A/N: This one was sitting on my computer finished for the better part of a day, but I was way too distracted to post anything because I'm an Auntie again! Patrick Quinlan arrived yesterday, 20 days early and a little small but still very healthy and beautiful. I now have a full dozen nieces and nephews, and there is one very happy little boy in particular who loves his three sisters dearly but was getting a bit desperate for a brother. I've only seen pictures and spoken with everyone on the phone, but they are all doing wonderfully. Nephew #5 is absolutely adorable, and my sister's intuition was wrong for the first time - she thought she was having another girl.

Ch 3: Bound and Determined

"You know, that was when our recent string of bad luck started, but I really don't think they would have got a pool going just based on that one incident," Daniel remarked after everyone had lapsed into their own memories of their escape from PX545 and the subsequent ribbing they'd taken about it from SG-3 and the rest of the base when the story 'somehow leaked out' about how they'd shown up at the Alpha site shackled together.

"I think you're right about that, Daniel," Carter agreed.

"Yeah, maybe. But I'm guessing when it happened again on our first trip back through the gate after your shoulder healed is what did it," Jack said.

"That was not anywhere near as spectacular as the first time," Daniel reminded them.

"And there was nothing funny about that either," Carter added. "We were in a really dangerous situation that time."

"You are correct, Major Carter. Luckily for all of us you engineered our escape," Teal'c stated.

Jack grunted an intelligible agreement of some sort and said, "Yeah… speaking of which, anytime you're ready to pull another miraculous escaping maneuver out of your ass…tronomically brilliant brain…"

Daniel snorted derisively at Jack's verbal editing, but Carter was smiling at the clever alteration. They couldn't see her face anyway in their current positions, so it couldn't hurt. "Sorry, sir, I don't think there's enough er… space. To maneuver. This time. I think I'd just get us all more tangled than we already are."

"Too bad. That was kind of fun last time."

Daniel and Carter both snorted this time, but Jack barely registered their responses, as he was already recalling the incident in question, the one that had made him regret that ill-fated 'famous last words' remark in a hurry.

Flashback, Incident #2

Jack regained consciousness and immediately remembered the last thing he'd been doing… sneaking on board a Goa'uld cargo ship (what the hell kind of a name was 'Thoth' anyway?) to try to retrieve (which was sanctioned-speak for 'swipe') some sort of new technology the Tok'ra wanted to incorporate into their little snake-extraction machine or something.

Jack wasn't sure why they wanted it, but it had seemed important when Jacob showed up a couple of days ago and told them about it. Speaking (or thinking, rather) of Jacob… shouldn't he be busting them out of there pretty soon? And shouldn't the first thing out of his mouth be an apology for laughing at Jack's suggestion that they work on making those damn rings a little quieter?

Jacob would probably have to uncloak the ship they'd arrived in to get them out, and who knew what else… but surely he'd make an attempt, no matter how risky. Even if Jacob might have considered leaving O'Neill behind, Jack had his own convenient insurance policy. He was currently tied to the man's only daughter.

They were back to back, wrists tied with what had to be the scratchiest, most uncomfortable rope the Jaffa who had captured them could possibly find. Jack's knees were also tied together, making the left one twinge so painfully he briefly entertained the thought that maybe he'd rather be unconscious again after all. It was pitch black in the stuffy room, but he knew he was bound to Carter by process of elimination: only one of his teammates had such soft and small hands and wrists, and it certainly wasn't Daniel or Teal'c.

As if thinking their names had somehow willed them into consciousness (or maybe it had just reminded Jack's own muddled brain to become aware of them), Daniel, who was somewhere to Jack's right, moaned and said, "Where are we? Everyone okay? Sam? Teal'c? Jack?"

"I'm last?" Jack asked sarcastically.

"O'Neill?"

"Teal'c?"

"I am unable to see."

"Yeah… lights are off. Unless we've all gone blind again. But I don't remember seeing one of those tacky things going off this time, so…"

"They are called Tacs, O'Neill."

"I know. But they're tacky. Come on - tossing a grenade at someone that hurts like hell, knocks them out for hours, makes them blind, and leaves them with a headache for about a week… that's tacky."

