Title: Shelter

Author: Cags

Rating: PG-13

Disclaimer: Not mine. Never will be. Damn shame though

Summary: Just a little story about how Jack & Sam deal with a difficult mission.

Season/Spoiler info: none

Authors notes: I was watching Flash Gordon and there was this line “Will it make me forget?” “No but it’ll make you not mind remembering.” I thought it was kind of a cool line so I found a way to incorporate into the SG universe.

The bits between the \\\\\ and ///// indicate a flashback.

I never really make it clear exactly how far Sam has to or even wants to go in the flashbacks so draw your own conclusions.

Shelter

It had been weighing on his mind since they’d got back from seven two seven. He’d carefully avoided the issue but the lack of mention of it in her official report had raised his eyebrows a little. Teal’c and Daniel hadn’t mentioned it either and he really wasn’t sure if it was because they’d not realised what had gone on as he did, found hard to believe given her appearance when they found her), or because they were being tactful. He suspected the latter because he figured it out and they were both smarter than he was and he’d figured it out. Then again he’d seen the state of the other guy too.

She had been quiet when they returned and damn right elusive since they had arrived home. Two days ago he’d read her official mission report, wondered about her omission and finally plucked up the courage to go tackle her in her lab about It. She wasn’t in her lab for the first time in about forever. She wasn’t in her quarters either and a quick check to find out she’d left the base for the night had both surprised and disappointed him. The courage escaped him the next day and the one after.

Tomorrow they would be gating out on another, probably insanely dangerous mission from which there would probably be a whole new set of mental and physical traumas to deal with. He needed to get this off his chest. He couldn’t pretend it just hadn’t happened like she seemed to have.

It was late but a quick check revealed that she’d decided not to bother going home tonight and had decided to settle in her quarters. She admitted him with a slight query around the eyes. After all, it wasn’t often that your commanding officer paid you an almost midnight visit just to see if you were ready for the next day’s mission.

“Um, hi Sir.” She asked with question. He strolled over to the bed, sat and patted the space to his right indicating she should join him. She shrugged, still unsure of the purpose of his visit but lowered herself down next to him.

“So.” He sighed.

“So.” She sighed right back at him.

They sat in heavy uncomfortable silence for a moment.

“So.” He said again wanting to just break up the tension.

“Uh Sir I think we covered that.” She smiled at him and suddenly the tension dissipated.

“I was wondering whatcha been doing? I mean it’s not like we picked up any new gadgets on seven two seven to keep you holed up in your lab for days on end.” He picked at her bed sheets.

“No.” She replied with a slight crack in her voice and pointedly not looking at him. “I had a few…projects I wanted to get back to.”

“Ah.” O’Neill responded. “And there was I thinking you were just avoiding us.” He offered her a slight smirk.

\\\\\

“What’s this?” Sam asked and Aeyr handed her a small stopped bottle containing a vivid green liquid.

“It’ll help.” Aeyr responded with compassion.

“Help? How?” A lump forming in her throat at the implication of what she was being told.

“When he comes for you. It’ll make it easier.” Aeyr stroked a hand softly against Sam’s face, her eyes conveying understanding and yet more of that damned compassion. Sam didn’t need compassion, she needed way out.

Aeyr continued. “Drink it as soon as he comes. By the time…it begins the effects will have started to do their job.”

“It’s a drug?” Sam asked and Aeyr nodded. “It’s supposed to make me forget?”

“No but it will make you not mind remembering.”

Sam closed her eyes. “No. I won’t.”

“You will have no choice! When he comes you’ll…”

“I’ll kick his ass!” Sam responded indignantly. She wasn’t about to become anyone’s...

“He’ll kill you!”

“I’d rather die than let him…touch me.”

“You cannot!” Aeyr cried.

Sam turned her head in questioning surprise.

“I…”

“You what?” Sam questioned with a sudden suspicion in her mind.

“I was hoping you were the one.”

“The one?” Her mind filled with images of The Matrix and she almost had to giggle at how absurd it all felt. Since she’d got here these women saw her as their great saviour. Well she wasn’t about to disappoint, she thought.

“We have a plan. We have waited for so long for our freedom. We’ve waited for one like you.”

“Me? I’m not your leader.” She tested Aeyr’s convictions.

“But you are strong. You are confident. We have never had one here like this before. They will follow you.”

“Yeah to their deaths.”

“As you say. We would rather die than continue to live as slaves.”

Sam sighed. She understood. “Then we move tonight.”

