She can feel the cold from across the room. Snow is cold and ice is even colder but nothing’s quite as cold as this.

Something drips off her arm, landing with a soft plink. She looks down, watching another drop of colorless liquid meander across her arm before making the sudden plunge off her elbow.

It’s strange to be sweating when she’s so very cold. The cell used to be hot. She remembers breathing air so torrid it tasted like steam. She remembers praying for a drink of water.

That was forever ago. Now, she’s always cold.

She hasn’t looked at him in hours; she doesn’t need to. She clearly remembers what she saw the last time she looked — anger and pain and betrayal and ... oh God, compassion. It’s the compassion that breaks her heart. She wants him to scream at her, hurt her, beat her to a lifeless pulp.

She wants him to hate her. She wants him to forgive her. She wants him to go back and change what can never be changed.

This must be how Judas felt when he flung the cold, cold silver and screamed at the sky.

“I’m sorry,” she says. “Sorry sorry sorry sorry sorry.”

She hasn’t been coherent for a while. It’s a skill that eludes her fractured mind. Mostly she just babbles, endless bits and pieces of emotions and half-framed thoughts. Talking makes her feel better until she remembers that she’s insane. Then she just feels sad.

She chances a look at him. He’s sitting with his back to her, knees drawn up to his chest, every muscle impossibly still. His silence is very cold. She can feel it from across the room.

“I’m sorry sorry sorry,” she says. “I betrayed and I told where you were hiding and I killed you and I’m sorry.”

He never moves. Blood pools on the floor beneath him, congealing in syrupy pools. The sickly sweet smell fills the air. He’s dead and his skin is so cold she can feel it from across the room.

A long time ago, he took her shoulders and shook her and said “It’s not your fault! Janet, snap out of it!” He looked at her with brown compassionate eyes. “We’ll get out of here. I promise.”

That was forever ago, before they came in and hurt him so much and hurt him until he bled and bled and his breath rattled in his lungs.

He turned his back to her and curled up so she wouldn’t have to see him die. She didn’t deserve the final act of mercy. She deserved to see him die. She deserved to die in his place.

She betrayed him.

Not just him ... she betrayed them all, but he was the only one she had to watch die.

Judas, a voice whispers in her mind. Judas.

“Go away,” she says. “Go ... away!”

Someone touches her arm. Gentle voices call her name and hands gently lift her to a standing position. Her feet are slick with his blood. She’s standing in a pool of it.

She tries to pull free. “No!” She says. “Nononononono! Go away!”

“Janet, please. You have to come with us. We’re going to get you out of here.”

“No!”

“It’s okay. We’re your friends.”

“I won’t!” She says brokenly, even as they half-carry, half-drag her from the cell. “I won’t!”

She looks back at him one last time. He’s very still and his clothes are soaked with blood. She knows he isn’t really there. It doesn’t matter.

The guards took him away a long time ago, but she still sees him there. She’s pretty sure she always will.

The people who claim to be her friends take her away. They look like Daniel and Sam and Teal’c, but she knows they can’t be, because Daniel and Sam and Teal’c are dead. She killed them, just like she killed him.

They pull her through musty hallways and out into open sunlight, but she’s still back in the cell. She’ll never really leave.

Her captors made her betray him, but no one will ever make her leave him.

“I’m sorry,” she says as the rings descend to take them to safety. “I killed him and I’m sorry.”

Hours later, they put her in a gray room and wrap blankets around her and say meaningless things in soothing voices. They don’t understand why she keeps staring at the empty corner.

He sits with his back to her, knees drawn up to his chest, every muscle impossibly still.

She can feel the cold from across the galaxy.