She was taken back to her cell and left on the bed. The lack of food, the exhaustion, and the torture made her unable to move. It was a while before she could sit up. The blood was causing her sleeve to stick to the cuts Sam had made. She got up and stumbled to the shower. Gingerly peeling away the sleeve as the cold water ran over it. It stung and it wasn't until she had finished wiping away the last of the congealed blood, she saw what he had carved; a circle with a star in the middle of it.
"It's his signature." Dean said holding a photograph. It was carved into the skin of a male, laid out on a gurney, obviously dead.
Why does he do that?" Olivia asked.
"It shows that they're his. His personal kills."
Did this mean she was next? Olivia stripped a piece off of her already ruined jumpsuit and used it as a bandage for the wound. She spent the night awake, listening for any sounds that wasn't boots, or screams, or the sound of the ocean down below. Dawn came and she was again shaken awake.
However, this time she was given food. Her stomach twisted painfully at the sight of the oatmeal in the bowl with a slice of bread. However, it had been almost two days since she had last eaten and as soon as the solid food hit her stomach it threatened to almost come up again. She had to physically clamp her hand over her mouth to keep it from coming back up. She needed this food. As slowly as they would allow her, she finished the breakfast and gulped down some water, willing for the pounding in her head to subside. A new jumpsuit was provided, to replace the already torn and blood stained one.
She was then led down to the same interrogation room as the day before. Sam was already there, perched on the edge of the table, a long line of delicate tools laid out before him and a file in his hand. He looked up as they came in and gestured her over to the chair. She was pushed into it and her hands remained handcuffed behind her back today. He didn't look at her for a few minutes as if he wanted to finish some part of the file. Finally he finished and his green eyes trained onto her.
"Good morning Olivia." He said pleasantly, as if he had run into her at the grocery store.
Olivia stared back at him. He raised his eyebrows.
"What do you say?" He said as if talking to a child.
"Good Morning Sam." Olivia said weakly.
"Glad to see you're so chatty today." Sam said sarcastically. His eyes seemed to take everything in.
"Love the new jumpsuit. Guess they didn't like my improvements." He said laughing, "I was told that I can only do that every so often, we can't fit you with new clothes every day. There is a war on after all."
He stood and carelessly threw the file down next to the knives. He walked over to her, once again surrounding her with his presence. His large hands came up to the buttons on the front of her jumpsuit.
"So, in order to obey orders, I'll have to get this out of my way." He said his voice even as he began to undo the buttons down her chest. He was eye level with her and his eyes stared into her, waiting for her crack, cry, anything that showed what he was doing was affecting her. Olivia may felt a flush of embarrassment and fear come to her cheeks but she refused to cry from him, not yet when he was doing so little to her.
He pushed the sleeves off her shoulders so they pooled at the crook of her elbows, and her pale skin against the black of the square sports bra that was issued to her, was disrupted by the makeshift bandage covering the pentagram he had carved into her yesterday. He pushed the sleeve aside so he could take a look, his face dipping down so it was level with her neck as he untied the bandage. It had scabbed over during the night and stood a dull brown red against her arm. He seemed pleased with his handiwork.
"It's not deep enough to scar." He said and he traced it lightly, sending little sparks of pain up her arm. He turned back and grabbed a small scalpel and again began to carve into the pentagram, his hand on her shoulder, keeping her from moving. A low moan of pain escaped her mouth again and tears tracked down her face. She gritted her teeth against the onslaught but when he dug particularly hard she screamed out. Sam lifted his head so he could look at her.
"Well, that got you talking." He got up and walked over to the file. He flipped it open and showed it to her. It was her file.
"Olivia O'Malley, Age 20. Joined the army two years ago. Assigned to the psychology department. You work with special ops and PTSD soldiers. What did they tell you, Olivia?" He lifted her chin, his hand wet from her blood.
"What did those soldiers tell you? What did you analyze?" He asked, his thumb wiping across her lower lip and she knew her lips were now stained red with her own blood. There was something about the way he was, leaning over her, that intrigued her, and it disgusted and scared her to be intrigued.
"Just tell me something, and I'll stop." He said his voice deceptively gentle, the glass of wine with the poison in it. Olivia's eyes flipped back to the row of knives behind him and saw every that this would happen every day. This was her life. She would die with a knife in her and those green eyes taking in her last breath.
She licked her lip unconsciously, the metallic tang of the blood corroding her tongue.
