Bill Lee
I heard the clicking of footsteps enter the lab and looked up from the generator I was tinkering with. Eleanor Owens walked in, small satchel in hand, and a confused expression on her face.
"Hey Bill," she set the satchel on the table and took a seat on one of the stools across from it. "Can I trouble you for a moment of your time?"
"If this is about our upcoming campaign, Felger is refusing to budge."
"Oh, I can host, that's not an issue. No, this is work related." She opened the satchel and with a set of long needle nose tweezers pulled out a perfect cube almost three inches wide and set it down with a gentle tink against the metal table. "This was in a crate that was brought for me to put away in storage yesterday. However, when I went to upload it, nothing happened. I don't feel comfortable keeping it if the Asgardian tech can't manipulate it. I know that sounds silly but," she shrugged and I nodded understandably.
"Do we know which team brought it back?"
"SG-9, they were on a diplomatic mission for the new potential quarry, and a local gave them this. It's made from the refined trinium, but the markings on it predate the planet's writing. They almost look like ancient symbols, nothing that I've seen though, and I'm not a linguist." She sighed and pulled the clip out of her hair, scooped the auburn coils up and out of her face, and readjusted the clip.
"Do you think they're maybe just designs for aesthetics? It almost resembles a hand game similar to a puzzle box."
"There is that possibility. From the mission report a local woman traded it, wrapped in a woven pouch of organic fibers, probably some sort of a spun wool, for three chocolate bars and a field blanket. Sgt. Jensen wanted to give her the chocolate bars but she insisted, so in good will he chose that from her counter and threw in the blanket for her shivering son in the corner."
I gingerly took the small cube, it reminded me of the rubix cubes my niece was so fascinated with. There was a set of three pentagrams carved into each side with engraved symbols. Some of the symbols had clear pigments ground into them, and others had been worn over time. "This hasn't gone through my lab, but you know everything goes through someone's science department before it gets to you. It's a security measure that was set up after Major Carter was temporally displaced, the second time." I ran my fingers over the edges of the cube and turned it over. There were no buttons or levers, nothing remarkable about it.
"I know, and I'm sure whoever had tested the relic was very careful, but I've never seen something rejected by Asgardian devices before."
I placed it back down on the table and furrowed my brows, "it looks like a game to be honest. Nothing remarkable about it."
"Well, if it's safe then, sorry for wasting your time." She smiled softly and reached for the cube. The moment her hand touched the metal she vanished.
"Eleanor?" I croaked out, but no response. I groaned and ran my hands over my face. Not again. This always happened in my lab, never in Coombs or Garcia's. Always mine.
I started pacing, the last time this happened I at least had some sort of basis on what to go off of. This was a cube that I had picked up and touched, then she touched, and she was the one who vanished. I spent the next 20 minutes trying to get any sort of response to see if she was around me, that's usually what happened. Major Carter would flip light switches or make my computer screen blurry. Just any sign, but there was nothing.
"Hey Doc, I heard Owens came in here, she was going to meet me for lunch but I can't track her down." Sgt. Lonnie Carlson's voice came bumbling through my door.
"She's not here." I grimaced, still looking down at the cube, "I mean she is, was."
"Do you know where she is? Because it's never at her desk." He smirked back and I could feel the lump lodged in my throat, stilts staring down at the cursed cube.
I could hear the panic in my own voice, but there was no point in hiding it. "Where's Major Carter?"
"Off-world."
"Of course." With each second I stood there staring at the box my face grew hot in worry. I could practically feel my lips go raw from the gnawing of frustration. His eyes tracked mine to the object and I blurted out, "Owens is in the cube."
"Yeah I got that." He snapped back and left.
"I need Carter here. Or Jackson." I groaned. "Eleanor, if you can hear me, uh, make some sort of sound or something." Silence. I picked up the cube and looked at it again, all symbols that I felt I should know, some were more worn down than others, some gleamed bright and new. I fidgeted with it again and sat it down heading to the computer to see if there was something in her cultural database that would point me in the right direction.
"Off world activation." It was never so comforting to hear the words echoing through the halls of the gate floor. It was bound to be Major Carter and Dr. Jackson. They've done this, gone through this all before, they could figure this out.
