"Colonel O'Neill to Security Level 28."
He closed his eyes, allowing himself one deep breath as he mentally replaced his 'inscrutable' mask. When he turned, his expression was cold and unreadable. He strode briskly out with a nod to Janet.
Bob Cooper stood as the Colonel entered the Security office. "Sir! Is Jill alright?"
Jack stopped, surprised at this reception. He had prepared himself for defiance or anger or even the remote chance of regret. Not for this "worried husband" act. He narrowed his eyes, assessing the man behind all of this. This scum was responsible for his wife's … habits. For the attack on Carter. Teal'c was locked up until this bastard was safely in Leavenworth – to prevent the enraged Jaffa from killing him.
"You ought to know."
"What do you mean?" Bob Cooper looked nervously from the Colonel to the pair of SFs who had brought him in.
Jack just stared at him. Funny thing about silence. People always felt a need to fill it with words. Bob Cooper was no exception.
"I didn't hurt my own wife," he said, regaining his composure. "Ask her yourself."
Jack repressed a shudder as Cooper looked confidently at him. The cocky bastard was certain she'd lie for him, do whatever was necessary to please him. He remembered captors of his own trying to do that to him, their threats so horrifying that they were sure he'd do absolutely anything to avoid their ire. What had Bob Cooper done to Jill to be so assured of her reaction even in this situation?
A range of emotion surged through him. Revulsion and anger he'd expected; he wanted to hurt the bastard, crush him, break him like his captors had tried to do to him. More than that, though, he felt his gut tightening in a familiar fear as he recalled his own treatment at the hands of various captors, recalled similarly confident faces leering at him.
A rush of power suddenly overran the other feelings. He was the one in charge this time. He had the power. He could take revenge on this one, punish him, crush him to little sniveling bits… His long fingers twitched, eager to carry out his mind's desire. But that would make Jack no better than the men he despised. With an effort, he controlled his impulses an opted for a matter-of-fact answer.
"Don't have to. It's all on video."
"She was under the camera."
The SF's stiffened at that, recognizing, as O'Neill did, the admission. Not that they needed it. Jack had surreptitiously added two additional cameras to the lab, inadvertently causing the flood by loosening a second ceiling panel in addition to the one he'd used to block the official camera. There wasn't much of the lab that he couldn't see and hear.
"How do you know that?"
Cooper's eyes widened. "They, uh, they told me," he stammered.
"I don't think so." He looked coolly at -- through -- the man. Let him be the one to feel like he was nothing.
Cooper shifted uncomfortably, but this time kept silent.
"Cell A2. Minimum rations." He turned to go.
"Er, sir?"
"Yes?"
"Teal'c is in A2, sir." The SF spoke, but Cooper was the one who looked worried.
Jack shrugged. "A3, then." He strolled casually away, showing the bastard that he was the trivial one, his fate decided, no big deal. He'd known, of course, exactly where Teal'c was, and had tossed the dice as to whether the SFs realized – or cared – that they'd be putting Cooper in with the man he wrongly accused. It may have been rash, but at that moment he'd been prepared to take the blame if Cooper were "accidentally exposed" to mortal risk.
He closed the door to his office too hard again; the sound echoed with a finality that reminded him all too vividly of cell doors being slammed. Automatically, he moved to the cot and sat on it, another echo of times long past and better forgotten.
He balled his hands into fists, squeezing so hard that his arms trembled all the way up to his shoulders as he struggled with his feelings. More memories echoed, unbidden and unwanted. Slamming doors. Harsh laughter. Screams, his and others. The quiet sobs of broken men slowly giving way to silence. And with the silence came the feelings. They cascaded over him in rapid succession.
Fear, of course. A constant companion. Fear of what they would do to him next. Fear that they would kill him. Or that they would not.
Desperation to escape. To not have to face the awful Fear again. He took a shuddering breath, almost a sob, as he was suddenly back there again. The things they did were unendurable. And inescapable.
Shame. He had been so ashamed the first time he broke down and did something they told him to. Had berated himself for not being stronger, for not continuing to resist every single thing. It was the beginning of a long slide down a slippery slope, and he knew it. But sometimes it was easier to face the Shame after than the Fear before. More and more often as he slid down that slope towards
Despair. He was never going to escape. Never be free. Or fed. Or healthy. Or safe.
And no one cared.
He remembered the loneliness.
God, the loneliness. Not that he wanted anyone else to go through what he was going through. But it would have been infinitely easier with someone to talk to. To be brave for. Someone to say it was ok.
Someone to know he was alive and not just some damned punching bag thrown in a closet when the gym closed.
He squeezed his eyes tight shut, his next breath quivering more than the last. That was it, more than anything. Just someone else to know he was a human being, even if they couldn't help his situation. He had wished, dreamed, prayed for someone.
And there had been no one. No one but his tormentors.
He shuddered even now, remembering how unutterably alone he'd felt. He'd gone for months knowing he could be miles from the nearest friendly face, the punching bag deserted in the closet between rounds. Cooper, on the other hand, had been sent out among the friendly faces, forbidden to reveal the truth. What cruel torture to force her to interact with them from within her invisible cage, work and talk and laugh with them, taunted as they innocently flaunted their freedom before her.
Was the happy façade part of it, he wondered? What punishment paid for an unauthorized frown or a sigh?
He had no illusions that she could have helped herself; strong men had broken without being as conditioned as she. Cooper had been as helplessly trapped as any captive. Maybe worse. As a prisoner, Jack had dreamed of Sara and Charlie, pretending himself away to his house, to their smiles, to innocent times. For Cooper, there was no safe place, not even the mental haven of a home thousands of miles away.
Maybe that was why this hit him so hard. When he had made it back to the States, there had been an immense relief. To be on home soil, sure. But it was more than that. The US represented safety. Bad Things rarely happened here, and when they did, they were brief things measured in hours and days not weeks or months.
This couldn't happen here. Not to Joy Incarnate. Not to anyone here in the Land of the Free.
But it had. Bad Things lived here in the Home of the Brave, just like in the rest of the world. His last little security blanket, the one he hadn't known he was clinging to, fell in shreds through his fingers. He felt cold suddenly, an internal chill that no cloth blanket could soothe.
He took a ragged breath, trying to calm himself. Jack resolutely opened his eyes and forced another, smoother, breath as he worked to reclaim his composure. He needed to take action, for his own sake as well as hers. Bad Things were here, but they weren't going to win.
He'd see that Bob Cooper was locked away, of course. But that was just neutralizing the enemy that was on point. She would be flanked by demons for a long time to come, and he wasn't about to abandon her to them.
She was one of his own, a survivor and sister-in-arms, and he would not leave her behind.
oOo
Next: Jack takes action