Jack slipped quietly into the room. It was late, there was no one about. He'd timed his entry to avoid the night-duty personnel.
He'd decided on a course of action, and he didn't want any witnesses.
This was strictly between the two of them.
He paused, watching the lone figure sleeping in the dark room. It would be so easy. The thought came unbidden to his mind. So easy. Do it.
He almost left, was on the verge of sneaking back out, when the figure stirred.
Cooper seemed to be dreaming.
She looked up as the door opened, an automatic smile starting...and freezing when she saw who it was. He did not look happy.
"Hi," she said uncertainly, suddenly wishing Fenton or Majors would return from lunch.
He advanced without a word, and she stood. He came close, nearly touching her, and she looked up at him nervously. She stood her ground, bitter experience having shown her that either cringing or fighting back would only make matters worse. She silently reviewed one of her lists: don't look away, don't move away, don't tense up, don't raise your arms to cover or defend. These were all known to set him off.
"Who were you expecting?" he demanded.
"What? No one. I was working." She tried hard to keep her voice neutral. Sounding scared, annoyed, or angry were guaranteed to piss him off, too.
"I saw that smile. You were expecting your boyfriend!"
Her eyes widened. Shit. This was going to be bad. She had never understood this part of her husband. He told her consistently, in so many ways, that she was repulsive. He criticized her hair, her clothes, her body. He never touched her, except to have sex, and even then he only touched "the good parts." She understood that she was disgusting, that she should be grateful to have him. She would never consider approaching another man, and even tried to keep her revolting self a safe distance from the women she worked with.
So why did he act jealous sometimes? Had he overheard someone flirting with her? It happened often enough, but surely he knew as well as she did that it was just the other men making jokes at her expense? Phony come-on lines made great jokes when aimed at weapons or new technology. Or her.
He saw her eyes widen and misunderstood the reason. "I knew it! You don't smile at me like that," he snarled.
Her jaw opened part way at that. Of course she didn't smile at him that way. He was constantly correcting her; if she smiled it would seem like she wasn't taking it seriously. She had no right to smile at all, really, considering that he said she mucked up everything she touched. But she had found that smiling at other people seemed to make them happier; it was the least she could do to make up for them having to allow her to exist alongside them.
She had to try to explain it to him. "No, I --"
"You think I don't know he's been coming here every day?" His voice was low, ominous, now. "What the hell would an alien soldier want in a physics lab?"
"Teal'c?" He was talking about Teal'c? "He's on Captain Carter's team."
"Don't lie to me! I saw him visit while you were supposedly working overtime. You told me you were alone here."
He just wanted –"
"I know what he wanted! And he got it, didn't he?"
"No! It's not like that."
"You didn't even wait to start celebrating my transfer, did you?" He swatted the white pastry box off the table angrily.
He'd been transferred? "No…" She responded to the thought, but he must have thought she was answering his question.
He moved forward, pressing against her. She hesitated, knowing she shouldn't back away, but quickly had to take a step back or be knocked over. He told her about his forced transfer, sarcastically said he hoped she and her alien boyfriend would be happy now that he was out of the way. She tried to deny it, but he wouldn't listen. He kept coming, forward and a bit to her left, and she kept moving back and to the right until she abruptly felt the hard wall behind her.
A faint buzzing above her head made her glance up to see the security camera placidly swinging to one side. They were directly under it, in the one place where it could not see.
She looked back at her husband, meeting his icy gaze. He raised his hands, and she forced herself to remain still. Don't look away, don't move away, don't tense up, don't raise your arms to cover or defend. She realized that her arms were bending up in an instinctive protective gesture, and deliberately lowered them, leaving her body open and defenseless. She held her breath and hoped for it to be over soon…
Cooper shifted in her sleep, breathing faster as she spread her arms to the sides. Her fingers spread and twitched, as unable to find purchase on the flat mattress as they had been on the lab wall in the video.
