A/N: Hooray! I got this chapter a lot more quickly than the last one. Go me! Of course, it still took me about a month to update; but I'm improving!

And Kudos to Dylan Thomas for being an awesome poet!

"Dr. Weir? Dr. Weir?!"

Elizabeth was slowly being forced awake by the sound of an insistent little voice. She tried to ignore whoever was so rudely interrupting her sleep, but the voice was soon joined by hands poking and prodding her, and when persistent fingers grasped her shirt and shook, the pain was enough to jolt her into full consciousness with a cry.

"Did I hurt you? I'm so sorry! I just saw you lying there and you weren't moving and I got scared!"

Elizabeth managed to open her one good eye to see Umi kneeling outside her cell, her tiny hands pressed through the bars. The poor girl's eyes were wide with fright and Elizabeth wondered what she was so scared of and why her tone sounded so urgent.

Elizabeth sluggishly lifted her head to assess the situation, but that small movement shifted her left arm and she had to bite back a scream as nauseating pain rolled through her.

Umi gasped in horror, "Oh…you're hurt bad!"

With those words it all came back to her in a flash and her body turned into one big ache. For a brief moment she cursed the slave girl's concern for her; it would have been better if she'd just slept forever. Then she thought of Atlantis, of her friends, of John; she couldn't bear the thought of them finding out she had given up without a fight. And what if they came to rescue her only to find she had breathed her last moments before? She couldn't do that to them or to herself. Elizabeth made a silent promise to stay strong as long as she could. Do not go gentle into that good night… a line from an old poem crossed her mind and she almost smiled at the recollection of something normal.

"Thank you Umi," the words came out feebler than she would have liked, but they seemed to be enough for her young friend, who sighed in relief.

"Oh thank goodness! I was so worried!" Tears filled the girl's brilliant blue eyes and Elizabeth was reminded again of how young Umi was.

"Hey, it's okay. I'm okay, thanks to you," she filled her voice with as much reassurance as she could muster. She had no illusions about her condition, but Umi didn't need to know how serious it was. Elizabeth shivered, but attributed the sudden chill in her bones to the damp air wafting through the room.

The clomping of boots on the stairwell sent her companion scurrying behind a couple of barrels, and Elizabeth felt her heart fill with dread. Tamesis appeared in the doorway and she cursed the man's ability to impact her emotions.

"Hello Dr. Weir; how are we feeling today?" He approached her cell and spat on the ground right in front of her face.

Laughing, the prison guard wiped his face with the back of his sleeve and waited for a reaction. When he got none, Tamesis angrily kicked the bars and moved away. For one shining moment Elizabeth actually thought he was going to leave, but then she heard the rattle of keys and the sound of screeching metal; the next second his boots were inches from her nose.

"Get up," his gravelly voice resonated down to the floor.

She closed her eyes briefly and wondered what kind of a world could create such a cold, malevolent person.

"Get up!" Tamesis' growl was almost feral.

Elizabeth reached out with her good arm and grasped one of the cool, metal bars; taking a deep breath, she hauled herself across the ground. By the time she made it into an upright position she was sweating and shaking. When she paused to rest, Tamesis having apparently lost patience, bodily lifted her into the air and set her on her feet. This time she was actually thankful for the manhandling; she wasn't certain she ever would have made it into a standing position otherwise.

"Where are you taking me?" Elizabeth tried to keep her voice steady, but she couldn't stop the exhaustion and pain from creeping into her tone.

Tamesis snorted, "You're going to the fields."

Elizabeth laughed, surprising both him and herself.

"What is so amusing?" Tamesis was looking at her like she'd lost her mind; she wasn't so sure she hadn't.

"You think I can work like this?" She moved her good arm down to protectively cover her aching ribs.

The look the burly man sent her was one of cool indifference, "If you don't work then you become useless; we have no need for anything useless."

The not-so-subtle warning fell with all the finality of a judge's gavel. Elizabeth knew she had just received her sentence, and it would come at the hands of Azrael himself.

"There's a cart waiting for you outside," Tamesis eyed her with what could only be described as disdain. No doubt he was sick of having to deal with her.

Elizabeth was too busy thinking the feeling was mutual to notice a patch of sunshine go flying past her and into the prison guard.

"You can't take her!" Elizabeth's head whipped around to see Umi pounding her tiny fists into the enormous man's chest, "If you take her she'll get hurt worse!"

The next part seemed to happen in slow motion; Tamesis grabbed the young girl by the collar of her dirty dress and lifted her up into the air like she weighed nothing, then flung her into the wall with all his might.

"No…" Elizabeth breathed, willing the young girl to get up, to move…anything; but she didn't, and somehow Elizabeth knew she never would again.

"There, took care of that brat," Tamesis wiped his hands on his pants and spat on the ground.

Elizabeth thought she was going to be sick, "She was just a little girl!"

"She was a nuisance is what she was!" the prison guard practically shouted, his face turning red in anger.

Knowing that words, her weapon of choice, wouldn't work in this situation, Elizabeth fought back with her fists. It was a stupid, reckless thing to do, and another sign that John Sheppard had rubbed off on her. Her swing was weak, and every part of her body protested at the movement, but her aim was true. The soft tissue in Tamesis' nose caved under the force of her fist; it wasn't enough to break it, but it was enough to make blood come gushing out of his right nostril.

Tamesis recovered quickly however, and with a roar he had grabbed her around the neck and pinned her to the wall. She gasped and struggled feebly against his hold on her, but he just tightened his grip, making it harder for her to breathe.

He brought his face so close to hers that she could smell his reeking breath and nothing else. "I could kill you now," he snarled, "but I think it'll be more fun to watch you die under the hot sun."

He released her quite suddenly and Elizabeth fell to the ground, wheezing as she gulped air into her oxygen-starved lungs. She had managed to shield her mangled arm from the fall, but her chest felt like it was going to explode from her efforts to breathe.

Tamesis grabbed a fistful of her hair, and Elizabeth had to blink away a sudden onset of tears at this new, unexpected, and acute throbbing in her skull.

"Let's get on with it; I'm sick of waiting for you," the prison guard glanced down at her, then started dragging her in the direction of the door.

It was degrading, humiliating, painful, and likely the second to the last time someone would take her somewhere when she was powerless to stop them.

I'm sorry John, Elizabeth closed her eyes in defeat.

… Rage, rage against the dying of the light.