"Perhaps," Teal'c conceded. "But we were not attacked with Tacs today."

"Just a good old-fashioned surrounding and group zatting, huh kids," Jack said. He guessed by the sounds of Teal'c's and Daniel's voices that the were tied together as well. They were also shuffling around an awful lot, probably trying to investigate their surroundings in the dark as much as possible.

"Sam's with you, right Jack?" Daniel asked suddenly.

"Yeah, but she's still out of it I think." He jiggled their joint hands and barked, "Carter? Wake up!"

It wasn't the smartest thing he'd ever done. The urgency in his voice penetrated whatever fog her brain had been in and she jerked into alertness, her whole body moving quickly. She gave Jack the beginnings of a nice bump on the back of his head, they both let out profanities, and she kept trying to move or something, apparently not realizing how tied up they already were. She ended up throwing them both off balance completely, and Jack was thrown roughly onto his left side with her. His last thought before he lost consciousness again was that the floor of the cargo ship was even harder than his 2IC's skull.

Next thing he knew, he woke up on the ground, dizzy. Daniel, Teal'c, and Carter were all talking at once. They sounded worried. Carter was also doing an awful lot of squirming around. None of them had noticed that he had rejoined the world of the conscious and possibly concussed, so he decided to let them know. "Dear diary, today when I woke up Carter was groping my ass…"

"Colonel!" She sounded so relieved that he was awake that she wasn't even going to acknowledge his remark.

"O'Neill - are you injured?"

"Yeah, Jack, do you think you have a concussion? How many fingers am I holding up?"

"Daniel, are you sure there's nothing wrong with your head? Cuz I don't know about you but my hands are tied behind my back and the room is pitch black, so I'm guessing that's not the best way to check for a concussion today."

"Sorry… habit. Seriously though, are you okay?"

"Sure." He shrugged, which was weird in his current position. "Hey, Carter, any chance we can try to choreograph getting ourselves back into an upright position?"

"Um, actually, this is better, sir."

"Maybe for you, but my knee doesn't like me very much right now."

"I'm sorry, Colonel, I'm trying to get out of here."

"Yeah, right."

"She says she can get out of the ropes," Daniel informed him.

"Really? This I'd like to see."

"As you have stated, O'Neill, we are currently incapable of seeing anything," Teal'c reminded him helpfully.

"Thanks, T. Carter, when do you think your dad might show up and rescue us?"

"We won't need him to if you guys just give me a few minutes."

"That code for 'shut the hell up?'" Jack asked mildly.

"Yes, sir."

"Right. Daniel, shut up."

Daniel mumbled something Jack couldn't catch. He thought it might not be English anyway. He gave over the desire to irritate Daniel and busied himself trying to ignore the various bolts of pain shooting through his body from his head and knee, and also trying to ignore the very close-quarter wriggling of his 2IC.

Apparently now that the only sounds in the room were rustling fabric and a few grunts of effort and frustration, Carter felt the need to explain what she was trying to do. "If I can get my feet past my wrists I can get my arms in front of me, and hopefully loosen the ropes with my teeth, then get the ones around my legs, get the rest of you free, and we'll get the hell out of here."

"Oh yeah, piece of cake," Jack said sarcastically.

"It would be a lot easier if I didn't have my boots on," she admitted. "And wasn't tied to another person. But I think it could still work."

A loud popping sound echoed eerily. "That was just my back!" she assured them all, although Jack was less than comforted.

He couldn't help finding all the unavoidable contact with a squirming Carter… interesting. Fingers kept colliding with fingers and enough camouflaged areas for Jack to figure out that his 2IC was either sporting a definitely non-regulation-abiding thong or had one heck of a wedgie. He briefly considered asking Daniel and Teal'c which one they'd like to bet on, but decided it would probably end up being one of the last things he ever did. Certainly one of the dumbest. So he bit the inside of his cheek instead and made no comments about all the touching and frictiony noises. He even resisted the urge to ask Daniel if 'frictiony' was a word. Maybe he could ask him later.

He stopped finding their positions quite as intriguing when several of his fingers were mashed suddenly with a heavy pair of combat boots. "Jesus, Carter!"

"What's going on over there?" Daniel called curiously.

