Chapter Text
Thirty nine.
Thirty nine days since they lost Daniel and Jack to a galaxy-sized haystack. Thirty nine days of an absence that broke them all.
Thirty nine days, twelve hours, and fourteen minutes for everyone’s minds to imagine the worst. The darkest realities.
This blew all of them away.
There was hardly a mark on him. No bloody torture marks or broken bones. They hadn’t expected that.
Janet still cried when they tracked him down in the labyrinth of underground prison cells. It was the first time anyone had seen her professional veneer shatter.
She clutched at a conscious—and wasn’t that the miracle of the day—wide eyed Jack by his dirty shirt front. “Colonel.” It came out as a cracked, agonized noise. Primal. Holding on by a fingernail.
Jack’s gaze snapped to Janet and then everywhere else. Alarm flashed in the bloodshot eyes.
Nobody could stop staring at his face. Sam swore. One of the sergeants shoved past Janet out the cell to throw up.
“Colonel,” Janet cried again. Her tears were a deluge on the stone floor.
Jack tried to keen back but got an electric like shock. He flinched backwards, shoulders glued to the wall.
Janet had him on the gurney and rolling through the city so fast Sam had to run to catch up. On the search party’s trek through Town Square, they were showered with rice and confetti. Smiles and laughter flooded every side—everything was safe now.
The dictator scientist had been killed.
Freedom celebrations shook the cobbles. Some of the SG teams were off accepting awards on Earth’s behalf.
Janet, Sam, and SG-2 ignored them all. Janet’s tears had finally stopped and now her hard features were a terror to behold.
Jack fought her the whole way. Malnutrition and light deprivation and God only knew what else meant even her smaller hands pinned him easily. But it didn’t stop him from fighting.
“Colonel—Colonel! Haines is dead. You’re free. We’ve got you. He can’t run any more experiments on you.”
He can’t lie to us anymore either, Sam thought, equal parts smug and dismayed.
“Do you understand me, Colonel?” Janet pushed. “Do you recognize who we are?”
Jack’s eyes grew ever more frantic. Limbs flailed wildly, clumsy and limited from having been locked in such a confined space. He’d lost so much muscle.
They made it to the ‘gate steps. Janet, bless her, hauled the gurney nearly off the ground before a shocked SG-2 rushed to assist. Adrenaline rolled off the petite woman like a typhoon. She trembled with shock and rage. She, like the rest of them, couldn’t stop staring at O’Neill’s face.
Jack’s struggles weakened. His body was winning—or losing. Sam couldn’t decide which.
They’d just blasted through the horizon, familiar ramp under Sam’s boots, when Jack closed his eyes and two fat tears rolled down his cheeks.
Despite the massive crowd in the gate room, a hush slapped them all. The reality of this rushed, traumatic rescue finally hit Sam and she put a hand over her mouth. No one breathed. They all gaped in horror at Jack.
The silence was enough to kill. Kill Sam’s hope, anyway.
It was Hammond who broke the stillness.
Underneath the trained face lurked a fury such as Sam had never seen. Blackening his eyes and creating mountains in his face. Weaker men would flee at such an expression. Hammond’s arm drew back. At first Sam thought he was going to punch the cement wall.
Then his hand rebounded like a trebuchet. A tinsel pitched shatter filled the room:
Haines’ “goodwill box”—medical secrets, technological blueprints, and all—scattered in a thousand porcelain slivers.
SG-2 nodded their approval. Haines had sent it through, saying it was a sign of good faith and “we are searching with all diligence for your friends”…Sam sucked in a huge breath and let out a sob.
Haines played us all along.
Teal’c only had eyes for Jack. He climbed the ramp, approach slow. Blood coated his battle robes and Sam hoped it was Haines’.
“The mask.” His whisper made Janet start up again. “He looks like Bane, from the films.”
No one laughed. Even Sam’s father couldn’t hide a quiver of his lips.
So many of their allies had united to find the lost pair. Martouf, the Nox, other planetary leaders. Now they all stood, devastated, in the wake of such cruelty.
Jack, though strapped down now, thumped Teal’c on the chest. The burly Jaffa knelt and cradled Jack’s head like a child. And still the massive tears clouding Jack’s eyes…
“What is it, O’Neill?” Teal’c sounded as close to cracking as Sam could fathom. “You are safe.”
He held Jack’s bruised fingers with his other hand and ran alongside the gurney to the infirmary. Jack’s silent pleading was too much to stomach. Airmen, techs, cooks. All lined the hallway, weeping.
