Dear Readers,

Based on the Season 5 spoilers I've read, my speculation is that Sam is going to get captured by Michael the wraith in the first episode, "Search and Rescue". So this is basically my musing on how a certain someone feels about that...and of course it had to relate to Valentine's day. I could've written fluff, but for some reason angst is just so much easier for me. Gah!

Best Regards from a Bookworm (and SGA fan),

Miss Pookamonga ;-P aka Mimzy

Prologue: Tattered Valentine

He'd always hated this holiday.

And the present circumstances weren't doing anything to improve his feelings.

Valentine's Day. The terrible excuse for card and candy companies to rake a disgusting amount of revenue off people's emotional naïveté. And the day when every social outcast was reduced to nothing more than an invisible puddle of salty tears. He'd spent too many days drowning in that puddle, helplessly watching the chosen elite of his world get pampered and showered with false affection decorated in pink and red glittering hearts. It was like constantly being Charlie Brown stupidly searching in that empty mailbox of his for a valentine, knowing full-well that none was ever going to come. Unless it was a recycled valentine, of course, but if he'd gotten even one of those, he knew he would've spat on it and thrown it in the garbage in a heartbeat.

So, naturally, Rodney had been conditioned to detest Valentine's' Day. While everyone around him—even Ronon for goodness' sake—made a huge fuss about roses and chocolates and smooching and whatnot, he preferred to curl up in the fetal position on his bed and promptly wipe any memory of the upcoming day of doom from his mind.

Except this year, doing that was going to be exceptionally difficult.

It wasn't like he had been expected to get over it quickly, but no one—not even he—had anticipated that he was going to be stuck in this ever-sinking tar pit of constant guilt and despair for as long as he had. The pain, like the black sticky stuff itself, just refused to wash away. You could dip it into a pool of the water of comforting words, scrub it endlessly with sympathy soap, but in the end, it still left a conspicuous stain...and the stench of it still lingered if you paid close attention.

He let the guilt ooze uncomfortably over him as he lay curled up, helpless, underneath the mildly soothing warmth of the covers. There was the guilt of having been responsible for what had happened to her. There was the guilt of not having been able to figure out a way to rescue her. There was the guilt of having felt worse about losing her than he had felt about Elizabeth. There was the guilt of simply being too afraid to shed his mask to tell her how he had really felt. How he still felt. Oh, god, it was unbearable. He couldn't shake any of this from his mind, from his soul—he could almost physically feel himself sinking into that bubbling black pit, could feel himself steadily growing weaker until he refused to even try to pull himself out of it. But he deserved it anyway, didn't he? After all, it was all his fault.

If only he hadn't had been stupid enough to get captured by Michael, then she wouldn't have gone out to try and rescue him. If only he hadn't been stupid enough to fall madly in love with her, then he wouldn't have had to constantly be plagued with the guilt of feeling more ripped apart by her loss than he had been by Elizabeth's. If only he hadn't been stupid enough to dream that something could come between them, that somehow there had been something more than competitive friendship, that somehow there had been an extra glimmer in her eyes when she looked at him that had never been there before.

But he had been stupid enough to allow all of those things, and for that, he would forever be cursed by agony. As if he wasn't cursed already...but now he'd never be able to close his eyes without constantly viewing the broken film reel of her face screaming at him to go, to get out before it was too late. He couldn't even try to think of her smiling or laughing or doing anything else without seeing the sheer sacrificial terror on her figure flash before his eyes. If only...

His self-deprecating thoughts collapsed into heavy sobs. He had hurt her beyond repair, and now she had probably already paid for it with her life. That was worse than viewing her from afar, wishing he had the courage to tell her he loved her. Or perhaps give her one of those pretty little pieces of paper with a pink heart traced on it. At least then, she had been there for him to pine over. Now he wasn't even sure she was alive. And dammit, it was all his fault.

If only...

His head was filled with too many of those. And that was all they would ever be. Fragments of dreams that would never come true, unfulfilled wishes, unhealed wounds.

If only he could turn back time.

But of course, it was far too late for that.