Title : A race through dark places
By : Kelly Moreland
Disclaimer : I don't own them, I just toy with them at a whim and make no profit from it.
Warnings : This one gets a little dark, I dunno why. I love the team, I really do, I was just feeling a little morbid I guess.
Setting : Season 4, 5, or 6.
It wasn't Carters screams that finally got to him, it was Daniels. After all, Carter was trained to deal with this, Daniel on the other hand... Well, Danny boy wasn't.
"Jaaack!"
Jack O'Neill gritted his teeth hard and did nothing.
Nothing.
What else could you do sitting stark naked in a five foot by five foot cell, listening to one of your best friends being tortured? And it wasn't even by one of the snake headed bastards. Nope, this was the handiwork of the local population, some of them anyway.
Jack reflected for a minute on how they ended up here.
The trip through the Stargate had gone simple enough, the meet and greet with the populace started out okay too, it was just when Daniel started to draw symbols in the sand that everything went horribly wrong. Next thing Jack knew out came the weapons and away went all sanity. It seemed that a Goa'uld calling himself Herne had ruled over this planet had outlawed writing and enslaved the population. This had not gone over well with them.
Now they sat here stripped of everything listening to Daniel scream his head off, wondering who would be next. Carter was holding up admirably, as was Teal'c. Jack had just finally reached his personal limit.
He leapt to his feet and strode to the front of his cell
"Hey! You want to whack on someone a while why don't you try me?"
"O'Neill, that may not be wise." Teal'c said quietly from Jack's right side.
"I agree with him, Sir." Carter said from the left side. She had been the first one to be taken from her cell and they had listened to her scream for about four hours before they brought her back. Bloody, unconscious and half dead by the look of her. But she had rallied a short time later and Jack had been so proud of her for that. She had withstood God only knew what, and now here she sat naked and bruised, looking like utter hell, warning him about his safety. You gotta love that in one of your team mates.
"We have do something!" Jack said emphatically. "He's been in there longer than you were Carter, he's gotta be close to passing out by now."
"I know, Sir." Carter nodded her head. "I've been trying to come up with an idea."
Jack rested his head against the bars and waited for the next scream of agony.
It didn't come.
He really didn't like that. As long as he heard Daniel scream, he knew Daniel was fighting. Silence on the other hand could mean several things some of which he didn't want to contemplate just now.
He didn't have to wonder long because just then two guards dragged a naked and bleeding Daniel to the front of his cell and dumped him into a heap on the floor. Even after the guards had left, Daniel didn't move, laying there still as death.
"Daniel!" Jack whispered "Daniel!" he repeated louder.
"Lemme lone" came a barely audible reply.
"Daniel, you have to get up." Jack said a little softer.
Daniel twisted his aching body so that he could see Jack.
"Lemme rest, Jack"
Jack could see now that Daniel had been whipped. Angry looking red welts criss-crossed his body, front and back.
"Jesus Christ" Jack hissed angrily.
Seeing Carter had been bad enough, but they hadn't whipped her. They had merely contented themselves to beating her.
And all because they thought SG-1 was some kind of advance team for another Goa'uld.
"Stupid backwater planets," Jack muttered.
"Jack?" Daniel called thickly.
"Yeah?"
"How many days has it been since we got here?"
Jack remained silent, he didn't know how to answer that one. He knew from experience that when you are being tortured time slows to a crawl and drags out to eternity.
"It has been one day. We arrived here yesterday, Daniel Jackson." Teal'c said, letting Jack off the hook.
One day, Jack thought to himself, one lousy day.