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applecamerontitle : "Speak to Us of Joy and Sorrow"
author : SV, 1999. Reprinted by permission.
keywords : rape, Carter
rating : for adults only
archiving: NO
spoilers : a Stargate SG-1 tale set in an alternate universe. Based in and around the episode "Emancipation".
notes : pretty heavy
WARNING: Rape story, featuring Capt. Sam Carter, USAF. If rape squicks you out completely, back away now.
I. "The Deeper That Sorrow Carves Into Your Being"
"No one refuses Turghan, and lives"
He was angry. "What kind of woman are you? Do you respect nothing? Care for no one but yourself?" He gestured at Nya's mother. "These were responsible for you, now, because of you, they will be punished."
Inserting Sam's stolen blade between the other woman's skin and robe, Turghan bared her back and raised the lash.
Sam couldn't stand it.
"No! It was my fault." She was angrier than she'd ever been, by God, then she'd ever been. "If you need to beat a woman to feel like a man, try me."
They glared at one another.
"I value spirit in my horses, not my women." Turghan ripped off Sam's headdress and kissed her. Oh, shit. Oh, shit. Oh, shit. He was strong, if he got her down on the floor she didn't have the upper body strength to --
"You will learn your place, be obedient, or you will suffer far worse than a beating."
Sam Carter screamed out loud when the leader of the People of the Forest pulled her hair so hard it brought tears to her eyes. She was hyperventilating. The pair of them locked eyes in a moment of perfect understanding. Sam was halfway up from her knees. Turghan looked up, at the rest of the women in the tent. "Leave."
Then landed on her. Carter rolled, kicking into Turghan's bare chest with her free leg. The man sat back, winded and surprised, then dove for her, but she was upright first and circling back out of the way. She had to get out of the tent, get somewhere where her speed and light weight was the asset.
They circled one another.
"You're mine."
"I belong to no one." Her voice was tight and high with fear.
The tent flap behind her opened, and Sam turned right into a heavy blow. Then she was on the floor, gasping like a drowning fish, her vision swimming. The man who'd just entered the tent was speaking to Turghan, but Sam couldn't connect the sounds to meaning.
The next few moments were very confusing, spliced into darkness like editing on a bad B-movie. Somehow, Sam had gone from lying on the floor to watching her hands be tied in front of her, securing her to straps looped low around the base of the tent pole. She blinked and her head cleared: she and Turghan were alone. The chief of the People of the Forest was breathing heavily, angry, talking -- talking to her.
"What do I have to do to make you behave? Do I have to kill you?"
Fury and fear answered on her behalf. "You just might."
Turghan reached out to touch Carter's cheek with a finger and she bit at it, then winced when he struck her face. Then he stood, looking down. "We shall see."
He walked over to the discarded whip and picked it up, weighing it in one hand. Then moved behind her. Sam grabbed the tent pole and flailed out with a leg but Turghan just grabbed it, used it to anchor her to the floor, and cut away her dress. She started breathing deeply when he bared her back, praying he'd stop there.
The beating started.
At first, she tried to stifle her pain, but after the whip started crisscrossing the first welts, her sobs broke free. The moment he drew back the whip was the worst, and then the moment his arm came down and she could hear the leather whistling in the air, that was the worst, then the moment of impact, that was the worst, then the second when the tip of the strap dug into her flesh and ripped there as he drew back, that was the worst. And then it started all over again.
At some point, Turghan stopped, gagged her, and started again. Over her muffled cries, he began instructing her in the virtue of a woman's silence, her ability to bear pain without a sound, that a woman's strength lay in her silence, her invisibility. Sam didn't hear any of it, after a while. The pain lapped up around her like waves of a terrible sea, threatening to drown her.
Somewhere, the lashing stopped, but the waves kept crashing against her, receding only enough for Sam to open her eyes. Turghan was crouched next to her, gripping her chin to remove the gag. He was speaking again, holding her head in both hands and talking slowly, as if to a child. Something about a highstrung horse that must be
broken, or she would destroy herself and those around her. She pushed away, twisting, and wound up dangling from her hands. Sam tried to command her legs to help, but they wouldn't move, so she was stuck, body twitching but not moving as Turghan began stripping off the rest of her dress. The blue shreds were bloody.
Once she was naked, Turghan pushed down on her chest, forcing Sam's whipped back against the floor. When she cried out in pain, he pulled her legs apart and put his fingers on his lips, then her breast. "A woman's virtue is in her silence."
Turghan loosened his own clothing. Sam struggled, winced with every movement of her back on the floor, then cried out loud when her knees were shoved up toward her head. Turghan gripped her neck with one hand, the rope over her wrists with another, and pushed his methodical way into her body.
Their bodies welded together, Turghan began rocking the two of them, holding her neck and boring his eyes straight into hers. She was dry, and it hurt them both. Sam had never been penetrated this deeply, she cried out loud with each thrust, as her whipped back slapped against the floor. The very depth of feeling was inescapable, impossible to ignore the friction of their bodies, the smell of her sweat, his, and the coppery odor that was her own blood.
With each movement, Turghan rocked a little deeper, thrusting into her, crushing her body against, around, his, pulling her down with the hand on Sam's neck until something inside her loosened and there was a sudden gush of fluid between her legs. Turghan smiled white teeth in his dark face when he felt the sudden lubrication, and Sam realized she was still crying with every thrust, that she had been groaning with every movement and not just from pain.
Turghan, her rapist, her captor, her new 'husband', slowed briefly and looked down at her, then whispered, "silent is the mouth of a woman." He managed somehow to pull them even tighter, locking his mouth against hers, breathing in her cries and out his own. The two of them rocked and undulated, a joined, horrible beast made of pain and pleasure, and when Sam orgasmed and Turghan matched her, she screamed in equal parts satisfaction and hatred, but no one heard.
**************************************************
Sam woke up a few hours later, lying on the chief's bed of furs. Her hands had been untied. She smelled of blood and sex, and some ointment that must have been applied to her back while she slept. Her back throbbed, her legs ached, and she had no idea if she'd be able to walk.
And she had no idea what to feel. Slowly, Sam pulled herself up and dressed in the clothing that had obviously been left for her, wincing as she settled the robes over her wounds. Turghan was elsewhere. When she knew she could walk without teetering, Sam made her way out of the tent, into the women's area, and began re-plotting her escape. Was it still the same day? Didn't matter.
What mattered was getting away, getting down to the river they'd passed and heading upstream. This time, she'd go on foot. Slower, yes, but the horses knew which side their bread was buttered on.
