by Stargate
Daniel felt a deluge of relief. No more murdered villagers? Oh, thank God! But the relief soured swiftly, curdling in his gut as he realized what that meant.
Jack was being used as bait.
No, no, no. He couldn’t let this happen, he had to stop the torture before it started. They’d figure a way out of it later, together, they always did. But he couldn’t just stand here and watch Anatapas do… whatever it was he planned to do. He couldn’t.
But then he thought: Wait. Think. What does Jack want you to do?
Still as any statue he stared hard, trying to see if Jack was giving him a signal, any indication, the slightest hint of how he should handle this.
And there it was. Written plain in Jack’s fiercely obdurate face, as though with pen and ink.
Keep your damned mouth shut, Daniel. Don’t you say a word.
Well… crap.
“Anatapas, are you listening?” Jack demanded. “I’m on my own. Your Jaffa screwed up, they let the rest of my team escape back on Yu’s farm.”
Anatapas considered him. “You said you hadn’t seen them for weeks.”
“I lied. I’m sorry. It’s a bad habit, I know.”
“You lied then… you’re lying now,” Anatapas replied, disdainful.
“I’m not,” Jack insisted. “The rest of SG-1 got away on a cloaked tel’tac. Cross my heart and hope to—Scout’s honor. Your Jaffa missed them. I’m alone.”
Anatapas smiled and raised his hand, fingers opening like the petals of a rose. The crystals in his gold fingertips flared into life, crimson as the silk edgings on his robe.
“We shall see.”
He flexed his golden fingers, stepped down from the dais and pointed at Jack’s right shoulder. His eyes narrowed. His expression… focused. And fire leapt from his hand-device to sear Jack’s unprotected flesh.
Jack strangled a shout of pain. Now the moist air smelled of charring. Anatapas burned him again and again. Left shoulder. Right thigh. Right forearm. Right chest. Jack was swaying. Sweat poured down his face. Daniel looked away; his belly was empty and still it tried to heave.
Anatapas stopped. “I can burn him and burn him and he will not die,” he said, sweeping the slaves with a molten gaze. “He will only suffer. You can stop it, humans of the Tauri. Come to me. Save your friend.”
Keep your damned mouth shut, Daniel. Don’t you say a word.
“Tauri, I lose my patience!” said Anatapas, and his eyes flashed hotter than the sun. “This is but a taste of what I will inflict!”
And he burned Jack directly over his heart. Jack screamed once then collapsed face-first on the ground.
To hell with orders. Daniel leapt forward. “Stop!” he shouted, waving his arms. “Anatapas, stop. It’s me you want! Stop hurting him. It’s me!”
Chapter Eighteen
In between the fortress courtyard and their new, private prison cell, Jack remained passed out. On the whole, Daniel wasn’t sorry. Not only because unconsciousness gave Jack some respite but because it postponed what surely promised to be a pyrotechnical encounter between them.
I don’t care. I don’t care. I - don’t - care. All he can do is yell. I’m used to him yelling. And anyway I practically saved his life out there. He should be damned well grateful. Maybe for once I’ll yell back…
There were no amenities in the stone room they were left in by Va’ton and his Jaffa subordinates. No benches. No blankets. No pillows. Typical Goa’uld hospitality. There was, however, a big messy dried bloodstain on the prison cell floor.
He wasn’t going to think about that.
He took off his shirt, bundled it up, and put it beneath Jack’s lolling head. It wasn’t much but it was better than nothing. God, he was hungry. Light-headed. More than a little shaky. The cut on his hand had long since stopped dribbling but it still hurt. He was reasonably sure it was infected. Which was nothing compared to the trouble they were in. Standard O’Neill reply: Don’t worry, Daniel. We’ve been in worse.
Okay. Maybe. Once. Sitting in a corridor covered in blood, having just been shot to bits by a Jaffa staff weapon, on a mother ship rigged to the rafters with C4, knowing his wound would probably kill him first, knowing Jack and Sam and Teal’c were going to die soon, too.
He’d survived that one. So had they. But even cats only got nine lives and he wasn’t a cat. How many times could he tap-dance on the brink of death before that final, fatal plunge?
Please God. Let us be rescued soon.
