Title: Locker Room Honesty
Fandom: CSI/Stargate SG1
Pairing: Sara Sidle/Cameron Mitchell
Rating: PG
Word Count: 1,972
Prompt: 16 Purple
Notes:
Black eyes aren’t actually black.
Cameron’s managed to forget that recently; however, he’s now faced with undeniable evidence that a black eye is actually purple in colour. Not a nice, vivid, almost regal shade of purple either, but a horrible, mottled, patchy, reddish-brownish shade of purple that makes him wince to even glance at it.
That’s what he blames it on at least; tries to tell himself that it’s remembered pain from the last shiner he had inflicted on him that has him wincing, or a teeny bit of there-but-for-the-grace-of-God induced shame. He’s lying to himself though; because that’s not what makes him wince.
What makes him wince, what makes him sick to his stomach, is that the black eye isn’t his.
It’s Sara’s.
It’s Sara’s, and it could have been a whole hell of a lot worse.
She’s told him, Teal’c has told him,
That is, if it’s not replaced by the image that’s before him now: Sara, standing in the locker room, in front of the mirror, staring into it with a look on her face that Cameron can’t even begin to describe. Transfixed should cover it, because she’s evidently lost in thought; she didn’t reply to his queries from the other side of the door, didn’t react when he pushed the door open, stepping in and closing it behind him when he saw that she was the only person in the room. There’s more to it than that though, some kind of distance, abstraction, like she’s not really there, like she’s not seeing herself in the mirror, but rather something that only she can see.
“Sara?” He speaks quietly, but the word is like a gunshot in the otherwise silent room, and she jumps, spinning to face him.
“Cameron.” One hand is at her side, the other over her chest, and she glances over his shoulder at the closed door. She swallows hard, and he knows, with a sudden flash of insight, exactly what she’s thinking – that there’s one way out of this room, and right now, he’s standing between her and it. “This is the ladies’ locker room,” she tells him, and he nods, pretending not to notice how she’s flattened herself against the wall.
“I know,” he says, taking a step towards her, careful to keep his voice light. “But I happen to look dynamite in stockings and suspenders.” When she doesn’t turn around, doesn’t even crack a smile, he knows that something is terribly, terribly wrong. “I was looking for you.” A pause, another step, and she takes half a sliding step away from him, back still pressed to the wall. “I was worried about you.”
“I’m fine.” But the levity in her voice doesn’t come close to ringing true, and her forced smile is nothing short of ghastly.
“You sure?” He takes another step towards her, reaches the bench in the middle of the floor and stops there. “Because that was one hell of a knock you took… and Doctor Lam says…”
“It’s a black eye
He lifts one eyebrow. “Yeah?”
She nods. “Yeah.”
“So why won’t you come near me?”
She swallows hard again, eyes darting all around the room, as if searching for some means of escape. “I don’t know what you mean,” she says, crossing her arms over her chest, and he tilts his head, shrugs his shoulders.
“OK then,” he says, and he steps over the bench, one hand extended towards her. He knows that he’s crossing a line, in more ways than one, but he’s been worried about her ever since she woke up in Medlab, telling everyone who could hear her that she was fine, all the while with a look in her eyes that resembled a cornered animal. She walked out the second she was physically able, far sooner than Doctor Lam would have liked, but she didn’t say a word during the mission debriefing, and she’s been studiously ignoring Cameron ever since. It baffles him, and since he’s not a man who does patience well, he wants to get to the bottom of it.
He’s a stubborn man, but Sara’s just as stubborn as he is, and she stands her ground, even as she’s got that uncertain look in her eyes. He’s prepared for that, but what he’s not prepared for is what happens when he’s just in arm’s reach of her, when just another inch or two would allow his fingertips to brush her shoulder.
That’s when she whirls away from him, tears in her eyes and gasps, “No!”
Terror is written all over her face, screaming from every muscle in her body, and he stops in his tracks, holds his hands up in dismay. She’s literally shaking, body trembling from head to foot, and he doesn’t know what to say. “Sara-”
Her eyes locked on his, she shakes her head as tears course down her face. “Please…” she whispers. “Please… don’t touch me…”
“OK…” He keeps his hands held up high, taking another step towards her, trying not to notice how she steps away from him, until her back hits the other wall and there’s nowhere else to go. “OK… I’m not going to touch you Sara, I’m not going to touch…” She wraps her arms around herself, sobbing quietly now, and she slides down the wall, so that she’s sitting on the floor, looking like nothing so much as a little girl lost.