Carter fired a tent and disappeared into the woods, not knowing the rest of SG-1 was on the other side of the camp, looking for a way to rescue her before nightfall.
**************************************************
The river was cold but washed away Turghan's scent, the smell of his tent and his camp. Sam was almost presentable when they found her, except for the wild look in her eyes.
Getting back into uniform was difficult and uncomfortable, and when she was done, Sam sat down next to Teal'c in front of the fire and told her teammates how happy she was to see them. 5 minutes later she was curled up asleep, Teal'c's voice rumbling through the darkness above her. In an almost-dream, she heard the Jaffa's voice announce that "Captain Carter is injured". He described the welts seeping through on her shoulders and the oily scent on her
clothes of what was left of the afternoon's ointment. Colonel O'Neill's disembodied voice was close, very close. He sounded angry, but not at her. Mentioned Dr. Fraiser, and Daniel said something in her ear, but Sam couldn't catch it.
Carter woke up in a fireman's carry, draped like a rag doll over Teal'c's shoulder. They were moving through the moonlit forest. Then, nothing until the next stop, when it turned out they had to go all the way back, or Nya would be stoned to death.
**************************************************
And there she was, walking right back into that camp, that damn camp, wondering what the hell she was going to say. Nya. Her mother. The pile of stones. Him.
The challenge. Suddenly Carter found out exactly what she was going to say, because she was going to stomp Turghan's face into the dirt or die trying. Her voice was high in her ears. This man, this man was going to pay dearly, and a challenge to save Nya's life was just about a godsend.
Okay, hate was good, fury was fantastic, because there was nothing else that could make her move fast enough once things got started. Colonel O'Neill was mouthing platitudes, but even he stopped once he got a good look at Sam's face. "Go get 'em, tiger." He said. Daniel Jackson looked a little scared.
Turghan drew his blade, Sam matched him, and the beating started.
He was fresh, she wasn't, but Sam was high on adrenaline and totally fearless. She came in low, kicking hard, fast, avoiding the man's blade and putting her full power into each blow. Turghan was bigger and almost as fast. This time, though, Sam had the advantage. "The virtue of a man is in his silence," she hissed at him, deliberately provoking.
The gathered crowd around them was silent. There was sunlight diffusing the camp with a post-dawn glow. Nothing moved but Turghan and herself, circling, coming together with grunts of effort, then spinning apart. Like two planets in orbit around one another, neither could deny the attraction of the other. Their orbits tightened one last time and Sam simply careened into him, knocking them both down and digging her blade into Turghan's neck.
"Sam!" someone yelled. "Don't kill him!" It was Jackson.
"Yield." Carter demanded, landing heavy on Turghan's chest.
Turghan glared up at her. "With a wife such as you, I could command all the tribes," he whispered. Rule with me, was the unspoken offer.
Sam gathered up the scattering remnants of her anger and pressed harder with the point of her blade: "try again."
"I....I yield."
And it was over.
**************************************************
Sort of. Arriving back at SGC was a whole different matter. They said their goodbyes -- yes, a weeklong wedding would be anthropologically interesting, but they had Things To Do. O'Niell turned Sam over to Dr. Fraiser the second they hit the ramp and she was practically carried to the infirmary. Good thing, too, because the adrenaline high was gone and there was nothing left but rubbery legs and a dry mouth. The embarkation room had never seemed so
full of shiny surfaces and sharp corners. The floor looked miles away and horribly inviting.
Carter woke up face down on a bed. Janet Fraiser was sitting next to her. The doctor kneeled in front of Sam and took her hand, casually feeling her pulse. "Hi."
"I can see you if you sit."
"I know." Janet's look was affectionate, most undoctorly, and she brushed at Carter's hair, reseating herself but pulling closer. "It's getting close to..." she looked at her watch, "midnight, so you've been out for about 5 hours. I just kicked the Colonel out of here a couple minutes ago. I can fetch him if you want." Her touch was cool on Carter's cheek, like a mother's hand. Comforting.
"No, that's all right. My back. Am I okay?" She felt almost paralyzed. Aches upon aches. It hurt to think about moving. Had she really busted Turghan's chops earlier that day?
"You're going to be fine. There may be some scarring, but I think we can minimize it if you take good care of your skin as it heals."
"Okay."
Dr. Fraiser smiled and patted Sam's arm. "It won't be quite that easy. But I only had to put stitches in 4 areas. I won't lie to you, Sam, it's going to hurt a lot as it heals, a lot like third degree burns. I'm surprised you didn't go into shock earlier. The skin is an important organ and those welts are extensive. There's even some lighter marks on your thighs."
Carter closed her eyes again, tired, nodding a little into her pillow. "Must have been from when I still had the dress on."
There was a brief intake of breath, but Sam didn't catch it. Sleep crept back up and pulled her down, and she went gratefully.
**************************************************
SG-1's debriefing was held in the infirmary. Sam lay on her belly, propped up on her elbows and some pillows, the rest of the team clustered near her head. She felt stiff and sore, but alive. Being a debriefing on a secure, need-to-know project, the door had to be locked during the proceedings, inconveniencing a whole slew of orderlies and other medical personnel. Dr. Fraiser seemed to be of the opinion it built character. She politely retreated to her office, locking herself away but managing to retain visual contact with her patient. Neatly avoiding the fact that although she was need to know on the stargate project, she didn't need to know everything.
When asked to detail her experiences after being seperated from the rest of SG-1, Carter began with her kidnapping. The trade -- a failed exchange for Nya -- with Turghan, her first escape and its resultant beating. The factoid that the People of the Forest trained their horses to a trick. Then, the second, more successful escape attempt.
The colonel filled them in on what he, Teal'c, and Daniel had done during Captain Carter's absence.
General Hammond was concerned that female SG members might be at higher risk during stargate missions than their male counterparts. Although he phrased it delicately, his point was that Captain Carter could have been subjected to 'far worse'. This, then, became a precedent-setting matter almost immediately.
Sam kept her mouth shut. She had been subjected to 'far worse', but damned if she would let machismo get in her way as a member of SG-1.
It was Colonel O'Niell who laid down covering fire. "With respect, sir. It was due to our laxness in security that the captain became seperated from the rest of the team. If we had insisted on proper military protocol," Here he looked at Daniel Jackson, "Carter wouldn't've been sleeping alone in a woman's tent to begin with."
Jackson swallowed the reprimand and attacked on the flank: "Besides, uh, General, we have no way of knowing the details of the societies we may encounter. We might find matriarchies where Captain Carter is the only one who'll get listened to. We simply don't know."
