Part 15

The sound of webbed feet dragging and slapping against the damp concrete brought Sam out of a light doze. They were coming back for her and nothing she did would stop them. It didn't stop her from fighting but the longer she was held captive, the more torture she endured, the weaker she became and the harder it was to fight back.

For a while she had kept track of the days by making marks on the wall, but after a fever had left her delirious for an unspecified amount of time she'd lost count. She no longer knew what day it was or how long she'd been a prisoner. She only knew that she had to hold on. Rescue would come, it had to. They didn't leave their people behind. But, the rational side of her brain insisted on adding, General Hammond could only justify dedicating SG teams on search and rescue missions for so long before he was ordered to list a missing member as MIA and resume normal operations.

Had she already passed that point? Were they still actively looking for her? What had her brother been told? Did Dad know she was missing? What was her team doing without her? Had she been replaced? It was her job to handle the tech end of things, to get them out of the scrapes they had a bad habit of getting into. Without her there they would eventually be forced to find a replacement, even a temporary one.

She couldn't fault General Hammond for making that call, and she knew he would in time. SG-1 had a pretty impressive record for finding trouble and when those problems fell into her area of expertise there wasn't much the guys could do. Just like there wasn't much she could do when there was a problem with a translation and she had to fall back on securing the area while Daniel worked the issue out.

The catch on the door released and she forced herself to remain frozen to the spot when the cell door opened. She wouldn't give them the satisfaction of seeing a physical manifestation of the fear that had her heart pounding in her chest. She had to remind herself to breathe when one of the aliens came through the door. Everything about them was identical but over time she had started to notice small things that allowed her to tell them apart.

It was always the same two aliens that came for her, but never together. This one was the rougher of the two. The other one seemed curious but that didn't stop it from taking her back to the room where the others conducted their torturous experiments. She refused to get to her feet when the alien motioned for her to come to the door. It would piss him, it, off but she didn't care. She wouldn't give them the satisfaction of willingly going with them to be tortured.

She had named this one Igor. Jack would've called it Mr. Burns. Well, she thought, he could call it any-damn-thing he wanted when he stormed the compound and blew them all to hell. Until then it was going to be called Igor. It came into the cell and she had the feeling it wanted her to put up a fight. No point disappointing it at this stage. She glanced at the door but before she had enough time to consider her chances of making it past Igor and out of the cell, its wings spread with a loud snapping sound, effectively blocking her path.

One of its hands lifted to show the cattle prod it favored and she stared at it with trepidation. She knew the pain it was capable of delivering and Igor seemed to enjoy using it for minutes at a time rather than the few seconds necessary to bring a prisoner under control. It advanced on her slowly and even though she had nowhere to go she held her ground. The pain, when it came, was excruciating. She literally felt like she was being burned from the inside out.

Igor didn't even give her time to stop writhing from the pain before reaching down and grabbing her by the arm, lifting her up and dragging her out of the cell. She fought against the tight grip, bringing her right hand up and slamming her fist into its throat. There was no time to revel in striking her captor because the hand holding her tightened its grip and she heard the bones in her arm snap a millisecond before the pain registered in her brain.

She wished she could pass out but previous experience warned her that wasn't a reprieve she would be granted. The aliens had some sort of serum they administered to prevent their test subjects from falling unconscious. She had no idea what it was, no way of knowing if there would be side effects from being injected with it over and over. It was just too bad there was nothing in it to numb the pain that accompanied these sessions.

Between feeling like her insides were on fire and the agony shooting through her arm she was fighting nausea that was only going to make her feel even worse if her body gave in to it. Igor paused to look down at the limb it held and after a moment of contemplation gave it an experimental twist. Between the agonizing pain and seeing the way her arm turned unnaturally her stomach turned sickeningly.

The alien's head tilted to one side, its expression suggesting that it was intrigued by this new discovery. Dread settled deep in her gut when its claws suddenly extended. There was no way to adequately describe the raw, unrelenting pain as it sliced through flesh, muscle and sinew to expose the broken bones. She wanted to scream, could feel it building in her throat, and it took everything she had to hold it in.

The pain worsened when Igor reached out and pressed against the exposed bone. Thankfully, its claws had retracted; otherwise the damage it had already inflicted would be worse. The severed nerve endings screamed in agony, the pain worsening to a level that was so intolerable she could no longer hold back the urge to cry out at the abuse.

Igor flinched at the sound and jerked back, obviously agitated by the auditory assault. He reacted swiftly and pressed the cattle prod into her abdomen, ruthlessly turning up the voltage until she was writhing on the floor with no reprieve in sight. She didn't know how much the human body could endure and survive, but she felt certain that her captivity and subsequent torture had pushed the boundaries well beyond what could be expected of anyone.

