See Chapter 1 for notes and disclaimer
Chapter 4
There are two things that always remain exactly the same. First, the overwhelming scent of hay, a childhood memory of summers at the farm now forever contaminated. And second, Fifth's cold hard eyes, watching, staring. Everything else changes, each night bringing her images more heart wrenching than the last.
Tonight at the farm, for it was always at the farm, Pete looked at her strangely, his youthful face framing eyes aged behind his years. He spoke in his own voice, but the words were not his, issued from a mouth set in a crooked grin that seemed entirely out of place.
"You know me, Carter," he said. "I will always be here for you. I will always care about you, a lot more than I'm supposed to."
Sam cringed at his words, knowing that they just weren't right. He didn't mean them. Or maybe he did. Were the words real? Maybe his face was wrong. She didn't know. She didn't like not knowing. She stepped away from Pete, backing away from the man she couldn't quite understand, only to fall to the ground as a pan went shooting in her direction, grazing her shoulder as it passed.
Pete's face turned angry, twisted. "Don't you walk away from me, Samantha. You can't walk away from me. The Little Healer's got to help fix her bird's wing. And I'm not quite ready to fly yet. You'll know when I am."
She turned and ran into the house. She didn't know why she was running from Pete, he had never hurt her, but his angry voice had scared her and she knew, somehow, that this time she was going to get away. If she could just stay away from the voice, she would be okay.
She found herself standing in her bedroom, her base uniform replaced by comfortable flannel pyjamas ad an old Academy t-shirt several sizes too big. The room wasn't hers but yet it was, all the same. The bed was covered with a heavy patchwork quilt, worn and lovingly repaired in places. Her fingers ran over the neat stitches filling several squares. Names, they were names. Some she recognised: Jonathan, Sarah, Charlie… but others, others just seemed odd and out of place. Their newer, brighter stitches misshapen and blurred, the letters flashed before her eyes, but they made no sense to her.
D-A-N-I-E-L
T-E-A-L'-C
S-A-M-A-N-T-H-A
G-R-A-C-E
Sam shook her head, confused, but not afraid. The yard and the rest of the house scared her, but here she finally felt safe. Hearing several fishing rods slide from where they were stacked in the corner she moved to right them, catching her reflection in the mirror as she did so.
The mirror stood tall, showing her entire length, but the face looking back at her was not hers. Her reflection had green eyes, not as bright as Sam's own blue ones, but just as compelling. Her hair fell in auburn curls to her shoulders, shining a burnished copper in the light streaming from the window. The reflection made her feel cold and unsure, the peace she found in the rooms comfort falling down around her feet. She knew this woman, knew that the empty stare on her face was not the expression she would normally wear.
The woman raised her hand, stepping out from behind the mirror with little more disturbance than an eerie ripple. Sam tried to move away, tried to call out for help, but the warm colours of the room around her melted, taking away all hope and leaving behind only a cold darkness. The knowledge that it was Elizabeth's hand in her forehead, not Fifth's, gave little comfort. Even less so when bitter, hurtful words started hurling around her, bouncing off walls Sam could not see to pound into her again and again.
"You cannot fill my place. You can never do what I did. You are not worthy. You should not have been chosen."
The words, lacking Elizabeth's smooth rich tones, ripped the air from Sam's lungs. They were formed in a voice she had never heard outside her own head. Thin but determined, Jolinar's voice had haunted her for years, and seemed to take pleasure in the opportunity to return once more. She taunted and yelled, getting increasingly louder as Sam felt Fifth's eyes burning deeper and deeper into her back.
When she woke, it was to a tear-soaked pillow and an empty room. Breathless and disoriented, Sam looked around, searching for something – anything – to ground her. But her walls were foreign and her family was far. There was no Jack to curl up to, and no lab to disappear into.
Retrieving her blanket from the floor, she crossed the room to the chair looking out over her balcony. Huddling up in the thin, unadorned bedspread, she stared out at the stair and wished, begged, pleaded that this would not be the start of another run of nightmares. Not while she was here on her own. "Please not again. Not this again."