Teal'c dealt the finishing blow. "CaptainCarter is a brave warrior. She escaped her kidnappers and bested them in honorable combat. That is no less than any other warrior would have done."
Hammond, at least, caved gracefully. Recognizing that everything SG-1 did set a precedent for future explorers, he would put it in writing, the reasons why, as he phrased it, "educational, cultural, and gender diversity" was a necessary component in SG team development.
In the meantime, with one member injured, SG-1 would stand down until they were back up to strength.
**************************************************
"Don't you ever sleep?" Carter was feeling irritable. It was late.
"Yes. But I thought you might feel more comfortable with me takingcare of this for you." Dr. Janet Fraiser was standing next to Sam's bed, applying a gel to Carter's back. "And go ahead and complain about the smell. I don't mind."
"It's not that bad." It was pretty bad. But the slight shock of coolness that came with a new dollop of the stuff felt kind of nice.
"Oh, yes it is. We'll use this stuff for the next few days. It's got an anti-bacterial agent in it, that's what you're smelling. After that, we'll probably switch over to straight aloe." She rubbed in silence for a while. "You're going to be wearing a lot of this stuff, Sam. The aloe doesn't smell hardly at all, though."
"That's a relief." It was also a relief to feel safe. Dr. Fraiser was there, it was dim in the bulk of the infirmary. No orderlies running back and forth out of sight but within hearing, which had been driving Sam nuts during the day.
"Okay. All done." Fraiser twitched Sam's gown back together. "There you go." She capped the tube of goo and placed it on Sam's bedside table, then stripped off her gloves and tossed them in a bin.
Carter reached out with one hand and Janet took it, letting herself be seated by Sam's head.
Sam focused on Fraiser's hands. She had to clear her throat a couple times. "He raped me."
Janet Fraiser's face morphed from anger to pity, then compassion, and back to anger, in a matter of a few seconds. She took a couple of deep breaths, looking down at Carter's hand in hers. Asked without looking up: "Do you want to tell me about it?"
"I don't know." It was the honest answer.
Their eyes finally met. "All right."
After a tentative request and Sam's reluctant nod, Fraiser rose and locked the infirmary door, gathered a few items of equipment from a cabinet, and threw a towel over the security camera.
It was a very impromptu exam, but the doc seemed reasonably satisfied when she was finished. There was some tearing
apparently, but no significant damage. Sam would probably be sore for a while. Both an anti-bacterial douche and a dose of emergency contraception were promptly administered. Once all that was squared away the two women were silent, one laying on a bed, the other sitting in her nearby chair.
Gradually, Carter began to speak. She couldn't give details, they just wouldn't come out, but she was able to tell Janet that Turghan obviously was a skilled lover when he wanted to be. The doctor figured out the rest.
"Just because he forced you to enjoy some of it doesn't mean it wasn't a rape, Samantha. You have every right to be furious."
Carter nodded her agreement, and refused an offer of further company for the evening.
**************************************************
The report was on Hammond's desk, open to page one, and the number on the folder was one Jack had come to know almost as well as his own. Captain Carter's.
He rifled through it quickly, then went straight to Janet Fraiser's office.
"Why didn't you tell me" was the first question, but it got stopped cold by the withering fury in Fraiser's eyes. She gestured angrily, stabbing the air with her pen. That was a sealed medical file and Jack had no right - no right, goddamit - to be reading it, much less trying to discuss it with her. Now, get out of her office.
Jack got, before Dr. Fraiser killed him with her pen. He had thinking to do. SG-1 was his command, he did have a right toknow when this kind of shit went down. The fact that Carter lied during the debriefing didn't bother him, much, she'd backed him up on the occasional glossed-over detail a few times herself. It was the fact that she hadn't fessed up to the team that bugged him. Unless...maybe she just hadn't told him.
Maybe she would. It just better be soon.
**************************************************
"Carter, you're with me. Teal'c, you and Danny take the right side."
Light op. Follow-up. Strictly training exercise, until it went to hell. They came through the gate, but SG-3 wasn't there waiting, so they double-timed it towards the terminator line to go find the Untouched. SG-1's mission was simple, a little surveying, a little cultural contact, basically R&R with pretensions. First mission after their enforced stand-down.
Didn't happen. Something big and furry, with fangs, did instead.
"This is new." Daniel had said, pushing his glasses back up his nose. The thing just kind of loomed a bit, in the dark, then attacked.
So they came in, two on a side, Jack pulling Carter to stay behind him. "Sir!" came her angry hiss in his ear.
"Stay behind me, Carter." O'Niell's attention was divided, part on Teal'c and Danny, part on the beastie they were surrounding, but mostly on trying to protect Carter without looking like it.
"Damn!" Sam was changing out magazines, grabbing for tranquilizers. "Don't move, sir." She swung up, bracing on
O'Niell's shoulder. Aimed at just under the critter's jaw. Fired once.
Fanged and Furry hit the ground heavy, and Sam changed her magazine again, checked it, checked it a second time, and then looked up at her superior officer. Said nothing, just visibly pulled in her temper and went over to inspect her victim. Jackson was already crawling all over the thing, taking pictures. The colonel went on a little perimeter inspection, and, after a moment, Teal'c joined him.
**************************************************
Weeks passed in some semblance of normalcy.
Carter started spending a good chunk of her free time lifting weights or at the firing range, even dragging Teal'c out a couple times with her for some "re-destructional shooting", but he didn't get the joke. Meals with the team. Sometimes, dinner with Janet Fraiser. They talked about all kinds of things, once or twice circling around the Topic That Shall Remain Nameless.
Teal'c, after the range fiasco -- the Jaffa was so good the rangemaster almost cried because he wasn't regular military and couldn't go into competition -- asked all three of his team members to study one of his brands of unarmed combat. Sam took him up on it. Jack said he'd rather teach the Jaffa hockey, but Teal'c opted for "perhaps some other time". O'Niell made a point of taking Dr. Fraiser out to dinner, off-base, a couple times, after which he seemed to back off from his overprotectiveness, and mostly went back to being "the colonel". Sam breathed a sigh of relief after going out drinking with him and having the conversation be strictly his favorite subjects: hockey, hockey, and hockey, with a little discourse on the hell of military paperwork on the side.
Practicing an unpronounceable martial art with Teal'c was a real pain -- literally sometimes from some of the positions Sam twisted herself into, but more figuratively because she could not say the damn name correctly.
