Jack, Daniel and Teal'c were holed up in Dr. Jackson's office researching Apophis, looking for references to torture practices or the ways that he extracted information.
Daniel kept shooting worried glances at O'Neill, until Jack could take it no more. "Spit it out."
Daniel looked surprised. "What?"
Jack raised an eyebrow. "Daniel, I've known you for four years. You're just bursting to say something. So spit it out!"
Daniel looked away. "Alright! Alright! It's just…I can't help but think that…" He looked sheepish.
"Daniel…" Jack's tone was full of warning, but Daniel ignored it and plowed ahead.
"What if he's torturing her the way Baal tortured you?" Daniel finished quickly. He winced, waiting for Jack to hit him.
Jack looked away. Daniel knew he had crossed a line. They never talked about Jack's terrifying experience with Baal. It wasn't taboo. They just didn't talked about it for fear of undoing all of the good that the therapists had done.
Memories flooded into his head. The knife hovering near his shoulder. Unable to move away, to defend himself, pinned to the grate like an animal in a trap. A drop of acid stopping just above his chest, then falling, burning through his clothes first and then his chest. Dying over and over, always waking up to find out that it wasn't over yet. Feeling everything that made him who he was being stripped away, leaving an animal who only knew pain.
He wouldn't let that happen to Sam. He wouldn't let that slime ball goa'uld take away everything that made her Sam. It hurt him to imagine her being tortured by a person who was so evil that he didn't think twice about killing an innocent person, over and over.
"Jack?" He shook his head, blinking as though he was coming out of a dream, or in this case, a nightmare. Daniel was looking at him, concern filling his eyes. "Did you hear me? I said that we can't let that happen, Jack."
He nodded wordlessly. "We can't just sit around and do nothing. We have to change the general's mind. That or…" he looked at them. They knew what was coming next. "We ask to go back on active duty and sneak away during our next mission."
Daniel nodded slowly. "Makes sense, for us to go during a mission I mean, we wouldn't have to beat up guards or anything. Assuming he's going to get us a fourth member pretty quickly, all we would have to do is either zat him or convince him to come with us!"
Teal'c nodded, still agreeing with Daniel, but at least it worked out for the colonel this time. "Okay, so I'll tell the general that we're ready to go back on active duty, Daniel, you and Teal'c find out which planet we're headed to. Just trick Harriman or Siler or someone to input it into the computer." The colonel grinned. "Should be easy enough." The other two nodded and left the room, heading for their separate destinations.
Sam slept fitfully, waking up constantly, too scared to sleep. Memories flitted to the surface. The colonel, coming out of the Stargate with the woman, looking like death itself. Skittish and wary, he wouldn't let anyone, even Dr. Fraiser, touch him. The months it took him to recover. The nightmares.
Sam shook her head, trying to clear it of the dark thoughts that were threatening to consume her. Don't give up Carter! Don't you dare give up on us now! That's what the colonel would say, so that's what she would do. She wouldn't give up, because that would mean condemning herself to death, or worse, and she wasn't ready for that.
She heard footsteps coming down the corridor and moved to the back of the cell, preparing herself.
Two jaffa appeared in front of her cell, they opened the door and walked inside. Sam tensed, this couldn't be good. They grabbed her, pulling her arms behind her and pushing her out of the cell. She struggled, kicking back with her feet, jerking her arms, but all they did was pull her arms tighter behind her and push her to walk faster.
She was escorted into the throne room again, though now Sam was thinking of it as the torture room. Again, Apophis was sitting in the throne, looking amused by her attempts to escape. "Samantha," he tutted, a superior look on his face. "you mustn't struggle against them so, you might damage yourself."
Sam let loose a string of swear words directed at the false god. He chuckled. "Bring her to me." The jaffa complied, dragging her closer to him. "You will feel a small amount of pain."
His fingers touched her temple and she felt a light, shooting pain. Her breath hissed through her teeth. She recognized the feeling, but couldn't place it. Now he was running a device in circles over the one she could feel attached to her temple, too late, she realized what it was.
Flashes of her life filled her mind. It was as if she was really back in the memories. She was fourteen again, in her kitchen, the aroma of chocolate around her as she flipped the cookies from the pan to the plate. She heard the front door open then close. She paid it no mind, she already knew who it was. She turned around, "How was it?" Then realizing, "Where's mom?" Her father's face said it all. "NO!" She slammed down the spatula, hot tears spilling down her face as she raced to her bedroom.
She yanked herself out of the memory. Tears were sliding over her pale cheeks. "Oh God…" She quickly recovered, hating to show weakness in the face of her enemy. "I'm not going to tell you anything!" Apophis smiled.
Another memory swept her away. The team was coming back from a mission. The colonel telling her to punch the code in to let them know that it was safe. She looked down at the device, punching one number and beginning to say it.
Sam realized what he was doing and stopped. "No! I won't tell you anything!" The memory disappeared, replaced by real life. She glared at the goa'uld defiantly.
"We will see." He turned the other half of the Tok'ra memory device over and over in his hands.
Jack was arguing with General Hammond. "Sir! It's driving us crazy staying here and doing nothing! We need to be doing something!" He was standing in front of the general's desk.
"I suppose you've got a point, Jack, but it's only been two days! Are you sure that you want to do this?" Hammond looked concerned.
"General, I know there's a chance that Carter might escape on her own, but in the meantime I don't want to be moping around here. Carter wouldn't want us moping around here! She would want us out there! Doing what we can." She would want us out there saving her, Jack thought.
General Hammond sighed. "You'll need a fourth person."
Jack looked down. "It might take me a while to find the right person, sir, and I'd prefer to start back on missions straight away."
General Hammond's brow furrowed, he stared at Jack, trying to see his motive for starting so soon. "If you're only going to have three people, then I'll switch you with SG-8, they were supposed to go to P3R-790 on a reconnaissance mission. You can have that and they can go on your mission to P3X-777 to make first contact with the people of that planet."
Jack nodded, "Perfect. Thank you, sir." He turned to leave.
"Jack," General Hammond said. Jack around slowly, afraid that he'd been caught. "Briefing at 0800 tomorrow, you leave at 1000 hours." Jack nodded and left the office, closing the door behind him.
Daniel and Teal'c walked into the 'gate control room. Daniel was worrying the small scrap of paper he was holding. Teal'c looked, as always, unfazed by their situation. They walked up to Siler, who was sitting in his usual place in front of the 'gate computer.
"So, the computer can figure out 'gate addresses even if you only have half the glyphs, right?" Daniel asked curiously.
"Well, yeah, sure." Siler looked at him.
"So, can we see how it works? Say, with this address?" Daniel handed him a sheet of paper and recited the lie he'd planned before. "I found these glyphs on some ruins and want to see if we have the address programmed into the computer."
Siler nodded. "Of course." He took the paper and turned back to the computer. "Here's how it works, you input the coordinates here, and the computer searches for any addresses that have the matching symbols in this order."
Information scrolled down the screen. Address after address, there were thousands of them! Finally, the computer stopped on one. Perfect match. Daniel exchanged an excited look with Teal'c. They'd found her!
Daniel quickly wrote down the full address and gave it to Teal'c. "Thank you for that interesting demonstration, we appreciate it." He looked at Teal'c. "He's more excited than he looks." Teal'c bowed his head. "Well…bye!" They hurried out to tell O'Neill the good news.