Aeyr shook her head. “We cannot. We must do it when the guards are changing. At the fall of the cycle they return home and they leave only a handful remaining for one whole sun.”

“When does the cycle end?” Sam asked, realising that their plan held the makings of tactical sense. Aeyr would be a good leader once they were free.

“It is not for another four suns. You must endure as best you can until then. He will call for you tonight, but if you are lucky there will be another new one to amuse him tomorrow. You must endure!”

Sam shook her head. Wasn’t going to happen. “Change of plan. We move tonight.”

Aeyr looked petulant. “It would be risky.”

“Trust me.” Sam responded. “It’ll be harder tonight but we can still do it. Now what’s your plan?”

/////

“Not avoiding sir.”

“Ah.” He nodded.

“Can we not do this?” She responded with irritation.

“What I’m supposed to just ignore the fact that you came outta there with that kind of failed Princess Leia look…”

She shot him a dirty glare. “Failed?”

He shrugged. “…Not that it wasn’t kinda flattering.” He cleared his throat and she continued to glare.

“Ok so it was a lot flattering actually. But, um, well not the look I normally see on you Carter. “

She continued to stare at him some more.

“Ahem, not that I wouldn’t mind seeing it a little…I’ll just…shut up now.” He smiled that soft sheepish enigmatic smile that usually meant you didn’t want to know what he was really thinking. She rolled her eyes smirked at him.

“Hey you seemed unfazed by it.” He added.

She paused before quietly continuing. “Uh, yeah, thanks for not saying anything about that at the time.”

“Yeah, I figured you wouldn’t appreciate…” He gestured towards her. “…Being the butt of the jokes because of your unusual state of attire this time.”

She said nothing but telegraphed her gratitude anyway.

“So.” He said eventually.

“So.” She responded again.

He frowned and turned towards her. “I’m still not entirely clear on the details here?” He gestured towards her with his left hand and a frown.

\\\\\

“Aeyr come on.” Sam whispered to nobody there through clenched teeth as she paced the luxurious rooms to which she had been left in to await her fate.

One signal. That’s all it was. One flash of a lamp from Aeyr to show that they had broken into the armoury and all she had to do was pull out that tiny little dagger and…

She paced more, hating every step as the fine chains and jewels on what passed for as her clothing jangled reminding her of her supposed new role. She was no man’s concubine, and she certainly wasn’t a doll to be dressed up like this. Oh he was so gonna regret the day he decided Major Samantha Carter was his property.

“Come on.” Her patience was wearing thin. Her eagerness to surprise the hell out of that bastard was overpowering. I’ll go for his testicles first, she thought. That’ll teach him everything he needs to be taught about respecting women.

The door opened. Thast maneuvered his tall bulky frame into the room; his gold woven robes gleaming in the dancing tongues of the candles.

He wasn’t an unattractive man, she thought. And he had an indefinable charisma that she would have found fascinating in other circumstances. No! She stopped that train of thought. He was a murdering despot who used women as he saw fit and right now she appeared to be the focus of his attention. Come on Aeyr, she thought again. Now or never.

Hang on.

Two of Thast’s guards entered behind him and flanked her. A cold fear crept over her. She looked into his blue gaze. He knew! Dammit he knew.

As if reading her thoughts he tipped his head slightly to one side “If you are waiting for your friend to come to your aide you might be in for a rather long wait.” He drawled.

Sam hid the surprise in her eyes. “Oh I have no idea what you mean.” Her hand surreptitiously slid under the waistband of the sheaf of diaphanous material that passed for her skirt and grasped the small but lethal dagger.

“I found her and some my other brides earlier poking around the armoury. I’m afraid I had to turn them all over to my men for, ah, suitable punishment. No doubt they will learn to appreciate the affections of my men as well as you will learn to appreciate mine.”

A flash of anger entered Sam’s face and the moment was upon her. “Not gonna happen!” She pulled the dagger and lunged at him. She was too quick for his guards and for a moment she thought she might just do it. But it was Thast himself that blocked her, and with little effort. She hadn’t factored on him actually being skilled in hand to hand combat. Apparently he was. His hand grasped her wrist painfully and with a quick twist that left a sickening pain shooting up her arm the dagger clattered to the ground.

His guards pulled her back forcing her to her knees as the horror flushed her features. She’d failed. Oh God!

“What you don’t think I haven’t learnt to rely of defending myself over the years.” He laughed and motioned for the guards to leave them and remove the offending dagger.