"Hand and eye," Teal'c said one morning. They had met in a little side room with a couple wrestling mats and not much else. Carter was panting already. "Hand and eye are worthless without your center." He moved forward, "You must flow," stressing the word lightly as he turned, dancing on the mat in a manner impossibly light for a man of his bulk, "from your center".
They spent a lot of workout time meditating to achieve centeredness, then flying about the room in full-contact, then meditating more. It was full contact for Sam, maybe a third-contact for Teal'c. Part of the point of this particular form, he explained, was fighting under a constraint -- a small room or an oddly shaped one, a mismatch of strengths -- and turning that constraint into an asset.
He seemed to really enjoy it, and it made Sam feel very, very good. All her anger at Turghan she threw into Teal'c and it disappeared, as if he was a bottomless pool. And very tired, so her sleep stayed dreamless.
Life was,...well, life wasn't great, but it was all right.
II. "Your joy is your sorrow unmasked."
"The spirits have brought you here, to this place, to learn to be a woman."
"Um." Daniel Jackson looked over at Carter, poised at his side.
"Jump."
They went over the side of the raft and into the water. This was not according to plan. Carter could see Teal'c for a second, his dark head gleaming wet, but the current swept herself and Daniel out of range. She couldn't see Colonel O'Neill at all. The water was cold, weighing in her boots, dragging and sucking her body wherever it damn well pleased.
A rock came out of nowhere and slammed into her, and suddenly Sam found herself with a faceful of Daniel Jackson. He grabbed onto her life jacket and the two were slammed around together for a bit, then ripped apart.
This was definitely not good.
SG-1 had passed through the gate the day before, and found themselves on their way by river to the next largest town to meet the province magistrate. The village by the gate wasn't even a village, just a couple huts and a goatherd -- well, it looked goatlike, whatever the woman had been tending -- high up on a mountainside. All the action took place down in the valley.
Their guide had been lost earlier in the rapids, and everything went to hell rather quickly. Now they were capsized, seperated, and with their luck, about to go over a death-defying waterfall.
She wasn't too far off. It was pleasantly surprising, therfore, to find Daniel Jackson washed up on the riverbank just a few meters away, when Sam pulled herself out of the water.
Thank God she'd been working out, the pull from the water was a real bitch.
Still, Teal'c and the Colonel were probably okay. Daniel, however, wasn't, but it took only a moment before Carter was able to clear his lungs -- just one breath or two, mouth to mouth, and he was coughing and bringing up river water, then blinking at her with unfocused eyes.
"Sam?" The first thing Jackson fumbled for was his glasses, but they were gone, along with the spare pair he'd just started carrying. Oh, lovely.
A hurried council over what was best -- continue downstream or go home -- quickly became a mad dash for cover when the clouds opened up and water came down by the bucket. When it rained on this planet, it poured. Sam and Danny made for a rocky overhang and things turned out even better: a cave.
Jackson was jubilant, though squinting, as if that would help.
It was a serviceable cave. Very old droppings of some animal, obviously abandoned, it was big enough for 2 people and then some. Sam dumped their remaining gear -- not much -- in the crevice to the back, and the two teammates huddled close together to wait the rain out.
Wet clothes. Stupid. Sam started skinning out of her uniform. Jackson followed suit. It was cold, but they needed to get dry. Not that near-naked was going to help much, it was just too humid to expect their clothes to dry out. But it might help some.
After a few hours, the rain tapered off and Sam began to think about a fire. Getting back into her uniform was a slimy proposition, but she did it anyways.
Scouting a bit up and down the river revealed no traces of their teammates. They could only hope Teal'c and the colonel had made it to the town. Meanwhile, they needed to get warm and dry, and make contact.
A fire was impossible until the wood Carter collected was less wet, so she and Daniel stayed huddled in their cave, watching the sunlight move across the trees. With dark came a pitifully thin flame, but Jackson kept it going on occassional bits of dry kindling found in the protected region they now dwelled in.
It was Daniel who brought up the welts on her back and legs. What scarring there was had been light, but the healing process wasn't complete. Maybe it never would be. Jackson was a smart man, and his questions skirted the truth quickly. Admitting what had happened was painful, and Sam was almost relieved when the doctor put two and two together, sparing her the words.
"Oh, my god. Oh, my god." Jackson would be pacing if the environment permitted it. Crouched in front of Carter. "Oh, my god." He took her face in his hands and studied her carefully, ignoring her initial flinch.
"Daniel." She tried to say it right, brushing his hair out of the space between their faces. "I'm...okay." The matter of the cave, its chill and humidity, seemed far distant.
"No, you're not. You're still there. You have to come out, Sam, all the way out." Then he kissed her, warm and desperate and gentle. It was a shock.
"I thought at first you were avoiding me." came this rush of whispered information. "But then I realized something had changed." Daniel looked like he was about to tick off salient points on his fingertips, then stopped himself. "Sam. I'm your friend." Her face was still trapped in his hands, and Carter realized suddenly how long
it had been since they'd touched. Good God, she hadn't even grabbed his hand when they'd jumped overboard.
The sudden burst of sadness was overwhelming and Sam felt her face grow warm. It was like realizing she was homesick. Homesick for her old self.
"I wish you'd told me sooner. I wish--" A thumb wiped away her tears, light callous scraping the flesh of Carter's cheek. "Oh, Sam." There were tears in his eyes. You should have told me, they said.
She said nothing. There was nothing to say.
"Samantha." His hands were so gentle, so warm. "It's all right. We'll make it all right." And they kissed, both trembling a little.
Making love with Daniel Jackson was like slipping into a comfortable old shoe -- a horrible simile that had them both giggling, much, much, later. But at the time, it was apt.
It had been a long time since he'd been with anyone, and a long time in a different way since Sam had let down her guard.
Friendly, compassionate, gentle. They explored one another. Daniel examined but did not linger over Sam's imagined flaws -- the scarring from her beating was not ugly and he told her so. Kissed her softly, looking for all the little unexpected places that could make her melt, and finding quite a few.
In return, Sam's own hands were exploring a well made male body, rather lean but not sculpted chest. Daniel's smell was unique, his eyes bright and loving. Her hand fit the curve of his buttock just perfectly.
Neither noticed when the sun came back out, being far too absorbed in other matters.
Sam knew she had re-found her center when she looked down at Daniel, the pair of them busily sweating, rider and ridden, and saw his happy grin matched her own.
Life was good.
"When you are joyous, look deep into your heart and you shall find it is only that which has given you sorrow that is giving you joy."