Jack liked to say, There is always, always a Plan B.
“Not this time,” he told his friend. “This time, Jack, it’s a miracle… or nothing.”
Jack didn’t stir. His bitten lip was swollen and his burns looked wicked. It was good they were painful, though. That meant they were only second-degree. Not, thank God, third. Third-degree burns destroyed the nerve-endings. They didn’t hurt, they just killed.
On the other hand… second-degree burns could be dangerous too, if enough of the skin surface was destroyed. More than ten percent total destruction meant Really Big Trouble. Massive fluid loss. Hypovolemic shock. Kidney failure. Heart failure. Death.
How much skin surface had Jack actually lost? Daniel couldn’t be sure. Anatapas had burned Jack five—no, six—times. From what he could see, each burn was about two inches in diameter. Two times six was twelve inches. Was that less than ten percent total?
God. He’d always been hopeless at math.
Jack didn’t look shocky. He wasn’t leaking blood or tissue fluids all over the floor. Probably he was okay. Probably he’d stay okay until they got back to the SGC infirmary.
If they got back to the SGC infirmary.
Stop it. He’ll rip you a new one if he catches you thinking like that.
He let his head fall back against the cold stone wall with a muffled thud. Look on the bright side, Dr. Jackson. At least you’re still in one piece. Now that he’s had his fun barbecuing Jack, Anatapas is leaving you alone.
Probably because Heru’ur wants the pleasure of dismembering us himself.
Heru’ur. One system lord who remained a mystery. They’d never had much to do with him. Although there was that time Jack put a commando knife through his hand…
I wonder if he holds a grudge?
Yeah. Right.
God, he was tired. Weary to the marrow of his bones. But he shouldn’t sleep. Jack might come to at any moment. He shouldn’t sleep. At least not deeply. Maybe a fast five minute snooze…
He jerked awake to the sound of Jack, muttering. About nothing pleasant, if his expression was any guide. “No—don’t. I wouldn’t follow us if I were you.” Something else, an inaudible mumble. Jack’s head rolled on the makeshift pillow. “Don’t follow. Don’t. Bastard Nazi wannabes…”
He was dreaming of Alar, his face an unguarded mirror reflecting every thought, every feeling, every knot of unresolved turmoil and guilt that he’d never, not once, shown the world while waking.
It was disturbing. Indecent.
“I wouldn’t follow us if I were you.”
Jack was getting more agitated. Daniel frowned. Should he try to wake him? That could be dangerous, couldn’t it? Or was that sleepwalking? He couldn’t remember, his brain had turned to cottage cheese. He was dangerously tired.
“Close the iris. Close the iris. Alar, you bastard, why did you make me?”
Jack’s eyes flew open and he tried to sit up. For one single, horrible instant it was clear he didn’t know where he was or what had happened.
Daniel reached towards him. “Jack, it’s all right. You were dreaming. Lie still. You’re hurt.”
Slowly, slowly, the frozen expression on Jack’s face thawed. He swallowed a groan. Lowered himself by inches back to the flagstone floor. “Daniel.”
“Yeah.” He pulled back his outstretched hand. “Are you okay?”
“I’ll live,” Jack grunted.
“Was Sam in the same cage as you?”
“No. Jacob got her out in the te
l’tac.”
“Thank God for that. Boaz? Mikah?”
“I don’t know.”
“Damn. They weren’t in my cage. Jack—”
Jack closed his eyes. “Don’t speak to me, Daniel. Don’t even look at me. I could beat you to a bloody pulp.”
Daniel let out a sigh. “Jack, I had no choice. If Anatapas had lost his temper he easily might’ve killed you.”
“He wouldn’t have killed me. You can’t get information from a dead man. He was just using me to get to you and look! It worked!”
“Jack—”
Groaning aloud this time, Jack rolled over and made himself sit up. “Don’t you get it, you moron? I was keeping my trap shut so you wouldn’t end up in here with me!”
Daniel stared at him. “You expected me to let Anatapas keep on torturing you?”
“Yes!”
“For how long?”
“For as long as it took, Daniel! For whatever reason, the snake stopped killing people. If you’d just held your nerve he would’ve given up on me in the end, he would’ve bought my story that you escaped during the raid. You’d’ve been safe. But you blew a hole in that plan, didn’t you? Same old Daniel, cherry-picking orders. When are you going to learn?”
