Sorry this took so long ya'll--but I was being a counselor at day camp at church this week and didn't have time for anything else. I hope you enjoy this chap, and please let me know what you think once you've read it--and so I know that I didn't lose you, lol. :) Thanks!

Chapter 6

"Buck up, people; we're almost there," Colonel Mitchell announced from the front of the group. Travis perked up a bit.

"We are?" he asked, glancing at the graying sky anxiously.

Teal'c looked up. "There are still traces of smoke just ahead."

Vala frowned. "Then shouldn't we start being quieter? We probably don't want them to hear us coming."

Not that it would help anyone who heard them much, Travis thought. The forest was high and dense here, and it would be difficult to see them.

"Thank you, but let me do my job," Mitchell smirked. "I was just about to say that."

She rolled her eyes and shrugged. Along with the others, Travis purposefully slowed his pace and stepped more quietly, bringing his weapon up too. Warily he watched ahead of him, glancing off to the sides on occasion. The others were doing the same. But they saw nothing.

That is, Travis saw nothing until Colonel Mitchell pulled aside some foliage to go in-between a couple of trees and walked right into a hidden wall.

"Ow!" the colonel hissed, jerking back and holding his nose.

"It's rock," Colonel Hailey told him.

He glared, "Thank you; very astute observation." His voice was a bit nasal.

Everyone else, who had tensed up at his outburst, relaxed.

"Now what?" Travis asked quietly.

"Now we go around," Mitchell said, letting go of his nose. He wiggled it a bit and grimaced, then seemed to decide that he would be fine. Then he led the way on, snaking around trees and through dense underbrush that all but made the rock wall invisible.

But after several minutes, they hadn't found an end. By then, it was almost dark. Mitchell stopped.

"What are you doing? We have to keep going; we don't have much time left," Vala said urgently.

"Vala, it'll be dark in a few minutes."

"We have flashlights!"

"But even if we do find the village or town or whatever it is, we won't have enough light to find them, not to mention that a bright beam of light bouncing around in the middle of town might give us away, don't ya think?"

"But--"

While the argument between Colonel Mitchell and Mrs. Jackson went on in the background, Travis look frantically around him for anything that might be an opening in the rock. Janet had to be on the other side somewhere. What he found instead was a twisted hunk of gray and yellow metal half buried in fallen leaves from the trees and ivy from the rock.

"Uhm, you guys might want to see this," he called.

Colonel Hailey came up behind him immediately. "The UAV."

The others followed seconds later.

"It wasn't shot down at all; it ran into the rocks," Cassie observed.

"Then the village is on the other side of this rock formation."

"Very astute observation, Colonel Mitchell," Hailey replied, deadpan.

Mitchell rolled his eyes and continued. "And it looks like this thing goes all the way around. So there has to be an entrance of some kind."

"Then let's find it," Travis said immediately. Vala was nodding.

"We'll never find anything in this light, and we won't have any in a few minutes," he sighed. "We'll have to camp tonight, get up early and start looking."

"But we don't know what they're doing to them; by tomorrow they could--could be--" Travis stopped there. It was enough to worry about it.

"We don't have a choice, son," Mitchell said quietly.

The door opened.

Daniel sat straight up. Osiris didn't come in himself this time; only the two guards that had been with him all day. He got up on his knees and was starting to stand when one of them grabbed his arm. The other snatched his other arm and proceeded to drag him toward the door. He struggled hard, but it was no use. Both of them were bigger and probably thirty years younger than he was.

"Dad, no!"

Their surprise allowed him to jerk free and turn around. Janet was awake and on her knees, eyes wide. Before he could be stopped, Daniel went to her.

"Janet, it'll be okay," he swallowed, getting back down on his knees to hug her. She latched onto him.

"No it won't; if they take you he'll hurt you more," she answered angrily.

Out of the corner of his eye he could see both of the natives watching with frowns, but they seemed to realize that what he was doing was to their benefit. He blinked back moisture that clouded the image.

"Please don't do this; don't make them hurt you. I don't want that to happen, but if you make them angry they'll try too. Let me go," he told her softly.

"No," she said stubbornly, tightening her grip on him. He heard her subsequent speak of pain, but still she held on. Daniel could see that the guards were getting impatient.

"Janet, please," he pleaded quietly.

And then she did something he hadn't expected.

She started to cry. She had handled herself well so far, when even the most disciplined of civilians would have been breaking down. It wasn't much, but she cried, her face pressed into his jacket. And he could understand why. She knew as well as he did what would happen when they took him.

But if they stalled any longer they would hurt her, or Osiris would, and he couldn't let that happen.

"No," she cried softly. "You can't go with them. Please don't."

"It's not my choice," he answered weakly, swallowing hard. "I'll be okay, just let go, please…"

On a good day, in this position, maybe she could have held him there, but she was injured now, and he probably could have pulled away on his own forcibly. But he wouldn't do that to her. "Janet…"

She shook her head again, her face pressed against him.

That was when the guards lost their patience. Both of them grabbed an arm and started to pull him away.

"No!" Janet yelled, grabbing him. But one of the men pushed her back against the wall with his other hand, and before she could get back up to her knees they had her father halfway to the door. She started to get up.

"Don't, Janet!" Daniel ordered firmly. Surprised, she looked at him with tears in her eyes.

