A/N: Yes, it's Saturday instead of Sunday, but I'm traveling tomorrow and I don't want to postpone posting this chapter or miss responding to comments.
This is the chapter. The dark one you already knew was coming. Tags have been updated.
TWs specific to this chapter: kidnapping/abduction; sexual assault; attempted rape; torture; graphic depictions of violence.
Jack came awake with a start, the sharp crack against his face throbbing as bright lights stung his eyes.
"Finally," Pete's exasperated voice reached Jack's ears.
"Carter," Jack forced past his lips, "where is she? If you've hurt her—"
"What?" Pete taunted, "you'll kill me? Unlikely." He scoffed and slapped Jack across the face again. "This whole savior complex you've built has really gone to your head, hasn't it? And here I thought it was just Sam needing to be cured of her hero worship."
"Dammit, Shanahan! Where is she?" Jack struggled against his restraints. He couldn't see anything in the darkness besides Pete, but he could tell he was handcuffed to a chair. The bastard had taken the extra precaution of securing his wrists and ankles separately with zip-ties in addition to the cuffs, making it impossible for Jack to get loose simply by popping his thumbs out a joint.
"She's right here," Pete pointed behind him as a light turned on, illuminating the room to reveal a table in the middle of the darkness.
"You fucking son of a bitch!" Jack yelled as he struggled against his bonds with all his strength. Sam was gagged and bound naked, spread-eagle to the table. She was blindfolded and her ears were covered with noise-blocking headphones.
"Carter!" Jack called but she didn't respond, unable to see or hear him.
"You don't like?" Pete chuckled as he approached Sam and ran a finger from her shoulder, down her side to her hip. "I find her quite pleasing," he tiptoed his fingers up her stomach to one breast. He palmed it, running a thumb across her nipple. "But then you've already seen her body. Haven't you?"
Sam jerked and tried to shrink away from Pete's touch as she struggled against her bonds. In response, Pete bent down and sucked her nipple into his mouth, biting her hard enough to wrench a cry from around her gag.
"Stop! Stop it!" Jack ordered. "Just. Stop," he pleaded, trying to force his mind to remain calm as he frantically searched for a way to redirect Pete's attention back to him.
"Hmmm," Pete hummed as he pulled back with a pop. He reached up and pulled the headphones from Sam's head.
"Carter!" Jack immediately called to her wanting her to know she wasn't alone, but quickly realized his mistake. Sam's entire body shuddered in relief when she heard him. She automatically strained toward the sound of his voice.
At her response, Pete's eyes narrowed. Ripping the blindfold from her eyes, he gripped her hair and wrenched her head sideways toward him. "You can't hide that kind of reaction, Babe," he sneered, looking over to Jack. "You still think you belong to him. It's time you finally learned you belong to me!"
Pete dropped her head, allowing it to thunk painfully on the hard surface of the table. He stalked to the other side of the room and out of sight.
"Carter," Jack called to her from his position three-feet away. She immediately turned her head toward him, her eyes blinking rapidly as they adjusted to the light until they locked onto his. The abject horror in them shook Jack. Through all their dealings with the Goa'uld, all the torture they'd endured, nothing matched the fear in her eyes now. "Sam," he said softly, making his own tone calm as he told her with his eyes to be brave. They'd been trained for situations like this.
Jack watched as Sam took a deep cleansing breath. She was still gagged, but they didn't need words to communicate. He watched as a calmness came over her and the overwhelming fear faded from her eyes. She nodded once to let him know she was back in control before turning her attention to testing the ropes that secured her to the table. With a few twists of her good wrist, the rope loosened.
Pete came back into view carrying a vial and a syringe. He sat them down next to Sam, then checked her restraints.
Pete tsked and tightened the one she'd managed to loosen. "I should have known letting you see him would make you too bold. But I had to know for sure," he pulled the stopper out of the vial and drew up some of the liquid into the syringe. "I thought I could just kill the mighty Jack O'Neill and you'd finally see that I'm the better man," he sighed dramatically. "But it's clear now that killing him would make him your own personal martyr."
"Why don't you just let us both go and I'll order Carter to forget I exist. You know she can't refuse a direct order from me," Jack offered, knowing it wouldn't work, but desperately trying to get Pete to direct his anger back toward him and away from Sam.
Pete scoffed. "Do you think I'm that dumb?" He rolled his eyes. "What I finally realized is that she needs a daily reminder of who she belongs to," he grinned happily at Sam. "Then she'll drop these ridiculous charges and we can go back to our perfect lives."