Khalil Gibran, The Prophet
author : SV, 1999. Reprinted by permission.
keywords : rape, Carter
rating : for adults only
archiving: NO
spoilers : a Stargate SG-1 tale set in an alternate universe. Based in and around the episode "Emancipation".
notes : pretty heavy
WARNING: Rape story, featuring Capt. Sam Carter, USAF. If rape squicks you out completely, back away now.
I. "The Deeper That Sorrow Carves Into Your Being"
"No one refuses Turghan, and lives"
He was angry. "What kind of woman are you? Do you respect nothing? Care for no one but yourself?" He gestured at Nya's mother. "These were responsible for you, now, because of you, they will be punished."
Inserting Sam's stolen blade between the other woman's skin and robe, Turghan bared her back and raised the lash.
Sam couldn't stand it.
"No! It was my fault." She was angrier than she'd ever been, by God, then she'd ever been. "If you need to beat a woman to feel like a man, try me."
They glared at one another.
"I value spirit in my horses, not my women." Turghan ripped off Sam's headdress and kissed her. Oh, shit. Oh, shit. Oh, shit. He was strong, if he got her down on the floor she didn't have the upper body strength to --
"You will learn your place, be obedient, or you will suffer far worse than a beating."
Sam Carter screamed out loud when the leader of the People of the Forest pulled her hair so hard it brought tears to her eyes. She was hyperventilating. The pair of them locked eyes in a moment of perfect understanding. Sam was halfway up from her knees. Turghan looked up, at the rest of the women in the tent. "Leave."
Then landed on her. Carter rolled, kicking into Turghan's bare chest with her free leg. The man sat back, winded and surprised, then dove for her, but she was upright first and circling back out of the way. She had to get out of the tent, get somewhere where her speed and light weight was the asset.
They circled one another.
"You're mine."
"I belong to no one." Her voice was tight and high with fear.
The tent flap behind her opened, and Sam turned right into a heavy blow. Then she was on the floor, gasping like a drowning fish, her vision swimming. The man who'd just entered the tent was speaking to Turghan, but Sam couldn't connect the sounds to meaning.
The next few moments were very confusing, spliced into darkness like editing on a bad B-movie. Somehow, Sam had gone from lying on the floor to watching her hands be tied in front of her, securing her to straps looped low around the base of the tent pole. She blinked and her head cleared: she and Turghan were alone. The chief of the People of the Forest was breathing heavily, angry, talking -- talking to her.
"What do I have to do to make you behave? Do I have to kill you?"
Fury and fear answered on her behalf. "You just might."
Turghan reached out to touch Carter's cheek with a finger and she bit at it, then winced when he struck her face. Then he stood, looking down. "We shall see."
He walked over to the discarded whip and picked it up, weighing it in one hand. Then moved behind her. Sam grabbed the tent pole and flailed out with a leg but Turghan just grabbed it, used it to anchor her to the floor, and cut away her dress. She started breathing deeply when he bared her back, praying he'd stop there.
The beating started.
At first, she tried to stifle her pain, but after the whip started crisscrossing the first welts, her sobs broke free. The moment he drew back the whip was the worst, and then the moment his arm came down and she could hear the leather whistling in the air, that was the worst, then the moment of impact, that was the worst, then the second when the tip of the strap dug into her flesh and ripped there as he drew back, that was the worst. And then it started all over again.
At some point, Turghan stopped, gagged her, and started again. Over her muffled cries, he began instructing her in the virtue of a woman's silence, her ability to bear pain without a sound, that a woman's strength lay in her silence, her invisibility. Sam didn't hear any of it, after a while. The pain lapped up around her like waves of a terrible sea, threatening to drown her.
Somewhere, the lashing stopped, but the waves kept crashing against her, receding only enough for Sam to open her eyes. Turghan was crouched next to her, gripping her chin to remove the gag. He was speaking again, holding her head in both hands and talking slowly, as if to a child. Something about a highstrung horse that must be
broken, or she would destroy herself and those around her. She pushed away, twisting, and wound up dangling from her hands. Sam tried to command her legs to help, but they wouldn't move, so she was stuck, body twitching but not moving as Turghan began stripping off the rest of her dress. The blue shreds were bloody.
Once she was naked, Turghan pushed down on her chest, forcing Sam's whipped back against the floor. When she cried out in pain, he pulled her legs apart and put his fingers on his lips, then her breast. "A woman's virtue is in her silence."
Turghan loosened his own clothing. Sam struggled, winced with every movement of her back on the floor, then cried out loud when her knees were shoved up toward her head. Turghan gripped her neck with one hand, the rope over her wrists with another, and pushed his methodical way into her body.
Their bodies welded together, Turghan began rocking the two of them, holding her neck and boring his eyes straight into hers. She was dry, and it hurt them both. Sam had never been penetrated this deeply, she cried out loud with each thrust, as her whipped back slapped against the floor. The very depth of feeling was inescapable, impossible to ignore the friction of their bodies, the smell of her sweat, his, and the coppery odor that was her own blood.
With each movement, Turghan rocked a little deeper, thrusting into her, crushing her body against, around, his, pulling her down with the hand on Sam's neck until something inside her loosened and there was a sudden gush of fluid between her legs. Turghan smiled white teeth in his dark face when he felt the sudden lubrication, and Sam realized she was still crying with every thrust, that she had been groaning with every movement and not just from pain.
Turghan, her rapist, her captor, her new 'husband', slowed briefly and looked down at her, then whispered, "silent is the mouth of a woman." He managed somehow to pull them even tighter, locking his mouth against hers, breathing in her cries and out his own. The two of them rocked and undulated, a joined, horrible beast made of pain and pleasure, and when Sam orgasmed and Turghan matched her, she screamed in equal parts satisfaction and hatred, but no one heard.
**************************************************
Sam woke up a few hours later, lying on the chief's bed of furs. Her hands had been untied. She smelled of blood and sex, and some ointment that must have been applied to her back while she slept. Her back throbbed, her legs ached, and she had no idea if she'd be able to walk.
And she had no idea what to feel. Slowly, Sam pulled herself up and dressed in the clothing that had obviously been left for her, wincing as she settled the robes over her wounds. Turghan was elsewhere. When she knew she could walk without teetering, Sam made her way out of the tent, into the women's area, and began re-plotting her escape. Was it still the same day? Didn't matter.
What mattered was getting away, getting down to the river they'd passed and heading upstream. This time, she'd go on foot. Slower, yes, but the horses knew which side their bread was buttered on.