"There was one soldier, he said that what made him most afraid of the North was the numbers of soldiers that would just keep coming." Olivia said.
Sam smiled,
"We don't stop unless we are ordered to." He said.
"Why?" Olivia asked, genuinely curious, forgetting that she wasn't supposed to ask questions.
"We're trained to follow every order, if we don't then there are consequences."
"That horrible." Olivia said.
"It's smart. Our casualties are less than yours. You southerners are too relaxed and look what happens? There is insubordination, tied up in a bureaucratic system which leads to death. If you acted more like us, then there would be less death."
"You mean if you won this war and took control of us?"
Sam smiled amused.
"It would be a start." He said. He was baiting her. Olivia took it.
"And how would you control the South? We won't take our loss lying down." Olivia said.
"That's true for some of you, but most of you will just listen to the government, agree with what's going on with the news, and won't even notice the tide had turned until it's too late. Then your children will be sent to us, they'll become like the North and we'll be raising a new generation. It worked with the East and West."
"Only until the rest joined us." Olivia shot back.
"That was less than half; the North got the lions share." Sam said his smile smug. "You have too much faith in your government, Olivia. First thing, don't trust anyone."
"You don't trust anyone?" Olivia asked. Sam shook his head.
"Not for a moment." He said. "And like I said, you shouldn't either, no one has contacted us for your whereabouts. You've got about only four more hours before it looks like your stay with us is permanent. So until that time, let's get on with it." He stood and picked the knife up again.
"You said, you'd stop!" Olivia said desperately.
"That was if you gave me information, what we just had was a debate on ethics." He brought the knife back to the pentagram and dug it back in. Olivia screamed again and Sam finished digging it in. Turning back to the table, Sam pulled out a larger knife. This time he traced her collar bone, over her chest and down to her stomach. Olivia shrank back from it but the knife inevitably cut into the skin, the blood beading in the small cuts.
"I want to hear you scream." He said.
A scream was lodged in her throat but the pure terror kept it there. He then moved the blade so it lay horizontally against her skin and scraped against it hard. A chunk of her skin was cut off and blood began to flow freely.
The scream he had wanted was ripped from her throat and he stood there, savoring it. He pushed the hair out of her eyes in an almost gentle motion, Olivia's vision blurred by tears and pain.
"Good job." He said, "You see, half the pain you feel is in your head from the anticipation." He tapped the side of his own. "Take a breath, and the pain will be less."
Olivia gave shuddering moans of pain trying to breathe. Sam squeezed her arm painfully.
"I said, breathe."
Olivia forced a gulp of air into her lungs. The pain was less by a fraction. Sam let go of her arm. He picked up her file again.
"Maybe we've gotten off on the wrong foot." He said laughing. "You know, maybe you should share with the class about yourself, Liv. Go on, you try and tell me about yourself, and I'll," He waved the file up, "Tell you if your correct."
He leaned against the table and flipped it open.
"Alright, Miss Olivia, where were you born?"
It was a long grueling hour. She gave him everything he asked. He finally flipped it closed.
"What was that for?" Olivia asked, trying not to move too much a reopen her wounds.
"I feel like I should get to know you if I am going to stick a knife in you."
"Most people are the opposite." Olivia said.
"I think you know that I am not most people." Sam said. He looked at his watch.
"Well, looks like we're almost done for the day." He said getting up. He opened a drawer in the table and to her surprise pulled out gauze, a bandage, and a brown bottle.
"We don't want your cuts getting infected." He said dismissively.
"No you wouldn't." Olivia thought to herself. Her life was taken out of her hands, no matter what.
Sam poured some of the hydrogen peroxide on the cuts, the sting making her grit her teeth. Then he leaned forward and blew on the cut, getting rid of the sting. What the hell was he doing?
The bandage went on her stomach, the gauze around her arm. He then went to the door and motioned for the guards to come in.
"See you tomorrow." He said giving her a smile.
Olivia was taken from the room and Sam was left there. He let out a breath and ran a hand through his hair. The tip of his tongue poked out of mouth as he concentrated, thinking back on today's session. They had talked but, for now, he didn't see much use in what he had gotten.
"You enjoyed it." The voice in his head said. "Someone actually talked to you about something and you liked it."
"That's because, you're nothing more than a freak. You cut people, you make them bleed, and then you make them tell you everything." It was Jo's voice in his ear.
