Routine Imprisonment

Samantha Carter sighed as she looked around the room.

It was little more than a metal box with Goa'uld writing etched into the wall; just like every other room she'd been in aboard a Goa'uld mothership. I should get frequent flier miles for this, she thought sourly, slumping onto the smooth floor in a dejected fashion.

She had been captured. That was evident, from the absence of her guns and vest, and one had to take into account her bound wrists and legs, not to mention the solidness of the door and a lack of a control panel or lock on the inside. The Goa'uld had evidently wizened up to the fact that it was not a good idea to give a captured member of SG-1 any sort of advantage, because they always escaped.

Carter wriggled half-heartedly against her bonds, but gave up after her wrists got sore. She glanced over at the only other prisoner, and shuffled along the smooth floor, nudging him with a foot.

"Daniel. You awake?"

Daniel Jackson, SG-1's resident archaeologist and geek, had had the wonderful misfortune of being with Samantha Carter when she was captured. This of course meant he had been tortured for information, which in turn meant he hadn't given anything up, and been dragged back into the cell in an extreme state of unconsciousness.

Carter and Daniel had been on a routine archaeological and scientific recon mission to some planet – that's what most of them started out as, of course, and then something went drastically wrong; it was terribly predictable really – when, out of nowhere, what seemed like ten thousand Goa'uld Ha'tak vessels stormed through the sky and fired on their camp. It had been utter chaos, with archaeologists and scientists running everywhere not knowing what the hell to do. Carter and Daniel, two of the only people there with military training (it was an archaeological and scientific recon mission, after all) had taken shelter in the woods, where they were subsequently hunted down by Jaffa soldiers and Zatted.

Sam had woken up on what she presumed to be a Goa'uld mothership, minus all her gear and one archaeologist. When Daniel had been dragged in, head lolling limply from his neck, she hadn't been surprised. Still, she didn't know why they didn't interrogate the girl – naturally the weaker one, at least that was what a sensible Goa'uld would presume – instead of Daniel, who was...well...perhaps not the most macho of men, but at least not a woman.

Not that there was anything wrong with being a woman. Especially a strong one. Which Sam was. And she would have resisted Goa'uld torture just as well as Daniel; in fact, she'd probably have done a better job owing to the fact she'd once had a Tok'ra symbiote (distant cousins of the Goa'uld) in her head and thus had a heck of a lot of knowledge about the Goa'uld themselves. Plus her military training included ways of resisting torture.

Sam was beginning to feel rather offended.

Perhaps there was something inherently victim-like about the good-natured Daniel. He gave off this aura of, well, general goodness that was probably quite enticing to the evil nature of a Goa'uld system lord. Or lady. The actual Goa'uld symbiotes were sexless; Sam knew; but some of them had female hosts. Gender discrimination seemed to be a universal problem, seeing as how most of the system lords were just that: Lords. Male dominance proves itself once again...but Sam was getting off the point. And the whole point was Daniel and why he seemed to be so damn...

"Sam?" Daniel groaned as he stirred, rolling onto his stomach. "What happened?"

"You tell me," she said, rather more sharply than she had intended. "After all, you were the one they decided to torture for information."

"Don't tell me you're jealous," said the groggy Daniel as he got to his knees. Though he had just been through an incredibly painful and traumatizing experience, he was, as always, extremely quick at picking up on things.

"No, but...I just don't get it; why they don't ever pick me." Sam realized she was sounding slightly petulant and sucked in her bottom lip, frowning.

"Yeah, I'm really honoured that Kali chose me to be her human Voodoo doll," Daniel said sourly. He scrabbled in vain for his glasses. Sam took them out of her pocket and handed them to him, wordlessly. She'd found them on the ground, one lens smashed, when she had woken up.

"Thanks," Daniel said, sliding them on with bound hands and frowning lopsidedly through the cracked glass.

"So Kali's our Evil Goa'uld of the Day?" Sam asked, bringing her knees up to her chest.

"Yep," replied Daniel, wincing as he touched his forehead. He'd been given quite a sizeable knock to the head when Kali's guards had tossed him back into his prison.

Sam sighed and stared at the wall. She was feeling particularly despondent this time around. Perhaps it was because things were getting so...

"Predictable."

"What's that, Sam?" Daniel asked, frowning as he looked to the blonde Carter. She shrugged.

"Nothing. It's just that...well, we're always getting captured by some Goa'uld or other. It gets a bit predictable, don't you think?"

