Fit To Be Tied

by Lex

This was originally published in the AG charity zine 'Mercy In Action'

 

The shriek of rusty hinges jolted Daniel from his doze. A tiny flare of hope that it might be the rest of SG-1 on a rescue mission was thoroughly doused by the sight of four well-muscled green men. Yes, green. If this mission had gone as it was supposed to, he'd be home by now listening to Jack make bad jokes about little green men who weren't quite as little as those 'alien-obsessed nutjobs' had made them out to be.

But he wasn't home. Not even close.

One of the green men -- the one who'd acted as judge earlier today in what Daniel assumed had been his trial -- stepped into Daniel's cell and unrolled a gilded scroll with brisk efficiency. He began jabbering in the rapid tongue that Daniel still had no hope of understanding, occasionally glancing up from his reading material as if to ensure his prisoner was following along with the details. Daniel sighed and waited for the man to finish.

He studied the other three men. The middle one looked a little familiar; perhaps he'd been in the courtroom. His skin was the colour of fresh cucumber, something that seemed rather uncommon in Daniel's short experience on this planet. The man on the left had more of a lime tinge, and the one on the right was forest. Or was it jungle?

"Qrkawl," the judge snapped.

Daniel made an effort to look attentive.

"Qrkawl fheja!"

"I'm sorry. I've told you a dozen times, I don't understand a…" Daniel's tired protestation faded away as the judge's three friends stomped towards him.

"What's going on?"

Cucumber and Lime grabbed Daniel's upper arms and yanked him to his feet.

"Is this over? You're letting me leave?" They couldn't be. There were punishments. Well, Daniel had a theory that there were punishments, but theory was as far as he'd got because of the communication problems and the lack of time he'd had to study these people before Jack mortally insulted them.

Jungle poked Daniel in the chest with a stubby finger. "Aserij!"

"I don't know--"

"ASERIJ!"

Right. Shut up. Sure, he could do that.

Forest turned on his heel and led the way from the cell, the judge following him. Cucumber and Lime tugged Daniel along at the back of the group, back down the corridor he'd first been dragged along this morning. They turned a sharp left at the end, and marched up the steep stairs at a rapid pace. An orange glow oozed from the walls up here, tingeing the guards' skin a dirty brown and casting eerie shadows on the flagstone floor. Daniel wondered where they were going. Had Jack and Teal'c and Sam come back for him? Had the general sent SG-9 to negotiate for his release? Was this just some ritual initiation all poorly behaved newcomers were subjected to?

The corridor opened up into a vast cavern, its ceiling at least a hundred feet above the polished black marble floor. The brisk pace increased until Daniel was trotting between his guards. He squinted at their destination through smudged glasses, saw the gathering of white-robed priests, heard the lilting hum of their chants, and knew exactly what was coming.

His stomach turned over.





It took four of them to slam Daniel onto the cold surface of the altar, five to control his struggles and pin him down while they ripped his clothes off, and another to tie his wrists and ankles. Only when the coarse rope was secure at each corner of the altar did they step back, eyeing him as if they thought he might somehow spirit himself away. Heart pounding, Daniel scanned for the knife he was sure would be produced any second, a priest ready to carve open his chest and pluck out his still-beating heart.

The guards stepped back. Taking their place, the priests formed a tight circle around him and began to chant, their low thrumming barely audible. It shifted into a louder drone, then louder again, the pitch rising with the volume until Daniel's ears throbbed in pain along with the piercing ululation. He squeezed his eyes closed as if the action might somehow protect him.

Abruptly the racket ceased. The echoes melted away into utter silence. Daniel drew in a hitching breath, then let the air escape in one deliberate puff. He opened his eyes.

He was alone.

There was no sign of the priests or the guards, only a billowing black curtain to his left and the vast emptiness of the cavern to his right. Daniel tilted his head back to check behind him. Nothing. It was… strange. Unwilling to simply lie back and ponder on the strangeness, he twisted his head in an attempt to study the rope digging into the flesh of his left wrist. He checked the right wrist: the same tight knots mocked him. A fierce tug on his ankles resulted in a twinge of soreness and absolutely no movement. Oh, this wasn't good, not good at all.

Daniel stared at the ceiling, annoyed. "Damn it!"

"Daniel?"

"Jack?"





Jack craned his neck, searching for the source of the voice. "Daniel! Where are you?"

"Er…" Daniel's voice came from the other side of the curtain that was suspended between two thirty foot high pillars to Jack's left.

