SG1 in the Cabin in the Woods

by gatesmasher

Jack and Daniel at the end of the world. J/D pre-slash.

[AN: First of all, spoiler alert for 'The Cabin in the Woods'! Next, this is not a crossover so much as a retelling of the end of the story using characters from Stargate SG-1. I've listed it as a crossover because I'm not sure how else to categorize it. For more notes, see below.]

oOoOo

"What is this place?" Shivering, Daniel backed up against a glass wall, wrapping his arms around himself as blood from his many gashes and cuts dripped to the shiny metal floor.

There was a lurch and their stomachs flipped as the room suddenly plummeted. "Well, I guess it's an elevator," Jack answered. He stood at the opposite wall, wishing he could to go to Daniel, help him, heal him, but Jack was as bad off as the archeologist. Probably worse in fact. Taking a razor-sharp garden trowel to the back was not the way he'd ever pictured himself checking out. Nor was it something he'd planned on doing this weekend.

Especially a razor-sharp garden trowel delivered by a zombie.

Daniel, who had stumbled from the elevator's rapid fall, shied away from the horror that sat piled up in one corner of the little room.

In a previous incarnation it had been Judah Buckner, redneck inbred hillbilly. In its next incarnation it had been Judah Buckner, redneck inbred hillbilly murderous walking undead zombie. Right now, the current incarnation of poor old Judah resembled the reject heap from an abattoir.

"Yeah, I had to dismember that guy with a trowel," Jack said, waving the tool he still held with false casualness.

"We thought you were dead, Jack," Daniel stated.

"Nah. Close, but no cigar. Takes more than a zombie to finish off Jack O'Neill."

This was supposed to have been a fun weekend at a cabin in the woods for SG-1 and Jack. A chance to relax and reconnect after their latest saving-the-Earth adventure. A zombie attack was kind of the last thing any of them had been expecting.

Watching Daniel closely, Jack asked, "So, what've you been up to?"

Daniel stared back, his haunted eyes wide and unblinking.

"Nobody else, huh?" Jack confirmed with resignation.

Daniel shook his head wordlessly.

God, it was bad enough to have seen Vala die. Well, to have seen her dead... Her head, at least. But Mitchell and Teal'c and Carter, too? "I figured," Jack said quietly.

"You figured everything," Daniel corrected bitterly.

Jack shook his head. "Not even close, but I knew enough to get this freakin' secret elevator running."

"Do we really want to go down, though?"

"Where else are we going to go?"

Daniel took a fortifying breath and nodded.

"Another thing I know," Jack continued, "somebody sent these fucks up to get us." He kicked at the pile of zombie parts. A mistake, as one of the arms fell loose from the slimy jumble, sending the hand crawling along, the ragged stump of foreman trailing behind it like an obscene tail. The two men did the get-away-from-it dance until Jack kicked it away again. "Ah! Fucking zombie arm!"

The elevator stopped, then jolted into motion again. Jack frowned. "Are we moving sideways?"

They were. The little room slid along through darkness until its glass wall lined up with another one and they saw the interior of a second elevator. They barely had time to register this development when a werewolf leapt at them.

Yes, the occupant of the other elevator was an honest-to-god Werewolf. And a ravenous one at that.

The monster hit the glass, claws scraping futilely, drool flying from its snapping jaws. Daniel, closest to it, jumped back. Jack could only stare in incomprehension.

Both men pressed up against the glass of the opposite wall and the elevator moved sideways again. The Werewolf was left behind and a new room was revealed, behind them this time. They turned to see an alien...thing hanging from the ceiling. It jumped toward them onto the window and stuck there, all teeth and suckers and dripping mucous.

The two men backed slowly into the center of the small space, looking around for the next horror as the elevator jerked down, then sideways once more. This time a new room came into view on each side.

Over Daniel's shoulder Jack saw a little girl standing with her back to him. She wore a ragged ballerina outfit, not so much tutu as a limp, torn skirt. The hair hair rose on the back of Jack's neck as she turned slowly to reveal she had no face, just a humongous mouth like a lamprey's, teeth sharp and white in a series of concentric rings.

Jack stood close enough to Daniel to feel the archeologist tremble and Jack turned to see what was in the other room: A tall cadaverous man in a long leather coat, his hairless skin dead white. In his head and face were embedded three round buzzsaw blades and his arms were ringed with deep-stuck barbed wire. The man came closer and returned Daniel's stare with an almost gentle smile, his eyes black and soulless. Daniel looked down at Sawhead's hands and Jack saw a mechanical sphere that looked vaguely familiar.