I rushed out to the gate room to see four bodies swaggering down the ramp, and my stomach dropped. SG-12. Not exactly who I had hoped for.
"Itching to get your hands on some new tech doc?" One of the airmen laughed as he passed me. "Nothing today, sorry."
"Oh," I managed a chuckle. "No I've uh, I've got my hands full as it is." I scurried back to the lab to see the cube, unmoved and still no sign of Eleanor. "I'm going to, erm, go to lunch then. I'll be back soon." I grimaced again and shut the door behind me making my way to the mess hall for lunch to go. Hopefully with something in my stomach I could think straight.
Eleanor
A scream ripped from inside my head as I awoke in a suspended field. There was nothing around me, a vastness devoid of any light or feeling. I was swimming in, no bottom, no top, just my body floating boundless. I looked down and I could at least see my hands, my body, the cream of my button up blouse and the English ivy embroidery work along the buttons. All still visible, but everything else around me was an inky darkness. I began waving my arms to try and propel me forward to nowhere in particular, just in the hopes I would find some sort of panel or device to let me out. Yet nothing worked. I was like a babe in my mother's womb, floating in a confined space unaware of my surroundings. I opened my mouth but not a sound came out. I felt my heart rate begin to speed up in a panic and began breathing deeply to maintain myself only to realize I couldn't even hear that. My own lungs taking in gulps of air were muted. Was I dead? No, I had a pulse. I doubted dead people had a pulse, even in purgatory. I checked my pockets, an old butterscotch wrapper and a receipt for gas this morning wasn't much of a help. I took the wrapper and crinkled it next to my ear, silence. I threw it with as much force as I could muster, only to have it suspended inches in front of my face once more, refusing to move more than a foot from my body. My skin began to crawl, the air around me was the exact temperature as my body, but it unnerved me and I immediately missed the cold stale air of the SGC. I attempted to keep my legs straight, to stand upright instead of floating in this fetal position, but it was like attempting to stand perfectly still in zero gravity. My hands found their way up to my hair and I uncliped it to allow the strands free. The tension from the clip released, but my long waves just drifted loosely around me like snakes slithering around my skull with a mind of their own. My breathing increased rapidly as I felt around, trying to find something to anchor me to the moment, but I was at a loss. I was lost, and increasingly starting to worry how my mental state was going to handle this sensory deprivation with no end in sight.
That's when I heard the first gasp, a sound coming from no general direction, but instead all around me. The humming of interest, all prickling my eardrums but no figure to attach the sound.
No, no please breathe. Just breathe in and out and you can get through this. I begged my own consciousness to remain neutral. If this was an entity around me, if this was just my mind losing itself in the darkness, I needed to remain calm. But a sharp piercing pain was starting to rip into my skull and slowly through my nervous system like a river of agony. My hands flung to my head pressing into it for an attempt to alleviate any of the exploding pain. In and out, in and out. My thoughts were circling and grabbing onto breathing methods as a form of pain management but nothing happened.
As a child my mother would squeeze at the place in between my thumb and pointer finger in an attempt to alleviate the discomfort, so my shaking hands fluttered together and applied pressure, but nothing happened. Just jolts of pain zapping down my spinal cord and through my skull. I pressed against my sinus cavities, my eyes now growing achy and sore. I curled tightly into a ball, feeling my body lurch with each wave of pain, and then suddenly it stopped. I fell to the ground in a heap and looked around. The air was still warm, but I was in my office again, somehow in my office, and I heard voices all around me that I could not pinpoint. My sister singing nursery rhymes, my brother laughing at the dinner table, my friends from college arguing in between classes, all conversations I'd been a part of before. Blurry figures formed in front of me like ghosts of my past and I stood to my feet, opening my mouth to speak.
"What is going on?" I asked, shocked I could once again be vocal but the words were not leaving my mouth. I spoke them, but they were distorted and echoing in my ears.
"What are your thoughts on that El?" Alison Beaker, a friend from high school was sitting on my desk, youthful and lithe, but there was a dullness to her tawny skin, a lack of life behind her brown eyes.