"Tell me you're not strapped down to a slab of stone freezing your ass off," Jack said.

"Well…"

"Crap."

"You too?" Daniel sounded unreasonably surprised. Did he think Jack wouldn't be round there untying him if he didn't have a little problem of his own?

Jack dropped his head back onto the stone. "Ow."

"What happened?"

"Nothing. I don't suppose you saw Carter and Teal'c on your travels?" Jack asked, putting every inch of nonchalance he could muster into his voice.

"They made it through the gate." Daniel hesitated. "They did make it, right? I thought I saw them make it. But then I thought I saw you make it, so--"

"I'm sure they made it," Jack said quickly. "We can just lie here and wait for the cavalry to arrive in the nick of time." He refocused his attempt to saw through the rope tethering his right wrist, by rubbing it against the sharp edge of the stone table.

"I'm not sure that's the best idea," Daniel said.

"Being rescued?"

"No, no, rescue is an excellent idea. I'm just not sure how long we have before the priests return to complete their ritual."

"Ritual?"

There was a loaded pause from Daniel's position on the other side of the curtain. How did he do that? Jack had never met anyone who could say nothing and still send Jack's heart plummeting towards his toes. Of course, he was lying down, so his heart was probably plummeting towards his spine, which didn't give it very far to plummet at all, and it should really have got there by now…

"Daniel? What ritual?"





After all these years Jack should have learned, Daniel thought, that it was always a good idea to listen at mission briefings. Not just to the tactical information the MALP sent back, but to the cultural details that might just save their lives in a tense situation.

"Do you remember me telling you about the carvings on the temple walls? About the reverence these people have for their sense of smell?"

The impatient sigh from Jack's side of the curtain was unmistakable. "Yes, Daniel. Of course I do."

"And you remember that, as a consequence, they also hold their noses in high esteem."

"This isn't getting us free."

"So when you scratched your nose with the arm of your sunglasses while we were inside the temple, it was incredibly insulting to the high priest."

"I had an itch!"

Daniel pursed his lips to keep his temper inside.

"That's what this is about? It was driving me crazy, and I had--"

"Jack! The one thing I needed you not to do on this mission was touch your nose. Just one little thing."

There was a pause. "I must have missed that detail."

"Of course you did." Daniel sighed. This was getting them nowhere.

"You said something about a ritual."

"Right. Well, the writings in the temple said--"

"I thought you couldn't read that."

"From what I could tell, it's a mixture of Sanskrit, Ancient Egyptian and a few other languages. Obviously I don't read Sanskrit, and I'd only just started identifying the root symbology, but the--"

"Yadda," Jack interrupted. "Move on to the bit I'm not going to like."

"As I was saying, the writings in the temple lay out the ritual punishment for sacrilege. There are several levels of punishment, and--"

"Daniel!"

"Death. It's death."

"Oh."

"I think."

"You think?"

"I didn't have much time to study the writings before you… you know."

More silence from Jack's side of the curtain, which wasn't surprising. Daniel tugged on the ropes holding his wrists, only a token effort to show he was at least trying in spite of the pointlessness of the action. The rope was strong, the knots tight. Plus, there was no way out of here that wouldn't take them through either a crowded temple or a military barracks, even if they did somehow manage to get themselves loose.

"Crap."

Daniel turned his head to where Jack's voice was coming from, and waited for more.

"I think this is it," Jack said. "They're coming. They look prepared. Daniel, I…"

"I know. Me too." Daniel could hear the footsteps now; the clacking noise echoed off the walls like a funeral drum. Closer and closer they came. They stopped on Jack's side of the curtain, and he couldn't see anything. Not that he wanted to see the knife plunge into Jack's chest. God, no. But he'd hear the screams; nobody could take that kind of pain and keep quiet. Nobody. He squeezed his eyes shut -- it was all he could do.

"Don't!" Jack shouted, panic in his voice. "No!"

Daniel struggled with desperate urgency. Despite the need to face his own end with dignity, Daniel couldn't bear to deal with Jack's death the same way. The ropes cut into his wrists and ankles as he strained to escape, frantic to reach Jack's side. But there was no weak spot to exploit.

"Whoa! You wanna warm that up a bit?"

Huh?

"Come on, guys. That tickles."

"Jack?"

"Not dead here, Daniel," Jack said, but he sounded a bit breathless, and Daniel's heart didn't stop pounding. "Kinda slimy, though."





"They're coming your way," Jack told Daniel. "With a big-ass tub of something stinky and disgusting." Nasty, nasty, nasty.

