The Garden's End

[marguerite_krux]

Rating: hmm, not sure. What's above PG? There's like, torture and stuff...
Genre: Action/adventure/drama/team...
Setting: Season 3, pre First Strike. Pre Sunday as well, since I see no point in that ep. 
Summary: Elizabeth is taken prisoner. She's in no mood to play damsel in distress.

Disclaimer: No infringement intended. Stargate Atlantis and its wonderful, though often underappreciated, characters are not mine. I could probably do a much better job managing it if I were in charge. But I'm not, just so we're all clear. XP

A/N: I believe that Elizabeth Weir is a strong, capable and resourceful woman. She just doesn’t get enough damn screen-time. So I wrote this fic, during the Celebrate Elizabeth month.

Dedicated to SMB-Books for motivating me to write again.

And thanks to Alternate Ego for the inspiration. 

The Garden’s End

Her lungs were burning. The humid air felt too thick to sustain her, clogging her throat before being expelled in her next pained breath. Her heart was thumping so violently that she thought it would leap right out of her chest. And her aching legs, protesting this unprecedented abuse, threatened to give out at any moment.

Overall status? Not the best she had ever been.

It was at times like this when she wished she had taken up jogging on Atlantis. John and Ronon did it all the time, swaggering through the halls afterwards with a healthy glow of exertion that only increased the number of appreciative female glances they already received. Damn poster boys for effortless running. They certainly didn’t suffer debilitating cramps or wheeze like they were on the verge of a heart attack. If she had only jogged more, she wouldn’t be in this sorry state.

Not that she would’ve gone with them, in the unlikely event that they had extended an offer. The boys needed their male bonding time, after all, without her intrusion. Besides, the embarrassment of holding them back would be too much- she couldn’t be considered diminutive, but trying to keep up with their long legs would be nothing short of impossible.

Ronon didn’t appreciate her company much, either. He always clammed up when she was around, though she didn’t take it personally. The Satedan had been on Atlantis for over a year and John and Teyla were the only people he socialized with, though he was also forced to put up with Rodney through necessity-

- a branch scored her cheek just then, dispersing her pensive thoughts in an instant, like the shock of a carelessly tossed stone that disrupted calm waters, and dragged her back to the present. Elizabeth told herself she needed to focus more and daydream less- the stakes were too high for anything else. Though it was so tempting to let her mind wander, to distract her from feeling the exhaustion of the run, to help her keep moving when all her body wanted was to collapse under the strain.

She wasn’t sure whether to curse or thank the Ancients for their tendency to plant the gate in forested planets. If this were a desert planet, she wouldn’t be risking a twisted ankle with every step, or ducking to avoid a tree limb from taking out her eyes. On the other hand, she would then be completely exposed out in the open, and her pursuers would have picked her off by then. At least this forest was hindering their progress as much as hers. And the raucous calls of the native birdlife helped conceal the sound of a woman running for her life.

A slender sinuous shape dangled directly in front of her, and she recoiled violently to the side, thinking it was a snake. The sudden fright caused her heart to lurch, before it was replaced with the urge to laugh at herself once she realized it was a harmless tree vine. Her steps slowed involuntarily, as the automatic impulse to put one foot in front of the other was interrupted by this shock, and Elizabeth at last came to a shuddering stop. Her body didn’t get the message at first, and her chest still heaved at such a pace that it seemed she was going to be sick. For a moment, her vision swam, and she reached out blindly to the nearest tree, sliding down to huddle at its base. Its sturdy large roots were exposed above the soil on either side of her, giving the comforting illusion that she was peering out from inside the tree itself, tucked away from danger.

Slowly, her erratic breathing pace came under her control once more, smooth and steady, and the air no longer seemed like viscous jelly blocking her airways. Elizabeth rested her head against the rough bark of the tree, gazing up at the forest canopy, trying to regain her composure and organize her thoughts.

She didn’t have a plan. The only thing she could do was what she had been doing so far. Running blindly, hoping and praying. The location of the gate was more of a fuzzy general sense in her mind than a certainty. Elizabeth couldn’t afford to believe that she was lost, too much depended on her making it back to Atlantis.

The women who had helped her escape were still prisoners of the man who had caged them like exotic creatures in a zoo, exhibits for his pleasure. Elizabeth looked down with distaste at the remnants of the gown he had picked out for her to wear. Red, he decided, was not her color. Probably because he had seen it was her preferred choice, and he had to erase what he could of her individuality. Instead, she had been clothed in a delicate sapphire gown, complete with yards of impractical sheer material draping off one shoulder down to the ground. Elizabeth had ripped it off so that the material wouldn’t catch onto the branches and leave a trail for anyone to follow, but as a result, her arms were bare and exposed, and now that she was at rest, she began to notice a few stinging scratches from her flight through the forest. Thank goodness there didn’t seem to be any mosquitoes on this planet, because the combination of low cut dress plus biting insects would have made this all the more frustrating than it already was.

Elizabeth reached up to her throat, fingers tracing the beaded choker she wore. She had tried to remove it and failed, realizing that when she tugged, it simply grew tighter around her neck. An obedience collar used to bring new women into line…now around her throat.

Telling herself to forget her disgust at the man’s depravity, she reminded herself that she had been lucky to escape before he had been able to break her.

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