The scraping had started about an hour ago. It was a faint sound - she almost didn't hear it at all over her pounding headache. She'd sat in the middle of the room, listening, trying to figure out where it was coming from. It was difficult to isolate the sound from the drip of the water on the wall, but she thought it was coming from the back left corner. The muffled sound seemed to come at regular intervals at first, then it slowed down. Now there were a couple of scrapes every few minutes and in between, silence. She'd tried yelling to see if whoever was making the noise could hear her, but to no avail. Either she was being ignored or the sound of her voice was swallowed up by the wall. If so, then the scratching she was hearing was probably much louder in at its source. But what was it? A hundred theories flashed by but she was so tired, hungry, thirsty and uncomfortable with all the naquadah and the darkness. It was hard to concentrate. Maybe she should get some sleep. Then she'd think again.
He had been unable to meditate for very long. He couldn't quite determine why, and that in itself bothered him. He began re-examining his cell. There was no exit save the closed door, which he had discovered to be immoveable. He returned to stand in front of this object. His fingers could feel a minute gap between the door and the wall, but it was far too small to exploit and he found no weakness in the smooth surface of the door. There was no way out. Perhaps he would finally die here. Very well. He'd made his peace with the universe; he'd tried to right his wrongs. Or perhaps one of his teammates would find a way to escape and rescue him, and he would live to fight the Goa'uld another day. He was ready for either option. He would accept his fate, and he would embrace the opportunity to change it.
He'd never been happier to be an archeologist on SG-1. Because of his first profession, he'd found the crack along the wall and, eventually, the chunk of jagged rock he'd managed to pry loose. And because of his training and experiences on SG-1, he had the strength and endurance to use the rock to widen the crack. It was hard at first in the dark, but he soon got a feel for where to swing down and hit the crack. He'd worked methodically at first, never pausing, as though he were chopping a tree. He had no idea if his efforts would do any good ultimately, but you never could tell. Now he was tired and he took breaks. But he still worked at the wall. He knew he needed food and water to keep this up long term, but for now the widened crack and the small pile of rubble at his feet were enough to keep him going. He hacked at the wall until he dropped the rock in exhaustion, scraping his sore palms yet again. Time for another break.
His hands were bruised and scraped where he'd been pounding at the door. He had no voice left and he was horribly thirsty. He paced back and forth slowly, thinking. Brute force and the persistent annoyance factor hadn't worked. Where were his teammates when he needed them? He sighed and sat down. Time to concentrate on two things: holding on to happy thoughts and thinking outside the box for a way to get out. The happy thoughts were easy: find his team and get back to the SGC. Thinking outside the box was harder given that he was, in fact, inside a one, but he'd survived far worse clichés than that. Maybe if he combined solution-finding with his happy thought, he'd make some progress. His teammates' penchant for thinking outside of his box, though sometimes - no, often - frustrating, had proven to be an invaluable asset from day one. So. What would they do?