Carter fired a tent and disappeared into the woods, not knowing the rest of SG-1 was on the other side of the camp, looking for a way to rescue her before nightfall.
**************************************************
The river was cold but washed away Turghan's scent, the smell of his tent and his camp. Sam was almost presentable when they found her, except for the wild look in her eyes.
Getting back into uniform was difficult and uncomfortable, and when she was done, Sam sat down next to Teal'c in front of the fire and told her teammates how happy she was to see them. 5 minutes later she was curled up asleep, Teal'c's voice rumbling through the darkness above her. In an almost-dream, she heard the Jaffa's voice announce that "Captain Carter is injured". He described the welts seeping through on her shoulders and the oily scent on her
clothes of what was left of the afternoon's ointment. Colonel O'Neill's disembodied voice was close, very close. He sounded angry, but not at her. Mentioned Dr. Fraiser, and Daniel said something in her ear, but Sam couldn't catch it.
Carter woke up in a fireman's carry, draped like a rag doll over Teal'c's shoulder. They were moving through the moonlit forest. Then, nothing until the next stop, when it turned out they had to go all the way back, or Nya would be stoned to death.
**************************************************
And there she was, walking right back into that camp, that damn camp, wondering what the hell she was going to say. Nya. Her mother. The pile of stones. Him.
The challenge. Suddenly Carter found out exactly what she was going to say, because she was going to stomp Turghan's face into the dirt or die trying. Her voice was high in her ears. This man, this man was going to pay dearly, and a challenge to save Nya's life was just about a godsend.
Okay, hate was good, fury was fantastic, because there was nothing else that could make her move fast enough once things got started. Colonel O'Neill was mouthing platitudes, but even he stopped once he got a good look at Sam's face. "Go get 'em, tiger." He said. Daniel Jackson looked a little scared.
Turghan drew his blade, Sam matched him, and the beating started.
He was fresh, she wasn't, but Sam was high on adrenaline and totally fearless. She came in low, kicking hard, fast, avoiding the man's blade and putting her full power into each blow. Turghan was bigger and almost as fast. This time, though, Sam had the advantage. "The virtue of a man is in his silence," she hissed at him, deliberately provoking.
The gathered crowd around them was silent. There was sunlight diffusing the camp with a post-dawn glow. Nothing moved but Turghan and herself, circling, coming together with grunts of effort, then spinning apart. Like two planets in orbit around one another, neither could deny the attraction of the other. Their orbits tightened one last time and Sam simply careened into him, knocking them both down and digging her blade into Turghan's neck.
"Sam!" someone yelled. "Don't kill him!" It was Jackson.
"Yield." Carter demanded, landing heavy on Turghan's chest.
Turghan glared up at her. "With a wife such as you, I could command all the tribes," he whispered. Rule with me, was the unspoken offer.
Sam gathered up the scattering remnants of her anger and pressed harder with the point of her blade: "try again."
"I....I yield."
And it was over.
**************************************************
Sort of. Arriving back at SGC was a whole different matter. They said their goodbyes -- yes, a weeklong wedding would be anthropologically interesting, but they had Things To Do. O'Niell turned Sam over to Dr. Fraiser the second they hit the ramp and she was practically carried to the infirmary. Good thing, too, because the adrenaline high was gone and there was nothing left but rubbery legs and a dry mouth. The embarkation room had never seemed so
full of shiny surfaces and sharp corners. The floor looked miles away and horribly inviting.
Carter woke up face down on a bed. Janet Fraiser was sitting next to her. The doctor kneeled in front of Sam and took her hand, casually feeling her pulse. "Hi."
"I can see you if you sit."
"I know." Janet's look was affectionate, most undoctorly, and she brushed at Carter's hair, reseating herself but pulling closer. "It's getting close to..." she looked at her watch, "midnight, so you've been out for about 5 hours. I just kicked the Colonel out of here a couple minutes ago. I can fetch him if you want." Her touch was cool on Carter's cheek, like a mother's hand. Comforting.
"No, that's all right. My back. Am I okay?" She felt almost paralyzed. Aches upon aches. It hurt to think about moving. Had she really busted Turghan's chops earlier that day?
"You're going to be fine. There may be some scarring, but I think we can minimize it if you take good care of your skin as it heals."
"Okay."
Dr. Fraiser smiled and patted Sam's arm. "It won't be quite that easy. But I only had to put stitches in 4 areas. I won't lie to you, Sam, it's going to hurt a lot as it heals, a lot like third degree burns. I'm surprised you didn't go into shock earlier. The skin is an important organ and those welts are extensive. There's even some lighter marks on your thighs."
Carter closed her eyes again, tired, nodding a little into her pillow. "Must have been from when I still had the dress on."
There was a brief intake of breath, but Sam didn't catch it. Sleep crept back up and pulled her down, and she went gratefully.
**************************************************
SG-1's debriefing was held in the infirmary. Sam lay on her belly, propped up on her elbows and some pillows, the rest of the team clustered near her head. She felt stiff and sore, but alive. Being a debriefing on a secure, need-to-know project, the door had to be locked during the proceedings, inconveniencing a whole slew of orderlies and other medical personnel. Dr. Fraiser seemed to be of the opinion it built character. She politely retreated to her office, locking herself away but managing to retain visual contact with her patient. Neatly avoiding the fact that although she was need to know on the stargate project, she didn't need to know everything.
When asked to detail her experiences after being seperated from the rest of SG-1, Carter began with her kidnapping. The trade -- a failed exchange for Nya -- with Turghan, her first escape and its resultant beating. The factoid that the People of the Forest trained their horses to a trick. Then, the second, more successful escape attempt.
The colonel filled them in on what he, Teal'c, and Daniel had done during Captain Carter's absence.
General Hammond was concerned that female SG members might be at higher risk during stargate missions than their male counterparts. Although he phrased it delicately, his point was that Captain Carter could have been subjected to 'far worse'. This, then, became a precedent-setting matter almost immediately.
Sam kept her mouth shut. She had been subjected to 'far worse', but damned if she would let machismo get in her way as a member of SG-1.
It was Colonel O'Niell who laid down covering fire. "With respect, sir. It was due to our laxness in security that the captain became seperated from the rest of the team. If we had insisted on proper military protocol," Here he looked at Daniel Jackson, "Carter wouldn't've been sleeping alone in a woman's tent to begin with."
Jackson swallowed the reprimand and attacked on the flank: "Besides, uh, General, we have no way of knowing the details of the societies we may encounter. We might find matriarchies where Captain Carter is the only one who'll get listened to. We simply don't know."