Jack felt embarrassed, as if he had stumbled into a very private moment. She was clearly reliving today's attack, or one similar to it, and he felt like a voyeur. He suddenly wondered if anyone at the VA hospital had watched him re-experience his own torture in his sleep. Jack shuddered at the thought; the relationship between torturer and tortured was intimate, in a twisted sort of way. The torturer saw the raw, uninhibited reactions of his victim, even more than a lover would. When torture reached its climax, there could be no holding back, no control of any kind, nothing except the meager blessing that screams are wordless.
He decided to leave; it's what he would have wanted if their positions were reversed. And it would be a lot easier than what he had originally intended. He stepped to the side of the door, checking through the narrow window for the position of the security camera in the hall before opening it. It was pointing directly back at him and he froze. Motionless, he would look like a shadow unless someone looked very closely.
He suppressed a chuckle at the thought of that someone zooming in and seeing his eyes staring back. The humor died as the image was replaced by one of Cooper's eyes on the video as she surrendered herself to the attack.
He couldn't leave her behind.
"Cooper." He said it quietly, from near her ear.
Green eyes snapped open. She blinked, confused, as the man of her dreams was abruptly replaced by a colonel in her reality. She tried to sit up. He put up a hand to stop her, but did not make contact. You don't go casually touching torture victims; you couldn't know what innocent touch might bring hideous memories roaring back to life.
"We need to talk."
"Sir?" She yawned, still waking. Her eyes suddenly went wide, turning fearfully toward the door. "You shouldn't –"
"Shh, it's ok, Cooper. Jill."
She looked at him uncertainly, clearly afraid that his presence would bring Bob back for another round, and quite possibly afraid that asking a colonel to leave would bring punishment of its own.
"You're safe. I promise. Bob isn't coming." She pursed her lips, uncertain how to take his comment, so Jack continued. "Bob's safe, too."
He saw the guarded expression replace the worry: The prisoner, too often toyed with and tortured, wary of unknown circumstances.
"He's locked up. He won't be back. We know what's been going on, Cooper." She'd been told earlier, of course, as soon as they thought she was cognitive enough to understand. Cooper had denied it all, defending her husband just as he had predicted.
"Nothing has been –"
"It's on tape, Cooper. There's two cameras in the lab."
She flushed, lowering her eyes and pulling the blanket up to her chin to hide herself.
He understood her reaction. Unfair as it was, captives felt ashamed when they gave in and obeyed, no matter what the coercion. She must be mortified to be on tape submitting so totally. "I know, Cooper."
"You don't."
"I know."
The soft, intense tone made her meet his gaze. What was he saying?
He forced himself look her in the eye. No shirking on his appointed task. He'd thought long and hard about things; the only thing he could really do for her was to share his hard-earned wisdom to help her recover faster. "I know Cooper. I've been there." There. He said it. No turning back now.
"Where?"
She didn't trust him. He hadn't expected her to. "To hell. And back. I came to tell you some things you should know."
"What things?"
He took a deep breath. "The things military school doesn't teach."
She stared at him silently.
He stared back for a moment. "This isn't easy for me, either." He scrubbed a hand through his hair. "I don't want to think about this crap. And I sure as hell don't want anyone to know about it. But…"
"But what? Why are you really here?" She didn't want pity or a voyeur into her private hell or, God help her, a new master taking over if the last was truly gone.
To her surprise, the corners of his mouth curved up, and he nodded his approval. "Good."
Oh, great, none of the above. Just a full bird colonel going nuts and taking me along for the ride. Where's that call button…?
Jack was heartened by her question. He'd been afraid he'd find a total basket case, beyond his or any other help. Heaven knew she had cause enough. "You stood up to me, Cooper. That's good. It means you're going to make it."
"My injuries aren't that severe, sir." She realized with dismay that she had tossed the call button overboard. It was dangling beside the bed, too far away to reach without him noticing.