"We chose..." Daniel whispered.

"What?"

"In the cellar," Daniel said. "Remember when we went down to the cabin's cellar? All that junk we were playing with? Each one of us picked up something different."

Jack remembered the sphere now, it was almost exactly the same as the one Mitchell had found in the cellar. Had it only been yesterday? It seemed like a lifetime ago. It pretty much was a lifetime ago for the rest of their friends...

"They made us choose..."

Jack had been looking at an old film strip, trying to make out what it showed, but Daniel had picked up a diary, the diary of little Anna Patience Buckner. And when he had read it out loud, guess what zombie family had crawled up to find and kill SG-1?

"They made us choose how we die," Daniel continued, his voice clotted with revulsion as if it were congealed blood. "They made me choose!"

He darted forward suddenly and struck the glass. It didn't crack, thank god, but that didn't stop Daniel. He pounded hard, screaming wild and incoherent all the while, Sawhead just looking on with the same gentle smile and death-filled eyes.

Jack grabbed Daniel from behind, pulling him back, holding him tight. Jack didn't say anything, what was there to say? He just held on as Daniel thrashed and fought. It took a while, but his teammate quieted eventually, just standing and panting, Jack not letting go, needing to feel Daniel's living warmth.

So they stood and watched the parade go by as the elevator continued its journey.

Creatures and monsters. Some Jack thought he recognized from nightmares: Scarecrows, Vampires, a giant Scorpion. Some shapes were so warped and vicious that Jack didn't even have names for them...

He wasn't sure how much time had passed when, with one last jolt, the elevator came to a stop and the doors slid open to reveal an armed man. He looked like a soldier to Jack, but his uniform held no insignia. The man held a pistol pointed straight at them and barked, "Step out of the elevator!"

"Why are you trying to kill us?" Daniel asked, raising his hands cautiously.

The guard ignored the question, demanding again, "Step out of the elevator!" He looked at Daniel. "Just you."

"Just me?" Daniel echoed in confusion.

Suddenly the guard yelped and jumped, looking down in alarm. It was Judah's disembodied hand, clawing at his ankle.

Jack wasted no time at the opportunity. He grabbed the soldier's arm, swung him around and slammed him headfirst into the wall. When the guard dropped to the floor in an unconscious heap, Jack retrieved the gun and a few other armaments, straightening up with a mocking salute at their unwitting ally. "Good work, zombie arm!"

Passing Daniel the trowel, their only other weapon, Jack led the way out of the elevator, and the two men found themselves in a nondescript lobby of some kind. All the surfaces were stark antiseptic white and the walls held eight elevator wells, four on each side. At one end of the lobby was a small enclosed guard station, the window-glass looking as thick and unbreakable as in the elevator.

Over a hidden speaker came a woman's voice. "This has gone terribly wrong," she stated, her voice calm and measured.

Jack and Daniel looked at each other, startled.

"I know you can hear me," the woman said.

Daniel opened his mouth, but Jack motioned for him to be silent.

"I want you to listen," the voice went on patiently. "You won't get out of this complex alive. What I want you to understand is that you mustn't try. Because your deaths will avert countless others."

They heard the tromp of booted feet approaching from the other end of the corridor where it made a blind turn.

"You've seen horrible things, an army," the woman continued, her tone oozing sympathy. "An army of nightmare creatures. And they are real. But they are nothing compared to..." She paused and Jack could almost hear her shudder. "To the alternative."

The two men saw shadows of running forms coming their way down the corridor and Jack tugged Daniel to the little guard house. The soldier who confronted them in the elevator must have come there, for the door stood ajar.

"You've been chosen to be sacrificed for the greater good," the woman said soothingly. "It's an honor. So forgive us...and let us get on with it."

The two men dodged through the door, slamming and locking it just as gunfire peppered the station, bullets pinging around but not penetrating the window as they crouched low to the ground.

As the weapons' fire raged around them, Jack knelt up, studying the guard's control panel. A multitude of black and white security monitors showed the horrors prowling around their elevator-cages.

"An army of nightmares, huh?" Jack muttered as he scanned the bevy of switches and buttons the console held. He laid both his hands down on the panel, hitting eight buttons simultaneously. As a loud whirring and rumbling activated, Jack growled, "Let's get this party started, then," and smashed his thumb down on a big red button marked, 'Purge.'

He and Daniel rose from their crouch and peeked over the console and through the window.

At the sound of elevators, the lead soldier held up his fist. "Hold!" he called out. "Hold your fire!"