"But--"

"It'll be all right, just stay down…." That gave the guards time to yank him out the door and shut it, closing Janet inside and dragging him into the night toward the other hut.

Needless to say, by the time he was tied to the chair again, and Osiris showed himself, Daniel was not feeling very charitable.

"You're wasting your time. I'm not going to tell you anything," he said immediately, before the Goa'uld could say anything.

Osiris smirked. "I think you will. In time. Maybe even before the sun is up."

"In your dreams." The snake hit him. His head ducked, his face smarting. "That's not gonna help you," he winced.

"It was not meant to," Osiris snapped. "I have already decided on my course of action."

Daniel looked back up at him. "And what's that?" he glared.

The Goa'uld sauntered over to the same cabinet as before and pulled out a different jar. The guards had stayed inside this time, and they seemed to know what was in the jar. When they saw it, both of them took up positions on either side of him.

"What are you doing?" he frowned.

Osiris made his way back to them, and both of the other men took hold of his head. For one panicked moment Daniel was afraid that somehow Osiris had gotten hold of some of some of that Blood of Sokar stuff. But then he opened the jar, and he realized it was a different smell. The liquid was clear, not reddish. It was something else.

But his relief was short-lived when he remembered that it couldn't be good, whatever it was, and that they were still going to force it down him.

It took both of the men on either side of his chair, but even though he fought them Osiris got the liquid into his mouth. When the guards held both his mouth and nose closed, he had no choice but to swallow. Whatever it was going to do couldn't be as bad as suffocating to death.

He hoped.

At first, he didn't feel any different at all.

But that was before he gasped in a deep breath.

Sharp pain stabbed into his chest, and his throat burned like the oxygen was acid. Immediately he coughed, but that only hurt more. Close to panic, he stopped breathing at all. He waited a moment or so, then slowly started to take another small breath.

But that hurt too, and Daniel grunted in surprise.

He didn't see Osiris sneering down at him, but he could sense it easily.

"The dose I gave you will take approximately ten to twelve hours to wear off. But I do have a counter agent if you tell me what I want before then."

Hours? How could the Goa'uld expect a human to survive that long like this? He had to breathe...But of course, he realized, the snake knew that. His body would make him breathe to keep him alive, because it wasn't that he couldn't. It just hurt. And Osiris knew it; that was why he did it.

He had to breathe again, or he was going to pass out. He breathed in just a little, even more slowly that before, and it didn't hurt as much. His throat still burned uncomfortably and there was a prick in his chest, but it wasn't as bad. Picking his head up, he glared.

Osiris raised an eyebrow. "Now. Are you going to tell me? Or do I have to have you brought back and leave you like this all night?" When Daniel didn't answer, he pressed. "Are you going to cooperate?"

Daniel thought about ignoring him. But that would give the Goa'uld the satisfaction of seeing him try to avoid the pain.

He took a deeper breath he needed to talk, clenching his jaw against the pain. "No," he grated out.

Osiris frowned and hit him again. The impact shot through the bruises already on his face, and he cried out. Unfortunately, that sent more air through his throat, which didn't help the pain factor at all. The world fuzzed out as he shouted again, and by the time Daniel had it under control and the world took shape again, he could hear Osiris laughing. Really.

He scowled at the Goa'uld venomously, taking small breaths again. All Osiris did was motion for the guards.

"I shouldn't have expected him to be cooperative immediately. Take him back and lets give him a few hours like that. He will come around."

The guards did just that--shoved him back into the hut. He landed hard and coughed. That prompted a sudden breath, which brought pain…which cascaded into everything fading out again. When it came back, Janet was leaning over him, calling to him in alarm.

"Okay," he rasped. She stopped shaking him and looked him in the face.

"Are you sure?"

Daniel nodded and sat against the nearest wall, the one by the door; going any farther would require more air.

"What happened?" Janet asked worriedly, sitting beside him. "Dad?" He waited another moment, hoping she'd drop it, but she asked again. Grimacing, he sat forward. For once he was glad to have the dirt floor. Quickly he scratched what she needed to know into the loose particles.

Weird stuff…hurts to breathe too much--can't talk.

Daniel didn't really want to even tell her that much--but otherwise she wouldn't understand why he wasn't talking to her, and that could end up even worse.

Janet looked up from the message with shocked and worried eyes. "But…how long will that last?" she questioned.

He erased what he'd written and answered.

Tonight.

"All night?" she gasped. He shrugged, grimacing when he accidentally brought in too much air once and the pang in his chest flared. "But--butbut--" Her worry was quickly turning to anger; her eyes were narrow and she was sputtering. She looked like she was about to say something very unladylike.

Daniel took hold of her shoulders and pulled her toward him. Janet resisted at first, obviously not willing to just let it go, but when he looked her in the face hard for a moment she relented, and came to him.

"Why does he have to be so cruel?" she whispered angrily, hugging him.

Daniel just held on.

For a little while he was fine, but it didn't take very long for the tiny breaths he'd been taking to be insufficient, and as the night wore on he was forced to breathe more and more to stay conscious. He didn't dare lose it, because he had no idea what would happen if he was out. Luckily, it had been late when he was brought back to the hut. Janet had long since fallen asleep, and didn't hear his muffled cries.