"Finding anything?" Cage asked, keeping her head on a swivel while not taking her eyes off the door.

"Not really," Jack sighed, sweeping the beam of light over the stacks of boxes and training dummies littering the cold, damp room he was trapped in. "There's gotta be a door around here somewhere, right? This stuff got down here somehow."

"Check everywhere." Cage supplied unhelpfully. What did she think he was doing? Jack bit his tongue before he said anything snappy. It wasn't her fault he fell in a hole leaving Mac to scamper off on his own. Something wasn't right with the kid. He was always pale but he'd seen Mac injured enough times to know what 'hurt but unwilling to worry his protective overwatch' looked like on his partner. He was still upright so it couldn't be too bad so Jack had to trust that Mac would come to him if whatever was wrong got worse. In the meantime, Jack knew he had to play it cool. If he jumped too far into helicopter parenting mode, Mac was just going to continue to deflect his attention. If it got serious, Mac knew Jack was there.

But, if the heavily trained, super dangerous Terminator of a prisoner got to him when he was off collecting supplies, and she hurt him worse, there was nothing Jack could do while stuck in a hole in the ground.

That thought motivated him to keep looking.

When he took another step, his knee buckled under him. He fell forward, gasping at the sharp pain in the joint. He must have landed on it wrong when he fell. His whole body ached with sharp pains but nothing seemed broken. He caught himself on the wall. His hand brushed against a map of Goat Island taped to the concrete. The map was long enough to stretch from eye level all the way down to the ground. The brittle paper dipped with the weight of his body, tearing a little, and Jack pulled back. A light breeze brushed over him, while the faint whistle of moving air grew louder.

He tucked the flashlight between his teeth, keeping the beam of light fixed straight ahead and pulled at the rip in the paper. The map gave way easily and he let the torn sections fall in a pile at his feet. The wall behind the map was perfectly carved out, shorter than Jack's height, but wide enough to walk comfortably if he hunched over. The tunnel extended beyond the reach of his flashlight but the wind picked up suddenly and sent a chill down his spine. If there was that much wind then it led to a way out.

"Jack?" Cage called down, her voice echoing in the concrete room, before bouncing down the tunnel eerily, as if someone was beckoning him from deep within. He took the flashlight back into his hand and pulled out his gun, just in case. "What did you find?"

"Hey Cage, did you know that geology is the study of pressure and time." Jack quoted automatically. "That's all it takes really - pressure and time. That and a big, goddamn poster."

"What are you talking about?" Cage asked, clearly not getting the reference. They'd have to change that when the mission was over. A team movie marathon was just what they needed, if they survived. "Did you hit your head when you fell?"

"What, no, I mean - probably. I did fall like ninety feet. But that's not what I'm talking about. There's a tunnel carved into the wall." Jack explained over his shoulder. He didn't like the way his voice carried; anyone could be hiding in there. "A map was covering it, just like in Shawshank Redemption."

"I've never seen it," Cage admitted, not seeming too broken up about missing out on one of the great cinematic masterpieces of the twentieth century. Oh yeah, a team movie marathon was definitely on the menu when they got home. "A map was covering a tunnel in Shawshank Redemption?"

"No, a poster of Raquel Welch was covering the tunnel." Jack sighed, wishing Mac was there to back him up.

"Who's Raquel Welch?" Cage asked again.

"She's an actress." Jack said.

"And she was in Shawshank Redemption?"

"No, she was on a poster in Andy Dufresne's cell. He used the poster to hide his escape tunnel."

"Who's Andy Dufresne?" This time, Jack heard the amusement in Cage's voice, and quickly realized she was just messing with him. The distraction worked, though, and he felt a lot less freaked out about heading down a creepy, mystery tunnel with a killer possibly on the other side. Not to mention his clearly injured partner was gallivanting around the base just asking for trouble, and Riley and Bozer were out there with only his spare pistol, and his good flashlight, to protect them. It was a bad situation anyway he spun it and yet Cage somehow knew exactly how to refocus him. Of course she did. She was good, Jack had to give her that.

"I'm gonna go through," Jack told her. "Now I need you to go and watch Mac's back, okay?"

"Alright," She agreed. "Be careful."

Jack could hear her rustling around up top and sighed in relief that Mac wouldn't be on his own any longer than strictly necessary. Hopefully, the tunnel would lead him right to Wheeler and his team. The faster he found them, the faster he could find his partner, get off the island, and put the Bermuda Triangle in the rearview for good.

Jack took a deep breath, shined his flashlight as far down as it would go, and wished it was more. He knew every step he took would extend the beam of light that much further down the cavernous tunnel. He just had to keep walking.

"Think happy thoughts, Jack." He whispered to himself. "Like the cowboys winning the superbowl."

Without giving himself too much time to think, he took his first step inside.

XxX

As soon as Jack made his way into the tunnel, Cage's flashlight flickered completely out. She smacked it hard against her palm, urging the light to return. It didn't.

Sighing, Cage stood. Technically, she didn't need to see the pathway clearly to be able to follow it back to Mac. She had been trained to memorize paths even with her eyes closed by counting her steps, memorizing the patterns of the route, to recognize sounds and smells as well as landmarks.

Still, as well trained as each member of the team was, Cage suspected that any one of them on their own would be outnumbered against the prisoner.

