Title: Remember Me
Author: Emily Reich
Co-Author: Merrin Delaney
Rating: PG-13
Catagory: Romance/Angst
'Ship: Ba'al/Sam
Summary: Ba'al inserts himself into Sam's dreams
A/N: This is my first SG1 fic ever, and written specially for my fellow Ba'am 'shippers at gateworld and any closet 'shippers who may be out there :) This was originally going to be a multi-chapter fic, but I never got around to writing the rest and probably never will, so I edited it to make it a one-shot fic instead... I figure if I ever decide to continue, I can always make a sequel...
Chapter One
She opened her eyes to complete blackness. Not just the darkness of an unlit room, but so dark she couldn't see even her own hand as she lifted it to her face. It felt like there was literally nothing around her. She carefully spun around, making certain not to move her feet, and slowly tried to look around at her surroundings. But try as she might, there was nothing but black. Not even a sound permeated the nothingness.
She slowly reached a hand out, again carefully, and felt the space for anything solid. But as she suspected, there was again nothing. She turned a few degrees to the left and reached out again. But this time, a single sound in the distance startled her.
"You won't find anything," a man's confident voice told her. The tone and accent sounded very familiar, but she couldn't place it.
At first she found herself frozen and unable to speak, but she forced herself to ignore the eeriness in which she stood. "Who are you?" she asked nervously, circling herself around, trying to find the unknown speaker. "Where am I?"
She sat in total silence again, receiving no response, and wondered for a moment if she'd imagined the voice. But that thought was quickly shoved out of mind. There had been a voice. She was certain about that. Yet still she heard no response from the unknown speaker. Getting frustrated at her disorientation, she yelled into the darkness, spinning in circles as she did so. "Where am I!" she shouted, "What is this place?"
Suddenly she felt chills crawl down her spine. Instead of words, in response she got a laugh. Not a laugh of happiness or amusement, but of sadistic pleasure. She felt chills again, and simultaneously felt her skin begin to crawl. Even once the laughing ceased and there was once again silence, something didn't feel right.
Before she could figure out why, warm air blew across the back of her neck and she heard the nearly-silent sound of breathing. A chilling voice whispered into her ear, "Wherever you want to be."
Fighting the urge to remain frozen stiff and fighting the fear of what she might see, she turned her head to look back toward the voice. She couldn't stop the chills from returning any more than she could stop her heart from beating faster and faster. She'd felt someone behind her. Now there was nothing but darkness. Fighting her fear again, she reached out in a vain attempt to find the source of her fear.
"Who are you?" she whispered, mostly to herself. She still coudn't place the voice, but she knew it from somewhere. And that alone made her more wary than anything else at that moment.
"Do you really want to know?" This time it was a whisper, but not in her ear. It was coming from somewhere in the darkness behind her, yet the fact that the whisper sounded so close yet so far away was less disturbing only than the fact that someone had heard her question.
She was tempted just to scream something in response, but forced herself to think about it for a moment. 'Do I?' she asked herself silently.
"You shouldn't question yourself," he told her. "I suppose I should take that as a yes."
Her heart began to race even faster. Was this person in her mind? She was certain she hadn't asked the question aloud. But then again, was she certain about anything in this place?
"You also shouldn't waste your energy thinking about such trivial matters." Just as her heart was beginning to slow, it uncontrollably sped up again. Not only was she certain now that this person was either playing with her mind or reading it, but the voice was different this time. It sounded closer, as if it was actually coming from within the same room, and it definately wasn't behind her. But more than that, it sounded more distorted, yet more familiar. In fact, it sounded more... normal, and she finally figured out why she had only partially recognized it before. Before it had sounded like any ordinary human. But now it was distorted as only two races in the galaxy could be, and with that, she now knew exactly who was haunting her.
So when she again felt beathing on her neck, it became one of the most disgusting feelings she'd ever experienced. "You have a good memory," he whispered seductively into her ear. She squirmed, trying to move away but somehow found herself paralyzed, able to do nothing more than turn her face away.