Jack thumped Teal’c again.
“O’Neill?” The Jaffa sounded much like Janet had earlier.
“Of course!” Sam suddenly understood. “Forgive me, Colonel.”
She gripped a fistful of the soiled prison shirt to get his attention. “SG teams are out looking for Daniel. We’ll find him. He was probably just released with the other prisoners.”
Jack closed his eyes again. His chest bucked with sobs the muzzle wouldn’t let him voice.
Teal’c was already asking Hammond if he could join the search. General Hammond tiredly waved his permission.
Jack’s trembling hand reached for something that wasn’t there, something in his memories.
Sam’s knees hit the ground. Her ears rang.
“Carter?”
“Sam?”
“Sammy? Hon?” Jacob shook his daughter.
Sam swayed. “We’ll find him. We’re going to find him.”
Teal’c never ran for his life.
Never just his. He always ran for the lives of others. Now he ran for two.
I am coming. Don’t give up. I am coming.
The prisoners and slaves ran in the opposite direction as Teal’c. The Jaffa frantically searched faces and eyes.
If it weren’t for the fact everyone on P4-985 had black or dark auburn hair, Teal’c would never have noticed the honey brown head.
Teal’c’s second sight, of startling, cyan eyes in this sea of chocolate, yanked the sound from his throat before he could stop it—
“Daniel Jackson!”
Daniel, eyes blown wide, stared at Teal’c. A muzzle to match O’Neill’s clamped, tighter than the colonel’s, over Daniel’s mouth and jaw.
The linguist’s palm shivered a little, as if he wanted to reach out for Teal’c but stopped himself.
Daniel was afraid.
Daniel Jackson is afraid.
Not the forces of Hell itself could stop Teal’c in that moment. Fire, lethal and protective, welled inside Teal’c strong enough to send him into a sprint.
A hard faced, older man pulled Daniel back by his shoulders. At first Teal’c wondered if this man was deranged or short in faculties, for he dragged Daniel into an empty field. There was nowhere to run, exposed.
Then the man reached into his robes and pulled out a small clicker. With one press, a pod ship de-cloaked.
“Stop!”
The man swung around at Teal’c’s booming command.
“Stay back!” ordered the man. “I am Gruger, Haines’ chief adviser, and not even you meddling aliens can stop me. This filth,” he spit on Daniel, “is my insurance. You will let me go or I will kill it. See how much your government will want it when this is over.”
“We will find you.” Teal’c’s voice came out quieter than even he expected. “Even if only I am left to take up the task, I will hunt you down and retrieve Daniel Jackson—he is not an ‘it.’ You will pay for your crimes here.”
Gruger’s jaw slackened. “You would fly across galaxies for one puny human?”
“No,” said Teal’c, tensing when Gruger withdrew a knife. Daniel trembled faintly. Teal’c smiled to reassure Daniel, full of affection and warmth. “I would cross galaxies for one of my dearest friends and an intellect the universe sees but once in a lifetime.”
“I’ve run the tests.” Gruger inched back. Teal’c, tilted to the side, followed. His staff grew sweaty in his palm. “This human’s mind holds nothing but useless lexicons and images of more humans. He is weakened by memories of them.”
“And yet it is you standing alone, without a friend,” said Teal’c.
This answer apparently shocked Gruger for he glanced at Daniel.
Teal’c saw his opportunity. He darted forward, managing to grab the front of Daniel’s shirt. His other hand brought the staff down.
“No!” Gruger roared. He sidestepped Teal’c’s weapon aimed for his skull.
Gruger’s knife sliced a wide arc. Teal’c repositioned and thumped Gruger across the crown of his head. The man crumpled, not breathing or moving.
Teal’c only had eyes for Daniel. His friend’s gaze was everywhere and nowhere.
“Daniel Jackson?”
The archaeologist touched his side, a strange flap in the prison shirt. His hand came away crimson.
He collapsed before Teal’c could catch him.
Janet didn’t say a word when Sam rolled in a tray of mechanical tools. The two women worked fluidly around each other. Jack was bent over a flipped-around wooden chair so Sam could have access to the muzzle, his elbows on the high back.
He now wore blue scrubs and clean socks, blinking slow. Every muscle stiffened, however, when Janet approached with a full syringe.
She stopped. Her eyes traveled over his emaciated frame, the dark shadows in and under his eyes, and the faint needle point bruising on his bare arms.
“Do you know where you are, Colonel?”