Teal'c dealt the finishing blow. "CaptainCarter is a brave warrior. She escaped her kidnappers and bested them in honorable combat. That is no less than any other warrior would have done."
Hammond, at least, caved gracefully. Recognizing that everything SG-1 did set a precedent for future explorers, he would put it in writing, the reasons why, as he phrased it, "educational, cultural, and gender diversity" was a necessary component in SG team development.
In the meantime, with one member injured, SG-1 would stand down until they were back up to strength.
**************************************************
"Don't you ever sleep?" Carter was feeling irritable. It was late.
"Yes. But I thought you might feel more comfortable with me takingcare of this for you." Dr. Janet Fraiser was standing next to Sam's bed, applying a gel to Carter's back. "And go ahead and complain about the smell. I don't mind."
"It's not that bad." It was pretty bad. But the slight shock of coolness that came with a new dollop of the stuff felt kind of nice.
"Oh, yes it is. We'll use this stuff for the next few days. It's got an anti-bacterial agent in it, that's what you're smelling. After that, we'll probably switch over to straight aloe." She rubbed in silence for a while. "You're going to be wearing a lot of this stuff, Sam. The aloe doesn't smell hardly at all, though."
"That's a relief." It was also a relief to feel safe. Dr. Fraiser was there, it was dim in the bulk of the infirmary. No orderlies running back and forth out of sight but within hearing, which had been driving Sam nuts during the day.
"Okay. All done." Fraiser twitched Sam's gown back together. "There you go." She capped the tube of goo and placed it on Sam's bedside table, then stripped off her gloves and tossed them in a bin.
Carter reached out with one hand and Janet took it, letting herself be seated by Sam's head.
Sam focused on Fraiser's hands. She had to clear her throat a couple times. "He raped me."
Janet Fraiser's face morphed from anger to pity, then compassion, and back to anger, in a matter of a few seconds. She took a couple of deep breaths, looking down at Carter's hand in hers. Asked without looking up: "Do you want to tell me about it?"
"I don't know." It was the honest answer.
Their eyes finally met. "All right."
After a tentative request and Sam's reluctant nod, Fraiser rose and locked the infirmary door, gathered a few items of equipment from a cabinet, and threw a towel over the security camera.
It was a very impromptu exam, but the doc seemed reasonably satisfied when she was finished. There was some tearing
apparently, but no significant damage. Sam would probably be sore for a while. Both an anti-bacterial douche and a dose of emergency contraception were promptly administered. Once all that was squared away the two women were silent, one laying on a bed, the other sitting in her nearby chair.
Gradually, Carter began to speak. She couldn't give details, they just wouldn't come out, but she was able to tell Janet that Turghan obviously was a skilled lover when he wanted to be. The doctor figured out the rest.
"Just because he forced you to enjoy some of it doesn't mean it wasn't a rape, Samantha. You have every right to be furious."
Carter nodded her agreement, and refused an offer of further company for the evening.
**************************************************
The report was on Hammond's desk, open to page one, and the number on the folder was one Jack had come to know almost as well as his own. Captain Carter's.
He rifled through it quickly, then went straight to Janet Fraiser's office.
"Why didn't you tell me" was the first question, but it got stopped cold by the withering fury in Fraiser's eyes. She gestured angrily, stabbing the air with her pen. That was a sealed medical file and Jack had no right - no right, goddamit - to be reading it, much less trying to discuss it with her. Now, get out of her office.
Jack got, before Dr. Fraiser killed him with her pen. He had thinking to do. SG-1 was his command, he did have a right toknow when this kind of shit went down. The fact that Carter lied during the debriefing didn't bother him, much, she'd backed him up on the occasional glossed-over detail a few times herself. It was the fact that she hadn't fessed up to the team that bugged him. Unless...maybe she just hadn't told him.
Maybe she would. It just better be soon.
**************************************************
"Carter, you're with me. Teal'c, you and Danny take the right side."
Light op. Follow-up. Strictly training exercise, until it went to hell. They came through the gate, but SG-3 wasn't there waiting, so they double-timed it towards the terminator line to go find the Untouched. SG-1's mission was simple, a little surveying, a little cultural contact, basically R&R with pretensions. First mission after their enforced stand-down.
Didn't happen. Something big and furry, with fangs, did instead.
"This is new." Daniel had said, pushing his glasses back up his nose. The thing just kind of loomed a bit, in the dark, then attacked.
So they came in, two on a side, Jack pulling Carter to stay behind him. "Sir!" came her angry hiss in his ear.
"Stay behind me, Carter." O'Niell's attention was divided, part on Teal'c and Danny, part on the beastie they were surrounding, but mostly on trying to protect Carter without looking like it.
"Damn!" Sam was changing out magazines, grabbing for tranquilizers. "Don't move, sir." She swung up, bracing on
O'Niell's shoulder. Aimed at just under the critter's jaw. Fired once.
Fanged and Furry hit the ground heavy, and Sam changed her magazine again, checked it, checked it a second time, and then looked up at her superior officer. Said nothing, just visibly pulled in her temper and went over to inspect her victim. Jackson was already crawling all over the thing, taking pictures. The colonel went on a little perimeter inspection, and, after a moment, Teal'c joined him.
**************************************************
Weeks passed in some semblance of normalcy.
Carter started spending a good chunk of her free time lifting weights or at the firing range, even dragging Teal'c out a couple times with her for some "re-destructional shooting", but he didn't get the joke. Meals with the team. Sometimes, dinner with Janet Fraiser. They talked about all kinds of things, once or twice circling around the Topic That Shall Remain Nameless.
Teal'c, after the range fiasco -- the Jaffa was so good the rangemaster almost cried because he wasn't regular military and couldn't go into competition -- asked all three of his team members to study one of his brands of unarmed combat. Sam took him up on it. Jack said he'd rather teach the Jaffa hockey, but Teal'c opted for "perhaps some other time". O'Niell made a point of taking Dr. Fraiser out to dinner, off-base, a couple times, after which he seemed to back off from his overprotectiveness, and mostly went back to being "the colonel". Sam breathed a sigh of relief after going out drinking with him and having the conversation be strictly his favorite subjects: hockey, hockey, and hockey, with a little discourse on the hell of military paperwork on the side.
Practicing an unpronounceable martial art with Teal'c was a real pain -- literally sometimes from some of the positions Sam twisted herself into, but more figuratively because she could not say the damn name correctly.
