddenly, flinging his eyes open quickly. "No, I can't."
"Can't what? What is it, Colonel?" Kayla asked, noticeably taken by surprise.
"I can't," Jack repeated, swiftly standing up and leaving.
Kayla stood up as Jack left, but didn't follow him. "Damn," she cursed herself and sighed emphatically. I shouldn't have pushed, she thought angrily. I should have left it alone.
@
Kayla sat silently on the bed in her adopted living quarters, listening to Bach's Unaccompanied Cello Suites in her mind. The cello had always been a favourite instrument of hers and hearing the exquisite, intricate detail of the unaccompanied cello, seemed to soothe her knotted mind. And to add to that, Yo-Yo Ma was one of the most talented musicians alive, in her opinion. While at the beginning of Suite No. 1.4, Sarabande, Kayla heard knocking that was clearly not a part of Bach's beautiful concerto.
"It's open," she called and watched as the door opened, to reveal Sam.
"I'm sorry to interrupt you," Sam apologised instantly.
"You're not interrupting anything at all," Kayla smiled, "I was just listening to music in my mind. I can always start again. Come in, come in. What can I do for you, Major?"
Sam smiled gratefully and closed the door behind her, then walked further into the doctors' quarters. "Call me Sam, please. No formality is necessary."
"All right," Kayla agreed, "but only if you agree to call me Kayla?"
"Ok, deal," Sam smiled.
Kayla offered Carter a seat and she took it. "What can I do for you, Sam?" Kayla asked, smiling at the use of the Major's first name. She always liked using peoples' names for the first time.
"Well, this is something that's a little hard to talk about," Sam replied cryptically. What am I doing here? I can't say what I came here to say. I just can't, there's no way I can. I shouldn't even feel it, let alone want to talk about it.
"Ok, you've definitely got me interested," Kayla said. "What is it?" Sam thought for a moment. She couldn't say what she wanted to. What she needed to. No, she couldn't. She had to think of something else, and quick! But there already was something else. She didn't need to think long.
"I know you can't say what you talk about with Colonel O'Neill, but I need to ask something."
"You're right, I can't talk about what Colonel O'Neill and I have discussed, but ask your question anyway."
"I just wondered if he'd mentioned anything about a particular memory that - well I'm not sure what, exactly, but I went to see him the other day to.to talk about something else, and he seemed distressed. He was so distant, and he seemed really troubled about something. I thought maybe it was a particular memory, or a nightmare, but when I asked what was wrong, he asked me to leave. I haven't seen him since, but I thought maybe he might have mentioned something about that, or the thing that was bothering him?"
"I can't really answer that, and you know I can't, but if he had in fact mentioned something like that."
Sam knew exactly what Kayla was very subtly doing, and smiled. "Thank you," she said and left.
Kayla smiled. You're welcome, she thought.
***
Azyalae watched her friends bring in the lifeless body of her latest patient. He'd been to see her many times already, and he'd only been on the planet for a few weeks. Each time she saw him, Azyalae swore he looked worse. His face was drenched in a cold sweat, his whole body shaking endlessly from the cold. His face, neck, chest, arms were all covered in blood. The scarlet substance was smeared over his skin like paint on a wall. His dark brown eyes stared up at her as he was placed on the barns' straw bed. Azyalae frowned sadly. It was horrible to see such horrific injuries on this same man, each and every time he was brought to her. She was willing to admit she wished she didn't have to see him again, just in the hope that it meant he wasn't being tortured anymore. But each time he came back, she knew, her wish wasn't going to come true.
As the guards left the barn, Azyalae sat down on the rickety old chair beside the bed of straw. Jack looked up to her, his whole body trembling. He felt his lips, smeared with dried blood, quivering as he opened his mouth to speak. "I - I'm g- going to - to d-die?" his voice quavered out the small sentence with difficulty.
Azyalae shook her head quickly, taking one of Jack's cold, trembling and blood smeared hands in her own. "No, no," she said. "No, you won't die. I won't allow you to die."