However by the time she turned away, she could feel that he was gone again. This time, though, she heard footsteps. They were light yet chillingly powerful, resonating throughout the room, their echo now permeating the air around her. She turned her head in the direction of the sound, and as if on cue, a figure mysteriously started to appear right out of the black abyss, walking slowly in circles around her. At first it was nearly impossible to make out anything more than movement of someone in the dark, but with each circumambulation, more of the person appeared. She found herself able to not only see slightly more of the figure moving, but also herself. It was as if there sat a spotlight directly over both of their heads which were slowly brightening.
She stood frozen stiff, eyes carefully following him as he circled. It was obvious now that he was doing this to distress her and make her uncomfortable... for whatever reason. And it was certainly working.
Unanticipatedly, the man stopped directly in front of her and she could now make out enough of his face to see the expression that played across it. With a smirk, he began to walk toward her. Then immediately and without warning, she could see him perfectly, as if they were now together in a brightly lit room, but with the light hitting only him. He was still moving as slowly and precisely as he'd been before, however now it was obvious his intentions had changed, and she cringed at the provocative expression that he now wore on his face and the possibilities of what he planned to do that flashed through her mind.
Yet in spite of her fear and uncertainty, she never took her eyes off him, making sure she noted every movement he made. It wasn't as if she could actually act to defend herself if it became necessary, but knowing what was happening gave her at least a small feeling of security amidst the confusion and outright creepiness of the situation.
"You needn't concern yourself so much with the unknown. It only frightens you unnecesarily." His voice sounded strangely sincere, completely lacking the sadistic tone he'd spoken with earlier, and she was shocked to actually find his words both soothing and comforting. "You see? You have no reason to fear me. No harm will come to you as long as you remain here."
Despite her heart slowing and the chills down her spine being fought away by his seemingly-sudden compassion, she remained wary. "Where is 'here'?" She asked him carefully.
Before he answered, he continued toward her, finally coming to a stop within just a few inches of her face. It was close enough for her to feel his breath on her face as he finally answered, "Here." She couldn't quite place it, but something even beyond the physical obscurity and discomfort just felt wrong, and this in and of itself was enough to make her hands clam up and the fact that she couldn't even squirm that much more uncomfortable.
She tried to speak but found herself unable to speak, or at least unable to form the right words.
In response to her silence and obvious discomfort, he surprisingly stepped back and again spoke in a compassionate tone. "Oh, I see it is this place which makes you uncomfortable." He took on a thoughtful expression for a moment, then smiled. "Perhaps something more familiar to you?"
With a flash of distortion, she not only found herself able to move again, but the two of them were now standing in a place that was indeed familiar. He had brought them to her own house, or so it seemed at least. She spun around, relieved at her new-found mobility, and tried unsuccessfuly to convince herself that it wasn't happening. Something in her gut still felt wrong.
She spun back toward him and pointed at the floor below her. "This isn't real... this can't be real!" she insisted, more to convince herself than anything.
"Of course it is," he told her smugly and without a trace of doubt or dishonesty in his voice. "Reality is merely what your mind shows and tells you. This is no less real than you or I." He smiled at her again, completely sure of himself.
She considered running, trying to escape, but somehow she knew deep down that there was no way out and nowhere to go. And she would likely just find herself immobile again, the thought of which made her cringe.
So she resolved herself to instead figure out what exactly was happening and why he'd brought her here, not to mention why he was with her at all. "Fine, let's say this is real," she began, eliciting a fairly expected smile of satisfaction and self-assuredness from him, to which she simply rolled her eyes despite the fact that her body was shaking and her palms sweaty. "Why are we here? Or better yet: why are you here?" She hoped her words came out with more confidence and less confusion than she felt.