She fought to find the safe place she'd created in her mind, needing the escape desperately. She knew the wounds would be healed in time, they always were, but the pain always returned, and she was slowly losing her mind. If she could just lose herself until the creatures decided she'd had enough and put her back together again, maybe she could hold on a little longer. Rescue had to come. It had to.

"Sam?"

He was here. Somehow she found the strength to move and her head whipped around, searching for the source of his voice, but he was nowhere to be seen. His voice rose as he called again and this time the sound began to echo off of the walls, making it impossible to determine a direction. She looked at Igor but it was so intent on making sure she suffered that it showed no sign of having heard Jack's calls for her.

His voice began to fade into the distance and she began to fight against Igor. Adrenaline could only push a body so far and she had to do something to let him know where she was before it was gone. But her captor wouldn't release her and she could feel the weakness overcoming her and turning her muscles to useless tissue.

"Carter!"

She started when hands suddenly wrapped around her upper arms. Her captors had hands that resembled those of humans, but they felt nothing like human flesh. They were eerily devoid of warmth and the texture of their skin was clammy. These hands were warm and calloused, they were familiar, and they didn't belong in this place.

"Carter!"

Sam's eyes snapped open and she immediately found herself pinned by the concerned gaze of one Jack O'Neill.

"Hey, you okay?" He wasn't buying it when she started nodding before he'd even finished asking the question. He knew better. The way her heart was racing she would've set off every alarm in Janet's infirmary. He needed to get her mind away from the nightmare so she could calm down. He glanced down when her right hand clamped down on his tightly in an attempt to ground herself in the present.

She brought her left arm in close to her body, the move protective, and he figured the motion was probably linked to the nightmare. That arm had sustained more damage than its counterpart and while the injuries had healed, there was still a pronounced weakness in the limb. He knew time and physical therapy would eventually bring her back to full strength. It was the mental and emotional scars that were the hardest and took the longest to heal.

"You feel like getting outta the cabin for a bit?"

"Outside?"

Sam Carter had been a workaholic the entire time he'd known her. She could go for days on end working on base. She had gotten out a little more after Cassie had come into their lives, but she still worked too much and didn't get out often enough as far as he was concerned. She got more sun off world than she did on Earth and he knew her idea of a good time was working out some scientific puzzle or tinkering with her motorcycle, which she also had a habit of doing on base, but he'd worried that she was going to burn out at the rate she was going.

He'd always enjoyed being outdoors but after his captivity he'd had a new appreciation for Mother Nature. It had taken time before he could spend any significant time in direct sunlight, but being outside and away from anything that resembled walls had come to symbolize freedom. He recognized that need in Sam and while he knew time outdoors had to be limited because of the weather, he also knew how to balance things to make it work.

"Yeah, why not? We'll bundle up good, make sure we don't stay out long enough for you to get sick, and as long as you don't end up back in the infirmary, we'll both be safe."

That got a small smile out of her and he nodded in satisfaction. "Alright," he squeezed her hand before releasing her and getting to his feet, "power came back on a couple hours ago so I'm gonna get dinner started and when you're ready we'll go out and get some fresh air." He paused in the doorway and rapped his knuckles on the wood frame after a moment. "And Sam, if you ever decide you wanna talk about the nightmares, or what happened, I'm here, okay?"

She gave him a nod as she let her gaze wander around the room, trying to remember how she got there. She remembered the conversation in the kitchen with Jack and later sitting in the living area with him, but after that… nothing.

"You dozed off after lunch and I thought you'd be more comfortable in here than out there on that lumpy couch." He shrugged one shoulder. "It's okay for a while but sleep on it too long and your back isn't likely to forgive you. Mine never does."

Sam looked at the calendar next to the bed before glancing at the clock, trying to make sure she hadn't lost a day. Her mental processes were slow and that frustrated her even more than her current physical limitations.

Jack watched her reach out to trace a fingertip over the black x that crossed Sunday off. He was sure she was trying to determine the date, trying to make sure she hadn't lost any time, and as much as he wanted to reassure her, he wanted to give her time to sort it out for herself. It wasn't easy to stand back and wait even though he knew it was necessary.

They'd had a major breakthrough that morning and while he knew setbacks were a part of the program, he hoped like hell she didn't have one that upended all of the progress they'd made. He released a breath he hadn't even realized he was holding when she tapped the date before looking at him for confirmation.

"Still Monday," he said with a nod. He waited until she seemed accepting of his response before he left the room to get dinner started.

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The rush of cold air was welcome as Sam stepped out onto the back deck, her movements awkward as she maneuvered around on the crutches. The deck had recently been cleared of the snow that had fallen earlier and she wondered when he'd done it. She wondered why he'd done it and immediately gave herself a mental kick for questioning his motives because she knew he only had her best interest at heart.

