Chapter 54

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"You've been at it for hours now, will you stop?"

Torren sounded annoyed, but Grace wouldn't even think about letting it go. She kept tracing the rough walls with the palm of her hand, hoping against hope to find something, anything that could give her a clue how to get out of here.

Nothing.

Nothing, for hours now. "I hate this," she sighed, balling her hands into fists, ready to punch the wall. Damn it if she broke a finger or two in the process. They'd been out of contact with the world out there for how long now? How long had it been since they were forced into this damn cell? Was the rest of their team even alive? Every time she allowed herself to calm down even for a few seconds, she saw the crumpled body of Ferretti on the ground. She hadn't even seen it, but she couldn't help imagining what it must have looked like. How those green eyes stared into nothingness.

"Grace, come on, sit down. There's nothing we can do right now."

She pushed herself away from the wall, her eyes wandering over the dull grey concrete in front of her, up to the slit in the ceiling where the door had vanished. The narrow opening was barely big enough to grant her index finger access, but maybe that was all they needed. Maybe there was a mechanism hidden up there that could help them get out. Or she might break actually break her finger. She'd be damned if she didn't at least try."Give me a boost."

"Grace…"

"Torren." She whipped around to face him, ready to launch into a verbal assault, instantly regretting her sharp tone when she saw him. He had his hand on his narrow hips and sighed audibly, his eyes cast downward. When he slowly raised his head, she saw a glinting in his eyes that made her heart sink.

"I know you're upset," Torren said, slowly advancing towards her, "but from in here there's nothing we can do, okay? This is a prison cell." His hands felt cool on her skin as he put them on her cheeks. Cool and warming in their familiarity. "Come on, take a deep breath." Those brown eyes looked almost golden when he leaned in to rest his forehead against hers.

"You're trying to distract me."

He sighed again, his breath hitting her lips warm and almost promising. But he didn't move in closer. He blinked and the corners of his eyes crinkled slightly as he smiled down at her. "Just do it, okay? I promise it's not gonna hurt."

Grace scoffed but allowed her eyes to fall shut when she let out her breath again. Torren's hands were slowly but surely warming up. She felt him shift slightly as he brought his body up to hers.

"Just focus on me, alright?" He swallowed hard. Automatically her arms went around his waist. She was almost sure she could feel the soft pounding of his heart against his ribs and with every breath she took, she felt some of the anxiety leaving her. If only for a moment, she allowed his presence to envelop her, even if it made her eyes prick with tears. Even if every other breath she took brought forth the image of Ferretti and the others.

What of Caleb?

What of her parents?

Did they already know? Had they given up on them?

But the tears didn't come. They hovered on the edge, only inches away from overwhelming her.

She felt him stiffen, felt every muscle in his body tense up as he clung to her, his hands spasming for a moment before he started breathing fast. Gasping, Grace opened her eyes, her fingers tightening as they grasped his shirt. "Torren," she whispered, her voice trembling and when finally, after what seemed like minutes, he looked at her again, she felt like she was looking at a stranger. A stranger she couldn't pull away from, because he was holding her tight, his fingers digging into her skin.

"A treaty that favours you," Carter echoed while Ronon shifted next to her with a deep frown on his face. "What does that mean?"

The question to be asked was why Ba'al wanted a treaty at all. If anything, they could call themselves lucky he hadn't launched yet another attack on this galaxy. And the real question was why he hadn't.

Caleb bit his lip and let out a long breath. "The Zero Point Module Josh and I found in Italy among other things."

"Like what?" Evan prompted, urging his voice to sound detached and determined at the same time. There was no way the Pentagon would release such a valuable artifact, not even for the possibility of getting Atlantis back. There was little to no chance of that happening. And he doubted Ba'al could possibly see that any differently. "I hear Buckingham Palace is free this time of year." He could have kicked himself for that comment and judging by the way Carter stared at him, he knew she would gladly have done it herself.

"I want to expand my domain," Ba'al said, eyes fixed on Evan. "By twenty percent. Both in this and in the Milky Way galaxy."

Ronon crossed his arms over his chest and raised his eyebrows. "Why d'you even want to talk with us about that? You have your clones, your armies, your ships, your technology. Why would you want to negotiate with us, when you could just take it."

He can't.The thought didn't hit him out of nowhere, but Ronon's words only solidified his suspicions and he got the distinct impression that Carter was thinking along the same lines as he was. Had Ba'al really lost his grip? Were they overestimating him?

Ba'al eyed Ronon for a moment, his nostrils flaring before he answered: "This is more convenient," he said calmly, lying through his teeth, and Evan could see that he wasn't fooling anyone sitting at the table.

Evan exchanged a glance with Carter, who inclined her head ever so slightly. "We can't make decisions on that scale here at this table. You know that." The question was, if the IOA even wanted Atlantis back at this point. The questions would be, how badly had it been damaged, how had it been rigged by Ba'al in the past twenty years and what they even wanted with an outpost that size. What should be worrying was that Ba'al's fleet was much further advanced than they could have predicted.

"I cannot say that I care much for your evasion tactics," Ba'al said. "I have your ship in my grasp, you and the teams I have captured are at my mercy. You do not have much choice but to cooperate."

"Doesn't change a thing," Carter said. "We do not negotiate with terrorists and how would we even know that we can trust your word? That Atlantis isn't already bugged and overrun? That you won't be able to control the city?"