Again that agonized expression, too open for the normally gruff face. But Jack nodded.
“Good. Everything’s over now. We can…”
She trailed off when Jack shook his head. Sam gripped his shoulder from behind. She swallowed at the sharp bones under her fingers.
“Teal’c will find him, sir.”
Janet had other concerns. Her brows rose. “They fed you nutrients through injection, didn’t they?”
Another tired nod.
“You haven’t had that thing off in over a month?!” Sam cried.
Jack didn’t move. That was answer enough. Sam sat down on a nearby hospital bed and fiddled with a screwdriver to compose herself.
Janet talked quietly to Jack. She waved the syringe. “This is just an antibiotic. In case of infection from the water they fed you through those air holes.”
Jack placed a hand on Fraiser’s arm. She patted it and gave him the injection well away from the scarring on his arms.
An hour back at the SGC and people still stopped by the infirmary doors to murmur reassurances to a lost looking Jack.
“Alright, people,” Janet snapped, capping off the syringe. “This isn’t a sideshow or a funeral. Move it along.”
While Janet sponged at the grime on her patient, Sam stood. She wiped sweaty palms on her BDUs and stepped behind Jack.
The muzzle was a sleek thing, all black that covered the nose and mouth, clasped at the back of the head. She glared at tiny silver patches of air holes on either side of his mouth, barely large enough to take in deep breaths. Faint rust shone on the edges.
Had either of them passed out during their captivity from oxygen deprivation? Would the rust have an adverse effect on their lungs?
Stop it. Sam shook herself. Focus on what you can do to help now.
She immediately saw that welding through it wouldn’t work. Sam didn’t want to imagine the agony it would cause Jack to sear at it.
No, they were going to have to do this the patient way.
Sam eyed the gold, circular clasp. Neat. Framed by Jack’s grey hairs. Inserting the screwdriver in the lock, she gave an experimental tug. No electric shock. That was good.
By the end of five minutes, Sam sweat, Jack panted, and the lock held firm. With one last yank, Sam gave up.
“It’s not working. How would Haines have used these?”
Janet glanced up. “With a key, I suppose.” She laid another warm compress over Jack’s spasming neck and leg muscles.
“We don’t have a k—”
Sam dropped the screw driver. Jack and Janet both jumped. “That’s it! Janet, do you have silly putty?”
“Silly what?”
“Clay,” Sam pressed. “Play Dough. Wax. Anything.”
The long look Janet sent her bloomed with excitement. “Cassie’s moulding paste for school.”
Sam shot off for Janet’s office. The doctor gripped Jack’s knees. “Hold on, sir…Jack. We’re going to get you out.”
Shaking his head again, Jack pulled away. He knocked on the back of the chair.
“Yes, sir. Knock on wood that it will work. I hope so too.”
Still shaking, Jack’s head landed in his palms. Tears dripped onto the scrubs. He knocked again.
“I don’t understand, sir.” Janet waved at Sam when she rushed back in. “Is this Morse Code?”
Jack started tapping in earnest, new rhythms. Sam’s lips tightened. “Not even close.”
Jack sobbed harder.
Teal’c had never talked so much at one time in his life. Stories of home, of his wife and son, of O’Neill’s secret pie recipe, of Batman and John Wayne films.
Occasionally he asked a question to the man in his arms. “Are you with me?” or “Do you know who I am?”
Daniel just stared at him or his eyes drifted away. This contrast to O’Neill’s manic awareness worried him. Daniel had regained consciousness within minutes, a good sign. There was no sign of a concussion when Teal’c had done a cursory exam of his cranium.
It was a small thing, so insignificant that most people wouldn’t notice. But it rubbed at Teal’c like shackles—
Daniel wouldn’t rest his head on Teal’c’s chest. His head always bobbed on Teal’c’s collarbone when he carried him off a battlefield. Every time, without fail.
Except now.
He sat like a steel cable in Teal’c’s arms. Pliant as Teal’c maneuvered him however he needed to get over the terrain. But far from soft. With the muzzle on, Teal’c couldn’t read the normally expressive mouth. Daniel seemed in a world of his own, unaware even that his side bled.
Teal’c tried to gently lower Daniel’s head to his chest but Daniel resisted.
The only sign of life Teal’c got was when they stepped through the horizon and Daniel’s white fingers twisted in Teal’c’s shirt.
Teal’c paused at the action and looked down. “We are home, Daniel Jackson.”