"On what?" I asked her again, managing to stand still while my body trembled.
"You were supposed to be my friend. You let this happen, I looked so stupid because of you." She glared back at me and the memory flooded in my mind. We were on a double date with two boys from our school, two boys that only agreed to go with us because they thought my brother could buy us booze. When I had never thought to even ask they left us at the mall and I had to use the payphone to call my mom to come pick us up. Alison distanced herself from me after that and took the majority of our mutual friends with her. But that was a silly highschool issue, why was I reliving this?
"Why are you here?" My eyes narrowed as I tried to take a step forward but she disappeared in front of me.
"Dad's moving." I heard my sister and I froze. I knew this memory already. My head turned and she stood there with my brother, 16 and 10 years old.
"You weren't supposed to tell her April." My older brother, now a teenager, snapped back at her and sighed looking back at me. "They're moving to Texas. He and his new girlfriend. He just called to say goodbye."
"He didn't want to say goodbye to me?" I remembered asking back when this happened.
"No. It's because he said you're too much like mom and would get all emotional about it." She answered my thought and it was chilling to the bone. The blue ribbon in her hair. The old stained baseball pants from his practice that day. "Is this why you can't ascend?"
"What?" I squinted back at him.
"Is this why you can't ascend?" My little sister asked me again, eyes innocent and questioning. "Because daddy didn't want to see you after the divorce like he did us?"
"Because you blame yourself for being unlovable?" He asked me void of any emotion.
"What the fuck is this?" I seethed, "what is this game being played with me?"
"You're going to work through these problems if you want to ascend." He responded and the room around me vanished as I was once again floating in the space. The electrical zap charged down my spine and I let out a soundless scream.
Sam
Daniel's eyes narrowed in on Bill like a viper ready to strike, "explain this one more time."
"Like we're idiots," Jack snarked, "because we have to be to not understand how this could happen."
"Again." I sighed out remembering the last He told the story once more, nervously glancing at Daniel who was white knuckling the table in between them. We all stood around, just looking at the cube. None of us wanted to be trapped like Eleanor, but at some point we would have to inspect it to get her out.
Teal'c broke the silent tension. "This is most unfortunate."
"Who knows what form of stasis she's in," I replied smoothly. "For all we know she could be asleep."
"That's a shorthand symbol similar to the transport. You see it near gates. This one," he pointed to a marking that had been perfectly painted. It seemed untouched. "It means ascension. However this one," Daniel took a pen from his front pocket and pointed to a worn out overly touched side of the cube. "This appears in Ancient texts about conflict referring to specific individuals."
"So this is some sort of time-out box?"" Jack squinted down at it.
"It seems as if this is a prisoner holding cell." Teal'c surmised. He bent down and inspected the metal cube in further detail. "Daniel Jackson, why would such a device be on the planet?"
"Hopefully no one else is trapped inside it." My heart ached for the fear she was probably feeling inside this device. If she was conscious of her surroundings, whatever they looked like inside, she would be so afraid and alone. We were used to this, SG members signed up for moments like this, and it was still scary when we had moments that were uncontrollable to us.
"Did you do anything to it, to you know, run some tests?" Jack poked it with the end of a pencil.
"We tried electricity?"
"On a conductive metal device that a co-worker is trapped inside of?" Daniel tsked sardonically. "Real smart." He shook his head and walked out of the room muttering to himself. I gave Bill a sympathetic look. I knew it wasn't his fault, he always had bad luck with these situations. Jack clapped his hands together and turned to Teal'c.
"Well, I'm of no use here. Want to go get some grub?"
"I will accompany you, I am also in need of sustenance." Teal'c gave a single nod and the both left with promises of returning with coffees and bagels.
I got to work comparing simulation notes from the last accidents with an Ancients device when Daniel walked in laptop in hand and a ledger of past Ancient symbols compiled from every prior mission. Bill was instructed to demonstrate where he remembered touching the cube, what exact surfaces and in what order he did it. Daniel and I worked for what felt like hours, Jack and Teal'c coming in and supplying us with quips and caffeine before turning in for the night. We were not giving up on her, especially when we had no idea of the effects that the cube had placed on her or anyone else that could be inhabiting it.