His troop of a dozen or so men obeyed, glancing around uncertainly. In the resulting silence came an elevator ping, sounding like any normal lobby in any normal building in world. But the result when all eight doors opened were anything but normal.

Werewolves, aliens, goblins, robots, nightmares poured out of the elevators at crazy speed, annihilating the soldiers even as they began a panicked defensive fire. It was a war zone in one second, then a kill zone in the next.

A minute later the next group of guards turned the corner and saw the horrible aftermath of the slaughter Jack and Daniel had just witnessed. Several Ghouls had lingered, feasting on the remains, and as they looked up from their grisly meal, turning their attention to the second wave of guards...

Ding! The elevators lit up again, Mutants shambling out, vomiting toxic waste.

Ding! Jack-O'Lantern-man loomed, fire smoldering in his mouth.

Ding! Sawhead strolled out, snapping the neck of a soldier too slow to bring his weapon to bear.

Ding! Four specters in Japanese doll masks emerged, moving like shadows as they sucked the life out of their victims with a mere touch.

By mutual unspoken consent Jack and Daniel crouched down again and sat with their backs against the console, their shoulders pressed so close Jack could feel Daniel trembling. They sat and listened to all manner of screams and growls and roars and things slamming wetly against the window.

Their refuge was finally broken, however, when something smashed directly through the window and into the wall across the room, broken glass raining down as a thing with big leathery wings landed on the floor right in front of them, stunned and thrashing.

"Shit!" Jack pushed a dazed Daniel along and out the door before the ...dragon...bat... thing could recover.

They emerged into a vastly, and ghastly, changed lobby. The formerly white walls were red with a coating of dripping gore and the floor awash with so much blood the two men splashed as they ran among the torn and mangled corpses. The Ghouls, entrails hanging from their mouths like sausage links, eyed the men as they went by, but were all too busy consuming with their already dead prey.

Leaving the bitter tang of blood and offal behind, they ran around the turn and down the corridor, beginning to encounter people in lab-coats. It could almost have been scientist-country at the SGC...if it wasn't for those niggling little reminders like most of the scientists having just been horribly killed and the rest running around screaming.

Keeping a sharp lookout and Daniel as close as possible, Jack pelted on down the chaotic hallways. He steered them around hazards such as a Clown, looking just about as creepy and evil as Jack had always considered clowns to be, sauntering along munching on a heart like it was an apple. And the beautiful and delicate Unicorn that ran a technician down, goring him against a wall, rearing again and again, its pearly horn and glossy mane liberally spattered with blood. And the demon Doctors who so enthusiastically 'operated' on a fully awake and screaming 'patient.'

Jack caught a shadow out of the corner of his eye and he pushed Daniel down. The Dragon-Bat sailed over their heads and smashed directly through a wall, opening up a wide hole. The monster picked itself up and tumbled back out the hole, flapping drunkenly away down the corridor. As Jack watched it, making sure it didn't come back, Daniel peered into the hole, then tugged on Jack's sleeve.

"C'mon, in here!" the archeologist urged.

Jack followed him on instinct and they found themselves in what looked like an ancient stone corridor, dimly lit and much older than the slick metal walls of the rest of the facility. This hallway appeared to be empty, but there was no telling how long that would last. Clapping Daniel on the shoulder, Jack said, "Double time, now! We've got to keep going!"

Daniel didn't need to be told twice and they took off once more, the archeologist still clutching the knife-sharp trowel like a lifeline. Almost immediately, barreling around a blind turn, they plowed directly into a man coming the other way. At least Daniel ran directly into him, and when they rebounded apart, Daniel cried out in horror.

The trowel was indeed knife-sharp and protruded now from the chest of the man Daniel had smashed into. Stumbling back in shock, the man hit the wall behind him and sunk down to the floor. He was middle aged and balding, looking like a mid-level factory manager in his short sleeve dress shirt, thin black tie and black slacks.

"I-I-!" Daniel dithered, speechless with regret.

But the dying man leveled no accusation at Daniel. He pointed a shaky finger at Jack and, holding Daniel's eyes, whispered, "Please... Kill him."

Jack frowned. This was one of the people who orchestrated the murders of his team, he just knew it, and he had not one ounce of sympathy. "Come on," he said to Daniel. "We have to find a way out before anything else finds a way in."

Daniel stared blankly at the now-dead man.

"Daniel!"

He looked up, his eyes red and watery in his battered face.

Jack slapped the gun into the archeologist's limp hand. "Here. It's easier with this."