"Oh," Daniel said. Then, "Oh!" and Jack knew that first glob of grossness had hit Daniel's bare skin.

"And it's cold," Jack warned, too late. He listened to the short, embarrassed gasps as Daniel discovered this was an all-over body job. It was damn cold on the stone without his clothes. Chilling. Frigid enough to freeze the nuts off a polar bear. But cold wasn't dead, which was a good thing. Mostly.

Jack resumed working on the rope holding his right wrist down, all the while listening for any indication that Daniel was in pain. Cold and embarrassment weren't deadly, as long as they didn't end up lying here long enough for everything to shrink. He tilted his head up to look down his body. Yeah, too late for that one.

The guys with the stinky stuff came around Jack's side of the curtain again. Not one of them looked at him as they passed by on their way out of the cave.

"Jack?" Daniel's voice was a little shaky, barely noticeable.

"Yeah?"

"You okay?"

"Oh, you know, cold, smelly, greased like a pig," Jack said. "You?"

"Surprised to still be alive," Daniel said. He sounded very surprised to Jack. Stunned, in fact.

"Learn anything?" Jack asked.

"I think the gel they used is made from the fruit of those purple trees that surround the temple." Daniel paused. "Which is not at all helpful."

"It tastes nasty," Jack said. He turned his head to one side to spit out the gel that had slipped past his lips. "But I'll be through this rope in a minute."

"Of course you will." Daniel sounded put out.

For a moment, Jack was inordinately pleased he'd managed something Daniel hadn't. He was the special ops guy, here -- it wasn't exactly out of the realm of reality. But instead of gloating, he said, "Maintenance around here is pretty sloppy," and dragged the rope across the rough spot. As the rope snapped, Jack realised that his answer made no sense and there was something wrong with the universe if Daniel hadn't asked for clarification. Later, when they weren't about to die, there might be something he needed to talk to Daniel about, such as… something. Definitely something.

Jack wiped the slime off his fingers as well as he could, and then squirmed around until he could reach the knot on his other wrist without breaking something important. "Nearly there, Daniel," he said, and received a sigh in return. He freed his left hand, quickly followed by his legs, and slid off the cold stone altar onto the cold stone floor.

When Jack rounded the curtain he found Daniel lying absolutely still, eyes closed, mouth open, taking short quick breaths. Seeing him laid out naked, limbs spread wide, it hit Jack quite how vulnerable he'd just been himself. God, anyone could have done anything. Still could. Jack moved straight to Daniel's right hand and leaned close to fight the knots. He noted Daniel's flinch, and ignored it.

"I'll have you out in a minute."

"Clothes?" Daniel rasped.

Jack glanced at Daniel's face. "You sick?"

"I think I'm allergic." The rattling breath needed to get that short sentence out sent tendrils of panic down Jack's spine.

"Got this one," Jack said, and moved around to the other wrist. That one was easier; Jack attacked Daniel's right ankle while Daniel sat up shakily to free his left.

Both free, but still slippery, Jack considered their next move. Nobody had come running to stop them getting loose, there were no shouts of indignation or deadly weapons firing at them from the ceiling -- all of which set Jack's suspicious inner alarm screaming. Someone was watching; he could feel the stare crawling over his skin.

"Any idea which way?" Jack asked, whispering now.

Daniel jerked his head in the direction of the dark corridor Jack had been brought through to get here.

"Not sure that's a great idea."

"It's jail," Daniel said. "Nobody runs back to jail."

Which was a good point, but not something he wanted to risk right now. "Any other choices?"

Daniel coughed, shrugged, coughed again.

"We need to get that stuff off you," Jack said, glancing back and forth between Daniel's skin and the long black curtain. "C'mere." Daniel took a breath to respond, but apparently thought better of speaking as he coughed and sneezed at the same time. The curtain wasn't as heavy as it looked. Jack grabbed the nearest corner and wiped Daniel's face clean first, then his chest, neck and shoulders, Daniel squirming all the while.

"Stand still!"

"Let me do it," Daniel said.

"Look--"

"Jack! Just…"

"Fine."

Daniel searched for a cleaner section of curtain, then set to rubbing his hair vigorously. Jack left him to it.

There were only two exits that he could see: the one the priests had left through, which would give them less chance of escape than a blind monkey in a swimming pool, and the jail. The jail was the only real option but… something was nagging at him. Ah well, nothing to be done about it -- a chance was a chance.

"Done," Daniel pronounced, already sounding less croaky. Daniel held out the curtain to Jack and raised an eyebrow in question.