"I think I have this translated." Daniel pinched the bridge of his nose with one hand and motioned for Bill to come over. Like a puppy who had been scolded and was looking for redemption he made his way and stood next to Daniel."I want you to pick it up with your thumb on this worn pad there," he pointed to a section of the device, "that I believe is the activation mark. You're going to hold it with some pressure and slide your thumb to this mark here." He used the pen to make a swift motion from the bottom left corner up to the right side. "And then release it. Now, you said she just simply touched it and disappeared?" Bill nodded and Daniel continued, "the theory on this being a sort of prison feels right. That or it's a test of sorts. Either way, the markings would all indicate shorthand for entrapment of someone on one side, and then release on the other side. However, there are four compartments. My guess is she's in one of four holding cells notated on each of these four primary sides and we just need to get her out."
As instructed, Bill took the box and fumbled the motions. A series of clicks came from within and he dropped the device on the table with a surprising jolt.
"Carefully please," I sighed and Bill grimaced an apology, then nothing happened. Just clicks from the box. He picked it up once more and Daniel asked that he attempt the same motion on each side. Bill did just that. The next side, a series of clicks and nothing happened when he set it down on the table. The third side, a series of clicks, he placed it on the table and a collection of what appeared to be human bones, gelatinous goo, and shredded fabrics appeared before us.
Daniel's face blanched as he looked at me. I could feel my own stomach growing nauseated from the sight. Bile threatened to crawl up my throat and spew out as I swallowed back the fear that she was gone.
"That's, no. That's not right." Bill whispered, stepping back.
I picked up my walkie and called the shift doctor and other on duty lab techs immediately. "We may have a quarantine issue as well. Hazmat suits may be needed." My own voice was shaky and I walked over and inspected the skeleton that was haphazardly thrown across the table by this torturous device.
"That's not her." Daniel's voice was low and gravely. He grabbed a pair of long tweezers from a nearby desk and rolled the skull over. Patches of hair still clung to the skull, matted in with skin fragments and tissue. "It's blonde."
"Who is it then?" Bill sputtered.
"I imagine it's someone who was long forgotten." I bit down on my lip to keep from trembling. "Hopefully at least."
A team of four in hazmat suits walked in with a collection of bags and stopped short as they looked at the lab table. I explained briefly that we had no idea who these bones belonged to, or when. Daniel and I quickly collected our notes and gear, then motioned for Bill to go next door as the team sanitized and took the remains back to another lab to be properly dissected at a later date.
I grabbed the cube with the long tweezer tongs and we went to an empty observation room next door, closing the door behind us. I placed the object on the table and Daniel gave a pointed look to Dr. Lee.
"So, it's clear the box doesn't keep things in stasis. They decay, age, who knows how rapidly or long but I think it's safe to say it's a somewhat organic environment. Even if that's just from the gut bacteria eating itself from within." Daniel motioned back to the box. "Go on then. We've exhausted all of our other combination attempts."
Bill blanched and looked back us.
"Do it, now." I had only seen Daniel like this a handful of times before with his rage bubbling at the surface. He was often driven by emotions, but not like this.
Bill took in a steadying breath and slid his thumb to the mark, then released it. A series of low clicks started chiming from the box and he placed it evenly on the table like before. In that same moment she blinked into sight in front of us and collapsed onto the table beside the puzzle that had kept her, a gasp of relief escaping us all until a scream tore through her.
Eleanor
Sound again spilled from my gaping mouth, it filled my lungs and scorched my throat as it pierced through the room. Blinding lights burned my eyes and I flung my hands up to cover them as I felt the cold metal floor under me. With one hand I reached around and felt for a weapon of some sort, anything to aid in my safety. My blind reaching swat at a hard metal object with a loud thump, and found another long pointed item. I grabbed it, and still squinting from the lights, and thrashed it around me.
"She has the tweezer tongs." I heard a recognizable voice shout.
"Eleanor, you're safe now," another reached out to me and I huddled against the ground, my blurry vision adjusting slowly around me.
"Get back," I hissed l behind ground teeth. "Don't come any closer."