A med team and gurney stood ready but Teal’c ignored them. Selfishly, he didn’t want to relinquish his grip on a warm and alive Daniel Jackson. So he marched to the med bay, his face a wall but his hands gentle.
Nothing garnered a reaction out of Daniel. Walter tried to chat with him, Hammond murmured that the people of P4-985 were free from Haines’ tyranny, and Teal’c mourned over the linguist’s emaciated frame in his arms.
Daniel searched the sea of faces and he tensed. They turned a corner. Then another.
And suddenly Daniel’s hands shot out to either side. The quiet procession erupted to life.
“Sir!”
“Daniel Jackson! Are you in pain?”
“Can’t risk a sedative—”
“Get me Doctor Fraiser.”
“Blood pressure—”
Panicked voices tried to calm a distressed, bleeding archaeologist. Daniel scrunched his eyes and slapped the walls on either side, leaving bloody hand prints. His breaths were shallow puffs, metallic sounding through the mask holes.
Teal’c, who’d let Daniel stand on his feet, couldn’t get the wiry man moving again. Daniel had planted himself like a tree in floodwaters.
In the frenzy, Teal’c cupped the contorted face, too wan, and heard Daniel’s silent screams in his own soul.
“Unscheduled off world activation!”
“Oh what now?” Janet snapped off her gloves. “I could have had a nice, tame job at the country’s leading children’s hospital but no. I chose a life of saving your world-hopping behinds.”
She glanced at Jack. Her attempt at humour only got her a sigh from the colonel. He’d calmed but the dead eyes were significantly worse. He hadn’t even reacted to the PA and distant commotion.
“Why don’t you get some rest?” Janet offered. She pointed to the bed. “Living in a two by two cell for a month can’t have been conducive to sleep.”
Jack just sighed again, chin on his arms. Every second he wore that hellish contraption was a month off her life, Janet was sure.
“Got it!” Sam jogged in, triumphant. She held up the paste they’d poured into the clasp, then a tiny key. It had the glisten of something freshly laser cut. “Worked like a charm. You’ll have to thank Cassie for me.”
“I’ll be sure to.” Janet smiled. “I can’t believe an old thief’s trick worked.”
She’d barely finished speaking when Jack lept to his feet. He bolted past Sam and down the hall.
Janet, hot on his heels, had no idea how he’d heard it over the din. But two corridors down they found him—
Daniel, slapping the walls for all he was worth.
Jack’s tripping run faltered but he pushed on, knocking the wall in that strange rhythm again. So hard that his knuckles bruised.
Daniel’s head shot up.
Their eyes met and everyone watching felt an almost physical jolt shoot through the air. It froze Janet in her tracks.
Over twenty feet of hallway separated Daniel and Jack.
It might as well have been a toothpick.
Unsteady on their feet, cheeks flushed, holding the walls for support, Daniel and Jack’s palpable longing propelled them forward. Their arms stretched for each other. Daniel’s whole body trembled.
Everyone knew they should help, fulfill their role in getting them to the infirmary—yet in this moment it felt like blasphemy. A crowd of over fifty people and none of them could do anything but watch.
This was the pair’s first contact in thirty nine ungodly days.
Daniel buckled to his knees and Jack stumbled the rest of the way. They collapsed inwards.
Arms around each other, they gripped shirts and wept. Or, Jack did at least. Daniel vibrated so hard Janet’s teeth chattered just looking at him. His hands were everywhere: patting for injuries, smoothing new grey hairs, tapping at Jack’s heart.
Sam shouldered past the tearful crowd to unlock the muzzles. Daniel’s first, then Jack’s. She handed the contraptions to a beaming Hammond.
The general turned to an airman and said only two words. “Burn them.”
Then his gaze went back to the emotional scene.
Jack and Daniel didn’t immediately shout or babble, as expected. Instead, they breathed. Great siphons of air to rival a baby at its bottle.
Pulling back, Jack captured Daniel’s face in both hands. Daniel gripped his wrists. As one, their foreheads tipped together.
Janet’s eyes stung. It was the most moving thing she’d seen in a seventeen year career.
Despite oozing sores and blood blisters along Jack’s jaw, he smiled.
At this, a great cheer went up. Even Hammond whooped.
In the happy noise, Daniel knocked on the ground. Jack knocked back.
Janet, however, couldn’t see any more through a blurry film.
They got their first sound three hours later. Much longer than anyone expected the close friends to stay silent.
Hammond almost wished they hadn’t.