“That’s bull, Jack! You never ordered me not to—”
“You knew what I wanted,” Jack retorted, vicious with anger. “Don’t pretend you didn’t know.”
Daniel pressed his hands to his face, subduing the urge to lash out. He’s scared, he’s hurt, he’s having bad dreams. Cut him some slack… cut him some slack… He lowered his hands. “Okay. Fine. So that means—and correct me if I’m wrong—that if, God forbid, Anatapas walks through that door and starts hurting you again to make me talk… you want me to let him.”
Breathing harshly, Jack eased himself backwards and slumped against the nearest bit of wall. “Want it?” he said, his voice straitjacketed with pain. “No. But does it have to be that way? Yeah, Daniel. It does.”
He was serious. Was this insanity or the kind of courage that, in the end, defined him? Daniel didn’t know. Wasn’t even sure it mattered. It was just… Jack. All of it. The temper, the intolerance, the unpremeditated willingness to risk his life again and again, no matter the cost.
Jack nudged the bundled shirt with his foot. “This yours? Put it back on. No point both of us catching a cold.”
“What happened to your shirt?”
“I lost it. What happened to your hand?”
“I cut it,” said Daniel, retrieving his shirt. “It’s nothing. Practically a scratch.” A nasty thought pricked him as he pulled his shirt over his head. There was no such thing as a single-sided coin…
“Ah… Jack?”
“Daniel?”
“If the shoe ends up on the other foot. If Anatapas uses me to make you talk…”
Jack looked at him, unspeaking. His eyes were inexpressibly tired. Shadowed with nightmares both waking and not. Echoes of a thousand cruel impossible decisions taken, and lived with, every minute of every day.
His heart thudded hard. “Oh,” he said faintly. “I see.” Then: “You’d really—”
“Yes, Daniel. If I had to. If there was no other way and it came down to one life, or millions? Yes. Now do you get why I wanted you to keep your big mouth shut?”
“I’m sorry,” he said, after a moment. “I couldn’t. I thought—”
“No, you didn’t! Unless the question involves hieroglyphics, pyramids, ziggurats, cuneiform or alien kewpie dolls, you never do!”
Stung, he said, “Well, the point’s moot now, isn’t it? So let’s focus on what we do next. I assume you’ve got a plan.”
“The plan,” Jack said, enunciating with care, “is to sit tight until Carter brings in the cavalry. Ordinarily I’d say escape, then sit tight, but I don’t think we’re getting out of here without outside assistance.”
God, he wanted to believe that so badly. But… “Jack, we don’t even know Sam’s still alive.”
Jack jabbed a pointed finger at him. “We don’t know she isn’t! Daniel, don’t you start with me. We are getting out of this! Without giving up information to the Goa’uld.”
“You don’t know that either.”
“You know my motto, Daniel. Never say die.”
Daniel punched his knees. “Jack—look—I know you’ve survived some amazing disasters. We’ve both survived some amazing disasters. But sooner or later the luck runs out.”
“Maybe,” said Jack, scowling. “One day. But not today. Not this time. Are you listening, Daniel? Not this time.”
And maybe that was Jack’s secret. Accepting that one day the rabbit wouldn’t come out of the hat… but doggedly believing it wasn’t today. Doing whatever it took to make sure that it wasn’t today.
Daniel relaxed his fists and rubbed his burning eyes. Took a little time to breathe, just breathe, and rediscover his mental balance. Remembered his thoughts of regret on the al-kesh and decided it was now or never. “I’m sorry.”
Jack snorted. “So you should be.”
“I don’t mean about this,” he said sharply. “I don’t care what you say, I’m not sorry I stopped Anatapas hurting you. I meant I’m sorry about Euronda. The way I handled things. You were right, back in Boaz’s house. I shouldn’t have contradicted you in public. I should’ve voiced my concerns privately. I just wanted to tell you that. You know. In case.”
Jack looked away. “It’s okay. It doesn’t matter.”
“If it didn’t matter, Jack, you never would’ve mentioned it. Getting you to discuss anything personal is like pulling teeth with blunt tweezers.”
