Early morning in 239/240 [NFB]

[notcalledlizzie]

Elizabeth is muttering in her sleep, obviously distressed.


i ni ce. Ne tε se bamanankan na kosεbε

"Vous ne pouvez pas voir qu'ils meurent? Vous les tuez"

Visions of starving children, being worked to death flash before her eyes. Their eyes are empty and lifeless as they look up at her, begging for her to do something. The children have been beaten, and the repatriation of just one child makes her tear up.

A man kene. Elle est malade. Elle a le paludisme

She's watching a little girl sleep fitfully in the throes of fever, whilst the foreman of the plantation stands there.

Suddenly his eyes glow, and she backs against the wall.

"Stay away from me."

He smiles, and she realizes that they're no longer in a hut in West Africa; instead, she's back on Atlantis.

"I have no need for you, Doctor Weir. Doctor Fraiser, however, will make an excellent queen," the Goa'uld says, his voice booming. "I am most confident she will be able to keep my slaves in line."

"No..."

She tries to move, but can't. She feels another presence behind her, and turns to see Charlie. A Charlie mutated by the Wraith bug. He picks her up by the throat, and she's choking.

"It's better for Atlantis this way," he says, almost sneering.


Elizabeth wakes up screaming.


[ooc: Mali's official language is French. The other language used is Bambara.

Comments

[carter-i-am.livejournal.com]

Sam wakes up, startled by the screaming, and automatically looks for her gun. Then she remembers where she is and runs over to Liz. "Elizabeth, honey?"

[notcalledlizzie.livejournal.com]

Elizabeth grabs blindly at Sam, shaking.

[carter-i-am.livejournal.com]

Sam hugs her back, whispering and murmuring. "Just a nightmare. That's it all was."

[notcalledlizzie.livejournal.com]

She nods, her eyes screwed shut.

[carter-i-am.livejournal.com]

"You're here, you're safe. Everyone else is safe."

She mentally damns the Ethics professor to hell for doing this to Liz.

[notcalledlizzie.livejournal.com]

"They're not all safe; we might be safe, but we're the lucky ones."

[carter-i-am.livejournal.com]

Sam is torn. She doesn't want to lie to Liz, but this really isn't the time to get into an academic discussion. "Yes, we are," she says, holding Liz tighter.

[notcalledlizzie.livejournal.com]

She shudders in Sam's arms. "They're dying. On Earth, out there. It doesn't matter."

[carter-i-am.livejournal.com]

"Ssh...and it does matter."

[janet_fraiser]

"It does," said Janet firmly, agreeing with Sam. She was really glad they'd all agreed to sleep in the same place tonight.

[notcalledlizzie.livejournal.com]

"Nothing we do makes a damn difference."

[janet_fraiser]

"Liz?" exclaims Janet. She sees Sam and nods at her. "Liz, are you all right?"

[notcalledlizzie.livejournal.com]

"Nightmare," she whispers. "Damn nightmares."

[janet_fraiser]

She hurries over and hugs Liz too. "Oh, hon, I'm so sorry."

[notcalledlizzie.livejournal.com]

Liz clings to Janet tightly.

[janet_fraiser]

"Do you want to talk about it," says Janet gently, rubbing Liz's back. "What happened in the nightmare?"

[notcalledlizzie.livejournal.com]

"I was in Mali at first. The children... I couldn't help them Janet. They were dying, and they just didn't give a damn. It was cheaper for them to just go and buy more."

She shudders.

"When I was out there, I met a girl called Abi. She got malaria, and nothing would work on her. She died in my arms."

[janet_fraiser]

"Oh, Liz," says Janet, her voice sympathetic and understanding. She expected the Goa'uld to be inhumanly cruel. When she heard about humans treating each other this way, it was infinitely worse. "Oh, sweetie, I'm so sorry. I know you did everything you could." She hugged Liz more tightly.

She was really beginning to hate that Ethics teacher.

[notcalledlizzie.livejournal.com]

"I try not to think about her," she confesses. "Does that make me a bad person? The fact that I can't deal with seeing something that people over there have to live with?"

[carter-i-am.livejournal.com]

"You're not a bad person, Liz." Sam pulls her closer. "If you thought about every bad thing you've seen all the time, you couldn't function to tie your shoes, let alone to do the things that the world needs you to be doing."

[notcalledlizzie.livejournal.com]

"She was only eight years old."

[janet_fraiser]

"No," says Janet. "It doesn't make you a bad person. Having someone die in your arms--" She pauses. "It hurts. It hurts like hell when you can't save someone, but you had to move on. And it's okay to be emotional. No one can lock everything under a tough exerior all the time." They should have all learned that one by now. "You got blindsided pretty strongly in Ethics yesterday. Why should you be able to deal with that?"

[carter-i-am.livejournal.com]

Sam looks up at Janet and mouths, "Now what?" She deals okay with her own nightmares, but she doesn't know how to talk other people down from theirs.

[janet_fraiser]

Cassie'd had nightmares for weeks after Janet had brought her home. Sometimes just a hug and soothing reassurances helped, sometimes she needed to talk about what she'd dreamed--and sometimes, they stayed awake the rest of the night with a small lamp on, talking about anything and everything else.

"Be here for her," mouthed Janet, looking rueful.

[carter-i-am.livejournal.com]

Sam nodded. She could do that. She'd often been awakened by her teammates (especially Daniel right after Sha're and Jack right after Ba'al), but because they were manly macho type men, she hadn't felt right comforting them.

For them, ignoring them was generally the best policy.