But through the freezing cold, the pain and the weakness, Jack nodded his head. "I - I'm d-dying," he said surely, his words barely a whisper.
"No," Azyalae repeated. "Do not say that. I will not let you die. You will not die." Leaving no further argument, Azyalae got straight to treating the new injuries Jack had acquired from his last routine of torture with Maldo's first prime, Lopbell. It seemed, to Azyalae, the guards were becoming more and more ruthless with their torture. Jack had barely survived last time, and now this. The doctor ignored the shock of the thought that Jack might actually be right in thinking he was going to die. She wouldn't allow him to die, and yet, she felt awful, knowing she was helping him to recover from torture, only to be sent back to the same people for more torture. It seemed wrong either way. A lose, lose situation.
"Azyalae."
Jack's faint voice just caught the doctor's ears as she began cleaning blood away from his arms. She raised her head to look at him fully. The damage was overwhelming. It really was a sight the doctor preferred not to see.
"Yes?" she asked gently, sitting down on the old chair again.
Jack managed to find strength enough to reach for Azyalae's hand and hold it in his own. It was so much warmer than his. He felt as though his bones were brittle from the cold alone. His skin - or what little that seemed to be left of it - so cold, it was like Antarctica all over again, only less protection from the elements.
"Azyalae," Jack said the doctor's name once more, to enforce his seriousness. "P-please, j-just let m-me.l-let me d-die."
Azyalae let her mouth hang slightly open as she looked at the man lying, injured, before her. Her brow slowly creased in distress and anguish as she tried to comprehend what this man was asking her to do. Could she possibly do what he asked? Was it fair for her to grant his wish, while he was in this state? Did he know what he was saying?
But was it fair to send him back to the horror and pain in that little room? That little room with those men who were there solely to inflict pain upon innocent victims as their daily pastime. Could she really sit down and watch guards take this man back to the very place he collected these horrific injuries from? Could she sit back and say it was ok for Jack to suffer through endless, brutal torture for the amusement of Maldo's first- prime?
"No," Azyalae spoke finally. "No, I won't allow you to die. I will not stand by and see you die. I do not wish torture upon you, but I also cannot be the enforcer of death upon you. I do not have that right. I would much rather be the witness to your departure from this place, but as I cannot be that witness yet, I will refuse to see you die. I have seen you are a strong man, Jack. You will not die now, and not for long years to come. This torture will come to an end, and you shall live on, happily, back at your home. I shall not witness your death."
@
"Colonel? Colonel, are you in there?" Sam called to her Colonel's door. She could hear some sounds inside, but couldn't make out what the noise was, specifically. "Colonel? It's Major Carter, Sir. Is everything ok?"
Jack could hear Carter outside his quarters, and prayed she would go away, but knew she wouldn't. It was 03:22, and Jack had been dreaming again. Whether it was a dream, or a nightmare, he hadn't decided yet, but he was sure it wasn't a happy memory. Jack couldn't understand why Carter was outside his door at this hour of the morning, but her voice had somehow entered his nightmare and woken him up. For that much, he was grateful. Getting out of bed, and slowly making his way to the door, Jack shook his head fervently to clear the memories from his mind. It didn't work, but the idea had seemed like a reasonable one.
"Carter?" he said as he opened his door to see Sam standing at his doorway.
"I'm sorry, Colonel, did I wake you?" Sam asked.
"No," Jack lied. He was glad to be awake.
"I'm sorry. It's just, I was walking by and I heard your voice. I thought something might be wrong. Sorry, Sir," Sam explained.
"You were walking past here at three in the morning?"
"I know that might sound odd, Sir, but I couldn't sleep. I was just going for a walk, hoping to clear my head."
"I know how you feel," Jack admitted dejectedly.
"Is there anything I can do, Colonel?"
"Not unless you know a way to erase the past."
Sam thought a moment. That was the most her CO had said to her that indicated he was having difficulty getting away from the memories of the four months he spent on P4C 237. She still wanted desperately to help him, and had offered before, but she just didn't know how.