“You say that like it’s a bad thing,” said Jack. Incredibly, he was almost smiling.
“I’m serious!”
Jack nodded. “I know.” An awkward pause, then: “Thanks.”
“I’ll try harder in the future. I promise.”
“In the future,” said Jack, his tone wryly mocking, “you’ll do exactly what you did before. What you always do. Follow your conscience and to hell with the consequences.”
“You say that like it’s a bad thing.”
A long silence, then: “It’s not,” said Jack. “I suppose. But it can be damned inconvenient at times.” His head rolled against the wall, his breathing harshening to a near-groan.
“Jack?”
“I’m fine.”
Except he clearly wasn’t. He was in pain and he stank of burnt flesh. “You need to rest.”
“I would, if you’d shut up for five seconds,” Jack retorted. But not unkindly. More resigned. Almost with affection.
Daniel raised his hands. “Right. Sorry.”
“Fine.”
“Just one more thing…”
“What?”
“When Sam and Teal’c come to the rescue can we take Yu’s slaves home with us?”
“Oh dear God,” Jack muttered. “Daniel…”
“I know what you said! I know what I agreed to!” he said quickly. “But—”
“No, Daniel. And don’t ask me again.”
It was the answer he’d expected. He even understood Jack’s reasoning. But it still hurt. Sallah…
Silence fell, and filled with unspoken regrets.
After a little while Daniel stirred, because the trouble
with silence was it gave the brain time to think. To ponder. To imagine the unimaginable…
“Jack… ”
Jack’s head was in his hands. His shoulders were slumped, the closest he ever came to looking defeated. “Daniel?”
“Sorry. Um. Can I ask you something else?”
Jack sighed. “You know what they say. You can ask.”
“No. Seriously.”
Jack looked up. “What?”
Daniel moistened his suddenly dry lips. “Okay. So. You’ve been in prison before. In Iraq.”
Jack’s eyes narrowed, very slightly. “Yeah.”
“And the Iraqis tortured you.”
“Your point
, Daniel?”
“My point, Jack, is I’m an archaeologist, not a Special Forces commando,” he said, rattled. “We didn’t study this stuff at university, you know.”
“What stuff?”
“You know what stuff! How to deal with being tortured by ruthless enemies who’ll use the most vicious brutal methods they can think of to get the information you have and they want!” He could hear his pitch escalating and didn’t care. “So you have to teach me. Now. Before Anatapas comes in here with his hand-device and starts toasting my toes for the ’gate address to Earth!”
“Daniel, relax,” said Jack. “Antipasto won’t—”
“Anatapas.”
“What?”
“His name. It’s not Antipasto. It’s Anatapas.”
Jack rolled his eyes. “Like I care. This Goa’uld—”
“It could happen,” Daniel insisted. “I want to be prepared!”
“Let me get this straight,” said Jack, and rubbed a hand across his face. “You want me to teach you, right now, how not to break under torture.”
“Yes. Please.”
Jack snapped his fingers. “Damn.”
“What?”
“I left my copy of ‘Resisting Interrogation for Dummies’ in the car.”
“Jack…” Daniel leaned over and grabbed his friend’s wrist. “I’m scared. We’ve fought the Goa’uld, we’ve killed the Goa’uld, and they’ve given us quite a few bumps and bruises along the way. I can deal with that.” He took a deep breath and let it out. “I can’t deal with this. I don’t know how. And please, don’t try to fob me off by telling me we’re going to be rescued. Maybe we will. Maybe we won’t. And maybe they’ll get here five minutes too late.”
Gradually, the impatience and mockery faded from Jack’s face. When he discarded that particular mask he became… the warrior. The no crap, no fooling, nobody get in my freaking way guy who’d saved SG-1 more times than anyone could count.
“Okay.”
Daniel let go of his wrist, and waited.
“The mistake people make about pain,” Jack said eventually, his voice low, clinical, “is they make it personal. Subjective. It’s not. Pain is just another sensation. Its origin is irrelevant. Whether it’s stubbing your toe on a house brick or having some bastard shove an electrode where the sun don’t shine… in the end it makes no difference. It’s just a physical sensation. Attaching an emotion to it is counter-productive.”