"Let's go," Jack said. He could put up with being slimy a bit longer if they could just get out of here. Jack headed towards the jail corridor at a light jog, confident Daniel would be right behind him. At the dark opening, Jack paused for only the most cursory check before he started down the corridor. They were silent, moving together with a grace that belied Jack's dodgy knees and Daniel's intermittent wheezing. Down the stairs, past the empty cells, unimpeded by guards or automatic security systems. And there it was, the thing that had been nagging: the door at the end of the corridor. The locked door. It instantly came back to him why he hadn't thought the door would be a problem, because he'd had clothes when he was brought in here. Clothes and a belt with a buckle that would have picked this damn lock with ease. Now he had absolutely nothing that would get them to the other side of a very, very locked door.

Crap.

"Jack?"

"You have anything we can use to pick the lock?"

Daniel actually looked down to check his naked body just in case by some miracle he discovered a skeleton key or a lump of C-4, which made Jack feel a little better. Their habit of avoiding apparently unavoidable impending doom was enough to make Daniel look for those miracles, which was kind of reassuring.

"So that's it then?" Daniel said, and both of them knew it wasn't really a question.

They turned at the sound of people coming down the stairs. Not running people, not even hurrying, just green aliens heading towards them at a gentle saunter. When the green guys were close enough that Jack could have wiped the smirk off the avocado one's face, the guards just stood aside and waited. Jack and Daniel walked side by side, arms brushing with each step, to the cell held open by two huge, ugly lizard-coloured men. It was all rather polite, civilised even, as Jack's wrists were chained to the wall on one side of the cell and Daniel's wrists were chained to the wall opposite. There were no explanations as to why they hadn't been dragged back out and dumped on the altars again, and Jack's attempt to figure it out was stopped in its tracks -- along with the guards who had almost left the cell -- when Daniel sneezed.

Oh hell.

A sniffle was cut off in its prime as Daniel opened his eyes and realised what he'd done. One of the lizards seized Daniel's shoulders and shoved him around to face the wall. Daniel's arms twisted painfully above his head, the manacles digging into his wrists.

"Hey!" Jack called, trying desperately to get everyone's attention on him, not Daniel. "Over here, you ugly bastard!" Here. Not there.

"Don't, Jack." That was Daniel's 'I'm right, you're wrong, please listen before someone gets killed' voice. It was such a quiet warning, but it cut off any further protest instantly.

Daniel didn't make a sound as Avocado produced a leather strap, and only flinched as six sharp lashes were laid down across his back. He kept stock still until Avocado leaned close to whisper in his ear. That was when Daniel started struggling, yelling, swearing, kicking out at whoever was within reach. Avocado flicked an unpleasant glance at Jack and swept from the cell, his minions following in his wake.

Only after the cell door had slammed shut and Jack had called Daniel's name three times did Daniel turn to face him.

When Daniel didn't explain, and didn't look like he was about to, Jack said, "You understood him."

Daniel leaned back against the wall, seemingly oblivious that his back was scraping on the rough surface. Or not caring. Not caring wasn't good.

"He spoke Goa'uld," Daniel said. "He was fluent."

A dozen questions raced through Jack's mind, like why neither Daniel nor Teal'c picked up on anything suspiciously Goa'uldy in the culture or the behaviour, why they didn't see any signs, why Daniel didn't just *know*, dammit! Surely something… But all Jack asked was, "And he said…?"

"He said he would make us hosts."

"Peachy."





Silence settled over the cell, broken occasionally by Jack rattling his chains as if they might suddenly snap or vanish or melt. The noise should have been annoying, Daniel thought, should have bothered him, but it didn't. His back, on the other hand, was burning. The coolness of the wall would have helped, but the surface grated across his damaged flesh and he really needed to stop leaning against it. He couldn't summon the energy or the will to move away, though. They were going to be implanted with symbiotes and sent back to the SGC where their friends would have to kill them. It was a nightmare. But he'd be dead then, and whether or not his back was throbbing would be irrelevant.

"You were there the last time I was locked in a cell," Jack said. Daniel thought about it, but couldn't remember.

"When was that?"

"Last year."

"I wasn't around last year, Jack."

"Sure you were."

And Jack seemed so convinced of it that Daniel thought he'd finally flipped. "Er, no. I wasn't."

"In Baal's fortress, the torture, that stuff," Jack prodded.

"I read the report. I wasn't in it."

"You read the wrong report."

