DISCLAIMER: The story, and characters and anything and everything
else concerning SG: SG1 belong to MGM, Gekko, Secret Productions
etc, they are so not mine and no money is being made from this and
no copyright infringement is intended.
SPOILERS: Gemini (Season 8) and all episodes dealing with human form
replicators.
SERIES/SEQUEL: Companion piece to Contradiction.
ARCHIVING: Only with the permission of the author
Negatives
By Celievamp
I want to protect her and I don't know why. She came here to die after all, to warn us about Fifth's ambitions and to put an end to an existence that she hated. She would not, could not, go back to him. He had tortured her, attempted to condition her, to control her, what she did, how she thought, what she felt, what she remembered. I remembered. We remembered. It was my fault.
All I get from her is negatives. Negative thoughts. Negative emotions. Negative reactions. She is not me. Replicators are not to be trusted. She is not human.
Yet I want to protect her. The others just want to see her dead. Teal'c watches her closely. He will not hesitate. She's not real, after all. She's a Replicator. He watches me as well. I know how sensitive he is to the emotional states of others. He can sense my ambivalence, the pity I feel for this creature, the urge to protect her.
Janet would have understood. I remember how she was when the critically injured Apophis sought sanctuary with us. She would have given her own life to protect him at that moment because he was her patient. She would have protected this one as well and not just because she wears my face proclaims my nature.
"I understand you more than you know, Sam. I don't just have your memories, I have your thought patterns."
I wonder if Fifth gave her my memories of Janet, of the time we had together. I wonder if she misses her as much as I do. She claims to feel pain. Does it still burn inside when she thinks of her.
I remember when I was his prisoner. Fifth went over my memories of Janet over and over again as if he did not quite understand what he was seeing. Maybe it was too subtle for him to appreciate, even in close focus. Perhaps he did not want to understand. All he knew was that it was hurting me. It would mean the end of any hope he had that I might come to love him after all.
When he tortured me the only memories of Janet that he used against me were seeing her go down after being shot during Hathor's incursion, of the alien that took her place, her face in the foothold incident, of her dying on P3X666. He left me in that moment for what felt like forever. I did what I couldn't do at the time, I screamed at the pain of it until my throat was raw and there were no more tears.
We haven't talked about that. She said that he was selective in what memories he gave her. And he intended that she love only him. So maybe he kept those memories from her. Or maybe he let her experience them all and then showed her Janet's death. He showed her that her love was dead and her only chance for love again was him.
Like he pretended that Pete Shannahan was my only chance at love so that he could `play' him in the illusions he cast me into.
I taught Fifth betrayal. But I had learnt the lesson myself long before. I betrayed myself when I allowed Pete to think I was in love with him. I betrayed Janet and everything we had ever had by falling into his arms. I betrayed the love of my life. I betrayed a good and honest man.
She swears she is not working for Fifth. And I believe her. But there has to be more. Fifth learnt betrayal from me. And she learnt it from him.
Why do I get the feeling this has just come full circle?
The End