"Call medical and security," a woman's voice whispered. I could make out a figure in the corner of the room where the voice was projecting from. My sense of direction was coming back in a sensory overload. Singular voices from individualized spots. This had to be another test, another poking and prodding in my mind waiting for me to fail so that I could be lashed with pain once more and tried again.
"Eleanor, you're safe now. But please, let us help you off the table." That familiar calm spoke to my left with matching footsteps. His tall broad form slowly inching closer to me, but still unrecognizable.
"Get away from me!" I screamed once more, thrusting my only weapon at him. "This isn't real, it never is. Every time, every single time. Stop doing this to me!" Tears broke free, finally falling down my flushed heated face making the world around me even more blurry. I heard more footsteps run in and my body flinched. The sounds were so distinct this time. I could hear the directions they were coming from. This was different than the last times but I couldn't let myself believe it again. Every time I thought I had been rescued but it was another probing of my past mistakes. I moved to adjust my frame and went toppling down crashing into a warm body. Arms wrapped around me and shushing blew against my ears.
"It's Daniel, I'm doing this for your protection, you're safe. You're okay." My body was shaking as I struggled to free myself.
"It's not, it's not. I've done this before, I'm telling you I don't know anything. I don't belong here." My words came out in gasps as I saw more figures crowding me, I felt a sharp injection and shrieked as my body started to go limp. I was carried across the space and laid flat on a bed once more being confined. This time though I felt the actual straps across my body, these were physical, these were real. "Wha...tis... thisss?" My eyes grew heavy and the slurry of words shouting around me all morphed into a choir of nonsense. My lids shut and then darkness again. I heard the voices fade, I tried with all my strength to pull out of the blackness again, swimming to the surface of consciousness with weights attached to me, but I was overcome finally with a bliss of sleep.
Sam
Daniel turned his head in Bill's direction, an animus glare in his eyes. "Nothing goes to cataloging without going through you. I am holding you personally responsible." He bellowed across the room, just trying to find someone to take his anger out on.
"This isn't his fault, fully." I sighed, shaking my head. "It was an accident."
"Did we just see the same thing? She was feral Sam, fighting for her life. She had no idea who we even were." His jaw clenched down. "This should have been avoidable."
"It wouldn't hurt to have extra channels put in place so this doesn't happen again." Bill agreed and we all stood staring at the metal prison she had smacked onto the ground. "Meanwhile, this will be locked away until General Hammond puts in orders to have it sent to Area-51."
"We can probably put it in the Asgardian coding system now, or at least attempt to. I imagine it was locked out because of the other remains in the third cell. I don't think it does well with organic compounds." I looked over at Daniel who was still staring daggers into the containment unit. "We should go home now, Janet was already called in for this half an hour ago. She's on her way."
Bill agreed, grabbing his briefcase and Daniel collected his laptop. I gave him a longer hug than I probably should have but, I knew more than anyone that gut wrenching agony from trying to save someone who you cared for. Especially when you worried that you could never tell them. I saw it in his eyes, the guilt, the fear, but it wasn't my place to say anything. Especially not when I had my own secrets.
I made my way to the showers. I was used to the locker rooms, it was a warm ritual to wipe the SGC off of me before leaving back into the real world. Something about being here with the water running down my skin felt disconcerting. I thought of the presumed human remains in that room, the thick dark substance that coated the bones, the gel that formed in pools around them on the table. The steaming shower around me felt foreign and scraped against my skin like sandpaper instead of the comforting cleanse I had hoped for. I quickly scrubbed the rest of the dirt from me and stepped out, wrapping the white thin towel around and grabbing my spare blue coveralls.
I went back to the office on the other side of my personal lab and shut the door behind me. A yawn escaped as I dialed Jack's home phone number. The line trilled three times and his groggy voice answered.
"Hey sir, uh it's Carter."
"I take it that she's out?"
"Technically yes. She's in need of a lot of medical attention I think, but she's here now."
"So she'll be staying there overnight?"
"Yeah, I think someone should drive her car home for her. My guess is she won't be cleared with the medication they're giving her." The line went silent and he clicked his tongue.
"I assume Daniel will be offering her a ride?"
"It's safe to assume that, yes."
