Author's Note: I've been working really hard on my other story that I have going so I'm sorry this took so long. Some how it got turned into the huge mystery/conspires thing and I'm trying to piece it together. Anyway, you don't want to heat about that. So here's the next chapter.
Summary: What happens when Jack finds out about the jobs assigned to the prisoners?
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Chapter 7:
Job Assignment
Darwin got around amazingly fast. Within the hour, he managed to speak with everyone in his or her cell. Jack was personally astonished that he even helped them much less with that much speed and efficiency.
They still had a week until they were going to leave, so he had a lot of extra time. In the first hour, he took up mapping the area in his mind. He had the approximate length and width to scale and the only exit was the most prominent thing on it.
He sank down to sit on the ground. His chin was rested on his knees and he wrapped his arms around his legs. Sam walked over to him with out his knowing. "All the Prit are in agreement. They'll all help." His wiped his head up to meet her blue eyes looking down at him. She smiled and sat next to him, "I would have never thought I would ever see you in this position," she gestured to the way he was sitting.
"It keeps my stomach from getting rid of the little I ate today."
"Understandable, sir. I felt the same way my first day here."
"How can you get used to this smell?"
Jack's question was meant as a rhetorical question but Sam answered when she said, "You don't ever, sir. It becomes bearable over time, but the images that go along with the smells make sure you can't get over it. I haven't been here long enough for this to happen, but Darwin told me the worst thing about being here… is being used to all the death and the smells that accompany it."
Jack looked over at her and saw the compassion in her eyes. She lived in this for a week, was pulled away from it and forced to confront it only to be unexpectedly brought back to I, and he was pitting himself for what he saw. He nodded, he wouldn't let himself get used to it. He wouldn't stoop to it.
**The next morning**
He felt a sharp pain in his side. Then he felt it again. Someone was kicking him. "Wake up! Come on, wake up you puny Prit." The guard gave him one more nice kick into the side before he walked away to wake up any other unfortunate soul that was still asleep.
"Sir, you have to wake up," he heard Carter's voice over everything else in the background and over his own pain.
Slowly he pushed himself up and shook his head to clear it from the fog of just having woken up. He ran a hand over his face and looked over at Carter; she was fully awake. She looked concerned; no doubt knowing what the guards tended to do to people that were not morning people.
"I'm alright, I think." He stood up and Sam dragged him over to a line of people. "What's going on?"
"Job assignment. This is when you're sorted into what job they need someone to do. There are six cells in this camp, which means every third day we have work detail." He looked a little confused by the last sentence, obviously having not done the math, "Two cells work together."
"Oh."
They walked forward until a guard looked at them, sizing the both of them up. He gave them a wicked smile, "Well, how 'bout putting you two… into the quarry. You do know what to do there, don't you?" He shoved a piece of paper hard into Jack's chest and handed Sam another very similar to his. They were shoved forcefully into a group of people on the far left.
Once everyone had been sorted into their respective jobs, they were lead to wherever they were supposed to be. Jack took the opportunity to observe and memorize his surroundings. When they reached their destination, Jack saw that it was a fairly large hole in the ground inside the cave. He was expecting to be leaving the cave.
He saw that there was already five or six guards there plus the one that had taken them there. As they were pushed into the hole, he took the time to look at everyone they sent to work here. There were about fifty others besides himself and Carter. Most were middle-aged men, but, to his disgust, at least ten of the fifty were boys in their teens.
After hours of none stop work picking up rocks and moving them to a designated spot, they were finally taken back to the cell to eat. Once there he was finally able to talk to Carter. "So, how you holding up?"
"I was going to ask you the same thing. You handled yourself very well down there."
"Been down there before, have you?"
"Yea, too bad we have to go back."
"Whoa, go back?"
Sam almost laughed at his outburst and ignorance. "The work isn't over until it's time to sleep," Sam said with a tad too much smugness for his Carter.
A man came around with the food and gave them their allotted sand bread and watery soup. Jack tore off a piece and shoved it into his mouth with a greed that made him forget what it was filled with. He swallowed hard as the sand gritted in his teeth.
He gulped down a good portion of the water to get the taste out of his mouth. He was about to give Carter the rest of it when he saw a young boy that was on his work detail. The boy was nine or ten and eerily reminded him of Charley. He stood up and walked over to the kid. He crouched down in front of him, making sure the kid knew he wasn't a guard so he wouldn't freak out.
The young boy had sandy brown hair that covered his eyes and just barely hind the sunken checks this place had given him. He was paler than a ghost and that alone wasn't good.
His clothing consisted of only rags for pants that were covered in dirt and most likely filled with lice and such. He wore no shirt and his back was covered with cuts and bruises. His arms were red and cut up; probably caused by being brushed up against rocks and the ground.
Jack didn't see any adults around him and assumed that he was either separated from his parents or that they were dead.
"Hey, kid. Here it doesn't quiet sit in my stomach the way real food does. Maybe yours can take it." He handed over the bread and the child ate it hungrily. Once he had finished it, he looked up to Jack with appreciation; no one gave away food. That was a major rule, food was not to be taken lightly; you ate what you got, but that didn't mean you complained when you got extra.
"Thank-you, sir."
"Name's Jack. And yours?" Jack extended his hand, hoping they had a similar custom.
"Tabin. Thanks Jack." He took Jack's hand in his and the cheerfulness that belonged in every child's eyes reached his. Even though his eyes looked as though they belonged to a hundred year old man, they shown with something that he hoped this kid would know for the rest of his life.
He stood up and patted the kid on the shoulder. Then he walked back over to Carter and sat down to finish his water.
"That was foolish, you shouldn't waste food," Sam said in a hushed voice.
"I didn't waste it, I gave it to someone who needed it far more than me. I plan on being out of here before food becomes too much of a problem. He might not be," Jack almost didn't believe that his 2IC just said that. I guess she and Darwin was right; getting used to everything that was going on and becoming cold-hearted was the worst thing that happened in this place.
Before either one could say anything else, they heard the guard call for the people working at the quarry to get in line.
It was another eight hours of backbreaking work before they were brought back to the cells and allowed to sleep. Jack rolled over on his mat to be facing Carter. "Hey, Carter, what do we do on the two days that we don't have work detail?"
Sam rolled over as well so that she was now facing her CO, "Sometimes they let us relax and rest, other's they have us make the food, there's burial detail-"
"That's respectful of them, to let all the Prit's dead be buried," Jack commented.
"Actually, it's the Narious's dead. I was on that detail once," Sam retorted.
"Oh," jack said, sorry he brought it up. "So, you've worked in a quarry a few times, buried dead, become an expert on living in a prison camp. What else can you do?" The way he said that, it sounded like he was flirting even though it was meant to lighten the mood.
"Well, I learned how to make bread out of sand and very little materials needed in making it." Jack and Sam laughed, temporally forgetting were they were.
Suddenly, Sam shuttered slightly as she turned onto her back. There was an awful draft in the cavern and the beds made of only mats and not blankets. Since the mats were all so close, they seemed to be only one mat, so Jack pushed himself closer to her. Still on his side, he wrapped an arm around her, laying his hand on her stomach.
Somewhat shocked, Sam looked over at her CO and good, perhaps best, friend. "A little better?" She just nodded as she let herself indulge in the heat emanating from Jack. Snuggling closer to him, everything around her and everything back home seemed to just disappear as she let the exhaustion that she felt over take her.
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Please R/R.