"I'm not talking about your physical injuries, Cooper. Doc'll fix that."
"Then I guess we're all set, sir. Thanks for stopping by." Hint, hint. Go bye-bye, Birdie. She yawned exaggeratedly and settled herself as if to sleep.
He recognized that she was trying to push him off, and was sorely tempted to let her do it. Then he thought back to when he was the one in the bed. "I wish someone had been there to do this for me when I was in your shoes."
"Do what?"
"Tell me I'm not alone, for one thing.".
What would he know? He had friends, probably a family. She had no one. Bob was gone. He hadn't allowed her to make any real friends. Even her dad, her last remaining family, was gone. A lump thickened in her throat as she thought of him. Dad would have stood by her, no matter what. But he was gone now, his life pointlessly cut short by a drunk driver. Ironically, she had been glad for Bob's presence when the news came. He had been the one to take the three a.m. long-distance phone call, and to calmly ask and answer questions. Gratitude had quickly dissolved into a fight, the last time she had dared to stand up to him, when Bob had demanded that she go back to sleep until a decent hour and she had refused.
Colonel O'Neill was still talking to her, saying something about being a prisoner. He'd been a POW, she knew, but that was different. He'd had steel cuffs and chains applied by strangers, not psychological ones inflicted by a loved one. When he got out, no one had dreamed of laughing at him or saying he was stupid for not escaping or suggesting that he had liked it. She knew all that was ahead of her; she'd heard her coworkers talk often enough about abused women in the news.
"He wanted you to think that, you know."
"Sir?" She'd just play along until he went away. She'd done worse.
"Bob wanted to isolate you, to make you easier to control. But you knew that, at least in theory, because that is one of the things they teach you in military school. No one can teach you how hard it is, though. How much you wish someone else just knew, and understood, even if they couldn't help."
Was he wrong, or was her skepticism wavering just a bit? Jack kept on. He'd known this was no easy mission when he'd taken it upon himself. "They tell you that it's your duty to try to escape, too. But they don't tell you that sometimes you just can't."
She stiffened. She had tried to apply the military prisoner-of-war class teaching to her predicament once, a long time ago. "Watch for your chance to escape." Laughable. There was no escape. None. She'd made a vow, all those years ago. Till death do us part. And death would part them soon enough if she tried to run away from him. She snorted softly as the picture of him as the perfect widower came to mind, everyone consoling the unfortunate man as he cried over her grave.
Jack could see that he had her attention now. He didn't expect her to answer him, didn't honestly want to know the details of what had happened to her. He had enough nightmares of his own, thank you. The prisoner's handbook approach was working, though, so he'd stick with it for a start.
"They tell you to defy your captor any way you can, and they give you examples of guys who succeeded."
She nodded at him. Yeah, sure, she'd heard this.
"They kind of gloss over how much it sucks when you get caught. And you will get caught, at least part of the time. That's not highlighted in the travel brochure, either."
She bit her lip, and he knew he was getting through.
He remembered the thrill of defiance, and the crushing defeat when he was found out. He had felt like such a failure! Even knowing other prisoners had been caught at other attempts didn't ease the emotional blow when you were nailed. And nothing could ease the physical blows from angry Iraqis. Which brought up another point. "There's also a nasty habit of getting your defiance rubbed in your face if you're caught."
"Defy your captor any way you can, even if they don't know it. Especially if they don't know it." She had tried that one, too. But Bob always noticed. And he would take it from her. Her first attempts were too obvious; like not kissing him on the mouth when he would take her against her wishes. But he noticed, and demanded her mouth. She would be quiet, and he would make her talk. Look into his eyes when she would look away.