"No, Sir, I'm afraid I don't," Sam replied honestly and almost forlornly. "Yeah," Jack agreed, in a similar tone, "me either."
The Colonel and Major stood in a semi-uncomfortable silence for a few moments. It seemed like a hundred times longer than it was. "I still want to help you, Sir," Sam said finally. She spoke quietly, her voice giving away her uncertainty with saying what she had. She wasn't sure if it was appropriate for her to persist with something like that, but at the same time, she wasn't willing to just give up. Her CO was going through something and she couldn't hide the fact that she wanted to help.
"You can't, Carter," Jack reiterated from a previous occasion. His situation hadn't changed, and as long as it remained the same way, no one could help. He wished they could, but no one could.
"I want to try," Sam persevered. "Can I try?"
"You can't. You just can't. Don't keep asking, Carter. There's nothing you can do. It's not your fault, you just can't help."
Sam bowed her head and nodded. Ok, she thought, got the message yet, Sam? He made it pretty clear. Give it a rest. Let it go. "Ok," she murmured and left.
Jack sighed and closed his door, going back to his bed. Let someone help, Jack, he thought. Let her try, you know she wants to. Give her the chance to try; it won't hurt. But that was just the point. The problem. It would hurt. Everything still hurt, even now. No one could get close to him now. Not now. Maybe not ever. This was going to haunt him forever. It was his problem, his burden. It wasn't fair to lump anyone else with this heavy burden.
Jack wanted it all to disappear. Wanted it all to leave him alone and never come back, but he knew that was never going to happen. The sooner he came to terms with everything that happened, the better. That was easier said than done.
***
The leader dragged a girl into the room. She couldn't have been more than eighteen. Her skin was dirty, smudged in dirt and bruises, lined in blood. Her long brown hair hung in tatters around her face, the remnants of a brown ribbon still clinging to a few strands of hair. The girl's name was Myra. She had met Carter, working in the fields one day. I had also met her once, while recovering in the barn. She too had been recovering at the time. Apparently, the leader had a fancy for young girls. The thought made me sick.
"Treat yourself to a break in your chores, Lopbell," the leader told his second in command, who nodded in reply.
"Very well, Maldo," Lopbell said.
Maldo. I'd hated that name the moment I heard it, and tried my best not to use it. It sickened me, just hearing it. Bell Boy wasn't treating himself to a break. He liked torturing people. It would probably be torture for him to stop. Specifically, it would be torture for him to stop hurting me. I didn't realise by a break, the leader meant for him to stay and watch someone else suffer through torture. But that's what he'd meant.
"Fetch me a whip," the leader commanded.
Bell Boy complied and fetched his master a whip. The very same whip I had come to know and hate. Soon I would hate it even more. I was lying at the back of the torture chamber, opposite the door. I'd just suffered through days of burning torture, and although I hated to find out what they were going to do to Myra, I was glad for the break. The pain seemed endless to me, though. The fire was still burning within me. All around me. I wasn't sure if I had any skin left, but it felt like I was lying on fire. Breathing in fire. Myra lifted her head and looked at me. Her face was so many different colours, but she still looked better than I felt. I felt sorry for her, knowing that she would look much worse by the time they were finished, but partially grateful that it wasn't me. Then I felt awful for thinking that, and consequently made the pain in my body flare up in my resentment.
For a half hour, I listened to the tortured screams of Myra. Her voice slowly began to etch itself into my brain and started to echo through my head. I couldn't stand hearing her screaming, but I had no strength of my own to do anything about it. Under normal circumstances, I would have done anything to help her, but these weren't normal circumstances and I couldn't do anything. It was hard enough to lift my head, let alone get up. I could barely open my eyes. I wanted to die, there and then. It was a completely different kind of torture to listen to a young girl scream in endless, horrifying pain.
