Author's note: Okay, turns out I couldn't wait to post. I look forward to hearing what you think about the first Jack and McKay interaction!
Jack wasn't really sleeping. He was curled up on the bench in the holding cell with his eyes closed and his head resting on Woolsey's folded up suit jacket. The man had handed it over in a desperate apology for getting them captured and Jack wasn't above using Woolsey's guilt to his advantage.
He'd lost track of how many hours he'd been up. Lantea had longer days than Earth in the first place - about 27 hours - and the negotiations had started pretty early in the day.
He couldn't believe how much had changed since he woke up. He thought he would be spending his day wrapping up this phase of negotiations and handing things back to Woolsey so he could get back to Earth when he promised Carter. Instead, he was dealing with underwater rooms and mental torture. Plus, there was that whole pesky "threat of death" thing that Sam and the others were now roped into as well.
Jack wasn't sure if it was morning yet, but it had been dark still when Sheppard and the gang arrived. He could feel the exhaustion weighing on him and the adrenaline burning off.
He always slept lightly during missions, ready to wake up and move at a moment's notice, but even that was a little refreshing because he felt safe enough to manage some level of sleep while a member of his team was on watch. Here, there wasn't anyone he trusted to watch his back and he felt responsible for Richard Woolsey's welfare.
So instead of trying to sleep, he just laid down on the bench and closed his eyes, hoping that a simulation of sleep might fool his mind and body into being energetic when he had to run for his life again. It was only a matter of time.
In the silence, Jack thought about how little he'd accomplished here on Atlantis. He thought about how angry he was at the Ancients for ignoring a threat they had advanced warning for. He thought about the fact that he'd put the requirements of his job ahead of his relationship again.
Jack thought about the changes he would make if he made it home and he hoped that he would have the opportunity.
He thought about how the word girlfriend had never seemed quite right to describe his relationship with Samantha Carter.
Jack heard a commotion outside and sat up just in time to see John Sheppard kill two Replicators and enter the brig, with Rodney McKay trailing behind.
He got up and walked over to the bars. Woolsey followed behind him.
"Well, it's about time!" he shouted.
"Oh, thank God!" The relief in Woolsey's voice was tangible.
"Alright, get 'em out of here. I'll stand guard."
Sheppard gave a quick nod after speaking and left to cover the entrance to the room.
McKay stood in front of him, gripping a handheld computer. He touched something on the control panel on the outside of the holding cell and didn't even acknowledge them.
Something in Jack snapped.
"Hey! 'Thanks for the rescue!'"
McKay looked up, surprised.
"Oh, hey! No problem."
He smiled and waved his hand as if brushing away the thanks that Jack had not been giving him. Then McKay went back to the control panel.
It pissed him off. No wonder Sam hated working with this guy.
"No! You should be saying: 'thanks for the rescue'!"
Jack pointed to himself in case the scientist was dumb enough not to make the connection.
The only reason Jack had been captured was because McKay and company had gotten themselves into a jam. It was all their fault and now the guy couldn't even show some proper gratitude.
The surprise bloomed on McKay's face and shifted briefly into something like contrition.
"Oh! Uh, right. Thanks. Should have you outta there in no time. This won't take long at all."
Halfway through talking to them he went back to ignoring them and stared at the control panel and the device in his hand.
"Oh, my. They've changed the codes."
McKay took a step back from the panel, his free hand lifting and holding in the air as he continued to look at the panel in confusion.
Woolsey got closer to the horizontal cell bars. "But you can crack it, right? You need to get us out of here."
McKay didn't look over and just gave another little wave of his hand.
"Yeah, of course I can. Just give me like one…two seconds."
Maybe it was the mention of one or two seconds that clued him in to the fact that something wasn't right. Or maybe it was the fact that McKay actually said the words "oh, my" like a five year old girl.
Jack had been in a lot of situations like this with Samantha Carter and he felt like he'd learned a few things about working with scientists over the years. Scientists preferred precision. They also didn't like to be rushed. They certainly weren't able to accomplish anything in just one to two seconds. Even brilliant scientists took a little time to crack codes and accomplish miracles.
It was entirely possible that Rodney McKay was speaking in hyperbole.
Jack just knew that something felt off.
"Where's Carter?"
"Not here," McKay replied, still looking at the keypad.
"So I guess that frozen Replicator plan didn't pan out?" he asked.
It had taken Jack a while to work out what Sheppard had meant by that picking up frozen goods statement. It niggled at the back of his mind until he remembered reading a detail from an Atlantis mission report about ejecting a Replicator out into space above the planet.
It also reminded him of Thor's plan when the Replicators were attacking Orilla to grab a Replicator from space and use it to gain intel.
"Yeah, not-not so much," McKay admitted.
Jack wasn't surprised that the plan didn't work out.
He could've told McKay that Replicators never stayed asleep when you wanted them to.
Jack leaned closer.
"How's that Plan B working for ya? Good?"
"Actually, it's more like Plan C. 'C' as in C-4, if you catch my drift."
McKay actually thought that stupid line was clever. It was probably a stupid plan too.
"No."
McKay continued in that over-the-top "hint-hint" way of his. "Let's just say that we're concerned the Daedalus won't be able to carry out your standing orders."
Oh god, it was a stupid plan. Why had Sam gone along with this?
Where the hell was she, anyway?
"What?" Woolsey shouted beside him. "To destroy Atlantis with nuclear weapons? I thought we were past that! Why are we going back to that?"
McKay briefly turned back.
"Yeah, it's the only way."
So they were basically right back where they started. Atlantis would still be destroyed. He was trapped in a cell relying on Rodney McKay of all people to get him out of here. Hell of a rescue.
"Can you do that?" he managed to ask.
McKay grinned.
"Yeah. If we plant charges in all ten of the shield emitters before the Daedalus arrives, that way when the Replicators try to activate the shield…"
He trailed off and Woolsey continued the train of logic, such as it was.
"The C-4 detonates, the Daedalus beams a warhead into the city, and we all get vaporized."
Woolsey threw his hands up in the air, moved to the other side of the cell, and started to pace. Jack thought he heard Woolsey muttering to himself.
This was a fucking stupid plan.
"Sounds more like a Plan F, doesn't it?" Jack asked, learning against the cell bars. "As in: we are totally f—"
"If we can fight our way back to the bay, then we'll be able to fly the jumper to a safe distance," McKay interrupted. "That is, if we can get the underwater bay door open."
A totally fucking stupid plan. Not to mention their jumper had a leak and he and Woolsey were still trapped in a holding cell.
Jack gestured around them.
"You can't even open this door! If Carter were here, she would have had us out by now."
"Hey," McKay shouted, "I'm workin' on it!"
"Yes. I see that," Jack replied, voice full of sarcasm.
At that, McKay finally lost his temper.
"Yeah, well I didn't even want to be here. Sam was supposed to have this job. I was supposed to be in charge of contacting the Daedalus, but then she thought she had a better plan."
Plan B.
Jack froze.
McKay said that Plans A and B failed and they were on Plan C. What the hell had happened during Plan B?
What had happened with the frozen Replicator?
"Wait," Jack interrupted, "Why did you take her place? What's going on?"
Where the hell was Sam?
"I don't have time to talk about it right now."
"McKay, what the fuck was Plan B?"
His eyes shot up. "What?"
Jack's voice, when he responded, was ice cold. It was the voice he used to get answers out of enemy combatants. A voice he'd used in his black ops days and when needed as commander of SG-1.
"Where. Is. Sam?"