"I can be at her place in 15."
"You don't need to Sir, I just thought you'd want a brief on what was going on."
"You can fill me in with further detail when I give you a ride back." The line clicked and I placed the phone back. I walked out of my office, locked the lab behind me.
The next floor up by the locker rooms I was skimming the cubbies of every SGC employee. We each had a small unit that held our car keys, cell phones, or any other items of importance that may be needed in the case of an emergency. At the beginning of every shift we slid them into our box, and at the end of the day it was the last thing we grabbed. The cubbies had been installed as a security measure at first, to have a space for any items that were not allowed further into the workplace. But, soon we noticed cars were not being driven home after the deaths of coworkers, that it felt wrong to go through someone's personal effects in drawers and find their house keys. Now when I looked at any slot that wasn't my own I felt a sense of mourning. Daniel especially had moments where his cubby was just a space to fill with car keys that went weeks without being touched.
Once I found her compartment, I shut the door behind me and saw Daniel making his way to the lockers next door. "I'm taking her car home."
"Oh, that'll be helpful. You have a ride back?" He was exhausted, easily as tired as I was but worry was flooding his features more prominently.
"I'll call a cab or something. It'll be fine." I nodded.
He looked at me, a knowing sense in his eyes. We parted ways and I saw Bill at the elevators waiting to walk with me out. I appreciated the company, though it was him mostly informing me that he updated Hammond about her escape and medical attention. The general had agreed everyone needed a 24 hour rest, especially after the field work today.
The chilly night air was biting at our faces and hands as I gave him a goodbye gesture and slid into my silver Volvo. I reached into the glove box and pulled out my cell phone. One missed call, Jack.
"Hey," the voicemail started. "I'm already here. Didn't realize her address was so close by. At least I hope it's her house. Anyway, I'll be waiting."
I gathered the spare overnight bag I had in my trunk and clicked the car keys realizing I had no idea which was hers in all the overnight parked cars. A small green Mini Cooper beeped and I went over. I looked inside and a small smile bubbled up from inside me. I was so thankful she was okay again. Safe at least. I knew that Janet would take good care of her. The car started and I drove off following the Garmin instructions for her home.
When I arrived Jack was parked out front, his pickup truck waiting for me. I went to lock the car and realized I wasn't sure what I should do with her keys.
"Put them in the mailbox." Jack pointed to the tin rectangle that was attached to the brick of the house.
"I don't want someone to steal her car." I bit down on my lip and he rolled his eyes taking them from me as I pulled the overnight bag out.
"Who? The mailman?" He put the keys in the box and closed the lid. I gave in and he opened the passenger side door of this truck for me to get in. "My house?"
"You're very assuming aren't you, it's 4 in the morning." I playfully rolled my eyes and he cocked his head to the side.
"You're the one with a small suitcase there Sam, not me." He shut my door and got into the drivers' side making his way back home.
Eleanor
There was a steady beeping, and I could feel the scratchy blankets wrapped around me. It wasn't the soft brushed cotton ones of my own bed, but I had never been so comforted to feel anything again. So I'd take those scratchy sheets, especially over the feeling of nothingness. My eyes hazily opened and I looked around, at the dimly lit room. Empty beds, all but mine, lined up in a row. I went to itch my forehead but my wrists were restrained against the bed. My mouth was dry and my head was pounding. I let out a groan and looked over. I could see Daniel asleep in the chair next to me, a book slipping from his hand into his lap. I saw Dr. Fraser scratching something into a puzzle book from across the room. I tried to clear my throat to get attention without waking Daniel and her head turned to me.
She quickly got up and tried to put a smile on her face, but I could see she was tired and nervous in my presence. "Eleanor, how are you feeling?"
"I've been better." I whispered back looking over at Daniel who was beginning to stir.
"You seem much better than when I last saw you," she looked down at my wrists then back to me. "I can loosen those if you promise to behave." A smile played at the corners of her lips. I nodded and she gave slack to the restraining belts. The book teetering in Daniel's lap dropped to the floor and he startled awake rubbing his eyes in the process. "I can offer you a bed you know," she chuckled and walked into the medicinal closet.
