When Captain Carter walked out on Colonel O'Neill, she hadn't planned a destination. She paused somewhere down the hallway.

Going home was out of the question. Going back to her lab and saying "Actually, this is MY lab; YOU leave" was out of the question. Hmm…

Her stomach grumbled a suggestion, and she laughed inwardly. Well, the commissary it is, she thought, amused, and she headed that way.

In the commissary, she grabbed a coffee and some blue jello and sat down at an empty table near the far corner. As she chewed on the delicious blueness, she wondered if today could be salvaged. It looked somewhat brighter, she realized to her delight (though that could be the jello talking). She could start by apologizing to her CO. Though she'd gotten permission, she hadn't parted on the best of terms. But, she knew, sighing, he would want to know what was between her and Hansen.

Rape, beatings, and my stupidity, she thought viciously, stabbing at her jello harshly. Maybe she should tell Colonel O'Neill about her violent relationship with Hansen. What harm could it do? "Sir," she'd say, "I have good reason to be scared of Hansen…" and she'd go on to explain everything.

Then she realized there was no way he'd allow them to be in the SGC. One of them would be transferred, her, or Hansen.

It would be me, she realized glumly. I'm the one who can't handle it. And I'm the woman.

He may be male but he's an asshole, her conscience retorted. If he can't stop the violence there's no way they're gonna keep him. Besides, you're the brains of the operation. They need you to keep the 'Gate going and every other scientific reason. Hansen probably can't replace a light bulb. That thought pleased her immensely.

To tell or not to tell? Huh. She needed more jello.

Thankfully, the fates had pity on Captain Carter, and she didn't see him for the rest of the day. But, when she went to sleep, she fell into fits of nightmares, all about Hansen. When she woke up at 0220, she was too timid and sweaty and, well, generally icky-feeling to return to sleep, so she attempted a hot shower and breakfast –

"Attempted" being the operative word. Shakily she stripped and stepped into the shower, reaching for the knob. The minute she pulled it on, the water rushed out like thunder and she jumped as flashbacks assaulted her.

Hansen beating her in bed.

Hansen dragging her out of the shower to "sex her" (as she'd come to think of it, seeing as she had never said no).

Hansen howling in triumph when he came, always looking at her pained or fearful face and never actually seeing.

Sam shuddered, squeezing her eyes shut and bringing her hands to her ears, as though she could get his sneers or his howls or his face out of her scarred mind. It felt as it had during the first six or seven months back and it scared the hell out of Captain Carter how old terrors could come back to haunt her. What was next, her mother's death?

It was like her mind had just finished scabbing, the old scars fading and new tissue forming, along with it, a new life. A new chance to prove to herself she wasn't a weak, vulnerable woman who let men beat her. This was why she'd gotten so defensive when she'd first met Colonel O'Neill and his gang of "bad boys" in the briefing room.

And it was like those fading scars had been torn open again, with dull blades, and all the memories came flooding out of the old, reopened wounds.

She yanked the shower off as soon as she could manage to tear a hand from one of her ears, and stood there shivering for quite some time before she got the courage to get out of the shower.

Captain Carter put on her bathroom and wandered around her house, hesitating in every hall and room, expecting Hansen just around the corner. When she flicked on the lights, however, all she had were rooms full of unpacked boxes. Soon her entire house was alive with lights and music. She needed it – an empty, dark, silent house on top of nightmares was never good, and it was hell on her nerves. She should've seen this coming; after all, she'd had a routine in D.C. when she was pulling some major "cleansing-the-mind-and-soul" stuff. Her retraining was only half of it. In order to feel fully human, she needed peace in her mind and home – and trust that she wouldn't let him near her again.

That meant many nights turning the lights on before she went to bed. It was always the same nightmare, always the same time; wake up at 0220. She turned on all the lights and put on music or the TV (though often the radio because there were usually scary films during the early-hour showings). Sometimes she did a lot of work and had a few hours of free time at work, which she would leave for at 0500. But mostly she would try to calm herself, to assure herself nothing was going to hurt her.

"It's not scary, Sam," Captain Carter said aloud, the soothing tunes of the radio blending weirdly with the memory of Hansen howls, screeches, and vicious words. "See? You're home. It's safe here. Remember what Mom said a few months before she died? 'If you don't feel safe in your own home, it's time to move.' You don't really want to go house-hunting again, do you? You love this house."

Self-pity and self-assurance sucked. What she wouldn't give to be back in D.C., chatting with one of her closest friends, Steve. He was the only one, save for her CO, who knew why she had been coming in to work at 0500 when she only needed to be there at 0700, and why she often looked like hell despite her perfectly groomed appearance. Steve had always been there; he encouraged her to call, even in the dead of night. He was better than the shrinks her old CO had originally ordered her to see, and once Colonel Jennings had realized that, he'd allowed her to stop seeing them.

Captain Carter briefly wondered what time it was in D.C., but excused the thought of calling Steve before she could calculate it.

She was a big girl. She had to handle this on her own. If she couldn't, then maybe she shouldn't be stationed at the SGC, and that wasn't acceptable.