“Now do you have any more surprises for me I wonder?” He grinned.

“Just the one” She responded and lunged at him intending a low blow to his middle, but he easily blocked her, grasping her previously injured arm in another cruel twist and sending her sprawling onto the tiled floor with a casual sideswipe.

“Ah ah!” He smiled. “It would be a shame for you to have to join Aeyr and the other traitors without me first having…experienced you.” His gaze roved her exposed flesh and she felt revulsion and anger. Damn him!

Then it hit her. She’d blown it. Her one chance of escape. Her damned overconfidence and pride. Her insistence that they act tonight. They had not been ready and now…She closed her eyes and swallowed at the thought of what might happen to them. To all of them. They had followed her and her arrogance had let them down. They would have no drug to make their memories pleasant.

But she still had the drug.

She turned from him and fingered the vial of the green liquid that sat next to a decanter of wine on the table. If she gave it to him instead. What would happen?

The anger in her died quickly. Anger was not going to get her out of this now. Her wits and her womanhood might, and if she were lucky, she might be able to save Aeyr as well as the other women here. She smiled grimly and then put upon an air of demure acquiescence. She lifted the goblet of wine and he nodded his assent as she poured it into the two glasses. Hearing him sigh contentedly as he thought she had given in she tipped the drug into one of the glasses. She lifted the glasses and turned back to him smiling a completely different type of smile now. Anyone who knew Sam would know this wasn’t a look you wanted to mess with.

Thast, who did not know Sam, grinned widely at her change of demeanor and took the proffered glass…

/////

“Ah nothing much.” She shrugged but Jack wasn’t buying it.

“Oh?” his eyebrows rose in questioning and he captured her gaze for the briefest moment before she turned her eyes to the floor.

“Well nothing that’s appropriate to discuss with…” She left the sentence unfinished with a shrug.

“I see.” It was his turn to gaze at the floor now.

Silence. Again. They ignored it, pretending it wasn’t between them,

“Um. So. This nothing much.” He wasn’t prepared to let this go tonight. Something told him it was important.

“Yeah?”

“Exactly how much is not much?” He frowned.

\\\\\

He drank the wine in one gulp. She sipped hers more cautiously and took his outstretched glass for a top up. A little alcohol ought to make the medicine go down nicely, she thought.

He drank the second glass, and she wondered for a moment if she could not just keep him drinking wine until the drug started to work. Whatever the hell the drug was supposed to do anyway. She reasoned that is was likely a mild narcotic or possibly muscle relaxant so, she hoped, would screw with his co-ordination and give her a chance to get a few good hard kicks into his groin. She was definitely going for his groin, no doubt about that.

But it was not going to be that easy. He reached for her glass and placed them both on the table. Her eyes wide she inched back slightly, subconsciously putting the table between her and him.

He inched toward her.

She circled and backed away putting the table between them.

He followed her.

This is ridiculous, she thought. He’s chasing me round a table. Feeling like she wanted to change the situation, but knowing no other way but to give over to him she glanced to her left and right.

In the instant her attention was diverted he lunged. He navigated the table and was beside her, one arm around her middle and the other grasping her injured right arm, in a flash.

She gasped at the suddenness of his move, at the warmth of his body pressed against her and the rush of sudden heat as she felt his body against hers. She almost pulled back in revulsion of herself. Ah God! She did not want to feel that. She could not. But yet she had to make this believable. Yeah, she was making it believable, she told herself. Play along nicely until the drugs kick in. Then you can kick shit out of him.

He bent and his mouth mashed down onto hers. Unconscious heat flared up her spine. Her hand rose of their own volition to his shoulders, her mouth parted. Ah God...

/////

She pushed the memory aside. No, she would not discuss this with him of all people. She shook her head and offered him a wry grin. “Let’s just leave it at, I used my only available weapon against him shall we?”

A sudden flash of anger shot through him and, not for the first time, he wished he’d actually killed the son of a bitch when he had the chance. Not that he really needed to. Damage was done by the time he got in on the act. He tried not to be angry, though. She didn’t need him acting the jealous…Jealous what?

“I see.” He almost spat out through gritted teeth.

She flashed her own annoyance at him. What right did he have to judge her? “No I don’t think you do actually. I mean you’ve never had to…”

“Had to?” He gestured for her to continue.

She frowned. “Y’know it’s not like I had a whole heap of options. I did what I had to do.”

“So. No regrets eh?”