"I do." He said to Jo. Talking to his dead sister was not a sign of tip top mental health, but in his line of work, no one expected him to be completely sane, not after what he had been through.
"I know what it's like." Olivia said to Elizabeth. "How scared you are, how threatening he is, and how he gets inside of your head."
Elizabeth had curled herself into a ball on the couch listening.
"Do want to tell me what happened with you?" Olivia asked
Elizabeth nodded,
"I was in the chair, and he took the knife and he told me I was going to die." Elizabeth said her breath coming short as the memory surfaced. She felt like she was back in that chair, instead of safe in her own living room.
"He tried to get information out of me, and I told me no and I tried to tell him about Todd but he already knew about it, and he stabbed me, again and again and I just screamed. All I can hear is the screaming." Her hand wandered up to her head. Tears had begun to form in her eyes. "He enjoyed it, he liked the cutting and the blood, and I looked at him and all I could think about was this was Dean's brother. Dean knew this man." Her voice cracked and it took her a moment.
"I came back, and I thought I would be safe, but I close my eyes at night and all I see is him and his knife and sometimes I betray everyone I know so he'll stop the pain." Elizabeth continued.
"It isn't real." Olivia said.
"I know it isn't, but it feels real! Don't you have dreams like that?" Elizabeth asked.
Olivia nodded, her cheeks slightly flushed. Elizabeth wiped the tears that were beginning to trail down her face.
"I still feel where he cut me." Elizabeth said tracing the stitches through her shirt.
Olivia slowly rolled her sleeve up. The white pentagram stood out against her skin and she pushed her scarf to the side to numerous little white lines on her neck. Elizabeth gave an intake of breath at all the scars.
"I still feel it too. There is no shame in being afraid. They feel just as real for me and I try and find something that comforts me, that makes me sleep better."
Elizabeth remembered the peaceful sleep she'd had when Dean had held her.
"Dean." She finally said and Olivia understood.
"But," Elizabeth continued, "We took a step back a few weeks ago, when I found out Sam was his brother."
"He understands," Olivia said, "If you'd seen him at the hospital, you would have seen how guilty he felt."
"It wasn't his fault!" Elizabeth said.
"I know that, and you know that, but he doesn't. This would be a good opportunity to talk to him. Tell him what you told me." Olivia said.
Elizabeth nodded, she had practiced for weeks of not thinking of Dean as anything more than her commander but now, she needed him.
Olivia left soon after, telling her that she could refer her to the same therapist she was seeing. Elizabeth was glad to consider it. There was one thing she had to do first.
"Hello." Dean said through the phone.
"I, I just finished talking with Olivia, and I was wondering if you could come over." Elizabeth said slowly.
In less than ten minutes Dean was at her door. He took a seat across from her and Elizabeth looked around for a moment not sure where to start.
"Olivia told me you blame yourself." Elizabeth said.
Dean looked like he was about to crumble.
"I should have kept you with me," Dean started to say
CRACK!
Elizabeth's hand made contact with Dean's face sharply.
"Don't you dare blame yourself!" Elizabeth said tears coming to her eyes. "Don't you dare think that what you did made this happen! You are not responsible for what Sam did to me! You are better than that!"
Her breath was coming in sobs now and she could have just killed Sam at that moment for the damage he had inflicted onto her, Dean and Olivia. Dean's arms circled her and pulled her into his chest in a grip of iron, she couldn't move even if she had wanted to. Elizabeth sobbed against his chest, cried for his pain, for his loss, and the guilt he would have with him no matter how hard she tried to convince him.
"Please stop doing that to yourself." She said her voice rough from the tears.
Sam hadn't broken her, but there were definite cracks and it scared her that she could shatter. She needed someone who had been broken but had found a way to put themselves back together. Dean had shattered once and though there were cracks still visible, he wasn't going to fall again. She needed him to hold her in one piece.
His lips sought hers in comfort and she returned it with desperation and a fierceness that came with realizing you were alive and still standing. They both needed the comfort from each other, to lay their trust at each other's feet and know that it would be safe in their keeping. Elizabeth put herself wholly into his heart and she knew he had done the same.
The night found them together, whispering apologies and assurances. Elizabeth felt more tears gather in her eyes as he gently kissed each scar Sam had given her.
"I love you." Dean whispered much later. Elizabeth looked up at him from where she was resting on his chest. He looked years younger, vulnerable as a child. His heart drumming under her fingertips.
"I love you too."