"What are you doing here? You've been up for, well I don't know what time it is." My own voice was straining against itself from exhaustion. My vocal cords felt frayed like a rope on the verge of snapping. Each little strand testing its strength before I became permanently mute.
He stared at me for a moment and shook back to normal. "I, um, you must be feeling better."
"I'm sorry." I whispered again, more embarrassed now that I got myself into this situation than anything.
"For what?" He seemed genuinely confused.
"Mishandling artifacts."
"You were doing your job, correctly from what I understand, and this," he gestured at me in the bed, "happened. This happens all the time. I can't count how many times I've woken up in this room, or not woken up." He gave a half smile and held my hand grazing his fingers over my knuckles. His touch was magnetic. I never wanted it to end, but in the same moment I felt the pure sensation of wanting, he pulled away. My mind started reeling, this seemed too easy. This was too perfect.
"You must be thirsty."
"Yes." My voice had a placid tone to it now and he squinted at me suspiciously. He went over to a sink and filled a paper cup with water as I looked around for a way to escape if this was another probing. What if I hadn't made it out? Usually between dream sequences I would get a sharp stabbing in my mind, like knives were dissecting parts of my brain to reveal memories that were needed to create another scenario. Instead I had fell into what seemed to be sleep.
He returned and handed me the cup. I pressed it to my lips expecting it to taste like nothingness but instead a cool splash of mineral laden tap water pooled its way down my throat cooling the aching dryness. My eyes bulged at the relief.
"How are you?" He sat down across from me again and I felt my hands start to tremble.
"I don't know." I answered honestly. "I'm still grappling with the idea that I'm out. Or," I looked down at my empty cup, "if I'm not."
He gave me an empathetic smile as Dr. Fraiser came back with a plastic cup of oddly shaped pills and a package of saltines.
"Motrin for the splitting headache you probably are having, a sedative for the nerves, and a muscle relaxer for the spasms." She handed me the plastic cup as Daniel went to refill the water. "You may want to munch on these as well, the Motrin might upset your stomach without something in it."
"Thank you," I smiled sheepishly and took the medication in one swallow, handing her back the empty cup.
"You're probably starving, I know I am. I'll be back," Daniel took my hand and gave it a squeeze before he walked away. I felt tears prick my eyes as I rested my head back on the pillow slumping into the too thin foam but thankful for even just a feeling.The empty vastness of being trapped, the screams that left my throat on fire with the hopes that some sort of sound would be released, it all flooded back to me and I felt the tears threaten to fall.
"Do you want to talk about what happened?" Dr. Frasier's voice was comforting and gentle as she pulled up a stool and sat down. She gingerly took a look at my limbs, waiting patiently for my response as she flexed my arm back and forth.
"Where should I start?" I felt my body tense up, remembering the past 12 hours at least trapped away inside, and she moved onto my legs checking the joints.
"You're not being interrogated," she soothed, "I thought maybe talking might help to compartmentalize the pain, even if just for the night. Whatever you went through, well it must have been pretty traumatic."
"I, I feel bad that you had to be called in so early." The sick feeling of guilt washed over me.
She grabbed her stethoscope and checked my chest. "I was going to be here early today anyway." She wrote something down on a clipboard and turned back to me. "No one blames you for this, except yourself."
I couldn't look at her. My bottom lip started to quiver and I bit down on it to stop from crying. That aching swell in my throat like a lodged sob that I wanted to push down. "The moment I touched it, I entered darkness. Just nothingness. No sound, no smell, I couldn't leave. I was bound in place."
She reached out and touched my forearm and I warmed to her act of compassion.
"After some time my body started feeling like it was being electrocuted, pain in my head and my nerves. It felt unbearable. Then suddenly, it just stopped. But what came next was almost worse." I felt a tear loosen and fall down my cheek. I wiped it away quickly and closed my eyes to blink the others away. "Something was in there with me. Poking and prodding at my thoughts, my memories. I was put in these distorted dreamlike sequences where the people I know, knew, all were acting around me, but were not quite themselves. I was interrogated, asked questions that seemed formulaic but made no sense, and if I answered incorrectly to whatever was in there, the simulations restarted and I was punished." My hands flew up to cover my face and I felt her arms wrap around me in a comforting embrace as I shook. "The people I love, the memories I had, all butchered and pieced together. I didn't know, don't know what is fully real. I know I'm back home, back here because that thing that was doing this to me in there," I looked back at her as she grabbed the tissues off the table and handed them to me, "it was defected. Sounds were not directional, I couldn't taste anything, I have that anchoring me back to reality. Yet, I still am questioning if it was all a test, if this is a test, and I don't know what for."