"Carter's boots hate my fingers," Jack whimpered, biting down on a whole string of words that would never make it into his report as his back was wrenched painfully when she moved again. "Dammit, I'm not Gumby, Carter, even if you are!"

"Sorry! Are you okay?"

"Yeah… but I don't think this is gonna work. How are you even doing this at all, aren't your knees tied together?"

"No… my ankles."

"As are mine," Teal'c said.

"Mine too… Jack, your knees are tied?"

"Yeah… you think they know about my bad knee? Now that's just mean."

"Oh, but zatting us all, tying us up, and leaving us in a pitch-black room on the floor isn't?" Daniel asked.

"Good point."

"Sir, just take a deep breath and relax, okay… this is probably going to hurt but I'll do it fast."

Jack swallowed another comment but Daniel didn't. "Sam, that sounded really bad."

"Shut up, Daniel, or I might conveniently forget to untie you when we get out of here."

"Yes, ma'am," Daniel said quietly.

Jack did as he was told and bit his tongue hard enough to taste blood as she did some circus-freak move that would probably hurt just to watch. He couldn't tell exactly what she did, but it definitely involved pushing against his butt with her feet for leverage, and wrenching his arms nearly off.

It hurt. A lot. But if was over fast, like she'd promised, and while his arms were still not feeling very well at the moment, they weren't complaining all that much. They were around her waist, from behind and backwards of course, but still. That meant she'd gotten hers in front of her, and although their backs were now pressed together much more tightly than before, she had a lot more room to work on the ties at their hands.

"Okay?" she asked, breathing hard.

"Peachy. You?"

"Yeah, just need a second to catch my breath."

Daniel mumbled something to Teal'c, who rumbled back, "Indeed."

"What was that, Spacemonkey?" Jack demanded.

"Nothing… just talking to Teal'c is all."

"About…"

"Nothing."

"Carter, maybe you will accidentally leave Daniel tied up when we get out of here."

"Okay, okay," Daniel said quickly. "I said, 'too bad there aren't any lights in here, if we had footage of this we could make a fortune back at the base.'"

"That's it. You're never getting untied," Jack said grumpily. "Never."

Privately, he happened to agree with Daniel, but that wasn't the point. He didn't like being made fun of - especially by the geek.

He was especially glad Daniel's musings were merely musings when Carter caught her breath and moved onto the next stage of her little trick. Since she'd never be able to bring his arms up high enough to reach the ropes with her teeth, she did the opposite, which involved shimmying down him and then bringing their arms up as much as possible.

He tried not to think about all the off-limit places his hands and forearms encountered with that little maneuver, and was suddenly very glad that he wasn't in Daniel or Teal'c's position - on the other side of the room picturing one of them stuck like this with Carter. Realizing that yes, that was most certainly the top of his 2IC's breasts that his hands were resting on, he tried to curl his fingers into fists to minimize the contact but the rope and her hands were in the way and it was just impossible.

"Sorry," he mumbled uncomfortably, not sure what he should do or say about it. This whole thing was her idea and doing, after all, but he still felt like he should be apologizing.

"'Sokay," she said distractedly, still squirming around a bit. She suddenly bit one of his fingers, hard.

He yelped loudly and exclaimed, "Holy crap, I said I was sorry!"

"Sorry, sorry!" she was apologizing profusely at the same time.

"Are you all right?" Teal'c asked.

"Sorry," Carter repeated again. "Trying to get the rope…"

"That wasn't it," Jack whimpered, sounding slightly pathetic even to his own ears. "I'm okay, T. Carter just bit me in the hand… not for the first time, might I add."

"Mmrphmy."

Jack guessed that was supposed to be another 'sorry,' but she had clearly succeeded in locating the rope. Several mostly quiet minutes later, she gave a triumphant 'Yes!' and Jack felt most of the ropes around his wrists loosen. She did some quick scrambling and was soon sitting up next to him, although his own wrists were still bound loosely with one remaining knot. She undid that one as well and helped him sit up, then turned back to work on the ropes around her own ankles, leaning against his back again to help him sit up even though it was no longer required. He was glad for the support, as his back, shoulders, arms, head, and knee were all killing him. They finished freeing themselves and felt their way over to Daniel and Teal'c. Jack accidentally poked Teal'c in the eye and Carter kneed Daniel in the ribs as she knelt next to him, but they had soon successfully freed their entire team.

