A/N: Sorry about the long wait guys! The first month this year at school this year has been incredibly hectic and i've had writer's block. I got sick at the end of the spring semester so had to take "incompletes" in three courses, which means i'm making them all up now. So while i'm only taking four courses this semester, it feels like i'm taking seven!
Next friday is the deadline for finishing the incompletes and I have only one left, but its horrendous. And I had a mid-term today, have another tomorrow, and two papers due on monday. So please pray for me! After next friday though, things go back to normal. After that, if my muse cooperates, I should have another chapter or two up a week.
Even if a little while goes by between posts, don't worry that i'll abandon this story. I hate it when authors do that! I will finish this one, even if it takes a little while. I'll have you know I've even been planting seeds as I write this for a sequel...
"Hello?!" Daniel called, banging on the solid cell door. "Are you ever planning on feeding us again?" It had been about thirty-six hours since the group had completed their last meal as prisoners, and so far it had been their only meal. If the paste they had been fed even qualified as food. All three were ignoring the hunger as best they could—you could live for days, a week even, without food. But the thirst was somewhat more pressing, and all were beginning to dehydrate.
Although Jacob's condition hadn't changed much for the better or the worse, Janet was not doing well. Daniel had awoken in the middle of the night to the sound of her teeth chattering as she shivered violently with fever chills. Her wound was now infected, and he knew dehydration was the last thing she needed.
Hence the banging and the yelling. He pressed his ear to the door, listening for a response, but heard nothing. With a sign of defeat he retook his place on the floor next to Janet, and she shifted to again rest her head in his lap.
"Is there anything I can do?" he asked her, placing his hand on her shoulder. She was curled up as if making herself a smaller target would lessen the now stabbing pain in her leg, or the body-wide ache and nausea of the infection.
"Just be here," she replied quietly, taking his other hand in hers. Daniel just nodded. That he could do.
He watched her fitful sleep in silence, broken only by the soft sound of Jacob's raspy breathing. His thoughts drifted back to Jack and Sam. Where were they? It had been something like two days since he had last seen Sam and he knew the nanites had to be taking a toll on her by now. And why had they taken Jack? When Janet had been taken from them, she had been returned in the space of a couple hours. Jack had now been gone ten or so. It was hard to judge the time and Daniel found himself wishing the Jaffa would at least give him his watch back.
A violent cough from Jacob jerked Daniel's out of his thought and he turned his head to find Jacob awake.
"Welcome back," Daniel said with a sense of irony. "I'm sorry to say that absolutely nothing has changed in the time you've been asleep." Jacob didn't respond right away, but looked contemplative.
" I'm beginning to think I might not make it out of this," he began, to Daniel's dismay.
"I agree things aren't looking encouraging at the moment," Daniel admitted, "but this is far from over. Don't give up yet."
"I'm not giving up," Jacob said in denial. "I'm being realistic. We have all been incredibly lucky in this war we fight, but it can't last forever." Daniel had nothing to say to that. SG-1 especially had been lucky, or unlucky depending on your point of view, but they had always made it out okay.
"I've just had a lot of time to think lately," he continued. "And to discuss, really, since this war is something Selmak and I are in together. Fighting the Goa'uld is my life now, and someday it is going to mean my death. I am okay with that, and so is Selmak. I'm living on borrowed time as it is, and I believe strongly in what we are fighting for. But I know that as a Tok'ra, I will fight to the death."
Daniel remained silent. The truth in Jacob's assertions were undeniable. The Tok'ra had very simple lives and very simple goals from that point of view. Like Teal'c, the Tok'ra were fighting an impossible crusade for not just freedom, but for their very lives. They fought to the death, because the fight and their lives were inseparable.
Was he going to fight to the death? It was a question Daniel pondered after their toughest missions; the one's someone almost didn't make it back from. Like this one. If he lived long enough, would there come a point at which he would step back and allow the younger and stronger to fight in his place? How important was one person in the grand scheme of things? How much should he have to sacrifice?
All of SG-1 made sacrifices daily for the sake of billions of people who were completely unaware or of it or simply sightless and ungrateful. Teal'c sacrificed his family, in bits and pieces. His lost the loyalty of his wife to another man and then her life to his cause. His son grew up without a father. Teal'c sacrificed his place among his people, making himself an outcast and traitor to the very people he was trying to free.