"Stop," I tried to yell, but my voice crackled so quietly from my throat that I could barely hear it. "Stop!" No one heard me. No one blinked. I began to feel angry again. I could feel the bile rising in my throat. I had to do something. I collected all the small bits of strength I had left and channelled them to my throat. "STOP!" I shouted, and actually managed to sound relatively loud. The leader, his first prime and the two guards turned to me all at once. It was like they were all connected to the same circuit.
I could still feel my whole body tremble, in weakness and from the cold, but I raised my head to look at them. They had heard me all right. And now, their question was why? I could see it in their eyes.
"What do you speak?" the leader asked me, his tone the same as always, arrogant.
"Stop," I repeated.
"You shall have to specify your instructions, for you should not be giving them in the first place."
"Stop torturing her," I spat the words out like dirt. I shouldn't have had to say them.
The leader smiled at me, as if he was waiting for me to say it. I wanted to hurt him so badly in that moment.
//'And neither shall you try
Deceit is just another sin
Your life will never leave you
And there is no prize to win
Stay close to your values
They were never lost
Although for their cause
You paid a heavy cost'//
If only I'd had the strength to. "Why is it I should take your orders? You are the one lying helplessly on the ground, are you not?" the leader told me, rather than asked. He knew what I wanted him to do, but he had to hear me say it. I hated him.
"Stop torturing her and take me instead."
"Release her to tend to her regular duties," the leader ordered immediately. I felt relieved in knowing that Myra didn't have to suffer anymore, but even weaker knowing I was about to take her place. I wanted to stay strong and forget the pain, but it just wasn't that easy anymore. Now I'd reached a point where there was no forgetting. Everything was so real that it hurt - literally. I wanted to forget everything. I wanted my memory to somehow be altered - erased. But as I was dragged back to be whipped, I lost my thoughts to the escalating pain burning inside of me.
***
Kayla sat on her bed, the cello in her mind once again. Today it didn't seem to soothe. Yo-Yo Ma's extraordinary playing, Bach's exquisite composition and the general beauty of sound within the strings of the cello was very little ease on Kayla's preoccupied mind. Perhaps preoccupied wasn't the right word, but neither was any other.
Kayla's last session with Colonel O'Neill had been eye opening for her. It was nothing worse than what she had heard before, but it made things a lot clearer in her mind. Perhaps it wasn't even a lot clearer, but something was better than nothing in this instance.
Kayla found her heart really going out to Colonel O'Neill. After extensive talks with Janet, fishing for information, Kayla discovered that Colonel O'Neill reacted extremely to situations such as the one he depicted to have happened on P4C 237. It was then that the psychologist in her partly realised what she hadn't been able to see before. O'Neill had hidden it well and that was his problem. One of them, at least.
He'd remembered that so vividly. Remembered that poor young girl go through the same torture he'd suffered, and he couldn't stand it. He couldn't stand what she had gone through. He could better cope with being tortured, than hearing her go through it.
It had struck him hard, and he remembered it forever now. Forever was a long time.
@
Briefly releasing the tension in her muscles and letting her head fall back against her chair, Sam sighed emphatically. Days seemed to be so long lately and Sam couldn't help feeling a sense of loneliness. She wasn't sure who or what she was lonely from, but something felt missing to her. Why did she feel so empty? Why was work so hard? Why did everything seem difficult when it usually wasn't? Where had her sense gone?
The answers weren't there when she looked for them.
Why do I automatically associate my loneliness with my Colonel's terrible situation? Sam asked her brain. Her brain should have those answers, shouldn't it? No, the answers aren't there. My heart knows those answers. My heart knows more than my brain, but it shouldn't.
I don't feel sorry for him. He wouldn't want anyone's pity, and I don't feel pity. Not predominantly anyway. I feel.sorrow and I feel sadness, but not pity. I feel horrible, knowing that he had to go through what he did without anyone. Without anyone he knew. He went through it all alone, and I feel regretful for that. I think mostly, I feel helpless. There's just nothing I can do to help, in any way. Nothing I say and nothing I do can, or will, help.
That's the worst part - simply knowing there's nothing I can do.