They were feeling around in the dark for hidden panels that would hopefully locate the door they still hadn't found when it suddenly opened on its own and they all reacted instinctively to the sudden addition of light to the pitch-black environment they'd grown accustomed to. They turned away from the source of the light and the potential danger it signaled and gathered together closely in a protective little huddle.

"What the hell are you waiting for, we don't have all day!" an exasperated and familiar voice scolded them all.

"Dad!" Carter and Jack both said at the same time.

A split-second behind them was Daniel with, "Jacob thank God."

Jacob gave them his 'losing my patience with you rapidly' smile and waved for them to follow him with the zat gun in his hand.

vvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvv

Present

"I'm still not really sure how everyone else found out about that so fast," Carter commented. "I mean, okay, when we showed up at the Alpha site completely unexpected and they had to break out the blowtorches… it's understandable that people would talk, but…"

"Siler was in the infirmary when we got back," Jack reminded her.

"That's right," Daniel agreed. "He commented on the marks on all our wrists, from the ropes, remember? Before Janet discharged him?"

"That is correct," Teal'c said. "His curiosity was undoubtedly piqued, and the guards in the board room subsequently told to pay special attention during our debriefing."

"And once the story got back to SG-3 that it was the second time in a row we ended up captured and tied up, they thought it would be funny to get a pool started on when, where, why, and how it would happen to us next," Carter concluded.

"And how we'd get out," Jack added, remembering how he'd found out about the new pool in the first place: he had overheard two soldiers and the scientist from SG-9 arguing over which one of them would get them out of their next 'bind.'

When the rest of his team had joined him in the commissary for lunch and he found himself looking around the room frequently with a paranoid look in his eyes (and for good reason -- they were getting quite a lot of attention), he had complained about their new roles in the latest pool to the rest of his team, who had been equally perturbed.

It had only gotten worse that afternoon, when Carter came to him to report that she had gone to speak with General Hammond about letting her back onto regular duty immediately (she was fine, after all, just a little sore!) and Hammond had hastily shoved a few crumpled bills into Walter's front pocket and shooed the technician away when he saw her approaching.

"They want us to know about the pool, you know," Jack grumped, tugging at the current restraints on his wrists just for the sake of it, since he hadn't tried it in a while. "Ronson thinks it's funny."

"The term I heard him use was 'a hoot and a holler,' I believe," Teal'c contributed evenly.

"I would have thought they'd have let it go when nothing happened for almost six weeks," Carter mused.

"Yeah, maybe they would have if Daniel and I hadn't come back so… damaged… the next time. And if Daniel could have kept his mouth shut around that damn nosey nurse."

"Hey! That one was entirely your fault in the first place, Jack!"

"Was not."

"Was too."

"Was not!"

"Was."

"O'Neill, I believe you were responsible," Teal'c said, trying to settle the matter.

"Hey! Since when are you on his side?" Jack demanded. "Carter? You gonna set them straight or what?"

His only answer at first was a long silence. Finally, his 2IC cleared her throat and said carefully, "Well, I suppose it wasn't entirely your fault, sir… but it was definitely more your fault than Daniel's. I mean, he was just standing there."

"So was I!" Jack insisted.

"Sure, Jack," Daniel said, as if he were pacifying a small child.

"You guys just don't remember," Jack grumbled. "It was all very simple…"

"O'Neill, you are clearly not impartial in this story."

Daniel snorted. "When is he ever?"

Teal'c ignored Daniel's comment and stated, "I will remind you both the way events actually transpired."

"Oh goody," Daniel muttered, while Jack said concurrently, "Oh joy."

Carter mumbled, "Oh great."

vvvvvvvvvvvvvv

A/N: Yup, the next one is going to be Teal'c (not first person, just in the same way that this chapter was 'Jack.') I haven't stuck with Teal'c since one of my first stories, but I was particularly inspired to try it again after an especially kind review complimenting my 'Teal'c voice,' and I thought this story set-up was a good place to try it again. He can be tricky, so it might take a bit longer though. We'll see!