Title: Ten Days
Chapter:
3
Author: GeekyDollie
Date: 2006

Summary: Elizabeth awakes as a prisoner in a cold cell. Her people have no idea where she is. Will she lose hope?

Spoilers: The Eye, The Storm, and Coup D'Etat

Disclaimer: Stargate Atlantis and the characters belong to TPTB of the Stargate franchise.


Elizabeth set her jaw defiantly and glared at Sora as the younger woman paced before her. This was the third time she had been set in the hard chair with her hands bound behind her. It must have been hours since she had given up struggling with the ties around her wrists, resigning to the fact that straining against them was only cutting into her skin rather than loosening them at all. Elizabeth was weary and hungry, but she refused to give Sora the satisfaction of the upper hand.

"Let's start from the beginning," Sora's shrill voice echoed in the room. "What is the code for your IDC."

Elizabeth glared back silently. She had also stopped retorting to Sora's repetitive attempts to gain access and information to Atlantis. There were only so many ways to say that she wasn't going to give up the information, and Elizabeth was too tired to continue the argument. Sora's loud demands blurred in Elizabeth's ears until they simply did not form any coherent sense.

"Are you listening?" Sora standing directly in front of her brought her attention back for a moment.

"Look, I'm not going to give you the information, so you might as well give up."

"Kolya should have shot you when he had the chance." Sora was getting agitated. Her hands balled up into fists by her sides.

"And what? The city would have been destroyed, and we wouldn't be having this conversation!"

"Shut up!" Sora whipped around violently. Her fist contacted the side of Elizabeth's head with enough force to nearly tip her from the chair. "I'm asking the questions."

Elizabeth's vision blurred from the acute pain in her head, and she tasted blood where her teeth cut the side of her cheek. She squinted her eyes closed at the dizziness, and it took her a moment before she could really react. The sound of theslamming door made her wince again. When she managed to open her eyes, she saw that Sora had gone for now.

She was alone in the empty room.

The pain of her head and her frustration welled up inside her now that no one was there to watch her. If she gave it more thought, she might believe for a moment how bleak the situation was, but she tried to push those thoughts away.

Tears prickled her eyes and she could not stop them from streaming down her face. Without the ability to wipe them away with her hands, Elizabeth only hoped that the tears would dry before Sora returned.

oOoOo

Hours later, Elizabeth sat on her cot with her blanket wrapped tightly around her, but it did nothing to stay the shivering of her body in the cold cell. The pain in her head was now a dull throb. She was tired, but couldn't sleep.

They had wanted Rodney. Probably because they knew he had scientific knowledge as well as intel about Atlantis. He could have been the one in this cell. He could have been the one that Sora interrogated for hours. He could be the one forced to watch the murder of the young girl. But, he could have been alive.

Teyla, Ronon, John…. She had watched them all taken down by the Genii blast. She wished that another of her team had survived and was here with her. Then maybe she might have a chance to fight her way out. Then maybe she wouldn't be so horrible outnumbered. Then maybe...

They couldn't be dead. She refused to believe it.

Elizabeth tried to fight the feeling of being utterly alone and defenseless. Nothing had prepared her for being taken captive. It was something she would see on CNN or hear as rumors via her colleagues in the government. Never had she imagined that she would be the one on the other side. And yet, here she was, a political hostage and none of her people knew where she was. At least she understood the culture of political negotiations back home. Here, everything she ever knew about how governments should operate and cultural differences were all nullified by the vast difference of how the people in the Pegasus Galaxy lived.

Elizabeth held onto the hope that her people would come look for her. They would find her, and she would return home. Someone had told her once that they don't leave people behind, and they have been living by that rule since.

Someone… John.

John. He couldn't be gone. She refused to believe it. He was probably mounting a rescueright now. Call it hopeful optimism, but she felt that he was still out there. If he was truly dead, there wouldn't be this… feeling… in her heart would there? No, she would hold onto that.

He would come for her. Any moment, he would appear at the door and take her away from here.

So Elizabeth listened.

She watched.

But hours turned into days, and with each visitor that wasn't John Sheppard, she slowly wondered if her hope had been misplaced.


TBC