"Hand and eye," Teal'c said one morning. They had met in a little side room with a couple wrestling mats and not much else. Carter was panting already. "Hand and eye are worthless without your center." He moved forward, "You must flow," stressing the word lightly as he turned, dancing on the mat in a manner impossibly light for a man of his bulk, "from your center".
They spent a lot of workout time meditating to achieve centeredness, then flying about the room in full-contact, then meditating more. It was full contact for Sam, maybe a third-contact for Teal'c. Part of the point of this particular form, he explained, was fighting under a constraint -- a small room or an oddly shaped one, a mismatch of strengths -- and turning that constraint into an asset.
He seemed to really enjoy it, and it made Sam feel very, very good. All her anger at Turghan she threw into Teal'c and it disappeared, as if he was a bottomless pool. And very tired, so her sleep stayed dreamless.
Life was,...well, life wasn't great, but it was all right.
II. "Your joy is your sorrow unmasked."
"The spirits have brought you here, to this place, to learn to be a woman."
"Um." Daniel Jackson looked over at Carter, poised at his side.
"Jump."
They went over the side of the raft and into the water. This was not according to plan. Carter could see Teal'c for a second, his dark head gleaming wet, but the current swept herself and Daniel out of range. She couldn't see Colonel O'Neill at all. The water was cold, weighing in her boots, dragging and sucking her body wherever it damn well pleased.
A rock came out of nowhere and slammed into her, and suddenly Sam found herself with a faceful of Daniel Jackson. He grabbed onto her life jacket and the two were slammed around together for a bit, then ripped apart.
This was definitely not good.
SG-1 had passed through the gate the day before, and found themselves on their way by river to the next largest town to meet the province magistrate. The village by the gate wasn't even a village, just a couple huts and a goatherd -- well, it looked goatlike, whatever the woman had been tending -- high up on a mountainside. All the action took place down in the valley.
Their guide had been lost earlier in the rapids, and everything went to hell rather quickly. Now they were capsized, seperated, and with their luck, about to go over a death-defying waterfall.
She wasn't too far off. It was pleasantly surprising, therfore, to find Daniel Jackson washed up on the riverbank just a few meters away, when Sam pulled herself out of the water.
Thank God she'd been working out, the pull from the water was a real bitch.
Still, Teal'c and the Colonel were probably okay. Daniel, however, wasn't, but it took only a moment before Carter was able to clear his lungs -- just one breath or two, mouth to mouth, and he was coughing and bringing up river water, then blinking at her with unfocused eyes.
"Sam?" The first thing Jackson fumbled for was his glasses, but they were gone, along with the spare pair he'd just started carrying. Oh, lovely.
A hurried council over what was best -- continue downstream or go home -- quickly became a mad dash for cover when the clouds opened up and water came down by the bucket. When it rained on this planet, it poured. Sam and Danny made for a rocky overhang and things turned out even better: a cave.
Jackson was jubilant, though squinting, as if that would help.
It was a serviceable cave. Very old droppings of some animal, obviously abandoned, it was big enough for 2 people and then some. Sam dumped their remaining gear -- not much -- in the crevice to the back, and the two teammates huddled close together to wait the rain out.
Wet clothes. Stupid. Sam started skinning out of her uniform. Jackson followed suit. It was cold, but they needed to get dry. Not that near-naked was going to help much, it was just too humid to expect their clothes to dry out. But it might help some.
After a few hours, the rain tapered off and Sam began to think about a fire. Getting back into her uniform was a slimy proposition, but she did it anyways.
Scouting a bit up and down the river revealed no traces of their teammates. They could only hope Teal'c and the colonel had made it to the town. Meanwhile, they needed to get warm and dry, and make contact.
A fire was impossible until the wood Carter collected was less wet, so she and Daniel stayed huddled in their cave, watching the sunlight move across the trees. With dark came a pitifully thin flame, but Jackson kept it going on occassional bits of dry kindling found in the protected region they now dwelled in.
It was Daniel who brought up the welts on her back and legs. What scarring there was had been light, but the healing process wasn't complete. Maybe it never would be. Jackson was a smart man, and his questions skirted the truth quickly. Admitting what had happened was painful, and Sam was almost relieved when the doctor put two and two together, sparing her the words.
"Oh, my god. Oh, my god." Jackson would be pacing if the environment permitted it. Crouched in front of Carter. "Oh, my god." He took her face in his hands and studied her carefully, ignoring her initial flinch.
"Daniel." She tried to say it right, brushing his hair out of the space between their faces. "I'm...okay." The matter of the cave, its chill and humidity, seemed far distant.
"No, you're not. You're still there. You have to come out, Sam, all the way out." Then he kissed her, warm and desperate and gentle. It was a shock.
"I thought at first you were avoiding me." came this rush of whispered information. "But then I realized something had changed." Daniel looked like he was about to tick off salient points on his fingertips, then stopped himself. "Sam. I'm your friend." Her face was still trapped in his hands, and Carter realized suddenly how long
it had been since they'd touched. Good God, she hadn't even grabbed his hand when they'd jumped overboard.
The sudden burst of sadness was overwhelming and Sam felt her face grow warm. It was like realizing she was homesick. Homesick for her old self.
"I wish you'd told me sooner. I wish--" A thumb wiped away her tears, light callous scraping the flesh of Carter's cheek. "Oh, Sam." There were tears in his eyes. You should have told me, they said.
She said nothing. There was nothing to say.
"Samantha." His hands were so gentle, so warm. "It's all right. We'll make it all right." And they kissed, both trembling a little.
Making love with Daniel Jackson was like slipping into a comfortable old shoe -- a horrible simile that had them both giggling, much, much, later. But at the time, it was apt.
It had been a long time since he'd been with anyone, and a long time in a different way since Sam had let down her guard.
Friendly, compassionate, gentle. They explored one another. Daniel examined but did not linger over Sam's imagined flaws -- the scarring from her beating was not ugly and he told her so. Kissed her softly, looking for all the little unexpected places that could make her melt, and finding quite a few.
In return, Sam's own hands were exploring a well made male body, rather lean but not sculpted chest. Daniel's smell was unique, his eyes bright and loving. Her hand fit the curve of his buttock just perfectly.
Neither noticed when the sun came back out, being far too absorbed in other matters.
Sam knew she had re-found her center when she looked down at Daniel, the pair of them busily sweating, rider and ridden, and saw his happy grin matched her own.
Life was good.
"When you are joyous, look deep into your heart and you shall find it is only that which has given you sorrow that is giving you joy."
Khalil Gibran, The Prophet