A/N: Torture Warning - nothing too graphic, just a little less flippant than the previous chapters.

Grace is the absence of everything that indicates pain or difficulty, hesitation or incongruity - William Hazlitt

He was up against a wall. He'd been He had been up against this same wall so many times over the last few days that he wasn't sure he could remember what it was like to be standing on his own two feet. He wasn't even afraid of the pain anymore. There was too much promise in the thought that he might finally die this time. Too few reasons to keep going.

Daniel said that he had to hold on. Despite his friend's assurances, Jack swore that he wouldn't try to ascend. He couldn't. He wasn't the type and quite frankly he was sure the whole glowing thing wouldn't look good on him. He was a man of the dust and dirt. Fire and brimstone suited him far better that halos and light. That stuff was for martyrs like Daniel. Jack was no martyr.

He watched as Ba'al grinned at him, eyes flashing, as he picked up a short, sharp sword. He talked for a while, stopping every now and then to ask a question. Jack didn't hear him. He'd blocked out all sound of Ba'al days ago. He'd become quite adept at ignoring him.

He wasn't sure why he didn't give Ba'al the answers he was looking for. He despised Kanan for what he had done to him. It was that damned woman's fault that he was here in the first place. But he wouldn't giver her away. He couldn't.

He was seeing her now to. In his dreams. In his waking moments. She appeared from thin air to look at him, to mock him or thank him or mourn for him. He wasn't sure why she was there. He wasn't quite sure why any of them were there. He saw Sam every few hours now, although she never stayed long enough to say a word. She just appeared and smiled, sometimes playing that cello, or humming a tune, and then she would be gone.

Daniel was appearing more frequently too. Sam had said he was real, that he wasn't an illusion like the rest of them, but how could he be sure? Daniel himself had said that he was there, that he was alive, but Jack knew that he was dead. He couldn't have been there at all.

Jack held back a scream as another dagger pierced his shoulder. He wondered vaguely how long Ba'al had been talking. There was no sense in his words. Jack couldn't even make out the sentences any more. It was background music, white-noise even, to his own thoughts. Which probably weren't all that better than Ba'al's taunts, come to think of it. The more he talked to himself, the more depressed he got. The more depressed, the more desperate. More desperate, more insane. Not the best cycle in the universe.

He wondered what his friends back on Earth were doing. Sam had assured him that she was searching for him but now he wasn't so sure. He had been there for months now, surely. Years maybe. At least that's what it had felt like.

A wave of fresh air brushed past Jack's neck. Daniel! He scanned the room with his eyes. He couldn't see heads or tails of his friend. He wanted to call out to him, but he stopped himself. The less he said, the safer he was. Which was an odd thought, knowing as he did that he would in some way, shape or form die today, regardless of what he did or didn't say. And nothing he said could possibly hurt Daniel. He was already dead. But still; the less he said, the better. So he closed his eyes and stifled yell as another little sword found itself embedded into his arm.

Upon opening them he found that he and Ba'al were not alone. Daniel was standing about a pace and half behind Jack's captor, his arms folded neatly around his chest. He put a finger to his lips and gave Jack a sympathetic smile. Jack rolled his eyes. Great. Now the damned Spacemonkey was going to watch him be tortured. As if this wasn't torture enough!

'He's just trying to help."

There she was, on Ba'al's other side. Jack smiled grimly at her and she waved to him.

"I was wondering when you were going to come back," Jack said, not quite sure which one of them he was talking to.

Daniel put his hand fiercely to lips and shook his head.

"Don't talk, sir," Sam said, her eyes violently blue and fearful. "Just know that…"

"We're here for you," Daniel finished quietly. Sam looked over at him, confusion oozing from her beautiful face.

"We?" Jack croaked.

Daniel nodded. "You're hallucinating…about Sam. I figured it out," he said, embarrassed at what he realized he had interrupted last time.

"All the knowledge of the universe, huh?" Jack jibed, though his mouth moved very slowly and his words were slurred and his voice rough.

"What?"

Jack's attention was unfortunately dragged back to Ba'al, who had drawn himself up to full height.

"You speak nonsense," Ba'al taunted. "Are you so weak that you can only talk to yourself?" He laughed, his arrogant voice booming in Jack's tired ears. "It would be sad indeed for you to have fallen into insanity so early. We have so much more to do together." He released another sword and Jack flinched as it landed in his leg.

"And still you do not speak," Ba'al continued, but Jack's attention had wandered. Sam was standing behind the Goa'uld, pulling faces in a completely un-Sam fashion. Jack laughed. She looked utterly ridiculous.

"Jack?" Daniel asked, concerned. He took a step closer to his friend, who was now laughing hysterically. She didn't even look that funny. He supposed, mid-chortle, that his hysterics were of another variety.

"She's making faces," Jack explained, through his laughter and Daniel smiled. Ba'al on the other hand, looked confused and infuriated. He let another sword go. Straight into the knee. Crap!

Daniel and Sam both rushed to his side. A warm feminine hand wound its way into his, and his shoulder was being cupped by a strangely cold, glowing palm.

"Can he see you?" he asked Daniel, quietly.

Daniel shook his head. "The job comes with a few perks," he said with an apologetic smile. "Is she here?' he asked, looking around Jack, as though he might see his friend's hallucination.

"Yeah," Jack said and Sam squeezed his hand.

"She'll be coming soon," Daniel said, no longer trying to look for the hallucination he knew he would never see. "They've almost figured it out."

"Really?" Jack wheezed, barely believing it.

"Really," Daniel said. "This will all be over soon."

Jack sighed in relief. "Good," he said. He vaguely heard Ba'al yell at him again. He laughed, tiredly. The stupid snake didn't have a clue what was going on.

A pair of lips brushed his cheek as he laughed. He smiled at Sam, who was hovering in front of his face.

"I'm coming, Jack," she said, lovingly.

"I know," he replied.

"Daniel's here. He'll keep you safe," she said in a whisper and held his face in her hands. She kissed his eyelids, she kissed his forehead and she kissed his nose before lingering on his bottom lip.

Ba'al released another sword.

"No!" Jack yelled, trying to push Sam away from the incoming weapon. She closed Jack's eyes with her thumbs and kissed him as the sword passed through her abdomen and into Jack's.

"Hold on," she said with a longing look. "I'm coming."

She placed a last, tender kiss on his lips and disappeared, never to be seen again.