Being in the dark made her more aware of how painful her body was. Mac had shielded her from the worst of the blast but her torso still felt like it went a couple rounds in the ring - and lost. Her ribs ached, every breath reminding her that she wasn't at one hundred percent. Her shoulder was worse, though. It felt like every single muscle had torn, and they probably had. It would heal, and if she kept moving it, it wouldn't lock up too bad. It wasn't her first run in with an explosion, not even of that magnitude.

As she made her way back into the main barracks, the flashlight clicked and the beam of light returned. A quick sweep of the area told her she was still alone, but something caught her eye. Tacked up by the head of each bunk were old pictures. One showed a brown haired man holding a lighter haired toddler in one arm and a ten pound fish in the other. They both wore huge smiles and sunburned noses proudly. They stood in front of a lake, the mountains and trees framing the scene around them. A perfect day, and it reminded her so much of her own memories with her father in Australia.

Every bunk had similar pictures showing families and lives, experiences. People lived here, worked and trained here, and then something made them leave so quickly they left their best memories behind. Of course, a picture was worth a thousand words but the people in them were priceless. If they made it home, they had something more important than the pictures, or even the memories, they had the ability to create more.

On the other side of things, the family in the pictures had their person back, too. That was the best case scenario, but one she wasn't granted when she was a child waiting for her beloved parent to come home.

But these people hadn't made it home to their loved ones, had they? They disappeared, never to be seen or heard from again. At least, that was the story. Who knows what really happened to the people stationed here. Cage knew, better than most, that the story written in the history books was often vastly different from the lived experience. Subterfuge very rarely led to honesty, even after the fact.

The only thing Cage knew for certain was that the little girl in the picture would be an old lady if she was still alive. This memory, this photograph, taken on a seemingly perfect day, was long lost. It only lived there, on an abandoned bunk, on a mysterious island, surrounded by secrets. The people in the photos lost to time, one way or another.

No, some families didn't get the happy ending. She learned that the hard way.

So had Mac.

Maybe that was why it felt so natural, so easy to bond with him. They were kindred spirits, having met loss early on in life. They both knew life wasn't guaranteed, but they also knew how important it was to fight for it, to save as many people as possible before their own time ran out.

Cage had seen people get lost in that, had almost fallen victim to it herself a few times, and she didn't want to watch Mac fall deeper into that hole. The search for his dad almost got him killed already. If Murdoc could take advantage of his distracted state, anyone could. He might not be as lucky next time.

She turned away from the pictures, needing to get back to Mac. She had a bad feeling about the mission. Something was deeply wrong. She wasn't superstitious enough to believe in ghosts or premonitions, but she did believe in one thing above all else - her gut. Even when she was a little girl she knew she could rely on her instincts and her training only made that faith in those feelings that much more substantiated.

Something was wrong. The feeling screamed through her.

A faint shift of weight behind her solidified that feeling into a fact. She turned, the flashlight landing on nothing more than bunks, dust, and more pictures of happy lives. But it didn't put her at ease. If anything, her hackles raised even more.

She wasn't alone. And she wasn't going to let a false sense of security make her believe that she was. Not for one second.

A whisper of air tickled her back and she spun, every single instinct and ounce of training kicking in all at once in a crashing wave of adrenaline.

It happened fast.

She saw a figure standing behind her, still and nearly invisible.

"Boo," the voice whispered in the darkness before Cage saw a blood-soaked fist arch in the air toward her face.

The cartilage in her nose crunched, blood immediately gushing down her face, and she couldn't stop herself from going down hard. The contact with the ground knocked the breath right out of her and as her vision wavered, greying out at the edges, she saw the stony face of their prisoner staring down at her.

The last thing Cage saw was her smile.

XxX

As soon as Mac was out of view from Jack and Cage, he dropped all pretenses of being okay.

It was like as soon as he didn't have to hide how much he was hurting, his body decided it was time to make him aware of just how high up the pain scale he really was right now.

The truth was, he hadn't felt this horrible since Lake Como. The wound itself was worse then, but he hadn't felt this injured in a long time. The further away he got from Jack, the more he was starting to realize he shouldn't have kept it to himself.

The burning wound in his side was still leaking blood. He felt lightheaded and half-heartedly wondered how much he had lost. Enough to send him pretty close to shock. His head somehow felt even worse. It felt like his skull was trying to crack open. He definitely had a concussion, and if the way he was feeling was any indication, it was a really bad one.

As soon as he got back to the radio tower, his stomach revolted and he gasped in pain as the intense heaving pulled at his injuries. When he was done, one hand was pressed to his side, and the other to the side of his head. It felt like he was holding himself together, like if he let go, he could break open completely.

He looked back toward the base, leaning heavily on the doorframe of the tower. He could go back, tell Cage and Jack that he might be in trouble, or he could keep going. He was already there. If he could just get to the first aid kit he saw inside, he could patch himself up, get the supplies they needed, and then get back. That seemed like the better option for the mission.

He pushed himself inside, hauling himself up one stair at a time. His feet felt so heavy and the ground seemed to waver under him. His eyes fluttered as dark spots descended over his vision. He couldn't walk right, couldn't think straight, and maybe that's why he didn't tell them he was this hurt like he should have.

He really should have told them.

That was never more clear to Mac than in the moment he practically fell into the control room. He swayed, crashing sideways into one of the desks, and held on to the edge of the rusty metal as tight as he could. It didn't matter, his legs felt disconnected from the rest of him, his hands growing numb.

The world swayed around him again, and for a second it felt like the whole tower was going down, but it was just him.

Mac grunted, pitching to the side dangerously, and then the dusty floor was racing up to meet him.

He was out before he hit the ground.

To Be Continued.