Now Daniel was getting annoyed. "I read all the mission reports. All of them. I wasn't mentioned."

Jack smiled at him, and Daniel couldn't decide if there was pity mixed in there. "Come on, Daniel, you think I'd've included the conversations I was having with a dead man in the official report? Hammond's got the real one."

"Oh." Oh. "I don't remember."

Jack's smile faded. "I know. But you got me out."

"I did?"

"You gave Teal'c and Sam an idea they couldn't come up with without you."

"I didn't save you, though," Daniel said. Didn't rescue him from that place. What sort of person didn't do everything in their power to save a friend's life?

"You couldn't, Daniel. I didn't know that then, but I know it now. Those ascended clowns would have stopped you, would have dumped you naked on some abandoned planet without your memory."

"They did exactly that," Daniel pointed out.

"But not then. Later, when I yelled at you to do something about Anubis. I didn't understand what would happen. I didn't know they'd stop you, and let that rotten snake…"

Oh God. "Abydos." The word crawled painfully from his throat.

"You tried to save them. There were no other options. Those bastards--"

"Jack, don't. We're done with them."

"No kidding."

Something trickled down Daniel's back. Not sweat, certainly. Sweat and goosebumps didn't mix. Blood? He could ask Jack to look, but what would that accomplish? Jack would say 'Yes, Daniel, the green guy cut you up when he whipped you' and that would be the end of the conversation. Nothing to be done. He shivered.

"Cold?"

"Isn't it obvious?" Daniel snapped, and immediately wished he hadn't. "Sorry."

"I could check the obvious sign," Jack said, "But since I don't have a tape measure and a comparison chart, it would be a guess."

Daniel resisted the urge to cross his legs, but Jack wasn't looking down there. He wasn't looking at Daniel at all now, his concentration on the chains again.

"So what else did I miss while I was ascended?"

"You read the reports."

"Some things weren't in the reports," Daniel said pointedly. He was pushing, he knew, and Jack didn't want to talk about it. Daniel had dropped all sorts of hints in the months since he'd been back, but Jack hadn't taken the bait even once. No discussion about when Daniel had been gone. None. Which wasn't good enough, because it was Daniel's life and he had every damn right to know what he was missing.

"We got a new team member," Jack said as he inspected the manacle around his right wrist intently.

"I saw that."

"He was okay. Better than a Russian. Sometimes. He ate a lot."

"Uh."

"He used your office. And your books, tools, computer. Killed your fish. I wanted to lock him out of there, but we didn't have any spare offices. Sorry about that."

"It's okay," Daniel said, but he felt kind of violated. Someone had moved into his life, taken his place on the team, his friendships, his--

"He annoyed me," Jack said, finally looking at Daniel. "More than you, I mean." His expression was soft, though.

"I'm sure you annoyed him, too."

"God, I hope so."





Rattling his chains did nothing except expend energy, and Jack finally gave it up as a bad job. If he couldn't figure out how to open a locked door with nothing more helpful than his fingernails, he wasn't getting out of these manacles.

"T missed you," Jack said.

"Really?" Daniel sounded surprised.

"You know he did." Actually Jack wasn't sure Daniel did know, but now really wasn't the time to tippy-toe around feelings. "Jonas kept trying that 'aliens together' thing on him. Didn't work. Carter helped the new guy some."

"Sam did?"

"She was mostly business, knew Jonas would have to back us up and taught him stuff. I didn't take much notice. You should have seen how pissed off she was when she found out you'd visited me and Teal'c but not her."

"I didn't visit Sam?" Daniel was frowning, like it was too strange for him not to have at least dropped in to say hi.

"She didn't need your help, Daniel. You kept me and T alive, and I thank you for it. I wasn't the nicest person to know during that year." Not at all. "Carter went all professional on us, doing the job then going home. Those talks we used to have in the middle of the night at watch change?" Daniel nodded. "Just me and T. Carter didn't do it any more. She hated losing you. Didn't want to go through it again."

"That's a bit rich. I heard you weren't exactly Mr Cheerful," Daniel said.

And where could he possibly have heard that, Jack thought snidely, making a note to… ah, screw it, no more mental notes. Not much point when they were about to die. Carter did what was needed to deal with Daniel's death. He'd done the same thing. At least when Daniel was back she'd spent time reassuring Daniel that he had a place, that he was wanted, that he'd been missed by everyone.

"Nope. Wasn't cheerful. T helped a lot, though. I even sat with him and his candles a few times."

"No you didn't."

"Once. I definitely did it once."

"For ten minutes."