"You are certifiably insane," Jack shook his head in disbelief. The man's words didn't even make sense.
"Nah," Pete chuckled. "I'm actually quite brilliant. You see," he carefully set the vial of liquid back down and held the syringe over Sam's chest. It was missing a needle, the end open, allowing the liquid to easily come out the tip. "I also realized it's not her fault. It's yours, Jack. And if I don't sever whatever hold you have over her, she'll never let you go." Pete squeezed the syringe's plunger and allowed some of the liquid to hit the valley between her breasts.
Sam's reaction was instant as the liquid burned her skin. She jolted at the unexpected pain and locked her jaw to keep from crying out.
"Hydrofluoric acid," Pete told Jack as Sam broke out in a cold sweat from the burning agony. "Quite painful I'm told. Like liquid lava. Picked this up from a mob boss in Denver. He promised it'd deliver instant results."
"Stop!" Jack roared. "Tell me what you want and whatever it is, I'll do it!"
"I told you," Pete said in exasperation. "We need to break your hold over her. Now, tell her the truth. Tell her you don't love her," Pete ordered, holding the dropper over Sam's chest again.
"I don't love you," Jack said, immediately parroting the words. Not looking at Sam, his gaze remained fixed on Pete.
Pete depressed the syringe more and a stream of the liquid fell onto her right breast. This time Sam grunted as tears leaked from the corner of her eyes. Jack could tell she was using the gag to her advantage, sinking her teeth into it to keep from crying out. Her jaw trembled from the effort of remaining silent.
"Tell. Her." Pete sneered.
Jack dropped his gaze and found Sam's blue eyes filled with unshed tears. "I do not love you," he said harshly.
Pete let another stream of acid loose across her collarbone. This time Sam did cry out, the sound muffled by the gag, as her entire body jerked in apparent pain.
"I told her!" Jack bellowed at Pete. "Stop! You don't have to do this."
"She doesn't believe you," Pete pursed his lips. "I can tell. She thinks you're lying. Make her believe you."
"Samantha Carter," Jack's voice quivered from the strain of keeping his tone calm. His words reached her ears, pulling her up and out of the agony he knew she must be feeling. He waited until she regained her bearings and found the strength to raise her head to look at him.
Their eyes locked. A million moments leading up to this one surged between them. Thousands of silent conversations. Stolen moments on a battlefield. Quiet nights around a campfire.
"I have never loved you." The words came out strong.
"I will never love you." He said with the utmost conviction.
He held her gaze and waited for his words to register. The spoken and the unspoken. Their lives had been lived in those precious in-between moments. They were living in one now. Jack felt it. He prayed she recognized it. Then he knew. She read the truth in his eyes. "Do you understand?" He asked in a harsh whisper.
The unshed tears in her eyes burst free, flowing over her cheeks as Sam nodded. She tore her gaze away and released her misery in a low keening that tore through Jack's soul.
"There now," Pete cooed at her, misunderstanding what had just transpired between his captives. He wiped the acid from Sam's skin with a white cloth. Her entire body relaxed as the pain was instantly neutralized. "I told you, Babe," he leaned forward and kissed away the tears on her cheeks. "He never loved you. Now you know the truth," he smiled. "No one except me has ever loved you. And I do. I love you so much. Tell me you believe me?" He nodded, eager to hear the reply.
Sam tried to talk around her gag, the sound gurgly. Pete smoothed her hair back and gazed at her adoringly. He unfastened the buckle of the gag and pulled it from her lips.
"You bastard!" Sam spat in his face. The full force of her anger on display. "I hope you rot in hell, you sadistic, perverted–"
Pete backhanded her hard, splitting open her lip from the force of the blow. But still she cursed him. With a deep sigh, he picked up the vial again and refilled the syringe. Before either Jack or Sam could react, he pressed it against her lower abdomen.
Jack watched helplessly as the lava-like substance burned into her. Where the small amounts had caused scorch marks, this instantly seared her skin. Ignoring her torment, Pete continued applying the acid, calmly explaining in detail why this was for her own good. When he finally pulled back, the word "PETE" was branded across her stomach in large misshapen letters.
Beside her Jack roared in emotional agony as he watched Sam's entire body spasm from the misery inflicted upon her. "You fucking bastard!" Jack surged upward, sheer adrenaline running through him as he pulled at the zip ties and handcuffs so hard he felt blood trickling down his fingers. His chair lurched forward a few inches. One of the zip ties binding his left wrist to a chair leg snapped from the force of his struggles.