Daniel looked down at the gun, his back straightening and his grip firming with the familiar weapon in his hand. He took a deep breath through his nose and nodded, and they continued down hallway at a run. When they encountered a downward staircase at the end of the hall, they had no choice but to take it, following the short flight of stone steps and soon debouching into a wide vaulted chamber.

Except for the stairway entrance, the edges of the stone surface they stood on didn't reach the surrounding walls. It was like a round island, and the two men looked over the edge to see a gap of maybe four feet across that extended down into darkness of an unknown depth. Jack squinted. He couldn't be sure, but he had a sense of something moving down deep in that darkness. They both drew back from it, walking to the center of the floor to stand on a mosaic of a pentagon shape, the lines continuing on to end pointing at five slabs of decorated stone that made up the walls of the chamber beyond the gap.

"What is this?" Daniel asked, his voice filled with wonder.

"It's a dead-end is what it is."

"No, look at these," the archeologist said, pointing at the wall carvings. "Five of them."

"What are they?"

"Us..."

"There are six-" Jack broke off, then began again, anger surging through him. "There were six of us."

"I don't think it matters," Daniel said with a shake of his head. "I should have seen it like you did. Those bad decisions we kept making, like we were drugged or something-" he gave Jack a sidelong smile, "although your natural suspicion kept coming through." He spread a hand out to encompass the chamber and the situation in general. "Then the items in the cellar and the monsters... This is part of a ritual."

"A ritual? Like a ritual sacrifice?" Jack flapped his arms in irritation. "Great! You tie someone to a stone, get a bunch of guys in robes and a fancy dagger... It's not that complicated!"

"No, it's simple," Daniel agreed, nodding thoughtfully. "But they don't just want to see us killed. They want to see us punished."

"Punished for what?"

"For being the best?" came a voice from behind them. It was the same voice as from the speaker earlier and they turned to see an elegantly dressed woman enter from the staircase and walk toward them.

She looked like your Grandma. But not the kind that spoiled you and stuffed you full of snicker-doodles. The other kind, the kind that told you to straighten up and fly right or you'd come to a Bad End.

Hmm, Jack pondered. From the look of things, she had a point.

"Who the hell are you?" he asked conversationally.

"I am the Director of this Facility."

He could hear the capitalizations. "And just what Facility is this?" Jack demanded. "I've never heard of anything like this and I have the highest security clearance known to man or beast!"

The Director made a dismissive and impatient gesture. "Transitory politicians don't know of us. We've been around far longer than mere nations."

"Okay, so this ritual, this...sacrifice...?" Daniel began.

If Daniel was hoping for a denial from the woman, he didn't get it. The Director nodded and said, "It's different for every culture, and it changes over the years, but it's very specific. There must be at least five."

She pointed to one of the carved walls: a stylized representation of a woman standing erect, holding open her robe, her naked body revealed.

"The Whore."

Daniel bristled. "Vala? Vala is not a whore! She-!"

"She is corrupted," the Director stated. "She dies first." The woman pointed to the next stone slab, a broad shouldered man striding along, javelin in one hand, ball in the other. "The Athlete. Two of them this time."

"Mitchell and Teal'c?" Jack guessed, glancing at Daniel.

"Yes," Daniel confirmed sadly. "We tried to leave the area, but the tunnel had a cave-in." He looked to the Director who only stared back, her face reserved but not unsympathetic. "They tried to get across the canyon, but there was a-a force field of some kind. It killed them like a giant flyswatter."

"The Scholar," the Director continued, pointing to a figure with a roll of parchment in one hand and a quill in the other.

"Sam," Daniel whispered before Jack could ask. "She was driving the van, trying get us out, trying to think it through, but whatever drugs you people used- She couldn't think straight."

He gave the woman an accusing look but she only nodded, continuing on to gesture at another slab. "The Fool." A man danced with foolishly splayed legs, one hand holding high a spilling goblet of wine. She looked pointedly at Jack.

"Hey!"

"A cabin in the woods by a lake? You should've been the easiest to fool." Her voice filled with outraged irritation in the largest show of emotion she had exhibited so far.

"People've been mistaking Jack for a fool for decades," Daniel observed with a quirk of his brow.

She accepted the reprimand, nodding reluctantly, then continued, "All suffer and die at the hands of the horror they themselves have raised. Leaving the last to live or die as fate decides." She pointed to the fifth and final carved slab: a figure stood demurely, face downcast, hands clasped sedately together. She looked at Daniel. "The Virgin."