She sighed. Of course there was regrets, damn him. “Well. Let’s just say it’s far from my finest hour.” She bit her lip bitterly.

“No. Probably not.” He added lifting his left hand and pressing it over hers, which lay on her thigh. “Although you did considerable damage given the limited, uh, weaponry at your disposal.”

She smiled and glanced at where her, and now his, hand lay with a little surprise. It was so rare for him to touch her. If they touched it meant one, or possibly both, of them needed comfort and they were both too strong to actually need each other.

“Hmm. Who’d have thought a wine glass would leave such a mess huh?” He mused.

“I really wasn’t aiming for anywhere specific. I just…” She made a downwards slashing motion with her free right hand.

He chuckled. “Oh yeah. Sure you weren’t. As a man it almost made me weep, or would have if he didn’t deserve that right where you got him.” She grinned now, the tension lifting a little.

Maybe it was ok to say it now. Maybe they were comfortable enough. “Hey” He blew out a breath. “If it helps. I understand.” He added squeezing her hand slightly.

She allowed a small smile then. He was clearly bothered but he was trying so hard not to be.

“I’d just as soon as put this behind me sir.” She formalized it. Ok, so maybe they were only pretending to find it amusing after all.

“That why you left it out your official mission report Carter?”

Ah. The Question. The one she’d been waiting for since she submitted the report two days ago.

She shrugged and found a mote of dust on the floor suddenly fascinating. “Wasn’t relevant to the outcome of the mission. Didn’t see much point in…” She removed her hand so suddenly from under his that his hand slipped onto her thigh with a gentle slap before he had chance to remove it.

“The fact that you practically castrated the guy isn’t relevant how?” He turned incredulous and clearly proud of her.

She ignored him “…Besides. You know they’d have had me before Mackenzie in a cold minute.” She added with a smile.

He tilted his head towards her, yet not looking at her yet. “Y’know, might not be a bad idea.”

She shook her head with slight humour. “I never thought I’d hear the day when Colonel O’Neill would think seeing Mackenzie would be a good thing.”

He turned to her now, the intensity and seriousness on his face was enough to drive the humour from hers. “Sam.” His eyes pleaded. “You were effectively…”

“Don’t!” She interrupted hold up her hand to his chest. “Don’t. It wasn’t like that. Really it wasn’t.” She pleaded right back at him. Drop it please. She didn’t know how much longer she could pretend it didn’t hurt and humiliate to have been there, to have done what she did.

Their eyes locked for a long moment; neither willing the break the gaze or disturb the passing of a significant moment. They were so rare yet so longed for by both. There was no pretence in that gaze. Just a raw emotion that they usually kept carefully buried under layers of protocol.

Eventually. “Look. I kept it out the report because I want to put it behind me without all this talky feely stuff. Frankly Sir...” She paused adding emphasis to his salutation so that he knew she was back to business, “…you’re the last person I expected this from.

He patted her hand again, and sighed, feeling a bout of honesty bubbling to the surface. “Look. I came here because I was concerned.”

She didn’t respond, just studied his hand covering hers, parting her fingers a little to let his entwine with hers. Letting him in just a little.

“Y’know I like to imagine in my wildest fantasies that you and I are actually capable of being friends outside of all this military protocol, commanding officer, second in command thing we have going on. And I feel it’s my duty to tell you that friends, no matter how rarely they get a chance to express that side of their relationship, are there for when you need a shoulder to cry on, someone to talk to or…just…” He frowned wondering if she was following his rambling. “…So are we? Friends I mean.” He asked in mock worried seriousness.

She heaved her shoulders and suddenly stood; leaving his now empty hand feeling bereft of the comfort it sought. “Yeah. I guess we are,” she added. She mocked a yawn and he took the hint. Conversation over.

He stood. “Good. Ok then.” He pretended not to notice her little white lie. They could never be just friends when they were so much more than that. He moved toward the door and grasped the handle but turned at the last minute. “Well...”

She looked everywhere but at his face.

He patted his left shoulder. “If you change your mind…?”

“I won’t.”

He pulled a wry smile and tilted his head slightly to the side. “No, you probably won’t. Night Carter.”

He opened the door turning for a last glimpse. She really wasn’t all right and he knew the whole experience, whatever had actually happened, had shaken her more than she cared to admit. But she would be, he knew that because she was Carter and he figured she could survive anything.

“Night Sir.” She whispered to the closed door and turned back to her bed with a sigh.

He stood outside her door for a moment in quiet contemplation before turning away.

~End~