She hated that she had these moments where she questioned things she knew. She hadn't been able to reconnect with anyone since her rescue, constantly questioning what they wanted from her. Rationally she knew part of that was because she had become so accustomed to believing that everything and everyone she saw was part of a world that only existed in her mind, that they were being used against her. She wouldn't allow captivity to take anything else from her. It had already taken so much.

"The Orionid meteor shower was supposed be visible after midnight but I don't think it's gonna be a good night for viewing the light show. Too much cloud cover, but who knows, it could clear up before then." Jack leaned against one of the support posts and stared out at the snow-covered lake, giving Sam her space while keeping an eye on her.

Sam reached the end of the deck and let the crutches take the majority of her weight while she let the serenity of the scene fill her senses. It was cold but there wasn't much wind at the moment so it wasn't bone-chilling, it simply felt like freedom. She knew her time here was running out and she was terrified of waking up and finding out this was all a dream.

Her eyes traveled over the silent landscape, taking in the trees, their naked limbs heavy with snow. It was funny, she mused absently as memories of childhood surfaced. She could recall being scared of the trees outside her bedroom window when she was a little girl. There had been a couple of years when the branches, barren of their leaves in the winter, had seemed like monsters, casting menacing shadows across her bedroom walls at night. But that had always changed when the snow finally came, coating their branches and lending them a softness that hadn't existed since their leaves had fallen for the season.

Mesmerized by the snow she pulled one of her gloves off, needing to touch it. She reached out and gently combed her fingers through the snow covering the railing in front of her, enjoying the sensation of its cold, soft texture. The feeling helped to ground her, reminding her that this was real, it had to be real. Before falling asleep earlier she had been so certain that rescue had finally come, that she had been taken from that place, but after the memories of her captivity had infiltrated her mind while it rested she was finding herself torn as to which of those worlds was real.

It was the danger of retreating so far into ones' mind under extreme circumstances. Reality was sometimes hard to adjust to, if not downright impossible. There were moments when she felt she was completely lucid, when she was certain that she knew which of these opposing realities was real. But there were other moments when uncertainty slammed into her, making her doubt everything she could see and feel. The pain had been a constant for so long that its absence made it difficult to focus at times, as if being without it somehow increased the doubts that plagued her.

It made her angry. It scared her. She didn't want those doubts and fears to have such power over her. She didn't want to trade one prison for another of her own making. She shifted her weight slowly, careful of her knee, and let her gaze move to the man standing less than a dozen feet from her. Even though his eyes were locked on a point in the distance she knew from the slight change in his posture that he was aware of every move she made.

She had been gone for four and a half months, that's what he had told her, wasn't it? And after so much pain and suffering, she had come home to the promise of everything she had ever wanted. That in itself didn't seem real. It wasn't that she never got anything she wanted, but Jack O'Neill had always been an unattainable goal. He was her commanding officer, her team leader, and there was a war being waged that was bigger than them or their desires.

Then there was that pesky little fact that they had never actually talked about the thing between them. It had been there from the start, growing more with each mission and gaining strength as they had gotten to know each other, learning to respect each other outside of their ranks. Over time it had become something more, something they could never speak of, and being forced to acknowledge it aloud during the Zatarc testing had been difficult because it was something they carried close to their hearts. It had never been verbalized between them but they knew it existed and they knew they could never act on it as long as they remained in the Air Force.

He wasn't in the Air Force any longer though, was he? No matter what he said he was making a huge gamble by choosing her over his career. This last mission had taken something from her, something she didn't know if she'd ever be able to get back. Imprisonment and torture had taken its toll on her and she had no idea who she was any longer. What if she was never able to find the woman she used to be? He deserved to be with someone who was whole.

She sighed as she dropped her gaze to the ground. Right now she was far from being whole. Hell, she wasn't even altogether certain that this was real. She wanted it to be real, but what if it wasn't? How much more could she take? But what if it was real? What if she really was back on Earth, standing on the back deck of Jack's cabin? Could she really expect him to stick around while she healed when she had no idea who she'd be by the time she had recovered? Was it fair to him?

"You're thinkin' too hard over there, Sam."

Sam. How many times had he actually called her by her first name over the years? She could probably count those occasions on one hand. Throughout her captivity she had lost sight of him as her commanding officer, eradicating that barrier and focusing on him as a man. There had been no thoughts of rank or regs as she grasped onto her lifeline. He had simply been Jack, not Colonel O'Neill.

"I'd offer a penny for your thoughts but somehow I have a feelin' that'd nowhere near cover whatever's got you thinkin' so hard."

