vignette: Sam in Atlantis [5/5]
Title: Sam in Atlantis [5/5]
Rating: PG-13
Spoilers/Warnings: General Season Four spoilers. Sam whump!
Summary: In which Carter wants to die.
Notes: Thanks reading so far. I'll try to pump some more of these out by next week.
10. Sam wants to die.
The Queen has brought her to brink so many times, so close that she could feel Death’s icy grip around her withered and frail neck. Each time the Queen brings her back, stuffing life back into her tortured body until she’s young, too young and defenseless and sobbing for her dead parents…
Interrogation begins when her frantic body is still finding a way to adjust to her youth and pain, and the Queen demands information about Earth and Atlantis. Sam is a good solider and she’s had to put up with ten years of alien interrogation, but nothing can quite compare to this. When Sam refuses to cooperate, the Queen uses her telepathy and strength to get answers, but they’re never the ones she wants - addresses to Goa’uld strongholds, names of planets in the Milky Way, scores of baseball games, anything that won’t lead the Wraith straight to Atlantis. Unsatisfied, the slimy hand will slam into her chest and the process will begin again.
The Queen has fed on others before her eyes. The drones drag squealing children and screaming parents to the throne chamber, where Sam must watch as they are sacrificed for a world three million light years away and that couldn’t give a rat’s ass about their civilization. The Queen will often force-feed their life back into Sam’s husk of a body and then banish her to her cell, where she’ll feel the victims in her until their energy is completely broken down and she’s left alone with her injuries and overwhelming guilt.
She feels recycled and reused. Her skin doesn’t fit right and her bones creak when she moves. Her system is buzzing with Wraith enzyme and other foreign substances. She no longer feels quite like Samantha Carter. The Wraith Queen has taken her identity along with her dignity.
Sam can’t go on living and her chances of rescue shrink each hour she’s on the Hive. She knows she’s not coming back to Earth - to Atlantis this time. If the Queen isn’t prepared to let her die, Sam’s willing to end it herself.
Throughout the mess that has been the last ten years of her life, she always thought she’d die with her team by her side, with Jack holding her hand and making one last lame ass joke, while the rest of them laughed in pain and tried to comfort each other. Never alone, never a million light years away from her friends.
On the third or fourth day, maybe even the fifth, the drones come for her and Sam begs. Begs like a dog, but the drones ignore her and bring her kicking and sniveling to the Queen.
They force her to her knees and leave her as the Queen approaches, licking her lips in anticipation.
“What’s wrong, my pet?” she asks sweetly, wiping the tears and sweat from Sam’s cheeks. “Have I broken you already? Such a pity. I had heard Atlantis’s Queen was a formidable and unbending nuisance, but you…you are no such Queen. Weak and useless, that is what you are. Did your people send you out of the Hive in hopes that you would be lost and their old Queen could return?”
Even the Wraith can’t help but compare her to Weir. Either Sam’s inferiority complex must be projecting or she really is that…that…
“Fuck you,” Sam says vehemently, because she knows she’s strong and that Atlantis did not throw her to the dogs.
The Queen doesn’t like when her prisoners show backbone. Usually backtalk earns Sam a slap in the face. This time, the Queen grabs her right arm, twists, and breaks the bone effortlessly.
Sam’s vision goes dark as stabbing pain overwhelms her senses and when she’s aware of herself again, her throat is hoarse from screaming, tears are streaming from her eyes, and the Wraith Queen is watching with a sadistic smile.
Sam wants to die.
“So easy to break,” the Queen says with satisfaction, flexing her feeding hand.
“Please, just kill me,” Sam begs, cradling her useless arm to her chest. “No more games - just kill me!”
The Queen’s expression is as cruel as she moves toward Sam’s shivering form. Sam scrambles backward awkwardly, until her back hits the wall of the throne chamber and there’s nowhere to go.
“You forget, my pet,” the Queen says, “Your life is mine to command. When I tire of you, I shall kill you.”
“No! Please, no more! No, no, no!”
Sam’s screams echo in the throne chamber.
10b. The Queen licks Sam’s blood off the palm of her hand and smiles at her quivering victim.
“That wasn’t so bad, was it, my pet?” she asks delicately, “I even gave back more years than you deserve. I suppose it can be corrected in our next session, unless you would like to tell me something of importance…?”
“Kiss my ass,” Sam says without any bite. She’s still recovering from the feeding, trying to clear her head and shake the numbness from her limbs. Her broken arm is the first to respond, throbbing in muted pain.
“Foolish little Queen,” the Wraith says, raising her hand to strike.
A jet of red energy hits her from behind. The Queen shrieks in indignation and turns, her molted skirts whirling around her ankles, but Ronon Dex is already firing off another round.
His aim is true and the Queen topples backward, a smoking crater where her face used to be. Sam stares unblinkingly at her corpse, wishing she had the energy to spit on it.
“Colonel Carter? Samantha?”
Ronon crouches beside her slowly and carefully, as to not startle her. He assesses her injuries quickly and says, “Sheppard and the rest are waiting. Can you walk?”
Sam’s mind finally catches up to what just happened and thousands questions flow through her brain at light speed. How did he find her, why had it taken so long, when was she going to get out of here, why weren’t they being attacked right now - ?
“I didn’t tell her anything,” she says softly, remembering the Queen’s words about weakness, about her people’s shame. “I swear.”
Ronon helps her to her feet, throwing her good arm over his shoulder and placing a balancing hand on her waist.
“We know,” he says, his gaze understanding.
Neither looks back as they hobble from the chamber.
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