She watched the Colonel, a ranking officer, a hero, as he talked. It was flattering, really, that he was doing this. He obviously thought she had some value. She wondered if he would bother with her if he knew how weak and cowardly she really was. She had broken so easily…
She half-heard the front door open, drifting in the cozy twilight before full sleep. The clank of keys dropped on the kitchen counter confirmed that her husband had arrived home after his double shift. She stretched languidly, rolling over and enjoying the thick softness of the down comforter. She smiled gently in contentment, her eyes sliding closed
Only to snap back open as she was pushed roughly onto her back. Her husband glared accusingly at her. "What did you do all night?"
"Wh-what?"
"Nothing's been done around the house. What were you doing?"
Her eyes widened. Shit. She should have been more careful. She couldn't tell him that she had read a magazine; such a waste of time would only infuriate him more. Besides, he'd demand to see the magazine, and she didn't dare to unearth "Oprah" from its grave halfway down the trashcan. The coffee grounds she'd so cleverly dumped in the top of the trash to discourage him from looking through it would now be evidence of her treachery; proof that she'd deliberately tried to hide it from him.
She struggled to formulate a solid cover story, but she wasn't quick enough. He pinned her down, using his weight and one hand to immobilize her with her wrists above her head. She saw his free hand move and cried out.
"Don't!"
Her plea only fueled his righteous anger; if she hadn't done anything wrong she shouldn't be concerned when he asked.
She panicked under his assault, all military training, all thought, overcome by the pain and fear. She squirmed and struggled, driven by instinct alone, frantic to avoid him, to get free, to get away. She was vaguely aware of his continued demands for an answer, but was too caught up in her terror to respond.
"Don't!"
She couldn't stand it, she couldn't, she just couldn't, not for one second more. But she couldn't avoid it, couldn't make him stop. Her stomach clenched. No more, not again, oh, please, no more…
"Don't!" She was pleading now, repeating the only word her terrified mind could form. Not again, not again, she couldn't handle it, she couldn't…
She did. She had no choice.
"Don't, don't, don't!"
He cast her aside abruptly, tossing his hands up and stalking out in disgust.
She lay still, ragged breath slowly evening out. She was seriously shaken by the whole experience. Not his anger, she knew she was risking that when she bought the magazine, which is why she'd buried it deep in the trash. It was a stupid thing to do, and she knew better. His pinning her, and the ease with which he did it, scared her. Demonstrated loud and clear how weak she was.
The real panic had set in, though, as she realized how totally helpless she was. Forced to feel the pain as long and as intensely as he chose. The physical sensations were unbearable, she couldn't even face the thought of it happening. And she couldn't stop it. Couldn't deflect it or hide from it… Even now, her heart pounded at the very thought of being so exposed to his attack, unable to so much as curl up away from it.
A single sob escaped, muffled by her hand, and she cursed herself for this added weakness. Some Air Force officer she was! She hadn't kept her head when it happened, hadn't endured in stoic silence when it was clear there was no escape. Sorry, Mom, guess I'm not your brave little soldier after all.
Sorry, honey, for not being a good wife.
Sorry, everyone, for being so weak and cowardly.
Sorry summed it up. Summed her up. Sorry excuse for a wife. Sorry excuse for a soldier.
Sorry, sorry, so sorry. As in pathetic. Loser. Pitiful.
She was lucky he even stayed with her.
"Cooper?"
Her reverie was interrupted by the sound of her name. She realized that he had said it more than once. She took a shaky breath, her eyes watching him, one hand nervously crinkling the blanket as she waited for him to express his displeasure at her inattention.
Jack noticed her reaction, and deliberately ignored it. He waited for her to focus on him again before he continued. "Then there's the mind games. Not the ones you heard about as a recruit at great grand-sergeant's knee. Those are direct – short and to the point, meant to get you to give up intel. Usually when they stop wanting intel, you're warehoused. Just set aside and ignored until you're traded back to your own side."
He paused and looked her straight in the eye. "What Bob…" he couldn't do it, not while referencing himself; his brown eyes flickered away from her green. "…and others…" He made himself meet her gaze once again. "…want is absolute control. That's when the games change. Someone – Bob," he corrected himself, this wasn't some nameless bastard pretending to be a friend to break a prisoner. "acted supportive..."