He’s feeling pretty lost himself, because he’s never seen Sara like this before. The Sara that the SGC sees every day is strong, feisty, a capable and brilliant scientist. He’s only ever seen her let her guard down on occasion, and even then, only in front of him, like the first time she went to step through the Stargate, the first time they sat around a campfire together off world. He’s never seen her cry though, and he’s certainly never seen her fall apart like this.
Not knowing what to do, he simply drops to his knees, crawls over near her; near her, but leaving more distance than he’d like between them. He doesn’t want to alarm her, doesn’t want to cause her any more pain, but he does want to let her know that he’s here for her, that she doesn’t need to be afraid of him. That he can wait until she’s ready.
It seems like a long time before she lifts her head again, wipes the tears from her eyes, resolutely refusing to look at him. “I’m not gonna touch you Sara…” he tells her quietly. “Not gonna make you talk, not if you don’t want to… but you know, don’t you… that I’d never let anything happen to you?” Sara, as she keeps reminding him, is a scientist, not a soldier, and she’s not used to being in danger, not used to being hurt, not like the rest of the team. He’d told her once that the last place he wanted her was on the front lines of any field mission, and recent events show why, but he’d put himself between her and danger in a heartbeat, and he wants her to know that.
She nods, sniffles loudly, and wipes her nose with the back of her hand, still not looking at him. “Where were you when I was growing up?” she mutters, more to herself than to him, and he looks at her sharply when he realises what she’s said. It’s only the second time she’s alluded to her childhood around him, and those two references speak volumes.
“Growing up?” he asks, narrowing his eyes. “Sara…”
“You know that saying… all unhappy families are unhappy in their own way?”
He nods. “Tolstoy…Anna Karenina.”
“My family… were unhappy.” She swallows. “And our way… was not even close to anywhere near the usual way.” A shiver runs through her body, and she pulls her knees up to her chin, wraps her legs around them so tightly that her knuckles turn white. “My father… used to drink. A lot. And when he drank, he would get violent. Not with me… never with me. But my mother… he would drink, and get loud and ugly and throw things… but those were the good times. The other times… he would get dark… and quiet… and the whole house would be tense, just waiting to for him to explode. There were times… there were times when my mother would goad him, just to get it over with.”
She takes a deep breath, lets her head fall back against the locker behind her. “I thought it was normal… I thought everyone’s family was like that. I didn’t find out they weren’t until I was thirteen.”
She stops talking then, and Cameron’s suddenly aware that he’s holding his breath. “What happened when you were thirteen?” he asks, not altogether sure he wants to know the answer.
Sara’s head turns towards him, and the look in her eyes is darker and more terrible than anything he’s ever seen, and he thinks he’s including the Priors of the Ori in that. “My mother stabbed my father,” she says simply, and his jaw drops. Her head does likewise, and he can see her withdraw further into herself.
“I didn’t know…” he manages, and she laughs quietly, bitterly.
“No-one knows,” she tells him. “I went into foster care… I can still see the face of the woman who came to get me… I can remember the blood on the walls… the smell of it…” She shudders. “I’ve never been able to stand the smell of copper ever since. My mother pleaded guilty… got a life sentence… and I’ve never seen her since. I went to school… went to college… and here I am… travelling to other planets for a living.”
“And the violence today reminded you of your childhood,” he surmises, glad that he’s worked it out, but not feeling as triumphant as he’d thought he would on the day when he finally found out what was beneath Sara’s suit of armour.
So he’s surprised when she says, “No.” His eyes narrow in question, and she elaborates, saying, “When I looked into the mirror… and saw my face, with…” She motions to her eye. “For a moment… I didn’t see me.”
Her voice breaks, and he’s no scientist, no genius, but he doesn’t have to be. “You saw your mom,” he says, and she nods, breaking down in tears again. This time, he can’t help himself, reaches out to her and pulls her into his arms. She resists for a moment, but only for a moment, and then she melts bonelessly into his arms, holding onto him tightly and sobbing into his shoulder.
“It’s ok…” he whispers, stroking a hand over the back of her head, letting his fingers tangle in her hair. “It’s ok… it’s gonna be all right…”
He’s not so sure he believes it himself, but he’s going to do his damnedest to make it true.