Both men had been set up in the cushiest hospital room Janet could arrange, beds less than an arm’s length from each other. She’d stitched the gash in Daniel’s side, thankful that it was shallower than it looked. He’d slept through the whole thing.
Now, the technicians unlocked Daniel’s hospital bed and wheeled him out the door for a CAT scan.
Jack, in a dead sleep, shot upright and wailed out an endless note that might have been Daniel’s name.
Daniel jerked awake. He came up shaking. His fingers latched around the door frame to halt the gurney.
“Did they gain any telepathy powers I should know about?” Janet barked at Sam over the noise, only half joking. Between them, the two women manhandled a sedative into O’Neill. For all the good it was doing. He yelled like the world was ending.
Several medics quivered and Hammond knew the sound of that soul-tortured wail would haunt his nightmares too.
“Let him come,” said Hammond.
Janet startled. “General, he’s dehydrated.”
“I’ll wheel him myself.”
A beat of silence descended, broken only by Jack’s huffs and Daniel’s nails peeling the paint. The heartbreaking sight made Janet nod. Once. A warning.
Hammond nodded back. “Come on, Colonel.”
Jack went docile. Just like that. So did Daniel. A medic eased Jack into the wheelchair. Hammond pushed him along, as close behind Daniel’s bed as possible.
“Daniel,” the colonel breathed, his voice still not back.
Daniel, already going back to sleep—his glazed lack of response, barring the reunion fantasia, deeply worried Janet. Hence the full body CAT scan—lifted his hand and gave a twitch of his fingers. Jack relaxed.
While Daniel was taken to the machine, Jack watched from the control room window. He hardly blinked and when he did, emotions rose to the surface. Hammond’s chest constricted.
What had Haines done to his people? To his family?
“Thanks for…g-getting us out, General.”
Hammond waved off the hoarse gratitude. “I’m sorry we couldn’t track you down sooner, Jack. Haines lied to us from the beginning.”
Something darkened in Jack’s eyes at the despot’s name. It was an abyss of suffering and Hammond wondered if the man would drown in it.
“General?” Major Lawrence opened the door. Hammond glanced at Janet and the technician.
“Go,” she said. “I’ll watch them.”
Hammond stepped out and closed the door. “What did you find, Major?”
“You were right,” said Lawrence. “Haines wasn’t the original leader of the planet. An overthrowing scientist, really. Most people were in prison because they’d defied him.”
“Most?” Hammond’s eyes flicked to the door.
“In one cell we found rock-scratched Phoenician and German.”
Despite the gravity of it all, Hammond smiled. “Doctor Jackson.”
“Yes, sir. Between his cell and the one in the corner we found an opaque glass set in the wall, only stronger than bulletproof glass.” Lawrence coloured, sheepish. “We, uh…we tried shooting it just to be sure. I don’t know what its function was, seeing as the prison was pitch dark.”
“Go on.”
The man licked his lips. “There were dirty hand prints on both sides of that glass.”
Hammond sighed. Now a few things made sense.
It blew him away: thirty nine days without communication except for knocking on a glass hole. They’d even developed their own language.
Lawrence’s eyes filled and Hammond felt his stomach bottom.
“Major? What aren’t you telling me?”
“A…a laboratory residence was set up down the hall from their cells, sir. We ran DNA tests on hairs stuck to neural nodes and tubes…IV lines, I guess…most of it was Doctor Jackson’s. There are a few chemicals we’ve never seen before either. M-mixed with Jackson’s blood.”
Hammond closed his eyes.
Lawrence noisily wiped his nose on his sleeve. Hammond knew things were bad if Lawrence couldn’t keep it together in front of his commanding officer. He dreaded the full report.
“Dismissed, Major.”
A click signaled the door opening. The General opened his eyes to see Janet in Lawrence’s place.
“Doctor? How are they?”
The woman inhaled a few steadying breaths. Her badge fluttered with a wild heartbeat. Despite this, her voice came out calm.
“Both have large areas of needle scarring where injections were used to keep them alive. A few bruises but nothing substantial. No broken bones, no soft tissue damage. Their muscles are atrophied from long periods spent in a two by two cell but nothing a few weeks of physical therapy can’t fix…”
“Doctor?”
Janet almost broke down completely then. Though her face didn’t change, Hammond felt it like the crackle of air before a thunderstorm.
“I’ve only studied one case of malnutrition and photo sensitivity this bad.”
“Which was…?”
Her voice dropped to a whisper. “Solitary confinement prisoners in Auschwitz.”
Hammond didn’t answer. There was no answer to that.