That was the worst of it, she thought: in public he was the very best of mates. Generous, solicitous, and kind. People often said they envied her. He brought her food and drink without her asking, and they said he was thoughtful. Only the pair of them knew that she was required to consume what she was given, no more and no less. He did all the shopping, taking those choices from her as well. He even bought her civilian clothes, an act many considered far beyond the call of spousal duty. She was forced to agree, to thank him in front of them. What would they think if they knew that she was not permitted to shop for herself? That she was, in fact, rarely allowed out of the house alone except for work? That even inside, he controlled her activities? She was not allowed such foolishness as music or books or
Because they were foolishness, she reminded herself sternly. He was right. You could not show music or books to visitors like you could a clean house. Was it right to say that the closet was a mess but at least you knew that the butler did it?
The Colonel's words intermingled with her memories. "…get you to do things. Anything, to start with. Work you half to death, then order you to lie down. Easy things, sometimes things that seem like they are for your own good. But once you start to obey, the rules get tougher and tougher…"
She was a mess, a total disappointment to him, and he was just trying to help her. He chose her clothes and food so that she would look decent and be healthy; her own tastes ran to blue jeans and pizza. She was far too self absorbed and inconsiderate of others. If he weren't there to correct her, she would take the coziest seat in the room. Stand right in front of a store display, blocking the view of better people. He was right to help her, and she was just that much more selfish to resent it. He only had her best interest at heart.
She blinked herself back to the present. The Colonel was still talking.
"…choices. Shit choices, just to show they are in control." He paused, watching her eyelids flutter. Was he being too vague? He had hoped to get by without examples, but maybe he couldn't. He trotted one of his memories out like a vicious dog, carefully leashing the attached emotions. "Choices like picking one of two guys to get shot. If you don't choose, they shoot both." Jack closed his eyes briefly, pushing the horrid scene back into its kennel. He went out on a limb for the next one. "Or punishing you for refusing overtime and for getting home late."
A little gasp told him he'd gotten that one right.
"That's right, Cooper. I know how it was." If nothing else, he wanted to impress on her that she was not alone. "He made it look like you could walk away, right?"
She hesitated before nodding slightly.
"Another classic."
She looked away from him, clearly not believing him on this one. After all, he had been a prisoner in the literal sense, complete with walls and chains.
"They did that to me, too." He'd expected to have to share on this topic, and had a "Reader's Digest" version already in mind. Still, he found the bed rail inexplicably fascinating as he told the story. "They were moving me from one prison to another. We had spent a night in a house, just walked in and took the place over at gunpoint. Even so, by morning, word slipped out that there was an American prisoner being held in the village. The US Marines were going door-to-door, searching… The Iraqis held a gun to the house wife, told me that if the Marines found me, she'd be the first casualty in the battle."
He skimmed the smooth metal with his thumbnail, admiring its finish. Trying to hide from his own. "I hid. I was within six feet of a Marine, and I let him go by."
"You saved the woman."
He scoffed at that. "I thought so at first, too. I should have known better."
She looked confused again.
"They expected me to call out. The woman was just a game to them, a last joke on the American officer. Instead, I gave them leverage." Jack stared at the rail, alternately covering and uncovering a spot where the hall light was reflected.
"They dressed me in a burka and paraded both of us out of town, right past the Marines. They held a weapon on her, not me. Laughed and dared me to run, to save myself at her expense." He remembered it all clearly; his foolhardy altruism had made things a hundred times worse for the poor woman. If he had taken his chance, he might have won freedom for himself and a quick, merciful end for her.
"They killed her anyway, after the Marines left." He said it quietly. Actually, they had raped her in front of him first. Then made him do it, too. He'd laid his naked body atop hers and feigned the movement, his flaccid member hidden between them, thankful that at least they hadn't checked. Still thinking that as long as she was alive, at least she had a chance of recovery.