"Me? A virgin? I-I'm not-!"

Despite the circumstances, Jack couldn't stop a snort. As Daniel glared at him, the Director said, "We work with what we have. Innocence of spirit is what's important."

"You do have that, Danny."

Daniel gave up on Jack and transferred his glare to the woman. "Why choose an experienced military team like SG-1?"

"There were signs that more was needed this year, more than the usual youth and naïveté."

"What happens if you don't pull it off?" Jack asked.

"They awaken," the Director said simply.

"Who does?" Daniel asked. He gestured at the mysterious four-foot gap around the chamber. "What's beneath us?"

"The Gods" the woman answered, her voice tinged with both reverence and fear. "The Old Gods. They sleep, the giants that live in the Earth, that used to rule it. They fought for a billion years and now They sleep. In every country, for every culture, there is a God to appease. As long as One sleeps, They all do. But the other rituals have all failed."

There was a great rumbling through the chamber, a temblor that shook dust down from the ceiling. They all staggered a bit until the shaking subsided.

"You fooled us, General," the Director said disapprovingly to Jack. "We thought you had died on schedule. You disrupted the ritual." Jack shrugged, and, her voice in stern Grandma-mode, she continued, "The sun will rise in eight minutes. If you live to see it, the world will end."

Jack didn't question the truth of it, he could feel it in his bones. There was a moment's silence. "Maybe that's the way it ought to be," he said. "Maybe it's time for a change."

"We're not talking about change," the Director argued. "We're talking about the agonizing death of every human soul on the planet. Including you," she specified to Jack. "You can die with them. Or you can die for them."

"Gosh, both options are so enticing," he drawled, stalling for time, trying to think of a way out of this. He looked to Daniel-

-to find the archeologist pointing his gun straight at Jack, blue eyes filled with pain.

Jack could only returned the same look.

"Jack, the whole world..."

"Is in your hands," the Director concluded firmly.

Jack saw the gun shaking in the archeologist's extended arm as Daniel glanced at the Director, the weight of the world bearing down on his shoulders.

"There is no other way," the Director continued to Daniel. "You have to be strong."

Jack took a breath and squared his shoulders. "It's okay, Daniel. It's not like I haven't been prepared to die for my country, my world, for years now. You're strong." Jack's death would mean that Daniel lived, and really, that's all that mattered at this point. All he could hope for.

Daniel's brows drew up anxiously. "I'm sorry," he whispered.

"So am I," Jack responded, trying and failing to give a reassuring smile.

Daniel's finger firmed on the trigger, Jack steeled himself for the blow-

-and Daniel abruptly swiveled, re-aimed, and shot straight at the Director-

-who twisted, dodging fast, faster than a middle-aged lady with crows-feet had any right to be, throwing herself down and off to the side, unharmed.

Jack began a growl of exasperation at his teammate, but ended giving a bellow of warning: "Daniel!"

Behind the archeologist, the Werewolf had burst into the chamber at a four-footed lope. It immediately reared up with a howl and leapt from the staircase to land on Daniel's back, knocking the archeologist to the stone floor. The gun flew from Daniel's grip and he cried out as the snarling Werewolf tore into him with teeth and claws.

Jack and the Director both dove for the gun, tangling and struggling together.

Now, Jack may have been around the same age as the woman, but he was Special Ops trained. He figured he'd have an easy win in this wrestling match. But she was a tough old broad. And while sensible pumps may not be as good as spiked heels for stomping on an opponent's hand, she was strong and knew how to fight dirty.

The Werewolf's roars and Daniel's gasps and grunts of pain rang in Jack's ears. He spared a quick glance as he blocked a vicious jab at his eyes from the Director. The Werewolf hovered over Daniel, ravaging and tearing despite the archeologist's best efforts at defense.

If fighting dirty was the order of the day, Jack wasn't one to argue. For while it was becoming clear that the Director was no lady (Jack barely dodged a kick to his groin), it was equally true Jack was no gentleman (he finally landed a solid punch square in her face).

As the Director reeled back, Jack scooped up the gun and without hesitation pumped three bullets into the Werewolf. It didn't seem to even notice the two that struck it in its body but the third was a headshot. Sure, it wasn't a silver bullet, but a bullet to the brain was a bullet to the brain, and, whining like a monstrous dog, the Werewolf high-tailed it back up the stairs, blood spattering as it shook its wounded head.