Her fingers twitched and she looked down when the snow under her hand shifted in response to the movement. It was soft and cold. Nothing about her prison had been soft or cold. She lifted her gaze to the sky above, catching the silvery outlines of the clouds as they passed the crescent moon that seemed so far away.

This was real. It had to be real. Her fingers clenched in the snow again and she held it fisted in her hand long enough that her palm started to burn from the cold. She looked at Jack again, taking in his deceptively relaxed stance as he stared out into the night.

The wind blew and the icy blast cut through her, causing her to shiver involuntarily. She shook her head when he straightened up, certain he was going to tell her it was time to go back inside. It was a biting cold that surrounded them and she knew Janet would have a fit if she knew about their little foray outdoors, but she felt alive and she wanted to hold onto that feeling.

Jack's eyes moved over her, assessing her condition. He knew there would be hell to pay if Janet ever found out about this, but it just seemed like Sam needed it, and it wasn't like he was going to be spilling their little secret to the good doctor. He could see the internal battle being waged as she struggled with finding the fine line between realities – captivity and freedom. To anyone who hadn't been there it wouldn't seem like such a battle, but the truth was that it was much harder to differentiate between the two after being imprisoned and tortured.

He moved closer to her, reaching out to cover her hand and encouraging her to release her grip on the snow. "Freezing your hand's only gonna give the doc proof that we didn't strictly follow her orders."

Sam's gaze moved between him and her fisted hand several times before she relaxed her fingers and allowed the clump of snow to fall to the ground. Her palm burned but she welcomed the sensation because it felt real. She stared at his upturned hand when he offered it to her and after a minute of contemplating his action she began to tap out her thoughts against his palm.

"I don't know what's real and what isn't."

"This is real but nothin' I do or say will prove it. You're gonna have to decide which reality to hold onto.

"One minute I'm sure this is real and the next I'm back in that cell."

"That's normal and it's gonna take time before you can push that fear down and fully accept the reality of the situation."

"I feel like I'm going crazy."

"You're not." The wind gusted, generating another shiver from her body. "And I know you're enjoying bein' outdoors but we'd better get back inside where it's warm." His hand tightened around hers when she started to pull it back. "Sam, you're gonna get past this and life will eventually fall back into a normal rhythm. We're all here to help you get back on track."

"We won't be here much longer, will we?"

"No, we'll be leaving tomorrow around noon. When we get back to Colorado Springs we'll stop somewhere for dinner and then head to the mountain. You'll wanna get some rest before your P.T. appointment on Wednesday afternoon." Janet had decided it was time to release Sam, but he hadn't said anything yet, wanting to make sure everything checked out with the MRI and then putting it off until after their little trip up north before he took her home.

"I don't want to go back."

"You miss your P.T. appointment and ol' Doc Fraiser's gonna pop a blood vessel." Not to mention what she'd do to him. "Hey, it's gonna suck for a while, therapy always does. It's gonna hurt, it's gonna wear you out and you'll wanna quit from time to time, but you won't be alone."

She shook her head and sighed inaudibly, her frustration building to unbearable levels. He didn't understand. She was tired of the constant tug-o-war being fought as her mind was pulled back and forth between the two realities. She was exhausted by the unrelenting question of which reality was real. She was terrified of losing her sanity from being torn from one reality to the other, uncertain which one was driving her mad.

"I don't want to go back."

She knew they couldn't stay indefinitely. How was he supposed to… He studied her for a moment, taking in the dejected set to her shoulders, evident even beneath the heavy parka she was wearing. Idiot! She wasn't talking about going back to Colorado. "Sam, look at me." He waited until he was sure he had her attention before he spoke again. "Nightmares are a bitch and they'll drag you back into hell over and over again, but I'll be here to bring you back." He squeezed her hand. "You're never gonna go back there. You're home now. I know what a traumatized mind can do to you. Been there, done that, turned down the tee shirt. It's gonna take time for the nightmares to taper off, but I promise you, it will get to that point."

She wanted to believe him. She wanted so badly to believe him.

Jack tugged on her hands to draw her gaze back to him. "You're a soldier, Carter, and I've never once seen you shy away from anything because it was too hard."

This was real and she wasn't alone. She looked down at their clasped hands and felt hope reignite within her. She could do this.

He couldn't stop the grin when she straightened slowly in deference to her injuries. It was a telling move. "C'mon, let's get back inside. Dinner's waitin' and we've got at least one more movie to watch."

Sam made her way inside, feeling certain that she was finally going in the right direction. She just had to stay focused on moving forward and take the rest as it came. Jack was right. It was going to take time and she was going to have to be patient. Taking one step at a time, that's all she had to concentrate on. There was no way to rush through rehab or recovery without relapsing and the last thing she wanted was to drag things out on either of those fronts.