She took my face in her hands and looked at me with a kind sternness. "No one deserves that torture you endured." She took a tissue and blotted my eyes with it. "You have people here that care about you, you're safe home now. But that doesn't mean what you faced didn't happen, or that the fears will go away overnight. It means you have people to go through it with you." I thanked her, genuinely, and felt a fraction of the weight on my chest lift.
After I had been granted the clearance to go home, with the exception that someone drove me thanks to all the muscle relaxers, I was looking forward to being back in my own bed. I had requested that I take a shower there and change into a spare set of gym clothes I kept in my office before we left.
Daniel and I walked out to his car in the parking lot, already cooled down in the sweltering summer heat. Around us cars were pulling in to start shifts or leave for lunch. The sun beating down onto the pavement like any other Wednesday. For me it was different, I felt the stinging ache of appreciation in the melancholy lack of awareness everyone around us had.
He opened the door for me and I slid in feeling my cheeks tickle with a smile. His car smelled deliciously like cedar and I could just melt into the embrace of his leather seats, finally feeling something soft under me. He offered his jacket as a makeshift pillow for my nodding head, and I wasn't about to refuse.
Daniel pulled out of the parking lot and I closed my eyes, sinking into the glorious sway of someone driving me around as opposed to being alone in my own car. I asked him to tell me about his time off world pre Ancient device entrapment, and enthusiastically he filled me in about crumbling temples, and how he is hoping he could return soon to get more answers from columns he didn't have time to see. Carvings that felt like puzzle pieces to some key he knew that would come in handy to a later question. Part of me envied the joy of new exploration, the feeling of finding something you'd been looking forever for. I was so amused quietly listening to his boyish thrills of academic achievements that only a handful of people would truly know. It was such a beautiful little secret that he and I held together, this understanding about the importance of the Stargate and the good that it could bring to all of humanity. But that smile dropped when I looked at him, driving through the city, knowing that the importance of his work far outweighed any feelings I had for him. I could sit here in his car, under his jacket, and pretend for just the few minutes it took to drive me home that we were more, but at the end when I'm in my driveway it's to drop me off at home alone. I could revel in the kinship we had, truly appreciate this man who understood me, and though my heart ached over the past six months of wanting more I accepted friendship greedily from him instead.
When I watched him freely be himself, talk about his theories and ideas or make a small joke at his own expense I felt as if that was a small piece of himself that I could hold onto and keep selfishly for my own in that moment. And I sat there and watched him, feeling both absolute and empty at the same time. My hands slowly tracing over the threading on his name tag attached to his jacket. That sour lump clogged at my throat as I meekly smiled and nodded at every pause in his story, and he sleepily smiled back.
After an entirely too short drive, he pulled into my driveway, and parked next to my solitary car. "Thank you." My voice was a soft whisper as I unclicked my seat belt.
"Anytime," I could see the complete exhaustion emanating from him, and I'm sure mine reflected the same. "Let me get the door for you." He walked out of his seat and I laid the jacket down in that now blank space. He walked with me all the way to my front door as I fumbled with the keys. I turned the knob and it unlocked, opening up into the humble rental. He ran his hand across his mouth and opened it to say, "good night, or afternoon I suppose. I'll see you Monday. Get some rest."
"Drive home safely, I owe you one." My hands twisted themselves together behind my back, squeezing at fingers that twitched to pull him back.
"If you need anything, just give me a call." I nodded back and watched as he walked to his car. Once I had slipped inside and locked the door behind me, I fell to the floor in a crumpled mess. The entire day's draining experience crashing around me in an emotional typhoon with only the promise of medicated sleep to lull me back to my feet and into my room.