Daniel smiled thinly. "I guess so. I never thought getting captured would become boring, though."

"Not boring," Sam corrected. "Just...routine. I mean, we were on that planet to excavate some ruins and check out that mysterious power source, right? We're barely there five minutes and the Goa'uld come thundering through the sky. And the thing is...I wasn't all that surprised."

"You know," said Daniel thoughtfully, "Me neither. Something struck me as strange on that planet."

"It wasn't just that," Sam continued. "Just...the Goa'uld are always popping up when you least expect them, or want them around."

"They're like the SGC's broccoli that way. You never expect it to be served on Wednesdays, or want it, but you slide your tray around and...there it is."

"It's Thursday, Daniel."

"Is it?"

"We have French fries on Thursdays."

"Ah."

There was a short, awkward span of time filled with the sound of Sam's renewed struggle against her ties. Eventually she gave up with an exasperated sigh. "Guess we just wait here for somebody to rescue us," she said.

"How about we jump the guards the next time they come in to beat us up? Or make up some elaborate plan to hack into their computers with one of your earrings and a length of string?" Daniel suggested.

"Daniel," Sam said slowly, "Do you see a length of string anywhere around here? Plus I'm not wearing any earrings."

Daniel looked severely dejected for a moment before brightening. "Your shoelaces!" he said, pointing with his bound hands. "And...we can use the zipper off your jacket!"

"Daniel, give it up," Sam said, though she was smiling.

"Okay," he said. "Maybe I'll just use my masculine charms on Kali next time she decides to interrogate me. See if that gets us anywhere."

"Tried that," Sam said shortly. "With Shyla, remember?"

Daniel frowned. "That's not funny."

"Sorry. Couldn't resist. You have quite a track record with the ladies, you know." Sam found it faintly absurd that here they were, trapped in a Goa'uld prison, perhaps in the danger of being tortured to death for information, and they were talking about Daniel's love life.

Best time, really, Sam thought.

"I mean, there was Hathor, Shyla, Sarah..."

"Sha're." Daniel's frown intensified as he spoke the name, quietly, without any real inflection. He stared at his boots, that brooding expression that Sam had come to know so well suffusing his face. He pulled off his cracked glasses, and sighed.

"I'm sorry, Daniel," Sam said, shuffling over to him and trying to place one hand on his shoulder, but owing to her joined wrists, the other hand came with it and almost whacked Daniel in the face. "Sorry!" she said again, cringing.

"It's okay, Sam. We're in a difficult situation," Daniel said. "After all, we've just been captured by a Goa'uld, we're facing the risk of being tortured to death, and I really need to go to the bathroom."

"Okay," Sam said, sliding away from him. "That's way too much information, right there."

Daniel grinned. "I know. Just trying to lighten the mood."

"Good luck with that." Sam sighed.

Daniel put his hands on hers. "We'll get out of this, Sam. Don't worry. We always do."

She smiled slightly and looked towards the closed door, her eyes travelling across the Goa'uld markings made upon it. "Yeah...one way or another. Just don't die this time, Daniel. We need a government funding program for your funerals."

"I wonder how many people on Earth can say they've died, ascended to a higher plane of existence and then come back," Daniel murmured thoughtfully, putting his glasses back on despite the fact he probably couldn't see properly out of them.

"Probably only the ones on heavy drugs."

Daniel laughed, but it faded away, and the two teammates were left sitting in the silence of their thoughts.

An hour passed, and then another. Daniel eventually brought out a pack of cards he carried in a pocket of his fatigues. "Brought them just in case we got bored while being incarcerated by a System Lord," he joked, dealing a game of Go Fish. It was hard to play with their hands tied, but the two managed.

After Daniel had lost his third game, a scraping sound announced their prison door sliding open. Simultaneously, Sam and Daniel looked up, expecting to see some of Kali's guards come to collect one of them for 'questioning'.

Instead they saw Jack O'Neill, Teal'c, and a small group of SGC soldiers toting guns.

"You're playing cards?" Jack hissed. "We go to all this trouble of rescuing you and you're playing cards!"

Daniel shrugged and held out his bound hands as Teal'c approached with a knife to cut them free. "We got bored waiting around for you," he said. He thought he could see a flicker of a smile on Teal'c's face as the Jaffa moved to cut his legs free, and then to Sam to do the same.

Jack O'Neill shook his head as he looked at the members of his team.

"Come on," he said, "Let's go."