"Maybe now you'll understand," Pete said sadly as if his actions truly pained him. "You belong to me, Babe." He leaned forward and cupped her cheek tenderly. Pete kissed her, invading her mouth only to pull back with a yelp when Sam bit him hard enough to draw blood. He slapped her again. "You belong to me!" He growled and gripped her throat, squeezing tightly. "Why can't you accept that!"
Free from one zip-tie, Jack angled his hand against the leg of the chair. With a grimace, he jammed the base of his thumb up and into the wood until the bone popped out of socket with a sickening crunch.
Oblivious to Jack's actions, Pete's focus remained on Sam. Pulling a knife from his boot, he held it up for her to see. "If I can't have you," he taunted, dragging the flat of it across one breast. A thin red line formed as it pierced the first layer of skin. He dragged the point down her stomach and across his name branded into her skin. He paused as he reached the juncture of her thighs, pressing the tip against her sensitive flesh. "Then I'm going to make it so no one will want you."
Jack lunged forward, one leg and one hand free from his bonds. Gripping Pete's wrist, he squeezed, forcing the man to release the knife. As soon as it dropped against Sam's body, Jack wrenched Pete away from her, shoving him backwards. Wasting no time, Jack grabbed the knife and sliced the ropes securing her right hand to the table then handed her the blade.
Pete scrambled to his feet, looking from Sam to Jack with wide eyes as he sneered at them. For a split second, Jack thought he'd attack, but the coward ran. Unable to follow while still partially bound to the chair, Jack turned his focus to the ropes at Sam's legs. Once she was free, he slammed the chair still anchored to him against the table, fracturing it into smaller pieces.
Finally able to move freely, he turned to Sam who was doubled over and gasping in pain.
"Carter," Jack put the full force of his command tone behind the word, knowing it was the only way to reach her. "Look at me." Her eyes found his. Her gaze was glassy from the unrelenting burn. She whimpered. "Breathe and listen to my voice," he told her. "The pain will pass. It will. I promise."
Sam shook her head. "Hydrofluoric acid," she gasped out. "It won't stop. Keeps burning…through the layers of tissue," she forced out the words.
Jack clenched his eyes shut. It sounded exactly like what Ba'al had used on him. Panic rose in him, but he fought it down. He needed to keep a clear head. "How do I stop it?"
"Can't." She groaned. "Too late."
"No!" Jack yelled at her before steadying himself. "He didn't want you dead," He reasoned. "He wiped the acid on your chest off and it stopped burning. How?"
She grasped his arm. "Calcium gluconate."
Jack left her and ran across the room to where he'd seen Pete keep the vial of acid. The guy hadn't planned on killing Sam so he must have had the antidote stashed somewhere. "It's gotta be here," he said, frantically scanning the workbench. He saw it. A brown and yellow bottle with a Calcium label.
Returning to Sam he held out the bottle.
"Crush it up. Make a paste," she ordered through clenched teeth.
Not seeing any source of clean water, Jack did the only thing he could think of and popped several pills into his mouth and chewed. The bitter flavor made him gag, but he ignored it.
"Don't swallow," Sam warned, the words coming out shaky.
Spitting the paste into his hand, he eased her onto her back. Angry blistered welts crisscrossed her pale skin. As gently as he could, Jack covered them with the paste.
Sam bit her lower lip and moaned. Her abdomen felt like it was going to split apart. The acid was still burning a path into her body.
"Not working," Sam whimpered. "The acid is too deep."
Jack quickly chewed several more calcium tablets then spit the paste into his hands. "I'm sorry," he apologized in a harsh whisper then pressed the paste onto her abdomen and rubbed it into the wounds as deeply as he could.
Sam screamed. No longer able to fight past the blinding pain, it tore through her body. It overwhelmed her nerves as pure white light exploded behind her eyes, followed by darkness as she passed out in Jack's arms.
As gently as he could manage, Jack scooped up Sam's limp body and headed the way Pete had run. A set of stairs led up to a door. Using his shoulder, Jack pushed, but it wouldn't budge. Shifting Sam in his arms, he jiggled the doorknob, finding it locked. The son of a bitch had locked them inside.
Carefully balancing her weight, Jack kicked the door. It took two tries, but it sprang open as the hinges gave way. He was surprised to find they were in a relatively normal house. The last place he remembered being was in the warehouse district, but this was obviously some sort of neighborhood.
Laying Sam onto the couch, he spotted a landline and picked up the receiver, almost weeping when he heard the dial tone. "Hang on, Carter," he ordered her, punching in the Cheyenne Mountain emergency number. "Help is coming. Just hang on."