"Because he doesn't know where it is," Caleb said quickly, avoiding Ba'al's gaze. The hands lying on top of the table were balled into fists and he swallowed visibly. Clearly this was not the role Ba'al had intended him to play.

"What makes you say that, Caleb?" Evan prompted, doing everything in his power to keep his voice level as he leaned over, his stomach in a tight knot as he eyed Ba'al, whose jaw was tense and his dark eyes fixed on his son. His son, who was clearly risking everything by just saying this. Who didn't know the first thing about navigating a situation like this.

Worst of all was that Caleb wasn't paying attention to it. "The Furling army consisted of clones only," Caleb said quietly without looking at Ba'al. "He found some good genetic samples that helped him make enough copies and then he reconstructed their technology. But they got out of control, I guess. What other reason would there be to kill them all?" And then he turned to look at Ba'al, his face an impenetrable mask to anyone but his father. Evan knew that look. Knew how hard it was for Caleb to hide his emotions like this sometimes. How his lower lip would be on the verge of quivering. The boy truly had a lot to learn. If he ever got the chance. "I guess they hid it, or destroyed it and there's no way for him to find it, so offering it to us doesn't hurt him."

Ba'al was not the kind of person to take lightly on criticism, let alone impertinence, and that was clearly how he must see Caleb. None of the Goa'uld were, and though this particular System Lord appeared to be more human than all the others the Tau'ri had ever had to deal with, he was not less dangerous. If anything, he was more calculating and cleverer than every single one of them. There was an ease about the way with which Caleb talked about him that made all of this downright unnerving, though and with every breath he took Evan felt the tension growing. He watched as Ba'al's hand clasped the armrest of his chair and how Caleb remained unfazed by the way Ba'al smiled almost benignly at the comment. "Whatever makes you say that?"

"You've lied before," Caleb said dryly, "and I refuse to play along," he added turning back to face Evan, something almost apologetic in his eyes then that made Evan want to reach out to him. What on Earth had happened to his boy? Caleb pressed his lips into a thin line before turning to face Ba'al. "If you wanted to attack Earth and her allies and take it all for yourself you would have done so already. Clearly you don't have the capacity to do so, so why bother with his charade?"

Even Carter had gone pale at these blunt words and Evan's heart seemed to have stopped beating when Ba'al slowly rose from his chair, his dark eyes still fixed on Caleb. "You disappoint me," he said in a voice so low and icy, it chilled Evan to his very core. "And you will suffer for it." He paused, fixating on Caleb with those narrowed eyes and before Evan knew it, he was came to his feet, simultaneously with Caleb, who was standing in front of him now. When had it happened that his son had become taller than him? Since when were those shoulders so broad?

"Hold on," Ronon said calmly, the deep voice permeating the room with an authority Evan had rarely ever heard from him. They were all standing now, four against one, but none of this was looking as it should. The guards outside were Ba'al's. Their owncrew was incapable of getting them out of here. "This isn't getting us anywhere."

Out of the corner of his eye Evan saw Carter turn around to stare at Ronon, obviously just as taken aback by his diplomatic tone as Evan was. Only that Evan couldn't even begin to wonder at it. All he could focus on was his child and the enemy he was shielding him from.

"Caleb," Evan muttered, wishing he could tell the boy to step back. To do whatever it took to stay out of harm's way. To step back and let his father take the blow that would undoubtedly fall. Anything to stop this monster from killing another child of his.

As though he'd read his mind, Ba'al's gaze flickered to Evan for a moment before turning back to Caleb and at that precise moment, just for a heartbeat as Ba'al's eyes locked on Caleb, Evan thought he saw something else in Ba'al's eyes. Something so fundamentally out of character, Evan couldn't even begin to place it.

Ba'al's nostrils flared as he stepped towards Caleb, his fingertip resting on his son's chest. The sight made Evan's stomach churn. "Even if what you say is true," Ba'al began, "you should not forget that you, all of you are my prisoners. That you are outnumbered and-"

"Yes, we get the gist," Evan interrupted him, his voice rising despite himself when he saw Ba'al's fist closing on the fabric of Caleb's shirt, "but there's still something you pretend to want from us. Something we can't give you, as you very well know." Once again Ba'al looked at him, but Evan ignored the wild pounding of his heart. "So cut to the chase. Do you want to re-negotiate the terms of the old treaty or keep playing with us? What? You know you're not getting the ZPM and-" he broke off. Not because he knew he had acted just as foolishly as his son had before him, but because for the same reason he knew Ba'al was blanching.

The familiar staccato of machine-gun fire was breaking through the silence outside. Rhythmic chaos outside, barley muffled by the only door. A sound which made his blood run cold as he reached for Caleb and pulled his son towards before him mere milliseconds before a voice shouted something he wasn't able to understand, but the tone of which he knew too well. Without hesitating, he threw Caleb to the ground to shield his son with his body as the door was blasted apart and he felt a stinging pain in his side.

A/N: It's been so long, and once again I apologize. I felt stuck with this story for such a long time and dived headfirst into another project. What can I say: I think it helped. Thanks for sticking around anyway! I think I this story will have three more chapters, at least according to my outline, but outlines lie a lot. Anyway: what are your thoughts? What do you think happened here?

When I received the message that Cliff Simon had passed away a few weeks ago, I wasn't sure if I would be able to finish writing the story at all. I had a Zoom meeting with him and a couple of other fans in November. He was an incredibly talented and nice person and he will be sorely missed.