Daniel rolled over, eyes wild, clutching his neck to staunch the blood flow. But alive. He was alive-

The Director tackled Jack from behind. The gun skittered across the floor again as they both went down, wrestling grimly, gouging, biting, clawing. A respectable National Wrestling Association coach would've had a heart attack at their non-regulation moves, but whatever it took...

The gun was just out of reach and the edge of the Abyss at their heads when Jack finally got the upper hand. He had the Director pinned, pushing his forearm against her windpipe. This was the person responsible for the deaths of his teammates. He didn't care what her reasons were or what was at stake. Nobody harmed his people and lived.

"Jack..."

How he heard the hoarse whisper Jack wasn't sure. Just attuned to Daniel's voice he supposed. He peered back along the floor.

Daniel breathed heavily, on all fours by the stairs, unable to rise. And between the two men, coming closer every second, Jack saw two small feet shambling along, in old dirty grey shoes, the edge of a gingham dress swinging above the ankles.

It was Anna Patience Buckner, he knew it. The little zombie girl whose diary Daniel had 'chosen' in the cellar.

In his moment of distraction, the Director reached out to grab the gun, but before she could bring it to bear, Jack rolled, reversing their positions, putting the Director on top of him just as Anna Patience swung the rusty hatchet she held, burying it into the back of the Director's skull.

Another tremor rocked the chamber at that moment and Jack twisted, kicking the Director over the edge of the stone floor. Anna Patience, unwilling to let go of the hatchet, went over into the Abyss with her.

Jack watched as the two faded out of sight into the murky darkness, then rose laboriously and limped over to the stairs. Another, bigger tremor made him pause, but it subsided and he slumped on the bottom step, joining Daniel. The archeologist panted shallowly, tears steaming from his eyes, but he was alert and sitting up.

Jack simply breathed for a minute, eventually remarking, "Remind me never to vacation at Carter's cousin's timeshare ever again."

Daniel tilted his head speculatively. "You know, I don't think Sam even has a cousin..."

"Huh." Jack nodded reflectively then looked at his teammate. "How are you?"

"Not too bad really. Not that it matters now."

"I'm sorry I let you get attacked by a Werewolf and then ended the world."

"No, I'm sorry. I couldn't do it, Jack. I couldn't hurt you, not even to save the world."

"Daniel?"

Daniel leaned close and, cupping Jack's cheek softly, brought their lips together in a kiss. Gentle, sweet, almost chaste.

He drew back and Jack, stunned, could only stared.

"I never told you..." Daniel whispered.

He brought them back together, kissing again, harder this time, deeper. Their lips parted and their tongues roved.

Daniel tasted of a memory of coffee. He tasted of fear and the salt of sweat and tears, the blood of split and chapped lips. He tasted of joy and love and dreams come true. He tasted of wasted time, years they could have enjoyed but never got the chance. Lazy mornings arguing over crossword puzzles. Lazy evenings laying naked by candlelight, skin strong and smooth under peach fuzz down.

All that they could have had, as real as Daniel's lopsided smile, as out-of-reach as a summer's daydream.

Daniel looked with comprehension into Jack's helpless eyes. "...and you never told me," he breathed with solemn wonder. He gave one last soft brush with his lips: a goodbye kiss. "And now it's too late."

Jack shook his head. "No."

"The world's ending."

"Again?" With a force of will he didn't think he still possessed, Jack rose to his feet, pulling Daniel up with him. They both tottered for a moment, more debris filtering down from the shaking ceiling before Jack steadied them. "Okay, let's find the stairs to the surface. We got a few minutes left."

"Stairs?"

"Government installations are all the same. I'll find them."

"But-but the Old Gods! They're real, and-and-!"

Jack grinned, reaching into a pocket and holding up the grenade he'd liberated from the guard earlier. He pulled the pin out with his teeth and said, "I'm glad they're real. They'll be able to feel this."

He tossed the grenade over his shoulder, not bothering to watch as it sailed down into the Abyss. He took Daniel's hand and they turned, running hard.

-end-

[AN: After my family and I watched 'The Cabin in the Woods,' we got to talking about archetypal characters and how the movie's formula fits so smoothly for characters of other movies or stories.
[One example: 'The Avengers.' Fool = Tony Stark / Whore = Black Widow / Athlete = Thor (Chris Hemsworth in both movies!) / Virgin = Captain America / Scholar = Bruce Banner.
[We went through a few other movies, then turned to SG-1. Everyone pegged Daniel as Virgin and Sam as Scholar. I started arguing for the opposite, until I realized the others were right; and besides, with Daniel as Virgin, that put him and Jack into the last scene together... The above is the result of that epiphany!]