"Sneaky jaffa rat." Teal'c had talked to Daniel. Carter had talked to Daniel. Hell, Hammond had taken Daniel into his office once he had most of his memory back, and they'd been there for three hours talking about… stuff.

"I missed you," Jack said. There, it was out, it was clear.

"I know, Jack."

And he did know. Even when they weren't getting along all that well, Daniel knew. That was something to be proud of. Their friendship. Daniel putting up with Jack and his moods and his crap was something to be proud of.

"I'm sorry about the nose thing," Jack said. "I'll listen better next time, try not to piss off the natives."

"No you won't."

No, he probably wouldn't. "That's why we keep you around, to point out the obvious."

There were footsteps coming their way. "Sounds like the party's about to start. Again."

Daniel glanced at the door, the fear flashing so fast across his face that Jack would have missed it completely if he didn't know the man so well.

"Thank you, Jack. It's been quite the ride."

"That it has."

Jack ignored the men as they unchained his wrists and tied them behind his back with thick rope. He watched Daniel, who watched him back. They were pushed from the cell and taken through that locked door to the outside. It was warmer out in the sun, with a gentle breeze that reminded him they were walking through the village stark naked. A few people looked their way, but only a few, and Jack realised naked aliens must be a normal occurrence. That was just… strange.

Obviously annoyed at Jack and Daniel's solidarity, two guards stayed between them so they couldn't see each other, couldn't share reassuring looks. Every so often, though, one guard fell a little behind while another was slightly ahead, and Jack glimpsed Daniel wearing the same sad smile that Jack knew damn well was on his own face. They may be going out, but they were going out together.

They were taken out of the village and into the forest. Obviously this was the bit the locals didn't get to see. The forest floor was littered with bark and leaves and twigs, the kind of stuff that you just stomped on when you were wearing boots. His feet hurt. Daniel tripped, fell to his knees, and was yanked to his feet, the guards barely stopping. Jack only looked away from his own path for a few seconds, but that's all it took for one foot to land in a hole. He felt his ankle turn, pain spiked up his calf, and he swore.

"Jack?"

"Twisted my ankle. I'm fine." Jack limped onwards, no choice.

It was only a few minutes later that they stopped. A clearing with more of those damn priests, or the same ones as last time, who could tell? When it came down to it, green was green was green, and Jack was utterly beyond caring about the tones. This time, the priests had two of those little jars with them, the kind that held snakes. It was real. Not that he doubted Daniel's comprehension of Goa'uld, but… It was real.

Daniel was shoved to his knees, Jack pushed down beside him. The priests approached them. Daniel was looking anywhere but at those jars. Anywhere.

"Daniel," Jack said softly. Daniel turned his head to face Jack, and something calmed in his expression. They kept eye contact even when Daniel's head was turned forcibly to face front and the priest opened a jar and reached inside. Daniel was blinking rapidly, then he closed his eyes, which Jack figured could have been why he didn't see the pieces of shattered ceramic and stringy bits of symbiote fly past his head. They both had damn good reactions, even taken by surprise in such crappy circumstances. By the time the second jar had exploded they were both hugging the ground, ducking the bullets and blood and bits of brain and skull that were raining all around them.

Christ, it was a nasty life they lived.

Turned out Carter and Teal'c had brought SG-3 and 5 with them, Lieutenant Chang being the sharpshooter who'd taken out the symbiotes first. Someone sliced through Jack's ropes, and gave him a jacket and some water. Carter was yelling at them to run, to get back to the gate, they had to go now, now, now! Daniel was holding a canteen, water spilling as he ran. He looked ridiculous in an SGC jacket and nothing else, but he looked alive, so very alive. After all the crap they went through, alive was what mattered.

Teal'c made sure Daniel and Jack kept up with the group, latching onto Daniel's arm before he could trip over a rock, and giving Jack an extra shove to make sure he landed on the other side of the stream rather than in it. They reached the gate about fifteen minutes later; should have been ten, but bleeding feet tended to slow a guy down, even when he was running for his life. SG-4 were holding the gate open. Jack didn't know who had called ahead to alert them of imminent company, but that rippling blue horizon was beautiful to behold. The pace didn't slow one bit, they just kept on running right through the wormhole and into the gate room to be faced with a dozen armed SFs. Jack paused at the bottom of the ramp with Daniel beside him, and they turned to watch the others come through safely.

Which was when Jack remembered neither one of them was wearing anything below the waist.

Alive was what mattered. Please, God, let him remember that when the mocking started.

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