He rubbed his hand across the rail, distracting himself with the cool, smooth feel against his palm. "I made the best decisions I could, even if they turned out to be bad ones in the end." He took a deep breath, let it out slowly. "The point is that no matter what it might look like to someone else, there are reasons why you don't always escape. I had mine, and I know you had yours."
Six months. Maybe a year. He said he'd wait that long before killing her if she left him. She swallowed, remembering how casually he had passed that tidbit on. Months, so that he would not be suspected. Months, to plan the perfect crime. Months, so that he could take her when she was no longer expecting it.
Tears sprang to her eyes. "You do understand."
He nodded solemnly.
"It's all just so pointless! Control for control's sake." She slapped the mattress, the move swinging the dangling call button and making it clang against the metal bed frame.
Just like the sound of the door clanging open….
Then came the dramatic pause before the footsteps sounded with deliberate slowness down the corridor. His captor came into view, haughtily assessing his prisoner. He opened the cell door.
"Come."
Jack felt himself breathing harder, but he refused to obey.
The wires sprang out of the stun gun and impaled him, one in the shoulder and one in the chest. He cried out and fell, limbs jerking helplessly under the effect of the current. When the charge stopped, he sprawled limply.
His captor jerked back on the wires, pulling their prongs from his body with practiced ease. He reset the weapon.
"Come."
Jack watched him from his position on the floor but did not move. The man raised the weapon, and Jack covered his face and waited for his discipline.
….
He remembered waking, slowly, limbs weak, whole body still trembling from the electric shocks. He rolled slowly over, crouching on all fours, head resting on the floor. The gray concrete wavered and sparkled before his bloodshot eyes, and even the coolness of the rough floor on his forehead did little to ease the nausea. Gradually straightening his arms, he achieved a kneeling position.
The door down the hall clanged open. Slow, ominous footsteps drew near.
His breath caught in his throat. Not yet! Oh, please, not again already!
His nemesis appeared in the doorway, slowly opening the cage-like cell.
"Come."
Jack just glared defiantly at him. Watched him raise the stun gun…
The world – his world, a cage and a man, equally clad in gray – swam into view.
"Come."
He waited, saw the weapon rise, shielded his face from its sharp bolts. The cycle repeated over and over again. Would it really be so bad to go to him? Just to cross the cell? Were a few lousy feet of rough concrete worth this? It was the principle, he knew that. But was it worth being tortured? It was easy to say 'yes' from a nice safe classroom, but here, facing imminent pain, it was a lot harder.
"Come."
Muscles too weak and shaken by the shocks, he couldn't obey if he wanted to. And he found himself wanting to. He twitched helplessly. The weapon raised…
….
The door clanged open, and there was the usual dramatic pause before the footsteps echoed deliberately down the hall.
Jack saw the triumph in his captor's expression, and knew he was losing the battle. Trepidation was winning over defiance, and they both knew it. It wouldn't be much longer now.
The man opened the door.
"Come."
He held out, somehow, that time. He woke later, alone in the same far corner of the cell. He knew what he had to do.
….
The door clanged open, and there was a dramatic pause before deliberate footsteps measured the distance to the cell.
Jack stared hatefully at his captor from where he lay crumpled on the floor. At the doorway.
The man smirked at him. Nice try. But not good enough. He would have obedience when and how he ordered it. He stepped over Jack, crossing to the opposite corner of the cell. The place where Jack had started.
"Come"
"You have nothing to be ashamed of. You did the best you could in a shit situation. No one can ask for more."
"Thank you, sir. It means a lot."
His breath caught. He hadn't realized he had spoken aloud. He had said those things to himself, so many times, persuading himself that it was true.
Now, finally, maybe he could start to believe it. If he couldn't fault her for her situation, he couldn't fault himself for his, either.
oOo
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