His inate ability to change from compassionate and friendly to seductive and downright creepy with a mere flit of his eyebrows amazed her once again. "I think you know the answer to that already." With an all-knowing smirk he moved toward her, fairly obvious in his intentions and more quickly than he'd walked anytime earlier. As he neared her, he walked around so that he was standing behind her. She squirmed and tried to move away but found her legs once again felt as if they were deep in thick mud and the most movement she could manage was turning her upper body to face him.
Still wary of what he planned to do, she tried to keep one eye on his arms and the other looking right into his dark eyes, which she found to be full of a strangely complex and mesmerizng amount of emotion. Before she realized it was happening, she was using both eyes to look deep into his and couldn't even force herself to stop.
Without looking down at all toward the movement, she felt him reach one arm around her waist and pull her closer to him. She tried to resist at first, but again found herself unable to move, now completely drawn in by his gaze. It felt like he could look into the depths of her soul and mind at will, and she knew it should have made her cringe. But somehow she felt comforted. The fact that that alone didn't bother her should have been enough to make her spit in his face and try to escape. But instead of hoping for an escape route to reveal itself she actually wanted to stay. She certainly couldn't explain it, but her earlier gut feelings of something wrong were all but gone.
She didn't realize how deeply she was gazing into his eyes until he leaned toward her and his eyes came too close to focus on. As if on some level she knew exaclty what was he was going to do and didn't care, she unconsciously tilted her head back as his lips lightly met hers. She managed to force herself not to return the kiss, but she couldn't fight it either. In fact with each moment she found it became harder and harder to control her own movements. She felt like a marionette being animated by a very experienced pupped master, yet somehow she didn't mind.
When he leaned down to kiss her again, she found herself suddenly oblivious to both her surroundings and her own movement. It wasn't until she felt soft pillows beneath her that she even knew where she was. She took a quick glance around her, momentarily caught off-guard, to find that she was now in the comfort of her own bed.
But she lost focus as his hands slowly moved towards her face and gently brushed the hair away from her neck. She frowned slightly and tensed up again, thoughts flooded with images of a symbiote entering a host through the neck. Reality came crashing back as he leaned down toward her. Following his eyes warily, she searched them for any sign of danger. He gave a low chuckle, his face pressed against her cheek. "Do not be afraid. No harm will come to you..." he whispered into her ear. "Close your eyes."
At first she looked to him, but without a second thought she followed his instructions. To her surprise, as soon as her lids fell over her eyes, all her fear immediately vanished and she relaxed under him.
As he began placing kisses along her jawline and down her neck, strong arms gathered around her, one grasping the bottom edge of her shirt and pulling it up slowly. His hand traced up her side as he revealed the soft skin beneath. She sighed contently, her arms locking at the back of his head, pulling him even closer. For a moment there was a sort of ringing in her ears, but then his goatee was tickling her skin and she got distracted from it.
Then suddenly he withdrew - floated away, really - and it felt like a weight was lifted off her mind and body. The ringing was back, too, now louder than ever, and with a start she opened her eyes to an empty room.
Sam bolted upright, cold sweat covering her body as she gasped for air and looked around in confusion for a moment.
Everything came flooding back to her so fast it made her dizzy. Soft words, emotions that were not her own, and the feeling of an enemy's cold hands on her skin invaded her consciousness in a blur. And the realization that she had willingly participated in his game and actually appreciated his advances brought on the most disorienting, uncomfortable, and sick feeling she'd ever experienced.
It took her only only a split second to look down and be disgusted at the thought of sitting in her own bed. The covers went flying as Sam leaped out of bed and stumbled away from it, her legs unable to carry her fast enough. Her disorientation led her to the other end of the room where she hit the wall and sunk to the ground, her back sliding down the hard surface.
She sat on the floor in a heap, her strength completely drained, drawing in shaky breaths, but otherwise in shocked silence as Ba'al's face flashed repeatedly in her mind, forcing her to relive the vivid dream.
The phone which had awoken her rang again, but Sam made no move to answer it...
Fin