Sam sacrificed the respect she deserved from peers in her field as they smiled and nodded, writing her off as a geek when she explained she worked in "deep space radar telemetry." She sacrificed her relationship with her brother by putting service before family, and would have let her father die believing she was a disappointment to everything he wanted for her. And only now did Daniel realize that she was sacrificing her chance to have a family. At least Teal'c, Jack and himself had had loving marriages, even if they all ended too soon. She had a daughter, but like Teal'c gave up the opportunity to truly be a parent. He wondered where she had been when Paige had taken her first steps, or said her first words. On a different planet? Surrounded by bodies in the midst of battle?
And Jack? For a while Daniel had wondered if Jack had anything left to sacrifice to service. From what little Daniel knew, the terrestrial wars Jack had fought for his country had taken him closer and closer to the point of destroying him. Only his wife and son saved him, and when they were taken Jack had nothing left but a life he didn't consider worth living. In these past few years Daniel thought Jack had regained some of what he had lost, only to see so recently that in some ways nothing has changed at all. He wasn't unaware of the growing bond between the military half of SG-1, and had grilled Teal'c after the quick and hushed resolution of their status as za'tarcs. Teal'c had been reluctant to share their confessions for fear of betraying their honor, but Daniel had convinced him he had a right to know for the "good of the team." How ironic. For the sake of this war, their dedication to the cause, and loyalty to the powers that be they were sacrificing whatever they could have had with each other. He knew that if he had to go back and choose between fighting this war and living to be an old man with Sha're at his side…well he didn't know exactly. Daniel was just glad it wasn't a choice he had to make.
He himself was not so different from Teal'c in some ways. This fight was personal. For a long time he had been willing to fight to the death to get Sha're back, and when she died it was only his promise to protect her son that kept him from walking away. This fight would always be personal. So would be its sacrifices.
"I worry though," Jacob said, drawing Daniel's attention back to the present. "About Sam. Especially now that I've met the granddaughter I didn't even know existed. When I die it will be without regrets. Well," he amended, "without any big regrets. I worry that if she fights this war to the death she will die with regrets. Even if she doesn't realize it. Duty is a lot, but it isn't everything." He chuckled. "She probably wouldn't believe you if you told her I just said that though. Unfortunately, after her mother died, I gave far too much to duty and not enough to my children. Of all the things a father can pass on to his daughter, loyalty to such a fault is not what I would have chosen."
"Then you should tell her this," Daniel broke in. "When she gets back."
"I'm telling you, now," Jacob stressed, "in case I can't. If I don't make it out of here this time, and the rest of you do, you can tell her for me."
Daniel didn't answer, and Jacob took his grudging silence as an affirmative. Daniel, meanwhile, was getting antsy. If Jacob was talking like this it couldn't be good. And he was thirsty! So slipping out from beneath Janet's head he headed back to the door and started pounding again.
After ten minutes of Daniel's pounding on the door and calling out—after which both Jacob and Janet were about ready to bind and gag him—the door opened rather suddenly. So suddenly in fact that if it had not been for the motivation of a staff weapon in his face he might have fallen forward into the unexpected opening.
"Back up!" the Jaffa at the other end of the weapon roared, and Daniel obeyed. "If you continue to beckon for attention I will cut out your tongue, and no one will hear your pitiful pleas."
Seating himself at the far wall next to Janet Daniel paused. "You mean shut up?"
"Silence!" he pulled a zat and cocked it.
"I can do that," Daniel conceded. Just then a human slave entered with a tray of 'food' and water. He set the tray on the floor, but stumbled over Daniel's foot as he went to stand and leave. Daniel grasped the young man's arm's to keep him from falling, and although he was startled to feel something cold and hard in pressed into his hand he didn't let his surprise show. The man bowed quickly in thanks, whispering something quickly before hurrying away.
Daniel waited until after the slave and Jaffa had left, the door sealed shut behind them, before examining the object the slave had smuggled to him. It was one of the communicators the Tok'ra had given them. The slave's words echoed in his head. "Your pleas will be heard if there is one near who can hear them."
Please review! It keeps my muse alive! And you wouldn't want him o die, would you? (most muses seem to be female but i'd prefer to imagine someone who looks somewhat like michael shanks)